Don Quixote (Penguin Classics) by De Cervantes Saavedra Miguel

Author:De Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780141908335
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2003-01-29T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter V

About the intelligent and amusing conversation between Sancho Panza and his wife Teresa Panza, together with other events worthy of happy memory

As the translator of the history begins this fifth chapter, he says that he considers it to be apocryphal, because Sancho Panza speaks here in a way that is quite different from what could be expected from his dull wits, and makes incisive comments that seem beyond his capabilities; the translator adds, however, that, concerned as he is to do his job properly, he has decided not to leave it untranslated, and so he continues:

Sancho was in a jubilant mood when he reached home, so much so that his wife could tell at a glance how happy he was, and couldn’t resist asking him:

‘What’s happened, Sancho my dear, to make you so cheerful?’

To which he replied:

‘I can tell you this much, wife – if it so pleased God, I’d be well content not to feel as happy as I look.’

‘I don’t understand you, husband,’ she replied, ‘and I don’t know what you mean when you say you’d be well content, if it so pleased God, not to feel happy – I mightn’t be very clever but I don’t know anyone who’s happy at not being happy.’

‘Look, Teresa,’ Sancho replied. ‘I’m happy because I’ve made up my mind to go back into service with my master Don Quixote, who’s riding off in search of adventures for a third time, and I’m going with him again, because my needs force me to, together with the happy hope of finding another hundred escudos like the ones that have been spent, even though I’m sad at having to leave you and the children – but if it so pleased God to let me have enough to eat safe and sound here at home without dragging me along all those highways and byways, something he could do without much effort by just willing it to happen, it’s clear that my happiness would be firmer and sounder, because this happiness I’ve got at the moment is mixed with sadness at leaving you. So I was right to say that I’d be well content, if it so pleased God, not to be happy.’

‘Look, Sancho,’ Teresa replied: ‘ever since you’ve been a knight errant’s limb you talk in such a roundabout way that nobody can understand you.’

‘It’s enough if God understands me, wife,’ Sancho replied, ‘because he’s the understander of all things, and you just let it rest there, and take good note, woman, that you must cosset the dun these next three days, so it’s ready to take up arms – give it double rations, and give the pack-saddle and the rest of the tackle a good overhaul, because we aren’t going off to some wedding but to ride round the world and swap blows with giants, monsters and dragons, and hear hissings and roarings and bellowings and howlings, and all this would be chicken-feed if we didn’t also have to deal with men from Yanguas and enchanted Moors.

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