Galatea

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

'Small payment you ask of me,' replied Timbrio, 'for so great a thing as you offer me; for I do not say that I will tell you this, but all that you might wish to learn of me and more.' And, turning to the ladies who came with him, he said to them: 'Since with so good a cause, dear lady Nisida, the motive we had not to utter our own names has been destroyed, with the joy that the good news they have given us demands, I ask you that we should not delay, but that we should go forthwith to see Silerio, to whom you and I owe our lives and the happiness we possess.'

'It is needless, señor Timbrio,' replied Nisida, 'for you to ask me to do a thing I desire so much, and the doing of which suits me so well; let us go, and may good luck attend us, for now every moment that I delay in seeing him, will be to me an age.'

The same said the other lady, who was her sister Blanca, the same that Silerio had spoken of, and the one who gave the greatest signs of happiness. Darinto alone, at the news of Silerio, assumed such an attitude that he did not move his lips, but with a strange silence arose, and bade a servant of his bring him the horse on which he had come there; without taking leave of any one, he mounted it, and turning the reins went away from all at a gallop. When Timbrio saw this, he mounted another horse and with much haste followed Darinto until he overtook him; and seizing hold of the horse's reins, he made him stand still, and remained there talking with him a good while, at the end of which Timbrio returned to where the shepherds were, and Darinto pursued his journey, sending to excuse himself by Timbrio for having departed without taking leave of them. In the meantime Galatea, Rosaura, Teolinda, Leonarda, and Florisa went up to the fair Nisida and Blanca; and the discreet Nisida told them in a few words of the great friendship there was between Timbrio and Silerio, with a great part of the events they had passed through. But with Timbrio's return all wished to set themselves on the road for Silerio's hermitage, had not at the same moment a fair young shepherdess, some fifteen years of age, come to the spring, with her wallet on her shoulder and her crook in her hand. And when she saw so pleasing a company, she said to them with tears in her eyes:

'If perchance there is among you, gentlemen, one who has any knowledge of the strange effects and accidents of love, and whose breast tears and loving sights are wont to make tender, let him who feels this hasten to see if it is possible to heal and check the most loving tears and deep sighs that ever issued from love-sick eyes and breasts; hasten then, shepherds, to do what I ask you and you will see how when you observe what I show you I prove my words true.'

And in saying this she turned her back, and all who were there followed her. The shepherdess, seeing then that they followed her, with hasty step entered in among some trees which were on one side of the spring; and she had not gone far, when turning to those who were coming after her, she said to them:

'You see there, sirs, the cause of my tears, for that shepherd who appears there is a brother of mine, who for the sake of that shepherdess before whom he is bent on his knees, without any doubt will leave his life in the hands of her cruelty.'

All turned their eyes to the spot the shepherdess indicated, and saw that at the foot of a green willow a shepherdess was leaning, dressed like a huntress nymph, with a rich quiver hanging at her side, and a curved bow in her hands, her beauteous ruddy locks bound together with a green garland. The shepherd was before her on his knees, with a rope cast round his throat and an unsheathed knife in his right hand, and with his left he had seized the shepherdess by a white scarf, which she wore over her dress. The shepherdess showed a frown on her face, and that she was displeased that the shepherd should detain her there by force; but when she saw that they were looking at her, with great earnestness she sought to free herself from the hand of the hapless shepherd, who with abundance of tender tears and loving words was begging her at least to give him opportunity that he might be able to indicate to her the pain he suffered for her; but the scornful and angry shepherdess went away from him at the very moment all the shepherds came so near that they heard the love-sick youth addressing the shepherdess in such wise:

'Oh ungrateful and heedless Gelasia, with how just a title you have won the name you have of cruel! Turn your eyes, hard-hearted one, to behold him who, from beholding you, is in the extremest grief imaginable. Why do you flee from him who follows you? Why do you not welcome him who serves you? And why do you loathe him who adores you? You, who are without reason my foe, hard as a lofty cliff, angry as a wounded snake, deaf as a dumb forest, scornful as boorish, boorish as fierce, fierce as a tiger, a tiger that feeds on my entrails! Will it be possible for my tears not to soften you, for my sighs not to rouse your pity, for my services not to move you? Yes, it will be possible; since my brief and ill-starred lot wishes it, and yet it will also be possible for you not to wish to tighten this noose I have at my throat, nor to plunge this knife through this heart that adores you. Turn, shepherdess, turn, and end the tragedy of my wretched life, since with such ease you can make fast this rope at my throat, or make bloody this knife in my breast.'

These and other like words the hapless shepherd uttered, accompanied by sobs and tears so many that they moved to compassion as many as heard him. But the cruel and loveless shepherdess did not therefore cease to pursue her way, without wishing even to turn her eyes to behold the shepherd, who, for her sake, was in such a state; whereat all those who perceived her angry disdain were not a little astonished, and it was so great that even the loveless Lenio thought ill of the shepherdess's cruelty. And so he with the old Arsindo went up to ask her to be so good as to turn and hear the plaints of the love-sick youth, even though she should have no intention of healing them. But it was not possible to change her from her purpose, rather she asked them not to count her discourteous in not doing what they bade her; for her intention was to be the mortal enemy of love and of all lovers, for many reasons which moved her to it, and one of them was that from her childhood she had dedicated herself to follow the pursuit of the chaste Diana, adding to these so many reasons for not doing the bidding of the shepherds that Arsindo held it for good to leave her and return. The loveless Lenio did not do this, and when he saw that the shepherdess was such an enemy of love as she seemed, and that she agreed so completely with his loveless disposition, he determined to know who she was, and to follow her company for some days; and so he told her how he was the greatest enemy love and lovers had, begging her that since they agreed so much in their opinions, she would be so kind as not to be wearied with his company which would not be hers longer than she pleased. The shepherdess rejoiced to learn Lenio's intention, and permitted him to come with her to her village, which was two leagues from Lenio's. Therewith Lenio took leave of Arsindo, begging him to excuse him to all his friends and to tell them the reason that had moved him to go with the shepherdess, and without waiting further, he and Gelasia went away quickly and in a short while disappeared. When Arsindo returned to tell what had passed with the shepherdess, he found that all the shepherds had gone up to console the love-sick shepherd, and that, as for the two of the three veiled shepherdesses, one had fainted in the fair Galatea's lap, and the other was in the embrace of the beauteous Rosaura, who likewise had her face covered. She who was with Galatea was Teolinda, and the other her sister Leonarda, whose hearts, as soon as they saw the despairing shepherd whom they found with Gelasia, were overwhelmed with a jealous and love-sick faintness, for Leonarda believed the shepherd was her beloved Galercio, and Teolinda counted it truth that he was her enamoured Artidoro; and when the two saw him so subdued and undone by the cruel Gelasia, they felt such grief in soul that all senseless they fell fainting, one into Galatea's lap, the other into Rosaura's arms. But a little while after Leonarda, coming to herself, said to Rosaura:

'Alas, my lady, I verily believe that fortune has occupied all the passes of my cure, since Galercio's will is so far from being mine, as can be seen by the words that shepherd has spoken to the loveless Gelasia; for I would have you know, lady, that that is he who has stolen my freedom, nay he who is to end my days.'