Free Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] by Miguel de Cervantes Page A

rolled some distance on the ground, and when he tried to get up, he could not: he was too burdened by lance, shield, spurs, helmet, and the weight of his ancient armor. And as he struggled to stand, and failed, he said:
    “Flee not, cowards; wretches, attend; for it is no fault of mine but of my mount that I lie here.”
    One of the muledrivers, who could not have been very well intentioned, heard the poor man on the ground making these insolent statements, and he could not stand by without giving him his response in the ribs. And walking up to him, he took the lance, broke it into pieces, and with one of them he began to beat our knight so furiously that notwithstanding and in spite of his armor, he thrashed Don Quixote as if he were threshing wheat. His masters shouted for him to stop and let him be, but by now the muledriver’s blood was up and he did not want to leave the game until he had brought into play the last of his rage, and having recourse to the other pieces of the lance, he shattered them all on the wretched man on the ground, who, despite that storm of blows raining down on him, did not once close his mouth but continued to rail againstheaven and earth and these wicked knaves, which is what they seemed to him.
    The muledriver tired, and the merchants continued on their way, taking with them stories to tell about the beaten man for the rest of the journey. And he, when he found himself alone, tried again to see if he could stand, but if he could not when he was hale and healthy, how could he when he was beaten almost to a pulp? And still he considered himself fortunate, for it seemed to him that this was the kind of mishap that befell knights errant, and he attributed it all to his horse’s misstep, but his body was so bruised and beaten it was not possible for him to stand.
    CHAPTER V
    In which the account of our knight’s misfortune continues
    Seeing, then, that in fact he could not move, he took refuge in his usual remedy, which was to think about some situation from his books, and his madness made him recall that of Valdovinos and the Marquis of Mantua, when Carloto left him wounded in the highlands, 1 a history known to children, acknowledged by youths, celebrated, and even believed by the old, and, despite all this, no truer than the miracles of Mohammed. This is the tale that seemed to him perfectly suited for the situation in which he found himself, and so, with displays of great emotion, he began to roll about on the ground and to say with faint breath exactly what people say was said by the wounded Knight of the Wood:
    “Where art thou, my lady,
    that thou weepest not for my ills?
    Dost not know of them, lady,
    Or art thou truly false?”
    And in this way he continued reciting the ballad until the lines that say:
    “O noble Marquis of Mantua,
    mine uncle and natural lord!”
    And as luck would have it, when he reached this line, a farmer from his village happened to pass by, a neighbor of his on the way home after taking a load of wheat to the mill; the farmer, seeing a man lying there, approached and asked who he was and what the trouble was that made him complain so pitifully. Don Quixote no doubt thought the farmer was the Marquis of Mantua, his uncle, and so the only answer he gave was to go on with the ballad, recounting his misfortune and the love of the emperor’s son for his wife, all of it just as it is told in the ballad.
    The farmer was astounded when he heard these absurdities, and after removing the visor, which had been shattered in the beating, he wiped the fallen man’s face, which was covered in dust, and as soon as he had wiped it he recognized him and said:
    “Señor Quijana!”—for this must have been his name when he was in his right mind and had not yet changed from a quiet gentleman into a knight errant—“Who has done this to your grace?”
    But Don Quixote went on reciting his ballad in response to every question. Seeing this, the good man, as carefully as he