Of the Resolution Which Don Quixote Formed to Turn Shepherd and Take to a Life in the Fields While the Year for Which He Had Given His Word Was Running Its Course; with Other Events Truly Delectable and Happy
TOWARD the end of the fifth day Don Quixote was resting in the shade of some trees, and as always happened when he lay down to rest, his thoughts turned to the disenchantment of his Dulcinea and a feeling of impatience with his selfish and uncharitable squire rose up within him. He pleaded with Sancho and implored him to go through with the ordeal bravely; but Sancho was unflinching in his stubbornness and insisted he could see no reason why he should be coupled with the disenchantment of the peerless fair one. Thus Don Quixote could only pray that his squire might be moved by compassion to perform some day the deed that would liberate his lady.
While discussing this subject so close to his heart Don Quixote had decided to pursue his journey, and while they were traveling along on the road to their village they again engaged in conversation. Suddenly they found themselves passing the spot where they had been trampled on by the bulls, but Don Quixote, not wishing to have his thoughts return to anything so bitter, turned to Sancho and remarked that this was where they had encountered the gay shepherds and shepherdesses. And the next instant he had decided to emulate their example and turn shepherd himself, now that his calling of knight errant had come to an end; he would buy some ewes, he said, and together they would retire to some quiet pastoral nook where the woods and the fields met, and where pure crystal water sprang from the ledge of a rock and the fragrance of flowers was in the air. And there he would sing to Dulcinea, his platonic and only love. The thought of a life so calm and so far away from danger and knightly adventures pleased Sancho so greatly and made his enthusiasm run so high that he could not restrain a row of proverbs from falling from his lips. It was a flow so incessant that Don Quixote at last felt obliged to ask for a truce.
Night had now fallen, and Don Quixote thought it best to withdraw from the roadway and take refuge for the night some distance away from it. Having supped, Sancho at once fell asleep, but his master sat up all that night, thinking of Dulcinea and making up rhymes to the sweetness of her memory.