Galatea

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

BOOK IV.

With great desire the fair Teolinda awaited the coming day to take leave of Galatea and Florisa and to finish searching by all the banks of the Tagus for her dear Artidoro, intending to end her life in sad and bitter solitude, if she were so poor in fortune as to learn no news of her beloved shepherd. The wished-for hour, then, having come, when the sun was beginning to spread his rays over the earth, she arose, and, with tears in her eyes, asked leave of the two shepherdesses to prosecute her quest. They with many reasonings urged her to wait some days more in their company, Galatea offering to her to send one of her father's shepherds to search for Artidoro by all the banks of the Tagus, and wherever it might be thought he could be found. Teolinda thanked her for her offers, but would not do what they asked of her, nay rather, after having shown in the best words she could the obligation in which she lay to cherish all the days of her life the favours she had received from them, she embraced them with tender feeling and begged them not to detain her a single hour. Then Galatea and Florisa, seeing how vainly they wrought in thinking to detain her, charged her to try to inform them of any incident, good or bad, that might befall her in that loving quest, assuring her of the pleasure they would feel at her happiness, and of their pain at her misery. Teolinda offered to be herself the one to bring the tidings of her good fortune, since, if they were bad, life would not have patience to endure them, and so it would be superfluous to learn them from her. With this promise of Teolinda Galatea and Florisa were content, and they determined to accompany her some distance from the place. And so, the two only taking their crooks, and having furnished Teolinda's wallet with some victuals for the toilsome journey, they went forth with her from the village at a time when the sun's rays were already beginning to strike the earth more directly and with greater force. And having accompanied her almost half a league from the place, at the moment they were intending to return and leave her, they saw four men on horseback and some on foot crossing by some broken ground which lay a little off their way. At once they recognised them to be hunters by their attire and by the hawks and dogs they had with them, and whilst they were looking at them with attention to see if they knew them, they saw two shepherdesses of gallant bearing and spirit come out from among some thick bushes which were near the broken ground; they had their faces muffled with two white linen kerchiefs, and one of them, raising her voice, asked the hunters to stop, which they did; and both coming up to one of them, who from his bearing and figure seemed the chief of all, seized the reins of his horse and stood awhile talking with him without the three shepherdesses being able to hear a word of what they said, because of the distance from the spot which prevented it. They only saw that after they had talked with him a little while, the horseman dismounted, and having, as far as could be judged, bidden those who accompanied him to return, only a boy remaining with his horse, he took the two shepherdesses by the hands and gradually began to enter with them into a thick wood that was there. The three shepherdesses, Galatea, Florisa, and Teolinda, seeing this, determined to see, if they could, who the masked shepherdesses, and the horseman who escorted them were. And so they agreed to go round by a part of the wood, and see if they could place themselves in some part which might be such as to satisfy them in what they desired. And acting in the manner they had intended, they overtook the horseman and the shepherdesses, and Galatea, watching through the branches what they were doing, saw that they turned to the right and plunged into the thickest part of the wood; and straightway they followed them in their very footsteps until the horseman and the shepherdesses, thinking they were well within the wood, halted in the middle of a narrow little meadow which was surrounded by countless thickets of bramble. Galatea and her companions came so near that without being seen or perceived, they saw all the horseman and the shepherdesses did and said; and when the latter had looked on all sides to see if they could be seen by anyone, and were assured on this point, one removed her veil, and scarcely had she done so when she was recognised by Teolinda, who, approaching Galatea's ear, said to her in as low a voice as she could:

'This is a very strange adventure; for, unless it be that I have lost my understanding from the grief I suffer, without any doubt that shepherdess who has removed her veil, is the fair Rosaura, daughter of Roselio, lord of a village near ours, and I know not what can be the reason that has moved her to adopt so strange a garb and to leave her district,—things which speak so much to the detriment of her honour. But, alas, hapless one!' added Teolinda, 'for the horseman who is with her is Grisaldo, eldest son of rich Laurencio, who owns two villages close to this of yours.'

'You speak truth, Teolinda,' replied Galatea, 'for I know him; but be silent and keep quiet, for we shall soon see the purpose of his coming here.'

Thereat Teolinda was still, and set herself attentively to watch what Rosaura was doing. She, going up to the horseman, who seemed about twenty years old, began to say to him with troubled voice and angry countenance:

'We are in a spot, faithless man, where I may take the wished for vengeance for your lack of love and your neglect. But though I took it on you in such a way that it would cost you your life, it were little recompense for the wrong you have done me. Here am I, unrecognised so as to recognise you, Grisaldo, who failed to recognise my love; here is one who changed her garb to seek for you, she who never changed her will to love you. Consider, ungrateful and loveless one, that she who in her own house and amongst her servants scarce could move a step, now for your sake goes from vale to vale, and from ridge to ridge, amidst such loneliness seeking your companionship.'

To all these words the fair Rosaura was uttering, the horseman listened with his eyes fixed on the ground, and making lines on the earth with the point of a hunting knife he held in his hand. But Rosaura, not content with what she had said, pursued her discourse with words such as these:

'Tell me, do you know peradventure, do you know, Grisaldo, that I am she who not long ago dried your tears, stayed your sighs, healed your pains, and above all, she who believed your words? or perchance do you understand that you are he who thought all the oaths that could be imagined feeble and of no strength to assure me of the truth with which you deceived me? Are you by chance, Grisaldo, he whose countless tears softened the hardness of my pure heart? It is you, for indeed I see you, and it is I, for indeed I know myself. But if you are the Grisaldo of my belief, and I am Rosaura, as you think her to be, fulfil to me the word you gave me, and I will give you the promise I have never denied you. They have told me that you are marrying Leopersia, Marcelio's daughter, so gladly that it is actually you who are wooing her; if this news has caused me sorrow, can well be seen by what I have done in coming to prevent its fulfilment, and if you can confirm it, I leave the matter to your conscience. What do you reply to this, mortal enemy of my peace? Do you admit perchance, by your silence, that which it were right should not pass even through your thought. Now raise your eyes and set them on those that beheld you to their hurt; lift them and behold her whom you are deceiving, whom you are abandoning and forgetting. You will see, if you ponder it well, that you are deceiving her who always spoke truth to you, you are abandoning her who has abandoned her honour and herself to follow you, you are forgetting her who never banished you from her memory. Consider, Grisaldo, that in birth I am your equal, that in wealth I am not your inferior, and that I excel you in goodness of heart and in firmness of faith. Fulfil to me, sir, the faith you gave me, if you are proud to be a gentleman, and are not ashamed to be a Christian. Behold, if you do not respond to what you owe me, I will pray Heaven to punish you, fire to burn you, air to fail you, water to drown you, earth not to endure you, and my kinsmen to avenge me! Behold, if you fail in your duty towards me, you will have in me a perpetual disturber of your joys so long as my life shall last, and even after I am dead, if it may be, I shall with constant shadows affright your faithless spirit, and with frightful visions torment your deceiving eyes! Mark that I but ask what is my own, and that by giving it you gain what you lose by refusing it! Now move your tongue to undeceive me for the many times you have moved it to wound me!'

Saying this, the fair lady was silent, and for a short while was waiting to see what Grisaldo replied. He, raising his face, which up till then he had kept down, crimsoned with the shame Rosaura's words had caused in him, with calm voice replied to her in this wise:

'If I sought to deny, oh Rosaura, that I am your debtor in more than what you say, I would likewise deny that the sunlight is bright, and would even say that fire is cold and air solid. So that herein I confess what I owe you, and am obliged to pay it; but for me to confess that I can pay you as you wish is impossible, for my father's command has forbidden it, and your cruel disdain has rendered it impossible. Nor do I wish to call any other witness to this truth than yourself, as one who knows so well how many times and with what tears I begged you to accept me as your husband, and to deign to permit me to fulfil the word I had given you to be it. And you, for the reasons you fancied, or because you thought it was well to respond to Artandro's vain promises, never wished matters to come to such an issue; but rather went on from day to day putting me off, and making trials of my firmness, though you could make sure of it in every way by accepting me for your own. You also know, Rosaura, the desire my father had to settle me in life, and the haste he showed in the matter, bringing forward the rich and honourable marriages you know of, and how I with a thousand excuses held aloof from his importunities, always telling you of them, so that you should no longer defer what suited you so well and what I desired; and that after all this I told you one day that my father's wish was for me to marry Leopersia, and you, on hearing Leopersia's name, in a desperate rage told me to speak to you no more, and that I might marry Leopersia with your blessing, or anyone I liked better. You know also that I urged you many times to cease those jealous frenzies, for I was yours and not Leopersia's, and that you would never receive my excuses, nor yield to my prayers, but rather, persevering in your obstinacy and hardness, and in favouring Artandro, you sent to tell me that it would give you pleasure that I should never see you more. I did what you bade me, and, so as to have no opportunity to transgress your bidding, seeing also that I was fulfilling that of my father, I resolved to marry Leopersia, or at least I shall marry her to-morrow, for so it is agreed between her kinsmen and mine; wherefore you see, Rosaura, how guiltless I am of the charge you lay against me, and how late you have come to know the injustice with which you treated me. But that you may not judge me henceforward to be as ungrateful as you have pictured me in your fancy, see if there is anything wherein I can satisfy your wish, for, so it be not to marry you, I will hazard, to serve you, property, life and honour.'