Chapter XIII. In which the tale of the shepherdess Marcela is brought to an end, with other events
But day had scarcely begun to show itself on the balconies of the east when five of the six goatherds got up and went to wake Don Quixote and to ask him whether he still meant to go and see Grisóstomo’s famous burial, for they would keep him company. Don Quixote, who wanted nothing else, got up and ordered Sancho to saddle Rocinante and put the packsaddle on the donkey at once, which he did with great diligence, and with the same diligence they all set out on their way. And they had not gone a quarter of a league when, where one path crossed another, they saw coming toward them some six shepherds, dressed in black sheepskin jackets, their heads crowned with garlands of cypress and bitter oleander. Each carried a thick stick of holly in his hand. With them, likewise, came two gentlemen on horseback, very well fitted out for the road, with three other lads on foot attending them. When the two parties met, they greeted each other courteously, and, asking one another where they were going, they learned that all were bound for the place of the burial; and so they began to travel all together.
One of the riders, speaking to his companion, said to him:
“It seems to me, Señor Vivaldo, that we must count the delay we make in seeing this famous burial as time well spent, for it cannot fail to be famous, judging by the strange things these shepherds have told us, both of the dead shepherd and of the murderous shepherdess.”
“So it seems to me,” answered Vivaldo, “and I would not stop at a delay of one day; I would make it four for the sake of seeing it.”
Don Quixote asked them what it was they had heard of Marcela and Grisóstomo. The traveler said that early that morning they had met those shepherds, and that, seeing them in such mournful dress, they had asked them the reason they went about like that; that one of them had told them, telling of the strangeness and beauty of a shepherdess called Marcela, and of the love of many who courted her, and of the death of that Grisóstomo to whose burial they were going. In short, he told all that Pedro had told Don Quixote.
This talk ended and another began, the one called Vivaldo asking Don Quixote what reason moved him to go about armed in that way in so peaceful a land. To which Don Quixote replied:
“The profession I follow does not allow or permit me to go about in any other way. Easy going, good cheer, and repose were devised for the soft folk of the court; but toil, unrest, and arms were devised and fashioned solely for those the world calls knights-errant, and of these I, unworthy as I am, am the very least.”
No sooner had they heard this than they all took him for a madman; and, to make sure of it and see what kind of madness his was, Vivaldo asked him again what he meant by “knights-errant.”
“Have your graces not read,” answered Don Quixote, “the annals and histories of England, which treat of the famous exploits of King Arthur, whom in our Castilian tongue we always call King Artús, of whom there is an old tradition, common throughout that whole kingdom of Great Britain, that this king did not die, but was turned by magic arts into a raven, and that in the course of time he is to come back to reign and recover his kingdom and scepter, and that is why no one can prove that any Englishman, from that day to this, has ever killed a raven? Well, it was in this good king’s time that the famous order of chivalry called the Knights of the Round Table was founded, and there took place, without a single point missing, the loves told of there between Don Lancelot of the Lake and Queen Guinevere, their go-between and confidante being that most honorable duenna Quintañona, from which was born that ballad so well known and so much sung in our Spain:
Never was there knight on earth
by ladies served so well
as Lancelot was served
when he came out of Britain;
with that sweet and gentle course of his loving and mighty deeds. Well, from that time on, passing from hand to hand, that order of chivalry kept spreading and stretching out through many different parts of the world; and in it there were famous and renowned for their deeds the valiant Amadís of Gaul, with all his sons and grandsons down to the fifth generation, and the valorous Felixmarte of Hircania, and the never-duly-lauded Tirante the White, and almost in our own day we have seen and spoken with and heard the invincible and valorous knight Don Belianís of Greece. This, then, sirs, is to be a knight-errant, and what I have described is the order of his chivalry, in which, as I have said before, I, sinner that I am, have made profession, and what the knights I have named professed, I profess. And so I go through these solitudes and wildernesses seeking adventures, with the firm resolve of offering my arm and my person to the most perilous that fortune may send me, in aid of the weak and the needy.”
From these words of his the travelers became fully convinced that Don Quixote was out of his wits, and of the kind of madness that ruled him, at which they felt the same amazement that came over everyone who first learned of it. And Vivaldo, who was a very sensible person and of a cheerful disposition, in order to pass without tedium the short way they were told was left before they reached the hill of the burial, wished to give him occasion to go further with his nonsense. And so he said to him:
“It seems to me, sir knight-errant, that your grace has professed one of the strictest professions there are on earth, and I am of the opinion that even that of the Carthusian friars is not so strict.”
“As strict it may well be,” answered our Don Quixote, “but as necessary in the world, I am within two fingers’ breadth of doubting it. For, if the truth be told, the soldier who carries out what his captain commands does no less than the captain himself who gives him the order. I mean that the men of religion, in all peace and quiet, pray to heaven for the good of the earth; but we soldiers and knights carry out what they pray for, defending it with the valor of our arms and the edges of our swords; not under a roof but under the open sky, set up as a target for the unbearable rays of the sun in summer and the bristling frosts of winter. We are, then, the ministers of God on earth, the arms through which His justice is carried out there. And since the things of war, and those touching and concerning it, cannot be carried out except by sweating, striving, and toiling, it follows that those who profess it have, without a doubt, greater toil than those who, in quiet peace and repose, are praying God to favor those who have little power. I do not mean to say, nor does it cross my mind, that the state of the knight-errant is as good as that of the cloistered monk; I only wish to infer, from what I suffer, that it is without a doubt more laborious and more battered, and hungrier and thirstier, wretched, ragged, and lice-ridden; for there is no doubt that the knights-errant of old went through a great deal of misfortune in the course of their lives. And if some of them rose to be emperors by the valor of their arm, on my faith it cost them a good share of their blood and sweat; and if those who rose to such rank had lacked enchanters and sages to help them, they would have been sorely cheated of their desires and sorely deceived in their hopes.”
“I am of that opinion,” replied the traveler, “but one thing, among many others, seems very wrong to me in knights-errant, and it is that when they find themselves about to undertake some great and perilous adventure, in which there is plain danger of losing their lives, never at the moment of undertaking it do they remember to commend themselves to God, as every Christian is bound to do in such dangers; instead they commend themselves to their ladies, with as much eagerness and devotion as if those ladies were their God: a thing which seems to me to smack somewhat of paganism.”
“Sir,” answered Don Quixote, “that cannot by any means be otherwise, and a knight-errant who did anything else would fall into disgrace; for it is the use and custom in errant chivalry that, when a knight-errant setting about some great feat of arms has his lady in sight, he should turn his eyes toward her softly and lovingly, as if asking her with them to favor and protect him in the doubtful trial he is undertaking; and even if no one hears him, he is bound to say some words between his teeth in which he commends himself to her with all his heart; and of this we have countless examples in the histories. And it is not to be understood from this that they are to leave off commending themselves to God, for there is time and place left for them to do it in the course of the deed.”
“For all that,” replied the traveler, “I am still left with a scruple, which is that I have often read how words pass between two knights-errant, and, one thing leading to another, their anger flares up, and they wheel their horses and take a good stretch of the field, and then, without more ado, they come back to meet each other at full gallop; and in the middle of the charge they commend themselves to their ladies; and what usually comes of the encounter is that one of them falls over his horse’s haunches, run clean through by his opponent’s lance, and as for the other, it is all he can do to keep from coming to the ground by holding on to his horse’s mane. And I cannot see when, in the course of so headlong a business, the dead man found time to commend himself to God. It would have been better if the words he spent in the charge commending himself to his lady had been spent on what he owed and was bound to do as a Christian. And what is more, I am of the opinion that not all knights-errant have ladies to commend themselves to, because not all of them are in love.”
“That cannot be,” answered Don Quixote. “I say that there cannot be a knight-errant without a lady, because it is as proper and as natural for such men to be in love as it is for the sky to have stars, and you may be sure no history has ever been seen in which a knight-errant is found without love; and by the very fact of being without it he would not be held a legitimate knight, but a bastard, and one who got into the fortress of that chivalry not by the door but over the wall, like a robber and a thief.”
“For all that,” said the traveler, “it seems to me, if I remember rightly, that I have read that Don Galaor, brother of the valiant Amadís of Gaul, never had a particular lady to whom he could commend himself; and for all that he was not held in less esteem, and he was a very valiant and famous knight.”
To which our Don Quixote answered:
“Sir, one swallow alone does not make a summer. What is more, I know that in secret that knight was very much in love; besides which, that business of loving every woman who looked good to him was a natural disposition of his, which he could not hold in check. But, in short, it is very well established that he had one alone whom he had made mistress of his will, to whom he commended himself very often and very secretly, for he prided himself on being a secret knight.”
“Then, if it is of the essence that every knight-errant must be in love,” said the traveler, “it may well be believed that your grace is, since you are of the profession. And unless your grace prides yourself on being as secret as Don Galaor, I beg you as earnestly as I can, in the name of all this company and in my own, to tell us the name, country, rank, and beauty of your lady; for she would count herself fortunate that all the world should know she is loved and served by such a knight as your grace appears to be.”
Here Don Quixote heaved a great sigh and said:
“Whether my sweet enemy is glad or not that the world should know I serve her, I cannot say for certain; I can only tell you, answering what you ask of me so courteously, that she is called Dulcinea; that her homeland is El Toboso, a village in La Mancha; that her rank must be no less than a princess’s, since she is my queen and my lady; that her beauty is more than human, since in her all the impossible and fanciful attributes of beauty that poets give their ladies come true: for her hair is gold, her brow Elysian fields, her brows rainbows, her eyes suns, her cheeks roses, her lips coral, pearls her teeth, alabaster her neck, marble her breast, ivory her hands, her whiteness snow; and the parts that modesty has hidden from human sight are such, as I think and understand, that only discreet reflection can extol them, and not compare them.”
“Her lineage, her stock, and her descent we should like to know,” replied Vivaldo.
To which Don Quixote answered:
“She is not of the ancient Roman Curtii, Gaii, and Scipios, nor of the modern Colonnas and Orsinis; nor of the Moncadas and Requesens of Catalonia, still less of the Rebellas and Villanovas of Valencia; the Palafoxes, Nuzas, Rocabertis, Corellas, Lunas, Alagones, Urreas, Foces, and Gurreas of Aragon; the Cerdas, Manriques, Mendozas, and Guzmanes of Castile; the Alencastros, Pallas, and Meneses of Portugal; but she is of those of El Toboso of La Mancha, a lineage that, though modern, is such that it may give a noble beginning to the most illustrious families of the centuries to come. And let no one dispute this with me, unless it be on the terms that Cervino set at the foot of the trophy of Orlando’s arms, which said:
Let no one move them
who cannot stand the test against Roldán.”
“Although mine is of the Cachopines of Laredo,” answered the traveler, “I will not venture to set it beside the lineage of El Toboso of La Mancha, although, truth be told, a family name like that has never reached my ears till now.”
“How can it not have reached them!” replied Don Quixote.
All the others went along listening very attentively to the talk between the two, and even the goatherds and shepherds themselves came to see how very far gone our Don Quixote was in his wits. Only Sancho Panza thought that everything his master said was true, knowing who he was and having known him since he was born; and the only thing he had some doubt about was believing that business of the lovely Dulcinea del Toboso, because he had never in his life heard of any such name or any such princess, for all that he lived so close to El Toboso.
They were going along in this talk when they saw, coming down through the gap that two high mountains made, as many as twenty shepherds, all dressed in jackets of black wool and crowned with garlands, which, as it later appeared, were some of yew and some of cypress. Six of them carried a bier covered with a great variety of flowers and boughs. Seeing this, one of the goatherds said:
“Those coming there are the ones bringing Grisóstomo’s body, and it was at the foot of that mountain that he ordered them to bury him.” So they hurried to get there, and they arrived just as those who were coming had set the bier down on the ground; and four of them, with sharp picks, were digging the grave beside a hard rock.
They greeted one another courteously; and then Don Quixote and those who had come with him set about looking at the bier, and on it they saw, covered with flowers, a dead body dressed as a shepherd, about thirty years old to all appearances; and, dead as he was, he showed that alive he had been handsome of face and gallant of bearing. Around him on the bier itself there were some books and many papers, open and folded. And those who were looking at this, as well as those who were digging the grave, and all the others who were there, kept a wondrous silence, until one of those who had brought the dead man said to another:
“Look carefully, Ambrosio, whether this is the place Grisóstomo spoke of, since you want what he ordered in his will to be carried out so exactly.”
“This is it,” answered Ambrosio, “for here my unhappy friend told me many times the story of his misfortune. There, he told me, he first saw that mortal enemy of the human race, and there too was where he first declared to her his love, as honorable as it was ardent, and there, the last time, Marcela finally disillusioned and disdained him, so that he put an end to the tragedy of his miserable life. And here, in memory of so many misfortunes, he wished to be laid in the bowels of eternal oblivion.”
And, turning to Don Quixote and the travelers, he went on, saying:
“This body, sirs, that you are looking upon with pitying eyes, was the vessel of a soul in which heaven placed a boundless share of its riches. That is the body of Grisóstomo, who was unique in wit, alone in courtesy, supreme in gentleness, a phoenix in friendship, generous beyond measure, grave without presumption, merry without coarseness, and, in short, first in all that it is to be good, and second to none in all that it was to be unfortunate. He loved, and was hated; he adored, and was disdained; he pleaded with a wild beast, he pressed his suit on a marble stone, he ran after the wind, he cried out to solitude, he served ingratitude, from which he gained as his reward to be the spoils of death in the middle of the course of his life, which was brought to an end by a shepherdess whom he was trying to make eternal so that she might live on in people’s memory, as those papers you are looking at could well show, had he not ordered me to commit them to the fire once I had committed his body to the earth.” “You would treat them with more harshness and cruelty,” said Vivaldo, “than their own master, for it is neither just nor wise to carry out the will of one whose orders go beyond all reasonable thinking. And Augustus Caesar would not have been thought wise had he allowed what the divine Mantuan1 left ordered in his will to be carried out. So, Señor Ambrosio, though you give your friend’s body to the earth, do not seek to give his writings to oblivion; for if he gave the order as a man wronged, it is not right for you to carry it out as a man without judgment. Rather, by giving life to these papers, see to it that Marcela’s cruelty lives forever, so that it may serve as an example to the living in the times to come, that they may keep away and flee from falling over such precipices; for I and those of us who have come here already know the story of this lovesick and despairing friend of yours, and we know your friendship, and the cause of his death, and what he left ordered at the end of his life; from which lamentable story it can be drawn how great Marcela’s cruelty has been, and Grisóstomo’s love, and the faith of your friendship, together with the end that awaits those who run headlong, with loose rein, down the path that reckless love sets before their eyes. Last night we learned of Grisóstomo’s death and that he was to be buried in this place; and so, out of curiosity and pity, we left our direct road and agreed to come and see with our own eyes what had so grieved us in the hearing. And in return for this pity, and for the wish that was born in us to remedy it if we could, we beg you, O wise Ambrosio (at least I, for my part, entreat you), to leave off burning these papers and let me take some of them away.”
And, without waiting for the shepherd to answer, he stretched out his hand and took some of those that were nearest; and Ambrosio, seeing this, said:
“Out of courtesy I will allow you, sir, to keep those you have already taken; but to think I will leave off burning the rest is a vain thought.”
Vivaldo, who was eager to see what the papers said, at once opened one of them and saw that it bore the title Song of Despair. Ambrosio heard this and said:
“That is the last paper the unhappy man wrote; and so that you may see, sir, the state his misfortunes had brought him to, read it so that you can be heard; for the time it takes to dig the grave will give you room enough for it.”
“That I will do very gladly,” said Vivaldo.
And since all the bystanders had the same wish, they gathered around him; and he, reading in a clear voice, saw that it ran as follows:
Notes
1. Virgil, born near Mantua, who asked in his will that the unfinished Aeneid be burned; the emperor Augustus forbade it.