wheat; for by the thread one gets at the ball,[1] and in this way we shall be satisfied and easy, and you will be content and pleased; nay, I believe we are already so far agreed with you that even though her portrait should show her blind of one eye, and distilling vermilion and sulphur from the other, we would nevertheless, to gratify your worship, say all in her favor that you desire."
"She distils nothing of the kind, vile rabble," said Don Quixote, burning with rage, "nothing of the kind, I say, only ambergris and civet in cotton;[2] nor is she one-eyed or hump-backed, but straighter than a Guadarrama spindle:[3] but ye must pay for the blasphemy ye have uttered against beauty like that of my lady."
And so saying, he charged with levelled lance against the one who had spoken, with such fury and fierceness that, if luck had not contrived that Rocinante should stumble midway and come down, it would have gone hard with the rash trader. Down went Rocinante, and over went his master, rolling along the ground for some distance; and when he tried to rise he was unable, so encumbered was he with lance, buckler, spurs, helmet, and the weight of his old armor; and all the while he was struggling to get up, he kept saying, "Fly not, cowards and caitiffs! stay, for not by my fault, but my horse's, am I stretched here."
One of the muleteers in attendance, who could not have had much good nature in him, hearing the poor prostrate man blustering in this style, was unable to refrain from giving him an answer on his ribs; and coming up to him he seized his lance, and having broken it in pieces, with one of them he began so to belabor our Don Quixote that, notwithstanding and in spite of his armor, he milled him like a measure of wheat. His masters called out not to lay on so hard and to leave him alone, but the muleteer's blood was up, and he did not care to drop the game until he had vented the rest of his wrath, and,
- ↑ Prov. 114. The ball, i.e., that on which it is wound.
- ↑ Civet was the perfume most in request at the time, and was imported packed in cotton.
- ↑ Mas derecho que un huso—"straighter than a spindle"—is a popular phrase in use to this day. The addition of "Guadarrama" Clemencin explains by saying that spindles were made in great quantities of the beech wood that grew on the Guadarrama Sierra. Fermin Caballero (Pericia Geográfica de Cervantes) holds that the reference is to the pine trees on the Guadarrama Pass.
