The Portable Cervantes by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Author:Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

The “Enchantment” of Dulcinea

(CHAPTERS VIII-X)

CHAPTER VIII. Wherein is related what happened to Don Quixote as he went to see his lady, Dulcinea del Toboso.

“BLESSED be the mighty Allah!” exclaims Hamete Benengeli at the beginning of this eighth chapter; and he repeats it three times: “Blessed be Allah!” He goes on to tell us that the reason for the benediction is his thankfulness at seeing Don Quixote and Sancho together once more, and he wishes the readers of this pleasant chronicle to feel that the exploits and the drolleries of the knight and his squire really start at this point. Let them forget, he says, the chivalrous deeds which the Ingenious Gentleman has performed in the past and fix their eyes, rather, on those that are to come and that have their beginning here and now on the El Toboso highway just as the others began on the plains of Montiel. It surely is not much to ask in return for all he promises, and so he continues as follows:

No sooner had Sans6n left Don Quixote and Sancho alone than Rocinante began neighing and the gray started sighing, which both knight and squire took to be a very good sign and most fortunate omen, even though, if the truth must be told, the sighings and brayings of the ass exceeded the whinnyings of the hack, which led Sancho to infer that his own good fortune was destined to surpass and overtop that of his master, in making which assumption it may be that he was relying upon some system of judicial astrology with which he chanced to be familiar, though the history is silent on this point. All that is known is that, when he stumbled or fell, he was heard to say that he wished he had not come out of the house, since nothing was to be had from it but a torn shoe or a set of broken ribs, and in this, fool that he was, he was not far wrong.

“Friend Sancho,” remarked Don Quixote, “night is descending upon us and it is becoming so dark that we shall not be able to reach El Toboso while it is yet daylight; but I am determined to go there before embarking upon another adventure, for there it is that I shall receive the blessing and kind consent of my peerless Dulcinea, with whose favor I feel assured of bringing to a happy conclusion every dangerous undertaking, since nothing in this life inspires more valor in knights-errant than the knowledge that they are favored by their ladies.”

“I can believe that,” replied Sancho, “but if I am not mistaken, your Grace may have a hard time seeing or talking to her, at least in any place where she could give you her blessing, unless she was to toss it over the wall of the stable yard where I saw her the last time, when I took her the letter with the news about the mad and foolish things your Grace was doing in the heart of the Sierra Morena.

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