that the men walking on it were little bigger than hazel nuts; so you may see how high we must have got to then.”
To this the duchess said, “Sancho, my friend, mind what you are saying; it seems you could not have seen the earth, but only the men walking on it; for if the earth looked to you like a grain of mustard seed, and each man like a hazel nut, one man alone would have covered the whole earth.”
“That is true,” said Sancho, “but for all that I got a glimpse of a bit of one side of it, and saw it all.”
“Take care, Sancho,” said the duchess, “with a bit of one side one does not see the whole of what one looks at.”
“I don’t understand that way of looking at things,” said Sancho; “I only know that your ladyship will do well to bear in mind that as we were flying by enchantment so I might have seen the whole earth and all the men by enchantment whatever way I looked; and if you won’t believe this, no more will you believe that, uncovering myself nearly to the eyebrows, I saw myself so close to the sky that there was not a palm and a half between me and it; and by everything that I can swear by, señora, it is mighty great! And it so happened we came by where the seven goats are, and by God and upon my soul, as in my youth I was a goatherd in my own country, as soon as I saw them I felt a longing to be among them for a little, and if I had not given way to it I think I’d have burst. So I come and take, and what do I do? without saying anything to anybody, not even to my master, softly and quietly I got down from Clavileño and amused myself with the goats—which are like violets, like flowers—for nigh three-quarters of an hour; and Clavileño never stirred or moved from one spot.”
“And while the good Sancho was amusing himself with the goats,” said the duke, “how did Señor Don Quixote amuse himself?”