The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Complete
by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra · English · Gutenberg #5946 · 1,148,442 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Complete
Author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Illustrator: Gustave Doré
Translator: John Ormsby
Release date: June 1, 2004 [eBook #5946]
Most recently updated: March 1, 2022
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5946
Credits: David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF DON QUIXOTE, VOLUME 2, COMPLETE ***
DON QUIXOTE
Volume II.
Complete
by Miguel de Cervantes
Translated by John Ormsby
CONTENTS
Part II.
CHAPTER I
OF THE INTERVIEW THE CURATE AND THE BARBER HAD WITH DON QUIXOTE
ABOUT HIS MALADY
CHAPTER II
WHICH TREATS OF THE NOTABLE ALTERCATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HAD
WITH DON QUIXOTE’S NIECE, AND HOUSEKEEPER, TOGETHER WITH OTHER DROLL
MATTERS
CHAPTER III
OF THE LAUGHABLE CONVERSATION THAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE,
SANCHO PANZA, AND THE BACHELOR SAMSON CARRASCO
CHAPTER IV
IN WHICH SANCHO PANZA GIVES A SATISFACTORY REPLY TO THE DOUBTS AND
QUESTIONS OF THE BACHELOR SAMSON CARRASCO, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MATTERS
WORTH KNOWING AND TELLING
CHAPTER V
OF THE SHREWD AND DROLL CONVERSATION THAT PASSED BETWEEN SANCHO
PANZA AND HIS WIFE TERESA PANZA, AND OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF BEING
DULY RECORDED
CHAPTER VI
OF WHAT TOOK PLACE BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS NIECE AND
HOUSEKEEPER; ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTERS IN THE WHOLE HISTORY
CHAPTER VII
OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE, TOGETHER WITH
OTHER VERY NOTABLE INCIDENTS
CHAPTER VIII
WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE ON HIS WAY TO SEE HIS
LADY DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO
CHAPTER IX
WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT WILL BE SEEN THERE
CHAPTER X
WHEREIN IS RELATED THE CRAFTY DEVICE SANCHO ADOPTED TO ENCHANT THE
LADY DULCINEA, AND OTHER INCIDENTS AS LUDICROUS AS THEY ARE TRUE
CHAPTER XI
OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE WHICH THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE HAD WITH
THE CAR OR CART OF “THE CORTES OF DEATH”
CHAPTER XII
OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE WHICH BEFELL THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE WITH
THE BOLD KNIGHT OF THE MIRRORS
CHAPTER XIII
IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE GROVE,
TOGETHER WITH THE SENSIBLE, ORIGINAL, AND TRANQUIL COLLOQUY THAT
PASSED BETWEEN THE TWO SQUIRES
CHAPTER XIV
WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE GROVE
CHAPTER XV
WHEREIN IT IS TOLD AND KNOWN WHO THE KNIGHT OF THE MIRRORS AND HIS
SQUIRE WERE
CHAPTER XVI
OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH A DISCREET GENTLEMAN OF LA MANCHA
CHAPTER XVII
WHEREIN IS SHOWN THE FURTHEST AND HIGHEST POINT WHICH THE UNEXAMPLED
COURAGE OF DON QUIXOTE REACHED OR COULD REACH; TOGETHER WITH THE
HAPPILY ACHIEVED ADVENTURE OF THE LIONS
CHAPTER XVIII
OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE IN THE CASTLE OR HOUSE OF THE KNIGHT OF
THE GREEN GABAN, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MATTERS OUT OF THE COMMON
CHAPTER XIX
IN WHICH IS RELATED THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENAMOURED SHEPHERD,
TOGETHER WITH OTHER TRULY DROLL INCIDENTS
CHAPTER XX
WHEREIN AN ACCOUNT IS GIVEN OF THE WEDDING OF CAMACHO THE RICH,
TOGETHER WITH THE INCIDENT OF BASILIO THE POOR
CHAPTER XXI
IN WHICH CAMACHO’S WEDDING IS CONTINUED, WITH OTHER DELIGHTFUL INCIDENTS
CHAPTER XXII
WHEREIN IS RELATED THE GRAND ADVENTURE OF THE CAVE OF MONTESINOS IN
THE HEART OF LA MANCHA, WHICH THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE BROUGHT TO A
HAPPY TERMINATION
CHAPTER XXIII
OF THE WONDERFUL THINGS THE INCOMPARABLE DON QUIXOTE SAID HE SAW
IN THE PROFOUND CAVE OF MONTESINOS, THE IMPOSSIBILITY AND MAGNITUDE OF
WHICH CAUSE THIS ADVENTURE TO BE DEEMED APOCRYPHAL
CHAPTER XXIV
WHEREIN ARE RELATED A THOUSAND TRIFLING MATTERS, AS TRIVIAL AS
THEY ARE NECESSARY TO THE RIGHT UNDERSTANDING OF THIS GREAT HISTORY
CHAPTER XXV
WHEREIN IS SET DOWN THE BRAYING ADVENTURE, AND THE DROLL ONE OF
THE PUPPET-SHOWMAN, TOGETHER WITH THE MEMORABLE DIVINATIONS OF THE
DIVINING APE
CHAPTER XXVI
WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE DROLL ADVENTURE OF THE PUPPET-SHOWMAN,
TOGETHER WITH OTHER THINGS IN TRUTH RIGHT GOOD
CHAPTER XXVII
WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN WHO MASTER PEDRO AND HIS APE WERE, TOGETHER WITH
THE MISHAP DON QUIXOTE HAD IN THE BRAYING ADVENTURE, WHICH HE DID
NOT CONCLUDE AS HE WOULD HAVE LIKED OR AS HE HAD EXPECTED
CHAPTER XXVIII
OF MATTERS THAT BENENGELI SAYS HE WHO READS THEM WILL KNOW, IF HE
READS THEM WITH ATTENTION
CHAPTER XXIX
OF THE FAMOUS ADVENTURE OF THE ENCHANTED BARK
CHAPTER XXX
OF DON QUIXOTE’S ADVENTURE WITH A FAIR HUNTRESS
CHAPTER XXXI
WHICH TREATS OF MANY AND GREAT MATTERS
CHAPTER XXXII
OF THE REPLY DON QUIXOTE GAVE HIS CENSURER, WITH OTHER INCIDENTS,
GRAVE AND DROLL
CHAPTER XXXIII
OF THE DELECTABLE DISCOURSE WHICH THE DUCHESS AND HER DAMSELS HELD
WITH SANCHO PANZA, WELL WORTH READING AND NOTING
CHAPTER XXXIV
WHICH RELATES HOW THEY LEARNED THE WAY IN WHICH THEY WERE TO
DISENCHANT THE PEERLESS DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO, WHICH IS ONE OF THE
RAREST ADVENTURES IN THIS BOOK
CHAPTER XXXV
WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN TO DON QUIXOTE TOUCHING
THE DISENCHANTMENT OF DULCINEA, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MARVELLOUS INCIDENTS
CHAPTER XXXVI
WHEREIN IS RELATED THE STRANGE AND UNDREAMT-OF ADVENTURE OF THE
DISTRESSED DUENNA, ALIAS THE COUNTESS TRIFALDI, TOGETHER WITH A LETTER
WHICH SANCHO PANZA WROTE TO HIS WIFE, TERESA PANZA
CHAPTER XXXVII
WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE NOTABLE ADVENTURE OF THE DISTRESSED DUENNA
CHAPTER XXXVIII
WHEREIN IS TOLD THE DISTRESSED DUENNA’S TALE OF HER MISFORTUNES
CHAPTER XXXIX
IN WHICH THE TRIFALDI CONTINUES HER MARVELLOUS AND MEMORABLE STORY
CHAPTER XL
OF MATTERS RELATING AND BELONGING TO THIS ADVENTURE AND TO THIS
MEMORABLE HISTORY
CHAPTER XLI
OF THE ARRIVAL OF CLAVILEÑO AND THE END OF THIS PROTRACTED ADVENTURE
CHAPTER XLII
OF THE COUNSELS WHICH DON QUIXOTE GAVE SANCHO PANZA BEFORE HE SET
OUT TO GOVERN THE ISLAND, TOGETHER WITH OTHER WELL-CONSIDERED MATTERS
CHAPTER XLIII
OF THE SECOND SET OF COUNSELS DON QUIXOTE GAVE SANCHO PANZA
CHAPTER XLIV
HOW SANCHO PANZA WAS CONDUCTED TO HIS GOVERNMENT, AND OF THE STRANGE
ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE IN THE CASTLE
CHAPTER XLV
OF HOW THE GREAT SANCHO PANZA TOOK POSSESSION OF HIS ISLAND, AND
OF HOW HE MADE A BEGINNING IN GOVERNING
CHAPTER XLVI
OF THE TERRIBLE BELL AND CAT FRIGHT THAT DON QUIXOTE GOT IN THE
COURSE OF THE ENAMOURED ALTISIDORA’S WOOING
CHAPTER XLVII
WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE ACCOUNT OF HOW SANCHO PANZA CONDUCTED
HIMSELF IN HIS GOVERNMENT
CHAPTER XLVIII
OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH DONA RODRIGUEZ, THE DUCHESS’S
DUENNA, TOGETHER WITH OTHER OCCURRENCES WORTHY OF RECORD AND ETERNAL
REMEMBRANCE
CHAPTER XLIX
OF WHAT HAPPENED SANCHO IN MAKING THE ROUND OF HIS ISLAND
CHAPTER L
WHEREIN IS SET FORTH WHO THE ENCHANTERS AND EXECUTIONERS WERE WHO
FLOGGED THE DUENNA AND PINCHED DON QUIXOTE, AND ALSO WHAT BEFELL THE
PAGE WHO CARRIED THE LETTER TO TERESA PANZA, SANCHO PANZA’S WIFE
CHAPTER LI
OF THE PROGRESS OF SANCHO’S GOVERNMENT, AND OTHER SUCH
ENTERTAINING MATTERS
CHAPTER LII
WHEREIN IS RELATED THE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND DISTRESSED OR
AFFLICTED DUENNA, OTHERWISE CALLED DONA RODRIGUEZ
CHAPTER LIII
OF THE TROUBLOUS END AND TERMINATION SANCHO PANZA’S GOVERNMENT CAME TO
CHAPTER LIV
WHICH DEALS WITH MATTERS RELATING TO THIS HISTORY AND NO OTHER
CHAPTER LV
OF WHAT BEFELL SANCHO ON THE ROAD, AND OTHER THINGS THAT CANNOT BE
SURPASSED
CHAPTER LVI
OF THE PRODIGIOUS AND UNPARALLELED BATTLE THAT TOOK PLACE BETWEEN
DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA AND THE LACQUEY TOSILOS IN DEFENCE OF THE
DAUGHTER OF DONA RODRIGUEZ
CHAPTER LVII
WHICH TREATS OF HOW DON QUIXOTE TOOK LEAVE OF THE DUKE, AND OF
WHAT FOLLOWED WITH THE WITTY AND IMPUDENT ALTISIDORA, ONE OF THE
DUCHESS’S DAMSELS
CHAPTER LVIII
WHICH TELLS HOW ADVENTURES CAME CROWDING ON DON QUIXOTE IN SUCH
NUMBERS THAT THEY GAVE ONE ANOTHER NO BREATHING-TIME
CHAPTER LIX
WHEREIN IS RELATED THE STRANGE THING, WHICH MAY BE REGARDED AS AN
ADVENTURE, THAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE
CHAPTER LX
OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE ON HIS WAY TO BARCELONA
CHAPTER LXI
OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE ON ENTERING BARCELONA, TOGETHER WITH
OTHER MATTERS THAT PARTAKE OF THE TRUE RATHER THAN OF THE INGENIOUS
CHAPTER LXII
WHICH DEALS WITH THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENCHANTED HEAD, TOGETHER
WITH OTHER TRIVIAL MATTERS WHICH CANNOT BE LEFT UNTOLD
CHAPTER LXIII
OF THE MISHAP THAT BEFELL SANCHO PANZA THROUGH THE VISIT TO THE
GALLEYS, AND THE STRANGE ADVENTURE OF THE FAIR MORISCO
CHAPTER LXIV
TREATING OF THE ADVENTURE WHICH GAVE DON QUIXOTE MORE UNHAPPINESS
THAN ALL THAT HAD HITHERTO BEFALLEN HIM
CHAPTER LXV
WHEREIN IS MADE KNOWN WHO THE KNIGHT OF THE WHITE MOON WAS; LIKEWISE
DON GREGORIO’S RELEASE, AND OTHER EVENTS
CHAPTER LXVI
WHICH TREATS OF WHAT HE WHO READS WILL SEE, OR WHAT HE WHO HAS IT
READ TO HIM WILL HEAR
CHAPTER LXVII
OF THE RESOLUTION DON QUIXOTE FORMED TO TURN SHEPHERD AND TAKE TO
A LIFE IN THE FIELDS WHILE THE YEAR FOR WHICH HE HAD GIVEN HIS WORD
WAS RUNNING ITS COURSE; WITH OTHER EVENTS TRULY DELECTABLE AND HAPPY
CHAPTER LXVIII
OF THE BRISTLY ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE
CHAPTER LXIX
OF THE STRANGEST AND MOST EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON
QUIXOTE IN THE WHOLE COURSE OF THIS GREAT HISTORY
CHAPTER LXX
WHICH FOLLOWS SIXTY-NINE AND DEALS WITH MATTERS INDISPENSABLE FOR
THE CLEAR COMPREHENSION OF THIS HISTORY
CHAPTER LXXI
OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE SANCHO ON THE
WAY TO THEIR VILLAGE
CHAPTER LXXII
OF HOW DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO REACHED THEIR VILLAGE
CHAPTER LXXIII
OF THE OMENS DON QUIXOTE HAD AS HE ENTERED HIS OWN VILLAGE, AND
OTHER INCIDENTS THAT EMBELLISH AND GIVE A COLOUR TO THIS GREAT HISTORY
CHAPTER LXXIV
OF HOW DON QUIXOTE FELL SICK, AND OF THE WILL HE MADE, AND HOW HE DIED
DON QUIXOTE
PART II.
DEDICATION OF PART II.
TO THE COUNT OF LEMOS:
These days past, when sending Your Excellency my plays, that had appeared
in print before being shown on the stage, I said, if I remember well,
that Don Quixote was putting on his spurs to go and render homage to Your
Excellency. Now I say that “with his spurs, he is on his way.” Should he
reach destination methinks I shall have rendered some service to Your
Excellency, as from many parts I am urged to send him off, so as to
dispel the loathing and disgust caused by another Don Quixote who, under
the name of Second Part, has run masquerading through the whole world.
And he who has shown the greatest longing for him has been the great
Emperor of China, who wrote me a letter in Chinese a month ago and sent
it by a special courier. He asked me, or to be truthful, he begged me to
send him Don Quixote, for he intended to found a college where the
Spanish tongue would be taught, and it was his wish that the book to be
read should be the History of Don Quixote. He also added that I should go
and be the rector of this college. I asked the bearer if His Majesty had
afforded a sum in aid of my travel expenses. He answered, “No, not even
in thought.”
“Then, brother,” I replied, “you can return to your China, post haste or
at whatever haste you are bound to go, as I am not fit for so long a
travel and, besides being ill, I am very much without money, while
Emperor for Emperor and Monarch for Monarch, I have at Naples the great
Count of Lemos, who, without so many petty titles of colleges and
rectorships, sustains me, protects me and does me more favour than I can
wish for.”
Thus I gave him his leave and I beg mine from you, offering Your
Excellency the “Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda,” a book I shall finish
within four months, Deo volente, and which will be either the worst or
the best that has been composed in our language, I mean of those intended
for entertainment; at which I repent of having called it the worst, for,
in the opinion of friends, it is bound to attain the summit of possible
quality. May Your Excellency return in such health that is wished you;
Persiles will be ready to kiss your hand and I your feet, being as I am,
Your Excellency’s most humble servant.
From Madrid, this last day of October of the year one thousand six
hundred and fifteen.
At the service of Your Excellency:
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA
THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE
God bless me, gentle (or it may be plebeian) reader, how eagerly must
thou be looking forward to this preface, expecting to find there
retaliation, scolding, and abuse against the author of the second Don
Quixote--I mean him who was, they say, begotten at Tordesillas and born
at Tarragona! Well then, the truth is, I am not going to give thee that
satisfaction; for, though injuries stir up anger in humbler breasts, in
mine the rule must admit of an exception. Thou wouldst have me call him
ass, fool, and malapert, but I have no such intention; let his offence be
his punishment, with his bread let him eat it, and there’s an end of it.
What I cannot help taking amiss is that he charges me with being old and
one-handed, as if it had been in my power to keep time from passing over
me, or as if the loss of my hand had been brought about in some tavern,
and not on the grandest occasion the past or present has seen, or the
future can hope to see. If my wounds have no beauty to the beholder’s
eye, they are, at least, honourable in the estimation of those who know
where they were received; for the soldier shows to greater advantage dead
in battle than alive in flight; and so strongly is this my feeling, that
if now it were proposed to perform an impossibility for me, I would
rather have had my share in that mighty action, than be free from my
wounds this minute without having been present at it. Those the soldier
shows on his face and breast are stars that direct others to the heaven
of honour and ambition of merited praise; and moreover it is to be
observed that it is not with grey hairs that one writes, but with the
understanding, and that commonly improves with years. I take it amiss,
too, that he calls me envious, and explains to me, as if I were ignorant,
what envy is; for really and truly, of the two kinds there are, I only
know that which is holy, noble, and high-minded; and if that be so, as it
is, I am not likely to attack a priest, above all if, in addition, he
holds the rank of familiar of the Holy Office. And if he said what he did
on account of him on whose behalf it seems he spoke, he is entirely
mistaken; for I worship the genius of that person, and admire his works
and his unceasing and strenuous industry. After all, I am grateful to
this gentleman, the author, for saying that my novels are more satirical
than exemplary, but that they are good; for they could not be that unless
there was a little of everything in them.
I suspect thou wilt say that I am taking a very humble line, and keeping
myself too much within the bounds of my moderation, from a feeling that
additional suffering should not be inflicted upon a sufferer, and that
what this gentleman has to endure must doubtless be very great, as he
does not dare to come out into the open field and broad daylight, but
hides his name and disguises his country as if he had been guilty of some
lese majesty. If perchance thou shouldst come to know him, tell him from
me that I do not hold myself aggrieved; for I know well what the
temptations of the devil are, and that one of the greatest is putting it
into a man’s head that he can write and print a book by which he will get
as much fame as money, and as much money as fame; and to prove it I will
beg of you, in your own sprightly, pleasant way, to tell him this story.
There was a madman in Seville who took to one of the drollest absurdities
and vagaries that ever madman in the world gave way to. It was this: he
made a tube of reed sharp at one end, and catching a dog in the street,
or wherever it might be, he with his foot held one of its legs fast, and
with his hand lifted up the other, and as best he could fixed the tube
where, by blowing, he made the dog as round as a ball; then holding it in
this position, he gave it a couple of slaps on the belly, and let it go,
saying to the bystanders (and there were always plenty of them): “Do your
worships think, now, that it is an easy thing to blow up a dog?”--Does
your worship think now, that it is an easy thing to write a book?
And if this story does not suit him, you may, dear reader, tell him this
one, which is likewise of a madman and a dog.
In Cordova there was another madman, whose way it was to carry a piece of
marble slab or a stone, not of the lightest, on his head, and when he
came upon any unwary dog he used to draw close to him and let the weight
fall right on top of him; on which the dog in a rage, barking and
howling, would run three streets without stopping. It so happened,
however, that one of the dogs he discharged his load upon was a
cap-maker’s dog, of which his master was very fond. The stone came down
hitting it on the head, the dog raised a yell at the blow, the master saw
the affair and was wroth, and snatching up a measuring-yard rushed out at
the madman and did not leave a sound bone in his body, and at every
stroke he gave him he said, “You dog, you thief! my lurcher! Don’t you
see, you brute, that my dog is a lurcher?” and so, repeating the word
“lurcher” again and again, he sent the madman away beaten to a jelly. The
madman took the lesson to heart, and vanished, and for more than a month
never once showed himself in public; but after that he came out again
with his old trick and a heavier load than ever. He came up to where
there was a dog, and examining it very carefully without venturing to let
the stone fall, he said: “This is a lurcher; ware!” In short, all the
dogs he came across, be they mastiffs or terriers, he said were lurchers;
and he discharged no more stones. Maybe it will be the same with this
historian; that he will not venture another time to discharge the weight
of his wit in books, which, being bad, are harder than stones. Tell him,
too, that I do not care a farthing for the threat he holds out to me of
depriving me of my profit by means of his book; for, to borrow from the
famous interlude of “The Perendenga,” I say in answer to him, “Long life
to my lord the Veintiquatro, and Christ be with us all.” Long life to the
great Conde de Lemos, whose Christian charity and well-known generosity
support me against all the strokes of my curst fortune; and long life to
the supreme benevolence of His Eminence of Toledo, Don Bernardo de
Sandoval y Rojas; and what matter if there be no printing-presses in the
world, or if they print more books against me than there are letters in
the verses of Mingo Revulgo! These two princes, unsought by any adulation
or flattery of mine, of their own goodness alone, have taken it upon them
to show me kindness and protect me, and in this I consider myself happier
and richer than if Fortune had raised me to her greatest height in the
ordinary way. The poor man may retain honour, but not the vicious;
poverty may cast a cloud over nobility, but cannot hide it altogether;
and as virtue of itself sheds a certain light, even though it be through
the straits and chinks of penury, it wins the esteem of lofty and noble
spirits, and in consequence their protection. Thou needst say no more to
him, nor will I say anything more to thee, save to tell thee to bear in
mind that this Second Part of “Don Quixote” which I offer thee is cut by
the same craftsman and from the same cloth as the First, and that in it I
present thee Don Quixote continued, and at length dead and buried, so
that no one may dare to bring forward any further evidence against him,
for that already produced is sufficient; and suffice it, too, that some
reputable person should have given an account of all these shrewd
lunacies of his without going into the matter again; for abundance, even
of good things, prevents them from being valued; and scarcity, even in
the case of what is bad, confers a certain value. I was forgetting to
tell thee that thou mayest expect the “Persiles,” which I am now
finishing, and also the Second Part of “Galatea.”
CHAPTER I.
OF THE INTERVIEW THE CURATE AND THE BARBER HAD WITH DON QUIXOTE ABOUT HIS
MALADY
Cide Hamete Benengeli, in the Second Part of this history, and third
sally of Don Quixote, says that the curate and the barber remained nearly
a month without seeing him, lest they should recall or bring back to his
recollection what had taken place. They did not, however, omit to visit
his niece and housekeeper, and charge them to be careful to treat him
with attention, and give him comforting things to eat, and such as were
good for the heart and the brain, whence, it was plain to see, all his
misfortune proceeded. The niece and housekeeper replied that they did so,
and meant to do so with all possible care and assiduity, for they could
perceive that their master was now and then beginning to show signs of
being in his right mind. This gave great satisfaction to the curate and
the barber, for they concluded they had taken the right course in
carrying him off enchanted on the ox-cart, as has been described in the
First Part of this great as well as accurate history, in the last chapter
thereof. So they resolved to pay him a visit and test the improvement in
his condition, although they thought it almost impossible that there
could be any; and they agreed not to touch upon any point connected with
knight-errantry so as not to run the risk of reopening wounds which were
still so tender.
They came to see him consequently, and found him sitting up in bed in a
green baize waistcoat and a red Toledo cap, and so withered and dried up
that he looked as if he had been turned into a mummy. They were very
cordially received by him; they asked him after his health, and he talked
to them about himself very naturally and in very well-chosen language. In
the course of their conversation they fell to discussing what they call
State-craft and systems of government, correcting this abuse and
condemning that, reforming one practice and abolishing another, each of
the three setting up for a new legislator, a modern Lycurgus, or a
brand-new Solon; and so completely did they remodel the State, that they
seemed to have thrust it into a furnace and taken out something quite
different from what they had put in; and on all the subjects they dealt
with, Don Quixote spoke with such good sense that the pair of examiners
were fully convinced that he was quite recovered and in his full senses.
The niece and housekeeper were present at the conversation and could not
find words enough to express their thanks to God at seeing their master
so clear in his mind; the curate, however, changing his original plan,
which was to avoid touching upon matters of chivalry, resolved to test
Don Quixote’s recovery thoroughly, and see whether it were genuine or
not; and so, from one subject to another, he came at last to talk of the
news that had come from the capital, and, among other things, he said it
was considered certain that the Turk was coming down with a powerful
fleet, and that no one knew what his purpose was, or when the great storm
would burst; and that all Christendom was in apprehension of this, which
almost every year calls us to arms, and that his Majesty had made
provision for the security of the coasts of Naples and Sicily and the
island of Malta.
To this Don Quixote replied, “His Majesty has acted like a prudent
warrior in providing for the safety of his realms in time, so that the
enemy may not find him unprepared; but if my advice were taken I would
recommend him to adopt a measure which at present, no doubt, his Majesty
is very far from thinking of.”
The moment the curate heard this he said to himself, “God keep thee in
his hand, poor Don Quixote, for it seems to me thou art precipitating
thyself from the height of thy madness into the profound abyss of thy
simplicity.”
But the barber, who had the same suspicion as the curate, asked Don
Quixote what would be his advice as to the measures that he said ought to
be adopted; for perhaps it might prove to be one that would have to be
added to the list of the many impertinent suggestions that people were in
the habit of offering to princes.
“Mine, master shaver,” said Don Quixote, “will not be impertinent, but,
on the contrary, pertinent.”
“I don’t mean that,” said the barber, “but that experience has shown that
all or most of the expedients which are proposed to his Majesty are
either impossible, or absurd, or injurious to the King and to the
kingdom.”
“Mine, however,” replied Don Quixote, “is neither impossible nor absurd,
but the easiest, the most reasonable, the readiest and most expeditious
that could suggest itself to any projector’s mind.”
“You take a long time to tell it, Señor Don Quixote,” said the curate.
“I don’t choose to tell it here, now,” said Don Quixote, “and have it
reach the ears of the lords of the council to-morrow morning, and some
other carry off the thanks and rewards of my trouble.”
“For my part,” said the barber, “I give my word here and before God that
I will not repeat what your worship says, to King, Rook or earthly
man--an oath I learned from the ballad of the curate, who, in the
prelude, told the king of the thief who had robbed him of the hundred
gold crowns and his pacing mule.”
“I am not versed in stories,” said Don Quixote; “but I know the oath is a
good one, because I know the barber to be an honest fellow.”
“Even if he were not,” said the curate, “I will go bail and answer for
him that in this matter he will be as silent as a dummy, under pain of
paying any penalty that may be pronounced.”
“And who will be security for you, señor curate?” said Don Quixote.
“My profession,” replied the curate, “which is to keep secrets.”
“Ods body!” said Don Quixote at this, “what more has his Majesty to do
but to command, by public proclamation, all the knights-errant that are
scattered over Spain to assemble on a fixed day in the capital, for even
if no more than half a dozen come, there may be one among them who alone
will suffice to destroy the entire might of the Turk. Give me your
attention and follow me. Is it, pray, any new thing for a single
knight-errant to demolish an army of two hundred thousand men, as if they
all had but one throat or were made of sugar paste? Nay, tell me, how
many histories are there filled with these marvels? If only (in an evil
hour for me: I don’t speak for anyone else) the famous Don Belianis were
alive now, or any one of the innumerable progeny of Amadis of Gaul! If
any these were alive to-day, and were to come face to face with the Turk,
by my faith, I would not give much for the Turk’s chance. But God will
have regard for his people, and will provide some one, who, if not so
valiant as the knights-errant of yore, at least will not be inferior to
them in spirit; but God knows what I mean, and I say no more.”
“Alas!” exclaimed the niece at this, “may I die if my master does not
want to turn knight-errant again;” to which Don Quixote replied, “A
knight-errant I shall die, and let the Turk come down or go up when he
likes, and in as strong force as he can, once more I say, God knows what
I mean.” But here the barber said, “I ask your worships to give me leave
to tell a short story of something that happened in Seville, which comes
so pat to the purpose just now that I should like greatly to tell it.”
Don Quixote gave him leave, and the rest prepared to listen, and he began
thus:
“In the madhouse at Seville there was a man whom his relations had placed
there as being out of his mind. He was a graduate of Osuna in canon law;
but even if he had been of Salamanca, it was the opinion of most people
that he would have been mad all the same. This graduate, after some years
of confinement, took it into his head that he was sane and in his full
senses, and under this impression wrote to the Archbishop, entreating him
earnestly, and in very correct language, to have him released from the
misery in which he was living; for by God’s mercy he had now recovered
his lost reason, though his relations, in order to enjoy his property,
kept him there, and, in spite of the truth, would make him out to be mad
until his dying day. The Archbishop, moved by repeated sensible,
well-written letters, directed one of his chaplains to make inquiry of
the madhouse as to the truth of the licentiate’s statements, and to have
an interview with the madman himself, and, if it should appear that he
was in his senses, to take him out and restore him to liberty. The
chaplain did so, and the governor assured him that the man was still mad,
and that though he often spoke like a highly intelligent person, he would
in the end break out into nonsense that in quantity and quality
counterbalanced all the sensible things he had said before, as might be
easily tested by talking to him. The chaplain resolved to try the
experiment, and obtaining access to the madman conversed with him for an
hour or more, during the whole of which time he never uttered a word that
was incoherent or absurd, but, on the contrary, spoke so rationally that
the chaplain was compelled to believe him to be sane. Among other things,
he said the governor was against him, not to lose the presents his
relations made him for reporting him still mad but with lucid intervals;
and that the worst foe he had in his misfortune was his large property;
for in order to enjoy it his enemies disparaged and threw doubts upon the
mercy our Lord had shown him in turning him from a brute beast into a
man. In short, he spoke in such a way that he cast suspicion on the
governor, and made his relations appear covetous and heartless, and
himself so rational that the chaplain determined to take him away with
him that the Archbishop might see him, and ascertain for himself the
truth of the matter. Yielding to this conviction, the worthy chaplain
begged the governor to have the clothes in which the licentiate had
entered the house given to him. The governor again bade him beware of
what he was doing, as the licentiate was beyond a doubt still mad; but
all his cautions and warnings were unavailing to dissuade the chaplain
from taking him away. The governor, seeing that it was the order of the
Archbishop, obeyed, and they dressed the licentiate in his own clothes,
which were new and decent. He, as soon as he saw himself clothed like one
in his senses, and divested of the appearance of a madman, entreated the
chaplain to permit him in charity to go and take leave of his comrades
the madmen. The chaplain said he would go with him to see what madmen
there were in the house; so they went upstairs, and with them some of
those who were present. Approaching a cage in which there was a furious
madman, though just at that moment calm and quiet, the licentiate said to
him, ‘Brother, think if you have any commands for me, for I am going
home, as God has been pleased, in his infinite goodness and mercy,
without any merit of mine, to restore me my reason. I am now cured and in
my senses, for with God’s power nothing is impossible. Have strong hope
and trust in him, for as he has restored me to my original condition, so
likewise he will restore you if you trust in him. I will take care to
send you some good things to eat; and be sure you eat them; for I would
have you know I am convinced, as one who has gone through it, that all
this madness of ours comes of having the stomach empty and the brains
full of wind. Take courage! take courage! for despondency in misfortune
breaks down health and brings on death.’
“To all these words of the licentiate another madman in a cage opposite
that of the furious one was listening; and raising himself up from an old
mat on which he lay stark naked, he asked in a loud voice who it was that
was going away cured and in his senses. The licentiate answered, ‘It is
I, brother, who am going; I have now no need to remain here any longer,
for which I return infinite thanks to Heaven that has had so great mercy
upon me.’
“‘Mind what you are saying, licentiate; don’t let the devil deceive you,’
replied the madman. ‘Keep quiet, stay where you are, and you will save
yourself the trouble of coming back.’
“‘I know I am cured,’ returned the licentiate, ‘and that I shall not have
to go stations again.’
“‘You cured!’ said the madman; ‘well, we shall see; God be with you; but
I swear to you by Jupiter, whose majesty I represent on earth, that for
this crime alone, which Seville is committing to-day in releasing you
from this house, and treating you as if you were in your senses, I shall
have to inflict such a punishment on it as will be remembered for ages
and ages, amen. Dost thou not know, thou miserable little licentiate,
that I can do it, being, as I say, Jupiter the Thunderer, who hold in my
hands the fiery bolts with which I am able and am wont to threaten and
lay waste the world? But in one way only will I punish this ignorant
town, and that is by not raining upon it, nor on any part of its district
or territory, for three whole years, to be reckoned from the day and
moment when this threat is pronounced. Thou free, thou cured, thou in thy
senses! and I mad, I disordered, I bound! I will as soon think of sending
rain as of hanging myself.
“Those present stood listening to the words and exclamations of the
madman; but our licentiate, turning to the chaplain and seizing him by
the hands, said to him, ‘Be not uneasy, señor; attach no importance to
what this madman has said; for if he is Jupiter and will not send rain,
I, who am Neptune, the father and god of the waters, will rain as often
as it pleases me and may be needful.’
“The governor and the bystanders laughed, and at their laughter the
chaplain was half ashamed, and he replied, ‘For all that, Señor Neptune,
it will not do to vex Señor Jupiter; remain where you are, and some other
day, when there is a better opportunity and more time, we will come back
for you.’ So they stripped the licentiate, and he was left where he was;
and that’s the end of the story.”
“So that’s the story, master barber,” said Don Quixote, “which came in so
pat to the purpose that you could not help telling it? Master shaver,
master shaver! how blind is he who cannot see through a sieve. Is it
possible that you do not know that comparisons of wit with wit, valour
with valour, beauty with beauty, birth with birth, are always odious and
unwelcome? I, master barber, am not Neptune, the god of the waters, nor
do I try to make anyone take me for an astute man, for I am not one. My
only endeavour is to convince the world of the mistake it makes in not
reviving in itself the happy time when the order of knight-errantry was
in the field. But our depraved age does not deserve to enjoy such a
blessing as those ages enjoyed when knights-errant took upon their
shoulders the defence of kingdoms, the protection of damsels, the succour
of orphans and minors, the chastisement of the proud, and the recompense
of the humble. With the knights of these days, for the most part, it is
the damask, brocade, and rich stuffs they wear, that rustle as they go,
not the chain mail of their armour; no knight now-a-days sleeps in the
open field exposed to the inclemency of heaven, and in full panoply from
head to foot; no one now takes a nap, as they call it, without drawing
his feet out of the stirrups, and leaning upon his lance, as the
knights-errant used to do; no one now, issuing from the wood, penetrates
yonder mountains, and then treads the barren, lonely shore of the
sea--mostly a tempestuous and stormy one--and finding on the beach a
little bark without oars, sail, mast, or tackling of any kind, in the
intrepidity of his heart flings himself into it and commits himself to
the wrathful billows of the deep sea, that one moment lift him up to
heaven and the next plunge him into the depths; and opposing his breast
to the irresistible gale, finds himself, when he least expects it, three
thousand leagues and more away from the place where he embarked; and
leaping ashore in a remote and unknown land has adventures that deserve
to be written, not on parchment, but on brass. But now sloth triumphs
over energy, indolence over exertion, vice over virtue, arrogance over
courage, and theory over practice in arms, which flourished and shone
only in the golden ages and in knights-errant. For tell me, who was more
virtuous and more valiant than the famous Amadis of Gaul? Who more
discreet than Palmerin of England? Who more gracious and easy than
Tirante el Blanco? Who more courtly than Lisuarte of Greece? Who more
slashed or slashing than Don Belianis? Who more intrepid than Perion of
Gaul? Who more ready to face danger than Felixmarte of Hircania? Who more
sincere than Esplandian? Who more impetuous than Don Cirongilio of
Thrace? Who more bold than Rodamonte? Who more prudent than King Sobrino?
Who more daring than Reinaldos? Who more invincible than Roland? and who
more gallant and courteous than Ruggiero, from whom the dukes of Ferrara
of the present day are descended, according to Turpin in his
‘Cosmography.’ All these knights, and many more that I could name, señor
curate, were knights-errant, the light and glory of chivalry. These, or
such as these, I would have to carry out my plan, and in that case his
Majesty would find himself well served and would save great expense, and
the Turk would be left tearing his beard. And so I will stay where I am,
as the chaplain does not take me away; and if Jupiter, as the barber has
told us, will not send rain, here am I, and I will rain when I please. I
say this that Master Basin may know that I understand him.”
“Indeed, Señor Don Quixote,” said the barber, “I did not mean it in that
way, and, so help me God, my intention was good, and your worship ought
not to be vexed.”
“As to whether I ought to be vexed or not,” returned Don Quixote, “I
myself am the best judge.”
Hereupon the curate observed, “I have hardly said a word as yet; and I
would gladly be relieved of a doubt, arising from what Don Quixote has
said, that worries and works my conscience.”
“The señor curate has leave for more than that,” returned Don Quixote,
“so he may declare his doubt, for it is not pleasant to have a doubt on
one’s conscience.”
“Well then, with that permission,” said the curate, “I say my doubt is
that, all I can do, I cannot persuade myself that the whole pack of
knights-errant you, Señor Don Quixote, have mentioned, were really and
truly persons of flesh and blood, that ever lived in the world; on the
contrary, I suspect it to be all fiction, fable, and falsehood, and
dreams told by men awakened from sleep, or rather still half asleep.”
“That is another mistake,” replied Don Quixote, “into which many have
fallen who do not believe that there ever were such knights in the world,
and I have often, with divers people and on divers occasions, tried to
expose this almost universal error to the light of truth. Sometimes I
have not been successful in my purpose, sometimes I have, supporting it
upon the shoulders of the truth; which truth is so clear that I can
almost say I have with my own eyes seen Amadis of Gaul, who was a man of
lofty stature, fair complexion, with a handsome though black beard, of a
countenance between gentle and stern in expression, sparing of words,
slow to anger, and quick to put it away from him; and as I have depicted
Amadis, so I could, I think, portray and describe all the knights-errant
that are in all the histories in the world; for by the perception I have
that they were what their histories describe, and by the deeds they did
and the dispositions they displayed, it is possible, with the aid of
sound philosophy, to deduce their features, complexion, and stature.”
“How big, in your worship’s opinion, may the giant Morgante have been,
Señor Don Quixote?” asked the barber.
“With regard to giants,” replied Don Quixote, “opinions differ as to
whether there ever were any or not in the world; but the Holy Scripture,
which cannot err by a jot from the truth, shows us that there were, when
it gives us the history of that big Philistine, Goliath, who was seven
cubits and a half in height, which is a huge size. Likewise, in the
island of Sicily, there have been found leg-bones and arm-bones so large
that their size makes it plain that their owners were giants, and as tall
as great towers; geometry puts this fact beyond a doubt. But, for all
that, I cannot speak with certainty as to the size of Morgante, though I
suspect he cannot have been very tall; and I am inclined to be of this
opinion because I find in the history in which his deeds are particularly
mentioned, that he frequently slept under a roof and as he found houses
to contain him, it is clear that his bulk could not have been anything
excessive.”
“That is true,” said the curate, and yielding to the enjoyment of hearing
such nonsense, he asked him what was his notion of the features of
Reinaldos of Montalban, and Don Roland and the rest of the Twelve Peers
of France, for they were all knights-errant.
“As for Reinaldos,” replied Don Quixote, “I venture to say that he was
broad-faced, of ruddy complexion, with roguish and somewhat prominent
eyes, excessively punctilious and touchy, and given to the society of
thieves and scapegraces. With regard to Roland, or Rotolando, or Orlando
(for the histories call him by all these names), I am of opinion, and
hold, that he was of middle height, broad-shouldered, rather bow-legged,
swarthy-complexioned, red-bearded, with a hairy body and a severe
expression of countenance, a man of few words, but very polite and
well-bred.”
“If Roland was not a more graceful person than your worship has
described,” said the curate, “it is no wonder that the fair Lady Angelica
rejected him and left him for the gaiety, liveliness, and grace of that
budding-bearded little Moor to whom she surrendered herself; and she
showed her sense in falling in love with the gentle softness of Medoro
rather than the roughness of Roland.”
“That Angelica, señor curate,” returned Don Quixote, “was a giddy damsel,
flighty and somewhat wanton, and she left the world as full of her
vagaries as of the fame of her beauty. She treated with scorn a thousand
gentlemen, men of valour and wisdom, and took up with a smooth-faced
sprig of a page, without fortune or fame, except such reputation for
gratitude as the affection he bore his friend got for him. The great poet
who sang her beauty, the famous Ariosto, not caring to sing her
adventures after her contemptible surrender (which probably were not over
and above creditable), dropped her where he says:
How she received the sceptre of Cathay,
Some bard of defter quill may sing some day;
and this was no doubt a kind of prophecy, for poets are also called
vates, that is to say diviners; and its truth was made plain; for since
then a famous Andalusian poet has lamented and sung her tears, and
another famous and rare poet, a Castilian, has sung her beauty.”
“Tell me, Señor Don Quixote,” said the barber here, “among all those who
praised her, has there been no poet to write a satire on this Lady
Angelica?”
“I can well believe,” replied Don Quixote, “that if Sacripante or Roland
had been poets they would have given the damsel a trimming; for it is
naturally the way with poets who have been scorned and rejected by their
ladies, whether fictitious or not, in short by those whom they select as
the ladies of their thoughts, to avenge themselves in satires and
libels--a vengeance, to be sure, unworthy of generous hearts; but up to
the present I have not heard of any defamatory verse against the Lady
Angelica, who turned the world upside down.”
“Strange,” said the curate; but at this moment they heard the housekeeper
and the niece, who had previously withdrawn from the conversation,
exclaiming aloud in the courtyard, and at the noise they all ran out.
CHAPTER II.
WHICH TREATS OF THE NOTABLE ALTERCATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HAD WITH DON
QUIXOTE’S NIECE, AND HOUSEKEEPER, TOGETHER WITH OTHER DROLL MATTERS
The history relates that the outcry Don Quixote, the curate, and the
barber heard came from the niece and the housekeeper exclaiming to
Sancho, who was striving to force his way in to see Don Quixote while
they held the door against him, “What does the vagabond want in this
house? Be off to your own, brother, for it is you, and no one else, that
delude my master, and lead him astray, and take him tramping about the
country.”
To which Sancho replied, “Devil’s own housekeeper! it is I who am
deluded, and led astray, and taken tramping about the country, and not
thy master! He has carried me all over the world, and you are mightily
mistaken. He enticed me away from home by a trick, promising me an
island, which I am still waiting for.”
“May evil islands choke thee, thou detestable Sancho,” said the niece;
“What are islands? Is it something to eat, glutton and gormandiser that
thou art?”
“It is not something to eat,” replied Sancho, “but something to govern
and rule, and better than four cities or four judgeships at court.”
“For all that,” said the housekeeper, “you don’t enter here, you bag of
mischief and sack of knavery; go govern your house and dig your
seed-patch, and give over looking for islands or shylands.”
The curate and the barber listened with great amusement to the words of
the three; but Don Quixote, uneasy lest Sancho should blab and blurt out
a whole heap of mischievous stupidities, and touch upon points that might
not be altogether to his credit, called to him and made the other two
hold their tongues and let him come in. Sancho entered, and the curate
and the barber took their leave of Don Quixote, of whose recovery they
despaired when they saw how wedded he was to his crazy ideas, and how
saturated with the nonsense of his unlucky chivalry; and said the curate
to the barber, “You will see, gossip, that when we are least thinking of
it, our gentleman will be off once more for another flight.”
“I have no doubt of it,” returned the barber; “but I do not wonder so
much at the madness of the knight as at the simplicity of the squire, who
has such a firm belief in all that about the island, that I suppose all
the exposures that could be imagined would not get it out of his head.”
“God help them,” said the curate; “and let us be on the look-out to see
what comes of all these absurdities of the knight and squire, for it
seems as if they had both been cast in the same mould, and the madness of
the master without the simplicity of the man would not be worth a
farthing.”
“That is true,” said the barber, “and I should like very much to know
what the pair are talking about at this moment.”
“I promise you,” said the curate, “the niece or the housekeeper will tell
us by-and-by, for they are not the ones to forget to listen.”
Meanwhile Don Quixote shut himself up in his room with Sancho, and when
they were alone he said to him, “It grieves me greatly, Sancho, that thou
shouldst have said, and sayest, that I took thee out of thy cottage, when
thou knowest I did not remain in my house. We sallied forth together, we
took the road together, we wandered abroad together; we have had the same
fortune and the same luck; if they blanketed thee once, they belaboured
me a hundred times, and that is the only advantage I have of thee.”
“That was only reasonable,” replied Sancho, “for, by what your worship
says, misfortunes belong more properly to knights-errant than to their
squires.”
“Thou art mistaken, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “according to the maxim
quando caput dolet, etc.”
“I don’t understand any language but my own,” said Sancho.
“I mean to say,” said Don Quixote, “that when the head suffers all the
members suffer; and so, being thy lord and master, I am thy head, and
thou a part of me as thou art my servant; and therefore any evil that
affects or shall affect me should give thee pain, and what affects thee
give pain to me.”
“It should be so,” said Sancho; “but when I was blanketed as a member, my
head was on the other side of the wall, looking on while I was flying
through the air, and did not feel any pain whatever; and if the members
are obliged to feel the suffering of the head, it should be obliged to
feel their sufferings.”
“Dost thou mean to say now, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that I did not
feel when they were blanketing thee? If thou dost, thou must not say so
or think so, for I felt more pain then in spirit than thou didst in body.
But let us put that aside for the present, for we shall have
opportunities enough for considering and settling the point; tell me,
Sancho my friend, what do they say about me in the village here? What do
the common people think of me? What do the hidalgos? What do the
caballeros? What do they say of my valour; of my achievements; of my
courtesy? How do they treat the task I have undertaken in reviving and
restoring to the world the now forgotten order of chivalry? In short,
Sancho, I would have thee tell me all that has come to thine ears on this
subject; and thou art to tell me, without adding anything to the good or
taking away anything from the bad; for it is the duty of loyal vassals to
tell the truth to their lords just as it is and in its proper shape, not
allowing flattery to add to it or any idle deference to lessen it. And I
would have thee know, Sancho, that if the naked truth, undisguised by
flattery, came to the ears of princes, times would be different, and
other ages would be reckoned iron ages more than ours, which I hold to be
the golden of these latter days. Profit by this advice, Sancho, and
report to me clearly and faithfully the truth of what thou knowest
touching what I have demanded of thee.”
“That I will do with all my heart, master,” replied Sancho, “provided
your worship will not be vexed at what I say, as you wish me to say it
out in all its nakedness, without putting any more clothes on it than it
came to my knowledge in.”
“I will not be vexed at all,” returned Don Quixote; “thou mayest speak
freely, Sancho, and without any beating about the bush.”
“Well then,” said he, “first of all, I have to tell you that the common
people consider your worship a mighty great madman, and me no less a
fool. The hidalgos say that, not keeping within the bounds of your
quality of gentleman, you have assumed the ‘Don,’ and made a knight of
yourself at a jump, with four vine-stocks and a couple of acres of land,
and never a shirt to your back. The caballeros say they do not want to
have hidalgos setting up in opposition to them, particularly squire
hidalgos who polish their own shoes and darn their black stockings with
green silk.”
“That,” said Don Quixote, “does not apply to me, for I always go well
dressed and never patched; ragged I may be, but ragged more from the wear
and tear of arms than of time.”
“As to your worship’s valour, courtesy, accomplishments, and task, there
is a variety of opinions. Some say, ‘mad but droll;’ others, ‘valiant but
unlucky;’ others, ‘courteous but meddling,’ and then they go into such a
number of things that they don’t leave a whole bone either in your
worship or in myself.”
“Recollect, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that wherever virtue exists in an
eminent degree it is persecuted. Few or none of the famous men that have
lived escaped being calumniated by malice. Julius Caesar, the boldest,
wisest, and bravest of captains, was charged with being ambitious, and
not particularly cleanly in his dress, or pure in his morals. Of
Alexander, whose deeds won him the name of Great, they say that he was
somewhat of a drunkard. Of Hercules, him of the many labours, it is said
that he was lewd and luxurious. Of Don Galaor, the brother of Amadis of
Gaul, it was whispered that he was over-quarrelsome, and of his brother
that he was lachrymose. So that, O Sancho, amongst all these calumnies
against good men, mine may be let pass, since they are no more than thou
hast said.”
“That’s just where it is, body of my father!”
“Is there more, then?” asked Don Quixote.
“There’s the tail to be skinned yet,” said Sancho; “all so far is cakes
and fancy bread; but if your worship wants to know all about the
calumnies they bring against you, I will fetch you one this instant who
can tell you the whole of them without missing an atom; for last night
the son of Bartholomew Carrasco, who has been studying at Salamanca, came
home after having been made a bachelor, and when I went to welcome him,
he told me that your worship’s history is already abroad in books, with
the title of THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA; and he
says they mention me in it by my own name of Sancho Panza, and the lady
Dulcinea del Toboso too, and divers things that happened to us when we
were alone; so that I crossed myself in my wonder how the historian who
wrote them down could have known them.”
“I promise thee, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “the author of our history
will be some sage enchanter; for to such nothing that they choose to
write about is hidden.”
“What!” said Sancho, “a sage and an enchanter! Why, the bachelor Samson
Carrasco (that is the name of him I spoke of) says the author of the
history is called Cide Hamete Berengena.”
“That is a Moorish name,” said Don Quixote.
“May be so,” replied Sancho; “for I have heard say that the Moors are
mostly great lovers of berengenas.”
“Thou must have mistaken the surname of this ‘Cide’--which means in
Arabic ‘Lord’--Sancho,” observed Don Quixote.
“Very likely,” replied Sancho, “but if your worship wishes me to fetch
the bachelor I will go for him in a twinkling.”
“Thou wilt do me a great pleasure, my friend,” said Don Quixote, “for
what thou hast told me has amazed me, and I shall not eat a morsel that
will agree with me until I have heard all about it.”
“Then I am off for him,” said Sancho; and leaving his master he went in
quest of the bachelor, with whom he returned in a short time, and, all
three together, they had a very droll colloquy.
CHAPTER III.
OF THE LAUGHABLE CONVERSATION THAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE, SANCHO
PANZA, AND THE BACHELOR SAMSON CARRASCO
Don Quixote remained very deep in thought, waiting for the bachelor
Carrasco, from whom he was to hear how he himself had been put into a
book as Sancho said; and he could not persuade himself that any such
history could be in existence, for the blood of the enemies he had slain
was not yet dry on the blade of his sword, and now they wanted to make
out that his mighty achievements were going about in print. For all that,
he fancied some sage, either a friend or an enemy, might, by the aid of
magic, have given them to the press; if a friend, in order to magnify and
exalt them above the most famous ever achieved by any knight-errant; if
an enemy, to bring them to naught and degrade them below the meanest ever
recorded of any low squire, though as he said to himself, the
achievements of squires never were recorded. If, however, it were the
fact that such a history were in existence, it must necessarily, being
the story of a knight-errant, be grandiloquent, lofty, imposing, grand
and true. With this he comforted himself somewhat, though it made him
uncomfortable to think that the author was a Moor, judging by the title
of “Cide;” and that no truth was to be looked for from Moors, as they are
all impostors, cheats, and schemers. He was afraid he might have dealt
with his love affairs in some indecorous fashion, that might tend to the
discredit and prejudice of the purity of his lady Dulcinea del Toboso; he
would have had him set forth the fidelity and respect he had always
observed towards her, spurning queens, empresses, and damsels of all
sorts, and keeping in check the impetuosity of his natural impulses.
Absorbed and wrapped up in these and divers other cogitations, he was
found by Sancho and Carrasco, whom Don Quixote received with great
courtesy.
The bachelor, though he was called Samson, was of no great bodily size,
but he was a very great wag; he was of a sallow complexion, but very
sharp-witted, somewhere about four-and-twenty years of age, with a round
face, a flat nose, and a large mouth, all indications of a mischievous
disposition and a love of fun and jokes; and of this he gave a sample as
soon as he saw Don Quixote, by falling on his knees before him and
saying, “Let me kiss your mightiness’s hand, Señor Don Quixote of La
Mancha, for, by the habit of St. Peter that I wear, though I have no more
than the first four orders, your worship is one of the most famous
knights-errant that have ever been, or will be, all the world over. A
blessing on Cide Hamete Benengeli, who has written the history of your
great deeds, and a double blessing on that connoisseur who took the
trouble of having it translated out of the Arabic into our Castilian
vulgar tongue for the universal entertainment of the people!”
Don Quixote made him rise, and said, “So, then, it is true that there is
a history of me, and that it was a Moor and a sage who wrote it?”
“So true is it, señor,” said Samson, “that my belief is there are more
than twelve thousand volumes of the said history in print this very day.
Only ask Portugal, Barcelona, and Valencia, where they have been printed,
and moreover there is a report that it is being printed at Antwerp, and I
am persuaded there will not be a country or language in which there will
not be a translation of it.”
“One of the things,” here observed Don Quixote, “that ought to give most
pleasure to a virtuous and eminent man is to find himself in his lifetime
in print and in type, familiar in people’s mouths with a good name; I say
with a good name, for if it be the opposite, then there is no death to be
compared to it.”
“If it goes by good name and fame,” said the bachelor, “your worship
alone bears away the palm from all the knights-errant; for the Moor in
his own language, and the Christian in his, have taken care to set before
us your gallantry, your high courage in encountering dangers, your
fortitude in adversity, your patience under misfortunes as well as
wounds, the purity and continence of the platonic loves of your worship
and my lady Dona Dulcinea del Toboso-”
“I never heard my lady Dulcinea called Dona,” observed Sancho here;
“nothing more than the lady Dulcinea del Toboso; so here already the
history is wrong.”
“That is not an objection of any importance,” replied Carrasco.
“Certainly not,” said Don Quixote; “but tell me, señor bachelor, what
deeds of mine are they that are made most of in this history?”
“On that point,” replied the bachelor, “opinions differ, as tastes do;
some swear by the adventure of the windmills that your worship took to be
Briareuses and giants; others by that of the fulling mills; one cries up
the description of the two armies that afterwards took the appearance of
two droves of sheep; another that of the dead body on its way to be
buried at Segovia; a third says the liberation of the galley slaves is
the best of all, and a fourth that nothing comes up to the affair with
the Benedictine giants, and the battle with the valiant Biscayan.”
“Tell me, señor bachelor,” said Sancho at this point, “does the adventure
with the Yanguesans come in, when our good Rocinante went hankering after
dainties?”
“The sage has left nothing in the ink-bottle,” replied Samson; “he tells
all and sets down everything, even to the capers that worthy Sancho cut
in the blanket.”
“I cut no capers in the blanket,” returned Sancho; “in the air I did, and
more of them than I liked.”
“There is no human history in the world, I suppose,” said Don Quixote,
“that has not its ups and downs, but more than others such as deal with
chivalry, for they can never be entirely made up of prosperous
adventures.”
“For all that,” replied the bachelor, “there are those who have read the
history who say they would have been glad if the author had left out some
of the countless cudgellings that were inflicted on Señor Don Quixote in
various encounters.”
“That’s where the truth of the history comes in,” said Sancho.
“At the same time they might fairly have passed them over in silence,”
observed Don Quixote; “for there is no need of recording events which do
not change or affect the truth of a history, if they tend to bring the
hero of it into contempt. Æneas was not in truth and earnest so pious as
Virgil represents him, nor Ulysses so wise as Homer describes him.”
“That is true,” said Samson; “but it is one thing to write as a poet,
another to write as a historian; the poet may describe or sing things,
not as they were, but as they ought to have been; but the historian has
to write them down, not as they ought to have been, but as they were,
without adding anything to the truth or taking anything from it.”
“Well then,” said Sancho, “if this señor Moor goes in for telling the
truth, no doubt among my master’s drubbings mine are to be found; for
they never took the measure of his worship’s shoulders without doing the
same for my whole body; but I have no right to wonder at that, for, as my
master himself says, the members must share the pain of the head.”
“You are a sly dog, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “i’ faith, you have no
want of memory when you choose to remember.”
“If I were to try to forget the thwacks they gave me,” said Sancho, “my
weals would not let me, for they are still fresh on my ribs.”
“Hush, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and don’t interrupt the bachelor, whom
I entreat to go on and tell all that is said about me in this history.”
“And about me,” said Sancho, “for they say, too, that I am one of the
principal presonages in it.”
“Personages, not presonages, friend Sancho,” said Samson.
“What! Another word-catcher!” said Sancho; “if that’s to be the way we
shall not make an end in a lifetime.”
“May God shorten mine, Sancho,” returned the bachelor, “if you are not
the second person in the history, and there are even some who would
rather hear you talk than the cleverest in the whole book; though there
are some, too, who say you showed yourself over-credulous in believing
there was any possibility in the government of that island offered you by
Señor Don Quixote.”
“There is still sunshine on the wall,” said Don Quixote; “and when Sancho
is somewhat more advanced in life, with the experience that years bring,
he will be fitter and better qualified for being a governor than he is at
present.”
“By God, master,” said Sancho, “the island that I cannot govern with the
years I have, I’ll not be able to govern with the years of Methuselah;
the difficulty is that the said island keeps its distance somewhere, I
know not where; and not that there is any want of head in me to govern
it.”
“Leave it to God, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for all will be and perhaps
better than you think; no leaf on the tree stirs but by God’s will.”
“That is true,” said Samson; “and if it be God’s will, there will not be
any want of a thousand islands, much less one, for Sancho to govern.”
“I have seen governors in these parts,” said Sancho, “that are not to be
compared to my shoe-sole; and for all that they are called ‘your
lordship’ and served on silver.”
“Those are not governors of islands,” observed Samson, “but of other
governments of an easier kind: those that govern islands must at least
know grammar.”
“I could manage the gram well enough,” said Sancho; “but for the mar I
have neither leaning nor liking, for I don’t know what it is; but leaving
this matter of the government in God’s hands, to send me wherever it may
be most to his service, I may tell you, señor bachelor Samson Carrasco,
it has pleased me beyond measure that the author of this history should
have spoken of me in such a way that what is said of me gives no offence;
for, on the faith of a true squire, if he had said anything about me that
was at all unbecoming an old Christian, such as I am, the deaf would have
heard of it.”
“That would be working miracles,” said Samson.
“Miracles or no miracles,” said Sancho, “let everyone mind how he speaks
or writes about people, and not set down at random the first thing that
comes into his head.”
“One of the faults they find with this history,” said the bachelor, “is
that its author inserted in it a novel called ‘The Ill-advised
Curiosity;’ not that it is bad or ill-told, but that it is out of place
and has nothing to do with the history of his worship Señor Don Quixote.”
“I will bet the son of a dog has mixed the cabbages and the baskets,”
said Sancho.
“Then, I say,” said Don Quixote, “the author of my history was no sage,
but some ignorant chatterer, who, in a haphazard and heedless way, set
about writing it, let it turn out as it might, just as Orbaneja, the
painter of Ubeda, used to do, who, when they asked him what he was
painting, answered, ‘What it may turn out.’ Sometimes he would paint a
cock in such a fashion, and so unlike, that he had to write alongside
of it in Gothic letters, ‘This is a cock;’ and so it will be with my
history, which will require a commentary to make it intelligible.”
“No fear of that,” returned Samson, “for it is so plain that there is
nothing in it to puzzle over; the children turn its leaves, the young
people read it, the grown men understand it, the old folk praise it; in a
word, it is so thumbed, and read, and got by heart by people of all
sorts, that the instant they see any lean hack, they say, ‘There goes
Rocinante.’ And those that are most given to reading it are the pages,
for there is not a lord’s ante-chamber where there is not a ‘Don Quixote’
to be found; one takes it up if another lays it down; this one pounces
upon it, and that begs for it. In short, the said history is the most
delightful and least injurious entertainment that has been hitherto seen,
for there is not to be found in the whole of it even the semblance of an
immodest word, or a thought that is other than Catholic.”
“To write in any other way,” said Don Quixote, “would not be to write
truth, but falsehood, and historians who have recourse to falsehood
ought to be burned, like those who coin false money; and I know not
what could have led the author to have recourse to novels and
irrelevant stories, when he had so much to write about in mine; no
doubt he must have gone by the proverb ‘with straw or with hay, &c.,’
for by merely setting forth my thoughts, my sighs, my tears, my lofty
purposes, my enterprises, he might have made a volume as large, or
larger than all the works of El Tostado would make up. In fact, the
conclusion I arrive at, señor bachelor, is, that to write histories, or
books of any kind, there is need of great judgment and a ripe
understanding. To give expression to humour, and write in a strain of
graceful pleasantry, is the gift of great geniuses. The cleverest
character in comedy is the clown, for he who would make people take him
for a fool, must not be one. History is in a measure a sacred thing,
for it should be true, and where the truth is, there God is; but
notwithstanding this, there are some who write and fling books
broadcast on the world as if they were fritters.”
“There is no book so bad but it has something good in it,” said the
bachelor.
“No doubt of that,” replied Don Quixote; “but it often happens that those
who have acquired and attained a well-deserved reputation by their
writings, lose it entirely, or damage it in some degree, when they give
them to the press.”
“The reason of that,” said Samson, “is, that as printed works are
examined leisurely, their faults are easily seen; and the greater the
fame of the writer, the more closely are they scrutinised. Men famous for
their genius, great poets, illustrious historians, are always, or most
commonly, envied by those who take a particular delight and pleasure in
criticising the writings of others, without having produced any of their
own.”
“That is no wonder,” said Don Quixote; “for there are many divines who
are no good for the pulpit, but excellent in detecting the defects or
excesses of those who preach.”
“All that is true, Señor Don Quixote,” said Carrasco; “but I wish such
fault-finders were more lenient and less exacting, and did not pay so
much attention to the spots on the bright sun of the work they grumble
at; for if aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus, they should remember how
long he remained awake to shed the light of his work with as little shade
as possible; and perhaps it may be that what they find fault with may be
moles, that sometimes heighten the beauty of the face that bears them;
and so I say very great is the risk to which he who prints a book exposes
himself, for of all impossibilities the greatest is to write one that
will satisfy and please all readers.”
“That which treats of me must have pleased few,” said Don Quixote.
“Quite the contrary,” said the bachelor; “for, as stultorum infinitum est
numerus, innumerable are those who have relished the said history; but
some have brought a charge against the author’s memory, inasmuch as he
forgot to say who the thief was who stole Sancho’s Dapple; for it is not
stated there, but only to be inferred from what is set down, that he was
stolen, and a little farther on we see Sancho mounted on the same ass,
without any reappearance of it. They say, too, that he forgot to state
what Sancho did with those hundred crowns that he found in the valise in
the Sierra Morena, as he never alludes to them again, and there are many
who would be glad to know what he did with them, or what he spent them
on, for it is one of the serious omissions of the work.”
“Señor Samson, I am not in a humour now for going into accounts or
explanations,” said Sancho; “for there’s a sinking of the stomach come
over me, and unless I doctor it with a couple of sups of the old stuff it
will put me on the thorn of Santa Lucia. I have it at home, and my old
woman is waiting for me; after dinner I’ll come back, and will answer you
and all the world every question you may choose to ask, as well about the
loss of the ass as about the spending of the hundred crowns;” and without
another word or waiting for a reply he made off home.
Don Quixote begged and entreated the bachelor to stay and do penance with
him. The bachelor accepted the invitation and remained, a couple of young
pigeons were added to the ordinary fare, at dinner they talked chivalry,
Carrasco fell in with his host’s humour, the banquet came to an end, they
took their afternoon sleep, Sancho returned, and their conversation was
resumed.
CHAPTER IV.
IN WHICH SANCHO PANZA GIVES A SATISFACTORY REPLY TO THE DOUBTS AND
QUESTIONS OF THE BACHELOR SAMSON CARRASCO, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MATTERS
WORTH KNOWING AND TELLING
Sancho came back to Don Quixote’s house, and returning to the late
subject of conversation, he said, “As to what Señor Samson said, that he
would like to know by whom, or how, or when my ass was stolen, I say in
reply that the same night we went into the Sierra Morena, flying from the
Holy Brotherhood after that unlucky adventure of the galley slaves, and
the other of the corpse that was going to Segovia, my master and I
ensconced ourselves in a thicket, and there, my master leaning on his
lance, and I seated on my Dapple, battered and weary with the late frays
we fell asleep as if it had been on four feather mattresses; and I in
particular slept so sound, that, whoever he was, he was able to come and
prop me up on four stakes, which he put under the four corners of the
pack-saddle in such a way that he left me mounted on it, and took away
Dapple from under me without my feeling it.”
“That is an easy matter,” said Don Quixote, “and it is no new occurrence,
for the same thing happened to Sacripante at the siege of Albracca; the
famous thief, Brunello, by the same contrivance, took his horse from
between his legs.”
“Day came,” continued Sancho, “and the moment I stirred the stakes gave
way and I fell to the ground with a mighty come down; I looked about for
the ass, but could not see him; the tears rushed to my eyes and I raised
such a lamentation that, if the author of our history has not put it in,
he may depend upon it he has left out a good thing. Some days after, I
know not how many, travelling with her ladyship the Princess Micomicona,
I saw my ass, and mounted upon him, in the dress of a gipsy, was that
Gines de Pasamonte, the great rogue and rascal that my master and I freed
from the chain.”
“That is not where the mistake is,” replied Samson; “it is, that before
the ass has turned up, the author speaks of Sancho as being mounted on
it.”
“I don’t know what to say to that,” said Sancho, “unless that the
historian made a mistake, or perhaps it might be a blunder of the
printer’s.”
“No doubt that’s it,” said Samson; “but what became of the hundred
crowns? Did they vanish?”
To which Sancho answered, “I spent them for my own good, and my wife’s,
and my children’s, and it is they that have made my wife bear so
patiently all my wanderings on highways and byways, in the service of my
master, Don Quixote; for if after all this time I had come back to the
house without a rap and without the ass, it would have been a poor
look-out for me; and if anyone wants to know anything more about me, here
I am, ready to answer the king himself in person; and it is no affair of
anyone’s whether I took or did not take, whether I spent or did not
spend; for the whacks that were given me in these journeys were to be
paid for in money, even if they were valued at no more than four
maravedis apiece, another hundred crowns would not pay me for half of
them. Let each look to himself and not try to make out white black, and
black white; for each of us is as God made him, aye, and often worse.”
“I will take care,” said Carrasco, “to impress upon the author of the
history that, if he prints it again, he must not forget what worthy
Sancho has said, for it will raise it a good span higher.”
“Is there anything else to correct in the history, señor bachelor?” asked
Don Quixote.
“No doubt there is,” replied he; “but not anything that will be of the
same importance as those I have mentioned.”
“Does the author promise a second part at all?” said Don Quixote.
“He does promise one,” replied Samson; “but he says he has not found it,
nor does he know who has got it; and we cannot say whether it will appear
or not; and so, on that head, as some say that no second part has ever
been good, and others that enough has been already written about Don
Quixote, it is thought there will be no second part; though some, who are
jovial rather than saturnine, say, ‘Let us have more Quixotades, let Don
Quixote charge and Sancho chatter, and no matter what it may turn out, we
shall be satisfied with that.’”
“And what does the author mean to do?” said Don Quixote.
“What?” replied Samson; “why, as soon as he has found the history which
he is now searching for with extraordinary diligence, he will at once
give it to the press, moved more by the profit that may accrue to him
from doing so than by any thought of praise.”
Whereat Sancho observed, “The author looks for money and profit, does he?
It will be a wonder if he succeeds, for it will be only hurry, hurry,
with him, like the tailor on Easter Eve; and works done in a hurry are
never finished as perfectly as they ought to be. Let master Moor, or
whatever he is, pay attention to what he is doing, and I and my master
will give him as much grouting ready to his hand, in the way of
adventures and accidents of all sorts, as would make up not only one
second part, but a hundred. The good man fancies, no doubt, that we are
fast asleep in the straw here, but let him hold up our feet to be shod
and he will see which foot it is we go lame on. All I say is, that if my
master would take my advice, we would be now afield, redressing outrages
and righting wrongs, as is the use and custom of good knights-errant.”
Sancho had hardly uttered these words when the neighing of Rocinante fell
upon their ears, which neighing Don Quixote accepted as a happy omen, and
he resolved to make another sally in three or four days from that time.
Announcing his intention to the bachelor, he asked his advice as to the
quarter in which he ought to commence his expedition, and the bachelor
replied that in his opinion he ought to go to the kingdom of Aragon, and
the city of Saragossa, where there were to be certain solemn joustings at
the festival of St. George, at which he might win renown above all the
knights of Aragon, which would be winning it above all the knights of the
world. He commended his very praiseworthy and gallant resolution, but
admonished him to proceed with greater caution in encountering dangers,
because his life did not belong to him, but to all those who had need of
him to protect and aid them in their misfortunes.
“There’s where it is, what I abominate, Señor Samson,” said Sancho here;
“my master will attack a hundred armed men as a greedy boy would half a
dozen melons. Body of the world, señor bachelor! there is a time to
attack and a time to retreat, and it is not to be always ‘Santiago, and
close Spain!’ Moreover, I have heard it said (and I think by my master
himself, if I remember rightly) that the mean of valour lies between the
extremes of cowardice and rashness; and if that be so, I don’t want him
to fly without having good reason, or to attack when the odds make it
better not. But, above all things, I warn my master that if he is to take
me with him it must be on the condition that he is to do all the
fighting, and that I am not to be called upon to do anything except what
concerns keeping him clean and comfortable; in this I will dance
attendance on him readily; but to expect me to draw sword, even against
rascally churls of the hatchet and hood, is idle. I don’t set up to be a
fighting man, Señor Samson, but only the best and most loyal squire that
ever served knight-errant; and if my master Don Quixote, in consideration
of my many faithful services, is pleased to give me some island of the
many his worship says one may stumble on in these parts, I will take it
as a great favour; and if he does not give it to me, I was born like
everyone else, and a man must not live in dependence on anyone except
God; and what is more, my bread will taste as well, and perhaps even
better, without a government than if I were a governor; and how do I know
but that in these governments the devil may have prepared some trip for
me, to make me lose my footing and fall and knock my grinders out? Sancho
I was born and Sancho I mean to die. But for all that, if heaven were to
make me a fair offer of an island or something else of the kind, without
much trouble and without much risk, I am not such a fool as to refuse it;
for they say, too, ‘when they offer thee a heifer, run with a halter; and
‘when good luck comes to thee, take it in.’”
“Brother Sancho,” said Carrasco, “you have spoken like a professor; but,
for all that, put your trust in God and in Señor Don Quixote, for he will
give you a kingdom, not to say an island.”
“It is all the same, be it more or be it less,” replied Sancho; “though I
can tell Señor Carrasco that my master would not throw the kingdom he
might give me into a sack all in holes; for I have felt my own pulse and
I find myself sound enough to rule kingdoms and govern islands; and I
have before now told my master as much.”
“Take care, Sancho,” said Samson; “honours change manners, and perhaps
when you find yourself a governor you won’t know the mother that bore
you.”
“That may hold good of those that are born in the ditches,” said Sancho,
“not of those who have the fat of an old Christian four fingers deep on
their souls, as I have. Nay, only look at my disposition, is that likely
to show ingratitude to anyone?”
“God grant it,” said Don Quixote; “we shall see when the government
comes; and I seem to see it already.”
He then begged the bachelor, if he were a poet, to do him the favour of
composing some verses for him conveying the farewell he meant to take of
his lady Dulcinea del Toboso, and to see that a letter of her name was
placed at the beginning of each line, so that, at the end of the verses,
“Dulcinea del Toboso” might be read by putting together the first
letters. The bachelor replied that although he was not one of the famous
poets of Spain, who were, they said, only three and a half, he would not
fail to compose the required verses; though he saw a great difficulty in
the task, as the letters which made up the name were seventeen; so, if he
made four ballad stanzas of four lines each, there would be a letter
over, and if he made them of five, what they called decimas or
redondillas, there were three letters short; nevertheless he would try to
drop a letter as well as he could, so that the name “Dulcinea del Toboso”
might be got into four ballad stanzas.
“It must be, by some means or other,” said Don Quixote, “for unless the
name stands there plain and manifest, no woman would believe the verses
were made for her.”
They agreed upon this, and that the departure should take place in three
days from that time. Don Quixote charged the bachelor to keep it a
secret, especially from the curate and Master Nicholas, and from his
niece and the housekeeper, lest they should prevent the execution of his
praiseworthy and valiant purpose. Carrasco promised all, and then took
his leave, charging Don Quixote to inform him of his good or evil
fortunes whenever he had an opportunity; and thus they bade each other
farewell, and Sancho went away to make the necessary preparations for
their expedition.
CHAPTER V.
OF THE SHREWD AND DROLL CONVERSATION THAT PASSED BETWEEN SANCHO PANZA AND
HIS WIFE TERESA PANZA, AND OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF BEING DULY RECORDED
The translator of this history, when he comes to write this fifth
chapter, says that he considers it apocryphal, because in it Sancho Panza
speaks in a style unlike that which might have been expected from his
limited intelligence, and says things so subtle that he does not think it
possible he could have conceived them; however, desirous of doing what
his task imposed upon him, he was unwilling to leave it untranslated, and
therefore he went on to say:
Sancho came home in such glee and spirits that his wife noticed his
happiness a bowshot off, so much so that it made her ask him, “What have
you got, Sancho friend, that you are so glad?”
To which he replied, “Wife, if it were God’s will, I should be very glad
not to be so well pleased as I show myself.”
“I don’t understand you, husband,” said she, “and I don’t know what you
mean by saying you would be glad, if it were God’s will, not to be well
pleased; for, fool as I am, I don’t know how one can find pleasure in not
having it.”
“Hark ye, Teresa,” replied Sancho, “I am glad because I have made up my
mind to go back to the service of my master Don Quixote, who means to go
out a third time to seek for adventures; and I am going with him again,
for my necessities will have it so, and also the hope that cheers me with
the thought that I may find another hundred crowns like those we have
spent; though it makes me sad to have to leave thee and the children; and
if God would be pleased to let me have my daily bread, dry-shod and at
home, without taking me out into the byways and cross-roads--and he could
do it at small cost by merely willing it--it is clear my happiness would
be more solid and lasting, for the happiness I have is mingled with
sorrow at leaving thee; so that I was right in saying I would be glad, if
it were God’s will, not to be well pleased.”
“Look here, Sancho,” said Teresa; “ever since you joined on to a
knight-errant you talk in such a roundabout way that there is no
understanding you.”
“It is enough that God understands me, wife,” replied Sancho; “for he is
the understander of all things; that will do; but mind, sister, you must
look to Dapple carefully for the next three days, so that he may be fit
to take arms; double his feed, and see to the pack-saddle and other
harness, for it is not to a wedding we are bound, but to go round the
world, and play at give and take with giants and dragons and monsters,
and hear hissings and roarings and bellowings and howlings; and even all
this would be lavender, if we had not to reckon with Yanguesans and
enchanted Moors.”
“I know well enough, husband,” said Teresa, “that squires-errant don’t
eat their bread for nothing, and so I will be always praying to our Lord
to deliver you speedily from all that hard fortune.”
“I can tell you, wife,” said Sancho, “if I did not expect to see myself
governor of an island before long, I would drop down dead on the spot.”
“Nay, then, husband,” said Teresa; “let the hen live, though it be with
her pip, live, and let the devil take all the governments in the world;
you came out of your mother’s womb without a government, you have lived
until now without a government, and when it is God’s will you will go, or
be carried, to your grave without a government. How many there are in the
world who live without a government, and continue to live all the same,
and are reckoned in the number of the people. The best sauce in the world
is hunger, and as the poor are never without that, they always eat with a
relish. But mind, Sancho, if by good luck you should find yourself with
some government, don’t forget me and your children. Remember that
Sanchico is now full fifteen, and it is right he should go to school, if
his uncle the abbot has a mind to have him trained for the Church.
Consider, too, that your daughter Mari-Sancha will not die of grief if we
marry her; for I have my suspicions that she is as eager to get a husband
as you to get a government; and, after all, a daughter looks better ill
married than well whored.”
“By my faith,” replied Sancho, “if God brings me to get any sort of a
government, I intend, wife, to make such a high match for Mari-Sancha
that there will be no approaching her without calling her ‘my lady.”
“Nay, Sancho,” returned Teresa; “marry her to her equal, that is the
safest plan; for if you put her out of wooden clogs into high-heeled
shoes, out of her grey flannel petticoat into hoops and silk gowns, out
of the plain ‘Marica’ and ‘thou,’ into ‘Dona So-and-so’ and ‘my lady,’
the girl won’t know where she is, and at every turn she will fall into a
thousand blunders that will show the thread of her coarse homespun
stuff.”
“Tut, you fool,” said Sancho; “it will be only to practise it for two or
three years; and then dignity and decorum will fit her as easily as a
glove; and if not, what matter? Let her be ‘my lady,’ and never mind what
happens.”
“Keep to your own station, Sancho,” replied Teresa; “don’t try to raise
yourself higher, and bear in mind the proverb that says, ‘wipe the nose
of your neigbbour’s son, and take him into your house.’ A fine thing it
would be, indeed, to marry our Maria to some great count or grand
gentleman, who, when the humour took him, would abuse her and call her
clown-bred and clodhopper’s daughter and spinning wench. I have not been
bringing up my daughter for that all this time, I can tell you, husband.
Do you bring home money, Sancho, and leave marrying her to my care; there
is Lope Tocho, Juan Tocho’s son, a stout, sturdy young fellow that we
know, and I can see he does not look sour at the girl; and with him, one
of our own sort, she will be well married, and we shall have her always
under our eyes, and be all one family, parents and children,
grandchildren and sons-in-law, and the peace and blessing of God will
dwell among us; so don’t you go marrying her in those courts and grand
palaces where they won’t know what to make of her, or she what to make of
herself.”
“Why, you idiot and wife for Barabbas,” said Sancho, “what do you mean by
trying, without why or wherefore, to keep me from marrying my daughter to
one who will give me grandchildren that will be called ‘your lordship’?
Look ye, Teresa, I have always heard my elders say that he who does not
know how to take advantage of luck when it comes to him, has no right to
complain if it gives him the go-by; and now that it is knocking at our
door, it will not do to shut it out; let us go with the favouring breeze
that blows upon us.”
It is this sort of talk, and what Sancho says lower down, that made the
translator of the history say he considered this chapter apocryphal.
“Don’t you see, you animal,” continued Sancho, “that it will be well for
me to drop into some profitable government that will lift us out of the
mire, and marry Mari-Sancha to whom I like; and you yourself will find
yourself called ‘Dona Teresa Panza,’ and sitting in church on a fine
carpet and cushions and draperies, in spite and in defiance of all the
born ladies of the town? No, stay as you are, growing neither greater nor
less, like a tapestry figure--Let us say no more about it, for Sanchica
shall be a countess, say what you will.”
“Are you sure of all you say, husband?” replied Teresa. “Well, for all
that, I am afraid this rank of countess for my daughter will be her ruin.
You do as you like, make a duchess or a princess of her, but I can tell
you it will not be with my will and consent. I was always a lover of
equality, brother, and I can’t bear to see people give themselves airs
without any right. They called me Teresa at my baptism, a plain, simple
name, without any additions or tags or fringes of Dons or Donas; Cascajo
was my father’s name, and as I am your wife, I am called Teresa Panza,
though by right I ought to be called Teresa Cascajo; but ‘kings go where
laws like,’ and I am content with this name without having the ‘Don’ put
on top of it to make it so heavy that I cannot carry it; and I don’t want
to make people talk about me when they see me go dressed like a countess
or governor’s wife; for they will say at once, ‘See what airs the slut
gives herself! Only yesterday she was always spinning flax, and used to
go to mass with the tail of her petticoat over her head instead of a
mantle, and there she goes to-day in a hooped gown with her broaches and
airs, as if we didn’t know her!’ If God keeps me in my seven senses, or
five, or whatever number I have, I am not going to bring myself to such a
pass; go you, brother, and be a government or an island man, and swagger
as much as you like; for by the soul of my mother, neither my daughter
nor I are going to stir a step from our village; a respectable woman
should have a broken leg and keep at home; and to be busy at something is
a virtuous damsel’s holiday; be off to your adventures along with your
Don Quixote, and leave us to our misadventures, for God will mend them
for us according as we deserve it. I don’t know, I’m sure, who fixed the
‘Don’ to him, what neither his father nor grandfather ever had.”
“I declare thou hast a devil of some sort in thy body!” said Sancho. “God
help thee, what a lot of things thou hast strung together, one after the
other, without head or tail! What have Cascajo, and the broaches and the
proverbs and the airs, to do with what I say? Look here, fool and dolt
(for so I may call you, when you don’t understand my words, and run away
from good fortune), if I had said that my daughter was to throw herself
down from a tower, or go roaming the world, as the Infanta Dona Urraca
wanted to do, you would be right in not giving way to my will; but if in
an instant, in less than the twinkling of an eye, I put the ‘Don’ and ‘my
lady’ on her back, and take her out of the stubble, and place her under a
canopy, on a dais, and on a couch, with more velvet cushions than all the
Almohades of Morocco ever had in their family, why won’t you consent and
fall in with my wishes?”
“Do you know why, husband?” replied Teresa; “because of the proverb that
says ‘who covers thee, discovers thee.’ At the poor man people only throw
a hasty glance; on the rich man they fix their eyes; and if the said rich
man was once on a time poor, it is then there is the sneering and the
tattle and spite of backbiters; and in the streets here they swarm as
thick as bees.”
“Look here, Teresa,” said Sancho, “and listen to what I am now going to
say to you; maybe you never heard it in all your life; and I do not give
my own notions, for what I am about to say are the opinions of his
reverence the preacher, who preached in this town last Lent, and who
said, if I remember rightly, that all things present that our eyes
behold, bring themselves before us, and remain and fix themselves on our
memory much better and more forcibly than things past.”
These observations which Sancho makes here are the other ones on account
of which the translator says he regards this chapter as apocryphal,
inasmuch as they are beyond Sancho’s capacity.
“Whence it arises,” he continued, “that when we see any person well
dressed and making a figure with rich garments and retinue of servants,
it seems to lead and impel us perforce to respect him, though memory may
at the same moment recall to us some lowly condition in which we have
seen him, but which, whether it may have been poverty or low birth, being
now a thing of the past, has no existence; while the only thing that has
any existence is what we see before us; and if this person whom fortune
has raised from his original lowly state (these were the very words the
padre used) to his present height of prosperity, be well bred, generous,
courteous to all, without seeking to vie with those whose nobility is of
ancient date, depend upon it, Teresa, no one will remember what he was,
and everyone will respect what he is, except indeed the envious, from
whom no fair fortune is safe.”
“I do not understand you, husband,” replied Teresa; “do as you like, and
don’t break my head with any more speechifying and rethoric; and if you
have revolved to do what you say-”
“Resolved, you should say, woman,” said Sancho, “not revolved.”
“Don’t set yourself to wrangle with me, husband,” said Teresa; “I speak
as God pleases, and don’t deal in out-of-the-way phrases; and I say if
you are bent upon having a government, take your son Sancho with you, and
teach him from this time on how to hold a government; for sons ought to
inherit and learn the trades of their fathers.”
“As soon as I have the government,” said Sancho, “I will send for him by
post, and I will send thee money, of which I shall have no lack, for
there is never any want of people to lend it to governors when they have
not got it; and do thou dress him so as to hide what he is and make him
look what he is to be.”
“You send the money,” said Teresa, “and I’ll dress him up for you as fine
as you please.”
“Then we are agreed that our daughter is to be a countess,” said Sancho.
“The day that I see her a countess,” replied Teresa, “it will be the same
to me as if I was burying her; but once more I say do as you please, for
we women are born to this burden of being obedient to our husbands,
though they be dogs;” and with this she began to weep in earnest, as if
she already saw Sanchica dead and buried.
Sancho consoled her by saying that though he must make her a countess, he
would put it off as long as possible. Here their conversation came to an
end, and Sancho went back to see Don Quixote, and make arrangements for
their departure.
CHAPTER VI.
OF WHAT TOOK PLACE BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS NIECE AND HOUSEKEEPER; ONE
OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTERS IN THE WHOLE HISTORY
While Sancho Panza and his wife, Teresa Cascajo, held the above
irrelevant conversation, Don Quixote’s niece and housekeeper were not
idle, for by a thousand signs they began to perceive that their uncle and
master meant to give them the slip the third time, and once more betake
himself to his, for them, ill-errant chivalry. They strove by all the
means in their power to divert him from such an unlucky scheme; but it
was all preaching in the desert and hammering cold iron. Nevertheless,
among many other representations made to him, the housekeeper said to
him, “In truth, master, if you do not keep still and stay quiet at home,
and give over roaming mountains and valleys like a troubled spirit,
looking for what they say are called adventures, but what I call
misfortunes, I shall have to make complaint to God and the king with loud
supplication to send some remedy.”
To which Don Quixote replied, “What answer God will give to your
complaints, housekeeper, I know not, nor what his Majesty will answer
either; I only know that if I were king I should decline to answer the
numberless silly petitions they present every day; for one of the
greatest among the many troubles kings have is being obliged to listen to
all and answer all, and therefore I should be sorry that any affairs of
mine should worry him.”
Whereupon the housekeeper said, “Tell us, señor, at his Majesty’s court
are there no knights?”
“There are,” replied Don Quixote, “and plenty of them; and it is right
there should be, to set off the dignity of the prince, and for the
greater glory of the king’s majesty.”
“Then might not your worship,” said she, “be one of those that, without
stirring a step, serve their king and lord in his court?”
“Recollect, my friend,” said Don Quixote, “all knights cannot be
courtiers, nor can all courtiers be knights-errant, nor need they be.
There must be all sorts in the world; and though we may be all knights,
there is a great difference between one and another; for the courtiers,
without quitting their chambers, or the threshold of the court, range the
world over by looking at a map, without its costing them a farthing, and
without suffering heat or cold, hunger or thirst; but we, the true
knights-errant, measure the whole earth with our own feet, exposed to the
sun, to the cold, to the air, to the inclemencies of heaven, by day and
night, on foot and on horseback; nor do we only know enemies in pictures,
but in their own real shapes; and at all risks and on all occasions we
attack them, without any regard to childish points or rules of single
combat, whether one has or has not a shorter lance or sword, whether one
carries relics or any secret contrivance about him, whether or not the
sun is to be divided and portioned out, and other niceties of the sort
that are observed in set combats of man to man, that you know nothing
about, but I do. And you must know besides, that the true knight-errant,
though he may see ten giants, that not only touch the clouds with their
heads but pierce them, and that go, each of them, on two tall towers by
way of legs, and whose arms are like the masts of mighty ships, and each
eye like a great mill-wheel, and glowing brighter than a glass furnace,
must not on any account be dismayed by them. On the contrary, he must
attack and fall upon them with a gallant bearing and a fearless heart,
and, if possible, vanquish and destroy them, even though they have for
armour the shells of a certain fish, that they say are harder than
diamonds, and in place of swords wield trenchant blades of Damascus
steel, or clubs studded with spikes also of steel, such as I have more
than once seen. All this I say, housekeeper, that you may see the
difference there is between the one sort of knight and the other; and it
would be well if there were no prince who did not set a higher value on
this second, or more properly speaking first, kind of knights-errant;
for, as we read in their histories, there have been some among them who
have been the salvation, not merely of one kingdom, but of many.”
“Ah, señor,” here exclaimed the niece, “remember that all this you are
saying about knights-errant is fable and fiction; and their histories, if
indeed they were not burned, would deserve, each of them, to have a
sambenito put on it, or some mark by which it might be known as infamous
and a corrupter of good manners.”
“By the God that gives me life,” said Don Quixote, “if thou wert not my
full niece, being daughter of my own sister, I would inflict a
chastisement upon thee for the blasphemy thou hast uttered that all the
world should ring with. What! can it be that a young hussy that hardly
knows how to handle a dozen lace-bobbins dares to wag her tongue and
criticise the histories of knights-errant? What would Señor Amadis say if
he heard of such a thing? He, however, no doubt would forgive thee, for
he was the most humble-minded and courteous knight of his time, and
moreover a great protector of damsels; but some there are that might have
heard thee, and it would not have been well for thee in that case; for
they are not all courteous or mannerly; some are ill-conditioned
scoundrels; nor is it everyone that calls himself a gentleman, that is so
in all respects; some are gold, others pinchbeck, and all look like
gentlemen, but not all can stand the touchstone of truth. There are men
of low rank who strain themselves to bursting to pass for gentlemen, and
high gentlemen who, one would fancy, were dying to pass for men of low
rank; the former raise themselves by their ambition or by their virtues,
the latter debase themselves by their lack of spirit or by their vices;
and one has need of experience and discernment to distinguish these two
kinds of gentlemen, so much alike in name and so different in conduct.”
“God bless me!” said the niece, “that you should know so much,
uncle--enough, if need be, to get up into a pulpit and go preach in the
streets--and yet that you should fall into a delusion so great and a
folly so manifest as to try to make yourself out vigorous when you are
old, strong when you are sickly, able to put straight what is crooked
when you yourself are bent by age, and, above all, a caballero when you
are not one; for though gentlefolk may be so, poor men are nothing of the
kind!”
“There is a great deal of truth in what you say, niece,” returned Don
Quixote, “and I could tell you somewhat about birth that would astonish
you; but, not to mix up things human and divine, I refrain. Look you, my
dears, all the lineages in the world (attend to what I am saying) can be
reduced to four sorts, which are these: those that had humble beginnings,
and went on spreading and extending themselves until they attained
surpassing greatness; those that had great beginnings and maintained
them, and still maintain and uphold the greatness of their origin; those,
again, that from a great beginning have ended in a point like a pyramid,
having reduced and lessened their original greatness till it has come to
nought, like the point of a pyramid, which, relatively to its base or
foundation, is nothing; and then there are those--and it is they that are
the most numerous--that have had neither an illustrious beginning nor a
remarkable mid-course, and so will have an end without a name, like an
ordinary plebeian line. Of the first, those that had an humble origin and
rose to the greatness they still preserve, the Ottoman house may serve as
an example, which from an humble and lowly shepherd, its founder, has
reached the height at which we now see it. For examples of the second
sort of lineage, that began with greatness and maintains it still without
adding to it, there are the many princes who have inherited the dignity,
and maintain themselves in their inheritance, without increasing or
diminishing it, keeping peacefully within the limits of their states. Of
those that began great and ended in a point, there are thousands of
examples, for all the Pharaohs and Ptolemies of Egypt, the Caesars of
Rome, and the whole herd (if I may apply such a word to them) of countless
princes, monarchs, lords, Medes, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and
barbarians, all these lineages and lordships have ended in a point and
come to nothing, they themselves as well as their founders, for it would
be impossible now to find one of their descendants, and, even should we
find one, it would be in some lowly and humble condition. Of plebeian
lineages I have nothing to say, save that they merely serve to swell the
number of those that live, without any eminence to entitle them to any
fame or praise beyond this. From all I have said I would have you gather,
my poor innocents, that great is the confusion among lineages, and that
only those are seen to be great and illustrious that show themselves so
by the virtue, wealth, and generosity of their possessors. I have said
virtue, wealth, and generosity, because a great man who is vicious will
be a great example of vice, and a rich man who is not generous will be
merely a miserly beggar; for the possessor of wealth is not made happy by
possessing it, but by spending it, and not by spending as he pleases, but
by knowing how to spend it well. The poor gentleman has no way of showing
that he is a gentleman but by virtue, by being affable, well-bred,
courteous, gentle-mannered, and kindly, not haughty, arrogant, or
censorious, but above all by being charitable; for by two maravedis given
with a cheerful heart to the poor, he will show himself as generous as he
who distributes alms with bell-ringing, and no one that perceives him to
be endowed with the virtues I have named, even though he know him not,
will fail to recognise and set him down as one of good blood; and it
would be strange were it not so; praise has ever been the reward of
virtue, and those who are virtuous cannot fail to receive commendation.
There are two roads, my daughters, by which men may reach wealth and
honours; one is that of letters, the other that of arms. I have more of
arms than of letters in my composition, and, judging by my inclination to
arms, was born under the influence of the planet Mars. I am, therefore,
in a measure constrained to follow that road, and by it I must travel in
spite of all the world, and it will be labour in vain for you to urge me
to resist what heaven wills, fate ordains, reason requires, and, above
all, my own inclination favours; for knowing as I do the countless toils
that are the accompaniments of knight-errantry, I know, too, the infinite
blessings that are attained by it; I know that the path of virtue is very
narrow, and the road of vice broad and spacious; I know their ends and
goals are different, for the broad and easy road of vice ends in death,
and the narrow and toilsome one of virtue in life, and not transitory
life, but in that which has no end; I know, as our great Castilian poet
says, that--
It is by rugged paths like these they go
That scale the heights of immortality,
Unreached by those that falter here below.”
“Woe is me!” exclaimed the niece, “my lord is a poet, too! He knows
everything, and he can do everything; I will bet, if he chose to turn
mason, he could make a house as easily as a cage.”
“I can tell you, niece,” replied Don Quixote, “if these chivalrous
thoughts did not engage all my faculties, there would be nothing that I
could not do, nor any sort of knickknack that would not come from my
hands, particularly cages and tooth-picks.”
At this moment there came a knocking at the door, and when they asked who
was there, Sancho Panza made answer that it was he. The instant the
housekeeper knew who it was, she ran to hide herself so as not to see
him; in such abhorrence did she hold him. The niece let him in, and his
master Don Quixote came forward to receive him with open arms, and the
pair shut themselves up in his room, where they had another conversation
not inferior to the previous one.
CHAPTER VII.
OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE, TOGETHER WITH OTHER
VERY NOTABLE INCIDENTS
The instant the housekeeper saw Sancho Panza shut himself in with her
master, she guessed what they were about; and suspecting that the result
of the consultation would be a resolve to undertake a third sally, she
seized her mantle, and in deep anxiety and distress, ran to find the
bachelor Samson Carrasco, as she thought that, being a well-spoken man,
and a new friend of her master’s, he might be able to persuade him to
give up any such crazy notion. She found him pacing the patio of his
house, and, perspiring and flurried, she fell at his feet the moment she
saw him.
Carrasco, seeing how distressed and overcome she was, said to her, “What
is this, mistress housekeeper? What has happened to you? One would think
you heart-broken.”
“Nothing, Señor Samson,” said she, “only that my master is breaking out,
plainly breaking out.”
“Whereabouts is he breaking out, señora?” asked Samson; “has any part of
his body burst?”
“He is only breaking out at the door of his madness,” she replied; “I
mean, dear señor bachelor, that he is going to break out again (and this
will be the third time) to hunt all over the world for what he calls
ventures, though I can’t make out why he gives them that name. The first
time he was brought back to us slung across the back of an ass, and
belaboured all over; and the second time he came in an ox-cart, shut up
in a cage, in which he persuaded himself he was enchanted, and the poor
creature was in such a state that the mother that bore him would not have
known him; lean, yellow, with his eyes sunk deep in the cells of his
skull; so that to bring him round again, ever so little, cost me more
than six hundred eggs, as God knows, and all the world, and my hens too,
that won’t let me tell a lie.”
“That I can well believe,” replied the bachelor, “for they are so good
and so fat, and so well-bred, that they would not say one thing for
another, though they were to burst for it. In short then, mistress
housekeeper, that is all, and there is nothing the matter, except what it
is feared Don Quixote may do?”
“No, señor,” said she.
“Well then,” returned the bachelor, “don’t be uneasy, but go home in
peace; get me ready something hot for breakfast, and while you are on the
way say the prayer of Santa Apollonia, that is if you know it; for I will
come presently and you will see miracles.”
“Woe is me,” cried the housekeeper, “is it the prayer of Santa Apollonia
you would have me say? That would do if it was the toothache my master
had; but it is in the brains, what he has got.”
“I know what I am saying, mistress housekeeper; go, and don’t set
yourself to argue with me, for you know I am a bachelor of Salamanca, and
one can’t be more of a bachelor than that,” replied Carrasco; and with
this the housekeeper retired, and the bachelor went to look for the
curate, and arrange with him what will be told in its proper place.
While Don Quixote and Sancho were shut up together, they had a discussion
which the history records with great precision and scrupulous exactness.
Sancho said to his master, “Señor, I have educed my wife to let me go
with your worship wherever you choose to take me.”
“Induced, you should say, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “not educed.”
“Once or twice, as well as I remember,” replied Sancho, “I have begged of
your worship not to mend my words, if so be as you understand what I mean
by them; and if you don’t understand them to say ‘Sancho,’ or ‘devil,’ ‘I
don’t understand thee; and if I don’t make my meaning plain, then you may
correct me, for I am so focile-”
“I don’t understand thee, Sancho,” said Don Quixote at once; “for I know
not what ‘I am so focile’ means.”
“‘So focile’ means I am so much that way,” replied Sancho.
“I understand thee still less now,” said Don Quixote.
“Well, if you can’t understand me,” said Sancho, “I don’t know how to put
it; I know no more, God help me.”
“Oh, now I have hit it,” said Don Quixote; “thou wouldst say thou art so
docile, tractable, and gentle that thou wilt take what I say to thee, and
submit to what I teach thee.”
“I would bet,” said Sancho, “that from the very first you understood me,
and knew what I meant, but you wanted to put me out that you might hear
me make another couple of dozen blunders.”
“May be so,” replied Don Quixote; “but to come to the point, what does
Teresa say?”
“Teresa says,” replied Sancho, “that I should make sure with your
worship, and ‘let papers speak and beards be still,’ for ‘he who binds
does not wrangle,’ since one ‘take’ is better than two ‘I’ll give
thee’s;’ and I say a woman’s advice is no great thing, and he who won’t
take it is a fool.”
“And so say I,” said Don Quixote; “continue, Sancho my friend; go on; you
talk pearls to-day.”
“The fact is,” continued Sancho, “that, as your worship knows better than
I do, we are all of us liable to death, and to-day we are, and to-morrow
we are not, and the lamb goes as soon as the sheep, and nobody can
promise himself more hours of life in this world than God may be pleased
to give him; for death is deaf, and when it comes to knock at our life’s
door, it is always urgent, and neither prayers, nor struggles, nor
sceptres, nor mitres, can keep it back, as common talk and report say,
and as they tell us from the pulpits every day.”
“All that is very true,” said Don Quixote; “but I cannot make out what
thou art driving at.”
“What I am driving at,” said Sancho, “is that your worship settle some
fixed wages for me, to be paid monthly while I am in your service, and
that the same be paid me out of your estate; for I don’t care to stand on
rewards which either come late, or ill, or never at all; God help me with
my own. In short, I would like to know what I am to get, be it much or
little; for the hen will lay on one egg, and many littles make a much,
and so long as one gains something there is nothing lost. To be sure, if
it should happen (what I neither believe nor expect) that your worship
were to give me that island you have promised me, I am not so ungrateful
nor so grasping but that I would be willing to have the revenue of such
island valued and stopped out of my wages in due promotion.”
“Sancho, my friend,” replied Don Quixote, “sometimes proportion may be as
good as promotion.”
“I see,” said Sancho; “I’ll bet I ought to have said proportion, and not
promotion; but it is no matter, as your worship has understood me.”
“And so well understood,” returned Don Quixote, “that I have seen into
the depths of thy thoughts, and know the mark thou art shooting at with
the countless shafts of thy proverbs. Look here, Sancho, I would readily
fix thy wages if I had ever found any instance in the histories of the
knights-errant to show or indicate, by the slightest hint, what their
squires used to get monthly or yearly; but I have read all or the best
part of their histories, and I cannot remember reading of any
knight-errant having assigned fixed wages to his squire; I only know that
they all served on reward, and that when they least expected it, if good
luck attended their masters, they found themselves recompensed with an
island or something equivalent to it, or at the least they were left with
a title and lordship. If with these hopes and additional inducements you,
Sancho, please to return to my service, well and good; but to suppose
that I am going to disturb or unhinge the ancient usage of
knight-errantry, is all nonsense. And so, my Sancho, get you back to your
house and explain my intentions to your Teresa, and if she likes and you
like to be on reward with me, bene quidem; if not, we remain friends; for
if the pigeon-house does not lack food, it will not lack pigeons; and
bear in mind, my son, that a good hope is better than a bad holding, and
a good grievance better than a bad compensation. I speak in this way,
Sancho, to show you that I can shower down proverbs just as well as
yourself; and in short, I mean to say, and I do say, that if you don’t
like to come on reward with me, and run the same chance that I run, God
be with you and make a saint of you; for I shall find plenty of squires
more obedient and painstaking, and not so thickheaded or talkative as you
are.”
When Sancho heard his master’s firm, resolute language, a cloud came over
the sky with him and the wings of his heart drooped, for he had made sure
that his master would not go without him for all the wealth of the world;
and as he stood there dumbfoundered and moody, Samson Carrasco came in
with the housekeeper and niece, who were anxious to hear by what
arguments he was about to dissuade their master from going to seek
adventures. The arch wag Samson came forward, and embracing him as he had
done before, said with a loud voice, “O flower of knight-errantry! O
shining light of arms! O honour and mirror of the Spanish nation! may God
Almighty in his infinite power grant that any person or persons, who
would impede or hinder thy third sally, may find no way out of the
labyrinth of their schemes, nor ever accomplish what they most desire!”
And then, turning to the housekeeper, he said, “Mistress housekeeper may
just as well give over saying the prayer of Santa Apollonia, for I know
it is the positive determination of the spheres that Señor Don Quixote
shall proceed to put into execution his new and lofty designs; and I
should lay a heavy burden on my conscience did I not urge and persuade
this knight not to keep the might of his strong arm and the virtue of his
valiant spirit any longer curbed and checked, for by his inactivity he is
defrauding the world of the redress of wrongs, of the protection of
orphans, of the honour of virgins, of the aid of widows, and of the
support of wives, and other matters of this kind appertaining, belonging,
proper and peculiar to the order of knight-errantry. On, then, my lord
Don Quixote, beautiful and brave, let your worship and highness set out
to-day rather than to-morrow; and if anything be needed for the execution
of your purpose, here am I ready in person and purse to supply the want;
and were it requisite to attend your magnificence as squire, I should
esteem it the happiest good fortune.”
At this, Don Quixote, turning to Sancho, said, “Did I not tell thee,
Sancho, there would be squires enough and to spare for me? See now who
offers to become one; no less than the illustrious bachelor Samson
Carrasco, the perpetual joy and delight of the courts of the Salamancan
schools, sound in body, discreet, patient under heat or cold, hunger or
thirst, with all the qualifications requisite to make a knight-errant’s
squire! But heaven forbid that, to gratify my own inclination, I should
shake or shatter this pillar of letters and vessel of the sciences, and
cut down this towering palm of the fair and liberal arts. Let this new
Samson remain in his own country, and, bringing honour to it, bring
honour at the same time on the grey heads of his venerable parents; for I
will be content with any squire that comes to hand, as Sancho does not
deign to accompany me.”
“I do deign,” said Sancho, deeply moved and with tears in his eyes; “it
shall not be said of me, master mine,” he continued, “‘the bread eaten
and the company dispersed.’ Nay, I come of no ungrateful stock, for all
the world knows, but particularly my own town, who the Panzas from whom I
am descended were; and, what is more, I know and have learned, by many
good words and deeds, your worship’s desire to show me favour; and if I
have been bargaining more or less about my wages, it was only to please
my wife, who, when she sets herself to press a point, no hammer drives
the hoops of a cask as she drives one to do what she wants; but, after
all, a man must be a man, and a woman a woman; and as I am a man anyhow,
which I can’t deny, I will be one in my own house too, let who will take
it amiss; and so there’s nothing more to do but for your worship to make
your will with its codicil in such a way that it can’t be provoked, and
let us set out at once, to save Señor Samson’s soul from suffering, as he
says his conscience obliges him to persuade your worship to sally out
upon the world a third time; so I offer again to serve your worship
faithfully and loyally, as well and better than all the squires that
served knights-errant in times past or present.”
The bachelor was filled with amazement when he heard Sancho’s phraseology
and style of talk, for though he had read the first part of his master’s
history he never thought that he could be so droll as he was there
described; but now, hearing him talk of a “will and codicil that could
not be provoked,” instead of “will and codicil that could not be
revoked,” he believed all he had read of him, and set him down as one of
the greatest simpletons of modern times; and he said to himself that two
such lunatics as master and man the world had never seen. In fine, Don
Quixote and Sancho embraced one another and made friends, and by the
advice and with the approval of the great Carrasco, who was now their
oracle, it was arranged that their departure should take place three days
thence, by which time they could have all that was requisite for the
journey ready, and procure a closed helmet, which Don Quixote said he
must by all means take. Samson offered him one, as he knew a friend of
his who had it would not refuse it to him, though it was more dingy with
rust and mildew than bright and clean like burnished steel.
The curses which both housekeeper and niece poured out on the bachelor
were past counting; they tore their hair, they clawed their faces, and in
the style of the hired mourners that were once in fashion, they raised a
lamentation over the departure of their master and uncle, as if it had
been his death. Samson’s intention in persuading him to sally forth once
more was to do what the history relates farther on; all by the advice of
the curate and barber, with whom he had previously discussed the subject.
Finally, then, during those three days, Don Quixote and Sancho provided
themselves with what they considered necessary, and Sancho having
pacified his wife, and Don Quixote his niece and housekeeper, at
nightfall, unseen by anyone except the bachelor, who thought fit to
accompany them half a league out of the village, they set out for El
Toboso, Don Quixote on his good Rocinante and Sancho on his old Dapple,
his alforjas furnished with certain matters in the way of victuals, and
his purse with money that Don Quixote gave him to meet emergencies.
Samson embraced him, and entreated him to let him hear of his good or
evil fortunes, so that he might rejoice over the former or condole with
him over the latter, as the laws of friendship required. Don Quixote
promised him he would do so, and Samson returned to the village, and the
other two took the road for the great city of El Toboso.
CHAPTER VIII.
WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE ON HIS WAY TO SEE HIS LADY
DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO
“Blessed be Allah the all-powerful!” says Hamete Benengeli on beginning
this eighth chapter; “blessed be Allah!” he repeats three times; and he
says he utters these thanksgivings at seeing that he has now got Don
Quixote and Sancho fairly afield, and that the readers of his delightful
history may reckon that the achievements and humours of Don Quixote and
his squire are now about to begin; and he urges them to forget the former
chivalries of the ingenious gentleman and to fix their eyes on those that
are to come, which now begin on the road to El Toboso, as the others
began on the plains of Montiel; nor is it much that he asks in
consideration of all he promises, and so he goes on to say:
Don Quixote and Sancho were left alone, and the moment Samson took his
departure, Rocinante began to neigh, and Dapple to sigh, which, by both
knight and squire, was accepted as a good sign and a very happy omen;
though, if the truth is to be told, the sighs and brays of Dapple were
louder than the neighings of the hack, from which Sancho inferred that
his good fortune was to exceed and overtop that of his master, building,
perhaps, upon some judicial astrology that he may have known, though the
history says nothing about it; all that can be said is, that when he
stumbled or fell, he was heard to say he wished he had not come out, for
by stumbling or falling there was nothing to be got but a damaged shoe or
a broken rib; and, fool as he was, he was not much astray in this.
Said Don Quixote, “Sancho, my friend, night is drawing on upon us as we
go, and more darkly than will allow us to reach El Toboso by daylight;
for there I am resolved to go before I engage in another adventure, and
there I shall obtain the blessing and generous permission of the peerless
Dulcinea, with which permission I expect and feel assured that I shall
conclude and bring to a happy termination every perilous adventure; for
nothing in life makes knights-errant more valorous than finding
themselves favoured by their ladies.”
“So I believe,” replied Sancho; “but I think it will be difficult for
your worship to speak with her or see her, at any rate where you will be
able to receive her blessing; unless, indeed, she throws it over the wall
of the yard where I saw her the time before, when I took her the letter
that told of the follies and mad things your worship was doing in the
heart of Sierra Morena.”
“Didst thou take that for a yard wall, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “where
or at which thou sawest that never sufficiently extolled grace and
beauty? It must have been the gallery, corridor, or portico of some rich
and royal palace.”
“It might have been all that,” returned Sancho, “but to me it looked like
a wall, unless I am short of memory.”
“At all events, let us go there, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “for, so that
I see her, it is the same to me whether it be over a wall, or at a
window, or through the chink of a door, or the grate of a garden; for any
beam of the sun of her beauty that reaches my eyes will give light to my
reason and strength to my heart, so that I shall be unmatched and
unequalled in wisdom and valour.”
“Well, to tell the truth, señor,” said Sancho, “when I saw that sun of
the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, it was not bright enough to throw out beams
at all; it must have been, that as her grace was sifting that wheat I
told you of, the thick dust she raised came before her face like a cloud
and dimmed it.”
“What! dost thou still persist, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “in saying,
thinking, believing, and maintaining that my lady Dulcinea was sifting
wheat, that being an occupation and task entirely at variance with what
is and should be the employment of persons of distinction, who are
constituted and reserved for other avocations and pursuits that show
their rank a bowshot off? Thou hast forgotten, O Sancho, those lines of
our poet wherein he paints for us how, in their crystal abodes, those
four nymphs employed themselves who rose from their loved Tagus and
seated themselves in a verdant meadow to embroider those tissues which
the ingenious poet there describes to us, how they were worked and woven
with gold and silk and pearls; and something of this sort must have been
the employment of my lady when thou sawest her, only that the spite which
some wicked enchanter seems to have against everything of mine changes
all those things that give me pleasure, and turns them into shapes unlike
their own; and so I fear that in that history of my achievements which
they say is now in print, if haply its author was some sage who is an
enemy of mine, he will have put one thing for another, mingling a
thousand lies with one truth, and amusing himself by relating
transactions which have nothing to do with the sequence of a true
history. O envy, root of all countless evils, and cankerworm of the
virtues! All the vices, Sancho, bring some kind of pleasure with them;
but envy brings nothing but irritation, bitterness, and rage.”
“So I say too,” replied Sancho; “and I suspect in that legend or history
of us that the bachelor Samson Carrasco told us he saw, my honour goes
dragged in the dirt, knocked about, up and down, sweeping the streets, as
they say. And yet, on the faith of an honest man, I never spoke ill of
any enchanter, and I am not so well off that I am to be envied; to be
sure, I am rather sly, and I have a certain spice of the rogue in me; but
all is covered by the great cloak of my simplicity, always natural and
never acted; and if I had no other merit save that I believe, as I always
do, firmly and truly in God, and all the holy Roman Catholic Church holds
and believes, and that I am a mortal enemy of the Jews, the historians
ought to have mercy on me and treat me well in their writings. But let
them say what they like; naked was I born, naked I find myself, I neither
lose nor gain; nay, while I see myself put into a book and passed on from
hand to hand over the world, I don’t care a fig, let them say what they
like of me.”
“That, Sancho,” returned Don Quixote, “reminds me of what happened to a
famous poet of our own day, who, having written a bitter satire against
all the courtesan ladies, did not insert or name in it a certain lady of
whom it was questionable whether she was one or not. She, seeing she was
not in the list of the poet, asked him what he had seen in her that he
did not include her in the number of the others, telling him he must add
to his satire and put her in the new part, or else look out for the
consequences. The poet did as she bade him, and left her without a shred
of reputation, and she was satisfied by getting fame though it was
infamy. In keeping with this is what they relate of that shepherd who set
fire to the famous temple of Diana, by repute one of the seven wonders of
the world, and burned it with the sole object of making his name live in
after ages; and, though it was forbidden to name him, or mention his name
by word of mouth or in writing, lest the object of his ambition should be
attained, nevertheless it became known that he was called Erostratus. And
something of the same sort is what happened in the case of the great
emperor Charles V and a gentleman in Rome. The emperor was anxious to see
that famous temple of the Rotunda, called in ancient times the temple ‘of
all the gods,’ but now-a-days, by a better nomenclature, ‘of all the
saints,’ which is the best preserved building of all those of pagan
construction in Rome, and the one which best sustains the reputation of
mighty works and magnificence of its founders. It is in the form of a
half orange, of enormous dimensions, and well lighted, though no light
penetrates it save that which is admitted by a window, or rather round
skylight, at the top; and it was from this that the emperor examined the
building. A Roman gentleman stood by his side and explained to him the
skilful construction and ingenuity of the vast fabric and its wonderful
architecture, and when they had left the skylight he said to the emperor,
‘A thousand times, your Sacred Majesty, the impulse came upon me to seize
your Majesty in my arms and fling myself down from yonder skylight, so as
to leave behind me in the world a name that would last for ever.’ ‘I am
thankful to you for not carrying such an evil thought into effect,’ said
the emperor, ‘and I shall give you no opportunity in future of again
putting your loyalty to the test; and I therefore forbid you ever to
speak to me or to be where I am; and he followed up these words by
bestowing a liberal bounty upon him. My meaning is, Sancho, that the
desire of acquiring fame is a very powerful motive. What, thinkest thou,
was it that flung Horatius in full armour down from the bridge into the
depths of the Tiber? What burned the hand and arm of Mutius? What
impelled Curtius to plunge into the deep burning gulf that opened in the
midst of Rome? What, in opposition to all the omens that declared against
him, made Julius Caesar cross the Rubicon? And to come to more modern
examples, what scuttled the ships, and left stranded and cut off the
gallant Spaniards under the command of the most courteous Cortes in the
New World? All these and a variety of other great exploits are, were and
will be, the work of fame that mortals desire as a reward and a portion
of the immortality their famous deeds deserve; though we Catholic
Christians and knights-errant look more to that future glory that is
everlasting in the ethereal regions of heaven than to the vanity of the
fame that is to be acquired in this present transitory life; a fame that,
however long it may last, must after all end with the world itself, which
has its own appointed end. So that, O Sancho, in what we do we must not
overpass the bounds which the Christian religion we profess has assigned
to us. We have to slay pride in giants, envy by generosity and nobleness
of heart, anger by calmness of demeanour and equanimity, gluttony and
sloth by the spareness of our diet and the length of our vigils, lust and
lewdness by the loyalty we preserve to those whom we have made the
mistresses of our thoughts, indolence by traversing the world in all
directions seeking opportunities of making ourselves, besides Christians,
famous knights. Such, Sancho, are the means by which we reach those
extremes of praise that fair fame carries with it.”
“All that your worship has said so far,” said Sancho, “I have understood
quite well; but still I would be glad if your worship would dissolve a
doubt for me, which has just this minute come into my mind.”
“Solve, thou meanest, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “say on, in God’s name,
and I will answer as well as I can.”
“Tell me, señor,” Sancho went on to say, “those Julys or Augusts, and all
those venturous knights that you say are now dead--where are they now?”
“The heathens,” replied Don Quixote, “are, no doubt, in hell; the
Christians, if they were good Christians, are either in purgatory or in
heaven.”
“Very good,” said Sancho; “but now I want to know--the tombs where the
bodies of those great lords are, have they silver lamps before them, or
are the walls of their chapels ornamented with crutches, winding-sheets,
tresses of hair, legs and eyes in wax? Or what are they ornamented with?”
To which Don Quixote made answer: “The tombs of the heathens were
generally sumptuous temples; the ashes of Julius Caesar’s body were
placed on the top of a stone pyramid of vast size, which they now call in
Rome Saint Peter’s needle. The emperor Hadrian had for a tomb a castle as
large as a good-sized village, which they called the Moles Adriani, and
is now the castle of St. Angelo in Rome. The queen Artemisia buried her
husband Mausolus in a tomb which was reckoned one of the seven wonders of
the world; but none of these tombs, or of the many others of the
heathens, were ornamented with winding-sheets or any of those other
offerings and tokens that show that they who are buried there are
saints.”
“That’s the point I’m coming to,” said Sancho; “and now tell me, which is
the greater work, to bring a dead man to life or to kill a giant?”
“The answer is easy,” replied Don Quixote; “it is a greater work to bring
to life a dead man.”
“Now I have got you,” said Sancho; “in that case the fame of them who
bring the dead to life, who give sight to the blind, cure cripples,
restore health to the sick, and before whose tombs there are lamps
burning, and whose chapels are filled with devout folk on their knees
adoring their relics be a better fame in this life and in the other than
that which all the heathen emperors and knights-errant that have ever
been in the world have left or may leave behind them?”
“That I grant, too,” said Don Quixote.
“Then this fame, these favours, these privileges, or whatever you call
it,” said Sancho, “belong to the bodies and relics of the saints who,
with the approbation and permission of our holy mother Church, have
lamps, tapers, winding-sheets, crutches, pictures, eyes and legs, by
means of which they increase devotion and add to their own Christian
reputation. Kings carry the bodies or relics of saints on their
shoulders, and kiss bits of their bones, and enrich and adorn their
oratories and favourite altars with them.”
“What wouldst thou have me infer from all thou hast said, Sancho?” asked
Don Quixote.
“My meaning is,” said Sancho, “let us set about becoming saints, and we
shall obtain more quickly the fair fame we are striving after; for you
know, señor, yesterday or the day before yesterday (for it is so lately
one may say so) they canonised and beatified two little barefoot friars,
and it is now reckoned the greatest good luck to kiss or touch the iron
chains with which they girt and tortured their bodies, and they are held
in greater veneration, so it is said, than the sword of Roland in the
armoury of our lord the King, whom God preserve. So that, señor, it is
better to be an humble little friar of no matter what order, than a
valiant knight-errant; with God a couple of dozen of penance lashings are
of more avail than two thousand lance-thrusts, be they given to giants,
or monsters, or dragons.”
“All that is true,” returned Don Quixote, “but we cannot all be friars,
and many are the ways by which God takes his own to heaven; chivalry is a
religion, there are sainted knights in glory.”
“Yes,” said Sancho, “but I have heard say that there are more friars in
heaven than knights-errant.”
“That,” said Don Quixote, “is because those in religious orders are more
numerous than knights.”
“The errants are many,” said Sancho.
“Many,” replied Don Quixote, “but few they who deserve the name of
knights.”
With these, and other discussions of the same sort, they passed that
night and the following day, without anything worth mention happening to
them, whereat Don Quixote was not a little dejected; but at length the
next day, at daybreak, they descried the great city of El Toboso, at the
sight of which Don Quixote’s spirits rose and Sancho’s fell, for he did
not know Dulcinea’s house, nor in all his life had he ever seen her, any
more than his master; so that they were both uneasy, the one to see her,
the other at not having seen her, and Sancho was at a loss to know what
he was to do when his master sent him to El Toboso. In the end, Don
Quixote made up his mind to enter the city at nightfall, and they waited
until the time came among some oak trees that were near El Toboso; and
when the moment they had agreed upon arrived, they made their entrance
into the city, where something happened them that may fairly be called
something.
CHAPTER IX.
WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT WILL BE SEEN THERE
‘Twas at the very midnight hour--more or less--when Don Quixote and
Sancho quitted the wood and entered El Toboso. The town was in deep
silence, for all the inhabitants were asleep, and stretched on the broad
of their backs, as the saying is. The night was darkish, though Sancho
would have been glad had it been quite dark, so as to find in the
darkness an excuse for his blundering. All over the place nothing was to
be heard except the barking of dogs, which deafened the ears of Don
Quixote and troubled the heart of Sancho. Now and then an ass brayed,
pigs grunted, cats mewed, and the various noises they made seemed louder
in the silence of the night; all which the enamoured knight took to be of
evil omen; nevertheless he said to Sancho, “Sancho, my son, lead on to
the palace of Dulcinea, it may be that we shall find her awake.”
“Body of the sun! what palace am I to lead to,” said Sancho, “when what I
saw her highness in was only a very little house?”
“Most likely she had then withdrawn into some small apartment of her
palace,” said Don Quixote, “to amuse herself with damsels, as great
ladies and princesses are accustomed to do.”
“Señor,” said Sancho, “if your worship will have it in spite of me that
the house of my lady Dulcinea is a palace, is this an hour, think you, to
find the door open; and will it be right for us to go knocking till they
hear us and open the door; making a disturbance and confusion all through
the household? Are we going, do you fancy, to the house of our wenches,
like gallants who come and knock and go in at any hour, however late it
may be?”
“Let us first of all find out the palace for certain,” replied Don
Quixote, “and then I will tell thee, Sancho, what we had best do; but
look, Sancho, for either I see badly, or that dark mass that one sees
from here should be Dulcinea’s palace.”
“Then let your worship lead the way,” said Sancho, “perhaps it may be so;
though I see it with my eyes and touch it with my hands, I’ll believe it
as much as I believe it is daylight now.”
Don Quixote took the lead, and having gone a matter of two hundred paces
he came upon the mass that produced the shade, and found it was a great
tower, and then he perceived that the building in question was no palace,
but the chief church of the town, and said he, “It’s the church we have
lit upon, Sancho.”
“So I see,” said Sancho, “and God grant we may not light upon our graves;
it is no good sign to find oneself wandering in a graveyard at this time
of night; and that, after my telling your worship, if I don’t mistake,
that the house of this lady will be in an alley without an outlet.”
“The curse of God on thee for a blockhead!” said Don Quixote; “where hast
thou ever heard of castles and royal palaces being built in alleys
without an outlet?”
“Señor,” replied Sancho, “every country has a way of its own; perhaps
here in El Toboso it is the way to build palaces and grand buildings in
alleys; so I entreat your worship to let me search about among these
streets or alleys before me, and perhaps, in some corner or other, I may
stumble on this palace--and I wish I saw the dogs eating it for leading
us such a dance.”
“Speak respectfully of what belongs to my lady, Sancho,” said Don
Quixote; “let us keep the feast in peace, and not throw the rope after
the bucket.”
“I’ll hold my tongue,” said Sancho, “but how am I to take it patiently
when your worship wants me, with only once seeing the house of our
mistress, to know always, and find it in the middle of the night, when
your worship can’t find it, who must have seen it thousands of times?”
“Thou wilt drive me to desperation, Sancho,” said Don Quixote. “Look
here, heretic, have I not told thee a thousand times that I have never
once in my life seen the peerless Dulcinea or crossed the threshold of
her palace, and that I am enamoured solely by hearsay and by the great
reputation she bears for beauty and discretion?”
“I hear it now,” returned Sancho; “and I may tell you that if you have
not seen her, no more have I.”
“That cannot be,” said Don Quixote, “for, at any rate, thou saidst, on
bringing back the answer to the letter I sent by thee, that thou sawest
her sifting wheat.”
“Don’t mind that, señor,” said Sancho; “I must tell you that my seeing
her and the answer I brought you back were by hearsay too, for I can no
more tell who the lady Dulcinea is than I can hit the sky.”
“Sancho, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “there are times for jests and times
when jests are out of place; if I tell thee that I have neither seen nor
spoken to the lady of my heart, it is no reason why thou shouldst say
thou hast not spoken to her or seen her, when the contrary is the case,
as thou well knowest.”
While the two were engaged in this conversation, they perceived some one
with a pair of mules approaching the spot where they stood, and from the
noise the plough made, as it dragged along the ground, they guessed him
to be some labourer who had got up before daybreak to go to his work, and
so it proved to be. He came along singing the ballad that says--
Ill did ye fare, ye men of France,
In Roncesvalles chase—
“May I die, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, when he heard him, “if any good
will come to us to-night! Dost thou not hear what that clown is singing?”
“I do,” said Sancho, “but what has Roncesvalles chase to do with what we
have in hand? He might just as well be singing the ballad of Calainos,
for any good or ill that can come to us in our business.”
By this time the labourer had come up, and Don Quixote asked him, “Can
you tell me, worthy friend, and God speed you, whereabouts here is the
palace of the peerless princess Dona Dulcinea del Toboso?”
“Señor,” replied the lad, “I am a stranger, and I have been only a few
days in the town, doing farm work for a rich farmer. In that house
opposite there live the curate of the village and the sacristan, and both
or either of them will be able to give your worship some account of this
lady princess, for they have a list of all the people of El Toboso;
though it is my belief there is not a princess living in the whole of it;
many ladies there are, of quality, and in her own house each of them may
be a princess.”
“Well, then, she I am inquiring for will be one of these, my friend,”
said Don Quixote.
“May be so,” replied the lad; “God be with you, for here comes the
daylight;” and without waiting for any more of his questions, he whipped
on his mules.
Sancho, seeing his master downcast and somewhat dissatisfied, said to
him, “Señor, daylight will be here before long, and it will not do for us
to let the sun find us in the street; it will be better for us to quit
the city, and for your worship to hide in some forest in the
neighbourhood, and I will come back in the daytime, and I won’t leave a
nook or corner of the whole village that I won’t search for the house,
castle, or palace, of my lady, and it will be hard luck for me if I don’t
find it; and as soon as I have found it I will speak to her grace, and
tell her where and how your worship is waiting for her to arrange some
plan for you to see her without any damage to her honour and reputation.”
“Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “thou hast delivered a thousand sentences
condensed in the compass of a few words; I thank thee for the advice thou
hast given me, and take it most gladly. Come, my son, let us go look for
some place where I may hide, while thou dost return, as thou sayest, to
seek, and speak with my lady, from whose discretion and courtesy I look
for favours more than miraculous.”
Sancho was in a fever to get his master out of the town, lest he should
discover the falsehood of the reply he had brought to him in the Sierra
Morena on behalf of Dulcinea; so he hastened their departure, which they
took at once, and two miles out of the village they found a forest or
thicket wherein Don Quixote ensconced himself, while Sancho returned to
the city to speak to Dulcinea, in which embassy things befell him which
demand fresh attention and a new chapter.
CHAPTER X.
WHEREIN IS RELATED THE CRAFTY DEVICE SANCHO ADOPTED TO ENCHANT THE LADY
DULCINEA, AND OTHER INCIDENTS AS LUDICROUS AS THEY ARE TRUE
When the author of this great history comes to relate what is set down in
this chapter he says he would have preferred to pass it over in silence,
fearing it would not be believed, because here Don Quixote’s madness
reaches the confines of the greatest that can be conceived, and even goes
a couple of bowshots beyond the greatest. But after all, though still
under the same fear and apprehension, he has recorded it without adding
to the story or leaving out a particle of the truth, and entirely
disregarding the charges of falsehood that might be brought against him;
and he was right, for the truth may run fine but will not break, and
always rises above falsehood as oil above water; and so, going on with
his story, he says that as soon as Don Quixote had ensconced himself in
the forest, oak grove, or wood near El Toboso, he bade Sancho return to
the city, and not come into his presence again without having first
spoken on his behalf to his lady, and begged of her that it might be her
good pleasure to permit herself to be seen by her enslaved knight, and
deign to bestow her blessing upon him, so that he might thereby hope for
a happy issue in all his encounters and difficult enterprises. Sancho
undertook to execute the task according to the instructions, and to bring
back an answer as good as the one he brought back before.
“Go, my son,” said Don Quixote, “and be not dazed when thou findest
thyself exposed to the light of that sun of beauty thou art going to
seek. Happy thou, above all the squires in the world! Bear in mind, and
let it not escape thy memory, how she receives thee; if she changes
colour while thou art giving her my message; if she is agitated and
disturbed at hearing my name; if she cannot rest upon her cushion,
shouldst thou haply find her seated in the sumptuous state chamber proper
to her rank; and should she be standing, observe if she poises herself
now on one foot, now on the other; if she repeats two or three times the
reply she gives thee; if she passes from gentleness to austerity, from
asperity to tenderness; if she raises her hand to smooth her hair though
it be not disarranged. In short, my son, observe all her actions and
motions, for if thou wilt report them to me as they were, I will gather
what she hides in the recesses of her heart as regards my love; for I
would have thee know, Sancho, if thou knowest it not, that with lovers
the outward actions and motions they give way to when their loves are in
question are the faithful messengers that carry the news of what is going
on in the depths of their hearts. Go, my friend, may better fortune than
mine attend thee, and bring thee a happier issue than that which I await
in dread in this dreary solitude.”
“I will go and return quickly,” said Sancho; “cheer up that little heart
of yours, master mine, for at the present moment you seem to have got one
no bigger than a hazel nut; remember what they say, that a stout heart
breaks bad luck, and that where there are no fletches there are no pegs;
and moreover they say, the hare jumps up where it’s not looked for. I say
this because, if we could not find my lady’s palaces or castles to-night,
now that it is daylight I count upon finding them when I least expect it,
and once found, leave it to me to manage her.”
“Verily, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “thou dost always bring in thy
proverbs happily, whatever we deal with; may God give me better luck in
what I am anxious about.”
With this, Sancho wheeled about and gave Dapple the stick, and Don
Quixote remained behind, seated on his horse, resting in his stirrups and
leaning on the end of his lance, filled with sad and troubled
forebodings; and there we will leave him, and accompany Sancho, who went
off no less serious and troubled than he left his master; so much so,
that as soon as he had got out of the thicket, and looking round saw that
Don Quixote was not within sight, he dismounted from his ass, and seating
himself at the foot of a tree began to commune with himself, saying,
“Now, brother Sancho, let us know where your worship is going. Are you
going to look for some ass that has been lost? Not at all. Then what are
you going to look for? I am going to look for a princess, that’s all; and
in her for the sun of beauty and the whole heaven at once. And where do
you expect to find all this, Sancho? Where? Why, in the great city of El
Toboso. Well, and for whom are you going to look for her? For the famous
knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who rights wrongs, gives food to those
who thirst and drink to the hungry. That’s all very well, but do you know
her house, Sancho? My master says it will be some royal palace or grand
castle. And have you ever seen her by any chance? Neither I nor my master
ever saw her. And does it strike you that it would be just and right if
the El Toboso people, finding out that you were here with the intention
of going to tamper with their princesses and trouble their ladies, were
to come and cudgel your ribs, and not leave a whole bone in you? They
would, indeed, have very good reason, if they did not see that I am under
orders, and that ‘you are a messenger, my friend, no blame belongs to
you.’ Don’t you trust to that, Sancho, for the Manchegan folk are as
hot-tempered as they are honest, and won’t put up with liberties from
anybody. By the Lord, if they get scent of you, it will be worse for you,
I promise you. Be off, you scoundrel! Let the bolt fall. Why should I go
looking for three feet on a cat, to please another man; and what is more,
when looking for Dulcinea will be looking for Marica in Ravena, or the
bachelor in Salamanca? The devil, the devil and nobody else, has mixed me
up in this business!”
Such was the soliloquy Sancho held with himself, and all the conclusion
he could come to was to say to himself again, “Well, there’s remedy for
everything except death, under whose yoke we have all to pass, whether we
like it or not, when life’s finished. I have seen by a thousand signs
that this master of mine is a madman fit to be tied, and for that matter,
I too, am not behind him; for I’m a greater fool than he is when I follow
him and serve him, if there’s any truth in the proverb that says, ‘Tell
me what company thou keepest, and I’ll tell thee what thou art,’ or in
that other, ‘Not with whom thou art bred, but with whom thou art fed.’
Well then, if he be mad, as he is, and with a madness that mostly takes
one thing for another, and white for black, and black for white, as was
seen when he said the windmills were giants, and the monks’ mules
dromedaries, flocks of sheep armies of enemies, and much more to the same
tune, it will not be very hard to make him believe that some country
girl, the first I come across here, is the lady Dulcinea; and if he does
not believe it, I’ll swear it; and if he should swear, I’ll swear again;
and if he persists I’ll persist still more, so as, come what may, to have
my quoit always over the peg. Maybe, by holding out in this way, I may
put a stop to his sending me on messages of this kind another time; or
maybe he will think, as I suspect he will, that one of those wicked
enchanters, who he says have a spite against him, has changed her form
for the sake of doing him an ill turn and injuring him.”
With this reflection Sancho made his mind easy, counting the business as
good as settled, and stayed there till the afternoon so as to make Don
Quixote think he had time enough to go to El Toboso and return; and
things turned out so luckily for him that as he got up to mount Dapple,
he spied, coming from El Toboso towards the spot where he stood, three
peasant girls on three colts, or fillies--for the author does not make
the point clear, though it is more likely they were she-asses, the usual
mount with village girls; but as it is of no great consequence, we need
not stop to prove it.
To be brief, the instant Sancho saw the peasant girls, he returned full
speed to seek his master, and found him sighing and uttering a thousand
passionate lamentations. When Don Quixote saw him he exclaimed, “What
news, Sancho, my friend? Am I to mark this day with a white stone or a
black?”
“Your worship,” replied Sancho, “had better mark it with ruddle, like the
inscriptions on the walls of class rooms, that those who see it may see
it plain.”
“Then thou bringest good news,” said Don Quixote.
“So good,” replied Sancho, “that your worship has only to spur Rocinante
and get out into the open field to see the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, who,
with two others, damsels of hers, is coming to see your worship.”
“Holy God! what art thou saying, Sancho, my friend?” exclaimed Don
Quixote. “Take care thou art not deceiving me, or seeking by false joy to
cheer my real sadness.”
“What could I get by deceiving your worship,” returned Sancho,
“especially when it will so soon be shown whether I tell the truth or
not? Come, señor, push on, and you will see the princess our mistress
coming, robed and adorned--in fact, like what she is. Her damsels and she
are all one glow of gold, all bunches of pearls, all diamonds, all
rubies, all cloth of brocade of more than ten borders; with their hair
loose on their shoulders like so many sunbeams playing with the wind; and
moreover, they come mounted on three piebald cackneys, the finest sight
ever you saw.”
“Hackneys, you mean, Sancho,” said Don Quixote.
“There is not much difference between cackneys and hackneys,” said
Sancho; “but no matter what they come on, there they are, the finest
ladies one could wish for, especially my lady the princess Dulcinea, who
staggers one’s senses.”
“Let us go, Sancho, my son,” said Don Quixote, “and in guerdon of this
news, as unexpected as it is good, I bestow upon thee the best spoil I
shall win in the first adventure I may have; or if that does not satisfy
thee, I promise thee the foals I shall have this year from my three mares
that thou knowest are in foal on our village common.”
“I’ll take the foals,” said Sancho; “for it is not quite certain that the
spoils of the first adventure will be good ones.”
By this time they had cleared the wood, and saw the three village lasses
close at hand. Don Quixote looked all along the road to El Toboso, and as
he could see nobody except the three peasant girls, he was completely
puzzled, and asked Sancho if it was outside the city he had left them.
“How outside the city?” returned Sancho. “Are your worship’s eyes in the
back of your head, that you can’t see that they are these who are coming
here, shining like the very sun at noonday?”
“I see nothing, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “but three country girls on
three jackasses.”
“Now, may God deliver me from the devil!” said Sancho, “and can it be
that your worship takes three hackneys--or whatever they’re called-as
white as the driven snow, for jackasses? By the Lord, I could tear my
beard if that was the case!”
“Well, I can only say, Sancho, my friend,” said Don Quixote, “that it is
as plain they are jackasses--or jennyasses--as that I am Don Quixote, and
thou Sancho Panza: at any rate, they seem to me to be so.”
“Hush, señor,” said Sancho, “don’t talk that way, but open your eyes, and
come and pay your respects to the lady of your thoughts, who is close
upon us now;” and with these words he advanced to receive the three
village lasses, and dismounting from Dapple, caught hold of one of the
asses of the three country girls by the halter, and dropping on both
knees on the ground, he said, “Queen and princess and duchess of beauty,
may it please your haughtiness and greatness to receive into your favour
and good-will your captive knight who stands there turned into marble
stone, and quite stupefied and benumbed at finding himself in your
magnificent presence. I am Sancho Panza, his squire, and he the vagabond
knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called ‘The Knight of the
Rueful Countenance.’”
Don Quixote had by this time placed himself on his knees beside Sancho,
and, with eyes starting out of his head and a puzzled gaze, was regarding
her whom Sancho called queen and lady; and as he could see nothing in her
except a village lass, and not a very well-favoured one, for she was
platter-faced and snub-nosed, he was perplexed and bewildered, and did
not venture to open his lips. The country girls, at the same time, were
astonished to see these two men, so different in appearance, on their
knees, preventing their companion from going on. She, however, who had
been stopped, breaking silence, said angrily and testily, “Get out of the
way, bad luck to you, and let us pass, for we are in a hurry.”
To which Sancho returned, “Oh, princess and universal lady of El Toboso,
is not your magnanimous heart softened by seeing the pillar and prop of
knight-errantry on his knees before your sublimated presence?”
On hearing this, one of the others exclaimed, “Woa then! why, I’m rubbing
thee down, she-ass of my father-in-law! See how the lordlings come to
make game of the village girls now, as if we here could not chaff as well
as themselves. Go your own way, and let us go ours, and it will be better
for you.”
“Get up, Sancho,” said Don Quixote at this; “I see that fortune, ‘with
evil done to me unsated still,’ has taken possession of all the roads by
which any comfort may reach ‘this wretched soul’ that I carry in my
flesh. And thou, highest perfection of excellence that can be desired,
utmost limit of grace in human shape, sole relief of this afflicted heart
that adores thee, though the malign enchanter that persecutes me has
brought clouds and cataracts on my eyes, and to them, and them only,
transformed thy unparagoned beauty and changed thy features into those of
a poor peasant girl, if so be he has not at the same time changed mine
into those of some monster to render them loathsome in thy sight, refuse
not to look upon me with tenderness and love; seeing in this submission
that I make on my knees to thy transformed beauty the humility with which
my soul adores thee.”
“Hey-day! My grandfather!” cried the girl, “much I care for your
love-making! Get out of the way and let us pass, and we’ll thank you.”
Sancho stood aside and let her go, very well pleased to have got so well
out of the hobble he was in. The instant the village lass who had done
duty for Dulcinea found herself free, prodding her “cackney” with a spike
she had at the end of a stick, she set off at full speed across the
field. The she-ass, however, feeling the point more acutely than usual,
began cutting such capers, that it flung the lady Dulcinea to the ground;
seeing which, Don Quixote ran to raise her up, and Sancho to fix and
girth the pack-saddle, which also had slipped under the ass’s belly. The
pack-saddle being secured, as Don Quixote was about to lift up his
enchanted mistress in his arms and put her upon her beast, the lady,
getting up from the ground, saved him the trouble, for, going back a
little, she took a short run, and putting both hands on the croup of the
ass she dropped into the saddle more lightly than a falcon, and sat
astride like a man, whereat Sancho said, “Rogue! but our lady is lighter
than a lanner, and might teach the cleverest Cordovan or Mexican how to
mount; she cleared the back of the saddle in one jump, and without spurs
she is making the hackney go like a zebra; and her damsels are no way
behind her, for they all fly like the wind;” which was the truth, for as
soon as they saw Dulcinea mounted, they pushed on after her, and sped
away without looking back, for more than half a league.
Don Quixote followed them with his eyes, and when they were no longer in
sight, he turned to Sancho and said, “How now, Sancho? thou seest how I
am hated by enchanters! And see to what a length the malice and spite
they bear me go, when they seek to deprive me of the happiness it would
give me to see my lady in her own proper form. The fact is I was born to
be an example of misfortune, and the target and mark at which the arrows
of adversity are aimed and directed. Observe too, Sancho, that these
traitors were not content with changing and transforming my Dulcinea, but
they transformed and changed her into a shape as mean and ill-favoured as
that of the village girl yonder; and at the same time they robbed her of
that which is such a peculiar property of ladies of distinction, that is
to say, the sweet fragrance that comes of being always among perfumes and
flowers. For I must tell thee, Sancho, that when I approached to put
Dulcinea upon her hackney (as thou sayest it was, though to me it
appeared a she-ass), she gave me a whiff of raw garlic that made my head
reel, and poisoned my very heart.”
“O scum of the earth!” cried Sancho at this, “O miserable, spiteful
enchanters! O that I could see you all strung by the gills, like sardines
on a twig! Ye know a great deal, ye can do a great deal, and ye do a
great deal more. It ought to have been enough for you, ye scoundrels, to
have changed the pearls of my lady’s eyes into oak galls, and her hair of
purest gold into the bristles of a red ox’s tail, and in short, all her
features from fair to foul, without meddling with her smell; for by that
we might somehow have found out what was hidden underneath that ugly
rind; though, to tell the truth, I never perceived her ugliness, but only
her beauty, which was raised to the highest pitch of perfection by a mole
she had on her right lip, like a moustache, with seven or eight red hairs
like threads of gold, and more than a palm long.”
“From the correspondence which exists between those of the face and those
of the body,” said Don Quixote, “Dulcinea must have another mole
resembling that on the thick of the thigh on that side on which she has
the one on her face; but hairs of the length thou hast mentioned are very
long for moles.”
“Well, all I can say is there they were as plain as could be,” replied
Sancho.
“I believe it, my friend,” returned Don Quixote; “for nature bestowed
nothing on Dulcinea that was not perfect and well-finished; and so, if
she had a hundred moles like the one thou hast described, in her they
would not be moles, but moons and shining stars. But tell me, Sancho,
that which seemed to me to be a pack-saddle as thou wert fixing it, was
it a flat-saddle or a side-saddle?”
“It was neither,” replied Sancho, “but a jineta saddle, with a field
covering worth half a kingdom, so rich is it.”
“And that I could not see all this, Sancho!” said Don Quixote; “once more
I say, and will say a thousand times, I am the most unfortunate of men.”
Sancho, the rogue, had enough to do to hide his laughter, at hearing the
simplicity of the master he had so nicely befooled. At length, after a
good deal more conversation had passed between them, they remounted their
beasts, and followed the road to Saragossa, which they expected to reach
in time to take part in a certain grand festival which is held every year
in that illustrious city; but before they got there things happened to
them, so many, so important, and so strange, that they deserve to be
recorded and read, as will be seen farther on.
CHAPTER XI.
OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE WHICH THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE HAD WITH THE CAR
OR CART OF “THE CORTES OF DEATH”
Dejected beyond measure did Don Quixote pursue his journey, turning over
in his mind the cruel trick the enchanters had played him in changing his
lady Dulcinea into the vile shape of the village lass, nor could he think
of any way of restoring her to her original form; and these reflections
so absorbed him, that without being aware of it he let go Rocinante’s
bridle, and he, perceiving the liberty that was granted him, stopped at
every step to crop the fresh grass with which the plain abounded.
Sancho recalled him from his reverie. “Melancholy, señor,” said he, “was
made, not for beasts, but for men; but if men give way to it overmuch
they turn to beasts; control yourself, your worship; be yourself again;
gather up Rocinante’s reins; cheer up, rouse yourself and show that
gallant spirit that knights-errant ought to have. What the devil is this?
What weakness is this? Are we here or in France? The devil fly away with
all the Dulcineas in the world; for the well-being of a single
knight-errant is of more consequence than all the enchantments and
transformations on earth.”
“Hush, Sancho,” said Don Quixote in a weak and faint voice, “hush and
utter no blasphemies against that enchanted lady; for I alone am to blame
for her misfortune and hard fate; her calamity has come of the hatred the
wicked bear me.”
“So say I,” returned Sancho; “his heart rend in twain, I trow, who saw
her once, to see her now.”
“Thou mayest well say that, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “as thou sawest
her in the full perfection of her beauty; for the enchantment does not go
so far as to pervert thy vision or hide her loveliness from thee; against
me alone and against my eyes is the strength of its venom directed.
Nevertheless, there is one thing which has occurred to me, and that is
that thou didst ill describe her beauty to me, for, as well as I
recollect, thou saidst that her eyes were pearls; but eyes that are like
pearls are rather the eyes of a sea-bream than of a lady, and I am
persuaded that Dulcinea’s must be green emeralds, full and soft, with two
rainbows for eyebrows; take away those pearls from her eyes and transfer
them to her teeth; for beyond a doubt, Sancho, thou hast taken the one
for the other, the eyes for the teeth.”
“Very likely,” said Sancho; “for her beauty bewildered me as much as her
ugliness did your worship; but let us leave it all to God, who alone
knows what is to happen in this vale of tears, in this evil world of
ours, where there is hardly a thing to be found without some mixture of
wickedness, roguery, and rascality. But one thing, señor, troubles me
more than all the rest, and that is thinking what is to be done when your
worship conquers some giant, or some other knight, and orders him to go
and present himself before the beauty of the lady Dulcinea. Where is this
poor giant, or this poor wretch of a vanquished knight, to find her? I
think I can see them wandering all over El Toboso, looking like noddies,
and asking for my lady Dulcinea; and even if they meet her in the middle
of the street they won’t know her any more than they would my father.”
“Perhaps, Sancho,” returned Don Quixote, “the enchantment does not go so
far as to deprive conquered and presented giants and knights of the power
of recognising Dulcinea; we will try by experiment with one or two of the
first I vanquish and send to her, whether they see her or not, by
commanding them to return and give me an account of what happened to them
in this respect.”
“I declare, I think what your worship has proposed is excellent,” said
Sancho; “and that by this plan we shall find out what we want to know;
and if it be that it is only from your worship she is hidden, the
misfortune will be more yours than hers; but so long as the lady Dulcinea
is well and happy, we on our part will make the best of it, and get on as
well as we can, seeking our adventures, and leaving Time to take his own
course; for he is the best physician for these and greater ailments.”
Don Quixote was about to reply to Sancho Panza, but he was prevented by a
cart crossing the road full of the most diverse and strange personages
and figures that could be imagined. He who led the mules and acted as
carter was a hideous demon; the cart was open to the sky, without a tilt
or cane roof, and the first figure that presented itself to Don Quixote’s
eyes was that of Death itself with a human face; next to it was an angel
with large painted wings, and at one side an emperor, with a crown, to
all appearance of gold, on his head. At the feet of Death was the god
called Cupid, without his bandage, but with his bow, quiver, and arrows;
there was also a knight in full armour, except that he had no morion or
helmet, but only a hat decked with plumes of divers colours; and along
with these there were others with a variety of costumes and faces. All
this, unexpectedly encountered, took Don Quixote somewhat aback, and
struck terror into the heart of Sancho; but the next instant Don Quixote
was glad of it, believing that some new perilous adventure was presenting
itself to him, and under this impression, and with a spirit prepared to
face any danger, he planted himself in front of the cart, and in a loud
and menacing tone, exclaimed, “Carter, or coachman, or devil, or whatever
thou art, tell me at once who thou art, whither thou art going, and who
these folk are thou carriest in thy wagon, which looks more like Charon’s
boat than an ordinary cart.”
To which the devil, stopping the cart, answered quietly, “Señor, we are
players of Angulo el Malo’s company; we have been acting the play of ‘The
Cortes of Death’ this morning, which is the octave of Corpus Christi, in
a village behind that hill, and we have to act it this afternoon in that
village which you can see from this; and as it is so near, and to save
the trouble of undressing and dressing again, we go in the costumes in
which we perform. That lad there appears as Death, that other as an
angel, that woman, the manager’s wife, plays the queen, this one the
soldier, that the emperor, and I the devil; and I am one of the principal
characters of the play, for in this company I take the leading parts. If
you want to know anything more about us, ask me and I will answer with
the utmost exactitude, for as I am a devil I am up to everything.”
“By the faith of a knight-errant,” replied Don Quixote, “when I saw this
cart I fancied some great adventure was presenting itself to me; but I
declare one must touch with the hand what appears to the eye, if
illusions are to be avoided. God speed you, good people; keep your
festival, and remember, if you demand of me ought wherein I can render
you a service, I will do it gladly and willingly, for from a child I was
fond of the play, and in my youth a keen lover of the actor’s art.”
While they were talking, fate so willed it that one of the company in a
mummers’ dress with a great number of bells, and armed with three blown
ox-bladders at the end of a stick, joined them, and this merry-andrew
approaching Don Quixote, began flourishing his stick and banging the
ground with the bladders and cutting capers with great jingling of the
bells, which untoward apparition so startled Rocinante that, in spite of
Don Quixote’s efforts to hold him in, taking the bit between his teeth he
set off across the plain with greater speed than the bones of his anatomy
ever gave any promise of.
Sancho, who thought his master was in danger of being thrown, jumped off
Dapple, and ran in all haste to help him; but by the time he reached him
he was already on the ground, and beside him was Rocinante, who had come
down with his master, the usual end and upshot of Rocinante’s vivacity
and high spirits. But the moment Sancho quitted his beast to go and help
Don Quixote, the dancing devil with the bladders jumped up on Dapple, and
beating him with them, more by the fright and the noise than by the pain
of the blows, made him fly across the fields towards the village where
they were going to hold their festival. Sancho witnessed Dapple’s career
and his master’s fall, and did not know which of the two cases of need he
should attend to first; but in the end, like a good squire and good
servant, he let his love for his master prevail over his affection for
his ass; though every time he saw the bladders rise in the air and come
down on the hind quarters of his Dapple he felt the pains and terrors of
death, and he would have rather had the blows fall on the apples of his
own eyes than on the least hair of his ass’s tail. In this trouble and
perplexity he came to where Don Quixote lay in a far sorrier plight than
he liked, and having helped him to mount Rocinante, he said to him,
“Señor, the devil has carried off my Dapple.”
“What devil?” asked Don Quixote.
“The one with the bladders,” said Sancho.
“Then I will recover him,” said Don Quixote, “even if he be shut up with
him in the deepest and darkest dungeons of hell. Follow me, Sancho, for
the cart goes slowly, and with the mules of it I will make good the loss
of Dapple.”
“You need not take the trouble, señor,” said Sancho; “keep cool, for as I
now see, the devil has let Dapple go and he is coming back to his old
quarters;” and so it turned out, for, having come down with Dapple, in
imitation of Don Quixote and Rocinante, the devil made off on foot to the
town, and the ass came back to his master.
“For all that,” said Don Quixote, “it will be well to visit the
discourtesy of that devil upon some of those in the cart, even if it were
the emperor himself.”
“Don’t think of it, your worship,” returned Sancho; “take my advice and
never meddle with actors, for they are a favoured class; I myself have
known an actor taken up for two murders, and yet come off scot-free;
remember that, as they are merry folk who give pleasure, everyone favours
and protects them, and helps and makes much of them, above all when they
are those of the royal companies and under patent, all or most of whom in
dress and appearance look like princes.”
“Still, for all that,” said Don Quixote, “the player devil must not go
off boasting, even if the whole human race favours him.”
So saying, he made for the cart, which was now very near the town,
shouting out as he went, “Stay! halt! ye merry, jovial crew! I want to
teach you how to treat asses and animals that serve the squires of
knights-errant for steeds.”
So loud were the shouts of Don Quixote, that those in the cart heard and
understood them, and, guessing by the words what the speaker’s intention
was, Death in an instant jumped out of the cart, and the emperor, the
devil carter and the angel after him, nor did the queen or the god Cupid
stay behind; and all armed themselves with stones and formed in line,
prepared to receive Don Quixote on the points of their pebbles. Don
Quixote, when he saw them drawn up in such a gallant array with uplifted
arms ready for a mighty discharge of stones, checked Rocinante and began
to consider in what way he could attack them with the least danger to
himself. As he halted Sancho came up, and seeing him disposed to attack
this well-ordered squadron, said to him, “It would be the height of
madness to attempt such an enterprise; remember, señor, that against sops
from the brook, and plenty of them, there is no defensive armour in the
world, except to stow oneself away under a brass bell; and besides, one
should remember that it is rashness, and not valour, for a single man to
attack an army that has Death in it, and where emperors fight in person,
with angels, good and bad, to help them; and if this reflection will not
make you keep quiet, perhaps it will to know for certain that among all
these, though they look like kings, princes, and emperors, there is not a
single knight-errant.”
“Now indeed thou hast hit the point, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “which
may and should turn me from the resolution I had already formed. I cannot
and must not draw sword, as I have many a time before told thee, against
anyone who is not a dubbed knight; it is for thee, Sancho, if thou wilt,
to take vengeance for the wrong done to thy Dapple; and I will help thee
from here by shouts and salutary counsels.”
“There is no occasion to take vengeance on anyone, señor,” replied
Sancho; “for it is not the part of good Christians to revenge wrongs; and
besides, I will arrange it with my ass to leave his grievance to my
good-will and pleasure, and that is to live in peace as long as heaven
grants me life.”
“Well,” said Don Quixote, “if that be thy determination, good Sancho,
sensible Sancho, Christian Sancho, honest Sancho, let us leave these
phantoms alone and turn to the pursuit of better and worthier adventures;
for, from what I see of this country, we cannot fail to find plenty of
marvellous ones in it.”
He at once wheeled about, Sancho ran to take possession of his Dapple,
Death and his flying squadron returned to their cart and pursued their
journey, and thus the dread adventure of the cart of Death ended happily,
thanks to the advice Sancho gave his master; who had, the following day,
a fresh adventure, of no less thrilling interest than the last, with an
enamoured knight-errant.
CHAPTER XII.
OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE WHICH BEFELL THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE WITH THE
BOLD KNIGHT OF THE MIRRORS
The night succeeding the day of the encounter with Death, Don Quixote and
his squire passed under some tall shady trees, and Don Quixote at
Sancho’s persuasion ate a little from the store carried by Dapple, and
over their supper Sancho said to his master, “Señor, what a fool I should
have looked if I had chosen for my reward the spoils of the first
adventure your worship achieved, instead of the foals of the three mares.
After all, ‘a sparrow in the hand is better than a vulture on the wing.’”
“At the same time, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “if thou hadst let me
attack them as I wanted, at the very least the emperor’s gold crown and
Cupid’s painted wings would have fallen to thee as spoils, for I should
have taken them by force and given them into thy hands.”
“The sceptres and crowns of those play-actor emperors,” said Sancho,
“were never yet pure gold, but only brass foil or tin.”
“That is true,” said Don Quixote, “for it would not be right that the
accessories of the drama should be real, instead of being mere fictions
and semblances, like the drama itself; towards which, Sancho-and, as a
necessary consequence, towards those who represent and produce it--I
would that thou wert favourably disposed, for they are all instruments of
great good to the State, placing before us at every step a mirror in
which we may see vividly displayed what goes on in human life; nor is
there any similitude that shows us more faithfully what we are and ought
to be than the play and the players. Come, tell me, hast thou not seen a
play acted in which kings, emperors, pontiffs, knights, ladies, and
divers other personages were introduced? One plays the villain, another
the knave, this one the merchant, that the soldier, one the sharp-witted
fool, another the foolish lover; and when the play is over, and they have
put off the dresses they wore in it, all the actors become equal.”
“Yes, I have seen that,” said Sancho.
“Well then,” said Don Quixote, “the same thing happens in the comedy and
life of this world, where some play emperors, others popes, and, in
short, all the characters that can be brought into a play; but when it is
over, that is to say when life ends, death strips them all of the
garments that distinguish one from the other, and all are equal in the
grave.”
“A fine comparison!” said Sancho; “though not so new but that I have
heard it many and many a time, as well as that other one of the game of
chess; how, so long as the game lasts, each piece has its own particular
office, and when the game is finished they are all mixed, jumbled up and
shaken together, and stowed away in the bag, which is much like ending
life in the grave.”
“Thou art growing less doltish and more shrewd every day, Sancho,” said
Don Quixote.
“Ay,” said Sancho; “it must be that some of your worship’s shrewdness
sticks to me; land that, of itself, is barren and dry, will come to yield
good fruit if you dung it and till it; what I mean is that your worship’s
conversation has been the dung that has fallen on the barren soil of my
dry wit, and the time I have been in your service and society has been
the tillage; and with the help of this I hope to yield fruit in abundance
that will not fall away or slide from those paths of good breeding that
your worship has made in my parched understanding.”
Don Quixote laughed at Sancho’s affected phraseology, and perceived that
what he said about his improvement was true, for now and then he spoke in
a way that surprised him; though always, or mostly, when Sancho tried to
talk fine and attempted polite language, he wound up by toppling over
from the summit of his simplicity into the abyss of his ignorance; and
where he showed his culture and his memory to the greatest advantage was
in dragging in proverbs, no matter whether they had any bearing or not
upon the subject in hand, as may have been seen already and will be
noticed in the course of this history.
In conversation of this kind they passed a good part of the night, but
Sancho felt a desire to let down the curtains of his eyes, as he used to
say when he wanted to go to sleep; and stripping Dapple he left him at
liberty to graze his fill. He did not remove Rocinante’s saddle, as his
master’s express orders were, that so long as they were in the field or
not sleeping under a roof Rocinante was not to be stripped--the ancient
usage established and observed by knights-errant being to take off the
bridle and hang it on the saddle-bow, but to remove the saddle from the
horse--never! Sancho acted accordingly, and gave him the same liberty he
had given Dapple, between whom and Rocinante there was a friendship so
unequalled and so strong, that it is handed down by tradition from father
to son, that the author of this veracious history devoted some special
chapters to it, which, in order to preserve the propriety and decorum due
to a history so heroic, he did not insert therein; although at times he
forgets this resolution of his and describes how eagerly the two beasts
would scratch one another when they were together and how, when they were
tired or full, Rocinante would lay his neck across Dapple’s, stretching
half a yard or more on the other side, and the pair would stand thus,
gazing thoughtfully on the ground, for three days, or at least so long as
they were left alone, or hunger did not drive them to go and look for
food. I may add that they say the author left it on record that he
likened their friendship to that of Nisus and Euryalus, and Pylades and
Orestes; and if that be so, it may be perceived, to the admiration of
mankind, how firm the friendship must have been between these two
peaceful animals, shaming men, who preserve friendships with one another
so badly. This was why it was said--
For friend no longer is there friend;
The reeds turn lances now.
And some one else has sung--
Friend to friend the bug, etc.
And let no one fancy that the author was at all astray when he compared
the friendship of these animals to that of men; for men have received
many lessons from beasts, and learned many important things, as, for
example, the clyster from the stork, vomit and gratitude from the dog,
watchfulness from the crane, foresight from the ant, modesty from the
elephant, and loyalty from the horse.
Sancho at last fell asleep at the foot of a cork tree, while Don Quixote
dozed at that of a sturdy oak; but a short time only had elapsed when a
noise he heard behind him awoke him, and rising up startled, he listened
and looked in the direction the noise came from, and perceived two men on
horseback, one of whom, letting himself drop from the saddle, said to the
other, “Dismount, my friend, and take the bridles off the horses, for, so
far as I can see, this place will furnish grass for them, and the
solitude and silence my love-sick thoughts need of.” As he said this he
stretched himself upon the ground, and as he flung himself down, the
armour in which he was clad rattled, whereby Don Quixote perceived that
he must be a knight-errant; and going over to Sancho, who was asleep, he
shook him by the arm and with no small difficulty brought him back to his
senses, and said in a low voice to him, “Brother Sancho, we have got an
adventure.”
“God send us a good one,” said Sancho; “and where may her ladyship the
adventure be?”
“Where, Sancho?” replied Don Quixote; “turn thine eyes and look, and thou
wilt see stretched there a knight-errant, who, it strikes me, is not over
and above happy, for I saw him fling himself off his horse and throw
himself on the ground with a certain air of dejection, and his armour
rattled as he fell.”
“Well,” said Sancho, “how does your worship make out that to be an
adventure?”
“I do not mean to say,” returned Don Quixote, “that it is a complete
adventure, but that it is the beginning of one, for it is in this way
adventures begin. But listen, for it seems he is tuning a lute or guitar,
and from the way he is spitting and clearing his chest he must be getting
ready to sing something.”
“Faith, you are right,” said Sancho, “and no doubt he is some enamoured
knight.”
“There is no knight-errant that is not,” said Don Quixote; “but let us
listen to him, for, if he sings, by that thread we shall extract the ball
of his thoughts; because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth
speaketh.”
Sancho was about to reply to his master, but the Knight of the Grove’s
voice, which was neither very bad nor very good, stopped him, and
listening attentively the pair heard him sing this
SONNET
Your pleasure, prithee, lady mine, unfold;
Declare the terms that I am to obey;
My will to yours submissively I mould,
And from your law my feet shall never stray.
Would you I die, to silent grief a prey?
Then count me even now as dead and cold;
Would you I tell my woes in some new way?
Then shall my tale by Love itself be told.
The unison of opposites to prove,
Of the soft wax and diamond hard am I;
But still, obedient to the laws of love,
Here, hard or soft, I offer you my breast,
Whate’er you grave or stamp thereon shall rest
Indelible for all eternity.
With an “Ah me!” that seemed to be drawn from the inmost recesses of his
heart, the Knight of the Grove brought his lay to an end, and shortly
afterwards exclaimed in a melancholy and piteous voice, “O fairest and
most ungrateful woman on earth! What! can it be, most serene Casildea de
Vandalia, that thou wilt suffer this thy captive knight to waste away and
perish in ceaseless wanderings and rude and arduous toils? It is not
enough that I have compelled all the knights of Navarre, all the Leonese,
all the Tartesians, all the Castilians, and finally all the knights of La
Mancha, to confess thee the most beautiful in the world?”
“Not so,” said Don Quixote at this, “for I am of La Mancha, and I have
never confessed anything of the sort, nor could I nor should I confess a
thing so much to the prejudice of my lady’s beauty; thou seest how this
knight is raving, Sancho. But let us listen, perhaps he will tell us more
about himself.”
“That he will,” returned Sancho, “for he seems in a mood to bewail
himself for a month at a stretch.”
But this was not the case, for the Knight of the Grove, hearing voices
near him, instead of continuing his lamentation, stood up and exclaimed
in a distinct but courteous tone, “Who goes there? What are you? Do you
belong to the number of the happy or of the miserable?”
“Of the miserable,” answered Don Quixote.
“Then come to me,” said he of the Grove, “and rest assured that it is to
woe itself and affliction itself you come.”
Don Quixote, finding himself answered in such a soft and courteous
manner, went over to him, and so did Sancho.
The doleful knight took Don Quixote by the arm, saying, “Sit down here,
sir knight; for, that you are one, and of those that profess
knight-errantry, it is to me a sufficient proof to have found you in this
place, where solitude and night, the natural couch and proper retreat of
knights-errant, keep you company.” To which Don made answer, “A knight I
am of the profession you mention, and though sorrows, misfortunes, and
calamities have made my heart their abode, the compassion I feel for the
misfortunes of others has not been thereby banished from it. From what
you have just now sung I gather that yours spring from love, I mean from
the love you bear that fair ingrate you named in your lament.”
In the meantime, they had seated themselves together on the hard ground
peaceably and sociably, just as if, as soon as day broke, they were not
going to break one another’s heads.
“Are you, sir knight, in love perchance?” asked he of the Grove of Don
Quixote.
“By mischance I am,” replied Don Quixote; “though the ills arising from
well-bestowed affections should be esteemed favours rather than
misfortunes.”
“That is true,” returned he of the Grove, “if scorn did not unsettle our
reason and understanding, for if it be excessive it looks like revenge.”
“I was never scorned by my lady,” said Don Quixote.
“Certainly not,” said Sancho, who stood close by, “for my lady is as a
lamb, and softer than a roll of butter.”
“Is this your squire?” asked he of the Grove.
“He is,” said Don Quixote.
“I never yet saw a squire,” said he of the Grove, “who ventured to speak
when his master was speaking; at least, there is mine, who is as big as
his father, and it cannot be proved that he has ever opened his lips when
I am speaking.”
“By my faith then,” said Sancho, “I have spoken, and am fit to speak, in
the presence of one as much, or even--but never mind--it only makes it
worse to stir it.”
The squire of the Grove took Sancho by the arm, saying to him, “Let us
two go where we can talk in squire style as much as we please, and leave
these gentlemen our masters to fight it out over the story of their
loves; and, depend upon it, daybreak will find them at it without having
made an end of it.”
“So be it by all means,” said Sancho; “and I will tell your worship who I
am, that you may see whether I am to be reckoned among the number of the
most talkative squires.”
With this the two squires withdrew to one side, and between them there
passed a conversation as droll as that which passed between their masters
was serious.
CHAPTER XIII.
IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE GROVE, TOGETHER
WITH THE SENSIBLE, ORIGINAL, AND TRANQUIL COLLOQUY THAT PASSED BETWEEN
THE TWO SQUIRES
The knights and the squires made two parties, these telling the story of
their lives, the others the story of their loves; but the history relates
first of all the conversation of the servants, and afterwards takes up
that of the masters; and it says that, withdrawing a little from the
others, he of the Grove said to Sancho, “A hard life it is we lead and
live, señor, we that are squires to knights-errant; verily, we eat our
bread in the sweat of our faces, which is one of the curses God laid on
our first parents.”
“It may be said, too,” added Sancho, “that we eat it in the chill of our
bodies; for who gets more heat and cold than the miserable squires of
knight-errantry? Even so it would not be so bad if we had something to
eat, for woes are lighter if there’s bread; but sometimes we go a day or
two without breaking our fast, except with the wind that blows.”
“All that,” said he of the Grove, “may be endured and put up with when we
have hopes of reward; for, unless the knight-errant he serves is
excessively unlucky, after a few turns the squire will at least find
himself rewarded with a fine government of some island or some fair
county.”
“I,” said Sancho, “have already told my master that I shall be content
with the government of some island, and he is so noble and generous that
he has promised it to me ever so many times.”
“I,” said he of the Grove, “shall be satisfied with a canonry for my
services, and my master has already assigned me one.”
“Your master,” said Sancho, “no doubt is a knight in the Church line, and
can bestow rewards of that sort on his good squire; but mine is only a
layman; though I remember some clever, but, to my mind, designing people,
strove to persuade him to try and become an archbishop. He, however,
would not be anything but an emperor; but I was trembling all the time
lest he should take a fancy to go into the Church, not finding myself fit
to hold office in it; for I may tell you, though I seem a man, I am no
better than a beast for the Church.”
“Well, then, you are wrong there,” said he of the Grove; “for those
island governments are not all satisfactory; some are awkward, some are
poor, some are dull, and, in short, the highest and choicest brings with
it a heavy burden of cares and troubles which the unhappy wight to whose
lot it has fallen bears upon his shoulders. Far better would it be for us
who have adopted this accursed service to go back to our own houses, and
there employ ourselves in pleasanter occupations--in hunting or fishing,
for instance; for what squire in the world is there so poor as not to
have a hack and a couple of greyhounds and a fishingrod to amuse himself
with in his own village?”
“I am not in want of any of those things,” said Sancho; “to be sure I
have no hack, but I have an ass that is worth my master’s horse twice
over; God send me a bad Easter, and that the next one I am to see, if I
would swap, even if I got four bushels of barley to boot. You will laugh
at the value I put on my Dapple--for dapple is the colour of my beast. As
to greyhounds, I can’t want for them, for there are enough and to spare
in my town; and, moreover, there is more pleasure in sport when it is at
other people’s expense.”
“In truth and earnest, sir squire,” said he of the Grove, “I have made up
my mind and determined to have done with these drunken vagaries of these
knights, and go back to my village, and bring up my children; for I have
three, like three Oriental pearls.”
“I have two,” said Sancho, “that might be presented before the Pope
himself, especially a girl whom I am breeding up for a countess, please
God, though in spite of her mother.”
“And how old is this lady that is being bred up for a countess?” asked he
of the Grove.
“Fifteen, a couple of years more or less,” answered Sancho; “but she is
as tall as a lance, and as fresh as an April morning, and as strong as a
porter.”
“Those are gifts to fit her to be not only a countess but a nymph of the
greenwood,” said he of the Grove; “whoreson strumpet! what pith the rogue
must have!”
To which Sancho made answer, somewhat sulkily, “She’s no strumpet, nor
was her mother, nor will either of them be, please God, while I live;
speak more civilly; for one bred up among knights-errant, who are
courtesy itself, your words don’t seem to me to be very becoming.”
“O how little you know about compliments, sir squire,” returned he of the
Grove. “What! don’t you know that when a horseman delivers a good lance
thrust at the bull in the plaza, or when anyone does anything very well,
the people are wont to say, ‘Ha, whoreson rip! how well he has done it!’
and that what seems to be abuse in the expression is high praise? Disown
sons and daughters, señor, who don’t do what deserves that compliments of
this sort should be paid to their parents.”
“I do disown them,” replied Sancho, “and in this way, and by the same
reasoning, you might call me and my children and my wife all the
strumpets in the world, for all they do and say is of a kind that in the
highest degree deserves the same praise; and to see them again I pray God
to deliver me from mortal sin, or, what comes to the same thing, to
deliver me from this perilous calling of squire into which I have fallen
a second time, decayed and beguiled by a purse with a hundred ducats that
I found one day in the heart of the Sierra Morena; and the devil is
always putting a bag full of doubloons before my eyes, here, there,
everywhere, until I fancy at every stop I am putting my hand on it, and
hugging it, and carrying it home with me, and making investments, and
getting interest, and living like a prince; and so long as I think of
this I make light of all the hardships I endure with this simpleton of a
master of mine, who, I well know, is more of a madman than a knight.”
“There’s why they say that ‘covetousness bursts the bag,’” said he of the
Grove; “but if you come to talk of that sort, there is not a greater one
in the world than my master, for he is one of those of whom they say,
‘the cares of others kill the ass;’ for, in order that another knight may
recover the senses he has lost, he makes a madman of himself and goes
looking for what, when found, may, for all I know, fly in his own face.”
“And is he in love perchance?” asked Sancho.
“He is,” said of the Grove, “with one Casildea de Vandalia, the rawest
and best roasted lady the whole world could produce; but that rawness is
not the only foot he limps on, for he has greater schemes rumbling in his
bowels, as will be seen before many hours are over.”
“There’s no road so smooth but it has some hole or hindrance in it,” said
Sancho; “in other houses they cook beans, but in mine it’s by the potful;
madness will have more followers and hangers-on than sound sense; but if
there be any truth in the common saying, that to have companions in
trouble gives some relief, I may take consolation from you, inasmuch as
you serve a master as crazy as my own.”
“Crazy but valiant,” replied he of the Grove, “and more roguish than
crazy or valiant.”
“Mine is not that,” said Sancho; “I mean he has nothing of the rogue in
him; on the contrary, he has the soul of a pitcher; he has no thought of
doing harm to anyone, only good to all, nor has he any malice whatever in
him; a child might persuade him that it is night at noonday; and for this
simplicity I love him as the core of my heart, and I can’t bring myself
to leave him, let him do ever such foolish things.”
“For all that, brother and señor,” said he of the Grove
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