’T was a lie, and so I told her,
And her cousin at the word
Gave me his defiance for it;
And what followed thou hast heard.
Mine is no high-flown affection,
Mine no passion par amours—
As they call it—what I offer
Is an honest love, and pure.
Cunning cords the holy Church has,
Cords of softest silk they be;
Put thy neck beneath the yoke, dear;
Mine will follow, thou wilt see.
Else—and once for all I swear it
By the saint of most renown—
If I ever quit the mountains,
’T will be in a friar’s gown.
Here the goatherd brought his song to an end, and
though Don Quixote entreated him to sing more, Sancho
had no mind that way, being more inclined for sleep
than for listening to songs; so said he to his master,
“Your worship will do well to settle at once
where you mean to pass the night, for the labour these
good men are at all day does not allow them to spend
the night in singing.”
“I understand thee, Sancho,” replied Don
Quixote; “I perceive clearly that those visits
to the wine-skin demand compensation in sleep rather
than in music.”
“It’s sweet to us all, blessed be God,”
said Sancho.
“I do not deny it,” replied Don Quixote;
“but settle thyself where thou wilt; those of
my calling are more becomingly employed in watching
than in sleeping; still it would be as well if thou
wert to dress this ear for me again, for it is giving
me more pain than it need.”
Sancho did as he bade him, but one of the goatherds,
seeing the wound, told him not to be uneasy, as he
would apply a remedy with which it would be soon healed;
and gathering some leaves of rosemary, of which there
was a great quantity there, he chewed them and mixed
them with a little salt, and applying them to the
ear he secured them firmly with a bandage, assuring
him that no other treatment would be required, and
so it proved.
OF WHAT A GOATHERD RELATED TO THOSE WITH DON QUIXOTE
Just then another young man, one of those who fetched
their provisions from the village, came up and said,
“Do you know what is going on in the village,
comrades?”
“How could we know it?” replied one of
them.
“Well, then, you must know,” continued
the young man, “this morning that famous student-shepherd
called Chrysostom died, and it is rumoured that he
died of love for that devil of a village girl the daughter
of Guillermo the Rich, she that wanders about the
wolds here in the dress of a shepherdess.”
“You mean Marcela?” said one.
