THE LIBERAL LOVER

THE LIBERAL LOVER is one of the Exemplary Novels, or tales, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547–1616), first published in 1613. The Exemplary Novels, together with The Curious Impertinent and The Captive's Story, both inserted in Don Quixote, were composed by Cervantes during his sojourn in Seville, between 1588 and 1603.

The Novels were received throughout Europe almost as favourably as Don Quixote (1605-1615) had been. They soon became a fertile source whence dramatists and story-tellers could draw both plots and dialogue. Beaumont and Fletcher (or rather, the latter only), among others, profited by the volume, as the groundwork of The Chances, Love's Pilgrimage, and other comedies shows. Cervantes himself tells us that he resolved to call his stories exemplary, because, if any one will examine them, there is not one from which some useful moral may not be drawn. These tales of Cervantes, however, differ from the moral tales so commonly written in the eighteenth century, in that in them the morality is not given such undue prominence.

As may be supposed, the tales are not all of equal merit; The Liberal Lover is perhaps the best one of the lot. The narrative is based on some of the author's experiences when he was held captive by the Moors. After Don Quixote, the Exemplary Novels constitute Cervantes's chief claim to immortality. In the opinion of some Spanish critics, they are even superior to the famous romance in point of style.

The version of The Liberal Lover given in the present volume is a faithful reprint of the translation by James Mabbe, published in London in 1640, a garbled text of which has been wrongly ascribed to Thomas Shelton. Mabbe's version was published in London in a limited edition in 1900, under the editorship of Mr. S. W. Orson, and his reprint has been drawn on for the present volume. The text (says Mr. Orson) has been carefully collated with the original; and, though the spelling and punctuation have been modernised, and some gross printer's blunders corrected, no liberties have been taken with either language or grammar. Brief notes, on some passages which seem to require explanation, have been appended.

Mabbe's version is regarded as a model of racy and flowing English; the translation, too, has the supreme merit of reading like an original.

AUTHORITIES:

The Life of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly.

A History of Spanish Literature, by George Ticknor. The Life of Miguel de Cervantes, by Henry Edward Watts (Great Writers series).

A History of Spanish Literature, by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly (Literatures of the World series).

THE LIBERAL LOVER

"O the lamentable ruins of unhappy Nicosia!' the blood of thy valiant and unfortunate defenders being yet scarce dry! If (as thou art senseless thereof) thou hadst any feeling at all in this desolate and woful estate wherein now we are, we might jointly bewail our misfortunes and that wretched estate and condition wherein we are; and happily having a companion in them, it would help to ease me in some sort of my torment, and make that burden of my grief the lighter, which I find so heavy-I had almost said insupportable-for me to bear. Yet there is some hope left unto thee, that these thy strong towers dismantled and laid level with the ground, thou mayst one day see them, though not in so just a defence as that wherein they were overthrown, raised to their former height and strength. But I, of all unfortunate the most unfortunate man, what good can I hope for in that miserable strait wherein I find myself, yea, though I should return to the same estate and condition wherein I was before I fell into this? Such is my misfortune that when I was free and at liberty I knew not what happiness was, and now in my thraldom and captivity I neither have it nor hope it.”

These words did a Christian captive utter, looking with a sad and heavy countenance from the rising of a hill on the ruined walls of the late-lost Nicosia; and thus did he talk with them, and compared his miseries with theirs, as if they had been able to understand him (the common and proper condition of afflicted persons, who being violently carried away with their own feigned fancies and imaginary conceptions, do and say things beyond all reason, and without any good discourse and advisement).

Now, whilst he was thus discoursing with himself, from out a pavilion, or one of those tents pitched there in the

1 Nicosia-a town of Cyprus, taken by the Turks in 1570.—[Ed.]

field, not far from him, issued out a Turk, a handsome young man, of a good presence, an ingenious aspect, and accompanied with spirit and mettle answerable to his looks; who drawing near unto the Christian, without much ceremony, yet in a fair and civil way, said unto him: “ Sir, I durst lay a wager with you that those your pensive thoughts which I read in your face have brought you hither."

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"You read aright," answered Ricardo (for this was the captive's name); "they have brought me hither indeed. But what doth it avail me, since in no place whithersoever I go I am so far from procuring a peace that I cannot obtain a truce or any the least cessation of them? Nay, rather, these ruins which from hence discover themselves unto me have rather increased my sorrows."

"Those of Nicosia, you mean?” replied the Turk.

"What other should I mean?" answered Ricardo, “ since there are no other which here offer themselves to my view?" "You have great cause," quoth the Turk, "to weep if you entertain your thoughts with these and the like contemplations; for they who but some two years since had seen this famous and rich island of Cyprus in its prosperity and peaceable estate, the inhabitants thereof enjoying all that human happiness and felicity which the Heavens could grant unto men or themselves desire, and now to see them banished out of it or made miserable slaves in it, who can be so hardhearted as to forbear from bewailing its calamity and misfortune? But let us leave talking of these things, since they are remediless, and let us come to your own bosom sorrows, for I desire to see if they be such as you voice them to be; and therefore I earnestly entreat and beseech you, and conjure thee by that which thou owest to those good offices I have done thee, the good-will I bear thee, the love I have shown thee, and by that which ought to oblige thee thereunto, in that we are both of one and the same country and bred up in our childhood together, that thou wilt deal freely with me, and lay open unto me what is the cause which makes thee so exceeding sad and melancholy. For howbeit captivity alone of itself be sufficient to grieve the stoutest heart in the world and to check its mirth, though otherwise naturally inclined thereunto, yet notwithstanding I imagine that the current of your disasters hath a farther reach and deeper bottom;

for generous minds such as thine is, do not use to yield and render up themselves to common and ordinary misfortunes in such a measure as to make show of extraordinary sorrows; and I am the rather induced to believe what I conceive because I know that you are not so poor but that you are well enough able to pay any reasonable ransom they shall require of you, nor are you clapped up in the towers of the Black Sea as a prisoner of note or captive of consideration, who late or never obtains his desired liberty, and therefore your ill fortune not having taken from you the hope of seeing yourself a free man; and yet notwithstanding all this, when I see thee so much overcharged with sorrows, and making such miserable manifestations of thy misfortunes, it is not much that I imagine that the pain proceeds from some other cause than thy lost liberty, which I entreat thee to acquaint me withal, offering thee all the assistance I am able to give thee. Perhaps, to the end that I may be serviceable unto thee, Fortune in her wheeling hath brought this about that I should be clad in this habit which I so much hate and abhor. Thou knowest already, Ricardo, that my master is Cadi of this city, which is the same as to be its Bishop; thou likewise knowest the great sway which he beareth here, and how much I am able to do with him; together with this, thou art not ignorant of the fervent desire and inflamed zeal which I have not to die in this estate which I thus seem to profess. But God knows my heart, and if ever I should come to be put to my trial, I am resolved openly to confess and in a loud voice to publish to the whole world the faith of Jesus Christ, from which my few years and less understanding separated me, though that I were sure that such a confession should cost me my life; for that I may free myself from losing that of my soul, I should think the losing of that of my body very well employed. Out of all this which hath been said unto thee, I leave it to thyself to infer the conclusion, and that thou wilt take it into thy deeper and better consideration whether my proffered friendship may be profitable and useful unto thee. Now that I may know what remedies thy misfortune requires, and what medicines I may apply both for the easing and curing of it, it is requisite that thou recount it unto me, the relation thereof being as necessary for me as that of the rich patient to his physician; assuring thee, in