Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [79]
“I would have taken my revenge, too, if I could have, knight or no knight, but I couldn’t, though in my opinion the ones who had so much fun with me weren’t phantoms or enchanted beings, as your grace says, but men of flesh and blood, like us; and all of them, as I heard when they were making me turn somersaults, had names, and one was Pedro Martínez, and the other Tenorio Hernández, and I heard that the innkeeper’s name was Lefthanded Juan Palomeque. And so, Señor, your not being able to get over the corral wall or off your horse was due to something besides enchantments. And what’s clear to me in all this is that in the long run, these adventures we’re looking for will bring us so many misadventures that we won’t know our right foot from our left. And the better and smarter thing, to the best of my poor understanding, would be for us to go back home now that it’s harvesttime, and tend to our own affairs, and stop going from pillar to post and from bad to worse, as they say.”
“How little you know, Sancho,” Don Quixote responded, “about the matter of chivalry! Be quiet and have patience, for the day will come when you will see with your own eyes how honorable a thing it is to exercise this profession. If not, then tell me: what greater joy can there be in the world, what pleasure can equal that of conquering in battle and defeating one’s enemy? None, most certainly there is none.”
“That must be true,” responded Sancho, “though I don’t know anything about it; all I know is that ever since we’ve been knights errant, or your grace has been one (because there’s no reason to include me in so honorable a company), we haven’t won a single battle except for the one with the Basque, and even there your grace came out missing half an ear and half a shield; since then it’s been nothing but cudgels and more cudgels, beatings and more beatings, and for me the extra advantage of being tossed in a blanket by enchanted beings, but I can’t take my revenge on them so I’ll never know how great the pleasure is of defeating my enemy, as your grace says.”
“That is my sorrow, and it surely is yours as well, Sancho,” responded Don Quixote, “but from this moment on I shall try to have at hand some sword so artfully made that whosoever carries it will be immune to any kind of enchantment; it well might be that fortune will grant me the one Amadís had when he was called The Knight of the Blazing Sword,1 that being one of the best swords any knight in the world ever had, because, in addition to the virtue I have already mentioned, it cut like a razor, and no armor, no matter how strong or enchanted, could withstand it.”
“I’m so lucky,” said Sancho, “that when that happens and your grace finds such a sword, it’ll be exactly like the balm and only work for and benefit dubbed knights, while squires can just swallow their sorrows.”
“Do not be afraid, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for heaven will deal more kindly with you than that.”
As Don Quixote and his squire were having this conversation, Don Quixote saw a large, thick cloud of dust coming toward them along the road they were traveling, and when he saw it, he turned to Sancho and said:
“This is the day, O Sancho, when the good fortune that destiny has reserved for me will be revealed! This is the day, I say, when, as much as on any other, the valor of this my arm will be proved, and I shall perform deeds that will be inscribed in the book of Fame for all time to come. Do you see that cloud of dust rising there, Sancho? Well, it conceals a vast army, composed of innumerable and diverse peoples, which is marching toward us.”
“If that’s the case, there must be two,” said Sancho, “because over in the opposite direction