Chapter XIV. In which are set down the despairing verses of the dead shepherd, with other unexpected events

Grisóstomo’s Song

Since you would have it, cruel one, proclaimed
from tongue to tongue, from one race to the next,
how great the force of your harsh rigor is,
I will make hell itself impart and lend
to this sad breast of mine a grieving sound
with which to wrench my voice from its common use.
And keeping pace with my desire, which strives
to tell my sorrow and your famous deeds,
the accent of that fearful voice will go,
and mingled in it, for the greater torment,
shreds and fragments of my wretched entrails.
Listen, then, and lend an attentive ear,
not to harmonious sound, but to the noise
that from the depths of my embittered breast,
driven by a frenzy I cannot resist,
comes forth to give me pleasure and you spite.

The roaring of the lion, the fierce wolf’s
fear-striking howl, the horrid hissing note
of the scaly serpent, the appalling
bellow of some monster, the foreboding
croak of the crow, and the thundering
of wind that grapples with the restless sea;
the implacable bellowing of the bull
already vanquished, and the widowed dove’s
heartfelt cooing; the doleful singing
of the envied owl, together with the weeping
of all the black and hellish company:
let them pour forth together with my grieving soul,
mingled in a single sound, in such a way
that every sense is thrown into confusion,
because the cruel pain I find in me
demands new modes and measures for its telling.

Not father Tagus’ sands shall ever hear
the doleful echoes of such wild confusion,
nor shall the olive groves of famous Betis:
for there my bitter sorrows will be scattered,
on lofty crags and down in hollows deep,
with a dead tongue and with living words;
or else in darkened valleys, or on shores
that shun all comers, bare of human dealings,
or where the sun has never shown its light,
or in the midst of the envenomed throng
of savage beasts the Libyan plain sustains;
for though in the deserted wastes and moors
the hoarse and wavering echoes of my woe
resound with your unmatched severity,
by privilege of my brief and meager fate
they will be carried through the whole wide world.

Disdain can kill; and patience is laid low
by a suspicion, whether true or false;
jealousy kills with a harsher rigor still;
long absence throws a life into disorder;
against the fear of being forgotten,
firm hope of happy fortune is no help.
In each of these lies certain, unavoidable death;
but I, a miracle never seen, live on,
jealous, absent, disdained, and certain
of the suspicions that have struck me dead;
and in oblivion, where I fan my fire;
and, among so many torments, never
does my sight catch even a shadow of hope,
nor do I, despairing, seek it out;
rather, to go to the extreme in my complaint,
I swear to be forever without it.

Can one, by any chance, in the same instant
both hope and fear, or is it right to do so,
when the causes of the fear are surer?
If cruel jealousy stands there before me,
must I shut these eyes, if I must see it
through a thousand wounds laid open in my soul?
Who will not fling the doors wide open
to mistrust, when he beholds
disdain laid bare, and suspicions
(oh, bitter transformation!) turned to truths,
and the pure truth turned into a lie?
O you fierce tyrants in the kingdom of love,
jealousies, put a blade into these hands!
Give me, disdain, a twisted rope.
But woe is me, for with a cruel victory
the memory of you stifles all endurance.

I die, then, in the end; and so I may not hope
for a good outcome in my death or life,
I will stand stubborn in my fantasy.
I will say that he who loves well chooses well,
and that the soul most yielded is most free
beneath the ancient tyranny of love.
I will say that she, forever my enemy,
has a soul as lovely as her body,
and that her forgetting springs from my own fault,
and that, as proof of all the ills he does us,
love keeps his empire in a righteous peace.
And with this opinion and a hard noose,
hastening the miserable term
to which her disdain has led me,
I will offer to the winds both body and soul,
with no laurel or palm of blessings to come.

You, who with so many unreasons show
the reason that compels me to do justice
upon this weary life that I abhor,
since now you see the plain proof given you
by this deep wound within my heart
of how gladly I offer myself to your rigor,
if by chance you know that I deserve
to have the clear sky of your lovely eyes
clouded at my death, do not do it;
for I would have you make no amends at all
as I give you the spoils of my soul.
Rather, with laughter at the fatal hour,
make plain that my end was your holiday;
but it is great folly to warn you of this,
for I know well your glory is known to lie
in my life’s coming to its end so soon.

Let Tantalus, for now it is time, come up
from the deep abyss with his thirst; let Sisyphus come
with the terrible weight of his stone;
let Tityus bring his vulture, and likewise
let Egïón with his wheel not linger,
nor the sisters who labor without end;
and all together let them carry over
their mortal anguish into my breast, and in low voices
—if such are owed to one who died despairing—sing
obsequies of mourning, sorrowful and sad,
over the body denied even a shroud.
And let the three-faced porter of hell,
with a thousand other chimeras and monsters,
carry the doleful counterpoint;
for no better pomp than this, it seems to me,
does a lover who has died deserve.

Song of despair, do not complain
when you leave my sad company;
rather, since the cause from which you were born
increases her good fortune with my misfortune,
do not be sad even in the grave.

Grisóstomo’s song pleased those who had been listening, though the one who read it said that it did not seem to him to agree with the account he had heard of Marcela’s modesty and goodness, because in it Grisóstomo complained of jealousy, suspicions, and absence, all to the prejudice of Marcela’s good credit and good name. To which Ambrosio, as one who knew well his friend’s most hidden thoughts, replied: “So that you may be satisfied on that doubt, sir, you should know that when this unhappy man wrote this song he was away from Marcela, having gone away from her of his own will, to see whether absence would deal with him according to its usual laws. And since there is nothing that does not wear down the absent lover and no fear that does not overtake him, so Grisóstomo was worn down by imagined jealousies and dreaded suspicions as if they were real. And with this the truth that rumor proclaims of Marcela’s goodness stands where it should; for apart from being cruel, and a little arrogant, and very disdainful, envy itself neither should nor can find any fault in her.”

“That is the truth,” answered Vivaldo.

And, as he was about to read another of the papers he had saved from the fire, he was stopped by a marvelous vision—for so it seemed—that suddenly presented itself to their eyes; and it was that, on top of the rock where the grave was being dug, there appeared the shepherdess Marcela, so beautiful that her beauty surpassed her fame. Those who had not seen her until then gazed at her in wonder and silence, and those who were already used to seeing her were no less spellbound than those who had never seen her. But no sooner had Ambrosio seen her than, with every sign of an indignant spirit, he said to her:

“Have you come, perhaps, O fierce basilisk of these mountains, to see whether at your presence the wounds of this wretched man whose life your cruelty took will bleed? Or have you come to glory in the cruel exploits of your nature, or to watch from that height, like another pitiless Nero, the burning of his blazing Rome, or arrogantly to trample on this unhappy corpse, as the ungrateful daughter trampled on that of her father Tarquinius? Tell us quickly what you have come for, or what it is that pleases you most; for, knowing as I do that Grisóstomo’s thoughts never failed to obey you in life, I will see to it that, even now that he is dead, the thoughts of all those who called themselves his friends obey you.”

“I have not come, O Ambrosio, for any of the things you have said,” answered Marcela, “but to speak up for myself, and to make it understood how far from reason all those are who blame me for their sufferings and for Grisóstomo’s death; and so I beg all of you who are here to listen to me, for it will not take much time or the spending of many words to persuade sensible people of a truth.

“Heaven made me, as you say, beautiful, and so beautiful that, without your being able to help it, my beauty moves you to love me; and because of the love you show me, you say, and even insist, that I am obliged to love you. I know, with the natural understanding God has given me, that everything beautiful is lovable; but I cannot see that, by reason of being loved, what is loved for its beauty is obliged to love the one who loves it. What is more, it could happen that the lover of the beautiful was ugly, and, since the ugly deserves to be shunned, it is very unfitting to say, ‘I love you because you are beautiful; you must love me though I am ugly.’ But even supposing the beauty is equal on both sides, it does not follow that the desires must run equal, for not all beauty kindles love; some delights the eye and does not conquer the will; for if all beauties kindled love and conquered, wills would go about confused and astray, not knowing where to come to rest; because, since beautiful objects are infinite, desires would have to be infinite too. And, as I have heard it said, true love is not divided, and must be voluntary and not forced. This being so, as I believe it is, why do you want me to surrender my will by force, obliged to it for no other reason than that you say you love me? Or else tell me: if heaven, which made me beautiful, had made me ugly, would it be just for me to complain of you because you did not love me? Besides, you must consider that I did not choose the beauty I have; for, such as it is, heaven gave it to me freely, without my asking for it or choosing it. And just as the viper does not deserve to be blamed for the venom it carries, though it kills with it, since nature gave it that venom, neither do I deserve to be reproached for being beautiful; for beauty in a modest woman is like a fire set apart or a sharp sword: the one does not burn and the other does not cut anyone who does not come near them. Honor and virtue are the adornments of the soul, without which the body, though it may be beautiful, ought not to seem so. Then if modesty is one of the virtues that most adorn and beautify both body and soul, why should she who is loved for her beauty lose it in order to answer the wishes of one who, for his pleasure alone, tries with all his strength and cunning to make her lose it?

“I was born free, and to be able to live free I chose the solitude of the fields. The trees of these mountains are my company, the clear waters of these streams my mirrors; to the trees and to the waters I confide my thoughts and my beauty. I am a fire set apart and a sword laid far away. Those whom I have made fall in love with the sight of me I have undeceived with my words. And if desires are fed on hopes, since I gave none to Grisóstomo or to anyone else, it may well be said of the end of every one of them that it was his own persistence that killed him rather than my cruelty. And if it is held against me that his intentions were honorable, and that I was therefore obliged to answer them, I say that when, in this very place where his grave is now being dug, he revealed to me the goodness of his intentions, I told him that my own intention was to live forever alone and to let the earth alone enjoy the fruit of my retirement and the spoils of my beauty; and if he, with all this plain warning, chose to persist against hope and sail against the wind, what wonder is it that he drowned in the middle of the gulf of his folly? If I had led him on, I would have been false; if I had satisfied him, I would have acted against my own better intention and purpose. He persisted when he had been undeceived, he despaired without being hated: consider now whether it is reasonable that I should be blamed for his suffering! Let the one who was deceived complain, let the one whose promised hopes failed him despair, let the one I may call be confident, let the one I may admit be proud; but let no one call me cruel or a murderess to whom I make no promise, whom I do not deceive, call, or admit.

“Heaven has not yet willed that I should love by destiny, and to think that I must love by choice is idle. Let this general undeceiving serve each one of those who woo me for his own particular good; and let it be understood from now on that if anyone dies for me, he does not die of jealousy or ill fortune, for she who loves no one can give no one cause for jealousy, and plain dealing is not to be taken for disdain. Let him who calls me a wild beast and a basilisk leave me alone as something harmful and evil; let him who calls me ungrateful not serve me; him who calls me distant, keep his distance from me; him who calls me cruel, not follow me; for this wild beast, this basilisk, this ungrateful, cruel, and distant woman will in no way seek, serve, know, or follow them. For if Grisóstomo was killed by his impatience and his reckless desire, why should my modest conduct and reserve be blamed? If I keep my purity in the company of the trees, why should he who wants me to keep it among men want me to lose it? I, as you know, have riches of my own and do not covet those of others; I am free by nature and have no liking for subjection: I love no one and hate no one. I do not deceive this man or court that one, I do not trifle with one or amuse myself with another. The honest conversation of the shepherd girls of these villages and the care of my goats keep me occupied. My desires have these mountains for their boundary, and if they go beyond them, it is to contemplate the beauty of heaven, the steps by which the soul travels to its first dwelling.”

And, having said this, without waiting to hear any reply, she turned her back and went into the thickest part of a wood that lay nearby, leaving all who were there amazed as much at her good sense as at her beauty. And some of them—those who had been wounded by the mighty arrow of the rays of her lovely eyes—showed signs of wanting to follow her, without profiting from the plain undeceiving they had heard. Seeing this, Don Quixote, who thought this was a fitting occasion to put his knighthood to use by succoring damsels in distress, laid his hand on the hilt of his sword and said in a loud and clear voice:

“Let no person, of whatever estate and condition he may be, dare to follow the beautiful Marcela, on pain of falling under my furious indignation. She has shown with clear and sufficient reasons how little or no blame she has had in Grisóstomo’s death, and how far she lives from yielding to the desires of any of her lovers; for which reason it is just that, instead of being followed and pursued, she should be honored and esteemed by all good people in the world, for she shows that she is the only woman in it who lives with so modest an intention.”

Whether it was because of Don Quixote’s threats, or because Ambrosio told them to finish what they owed to their good friend, none of the shepherds stirred or left the spot until, the grave being finished and Grisóstomo’s papers burned, they laid his body in it, not without many tears from the bystanders. They closed the grave with a great rock until a slab was finished which, as Ambrosio said, he meant to have made, with an epitaph that was to read in this way:

Here lies a lover’s body,
wretched and frozen cold,
who was a shepherd of the flock,
lost through being unloved.
He died at the hands of the rigor
of a coy, ungrateful beauty,
through whom love’s tyranny
widens its empire still.

Then they scattered many flowers and boughs over the top of the grave, and, all offering their condolences to his friend Ambrosio, they took their leave of him. Vivaldo and his companion did the same, and Don Quixote took leave of his hosts and of the travelers, who begged him to come with them to Seville, since it was a place so well suited for finding adventures that they offered themselves in every street and around every corner more than in any other. Don Quixote thanked them for the advice and for the goodwill they showed in wishing to do him a kindness, and said that for the present he neither wished nor ought to go to Seville until he had rid all those mountains of the miscreant robbers with which, it was said, they were all full. Seeing his firm resolve, the travelers did not wish to press him further, but, taking their leave once more, they left him and went on their way, on which they did not lack for things to talk about, both the story of Marcela and Grisóstomo and the madness of Don Quixote. He made up his mind to go in search of the shepherdess Marcela and offer her all that he could do in her service. But it did not turn out for him as he thought, as is told in the course of this true history, the second part coming to an end here.