The Exemplary Novels of CervantesCervantes Saavedra, Miguel de
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The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de
Spanish fiction -- Translations into English
"What were their sensations on seeing me I know not, all I know is that
my own were such that a cloud came over my sight, and I was like a
statue without power of speech or motion. But this torpor soon gave way
to choler, which roused my heart's blood, and unlocked my hands and my
tongue. My hands indeed were for a while restrained by respect for that
divine face before me; but my tongue at least broke silence.
"'Now hast thou thy heart's content,' I cried, 'O mortal enemy of my
repose, thine eyes resting with so much composure on the object that
makes mine a perpetual fountain of tears! Closer to him! Closer to him,
cruel girl! Cling like ivy round that worthless trunk. Comb and part the
locks of that new Ganymede, thy lukewarm admirer. Give thyself up wholly
to the capricious boy on whom thy gaze is fixed, so that losing all hope
of winning thee I may lose too the life I abhor. Dost thou imagine,
proud, thoughtless girl, that the laws and usages which are acknowledged
in such cases by all mankind, are to give way for thee alone? Dost thou
imagine that this boy, puffed up with his wealth, vain of his looks,
presuming upon his birth, inexperienced from his youth, can preserve
constancy in love, or be capable of estimating the inestimable, or know
what riper years and experience know? Do not think it. One thing alone
is good in this world, to act always consistently, so that no one be
deceived unless it be by his own ignorance. In extreme youth there is
much inconstancy; in the rich there is pride; in the arrogant, vanity;
in men who value themselves on their beauty, there is disdain; and in
one who unites all these in himself, there is a fatuity which is the
mother of all mischief.
"'As for thee, boy, who thinkest to carry off so safely a prize more
due to my earnest love than to thy idle philandering, why dost thou not
rise from that flowery bank, and tear from my bosom the life which so
abhors thine? And that not for the insult thou puttest upon myself, but
because thou knowest not how to prize the blessing which fortune bestows
upon thee. 'Tis plain, indeed, how little thou esteemest it, since thou
wilt not budge to defend it for fear of ruffling the finical arrangement
of thy pretty attire. Had Achilles been of as placid temper as thou art,
Ulysses would certainly have failed in his attempt, for all his show of
glittering arms and burnished helmets. Go, play among thy mother's
maids; they will help thee to dress thy locks and take care of those
dainty hands that are fitter to wind silk than to handle a sword.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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