Galatea

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Issues, rich in fantasy,

Full of wisest reasoning,

And celestial harmony;

But of marble stubbornest

She hath made her lovely breast,

Yet in truth we see that earth

Is made better by her worth,

E'en as Heaven itself is blest.

'With these and other things that I then sang, all were so charmed with me, and especially Nisida's parents, that they offered me all I might need, and asked me to let no day go by without visiting them; and so, without my purpose being discovered or imagined, I came to achieve my first design, which was to expedite my entrance into the house of Nisida, who enjoyed extremely my bright ways. But now that the lapse of many days, and my frequent converse and the great friendship all that household showed me, had removed some shadows from the excessive fear I felt at disclosing my intent to Nisida, I determined to see how far went the fortune of Timbrio, whose only hope for it lay in my solicitude. But woe is me! I was then more ready to ask a salve for my wound than health for another's; for Nisida's grace, beauty, discretion, and modesty had so wrought in my soul that it was placed in no less an extreme of grief and love than that of hapless Timbrio. To your discreet imagination I leave it to picture what a heart could feel in which there fought, on the one hand, the laws of friendship, and, on the other, the inviolable laws of Cupid; for, if those obliged it not to go beyond what they and reason asked of it, these constrained it to set store by what was due to its happiness. These attacks and struggles afflicted me in such wise that, without procuring another's health I began to have fears for my own, and to grow so weak and pale that I caused general compassion in all that saw me, and those who showed it most were Nisida's parents; and even she herself, with pure and Christian sympathy, often asked me to tell her the cause of my disease, offering me all that was necessary for its cure. "Ah!" would I say to myself whenever Nisida made me such offers, "with what ease, fair Nisida, could your hand cure the evil your beauty has wrought! but I boast myself so good a friend that, though I counted my cure as certain as I count it impossible and uncertain, it would be impossible for me to accept it." And since these thoughts at such moments disturbed my fancy, I did not succeed in making any reply to Nisida; whereat she and a sister of hers, who was called Blanca (less in years, though not less in discretion and beauty than Nisida), were amazed, and with increasing desire to know the origin of my sadness, with many importunities asked me to conceal from them nought of my grief. Seeing, then, that fortune offered me the opportunity of putting into practice what my cunning had brought so far, once, when by chance the fair Nisida and her sister found themselves alone, and returned anew to ask what they had asked so often, I said to them: "Think not, ladies, that the silence I have up till now kept in not telling you the cause of the pain you imagine I feel has been caused by my small desire to obey you, since it is very clear that if my lowly state has any happiness in this life, it is to have thereby succeeded in coming to know you, and to serve you as retainer. The only cause has been the thought that, though I reveal it, it will not serve for more than to give you grief, seeing how far away is its cure. But now that it is forced upon me to satisfy you in this, you must know, ladies, that in this city is a gentleman, a native of my own country, whom I hold as master, refuge, and friend, the most generous, discreet, and courtly man that may be found far and wide. He is here, away from his dear native land, by reason of certain quarrels which befell him there and forced him to come to this city, believing that, if there in his own land he left enemies, here in a foreign land friends would not fail him. But his belief has turned out so mistaken that one enemy alone, whom, without knowing how, he has made here for himself, has placed him in such a pass that if Heaven do not help him he will end his friendships and enmities by ending his life. And as I know the worth of Timbrio (for this is the name of the gentleman whose misfortune I am relating to you), and know what the world will lose in losing him and what I shall lose if I lose him, I give the tokens of feeling you have seen, and even they are small compared to what the danger in which Timbrio is placed ought to move me to. I know well that you will desire to know, ladies, who is the enemy who has placed so valorous a gentleman as he whom I have depicted to you in such a pass; but I also know that, in naming him to you, you will not wonder save that he has not yet destroyed him and slain him. His enemy is love, the universal destroyer of our peace and prosperity; this fierce enemy took possession of his heart. On entering this city Timbrio beheld a fair lady of singular worth and beauty, but so high placed and so modest that the hapless one has never dared to reveal to her his thought." To this point had I come when Nisida said to me: "Truly, Astor," for this was my name for the nonce, "I know not if I can believe that that gentleman is as valorous and discreet as you say, since he has allowed himself so easily to surrender to an evil desire so newly born, yielding himself so needlessly to the arms of despair; and though I understand but little these effects of love, yet it seems to me that it is folly and weakness for him who is cast down by them to fail to reveal his thoughts to her who inspires it in him, though she be of all the worth conceivable. For what shame can result to her from knowing that she is well loved, or to him what greater evil from her harsh and petulant reply than the death he himself brings on himself by being silent? It would not be right that because a judge has a reputation for sternness, anyone should fail to allege proof of his claim. But let us suppose that the death take place of a lover as silent and timid as that friend of yours; tell me, would you call the lady with whom he was in love cruel? No indeed, for one can scarcely relieve the need which does not come to one's knowledge, nor does it fall within one's duty to seek to learn it so as to relieve it. So, forgive me, Astor, but the deeds of that friend of yours do not make very true the praises you give him." When I heard such words from Nisida, straightway I could have wished by mine to reveal to her all the secret of my breast, but, as I understood the goodness and simplicity with which she expressed them, I had to check myself, waiting for a better and more private opportunity, and thus I replied to her: "When the affairs of love, fair Nisida, are regarded with free eyes, follies so great are seen in them that they are no less worthy of laughter than of pity: but if the soul finds itself entangled in love's subtle net, then the feelings are so fettered and so beside their wonted selves, that memory merely serves as treasurer and guardian of the object the eyes have regarded, the understanding is of use only in searching into and learning the worth of her whom it loves well, and the will in consenting that the memory and understanding should not busy themselves with aught else: and so the eyes see like a silvered mirror, for they make everything larger. Now hope increases when they are favoured, now fear when they are cast down; and thus what has happened to Timbrio, happens to many, that deeming at first very high the object to which their eyes were raised, they lose the hope of attaining it, but not in such wise that love does not say to them there within the soul: Who knows? it might be; and thereat hope goes, as the saying is, between two waters, while if it should forsake them altogether, love would flee with it. And hence it arises that the heart of the afflicted lover walks between fearing and daring, and without venturing to tell it, he braces himself up, and presses together his wound, hoping, though he knows not from whom, for the remedy from which he sees himself so far away. In this very plight I have found Timbrio, though, in spite of all, he has, at my persuasion, written to the lady for whom he is dying, a letter which he gave to me that I might give it to her and see if there appeared in it anything in any way unseemly, so that I might correct it. He charged me also to seek the means of placing it in his lady's hands, which, I think, will be impossible, not because I will not hazard it, since the least I will hazard to serve him will be life, but because it seems to me that I shall not find an opportunity to give it." "Let us see it," said Nisida, "for I wish to see how discreet lovers write." Straightway I drew from my bosom a letter which had been written some days before, in the hope of an opportunity for Nisida to see it, and fortune offering to me this one, I showed it to her. As I had read it many times, it remained in my memory, and its words were these:

TIMBRIO TO NISIDA.