“Then was the time, when innocent beautiful young shepherdesses went tripping over the hills and vales, their lovely hair sometimes plaited, sometimes loose and flowing, clad in no other vestment but what was necessary to cover decently what modesty would always have concealed.”—Motteux.
It will not, I believe, be asserted, that this version of Motteux bears any traces of being copied from the French, which is quite licentious and paraphrastical. But when we subjoin the original, we shall perceive, that he has given a very just and easy translation of the Spanish.
Los valientes alcornoques despedian de sí sin otro artificio que el de su cortesia, sus anchas y livianas cortezas, sin que se commençaron á cubrir las casas, sobre rusticas, estacas sustentadas, no mas que para defensa de las inclemencias del cielo.
Entonces sí, que andaban las simples y hermosas zagalejas de valle en valle, y de otero en otero, en trenza y en cabello, sin mas vestidos de aquellos que eran menester para cubrir honestamente lo que la honestidad quiere.
[59] Perhaps a parody was here intended of the famous epitaph of Simonides, on the brave Spartans who fell at Thermopylæ:
Ω ξειν, αγγειλον Λακεδαιμονιοις, οτι τηδε
Κειμεθα, τοις κεινων ρημασι πειθομενοι.
“O stranger, carry back the news to Lacedemon, that we died here to prove our obedience to her laws.” This, it will be observed, may be translated, or at least closely imitated, in the very words of Cervantes; diras—que su caballero murio por acometer cosas, que le hiciesen digno de poder llamarse suyo.
[60] One expression is omitted which is a little too gross.
[61] Thus it stands in all the editions by the Royal Academy of Madrid; though in Lord Carteret’s edition the latter part of the proverb is given thus, apparently with more propriety: del mal que le viene no se enoje.