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“You dare to say ‘He lies’ in my presence, base varlet?”1 said Don Quixote. “By the sun that shines down on us, I am ready to run you through with this lance. Pay him now without another word; if you do not, by the God who rules us I shall exterminate and annihilate you here and now. Untie him immediately.”
“Come here, my son; I want to pay you what I owe you, as that righter of wrongs has ordered me to do.” “I swear,” said Andrés, “that your grace better do the right thing and obey the commands of that good knight, may he live a thousand years; for, as he’s a valiant man and a fair judge, heaven be praised, if you don’t pay me he’ll come back and do what he said!”
“There’s no reason you should,” replied the priest, “and here we would pardon the captain if he had not brought it to Spain and translated it into Castilian, for he took away a good deal of its original value, which is what all who attempt to translate books of poetry into another language will do as well: no matter the care they use and the skill they show, they will never achieve the quality the verses had in their first birth.
“La Galatea, by Miguel de Cervantes,”24 said the barber. “This Cervantes has been a good friend of mine for many years, and I know that he is better versed in misfortunes than in verses. His book has a certain creativity; it proposes something and concludes nothing. We have to wait for the second part he has promised; perhaps with that addition it will achieve the mercy denied to it now; in the meantime, keep it locked away in your house, my friend.”
He tried his luck again, and things went so smoothly that with no more noise or disturbance than the last time, he found himself rid of the burden that had caused him so much grief. But since Don Quixote had a sense of smell as acute as his hearing, and Sancho was joined so closely to him, and the vapors rose up almost in a straight line, some unavoidably reached his nostrils, and as soon as they did he came to the assistance of his nostrils and squeezed them closed between two fingers, and in a somewhat nasal voice, he said: “It seems to me, Sancho, that you are very frightened.” “Yes, I am,”
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This letter moved me to ask for Luscinda’s hand, as I have told you; it was the reason Don Fernando considered Luscinda to be one of the most intelligent and prudent women of her time;
“I hope you choke on those damned ínsulas, Sancho, you wretch,” responded the niece. “And what are ínsulas? Something to eat, you greedy glutton?”
Sancho responded to this by saying: “The author’s interested in money and profit? I’d be surprised if he got any, because all he’ll do is rush rush rush, like a tailor on the night before a holiday, and work done in a hurry is never as perfect as it should be. Let this Moorish gentleman, or whatever he is, pay attention to what he’s doing; my master and I will give him such an abundance of adventures and so many different deeds that he’ll be able to write not just a second part, but a hundred more parts. No doubt about it, the good man must think we’re asleep here; well, just let him try to
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