Lectures on Don Quixote by Vladimir Nabokov

Author:Vladimir Nabokov
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2016-10-29T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11.

The goatherds furnish a hearty supper which is capped by cheese and acorns, at which Don Quixote is moved to extol at some length the beauties of the Golden Age and the virtues of Arcadian life. “This long harangue on the part of our knight—it might very well have been dispensed with—was all due to the acorns they had given him, which had brought back to memory the age of gold; whereupon the whim had seized him to indulge in this futile harangue with the goatherds as his auditors. They listened in open-mouthed wonderment, saying not a word, and Sancho himself kept quiet and went on munching acorns, taking occasion very frequently to pay a visit to the second wine bag, which they had suspended from a cork tree to keep it cool.

“It took Don Quixote much longer to finish his speech than it did to put away his supper; and when he was through, one of the goatherds addressed him.

“‘In order that your Grace may say with more truth that we have received you with readiness and good will, we desire to give you solace and contentment by having one of our comrades, who will be here soon, sing for you. He is a very bright young fellow and deeply in love, and what is more, you could not ask for anything better than to hear him play the three-stringed lute.’” The young man, Antonio, appears and sings a love ballad. When Don Quixote complains of the pain in his ear, the magic balm is replaced by one of the goatherds with a salve made of rosemary, saliva, and salt, which takes away all pain. Don Quixote is quietly drunk: we feel it all through the end of the chapter, without the author’s stressing the point.

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