IN WHICH IS RELATED THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENAMOURED SHEPHERD, TOGETHER

WITH OTHER TRULY DROLL INCIDENTS

Don Quixote had gone but a short distance beyond Don Diego's village,

when he fell in with a couple of either priests or students, and a couple

of peasants, mounted on four beasts of the ass kind. One of the students

carried, wrapped up in a piece of green buckram by way of a portmanteau,

what seemed to be a little linen and a couple of pairs of-ribbed

stockings; the other carried nothing but a pair of new fencing-foils with

buttons. The peasants carried divers articles that showed they were on

their way from some large town where they had bought them, and were

Advertisement..

taking them home to their village; and both students and peasants were

struck with the same amazement that everybody felt who saw Don Quixote

for the first time, and were dying to know who this man, so different

from ordinary men, could be. Don Quixote saluted them, and after

ascertaining that their road was the same as his, made them an offer of

his company, and begged them to slacken their pace, as their young asses

travelled faster than his horse; and then, to gratify them, he told them

in a few words who he was and the calling and profession he followed,

which was that of a knight-errant seeking adventures in all parts of the

world. He informed them that his own name was Don Quixote of La Mancha,

and that he was called, by way of surname, the Knight of the Lions.

All this was Greek or gibberish to the peasants, but not so to the

students, who very soon perceived the crack in Don Quixote's pate; for

all that, however, they regarded him with admiration and respect, and one

of them said to him, "If you, sir knight, have no fixed road, as it is

the way with those who seek adventures not to have any, let your worship

come with us; you will see one of the finest and richest weddings that up

to this day have ever been celebrated in La Mancha, or for many a league

round."

Don Quixote asked him if it was some prince's, that he spoke of it in

this way. "Not at all," said the student; "it is the wedding of a farmer

and a farmer's daughter, he the richest in all this country, and she the

fairest mortal ever set eyes on. The display with which it is to be

attended will be something rare and out of the common, for it will be

celebrated in a meadow adjoining the town of the bride, who is called,

par excellence, Quiteria the fair, as the bridegroom is called Camacho

the rich. She is eighteen, and he twenty-two, and they are fairly

matched, though some knowing ones, who have all the pedigrees in the

world by heart, will have it that the family of the fair Quiteria is

better than Camacho's; but no one minds that now-a-days, for wealth can

solder a great many flaws. At any rate, Camacho is free-handed, and it is

his fancy to screen the whole meadow with boughs and cover it in

overhead, so that the sun will have hard work if he tries to get in to

reach the grass that covers the soil. He has provided dancers too, not

only sword but also bell-dancers, for in his own town there are those who

ring the changes and jingle the bells to perfection; of shoe-dancers I

say nothing, for of them he has engaged a host. But none of these things,

nor of the many others I have omitted to mention, will do more to make

this a memorable wedding than the part which I suspect the despairing

Basilio will play in it. This Basilio is a youth of the same village as

Quiteria, and he lived in the house next door to that of her parents, of

which circumstance Love took advantage to reproduce to the word the

long-forgotten loves of Pyramus and Thisbe; for Basilio loved Quiteria

from his earliest years, and she responded to his passion with countless

modest proofs of affection, so that the loves of the two children,

Basilio and Quiteria, were the talk and the amusement of the town. As

they grew up, the father of Quiteria made up his mind to refuse Basilio

his wonted freedom of access to the house, and to relieve himself of

constant doubts and suspicions, he arranged a match for his daughter with

the rich Camacho, as he did not approve of marrying her to Basilio, who

had not so large a share of the gifts of fortune as of nature; for if the

truth be told ungrudgingly, he is the most agile youth we know, a mighty

thrower of the bar, a first-rate wrestler, and a great ball-player; he

runs like a deer, and leaps better than a goat, bowls over the nine-pins

as if by magic, sings like a lark, plays the guitar so as to make it

speak, and, above all, handles a sword as well as the best."




Most Popular