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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The History of Don Quixote, Volume II., Complete, by Miguel de Cervantes
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The History of Don Quixote, Volume II., Complete
+
+Author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
+
+Translator: John Ormsby
+
+Release Date: October 13, 2002 [eBook #5946]
+[Most recently updated: March 1, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DON QUIXOTE, VOL. II. ***
+
+
+
+
+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, “if the blind
+lead the blind, both are in danger of falling into the pit. It is better
+for us to beat a quiet retreat and get back to our own quarters; for
+those who seek adventures don’t always find good ones.”
+
+Sancho kept spitting from time to time, and his spittle seemed somewhat
+ropy and dry, observing which the compassionate squire of the Grove said,
+“It seems to me that with all this talk of ours our tongues are sticking
+to the roofs of our mouths; but I have a pretty good loosener hanging
+from the saddle-bow of my horse,” and getting up he came back the next
+minute with a large bota of wine and a pasty half a yard across; and this
+is no exaggeration, for it was made of a house rabbit so big that Sancho,
+as he handled it, took it to be made of a goat, not to say a kid, and
+looking at it he said, “And do you carry this with you, señor?”
+
+“Why, what are you thinking about?” said the other; “do you take me for
+some paltry squire? I carry a better larder on my horse’s croup than a
+general takes with him when he goes on a march.”
+
+Sancho ate without requiring to be pressed, and in the dark bolted
+mouthfuls like the knots on a tether, and said he, “You are a proper
+trusty squire, one of the right sort, sumptuous and grand, as this
+banquet shows, which, if it has not come here by magic art, at any rate
+has the look of it; not like me, unlucky beggar, that have nothing more
+in my alforjas than a scrap of cheese, so hard that one might brain a
+giant with it, and, to keep it company, a few dozen carobs and as many
+more filberts and walnuts; thanks to the austerity of my master, and the
+idea he has and the rule he follows, that knights-errant must not live or
+sustain themselves on anything except dried fruits and the herbs of the
+field.”
+
+“By my faith, brother,” said he of the Grove, “my stomach is not made for
+thistles, or wild pears, or roots of the woods; let our masters do as
+they like, with their chivalry notions and laws, and eat what those
+enjoin; I carry my prog-basket and this bota hanging to the saddle-bow,
+whatever they may say; and it is such an object of worship with me, and I
+love it so, that there is hardly a moment but I am kissing and embracing
+it over and over again;” and so saying he thrust it into Sancho’s hands,
+who raising it aloft pointed to his mouth, gazed at the stars for a
+quarter of an hour; and when he had done drinking let his head fall on
+one side, and giving a deep sigh, exclaimed, “Ah, whoreson rogue, how
+catholic it is!”
+
+“There, you see,” said he of the Grove, hearing Sancho’s exclamation,
+“how you have called this wine whoreson by way of praise.”
+
+“Well,” said Sancho, “I own it, and I grant it is no dishonour to call
+anyone whoreson when it is to be understood as praise. But tell me,
+señor, by what you love best, is this Ciudad Real wine?”
+
+“O rare wine-taster!” said he of the Grove; “nowhere else indeed does it
+come from, and it has some years’ age too.”
+
+“Leave me alone for that,” said Sancho; “never fear but I’ll hit upon the
+place it came from somehow. What would you say, sir squire, to my having
+such a great natural instinct in judging wines that you have only to let
+me smell one and I can tell positively its country, its kind, its flavour
+and soundness, the changes it will undergo, and everything that
+appertains to a wine? But it is no wonder, for I have had in my family,
+on my father’s side, the two best wine-tasters that have been known in La
+Mancha for many a long year, and to prove it I’ll tell you now a thing
+that happened them. They gave the two of them some wine out of a cask, to
+try, asking their opinion as to the condition, quality, goodness or
+badness of the wine. One of them tried it with the tip of his tongue, the
+other did no more than bring it to his nose. The first said the wine had
+a flavour of iron, the second said it had a stronger flavour of cordovan.
+The owner said the cask was clean, and that nothing had been added to the
+wine from which it could have got a flavour of either iron or leather.
+Nevertheless, these two great wine-tasters held to what they had said.
+Time went by, the wine was sold, and when they came to clean out the
+cask, they found in it a small key hanging to a thong of cordovan; see
+now if one who comes of the same stock has not a right to give his
+opinion in such like cases.”
+
+“Therefore, I say,” said he of the Grove, “let us give up going in quest
+of adventures, and as we have loaves let us not go looking for cakes, but
+return to our cribs, for God will find us there if it be his will.”
+
+“Until my master reaches Saragossa,” said Sancho, “I’ll remain in his
+service; after that we’ll see.”
+
+The end of it was that the two squires talked so much and drank so much
+that sleep had to tie their tongues and moderate their thirst, for to
+quench it was impossible; and so the pair of them fell asleep clinging to
+the now nearly empty bota and with half-chewed morsels in their mouths;
+and there we will leave them for the present, to relate what passed
+between the Knight of the Grove and him of the Rueful Countenance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE GROVE
+
+
+Among the things that passed between Don Quixote and the Knight of the
+Wood, the history tells us he of the Grove said to Don Quixote, “In fine,
+sir knight, I would have you know that my destiny, or, more properly
+speaking, my choice led me to fall in love with the peerless Casildea de
+Vandalia. I call her peerless because she has no peer, whether it be in
+bodily stature or in the supremacy of rank and beauty. This same
+Casildea, then, that I speak of, requited my honourable passion and
+gentle aspirations by compelling me, as his stepmother did Hercules, to
+engage in many perils of various sorts, at the end of each promising me
+that, with the end of the next, the object of my hopes should be
+attained; but my labours have gone on increasing link by link until they
+are past counting, nor do I know what will be the last one that is to be
+the beginning of the accomplishment of my chaste desires. On one occasion
+she bade me go and challenge the famous giantess of Seville, La Giralda
+by name, who is as mighty and strong as if made of brass, and though
+never stirring from one spot, is the most restless and changeable woman
+in the world. I came, I saw, I conquered, and I made her stay quiet and
+behave herself, for nothing but north winds blew for more than a week.
+Another time I was ordered to lift those ancient stones, the mighty bulls
+of Guisando, an enterprise that might more fitly be entrusted to porters
+than to knights. Again, she bade me fling myself into the cavern of
+Cabra--an unparalleled and awful peril--and bring her a minute account of
+all that is concealed in those gloomy depths. I stopped the motion of the
+Giralda, I lifted the bulls of Guisando, I flung myself into the cavern
+and brought to light the secrets of its abyss; and my hopes are as dead
+as dead can be, and her scorn and her commands as lively as ever. To be
+brief, last of all she has commanded me to go through all the provinces
+of Spain and compel all the knights-errant wandering therein to confess
+that she surpasses all women alive to-day in beauty, and that I am the
+most valiant and the most deeply enamoured knight on earth; in support of
+which claim I have already travelled over the greater part of Spain, and
+have there vanquished several knights who have dared to contradict me;
+but what I most plume and pride myself upon is having vanquished in
+single combat that so famous knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, and made
+him confess that my Casildea is more beautiful than his Dulcinea; and in
+this one victory I hold myself to have conquered all the knights in the
+world; for this Don Quixote that I speak of has vanquished them all, and
+I having vanquished him, his glory, his fame, and his honour have passed
+and are transferred to my person; for
+
+  The more the vanquished hath of fair renown,
+  The greater glory gilds the victor’s crown.
+
+Thus the innumerable achievements of the said Don Quixote are now set
+down to my account and have become mine.”
+
+Don Quixote was amazed when he heard the Knight of the Grove, and was a
+thousand times on the point of telling him he lied, and had the lie
+direct already on the tip of his tongue; but he restrained himself as
+well as he could, in order to force him to confess the lie with his own
+lips; so he said to him quietly, “As to what you say, sir knight, about
+having vanquished most of the knights of Spain, or even of the whole
+world, I say nothing; but that you have vanquished Don Quixote of La
+Mancha I consider doubtful; it may have been some other that resembled
+him, although there are few like him.”
+
+“How! not vanquished?” said he of the Grove; “by the heaven that is above
+us I fought Don Quixote and overcame him and made him yield; and he is a
+man of tall stature, gaunt features, long, lank limbs, with hair turning
+grey, an aquiline nose rather hooked, and large black drooping
+moustaches; he does battle under the name of ‘The Countenance,’ and he
+has for squire a peasant called Sancho Panza; he presses the loins and
+rules the reins of a famous steed called Rocinante; and lastly, he has
+for the mistress of his will a certain Dulcinea del Toboso, once upon a
+time called Aldonza Lorenzo, just as I call mine Casildea de Vandalia
+because her name is Casilda and she is of Andalusia. If all these tokens
+are not enough to vindicate the truth of what I say, here is my sword,
+that will compel incredulity itself to give credence to it.”
+
+“Calm yourself, sir knight,” said Don Quixote, “and give ear to what I am
+about to say to you. I would have you know that this Don Quixote you
+speak of is the greatest friend I have in the world; so much so that I
+may say I regard him in the same light as my own person; and from the
+precise and clear indications you have given I cannot but think that he
+must be the very one you have vanquished. On the other hand, I see with
+my eyes and feel with my hands that it is impossible it can have been the
+same; unless indeed it be that, as he has many enemies who are
+enchanters, and one in particular who is always persecuting him, some one
+of these may have taken his shape in order to allow himself to be
+vanquished, so as to defraud him of the fame that his exalted
+achievements as a knight have earned and acquired for him throughout the
+known world. And in confirmation of this, I must tell you, too, that it
+is but ten hours since these said enchanters his enemies transformed the
+shape and person of the fair Dulcinea del Toboso into a foul and mean
+village lass, and in the same way they must have transformed Don Quixote;
+and if all this does not suffice to convince you of the truth of what I
+say, here is Don Quixote himself, who will maintain it by arms, on foot
+or on horseback or in any way you please.”
+
+And so saying he stood up and laid his hand on his sword, waiting to see
+what the Knight of the Grove would do, who in an equally calm voice said
+in reply, “Pledges don’t distress a good payer; he who has succeeded in
+vanquishing you once when transformed, Sir Don Quixote, may fairly hope
+to subdue you in your own proper shape; but as it is not becoming for
+knights to perform their feats of arms in the dark, like highwaymen and
+bullies, let us wait till daylight, that the sun may behold our deeds;
+and the conditions of our combat shall be that the vanquished shall be at
+the victor’s disposal, to do all that he may enjoin, provided the
+injunction be such as shall be becoming a knight.”
+
+“I am more than satisfied with these conditions and terms,” replied Don
+Quixote; and so saying, they betook themselves to where their squires
+lay, and found them snoring, and in the same posture they were in when
+sleep fell upon them. They roused them up, and bade them get the horses
+ready, as at sunrise they were to engage in a bloody and arduous single
+combat; at which intelligence Sancho was aghast and thunderstruck,
+trembling for the safety of his master because of the mighty deeds he had
+heard the squire of the Grove ascribe to his; but without a word the two
+squires went in quest of their cattle; for by this time the three horses
+and the ass had smelt one another out, and were all together.
+
+On the way, he of the Grove said to Sancho, “You must know, brother, that
+it is the custom with the fighting men of Andalusia, when they are
+godfathers in any quarrel, not to stand idle with folded arms while their
+godsons fight; I say so to remind you that while our masters are
+fighting, we, too, have to fight, and knock one another to shivers.”
+
+“That custom, sir squire,” replied Sancho, “may hold good among those
+bullies and fighting men you talk of, but certainly not among the squires
+of knights-errant; at least, I have never heard my master speak of any
+custom of the sort, and he knows all the laws of knight-errantry by
+heart; but granting it true that there is an express law that squires are
+to fight while their masters are fighting, I don’t mean to obey it, but
+to pay the penalty that may be laid on peacefully minded squires like
+myself; for I am sure it cannot be more than two pounds of wax, and I
+would rather pay that, for I know it will cost me less than the lint I
+shall be at the expense of to mend my head, which I look upon as broken
+and split already; there’s another thing that makes it impossible for me
+to fight, that I have no sword, for I never carried one in my life.”
+
+“I know a good remedy for that,” said he of the Grove; “I have here two
+linen bags of the same size; you shall take one, and I the other, and we
+will fight at bag blows with equal arms.”
+
+“If that’s the way, so be it with all my heart,” said Sancho, “for that
+sort of battle will serve to knock the dust out of us instead of hurting
+us.”
+
+“That will not do,” said the other, “for we must put into the bags, to
+keep the wind from blowing them away, half a dozen nice smooth pebbles,
+all of the same weight; and in this way we shall be able to baste one
+another without doing ourselves any harm or mischief.”
+
+“Body of my father!” said Sancho, “see what marten and sable, and pads of
+carded cotton he is putting into the bags, that our heads may not be
+broken and our bones beaten to jelly! But even if they are filled with
+toss silk, I can tell you, señor, I am not going to fight; let our
+masters fight, that’s their lookout, and let us drink and live; for time
+will take care to ease us of our lives, without our going to look for
+fillips so that they may be finished off before their proper time comes
+and they drop from ripeness.”
+
+“Still,” returned he of the Grove, “we must fight, if it be only for half
+an hour.”
+
+“By no means,” said Sancho; “I am not going to be so discourteous or so
+ungrateful as to have any quarrel, be it ever so small, with one I have
+eaten and drunk with; besides, who the devil could bring himself to fight
+in cold blood, without anger or provocation?”
+
+“I can remedy that entirely,” said he of the Grove, “and in this way:
+before we begin the battle, I will come up to your worship fair and
+softly, and give you three or four buffets, with which I shall stretch
+you at my feet and rouse your anger, though it were sleeping sounder than
+a dormouse.”
+
+“To match that plan,” said Sancho, “I have another that is not a whit
+behind it; I will take a cudgel, and before your worship comes near
+enough to waken my anger I will send yours so sound to sleep with whacks,
+that it won’t waken unless it be in the other world, where it is known
+that I am not a man to let my face be handled by anyone; let each look
+out for the arrow--though the surer way would be to let everyone’s anger
+sleep, for nobody knows the heart of anyone, and a man may come for wool
+and go back shorn; God gave his blessing to peace and his curse to
+quarrels; if a hunted cat, surrounded and hard pressed, turns into a
+lion, God knows what I, who am a man, may turn into; and so from this
+time forth I warn you, sir squire, that all the harm and mischief that
+may come of our quarrel will be put down to your account.”
+
+“Very good,” said he of the Grove; “God will send the dawn and we shall
+be all right.”
+
+And now gay-plumaged birds of all sorts began to warble in the trees, and
+with their varied and gladsome notes seemed to welcome and salute the
+fresh morn that was beginning to show the beauty of her countenance at
+the gates and balconies of the east, shaking from her locks a profusion
+of liquid pearls; in which dulcet moisture bathed, the plants, too,
+seemed to shed and shower down a pearly spray, the willows distilled
+sweet manna, the fountains laughed, the brooks babbled, the woods
+rejoiced, and the meadows arrayed themselves in all their glory at her
+coming. But hardly had the light of day made it possible to see and
+distinguish things, when the first object that presented itself to the
+eyes of Sancho Panza was the squire of the Grove’s nose, which was so big
+that it almost overshadowed his whole body. It is, in fact, stated, that
+it was of enormous size, hooked in the middle, covered with warts, and of
+a mulberry colour like an egg-plant; it hung down two fingers’ length
+below his mouth, and the size, the colour, the warts, and the bend of it,
+made his face so hideous, that Sancho, as he looked at him, began to
+tremble hand and foot like a child in convulsions, and he vowed in his
+heart to let himself be given two hundred buffets, sooner than be
+provoked to fight that monster. Don Quixote examined his adversary, and
+found that he already had his helmet on and visor lowered, so that he
+could not see his face; he observed, however, that he was a sturdily
+built man, but not very tall in stature. Over his armour he wore a
+surcoat or cassock of what seemed to be the finest cloth of gold, all
+bespangled with glittering mirrors like little moons, which gave him an
+extremely gallant and splendid appearance; above his helmet fluttered a
+great quantity of plumes, green, yellow, and white, and his lance, which
+was leaning against a tree, was very long and stout, and had a steel
+point more than a palm in length.
+
+Don Quixote observed all, and took note of all, and from what he saw and
+observed he concluded that the said knight must be a man of great
+strength, but he did not for all that give way to fear, like Sancho
+Panza; on the contrary, with a composed and dauntless air, he said to the
+Knight of the Mirrors, “If, sir knight, your great eagerness to fight has
+not banished your courtesy, by it I would entreat you to raise your visor
+a little, in order that I may see if the comeliness of your countenance
+corresponds with that of your equipment.”
+
+“Whether you come victorious or vanquished out of this emprise, sir
+knight,” replied he of the Mirrors, “you will have more than enough time
+and leisure to see me; and if now I do not comply with your request, it
+is because it seems to me I should do a serious wrong to the fair
+Casildea de Vandalia in wasting time while I stopped to raise my visor
+before compelling you to confess what you are already aware I maintain.”
+
+“Well then,” said Don Quixote, “while we are mounting you can at least
+tell me if I am that Don Quixote whom you said you vanquished.”
+
+“To that we answer you,” said he of the Mirrors, “that you are as like
+the very knight I vanquished as one egg is like another, but as you say
+enchanters persecute you, I will not venture to say positively whether
+you are the said person or not.”
+
+“That,” said Don Quixote, “is enough to convince me that you are under a
+deception; however, entirely to relieve you of it, let our horses be
+brought, and in less time than it would take you to raise your visor, if
+God, my lady, and my arm stand me in good stead, I shall see your face,
+and you shall see that I am not the vanquished Don Quixote you take me to
+be.”
+
+With this, cutting short the colloquy, they mounted, and Don Quixote
+wheeled Rocinante round in order to take a proper distance to charge back
+upon his adversary, and he of the Mirrors did the same; but Don Quixote
+had not moved away twenty paces when he heard himself called by the
+other, and, each returning half-way, he of the Mirrors said to him,
+“Remember, sir knight, that the terms of our combat are, that the
+vanquished, as I said before, shall be at the victor’s disposal.”
+
+“I am aware of it already,” said Don Quixote; “provided what is commanded
+and imposed upon the vanquished be things that do not transgress the
+limits of chivalry.”
+
+“That is understood,” replied he of the Mirrors.
+
+At this moment the extraordinary nose of the squire presented itself to
+Don Quixote’s view, and he was no less amazed than Sancho at the sight;
+insomuch that he set him down as a monster of some kind, or a human being
+of some new species or unearthly breed. Sancho, seeing his master
+retiring to run his course, did not like to be left alone with the nosy
+man, fearing that with one flap of that nose on his own the battle would
+be all over for him and he would be left stretched on the ground, either
+by the blow or with fright; so he ran after his master, holding on to
+Rocinante’s stirrup-leather, and when it seemed to him time to turn
+about, he said, “I implore of your worship, señor, before you turn to
+charge, to help me up into this cork tree, from which I will be able to
+witness the gallant encounter your worship is going to have with this
+knight, more to my taste and better than from the ground.”
+
+“It seems to me rather, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that thou wouldst
+mount a scaffold in order to see the bulls without danger.”
+
+“To tell the truth,” returned Sancho, “the monstrous nose of that squire
+has filled me with fear and terror, and I dare not stay near him.”
+
+“It is,” said Don Quixote, “such a one that were I not what I am it would
+terrify me too; so, come, I will help thee up where thou wilt.”
+
+While Don Quixote waited for Sancho to mount into the cork tree he of the
+Mirrors took as much ground as he considered requisite, and, supposing
+Don Quixote to have done the same, without waiting for any sound of
+trumpet or other signal to direct them, he wheeled his horse, which was
+not more agile or better-looking than Rocinante, and at his top speed,
+which was an easy trot, he proceeded to charge his enemy; seeing him,
+however, engaged in putting Sancho up, he drew rein, and halted in mid
+career, for which his horse was very grateful, as he was already unable
+to go. Don Quixote, fancying that his foe was coming down upon him
+flying, drove his spurs vigorously into Rocinante’s lean flanks and made
+him scud along in such style that the history tells us that on this
+occasion only was he known to make something like running, for on all
+others it was a simple trot with him; and with this unparalleled fury he
+bore down where he of the Mirrors stood digging his spurs into his horse
+up to buttons, without being able to make him stir a finger’s length from
+the spot where he had come to a standstill in his course. At this lucky
+moment and crisis, Don Quixote came upon his adversary, in trouble with
+his horse, and embarrassed with his lance, which he either could not
+manage, or had no time to lay in rest. Don Quixote, however, paid no
+attention to these difficulties, and in perfect safety to himself and
+without any risk encountered him of the Mirrors with such force that he
+brought him to the ground in spite of himself over the haunches of his
+horse, and with so heavy a fall that he lay to all appearance dead, not
+stirring hand or foot. The instant Sancho saw him fall he slid down from
+the cork tree, and made all haste to where his master was, who,
+dismounting from Rocinante, went and stood over him of the Mirrors, and
+unlacing his helmet to see if he was dead, and to give him air if he
+should happen to be alive, he saw--who can say what he saw, without
+filling all who hear it with astonishment, wonder, and awe? He saw, the
+history says, the very countenance, the very face, the very look, the
+very physiognomy, the very effigy, the very image of the bachelor Samson
+Carrasco! As soon as he saw it he called out in a loud voice, “Make haste
+here, Sancho, and behold what thou art to see but not to believe; quick,
+my son, and learn what magic can do, and wizards and enchanters are
+capable of.”
+
+Sancho came up, and when he saw the countenance of the bachelor Carrasco,
+he fell to crossing himself a thousand times, and blessing himself as
+many more. All this time the prostrate knight showed no signs of life,
+and Sancho said to Don Quixote, “It is my opinion, señor, that in any
+case your worship should take and thrust your sword into the mouth of
+this one here that looks like the bachelor Samson Carrasco; perhaps in
+him you will kill one of your enemies, the enchanters.”
+
+“Thy advice is not bad,” said Don Quixote, “for of enemies the fewer the
+better;” and he was drawing his sword to carry into effect Sancho’s
+counsel and suggestion, when the squire of the Mirrors came up, now
+without the nose which had made him so hideous, and cried out in a loud
+voice, “Mind what you are about, Señor Don Quixote; that is your friend,
+the bachelor Samson Carrasco, you have at your feet, and I am his
+squire.”
+
+“And the nose?” said Sancho, seeing him without the hideous feature he
+had before; to which he replied, “I have it here in my pocket,” and
+putting his hand into his right pocket, he pulled out a masquerade nose
+of varnished pasteboard of the make already described; and Sancho,
+examining him more and more closely, exclaimed aloud in a voice of
+amazement, “Holy Mary be good to me! Isn’t it Tom Cecial, my neighbour
+and gossip?”
+
+“Why, to be sure I am!” returned the now unnosed squire; “Tom Cecial I
+am, gossip and friend Sancho Panza; and I’ll tell you presently the means
+and tricks and falsehoods by which I have been brought here; but in the
+meantime, beg and entreat of your master not to touch, maltreat, wound,
+or slay the Knight of the Mirrors whom he has at his feet; because,
+beyond all dispute, it is the rash and ill-advised bachelor Samson
+Carrasco, our fellow townsman.”
+
+At this moment he of the Mirrors came to himself, and Don Quixote
+perceiving it, held the naked point of his sword over his face, and said
+to him, “You are a dead man, knight, unless you confess that the peerless
+Dulcinea del Toboso excels your Casildea de Vandalia in beauty; and in
+addition to this you must promise, if you should survive this encounter
+and fall, to go to the city of El Toboso and present yourself before her
+on my behalf, that she deal with you according to her good pleasure; and
+if she leaves you free to do yours, you are in like manner to return and
+seek me out (for the trail of my mighty deeds will serve you as a guide
+to lead you to where I may be), and tell me what may have passed between
+you and her-conditions which, in accordance with what we stipulated
+before our combat, do not transgress the just limits of knight-errantry.”
+
+“I confess,” said the fallen knight, “that the dirty tattered shoe of the
+lady Dulcinea del Toboso is better than the ill-combed though clean beard
+of Casildea; and I promise to go and to return from her presence to
+yours, and to give you a full and particular account of all you demand of
+me.”
+
+“You must also confess and believe,” added Don Quixote, “that the knight
+you vanquished was not and could not be Don Quixote of La Mancha, but
+some one else in his likeness, just as I confess and believe that you,
+though you seem to be the bachelor Samson Carrasco, are not so, but some
+other resembling him, whom my enemies have here put before me in his
+shape, in order that I may restrain and moderate the vehemence of my
+wrath, and make a gentle use of the glory of my victory.”
+
+“I confess, hold, and think everything to be as you believe, hold, and
+think it,” the crippled knight; “let me rise, I entreat you; if, indeed,
+the shock of my fall will allow me, for it has left me in a sorry plight
+enough.”
+
+Don Quixote helped him to rise, with the assistance of his squire Tom
+Cecial; from whom Sancho never took his eyes, and to whom he put
+questions, the replies to which furnished clear proof that he was really
+and truly the Tom Cecial he said; but the impression made on Sancho’s
+mind by what his master said about the enchanters having changed the face
+of the Knight of the Mirrors into that of the bachelor Samson Carrasco,
+would not permit him to believe what he saw with his eyes. In fine, both
+master and man remained under the delusion; and, down in the mouth, and
+out of luck, he of the Mirrors and his squire parted from Don Quixote and
+Sancho, he meaning to go look for some village where he could plaster and
+strap his ribs. Don Quixote and Sancho resumed their journey to
+Saragossa, and on it the history leaves them in order that it may tell
+who the Knight of the Mirrors and his long-nosed squire were.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+WHEREIN IT IS TOLD AND KNOWN WHO THE KNIGHT OF THE MIRRORS AND HIS SQUIRE
+WERE
+
+
+Don Quixote went off satisfied, elated, and vain-glorious in the highest
+degree at having won a victory over such a valiant knight as he fancied
+him of the Mirrors to be, and one from whose knightly word he expected to
+learn whether the enchantment of his lady still continued; inasmuch as
+the said vanquished knight was bound, under the penalty of ceasing to be
+one, to return and render him an account of what took place between him
+and her. But Don Quixote was of one mind, he of the Mirrors of another,
+for he just then had no thought of anything but finding some village
+where he could plaster himself, as has been said already. The history
+goes on to say, then, that when the bachelor Samson Carrasco recommended
+Don Quixote to resume his knight-errantry which he had laid aside, it was
+in consequence of having been previously in conclave with the curate and
+the barber on the means to be adopted to induce Don Quixote to stay at
+home in peace and quiet without worrying himself with his ill-starred
+adventures; at which consultation it was decided by the unanimous vote of
+all, and on the special advice of Carrasco, that Don Quixote should be
+allowed to go, as it seemed impossible to restrain him, and that Samson
+should sally forth to meet him as a knight-errant, and do battle with
+him, for there would be no difficulty about a cause, and vanquish him,
+that being looked upon as an easy matter; and that it should be agreed
+and settled that the vanquished was to be at the mercy of the victor.
+Then, Don Quixote being vanquished, the bachelor knight was to command
+him to return to his village and his house, and not quit it for two
+years, or until he received further orders from him; all which it was
+clear Don Quixote would unhesitatingly obey, rather than contravene or
+fail to observe the laws of chivalry; and during the period of his
+seclusion he might perhaps forget his folly, or there might be an
+opportunity of discovering some ready remedy for his madness. Carrasco
+undertook the task, and Tom Cecial, a gossip and neighbour of Sancho
+Panza’s, a lively, feather-headed fellow, offered himself as his squire.
+Carrasco armed himself in the fashion described, and Tom Cecial, that he
+might not be known by his gossip when they met, fitted on over his own
+natural nose the false masquerade one that has been mentioned; and so
+they followed the same route Don Quixote took, and almost came up with
+him in time to be present at the adventure of the cart of Death and
+finally encountered them in the grove, where all that the sagacious
+reader has been reading about took place; and had it not been for the
+extraordinary fancies of Don Quixote, and his conviction that the
+bachelor was not the bachelor, señor bachelor would have been
+incapacitated for ever from taking his degree of licentiate, all through
+not finding nests where he thought to find birds.
+
+Tom Cecial, seeing how ill they had succeeded, and what a sorry end their
+expedition had come to, said to the bachelor, “Sure enough, Señor Samson
+Carrasco, we are served right; it is easy enough to plan and set about an
+enterprise, but it is often a difficult matter to come well out of it.
+Don Quixote a madman, and we sane; he goes off laughing, safe, and sound,
+and you are left sore and sorry! I’d like to know now which is the
+madder, he who is so because he cannot help it, or he who is so of his
+own choice?”
+
+To which Samson replied, “The difference between the two sorts of madmen
+is, that he who is so will he nil he, will be one always, while he who is
+so of his own accord can leave off being one whenever he likes.”
+
+“In that case,” said Tom Cecial, “I was a madman of my own accord when I
+volunteered to become your squire, and, of my own accord, I’ll leave off
+being one and go home.”
+
+“That’s your affair,” returned Samson, “but to suppose that I am going
+home until I have given Don Quixote a thrashing is absurd; and it is not
+any wish that he may recover his senses that will make me hunt him out
+now, but a wish for the sore pain I am in with my ribs won’t let me
+entertain more charitable thoughts.”
+
+Thus discoursing, the pair proceeded until they reached a town where it
+was their good luck to find a bone-setter, with whose help the
+unfortunate Samson was cured. Tom Cecial left him and went home, while he
+stayed behind meditating vengeance; and the history will return to him
+again at the proper time, so as not to omit making merry with Don Quixote
+now.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH A DISCREET GENTLEMAN OF LA MANCHA
+
+
+Don Quixote pursued his journey in the high spirits, satisfaction, and
+self-complacency already described, fancying himself the most valorous
+knight-errant of the age in the world because of his late victory. All
+the adventures that could befall him from that time forth he regarded as
+already done and brought to a happy issue; he made light of enchantments
+and enchanters; he thought no more of the countless drubbings that had
+been administered to him in the course of his knight-errantry, nor of the
+volley of stones that had levelled half his teeth, nor of the ingratitude
+of the galley slaves, nor of the audacity of the Yanguesans and the
+shower of stakes that fell upon him; in short, he said to himself that
+could he discover any means, mode, or way of disenchanting his lady
+Dulcinea, he would not envy the highest fortune that the most fortunate
+knight-errant of yore ever reached or could reach.
+
+He was going along entirely absorbed in these fancies, when Sancho said
+to him, “Isn’t it odd, señor, that I have still before my eyes that
+monstrous enormous nose of my gossip, Tom Cecial?”
+
+“And dost thou, then, believe, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that the
+Knight of the Mirrors was the bachelor Carrasco, and his squire Tom
+Cecial thy gossip?”
+
+“I don’t know what to say to that,” replied Sancho; “all I know is that
+the tokens he gave me about my own house, wife and children, nobody else
+but himself could have given me; and the face, once the nose was off, was
+the very face of Tom Cecial, as I have seen it many a time in my town and
+next door to my own house; and the sound of the voice was just the same.”
+
+“Let us reason the matter, Sancho,” said Don Quixote. “Come now, by what
+process of thinking can it be supposed that the bachelor Samson Carrasco
+would come as a knight-errant, in arms offensive and defensive, to fight
+with me? Have I ever been by any chance his enemy? Have I ever given him
+any occasion to owe me a grudge? Am I his rival, or does he profess arms,
+that he should envy the fame I have acquired in them?”
+
+“Well, but what are we to say, señor,” returned Sancho, “about that
+knight, whoever he is, being so like the bachelor Carrasco, and his
+squire so like my gossip, Tom Cecial? And if that be enchantment, as your
+worship says, was there no other pair in the world for them to take the
+likeness of?”
+
+“It is all,” said Don Quixote, “a scheme and plot of the malignant
+magicians that persecute me, who, foreseeing that I was to be victorious
+in the conflict, arranged that the vanquished knight should display the
+countenance of my friend the bachelor, in order that the friendship I
+bear him should interpose to stay the edge of my sword and might of my
+arm, and temper the just wrath of my heart; so that he who sought to take
+my life by fraud and falsehood should save his own. And to prove it, thou
+knowest already, Sancho, by experience which cannot lie or deceive, how
+easy it is for enchanters to change one countenance into another, turning
+fair into foul, and foul into fair; for it is not two days since thou
+sawest with thine own eyes the beauty and elegance of the peerless
+Dulcinea in all its perfection and natural harmony, while I saw her in
+the repulsive and mean form of a coarse country wench, with cataracts in
+her eyes and a foul smell in her mouth; and when the perverse enchanter
+ventured to effect so wicked a transformation, it is no wonder if he
+effected that of Samson Carrasco and thy gossip in order to snatch the
+glory of victory out of my grasp. For all that, however, I console
+myself, because, after all, in whatever shape he may have been, I have
+victorious over my enemy.”
+
+“God knows what’s the truth of it all,” said Sancho; and knowing as he
+did that the transformation of Dulcinea had been a device and imposition
+of his own, his master’s illusions were not satisfactory to him; but he
+did not like to reply lest he should say something that might disclose
+his trickery.
+
+As they were engaged in this conversation they were overtaken by a man
+who was following the same road behind them, mounted on a very handsome
+flea-bitten mare, and dressed in a gaban of fine green cloth, with tawny
+velvet facings, and a montera of the same velvet. The trappings of the
+mare were of the field and jineta fashion, and of mulberry colour and
+green. He carried a Moorish cutlass hanging from a broad green and gold
+baldric; the buskins were of the same make as the baldric; the spurs were
+not gilt, but lacquered green, and so brightly polished that, matching as
+they did the rest of his apparel, they looked better than if they had
+been of pure gold.
+
+When the traveller came up with them he saluted them courteously, and
+spurring his mare was passing them without stopping, but Don Quixote
+called out to him, “Gallant sir, if so be your worship is going our road,
+and has no occasion for speed, it would be a pleasure to me if we were to
+join company.”
+
+“In truth,” replied he on the mare, “I would not pass you so hastily but
+for fear that horse might turn restive in the company of my mare.”
+
+“You may safely hold in your mare, señor,” said Sancho in reply to this,
+“for our horse is the most virtuous and well-behaved horse in the world;
+he never does anything wrong on such occasions, and the only time he
+misbehaved, my master and I suffered for it sevenfold; I say again your
+worship may pull up if you like; for if she was offered to him between
+two plates the horse would not hanker after her.”
+
+The traveller drew rein, amazed at the trim and features of Don Quixote,
+who rode without his helmet, which Sancho carried like a valise in front
+of Dapple’s pack-saddle; and if the man in green examined Don Quixote
+closely, still more closely did Don Quixote examine the man in green, who
+struck him as being a man of intelligence. In appearance he was about
+fifty years of age, with but few grey hairs, an aquiline cast of
+features, and an expression between grave and gay; and his dress and
+accoutrements showed him to be a man of good condition. What he in green
+thought of Don Quixote of La Mancha was that a man of that sort and shape
+he had never yet seen; he marvelled at the length of his hair, his lofty
+stature, the lankness and sallowness of his countenance, his armour, his
+bearing and his gravity--a figure and picture such as had not been seen
+in those regions for many a long day.
+
+Don Quixote saw very plainly the attention with which the traveller was
+regarding him, and read his curiosity in his astonishment; and courteous
+as he was and ready to please everybody, before the other could ask him
+any question he anticipated him by saying, “The appearance I present to
+your worship being so strange and so out of the common, I should not be
+surprised if it filled you with wonder; but you will cease to wonder when
+I tell you, as I do, that I am one of those knights who, as people say,
+go seeking adventures. I have left my home, I have mortgaged my estate, I
+have given up my comforts, and committed myself to the arms of Fortune,
+to bear me whithersoever she may please. My desire was to bring to life
+again knight-errantry, now dead, and for some time past, stumbling here,
+falling there, now coming down headlong, now raising myself up again, I
+have carried out a great portion of my design, succouring widows,
+protecting maidens, and giving aid to wives, orphans, and minors, the
+proper and natural duty of knights-errant; and, therefore, because of my
+many valiant and Christian achievements, I have been already found worthy
+to make my way in print to well-nigh all, or most, of the nations of the
+earth. Thirty thousand volumes of my history have been printed, and it is
+on the high-road to be printed thirty thousand thousands of times, if
+heaven does not put a stop to it. In short, to sum up all in a few words,
+or in a single one, I may tell you I am Don Quixote of La Mancha,
+otherwise called ‘The Knight of the Rueful Countenance;’ for though
+self-praise is degrading, I must perforce sound my own sometimes, that is
+to say, when there is no one at hand to do it for me. So that, gentle
+sir, neither this horse, nor this lance, nor this shield, nor this
+squire, nor all these arms put together, nor the sallowness of my
+countenance, nor my gaunt leanness, will henceforth astonish you, now
+that you know who I am and what profession I follow.”
+
+With these words Don Quixote held his peace, and, from the time he took
+to answer, the man in green seemed to be at a loss for a reply; after a
+long pause, however, he said to him, “You were right when you saw
+curiosity in my amazement, sir knight; but you have not succeeded in
+removing the astonishment I feel at seeing you; for although you say,
+señor, that knowing who you are ought to remove it, it has not done so;
+on the contrary, now that I know, I am left more amazed and astonished
+than before. What! is it possible that there are knights-errant in the
+world in these days, and histories of real chivalry printed? I cannot
+realise the fact that there can be anyone on earth now-a-days who aids
+widows, or protects maidens, or defends wives, or succours orphans; nor
+should I believe it had I not seen it in your worship with my own eyes.
+Blessed be heaven! for by means of this history of your noble and genuine
+chivalrous deeds, which you say has been printed, the countless stories
+of fictitious knights-errant with which the world is filled, so much to
+the injury of morality and the prejudice and discredit of good histories,
+will have been driven into oblivion.”
+
+“There is a good deal to be said on that point,” said Don Quixote, “as to
+whether the histories of the knights-errant are fiction or not.”
+
+“Why, is there anyone who doubts that those histories are false?” said
+the man in green.
+
+“I doubt it,” said Don Quixote, “but never mind that just now; if our
+journey lasts long enough, I trust in God I shall show your worship that
+you do wrong in going with the stream of those who regard it as a matter
+of certainty that they are not true.”
+
+From this last observation of Don Quixote’s, the traveller began to have
+a suspicion that he was some crazy being, and was waiting for him to confirm
+it by something further; but before they could turn to any new subject
+Don Quixote begged him to tell him who he was, since he himself had
+rendered account of his station and life. To this, he in the green gaban
+replied “I, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, am a gentleman by
+birth, native of the village where, please God, we are going to dine
+to-day; I am more than fairly well off, and my name is Don Diego de
+Miranda. I pass my life with my wife, children, and friends; my pursuits
+are hunting and fishing, but I keep neither hawks nor greyhounds, nothing
+but a tame partridge or a bold ferret or two; I have six dozen or so of
+books, some in our mother tongue, some Latin, some of them history,
+others devotional; those of chivalry have not as yet crossed the
+threshold of my door; I am more given to turning over the profane than
+the devotional, so long as they are books of honest entertainment that
+charm by their style and attract and interest by the invention they
+display, though of these there are very few in Spain. Sometimes I dine
+with my neighbours and friends, and often invite them; my entertainments
+are neat and well served without stint of anything. I have no taste for
+tattle, nor do I allow tattling in my presence; I pry not into my
+neighbours’ lives, nor have I lynx-eyes for what others do. I hear mass
+every day; I share my substance with the poor, making no display of good
+works, lest I let hypocrisy and vainglory, those enemies that subtly take
+possession of the most watchful heart, find an entrance into mine. I
+strive to make peace between those whom I know to be at variance; I am
+the devoted servant of Our Lady, and my trust is ever in the infinite
+mercy of God our Lord.”
+
+Sancho listened with the greatest attention to the account of the
+gentleman’s life and occupation; and thinking it a good and a holy life,
+and that he who led it ought to work miracles, he threw himself off
+Dapple, and running in haste seized his right stirrup and kissed his foot
+again and again with a devout heart and almost with tears.
+
+Seeing this the gentleman asked him, “What are you about, brother? What
+are these kisses for?”
+
+“Let me kiss,” said Sancho, “for I think your worship is the first saint
+in the saddle I ever saw all the days of my life.”
+
+“I am no saint,” replied the gentleman, “but a great sinner; but you are,
+brother, for you must be a good fellow, as your simplicity shows.”
+
+Sancho went back and regained his pack-saddle, having extracted a laugh
+from his master’s profound melancholy, and excited fresh amazement in Don
+Diego. Don Quixote then asked him how many children he had, and observed
+that one of the things wherein the ancient philosophers, who were without
+the true knowledge of God, placed the summum bonum was in the gifts of
+nature, in those of fortune, in having many friends, and many and good
+children.
+
+“I, Señor Don Quixote,” answered the gentleman, “have one son, without
+whom, perhaps, I should count myself happier than I am, not because he is
+a bad son, but because he is not so good as I could wish. He is eighteen
+years of age; he has been for six at Salamanca studying Latin and Greek,
+and when I wished him to turn to the study of other sciences I found him
+so wrapped up in that of poetry (if that can be called a science) that
+there is no getting him to take kindly to the law, which I wished him to
+study, or to theology, the queen of them all. I would like him to be an
+honour to his family, as we live in days when our kings liberally reward
+learning that is virtuous and worthy; for learning without virtue is a
+pearl on a dunghill. He spends the whole day in settling whether Homer
+expressed himself correctly or not in such and such a line of the Iliad,
+whether Martial was indecent or not in such and such an epigram, whether
+such and such lines of Virgil are to be understood in this way or in
+that; in short, all his talk is of the works of these poets, and those of
+Horace, Perseus, Juvenal, and Tibullus; for of the moderns in our own
+language he makes no great account; but with all his seeming indifference
+to Spanish poetry, just now his thoughts are absorbed in making a gloss
+on four lines that have been sent him from Salamanca, which I suspect are
+for some poetical tournament.”
+
+To all this Don Quixote said in reply, “Children, señor, are portions of
+their parents’ bowels, and therefore, be they good or bad, are to be
+loved as we love the souls that give us life; it is for the parents to
+guide them from infancy in the ways of virtue, propriety, and worthy
+Christian conduct, so that when grown up they may be the staff of their
+parents’ old age, and the glory of their posterity; and to force them to
+study this or that science I do not think wise, though it may be no harm
+to persuade them; and when there is no need to study for the sake of pane
+lucrando, and it is the student’s good fortune that heaven has given him
+parents who provide him with it, it would be my advice to them to let him
+pursue whatever science they may see him most inclined to; and though
+that of poetry is less useful than pleasurable, it is not one of those
+that bring discredit upon the possessor. Poetry, gentle sir, is, as I
+take it, like a tender young maiden of supreme beauty, to array, bedeck,
+and adorn whom is the task of several other maidens, who are all the rest
+of the sciences; and she must avail herself of the help of all, and all
+derive their lustre from her. But this maiden will not bear to be
+handled, nor dragged through the streets, nor exposed either at the
+corners of the market-places, or in the closets of palaces. She is the
+product of an Alchemy of such virtue that he who is able to practise it,
+will turn her into pure gold of inestimable worth. He that possesses her
+must keep her within bounds, not permitting her to break out in ribald
+satires or soulless sonnets. She must on no account be offered for sale,
+unless, indeed, it be in heroic poems, moving tragedies, or sprightly and
+ingenious comedies. She must not be touched by the buffoons, nor by the
+ignorant vulgar, incapable of comprehending or appreciating her hidden
+treasures. And do not suppose, señor, that I apply the term vulgar here
+merely to plebeians and the lower orders; for everyone who is ignorant,
+be he lord or prince, may and should be included among the vulgar. He,
+then, who shall embrace and cultivate poetry under the conditions I have
+named, shall become famous, and his name honoured throughout all the
+civilised nations of the earth. And with regard to what you say, señor,
+of your son having no great opinion of Spanish poetry, I am inclined to
+think that he is not quite right there, and for this reason: the great
+poet Homer did not write in Latin, because he was a Greek, nor did Virgil
+write in Greek, because he was a Latin; in short, all the ancient poets
+wrote in the language they imbibed with their mother’s milk, and never
+went in quest of foreign ones to express their sublime conceptions; and
+that being so, the usage should in justice extend to all nations, and the
+German poet should not be undervalued because he writes in his own
+language, nor the Castilian, nor even the Biscayan, for writing in his.
+But your son, señor, I suspect, is not prejudiced against Spanish poetry,
+but against those poets who are mere Spanish verse writers, without any
+knowledge of other languages or sciences to adorn and give life and
+vigour to their natural inspiration; and yet even in this he may be
+wrong; for, according to a true belief, a poet is born one; that is to
+say, the poet by nature comes forth a poet from his mother’s womb; and
+following the bent that heaven has bestowed upon him, without the aid of
+study or art, he produces things that show how truly he spoke who said,
+‘Est Deus in nobis,’ etc. At the same time, I say that the poet by nature
+who calls in art to his aid will be a far better poet, and will surpass
+him who tries to be one relying upon his knowledge of art alone. The
+reason is, that art does not surpass nature, but only brings it to
+perfection; and thus, nature combined with art, and art with nature, will
+produce a perfect poet. To bring my argument to a close, I would say
+then, gentle sir, let your son go on as his star leads him, for being so
+studious as he seems to be, and having already successfully surmounted
+the first step of the sciences, which is that of the languages, with
+their help he will by his own exertions reach the summit of polite
+literature, which so well becomes an independent gentleman, and adorns,
+honours, and distinguishes him, as much as the mitre does the bishop, or
+the gown the learned counsellor. If your son write satires reflecting on
+the honour of others, chide and correct him, and tear them up; but if he
+compose discourses in which he rebukes vice in general, in the style of
+Horace, and with elegance like his, commend him; for it is legitimate for
+a poet to write against envy and lash the envious in his verse, and the
+other vices too, provided he does not single out individuals; there are,
+however, poets who, for the sake of saying something spiteful, would run
+the risk of being banished to the coast of Pontus. If the poet be pure in
+his morals, he will be pure in his verses too; the pen is the tongue of
+the mind, and as the thought engendered there, so will be the things that
+it writes down. And when kings and princes observe this marvellous
+science of poetry in wise, virtuous, and thoughtful subjects, they
+honour, value, exalt them, and even crown them with the leaves of that
+tree which the thunderbolt strikes not, as if to show that they whose
+brows are honoured and adorned with such a crown are not to be assailed
+by anyone.”
+
+He of the green gaban was filled with astonishment at Don Quixote’s
+argument, so much so that he began to abandon the notion he had taken up
+about his being crazy. But in the middle of the discourse, it being not
+very much to his taste, Sancho had turned aside out of the road to beg a
+little milk from some shepherds, who were milking their ewes hard by; and
+just as the gentleman, highly pleased, was about to renew the
+conversation, Don Quixote, raising his head, perceived a cart covered
+with royal flags coming along the road they were travelling; and
+persuaded that this must be some new adventure, he called aloud to Sancho
+to come and bring him his helmet. Sancho, hearing himself called, quitted
+the shepherds, and, prodding Dapple vigorously, came up to his master, to
+whom there fell a terrific and desperate adventure.
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+The history tells that when Don Quixote called out to Sancho to bring him
+his helmet, Sancho was buying some curds the shepherds agreed to sell
+him, and flurried by the great haste his master was in did not know what
+to do with them or what to carry them in; so, not to lose them, for he
+had already paid for them, he thought it best to throw them into his
+master’s helmet, and acting on this bright idea he went to see what his
+master wanted with him. He, as he approached, exclaimed to him:
+
+“Give me that helmet, my friend, for either I know little of adventures,
+or what I observe yonder is one that will, and does, call upon me to arm
+myself.”
+
+He of the green gaban, on hearing this, looked in all directions, but
+could perceive nothing, except a cart coming towards them with two or
+three small flags, which led him to conclude it must be carrying treasure
+of the King’s, and he said so to Don Quixote. He, however, would not
+believe him, being always persuaded and convinced that all that happened
+to him must be adventures and still more adventures; so he replied to the
+gentleman, “He who is prepared has his battle half fought; nothing is
+lost by my preparing myself, for I know by experience that I have
+enemies, visible and invisible, and I know not when, or where, or at what
+moment, or in what shapes they will attack me;” and turning to Sancho he
+called for his helmet; and Sancho, as he had no time to take out the
+curds, had to give it just as it was. Don Quixote took it, and without
+perceiving what was in it thrust it down in hot haste upon his head; but
+as the curds were pressed and squeezed the whey began to run all over his
+face and beard, whereat he was so startled that he cried out to Sancho:
+
+“Sancho, what’s this? I think my head is softening, or my brains are
+melting, or I am sweating from head to foot! If I am sweating it is not
+indeed from fear. I am convinced beyond a doubt that the adventure which
+is about to befall me is a terrible one. Give me something to wipe myself
+with, if thou hast it, for this profuse sweat is blinding me.”
+
+Sancho held his tongue, and gave him a cloth, and gave thanks to God at
+the same time that his master had not found out what was the matter. Don
+Quixote then wiped himself, and took off his helmet to see what it was
+that made his head feel so cool, and seeing all that white mash inside
+his helmet he put it to his nose, and as soon as he had smelt it he
+exclaimed:
+
+“By the life of my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, but it is curds thou hast
+put here, thou treacherous, impudent, ill-mannered squire!”
+
+To which, with great composure and pretended innocence, Sancho replied,
+“If they are curds let me have them, your worship, and I’ll eat them; but
+let the devil eat them, for it must have been he who put them there. I
+dare to dirty your helmet! You have guessed the offender finely! Faith,
+sir, by the light God gives me, it seems I must have enchanters too, that
+persecute me as a creature and limb of your worship, and they must have
+put that nastiness there in order to provoke your patience to anger, and
+make you baste my ribs as you are wont to do. Well, this time, indeed,
+they have missed their aim, for I trust to my master’s good sense to see
+that I have got no curds or milk, or anything of the sort; and that if I
+had it is in my stomach I would put it and not in the helmet.”
+
+“May be so,” said Don Quixote. All this the gentleman was observing, and
+with astonishment, more especially when, after having wiped himself
+clean, his head, face, beard, and helmet, Don Quixote put it on, and
+settling himself firmly in his stirrups, easing his sword in the
+scabbard, and grasping his lance, he cried, “Now, come who will, here am
+I, ready to try conclusions with Satan himself in person!”
+
+By this time the cart with the flags had come up, unattended by anyone
+except the carter on a mule, and a man sitting in front. Don Quixote
+planted himself before it and said, “Whither are you going, brothers?
+What cart is this? What have you got in it? What flags are those?”
+
+To this the carter replied, “The cart is mine; what is in it is a pair of
+wild caged lions, which the governor of Oran is sending to court as a
+present to his Majesty; and the flags are our lord the King’s, to show
+that what is here is his property.”
+
+“And are the lions large?” asked Don Quixote.
+
+“So large,” replied the man who sat at the door of the cart, “that
+larger, or as large, have never crossed from Africa to Spain; I am the
+keeper, and I have brought over others, but never any like these. They
+are male and female; the male is in that first cage and the female in the
+one behind, and they are hungry now, for they have eaten nothing to-day,
+so let your worship stand aside, for we must make haste to the place
+where we are to feed them.”
+
+Hereupon, smiling slightly, Don Quixote exclaimed, “Lion-whelps to me! to
+me whelps of lions, and at such a time! Then, by God! those gentlemen who
+send them here shall see if I am a man to be frightened by lions. Get
+down, my good fellow, and as you are the keeper open the cages, and turn
+me out those beasts, and in the midst of this plain I will let them know
+who Don Quixote of La Mancha is, in spite and in the teeth of the
+enchanters who send them to me.”
+
+“So, so,” said the gentleman to himself at this; “our worthy knight has
+shown of what sort he is; the curds, no doubt, have softened his skull
+and brought his brains to a head.”
+
+At this instant Sancho came up to him, saying, “Señor, for God’s sake do
+something to keep my master, Don Quixote, from tackling these lions; for
+if he does they’ll tear us all to pieces here.”
+
+“Is your master then so mad,” asked the gentleman, “that you believe and
+are afraid he will engage such fierce animals?”
+
+“He is not mad,” said Sancho, “but he is venturesome.”
+
+“I will prevent it,” said the gentleman; and going over to Don Quixote,
+who was insisting upon the keeper’s opening the cages, he said to him,
+“Sir knight, knights-errant should attempt adventures which encourage the
+hope of a successful issue, not those which entirely withhold it; for
+valour that trenches upon temerity savours rather of madness than of
+courage; moreover, these lions do not come to oppose you, nor do they
+dream of such a thing; they are going as presents to his Majesty, and it
+will not be right to stop them or delay their journey.”
+
+“Gentle sir,” replied Don Quixote, “you go and mind your tame partridge
+and your bold ferret, and leave everyone to manage his own business; this
+is mine, and I know whether these gentlemen the lions come to me or not;”
+ and then turning to the keeper he exclaimed, “By all that’s good, sir
+scoundrel, if you don’t open the cages this very instant, I’ll pin you to
+the cart with this lance.”
+
+The carter, seeing the determination of this apparition in armour, said
+to him, “Please your worship, for charity’s sake, señor, let me unyoke
+the mules and place myself in safety along with them before the lions are
+turned out; for if they kill them on me I am ruined for life, for all I
+possess is this cart and mules.”
+
+“O man of little faith,” replied Don Quixote, “get down and unyoke; you
+will soon see that you are exerting yourself for nothing, and that you
+might have spared yourself the trouble.”
+
+The carter got down and with all speed unyoked the mules, and the keeper
+called out at the top of his voice, “I call all here to witness that
+against my will and under compulsion I open the cages and let the lions
+loose, and that I warn this gentleman that he will be accountable for all
+the harm and mischief which these beasts may do, and for my salary and
+dues as well. You, gentlemen, place yourselves in safety before I open,
+for I know they will do me no harm.”
+
+Once more the gentleman strove to persuade Don Quixote not to do such a
+mad thing, as it was tempting God to engage in such a piece of folly. To
+this, Don Quixote replied that he knew what he was about. The gentleman
+in return entreated him to reflect, for he knew he was under a delusion.
+
+“Well, señor,” answered Don Quixote, “if you do not like to be a
+spectator of this tragedy, as in your opinion it will be, spur your
+flea-bitten mare, and place yourself in safety.”
+
+Hearing this, Sancho with tears in his eyes entreated him to give up an
+enterprise compared with which the one of the windmills, and the awful
+one of the fulling mills, and, in fact, all the feats he had attempted in
+the whole course of his life, were cakes and fancy bread. “Look ye,
+señor,” said Sancho, “there’s no enchantment here, nor anything of the
+sort, for between the bars and chinks of the cage I have seen the paw of
+a real lion, and judging by that I reckon the lion such a paw could
+belong to must be bigger than a mountain.”
+
+“Fear at any rate,” replied Don Quixote, “will make him look bigger to
+thee than half the world. Retire, Sancho, and leave me; and if I die here
+thou knowest our old compact; thou wilt repair to Dulcinea--I say no
+more.” To these he added some further words that banished all hope of his
+giving up his insane project. He of the green gaban would have offered
+resistance, but he found himself ill-matched as to arms, and did not
+think it prudent to come to blows with a madman, for such Don Quixote now
+showed himself to be in every respect; and the latter, renewing his
+commands to the keeper and repeating his threats, gave warning to the
+gentleman to spur his mare, Sancho his Dapple, and the carter his mules,
+all striving to get away from the cart as far as they could before the
+lions broke loose. Sancho was weeping over his master’s death, for this
+time he firmly believed it was in store for him from the claws of the
+lions; and he cursed his fate and called it an unlucky hour when he
+thought of taking service with him again; but with all his tears and
+lamentations he did not forget to thrash Dapple so as to put a good space
+between himself and the cart. The keeper, seeing that the fugitives were
+now some distance off, once more entreated and warned him as before; but
+he replied that he heard him, and that he need not trouble himself with
+any further warnings or entreaties, as they would be fruitless, and bade
+him make haste.
+
+During the delay that occurred while the keeper was opening the first
+cage, Don Quixote was considering whether it would not be well to do
+battle on foot, instead of on horseback, and finally resolved to fight on
+foot, fearing that Rocinante might take fright at the sight of the lions;
+he therefore sprang off his horse, flung his lance aside, braced his
+buckler on his arm, and drawing his sword, advanced slowly with
+marvellous intrepidity and resolute courage, to plant himself in front of
+the cart, commending himself with all his heart to God and to his lady
+Dulcinea.
+
+It is to be observed, that on coming to this passage, the author of this
+veracious history breaks out into exclamations. “O doughty Don Quixote!
+high-mettled past extolling! Mirror, wherein all the heroes of the world
+may see themselves! Second modern Don Manuel de Leon, once the glory and
+honour of Spanish knighthood! In what words shall I describe this dread
+exploit, by what language shall I make it credible to ages to come, what
+eulogies are there unmeet for thee, though they be hyperboles piled on
+hyperboles! On foot, alone, undaunted, high-souled, with but a simple
+sword, and that no trenchant blade of the Perrillo brand, a shield, but
+no bright polished steel one, there stoodst thou, biding and awaiting the
+two fiercest lions that Africa’s forests ever bred! Thy own deeds be thy
+praise, valiant Manchegan, and here I leave them as they stand, wanting
+the words wherewith to glorify them!”
+
+Here the author’s outburst came to an end, and he proceeded to take up
+the thread of his story, saying that the keeper, seeing that Don Quixote
+had taken up his position, and that it was impossible for him to avoid
+letting out the male without incurring the enmity of the fiery and daring
+knight, flung open the doors of the first cage, containing, as has been
+said, the lion, which was now seen to be of enormous size, and grim and
+hideous mien. The first thing he did was to turn round in the cage in
+which he lay, and protrude his claws, and stretch himself thoroughly; he
+next opened his mouth, and yawned very leisurely, and with near two
+palms’ length of tongue that he had thrust forth, he licked the dust out
+of his eyes and washed his face; having done this, he put his head out of
+the cage and looked all round with eyes like glowing coals, a spectacle
+and demeanour to strike terror into temerity itself. Don Quixote merely
+observed him steadily, longing for him to leap from the cart and come to
+close quarters with him, when he hoped to hew him in pieces.
+
+So far did his unparalleled madness go; but the noble lion, more
+courteous than arrogant, not troubling himself about silly bravado, after
+having looked all round, as has been said, turned about and presented his
+hind-quarters to Don Quixote, and very coolly and tranquilly lay down
+again in the cage. Seeing this, Don Quixote ordered the keeper to take a
+stick to him and provoke him to make him come out.
+
+“That I won’t,” said the keeper; “for if I anger him, the first he’ll
+tear in pieces will be myself. Be satisfied, sir knight, with what you
+have done, which leaves nothing more to be said on the score of courage,
+and do not seek to tempt fortune a second time. The lion has the door
+open; he is free to come out or not to come out; but as he has not come
+out so far, he will not come out to-day. Your worship’s great courage has
+been fully manifested already; no brave champion, so it strikes me, is
+bound to do more than challenge his enemy and wait for him on the field;
+if his adversary does not come, on him lies the disgrace, and he who
+waits for him carries off the crown of victory.”
+
+“That is true,” said Don Quixote; “close the door, my friend, and let me
+have, in the best form thou canst, what thou hast seen me do, by way of
+certificate; to wit, that thou didst open for the lion, that I waited for
+him, that he did not come out, that I still waited for him, and that
+still he did not come out, and lay down again. I am not bound to do more;
+enchantments avaunt, and God uphold the right, the truth, and true
+chivalry! Close the door as I bade thee, while I make signals to the
+fugitives that have left us, that they may learn this exploit from thy
+lips.”
+
+The keeper obeyed, and Don Quixote, fixing on the point of his lance the
+cloth he had wiped his face with after the deluge of curds, proceeded to
+recall the others, who still continued to fly, looking back at every
+step, all in a body, the gentleman bringing up the rear. Sancho, however,
+happening to observe the signal of the white cloth, exclaimed, “May I
+die, if my master has not overcome the wild beasts, for he is calling to
+us.”
+
+They all stopped, and perceived that it was Don Quixote who was making
+signals, and shaking off their fears to some extent, they approached
+slowly until they were near enough to hear distinctly Don Quixote’s voice
+calling to them. They returned at length to the cart, and as they came
+up, Don Quixote said to the carter, “Put your mules to once more,
+brother, and continue your journey; and do thou, Sancho, give him two
+gold crowns for himself and the keeper, to compensate for the delay they
+have incurred through me.”
+
+“That will I give with all my heart,” said Sancho; “but what has become
+of the lions? Are they dead or alive?”
+
+The keeper, then, in full detail, and bit by bit, described the end of
+the contest, exalting to the best of his power and ability the valour of
+Don Quixote, at the sight of whom the lion quailed, and would not and
+dared not come out of the cage, although he had held the door open ever
+so long; and showing how, in consequence of his having represented to the
+knight that it was tempting God to provoke the lion in order to force him
+out, which he wished to have done, he very reluctantly, and altogether
+against his will, had allowed the door to be closed.
+
+“What dost thou think of this, Sancho?” said Don Quixote. “Are there any
+enchantments that can prevail against true valour? The enchanters may be
+able to rob me of good fortune, but of fortitude and courage they
+cannot.”
+
+Sancho paid the crowns, the carter put to, the keeper kissed Don
+Quixote’s hands for the bounty bestowed upon him, and promised to give an
+account of the valiant exploit to the King himself, as soon as he saw him
+at court.
+
+“Then,” said Don Quixote, “if his Majesty should happen to ask who
+performed it, you must say THE KNIGHT OF THE LIONS; for it is my desire
+that into this the name I have hitherto borne of Knight of the Rueful
+Countenance be from this time forward changed, altered, transformed, and
+turned; and in this I follow the ancient usage of knights-errant, who
+changed their names when they pleased, or when it suited their purpose.”
+
+The cart went its way, and Don Quixote, Sancho, and he of the green gaban
+went theirs. All this time, Don Diego de Miranda had not spoken a word,
+being entirely taken up with observing and noting all that Don Quixote
+did and said, and the opinion he formed was that he was a man of brains
+gone mad, and a madman on the verge of rationality. The first part of his
+history had not yet reached him, for, had he read it, the amazement with
+which his words and deeds filled him would have vanished, as he would
+then have understood the nature of his madness; but knowing nothing of
+it, he took him to be rational one moment, and crazy the next, for what
+he said was sensible, elegant, and well expressed, and what he did,
+absurd, rash, and foolish; and said he to himself, “What could be madder
+than putting on a helmet full of curds, and then persuading oneself that
+enchanters are softening one’s skull; or what could be greater rashness
+and folly than wanting to fight lions tooth and nail?”
+
+Don Quixote roused him from these reflections and this soliloquy by
+saying, “No doubt, Señor Don Diego de Miranda, you set me down in your
+mind as a fool and a madman, and it would be no wonder if you did, for my
+deeds do not argue anything else. But for all that, I would have you take
+notice that I am neither so mad nor so foolish as I must have seemed to
+you. A gallant knight shows to advantage bringing his lance to bear
+adroitly upon a fierce bull under the eyes of his sovereign, in the midst
+of a spacious plaza; a knight shows to advantage arrayed in glittering
+armour, pacing the lists before the ladies in some joyous tournament, and
+all those knights show to advantage that entertain, divert, and, if we
+may say so, honour the courts of their princes by warlike exercises, or
+what resemble them; but to greater advantage than all these does a
+knight-errant show when he traverses deserts, solitudes, cross-roads,
+forests, and mountains, in quest of perilous adventures, bent on bringing
+them to a happy and successful issue, all to win a glorious and lasting
+renown. To greater advantage, I maintain, does the knight-errant show
+bringing aid to some widow in some lonely waste, than the court knight
+dallying with some city damsel. All knights have their own special parts
+to play; let the courtier devote himself to the ladies, let him add
+lustre to his sovereign’s court by his liveries, let him entertain poor
+gentlemen with the sumptuous fare of his table, let him arrange
+joustings, marshal tournaments, and prove himself noble, generous, and
+magnificent, and above all a good Christian, and so doing he will fulfil
+the duties that are especially his; but let the knight-errant explore the
+corners of the earth and penetrate the most intricate labyrinths, at each
+step let him attempt impossibilities, on desolate heaths let him endure
+the burning rays of the midsummer sun, and the bitter inclemency of the
+winter winds and frosts; let no lions daunt him, no monsters terrify him,
+no dragons make him quail; for to seek these, to attack those, and to
+vanquish all, are in truth his main duties. I, then, as it has fallen to
+my lot to be a member of knight-errantry, cannot avoid attempting all
+that to me seems to come within the sphere of my duties; thus it was my
+bounden duty to attack those lions that I just now attacked, although I
+knew it to be the height of rashness; for I know well what valour is,
+that it is a virtue that occupies a place between two vicious extremes,
+cowardice and temerity; but it will be a lesser evil for him who is
+valiant to rise till he reaches the point of rashness, than to sink until
+he reaches the point of cowardice; for, as it is easier for the prodigal
+than for the miser to become generous, so it is easier for a rash man to
+prove truly valiant than for a coward to rise to true valour; and believe
+me, Señor Don Diego, in attempting adventures it is better to lose by a
+card too many than by a card too few; for to hear it said, ‘such a knight
+is rash and daring,’ sounds better than ‘such a knight is timid and
+cowardly.’”
+
+“I protest, Señor Don Quixote,” said Don Diego, “everything you have said
+and done is proved correct by the test of reason itself; and I believe,
+if the laws and ordinances of knight-errantry should be lost, they might
+be found in your worship’s breast as in their own proper depository and
+muniment-house; but let us make haste, and reach my village, where you
+shall take rest after your late exertions; for if they have not been of
+the body they have been of the spirit, and these sometimes tend to
+produce bodily fatigue.”
+
+“I take the invitation as a great favour and honour, Señor Don Diego,”
+ replied Don Quixote; and pressing forward at a better pace than before,
+at about two in the afternoon they reached the village and house of Don
+Diego, or, as Don Quixote called him, “The Knight of the Green Gaban.”
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+Don Quixote found Don Diego de Miranda’s house built in village style,
+with his arms in rough stone over the street door; in the patio was the
+store-room, and at the entrance the cellar, with plenty of wine-jars
+standing round, which, coming from El Toboso, brought back to his memory
+his enchanted and transformed Dulcinea; and with a sigh, and not thinking
+of what he was saying, or in whose presence he was, he exclaimed--
+
+  “O ye sweet treasures, to my sorrow found!
+  Once sweet and welcome when ‘twas heaven’s good-will.
+
+  “O ye Tobosan jars, how ye bring back to my memory the
+  sweet object of my bitter regrets!”
+
+The student poet, Don Diego’s son, who had come out with his mother to
+receive him, heard this exclamation, and both mother and son were filled
+with amazement at the extraordinary figure he presented; he, however,
+dismounting from Rocinante, advanced with great politeness to ask
+permission to kiss the lady’s hand, while Don Diego said, “Señora, pray
+receive with your wonted kindness Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha, whom
+you see before you, a knight-errant, and the bravest and wisest in the
+world.”
+
+The lady, whose name was Dona Christina, received him with every sign of
+good-will and great courtesy, and Don Quixote placed himself at her
+service with an abundance of well-chosen and polished phrases. Almost the
+same civilities were exchanged between him and the student, who listening
+to Don Quixote, took him to be a sensible, clear-headed person.
+
+Here the author describes minutely everything belonging to Don Diego’s
+mansion, putting before us in his picture the whole contents of a rich
+gentleman-farmer’s house; but the translator of the history thought it
+best to pass over these and other details of the same sort in silence, as
+they are not in harmony with the main purpose of the story, the strong
+point of which is truth rather than dull digressions.
+
+They led Don Quixote into a room, and Sancho removed his armour, leaving
+him in loose Walloon breeches and chamois-leather doublet, all stained
+with the rust of his armour; his collar was a falling one of scholastic
+cut, without starch or lace, his buskins buff-coloured, and his shoes
+polished. He wore his good sword, which hung in a baldric of sea-wolf’s
+skin, for he had suffered for many years, they say, from an ailment of
+the kidneys; and over all he threw a long cloak of good grey cloth. But
+first of all, with five or six buckets of water (for as regard the number
+of buckets there is some dispute), he washed his head and face, and still
+the water remained whey-coloured, thanks to Sancho’s greediness and
+purchase of those unlucky curds that turned his master so white. Thus
+arrayed, and with an easy, sprightly, and gallant air, Don Quixote passed
+out into another room, where the student was waiting to entertain him
+while the table was being laid; for on the arrival of so distinguished a
+guest, Dona Christina was anxious to show that she knew how and was able
+to give a becoming reception to those who came to her house.
+
+While Don Quixote was taking off his armour, Don Lorenzo (for so Don
+Diego’s son was called) took the opportunity to say to his father, “What
+are we to make of this gentleman you have brought home to us, sir? For
+his name, his appearance, and your describing him as a knight-errant have
+completely puzzled my mother and me.”
+
+“I don’t know what to say, my son,” replied. Don Diego; “all I can tell
+thee is that I have seen him act the acts of the greatest madman in the
+world, and heard him make observations so sensible that they efface and
+undo all he does; do thou talk to him and feel the pulse of his wits, and
+as thou art shrewd, form the most reasonable conclusion thou canst as to
+his wisdom or folly; though, to tell the truth, I am more inclined to
+take him to be mad than sane.”
+
+With this Don Lorenzo went away to entertain Don Quixote as has been
+said, and in the course of the conversation that passed between them Don
+Quixote said to Don Lorenzo, “Your father, Señor Don Diego de Miranda,
+has told me of the rare abilities and subtle intellect you possess, and,
+above all, that you are a great poet.”
+
+“A poet, it may be,” replied Don Lorenzo, “but a great one, by no means.
+It is true that I am somewhat given to poetry and to reading good poets,
+but not so much so as to justify the title of ‘great’ which my father
+gives me.”
+
+“I do not dislike that modesty,” said Don Quixote; “for there is no poet
+who is not conceited and does not think he is the best poet in the
+world.”
+
+“There is no rule without an exception,” said Don Lorenzo; “there may be
+some who are poets and yet do not think they are.”
+
+“Very few,” said Don Quixote; “but tell me, what verses are those which
+you have now in hand, and which your father tells me keep you somewhat
+restless and absorbed? If it be some gloss, I know something about
+glosses, and I should like to hear them; and if they are for a poetical
+tournament, contrive to carry off the second prize; for the first always
+goes by favour or personal standing, the second by simple justice; and so
+the third comes to be the second, and the first, reckoning in this way,
+will be third, in the same way as licentiate degrees are conferred at the
+universities; but, for all that, the title of first is a great
+distinction.”
+
+“So far,” said Don Lorenzo to himself, “I should not take you to be a
+madman; but let us go on.” So he said to him, “Your worship has
+apparently attended the schools; what sciences have you studied?”
+
+“That of knight-errantry,” said Don Quixote, “which is as good as that of
+poetry, and even a finger or two above it.”
+
+“I do not know what science that is,” said Don Lorenzo, “and until now I
+have never heard of it.”
+
+“It is a science,” said Don Quixote, “that comprehends in itself all or
+most of the sciences in the world, for he who professes it must be a
+jurist, and must know the rules of justice, distributive and equitable,
+so as to give to each one what belongs to him and is due to him. He must
+be a theologian, so as to be able to give a clear and distinctive reason
+for the Christian faith he professes, wherever it may be asked of him. He
+must be a physician, and above all a herbalist, so as in wastes and
+solitudes to know the herbs that have the property of healing wounds, for
+a knight-errant must not go looking for some one to cure him at every
+step. He must be an astronomer, so as to know by the stars how many hours
+of the night have passed, and what clime and quarter of the world he is
+in. He must know mathematics, for at every turn some occasion for them
+will present itself to him; and, putting it aside that he must be adorned
+with all the virtues, cardinal and theological, to come down to minor
+particulars, he must, I say, be able to swim as well as Nicholas or
+Nicolao the Fish could, as the story goes; he must know how to shoe a
+horse, and repair his saddle and bridle; and, to return to higher
+matters, he must be faithful to God and to his lady; he must be pure in
+thought, decorous in words, generous in works, valiant in deeds, patient
+in suffering, compassionate towards the needy, and, lastly, an upholder
+of the truth though its defence should cost him his life. Of all these
+qualities, great and small, is a true knight-errant made up; judge then,
+Señor Don Lorenzo, whether it be a contemptible science which the knight
+who studies and professes it has to learn, and whether it may not compare
+with the very loftiest that are taught in the schools.”
+
+“If that be so,” replied Don Lorenzo, “this science, I protest, surpasses
+all.”
+
+“How, if that be so?” said Don Quixote.
+
+“What I mean to say,” said Don Lorenzo, “is, that I doubt whether there
+are now, or ever were, any knights-errant, and adorned with such
+virtues.”
+
+“Many a time,” replied Don Quixote, “have I said what I now say once
+more, that the majority of the world are of opinion that there never were
+any knights-errant in it; and as it is my opinion that, unless heaven by
+some miracle brings home to them the truth that there were and are, all
+the pains one takes will be in vain (as experience has often proved to
+me), I will not now stop to disabuse you of the error you share with the
+multitude. All I shall do is to pray to heaven to deliver you from it,
+and show you how beneficial and necessary knights-errant were in days of
+yore, and how useful they would be in these days were they but in vogue;
+but now, for the sins of the people, sloth and indolence, gluttony and
+luxury are triumphant.”
+
+“Our guest has broken out on our hands,” said Don Lorenzo to himself at
+this point; “but, for all that, he is a glorious madman, and I should be
+a dull blockhead to doubt it.”
+
+Here, being summoned to dinner, they brought their colloquy to a close.
+Don Diego asked his son what he had been able to make out as to the wits
+of their guest. To which he replied, “All the doctors and clever scribes
+in the world will not make sense of the scrawl of his madness; he is a
+madman full of streaks, full of lucid intervals.”
+
+They went in to dinner, and the repast was such as Don Diego said on the
+road he was in the habit of giving to his guests, neat, plentiful, and
+tasty; but what pleased Don Quixote most was the marvellous silence that
+reigned throughout the house, for it was like a Carthusian monastery.
+
+When the cloth had been removed, grace said and their hands washed, Don
+Quixote earnestly pressed Don Lorenzo to repeat to him his verses for the
+poetical tournament, to which he replied, “Not to be like those poets
+who, when they are asked to recite their verses, refuse, and when they
+are not asked for them vomit them up, I will repeat my gloss, for which I
+do not expect any prize, having composed it merely as an exercise of
+ingenuity.”
+
+“A discerning friend of mine,” said Don Quixote, “was of opinion that no
+one ought to waste labour in glossing verses; and the reason he gave was
+that the gloss can never come up to the text, and that often or most
+frequently it wanders away from the meaning and purpose aimed at in the
+glossed lines; and besides, that the laws of the gloss were too strict,
+as they did not allow interrogations, nor ‘said he,’ nor ‘I say,’ nor
+turning verbs into nouns, or altering the construction, not to speak of
+other restrictions and limitations that fetter gloss-writers, as you no
+doubt know.”
+
+“Verily, Señor Don Quixote,” said Don Lorenzo, “I wish I could catch your
+worship tripping at a stretch, but I cannot, for you slip through my
+fingers like an eel.”
+
+“I don’t understand what you say, or mean by slipping,” said Don Quixote.
+
+“I will explain myself another time,” said Don Lorenzo; “for the present
+pray attend to the glossed verses and the gloss, which run thus:
+
+Could ‘was’ become an ‘is’ for me,
+Then would I ask no more than this;
+Or could, for me, the time that is
+Become the time that is to be!--
+
+GLOSS
+
+Dame Fortune once upon a day
+  To me was bountiful and kind;
+  But all things change; she changed her mind,
+And what she gave she took away.
+O Fortune, long I’ve sued to thee;
+  The gifts thou gavest me restore,
+  For, trust me, I would ask no more,
+Could ‘was’ become an ‘is’ for me.
+
+No other prize I seek to gain,
+  No triumph, glory, or success,
+  Only the long-lost happiness,
+The memory whereof is pain.
+One taste, methinks, of bygone bliss
+  The heart-consuming fire might stay;
+  And, so it come without delay,
+Then would I ask no more than this.
+
+I ask what cannot be, alas!
+  That time should ever be, and then
+  Come back to us, and be again,
+No power on earth can bring to pass;
+For fleet of foot is he, I wis,
+  And idly, therefore, do we pray
+  That what for aye hath left us may
+Become for us the time that is.
+
+Perplexed, uncertain, to remain
+  ‘Twixt hope and fear, is death, not life;
+  ‘Twere better, sure, to end the strife,
+And dying, seek release from pain.
+And yet, thought were the best for me.
+  Anon the thought aside I fling,
+  And to the present fondly cling,
+And dread the time that is to be.”
+
+When Don Lorenzo had finished reciting his gloss, Don Quixote stood up,
+and in a loud voice, almost a shout, exclaimed as he grasped Don
+Lorenzo’s right hand in his, “By the highest heavens, noble youth, but
+you are the best poet on earth, and deserve to be crowned with laurel,
+not by Cyprus or by Gaeta--as a certain poet, God forgive him, said--but
+by the Academies of Athens, if they still flourished, and by those that
+flourish now, Paris, Bologna, Salamanca. Heaven grant that the judges who
+rob you of the first prize--that Phoebus may pierce them with his arrows,
+and the Muses never cross the thresholds of their doors. Repeat me some
+of your long-measure verses, señor, if you will be so good, for I want
+thoroughly to feel the pulse of your rare genius.”
+
+Is there any need to say that Don Lorenzo enjoyed hearing himself praised
+by Don Quixote, albeit he looked upon him as a madman? power of flattery,
+how far-reaching art thou, and how wide are the bounds of thy pleasant
+jurisdiction! Don Lorenzo gave a proof of it, for he complied with Don
+Quixote’s request and entreaty, and repeated to him this sonnet on the
+fable or story of Pyramus and Thisbe.
+
+SONNET
+
+The lovely maid, she pierces now the wall;
+  Heart-pierced by her young Pyramus doth lie;
+  And Love spreads wing from Cyprus isle to fly,
+A chink to view so wondrous great and small.
+There silence speaketh, for no voice at all
+  Can pass so strait a strait; but love will ply
+  Where to all other power ‘twere vain to try;
+For love will find a way whate’er befall.
+Impatient of delay, with reckless pace
+  The rash maid wins the fatal spot where she
+Sinks not in lover’s arms but death’s embrace.
+  So runs the strange tale, how the lovers twain
+One sword, one sepulchre, one memory,
+  Slays, and entombs, and brings to life again.
+
+“Blessed be God,” said Don Quixote when he had heard Don Lorenzo’s
+sonnet, “that among the hosts there are of irritable poets I have found
+one consummate one, which, señor, the art of this sonnet proves to me
+that you are!”
+
+For four days was Don Quixote most sumptuously entertained in Don Diego’s
+house, at the end of which time he asked his permission to depart,
+telling him he thanked him for the kindness and hospitality he had
+received in his house, but that, as it did not become knights-errant to
+give themselves up for long to idleness and luxury, he was anxious to
+fulfill the duties of his calling in seeking adventures, of which he was
+informed there was an abundance in that neighbourhood, where he hoped to
+employ his time until the day came round for the jousts at Saragossa, for
+that was his proper destination; and that, first of all, he meant to
+enter the cave of Montesinos, of which so many marvellous things were
+reported all through the country, and at the same time to investigate and
+explore the origin and true source of the seven lakes commonly called the
+lakes of Ruidera.
+
+Don Diego and his son commended his laudable resolution, and bade him
+furnish himself with all he wanted from their house and belongings, as
+they would most gladly be of service to him; which, indeed, his personal
+worth and his honourable profession made incumbent upon them.
+
+The day of his departure came at length, as welcome to Don Quixote as it
+was sad and sorrowful to Sancho Panza, who was very well satisfied with
+the abundance of Don Diego’s house, and objected to return to the
+starvation of the woods and wilds and the short-commons of his
+ill-stocked alforjas; these, however, he filled and packed with what he
+considered needful. On taking leave, Don Quixote said to Don Lorenzo, “I
+know not whether I have told you already, but if I have I tell you once
+more, that if you wish to spare yourself fatigue and toil in reaching the
+inaccessible summit of the temple of fame, you have nothing to do but to
+turn aside out of the somewhat narrow path of poetry and take the still
+narrower one of knight-errantry, wide enough, however, to make you an
+emperor in the twinkling of an eye.”
+
+In this speech Don Quixote wound up the evidence of his madness, but
+still better in what he added when he said, “God knows, I would gladly
+take Don Lorenzo with me to teach him how to spare the humble, and
+trample the proud under foot, virtues that are part and parcel of the
+profession I belong to; but since his tender age does not allow of it,
+nor his praiseworthy pursuits permit it, I will simply content myself
+with impressing it upon your worship that you will become famous as a
+poet if you are guided by the opinion of others rather than by your own;
+because no fathers or mothers ever think their own children ill-favoured,
+and this sort of deception prevails still more strongly in the case of
+the children of the brain.”
+
+Both father and son were amazed afresh at the strange medley Don Quixote
+talked, at one moment sense, at another nonsense, and at the pertinacity
+and persistence he displayed in going through thick and thin in quest of
+his unlucky adventures, which he made the end and aim of his desires.
+There was a renewal of offers of service and civilities, and then, with
+the gracious permission of the lady of the castle, they took their
+departure, Don Quixote on Rocinante, and Sancho on Dapple.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+IN WHICH IS RELATED THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENAMOURED SHEPHERD, TOGETHER
+WITH OTHER TRULY DROLL INCIDENTS
+
+
+Don Quixote had gone but a short distance beyond Don Diego’s village,
+when he fell in with a couple of either priests or students, and a couple
+of peasants, mounted on four beasts of the ass kind. One of the students
+carried, wrapped up in a piece of green buckram by way of a portmanteau,
+what seemed to be a little linen and a couple of pairs of ribbed
+stockings; the other carried nothing but a pair of new fencing-foils with
+buttons. The peasants carried divers articles that showed they were on
+their way from some large town where they had bought them, and were
+taking them home to their village; and both students and peasants were
+struck with the same amazement that everybody felt who saw Don Quixote
+for the first time, and were dying to know who this man, so different
+from ordinary men, could be. Don Quixote saluted them, and after
+ascertaining that their road was the same as his, made them an offer of
+his company, and begged them to slacken their pace, as their young asses
+travelled faster than his horse; and then, to gratify them, he told them
+in a few words who he was and the calling and profession he followed,
+which was that of a knight-errant seeking adventures in all parts of the
+world. He informed them that his own name was Don Quixote of La Mancha,
+and that he was called, by way of surname, the Knight of the Lions.
+
+All this was Greek or gibberish to the peasants, but not so to the
+students, who very soon perceived the crack in Don Quixote’s pate; for
+all that, however, they regarded him with admiration and respect, and one
+of them said to him, “If you, sir knight, have no fixed road, as it is
+the way with those who seek adventures not to have any, let your worship
+come with us; you will see one of the finest and richest weddings that up
+to this day have ever been celebrated in La Mancha, or for many a league
+round.”
+
+Don Quixote asked him if it was some prince’s, that he spoke of it in
+this way. “Not at all,” said the student; “it is the wedding of a farmer
+and a farmer’s daughter, he the richest in all this country, and she the
+fairest mortal ever set eyes on. The display with which it is to be
+attended will be something rare and out of the common, for it will be
+celebrated in a meadow adjoining the town of the bride, who is called,
+par excellence, Quiteria the fair, as the bridegroom is called Camacho
+the rich. She is eighteen, and he twenty-two, and they are fairly
+matched, though some knowing ones, who have all the pedigrees in the
+world by heart, will have it that the family of the fair Quiteria is
+better than Camacho’s; but no one minds that now-a-days, for wealth can
+solder a great many flaws. At any rate, Camacho is free-handed, and it is
+his fancy to screen the whole meadow with boughs and cover it in
+overhead, so that the sun will have hard work if he tries to get in to
+reach the grass that covers the soil. He has provided dancers too, not
+only sword but also bell-dancers, for in his own town there are those who
+ring the changes and jingle the bells to perfection; of shoe-dancers I
+say nothing, for of them he has engaged a host. But none of these things,
+nor of the many others I have omitted to mention, will do more to make
+this a memorable wedding than the part which I suspect the despairing
+Basilio will play in it. This Basilio is a youth of the same village as
+Quiteria, and he lived in the house next door to that of her parents, of
+which circumstance Love took advantage to reproduce to the word the
+long-forgotten loves of Pyramus and Thisbe; for Basilio loved Quiteria
+from his earliest years, and she responded to his passion with countless
+modest proofs of affection, so that the loves of the two children,
+Basilio and Quiteria, were the talk and the amusement of the town. As
+they grew up, the father of Quiteria made up his mind to refuse Basilio
+his wonted freedom of access to the house, and to relieve himself of
+constant doubts and suspicions, he arranged a match for his daughter with
+the rich Camacho, as he did not approve of marrying her to Basilio, who
+had not so large a share of the gifts of fortune as of nature; for if the
+truth be told ungrudgingly, he is the most agile youth we know, a mighty
+thrower of the bar, a first-rate wrestler, and a great ball-player; he
+runs like a deer, and leaps better than a goat, bowls over the nine-pins
+as if by magic, sings like a lark, plays the guitar so as to make it
+speak, and, above all, handles a sword as well as the best.”
+
+“For that excellence alone,” said Don Quixote at this, “the youth
+deserves to marry, not merely the fair Quiteria, but Queen Guinevere
+herself, were she alive now, in spite of Launcelot and all who would try
+to prevent it.”
+
+“Say that to my wife,” said Sancho, who had until now listened in
+silence, “for she won’t hear of anything but each one marrying his equal,
+holding with the proverb ‘each ewe to her like.’ What I would like is
+that this good Basilio (for I am beginning to take a fancy to him
+already) should marry this lady Quiteria; and a blessing and good luck--I
+meant to say the opposite--on people who would prevent those who love one
+another from marrying.”
+
+“If all those who love one another were to marry,” said Don Quixote, “it
+would deprive parents of the right to choose, and marry their children to
+the proper person and at the proper time; and if it was left to daughters
+to choose husbands as they pleased, one would be for choosing her
+father’s servant, and another, some one she has seen passing in the
+street and fancies gallant and dashing, though he may be a drunken bully;
+for love and fancy easily blind the eyes of the judgment, so much wanted
+in choosing one’s way of life; and the matrimonial choice is very liable
+to error, and it needs great caution and the special favour of heaven to
+make it a good one. He who has to make a long journey, will, if he is
+wise, look out for some trusty and pleasant companion to accompany him
+before he sets out. Why, then, should not he do the same who has to make
+the whole journey of life down to the final halting-place of death, more
+especially when the companion has to be his companion in bed, at board,
+and everywhere, as the wife is to her husband? The companionship of one’s
+wife is no article of merchandise, that, after it has been bought, may be
+returned, or bartered, or changed; for it is an inseparable accident that
+lasts as long as life lasts; it is a noose that, once you put it round
+your neck, turns into a Gordian knot, which, if the scythe of Death does
+not cut it, there is no untying. I could say a great deal more on this
+subject, were I not prevented by the anxiety I feel to know if the señor
+licentiate has anything more to tell about the story of Basilio.”
+
+To this the student, bachelor, or, as Don Quixote called him, licentiate,
+replied, “I have nothing whatever to say further, but that from the
+moment Basilio learned that the fair Quiteria was to be married to
+Camacho the rich, he has never been seen to smile, or heard to utter
+rational word, and he always goes about moody and dejected, talking to
+himself in a way that shows plainly he is out of his senses. He eats
+little and sleeps little, and all he eats is fruit, and when he sleeps,
+if he sleeps at all, it is in the field on the hard earth like a brute
+beast. Sometimes he gazes at the sky, at other times he fixes his eyes on
+the earth in such an abstracted way that he might be taken for a clothed
+statue, with its drapery stirred by the wind. In short, he shows such
+signs of a heart crushed by suffering, that all we who know him believe
+that when to-morrow the fair Quiteria says ‘yes,’ it will be his sentence
+of death.”
+
+“God will guide it better,” said Sancho, “for God who gives the wound
+gives the salve; nobody knows what will happen; there are a good many
+hours between this and to-morrow, and any one of them, or any moment, the
+house may fall; I have seen the rain coming down and the sun shining all
+at one time; many a one goes to bed in good health who can’t stir the
+next day. And tell me, is there anyone who can boast of having driven a
+nail into the wheel of fortune? No, faith; and between a woman’s ‘yes’
+and ‘no’ I wouldn’t venture to put the point of a pin, for there would
+not be room for it; if you tell me Quiteria loves Basilio heart and soul,
+then I’ll give him a bag of good luck; for love, I have heard say, looks
+through spectacles that make copper seem gold, poverty wealth, and bleary
+eyes pearls.”
+
+“What art thou driving at, Sancho? curses on thee!” said Don Quixote;
+“for when thou takest to stringing proverbs and sayings together, no one
+can understand thee but Judas himself, and I wish he had thee. Tell me,
+thou animal, what dost thou know about nails or wheels, or anything
+else?”
+
+“Oh, if you don’t understand me,” replied Sancho, “it is no wonder my
+words are taken for nonsense; but no matter; I understand myself, and I
+know I have not said anything very foolish in what I have said; only your
+worship, señor, is always gravelling at everything I say, nay, everything
+I do.”
+
+“Cavilling, not gravelling,” said Don Quixote, “thou prevaricator of
+honest language, God confound thee!”
+
+“Don’t find fault with me, your worship,” returned Sancho, “for you know
+I have not been bred up at court or trained at Salamanca, to know whether
+I am adding or dropping a letter or so in my words. Why! God bless me,
+it’s not fair to force a Sayago-man to speak like a Toledan; maybe there
+are Toledans who do not hit it off when it comes to polished talk.”
+
+“That is true,” said the licentiate, “for those who have been bred up in
+the Tanneries and the Zocodover cannot talk like those who are almost all
+day pacing the cathedral cloisters, and yet they are all Toledans. Pure,
+correct, elegant and lucid language will be met with in men of courtly
+breeding and discrimination, though they may have been born in
+Majalahonda; I say of discrimination, because there are many who are not
+so, and discrimination is the grammar of good language, if it be
+accompanied by practice. I, sirs, for my sins have studied canon law at
+Salamanca, and I rather pique myself on expressing my meaning in clear,
+plain, and intelligible language.”
+
+“If you did not pique yourself more on your dexterity with those foils
+you carry than on dexterity of tongue,” said the other student, “you
+would have been head of the degrees, where you are now tail.”
+
+“Look here, bachelor Corchuelo,” returned the licentiate, “you have the
+most mistaken idea in the world about skill with the sword, if you think
+it useless.”
+
+“It is no idea on my part, but an established truth,” replied Corchuelo;
+“and if you wish me to prove it to you by experiment, you have swords
+there, and it is a good opportunity; I have a steady hand and a strong
+arm, and these joined with my resolution, which is not small, will make
+you confess that I am not mistaken. Dismount and put in practice your
+positions and circles and angles and science, for I hope to make you see
+stars at noonday with my rude raw swordsmanship, in which, next to God, I
+place my trust that the man is yet to be born who will make me turn my
+back, and that there is not one in the world I will not compel to give
+ground.”
+
+“As to whether you turn your back or not, I do not concern myself,”
+ replied the master of fence; “though it might be that your grave would be
+dug on the spot where you planted your foot the first time; I mean that
+you would be stretched dead there for despising skill with the sword.”
+
+“We shall soon see,” replied Corchuelo, and getting off his ass briskly,
+he drew out furiously one of the swords the licentiate carried on his
+beast.
+
+“It must not be that way,” said Don Quixote at this point; “I will be the
+director of this fencing match, and judge of this often disputed
+question;” and dismounting from Rocinante and grasping his lance, he
+planted himself in the middle of the road, just as the licentiate, with
+an easy, graceful bearing and step, advanced towards Corchuelo, who came
+on against him, darting fire from his eyes, as the saying is. The other
+two of the company, the peasants, without dismounting from their asses,
+served as spectators of the mortal tragedy. The cuts, thrusts, down
+strokes, back strokes and doubles, that Corchuelo delivered were past
+counting, and came thicker than hops or hail. He attacked like an angry
+lion, but he was met by a tap on the mouth from the button of the
+licentiate’s sword that checked him in the midst of his furious onset,
+and made him kiss it as if it were a relic, though not as devoutly as
+relics are and ought to be kissed. The end of it was that the licentiate
+reckoned up for him by thrusts every one of the buttons of the short
+cassock he wore, tore the skirts into strips, like the tails of a
+cuttlefish, knocked off his hat twice, and so completely tired him out,
+that in vexation, anger, and rage, he took the sword by the hilt and
+flung it away with such force, that one of the peasants that were there,
+who was a notary, and who went for it, made an affidavit afterwards that
+he sent it nearly three-quarters of a league, which testimony will serve,
+and has served, to show and establish with all certainty that strength is
+overcome by skill.
+
+Corchuelo sat down wearied, and Sancho approaching him said, “By my
+faith, señor bachelor, if your worship takes my advice, you will never
+challenge anyone to fence again, only to wrestle and throw the bar, for
+you have the youth and strength for that; but as for these fencers as
+they call them, I have heard say they can put the point of a sword
+through the eye of a needle.”
+
+“I am satisfied with having tumbled off my donkey,” said Corchuelo, “and
+with having had the truth I was so ignorant of proved to me by
+experience;” and getting up he embraced the licentiate, and they were
+better friends than ever; and not caring to wait for the notary who had
+gone for the sword, as they saw he would be a long time about it, they
+resolved to push on so as to reach the village of Quiteria, to which they
+all belonged, in good time.
+
+During the remainder of the journey the licentiate held forth to them on
+the excellences of the sword, with such conclusive arguments, and such
+figures and mathematical proofs, that all were convinced of the value of
+the science, and Corchuelo cured of his dogmatism.
+
+It grew dark; but before they reached the town it seemed to them all as
+if there was a heaven full of countless glittering stars in front of it.
+They heard, too, the pleasant mingled notes of a variety of instruments,
+flutes, drums, psalteries, pipes, tabors, and timbrels, and as they drew
+near they perceived that the trees of a leafy arcade that had been
+constructed at the entrance of the town were filled with lights
+unaffected by the wind, for the breeze at the time was so gentle that it
+had not power to stir the leaves on the trees. The musicians were the
+life of the wedding, wandering through the pleasant grounds in separate
+bands, some dancing, others singing, others playing the various
+instruments already mentioned. In short, it seemed as though mirth and
+gaiety were frisking and gambolling all over the meadow. Several other
+persons were engaged in erecting raised benches from which people might
+conveniently see the plays and dances that were to be performed the next
+day on the spot dedicated to the celebration of the marriage of Camacho
+the rich and the obsequies of Basilio. Don Quixote would not enter the
+village, although the peasant as well as the bachelor pressed him; he
+excused himself, however, on the grounds, amply sufficient in his
+opinion, that it was the custom of knights-errant to sleep in the fields
+and woods in preference to towns, even were it under gilded ceilings; and
+so turned aside a little out of the road, very much against Sancho’s
+will, as the good quarters he had enjoyed in the castle or house of Don
+Diego came back to his mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+WHEREIN AN ACCOUNT IS GIVEN OF THE WEDDING OF CAMACHO THE RICH, TOGETHER
+WITH THE INCIDENT OF BASILIO THE POOR
+
+
+Scarce had the fair Aurora given bright Phoebus time to dry the liquid
+pearls upon her golden locks with the heat of his fervent rays, when Don
+Quixote, shaking off sloth from his limbs, sprang to his feet and called
+to his squire Sancho, who was still snoring; seeing which Don Quixote ere
+he roused him thus addressed him: “Happy thou, above all the dwellers on
+the face of the earth, that, without envying or being envied, sleepest
+with tranquil mind, and that neither enchanters persecute nor
+enchantments affright. Sleep, I say, and will say a hundred times,
+without any jealous thoughts of thy mistress to make thee keep ceaseless
+vigils, or any cares as to how thou art to pay the debts thou owest, or
+find to-morrow’s food for thyself and thy needy little family, to
+interfere with thy repose. Ambition breaks not thy rest, nor doth this
+world’s empty pomp disturb thee, for the utmost reach of thy anxiety is
+to provide for thy ass, since upon my shoulders thou hast laid the
+support of thyself, the counterpoise and burden that nature and custom
+have imposed upon masters. The servant sleeps and the master lies awake
+thinking how he is to feed him, advance him, and reward him. The distress
+of seeing the sky turn brazen, and withhold its needful moisture from the
+earth, is not felt by the servant but by the master, who in time of
+scarcity and famine must support him who has served him in times of
+plenty and abundance.”
+
+To all this Sancho made no reply because he was asleep, nor would he have
+wakened up so soon as he did had not Don Quixote brought him to his
+senses with the butt of his lance. He awoke at last, drowsy and lazy, and
+casting his eyes about in every direction, observed, “There comes, if I
+don’t mistake, from the quarter of that arcade a steam and a smell a
+great deal more like fried rashers than galingale or thyme; a wedding
+that begins with smells like that, by my faith, ought to be plentiful and
+unstinting.”
+
+“Have done, thou glutton,” said Don Quixote; “come, let us go and witness
+this bridal, and see what the rejected Basilio does.”
+
+“Let him do what he likes,” returned Sancho; “be he not poor, he would
+marry Quiteria. To make a grand match for himself, and he without a
+farthing; is there nothing else? Faith, señor, it’s my opinion the poor
+man should be content with what he can get, and not go looking for
+dainties in the bottom of the sea. I will bet my arm that Camacho could
+bury Basilio in reals; and if that be so, as no doubt it is, what a fool
+Quiteria would be to refuse the fine dresses and jewels Camacho must have
+given her and will give her, and take Basilio’s bar-throwing and
+sword-play. They won’t give a pint of wine at the tavern for a good cast
+of the bar or a neat thrust of the sword. Talents and accomplishments
+that can’t be turned into money, let Count Dirlos have them; but when
+such gifts fall to one that has hard cash, I wish my condition of life
+was as becoming as they are. On a good foundation you can raise a good
+building, and the best foundation in the world is money.”
+
+“For God’s sake, Sancho,” said Don Quixote here, “stop that harangue; it
+is my belief, if thou wert allowed to continue all thou beginnest every
+instant, thou wouldst have no time left for eating or sleeping; for thou
+wouldst spend it all in talking.”
+
+“If your worship had a good memory,” replied Sancho, “you would remember
+the articles of our agreement before we started from home this last time;
+one of them was that I was to be let say all I liked, so long as it was
+not against my neighbour or your worship’s authority; and so far, it
+seems to me, I have not broken the said article.”
+
+“I remember no such article, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “and even if it
+were so, I desire you to hold your tongue and come along; for the
+instruments we heard last night are already beginning to enliven the
+valleys again, and no doubt the marriage will take place in the cool of
+the morning, and not in the heat of the afternoon.”
+
+Sancho did as his master bade him, and putting the saddle on Rocinante
+and the pack-saddle on Dapple, they both mounted and at a leisurely pace
+entered the arcade. The first thing that presented itself to Sancho’s
+eyes was a whole ox spitted on a whole elm tree, and in the fire at which
+it was to be roasted there was burning a middling-sized mountain of
+faggots, and six stewpots that stood round the blaze had not been made in
+the ordinary mould of common pots, for they were six half wine-jars, each
+fit to hold the contents of a slaughter-house; they swallowed up whole
+sheep and hid them away in their insides without showing any more sign of
+them than if they were pigeons. Countless were the hares ready skinned
+and the plucked fowls that hung on the trees for burial in the pots,
+numberless the wildfowl and game of various sorts suspended from the
+branches that the air might keep them cool. Sancho counted more than
+sixty wine skins of over six gallons each, and all filled, as it proved
+afterwards, with generous wines. There were, besides, piles of the
+whitest bread, like the heaps of corn one sees on the threshing-floors.
+There was a wall made of cheeses arranged like open brick-work, and two
+cauldrons full of oil, bigger than those of a dyer’s shop, served for
+cooking fritters, which when fried were taken out with two mighty
+shovels, and plunged into another cauldron of prepared honey that stood
+close by. Of cooks and cook-maids there were over fifty, all clean,
+brisk, and blithe. In the capacious belly of the ox were a dozen soft
+little sucking-pigs, which, sewn up there, served to give it tenderness
+and flavour. The spices of different kinds did not seem to have been
+bought by the pound but by the quarter, and all lay open to view in a
+great chest. In short, all the preparations made for the wedding were in
+rustic style, but abundant enough to feed an army.
+
+Sancho observed all, contemplated all, and everything won his heart. The
+first to captivate and take his fancy were the pots, out of which he
+would have very gladly helped himself to a moderate pipkinful; then the
+wine skins secured his affections; and lastly, the produce of the
+frying-pans, if, indeed, such imposing cauldrons may be called
+frying-pans; and unable to control himself or bear it any longer, he
+approached one of the busy cooks and civilly but hungrily begged
+permission to soak a scrap of bread in one of the pots; to which the cook
+made answer, “Brother, this is not a day on which hunger is to have any
+sway, thanks to the rich Camacho; get down and look about for a ladle and
+skim off a hen or two, and much good may they do you.”
+
+“I don’t see one,” said Sancho.
+
+“Wait a bit,” said the cook; “sinner that I am! how particular and
+bashful you are!” and so saying, he seized a bucket and plunging it into
+one of the half jars took up three hens and a couple of geese, and said
+to Sancho, “Fall to, friend, and take the edge off your appetite with
+these skimmings until dinner-time comes.”
+
+“I have nothing to put them in,” said Sancho.
+
+“Well then,” said the cook, “take spoon and all; for Camacho’s wealth and
+happiness furnish everything.”
+
+While Sancho fared thus, Don Quixote was watching the entrance, at one
+end of the arcade, of some twelve peasants, all in holiday and gala
+dress, mounted on twelve beautiful mares with rich handsome field
+trappings and a number of little bells attached to their petrals, who,
+marshalled in regular order, ran not one but several courses over the
+meadow, with jubilant shouts and cries of “Long live Camacho and
+Quiteria! he as rich as she is fair; and she the fairest on earth!”
+
+Hearing this, Don Quixote said to himself, “It is easy to see these folk
+have never seen my Dulcinea del Toboso; for if they had they would be
+more moderate in their praises of this Quiteria of theirs.”
+
+Shortly after this, several bands of dancers of various sorts began to
+enter the arcade at different points, and among them one of sword-dancers
+composed of some four-and-twenty lads of gallant and high-spirited mien,
+clad in the finest and whitest of linen, and with handkerchiefs
+embroidered in various colours with fine silk; and one of those on the
+mares asked an active youth who led them if any of the dancers had been
+wounded. “As yet, thank God, no one has been wounded,” said he, “we are
+all safe and sound;” and he at once began to execute complicated figures
+with the rest of his comrades, with so many turns and so great dexterity,
+that although Don Quixote was well used to see dances of the same kind,
+he thought he had never seen any so good as this. He also admired another
+that came in composed of fair young maidens, none of whom seemed to be
+under fourteen or over eighteen years of age, all clad in green stuff,
+with their locks partly braided, partly flowing loose, but all of such
+bright gold as to vie with the sunbeams, and over them they wore garlands
+of jessamine, roses, amaranth, and honeysuckle. At their head were a
+venerable old man and an ancient dame, more brisk and active, however,
+than might have been expected from their years. The notes of a Zamora
+bagpipe accompanied them, and with modesty in their countenances and in
+their eyes, and lightness in their feet, they looked the best dancers in
+the world.
+
+Following these there came an artistic dance of the sort they call
+“speaking dances.” It was composed of eight nymphs in two files, with the
+god Cupid leading one and Interest the other, the former furnished with
+wings, bow, quiver and arrows, the latter in a rich dress of gold and
+silk of divers colours. The nymphs that followed Love bore their names
+written on white parchment in large letters on their backs. “Poetry” was
+the name of the first, “Wit” of the second, “Birth” of the third, and
+“Valour” of the fourth. Those that followed Interest were distinguished
+in the same way; the badge of the first announced “Liberality,” that of
+the second “Largess,” the third “Treasure,” and the fourth “Peaceful
+Possession.” In front of them all came a wooden castle drawn by four wild
+men, all clad in ivy and hemp stained green, and looking so natural that
+they nearly terrified Sancho. On the front of the castle and on each of
+the four sides of its frame it bore the inscription “Castle of Caution.”
+ Four skillful tabor and flute players accompanied them, and the dance
+having been opened, Cupid, after executing two figures, raised his eyes
+and bent his bow against a damsel who stood between the turrets of the
+castle, and thus addressed her:
+
+I am the mighty God whose sway
+  Is potent over land and sea.
+The heavens above us own me; nay,
+  The shades below acknowledge me.
+I know not fear, I have my will,
+  Whate’er my whim or fancy be;
+For me there’s no impossible,
+  I order, bind, forbid, set free.
+
+Having concluded the stanza he discharged an arrow at the top of the
+castle, and went back to his place. Interest then came forward and went
+through two more figures, and as soon as the tabors ceased, he said:
+
+But mightier than Love am I,
+  Though Love it be that leads me on,
+Than mine no lineage is more high,
+  Or older, underneath the sun.
+To use me rightly few know how,
+  To act without me fewer still,
+For I am Interest, and I vow
+  For evermore to do thy will.
+
+Interest retired, and Poetry came forward, and when she had gone through
+her figures like the others, fixing her eyes on the damsel of the castle,
+she said:
+
+With many a fanciful conceit,
+  Fair Lady, winsome Poesy
+Her soul, an offering at thy feet,
+  Presents in sonnets unto thee.
+If thou my homage wilt not scorn,
+  Thy fortune, watched by envious eyes,
+On wings of poesy upborne
+  Shall be exalted to the skies.
+
+Poetry withdrew, and on the side of Interest Liberality advanced, and
+after having gone through her figures, said:
+
+To give, while shunning each extreme,
+  The sparing hand, the over-free,
+Therein consists, so wise men deem,
+  The virtue Liberality.
+But thee, fair lady, to enrich,
+  Myself a prodigal I’ll prove,
+A vice not wholly shameful, which
+  May find its fair excuse in love.
+
+In the same manner all the characters of the two bands advanced and
+retired, and each executed its figures, and delivered its verses, some of
+them graceful, some burlesque, but Don Quixote’s memory (though he had an
+excellent one) only carried away those that have been just quoted. All
+then mingled together, forming chains and breaking off again with
+graceful, unconstrained gaiety; and whenever Love passed in front of the
+castle he shot his arrows up at it, while Interest broke gilded pellets
+against it. At length, after they had danced a good while, Interest drew
+out a great purse, made of the skin of a large brindled cat and to all
+appearance full of money, and flung it at the castle, and with the force
+of the blow the boards fell asunder and tumbled down, leaving the damsel
+exposed and unprotected. Interest and the characters of his band
+advanced, and throwing a great chain of gold over her neck pretended to
+take her and lead her away captive, on seeing which, Love and his
+supporters made as though they would release her, the whole action being
+to the accompaniment of the tabors and in the form of a regular dance.
+The wild men made peace between them, and with great dexterity readjusted
+and fixed the boards of the castle, and the damsel once more ensconced
+herself within; and with this the dance wound up, to the great enjoyment
+of the beholders.
+
+Don Quixote asked one of the nymphs who it was that had composed and
+arranged it. She replied that it was a beneficiary of the town who had a
+nice taste in devising things of the sort. “I will lay a wager,” said Don
+Quixote, “that the same bachelor or beneficiary is a greater friend of
+Camacho’s than of Basilio’s, and that he is better at satire than at
+vespers; he has introduced the accomplishments of Basilio and the riches
+of Camacho very neatly into the dance.” Sancho Panza, who was listening
+to all this, exclaimed, “The king is my cock; I stick to Camacho.” “It is
+easy to see thou art a clown, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and one of that
+sort that cry ‘Long life to the conqueror.’”
+
+“I don’t know of what sort I am,” returned Sancho, “but I know very well
+I’ll never get such elegant skimmings off Basilio’s pots as these I have
+got off Camacho’s;” and he showed him the bucketful of geese and hens,
+and seizing one began to eat with great gaiety and appetite, saying, “A
+fig for the accomplishments of Basilio! As much as thou hast so much art
+thou worth, and as much as thou art worth so much hast thou. As a
+grandmother of mine used to say, there are only two families in the
+world, the Haves and the Haven’ts; and she stuck to the Haves; and to
+this day, Señor Don Quixote, people would sooner feel the pulse of
+‘Have,’ than of ‘Know;’ an ass covered with gold looks better than a
+horse with a pack-saddle. So once more I say I stick to Camacho, the
+bountiful skimmings of whose pots are geese and hens, hares and rabbits;
+but of Basilio’s, if any ever come to hand, or even to foot, they’ll be
+only rinsings.”
+
+“Hast thou finished thy harangue, Sancho?” said Don Quixote. “Of course I
+have finished it,” replied Sancho, “because I see your worship takes
+offence at it; but if it was not for that, there was work enough cut out
+for three days.”
+
+“God grant I may see thee dumb before I die, Sancho,” said Don Quixote.
+
+“At the rate we are going,” said Sancho, “I’ll be chewing clay before
+your worship dies; and then, maybe, I’ll be so dumb that I’ll not say a
+word until the end of the world, or, at least, till the day of judgment.”
+
+“Even should that happen, O Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “thy silence will
+never come up to all thou hast talked, art talking, and wilt talk all thy
+life; moreover, it naturally stands to reason, that my death will come
+before thine; so I never expect to see thee dumb, not even when thou art
+drinking or sleeping, and that is the utmost I can say.”
+
+“In good faith, señor,” replied Sancho, “there’s no trusting that
+fleshless one, I mean Death, who devours the lamb as soon as the sheep,
+and, as I have heard our curate say, treads with equal foot upon the
+lofty towers of kings and the lowly huts of the poor. That lady is more
+mighty than dainty, she is in no way squeamish, she devours all and is ready
+for all, and fills her alforjas with people of all sorts, ages, and
+ranks. She is no reaper that sleeps out the noontide; at all times she is
+reaping and cutting down, as well the dry grass as the green; she never
+seems to chew, but bolts and swallows all that is put before her, for she
+has a canine appetite that is never satisfied; and though she has no
+belly, she shows she has a dropsy and is athirst to drink the lives of
+all that live, as one would drink a jug of cold water.”
+
+“Say no more, Sancho,” said Don Quixote at this; “don’t try to better it,
+and risk a fall; for in truth what thou hast said about death in thy
+rustic phrase is what a good preacher might have said. I tell thee,
+Sancho, if thou hadst discretion equal to thy mother wit, thou mightst
+take a pulpit in hand, and go about the world preaching fine sermons.”
+ “He preaches well who lives well,” said Sancho, “and I know no more
+theology than that.”
+
+“Nor needst thou,” said Don Quixote, “but I cannot conceive or make out
+how it is that, the fear of God being the beginning of wisdom, thou, who
+art more afraid of a lizard than of him, knowest so much.”
+
+“Pass judgment on your chivalries, señor,” returned Sancho, “and don’t
+set yourself up to judge of other men’s fears or braveries, for I am as
+good a fearer of God as my neighbours; but leave me to despatch these
+skimmings, for all the rest is only idle talk that we shall be called to
+account for in the other world;” and so saying, he began a fresh attack
+on the bucket, with such a hearty appetite that he aroused Don Quixote’s,
+who no doubt would have helped him had he not been prevented by what must
+be told farther on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+IN WHICH CAMACHO’S WEDDING IS CONTINUED, WITH OTHER DELIGHTFUL INCIDENTS
+
+
+While Don Quixote and Sancho were engaged in the discussion set forth the
+last chapter, they heard loud shouts and a great noise, which were
+uttered and made by the men on the mares as they went at full gallop,
+shouting, to receive the bride and bridegroom, who were approaching with
+musical instruments and pageantry of all sorts around them, and
+accompanied by the priest and the relatives of both, and all the most
+distinguished people of the surrounding villages. When Sancho saw the
+bride, he exclaimed, “By my faith, she is not dressed like a country
+girl, but like some fine court lady; egad, as well as I can make out, the
+patena she wears rich coral, and her green Cuenca stuff is thirty-pile
+velvet; and then the white linen trimming--by my oath, but it’s satin!
+Look at her hands--jet rings on them! May I never have luck if they’re
+not gold rings, and real gold, and set with pearls as white as a curdled
+milk, and every one of them worth an eye of one’s head! Whoreson baggage,
+what hair she has! if it’s not a wig, I never saw longer or fairer all
+the days of my life. See how bravely she bears herself--and her shape!
+Wouldn’t you say she was like a walking palm tree loaded with clusters of
+dates? for the trinkets she has hanging from her hair and neck look just
+like them. I swear in my heart she is a brave lass, and fit ‘to pass over
+the banks of Flanders.’”
+
+Don Quixote laughed at Sancho’s boorish eulogies and thought that, saving
+his lady Dulcinea del Toboso, he had never seen a more beautiful woman.
+The fair Quiteria appeared somewhat pale, which was, no doubt, because of
+the bad night brides always pass dressing themselves out for their
+wedding on the morrow. They advanced towards a theatre that stood on one
+side of the meadow decked with carpets and boughs, where they were to
+plight their troth, and from which they were to behold the dances and
+plays; but at the moment of their arrival at the spot they heard a loud
+outcry behind them, and a voice exclaiming, “Wait a little, ye, as
+inconsiderate as ye are hasty!” At these words all turned round, and
+perceived that the speaker was a man clad in what seemed to be a loose
+black coat garnished with crimson patches like flames. He was crowned (as
+was presently seen) with a crown of gloomy cypress, and in his hand he
+held a long staff. As he approached he was recognised by everyone as the
+gay Basilio, and all waited anxiously to see what would come of his
+words, in dread of some catastrophe in consequence of his appearance at
+such a moment. He came up at last weary and breathless, and planting
+himself in front of the bridal pair, drove his staff, which had a steel
+spike at the end, into the ground, and, with a pale face and eyes fixed
+on Quiteria, he thus addressed her in a hoarse, trembling voice:
+
+“Well dost thou know, ungrateful Quiteria, that according to the holy law
+we acknowledge, so long as live thou canst take no husband; nor art thou
+ignorant either that, in my hopes that time and my own exertions would
+improve my fortunes, I have never failed to observe the respect due to
+thy honour; but thou, casting behind thee all thou owest to my true love,
+wouldst surrender what is mine to another whose wealth serves to bring
+him not only good fortune but supreme happiness; and now to complete it
+(not that I think he deserves it, but inasmuch as heaven is pleased to
+bestow it upon him), I will, with my own hands, do away with the obstacle
+that may interfere with it, and remove myself from between you. Long live
+the rich Camacho! many a happy year may he live with the ungrateful
+Quiteria! and let the poor Basilio die, Basilio whose poverty clipped the
+wings of his happiness, and brought him to the grave!”
+
+And so saying, he seized the staff he had driven into the ground, and
+leaving one half of it fixed there, showed it to be a sheath that
+concealed a tolerably long rapier; and, what may be called its hilt being
+planted in the ground, he swiftly, coolly, and deliberately threw himself
+upon it, and in an instant the bloody point and half the steel blade
+appeared at his back, the unhappy man falling to the earth bathed in his
+blood, and transfixed by his own weapon.
+
+His friends at once ran to his aid, filled with grief at his misery and
+sad fate, and Don Quixote, dismounting from Rocinante, hastened to
+support him, and took him in his arms, and found he had not yet ceased to
+breathe. They were about to draw out the rapier, but the priest who was
+standing by objected to its being withdrawn before he had confessed him,
+as the instant of its withdrawal would be that of this death. Basilio,
+however, reviving slightly, said in a weak voice, as though in pain, “If
+thou wouldst consent, cruel Quiteria, to give me thy hand as my bride in
+this last fatal moment, I might still hope that my rashness would find
+pardon, as by its means I attained the bliss of being thine.”
+
+Hearing this the priest bade him think of the welfare of his soul rather
+than of the cravings of the body, and in all earnestness implore God’s
+pardon for his sins and for his rash resolve; to which Basilio replied
+that he was determined not to confess unless Quiteria first gave him her
+hand in marriage, for that happiness would compose his mind and give him
+courage to make his confession.
+
+Don Quixote hearing the wounded man’s entreaty, exclaimed aloud that what
+Basilio asked was just and reasonable, and moreover a request that might
+be easily complied with; and that it would be as much to Señor Camacho’s
+honour to receive the lady Quiteria as the widow of the brave Basilio as
+if he received her direct from her father.
+
+“In this case,” said he, “it will be only to say ‘yes,’ and no
+consequences can follow the utterance of the word, for the nuptial couch
+of this marriage must be the grave.”
+
+Camacho was listening to all this, perplexed and bewildered and not
+knowing what to say or do; but so urgent were the entreaties of Basilio’s
+friends, imploring him to allow Quiteria to give him her hand, so that
+his soul, quitting this life in despair, should not be lost, that they
+moved, nay, forced him, to say that if Quiteria were willing to give it
+he was satisfied, as it was only putting off the fulfillment of his
+wishes for a moment. At once all assailed Quiteria and pressed her, some
+with prayers, and others with tears, and others with persuasive
+arguments, to give her hand to poor Basilio; but she, harder than marble
+and more unmoved than any statue, seemed unable or unwilling to utter a
+word, nor would she have given any reply had not the priest bade her
+decide quickly what she meant to do, as Basilio now had his soul at his
+teeth, and there was no time for hesitation.
+
+On this the fair Quiteria, to all appearance distressed, grieved, and
+repentant, advanced without a word to where Basilio lay, his eyes already
+turned in his head, his breathing short and painful, murmuring the name
+of Quiteria between his teeth, and apparently about to die like a heathen
+and not like a Christian. Quiteria approached him, and kneeling, demanded
+his hand by signs without speaking. Basilio opened his eyes and gazing
+fixedly at her, said, “O Quiteria, why hast thou turned compassionate at
+a moment when thy compassion will serve as a dagger to rob me of life,
+for I have not now the strength left either to bear the happiness thou
+givest me in accepting me as thine, or to suppress the pain that is
+rapidly drawing the dread shadow of death over my eyes? What I entreat of
+thee, O thou fatal star to me, is that the hand thou demandest of me and
+wouldst give me, be not given out of complaisance or to deceive me
+afresh, but that thou confess and declare that without any constraint
+upon thy will thou givest it to me as to thy lawful husband; for it is
+not meet that thou shouldst trifle with me at such a moment as this, or
+have recourse to falsehoods with one who has dealt so truly by thee.”
+
+While uttering these words he showed such weakness that the bystanders
+expected each return of faintness would take his life with it. Then
+Quiteria, overcome with modesty and shame, holding in her right hand the
+hand of Basilio, said, “No force would bend my will; as freely,
+therefore, as it is possible for me to do so, I give thee the hand of a
+lawful wife, and take thine if thou givest it to me of thine own free
+will, untroubled and unaffected by the calamity thy hasty act has brought
+upon thee.”
+
+“Yes, I give it,” said Basilio, “not agitated or distracted, but with
+unclouded reason that heaven is pleased to grant me, thus do I give
+myself to be thy husband.”
+
+“And I give myself to be thy wife,” said Quiteria, “whether thou livest
+many years, or they carry thee from my arms to the grave.”
+
+“For one so badly wounded,” observed Sancho at this point, “this young
+man has a great deal to say; they should make him leave off billing and
+cooing, and attend to his soul; for to my thinking he has it more on his
+tongue than at his teeth.”
+
+Basilio and Quiteria having thus joined hands, the priest, deeply moved
+and with tears in his eyes, pronounced the blessing upon them, and
+implored heaven to grant an easy passage to the soul of the newly wedded
+man, who, the instant he received the blessing, started nimbly to his
+feet and with unparalleled effrontery pulled out the rapier that had been
+sheathed in his body. All the bystanders were astounded, and some, more
+simple than inquiring, began shouting, “A miracle, a miracle!” But
+Basilio replied, “No miracle, no miracle; only a trick, a trick!” The
+priest, perplexed and amazed, made haste to examine the wound with both
+hands, and found that the blade had passed, not through Basilio’s flesh
+and ribs, but through a hollow iron tube full of blood, which he had
+adroitly fixed at the place, the blood, as was afterwards ascertained,
+having been so prepared as not to congeal. In short, the priest and
+Camacho and most of those present saw they were tricked and made fools
+of. The bride showed no signs of displeasure at the deception; on the
+contrary, hearing them say that the marriage, being fraudulent, would not
+be valid, she said that she confirmed it afresh, whence they all
+concluded that the affair had been planned by agreement and understanding
+between the pair, whereat Camacho and his supporters were so mortified
+that they proceeded to revenge themselves by violence, and a great number
+of them drawing their swords attacked Basilio, in whose protection as
+many more swords were in an instant unsheathed, while Don Quixote taking
+the lead on horseback, with his lance over his arm and well covered with
+his shield, made all give way before him. Sancho, who never found any
+pleasure or enjoyment in such doings, retreated to the wine-jars from
+which he had taken his delectable skimmings, considering that, as a holy
+place, that spot would be respected.
+
+“Hold, sirs, hold!” cried Don Quixote in a loud voice; “we have no right
+to take vengeance for wrongs that love may do to us: remember love and
+war are the same thing, and as in war it is allowable and common to make
+use of wiles and stratagems to overcome the enemy, so in the contests and
+rivalries of love the tricks and devices employed to attain the desired
+end are justifiable, provided they be not to the discredit or dishonour
+of the loved object. Quiteria belonged to Basilio and Basilio to Quiteria
+by the just and beneficent disposal of heaven. Camacho is rich, and can
+purchase his pleasure when, where, and as it pleases him. Basilio has but
+this ewe-lamb, and no one, however powerful he may be, shall take her
+from him; these two whom God hath joined man cannot separate; and he who
+attempts it must first pass the point of this lance;” and so saying he
+brandished it so stoutly and dexterously that he overawed all who did not
+know him.
+
+But so deep an impression had the rejection of Quiteria made on Camacho’s
+mind that it banished her at once from his thoughts; and so the counsels
+of the priest, who was a wise and kindly disposed man, prevailed with
+him, and by their means he and his partisans were pacified and
+tranquillised, and to prove it put up their swords again, inveighing
+against the pliancy of Quiteria rather than the craftiness of Basilio;
+Camacho maintaining that, if Quiteria as a maiden had such a love for
+Basilio, she would have loved him too as a married woman, and that he
+ought to thank heaven more for having taken her than for having given
+her.
+
+Camacho and those of his following, therefore, being consoled and
+pacified, those on Basilio’s side were appeased; and the rich Camacho, to
+show that he felt no resentment for the trick, and did not care about it,
+desired the festival to go on just as if he were married in reality.
+Neither Basilio, however, nor his bride, nor their followers would take
+any part in it, and they withdrew to Basilio’s village; for the poor, if
+they are persons of virtue and good sense, have those who follow, honour,
+and uphold them, just as the rich have those who flatter and dance
+attendance on them. With them they carried Don Quixote, regarding him as
+a man of worth and a stout one. Sancho alone had a cloud on his soul, for
+he found himself debarred from waiting for Camacho’s splendid feast and
+festival, which lasted until night; and thus dragged away, he moodily
+followed his master, who accompanied Basilio’s party, and left behind him
+the flesh-pots of Egypt; though in his heart he took them with him, and
+their now nearly finished skimmings that he carried in the bucket
+conjured up visions before his eyes of the glory and abundance of the
+good cheer he was losing. And so, vexed and dejected though not hungry,
+without dismounting from Dapple he followed in the footsteps of
+Rocinante.
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+Many and great were the attentions shown to Don Quixote by the newly
+married couple, who felt themselves under an obligation to him for coming
+forward in defence of their cause; and they exalted his wisdom to the
+same level with his courage, rating him as a Cid in arms, and a Cicero in
+eloquence. Worthy Sancho enjoyed himself for three days at the expense of
+the pair, from whom they learned that the sham wound was not a scheme
+arranged with the fair Quiteria, but a device of Basilio’s, who counted
+on exactly the result they had seen; he confessed, it is true, that he
+had confided his idea to some of his friends, so that at the proper time
+they might aid him in his purpose and insure the success of the
+deception.
+
+“That,” said Don Quixote, “is not and ought not to be called deception
+which aims at virtuous ends;” and the marriage of lovers he maintained to
+be a most excellent end, reminding them, however, that love has no
+greater enemy than hunger and constant want; for love is all gaiety,
+enjoyment, and happiness, especially when the lover is in the possession
+of the object of his love, and poverty and want are the declared enemies
+of all these; which he said to urge Señor Basilio to abandon the practice
+of those accomplishments he was skilled in, for though they brought him
+fame, they brought him no money, and apply himself to the acquisition of
+wealth by legitimate industry, which will never fail those who are
+prudent and persevering. The poor man who is a man of honour (if indeed a
+poor man can be a man of honour) has a jewel when he has a fair wife, and
+if she is taken from him, his honour is taken from him and slain. The
+fair woman who is a woman of honour, and whose husband is poor, deserves
+to be crowned with the laurels and crowns of victory and triumph. Beauty
+by itself attracts the desires of all who behold it, and the royal eagles
+and birds of towering flight stoop on it as on a dainty lure; but if
+beauty be accompanied by want and penury, then the ravens and the kites
+and other birds of prey assail it, and she who stands firm against such
+attacks well deserves to be called the crown of her husband. “Remember, O
+prudent Basilio,” added Don Quixote, “it was the opinion of a certain
+sage, I know not whom, that there was not more than one good woman in the
+whole world; and his advice was that each one should think and believe
+that this one good woman was his own wife, and in this way he would live
+happy. I myself am not married, nor, so far, has it ever entered my
+thoughts to be so; nevertheless I would venture to give advice to anyone
+who might ask it, as to the mode in which he should seek a wife such as
+he would be content to marry. The first thing I would recommend him,
+would be to look to good name rather than to wealth, for a good woman
+does not win a good name merely by being good, but by letting it be seen
+that she is so, and open looseness and freedom do much more damage to a
+woman’s honour than secret depravity. If you take a good woman into your
+house it will be an easy matter to keep her good, and even to make her
+still better; but if you take a bad one you will find it hard work to
+mend her, for it is no very easy matter to pass from one extreme to
+another. I do not say it is impossible, but I look upon it as difficult.”
+
+Sancho, listening to all this, said to himself, “This master of mine,
+when I say anything that has weight and substance, says I might take a
+pulpit in hand, and go about the world preaching fine sermons; but I say
+of him that, when he begins stringing maxims together and giving advice
+not only might he take a pulpit in hand, but two on each finger, and go
+into the market-places to his heart’s content. Devil take you for a
+knight-errant, what a lot of things you know! I used to think in my heart
+that the only thing he knew was what belonged to his chivalry; but there
+is nothing he won’t have a finger in.”
+
+Sancho muttered this somewhat aloud, and his master overheard him, and
+asked, “What art thou muttering there, Sancho?”
+
+“I’m not saying anything or muttering anything,” said Sancho; “I was only
+saying to myself that I wish I had heard what your worship has said just
+now before I married; perhaps I’d say now, ‘The ox that’s loose licks
+himself well.’”
+
+“Is thy Teresa so bad then, Sancho?”
+
+“She is not very bad,” replied Sancho; “but she is not very good; at
+least she is not as good as I could wish.”
+
+“Thou dost wrong, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “to speak ill of thy wife;
+for after all she is the mother of thy children.” “We are quits,”
+ returned Sancho; “for she speaks ill of me whenever she takes it into her
+head, especially when she is jealous; and Satan himself could not put up
+with her then.”
+
+In fine, they remained three days with the newly married couple, by whom
+they were entertained and treated like kings. Don Quixote begged the
+fencing licentiate to find him a guide to show him the way to the cave of
+Montesinos, as he had a great desire to enter it and see with his own
+eyes if the wonderful tales that were told of it all over the country
+were true. The licentiate said he would get him a cousin of his own, a
+famous scholar, and one very much given to reading books of chivalry, who
+would have great pleasure in conducting him to the mouth of the very
+cave, and would show him the lakes of Ruidera, which were likewise famous
+all over La Mancha, and even all over Spain; and he assured him he would
+find him entertaining, for he was a youth who could write books good
+enough to be printed and dedicated to princes. The cousin arrived at
+last, leading an ass in foal, with a pack-saddle covered with a
+parti-coloured carpet or sackcloth; Sancho saddled Rocinante, got Dapple
+ready, and stocked his alforjas, along with which went those of the
+cousin, likewise well filled; and so, commending themselves to God and
+bidding farewell to all, they set out, taking the road for the famous
+cave of Montesinos.
+
+On the way Don Quixote asked the cousin of what sort and character his
+pursuits, avocations, and studies were, to which he replied that he was
+by profession a humanist, and that his pursuits and studies were making
+books for the press, all of great utility and no less entertainment to
+the nation. One was called “The Book of Liveries,” in which he described
+seven hundred and three liveries, with their colours, mottoes, and
+ciphers, from which gentlemen of the court might pick and choose any they
+fancied for festivals and revels, without having to go a-begging for them
+from anyone, or puzzling their brains, as the saying is, to have them
+appropriate to their objects and purposes; “for,” said he, “I give the
+jealous, the rejected, the forgotten, the absent, what will suit them,
+and fit them without fail. I have another book, too, which I shall call
+‘Metamorphoses, or the Spanish Ovid,’ one of rare and original invention,
+for imitating Ovid in burlesque style, I show in it who the Giralda of
+Seville and the Angel of the Magdalena were, what the sewer of
+Vecinguerra at Cordova was, what the bulls of Guisando, the Sierra
+Morena, the Leganitos and Lavapies fountains at Madrid, not forgetting
+those of the Piojo, of the Cano Dorado, and of the Priora; and all with
+their allegories, metaphors, and changes, so that they are amusing,
+interesting, and instructive, all at once. Another book I have which I
+call ‘The Supplement to Polydore Vergil,’ which treats of the invention
+of things, and is a work of great erudition and research, for I establish
+and elucidate elegantly some things of great importance which Polydore
+omitted to mention. He forgot to tell us who was the first man in the
+world that had a cold in his head, and who was the first to try
+salivation for the French disease, but I give it accurately set forth,
+and quote more than five-and-twenty authors in proof of it, so you may
+perceive I have laboured to good purpose and that the book will be of
+service to the whole world.”
+
+Sancho, who had been very attentive to the cousin’s words, said to him,
+“Tell me, señor--and God give you luck in printing your books-can you
+tell me (for of course you know, as you know everything) who was the
+first man that scratched his head? For to my thinking it must have been
+our father Adam.”
+
+“So it must,” replied the cousin; “for there is no doubt but Adam had a
+head and hair; and being the first man in the world he would have
+scratched himself sometimes.”
+
+“So I think,” said Sancho; “but now tell me, who was the first tumbler in
+the world?”
+
+“Really, brother,” answered the cousin, “I could not at this moment say
+positively without having investigated it; I will look it up when I go
+back to where I have my books, and will satisfy you the next time we
+meet, for this will not be the last time.”
+
+“Look here, señor,” said Sancho, “don’t give yourself any trouble about
+it, for I have just this minute hit upon what I asked you. The first
+tumbler in the world, you must know, was Lucifer, when they cast or
+pitched him out of heaven; for he came tumbling into the bottomless pit.”
+
+“You are right, friend,” said the cousin; and said Don Quixote, “Sancho,
+that question and answer are not thine own; thou hast heard them from
+some one else.”
+
+“Hold your peace, señor,” said Sancho; “faith, if I take to asking
+questions and answering, I’ll go on from this till to-morrow morning.
+Nay! to ask foolish things and answer nonsense I needn’t go looking for
+help from my neighbours.”
+
+“Thou hast said more than thou art aware of, Sancho,” said Don Quixote;
+“for there are some who weary themselves out in learning and proving
+things that, after they are known and proved, are not worth a farthing to
+the understanding or memory.”
+
+In this and other pleasant conversation the day went by, and that night
+they put up at a small hamlet whence it was not more than two leagues to
+the cave of Montesinos, so the cousin told Don Quixote, adding, that if
+he was bent upon entering it, it would be requisite for him to provide
+himself with ropes, so that he might be tied and lowered into its depths.
+Don Quixote said that even if it reached to the bottomless pit he meant
+to see where it went to; so they bought about a hundred fathoms of rope,
+and next day at two in the afternoon they arrived at the cave, the mouth
+of which is spacious and wide, but full of thorn and wild-fig bushes and
+brambles and briars, so thick and matted that they completely close it up
+and cover it over.
+
+On coming within sight of it the cousin, Sancho, and Don Quixote
+dismounted, and the first two immediately tied the latter very firmly
+with the ropes, and as they were girding and swathing him Sancho said to
+him, “Mind what you are about, master mine; don’t go burying yourself
+alive, or putting yourself where you’ll be like a bottle put to cool in a
+well; it’s no affair or business of your worship’s to become the explorer
+of this, which must be worse than a Moorish dungeon.”
+
+“Tie me and hold thy peace,” said Don Quixote, “for an emprise like this,
+friend Sancho, was reserved for me;” and said the guide, “I beg of you,
+Señor Don Quixote, to observe carefully and examine with a hundred eyes
+everything that is within there; perhaps there may be some things for me
+to put into my book of ‘Transformations.’”
+
+“The drum is in hands that will know how to beat it well enough,” said
+Sancho Panza.
+
+When he had said this and finished the tying (which was not over the
+armour but only over the doublet) Don Quixote observed, “It was careless
+of us not to have provided ourselves with a small cattle-bell to be tied
+on the rope close to me, the sound of which would show that I was still
+descending and alive; but as that is out of the question now, in God’s
+hand be it to guide me;” and forthwith he fell on his knees and in a low
+voice offered up a prayer to heaven, imploring God to aid him and grant
+him success in this to all appearance perilous and untried adventure, and
+then exclaimed aloud, “O mistress of my actions and movements,
+illustrious and peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, if so be the prayers and
+supplications of this fortunate lover can reach thy ears, by thy
+incomparable beauty I entreat thee to listen to them, for they but ask
+thee not to refuse me thy favour and protection now that I stand in such
+need of them. I am about to precipitate, to sink, to plunge myself into
+the abyss that is here before me, only to let the world know that while
+thou dost favour me there is no impossibility I will not attempt and
+accomplish.” With these words he approached the cavern, and perceived
+that it was impossible to let himself down or effect an entrance except
+by sheer force or cleaving a passage; so drawing his sword he began to
+demolish and cut away the brambles at the mouth of the cave, at the noise
+of which a vast multitude of crows and choughs flew out of it so thick
+and so fast that they knocked Don Quixote down; and if he had been as
+much of a believer in augury as he was a Catholic Christian he would have
+taken it as a bad omen and declined to bury himself in such a place. He
+got up, however, and as there came no more crows, or night-birds like the
+bats that flew out at the same time with the crows, the cousin and Sancho
+giving him rope, he lowered himself into the depths of the dread cavern;
+and as he entered it Sancho sent his blessing after him, making a
+thousand crosses over him and saying, “God, and the Pena de Francia, and
+the Trinity of Gaeta guide thee, flower and cream of knights-errant.
+There thou goest, thou dare-devil of the earth, heart of steel, arm of
+brass; once more, God guide thee and send thee back safe, sound, and
+unhurt to the light of this world thou art leaving to bury thyself in the
+darkness thou art seeking there;” and the cousin offered up almost the
+same prayers and supplications.
+
+Don Quixote kept calling to them to give him rope and more rope, and they
+gave it out little by little, and by the time the calls, which came out
+of the cave as out of a pipe, ceased to be heard they had let down the
+hundred fathoms of rope. They were inclined to pull Don Quixote up again,
+as they could give him no more rope; however, they waited about half an
+hour, at the end of which time they began to gather in the rope again
+with great ease and without feeling any weight, which made them fancy Don
+Quixote was remaining below; and persuaded that it was so, Sancho wept
+bitterly, and hauled away in great haste in order to settle the question.
+When, however, they had come to, as it seemed, rather more than eighty
+fathoms they felt a weight, at which they were greatly delighted; and at
+last, at ten fathoms more, they saw Don Quixote distinctly, and Sancho
+called out to him, saying, “Welcome back, señor, for we had begun to
+think you were going to stop there to found a family.” But Don Quixote
+answered not a word, and drawing him out entirely they perceived he had
+his eyes shut and every appearance of being fast asleep.
+
+They stretched him on the ground and untied him, but still he did not
+awake; however, they rolled him back and forwards and shook and pulled
+him about, so that after some time he came to himself, stretching himself
+just as if he were waking up from a deep and sound sleep, and looking
+about him he said, “God forgive you, friends; ye have taken me away from
+the sweetest and most delightful existence and spectacle that ever human
+being enjoyed or beheld. Now indeed do I know that all the pleasures of
+this life pass away like a shadow and a dream, or fade like the flower of
+the field. O ill-fated Montesinos! O sore-wounded Durandarte! O unhappy
+Belerma! O tearful Guadiana, and ye O hapless daughters of Ruidera who
+show in your waves the tears that flowed from your beauteous eyes!”
+
+The cousin and Sancho Panza listened with deep attention to the words of
+Don Quixote, who uttered them as though with immense pain he drew them up
+from his very bowels. They begged of him to explain himself, and tell
+them what he had seen in that hell down there.
+
+“Hell do you call it?” said Don Quixote; “call it by no such name, for it
+does not deserve it, as ye shall soon see.”
+
+He then begged them to give him something to eat, as he was very hungry.
+They spread the cousin’s sackcloth on the grass, and put the stores of
+the alforjas into requisition, and all three sitting down lovingly and
+sociably, they made a luncheon and a supper of it all in one; and when
+the sackcloth was removed, Don Quixote of La Mancha said, “Let no one
+rise, and attend to me, my sons, both of you.”
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+It was about four in the afternoon when the sun, veiled in clouds, with
+subdued light and tempered beams, enabled Don Quixote to relate, without
+heat or inconvenience, what he had seen in the cave of Montesinos to his
+two illustrious hearers, and he began as follows:
+
+“A matter of some twelve or fourteen times a man’s height down in this
+pit, on the right-hand side, there is a recess or space, roomy enough to
+contain a large cart with its mules. A little light reaches it through
+some chinks or crevices, communicating with it and open to the surface of
+the earth. This recess or space I perceived when I was already growing
+weary and disgusted at finding myself hanging suspended by the rope,
+travelling downwards into that dark region without any certainty or
+knowledge of where I was going, so I resolved to enter it and rest myself
+for a while. I called out, telling you not to let out more rope until I
+bade you, but you cannot have heard me. I then gathered in the rope you
+were sending me, and making a coil or pile of it I seated myself upon it,
+ruminating and considering what I was to do to lower myself to the
+bottom, having no one to hold me up; and as I was thus deep in thought
+and perplexity, suddenly and without provocation a profound sleep fell
+upon me, and when I least expected it, I know not how, I awoke and found
+myself in the midst of the most beautiful, delightful meadow that nature
+could produce or the most lively human imagination conceive. I opened my
+eyes, I rubbed them, and found I was not asleep but thoroughly awake.
+Nevertheless, I felt my head and breast to satisfy myself whether it was
+I myself who was there or some empty delusive phantom; but touch,
+feeling, the collected thoughts that passed through my mind, all
+convinced me that I was the same then and there that I am this moment.
+Next there presented itself to my sight a stately royal palace or castle,
+with walls that seemed built of clear transparent crystal; and through
+two great doors that opened wide therein, I saw coming forth and
+advancing towards me a venerable old man, clad in a long gown of
+mulberry-coloured serge that trailed upon the ground. On his shoulders
+and breast he had a green satin collegiate hood, and covering his head a
+black Milanese bonnet, and his snow-white beard fell below his girdle. He
+carried no arms whatever, nothing but a rosary of beads bigger than
+fair-sized filberts, each tenth bead being like a moderate ostrich egg;
+his bearing, his gait, his dignity and imposing presence held me
+spellbound and wondering. He approached me, and the first thing he did
+was to embrace me closely, and then he said to me, ‘For a long time now,
+O valiant knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, we who are here enchanted in
+these solitudes have been hoping to see thee, that thou mayest make known
+to the world what is shut up and concealed in this deep cave, called the
+cave of Montesinos, which thou hast entered, an achievement reserved for
+thy invincible heart and stupendous courage alone to attempt. Come with
+me, illustrious sir, and I will show thee the marvels hidden within this
+transparent castle, whereof I am the alcaide and perpetual warden; for I
+am Montesinos himself, from whom the cave takes its name.’
+
+“The instant he told me he was Montesinos, I asked him if the story they
+told in the world above here was true, that he had taken out the heart of
+his great friend Durandarte from his breast with a little dagger, and
+carried it to the lady Belerma, as his friend when at the point of death
+had commanded him. He said in reply that they spoke the truth in every
+respect except as to the dagger, for it was not a dagger, nor little, but
+a burnished poniard sharper than an awl.”
+
+“That poniard must have been made by Ramon de Hoces the Sevillian,” said
+Sancho.
+
+“I do not know,” said Don Quixote; “it could not have been by that
+poniard maker, however, because Ramon de Hoces was a man of yesterday,
+and the affair of Roncesvalles, where this mishap occurred, was long ago;
+but the question is of no great importance, nor does it affect or make
+any alteration in the truth or substance of the story.”
+
+“That is true,” said the cousin; “continue, Señor Don Quixote, for I am
+listening to you with the greatest pleasure in the world.”
+
+“And with no less do I tell the tale,” said Don Quixote; “and so, to
+proceed--the venerable Montesinos led me into the palace of crystal,
+where, in a lower chamber, strangely cool and entirely of alabaster, was
+an elaborately wrought marble tomb, upon which I beheld, stretched at
+full length, a knight, not of bronze, or marble, or jasper, as are seen
+on other tombs, but of actual flesh and bone. His right hand (which
+seemed to me somewhat hairy and sinewy, a sign of great strength in its
+owner) lay on the side of his heart; but before I could put any question
+to Montesinos, he, seeing me gazing at the tomb in amazement, said to me,
+‘This is my friend Durandarte, flower and mirror of the true lovers and
+valiant knights of his time. He is held enchanted here, as I myself and
+many others are, by that French enchanter Merlin, who, they say, was the
+devil’s son; but my belief is, not that he was the devil’s son, but that
+he knew, as the saying is, a point more than the devil. How or why he
+enchanted us, no one knows, but time will tell, and I suspect that time
+is not far off. What I marvel at is, that I know it to be as sure as that
+it is now day, that Durandarte ended his life in my arms, and that, after
+his death, I took out his heart with my own hands; and indeed it must
+have weighed more than two pounds, for, according to naturalists, he who
+has a large heart is more largely endowed with valour than he who has a
+small one. Then, as this is the case, and as the knight did really die,
+how comes it that he now moans and sighs from time to time, as if he were
+still alive?’
+
+“As he said this, the wretched Durandarte cried out in a loud voice:
+
+O cousin Montesinos!
+  ‘T was my last request of thee,
+When my soul hath left the body,
+  And that lying dead I be,
+With thy poniard or thy dagger
+  Cut the heart from out my breast,
+And bear it to Belerma.
+  This was my last request.”
+
+On hearing which, the venerable Montesinos fell on his knees before the
+unhappy knight, and with tearful eyes exclaimed, ‘Long since, Señor
+Durandarte, my beloved cousin, long since have I done what you bade me on
+that sad day when I lost you; I took out your heart as well as I could,
+not leaving an atom of it in your breast, I wiped it with a lace
+handkerchief, and I took the road to France with it, having first laid
+you in the bosom of the earth with tears enough to wash and cleanse my
+hands of the blood that covered them after wandering among your bowels;
+and more by token, O cousin of my soul, at the first village I came to
+after leaving Roncesvalles, I sprinkled a little salt upon your heart to
+keep it sweet, and bring it, if not fresh, at least pickled, into the
+presence of the lady Belerma, whom, together with you, myself, Guadiana
+your squire, the duenna Ruidera and her seven daughters and two nieces,
+and many more of your friends and acquaintances, the sage Merlin has been
+keeping enchanted here these many years; and although more than five
+hundred have gone by, not one of us has died; Ruidera and her daughters
+and nieces alone are missing, and these, because of the tears they shed,
+Merlin, out of the compassion he seems to have felt for them, changed
+into so many lakes, which to this day in the world of the living, and in
+the province of La Mancha, are called the Lakes of Ruidera. The seven
+daughters belong to the kings of Spain and the two nieces to the knights
+of a very holy order called the Order of St. John. Guadiana your squire,
+likewise bewailing your fate, was changed into a river of his own name,
+but when he came to the surface and beheld the sun of another heaven, so
+great was his grief at finding he was leaving you, that he plunged into
+the bowels of the earth; however, as he cannot help following his natural
+course, he from time to time comes forth and shows himself to the sun and
+the world. The lakes aforesaid send him their waters, and with these, and
+others that come to him, he makes a grand and imposing entrance into
+Portugal; but for all that, go where he may, he shows his melancholy and
+sadness, and takes no pride in breeding dainty choice fish, only coarse
+and tasteless sorts, very different from those of the golden Tagus. All
+this that I tell you now, O cousin mine, I have told you many times
+before, and as you make no answer, I fear that either you believe me not,
+or do not hear me, whereat I feel God knows what grief. I have now news
+to give you, which, if it serves not to alleviate your sufferings, will
+not in any wise increase them. Know that you have here before you (open
+your eyes and you will see) that great knight of whom the sage Merlin has
+prophesied such great things; that Don Quixote of La Mancha I mean, who
+has again, and to better purpose than in past times, revived in these
+days knight-errantry, long since forgotten, and by whose intervention and
+aid it may be we shall be disenchanted; for great deeds are reserved for
+great men.’
+
+“‘And if that may not be,’ said the wretched Durandarte in a low and
+feeble voice, ‘if that may not be, then, my cousin, I say “patience and
+shuffle;”’ and turning over on his side, he relapsed into his former
+silence without uttering another word.
+
+“And now there was heard a great outcry and lamentation, accompanied by
+deep sighs and bitter sobs. I looked round, and through the crystal wall
+I saw passing through another chamber a procession of two lines of fair
+damsels all clad in mourning, and with white turbans of Turkish fashion
+on their heads. Behind, in the rear of these, there came a lady, for so
+from her dignity she seemed to be, also clad in black, with a white veil
+so long and ample that it swept the ground. Her turban was twice as large
+as the largest of any of the others; her eyebrows met, her nose was
+rather flat, her mouth was large but with ruddy lips, and her teeth, of
+which at times she allowed a glimpse, were seen to be sparse and ill-set,
+though as white as peeled almonds. She carried in her hands a fine cloth,
+and in it, as well as I could make out, a heart that had been mummied, so
+parched and dried was it. Montesinos told me that all those forming the
+procession were the attendants of Durandarte and Belerma, who were
+enchanted there with their master and mistress, and that the last, she
+who carried the heart in the cloth, was the lady Belerma, who, with her
+damsels, four days in the week went in procession singing, or rather
+weeping, dirges over the body and miserable heart of his cousin; and that
+if she appeared to me somewhat ill-favoured or not so beautiful as fame
+reported her, it was because of the bad nights and worse days that she
+passed in that enchantment, as I could see by the great dark circles
+round her eyes, and her sickly complexion; ‘her sallowness, and the rings
+round her eyes,’ said he, ‘are not caused by the periodical ailment usual
+with women, for it is many months and even years since she has had any,
+but by the grief her own heart suffers because of that which she holds in
+her hand perpetually, and which recalls and brings back to her memory the
+sad fate of her lost lover; were it not for this, hardly would the great
+Dulcinea del Toboso, so celebrated in all these parts, and even in the
+world, come up to her for beauty, grace, and gaiety.’
+
+“‘Hold hard!’ said I at this, ‘tell your story as you ought, Señor Don
+Montesinos, for you know very well that all comparisons are odious, and
+there is no occasion to compare one person with another; the peerless
+Dulcinea del Toboso is what she is, and the lady Dona Belerma is what she
+is and has been, and that’s enough.’ To which he made answer, ‘Forgive
+me, Señor Don Quixote; I own I was wrong and spoke unadvisedly in saying
+that the lady Dulcinea could scarcely come up to the lady Belerma; for it
+were enough for me to have learned, by what means I know not, that you
+are her knight, to make me bite my tongue out before I compared her to
+anything save heaven itself.’ After this apology which the great
+Montesinos made me, my heart recovered itself from the shock I had
+received in hearing my lady compared with Belerma.”
+
+“Still I wonder,” said Sancho, “that your worship did not get upon the
+old fellow and bruise every bone of him with kicks, and pluck his beard
+until you didn’t leave a hair in it.”
+
+“Nay, Sancho, my friend,” said Don Quixote, “it would not have been right
+in me to do that, for we are all bound to pay respect to the aged, even
+though they be not knights, but especially to those who are, and who are
+enchanted; I only know I gave him as good as he brought in the many other
+questions and answers we exchanged.”
+
+“I cannot understand, Señor Don Quixote,” remarked the cousin here, “how
+it is that your worship, in such a short space of time as you have been
+below there, could have seen so many things, and said and answered so
+much.”
+
+“How long is it since I went down?” asked Don Quixote.
+
+“Little better than an hour,” replied Sancho.
+
+“That cannot be,” returned Don Quixote, “because night overtook me while
+I was there, and day came, and it was night again and day again three
+times; so that, by my reckoning, I have been three days in those remote
+regions beyond our ken.”
+
+“My master must be right,” replied Sancho; “for as everything that has
+happened to him is by enchantment, maybe what seems to us an hour would
+seem three days and nights there.”
+
+“That’s it,” said Don Quixote.
+
+“And did your worship eat anything all that time, señor?” asked the
+cousin.
+
+“I never touched a morsel,” answered Don Quixote, “nor did I feel hunger,
+or think of it.”
+
+“And do the enchanted eat?” said the cousin.
+
+“They neither eat,” said Don Quixote; “nor are they subject to the
+greater excrements, though it is thought that their nails, beards, and
+hair grow.”
+
+“And do the enchanted sleep, now, señor?” asked Sancho.
+
+“Certainly not,” replied Don Quixote; “at least, during those three days
+I was with them not one of them closed an eye, nor did I either.”
+
+“The proverb, ‘Tell me what company thou keepest and I’ll tell thee what
+thou art,’ is to the point here,” said Sancho; “your worship keeps
+company with enchanted people that are always fasting and watching; what
+wonder is it, then, that you neither eat nor sleep while you are with
+them? But forgive me, señor, if I say that of all this you have told us
+now, may God take me--I was just going to say the devil--if I believe a
+single particle.”
+
+“What!” said the cousin, “has Señor Don Quixote, then, been lying? Why,
+even if he wished it he has not had time to imagine and put together such
+a host of lies.”
+
+“I don’t believe my master lies,” said Sancho.
+
+“If not, what dost thou believe?” asked Don Quixote.
+
+“I believe,” replied Sancho, “that this Merlin, or those enchanters who
+enchanted the whole crew your worship says you saw and discoursed with
+down there, stuffed your imagination or your mind with all this rigmarole
+you have been treating us to, and all that is still to come.”
+
+“All that might be, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote; “but it is not so, for
+everything that I have told you I saw with my own eyes, and touched with
+my own hands. But what will you say when I tell you now how, among the
+countless other marvellous things Montesinos showed me (of which at
+leisure and at the proper time I will give thee an account in the course
+of our journey, for they would not be all in place here), he showed me
+three country girls who went skipping and capering like goats over the
+pleasant fields there, and the instant I beheld them I knew one to be the
+peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, and the other two those same country girls
+that were with her and that we spoke to on the road from El Toboso! I
+asked Montesinos if he knew them, and he told me he did not, but he
+thought they must be some enchanted ladies of distinction, for it was
+only a few days before that they had made their appearance in those
+meadows; but I was not to be surprised at that, because there were a
+great many other ladies there of times past and present, enchanted in
+various strange shapes, and among them he had recognised Queen Guinevere
+and her dame Quintanona, she who poured out the wine for Lancelot when he
+came from Britain.”
+
+When Sancho Panza heard his master say this he was ready to take leave of
+his senses, or die with laughter; for, as he knew the real truth about
+the pretended enchantment of Dulcinea, in which he himself had been the
+enchanter and concocter of all the evidence, he made up his mind at last
+that, beyond all doubt, his master was out of his wits and stark mad, so
+he said to him, “It was an evil hour, a worse season, and a sorrowful
+day, when your worship, dear master mine, went down to the other world,
+and an unlucky moment when you met with Señor Montesinos, who has sent
+you back to us like this. You were well enough here above in your full
+senses, such as God had given you, delivering maxims and giving advice at
+every turn, and not as you are now, talking the greatest nonsense that
+can be imagined.”
+
+“As I know thee, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “I heed not thy words.”
+
+“Nor I your worship’s,” said Sancho, “whether you beat me or kill me for
+those I have spoken, and will speak if you don’t correct and mend your
+own. But tell me, while we are still at peace, how or by what did you
+recognise the lady our mistress; and if you spoke to her, what did you
+say, and what did she answer?”
+
+“I recognised her,” said Don Quixote, “by her wearing the same garments
+she wore when thou didst point her out to me. I spoke to her, but she did
+not utter a word in reply; on the contrary, she turned her back on me and
+took to flight, at such a pace that crossbow bolt could not have
+overtaken her. I wished to follow her, and would have done so had not
+Montesinos recommended me not to take the trouble as it would be useless,
+particularly as the time was drawing near when it would be necessary for
+me to quit the cavern. He told me, moreover, that in course of time he
+would let me know how he and Belerma, and Durandarte, and all who were
+there, were to be disenchanted. But of all I saw and observed down there,
+what gave me most pain was, that while Montesinos was speaking to me, one
+of the two companions of the hapless Dulcinea approached me on one
+without my having seen her coming, and with tears in her eyes said to me,
+in a low, agitated voice, ‘My lady Dulcinea del Toboso kisses your
+worship’s hands, and entreats you to do her the favour of letting her
+know how you are; and, being in great need, she also entreats your
+worship as earnestly as she can to be so good as to lend her half a dozen
+reals, or as much as you may have about you, on this new dimity petticoat
+that I have here; and she promises to repay them very speedily.’ I was
+amazed and taken aback by such a message, and turning to Señor Montesinos
+I asked him, ‘Is it possible, Señor Montesinos, that persons of
+distinction under enchantment can be in need?’ To which he replied,
+‘Believe me, Señor Don Quixote, that which is called need is to be met
+with everywhere, and penetrates all quarters and reaches everyone, and
+does not spare even the enchanted; and as the lady Dulcinea del Toboso
+sends to beg those six reals, and the pledge is to all appearance a good
+one, there is nothing for it but to give them to her, for no doubt she
+must be in some great strait.’ ‘I will take no pledge of her,’ I replied,
+‘nor yet can I give her what she asks, for all I have is four reals;
+which I gave (they were those which thou, Sancho, gavest me the other day
+to bestow in alms upon the poor I met along the road), and I said, ‘Tell
+your mistress, my dear, that I am grieved to the heart because of her
+distresses, and wish I was a Fucar to remedy them, and that I would have
+her know that I cannot be, and ought not be, in health while deprived of
+the happiness of seeing her and enjoying her discreet conversation, and
+that I implore her as earnestly as I can, to allow herself to be seen and
+addressed by this her captive servant and forlorn knight. Tell her, too,
+that when she least expects it she will hear it announced that I have
+made an oath and vow after the fashion of that which the Marquis of
+Mantua made to avenge his nephew Baldwin, when he found him at the point
+of death in the heart of the mountains, which was, not to eat bread off a
+tablecloth, and other trifling matters which he added, until he had
+avenged him; and I will make the same to take no rest, and to roam the
+seven regions of the earth more thoroughly than the Infante Don Pedro of
+Portugal ever roamed them, until I have disenchanted her.’ ‘All that and
+more, you owe my lady,’ the damsel’s answer to me, and taking the four
+reals, instead of making me a curtsey she cut a caper, springing two full
+yards into the air.”
+
+“O blessed God!” exclaimed Sancho aloud at this, “is it possible that
+such things can be in the world, and that enchanters and enchantments can
+have such power in it as to have changed my master’s right senses into a
+craze so full of absurdity! O señor, señor, for God’s sake, consider
+yourself, have a care for your honour, and give no credit to this silly
+stuff that has left you scant and short of wits.”
+
+“Thou talkest in this way because thou lovest me, Sancho,” said Don
+Quixote; “and not being experienced in the things of the world,
+everything that has some difficulty about it seems to thee impossible;
+but time will pass, as I said before, and I will tell thee some of the
+things I saw down there which will make thee believe what I have related
+now, the truth of which admits of neither reply nor question.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+WHEREIN ARE RELATED A THOUSAND TRIFLING MATTERS, AS TRIVIAL AS THEY ARE
+NECESSARY TO THE RIGHT UNDERSTANDING OF THIS GREAT HISTORY
+
+
+He who translated this great history from the original written by its
+first author, Cide Hamete Benengeli, says that on coming to the chapter
+giving the adventures of the cave of Montesinos he found written on the
+margin of it, in Hamete’s own hand, these exact words:
+
+“I cannot convince or persuade myself that everything that is written in
+the preceding chapter could have precisely happened to the valiant Don
+Quixote; and for this reason, that all the adventures that have occurred
+up to the present have been possible and probable; but as for this one of
+the cave, I see no way of accepting it as true, as it passes all
+reasonable bounds. For me to believe that Don Quixote could lie, he being
+the most truthful gentleman and the noblest knight of his time, is
+impossible; he would not have told a lie though he were shot to death
+with arrows. On the other hand, I reflect that he related and told the
+story with all the circumstances detailed, and that he could not in so
+short a space have fabricated such a vast complication of absurdities;
+if, then, this adventure seems apocryphal, it is no fault of mine; and
+so, without affirming its falsehood or its truth, I write it down. Decide
+for thyself in thy wisdom, reader; for I am not bound, nor is it in my
+power, to do more; though certain it is they say that at the time of his
+death he retracted, and said he had invented it, thinking it matched and
+tallied with the adventures he had read of in his histories.” And then he
+goes on to say:
+
+The cousin was amazed as well at Sancho’s boldness as at the patience of
+his master, and concluded that the good temper the latter displayed arose
+from the happiness he felt at having seen his lady Dulcinea, even
+enchanted as she was; because otherwise the words and language Sancho had
+addressed to him deserved a thrashing; for indeed he seemed to him to
+have been rather impudent to his master, to whom he now observed, “I,
+Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha, look upon the time I have spent in
+travelling with your worship as very well employed, for I have gained
+four things in the course of it; the first is that I have made your
+acquaintance, which I consider great good fortune; the second, that I
+have learned what the cave of Montesinos contains, together with the
+transformations of Guadiana and of the lakes of Ruidera; which will be of
+use to me for the Spanish Ovid that I have in hand; the third, to have
+discovered the antiquity of cards, that they were in use at least in the
+time of Charlemagne, as may be inferred from the words you say Durandarte
+uttered when, at the end of that long spell while Montesinos was talking
+to him, he woke up and said, ‘Patience and shuffle.’ This phrase and
+expression he could not have learned while he was enchanted, but only
+before he had become so, in France, and in the time of the aforesaid
+emperor Charlemagne. And this demonstration is just the thing for me for
+that other book I am writing, the ‘Supplement to Polydore Vergil on the
+Invention of Antiquities;’ for I believe he never thought of inserting
+that of cards in his book, as I mean to do in mine, and it will be a
+matter of great importance, particularly when I can cite so grave and
+veracious an authority as Señor Durandarte. And the fourth thing is, that
+I have ascertained the source of the river Guadiana, heretofore unknown
+to mankind.”
+
+“You are right,” said Don Quixote; “but I should like to know, if by
+God’s favour they grant you a licence to print those books of yours-which
+I doubt--to whom do you mean to dedicate them?”
+
+“There are lords and grandees in Spain to whom they can be dedicated,”
+ said the cousin.
+
+“Not many,” said Don Quixote; “not that they are unworthy of it, but
+because they do not care to accept books and incur the obligation of
+making the return that seems due to the author’s labour and courtesy. One
+prince I know who makes up for all the rest, and more-how much more, if I
+ventured to say, perhaps I should stir up envy in many a noble breast;
+but let this stand over for some more convenient time, and let us go and
+look for some place to shelter ourselves in to-night.”
+
+“Not far from this,” said the cousin, “there is a hermitage, where there
+lives a hermit, who they say was a soldier, and who has the reputation of
+being a good Christian and a very intelligent and charitable man. Close
+to the hermitage he has a small house which he built at his own cost, but
+though small it is large enough for the reception of guests.”
+
+“Has this hermit any hens, do you think?” asked Sancho.
+
+“Few hermits are without them,” said Don Quixote; “for those we see
+now-a-days are not like the hermits of the Egyptian deserts who were clad
+in palm-leaves, and lived on the roots of the earth. But do not think
+that by praising these I am disparaging the others; all I mean to say is
+that the penances of those of the present day do not come up to the
+asceticism and austerity of former times; but it does not follow from
+this that they are not all worthy; at least I think them so; and at the
+worst the hypocrite who pretends to be good does less harm than the open
+sinner.”
+
+At this point they saw approaching the spot where they stood a man on
+foot, proceeding at a rapid pace, and beating a mule loaded with lances
+and halberds. When he came up to them, he saluted them and passed on
+without stopping. Don Quixote called to him, “Stay, good fellow; you seem
+to be making more haste than suits that mule.”
+
+“I cannot stop, señor,” answered the man; “for the arms you see I carry
+here are to be used to-morrow, so I must not delay; God be with you. But
+if you want to know what I am carrying them for, I mean to lodge to-night
+at the inn that is beyond the hermitage, and if you be going the same
+road you will find me there, and I will tell you some curious things;
+once more God be with you;” and he urged on his mule at such a pace that
+Don Quixote had no time to ask him what these curious things were that he
+meant to tell them; and as he was somewhat inquisitive, and always
+tortured by his anxiety to learn something new, he decided to set out at
+once, and go and pass the night at the inn instead of stopping at the
+hermitage, where the cousin would have had them halt. Accordingly they
+mounted and all three took the direct road for the inn, which they
+reached a little before nightfall. On the road the cousin proposed they
+should go up to the hermitage to drink a sup. The instant Sancho heard
+this he steered his Dapple towards it, and Don Quixote and the cousin did
+the same; but it seems Sancho’s bad luck so ordered it that the hermit
+was not at home, for so a sub-hermit they found in the hermitage told
+them. They called for some of the best. She replied that her master had
+none, but that if they liked cheap water she would give it with great
+pleasure.
+
+“If I found any in water,” said Sancho, “there are wells along the road
+where I could have had enough of it. Ah, Camacho’s wedding, and plentiful
+house of Don Diego, how often do I miss you!”
+
+Leaving the hermitage, they pushed on towards the inn, and a little
+farther they came upon a youth who was pacing along in front of them at
+no great speed, so that they overtook him. He carried a sword over his
+shoulder, and slung on it a budget or bundle of his clothes apparently,
+probably his breeches or pantaloons, and his cloak and a shirt or two;
+for he had on a short jacket of velvet with a gloss like satin on it in
+places, and had his shirt out; his stockings were of silk, and his shoes
+square-toed as they wear them at court. His age might have been eighteen
+or nineteen; he was of a merry countenance, and to all appearance of an
+active habit, and he went along singing seguidillas to beguile the
+wearisomeness of the road. As they came up with him he was just finishing
+one, which the cousin got by heart and they say ran thus--
+
+I’m off to the wars
+  For the want of pence,
+Oh, had I but money
+  I’d show more sense.
+
+The first to address him was Don Quixote, who said, “You travel very
+airily, sir gallant; whither bound, may we ask, if it is your pleasure to
+tell us?”
+
+To which the youth replied, “The heat and my poverty are the reason of my
+travelling so airily, and it is to the wars that I am bound.”
+
+“How poverty?” asked Don Quixote; “the heat one can understand.”
+
+“Señor,” replied the youth, “in this bundle I carry velvet pantaloons to
+match this jacket; if I wear them out on the road, I shall not be able to
+make a decent appearance in them in the city, and I have not the
+wherewithal to buy others; and so for this reason, as well as to keep
+myself cool, I am making my way in this fashion to overtake some
+companies of infantry that are not twelve leagues off, in which I shall
+enlist, and there will be no want of baggage trains to travel with after
+that to the place of embarkation, which they say will be Carthagena; I
+would rather have the King for a master, and serve him in the wars, than
+serve a court pauper.”
+
+“And did you get any bounty, now?” asked the cousin.
+
+“If I had been in the service of some grandee of Spain or personage of
+distinction,” replied the youth, “I should have been safe to get it; for
+that is the advantage of serving good masters, that out of the servants’
+hall men come to be ancients or captains, or get a good pension. But I,
+to my misfortune, always served place-hunters and adventurers, whose keep
+and wages were so miserable and scanty that half went in paying for the
+starching of one’s collars; it would be a miracle indeed if a page
+volunteer ever got anything like a reasonable bounty.”
+
+“And tell me, for heaven’s sake,” asked Don Quixote, “is it possible, my
+friend, that all the time you served you never got any livery?”
+
+“They gave me two,” replied the page; “but just as when one quits a
+religious community before making profession, they strip him of the dress
+of the order and give him back his own clothes, so did my masters return
+me mine; for as soon as the business on which they came to court was
+finished, they went home and took back the liveries they had given merely
+for show.”
+
+“What spilorceria!--as an Italian would say,” said Don Quixote; “but for
+all that, consider yourself happy in having left court with as worthy an
+object as you have, for there is nothing on earth more honourable or
+profitable than serving, first of all God, and then one’s king and
+natural lord, particularly in the profession of arms, by which, if not
+more wealth, at least more honour is to be won than by letters, as I have
+said many a time; for though letters may have founded more great houses
+than arms, still those founded by arms have I know not what superiority
+over those founded by letters, and a certain splendour belonging to them
+that distinguishes them above all. And bear in mind what I am now about
+to say to you, for it will be of great use and comfort to you in time of
+trouble; it is, not to let your mind dwell on the adverse chances that
+may befall you; for the worst of all is death, and if it be a good death,
+the best of all is to die. They asked Julius Caesar, the valiant Roman
+emperor, what was the best death. He answered, that which is unexpected,
+which comes suddenly and unforeseen; and though he answered like a pagan,
+and one without the knowledge of the true God, yet, as far as sparing our
+feelings is concerned, he was right; for suppose you are killed in the
+first engagement or skirmish, whether by a cannon ball or blown up by
+mine, what matters it? It is only dying, and all is over; and according
+to Terence, a soldier shows better dead in battle, than alive and safe in
+flight; and the good soldier wins fame in proportion as he is obedient to
+his captains and those in command over him. And remember, my son, that it
+is better for the soldier to smell of gunpowder than of civet, and that
+if old age should come upon you in this honourable calling, though you
+may be covered with wounds and crippled and lame, it will not come upon
+you without honour, and that such as poverty cannot lessen; especially
+now that provisions are being made for supporting and relieving old and
+disabled soldiers; for it is not right to deal with them after the
+fashion of those who set free and get rid of their black slaves when they
+are old and useless, and, turning them out of their houses under the
+pretence of making them free, make them slaves to hunger, from which they
+cannot expect to be released except by death. But for the present I won’t
+say more than get ye up behind me on my horse as far as the inn, and sup
+with me there, and to-morrow you shall pursue your journey, and God give
+you as good speed as your intentions deserve.”
+
+The page did not accept the invitation to mount, though he did that to
+supper at the inn; and here they say Sancho said to himself, “God be with
+you for a master; is it possible that a man who can say things so many
+and so good as he has said just now, can say that he saw the impossible
+absurdities he reports about the cave of Montesinos? Well, well, we shall
+see.”
+
+And now, just as night was falling, they reached the inn, and it was not
+without satisfaction that Sancho perceived his master took it for a real
+inn, and not for a castle as usual. The instant they entered Don Quixote
+asked the landlord after the man with the lances and halberds, and was
+told that he was in the stable seeing to his mule; which was what Sancho
+and the cousin proceeded to do for their beasts, giving the best manger
+and the best place in the stable to Rocinante.
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+Don Quixote’s bread would not bake, as the common saying is, until he had
+heard and learned the curious things promised by the man who carried the
+arms. He went to seek him where the innkeeper said he was and having
+found him, bade him say now at any rate what he had to say in answer to
+the question he had asked him on the road. “The tale of my wonders must
+be taken more leisurely and not standing,” said the man; “let me finish
+foddering my beast, good sir; and then I’ll tell you things that will
+astonish you.”
+
+“Don’t wait for that,” said Don Quixote; “I’ll help you in everything,”
+ and so he did, sifting the barley for him and cleaning out the manger; a
+degree of humility which made the other feel bound to tell him with a
+good grace what he had asked; so seating himself on a bench, with Don
+Quixote beside him, and the cousin, the page, Sancho Panza, and the
+landlord, for a senate and an audience, he began his story in this way:
+
+“You must know that in a village four leagues and a half from this inn,
+it so happened that one of the regidors, by the tricks and roguery of a
+servant girl of his (it’s too long a tale to tell), lost an ass; and
+though he did all he possibly could to find it, it was all to no purpose.
+A fortnight might have gone by, so the story goes, since the ass had been
+missing, when, as the regidor who had lost it was standing in the plaza,
+another regidor of the same town said to him, ‘Pay me for good news,
+gossip; your ass has turned up.’ ‘That I will, and well, gossip,’ said
+the other; ‘but tell us, where has he turned up?’ ‘In the forest,’ said
+the finder; ‘I saw him this morning without pack-saddle or harness of any
+sort, and so lean that it went to one’s heart to see him. I tried to
+drive him before me and bring him to you, but he is already so wild and
+shy that when I went near him he made off into the thickest part of the
+forest. If you have a mind that we two should go back and look for him,
+let me put up this she-ass at my house and I’ll be back at once.’ ‘You
+will be doing me a great kindness,’ said the owner of the ass, ‘and I’ll
+try to pay it back in the same coin.’ It is with all these circumstances,
+and in the very same way I am telling it now, that those who know all
+about the matter tell the story. Well then, the two regidors set off on
+foot, arm in arm, for the forest, and coming to the place where they
+hoped to find the ass they could not find him, nor was he to be seen
+anywhere about, search as they might. Seeing, then, that there was no
+sign of him, the regidor who had seen him said to the other, ‘Look here,
+gossip; a plan has occurred to me, by which, beyond a doubt, we shall
+manage to discover the animal, even if he is stowed away in the bowels of
+the earth, not to say the forest. Here it is. I can bray to perfection,
+and if you can ever so little, the thing’s as good as done.’ ‘Ever so
+little did you say, gossip?’ said the other; ‘by God, I’ll not give in to
+anybody, not even to the asses themselves.’ ‘We’ll soon see,’ said the
+second regidor, ‘for my plan is that you should go one side of the
+forest, and I the other, so as to go all round about it; and every now
+and then you will bray and I will bray; and it cannot be but that the ass
+will hear us, and answer us if he is in the forest.’ To which the owner
+of the ass replied, ‘It’s an excellent plan, I declare, gossip, and
+worthy of your great genius;’ and the two separating as agreed, it so
+fell out that they brayed almost at the same moment, and each, deceived
+by the braying of the other, ran to look, fancying the ass had turned up
+at last. When they came in sight of one another, said the loser, ‘Is it
+possible, gossip, that it was not my ass that brayed?’ ‘No, it was I,’
+said the other. ‘Well then, I can tell you, gossip,’ said the ass’s
+owner, ‘that between you and an ass there is not an atom of difference as
+far as braying goes, for I never in all my life saw or heard anything
+more natural.’ ‘Those praises and compliments belong to you more justly
+than to me, gossip,’ said the inventor of the plan; ‘for, by the God that
+made me, you might give a couple of brays odds to the best and most
+finished brayer in the world; the tone you have got is deep, your voice
+is well kept up as to time and pitch, and your finishing notes come thick
+and fast; in fact, I own myself beaten, and yield the palm to you, and
+give in to you in this rare accomplishment.’ ‘Well then,’ said the owner,
+‘I’ll set a higher value on myself for the future, and consider that I
+know something, as I have an excellence of some sort; for though I always
+thought I brayed well, I never supposed I came up to the pitch of
+perfection you say.’ ‘And I say too,’ said the second, ‘that there are
+rare gifts going to loss in the world, and that they are ill bestowed
+upon those who don’t know how to make use of them.’ ‘Ours,’ said the
+owner of the ass, ‘unless it is in cases like this we have now in hand,
+cannot be of any service to us, and even in this God grant they may be of
+some use.’ So saying they separated, and took to their braying once more,
+but every instant they were deceiving one another, and coming to meet one
+another again, until they arranged by way of countersign, so as to know
+that it was they and not the ass, to give two brays, one after the other.
+In this way, doubling the brays at every step, they made the complete
+circuit of the forest, but the lost ass never gave them an answer or even
+the sign of one. How could the poor ill-starred brute have answered,
+when, in the thickest part of the forest, they found him devoured by
+wolves? As soon as he saw him his owner said, ‘I was wondering he did not
+answer, for if he wasn’t dead he’d have brayed when he heard us, or he’d
+have been no ass; but for the sake of having heard you bray to such
+perfection, gossip, I count the trouble I have taken to look for him well
+bestowed, even though I have found him dead.’ ‘It’s in a good hand,
+gossip,’ said the other; ‘if the abbot sings well, the acolyte is not
+much behind him.’ So they returned disconsolate and hoarse to their
+village, where they told their friends, neighbours, and acquaintances
+what had befallen them in their search for the ass, each crying up the
+other’s perfection in braying. The whole story came to be known and
+spread abroad through the villages of the neighbourhood; and the devil,
+who never sleeps, with his love for sowing dissensions and scattering
+discord everywhere, blowing mischief about and making quarrels out of
+nothing, contrived to make the people of the other towns fall to braying
+whenever they saw anyone from our village, as if to throw the braying of
+our regidors in our teeth. Then the boys took to it, which was the same
+thing for it as getting into the hands and mouths of all the devils of
+hell; and braying spread from one town to another in such a way that the
+men of the braying town are as easy to be known as blacks are to be known
+from whites, and the unlucky joke has gone so far that several times the
+scoffed have come out in arms and in a body to do battle with the
+scoffers, and neither king nor rook, fear nor shame, can mend matters.
+To-morrow or the day after, I believe, the men of my town, that is, of
+the braying town, are going to take the field against another village two
+leagues away from ours, one of those that persecute us most; and that we
+may turn out well prepared I have bought these lances and halberds you
+have seen. These are the curious things I told you I had to tell, and if
+you don’t think them so, I have got no others;” and with this the worthy
+fellow brought his story to a close.
+
+Just at this moment there came in at the gate of the inn a man entirely
+clad in chamois leather, hose, breeches, and doublet, who said in a loud
+voice, “Señor host, have you room? Here’s the divining ape and the show
+of the Release of Melisendra just coming.”
+
+“Ods body!” said the landlord, “why, it’s Master Pedro! We’re in for a
+grand night!” I forgot to mention that the said Master Pedro had his left
+eye and nearly half his cheek covered with a patch of green taffety,
+showing that something ailed all that side. “Your worship is welcome,
+Master Pedro,” continued the landlord; “but where are the ape and the
+show, for I don’t see them?” “They are close at hand,” said he in the
+chamois leather, “but I came on first to know if there was any room.”
+ “I’d make the Duke of Alva himself clear out to make room for Master
+Pedro,” said the landlord; “bring in the ape and the show; there’s
+company in the inn to-night that will pay to see that and the cleverness
+of the ape.” “So be it by all means,” said the man with the patch; “I’ll
+lower the price, and be well satisfied if I only pay my expenses; and now
+I’ll go back and hurry on the cart with the ape and the show;” and with
+this he went out of the inn.
+
+Don Quixote at once asked the landlord what this Master Pedro was, and
+what was the show and what was the ape he had with him; which the
+landlord replied, “This is a famous puppet-showman, who for some time
+past has been going about this Mancha de Aragon, exhibiting a show of the
+release of Melisendra by the famous Don Gaiferos, one of the best and
+best-represented stories that have been seen in this part of the kingdom
+for many a year; he has also with him an ape with the most extraordinary
+gift ever seen in an ape or imagined in a human being; for if you ask him
+anything, he listens attentively to the question, and then jumps on his
+master’s shoulder, and pressing close to his ear tells him the answer
+which Master Pedro then delivers. He says a great deal more about things
+past than about things to come; and though he does not always hit the
+truth in every case, most times he is not far wrong, so that he makes us
+fancy he has got the devil in him. He gets two reals for every question
+if the ape answers; I mean if his master answers for him after he has
+whispered into his ear; and so it is believed that this same Master Pedro
+is very rich. He is a ‘gallant man’ as they say in Italy, and good
+company, and leads the finest life in the world; talks more than six,
+drinks more than a dozen, and all by his tongue, and his ape, and his
+show.”
+
+Master Pedro now came back, and in a cart followed the show and the
+ape--a big one, without a tail and with buttocks as bare as felt, but not
+vicious-looking. As soon as Don Quixote saw him, he asked him, “Can you
+tell me, sir fortune-teller, what fish do we catch, and how will it be
+with us? See, here are my two reals,” and he bade Sancho give them to
+Master Pedro; but he answered for the ape and said, “Señor, this animal
+does not give any answer or information touching things that are to come;
+of things past he knows something, and more or less of things present.”
+
+“Gad,” said Sancho, “I would not give a farthing to be told what’s past
+with me, for who knows that better than I do myself? And to pay for being
+told what I know would be mighty foolish. But as you know things present,
+here are my two reals, and tell me, most excellent sir ape, what is my
+wife Teresa Panza doing now, and what is she diverting herself with?”
+
+Master Pedro refused to take the money, saying, “I will not receive
+payment in advance or until the service has been first rendered;” and
+then with his right hand he gave a couple of slaps on his left shoulder,
+and with one spring the ape perched himself upon it, and putting his
+mouth to his master’s ear began chattering his teeth rapidly; and having
+kept this up as long as one would be saying a credo, with another spring
+he brought himself to the ground, and the same instant Master Pedro ran
+in great haste and fell upon his knees before Don Quixote, and embracing
+his legs exclaimed, “These legs do I embrace as I would embrace the two
+pillars of Hercules, O illustrious reviver of knight-errantry, so long
+consigned to oblivion! O never yet duly extolled knight, Don Quixote of
+La Mancha, courage of the faint-hearted, prop of the tottering, arm of
+the fallen, staff and counsel of all who are unfortunate!”
+
+Don Quixote was thunderstruck, Sancho astounded, the cousin staggered,
+the page astonished, the man from the braying town agape, the landlord in
+perplexity, and, in short, everyone amazed at the words of the
+puppet-showman, who went on to say, “And thou, worthy Sancho Panza, the
+best squire and squire to the best knight in the world! Be of good cheer,
+for thy good wife Teresa is well, and she is at this moment hackling a
+pound of flax; and more by token she has at her left hand a jug with a
+broken spout that holds a good drop of wine, with which she solaces
+herself at her work.”
+
+“That I can well believe,” said Sancho. “She is a lucky one, and if it
+was not for her jealousy I would not change her for the giantess
+Andandona, who by my master’s account was a very clever and worthy woman;
+my Teresa is one of those that won’t let themselves want for anything,
+though their heirs may have to pay for it.”
+
+“Now I declare,” said Don Quixote, “he who reads much and travels much
+sees and knows a great deal. I say so because what amount of persuasion
+could have persuaded me that there are apes in the world that can divine
+as I have seen now with my own eyes? For I am that very Don Quixote of La
+Mancha this worthy animal refers to, though he has gone rather too far in
+my praise; but whatever I may be, I thank heaven that it has endowed me
+with a tender and compassionate heart, always disposed to do good to all
+and harm to none.”
+
+“If I had money,” said the page, “I would ask señor ape what will happen
+to me in the peregrination I am making.”
+
+To this Master Pedro, who had by this time risen from Don Quixote’s feet,
+replied, “I have already said that this little beast gives no answer as
+to the future; but if he did, not having money would be of no
+consequence, for to oblige Señor Don Quixote, here present, I would give
+up all the profits in the world. And now, because I have promised it, and
+to afford him pleasure, I will set up my show and offer entertainment to
+all who are in the inn, without any charge whatever.” As soon as he heard
+this, the landlord, delighted beyond measure, pointed out a place where
+the show might be fixed, which was done at once.
+
+Don Quixote was not very well satisfied with the divinations of the ape,
+as he did not think it proper that an ape should divine anything, either
+past or future; so while Master Pedro was arranging the show, he retired
+with Sancho into a corner of the stable, where, without being overheard
+by anyone, he said to him, “Look here, Sancho, I have been seriously
+thinking over this ape’s extraordinary gift, and have come to the
+conclusion that beyond doubt this Master Pedro, his master, has a pact,
+tacit or express, with the devil.”
+
+“If the packet is express from the devil,” said Sancho, “it must be a
+very dirty packet no doubt; but what good can it do Master Pedro to have
+such packets?”
+
+“Thou dost not understand me, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “I only mean he
+must have made some compact with the devil to infuse this power into the
+ape, that he may get his living, and after he has grown rich he will give
+him his soul, which is what the enemy of mankind wants; this I am led to
+believe by observing that the ape only answers about things past or
+present, and the devil’s knowledge extends no further; for the future he
+knows only by guesswork, and that not always; for it is reserved for God
+alone to know the times and the seasons, and for him there is neither
+past nor future; all is present. This being as it is, it is clear that
+this ape speaks by the spirit of the devil; and I am astonished they have
+not denounced him to the Holy Office, and put him to the question, and
+forced it out of him by whose virtue it is that he divines; because it is
+certain this ape is not an astrologer; neither his master nor he sets up,
+or knows how to set up, those figures they call judiciary, which are now
+so common in Spain that there is not a jade, or page, or old cobbler,
+that will not undertake to set up a figure as readily as pick up a knave
+of cards from the ground, bringing to nought the marvellous truth of the
+science by their lies and ignorance. I know of a lady who asked one of
+these figure schemers whether her little lap-dog would be in pup and
+would breed, and how many and of what colour the little pups would be. To
+which señor astrologer, after having set up his figure, made answer that
+the bitch would be in pup, and would drop three pups, one green, another
+bright red, and the third parti-coloured, provided she conceived between
+eleven and twelve either of the day or night, and on a Monday or
+Saturday; but as things turned out, two days after this the bitch died of
+a surfeit, and señor planet-ruler had the credit all over the place of
+being a most profound astrologer, as most of these planet-rulers have.”
+
+“Still,” said Sancho, “I would be glad if your worship would make Master
+Pedro ask his ape whether what happened your worship in the cave of
+Montesinos is true; for, begging your worship’s pardon, I, for my part,
+take it to have been all flam and lies, or at any rate something you
+dreamt.”
+
+“That may be,” replied Don Quixote; “however, I will do what you suggest;
+though I have my own scruples about it.”
+
+At this point Master Pedro came up in quest of Don Quixote, to tell him
+the show was now ready and to come and see it, for it was worth seeing.
+Don Quixote explained his wish, and begged him to ask his ape at once to
+tell him whether certain things which had happened to him in the cave of
+Montesinos were dreams or realities, for to him they appeared to partake
+of both. Upon this Master Pedro, without answering, went back to fetch
+the ape, and, having placed it in front of Don Quixote and Sancho, said:
+“See here, señor ape, this gentleman wishes to know whether certain
+things which happened to him in the cave called the cave of Montesinos
+were false or true.” On his making the usual sign the ape mounted on his
+left shoulder and seemed to whisper in his ear, and Master Pedro said at
+once, “The ape says that the things you saw or that happened to you in
+that cave are, part of them false, part true; and that he only knows this
+and no more as regards this question; but if your worship wishes to know
+more, on Friday next he will answer all that may be asked him, for his
+virtue is at present exhausted, and will not return to him till Friday,
+as he has said.”
+
+“Did I not say, señor,” said Sancho, “that I could not bring myself to
+believe that all your worship said about the adventures in the cave was
+true, or even the half of it?”
+
+“The course of events will tell, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote; “time,
+that discloses all things, leaves nothing that it does not drag into the
+light of day, though it be buried in the bosom of the earth. But enough
+of that for the present; let us go and see Master Pedro’s show, for I am
+sure there must be something novel in it.”
+
+“Something!” said Master Pedro; “this show of mine has sixty thousand
+novel things in it; let me tell you, Señor Don Quixote, it is one of the
+best-worth-seeing things in the world this day; but operibus credite et
+non verbis, and now let’s get to work, for it is growing late, and we
+have a great deal to do and to say and show.”
+
+Don Quixote and Sancho obeyed him and went to where the show was already
+put up and uncovered, set all around with lighted wax tapers which made
+it look splendid and bright. When they came to it Master Pedro ensconced
+himself inside it, for it was he who had to work the puppets, and a boy,
+a servant of his, posted himself outside to act as showman and explain
+the mysteries of the exhibition, having a wand in his hand to point to
+the figures as they came out. And so, all who were in the inn being
+arranged in front of the show, some of them standing, and Don Quixote,
+Sancho, the page, and cousin, accommodated with the best places, the
+interpreter began to say what he will hear or see who reads or hears the
+next chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE DROLL ADVENTURE OF THE PUPPET-SHOWMAN, TOGETHER
+WITH OTHER THINGS IN TRUTH RIGHT GOOD
+
+
+All were silent, Tyrians and Trojans; I mean all who were watching the
+show were hanging on the lips of the interpreter of its wonders, when
+drums and trumpets were heard to sound inside it and cannon to go off.
+The noise was soon over, and then the boy lifted up his voice and said,
+“This true story which is here represented to your worships is taken word
+for word from the French chronicles and from the Spanish ballads that are
+in everybody’s mouth, and in the mouth of the boys about the streets. Its
+subject is the release by Señor Don Gaiferos of his wife Melisendra, when
+a captive in Spain at the hands of the Moors in the city of Sansuena, for
+so they called then what is now called Saragossa; and there you may see
+how Don Gaiferos is playing at the tables, just as they sing it—
+
+At tables playing Don Gaiferos sits,
+For Melisendra is forgotten now.
+
+And that personage who appears there with a crown on his head and a
+sceptre in his hand is the Emperor Charlemagne, the supposed father of
+Melisendra, who, angered to see his son-in-law’s inaction and unconcern,
+comes in to chide him; and observe with what vehemence and energy he
+chides him, so that you would fancy he was going to give him half a dozen
+raps with his sceptre; and indeed there are authors who say he did give
+them, and sound ones too; and after having said a great deal to him about
+imperilling his honour by not effecting the release of his wife, he said,
+so the tale runs,
+
+Enough I’ve said, see to it now.
+
+Observe, too, how the emperor turns away, and leaves Don Gaiferos fuming;
+and you see now how in a burst of anger, he flings the table and the
+board far from him and calls in haste for his armour, and asks his cousin
+Don Roland for the loan of his sword, Durindana, and how Don Roland
+refuses to lend it, offering him his company in the difficult enterprise
+he is undertaking; but he, in his valour and anger, will not accept it,
+and says that he alone will suffice to rescue his wife, even though she
+were imprisoned deep in the centre of the earth, and with this he retires
+to arm himself and set out on his journey at once. Now let your worships
+turn your eyes to that tower that appears there, which is supposed to be
+one of the towers of the alcazar of Saragossa, now called the Aljaferia;
+that lady who appears on that balcony dressed in Moorish fashion is the
+peerless Melisendra, for many a time she used to gaze from thence upon
+the road to France, and seek consolation in her captivity by thinking of
+Paris and her husband. Observe, too, a new incident which now occurs,
+such as, perhaps, never was seen. Do you not see that Moor, who silently
+and stealthily, with his finger on his lip, approaches Melisendra from
+behind? Observe now how he prints a kiss upon her lips, and what a hurry
+she is in to spit, and wipe them with the white sleeve of her smock, and
+how she bewails herself, and tears her fair hair as though it were to
+blame for the wrong. Observe, too, that the stately Moor who is in that
+corridor is King Marsilio of Sansuena, who, having seen the Moor’s
+insolence, at once orders him (though his kinsman and a great favourite
+of his) to be seized and given two hundred lashes, while carried through
+the streets of the city according to custom, with criers going before him
+and officers of justice behind; and here you see them come out to execute
+the sentence, although the offence has been scarcely committed; for among
+the Moors there are no indictments nor remands as with us.”
+
+Here Don Quixote called out, “Child, child, go straight on with your
+story, and don’t run into curves and slants, for to establish a fact
+clearly there is need of a great deal of proof and confirmation;” and
+said Master Pedro from within, “Boy, stick to your text and do as the
+gentleman bids you; it’s the best plan; keep to your plain song, and
+don’t attempt harmonies, for they are apt to break down from being over
+fine.”
+
+“I will,” said the boy, and he went on to say, “This figure that you see
+here on horseback, covered with a Gascon cloak, is Don Gaiferos himself,
+whom his wife, now avenged of the insult of the amorous Moor, and taking
+her stand on the balcony of the tower with a calmer and more tranquil
+countenance, has perceived without recognising him; and she addresses her
+husband, supposing him to be some traveller, and holds with him all that
+conversation and colloquy in the ballad that runs--
+
+If you, sir knight, to France are bound,
+Oh! for Gaiferos ask--
+
+which I do not repeat here because prolixity begets disgust; suffice it
+to observe how Don Gaiferos discovers himself, and that by her joyful
+gestures Melisendra shows us she has recognised him; and what is more, we
+now see she lowers herself from the balcony to place herself on the
+haunches of her good husband’s horse. But ah! unhappy lady, the edge of
+her petticoat has caught on one of the bars of the balcony and she is
+left hanging in the air, unable to reach the ground. But you see how
+compassionate heaven sends aid in our sorest need; Don Gaiferos advances,
+and without minding whether the rich petticoat is torn or not, he seizes
+her and by force brings her to the ground, and then with one jerk places
+her on the haunches of his horse, astraddle like a man, and bids her hold
+on tight and clasp her arms round his neck, crossing them on his breast
+so as not to fall, for the lady Melisendra was not used to that style of
+riding. You see, too, how the neighing of the horse shows his
+satisfaction with the gallant and beautiful burden he bears in his lord
+and lady. You see how they wheel round and quit the city, and in joy and
+gladness take the road to Paris. Go in peace, O peerless pair of true
+lovers! May you reach your longed-for fatherland in safety, and may
+fortune interpose no impediment to your prosperous journey; may the eyes
+of your friends and kinsmen behold you enjoying in peace and tranquillity
+the remaining days of your life--and that they may be as many as those of
+Nestor!”
+
+Here Master Pedro called out again and said, “Simplicity, boy! None of
+your high flights; all affectation is bad.”
+
+The interpreter made no answer, but went on to say, “There was no want of
+idle eyes, that see everything, to see Melisendra come down and mount,
+and word was brought to King Marsilio, who at once gave orders to sound
+the alarm; and see what a stir there is, and how the city is drowned with
+the sound of the bells pealing in the towers of all the mosques.”
+
+“Nay, nay,” said Don Quixote at this; “on that point of the bells Master
+Pedro is very inaccurate, for bells are not in use among the Moors; only
+kettledrums, and a kind of small trumpet somewhat like our clarion; to
+ring bells this way in Sansuena is unquestionably a great absurdity.”
+
+On hearing this, Master Pedro stopped ringing, and said, “Don’t look into
+trifles, Señor Don Quixote, or want to have things up to a pitch of
+perfection that is out of reach. Are there not almost every day a
+thousand comedies represented all round us full of thousands of
+inaccuracies and absurdities, and, for all that, they have a successful
+run, and are listened to not only with applause, but with admiration and
+all the rest of it? Go on, boy, and don’t mind; for so long as I fill my
+pouch, no matter if I show as many inaccuracies as there are motes in a
+sunbeam.”
+
+“True enough,” said Don Quixote; and the boy went on: “See what a
+numerous and glittering crowd of horsemen issues from the city in pursuit
+of the two faithful lovers, what a blowing of trumpets there is, what
+sounding of horns, what beating of drums and tabors; I fear me they will
+overtake them and bring them back tied to the tail of their own horse,
+which would be a dreadful sight.”
+
+Don Quixote, however, seeing such a swarm of Moors and hearing such a
+din, thought it would be right to aid the fugitives, and standing up he
+exclaimed in a loud voice, “Never, while I live, will I permit foul play
+to be practised in my presence on such a famous knight and fearless lover
+as Don Gaiferos. Halt! ill-born rabble, follow him not nor pursue him, or
+ye will have to reckon with me in battle!” and suiting the action to the
+word, he drew his sword, and with one bound placed himself close to the
+show, and with unexampled rapidity and fury began to shower down blows on
+the puppet troop of Moors, knocking over some, decapitating others,
+maiming this one and demolishing that; and among many more he delivered
+one down stroke which, if Master Pedro had not ducked, made himself
+small, and got out of the way, would have sliced off his head as easily
+as if it had been made of almond-paste. Master Pedro kept shouting, “Hold
+hard! Señor Don Quixote! can’t you see they’re not real Moors you’re
+knocking down and killing and destroying, but only little pasteboard
+figures! Look--sinner that I am!--how you’re wrecking and ruining all
+that I’m worth!” But in spite of this, Don Quixote did not leave off
+discharging a continuous rain of cuts, slashes, downstrokes, and
+backstrokes, and at length, in less than the space of two credos, he
+brought the whole show to the ground, with all its fittings and figures
+shivered and knocked to pieces, King Marsilio badly wounded, and the
+Emperor Charlemagne with his crown and head split in two. The whole
+audience was thrown into confusion, the ape fled to the roof of the inn,
+the cousin was frightened, and even Sancho Panza himself was in mighty
+fear, for, as he swore after the storm was over, he had never seen his
+master in such a furious passion.
+
+The complete destruction of the show being thus accomplished, Don Quixote
+became a little calmer, said, “I wish I had here before me now all those
+who do not or will not believe how useful knights-errant are in the
+world; just think, if I had not been here present, what would have become
+of the brave Don Gaiferos and the fair Melisendra! Depend upon it, by
+this time those dogs would have overtaken them and inflicted some outrage
+upon them. So, then, long live knight-errantry beyond everything living
+on earth this day!”
+
+“Let it live, and welcome,” said Master Pedro at this in a feeble voice,
+“and let me die, for I am so unfortunate that I can say with King Don
+Rodrigo--
+
+Yesterday was I lord of Spain
+To-day I’ve not a turret left
+That I may call mine own.
+
+Not half an hour, nay, barely a minute ago, I saw myself lord of kings
+and emperors, with my stables filled with countless horses, and my trunks
+and bags with gay dresses unnumbered; and now I find myself ruined and
+laid low, destitute and a beggar, and above all without my ape, for, by
+my faith, my teeth will have to sweat for it before I have him caught;
+and all through the reckless fury of sir knight here, who, they say,
+protects the fatherless, and rights wrongs, and does other charitable
+deeds; but whose generous intentions have been found wanting in my case
+only, blessed and praised be the highest heavens! Verily, knight of the
+rueful figure he must be to have disfigured mine.”
+
+Sancho Panza was touched by Master Pedro’s words, and said to him, “Don’t
+weep and lament, Master Pedro; you break my heart; let me tell you my
+master, Don Quixote, is so catholic and scrupulous a Christian that, if
+he can make out that he has done you any wrong, he will own it, and be
+willing to pay for it and make it good, and something over and above.”
+
+“Only let Señor Don Quixote pay me for some part of the work he has
+destroyed,” said Master Pedro, “and I would be content, and his worship
+would ease his conscience, for he cannot be saved who keeps what is
+another’s against the owner’s will, and makes no restitution.”
+
+“That is true,” said Don Quixote; “but at present I am not aware that I
+have got anything of yours, Master Pedro.”
+
+“What!” returned Master Pedro; “and these relics lying here on the bare
+hard ground--what scattered and shattered them but the invincible
+strength of that mighty arm? And whose were the bodies they belonged to
+but mine? And what did I get my living by but by them?”
+
+“Now am I fully convinced,” said Don Quixote, “of what I had many a time
+before believed; that the enchanters who persecute me do nothing more
+than put figures like these before my eyes, and then change and turn them
+into what they please. In truth and earnest, I assure you gentlemen who
+now hear me, that to me everything that has taken place here seemed to
+take place literally, that Melisendra was Melisendra, Don Gaiferos Don
+Gaiferos, Marsilio Marsilio, and Charlemagne Charlemagne. That was why my
+anger was roused; and to be faithful to my calling as a knight-errant I
+sought to give aid and protection to those who fled, and with this good
+intention I did what you have seen. If the result has been the opposite
+of what I intended, it is no fault of mine, but of those wicked beings
+that persecute me; but, for all that, I am willing to condemn myself in
+costs for this error of mine, though it did not proceed from malice; let
+Master Pedro see what he wants for the spoiled figures, for I agree to
+pay it at once in good and current money of Castile.”
+
+Master Pedro made him a bow, saying, “I expected no less of the rare
+Christianity of the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha, true helper and
+protector of all destitute and needy vagabonds; master landlord here and
+the great Sancho Panza shall be the arbitrators and appraisers between
+your worship and me of what these dilapidated figures are worth or may be
+worth.”
+
+The landlord and Sancho consented, and then Master Pedro picked up from
+the ground King Marsilio of Saragossa with his head off, and said, “Here
+you see how impossible it is to restore this king to his former state, so
+I think, saving your better judgments, that for his death, decease, and
+demise, four reals and a half may be given me.”
+
+“Proceed,” said Don Quixote.
+
+“Well then, for this cleavage from top to bottom,” continued Master
+Pedro, taking up the split Emperor Charlemagne, “it would not be much if
+I were to ask five reals and a quarter.”
+
+“It’s not little,” said Sancho.
+
+“Nor is it much,” said the landlord; “make it even, and say five reals.”
+
+“Let him have the whole five and a quarter,” said Don Quixote; “for the
+sum total of this notable disaster does not stand on a quarter more or
+less; and make an end of it quickly, Master Pedro, for it’s getting on to
+supper-time, and I have some hints of hunger.”
+
+“For this figure,” said Master Pedro, “that is without a nose, and wants
+an eye, and is the fair Melisendra, I ask, and I am reasonable in my
+charge, two reals and twelve maravedis.”
+
+“The very devil must be in it,” said Don Quixote, “if Melisendra and her
+husband are not by this time at least on the French border, for the horse
+they rode on seemed to me to fly rather than gallop; so you needn’t try
+to sell me the cat for the hare, showing me here a noseless Melisendra
+when she is now, may be, enjoying herself at her ease with her husband in
+France. God help every one to his own, Master Pedro, and let us all
+proceed fairly and honestly; and now go on.”
+
+Master Pedro, perceiving that Don Quixote was beginning to wander, and
+return to his original fancy, was not disposed to let him escape, so he
+said to him, “This cannot be Melisendra, but must be one of the damsels
+that waited on her; so if I’m given sixty maravedis for her, I’ll be
+content and sufficiently paid.”
+
+And so he went on, putting values on ever so many more smashed figures,
+which, after the two arbitrators had adjusted them to the satisfaction of
+both parties, came to forty reals and three-quarters; and over and above
+this sum, which Sancho at once disbursed, Master Pedro asked for two
+reals for his trouble in catching the ape.
+
+“Let him have them, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “not to catch the ape, but
+to get drunk; and two hundred would I give this minute for the good news,
+to anyone who could tell me positively, that the lady Dona Melisandra and
+Señor Don Gaiferos were now in France and with their own people.”
+
+“No one could tell us that better than my ape,” said Master Pedro; “but
+there’s no devil that could catch him now; I suspect, however, that
+affection and hunger will drive him to come looking for me to-night; but
+to-morrow will soon be here and we shall see.”
+
+In short, the puppet-show storm passed off, and all supped in peace and
+good fellowship at Don Quixote’s expense, for he was the height of
+generosity. Before it was daylight the man with the lances and halberds
+took his departure, and soon after daybreak the cousin and the page came
+to bid Don Quixote farewell, the former returning home, the latter
+resuming his journey, towards which, to help him, Don Quixote gave him
+twelve reals. Master Pedro did not care to engage in any more palaver
+with Don Quixote, whom he knew right well; so he rose before the sun, and
+having got together the remains of his show and caught his ape, he too
+went off to seek his adventures. The landlord, who did not know Don
+Quixote, was as much astonished at his mad freaks as at his generosity.
+To conclude, Sancho, by his master’s orders, paid him very liberally, and
+taking leave of him they quitted the inn at about eight in the morning
+and took to the road, where we will leave them to pursue their journey,
+for this is necessary in order to allow certain other matters to be set
+forth, which are required to clear up this famous history.
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+Cide Hamete, the chronicler of this great history, begins this chapter
+with these words, “I swear as a Catholic Christian;” with regard to which
+his translator says that Cide Hamete’s swearing as a Catholic Christian,
+he being--as no doubt he was--a Moor, only meant that, just as a Catholic
+Christian taking an oath swears, or ought to swear, what is true, and
+tell the truth in what he avers, so he was telling the truth, as much as
+if he swore as a Catholic Christian, in all he chose to write about
+Quixote, especially in declaring who Master Pedro was and what was the
+divining ape that astonished all the villages with his divinations. He
+says, then, that he who has read the First Part of this history will
+remember well enough the Gines de Pasamonte whom, with other galley
+slaves, Don Quixote set free in the Sierra Morena: a kindness for which
+he afterwards got poor thanks and worse payment from that evil-minded,
+ill-conditioned set. This Gines de Pasamonte--Don Ginesillo de Parapilla,
+Don Quixote called him--it was that stole Dapple from Sancho Panza;
+which, because by the fault of the printers neither the how nor the when
+was stated in the First Part, has been a puzzle to a good many people,
+who attribute to the bad memory of the author what was the error of the
+press. In fact, however, Gines stole him while Sancho Panza was asleep on
+his back, adopting the plan and device that Brunello had recourse to when
+he stole Sacripante’s horse from between his legs at the siege of
+Albracca; and, as has been told, Sancho afterwards recovered him. This
+Gines, then, afraid of being caught by the officers of justice, who were
+looking for him to punish him for his numberless rascalities and offences
+(which were so many and so great that he himself wrote a big book giving
+an account of them), resolved to shift his quarters into the kingdom of
+Aragon, and cover up his left eye, and take up the trade of a
+puppet-showman; for this, as well as juggling, he knew how to practise to
+perfection. From some released Christians returning from Barbary, it so
+happened, he bought the ape, which he taught to mount upon his shoulder
+on his making a certain sign, and to whisper, or seem to do so, in his
+ear. Thus prepared, before entering any village whither he was bound with
+his show and his ape, he used to inform himself at the nearest village,
+or from the most likely person he could find, as to what particular
+things had happened there, and to whom; and bearing them well in mind,
+the first thing he did was to exhibit his show, sometimes one story,
+sometimes another, but all lively, amusing, and familiar. As soon as the
+exhibition was over he brought forward the accomplishments of his ape,
+assuring the public that he divined all the past and the present, but as
+to the future he had no skill. For each question answered he asked two
+reals, and for some he made a reduction, just as he happened to feel the
+pulse of the questioners; and when now and then he came to houses where
+things that he knew of had happened to the people living there, even if
+they did not ask him a question, not caring to pay for it, he would make
+the sign to the ape and then declare that it had said so and so, which
+fitted the case exactly. In this way he acquired a prodigious name and
+all ran after him; on other occasions, being very crafty, he would answer
+in such a way that the answers suited the questions; and as no one
+cross-questioned him or pressed him to tell how his ape divined, he made
+fools of them all and filled his pouch. The instant he entered the inn he
+knew Don Quixote and Sancho, and with that knowledge it was easy for him
+to astonish them and all who were there; but it would have cost him dear
+had Don Quixote brought down his hand a little lower when he cut off King
+Marsilio’s head and destroyed all his horsemen, as related in the
+preceeding chapter.
+
+So much for Master Pedro and his ape; and now to return to Don Quixote of
+La Mancha. After he had left the inn he determined to visit, first of
+all, the banks of the Ebro and that neighbourhood, before entering the
+city of Saragossa, for the ample time there was still to spare before the
+jousts left him enough for all. With this object in view he followed the
+road and travelled along it for two days, without meeting any adventure
+worth committing to writing until on the third day, as he was ascending a
+hill, he heard a great noise of drums, trumpets, and musket-shots. At
+first he imagined some regiment of soldiers was passing that way, and to
+see them he spurred Rocinante and mounted the hill. On reaching the top
+he saw at the foot of it over two hundred men, as it seemed to him, armed
+with weapons of various sorts, lances, crossbows, partisans, halberds,
+and pikes, and a few muskets and a great many bucklers. He descended the
+slope and approached the band near enough to see distinctly the flags,
+make out the colours and distinguish the devices they bore, especially
+one on a standard or ensign of white satin, on which there was painted in
+a very life-like style an ass like a little sard, with its head up, its
+mouth open and its tongue out, as if it were in the act and attitude of
+braying; and round it were inscribed in large characters these two lines--
+
+They did not bray in vain,
+Our alcaldes twain.
+
+From this device Don Quixote concluded that these people must be from the
+braying town, and he said so to Sancho, explaining to him what was
+written on the standard. At the same time he observed that the man who
+had told them about the matter was wrong in saying that the two who
+brayed were regidors, for according to the lines of the standard they
+were alcaldes. To which Sancho replied, “Señor, there’s nothing to stick
+at in that, for maybe the regidors who brayed then came to be alcaldes of
+their town afterwards, and so they may go by both titles; moreover, it
+has nothing to do with the truth of the story whether the brayers were
+alcaldes or regidors, provided at any rate they did bray; for an alcalde
+is just as likely to bray as a regidor.” They perceived, in short,
+clearly that the town which had been twitted had turned out to do battle
+with some other that had jeered it more than was fair or neighbourly.
+
+Don Quixote proceeded to join them, not a little to Sancho’s uneasiness,
+for he never relished mixing himself up in expeditions of that sort. The
+members of the troop received him into the midst of them, taking him to
+be some one who was on their side. Don Quixote, putting up his visor,
+advanced with an easy bearing and demeanour to the standard with the ass,
+and all the chief men of the army gathered round him to look at him,
+staring at him with the usual amazement that everybody felt on seeing him
+for the first time. Don Quixote, seeing them examining him so
+attentively, and that none of them spoke to him or put any question to
+him, determined to take advantage of their silence; so, breaking his own,
+he lifted up his voice and said, “Worthy sirs, I entreat you as earnestly
+as I can not to interrupt an argument I wish to address to you, until you
+find it displeases or wearies you; and if that come to pass, on the
+slightest hint you give me I will put a seal upon my lips and a gag upon
+my tongue.”
+
+They all bade him say what he liked, for they would listen to him
+willingly.
+
+With this permission Don Quixote went on to say, “I, sirs, am a
+knight-errant whose calling is that of arms, and whose profession is to
+protect those who require protection, and give help to such as stand in
+need of it. Some days ago I became acquainted with your misfortune and
+the cause which impels you to take up arms again and again to revenge
+yourselves upon your enemies; and having many times thought over your
+business in my mind, I find that, according to the laws of combat, you
+are mistaken in holding yourselves insulted; for a private individual
+cannot insult an entire community; unless it be by defying it
+collectively as a traitor, because he cannot tell who in particular is
+guilty of the treason for which he defies it. Of this we have an example
+in Don Diego Ordonez de Lara, who defied the whole town of Zamora,
+because he did not know that Vellido Dolfos alone had committed the
+treachery of slaying his king; and therefore he defied them all, and the
+vengeance and the reply concerned all; though, to be sure, Señor Don
+Diego went rather too far, indeed very much beyond the limits of a
+defiance; for he had no occasion to defy the dead, or the waters, or the
+fishes, or those yet unborn, and all the rest of it as set forth; but let
+that pass, for when anger breaks out there’s no father, governor, or
+bridle to check the tongue. The case being, then, that no one person can
+insult a kingdom, province, city, state, or entire community, it is clear
+there is no reason for going out to avenge the defiance of such an
+insult, inasmuch as it is not one. A fine thing it would be if the people
+of the clock town were to be at loggerheads every moment with everyone
+who called them by that name,--or the Cazoleros, Berengeneros,
+Ballenatos, Jaboneros, or the bearers of all the other names and titles
+that are always in the mouth of the boys and common people! It would be a
+nice business indeed if all these illustrious cities were to take huff
+and revenge themselves and go about perpetually making trombones of their
+swords in every petty quarrel! No, no; God forbid! There are four things
+for which sensible men and well-ordered States ought to take up arms,
+draw their swords, and risk their persons, lives, and properties. The
+first is to defend the Catholic faith; the second, to defend one’s life,
+which is in accordance with natural and divine law; the third, in defence
+of one’s honour, family, and property; the fourth, in the service of
+one’s king in a just war; and if to these we choose to add a fifth (which
+may be included in the second), in defence of one’s country. To these
+five, as it were capital causes, there may be added some others that may
+be just and reasonable, and make it a duty to take up arms; but to take
+them up for trifles and things to laugh at and be amused by rather than
+offended, looks as though he who did so was altogether wanting in common
+sense. Moreover, to take an unjust revenge (and there cannot be any just
+one) is directly opposed to the sacred law that we acknowledge, wherein
+we are commanded to do good to our enemies and to love them that hate us;
+a command which, though it seems somewhat difficult to obey, is only so
+to those who have in them less of God than of the world, and more of the
+flesh than of the spirit; for Jesus Christ, God and true man, who never
+lied, and could not and cannot lie, said, as our law-giver, that his yoke
+was easy and his burden light; he would not, therefore, have laid any
+command upon us that it was impossible to obey. Thus, sirs, you are bound
+to keep quiet by human and divine law.”
+
+“The devil take me,” said Sancho to himself at this, “but this master of
+mine is a theologian; or, if not, faith, he’s as like one as one egg is
+like another.”
+
+Don Quixote stopped to take breath, and, observing that silence was still
+preserved, had a mind to continue his discourse, and would have done so
+had not Sancho interposed with his smartness; for he, seeing his master
+pause, took the lead, saying, “My lord Don Quixote of La Mancha, who once
+was called the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, but now is called the
+Knight of the Lions, is a gentleman of great discretion who knows Latin
+and his mother tongue like a bachelor, and in everything that he deals
+with or advises proceeds like a good soldier, and has all the laws and
+ordinances of what they call combat at his fingers’ ends; so you have
+nothing to do but to let yourselves be guided by what he says, and on my
+head be it if it is wrong. Besides which, you have been told that it is
+folly to take offence at merely hearing a bray. I remember when I was a
+boy I brayed as often as I had a fancy, without anyone hindering me, and
+so elegantly and naturally that when I brayed all the asses in the town
+would bray; but I was none the less for that the son of my parents who
+were greatly respected; and though I was envied because of the gift by
+more than one of the high and mighty ones of the town, I did not care two
+farthings for it; and that you may see I am telling the truth, wait a bit
+and listen, for this art, like swimming, once learnt is never forgotten;”
+ and then, taking hold of his nose, he began to bray so vigorously that
+all the valleys around rang again.
+
+One of those, however, that stood near him, fancying he was mocking them,
+lifted up a long staff he had in his hand and smote him such a blow with
+it that Sancho dropped helpless to the ground. Don Quixote, seeing him so
+roughly handled, attacked the man who had struck him lance in hand, but
+so many thrust themselves between them that he could not avenge him. Far
+from it, finding a shower of stones rained upon him, and crossbows and
+muskets unnumbered levelled at him, he wheeled Rocinante round and, as
+fast as his best gallop could take him, fled from the midst of them,
+commending himself to God with all his heart to deliver him out of this
+peril, in dread every step of some ball coming in at his back and coming
+out at his breast, and every minute drawing his breath to see whether it
+had gone from him. The members of the band, however, were satisfied with
+seeing him take to flight, and did not fire on him. They put up Sancho,
+scarcely restored to his senses, on his ass, and let him go after his
+master; not that he was sufficiently in his wits to guide the beast, but
+Dapple followed the footsteps of Rocinante, from whom he could not remain
+a moment separated. Don Quixote having got some way off looked back, and
+seeing Sancho coming, waited for him, as he perceived that no one
+followed him. The men of the troop stood their ground till night, and as
+the enemy did not come out to battle, they returned to their town
+exulting; and had they been aware of the ancient custom of the Greeks,
+they would have erected a trophy on the spot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+OF MATTERS THAT BENENGELI SAYS HE WHO READS THEM WILL KNOW, IF HE READS
+THEM WITH ATTENTION
+
+
+When the brave man flees, treachery is manifest and it is for wise men to
+reserve themselves for better occasions. This proved to be the case with
+Don Quixote, who, giving way before the fury of the townsfolk and the
+hostile intentions of the angry troop, took to flight and, without a
+thought of Sancho or the danger in which he was leaving him, retreated to
+such a distance as he thought made him safe. Sancho, lying across his
+ass, followed him, as has been said, and at length came up, having by
+this time recovered his senses, and on joining him let himself drop off
+Dapple at Rocinante’s feet, sore, bruised, and belaboured. Don Quixote
+dismounted to examine his wounds, but finding him whole from head to
+foot, he said to him, angrily enough, “In an evil hour didst thou take to
+braying, Sancho! Where hast thou learned that it is well done to mention
+the rope in the house of the man that has been hanged? To the music of
+brays what harmonies couldst thou expect to get but cudgels? Give thanks
+to God, Sancho, that they signed the cross on thee just now with a stick,
+and did not mark thee per signum crucis with a cutlass.”
+
+“I’m not equal to answering,” said Sancho, “for I feel as if I was
+speaking through my shoulders; let us mount and get away from this; I’ll
+keep from braying, but not from saying that knights-errant fly and leave
+their good squires to be pounded like privet, or made meal of at the
+hands of their enemies.”
+
+“He does not fly who retires,” returned Don Quixote; “for I would have
+thee know, Sancho, that the valour which is not based upon a foundation
+of prudence is called rashness, and the exploits of the rash man are to
+be attributed rather to good fortune than to courage; and so I own that I
+retired, but not that I fled; and therein I have followed the example of
+many valiant men who have reserved themselves for better times; the
+histories are full of instances of this, but as it would not be any good
+to thee or pleasure to me, I will not recount them to thee now.”
+
+Sancho was by this time mounted with the help of Don Quixote, who then
+himself mounted Rocinante, and at a leisurely pace they proceeded to take
+shelter in a grove which was in sight about a quarter of a league off.
+Every now and then Sancho gave vent to deep sighs and dismal groans, and
+on Don Quixote asking him what caused such acute suffering, he replied
+that, from the end of his back-bone up to the nape of his neck, he was so
+sore that it nearly drove him out of his senses.
+
+“The cause of that soreness,” said Don Quixote, “will be, no doubt, that
+the staff wherewith they smote thee being a very long one, it caught thee
+all down the back, where all the parts that are sore are situated, and
+had it reached any further thou wouldst be sorer still.”
+
+“By God,” said Sancho, “your worship has relieved me of a great doubt,
+and cleared up the point for me in elegant style! Body o’ me! is the
+cause of my soreness such a mystery that there’s any need to tell me I am
+sore everywhere the staff hit me? If it was my ankles that pained me
+there might be something in going divining why they did, but it is not
+much to divine that I’m sore where they thrashed me. By my faith, master
+mine, the ills of others hang by a hair; every day I am discovering more
+and more how little I have to hope for from keeping company with your
+worship; for if this time you have allowed me to be drubbed, the next
+time, or a hundred times more, we’ll have the blanketings of the other
+day over again, and all the other pranks which, if they have fallen on my
+shoulders now, will be thrown in my teeth by-and-by. I would do a great
+deal better (if I was not an ignorant brute that will never do any good
+all my life), I would do a great deal better, I say, to go home to my
+wife and children and support them and bring them up on what God may
+please to give me, instead of following your worship along roads that
+lead nowhere and paths that are none at all, with little to drink and
+less to eat. And then when it comes to sleeping! Measure out seven feet
+on the earth, brother squire, and if that’s not enough for you, take as
+many more, for you may have it all your own way and stretch yourself to
+your heart’s content. Oh that I could see burnt and turned to ashes the
+first man that meddled with knight-errantry or at any rate the first who
+chose to be squire to such fools as all the knights-errant of past times
+must have been! Of those of the present day I say nothing, because, as
+your worship is one of them, I respect them, and because I know your
+worship knows a point more than the devil in all you say and think.”
+
+“I would lay a good wager with you, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that now
+that you are talking on without anyone to stop you, you don’t feel a pain
+in your whole body. Talk away, my son, say whatever comes into your head
+or mouth, for so long as you feel no pain, the irritation your
+impertinences give me will be a pleasure to me; and if you are so anxious
+to go home to your wife and children, God forbid that I should prevent
+you; you have money of mine; see how long it is since we left our village
+this third time, and how much you can and ought to earn every month, and
+pay yourself out of your own hand.”
+
+“When I worked for Tom Carrasco, the father of the bachelor Samson
+Carrasco that your worship knows,” replied Sancho, “I used to earn two
+ducats a month besides my food; I can’t tell what I can earn with your
+worship, though I know a knight-errant’s squire has harder times of it
+than he who works for a farmer; for after all, we who work for farmers,
+however much we toil all day, at the worst, at night, we have our olla
+supper and sleep in a bed, which I have not slept in since I have been in
+your worship’s service, if it wasn’t the short time we were in Don Diego
+de Miranda’s house, and the feast I had with the skimmings I took off
+Camacho’s pots, and what I ate, drank, and slept in Basilio’s house; all
+the rest of the time I have been sleeping on the hard ground under the
+open sky, exposed to what they call the inclemencies of heaven, keeping
+life in me with scraps of cheese and crusts of bread, and drinking water
+either from the brooks or from the springs we come to on these by-paths
+we travel.”
+
+“I own, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that all thou sayest is true; how
+much, thinkest thou, ought I to give thee over and above what Tom
+Carrasco gave thee?”
+
+“I think,” said Sancho, “that if your worship was to add on two reals a
+month I’d consider myself well paid; that is, as far as the wages of my
+labour go; but to make up to me for your worship’s pledge and promise to
+me to give me the government of an island, it would be fair to add six
+reals more, making thirty in all.”
+
+“Very good,” said Don Quixote; “it is twenty-five days since we left our
+village, so reckon up, Sancho, according to the wages you have made out
+for yourself, and see how much I owe you in proportion, and pay yourself,
+as I said before, out of your own hand.”
+
+“O body o’ me!” said Sancho, “but your worship is very much out in that
+reckoning; for when it comes to the promise of the island we must count
+from the day your worship promised it to me to this present hour we are
+at now.”
+
+“Well, how long is it, Sancho, since I promised it to you?” said Don
+Quixote.
+
+“If I remember rightly,” said Sancho, “it must be over twenty years,
+three days more or less.”
+
+Don Quixote gave himself a great slap on the forehead and began to laugh
+heartily, and said he, “Why, I have not been wandering, either in the
+Sierra Morena or in the whole course of our sallies, but barely two
+months, and thou sayest, Sancho, that it is twenty years since I promised
+thee the island. I believe now thou wouldst have all the money thou hast
+of mine go in thy wages. If so, and if that be thy pleasure, I give it to
+thee now, once and for all, and much good may it do thee, for so long as
+I see myself rid of such a good-for-nothing squire I’ll be glad to be
+left a pauper without a rap. But tell me, thou perverter of the squirely
+rules of knight-errantry, where hast thou ever seen or read that any
+knight-errant’s squire made terms with his lord, ‘you must give me so
+much a month for serving you’? Plunge, scoundrel, rogue, monster--for
+such I take thee to be--plunge, I say, into the mare magnum of their
+histories; and if thou shalt find that any squire ever said or thought
+what thou hast said now, I will let thee nail it on my forehead, and give
+me, over and above, four sound slaps in the face. Turn the rein, or the
+halter, of thy Dapple, and begone home; for one single step further thou
+shalt not make in my company. O bread thanklessly received! O promises
+ill-bestowed! O man more beast than human being! Now, when I was about to
+raise thee to such a position, that, in spite of thy wife, they would
+call thee ‘my lord,’ thou art leaving me? Thou art going now when I had a
+firm and fixed intention of making thee lord of the best island in the
+world? Well, as thou thyself hast said before now, honey is not for the
+mouth of the ass. Ass thou art, ass thou wilt be, and ass thou wilt end
+when the course of thy life is run; for I know it will come to its close
+before thou dost perceive or discern that thou art a beast.”
+
+Sancho regarded Don Quixote earnestly while he was giving him this
+rating, and was so touched by remorse that the tears came to his eyes,
+and in a piteous and broken voice he said to him, “Master mine, I confess
+that, to be a complete ass, all I want is a tail; if your worship will
+only fix one on to me, I’ll look on it as rightly placed, and I’ll serve
+you as an ass all the remaining days of my life. Forgive me and have pity
+on my folly, and remember I know but little, and, if I talk much, it’s
+more from infirmity than malice; but he who sins and mends commends
+himself to God.”
+
+“I should have been surprised, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “if thou hadst
+not introduced some bit of a proverb into thy speech. Well, well, I
+forgive thee, provided thou dost mend and not show thyself in future so
+fond of thine own interest, but try to be of good cheer and take heart,
+and encourage thyself to look forward to the fulfillment of my promises,
+which, by being delayed, does not become impossible.”
+
+Sancho said he would do so, and keep up his heart as best he could. They
+then entered the grove, and Don Quixote settled himself at the foot of an
+elm, and Sancho at that of a beech, for trees of this kind and others
+like them always have feet but no hands. Sancho passed the night in pain,
+for with the evening dews the blow of the staff made itself felt all the
+more. Don Quixote passed it in his never-failing meditations; but, for
+all that, they had some winks of sleep, and with the appearance of
+daylight they pursued their journey in quest of the banks of the famous
+Ebro, where that befell them which will be told in the following chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+OF THE FAMOUS ADVENTURE OF THE ENCHANTED BARK
+
+
+By stages as already described or left undescribed, two days after
+quitting the grove Don Quixote and Sancho reached the river Ebro, and the
+sight of it was a great delight to Don Quixote as he contemplated and
+gazed upon the charms of its banks, the clearness of its stream, the
+gentleness of its current and the abundance of its crystal waters; and
+the pleasant view revived a thousand tender thoughts in his mind. Above
+all, he dwelt upon what he had seen in the cave of Montesinos; for though
+Master Pedro’s ape had told him that of those things part was true, part
+false, he clung more to their truth than to their falsehood, the very
+reverse of Sancho, who held them all to be downright lies.
+
+As they were thus proceeding, then, they discovered a small boat, without
+oars or any other gear, that lay at the water’s edge tied to the stem of
+a tree growing on the bank. Don Quixote looked all round, and seeing
+nobody, at once, without more ado, dismounted from Rocinante and bade
+Sancho get down from Dapple and tie both beasts securely to the trunk of
+a poplar or willow that stood there. Sancho asked him the reason of this
+sudden dismounting and tying. Don Quixote made answer, “Thou must know,
+Sancho, that this bark is plainly, and without the possibility of any
+alternative, calling and inviting me to enter it, and in it go to give
+aid to some knight or other person of distinction in need of it, who is
+no doubt in some sore strait; for this is the way of the books of
+chivalry and of the enchanters who figure and speak in them. When a
+knight is involved in some difficulty from which he cannot be delivered
+save by the hand of another knight, though they may be at a distance of
+two or three thousand leagues or more one from the other, they either
+take him up on a cloud, or they provide a bark for him to get into, and
+in less than the twinkling of an eye they carry him where they will and
+where his help is required; and so, Sancho, this bark is placed here for
+the same purpose; this is as true as that it is now day, and ere this one
+passes tie Dapple and Rocinante together, and then in God’s hand be it to
+guide us; for I would not hold back from embarking, though barefooted
+friars were to beg me.”
+
+“As that’s the case,” said Sancho, “and your worship chooses to give in
+to these--I don’t know if I may call them absurdities--at every turn,
+there’s nothing for it but to obey and bow the head, bearing in mind the
+proverb, ‘Do as thy master bids thee, and sit down to table with him;’
+but for all that, for the sake of easing my conscience, I warn your
+worship that it is my opinion this bark is no enchanted one, but belongs
+to some of the fishermen of the river, for they catch the best shad in
+the world here.”
+
+As Sancho said this, he tied the beasts, leaving them to the care and
+protection of the enchanters with sorrow enough in his heart. Don Quixote
+bade him not be uneasy about deserting the animals, “for he who would
+carry themselves over such longinquous roads and regions would take care
+to feed them.”
+
+“I don’t understand that logiquous,” said Sancho, “nor have I ever heard
+the word all the days of my life.”
+
+“Longinquous,” replied Don Quixote, “means far off; but it is no wonder
+thou dost not understand it, for thou art not bound to know Latin, like
+some who pretend to know it and don’t.”
+
+“Now they are tied,” said Sancho; “what are we to do next?”
+
+“What?” said Don Quixote, “cross ourselves and weigh anchor; I mean,
+embark and cut the moorings by which the bark is held;” and the bark
+began to drift away slowly from the bank. But when Sancho saw himself
+somewhere about two yards out in the river, he began to tremble and give
+himself up for lost; but nothing distressed him more than hearing Dapple
+bray and seeing Rocinante struggling to get loose, and said he to his
+master, “Dapple is braying in grief at our leaving him, and Rocinante is
+trying to escape and plunge in after us. O dear friends, peace be with
+you, and may this madness that is taking us away from you, turned into
+sober sense, bring us back to you.” And with this he fell weeping so
+bitterly, that Don Quixote said to him, sharply and angrily, “What art
+thou afraid of, cowardly creature? What art thou weeping at, heart of
+butter-paste? Who pursues or molests thee, thou soul of a tame mouse?
+What dost thou want, unsatisfied in the very heart of abundance? Art
+thou, perchance, tramping barefoot over the Riphaean mountains, instead
+of being seated on a bench like an archduke on the tranquil stream of
+this pleasant river, from which in a short space we shall come out upon
+the broad sea? But we must have already emerged and gone seven hundred or
+eight hundred leagues; and if I had here an astrolabe to take the
+altitude of the pole, I could tell thee how many we have travelled,
+though either I know little, or we have already crossed or shall shortly
+cross the equinoctial line which parts the two opposite poles midway.”
+
+“And when we come to that line your worship speaks of,” said Sancho, “how
+far shall we have gone?”
+
+“Very far,” said Don Quixote, “for of the three hundred and sixty degrees
+that this terraqueous globe contains, as computed by Ptolemy, the
+greatest cosmographer known, we shall have travelled one-half when we
+come to the line I spoke of.”
+
+“By God,” said Sancho, “your worship gives me a nice authority for what
+you say, putrid Dolly something transmogrified, or whatever it is.”
+
+Don Quixote laughed at the interpretation Sancho put upon “computed,” and
+the name of the cosmographer Ptolemy, and said he, “Thou must know,
+Sancho, that with the Spaniards and those who embark at Cadiz for the
+East Indies, one of the signs they have to show them when they have
+passed the equinoctial line I told thee of, is, that the lice die upon
+everybody on board the ship, and not a single one is left, or to be found
+in the whole vessel if they gave its weight in gold for it; so, Sancho,
+thou mayest as well pass thy hand down thy thigh, and if thou comest upon
+anything alive we shall be no longer in doubt; if not, then we have
+crossed.”
+
+“I don’t believe a bit of it,” said Sancho; “still, I’ll do as your
+worship bids me; though I don’t know what need there is for trying these
+experiments, for I can see with my own eyes that we have not moved five
+yards away from the bank, or shifted two yards from where the animals
+stand, for there are Rocinante and Dapple in the very same place where we
+left them; and watching a point, as I do now, I swear by all that’s good,
+we are not stirring or moving at the pace of an ant.”
+
+“Try the test I told thee of, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and don’t mind
+any other, for thou knowest nothing about colures, lines, parallels,
+zodiacs, ecliptics, poles, solstices, equinoxes, planets, signs,
+bearings, the measures of which the celestial and terrestrial spheres are
+composed; if thou wert acquainted with all these things, or any portion
+of them, thou wouldst see clearly how many parallels we have cut, what
+signs we have seen, and what constellations we have left behind and are
+now leaving behind. But again I tell thee, feel and hunt, for I am
+certain thou art cleaner than a sheet of smooth white paper.”
+
+Sancho felt, and passing his hand gently and carefully down to the hollow
+of his left knee, he looked up at his master and said, “Either the test
+is a false one, or we have not come to where your worship says, nor
+within many leagues of it.”
+
+“Why, how so?” asked Don Quixote; “hast thou come upon aught?”
+
+“Ay, and aughts,” replied Sancho; and shaking his fingers he washed his
+whole hand in the river along which the boat was quietly gliding in
+midstream, not moved by any occult intelligence or invisible enchanter,
+but simply by the current, just there smooth and gentle.
+
+They now came in sight of some large water mills that stood in the middle
+of the river, and the instant Don Quixote saw them he cried out, “Seest
+thou there, my friend? there stands the castle or fortress, where there
+is, no doubt, some knight in durance, or ill-used queen, or infanta, or
+princess, in whose aid I am brought hither.”
+
+“What the devil city, fortress, or castle is your worship talking about,
+señor?” said Sancho; “don’t you see that those are mills that stand in
+the river to grind corn?”
+
+“Hold thy peace, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “though they look like mills
+they are not so; I have already told thee that enchantments transform
+things and change their proper shapes; I do not mean to say they really
+change them from one form into another, but that it seems as though they
+did, as experience proved in the transformation of Dulcinea, sole refuge
+of my hopes.”
+
+By this time, the boat, having reached the middle of the stream, began to
+move less slowly than hitherto. The millers belonging to the mills, when
+they saw the boat coming down the river, and on the point of being sucked
+in by the draught of the wheels, ran out in haste, several of them, with
+long poles to stop it, and being all mealy, with faces and garments
+covered with flour, they presented a sinister appearance. They raised
+loud shouts, crying, “Devils of men, where are you going to? Are you mad?
+Do you want to drown yourselves, or dash yourselves to pieces among these
+wheels?”
+
+“Did I not tell thee, Sancho,” said Don Quixote at this, “that we had
+reached the place where I am to show what the might of my arm can do? See
+what ruffians and villains come out against me; see what monsters oppose
+me; see what hideous countenances come to frighten us! You shall soon
+see, scoundrels!” And then standing up in the boat he began in a loud
+voice to hurl threats at the millers, exclaiming, “Ill-conditioned and
+worse-counselled rabble, restore to liberty and freedom the person ye
+hold in durance in this your fortress or prison, high or low or of
+whatever rank or quality he be, for I am Don Quixote of La Mancha,
+otherwise called the Knight of the Lions, for whom, by the disposition of
+heaven above, it is reserved to give a happy issue to this adventure;”
+ and so saying he drew his sword and began making passes in the air at the
+millers, who, hearing but not understanding all this nonsense, strove to
+stop the boat, which was now getting into the rushing channel of the
+wheels. Sancho fell upon his knees devoutly appealing to heaven to
+deliver him from such imminent peril; which it did by the activity and
+quickness of the millers, who, pushing against the boat with their poles,
+stopped it, not, however, without upsetting and throwing Don Quixote and
+Sancho into the water; and lucky it was for Don Quixote that he could
+swim like a goose, though the weight of his armour carried him twice to
+the bottom; and had it not been for the millers, who plunged in and
+hoisted them both out, it would have been Troy town with the pair of
+them. As soon as, more drenched than thirsty, they were landed, Sancho
+went down on his knees and with clasped hands and eyes raised to heaven,
+prayed a long and fervent prayer to God to deliver him evermore from the
+rash projects and attempts of his master. The fishermen, the owners of
+the boat, which the mill-wheels had knocked to pieces, now came up, and
+seeing it smashed they proceeded to strip Sancho and to demand payment
+for it from Don Quixote; but he with great calmness, just as if nothing
+had happened him, told the millers and fishermen that he would pay for
+the bark most cheerfully, on condition that they delivered up to him,
+free and unhurt, the person or persons that were in durance in that
+castle of theirs.
+
+“What persons or what castle art thou talking of, madman? Art thou for
+carrying off the people who come to grind corn in these mills?”
+
+“That’s enough,” said Don Quixote to himself, “it would be preaching in
+the desert to attempt by entreaties to induce this rabble to do any
+virtuous action. In this adventure two mighty enchanters must have
+encountered one another, and one frustrates what the other attempts; one
+provided the bark for me, and the other upset me; God help us, this world
+is all machinations and schemes at cross purposes one with the other. I
+can do no more.” And then turning towards the mills he said aloud,
+“Friends, whoe’er ye be that are immured in that prison, forgive me that,
+to my misfortune and yours, I cannot deliver you from your misery; this
+adventure is doubtless reserved and destined for some other knight.”
+
+So saying he settled with the fishermen, and paid fifty reals for the
+boat, which Sancho handed to them very much against the grain, saying,
+“With a couple more bark businesses like this we shall have sunk our
+whole capital.”
+
+The fishermen and the millers stood staring in amazement at the two
+figures, so very different to all appearance from ordinary men, and were
+wholly unable to make out the drift of the observations and questions Don
+Quixote addressed to them; and coming to the conclusion that they were
+madmen, they left them and betook themselves, the millers to their mills,
+and the fishermen to their huts. Don Quixote and Sancho returned to their
+beasts, and to their life of beasts, and so ended the adventure of the
+enchanted bark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+OF DON QUIXOTE’S ADVENTURE WITH A FAIR HUNTRESS
+
+
+They reached their beasts in low spirits and bad humour enough, knight
+and squire, Sancho particularly, for with him what touched the stock of
+money touched his heart, and when any was taken from him he felt as if he
+was robbed of the apples of his eyes. In fine, without exchanging a word,
+they mounted and quitted the famous river, Don Quixote absorbed in
+thoughts of his love, Sancho in thinking of his advancement, which just
+then, it seemed to him, he was very far from securing; for, fool as he
+was, he saw clearly enough that his master’s acts were all or most of
+them utterly senseless; and he began to cast about for an opportunity of
+retiring from his service and going home some day, without entering into
+any explanations or taking any farewell of him. Fortune, however, ordered
+matters after a fashion very much the opposite of what he contemplated.
+
+It so happened that the next day towards sunset, on coming out of a wood,
+Don Quixote cast his eyes over a green meadow, and at the far end of it
+observed some people, and as he drew nearer saw that it was a hawking
+party. Coming closer, he distinguished among them a lady of graceful
+mien, on a pure white palfrey or hackney caparisoned with green trappings
+and a silver-mounted side-saddle. The lady was also in green, and so
+richly and splendidly dressed that splendour itself seemed personified in
+her. On her left hand she bore a hawk, a proof to Don Quixote’s mind that
+she must be some great lady and the mistress of the whole hunting party,
+which was the fact; so he said to Sancho, “Run Sancho, my son, and say to
+that lady on the palfrey with the hawk that I, the Knight of the Lions,
+kiss the hands of her exalted beauty, and if her excellence will grant me
+leave I will go and kiss them in person and place myself at her service
+for aught that may be in my power and her highness may command; and mind,
+Sancho, how thou speakest, and take care not to thrust in any of thy
+proverbs into thy message.”
+
+“You’ve got a likely one here to thrust any in!” said Sancho; “leave me
+alone for that! Why, this is not the first time in my life I have carried
+messages to high and exalted ladies.”
+
+“Except that thou didst carry to the lady Dulcinea,” said Don Quixote, “I
+know not that thou hast carried any other, at least in my service.”
+
+“That is true,” replied Sancho; “but pledges don’t distress a good payer,
+and in a house where there’s plenty supper is soon cooked; I mean there’s
+no need of telling or warning me about anything; for I’m ready for
+everything and know a little of everything.”
+
+“That I believe, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “go and good luck to thee,
+and God speed thee.”
+
+Sancho went off at top speed, forcing Dapple out of his regular pace, and
+came to where the fair huntress was standing, and dismounting knelt
+before her and said, “Fair lady, that knight that you see there, the
+Knight of the Lions by name, is my master, and I am a squire of his, and
+at home they call me Sancho Panza. This same Knight of the Lions, who was
+called not long since the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, sends by me
+to say may it please your highness to give him leave that, with your
+permission, approbation, and consent, he may come and carry out his
+wishes, which are, as he says and I believe, to serve your exalted
+loftiness and beauty; and if you give it, your ladyship will do a thing
+which will redound to your honour, and he will receive a most
+distinguished favour and happiness.”
+
+“You have indeed, squire,” said the lady, “delivered your message with
+all the formalities such messages require; rise up, for it is not right
+that the squire of a knight so great as he of the Rueful Countenance, of
+whom we have heard a great deal here, should remain on his knees; rise,
+my friend, and bid your master welcome to the services of myself and the
+duke my husband, in a country house we have here.”
+
+Sancho got up, charmed as much by the beauty of the good lady as by her
+high-bred air and her courtesy, but, above all, by what she had said
+about having heard of his master, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance;
+for if she did not call him Knight of the Lions it was no doubt because
+he had so lately taken the name. “Tell me, brother squire,” asked the
+duchess (whose title, however, is not known), “this master of yours, is
+he not one of whom there is a history extant in print, called ‘The
+Ingenious Gentleman, Don Quixote of La Mancha,’ who has for the lady of
+his heart a certain Dulcinea del Toboso?”
+
+“He is the same, señora,” replied Sancho; “and that squire of his who
+figures, or ought to figure, in the said history under the name of Sancho
+Panza, is myself, unless they have changed me in the cradle, I mean in
+the press.”
+
+“I am rejoiced at all this,” said the duchess; “go, brother Panza, and
+tell your master that he is welcome to my estate, and that nothing could
+happen to me that could give me greater pleasure.”
+
+Sancho returned to his master mightily pleased with this gratifying
+answer, and told him all the great lady had said to him, lauding to the
+skies, in his rustic phrase, her rare beauty, her graceful gaiety, and
+her courtesy. Don Quixote drew himself up briskly in his saddle, fixed
+himself in his stirrups, settled his visor, gave Rocinante the spur, and
+with an easy bearing advanced to kiss the hands of the duchess, who,
+having sent to summon the duke her husband, told him while Don Quixote
+was approaching all about the message; and as both of them had read the
+First Part of this history, and from it were aware of Don Quixote’s crazy
+turn, they awaited him with the greatest delight and anxiety to make his
+acquaintance, meaning to fall in with his humour and agree with
+everything he said, and, so long as he stayed with them, to treat him as
+a knight-errant, with all the ceremonies usual in the books of chivalry
+they had read, for they themselves were very fond of them.
+
+Don Quixote now came up with his visor raised, and as he seemed about to
+dismount Sancho made haste to go and hold his stirrup for him; but in
+getting down off Dapple he was so unlucky as to hitch his foot in one of
+the ropes of the pack-saddle in such a way that he was unable to free it,
+and was left hanging by it with his face and breast on the ground. Don
+Quixote, who was not used to dismount without having the stirrup held,
+fancying that Sancho had by this time come to hold it for him, threw
+himself off with a lurch and brought Rocinante’s saddle after him, which
+was no doubt badly girthed, and saddle and he both came to the ground;
+not without discomfiture to him and abundant curses muttered between his
+teeth against the unlucky Sancho, who had his foot still in the shackles.
+The duke ordered his huntsmen to go to the help of knight and squire, and
+they raised Don Quixote, sorely shaken by his fall; and he, limping,
+advanced as best he could to kneel before the noble pair. This, however,
+the duke would by no means permit; on the contrary, dismounting from his
+horse, he went and embraced Don Quixote, saying, “I am grieved, Sir
+Knight of the Rueful Countenance, that your first experience on my ground
+should have been such an unfortunate one as we have seen; but the
+carelessness of squires is often the cause of worse accidents.”
+
+“That which has happened me in meeting you, mighty prince,” replied Don
+Quixote, “cannot be unfortunate, even if my fall had not stopped short of
+the depths of the bottomless pit, for the glory of having seen you would
+have lifted me up and delivered me from it. My squire, God’s curse upon
+him, is better at unloosing his tongue in talking impertinence than in
+tightening the girths of a saddle to keep it steady; but however I may
+be, fallen or raised up, on foot or on horseback, I shall always be at
+your service and that of my lady the duchess, your worthy consort, worthy
+queen of beauty and paramount princess of courtesy.”
+
+“Gently, Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha,” said the duke; “where my lady
+Dona Dulcinea del Toboso is, it is not right that other beauties should
+be praised.”
+
+Sancho, by this time released from his entanglement, was standing by, and
+before his master could answer he said, “There is no denying, and it must
+be maintained, that my lady Dulcinea del Toboso is very beautiful; but
+the hare jumps up where one least expects it; and I have heard say that
+what we call nature is like a potter that makes vessels of clay, and he
+who makes one fair vessel can as well make two, or three, or a hundred; I
+say so because, by my faith, my lady the duchess is in no way behind my
+mistress the lady Dulcinea del Toboso.”
+
+Don Quixote turned to the duchess and said, “Your highness may conceive
+that never had knight-errant in this world a more talkative or a droller
+squire than I have, and he will prove the truth of what I say, if your
+highness is pleased to accept of my services for a few days.”
+
+To which the duchess made answer, “that worthy Sancho is droll I consider
+a very good thing, because it is a sign that he is shrewd; for drollery
+and sprightliness, Señor Don Quixote, as you very well know, do not take
+up their abode with dull wits; and as good Sancho is droll and sprightly
+I here set him down as shrewd.”
+
+“And talkative,” added Don Quixote.
+
+“So much the better,” said the duke, “for many droll things cannot be
+said in few words; but not to lose time in talking, come, great Knight of
+the Rueful Countenance-”
+
+“Of the Lions, your highness must say,” said Sancho, “for there is no
+Rueful Countenance nor any such character now.”
+
+“He of the Lions be it,” continued the duke; “I say, let Sir Knight of
+the Lions come to a castle of mine close by, where he shall be given that
+reception which is due to so exalted a personage, and which the duchess
+and I are wont to give to all knights-errant who come there.”
+
+By this time Sancho had fixed and girthed Rocinante’s saddle, and Don
+Quixote having got on his back and the duke mounted a fine horse, they
+placed the duchess in the middle and set out for the castle. The duchess
+desired Sancho to come to her side, for she found infinite enjoyment in
+listening to his shrewd remarks. Sancho required no pressing, but pushed
+himself in between them and the duke, who thought it rare good fortune to
+receive such a knight-errant and such a homely squire in their castle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+WHICH TREATS OF MANY AND GREAT MATTERS
+
+
+Supreme was the satisfaction that Sancho felt at seeing himself, as it
+seemed, an established favourite with the duchess, for he looked forward
+to finding in her castle what he had found in Don Diego’s house and in
+Basilio’s; he was always fond of good living, and always seized by the
+forelock any opportunity of feasting himself whenever it presented
+itself. The history informs us, then, that before they reached the
+country house or castle, the duke went on in advance and instructed all
+his servants how they were to treat Don Quixote; and so the instant he
+came up to the castle gates with the duchess, two lackeys or equerries,
+clad in what they call morning gowns of fine crimson satin reaching to
+their feet, hastened out, and catching Don Quixote in their arms before
+he saw or heard them, said to him, “Your highness should go and take my
+lady the duchess off her horse.”
+
+Don Quixote obeyed, and great bandying of compliments followed between
+the two over the matter; but in the end the duchess’s determination
+carried the day, and she refused to get down or dismount from her palfrey
+except in the arms of the duke, saying she did not consider herself
+worthy to impose so unnecessary a burden on so great a knight. At length
+the duke came out to take her down, and as they entered a spacious court
+two fair damsels came forward and threw over Don Quixote’s shoulders a
+large mantle of the finest scarlet cloth, and at the same instant all the
+galleries of the court were lined with the men-servants and
+women-servants of the household, crying, “Welcome, flower and cream of
+knight-errantry!” while all or most of them flung pellets filled with
+scented water over Don Quixote and the duke and duchess; at all which Don
+Quixote was greatly astonished, and this was the first time that he
+thoroughly felt and believed himself to be a knight-errant in reality and
+not merely in fancy, now that he saw himself treated in the same way as
+he had read of such knights being treated in days of yore.
+
+Sancho, deserting Dapple, hung on to the duchess and entered the castle,
+but feeling some twinges of conscience at having left the ass alone, he
+approached a respectable duenna who had come out with the rest to receive
+the duchess, and in a low voice he said to her, “Señora Gonzalez, or
+however your grace may be called—”
+
+“I am called Dona Rodriguez de Grijalba,” replied the duenna; “what is
+your will, brother?” To which Sancho made answer, “I should be glad if
+your worship would do me the favour to go out to the castle gate, where
+you will find a grey ass of mine; make them, if you please, put him in
+the stable, or put him there yourself, for the poor little beast is
+rather easily frightened, and cannot bear being alone at all.”
+
+“If the master is as wise as the man,” said the duenna, “we have got a
+fine bargain. Be off with you, brother, and bad luck to you and him who
+brought you here; go, look after your ass, for we, the duennas of this
+house, are not used to work of that sort.”
+
+“Well then, in troth,” returned Sancho, “I have heard my master, who is
+the very treasure-finder of stories, telling the story of Lancelot when
+he came from Britain, say that ladies waited upon him and duennas upon
+his hack; and, if it comes to my ass, I wouldn’t change him for Señor
+Lancelot’s hack.”
+
+“If you are a jester, brother,” said the duenna, “keep your drolleries
+for some place where they’ll pass muster and be paid for; for you’ll get
+nothing from me but a fig.”
+
+“At any rate, it will be a very ripe one,” said Sancho, “for you won’t
+lose the trick in years by a point too little.”
+
+“Son of a bitch,” said the duenna, all aglow with anger, “whether I’m old
+or not, it’s with God I have to reckon, not with you, you garlic-stuffed
+scoundrel!” and she said it so loud, that the duchess heard it, and
+turning round and seeing the duenna in such a state of excitement, and
+her eyes flaming so, asked whom she was wrangling with.
+
+“With this good fellow here,” said the duenna, “who has particularly
+requested me to go and put an ass of his that is at the castle gate into
+the stable, holding it up to me as an example that they did the same I
+don’t know where--that some ladies waited on one Lancelot, and duennas on
+his hack; and what is more, to wind up with, he called me old.”
+
+“That,” said the duchess, “I should have considered the greatest affront
+that could be offered me;” and addressing Sancho, she said to him, “You
+must know, friend Sancho, that Dona Rodriguez is very youthful, and that
+she wears that hood more for authority and custom’s sake than because of
+her years.”
+
+“May all the rest of mine be unlucky,” said Sancho, “if I meant it that
+way; I only spoke because the affection I have for my ass is so great,
+and I thought I could not commend him to a more kind-hearted person than
+the lady Dona Rodriguez.”
+
+Don Quixote, who was listening, said to him, “Is this proper conversation
+for the place, Sancho?”
+
+“Señor,” replied Sancho, “every one must mention what he wants wherever
+he may be; I thought of Dapple here, and I spoke of him here; if I had
+thought of him in the stable I would have spoken there.”
+
+On which the duke observed, “Sancho is quite right, and there is no
+reason at all to find fault with him; Dapple shall be fed to his heart’s
+content, and Sancho may rest easy, for he shall be treated like himself.”
+
+While this conversation, amusing to all except Don Quixote, was
+proceeding, they ascended the staircase and ushered Don Quixote into a
+chamber hung with rich cloth of gold and brocade; six damsels relieved
+him of his armour and waited on him like pages, all of them prepared and
+instructed by the duke and duchess as to what they were to do, and how
+they were to treat Don Quixote, so that he might see and believe they
+were treating him like a knight-errant. When his armour was removed,
+there stood Don Quixote in his tight-fitting breeches and chamois
+doublet, lean, lanky, and long, with cheeks that seemed to be kissing
+each other inside; such a figure, that if the damsels waiting on him had
+not taken care to check their merriment (which was one of the particular
+directions their master and mistress had given them), they would have
+burst with laughter. They asked him to let himself be stripped that they
+might put a shirt on him, but he would not on any account, saying that
+modesty became knights-errant just as much as valour. However, he said
+they might give the shirt to Sancho; and shutting himself in with him in
+a room where there was a sumptuous bed, he undressed and put on the
+shirt; and then, finding himself alone with Sancho, he said to him, “Tell
+me, thou new-fledged buffoon and old booby, dost thou think it right to
+offend and insult a duenna so deserving of reverence and respect as that
+one just now? Was that a time to bethink thee of thy Dapple, or are these
+noble personages likely to let the beasts fare badly when they treat
+their owners in such elegant style? For God’s sake, Sancho, restrain
+thyself, and don’t show the thread so as to let them see what a coarse,
+boorish texture thou art of. Remember, sinner that thou art, the master
+is the more esteemed the more respectable and well-bred his servants are;
+and that one of the greatest advantages that princes have over other men
+is that they have servants as good as themselves to wait on them. Dost
+thou not see--shortsighted being that thou art, and unlucky mortal that I
+am!--that if they perceive thee to be a coarse clown or a dull blockhead,
+they will suspect me to be some impostor or swindler? Nay, nay, Sancho
+friend, keep clear, oh, keep clear of these stumbling-blocks; for he who
+falls into the way of being a chatterbox and droll, drops into a wretched
+buffoon the first time he trips; bridle thy tongue, consider and weigh
+thy words before they escape thy mouth, and bear in mind we are now in
+quarters whence, by God’s help, and the strength of my arm, we shall come
+forth mightily advanced in fame and fortune.”
+
+Sancho promised him with much earnestness to keep his mouth shut, and to
+bite off his tongue before he uttered a word that was not altogether to
+the purpose and well considered, and told him he might make his mind easy
+on that point, for it should never be discovered through him what they
+were.
+
+Don Quixote dressed himself, put on his baldric with his sword, threw the
+scarlet mantle over his shoulders, placed on his head a montera of green
+satin that the damsels had given him, and thus arrayed passed out into
+the large room, where he found the damsels drawn up in double file, the
+same number on each side, all with the appliances for washing the hands,
+which they presented to him with profuse obeisances and ceremonies. Then
+came twelve pages, together with the seneschal, to lead him to dinner, as
+his hosts were already waiting for him. They placed him in the midst of
+them, and with much pomp and stateliness they conducted him into another
+room, where there was a sumptuous table laid with but four covers. The
+duchess and the duke came out to the door of the room to receive him, and
+with them a grave ecclesiastic, one of those who rule noblemen’s houses;
+one of those who, not being born magnates themselves, never know how to
+teach those who are how to behave as such; one of those who would have
+the greatness of great folk measured by their own narrowness of mind; one
+of those who, when they try to introduce economy into the household they
+rule, lead it into meanness. One of this sort, I say, must have been the
+grave churchman who came out with the duke and duchess to receive Don
+Quixote.
+
+A vast number of polite speeches were exchanged, and at length, taking
+Don Quixote between them, they proceeded to sit down to table. The duke
+pressed Don Quixote to take the head of the table, and, though he
+refused, the entreaties of the duke were so urgent that he had to accept
+it.
+
+The ecclesiastic took his seat opposite to him, and the duke and duchess
+those at the sides. All this time Sancho stood by, gaping with amazement
+at the honour he saw shown to his master by these illustrious persons;
+and observing all the ceremonious pressing that had passed between the
+duke and Don Quixote to induce him to take his seat at the head of the
+table, he said, “If your worship will give me leave I will tell you a
+story of what happened in my village about this matter of seats.”
+
+The moment Sancho said this Don Quixote trembled, making sure that he was
+about to say something foolish. Sancho glanced at him, and guessing his
+thoughts, said, “Don’t be afraid of my going astray, señor, or saying
+anything that won’t be pat to the purpose; I haven’t forgotten the advice
+your worship gave me just now about talking much or little, well or ill.”
+
+“I have no recollection of anything, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “say what
+thou wilt, only say it quickly.”
+
+“Well then,” said Sancho, “what I am going to say is so true that my
+master Don Quixote, who is here present, will keep me from lying.”
+
+“Lie as much as thou wilt for all I care, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for
+I am not going to stop thee, but consider what thou art going to say.”
+
+“I have so considered and reconsidered,” said Sancho, “that the
+bell-ringer’s in a safe berth; as will be seen by what follows.”
+
+“It would be well,” said Don Quixote, “if your highnesses would order
+them to turn out this idiot, for he will talk a heap of nonsense.”
+
+“By the life of the duke, Sancho shall not be taken away from me for a
+moment,” said the duchess; “I am very fond of him, for I know he is very
+discreet.”
+
+“Discreet be the days of your holiness,” said Sancho, “for the good
+opinion you have of my wit, though there’s none in me; but the story I
+want to tell is this. There was an invitation given by a gentleman of my
+town, a very rich one, and one of quality, for he was one of the Alamos
+of Medina del Campo, and married to Dona Mencia de Quinones, the daughter
+of Don Alonso de Maranon, Knight of the Order of Santiago, that was
+drowned at the Herradura--him there was that quarrel about years ago in
+our village, that my master Don Quixote was mixed up in, to the best of
+my belief, that Tomasillo the scapegrace, the son of Balbastro the smith,
+was wounded in.--Isn’t all this true, master mine? As you live, say so,
+that these gentlefolk may not take me for some lying chatterer.”
+
+“So far,” said the ecclesiastic, “I take you to be more a chatterer than
+a liar; but I don’t know what I shall take you for by-and-by.”
+
+“Thou citest so many witnesses and proofs, Sancho,” said Don Quixote,
+“that I have no choice but to say thou must be telling the truth; go on,
+and cut the story short, for thou art taking the way not to make an end
+for two days to come.”
+
+“He is not to cut it short,” said the duchess; “on the contrary, for my
+gratification, he is to tell it as he knows it, though he should not
+finish it these six days; and if he took so many they would be to me the
+pleasantest I ever spent.”
+
+“Well then, sirs, I say,” continued Sancho, “that this same gentleman,
+whom I know as well as I do my own hands, for it’s not a bowshot from my
+house to his, invited a poor but respectable labourer—”
+
+“Get on, brother,” said the churchman; “at the rate you are going you
+will not stop with your story short of the next world.”
+
+“I’ll stop less than half-way, please God,” said Sancho; “and so I say
+this labourer, coming to the house of the gentleman I spoke of that
+invited him--rest his soul, he is now dead; and more by token he died the
+death of an angel, so they say; for I was not there, for just at that
+time I had gone to reap at Tembleque—”
+
+“As you live, my son,” said the churchman, “make haste back from
+Tembleque, and finish your story without burying the gentleman, unless
+you want to make more funerals.”
+
+“Well then, it so happened,” said Sancho, “that as the pair of them were
+going to sit down to table--and I think I can see them now plainer than
+ever—”
+
+Great was the enjoyment the duke and duchess derived from the irritation
+the worthy churchman showed at the long-winded, halting way Sancho had of
+telling his story, while Don Quixote was chafing with rage and vexation.
+
+“So, as I was saying,” continued Sancho, “as the pair of them were going
+to sit down to table, as I said, the labourer insisted upon the
+gentleman’s taking the head of the table, and the gentleman insisted upon
+the labourer’s taking it, as his orders should be obeyed in his house;
+but the labourer, who plumed himself on his politeness and good breeding,
+would not on any account, until the gentleman, out of patience, putting
+his hands on his shoulders, compelled him by force to sit down, saying,
+‘Sit down, you stupid lout, for wherever I sit will be the head to you;
+and that’s the story, and, troth, I think it hasn’t been brought in amiss
+here.”
+
+Don Quixote turned all colours, which, on his sunburnt face, mottled it
+till it looked like jasper. The duke and duchess suppressed their
+laughter so as not altogether to mortify Don Quixote, for they saw
+through Sancho’s impertinence; and to change the conversation, and keep
+Sancho from uttering more absurdities, the duchess asked Don Quixote what
+news he had of the lady Dulcinea, and if he had sent her any presents of
+giants or miscreants lately, for he could not but have vanquished a good
+many.
+
+To which Don Quixote replied, “Señora, my misfortunes, though they had a
+beginning, will never have an end. I have vanquished giants and I have
+sent her caitiffs and miscreants; but where are they to find her if she
+is enchanted and turned into the most ill-favoured peasant wench that can
+be imagined?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Sancho Panza; “to me she seems the fairest creature
+in the world; at any rate, in nimbleness and jumping she won’t give in to
+a tumbler; by my faith, señora duchess, she leaps from the ground on to
+the back of an ass like a cat.”
+
+“Have you seen her enchanted, Sancho?” asked the duke.
+
+“What, seen her!” said Sancho; “why, who the devil was it but myself that
+first thought of the enchantment business? She is as much enchanted as my
+father.”
+
+The ecclesiastic, when he heard them talking of giants and caitiffs and
+enchantments, began to suspect that this must be Don Quixote of La
+Mancha, whose story the duke was always reading; and he had himself often
+reproved him for it, telling him it was foolish to read such fooleries;
+and becoming convinced that his suspicion was correct, addressing the
+duke, he said very angrily to him, “Señor, your excellence will have to
+give account to God for what this good man does. This Don Quixote, or Don
+Simpleton, or whatever his name is, cannot, I imagine, be such a
+blockhead as your excellence would have him, holding out encouragement to
+him to go on with his vagaries and follies.” Then turning to address Don
+Quixote he said, “And you, num-skull, who put it into your head that you
+are a knight-errant, and vanquish giants and capture miscreants? Go your
+ways in a good hour, and in a good hour be it said to you. Go home and
+bring up your children if you have any, and attend to your business, and
+give over going wandering about the world, gaping and making a
+laughing-stock of yourself to all who know you and all who don’t. Where,
+in heaven’s name, have you discovered that there are or ever were
+knights-errant? Where are there giants in Spain or miscreants in La
+Mancha, or enchanted Dulcineas, or all the rest of the silly things they
+tell about you?”
+
+Don Quixote listened attentively to the reverend gentleman’s words, and
+as soon as he perceived he had done speaking, regardless of the presence
+of the duke and duchess, he sprang to his feet with angry looks and an
+agitated countenance, and said--But the reply deserves a chapter to
+itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+OF THE REPLY DON QUIXOTE GAVE HIS CENSURER, WITH OTHER INCIDENTS, GRAVE
+AND DROLL
+
+
+Don Quixote, then, having risen to his feet, trembling from head to foot
+like a man dosed with mercury, said in a hurried, agitated voice, “The
+place I am in, the presence in which I stand, and the respect I have and
+always have had for the profession to which your worship belongs, hold
+and bind the hands of my just indignation; and as well for these reasons
+as because I know, as everyone knows, that a gownsman’s weapon is the
+same as a woman’s, the tongue, I will with mine engage in equal combat
+with your worship, from whom one might have expected good advice instead
+of foul abuse. Pious, well-meant reproof requires a different demeanour
+and arguments of another sort; at any rate, to have reproved me in
+public, and so roughly, exceeds the bounds of proper reproof, for that
+comes better with gentleness than with rudeness; and it is not seemly to
+call the sinner roundly blockhead and booby, without knowing anything of
+the sin that is reproved. Come, tell me, for which of the stupidities you
+have observed in me do you condemn and abuse me, and bid me go home and
+look after my house and wife and children, without knowing whether I have
+any? Is nothing more needed than to get a footing, by hook or by crook,
+in other people’s houses to rule over the masters (and that, perhaps,
+after having been brought up in all the straitness of some seminary, and
+without having ever seen more of the world than may lie within twenty or
+thirty leagues round), to fit one to lay down the law rashly for
+chivalry, and pass judgment on knights-errant? Is it, haply, an idle
+occupation, or is the time ill-spent that is spent in roaming the world
+in quest, not of its enjoyments, but of those arduous toils whereby the
+good mount upwards to the abodes of everlasting life? If gentlemen, great
+lords, nobles, men of high birth, were to rate me as a fool I should take
+it as an irreparable insult; but I care not a farthing if clerks who have
+never entered upon or trod the paths of chivalry should think me foolish.
+Knight I am, and knight I will die, if such be the pleasure of the Most
+High. Some take the broad road of overweening ambition; others that of
+mean and servile flattery; others that of deceitful hypocrisy, and some
+that of true religion; but I, led by my star, follow the narrow path of
+knight-errantry, and in pursuit of that calling I despise wealth, but not
+honour. I have redressed injuries, righted wrongs, punished insolences,
+vanquished giants, and crushed monsters; I am in love, for no other
+reason than that it is incumbent on knights-errant to be so; but though I
+am, I am no carnal-minded lover, but one of the chaste, platonic sort. My
+intentions are always directed to worthy ends, to do good to all and evil
+to none; and if he who means this, does this, and makes this his practice
+deserves to be called a fool, it is for your highnesses to say, O most
+excellent duke and duchess.”
+
+“Good, by God!” cried Sancho; “say no more in your own defence, master
+mine, for there’s nothing more in the world to be said, thought, or
+insisted on; and besides, when this gentleman denies, as he has, that
+there are or ever have been any knights-errant in the world, is it any
+wonder if he knows nothing of what he has been talking about?”
+
+“Perhaps, brother,” said the ecclesiastic, “you are that Sancho Panza
+that is mentioned, to whom your master has promised an island?”
+
+“Yes, I am,” said Sancho, “and what’s more, I am one who deserves it as
+much as anyone; I am one of the sort--‘Attach thyself to the good, and
+thou wilt be one of them,’ and of those, ‘Not with whom thou art bred,
+but with whom thou art fed,’ and of those, ‘Who leans against a good
+tree, a good shade covers him;’ I have leant upon a good master, and I
+have been for months going about with him, and please God I shall be just
+such another; long life to him and long life to me, for neither will he
+be in any want of empires to rule, or I of islands to govern.”
+
+“No, Sancho my friend, certainly not,” said the duke, “for in the name of
+Señor Don Quixote I confer upon you the government of one of no small
+importance that I have at my disposal.”
+
+“Go down on thy knees, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and kiss the feet of
+his excellence for the favour he has bestowed upon thee.”
+
+Sancho obeyed, and on seeing this the ecclesiastic stood up from table
+completely out of temper, exclaiming, “By the gown I wear, I am almost
+inclined to say that your excellence is as great a fool as these sinners.
+No wonder they are mad, when people who are in their senses sanction
+their madness! I leave your excellence with them, for so long as they are
+in the house, I will remain in my own, and spare myself the trouble of
+reproving what I cannot remedy;” and without uttering another word, or
+eating another morsel, he went off, the entreaties of the duke and
+duchess being entirely unavailing to stop him; not that the duke said
+much to him, for he could not, because of the laughter his uncalled-for
+anger provoked.
+
+When he had done laughing, he said to Don Quixote, “You have replied on
+your own behalf so stoutly, Sir Knight of the Lions, that there is no
+occasion to seek further satisfaction for this, which, though it may look
+like an offence, is not so at all, for, as women can give no offence, no
+more can ecclesiastics, as you very well know.”
+
+“That is true,” said Don Quixote, “and the reason is, that he who is not
+liable to offence cannot give offence to anyone. Women, children, and
+ecclesiastics, as they cannot defend themselves, though they may receive
+offence cannot be insulted, because between the offence and the insult
+there is, as your excellence very well knows, this difference: the insult
+comes from one who is capable of offering it, and does so, and maintains
+it; the offence may come from any quarter without carrying insult. To
+take an example: a man is standing unsuspectingly in the street and ten
+others come up armed and beat him; he draws his sword and quits himself
+like a man, but the number of his antagonists makes it impossible for him
+to effect his purpose and avenge himself; this man suffers an offence but
+not an insult. Another example will make the same thing plain: a man is
+standing with his back turned, another comes up and strikes him, and
+after striking him takes to flight, without waiting an instant, and the
+other pursues him but does not overtake him; he who received the blow
+received an offence, but not an insult, because an insult must be
+maintained. If he who struck him, though he did so sneakingly and
+treacherously, had drawn his sword and stood and faced him, then he who
+had been struck would have received offence and insult at the same time;
+offence because he was struck treacherously, insult because he who struck
+him maintained what he had done, standing his ground without taking to
+flight. And so, according to the laws of the accursed duel, I may have
+received offence, but not insult, for neither women nor children can
+maintain it, nor can they wound, nor have they any way of standing their
+ground, and it is just the same with those connected with religion; for
+these three sorts of persons are without arms offensive or defensive, and
+so, though naturally they are bound to defend themselves, they have no
+right to offend anybody; and though I said just now I might have received
+offence, I say now certainly not, for he who cannot receive an insult can
+still less give one; for which reasons I ought not to feel, nor do I
+feel, aggrieved at what that good man said to me; I only wish he had
+stayed a little longer, that I might have shown him the mistake he makes
+in supposing and maintaining that there are not and never have been any
+knights-errant in the world; had Amadis or any of his countless
+descendants heard him say as much, I am sure it would not have gone well
+with his worship.”
+
+“I will take my oath of that,” said Sancho; “they would have given him a
+slash that would have slit him down from top to toe like a pomegranate or
+a ripe melon; they were likely fellows to put up with jokes of that sort!
+By my faith, I’m certain if Reinaldos of Montalvan had heard the little
+man’s words he would have given him such a spank on the mouth that he
+wouldn’t have spoken for the next three years; ay, let him tackle them,
+and he’ll see how he’ll get out of their hands!”
+
+The duchess, as she listened to Sancho, was ready to die with laughter,
+and in her own mind she set him down as droller and madder than his
+master; and there were a good many just then who were of the same
+opinion.
+
+Don Quixote finally grew calm, and dinner came to an end, and as the
+cloth was removed four damsels came in, one of them with a silver basin,
+another with a jug also of silver, a third with two fine white towels on
+her shoulder, and the fourth with her arms bared to the elbows, and in
+her white hands (for white they certainly were) a round ball of Naples
+soap. The one with the basin approached, and with arch composure and
+impudence, thrust it under Don Quixote’s chin, who, wondering at such a
+ceremony, said never a word, supposing it to be the custom of that
+country to wash beards instead of hands; he therefore stretched his out
+as far as he could, and at the same instant the jug began to pour and the
+damsel with the soap rubbed his beard briskly, raising snow-flakes, for
+the soap lather was no less white, not only over the beard, but all over
+the face, and over the eyes of the submissive knight, so that they were
+perforce obliged to keep shut. The duke and duchess, who had not known
+anything about this, waited to see what came of this strange washing. The
+barber damsel, when she had him a hand’s breadth deep in lather,
+pretended that there was no more water, and bade the one with the jug go
+and fetch some, while Señor Don Quixote waited. She did so, and Don
+Quixote was left the strangest and most ludicrous figure that could be
+imagined. All those present, and there were a good many, were watching
+him, and as they saw him there with half a yard of neck, and that
+uncommonly brown, his eyes shut, and his beard full of soap, it was a
+great wonder, and only by great discretion, that they were able to
+restrain their laughter. The damsels, the concocters of the joke, kept
+their eyes down, not daring to look at their master and mistress; and as
+for them, laughter and anger struggled within them, and they knew not
+what to do, whether to punish the audacity of the girls, or to reward
+them for the amusement they had received from seeing Don Quixote in such
+a plight.
+
+At length the damsel with the jug returned and they made an end of
+washing Don Quixote, and the one who carried the towels very deliberately
+wiped him and dried him; and all four together making him a profound
+obeisance and curtsey, they were about to go, when the duke, lest Don
+Quixote should see through the joke, called out to the one with the basin
+saying, “Come and wash me, and take care that there is water enough.” The
+girl, sharp-witted and prompt, came and placed the basin for the duke as
+she had done for Don Quixote, and they soon had him well soaped and
+washed, and having wiped him dry they made their obeisance and retired.
+It appeared afterwards that the duke had sworn that if they had not
+washed him as they had Don Quixote he would have punished them for their
+impudence, which they adroitly atoned for by soaping him as well.
+
+Sancho observed the ceremony of the washing very attentively, and said to
+himself, “God bless me, if it were only the custom in this country to
+wash squires’ beards too as well as knights’. For by God and upon my soul
+I want it badly; and if they gave me a scrape of the razor besides I’d
+take it as a still greater kindness.”
+
+“What are you saying to yourself, Sancho?” asked the duchess.
+
+“I was saying, señora,” he replied, “that in the courts of other princes,
+when the cloth is taken away, I have always heard say they give water for
+the hands, but not lye for the beard; and that shows it is good to live
+long that you may see much; to be sure, they say too that he who lives a
+long life must undergo much evil, though to undergo a washing of that
+sort is pleasure rather than pain.”
+
+“Don’t be uneasy, friend Sancho,” said the duchess; “I will take care
+that my damsels wash you, and even put you in the tub if necessary.”
+
+“I’ll be content with the beard,” said Sancho, “at any rate for the
+present; and as for the future, God has decreed what is to be.”
+
+“Attend to worthy Sancho’s request, seneschal,” said the duchess, “and do
+exactly what he wishes.”
+
+The seneschal replied that Señor Sancho should be obeyed in everything;
+and with that he went away to dinner and took Sancho along with him,
+while the duke and duchess and Don Quixote remained at table discussing a
+great variety of things, but all bearing on the calling of arms and
+knight-errantry.
+
+The duchess begged Don Quixote, as he seemed to have a retentive memory,
+to describe and portray to her the beauty and features of the lady
+Dulcinea del Toboso, for, judging by what fame trumpeted abroad of her
+beauty, she felt sure she must be the fairest creature in the world, nay,
+in all La Mancha.
+
+Don Quixote sighed on hearing the duchess’s request, and said, “If I
+could pluck out my heart, and lay it on a plate on this table here before
+your highness’s eyes, it would spare my tongue the pain of telling what
+can hardly be thought of, for in it your excellence would see her
+portrayed in full. But why should I attempt to depict and describe in
+detail, and feature by feature, the beauty of the peerless Dulcinea, the
+burden being one worthy of other shoulders than mine, an enterprise
+wherein the pencils of Parrhasius, Timantes, and Apelles, and the graver
+of Lysippus ought to be employed, to paint it in pictures and carve it in
+marble and bronze, and Ciceronian and Demosthenian eloquence to sound its
+praises?”
+
+“What does Demosthenian mean, Señor Don Quixote?” said the duchess; “it
+is a word I never heard in all my life.”
+
+“Demosthenian eloquence,” said Don Quixote, “means the eloquence of
+Demosthenes, as Ciceronian means that of Cicero, who were the two most
+eloquent orators in the world.”
+
+“True,” said the duke; “you must have lost your wits to ask such a
+question. Nevertheless, Señor Don Quixote would greatly gratify us if he
+would depict her to us; for never fear, even in an outline or sketch she
+will be something to make the fairest envious.”
+
+“I would do so certainly,” said Don Quixote, “had she not been blurred to
+my mind’s eye by the misfortune that fell upon her a short time since,
+one of such a nature that I am more ready to weep over it than to
+describe it. For your highnesses must know that, going a few days back to
+kiss her hands and receive her benediction, approbation, and permission
+for this third sally, I found her altogether a different being from the
+one I sought; I found her enchanted and changed from a princess into a
+peasant, from fair to foul, from an angel into a devil, from fragrant to
+pestiferous, from refined to clownish, from a dignified lady into a
+jumping tomboy, and, in a word, from Dulcinea del Toboso into a coarse
+Sayago wench.”
+
+“God bless me!” said the duke aloud at this, “who can have done the world
+such an injury? Who can have robbed it of the beauty that gladdened it,
+of the grace and gaiety that charmed it, of the modesty that shed a
+lustre upon it?”
+
+“Who?” replied Don Quixote; “who could it be but some malignant enchanter
+of the many that persecute me out of envy--that accursed race born into
+the world to obscure and bring to naught the achievements of the good,
+and glorify and exalt the deeds of the wicked? Enchanters have persecuted
+me, enchanters persecute me still, and enchanters will continue to
+persecute me until they have sunk me and my lofty chivalry in the deep
+abyss of oblivion; and they injure and wound me where they know I feel it
+most. For to deprive a knight-errant of his lady is to deprive him of the
+eyes he sees with, of the sun that gives him light, of the food whereby
+he lives. Many a time before have I said it, and I say it now once more,
+a knight-errant without a lady is like a tree without leaves, a building
+without a foundation, or a shadow without the body that causes it.”
+
+“There is no denying it,” said the duchess; “but still, if we are to
+believe the history of Don Quixote that has come out here lately with
+general applause, it is to be inferred from it, if I mistake not, that
+you never saw the lady Dulcinea, and that the said lady is nothing in the
+world but an imaginary lady, one that you yourself begot and gave birth
+to in your brain, and adorned with whatever charms and perfections you
+chose.”
+
+“There is a good deal to be said on that point,” said Don Quixote; “God
+knows whether there be any Dulcinea or not in the world, or whether she
+is imaginary or not imaginary; these are things the proof of which must
+not be pushed to extreme lengths. I have not begotten nor given birth to
+my lady, though I behold her as she needs must be, a lady who contains in
+herself all the qualities to make her famous throughout the world,
+beautiful without blemish, dignified without haughtiness, tender and yet
+modest, gracious from courtesy and courteous from good breeding, and
+lastly, of exalted lineage, because beauty shines forth and excels with a
+higher degree of perfection upon good blood than in the fair of lowly
+birth.”
+
+“That is true,” said the duke; “but Señor Don Quixote will give me leave
+to say what I am constrained to say by the story of his exploits that I
+have read, from which it is to be inferred that, granting there is a
+Dulcinea in El Toboso, or out of it, and that she is in the highest
+degree beautiful as you have described her to us, as regards the
+loftiness of her lineage she is not on a par with the Orianas,
+Alastrajareas, Madasimas, or others of that sort, with whom, as you well
+know, the histories abound.”
+
+“To that I may reply,” said Don Quixote, “that Dulcinea is the daughter
+of her own works, and that virtues rectify blood, and that lowly virtue
+is more to be regarded and esteemed than exalted vice. Dulcinea, besides,
+has that within her that may raise her to be a crowned and sceptred
+queen; for the merit of a fair and virtuous woman is capable of
+performing greater miracles; and virtually, though not formally, she has
+in herself higher fortunes.”
+
+“I protest, Señor Don Quixote,” said the duchess, “that in all you say,
+you go most cautiously and lead in hand, as the saying is; henceforth I
+will believe myself, and I will take care that everyone in my house
+believes, even my lord the duke if needs be, that there is a Dulcinea in
+El Toboso, and that she is living to-day, and that she is beautiful and
+nobly born and deserves to have such a knight as Señor Don Quixote in her
+service, and that is the highest praise that it is in my power to give
+her or that I can think of. But I cannot help entertaining a doubt, and
+having a certain grudge against Sancho Panza; the doubt is this, that the
+aforesaid history declares that the said Sancho Panza, when he carried a
+letter on your worship’s behalf to the said lady Dulcinea, found her
+sifting a sack of wheat; and more by token it says it was red wheat; a
+thing which makes me doubt the loftiness of her lineage.”
+
+To this Don Quixote made answer, “Señora, your highness must know that
+everything or almost everything that happens me transcends the ordinary
+limits of what happens to other knights-errant; whether it be that it is
+directed by the inscrutable will of destiny, or by the malice of some
+jealous enchanter. Now it is an established fact that all or most famous
+knights-errant have some special gift, one that of being proof against
+enchantment, another that of being made of such invulnerable flesh that
+he cannot be wounded, as was the famous Roland, one of the twelve peers
+of France, of whom it is related that he could not be wounded except in
+the sole of his left foot, and that it must be with the point of a stout
+pin and not with any other sort of weapon whatever; and so, when Bernardo
+del Carpio slew him at Roncesvalles, finding that he could not wound him
+with steel, he lifted him up from the ground in his arms and strangled
+him, calling to mind seasonably the death which Hercules inflicted on
+Antaeus, the fierce giant that they say was the son of Terra. I would
+infer from what I have mentioned that perhaps I may have some gift of
+this kind, not that of being invulnerable, because experience has many
+times proved to me that I am of tender flesh and not at all impenetrable;
+nor that of being proof against enchantment, for I have already seen
+myself thrust into a cage, in which all the world would not have been
+able to confine me except by force of enchantments. But as I delivered
+myself from that one, I am inclined to believe that there is no other
+that can hurt me; and so, these enchanters, seeing that they cannot exert
+their vile craft against my person, revenge themselves on what I love
+most, and seek to rob me of life by maltreating that of Dulcinea in whom
+I live; and therefore I am convinced that when my squire carried my
+message to her, they changed her into a common peasant girl, engaged in
+such a mean occupation as sifting wheat; I have already said, however,
+that that wheat was not red wheat, nor wheat at all, but grains of orient
+pearl. And as a proof of all this, I must tell your highnesses that,
+coming to El Toboso a short time back, I was altogether unable to
+discover the palace of Dulcinea; and that the next day, though Sancho, my
+squire, saw her in her own proper shape, which is the fairest in the
+world, to me she appeared to be a coarse, ill-favoured farm-wench, and by
+no means a well-spoken one, she who is propriety itself. And so, as I am
+not and, so far as one can judge, cannot be enchanted, she it is that is
+enchanted, that is smitten, that is altered, changed, and transformed; in
+her have my enemies revenged themselves upon me, and for her shall I live
+in ceaseless tears, until I see her in her pristine state. I have
+mentioned this lest anybody should mind what Sancho said about Dulcinea’s
+winnowing or sifting; for, as they changed her to me, it is no wonder if
+they changed her to him. Dulcinea is illustrious and well-born, and of
+one of the gentle families of El Toboso, which are many, ancient, and
+good. Therein, most assuredly, not small is the share of the peerless
+Dulcinea, through whom her town will be famous and celebrated in ages to
+come, as Troy was through Helen, and Spain through La Cava, though with a
+better title and tradition. For another thing; I would have your graces
+understand that Sancho Panza is one of the drollest squires that ever
+served knight-errant; sometimes there is a simplicity about him so acute
+that it is an amusement to try and make out whether he is simple or
+sharp; he has mischievous tricks that stamp him rogue, and blundering
+ways that prove him a booby; he doubts everything and believes
+everything; when I fancy he is on the point of coming down headlong from
+sheer stupidity, he comes out with something shrewd that sends him up to
+the skies. After all, I would not exchange him for another squire, though
+I were given a city to boot, and therefore I am in doubt whether it will
+be well to send him to the government your highness has bestowed upon
+him; though I perceive in him a certain aptitude for the work of
+governing, so that, with a little trimming of his understanding, he would
+manage any government as easily as the king does his taxes; and moreover,
+we know already ample experience that it does not require much cleverness
+or much learning to be a governor, for there are a hundred round about us
+that scarcely know how to read, and govern like gerfalcons. The main
+point is that they should have good intentions and be desirous of doing
+right in all things, for they will never be at a loss for persons to
+advise and direct them in what they have to do, like those
+knight-governors who, being no lawyers, pronounce sentences with the aid
+of an assessor. My advice to him will be to take no bribe and surrender
+no right, and I have some other little matters in reserve, that shall be
+produced in due season for Sancho’s benefit and the advantage of the
+island he is to govern.”
+
+The duke, duchess, and Don Quixote had reached this point in their
+conversation, when they heard voices and a great hubbub in the palace,
+and Sancho burst abruptly into the room all glowing with anger, with a
+straining-cloth by way of a bib, and followed by several servants, or,
+more properly speaking, kitchen-boys and other underlings, one of whom
+carried a small trough full of water, that from its colour and impurity
+was plainly dishwater. The one with the trough pursued him and followed
+him everywhere he went, endeavouring with the utmost persistence to
+thrust it under his chin, while another kitchen-boy seemed anxious to
+wash his beard.
+
+“What is all this, brothers?” asked the duchess. “What is it? What do you
+want to do to this good man? Do you forget he is a governor-elect?”
+
+To which the barber kitchen-boy replied, “The gentleman will not let
+himself be washed as is customary, and as my lord and the señor his
+master have been.”
+
+“Yes, I will,” said Sancho, in a great rage; “but I’d like it to be with
+cleaner towels, clearer lye, and not such dirty hands; for there’s not so
+much difference between me and my master that he should be washed with
+angels’ water and I with devil’s lye. The customs of countries and
+princes’ palaces are only good so long as they give no annoyance; but the
+way of washing they have here is worse than doing penance. I have a clean
+beard, and I don’t require to be refreshed in that fashion, and whoever
+comes to wash me or touch a hair of my head, I mean to say my beard, with
+all due respect be it said, I’ll give him a punch that will leave my fist
+sunk in his skull; for cirimonies and soapings of this sort are more like
+jokes than the polite attentions of one’s host.”
+
+The duchess was ready to die with laughter when she saw Sancho’s rage and
+heard his words; but it was no pleasure to Don Quixote to see him in such
+a sorry trim, with the dingy towel about him, and the hangers-on of the
+kitchen all round him; so making a low bow to the duke and duchess, as if
+to ask their permission to speak, he addressed the rout in a dignified
+tone: “Holloa, gentlemen! you let that youth alone, and go back to where
+you came from, or anywhere else if you like; my squire is as clean as any
+other person, and those troughs are as bad as narrow thin-necked jars to
+him; take my advice and leave him alone, for neither he nor I understand
+joking.”
+
+Sancho took the word out of his mouth and went on, “Nay, let them come
+and try their jokes on the country bumpkin, for it’s about as likely I’ll
+stand them as that it’s now midnight! Let them bring me a comb here, or
+what they please, and curry this beard of mine, and if they get anything
+out of it that offends against cleanliness, let them clip me to the
+skin.”
+
+Upon this, the duchess, laughing all the while, said, “Sancho Panza is
+right, and always will be in all he says; he is clean, and, as he says
+himself, he does not require to be washed; and if our ways do not please
+him, he is free to choose. Besides, you promoters of cleanliness have
+been excessively careless and thoughtless, I don’t know if I ought not to
+say audacious, to bring troughs and wooden utensils and kitchen
+dishclouts, instead of basins and jugs of pure gold and towels of
+holland, to such a person and such a beard; but, after all, you are
+ill-conditioned and ill-bred, and spiteful as you are, you cannot help
+showing the grudge you have against the squires of knights-errant.”
+
+The impudent servitors, and even the seneschal who came with them, took
+the duchess to be speaking in earnest, so they removed the
+straining-cloth from Sancho’s neck, and with something like shame and
+confusion of face went off all of them and left him; whereupon he, seeing
+himself safe out of that extreme danger, as it seemed to him, ran and
+fell on his knees before the duchess, saying, “From great ladies great
+favours may be looked for; this which your grace has done me to-day cannot
+be requited with less than wishing I was dubbed a knight-errant, to
+devote myself all the days of my life to the service of so exalted a
+lady. I am a labouring man, my name is Sancho Panza, I am married, I have
+children, and I am serving as a squire; if in any one of these ways I can
+serve your highness, I will not be longer in obeying than your grace in
+commanding.”
+
+“It is easy to see, Sancho,” replied the duchess, “that you have learned
+to be polite in the school of politeness itself; I mean to say it is easy
+to see that you have been nursed in the bosom of Señor Don Quixote, who
+is, of course, the cream of good breeding and flower of ceremony--or
+cirimony, as you would say yourself. Fair be the fortunes of such a
+master and such a servant, the one the cynosure of knight-errantry, the
+other the star of squirely fidelity! Rise, Sancho, my friend; I will
+repay your courtesy by taking care that my lord the duke makes good to
+you the promised gift of the government as soon as possible.”
+
+With this, the conversation came to an end, and Don Quixote retired to
+take his midday sleep; but the duchess begged Sancho, unless he had a
+very great desire to go to sleep, to come and spend the afternoon with
+her and her damsels in a very cool chamber. Sancho replied that, though
+he certainly had the habit of sleeping four or five hours in the heat of
+the day in summer, to serve her excellence he would try with all his
+might not to sleep even one that day, and that he would come in obedience
+to her command, and with that he went off. The duke gave fresh orders
+with respect to treating Don Quixote as a knight-errant, without
+departing even in smallest particular from the style in which, as the
+stories tell us, they used to treat the knights of old.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+OF THE DELECTABLE DISCOURSE WHICH THE DUCHESS AND HER DAMSELS HELD WITH
+SANCHO PANZA, WELL WORTH READING AND NOTING
+
+
+The history records that Sancho did not sleep that afternoon, but in
+order to keep his word came, before he had well done dinner, to visit the
+duchess, who, finding enjoyment in listening to him, made him sit down
+beside her on a low seat, though Sancho, out of pure good breeding,
+wanted not to sit down; the duchess, however, told him he was to sit down
+as governor and talk as squire, as in both respects he was worthy of even
+the chair of the Cid Ruy Diaz the Campeador. Sancho shrugged his
+shoulders, obeyed, and sat down, and all the duchess’s damsels and
+duennas gathered round him, waiting in profound silence to hear what he
+would say. It was the duchess, however, who spoke first, saying:
+
+“Now that we are alone, and that there is nobody here to overhear us, I
+should be glad if the señor governor would relieve me of certain doubts I
+have, rising out of the history of the great Don Quixote that is now in
+print. One is: inasmuch as worthy Sancho never saw Dulcinea, I mean the
+lady Dulcinea del Toboso, nor took Don Quixote’s letter to her, for it
+was left in the memorandum book in the Sierra Morena, how did he dare to
+invent the answer and all that about finding her sifting wheat, the whole
+story being a deception and falsehood, and so much to the prejudice of
+the peerless Dulcinea’s good name, a thing that is not at all becoming
+the character and fidelity of a good squire?”
+
+At these words, Sancho, without uttering one in reply, got up from his
+chair, and with noiseless steps, with his body bent and his finger on his
+lips, went all round the room lifting up the hangings; and this done, he
+came back to his seat and said, “Now, señora, that I have seen that there
+is no one except the bystanders listening to us on the sly, I will answer
+what you have asked me, and all you may ask me, without fear or dread.
+And the first thing I have got to say is, that for my own part I hold my
+master Don Quixote to be stark mad, though sometimes he says things that,
+to my mind, and indeed everybody’s that listens to him, are so wise, and
+run in such a straight furrow, that Satan himself could not have said
+them better; but for all that, really, and beyond all question, it’s my
+firm belief he is cracked. Well, then, as this is clear to my mind, I can
+venture to make him believe things that have neither head nor tail, like
+that affair of the answer to the letter, and that other of six or eight
+days ago, which is not yet in history, that is to say, the affair of the
+enchantment of my lady Dulcinea; for I made him believe she is enchanted,
+though there’s no more truth in it than over the hills of Ubeda.”
+
+The duchess begged him to tell her about the enchantment or deception, so
+Sancho told the whole story exactly as it had happened, and his hearers
+were not a little amused by it; and then resuming, the duchess said, “In
+consequence of what worthy Sancho has told me, a doubt starts up in my
+mind, and there comes a kind of whisper to my ear that says, ‘If Don
+Quixote be mad, crazy, and cracked, and Sancho Panza his squire knows it,
+and, notwithstanding, serves and follows him, and goes trusting to his
+empty promises, there can be no doubt he must be still madder and sillier
+than his master; and that being so, it will be cast in your teeth, señora
+duchess, if you give the said Sancho an island to govern; for how will he
+who does not know how to govern himself know how to govern others?’”
+
+“By God, señora,” said Sancho, “but that doubt comes timely; but your
+grace may say it out, and speak plainly, or as you like; for I know what
+you say is true, and if I were wise I should have left my master long
+ago; but this was my fate, this was my bad luck; I can’t help it, I must
+follow him; we’re from the same village, I’ve eaten his bread, I’m fond
+of him, I’m grateful, he gave me his ass-colts, and above all I’m
+faithful; so it’s quite impossible for anything to separate us, except
+the pickaxe and shovel. And if your highness does not like to give me the
+government you promised, God made me without it, and maybe your not
+giving it to me will be all the better for my conscience, for fool as I
+am I know the proverb ‘to her hurt the ant got wings,’ and it may be that
+Sancho the squire will get to heaven sooner than Sancho the governor.
+‘They make as good bread here as in France,’ and ‘by night all cats are
+grey,’ and ‘a hard case enough his, who hasn’t broken his fast at two in
+the afternoon,’ and ‘there’s no stomach a hand’s breadth bigger than
+another,’ and the same can be filled ‘with straw or hay,’ as the saying
+is, and ‘the little birds of the field have God for their purveyor and
+caterer,’ and ‘four yards of Cuenca frieze keep one warmer than four of
+Segovia broad-cloth,’ and ‘when we quit this world and are put
+underground the prince travels by as narrow a path as the journeyman,’
+and ‘the Pope’s body does not take up more feet of earth than the
+sacristan’s,’ for all that the one is higher than the other; for when we
+go to our graves we all pack ourselves up and make ourselves small, or
+rather they pack us up and make us small in spite of us, and then--good
+night to us. And I say once more, if your ladyship does not like to give
+me the island because I’m a fool, like a wise man I will take care to
+give myself no trouble about it; I have heard say that ‘behind the cross
+there’s the devil,’ and that ‘all that glitters is not gold,’ and that
+from among the oxen, and the ploughs, and the yokes, Wamba the husbandman
+was taken to be made King of Spain, and from among brocades, and
+pleasures, and riches, Roderick was taken to be devoured by adders, if
+the verses of the old ballads don’t lie.”
+
+“To be sure they don’t lie!” exclaimed Dona Rodriguez, the duenna, who
+was one of the listeners. “Why, there’s a ballad that says they put King
+Rodrigo alive into a tomb full of toads, and adders, and lizards, and
+that two days afterwards the king, in a plaintive, feeble voice, cried
+out from within the tomb--
+
+They gnaw me now, they gnaw me now,
+There where I most did sin.
+
+And according to that the gentleman has good reason to say he would
+rather be a labouring man than a king, if vermin are to eat him.”
+
+The duchess could not help laughing at the simplicity of her duenna, or
+wondering at the language and proverbs of Sancho, to whom she said,
+“Worthy Sancho knows very well that when once a knight has made a promise
+he strives to keep it, though it should cost him his life. My lord and
+husband the duke, though not one of the errant sort, is none the less a
+knight for that reason, and will keep his word about the promised island,
+in spite of the envy and malice of the world. Let Sancho be of good
+cheer; for when he least expects it he will find himself seated on the
+throne of his island and seat of dignity, and will take possession of his
+government that he may discard it for another of three-bordered brocade.
+The charge I give him is to be careful how he governs his vassals,
+bearing in mind that they are all loyal and well-born.”
+
+“As to governing them well,” said Sancho, “there’s no need of charging me
+to do that, for I’m kind-hearted by nature, and full of compassion for
+the poor; there’s no stealing the loaf from him who kneads and bakes;’
+and by my faith it won’t do to throw false dice with me; I am an old dog,
+and I know all about ‘tus, tus;’ I can be wide-awake if need be, and I
+don’t let clouds come before my eyes, for I know where the shoe pinches
+me; I say so, because with me the good will have support and protection,
+and the bad neither footing nor access. And it seems to me that, in
+governments, to make a beginning is everything; and maybe, after having
+been governor a fortnight, I’ll take kindly to the work and know more
+about it than the field labour I have been brought up to.”
+
+“You are right, Sancho,” said the duchess, “for no one is born ready
+taught, and the bishops are made out of men and not out of stones. But to
+return to the subject we were discussing just now, the enchantment of the
+lady Dulcinea, I look upon it as certain, and something more than
+evident, that Sancho’s idea of practising a deception upon his master,
+making him believe that the peasant girl was Dulcinea and that if he did
+not recognise her it must be because she was enchanted, was all a device
+of one of the enchanters that persecute Don Quixote. For in truth and
+earnest, I know from good authority that the coarse country wench who
+jumped up on the ass was and is Dulcinea del Toboso, and that worthy
+Sancho, though he fancies himself the deceiver, is the one that is
+deceived; and that there is no more reason to doubt the truth of this,
+than of anything else we never saw. Señor Sancho Panza must know that we
+too have enchanters here that are well disposed to us, and tell us what
+goes on in the world, plainly and distinctly, without subterfuge or
+deception; and believe me, Sancho, that agile country lass was and is
+Dulcinea del Toboso, who is as much enchanted as the mother that bore
+her; and when we least expect it, we shall see her in her own proper
+form, and then Sancho will be disabused of the error he is under at
+present.”
+
+“All that’s very possible,” said Sancho Panza; “and now I’m willing to
+believe what my master says about what he saw in the cave of Montesinos,
+where he says he saw the lady Dulcinea del Toboso in the very same dress
+and apparel that I said I had seen her in when I enchanted her all to
+please myself. It must be all exactly the other way, as your ladyship
+says; because it is impossible to suppose that out of my poor wit such a
+cunning trick could be concocted in a moment, nor do I think my master is
+so mad that by my weak and feeble persuasion he could be made to believe
+a thing so out of all reason. But, señora, your excellence must not
+therefore think me ill-disposed, for a dolt like me is not bound to see
+into the thoughts and plots of those vile enchanters. I invented all that
+to escape my master’s scolding, and not with any intention of hurting
+him; and if it has turned out differently, there is a God in heaven who
+judges our hearts.”
+
+“That is true,” said the duchess; “but tell me, Sancho, what is this you
+say about the cave of Montesinos, for I should like to know.”
+
+Sancho upon this related to her, word for word, what has been said
+already touching that adventure, and having heard it the duchess said,
+“From this occurrence it may be inferred that, as the great Don Quixote
+says he saw there the same country wench Sancho saw on the way from El
+Toboso, it is, no doubt, Dulcinea, and that there are some very active
+and exceedingly busy enchanters about.”
+
+“So I say,” said Sancho, “and if my lady Dulcinea is enchanted, so much
+the worse for her, and I’m not going to pick a quarrel with my master’s
+enemies, who seem to be many and spiteful. The truth is that the one I
+saw was a country wench, and I set her down to be a country wench; and if
+that was Dulcinea it must not be laid at my door, nor should I be called
+to answer for it or take the consequences. But they must go nagging at me
+at every step--‘Sancho said it, Sancho did it, Sancho here, Sancho
+there,’ as if Sancho was nobody at all, and not that same Sancho Panza
+that’s now going all over the world in books, so Samson Carrasco told me,
+and he’s at any rate one that’s a bachelor of Salamanca; and people of
+that sort can’t lie, except when the whim seizes them or they have some
+very good reason for it. So there’s no occasion for anybody to quarrel
+with me; and then I have a good character, and, as I have heard my master
+say, ‘a good name is better than great riches;’ let them only stick me
+into this government and they’ll see wonders, for one who has been a good
+squire will be a good governor.”
+
+“All worthy Sancho’s observations,” said the duchess, “are Catonian
+sentences, or at any rate out of the very heart of Michael Verino
+himself, who florentibus occidit annis. In fact, to speak in his own
+style, ‘under a bad cloak there’s often a good drinker.’”
+
+“Indeed, señora,” said Sancho, “I never yet drank out of wickedness; from
+thirst I have very likely, for I have nothing of the hypocrite in me; I
+drink when I’m inclined, or, if I’m not inclined, when they offer it to
+me, so as not to look either strait-laced or ill-bred; for when a friend
+drinks one’s health what heart can be so hard as not to return it? But if
+I put on my shoes I don’t dirty them; besides, squires to knights-errant
+mostly drink water, for they are always wandering among woods, forests
+and meadows, mountains and crags, without a drop of wine to be had if
+they gave their eyes for it.”
+
+“So I believe,” said the duchess; “and now let Sancho go and take his
+sleep, and we will talk by-and-by at greater length, and settle how he
+may soon go and stick himself into the government, as he says.”
+
+Sancho once more kissed the duchess’s hand, and entreated her to let good
+care be taken of his Dapple, for he was the light of his eyes.
+
+“What is Dapple?” said the duchess.
+
+“My ass,” said Sancho, “which, not to mention him by that name, I’m
+accustomed to call Dapple; I begged this lady duenna here to take care of
+him when I came into the castle, and she got as angry as if I had said
+she was ugly or old, though it ought to be more natural and proper for
+duennas to feed asses than to ornament chambers. God bless me! what a
+spite a gentleman of my village had against these ladies!”
+
+“He must have been some clown,” said Dona Rodriguez the duenna; “for if
+he had been a gentleman and well-born he would have exalted them higher
+than the horns of the moon.”
+
+“That will do,” said the duchess; “no more of this; hush, Dona Rodriguez,
+and let Señor Panza rest easy and leave the treatment of Dapple in my
+charge, for as he is a treasure of Sancho’s, I’ll put him on the apple of
+my eye.”
+
+“It will be enough for him to be in the stable,” said Sancho, “for
+neither he nor I are worthy to rest a moment in the apple of your
+highness’s eye, and I’d as soon stab myself as consent to it; for though
+my master says that in civilities it is better to lose by a card too many
+than a card too few, when it comes to civilities to asses we must mind
+what we are about and keep within due bounds.”
+
+“Take him to your government, Sancho,” said the duchess, “and there you
+will be able to make as much of him as you like, and even release him
+from work and pension him off.”
+
+“Don’t think, señora duchess, that you have said anything absurd,” said
+Sancho; “I have seen more than two asses go to governments, and for me to
+take mine with me would be nothing new.”
+
+Sancho’s words made the duchess laugh again and gave her fresh amusement,
+and dismissing him to sleep she went away to tell the duke the
+conversation she had had with him, and between them they plotted and
+arranged to play a joke upon Don Quixote that was to be a rare one and
+entirely in knight-errantry style, and in that same style they practised
+several upon him, so much in keeping and so clever that they form the
+best adventures this great history contains.
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+Great was the pleasure the duke and duchess took in the conversation of
+Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; and, more bent than ever upon the plan they
+had of practising some jokes upon them that should have the look and
+appearance of adventures, they took as their basis of action what Don
+Quixote had already told them about the cave of Montesinos, in order to
+play him a famous one. But what the duchess marvelled at above all was
+that Sancho’s simplicity could be so great as to make him believe as
+absolute truth that Dulcinea had been enchanted, when it was he himself
+who had been the enchanter and trickster in the business. Having,
+therefore, instructed their servants in everything they were to do, six
+days afterwards they took him out to hunt, with as great a retinue of
+huntsmen and beaters as a crowned king.
+
+They presented Don Quixote with a hunting suit, and Sancho with another
+of the finest green cloth; but Don Quixote declined to put his on, saying
+that he must soon return to the hard pursuit of arms, and could not carry
+wardrobes or stores with him. Sancho, however, took what they gave him,
+meaning to sell it at the first opportunity.
+
+The appointed day having arrived, Don Quixote armed himself, and Sancho
+arrayed himself, and mounted on his Dapple (for he would not give him up
+though they offered him a horse), he placed himself in the midst of the
+troop of huntsmen. The duchess came out splendidly attired, and Don
+Quixote, in pure courtesy and politeness, held the rein of her palfrey,
+though the duke wanted not to allow him; and at last they reached a wood
+that lay between two high mountains, where, after occupying various
+posts, ambushes, and paths, and distributing the party in different
+positions, the hunt began with great noise, shouting, and hallooing, so
+that, between the baying of the hounds and the blowing of the horns, they
+could not hear one another. The duchess dismounted, and with a sharp
+boar-spear in her hand posted herself where she knew the wild boars were
+in the habit of passing. The duke and Don Quixote likewise dismounted and
+placed themselves one at each side of her. Sancho took up a position in
+the rear of all without dismounting from Dapple, whom he dared not desert
+lest some mischief should befall him. Scarcely had they taken their stand
+in a line with several of their servants, when they saw a huge boar,
+closely pressed by the hounds and followed by the huntsmen, making
+towards them, grinding his teeth and tusks, and scattering foam from his
+mouth. As soon as he saw him Don Quixote, bracing his shield on his arm,
+and drawing his sword, advanced to meet him; the duke with boar-spear did
+the same; but the duchess would have gone in front of them all had not
+the duke prevented her. Sancho alone, deserting Dapple at the sight of
+the mighty beast, took to his heels as hard as he could and strove in
+vain to mount a tall oak. As he was clinging to a branch, however,
+half-way up in his struggle to reach the top, the bough, such was his
+ill-luck and hard fate, gave way, and caught in his fall by a broken limb
+of the oak, he hung suspended in the air unable to reach the ground.
+Finding himself in this position, and that the green coat was beginning
+to tear, and reflecting that if the fierce animal came that way he might
+be able to get at him, he began to utter such cries, and call for help so
+earnestly, that all who heard him and did not see him felt sure he must
+be in the teeth of some wild beast. In the end the tusked boar fell
+pierced by the blades of the many spears they held in front of him; and
+Don Quixote, turning round at the cries of Sancho, for he knew by them
+that it was he, saw him hanging from the oak head downwards, with Dapple,
+who did not forsake him in his distress, close beside him; and Cide
+Hamete observes that he seldom saw Sancho Panza without seeing Dapple, or
+Dapple without seeing Sancho Panza; such was their attachment and loyalty
+one to the other. Don Quixote went over and unhooked Sancho, who, as soon
+as he found himself on the ground, looked at the rent in his huntingcoat
+and was grieved to the heart, for he thought he had got a patrimonial
+estate in that suit.
+
+Meanwhile they had slung the mighty boar across the back of a mule, and
+having covered it with sprigs of rosemary and branches of myrtle, they
+bore it away as the spoils of victory to some large field-tents which had
+been pitched in the middle of the wood, where they found the tables laid
+and dinner served, in such grand and sumptuous style that it was easy to
+see the rank and magnificence of those who had provided it. Sancho, as he
+showed the rents in his torn suit to the duchess, observed, “If we had
+been hunting hares, or after small birds, my coat would have been safe
+from being in the plight it’s in; I don’t know what pleasure one can find
+in lying in wait for an animal that may take your life with his tusk if
+he gets at you. I recollect having heard an old ballad sung that says,
+
+  By bears be thou devoured, as erst
+  Was famous Favila.”
+
+“That,” said Don Quixote, “was a Gothic king, who, going a-hunting, was
+devoured by a bear.”
+
+“Just so,” said Sancho; “and I would not have kings and princes expose
+themselves to such dangers for the sake of a pleasure which, to my mind,
+ought not to be one, as it consists in killing an animal that has done no
+harm whatever.”
+
+“Quite the contrary, Sancho; you are wrong there,” said the duke; “for
+hunting is more suitable and requisite for kings and princes than for
+anybody else. The chase is the emblem of war; it has stratagems, wiles,
+and crafty devices for overcoming the enemy in safety; in it extreme cold
+and intolerable heat have to be borne, indolence and sleep are despised,
+the bodily powers are invigorated, the limbs of him who engages in it are
+made supple, and, in a word, it is a pursuit which may be followed
+without injury to anyone and with enjoyment to many; and the best of it
+is, it is not for everybody, as field-sports of other sorts are, except
+hawking, which also is only for kings and great lords. Reconsider your
+opinion therefore, Sancho, and when you are governor take to hunting, and
+you will find the good of it.”
+
+“Nay,” said Sancho, “the good governor should have a broken leg and keep
+at home;” it would be a nice thing if, after people had been at the
+trouble of coming to look for him on business, the governor were to be
+away in the forest enjoying himself; the government would go on badly in
+that fashion. By my faith, señor, hunting and amusements are more fit for
+idlers than for governors; what I intend to amuse myself with is playing
+all fours at Eastertime, and bowls on Sundays and holidays; for these
+huntings don’t suit my condition or agree with my conscience.”
+
+“God grant it may turn out so,” said the duke; “because it’s a long step
+from saying to doing.”
+
+“Be that as it may,” said Sancho, “‘pledges don’t distress a good payer,’
+and ‘he whom God helps does better than he who gets up early,’ and ‘it’s
+the tripes that carry the feet and not the feet the tripes;’ I mean to
+say that if God gives me help and I do my duty honestly, no doubt I’ll
+govern better than a gerfalcon. Nay, let them only put a finger in my
+mouth, and they’ll see whether I can bite or not.”
+
+“The curse of God and all his saints upon thee, thou accursed Sancho!”
+ exclaimed Don Quixote; “when will the day come--as I have often said to
+thee--when I shall hear thee make one single coherent, rational remark
+without proverbs? Pray, your highnesses, leave this fool alone, for he
+will grind your souls between, not to say two, but two thousand proverbs,
+dragged in as much in season, and as much to the purpose as--may God
+grant as much health to him, or to me if I want to listen to them!”
+
+“Sancho Panza’s proverbs,” said the duchess, “though more in number than
+the Greek Commander’s, are not therefore less to be esteemed for the
+conciseness of the maxims. For my own part, I can say they give me more
+pleasure than others that may be better brought in and more seasonably
+introduced.”
+
+In pleasant conversation of this sort they passed out of the tent into
+the wood, and the day was spent in visiting some of the posts and
+hiding-places, and then night closed in, not, however, as brilliantly or
+tranquilly as might have been expected at the season, for it was then
+midsummer; but bringing with it a kind of haze that greatly aided the
+project of the duke and duchess; and thus, as night began to fall, and a
+little after twilight set in, suddenly the whole wood on all four sides
+seemed to be on fire, and shortly after, here, there, on all sides, a
+vast number of trumpets and other military instruments were heard, as if
+several troops of cavalry were passing through the wood. The blaze of the
+fire and the noise of the warlike instruments almost blinded the eyes and
+deafened the ears of those that stood by, and indeed of all who were in
+the wood. Then there were heard repeated lelilies after the fashion of
+the Moors when they rush to battle; trumpets and clarions brayed, drums
+beat, fifes played, so unceasingly and so fast that he could not have had
+any senses who did not lose them with the confused din of so many
+instruments. The duke was astounded, the duchess amazed, Don Quixote
+wondering, Sancho Panza trembling, and indeed, even they who were aware
+of the cause were frightened. In their fear, silence fell upon them, and
+a postillion, in the guise of a demon, passed in front of them, blowing,
+in lieu of a bugle, a huge hollow horn that gave out a horrible hoarse
+note.
+
+“Ho there! brother courier,” cried the duke, “who are you? Where are you
+going? What troops are these that seem to be passing through the wood?”
+
+To which the courier replied in a harsh, discordant voice, “I am the
+devil; I am in search of Don Quixote of La Mancha; those who are coming
+this way are six troops of enchanters, who are bringing on a triumphal
+car the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso; she comes under enchantment,
+together with the gallant Frenchman Montesinos, to give instructions to
+Don Quixote as to how, she the said lady, may be disenchanted.”
+
+“If you were the devil, as you say and as your appearance indicates,”
+ said the duke, “you would have known the said knight Don Quixote of La
+Mancha, for you have him here before you.”
+
+“By God and upon my conscience,” said the devil, “I never observed it,
+for my mind is occupied with so many different things that I was
+forgetting the main thing I came about.”
+
+“This demon must be an honest fellow and a good Christian,” said Sancho;
+“for if he wasn’t he wouldn’t swear by God and his conscience; I feel
+sure now there must be good souls even in hell itself.”
+
+Without dismounting, the demon then turned to Don Quixote and said, “The
+unfortunate but valiant knight Montesinos sends me to thee, the Knight of
+the Lions (would that I saw thee in their claws), bidding me tell thee to
+wait for him wherever I may find thee, as he brings with him her whom
+they call Dulcinea del Toboso, that he may show thee what is needful in
+order to disenchant her; and as I came for no more I need stay no longer;
+demons of my sort be with thee, and good angels with these gentles;” and
+so saying he blew his huge horn, turned about and went off without
+waiting for a reply from anyone.
+
+They all felt fresh wonder, but particularly Sancho and Don Quixote;
+Sancho to see how, in defiance of the truth, they would have it that
+Dulcinea was enchanted; Don Quixote because he could not feel sure
+whether what had happened to him in the cave of Montesinos was true or
+not; and as he was deep in these cogitations the duke said to him, “Do
+you mean to wait, Señor Don Quixote?”
+
+“Why not?” replied he; “here will I wait, fearless and firm, though all
+hell should come to attack me.”
+
+“Well then, if I see another devil or hear another horn like the last,
+I’ll wait here as much as in Flanders,” said Sancho.
+
+Night now closed in more completely, and many lights began to flit
+through the wood, just as those fiery exhalations from the earth, that
+look like shooting-stars to our eyes, flit through the heavens; a
+frightful noise, too, was heard, like that made by the solid wheels the
+ox-carts usually have, by the harsh, ceaseless creaking of which, they
+say, the bears and wolves are put to flight, if there happen to be any
+where they are passing. In addition to all this commotion, there came a
+further disturbance to increase the tumult, for now it seemed as if in
+truth, on all four sides of the wood, four encounters or battles were
+going on at the same time; in one quarter resounded the dull noise of a
+terrible cannonade, in another numberless muskets were being discharged,
+the shouts of the combatants sounded almost close at hand, and farther
+away the Moorish lelilies were raised again and again. In a word, the
+bugles, the horns, the clarions, the trumpets, the drums, the cannon, the
+musketry, and above all the tremendous noise of the carts, all made up
+together a din so confused and terrific that Don Quixote had need to
+summon up all his courage to brave it; but Sancho’s gave way, and he fell
+fainting on the skirt of the duchess’s robe, who let him lie there and
+promptly bade them throw water in his face. This was done, and he came to
+himself by the time that one of the carts with the creaking wheels
+reached the spot. It was drawn by four plodding oxen all covered with
+black housings; on each horn they had fixed a large lighted wax taper,
+and on the top of the cart was constructed a raised seat, on which sat a
+venerable old man with a beard whiter than the very snow, and so long
+that it fell below his waist; he was dressed in a long robe of black
+buckram; for as the cart was thickly set with a multitude of candles it
+was easy to make out everything that was on it. Leading it were two
+hideous demons, also clad in buckram, with countenances so frightful that
+Sancho, having once seen them, shut his eyes so as not to see them again.
+As soon as the cart came opposite the spot the old man rose from his
+lofty seat, and standing up said in a loud voice, “I am the sage
+Lirgandeo,” and without another word the cart then passed on. Behind it
+came another of the same form, with another aged man enthroned, who,
+stopping the cart, said in a voice no less solemn than that of the first,
+“I am the sage Alquife, the great friend of Urganda the Unknown,” and
+passed on. Then another cart came by at the same pace, but the occupant
+of the throne was not old like the others, but a man stalwart and robust,
+and of a forbidding countenance, who as he came up said in a voice far
+hoarser and more devilish, “I am the enchanter Archelaus, the mortal
+enemy of Amadis of Gaul and all his kindred,” and then passed on. Having
+gone a short distance the three carts halted and the monotonous noise of
+their wheels ceased, and soon after they heard another, not noise, but
+sound of sweet, harmonious music, of which Sancho was very glad, taking
+it to be a good sign; and said he to the duchess, from whom he did not
+stir a step, or for a single instant, “Señora, where there’s music there
+can’t be mischief.”
+
+“Nor where there are lights and it is bright,” said the duchess; to which
+Sancho replied, “Fire gives light, and it’s bright where there are
+bonfires, as we see by those that are all round us and perhaps may burn
+us; but music is a sign of mirth and merrymaking.”
+
+“That remains to be seen,” said Don Quixote, who was listening to all
+that passed; and he was right, as is shown in the following chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN TO DON QUIXOTE TOUCHING THE
+DISENCHANTMENT OF DULCINEA, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MARVELLOUS INCIDENTS
+
+
+They saw advancing towards them, to the sound of this pleasing music,
+what they call a triumphal car, drawn by six grey mules with white linen
+housings, on each of which was mounted a penitent, robed also in white,
+with a large lighted wax taper in his hand. The car was twice or,
+perhaps, three times as large as the former ones, and in front and on the
+sides stood twelve more penitents, all as white as snow and all with
+lighted tapers, a spectacle to excite fear as well as wonder; and on a
+raised throne was seated a nymph draped in a multitude of silver-tissue
+veils with an embroidery of countless gold spangles glittering all over
+them, that made her appear, if not richly, at least brilliantly,
+apparelled. She had her face covered with thin transparent sendal, the
+texture of which did not prevent the fair features of a maiden from being
+distinguished, while the numerous lights made it possible to judge of her
+beauty and of her years, which seemed to be not less than seventeen but
+not to have yet reached twenty. Beside her was a figure in a robe of
+state, as they call it, reaching to the feet, while the head was covered
+with a black veil. But the instant the car was opposite the duke and
+duchess and Don Quixote the music of the clarions ceased, and then that
+of the lutes and harps on the car, and the figure in the robe rose up,
+and flinging it apart and removing the veil from its face, disclosed to
+their eyes the shape of Death itself, fleshless and hideous, at which
+sight Don Quixote felt uneasy, Sancho frightened, and the duke and
+duchess displayed a certain trepidation. Having risen to its feet, this
+living death, in a sleepy voice and with a tongue hardly awake, held
+forth as follows:
+
+I am that Merlin who the legends say
+The devil had for father, and the lie
+Hath gathered credence with the lapse of time.
+Of magic prince, of Zoroastric lore
+Monarch and treasurer, with jealous eye
+I view the efforts of the age to hide
+The gallant deeds of doughty errant knights,
+Who are, and ever have been, dear to me.
+    Enchanters and magicians and their kind
+Are mostly hard of heart; not so am I;
+For mine is tender, soft, compassionate,
+And its delight is doing good to all.
+In the dim caverns of the gloomy Dis,
+Where, tracing mystic lines and characters,
+My soul abideth now, there came to me
+The sorrow-laden plaint of her, the fair,
+The peerless Dulcinea del Toboso.
+I knew of her enchantment and her fate,
+From high-born dame to peasant wench transformed
+And touched with pity, first I turned the leaves
+Of countless volumes of my devilish craft,
+And then, in this grim grisly skeleton
+Myself encasing, hither have I come
+To show where lies the fitting remedy
+To give relief in such a piteous case.
+    O thou, the pride and pink of all that I wear
+The adamantine steel! O shining light,
+O beacon, polestar, path and guide of all
+Who, scorning slumber and the lazy down,
+Adopt the toilsome life of bloodstained arms!
+To thee, great hero who all praise transcends,
+La Mancha’s lustre and Iberia’s star,
+Don Quixote, wise as brave, to thee I say--
+For peerless Dulcinea del Toboso
+Her pristine form and beauty to regain,
+‘T is needful that thy esquire Sancho shall,
+On his own sturdy buttocks bared to heaven,
+Three thousand and three hundred lashes lay,
+And that they smart and sting and hurt him well.
+Thus have the authors of her woe resolved.
+And this is, gentles, wherefore I have come.
+
+“By all that’s good,” exclaimed Sancho at this, “I’ll just as soon give
+myself three stabs with a dagger as three, not to say three thousand,
+lashes. The devil take such a way of disenchanting! I don’t see what my
+backside has got to do with enchantments. By God, if Señor Merlin has not
+found out some other way of disenchanting the lady Dulcinea del Toboso,
+she may go to her grave enchanted.”
+
+“But I’ll take you, Don Clown stuffed with garlic,” said Don Quixote,
+“and tie you to a tree as naked as when your mother brought you forth,
+and give you, not to say three thousand three hundred, but six thousand
+six hundred lashes, and so well laid on that they won’t be got rid of if
+you try three thousand three hundred times; don’t answer me a word or
+I’ll tear your soul out.”
+
+On hearing this Merlin said, “That will not do, for the lashes worthy
+Sancho has to receive must be given of his own free will and not by
+force, and at whatever time he pleases, for there is no fixed limit
+assigned to him; but it is permitted him, if he likes to commute by half
+the pain of this whipping, to let them be given by the hand of another,
+though it may be somewhat weighty.”
+
+“Not a hand, my own or anybody else’s, weighty or weighable, shall touch
+me,” said Sancho. “Was it I that gave birth to the lady Dulcinea del
+Toboso, that my backside is to pay for the sins of her eyes? My master,
+indeed, that’s a part of her--for, he’s always calling her ‘my life’ and
+‘my soul,’ and his stay and prop--may and ought to whip himself for her
+and take all the trouble required for her disenchantment. But for me to
+whip myself! Abernuncio!”
+
+As soon as Sancho had done speaking the nymph in silver that was at the
+side of Merlin’s ghost stood up, and removing the thin veil from her face
+disclosed one that seemed to all something more than exceedingly
+beautiful; and with a masculine freedom from embarrassment and in a voice
+not very like a lady’s, addressing Sancho directly, said, “Thou wretched
+squire, soul of a pitcher, heart of a cork tree, with bowels of flint and
+pebbles; if, thou impudent thief, they bade thee throw thyself down from
+some lofty tower; if, enemy of mankind, they asked thee to swallow a
+dozen of toads, two of lizards, and three of adders; if they wanted thee
+to slay thy wife and children with a sharp murderous scimitar, it would
+be no wonder for thee to show thyself stubborn and squeamish. But to make
+a piece of work about three thousand three hundred lashes, what every
+poor little charity-boy gets every month--it is enough to amaze,
+astonish, astound the compassionate bowels of all who hear it, nay, all
+who come to hear it in the course of time. Turn, O miserable,
+hard-hearted animal, turn, I say, those timorous owl’s eyes upon these of
+mine that are compared to radiant stars, and thou wilt see them weeping
+trickling streams and rills, and tracing furrows, tracks, and paths over
+the fair fields of my cheeks. Let it move thee, crafty, ill-conditioned
+monster, to see my blooming youth--still in its teens, for I am not yet
+twenty--wasting and withering away beneath the husk of a rude peasant
+wench; and if I do not appear in that shape now, it is a special favour
+Señor Merlin here has granted me, to the sole end that my beauty may
+soften thee; for the tears of beauty in distress turn rocks into cotton
+and tigers into ewes. Lay on to that hide of thine, thou great untamed
+brute, rouse up thy lusty vigour that only urges thee to eat and eat, and
+set free the softness of my flesh, the gentleness of my nature, and the
+fairness of my face. And if thou wilt not relent or come to reason for
+me, do so for the sake of that poor knight thou hast beside thee; thy
+master I mean, whose soul I can this moment see, how he has it stuck in
+his throat not ten fingers from his lips, and only waiting for thy
+inflexible or yielding reply to make its escape by his mouth or go back
+again into his stomach.”
+
+Don Quixote on hearing this felt his throat, and turning to the duke he
+said, “By God, señor, Dulcinea says true, I have my soul stuck here in my
+throat like the nut of a crossbow.”
+
+“What say you to this, Sancho?” said the duchess.
+
+“I say, señora,” returned Sancho, “what I said before; as for the lashes,
+abernuncio!”
+
+“Abrenuncio, you should say, Sancho, and not as you do,” said the duke.
+
+“Let me alone, your highness,” said Sancho. “I’m not in a humour now to
+look into niceties or a letter more or less, for these lashes that are to
+be given me, or I’m to give myself, have so upset me, that I don’t know
+what I’m saying or doing. But I’d like to know of this lady, my lady
+Dulcinea del Toboso, where she learned this way she has of asking
+favours. She comes to ask me to score my flesh with lashes, and she calls
+me soul of a pitcher, and great untamed brute, and a string of foul names
+that the devil is welcome to. Is my flesh brass? or is it anything to me
+whether she is enchanted or not? Does she bring with her a basket of fair
+linen, shirts, kerchiefs, socks-not that wear any--to coax me? No,
+nothing but one piece of abuse after another, though she knows the
+proverb they have here that ‘an ass loaded with gold goes lightly up a
+mountain,’ and that ‘gifts break rocks,’ and ‘praying to God and plying
+the hammer,’ and that ‘one “take” is better than two “I’ll give thee’s.”’
+Then there’s my master, who ought to stroke me down and pet me to make me
+turn wool and carded cotton; he says if he gets hold of me he’ll tie me
+naked to a tree and double the tale of lashes on me. These tender-hearted
+gentry should consider that it’s not merely a squire, but a governor they
+are asking to whip himself; just as if it was ‘drink with cherries.’ Let
+them learn, plague take them, the right way to ask, and beg, and behave
+themselves; for all times are not alike, nor are people always in good
+humour. I’m now ready to burst with grief at seeing my green coat torn,
+and they come to ask me to whip myself of my own free will, I having as
+little fancy for it as for turning cacique.”
+
+“Well then, the fact is, friend Sancho,” said the duke, “that unless you
+become softer than a ripe fig, you shall not get hold of the government.
+It would be a nice thing for me to send my islanders a cruel governor
+with flinty bowels, who won’t yield to the tears of afflicted damsels or
+to the prayers of wise, magisterial, ancient enchanters and sages. In
+short, Sancho, either you must be whipped by yourself, or they must whip
+you, or you shan’t be governor.”
+
+“Señor,” said Sancho, “won’t two days’ grace be given me in which to
+consider what is best for me?”
+
+“No, certainly not,” said Merlin; “here, this minute, and on the spot,
+the matter must be settled; either Dulcinea will return to the cave of
+Montesinos and to her former condition of peasant wench, or else in her
+present form shall be carried to the Elysian fields, where she will
+remain waiting until the number of stripes is completed.”
+
+“Now then, Sancho!” said the duchess, “show courage, and gratitude for
+your master Don Quixote’s bread that you have eaten; we are all bound to
+oblige and please him for his benevolent disposition and lofty chivalry.
+Consent to this whipping, my son; to the devil with the devil, and leave
+fear to milksops, for ‘a stout heart breaks bad luck,’ as you very well
+know.”
+
+To this Sancho replied with an irrelevant remark, which, addressing
+Merlin, he made to him, “Will your worship tell me, Señor Merlin--when
+that courier devil came up he gave my master a message from Señor
+Montesinos, charging him to wait for him here, as he was coming to
+arrange how the lady Dona Dulcinea del Toboso was to be disenchanted; but
+up to the present we have not seen Montesinos, nor anything like him.”
+
+To which Merlin made answer, “The devil, Sancho, is a blockhead and a
+great scoundrel; I sent him to look for your master, but not with a
+message from Montesinos but from myself; for Montesinos is in his cave
+expecting, or more properly speaking, waiting for his disenchantment; for
+there’s the tail to be skinned yet for him; if he owes you anything, or
+you have any business to transact with him, I’ll bring him to you and put
+him where you choose; but for the present make up your mind to consent to
+this penance, and believe me it will be very good for you, for soul as
+well for body--for your soul because of the charity with which you
+perform it, for your body because I know that you are of a sanguine habit
+and it will do you no harm to draw a little blood.”
+
+“There are a great many doctors in the world; even the enchanters are
+doctors,” said Sancho; “however, as everybody tells me the same
+thing--though I can’t see it myself--I say I am willing to give myself
+the three thousand three hundred lashes, provided I am to lay them on
+whenever I like, without any fixing of days or times; and I’ll try and
+get out of debt as quickly as I can, that the world may enjoy the beauty
+of the lady Dulcinea del Toboso; as it seems, contrary to what I thought,
+that she is beautiful after all. It must be a condition, too, that I am
+not to be bound to draw blood with the scourge, and that if any of the
+lashes happen to be fly-flappers they are to count. Item, that, in case I
+should make any mistake in the reckoning, Señor Merlin, as he knows
+everything, is to keep count, and let me know how many are still wanting
+or over the number.”
+
+“There will be no need to let you know of any over,” said Merlin,
+“because, when you reach the full number, the lady Dulcinea will at once,
+and that very instant, be disenchanted, and will come in her gratitude to
+seek out the worthy Sancho, and thank him, and even reward him for the
+good work. So you have no cause to be uneasy about stripes too many or
+too few; heaven forbid I should cheat anyone of even a hair of his head.”
+
+“Well then, in God’s hands be it,” said Sancho; “in the hard case I’m in
+I give in; I say I accept the penance on the conditions laid down.”
+
+The instant Sancho uttered these last words the music of the clarions
+struck up once more, and again a host of muskets were discharged, and Don
+Quixote hung on Sancho’s neck kissing him again and again on the forehead
+and cheeks. The duchess and the duke expressed the greatest satisfaction,
+the car began to move on, and as it passed the fair Dulcinea bowed to the
+duke and duchess and made a low curtsey to Sancho.
+
+And now bright smiling dawn came on apace; the flowers of the field,
+revived, raised up their heads, and the crystal waters of the brooks,
+murmuring over the grey and white pebbles, hastened to pay their tribute
+to the expectant rivers; the glad earth, the unclouded sky, the fresh
+breeze, the clear light, each and all showed that the day that came
+treading on the skirts of morning would be calm and bright. The duke and
+duchess, pleased with their hunt and at having carried out their plans so
+cleverly and successfully, returned to their castle resolved to follow up
+their joke; for to them there was no reality that could afford them more
+amusement.
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+The duke had a majordomo of a very facetious and sportive turn, and he it
+was that played the part of Merlin, made all the arrangements for the
+late adventure, composed the verses, and got a page to represent
+Dulcinea; and now, with the assistance of his master and mistress, he got
+up another of the drollest and strangest contrivances that can be
+imagined.
+
+The duchess asked Sancho the next day if he had made a beginning with his
+penance task which he had to perform for the disenchantment of Dulcinea.
+He said he had, and had given himself five lashes overnight.
+
+The duchess asked him what he had given them with.
+
+He said with his hand.
+
+“That,” said the duchess, “is more like giving oneself slaps than lashes;
+I am sure the sage Merlin will not be satisfied with such tenderness;
+worthy Sancho must make a scourge with claws, or a cat-o’-nine tails,
+that will make itself felt; for it’s with blood that letters enter, and
+the release of so great a lady as Dulcinea will not be granted so
+cheaply, or at such a paltry price; and remember, Sancho, that works of
+charity done in a lukewarm and half-hearted way are without merit and of
+no avail.”
+
+To which Sancho replied, “If your ladyship will give me a proper scourge
+or cord, I’ll lay on with it, provided it does not hurt too much; for you
+must know, boor as I am, my flesh is more cotton than hemp, and it won’t
+do for me to destroy myself for the good of anybody else.”
+
+“So be it by all means,” said the duchess; “to-morrow I’ll give you a
+scourge that will be just the thing for you, and will accommodate itself
+to the tenderness of your flesh, as if it was its own sister.”
+
+Then said Sancho, “Your highness must know, dear lady of my soul, that I
+have a letter written to my wife, Teresa Panza, giving her an account of
+all that has happened me since I left her; I have it here in my bosom,
+and there’s nothing wanting but to put the address to it; I’d be glad if
+your discretion would read it, for I think it runs in the governor style;
+I mean the way governors ought to write.”
+
+“And who dictated it?” asked the duchess.
+
+“Who should have dictated but myself, sinner as I am?” said Sancho.
+
+“And did you write it yourself?” said the duchess.
+
+“That I didn’t,” said Sancho; “for I can neither read nor write, though I
+can sign my name.”
+
+“Let us see it,” said the duchess, “for never fear but you display in it
+the quality and quantity of your wit.”
+
+Sancho drew out an open letter from his bosom, and the duchess, taking
+it, found it ran in this fashion:
+
+
+SANCHO PANZA’S LETTER TO HIS WIFE, TERESA PANZA
+
+If I was well whipped I went mounted like a gentleman; if I have got a
+good government it is at the cost of a good whipping. Thou wilt not
+understand this just now, my Teresa; by-and-by thou wilt know what it
+means. I may tell thee, Teresa, I mean thee to go in a coach, for that is
+a matter of importance, because every other way of going is going on
+all-fours. Thou art a governor’s wife; take care that nobody speaks evil
+of thee behind thy back. I send thee here a green hunting suit that my
+lady the duchess gave me; alter it so as to make a petticoat and bodice
+for our daughter. Don Quixote, my master, if I am to believe what I hear
+in these parts, is a madman of some sense, and a droll blockhead, and I
+am no way behind him. We have been in the cave of Montesinos, and the
+sage Merlin has laid hold of me for the disenchantment of Dulcinea del
+Toboso, her that is called Aldonza Lorenzo over there. With three
+thousand three hundred lashes, less five, that I’m to give myself, she
+will be left as entirely disenchanted as the mother that bore her. Say
+nothing of this to anyone; for, make thy affairs public, and some will
+say they are white and others will say they are black. I shall leave this
+in a few days for my government, to which I am going with a mighty great
+desire to make money, for they tell me all new governors set out with the
+same desire; I will feel the pulse of it and will let thee know if thou
+art to come and live with me or not. Dapple is well and sends many
+remembrances to thee; I am not going to leave him behind though they took
+me away to be Grand Turk. My lady the duchess kisses thy hands a thousand
+times; do thou make a return with two thousand, for as my master says,
+nothing costs less or is cheaper than civility. God has not been pleased
+to provide another valise for me with another hundred crowns, like the
+one the other day; but never mind, my Teresa, the bell-ringer is in safe
+quarters, and all will come out in the scouring of the government; only
+it troubles me greatly what they tell me--that once I have tasted it I
+will eat my hands off after it; and if that is so it will not come very
+cheap to me; though to be sure the maimed have a benefice of their own in
+the alms they beg for; so that one way or another thou wilt be rich and
+in luck. God give it to thee as he can, and keep me to serve thee. From
+this castle, the 20th of July, 1614.
+
+Thy husband, the governor.
+
+SANCHO PANZA
+
+
+When she had done reading the letter the duchess said to Sancho, “On two
+points the worthy governor goes rather astray; one is in saying or
+hinting that this government has been bestowed upon him for the lashes
+that he is to give himself, when he knows (and he cannot deny it) that
+when my lord the duke promised it to him nobody ever dreamt of such a
+thing as lashes; the other is that he shows himself here to be very
+covetous; and I would not have him a money-seeker, for ‘covetousness
+bursts the bag,’ and the covetous governor does ungoverned justice.”
+
+“I don’t mean it that way, señora,” said Sancho; “and if you think the
+letter doesn’t run as it ought to do, it’s only to tear it up and make
+another; and maybe it will be a worse one if it is left to my gumption.”
+
+“No, no,” said the duchess, “this one will do, and I wish the duke to see
+it.”
+
+With this they betook themselves to a garden where they were to dine, and
+the duchess showed Sancho’s letter to the duke, who was highly delighted
+with it. They dined, and after the cloth had been removed and they had
+amused themselves for a while with Sancho’s rich conversation, the
+melancholy sound of a fife and harsh discordant drum made itself heard.
+All seemed somewhat put out by this dull, confused, martial harmony,
+especially Don Quixote, who could not keep his seat from pure
+disquietude; as to Sancho, it is needless to say that fear drove him to
+his usual refuge, the side or the skirts of the duchess; and indeed and
+in truth the sound they heard was a most doleful and melancholy one.
+While they were still in uncertainty they saw advancing towards them
+through the garden two men clad in mourning robes so long and flowing
+that they trailed upon the ground. As they marched they beat two great
+drums which were likewise draped in black, and beside them came the fife
+player, black and sombre like the others. Following these came a
+personage of gigantic stature enveloped rather than clad in a gown of the
+deepest black, the skirt of which was of prodigious dimensions. Over the
+gown, girdling or crossing his figure, he had a broad baldric which was
+also black, and from which hung a huge scimitar with a black scabbard and
+furniture. He had his face covered with a transparent black veil, through
+which might be descried a very long beard as white as snow. He came on
+keeping step to the sound of the drums with great gravity and dignity;
+and, in short, his stature, his gait, the sombreness of his appearance
+and his following might well have struck with astonishment, as they did,
+all who beheld him without knowing who he was. With this measured pace
+and in this guise he advanced to kneel before the duke, who, with the
+others, awaited him standing. The duke, however, would not on any account
+allow him to speak until he had risen. The prodigious scarecrow obeyed,
+and standing up, removed the veil from his face and disclosed the most
+enormous, the longest, the whitest and the thickest beard that human eyes
+had ever beheld until that moment, and then fetching up a grave, sonorous
+voice from the depths of his broad, capacious chest, and fixing his eyes
+on the duke, he said:
+
+“Most high and mighty señor, my name is Trifaldin of the White Beard; I
+am squire to the Countess Trifaldi, otherwise called the Distressed
+Duenna, on whose behalf I bear a message to your highness, which is that
+your magnificence will be pleased to grant her leave and permission to
+come and tell you her trouble, which is one of the strangest and most
+wonderful that the mind most familiar with trouble in the world could
+have imagined; but first she desires to know if the valiant and never
+vanquished knight, Don Quixote of La Mancha, is in this your castle, for
+she has come in quest of him on foot and without breaking her fast from
+the kingdom of Kandy to your realms here; a thing which may and ought to
+be regarded as a miracle or set down to enchantment; she is even now at
+the gate of this fortress or plaisance, and only waits for your
+permission to enter. I have spoken.” And with that he coughed, and
+stroked down his beard with both his hands, and stood very tranquilly
+waiting for the response of the duke, which was to this effect: “Many
+days ago, worthy squire Trifaldin of the White Beard, we heard of the
+misfortune of my lady the Countess Trifaldi, whom the enchanters have
+caused to be called the Distressed Duenna. Bid her enter, O stupendous
+squire, and tell her that the valiant knight Don Quixote of La Mancha is
+here, and from his generous disposition she may safely promise herself
+every protection and assistance; and you may tell her, too, that if my
+aid be necessary it will not be withheld, for I am bound to give it to
+her by my quality of knight, which involves the protection of women of
+all sorts, especially widowed, wronged, and distressed dames, such as her
+ladyship seems to be.”
+
+On hearing this Trifaldin bent the knee to the ground, and making a sign
+to the fifer and drummers to strike up, he turned and marched out of the
+garden to the same notes and at the same pace as when he entered, leaving
+them all amazed at his bearing and solemnity. Turning to Don Quixote, the
+duke said, “After all, renowned knight, the mists of malice and ignorance
+are unable to hide or obscure the light of valour and virtue. I say so,
+because your excellence has been barely six days in this castle, and
+already the unhappy and the afflicted come in quest of you from lands far
+distant and remote, and not in coaches or on dromedaries, but on foot and
+fasting, confident that in that mighty arm they will find a cure for
+their sorrows and troubles; thanks to your great achievements, which are
+circulated all over the known earth.”
+
+“I wish, señor duke,” replied Don Quixote, “that blessed ecclesiastic,
+who at table the other day showed such ill-will and bitter spite against
+knights-errant, were here now to see with his own eyes whether knights of
+the sort are needed in the world; he would at any rate learn by
+experience that those suffering any extraordinary affliction or sorrow,
+in extreme cases and unusual misfortunes do not go to look for a remedy
+to the houses of jurists or village sacristans, or to the knight who has
+never attempted to pass the bounds of his own town, or to the indolent
+courtier who only seeks for news to repeat and talk of, instead of
+striving to do deeds and exploits for others to relate and record. Relief
+in distress, help in need, protection for damsels, consolation for
+widows, are to be found in no sort of persons better than in
+knights-errant; and I give unceasing thanks to heaven that I am one, and
+regard any misfortune or suffering that may befall me in the pursuit of
+so honourable a calling as endured to good purpose. Let this duenna come
+and ask what she will, for I will effect her relief by the might of my
+arm and the dauntless resolution of my bold heart.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE NOTABLE ADVENTURE OF THE DISTRESSED DUENNA
+
+
+The duke and duchess were extremely glad to see how readily Don Quixote
+fell in with their scheme; but at this moment Sancho observed, “I hope
+this señora duenna won’t be putting any difficulties in the way of the
+promise of my government; for I have heard a Toledo apothecary, who
+talked like a goldfinch, say that where duennas were mixed up nothing
+good could happen. God bless me, how he hated them, that same apothecary!
+And so what I’m thinking is, if all duennas, of whatever sort or
+condition they may be, are plagues and busybodies, what must they be that
+are distressed, like this Countess Three-skirts or Three-tails!--for in
+my country skirts or tails, tails or skirts, it’s all one.”
+
+“Hush, friend Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “since this lady duenna comes in
+quest of me from such a distant land she cannot be one of those the
+apothecary meant; moreover this is a countess, and when countesses serve
+as duennas it is in the service of queens and empresses, for in their own
+houses they are mistresses paramount and have other duennas to wait on
+them.”
+
+To this Dona Rodriguez, who was present, made answer, “My lady the
+duchess has duennas in her service that might be countesses if it was the
+will of fortune; ‘but laws go as kings like;’ let nobody speak ill of
+duennas, above all of ancient maiden ones; for though I am not one
+myself, I know and am aware of the advantage a maiden duenna has over one
+that is a widow; but ‘he who clipped us has kept the scissors.’”
+
+“For all that,” said Sancho, “there’s so much to be clipped about
+duennas, so my barber said, that ‘it will be better not to stir the rice
+even though it sticks.’”
+
+“These squires,” returned Dona Rodriguez, “are always our enemies; and as
+they are the haunting spirits of the antechambers and watch us at every
+step, whenever they are not saying their prayers (and that’s often
+enough) they spend their time in tattling about us, digging up our bones
+and burying our good name. But I can tell these walking blocks that we
+will live in spite of them, and in great houses too, though we die of
+hunger and cover our flesh, be it delicate or not, with widow’s weeds, as
+one covers or hides a dunghill on a procession day. By my faith, if it
+were permitted me and time allowed, I could prove, not only to those here
+present, but to all the world, that there is no virtue that is not to be
+found in a duenna.”
+
+“I have no doubt,” said the duchess, “that my good Dona Rodriguez is
+right, and very much so; but she had better bide her time for fighting
+her own battle and that of the rest of the duennas, so as to crush the
+calumny of that vile apothecary, and root out the prejudice in the great
+Sancho Panza’s mind.”
+
+To which Sancho replied, “Ever since I have sniffed the governorship I
+have got rid of the humours of a squire, and I don’t care a wild fig for
+all the duennas in the world.”
+
+They would have carried on this duenna dispute further had they not heard
+the notes of the fife and drums once more, from which they concluded that
+the Distressed Duenna was making her entrance. The duchess asked the duke
+if it would be proper to go out to receive her, as she was a countess and
+a person of rank.
+
+“In respect of her being a countess,” said Sancho, before the duke could
+reply, “I am for your highnesses going out to receive her; but in respect
+of her being a duenna, it is my opinion you should not stir a step.”
+
+“Who bade thee meddle in this, Sancho?” said Don Quixote.
+
+“Who, señor?” said Sancho; “I meddle for I have a right to meddle, as a
+squire who has learned the rules of courtesy in the school of your
+worship, the most courteous and best-bred knight in the whole world of
+courtliness; and in these things, as I have heard your worship say, as
+much is lost by a card too many as by a card too few, and to one who has
+his ears open, few words.”
+
+“Sancho is right,” said the duke; “we’ll see what the countess is like,
+and by that measure the courtesy that is due to her.”
+
+And now the drums and fife made their entrance as before; and here the
+author brought this short chapter to an end and began the next, following
+up the same adventure, which is one of the most notable in the history.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+WHEREIN IS TOLD THE DISTRESSED DUENNA’S TALE OF HER MISFORTUNES
+
+
+Following the melancholy musicians there filed into the garden as many as
+twelve duennas, in two lines, all dressed in ample mourning robes
+apparently of milled serge, with hoods of fine white gauze so long that
+they allowed only the border of the robe to be seen. Behind them came the
+Countess Trifaldi, the squire Trifaldin of the White Beard leading her by
+the hand, clad in the finest unnapped black baize, such that, had it a
+nap, every tuft would have shown as big as a Martos chickpea; the tail,
+or skirt, or whatever it might be called, ended in three points which
+were borne up by the hands of three pages, likewise dressed in mourning,
+forming an elegant geometrical figure with the three acute angles made by
+the three points, from which all who saw the peaked skirt concluded that
+it must be because of it the countess was called Trifaldi, as though it
+were Countess of the Three Skirts; and Benengeli says it was so, and that
+by her right name she was called the Countess Lobuna, because wolves bred
+in great numbers in her country; and if, instead of wolves, they had been
+foxes, she would have been called the Countess Zorruna, as it was the
+custom in those parts for lords to take distinctive titles from the thing
+or things most abundant in their dominions; this countess, however, in
+honour of the new fashion of her skirt, dropped Lobuna and took up
+Trifaldi.
+
+The twelve duennas and the lady came on at procession pace, their faces
+being covered with black veils, not transparent ones like Trifaldin’s,
+but so close that they allowed nothing to be seen through them. As soon
+as the band of duennas was fully in sight, the duke, the duchess, and Don
+Quixote stood up, as well as all who were watching the slow-moving
+procession. The twelve duennas halted and formed a lane, along which the
+Distressed One advanced, Trifaldin still holding her hand. On seeing this
+the duke, the duchess, and Don Quixote went some twelve paces forward to
+meet her. She then, kneeling on the ground, said in a voice hoarse and
+rough, rather than fine and delicate, “May it please your highnesses not
+to offer such courtesies to this your servant, I should say to this your
+handmaid, for I am in such distress that I shall never be able to make a
+proper return, because my strange and unparalleled misfortune has carried
+off my wits, and I know not whither; but it must be a long way off, for
+the more I look for them the less I find them.”
+
+“He would be wanting in wits, señora countess,” said the duke, “who did
+not perceive your worth by your person, for at a glance it may be seen it
+deserves all the cream of courtesy and flower of polite usage;” and
+raising her up by the hand he led her to a seat beside the duchess, who
+likewise received her with great urbanity. Don Quixote remained silent,
+while Sancho was dying to see the features of Trifaldi and one or two of
+her many duennas; but there was no possibility of it until they
+themselves displayed them of their own accord and free will.
+
+All kept still, waiting to see who would break silence, which the
+Distressed Duenna did in these words: “I am confident, most mighty lord,
+most fair lady, and most discreet company, that my most miserable misery
+will be accorded a reception no less dispassionate than generous and
+condolent in your most valiant bosoms, for it is one that is enough to
+melt marble, soften diamonds, and mollify the steel of the most hardened
+hearts in the world; but ere it is proclaimed to your hearing, not to say
+your ears, I would fain be enlightened whether there be present in this
+society, circle, or company, that knight immaculatissimus, Don Quixote de
+la Manchissima, and his squirissimus Panza.”
+
+“The Panza is here,” said Sancho, before anyone could reply, “and Don
+Quixotissimus too; and so, most distressedest Duenissima, you may say
+what you willissimus, for we are all readissimus to do you any
+servissimus.”
+
+On this Don Quixote rose, and addressing the Distressed Duenna, said, “If
+your sorrows, afflicted lady, can indulge in any hope of relief from the
+valour or might of any knight-errant, here are mine, which, feeble and
+limited though they be, shall be entirely devoted to your service. I am
+Don Quixote of La Mancha, whose calling it is to give aid to the needy of
+all sorts; and that being so, it is not necessary for you, señora, to
+make any appeal to benevolence, or deal in preambles, only to tell your
+woes plainly and straightforwardly: for you have hearers that will know
+how, if not to remedy them, to sympathise with them.”
+
+On hearing this, the Distressed Duenna made as though she would throw
+herself at Don Quixote’s feet, and actually did fall before them and
+said, as she strove to embrace them, “Before these feet and legs I cast
+myself, O unconquered knight, as before, what they are, the foundations
+and pillars of knight-errantry; these feet I desire to kiss, for upon
+their steps hangs and depends the sole remedy for my misfortune, O
+valorous errant, whose veritable achievements leave behind and eclipse
+the fabulous ones of the Amadises, Esplandians, and Belianises!” Then
+turning from Don Quixote to Sancho Panza, and grasping his hands, she
+said, “O thou, most loyal squire that ever served knight-errant in this
+present age or ages past, whose goodness is more extensive than the beard
+of Trifaldin my companion here of present, well mayest thou boast thyself
+that, in serving the great Don Quixote, thou art serving, summed up in
+one, the whole host of knights that have ever borne arms in the world. I
+conjure thee, by what thou owest to thy most loyal goodness, that thou
+wilt become my kind intercessor with thy master, that he speedily give
+aid to this most humble and most unfortunate countess.”
+
+To this Sancho made answer, “As to my goodness, señora, being as long and
+as great as your squire’s beard, it matters very little to me; may I have
+my soul well bearded and moustached when it comes to quit this life,
+that’s the point; about beards here below I care little or nothing; but
+without all these blandishments and prayers, I will beg my master (for I
+know he loves me, and, besides, he has need of me just now for a certain
+business) to help and aid your worship as far as he can; unpack your woes
+and lay them before us, and leave us to deal with them, for we’ll be all
+of one mind.”
+
+The duke and duchess, as it was they who had made the experiment of this
+adventure, were ready to burst with laughter at all this, and between
+themselves they commended the clever acting of the Trifaldi, who,
+returning to her seat, said, “Queen Dona Maguncia reigned over the famous
+kingdom of Kandy, which lies between the great Trapobana and the Southern
+Sea, two leagues beyond Cape Comorin. She was the widow of King
+Archipiela, her lord and husband, and of their marriage they had issue
+the Princess Antonomasia, heiress of the kingdom; which Princess
+Antonomasia was reared and brought up under my care and direction, I
+being the oldest and highest in rank of her mother’s duennas. Time
+passed, and the young Antonomasia reached the age of fourteen, and such a
+perfection of beauty, that nature could not raise it higher. Then, it
+must not be supposed her intelligence was childish; she was as
+intelligent as she was fair, and she was fairer than all the world; and
+is so still, unless the envious fates and hard-hearted sisters three have
+cut for her the thread of life. But that they have not, for Heaven will
+not suffer so great a wrong to Earth, as it would be to pluck unripe the
+grapes of the fairest vineyard on its surface. Of this beauty, to which
+my poor feeble tongue has failed to do justice, countless princes, not
+only of that country, but of others, were enamoured, and among them a
+private gentleman, who was at the court, dared to raise his thoughts to
+the heaven of so great beauty, trusting to his youth, his gallant
+bearing, his numerous accomplishments and graces, and his quickness and
+readiness of wit; for I may tell your highnesses, if I am not wearying
+you, that he played the guitar so as to make it speak, and he was,
+besides, a poet and a great dancer, and he could make birdcages so well,
+that by making them alone he might have gained a livelihood, had he found
+himself reduced to utter poverty; and gifts and graces of this kind are
+enough to bring down a mountain, not to say a tender young girl. But all
+his gallantry, wit, and gaiety, all his graces and accomplishments, would
+have been of little or no avail towards gaining the fortress of my pupil,
+had not the impudent thief taken the precaution of gaining me over first.
+First, the villain and heartless vagabond sought to win my good-will and
+purchase my compliance, so as to get me, like a treacherous warder, to
+deliver up to him the keys of the fortress I had in charge. In a word, he
+gained an influence over my mind, and overcame my resolutions with I know
+not what trinkets and jewels he gave me; but it was some verses I heard
+him singing one night from a grating that opened on the street where he
+lived, that, more than anything else, made me give way and led to my
+fall; and if I remember rightly they ran thus:
+
+  From that sweet enemy of mine
+    My bleeding heart hath had its wound;
+    And to increase the pain I’m bound
+  To suffer and to make no sign.
+
+The lines seemed pearls to me and his voice sweet as syrup; and
+afterwards, I may say ever since then, looking at the misfortune into
+which I have fallen, I have thought that poets, as Plato advised, ought
+to be banished from all well-ordered States; at least the amatory ones,
+for they write verses, not like those of ‘The Marquis of Mantua,’ that
+delight and draw tears from the women and children, but sharp-pointed
+conceits that pierce the heart like soft thorns, and like the lightning
+strike it, leaving the raiment uninjured. Another time he sang:
+
+  Come Death, so subtly veiled that I
+    Thy coming know not, how or when,
+    Lest it should give me life again
+  To find how sweet it is to die.
+
+—and other verses and burdens of the same sort, such as enchant when
+sung and fascinate when written. And then, when they condescend to
+compose a sort of verse that was at that time in vogue in Kandy, which
+they call seguidillas! Then it is that hearts leap and laughter breaks
+forth, and the body grows restless and all the senses turn quicksilver.
+And so I say, sirs, that these troubadours richly deserve to be banished
+to the isles of the lizards. Though it is not they that are in fault, but
+the simpletons that extol them, and the fools that believe in them; and
+had I been the faithful duenna I should have been, his stale conceits
+would have never moved me, nor should I have been taken in by such
+phrases as ‘in death I live,’ ‘in ice I burn,’ ‘in flames I shiver,’
+‘hopeless I hope,’ ‘I go and stay,’ and paradoxes of that sort which
+their writings are full of. And then when they promise the Phoenix of
+Arabia, the crown of Ariadne, the horses of the Sun, the pearls of the
+South, the gold of Tibar, and the balsam of Panchaia! Then it is they
+give a loose to their pens, for it costs them little to make promises
+they have no intention or power of fulfilling. But where am I wandering
+to? Woe is me, unfortunate being! What madness or folly leads me to speak
+of the faults of others, when there is so much to be said about my own?
+Again, woe is me, hapless that I am! it was not verses that conquered me,
+but my own simplicity; it was not music made me yield, but my own
+imprudence; my own great ignorance and little caution opened the way and
+cleared the path for Don Clavijo’s advances, for that was the name of the
+gentleman I have referred to; and so, with my help as go-between, he
+found his way many a time into the chamber of the deceived Antonomasia
+(deceived not by him but by me) under the title of a lawful husband; for,
+sinner though I was, I would not have allowed him to approach the edge of
+her shoe-sole without being her husband. No, no, not that; marriage must
+come first in any business of this sort that I take in hand. But there
+was one hitch in this case, which was that of inequality of rank, Don
+Clavijo being a private gentleman, and the Princess Antonomasia, as I
+said, heiress to the kingdom. The entanglement remained for some time a
+secret, kept hidden by my cunning precautions, until I perceived that a
+certain expansion of waist in Antonomasia must before long disclose it,
+the dread of which made us all there take counsel together, and it was
+agreed that before the mischief came to light, Don Clavijo should demand
+Antonomasia as his wife before the Vicar, in virtue of an agreement to
+marry him made by the princess, and drafted by my wit in such binding
+terms that the might of Samson could not have broken it. The necessary
+steps were taken; the Vicar saw the agreement, and took the lady’s
+confession; she confessed everything in full, and he ordered her into the
+custody of a very worthy alguacil of the court.”
+
+“Are there alguacils of the court in Kandy, too,” said Sancho at this,
+“and poets, and seguidillas? I swear I think the world is the same all
+over! But make haste, Señora Trifaldi; for it is late, and I am dying to
+know the end of this long story.”
+
+“I will,” replied the countess.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+IN WHICH THE TRIFALDI CONTINUES HER MARVELLOUS AND MEMORABLE STORY
+
+
+By every word that Sancho uttered, the duchess was as much delighted as
+Don Quixote was driven to desperation. He bade him hold his tongue, and
+the Distressed One went on to say: “At length, after much questioning and
+answering, as the princess held to her story, without changing or varying
+her previous declaration, the Vicar gave his decision in favour of Don
+Clavijo, and she was delivered over to him as his lawful wife; which the
+Queen Dona Maguncia, the Princess Antonomasia’s mother, so took to heart,
+that within the space of three days we buried her.”
+
+“She died, no doubt,” said Sancho.
+
+“Of course,” said Trifaldin; “they don’t bury living people in Kandy,
+only the dead.”
+
+“Señor Squire,” said Sancho, “a man in a swoon has been known to be
+buried before now, in the belief that he was dead; and it struck me that
+Queen Maguncia ought to have swooned rather than died; because with life
+a great many things come right, and the princess’s folly was not so great
+that she need feel it so keenly. If the lady had married some page of
+hers, or some other servant of the house, as many another has done, so I
+have heard say, then the mischief would have been past curing. But to
+marry such an elegant accomplished gentleman as has been just now
+described to us--indeed, indeed, though it was a folly, it was not such a
+great one as you think; for according to the rules of my master here--and
+he won’t allow me to lie--as of men of letters bishops are made, so of
+gentlemen knights, specially if they be errant, kings and emperors may be
+made.”
+
+“Thou art right, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for with a knight-errant, if
+he has but two fingers’ breadth of good fortune, it is on the cards to
+become the mightiest lord on earth. But let señora the Distressed One
+proceed; for I suspect she has got yet to tell us the bitter part of this
+so far sweet story.”
+
+“The bitter is indeed to come,” said the countess; “and such bitter that
+colocynth is sweet and oleander toothsome in comparison. The queen, then,
+being dead, and not in a swoon, we buried her; and hardly had we covered
+her with earth, hardly had we said our last farewells, when, quis talia
+fando temperet a lachrymis? over the queen’s grave there appeared,
+mounted upon a wooden horse, the giant Malambruno, Maguncia’s first
+cousin, who besides being cruel is an enchanter; and he, to revenge the
+death of his cousin, punish the audacity of Don Clavijo, and in wrath at
+the contumacy of Antonomasia, left them both enchanted by his art on the
+grave itself; she being changed into an ape of brass, and he into a
+horrible crocodile of some unknown metal; while between the two there
+stands a pillar, also of metal, with certain characters in the Syriac
+language inscribed upon it, which, being translated into Kandian, and now
+into Castilian, contain the following sentence: ‘These two rash lovers
+shall not recover their former shape until the valiant Manchegan comes to
+do battle with me in single combat; for the Fates reserve this unexampled
+adventure for his mighty valour alone.’ This done, he drew from its
+sheath a huge broad scimitar, and seizing me by the hair he made as
+though he meant to cut my throat and shear my head clean off. I was
+terror-stricken, my voice stuck in my throat, and I was in the deepest
+distress; nevertheless I summoned up my strength as well as I could, and
+in a trembling and piteous voice I addressed such words to him as induced
+him to stay the infliction of a punishment so severe. He then caused all
+the duennas of the palace, those that are here present, to be brought
+before him; and after having dwelt upon the enormity of our offence, and
+denounced duennas, their characters, their evil ways and worse intrigues,
+laying to the charge of all what I alone was guilty of, he said he would
+not visit us with capital punishment, but with others of a slow nature
+which would be in effect civil death for ever; and the very instant he
+ceased speaking we all felt the pores of our faces opening, and pricking
+us, as if with the points of needles. We at once put our hands up to our
+faces and found ourselves in the state you now see.”
+
+Here the Distressed One and the other duennas raised the veils with which
+they were covered, and disclosed countenances all bristling with beards,
+some red, some black, some white, and some grizzled, at which spectacle
+the duke and duchess made a show of being filled with wonder. Don Quixote
+and Sancho were overwhelmed with amazement, and the bystanders lost in
+astonishment, while the Trifaldi went on to say: “Thus did that
+malevolent villain Malambruno punish us, covering the tenderness and
+softness of our faces with these rough bristles! Would to heaven that he
+had swept off our heads with his enormous scimitar instead of obscuring
+the light of our countenances with these wool-combings that cover us! For
+if we look into the matter, sirs (and what I am now going to say I would
+say with eyes flowing like fountains, only that the thought of our
+misfortune and the oceans they have already wept, keep them as dry as
+barley spears, and so I say it without tears), where, I ask, can a duenna
+with a beard go to? What father or mother will feel pity for her? Who
+will help her? For, if even when she has a smooth skin, and a face
+tortured by a thousand kinds of washes and cosmetics, she can hardly get
+anybody to love her, what will she do when she shows a countenance turned
+into a thicket? Oh duennas, companions mine! it was an unlucky moment
+when we were born and an ill-starred hour when our fathers begot us!” And
+as she said this she showed signs of being about to faint.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+OF MATTERS RELATING AND BELONGING TO THIS ADVENTURE AND TO THIS MEMORABLE
+HISTORY
+
+
+Verily and truly all those who find pleasure in histories like this ought
+show their gratitude to Cide Hamete, its original author, for the
+scrupulous care he has taken to set before us all its minute particulars,
+not leaving anything, however trifling it may be, that he does not make
+clear and plain. He portrays the thoughts, he reveals the fancies, he
+answers implied questions, clears up doubts, sets objections at rest,
+and, in a word, makes plain the smallest points the most inquisitive can
+desire to know. O renowned author! O happy Don Quixote! O famous famous
+droll Sancho! All and each, may ye live countless ages for the delight
+and amusement of the dwellers on earth!
+
+The history goes on to say that when Sancho saw the Distressed One faint
+he exclaimed: “I swear by the faith of an honest man and the shades of
+all my ancestors the Panzas, that never I did see or hear of, nor has my
+master related or conceived in his mind, such an adventure as this. A
+thousand devils--not to curse thee--take thee, Malambruno, for an
+enchanter and a giant! Couldst thou find no other sort of punishment for
+these sinners but bearding them? Would it not have been better--it would
+have been better for them--to have taken off half their noses from the
+middle upwards, even though they’d have snuffled when they spoke, than to
+have put beards on them? I’ll bet they have not the means of paying
+anybody to shave them.”
+
+“That is the truth, señor,” said one of the twelve; “we have not the
+money to get ourselves shaved, and so we have, some of us, taken to using
+sticking-plasters by way of an economical remedy, for by applying them to
+our faces and plucking them off with a jerk we are left as bare and
+smooth as the bottom of a stone mortar. There are, to be sure, women in
+Kandy that go about from house to house to remove down, and trim
+eyebrows, and make cosmetics for the use of the women, but we, the
+duennas of my lady, would never let them in, for most of them have a
+flavour of agents that have ceased to be principals; and if we are not
+relieved by Señor Don Quixote we shall be carried to our graves with
+beards.”
+
+“I will pluck out my own in the land of the Moors,” said Don Quixote, “if
+I don’t cure yours.”
+
+At this instant the Trifaldi recovered from her swoon and said, “The
+chink of that promise, valiant knight, reached my ears in the midst of my
+swoon, and has been the means of reviving me and bringing back my senses;
+and so once more I implore you, illustrious errant, indomitable sir, to
+let your gracious promises be turned into deeds.”
+
+“There shall be no delay on my part,” said Don Quixote. “Bethink you,
+señora, of what I must do, for my heart is most eager to serve you.”
+
+“The fact is,” replied the Distressed One, “it is five thousand leagues,
+a couple more or less, from this to the kingdom of Kandy, if you go by
+land; but if you go through the air and in a straight line, it is three
+thousand two hundred and twenty-seven. You must know, too, that
+Malambruno told me that, whenever fate provided the knight our deliverer,
+he himself would send him a steed far better and with less tricks than a
+post-horse; for he will be that same wooden horse on which the valiant
+Pierres carried off the fair Magalona; which said horse is guided by a
+peg he has in his forehead that serves for a bridle, and flies through
+the air with such rapidity that you would fancy the very devils were
+carrying him. This horse, according to ancient tradition, was made by
+Merlin. He lent him to Pierres, who was a friend of his, and who made
+long journeys with him, and, as has been said, carried off the fair
+Magalona, bearing her through the air on its haunches and making all who
+beheld them from the earth gape with astonishment; and he never lent him
+save to those whom he loved or those who paid him well; and since the
+great Pierres we know of no one having mounted him until now. From him
+Malambruno stole him by his magic art, and he has him now in his
+possession, and makes use of him in his journeys which he constantly
+makes through different parts of the world; he is here to-day, to-morrow
+in France, and the next day in Potosi; and the best of it is the said
+horse neither eats nor sleeps nor wears out shoes, and goes at an ambling
+pace through the air without wings, so that he whom he has mounted upon
+him can carry a cup full of water in his hand without spilling a drop, so
+smoothly and easily does he go, for which reason the fair Magalona
+enjoyed riding him greatly.”
+
+“For going smoothly and easily,” said Sancho at this, “give me my Dapple,
+though he can’t go through the air; but on the ground I’ll back him
+against all the amblers in the world.”
+
+They all laughed, and the Distressed One continued: “And this same horse,
+if so be that Malambruno is disposed to put an end to our sufferings,
+will be here before us ere the night shall have advanced half an hour;
+for he announced to me that the sign he would give me whereby I might
+know that I had found the knight I was in quest of, would be to send me
+the horse wherever he might be, speedily and promptly.”
+
+“And how many is there room for on this horse?” asked Sancho.
+
+“Two,” said the Distressed One, “one in the saddle, and the other on the
+croup; and generally these two are knight and squire, when there is no
+damsel that’s being carried off.”
+
+“I’d like to know, Señora Distressed One,” said Sancho, “what is the name
+of this horse?”
+
+“His name,” said the Distressed One, “is not the same as Bellerophon’s
+horse that was called Pegasus, or Alexander the Great’s, called
+Bucephalus, or Orlando Furioso’s, the name of which was Brigliador, nor
+yet Bayard, the horse of Reinaldos of Montalvan, nor Frontino like
+Ruggiero’s, nor Bootes or Peritoa, as they say the horses of the sun were
+called, nor is he called Orelia, like the horse on which the unfortunate
+Rodrigo, the last king of the Goths, rode to the battle where he lost his
+life and his kingdom.”
+
+“I’ll bet,” said Sancho, “that as they have given him none of these
+famous names of well-known horses, no more have they given him the name
+of my master’s Rocinante, which for being apt surpasses all that have
+been mentioned.”
+
+“That is true,” said the bearded countess, “still it fits him very well,
+for he is called Clavileño the Swift, which name is in accordance with
+his being made of wood, with the peg he has in his forehead, and with the
+swift pace at which he travels; and so, as far as name goes, he may
+compare with the famous Rocinante.”
+
+“I have nothing to say against his name,” said Sancho; “but with what
+sort of bridle or halter is he managed?”
+
+“I have said already,” said the Trifaldi, “that it is with a peg, by
+turning which to one side or the other the knight who rides him makes him
+go as he pleases, either through the upper air, or skimming and almost
+sweeping the earth, or else in that middle course that is sought and
+followed in all well-regulated proceedings.”
+
+“I’d like to see him,” said Sancho; “but to fancy I’m going to mount him,
+either in the saddle or on the croup, is to ask pears of the elm tree. A
+good joke indeed! I can hardly keep my seat upon Dapple, and on a
+pack-saddle softer than silk itself, and here they’d have me hold on upon
+haunches of plank without pad or cushion of any sort! Gad, I have no
+notion of bruising myself to get rid of anyone’s beard; let each one
+shave himself as best he can; I’m not going to accompany my master on any
+such long journey; besides, I can’t give any help to the shaving of these
+beards as I can to the disenchantment of my lady Dulcinea.”
+
+“Yes, you can, my friend,” replied the Trifaldi; “and so much, that
+without you, so I understand, we shall be able to do nothing.”
+
+“In the king’s name!” exclaimed Sancho, “what have squires got to do with
+the adventures of their masters? Are they to have the fame of such as
+they go through, and we the labour? Body o’ me! if the historians would
+only say, ‘Such and such a knight finished such and such an adventure,
+but with the help of so and so, his squire, without which it would have
+been impossible for him to accomplish it;’ but they write curtly, “Don
+Paralipomenon of the Three Stars accomplished the adventure of the six
+monsters;’ without mentioning such a person as his squire, who was there
+all the time, just as if there was no such being. Once more, sirs, I say
+my master may go alone, and much good may it do him; and I’ll stay here
+in the company of my lady the duchess; and maybe when he comes back, he
+will find the lady Dulcinea’s affair ever so much advanced; for I mean in
+leisure hours, and at idle moments, to give myself a spell of whipping
+without so much as a hair to cover me.”
+
+“For all that you must go if it be necessary, my good Sancho,” said the
+duchess, “for they are worthy folk who ask you; and the faces of these
+ladies must not remain overgrown in this way because of your idle fears;
+that would be a hard case indeed.”
+
+“In the king’s name, once more!” said Sancho; “If this charitable work
+were to be done for the sake of damsels in confinement or charity-girls,
+a man might expose himself to some hardships; but to bear it for the sake
+of stripping beards off duennas! Devil take it! I’d sooner see them all
+bearded, from the highest to the lowest, and from the most prudish to the
+most affected.”
+
+“You are very hard on duennas, Sancho my friend,” said the duchess; “you
+incline very much to the opinion of the Toledo apothecary. But indeed you
+are wrong; there are duennas in my house that may serve as patterns of
+duennas; and here is my Dona Rodriguez, who will not allow me to say
+otherwise.”
+
+“Your excellence may say it if you like,” said the Rodriguez; “for God
+knows the truth of everything; and whether we duennas are good or bad,
+bearded or smooth, we are our mothers’ daughters like other women; and as
+God sent us into the world, he knows why he did, and on his mercy I rely,
+and not on anybody’s beard.”
+
+“Well, Señora Rodriguez, Señora Trifaldi, and present company,” said Don
+Quixote, “I trust in Heaven that it will look with kindly eyes upon your
+troubles, for Sancho will do as I bid him. Only let Clavileño come and
+let me find myself face to face with Malambruno, and I am certain no
+razor will shave you more easily than my sword shall shave Malambruno’s
+head off his shoulders; for ‘God bears with the wicked, but not for
+ever.’”
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed the Distressed One at this, “may all the stars of the
+celestial regions look down upon your greatness with benign eyes, valiant
+knight, and shed every prosperity and valour upon your heart, that it may
+be the shield and safeguard of the abused and downtrodden race of
+duennas, detested by apothecaries, sneered at by squires, and made game
+of by pages. Ill betide the jade that in the flower of her youth would
+not sooner become a nun than a duenna! Unfortunate beings that we are, we
+duennas! Though we may be descended in the direct male line from Hector
+of Troy himself, our mistresses never fail to address us as ‘you’ if they
+think it makes queens of them. O giant Malambruno, though thou art an
+enchanter, thou art true to thy promises. Send us now the peerless
+Clavileño, that our misfortune may be brought to an end; for if the hot
+weather sets in and these beards of ours are still there, alas for our
+lot!”
+
+The Trifaldi said this in such a pathetic way that she drew tears from
+the eyes of all and even Sancho’s filled up; and he resolved in his heart
+to accompany his master to the uttermost ends of the earth, if so be the
+removal of the wool from those venerable countenances depended upon it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+OF THE ARRIVAL OF CLAVILEÑO AND THE END OF THIS PROTRACTED ADVENTURE
+
+
+And now night came, and with it the appointed time for the arrival of the
+famous horse Clavileño, the non-appearance of which was already beginning
+to make Don Quixote uneasy, for it struck him that, as Malambruno was so
+long about sending it, either he himself was not the knight for whom the
+adventure was reserved, or else Malambruno did not dare to meet him in
+single combat. But lo! suddenly there came into the garden four wild-men
+all clad in green ivy bearing on their shoulders a great wooden horse.
+They placed it on its feet on the ground, and one of the wild-men said,
+“Let the knight who has heart for it mount this machine.”
+
+Here Sancho exclaimed, “I don’t mount, for neither have I the heart nor
+am I a knight.”
+
+“And let the squire, if he has one,” continued the wild-man, “take his
+seat on the croup, and let him trust the valiant Malambruno; for by no
+sword save his, nor by the malice of any other, shall he be assailed. It
+is but to turn this peg the horse has in his neck, and he will bear them
+through the air to where Malambruno awaits them; but lest the vast
+elevation of their course should make them giddy, their eyes must be
+covered until the horse neighs, which will be the sign of their having
+completed their journey.”
+
+With these words, leaving Clavileño behind them, they retired with easy
+dignity the way they came. As soon as the Distressed One saw the horse,
+almost in tears she exclaimed to Don Quixote, “Valiant knight, the
+promise of Malambruno has proved trustworthy; the horse has come, our
+beards are growing, and by every hair in them all of us implore thee to
+shave and shear us, as it is only mounting him with thy squire and making
+a happy beginning with your new journey.”
+
+“That I will, Señora Countess Trifaldi,” said Don Quixote, “most gladly
+and with right goodwill, without stopping to take a cushion or put on my
+spurs, so as not to lose time, such is my desire to see you and all these
+duennas shaved clean.”
+
+“That I won’t,” said Sancho, “with good-will or bad-will, or any way at
+all; and if this shaving can’t be done without my mounting on the croup,
+my master had better look out for another squire to go with him, and
+these ladies for some other way of making their faces smooth; I’m no
+witch to have a taste for travelling through the air. What would my
+islanders say when they heard their governor was going, strolling about
+on the winds? And another thing, as it is three thousand and odd leagues
+from this to Kandy, if the horse tires, or the giant takes huff, we’ll be
+half a dozen years getting back, and there won’t be isle or island in the
+world that will know me: and so, as it is a common saying ‘in delay
+there’s danger,’ and ‘when they offer thee a heifer run with a halter,’
+these ladies’ beards must excuse me; ‘Saint Peter is very well in Rome;’
+I mean I am very well in this house where so much is made of me, and I
+hope for such a good thing from the master as to see myself a governor.”
+
+“Friend Sancho,” said the duke at this, “the island that I have promised
+you is not a moving one, or one that will run away; it has roots so
+deeply buried in the bowels of the earth that it will be no easy matter
+to pluck it up or shift it from where it is; you know as well as I do
+that there is no sort of office of any importance that is not obtained by
+a bribe of some kind, great or small; well then, that which I look to
+receive for this government is that you go with your master Don Quixote,
+and bring this memorable adventure to a conclusion; and whether you
+return on Clavileño as quickly as his speed seems to promise, or adverse
+fortune brings you back on foot travelling as a pilgrim from hostel to
+hostel and from inn to inn, you will always find your island on your
+return where you left it, and your islanders with the same eagerness they
+have always had to receive you as their governor, and my good-will will
+remain the same; doubt not the truth of this, Señor Sancho, for that
+would be grievously wronging my disposition to serve you.”
+
+“Say no more, señor,” said Sancho; “I am a poor squire and not equal to
+carrying so much courtesy; let my master mount; bandage my eyes and
+commit me to God’s care, and tell me if I may commend myself to our Lord
+or call upon the angels to protect me when we go towering up there.”
+
+To this the Trifaldi made answer, “Sancho, you may freely commend
+yourself to God or whom you will; for Malambruno though an enchanter is a
+Christian, and works his enchantments with great circumspection, taking
+very good care not to fall out with anyone.”
+
+“Well then,” said Sancho, “God and the most holy Trinity of Gaeta give me
+help!”
+
+“Since the memorable adventure of the fulling mills,” said Don Quixote,
+“I have never seen Sancho in such a fright as now; were I as
+superstitious as others his abject fear would cause me some little
+trepidation of spirit. But come here, Sancho, for with the leave of these
+gentles I would say a word or two to thee in private;” and drawing Sancho
+aside among the trees of the garden and seizing both his hands he said,
+“Thou seest, brother Sancho, the long journey we have before us, and God
+knows when we shall return, or what leisure or opportunities this
+business will allow us; I wish thee therefore to retire now to thy
+chamber, as though thou wert going to fetch something required for the
+road, and in a trice give thyself if it be only five hundred lashes on
+account of the three thousand three hundred to which thou art bound; it
+will be all to the good, and to make a beginning with a thing is to have
+it half finished.”
+
+“By God,” said Sancho, “but your worship must be out of your senses! This
+is like the common saying, ‘You see me with child, and you want me a
+virgin.’ Just as I’m about to go sitting on a bare board, your worship
+would have me score my backside! Indeed, your worship is not reasonable.
+Let us be off to shave these duennas; and on our return I promise on my
+word to make such haste to wipe off all that’s due as will satisfy your
+worship; I can’t say more.”
+
+“Well, I will comfort myself with that promise, my good Sancho,” replied
+Don Quixote, “and I believe thou wilt keep it; for indeed though stupid
+thou art veracious.”
+
+“I’m not voracious,” said Sancho, “only peckish; but even if I was a
+little, still I’d keep my word.”
+
+With this they went back to mount Clavileño, and as they were about to do
+so Don Quixote said, “Cover thine eyes, Sancho, and mount; for one who
+sends for us from lands so far distant cannot mean to deceive us for the
+sake of the paltry glory to be derived from deceiving persons who trust
+in him; though all should turn out the contrary of what I hope, no malice
+will be able to dim the glory of having undertaken this exploit.”
+
+“Let us be off, señor,” said Sancho, “for I have taken the beards and
+tears of these ladies deeply to heart, and I shan’t eat a bit to relish
+it until I have seen them restored to their former smoothness. Mount,
+your worship, and blindfold yourself, for if I am to go on the croup, it
+is plain the rider in the saddle must mount first.”
+
+“That is true,” said Don Quixote, and, taking a handkerchief out of his
+pocket, he begged the Distressed One to bandage his eyes very carefully;
+but after having them bandaged he uncovered them again, saying, “If my
+memory does not deceive me, I have read in Virgil of the Palladium of
+Troy, a wooden horse the Greeks offered to the goddess Pallas, which was
+big with armed knights, who were afterwards the destruction of Troy; so
+it would be as well to see, first of all, what Clavileño has in his
+stomach.”
+
+“There is no occasion,” said the Distressed One; “I will be bail for him,
+and I know that Malambruno has nothing tricky or treacherous about him;
+you may mount without any fear, Señor Don Quixote; on my head be it if
+any harm befalls you.”
+
+Don Quixote thought that to say anything further with regard to his
+safety would be putting his courage in an unfavourable light; and so,
+without more words, he mounted Clavileño, and tried the peg, which turned
+easily; and as he had no stirrups and his legs hung down, he looked like
+nothing so much as a figure in some Roman triumph painted or embroidered
+on a Flemish tapestry.
+
+Much against the grain, and very slowly, Sancho proceeded to mount, and,
+after settling himself as well as he could on the croup, found it rather
+hard, and not at all soft, and asked the duke if it would be possible to
+oblige him with a pad of some kind, or a cushion; even if it were off the
+couch of his lady the duchess, or the bed of one of the pages; as the
+haunches of that horse were more like marble than wood. On this the
+Trifaldi observed that Clavileño would not bear any kind of harness or
+trappings, and that his best plan would be to sit sideways like a woman,
+as in that way he would not feel the hardness so much.
+
+Sancho did so, and, bidding them farewell, allowed his eyes to be
+bandaged, but immediately afterwards uncovered them again, and looking
+tenderly and tearfully on those in the garden, bade them help him in his
+present strait with plenty of Paternosters and Ave Marias, that God might
+provide some one to say as many for them, whenever they found themselves
+in a similar emergency.
+
+At this Don Quixote exclaimed, “Art thou on the gallows, thief, or at thy
+last moment, to use pitiful entreaties of that sort? Cowardly, spiritless
+creature, art thou not in the very place the fair Magalona occupied, and
+from which she descended, not into the grave, but to become Queen of
+France; unless the histories lie? And I who am here beside thee, may I
+not put myself on a par with the valiant Pierres, who pressed this very
+spot that I now press? Cover thine eyes, cover thine eyes, abject animal,
+and let not thy fear escape thy lips, at least in my presence.”
+
+“Blindfold me,” said Sancho; “as you won’t let me commend myself or be
+commended to God, is it any wonder if I am afraid there is a region of
+devils about here that will carry us off to Peralvillo?”
+
+They were then blindfolded, and Don Quixote, finding himself settled to
+his satisfaction, felt for the peg, and the instant he placed his fingers
+on it, all the duennas and all who stood by lifted up their voices
+exclaiming, “God guide thee, valiant knight! God be with thee, intrepid
+squire! Now, now ye go cleaving the air more swiftly than an arrow! Now
+ye begin to amaze and astonish all who are gazing at you from the earth!
+Take care not to wobble about, valiant Sancho! Mind thou fall not, for
+thy fall will be worse than that rash youth’s who tried to steer the
+chariot of his father the Sun!”
+
+As Sancho heard the voices, clinging tightly to his master and winding
+his arms round him, he said, “Señor, how do they make out we are going up
+so high, if their voices reach us here and they seem to be speaking quite
+close to us?”
+
+“Don’t mind that, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “for as affairs of this
+sort, and flights like this are out of the common course of things, you
+can see and hear as much as you like a thousand leagues off; but don’t
+squeeze me so tight or thou wilt upset me; and really I know not what
+thou hast to be uneasy or frightened at, for I can safely swear I never
+mounted a smoother-going steed all the days of my life; one would fancy
+we never stirred from one place. Banish fear, my friend, for indeed
+everything is going as it ought, and we have the wind astern.”
+
+“That’s true,” said Sancho, “for such a strong wind comes against me on
+this side, that it seems as if people were blowing on me with a thousand
+pair of bellows;” which was the case; they were puffing at him with a
+great pair of bellows; for the whole adventure was so well planned by the
+duke, the duchess, and their majordomo, that nothing was omitted to make
+it perfectly successful.
+
+Don Quixote now, feeling the blast, said, “Beyond a doubt, Sancho, we
+must have already reached the second region of the air, where the hail
+and snow are generated; the thunder, the lightning, and the thunderbolts
+are engendered in the third region, and if we go on ascending at this
+rate, we shall shortly plunge into the region of fire, and I know not how
+to regulate this peg, so as not to mount up where we shall be burned.”
+
+And now they began to warm their faces, from a distance, with tow that
+could be easily set on fire and extinguished again, fixed on the end of a
+cane. On feeling the heat Sancho said, “May I die if we are not already
+in that fire place, or very near it, for a good part of my beard has been
+singed, and I have a mind, señor, to uncover and see whereabouts we are.”
+
+“Do nothing of the kind,” said Don Quixote; “remember the true story of
+the licentiate Torralva that the devils carried flying through the air
+riding on a stick with his eyes shut; who in twelve hours reached Rome
+and dismounted at Torre di Nona, which is a street of the city, and saw
+the whole sack and storming and the death of Bourbon, and was back in
+Madrid the next morning, where he gave an account of all he had seen; and
+he said moreover that as he was going through the air, the devil bade him
+open his eyes, and he did so, and saw himself so near the body of the
+moon, so it seemed to him, that he could have laid hold of it with his
+hand, and that he did not dare to look at the earth lest he should be
+seized with giddiness. So that, Sancho, it will not do for us to uncover
+ourselves, for he who has us in charge will be responsible for us; and
+perhaps we are gaining an altitude and mounting up to enable us to
+descend at one swoop on the kingdom of Kandy, as the saker or falcon does
+on the heron, so as to seize it however high it may soar; and though it
+seems to us not half an hour since we left the garden, believe me we must
+have travelled a great distance.”
+
+“I don’t know how that may be,” said Sancho; “all I know is that if the
+Señora Magallanes or Magalona was satisfied with this croup, she could
+not have been very tender of flesh.”
+
+The duke, the duchess, and all in the garden were listening to the
+conversation of the two heroes, and were beyond measure amused by it; and
+now, desirous of putting a finishing touch to this rare and
+well-contrived adventure, they applied a light to Clavileño’s tail with
+some tow, and the horse, being full of squibs and crackers, immediately
+blew up with a prodigious noise, and brought Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
+to the ground half singed. By this time the bearded band of duennas, the
+Trifaldi and all, had vanished from the garden, and those that remained
+lay stretched on the ground as if in a swoon. Don Quixote and Sancho got
+up rather shaken, and, looking about them, were filled with amazement at
+finding themselves in the same garden from which they had started, and
+seeing such a number of people stretched on the ground; and their
+astonishment was increased when at one side of the garden they perceived
+a tall lance planted in the ground, and hanging from it by two cords of
+green silk a smooth white parchment on which there was the following
+inscription in large gold letters: “The illustrious knight Don Quixote of
+La Mancha has, by merely attempting it, finished and concluded the
+adventure of the Countess Trifaldi, otherwise called the Distressed
+Duenna; Malambruno is now satisfied on every point, the chins of the
+duennas are now smooth and clean, and King Don Clavijo and Queen
+Antonomasia in their original form; and when the squirely flagellation
+shall have been completed, the white dove shall find herself delivered
+from the pestiferous gerfalcons that persecute her, and in the arms of
+her beloved mate; for such is the decree of the sage Merlin,
+arch-enchanter of enchanters.”
+
+As soon as Don Quixote had read the inscription on the parchment he
+perceived clearly that it referred to the disenchantment of Dulcinea, and
+returning hearty thanks to heaven that he had with so little danger
+achieved so grand an exploit as to restore to their former complexion the
+countenances of those venerable duennas, he advanced towards the duke and
+duchess, who had not yet come to themselves, and taking the duke by the
+hand he said, “Be of good cheer, worthy sir, be of good cheer; it’s
+nothing at all; the adventure is now over and without any harm done, as
+the inscription fixed on this post shows plainly.”
+
+The duke came to himself slowly and like one recovering consciousness
+after a heavy sleep, and the duchess and all who had fallen prostrate
+about the garden did the same, with such demonstrations of wonder and
+amazement that they would have almost persuaded one that what they
+pretended so adroitly in jest had happened to them in reality. The duke
+read the placard with half-shut eyes, and then ran to embrace Don Quixote
+with open arms, declaring him to be the best knight that had ever been
+seen in any age. Sancho kept looking about for the Distressed One, to see
+what her face was like without the beard, and if she was as fair as her
+elegant person promised; but they told him that, the instant Clavileño
+descended flaming through the air and came to the ground, the whole band
+of duennas with the Trifaldi vanished, and that they were already shaved
+and without a stump left.
+
+The duchess asked Sancho how he had fared on that long journey, to which
+Sancho replied, “I felt, señora, that we were flying through the region
+of fire, as my master told me, and I wanted to uncover my eyes for a bit;
+but my master, when I asked leave to uncover myself, would not let me;
+but as I have a little bit of curiosity about me, and a desire to know
+what is forbidden and kept from me, quietly and without anyone seeing me
+I drew aside the handkerchief covering my eyes ever so little, close to
+my nose, and from underneath looked towards the earth, and it seemed to
+me that it was altogether no bigger than a grain of mustard seed, and
+that the men walking on it were little bigger than hazel nuts; so you may
+see how high we must have got to then.”
+
+To this the duchess said, “Sancho, my friend, mind what you are saying;
+it seems you could not have seen the earth, but only the men walking on
+it; for if the earth looked to you like a grain of mustard seed, and each
+man like a hazel nut, one man alone would have covered the whole earth.”
+
+“That is true,” said Sancho, “but for all that I got a glimpse of a bit
+of one side of it, and saw it all.”
+
+“Take care, Sancho,” said the duchess, “with a bit of one side one does
+not see the whole of what one looks at.”
+
+“I don’t understand that way of looking at things,” said Sancho; “I only
+know that your ladyship will do well to bear in mind that as we were
+flying by enchantment so I might have seen the whole earth and all the
+men by enchantment whatever way I looked; and if you won’t believe this,
+no more will you believe that, uncovering myself nearly to the eyebrows,
+I saw myself so close to the sky that there was not a palm and a half
+between me and it; and by everything that I can swear by, señora, it is
+mighty great! And it so happened we came by where the seven goats are,
+and by God and upon my soul, as in my youth I was a goatherd in my own
+country, as soon as I saw them I felt a longing to be among them for a
+little, and if I had not given way to it I think I’d have burst. So I
+come and take, and what do I do? without saying anything to anybody, not
+even to my master, softly and quietly I got down from Clavileño and
+amused myself with the goats--which are like violets, like flowers--for
+nigh three-quarters of an hour; and Clavileño never stirred or moved from
+one spot.”
+
+“And while the good Sancho was amusing himself with the goats,” said the
+duke, “how did Señor Don Quixote amuse himself?”
+
+To which Don Quixote replied, “As all these things and such like
+occurrences are out of the ordinary course of nature, it is no wonder
+that Sancho says what he does; for my own part I can only say that I did
+not uncover my eyes either above or below, nor did I see sky or earth or
+sea or shore. It is true I felt that I was passing through the region of
+the air, and even that I touched that of fire; but that we passed farther
+I cannot believe; for the region of fire being between the heaven of the
+moon and the last region of the air, we could not have reached that
+heaven where the seven goats Sancho speaks of are without being burned;
+and as we were not burned, either Sancho is lying or Sancho is dreaming.”
+
+“I am neither lying nor dreaming,” said Sancho; “only ask me the tokens
+of those same goats, and you’ll see by that whether I’m telling the truth
+or not.”
+
+“Tell us them then, Sancho,” said the duchess.
+
+“Two of them,” said Sancho, “are green, two blood-red, two blue, and one
+a mixture of all colours.”
+
+“An odd sort of goat, that,” said the duke; “in this earthly region of
+ours we have no such colours; I mean goats of such colours.”
+
+“That’s very plain,” said Sancho; “of course there must be a difference
+between the goats of heaven and the goats of the earth.”
+
+“Tell me, Sancho,” said the duke, “did you see any he-goat among those
+goats?”
+
+“No, señor,” said Sancho; “but I have heard say that none ever passed the
+horns of the moon.”
+
+They did not care to ask him anything more about his journey, for they
+saw he was in the vein to go rambling all over the heavens giving an
+account of everything that went on there, without having ever stirred
+from the garden. Such, in short, was the end of the adventure of the
+Distressed Duenna, which gave the duke and duchess laughing matter not
+only for the time being, but for all their lives, and Sancho something to
+talk about for ages, if he lived so long; but Don Quixote, coming close
+to his ear, said to him, “Sancho, as you would have us believe what you
+saw in heaven, I require you to believe me as to what I saw in the cave
+of Montesinos; I say no more.”
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+The duke and duchess were so well pleased with the successful and droll
+result of the adventure of the Distressed One, that they resolved to
+carry on the joke, seeing what a fit subject they had to deal with for
+making it all pass for reality. So having laid their plans and given
+instructions to their servants and vassals how to behave to Sancho in his
+government of the promised island, the next day, that following
+Clavileño’s flight, the duke told Sancho to prepare and get ready to go
+and be governor, for his islanders were already looking out for him as
+for the showers of May.
+
+Sancho made him an obeisance, and said, “Ever since I came down from
+heaven, and from the top of it beheld the earth, and saw how little it
+is, the great desire I had to be a governor has been partly cooled in me;
+for what is there grand in being ruler on a grain of mustard seed, or
+what dignity or authority in governing half a dozen men about as big as
+hazel nuts; for, so far as I could see, there were no more on the whole
+earth? If your lordship would be so good as to give me ever so small a
+bit of heaven, were it no more than half a league, I’d rather have it
+than the best island in the world.”
+
+“Recollect, Sancho,” said the duke, “I cannot give a bit of heaven, no
+not so much as the breadth of my nail, to anyone; rewards and favours of
+that sort are reserved for God alone. What I can give I give you, and
+that is a real, genuine island, compact, well proportioned, and
+uncommonly fertile and fruitful, where, if you know how to use your
+opportunities, you may, with the help of the world’s riches, gain those
+of heaven.”
+
+“Well then,” said Sancho, “let the island come; and I’ll try and be such
+a governor, that in spite of scoundrels I’ll go to heaven; and it’s not
+from any craving to quit my own humble condition or better myself, but
+from the desire I have to try what it tastes like to be a governor.”
+
+“If you once make trial of it, Sancho,” said the duke, “you’ll eat your
+fingers off after the government, so sweet a thing is it to command and
+be obeyed. Depend upon it when your master comes to be emperor (as he
+will beyond a doubt from the course his affairs are taking), it will be
+no easy matter to wrest the dignity from him, and he will be sore and
+sorry at heart to have been so long without becoming one.”
+
+“Señor,” said Sancho, “it is my belief it’s a good thing to be in
+command, if it’s only over a drove of cattle.”
+
+“May I be buried with you, Sancho,” said the duke, “but you know
+everything; I hope you will make as good a governor as your sagacity
+promises; and that is all I have to say; and now remember to-morrow is
+the day you must set out for the government of the island, and this
+evening they will provide you with the proper attire for you to wear, and
+all things requisite for your departure.”
+
+“Let them dress me as they like,” said Sancho; “however I’m dressed I’ll
+be Sancho Panza.”
+
+“That’s true,” said the duke; “but one’s dress must be suited to the
+office or rank one holds; for it would not do for a jurist to dress like
+a soldier, or a soldier like a priest. You, Sancho, shall go partly as a
+lawyer, partly as a captain, for, in the island I am giving you, arms are
+needed as much as letters, and letters as much as arms.”
+
+“Of letters I know but little,” said Sancho, “for I don’t even know the A
+B C; but it is enough for me to have the Christus in my memory to be a
+good governor. As for arms, I’ll handle those they give me till I drop,
+and then, God be my help!”
+
+“With so good a memory,” said the duke, “Sancho cannot go wrong in
+anything.”
+
+Here Don Quixote joined them; and learning what passed, and how soon
+Sancho was to go to his government, he with the duke’s permission took
+him by the hand, and retired to his room with him for the purpose of
+giving him advice as to how he was to demean himself in his office. As
+soon as they had entered the chamber he closed the door after him, and
+almost by force made Sancho sit down beside him, and in a quiet tone thus
+addressed him: “I give infinite thanks to heaven, friend Sancho, that,
+before I have met with any good luck, fortune has come forward to meet
+thee. I who counted upon my good fortune to discharge the recompense of
+thy services, find myself still waiting for advancement, while thou,
+before the time, and contrary to all reasonable expectation, seest
+thyself blessed in the fulfillment of thy desires. Some will bribe, beg,
+solicit, rise early, entreat, persist, without attaining the object of
+their suit; while another comes, and without knowing why or wherefore,
+finds himself invested with the place or office so many have sued for;
+and here it is that the common saying, ‘There is good luck as well as bad
+luck in suits,’ applies. Thou, who, to my thinking, art beyond all doubt
+a dullard, without early rising or night watching or taking any trouble,
+with the mere breath of knight-errantry that has breathed upon thee,
+seest thyself without more ado governor of an island, as though it were a
+mere matter of course. This I say, Sancho, that thou attribute not the
+favour thou hast received to thine own merits, but give thanks to heaven
+that disposes matters beneficently, and secondly thanks to the great
+power the profession of knight-errantry contains in itself. With a heart,
+then, inclined to believe what I have said to thee, attend, my son, to
+thy Cato here who would counsel thee and be thy polestar and guide to
+direct and pilot thee to a safe haven out of this stormy sea wherein thou
+art about to ingulf thyself; for offices and great trusts are nothing
+else but a mighty gulf of troubles.
+
+“First of all, my son, thou must fear God, for in the fear of him is
+wisdom, and being wise thou canst not err in aught.
+
+“Secondly, thou must keep in view what thou art, striving to know
+thyself, the most difficult thing to know that the mind can imagine. If
+thou knowest thyself, it will follow thou wilt not puff thyself up like
+the frog that strove to make himself as large as the ox; if thou dost,
+the recollection of having kept pigs in thine own country will serve as
+the ugly feet for the wheel of thy folly.”
+
+“That’s the truth,” said Sancho; “but that was when I was a boy;
+afterwards when I was something more of a man it was geese I kept, not
+pigs. But to my thinking that has nothing to do with it; for all who are
+governors don’t come of a kingly stock.”
+
+“True,” said Don Quixote, “and for that reason those who are not of noble
+origin should take care that the dignity of the office they hold be
+accompanied by a gentle suavity, which wisely managed will save them from
+the sneers of malice that no station escapes.
+
+“Glory in thy humble birth, Sancho, and be not ashamed of saying thou art
+peasant-born; for when it is seen thou art not ashamed no one will set
+himself to put thee to the blush; and pride thyself rather upon being one
+of lowly virtue than a lofty sinner. Countless are they who, born of mean
+parentage, have risen to the highest dignities, pontifical and imperial,
+and of the truth of this I could give thee instances enough to weary
+thee.
+
+“Remember, Sancho, if thou make virtue thy aim, and take a pride in doing
+virtuous actions, thou wilt have no cause to envy those who have princely
+and lordly ones, for blood is an inheritance, but virtue an acquisition,
+and virtue has in itself alone a worth that blood does not possess.
+
+“This being so, if perchance anyone of thy kinsfolk should come to see
+thee when thou art in thine island, thou art not to repel or slight him,
+but on the contrary to welcome him, entertain him, and make much of him;
+for in so doing thou wilt be approved of heaven (which is not pleased
+that any should despise what it hath made), and wilt comply with the laws
+of well-ordered nature.
+
+“If thou carriest thy wife with thee (and it is not well for those that
+administer governments to be long without their wives), teach and
+instruct her, and strive to smooth down her natural roughness; for all
+that may be gained by a wise governor may be lost and wasted by a boorish
+stupid wife.
+
+“If perchance thou art left a widower--a thing which may happen--and in
+virtue of thy office seekest a consort of higher degree, choose not one
+to serve thee for a hook, or for a fishing-rod, or for the hood of thy
+‘won’t have it;’ for verily, I tell thee, for all the judge’s wife
+receives, the husband will be held accountable at the general calling to
+account; where he will have repay in death fourfold, items that in life
+he regarded as naught.
+
+“Never go by arbitrary law, which is so much favoured by ignorant men who
+plume themselves on cleverness.
+
+“Let the tears of the poor man find with thee more compassion, but not
+more justice, than the pleadings of the rich.
+
+“Strive to lay bare the truth, as well amid the promises and presents of
+the rich man, as amid the sobs and entreaties of the poor.
+
+“When equity may and should be brought into play, press not the utmost
+rigour of the law against the guilty; for the reputation of the stern
+judge stands not higher than that of the compassionate.
+
+“If perchance thou permittest the staff of justice to swerve, let it be
+not by the weight of a gift, but by that of mercy.
+
+“If it should happen to thee to give judgment in the cause of one who is
+thine enemy, turn thy thoughts away from thy injury and fix them on the
+justice of the case.
+
+“Let not thine own passion blind thee in another man’s cause; for the
+errors thou wilt thus commit will be most frequently irremediable; or if
+not, only to be remedied at the expense of thy good name and even of thy
+fortune.
+
+“If any handsome woman come to seek justice of thee, turn away thine eyes
+from her tears and thine ears from her lamentations, and consider
+deliberately the merits of her demand, if thou wouldst not have thy
+reason swept away by her weeping, and thy rectitude by her sighs.
+
+“Abuse not by word him whom thou hast to punish in deed, for the pain of
+punishment is enough for the unfortunate without the addition of thine
+objurgations.
+
+“Bear in mind that the culprit who comes under thy jurisdiction is but a
+miserable man subject to all the propensities of our depraved nature, and
+so far as may be in thy power show thyself lenient and forbearing; for
+though the attributes of God are all equal, to our eyes that of mercy is
+brighter and loftier than that of justice.
+
+“If thou followest these precepts and rules, Sancho, thy days will be
+long, thy fame eternal, thy reward abundant, thy felicity unutterable;
+thou wilt marry thy children as thou wouldst; they and thy grandchildren
+will bear titles; thou wilt live in peace and concord with all men; and,
+when life draws to a close, death will come to thee in calm and ripe old
+age, and the light and loving hands of thy great-grandchildren will close
+thine eyes.
+
+“What I have thus far addressed to thee are instructions for the
+adornment of thy mind; listen now to those which tend to that of the
+body.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+OF THE SECOND SET OF COUNSELS DON QUIXOTE GAVE SANCHO PANZA
+
+
+Who, hearing the foregoing discourse of Don Quixote, would not have set
+him down for a person of great good sense and greater rectitude of
+purpose? But, as has been frequently observed in the course of this great
+history, he only talked nonsense when he touched on chivalry, and in
+discussing all other subjects showed that he had a clear and unbiassed
+understanding; so that at every turn his acts gave the lie to his
+intellect, and his intellect to his acts; but in the case of these second
+counsels that he gave Sancho, he showed himself to have a lively turn of
+humour, and displayed conspicuously his wisdom, and also his folly.
+
+Sancho listened to him with the deepest attention, and endeavoured to fix
+his counsels in his memory, like one who meant to follow them and by
+their means bring the full promise of his government to a happy issue.
+Don Quixote, then, went on to say:
+
+“With regard to the mode in which thou shouldst govern thy person and thy
+house, Sancho, the first charge I have to give thee is to be clean, and
+to cut thy nails, not letting them grow as some do, whose ignorance makes
+them fancy that long nails are an ornament to their hands, as if those
+excrescences they neglect to cut were nails, and not the talons of a
+lizard-catching kestrel--a filthy and unnatural abuse.
+
+“Go not ungirt and loose, Sancho; for disordered attire is a sign of an
+unstable mind, unless indeed the slovenliness and slackness is to be set
+down to craft, as was the common opinion in the case of Julius Caesar.
+
+“Ascertain cautiously what thy office may be worth; and if it will allow
+thee to give liveries to thy servants, give them respectable and
+serviceable, rather than showy and gay ones, and divide them between thy
+servants and the poor; that is to say, if thou canst clothe six pages,
+clothe three and three poor men, and thus thou wilt have pages for heaven
+and pages for earth; the vainglorious never think of this new mode of
+giving liveries.
+
+“Eat not garlic nor onions, lest they find out thy boorish origin by the
+smell; walk slowly and speak deliberately, but not in such a way as to
+make it seem thou art listening to thyself, for all affectation is bad.
+
+“Dine sparingly and sup more sparingly still; for the health of the whole
+body is forged in the workshop of the stomach.
+
+“Be temperate in drinking, bearing in mind that wine in excess keeps
+neither secrets nor promises.
+
+“Take care, Sancho, not to chew on both sides, and not to eruct in
+anybody’s presence.”
+
+“Eruct!” said Sancho; “I don’t know what that means.”
+
+“To eruct, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “means to belch, and that is one of
+the filthiest words in the Spanish language, though a very expressive
+one; and therefore nice folk have had recourse to the Latin, and instead
+of belch say eruct, and instead of belches say eructations; and if some
+do not understand these terms it matters little, for custom will bring
+them into use in the course of time, so that they will be readily
+understood; this is the way a language is enriched; custom and the public
+are all-powerful there.”
+
+“In truth, señor,” said Sancho, “one of the counsels and cautions I mean
+to bear in mind shall be this, not to belch, for I’m constantly doing
+it.”
+
+“Eruct, Sancho, not belch,” said Don Quixote.
+
+“Eruct, I shall say henceforth, and I swear not to forget it,” said
+Sancho.
+
+“Likewise, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “thou must not mingle such a
+quantity of proverbs in thy discourse as thou dost; for though proverbs
+are short maxims, thou dost drag them in so often by the head and
+shoulders that they savour more of nonsense than of maxims.”
+
+“God alone can cure that,” said Sancho; “for I have more proverbs in me
+than a book, and when I speak they come so thick together into my mouth
+that they fall to fighting among themselves to get out; that’s why my
+tongue lets fly the first that come, though they may not be pat to the
+purpose. But I’ll take care henceforward to use such as befit the dignity
+of my office; for ‘in a house where there’s plenty, supper is soon
+cooked,’ and ‘he who binds does not wrangle,’ and ‘the bell-ringer’s in a
+safe berth,’ and ‘giving and keeping require brains.’”
+
+“That’s it, Sancho!” said Don Quixote; “pack, tack, string proverbs
+together; nobody is hindering thee! ‘My mother beats me, and I go on with
+my tricks.’ I am bidding thee avoid proverbs, and here in a second thou
+hast shot out a whole litany of them, which have as much to do with what
+we are talking about as ‘over the hills of Ubeda.’ Mind, Sancho, I do not
+say that a proverb aptly brought in is objectionable; but to pile up and
+string together proverbs at random makes conversation dull and vulgar.
+
+“When thou ridest on horseback, do not go lolling with thy body on the
+back of the saddle, nor carry thy legs stiff or sticking out from the
+horse’s belly, nor yet sit so loosely that one would suppose thou wert on
+Dapple; for the seat on a horse makes gentlemen of some and grooms of
+others.
+
+“Be moderate in thy sleep; for he who does not rise early does not get
+the benefit of the day; and remember, Sancho, diligence is the mother of
+good fortune, and indolence, its opposite, never yet attained the object
+of an honest ambition.
+
+“The last counsel I will give thee now, though it does not tend to bodily
+improvement, I would have thee carry carefully in thy memory, for I
+believe it will be no less useful to thee than those I have given thee
+already, and it is this--never engage in a dispute about families, at
+least in the way of comparing them one with another; for necessarily one
+of those compared will be better than the other, and thou wilt be hated
+by the one thou hast disparaged, and get nothing in any shape from the
+one thou hast exalted.
+
+“Thy attire shall be hose of full length, a long jerkin, and a cloak a
+trifle longer; loose breeches by no means, for they are becoming neither
+for gentlemen nor for governors.
+
+“For the present, Sancho, this is all that has occurred to me to advise
+thee; as time goes by and occasions arise my instructions shall follow,
+if thou take care to let me know how thou art circumstanced.”
+
+“Señor,” said Sancho, “I see well enough that all these things your
+worship has said to me are good, holy, and profitable; but what use will
+they be to me if I don’t remember one of them? To be sure that about not
+letting my nails grow, and marrying again if I have the chance, will not
+slip out of my head; but all that other hash, muddle, and jumble--I don’t
+and can’t recollect any more of it than of last year’s clouds; so it must
+be given me in writing; for though I can’t either read or write, I’ll
+give it to my confessor, to drive it into me and remind me of it whenever
+it is necessary.”
+
+“Ah, sinner that I am!” said Don Quixote, “how bad it looks in governors
+not to know how to read or write; for let me tell thee, Sancho, when a
+man knows not how to read, or is left-handed, it argues one of two
+things; either that he was the son of exceedingly mean and lowly parents,
+or that he himself was so incorrigible and ill-conditioned that neither
+good company nor good teaching could make any impression on him. It is a
+great defect that thou labourest under, and therefore I would have thee
+learn at any rate to sign thy name.”
+
+“I can sign my name well enough,” said Sancho, “for when I was steward
+of the brotherhood in my village I learned to make certain letters,
+like the marks on bales of goods, which they told me made out my name.
+Besides I can pretend my right hand is disabled and make some one else
+sign for me, for ‘there’s a remedy for everything except death;’ and as
+I shall be in command and hold the staff, I can do as I like; moreover,
+‘he who has the alcalde for his father—,’ and I’ll be governor, and
+that’s higher than alcalde. Only come and see! Let them make light of
+me and abuse me; ‘they’ll come for wool and go back shorn;’ ‘whom God
+loves, his house is known to Him;’ ‘the silly sayings of the rich pass
+for saws in the world;’ and as I’ll be rich, being a governor, and at
+the same time generous, as I mean to be, no fault will be seen in me.
+‘Only make yourself honey and the flies will suck you;’ ‘as much as
+thou hast so much art thou worth,’ as my grandmother used to say; and
+‘thou canst have no revenge of a man of substance.’”
+
+“Oh, God’s curse upon thee, Sancho!” here exclaimed Don Quixote; “sixty
+thousand devils fly away with thee and thy proverbs! For the last hour
+thou hast been stringing them together and inflicting the pangs of
+torture on me with every one of them. Those proverbs will bring thee to
+the gallows one day, I promise thee; thy subjects will take the
+government from thee, or there will be revolts among them. Tell me, where
+dost thou pick them up, thou booby? How dost thou apply them, thou
+blockhead? For with me, to utter one and make it apply properly, I have
+to sweat and labour as if I were digging.”
+
+“By God, master mine,” said Sancho, “your worship is making a fuss about
+very little. Why the devil should you be vexed if I make use of what is
+my own? And I have got nothing else, nor any other stock in trade except
+proverbs and more proverbs; and here are three just this instant come
+into my head, pat to the purpose and like pears in a basket; but I won’t
+repeat them, for ‘sage silence is called Sancho.’”
+
+“That, Sancho, thou art not,” said Don Quixote; “for not only art thou
+not sage silence, but thou art pestilent prate and perversity; still I
+would like to know what three proverbs have just now come into thy
+memory, for I have been turning over mine own--and it is a good one--and
+none occurs to me.”
+
+“What can be better,” said Sancho, “than ‘never put thy thumbs between
+two back teeth;’ and ‘to “get out of my house” and “what do you want with
+my wife?” there is no answer;’ and ‘whether the pitcher hits the stone,
+or the stone the pitcher, it’s a bad business for the pitcher;’ all which
+fit to a hair? For no one should quarrel with his governor, or him in
+authority over him, because he will come off the worst, as he does who
+puts his finger between two back and if they are not back teeth it makes
+no difference, so long as they are teeth; and to whatever the governor
+may say there’s no answer, any more than to ‘get out of my house’ and
+‘what do you want with my wife?’ and then, as for that about the stone
+and the pitcher, a blind man could see that. So that he ‘who sees the
+mote in another’s eye had need to see the beam in his own,’ that it be
+not said of himself, ‘the dead woman was frightened at the one with her
+throat cut;’ and your worship knows well that ‘the fool knows more in his
+own house than the wise man in another’s.’”
+
+“Nay, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “the fool knows nothing, either in his
+own house or in anybody else’s, for no wise structure of any sort can
+stand on a foundation of folly; but let us say no more about it, Sancho,
+for if thou governest badly, thine will be the fault and mine the shame;
+but I comfort myself with having done my duty in advising thee as
+earnestly and as wisely as I could; and thus I am released from my
+obligations and my promise. God guide thee, Sancho, and govern thee in
+thy government, and deliver me from the misgiving I have that thou wilt
+turn the whole island upside down, a thing I might easily prevent by
+explaining to the duke what thou art and telling him that all that fat
+little person of thine is nothing else but a sack full of proverbs and
+sauciness.”
+
+“Señor,” said Sancho, “if your worship thinks I’m not fit for this
+government, I give it up on the spot; for the mere black of the nail of
+my soul is dearer to me than my whole body; and I can live just as well,
+simple Sancho, on bread and onions, as governor, on partridges and
+capons; and what’s more, while we’re asleep we’re all equal, great and
+small, rich and poor. But if your worship looks into it, you will see it
+was your worship alone that put me on to this business of governing; for
+I know no more about the government of islands than a buzzard; and if
+there’s any reason to think that because of my being a governor the devil
+will get hold of me, I’d rather go Sancho to heaven than governor to
+hell.”
+
+“By God, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for those last words thou hast
+uttered alone, I consider thou deservest to be governor of a thousand
+islands. Thou hast good natural instincts, without which no knowledge is
+worth anything; commend thyself to God, and try not to swerve in the
+pursuit of thy main object; I mean, always make it thy aim and fixed
+purpose to do right in all matters that come before thee, for heaven
+always helps good intentions; and now let us go to dinner, for I think my
+lord and lady are waiting for us.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+HOW SANCHO PANZA WAS CONDUCTED TO HIS GOVERNMENT, AND OF THE STRANGE
+ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE IN THE CASTLE
+
+
+It is stated, they say, in the true original of this history, that when
+Cide Hamete came to write this chapter, his interpreter did not translate
+it as he wrote it--that is, as a kind of complaint the Moor made against
+himself for having taken in hand a story so dry and of so little variety
+as this of Don Quixote, for he found himself forced to speak perpetually
+of him and Sancho, without venturing to indulge in digressions and
+episodes more serious and more interesting. He said, too, that to go on,
+mind, hand, pen always restricted to writing upon one single subject, and
+speaking through the mouths of a few characters, was intolerable
+drudgery, the result of which was never equal to the author’s labour, and
+that to avoid this he had in the First Part availed himself of the device
+of novels, like “The Ill-advised Curiosity,” and “The Captive Captain,”
+ which stand, as it were, apart from the story; the others are given there
+being incidents which occurred to Don Quixote himself and could not be
+omitted. He also thought, he says, that many, engrossed by the interest
+attaching to the exploits of Don Quixote, would take none in the novels,
+and pass them over hastily or impatiently without noticing the elegance
+and art of their composition, which would be very manifest were they
+published by themselves and not as mere adjuncts to the crazes of Don
+Quixote or the simplicities of Sancho. Therefore in this Second Part he
+thought it best not to insert novels, either separate or interwoven, but
+only episodes, something like them, arising out of the circumstances the
+facts present; and even these sparingly, and with no more words than
+suffice to make them plain; and as he confines and restricts himself to
+the narrow limits of the narrative, though he has ability; capacity, and
+brains enough to deal with the whole universe, he requests that his
+labours may not be despised, and that credit be given him, not alone for
+what he writes, but for what he has refrained from writing.
+
+And so he goes on with his story, saying that the day Don Quixote gave
+the counsels to Sancho, the same afternoon after dinner he handed them to
+him in writing so that he might get some one to read them to him. They
+had scarcely, however, been given to him when he let them drop, and they
+fell into the hands of the duke, who showed them to the duchess and they
+were both amazed afresh at the madness and wit of Don Quixote. To carry
+on the joke, then, the same evening they despatched Sancho with a large
+following to the village that was to serve him for an island. It happened
+that the person who had him in charge was a majordomo of the duke’s, a
+man of great discretion and humour--and there can be no humour without
+discretion--and the same who played the part of the Countess Trifaldi in
+the comical way that has been already described; and thus qualified, and
+instructed by his master and mistress as to how to deal with Sancho, he
+carried out their scheme admirably. Now it came to pass that as soon as
+Sancho saw this majordomo he seemed in his features to recognise those of
+the Trifaldi, and turning to his master, he said to him, “Señor, either
+the devil will carry me off, here on this spot, righteous and believing,
+or your worship will own to me that the face of this majordomo of the
+duke’s here is the very face of the Distressed One.”
+
+Don Quixote regarded the majordomo attentively, and having done so, said
+to Sancho, “There is no reason why the devil should carry thee off,
+Sancho, either righteous or believing--and what thou meanest by that I
+know not; the face of the Distressed One is that of the majordomo, but
+for all that the majordomo is not the Distressed One; for his being so
+would involve a mighty contradiction; but this is not the time for going
+into questions of the sort, which would be involving ourselves in an
+inextricable labyrinth. Believe me, my friend, we must pray earnestly to
+our Lord that he deliver us both from wicked wizards and enchanters.”
+
+“It is no joke, señor,” said Sancho, “for before this I heard him speak,
+and it seemed exactly as if the voice of the Trifaldi was sounding in my
+ears. Well, I’ll hold my peace; but I’ll take care to be on the look-out
+henceforth for any sign that may be seen to confirm or do away with this
+suspicion.”
+
+“Thou wilt do well, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and thou wilt let me know
+all thou discoverest, and all that befalls thee in thy government.”
+
+Sancho at last set out attended by a great number of people. He was
+dressed in the garb of a lawyer, with a gaban of tawny watered camlet
+over all and a montera cap of the same material, and mounted a la gineta
+upon a mule. Behind him, in accordance with the duke’s orders, followed
+Dapple with brand new ass-trappings and ornaments of silk, and from time
+to time Sancho turned round to look at his ass, so well pleased to have
+him with him that he would not have changed places with the emperor of
+Germany. On taking leave he kissed the hands of the duke and duchess and
+got his master’s blessing, which Don Quixote gave him with tears, and he
+received blubbering.
+
+Let worthy Sancho go in peace, and good luck to him, Gentle Reader; and
+look out for two bushels of laughter, which the account of how he behaved
+himself in office will give thee. In the meantime turn thy attention to
+what happened his master the same night, and if thou dost not laugh
+thereat, at any rate thou wilt stretch thy mouth with a grin; for Don
+Quixote’s adventures must be honoured either with wonder or with
+laughter.
+
+It is recorded, then, that as soon as Sancho had gone, Don Quixote felt
+his loneliness, and had it been possible for him to revoke the mandate
+and take away the government from him he would have done so. The duchess
+observed his dejection and asked him why he was melancholy; because, she
+said, if it was for the loss of Sancho, there were squires, duennas, and
+damsels in her house who would wait upon him to his full satisfaction.
+
+“The truth is, señora,” replied Don Quixote, “that I do feel the loss of
+Sancho; but that is not the main cause of my looking sad; and of all the
+offers your excellence makes me, I accept only the good-will with which
+they are made, and as to the remainder I entreat of your excellence to
+permit and allow me alone to wait upon myself in my chamber.”
+
+“Indeed, Señor Don Quixote,” said the duchess, “that must not be; four of
+my damsels, as beautiful as flowers, shall wait upon you.”
+
+“To me,” said Don Quixote, “they will not be flowers, but thorns to
+pierce my heart. They, or anything like them, shall as soon enter my
+chamber as fly. If your highness wishes to gratify me still further,
+though I deserve it not, permit me to please myself, and wait upon myself
+in my own room; for I place a barrier between my inclinations and my
+virtue, and I do not wish to break this rule through the generosity your
+highness is disposed to display towards me; and, in short, I will sleep
+in my clothes, sooner than allow anyone to undress me.”
+
+“Say no more, Señor Don Quixote, say no more,” said the duchess; “I
+assure you I will give orders that not even a fly, not to say a damsel,
+shall enter your room. I am not the one to undermine the propriety of
+Señor Don Quixote, for it strikes me that among his many virtues the one
+that is pre-eminent is that of modesty. Your worship may undress and
+dress in private and in your own way, as you please and when you please,
+for there will be no one to hinder you; and in your chamber you will find
+all the utensils requisite to supply the wants of one who sleeps with his
+door locked, to the end that no natural needs compel you to open it. May
+the great Dulcinea del Toboso live a thousand years, and may her fame
+extend all over the surface of the globe, for she deserves to be loved by
+a knight so valiant and so virtuous; and may kind heaven infuse zeal into
+the heart of our governor Sancho Panza to finish off his discipline
+speedily, so that the world may once more enjoy the beauty of so grand a
+lady.”
+
+To which Don Quixote replied, “Your highness has spoken like what you
+are; from the mouth of a noble lady nothing bad can come; and Dulcinea
+will be more fortunate, and better known to the world by the praise of
+your highness than by all the eulogies the greatest orators on earth
+could bestow upon her.”
+
+“Well, well, Señor Don Quixote,” said the duchess, it is nearly supper-time,
+and the duke is probably waiting; come let us go to supper, and retire
+to rest early, for the journey you made yesterday from Kandy was not such
+a short one but that it must have caused you some fatigue.”
+
+“I feel none, señora,” said Don Quixote, “for I would go so far as to
+swear to your excellence that in all my life I never mounted a quieter
+beast, or a pleasanter paced one, than Clavileño; and I don’t know what
+could have induced Malambruno to discard a steed so swift and so gentle,
+and burn it so recklessly as he did.”
+
+“Probably,” said the duchess, “repenting of the evil he had done to the
+Trifaldi and company, and others, and the crimes he must have committed
+as a wizard and enchanter, he resolved to make away with all the
+instruments of his craft; and so burned Clavileño as the chief one, and
+that which mainly kept him restless, wandering from land to land; and by
+its ashes and the trophy of the placard the valour of the great Don
+Quixote of La Mancha is established for ever.”
+
+Don Quixote renewed his thanks to the duchess; and having supped, retired
+to his chamber alone, refusing to allow anyone to enter with him to wait
+on him, such was his fear of encountering temptations that might lead or
+drive him to forget his chaste fidelity to his lady Dulcinea; for he had
+always present to his mind the virtue of Amadis, that flower and mirror
+of knights-errant. He locked the door behind him, and by the light of two
+wax candles undressed himself, but as he was taking off his stockings--O
+disaster unworthy of such a personage!--there came a burst, not of sighs,
+or anything belying his delicacy or good breeding, but of some two dozen
+stitches in one of his stockings, that made it look like a
+window-lattice. The worthy gentleman was beyond measure distressed, and
+at that moment he would have given an ounce of silver to have had half a
+drachm of green silk there; I say green silk, because the stockings were
+green.
+
+Here Cide Hamete exclaimed as he was writing, “O poverty, poverty! I know
+not what could have possessed the great Cordovan poet to call thee ‘holy
+gift ungratefully received.’ Although a Moor, I know well enough from the
+intercourse I have had with Christians that holiness consists in charity,
+humility, faith, obedience, and poverty; but for all that, I say he must
+have a great deal of godliness who can find any satisfaction in being
+poor; unless, indeed, it be the kind of poverty one of their greatest
+saints refers to, saying, ‘possess all things as though ye possessed them
+not;’ which is what they call poverty in spirit. But thou, that other
+poverty--for it is of thee I am speaking now--why dost thou love to fall
+out with gentlemen and men of good birth more than with other people? Why
+dost thou compel them to smear the cracks in their shoes, and to have the
+buttons of their coats, one silk, another hair, and another glass? Why
+must their ruffs be always crinkled like endive leaves, and not crimped
+with a crimping iron?” (From this we may perceive the antiquity of starch
+and crimped ruffs.) Then he goes on: “Poor gentleman of good family!
+always cockering up his honour, dining miserably and in secret, and
+making a hypocrite of the toothpick with which he sallies out into the
+street after eating nothing to oblige him to use it! Poor fellow, I say,
+with his nervous honour, fancying they perceive a league off the patch on
+his shoe, the sweat-stains on his hat, the shabbiness of his cloak, and
+the hunger of his stomach!”
+
+All this was brought home to Don Quixote by the bursting of his stitches;
+however, he comforted himself on perceiving that Sancho had left behind a
+pair of travelling boots, which he resolved to wear the next day. At last
+he went to bed, out of spirits and heavy at heart, as much because he
+missed Sancho as because of the irreparable disaster to his stockings,
+the stitches of which he would have even taken up with silk of another
+colour, which is one of the greatest signs of poverty a gentleman can
+show in the course of his never-failing embarrassments. He put out the
+candles; but the night was warm and he could not sleep; he rose from his
+bed and opened slightly a grated window that looked out on a beautiful
+garden, and as he did so he perceived and heard people walking and
+talking in the garden. He set himself to listen attentively, and those
+below raised their voices so that he could hear these words:
+
+“Urge me not to sing, Emerencia, for thou knowest that ever since this
+stranger entered the castle and my eyes beheld him, I cannot sing but
+only weep; besides my lady is a light rather than a heavy sleeper, and I
+would not for all the wealth of the world that she found us here; and
+even if she were asleep and did not waken, my singing would be in vain,
+if this strange Æneas, who has come into my neighbourhood to flout me,
+sleeps on and wakens not to hear it.”
+
+“Heed not that, dear Altisidora,” replied a voice; “the duchess is no
+doubt asleep, and everybody in the house save the lord of thy heart and
+disturber of thy soul; for just now I perceived him open the grated
+window of his chamber, so he must be awake; sing, my poor sufferer, in a
+low sweet tone to the accompaniment of thy harp; and even if the duchess
+hears us we can lay the blame on the heat of the night.”
+
+“That is not the point, Emerencia,” replied Altisidora, “it is that I
+would not that my singing should lay bare my heart, and that I should be
+thought a light and wanton maiden by those who know not the mighty power
+of love; but come what may; better a blush on the cheeks than a sore in
+the heart;” and here a harp softly touched made itself heard. As he
+listened to all this Don Quixote was in a state of breathless amazement,
+for immediately the countless adventures like this, with windows,
+gratings, gardens, serenades, lovemakings, and languishings, that he had
+read of in his trashy books of chivalry, came to his mind. He at once
+concluded that some damsel of the duchess’s was in love with him, and
+that her modesty forced her to keep her passion secret. He trembled lest
+he should fall, and made an inward resolution not to yield; and
+commending himself with all his might and soul to his lady Dulcinea he
+made up his mind to listen to the music; and to let them know he was
+there he gave a pretended sneeze, at which the damsels were not a little
+delighted, for all they wanted was that Don Quixote should hear them. So
+having tuned the harp, Altisidora, running her hand across the strings,
+began this ballad:
+
+O thou that art above in bed,
+    Between the holland sheets,
+A-lying there from night till morn,
+    With outstretched legs asleep;
+
+O thou, most valiant knight of all
+    The famed Manchegan breed,
+Of purity and virtue more
+    Than gold of Araby;
+
+Give ear unto a suffering maid,
+    Well-grown but evil-starr’d,
+For those two suns of thine have lit
+    A fire within her heart.
+
+Adventures seeking thou dost rove,
+    To others bringing woe;
+Thou scatterest wounds, but, ah, the balm
+    To heal them dost withhold!
+
+Say, valiant youth, and so may God
+    Thy enterprises speed,
+Didst thou the light mid Libya’s sands
+    Or Jaca’s rocks first see?
+
+Did scaly serpents give thee suck?
+    Who nursed thee when a babe?
+Wert cradled in the forest rude,
+    Or gloomy mountain cave?
+
+O Dulcinea may be proud,
+    That plump and lusty maid;
+For she alone hath had the power
+    A tiger fierce to tame.
+
+And she for this shall famous be
+    From Tagus to Jarama,
+From Manzanares to Genil,
+    From Duero to Arlanza.
+
+Fain would I change with her, and give
+    A petticoat to boot,
+The best and bravest that I have,
+    All trimmed with gold galloon.
+
+O for to be the happy fair
+    Thy mighty arms enfold,
+Or even sit beside thy bed
+    And scratch thy dusty poll!
+
+I rave,—to favours such as these
+    Unworthy to aspire;
+Thy feet to tickle were enough
+    For one so mean as I.
+
+What caps, what slippers silver-laced,
+    Would I on thee bestow!
+What damask breeches make for thee;
+    What fine long holland cloaks!
+
+And I would give thee pearls that should
+    As big as oak-galls show;
+So matchless big that each might well
+    Be called the great “Alone.”
+
+Manchegan Nero, look not down
+    From thy Tarpeian Rock
+Upon this burning heart, nor add
+    The fuel of thy wrath.
+
+A virgin soft and young am I,
+    Not yet fifteen years old;
+(I’m only three months past fourteen,
+    I swear upon my soul).
+
+I hobble not nor do I limp,
+    All blemish I’m without,
+And as I walk my lily locks
+    Are trailing on the ground.
+
+And though my nose be rather flat,
+    And though my mouth be wide,
+My teeth like topazes exalt
+    My beauty to the sky.
+
+Thou knowest that my voice is sweet,
+    That is if thou dost hear;
+And I am moulded in a form
+    Somewhat below the mean.
+
+These charms, and many more, are thine,
+    Spoils to thy spear and bow all;
+A damsel of this house am I,
+    By name Altisidora.
+
+Here the lay of the heart-stricken Altisidora came to an end, while the
+warmly wooed Don Quixote began to feel alarm; and with a deep sigh he
+said to himself, “O that I should be such an unlucky knight that no
+damsel can set eyes on me but falls in love with me! O that the peerless
+Dulcinea should be so unfortunate that they cannot let her enjoy my
+incomparable constancy in peace! What would ye with her, ye queens? Why
+do ye persecute her, ye empresses? Why ye pursue her, ye virgins of from
+fourteen to fifteen? Leave the unhappy being to triumph, rejoice and
+glory in the lot love has been pleased to bestow upon her in surrendering
+my heart and yielding up my soul to her. Ye love-smitten host, know that
+to Dulcinea only I am dough and sugar-paste, flint to all others; for her
+I am honey, for you aloes. For me Dulcinea alone is beautiful, wise,
+virtuous, graceful, and high-bred, and all others are ill-favoured,
+foolish, light, and low-born. Nature sent me into the world to be hers
+and no other’s; Altisidora may weep or sing, the lady for whose sake they
+belaboured me in the castle of the enchanted Moor may give way to
+despair, but I must be Dulcinea’s, boiled or roast, pure, courteous, and
+chaste, in spite of all the magic-working powers on earth.” And with that
+he shut the window with a bang, and, as much out of temper and out of
+sorts as if some great misfortune had befallen him, stretched himself on
+his bed, where we will leave him for the present, as the great Sancho
+Panza, who is about to set up his famous government, now demands our
+attention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+OF HOW THE GREAT SANCHO PANZA TOOK POSSESSION OF HIS ISLAND, AND OF HOW
+HE MADE A BEGINNING IN GOVERNING
+
+
+O perpetual discoverer of the antipodes, torch of the world, eye of
+heaven, sweet stimulator of the water-coolers! Thimbraeus here, Phoebus
+there, now archer, now physician, father of poetry, inventor of music;
+thou that always risest and, notwithstanding appearances, never settest!
+To thee, O Sun, by whose aid man begetteth man, to thee I appeal to help
+me and lighten the darkness of my wit that I may be able to proceed with
+scrupulous exactitude in giving an account of the great Sancho Panza’s
+government; for without thee I feel myself weak, feeble, and uncertain.
+
+To come to the point, then--Sancho with all his attendants arrived at a
+village of some thousand inhabitants, and one of the largest the duke
+possessed. They informed him that it was called the island of Barataria,
+either because the name of the village was Baratario, or because of the
+joke by way of which the government had been conferred upon him. On
+reaching the gates of the town, which was a walled one, the municipality
+came forth to meet him, the bells rang out a peal, and the inhabitants
+showed every sign of general satisfaction; and with great pomp they
+conducted him to the principal church to give thanks to God, and then
+with burlesque ceremonies they presented him with the keys of the town,
+and acknowledged him as perpetual governor of the island of Barataria.
+The costume, the beard, and the fat squat figure of the new governor
+astonished all those who were not in on the secret, and even all who were,
+and they were not a few. Finally, leading him out of the church they
+carried him to the judgment seat and seated him on it, and the duke’s
+majordomo said to him, “It is an ancient custom in this island, señor
+governor, that he who comes to take possession of this famous island is
+bound to answer a question which shall be put to him, and which must be a
+somewhat knotty and difficult one; and by his answer the people take the
+measure of their new governor’s wit, and hail with joy or deplore his
+arrival accordingly.”
+
+While the majordomo was making this speech Sancho was gazing at several
+large letters inscribed on the wall opposite his seat, and as he could
+not read he asked what that was that was painted on the wall. The answer
+was, “Señor, there is written and recorded the day on which your lordship
+took possession of this island, and the inscription says, ‘This day, the
+so-and-so of such-and-such a month and year, Señor Don Sancho Panza took
+possession of this island; many years may he enjoy it.’”
+
+“And whom do they call Don Sancho Panza?” asked Sancho.
+
+“Your lordship,” replied the majordomo; “for no other Panza but the one
+who is now seated in that chair has ever entered this island.”
+
+“Well then, let me tell you, brother,” said Sancho, “I haven’t got the
+‘Don,’ nor has any one of my family ever had it; my name is plain Sancho
+Panza, and Sancho was my father’s name, and Sancho was my grandfather’s
+and they were all Panzas, without any Dons or Donas tacked on; I suspect
+that in this island there are more Dons than stones; but never mind; God
+knows what I mean, and maybe if my government lasts four days I’ll weed
+out these Dons that no doubt are as great a nuisance as the midges,
+they’re so plenty. Let the majordomo go on with his question, and I’ll
+give the best answer I can, whether the people deplore or not.”
+
+At this instant there came into court two old men, one carrying a cane by
+way of a walking-stick, and the one who had no stick said, “Señor, some
+time ago I lent this good man ten gold-crowns in gold to gratify him and
+do him a service, on the condition that he was to return them to me
+whenever I should ask for them. A long time passed before I asked for
+them, for I would not put him to any greater straits to return them than
+he was in when I lent them to him; but thinking he was growing careless
+about payment I asked for them once and several times; and not only will
+he not give them back, but he denies that he owes them, and says I never
+lent him any such crowns; or if I did, that he repaid them; and I have no
+witnesses either of the loan, or the payment, for he never paid me; I
+want your worship to put him to his oath, and if he swears he returned
+them to me I forgive him the debt here and before God.”
+
+“What say you to this, good old man, you with the stick?” said Sancho.
+
+To which the old man replied, “I admit, señor, that he lent them to me;
+but let your worship lower your staff, and as he leaves it to my oath,
+I’ll swear that I gave them back, and paid him really and truly.”
+
+The governor lowered the staff, and as he did so the old man who had the
+stick handed it to the other old man to hold for him while he swore, as
+if he found it in his way; and then laid his hand on the cross of the
+staff, saying that it was true the ten crowns that were demanded of him
+had been lent him; but that he had with his own hand given them back into
+the hand of the other, and that he, not recollecting it, was always
+asking for them.
+
+Seeing this the great governor asked the creditor what answer he had to
+make to what his opponent said. He said that no doubt his debtor had told
+the truth, for he believed him to be an honest man and a good Christian,
+and he himself must have forgotten when and how he had given him back the
+crowns; and that from that time forth he would make no further demand
+upon him.
+
+The debtor took his stick again, and bowing his head left the court.
+Observing this, and how, without another word, he made off, and observing
+too the resignation of the plaintiff, Sancho buried his head in his bosom
+and remained for a short space in deep thought, with the forefinger of
+his right hand on his brow and nose; then he raised his head and bade
+them call back the old man with the stick, for he had already taken his
+departure. They brought him back, and as soon as Sancho saw him he said,
+“Honest man, give me that stick, for I want it.”
+
+“Willingly,” said the old man; “here it is señor,” and he put it into his
+hand.
+
+Sancho took it and, handing it to the other old man, said to him, “Go,
+and God be with you; for now you are paid.”
+
+“I, señor!” returned the old man; “why, is this cane worth ten
+gold-crowns?”
+
+“Yes,” said the governor, “or if not I am the greatest dolt in the world;
+now you will see whether I have got the headpiece to govern a whole
+kingdom;” and he ordered the cane to be broken in two, there, in the
+presence of all. It was done, and in the middle of it they found ten
+gold-crowns. All were filled with amazement, and looked upon their
+governor as another Solomon. They asked him how he had come to the
+conclusion that the ten crowns were in the cane; he replied, that
+observing how the old man who swore gave the stick to his opponent while
+he was taking the oath, and swore that he had really and truly given him
+the crowns, and how as soon as he had done swearing he asked for the
+stick again, it came into his head that the sum demanded must be inside
+it; and from this he said it might be seen that God sometimes guides
+those who govern in their judgments, even though they may be fools;
+besides he had himself heard the curate of his village mention just such
+another case, and he had so good a memory, that if it was not that he
+forgot everything he wished to remember, there would not be such a memory
+in all the island. To conclude, the old men went off, one crestfallen,
+and the other in high contentment, all who were present were astonished,
+and he who was recording the words, deeds, and movements of Sancho could
+not make up his mind whether he was to look upon him and set him down as
+a fool or as a man of sense.
+
+As soon as this case was disposed of, there came into court a woman
+holding on with a tight grip to a man dressed like a well-to-do cattle
+dealer, and she came forward making a great outcry and exclaiming,
+“Justice, señor governor, justice! and if I don’t get it on earth I’ll go
+look for it in heaven. Señor governor of my soul, this wicked man caught
+me in the middle of the fields here and used my body as if it was an
+ill-washed rag, and, woe is me! got from me what I had kept these
+three-and-twenty years and more, defending it against Moors and
+Christians, natives and strangers; and I always as hard as an oak, and
+keeping myself as pure as a salamander in the fire, or wool among the
+brambles, for this good fellow to come now with clean hands to handle
+me!”
+
+“It remains to be proved whether this gallant has clean hands or not,”
+ said Sancho; and turning to the man he asked him what he had to say in
+answer to the woman’s charge.
+
+He all in confusion made answer, “Sirs, I am a poor pig dealer, and this
+morning I left the village to sell (saving your presence) four pigs, and
+between dues and cribbings they got out of me little less than the worth
+of them. As I was returning to my village I fell in on the road with this
+good dame, and the devil who makes a coil and a mess out of everything,
+yoked us together. I paid her fairly, but she not contented laid hold of
+me and never let go until she brought me here; she says I forced her, but
+she lies by the oath I swear or am ready to swear; and this is the whole
+truth and every particle of it.”
+
+The governor on this asked him if he had any money in silver about him;
+he said he had about twenty ducats in a leather purse in his bosom. The
+governor bade him take it out and hand it to the complainant; he obeyed
+trembling; the woman took it, and making a thousand salaams to all and
+praying to God for the long life and health of the señor governor who had
+such regard for distressed orphans and virgins, she hurried out of court
+with the purse grasped in both her hands, first looking, however, to see
+if the money it contained was silver.
+
+As soon as she was gone Sancho said to the cattle dealer, whose tears
+were already starting and whose eyes and heart were following his purse,
+“Good fellow, go after that woman and take the purse from her, by force
+even, and come back with it here;” and he did not say it to one who was a
+fool or deaf, for the man was off like a flash of lightning, and ran to
+do as he was bid.
+
+All the bystanders waited anxiously to see the end of the case, and
+presently both man and woman came back at even closer grips than before,
+she with her petticoat up and the purse in the lap of it, and he
+struggling hard to take it from her, but all to no purpose, so stout was
+the woman’s defence, she all the while crying out, “Justice from God and
+the world! see here, señor governor, the shamelessness and boldness of
+this villain, who in the middle of the town, in the middle of the street,
+wanted to take from me the purse your worship bade him give me.”
+
+“And did he take it?” asked the governor.
+
+“Take it!” said the woman; “I’d let my life be taken from me sooner than
+the purse. A pretty child I’d be! It’s another sort of cat they must
+throw in my face, and not that poor scurvy knave. Pincers and hammers,
+mallets and chisels would not get it out of my grip; no, nor lions’
+claws; the soul from out of my body first!”
+
+“She is right,” said the man; “I own myself beaten and powerless; I
+confess I haven’t the strength to take it from her;” and he let go his
+hold of her.
+
+Upon this the governor said to the woman, “Let me see that purse, my
+worthy and sturdy friend.” She handed it to him at once, and the governor
+returned it to the man, and said to the unforced mistress of force,
+“Sister, if you had shown as much, or only half as much, spirit and
+vigour in defending your body as you have shown in defending that purse,
+the strength of Hercules could not have forced you. Be off, and God speed
+you, and bad luck to you, and don’t show your face in all this island, or
+within six leagues of it on any side, under pain of two hundred lashes;
+be off at once, I say, you shameless, cheating shrew.”
+
+The woman was cowed and went off disconsolately, hanging her head; and
+the governor said to the man, “Honest man, go home with your money, and
+God speed you; and for the future, if you don’t want to lose it, see that
+you don’t take it into your head to yoke with anybody.” The man thanked
+him as clumsily as he could and went his way, and the bystanders were
+again filled with admiration at their new governor’s judgments and
+sentences.
+
+Next, two men, one apparently a farm labourer, and the other a tailor,
+for he had a pair of shears in his hand, presented themselves before him,
+and the tailor said, “Señor governor, this labourer and I come before
+your worship by reason of this honest man coming to my shop yesterday
+(for saving everybody’s presence I’m a passed tailor, God be thanked),
+and putting a piece of cloth into my hands and asking me, ‘Señor, will
+there be enough in this cloth to make me a cap?’ Measuring the cloth I
+said there would. He probably suspected--as I supposed, and I supposed
+right--that I wanted to steal some of the cloth, led to think so by his
+own roguery and the bad opinion people have of tailors; and he told me to
+see if there would be enough for two. I guessed what he would be at, and
+I said ‘yes.’ He, still following up his original unworthy notion, went
+on adding cap after cap, and I ‘yes’ after ‘yes,’ until we got as far as
+five. He has just this moment come for them; I gave them to him, but he
+won’t pay me for the making; on the contrary, he calls upon me to pay
+him, or else return his cloth.”
+
+“Is all this true, brother?” said Sancho.
+
+“Yes,” replied the man; “but will your worship make him show the five
+caps he has made me?”
+
+“With all my heart,” said the tailor; and drawing his hand from under his
+cloak he showed five caps stuck upon the five fingers of it, and said,
+“there are the caps this good man asks for; and by God and upon my
+conscience I haven’t a scrap of cloth left, and I’ll let the work be
+examined by the inspectors of the trade.”
+
+All present laughed at the number of caps and the novelty of the suit;
+Sancho set himself to think for a moment, and then said, “It seems to me
+that in this case it is not necessary to deliver long-winded arguments,
+but only to give off-hand the judgment of an honest man; and so my
+decision is that the tailor lose the making and the labourer the cloth,
+and that the caps go to the prisoners in the gaol, and let there be no
+more about it.”
+
+If the previous decision about the cattle dealer’s purse excited the
+admiration of the bystanders, this provoked their laughter; however, the
+governor’s orders were after all executed. All this, having been taken
+down by his chronicler, was at once despatched to the duke, who was
+looking out for it with great eagerness; and here let us leave the good
+Sancho; for his master, sorely troubled in mind by Altisidora’s music,
+has pressing claims upon us now.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+OF THE TERRIBLE BELL AND CAT FRIGHT THAT DON QUIXOTE GOT IN THE COURSE OF
+THE ENAMOURED ALTISIDORA’S WOOING
+
+
+We left Don Quixote wrapped up in the reflections which the music of the
+enamourned maid Altisidora had given rise to. He went to bed with them,
+and just like fleas they would not let him sleep or get a moment’s rest,
+and the broken stitches of his stockings helped them. But as Time is
+fleet and no obstacle can stay his course, he came riding on the hours,
+and morning very soon arrived. Seeing which Don Quixote quitted the soft
+down, and, nowise slothful, dressed himself in his chamois suit and put
+on his travelling boots to hide the disaster to his stockings. He threw
+over him his scarlet mantle, put on his head a montera of green velvet
+trimmed with silver edging, flung across his shoulder the baldric with
+his good trenchant sword, took up a large rosary that he always carried
+with him, and with great solemnity and precision of gait proceeded to the
+antechamber where the duke and duchess were already dressed and waiting
+for him. But as he passed through a gallery, Altisidora and the other
+damsel, her friend, were lying in wait for him, and the instant
+Altisidora saw him she pretended to faint, while her friend caught her in
+her lap, and began hastily unlacing the bosom of her dress.
+
+Don Quixote observed it, and approaching them said, “I know very well
+what this seizure arises from.”
+
+“I know not from what,” replied the friend, “for Altisidora is the
+healthiest damsel in all this house, and I have never heard her complain
+all the time I have known her. A plague on all the knights-errant in the
+world, if they be all ungrateful! Go away, Señor Don Quixote; for this
+poor child will not come to herself again so long as you are here.”
+
+To which Don Quixote returned, “Do me the favour, señora, to let a lute
+be placed in my chamber to-night; and I will comfort this poor maiden to
+the best of my power; for in the early stages of love a prompt
+disillusion is an approved remedy;” and with this he retired, so as not
+to be remarked by any who might see him there.
+
+He had scarcely withdrawn when Altisidora, recovering from her swoon,
+said to her companion, “The lute must be left, for no doubt Don Quixote
+intends to give us some music; and being his it will not be bad.”
+
+They went at once to inform the duchess of what was going on, and of the
+lute Don Quixote asked for, and she, delighted beyond measure, plotted
+with the duke and her two damsels to play him a trick that should be
+amusing but harmless; and in high glee they waited for night, which came
+quickly as the day had come; and as for the day, the duke and duchess
+spent it in charming conversation with Don Quixote.
+
+When eleven o’clock came, Don Quixote found a guitar in his chamber; he
+tried it, opened the window, and perceived that some persons were walking
+in the garden; and having passed his fingers over the frets of the guitar
+and tuned it as well as he could, he spat and cleared his chest, and then
+with a voice a little hoarse but full-toned, he sang the following
+ballad, which he had himself that day composed:
+
+Mighty Love the hearts of maidens
+  Doth unsettle and perplex,
+And the instrument he uses
+  Most of all is idleness.
+
+Sewing, stitching, any labour,
+  Having always work to do,
+To the poison Love instilleth
+  Is the antidote most sure.
+
+And to proper-minded maidens
+  Who desire the matron’s name
+Modesty’s a marriage portion,
+  Modesty their highest praise.
+
+Men of prudence and discretion,
+  Courtiers gay and gallant knights,
+With the wanton damsels dally,
+  But the modest take to wife.
+
+There are passions, transient, fleeting,
+  Loves in hostelries declar’d,
+Sunrise loves, with sunset ended,
+  When the guest hath gone his way.
+
+Love that springs up swift and sudden,
+  Here to-day, to-morrow flown,
+Passes, leaves no trace behind it,
+  Leaves no image on the soul.
+
+Painting that is laid on painting
+  Maketh no display or show;
+Where one beauty’s in possession
+  There no other can take hold.
+
+Dulcinea del Toboso
+  Painted on my heart I wear;
+Never from its tablets, never,
+  Can her image be eras’d.
+
+The quality of all in lovers
+  Most esteemed is constancy;
+‘T is by this that love works wonders,
+  This exalts them to the skies.
+
+Don Quixote had got so far with his song, to which the duke, the duchess,
+Altisidora, and nearly the whole household of the castle were listening,
+when all of a sudden from a gallery above that was exactly over his
+window they let down a cord with more than a hundred bells attached to
+it, and immediately after that discharged a great sack full of cats,
+which also had bells of smaller size tied to their tails. Such was the
+din of the bells and the squalling of the cats, that though the duke and
+duchess were the contrivers of the joke they were startled by it, while
+Don Quixote stood paralysed with fear; and as luck would have it, two or
+three of the cats made their way in through the grating of his chamber,
+and flying from one side to the other, made it seem as if there was a
+legion of devils at large in it. They extinguished the candles that were
+burning in the room, and rushed about seeking some way of escape; the
+cord with the large bells never ceased rising and falling; and most of
+the people of the castle, not knowing what was really the matter, were at
+their wits’ end with astonishment. Don Quixote sprang to his feet, and
+drawing his sword, began making passes at the grating, shouting out,
+“Avaunt, malignant enchanters! avaunt, ye witchcraft-working rabble! I am
+Don Quixote of La Mancha, against whom your evil machinations avail not
+nor have any power.” And turning upon the cats that were running about
+the room, he made several cuts at them. They dashed at the grating and
+escaped by it, save one that, finding itself hard pressed by the slashes
+of Don Quixote’s sword, flew at his face and held on to his nose tooth
+and nail, with the pain of which he began to shout his loudest. The duke
+and duchess hearing this, and guessing what it was, ran with all haste to
+his room, and as the poor gentleman was striving with all his might to
+detach the cat from his face, they opened the door with a master-key and
+went in with lights and witnessed the unequal combat. The duke ran
+forward to part the combatants, but Don Quixote cried out aloud, “Let no
+one take him from me; leave me hand to hand with this demon, this wizard,
+this enchanter; I will teach him, I myself, who Don Quixote of La Mancha
+is.” The cat, however, never minding these threats, snarled and held on;
+but at last the duke pulled it off and flung it out of the window. Don
+Quixote was left with a face as full of holes as a sieve and a nose not
+in very good condition, and greatly vexed that they did not let him
+finish the battle he had been so stoutly fighting with that villain of an
+enchanter. They sent for some oil of John’s wort, and Altisidora herself
+with her own fair hands bandaged all the wounded parts; and as she did so
+she said to him in a low voice. “All these mishaps have befallen thee,
+hardhearted knight, for the sin of thy insensibility and obstinacy; and
+God grant thy squire Sancho may forget to whip himself, so that that
+dearly beloved Dulcinea of thine may never be released from her
+enchantment, that thou mayest never come to her bed, at least while I who
+adore thee am alive.”
+
+To all this Don Quixote made no answer except to heave deep sighs, and
+then stretched himself on his bed, thanking the duke and duchess for
+their kindness, not because he stood in any fear of that bell-ringing
+rabble of enchanters in cat shape, but because he recognised their good
+intentions in coming to his rescue. The duke and duchess left him to
+repose and withdrew greatly grieved at the unfortunate result of the
+joke; as they never thought the adventure would have fallen so heavy on
+Don Quixote or cost him so dear, for it cost him five days of confinement
+to his bed, during which he had another adventure, pleasanter than the
+late one, which his chronicler will not relate just now in order that he
+may turn his attention to Sancho Panza, who was proceeding with great
+diligence and drollery in his government.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE ACCOUNT OF HOW SANCHO PANZA CONDUCTED HIMSELF IN
+HIS GOVERNMENT
+
+
+The history says that from the justice court they carried Sancho to a
+sumptuous palace, where in a spacious chamber there was a table laid out
+with royal magnificence. The clarions sounded as Sancho entered the room,
+and four pages came forward to present him with water for his hands,
+which Sancho received with great dignity. The music ceased, and Sancho
+seated himself at the head of the table, for there was only that seat
+placed, and no more than one cover laid. A personage, who it appeared
+afterwards was a physician, placed himself standing by his side with a
+whalebone wand in his hand. They then lifted up a fine white cloth
+covering fruit and a great variety of dishes of different sorts; one who
+looked like a student said grace, and a page put a laced bib on Sancho,
+while another who played the part of head carver placed a dish of fruit
+before him. But hardly had he tasted a morsel when the man with the wand
+touched the plate with it, and they took it away from before him with the
+utmost celerity. The carver, however, brought him another dish, and
+Sancho proceeded to try it; but before he could get at it, not to say
+taste it, already the wand had touched it and a page had carried it off
+with the same promptitude as the fruit. Sancho seeing this was puzzled,
+and looking from one to another asked if this dinner was to be eaten
+after the fashion of a jugglery trick.
+
+To this he with the wand replied, “It is not to be eaten, señor governor,
+except as is usual and customary in other islands where there are
+governors. I, señor, am a physician, and I am paid a salary in this
+island to serve its governors as such, and I have a much greater regard
+for their health than for my own, studying day and night and making
+myself acquainted with the governor’s constitution, in order to be able
+to cure him when he falls sick. The chief thing I have to do is to attend
+at his dinners and suppers and allow him to eat what appears to me to be
+fit for him, and keep from him what I think will do him harm and be
+injurious to his stomach; and therefore I ordered that plate of fruit to
+be removed as being too moist, and that other dish I ordered to be
+removed as being too hot and containing many spices that stimulate
+thirst; for he who drinks much kills and consumes the radical moisture
+wherein life consists.”
+
+“Well then,” said Sancho, “that dish of roast partridges there that seems
+so savoury will not do me any harm.”
+
+To this the physician replied, “Of those my lord the governor shall not
+eat so long as I live.”
+
+“Why so?” said Sancho.
+
+“Because,” replied the doctor, “our master Hippocrates, the polestar and
+beacon of medicine, says in one of his aphorisms omnis saturatio mala,
+perdicis autem pessima, which means ‘all repletion is bad, but that of
+partridge is the worst of all.”
+
+“In that case,” said Sancho, “let señor doctor see among the dishes that
+are on the table what will do me most good and least harm, and let me eat
+it, without tapping it with his stick; for by the life of the governor,
+and so may God suffer me to enjoy it, but I’m dying of hunger; and in
+spite of the doctor and all he may say, to deny me food is the way to
+take my life instead of prolonging it.”
+
+“Your worship is right, señor governor,” said the physician; “and
+therefore your worship, I consider, should not eat of those stewed
+rabbits there, because it is a furry kind of food; if that veal were not
+roasted and served with pickles, you might try it; but it is out of the
+question.”
+
+“That big dish that is smoking farther off,” said Sancho, “seems to me to
+be an olla podrida, and out of the diversity of things in such ollas, I
+can’t fail to light upon something tasty and good for me.”
+
+“Absit,” said the doctor; “far from us be any such base thought! There is
+nothing in the world less nourishing than an olla podrida; to canons, or
+rectors of colleges, or peasants’ weddings with your ollas podridas, but
+let us have none of them on the tables of governors, where everything
+that is present should be delicate and refined; and the reason is, that
+always, everywhere and by everybody, simple medicines are more esteemed
+than compound ones, for we cannot go wrong in those that are simple,
+while in the compound we may, by merely altering the quantity of the
+things composing them. But what I am of opinion the governor should eat
+now in order to preserve and fortify his health is a hundred or so of
+wafer cakes and a few thin slices of conserve of quinces, which will
+settle his stomach and help his digestion.”
+
+Sancho on hearing this threw himself back in his chair and surveyed the
+doctor steadily, and in a solemn tone asked him what his name was and
+where he had studied.
+
+He replied, “My name, señor governor, is Doctor Pedro Recio de Aguero I
+am a native of a place called Tirteafuera which lies between Caracuel and
+Almodovar del Campo, on the right-hand side, and I have the degree of
+doctor from the university of Osuna.”
+
+To which Sancho, glowing all over with rage, returned, “Then let Doctor
+Pedro Recio de Malaguero, native of Tirteafuera, a place that’s on the
+right-hand side as we go from Caracuel to Almodovar del Campo, graduate
+of Osuna, get out of my presence at once; or I swear by the sun I’ll take
+a cudgel, and by dint of blows, beginning with him, I’ll not leave a
+doctor in the whole island; at least of those I know to be ignorant; for
+as to learned, wise, sensible physicians, them I will reverence and
+honour as divine persons. Once more I say let Pedro Recio get out of this
+or I’ll take this chair I am sitting on and break it over his head. And
+if they call me to account for it, I’ll clear myself by saying I served
+God in killing a bad doctor--a general executioner. And now give me
+something to eat, or else take your government; for a trade that does not
+feed its master is not worth two beans.”
+
+The doctor was dismayed when he saw the governor in such a passion, and
+he would have made a Tirteafuera out of the room but that the same
+instant a post-horn sounded in the street; and the carver putting his
+head out of the window turned round and said, “It’s a courier from my
+lord the duke, no doubt with some despatch of importance.”
+
+The courier came in all sweating and flurried, and taking a paper from
+his bosom, placed it in the governor’s hands. Sancho handed it to the
+majordomo and bade him read the superscription, which ran thus: To Don
+Sancho Panza, Governor of the Island of Barataria, into his own hands or
+those of his secretary. Sancho when he heard this said, “Which of you is
+my secretary?” “I am, señor,” said one of those present, “for I can read
+and write, and am a Biscayan.” “With that addition,” said Sancho, “you
+might be secretary to the emperor himself; open this paper and see what
+it says.” The new-born secretary obeyed, and having read the contents
+said the matter was one to be discussed in private. Sancho ordered the
+chamber to be cleared, the majordomo and the carver only remaining; so
+the doctor and the others withdrew, and then the secretary read the
+letter, which was as follows:
+
+
+It has come to my knowledge, Señor Don Sancho Panza, that certain enemies
+of mine and of the island are about to make a furious attack upon it some
+night, I know not when. It behoves you to be on the alert and keep watch,
+that they surprise you not. I also know by trustworthy spies that four
+persons have entered the town in disguise in order to take your life,
+because they stand in dread of your great capacity; keep your eyes open
+and take heed who approaches you to address you, and eat nothing that is
+presented to you. I will take care to send you aid if you find yourself
+in difficulty, but in all things you will act as may be expected of your
+judgment. From this place, the Sixteenth of August, at four in the
+morning.
+
+Your friend,
+
+THE DUKE
+
+
+Sancho was astonished, and those who stood by made believe to be so too,
+and turning to the majordomo he said to him, “What we have got to do
+first, and it must be done at once, is to put Doctor Recio in the
+lock-up; for if anyone wants to kill me it is he, and by a slow death and
+the worst of all, which is hunger.”
+
+“Likewise,” said the carver, “it is my opinion your worship should not
+eat anything that is on this table, for the whole was a present from some
+nuns; and as they say, ‘behind the cross there’s the devil.’”
+
+“I don’t deny it,” said Sancho; “so for the present give me a piece of
+bread and four pounds or so of grapes; no poison can come in them; for
+the fact is I can’t go on without eating; and if we are to be prepared
+for these battles that are threatening us we must be well provisioned;
+for it is the tripes that carry the heart and not the heart the tripes.
+And you, secretary, answer my lord the duke and tell him that all his
+commands shall be obeyed to the letter, as he directs; and say from me to
+my lady the duchess that I kiss her hands, and that I beg of her not to
+forget to send my letter and bundle to my wife Teresa Panza by a
+messenger; and I will take it as a great favour and will not fail to
+serve her in all that may lie within my power; and as you are about it
+you may enclose a kiss of the hand to my master Don Quixote that he may
+see I am grateful bread; and as a good secretary and a good Biscayan you
+may add whatever you like and whatever will come in best; and now take
+away this cloth and give me something to eat, and I’ll be ready to meet
+all the spies and assassins and enchanters that may come against me or my
+island.”
+
+At this instant a page entered saying, “Here is a farmer on business, who
+wants to speak to your lordship on a matter of great importance, he
+says.”
+
+“It’s very odd,” said Sancho, “the ways of these men on business; is it
+possible they can be such fools as not to see that an hour like this is
+no hour for coming on business? We who govern and we who are judges--are
+we not men of flesh and blood, and are we not to be allowed the time
+required for taking rest, unless they’d have us made of marble? By God
+and on my conscience, if the government remains in my hands (which I have
+a notion it won’t), I’ll bring more than one man on business to order.
+However, tell this good man to come in; but take care first of all that
+he is not some spy or one of my assassins.”
+
+“No, my lord,” said the page, “for he looks like a simple fellow, and
+either I know very little or he is as good as good bread.”
+
+“There is nothing to be afraid of,” said the majordomo, “for we are all
+here.”
+
+“Would it be possible, carver,” said Sancho, “now that Doctor Pedro Recio
+is not here, to let me eat something solid and substantial, if it were
+even a piece of bread and an onion?”
+
+“To-night at supper,” said the carver, “the shortcomings of the dinner
+shall be made good, and your lordship shall be fully contented.”
+
+“God grant it,” said Sancho.
+
+The farmer now came in, a well-favoured man that one might see a thousand
+leagues off was an honest fellow and a good soul. The first thing he said
+was, “Which is the lord governor here?”
+
+“Which should it be,” said the secretary, “but he who is seated in the
+chair?”
+
+“Then I humble myself before him,” said the farmer; and going on his
+knees he asked for his hand, to kiss it. Sancho refused it, and bade him
+stand up and say what he wanted. The farmer obeyed, and then said, “I am
+a farmer, señor, a native of Miguelturra, a village two leagues from
+Ciudad Real.”
+
+“Another Tirteafuera!” said Sancho; “say on, brother; I know Miguelturra
+very well I can tell you, for it’s not very far from my own town.”
+
+“The case is this, señor,” continued the farmer, “that by God’s mercy I
+am married with the leave and licence of the holy Roman Catholic Church;
+I have two sons, students, and the younger is studying to become
+bachelor, and the elder to be licentiate; I am a widower, for my wife
+died, or more properly speaking, a bad doctor killed her on my hands,
+giving her a purge when she was with child; and if it had pleased God
+that the child had been born, and was a boy, I would have put him to
+study for doctor, that he might not envy his brothers the bachelor and
+the licentiate.”
+
+“So that if your wife had not died, or had not been killed, you would not
+now be a widower,” said Sancho.
+
+“No, señor, certainly not,” said the farmer.
+
+“We’ve got that much settled,” said Sancho; “get on, brother, for it’s
+more bed-time than business-time.”
+
+“Well then,” said the farmer, “this son of mine who is going to be a
+bachelor, fell in love in the said town with a damsel called Clara
+Perlerina, daughter of Andres Perlerino, a very rich farmer; and this
+name of Perlerines does not come to them by ancestry or descent, but
+because all the family are paralytics, and for a better name they call
+them Perlerines; though to tell the truth the damsel is as fair as an
+Oriental pearl, and like a flower of the field, if you look at her on the
+right side; on the left not so much, for on that side she wants an eye
+that she lost by small-pox; and though her face is thickly and deeply
+pitted, those who love her say they are not pits that are there, but the
+graves where the hearts of her lovers are buried. She is so cleanly that
+not to soil her face she carries her nose turned up, as they say, so that
+one would fancy it was running away from her mouth; and with all this she
+looks extremely well, for she has a wide mouth; and but for wanting ten
+or a dozen teeth and grinders she might compare and compete with the
+comeliest. Of her lips I say nothing, for they are so fine and thin that,
+if lips might be reeled, one might make a skein of them; but being of a
+different colour from ordinary lips they are wonderful, for they are
+mottled, blue, green, and purple--let my lord the governor pardon me for
+painting so minutely the charms of her who some time or other will be my
+daughter; for I love her, and I don’t find her amiss.”
+
+“Paint what you will,” said Sancho; “I enjoy your painting, and if I had
+dined there could be no dessert more to my taste than your portrait.”
+
+“That I have still to furnish,” said the farmer; “but a time will come
+when we may be able if we are not now; and I can tell you, señor, if I
+could paint her gracefulness and her tall figure, it would astonish you;
+but that is impossible because she is bent double with her knees up to
+her mouth; but for all that it is easy to see that if she could stand up
+she’d knock her head against the ceiling; and she would have given her
+hand to my bachelor ere this, only that she can’t stretch it out, for
+it’s contracted; but still one can see its elegance and fine make by its
+long furrowed nails.”
+
+“That will do, brother,” said Sancho; “consider you have painted her from
+head to foot; what is it you want now? Come to the point without all this
+beating about the bush, and all these scraps and additions.”
+
+“I want your worship, señor,” said the farmer, “to do me the favour of
+giving me a letter of recommendation to the girl’s father, begging him to
+be so good as to let this marriage take place, as we are not ill-matched
+either in the gifts of fortune or of nature; for to tell the truth, señor
+governor, my son is possessed of a devil, and there is not a day but the
+evil spirits torment him three or four times; and from having once fallen
+into the fire, he has his face puckered up like a piece of parchment, and
+his eyes watery and always running; but he has the disposition of an
+angel, and if it was not for belabouring and pummelling himself he’d be a
+saint.”
+
+“Is there anything else you want, good man?” said Sancho.
+
+“There’s another thing I’d like,” said the farmer, “but I’m afraid to
+mention it; however, out it must; for after all I can’t let it be rotting
+in my breast, come what may. I mean, señor, that I’d like your worship to
+give me three hundred or six hundred ducats as a help to my bachelor’s
+portion, to help him in setting up house; for they must, in short, live
+by themselves, without being subject to the interferences of their
+fathers-in-law.”
+
+“Just see if there’s anything else you’d like,” said Sancho, “and don’t
+hold back from mentioning it out of bashfulness or modesty.”
+
+“No, indeed there is not,” said the farmer.
+
+The moment he said this the governor started to his feet, and seizing the
+chair he had been sitting on exclaimed, “By all that’s good, you
+ill-bred, boorish Don Bumpkin, if you don’t get out of this at once and
+hide yourself from my sight, I’ll lay your head open with this chair. You
+whoreson rascal, you devil’s own painter, and is it at this hour you come
+to ask me for six hundred ducats! How should I have them, you stinking
+brute? And why should I give them to you if I had them, you knave and
+blockhead? What have I to do with Miguelturra or the whole family of the
+Perlerines? Get out I say, or by the life of my lord the duke I’ll do as
+I said. You’re not from Miguelturra, but some knave sent here from hell
+to tempt me. Why, you villain, I have not yet had the government half a
+day, and you want me to have six hundred ducats already!”
+
+The carver made signs to the farmer to leave the room, which he did with
+his head down, and to all appearance in terror lest the governor should
+carry his threats into effect, for the rogue knew very well how to play
+his part.
+
+But let us leave Sancho in his wrath, and peace be with them all; and let
+us return to Don Quixote, whom we left with his face bandaged and
+doctored after the cat wounds, of which he was not cured for eight days;
+and on one of these there befell him what Cide Hamete promises to relate
+with that exactitude and truth with which he is wont to set forth
+everything connected with this great history, however minute it may be.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH DONA RODRIGUEZ, THE DUCHESS’S DUENNA,
+TOGETHER WITH OTHER OCCURRENCES WORTHY OF RECORD AND ETERNAL REMEMBRANCE
+
+
+Exceedingly moody and dejected was the sorely wounded Don Quixote, with
+his face bandaged and marked, not by the hand of God, but by the claws of
+a cat, mishaps incidental to knight-errantry.
+
+Six days he remained without appearing in public, and one night as he lay
+awake thinking of his misfortunes and of Altisidora’s pursuit of him, he
+perceived that some one was opening the door of his room with a key, and
+he at once made up his mind that the enamoured damsel was coming to make
+an assault upon his chastity and put him in danger of failing in the
+fidelity he owed to his lady Dulcinea del Toboso. “No,” said he, firmly
+persuaded of the truth of his idea (and he said it loud enough to be
+heard), “the greatest beauty upon earth shall not avail to make me
+renounce my adoration of her whom I bear stamped and graved in the core
+of my heart and the secret depths of my bowels; be thou, lady mine,
+transformed into a clumsy country wench, or into a nymph of golden Tagus
+weaving a web of silk and gold, let Merlin or Montesinos hold thee
+captive where they will; where’er thou art, thou art mine, and where’er I
+am, must be thine.” The very instant he had uttered these words, the door
+opened. He stood up on the bed wrapped from head to foot in a yellow
+satin coverlet, with a cap on his head, and his face and his moustaches
+tied up, his face because of the scratches, and his moustaches to keep
+them from drooping and falling down, in which trim he looked the most
+extraordinary scarecrow that could be conceived. He kept his eyes fixed
+on the door, and just as he was expecting to see the love-smitten and
+unhappy Altisidora make her appearance, he saw coming in a most venerable
+duenna, in a long white-bordered veil that covered and enveloped her from
+head to foot. Between the fingers of her left hand she held a short
+lighted candle, while with her right she shaded it to keep the light from
+her eyes, which were covered by spectacles of great size, and she
+advanced with noiseless steps, treading very softly.
+
+Don Quixote kept an eye upon her from his watchtower, and observing her
+costume and noting her silence, he concluded that it must be some witch
+or sorceress that was coming in such a guise to work him some mischief,
+and he began crossing himself at a great rate. The spectre still
+advanced, and on reaching the middle of the room, looked up and saw the
+energy with which Don Quixote was crossing himself; and if he was scared
+by seeing such a figure as hers, she was terrified at the sight of his;
+for the moment she saw his tall yellow form with the coverlet and the
+bandages that disfigured him, she gave a loud scream, and exclaiming,
+“Jesus! what’s this I see?” let fall the candle in her fright, and then
+finding herself in the dark, turned about to make off, but stumbling on
+her skirts in her consternation, she measured her length with a mighty
+fall.
+
+Don Quixote in his trepidation began saying, “I conjure thee, phantom, or
+whatever thou art, tell me what thou art and what thou wouldst with me.
+If thou art a soul in torment, say so, and all that my powers can do I
+will do for thee; for I am a Catholic Christian and love to do good to
+all the world, and to this end I have embraced the order of
+knight-errantry to which I belong, the province of which extends to doing
+good even to souls in purgatory.”
+
+The unfortunate duenna hearing herself thus conjured, by her own fear
+guessed Don Quixote’s and in a low plaintive voice answered, “Señor Don
+Quixote--if so be you are indeed Don Quixote--I am no phantom or spectre
+or soul in purgatory, as you seem to think, but Dona Rodriguez, duenna of
+honour to my lady the duchess, and I come to you with one of those
+grievances your worship is wont to redress.”
+
+“Tell me, Señora Dona Rodriguez,” said Don Quixote, “do you perchance
+come to transact any go-between business? Because I must tell you I am
+not available for anybody’s purpose, thanks to the peerless beauty of my
+lady Dulcinea del Toboso. In short, Señora Dona Rodriguez, if you will
+leave out and put aside all love messages, you may go and light your
+candle and come back, and we will discuss all the commands you have for
+me and whatever you wish, saving only, as I said, all seductive
+communications.”
+
+“I carry nobody’s messages, señor,” said the duenna; “little you know me.
+Nay, I’m not far enough advanced in years to take to any such childish
+tricks. God be praised I have a soul in my body still, and all my teeth
+and grinders in my mouth, except one or two that the colds, so common in
+this Aragon country, have robbed me of. But wait a little, while I go and
+light my candle, and I will return immediately and lay my sorrows before
+you as before one who relieves those of all the world;” and without
+staying for an answer she quitted the room and left Don Quixote
+tranquilly meditating while he waited for her. A thousand thoughts at
+once suggested themselves to him on the subject of this new adventure,
+and it struck him as being ill done and worse advised in him to expose
+himself to the danger of breaking his plighted faith to his lady; and
+said he to himself, “Who knows but that the devil, being wily and
+cunning, may be trying now to entrap me with a duenna, having failed with
+empresses, queens, duchesses, marchionesses, and countesses? Many a time
+have I heard it said by many a man of sense that he will sooner offer you
+a flat-nosed wench than a roman-nosed one; and who knows but this
+privacy, this opportunity, this silence, may awaken my sleeping desires,
+and lead me in these my latter years to fall where I have never tripped?
+In cases of this sort it is better to flee than to await the battle. But
+I must be out of my senses to think and utter such nonsense; for it is
+impossible that a long, white-hooded spectacled duenna could stir up or
+excite a wanton thought in the most graceless bosom in the world. Is
+there a duenna on earth that has fair flesh? Is there a duenna in the
+world that escapes being ill-tempered, wrinkled, and prudish? Avaunt,
+then, ye duenna crew, undelightful to all mankind. Oh, but that lady did
+well who, they say, had at the end of her reception room a couple of
+figures of duennas with spectacles and lace-cushions, as if at work, and
+those statues served quite as well to give an air of propriety to the
+room as if they had been real duennas.”
+
+So saying he leaped off the bed, intending to close the door and not
+allow Señora Rodriguez to enter; but as he went to shut it Señora
+Rodriguez returned with a wax candle lighted, and having a closer view of
+Don Quixote, with the coverlet round him, and his bandages and night-cap,
+she was alarmed afresh, and retreating a couple of paces, exclaimed, “Am
+I safe, sir knight? for I don’t look upon it as a sign of very great
+virtue that your worship should have got up out of bed.”
+
+“I may well ask the same, señora,” said Don Quixote; “and I do ask
+whether I shall be safe from being assailed and forced?”
+
+“Of whom and against whom do you demand that security, sir knight?” said
+the duenna.
+
+“Of you and against you I ask it,” said Don Quixote; “for I am not
+marble, nor are you brass, nor is it now ten o’clock in the morning, but
+midnight, or a trifle past it I fancy, and we are in a room more secluded
+and retired than the cave could have been where the treacherous and
+daring Æneas enjoyed the fair soft-hearted Dido. But give me your hand,
+señora; I require no better protection than my own continence, and my own
+sense of propriety; as well as that which is inspired by that venerable
+head-dress;” and so saying he kissed her right hand and took it in his
+own, she yielding it to him with equal ceremoniousness. And here Cide
+Hamete inserts a parenthesis in which he says that to have seen the pair
+marching from the door to the bed, linked hand in hand in this way, he
+would have given the best of the two tunics he had.
+
+Don Quixote finally got into bed, and Dona Rodriguez took her seat on a
+chair at some little distance from his couch, without taking off her
+spectacles or putting aside the candle. Don Quixote wrapped the
+bedclothes round him and covered himself up completely, leaving nothing
+but his face visible, and as soon as they had both regained their
+composure he broke silence, saying, “Now, Señora Dona Rodriguez, you may
+unbosom yourself and out with everything you have in your sorrowful heart
+and afflicted bowels; and by me you shall be listened to with chaste
+ears, and aided by compassionate exertions.”
+
+“I believe it,” replied the duenna; “from your worship’s gentle and
+winning presence only such a Christian answer could be expected. The fact
+is, then, Señor Don Quixote, that though you see me seated in this chair,
+here in the middle of the kingdom of Aragon, and in the attire of a
+despised outcast duenna, I am from the Asturias of Oviedo, and of a
+family with which many of the best of the province are connected by
+blood; but my untoward fate and the improvidence of my parents, who, I
+know not how, were unseasonably reduced to poverty, brought me to the
+court of Madrid, where as a provision and to avoid greater misfortunes,
+my parents placed me as seamstress in the service of a lady of quality,
+and I would have you know that for hemming and sewing I have never been
+surpassed by any all my life. My parents left me in service and returned
+to their own country, and a few years later went, no doubt, to heaven,
+for they were excellent good Catholic Christians. I was left an orphan
+with nothing but the miserable wages and trifling presents that are given
+to servants of my sort in palaces; but about this time, without any
+encouragement on my part, one of the esquires of the household fell in
+love with me, a man somewhat advanced in years, full-bearded and
+personable, and above all as good a gentleman as the king himself, for he
+came of a mountain stock. We did not carry on our loves with such secrecy
+but that they came to the knowledge of my lady, and she, not to have any
+fuss about it, had us married with the full sanction of the holy mother
+Roman Catholic Church, of which marriage a daughter was born to put an
+end to my good fortune, if I had any; not that I died in childbirth, for
+I passed through it safely and in due season, but because shortly
+afterwards my husband died of a certain shock he received, and had I time
+to tell you of it I know your worship would be surprised;” and here she
+began to weep bitterly and said, “Pardon me, Señor Don Quixote, if I am
+unable to control myself, for every time I think of my unfortunate
+husband my eyes fill up with tears. God bless me, with what an air of
+dignity he used to carry my lady behind him on a stout mule as black as
+jet! for in those days they did not use coaches or chairs, as they say
+they do now, and ladies rode behind their squires. This much at least I
+cannot help telling you, that you may observe the good breeding and
+punctiliousness of my worthy husband. As he was turning into the Calle de
+Santiago in Madrid, which is rather narrow, one of the alcaldes of the
+Court, with two alguacils before him, was coming out of it, and as soon
+as my good squire saw him he wheeled his mule about and made as if he
+would turn and accompany him. My lady, who was riding behind him, said to
+him in a low voice, ‘What are you about, you sneak, don’t you see that I
+am here?’ The alcalde like a polite man pulled up his horse and said to
+him, ‘Proceed, señor, for it is I, rather, who ought to accompany my lady
+Dona Casilda’--for that was my mistress’s name. Still my husband, cap in
+hand, persisted in trying to accompany the alcalde, and seeing this my
+lady, filled with rage and vexation, pulled out a big pin, or, I rather
+think, a bodkin, out of her needle-case and drove it into his back with
+such force that my husband gave a loud yell, and writhing fell to the
+ground with his lady. Her two lacqueys ran to rise her up, and the
+alcalde and the alguacils did the same; the Guadalajara gate was all in
+commotion--I mean the idlers congregated there; my mistress came back on
+foot, and my husband hurried away to a barber’s shop protesting that he
+was run right through the guts. The courtesy of my husband was noised
+abroad to such an extent, that the boys gave him no peace in the street;
+and on this account, and because he was somewhat shortsighted, my lady
+dismissed him; and it was chagrin at this I am convinced beyond a doubt
+that brought on his death. I was left a helpless widow, with a daughter
+on my hands growing up in beauty like the sea-foam; at length, however,
+as I had the character of being an excellent needlewoman, my lady the
+duchess, then lately married to my lord the duke, offered to take me with
+her to this kingdom of Aragon, and my daughter also, and here as time
+went by my daughter grew up and with her all the graces in the world; she
+sings like a lark, dances quick as thought, foots it like a gipsy, reads
+and writes like a schoolmaster, and does sums like a miser; of her
+neatness I say nothing, for the running water is not purer, and her age
+is now, if my memory serves me, sixteen years five months and three days,
+one more or less. To come to the point, the son of a very rich farmer,
+living in a village of my lord the duke’s not very far from here, fell in
+love with this girl of mine; and in short, how I know not, they came
+together, and under the promise of marrying her he made a fool of my
+daughter, and will not keep his word. And though my lord the duke is
+aware of it (for I have complained to him, not once but many and many a
+time, and entreated him to order the farmer to marry my daughter), he
+turns a deaf ear and will scarcely listen to me; the reason being that as
+the deceiver’s father is so rich, and lends him money, and is constantly
+going security for his debts, he does not like to offend or annoy him in
+any way. Now, señor, I want your worship to take it upon yourself to
+redress this wrong either by entreaty or by arms; for by what all the
+world says you came into it to redress grievances and right wrongs and
+help the unfortunate. Let your worship put before you the unprotected
+condition of my daughter, her youth, and all the perfections I have said
+she possesses; and before God and on my conscience, out of all the
+damsels my lady has, there is not one that comes up to the sole of her
+shoe, and the one they call Altisidora, and look upon as the boldest and
+gayest of them, put in comparison with my daughter, does not come within
+two leagues of her. For I would have you know, señor, all is not gold
+that glitters, and that same little Altisidora has more forwardness than
+good looks, and more impudence than modesty; besides being not very
+sound, for she has such a disagreeable breath that one cannot bear to be
+near her for a moment; and even my lady the duchess--but I’ll hold my
+tongue, for they say that walls have ears.”
+
+“For heaven’s sake, Dona Rodriguez, what ails my lady the duchess?” asked
+Don Quixote.
+
+“Adjured in that way,” replied the duenna, “I cannot help answering the
+question and telling the whole truth. Señor Don Quixote, have you
+observed the comeliness of my lady the duchess, that smooth complexion of
+hers like a burnished polished sword, those two cheeks of milk and
+carmine, that gay lively step with which she treads or rather seems to
+spurn the earth, so that one would fancy she went radiating health
+wherever she passed? Well then, let me tell you she may thank, first of
+all God, for this, and next, two issues that she has, one in each leg, by
+which all the evil humours, of which the doctors say she is full, are
+discharged.”
+
+“Blessed Virgin!” exclaimed Don Quixote; “and is it possible that my lady
+the duchess has drains of that sort? I would not have believed it if the
+barefoot friars had told it me; but as the lady Dona Rodriguez says so,
+it must be so. But surely such issues, and in such places, do not
+discharge humours, but liquid amber. Verily, I do believe now that this
+practice of opening issues is a very important matter for the health.”
+
+Don Quixote had hardly said this, when the chamber door flew open with a
+loud bang, and with the start the noise gave her Dona Rodriguez let the
+candle fall from her hand, and the room was left as dark as a wolf’s
+mouth, as the saying is. Suddenly the poor duenna felt two hands seize
+her by the throat, so tightly that she could not croak, while some one
+else, without uttering a word, very briskly hoisted up her petticoats,
+and with what seemed to be a slipper began to lay on so heartily that
+anyone would have felt pity for her; but although Don Quixote felt it he
+never stirred from his bed, but lay quiet and silent, nay apprehensive
+that his turn for a drubbing might be coming. Nor was the apprehension an
+idle one; one; for leaving the duenna (who did not dare to cry out) well
+basted, the silent executioners fell upon Don Quixote, and stripping him
+of the sheet and the coverlet, they pinched him so fast and so hard that
+he was driven to defend himself with his fists, and all this in
+marvellous silence. The battle lasted nearly half an hour, and then the
+phantoms fled; Dona Rodriguez gathered up her skirts, and bemoaning her
+fate went out without saying a word to Don Quixote, and he, sorely
+pinched, puzzled, and dejected, remained alone, and there we will leave
+him, wondering who could have been the perverse enchanter who had reduced
+him to such a state; but that shall be told in due season, for Sancho
+claims our attention, and the methodical arrangement of the story demands
+it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+OF WHAT HAPPENED SANCHO IN MAKING THE ROUND OF HIS ISLAND
+
+
+We left the great governor angered and irritated by that
+portrait-painting rogue of a farmer who, instructed by the majordomo,
+as the majordomo was by the duke, tried to practise upon him; he
+however, fool, boor, and clown as he was, held his own against them
+all, saying to those round him and to Doctor Pedro Recio, who as soon
+as the private business of the duke’s letter was disposed of had
+returned to the room, “Now I see plainly enough that judges and
+governors ought to be and must be made of brass not to feel the
+importunities of the applicants that at all times and all seasons
+insist on being heard, and having their business despatched, and their
+own affairs and no others attended to, come what may; and if the poor
+judge does not hear them and settle the matter--either because he
+cannot or because that is not the time set apart for hearing
+them-forthwith they abuse him, and run him down, and gnaw at his bones,
+and even pick holes in his pedigree. You silly, stupid applicant, don’t
+be in a hurry; wait for the proper time and season for doing business;
+don’t come at dinner-hour, or at bed-time; for judges are only flesh
+and blood, and must give to Nature what she naturally demands of them;
+all except myself, for in my case I give her nothing to eat, thanks to
+Señor Doctor Pedro Recio Tirteafuera here, who would have me die of
+hunger, and declares that death to be life; and the same sort of life
+may God give him and all his kind--I mean the bad doctors; for the good
+ones deserve palms and laurels.”
+
+All who knew Sancho Panza were astonished to hear him speak so elegantly,
+and did not know what to attribute it to unless it were that office and
+grave responsibility either smarten or stupefy men’s wits. At last Doctor
+Pedro Recio Agilers of Tirteafuera promised to let him have supper that
+night though it might be in contravention of all the aphorisms of
+Hippocrates. With this the governor was satisfied and looked forward to
+the approach of night and supper-time with great anxiety; and though
+time, to his mind, stood still and made no progress, nevertheless the
+hour he so longed for came, and they gave him a beef salad with onions
+and some boiled calves’ feet rather far gone. At this he fell to with
+greater relish than if they had given him francolins from Milan,
+pheasants from Rome, veal from Sorrento, partridges from Moron, or geese
+from Lavajos, and turning to the doctor at supper he said to him, “Look
+here, señor doctor, for the future don’t trouble yourself about giving me
+dainty things or choice dishes to eat, for it will be only taking my
+stomach off its hinges; it is accustomed to goat, cow, bacon, hung beef,
+turnips and onions; and if by any chance it is given these palace dishes,
+it receives them squeamishly, and sometimes with loathing. What the
+head-carver had best do is to serve me with what they call ollas podridas
+(and the rottener they are the better they smell); and he can put
+whatever he likes into them, so long as it is good to eat, and I’ll be
+obliged to him, and will requite him some day. But let nobody play pranks
+on me, for either we are or we are not; let us live and eat in peace and
+good-fellowship, for when God sends the dawn, he sends it for all. I mean
+to govern this island without giving up a right or taking a bribe; let
+everyone keep his eye open, and look out for the arrow; for I can tell
+them ‘the devil’s in Cantillana,’ and if they drive me to it they’ll see
+something that will astonish them. Nay! make yourself honey and the flies
+eat you.”
+
+“Of a truth, señor governor,” said the carver, “your worship is in the
+right of it in everything you have said; and I promise you in the name of
+all the inhabitants of this island that they will serve your worship with
+all zeal, affection, and good-will, for the mild kind of government you
+have given a sample of to begin with, leaves them no ground for doing or
+thinking anything to your worship’s disadvantage.”
+
+“That I believe,” said Sancho; “and they would be great fools if they did
+or thought otherwise; once more I say, see to my feeding and my Dapple’s
+for that is the great point and what is most to the purpose; and when the
+hour comes let us go the rounds, for it is my intention to purge this
+island of all manner of uncleanness and of all idle good-for-nothing
+vagabonds; for I would have you know that lazy idlers are the same thing
+in a State as the drones in a hive, that eat up the honey the industrious
+bees make. I mean to protect the husbandman, to preserve to the gentleman
+his privileges, to reward the virtuous, and above all to respect religion
+and honour its ministers. What say you to that, my friends? Is there
+anything in what I say, or am I talking to no purpose?”
+
+“There is so much in what your worship says, señor governor,” said the
+majordomo, “that I am filled with wonder when I see a man like your
+worship, entirely without learning (for I believe you have none at all),
+say such things, and so full of sound maxims and sage remarks, very
+different from what was expected of your worship’s intelligence by those
+who sent us or by us who came here. Every day we see something new in
+this world; jokes become realities, and the jokers find the tables turned
+upon them.”
+
+Night came, and with the permission of Doctor Pedro Recio, the governor
+had supper. They then got ready to go the rounds, and he started with the
+majordomo, the secretary, the head-carver, the chronicler charged with
+recording his deeds, and alguacils and notaries enough to form a
+fair-sized squadron. In the midst marched Sancho with his staff, as fine
+a sight as one could wish to see, and but a few streets of the town had
+been traversed when they heard a noise as of a clashing of swords. They
+hastened to the spot, and found that the combatants were but two, who
+seeing the authorities approaching stood still, and one of them
+exclaimed, “Help, in the name of God and the king! Are men to be allowed
+to rob in the middle of this town, and rush out and attack people in the
+very streets?”
+
+“Be calm, my good man,” said Sancho, “and tell me what the cause of this
+quarrel is; for I am the governor.”
+
+Said the other combatant, “Señor governor, I will tell you in a very few
+words. Your worship must know that this gentleman has just now won more
+than a thousand reals in that gambling house opposite, and God knows how.
+I was there, and gave more than one doubtful point in his favour, very
+much against what my conscience told me. He made off with his winnings,
+and when I made sure he was going to give me a crown or so at least by
+way of a present, as it is usual and customary to give men of quality of
+my sort who stand by to see fair or foul play, and back up swindles, and
+prevent quarrels, he pocketed his money and left the house. Indignant at
+this I followed him, and speaking him fairly and civilly asked him to
+give me if it were only eight reals, for he knows I am an honest man and
+that I have neither profession nor property, for my parents never brought
+me up to any or left me any; but the rogue, who is a greater thief than
+Cacus and a greater sharper than Andradilla, would not give me more than
+four reals; so your worship may see how little shame and conscience he
+has. But by my faith if you had not come up I’d have made him disgorge
+his winnings, and he’d have learned what the range of the steel-yard
+was.”
+
+“What say you to this?” asked Sancho. The other replied that all his
+antagonist said was true, and that he did not choose to give him more
+than four reals because he very often gave him money; and that those who
+expected presents ought to be civil and take what is given them with a
+cheerful countenance, and not make any claim against winners unless they
+know them for certain to be sharpers and their winnings to be unfairly
+won; and that there could be no better proof that he himself was an
+honest man than his having refused to give anything; for sharpers always
+pay tribute to lookers-on who know them.
+
+“That is true,” said the majordomo; “let your worship consider what is to
+be done with these men.”
+
+“What is to be done,” said Sancho, “is this; you, the winner, be you
+good, bad, or indifferent, give this assailant of yours a hundred reals
+at once, and you must disburse thirty more for the poor prisoners; and
+you who have neither profession nor property, and hang about the island
+in idleness, take these hundred reals now, and some time of the day
+to-morrow quit the island under sentence of banishment for ten years, and
+under pain of completing it in another life if you violate the sentence,
+for I’ll hang you on a gibbet, or at least the hangman will by my orders;
+not a word from either of you, or I’ll make him feel my hand.”
+
+The one paid down the money and the other took it, and the latter quitted
+the island, while the other went home; and then the governor said,
+“Either I am not good for much, or I’ll get rid of these gambling houses,
+for it strikes me they are very mischievous.”
+
+“This one at least,” said one of the notaries, “your worship will not be
+able to get rid of, for a great man owns it, and what he loses every year
+is beyond all comparison more than what he makes by the cards. On the
+minor gambling houses your worship may exercise your power, and it is
+they that do most harm and shelter the most barefaced practices; for in
+the houses of lords and gentlemen of quality the notorious sharpers dare
+not attempt to play their tricks; and as the vice of gambling has become
+common, it is better that men should play in houses of repute than in
+some tradesman’s, where they catch an unlucky fellow in the small hours
+of the morning and skin him alive.”
+
+“I know already, notary, that there is a good deal to be said on that
+point,” said Sancho.
+
+And now a tipstaff came up with a young man in his grasp, and said,
+“Señor governor, this youth was coming towards us, and as soon as he saw
+the officers of justice he turned about and ran like a deer, a sure proof
+that he must be some evil-doer; I ran after him, and had it not been that
+he stumbled and fell, I should never have caught him.”
+
+“What did you run for, fellow?” said Sancho.
+
+To which the young man replied, “Señor, it was to avoid answering all the
+questions officers of justice put.”
+
+“What are you by trade?”
+
+“A weaver.”
+
+“And what do you weave?”
+
+“Lance heads, with your worship’s good leave.”
+
+“You’re facetious with me! You plume yourself on being a wag? Very good;
+and where were you going just now?”
+
+“To take the air, señor.”
+
+“And where does one take the air in this island?”
+
+“Where it blows.”
+
+“Good! your answers are very much to the point; you are a smart youth;
+but take notice that I am the air, and that I blow upon you a-stern, and
+send you to gaol. Ho there! lay hold of him and take him off; I’ll make
+him sleep there to-night without air.”
+
+“By God,” said the young man, “your worship will make me sleep in gaol
+just as soon as make me king.”
+
+“Why shan’t I make thee sleep in gaol?” said Sancho. “Have I not the
+power to arrest thee and release thee whenever I like?”
+
+“All the power your worship has,” said the young man, “won’t be able to
+make me sleep in gaol.”
+
+“How? not able!” said Sancho; “take him away at once where he’ll see his
+mistake with his own eyes, even if the gaoler is willing to exert his
+interested generosity on his behalf; for I’ll lay a penalty of two
+thousand ducats on him if he allows him to stir a step from the prison.”
+
+“That’s ridiculous,” said the young man; “the fact is, all the men on
+earth will not make me sleep in prison.”
+
+“Tell me, you devil,” said Sancho, “have you got any angel that will
+deliver you, and take off the irons I am going to order them to put upon
+you?”
+
+“Now, señor governor,” said the young man in a sprightly manner, “let us
+be reasonable and come to the point. Granted your worship may order me to
+be taken to prison, and to have irons and chains put on me, and to be
+shut up in a cell, and may lay heavy penalties on the gaoler if he lets
+me out, and that he obeys your orders; still, if I don’t choose to sleep,
+and choose to remain awake all night without closing an eye, will your
+worship with all your power be able to make me sleep if I don’t choose?”
+
+“No, truly,” said the secretary, “and the fellow has made his point.”
+
+“So then,” said Sancho, “it would be entirely of your own choice you
+would keep from sleeping; not in opposition to my will?”
+
+“No, señor,” said the youth, “certainly not.”
+
+“Well then, go, and God be with you,” said Sancho; “be off home to sleep,
+and God give you sound sleep, for I don’t want to rob you of it; but for
+the future, let me advise you don’t joke with the authorities, because
+you may come across some one who will bring down the joke on your own
+skull.”
+
+The young man went his way, and the governor continued his round, and
+shortly afterwards two tipstaffs came up with a man in custody, and said,
+“Señor governor, this person, who seems to be a man, is not so, but a
+woman, and not an ill-favoured one, in man’s clothes.” They raised two or
+three lanterns to her face, and by their light they distinguished the
+features of a woman to all appearance of the age of sixteen or a little
+more, with her hair gathered into a gold and green silk net, and fair as
+a thousand pearls. They scanned her from head to foot, and observed that
+she had on red silk stockings with garters of white taffety bordered with
+gold and pearl; her breeches were of green and gold stuff, and under an
+open jacket or jerkin of the same she wore a doublet of the finest white
+and gold cloth; her shoes were white and such as men wear; she carried no
+sword at her belt, but only a richly ornamented dagger, and on her
+fingers she had several handsome rings. In short, the girl seemed fair to
+look at in the eyes of all, and none of those who beheld her knew her,
+the people of the town said they could not imagine who she was, and those
+who were in the secret of the jokes that were to be practised upon Sancho
+were the ones who were most surprised, for this incident or discovery had
+not been arranged by them; and they watched anxiously to see how the
+affair would end.
+
+Sancho was fascinated by the girl’s beauty, and he asked her who she was,
+where she was going, and what had induced her to dress herself in that
+garb. She with her eyes fixed on the ground answered in modest confusion,
+“I cannot tell you, señor, before so many people what it is of such
+consequence to me to have kept secret; one thing I wish to be known, that
+I am no thief or evildoer, but only an unhappy maiden whom the power of
+jealousy has led to break through the respect that is due to modesty.”
+
+Hearing this the majordomo said to Sancho, “Make the people stand back,
+señor governor, that this lady may say what she wishes with less
+embarrassment.”
+
+Sancho gave the order, and all except the majordomo, the head-carver, and
+the secretary fell back. Finding herself then in the presence of no more,
+the damsel went on to say, “I am the daughter, sirs, of Pedro Perez
+Mazorca, the wool-farmer of this town, who is in the habit of coming very
+often to my father’s house.”
+
+“That won’t do, señora,” said the majordomo; “for I know Pedro Perez very
+well, and I know he has no child at all, either son or daughter; and
+besides, though you say he is your father, you add then that he comes
+very often to your father’s house.”
+
+“I had already noticed that,” said Sancho.
+
+“I am confused just now, sirs,” said the damsel, “and I don’t know what I
+am saying; but the truth is that I am the daughter of Diego de la Llana,
+whom you must all know.”
+
+“Ay, that will do,” said the majordomo; “for I know Diego de la Llana,
+and know that he is a gentleman of position and a rich man, and that he
+has a son and a daughter, and that since he was left a widower nobody in
+all this town can speak of having seen his daughter’s face; for he keeps
+her so closely shut up that he does not give even the sun a chance of
+seeing her; and for all that report says she is extremely beautiful.”
+
+“It is true,” said the damsel, “and I am that daughter; whether report
+lies or not as to my beauty, you, sirs, will have decided by this time,
+as you have seen me;” and with this she began to weep bitterly.
+
+On seeing this the secretary leant over to the head-carver’s ear, and
+said to him in a low voice, “Something serious has no doubt happened this
+poor maiden, that she goes wandering from home in such a dress and at
+such an hour, and one of her rank too.” “There can be no doubt about it,”
+ returned the carver, “and moreover her tears confirm your suspicion.”
+ Sancho gave her the best comfort he could, and entreated her to tell them
+without any fear what had happened her, as they would all earnestly and
+by every means in their power endeavour to relieve her.
+
+“The fact is, sirs,” said she, “that my father has kept me shut up these
+ten years, for so long is it since the earth received my mother. Mass is
+said at home in a sumptuous chapel, and all this time I have seen but the
+sun in the heaven by day, and the moon and the stars by night; nor do I
+know what streets are like, or plazas, or churches, or even men, except
+my father and a brother I have, and Pedro Perez the wool-farmer; whom,
+because he came frequently to our house, I took it into my head to call
+my father, to avoid naming my own. This seclusion and the restrictions
+laid upon my going out, were it only to church, have been keeping me
+unhappy for many a day and month past; I longed to see the world, or at
+least the town where I was born, and it did not seem to me that this wish
+was inconsistent with the respect maidens of good quality should have for
+themselves. When I heard them talking of bull-fights taking place, and of
+javelin games, and of acting plays, I asked my brother, who is a year
+younger than myself, to tell me what sort of things these were, and many
+more that I had never seen; he explained them to me as well as he could,
+but the only effect was to kindle in me a still stronger desire to see
+them. At last, to cut short the story of my ruin, I begged and entreated
+my brother--O that I had never made such an entreaty—” And once more she
+gave way to a burst of weeping.
+
+“Proceed, señora,” said the majordomo, “and finish your story of what has
+happened to you, for your words and tears are keeping us all in
+suspense.”
+
+“I have but little more to say, though many a tear to shed,” said the
+damsel; “for ill-placed desires can only be paid for in some such way.”
+
+The maiden’s beauty had made a deep impression on the head-carver’s
+heart, and he again raised his lantern for another look at her, and
+thought they were not tears she was shedding, but seed-pearl or dew of
+the meadow, nay, he exalted them still higher, and made Oriental pearls
+of them, and fervently hoped her misfortune might not be so great a one
+as her tears and sobs seemed to indicate. The governor was losing
+patience at the length of time the girl was taking to tell her story, and
+told her not to keep them waiting any longer; for it was late, and there
+still remained a good deal of the town to be gone over.
+
+She, with broken sobs and half-suppressed sighs, went on to say, “My
+misfortune, my misadventure, is simply this, that I entreated my brother
+to dress me up as a man in a suit of his clothes, and take me some night,
+when our father was asleep, to see the whole town; he, overcome by my
+entreaties, consented, and dressing me in this suit and himself in
+clothes of mine that fitted him as if made for him (for he has not a hair
+on his chin, and might pass for a very beautiful young girl), to-night,
+about an hour ago, more or less, we left the house, and guided by our
+youthful and foolish impulse we made the circuit of the whole town, and
+then, as we were about to return home, we saw a great troop of people
+coming, and my brother said to me, ‘Sister, this must be the round, stir
+your feet and put wings to them, and follow me as fast as you can, lest
+they recognise us, for that would be a bad business for us;’ and so
+saying he turned about and began, I cannot say to run but to fly; in less
+than six paces I fell from fright, and then the officer of justice came
+up and carried me before your worships, where I find myself put to shame
+before all these people as whimsical and vicious.”
+
+“So then, señora,” said Sancho, “no other mishap has befallen you, nor
+was it jealousy that made you leave home, as you said at the beginning of
+your story?”
+
+“Nothing has happened me,” said she, “nor was it jealousy that brought me
+out, but merely a longing to see the world, which did not go beyond
+seeing the streets of this town.”
+
+The appearance of the tipstaffs with her brother in custody, whom one of
+them had overtaken as he ran away from his sister, now fully confirmed
+the truth of what the damsel said. He had nothing on but a rich petticoat
+and a short blue damask cloak with fine gold lace, and his head was
+uncovered and adorned only with its own hair, which looked like rings of
+gold, so bright and curly was it. The governor, the majordomo, and the
+carver went aside with him, and, unheard by his sister, asked him how he
+came to be in that dress, and he with no less shame and embarrassment
+told exactly the same story as his sister, to the great delight of the
+enamoured carver; the governor, however, said to them, “In truth, young
+lady and gentleman, this has been a very childish affair, and to explain
+your folly and rashness there was no necessity for all this delay and all
+these tears and sighs; for if you had said we are so-and-so, and we
+escaped from our father’s house in this way in order to ramble about, out
+of mere curiosity and with no other object, there would have been an end
+of the matter, and none of these little sobs and tears and all the rest
+of it.”
+
+“That is true,” said the damsel, “but you see the confusion I was in was
+so great it did not let me behave as I ought.”
+
+“No harm has been done,” said Sancho; “come, we will leave you at your
+father’s house; perhaps they will not have missed you; and another time
+don’t be so childish or eager to see the world; for a respectable damsel
+should have a broken leg and keep at home; and the woman and the hen by
+gadding about are soon lost; and she who is eager to see is also eager to
+be seen; I say no more.”
+
+The youth thanked the governor for his kind offer to take them home, and
+they directed their steps towards the house, which was not far off. On
+reaching it the youth threw a pebble up at a grating, and immediately a
+woman-servant who was waiting for them came down and opened the door to
+them, and they went in, leaving the party marvelling as much at their
+grace and beauty as at the fancy they had for seeing the world by night
+and without quitting the village; which, however, they set down to their
+youth.
+
+The head-carver was left with a heart pierced through and through, and he
+made up his mind on the spot to demand the damsel in marriage of her
+father on the morrow, making sure she would not be refused him as he was
+a servant of the duke’s; and even to Sancho ideas and schemes of marrying
+the youth to his daughter Sanchica suggested themselves, and he resolved
+to open the negotiation at the proper season, persuading himself that no
+husband could be refused to a governor’s daughter. And so the night’s
+round came to an end, and a couple of days later the government, whereby
+all his plans were overthrown and swept away, as will be seen farther on.
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+Cide Hamete, the painstaking investigator of the minute points of this
+veracious history, says that when Dona Rodriguez left her own room to go
+to Don Quixote’s, another duenna who slept with her observed her, and as
+all duennas are fond of prying, listening, and sniffing, she followed her
+so silently that the good Rodriguez never perceived it; and as soon as
+the duenna saw her enter Don Quixote’s room, not to fail in a duenna’s
+invariable practice of tattling, she hurried off that instant to report
+to the duchess how Dona Rodriguez was closeted with Don Quixote. The
+duchess told the duke, and asked him to let her and Altisidora go and see
+what the said duenna wanted with Don Quixote. The duke gave them leave,
+and the pair cautiously and quietly crept to the door of the room and
+posted themselves so close to it that they could hear all that was said
+inside. But when the duchess heard how the Rodriguez had made public the
+Aranjuez of her issues she could not restrain herself, nor Altisidora
+either; and so, filled with rage and thirsting for vengeance, they burst
+into the room and tormented Don Quixote and flogged the duenna in the
+manner already described; for indignities offered to their charms and
+self-esteem mightily provoke the anger of women and make them eager for
+revenge. The duchess told the duke what had happened, and he was much
+amused by it; and she, in pursuance of her design of making merry and
+diverting herself with Don Quixote, despatched the page who had played
+the part of Dulcinea in the negotiations for her disenchantment (which
+Sancho Panza in the cares of government had forgotten all about) to
+Teresa Panza his wife with her husband’s letter and another from herself,
+and also a great string of fine coral beads as a present.
+
+Now the history says this page was very sharp and quick-witted; and eager
+to serve his lord and lady he set off very willingly for Sancho’s
+village. Before he entered it he observed a number of women washing in a
+brook, and asked them if they could tell him whether there lived there a
+woman of the name of Teresa Panza, wife of one Sancho Panza, squire to a
+knight called Don Quixote of La Mancha. At the question a young girl who
+was washing stood up and said, “Teresa Panza is my mother, and that
+Sancho is my father, and that knight is our master.”
+
+“Well then, miss,” said the page, “come and show me where your mother is,
+for I bring her a letter and a present from your father.”
+
+“That I will with all my heart, señor,” said the girl, who seemed to be
+about fourteen, more or less; and leaving the clothes she was washing to
+one of her companions, and without putting anything on her head or feet,
+for she was bare-legged and had her hair hanging about her, away she
+skipped in front of the page’s horse, saying, “Come, your worship, our
+house is at the entrance of the town, and my mother is there, sorrowful
+enough at not having had any news of my father this ever so long.”
+
+“Well,” said the page, “I am bringing her such good news that she will
+have reason to thank God.”
+
+And then, skipping, running, and capering, the girl reached the town, but
+before going into the house she called out at the door, “Come out, mother
+Teresa, come out, come out; here’s a gentleman with letters and other
+things from my good father.” At these words her mother Teresa Panza came
+out spinning a bundle of flax, in a grey petticoat (so short was it one
+would have fancied “they to her shame had cut it short”), a grey bodice
+of the same stuff, and a smock. She was not very old, though plainly past
+forty, strong, healthy, vigorous, and sun-dried; and seeing her daughter
+and the page on horseback, she exclaimed, “What’s this, child? What
+gentleman is this?”
+
+“A servant of my lady, Dona Teresa Panza,” replied the page; and suiting
+the action to the word he flung himself off his horse, and with great
+humility advanced to kneel before the lady Teresa, saying, “Let me kiss
+your hand, Señora Dona Teresa, as the lawful and only wife of Señor Don
+Sancho Panza, rightful governor of the island of Barataria.”
+
+“Ah, señor, get up, do that,” said Teresa; “for I’m not a bit of a court
+lady, but only a poor country woman, the daughter of a clodcrusher, and
+the wife of a squire-errant and not of any governor at all.”
+
+“You are,” said the page, “the most worthy wife of a most arch-worthy
+governor; and as a proof of what I say accept this letter and this
+present;” and at the same time he took out of his pocket a string of
+coral beads with gold clasps, and placed it on her neck, and said, “This
+letter is from his lordship the governor, and the other as well as these
+coral beads from my lady the duchess, who sends me to your worship.”
+
+Teresa stood lost in astonishment, and her daughter just as much, and the
+girl said, “May I die but our master Don Quixote’s at the bottom of this;
+he must have given father the government or county he so often promised
+him.”
+
+“That is the truth,” said the page; “for it is through Señor Don Quixote
+that Señor Sancho is now governor of the island of Barataria, as will be
+seen by this letter.”
+
+“Will your worship read it to me, noble sir?” said Teresa; “for though I
+can spin I can’t read, not a scrap.”
+
+“Nor I either,” said Sanchica; “but wait a bit, and I’ll go and fetch
+some one who can read it, either the curate himself or the bachelor
+Samson Carrasco, and they’ll come gladly to hear any news of my father.”
+
+“There is no need to fetch anybody,” said the page; “for though I can’t
+spin I can read, and I’ll read it;” and so he read it through, but as it
+has been already given it is not inserted here; and then he took out the
+other one from the duchess, which ran as follows:
+
+Friend Teresa,--Your husband Sancho’s good qualities, of heart as well as
+of head, induced and compelled me to request my husband the duke to give
+him the government of one of his many islands. I am told he governs like
+a gerfalcon, of which I am very glad, and my lord the duke, of course,
+also; and I am very thankful to heaven that I have not made a mistake in
+choosing him for that same government; for I would have Señora Teresa
+know that a good governor is hard to find in this world and may God make
+me as good as Sancho’s way of governing. Herewith I send you, my dear, a
+string of coral beads with gold clasps; I wish they were Oriental pearls;
+but “he who gives thee a bone does not wish to see thee dead;” a time
+will come when we shall become acquainted and meet one another, but God
+knows the future. Commend me to your daughter Sanchica, and tell her from
+me to hold herself in readiness, for I mean to make a high match for her
+when she least expects it. They tell me there are big acorns in your
+village; send me a couple of dozen or so, and I shall value them greatly
+as coming from your hand; and write to me at length to assure me of your
+health and well-being; and if there be anything you stand in need of, it
+is but to open your mouth, and that shall be the measure; and so God keep
+you.
+
+From this place. Your loving friend, THE DUCHESS.
+
+“Ah, what a good, plain, lowly lady!” said Teresa when she heard the
+letter; “that I may be buried with ladies of that sort, and not the
+gentlewomen we have in this town, that fancy because they are gentlewomen
+the wind must not touch them, and go to church with as much airs as if
+they were queens, no less, and seem to think they are disgraced if they
+look at a farmer’s wife! And see here how this good lady, for all she’s a
+duchess, calls me ‘friend,’ and treats me as if I was her equal--and
+equal may I see her with the tallest church-tower in La Mancha! And as
+for the acorns, señor, I’ll send her ladyship a peck and such big ones
+that one might come to see them as a show and a wonder. And now,
+Sanchica, see that the gentleman is comfortable; put up his horse, and
+get some eggs out of the stable, and cut plenty of bacon, and let’s give
+him his dinner like a prince; for the good news he has brought, and his
+own bonny face deserve it all; and meanwhile I’ll run out and give the
+neighbours the news of our good luck, and father curate, and Master
+Nicholas the barber, who are and always have been such friends of thy
+father’s.”
+
+“That I will, mother,” said Sanchica; “but mind, you must give me half of
+that string; for I don’t think my lady the duchess could have been so
+stupid as to send it all to you.”
+
+“It is all for thee, my child,” said Teresa; “but let me wear it round my
+neck for a few days; for verily it seems to make my heart glad.”
+
+“You will be glad too,” said the page, “when you see the bundle there is
+in this portmanteau, for it is a suit of the finest cloth, that the
+governor only wore one day out hunting and now sends, all for Señora
+Sanchica.”
+
+“May he live a thousand years,” said Sanchica, “and the bearer as many,
+nay two thousand, if needful.”
+
+With this Teresa hurried out of the house with the letters, and with the
+string of beads round her neck, and went along thrumming the letters as
+if they were a tambourine, and by chance coming across the curate and
+Samson Carrasco she began capering and saying, “None of us poor now,
+faith! We’ve got a little government! Ay, let the finest fine lady tackle
+me, and I’ll give her a setting down!”
+
+“What’s all this, Teresa Panza,” said they; “what madness is this, and
+what papers are those?”
+
+“The madness is only this,” said she, “that these are the letters of
+duchesses and governors, and these I have on my neck are fine coral
+beads, with ave-marias and paternosters of beaten gold, and I am a
+governess.”
+
+“God help us,” said the curate, “we don’t understand you, Teresa, or know
+what you are talking about.”
+
+“There, you may see it yourselves,” said Teresa, and she handed them the
+letters.
+
+The curate read them out for Samson Carrasco to hear, and Samson and he
+regarded one another with looks of astonishment at what they had read,
+and the bachelor asked who had brought the letters. Teresa in reply bade
+them come with her to her house and they would see the messenger, a most
+elegant youth, who had brought another present which was worth as much
+more. The curate took the coral beads from her neck and examined them
+again and again, and having satisfied himself as to their fineness he
+fell to wondering afresh, and said, “By the gown I wear I don’t know what
+to say or think of these letters and presents; on the one hand I can see
+and feel the fineness of these coral beads, and on the other I read how a
+duchess sends to beg for a couple of dozen of acorns.”
+
+“Square that if you can,” said Carrasco; “well, let’s go and see the
+messenger, and from him we’ll learn something about this mystery that has
+turned up.”
+
+They did so, and Teresa returned with them. They found the page sifting a
+little barley for his horse, and Sanchica cutting a rasher of bacon to be
+paved with eggs for his dinner. His looks and his handsome apparel
+pleased them both greatly; and after they had saluted him courteously,
+and he them, Samson begged him to give them his news, as well of Don
+Quixote as of Sancho Panza, for, he said, though they had read the
+letters from Sancho and her ladyship the duchess, they were still puzzled
+and could not make out what was meant by Sancho’s government, and above
+all of an island, when all or most of those in the Mediterranean belonged
+to his Majesty.
+
+To this the page replied, “As to Señor Sancho Panza’s being a governor
+there is no doubt whatever; but whether it is an island or not that he
+governs, with that I have nothing to do; suffice it that it is a town of
+more than a thousand inhabitants; with regard to the acorns I may tell
+you my lady the duchess is so unpretending and unassuming that, not to
+speak of sending to beg for acorns from a peasant woman, she has been
+known to send to ask for the loan of a comb from one of her neighbours;
+for I would have your worships know that the ladies of Aragon, though
+they are just as illustrious, are not so punctilious and haughty as the
+Castilian ladies; they treat people with greater familiarity.”
+
+In the middle of this conversation Sanchica came in with her skirt full
+of eggs, and said she to the page, “Tell me, señor, does my father wear
+trunk-hose since he has been governor?”
+
+“I have not noticed,” said the page; “but no doubt he wears them.”
+
+“Ah! my God!” said Sanchica, “what a sight it must be to see my father in
+tights! Isn’t it odd that ever since I was born I have had a longing to
+see my father in trunk-hose?”
+
+“As things go you will see that if you live,” said the page; “by God he
+is in the way to take the road with a sunshade if the government only
+lasts him two months more.”
+
+The curate and the bachelor could see plainly enough that the page spoke
+in a waggish vein; but the fineness of the coral beads, and the hunting
+suit that Sancho sent (for Teresa had already shown it to them) did away
+with the impression; and they could not help laughing at Sanchica’s wish,
+and still more when Teresa said, “Señor curate, look about if there’s
+anybody here going to Madrid or Toledo, to buy me a hooped petticoat, a
+proper fashionable one of the best quality; for indeed and indeed I must
+do honour to my husband’s government as well as I can; nay, if I am put
+to it and have to, I’ll go to Court and set a coach like all the world;
+for she who has a governor for her husband may very well have one and
+keep one.”
+
+“And why not, mother!” said Sanchica; “would to God it were to-day
+instead of to-morrow, even though they were to say when they saw me
+seated in the coach with my mother, ‘See that rubbish, that
+garlic-stuffed fellow’s daughter, how she goes stretched at her ease in a
+coach as if she was a she-pope!’ But let them tramp through the mud, and
+let me go in my coach with my feet off the ground. Bad luck to backbiters
+all over the world; ‘let me go warm and the people may laugh.’ Do I say
+right, mother?”
+
+“To be sure you do, my child,” said Teresa; “and all this good luck, and
+even more, my good Sancho foretold me; and thou wilt see, my daughter, he
+won’t stop till he has made me a countess; for to make a beginning is
+everything in luck; and as I have heard thy good father say many a time
+(for besides being thy father he’s the father of proverbs too), ‘When
+they offer thee a heifer, run with a halter; when they offer thee a
+government, take it; when they would give thee a county, seize it; when
+they say, “Here, here!” to thee with something good, swallow it.’ Oh no!
+go to sleep, and don’t answer the strokes of good fortune and the lucky
+chances that are knocking at the door of your house!”
+
+“And what do I care,” added Sanchica, “whether anybody says when he sees
+me holding my head up, ‘The dog saw himself in hempen breeches,’ and the
+rest of it?”
+
+Hearing this the curate said, “I do believe that all this family of the
+Panzas are born with a sackful of proverbs in their insides, every one of
+them; I never saw one of them that does not pour them out at all times
+and on all occasions.”
+
+“That is true,” said the page, “for Señor Governor Sancho utters them at
+every turn; and though a great many of them are not to the purpose, still
+they amuse one, and my lady the duchess and the duke praise them highly.”
+
+“Then you still maintain that all this about Sancho’s government is true,
+señor,” said the bachelor, “and that there actually is a duchess who
+sends him presents and writes to him? Because we, although we have
+handled the present and read the letters, don’t believe it and suspect it
+to be something in the line of our fellow-townsman Don Quixote, who
+fancies that everything is done by enchantment; and for this reason I am
+almost ready to say that I’d like to touch and feel your worship to see
+whether you are a mere ambassador of the imagination or a man of flesh
+and blood.”
+
+“All I know, sirs,” replied the page, “is that I am a real ambassador,
+and that Señor Sancho Panza is governor as a matter of fact, and that my
+lord and lady the duke and duchess can give, and have given him this same
+government, and that I have heard the said Sancho Panza bears himself
+very stoutly therein; whether there be any enchantment in all this or
+not, it is for your worships to settle between you; for that’s all I know
+by the oath I swear, and that is by the life of my parents whom I have
+still alive, and love dearly.”
+
+“It may be so,” said the bachelor; “but dubitat Augustinus.”
+
+“Doubt who will,” said the page; “what I have told you is the truth, and
+that will always rise above falsehood as oil above water; if not operibus
+credite, et non verbis. Let one of you come with me, and he will see with
+his eyes what he does not believe with his ears.”
+
+“It’s for me to make that trip,” said Sanchica; “take me with you, señor,
+behind you on your horse; for I’ll go with all my heart to see my
+father.”
+
+“Governors’ daughters,” said the page, “must not travel along the roads
+alone, but accompanied by coaches and litters and a great number of
+attendants.”
+
+“By God,” said Sanchica, “I can go just as well mounted on a she-ass as
+in a coach; what a dainty lass you must take me for!”
+
+“Hush, girl,” said Teresa; “you don’t know what you’re talking about; the
+gentleman is quite right, for ‘as the time so the behaviour;’ when it was
+Sancho it was ‘Sancha;’ when it is governor it’s ‘señora;’ I don’t know
+if I’m right.”
+
+“Señora Teresa says more than she is aware of,” said the page; “and now
+give me something to eat and let me go at once, for I mean to return this
+evening.”
+
+“Come and do penance with me,” said the curate at this; “for Señora
+Teresa has more will than means to serve so worthy a guest.”
+
+The page refused, but had to consent at last for his own sake; and the
+curate took him home with him very gladly, in order to have an
+opportunity of questioning him at leisure about Don Quixote and his
+doings. The bachelor offered to write the letters in reply for Teresa;
+but she did not care to let him mix himself up in her affairs, for she
+thought him somewhat given to joking; and so she gave a cake and a couple
+of eggs to a young acolyte who was a penman, and he wrote for her two
+letters, one for her husband and the other for the duchess, dictated out
+of her own head, which are not the worst inserted in this great history,
+as will be seen farther on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+OF THE PROGRESS OF SANCHO’S GOVERNMENT, AND OTHER SUCH ENTERTAINING
+MATTERS
+
+
+Day came after the night of the governor’s round; a night which the
+head-carver passed without sleeping, so were his thoughts of the face and
+air and beauty of the disguised damsel, while the majordomo spent what
+was left of it in writing an account to his lord and lady of all Sancho
+said and did, being as much amazed at his sayings as at his doings, for
+there was a mixture of shrewdness and simplicity in all his words and
+deeds. The señor governor got up, and by Doctor Pedro Recio’s directions
+they made him break his fast on a little conserve and four sups of cold
+water, which Sancho would have readily exchanged for a piece of bread and
+a bunch of grapes; but seeing there was no help for it, he submitted with
+no little sorrow of heart and discomfort of stomach; Pedro Recio having
+persuaded him that light and delicate diet enlivened the wits, and that
+was what was most essential for persons placed in command and in
+responsible situations, where they have to employ not only the bodily
+powers but those of the mind also.
+
+By means of this sophistry Sancho was made to endure hunger, and hunger
+so keen that in his heart he cursed the government, and even him who had
+given it to him; however, with his hunger and his conserve he undertook
+to deliver judgments that day, and the first thing that came before him
+was a question that was submitted to him by a stranger, in the presence
+of the majordomo and the other attendants, and it was in these words:
+“Señor, a large river separated two districts of one and the same
+lordship--will your worship please to pay attention, for the case is an
+important and a rather knotty one? Well then, on this river there was a
+bridge, and at one end of it a gallows, and a sort of tribunal, where
+four judges commonly sat to administer the law which the lord of river,
+bridge and the lordship had enacted, and which was to this effect, ‘If
+anyone crosses by this bridge from one side to the other he shall declare
+on oath where he is going to and with what object; and if he swears
+truly, he shall be allowed to pass, but if falsely, he shall be put to
+death for it by hanging on the gallows erected there, without any
+remission.’ Though the law and its severe penalty were known, many
+persons crossed, but in their declarations it was easy to see at once
+they were telling the truth, and the judges let them pass free. It
+happened, however, that one man, when they came to take his declaration,
+swore and said that by the oath he took he was going to die upon that
+gallows that stood there, and nothing else. The judges held a
+consultation over the oath, and they said, ‘If we let this man pass free
+he has sworn falsely, and by the law he ought to die; but if we hang him,
+as he swore he was going to die on that gallows, and therefore swore the
+truth, by the same law he ought to go free.’ It is asked of your worship,
+señor governor, what are the judges to do with this man? For they are
+still in doubt and perplexity; and having heard of your worship’s acute
+and exalted intellect, they have sent me to entreat your worship on their
+behalf to give your opinion on this very intricate and puzzling case.”
+
+To this Sancho made answer, “Indeed those gentlemen the judges that send
+you to me might have spared themselves the trouble, for I have more of
+the obtuse than the acute in me; but repeat the case over again, so that
+I may understand it, and then perhaps I may be able to hit the point.”
+
+The querist repeated again and again what he had said before, and then
+Sancho said, “It seems to me I can set the matter right in a moment, and
+in this way; the man swears that he is going to die upon the gallows; but
+if he dies upon it, he has sworn the truth, and by the law enacted
+deserves to go free and pass over the bridge; but if they don’t hang him,
+then he has sworn falsely, and by the same law deserves to be hanged.”
+
+“It is as the señor governor says,” said the messenger; “and as regards a
+complete comprehension of the case, there is nothing left to desire or
+hesitate about.”
+
+“Well then I say,” said Sancho, “that of this man they should let pass
+the part that has sworn truly, and hang the part that has lied; and in
+this way the conditions of the passage will be fully complied with.”
+
+“But then, señor governor,” replied the querist, “the man will have to be
+divided into two parts; and if he is divided of course he will die; and
+so none of the requirements of the law will be carried out, and it is
+absolutely necessary to comply with it.”
+
+“Look here, my good sir,” said Sancho; “either I’m a numskull or else
+there is the same reason for this passenger dying as for his living and
+passing over the bridge; for if the truth saves him the falsehood equally
+condemns him; and that being the case it is my opinion you should say to
+the gentlemen who sent you to me that as the arguments for condemning him
+and for absolving him are exactly balanced, they should let him pass
+freely, as it is always more praiseworthy to do good than to do evil;
+this I would give signed with my name if I knew how to sign; and what I
+have said in this case is not out of my own head, but one of the many
+precepts my master Don Quixote gave me the night before I left to become
+governor of this island, that came into my mind, and it was this, that
+when there was any doubt about the justice of a case I should lean to
+mercy; and it is God’s will that I should recollect it now, for it fits
+this case as if it was made for it.”
+
+“That is true,” said the majordomo; “and I maintain that Lycurgus
+himself, who gave laws to the Lacedemonians, could not have pronounced a
+better decision than the great Panza has given; let the morning’s
+audience close with this, and I will see that the señor governor has
+dinner entirely to his liking.”
+
+“That’s all I ask for--fair play,” said Sancho; “give me my dinner, and
+then let it rain cases and questions on me, and I’ll despatch them in a
+twinkling.”
+
+The majordomo kept his word, for he felt it against his conscience to
+kill so wise a governor by hunger; particularly as he intended to have
+done with him that same night, playing off the last joke he was
+commissioned to practise upon him.
+
+It came to pass, then, that after he had dined that day, in opposition to
+the rules and aphorisms of Doctor Tirteafuera, as they were taking away
+the cloth there came a courier with a letter from Don Quixote for the
+governor. Sancho ordered the secretary to read it to himself, and if
+there was nothing in it that demanded secrecy to read it aloud. The
+secretary did so, and after he had skimmed the contents he said, “It may
+well be read aloud, for what Señor Don Quixote writes to your worship
+deserves to be printed or written in letters of gold, and it is as
+follows.”
+
+
+DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA’S LETTER TO SANCHO PANZA, GOVERNOR OF THE ISLAND
+OF BARATARIA.
+
+When I was expecting to hear of thy stupidities and blunders, friend
+Sancho, I have received intelligence of thy displays of good sense, for
+which I give special thanks to heaven that can raise the poor from the
+dunghill and of fools to make wise men. They tell me thou dost govern as
+if thou wert a man, and art a man as if thou wert a beast, so great is
+the humility wherewith thou dost comport thyself. But I would have thee
+bear in mind, Sancho, that very often it is fitting and necessary for the
+authority of office to resist the humility of the heart; for the seemly
+array of one who is invested with grave duties should be such as they
+require and not measured by what his own humble tastes may lead him to
+prefer. Dress well; a stick dressed up does not look like a stick; I do
+not say thou shouldst wear trinkets or fine raiment, or that being a
+judge thou shouldst dress like a soldier, but that thou shouldst array
+thyself in the apparel thy office requires, and that at the same time it
+be neat and handsome. To win the good-will of the people thou governest
+there are two things, among others, that thou must do; one is to be civil
+to all (this, however, I told thee before), and the other to take care
+that food be abundant, for there is nothing that vexes the heart of the
+poor more than hunger and high prices. Make not many proclamations; but
+those thou makest take care that they be good ones, and above all that
+they be observed and carried out; for proclamations that are not observed
+are the same as if they did not exist; nay, they encourage the idea that
+the prince who had the wisdom and authority to make them had not the
+power to enforce them; and laws that threaten and are not enforced come
+to be like the log, the king of the frogs, that frightened them at first,
+but that in time they despised and mounted upon. Be a father to virtue
+and a stepfather to vice. Be not always strict, nor yet always lenient,
+but observe a mean between these two extremes, for in that is the aim of
+wisdom. Visit the gaols, the slaughter-houses, and the market-places; for
+the presence of the governor is of great importance in such places; it
+comforts the prisoners who are in hopes of a speedy release, it is the
+bugbear of the butchers who have then to give just weight, and it is the
+terror of the market-women for the same reason. Let it not be seen that
+thou art (even if perchance thou art, which I do not believe) covetous, a
+follower of women, or a glutton; for when the people and those that have
+dealings with thee become aware of thy special weakness they will bring
+their batteries to bear upon thee in that quarter, till they have brought
+thee down to the depths of perdition. Consider and reconsider, con and
+con over again the advices and the instructions I gave thee before thy
+departure hence to thy government, and thou wilt see that in them, if
+thou dost follow them, thou hast a help at hand that will lighten for
+thee the troubles and difficulties that beset governors at every step.
+Write to thy lord and lady and show thyself grateful to them, for
+ingratitude is the daughter of pride, and one of the greatest sins we
+know of; and he who is grateful to those who have been good to him shows
+that he will be so to God also who has bestowed and still bestows so many
+blessings upon him.
+
+My lady the duchess sent off a messenger with thy suit and another
+present to thy wife Teresa Panza; we expect the answer every moment. I
+have been a little indisposed through a certain scratching I came in for,
+not very much to the benefit of my nose; but it was nothing; for if there
+are enchanters who maltreat me, there are also some who defend me. Let me
+know if the majordomo who is with thee had any share in the Trifaldi
+performance, as thou didst suspect; and keep me informed of everything
+that happens thee, as the distance is so short; all the more as I am
+thinking of giving over very shortly this idle life I am now leading, for
+I was not born for it. A thing has occurred to me which I am inclined to
+think will put me out of favour with the duke and duchess; but though I
+am sorry for it I do not care, for after all I must obey my calling
+rather than their pleasure, in accordance with the common saying, amicus
+Plato, sed magis amica veritas. I quote this Latin to thee because I
+conclude that since thou hast been a governor thou wilt have learned it.
+Adieu; God keep thee from being an object of pity to anyone.
+
+Thy friend, DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA.
+
+
+Sancho listened to the letter with great attention, and it was praised
+and considered wise by all who heard it; he then rose up from table, and
+calling his secretary shut himself in with him in his own room, and
+without putting it off any longer set about answering his master Don
+Quixote at once; and he bade the secretary write down what he told him
+without adding or suppressing anything, which he did, and the answer was
+to the following effect.
+
+
+SANCHO PANZA’S LETTER TO DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA.
+
+The pressure of business is so great upon me that I have no time to
+scratch my head or even to cut my nails; and I have them so long-God send
+a remedy for it. I say this, master of my soul, that you may not be
+surprised if I have not until now sent you word of how I fare, well or
+ill, in this government, in which I am suffering more hunger than when we
+two were wandering through the woods and wastes.
+
+My lord the duke wrote to me the other day to warn me that certain spies
+had got into this island to kill me; but up to the present I have not
+found out any except a certain doctor who receives a salary in this town
+for killing all the governors that come here; he is called Doctor Pedro
+Recio, and is from Tirteafuera; so you see what a name he has to make me
+dread dying under his hands. This doctor says of himself that he does not
+cure diseases when there are any, but prevents them coming, and the
+medicines he uses are diet and more diet until he brings one down to bare
+bones; as if leanness was not worse than fever.
+
+In short he is killing me with hunger, and I am dying myself of vexation;
+for when I thought I was coming to this government to get my meat hot and
+my drink cool, and take my ease between holland sheets on feather beds, I
+find I have come to do penance as if I was a hermit; and as I don’t do it
+willingly I suspect that in the end the devil will carry me off.
+
+So far I have not handled any dues or taken any bribes, and I don’t know
+what to think of it; for here they tell me that the governors that come
+to this island, before entering it have plenty of money either given to
+them or lent to them by the people of the town, and that this is the
+usual custom not only here but with all who enter upon governments.
+
+Last night going the rounds I came upon a fair damsel in man’s clothes,
+and a brother of hers dressed as a woman; my head-carver has fallen in
+love with the girl, and has in his own mind chosen her for a wife, so he
+says, and I have chosen youth for a son-in-law; to-day we are going to
+explain our intentions to the father of the pair, who is one Diego de la
+Llana, a gentleman and an old Christian as much as you please.
+
+I have visited the market-places, as your worship advises me, and
+yesterday I found a stall-keeper selling new hazel nuts and proved her to
+have mixed a bushel of old empty rotten nuts with a bushel of new; I
+confiscated the whole for the children of the charity-school, who will
+know how to distinguish them well enough, and I sentenced her not to come
+into the market-place for a fortnight; they told me I did bravely. I can
+tell your worship it is commonly said in this town that there are no
+people worse than the market-women, for they are all barefaced,
+unconscionable, and impudent, and I can well believe it from what I have
+seen of them in other towns.
+
+I am very glad my lady the duchess has written to my wife Teresa Panza
+and sent her the present your worship speaks of; and I will strive to
+show myself grateful when the time comes; kiss her hands for me, and tell
+her I say she has not thrown it into a sack with a hole in it, as she
+will see in the end. I should not like your worship to have any
+difference with my lord and lady; for if you fall out with them it is
+plain it must do me harm; and as you give me advice to be grateful it
+will not do for your worship not to be so yourself to those who have
+shown you such kindness, and by whom you have been treated so hospitably
+in their castle.
+
+That about the scratching I don’t understand; but I suppose it must be
+one of the ill-turns the wicked enchanters are always doing your worship;
+when we meet I shall know all about it. I wish I could send your worship
+something; but I don’t know what to send, unless it be some very curious
+clyster pipes, to work with bladders, that they make in this island; but
+if the office remains with me I’ll find out something to send, one way or
+another. If my wife Teresa Panza writes to me, pay the postage and send
+me the letter, for I have a very great desire to hear how my house and
+wife and children are going on. And so, may God deliver your worship from
+evil-minded enchanters, and bring me well and peacefully out of this
+government, which I doubt, for I expect to take leave of it and my life
+together, from the way Doctor Pedro Recio treats me.
+
+Your worship’s servant
+
+SANCHO PANZA THE GOVERNOR.
+
+
+The secretary sealed the letter, and immediately dismissed the courier;
+and those who were carrying on the joke against Sancho putting their
+heads together arranged how he was to be dismissed from the government.
+Sancho spent the afternoon in drawing up certain ordinances relating to
+the good government of what he fancied the island; and he ordained that
+there were to be no provision hucksters in the State, and that men might
+import wine into it from any place they pleased, provided they declared
+the quarter it came from, so that a price might be put upon it according
+to its quality, reputation, and the estimation it was held in; and he
+that watered his wine, or changed the name, was to forfeit his life for
+it. He reduced the prices of all manner of shoes, boots, and stockings,
+but of shoes in particular, as they seemed to him to run extravagantly
+high. He established a fixed rate for servants’ wages, which were
+becoming recklessly exorbitant. He laid extremely heavy penalties upon
+those who sang lewd or loose songs either by day or night. He decreed
+that no blind man should sing of any miracle in verse, unless he could
+produce authentic evidence that it was true, for it was his opinion that
+most of those the blind men sing are trumped up, to the detriment of the
+true ones. He established and created an alguacil of the poor, not to
+harass them, but to examine them and see whether they really were so; for
+many a sturdy thief or drunkard goes about under cover of a make-believe
+crippled limb or a sham sore. In a word, he made so many good rules that
+to this day they are preserved there, and are called The constitutions of
+the great governor Sancho Panza.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+WHEREIN IS RELATED THE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND DISTRESSED OR AFFLICTED
+DUENNA, OTHERWISE CALLED DONA RODRIGUEZ
+
+
+Cide Hamete relates that Don Quixote being now cured of his scratches
+felt that the life he was leading in the castle was entirely inconsistent
+with the order of chivalry he professed, so he determined to ask the duke
+and duchess to permit him to take his departure for Saragossa, as the
+time of the festival was now drawing near, and he hoped to win there the
+suit of armour which is the prize at festivals of the sort. But one day
+at table with the duke and duchess, just as he was about to carry his
+resolution into effect and ask for their permission, lo and behold
+suddenly there came in through the door of the great hall two women, as
+they afterwards proved to be, draped in mourning from head to foot, one
+of whom approaching Don Quixote flung herself at full length at his feet,
+pressing her lips to them, and uttering moans so sad, so deep, and so
+doleful that she put all who heard and saw her into a state of
+perplexity; and though the duke and duchess supposed it must be some joke
+their servants were playing off upon Don Quixote, still the earnest way
+the woman sighed and moaned and wept puzzled them and made them feel
+uncertain, until Don Quixote, touched with compassion, raised her up and
+made her unveil herself and remove the mantle from her tearful face. She
+complied and disclosed what no one could have ever anticipated, for she
+disclosed the countenance of Dona Rodriguez, the duenna of the house; the
+other female in mourning being her daughter, who had been made a fool of
+by the rich farmer’s son. All who knew her were filled with astonishment,
+and the duke and duchess more than any; for though they thought her a
+simpleton and a weak creature, they did not think her capable of crazy
+pranks. Dona Rodriguez, at length, turning to her master and mistress
+said to them, “Will your excellences be pleased to permit me to speak to
+this gentleman for a moment, for it is requisite I should do so in order
+to get successfully out of the business in which the boldness of an
+evil-minded clown has involved me?”
+
+The duke said that for his part he gave her leave, and that she might
+speak with Señor Don Quixote as much as she liked.
+
+She then, turning to Don Quixote and addressing herself to him said,
+“Some days since, valiant knight, I gave you an account of the injustice
+and treachery of a wicked farmer to my dearly beloved daughter, the
+unhappy damsel here before you, and you promised me to take her part and
+right the wrong that has been done her; but now it has come to my hearing
+that you are about to depart from this castle in quest of such fair
+adventures as God may vouchsafe to you; therefore, before you take the
+road, I would that you challenge this froward rustic, and compel him to
+marry my daughter in fulfillment of the promise he gave her to become her
+husband before he seduced her; for to expect that my lord the duke will
+do me justice is to ask pears from the elm tree, for the reason I stated
+privately to your worship; and so may our Lord grant you good health and
+forsake us not.”
+
+To these words Don Quixote replied very gravely and solemnly, “Worthy
+duenna, check your tears, or rather dry them, and spare your sighs, for I
+take it upon myself to obtain redress for your daughter, for whom it
+would have been better not to have been so ready to believe lovers’
+promises, which are for the most part quickly made and very slowly
+performed; and so, with my lord the duke’s leave, I will at once go in
+quest of this inhuman youth, and will find him out and challenge him and
+slay him, if so be he refuses to keep his promised word; for the chief
+object of my profession is to spare the humble and chastise the proud; I
+mean, to help the distressed and destroy the oppressors.”
+
+“There is no necessity,” said the duke, “for your worship to take the
+trouble of seeking out the rustic of whom this worthy duenna complains,
+nor is there any necessity, either, for asking my leave to challenge him;
+for I admit him duly challenged, and will take care that he is informed
+of the challenge, and accepts it, and comes to answer it in person to
+this castle of mine, where I shall afford to both a fair field, observing
+all the conditions which are usually and properly observed in such
+trials, and observing too justice to both sides, as all princes who offer
+a free field to combatants within the limits of their lordships are bound
+to do.”
+
+“Then with that assurance and your highness’s good leave,” said Don
+Quixote, “I hereby for this once waive my privilege of gentle blood, and
+come down and put myself on a level with the lowly birth of the
+wrong-doer, making myself equal with him and enabling him to enter into
+combat with me; and so, I challenge and defy him, though absent, on the
+plea of his malfeasance in breaking faith with this poor damsel, who was
+a maiden and now by his misdeed is none; and say that he shall fulfill
+the promise he gave her to become her lawful husband, or else stake his
+life upon the question.”
+
+And then plucking off a glove he threw it down in the middle of the hall,
+and the duke picked it up, saying, as he had said before, that he
+accepted the challenge in the name of his vassal, and fixed six days
+thence as the time, the courtyard of the castle as the place, and for
+arms the customary ones of knights, lance and shield and full armour,
+with all the other accessories, without trickery, guile, or charms of any
+sort, and examined and passed by the judges of the field. “But first of
+all,” he said, “it is requisite that this worthy duenna and unworthy
+damsel should place their claim for justice in the hands of Don Quixote;
+for otherwise nothing can be done, nor can the said challenge be brought
+to a lawful issue.”
+
+“I do so place it,” replied the duenna.
+
+“And I too,” added her daughter, all in tears and covered with shame and
+confusion.
+
+This declaration having been made, and the duke having settled in his own
+mind what he would do in the matter, the ladies in black withdrew, and
+the duchess gave orders that for the future they were not to be treated
+as servants of hers, but as lady adventurers who came to her house to
+demand justice; so they gave them a room to themselves and waited on them
+as they would on strangers, to the consternation of the other
+women-servants, who did not know where the folly and imprudence of Dona
+Rodriguez and her unlucky daughter would stop.
+
+And now, to complete the enjoyment of the feast and bring the dinner to a
+satisfactory end, lo and behold the page who had carried the letters and
+presents to Teresa Panza, the wife of the governor Sancho, entered the
+hall; and the duke and duchess were very well pleased to see him, being
+anxious to know the result of his journey; but when they asked him the
+page said in reply that he could not give it before so many people or in
+a few words, and begged their excellences to be pleased to let it wait
+for a private opportunity, and in the meantime amuse themselves with
+these letters; and taking out the letters he placed them in the duchess’s
+hand. One bore by way of address, Letter for my lady the Duchess
+So-and-so, of I don’t know where; and the other To my husband Sancho
+Panza, governor of the island of Barataria, whom God prosper longer than
+me. The duchess’s bread would not bake, as the saying is, until she had
+read her letter; and having looked over it herself and seen that it might
+be read aloud for the duke and all present to hear, she read out as
+follows.
+
+
+TERESA PANZA’S LETTER TO THE DUCHESS.
+
+The letter your highness wrote me, my lady, gave me great pleasure, for
+indeed I found it very welcome. The string of coral beads is very fine,
+and my husband’s hunting suit does not fall short of it. All this village
+is very much pleased that your ladyship has made a governor of my good
+man Sancho; though nobody will believe it, particularly the curate, and
+Master Nicholas the barber, and the bachelor Samson Carrasco; but I don’t
+care for that, for so long as it is true, as it is, they may all say what
+they like; though, to tell the truth, if the coral beads and the suit had
+not come I would not have believed it either; for in this village
+everybody thinks my husband a numskull, and except for governing a flock
+of goats, they cannot fancy what sort of government he can be fit for.
+God grant it, and direct him according as he sees his children stand in
+need of it. I am resolved with your worship’s leave, lady of my soul, to
+make the most of this fair day, and go to Court to stretch myself at ease
+in a coach, and make all those I have envying me already burst their eyes
+out; so I beg your excellence to order my husband to send me a small
+trifle of money, and to let it be something to speak of, because one’s
+expenses are heavy at the Court; for a loaf costs a real, and meat thirty
+maravedis a pound, which is beyond everything; and if he does not want me
+to go let him tell me in time, for my feet are on the fidgets to be off;
+and my friends and neighbours tell me that if my daughter and I make a
+figure and a brave show at Court, my husband will come to be known far
+more by me than I by him, for of course plenty of people will ask, “Who
+are those ladies in that coach?” and some servant of mine will answer,
+“The wife and daughter of Sancho Panza, governor of the island of
+Barataria;” and in this way Sancho will become known, and I’ll be thought
+well of, and “to Rome for everything.” I am as vexed as vexed can be that
+they have gathered no acorns this year in our village; for all that I
+send your highness about half a peck that I went to the wood to gather
+and pick out one by one myself, and I could find no bigger ones; I wish
+they were as big as ostrich eggs.
+
+Let not your high mightiness forget to write to me; and I will take care
+to answer, and let you know how I am, and whatever news there may be in
+this place, where I remain, praying our Lord to have your highness in his
+keeping and not to forget me.
+
+Sancha my daughter, and my son, kiss your worship’s hands.
+
+She who would rather see your ladyship than write to you,
+
+Your servant,
+
+TERESA PANZA.
+
+
+All were greatly amused by Teresa Panza’s letter, but particularly the
+duke and duchess; and the duchess asked Don Quixote’s opinion whether
+they might open the letter that had come for the governor, which she
+suspected must be very good. Don Quixote said that to gratify them he
+would open it, and did so, and found that it ran as follows.
+
+
+TERESA PANZA’S LETTER TO HER HUSBAND SANCHO PANZA.
+
+I got thy letter, Sancho of my soul, and I promise thee and swear as a
+Catholic Christian that I was within two fingers’ breadth of going mad I
+was so happy. I can tell thee, brother, when I came to hear that thou
+wert a governor I thought I should have dropped dead with pure joy; and
+thou knowest they say sudden joy kills as well as great sorrow; and as
+for Sanchica thy daughter, she leaked from sheer happiness. I had before
+me the suit thou didst send me, and the coral beads my lady the duchess
+sent me round my neck, and the letters in my hands, and there was the
+bearer of them standing by, and in spite of all this I verily believed
+and thought that what I saw and handled was all a dream; for who could
+have thought that a goatherd would come to be a governor of islands? Thou
+knowest, my friend, what my mother used to say, that one must live long
+to see much; I say it because I expect to see more if I live longer; for
+I don’t expect to stop until I see thee a farmer of taxes or a collector
+of revenue, which are offices where, though the devil carries off those
+who make a bad use of them, still they make and handle money. My lady the
+duchess will tell thee the desire I have to go to the Court; consider the
+matter and let me know thy pleasure; I will try to do honour to thee by
+going in a coach.
+
+Neither the curate, nor the barber, nor the bachelor, nor even the
+sacristan, can believe that thou art a governor, and they say the whole
+thing is a delusion or an enchantment affair, like everything belonging
+to thy master Don Quixote; and Samson says he must go in search of thee
+and drive the government out of thy head and the madness out of Don
+Quixote’s skull; I only laugh, and look at my string of beads, and plan
+out the dress I am going to make for our daughter out of thy suit. I sent
+some acorns to my lady the duchess; I wish they had been gold. Send me
+some strings of pearls if they are in fashion in that island. Here is the
+news of the village; La Berrueca has married her daughter to a
+good-for-nothing painter, who came here to paint anything that might turn
+up. The council gave him an order to paint his Majesty’s arms over the
+door of the town-hall; he asked two ducats, which they paid him in
+advance; he worked for eight days, and at the end of them had nothing
+painted, and then said he had no turn for painting such trifling things;
+he returned the money, and for all that has married on the pretence of
+being a good workman; to be sure he has now laid aside his paint-brush
+and taken a spade in hand, and goes to the field like a gentleman. Pedro
+Lobo’s son has received the first orders and tonsure, with the intention
+of becoming a priest. Minguilla, Mingo Silvato’s granddaughter, found it
+out, and has gone to law with him on the score of having given her
+promise of marriage. Evil tongues say she is with child by him, but he
+denies it stoutly. There are no olives this year, and there is not a drop
+of vinegar to be had in the whole village. A company of soldiers passed
+through here; when they left they took away with them three of the girls
+of the village; I will not tell thee who they are; perhaps they will come
+back, and they will be sure to find those who will take them for wives
+with all their blemishes, good or bad. Sanchica is making bonelace; she
+earns eight maravedis a day clear, which she puts into a moneybox as a
+help towards house furnishing; but now that she is a governor’s daughter
+thou wilt give her a portion without her working for it. The fountain in
+the plaza has run dry. A flash of lightning struck the gibbet, and I wish
+they all lit there. I look for an answer to this, and to know thy mind
+about my going to the Court; and so, God keep thee longer than me, or as
+long, for I would not leave thee in this world without me.
+
+Thy wife,
+
+TERESA PANZA.
+
+
+The letters were applauded, laughed over, relished, and admired; and
+then, as if to put the seal to the business, the courier arrived,
+bringing the one Sancho sent to Don Quixote, and this, too, was read out,
+and it raised some doubts as to the governor’s simplicity. The duchess
+withdrew to hear from the page about his adventures in Sancho’s village,
+which he narrated at full length without leaving a single circumstance
+unmentioned. He gave her the acorns, and also a cheese which Teresa had
+given him as being particularly good and superior to those of Tronchon.
+The duchess received it with greatest delight, in which we will leave
+her, to describe the end of the government of the great Sancho Panza,
+flower and mirror of all governors of islands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+OF THE TROUBLOUS END AND TERMINATION SANCHO PANZA’S GOVERNMENT CAME TO
+
+
+To fancy that in this life anything belonging to it will remain for ever
+in the same state is an idle fancy; on the contrary, in it everything
+seems to go in a circle, I mean round and round. The spring succeeds the
+summer, the summer the fall, the fall the autumn, the autumn the winter,
+and the winter the spring, and so time rolls with never-ceasing wheel.
+Man’s life alone, swifter than time, speeds onward to its end without any
+hope of renewal, save it be in that other life which is endless and
+boundless. Thus saith Cide Hamete the Mahometan philosopher; for there
+are many that by the light of nature alone, without the light of faith,
+have a comprehension of the fleeting nature and instability of this
+present life and the endless duration of that eternal life we hope for;
+but our author is here speaking of the rapidity with which Sancho’s
+government came to an end, melted away, disappeared, vanished as it were
+in smoke and shadow. For as he lay in bed on the night of the seventh day
+of his government, sated, not with bread and wine, but with delivering
+judgments and giving opinions and making laws and proclamations, just as
+sleep, in spite of hunger, was beginning to close his eyelids, he heard
+such a noise of bell-ringing and shouting that one would have fancied the
+whole island was going to the bottom. He sat up in bed and remained
+listening intently to try if he could make out what could be the cause of
+so great an uproar; not only, however, was he unable to discover what it
+was, but as countless drums and trumpets now helped to swell the din of
+the bells and shouts, he was more puzzled than ever, and filled with fear
+and terror; and getting up he put on a pair of slippers because of the
+dampness of the floor, and without throwing a dressing gown or anything
+of the kind over him he rushed out of the door of his room, just in time
+to see approaching along a corridor a band of more than twenty persons
+with lighted torches and naked swords in their hands, all shouting out,
+“To arms, to arms, señor governor, to arms! The enemy is in the island in
+countless numbers, and we are lost unless your skill and valour come to
+our support.”
+
+Keeping up this noise, tumult, and uproar, they came to where Sancho
+stood dazed and bewildered by what he saw and heard, and as they
+approached one of them called out to him, “Arm at once, your lordship, if
+you would not have yourself destroyed and the whole island lost.”
+
+“What have I to do with arming?” said Sancho. “What do I know about arms
+or supports? Better leave all that to my master Don Quixote, who will
+settle it and make all safe in a trice; for I, sinner that I am, God help
+me, don’t understand these scuffles.”
+
+“Ah, señor governor,” said another, “what slackness of mettle this is!
+Arm yourself; here are arms for you, offensive and defensive; come out to
+the plaza and be our leader and captain; it falls upon you by right, for
+you are our governor.”
+
+“Arm me then, in God’s name,” said Sancho, and they at once produced two
+large shields they had come provided with, and placed them upon him over
+his shirt, without letting him put on anything else, one shield in front
+and the other behind, and passing his arms through openings they had
+made, they bound him tight with ropes, so that there he was walled and
+boarded up as straight as a spindle and unable to bend his knees or stir
+a single step. In his hand they placed a lance, on which he leant to keep
+himself from falling, and as soon as they had him thus fixed they bade
+him march forward and lead them on and give them all courage; for with
+him for their guide and lamp and morning star, they were sure to bring
+their business to a successful issue.
+
+“How am I to march, unlucky being that I am?” said Sancho, “when I can’t
+stir my knee-caps, for these boards I have bound so tight to my body
+won’t let me. What you must do is carry me in your arms, and lay me
+across or set me upright in some postern, and I’ll hold it either with
+this lance or with my body.”
+
+“On, señor governor!” cried another, “it is fear more than the boards
+that keeps you from moving; make haste, stir yourself, for there is no
+time to lose; the enemy is increasing in numbers, the shouts grow louder,
+and the danger is pressing.”
+
+Urged by these exhortations and reproaches the poor governor made an
+attempt to advance, but fell to the ground with such a crash that he
+fancied he had broken himself all to pieces. There he lay like a tortoise
+enclosed in its shell, or a side of bacon between two kneading-troughs,
+or a boat bottom up on the beach; nor did the gang of jokers feel any
+compassion for him when they saw him down; so far from that,
+extinguishing their torches they began to shout afresh and to renew the
+calls to arms with such energy, trampling on poor Sancho, and slashing at
+him over the shield with their swords in such a way that, if he had not
+gathered himself together and made himself small and drawn in his head
+between the shields, it would have fared badly with the poor governor,
+as, squeezed into that narrow compass, he lay, sweating and sweating
+again, and commending himself with all his heart to God to deliver him
+from his present peril. Some stumbled over him, others fell upon him, and
+one there was who took up a position on top of him for some time, and
+from thence as if from a watchtower issued orders to the troops, shouting
+out, “Here, our side! Here the enemy is thickest! Hold the breach there!
+Shut that gate! Barricade those ladders! Here with your stink-pots of
+pitch and resin, and kettles of boiling oil! Block the streets with
+feather beds!” In short, in his ardour he mentioned every little thing,
+and every implement and engine of war by means of which an assault upon a
+city is warded off, while the bruised and battered Sancho, who heard and
+suffered all, was saying to himself, “O if it would only please the Lord
+to let the island be lost at once, and I could see myself either dead or
+out of this torture!” Heaven heard his prayer, and when he least expected
+it he heard voices exclaiming, “Victory, victory! The enemy retreats
+beaten! Come, señor governor, get up, and come and enjoy the victory, and
+divide the spoils that have been won from the foe by the might of that
+invincible arm.”
+
+“Lift me up,” said the wretched Sancho in a woebegone voice. They helped
+him to rise, and as soon as he was on his feet said, “The enemy I have
+beaten you may nail to my forehead; I don’t want to divide the spoils of
+the foe, I only beg and entreat some friend, if I have one, to give me a
+sup of wine, for I’m parched with thirst, and wipe me dry, for I’m
+turning to water.”
+
+They rubbed him down, fetched him wine and unbound the shields, and he
+seated himself upon his bed, and with fear, agitation, and fatigue he
+fainted away. Those who had been concerned in the joke were now sorry
+they had pushed it so far; however, the anxiety his fainting away had
+caused them was relieved by his returning to himself. He asked what
+o’clock it was; they told him it was just daybreak. He said no more, and
+in silence began to dress himself, while all watched him, waiting to see
+what the haste with which he was putting on his clothes meant.
+
+He got himself dressed at last, and then, slowly, for he was sorely
+bruised and could not go fast, he proceeded to the stable, followed by
+all who were present, and going up to Dapple embraced him and gave him a
+loving kiss on the forehead, and said to him, not without tears in his
+eyes, “Come along, comrade and friend and partner of my toils and
+sorrows; when I was with you and had no cares to trouble me except
+mending your harness and feeding your little carcass, happy were my
+hours, my days, and my years; but since I left you, and mounted the
+towers of ambition and pride, a thousand miseries, a thousand troubles,
+and four thousand anxieties have entered into my soul;” and all the while
+he was speaking in this strain he was fixing the pack-saddle on the ass,
+without a word from anyone. Then having Dapple saddled, he, with great
+pain and difficulty, got up on him, and addressing himself to the
+majordomo, the secretary, the head-carver, and Pedro Recio the doctor and
+several others who stood by, he said, “Make way, gentlemen, and let me go
+back to my old freedom; let me go look for my past life, and raise myself
+up from this present death. I was not born to be a governor or protect
+islands or cities from the enemies that choose to attack them. Ploughing
+and digging, vinedressing and pruning, are more in my way than defending
+provinces or kingdoms. Saint Peter is very well at Rome; I mean each of
+us is best following the trade he was born to. A reaping-hook fits my
+hand better than a governor’s sceptre; I’d rather have my fill of
+gazpacho than be subject to the misery of a meddling doctor who kills me with
+hunger, and I’d rather lie in summer under the shade of an oak, and in
+winter wrap myself in a double sheepskin jacket in freedom, than go to
+bed between holland sheets and dress in sables under the restraint of a
+government. God be with your worships, and tell my lord the duke that
+‘naked I was born, naked I find myself, I neither lose nor gain;’ I mean
+that without a farthing I came into this government, and without a
+farthing I go out of it, very different from the way governors commonly
+leave other islands. Stand aside and let me go; I have to plaster myself,
+for I believe every one of my ribs is crushed, thanks to the enemies that
+have been trampling over me to-night.”
+
+“That is unnecessary, señor governor,” said Doctor Recio, “for I will
+give your worship a draught against falls and bruises that will soon make
+you as sound and strong as ever; and as for your diet I promise your
+worship to behave better, and let you eat plentifully of whatever you
+like.”
+
+“You spoke late,” said Sancho. “I’d as soon turn Turk as stay any longer.
+Those jokes won’t pass a second time. By God I’d as soon remain in this
+government, or take another, even if it was offered me between two
+plates, as fly to heaven without wings. I am of the breed of the Panzas,
+and they are every one of them obstinate, and if they once say ‘odds,’
+odds it must be, no matter if it is evens, in spite of all the world.
+Here in this stable I leave the ant’s wings that lifted me up into the
+air for the swifts and other birds to eat me, and let’s take to level
+ground and our feet once more; and if they’re not shod in pinked shoes of
+cordovan, they won’t want for rough sandals of hemp; ‘every ewe to her
+like,’ ‘and let no one stretch his leg beyond the length of the sheet;’
+and now let me pass, for it’s growing late with me.”
+
+To this the majordomo said, “Señor governor, we would let your worship go
+with all our hearts, though it sorely grieves us to lose you, for your
+wit and Christian conduct naturally make us regret you; but it is well
+known that every governor, before he leaves the place where he has been
+governing, is bound first of all to render an account. Let your worship
+do so for the ten days you have held the government, and then you may go
+and the peace of God go with you.”
+
+“No one can demand it of me,” said Sancho, “but he whom my lord the duke
+shall appoint; I am going to meet him, and to him I will render an exact
+one; besides, when I go forth naked as I do, there is no other proof
+needed to show that I have governed like an angel.”
+
+“By God the great Sancho is right,” said Doctor Recio, “and we should let
+him go, for the duke will be beyond measure glad to see him.”
+
+They all agreed to this, and allowed him to go, first offering to bear
+him company and furnish him with all he wanted for his own comfort or for
+the journey. Sancho said he did not want anything more than a little
+barley for Dapple, and half a cheese and half a loaf for himself; for the
+distance being so short there was no occasion for any better or bulkier
+provant. They all embraced him, and he with tears embraced all of them,
+and left them filled with admiration not only at his remarks but at his
+firm and sensible resolution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+
+WHICH DEALS WITH MATTERS RELATING TO THIS HISTORY AND NO OTHER
+
+
+The duke and duchess resolved that the challenge Don Quixote had, for the
+reason already mentioned, given their vassal, should be proceeded with;
+and as the young man was in Flanders, whither he had fled to escape
+having Dona Rodriguez for a mother-in-law, they arranged to substitute
+for him a Gascon lacquey, named Tosilos, first of all carefully
+instructing him in all he had to do. Two days later the duke told Don
+Quixote that in four days from that time his opponent would present
+himself on the field of battle armed as a knight, and would maintain that
+the damsel lied by half a beard, nay a whole beard, if she affirmed that
+he had given her a promise of marriage. Don Quixote was greatly pleased
+at the news, and promised himself to do wonders in the lists, and
+reckoned it rare good fortune that an opportunity should have offered for
+letting his noble hosts see what the might of his strong arm was capable
+of; and so in high spirits and satisfaction he awaited the expiration of
+the four days, which measured by his impatience seemed spinning
+themselves out into four hundred ages. Let us leave them to pass as we do
+other things, and go and bear Sancho company, as mounted on Dapple, half
+glad, half sad, he paced along on his road to join his master, in whose
+society he was happier than in being governor of all the islands in the
+world. Well then, it so happened that before he had gone a great way from
+the island of his government (and whether it was island, city, town, or
+village that he governed he never troubled himself to inquire) he saw
+coming along the road he was travelling six pilgrims with staves,
+foreigners of that sort that beg for alms singing; who as they drew near
+arranged themselves in a line and lifting up their voices all together
+began to sing in their own language something that Sancho could not understand, with
+the exception of one word which sounded plainly “alms,” from which he
+gathered that it was alms they asked for in their song; and being, as
+Cide Hamete says, remarkably charitable, he took out of his alforjas the
+half loaf and half cheese he had been provided with, and gave them to
+them, explaining to them by signs that he had nothing else to give them.
+They received them very gladly, but exclaimed, “Geld! Geld!”
+
+“I don’t understand what you want of me, good people,” said Sancho.
+
+On this one of them took a purse out of his bosom and showed it to
+Sancho, by which he comprehended they were asking for money, and putting
+his thumb to his throat and spreading his hand upwards he gave them to
+understand that he had not the sign of a coin about him, and urging
+Dapple forward he broke through them. But as he was passing, one of them
+who had been examining him very closely rushed towards him, and flinging
+his arms round him exclaimed in a loud voice and good Spanish, “God bless
+me! What’s this I see? Is it possible that I hold in my arms my dear
+friend, my good neighbour Sancho Panza? But there’s no doubt about it,
+for I’m not asleep, nor am I drunk just now.”
+
+Sancho was surprised to hear himself called by his name and find himself
+embraced by a foreign pilgrim, and after regarding him steadily without
+speaking he was still unable to recognise him; but the pilgrim perceiving
+his perplexity cried, “What! and is it possible, Sancho Panza, that thou
+dost not know thy neighbour Ricote, the Morisco shopkeeper of thy
+village?”
+
+Sancho upon this looking at him more carefully began to recall his
+features, and at last recognised him perfectly, and without getting off
+the ass threw his arms round his neck saying, “Who the devil could have
+known thee, Ricote, in this mummer’s dress thou art in? Tell me, who has
+frenchified thee, and how dost thou dare to return to Spain, where if
+they catch thee and recognise thee it will go hard enough with thee?”
+
+“If thou dost not betray me, Sancho,” said the pilgrim, “I am safe; for
+in this dress no one will recognise me; but let us turn aside out of the
+road into that grove there where my comrades are going to eat and rest,
+and thou shalt eat with them there, for they are very good fellows; I’ll
+have time enough to tell thee then all that has happened me since I left
+our village in obedience to his Majesty’s edict that threatened such
+severities against the unfortunate people of my nation, as thou hast
+heard.”
+
+Sancho complied, and Ricote having spoken to the other pilgrims they
+withdrew to the grove they saw, turning a considerable distance out of
+the road. They threw down their staves, took off their pilgrim’s cloaks
+and remained in their under-clothing; they were all good-looking young
+fellows, except Ricote, who was a man somewhat advanced in years. They
+carried alforjas all of them, and all apparently well filled, at least
+with things provocative of thirst, such as would summon it from two
+leagues off. They stretched themselves on the ground, and making a
+tablecloth of the grass they spread upon it bread, salt, knives, walnut,
+scraps of cheese, and well-picked ham-bones which if they were past
+gnawing were not past sucking. They also put down a black dainty called,
+they say, caviar, and made of the eggs of fish, a great thirst-wakener.
+Nor was there any lack of olives, dry, it is true, and without any
+seasoning, but for all that toothsome and pleasant. But what made the
+best show in the field of the banquet was half a dozen botas of wine, for
+each of them produced his own from his alforjas; even the good Ricote,
+who from a Morisco had transformed himself into a German or Dutchman,
+took out his, which in size might have vied with the five others. They
+then began to eat with very great relish and very leisurely, making the
+most of each morsel--very small ones of everything--they took up on the
+point of the knife; and then all at the same moment raised their arms and
+botas aloft, the mouths placed in their mouths, and all eyes fixed on
+heaven just as if they were taking aim at it; and in this attitude they
+remained ever so long, wagging their heads from side to side as if in
+acknowledgment of the pleasure they were enjoying while they decanted the
+bowels of the bottles into their own stomachs.
+
+Sancho beheld all, “and nothing gave him pain;” so far from that, acting
+on the proverb he knew so well, “when thou art at Rome do as thou seest,”
+ he asked Ricote for his bota and took aim like the rest of them, and with
+not less enjoyment. Four times did the botas bear being uplifted, but the
+fifth it was all in vain, for they were drier and more sapless than a
+rush by that time, which made the jollity that had been kept up so far
+begin to flag.
+
+Every now and then some one of them would grasp Sancho’s right hand in
+his own saying, “Espanoli y Tudesqui tuto uno: bon compano;” and Sancho
+would answer, “Bon compano, jur a Di!” and then go off into a fit of
+laughter that lasted an hour, without a thought for the moment of
+anything that had befallen him in his government; for cares have very
+little sway over us while we are eating and drinking. At length, the wine
+having come to an end with them, drowsiness began to come over them, and
+they dropped asleep on their very table and tablecloth. Ricote and Sancho
+alone remained awake, for they had eaten more and drunk less, and Ricote
+drawing Sancho aside, they seated themselves at the foot of a beech,
+leaving the pilgrims buried in sweet sleep; and without once falling into
+his own Morisco tongue Ricote spoke as follows in pure Castilian:
+
+“Thou knowest well, neighbour and friend Sancho Panza, how the
+proclamation or edict his Majesty commanded to be issued against those of
+my nation filled us all with terror and dismay; me at least it did,
+insomuch that I think before the time granted us for quitting Spain was
+out, the full force of the penalty had already fallen upon me and upon my
+children. I decided, then, and I think wisely (just like one who knows
+that at a certain date the house he lives in will be taken from him, and
+looks out beforehand for another to change into), I decided, I say, to
+leave the town myself, alone and without my family, and go to seek out
+some place to remove them to comfortably and not in the hurried way in
+which the others took their departure; for I saw very plainly, and so did
+all the older men among us, that the proclamations were not mere threats,
+as some said, but positive enactments which would be enforced at the
+appointed time; and what made me believe this was what I knew of the base
+and extravagant designs which our people harboured, designs of such a
+nature that I think it was a divine inspiration that moved his Majesty to
+carry out a resolution so spirited; not that we were all guilty, for some
+there were true and steadfast Christians; but they were so few that they
+could make no head against those who were not; and it was not prudent to
+cherish a viper in the bosom by having enemies in the house. In short it
+was with just cause that we were visited with the penalty of banishment,
+a mild and lenient one in the eyes of some, but to us the most terrible
+that could be inflicted upon us. Wherever we are we weep for Spain; for
+after all we were born there and it is our natural fatherland. Nowhere do
+we find the reception our unhappy condition needs; and in Barbary and all
+the parts of Africa where we counted upon being received, succoured, and
+welcomed, it is there they insult and ill-treat us most. We knew not our
+good fortune until we lost it; and such is the longing we almost all of
+us have to return to Spain, that most of those who like myself know the
+language, and there are many who do, come back to it and leave their
+wives and children forsaken yonder, so great is their love for it; and
+now I know by experience the meaning of the saying, sweet is the love of
+one’s country.
+
+“I left our village, as I said, and went to France, but though they gave
+us a kind reception there I was anxious to see all I could. I crossed
+into Italy, and reached Germany, and there it seemed to me we might live
+with more freedom, as the inhabitants do not pay any attention to
+trifling points; everyone lives as he likes, for in most parts they enjoy
+liberty of conscience. I took a house in a town near Augsburg, and then
+joined these pilgrims, who are in the habit of coming to Spain in great
+numbers every year to visit the shrines there, which they look upon as
+their Indies and a sure and certain source of gain. They travel nearly
+all over it, and there is no town out of which they do not go full up of
+meat and drink, as the saying is, and with a real, at least, in money,
+and they come off at the end of their travels with more than a hundred
+crowns saved, which, changed into gold, they smuggle out of the kingdom
+either in the hollow of their staves or in the patches of their pilgrim’s
+cloaks or by some device of their own, and carry to their own country in
+spite of the guards at the posts and passes where they are searched. Now
+my purpose is, Sancho, to carry away the treasure that I left buried,
+which, as it is outside the town, I shall be able to do without risk, and
+to write, or cross over from Valencia, to my daughter and wife, who I
+know are at Algiers, and find some means of bringing them to some French
+port and thence to Germany, there to await what it may be God’s will to
+do with us; for, after all, Sancho, I know well that Ricota my daughter
+and Francisca Ricota my wife are Catholic Christians, and though I am not
+so much so, still I am more of a Christian than a Moor, and it is always
+my prayer to God that he will open the eyes of my understanding and show
+me how I am to serve him; but what amazes me and I cannot understand is
+why my wife and daughter should have gone to Barbary rather than to
+France, where they could live as Christians.”
+
+To this Sancho replied, “Remember, Ricote, that may not have been open to
+them, for Juan Tiopieyo thy wife’s brother took them, and being a true
+Moor he went where he could go most easily; and another thing I can tell
+thee, it is my belief thou art going in vain to look for what thou hast
+left buried, for we heard they took from thy brother-in-law and thy wife
+a great quantity of pearls and money in gold which they brought to be
+passed.”
+
+“That may be,” said Ricote; “but I know they did not touch my hoard, for
+I did not tell them where it was, for fear of accidents; and so, if thou
+wilt come with me, Sancho, and help me to take it away and conceal it, I
+will give thee two hundred crowns wherewith thou mayest relieve thy
+necessities, and, as thou knowest, I know they are many.”
+
+“I would do it,” said Sancho; “but I am not at all covetous, for I gave
+up an office this morning in which, if I was, I might have made the walls
+of my house of gold and dined off silver plates before six months were
+over; and so for this reason, and because I feel I would be guilty of
+treason to my king if I helped his enemies, I would not go with thee if
+instead of promising me two hundred crowns thou wert to give me four
+hundred here in hand.”
+
+“And what office is this thou hast given up, Sancho?” asked Ricote.
+
+“I have given up being governor of an island,” said Sancho, “and such a
+one, faith, as you won’t find the like of easily.”
+
+“And where is this island?” said Ricote.
+
+“Where?” said Sancho; “two leagues from here, and it is called the island
+of Barataria.”
+
+“Nonsense! Sancho,” said Ricote; “islands are away out in the sea; there
+are no islands on the mainland.”
+
+“What? No islands!” said Sancho; “I tell thee, friend Ricote, I left it
+this morning, and yesterday I was governing there as I pleased like a
+sagittarius; but for all that I gave it up, for it seemed to me a
+dangerous office, a governor’s.”
+
+“And what hast thou gained by the government?” asked Ricote.
+
+“I have gained,” said Sancho, “the knowledge that I am no good for
+governing, unless it is a drove of cattle, and that the riches that are
+to be got by these governments are got at the cost of one’s rest and
+sleep, ay and even one’s food; for in islands the governors must eat
+little, especially if they have doctors to look after their health.”
+
+“I don’t understand thee, Sancho,” said Ricote; “but it seems to me all
+nonsense thou art talking. Who would give thee islands to govern? Is
+there any scarcity in the world of cleverer men than thou art for
+governors? Hold thy peace, Sancho, and come back to thy senses, and
+consider whether thou wilt come with me as I said to help me to take away
+treasure I left buried (for indeed it may be called a treasure, it is so
+large), and I will give thee wherewithal to keep thee, as I told thee.”
+
+“And I have told thee already, Ricote, that I will not,” said Sancho;
+“let it content thee that by me thou shalt not be betrayed, and go thy
+way in God’s name and let me go mine; for I know that well-gotten gain
+may be lost, but ill-gotten gain is lost, itself and its owner likewise.”
+
+“I will not press thee, Sancho,” said Ricote; “but tell me, wert thou in
+our village when my wife and daughter and brother-in-law left it?”
+
+“I was so,” said Sancho; “and I can tell thee thy daughter left it
+looking so lovely that all the village turned out to see her, and
+everybody said she was the fairest creature in the world. She wept as she
+went, and embraced all her friends and acquaintances and those who came
+out to see her, and she begged them all to commend her to God and Our
+Lady his mother, and this in such a touching way that it made me weep
+myself, though I’m not much given to tears commonly; and, faith, many a
+one would have liked to hide her, or go out and carry her off on the
+road; but the fear of going against the king’s command kept them back.
+The one who showed himself most moved was Don Pedro Gregorio, the rich
+young heir thou knowest of, and they say he was deep in love with her;
+and since she left he has not been seen in our village again, and we all
+suspect he has gone after her to steal her away, but so far nothing has
+been heard of it.”
+
+“I always had a suspicion that gentleman had a passion for my daughter,”
+ said Ricote; “but as I felt sure of my Ricota’s virtue it gave me no
+uneasiness to know that he loved her; for thou must have heard it said,
+Sancho, that the Morisco women seldom or never engage in amours with the
+old Christians; and my daughter, who I fancy thought more of being a
+Christian than of lovemaking, would not trouble herself about the
+attentions of this heir.”
+
+“God grant it,” said Sancho, “for it would be a bad business for both of
+them; but now let me be off, friend Ricote, for I want to reach where my
+master Don Quixote is to-night.”
+
+“God be with thee, brother Sancho,” said Ricote; “my comrades are
+beginning to stir, and it is time, too, for us to continue our journey;”
+ and then they both embraced, and Sancho mounted Dapple, and Ricote leant
+upon his staff, and so they parted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+
+OF WHAT BEFELL SANCHO ON THE ROAD, AND OTHER THINGS THAT CANNOT BE
+SURPASSED
+
+
+The length of time he delayed with Ricote prevented Sancho from reaching
+the duke’s castle that day, though he was within half a league of it when
+night, somewhat dark and cloudy, overtook him. This, however, as it was
+summer time, did not give him much uneasiness, and he turned aside out of
+the road intending to wait for morning; but his ill luck and hard fate so
+willed it that as he was searching about for a place to make himself as
+comfortable as possible, he and Dapple fell into a deep dark hole that
+lay among some very old buildings. As he fell he commended himself with
+all his heart to God, fancying he was not going to stop until he reached
+the depths of the bottomless pit; but it did not turn out so, for at
+little more than thrice a man’s height Dapple touched bottom, and he
+found himself sitting on him without having received any hurt or damage
+whatever. He felt himself all over and held his breath to try whether he
+was quite sound or had a hole made in him anywhere, and finding himself
+all right and whole and in perfect health he was profuse in his thanks to
+God our Lord for the mercy that had been shown him, for he made sure he
+had been broken into a thousand pieces. He also felt along the sides of
+the pit with his hands to see if it were possible to get out of it
+without help, but he found they were quite smooth and afforded no hold
+anywhere, at which he was greatly distressed, especially when he heard
+how pathetically and dolefully Dapple was bemoaning himself, and no
+wonder he complained, nor was it from ill-temper, for in truth he was not
+in a very good case. “Alas,” said Sancho, “what unexpected accidents
+happen at every step to those who live in this miserable world! Who would
+have said that one who saw himself yesterday sitting on a throne,
+governor of an island, giving orders to his servants and his vassals,
+would see himself to-day buried in a pit without a soul to help him, or
+servant or vassal to come to his relief? Here must we perish with hunger,
+my ass and myself, if indeed we don’t die first, he of his bruises and
+injuries, and I of grief and sorrow. At any rate I’ll not be as lucky as
+my master Don Quixote of La Mancha, when he went down into the cave of
+that enchanted Montesinos, where he found people to make more of him than
+if he had been in his own house; for it seems he came in for a table laid
+out and a bed ready made. There he saw fair and pleasant visions, but
+here I’ll see, I imagine, toads and adders. Unlucky wretch that I am,
+what an end my follies and fancies have come to! They’ll take up my bones
+out of this, when it is heaven’s will that I’m found, picked clean, white
+and polished, and my good Dapple’s with them, and by that, perhaps, it
+will be found out who we are, at least by such as have heard that Sancho
+Panza never separated from his ass, nor his ass from Sancho Panza.
+Unlucky wretches, I say again, that our hard fate should not let us die
+in our own country and among our own people, where if there was no help
+for our misfortune, at any rate there would be some one to grieve for it
+and to close our eyes as we passed away! O comrade and friend, how ill
+have I repaid thy faithful services! Forgive me, and entreat Fortune, as
+well as thou canst, to deliver us out of this miserable strait we are
+both in; and I promise to put a crown of laurel on thy head, and make
+thee look like a poet laureate, and give thee double feeds.”
+
+In this strain did Sancho bewail himself, and his ass listened to him,
+but answered him never a word, such was the distress and anguish the poor
+beast found himself in. At length, after a night spent in bitter moanings
+and lamentations, day came, and by its light Sancho perceived that it was
+wholly impossible to escape out of that pit without help, and he fell to
+bemoaning his fate and uttering loud shouts to find out if there was
+anyone within hearing; but all his shouting was only crying in the
+wilderness, for there was not a soul anywhere in the neighbourhood to
+hear him, and then at last he gave himself up for dead. Dapple was lying
+on his back, and Sancho helped him to his feet, which he was scarcely
+able to keep; and then taking a piece of bread out of his alforjas which
+had shared their fortunes in the fall, he gave it to the ass, to whom it
+was not unwelcome, saying to him as if he understood him, “With bread all
+sorrows are less.”
+
+And now he perceived on one side of the pit a hole large enough to admit
+a person if he stooped and squeezed himself into a small compass. Sancho
+made for it, and entered it by creeping, and found it wide and spacious
+on the inside, which he was able to see as a ray of sunlight that
+penetrated what might be called the roof showed it all plainly. He
+observed too that it opened and widened out into another spacious cavity;
+seeing which he made his way back to where the ass was, and with a stone
+began to pick away the clay from the hole until in a short time he had
+made room for the beast to pass easily, and this accomplished, taking him
+by the halter, he proceeded to traverse the cavern to see if there was
+any outlet at the other end. He advanced, sometimes in the dark,
+sometimes without light, but never without fear; “God Almighty help me!”
+ said he to himself; “this that is a misadventure to me would make a good
+adventure for my master Don Quixote. He would have been sure to take
+these depths and dungeons for flowery gardens or the palaces of Galiana,
+and would have counted upon issuing out of this darkness and imprisonment
+into some blooming meadow; but I, unlucky that I am, hopeless and
+spiritless, expect at every step another pit deeper than the first to
+open under my feet and swallow me up for good; ‘welcome evil, if thou
+comest alone.’”
+
+In this way and with these reflections he seemed to himself to have
+travelled rather more than half a league, when at last he perceived a dim
+light that looked like daylight and found its way in on one side, showing
+that this road, which appeared to him the road to the other world, led to
+some opening.
+
+Here Cide Hamete leaves him, and returns to Don Quixote, who in high
+spirits and satisfaction was looking forward to the day fixed for the
+battle he was to fight with him who had robbed Dona Rodriguez’s daughter
+of her honour, for whom he hoped to obtain satisfaction for the wrong and
+injury shamefully done to her. It came to pass, then, that having sallied
+forth one morning to practise and exercise himself in what he would have
+to do in the encounter he expected to find himself engaged in the next
+day, as he was putting Rocinante through his paces or pressing him to the
+charge, he brought his feet so close to a pit that but for reining him in
+tightly it would have been impossible for him to avoid falling into it.
+He pulled him up, however, without a fall, and coming a little closer
+examined the hole without dismounting; but as he was looking at it he
+heard loud cries proceeding from it, and by listening attentively was
+able to make out that he who uttered them was saying, “Ho, above there!
+is there any Christian that hears me, or any charitable gentleman that
+will take pity on a sinner buried alive, on an unfortunate disgoverned
+governor?”
+
+It struck Don Quixote that it was the voice of Sancho Panza he heard,
+whereat he was taken aback and amazed, and raising his own voice as much
+as he could, he cried out, “Who is below there? Who is that complaining?”
+
+“Who should be here, or who should complain,” was the answer, “but the
+forlorn Sancho Panza, for his sins and for his ill-luck governor of the
+island of Barataria, squire that was to the famous knight Don Quixote of
+La Mancha?”
+
+When Don Quixote heard this his amazement was redoubled and his
+perturbation grew greater than ever, for it suggested itself to his mind
+that Sancho must be dead, and that his soul was in torment down there;
+and carried away by this idea he exclaimed, “I conjure thee by everything
+that as a Catholic Christian I can conjure thee by, tell me who thou art;
+and if thou art a soul in torment, tell me what thou wouldst have me do
+for thee; for as my profession is to give aid and succour to those that
+need it in this world, it will also extend to aiding and succouring the
+distressed of the other, who cannot help themselves.”
+
+“In that case,” answered the voice, “your worship who speaks to me must
+be my master Don Quixote of La Mancha; nay, from the tone of the voice it
+is plain it can be nobody else.”
+
+“Don Quixote I am,” replied Don Quixote, “he whose profession it is to
+aid and succour the living and the dead in their necessities; wherefore
+tell me who thou art, for thou art keeping me in suspense; because, if
+thou art my squire Sancho Panza, and art dead, since the devils have not
+carried thee off, and thou art by God’s mercy in purgatory, our holy
+mother the Roman Catholic Church has intercessory means sufficient to
+release thee from the pains thou art in; and I for my part will plead
+with her to that end, so far as my substance will go; without further
+delay, therefore, declare thyself, and tell me who thou art.”
+
+“By all that’s good,” was the answer, “and by the birth of whomsoever
+your worship chooses, I swear, Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha, that I am
+your squire Sancho Panza, and that I have never died all my life; but
+that, having given up my government for reasons that would require more
+time to explain, I fell last night into this pit where I am now, and
+Dapple is witness and won’t let me lie, for more by token he is here with
+me.”
+
+Nor was this all; one would have fancied the ass understood what Sancho
+said, because that moment he began to bray so loudly that the whole cave
+rang again.
+
+“Famous testimony!” exclaimed Don Quixote; “I know that bray as well as
+if I was its mother, and thy voice too, my Sancho. Wait while I go to the
+duke’s castle, which is close by, and I will bring some one to take thee
+out of this pit into which thy sins no doubt have brought thee.”
+
+“Go, your worship,” said Sancho, “and come back quick for God’s sake; for
+I cannot bear being buried alive any longer, and I’m dying of fear.”
+
+Don Quixote left him, and hastened to the castle to tell the duke and
+duchess what had happened Sancho, and they were not a little astonished
+at it; they could easily understand his having fallen, from the
+confirmatory circumstance of the cave which had been in existence there
+from time immemorial; but they could not imagine how he had quitted the
+government without their receiving any intimation of his coming. To be
+brief, they fetched ropes and tackle, as the saying is, and by dint of
+many hands and much labour they drew up Dapple and Sancho Panza out of
+the darkness into the light of day. A student who saw him remarked,
+“That’s the way all bad governors should come out of their governments,
+as this sinner comes out of the depths of the pit, dead with hunger,
+pale, and I suppose without a farthing.”
+
+Sancho overheard him and said, “It is eight or ten days, brother growler,
+since I entered upon the government of the island they gave me, and all
+that time I never had a bellyful of victuals, no not for an hour; doctors
+persecuted me and enemies crushed my bones; nor had I any opportunity of
+taking bribes or levying taxes; and if that be the case, as it is, I
+don’t deserve, I think, to come out in this fashion; but ‘man proposes
+and God disposes;’ and God knows what is best, and what suits each one
+best; and ‘as the occasion, so the behaviour;’ and ‘let nobody say “I
+won’t drink of this water;”’ and ‘where one thinks there are flitches,
+there are no pegs;’ God knows my meaning and that’s enough; I say no
+more, though I could.”
+
+“Be not angry or annoyed at what thou hearest, Sancho,” said Don Quixote,
+“or there will never be an end of it; keep a safe conscience and let them
+say what they like; for trying to stop slanderers’ tongues is like trying
+to put gates to the open plain. If a governor comes out of his government
+rich, they say he has been a thief; and if he comes out poor, that he has
+been a noodle and a blockhead.”
+
+“They’ll be pretty sure this time,” said Sancho, “to set me down for a
+fool rather than a thief.”
+
+Thus talking, and surrounded by boys and a crowd of people, they reached
+the castle, where in one of the corridors the duke and duchess stood
+waiting for them; but Sancho would not go up to see the duke until he had
+first put up Dapple in the stable, for he said he had passed a very bad
+night in his last quarters; then he went upstairs to see his lord and
+lady, and kneeling before them he said, “Because it was your highnesses’
+pleasure, not because of any desert of my own, I went to govern your
+island of Barataria, which ‘I entered naked, and naked I find myself; I
+neither lose nor gain.’ Whether I have governed well or ill, I have had
+witnesses who will say what they think fit. I have answered questions, I
+have decided causes, and always dying of hunger, for Doctor Pedro Recio
+of Tirteafuera, the island and governor doctor, would have it so. Enemies
+attacked us by night and put us in a great quandary, but the people of
+the island say they came off safe and victorious by the might of my arm;
+and may God give them as much health as there’s truth in what they say.
+In short, during that time I have weighed the cares and responsibilities
+governing brings with it, and by my reckoning I find my shoulders can’t
+bear them, nor are they a load for my loins or arrows for my quiver; and
+so, before the government threw me over I preferred to throw the
+government over; and yesterday morning I left the island as I found it,
+with the same streets, houses, and roofs it had when I entered it. I
+asked no loan of anybody, nor did I try to fill my pocket; and though I
+meant to make some useful laws, I made hardly any, as I was afraid they
+would not be kept; for in that case it comes to the same thing to make
+them or not to make them. I quitted the island, as I said, without any
+escort except my ass; I fell into a pit, I pushed on through it, until
+this morning by the light of the sun I saw an outlet, but not so easy a
+one but that, had not heaven sent me my master Don Quixote, I’d have
+stayed there till the end of the world. So now my lord and lady duke and
+duchess, here is your governor Sancho Panza, who in the bare ten days he
+has held the government has come by the knowledge that he would not give
+anything to be governor, not to say of an island, but of the whole world;
+and that point being settled, kissing your worships’ feet, and imitating
+the game of the boys when they say, ‘leap thou, and give me one,’ I take
+a leap out of the government and pass into the service of my master Don
+Quixote; for after all, though in it I eat my bread in fear and
+trembling, at any rate I take my fill; and for my part, so long as I’m
+full, it’s all alike to me whether it’s with carrots or with partridges.”
+
+Here Sancho brought his long speech to an end, Don Quixote having been
+the whole time in dread of his uttering a host of absurdities; and when
+he found him leave off with so few, he thanked heaven in his heart. The
+duke embraced Sancho and told him he was heartily sorry he had given up
+the government so soon, but that he would see that he was provided with
+some other post on his estate less onerous and more profitable. The
+duchess also embraced him, and gave orders that he should be taken good
+care of, as it was plain to see he had been badly treated and worse
+bruised.
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+The duke and duchess had no reason to regret the joke that had been
+played upon Sancho Panza in giving him the government; especially as
+their majordomo returned the same day, and gave them a minute account of
+almost every word and deed that Sancho uttered or did during the time;
+and to wind up with, eloquently described to them the attack upon the
+island and Sancho’s fright and departure, with which they were not a
+little amused. After this the history goes on to say that the day fixed
+for the battle arrived, and that the duke, after having repeatedly
+instructed his lacquey Tosilos how to deal with Don Quixote so as to
+vanquish him without killing or wounding him, gave orders to have the
+heads removed from the lances, telling Don Quixote that Christian
+charity, on which he plumed himself, could not suffer the battle to be
+fought with so much risk and danger to life; and that he must be content
+with the offer of a battlefield on his territory (though that was against
+the decree of the holy Council, which prohibits all challenges of the
+sort) and not push such an arduous venture to its extreme limits. Don
+Quixote bade his excellence arrange all matters connected with the affair
+as he pleased, as on his part he would obey him in everything. The dread
+day, then, having arrived, and the duke having ordered a spacious stand
+to be erected facing the court of the castle for the judges of the field
+and the appellant duennas, mother and daughter, vast crowds flocked from
+all the villages and hamlets of the neighbourhood to see the novel
+spectacle of the battle; nobody, dead or alive, in those parts having
+ever seen or heard of such a one.
+
+The first person to enter the field and the lists was the master of the
+ceremonies, who surveyed and paced the whole ground to see that there was
+nothing unfair and nothing concealed to make the combatants stumble or
+fall; then the duennas entered and seated themselves, enveloped in
+mantles covering their eyes, nay even their bosoms, and displaying no
+slight emotion as Don Quixote appeared in the lists. Shortly afterwards,
+accompanied by several trumpets and mounted on a powerful steed that
+threatened to crush the whole place, the great lacquey Tosilos made his
+appearance on one side of the courtyard with his visor down and stiffly
+cased in a suit of stout shining armour. The horse was a manifest
+Frieslander, broad-backed and flea-bitten, and with half a hundred of
+wool hanging to each of his fetlocks. The gallant combatant came well
+primed by his master the duke as to how he was to bear himself against
+the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha; being warned that he must on no
+account slay him, but strive to shirk the first encounter so as to avoid
+the risk of killing him, as he was sure to do if he met him full tilt. He
+crossed the courtyard at a walk, and coming to where the duennas were
+placed stopped to look at her who demanded him for a husband; the marshal
+of the field summoned Don Quixote, who had already presented himself in
+the courtyard, and standing by the side of Tosilos he addressed the
+duennas, and asked them if they consented that Don Quixote of La Mancha
+should do battle for their right. They said they did, and that whatever
+he should do in that behalf they declared rightly done, final and valid.
+By this time the duke and duchess had taken their places in a gallery
+commanding the enclosure, which was filled to overflowing with a
+multitude of people eager to see this perilous and unparalleled
+encounter. The conditions of the combat were that if Don Quixote proved
+the victor his antagonist was to marry the daughter of Dona Rodriguez;
+but if he should be vanquished his opponent was released from the promise
+that was claimed against him and from all obligations to give
+satisfaction. The master of the ceremonies apportioned the sun to them,
+and stationed them, each on the spot where he was to stand. The drums
+beat, the sound of the trumpets filled the air, the earth trembled under
+foot, the hearts of the gazing crowd were full of anxiety, some hoping
+for a happy issue, some apprehensive of an untoward ending to the affair,
+and lastly, Don Quixote, commending himself with all his heart to God our
+Lord and to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, stood waiting for them to give
+the necessary signal for the onset. Our lacquey, however, was thinking of
+something very different; he only thought of what I am now going to
+mention.
+
+It seems that as he stood contemplating his enemy she struck him as the
+most beautiful woman he had ever seen all his life; and the little blind
+boy whom in our streets they commonly call Love had no mind to let slip
+the chance of triumphing over a lacquey heart, and adding it to the list
+of his trophies; and so, stealing gently upon him unseen, he drove a dart
+two yards long into the poor lacquey’s left side and pierced his heart
+through and through; which he was able to do quite at his ease, for Love
+is invisible, and comes in and goes out as he likes, without anyone
+calling him to account for what he does. Well then, when they gave the
+signal for the onset our lacquey was in an ecstasy, musing upon the
+beauty of her whom he had already made mistress of his liberty, and so he
+paid no attention to the sound of the trumpet, unlike Don Quixote, who
+was off the instant he heard it, and, at the highest speed Rocinante was
+capable of, set out to meet his enemy, his good squire Sancho shouting
+lustily as he saw him start, “God guide thee, cream and flower of
+knights-errant! God give thee the victory, for thou hast the right on thy
+side!” But though Tosilos saw Don Quixote coming at him he never stirred
+a step from the spot where he was posted; and instead of doing so called
+loudly to the marshal of the field, to whom when he came up to see what
+he wanted he said, “Señor, is not this battle to decide whether I marry
+or do not marry that lady?” “Just so,” was the answer. “Well then,” said
+the lacquey, “I feel qualms of conscience, and I should lay a-heavy
+burden upon it if I were to proceed any further with the combat; I
+therefore declare that I yield myself vanquished, and that I am willing
+to marry the lady at once.”
+
+The marshal of the field was lost in astonishment at the words of
+Tosilos; and as he was one of those who were privy to the arrangement of
+the affair he knew not what to say in reply. Don Quixote pulled up in mid
+career when he saw that his enemy was not coming on to the attack. The
+duke could not make out the reason why the battle did not go on; but the
+marshal of the field hastened to him to let him know what Tosilos said,
+and he was amazed and extremely angry at it. In the meantime Tosilos
+advanced to where Dona Rodriguez sat and said in a loud voice, “Señora, I
+am willing to marry your daughter, and I have no wish to obtain by strife
+and fighting what I can obtain in peace and without any risk to my life.”
+
+The valiant Don Quixote heard him, and said, “As that is the case I am
+released and absolved from my promise; let them marry by all means, and
+as ‘God our Lord has given her, may Saint Peter add his blessing.’”
+
+The duke had now descended to the courtyard of the castle, and going up
+to Tosilos he said to him, “Is it true, sir knight, that you yield
+yourself vanquished, and that moved by scruples of conscience you wish to
+marry this damsel?”
+
+“It is, señor,” replied Tosilos.
+
+“And he does well,” said Sancho, “for what thou hast to give to the
+mouse, give to the cat, and it will save thee all trouble.”
+
+Tosilos meanwhile was trying to unlace his helmet, and he begged them to
+come to his help at once, as his power of breathing was failing him, and
+he could not remain so long shut up in that confined space. They removed
+it in all haste, and his lacquey features were revealed to public gaze.
+At this sight Dona Rodriguez and her daughter raised a mighty outcry,
+exclaiming, “This is a trick! This is a trick! They have put Tosilos, my
+lord the duke’s lacquey, upon us in place of the real husband. The
+justice of God and the king against such trickery, not to say roguery!”
+
+“Do not distress yourselves, ladies,” said Don Quixote; “for this is no
+trickery or roguery; or if it is, it is not the duke who is at the bottom
+of it, but those wicked enchanters who persecute me, and who, jealous of
+my reaping the glory of this victory, have turned your husband’s features
+into those of this person, who you say is a lacquey of the duke’s; take
+my advice, and notwithstanding the malice of my enemies marry him, for
+beyond a doubt he is the one you wish for a husband.”
+
+When the duke heard this all his anger was near vanishing in a fit of
+laughter, and he said, “The things that happen to Señor Don Quixote are
+so extraordinary that I am ready to believe this lacquey of mine is not
+one; but let us adopt this plan and device; let us put off the marriage
+for, say, a fortnight, and let us keep this person about whom we are
+uncertain in close confinement, and perhaps in the course of that time he
+may return to his original shape; for the spite which the enchanters
+entertain against Señor Don Quixote cannot last so long, especially as it
+is of so little advantage to them to practise these deceptions and
+transformations.”
+
+“Oh, señor,” said Sancho, “those scoundrels are well used to changing
+whatever concerns my master from one thing into another. A knight that he
+overcame some time back, called the Knight of the Mirrors, they turned
+into the shape of the bachelor Samson Carrasco of our town and a great
+friend of ours; and my lady Dulcinea del Toboso they have turned into a
+common country wench; so I suspect this lacquey will have to live and die
+a lacquey all the days of his life.”
+
+Here the Rodriguez’s daughter exclaimed, “Let him be who he may, this man
+that claims me for a wife; I am thankful to him for the same, for I had
+rather be the lawful wife of a lacquey than the cheated mistress of a
+gentleman; though he who played me false is nothing of the kind.”
+
+To be brief, all the talk and all that had happened ended in Tosilos
+being shut up until it was seen how his transformation turned out. All
+hailed Don Quixote as victor, but the greater number were vexed and
+disappointed at finding that the combatants they had been so anxiously
+waiting for had not battered one another to pieces, just as the boys are
+disappointed when the man they are waiting to see hanged does not come
+out, because the prosecution or the court has pardoned him. The people
+dispersed, the duke and Don Quixote returned to the castle, they locked
+up Tosilos, Dona Rodriguez and her daughter remained perfectly contented
+when they saw that any way the affair must end in marriage, and Tosilos
+wanted nothing else.
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+Don Quixote now felt it right to quit a life of such idleness as he was
+leading in the castle; for he fancied that he was making himself sorely
+missed by suffering himself to remain shut up and inactive amid the
+countless luxuries and enjoyments his hosts lavished upon him as a
+knight, and he felt too that he would have to render a strict account to
+heaven of that indolence and seclusion; and so one day he asked the duke
+and duchess to grant him permission to take his departure. They gave it,
+showing at the same time that they were very sorry he was leaving them.
+
+The duchess gave his wife’s letters to Sancho Panza, who shed tears over
+them, saying, “Who would have thought that such grand hopes as the news
+of my government bred in my wife Teresa Panza’s breast would end in my
+going back now to the vagabond adventures of my master Don Quixote of La
+Mancha? Still I’m glad to see my Teresa behaved as she ought in sending
+the acorns, for if she had not sent them I’d have been sorry, and she’d
+have shown herself ungrateful. It is a comfort to me that they can’t call
+that present a bribe; for I had got the government already when she sent
+them, and it’s but reasonable that those who have had a good turn done
+them should show their gratitude, if it’s only with a trifle. After all I
+went into the government naked, and I come out of it naked; so I can say
+with a safe conscience--and that’s no small matter--‘naked I was born,
+naked I find myself, I neither lose nor gain.’”
+
+Thus did Sancho soliloquise on the day of their departure, as Don
+Quixote, who had the night before taken leave of the duke and duchess,
+coming out made his appearance at an early hour in full armour in the
+courtyard of the castle. The whole household of the castle were watching
+him from the corridors, and the duke and duchess, too, came out to see
+him. Sancho was mounted on his Dapple, with his alforjas, valise, and
+proven, supremely happy because the duke’s majordomo, the same that had
+acted the part of the Trifaldi, had given him a little purse with two
+hundred gold crowns to meet the necessary expenses of the road, but of
+this Don Quixote knew nothing as yet. While all were, as has been said,
+observing him, suddenly from among the duennas and handmaidens the
+impudent and witty Altisidora lifted up her voice and said in pathetic
+tones:
+
+Give ear, cruel knight;
+  Draw rein; where’s the need
+Of spurring the flanks
+  Of that ill-broken steed?
+From what art thou flying?
+  No dragon I am,
+Not even a sheep,
+  But a tender young lamb.
+Thou hast jilted a maiden
+  As fair to behold
+As nymph of Diana
+  Or Venus of old.
+
+Bireno, Æneas, what worse shall I call thee?
+
+Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee!
+
+In thy claws, ruthless robber,
+  Thou bearest away
+The heart of a meek
+  Loving maid for thy prey,
+Three kerchiefs thou stealest,
+  And garters a pair,
+From legs than the whitest
+  Of marble more fair;
+And the sighs that pursue thee
+  Would burn to the ground
+Two thousand Troy Towns,
+  If so many were found.
+
+Bireno, Æneas, what worse shall I call thee?
+
+Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee!
+
+May no bowels of mercy
+  To Sancho be granted,
+And thy Dulcinea
+  Be left still enchanted,
+May thy falsehood to me
+  Find its punishment in her,
+For in my land the just
+  Often pays for the sinner.
+May thy grandest adventures
+  Discomfitures prove,
+May thy joys be all dreams,
+  And forgotten thy love.
+
+Bireno, Æneas, what worse shall I call thee?
+
+Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee!
+
+May thy name be abhorred
+  For thy conduct to ladies,
+From London to England,
+  From Seville to Cadiz;
+May thy cards be unlucky,
+  Thy hands contain ne’er a
+King, seven, or ace
+  When thou playest primera;
+When thy corns are cut
+  May it be to the quick;
+When thy grinders are drawn
+  May the roots of them stick.
+
+Bireno, Æneas, what worse shall I call thee?
+
+Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee!
+
+All the while the unhappy Altisidora was bewailing herself in the above
+strain Don Quixote stood staring at her; and without uttering a word in
+reply to her he turned round to Sancho and said, “Sancho my friend, I
+conjure thee by the life of thy forefathers tell me the truth; say, hast
+thou by any chance taken the three kerchiefs and the garters this
+love-sick maid speaks of?”
+
+To this Sancho made answer, “The three kerchiefs I have; but the garters,
+as much as ‘over the hills of Ubeda.’”
+
+The duchess was amazed at Altisidora’s assurance; she knew that she was
+bold, lively, and impudent, but not so much so as to venture to make free
+in this fashion; and not being prepared for the joke, her astonishment
+was all the greater. The duke had a mind to keep up the sport, so he
+said, “It does not seem to me well done in you, sir knight, that after
+having received the hospitality that has been offered you in this very
+castle, you should have ventured to carry off even three kerchiefs, not
+to say my handmaid’s garters. It shows a bad heart and does not tally
+with your reputation. Restore her garters, or else I defy you to mortal
+combat, for I am not afraid of rascally enchanters changing or altering
+my features as they changed his who encountered you into those of my
+lacquey, Tosilos.”
+
+“God forbid,” said Don Quixote, “that I should draw my sword against your
+illustrious person from which I have received such great favours. The
+kerchiefs I will restore, as Sancho says he has them; as to the garters
+that is impossible, for I have not got them, neither has he; and if your
+handmaiden here will look in her hiding-places, depend upon it she will
+find them. I have never been a thief, my lord duke, nor do I mean to be
+so long as I live, if God cease not to have me in his keeping. This
+damsel by her own confession speaks as one in love, for which I am not to
+blame, and therefore need not ask pardon, either of her or of your
+excellence, whom I entreat to have a better opinion of me, and once more
+to give me leave to pursue my journey.”
+
+“And may God so prosper it, Señor Don Quixote,” said the duchess, “that
+we may always hear good news of your exploits; God speed you; for the
+longer you stay, the more you inflame the hearts of the damsels who
+behold you; and as for this one of mine, I will so chastise her that she
+will not transgress again, either with her eyes or with her words.”
+
+“One word and no more, O valiant Don Quixote, I ask you to hear,” said
+Altisidora, “and that is that I beg your pardon about the theft of the
+garters; for by God and upon my soul I have got them on, and I have
+fallen into the same blunder as he did who went looking for his ass being
+all the while mounted on it.”
+
+“Didn’t I say so?” said Sancho. “I’m a likely one to hide thefts! Why if
+I wanted to deal in them, opportunities came ready enough to me in my
+government.”
+
+Don Quixote bowed his head, and saluted the duke and duchess and all the
+bystanders, and wheeling Rocinante round, Sancho following him on Dapple,
+he rode out of the castle, shaping his course for Saragossa.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+
+WHICH TELLS HOW ADVENTURES CAME CROWDING ON DON QUIXOTE IN SUCH NUMBERS
+THAT THEY GAVE ONE ANOTHER NO BREATHING-TIME
+
+
+When Don Quixote saw himself in open country, free, and relieved from the
+attentions of Altisidora, he felt at his ease, and in fresh spirits to
+take up the pursuit of chivalry once more; and turning to Sancho he said,
+“Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that heaven has
+bestowed upon men; no treasures that the earth holds buried or the sea
+conceals can compare with it; for freedom, as for honour, life may and
+should be ventured; and on the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil
+that can fall to the lot of man. I say this, Sancho, because thou hast
+seen the good cheer, the abundance we have enjoyed in this castle we are
+leaving; well then, amid those dainty banquets and snow-cooled beverages
+I felt as though I were undergoing the straits of hunger, because I did
+not enjoy them with the same freedom as if they had been mine own; for
+the sense of being under an obligation to return benefits and favours
+received is a restraint that checks the independence of the spirit. Happy
+he, to whom heaven has given a piece of bread for which he is not bound
+to give thanks to any but heaven itself!”
+
+“For all your worship says,” said Sancho, “it is not becoming that there
+should be no thanks on our part for two hundred gold crowns that the
+duke’s majordomo has given me in a little purse which I carry next my
+heart, like a warming plaster or comforter, to meet any chance calls; for
+we shan’t always find castles where they’ll entertain us; now and then we
+may light upon roadside inns where they’ll cudgel us.”
+
+In conversation of this sort the knight and squire errant were pursuing
+their journey, when, after they had gone a little more than half a
+league, they perceived some dozen men dressed like labourers stretched
+upon their cloaks on the grass of a green meadow eating their dinner.
+They had beside them what seemed to be white sheets concealing some
+objects under them, standing upright or lying flat, and arranged at
+intervals. Don Quixote approached the diners, and, saluting them
+courteously first, he asked them what it was those cloths covered.
+“Señor,” answered one of the party, “under these cloths are some images
+carved in relief intended for a retablo we are putting up in our village;
+we carry them covered up that they may not be soiled, and on our
+shoulders that they may not be broken.”
+
+“With your good leave,” said Don Quixote, “I should like to see them; for
+images that are carried so carefully no doubt must be fine ones.”
+
+“I should think they were!” said the other; “let the money they cost
+speak for that; for as a matter of fact there is not one of them that
+does not stand us in more than fifty ducats; and that your worship may
+judge; wait a moment, and you shall see with your own eyes;” and getting
+up from his dinner he went and uncovered the first image, which proved to
+be one of Saint George on horseback with a serpent writhing at his feet
+and the lance thrust down its throat with all that fierceness that is
+usually depicted. The whole group was one blaze of gold, as the saying
+is. On seeing it Don Quixote said, “That knight was one of the best
+knights-errant the army of heaven ever owned; he was called Don Saint
+George, and he was moreover a defender of maidens. Let us see this next
+one.”
+
+The man uncovered it, and it was seen to be that of Saint Martin on his
+horse, dividing his cloak with the beggar. The instant Don Quixote saw it
+he said, “This knight too was one of the Christian adventurers, but I
+believe he was generous rather than valiant, as thou mayest perceive,
+Sancho, by his dividing his cloak with the beggar and giving him half of
+it; no doubt it was winter at the time, for otherwise he would have given
+him the whole of it, so charitable was he.”
+
+“It was not that, most likely,” said Sancho, “but that he held with the
+proverb that says, ‘For giving and keeping there’s need of brains.’”
+
+Don Quixote laughed, and asked them to take off the next cloth,
+underneath which was seen the image of the patron saint of the Spains
+seated on horseback, his sword stained with blood, trampling on Moors and
+treading heads underfoot; and on seeing it Don Quixote exclaimed, “Ay,
+this is a knight, and of the squadrons of Christ! This one is called Don
+Saint James the Moorslayer, one of the bravest saints and knights the
+world ever had or heaven has now.”
+
+They then raised another cloth which it appeared covered Saint Paul
+falling from his horse, with all the details that are usually given in
+representations of his conversion. When Don Quixote saw it, rendered in
+such lifelike style that one would have said Christ was speaking and Paul
+answering, “This,” he said, “was in his time the greatest enemy that the
+Church of God our Lord had, and the greatest champion it will ever have;
+a knight-errant in life, a steadfast saint in death, an untiring labourer
+in the Lord’s vineyard, a teacher of the Gentiles, whose school was
+heaven, and whose instructor and master was Jesus Christ himself.”
+
+There were no more images, so Don Quixote bade them cover them up again,
+and said to those who had brought them, “I take it as a happy omen,
+brothers, to have seen what I have; for these saints and knights were of
+the same profession as myself, which is the calling of arms; only there
+is this difference between them and me, that they were saints, and fought
+with divine weapons, and I am a sinner and fight with human ones. They
+won heaven by force of arms, for heaven suffereth violence; and I, so
+far, know not what I have won by dint of my sufferings; but if my
+Dulcinea del Toboso were to be released from hers, perhaps with mended
+fortunes and a mind restored to itself I might direct my steps in a
+better path than I am following at present.”
+
+“May God hear and sin be deaf,” said Sancho to this.
+
+The men were filled with wonder, as well at the figure as at the words of
+Don Quixote, though they did not understand one half of what he meant by
+them. They finished their dinner, took their images on their backs, and
+bidding farewell to Don Quixote resumed their journey.
+
+Sancho was amazed afresh at the extent of his master’s knowledge, as much
+as if he had never known him, for it seemed to him that there was no
+story or event in the world that he had not at his fingers’ ends and
+fixed in his memory, and he said to him, “In truth, master mine, if this
+that has happened to us to-day is to be called an adventure, it has been
+one of the sweetest and pleasantest that have befallen us in the whole
+course of our travels; we have come out of it unbelaboured and
+undismayed, neither have we drawn sword nor have we smitten the earth
+with our bodies, nor have we been left famishing; blessed be God that he
+has let me see such a thing with my own eyes!”
+
+“Thou sayest well, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “but remember all times are
+not alike nor do they always run the same way; and these things the
+vulgar commonly call omens, which are not based upon any natural reason,
+will by him who is wise be esteemed and reckoned happy accidents merely.
+One of these believers in omens will get up of a morning, leave his
+house, and meet a friar of the order of the blessed Saint Francis, and,
+as if he had met a griffin, he will turn about and go home. With another
+Mendoza the salt is spilt on his table, and gloom is spilt over his
+heart, as if nature was obliged to give warning of coming misfortunes by
+means of such trivial things as these. The wise man and the Christian
+should not trifle with what it may please heaven to do. Scipio on coming
+to Africa stumbled as he leaped on shore; his soldiers took it as a bad
+omen; but he, clasping the soil with his arms, exclaimed, ‘Thou canst not
+escape me, Africa, for I hold thee tight between my arms.’ Thus, Sancho,
+meeting those images has been to me a most happy occurrence.”
+
+“I can well believe it,” said Sancho; “but I wish your worship would tell
+me what is the reason that the Spaniards, when they are about to give
+battle, in calling on that Saint James the Moorslayer, say ‘Santiago and
+close Spain!’ Is Spain, then, open, so that it is needful to close it; or
+what is the meaning of this form?”
+
+“Thou art very simple, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “God, look you, gave
+that great knight of the Red Cross to Spain as her patron saint and
+protector, especially in those hard struggles the Spaniards had with the
+Moors; and therefore they invoke and call upon him as their defender in
+all their battles; and in these he has been many a time seen beating
+down, trampling under foot, destroying and slaughtering the Hagarene
+squadrons in the sight of all; of which fact I could give thee many
+examples recorded in truthful Spanish histories.”
+
+Sancho changed the subject, and said to his master, “I marvel, señor, at
+the boldness of Altisidora, the duchess’s handmaid; he whom they call
+Love must have cruelly pierced and wounded her; they say he is a little
+blind urchin who, though blear-eyed, or more properly speaking sightless,
+if he aims at a heart, be it ever so small, hits it and pierces it
+through and through with his arrows. I have heard it said too that the
+arrows of Love are blunted and robbed of their points by maidenly modesty
+and reserve; but with this Altisidora it seems they are sharpened rather
+than blunted.”
+
+“Bear in mind, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that love is influenced by no
+consideration, recognises no restraints of reason, and is of the same
+nature as death, that assails alike the lofty palaces of kings and the
+humble cabins of shepherds; and when it takes entire possession of a
+heart, the first thing it does is to banish fear and shame from it; and
+so without shame Altisidora declared her passion, which excited in my
+mind embarrassment rather than commiseration.”
+
+“Notable cruelty!” exclaimed Sancho; “unheard-of ingratitude! I can only
+say for myself that the very smallest loving word of hers would have
+subdued me and made a slave of me. The devil! What a heart of marble,
+what bowels of brass, what a soul of mortar! But I can’t imagine what it
+is that this damsel saw in your worship that could have conquered and
+captivated her so. What gallant figure was it, what bold bearing, what
+sprightly grace, what comeliness of feature, which of these things by
+itself, or what all together, could have made her fall in love with you?
+For indeed and in truth many a time I stop to look at your worship from
+the sole of your foot to the topmost hair of your head, and I see more to
+frighten one than to make one fall in love; moreover I have heard say
+that beauty is the first and main thing that excites love, and as your
+worship has none at all, I don’t know what the poor creature fell in love
+with.”
+
+“Recollect, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “there are two sorts of beauty,
+one of the mind, the other of the body; that of the mind displays and
+exhibits itself in intelligence, in modesty, in honourable conduct, in
+generosity, in good breeding; and all these qualities are possible and
+may exist in an ugly man; and when it is this sort of beauty and not that
+of the body that is the attraction, love is apt to spring up suddenly and
+violently. I, Sancho, perceive clearly enough that I am not beautiful,
+but at the same time I know I am not hideous; and it is enough for an
+honest man not to be a monster to be an object of love, if only he
+possesses the endowments of mind I have mentioned.”
+
+While engaged in this discourse they were making their way through a wood
+that lay beyond the road, when suddenly, without expecting anything of
+the kind, Don Quixote found himself caught in some nets of green cord
+stretched from one tree to another; and unable to conceive what it could
+be, he said to Sancho, “Sancho, it strikes me this affair of these nets
+will prove one of the strangest adventures imaginable. May I die if the
+enchanters that persecute me are not trying to entangle me in them and
+delay my journey, by way of revenge for my obduracy towards Altisidora.
+Well then let me tell them that if these nets, instead of being green
+cord, were made of the hardest diamonds, or stronger than that wherewith
+the jealous god of blacksmiths enmeshed Venus and Mars, I would break
+them as easily as if they were made of rushes or cotton threads.” But
+just as he was about to press forward and break through all, suddenly
+from among some trees two shepherdesses of surpassing beauty presented
+themselves to his sight--or at least damsels dressed like shepherdesses,
+save that their jerkins and sayas were of fine brocade; that is to say,
+the sayas were rich farthingales of gold embroidered tabby. Their hair,
+that in its golden brightness vied with the beams of the sun itself, fell
+loose upon their shoulders and was crowned with garlands twined with
+green laurel and red everlasting; and their years to all appearance were
+not under fifteen nor above eighteen.
+
+Such was the spectacle that filled Sancho with amazement, fascinated Don
+Quixote, made the sun halt in his course to behold them, and held all
+four in a strange silence. One of the shepherdesses, at length, was the
+first to speak and said to Don Quixote, “Hold, sir knight, and do not
+break these nets; for they are not spread here to do you any harm, but
+only for our amusement; and as I know you will ask why they have been put
+up, and who we are, I will tell you in a few words. In a village some two
+leagues from this, where there are many people of quality and rich
+gentlefolk, it was agreed upon by a number of friends and relations to
+come with their wives, sons and daughters, neighbours, friends and
+kinsmen, and make holiday in this spot, which is one of the pleasantest
+in the whole neighbourhood, setting up a new pastoral Arcadia among
+ourselves, we maidens dressing ourselves as shepherdesses and the youths
+as shepherds. We have prepared two eclogues, one by the famous poet
+Garcilasso, the other by the most excellent Camoens, in its own
+Portuguese tongue, but we have not as yet acted them. Yesterday was the
+first day of our coming here; we have a few of what they say are called
+field-tents pitched among the trees on the bank of an ample brook that
+fertilises all these meadows; last night we spread these nets in the
+trees here to snare the silly little birds that startled by the noise we
+make may fly into them. If you please to be our guest, señor, you will be
+welcomed heartily and courteously, for here just now neither care nor
+sorrow shall enter.”
+
+She held her peace and said no more, and Don Quixote made answer, “Of a
+truth, fairest lady, Actaeon when he unexpectedly beheld Diana bathing in
+the stream could not have been more fascinated and wonderstruck than I at
+the sight of your beauty. I commend your mode of entertainment, and thank
+you for the kindness of your invitation; and if I can serve you, you may
+command me with full confidence of being obeyed, for my profession is
+none other than to show myself grateful, and ready to serve persons of
+all conditions, but especially persons of quality such as your appearance
+indicates; and if, instead of taking up, as they probably do, but a small
+space, these nets took up the whole surface of the globe, I would seek
+out new worlds through which to pass, so as not to break them; and that
+ye may give some degree of credence to this exaggerated language of mine,
+know that it is no less than Don Quixote of La Mancha that makes this
+declaration to you, if indeed it be that such a name has reached your
+ears.”
+
+“Ah! friend of my soul,” instantly exclaimed the other shepherdess, “what
+great good fortune has befallen us! Seest thou this gentleman we have
+before us? Well then let me tell thee he is the most valiant and the most
+devoted and the most courteous gentleman in all the world, unless a
+history of his achievements that has been printed and I have read is
+telling lies and deceiving us. I will lay a wager that this good fellow
+who is with him is one Sancho Panza his squire, whose drolleries none can
+equal.”
+
+“That’s true,” said Sancho; “I am that same droll and squire you speak
+of, and this gentleman is my master Don Quixote of La Mancha, the same
+that’s in the history and that they talk about.”
+
+“Oh, my friend,” said the other, “let us entreat him to stay; for it will
+give our fathers and brothers infinite pleasure; I too have heard just
+what thou hast told me of the valour of the one and the drolleries of the
+other; and what is more, of him they say that he is the most constant and
+loyal lover that was ever heard of, and that his lady is one Dulcinea del
+Toboso, to whom all over Spain the palm of beauty is awarded.”
+
+“And justly awarded,” said Don Quixote, “unless, indeed, your unequalled
+beauty makes it a matter of doubt. But spare yourselves the trouble,
+ladies, of pressing me to stay, for the urgent calls of my profession do
+not allow me to take rest under any circumstances.”
+
+At this instant there came up to the spot where the four stood a brother
+of one of the two shepherdesses, like them in shepherd costume, and as
+richly and gaily dressed as they were. They told him that their companion
+was the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha, and the other Sancho his
+squire, of whom he knew already from having read their history. The gay
+shepherd offered him his services and begged that he would accompany him
+to their tents, and Don Quixote had to give way and comply. And now the
+game was started, and the nets were filled with a variety of birds that
+deceived by the colour fell into the danger they were flying from.
+Upwards of thirty persons, all gaily attired as shepherds and
+shepherdesses, assembled on the spot, and were at once informed who Don
+Quixote and his squire were, whereat they were not a little delighted, as
+they knew of him already through his history. They repaired to the tents,
+where they found tables laid out, and choicely, plentifully, and neatly
+furnished. They treated Don Quixote as a person of distinction, giving
+him the place of honour, and all observed him, and were full of
+astonishment at the spectacle. At last the cloth being removed, Don
+Quixote with great composure lifted up his voice and said:
+
+“One of the greatest sins that men are guilty of is--some will say
+pride--but I say ingratitude, going by the common saying that hell is
+full of ingrates. This sin, so far as it has lain in my power, I have
+endeavoured to avoid ever since I have enjoyed the faculty of reason; and
+if I am unable to requite good deeds that have been done me by other
+deeds, I substitute the desire to do so; and if that be not enough I make
+them known publicly; for he who declares and makes known the good deeds
+done to him would repay them by others if it were in his power, and for
+the most part those who receive are the inferiors of those who give.
+Thus, God is superior to all because he is the supreme giver, and the
+offerings of man fall short by an infinite distance of being a full
+return for the gifts of God; but gratitude in some degree makes up for
+this deficiency and shortcoming. I therefore, grateful for the favour
+that has been extended to me here, and unable to make a return in the
+same measure, restricted as I am by the narrow limits of my power, offer
+what I can and what I have to offer in my own way; and so I declare that
+for two full days I will maintain in the middle of this highway leading
+to Saragossa, that these ladies disguised as shepherdesses, who are here
+present, are the fairest and most courteous maidens in the world,
+excepting only the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, sole mistress of my
+thoughts, be it said without offence to those who hear me, ladies and
+gentlemen.”
+
+On hearing this Sancho, who had been listening with great attention,
+cried out in a loud voice, “Is it possible there is anyone in the world
+who will dare to say and swear that this master of mine is a madman? Say,
+gentlemen shepherds, is there a village priest, be he ever so wise or
+learned, who could say what my master has said; or is there
+knight-errant, whatever renown he may have as a man of valour, that could
+offer what my master has offered now?”
+
+Don Quixote turned upon Sancho, and with a countenance glowing with anger
+said to him, “Is it possible, Sancho, there is anyone in the whole world
+who will say thou art not a fool, with a lining to match, and I know not
+what trimmings of impertinence and roguery? Who asked thee to meddle in
+my affairs, or to inquire whether I am a wise man or a blockhead? Hold
+thy peace; answer me not a word; saddle Rocinante if he be unsaddled; and
+let us go to put my offer into execution; for with the right that I have
+on my side thou mayest reckon as vanquished all who shall venture to
+question it;” and in a great rage, and showing his anger plainly, he rose
+from his seat, leaving the company lost in wonder, and making them feel
+doubtful whether they ought to regard him as a madman or a rational
+being. In the end, though they sought to dissuade him from involving
+himself in such a challenge, assuring him they admitted his gratitude as
+fully established, and needed no fresh proofs to be convinced of his
+valiant spirit, as those related in the history of his exploits were
+sufficient, still Don Quixote persisted in his resolve; and mounted on
+Rocinante, bracing his buckler on his arm and grasping his lance, he
+posted himself in the middle of a high road that was not far from the
+green meadow. Sancho followed on Dapple, together with all the members of
+the pastoral gathering, eager to see what would be the upshot of his
+vainglorious and extraordinary proposal.
+
+Don Quixote, then, having, as has been said, planted himself in the
+middle of the road, made the welkin ring with words to this effect: “Ho
+ye travellers and wayfarers, knights, squires, folk on foot or on
+horseback, who pass this way or shall pass in the course of the next two
+days! Know that Don Quixote of La Mancha, knight-errant, is posted here
+to maintain by arms that the beauty and courtesy enshrined in the nymphs
+that dwell in these meadows and groves surpass all upon earth, putting
+aside the lady of my heart, Dulcinea del Toboso. Wherefore, let him who
+is of the opposite opinion come on, for here I await him.”
+
+Twice he repeated the same words, and twice they fell unheard by any
+adventurer; but fate, that was guiding affairs for him from better to
+better, so ordered it that shortly afterwards there appeared on the road
+a crowd of men on horseback, many of them with lances in their hands, all
+riding in a compact body and in great haste. No sooner had those who were
+with Don Quixote seen them than they turned about and withdrew to some
+distance from the road, for they knew that if they stayed some harm might
+come to them; but Don Quixote with intrepid heart stood his ground, and
+Sancho Panza shielded himself with Rocinante’s hind-quarters. The troop
+of lancers came up, and one of them who was in advance began shouting to
+Don Quixote, “Get out of the way, you son of the devil, or these bulls
+will knock you to pieces!”
+
+“Rabble!” returned Don Quixote, “I care nothing for bulls, be they the
+fiercest Jarama breeds on its banks. Confess at once, scoundrels, that
+what I have declared is true; else ye have to deal with me in combat.”
+
+The herdsman had no time to reply, nor Don Quixote to get out of the way
+even if he wished; and so the drove of fierce bulls and tame bullocks,
+together with the crowd of herdsmen and others who were taking them to be
+penned up in a village where they were to be run the next day, passed
+over Don Quixote and over Sancho, Rocinante and Dapple, hurling them all
+to the earth and rolling them over on the ground. Sancho was left
+crushed, Don Quixote scared, Dapple belaboured and Rocinante in no very
+sound condition.
+
+They all got up, however, at length, and Don Quixote in great haste,
+stumbling here and falling there, started off running after the drove,
+shouting out, “Hold! stay! ye rascally rabble, a single knight awaits
+you, and he is not of the temper or opinion of those who say, ‘For a
+flying enemy make a bridge of silver.’” The retreating party in their
+haste, however, did not stop for that, or heed his menaces any more than
+last year’s clouds. Weariness brought Don Quixote to a halt, and more
+enraged than avenged he sat down on the road to wait until Sancho,
+Rocinante and Dapple came up. When they reached him master and man
+mounted once more, and without going back to bid farewell to the mock or
+imitation Arcadia, and more in humiliation than contentment, they
+continued their journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+
+WHEREIN IS RELATED THE STRANGE THING, WHICH MAY BE REGARDED AS AN
+ADVENTURE, THAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE
+
+
+A clear limpid spring which they discovered in a cool grove relieved Don
+Quixote and Sancho of the dust and fatigue due to the unpolite behaviour
+of the bulls, and by the side of this, having turned Dapple and Rocinante
+loose without headstall or bridle, the forlorn pair, master and man,
+seated themselves. Sancho had recourse to the larder of his alforjas and
+took out of them what he called the prog; Don Quixote rinsed his mouth
+and bathed his face, by which cooling process his flagging energies were
+revived. Out of pure vexation he remained without eating, and out of pure
+politeness Sancho did not venture to touch a morsel of what was before
+him, but waited for his master to act as taster. Seeing, however, that,
+absorbed in thought, he was forgetting to carry the bread to his mouth,
+he said never a word, and trampling every sort of good breeding under
+foot, began to stow away in his paunch the bread and cheese that came to
+his hand.
+
+“Eat, Sancho my friend,” said Don Quixote; “support life, which is of
+more consequence to thee than to me, and leave me to die under the pain
+of my thoughts and pressure of my misfortunes. I was born, Sancho, to
+live dying, and thou to die eating; and to prove the truth of what I say,
+look at me, printed in histories, famed in arms, courteous in behaviour,
+honoured by princes, courted by maidens; and after all, when I looked
+forward to palms, triumphs, and crowns, won and earned by my valiant
+deeds, I have this morning seen myself trampled on, kicked, and crushed
+by the feet of unclean and filthy animals. This thought blunts my teeth,
+paralyses my jaws, cramps my hands, and robs me of all appetite for food;
+so much so that I have a mind to let myself die of hunger, the cruelest
+death of all deaths.”
+
+“So then,” said Sancho, munching hard all the time, “your worship does
+not agree with the proverb that says, ‘Let Martha die, but let her die
+with a full belly.’ I, at any rate, have no mind to kill myself; so far
+from that, I mean to do as the cobbler does, who stretches the leather
+with his teeth until he makes it reach as far as he wants. I’ll stretch
+out my life by eating until it reaches the end heaven has fixed for it;
+and let me tell you, señor, there’s no greater folly than to think of
+dying of despair as your worship does; take my advice, and after eating
+lie down and sleep a bit on this green grass-mattress, and you will see
+that when you awake you’ll feel something better.”
+
+Don Quixote did as he recommended, for it struck him that Sancho’s
+reasoning was more like a philosopher’s than a blockhead’s, and said he,
+“Sancho, if thou wilt do for me what I am going to tell thee my ease of
+mind would be more assured and my heaviness of heart not so great; and it
+is this; to go aside a little while I am sleeping in accordance with thy
+advice, and, making bare thy carcase to the air, to give thyself three or
+four hundred lashes with Rocinante’s reins, on account of the three
+thousand and odd thou art to give thyself for the disenchantment of
+Dulcinea; for it is a great pity that the poor lady should be left
+enchanted through thy carelessness and negligence.”
+
+“There is a good deal to be said on that point,” said Sancho; “let us
+both go to sleep now, and after that, God has decreed what will happen.
+Let me tell your worship that for a man to whip himself in cold blood is
+a hard thing, especially if the stripes fall upon an ill-nourished and
+worse-fed body. Let my lady Dulcinea have patience, and when she is least
+expecting it, she will see me made a riddle of with whipping, and ‘until
+death it’s all life;’ I mean that I have still life in me, and the desire
+to make good what I have promised.”
+
+Don Quixote thanked him, and ate a little, and Sancho a good deal, and
+then they both lay down to sleep, leaving those two inseparable friends
+and comrades, Rocinante and Dapple, to their own devices and to feed
+unrestrained upon the abundant grass with which the meadow was furnished.
+They woke up rather late, mounted once more and resumed their journey,
+pushing on to reach an inn which was in sight, apparently a league off. I
+say an inn, because Don Quixote called it so, contrary to his usual
+practice of calling all inns castles. They reached it, and asked the
+landlord if they could put up there. He said yes, with as much comfort
+and as good fare as they could find in Saragossa. They dismounted, and
+Sancho stowed away his larder in a room of which the landlord gave him
+the key. He took the beasts to the stable, fed them, and came back to see
+what orders Don Quixote, who was seated on a bench at the door, had for
+him, giving special thanks to heaven that this inn had not been taken for
+a castle by his master. Supper-time came, and they repaired to their
+room, and Sancho asked the landlord what he had to give them for supper.
+To this the landlord replied that his mouth should be the measure; he had
+only to ask what he would; for that inn was provided with the birds of
+the air and the fowls of the earth and the fish of the sea.
+
+“There’s no need of all that,” said Sancho; “if they’ll roast us a couple
+of chickens we’ll be satisfied, for my master is delicate and eats
+little, and I’m not over and above gluttonous.”
+
+The landlord replied he had no chickens, for the kites had stolen them.
+
+“Well then,” said Sancho, “let señor landlord tell them to roast a
+pullet, so that it is a tender one.”
+
+“Pullet! My father!” said the landlord; “indeed and in truth it’s only
+yesterday I sent over fifty to the city to sell; but saving pullets ask
+what you will.”
+
+“In that case,” said Sancho, “you will not be without veal or kid.”
+
+“Just now,” said the landlord, “there’s none in the house, for it’s all
+finished; but next week there will be enough and to spare.”
+
+“Much good that does us,” said Sancho; “I’ll lay a bet that all these
+short-comings are going to wind up in plenty of bacon and eggs.”
+
+“By God,” said the landlord, “my guest’s wits must be precious dull; I
+tell him I have neither pullets nor hens, and he wants me to have eggs!
+Talk of other dainties, if you please, and don’t ask for hens again.”
+
+“Body o’ me!” said Sancho, “let’s settle the matter; say at once what you
+have got, and let us have no more words about it.”
+
+“In truth and earnest, señor guest,” said the landlord, “all I have is a
+couple of cow-heels like calves’ feet, or a couple of calves’ feet like
+cowheels; they are boiled with chick-peas, onions, and bacon, and at this
+moment they are crying ‘Come eat me, come eat me.”
+
+“I mark them for mine on the spot,” said Sancho; “let nobody touch them;
+I’ll pay better for them than anyone else, for I could not wish for
+anything more to my taste; and I don’t care a pin whether they are feet
+or heels.”
+
+“Nobody shall touch them,” said the landlord; “for the other guests I
+have, being persons of high quality, bring their own cook and caterer and
+larder with them.”
+
+“If you come to people of quality,” said Sancho, “there’s nobody more so
+than my master; but the calling he follows does not allow of larders or
+store-rooms; we lay ourselves down in the middle of a meadow, and fill
+ourselves with acorns or medlars.”
+
+Here ended Sancho’s conversation with the landlord, Sancho not caring to
+carry it any farther by answering him; for he had already asked him what
+calling or what profession it was his master was of.
+
+Supper-time having come, then, Don Quixote betook himself to his room,
+the landlord brought in the stew-pan just as it was, and he sat himself
+down to sup very resolutely. It seems that in another room, which was
+next to Don Quixote’s, with nothing but a thin partition to separate it,
+he overheard these words, “As you live, Señor Don Jeronimo, while they
+are bringing supper, let us read another chapter of the Second Part of
+‘Don Quixote of La Mancha.’”
+
+The instant Don Quixote heard his own name, be started to his feet and
+listened with open ears to catch what they said about him, and heard the
+Don Jeronimo who had been addressed say in reply, “Why would you have us
+read that absurd stuff, Don Juan, when it is impossible for anyone who
+has read the First Part of the history of ‘Don Quixote of La Mancha’ to
+take any pleasure in reading this Second Part?”
+
+“For all that,” said he who was addressed as Don Juan, “we shall do well
+to read it, for there is no book so bad but it has something good in it.
+What displeases me most in it is that it represents Don Quixote as now
+cured of his love for Dulcinea del Toboso.”
+
+On hearing this Don Quixote, full of wrath and indignation, lifted up his
+voice and said, “Whoever he may be who says that Don Quixote of La Mancha
+has forgotten or can forget Dulcinea del Toboso, I will teach him with
+equal arms that what he says is very far from the truth; for neither can
+the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso be forgotten, nor can forgetfulness have
+a place in Don Quixote; his motto is constancy, and his profession to
+maintain the same with his life and never wrong it.”
+
+“Who is this that answers us?” said they in the next room.
+
+“Who should it be,” said Sancho, “but Don Quixote of La Mancha himself,
+who will make good all he has said and all he will say; for pledges don’t
+trouble a good payer.”
+
+Sancho had hardly uttered these words when two gentlemen, for such they
+seemed to be, entered the room, and one of them, throwing his arms round
+Don Quixote’s neck, said to him, “Your appearance cannot leave any
+question as to your name, nor can your name fail to identify your
+appearance; unquestionably, señor, you are the real Don Quixote of La
+Mancha, cynosure and morning star of knight-errantry, despite and in
+defiance of him who has sought to usurp your name and bring to naught
+your achievements, as the author of this book which I here present to you
+has done;” and with this he put a book which his companion carried into
+the hands of Don Quixote, who took it, and without replying began to run
+his eye over it; but he presently returned it saying, “In the little I
+have seen I have discovered three things in this author that deserve to
+be censured. The first is some words that I have read in the preface; the
+next that the language is Aragonese, for sometimes he writes without
+articles; and the third, which above all stamps him as ignorant, is that
+he goes wrong and departs from the truth in the most important part of
+the history, for here he says that my squire Sancho Panza’s wife is
+called Mari Gutierrez, when she is called nothing of the sort, but Teresa
+Panza; and when a man errs on such an important point as this there is
+good reason to fear that he is in error on every other point in the
+history.”
+
+“A nice sort of historian, indeed!” exclaimed Sancho at this; “he must
+know a deal about our affairs when he calls my wife Teresa Panza, Mari
+Gutierrez; take the book again, señor, and see if I am in it and if he
+has changed my name.”
+
+“From your talk, friend,” said Don Jeronimo, “no doubt you are Sancho
+Panza, Señor Don Quixote’s squire.”
+
+“Yes, I am,” said Sancho; “and I’m proud of it.”
+
+“Faith, then,” said the gentleman, “this new author does not handle you
+with the decency that displays itself in your person; he makes you out a
+heavy feeder and a fool, and not in the least droll, and a very different
+being from the Sancho described in the First Part of your master’s
+history.”
+
+“God forgive him,” said Sancho; “he might have left me in my corner
+without troubling his head about me; ‘let him who knows how ring the
+bells; ‘Saint Peter is very well in Rome.’”
+
+The two gentlemen pressed Don Quixote to come into their room and have
+supper with them, as they knew very well there was nothing in that inn
+fit for one of his sort. Don Quixote, who was always polite, yielded to
+their request and supped with them. Sancho stayed behind with the stew.
+and invested with plenary delegated authority seated himself at the head
+of the table, and the landlord sat down with him, for he was no less fond
+of cow-heel and calves’ feet than Sancho was.
+
+While at supper Don Juan asked Don Quixote what news he had of the lady
+Dulcinea del Toboso, was she married, had she been brought to bed, or was
+she with child, or did she in maidenhood, still preserving her modesty
+and delicacy, cherish the remembrance of the tender passion of Señor Don
+Quixote?
+
+To this he replied, “Dulcinea is a maiden still, and my passion more
+firmly rooted than ever, our intercourse unsatisfactory as before, and
+her beauty transformed into that of a foul country wench;” and then he
+proceeded to give them a full and particular account of the enchantment
+of Dulcinea, and of what had happened him in the cave of Montesinos,
+together with what the sage Merlin had prescribed for her disenchantment,
+namely the scourging of Sancho.
+
+Exceedingly great was the amusement the two gentlemen derived from
+hearing Don Quixote recount the strange incidents of his history; and if
+they were amazed by his absurdities they were equally amazed by the
+elegant style in which he delivered them. On the one hand they regarded
+him as a man of wit and sense, and on the other he seemed to them a
+maundering blockhead, and they could not make up their minds whereabouts
+between wisdom and folly they ought to place him.
+
+Sancho having finished his supper, and left the landlord in the X
+condition, repaired to the room where his master was, and as he came in
+said, “May I die, sirs, if the author of this book your worships have got
+has any mind that we should agree; as he calls me glutton (according to
+what your worships say) I wish he may not call me drunkard too.”
+
+“But he does,” said Don Jeronimo; “I cannot remember, however, in what
+way, though I know his words are offensive, and what is more, lying, as I
+can see plainly by the physiognomy of the worthy Sancho before me.”
+
+“Believe me,” said Sancho, “the Sancho and the Don Quixote of this
+history must be different persons from those that appear in the one Cide
+Hamete Benengeli wrote, who are ourselves; my master valiant, wise, and
+true in love, and I simple, droll, and neither glutton nor drunkard.”
+
+“I believe it,” said Don Juan; “and were it possible, an order should be
+issued that no one should have the presumption to deal with anything
+relating to Don Quixote, save his original author Cide Hamete; just as
+Alexander commanded that no one should presume to paint his portrait save
+Apelles.”
+
+“Let him who will paint me,” said Don Quixote; “but let him not abuse me;
+for patience will often break down when they heap insults upon it.”
+
+“None can be offered to Señor Don Quixote,” said Don Juan, “that he
+himself will not be able to avenge, if he does not ward it off with the
+shield of his patience, which, I take it, is great and strong.”
+
+A considerable portion of the night passed in conversation of this sort,
+and though Don Juan wished Don Quixote to read more of the book to see
+what it was all about, he was not to be prevailed upon, saying that he
+treated it as read and pronounced it utterly silly; and, if by any chance
+it should come to its author’s ears that he had it in his hand, he did
+not want him to flatter himself with the idea that he had read it; for
+our thoughts, and still more our eyes, should keep themselves aloof from
+what is obscene and filthy.
+
+They asked him whither he meant to direct his steps. He replied, to
+Saragossa, to take part in the harness jousts which were held in that
+city every year. Don Juan told him that the new history described how Don
+Quixote, let him be who he might, took part there in a tilting at the
+ring, utterly devoid of invention, poor in mottoes, very poor in costume,
+though rich in sillinesses.
+
+“For that very reason,” said Don Quixote, “I will not set foot in
+Saragossa; and by that means I shall expose to the world the lie of this
+new history writer, and people will see that I am not the Don Quixote he
+speaks of.”
+
+“You will do quite right,” said Don Jeronimo; “and there are other jousts
+at Barcelona in which Señor Don Quixote may display his prowess.”
+
+“That is what I mean to do,” said Don Quixote; “and as it is now time, I
+pray your worships to give me leave to retire to bed, and to place and
+retain me among the number of your greatest friends and servants.”
+
+“And me too,” said Sancho; “maybe I’ll be good for something.”
+
+With this they exchanged farewells, and Don Quixote and Sancho retired to
+their room, leaving Don Juan and Don Jeronimo amazed to see the medley he
+made of his good sense and his craziness; and they felt thoroughly
+convinced that these, and not those their Aragonese author described,
+were the genuine Don Quixote and Sancho. Don Quixote rose betimes, and
+bade adieu to his hosts by knocking at the partition of the other room.
+Sancho paid the landlord magnificently, and recommended him either to say
+less about the providing of his inn or to keep it better provided.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX.
+
+OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE ON HIS WAY TO BARCELONA
+
+
+It was a fresh morning giving promise of a cool day as Don Quixote
+quitted the inn, first of all taking care to ascertain the most direct
+road to Barcelona without touching upon Saragossa; so anxious was he to
+make out this new historian, who they said abused him so, to be a liar.
+Well, as it fell out, nothing worthy of being recorded happened him for
+six days, at the end of which, having turned aside out of the road, he
+was overtaken by night in a thicket of oak or cork trees; for on this
+point Cide Hamete is not as precise as he usually is on other matters.
+
+Master and man dismounted from their beasts, and as soon as they had
+settled themselves at the foot of the trees, Sancho, who had had a good
+noontide meal that day, let himself, without more ado, pass the gates of
+sleep. But Don Quixote, whom his thoughts, far more than hunger, kept
+awake, could not close an eye, and roamed in fancy to and fro through all
+sorts of places. At one moment it seemed to him that he was in the cave
+of Montesinos and saw Dulcinea, transformed into a country wench,
+skipping and mounting upon her she-ass; again that the words of the sage
+Merlin were sounding in his ears, setting forth the conditions to be
+observed and the exertions to be made for the disenchantment of Dulcinea.
+He lost all patience when he considered the laziness and want of charity
+of his squire Sancho; for to the best of his belief he had only given
+himself five lashes, a number paltry and disproportioned to the vast
+number required. At this thought he felt such vexation and anger that he
+reasoned the matter thus: “If Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot,
+saying, ‘To cut comes to the same thing as to untie,’ and yet did not
+fail to become lord paramount of all Asia, neither more nor less could
+happen now in Dulcinea’s disenchantment if I scourge Sancho against his
+will; for, if it is the condition of the remedy that Sancho shall receive
+three thousand and odd lashes, what does it matter to me whether he
+inflicts them himself, or some one else inflicts them, when the essential
+point is that he receives them, let them come from whatever quarter they
+may?”
+
+With this idea he went over to Sancho, having first taken Rocinante’s
+reins and arranged them so as to be able to flog him with them, and began
+to untie the points (the common belief is he had but one in front) by
+which his breeches were held up; but the instant he approached him Sancho
+woke up in his full senses and cried out, “What is this? Who is touching
+me and untrussing me?”
+
+“It is I,” said Don Quixote, “and I come to make good thy shortcomings
+and relieve my own distresses; I come to whip thee, Sancho, and wipe off
+some portion of the debt thou hast undertaken. Dulcinea is perishing,
+thou art living on regardless, I am dying of hope deferred; therefore
+untruss thyself with a good will, for mine it is, here, in this retired
+spot, to give thee at least two thousand lashes.”
+
+“Not a bit of it,” said Sancho; “let your worship keep quiet, or else by
+the living God the deaf shall hear us; the lashes I pledged myself to
+must be voluntary and not forced upon me, and just now I have no fancy to
+whip myself; it is enough if I give you my word to flog and flap myself
+when I have a mind.”
+
+“It will not do to leave it to thy courtesy, Sancho,” said Don Quixote,
+“for thou art hard of heart and, though a clown, tender of flesh;” and at
+the same time he strove and struggled to untie him.
+
+Seeing this Sancho got up, and grappling with his master he gripped him
+with all his might in his arms, giving him a trip with the heel stretched
+him on the ground on his back, and pressing his right knee on his chest
+held his hands in his own so that he could neither move nor breathe.
+
+“How now, traitor!” exclaimed Don Quixote. “Dost thou revolt against thy
+master and natural lord? Dost thou rise against him who gives thee his
+bread?”
+
+“I neither put down king, nor set up king,” said Sancho; “I only stand up
+for myself who am my own lord; if your worship promises me to be quiet,
+and not to offer to whip me now, I’ll let you go free and unhindered; if
+not--
+
+Traitor and Dona Sancha’s foe,
+Thou diest on the spot.”
+ Don Quixote gave his promise, and swore by the life of his thoughts not
+to touch so much as a hair of his garments, and to leave him entirely
+free and to his own discretion to whip himself whenever he pleased.
+
+Sancho rose and removed some distance from the spot, but as he was about
+to place himself leaning against another tree he felt something touch his
+head, and putting up his hands encountered somebody’s two feet with shoes
+and stockings on them. He trembled with fear and made for another tree,
+where the very same thing happened to him, and he fell a-shouting,
+calling upon Don Quixote to come and protect him. Don Quixote did so, and
+asked him what had happened to him, and what he was afraid of. Sancho
+replied that all the trees were full of men’s feet and legs. Don Quixote
+felt them, and guessed at once what it was, and said to Sancho, “Thou
+hast nothing to be afraid of, for these feet and legs that thou feelest
+but canst not see belong no doubt to some outlaws and freebooters that
+have been hanged on these trees; for the authorities in these parts are
+wont to hang them up by twenties and thirties when they catch them;
+whereby I conjecture that I must be near Barcelona;” and it was, in fact,
+as he supposed; with the first light they looked up and saw that the
+fruit hanging on those trees were freebooters’ bodies.
+
+And now day dawned; and if the dead freebooters had scared them, their
+hearts were no less troubled by upwards of forty living ones, who all of
+a sudden surrounded them, and in the Catalan tongue bade them stand and
+wait until their captain came up. Don Quixote was on foot with his horse
+unbridled and his lance leaning against a tree, and in short completely
+defenceless; he thought it best therefore to fold his arms and bow his
+head and reserve himself for a more favourable occasion and opportunity.
+The robbers made haste to search Dapple, and did not leave him a single
+thing of all he carried in the alforjas and in the valise; and lucky it
+was for Sancho that the duke’s crowns and those he brought from home were
+in a girdle that he wore round him; but for all that these good folk
+would have stripped him, and even looked to see what he had hidden
+between the skin and flesh, but for the arrival at that moment of their
+captain, who was about thirty-four years of age apparently, strongly
+built, above the middle height, of stern aspect and swarthy complexion.
+He was mounted upon a powerful horse, and had on a coat of mail, with
+four of the pistols they call petronels in that country at his waist. He
+saw that his squires (for so they call those who follow that trade) were
+about to rifle Sancho Panza, but he ordered them to desist and was at
+once obeyed, so the girdle escaped. He wondered to see the lance leaning
+against the tree, the shield on the ground, and Don Quixote in armour and
+dejected, with the saddest and most melancholy face that sadness itself
+could produce; and going up to him he said, “Be not so cast down, good
+man, for you have not fallen into the hands of any inhuman Busiris, but
+into Roque Guinart’s, which are more merciful than cruel.”
+
+“The cause of my dejection,” returned Don Quixote, “is not that I have
+fallen into thy hands, O valiant Roque, whose fame is bounded by no
+limits on earth, but that my carelessness should have been so great that
+thy soldiers should have caught me unbridled, when it is my duty,
+according to the rule of knight-errantry which I profess, to be always on
+the alert and at all times my own sentinel; for let me tell thee, great
+Roque, had they found me on my horse, with my lance and shield, it would
+not have been very easy for them to reduce me to submission, for I am Don
+Quixote of La Mancha, he who hath filled the whole world with his
+achievements.”
+
+Roque Guinart at once perceived that Don Quixote’s weakness was more akin
+to madness than to swagger; and though he had sometimes heard him spoken
+of, he never regarded the things attributed to him as true, nor could he
+persuade himself that such a humour could become dominant in the heart of
+man; he was extremely glad, therefore, to meet him and test at close
+quarters what he had heard of him at a distance; so he said to him,
+“Despair not, valiant knight, nor regard as an untoward fate the position
+in which thou findest thyself; it may be that by these slips thy crooked
+fortune will make itself straight; for heaven by strange circuitous ways,
+mysterious and incomprehensible to man, raises up the fallen and makes
+rich the poor.”
+
+Don Quixote was about to thank him, when they heard behind them a noise
+as of a troop of horses; there was, however, but one, riding on which at
+a furious pace came a youth, apparently about twenty years of age, clad
+in green damask edged with gold and breeches and a loose frock, with a
+hat looped up in the Walloon fashion, tight-fitting polished boots, gilt
+spurs, dagger and sword, and in his hand a musketoon, and a pair of
+pistols at his waist.
+
+Roque turned round at the noise and perceived this comely figure, which
+drawing near thus addressed him, “I came in quest of thee, valiant Roque,
+to find in thee if not a remedy at least relief in my misfortune; and not
+to keep thee in suspense, for I see thou dost not recognise me, I will
+tell thee who I am; I am Claudia Jeronima, the daughter of Simon Forte,
+thy good friend, and special enemy of Clauquel Torrellas, who is thine
+also as being of the faction opposed to thee. Thou knowest that this
+Torrellas has a son who is called, or at least was not two hours since,
+Don Vicente Torrellas. Well, to cut short the tale of my misfortune, I
+will tell thee in a few words what this youth has brought upon me. He saw
+me, he paid court to me, I listened to him, and, unknown to my father, I
+loved him; for there is no woman, however secluded she may live or close
+she may be kept, who will not have opportunities and to spare for
+following her headlong impulses. In a word, he pledged himself to be
+mine, and I promised to be his, without carrying matters any further.
+Yesterday I learned that, forgetful of his pledge to me, he was about to
+marry another, and that he was to go this morning to plight his troth,
+intelligence which overwhelmed and exasperated me; my father not being at
+home I was able to adopt this costume you see, and urging my horse to
+speed I overtook Don Vicente about a league from this, and without
+waiting to utter reproaches or hear excuses I fired this musket at him,
+and these two pistols besides, and to the best of my belief I must have
+lodged more than two bullets in his body, opening doors to let my honour
+go free, enveloped in his blood. I left him there in the hands of his
+servants, who did not dare and were not able to interfere in his defence,
+and I come to seek from thee a safe-conduct into France, where I have
+relatives with whom I can live; and also to implore thee to protect my
+father, so that Don Vicente’s numerous kinsmen may not venture to wreak
+their lawless vengeance upon him.”
+
+Roque, filled with admiration at the gallant bearing, high spirit, comely
+figure, and adventure of the fair Claudia, said to her, “Come, señora,
+let us go and see if thy enemy is dead; and then we will consider what
+will be best for thee.” Don Quixote, who had been listening to what
+Claudia said and Roque Guinart said in reply to her, exclaimed, “Nobody
+need trouble himself with the defence of this lady, for I take it upon
+myself. Give me my horse and arms, and wait for me here; I will go in
+quest of this knight, and dead or alive I will make him keep his word
+plighted to so great beauty.”
+
+“Nobody need have any doubt about that,” said Sancho, “for my master has
+a very happy knack of matchmaking; it’s not many days since he forced
+another man to marry, who in the same way backed out of his promise to
+another maiden; and if it had not been for his persecutors the enchanters
+changing the man’s proper shape into a lacquey’s the said maiden would
+not be one this minute.”
+
+Roque, who was paying more attention to the fair Claudia’s adventure than
+to the words of master or man, did not hear them; and ordering his
+squires to restore to Sancho everything they had stripped Dapple of, he
+directed them to return to the place where they had been quartered during
+the night, and then set off with Claudia at full speed in search of the
+wounded or slain Don Vicente. They reached the spot where Claudia met
+him, but found nothing there save freshly spilt blood; looking all round,
+however, they descried some people on the slope of a hill above them, and
+concluded, as indeed it proved to be, that it was Don Vicente, whom
+either dead or alive his servants were removing to attend to his wounds
+or to bury him. They made haste to overtake them, which, as the party
+moved slowly, they were able to do with ease. They found Don Vicente in
+the arms of his servants, whom he was entreating in a broken feeble voice
+to leave him there to die, as the pain of his wounds would not suffer him
+to go any farther. Claudia and Roque threw themselves off their horses
+and advanced towards him; the servants were overawed by the appearance of
+Roque, and Claudia was moved by the sight of Don Vicente, and going up to
+him half tenderly half sternly, she seized his hand and said to him,
+“Hadst thou given me this according to our compact thou hadst never come
+to this pass.”
+
+The wounded gentleman opened his all but closed eyes, and recognising
+Claudia said, “I see clearly, fair and mistaken lady, that it is thou
+that hast slain me, a punishment not merited or deserved by my feelings
+towards thee, for never did I mean to, nor could I, wrong thee in thought
+or deed.”
+
+“It is not true, then,” said Claudia, “that thou wert going this morning
+to marry Leonora the daughter of the rich Balvastro?”
+
+“Assuredly not,” replied Don Vicente; “my cruel fortune must have carried
+those tidings to thee to drive thee in thy jealousy to take my life; and
+to assure thyself of this, press my hands and take me for thy husband if
+thou wilt; I have no better satisfaction to offer thee for the wrong thou
+fanciest thou hast received from me.”
+
+Claudia wrung his hands, and her own heart was so wrung that she lay
+fainting on the bleeding breast of Don Vicente, whom a death spasm seized
+the same instant. Roque was in perplexity and knew not what to do; the
+servants ran to fetch water to sprinkle their faces, and brought some and
+bathed them with it. Claudia recovered from her fainting fit, but not so
+Don Vicente from the paroxysm that had overtaken him, for his life had
+come to an end. On perceiving this, Claudia, when she had convinced
+herself that her beloved husband was no more, rent the air with her sighs
+and made the heavens ring with her lamentations; she tore her hair and
+scattered it to the winds, she beat her face with her hands and showed
+all the signs of grief and sorrow that could be conceived to come from an
+afflicted heart. “Cruel, reckless woman!” she cried, “how easily wert
+thou moved to carry out a thought so wicked! O furious force of jealousy,
+to what desperate lengths dost thou lead those that give thee lodging in
+their bosoms! O husband, whose unhappy fate in being mine hath borne thee
+from the marriage bed to the grave!”
+
+So vehement and so piteous were the lamentations of Claudia that they
+drew tears from Roque’s eyes, unused as they were to shed them on any
+occasion. The servants wept, Claudia swooned away again and again, and
+the whole place seemed a field of sorrow and an abode of misfortune. In
+the end Roque Guinart directed Don Vicente’s servants to carry his body
+to his father’s village, which was close by, for burial. Claudia told him
+she meant to go to a monastery of which an aunt of hers was abbess, where
+she intended to pass her life with a better and everlasting spouse. He
+applauded her pious resolution, and offered to accompany her
+whithersoever she wished, and to protect her father against the kinsmen
+of Don Vicente and all the world, should they seek to injure him. Claudia
+would not on any account allow him to accompany her; and thanking him for
+his offers as well as she could, took leave of him in tears. The servants
+of Don Vicente carried away his body, and Roque returned to his comrades,
+and so ended the love of Claudia Jeronima; but what wonder, when it was
+the insuperable and cruel might of jealousy that wove the web of her sad
+story?
+
+Roque Guinart found his squires at the place to which he had ordered
+them, and Don Quixote on Rocinante in the midst of them delivering a
+harangue to them in which he urged them to give up a mode of life so full
+of peril, as well to the soul as to the body; but as most of them were
+Gascons, rough lawless fellows, his speech did not make much impression
+on them. Roque on coming up asked Sancho if his men had returned and
+restored to him the treasures and jewels they had stripped off Dapple.
+Sancho said they had, but that three kerchiefs that were worth three
+cities were missing.
+
+“What are you talking about, man?” said one of the bystanders; “I have
+got them, and they are not worth three reals.”
+
+“That is true,” said Don Quixote; “but my squire values them at the rate
+he says, as having been given me by the person who gave them.”
+
+Roque Guinart ordered them to be restored at once; and making his men
+fall in in line he directed all the clothing, jewellery, and money that
+they had taken since the last distribution to be produced; and making a
+hasty valuation, and reducing what could not be divided into money, he
+made shares for the whole band so equitably and carefully, that in no
+case did he exceed or fall short of strict distributive justice.
+
+When this had been done, and all left satisfied, Roque observed to Don
+Quixote, “If this scrupulous exactness were not observed with these
+fellows there would be no living with them.”
+
+Upon this Sancho remarked, “From what I have seen here, justice is such a
+good thing that there is no doing without it, even among the thieves
+themselves.”
+
+One of the squires heard this, and raising the butt-end of his harquebuss
+would no doubt have broken Sancho’s head with it had not Roque Guinart
+called out to him to hold his hand. Sancho was frightened out of his
+wits, and vowed not to open his lips so long as he was in the company of
+these people.
+
+At this instant one or two of those squires who were posted as sentinels
+on the roads, to watch who came along them and report what passed to
+their chief, came up and said, “Señor, there is a great troop of people
+not far off coming along the road to Barcelona.”
+
+To which Roque replied, “Hast thou made out whether they are of the sort
+that are after us, or of the sort we are after?”
+
+“The sort we are after,” said the squire.
+
+“Well then, away with you all,” said Roque, “and bring them here to me at
+once without letting one of them escape.”
+
+They obeyed, and Don Quixote, Sancho, and Roque, left by themselves,
+waited to see what the squires brought, and while they were waiting Roque
+said to Don Quixote, “It must seem a strange sort of life to Señor Don
+Quixote, this of ours, strange adventures, strange incidents, and all
+full of danger; and I do not wonder that it should seem so, for in truth
+I must own there is no mode of life more restless or anxious than ours.
+What led me into it was a certain thirst for vengeance, which is strong
+enough to disturb the quietest hearts. I am by nature tender-hearted and
+kindly, but, as I said, the desire to revenge myself for a wrong that was
+done me so overturns all my better impulses that I keep on in this way of
+life in spite of what conscience tells me; and as one depth calls to
+another, and one sin to another sin, revenges have linked themselves
+together, and I have taken upon myself not only my own but those of
+others: it pleases God, however, that, though I see myself in this maze
+of entanglements, I do not lose all hope of escaping from it and reaching
+a safe port.”
+
+Don Quixote was amazed to hear Roque utter such excellent and just
+sentiments, for he did not think that among those who followed such
+trades as robbing, murdering, and waylaying, there could be anyone
+capable of a virtuous thought, and he said in reply, “Señor Roque, the
+beginning of health lies in knowing the disease and in the sick man’s
+willingness to take the medicines which the physician prescribes; you are
+sick, you know what ails you, and heaven, or more properly speaking God,
+who is our physician, will administer medicines that will cure you, and
+cure gradually, and not of a sudden or by a miracle; besides, sinners of
+discernment are nearer amendment than those who are fools; and as your
+worship has shown good sense in your remarks, all you have to do is to
+keep up a good heart and trust that the weakness of your conscience will
+be strengthened. And if you have any desire to shorten the journey and
+put yourself easily in the way of salvation, come with me, and I will
+show you how to become a knight-errant, a calling wherein so many
+hardships and mishaps are encountered that if they be taken as penances
+they will lodge you in heaven in a trice.”
+
+Roque laughed at Don Quixote’s exhortation, and changing the conversation
+he related the tragic affair of Claudia Jeronima, at which Sancho was
+extremely grieved; for he had not found the young woman’s beauty,
+boldness, and spirit at all amiss.
+
+And now the squires despatched to make the prize came up, bringing with
+them two gentlemen on horseback, two pilgrims on foot, and a coach full
+of women with some six servants on foot and on horseback in attendance on
+them, and a couple of muleteers whom the gentlemen had with them. The
+squires made a ring round them, both victors and vanquished maintaining
+profound silence, waiting for the great Roque Guinart to speak. He asked
+the gentlemen who they were, whither they were going, and what money they
+carried with them; “Señor,” replied one of them, “we are two captains of
+Spanish infantry; our companies are at Naples, and we are on our way to
+embark in four galleys which they say are at Barcelona under orders for
+Sicily; and we have about two or three hundred crowns, with which we are,
+according to our notions, rich and contented, for a soldier’s poverty
+does not allow a more extensive hoard.”
+
+Roque asked the pilgrims the same questions he had put to the captains,
+and was answered that they were going to take ship for Rome, and that
+between them they might have about sixty reals. He asked also who was in
+the coach, whither they were bound and what money they had, and one of
+the men on horseback replied, “The persons in the coach are my lady Dona
+Guiomar de Quinones, wife of the regent of the Vicaria at Naples, her
+little daughter, a handmaid and a duenna; we six servants are in
+attendance upon her, and the money amounts to six hundred crowns.”
+
+“So then,” said Roque Guinart, “we have got here nine hundred crowns and
+sixty reals; my soldiers must number some sixty; see how much there falls
+to each, for I am a bad arithmetician.” As soon as the robbers heard this
+they raised a shout of “Long life to Roque Guinart, in spite of the
+lladres that seek his ruin!”
+
+The captains showed plainly the concern they felt, the regent’s lady was
+downcast, and the pilgrims did not at all enjoy seeing their property
+confiscated. Roque kept them in suspense in this way for a while; but he
+had no desire to prolong their distress, which might be seen a bowshot
+off, and turning to the captains he said, “Sirs, will your worships be
+pleased of your courtesy to lend me sixty crowns, and her ladyship the
+regent’s wife eighty, to satisfy this band that follows me, for ‘it is by
+his singing the abbot gets his dinner;’ and then you may at once proceed
+on your journey, free and unhindered, with a safe-conduct which I shall
+give you, so that if you come across any other bands of mine that I have
+scattered in these parts, they may do you no harm; for I have no
+intention of doing injury to soldiers, or to any woman, especially one of
+quality.”
+
+Profuse and hearty were the expressions of gratitude with which the
+captains thanked Roque for his courtesy and generosity; for such they
+regarded his leaving them their own money. Señora Dona Guiomar de
+Quinones wanted to throw herself out of the coach to kiss the feet and
+hands of the great Roque, but he would not suffer it on any account; so
+far from that, he begged her pardon for the wrong he had done her under
+pressure of the inexorable necessities of his unfortunate calling. The
+regent’s lady ordered one of her servants to give the eighty crowns that
+had been assessed as her share at once, for the captains had already paid
+down their sixty. The pilgrims were about to give up the whole of their
+little hoard, but Roque bade them keep quiet, and turning to his men he
+said, “Of these crowns two fall to each man and twenty remain over; let
+ten be given to these pilgrims, and the other ten to this worthy squire
+that he may be able to speak favourably of this adventure;” and then
+having writing materials, with which he always went provided, brought to
+him, he gave them in writing a safe-conduct to the leaders of his bands;
+and bidding them farewell let them go free and filled with admiration at
+his magnanimity, his generous disposition, and his unusual conduct, and
+inclined to regard him as an Alexander the Great rather than a notorious
+robber.
+
+One of the squires observed in his mixture of Gascon and Catalan, “This
+captain of ours would make a better friar than highwayman; if he wants to
+be so generous another time, let it be with his own property and not
+ours.”
+
+The unlucky wight did not speak so low but that Roque overheard him, and
+drawing his sword almost split his head in two, saying, “That is the way
+I punish impudent saucy fellows.” They were all taken aback, and not one
+of them dared to utter a word, such deference did they pay him. Roque
+then withdrew to one side and wrote a letter to a friend of his at
+Barcelona, telling him that the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, the
+knight-errant of whom there was so much talk, was with him, and was, he
+assured him, the drollest and wisest man in the world; and that in four
+days from that date, that is to say, on Saint John the Baptist’s Day, he
+was going to deposit him in full armour mounted on his horse Rocinante,
+together with his squire Sancho on an ass, in the middle of the strand of
+the city; and bidding him give notice of this to his friends the Niarros,
+that they might divert themselves with him. He wished, he said, his
+enemies the Cadells could be deprived of this pleasure; but that was
+impossible, because the crazes and shrewd sayings of Don Quixote and the
+humours of his squire Sancho Panza could not help giving general pleasure
+to all the world. He despatched the letter by one of his squires, who,
+exchanging the costume of a highwayman for that of a peasant, made his
+way into Barcelona and gave it to the person to whom it was directed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI.
+
+OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE ON ENTERING BARCELONA, TOGETHER WITH OTHER
+MATTERS THAT PARTAKE OF THE TRUE RATHER THAN OF THE INGENIOUS
+
+
+Don Quixote passed three days and three nights with Roque, and had he
+passed three hundred years he would have found enough to observe and
+wonder at in his mode of life. At daybreak they were in one spot, at
+dinner-time in another; sometimes they fled without knowing from whom, at
+other times they lay in wait, not knowing for what. They slept standing,
+breaking their slumbers to shift from place to place. There was nothing
+but sending out spies and scouts, posting sentinels and blowing the
+matches of harquebusses, though they carried but few, for almost all used
+flintlocks. Roque passed his nights in some place or other apart from his
+men, that they might not know where he was, for the many proclamations
+the viceroy of Barcelona had issued against his life kept him in fear and
+uneasiness, and he did not venture to trust anyone, afraid that even his
+own men would kill him or deliver him up to the authorities; of a truth,
+a weary miserable life! At length, by unfrequented roads, short cuts, and
+secret paths, Roque, Don Quixote, and Sancho, together with six squires,
+set out for Barcelona. They reached the strand on Saint John’s Eve during
+the night; and Roque, after embracing Don Quixote and Sancho (to whom he
+presented the ten crowns he had promised but had not until then given),
+left them with many expressions of good-will on both sides.
+
+Roque went back, while Don Quixote remained on horseback, just as he was,
+waiting for day, and it was not long before the countenance of the fair
+Aurora began to show itself at the balconies of the east, gladdening the
+grass and flowers, if not the ear, though to gladden that too there came
+at the same moment a sound of clarions and drums, and a din of bells, and
+a tramp, tramp, and cries of “Clear the way there!” of some runners, that
+seemed to issue from the city.
+
+The dawn made way for the sun that with a face broader than a buckler
+began to rise slowly above the low line of the horizon; Don Quixote and
+Sancho gazed all round them; they beheld the sea, a sight until then
+unseen by them; it struck them as exceedingly spacious and broad, much
+more so than the lakes of Ruidera which they had seen in La Mancha. They
+saw the galleys along the beach, which, lowering their awnings, displayed
+themselves decked with streamers and pennons that trembled in the breeze
+and kissed and swept the water, while on board the bugles, trumpets, and
+clarions were sounding and filling the air far and near with melodious
+warlike notes. Then they began to move and execute a kind of skirmish
+upon the calm water, while a vast number of horsemen on fine horses and
+in showy liveries, issuing from the city, engaged on their side in a
+somewhat similar movement. The soldiers on board the galleys kept up a
+ceaseless fire, which they on the walls and forts of the city returned,
+and the heavy cannon rent the air with the tremendous noise they made, to
+which the gangway guns of the galleys replied. The bright sea, the
+smiling earth, the clear air--though at times darkened by the smoke of
+the guns--all seemed to fill the whole multitude with unexpected delight.
+Sancho could not make out how it was that those great masses that moved
+over the sea had so many feet.
+
+And now the horsemen in livery came galloping up with shouts and
+outlandish cries and cheers to where Don Quixote stood amazed and
+wondering; and one of them, he to whom Roque had sent word, addressing
+him exclaimed, “Welcome to our city, mirror, beacon, star and cynosure of
+all knight-errantry in its widest extent! Welcome, I say, valiant Don
+Quixote of La Mancha; not the false, the fictitious, the apocryphal, that
+these latter days have offered us in lying histories, but the true, the
+legitimate, the real one that Cide Hamete Benengeli, flower of
+historians, has described to us!”
+
+Don Quixote made no answer, nor did the horsemen wait for one, but
+wheeling again with all their followers, they began curvetting round Don
+Quixote, who, turning to Sancho, said, “These gentlemen have plainly
+recognised us; I will wager they have read our history, and even that
+newly printed one by the Aragonese.”
+
+The cavalier who had addressed Don Quixote again approached him and said,
+“Come with us, Señor Don Quixote, for we are all of us your servants and
+great friends of Roque Guinart’s;” to which Don Quixote returned, “If
+courtesy breeds courtesy, yours, sir knight, is daughter or very nearly
+akin to the great Roque’s; carry me where you please; I will have no will
+but yours, especially if you deign to employ it in your service.”
+
+The cavalier replied with words no less polite, and then, all closing in
+around him, they set out with him for the city, to the music of the
+clarions and the drums. As they were entering it, the wicked one, who is
+the author of all mischief, and the boys who are wickeder than the wicked
+one, contrived that a couple of these audacious irrepressible urchins
+should force their way through the crowd, and lifting up, one of them
+Dapple’s tail and the other Rocinante’s, insert a bunch of furze under
+each. The poor beasts felt the strange spurs and added to their anguish
+by pressing their tails tight, so much so that, cutting a multitude of
+capers, they flung their masters to the ground. Don Quixote, covered with
+shame and out of countenance, ran to pluck the plume from his poor jade’s
+tail, while Sancho did the same for Dapple. His conductors tried to
+punish the audacity of the boys, but there was no possibility of doing
+so, for they hid themselves among the hundreds of others that were
+following them. Don Quixote and Sancho mounted once more, and with the
+same music and acclamations reached their conductor’s house, which was
+large and stately, that of a rich gentleman, in short; and there for the
+present we will leave them, for such is Cide Hamete’s pleasure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+
+WHICH DEALS WITH THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENCHANTED HEAD, TOGETHER WITH OTHER
+TRIVIAL MATTERS WHICH CANNOT BE LEFT UNTOLD
+
+
+Don Quixote’s host was one Don Antonio Moreno by name, a gentleman of
+wealth and intelligence, and very fond of diverting himself in any fair
+and good-natured way; and having Don Quixote in his house he set about
+devising modes of making him exhibit his mad points in some harmless
+fashion; for jests that give pain are no jests, and no sport is worth
+anything if it hurts another. The first thing he did was to make Don
+Quixote take off his armour, and lead him, in that tight chamois suit we
+have already described and depicted more than once, out on a balcony
+overhanging one of the chief streets of the city, in full view of the
+crowd and of the boys, who gazed at him as they would at a monkey. The
+cavaliers in livery careered before him again as though it were for him
+alone, and not to enliven the festival of the day, that they wore it, and
+Sancho was in high delight, for it seemed to him that, how he knew not,
+he had fallen upon another Camacho’s wedding, another house like Don
+Diego de Miranda’s, another castle like the duke’s. Some of Don Antonio’s
+friends dined with him that day, and all showed honour to Don Quixote and
+treated him as a knight-errant, and he becoming puffed up and exalted in
+consequence could not contain himself for satisfaction. Such were the
+drolleries of Sancho that all the servants of the house, and all who
+heard him, were kept hanging upon his lips. While at table Don Antonio
+said to him, “We hear, worthy Sancho, that you are so fond of manjar
+blanco and forced-meat balls, that if you have any left, you keep them in
+your bosom for the next day.”
+
+“No, señor, that’s not true,” said Sancho, “for I am more cleanly than
+greedy, and my master Don Quixote here knows well that we two are used to
+live for a week on a handful of acorns or nuts. To be sure, if it so
+happens that they offer me a heifer, I run with a halter; I mean, I eat
+what I’m given, and make use of opportunities as I find them; but whoever
+says that I’m an out-of-the-way eater or not cleanly, let me tell him
+that he is wrong; and I’d put it in a different way if I did not respect
+the honourable beards that are at the table.”
+
+“Indeed,” said Don Quixote, “Sancho’s moderation and cleanliness in
+eating might be inscribed and graved on plates of brass, to be kept in
+eternal remembrance in ages to come. It is true that when he is hungry
+there is a certain appearance of voracity about him, for he eats at a
+great pace and chews with both jaws; but cleanliness he is always mindful
+of; and when he was governor he learned how to eat daintily, so much so
+that he eats grapes, and even pomegranate pips, with a fork.”
+
+“What!” said Don Antonio, “has Sancho been a governor?”
+
+“Ay,” said Sancho, “and of an island called Barataria. I governed it to
+perfection for ten days; and lost my rest all the time; and learned to
+look down upon all the governments in the world; I got out of it by
+taking to flight, and fell into a pit where I gave myself up for dead,
+and out of which I escaped alive by a miracle.”
+
+Don Quixote then gave them a minute account of the whole affair of
+Sancho’s government, with which he greatly amused his hearers.
+
+On the cloth being removed Don Antonio, taking Don Quixote by the hand,
+passed with him into a distant room in which there was nothing in the way
+of furniture except a table, apparently of jasper, resting on a pedestal
+of the same, upon which was set up, after the fashion of the busts of the
+Roman emperors, a head which seemed to be of bronze. Don Antonio
+traversed the whole apartment with Don Quixote and walked round the table
+several times, and then said, “Now, Señor Don Quixote, that I am
+satisfied that no one is listening to us, and that the door is shut, I
+will tell you of one of the rarest adventures, or more properly speaking
+strange things, that can be imagined, on condition that you will keep
+what I say to you in the remotest recesses of secrecy.”
+
+“I swear it,” said Don Quixote, “and for greater security I will put a
+flag-stone over it; for I would have you know, Señor Don Antonio” (he had
+by this time learned his name), “that you are addressing one who, though
+he has ears to hear, has no tongue to speak; so that you may safely
+transfer whatever you have in your bosom into mine, and rely upon it that
+you have consigned it to the depths of silence.”
+
+“In reliance upon that promise,” said Don Antonio, “I will astonish you
+with what you shall see and hear, and relieve myself of some of the
+vexation it gives me to have no one to whom I can confide my secrets, for
+they are not of a sort to be entrusted to everybody.”
+
+Don Quixote was puzzled, wondering what could be the object of such
+precautions; whereupon Don Antonio taking his hand passed it over the
+bronze head and the whole table and the pedestal of jasper on which it
+stood, and then said, “This head, Señor Don Quixote, has been made and
+fabricated by one of the greatest magicians and wizards the world ever
+saw, a Pole, I believe, by birth, and a pupil of the famous Escotillo of
+whom such marvellous stories are told. He was here in my house, and for a
+consideration of a thousand crowns that I gave him he constructed this
+head, which has the property and virtue of answering whatever questions
+are put to its ear. He observed the points of the compass, he traced
+figures, he studied the stars, he watched favourable moments, and at
+length brought it to the perfection we shall see to-morrow, for on
+Fridays it is mute, and this being Friday we must wait till the next day.
+In the interval your worship may consider what you would like to ask it;
+and I know by experience that in all its answers it tells the truth.”
+
+Don Quixote was amazed at the virtue and property of the head, and was
+inclined to disbelieve Don Antonio; but seeing what a short time he had
+to wait to test the matter, he did not choose to say anything except that
+he thanked him for having revealed to him so mighty a secret. They then
+quitted the room, Don Antonio locked the door, and they repaired to the
+chamber where the rest of the gentlemen were assembled. In the meantime
+Sancho had recounted to them several of the adventures and accidents that
+had happened his master.
+
+That afternoon they took Don Quixote out for a stroll, not in his armour
+but in street costume, with a surcoat of tawny cloth upon him, that at
+that season would have made ice itself sweat. Orders were left with the
+servants to entertain Sancho so as not to let him leave the house. Don
+Quixote was mounted, not on Rocinante, but upon a tall mule of easy pace
+and handsomely caparisoned. They put the surcoat on him, and on the back,
+without his perceiving it, they stitched a parchment on which they wrote
+in large letters, “This is Don Quixote of La Mancha.” As they set out
+upon their excursion the placard attracted the eyes of all who chanced to
+see him, and as they read out, “This is Don Quixote of La Mancha,” Don
+Quixote was amazed to see how many people gazed at him, called him by his
+name, and recognised him, and turning to Don Antonio, who rode at his
+side, he observed to him, “Great are the privileges knight-errantry
+involves, for it makes him who professes it known and famous in every
+region of the earth; see, Don Antonio, even the very boys of this city
+know me without ever having seen me.”
+
+“True, Señor Don Quixote,” returned Don Antonio; “for as fire cannot be
+hidden or kept secret, virtue cannot escape being recognised; and that
+which is attained by the profession of arms shines distinguished above
+all others.”
+
+It came to pass, however, that as Don Quixote was proceeding amid the
+acclamations that have been described, a Castilian, reading the
+inscription on his back, cried out in a loud voice, “The devil take thee
+for a Don Quixote of La Mancha! What! art thou here, and not dead of the
+countless drubbings that have fallen on thy ribs? Thou art mad; and if
+thou wert so by thyself, and kept thyself within thy madness, it would
+not be so bad; but thou hast the gift of making fools and blockheads of
+all who have anything to do with thee or say to thee. Why, look at these
+gentlemen bearing thee company! Get thee home, blockhead, and see after
+thy affairs, and thy wife and children, and give over these fooleries
+that are sapping thy brains and skimming away thy wits.”
+
+“Go your own way, brother,” said Don Antonio, “and don’t offer advice to
+those who don’t ask you for it. Señor Don Quixote is in his full senses,
+and we who bear him company are not fools; virtue is to be honoured
+wherever it may be found; go, and bad luck to you, and don’t meddle where
+you are not wanted.”
+
+“By God, your worship is right,” replied the Castilian; “for to advise
+this good man is to kick against the pricks; still for all that it fills
+me with pity that the sound wit they say the blockhead has in everything
+should dribble away by the channel of his knight-errantry; but may the
+bad luck your worship talks of follow me and all my descendants, if, from
+this day forth, though I should live longer than Methuselah, I ever give
+advice to anybody even if he asks me for it.”
+
+The advice-giver took himself off, and they continued their stroll; but
+so great was the press of the boys and people to read the placard, that
+Don Antonio was forced to remove it as if he were taking off something
+else.
+
+Night came and they went home, and there was a ladies’ dancing party, for
+Don Antonio’s wife, a lady of rank and gaiety, beauty and wit, had
+invited some friends of hers to come and do honour to her guest and amuse
+themselves with his strange delusions. Several of them came, they supped
+sumptuously, the dance began at about ten o’clock. Among the ladies were
+two of a mischievous and frolicsome turn, and, though perfectly modest,
+somewhat free in playing tricks for harmless diversion’s sake. These two
+were so indefatigable in taking Don Quixote out to dance that they tired
+him down, not only in body but in spirit. It was a sight to see the
+figure Don Quixote made, long, lank, lean, and yellow, his garments
+clinging tight to him, ungainly, and above all anything but agile.
+
+The gay ladies made secret love to him, and he on his part secretly
+repelled them, but finding himself hard pressed by their blandishments he
+lifted up his voice and exclaimed, “Fugite, partes adversae! Leave me in
+peace, unwelcome overtures; avaunt, with your desires, ladies, for she
+who is queen of mine, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, suffers none but
+hers to lead me captive and subdue me;” and so saying he sat down on the
+floor in the middle of the room, tired out and broken down by all this
+exertion in the dance.
+
+Don Antonio directed him to be taken up bodily and carried to bed, and
+the first that laid hold of him was Sancho, saying as he did so, “In an
+evil hour you took to dancing, master mine; do you fancy all mighty men
+of valour are dancers, and all knights-errant given to capering? If you
+do, I can tell you you are mistaken; there’s many a man would rather
+undertake to kill a giant than cut a caper. If it had been the shoe-fling
+you were at I could take your place, for I can do the shoe-fling like a
+gerfalcon; but I’m no good at dancing.”
+
+With these and other observations Sancho set the whole ball-room
+laughing, and then put his master to bed, covering him up well so that he
+might sweat out any chill caught after his dancing.
+
+The next day Don Antonio thought he might as well make trial of the
+enchanted head, and with Don Quixote, Sancho, and two others, friends of
+his, besides the two ladies that had tired out Don Quixote at the ball,
+who had remained for the night with Don Antonio’s wife, he locked himself
+up in the chamber where the head was. He explained to them the property
+it possessed and entrusted the secret to them, telling them that now for
+the first time he was going to try the virtue of the enchanted head; but
+except Don Antonio’s two friends no one else was privy to the mystery of
+the enchantment, and if Don Antonio had not first revealed it to them
+they would have been inevitably reduced to the same state of amazement as
+the rest, so artfully and skilfully was it contrived.
+
+The first to approach the ear of the head was Don Antonio himself, and in
+a low voice but not so low as not to be audible to all, he said to it,
+“Head, tell me by the virtue that lies in thee what am I at this moment
+thinking of?”
+
+The head, without any movement of the lips, answered in a clear and
+distinct voice, so as to be heard by all, “I cannot judge of thoughts.”
+
+All were thunderstruck at this, and all the more so as they saw that
+there was nobody anywhere near the table or in the whole room that could
+have answered. “How many of us are here?” asked Don Antonio once more;
+and it was answered him in the same way softly, “Thou and thy wife, with
+two friends of thine and two of hers, and a famous knight called Don
+Quixote of La Mancha, and a squire of his, Sancho Panza by name.”
+
+Now there was fresh astonishment; now everyone’s hair was standing on end
+with awe; and Don Antonio retiring from the head exclaimed, “This
+suffices to show me that I have not been deceived by him who sold thee to
+me, O sage head, talking head, answering head, wonderful head! Let some
+one else go and put what question he likes to it.”
+
+And as women are commonly impulsive and inquisitive, the first to come
+forward was one of the two friends of Don Antonio’s wife, and her
+question was, “Tell me, Head, what shall I do to be very beautiful?” and
+the answer she got was, “Be very modest.”
+
+“I question thee no further,” said the fair querist.
+
+Her companion then came up and said, “I should like to know, Head,
+whether my husband loves me or not;” the answer given to her was, “Think
+how he uses thee, and thou mayest guess;” and the married lady went off
+saying, “That answer did not need a question; for of course the treatment
+one receives shows the disposition of him from whom it is received.”
+
+Then one of Don Antonio’s two friends advanced and asked it, “Who am I?”
+ “Thou knowest,” was the answer. “That is not what I ask thee,” said the
+gentleman, “but to tell me if thou knowest me.” “Yes, I know thee, thou
+art Don Pedro Noriz,” was the reply.
+
+“I do not seek to know more,” said the gentleman, “for this is enough to
+convince me, O Head, that thou knowest everything;” and as he retired the
+other friend came forward and asked it, “Tell me, Head, what are the
+wishes of my eldest son?”
+
+“I have said already,” was the answer, “that I cannot judge of wishes;
+however, I can tell thee the wish of thy son is to bury thee.”
+
+“That’s ‘what I see with my eyes I point out with my finger,’” said the
+gentleman, “so I ask no more.”
+
+Don Antonio’s wife came up and said, “I know not what to ask thee, Head;
+I would only seek to know of thee if I shall have many years of enjoyment
+of my good husband;” and the answer she received was, “Thou shalt, for
+his vigour and his temperate habits promise many years of life, which by
+their intemperance others so often cut short.”
+
+Then Don Quixote came forward and said, “Tell me, thou that answerest,
+was that which I describe as having happened to me in the cave of
+Montesinos the truth or a dream? Will Sancho’s whipping be accomplished
+without fail? Will the disenchantment of Dulcinea be brought about?”
+
+“As to the question of the cave,” was the reply, “there is much to be
+said; there is something of both in it. Sancho’s whipping will proceed
+leisurely. The disenchantment of Dulcinea will attain its due
+consummation.”
+
+“I seek to know no more,” said Don Quixote; “let me but see Dulcinea
+disenchanted, and I will consider that all the good fortune I could wish
+for has come upon me all at once.”
+
+The last questioner was Sancho, and his questions were, “Head, shall I by
+any chance have another government? Shall I ever escape from the hard
+life of a squire? Shall I get back to see my wife and children?” To which
+the answer came, “Thou shalt govern in thy house; and if thou returnest
+to it thou shalt see thy wife and children; and on ceasing to serve thou
+shalt cease to be a squire.”
+
+“Good, by God!” said Sancho Panza; “I could have told myself that; the
+prophet Perogrullo could have said no more.”
+
+“What answer wouldst thou have, beast?” said Don Quixote; “is it not
+enough that the replies this head has given suit the questions put to
+it?”
+
+“Yes, it is enough,” said Sancho; “but I should have liked it to have
+made itself plainer and told me more.”
+
+The questions and answers came to an end here, but not the wonder with
+which all were filled, except Don Antonio’s two friends who were in the
+secret. This Cide Hamete Benengeli thought fit to reveal at once, not to
+keep the world in suspense, fancying that the head had some strange
+magical mystery in it. He says, therefore, that on the model of another
+head, the work of an image maker, which he had seen at Madrid, Don
+Antonio made this one at home for his own amusement and to astonish
+ignorant people; and its mechanism was as follows. The table was of wood
+painted and varnished to imitate jasper, and the pedestal on which it
+stood was of the same material, with four eagles’ claws projecting from
+it to support the weight more steadily. The head, which resembled a bust
+or figure of a Roman emperor, and was coloured like bronze, was hollow
+throughout, as was the table, into which it was fitted so exactly that no
+trace of the joining was visible. The pedestal of the table was also
+hollow and communicated with the throat and neck of the head, and the
+whole was in communication with another room underneath the chamber in
+which the head stood. Through the entire cavity in the pedestal, table,
+throat and neck of the bust or figure, there passed a tube of tin
+carefully adjusted and concealed from sight. In the room below
+corresponding to the one above was placed the person who was to answer,
+with his mouth to the tube, and the voice, as in an ear-trumpet, passed
+from above downwards, and from below upwards, the words coming clearly
+and distinctly; it was impossible, thus, to detect the trick. A nephew of
+Don Antonio’s, a smart sharp-witted student, was the answerer, and as he
+had been told beforehand by his uncle who the persons were that would
+come with him that day into the chamber where the head was, it was an
+easy matter for him to answer the first question at once and correctly;
+the others he answered by guess-work, and, being clever, cleverly. Cide
+Hamete adds that this marvellous contrivance stood for some ten or twelve
+days; but that, as it became noised abroad through the city that he had
+in his house an enchanted head that answered all who asked questions of
+it, Don Antonio, fearing it might come to the ears of the watchful
+sentinels of our faith, explained the matter to the inquisitors, who
+commanded him to break it up and have done with it, lest the ignorant
+vulgar should be scandalised. By Don Quixote, however, and by Sancho the
+head was still held to be an enchanted one, and capable of answering
+questions, though more to Don Quixote’s satisfaction than Sancho’s.
+
+The gentlemen of the city, to gratify Don Antonio and also to do the
+honours to Don Quixote, and give him an opportunity of displaying his
+folly, made arrangements for a tilting at the ring in six days from that
+time, which, however, for reason that will be mentioned hereafter, did
+not take place.
+
+Don Quixote took a fancy to stroll about the city quietly and on foot,
+for he feared that if he went on horseback the boys would follow him; so
+he and Sancho and two servants that Don Antonio gave him set out for a
+walk. Thus it came to pass that going along one of the streets Don
+Quixote lifted up his eyes and saw written in very large letters over a
+door, “Books printed here,” at which he was vastly pleased, for until
+then he had never seen a printing office, and he was curious to know what
+it was like. He entered with all his following, and saw them drawing
+sheets in one place, correcting in another, setting up type here,
+revising there; in short all the work that is to be seen in great
+printing offices. He went up to one case and asked what they were about
+there; the workmen told him, he watched them with wonder, and passed on.
+He approached one man, among others, and asked him what he was doing. The
+workman replied, “Señor, this gentleman here” (pointing to a man of
+prepossessing appearance and a certain gravity of look) “has translated
+an Italian book into our Spanish tongue, and I am setting it up in type
+for the press.”
+
+“What is the title of the book?” asked Don Quixote; to which the author
+replied, “Señor, in Italian the book is called Le Bagatelle.”
+
+“And what does Le Bagatelle import in our Spanish?” asked Don Quixote.
+
+“Le Bagatelle,” said the author, “is as though we should say in Spanish
+Los Juguetes; but though the book is humble in name it has good solid
+matter in it.”
+
+“I,” said Don Quixote, “have some little smattering of Italian, and I
+plume myself on singing some of Ariosto’s stanzas; but tell me, señor--I
+do not say this to test your ability, but merely out of curiosity--have
+you ever met with the word pignatta in your book?”
+
+“Yes, often,” said the author.
+
+“And how do you render that in Spanish?”
+
+“How should I render it,” returned the author, “but by olla?”
+
+“Body o’ me,” exclaimed Don Quixote, “what a proficient you are in the
+Italian language! I would lay a good wager that where they say in Italian
+piace you say in Spanish place, and where they say piu you say mas, and
+you translate su by arriba and giu by abajo.”
+
+“I translate them so of course,” said the author, “for those are their
+proper equivalents.”
+
+“I would venture to swear,” said Don Quixote, “that your worship is not
+known in the world, which always begrudges their reward to rare wits and
+praiseworthy labours. What talents lie wasted there! What genius thrust
+away into corners! What worth left neglected! Still it seems to me that
+translation from one language into another, if it be not from the queens
+of languages, the Greek and the Latin, is like looking at Flemish
+tapestries on the wrong side; for though the figures are visible, they
+are full of threads that make them indistinct, and they do not show with
+the smoothness and brightness of the right side; and translation from
+easy languages argues neither ingenuity nor command of words, any more
+than transcribing or copying out one document from another. But I do not
+mean by this to draw the inference that no credit is to be allowed for
+the work of translating, for a man may employ himself in ways worse and
+less profitable to himself. This estimate does not include two famous
+translators, Doctor Cristobal de Figueroa, in his Pastor Fido, and Don
+Juan de Jauregui, in his Aminta, wherein by their felicity they leave it
+in doubt which is the translation and which the original. But tell me,
+are you printing this book at your own risk, or have you sold the
+copyright to some bookseller?”
+
+“I print at my own risk,” said the author, “and I expect to make a
+thousand ducats at least by this first edition, which is to be of two
+thousand copies that will go off in a twinkling at six reals apiece.”
+
+“A fine calculation you are making!” said Don Quixote; “it is plain you
+don’t know the ins and outs of the printers, and how they play into one
+another’s hands. I promise you when you find yourself saddled with two
+thousand copies you will feel so sore that it will astonish you,
+particularly if the book is a little out of the common and not in any way
+highly spiced.”
+
+“What!” said the author, “would your worship, then, have me give it to a
+bookseller who will give three maravedis for the copyright and think he
+is doing me a favour? I do not print my books to win fame in the world,
+for I am known in it already by my works; I want to make money, without
+which reputation is not worth a rap.”
+
+“God send your worship good luck,” said Don Quixote; and he moved on to
+another case, where he saw them correcting a sheet of a book with the
+title of “Light of the Soul;” noticing it he observed, “Books like this,
+though there are many of the kind, are the ones that deserve to be
+printed, for many are the sinners in these days, and lights unnumbered
+are needed for all that are in darkness.”
+
+He passed on, and saw they were also correcting another book, and when he
+asked its title they told him it was called, “The Second Part of the
+Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha,” by one of Tordesillas.
+
+“I have heard of this book already,” said Don Quixote, “and verily and on
+my conscience I thought it had been by this time burned to ashes as a
+meddlesome intruder; but its Martinmas will come to it as it does to
+every pig; for fictions have the more merit and charm about them the more
+nearly they approach the truth or what looks like it; and true stories,
+the truer they are the better they are;” and so saying he walked out of
+the printing office with a certain amount of displeasure in his looks.
+That same day Don Antonio arranged to take him to see the galleys that
+lay at the beach, whereat Sancho was in high delight, as he had never
+seen any all his life. Don Antonio sent word to the commandant of the
+galleys that he intended to bring his guest, the famous Don Quixote of La
+Mancha, of whom the commandant and all the citizens had already heard,
+that afternoon to see them; and what happened on board of them will be
+told in the next chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII.
+
+OF THE MISHAP THAT BEFELL SANCHO PANZA THROUGH THE VISIT TO THE GALLEYS,
+AND THE STRANGE ADVENTURE OF THE FAIR MORISCO
+
+
+Profound were Don Quixote’s reflections on the reply of the enchanted
+head, not one of them, however, hitting on the secret of the trick, but
+all concentrated on the promise, which he regarded as a certainty, of
+Dulcinea’s disenchantment. This he turned over in his mind again and
+again with great satisfaction, fully persuaded that he would shortly see
+its fulfillment; and as for Sancho, though, as has been said, he hated
+being a governor, still he had a longing to be giving orders and finding
+himself obeyed once more; this is the misfortune that being in authority,
+even in jest, brings with it.
+
+To resume; that afternoon their host Don Antonio Moreno and his two
+friends, with Don Quixote and Sancho, went to the galleys. The commandant
+had been already made aware of his good fortune in seeing two such famous
+persons as Don Quixote and Sancho, and the instant they came to the shore
+all the galleys struck their awnings and the clarions rang out. A skiff
+covered with rich carpets and cushions of crimson velvet was immediately
+lowered into the water, and as Don Quixote stepped on board of it, the
+leading galley fired her gangway gun, and the other galleys did the same;
+and as he mounted the starboard ladder the whole crew saluted him (as is
+the custom when a personage of distinction comes on board a galley) by
+exclaiming “Hu, hu, hu,” three times. The general, for so we shall call
+him, a Valencian gentleman of rank, gave him his hand and embraced him,
+saying, “I shall mark this day with a white stone as one of the happiest
+I can expect to enjoy in my lifetime, since I have seen Señor Don Quixote
+of La Mancha, pattern and image wherein we see contained and condensed
+all that is worthy in knight-errantry.”
+
+Don Quixote delighted beyond measure with such a lordly reception,
+replied to him in words no less courteous. All then proceeded to the
+poop, which was very handsomely decorated, and seated themselves on the
+bulwark benches; the boatswain passed along the gangway and piped all
+hands to strip, which they did in an instant. Sancho, seeing such a
+number of men stripped to the skin, was taken aback, and still more when
+he saw them spread the awning so briskly that it seemed to him as if all
+the devils were at work at it; but all this was cakes and fancy bread to
+what I am going to tell now. Sancho was seated on the captain’s stage,
+close to the aftermost rower on the right-hand side. He, previously
+instructed in what he was to do, laid hold of Sancho, hoisting him up in
+his arms, and the whole crew, who were standing ready, beginning on the
+right, proceeded to pass him on, whirling him along from hand to hand and
+from bench to bench with such rapidity that it took the sight out of poor
+Sancho’s eyes, and he made quite sure that the devils themselves were
+flying away with him; nor did they leave off with him until they had sent
+him back along the left side and deposited him on the poop; and the poor
+fellow was left bruised and breathless and all in a sweat, and unable to
+comprehend what it was that had happened to him.
+
+Don Quixote when he saw Sancho’s flight without wings asked the general
+if this was a usual ceremony with those who came on board the galleys for
+the first time; for, if so, as he had no intention of adopting them as a
+profession, he had no mind to perform such feats of agility, and if
+anyone offered to lay hold of him to whirl him about, he vowed to God he
+would kick his soul out; and as he said this he stood up and clapped his
+hand upon his sword. At this instant they struck the awning and lowered
+the yard with a prodigious rattle. Sancho thought heaven was coming off
+its hinges and going to fall on his head, and full of terror he ducked it
+and buried it between his knees; nor were Don Quixote’s knees altogether
+under control, for he too shook a little, squeezed his shoulders together
+and lost colour. The crew then hoisted the yard with the same rapidity
+and clatter as when they lowered it, all the while keeping silence as
+though they had neither voice nor breath. The boatswain gave the signal
+to weigh anchor, and leaping upon the middle of the gangway began to lay
+on to the shoulders of the crew with his courbash or whip, and to haul
+out gradually to sea.
+
+When Sancho saw so many red feet (for such he took the oars to be) moving
+all together, he said to himself, “It’s these that are the real chanted
+things, and not the ones my master talks of. What can those wretches have
+done to be so whipped; and how does that one man who goes along there
+whistling dare to whip so many? I declare this is hell, or at least
+purgatory!”
+
+Don Quixote, observing how attentively Sancho regarded what was going on,
+said to him, “Ah, Sancho my friend, how quickly and cheaply might you
+finish off the disenchantment of Dulcinea, if you would strip to the
+waist and take your place among those gentlemen! Amid the pain and
+sufferings of so many you would not feel your own much; and moreover
+perhaps the sage Merlin would allow each of these lashes, being laid on
+with a good hand, to count for ten of those which you must give yourself
+at last.”
+
+The general was about to ask what these lashes were, and what was
+Dulcinea’s disenchantment, when a sailor exclaimed, “Monjui signals that
+there is an oared vessel off the coast to the west.”
+
+On hearing this the general sprang upon the gangway crying, “Now then, my
+sons, don’t let her give us the slip! It must be some Algerine corsair
+brigantine that the watchtower signals to us.” The three others
+immediately came alongside the chief galley to receive their orders. The
+general ordered two to put out to sea while he with the other kept in
+shore, so that in this way the vessel could not escape them. The crews
+plied the oars driving the galleys so furiously that they seemed to fly.
+The two that had put out to sea, after a couple of miles sighted a vessel
+which, so far as they could make out, they judged to be one of fourteen
+or fifteen banks, and so she proved. As soon as the vessel discovered the
+galleys she went about with the object and in the hope of making her
+escape by her speed; but the attempt failed, for the chief galley was one
+of the fastest vessels afloat, and overhauled her so rapidly that they on
+board the brigantine saw clearly there was no possibility of escaping,
+and the rais therefore would have had them drop their oars and give
+themselves up so as not to provoke the captain in command of our galleys
+to anger. But chance, directing things otherwise, so ordered it that just
+as the chief galley came close enough for those on board the vessel to
+hear the shouts from her calling on them to surrender, two Toraquis, that
+is to say two Turks, both drunken, that with a dozen more were on board
+the brigantine, discharged their muskets, killing two of the soldiers
+that lined the sides of our vessel. Seeing this the general swore he
+would not leave one of those he found on board the vessel alive, but as
+he bore down furiously upon her she slipped away from him underneath the
+oars. The galley shot a good way ahead; those on board the vessel saw
+their case was desperate, and while the galley was coming about they made
+sail, and by sailing and rowing once more tried to sheer off; but their
+activity did not do them as much good as their rashness did them harm,
+for the galley coming up with them in a little more than half a mile
+threw her oars over them and took the whole of them alive. The other two
+galleys now joined company and all four returned with the prize to the
+beach, where a vast multitude stood waiting for them, eager to see what
+they brought back. The general anchored close in, and perceived that the
+viceroy of the city was on the shore. He ordered the skiff to push off to
+fetch him, and the yard to be lowered for the purpose of hanging
+forthwith the rais and the rest of the men taken on board the vessel,
+about six-and-thirty in number, all smart fellows and most of them
+Turkish musketeers. He asked which was the rais of the brigantine, and
+was answered in Spanish by one of the prisoners (who afterwards proved to
+be a Spanish renegade), “This young man, señor, that you see here is our
+rais,” and he pointed to one of the handsomest and most gallant-looking
+youths that could be imagined. He did not seem to be twenty years of age.
+
+“Tell me, dog,” said the general, “what led thee to kill my soldiers,
+when thou sawest it was impossible for thee to escape? Is that the way to
+behave to chief galleys? Knowest thou not that rashness is not valour?
+Faint prospects of success should make men bold, but not rash.”
+
+The rais was about to reply, but the general could not at that moment
+listen to him, as he had to hasten to receive the viceroy, who was now
+coming on board the galley, and with him certain of his attendants and
+some of the people.
+
+“You have had a good chase, señor general,” said the viceroy.
+
+“Your excellency shall soon see how good, by the game strung up to this
+yard,” replied the general.
+
+“How so?” returned the viceroy.
+
+“Because,” said the general, “against all law, reason, and usages of war
+they have killed on my hands two of the best soldiers on board these
+galleys, and I have sworn to hang every man that I have taken, but above
+all this youth who is the rais of the brigantine,” and he pointed to him
+as he stood with his hands already bound and the rope round his neck,
+ready for death.
+
+The viceroy looked at him, and seeing him so well-favoured, so graceful,
+and so submissive, he felt a desire to spare his life, the comeliness of
+the youth furnishing him at once with a letter of recommendation. He
+therefore questioned him, saying, “Tell me, rais, art thou Turk, Moor, or
+renegade?”
+
+To which the youth replied, also in Spanish, “I am neither Turk, nor
+Moor, nor renegade.”
+
+“What art thou, then?” said the viceroy.
+
+“A Christian woman,” replied the youth.
+
+“A woman and a Christian, in such a dress and in such circumstances! It
+is more marvellous than credible,” said the viceroy.
+
+“Suspend the execution of the sentence,” said the youth; “your vengeance
+will not lose much by waiting while I tell you the story of my life.”
+
+What heart could be so hard as not to be softened by these words, at any
+rate so far as to listen to what the unhappy youth had to say? The
+general bade him say what he pleased, but not to expect pardon for his
+flagrant offence. With this permission the youth began in these words.
+
+“Born of Morisco parents, I am of that nation, more unhappy than wise,
+upon which of late a sea of woes has poured down. In the course of our
+misfortune I was carried to Barbary by two uncles of mine, for it was in
+vain that I declared I was a Christian, as in fact I am, and not a mere
+pretended one, or outwardly, but a true Catholic Christian. It availed me
+nothing with those charged with our sad expatriation to protest this, nor
+would my uncles believe it; on the contrary, they treated it as an
+untruth and a subterfuge set up to enable me to remain behind in the land
+of my birth; and so, more by force than of my own will, they took me with
+them. I had a Christian mother, and a father who was a man of sound sense
+and a Christian too; I imbibed the Catholic faith with my mother’s milk,
+I was well brought up, and neither in word nor in deed did I, I think,
+show any sign of being a Morisco. To accompany these virtues, for such I
+hold them, my beauty, if I possess any, grew with my growth; and great as
+was the seclusion in which I lived it was not so great but that a young
+gentleman, Don Gaspar Gregorio by name, eldest son of a gentleman who is
+lord of a village near ours, contrived to find opportunities of seeing
+me. How he saw me, how we met, how his heart was lost to me, and mine not
+kept from him, would take too long to tell, especially at a moment when I
+am in dread of the cruel cord that threatens me interposing between
+tongue and throat; I will only say, therefore, that Don Gregorio chose to
+accompany me in our banishment. He joined company with the Moriscoes who
+were going forth from other villages, for he knew their language very
+well, and on the voyage he struck up a friendship with my two uncles who
+were carrying me with them; for my father, like a wise and far-sighted
+man, as soon as he heard the first edict for our expulsion, quitted the
+village and departed in quest of some refuge for us abroad. He left
+hidden and buried, at a spot of which I alone have knowledge, a large
+quantity of pearls and precious stones of great value, together with a
+sum of money in gold cruzadoes and doubloons. He charged me on no account
+to touch the treasure, if by any chance they expelled us before his
+return. I obeyed him, and with my uncles, as I have said, and others of
+our kindred and neighbours, passed over to Barbary, and the place where
+we took up our abode was Algiers, much the same as if we had taken it up
+in hell itself. The king heard of my beauty, and report told him of my
+wealth, which was in some degree fortunate for me. He summoned me before
+him, and asked me what part of Spain I came from, and what money and
+jewels I had. I mentioned the place, and told him the jewels and money
+were buried there; but that they might easily be recovered if I myself
+went back for them. All this I told him, in dread lest my beauty and not
+his own covetousness should influence him. While he was engaged in
+conversation with me, they brought him word that in company with me was
+one of the handsomest and most graceful youths that could be imagined. I
+knew at once that they were speaking of Don Gaspar Gregorio, whose
+comeliness surpasses the most highly vaunted beauty. I was troubled when
+I thought of the danger he was in, for among those barbarous Turks a fair
+youth is more esteemed than a woman, be she ever so beautiful. The king
+immediately ordered him to be brought before him that he might see him,
+and asked me if what they said about the youth was true. I then, almost
+as if inspired by heaven, told him it was, but that I would have him to
+know it was not a man, but a woman like myself, and I entreated him to
+allow me to go and dress her in the attire proper to her, so that her
+beauty might be seen to perfection, and that she might present herself
+before him with less embarrassment. He bade me go by all means, and said
+that the next day we should discuss the plan to be adopted for my return
+to Spain to carry away the hidden treasure. I saw Don Gaspar, I told him
+the danger he was in if he let it be seen he was a man, I dressed him as
+a Moorish woman, and that same afternoon I brought him before the king,
+who was charmed when he saw him, and resolved to keep the damsel and make
+a present of her to the Grand Signor; and to avoid the risk she might run
+among the women of his seraglio, and distrustful of himself, he commanded
+her to be placed in the house of some Moorish ladies of rank who would
+protect and attend to her; and thither he was taken at once. What we both
+suffered (for I cannot deny that I love him) may be left to the
+imagination of those who are separated if they love one another dearly.
+The king then arranged that I should return to Spain in this brigantine,
+and that two Turks, those who killed your soldiers, should accompany me.
+There also came with me this Spanish renegade”--and here she pointed to
+him who had first spoken--“whom I know to be secretly a Christian, and to
+be more desirous of being left in Spain than of returning to Barbary. The
+rest of the crew of the brigantine are Moors and Turks, who merely serve
+as rowers. The two Turks, greedy and insolent, instead of obeying the
+orders we had to land me and this renegade in Christian dress (with which
+we came provided) on the first Spanish ground we came to, chose to run
+along the coast and make some prize if they could, fearing that if they
+put us ashore first, we might, in case of some accident befalling us,
+make it known that the brigantine was at sea, and thus, if there happened
+to be any galleys on the coast, they might be taken. We sighted this
+shore last night, and knowing nothing of these galleys, we were
+discovered, and the result was what you have seen. To sum up, there is
+Don Gregorio in woman’s dress, among women, in imminent danger of his
+life; and here am I, with hands bound, in expectation, or rather in
+dread, of losing my life, of which I am already weary. Here, sirs, ends
+my sad story, as true as it is unhappy; all I ask of you is to allow me
+to die like a Christian, for, as I have already said, I am not to be
+charged with the offence of which those of my nation are guilty;” and she
+stood silent, her eyes filled with moving tears, accompanied by plenty
+from the bystanders. The viceroy, touched with compassion, went up to her
+without speaking and untied the cord that bound the hands of the Moorish
+girl.
+
+But all the while the Morisco Christian was telling her strange story, an
+elderly pilgrim, who had come on board of the galley at the same time as
+the viceroy, kept his eyes fixed upon her; and the instant she ceased
+speaking he threw himself at her feet, and embracing them said in a voice
+broken by sobs and sighs, “O Ana Felix, my unhappy daughter, I am thy
+father Ricote, come back to look for thee, unable to live without thee,
+my soul that thou art!”
+
+At these words of his, Sancho opened his eyes and raised his head, which
+he had been holding down, brooding over his unlucky excursion; and
+looking at the pilgrim he recognised in him that same Ricote he met the
+day he quitted his government, and felt satisfied that this was his
+daughter. She being now unbound embraced her father, mingling her tears
+with his, while he addressing the general and the viceroy said, “This,
+sirs, is my daughter, more unhappy in her adventures than in her name.
+She is Ana Felix, surnamed Ricote, celebrated as much for her own beauty
+as for my wealth. I quitted my native land in search of some shelter or
+refuge for us abroad, and having found one in Germany I returned in this
+pilgrim’s dress, in the company of some other German pilgrims, to seek my
+daughter and take up a large quantity of treasure I had left buried. My
+daughter I did not find, the treasure I found and have with me; and now,
+in this strange roundabout way you have seen, I find the treasure that
+more than all makes me rich, my beloved daughter. If our innocence and
+her tears and mine can with strict justice open the door to clemency,
+extend it to us, for we never had any intention of injuring you, nor do
+we sympathise with the aims of our people, who have been justly
+banished.”
+
+“I know Ricote well,” said Sancho at this, “and I know too that what he
+says about Ana Felix being his daughter is true; but as to those other
+particulars about going and coming, and having good or bad intentions, I
+say nothing.”
+
+While all present stood amazed at this strange occurrence the general
+said, “At any rate your tears will not allow me to keep my oath; live,
+fair Ana Felix, all the years that heaven has allotted you; but these
+rash insolent fellows must pay the penalty of the crime they have
+committed;” and with that he gave orders to have the two Turks who had
+killed his two soldiers hanged at once at the yard-arm. The viceroy,
+however, begged him earnestly not to hang them, as their behaviour
+savoured rather of madness than of bravado. The general yielded to the
+viceroy’s request, for revenge is not easily taken in cold blood. They
+then tried to devise some scheme for rescuing Don Gaspar Gregorio from
+the danger in which he had been left. Ricote offered for that object more
+than two thousand ducats that he had in pearls and gems; they proposed
+several plans, but none so good as that suggested by the renegade already
+mentioned, who offered to return to Algiers in a small vessel of about
+six banks, manned by Christian rowers, as he knew where, how, and when he
+could and should land, nor was he ignorant of the house in which Don
+Gaspar was staying. The general and the viceroy had some hesitation about
+placing confidence in the renegade and entrusting him with the Christians
+who were to row, but Ana Felix said she could answer for him, and her
+father offered to go and pay the ransom of the Christians if by any
+chance they should not be forthcoming. This, then, being agreed upon, the
+viceroy landed, and Don Antonio Moreno took the fair Morisco and her
+father home with him, the viceroy charging him to give them the best
+reception and welcome in his power, while on his own part he offered all
+that house contained for their entertainment; so great was the good-will
+and kindliness the beauty of Ana Felix had infused into his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV.
+
+TREATING OF THE ADVENTURE WHICH GAVE DON QUIXOTE MORE UNHAPPINESS THAN
+ALL THAT HAD HITHERTO BEFALLEN HIM
+
+
+The wife of Don Antonio Moreno, so the history says, was extremely happy
+to see Ana Felix in her house. She welcomed her with great kindness,
+charmed as well by her beauty as by her intelligence; for in both
+respects the fair Morisco was richly endowed, and all the people of the
+city flocked to see her as though they had been summoned by the ringing
+of the bells.
+
+Don Quixote told Don Antonio that the plan adopted for releasing Don
+Gregorio was not a good one, for its risks were greater than its
+advantages, and that it would be better to land himself with his arms and
+horse in Barbary; for he would carry him off in spite of the whole
+Moorish host, as Don Gaiferos carried off his wife Melisendra.
+
+“Remember, your worship,” observed Sancho on hearing him say so, “Señor
+Don Gaiferos carried off his wife from the mainland, and took her to
+France by land; but in this case, if by chance we carry off Don Gregorio,
+we have no way of bringing him to Spain, for there’s the sea between.”
+
+“There’s a remedy for everything except death,” said Don Quixote; “if
+they bring the vessel close to the shore we shall be able to get on board
+though all the world strive to prevent us.”
+
+“Your worship hits it off mighty well and mighty easy,” said Sancho; “but
+‘it’s a long step from saying to doing;’ and I hold to the renegade, for
+he seems to me an honest good-hearted fellow.”
+
+Don Antonio then said that if the renegade did not prove successful, the
+expedient of the great Don Quixote’s expedition to Barbary should be
+adopted. Two days afterwards the renegade put to sea in a light vessel of
+six oars a-side manned by a stout crew, and two days later the galleys
+made sail eastward, the general having begged the viceroy to let him know
+all about the release of Don Gregorio and about Ana Felix, and the
+viceroy promised to do as he requested.
+
+One morning as Don Quixote went out for a stroll along the beach, arrayed
+in full armour (for, as he often said, that was “his only gear, his only
+rest the fray,” and he never was without it for a moment), he saw coming
+towards him a knight, also in full armour, with a shining moon painted on
+his shield, who, on approaching sufficiently near to be heard, said in a
+loud voice, addressing himself to Don Quixote, “Illustrious knight, and
+never sufficiently extolled Don Quixote of La Mancha, I am the Knight of
+the White Moon, whose unheard-of achievements will perhaps have recalled
+him to thy memory. I come to do battle with thee and prove the might of
+thy arm, to the end that I make thee acknowledge and confess that my
+lady, let her be who she may, is incomparably fairer than thy Dulcinea
+del Toboso. If thou dost acknowledge this fairly and openly, thou shalt
+escape death and save me the trouble of inflicting it upon thee; if thou
+fightest and I vanquish thee, I demand no other satisfaction than that,
+laying aside arms and abstaining from going in quest of adventures, thou
+withdraw and betake thyself to thine own village for the space of a year,
+and live there without putting hand to sword, in peace and quiet and
+beneficial repose, the same being needful for the increase of thy
+substance and the salvation of thy soul; and if thou dost vanquish me, my
+head shall be at thy disposal, my arms and horse thy spoils, and the
+renown of my deeds transferred and added to thine. Consider which will be
+thy best course, and give me thy answer speedily, for this day is all the
+time I have for the despatch of this business.”
+
+Don Quixote was amazed and astonished, as well at the Knight of the White
+Moon’s arrogance, as at his reason for delivering the defiance, and with
+calm dignity he answered him, “Knight of the White Moon, of whose
+achievements I have never heard until now, I will venture to swear you
+have never seen the illustrious Dulcinea; for had you seen her I know you
+would have taken care not to venture yourself upon this issue, because
+the sight would have removed all doubt from your mind that there ever has
+been or can be a beauty to be compared with hers; and so, not saying you
+lie, but merely that you are not correct in what you state, I accept your
+challenge, with the conditions you have proposed, and at once, that the
+day you have fixed may not expire; and from your conditions I except only
+that of the renown of your achievements being transferred to me, for I
+know not of what sort they are nor what they may amount to; I am
+satisfied with my own, such as they be. Take, therefore, the side of the
+field you choose, and I will do the same; and to whom God shall give it
+may Saint Peter add his blessing.”
+
+The Knight of the White Moon had been seen from the city, and it was told
+the viceroy how he was in conversation with Don Quixote. The viceroy,
+fancying it must be some fresh adventure got up by Don Antonio Moreno or
+some other gentleman of the city, hurried out at once to the beach
+accompanied by Don Antonio and several other gentlemen, just as Don
+Quixote was wheeling Rocinante round in order to take up the necessary
+distance. The viceroy upon this, seeing that the pair of them were
+evidently preparing to come to the charge, put himself between them,
+asking them what it was that led them to engage in combat all of a sudden
+in this way. The Knight of the White Moon replied that it was a question
+of precedence of beauty; and briefly told him what he had said to Don
+Quixote, and how the conditions of the defiance agreed upon on both sides
+had been accepted. The viceroy went over to Don Antonio, and asked in a
+low voice did he know who the Knight of the White Moon was, or was it
+some joke they were playing on Don Quixote. Don Antonio replied that he
+neither knew who he was nor whether the defiance was in joke or in
+earnest. This answer left the viceroy in a state of perplexity, not
+knowing whether he ought to let the combat go on or not; but unable to
+persuade himself that it was anything but a joke he fell back, saying,
+“If there be no other way out of it, gallant knights, except to confess
+or die, and Don Quixote is inflexible, and your worship of the White Moon
+still more so, in God’s hand be it, and fall on.”
+
+He of the White Moon thanked the viceroy in courteous and well-chosen
+words for the permission he gave them, and so did Don Quixote, who then,
+commending himself with all his heart to heaven and to his Dulcinea, as
+was his custom on the eve of any combat that awaited him, proceeded to
+take a little more distance, as he saw his antagonist was doing the same;
+then, without blast of trumpet or other warlike instrument to give them
+the signal to charge, both at the same instant wheeled their horses; and
+he of the White Moon, being the swifter, met Don Quixote after having
+traversed two-thirds of the course, and there encountered him with such
+violence that, without touching him with his lance (for he held it high,
+to all appearance purposely), he hurled Don Quixote and Rocinante to the
+earth, a perilous fall. He sprang upon him at once, and placing the lance
+over his visor said to him, “You are vanquished, sir knight, nay dead
+unless you admit the conditions of our defiance.”
+
+Don Quixote, bruised and stupefied, without raising his visor said in a
+weak feeble voice as if he were speaking out of a tomb, “Dulcinea del
+Toboso is the fairest woman in the world, and I the most unfortunate
+knight on earth; it is not fitting that this truth should suffer by my
+feebleness; drive your lance home, sir knight, and take my life, since
+you have taken away my honour.”
+
+“That will I not, in sooth,” said he of the White Moon; “live the fame of
+the lady Dulcinea’s beauty undimmed as ever; all I require is that the
+great Don Quixote retire to his own home for a year, or for so long a
+time as shall by me be enjoined upon him, as we agreed before engaging in
+this combat.”
+
+The viceroy, Don Antonio, and several others who were present heard all
+this, and heard too how Don Quixote replied that so long as nothing in
+prejudice of Dulcinea was demanded of him, he would observe all the rest
+like a true and loyal knight. The engagement given, he of the White Moon
+wheeled about, and making obeisance to the viceroy with a movement of the
+head, rode away into the city at a half gallop. The viceroy bade Don
+Antonio hasten after him, and by some means or other find out who he was.
+They raised Don Quixote up and uncovered his face, and found him pale and
+bathed with sweat.
+
+Rocinante from the mere hard measure he had received lay unable to stir
+for the present. Sancho, wholly dejected and woebegone, knew not what to
+say or do. He fancied that all was a dream, that the whole business was a
+piece of enchantment. Here was his master defeated, and bound not to take
+up arms for a year. He saw the light of the glory of his achievements
+obscured; the hopes of the promises lately made him swept away like smoke
+before the wind; Rocinante, he feared, was crippled for life, and his
+master’s bones out of joint; for if he were only shaken out of his
+madness it would be no small luck. In the end they carried him into the
+city in a hand-chair which the viceroy sent for, and thither the viceroy
+himself returned, eager to ascertain who this Knight of the White Moon
+was who had left Don Quixote in such a sad plight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV.
+
+WHEREIN IS MADE KNOWN WHO THE KNIGHT OF THE WHITE MOON WAS; LIKEWISE DON
+GREGORIO’S RELEASE, AND OTHER EVENTS
+
+
+Don Antonia Moreno followed the Knight of the White Moon, and a number of
+boys followed him too, nay pursued him, until they had him fairly housed
+in a hostel in the heart of the city. Don Antonio, eager to make his
+acquaintance, entered also; a squire came out to meet him and remove his
+armour, and he shut himself into a lower room, still attended by Don
+Antonio, whose bread would not bake until he had found out who he was. He
+of the White Moon, seeing then that the gentleman would not leave him,
+said, “I know very well, señor, what you have come for; it is to find out
+who I am; and as there is no reason why I should conceal it from you,
+while my servant here is taking off my armour I will tell you the true
+state of the case, without leaving out anything. You must know, señor,
+that I am called the bachelor Samson Carrasco. I am of the same village
+as Don Quixote of La Mancha, whose craze and folly make all of us who
+know him feel pity for him, and I am one of those who have felt it most;
+and persuaded that his chance of recovery lay in quiet and keeping at
+home and in his own house, I hit upon a device for keeping him there.
+Three months ago, therefore, I went out to meet him as a knight-errant,
+under the assumed name of the Knight of the Mirrors, intending to engage
+him in combat and overcome him without hurting him, making it the
+condition of our combat that the vanquished should be at the disposal of
+the victor. What I meant to demand of him (for I regarded him as
+vanquished already) was that he should return to his own village, and not
+leave it for a whole year, by which time he might be cured. But fate
+ordered it otherwise, for he vanquished me and unhorsed me, and so my
+plan failed. He went his way, and I came back conquered, covered with
+shame, and sorely bruised by my fall, which was a particularly dangerous
+one. But this did not quench my desire to meet him again and overcome
+him, as you have seen to-day. And as he is so scrupulous in his
+observance of the laws of knight-errantry, he will, no doubt, in order to
+keep his word, obey the injunction I have laid upon him. This, señor, is
+how the matter stands, and I have nothing more to tell you. I implore of
+you not to betray me, or tell Don Quixote who I am; so that my honest
+endeavours may be successful, and that a man of excellent wits--were he
+only rid of the fooleries of chivalry--may get them back again.”
+
+“O señor,” said Don Antonio, “may God forgive you the wrong you have done
+the whole world in trying to bring the most amusing madman in it back to
+his senses. Do you not see, señor, that the gain by Don Quixote’s sanity
+can never equal the enjoyment his crazes give? But my belief is that all
+the señor bachelor’s pains will be of no avail to bring a man so
+hopelessly cracked to his senses again; and if it were not uncharitable,
+I would say may Don Quixote never be cured, for by his recovery we lose
+not only his own drolleries, but his squire Sancho Panza’s too, any one
+of which is enough to turn melancholy itself into merriment. However,
+I’ll hold my peace and say nothing to him, and we’ll see whether I am
+right in my suspicion that Señor Carrasco’s efforts will be fruitless.”
+
+The bachelor replied that at all events the affair promised well, and he
+hoped for a happy result from it; and putting his services at Don
+Antonio’s commands he took his leave of him; and having had his armour
+packed at once upon a mule, he rode away from the city the same day on
+the horse he rode to battle, and returned to his own country without
+meeting any adventure calling for record in this veracious history.
+
+Don Antonio reported to the viceroy what Carrasco told him, and the
+viceroy was not very well pleased to hear it, for with Don Quixote’s
+retirement there was an end to the amusement of all who knew anything of
+his mad doings.
+
+Six days did Don Quixote keep his bed, dejected, melancholy, moody and
+out of sorts, brooding over the unhappy event of his defeat. Sancho
+strove to comfort him, and among other things he said to him, “Hold up
+your head, señor, and be of good cheer if you can, and give thanks to
+heaven that if you have had a tumble to the ground you have not come off
+with a broken rib; and, as you know that ‘where they give they take,’ and
+that ‘there are not always fletches where there are pegs,’ a fig for the
+doctor, for there’s no need of him to cure this ailment. Let us go home,
+and give over going about in search of adventures in strange lands and
+places; rightly looked at, it is I that am the greater loser, though it
+is your worship that has had the worse usage. With the government I gave
+up all wish to be a governor again, but I did not give up all longing to
+be a count; and that will never come to pass if your worship gives up
+becoming a king by renouncing the calling of chivalry; and so my hopes
+are going to turn into smoke.”
+
+“Peace, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “thou seest my suspension and
+retirement is not to exceed a year; I shall soon return to my honoured
+calling, and I shall not be at a loss for a kingdom to win and a county
+to bestow on thee.”
+
+“May God hear it and sin be deaf,” said Sancho; “I have always heard say
+that ‘a good hope is better than a bad holding.”
+
+As they were talking Don Antonio came in looking extremely pleased and
+exclaiming, “Reward me for my good news, Señor Don Quixote! Don Gregorio
+and the renegade who went for him have come ashore--ashore do I say? They
+are by this time in the viceroy’s house, and will be here immediately.”
+
+Don Quixote cheered up a little and said, “Of a truth I am almost ready
+to say I should have been glad had it turned out just the other way, for
+it would have obliged me to cross over to Barbary, where by the might of
+my arm I should have restored to liberty, not only Don Gregorio, but all
+the Christian captives there are in Barbary. But what am I saying,
+miserable being that I am? Am I not he that has been conquered? Am I not
+he that has been overthrown? Am I not he who must not take up arms for a
+year? Then what am I making professions for; what am I bragging about;
+when it is fitter for me to handle the distaff than the sword?”
+
+“No more of that, señor,” said Sancho; “‘let the hen live, even though it
+be with her pip;’ ‘to-day for thee and to-morrow for me;’ in these affairs
+of encounters and whacks one must not mind them, for he that falls to-day
+may get up to-morrow; unless indeed he chooses to lie in bed, I mean
+gives way to weakness and does not pluck up fresh spirit for fresh
+battles; let your worship get up now to receive Don Gregorio; for the
+household seems to be in a bustle, and no doubt he has come by this
+time;” and so it proved, for as soon as Don Gregorio and the renegade had
+given the viceroy an account of the voyage out and home, Don Gregorio,
+eager to see Ana Felix, came with the renegade to Don Antonio’s house.
+When they carried him away from Algiers he was in woman’s dress; on board
+the vessel, however, he exchanged it for that of a captive who escaped
+with him; but in whatever dress he might be he looked like one to be
+loved and served and esteemed, for he was surpassingly well-favoured, and
+to judge by appearances some seventeen or eighteen years of age. Ricote
+and his daughter came out to welcome him, the father with tears, the
+daughter with bashfulness. They did not embrace each other, for where
+there is deep love there will never be overmuch boldness. Seen side by
+side, the comeliness of Don Gregorio and the beauty of Ana Felix were the
+admiration of all who were present. It was silence that spoke for the
+lovers at that moment, and their eyes were the tongues that declared
+their pure and happy feelings. The renegade explained the measures and
+means he had adopted to rescue Don Gregorio, and Don Gregorio at no great
+length, but in a few words, in which he showed that his intelligence was
+in advance of his years, described the peril and embarrassment he found
+himself in among the women with whom he had sojourned. To conclude,
+Ricote liberally recompensed and rewarded as well the renegade as the men
+who had rowed; and the renegade effected his readmission into the body of
+the Church and was reconciled with it, and from a rotten limb became by
+penance and repentance a clean and sound one.
+
+Two days later the viceroy discussed with Don Antonio the steps they
+should take to enable Ana Felix and her father to stay in Spain, for it
+seemed to them there could be no objection to a daughter who was so good
+a Christian and a father to all appearance so well disposed remaining
+there. Don Antonio offered to arrange the matter at the capital, whither
+he was compelled to go on some other business, hinting that many a
+difficult affair was settled there with the help of favour and bribes.
+
+“Nay,” said Ricote, who was present during the conversation, “it will not
+do to rely upon favour or bribes, because with the great Don Bernardino
+de Velasco, Conde de Salazar, to whom his Majesty has entrusted our
+expulsion, neither entreaties nor promises, bribes nor appeals to
+compassion, are of any use; for though it is true he mingles mercy with
+justice, still, seeing that the whole body of our nation is tainted and
+corrupt, he applies to it the cautery that burns rather than the salve
+that soothes; and thus, by prudence, sagacity, care and the fear he
+inspires, he has borne on his mighty shoulders the weight of this great
+policy and carried it into effect, all our schemes and plots,
+importunities and wiles, being ineffectual to blind his Argus eyes, ever
+on the watch lest one of us should remain behind in concealment, and like
+a hidden root come in course of time to sprout and bear poisonous fruit
+in Spain, now cleansed, and relieved of the fear in which our vast
+numbers kept it. Heroic resolve of the great Philip the Third, and
+unparalleled wisdom to have entrusted it to the said Don Bernardino de
+Velasco!”
+
+“At any rate,” said Don Antonio, “when I am there I will make all
+possible efforts, and let heaven do as pleases it best; Don Gregorio will
+come with me to relieve the anxiety which his parents must be suffering
+on account of his absence; Ana Felix will remain in my house with my
+wife, or in a monastery; and I know the viceroy will be glad that the
+worthy Ricote should stay with him until we see what terms I can make.”
+
+The viceroy agreed to all that was proposed; but Don Gregorio on learning
+what had passed declared he could not and would not on any account leave
+Ana Felix; however, as it was his purpose to go and see his parents and
+devise some way of returning for her, he fell in with the proposed
+arrangement. Ana Felix remained with Don Antonio’s wife, and Ricote in
+the viceroy’s house.
+
+The day for Don Antonio’s departure came; and two days later that for Don
+Quixote’s and Sancho’s, for Don Quixote’s fall did not suffer him to take
+the road sooner. There were tears and sighs, swoonings and sobs, at the
+parting between Don Gregorio and Ana Felix. Ricote offered Don Gregorio a
+thousand crowns if he would have them, but he would not take any save
+five which Don Antonio lent him and he promised to repay at the capital.
+So the two of them took their departure, and Don Quixote and Sancho
+afterwards, as has been already said, Don Quixote without his armour and
+in travelling gear, and Sancho on foot, Dapple being loaded with the
+armour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI.
+
+WHICH TREATS OF WHAT HE WHO READS WILL SEE, OR WHAT HE WHO HAS IT READ TO
+HIM WILL HEAR
+
+
+As he left Barcelona, Don Quixote turned gaze upon the spot where he had
+fallen. “Here Troy was,” said he; “here my ill-luck, not my cowardice,
+robbed me of all the glory I had won; here Fortune made me the victim of
+her caprices; here the lustre of my achievements was dimmed; here, in a
+word, fell my happiness never to rise again.”
+
+“Señor,” said Sancho on hearing this, “it is the part of brave hearts to
+be patient in adversity just as much as to be glad in prosperity; I judge
+by myself, for, if when I was a governor I was glad, now that I am a
+squire and on foot I am not sad; and I have heard say that she whom
+commonly they call Fortune is a drunken whimsical jade, and, what is
+more, blind, and therefore neither sees what she does, nor knows whom she
+casts down or whom she sets up.”
+
+“Thou art a great philosopher, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “thou speakest
+very sensibly; I know not who taught thee. But I can tell thee there is
+no such thing as Fortune in the world, nor does anything which takes
+place there, be it good or bad, come about by chance, but by the special
+preordination of heaven; and hence the common saying that ‘each of us is
+the maker of his own Fortune.’ I have been that of mine; but not with the
+proper amount of prudence, and my self-confidence has therefore made me
+pay dearly; for I ought to have reflected that Rocinante’s feeble
+strength could not resist the mighty bulk of the Knight of the White
+Moon’s horse. In a word, I ventured it, I did my best, I was overthrown,
+but though I lost my honour I did not lose nor can I lose the virtue of
+keeping my word. When I was a knight-errant, daring and valiant, I
+supported my achievements by hand and deed, and now that I am a humble
+squire I will support my words by keeping the promise I have given.
+Forward then, Sancho my friend, let us go to keep the year of the
+novitiate in our own country, and in that seclusion we shall pick up
+fresh strength to return to the by me never-forgotten calling of arms.”
+
+“Señor,” returned Sancho, “travelling on foot is not such a pleasant
+thing that it makes me feel disposed or tempted to make long marches. Let
+us leave this armour hung up on some tree, instead of some one that has
+been hanged; and then with me on Dapple’s back and my feet off the ground
+we will arrange the stages as your worship pleases to measure them out;
+but to suppose that I am going to travel on foot, and make long ones, is
+to suppose nonsense.”
+
+“Thou sayest well, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “let my armour be hung up
+for a trophy, and under it or round it we will carve on the trees what
+was inscribed on the trophy of Roland’s armour--
+
+These let none move
+Who dareth not his might with Roland prove.”
+
+“That’s the very thing,” said Sancho; “and if it was not that we should
+feel the want of Rocinante on the road, it would be as well to leave him
+hung up too.”
+
+“And yet, I had rather not have either him or the armour hung up,” said
+Don Quixote, “that it may not be said, ‘for good service a bad return.’”
+
+“Your worship is right,” said Sancho; “for, as sensible people hold, ‘the
+fault of the ass must not be laid on the pack-saddle;’ and, as in this
+affair the fault is your worship’s, punish yourself and don’t let your
+anger break out against the already battered and bloody armour, or the
+meekness of Rocinante, or the tenderness of my feet, trying to make them
+travel more than is reasonable.”
+
+In converse of this sort the whole of that day went by, as did the four
+succeeding ones, without anything occurring to interrupt their journey,
+but on the fifth as they entered a village they found a great number of
+people at the door of an inn enjoying themselves, as it was a holiday.
+Upon Don Quixote’s approach a peasant called out, “One of these two
+gentlemen who come here, and who don’t know the parties, will tell us
+what we ought to do about our wager.”
+
+“That I will, certainly,” said Don Quixote, “and according to the rights
+of the case, if I can manage to understand it.”
+
+“Well, here it is, worthy sir,” said the peasant; “a man of this village
+who is so fat that he weighs twenty stone challenged another, a neighbour
+of his, who does not weigh more than nine, to run a race. The agreement
+was that they were to run a distance of a hundred paces with equal
+weights; and when the challenger was asked how the weights were to be
+equalised he said that the other, as he weighed nine stone, should put
+eleven in iron on his back, and that in this way the twenty stone of the
+thin man would equal the twenty stone of the fat one.”
+
+“Not at all,” exclaimed Sancho at once, before Don Quixote could answer;
+“it’s for me, that only a few days ago left off being a governor and a
+judge, as all the world knows, to settle these doubtful questions and
+give an opinion in disputes of all sorts.”
+
+“Answer in God’s name, Sancho my friend,” said Don Quixote, “for I am not
+fit to give crumbs to a cat, my wits are so confused and upset.”
+
+With this permission Sancho said to the peasants who stood clustered
+round him, waiting with open mouths for the decision to come from his,
+“Brothers, what the fat man requires is not in reason, nor has it a
+shadow of justice in it; because, if it be true, as they say, that the
+challenged may choose the weapons, the other has no right to choose such
+as will prevent and keep him from winning. My decision, therefore, is
+that the fat challenger prune, peel, thin, trim and correct himself, and
+take eleven stone of his flesh off his body, here or there, as he
+pleases, and as suits him best; and being in this way reduced to nine
+stone weight, he will make himself equal and even with nine stone of his
+opponent, and they will be able to run on equal terms.”
+
+“By all that’s good,” said one of the peasants as he heard Sancho’s
+decision, “but the gentleman has spoken like a saint, and given judgment
+like a canon! But I’ll be bound the fat man won’t part with an ounce of
+his flesh, not to say eleven stone.”
+
+“The best plan will be for them not to run,” said another, “so that
+neither the thin man break down under the weight, nor the fat one strip
+himself of his flesh; let half the wager be spent in wine, and let’s take
+these gentlemen to the tavern where there’s the best, and ‘over me be the
+cloak when it rains.’”
+
+“I thank you, sirs,” said Don Quixote; “but I cannot stop for an instant,
+for sad thoughts and unhappy circumstances force me to seem discourteous
+and to travel apace;” and spurring Rocinante he pushed on, leaving them
+wondering at what they had seen and heard, at his own strange figure and
+at the shrewdness of his servant, for such they took Sancho to be; and
+another of them observed, “If the servant is so clever, what must the
+master be? I’ll bet, if they are going to Salamanca to study, they’ll
+come to be alcaldes of the Court in a trice; for it’s a mere joke--only
+to read and read, and have interest and good luck; and before a man knows
+where he is he finds himself with a staff in his hand or a mitre on his
+head.”
+
+That night master and man passed out in the fields in the open air, and
+the next day as they were pursuing their journey they saw coming towards
+them a man on foot with alforjas at the neck and a javelin or spiked
+staff in his hand, the very cut of a foot courier; who, as soon as he
+came close to Don Quixote, increased his pace and half running came up to
+him, and embracing his right thigh, for he could reach no higher,
+exclaimed with evident pleasure, “O Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha, what
+happiness it will be to the heart of my lord the duke when he knows your
+worship is coming back to his castle, for he is still there with my lady
+the duchess!”
+
+“I do not recognise you, friend,” said Don Quixote, “nor do I know who
+you are, unless you tell me.”
+
+“I am Tosilos, my lord the duke’s lacquey, Señor Don Quixote,” replied
+the courier; “he who refused to fight your worship about marrying the
+daughter of Dona Rodriguez.”
+
+“God bless me!” exclaimed Don Quixote; “is it possible that you are the
+one whom mine enemies the enchanters changed into the lacquey you speak
+of in order to rob me of the honour of that battle?”
+
+“Nonsense, good sir!” said the messenger; “there was no enchantment or
+transformation at all; I entered the lists just as much lacquey Tosilos
+as I came out of them lacquey Tosilos. I thought to marry without
+fighting, for the girl had taken my fancy; but my scheme had a very
+different result, for as soon as your worship had left the castle my lord
+the duke had a hundred strokes of the stick given me for having acted
+contrary to the orders he gave me before engaging in the combat; and the
+end of the whole affair is that the girl has become a nun, and Dona
+Rodriguez has gone back to Castile, and I am now on my way to Barcelona
+with a packet of letters for the viceroy which my master is sending him.
+If your worship would like a drop, sound though warm, I have a gourd here
+full of the best, and some scraps of Tronchon cheese that will serve as a
+provocative and wakener of your thirst if so be it is asleep.”
+
+“I take the offer,” said Sancho; “no more compliments about it; pour out,
+good Tosilos, in spite of all the enchanters in the Indies.”
+
+“Thou art indeed the greatest glutton in the world, Sancho,” said Don
+Quixote, “and the greatest booby on earth, not to be able to see that
+this courier is enchanted and this Tosilos a sham one; stop with him and
+take thy fill; I will go on slowly and wait for thee to come up with me.”
+
+The lacquey laughed, unsheathed his gourd, unwalletted his scraps, and
+taking out a small loaf of bread he and Sancho seated themselves on the
+green grass, and in peace and good fellowship finished off the contents
+of the alforjas down to the bottom, so resolutely that they licked the
+wrapper of the letters, merely because it smelt of cheese.
+
+Said Tosilos to Sancho, “Beyond a doubt, Sancho my friend, this master of
+thine ought to be a madman.”
+
+“Ought!” said Sancho; “he owes no man anything; he pays for everything,
+particularly when the coin is madness. I see it plain enough, and I tell
+him so plain enough; but what’s the use? especially now that it is all
+over with him, for here he is beaten by the Knight of the White Moon.”
+
+Tosilos begged him to explain what had happened him, but Sancho replied
+that it would not be good manners to leave his master waiting for him;
+and that some other day if they met there would be time enough for that;
+and then getting up, after shaking his doublet and brushing the crumbs
+out of his beard, he drove Dapple on before him, and bidding adieu to
+Tosilos left him and rejoined his master, who was waiting for him under
+the shade of a tree.
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+If a multitude of reflections used to harass Don Quixote before he had
+been overthrown, a great many more harassed him since his fall. He was
+under the shade of a tree, as has been said, and there, like flies on
+honey, thoughts came crowding upon him and stinging him. Some of them
+turned upon the disenchantment of Dulcinea, others upon the life he was
+about to lead in his enforced retirement. Sancho came up and spoke in
+high praise of the generous disposition of the lacquey Tosilos.
+
+“Is it possible, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that thou dost still think
+that he yonder is a real lacquey? Apparently it has escaped thy memory
+that thou hast seen Dulcinea turned and transformed into a peasant wench,
+and the Knight of the Mirrors into the bachelor Carrasco; all the work of
+the enchanters that persecute me. But tell me now, didst thou ask this
+Tosilos, as thou callest him, what has become of Altisidora, did she weep
+over my absence, or has she already consigned to oblivion the love
+thoughts that used to afflict her when I was present?”
+
+“The thoughts that I had,” said Sancho, “were not such as to leave time
+for asking fool’s questions. Body o’ me, señor! is your worship in a
+condition now to inquire into other people’s thoughts, above all love
+thoughts?”
+
+“Look ye, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “there is a great difference between
+what is done out of love and what is done out of gratitude. A knight may
+very possibly be proof against love; but it is impossible, strictly
+speaking, for him to be ungrateful. Altisidora, to all appearance, loved
+me truly; she gave me the three kerchiefs thou knowest of; she wept at my
+departure, she cursed me, she abused me, casting shame to the winds she
+bewailed herself in public; all signs that she adored me; for the wrath
+of lovers always ends in curses. I had no hopes to give her, nor
+treasures to offer her, for mine are given to Dulcinea, and the treasures
+of knights-errant are like those of the fairies,’ illusory and deceptive;
+all I can give her is the place in my memory I keep for her, without
+prejudice, however, to that which I hold devoted to Dulcinea, whom thou
+art wronging by thy remissness in whipping thyself and scourging that
+flesh--would that I saw it eaten by wolves--which would rather keep
+itself for the worms than for the relief of that poor lady.”
+
+“Señor,” replied Sancho, “if the truth is to be told, I cannot persuade
+myself that the whipping of my backside has anything to do with the
+disenchantment of the enchanted; it is like saying, ‘If your head aches
+rub ointment on your knees;’ at any rate I’ll make bold to swear that in
+all the histories dealing with knight-errantry that your worship has read
+you have never come across anybody disenchanted by whipping; but whether
+or no I’ll whip myself when I have a fancy for it, and the opportunity
+serves for scourging myself comfortably.”
+
+“God grant it,” said Don Quixote; “and heaven give thee grace to take it
+to heart and own the obligation thou art under to help my lady, who is
+thine also, inasmuch as thou art mine.”
+
+As they pursued their journey talking in this way they came to the very
+same spot where they had been trampled on by the bulls. Don Quixote
+recognised it, and said he to Sancho, “This is the meadow where we came
+upon those gay shepherdesses and gallant shepherds who were trying to
+revive and imitate the pastoral Arcadia there, an idea as novel as it was
+happy, in emulation whereof, if so be thou dost approve of it, Sancho, I
+would have ourselves turn shepherds, at any rate for the time I have to
+live in retirement. I will buy some ewes and everything else requisite
+for the pastoral calling; and, I under the name of the shepherd Quixotize
+and thou as the shepherd Panzino, we will roam the woods and groves and
+meadows singing songs here, lamenting in elegies there, drinking of the
+crystal waters of the springs or limpid brooks or flowing rivers. The
+oaks will yield us their sweet fruit with bountiful hand, the trunks of
+the hard cork trees a seat, the willows shade, the roses perfume, the
+widespread meadows carpets tinted with a thousand dyes; the clear pure
+air will give us breath, the moon and stars lighten the darkness of the
+night for us, song shall be our delight, lamenting our joy, Apollo will
+supply us with verses, and love with conceits whereby we shall make
+ourselves famed for ever, not only in this but in ages to come.”
+
+“Egad,” said Sancho, “but that sort of life squares, nay corners, with my
+notions; and what is more the bachelor Samson Carrasco and Master
+Nicholas the barber won’t have well seen it before they’ll want to follow
+it and turn shepherds along with us; and God grant it may not come into
+the curate’s head to join the sheepfold too, he’s so jovial and fond of
+enjoying himself.”
+
+“Thou art in the right of it, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “and the
+bachelor Samson Carrasco, if he enters the pastoral fraternity, as no
+doubt he will, may call himself the shepherd Samsonino, or perhaps the
+shepherd Carrascon; Nicholas the barber may call himself Niculoso, as old
+Boscan formerly was called Nemoroso; as for the curate I don’t know what
+name we can fit to him unless it be something derived from his title, and
+we call him the shepherd Curiambro. For the shepherdesses whose lovers we
+shall be, we can pick names as we would pears; and as my lady’s name does
+just as well for a shepherdess’s as for a princess’s, I need not trouble
+myself to look for one that will suit her better; to thine, Sancho, thou
+canst give what name thou wilt.”
+
+“I don’t mean to give her any but Teresona,” said Sancho, “which will go
+well with her stoutness and with her own right name, as she is called
+Teresa; and then when I sing her praises in my verses I’ll show how
+chaste my passion is, for I’m not going to look ‘for better bread than
+ever came from wheat’ in other men’s houses. It won’t do for the curate
+to have a shepherdess, for the sake of good example; and if the bachelor
+chooses to have one, that is his look-out.”
+
+“God bless me, Sancho my friend!” said Don Quixote, “what a life we shall
+lead! What hautboys and Zamora bagpipes we shall hear, what tabors,
+timbrels, and rebecks! And then if among all these different sorts of
+music that of the albogues is heard, almost all the pastoral instruments
+will be there.”
+
+“What are albogues?” asked Sancho, “for I never in my life heard tell of
+them or saw them.”
+
+“Albogues,” said Don Quixote, “are brass plates like candlesticks that
+struck against one another on the hollow side make a noise which, if not
+very pleasing or harmonious, is not disagreeable and accords very well
+with the rude notes of the bagpipe and tabor. The word albogue is
+Morisco, as are all those in our Spanish tongue that begin with al; for
+example, almohaza, almorzar, alhombra, alguacil, alhucema, almacen,
+alcancia, and others of the same sort, of which there are not many more;
+our language has only three that are Morisco and end in i, which are
+borcegui, zaquizami, and maravedi. Alheli and alfaqui are seen to be
+Arabic, as well by the al at the beginning as by the i they end with. I
+mention this incidentally, the chance allusion to albogues having
+reminded me of it; and it will be of great assistance to us in the
+perfect practice of this calling that I am something of a poet, as thou
+knowest, and that besides the bachelor Samson Carrasco is an accomplished
+one. Of the curate I say nothing; but I will wager he has some spice of
+the poet in him, and no doubt Master Nicholas too, for all barbers, or
+most of them, are guitar players and stringers of verses. I will bewail
+my separation; thou shalt glorify thyself as a constant lover; the
+shepherd Carrascon will figure as a rejected one, and the curate
+Curiambro as whatever may please him best; and so all will go as gaily as
+heart could wish.”
+
+To this Sancho made answer, “I am so unlucky, señor, that I’m afraid the
+day will never come when I’ll see myself at such a calling. O what neat
+spoons I’ll make when I’m a shepherd! What messes, creams, garlands,
+pastoral odds and ends! And if they don’t get me a name for wisdom,
+they’ll not fail to get me one for ingenuity. My daughter Sanchica will
+bring us our dinner to the pasture. But stay-she’s good-looking, and
+shepherds there are with more mischief than simplicity in them; I would
+not have her ‘come for wool and go back shorn;’ love-making and lawless
+desires are just as common in the fields as in the cities, and in
+shepherds’ shanties as in royal palaces; ‘do away with the cause, you do
+away with the sin;’ ‘if eyes don’t see hearts don’t break’ and ‘better a
+clear escape than good men’s prayers.’”
+
+“A truce to thy proverbs, Sancho,” exclaimed Don Quixote; “any one of
+those thou hast uttered would suffice to explain thy meaning; many a time
+have I recommended thee not to be so lavish with proverbs and to exercise
+some moderation in delivering them; but it seems to me it is only
+‘preaching in the desert;’ ‘my mother beats me and I go on with my
+tricks.”
+
+“It seems to me,” said Sancho, “that your worship is like the common
+saying, ‘Said the frying-pan to the kettle, Get away, blackbreech.’ You
+chide me for uttering proverbs, and you string them in couples yourself.”
+
+“Observe, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “I bring in proverbs to the
+purpose, and when I quote them they fit like a ring to the finger; thou
+bringest them in by the head and shoulders, in such a way that thou dost
+drag them in, rather than introduce them; if I am not mistaken, I have
+told thee already that proverbs are short maxims drawn from the
+experience and observation of our wise men of old; but the proverb that
+is not to the purpose is a piece of nonsense and not a maxim. But enough
+of this; as nightfall is drawing on let us retire some little distance
+from the high road to pass the night; what is in store for us to-morrow
+God knoweth.”
+
+They turned aside, and supped late and poorly, very much against Sancho’s
+will, who turned over in his mind the hardships attendant upon
+knight-errantry in woods and forests, even though at times plenty
+presented itself in castles and houses, as at Don Diego de Miranda’s, at
+the wedding of Camacho the Rich, and at Don Antonio Moreno’s; he
+reflected, however, that it could not be always day, nor always night;
+and so that night he passed in sleeping, and his master in waking.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVIII.
+
+OF THE BRISTLY ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE
+
+
+The night was somewhat dark, for though there was a moon in the sky it
+was not in a quarter where she could be seen; for sometimes the lady
+Diana goes on a stroll to the antipodes, and leaves the mountains all
+black and the valleys in darkness. Don Quixote obeyed nature so far as to
+sleep his first sleep, but did not give way to the second, very different
+from Sancho, who never had any second, because with him sleep lasted from
+night till morning, wherein he showed what a sound constitution and few
+cares he had. Don Quixote’s cares kept him restless, so much so that he
+awoke Sancho and said to him, “I am amazed, Sancho, at the unconcern of
+thy temperament. I believe thou art made of marble or hard brass,
+incapable of any emotion or feeling whatever. I lie awake while thou
+sleepest, I weep while thou singest, I am faint with fasting while thou
+art sluggish and torpid from pure repletion. It is the duty of good
+servants to share the sufferings and feel the sorrows of their masters,
+if it be only for the sake of appearances. See the calmness of the night,
+the solitude of the spot, inviting us to break our slumbers by a vigil of
+some sort. Rise as thou livest, and retire a little distance, and with a
+good heart and cheerful courage give thyself three or four hundred lashes
+on account of Dulcinea’s disenchantment score; and this I entreat of
+thee, making it a request, for I have no desire to come to grips with
+thee a second time, as I know thou hast a heavy hand. As soon as thou
+hast laid them on we will pass the rest of the night, I singing my
+separation, thou thy constancy, making a beginning at once with the
+pastoral life we are to follow at our village.”
+
+“Señor,” replied Sancho, “I’m no monk to get up out of the middle of my
+sleep and scourge myself, nor does it seem to me that one can pass from
+one extreme of the pain of whipping to the other of music. Will your
+worship let me sleep, and not worry me about whipping myself? or you’ll
+make me swear never to touch a hair of my doublet, not to say my flesh.”
+
+“O hard heart!” said Don Quixote, “O pitiless squire! O bread
+ill-bestowed and favours ill-acknowledged, both those I have done thee
+and those I mean to do thee! Through me hast thou seen thyself a
+governor, and through me thou seest thyself in immediate expectation of
+being a count, or obtaining some other equivalent title, for I-post
+tenebras spero lucem.”
+
+“I don’t know what that is,” said Sancho; “all I know is that so long as
+I am asleep I have neither fear nor hope, trouble nor glory; and good
+luck betide him that invented sleep, the cloak that covers over all a
+man’s thoughts, the food that removes hunger, the drink that drives away
+thirst, the fire that warms the cold, the cold that tempers the heat,
+and, to wind up with, the universal coin wherewith everything is bought,
+the weight and balance that makes the shepherd equal with the king and
+the fool with the wise man. Sleep, I have heard say, has only one fault,
+that it is like death; for between a sleeping man and a dead man there is
+very little difference.”
+
+“Never have I heard thee speak so elegantly as now, Sancho,” said Don
+Quixote; “and here I begin to see the truth of the proverb thou dost
+sometimes quote, ‘Not with whom thou art bred, but with whom thou art
+fed.’”
+
+“Ha, by my life, master mine,” said Sancho, “it’s not I that am stringing
+proverbs now, for they drop in pairs from your worship’s mouth faster
+than from mine; only there is this difference between mine and yours,
+that yours are well-timed and mine are untimely; but anyhow, they are all
+proverbs.”
+
+At this point they became aware of a harsh indistinct noise that seemed
+to spread through all the valleys around. Don Quixote stood up and laid
+his hand upon his sword, and Sancho ensconced himself under Dapple and
+put the bundle of armour on one side of him and the ass’s pack-saddle on
+the other, in fear and trembling as great as Don Quixote’s perturbation.
+Each instant the noise increased and came nearer to the two terrified
+men, or at least to one, for as to the other, his courage is known to
+all. The fact of the matter was that some men were taking above six
+hundred pigs to sell at a fair, and were on their way with them at that
+hour, and so great was the noise they made and their grunting and
+blowing, that they deafened the ears of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and
+they could not make out what it was. The wide-spread grunting drove came
+on in a surging mass, and without showing any respect for Don Quixote’s
+dignity or Sancho’s, passed right over the pair of them, demolishing
+Sancho’s entrenchments, and not only upsetting Don Quixote but sweeping
+Rocinante off his feet into the bargain; and what with the trampling and
+the grunting, and the pace at which the unclean beasts went, pack-saddle,
+armour, Dapple and Rocinante were left scattered on the ground and Sancho
+and Don Quixote at their wits’ end.
+
+Sancho got up as well as he could and begged his master to give him his
+sword, saying he wanted to kill half a dozen of those dirty unmannerly
+pigs, for he had by this time found out that that was what they were.
+
+“Let them be, my friend,” said Don Quixote; “this insult is the penalty
+of my sin; and it is the righteous chastisement of heaven that jackals
+should devour a vanquished knight, and wasps sting him and pigs trample
+him under foot.”
+
+“I suppose it is the chastisement of heaven, too,” said Sancho, “that
+flies should prick the squires of vanquished knights, and lice eat them,
+and hunger assail them. If we squires were the sons of the knights we
+serve, or their very near relations, it would be no wonder if the penalty
+of their misdeeds overtook us, even to the fourth generation. But what
+have the Panzas to do with the Quixotes? Well, well, let’s lie down again
+and sleep out what little of the night there’s left, and God will send us
+dawn and we shall be all right.”
+
+“Sleep thou, Sancho,” returned Don Quixote, “for thou wast born to sleep
+as I was born to watch; and during the time it now wants of dawn I will
+give a loose rein to my thoughts, and seek a vent for them in a little
+madrigal which, unknown to thee, I composed in my head last night.”
+
+“I should think,” said Sancho, “that the thoughts that allow one to make
+verses cannot be of great consequence; let your worship string verses as
+much as you like and I’ll sleep as much as I can;” and forthwith, taking
+the space of ground he required, he muffled himself up and fell into a
+sound sleep, undisturbed by bond, debt, or trouble of any sort. Don
+Quixote, propped up against the trunk of a beech or a cork tree--for Cide
+Hamete does not specify what kind of tree it was--sang in this strain to
+the accompaniment of his own sighs:
+
+  When in my mind
+I muse, O Love, upon thy cruelty,
+  To death I flee,
+In hope therein the end of all to find.
+
+  But drawing near
+That welcome haven in my sea of woe,
+  Such joy I know,
+That life revives, and still I linger here.
+
+  Thus life doth slay,
+And death again to life restoreth me;
+  Strange destiny,
+That deals with life and death as with a play!
+
+He accompanied each verse with many sighs and not a few tears, just like
+one whose heart was pierced with grief at his defeat and his separation
+from Dulcinea.
+
+And now daylight came, and the sun smote Sancho on the eyes with his
+beams. He awoke, roused himself up, shook himself and stretched his lazy
+limbs, and seeing the havoc the pigs had made with his stores he cursed
+the drove, and more besides. Then the pair resumed their journey, and as
+evening closed in they saw coming towards them some ten men on horseback
+and four or five on foot. Don Quixote’s heart beat quick and Sancho’s
+quailed with fear, for the persons approaching them carried lances and
+bucklers, and were in very warlike guise. Don Quixote turned to Sancho
+and said, “If I could make use of my weapons, and my promise had not tied
+my hands, I would count this host that comes against us but cakes and
+fancy bread; but perhaps it may prove something different from what we
+apprehend.” The men on horseback now came up, and raising their lances
+surrounded Don Quixote in silence, and pointed them at his back and
+breast, menacing him with death. One of those on foot, putting his finger
+to his lips as a sign to him to be silent, seized Rocinante’s bridle and
+drew him out of the road, and the others driving Sancho and Dapple before
+them, and all maintaining a strange silence, followed in the steps of the
+one who led Don Quixote. The latter two or three times attempted to ask
+where they were taking him to and what they wanted, but the instant he
+began to open his lips they threatened to close them with the points of
+their lances; and Sancho fared the same way, for the moment he seemed
+about to speak one of those on foot punched him with a goad, and Dapple
+likewise, as if he too wanted to talk. Night set in, they quickened their
+pace, and the fears of the two prisoners grew greater, especially as they
+heard themselves assailed with--“Get on, ye Troglodytes;” “Silence, ye
+barbarians;” “March, ye cannibals;” “No murmuring, ye Scythians;” “Don’t
+open your eyes, ye murderous Polyphemes, ye blood-thirsty lions,” and
+suchlike names with which their captors harassed the ears of the wretched
+master and man. Sancho went along saying to himself, “We, tortolites,
+barbers, animals! I don’t like those names at all; ‘it’s in a bad wind
+our corn is being winnowed;’ ‘misfortune comes upon us all at once like
+sticks on a dog,’ and God grant it may be no worse than them that this
+unlucky adventure has in store for us.”
+
+Don Quixote rode completely dazed, unable with the aid of all his wits to
+make out what could be the meaning of these abusive names they called
+them, and the only conclusion he could arrive at was that there was no
+good to be hoped for and much evil to be feared. And now, about an hour
+after midnight, they reached a castle which Don Quixote saw at once was
+the duke’s, where they had been but a short time before. “God bless me!”
+ said he, as he recognised the mansion, “what does this mean? It is all
+courtesy and politeness in this house; but with the vanquished good turns
+into evil, and evil into worse.”
+
+They entered the chief court of the castle and found it prepared and
+fitted up in a style that added to their amazement and doubled their
+fears, as will be seen in the following chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIX.
+
+OF THE STRANGEST AND MOST EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE
+IN THE WHOLE COURSE OF THIS GREAT HISTORY
+
+
+The horsemen dismounted, and, together with the men on foot, without a
+moment’s delay taking up Sancho and Don Quixote bodily, they carried them
+into the court, all round which near a hundred torches fixed in sockets
+were burning, besides above five hundred lamps in the corridors, so that
+in spite of the night, which was somewhat dark, the want of daylight
+could not be perceived. In the middle of the court was a catafalque,
+raised about two yards above the ground and covered completely by an
+immense canopy of black velvet, and on the steps all round it white wax
+tapers burned in more than a hundred silver candlesticks. Upon the
+catafalque was seen the dead body of a damsel so lovely that by her
+beauty she made death itself look beautiful. She lay with her head
+resting upon a cushion of brocade and crowned with a garland of
+sweet-smelling flowers of divers sorts, her hands crossed upon her bosom,
+and between them a branch of yellow palm of victory. On one side of the
+court was erected a stage, where upon two chairs were seated two persons
+who from having crowns on their heads and sceptres in their hands
+appeared to be kings of some sort, whether real or mock ones. By the side
+of this stage, which was reached by steps, were two other chairs on which
+the men carrying the prisoners seated Don Quixote and Sancho, all in
+silence, and by signs giving them to understand that they too were to be
+silent; which, however, they would have been without any signs, for their
+amazement at all they saw held them tongue-tied. And now two persons of
+distinction, who were at once recognised by Don Quixote as his hosts the
+duke and duchess, ascended the stage attended by a numerous suite, and
+seated themselves on two gorgeous chairs close to the two kings, as they
+seemed to be. Who would not have been amazed at this? Nor was this all,
+for Don Quixote had perceived that the dead body on the catafalque was
+that of the fair Altisidora. As the duke and duchess mounted the stage
+Don Quixote and Sancho rose and made them a profound obeisance, which
+they returned by bowing their heads slightly. At this moment an official
+crossed over, and approaching Sancho threw over him a robe of black
+buckram painted all over with flames of fire, and taking off his cap put
+upon his head a mitre such as those undergoing the sentence of the Holy
+Office wear; and whispered in his ear that he must not open his lips, or
+they would put a gag upon him, or take his life. Sancho surveyed himself
+from head to foot and saw himself all ablaze with flames; but as they did
+not burn him, he did not care two farthings for them. He took off the
+mitre, and seeing painted with devils he put it on again, saying to
+himself, “Well, so far those don’t burn me nor do these carry me off.”
+ Don Quixote surveyed him too, and though fear had got the better of his
+faculties, he could not help smiling to see the figure Sancho presented.
+And now from underneath the catafalque, so it seemed, there rose a low
+sweet sound of flutes, which, coming unbroken by human voice (for there
+silence itself kept silence), had a soft and languishing effect. Then,
+beside the pillow of what seemed to be the dead body, suddenly appeared a
+fair youth in a Roman habit, who, to the accompaniment of a harp which he
+himself played, sang in a sweet and clear voice these two stanzas:
+
+While fair Altisidora, who the sport
+    Of cold Don Quixote’s cruelty hath been,
+Returns to life, and in this magic court
+    The dames in sables come to grace the scene,
+And while her matrons all in seemly sort
+    My lady robes in baize and bombazine,
+Her beauty and her sorrows will I sing
+With defter quill than touched the Thracian string.
+
+But not in life alone, methinks, to me
+    Belongs the office; Lady, when my tongue
+Is cold in death, believe me, unto thee
+    My voice shall raise its tributary song.
+My soul, from this strait prison-house set free,
+    As o’er the Stygian lake it floats along,
+Thy praises singing still shall hold its way,
+And make the waters of oblivion stay.
+
+At this point one of the two that looked like kings exclaimed, “Enough,
+enough, divine singer! It would be an endless task to put before us now
+the death and the charms of the peerless Altisidora, not dead as the
+ignorant world imagines, but living in the voice of fame and in the
+penance which Sancho Panza, here present, has to undergo to restore her
+to the long-lost light. Do thou, therefore, O Rhadamanthus, who sittest
+in judgment with me in the murky caverns of Dis, as thou knowest all that
+the inscrutable fates have decreed touching the resuscitation of this
+damsel, announce and declare it at once, that the happiness we look
+forward to from her restoration be no longer deferred.”
+
+No sooner had Minos the fellow judge of Rhadamanthus said this, than
+Rhadamanthus rising up said:
+
+“Ho, officials of this house, high and low, great and small, make haste
+hither one and all, and print on Sancho’s face four-and-twenty smacks,
+and give him twelve pinches and six pin thrusts in the back and arms; for
+upon this ceremony depends the restoration of Altisidora.”
+
+On hearing this Sancho broke silence and cried out, “By all that’s
+good, I’ll as soon let my face be smacked or handled as turn Moor. Body
+o’ me! What has handling my face got to do with the resurrection of
+this damsel? ‘The old woman took kindly to the blits;’ they enchant
+Dulcinea, and whip me in order to disenchant her; Altisidora dies of
+ailments God was pleased to send her, and to bring her to life again
+they must give me four-and-twenty smacks, and prick holes in my body
+with pins, and raise weals on my arms with pinches! Try those jokes on
+a brother-in-law; ‘I’m an old dog, and “tus, tus” is no use with me.’”
+
+“Thou shalt die,” said Rhadamanthus in a loud voice; “relent, thou tiger;
+humble thyself, proud Nimrod; suffer and be silent, for no
+impossibilities are asked of thee; it is not for thee to inquire into the
+difficulties in this matter; smacked thou must be, pricked thou shalt see
+thyself, and with pinches thou must be made to howl. Ho, I say,
+officials, obey my orders; or by the word of an honest man, ye shall see
+what ye were born for.”
+
+At this some six duennas, advancing across the court, made their
+appearance in procession, one after the other, four of them with
+spectacles, and all with their right hands uplifted, showing four fingers
+of wrist to make their hands look longer, as is the fashion now-a-days.
+No sooner had Sancho caught sight of them than, bellowing like a bull, he
+exclaimed, “I might let myself be handled by all the world; but allow
+duennas to touch me--not a bit of it! Scratch my face, as my master was
+served in this very castle; run me through the body with burnished
+daggers; pinch my arms with red-hot pincers; I’ll bear all in patience to
+serve these gentlefolk; but I won’t let duennas touch me, though the
+devil should carry me off!”
+
+Here Don Quixote, too, broke silence, saying to Sancho, “Have patience,
+my son, and gratify these noble persons, and give all thanks to heaven
+that it has infused such virtue into thy person, that by its sufferings
+thou canst disenchant the enchanted and restore to life the dead.”
+
+The duennas were now close to Sancho, and he, having become more
+tractable and reasonable, settling himself well in his chair presented
+his face and beard to the first, who delivered him a smack very stoutly
+laid on, and then made him a low curtsey.
+
+“Less politeness and less paint, señora duenna,” said Sancho; “by God
+your hands smell of vinegar-wash.”
+
+In fine, all the duennas smacked him and several others of the household
+pinched him; but what he could not stand was being pricked by the pins;
+and so, apparently out of patience, he started up out of his chair, and
+seizing a lighted torch that stood near him fell upon the duennas and the
+whole set of his tormentors, exclaiming, “Begone, ye ministers of hell;
+I’m not made of brass not to feel such out-of-the-way tortures.”
+
+At this instant Altisidora, who probably was tired of having been so long
+lying on her back, turned on her side; seeing which the bystanders cried
+out almost with one voice, “Altisidora is alive! Altisidora lives!”
+
+Rhadamanthus bade Sancho put away his wrath, as the object they had in
+view was now attained. When Don Quixote saw Altisidora move, he went on
+his knees to Sancho saying to him, “Now is the time, son of my bowels,
+not to call thee my squire, for thee to give thyself some of those lashes
+thou art bound to lay on for the disenchantment of Dulcinea. Now, I say,
+is the time when the virtue that is in thee is ripe, and endowed with
+efficacy to work the good that is looked for from thee.”
+
+To which Sancho made answer, “That’s trick upon trick, I think, and not
+honey upon pancakes; a nice thing it would be for a whipping to come now,
+on the top of pinches, smacks, and pin-proddings! You had better take a
+big stone and tie it round my neck, and pitch me into a well; I should
+not mind it much, if I’m to be always made the cow of the wedding for the
+cure of other people’s ailments. Leave me alone; or else by God I’ll
+fling the whole thing to the dogs, let come what may.”
+
+Altisidora had by this time sat up on the catafalque, and as she did so
+the clarions sounded, accompanied by the flutes, and the voices of all
+present exclaiming, “Long life to Altisidora! long life to Altisidora!”
+ The duke and duchess and the kings Minos and Rhadamanthus stood up, and
+all, together with Don Quixote and Sancho, advanced to receive her and
+take her down from the catafalque; and she, making as though she were
+recovering from a swoon, bowed her head to the duke and duchess and to
+the kings, and looking sideways at Don Quixote, said to him, “God forgive
+thee, insensible knight, for through thy cruelty I have been, to me it
+seems, more than a thousand years in the other world; and to thee, the
+most compassionate upon earth, I render thanks for the life I am now in
+possession of. From this day forth, friend Sancho, count as thine six
+smocks of mine which I bestow upon thee, to make as many shirts for
+thyself, and if they are not all quite whole, at any rate they are all
+clean.”
+
+Sancho kissed her hands in gratitude, kneeling, and with the mitre in his
+hand. The duke bade them take it from him, and give him back his cap and
+doublet and remove the flaming robe. Sancho begged the duke to let them
+leave him the robe and mitre; as he wanted to take them home for a token
+and memento of that unexampled adventure. The duchess said they must
+leave them with him; for he knew already what a great friend of his she
+was. The duke then gave orders that the court should be cleared, and that
+all should retire to their chambers, and that Don Quixote and Sancho
+should be conducted to their old quarters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXX.
+
+WHICH FOLLOWS SIXTY-NINE AND DEALS WITH MATTERS INDISPENSABLE FOR THE
+CLEAR COMPREHENSION OF THIS HISTORY
+
+
+Sancho slept that night in a cot in the same chamber with Don Quixote, a
+thing he would have gladly excused if he could for he knew very well that
+with questions and answers his master would not let him sleep, and he was
+in no humour for talking much, as he still felt the pain of his late
+martyrdom, which interfered with his freedom of speech; and it would have
+been more to his taste to sleep in a hovel alone, than in that luxurious
+chamber in company. And so well founded did his apprehension prove, and
+so correct was his anticipation, that scarcely had his master got into
+bed when he said, “What dost thou think of to-night’s adventure, Sancho?
+Great and mighty is the power of cold-hearted scorn, for thou with thine
+own eyes hast seen Altisidora slain, not by arrows, nor by the sword, nor
+by any warlike weapon, nor by deadly poisons, but by the thought of the
+sternness and scorn with which I have always treated her.”
+
+“She might have died and welcome,” said Sancho, “when she pleased and how
+she pleased; and she might have left me alone, for I never made her fall
+in love or scorned her. I don’t know nor can I imagine how the recovery
+of Altisidora, a damsel more fanciful than wise, can have, as I have said
+before, anything to do with the sufferings of Sancho Panza. Now I begin
+to see plainly and clearly that there are enchanters and enchanted people
+in the world; and may God deliver me from them, since I can’t deliver
+myself; and so I beg of your worship to let me sleep and not ask me any
+more questions, unless you want me to throw myself out of the window.”
+
+“Sleep, Sancho my friend,” said Don Quixote, “if the pinprodding and
+pinches thou hast received and the smacks administered to thee will let
+thee.”
+
+“No pain came up to the insult of the smacks,” said Sancho, “for the
+simple reason that it was duennas, confound them, that gave them to me;
+but once more I entreat your worship to let me sleep, for sleep is relief
+from misery to those who are miserable when awake.”
+
+“Be it so, and God be with thee,” said Don Quixote.
+
+They fell asleep, both of them, and Cide Hamete, the author of this great
+history, took this opportunity to record and relate what it was that
+induced the duke and duchess to get up the elaborate plot that has been
+described. The bachelor Samson Carrasco, he says, not forgetting how he
+as the Knight of the Mirrors had been vanquished and overthrown by Don
+Quixote, which defeat and overthrow upset all his plans, resolved to try
+his hand again, hoping for better luck than he had before; and so, having
+learned where Don Quixote was from the page who brought the letter and
+present to Sancho’s wife, Teresa Panza, he got himself new armour and
+another horse, and put a white moon upon his shield, and to carry his
+arms he had a mule led by a peasant, not by Tom Cecial his former squire
+for fear he should be recognised by Sancho or Don Quixote. He came to the
+duke’s castle, and the duke informed him of the road and route Don
+Quixote had taken with the intention of being present at the jousts at
+Saragossa. He told him, too, of the jokes he had practised upon him, and
+of the device for the disenchantment of Dulcinea at the expense of
+Sancho’s backside; and finally he gave him an account of the trick Sancho
+had played upon his master, making him believe that Dulcinea was
+enchanted and turned into a country wench; and of how the duchess, his
+wife, had persuaded Sancho that it was he himself who was deceived,
+inasmuch as Dulcinea was really enchanted; at which the bachelor laughed
+not a little, and marvelled as well at the sharpness and simplicity of
+Sancho as at the length to which Don Quixote’s madness went. The duke
+begged of him if he found him (whether he overcame him or not) to return
+that way and let him know the result. This the bachelor did; he set out
+in quest of Don Quixote, and not finding him at Saragossa, he went on,
+and how he fared has been already told. He returned to the duke’s castle
+and told him all, what the conditions of the combat were, and how Don
+Quixote was now, like a loyal knight-errant, returning to keep his
+promise of retiring to his village for a year, by which time, said the
+bachelor, he might perhaps be cured of his madness; for that was the
+object that had led him to adopt these disguises, as it was a sad thing
+for a gentleman of such good parts as Don Quixote to be a madman. And so
+he took his leave of the duke, and went home to his village to wait there
+for Don Quixote, who was coming after him. Thereupon the duke seized the
+opportunity of practising this mystification upon him; so much did he
+enjoy everything connected with Sancho and Don Quixote. He had the roads
+about the castle far and near, everywhere he thought Don Quixote was
+likely to pass on his return, occupied by large numbers of his servants
+on foot and on horseback, who were to bring him to the castle, by fair
+means or foul, if they met him. They did meet him, and sent word to the
+duke, who, having already settled what was to be done, as soon as he
+heard of his arrival, ordered the torches and lamps in the court to be
+lit and Altisidora to be placed on the catafalque with all the pomp and
+ceremony that has been described, the whole affair being so well arranged
+and acted that it differed but little from reality. And Cide Hamete says,
+moreover, that for his part he considers the concocters of the joke as
+crazy as the victims of it, and that the duke and duchess were not two
+fingers’ breadth removed from being something like fools themselves when
+they took such pains to make game of a pair of fools.
+
+As for the latter, one was sleeping soundly and the other lying awake
+occupied with his desultory thoughts, when daylight came to them bringing
+with it the desire to rise; for the lazy down was never a delight to Don
+Quixote, victor or vanquished. Altisidora, come back from death to life
+as Don Quixote fancied, following up the freak of her lord and lady,
+entered the chamber, crowned with the garland she had worn on the
+catafalque and in a robe of white taffeta embroidered with gold flowers,
+her hair flowing loose over her shoulders, and leaning upon a staff of
+fine black ebony. Don Quixote, disconcerted and in confusion at her
+appearance, huddled himself up and well-nigh covered himself altogether
+with the sheets and counterpane of the bed, tongue-tied, and unable to
+offer her any civility. Altisidora seated herself on a chair at the head
+of the bed, and, after a deep sigh, said to him in a feeble, soft voice,
+“When women of rank and modest maidens trample honour under foot, and
+give a loose to the tongue that breaks through every impediment,
+publishing abroad the inmost secrets of their hearts, they are reduced to
+sore extremities. Such a one am I, Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha,
+crushed, conquered, love-smitten, but yet patient under suffering and
+virtuous, and so much so that my heart broke with grief and I lost my
+life. For the last two days I have been dead, slain by the thought of the
+cruelty with which thou hast treated me, obdurate knight,
+
+O harder thou than marble to my plaint;
+
+or at least believed to be dead by all who saw me; and had it not been
+that Love, taking pity on me, let my recovery rest upon the sufferings of
+this good squire, there I should have remained in the other world.”
+
+“Love might very well have let it rest upon the sufferings of my ass, and
+I should have been obliged to him,” said Sancho. “But tell me,
+señora--and may heaven send you a tenderer lover than my master-what did
+you see in the other world? What goes on in hell? For of course that’s
+where one who dies in despair is bound for.”
+
+“To tell you the truth,” said Altisidora, “I cannot have died outright,
+for I did not go into hell; had I gone in, it is very certain I should
+never have come out again, do what I might. The truth is, I came to the
+gate, where some dozen or so of devils were playing tennis, all in
+breeches and doublets, with falling collars trimmed with Flemish
+bonelace, and ruffles of the same that served them for wristbands, with
+four fingers’ breadth of the arms exposed to make their hands look
+longer; in their hands they held rackets of fire; but what amazed me
+still more was that books, apparently full of wind and rubbish, served
+them for tennis balls, a strange and marvellous thing; this, however, did
+not astonish me so much as to observe that, although with players it is
+usual for the winners to be glad and the losers sorry, there in that game
+all were growling, all were snarling, and all were cursing one another.”
+ “That’s no wonder,” said Sancho; “for devils, whether playing or not, can
+never be content, win or lose.”
+
+“Very likely,” said Altisidora; “but there is another thing that
+surprises me too, I mean surprised me then, and that was that no ball
+outlasted the first throw or was of any use a second time; and it was
+wonderful the constant succession there was of books, new and old. To one
+of them, a brand-new, well-bound one, they gave such a stroke that they
+knocked the guts out of it and scattered the leaves about. ‘Look what
+book that is,’ said one devil to another, and the other replied, ‘It is
+the “Second Part of the History of Don Quixote of La Mancha,” not by Cide
+Hamete, the original author, but by an Aragonese who by his own account
+is of Tordesillas.’ ‘Out of this with it,’ said the first, ‘and into the
+depths of hell with it out of my sight.’ ‘Is it so bad?’ said the other.
+‘So bad is it,’ said the first, ‘that if I had set myself deliberately to
+make a worse, I could not have done it.’ They then went on with their
+game, knocking other books about; and I, having heard them mention the
+name of Don Quixote whom I love and adore so, took care to retain this
+vision in my memory.”
+
+“A vision it must have been, no doubt,” said Don Quixote, “for there is
+no other I in the world; this history has been going about here for some
+time from hand to hand, but it does not stay long in any, for everybody
+gives it a taste of his foot. I am not disturbed by hearing that I am
+wandering in a fantastic shape in the darkness of the pit or in the
+daylight above, for I am not the one that history treats of. If it should
+be good, faithful, and true, it will have ages of life; but if it should
+be bad, from its birth to its burial will not be a very long journey.”
+
+Altisidora was about to proceed with her complaint against Don Quixote,
+when he said to her, “I have several times told you, señora, that it
+grieves me you should have set your affections upon me, as from mine
+they can only receive gratitude, but no return. I was born to belong to
+Dulcinea del Toboso, and the fates, if there are any, dedicated me to
+her; and to suppose that any other beauty can take the place she
+occupies in my heart is to suppose an impossibility. This frank
+declaration should suffice to make you retire within the bounds of your
+modesty, for no one can bind himself to do impossibilities.”
+
+Hearing this, Altisidora, with a show of anger and agitation, exclaimed,
+“God’s life! Don Stockfish, soul of a mortar, stone of a date, more
+obstinate and obdurate than a clown asked a favour when he has his mind
+made up, if I fall upon you I’ll tear your eyes out! Do you fancy, Don
+Vanquished, Don Cudgelled, that I died for your sake? All that you have
+seen to-night has been make-believe; I’m not the woman to let the black
+of my nail suffer for such a camel, much less die!”
+
+“That I can well believe,” said Sancho; “for all that about lovers pining
+to death is absurd; they may talk of it, but as for doing it-Judas may
+believe that!”
+
+While they were talking, the musician, singer, and poet, who had sung the
+two stanzas given above came in, and making a profound obeisance to Don
+Quixote said, “Will your worship, sir knight, reckon and retain me in the
+number of your most faithful servants, for I have long been a great
+admirer of yours, as well because of your fame as because of your
+achievements?” “Will your worship tell me who you are,” replied Don
+Quixote, “so that my courtesy may be answerable to your deserts?” The
+young man replied that he was the musician and songster of the night
+before. “Of a truth,” said Don Quixote, “your worship has a most
+excellent voice; but what you sang did not seem to me very much to the
+purpose; for what have Garcilasso’s stanzas to do with the death of this
+lady?”
+
+“Don’t be surprised at that,” returned the musician; “for with the callow
+poets of our day the way is for every one to write as he pleases and
+pilfer where he chooses, whether it be germane to the matter or not, and
+now-a-days there is no piece of silliness they can sing or write that is
+not set down to poetic licence.”
+
+Don Quixote was about to reply, but was prevented by the duke and
+duchess, who came in to see him, and with them there followed a long and
+delightful conversation, in the course of which Sancho said so many droll
+and saucy things that he left the duke and duchess wondering not only at
+his simplicity but at his sharpness. Don Quixote begged their permission
+to take his departure that same day, inasmuch as for a vanquished knight
+like himself it was fitter he should live in a pig-sty than in a royal
+palace. They gave it very readily, and the duchess asked him if
+Altisidora was in his good graces.
+
+He replied, “Señora, let me tell your ladyship that this damsel’s ailment
+comes entirely of idleness, and the cure for it is honest and constant
+employment. She herself has told me that lace is worn in hell; and as she
+must know how to make it, let it never be out of her hands; for when she
+is occupied in shifting the bobbins to and fro, the image or images of
+what she loves will not shift to and fro in her thoughts; this is the
+truth, this is my opinion, and this is my advice.”
+
+“And mine,” added Sancho; “for I never in all my life saw a lace-maker
+that died for love; when damsels are at work their minds are more set on
+finishing their tasks than on thinking of their loves. I speak from my
+own experience; for when I’m digging I never think of my old woman; I
+mean my Teresa Panza, whom I love better than my own eyelids.” “You say
+well, Sancho,” said the duchess, “and I will take care that my Altisidora
+employs herself henceforward in needlework of some sort; for she is
+extremely expert at it.” “There is no occasion to have recourse to that
+remedy, señora,” said Altisidora; “for the mere thought of the cruelty
+with which this vagabond villain has treated me will suffice to blot him
+out of my memory without any other device; with your highness’s leave I
+will retire, not to have before my eyes, I won’t say his rueful
+countenance, but his abominable, ugly looks.” “That reminds me of the
+common saying, that ‘he that rails is ready to forgive,’” said the duke.
+
+Altisidora then, pretending to wipe away her tears with a handkerchief,
+made an obeisance to her master and mistress and quitted the room.
+
+“Ill luck betide thee, poor damsel,” said Sancho, “ill luck betide thee!
+Thou hast fallen in with a soul as dry as a rush and a heart as hard as
+oak; had it been me, i’faith ‘another cock would have crowed to thee.’”
+
+So the conversation came to an end, and Don Quixote dressed himself and
+dined with the duke and duchess, and set out the same evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXI.
+
+OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE SANCHO ON THE WAY TO
+THEIR VILLAGE
+
+
+The vanquished and afflicted Don Quixote went along very downcast in one
+respect and very happy in another. His sadness arose from his defeat, and
+his satisfaction from the thought of the virtue that lay in Sancho, as
+had been proved by the resurrection of Altisidora; though it was with
+difficulty he could persuade himself that the love-smitten damsel had
+been really dead. Sancho went along anything but cheerful, for it grieved
+him that Altisidora had not kept her promise of giving him the smocks;
+and turning this over in his mind he said to his master, “Surely, señor,
+I’m the most unlucky doctor in the world; there’s many a physician that,
+after killing the sick man he had to cure, requires to be paid for his
+work, though it is only signing a bit of a list of medicines, that the
+apothecary and not he makes up, and, there, his labour is over; but with
+me though to cure somebody else costs me drops of blood, smacks, pinches,
+pinproddings, and whippings, nobody gives me a farthing. Well, I swear by
+all that’s good if they put another patient into my hands, they’ll have
+to grease them for me before I cure him; for, as they say, ‘it’s by his
+singing the abbot gets his dinner,’ and I’m not going to believe that
+heaven has bestowed upon me the virtue I have, that I should be dealing
+it out to others all for nothing.”
+
+“Thou art right, Sancho my friend,” said Don Quixote, “and Altisidora has
+behaved very badly in not giving thee the smocks she promised; and
+although that virtue of thine is gratis data--as it has cost thee no
+study whatever, any more than such study as thy personal sufferings may
+be--I can say for myself that if thou wouldst have payment for the lashes
+on account of the disenchant of Dulcinea, I would have given it to thee
+freely ere this. I am not sure, however, whether payment will comport
+with the cure, and I would not have the reward interfere with the
+medicine. I think there will be nothing lost by trying it; consider how
+much thou wouldst have, Sancho, and whip thyself at once, and pay thyself
+down with thine own hand, as thou hast money of mine.”
+
+At this proposal Sancho opened his eyes and his ears a palm’s breadth
+wide, and in his heart very readily acquiesced in whipping himself, and
+said he to his master, “Very well then, señor, I’ll hold myself in
+readiness to gratify your worship’s wishes if I’m to profit by it; for
+the love of my wife and children forces me to seem grasping. Let your
+worship say how much you will pay me for each lash I give myself.”
+
+“If Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “I were to requite thee as the
+importance and nature of the cure deserves, the treasures of Venice, the
+mines of Potosi, would be insufficient to pay thee. See what thou hast of
+mine, and put a price on each lash.”
+
+“Of them,” said Sancho, “there are three thousand three hundred and odd;
+of these I have given myself five, the rest remain; let the five go for
+the odd ones, and let us take the three thousand three hundred, which at
+a quarter real apiece (for I will not take less though the whole world
+should bid me) make three thousand three hundred quarter reals; the three
+thousand are one thousand five hundred half reals, which make seven
+hundred and fifty reals; and the three hundred make a hundred and fifty
+half reals, which come to seventy-five reals, which added to the seven
+hundred and fifty make eight hundred and twenty-five reals in all. These
+I will stop out of what I have belonging to your worship, and I’ll return
+home rich and content, though well whipped, for ‘there’s no taking
+trout’--but I say no more.”
+
+“O blessed Sancho! O dear Sancho!” said Don Quixote; “how we shall be
+bound to serve thee, Dulcinea and I, all the days of our lives that
+heaven may grant us! If she returns to her lost shape (and it cannot be
+but that she will) her misfortune will have been good fortune, and my
+defeat a most happy triumph. But look here, Sancho; when wilt thou begin
+the scourging? For if thou wilt make short work of it, I will give thee a
+hundred reals over and above.”
+
+“When?” said Sancho; “this night without fail. Let your worship order it
+so that we pass it out of doors and in the open air, and I’ll scarify
+myself.”
+
+Night, longed for by Don Quixote with the greatest anxiety in the world,
+came at last, though it seemed to him that the wheels of Apollo’s car had
+broken down, and that the day was drawing itself out longer than usual,
+just as is the case with lovers, who never make the reckoning of their
+desires agree with time. They made their way at length in among some
+pleasant trees that stood a little distance from the road, and there
+vacating Rocinante’s saddle and Dapple’s pack-saddle, they stretched
+themselves on the green grass and made their supper off Sancho’s stores,
+and he making a powerful and flexible whip out of Dapple’s halter and
+headstall retreated about twenty paces from his master among some beech
+trees. Don Quixote seeing him march off with such resolution and spirit,
+said to him, “Take care, my friend, not to cut thyself to pieces; allow
+the lashes to wait for one another, and do not be in so great a hurry as
+to run thyself out of breath midway; I mean, do not lay on so strenuously
+as to make thy life fail thee before thou hast reached the desired
+number; and that thou mayest not lose by a card too much or too little, I
+will station myself apart and count on my rosary here the lashes thou
+givest thyself. May heaven help thee as thy good intention deserves.”
+
+“‘Pledges don’t distress a good payer,’” said Sancho; “I mean to lay on
+in such a way as without killing myself to hurt myself, for in that, no
+doubt, lies the essence of this miracle.”
+
+He then stripped himself from the waist upwards, and snatching up the
+rope he began to lay on and Don Quixote to count the lashes. He might
+have given himself six or eight when he began to think the joke no
+trifle, and its price very low; and holding his hand for a moment, he
+told his master that he cried off on the score of a blind bargain, for
+each of those lashes ought to be paid for at the rate of half a real
+instead of a quarter.
+
+“Go on, Sancho my friend, and be not disheartened,” said Don Quixote;
+“for I double the stakes as to price.”
+
+“In that case,” said Sancho, “in God’s hand be it, and let it rain
+lashes.” But the rogue no longer laid them on his shoulders, but laid on
+to the trees, with such groans every now and then, that one would have
+thought at each of them his soul was being plucked up by the roots. Don
+Quixote, touched to the heart, and fearing he might make an end of
+himself, and that through Sancho’s imprudence he might miss his own
+object, said to him, “As thou livest, my friend, let the matter rest
+where it is, for the remedy seems to me a very rough one, and it will be
+well to have patience; ‘Zamora was not won in an hour.’ If I have not
+reckoned wrong thou hast given thyself over a thousand lashes; that is
+enough for the present; ‘for the ass,’ to put it in homely phrase, ‘bears
+the load, but not the overload.’”
+
+“No, no, señor,” replied Sancho; “it shall never be said of me, ‘The
+money paid, the arms broken;’ go back a little further, your worship, and
+let me give myself at any rate a thousand lashes more; for in a couple of
+bouts like this we shall have finished off the lot, and there will be
+even cloth to spare.”
+
+“As thou art in such a willing mood,” said Don Quixote, “may heaven aid
+thee; lay on and I’ll retire.”
+
+Sancho returned to his task with so much resolution that he soon had the
+bark stripped off several trees, such was the severity with which he
+whipped himself; and one time, raising his voice, and giving a beech a
+tremendous lash, he cried out, “Here dies Samson, and all with him!”
+
+At the sound of his piteous cry and of the stroke of the cruel lash, Don
+Quixote ran to him at once, and seizing the twisted halter that served
+him for a courbash, said to him, “Heaven forbid, Sancho my friend, that
+to please me thou shouldst lose thy life, which is needed for the support
+of thy wife and children; let Dulcinea wait for a better opportunity, and
+I will content myself with a hope soon to be realised, and have patience
+until thou hast gained fresh strength so as to finish off this business
+to the satisfaction of everybody.”
+
+“As your worship will have it so, señor,” said Sancho, “so be it; but
+throw your cloak over my shoulders, for I’m sweating and I don’t want to
+take cold; it’s a risk that novice disciplinants run.”
+
+Don Quixote obeyed, and stripping himself covered Sancho, who slept until
+the sun woke him; they then resumed their journey, which for the time
+being they brought to an end at a village that lay three leagues farther
+on. They dismounted at a hostelry which Don Quixote recognised as such
+and did not take to be a castle with moat, turrets, portcullis, and
+drawbridge; for ever since he had been vanquished he talked more
+rationally about everything, as will be shown presently. They quartered
+him in a room on the ground floor, where in place of leather hangings
+there were pieces of painted serge such as they commonly use in villages.
+On one of them was painted by some very poor hand the Rape of Helen, when
+the bold guest carried her off from Menelaus, and on the other was the
+story of Dido and Æneas, she on a high tower, as though she were making
+signals with a half sheet to her fugitive guest who was out at sea flying
+in a frigate or brigantine. He noticed in the two stories that Helen did
+not go very reluctantly, for she was laughing slyly and roguishly; but
+the fair Dido was shown dropping tears the size of walnuts from her eyes.
+Don Quixote as he looked at them observed, “Those two ladies were very
+unfortunate not to have been born in this age, and I unfortunate above
+all men not to have been born in theirs. Had I fallen in with those
+gentlemen, Troy would not have been burned or Carthage destroyed, for it
+would have been only for me to slay Paris, and all these misfortunes
+would have been avoided.”
+
+“I’ll lay a bet,” said Sancho, “that before long there won’t be a tavern,
+roadside inn, hostelry, or barber’s shop where the story of our doings
+won’t be painted up; but I’d like it painted by the hand of a better
+painter than painted these.”
+
+“Thou art right, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for this painter is like
+Orbaneja, a painter there was at Ubeda, who when they asked him what he
+was painting, used to say, ‘Whatever it may turn out; and if he chanced
+to paint a cock he would write under it, ‘This is a cock,’ for fear they
+might think it was a fox. The painter or writer, for it’s all the same,
+who published the history of this new Don Quixote that has come out, must
+have been one of this sort I think, Sancho, for he painted or wrote
+‘whatever it might turn out;’ or perhaps he is like a poet called Mauleon
+that was about the Court some years ago, who used to answer at haphazard
+whatever he was asked, and on one asking him what Deum de Deo meant, he
+replied De donde diere. But, putting this aside, tell me, Sancho, hast
+thou a mind to have another turn at thyself to-night, and wouldst thou
+rather have it indoors or in the open air?”
+
+“Egad, señor,” said Sancho, “for what I’m going to give myself, it comes
+all the same to me whether it is in a house or in the fields; still I’d
+like it to be among trees; for I think they are company for me and help
+me to bear my pain wonderfully.”
+
+“And yet it must not be, Sancho my friend,” said Don Quixote; “but, to
+enable thee to recover strength, we must keep it for our own village; for
+at the latest we shall get there the day after to-morrow.”
+
+Sancho said he might do as he pleased; but that for his own part he would
+like to finish off the business quickly before his blood cooled and while
+he had an appetite, because “in delay there is apt to be danger” very
+often, and “praying to God and plying the hammer,” and “one take was
+better than two I’ll give thee’s,” and “a sparrow in the hand than a
+vulture on the wing.”
+
+“For God’s sake, Sancho, no more proverbs!” exclaimed Don Quixote; “it
+seems to me thou art becoming sicut erat again; speak in a plain, simple,
+straight-forward way, as I have often told thee, and thou wilt find the
+good of it.”
+
+“I don’t know what bad luck it is of mine,” said Sancho, “but I can’t
+utter a word without a proverb that is not as good as an argument to my
+mind; however, I mean to mend if I can;” and so for the present the
+conversation ended.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXII.
+
+OF HOW DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO REACHED THEIR VILLAGE
+
+
+All that day Don Quixote and Sancho remained in the village and inn
+waiting for night, the one to finish off his task of scourging in the
+open country, the other to see it accomplished, for therein lay the
+accomplishment of his wishes. Meanwhile there arrived at the hostelry a
+traveller on horseback with three or four servants, one of whom said to
+him who appeared to be the master, “Here, Señor Don Alvaro Tarfe, your
+worship may take your siesta to-day; the quarters seem clean and cool.”
+
+When he heard this Don Quixote said to Sancho, “Look here, Sancho; on
+turning over the leaves of that book of the Second Part of my history I
+think I came casually upon this name of Don Alvaro Tarfe.”
+
+“Very likely,” said Sancho; “we had better let him dismount, and
+by-and-by we can ask about it.”
+
+The gentleman dismounted, and the landlady gave him a room on the ground
+floor opposite Don Quixote’s and adorned with painted serge hangings of
+the same sort. The newly arrived gentleman put on a summer coat, and
+coming out to the gateway of the hostelry, which was wide and cool,
+addressing Don Quixote, who was pacing up and down there, he asked, “In
+what direction is your worship bound, gentle sir?”
+
+“To a village near this which is my own village,” replied Don Quixote;
+“and your worship, where are you bound for?”
+
+“I am going to Granada, señor,” said the gentleman, “to my own country.”
+
+“And a goodly country,” said Don Quixote; “but will your worship do me
+the favour of telling me your name, for it strikes me it is of more
+importance to me to know it than I can tell you.”
+
+“My name is Don Alvaro Tarfe,” replied the traveller.
+
+To which Don Quixote returned, “I have no doubt whatever that your
+worship is that Don Alvaro Tarfe who appears in print in the Second Part
+of the history of Don Quixote of La Mancha, lately printed and published
+by a new author.”
+
+“I am the same,” replied the gentleman; “and that same Don Quixote, the
+principal personage in the said history, was a very great friend of mine,
+and it was I who took him away from home, or at least induced him to come
+to some jousts that were to be held at Saragossa, whither I was going
+myself; indeed, I showed him many kindnesses, and saved him from having
+his shoulders touched up by the executioner because of his extreme
+rashness.”
+
+“Tell me, Señor Don Alvaro,” said Don Quixote, “am I at all like that Don
+Quixote you talk of?”
+
+“No indeed,” replied the traveller, “not a bit.”
+
+“And that Don Quixote—” said our one, “had he with him a squire called
+Sancho Panza?”
+
+“He had,” said Don Alvaro; “but though he had the name of being very
+droll, I never heard him say anything that had any drollery in it.”
+
+“That I can well believe,” said Sancho at this, “for to come out with
+drolleries is not in everybody’s line; and that Sancho your worship
+speaks of, gentle sir, must be some great scoundrel, dunderhead, and
+thief, all in one; for I am the real Sancho Panza, and I have more
+drolleries than if it rained them; let your worship only try; come along
+with me for a year or so, and you will find they fall from me at every
+turn, and so rich and so plentiful that though mostly I don’t know what I
+am saying I make everybody that hears me laugh. And the real Don Quixote
+of La Mancha, the famous, the valiant, the wise, the lover, the righter
+of wrongs, the guardian of minors and orphans, the protector of widows,
+the killer of damsels, he who has for his sole mistress the peerless
+Dulcinea del Toboso, is this gentleman before you, my master; all other
+Don Quixotes and all other Sancho Panzas are dreams and mockeries.”
+
+“By God I believe it,” said Don Alvaro; “for you have uttered more
+drolleries, my friend, in the few words you have spoken than the other
+Sancho Panza in all I ever heard from him, and they were not a few. He
+was more greedy than well-spoken, and more dull than droll; and I am
+convinced that the enchanters who persecute Don Quixote the Good have
+been trying to persecute me with Don Quixote the Bad. But I don’t know
+what to say, for I am ready to swear I left him shut up in the Casa del
+Nuncio at Toledo, and here another Don Quixote turns up, though a very
+different one from mine.”
+
+“I don’t know whether I am good,” said Don Quixote, “but I can safely say
+I am not ‘the Bad;’ and to prove it, let me tell you, Señor Don Alvaro
+Tarfe, I have never in my life been in Saragossa; so far from that, when
+it was told me that this imaginary Don Quixote had been present at the
+jousts in that city, I declined to enter it, in order to drag his
+falsehood before the face of the world; and so I went on straight to
+Barcelona, the treasure-house of courtesy, haven of strangers, asylum of
+the poor, home of the valiant, champion of the wronged, pleasant exchange
+of firm friendships, and city unrivalled in site and beauty. And though
+the adventures that befell me there are not by any means matters of
+enjoyment, but rather of regret, I do not regret them, simply because I
+have seen it. In a word, Señor Don Alvaro Tarfe, I am Don Quixote of La
+Mancha, the one that fame speaks of, and not the unlucky one that has
+attempted to usurp my name and deck himself out in my ideas. I entreat
+your worship by your devoir as a gentleman to be so good as to make a
+declaration before the alcalde of this village that you never in all your
+life saw me until now, and that neither am I the Don Quixote in print in
+the Second Part, nor this Sancho Panza, my squire, the one your worship
+knew.”
+
+“That I will do most willingly,” replied Don Alvaro; “though it amazes me
+to find two Don Quixotes and two Sancho Panzas at once, as much alike in
+name as they differ in demeanour; and again I say and declare that what I
+saw I cannot have seen, and that what happened me cannot have happened.”
+
+“No doubt your worship is enchanted, like my lady Dulcinea del Toboso,”
+ said Sancho; “and would to heaven your disenchantment rested on my giving
+myself another three thousand and odd lashes like what I’m giving myself
+for her, for I’d lay them on without looking for anything.”
+
+“I don’t understand that about the lashes,” said Don Alvaro. Sancho
+replied that it was a long story to tell, but he would tell him if they
+happened to be going the same road.
+
+By this dinner-time arrived, and Don Quixote and Don Alvaro dined
+together. The alcalde of the village came by chance into the inn together
+with a notary, and Don Quixote laid a petition before him, showing that
+it was requisite for his rights that Don Alvaro Tarfe, the gentleman
+there present, should make a declaration before him that he did not know
+Don Quixote of La Mancha, also there present, and that he was not the one
+that was in print in a history entitled “Second Part of Don Quixote of La
+Mancha, by one Avellaneda of Tordesillas.” The alcalde finally put it in
+legal form, and the declaration was made with all the formalities
+required in such cases, at which Don Quixote and Sancho were in high
+delight, as if a declaration of the sort was of any great importance to
+them, and as if their words and deeds did not plainly show the difference
+between the two Don Quixotes and the two Sanchos. Many civilities and
+offers of service were exchanged by Don Alvaro and Don Quixote, in the
+course of which the great Manchegan displayed such good taste that he
+disabused Don Alvaro of the error he was under; and he, on his part, felt
+convinced he must have been enchanted, now that he had been brought in
+contact with two such opposite Don Quixotes.
+
+Evening came, they set out from the village, and after about half a
+league two roads branched off, one leading to Don Quixote’s village, the
+other the road Don Alvaro was to follow. In this short interval Don
+Quixote told him of his unfortunate defeat, and of Dulcinea’s enchantment
+and the remedy, all which threw Don Alvaro into fresh amazement, and
+embracing Don Quixote and Sancho he went his way, and Don Quixote went
+his. That night he passed among trees again in order to give Sancho an
+opportunity of working out his penance, which he did in the same fashion
+as the night before, at the expense of the bark of the beech trees much
+more than of his back, of which he took such good care that the lashes
+would not have knocked off a fly had there been one there. The duped Don
+Quixote did not miss a single stroke of the count, and he found that
+together with those of the night before they made up three thousand and
+twenty-nine. The sun apparently had got up early to witness the
+sacrifice, and with his light they resumed their journey, discussing the
+deception practised on Don Alvaro, and saying how well done it was to
+have taken his declaration before a magistrate in such an unimpeachable
+form. That day and night they travelled on, nor did anything worth
+mention happen to them, unless it was that in the course of the night Sancho
+finished off his task, whereat Don Quixote was beyond measure joyful. He
+watched for daylight, to see if along the road he should fall in with his
+already disenchanted lady Dulcinea; and as he pursued his journey there
+was no woman he met that he did not go up to, to see if she was Dulcinea
+del Toboso, as he held it absolutely certain that Merlin’s promises could
+not lie. Full of these thoughts and anxieties, they ascended a rising
+ground wherefrom they descried their own village, at the sight of which
+Sancho fell on his knees exclaiming, “Open thine eyes, longed-for home,
+and see how thy son Sancho Panza comes back to thee, if not very rich,
+very well whipped! Open thine arms and receive, too, thy son Don Quixote,
+who, if he comes vanquished by the arm of another, comes victor over
+himself, which, as he himself has told me, is the greatest victory anyone
+can desire. I’m bringing back money, for if I was well whipped, I went
+mounted like a gentleman.”
+
+“Have done with these fooleries,” said Don Quixote; “let us push on
+straight and get to our own place, where we will give free range to our
+fancies, and settle our plans for our future pastoral life.”
+
+With this they descended the slope and directed their steps to 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
+
+
+At the entrance of the village, so says Cide Hamete, Don Quixote saw two
+boys quarrelling on the village threshing-floor, one of whom said to the
+other, “Take it easy, Periquillo; thou shalt never see it again as long
+as thou livest.”
+
+Don Quixote heard this, and said he to Sancho, “Dost thou not mark,
+friend, what that boy said, ‘Thou shalt never see it again as long as
+thou livest’?”
+
+“Well,” said Sancho, “what does it matter if the boy said so?”
+
+“What!” said Don Quixote, “dost thou not see that, applied to the object
+of my desires, the words mean that I am never to see Dulcinea more?”
+
+Sancho was about to answer, when his attention was diverted by seeing a
+hare come flying across the plain pursued by several greyhounds and
+sportsmen. In its terror it ran to take shelter and hide itself under
+Dapple. Sancho caught it alive and presented it to Don Quixote, who was
+saying, “Malum signum, malum signum! a hare flies, greyhounds chase it,
+Dulcinea appears not.”
+
+“Your worship’s a strange man,” said Sancho; “let’s take it for granted
+that this hare is Dulcinea, and these greyhounds chasing it the malignant
+enchanters who turned her into a country wench; she flies, and I catch
+her and put her into your worship’s hands, and you hold her in your arms
+and cherish her; what bad sign is that, or what ill omen is there to be
+found here?”
+
+The two boys who had been quarrelling came over to look at the hare, and
+Sancho asked one of them what their quarrel was about. He was answered by
+the one who had said, “Thou shalt never see it again as long as thou
+livest,” that he had taken a cage full of crickets from the other boy,
+and did not mean to give it back to him as long as he lived. Sancho took
+out four cuartos from his pocket and gave them to the boy for the cage,
+which he placed in Don Quixote’s hands, saying, “There, señor! there are
+the omens broken and destroyed, and they have no more to do with our
+affairs, to my thinking, fool as I am, than with last year’s clouds; and
+if I remember rightly I have heard the curate of our village say that it
+does not become Christians or sensible people to give any heed to these
+silly things; and even you yourself said the same to me some time ago,
+telling me that all Christians who minded omens were fools; but there’s
+no need of making words about it; let us push on and go into our
+village.”
+
+The sportsmen came up and asked for their hare, which Don Quixote gave
+them. They then went on, and upon the green at the entrance of the town
+they came upon the curate and the bachelor Samson Carrasco busy with
+their breviaries. It should be mentioned that Sancho had thrown, by way
+of a sumpter-cloth, over Dapple and over the bundle of armour, the
+buckram robe painted with flames which they had put upon him at the
+duke’s castle the night Altisidora came back to life. He had also fixed
+the mitre on Dapple’s head, the oddest transformation and decoration that
+ever ass in the world underwent. They were at once recognised by both the
+curate and the bachelor, who came towards them with open arms. Don
+Quixote dismounted and received them with a close embrace; and the boys,
+who are lynxes that nothing escapes, spied out the ass’s mitre and came
+running to see it, calling out to one another, “Come here, boys, and see
+Sancho Panza’s ass figged out finer than Mingo, and Don Quixote’s beast
+leaner than ever.”
+
+So at length, with the boys capering round them, and accompanied by the
+curate and the bachelor, they made their entrance into the town, and
+proceeded to Don Quixote’s house, at the door of which they found his
+housekeeper and niece, whom the news of his arrival had already reached.
+It had been brought to Teresa Panza, Sancho’s wife, as well, and she with
+her hair all loose and half naked, dragging Sanchica her daughter by the
+hand, ran out to meet her husband; but seeing him coming in by no means
+as good case as she thought a governor ought to be, she said to him, “How
+is it you come this way, husband? It seems to me you come tramping and
+footsore, and looking more like a disorderly vagabond than a governor.”
+
+“Hold your tongue, Teresa,” said Sancho; “often ‘where there are pegs
+there are no flitches;’ let’s go into the house and there you’ll hear
+strange things. I bring money, and that’s the main thing, got by my own
+industry without wronging anybody.”
+
+“You bring the money, my good husband,” said Teresa, “and no matter
+whether it was got this way or that; for, however you may have got it,
+you’ll not have brought any new practice into the world.”
+
+Sanchica embraced her father and asked him if he brought her anything,
+for she had been looking out for him as for the showers of May; and she
+taking hold of him by the girdle on one side, and his wife by the hand,
+while the daughter led Dapple, they made for their house, leaving Don
+Quixote in his, in the hands of his niece and housekeeper, and in the
+company of the curate and the bachelor.
+
+Don Quixote at once, without any regard to time or season, withdrew in
+private with the bachelor and the curate, and in a few words told them of
+his defeat, and of the engagement he was under not to quit his village
+for a year, which he meant to keep to the letter without departing a
+hair’s breadth from it, as became a knight-errant bound by scrupulous
+good faith and the laws of knight-errantry; and of how he thought of
+turning shepherd for that year, and taking his diversion in the solitude
+of the fields, where he could with perfect freedom give range to his
+thoughts of love while he followed the virtuous pastoral calling; and he
+besought them, if they had not a great deal to do and were not prevented
+by more important business, to consent to be his companions, for he would
+buy sheep enough to qualify them for shepherds; and the most important
+point of the whole affair, he could tell them, was settled, for he had
+given them names that would fit them to a T. The curate asked what they
+were. Don Quixote replied that he himself was to be called the shepherd
+Quixotize and the bachelor the shepherd Carrascon, and the curate the
+shepherd Curambro, and Sancho Panza the shepherd Pancino.
+
+Both were astounded at Don Quixote’s new craze; however, lest he should
+once more make off out of the village from them in pursuit of his
+chivalry, they trusting that in the course of the year he might be cured,
+fell in with his new project, applauded his crazy idea as a bright one,
+and offered to share the life with him. “And what’s more,” said Samson
+Carrasco, “I am, as all the world knows, a very famous poet, and I’ll be
+always making verses, pastoral, or courtly, or as it may come into my
+head, to pass away our time in those secluded regions where we shall be
+roaming. But what is most needful, sirs, is that each of us should choose
+the name of the shepherdess he means to glorify in his verses, and that
+we should not leave a tree, be it ever so hard, without writing up and
+carving her name on it, as is the habit and custom of love-smitten
+shepherds.”
+
+“That’s the very thing,” said Don Quixote; “though I am relieved from
+looking for the name of an imaginary shepherdess, for there’s the
+peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, the glory of these brooksides, the ornament
+of these meadows, the mainstay of beauty, the cream of all the graces,
+and, in a word, the being to whom all praise is appropriate, be it ever
+so hyperbolical.”
+
+“Very true,” said the curate; “but we the others must look about for
+accommodating shepherdesses that will answer our purpose one way or
+another.”
+
+“And,” added Samson Carrasco, “if they fail us, we can call them by the
+names of the ones in print that the world is filled with, Filidas,
+Amarilises, Dianas, Fleridas, Galateas, Belisardas; for as they sell them
+in the market-places we may fairly buy them and make them our own. If my
+lady, or I should say my shepherdess, happens to be called Ana, I’ll sing
+her praises under the name of Anarda, and if Francisca, I’ll call her
+Francenia, and if Lucia, Lucinda, for it all comes to the same thing; and
+Sancho Panza, if he joins this fraternity, may glorify his wife Teresa
+Panza as Teresaina.”
+
+Don Quixote laughed at the adaptation of the name, and the curate
+bestowed vast praise upon the worthy and honourable resolution he had
+made, and again offered to bear him company all the time that he could
+spare from his imperative duties. And so they took their leave of him,
+recommending and beseeching him to take care of his health and treat
+himself to a suitable diet.
+
+It so happened his niece and the housekeeper overheard all the three of
+them said; and as soon as they were gone they both of them came in to Don
+Quixote, and said the niece, “What’s this, uncle? Now that we were
+thinking you had come back to stay at home and lead a quiet respectable
+life there, are you going to get into fresh entanglements, and turn
+‘young shepherd, thou that comest here, young shepherd going there?’ Nay!
+indeed ‘the straw is too hard now to make pipes of.’”
+
+“And,” added the housekeeper, “will your worship be able to bear, out in
+the fields, the heats of summer, and the chills of winter, and the
+howling of the wolves? Not you; for that’s a life and a business for
+hardy men, bred and seasoned to such work almost from the time they were
+in swaddling-clothes. Why, to make choice of evils, it’s better to be a
+knight-errant than a shepherd! Look here, señor; take my advice--and I’m
+not giving it to you full of bread and wine, but fasting, and with fifty
+years upon my head--stay at home, look after your affairs, go often to
+confession, be good to the poor, and upon my soul be it if any evil comes
+to you.”
+
+“Hold your peace, my daughters,” said Don Quixote; “I know very well what
+my duty is; help me to bed, for I don’t feel very well; and rest assured
+that, knight-errant now or wandering shepherd to be, I shall never fail
+to have a care for your interests, as you will see in the end.” And the
+good wenches (for that they undoubtedly were), the housekeeper and niece,
+helped him to bed, where they gave him something to eat and made him as
+comfortable as possible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIV.
+
+OF HOW DON QUIXOTE FELL SICK, AND OF THE WILL HE MADE, AND HOW HE DIED
+
+
+As nothing that is man’s can last for ever, but all tends ever downwards
+from its beginning to its end, and above all man’s life, and as Don
+Quixote’s enjoyed no special dispensation from heaven to stay its course,
+its end and close came when he least looked for it. For whether it was of
+the dejection the thought of his defeat produced, or of heaven’s will
+that so ordered it--a fever settled upon him and kept him in his bed for
+six days, during which he was often visited by his friends the curate,
+the bachelor, and the barber, while his good squire Sancho Panza never
+quitted his bedside. They, persuaded that it was grief at finding himself
+vanquished, and the object of his heart, the liberation and
+disenchantment of Dulcinea, unattained, that kept him in this state,
+strove by all the means in their power to cheer him up; the bachelor
+bidding him take heart and get up to begin his pastoral life, for which
+he himself, he said, had already composed an eclogue that would take the
+shine out of all Sannazaro had ever written, and had bought with his own
+money two famous dogs to guard the flock, one called Barcino and the
+other Butron, which a herdsman of Quintanar had sold him.
+
+But for all this Don Quixote could not shake off his sadness. His friends
+called in the doctor, who felt his pulse and was not very well satisfied
+with it, and said that in any case it would be well for him to attend to
+the health of his soul, as that of his body was in a bad way. Don Quixote
+heard this calmly; but not so his housekeeper, his niece, and his squire,
+who fell weeping bitterly, as if they had him lying dead before them. The
+doctor’s opinion was that melancholy and depression were bringing him to
+his end. Don Quixote begged them to leave him to himself, as he had a
+wish to sleep a little. They obeyed, and he slept at one stretch, as the
+saying is, more than six hours, so that the housekeeper and niece thought
+he was going to sleep for ever. But at the end of that time he woke up,
+and in a loud voice exclaimed, “Blessed be Almighty God, who has shown me
+such goodness. In truth his mercies are boundless, and the sins of men
+can neither limit them nor keep them back!”
+
+The niece listened with attention to her uncle’s words, and they struck
+her as more coherent than what usually fell from him, at least during his
+illness, so she asked, “What are you saying, señor? Has anything strange
+occurred? What mercies or what sins of men are you talking of?”
+
+“The mercies, niece,” said Don Quixote, “are those that God has this
+moment shown me, and with him, as I said, my sins are no impediment to
+them. My reason is now free and clear, rid of the dark shadows of
+ignorance that my unhappy constant study of those detestable books of
+chivalry cast over it. Now I see through their absurdities and
+deceptions, and it only grieves me that this destruction of my illusions
+has come so late that it leaves me no time to make some amends by reading
+other books that might be a light to my soul. Niece, I feel myself at the
+point of death, and I would fain meet it in such a way as to show that my
+life has not been so ill that I should leave behind me the name of a
+madman; for though I have been one, I would not that the fact should be
+made plainer at my death. Call in to me, my dear, my good friends the
+curate, the bachelor Samson Carrasco, and Master Nicholas the barber, for
+I wish to confess and make my will.” But his niece was saved the trouble
+by the entrance of the three. The instant Don Quixote saw them he
+exclaimed, “Good news for you, good sirs, that I am no longer Don Quixote
+of La Mancha, but Alonso Quixano, whose way of life won for him the name
+of Good. Now am I the enemy of Amadis of Gaul and of the whole countless
+troop of his descendants; odious to me now are all the profane stories of
+knight-errantry; now I perceive my folly, and the peril into which
+reading them brought me; now, by God’s mercy schooled into my right
+senses, I loathe them.”
+
+When the three heard him speak in this way, they had no doubt whatever
+that some new craze had taken possession of him; and said Samson, “What?
+Señor Don Quixote! Now that we have intelligence of the lady Dulcinea
+being disenchanted, are you taking this line; now, just as we are on the
+point of becoming shepherds, to pass our lives singing, like princes, are
+you thinking of turning hermit? Hush, for heaven’s sake, be rational and
+let’s have no more nonsense.”
+
+“All that nonsense,” said Don Quixote, “that until now has been a reality
+to my hurt, my death will, with heaven’s help, turn to my good. I feel,
+sirs, that I am rapidly drawing near death; a truce to jesting; let me
+have a confessor to confess me, and a notary to make my will; for in
+extremities like this, man must not trifle with his soul; and while the
+curate is confessing me let some one, I beg, go for the notary.”
+
+They looked at one another, wondering at Don Quixote’s words; but, though
+uncertain, they were inclined to believe him, and one of the signs by
+which they came to the conclusion he was dying was this so sudden and
+complete return to his senses after having been mad; for to the words
+already quoted he added much more, so well expressed, so devout, and so
+rational, as to banish all doubt and convince them that he was sound of
+mind. The curate turned them all out, and left alone with him confessed
+him. The bachelor went for the notary and returned shortly afterwards
+with him and with Sancho, who, having already learned from the bachelor
+the condition his master was in, and finding the housekeeper and niece
+weeping, began to blubber and shed tears.
+
+The confession over, the curate came out saying, “Alonso Quixano the Good
+is indeed dying, and is indeed in his right mind; we may now go in to him
+while he makes his will.”
+
+This news gave a tremendous impulse to the brimming eyes of the
+housekeeper, niece, and Sancho Panza his good squire, making the tears
+burst from their eyes and a host of sighs from their hearts; for of a
+truth, as has been said more than once, whether as plain Alonso Quixano
+the Good, or as Don Quixote of La Mancha, Don Quixote was always of a
+gentle disposition and kindly in all his ways, and hence he was beloved,
+not only by those of his own house, but by all who knew him.
+
+The notary came in with the rest, and as soon as the preamble of the will had
+been set out and Don Quixote had commended his soul to God with all the
+devout formalities that are usual, coming to the bequests, he said,
+“Item, it is my will that, touching certain moneys in the hands of Sancho
+Panza (whom in my madness I made my squire), inasmuch as between him and
+me there have been certain accounts and debits and credits, no claim be
+made against him, nor any account demanded of him in respect of them; but
+that if anything remain over and above, after he has paid himself what I
+owe him, the balance, which will be but little, shall be his, and much
+good may it do him; and if, as when I was mad I had a share in giving him
+the government of an island, so, now that I am in my senses, I could give
+him that of a kingdom, it should be his, for the simplicity of his
+character and the fidelity of his conduct deserve it.” And then, turning
+to Sancho, he said, “Forgive me, my friend, that I led thee to seem as
+mad as myself, making thee fall into the same error I myself fell into,
+that there were and still are knights-errant in the world.”
+
+“Ah!” said Sancho weeping, “don’t die, master, but take my advice and
+live many years; for the foolishest thing a man can do in this life is to
+let himself die without rhyme or reason, without anybody killing him, or
+any hands but melancholy’s making an end of him. Come, don’t be lazy, but
+get up from your bed and let us take to the fields in shepherd’s trim as
+we agreed. Perhaps behind some bush we shall find the lady Dulcinea
+disenchanted, as fine as fine can be. If it be that you are dying of
+vexation at having been vanquished, lay the blame on me, and say you were
+overthrown because I had girthed Rocinante badly; besides you must have
+seen in your books of chivalry that it is a common thing for knights to
+upset one another, and for him who is conquered to-day to be conqueror
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Very true,” said Samson, “and good Sancho Panza’s view of these cases is
+quite right.”
+
+“Sirs, not so fast,” said Don Quixote, “‘in last year’s nests there are
+no birds this year.’ I was mad, now I am in my senses; I was Don Quixote
+of La Mancha, I am now, as I said, Alonso Quixano the Good; and may my
+repentance and sincerity restore me to the esteem you used to have for
+me; and now let Master Notary proceed.
+
+“Item, I leave all my property absolutely to Antonia Quixana my niece,
+here present, after all has been deducted from the most available portion
+of it that may be required to satisfy the bequests I have made. And the
+first disbursement I desire to be made is the payment of the wages I owe
+for the time my housekeeper has served me, with twenty ducats, over and
+above, for a gown. The curate and the bachelor Samson Carrasco, now
+present, I appoint my executors.
+
+“Item, it is my wish that if Antonia Quixana, my niece, desires to marry,
+she shall marry a man of whom it shall be first of all ascertained by
+information taken that he does not know what books of chivalry are; and
+if it should be proved that he does, and if, in spite of this, my niece
+insists upon marrying him, and does marry him, then that she shall
+forfeit the whole of what I have left her, which my executors shall
+devote to works of charity as they please.
+
+“Item, I entreat the aforesaid gentlemen my executors, that, if any happy
+chance should lead them to discover the author who is said to have
+written a history now going about under the title of ‘Second Part of the
+Achievements of Don Quixote of La Mancha,’ they beg of him on my behalf
+as earnestly as they can to forgive me for having been, without intending
+it, the cause of his writing so many and such monstrous absurdities as he
+has written in it; for I am leaving the world with a feeling of
+compunction at having provoked him to write them.”
+
+With this he closed his will, and a faintness coming over him he
+stretched himself out at full length on the bed. All were in a flutter
+and made haste to relieve him, and during the three days he lived after
+that on which he made his will he fainted away very often. The house was
+all in confusion; but still the niece ate and the housekeeper drank and
+Sancho Panza enjoyed himself; for inheriting property wipes out or
+softens down in the heir the feeling of grief the dead man might be
+expected to leave behind him.
+
+At last Don Quixote’s end came, after he had received all the sacraments,
+and had in full and forcible terms expressed his detestation of books of
+chivalry. The notary was there at the time, and he said that in no book
+of chivalry had he ever read of any knight-errant dying in his bed so
+calmly and so like a Christian as Don Quixote, who amid the tears and
+lamentations of all present yielded up his spirit, that is to say died.
+On perceiving it the curate begged the notary to bear witness that Alonso
+Quixano the Good, commonly called Don Quixote of La Mancha, had passed
+away from this present life, and died naturally; and said he desired this
+testimony in order to remove the possibility of any other author save
+Cide Hamete Benengeli bringing him to life again falsely and making
+interminable stories out of his achievements.
+
+Such was the end of the Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha, whose village
+Cide Hamete would not indicate precisely, in order to leave all the towns
+and villages of La Mancha to contend among themselves for the right to
+adopt him and claim him as a son, as the seven cities of Greece contended
+for Homer. The lamentations of Sancho and the niece and housekeeper are
+omitted here, as well as the new epitaphs upon his tomb; Samson Carrasco,
+however, put the following lines:
+
+A doughty gentleman lies here;
+A stranger all his life to fear;
+Nor in his death could Death prevail,
+In that last hour, to make him quail.
+He for the world but little cared;
+And at his feats the world was scared;
+A crazy man his life he passed,
+But in his senses died at last.
+
+And said most sage Cide Hamete to his pen, “Rest here, hung up by this
+brass wire, upon this shelf, O my pen, whether of skilful make or clumsy
+cut I know not; here shalt thou remain long ages hence, unless
+presumptuous or malignant story-tellers take thee down to profane thee.
+But ere they touch thee warn them, and, as best thou canst, say to them:
+
+Hold off! ye weaklings; hold your hands!
+  Adventure it let none,
+For this emprise, my lord the king,
+  Was meant for me alone.
+
+For me alone was Don Quixote born, and I for him; it was his to act, mine
+to write; we two together make but one, notwithstanding and in spite of
+that pretended Tordesillesque writer who has ventured or would venture
+with his great, coarse, ill-trimmed ostrich quill to write the
+achievements of my valiant knight;--no burden for his shoulders, nor
+subject for his frozen wit: whom, if perchance thou shouldst come to know
+him, thou shalt warn to leave at rest where they lie the weary mouldering
+bones of Don Quixote, and not to attempt to carry him off, in opposition
+to all the privileges of death, to Old Castile, making him rise from the
+grave where in reality and truth he lies stretched at full length,
+powerless to make any third expedition or new sally; for the two that he
+has already made, so much to the enjoyment and approval of everybody to
+whom they have become known, in this as well as in foreign countries, are
+quite sufficient for the purpose of turning into ridicule the whole of
+those made by the whole set of the knights-errant; and so doing shalt
+thou discharge thy Christian calling, giving good counsel to one that
+bears ill-will to thee. And I shall remain satisfied, and proud to have
+been the first who has ever enjoyed the fruit of his writings as fully as
+he could desire; for my desire has been no other than to deliver over to
+the detestation of mankind the false and foolish tales of the books of
+chivalry, which, thanks to that of my true Don Quixote, are even now
+tottering, and doubtless doomed to fall for ever. Farewell.”
+
+
+
+
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