“I never thrust my nose into other men’s porridge; it’s no bread and butter of mine: Every man for himself, and God for us all, say I.” Motteux.
“I prune my own vine, and I know nothing about thine. I never meddle with other people’s concerns.” Smollet.
Y advierta que ya tengo edad para dar consejos. Quien bien tiene, y mal escoge, por bien que se enoja, no se venga.[61]
“Come, Master, I have hair enough in my beard to make a counsellor: he that will not when he may, when he will he shall have nay.” Motteux.
“Take notice that I am of an age to give good counsels. He that hath good in his view, and yet will not evil eschew, his folly deserveth to rue.” Smollet. Rather than adopt a corresponding proverb, as Motteux has done, Smollet chuses, in this instance, and in many others, to make a proverb for himself, by giving a literal version of the original in a sort of doggrel rhime.
Vive Roque, que es la señora nuestra amo mas ligera que un alcotan, y que puede enseñar al mas diestro Cordobes o Mexicano.
“By the Lord Harry, quoth Sancho, our Lady Mistress is as nimble as an eel. Let me be hang’d, if I don’t think she might teach the best Jockey in Cordova or Mexico to mount a-horseback.” Motteux.
“By St. Roque, cried Sancho, my Lady Mistress is as light as a hawk,[62] and can teach the most dexterous horseman to ride.” Smollet.
The chapter which treats of the puppet-show, is well translated both by Motteux and Smollet. But the discourse of the boy who explains the story of the piece, in Motteux’s translation, appears somewhat more consonant to the phraseology commonly used on such occasions: “Now, gentlemen, in the next place, mark that personage that peeps out there with a crown on his head, and a sceptre in his hand: That’s the Emperor Charlemain.—Mind how the Emperor turns his back upon him.—Don’t you see that Moor;—hear what a smack he gives on her sweet lips,—and see how she spits, and wipes her mouth with her white smock-sleeve. See how she takes on, and tears her hair for very madness, as if it was to blame for this affront.—Now mind what a din and hurly-burly there is.” Motteux. This jargon appears to me to be more characteristic of the speaker than the following: “And that personage who now appears with a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand, is the Emperor Charlemagne.—Behold how the Emperor turns about and walks off.—Don’t you see that Moor;—Now mind how he prints a kiss in the very middle of her lips, and with what eagerness she spits, and wipes them with the sleeve of her shift, lamenting aloud, and tearing for anger her beautiful hair, as if it had been guilty of the transgression.”[63]