diff --git a/content/data/don-quixote.txt b/content/data/don-quixote.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..40c4a86
--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/data/don-quixote.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,43279 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The History of Don Quixote, 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
+
+Author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
+
+Translator: John Ormsby
+
+Release Date: July, 1997 [eBook #996]
+[Most recently updated: March 30, 2023]
+
+Language: English
+
+Produced by: David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DON QUIXOTE ***
+
+
+
+
+bookcover.jpg
+
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+spine.jpg (152K)
+
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Don Quixote
+
+
+
+by Miguel de Cervantes
+
+
+
+ Translated by John Ormsby
+
+
+
+
+Ebook Editor’s Note
+
+
+
+The book cover and spine above and the images which follow were not
+part of the original Ormsby translation—they are taken from the 1880
+edition of J. W. Clark, illustrated by Gustave Doré. Clark in his
+edition states that, “The English text of ‘Don Quixote’ adopted in this
+edition is that of Jarvis, with occasional corrections from Motteaux.”
+See in the introduction below John Ormsby’s critique of both the Jarvis
+and Motteaux translations. It has been elected in the present Project
+Gutenberg edition to attach the famous engravings of Gustave Doré to
+the Ormsby translation instead of the Jarvis/Motteaux. The detail of
+many of the Doré engravings can be fully appreciated only by utilizing
+the “Full Size” button to expand them to their original dimensions.
+Ormsby in his Preface has criticized the fanciful nature of Doré’s
+illustrations; others feel these woodcuts and steel engravings well
+match Quixote’s dreams.            D.W.
+
+
+
+p003.jpg (307K)
+
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CONTENTS VOLUME I
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+PREFARATORY
+
+CERVANTES
+
+‘DON QUIXOTE’
+
+THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE
+
+COMMENDATORY VERSES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I WHICH TREATS OF THE CHARACTER AND
+PURSUITS OF THE FAMOUS GENTLEMAN DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA 
+
+CHAPTER II WHICH TREATS OF THE FIRST SALLY THE INGENIOUS
+DON QUIXOTE MADE FROM HOME 
+
+CHAPTER III
+WHEREIN IS RELATED THE DROLL WAY IN WHICH DON QUIXOTE HAD HIMSELF DUBBED A
+KNIGHT 
+
+CHAPTER IV OF WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR
+KNIGHT WHEN HE LEFT THE INN 
+
+CHAPTER V IN
+WHICH THE NARRATIVE OF OUR KNIGHT’S MISHAP IS CONTINUED 
+
+CHAPTER VI OF THE DIVERTING AND IMPORTANT SCRUTINY WHICH
+THE CURATE AND THE BARBER MADE IN THE LIBRARY OF OUR INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN
+
+
+CHAPTER VII OF THE SECOND SALLY OF OUR WORTHY
+KNIGHT DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA 
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+OF THE GOOD FORTUNE WHICH THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE HAD IN THE TERRIBLE AND
+UNDREAMT-OF ADVENTURE OF THE WINDMILLS, WITH OTHER OCCURRENCES WORTHY TO
+BE FITLY RECORDED 
+
+CHAPTER IX IN WHICH IS
+CONCLUDED AND FINISHED THE TERRIFIC BATTLE BETWEEN THE GALLANT BISCAYAN
+AND THE VALIANT MANCHEGAN 
+
+CHAPTER X OF THE
+PLEASANT DISCOURSE THAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE SANCHO
+PANZA 
+
+CHAPTER XI OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE
+WITH CERTAIN GOATHERDS 
+
+CHAPTER XII OF WHAT A
+GOATHERD RELATED TO THOSE WITH DON QUIXOTE 
+
+CHAPTER
+XIII IN WHICH IS ENDED THE STORY OF THE SHEPHERDESS MARCELA, WITH
+OTHER INCIDENTS 
+
+CHAPTER XIV WHEREIN ARE
+INSERTED THE DESPAIRING VERSES OF THE DEAD SHEPHERD, TOGETHER WITH OTHER
+INCIDENTS NOT LOOKED FOR 
+
+CHAPTER XV IN WHICH
+IS RELATED THE UNFORTUNATE ADVENTURE THAT DON QUIXOTE FELL IN WITH WHEN HE
+FELL OUT WITH CERTAIN HEARTLESS YANGUESANS 
+
+CHAPTER
+XVI OF WHAT HAPPENED TO THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN IN THE INN WHICH HE
+TOOK TO BE A CASTLE 
+
+CHAPTER XVII IN WHICH
+ARE CONTAINED THE INNUMERABLE TROUBLES WHICH THE BRAVE DON QUIXOTE AND HIS
+GOOD SQUIRE SANCHO PANZA ENDURED IN THE INN, WHICH TO HIS MISFORTUNE HE
+TOOK TO BE A CASTLE 
+
+CHAPTER XVIII IN WHICH
+IS RELATED THE DISCOURSE SANCHO PANZA HELD WITH HIS MASTER, DON QUIXOTE,
+AND OTHER ADVENTURES WORTH RELATING 
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+OF THE SHREWD DISCOURSE WHICH SANCHO HELD WITH HIS MASTER, AND OF THE
+ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL HIM WITH A DEAD BODY, TOGETHER WITH OTHER NOTABLE
+OCCURRENCES 
+
+CHAPTER XX OF THE UNEXAMPLED AND
+UNHEARD-OF ADVENTURE WHICH WAS ACHIEVED BY THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE OF LA
+MANCHA WITH LESS PERIL THAN ANY EVER ACHIEVED BY ANY FAMOUS KNIGHT IN THE
+WORLD 
+
+CHAPTER XXI WHICH TREATS OF THE
+EXALTED ADVENTURE AND RICH PRIZE OF MAMBRINO’S HELMET, TOGETHER WITH OTHER
+THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO OUR INVINCIBLE KNIGHT 
+
+CHAPTER
+XXII OF THE FREEDOM DON QUIXOTE CONFERRED ON SEVERAL UNFORTUNATES WHO
+AGAINST THEIR WILL WERE BEING CARRIED WHERE THEY HAD NO WISH TO GO 
+
+CHAPTER XXIII OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE IN THE SIERRA
+MORENA, WHICH WAS ONE OF THE RAREST ADVENTURES RELATED IN THIS VERACIOUS
+HISTORY 
+
+CHAPTER XXIV IN WHICH IS CONTINUED
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIERRA MORENA 
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO THE STOUT KNIGHT OF LA
+MANCHA IN THE SIERRA MORENA, AND OF HIS IMITATION OF THE PENANCE OF
+BELTENEBROS 
+
+CHAPTER XXVI IN WHICH ARE
+CONTINUED THE REFINEMENTS WHEREWITH DON QUIXOTE PLAYED THE PART OF A LOVER
+IN THE SIERRA MORENA 
+
+CHAPTER XXVII OF HOW
+THE CURATE AND THE BARBER PROCEEDED WITH THEIR SCHEME; TOGETHER WITH OTHER
+MATTERS WORTHY OF RECORD IN THIS GREAT HISTORY 
+
+CHAPTER
+XXVIII WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE AND DELIGHTFUL ADVENTURE THAT
+BEFELL THE CURATE AND THE BARBER IN THE SAME SIERRA 
+
+CHAPTER XXIX WHICH TREATS OF THE DROLL DEVICE AND METHOD
+ADOPTED TO EXTRICATE OUR LOVE-STRICKEN KNIGHT FROM THE SEVERE PENANCE HE
+HAD IMPOSED UPON HIMSELF 
+
+CHAPTER XXX WHICH
+TREATS OF ADDRESS DISPLAYED BY THE FAIR DOROTHEA, WITH OTHER MATTERS
+PLEASANT AND AMUSING 
+
+CHAPTER XXXI OF THE
+DELECTABLE DISCUSSION BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO PANZA, HIS SQUIRE,
+TOGETHER WITH OTHER INCIDENTS 
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+WHICH TREATS OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE’S PARTY AT THE INN 
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII IN WHICH IS RELATED THE NOVEL OF “THE
+ILL-ADVISED CURIOSITY” 
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV IN
+WHICH IS CONTINUED THE NOVEL OF “THE ILL-ADVISED CURIOSITY” 
+
+CHAPTER XXXV WHICH TREATS OF THE HEROIC AND PRODIGIOUS
+BATTLE DON QUIXOTE HAD WITH CERTAIN SKINS OF RED WINE, AND BRINGS THE
+NOVEL OF “THE ILL-ADVISED CURIOSITY” TO A CLOSE 
+
+CHAPTER
+XXXVI WHICH TREATS OF MORE CURIOUS INCIDENTS THAT OCCURRED AT THE INN
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE
+STORY OF THE FAMOUS PRINCESS MICOMICONA, WITH OTHER DROLL ADVENTURES 
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII WHICH TREATS OF THE CURIOUS DISCOURSE DON
+QUIXOTE DELIVERED ON ARMS AND LETTERS 
+
+CHAPTER
+XXXIX WHEREIN THE CAPTIVE RELATES HIS LIFE AND ADVENTURES 
+
+CHAPTER XL IN WHICH THE STORY OF THE CAPTIVE IS CONTINUED
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI IN WHICH THE CAPTIVE STILL
+CONTINUES HIS ADVENTURES 
+
+CHAPTER XLII WHICH
+TREATS OF WHAT FURTHER TOOK PLACE IN THE INN, AND OF SEVERAL OTHER THINGS
+WORTH KNOWING 
+
+CHAPTER XLIII WHEREIN IS
+RELATED THE PLEASANT STORY OF THE MULETEER, TOGETHER WITH OTHER STRANGE
+THINGS THAT CAME TO PASS IN THE INN 
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+IN WHICH ARE CONTINUED THE UNHEARD-OF ADVENTURES OF THE INN 
+
+CHAPTER XLV IN WHICH THE DOUBTFUL QUESTION OF MAMBRINO’S
+HELMET AND THE PACK-SADDLE IS FINALLY SETTLED, WITH OTHER ADVENTURES THAT
+OCCURRED IN TRUTH AND EARNEST 
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+OF THE END OF THE NOTABLE ADVENTURE OF THE OFFICERS OF THE HOLY
+BROTHERHOOD; AND OF THE GREAT FEROCITY OF OUR WORTHY KNIGHT, DON QUIXOTE
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII OF THE STRANGE MANNER IN WHICH
+DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA WAS CARRIED AWAY ENCHANTED, TOGETHER WITH OTHER
+REMARKABLE INCIDENTS 
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII IN WHICH
+THE CANON PURSUES THE SUBJECT OF THE BOOKS OF CHIVALRY, WITH OTHER MATTERS
+WORTHY OF HIS WIT 
+
+CHAPTER XLIX WHICH TREATS
+OF THE SHREWD CONVERSATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HELD WITH HIS MASTER DON
+QUIXOTE 
+
+CHAPTER L OF THE SHREWD CONTROVERSY
+WHICH DON QUIXOTE AND THE CANON HELD, TOGETHER WITH OTHER INCIDENTS 
+
+CHAPTER LI WHICH DEALS WITH WHAT THE GOATHERD TOLD THOSE
+WHO WERE CARRYING OFF DON QUIXOTE 
+
+CHAPTER LII
+OF THE QUARREL THAT DON QUIXOTE HAD WITH THE GOATHERD, TOGETHER WITH THE
+RARE ADVENTURE OF THE PENITENTS, WHICH WITH AN EXPENDITURE OF SWEAT HE
+BROUGHT TO A HAPPY CONCLUSION 
+
+
+
+CONTENTS VOLUME 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
+DROLLMATTERS 
+
+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
+UNEXAMPLEDCOURAGE 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 DOÑA 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 DOÑA 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
+DOÑA 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 
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+PREFARATORY
+
+It was with considerable reluctance that I abandoned in favour of the
+present undertaking what had long been a favourite project: that of a
+new edition of Shelton’s “Don Quixote,” which has now become a somewhat
+scarce book. There are some—and I confess myself to be one—for whom
+Shelton’s racy old version, with all its defects, has a charm that no
+modern translation, however skilful or correct, could possess. Shelton
+had the inestimable advantage of belonging to the same generation as
+Cervantes; “Don Quixote” had to him a vitality that only a contemporary
+could feel; it cost him no dramatic effort to see things as Cervantes
+saw them; there is no anachronism in his language; he put the Spanish
+of Cervantes into the English of Shakespeare. Shakespeare himself most
+likely knew the book; he may have carried it home with him in his
+saddle-bags to Stratford on one of his last journeys, and under the
+mulberry tree at New Place joined hands with a kindred genius in its
+pages.
+
+But it was soon made plain to me that to hope for even a moderate
+popularity for Shelton was vain. His fine old crusted English would, no
+doubt, be relished by a minority, but it would be only by a minority.
+His warmest admirers must admit that he is not a satisfactory
+representative of Cervantes. His translation of the First Part was very
+hastily made and was never revised by him. It has all the freshness and
+vigour, but also a full measure of the faults, of a hasty production.
+It is often very literal—barbarously literal frequently—but just as
+often very loose. He had evidently a good colloquial knowledge of
+Spanish, but apparently not much more. It never seems to occur to him
+that the same translation of a word will not suit in every case.
+
+It is often said that we have no satisfactory translation of “Don
+Quixote.” To those who are familiar with the original, it savours of
+truism or platitude to say so, for in truth there can be no thoroughly
+satisfactory translation of “Don Quixote” into English or any other
+language. It is not that the Spanish idioms are so utterly
+unmanageable, or that the untranslatable words, numerous enough no
+doubt, are so superabundant, but rather that the sententious terseness
+to which the humour of the book owes its flavour is peculiar to
+Spanish, and can at best be only distantly imitated in any other
+tongue.
+
+The history of our English translations of “Don Quixote” is
+instructive. Shelton’s, the first in any language, was made,
+apparently, about 1608, but not published till 1612. This of course was
+only the First Part. It has been asserted that the Second, published in
+1620, is not the work of Shelton, but there is nothing to support the
+assertion save the fact that it has less spirit, less of what we
+generally understand by “go,” about it than the first, which would be
+only natural if the first were the work of a young man writing
+_currente calamo_, and the second that of a middle-aged man writing for
+a bookseller. On the other hand, it is closer and more literal, the
+style is the same, the very same translations, or mistranslations,
+occur in it, and it is extremely unlikely that a new translator would,
+by suppressing his name, have allowed Shelton to carry off the credit.
+
+In 1687 John Phillips, Milton’s nephew, produced a “Don Quixote” “made
+English,” he says, “according to the humour of our modern language.”
+His “Quixote” is not so much a translation as a travesty, and a
+travesty that for coarseness, vulgarity, and buffoonery is almost
+unexampled even in the literature of that day.
+
+Ned Ward’s “Life and Notable Adventures of Don Quixote, merrily
+translated into Hudibrastic Verse” (1700), can scarcely be reckoned a
+translation, but it serves to show the light in which “Don Quixote” was
+regarded at the time.
+
+A further illustration may be found in the version published in 1712 by
+Peter Motteux, who had then recently combined tea-dealing with
+literature. It is described as “translated from the original by several
+hands,” but if so all Spanish flavour has entirely evaporated under the
+manipulation of the several hands. The flavour that it has, on the
+other hand, is distinctly Franco-cockney. Anyone who compares it
+carefully with the original will have little doubt that it is a
+concoction from Shelton and the French of Filleau de Saint Martin, eked
+out by borrowings from Phillips, whose mode of treatment it adopts. It
+is, to be sure, more decent and decorous, but it treats “Don Quixote”
+in the same fashion as a comic book that cannot be made too comic.
+
+To attempt to improve the humour of “Don Quixote” by an infusion of
+cockney flippancy and facetiousness, as Motteux’s operators did, is not
+merely an impertinence like larding a sirloin of prize beef, but an
+absolute falsification of the spirit of the book, and it is a proof of
+the uncritical way in which “Don Quixote” is generally read that this
+worse than worthless translation—worthless as failing to represent,
+worse than worthless as misrepresenting—should have been favoured as it
+has been.
+
+It had the effect, however, of bringing out a translation undertaken
+and executed in a very different spirit, that of Charles Jervas, the
+portrait painter, and friend of Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, and Gay. Jervas
+has been allowed little credit for his work, indeed it may be said
+none, for it is known to the world in general as Jarvis’s. It was not
+published until after his death, and the printers gave the name
+according to the current pronunciation of the day. It has been the most
+freely used and the most freely abused of all the translations. It has
+seen far more editions than any other, it is admitted on all hands to
+be by far the most faithful, and yet nobody seems to have a good word
+to say for it or for its author. Jervas no doubt prejudiced readers
+against himself in his preface, where among many true words about
+Shelton, Stevens, and Motteux, he rashly and unjustly charges Shelton
+with having translated not from the Spanish, but from the Italian
+version of Franciosini, which did not appear until ten years after
+Shelton’s first volume. A suspicion of incompetence, too, seems to have
+attached to him because he was by profession a painter and a mediocre
+one (though he has given us the best portrait we have of Swift), and
+this may have been strengthened by Pope’s remark that he “translated
+‘Don Quixote’ without understanding Spanish.” He has been also charged
+with borrowing from Shelton, whom he disparaged. It is true that in a
+few difficult or obscure passages he has followed Shelton, and gone
+astray with him; but for one case of this sort, there are fifty where
+he is right and Shelton wrong. As for Pope’s dictum, anyone who
+examines Jervas’s version carefully, side by side with the original,
+will see that he was a sound Spanish scholar, incomparably a better one
+than Shelton, except perhaps in mere colloquial Spanish. He was, in
+fact, an honest, faithful, and painstaking translator, and he has left
+a version which, whatever its shortcomings may be, is singularly free
+from errors and mistranslations.
+
+The charge against it is that it is stiff, dry—“wooden” in a word,—and
+no one can deny that there is a foundation for it. But it may be
+pleaded for Jervas that a good deal of this rigidity is due to his
+abhorrence of the light, flippant, jocose style of his predecessors. He
+was one of the few, very few, translators that have shown any
+apprehension of the unsmiling gravity which is the essence of Quixotic
+humour; it seemed to him a crime to bring Cervantes forward smirking
+and grinning at his own good things, and to this may be attributed in a
+great measure the ascetic abstinence from everything savouring of
+liveliness which is the characteristic of his translation. In most
+modern editions, it should be observed, his style has been smoothed and
+smartened, but without any reference to the original Spanish, so that
+if he has been made to read more agreeably he has also been robbed of
+his chief merit of fidelity.
+
+Smollett’s version, published in 1755, may be almost counted as one of
+these. At any rate it is plain that in its construction Jervas’s
+translation was very freely drawn upon, and very little or probably no
+heed given to the original Spanish.
+
+The later translations may be dismissed in a few words. George Kelly’s,
+which appeared in 1769, “printed for the Translator,” was an impudent
+imposture, being nothing more than Motteux’s version with a few of the
+words, here and there, artfully transposed; Charles Wilmot’s (1774) was
+only an abridgment like Florian’s, but not so skilfully executed; and
+the version published by Miss Smirke in 1818, to accompany her
+brother’s plates, was merely a patchwork production made out of former
+translations. On the latest, Mr. A. J. Duffield’s, it would be in every
+sense of the word impertinent in me to offer an opinion here. I had not
+even seen it when the present undertaking was proposed to me, and since
+then I may say vidi tantum, having for obvious reasons resisted the
+temptation which Mr. Duffield’s reputation and comely volumes hold out
+to every lover of Cervantes.
+
+From the foregoing history of our translations of “Don Quixote,” it
+will be seen that there are a good many people who, provided they get
+the mere narrative with its full complement of facts, incidents, and
+adventures served up to them in a form that amuses them, care very
+little whether that form is the one in which Cervantes originally
+shaped his ideas. On the other hand, it is clear that there are many
+who desire to have not merely the story he tells, but the story as he
+tells it, so far at least as differences of idiom and circumstances
+permit, and who will give a preference to the conscientious translator,
+even though he may have acquitted himself somewhat awkwardly.
+
+But after all there is no real antagonism between the two classes;
+there is no reason why what pleases the one should not please the
+other, or why a translator who makes it his aim to treat “Don Quixote”
+with the respect due to a great classic, should not be as acceptable
+even to the careless reader as the one who treats it as a famous old
+jest-book. It is not a question of caviare to the general, or, if it
+is, the fault rests with him who makes so. The method by which
+Cervantes won the ear of the Spanish people ought, mutatis mutandis, to
+be equally effective with the great majority of English readers. At any
+rate, even if there are readers to whom it is a matter of indifference,
+fidelity to the method is as much a part of the translator’s duty as
+fidelity to the matter. If he can please all parties, so much the
+better; but his first duty is to those who look to him for as faithful
+a representation of his author as it is in his power to give them,
+faithful to the letter so long as fidelity is practicable, faithful to
+the spirit so far as he can make it.
+
+My purpose here is not to dogmatise on the rules of translation, but to
+indicate those I have followed, or at least tried to the best of my
+ability to follow, in the present instance. One which, it seems to me,
+cannot be too rigidly followed in translating “Don Quixote,” is to
+avoid everything that savours of affectation. The book itself is,
+indeed, in one sense a protest against it, and no man abhorred it more
+than Cervantes. For this reason, I think, any temptation to use
+antiquated or obsolete language should be resisted. It is after all an
+affectation, and one for which there is no warrant or excuse. Spanish
+has probably undergone less change since the seventeenth century than
+any language in Europe, and by far the greater and certainly the best
+part of “Don Quixote” differs but little in language from the
+colloquial Spanish of the present day. Except in the tales and Don
+Quixote’s speeches, the translator who uses the simplest and plainest
+everyday language will almost always be the one who approaches nearest
+to the original.
+
+Seeing that the story of “Don Quixote” and all its characters and
+incidents have now been for more than two centuries and a half familiar
+as household words in English mouths, it seems to me that the old
+familiar names and phrases should not be changed without good reason.
+Of course a translator who holds that “Don Quixote” should receive the
+treatment a great classic deserves, will feel himself bound by the
+injunction laid upon the Morisco in Chap. IX not to omit or add
+anything.
+
+
+
+
+CERVANTES
+
+
+Four generations had laughed over “Don Quixote” before it occurred to
+anyone to ask, who and what manner of man was this Miguel de Cervantes
+Saavedra whose name is on the title-page; and it was too late for a
+satisfactory answer to the question when it was proposed to add a life
+of the author to the London edition published at Lord Carteret’s
+instance in 1738. All traces of the personality of Cervantes had by
+that time disappeared. Any floating traditions that may once have
+existed, transmitted from men who had known him, had long since died
+out, and of other record there was none; for the sixteenth and
+seventeenth centuries were incurious as to “the men of the time,” a
+reproach against which the nineteenth has, at any rate, secured itself,
+if it has produced no Shakespeare or Cervantes. All that Mayans y
+Siscar, to whom the task was entrusted, or any of those who followed
+him, Rios, Pellicer, or Navarrete, could do was to eke out the few
+allusions Cervantes makes to himself in his various prefaces with such
+pieces of documentary evidence bearing upon his life as they could
+find.
+
+This, however, has been done by the last-named biographer to such good
+purpose that he has superseded all predecessors. Thoroughness is the
+chief characteristic of Navarrete’s work. Besides sifting, testing, and
+methodising with rare patience and judgment what had been previously
+brought to light, he left, as the saying is, no stone unturned under
+which anything to illustrate his subject might possibly be found.
+Navarrete has done all that industry and acumen could do, and it is no
+fault of his if he has not given us what we want. What Hallam says of
+Shakespeare may be applied to the almost parallel case of Cervantes:
+“It is not the register of his baptism, or the draft of his will, or
+the orthography of his name that we seek; no letter of his writing, no
+record of his conversation, no character of him drawn ... by a
+contemporary has been produced.”
+
+It is only natural, therefore, that the biographers of Cervantes,
+forced to make brick without straw, should have recourse largely to
+conjecture, and that conjecture should in some instances come by
+degrees to take the place of established fact. All that I propose to do
+here is to separate what is matter of fact from what is matter of
+conjecture, and leave it to the reader’s judgment to decide whether the
+data justify the inference or not.
+
+The men whose names by common consent stand in the front rank of
+Spanish literature, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, Calderon,
+Garcilaso de la Vega, the Mendozas, Gongora, were all men of ancient
+families, and, curiously, all, except the last, of families that traced
+their origin to the same mountain district in the North of Spain. The
+family of Cervantes is commonly said to have been of Galician origin,
+and unquestionably it was in possession of lands in Galicia at a very
+early date; but I think the balance of the evidence tends to show that
+the “solar,” the original site of the family, was at Cervatos in the
+north-west corner of Old Castile, close to the junction of Castile,
+Leon, and the Asturias. As it happens, there is a complete history of
+the Cervantes family from the tenth century down to the seventeenth
+extant under the title of “Illustrious Ancestry, Glorious Deeds, and
+Noble Posterity of the Famous Nuno Alfonso, Alcaide of Toledo,” written
+in 1648 by the industrious genealogist Rodrigo Mendez Silva, who
+availed himself of a manuscript genealogy by Juan de Mena, the poet
+laureate and historiographer of John II.
+
+The origin of the name Cervantes is curious. Nuno Alfonso was almost as
+distinguished in the struggle against the Moors in the reign of Alfonso
+VII as the Cid had been half a century before in that of Alfonso VI,
+and was rewarded by divers grants of land in the neighbourhood of
+Toledo. On one of his acquisitions, about two leagues from the city, he
+built himself a castle which he called Cervatos, because “he was lord
+of the solar of Cervatos in the Montana,” as the mountain region
+extending from the Basque Provinces to Leon was always called. At his
+death in battle in 1143, the castle passed by his will to his son
+Alfonso Munio, who, as territorial or local surnames were then coming
+into vogue in place of the simple patronymic, took the additional name
+of Cervatos. His eldest son Pedro succeeded him in the possession of
+the castle, and followed his example in adopting the name, an
+assumption at which the younger son, Gonzalo, seems to have taken
+umbrage.
+
+Everyone who has paid even a flying visit to Toledo will remember the
+ruined castle that crowns the hill above the spot where the bridge of
+Alcántara spans the gorge of the Tagus, and with its broken outline and
+crumbling walls makes such an admirable pendant to the square solid
+Alcazar towering over the city roofs on the opposite side. It was
+built, or as some say restored, by Alfonso VI shortly after his
+occupation of Toledo in 1085, and called by him San Servando after a
+Spanish martyr, a name subsequently modified into San Servan (in which
+form it appears in the “Poem of the Cid”), San Servantes, and San
+Cervantes: with regard to which last the “Handbook for Spain” warns its
+readers against the supposition that it has anything to do with the
+author of “Don Quixote.” Ford, as all know who have taken him for a
+companion and counsellor on the roads of Spain, is seldom wrong in
+matters of literature or history. In this instance, however, he is in
+error. It has everything to do with the author of “Don Quixote,” for it
+is in fact these old walls that have given to Spain the name she is
+proudest of to-day. Gonzalo, above mentioned, it may be readily
+conceived, did not relish the appropriation by his brother of a name to
+which he himself had an equal right, for though nominally taken from
+the castle, it was in reality derived from the ancient territorial
+possession of the family, and as a set-off, and to distinguish himself
+(diferenciarse) from his brother, he took as a surname the name of the
+castle on the bank of the Tagus, in the building of which, according to
+a family tradition, his great-grandfather had a share.
+
+Both brothers founded families. The Cervantes branch had more tenacity;
+it sent offshoots in various directions, Andalusia, Estremadura,
+Galicia, and Portugal, and produced a goodly line of men distinguished
+in the service of Church and State. Gonzalo himself, and apparently a
+son of his, followed Ferdinand III in the great campaign of 1236-48
+that gave Cordova and Seville to Christian Spain and penned up the
+Moors in the kingdom of Granada, and his descendants intermarried with
+some of the noblest families of the Peninsula and numbered among them
+soldiers, magistrates, and Church dignitaries, including at least two
+cardinal-archbishops.
+
+Of the line that settled in Andalusia, Deigo de Cervantes, Commander of
+the Order of Santiago, married Juana Avellaneda, daughter of Juan Arias
+de Saavedra, and had several sons, of whom one was Gonzalo Gomez,
+Corregidor of Jerez and ancestor of the Mexican and Columbian branches
+of the family; and another, Juan, whose son Rodrigo married Doña Leonor
+de Cortinas, and by her had four children, Rodrigo, Andrea, Luisa, and
+Miguel, our author.
+
+The pedigree of Cervantes is not without its bearing on “Don Quixote.”
+A man who could look back upon an ancestry of genuine knights-errant
+extending from well-nigh the time of Pelayo to the siege of Granada was
+likely to have a strong feeling on the subject of the sham chivalry of
+the romances. It gives a point, too, to what he says in more than one
+place about families that have once been great and have tapered away
+until they have come to nothing, like a pyramid. It was the case of his
+own.
+
+He was born at Alcalá de Henares and baptised in the church of Santa
+Maria Mayor on the 9th of October, 1547. Of his boyhood and youth we
+know nothing, unless it be from the glimpse he gives us in the preface
+to his “Comedies” of himself as a boy looking on with delight while
+Lope de Rueda and his company set up their rude plank stage in the
+plaza and acted the rustic farces which he himself afterwards took as
+the model of his interludes. This first glimpse, however, is a
+significant one, for it shows the early development of that love of the
+drama which exercised such an influence on his life and seems to have
+grown stronger as he grew older, and of which this very preface,
+written only a few months before his death, is such a striking proof.
+He gives us to understand, too, that he was a great reader in his
+youth; but of this no assurance was needed, for the First Part of “Don
+Quixote” alone proves a vast amount of miscellaneous reading, romances
+of chivalry, ballads, popular poetry, chronicles, for which he had no
+time or opportunity except in the first twenty years of his life; and
+his misquotations and mistakes in matters of detail are always, it may
+be noticed, those of a man recalling the reading of his boyhood.
+
+Other things besides the drama were in their infancy when Cervantes was
+a boy. The period of his boyhood was in every way a transition period
+for Spain. The old chivalrous Spain had passed away. The new Spain was
+the mightiest power the world had seen since the Roman Empire and it
+had not yet been called upon to pay the price of its greatness. By the
+policy of Ferdinand and Ximenez the sovereign had been made absolute,
+and the Church and Inquisition adroitly adjusted to keep him so. The
+nobles, who had always resisted absolutism as strenuously as they had
+fought the Moors, had been divested of all political power, a like fate
+had befallen the cities, the free constitutions of Castile and Aragon
+had been swept away, and the only function that remained to the Cortés
+was that of granting money at the King’s dictation.
+
+The transition extended to literature. Men who, like Garcilaso de la
+Vega and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, followed the Italian wars, had
+brought back from Italy the products of the post-Renaissance
+literature, which took root and flourished and even threatened to
+extinguish the native growths. Damon and Thyrsis, Phyllis and Chloe had
+been fairly naturalised in Spain, together with all the devices of
+pastoral poetry for investing with an air of novelty the idea of a
+dispairing shepherd and inflexible shepherdess. As a set-off against
+this, the old historical and traditional ballads, and the true
+pastorals, the songs and ballads of peasant life, were being collected
+assiduously and printed in the cancioneros that succeeded one another
+with increasing rapidity. But the most notable consequence, perhaps, of
+the spread of printing was the flood of romances of chivalry that had
+continued to pour from the press ever since Garci Ordoñez de Montalvo
+had resuscitated “Amadis of Gaul” at the beginning of the century.
+
+For a youth fond of reading, solid or light, there could have been no
+better spot in Spain than Alcalá de Henares in the middle of the
+sixteenth century. It was then a busy, populous university town,
+something more than the enterprising rival of Salamanca, and altogether
+a very different place from the melancholy, silent, deserted Alcalá the
+traveller sees now as he goes from Madrid to Saragossa. Theology and
+medicine may have been the strong points of the university, but the
+town itself seems to have inclined rather to the humanities and light
+literature, and as a producer of books Alcalá was already beginning to
+compete with the older presses of Toledo, Burgos, Salamanca and
+Seville.
+
+A pendant to the picture Cervantes has given us of his first playgoings
+might, no doubt, have been often seen in the streets of Alcalá at that
+time; a bright, eager, tawny-haired boy peering into a book-shop where
+the latest volumes lay open to tempt the public, wondering, it may be,
+what that little book with the woodcut of the blind beggar and his boy,
+that called itself “Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, segunda impresion,”
+could be about; or with eyes brimming over with merriment gazing at one
+of those preposterous portraits of a knight-errant in outrageous
+panoply and plumes with which the publishers of chivalry romances loved
+to embellish the title-pages of their folios. If the boy was the father
+of the man, the sense of the incongruous that was strong at fifty was
+lively at ten, and some such reflections as these may have been the
+true genesis of “Don Quixote.”
+
+For his more solid education, we are told, he went to Salamanca. But
+why Rodrigo de Cervantes, who was very poor, should have sent his son
+to a university a hundred and fifty miles away when he had one at his
+own door, would be a puzzle, if we had any reason for supposing that he
+did so. The only evidence is a vague statement by Professor Tomas
+Gonzalez, that he once saw an old entry of the matriculation of a
+Miguel de Cervantes. This does not appear to have been ever seen again;
+but even if it had, and if the date corresponded, it would prove
+nothing, as there were at least two other Miguels born about the middle
+of the century; one of them, moreover, a Cervantes Saavedra, a cousin,
+no doubt, who was a source of great embarrassment to the biographers.
+
+That he was a student neither at Salamanca nor at Alcalá is best proved
+by his own works. No man drew more largely upon experience than he did,
+and he has nowhere left a single reminiscence of student life—for the
+“Tia Fingida,” if it be his, is not one—nothing, not even “a college
+joke,” to show that he remembered days that most men remember best. All
+that we know positively about his education is that Juan Lopez de
+Hoyos, a professor of humanities and belles-lettres of some eminence,
+calls him his “dear and beloved pupil.” This was in a little collection
+of verses by different hands on the death of Isabel de Valois, second
+queen of Philip II., published by the professor in 1569, to which
+Cervantes contributed four pieces, including an elegy, and an epitaph
+in the form of a sonnet. It is only by a rare chance that a “Lycidas”
+finds its way into a volume of this sort, and Cervantes was no Milton.
+His verses are no worse than such things usually are; so much, at
+least, may be said for them.
+
+By the time the book appeared he had left Spain, and, as fate ordered
+it, for twelve years, the most eventful ones of his life. Giulio,
+afterwards Cardinal, Acquaviva had been sent at the end of 1568 to
+Philip II. by the Pope on a mission, partly of condolence, partly
+political, and on his return to Rome, which was somewhat brusquely
+expedited by the King, he took Cervantes with him as his camarero
+(chamberlain), the office he himself held in the Pope’s household. The
+post would no doubt have led to advancement at the Papal Court had
+Cervantes retained it, but in the summer of 1570 he resigned it and
+enlisted as a private soldier in Captain Diego Urbina’s company,
+belonging to Don Miguel de Moncada’s regiment, but at that time forming
+a part of the command of Marc Antony Colonna. What impelled him to this
+step we know not, whether it was distaste for the career before him, or
+purely military enthusiasm. It may well have been the latter, for it
+was a stirring time; the events, however, which led to the alliance
+between Spain, Venice, and the Pope, against the common enemy, the
+Porte, and to the victory of the combined fleets at Lepanto, belong
+rather to the history of Europe than to the life of Cervantes. He was
+one of those that sailed from Messina, in September 1571, under the
+command of Don John of Austria; but on the morning of the 7th of
+October, when the Turkish fleet was sighted, he was lying below ill
+with fever. At the news that the enemy was in sight he rose, and, in
+spite of the remonstrances of his comrades and superiors, insisted on
+taking his post, saying he preferred death in the service of God and
+the King to health. His galley, the _Marquesa_, was in the thick of the
+fight, and before it was over he had received three gunshot wounds, two
+in the breast and one in the left hand or arm. On the morning after the
+battle, according to Navarrete, he had an interview with the
+commander-in-chief, Don John, who was making a personal inspection of
+the wounded, one result of which was an addition of three crowns to his
+pay, and another, apparently, the friendship of his general.
+
+How severely Cervantes was wounded may be inferred from the fact, that
+with youth, a vigorous frame, and as cheerful and buoyant a temperament
+as ever invalid had, he was seven months in hospital at Messina before
+he was discharged. He came out with his left hand permanently disabled;
+he had lost the use of it, as Mercury told him in the “Viaje del
+Parnaso” for the greater glory of the right. This, however, did not
+absolutely unfit him for service, and in April 1572 he joined Manuel
+Ponce de Leon’s company of Lope de Figueroa’s regiment, in which, it
+seems probable, his brother Rodrigo was serving, and shared in the
+operations of the next three years, including the capture of the
+Goletta and Tunis. Taking advantage of the lull which followed the
+recapture of these places by the Turks, he obtained leave to return to
+Spain, and sailed from Naples in September 1575 on board the _Sun_
+galley, in company with his brother Rodrigo, Pedro Carrillo de Quesada,
+late Governor of the Goletta, and some others, and furnished with
+letters from Don John of Austria and the Duke of Sesa, the Viceroy of
+Sicily, recommending him to the King for the command of a company, on
+account of his services; a _dono infelice_ as events proved. On the
+26th they fell in with a squadron of Algerine galleys, and after a
+stout resistance were overpowered and carried into Algiers.
+
+By means of a ransomed fellow-captive the brothers contrived to inform
+their family of their condition, and the poor people at Alcalá at once
+strove to raise the ransom money, the father disposing of all he
+possessed, and the two sisters giving up their marriage portions. But
+Dali Mami had found on Cervantes the letters addressed to the King by
+Don John and the Duke of Sesa, and, concluding that his prize must be a
+person of great consequence, when the money came he refused it
+scornfully as being altogether insufficient. The owner of Rodrigo,
+however, was more easily satisfied; ransom was accepted in his case,
+and it was arranged between the brothers that he should return to Spain
+and procure a vessel in which he was to come back to Algiers and take
+off Miguel and as many of their comrades as possible. This was not the
+first attempt to escape that Cervantes had made. Soon after the
+commencement of his captivity he induced several of his companions to
+join him in trying to reach Oran, then a Spanish post, on foot; but
+after the first day’s journey, the Moor who had agreed to act as their
+guide deserted them, and they had no choice but to return. The second
+attempt was more disastrous. In a garden outside the city on the
+sea-shore, he constructed, with the help of the gardener, a Spaniard, a
+hiding-place, to which he brought, one by one, fourteen of his
+fellow-captives, keeping them there in secrecy for several months, and
+supplying them with food through a renegade known as El Dorador, “the
+Gilder.” How he, a captive himself, contrived to do all this, is one of
+the mysteries of the story. Wild as the project may appear, it was very
+nearly successful. The vessel procured by Rodrigo made its appearance
+off the coast, and under cover of night was proceeding to take off the
+refugees, when the crew were alarmed by a passing fishing boat, and
+beat a hasty retreat. On renewing the attempt shortly afterwards, they,
+or a portion of them at least, were taken prisoners, and just as the
+poor fellows in the garden were exulting in the thought that in a few
+moments more freedom would be within their grasp, they found themselves
+surrounded by Turkish troops, horse and foot. The Dorador had revealed
+the whole scheme to the Dey Hassan.
+
+When Cervantes saw what had befallen them, he charged his companions to
+lay all the blame upon him, and as they were being bound he declared
+aloud that the whole plot was of his contriving, and that nobody else
+had any share in it. Brought before the Dey, he said the same. He was
+threatened with impalement and with torture; and as cutting off ears
+and noses were playful freaks with the Algerines, it may be conceived
+what their tortures were like; but nothing could make him swerve from
+his original statement that he and he alone was responsible. The upshot
+was that the unhappy gardener was hanged by his master, and the
+prisoners taken possession of by the Dey, who, however, afterwards
+restored most of them to their masters, but kept Cervantes, paying Dali
+Mami 500 crowns for him. He felt, no doubt, that a man of such
+resource, energy, and daring, was too dangerous a piece of property to
+be left in private hands; and he had him heavily ironed and lodged in
+his own prison. If he thought that by these means he could break the
+spirit or shake the resolution of his prisoner, he was soon undeceived,
+for Cervantes contrived before long to despatch a letter to the
+Governor of Oran, entreating him to send him someone that could be
+trusted, to enable him and three other gentlemen, fellow-captives of
+his, to make their escape; intending evidently to renew his first
+attempt with a more trustworthy guide. Unfortunately the Moor who
+carried the letter was stopped just outside Oran, and the letter being
+found upon him, he was sent back to Algiers, where by the order of the
+Dey he was promptly impaled as a warning to others, while Cervantes was
+condemned to receive two thousand blows of the stick, a number which
+most likely would have deprived the world of “Don Quixote,” had not
+some persons, who they were we know not, interceded on his behalf.
+
+After this he seems to have been kept in still closer confinement than
+before, for nearly two years passed before he made another attempt.
+This time his plan was to purchase, by the aid of a Spanish renegade
+and two Valencian merchants resident in Algiers, an armed vessel in
+which he and about sixty of the leading captives were to make their
+escape; but just as they were about to put it into execution one Doctor
+Juan Blanco de Paz, an ecclesiastic and a compatriot, informed the Dey
+of the plot. Cervantes by force of character, by his self-devotion, by
+his untiring energy and his exertions to lighten the lot of his
+companions in misery, had endeared himself to all, and become the
+leading spirit in the captive colony, and, incredible as it may seem,
+jealousy of his influence and the esteem in which he was held, moved
+this man to compass his destruction by a cruel death. The merchants
+finding that the Dey knew all, and fearing that Cervantes under torture
+might make disclosures that would imperil their own lives, tried to
+persuade him to slip away on board a vessel that was on the point of
+sailing for Spain; but he told them they had nothing to fear, for no
+tortures would make him compromise anybody, and he went at once and
+gave himself up to the Dey.
+
+As before, the Dey tried to force him to name his accomplices.
+Everything was made ready for his immediate execution; the halter was
+put round his neck and his hands tied behind him, but all that could be
+got from him was that he himself, with the help of four gentlemen who
+had since left Algiers, had arranged the whole, and that the sixty who
+were to accompany him were not to know anything of it until the last
+moment. Finding he could make nothing of him, the Dey sent him back to
+prison more heavily ironed than before.
+
+The poverty-stricken Cervantes family had been all this time trying
+once more to raise the ransom money, and at last a sum of three hundred
+ducats was got together and entrusted to the Redemptorist Father Juan
+Gil, who was about to sail for Algiers. The Dey, however, demanded more
+than double the sum offered, and as his term of office had expired and
+he was about to sail for Constantinople, taking all his slaves with
+him, the case of Cervantes was critical. He was already on board
+heavily ironed, when the Dey at length agreed to reduce his demand by
+one-half, and Father Gil by borrowing was able to make up the amount,
+and on September 19, 1580, after a captivity of five years all but a
+week, Cervantes was at last set free. Before long he discovered that
+Blanco de Paz, who claimed to be an officer of the Inquisition, was now
+concocting on false evidence a charge of misconduct to be brought
+against him on his return to Spain. To checkmate him Cervantes drew up
+a series of twenty-five questions, covering the whole period of his
+captivity, upon which he requested Father Gil to take the depositions
+of credible witnesses before a notary. Eleven witnesses taken from
+among the principal captives in Algiers deposed to all the facts above
+stated and to a great deal more besides. There is something touching in
+the admiration, love, and gratitude we see struggling to find
+expression in the formal language of the notary, as they testify one
+after another to the good deeds of Cervantes, how he comforted and
+helped the weak-hearted, how he kept up their drooping courage, how he
+shared his poor purse with this deponent, and how “in him this deponent
+found father and mother.”
+
+On his return to Spain he found his old regiment about to march for
+Portugal to support Philip’s claim to the crown, and utterly penniless
+now, had no choice but to rejoin it. He was in the expeditions to the
+Azores in 1582 and the following year, and on the conclusion of the war
+returned to Spain in the autumn of 1583, bringing with him the
+manuscript of his pastoral romance, the “Galatea,” and probably also,
+to judge by internal evidence, that of the first portion of “Persiles
+and Sigismunda.” He also brought back with him, his biographers assert,
+an infant daughter, the offspring of an amour, as some of them with
+great circumstantiality inform us, with a Lisbon lady of noble birth,
+whose name, however, as well as that of the street she lived in, they
+omit to mention. The sole foundation for all this is that in 1605 there
+certainly was living in the family of Cervantes a Doña Isabel de
+Saavedra, who is described in an official document as his natural
+daughter, and then twenty years of age.
+
+With his crippled left hand promotion in the army was hopeless, now
+that Don John was dead and he had no one to press his claims and
+services, and for a man drawing on to forty life in the ranks was a
+dismal prospect; he had already a certain reputation as a poet; he made
+up his mind, therefore, to cast his lot with literature, and for a
+first venture committed his “Galatea” to the press. It was published,
+as Salva y Mallen shows conclusively, at Alcalá, his own birth-place,
+in 1585 and no doubt helped to make his name more widely known, but
+certainly did not do him much good in any other way.
+
+While it was going through the press, he married Doña Catalina de
+Palacios Salazar y Vozmediano, a lady of Esquivias near Madrid, and
+apparently a friend of the family, who brought him a fortune which may
+possibly have served to keep the wolf from the door, but if so, that
+was all. The drama had by this time outgrown market-place stages and
+strolling companies, and with his old love for it he naturally turned
+to it for a congenial employment. In about three years he wrote twenty
+or thirty plays, which he tells us were performed without any throwing
+of cucumbers or other missiles, and ran their course without any
+hisses, outcries, or disturbance. In other words, his plays were not
+bad enough to be hissed off the stage, but not good enough to hold
+their own upon it. Only two of them have been preserved, but as they
+happen to be two of the seven or eight he mentions with complacency, we
+may assume they are favourable specimens, and no one who reads the
+“Numancia” and the “Trato de Argel” will feel any surprise that they
+failed as acting dramas. Whatever merits they may have, whatever
+occasional they may show, they are, as regards construction, incurably
+clumsy. How completely they failed is manifest from the fact that with
+all his sanguine temperament and indomitable perseverance he was unable
+to maintain the struggle to gain a livelihood as a dramatist for more
+than three years; nor was the rising popularity of Lope the cause, as
+is often said, notwithstanding his own words to the contrary. When Lope
+began to write for the stage is uncertain, but it was certainly after
+Cervantes went to Seville.
+
+Among the “Nuevos Documentos” printed by Señor Asensio y Toledo is one
+dated 1592, and curiously characteristic of Cervantes. It is an
+agreement with one Rodrigo Osorio, a manager, who was to accept six
+comedies at fifty ducats (about 6l.) apiece, not to be paid in any case
+unless it appeared on representation that the said comedy was one of
+the best that had ever been represented in Spain. The test does not
+seem to have been ever applied; perhaps it was sufficiently apparent to
+Rodrigo Osorio that the comedies were not among the best that had ever
+been represented. Among the correspondence of Cervantes there might
+have been found, no doubt, more than one letter like that we see in the
+“Rake’s Progress,” “Sir, I have read your play, and it will not doo.”
+
+He was more successful in a literary contest at Saragossa in 1595 in
+honour of the canonisation of St. Jacinto, when his composition won the
+first prize, three silver spoons. The year before this he had been
+appointed a collector of revenues for the kingdom of Granada. In order
+to remit the money he had collected more conveniently to the treasury,
+he entrusted it to a merchant, who failed and absconded; and as the
+bankrupt’s assets were insufficient to cover the whole, he was sent to
+prison at Seville in September 1597. The balance against him, however,
+was a small one, about 26l., and on giving security for it he was
+released at the end of the year.
+
+It was as he journeyed from town to town collecting the king’s taxes,
+that he noted down those bits of inn and wayside life and character
+that abound in the pages of “Don Quixote:” the Benedictine monks with
+spectacles and sunshades, mounted on their tall mules; the strollers in
+costume bound for the next village; the barber with his basin on his
+head, on his way to bleed a patient; the recruit with his breeches in
+his bundle, tramping along the road singing; the reapers gathered in
+the venta gateway listening to “Felixmarte of Hircania” read out to
+them; and those little Hogarthian touches that he so well knew how to
+bring in, the ox-tail hanging up with the landlord’s comb stuck in it,
+the wine-skins at the bed-head, and those notable examples of hostelry
+art, Helen going off in high spirits on Paris’s arm, and Dido on the
+tower dropping tears as big as walnuts. Nay, it may well be that on
+those journeys into remote regions he came across now and then a
+specimen of the pauper gentleman, with his lean hack and his greyhound
+and his books of chivalry, dreaming away his life in happy ignorance
+that the world had changed since his great-grandfather’s old helmet was
+new. But it was in Seville that he found out his true vocation, though
+he himself would not by any means have admitted it to be so. It was
+there, in Triana, that he was first tempted to try his hand at drawing
+from life, and first brought his humour into play in the exquisite
+little sketch of “Rinconete y Cortadillo,” the germ, in more ways than
+one, of “Don Quixote.”
+
+Where and when that was written, we cannot tell. After his imprisonment
+all trace of Cervantes in his official capacity disappears, from which
+it may be inferred that he was not reinstated. That he was still in
+Seville in November 1598 appears from a satirical sonnet of his on the
+elaborate catafalque erected to testify the grief of the city at the
+death of Philip II, but from this up to 1603 we have no clue to his
+movements. The words in the preface to the First Part of “Don Quixote”
+are generally held to be conclusive that he conceived the idea of the
+book, and wrote the beginning of it at least, in a prison, and that he
+may have done so is extremely likely.
+
+There is a tradition that Cervantes read some portions of his work to a
+select audience at the Duke of Bejar’s, which may have helped to make
+the book known; but the obvious conclusion is that the First Part of
+“Don Quixote” lay on his hands some time before he could find a
+publisher bold enough to undertake a venture of so novel a character;
+and so little faith in it had Francisco Robles of Madrid, to whom at
+last he sold it, that he did not care to incur the expense of securing
+the copyright for Aragon or Portugal, contenting himself with that for
+Castile. The printing was finished in December, and the book came out
+with the new year, 1605. It is often said that “Don Quixote” was at
+first received coldly. The facts show just the contrary. No sooner was
+it in the hands of the public than preparations were made to issue
+pirated editions at Lisbon and Valencia, and to bring out a second
+edition with the additional copyrights for Aragon and Portugal, which
+he secured in February.
+
+No doubt it was received with something more than coldness by certain
+sections of the community. Men of wit, taste, and discrimination among
+the aristocracy gave it a hearty welcome, but the aristocracy in
+general were not likely to relish a book that turned their favourite
+reading into ridicule and laughed at so many of their favourite ideas.
+The dramatists who gathered round Lope as their leader regarded
+Cervantes as their common enemy, and it is plain that he was equally
+obnoxious to the other clique, the culto poets who had Gongora for
+their chief. Navarrete, who knew nothing of the letter above mentioned,
+tries hard to show that the relations between Cervantes and Lope were
+of a very friendly sort, as indeed they were until “Don Quixote” was
+written. Cervantes, indeed, to the last generously and manfully
+declared his admiration of Lope’s powers, his unfailing invention, and
+his marvellous fertility; but in the preface of the First Part of “Don
+Quixote” and in the verses of “Urganda the Unknown,” and one or two
+other places, there are, if we read between the lines, sly hits at
+Lope’s vanities and affectations that argue no personal good-will; and
+Lope openly sneers at “Don Quixote” and Cervantes, and fourteen years
+after his death gives him only a few lines of cold commonplace in the
+“Laurel de Apolo,” that seem all the colder for the eulogies of a host
+of nonentities whose names are found nowhere else.
+
+In 1601 Valladolid was made the seat of the Court, and at the beginning
+of 1603 Cervantes had been summoned thither in connection with the
+balance due by him to the Treasury, which was still outstanding. He
+remained at Valladolid, apparently supporting himself by agencies and
+scrivener’s work of some sort; probably drafting petitions and drawing
+up statements of claims to be presented to the Council, and the like.
+So, at least, we gather from the depositions taken on the occasion of
+the death of a gentleman, the victim of a street brawl, who had been
+carried into the house in which he lived. In these he himself is
+described as a man who wrote and transacted business, and it appears
+that his household then consisted of his wife, the natural daughter
+Isabel de Saavedra already mentioned, his sister Andrea, now a widow,
+her daughter Constanza, a mysterious Magdalena de Sotomayor calling
+herself his sister, for whom his biographers cannot account, and a
+servant-maid.
+
+Meanwhile “Don Quixote” had been growing in favour, and its author’s
+name was now known beyond the Pyrenees. In 1607 an edition was printed
+at Brussels. Robles, the Madrid publisher, found it necessary to meet
+the demand by a third edition, the seventh in all, in 1608. The
+popularity of the book in Italy was such that a Milan bookseller was
+led to bring out an edition in 1610; and another was called for in
+Brussels in 1611. It might naturally have been expected that, with such
+proofs before him that he had hit the taste of the public, Cervantes
+would have at once set about redeeming his rather vague promise of a
+second volume.
+
+But, to all appearance, nothing was farther from his thoughts. He had
+still by him one or two short tales of the same vintage as those he had
+inserted in “Don Quixote” and instead of continuing the adventures of
+Don Quixote, he set to work to write more of these “Novelas Exemplares”
+as he afterwards called them, with a view to making a book of them.
+
+The novels were published in the summer of 1613, with a dedication to
+the Conde de Lemos, the Maecenas of the day, and with one of those
+chatty confidential prefaces Cervantes was so fond of. In this, eight
+years and a half after the First Part of “Don Quixote” had appeared, we
+get the first hint of a forthcoming Second Part. “You shall see
+shortly,” he says, “the further exploits of Don Quixote and humours of
+Sancho Panza.” His idea of “shortly” was a somewhat elastic one, for,
+as we know by the date to Sancho’s letter, he had barely one-half of
+the book completed that time twelvemonth.
+
+But more than poems, or pastorals, or novels, it was his dramatic
+ambition that engrossed his thoughts. The same indomitable spirit that
+kept him from despair in the bagnios of Algiers, and prompted him to
+attempt the escape of himself and his comrades again and again, made
+him persevere in spite of failure and discouragement in his efforts to
+win the ear of the public as a dramatist. The temperament of Cervantes
+was essentially sanguine. The portrait he draws in the preface to the
+novels, with the aquiline features, chestnut hair, smooth untroubled
+forehead, and bright cheerful eyes, is the very portrait of a sanguine
+man. Nothing that the managers might say could persuade him that the
+merits of his plays would not be recognised at last if they were only
+given a fair chance. The old soldier of the Spanish Salamis was bent on
+being the Aeschylus of Spain. He was to found a great national drama,
+based on the true principles of art, that was to be the envy of all
+nations; he was to drive from the stage the silly, childish plays, the
+“mirrors of nonsense and models of folly” that were in vogue through
+the cupidity of the managers and shortsightedness of the authors; he
+was to correct and educate the public taste until it was ripe for
+tragedies on the model of the Greek drama—like the “Numancia” for
+instance—and comedies that would not only amuse but improve and
+instruct. All this he was to do, could he once get a hearing: there was
+the initial difficulty.
+
+He shows plainly enough, too, that “Don Quixote” and the demolition of
+the chivalry romances was not the work that lay next his heart. He was,
+indeed, as he says himself in his preface, more a stepfather than a
+father to “Don Quixote.” Never was great work so neglected by its
+author. That it was written carelessly, hastily, and by fits and
+starts, was not always his fault, but it seems clear he never read what
+he sent to the press. He knew how the printers had blundered, but he
+never took the trouble to correct them when the third edition was in
+progress, as a man who really cared for the child of his brain would
+have done. He appears to have regarded the book as little more than a
+mere libro de entretenimiento, an amusing book, a thing, as he says in
+the “Viaje,” “to divert the melancholy moody heart at any time or
+season.” No doubt he had an affection for his hero, and was very proud
+of Sancho Panza. It would have been strange indeed if he had not been
+proud of the most humorous creation in all fiction. He was proud, too,
+of the popularity and success of the book, and beyond measure
+delightful is the naivete with which he shows his pride in a dozen
+passages in the Second Part. But it was not the success he coveted. In
+all probability he would have given all the success of “Don Quixote,”
+nay, would have seen every copy of “Don Quixote” burned in the Plaza
+Mayor, for one such success as Lope de Vega was enjoying on an average
+once a week.
+
+And so he went on, dawdling over “Don Quixote,” adding a chapter now
+and again, and putting it aside to turn to “Persiles and
+Sigismunda”—which, as we know, was to be the most entertaining book in
+the language, and the rival of “Theagenes and Chariclea”—or finishing
+off one of his darling comedies; and if Robles asked when “Don Quixote”
+would be ready, the answer no doubt was: En breve—shortly, there was
+time enough for that. At sixty-eight he was as full of life and hope
+and plans for the future as a boy of eighteen.
+
+Nemesis was coming, however. He had got as far as Chapter LIX, which at
+his leisurely pace he could hardly have reached before October or
+November 1614, when there was put into his hand a small octave lately
+printed at Tarragona, and calling itself “Second Volume of the
+Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha: by the Licentiate Alonso
+Fernandez de Avellaneda of Tordesillas.” The last half of Chapter LIX
+and most of the following chapters of the Second Part give us some idea
+of the effect produced upon him, and his irritation was not likely to
+be lessened by the reflection that he had no one to blame but himself.
+Had Avellaneda, in fact, been content with merely bringing out a
+continuation to “Don Quixote,” Cervantes would have had no reasonable
+grievance. His own intentions were expressed in the very vaguest
+language at the end of the book; nay, in his last words, “forse altro
+cantera con miglior plettro,” he seems actually to invite someone else
+to continue the work, and he made no sign until eight years and a half
+had gone by; by which time Avellaneda’s volume was no doubt written.
+
+In fact Cervantes had no case, or a very bad one, as far as the mere
+continuation was concerned. But Avellaneda chose to write a preface to
+it, full of such coarse personal abuse as only an ill-conditioned man
+could pour out. He taunts Cervantes with being old, with having lost
+his hand, with having been in prison, with being poor, with being
+friendless, accuses him of envy of Lope’s success, of petulance and
+querulousness, and so on; and it was in this that the sting lay.
+Avellaneda’s reason for this personal attack is obvious enough. Whoever
+he may have been, it is clear that he was one of the dramatists of
+Lope’s school, for he has the impudence to charge Cervantes with
+attacking him as well as Lope in his criticism on the drama. His
+identification has exercised the best critics and baffled all the
+ingenuity and research that has been brought to bear on it. Navarrete
+and Ticknor both incline to the belief that Cervantes knew who he was;
+but I must say I think the anger he shows suggests an invisible
+assailant; it is like the irritation of a man stung by a mosquito in
+the dark. Cervantes from certain solecisms of language pronounces him
+to be an Aragonese, and Pellicer, an Aragonese himself, supports this
+view and believes him, moreover, to have been an ecclesiastic, a
+Dominican probably.
+
+Any merit Avellaneda has is reflected from Cervantes, and he is too
+dull to reflect much. “Dull and dirty” will always be, I imagine, the
+verdict of the vast majority of unprejudiced readers. He is, at best, a
+poor plagiarist; all he can do is to follow slavishly the lead given
+him by Cervantes; his only humour lies in making Don Quixote take inns
+for castles and fancy himself some legendary or historical personage,
+and Sancho mistake words, invert proverbs, and display his gluttony;
+all through he shows a proclivity to coarseness and dirt, and he has
+contrived to introduce two tales filthier than anything by the
+sixteenth century novellieri and without their sprightliness.
+
+But whatever Avellaneda and his book may be, we must not forget the
+debt we owe them. But for them, there can be no doubt, “Don Quixote”
+would have come to us a mere torso instead of a complete work. Even if
+Cervantes had finished the volume he had in hand, most assuredly he
+would have left off with a promise of a Third Part, giving the further
+adventures of Don Quixote and humours of Sancho Panza as shepherds. It
+is plain that he had at one time an intention of dealing with the
+pastoral romances as he had dealt with the books of chivalry, and but
+for Avellaneda he would have tried to carry it out. But it is more
+likely that, with his plans, and projects, and hopefulness, the volume
+would have remained unfinished till his death, and that we should have
+never made the acquaintance of the Duke and Duchess, or gone with
+Sancho to Barataria.
+
+From the moment the book came into his hands he seems to have been
+haunted by the fear that there might be more Avellanedas in the field,
+and putting everything else aside, he set himself to finish off his
+task and protect Don Quixote in the only way he could, by killing him.
+The conclusion is no doubt a hasty and in some places clumsy piece of
+work and the frequent repetition of the scolding administered to
+Avellaneda becomes in the end rather wearisome; but it is, at any rate,
+a conclusion and for that we must thank Avellaneda.
+
+The new volume was ready for the press in February, but was not printed
+till the very end of 1615, and during the interval Cervantes put
+together the comedies and interludes he had written within the last few
+years, and, as he adds plaintively, found no demand for among the
+managers, and published them with a preface, worth the book it
+introduces tenfold, in which he gives an account of the early Spanish
+stage, and of his own attempts as a dramatist. It is needless to say
+they were put forward by Cervantes in all good faith and full
+confidence in their merits. The reader, however, was not to suppose
+they were his last word or final effort in the drama, for he had in
+hand a comedy called “Engano a los ojos,” about which, if he mistook
+not, there would be no question.
+
+Of this dramatic masterpiece the world has no opportunity of judging;
+his health had been failing for some time, and he died, apparently of
+dropsy, on the 23rd of April, 1616, the day on which England lost
+Shakespeare, nominally at least, for the English calendar had not yet
+been reformed. He died as he had lived, accepting his lot bravely and
+cheerfully.
+
+Was it an unhappy life, that of Cervantes? His biographers all tell us
+that it was; but I must say I doubt it. It was a hard life, a life of
+poverty, of incessant struggle, of toil ill paid, of disappointment,
+but Cervantes carried within himself the antidote to all these evils.
+His was not one of those light natures that rise above adversity merely
+by virtue of their own buoyancy; it was in the fortitude of a high
+spirit that he was proof against it. It is impossible to conceive
+Cervantes giving way to despondency or prostrated by dejection. As for
+poverty, it was with him a thing to be laughed over, and the only sigh
+he ever allows to escape him is when he says, “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.” Add to all this his vital energy and mental
+activity, his restless invention and his sanguine temperament, and
+there will be reason enough to doubt whether his could have been a very
+unhappy life. He who could take Cervantes’ distresses together with his
+apparatus for enduring them would not make so bad a bargain, perhaps,
+as far as happiness in life is concerned.
+
+Of his burial-place nothing is known except that he was buried, in
+accordance with his will, in the neighbouring convent of Trinitarian
+nuns, of which it is supposed his daughter, Isabel de Saavedra, was an
+inmate, and that a few years afterwards the nuns removed to another
+convent, carrying their dead with them. But whether the remains of
+Cervantes were included in the removal or not no one knows, and the
+clue to their resting-place is now lost beyond all hope. This furnishes
+perhaps the least defensible of the items in the charge of neglect
+brought against his contemporaries. In some of the others there is a
+good deal of exaggeration. To listen to most of his biographers one
+would suppose that all Spain was in league not only against the man but
+against his memory, or at least that it was insensible to his merits,
+and left him to live in misery and die of want. To talk of his hard
+life and unworthy employments in Andalusia is absurd. What had he done
+to distinguish him from thousands of other struggling men earning a
+precarious livelihood? True, he was a gallant soldier, who had been
+wounded and had undergone captivity and suffering in his country’s
+cause, but there were hundreds of others in the same case. He had
+written a mediocre specimen of an insipid class of romance, and some
+plays which manifestly did not comply with the primary condition of
+pleasing: were the playgoers to patronise plays that did not amuse
+them, because the author was to produce “Don Quixote” twenty years
+afterwards?
+
+The scramble for copies which, as we have seen, followed immediately on
+the appearance of the book, does not look like general insensibility to
+its merits. No doubt it was received coldly by some, but if a man
+writes a book in ridicule of periwigs he must make his account with
+being coldly received by the periwig wearers and hated by the whole
+tribe of wigmakers. If Cervantes had the chivalry-romance readers, the
+sentimentalists, the dramatists, and the poets of the period all
+against him, it was because “Don Quixote” was what it was; and if the
+general public did not come forward to make him comfortable for the
+rest of his days, it is no more to be charged with neglect and
+ingratitude than the English-speaking public that did not pay off
+Scott’s liabilities. It did the best it could; it read his book and
+liked it and bought it, and encouraged the bookseller to pay him well
+for others.
+
+It has been also made a reproach to Spain that she has erected no
+monument to the man she is proudest of; no monument, that is to say, of
+him; for the bronze statue in the little garden of the Plaza de las
+Cortés, a fair work of art no doubt, and unexceptionable had it been
+set up to the local poet in the market-place of some provincial town,
+is not worthy of Cervantes or of Madrid. But what need has Cervantes of
+“such weak witness of his name;” or what could a monument do in his
+case except testify to the self-glorification of those who had put it
+up? Si monumentum quoeris, circumspice. The nearest bookseller’s shop
+will show what bathos there would be in a monument to the author of
+“Don Quixote.”
+
+
+
+
+‘DON QUIXOTE’
+
+
+Nine editions of the First Part of “Don Quixote” had already appeared
+before Cervantes died, thirty thousand copies in all, according to his
+own estimate, and a tenth was printed at Barcelona the year after his
+death. So large a number naturally supplied the demand for some time,
+but by 1634 it appears to have been exhausted; and from that time down
+to the present day the stream of editions has continued to flow rapidly
+and regularly. The translations show still more clearly in what request
+the book has been from the very outset. In seven years from the
+completion of the work it had been translated into the four leading
+languages of Europe. Except the Bible, in fact, no book has been so
+widely diffused as “Don Quixote.” The “Imitatio Christi” may have been
+translated into as many different languages, and perhaps “Robinson
+Crusoe” and the “Vicar of Wakefield” into nearly as many, but in
+multiplicity of translations and editions “Don Quixote” leaves them all
+far behind.
+
+Still more remarkable is the character of this wide diffusion. “Don
+Quixote” has been thoroughly naturalised among people whose ideas about
+knight-errantry, if they had any at all, were of the vaguest, who had
+never seen or heard of a book of chivalry, who could not possibly feel
+the humour of the burlesque or sympathise with the author’s purpose.
+Another curious fact is that this, the most cosmopolitan book in the
+world, is one of the most intensely national. “Manon Lescaut” is not
+more thoroughly French, “Tom Jones” not more English, “Rob Roy” not
+more Scotch, than “Don Quixote” is Spanish, in character, in ideas, in
+sentiment, in local colour, in everything. What, then, is the secret of
+this unparalleled popularity, increasing year by year for well-nigh
+three centuries? One explanation, no doubt, is that of all the books in
+the world, “Don Quixote” is the most catholic. There is something in it
+for every sort of reader, young or old, sage or simple, high or low. As
+Cervantes himself says with a touch of pride, “It is thumbed and read
+and got by heart by people of all sorts; the children turn its leaves,
+the young people read it, the grown men understand it, the old folk
+praise it.”
+
+But it would be idle to deny that the ingredient which, more than its
+humour, or its wisdom, or the fertility of invention or knowledge of
+human nature it displays, has insured its success with the multitude,
+is the vein of farce that runs through it. It was the attack upon the
+sheep, the battle with the wine-skins, Mambrino’s helmet, the balsam of
+Fierabras, Don Quixote knocked over by the sails of the windmill,
+Sancho tossed in the blanket, the mishaps and misadventures of master
+and man, that were originally the great attraction, and perhaps are so
+still to some extent with the majority of readers. It is plain that
+“Don Quixote” was generally regarded at first, and indeed in Spain for
+a long time, as little more than a queer droll book, full of laughable
+incidents and absurd situations, very amusing, but not entitled to much
+consideration or care. All the editions printed in Spain from 1637 to
+1771, when the famous printer Ibarra took it up, were mere trade
+editions, badly and carelessly printed on vile paper and got up in the
+style of chap-books intended only for popular use, with, in most
+instances, uncouth illustrations and clap-trap additions by the
+publisher.
+
+To England belongs the credit of having been the first country to
+recognise the right of “Don Quixote” to better treatment than this. The
+London edition of 1738, commonly called Lord Carteret’s from having
+been suggested by him, was not a mere _édition de luxe_. It produced
+“Don Quixote” in becoming form as regards paper and type, and
+embellished with plates which, if not particularly happy as
+illustrations, were at least well intentioned and well executed, but it
+also aimed at correctness of text, a matter to which nobody except the
+editors of the Valencia and Brussels editions had given even a passing
+thought; and for a first attempt it was fairly successful, for though
+some of its emendations are inadmissible, a good many of them have been
+adopted by all subsequent editors.
+
+The zeal of publishers, editors, and annotators brought about a
+remarkable change of sentiment with regard to “Don Quixote.” A vast
+number of its admirers began to grow ashamed of laughing over it. It
+became almost a crime to treat it as a humorous book. The humour was
+not entirely denied, but, according to the new view, it was rated as an
+altogether secondary quality, a mere accessory, nothing more than the
+stalking-horse under the presentation of which Cervantes shot his
+philosophy or his satire, or whatever it was he meant to shoot; for on
+this point opinions varied. All were agreed, however, that the object
+he aimed at was not the books of chivalry. He said emphatically in the
+preface to the First Part and in the last sentence of the Second, that
+he had no other object in view than to discredit these books, and this,
+to advanced criticism, made it clear that his object must have been
+something else.
+
+One theory was that the book was a kind of allegory, setting forth the
+eternal struggle between the ideal and the real, between the spirit of
+poetry and the spirit of prose; and perhaps German philosophy never
+evolved a more ungainly or unlikely camel out of the depths of its
+inner consciousness. Something of the antagonism, no doubt, is to be
+found in “Don Quixote,” because it is to be found everywhere in life,
+and Cervantes drew from life. It is difficult to imagine a community in
+which the never-ceasing game of cross-purposes between Sancho Panza and
+Don Quixote would not be recognised as true to nature. In the stone
+age, among the lake dwellers, among the cave men, there were Don
+Quixotes and Sancho Panzas; there must have been the troglodyte who
+never could see the facts before his eyes, and the troglodyte who could
+see nothing else. But to suppose Cervantes deliberately setting himself
+to expound any such idea in two stout quarto volumes is to suppose
+something not only very unlike the age in which he lived, but
+altogether unlike Cervantes himself, who would have been the first to
+laugh at an attempt of the sort made by anyone else.
+
+The extraordinary influence of the romances of chivalry in his day is
+quite enough to account for the genesis of the book. Some idea of the
+prodigious development of this branch of literature in the sixteenth
+century may be obtained from the scrutiny of Chapter VII, if the reader
+bears in mind that only a portion of the romances belonging to by far
+the largest group are enumerated. As to its effect upon the nation,
+there is abundant evidence. From the time when the Amadises and
+Palmerins began to grow popular down to the very end of the century,
+there is a steady stream of invective, from men whose character and
+position lend weight to their words, against the romances of chivalry
+and the infatuation of their readers. Ridicule was the only besom to
+sweep away that dust.
+
+That this was the task Cervantes set himself, and that he had ample
+provocation to urge him to it, will be sufficiently clear to those who
+look into the evidence; as it will be also that it was not chivalry
+itself that he attacked and swept away. Of all the absurdities that,
+thanks to poetry, will be repeated to the end of time, there is no
+greater one than saying that “Cervantes smiled Spain’s chivalry away.”
+In the first place there was no chivalry for him to smile away. Spain’s
+chivalry had been dead for more than a century. Its work was done when
+Granada fell, and as chivalry was essentially republican in its nature,
+it could not live under the rule that Ferdinand substituted for the
+free institutions of mediaeval Spain. What he did smile away was not
+chivalry but a degrading mockery of it.
+
+The true nature of the “right arm” and the “bright array,” before
+which, according to the poet, “the world gave ground,” and which
+Cervantes’ single laugh demolished, may be gathered from the words of
+one of his own countrymen, Don Felix Pacheco, as reported by Captain
+George Carleton, in his “Military Memoirs from 1672 to 1713.” “Before
+the appearance in the world of that labour of Cervantes,” he said, “it
+was next to an impossibility for a man to walk the streets with any
+delight or without danger. There were seen so many cavaliers prancing
+and curvetting before the windows of their mistresses, that a stranger
+would have imagined the whole nation to have been nothing less than a
+race of knight-errants. But after the world became a little acquainted
+with that notable history, the man that was seen in that once
+celebrated drapery was pointed at as a Don Quixote, and found himself
+the jest of high and low. And I verily believe that to this, and this
+only, we owe that dampness and poverty of spirit which has run through
+all our councils for a century past, so little agreeable to those
+nobler actions of our famous ancestors.”
+
+To call “Don Quixote” a sad book, preaching a pessimist view of life,
+argues a total misconception of its drift. It would be so if its moral
+were that, in this world, true enthusiasm naturally leads to ridicule
+and discomfiture. But it preaches nothing of the sort; its moral, so
+far as it can be said to have one, is that the spurious enthusiasm that
+is born of vanity and self-conceit, that is made an end in itself, not
+a means to an end, that acts on mere impulse, regardless of
+circumstances and consequences, is mischievous to its owner, and a very
+considerable nuisance to the community at large. To those who cannot
+distinguish between the one kind and the other, no doubt “Don Quixote”
+is a sad book; no doubt to some minds it is very sad that a man who had
+just uttered so beautiful a sentiment as that “it is a hard case to
+make slaves of those whom God and Nature made free,” should be
+ungratefully pelted by the scoundrels his crazy philanthropy had let
+loose on society; but to others of a more judicial cast it will be a
+matter of regret that reckless self-sufficient enthusiasm is not
+oftener requited in some such way for all the mischief it does in the
+world.
+
+A very slight examination of the structure of “Don Quixote” will
+suffice to show that Cervantes had no deep design or elaborate plan in
+his mind when he began the book. When he wrote those lines in which
+“with a few strokes of a great master he sets before us the pauper
+gentleman,” he had no idea of the goal to which his imagination was
+leading him. There can be little doubt that all he contemplated was a
+short tale to range with those he had already written, a tale setting
+forth the ludicrous results that might be expected to follow the
+attempt of a crazy gentleman to act the part of a knight-errant in
+modern life.
+
+It is plain, for one thing, that Sancho Panza did not enter into the
+original scheme, for had Cervantes thought of him he certainly would
+not have omitted him in his hero’s outfit, which he obviously meant to
+be complete. Him we owe to the landlord’s chance remark in Chapter III
+that knights seldom travelled without squires. To try to think of a Don
+Quixote without Sancho Panza is like trying to think of a one-bladed
+pair of scissors.
+
+The story was written at first, like the others, without any division
+and without the intervention of Cid Hamete Benengeli; and it seems not
+unlikely that Cervantes had some intention of bringing Dulcinea, or
+Aldonza Lorenzo, on the scene in person. It was probably the ransacking
+of the Don’s library and the discussion on the books of chivalry that
+first suggested it to him that his idea was capable of development.
+What, if instead of a mere string of farcical misadventures, he were to
+make his tale a burlesque of one of these books, caricaturing their
+style, incidents, and spirit?
+
+In pursuance of this change of plan, he hastily and somewhat clumsily
+divided what he had written into chapters on the model of “Amadis,”
+invented the fable of a mysterious Arabic manuscript, and set up Cid
+Hamete Benengeli in imitation of the almost invariable practice of the
+chivalry-romance authors, who were fond of tracing their books to some
+recondite source. In working out the new ideas, he soon found the value
+of Sancho Panza. Indeed, the keynote, not only to Sancho’s part, but to
+the whole book, is struck in the first words Sancho utters when he
+announces his intention of taking his ass with him. “About the ass,” we
+are told, “Don Quixote hesitated a little, trying whether he could call
+to mind any knight-errant taking with him an esquire mounted on
+ass-back; but no instance occurred to his memory.” We can see the whole
+scene at a glance, the stolid unconsciousness of Sancho and the
+perplexity of his master, upon whose perception the incongruity has
+just forced itself. This is Sancho’s mission throughout the book; he is
+an unconscious Mephistopheles, always unwittingly making mockery of his
+master’s aspirations, always exposing the fallacy of his ideas by some
+unintentional ad absurdum, always bringing him back to the world of
+fact and commonplace by force of sheer stolidity.
+
+By the time Cervantes had got his volume of novels off his hands, and
+summoned up resolution enough to set about the Second Part in earnest,
+the case was very much altered. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza had not
+merely found favour, but had already become, what they have never since
+ceased to be, veritable entities to the popular imagination. There was
+no occasion for him now to interpolate extraneous matter; nay, his
+readers told him plainly that what they wanted of him was more Don
+Quixote and more Sancho Panza, and not novels, tales, or digressions.
+To himself, too, his creations had become realities, and he had become
+proud of them, especially of Sancho. He began the Second Part,
+therefore, under very different conditions, and the difference makes
+itself manifest at once. Even in translation the style will be seen to
+be far easier, more flowing, more natural, and more like that of a man
+sure of himself and of his audience. Don Quixote and Sancho undergo a
+change also. In the First Part, Don Quixote has no character or
+individuality whatever. He is nothing more than a crazy representative
+of the sentiments of the chivalry romances. In all that he says and
+does he is simply repeating the lesson he has learned from his books;
+and therefore, it is absurd to speak of him in the gushing strain of
+the sentimental critics when they dilate upon his nobleness,
+disinterestedness, dauntless courage, and so forth. It was the business
+of a knight-errant to right wrongs, redress injuries, and succour the
+distressed, and this, as a matter of course, he makes his business when
+he takes up the part; a knight-errant was bound to be intrepid, and so
+he feels bound to cast fear aside. Of all Byron’s melodious nonsense
+about Don Quixote, the most nonsensical statement is that “’tis his
+virtue makes him mad!” The exact opposite is the truth; it is his
+madness makes him virtuous.
+
+In the Second Part, Cervantes repeatedly reminds the reader, as if it
+was a point upon which he was anxious there should be no mistake, that
+his hero’s madness is strictly confined to delusions on the subject of
+chivalry, and that on every other subject he is discreto, one, in fact,
+whose faculty of discernment is in perfect order. The advantage of this
+is that he is enabled to make use of Don Quixote as a mouthpiece for
+his own reflections, and so, without seeming to digress, allow himself
+the relief of digression when he requires it, as freely as in a
+commonplace book.
+
+It is true the amount of individuality bestowed upon Don Quixote is not
+very great. There are some natural touches of character about him, such
+as his mixture of irascibility and placability, and his curious
+affection for Sancho together with his impatience of the squire’s
+loquacity and impertinence; but in the main, apart from his craze, he
+is little more than a thoughtful, cultured gentleman, with instinctive
+good taste and a great deal of shrewdness and originality of mind.
+
+As to Sancho, it is plain, from the concluding words of the preface to
+the First Part, that he was a favourite with his creator even before he
+had been taken into favour by the public. An inferior genius, taking
+him in hand a second time, would very likely have tried to improve him
+by making him more comical, clever, amiable, or virtuous. But Cervantes
+was too true an artist to spoil his work in this way. Sancho, when he
+reappears, is the old Sancho with the old familiar features; but with a
+difference; they have been brought out more distinctly, but at the same
+time with a careful avoidance of anything like caricature; the outline
+has been filled in where filling in was necessary, and, vivified by a
+few touches of a master’s hand, Sancho stands before us as he might in
+a character portrait by Velazquez. He is a much more important and
+prominent figure in the Second Part than in the First; indeed, it is
+his matchless mendacity about Dulcinea that to a great extent supplies
+the action of the story.
+
+His development in this respect is as remarkable as in any other. In
+the First Part he displays a great natural gift of lying. His lies are
+not of the highly imaginative sort that liars in fiction commonly
+indulge in; like Falstaff’s, they resemble the father that begets them;
+they are simple, homely, plump lies; plain working lies, in short. But
+in the service of such a master as Don Quixote he develops rapidly, as
+we see when he comes to palm off the three country wenches as Dulcinea
+and her ladies in waiting. It is worth noticing how, flushed by his
+success in this instance, he is tempted afterwards to try a flight
+beyond his powers in his account of the journey on Clavileño.
+
+In the Second Part it is the spirit rather than the incidents of the
+chivalry romances that is the subject of the burlesque. Enchantments of
+the sort travestied in those of Dulcinea and the Trifaldi and the cave
+of Montesinos play a leading part in the later and inferior romances,
+and another distinguishing feature is caricatured in Don Quixote’s
+blind adoration of Dulcinea. In the romances of chivalry love is either
+a mere animalism or a fantastic idolatry. Only a coarse-minded man
+would care to make merry with the former, but to one of Cervantes’
+humour the latter was naturally an attractive subject for ridicule.
+Like everything else in these romances, it is a gross exaggeration of
+the real sentiment of chivalry, but its peculiar extravagance is
+probably due to the influence of those masters of hyperbole, the
+Provencal poets. When a troubadour professed his readiness to obey his
+lady in all things, he made it incumbent upon the next comer, if he
+wished to avoid the imputation of tameness and commonplace, to declare
+himself the slave of her will, which the next was compelled to cap by
+some still stronger declaration; and so expressions of devotion went on
+rising one above the other like biddings at an auction, and a
+conventional language of gallantry and theory of love came into being
+that in time permeated the literature of Southern Europe, and bore
+fruit, in one direction in the transcendental worship of Beatrice and
+Laura, and in another in the grotesque idolatry which found exponents
+in writers like Feliciano de Silva. This is what Cervantes deals with
+in Don Quixote’s passion for Dulcinea, and in no instance has he
+carried out the burlesque more happily. By keeping Dulcinea in the
+background, and making her a vague shadowy being of whose very
+existence we are left in doubt, he invests Don Quixote’s worship of her
+virtues and charms with an additional extravagance, and gives still
+more point to the caricature of the sentiment and language of the
+romances.
+
+One of the great merits of “Don Quixote,” and one of the qualities that
+have secured its acceptance by all classes of readers and made it the
+most cosmopolitan of books, is its simplicity. There are, of course,
+points obvious enough to a Spanish seventeenth century audience which
+do not immediately strike a reader now-a-days, and Cervantes often
+takes it for granted that an allusion will be generally understood
+which is only intelligible to a few. For example, on many of his
+readers in Spain, and most of his readers out of it, the significance
+of his choice of a country for his hero is completely lost. It would be
+going too far to say that no one can thoroughly comprehend “Don
+Quixote” without having seen La Mancha, but undoubtedly even a glimpse
+of La Mancha will give an insight into the meaning of Cervantes such as
+no commentator can give. Of all the regions of Spain it is the last
+that would suggest the idea of romance. Of all the dull central plateau
+of the Peninsula it is the dullest tract. There is something impressive
+about the grim solitudes of Estremadura; and if the plains of Leon and
+Old Castile are bald and dreary, they are studded with old cities
+renowned in history and rich in relics of the past. But there is no
+redeeming feature in the Manchegan landscape; it has all the sameness
+of the desert without its dignity; the few towns and villages that
+break its monotony are mean and commonplace, there is nothing venerable
+about them, they have not even the picturesqueness of poverty; indeed,
+Don Quixote’s own village, Argamasilla, has a sort of oppressive
+respectability in the prim regularity of its streets and houses;
+everything is ignoble; the very windmills are the ugliest and shabbiest
+of the windmill kind.
+
+To anyone who knew the country well, the mere style and title of “Don
+Quixote of La Mancha” gave the key to the author’s meaning at once. La
+Mancha as the knight’s country and scene of his chivalries is of a
+piece with the pasteboard helmet, the farm-labourer on ass-back for a
+squire, knighthood conferred by a rascally ventero, convicts taken for
+victims of oppression, and the rest of the incongruities between Don
+Quixote’s world and the world he lived in, between things as he saw
+them and things as they were.
+
+It is strange that this element of incongruity, underlying the whole
+humour and purpose of the book, should have been so little heeded by
+the majority of those who have undertaken to interpret “Don Quixote.”
+It has been completely overlooked, for example, by the illustrators. To
+be sure, the great majority of the artists who illustrated “Don
+Quixote” knew nothing whatever of Spain. To them a venta conveyed no
+idea but the abstract one of a roadside inn, and they could not
+therefore do full justice to the humour of Don Quixote’s misconception
+in taking it for a castle, or perceive the remoteness of all its
+realities from his ideal. But even when better informed they seem to
+have no apprehension of the full force of the discrepancy. Take, for
+instance, Gustave Doré’s drawing of Don Quixote watching his armour in
+the inn-yard. Whether or not the Venta de Quesada on the Seville road
+is, as tradition maintains, the inn described in “Don Quixote,” beyond
+all question it was just such an inn-yard as the one behind it that
+Cervantes had in his mind’s eye, and it was on just such a rude stone
+trough as that beside the primitive draw-well in the corner that he
+meant Don Quixote to deposit his armour. Gustave Doré makes it an
+elaborate fountain such as no arriero ever watered his mules at in the
+corral of any venta in Spain, and thereby entirely misses the point
+aimed at by Cervantes. It is the mean, prosaic, commonplace character
+of all the surroundings and circumstances that gives a significance to
+Don Quixote’s vigil and the ceremony that follows.
+
+Cervantes’ humour is for the most part of that broader and simpler
+sort, the strength of which lies in the perception of the incongruous.
+It is the incongruity of Sancho in all his ways, words, and works, with
+the ideas and aims of his master, quite as much as the wonderful
+vitality and truth to nature of the character, that makes him the most
+humorous creation in the whole range of fiction. That unsmiling gravity
+of which Cervantes was the first great master, “Cervantes’ serious
+air,” which sits naturally on Swift alone, perhaps, of later
+humourists, is essential to this kind of humour, and here again
+Cervantes has suffered at the hands of his interpreters. Nothing,
+unless indeed the coarse buffoonery of Phillips, could be more out of
+place in an attempt to represent Cervantes, than a flippant, would-be
+facetious style, like that of Motteux’s version for example, or the
+sprightly, jaunty air, French translators sometimes adopt. It is the
+grave matter-of-factness of the narrative, and the apparent
+unconsciousness of the author that he is saying anything ludicrous,
+anything but the merest commonplace, that give its peculiar flavour to
+the humour of Cervantes. His, in fact, is the exact opposite of the
+humour of Sterne and the self-conscious humourists. Even when Uncle
+Toby is at his best, you are always aware of “the man Sterne” behind
+him, watching you over his shoulder to see what effect he is producing.
+Cervantes always leaves you alone with Don Quixote and Sancho. He and
+Swift and the great humourists always keep themselves out of sight, or,
+more properly speaking, never think about themselves at all, unlike our
+latter-day school of humourists, who seem to have revived the old
+horse-collar method, and try to raise a laugh by some grotesque
+assumption of ignorance, imbecility, or bad taste.
+
+It is true that to do full justice to Spanish humour in any other
+language is well-nigh an impossibility. There is a natural gravity and
+a sonorous stateliness about Spanish, be it ever so colloquial, that
+make an absurdity doubly absurd, and give plausibility to the most
+preposterous statement. This is what makes Sancho Panza’s drollery the
+despair of the conscientious translator. Sancho’s curt comments can
+never fall flat, but they lose half their flavour when transferred from
+their native Castilian into any other medium. But if foreigners have
+failed to do justice to the humour of Cervantes, they are no worse than
+his own countrymen. Indeed, were it not for the Spanish peasant’s
+relish of “Don Quixote,” one might be tempted to think that the great
+humourist was not looked upon as a humourist at all in his own country.
+
+The craze of Don Quixote seems, in some instances, to have communicated
+itself to his critics, making them see things that are not in the book
+and run full tilt at phantoms that have no existence save in their own
+imaginations. Like a good many critics now-a-days, they forget that
+screams are not criticism, and that it is only vulgar tastes that are
+influenced by strings of superlatives, three-piled hyperboles, and
+pompous epithets. But what strikes one as particularly strange is that
+while they deal in extravagant eulogies, and ascribe all manner of
+imaginary ideas and qualities to Cervantes, they show no perception of
+the quality that ninety-nine out of a hundred of his readers would rate
+highest in him, and hold to be the one that raises him above all
+rivalry.
+
+To speak of “Don Quixote” as if it were merely a humorous book would be
+a manifest misdescription. Cervantes at times makes it a kind of
+commonplace book for occasional essays and criticisms, or for the
+observations and reflections and gathered wisdom of a long and stirring
+life. It is a mine of shrewd observation on mankind and human nature.
+Among modern novels there may be, here and there, more elaborate
+studies of character, but there is no book richer in individualised
+character. What Coleridge said of Shakespeare in minimis is true of
+Cervantes; he never, even for the most temporary purpose, puts forward
+a lay figure. There is life and individuality in all his characters,
+however little they may have to do, or however short a time they may be
+before the reader. Samson Carrasco, the curate, Teresa Panza,
+Altisidora, even the two students met on the road to the cave of
+Montesinos, all live and move and have their being; and it is
+characteristic of the broad humanity of Cervantes that there is not a
+hateful one among them all. Even poor Maritornes, with her deplorable
+morals, has a kind heart of her own and “some faint and distant
+resemblance to a Christian about her;” and as for Sancho, though on
+dissection we fail to find a lovable trait in him, unless it be a sort
+of dog-like affection for his master, who is there that in his heart
+does not love him?
+
+But it is, after all, the humour of “Don Quixote” that distinguishes it
+from all other books of the romance kind. It is this that makes it, as
+one of the most judicial-minded of modern critics calls it, “the best
+novel in the world beyond all comparison.” It is its varied humour,
+ranging from broad farce to comedy as subtle as Shakespeare’s or
+Molière’s that has naturalised it in every country where there are
+readers, and made it a classic in every language that has a literature.
+
+
+
+THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE
+
+Idle reader: thou mayest believe me without any oath that I would this
+book, as it is the child of my brain, were the fairest, gayest, and
+cleverest that could be imagined. But I could not counteract Nature’s
+law that everything shall beget its like; and what, then, could this
+sterile, illtilled wit of mine beget but the story of a dry,
+shrivelled, whimsical offspring, full of thoughts of all sorts and such
+as never came into any other imagination—just what might be begotten in
+a prison, where every misery is lodged and every doleful sound makes
+its dwelling? Tranquillity, a cheerful retreat, pleasant fields, bright
+skies, murmuring brooks, peace of mind, these are the things that go
+far to make even the most barren muses fertile, and bring into the
+world births that fill it with wonder and delight. Sometimes when a
+father has an ugly, loutish son, the love he bears him so blindfolds
+his eyes that he does not see his defects, or, rather, takes them for
+gifts and charms of mind and body, and talks of them to his friends as
+wit and grace. I, however—for though I pass for the father, I am but
+the stepfather to “Don Quixote”—have no desire to go with the current
+of custom, or to implore thee, dearest reader, almost with tears in my
+eyes, as others do, to pardon or excuse the defects thou wilt perceive
+in this child of mine. Thou art neither its kinsman nor its friend, thy
+soul is thine own and thy will as free as any man’s, whate’er he be,
+thou art in thine own house and master of it as much as the king of his
+taxes and thou knowest the common saying, “Under my cloak I kill the
+king;” all which exempts and frees thee from every consideration and
+obligation, and thou canst say what thou wilt of the story without fear
+of being abused for any ill or rewarded for any good thou mayest say of
+it.
+
+My wish would be simply to present it to thee plain and unadorned,
+without any embellishment of preface or uncountable muster of customary
+sonnets, epigrams, and eulogies, such as are commonly put at the
+beginning of books. For I can tell thee, though composing it cost me
+some labour, I found none greater than the making of this Preface thou
+art now reading. Many times did I take up my pen to write it, and many
+did I lay it down again, not knowing what to write. One of these times,
+as I was pondering with the paper before me, a pen in my ear, my elbow
+on the desk, and my cheek in my hand, thinking of what I should say,
+there came in unexpectedly a certain lively, clever friend of mine,
+who, seeing me so deep in thought, asked the reason; to which I, making
+no mystery of it, answered that I was thinking of the Preface I had to
+make for the story of “Don Quixote,” which so troubled me that I had a
+mind not to make any at all, nor even publish the achievements of so
+noble a knight.
+
+“For, how could you expect me not to feel uneasy about what that
+ancient lawgiver they call the Public will say when it sees me, after
+slumbering so many years in the silence of oblivion, coming out now
+with all my years upon my back, and with a book as dry as a rush,
+devoid of invention, meagre in style, poor in thoughts, wholly wanting
+in learning and wisdom, without quotations in the margin or annotations
+at the end, after the fashion of other books I see, which, though all
+fables and profanity, are so full of maxims from Aristotle, and Plato,
+and the whole herd of philosophers, that they fill the readers with
+amazement and convince them that the authors are men of learning,
+erudition, and eloquence. And then, when they quote the Holy
+Scriptures!—anyone would say they are St. Thomases or other doctors of
+the Church, observing as they do a decorum so ingenious that in one
+sentence they describe a distracted lover and in the next deliver a
+devout little sermon that it is a pleasure and a treat to hear and
+read. Of all this there will be nothing in my book, for I have nothing
+to quote in the margin or to note at the end, and still less do I know
+what authors I follow in it, to place them at the beginning, as all do,
+under the letters A, B, C, beginning with Aristotle and ending with
+Xenophon, or Zoilus, or Zeuxis, though one was a slanderer and the
+other a painter. Also my book must do without sonnets at the beginning,
+at least sonnets whose authors are dukes, marquises, counts, bishops,
+ladies, or famous poets. Though if I were to ask two or three obliging
+friends, I know they would give me them, and such as the productions of
+those that have the highest reputation in our Spain could not equal.
+
+“In short, my friend,” I continued, “I am determined that Señor Don
+Quixote shall remain buried in the archives of his own La Mancha until
+Heaven provide someone to garnish him with all those things he stands
+in need of; because I find myself, through my shallowness and want of
+learning, unequal to supplying them, and because I am by nature shy and
+careless about hunting for authors to say what I myself can say without
+them. Hence the cogitation and abstraction you found me in, and reason
+enough, what you have heard from me.”
+
+Hearing this, my friend, giving himself a slap on the forehead and
+breaking into a hearty laugh, exclaimed, “Before God, Brother, now am I
+disabused of an error in which I have been living all this long time I
+have known you, all through which I have taken you to be shrewd and
+sensible in all you do; but now I see you are as far from that as the
+heaven is from the earth. Is it possible that things of so little
+moment and so easy to set right can occupy and perplex a ripe wit like
+yours, fit to break through and crush far greater obstacles? By my
+faith, this comes, not of any want of ability, but of too much
+indolence and too little knowledge of life. Do you want to know if I am
+telling the truth? Well, then, attend to me, and you will see how, in
+the opening and shutting of an eye, I sweep away all your difficulties,
+and supply all those deficiencies which you say check and discourage
+you from bringing before the world the story of your famous Don
+Quixote, the light and mirror of all knight-errantry.”
+
+“Say on,” said I, listening to his talk; “how do you propose to make up
+for my diffidence, and reduce to order this chaos of perplexity I am
+in?”
+
+To which he made answer, “Your first difficulty about the sonnets,
+epigrams, or complimentary verses which you want for the beginning, and
+which ought to be by persons of importance and rank, can be removed if
+you yourself take a little trouble to make them; you can afterwards
+baptise them, and put any name you like to them, fathering them on
+Prester John of the Indies or the Emperor of Trebizond, who, to my
+knowledge, were said to have been famous poets: and even if they were
+not, and any pedants or bachelors should attack you and question the
+fact, never care two maravedis for that, for even if they prove a lie
+against you they cannot cut off the hand you wrote it with.
+
+“As to references in the margin to the books and authors from whom you
+take the aphorisms and sayings you put into your story, it is only
+contriving to fit in nicely any sentences or scraps of Latin you may
+happen to have by heart, or at any rate that will not give you much
+trouble to look up; so as, when you speak of freedom and captivity, to
+insert
+
+_Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro;_
+
+
+and then refer in the margin to Horace, or whoever said it; or, if you
+allude to the power of death, to come in with—
+
+_Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,
+Regumque turres._
+
+
+“If it be friendship and the love God bids us bear to our enemy, go at
+once to the Holy Scriptures, which you can do with a very small amount
+of research, and quote no less than the words of God himself: _Ego
+autem dico vobis: diligite inimicos vestros._ If you speak of evil
+thoughts, turn to the Gospel: _De corde exeunt cogitationes malæ._ If
+of the fickleness of friends, there is Cato, who will give you his
+distich:
+
+_Donec eris felix multos numerabis amicos,
+Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris._
+
+
+“With these and such like bits of Latin they will take you for a
+grammarian at all events, and that now-a-days is no small honour and
+profit.
+
+“With regard to adding annotations at the end of the book, you may
+safely do it in this way. If you mention any giant in your book
+contrive that it shall be the giant Goliath, and with this alone, which
+will cost you almost nothing, you have a grand note, for you can
+put—_The giant Golias or Goliath was a Philistine whom the shepherd
+David slew by a mighty stone-cast in the Terebinth valley, as is
+related in the Book of Kings_—in the chapter where you find it written.
+
+“Next, to prove yourself a man of erudition in polite literature and
+cosmography, manage that the river Tagus shall be named in your story,
+and there you are at once with another famous annotation, setting
+forth—_The river Tagus was so called after a King of Spain: it has its
+source in such and such a place and falls into the ocean, kissing the
+walls of the famous city of Lisbon, and it is a common belief that it
+has golden sands_, etc. If you should have anything to do with robbers,
+I will give you the story of Cacus, for I have it by heart; if with
+loose women, there is the Bishop of Mondonedo, who will give you the
+loan of Lamia, Laida, and Flora, any reference to whom will bring you
+great credit; if with hard-hearted ones, Ovid will furnish you with
+Medea; if with witches or enchantresses, Homer has Calypso, and Virgil
+Circe; if with valiant captains, Julius Cæsar himself will lend you
+himself in his own ‘Commentaries,’ and Plutarch will give you a
+thousand Alexanders. If you should deal with love, with two ounces you
+may know of Tuscan you can go to Leon the Hebrew, who will supply you
+to your heart’s content; or if you should not care to go to foreign
+countries you have at home Fonseca’s ‘Of the Love of God,’ in which is
+condensed all that you or the most imaginative mind can want on the
+subject. In short, all you have to do is to manage to quote these
+names, or refer to these stories I have mentioned, and leave it to me
+to insert the annotations and quotations, and I swear by all that’s
+good to fill your margins and use up four sheets at the end of the
+book.
+
+“Now let us come to those references to authors which other books have,
+and you want for yours. The remedy for this is very simple: You have
+only to look out for some book that quotes them all, from A to Z as you
+say yourself, and then insert the very same alphabet in your book, and
+though the imposition may be plain to see, because you have so little
+need to borrow from them, that is no matter; there will probably be
+some simple enough to believe that you have made use of them all in
+this plain, artless story of yours. At any rate, if it answers no other
+purpose, this long catalogue of authors will serve to give a surprising
+look of authority to your book. Besides, no one will trouble himself to
+verify whether you have followed them or whether you have not, being no
+way concerned in it; especially as, if I mistake not, this book of
+yours has no need of any one of those things you say it wants, for it
+is, from beginning to end, an attack upon the books of chivalry, of
+which Aristotle never dreamt, nor St. Basil said a word, nor Cicero had
+any knowledge; nor do the niceties of truth nor the observations of
+astrology come within the range of its fanciful vagaries; nor have
+geometrical measurements or refutations of the arguments used in
+rhetoric anything to do with it; nor does it mean to preach to anybody,
+mixing up things human and divine, a sort of motley in which no
+Christian understanding should dress itself. It has only to avail
+itself of truth to nature in its composition, and the more perfect the
+imitation the better the work will be. And as this piece of yours aims
+at nothing more than to destroy the authority and influence which books
+of chivalry have in the world and with the public, there is no need for
+you to go a-begging for aphorisms from philosophers, precepts from Holy
+Scripture, fables from poets, speeches from orators, or miracles from
+saints; but merely to take care that your style and diction run
+musically, pleasantly, and plainly, with clear, proper, and well-placed
+words, setting forth your purpose to the best of your power, and
+putting your ideas intelligibly, without confusion or obscurity.
+Strive, too, that in reading your story the melancholy may be moved to
+laughter, and the merry made merrier still; that the simple shall not
+be wearied, that the judicious shall admire the invention, that the
+grave shall not despise it, nor the wise fail to praise it. Finally,
+keep your aim fixed on the destruction of that ill-founded edifice of
+the books of chivalry, hated by some and praised by many more; for if
+you succeed in this you will have achieved no small success.”
+
+In profound silence I listened to what my friend said, and his
+observations made such an impression on me that, without attempting to
+question them, I admitted their soundness, and out of them I determined
+to make this Preface; wherein, gentle reader, thou wilt perceive my
+friend’s good sense, my good fortune in finding such an adviser in such
+a time of need, and what thou hast gained in receiving, without
+addition or alteration, the story of the famous Don Quixote of La
+Mancha, who is held by all the inhabitants of the district of the Campo
+de Montiel to have been the chastest lover and the bravest knight that
+has for many years been seen in that neighbourhood. I have no desire to
+magnify the service I render thee in making thee acquainted with so
+renowned and honoured a knight, but I do desire thy thanks for the
+acquaintance thou wilt make with the famous Sancho Panza, his squire,
+in whom, to my thinking, I have given thee condensed all the squirely
+drolleries that are scattered through the swarm of the vain books of
+chivalry. And so—may God give thee health, and not forget me. Vale.
+
+
+
+SOME COMMENDATORY VERSES
+
+
+
+URGANDA THE UNKNOWN
+
+To the book of Don Quixote of la Mancha
+
+If to be welcomed by the good,
+    O Book! thou make thy steady aim,
+No empty chatterer will dare
+    To question or dispute thy claim.
+But if perchance thou hast a mind
+    To win of idiots approbation,
+Lost labour will be thy reward,
+    Though they’ll pretend appreciation.
+
+They say a goodly shade he finds
+    Who shelters ’neath a goodly tree;
+And such a one thy kindly star
+    In Bejar bath provided thee:
+A royal tree whose spreading boughs
+    A show of princely fruit display;
+A tree that bears a noble Duke,
+    The Alexander of his day.
+
+Of a Manchegan gentleman
+    Thy purpose is to tell the story,
+Relating how he lost his wits
+    O’er idle tales of love and glory,
+Of “ladies, arms, and cavaliers:”
+    A new Orlando Furioso—
+Innamorato, rather—who
+    Won Dulcinea del Toboso.
+
+Put no vain emblems on thy shield;
+    All figures—that is bragging play.
+A modest dedication make,
+    And give no scoffer room to say,
+“What! Álvaro de Luna here?
+    Or is it Hannibal again?
+Or does King Francis at Madrid
+    Once more of destiny complain?”
+
+Since Heaven it hath not pleased on thee
+    Deep erudition to bestow,
+Or black Latino’s gift of tongues,
+    No Latin let thy pages show.
+Ape not philosophy or wit,
+    Lest one who cannot comprehend,
+Make a wry face at thee and ask,
+    “Why offer flowers to me, my friend?”
+
+Be not a meddler; no affair
+    Of thine the life thy neighbours lead:
+Be prudent; oft the random jest
+    Recoils upon the jester’s head.
+Thy constant labour let it be
+    To earn thyself an honest name,
+For fooleries preserved in print
+    Are perpetuity of shame.
+
+A further counsel bear in mind:
+    If that thy roof be made of glass,
+It shows small wit to pick up stones
+    To pelt the people as they pass.
+Win the attention of the wise,
+    And give the thinker food for thought;
+Whoso indites frivolities,
+    Will but by simpletons be sought.
+
+
+
+
+AMADIS OF GAUL
+To Don Quixote of la Mancha
+
+SONNET
+
+Thou that didst imitate that life of mine
+    When I in lonely sadness on the great
+    Rock Peña Pobre sat disconsolate,
+In self-imposed penance there to pine;
+Thou, whose sole beverage was the bitter brine
+    Of thine own tears, and who withouten plate
+    Of silver, copper, tin, in lowly state
+Off the bare earth and on earth’s fruits didst dine;
+Live thou, of thine eternal glory sure.
+    So long as on the round of the fourth sphere
+    The bright Apollo shall his coursers steer,
+In thy renown thou shalt remain secure,
+Thy country’s name in story shall endure,
+    And thy sage author stand without a peer.
+
+
+
+
+DON BELIANIS OF GREECE
+To Don Quixote of la Mancha
+
+SONNET
+
+In slashing, hewing, cleaving, word and deed,
+    I was the foremost knight of chivalry,
+    Stout, bold, expert, as e’er the world did see;
+Thousands from the oppressor’s wrong I freed;
+Great were my feats, eternal fame their meed;
+    In love I proved my truth and loyalty;
+    The hugest giant was a dwarf for me;
+Ever to knighthood’s laws gave I good heed.
+My mastery the Fickle Goddess owned,
+    And even Chance, submitting to control,
+        Grasped by the forelock, yielded to my will.
+Yet—though above yon horned moon enthroned
+        My fortune seems to sit—great Quixote, still
+    Envy of thy achievements fills my soul.
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF ORIANA
+To Dulcinea del Toboso
+
+SONNET
+
+Oh, fairest Dulcinea, could it be!
+    It were a pleasant fancy to suppose so—
+    Could Miraflores change to El Toboso,
+And London’s town to that which shelters thee!
+Oh, could mine but acquire that livery
+    Of countless charms thy mind and body show so!
+    Or him, now famous grown—thou mad’st him grow so—
+Thy knight, in some dread combat could I see!
+Oh, could I be released from Amadis
+    By exercise of such coy chastity
+As led thee gentle Quixote to dismiss!
+        Then would my heavy sorrow turn to joy;
+    None would I envy, all would envy me,
+        And happiness be mine without alloy.
+
+
+
+
+GANDALIN, SQUIRE OF AMADIS OF GAUL,
+To Sancho Panza, squire of Don Quixote
+
+SONNET
+
+All hail, illustrious man! Fortune, when she
+    Bound thee apprentice to the esquire trade,
+    Her care and tenderness of thee displayed,
+Shaping thy course from misadventure free.
+No longer now doth proud knight-errantry
+    Regard with scorn the sickle and the spade;
+    Of towering arrogance less count is made
+Than of plain esquire-like simplicity.
+I envy thee thy Dapple, and thy name,
+    And those alforjas thou wast wont to stuff
+With comforts that thy providence proclaim.
+        Excellent Sancho! hail to thee again!
+        To thee alone the Ovid of our Spain
+    Does homage with the rustic kiss and cuff.
+
+
+
+
+FROM EL DONOSO, THE MOTLEY POET,
+
+On Sancho Panza and Rocinante
+
+ON SANCHO
+
+I am the esquire Sancho Pan—
+Who served Don Quixote of La Man—;
+But from his service I retreat—,
+Resolved to pass my life discreet—;
+For Villadiego, called the Si—,
+Maintained that only in reti—
+Was found the secret of well-be—,
+According to the “Celesti—:”
+A book divine, except for sin—
+By speech too plain, in my opin—
+
+
+
+
+ON ROCINANTE
+
+I am that Rocinante fa—,
+Great-grandson of great Babie—,
+Who, all for being lean and bon—,
+Had one Don Quixote for an own—;
+But if I matched him well in weak—,
+I never took short commons meek—,
+But kept myself in corn by steal—,
+A trick I learned from Lazaril—,
+When with a piece of straw so neat—
+The blind man of his wine he cheat—.
+
+
+
+
+ORLANDO FURIOSO
+To Don Quixote of La Mancha
+
+SONNET
+
+If thou art not a Peer, peer thou hast none;
+    Among a thousand Peers thou art a peer;
+    Nor is there room for one when thou art near,
+Unvanquished victor, great unconquered one!
+Orlando, by Angelica undone,
+    Am I; o’er distant seas condemned to steer,
+    And to Fame’s altars as an offering bear
+Valour respected by Oblivion.
+I cannot be thy rival, for thy fame
+    And prowess rise above all rivalry,
+        Albeit both bereft of wits we go.
+But, though the Scythian or the Moor to tame
+    Was not thy lot, still thou dost rival me:
+        Love binds us in a fellowship of woe.
+
+
+
+
+THE KNIGHT OF PHŒBUS
+
+To Don Quixote of La Mancha
+
+My sword was not to be compared with thine
+    Phœbus of Spain, marvel of courtesy,
+Nor with thy famous arm this hand of mine
+    That smote from east to west as lightnings fly.
+    I scorned all empire, and that monarchy
+The rosy east held out did I resign
+    For one glance of Claridiana’s eye,
+The bright Aurora for whose love I pine.
+A miracle of constancy my love;
+    And banished by her ruthless cruelty,
+        This arm had might the rage of Hell to tame.
+But, Gothic Quixote, happier thou dost prove,
+        For thou dost live in Dulcinea’s name,
+    And famous, honoured, wise, she lives in thee.
+
+
+
+
+FROM SOLISDAN
+To Don Quixote of La Mancha
+
+SONNET
+
+Your fantasies, Sir Quixote, it is true,
+    That crazy brain of yours have quite upset,
+    But aught of base or mean hath never yet
+Been charged by any in reproach to you.
+Your deeds are open proof in all men’s view;
+    For you went forth injustice to abate,
+    And for your pains sore drubbings did you get
+From many a rascally and ruffian crew.
+If the fair Dulcinea, your heart’s queen,
+    Be unrelenting in her cruelty,
+        If still your woe be powerless to move her,
+    In such hard case your comfort let it be
+That Sancho was a sorry go-between:
+        A booby he, hard-hearted she, and you no lover.
+
+
+
+
+DIALOGUE
+Between Babieca and Rocinante
+
+SONNET
+
+_B_. “How comes it, Rocinante, you’re so lean?”
+_R_.     “I’m underfed, with overwork I’m worn.”
+_B_.     “But what becomes of all the hay and corn?”
+_R_. “My master gives me none; he’s much too mean.”
+_B_. “Come, come, you show ill-breeding, sir, I ween;
+    ’Tis like an ass your master thus to scorn.”
+_R_.     He is an ass, will die an ass, an ass was born;
+Why, he’s in love; what’s plainer to be seen?”
+_B_. “To be in love is folly?”—_R_. “No great sense.”
+_B_.     “You’re metaphysical.”—_R_. “From want of food.”
+_B_.     “Rail at the squire, then.”—_R_. “Why, what’s the good?
+    I might indeed complain of him, I grant ye,
+But, squire or master, where’s the difference?
+    They’re both as sorry hacks as Rocinante.”
+
+
+
+p005.jpg (171K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION OF PART I
+
+TO THE DUKE OF BEJAR, MARQUIS OF GIBRALEON, COUNT OF BENALCAZAR AND
+BANARES, VICECOUNT OF THE PUEBLA DE ALCOCER, MASTER OF THE TOWNS OF
+CAPILLA, CURIEL AND BURGUILLOS
+
+
+
+
+In belief of the good reception and honours that Your Excellency
+bestows on all sort of books, as prince so inclined to favor good arts,
+chiefly those who by their nobleness do not submit to the service and
+bribery of the vulgar, I have determined bringing to light The
+Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of la Mancha, in shelter of Your
+Excellency’s glamorous name, to whom, with the obeisance I owe to such
+grandeur, I pray to receive it agreeably under his protection, so that
+in this shadow, though deprived of that precious ornament of elegance
+and erudition that clothe the works composed in the houses of those who
+know, it dares appear with assurance in the judgment of some who,
+trespassing the bounds of their own ignorance, use to condemn with more
+rigour and less justice the writings of others. It is my earnest hope
+that Your Excellency’s good counsel in regard to my honourable purpose,
+will not disdain the littleness of so humble a service.
+
+Miguel de Cervantes
+
+
+
+e00.jpg (24K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+WHICH TREATS OF THE CHARACTER AND PURSUITS OF THE FAMOUS GENTLEMAN DON
+QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA
+
+
+
+
+p007.jpg (150K)
+
+Full Size
+
+In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call
+to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a
+lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound
+for coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most
+nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so
+extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. The rest
+of it went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to
+match for holidays, while on week-days he made a brave figure in his
+best homespun. He had in his house a housekeeper past forty, a niece
+under twenty, and a lad for the field and market-place, who used to
+saddle the hack as well as handle the bill-hook. The age of this
+gentleman of ours was bordering on fifty; he was of a hardy habit,
+spare, gaunt-featured, a very early riser and a great sportsman. They
+will have it his surname was Quixada or Quesada (for here there is some
+difference of opinion among the authors who write on the subject),
+although from reasonable conjectures it seems plain that he was called
+Quexana. This, however, is of but little importance to our tale; it
+will be enough not to stray a hair’s breadth from the truth in the
+telling of it.
+
+You must know, then, that the above-named gentleman whenever he was at
+leisure (which was mostly all the year round) gave himself up to
+reading books of chivalry with such ardour and avidity that he almost
+entirely neglected the pursuit of his field-sports, and even the
+management of his property; and to such a pitch did his eagerness and
+infatuation go that he sold many an acre of tillageland to buy books of
+chivalry to read, and brought home as many of them as he could get. But
+of all there were none he liked so well as those of the famous
+Feliciano de Silva’s composition, for their lucidity of style and
+complicated conceits were as pearls in his sight, particularly when in
+his reading he came upon courtships and cartels, where he often found
+passages like “_the reason of the unreason with which my reason is
+afflicted so weakens my reason that with reason I murmur at your
+beauty;” or again, “the high heavens, that of your divinity divinely
+fortify you with the stars, render you deserving of the desert your
+greatness deserves_.” Over conceits of this sort the poor gentleman
+lost his wits, and used to lie awake striving to understand them and
+worm the meaning out of them; what Aristotle himself could not have
+made out or extracted had he come to life again for that special
+purpose. He was not at all easy about the wounds which Don Belianis
+gave and took, because it seemed to him that, great as were the
+surgeons who had cured him, he must have had his face and body covered
+all over with seams and scars. He commended, however, the author’s way
+of ending his book with the promise of that interminable adventure, and
+many a time was he tempted to take up his pen and finish it properly as
+is there proposed, which no doubt he would have done, and made a
+successful piece of work of it too, had not greater and more absorbing
+thoughts prevented him.
+
+Many an argument did he have with the curate of his village (a learned
+man, and a graduate of Siguenza) as to which had been the better
+knight, Palmerin of England or Amadis of Gaul. Master Nicholas, the
+village barber, however, used to say that neither of them came up to
+the Knight of Phœbus, and that if there was any that could compare with
+_him_ it was Don Galaor, the brother of Amadis of Gaul, because he had
+a spirit that was equal to every occasion, and was no finikin knight,
+nor lachrymose like his brother, while in the matter of valour he was
+not a whit behind him. In short, he became so absorbed in his books
+that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn
+to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading
+his brains got so dry that he lost his wits. His fancy grew full of
+what he used to read about in his books, enchantments, quarrels,
+battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, agonies, and all sorts of
+impossible nonsense; and it so possessed his mind that the whole fabric
+of invention and fancy he read of was true, that to him no history in
+the world had more reality in it. He used to say the Cid Ruy Diaz was a
+very good knight, but that he was not to be compared with the Knight of
+the Burning Sword who with one back-stroke cut in half two fierce and
+monstrous giants. He thought more of Bernardo del Carpio because at
+Roncesvalles he slew Roland in spite of enchantments, availing himself
+of the artifice of Hercules when he strangled Antæus the son of Terra
+in his arms. He approved highly of the giant Morgante, because,
+although of the giant breed which is always arrogant and
+ill-conditioned, he alone was affable and well-bred. But above all he
+admired Reinaldos of Montalban, especially when he saw him sallying
+forth from his castle and robbing everyone he met, and when beyond the
+seas he stole that image of Mahomet which, as his history says, was
+entirely of gold. To have a bout of kicking at that traitor of a
+Ganelon he would have given his housekeeper, and his niece into the
+bargain.
+
+In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion
+that ever madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied
+it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour
+as for the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant
+of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in
+quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had
+read of as being the usual practices of knights-errant; righting every
+kind of wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger from which, in
+the issue, he was to reap eternal renown and fame. Already the poor man
+saw himself crowned by the might of his arm Emperor of Trebizond at
+least; and so, led away by the intense enjoyment he found in these
+pleasant fancies, he set himself forthwith to put his scheme into
+execution.
+
+The first thing he did was to clean up some armour that had belonged to
+his great-grandfather, and had been for ages lying forgotten in a
+corner eaten with rust and covered with mildew. He scoured and polished
+it as best he could, but he perceived one great defect in it, that it
+had no closed helmet, nothing but a simple morion. This deficiency,
+however, his ingenuity supplied, for he contrived a kind of half-helmet
+of pasteboard which, fitted on to the morion, looked like a whole one.
+It is true that, in order to see if it was strong and fit to stand a
+cut, he drew his sword and gave it a couple of slashes, the first of
+which undid in an instant what had taken him a week to do. The ease
+with which he had knocked it to pieces disconcerted him somewhat, and
+to guard against that danger he set to work again, fixing bars of iron
+on the inside until he was satisfied with its strength; and then, not
+caring to try any more experiments with it, he passed it and adopted it
+as a helmet of the most perfect construction.
+
+He next proceeded to inspect his hack, which, with more quartos than a
+real and more blemishes than the steed of Gonela, that “_tantum pellis
+et ossa fuit_,” surpassed in his eyes the Bucephalus of Alexander or
+the Babieca of the Cid. Four days were spent in thinking what name to
+give him, because (as he said to himself) it was not right that a horse
+belonging to a knight so famous, and one with such merits of his own,
+should be without some distinctive name, and he strove to adapt it so
+as to indicate what he had been before belonging to a knight-errant,
+and what he then was; for it was only reasonable that, his master
+taking a new character, he should take a new name, and that it should
+be a distinguished and full-sounding one, befitting the new order and
+calling he was about to follow. And so, after having composed, struck
+out, rejected, added to, unmade, and remade a multitude of names out of
+his memory and fancy, he decided upon calling him Rocinante, a name, to
+his thinking, lofty, sonorous, and significant of his condition as a
+hack before he became what he now was, the first and foremost of all
+the hacks in the world.
+
+Having got a name for his horse so much to his taste, he was anxious to
+get one for himself, and he was eight days more pondering over this
+point, till at last he made up his mind to call himself “Don Quixote,”
+whence, as has been already said, the authors of this veracious history
+have inferred that his name must have been beyond a doubt Quixada, and
+not Quesada as others would have it. Recollecting, however, that the
+valiant Amadis was not content to call himself curtly Amadis and
+nothing more, but added the name of his kingdom and country to make it
+famous, and called himself Amadis of Gaul, he, like a good knight,
+resolved to add on the name of his, and to style himself Don Quixote of
+La Mancha, whereby, he considered, he described accurately his origin
+and country, and did honour to it in taking his surname from it.
+
+So then, his armour being furbished, his morion turned into a helmet,
+his hack christened, and he himself confirmed, he came to the
+conclusion that nothing more was needed now but to look out for a lady
+to be in love with; for a knight-errant without love was like a tree
+without leaves or fruit, or a body without a soul. As he said to
+himself, “If, for my sins, or by my good fortune, I come across some
+giant hereabouts, a common occurrence with knights-errant, and
+overthrow him in one onslaught, or cleave him asunder to the waist, or,
+in short, vanquish and subdue him, will it not be well to have someone
+I may send him to as a present, that he may come in and fall on his
+knees before my sweet lady, and in a humble, submissive voice say, ‘I
+am the giant Caraculiambro, lord of the island of Malindrania,
+vanquished in single combat by the never sufficiently extolled knight
+Don Quixote of La Mancha, who has commanded me to present myself before
+your Grace, that your Highness dispose of me at your pleasure’?” Oh,
+how our good gentleman enjoyed the delivery of this speech, especially
+when he had thought of someone to call his Lady! There was, so the
+story goes, in a village near his own a very good-looking farm-girl
+with whom he had been at one time in love, though, so far as is known,
+she never knew it nor gave a thought to the matter. Her name was
+Aldonza Lorenzo, and upon her he thought fit to confer the title of
+Lady of his Thoughts; and after some search for a name which should not
+be out of harmony with her own, and should suggest and indicate that of
+a princess and great lady, he decided upon calling her Dulcinea del
+Toboso—she being of El Toboso—a name, to his mind, musical, uncommon,
+and significant, like all those he had already bestowed upon himself
+and the things belonging to him.
+
+
+
+p007b.jpg (61K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+WHICH TREATS OF THE FIRST SALLY THE INGENIOUS DON QUIXOTE MADE FROM
+HOME
+
+
+
+
+p007c.jpg (97K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+These preliminaries settled, he did not care to put off any longer the
+execution of his design, urged on to it by the thought of all the world
+was losing by his delay, seeing what wrongs he intended to right,
+grievances to redress, injustices to repair, abuses to remove, and
+duties to discharge. So, without giving notice of his intention to
+anyone, and without anybody seeing him, one morning before the dawning
+of the day (which was one of the hottest of the month of July) he
+donned his suit of armour, mounted Rocinante with his patched-up helmet
+on, braced his buckler, took his lance, and by the back door of the
+yard sallied forth upon the plain in the highest contentment and
+satisfaction at seeing with what ease he had made a beginning with his
+grand purpose. But scarcely did he find himself upon the open plain,
+when a terrible thought struck him, one all but enough to make him
+abandon the enterprise at the very outset. It occurred to him that he
+had not been dubbed a knight, and that according to the law of chivalry
+he neither could nor ought to bear arms against any knight; and that
+even if he had been, still he ought, as a novice knight, to wear white
+armour, without a device upon the shield until by his prowess he had
+earned one. These reflections made him waver in his purpose, but his
+craze being stronger than any reasoning, he made up his mind to have
+himself dubbed a knight by the first one he came across, following the
+example of others in the same case, as he had read in the books that
+brought him to this pass. As for white armour, he resolved, on the
+first opportunity, to scour his until it was whiter than an ermine; and
+so comforting himself he pursued his way, taking that which his horse
+chose, for in this he believed lay the essence of adventures.
+
+Thus setting out, our new-fledged adventurer paced along, talking to
+himself and saying, “Who knows but that in time to come, when the
+veracious history of my famous deeds is made known, the sage who writes
+it, when he has to set forth my first sally in the early morning, will
+do it after this fashion? ‘Scarce had the rubicund Apollo spread o’er
+the face of the broad spacious earth the golden threads of his bright
+hair, scarce had the little birds of painted plumage attuned their
+notes to hail with dulcet and mellifluous harmony the coming of the
+rosy Dawn, that, deserting the soft couch of her jealous spouse, was
+appearing to mortals at the gates and balconies of the Manchegan
+horizon, when the renowned knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, quitting
+the lazy down, mounted his celebrated steed Rocinante and began to
+traverse the ancient and famous Campo de Montiel;’” which in fact he
+was actually traversing. “Happy the age, happy the time,” he continued,
+“in which shall be made known my deeds of fame, worthy to be moulded in
+brass, carved in marble, limned in pictures, for a memorial for ever.
+And thou, O sage magician, whoever thou art, to whom it shall fall to
+be the chronicler of this wondrous history, forget not, I entreat thee,
+my good Rocinante, the constant companion of my ways and wanderings.”
+Presently he broke out again, as if he were love-stricken in earnest,
+“O Princess Dulcinea, lady of this captive heart, a grievous wrong hast
+thou done me to drive me forth with scorn, and with inexorable obduracy
+banish me from the presence of thy beauty. O lady, deign to hold in
+remembrance this heart, thy vassal, that thus in anguish pines for love
+of thee.”
+
+So he went on stringing together these and other absurdities, all in
+the style of those his books had taught him, imitating their language
+as well as he could; and all the while he rode so slowly and the sun
+mounted so rapidly and with such fervour that it was enough to melt his
+brains if he had any. Nearly all day he travelled without anything
+remarkable happening to him, at which he was in despair, for he was
+anxious to encounter someone at once upon whom to try the might of his
+strong arm.
+
+
+
+p008.jpg (289K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Writers there are who say the first adventure he met with was that of
+Puerto Lapice; others say it was that of the windmills; but what I have
+ascertained on this point, and what I have found written in the annals
+of La Mancha, is that he was on the road all day, and towards nightfall
+his hack and he found themselves dead tired and hungry, when, looking
+all around to see if he could discover any castle or shepherd’s shanty
+where he might refresh himself and relieve his sore wants, he perceived
+not far out of his road an inn, which was as welcome as a star guiding
+him to the portals, if not the palaces, of his redemption; and
+quickening his pace he reached it just as night was setting in. At the
+door were standing two young women, girls of the district as they call
+them, on their way to Seville with some carriers who had chanced to
+halt that night at the inn; and as, happen what might to our
+adventurer, everything he saw or imagined seemed to him to be and to
+happen after the fashion of what he read of, the moment he saw the inn
+he pictured it to himself as a castle with its four turrets and
+pinnacles of shining silver, not forgetting the drawbridge and moat and
+all the belongings usually ascribed to castles of the sort. To this
+inn, which to him seemed a castle, he advanced, and at a short distance
+from it he checked Rocinante, hoping that some dwarf would show himself
+upon the battlements, and by sound of trumpet give notice that a knight
+was approaching the castle. But seeing that they were slow about it,
+and that Rocinante was in a hurry to reach the stable, he made for the
+inn door, and perceived the two gay damsels who were standing there,
+and who seemed to him to be two fair maidens or lovely ladies taking
+their ease at the castle gate.
+
+At this moment it so happened that a swineherd who was going through
+the stubbles collecting a drove of pigs (for, without any apology, that
+is what they are called) gave a blast of his horn to bring them
+together, and forthwith it seemed to Don Quixote to be what he was
+expecting, the signal of some dwarf announcing his arrival; and so with
+prodigious satisfaction he rode up to the inn and to the ladies, who,
+seeing a man of this sort approaching in full armour and with lance and
+buckler, were turning in dismay into the inn, when Don Quixote,
+guessing their fear by their flight, raising his pasteboard visor,
+disclosed his dry dusty visage, and with courteous bearing and gentle
+voice addressed them, “Your ladyships need not fly or fear any
+rudeness, for that it belongs not to the order of knighthood which I
+profess to offer to anyone, much less to highborn maidens as your
+appearance proclaims you to be.” The girls were looking at him and
+straining their eyes to make out the features which the clumsy visor
+obscured, but when they heard themselves called maidens, a thing so
+much out of their line, they could not restrain their laughter, which
+made Don Quixote wax indignant, and say, “Modesty becomes the fair, and
+moreover laughter that has little cause is great silliness; this,
+however, I say not to pain or anger you, for my desire is none other
+than to serve you.”
+
+The incomprehensible language and the unpromising looks of our cavalier
+only increased the ladies’ laughter, and that increased his irritation,
+and matters might have gone farther if at that moment the landlord had
+not come out, who, being a very fat man, was a very peaceful one. He,
+seeing this grotesque figure clad in armour that did not match any more
+than his saddle, bridle, lance, buckler, or corselet, was not at all
+indisposed to join the damsels in their manifestations of amusement;
+but, in truth, standing in awe of such a complicated armament, he
+thought it best to speak him fairly, so he said, “Señor Caballero, if
+your worship wants lodging, bating the bed (for there is not one in the
+inn) there is plenty of everything else here.” Don Quixote, observing
+the respectful bearing of the Alcaide of the fortress (for so innkeeper
+and inn seemed in his eyes), made answer, “Sir Castellan, for me
+anything will suffice, for
+
+‘My armour is my only wear,
+My only rest the fray.’”
+
+
+The host fancied he called him Castellan because he took him for a
+“worthy of Castile,” though he was in fact an Andalusian, and one from
+the strand of San Lucar, as crafty a thief as Cacus and as full of
+tricks as a student or a page. “In that case,” said he,
+
+“‘Your bed is on the flinty rock,
+Your sleep to watch alway;’
+
+
+and if so, you may dismount and safely reckon upon any quantity of
+sleeplessness under this roof for a twelvemonth, not to say for a
+single night.” So saying, he advanced to hold the stirrup for Don
+Quixote, who got down with great difficulty and exertion (for he had
+not broken his fast all day), and then charged the host to take great
+care of his horse, as he was the best bit of flesh that ever ate bread
+in this world. The landlord eyed him over but did not find him as good
+as Don Quixote said, nor even half as good; and putting him up in the
+stable, he returned to see what might be wanted by his guest, whom the
+damsels, who had by this time made their peace with him, were now
+relieving of his armour. They had taken off his breastplate and
+backpiece, but they neither knew nor saw how to open his gorget or
+remove his make-shift helmet, for he had fastened it with green
+ribbons, which, as there was no untying the knots, required to be cut.
+This, however, he would not by any means consent to, so he remained all
+the evening with his helmet on, the drollest and oddest figure that can
+be imagined; and while they were removing his armour, taking the
+baggages who were about it for ladies of high degree belonging to the
+castle, he said to them with great sprightliness:
+
+“Oh, never, surely, was there knight
+So served by hand of dame,
+As served was he, Don Quixote hight,
+When from his town he came;
+With maidens waiting on himself,
+Princesses on his hack—
+
+
+—or Rocinante, for that, ladies mine, is my horse’s name, and Don
+Quixote of La Mancha is my own; for though I had no intention of
+declaring myself until my achievements in your service and honour had
+made me known, the necessity of adapting that old ballad of Lancelot to
+the present occasion has given you the knowledge of my name altogether
+prematurely. A time, however, will come for your ladyships to command
+and me to obey, and then the might of my arm will show my desire to
+serve you.”
+
+The girls, who were not used to hearing rhetoric of this sort, had
+nothing to say in reply; they only asked him if he wanted anything to
+eat. “I would gladly eat a bit of something,” said Don Quixote, “for I
+feel it would come very seasonably.” The day happened to be a Friday,
+and in the whole inn there was nothing but some pieces of the fish they
+call in Castile “abadejo,” in Andalusia “bacallao,” and in some places
+“curadillo,” and in others “troutlet;” so they asked him if he thought
+he could eat troutlet, for there was no other fish to give him. “If
+there be troutlets enough,” said Don Quixote, “they will be the same
+thing as a trout; for it is all one to me whether I am given eight
+reals in small change or a piece of eight; moreover, it may be that
+these troutlets are like veal, which is better than beef, or kid, which
+is better than goat. But whatever it be let it come quickly, for the
+burden and pressure of arms cannot be borne without support to the
+inside.” They laid a table for him at the door of the inn for the sake
+of the air, and the host brought him a portion of ill-soaked and worse
+cooked stockfish, and a piece of bread as black and mouldy as his own
+armour; but a laughable sight it was to see him eating, for having his
+helmet on and the beaver up, he could not with his own hands put
+anything into his mouth unless someone else placed it there, and this
+service one of the ladies rendered him. But to give him anything to
+drink was impossible, or would have been so had not the landlord bored
+a reed, and putting one end in his mouth poured the wine into him
+through the other; all which he bore with patience rather than sever
+the ribbons of his helmet.
+
+While this was going on there came up to the inn a sowgelder, who, as
+he approached, sounded his reed pipe four or five times, and thereby
+completely convinced Don Quixote that he was in some famous castle, and
+that they were regaling him with music, and that the stockfish was
+trout, the bread the whitest, the wenches ladies, and the landlord the
+castellan of the castle; and consequently he held that his enterprise
+and sally had been to some purpose. But still it distressed him to
+think he had not been dubbed a knight, for it was plain to him he could
+not lawfully engage in any adventure without receiving the order of
+knighthood.
+
+
+
+e02.jpg (39K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+WHEREIN IS RELATED THE DROLL WAY IN WHICH DON QUIXOTE HAD HIMSELF
+DUBBED A KNIGHT
+
+
+
+
+p009.jpg (164K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Harassed by this reflection, he made haste with his scanty pothouse
+supper, and having finished it called the landlord, and shutting
+himself into the stable with him, fell on his knees before him, saying,
+“From this spot I rise not, valiant knight, until your courtesy grants
+me the boon I seek, one that will redound to your praise and the
+benefit of the human race.” The landlord, seeing his guest at his feet
+and hearing a speech of this kind, stood staring at him in
+bewilderment, not knowing what to do or say, and entreating him to
+rise, but all to no purpose until he had agreed to grant the boon
+demanded of him. “I looked for no less, my lord, from your High
+Magnificence,” replied Don Quixote, “and I have to tell you that the
+boon I have asked and your liberality has granted is that you shall dub
+me knight to-morrow morning, and that to-night I shall watch my arms in
+the chapel of this your castle; thus to-morrow, as I have said, will be
+accomplished what I so much desire, enabling me lawfully to roam
+through all the four quarters of the world seeking adventures on behalf
+of those in distress, as is the duty of chivalry and of knights-errant
+like myself, whose ambition is directed to such deeds.”
+
+The landlord, who, as has been mentioned, was something of a wag, and
+had already some suspicion of his guest’s want of wits, was quite
+convinced of it on hearing talk of this kind from him, and to make
+sport for the night he determined to fall in with his humour. So he
+told him he was quite right in pursuing the object he had in view, and
+that such a motive was natural and becoming in cavaliers as
+distinguished as he seemed and his gallant bearing showed him to be;
+and that he himself in his younger days had followed the same
+honourable calling, roaming in quest of adventures in various parts of
+the world, among others the Curing-grounds of Malaga, the Isles of
+Riaran, the Precinct of Seville, the Little Market of Segovia, the
+Olivera of Valencia, the Rondilla of Granada, the Strand of San Lucar,
+the Colt of Cordova, the Taverns of Toledo, and divers other quarters,
+where he had proved the nimbleness of his feet and the lightness of his
+fingers, doing many wrongs, cheating many widows, ruining maids and
+swindling minors, and, in short, bringing himself under the notice of
+almost every tribunal and court of justice in Spain; until at last he
+had retired to this castle of his, where he was living upon his
+property and upon that of others; and where he received all
+knights-errant of whatever rank or condition they might be, all for the
+great love he bore them and that they might share their substance with
+him in return for his benevolence. He told him, moreover, that in this
+castle of his there was no chapel in which he could watch his armour,
+as it had been pulled down in order to be rebuilt, but that in a case
+of necessity it might, he knew, be watched anywhere, and he might watch
+it that night in a courtyard of the castle, and in the morning, God
+willing, the requisite ceremonies might be performed so as to have him
+dubbed a knight, and so thoroughly dubbed that nobody could be more so.
+He asked if he had any money with him, to which Don Quixote replied
+that he had not a farthing, as in the histories of knights-errant he
+had never read of any of them carrying any. On this point the landlord
+told him he was mistaken; for, though not recorded in the histories,
+because in the author’s opinion there was no need to mention anything
+so obvious and necessary as money and clean shirts, it was not to be
+supposed therefore that they did not carry them, and he might regard it
+as certain and established that all knights-errant (about whom there
+were so many full and unimpeachable books) carried well-furnished
+purses in case of emergency, and likewise carried shirts and a little
+box of ointment to cure the wounds they received. For in those plains
+and deserts where they engaged in combat and came out wounded, it was
+not always that there was someone to cure them, unless indeed they had
+for a friend some sage magician to succour them at once by fetching
+through the air upon a cloud some damsel or dwarf with a vial of water
+of such virtue that by tasting one drop of it they were cured of their
+hurts and wounds in an instant and left as sound as if they had not
+received any damage whatever. But in case this should not occur, the
+knights of old took care to see that their squires were provided with
+money and other requisites, such as lint and ointments for healing
+purposes; and when it happened that knights had no squires (which was
+rarely and seldom the case) they themselves carried everything in
+cunning saddle-bags that were hardly seen on the horse’s croup, as if
+it were something else of more importance, because, unless for some
+such reason, carrying saddle-bags was not very favourably regarded
+among knights-errant. He therefore advised him (and, as his godson so
+soon to be, he might even command him) never from that time forth to
+travel without money and the usual requirements, and he would find the
+advantage of them when he least expected it.
+
+Don Quixote promised to follow his advice scrupulously, and it was
+arranged forthwith that he should watch his armour in a large yard at
+one side of the inn; so, collecting it all together, Don Quixote placed
+it on a trough that stood by the side of a well, and bracing his
+buckler on his arm he grasped his lance and began with a stately air to
+march up and down in front of the trough, and as he began his march
+night began to fall.
+
+The landlord told all the people who were in the inn about the craze of
+his guest, the watching of the armour, and the dubbing ceremony he
+contemplated. Full of wonder at so strange a form of madness, they
+flocked to see it from a distance, and observed with what composure he
+sometimes paced up and down, or sometimes, leaning on his lance, gazed
+on his armour without taking his eyes off it for ever so long; and as
+the night closed in with a light from the moon so brilliant that it
+might vie with his that lent it, everything the novice knight did was
+plainly seen by all.
+
+Meanwhile one of the carriers who were in the inn thought fit to water
+his team, and it was necessary to remove Don Quixote’s armour as it lay
+on the trough; but he seeing the other approach hailed him in a loud
+voice, “O thou, whoever thou art, rash knight that comest to lay hands
+on the armour of the most valorous errant that ever girt on sword, have
+a care what thou dost; touch it not unless thou wouldst lay down thy
+life as the penalty of thy rashness.” The carrier gave no heed to these
+words (and he would have done better to heed them if he had been
+heedful of his health), but seizing it by the straps flung the armour
+some distance from him. Seeing this, Don Quixote raised his eyes to
+heaven, and fixing his thoughts, apparently, upon his lady Dulcinea,
+exclaimed, “Aid me, lady mine, in this the first encounter that
+presents itself to this breast which thou holdest in subjection; let
+not thy favour and protection fail me in this first jeopardy;” and,
+with these words and others to the same purpose, dropping his buckler
+he lifted his lance with both hands and with it smote such a blow on
+the carrier’s head that he stretched him on the ground, so stunned that
+had he followed it up with a second there would have been no need of a
+surgeon to cure him. This done, he picked up his armour and returned to
+his beat with the same serenity as before.
+
+
+
+p010.jpg (261K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Shortly after this, another, not knowing what had happened (for the
+carrier still lay senseless), came with the same object of giving water
+to his mules, and was proceeding to remove the armour in order to clear
+the trough, when Don Quixote, without uttering a word or imploring aid
+from anyone, once more dropped his buckler and once more lifted his
+lance, and without actually breaking the second carrier’s head into
+pieces, made more than three of it, for he laid it open in four. At the
+noise all the people of the inn ran to the spot, and among them the
+landlord. Seeing this, Don Quixote braced his buckler on his arm, and
+with his hand on his sword exclaimed, “O Lady of Beauty, strength and
+support of my faint heart, it is time for thee to turn the eyes of thy
+greatness on this thy captive knight on the brink of so mighty an
+adventure.” By this he felt himself so inspired that he would not have
+flinched if all the carriers in the world had assailed him. The
+comrades of the wounded perceiving the plight they were in began from a
+distance to shower stones on Don Quixote, who screened himself as best
+he could with his buckler, not daring to quit the trough and leave his
+armour unprotected. The landlord shouted to them to leave him alone,
+for he had already told them that he was mad, and as a madman he would
+not be accountable even if he killed them all. Still louder shouted Don
+Quixote, calling them knaves and traitors, and the lord of the castle,
+who allowed knights-errant to be treated in this fashion, a villain and
+a low-born knight whom, had he received the order of knighthood, he
+would call to account for his treachery. “But of you,” he cried, “base
+and vile rabble, I make no account; fling, strike, come on, do all ye
+can against me, ye shall see what the reward of your folly and
+insolence will be.” This he uttered with so much spirit and boldness
+that he filled his assailants with a terrible fear, and as much for
+this reason as at the persuasion of the landlord they left off stoning
+him, and he allowed them to carry off the wounded, and with the same
+calmness and composure as before resumed the watch over his armour.
+
+But these freaks of his guest were not much to the liking of the
+landlord, so he determined to cut matters short and confer upon him at
+once the unlucky order of knighthood before any further misadventure
+could occur; so, going up to him, he apologised for the rudeness which,
+without his knowledge, had been offered to him by these low people,
+who, however, had been well punished for their audacity. As he had
+already told him, he said, there was no chapel in the castle, nor was
+it needed for what remained to be done, for, as he understood the
+ceremonial of the order, the whole point of being dubbed a knight lay
+in the accolade and in the slap on the shoulder, and that could be
+administered in the middle of a field; and that he had now done all
+that was needful as to watching the armour, for all requirements were
+satisfied by a watch of two hours only, while he had been more than
+four about it. Don Quixote believed it all, and told him he stood there
+ready to obey him, and to make an end of it with as much despatch as
+possible; for, if he were again attacked, and felt himself to be dubbed
+knight, he would not, he thought, leave a soul alive in the castle,
+except such as out of respect he might spare at his bidding.
+
+Thus warned and menaced, the castellan forthwith brought out a book in
+which he used to enter the straw and barley he served out to the
+carriers, and, with a lad carrying a candle-end, and the two damsels
+already mentioned, he returned to where Don Quixote stood, and bade him
+kneel down. Then, reading from his account-book as if he were repeating
+some devout prayer, in the middle of his delivery he raised his hand
+and gave him a sturdy blow on the neck, and then, with his own sword, a
+smart slap on the shoulder, all the while muttering between his teeth
+as if he was saying his prayers. Having done this, he directed one of
+the ladies to gird on his sword, which she did with great
+self-possession and gravity, and not a little was required to prevent a
+burst of laughter at each stage of the ceremony; but what they had
+already seen of the novice knight’s prowess kept their laughter within
+bounds. On girding him with the sword the worthy lady said to him, “May
+God make your worship a very fortunate knight, and grant you success in
+battle.” Don Quixote asked her name in order that he might from that
+time forward know to whom he was beholden for the favour he had
+received, as he meant to confer upon her some portion of the honour he
+acquired by the might of his arm. She answered with great humility that
+she was called La Tolosa, and that she was the daughter of a cobbler of
+Toledo who lived in the stalls of Sanchobienaya, and that wherever she
+might be she would serve and esteem him as her lord. Don Quixote said
+in reply that she would do him a favour if thenceforward she assumed
+the “Don” and called herself Doña Tolosa. She promised she would, and
+then the other buckled on his spur, and with her followed almost the
+same conversation as with the lady of the sword. He asked her name, and
+she said it was La Molinera, and that she was the daughter of a
+respectable miller of Antequera; and of her likewise Don Quixote
+requested that she would adopt the “Don” and call herself Doña
+Molinera, making offers to her further services and favours.
+
+Having thus, with hot haste and speed, brought to a conclusion these
+never-till-now-seen ceremonies, Don Quixote was on thorns until he saw
+himself on horseback sallying forth in quest of adventures; and
+saddling Rocinante at once he mounted, and embracing his host, as he
+returned thanks for his kindness in knighting him, he addressed him in
+language so extraordinary that it is impossible to convey an idea of it
+or report it. The landlord, to get him out of the inn, replied with no
+less rhetoric though with shorter words, and without calling upon him
+to pay the reckoning let him go with a Godspeed.
+
+
+
+p017.jpg (54K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+OF WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR KNIGHT WHEN HE LEFT THE INN
+
+
+
+
+p018.jpg (94K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Day was dawning when Don Quixote quitted the inn, so happy, so gay, so
+exhilarated at finding himself now dubbed a knight, that his joy was
+like to burst his horse-girths. However, recalling the advice of his
+host as to the requisites he ought to carry with him, especially that
+referring to money and shirts, he determined to go home and provide
+himself with all, and also with a squire, for he reckoned upon securing
+a farm-labourer, a neighbour of his, a poor man with a family, but very
+well qualified for the office of squire to a knight. With this object
+he turned his horse’s head towards his village, and Rocinante, thus
+reminded of his old quarters, stepped out so briskly that he hardly
+seemed to tread the earth.
+
+He had not gone far, when out of a thicket on his right there seemed to
+come feeble cries as of someone in distress, and the instant he heard
+them he exclaimed, “Thanks be to heaven for the favour it accords me,
+that it so soon offers me an opportunity of fulfilling the obligation I
+have undertaken, and gathering the fruit of my ambition. These cries,
+no doubt, come from some man or woman in want of help, and needing my
+aid and protection;” and wheeling, he turned Rocinante in the direction
+whence the cries seemed to proceed. He had gone but a few paces into
+the wood, when he saw a mare tied to an oak, and tied to another, and
+stripped from the waist upwards, a youth of about fifteen years of age,
+from whom the cries came. Nor were they without cause, for a lusty
+farmer was flogging him with a belt and following up every blow with
+scoldings and commands, repeating, “Your mouth shut and your eyes
+open!” while the youth made answer, “I won’t do it again, master mine;
+by God’s passion I won’t do it again, and I’ll take more care of the
+flock another time.”
+
+Seeing what was going on, Don Quixote said in an angry voice,
+“Discourteous knight, it ill becomes you to assail one who cannot
+defend himself; mount your steed and take your lance” (for there was a
+lance leaning against the oak to which the mare was tied), “and I will
+make you know that you are behaving as a coward.” The farmer, seeing
+before him this figure in full armour brandishing a lance over his
+head, gave himself up for dead, and made answer meekly, “Sir Knight,
+this youth that I am chastising is my servant, employed by me to watch
+a flock of sheep that I have hard by, and he is so careless that I lose
+one every day, and when I punish him for his carelessness and knavery
+he says I do it out of niggardliness, to escape paying him the wages I
+owe him, and before God, and on my soul, he lies.”
+
+“Lies before me, base clown!” said Don Quixote. “By the sun that shines
+on us I have a mind to run you through with this lance. Pay him at once
+without another word; if not, by the God that rules us I will make an
+end of you, and annihilate you on the spot; release him instantly.”
+
+
+
+p019.jpg (339K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+The farmer hung his head, and without a word untied his servant, of
+whom Don Quixote asked how much his master owed him.
+
+He replied, nine months at seven reals a month. Don Quixote added it
+up, found that it came to sixty-three reals, and told the farmer to pay
+it down immediately, if he did not want to die for it.
+
+The trembling clown replied that as he lived and by the oath he had
+sworn (though he had not sworn any) it was not so much; for there were
+to be taken into account and deducted three pairs of shoes he had given
+him, and a real for two blood-lettings when he was sick.
+
+“All that is very well,” said Don Quixote; “but let the shoes and the
+blood-lettings stand as a setoff against the blows you have given him
+without any cause; for if he spoiled the leather of the shoes you paid
+for, you have damaged that of his body, and if the barber took blood
+from him when he was sick, you have drawn it when he was sound; so on
+that score he owes you nothing.”
+
+“The difficulty is, Sir Knight, that I have no money here; let Andres
+come home with me, and I will pay him all, real by real.”
+
+“I go with him!” said the youth. “Nay, God forbid! No, señor, not for
+the world; for once alone with me, he would flay me like a Saint
+Bartholomew.”
+
+“He will do nothing of the kind,” said Don Quixote; “I have only to
+command, and he will obey me; and as he has sworn to me by the order of
+knighthood which he has received, I leave him free, and I guarantee the
+payment.”
+
+“Consider what you are saying, señor,” said the youth; “this master of
+mine is not a knight, nor has he received any order of knighthood; for
+he is Juan Haldudo the Rich, of Quintanar.”
+
+“That matters little,” replied Don Quixote; “there may be Haldudos
+knights; moreover, everyone is the son of his works.”
+
+“That is true,” said Andres; “but this master of mine—of what works is
+he the son, when he refuses me the wages of my sweat and labour?”
+
+“I do not refuse, brother Andres,” said the farmer, “be good enough to
+come along with me, and I swear by all the orders of knighthood there
+are in the world to pay you as I have agreed, real by real, and
+perfumed.”
+
+“For the perfumery I excuse you,” said Don Quixote; “give it to him in
+reals, and I shall be satisfied; and see that you do as you have sworn;
+if not, by the same oath I swear to come back and hunt you out and
+punish you; and I shall find you though you should lie closer than a
+lizard. And if you desire to know who it is lays this command upon you,
+that you be more firmly bound to obey it, know that I am the valorous
+Don Quixote of La Mancha, the undoer of wrongs and injustices; and so,
+God be with you, and keep in mind what you have promised and sworn
+under those penalties that have been already declared to you.”
+
+So saying, he gave Rocinante the spur and was soon out of reach. The
+farmer followed him with his eyes, and when he saw that he had cleared
+the wood and was no longer in sight, he turned to his boy Andres, and
+said, “Come here, my son, I want to pay you what I owe you, as that
+undoer of wrongs has commanded me.”
+
+“My oath on it,” said Andres, “your worship will be well advised to
+obey the command of that good knight—may he live a thousand years—for,
+as he is a valiant and just judge, by Roque, if you do not pay me, he
+will come back and do as he said.”
+
+“My oath on it, too,” said the farmer; “but as I have a strong
+affection for you, I want to add to the debt in order to add to the
+payment;” and seizing him by the arm, he tied him up again, and gave
+him such a flogging that he left him for dead.
+
+“Now, Master Andres,” said the farmer, “call on the undoer of wrongs;
+you will find he won’t undo that, though I am not sure that I have
+quite done with you, for I have a good mind to flay you alive.” But at
+last he untied him, and gave him leave to go look for his judge in
+order to put the sentence pronounced into execution.
+
+Andres went off rather down in the mouth, swearing he would go to look
+for the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha and tell him exactly what had
+happened, and that all would have to be repaid him sevenfold; but for
+all that, he went off weeping, while his master stood laughing.
+
+Thus did the valiant Don Quixote right that wrong, and, thoroughly
+satisfied with what had taken place, as he considered he had made a
+very happy and noble beginning with his knighthood, he took the road
+towards his village in perfect self-content, saying in a low voice,
+“Well mayest thou this day call thyself fortunate above all on earth, O
+Dulcinea del Toboso, fairest of the fair! since it has fallen to thy
+lot to hold subject and submissive to thy full will and pleasure a
+knight so renowned as is and will be Don Quixote of La Mancha, who, as
+all the world knows, yesterday received the order of knighthood, and
+hath to-day righted the greatest wrong and grievance that ever
+injustice conceived and cruelty perpetrated: who hath to-day plucked
+the rod from the hand of yonder ruthless oppressor so wantonly lashing
+that tender child.”
+
+He now came to a road branching in four directions, and immediately he
+was reminded of those cross-roads where knights-errant used to stop to
+consider which road they should take. In imitation of them he halted
+for a while, and after having deeply considered it, he gave Rocinante
+his head, submitting his own will to that of his hack, who followed out
+his first intention, which was to make straight for his own stable.
+After he had gone about two miles Don Quixote perceived a large party
+of people, who, as afterwards appeared, were some Toledo traders, on
+their way to buy silk at Murcia. There were six of them coming along
+under their sunshades, with four servants mounted, and three muleteers
+on foot. Scarcely had Don Quixote descried them when the fancy
+possessed him that this must be some new adventure; and to help him to
+imitate as far as he could those passages he had read of in his books,
+here seemed to come one made on purpose, which he resolved to attempt.
+So with a lofty bearing and determination he fixed himself firmly in
+his stirrups, got his lance ready, brought his buckler before his
+breast, and planting himself in the middle of the road, stood waiting
+the approach of these knights-errant, for such he now considered and
+held them to be; and when they had come near enough to see and hear, he
+exclaimed with a haughty gesture, “All the world stand, unless all the
+world confess that in all the world there is no maiden fairer than the
+Empress of La Mancha, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso.”
+
+The traders halted at the sound of this language and the sight of the
+strange figure that uttered it, and from both figure and language at
+once guessed the craze of their owner; they wished, however, to learn
+quietly what was the object of this confession that was demanded of
+them, and one of them, who was rather fond of a joke and was very
+sharp-witted, said to him, “Sir Knight, we do not know who this good
+lady is that you speak of; show her to us, for, if she be of such
+beauty as you suggest, with all our hearts and without any pressure we
+will confess the truth that is on your part required of us.”
+
+“If I were to show her to you,” replied Don Quixote, “what merit would
+you have in confessing a truth so manifest? The essential point is that
+without seeing her you must believe, confess, affirm, swear, and defend
+it; else ye have to do with me in battle, ill-conditioned, arrogant
+rabble that ye are; and come ye on, one by one as the order of
+knighthood requires, or all together as is the custom and vile usage of
+your breed, here do I bide and await you relying on the justice of the
+cause I maintain.”
+
+“Sir Knight,” replied the trader, “I entreat your worship in the name
+of this present company of princes, that, to save us from charging our
+consciences with the confession of a thing we have never seen or heard
+of, and one moreover so much to the prejudice of the Empresses and
+Queens of the Alcarria and Estremadura, your worship will be pleased to
+show us some portrait of this lady, though it be no bigger than a grain
+of wheat; for by the thread one gets at the ball, and in this way we
+shall be satisfied and easy, and you will be content and pleased; nay,
+I believe we are already so far agreed with you that even though her
+portrait should show her blind of one eye, and distilling vermilion and
+sulphur from the other, we would nevertheless, to gratify your worship,
+say all in her favour that you desire.”
+
+“She distils nothing of the kind, vile rabble,” said Don Quixote,
+burning with rage, “nothing of the kind, I say, only ambergris and
+civet in cotton; nor is she one-eyed or humpbacked, but straighter than
+a Guadarrama spindle: but ye must pay for the blasphemy ye have uttered
+against beauty like that of my lady.”
+
+And so saying, he charged with levelled lance against the one who had
+spoken, with such fury and fierceness that, if luck had not contrived
+that Rocinante should stumble midway and come down, it would have gone
+hard with the rash trader. Down went Rocinante, and over went his
+master, rolling along the ground for some distance; and when he tried
+to rise he was unable, so encumbered was he with lance, buckler, spurs,
+helmet, and the weight of his old armour; and all the while he was
+struggling to get up he kept saying, “Fly not, cowards and caitiffs!
+stay, for not by my fault, but my horse’s, am I stretched here.”
+
+
+
+p020.jpg (352K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+One of the muleteers in attendance, who could not have had much good
+nature in him, hearing the poor prostrate man blustering in this style,
+was unable to refrain from giving him an answer on his ribs; and coming
+up to him he seized his lance, and having broken it in pieces, with one
+of them he began so to belabour our Don Quixote that, notwithstanding
+and in spite of his armour, he milled him like a measure of wheat. His
+masters called out not to lay on so hard and to leave him alone, but
+the muleteer’s blood was up, and he did not care to drop the game until
+he had vented the rest of his wrath, and gathering up the remaining
+fragments of the lance he finished with a discharge upon the unhappy
+victim, who all through the storm of sticks that rained on him never
+ceased threatening heaven, and earth, and the brigands, for such they
+seemed to him. At last the muleteer was tired, and the traders
+continued their journey, taking with them matter for talk about the
+poor fellow who had been cudgelled. He when he found himself alone made
+another effort to rise; but if he was unable when whole and sound, how
+was he to rise after having been thrashed and well-nigh knocked to
+pieces? And yet he esteemed himself fortunate, as it seemed to him that
+this was a regular knight-errant’s mishap, and entirely, he considered,
+the fault of his horse. However, battered in body as he was, to rise
+was beyond his power.
+
+
+
+e04.jpg (28K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+IN WHICH THE NARRATIVE OF OUR KNIGHT’S MISHAP IS CONTINUED
+
+
+
+
+p022.jpg (123K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Finding, then, that, in fact he could not move, he thought himself of
+having recourse to his usual remedy, which was to think of some passage
+in his books, and his craze brought to his mind that about Baldwin and
+the Marquis of Mantua, when Carloto left him wounded on the
+mountainside, a story known by heart by the children, not forgotten by
+the young men, and lauded and even believed by the old folk; and for
+all that not a whit truer than the miracles of Mahomet. This seemed to
+him to fit exactly the case in which he found himself, so, making a
+show of severe suffering, he began to roll on the ground and with
+feeble breath repeat the very words which the wounded knight of the
+wood is said to have uttered:
+
+Where art thou, lady mine, that thou
+My sorrow dost not rue?
+Thou canst not know it, lady mine,
+Or else thou art untrue.
+
+
+And so he went on with the ballad as far as the lines:
+
+O noble Marquis of Mantua,
+My Uncle and liege lord!
+
+
+
+p026.jpg (316K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+As chance would have it, when he had got to this line there happened to
+come by a peasant from his own village, a neighbour of his, who had
+been with a load of wheat to the mill, and he, seeing the man stretched
+there, came up to him and asked him who he was and what was the matter
+with him that he complained so dolefully.
+
+Don Quixote was firmly persuaded that this was the Marquis of Mantua,
+his uncle, so the only answer he made was to go on with his ballad, in
+which he told the tale of his misfortune, and of the loves of the
+Emperor’s son and his wife all exactly as the ballad sings it.
+
+The peasant stood amazed at hearing such nonsense, and relieving him of
+the visor, already battered to pieces by blows, he wiped his face,
+which was covered with dust, and as soon as he had done so he
+recognised him and said, “Señor Quixada” (for so he appears to have
+been called when he was in his senses and had not yet changed from a
+quiet country gentleman into a knight-errant), “who has brought your
+worship to this pass?” But to all questions the other only went on with
+his ballad.
+
+Seeing this, the good man removed as well as he could his breastplate
+and backpiece to see if he had any wound, but he could perceive no
+blood nor any mark whatever. He then contrived to raise him from the
+ground, and with no little difficulty hoisted him upon his ass, which
+seemed to him to be the easiest mount for him; and collecting the arms,
+even to the splinters of the lance, he tied them on Rocinante, and
+leading him by the bridle and the ass by the halter he took the road
+for the village, very sad to hear what absurd stuff Don Quixote was
+talking.
+
+
+
+p029.jpg (285K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Nor was Don Quixote less so, for what with blows and bruises he could
+not sit upright on the ass, and from time to time he sent up sighs to
+heaven, so that once more he drove the peasant to ask what ailed him.
+And it could have been only the devil himself that put into his head
+tales to match his own adventures, for now, forgetting Baldwin, he
+bethought himself of the Moor Abindarraez, when the Alcaide of
+Antequera, Rodrigo de Narvaez, took him prisoner and carried him away
+to his castle; so that when the peasant again asked him how he was and
+what ailed him, he gave him for reply the same words and phrases that
+the captive Abindarraez gave to Rodrigo de Narvaez, just as he had read
+the story in the “Diana” of Jorge de Montemayor where it is written,
+applying it to his own case so aptly that the peasant went along
+cursing his fate that he had to listen to such a lot of nonsense; from
+which, however, he came to the conclusion that his neighbour was mad,
+and so made all haste to reach the village to escape the wearisomeness
+of this harangue of Don Quixote’s; who, at the end of it, said, “Señor
+Don Rodrigo de Narvaez, your worship must know that this fair Xarifa I
+have mentioned is now the lovely Dulcinea del Toboso, for whom I have
+done, am doing, and will do the most famous deeds of chivalry that in
+this world have been seen, are to be seen, or ever shall be seen.”
+
+To this the peasant answered, “Señor—sinner that I am!—cannot your
+worship see that I am not Don Rodrigo de Narvaez nor the Marquis of
+Mantua, but Pedro Alonso your neighbour, and that your worship is
+neither Baldwin nor Abindarraez, but the worthy gentleman Señor
+Quixada?”
+
+“I know who I am,” replied Don Quixote, “and I know that I may be not
+only those I have named, but all the Twelve Peers of France and even
+all the Nine Worthies, since my achievements surpass all that they have
+done all together and each of them on his own account.”
+
+With this talk and more of the same kind they reached the village just
+as night was beginning to fall, but the peasant waited until it was a
+little later that the belaboured gentleman might not be seen riding in
+such a miserable trim. When it was what seemed to him the proper time
+he entered the village and went to Don Quixote’s house, which he found
+all in confusion, and there were the curate and the village barber, who
+were great friends of Don Quixote, and his housekeeper was saying to
+them in a loud voice, “What does your worship think can have befallen
+my master, Señor Licentiate Pero Perez?” for so the curate was called;
+“it is three days now since anything has been seen of him, or the hack,
+or the buckler, lance, or armour. Miserable me! I am certain of it, and
+it is as true as that I was born to die, that these accursed books of
+chivalry he has, and has got into the way of reading so constantly,
+have upset his reason; for now I remember having often heard him saying
+to himself that he would turn knight-errant and go all over the world
+in quest of adventures. To the devil and Barabbas with such books, that
+have brought to ruin in this way the finest understanding there was in
+all La Mancha!”
+
+The niece said the same, and, more: “You must know, Master
+Nicholas”—for that was the name of the barber—“it was often my uncle’s
+way to stay two days and nights together poring over these unholy books
+of misventures, after which he would fling the book away and snatch up
+his sword and fall to slashing the walls; and when he was tired out he
+would say he had killed four giants like four towers; and the sweat
+that flowed from him when he was weary he said was the blood of the
+wounds he had received in battle; and then he would drink a great jug
+of cold water and become calm and quiet, saying that this water was a
+most precious potion which the sage Esquife, a great magician and
+friend of his, had brought him. But I take all the blame upon myself
+for never having told your worships of my uncle’s vagaries, that you
+might put a stop to them before things had come to this pass, and burn
+all these accursed books—for he has a great number—that richly deserve
+to be burned like heretics.”
+
+“So say I too,” said the curate, “and by my faith to-morrow shall not
+pass without public judgment upon them, and may they be condemned to
+the flames lest they lead those that read to behave as my good friend
+seems to have behaved.”
+
+All this the peasant heard, and from it he understood at last what was
+the matter with his neighbour, so he began calling aloud, “Open, your
+worships, to Señor Baldwin and to Señor the Marquis of Mantua, who
+comes badly wounded, and to Señor Abindarraez, the Moor, whom the
+valiant Rodrigo de Narvaez, the Alcaide of Antequera, brings captive.”
+
+At these words they all hurried out, and when they recognised their
+friend, master, and uncle, who had not yet dismounted from the ass
+because he could not, they ran to embrace him.
+
+“Hold!” said he, “for I am badly wounded through my horse’s fault;
+carry me to bed, and if possible send for the wise Urganda to cure and
+see to my wounds.”
+
+“See there! plague on it!” cried the housekeeper at this: “did not my
+heart tell the truth as to which foot my master went lame of? To bed
+with your worship at once, and we will contrive to cure you here
+without fetching that Hurgada. A curse I say once more, and a hundred
+times more, on those books of chivalry that have brought your worship
+to such a pass.”
+
+They carried him to bed at once, and after searching for his wounds
+could find none, but he said they were all bruises from having had a
+severe fall with his horse Rocinante when in combat with ten giants,
+the biggest and the boldest to be found on earth.
+
+“So, so!” said the curate, “are there giants in the dance? By the sign
+of the Cross I will burn them to-morrow before the day is over.”
+
+They put a host of questions to Don Quixote, but his only answer to all
+was—give him something to eat, and leave him to sleep, for that was
+what he needed most. They did so, and the curate questioned the peasant
+at great length as to how he had found Don Quixote. He told him, and
+the nonsense he had talked when found and on the way home, all which
+made the licentiate the more eager to do what he did the next day,
+which was to summon his friend the barber, Master Nicholas, and go with
+him to Don Quixote’s house.
+
+
+
+p031.jpg (31K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+OF THE DIVERTING AND IMPORTANT SCRUTINY WHICH THE CURATE AND THE BARBER
+MADE IN THE LIBRARY OF OUR INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+
+c06a.jpg (92K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+He was still sleeping; so the curate asked the niece for the keys of
+the room where the books, the authors of all the mischief, were, and
+right willingly she gave them. They all went in, the housekeeper with
+them, and found more than a hundred volumes of big books very well
+bound, and some other small ones. The moment the housekeeper saw them
+she turned about and ran out of the room, and came back immediately
+with a saucer of holy water and a sprinkler, saying, “Here, your
+worship, señor licentiate, sprinkle this room; don’t leave any magician
+of the many there are in these books to bewitch us in revenge for our
+design of banishing them from the world.”
+
+The simplicity of the housekeeper made the licentiate laugh, and he
+directed the barber to give him the books one by one to see what they
+were about, as there might be some to be found among them that did not
+deserve the penalty of fire.
+
+“No,” said the niece, “there is no reason for showing mercy to any of
+them; they have every one of them done mischief; better fling them out
+of the window into the court and make a pile of them and set fire to
+them; or else carry them into the yard, and there a bonfire can be made
+without the smoke giving any annoyance.” The housekeeper said the same,
+so eager were they both for the slaughter of those innocents, but the
+curate would not agree to it without first reading at any rate the
+titles.
+
+The first that Master Nicholas put into his hand was “The four books of
+Amadis of Gaul.” “This seems a mysterious thing,” said the curate,
+“for, as I have heard say, this was the first book of chivalry printed
+in Spain, and from this all the others derive their birth and origin;
+so it seems to me that we ought inexorably to condemn it to the flames
+as the founder of so vile a sect.”
+
+“Nay, sir,” said the barber, “I too, have heard say that this is the
+best of all the books of this kind that have been written, and so, as
+something singular in its line, it ought to be pardoned.”
+
+“True,” said the curate; “and for that reason let its life be spared
+for the present. Let us see that other which is next to it.”
+
+“It is,” said the barber, “the ‘Sergas de Esplandian,’ the lawful son
+of Amadis of Gaul.”
+
+“Then verily,” said the curate, “the merit of the father must not be
+put down to the account of the son. Take it, mistress housekeeper; open
+the window and fling it into the yard and lay the foundation of the
+pile for the bonfire we are to make.”
+
+The housekeeper obeyed with great satisfaction, and the worthy
+“Esplandian” went flying into the yard to await with all patience the
+fire that was in store for him.
+
+“Proceed,” said the curate.
+
+“This that comes next,” said the barber, “is ‘Amadis of Greece,’ and,
+indeed, I believe all those on this side are of the same Amadis
+lineage.”
+
+“Then to the yard with the whole of them,” said the curate; “for to
+have the burning of Queen Pintiquiniestra, and the shepherd Darinel and
+his eclogues, and the bedevilled and involved discourses of his author,
+I would burn with them the father who begot me if he were going about
+in the guise of a knight-errant.”
+
+“I am of the same mind,” said the barber.
+
+“And so am I,” added the niece.
+
+“In that case,” said the housekeeper, “here, into the yard with them!”
+
+They were handed to her, and as there were many of them, she spared
+herself the staircase, and flung them down out of the window.
+
+“Who is that tub there?” said the curate.
+
+“This,” said the barber, “is ‘Don Olivante de Laura.’”
+
+“The author of that book,” said the curate, “was the same that wrote
+‘The Garden of Flowers,’ and truly there is no deciding which of the
+two books is the more truthful, or, to put it better, the less lying;
+all I can say is, send this one into the yard for a swaggering fool.”
+
+“This that follows is ‘Florismarte of Hircania,’” said the barber.
+
+“Señor Florismarte here?” said the curate; “then by my faith he must
+take up his quarters in the yard, in spite of his marvellous birth and
+visionary adventures, for the stiffness and dryness of his style
+deserve nothing else; into the yard with him and the other, mistress
+housekeeper.”
+
+“With all my heart, señor,” said she, and executed the order with great
+delight.
+
+“This,” said the barber, “is ‘The Knight Platir.’”
+
+“An old book that,” said the curate, “but I find no reason for clemency
+in it; send it after the others without appeal;” which was done.
+
+Another book was opened, and they saw it was entitled, “The Knight of
+the Cross.”
+
+“For the sake of the holy name this book has,” said the curate, “its
+ignorance might be excused; but then, they say, ‘behind the cross
+there’s the devil;’ to the fire with it.”
+
+Taking down another book, the barber said, “This is ‘The Mirror of
+Chivalry.’”
+
+“I know his worship,” said the curate; “that is where Señor Reinaldos
+of Montalvan figures with his friends and comrades, greater thieves
+than Cacus, and the Twelve Peers of France with the veracious historian
+Turpin; however, I am not for condemning them to more than perpetual
+banishment, because, at any rate, they have some share in the invention
+of the famous Matteo Boiardo, whence too the Christian poet Ludovico
+Ariosto wove his web, to whom, if I find him here, and speaking any
+language but his own, I shall show no respect whatever; but if he
+speaks his own tongue I will put him upon my head.”
+
+“Well, I have him in Italian,” said the barber, “but I do not
+understand him.”
+
+“Nor would it be well that you should understand him,” said the curate,
+“and on that score we might have excused the Captain if he had not
+brought him into Spain and turned him into Castilian. He robbed him of
+a great deal of his natural force, and so do all those who try to turn
+books written in verse into another language, for, with all the pains
+they take and all the cleverness they show, they never can reach the
+level of the originals as they were first produced. In short, I say
+that this book, and all that may be found treating of those French
+affairs, should be thrown into or deposited in some dry well, until
+after more consideration it is settled what is to be done with them;
+excepting always one ‘Bernardo del Carpio’ that is going about, and
+another called ‘Roncesvalles;’ for these, if they come into my hands,
+shall pass at once into those of the housekeeper, and from hers into
+the fire without any reprieve.”
+
+To all this the barber gave his assent, and looked upon it as right and
+proper, being persuaded that the curate was so staunch to the Faith and
+loyal to the Truth that he would not for the world say anything opposed
+to them. Opening another book he saw it was “Palmerin de Oliva,” and
+beside it was another called “Palmerin of England,” seeing which the
+licentiate said, “Let the Olive be made firewood of at once and burned
+until no ashes even are left; and let that Palm of England be kept and
+preserved as a thing that stands alone, and let such another case be
+made for it as that which Alexander found among the spoils of Darius
+and set aside for the safe keeping of the works of the poet Homer. This
+book, gossip, is of authority for two reasons, first because it is very
+good, and secondly because it is said to have been written by a wise
+and witty king of Portugal. All the adventures at the Castle of
+Miraguarda are excellent and of admirable contrivance, and the language
+is polished and clear, studying and observing the style befitting the
+speaker with propriety and judgment. So then, provided it seems good to
+you, Master Nicholas, I say let this and ‘Amadis of Gaul’ be remitted
+the penalty of fire, and as for all the rest, let them perish without
+further question or query.”
+
+“Nay, gossip,” said the barber, “for this that I have here is the
+famous ‘Don Belianis.’”
+
+“Well,” said the curate, “that and the second, third, and fourth parts
+all stand in need of a little rhubarb to purge their excess of bile,
+and they must be cleared of all that stuff about the Castle of Fame and
+other greater affectations, to which end let them be allowed the
+over-seas term, and, according as they mend, so shall mercy or justice
+be meted out to them; and in the mean time, gossip, do you keep them in
+your house and let no one read them.”
+
+“With all my heart,” said the barber; and not caring to tire himself
+with reading more books of chivalry, he told the housekeeper to take
+all the big ones and throw them into the yard. It was not said to one
+dull or deaf, but to one who enjoyed burning them more than weaving the
+broadest and finest web that could be; and seizing about eight at a
+time, she flung them out of the window.
+
+In carrying so many together she let one fall at the feet of the
+barber, who took it up, curious to know whose it was, and found it
+said, “History of the Famous Knight, Tirante el Blanco.”
+
+“God bless me!” said the curate with a shout, “‘Tirante el Blanco’
+here! Hand it over, gossip, for in it I reckon I have found a treasury
+of enjoyment and a mine of recreation. Here is Don Kyrieleison of
+Montalvan, a valiant knight, and his brother Thomas of Montalvan, and
+the knight Fonseca, with the battle the bold Tirante fought with the
+mastiff, and the witticisms of the damsel Placerdemivida, and the loves
+and wiles of the widow Reposada, and the empress in love with the
+squire Hipolito—in truth, gossip, by right of its style it is the best
+book in the world. Here knights eat and sleep, and die in their beds,
+and make their wills before dying, and a great deal more of which there
+is nothing in all the other books. Nevertheless, I say he who wrote it,
+for deliberately composing such fooleries, deserves to be sent to the
+galleys for life. Take it home with you and read it, and you will see
+that what I have said is true.”
+
+“As you will,” said the barber; “but what are we to do with these
+little books that are left?”
+
+“These must be, not chivalry, but poetry,” said the curate; and opening
+one he saw it was the “Diana” of Jorge de Montemayor, and, supposing
+all the others to be of the same sort, “these,” he said, “do not
+deserve to be burned like the others, for they neither do nor can do
+the mischief the books of chivalry have done, being books of
+entertainment that can hurt no one.”
+
+“Ah, señor!” said the niece, “your worship had better order these to be
+burned as well as the others; for it would be no wonder if, after being
+cured of his chivalry disorder, my uncle, by reading these, took a
+fancy to turn shepherd and range the woods and fields singing and
+piping; or, what would be still worse, to turn poet, which they say is
+an incurable and infectious malady.”
+
+“The damsel is right,” said the curate, “and it will be well to put
+this stumbling-block and temptation out of our friend’s way. To begin,
+then, with the ‘Diana’ of Montemayor. I am of opinion it should not be
+burned, but that it should be cleared of all that about the sage
+Felicia and the magic water, and of almost all the longer pieces of
+verse: let it keep, and welcome, its prose and the honour of being the
+first of books of the kind.”
+
+“This that comes next,” said the barber, “is the ‘Diana,’ entitled the
+‘Second Part, by the Salamancan,’ and this other has the same title,
+and its author is Gil Polo.”
+
+“As for that of the Salamancan,” replied the curate, “let it go to
+swell the number of the condemned in the yard, and let Gil Polo’s be
+preserved as if it came from Apollo himself: but get on, gossip, and
+make haste, for it is growing late.”
+
+“This book,” said the barber, opening another, “is the ten books of the
+‘Fortune of Love,’ written by Antonio de Lofraso, a Sardinian poet.”
+
+“By the orders I have received,” said the curate, “since Apollo has
+been Apollo, and the Muses have been Muses, and poets have been poets,
+so droll and absurd a book as this has never been written, and in its
+way it is the best and the most singular of all of this species that
+have as yet appeared, and he who has not read it may be sure he has
+never read what is delightful. Give it here, gossip, for I make more
+account of having found it than if they had given me a cassock of
+Florence stuff.”
+
+He put it aside with extreme satisfaction, and the barber went on,
+“These that come next are ‘The Shepherd of Iberia,’ ‘Nymphs of
+Henares,’ and ‘The Enlightenment of Jealousy.’”
+
+“Then all we have to do,” said the curate, “is to hand them over to the
+secular arm of the housekeeper, and ask me not why, or we shall never
+have done.”
+
+“This next is the ‘Pastor de Fílida.’”
+
+“No Pastor that,” said the curate, “but a highly polished courtier; let
+it be preserved as a precious jewel.”
+
+“This large one here,” said the barber, “is called ‘The Treasury of
+various Poems.’”
+
+“If there were not so many of them,” said the curate, “they would be
+more relished: this book must be weeded and cleansed of certain
+vulgarities which it has with its excellences; let it be preserved
+because the author is a friend of mine, and out of respect for other
+more heroic and loftier works that he has written.”
+
+“This,” continued the barber, “is the ‘Cancionero’ of Lopez de
+Maldonado.”
+
+“The author of that book, too,” said the curate, “is a great friend of
+mine, and his verses from his own mouth are the admiration of all who
+hear them, for such is the sweetness of his voice that he enchants when
+he chants them: it gives rather too much of its eclogues, but what is
+good was never yet plentiful: let it be kept with those that have been
+set apart. But what book is that next it?”
+
+“The ‘Galatea’ of Miguel de Cervantes,” said the barber.
+
+“That Cervantes has been for many years a great friend of mine, and to
+my knowledge he has had more experience in reverses than in verses. His
+book has some good invention in it, it presents us with something but
+brings nothing to a conclusion: we must wait for the Second Part it
+promises: perhaps with amendment it may succeed in winning the full
+measure of grace that is now denied it; and in the mean time do you,
+señor gossip, keep it shut up in your own quarters.”
+
+“Very good,” said the barber; “and here come three together, the
+‘Araucana’ of Don Alonso de Ercilla, the ‘Austriada’ of Juan Rufo,
+Justice of Cordova, and the ‘Montserrate’ of Christobal de Virués, the
+Valencian poet.”
+
+“These three books,” said the curate, “are the best that have been
+written in Castilian in heroic verse, and they may compare with the
+most famous of Italy; let them be preserved as the richest treasures of
+poetry that Spain possesses.”
+
+The curate was tired and would not look into any more books, and so he
+decided that, “contents uncertified,” all the rest should be burned;
+but just then the barber held open one, called “The Tears of Angelica.”
+
+“I should have shed tears myself,” said the curate when he heard the
+title, “had I ordered that book to be burned, for its author was one of
+the famous poets of the world, not to say of Spain, and was very happy
+in the translation of some of Ovid’s fables.”
+
+
+
+c06e.jpg (30K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+OF THE SECOND SALLY OF OUR WORTHY KNIGHT DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA
+
+
+
+
+c07a.jpg (151K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+At this instant Don Quixote began shouting out, “Here, here, valiant
+knights! here is need for you to put forth the might of your strong
+arms, for they of the Court are gaining the mastery in the tourney!”
+Called away by this noise and outcry, they proceeded no farther with
+the scrutiny of the remaining books, and so it is thought that “The
+Carolea,” “The Lion of Spain,” and “The Deeds of the Emperor,” written
+by Don Luis de Ávila, went to the fire unseen and unheard; for no doubt
+they were among those that remained, and perhaps if the curate had seen
+them they would not have undergone so severe a sentence.
+
+When they reached Don Quixote he was already out of bed, and was still
+shouting and raving, and slashing and cutting all round, as wide awake
+as if he had never slept.
+
+They closed with him and by force got him back to bed, and when he had
+become a little calm, addressing the curate, he said to him, “Of a
+truth, Señor Archbishop Turpin, it is a great disgrace for us who call
+ourselves the Twelve Peers, so carelessly to allow the knights of the
+Court to gain the victory in this tourney, we the adventurers having
+carried off the honour on the three former days.”
+
+“Hush, gossip,” said the curate; “please God, the luck may turn, and
+what is lost to-day may be won to-morrow; for the present let your
+worship have a care of your health, for it seems to me that you are
+over-fatigued, if not badly wounded.”
+
+“Wounded no,” said Don Quixote, “but bruised and battered no doubt, for
+that bastard Don Roland has cudgelled me with the trunk of an oak tree,
+and all for envy, because he sees that I alone rival him in his
+achievements. But I should not call myself Reinaldos of Montalvan did
+he not pay me for it in spite of all his enchantments as soon as I rise
+from this bed. For the present let them bring me something to eat, for
+that, I feel, is what will be more to my purpose, and leave it to me to
+avenge myself.”
+
+They did as he wished; they gave him something to eat, and once more he
+fell asleep, leaving them marvelling at his madness.
+
+That night the housekeeper burned to ashes all the books that were in
+the yard and in the whole house; and some must have been consumed that
+deserved preservation in everlasting archives, but their fate and the
+laziness of the examiner did not permit it, and so in them was verified
+the proverb that the innocent suffer for the guilty.
+
+One of the remedies which the curate and the barber immediately applied
+to their friend’s disorder was to wall up and plaster the room where
+the books were, so that when he got up he should not find them
+(possibly the cause being removed the effect might cease), and they
+might say that a magician had carried them off, room and all; and this
+was done with all despatch. Two days later Don Quixote got up, and the
+first thing he did was to go and look at his books, and not finding the
+room where he had left it, he wandered from side to side looking for
+it. He came to the place where the door used to be, and tried it with
+his hands, and turned and twisted his eyes in every direction without
+saying a word; but after a good while he asked his housekeeper
+whereabouts was the room that held his books.
+
+The housekeeper, who had been already well instructed in what she was
+to answer, said, “What room or what nothing is it that your worship is
+looking for? There are neither room nor books in this house now, for
+the devil himself has carried all away.”
+
+“It was not the devil,” said the niece, “but a magician who came on a
+cloud one night after the day your worship left this, and dismounting
+from a serpent that he rode he entered the room, and what he did there
+I know not, but after a little while he made off, flying through the
+roof, and left the house full of smoke; and when we went to see what he
+had done we saw neither book nor room: but we remember very well, the
+housekeeper and I, that on leaving, the old villain said in a loud
+voice that, for a private grudge he owed the owner of the books and the
+room, he had done mischief in that house that would be discovered
+by-and-by: he said too that his name was the Sage Muñaton.”
+
+“He must have said Friston,” said Don Quixote.
+
+“I don’t know whether he called himself Friston or Friton,” said the
+housekeeper, “I only know that his name ended with ‘ton.’”
+
+“So it does,” said Don Quixote, “and he is a sage magician, a great
+enemy of mine, who has a spite against me because he knows by his arts
+and lore that in process of time I am to engage in single combat with a
+knight whom he befriends and that I am to conquer, and he will be
+unable to prevent it; and for this reason he endeavours to do me all
+the ill turns that he can; but I promise him it will be hard for him to
+oppose or avoid what is decreed by Heaven.”
+
+“Who doubts that?” said the niece; “but, uncle, who mixes you up in
+these quarrels? Would it not be better to remain at peace in your own
+house instead of roaming the world looking for better bread than ever
+came of wheat, never reflecting that many go for wool and come back
+shorn?”
+
+“Oh, niece of mine,” replied Don Quixote, “how much astray art thou in
+thy reckoning: ere they shear me I shall have plucked away and stripped
+off the beards of all who dare to touch only the tip of a hair of
+mine.”
+
+The two were unwilling to make any further answer, as they saw that his
+anger was kindling.
+
+In short, then, he remained at home fifteen days very quietly without
+showing any signs of a desire to take up with his former delusions, and
+during this time he held lively discussions with his two gossips, the
+curate and the barber, on the point he maintained, that knights-errant
+were what the world stood most in need of, and that in him was to be
+accomplished the revival of knight-errantry. The curate sometimes
+contradicted him, sometimes agreed with him, for if he had not observed
+this precaution he would have been unable to bring him to reason.
+
+Meanwhile Don Quixote worked upon a farm labourer, a neighbour of his,
+an honest man (if indeed that title can be given to him who is poor),
+but with very little wit in his pate. In a word, he so talked him over,
+and with such persuasions and promises, that the poor clown made up his
+mind to sally forth with him and serve him as esquire. Don Quixote,
+among other things, told him he ought to be ready to go with him
+gladly, because any moment an adventure might occur that might win an
+island in the twinkling of an eye and leave him governor of it. On
+these and the like promises Sancho Panza (for so the labourer was
+called) left wife and children, and engaged himself as esquire to his
+neighbour.
+
+
+
+c07b.jpg (322K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Don Quixote next set about getting some money; and selling one thing
+and pawning another, and making a bad bargain in every case, he got
+together a fair sum. He provided himself with a buckler, which he
+begged as a loan from a friend, and, restoring his battered helmet as
+best he could, he warned his squire Sancho of the day and hour he meant
+to set out, that he might provide himself with what he thought most
+needful. Above all, he charged him to take alforjas with him. The other
+said he would, and that he meant to take also a very good ass he had,
+as he was not much given to going on foot. About the ass, Don Quixote
+hesitated a little, trying whether he could call to mind any
+knight-errant taking with him an esquire mounted on ass-back, but no
+instance occurred to his memory. For all that, however, he determined
+to take him, intending to furnish him with a more honourable mount when
+a chance of it presented itself, by appropriating the horse of the
+first discourteous knight he encountered. Himself he provided with
+shirts and such other things as he could, according to the advice the
+host had given him; all which being done, without taking leave, Sancho
+Panza of his wife and children, or Don Quixote of his housekeeper and
+niece, they sallied forth unseen by anybody from the village one night,
+and made such good way in the course of it that by daylight they held
+themselves safe from discovery, even should search be made for them.
+
+Sancho rode on his ass like a patriarch, with his alforjas and bota,
+and longing to see himself soon governor of the island his master had
+promised him. Don Quixote decided upon taking the same route and road
+he had taken on his first journey, that over the Campo de Montiel,
+which he travelled with less discomfort than on the last occasion, for,
+as it was early morning and the rays of the sun fell on them obliquely,
+the heat did not distress them.
+
+And now said Sancho Panza to his master, “Your worship will take care,
+Señor Knight-errant, not to forget about the island you have promised
+me, for be it ever so big I’ll be equal to governing it.”
+
+To which Don Quixote replied, “Thou must know, friend Sancho Panza,
+that it was a practice very much in vogue with the knights-errant of
+old to make their squires governors of the islands or kingdoms they
+won, and I am determined that there shall be no failure on my part in
+so liberal a custom; on the contrary, I mean to improve upon it, for
+they sometimes, and perhaps most frequently, waited until their squires
+were old, and then when they had had enough of service and hard days
+and worse nights, they gave them some title or other, of count, or at
+the most marquis, of some valley or province more or less; but if thou
+livest and I live, it may well be that before six days are over, I may
+have won some kingdom that has others dependent upon it, which will be
+just the thing to enable thee to be crowned king of one of them. Nor
+needst thou count this wonderful, for things and chances fall to the
+lot of such knights in ways so unexampled and unexpected that I might
+easily give thee even more than I promise thee.”
+
+“In that case,” said Sancho Panza, “if I should become a king by one of
+those miracles your worship speaks of, even Juana Gutierrez, my old
+woman, would come to be queen and my children infantes.”
+
+“Well, who doubts it?” said Don Quixote.
+
+“I doubt it,” replied Sancho Panza, “because for my part I am persuaded
+that though God should shower down kingdoms upon earth, not one of them
+would fit the head of Mari Gutierrez. Let me tell you, señor, she is
+not worth two maravedis for a queen; countess will fit her better, and
+that only with God’s help.”
+
+“Leave it to God, Sancho,” returned Don Quixote, “for he will give her
+what suits her best; but do not undervalue thyself so much as to come
+to be content with anything less than being governor of a province.”
+
+“I will not, señor,” answered Sancho, “specially as I have a man of
+such quality for a master in your worship, who will know how to give me
+all that will be suitable for me and that I can bear.”
+
+
+
+c07e.jpg (70K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+OF THE GOOD FORTUNE WHICH THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE HAD IN THE TERRIBLE
+AND UNDREAMT-OF ADVENTURE OF THE WINDMILLS, WITH OTHER OCCURRENCES
+WORTHY TO BE FITLY RECORDED
+
+
+
+
+c08a.jpg (142K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that
+there are on that plain, and as soon as Don Quixote saw them he said to
+his squire, “Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could
+have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza,
+where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I
+mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin
+to make our fortunes; for this is righteous warfare, and it is God’s
+good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth.”
+
+“What giants?” said Sancho Panza.
+
+“Those thou seest there,” answered his master, “with the long arms, and
+some have them nearly two leagues long.”
+
+“Look, your worship,” said Sancho; “what we see there are not giants
+but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned
+by the wind make the millstone go.”
+
+“It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that thou art not used to
+this business of adventures; those are giants; and if thou art afraid,
+away with thee out of this and betake thyself to prayer while I engage
+them in fierce and unequal combat.”
+
+So saying, he gave the spur to his steed Rocinante, heedless of the
+cries his squire Sancho sent after him, warning him that most certainly
+they were windmills and not giants he was going to attack. He, however,
+was so positive they were giants that he neither heard the cries of
+Sancho, nor perceived, near as he was, what they were, but made at them
+shouting, “Fly not, cowards and vile beings, for a single knight
+attacks you.”
+
+A slight breeze at this moment sprang up, and the great sails began to
+move, seeing which Don Quixote exclaimed, “Though ye flourish more arms
+than the giant Briareus, ye have to reckon with me.”
+
+So saying, and commending himself with all his heart to his lady
+Dulcinea, imploring her to support him in such a peril, with lance in
+rest and covered by his buckler, he charged at Rocinante’s fullest
+gallop and fell upon the first mill that stood in front of him; but as
+he drove his lance-point into the sail the wind whirled it round with
+such force that it shivered the lance to pieces, sweeping with it horse
+and rider, who went rolling over on the plain, in a sorry condition.
+Sancho hastened to his assistance as fast as his ass could go, and when
+he came up found him unable to move, with such a shock had Rocinante
+fallen with him.
+
+
+
+c08b.jpg (358K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“God bless me!” said Sancho, “did I not tell your worship to mind what
+you were about, for they were only windmills? and no one could have
+made any mistake about it but one who had something of the same kind in
+his head.”
+
+“Hush, friend Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “the fortunes of war more
+than any other are liable to frequent fluctuations; and moreover I
+think, and it is the truth, that that same sage Friston who carried off
+my study and books, has turned these giants into mills in order to rob
+me of the glory of vanquishing them, such is the enmity he bears me;
+but in the end his wicked arts will avail but little against my good
+sword.”
+
+
+
+c08c.jpg (301K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“God order it as he may,” said Sancho Panza, and helping him to rise
+got him up again on Rocinante, whose shoulder was half out; and then,
+discussing the late adventure, they followed the road to Puerto Lapice,
+for there, said Don Quixote, they could not fail to find adventures in
+abundance and variety, as it was a great thoroughfare. For all that, he
+was much grieved at the loss of his lance, and saying so to his squire,
+he added, “I remember having read how a Spanish knight, Diego Perez de
+Vargas by name, having broken his sword in battle, tore from an oak a
+ponderous bough or branch, and with it did such things that day, and
+pounded so many Moors, that he got the surname of Machuca, and he and
+his descendants from that day forth were called Vargas y Machuca. I
+mention this because from the first oak I see I mean to rend such
+another branch, large and stout like that, with which I am determined
+and resolved to do such deeds that thou mayest deem thyself very
+fortunate in being found worthy to come and see them, and be an
+eyewitness of things that will with difficulty be believed.”
+
+“Be that as God will,” said Sancho, “I believe it all as your worship
+says it; but straighten yourself a little, for you seem all on one
+side, may be from the shaking of the fall.”
+
+“That is the truth,” said Don Quixote, “and if I make no complaint of
+the pain it is because knights-errant are not permitted to complain of
+any wound, even though their bowels be coming out through it.”
+
+“If so,” said Sancho, “I have nothing to say; but God knows I would
+rather your worship complained when anything ailed you. For my part, I
+confess I must complain however small the ache may be; unless this rule
+about not complaining extends to the squires of knights-errant also.”
+
+Don Quixote could not help laughing at his squire’s simplicity, and he
+assured him he might complain whenever and however he chose, just as he
+liked, for, so far, he had never read of anything to the contrary in
+the order of knighthood.
+
+Sancho bade him remember it was dinner-time, to which his master
+answered that he wanted nothing himself just then, but that _he_ might
+eat when he had a mind. With this permission Sancho settled himself as
+comfortably as he could on his beast, and taking out of the alforjas
+what he had stowed away in them, he jogged along behind his master
+munching deliberately, and from time to time taking a pull at the bota
+with a relish that the thirstiest tapster in Malaga might have envied;
+and while he went on in this way, gulping down draught after draught,
+he never gave a thought to any of the promises his master had made him,
+nor did he rate it as hardship but rather as recreation going in quest
+of adventures, however dangerous they might be. Finally they passed the
+night among some trees, from one of which Don Quixote plucked a dry
+branch to serve him after a fashion as a lance, and fixed on it the
+head he had removed from the broken one. All that night Don Quixote lay
+awake thinking of his lady Dulcinea, in order to conform to what he had
+read in his books, how many a night in the forests and deserts knights
+used to lie sleepless supported by the memory of their mistresses. Not
+so did Sancho Panza spend it, for having his stomach full of something
+stronger than chicory water he made but one sleep of it, and, if his
+master had not called him, neither the rays of the sun beating on his
+face nor all the cheery notes of the birds welcoming the approach of
+day would have had power to waken him. On getting up he tried the bota
+and found it somewhat less full than the night before, which grieved
+his heart because they did not seem to be on the way to remedy the
+deficiency readily. Don Quixote did not care to break his fast, for, as
+has been already said, he confined himself to savoury recollections for
+nourishment.
+
+They returned to the road they had set out with, leading to Puerto
+Lapice, and at three in the afternoon they came in sight of it. “Here,
+brother Sancho Panza,” said Don Quixote when he saw it, “we may plunge
+our hands up to the elbows in what they call adventures; but observe,
+even shouldst thou see me in the greatest danger in the world, thou
+must not put a hand to thy sword in my defence, unless indeed thou
+perceivest that those who assail me are rabble or base folk; for in
+that case thou mayest very properly aid me; but if they be knights it
+is on no account permitted or allowed thee by the laws of knighthood to
+help me until thou hast been dubbed a knight.”
+
+“Most certainly, señor,” replied Sancho, “your worship shall be fully
+obeyed in this matter; all the more as of myself I am peaceful and no
+friend to mixing in strife and quarrels: it is true that as regards the
+defence of my own person I shall not give much heed to those laws, for
+laws human and divine allow each one to defend himself against any
+assailant whatever.”
+
+“That I grant,” said Don Quixote, “but in this matter of aiding me
+against knights thou must put a restraint upon thy natural
+impetuosity.”
+
+“I will do so, I promise you,” answered Sancho, “and will keep this
+precept as carefully as Sunday.”
+
+While they were thus talking there appeared on the road two friars of
+the order of St. Benedict, mounted on two dromedaries, for not less
+tall were the two mules they rode on. They wore travelling spectacles
+and carried sunshades; and behind them came a coach attended by four or
+five persons on horseback and two muleteers on foot. In the coach there
+was, as afterwards appeared, a Biscay lady on her way to Seville, where
+her husband was about to take passage for the Indies with an
+appointment of high honour. The friars, though going the same road,
+were not in her company; but the moment Don Quixote perceived them he
+said to his squire, “Either I am mistaken, or this is going to be the
+most famous adventure that has ever been seen, for those black bodies
+we see there must be, and doubtless are, magicians who are carrying off
+some stolen princess in that coach, and with all my might I must undo
+this wrong.”
+
+“This will be worse than the windmills,” said Sancho. “Look, señor;
+those are friars of St. Benedict, and the coach plainly belongs to some
+travellers: I tell you to mind well what you are about and don’t let
+the devil mislead you.”
+
+“I have told thee already, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “that on the
+subject of adventures thou knowest little. What I say is the truth, as
+thou shalt see presently.”
+
+So saying, he advanced and posted himself in the middle of the road
+along which the friars were coming, and as soon as he thought they had
+come near enough to hear what he said, he cried aloud, “Devilish and
+unnatural beings, release instantly the highborn princesses whom you
+are carrying off by force in this coach, else prepare to meet a speedy
+death as the just punishment of your evil deeds.”
+
+The friars drew rein and stood wondering at the appearance of Don
+Quixote as well as at his words, to which they replied, “Señor
+Caballero, we are not devilish or unnatural, but two brothers of St.
+Benedict following our road, nor do we know whether or not there are
+any captive princesses coming in this coach.”
+
+“No soft words with me, for I know you, lying rabble,” said Don
+Quixote, and without waiting for a reply he spurred Rocinante and with
+levelled lance charged the first friar with such fury and
+determination, that, if the friar had not flung himself off the mule,
+he would have brought him to the ground against his will, and sore
+wounded, if not killed outright. The second brother, seeing how his
+comrade was treated, drove his heels into his castle of a mule and made
+off across the country faster than the wind.
+
+Sancho Panza, when he saw the friar on the ground, dismounting briskly
+from his ass, rushed towards him and began to strip off his gown. At
+that instant the friars’ muleteers came up and asked what he was
+stripping him for. Sancho answered them that this fell to him lawfully
+as spoil of the battle which his lord Don Quixote had won. The
+muleteers, who had no idea of a joke and did not understand all this
+about battles and spoils, seeing that Don Quixote was some distance off
+talking to the travellers in the coach, fell upon Sancho, knocked him
+down, and leaving hardly a hair in his beard, belaboured him with kicks
+and left him stretched breathless and senseless on the ground; and
+without any more delay helped the friar to mount, who, trembling,
+terrified, and pale, as soon as he found himself in the saddle, spurred
+after his companion, who was standing at a distance looking on,
+watching the result of the onslaught; then, not caring to wait for the
+end of the affair just begun, they pursued their journey making more
+crosses than if they had the devil after them.
+
+Don Quixote was, as has been said, speaking to the lady in the coach:
+“Your beauty, lady mine,” said he, “may now dispose of your person as
+may be most in accordance with your pleasure, for the pride of your
+ravishers lies prostrate on the ground through this strong arm of mine;
+and lest you should be pining to know the name of your deliverer, know
+that I am called Don Quixote of La Mancha, knight-errant and
+adventurer, and captive to the peerless and beautiful lady Dulcinea del
+Toboso: and in return for the service you have received of me I ask no
+more than that you should return to El Toboso, and on my behalf present
+yourself before that lady and tell her what I have done to set you
+free.”
+
+One of the squires in attendance upon the coach, a Biscayan, was
+listening to all Don Quixote was saying, and, perceiving that he would
+not allow the coach to go on, but was saying it must return at once to
+El Toboso, he made at him, and seizing his lance addressed him in bad
+Castilian and worse Biscayan after his fashion, “Begone, caballero, and
+ill go with thee; by the God that made me, unless thou quittest coach,
+slayest thee as art here a Biscayan.”
+
+Don Quixote understood him quite well, and answered him very quietly,
+“If thou wert a knight, as thou art none, I should have already
+chastised thy folly and rashness, miserable creature.” To which the
+Biscayan returned, “I no gentleman!—I swear to God thou liest as I am
+Christian: if thou droppest lance and drawest sword, soon shalt thou
+see thou art carrying water to the cat: Biscayan on land, hidalgo at
+sea, hidalgo at the devil, and look, if thou sayest otherwise thou
+liest.”
+
+“‘“You will see presently,” said Agrajes,’” replied Don Quixote; and
+throwing his lance on the ground he drew his sword, braced his buckler
+on his arm, and attacked the Biscayan, bent upon taking his life.
+
+The Biscayan, when he saw him coming on, though he wished to dismount
+from his mule, in which, being one of those sorry ones let out for
+hire, he had no confidence, had no choice but to draw his sword; it was
+lucky for him, however, that he was near the coach, from which he was
+able to snatch a cushion that served him for a shield; and they went at
+one another as if they had been two mortal enemies. The others strove
+to make peace between them, but could not, for the Biscayan declared in
+his disjointed phrase that if they did not let him finish his battle he
+would kill his mistress and everyone that strove to prevent him. The
+lady in the coach, amazed and terrified at what she saw, ordered the
+coachman to draw aside a little, and set herself to watch this severe
+struggle, in the course of which the Biscayan smote Don Quixote a
+mighty stroke on the shoulder over the top of his buckler, which, given
+to one without armour, would have cleft him to the waist. Don Quixote,
+feeling the weight of this prodigious blow, cried aloud, saying, “O
+lady of my soul, Dulcinea, flower of beauty, come to the aid of this
+your knight, who, in fulfilling his obligations to your beauty, finds
+himself in this extreme peril.” To say this, to lift his sword, to
+shelter himself well behind his buckler, and to assail the Biscayan was
+the work of an instant, determined as he was to venture all upon a
+single blow. The Biscayan, seeing him come on in this way, was
+convinced of his courage by his spirited bearing, and resolved to
+follow his example, so he waited for him keeping well under cover of
+his cushion, being unable to execute any sort of manoeuvre with his
+mule, which, dead tired and never meant for this kind of game, could
+not stir a step.
+
+On, then, as aforesaid, came Don Quixote against the wary Biscayan,
+with uplifted sword and a firm intention of splitting him in half,
+while on his side the Biscayan waited for him sword in hand, and under
+the protection of his cushion; and all present stood trembling, waiting
+in suspense the result of blows such as threatened to fall, and the
+lady in the coach and the rest of her following were making a thousand
+vows and offerings to all the images and shrines of Spain, that God
+might deliver her squire and all of them from this great peril in which
+they found themselves. But it spoils all, that at this point and crisis
+the author of the history leaves this battle impending, giving as
+excuse that he could find nothing more written about these achievements
+of Don Quixote than what has been already set forth. It is true the
+second author of this work was unwilling to believe that a history so
+curious could have been allowed to fall under the sentence of oblivion,
+or that the wits of La Mancha could have been so undiscerning as not to
+preserve in their archives or registries some documents referring to
+this famous knight; and this being his persuasion, he did not despair
+of finding the conclusion of this pleasant history, which, heaven
+favouring him, he did find in a way that shall be related in the Second
+Part.
+
+
+
+c08e.jpg (54K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+IN WHICH IS CONCLUDED AND FINISHED THE TERRIFIC BATTLE BETWEEN THE
+GALLANT BISCAYAN AND THE VALIANT MANCHEGAN
+
+
+
+c09a.jpg (142K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+In the First Part of this history we left the valiant Biscayan and the
+renowned Don Quixote with drawn swords uplifted, ready to deliver two
+such furious slashing blows that if they had fallen full and fair they
+would at least have split and cleft them asunder from top to toe and
+laid them open like a pomegranate; and at this so critical point the
+delightful history came to a stop and stood cut short without any
+intimation from the author where what was missing was to be found.
+
+This distressed me greatly, because the pleasure derived from having
+read such a small portion turned to vexation at the thought of the poor
+chance that presented itself of finding the large part that, so it
+seemed to me, was missing of such an interesting tale. It appeared to
+me to be a thing impossible and contrary to all precedent that so good
+a knight should have been without some sage to undertake the task of
+writing his marvellous achievements; a thing that was never wanting to
+any of those knights-errant who, they say, went after adventures; for
+every one of them had one or two sages as if made on purpose, who not
+only recorded their deeds but described their most trifling thoughts
+and follies, however secret they might be; and such a good knight could
+not have been so unfortunate as not to have what Platir and others like
+him had in abundance. And so I could not bring myself to believe that
+such a gallant tale had been left maimed and mutilated, and I laid the
+blame on Time, the devourer and destroyer of all things, that had
+either concealed or consumed it.
+
+On the other hand, it struck me that, inasmuch as among his books there
+had been found such modern ones as “The Enlightenment of Jealousy” and
+the “Nymphs and Shepherds of Henares,” his story must likewise be
+modern, and that though it might not be written, it might exist in the
+memory of the people of his village and of those in the neighbourhood.
+This reflection kept me perplexed and longing to know really and truly
+the whole life and wondrous deeds of our famous Spaniard, Don Quixote
+of La Mancha, light and mirror of Manchegan chivalry, and the first
+that in our age and in these so evil days devoted himself to the labour
+and exercise of the arms of knight-errantry, righting wrongs,
+succouring widows, and protecting damsels of that sort that used to
+ride about, whip in hand, on their palfreys, with all their virginity
+about them, from mountain to mountain and valley to valley—for, if it
+were not for some ruffian, or boor with a hood and hatchet, or
+monstrous giant, that forced them, there were in days of yore damsels
+that at the end of eighty years, in all which time they had never slept
+a day under a roof, went to their graves as much maids as the mothers
+that bore them. I say, then, that in these and other respects our
+gallant Don Quixote is worthy of everlasting and notable praise, nor
+should it be withheld even from me for the labour and pains spent in
+searching for the conclusion of this delightful history; though I know
+well that if Heaven, chance and good fortune had not helped me, the
+world would have remained deprived of an entertainment and pleasure
+that for a couple of hours or so may well occupy him who shall read it
+attentively. The discovery of it occurred in this way.
+
+One day, as I was in the Alcana of Toledo, a boy came up to sell some
+pamphlets and old papers to a silk mercer, and, as I am fond of reading
+even the very scraps of paper in the streets, led by this natural bent
+of mine I took up one of the pamphlets the boy had for sale, and saw
+that it was in characters which I recognised as Arabic, and as I was
+unable to read them though I could recognise them, I looked about to
+see if there were any Spanish-speaking Morisco at hand to read them for
+me; nor was there any great difficulty in finding such an interpreter,
+for even had I sought one for an older and better language I should
+have found him. In short, chance provided me with one, who when I told
+him what I wanted and put the book into his hands, opened it in the
+middle and after reading a little in it began to laugh. I asked him
+what he was laughing at, and he replied that it was at something the
+book had written in the margin by way of a note. I bade him tell it to
+me; and he still laughing said, “In the margin, as I told you, this is
+written: ‘_This Dulcinea del Toboso so often mentioned in this history,
+had, they say, the best hand of any woman in all La Mancha for salting
+pigs_.’”
+
+When I heard Dulcinea del Toboso named, I was struck with surprise and
+amazement, for it occurred to me at once that these pamphlets contained
+the history of Don Quixote. With this idea I pressed him to read the
+beginning, and doing so, turning the Arabic offhand into Castilian, he
+told me it meant, “_History of Don Quixote of La Mancha, written by Cid
+Hamete Benengeli, an Arab historian_.” It required great caution to
+hide the joy I felt when the title of the book reached my ears, and
+snatching it from the silk mercer, I bought all the papers and
+pamphlets from the boy for half a real; and if he had had his wits
+about him and had known how eager I was for them, he might have safely
+calculated on making more than six reals by the bargain. I withdrew at
+once with the Morisco into the cloister of the cathedral, and begged
+him to turn all these pamphlets that related to Don Quixote into the
+Castilian tongue, without omitting or adding anything to them, offering
+him whatever payment he pleased. He was satisfied with two arrobas of
+raisins and two bushels of wheat, and promised to translate them
+faithfully and with all despatch; but to make the matter easier, and
+not to let such a precious find out of my hands, I took him to my
+house, where in little more than a month and a half he translated the
+whole just as it is set down here.
+
+In the first pamphlet the battle between Don Quixote and the Biscayan
+was drawn to the very life, they planted in the same attitude as the
+history describes, their swords raised, and the one protected by his
+buckler, the other by his cushion, and the Biscayan’s mule so true to
+nature that it could be seen to be a hired one a bowshot off. The
+Biscayan had an inscription under his feet which said, “_Don Sancho de
+Azpeitia_,” which no doubt must have been his name; and at the feet of
+Rocinante was another that said, “_Don Quixote_.” Rocinante was
+marvellously portrayed, so long and thin, so lank and lean, with so
+much backbone and so far gone in consumption, that he showed plainly
+with what judgment and propriety the name of Rocinante had been
+bestowed upon him. Near him was Sancho Panza holding the halter of his
+ass, at whose feet was another label that said, “Sancho Zancas,” and
+according to the picture, he must have had a big belly, a short body,
+and long shanks, for which reason, no doubt, the names of Panza and
+Zancas were given him, for by these two surnames the history several
+times calls him. Some other trifling particulars might be mentioned,
+but they are all of slight importance and have nothing to do with the
+true relation of the history; and no history can be bad so long as it
+is true.
+
+If against the present one any objection be raised on the score of its
+truth, it can only be that its author was an Arab, as lying is a very
+common propensity with those of that nation; though, as they are such
+enemies of ours, it is conceivable that there were omissions rather
+than additions made in the course of it. And this is my own opinion;
+for, where he could and should give freedom to his pen in praise of so
+worthy a knight, he seems to me deliberately to pass it over in
+silence; which is ill done and worse contrived, for it is the business
+and duty of historians to be exact, truthful, and wholly free from
+passion, and neither interest nor fear, hatred nor love, should make
+them swerve from the path of truth, whose mother is history, rival of
+time, storehouse of deeds, witness for the past, example and counsel
+for the present, and warning for the future. In this I know will be
+found all that can be desired in the pleasantest, and if it be wanting
+in any good quality, I maintain it is the fault of its hound of an
+author and not the fault of the subject. To be brief, its Second Part,
+according to the translation, began in this way:
+
+With trenchant swords upraised and poised on high, it seemed as though
+the two valiant and wrathful combatants stood threatening heaven, and
+earth, and hell, with such resolution and determination did they bear
+themselves. The fiery Biscayan was the first to strike a blow, which
+was delivered with such force and fury that had not the sword turned in
+its course, that single stroke would have sufficed to put an end to the
+bitter struggle and to all the adventures of our knight; but that good
+fortune which reserved him for greater things, turned aside the sword
+of his adversary, so that although it smote him upon the left shoulder,
+it did him no more harm than to strip all that side of its armour,
+carrying away a great part of his helmet with half of his ear, all
+which with fearful ruin fell to the ground, leaving him in a sorry
+plight.
+
+Good God! Who is there that could properly describe the rage that
+filled the heart of our Manchegan when he saw himself dealt with in
+this fashion? All that can be said is, it was such that he again raised
+himself in his stirrups, and, grasping his sword more firmly with both
+hands, he came down on the Biscayan with such fury, smiting him full
+over the cushion and over the head, that—even so good a shield proving
+useless—as if a mountain had fallen on him, he began to bleed from
+nose, mouth, and ears, reeling as if about to fall backwards from his
+mule, as no doubt he would have done had he not flung his arms about
+its neck; at the same time, however, he slipped his feet out of the
+stirrups and then unclasped his arms, and the mule, taking fright at
+the terrible blow, made off across the plain, and with a few plunges
+flung its master to the ground. Don Quixote stood looking on very
+calmly, and, when he saw him fall, leaped from his horse and with great
+briskness ran to him, and, presenting the point of his sword to his
+eyes, bade him surrender, or he would cut his head off. The Biscayan
+was so bewildered that he was unable to answer a word, and it would
+have gone hard with him, so blind was Don Quixote, had not the ladies
+in the coach, who had hitherto been watching the combat in great
+terror, hastened to where he stood and implored him with earnest
+entreaties to grant them the great grace and favour of sparing their
+squire’s life; to which Don Quixote replied with much gravity and
+dignity, “In truth, fair ladies, I am well content to do what ye ask of
+me; but it must be on one condition and understanding, which is that
+this knight promise me to go to the village of El Toboso, and on my
+behalf present himself before the peerless lady Dulcinea, that she deal
+with him as shall be most pleasing to her.”
+
+The terrified and disconsolate ladies, without discussing Don Quixote’s
+demand or asking who Dulcinea might be, promised that their squire
+should do all that had been commanded.
+
+“Then, on the faith of that promise,” said Don Quixote, “I shall do him
+no further harm, though he well deserves it of me.”
+
+
+
+c09e.jpg (61K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+OF THE PLEASANT DISCOURSE THAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS
+SQUIRE SANCHO PANZA
+
+
+
+
+c10a.jpg (91K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Now by this time Sancho had risen, rather the worse for the handling of
+the friars’ muleteers, and stood watching the battle of his master, Don
+Quixote, and praying to God in his heart that it might be his will to
+grant him the victory, and that he might thereby win some island to
+make him governor of, as he had promised. Seeing, therefore, that the
+struggle was now over, and that his master was returning to mount
+Rocinante, he approached to hold the stirrup for him, and, before he
+could mount, he went on his knees before him, and taking his hand,
+kissed it saying, “May it please your worship, Señor Don Quixote, to
+give me the government of that island which has been won in this hard
+fight, for be it ever so big I feel myself in sufficient force to be
+able to govern it as much and as well as anyone in the world who has
+ever governed islands.”
+
+To which Don Quixote replied, “Thou must take notice, brother Sancho,
+that this adventure and those like it are not adventures of islands,
+but of cross-roads, in which nothing is got except a broken head or an
+ear the less: have patience, for adventures will present themselves
+from which I may make you, not only a governor, but something more.”
+
+Sancho gave him many thanks, and again kissing his hand and the skirt
+of his hauberk, helped him to mount Rocinante, and mounting his ass
+himself, proceeded to follow his master, who at a brisk pace, without
+taking leave, or saying anything further to the ladies belonging to the
+coach, turned into a wood that was hard by. Sancho followed him at his
+ass’s best trot, but Rocinante stepped out so that, seeing himself left
+behind, he was forced to call to his master to wait for him. Don
+Quixote did so, reining in Rocinante until his weary squire came up,
+who on reaching him said, “It seems to me, señor, it would be prudent
+in us to go and take refuge in some church, for, seeing how mauled he
+with whom you fought has been left, it will be no wonder if they give
+information of the affair to the Holy Brotherhood and arrest us, and,
+faith, if they do, before we come out of gaol we shall have to sweat
+for it.”
+
+“Peace,” said Don Quixote; “where hast thou ever seen or heard that a
+knight-errant has been arraigned before a court of justice, however
+many homicides he may have committed?”
+
+“I know nothing about omecils,” answered Sancho, “nor in my life have
+had anything to do with one; I only know that the Holy Brotherhood
+looks after those who fight in the fields, and in that other matter I
+do not meddle.”
+
+“Then thou needst have no uneasiness, my friend,” said Don Quixote,
+“for I will deliver thee out of the hands of the Chaldeans, much more
+out of those of the Brotherhood. But tell me, as thou livest, hast thou
+seen a more valiant knight than I in all the known world; hast thou
+read in history of any who has or had higher mettle in attack, more
+spirit in maintaining it, more dexterity in wounding or skill in
+overthrowing?”
+
+“The truth is,” answered Sancho, “that I have never read any history,
+for I can neither read nor write, but what I will venture to bet is
+that a more daring master than your worship I have never served in all
+the days of my life, and God grant that this daring be not paid for
+where I have said; what I beg of your worship is to dress your wound,
+for a great deal of blood flows from that ear, and I have here some
+lint and a little white ointment in the alforjas.”
+
+“All that might be well dispensed with,” said Don Quixote, “if I had
+remembered to make a vial of the balsam of Fierabras, for time and
+medicine are saved by one single drop.”
+
+“What vial and what balsam is that?” said Sancho Panza.
+
+“It is a balsam,” answered Don Quixote, “the receipt of which I have in
+my memory, with which one need have no fear of death, or dread dying of
+any wound; and so when I make it and give it to thee thou hast nothing
+to do when in some battle thou seest they have cut me in half through
+the middle of the body—as is wont to happen frequently—but neatly and
+with great nicety, ere the blood congeal, to place that portion of the
+body which shall have fallen to the ground upon the other half which
+remains in the saddle, taking care to fit it on evenly and exactly.
+Then thou shalt give me to drink but two drops of the balsam I have
+mentioned, and thou shalt see me become sounder than an apple.”
+
+“If that be so,” said Panza, “I renounce henceforth the government of
+the promised island, and desire nothing more in payment of my many and
+faithful services than that your worship give me the receipt of this
+supreme liquor, for I am persuaded it will be worth more than two reals
+an ounce anywhere, and I want no more to pass the rest of my life in
+ease and honour; but it remains to be told if it costs much to make
+it.”
+
+“With less than three reals, six quarts of it may be made,” said Don
+Quixote.
+
+“Sinner that I am!” said Sancho, “then why does your worship put off
+making it and teaching it to me?”
+
+“Peace, friend,” answered Don Quixote; “greater secrets I mean to teach
+thee and greater favours to bestow upon thee; and for the present let
+us see to the dressing, for my ear pains me more than I could wish.”
+
+Sancho took out some lint and ointment from the alforjas; but when Don
+Quixote came to see his helmet shattered, he was like to lose his
+senses, and clapping his hand upon his sword and raising his eyes to
+heaven, he said, “I swear by the Creator of all things and the four
+Gospels in their fullest extent, to do as the great Marquis of Mantua
+did when he swore to avenge the death of his nephew Baldwin (and that
+was not to eat bread from a table-cloth, nor embrace his wife, and
+other points which, though I cannot now call them to mind, I here grant
+as expressed) until I take complete vengeance upon him who has
+committed such an offence against me.”
+
+Hearing this, Sancho said to him, “Your worship should bear in mind,
+Señor Don Quixote, that if the knight has done what was commanded him
+in going to present himself before my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, he will
+have done all that he was bound to do, and does not deserve further
+punishment unless he commits some new offence.”
+
+“Thou hast said well and hit the point,” answered Don Quixote; and so I
+recall the oath in so far as relates to taking fresh vengeance on him,
+but I make and confirm it anew to lead the life I have said until such
+time as I take by force from some knight another helmet such as this
+and as good; and think not, Sancho, that I am raising smoke with straw
+in doing so, for I have one to imitate in the matter, since the very
+same thing to a hair happened in the case of Mambrino’s helmet, which
+cost Sacripante so dear.”
+
+“Señor,” replied Sancho, “let your worship send all such oaths to the
+devil, for they are very pernicious to salvation and prejudicial to the
+conscience; just tell me now, if for several days to come we fall in
+with no man armed with a helmet, what are we to do? Is the oath to be
+observed in spite of all the inconvenience and discomfort it will be to
+sleep in your clothes, and not to sleep in a house, and a thousand
+other mortifications contained in the oath of that old fool the Marquis
+of Mantua, which your worship is now wanting to revive? Let your
+worship observe that there are no men in armour travelling on any of
+these roads, nothing but carriers and carters, who not only do not wear
+helmets, but perhaps never heard tell of them all their lives.”
+
+“Thou art wrong there,” said Don Quixote, “for we shall not have been
+above two hours among these cross-roads before we see more men in
+armour than came to Albraca to win the fair Angelica.”
+
+“Enough,” said Sancho; “so be it then, and God grant us success, and
+that the time for winning that island which is costing me so dear may
+soon come, and then let me die.”
+
+“I have already told thee, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “not to give
+thyself any uneasiness on that score; for if an island should fail,
+there is the kingdom of Denmark, or of Sobradisa, which will fit thee
+as a ring fits the finger, and all the more that, being on _terra
+firma_, thou wilt all the better enjoy thyself. But let us leave that
+to its own time; see if thou hast anything for us to eat in those
+alforjas, because we must presently go in quest of some castle where we
+may lodge to-night and make the balsam I told thee of, for I swear to
+thee by God, this ear is giving me great pain.”
+
+“I have here an onion and a little cheese and a few scraps of bread,”
+said Sancho, “but they are not victuals fit for a valiant knight like
+your worship.”
+
+“How little thou knowest about it,” answered Don Quixote; “I would have
+thee to know, Sancho, that it is the glory of knights-errant to go
+without eating for a month, and even when they do eat, that it should
+be of what comes first to hand; and this would have been clear to thee
+hadst thou read as many histories as I have, for, though they are very
+many, among them all I have found no mention made of knights-errant
+eating, unless by accident or at some sumptuous banquets prepared for
+them, and the rest of the time they passed in dalliance. And though it
+is plain they could not do without eating and performing all the other
+natural functions, because, in fact, they were men like ourselves, it
+is plain too that, wandering as they did the most part of their lives
+through woods and wilds and without a cook, their most usual fare would
+be rustic viands such as those thou now offer me; so that, friend
+Sancho, let not that distress thee which pleases me, and do not seek to
+make a new world or pervert knight-errantry.”
+
+“Pardon me, your worship,” said Sancho, “for, as I cannot read or
+write, as I said just now, I neither know nor comprehend the rules of
+the profession of chivalry: henceforward I will stock the alforjas with
+every kind of dry fruit for your worship, as you are a knight; and for
+myself, as I am not one, I will furnish them with poultry and other
+things more substantial.”
+
+“I do not say, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “that it is imperative on
+knights-errant not to eat anything else but the fruits thou speakest
+of; only that their more usual diet must be those, and certain herbs
+they found in the fields which they knew and I know too.”
+
+“A good thing it is,” answered Sancho, “to know those herbs, for to my
+thinking it will be needful some day to put that knowledge into
+practice.”
+
+And here taking out what he said he had brought, the pair made their
+repast peaceably and sociably. But anxious to find quarters for the
+night, they with all despatch made an end of their poor dry fare,
+mounted at once, and made haste to reach some habitation before night
+set in; but daylight and the hope of succeeding in their object failed
+them close by the huts of some goatherds, so they determined to pass
+the night there, and it was as much to Sancho’s discontent not to have
+reached a house, as it was to his master’s satisfaction to sleep under
+the open heaven, for he fancied that each time this happened to him he
+performed an act of ownership that helped to prove his chivalry.
+
+
+
+c10e.jpg (57K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH CERTAIN GOATHERDS
+
+
+
+
+c11a.jpg (173K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+He was cordially welcomed by the goatherds, and Sancho, having as best
+he could put up Rocinante and the ass, drew towards the fragrance that
+came from some pieces of salted goat simmering in a pot on the fire;
+and though he would have liked at once to try if they were ready to be
+transferred from the pot to the stomach, he refrained from doing so as
+the goatherds removed them from the fire, and laying sheepskins on the
+ground, quickly spread their rude table, and with signs of hearty
+good-will invited them both to share what they had. Round the skins six
+of the men belonging to the fold seated themselves, having first with
+rough politeness pressed Don Quixote to take a seat upon a trough which
+they placed for him upside down. Don Quixote seated himself, and Sancho
+remained standing to serve the cup, which was made of horn. Seeing him
+standing, his master said to him:
+
+“That thou mayest see, Sancho, the good that knight-errantry contains
+in itself, and how those who fill any office in it are on the high road
+to be speedily honoured and esteemed by the world, I desire that thou
+seat thyself here at my side and in the company of these worthy people,
+and that thou be one with me who am thy master and natural lord, and
+that thou eat from my plate and drink from whatever I drink from; for
+the same may be said of knight-errantry as of love, that it levels
+all.”
+
+“Great thanks,” said Sancho, “but I may tell your worship that provided
+I have enough to eat, I can eat it as well, or better, standing, and by
+myself, than seated alongside of an emperor. And indeed, if the truth
+is to be told, what I eat in my corner without form or fuss has much
+more relish for me, even though it be bread and onions, than the
+turkeys of those other tables where I am forced to chew slowly, drink
+little, wipe my mouth every minute, and cannot sneeze or cough if I
+want or do other things that are the privileges of liberty and
+solitude. So, señor, as for these honours which your worship would put
+upon me as a servant and follower of knight-errantry, exchange them for
+other things which may be of more use and advantage to me; for these,
+though I fully acknowledge them as received, I renounce from this
+moment to the end of the world.”
+
+“For all that,” said Don Quixote, “thou must seat thyself, because him
+who humbleth himself God exalteth;” and seizing him by the arm he
+forced him to sit down beside himself.
+
+The goatherds did not understand this jargon about squires and
+knights-errant, and all they did was to eat in silence and stare at
+their guests, who with great elegance and appetite were stowing away
+pieces as big as one’s fist. The course of meat finished, they spread
+upon the sheepskins a great heap of parched acorns, and with them they
+put down a half cheese harder than if it had been made of mortar. All
+this while the horn was not idle, for it went round so constantly, now
+full, now empty, like the bucket of a water-wheel, that it soon drained
+one of the two wine-skins that were in sight. When Don Quixote had
+quite appeased his appetite he took up a handful of the acorns, and
+contemplating them attentively delivered himself somewhat in this
+fashion:
+
+“Happy the age, happy the time, to which the ancients gave the name of
+golden, not because in that fortunate age the gold so coveted in this
+our iron one was gained without toil, but because they that lived in it
+knew not the two words “_mine_” and “_thine_”! In that blessed age all
+things were in common; to win the daily food no labour was required of
+any save to stretch forth his hand and gather it from the sturdy oaks
+that stood generously inviting him with their sweet ripe fruit. The
+clear streams and running brooks yielded their savoury limpid waters in
+noble abundance. The busy and sagacious bees fixed their republic in
+the clefts of the rocks and hollows of the trees, offering without
+usance the plenteous produce of their fragrant toil to every hand. The
+mighty cork trees, unenforced save of their own courtesy, shed the
+broad light bark that served at first to roof the houses supported by
+rude stakes, a protection against the inclemency of heaven alone. Then
+all was peace, all friendship, all concord; as yet the dull share of
+the crooked plough had not dared to rend and pierce the tender bowels
+of our first mother that without compulsion yielded from every portion
+of her broad fertile bosom all that could satisfy, sustain, and delight
+the children that then possessed her. Then was it that the innocent and
+fair young shepherdess roamed from vale to vale and hill to hill, with
+flowing locks, and no more garments than were needful modestly to cover
+what modesty seeks and ever sought to hide. Nor were their ornaments
+like those in use to-day, set off by Tyrian purple, and silk tortured
+in endless fashions, but the wreathed leaves of the green dock and ivy,
+wherewith they went as bravely and becomingly decked as our Court dames
+with all the rare and far-fetched artifices that idle curiosity has
+taught them. Then the love-thoughts of the heart clothed themselves
+simply and naturally as the heart conceived them, nor sought to commend
+themselves by forced and rambling verbiage. Fraud, deceit, or malice
+had then not yet mingled with truth and sincerity. Justice held her
+ground, undisturbed and unassailed by the efforts of favour and of
+interest, that now so much impair, pervert, and beset her. Arbitrary
+law had not yet established itself in the mind of the judge, for then
+there was no cause to judge and no one to be judged. Maidens and
+modesty, as I have said, wandered at will alone and unattended, without
+fear of insult from lawlessness or libertine assault, and if they were
+undone it was of their own will and pleasure. But now in this hateful
+age of ours not one is safe, not though some new labyrinth like that of
+Crete conceal and surround her; even there the pestilence of gallantry
+will make its way to them through chinks or on the air by the zeal of
+its accursed importunity, and, despite of all seclusion, lead them to
+ruin. In defence of these, as time advanced and wickedness increased,
+the order of knights-errant was instituted, to defend maidens, to
+protect widows and to succour the orphans and the needy. To this order
+I belong, brother goatherds, to whom I return thanks for the
+hospitality and kindly welcome ye offer me and my squire; for though by
+natural law all living are bound to show favour to knights-errant, yet,
+seeing that without knowing this obligation ye have welcomed and
+feasted me, it is right that with all the good-will in my power I
+should thank you for yours.”
+
+
+
+c11b.jpg (349K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+All this long harangue (which might very well have been spared) our
+knight delivered because the acorns they gave him reminded him of the
+golden age; and the whim seized him to address all this unnecessary
+argument to the goatherds, who listened to him gaping in amazement
+without saying a word in reply. Sancho likewise held his peace and ate
+acorns, and paid repeated visits to the second wine-skin, which they
+had hung up on a cork tree to keep the wine cool.
+
+Don Quixote was longer in talking than the supper in finishing, at the
+end of which one of the goatherds said, “That your worship, señor
+knight-errant, may say with more truth that we show you hospitality
+with ready good-will, we will give you amusement and pleasure by making
+one of our comrades sing: he will be here before long, and he is a very
+intelligent youth and deep in love, and what is more he can read and
+write and play on the rebeck to perfection.”
+
+The goatherd had hardly done speaking, when the notes of the rebeck
+reached their ears; and shortly after, the player came up, a very
+good-looking young man of about two-and-twenty. His comrades asked him
+if he had supped, and on his replying that he had, he who had already
+made the offer said to him:
+
+“In that case, Antonio, thou mayest as well do us the pleasure of
+singing a little, that the gentleman, our guest, may see that even in
+the mountains and woods there are musicians: we have told him of thy
+accomplishments, and we want thee to show them and prove that we say
+true; so, as thou livest, pray sit down and sing that ballad about thy
+love that thy uncle the prebendary made thee, and that was so much
+liked in the town.”
+
+“With all my heart,” said the young man, and without waiting for more
+pressing he seated himself on the trunk of a felled oak, and tuning his
+rebeck, presently began to sing to these words.
+
+ANTONIO’S BALLAD
+
+Thou dost love me well, Olalla;
+Well I know it, even though
+Love’s mute tongues, thine eyes, have never
+By their glances told me so.
+
+For I know my love thou knowest,
+Therefore thine to claim I dare:
+Once it ceases to be secret,
+Love need never feel despair.
+
+True it is, Olalla, sometimes
+Thou hast all too plainly shown
+That thy heart is brass in hardness,
+And thy snowy bosom stone.
+
+Yet for all that, in thy coyness,
+And thy fickle fits between,
+Hope is there—at least the border
+Of her garment may be seen.
+
+Lures to faith are they, those glimpses,
+And to faith in thee I hold;
+Kindness cannot make it stronger,
+Coldness cannot make it cold.
+
+If it be that love is gentle,
+In thy gentleness I see
+Something holding out assurance
+To the hope of winning thee.
+
+If it be that in devotion
+Lies a power hearts to move,
+That which every day I show thee,
+Helpful to my suit should prove.
+
+Many a time thou must have noticed—
+If to notice thou dost care—
+How I go about on Monday
+Dressed in all my Sunday wear.
+
+Love’s eyes love to look on brightness;
+Love loves what is gaily drest;
+Sunday, Monday, all I care is
+Thou shouldst see me in my best.
+
+No account I make of dances,
+Or of strains that pleased thee so,
+Keeping thee awake from midnight
+Till the cocks began to crow;
+
+Or of how I roundly swore it
+That there’s none so fair as thou;
+True it is, but as I said it,
+By the girls I’m hated now.
+
+For Teresa of the hillside
+At my praise of thee was sore;
+Said, “You think you love an angel;
+It’s a monkey you adore;
+
+“Caught by all her glittering trinkets,
+And her borrowed braids of hair,
+And a host of made-up beauties
+That would Love himself ensnare.”
+
+’Twas a lie, and so I told her,
+And her cousin at the word
+Gave me his defiance for it;
+And what followed thou hast heard.
+
+Mine is no high-flown affection,
+Mine no passion _par amours_—
+As they call it—what I offer
+Is an honest love, and pure.
+
+Cunning cords the holy Church has,
+Cords of softest silk they be;
+Put thy neck beneath the yoke, dear;
+Mine will follow, thou wilt see.
+
+Else—and once for all I swear it
+By the saint of most renown—
+If I ever quit the mountains,
+’Twill be in a friar’s gown.
+
+
+Here the goatherd brought his song to an end, and though Don Quixote
+entreated him to sing more, Sancho had no mind that way, being more
+inclined for sleep than for listening to songs; so said he to his
+master, “Your worship will do well to settle at once where you mean to
+pass the night, for the labour these good men are at all day does not
+allow them to spend the night in singing.”
+
+“I understand thee, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote; “I perceive clearly
+that those visits to the wine-skin demand compensation in sleep rather
+than in music.”
+
+“It’s sweet to us all, blessed be God,” said Sancho.
+
+“I do not deny it,” replied Don Quixote; “but settle thyself where thou
+wilt; those of my calling are more becomingly employed in watching than
+in sleeping; still it would be as well if thou wert to dress this ear
+for me again, for it is giving me more pain than it need.”
+
+Sancho did as he bade him, but one of the goatherds, seeing the wound,
+told him not to be uneasy, as he would apply a remedy with which it
+would be soon healed; and gathering some leaves of rosemary, of which
+there was a great quantity there, he chewed them and mixed them with a
+little salt, and applying them to the ear he secured them firmly with a
+bandage, assuring him that no other treatment would be required, and so
+it proved.
+
+
+
+c11e.jpg (37K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+OF WHAT A GOATHERD RELATED TO THOSE WITH DON QUIXOTE
+
+
+
+
+c12a.jpg (143K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Just then another young man, one of those who fetched their provisions
+from the village, came up and said, “Do you know what is going on in
+the village, comrades?”
+
+“How could we know it?” replied one of them.
+
+“Well, then, you must know,” continued the young man, “this morning
+that famous student-shepherd called Chrysostom died, and it is rumoured
+that he died of love for that devil of a village girl the daughter of
+Guillermo the Rich, she that wanders about the wolds here in the dress
+of a shepherdess.”
+
+“You mean Marcela?” said one.
+
+“Her I mean,” answered the goatherd; “and the best of it is, he has
+directed in his will that he is to be buried in the fields like a Moor,
+and at the foot of the rock where the Cork-tree spring is, because, as
+the story goes (and they say he himself said so), that was the place
+where he first saw her. And he has also left other directions which the
+clergy of the village say should not and must not be obeyed because
+they savour of paganism. To all which his great friend Ambrosio the
+student, he who, like him, also went dressed as a shepherd, replies
+that everything must be done without any omission according to the
+directions left by Chrysostom, and about this the village is all in
+commotion; however, report says that, after all, what Ambrosio and all
+the shepherds his friends desire will be done, and to-morrow they are
+coming to bury him with great ceremony where I said. I am sure it will
+be something worth seeing; at least I will not fail to go and see it
+even if I knew I should not return to the village to-morrow.”
+
+“We will do the same,” answered the goatherds, “and cast lots to see
+who must stay to mind the goats of all.”
+
+“Thou sayest well, Pedro,” said one, “though there will be no need of
+taking that trouble, for I will stay behind for all; and don’t suppose
+it is virtue or want of curiosity in me; it is that the splinter that
+ran into my foot the other day will not let me walk.”
+
+“For all that, we thank thee,” answered Pedro.
+
+Don Quixote asked Pedro to tell him who the dead man was and who the
+shepherdess, to which Pedro replied that all he knew was that the dead
+man was a wealthy gentleman belonging to a village in those mountains,
+who had been a student at Salamanca for many years, at the end of which
+he returned to his village with the reputation of being very learned
+and deeply read. “Above all, they said, he was learned in the science
+of the stars and of what went on yonder in the heavens and the sun and
+the moon, for he told us of the cris of the sun and moon to exact
+time.”
+
+“Eclipse it is called, friend, not cris, the darkening of those two
+luminaries,” said Don Quixote; but Pedro, not troubling himself with
+trifles, went on with his story, saying, “Also he foretold when the
+year was going to be one of abundance or estility.”
+
+“Sterility, you mean,” said Don Quixote.
+
+“Sterility or estility,” answered Pedro, “it is all the same in the
+end. And I can tell you that by this his father and friends who
+believed him grew very rich because they did as he advised them,
+bidding them ‘sow barley this year, not wheat; this year you may sow
+pulse and not barley; the next there will be a full oil crop, and the
+three following not a drop will be got.’”
+
+“That science is called astrology,” said Don Quixote.
+
+“I do not know what it is called,” replied Pedro, “but I know that he
+knew all this and more besides. But, to make an end, not many months
+had passed after he returned from Salamanca, when one day he appeared
+dressed as a shepherd with his crook and sheepskin, having put off the
+long gown he wore as a scholar; and at the same time his great friend,
+Ambrosio by name, who had been his companion in his studies, took to
+the shepherd’s dress with him. I forgot to say that Chrysostom, who is
+dead, was a great man for writing verses, so much so that he made
+carols for Christmas Eve, and plays for Corpus Christi, which the young
+men of our village acted, and all said they were excellent. When the
+villagers saw the two scholars so unexpectedly appearing in shepherd’s
+dress, they were lost in wonder, and could not guess what had led them
+to make so extraordinary a change. About this time the father of our
+Chrysostom died, and he was left heir to a large amount of property in
+chattels as well as in land, no small number of cattle and sheep, and a
+large sum of money, of all of which the young man was left dissolute
+owner, and indeed he was deserving of it all, for he was a very good
+comrade, and kind-hearted, and a friend of worthy folk, and had a
+countenance like a benediction. Presently it came to be known that he
+had changed his dress with no other object than to wander about these
+wastes after that shepherdess Marcela our lad mentioned a while ago,
+with whom the deceased Chrysostom had fallen in love. And I must tell
+you now, for it is well you should know it, who this girl is; perhaps,
+and even without any perhaps, you will not have heard anything like it
+all the days of your life, though you should live more years than
+sarna.”
+
+“Say Sarra,” said Don Quixote, unable to endure the goatherd’s
+confusion of words.
+
+“The sarna lives long enough,” answered Pedro; “and if, señor, you must
+go finding fault with words at every step, we shall not make an end of
+it this twelvemonth.”
+
+“Pardon me, friend,” said Don Quixote; “but, as there is such a
+difference between sarna and Sarra, I told you of it; however, you have
+answered very rightly, for sarna lives longer than Sarra: so continue
+your story, and I will not object any more to anything.”
+
+“I say then, my dear sir,” said the goatherd, “that in our village
+there was a farmer even richer than the father of Chrysostom, who was
+named Guillermo, and upon whom God bestowed, over and above great
+wealth, a daughter at whose birth her mother died, the most respected
+woman there was in this neighbourhood; I fancy I can see her now with
+that countenance which had the sun on one side and the moon on the
+other; and moreover active, and kind to the poor, for which I trust
+that at the present moment her soul is in bliss with God in the other
+world. Her husband Guillermo died of grief at the death of so good a
+wife, leaving his daughter Marcela, a child and rich, to the care of an
+uncle of hers, a priest and prebendary in our village. The girl grew up
+with such beauty that it reminded us of her mother’s, which was very
+great, and yet it was thought that the daughter’s would exceed it; and
+so when she reached the age of fourteen to fifteen years nobody beheld
+her but blessed God that had made her so beautiful, and the greater
+number were in love with her past redemption. Her uncle kept her in
+great seclusion and retirement, but for all that the fame of her great
+beauty spread so that, as well for it as for her great wealth, her
+uncle was asked, solicited, and importuned, to give her in marriage not
+only by those of our town but of those many leagues round, and by the
+persons of highest quality in them. But he, being a good Christian man,
+though he desired to give her in marriage at once, seeing her to be old
+enough, was unwilling to do so without her consent, not that he had any
+eye to the gain and profit which the custody of the girl’s property
+brought him while he put off her marriage; and, faith, this was said in
+praise of the good priest in more than one set in the town. For I would
+have you know, Sir Errant, that in these little villages everything is
+talked about and everything is carped at, and rest assured, as I am,
+that the priest must be over and above good who forces his parishioners
+to speak well of him, especially in villages.”
+
+“That is the truth,” said Don Quixote; “but go on, for the story is
+very good, and you, good Pedro, tell it with very good grace.”
+
+“May that of the Lord not be wanting to me,” said Pedro; “that is the
+one to have. To proceed; you must know that though the uncle put before
+his niece and described to her the qualities of each one in particular
+of the many who had asked her in marriage, begging her to marry and
+make a choice according to her own taste, she never gave any other
+answer than that she had no desire to marry just yet, and that being so
+young she did not think herself fit to bear the burden of matrimony. At
+these, to all appearance, reasonable excuses that she made, her uncle
+ceased to urge her, and waited till she was somewhat more advanced in
+age and could mate herself to her own liking. For, said he—and he said
+quite right—parents are not to settle children in life against their
+will. But when one least looked for it, lo and behold! one day the
+demure Marcela makes her appearance turned shepherdess; and, in spite
+of her uncle and all those of the town that strove to dissuade her,
+took to going a-field with the other shepherd-lasses of the village,
+and tending her own flock. And so, since she appeared in public, and
+her beauty came to be seen openly, I could not well tell you how many
+rich youths, gentlemen and peasants, have adopted the costume of
+Chrysostom, and go about these fields making love to her. One of these,
+as has been already said, was our deceased friend, of whom they say
+that he did not love but adore her. But you must not suppose, because
+Marcela chose a life of such liberty and independence, and of so little
+or rather no retirement, that she has given any occasion, or even the
+semblance of one, for disparagement of her purity and modesty; on the
+contrary, such and so great is the vigilance with which she watches
+over her honour, that of all those that court and woo her not one has
+boasted, or can with truth boast, that she has given him any hope
+however small of obtaining his desire. For although she does not avoid
+or shun the society and conversation of the shepherds, and treats them
+courteously and kindly, should any one of them come to declare his
+intention to her, though it be one as proper and holy as that of
+matrimony, she flings him from her like a catapult. And with this kind
+of disposition she does more harm in this country than if the plague
+had got into it, for her affability and her beauty draw on the hearts
+of those that associate with her to love her and to court her, but her
+scorn and her frankness bring them to the brink of despair; and so they
+know not what to say save to proclaim her aloud cruel and hard-hearted,
+and other names of the same sort which well describe the nature of her
+character; and if you should remain here any time, señor, you would
+hear these hills and valleys resounding with the laments of the
+rejected ones who pursue her. Not far from this there is a spot where
+there are a couple of dozen of tall beeches, and there is not one of
+them but has carved and written on its smooth bark the name of Marcela,
+and above some a crown carved on the same tree as though her lover
+would say more plainly that Marcela wore and deserved that of all human
+beauty. Here one shepherd is sighing, there another is lamenting; there
+love songs are heard, here despairing elegies. One will pass all the
+hours of the night seated at the foot of some oak or rock, and there,
+without having closed his weeping eyes, the sun finds him in the
+morning bemused and bereft of sense; and another without relief or
+respite to his sighs, stretched on the burning sand in the full heat of
+the sultry summer noontide, makes his appeal to the compassionate
+heavens, and over one and the other, over these and all, the beautiful
+Marcela triumphs free and careless. And all of us that know her are
+waiting to see what her pride will come to, and who is to be the happy
+man that will succeed in taming a nature so formidable and gaining
+possession of a beauty so supreme. All that I have told you being such
+well-established truth, I am persuaded that what they say of the cause
+of Chrysostom’s death, as our lad told us, is the same. And so I advise
+you, señor, fail not to be present to-morrow at his burial, which will
+be well worth seeing, for Chrysostom had many friends, and it is not
+half a league from this place to where he directed he should be
+buried.”
+
+“I will make a point of it,” said Don Quixote, “and I thank you for the
+pleasure you have given me by relating so interesting a tale.”
+
+“Oh,” said the goatherd, “I do not know even the half of what has
+happened to the lovers of Marcela, but perhaps to-morrow we may fall in
+with some shepherd on the road who can tell us; and now it will be well
+for you to go and sleep under cover, for the night air may hurt your
+wound, though with the remedy I have applied to you there is no fear of
+an untoward result.”
+
+Sancho Panza, who was wishing the goatherd’s loquacity at the devil, on
+his part begged his master to go into Pedro’s hut to sleep. He did so,
+and passed all the rest of the night in thinking of his lady Dulcinea,
+in imitation of the lovers of Marcela. Sancho Panza settled himself
+between Rocinante and his ass, and slept, not like a lover who had been
+discarded, but like a man who had been soundly kicked.
+
+
+
+c12e.jpg (42K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+IN WHICH IS ENDED THE STORY OF THE SHEPHERDESS MARCELA, WITH OTHER
+INCIDENTS
+
+
+
+c13a.jpg (181K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+But hardly had day begun to show itself through the balconies of the
+east, when five of the six goatherds came to rouse Don Quixote and tell
+him that if he was still of a mind to go and see the famous burial of
+Chrysostom they would bear him company. Don Quixote, who desired
+nothing better, rose and ordered Sancho to saddle and pannel at once,
+which he did with all despatch, and with the same they all set out
+forthwith. They had not gone a quarter of a league when at the meeting
+of two paths they saw coming towards them some six shepherds dressed in
+black sheepskins and with their heads crowned with garlands of cypress
+and bitter oleander. Each of them carried a stout holly staff in his
+hand, and along with them there came two men of quality on horseback in
+handsome travelling dress, with three servants on foot accompanying
+them. Courteous salutations were exchanged on meeting, and inquiring
+one of the other which way each party was going, they learned that all
+were bound for the scene of the burial, so they went on all together.
+
+One of those on horseback addressing his companion said to him, “It
+seems to me, Señor Vivaldo, that we may reckon as well spent the delay
+we shall incur in seeing this remarkable funeral, for remarkable it
+cannot but be judging by the strange things these shepherds have told
+us, of both the dead shepherd and homicide shepherdess.”
+
+“So I think too,” replied Vivaldo, “and I would delay not to say a day,
+but four, for the sake of seeing it.”
+
+Don Quixote asked them what it was they had heard of Marcela and
+Chrysostom. The traveller answered that the same morning they had met
+these shepherds, and seeing them dressed in this mournful fashion they
+had asked them the reason of their appearing in such a guise; which one
+of them gave, describing the strange behaviour and beauty of a
+shepherdess called Marcela, and the loves of many who courted her,
+together with the death of that Chrysostom to whose burial they were
+going. In short, he repeated all that Pedro had related to Don Quixote.
+
+This conversation dropped, and another was commenced by him who was
+called Vivaldo asking Don Quixote what was the reason that led him to
+go armed in that fashion in a country so peaceful. To which Don Quixote
+replied, “The pursuit of my calling does not allow or permit me to go
+in any other fashion; easy life, enjoyment, and repose were invented
+for soft courtiers, but toil, unrest, and arms were invented and made
+for those alone whom the world calls knights-errant, of whom I, though
+unworthy, am the least of all.”
+
+The instant they heard this all set him down as mad, and the better to
+settle the point and discover what kind of madness his was, Vivaldo
+proceeded to ask him what knights-errant meant.
+
+“Have not your worships,” replied Don Quixote, “read the annals and
+histories of England, in which are recorded the famous deeds of King
+Arthur, whom we in our popular Castilian invariably call King Artus,
+with regard to whom it is an ancient tradition, and commonly received
+all over that kingdom of Great Britain, that this king did not die, but
+was changed by magic art into a raven, and that in process of time he
+is to return to reign and recover his kingdom and sceptre; for which
+reason it cannot be proved that from that time to this any Englishman
+ever killed a raven? Well, then, in the time of this good king that
+famous order of chivalry of the Knights of the Round Table was
+instituted, and the amour of Don Lancelot of the Lake with the Queen
+Guinevere occurred, precisely as is there related, the go-between and
+confidante therein being the highly honourable dame Quintañona, whence
+came that ballad so well known and widely spread in our Spain—
+
+O never surely was there knight
+    So served by hand of dame,
+As served was he Sir Lancelot hight
+    When he from Britain came—
+
+
+with all the sweet and delectable course of his achievements in love
+and war. Handed down from that time, then, this order of chivalry went
+on extending and spreading itself over many and various parts of the
+world; and in it, famous and renowned for their deeds, were the mighty
+Amadis of Gaul with all his sons and descendants to the fifth
+generation, and the valiant Felixmarte of Hircania, and the never
+sufficiently praised Tirante el Blanco, and in our own days almost we
+have seen and heard and talked with the invincible knight Don Belianis
+of Greece. This, then, sirs, is to be a knight-errant, and what I have
+spoken of is the order of his chivalry, of which, as I have already
+said, I, though a sinner, have made profession, and what the aforesaid
+knights professed that same do I profess, and so I go through these
+solitudes and wilds seeking adventures, resolved in soul to oppose my
+arm and person to the most perilous that fortune may offer me in aid of
+the weak and needy.”
+
+By these words of his the travellers were able to satisfy themselves of
+Don Quixote’s being out of his senses and of the form of madness that
+overmastered him, at which they felt the same astonishment that all
+felt on first becoming acquainted with it; and Vivaldo, who was a
+person of great shrewdness and of a lively temperament, in order to
+beguile the short journey which they said was required to reach the
+mountain, the scene of the burial, sought to give him an opportunity of
+going on with his absurdities. So he said to him, “It seems to me,
+Señor Knight-errant, that your worship has made choice of one of the
+most austere professions in the world, and I imagine even that of the
+Carthusian monks is not so austere.”
+
+“As austere it may perhaps be,” replied our Don Quixote, “but so
+necessary for the world I am very much inclined to doubt. For, if the
+truth is to be told, the soldier who executes what his captain orders
+does no less than the captain himself who gives the order. My meaning,
+is, that churchmen in peace and quiet pray to Heaven for the welfare of
+the world, but we soldiers and knights carry into effect what they pray
+for, defending it with the might of our arms and the edge of our
+swords, not under shelter but in the open air, a target for the
+intolerable rays of the sun in summer and the piercing frosts of
+winter. Thus are we God’s ministers on earth and the arms by which his
+justice is done therein. And as the business of war and all that
+relates and belongs to it cannot be conducted without exceeding great
+sweat, toil, and exertion, it follows that those who make it their
+profession have undoubtedly more labour than those who in tranquil
+peace and quiet are engaged in praying to God to help the weak. I do
+not mean to say, nor does it enter into my thoughts, that the
+knight-errant’s calling is as good as that of the monk in his cell; I
+would merely infer from what I endure myself that it is beyond a doubt
+a more laborious and a more belaboured one, a hungrier and thirstier, a
+wretcheder, raggeder, and lousier; for there is no reason to doubt that
+the knights-errant of yore endured much hardship in the course of their
+lives. And if some of them by the might of their arms did rise to be
+emperors, in faith it cost them dear in the matter of blood and sweat;
+and if those who attained to that rank had not had magicians and sages
+to help them they would have been completely baulked in their ambition
+and disappointed in their hopes.”
+
+“That is my own opinion,” replied the traveller; “but one thing among
+many others seems to me very wrong in knights-errant, and that is that
+when they find themselves about to engage in some mighty and perilous
+adventure in which there is manifest danger of losing their lives, they
+never at the moment of engaging in it think of commending themselves to
+God, as is the duty of every good Christian in like peril; instead of
+which they commend themselves to their ladies with as much devotion as
+if these were their gods, a thing which seems to me to savour somewhat
+of heathenism.”
+
+“Sir,” answered Don Quixote, “that cannot be on any account omitted,
+and the knight-errant would be disgraced who acted otherwise: for it is
+usual and customary in knight-errantry that the knight-errant, who on
+engaging in any great feat of arms has his lady before him, should turn
+his eyes towards her softly and lovingly, as though with them
+entreating her to favour and protect him in the hazardous venture he is
+about to undertake, and even though no one hear him, he is bound to say
+certain words between his teeth, commending himself to her with all his
+heart, and of this we have innumerable instances in the histories. Nor
+is it to be supposed from this that they are to omit commending
+themselves to God, for there will be time and opportunity for doing so
+while they are engaged in their task.”
+
+“For all that,” answered the traveller, “I feel some doubt still,
+because often I have read how words will arise between two
+knights-errant, and from one thing to another it comes about that their
+anger kindles and they wheel their horses round and take a good stretch
+of field, and then without any more ado at the top of their speed they
+come to the charge, and in mid-career they are wont to commend
+themselves to their ladies; and what commonly comes of the encounter is
+that one falls over the haunches of his horse pierced through and
+through by his antagonist’s lance, and as for the other, it is only by
+holding on to the mane of his horse that he can help falling to the
+ground; but I know not how the dead man had time to commend himself to
+God in the course of such rapid work as this; it would have been better
+if those words which he spent in commending himself to his lady in the
+midst of his career had been devoted to his duty and obligation as a
+Christian. Moreover, it is my belief that all knights-errant have not
+ladies to commend themselves to, for they are not all in love.”
+
+“That is impossible,” said Don Quixote: “I say it is impossible that
+there could be a knight-errant without a lady, because to such it is as
+natural and proper to be in love as to the heavens to have stars: most
+certainly no history has been seen in which there is to be found a
+knight-errant without an amour, and for the simple reason that without
+one he would be held no legitimate knight but a bastard, and one who
+had gained entrance into the stronghold of the said knighthood, not by
+the door, but over the wall like a thief and a robber.”
+
+“Nevertheless,” said the traveller, “if I remember rightly, I think I
+have read that Don Galaor, the brother of the valiant Amadis of Gaul,
+never had any special lady to whom he might commend himself, and yet he
+was not the less esteemed, and was a very stout and famous knight.”
+
+To which our Don Quixote made answer, “Sir, one solitary swallow does
+not make summer; moreover, I know that knight was in secret very deeply
+in love; besides which, that way of falling in love with all that took
+his fancy was a natural propensity which he could not control. But, in
+short, it is very manifest that he had one alone whom he made mistress
+of his will, to whom he commended himself very frequently and very
+secretly, for he prided himself on being a reticent knight.”
+
+“Then if it be essential that every knight-errant should be in love,”
+said the traveller, “it may be fairly supposed that your worship is so,
+as you are of the order; and if you do not pride yourself on being as
+reticent as Don Galaor, I entreat you as earnestly as I can, in the
+name of all this company and in my own, to inform us of the name,
+country, rank, and beauty of your lady, for she will esteem herself
+fortunate if all the world knows that she is loved and served by such a
+knight as your worship seems to be.”
+
+At this Don Quixote heaved a deep sigh and said, “I cannot say
+positively whether my sweet enemy is pleased or not that the world
+should know I serve her; I can only say in answer to what has been so
+courteously asked of me, that her name is Dulcinea, her country El
+Toboso, a village of La Mancha, her rank must be at least that of a
+princess, since she is my queen and lady, and her beauty superhuman,
+since all the impossible and fanciful attributes of beauty which the
+poets apply to their ladies are verified in her; for her hairs are
+gold, her forehead Elysian fields, her eyebrows rainbows, her eyes
+suns, her cheeks roses, her lips coral, her teeth pearls, her neck
+alabaster, her bosom marble, her hands ivory, her fairness snow, and
+what modesty conceals from sight such, I think and imagine, as rational
+reflection can only extol, not compare.”
+
+“We should like to know her lineage, race, and ancestry,” said Vivaldo.
+
+To which Don Quixote replied, “She is not of the ancient Roman Curtii,
+Caii, or Scipios, nor of the modern Colonnas or Orsini, nor of the
+Moncadas or Requesenes of Catalonia, nor yet of the Rebellas or
+Villanovas of Valencia; Palafoxes, Nuzas, Rocabertis, Corellas, Lunas,
+Alagones, Urreas, Foces, or Gurreas of Aragon; Cerdas, Manriques,
+Mendozas, or Guzmans of Castile; Alencastros, Pallas, or Meneses of
+Portugal; but she is of those of El Toboso of La Mancha, a lineage that
+though modern, may furnish a source of gentle blood for the most
+illustrious families of the ages that are to come, and this let none
+dispute with me save on the condition that Zerbino placed at the foot
+of the trophy of Orlando’s arms, saying,
+
+    These let none move
+    Who dareth not his might with Roland prove.”
+
+
+“Although mine is of the Cachopins of Laredo,” said the traveller, “I
+will not venture to compare it with that of El Toboso of La Mancha,
+though, to tell the truth, no such surname has until now ever reached
+my ears.”
+
+“What!” said Don Quixote, “has that never reached them?”
+
+The rest of the party went along listening with great attention to the
+conversation of the pair, and even the very goatherds and shepherds
+perceived how exceedingly out of his wits our Don Quixote was. Sancho
+Panza alone thought that what his master said was the truth, knowing
+who he was and having known him from his birth; and all that he felt
+any difficulty in believing was that about the fair Dulcinea del
+Toboso, because neither any such name nor any such princess had ever
+come to his knowledge though he lived so close to El Toboso. They were
+going along conversing in this way, when they saw descending a gap
+between two high mountains some twenty shepherds, all clad in
+sheepskins of black wool, and crowned with garlands which, as
+afterwards appeared, were, some of them of yew, some of cypress. Six of
+the number were carrying a bier covered with a great variety of flowers
+and branches, on seeing which one of the goatherds said, “Those who
+come there are the bearers of Chrysostom’s body, and the foot of that
+mountain is the place where he ordered them to bury him.” They
+therefore made haste to reach the spot, and did so by the time those
+who came had laid the bier upon the ground, and four of them with sharp
+pickaxes were digging a grave by the side of a hard rock. They greeted
+each other courteously, and then Don Quixote and those who accompanied
+him turned to examine the bier, and on it, covered with flowers, they
+saw a dead body in the dress of a shepherd, to all appearance of one
+thirty years of age, and showing even in death that in life he had been
+of comely features and gallant bearing. Around him on the bier itself
+were laid some books, and several papers open and folded; and those who
+were looking on as well as those who were opening the grave and all the
+others who were there preserved a strange silence, until one of those
+who had borne the body said to another, “Observe carefully, Ambrosio if
+this is the place Chrysostom spoke of, since you are anxious that what
+he directed in his will should be so strictly complied with.”
+
+“This is the place,” answered Ambrosio “for in it many a time did my
+poor friend tell me the story of his hard fortune. Here it was, he told
+me, that he saw for the first time that mortal enemy of the human race,
+and here, too, for the first time he declared to her his passion, as
+honourable as it was devoted, and here it was that at last Marcela
+ended by scorning and rejecting him so as to bring the tragedy of his
+wretched life to a close; here, in memory of misfortunes so great, he
+desired to be laid in the bowels of eternal oblivion.” Then turning to
+Don Quixote and the travellers he went on to say, “That body, sirs, on
+which you are looking with compassionate eyes, was the abode of a soul
+on which Heaven bestowed a vast share of its riches. That is the body
+of Chrysostom, who was unrivalled in wit, unequalled in courtesy,
+unapproached in gentle bearing, a phœnix in friendship, generous
+without limit, grave without arrogance, gay without vulgarity, and, in
+short, first in all that constitutes goodness and second to none in all
+that makes up misfortune. He loved deeply, he was hated; he adored, he
+was scorned; he wooed a wild beast, he pleaded with marble, he pursued
+the wind, he cried to the wilderness, he served ingratitude, and for
+reward was made the prey of death in the mid-course of life, cut short
+by a shepherdess whom he sought to immortalise in the memory of man, as
+these papers which you see could fully prove, had he not commanded me
+to consign them to the fire after having consigned his body to the
+earth.”
+
+“You would deal with them more harshly and cruelly than their owner
+himself,” said Vivaldo, “for it is neither right nor proper to do the
+will of one who enjoins what is wholly unreasonable; it would not have
+been reasonable in Augustus Cæsar had he permitted the directions left
+by the divine Mantuan in his will to be carried into effect. So that,
+Señor Ambrosio while you consign your friend’s body to the earth, you
+should not consign his writings to oblivion, for if he gave the order
+in bitterness of heart, it is not right that you should irrationally
+obey it. On the contrary, by granting life to those papers, let the
+cruelty of Marcela live for ever, to serve as a warning in ages to come
+to all men to shun and avoid falling into like danger; or I and all of
+us who have come here know already the story of this your love-stricken
+and heart-broken friend, and we know, too, your friendship, and the
+cause of his death, and the directions he gave at the close of his
+life; from which sad story may be gathered how great was the cruelty of
+Marcela, the love of Chrysostom, and the loyalty of your friendship,
+together with the end awaiting those who pursue rashly the path that
+insane passion opens to their eyes. Last night we learned the death of
+Chrysostom and that he was to be buried here, and out of curiosity and
+pity we left our direct road and resolved to come and see with our eyes
+that which when heard of had so moved our compassion, and in
+consideration of that compassion and our desire to prove it if we might
+by condolence, we beg of you, excellent Ambrosio, or at least I on my
+own account entreat you, that instead of burning those papers you allow
+me to carry away some of them.”
+
+And without waiting for the shepherd’s answer, he stretched out his
+hand and took up some of those that were nearest to him; seeing which
+Ambrosio said, “Out of courtesy, señor, I will grant your request as to
+those you have taken, but it is idle to expect me to abstain from
+burning the remainder.”
+
+Vivaldo, who was eager to see what the papers contained, opened one of
+them at once, and saw that its title was “Lay of Despair.”
+
+Ambrosio hearing it said, “That is the last paper the unhappy man
+wrote; and that you may see, señor, to what an end his misfortunes
+brought him, read it so that you may be heard, for you will have time
+enough for that while we are waiting for the grave to be dug.”
+
+“I will do so very willingly,” said Vivaldo; and as all the bystanders
+were equally eager they gathered round him, and he, reading in a loud
+voice, found that it ran as follows.
+
+
+
+c13e.jpg (15K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+WHEREIN ARE INSERTED THE DESPAIRING VERSES OF THE DEAD SHEPHERD,
+TOGETHER WITH OTHER INCIDENTS NOT LOOKED FOR
+
+
+
+c14a.jpg (172K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+THE LAY OF CHRYSOSTOM
+
+Since thou dost in thy cruelty desire
+The ruthless rigour of thy tyranny
+From tongue to tongue, from land to land proclaimed,
+The very Hell will I constrain to lend
+This stricken breast of mine deep notes of woe
+To serve my need of fitting utterance.
+And as I strive to body forth the tale
+Of all I suffer, all that thou hast done,
+Forth shall the dread voice roll, and bear along
+Shreds from my vitals torn for greater pain.
+Then listen, not to dulcet harmony,
+But to a discord wrung by mad despair
+Out of this bosom’s depths of bitterness,
+To ease my heart and plant a sting in thine.
+
+The lion’s roar, the fierce wolf’s savage howl,
+The horrid hissing of the scaly snake,
+The awesome cries of monsters yet unnamed,
+The crow’s ill-boding croak, the hollow moan
+Of wild winds wrestling with the restless sea,
+The wrathful bellow of the vanquished bull,
+The plaintive sobbing of the widowed dove,
+The envied owl’s sad note, the wail of woe
+That rises from the dreary choir of Hell,
+Commingled in one sound, confusing sense,
+Let all these come to aid my soul’s complaint,
+For pain like mine demands new modes of song.
+
+No echoes of that discord shall be heard
+Where Father Tagus rolls, or on the banks
+Of olive-bordered Betis; to the rocks
+Or in deep caverns shall my plaint be told,
+And by a lifeless tongue in living words;
+Or in dark valleys or on lonely shores,
+Where neither foot of man nor sunbeam falls;
+Or in among the poison-breathing swarms
+Of monsters nourished by the sluggish Nile.
+For, though it be to solitudes remote
+The hoarse vague echoes of my sorrows sound
+Thy matchless cruelty, my dismal fate
+Shall carry them to all the spacious world.
+
+Disdain hath power to kill, and patience dies
+Slain by suspicion, be it false or true;
+And deadly is the force of jealousy;
+Long absence makes of life a dreary void;
+No hope of happiness can give repose
+To him that ever fears to be forgot;
+And death, inevitable, waits in hall.
+But I, by some strange miracle, live on
+A prey to absence, jealousy, disdain;
+Racked by suspicion as by certainty;
+Forgotten, left to feed my flame alone.
+And while I suffer thus, there comes no ray
+Of hope to gladden me athwart the gloom;
+Nor do I look for it in my despair;
+But rather clinging to a cureless woe,
+All hope do I abjure for evermore.
+
+Can there be hope where fear is? Were it well,
+When far more certain are the grounds of fear?
+Ought I to shut mine eyes to jealousy,
+If through a thousand heart-wounds it appears?
+Who would not give free access to distrust,
+Seeing disdain unveiled, and—bitter change!—
+All his suspicions turned to certainties,
+And the fair truth transformed into a lie?
+Oh, thou fierce tyrant of the realms of love,
+Oh, Jealousy! put chains upon these hands,
+And bind me with thy strongest cord, Disdain.
+But, woe is me! triumphant over all,
+My sufferings drown the memory of you.
+
+And now I die, and since there is no hope
+Of happiness for me in life or death,
+Still to my fantasy I’ll fondly cling.
+I’ll say that he is wise who loveth well,
+And that the soul most free is that most bound
+In thraldom to the ancient tyrant Love.
+I’ll say that she who is mine enemy
+In that fair body hath as fair a mind,
+And that her coldness is but my desert,
+And that by virtue of the pain he sends
+Love rules his kingdom with a gentle sway.
+Thus, self-deluding, and in bondage sore,
+And wearing out the wretched shred of life
+To which I am reduced by her disdain,
+I’ll give this soul and body to the winds,
+All hopeless of a crown of bliss in store.
+
+Thou whose injustice hath supplied the cause
+That makes me quit the weary life I loathe,
+As by this wounded bosom thou canst see
+How willingly thy victim I become,
+Let not my death, if haply worth a tear,
+Cloud the clear heaven that dwells in thy bright eyes;
+I would not have thee expiate in aught
+The crime of having made my heart thy prey;
+But rather let thy laughter gaily ring
+And prove my death to be thy festival.
+Fool that I am to bid thee! well I know
+Thy glory gains by my untimely end.
+
+And now it is the time; from Hell’s abyss
+Come thirsting Tantalus, come Sisyphus
+Heaving the cruel stone, come Tityus
+With vulture, and with wheel Ixion come,
+And come the sisters of the ceaseless toil;
+And all into this breast transfer their pains,
+And (if such tribute to despair be due)
+Chant in their deepest tones a doleful dirge
+Over a corse unworthy of a shroud.
+Let the three-headed guardian of the gate,
+And all the monstrous progeny of hell,
+The doleful concert join: a lover dead
+Methinks can have no fitter obsequies.
+
+Lay of despair, grieve not when thou art gone
+Forth from this sorrowing heart: my misery
+Brings fortune to the cause that gave thee birth;
+Then banish sadness even in the tomb.
+
+
+The “Lay of Chrysostom” met with the approbation of the listeners,
+though the reader said it did not seem to him to agree with what he had
+heard of Marcela’s reserve and propriety, for Chrysostom complained in
+it of jealousy, suspicion, and absence, all to the prejudice of the
+good name and fame of Marcela; to which Ambrosio replied as one who
+knew well his friend’s most secret thoughts, “Señor, to remove that
+doubt I should tell you that when the unhappy man wrote this lay he was
+away from Marcela, from whom he had voluntarily separated himself, to
+try if absence would act with him as it is wont; and as everything
+distresses and every fear haunts the banished lover, so imaginary
+jealousies and suspicions, dreaded as if they were true, tormented
+Chrysostom; and thus the truth of what report declares of the virtue of
+Marcela remains unshaken, and with her envy itself should not and
+cannot find any fault save that of being cruel, somewhat haughty, and
+very scornful.”
+
+“That is true,” said Vivaldo; and as he was about to read another paper
+of those he had preserved from the fire, he was stopped by a marvellous
+vision (for such it seemed) that unexpectedly presented itself to their
+eyes; for on the summit of the rock where they were digging the grave
+there appeared the shepherdess Marcela, so beautiful that her beauty
+exceeded its reputation. Those who had never till then beheld her gazed
+upon her in wonder and silence, and those who were accustomed to see
+her were not less amazed than those who had never seen her before. But
+the instant Ambrosio saw her he addressed her, with manifest
+indignation:
+
+“Art thou come, by chance, cruel basilisk of these mountains, to see if
+in thy presence blood will flow from the wounds of this wretched being
+thy cruelty has robbed of life; or is it to exult over the cruel work
+of thy humours that thou art come; or like another pitiless Nero to
+look down from that height upon the ruin of his Rome in embers; or in
+thy arrogance to trample on this ill-fated corpse, as the ungrateful
+daughter trampled on her father Tarquin’s? Tell us quickly for what
+thou art come, or what it is thou wouldst have, for, as I know the
+thoughts of Chrysostom never failed to obey thee in life, I will make
+all these who call themselves his friends obey thee, though he be
+dead.”
+
+“I come not, Ambrosio for any of the purposes thou hast named,” replied
+Marcela, “but to defend myself and to prove how unreasonable are all
+those who blame me for their sorrow and for Chrysostom’s death; and
+therefore I ask all of you that are here to give me your attention, for
+it will not take much time or many words to bring the truth home to
+persons of sense. Heaven has made me, so you say, beautiful, and so
+much so that in spite of yourselves my beauty leads you to love me; and
+for the love you show me you say, and even urge, that I am bound to
+love you. By that natural understanding which God has given me I know
+that everything beautiful attracts love, but I cannot see how, by
+reason of being loved, that which is loved for its beauty is bound to
+love that which loves it; besides, it may happen that the lover of that
+which is beautiful may be ugly, and ugliness being detestable, it is
+very absurd to say, “I love thee because thou art beautiful, thou must
+love me though I be ugly.” But supposing the beauty equal on both
+sides, it does not follow that the inclinations must be therefore
+alike, for it is not every beauty that excites love, some but pleasing
+the eye without winning the affection; and if every sort of beauty
+excited love and won the heart, the will would wander vaguely to and
+fro unable to make choice of any; for as there is an infinity of
+beautiful objects there must be an infinity of inclinations, and true
+love, I have heard it said, is indivisible, and must be voluntary and
+not compelled. If this be so, as I believe it to be, why do you desire
+me to bend my will by force, for no other reason but that you say you
+love me? Nay—tell me—had Heaven made me ugly, as it has made me
+beautiful, could I with justice complain of you for not loving me?
+Moreover, you must remember that the beauty I possess was no choice of
+mine, for, be it what it may, Heaven of its bounty gave it me without
+my asking or choosing it; and as the viper, though it kills with it,
+does not deserve to be blamed for the poison it carries, as it is a
+gift of nature, neither do I deserve reproach for being beautiful; for
+beauty in a modest woman is like fire at a distance or a sharp sword;
+the one does not burn, the other does not cut, those who do not come
+too near. Honour and virtue are the ornaments of the mind, without
+which the body, though it be so, has no right to pass for beautiful;
+but if modesty is one of the virtues that specially lend a grace and
+charm to mind and body, why should she who is loved for her beauty part
+with it to gratify one who for his pleasure alone strives with all his
+might and energy to rob her of it? I was born free, and that I might
+live in freedom I chose the solitude of the fields; in the trees of the
+mountains I find society, the clear waters of the brooks are my
+mirrors, and to the trees and waters I make known my thoughts and
+charms. I am a fire afar off, a sword laid aside. Those whom I have
+inspired with love by letting them see me, I have by words undeceived,
+and if their longings live on hope—and I have given none to Chrysostom
+or to any other—it cannot justly be said that the death of any is my
+doing, for it was rather his own obstinacy than my cruelty that killed
+him; and if it be made a charge against me that his wishes were
+honourable, and that therefore I was bound to yield to them, I answer
+that when on this very spot where now his grave is made he declared to
+me his purity of purpose, I told him that mine was to live in perpetual
+solitude, and that the earth alone should enjoy the fruits of my
+retirement and the spoils of my beauty; and if, after this open avowal,
+he chose to persist against hope and steer against the wind, what
+wonder is it that he should sink in the depths of his infatuation? If I
+had encouraged him, I should be false; if I had gratified him, I should
+have acted against my own better resolution and purpose. He was
+persistent in spite of warning, he despaired without being hated.
+Bethink you now if it be reasonable that his suffering should be laid
+to my charge. Let him who has been deceived complain, let him give way
+to despair whose encouraged hopes have proved vain, let him flatter
+himself whom I shall entice, let him boast whom I shall receive; but
+let not him call me cruel or homicide to whom I make no promise, upon
+whom I practise no deception, whom I neither entice nor receive. It has
+not been so far the will of Heaven that I should love by fate, and to
+expect me to love by choice is idle. Let this general declaration serve
+for each of my suitors on his own account, and let it be understood
+from this time forth that if anyone dies for me it is not of jealousy
+or misery he dies, for she who loves no one can give no cause for
+jealousy to any, and candour is not to be confounded with scorn. Let
+him who calls me wild beast and basilisk, leave me alone as something
+noxious and evil; let him who calls me ungrateful, withhold his
+service; who calls me wayward, seek not my acquaintance; who calls me
+cruel, pursue me not; for this wild beast, this basilisk, this
+ungrateful, cruel, wayward being has no kind of desire to seek, serve,
+know, or follow them. If Chrysostom’s impatience and violent passion
+killed him, why should my modest behaviour and circumspection be
+blamed? If I preserve my purity in the society of the trees, why should
+he who would have me preserve it among men, seek to rob me of it? I
+have, as you know, wealth of my own, and I covet not that of others; my
+taste is for freedom, and I have no relish for constraint; I neither
+love nor hate anyone; I do not deceive this one or court that, or
+trifle with one or play with another. The modest converse of the
+shepherd girls of these hamlets and the care of my goats are my
+recreations; my desires are bounded by these mountains, and if they
+ever wander hence it is to contemplate the beauty of the heavens, steps
+by which the soul travels to its primeval abode.”
+
+With these words, and not waiting to hear a reply, she turned and
+passed into the thickest part of a wood that was hard by, leaving all
+who were there lost in admiration as much of her good sense as of her
+beauty. Some—those wounded by the irresistible shafts launched by her
+bright eyes—made as though they would follow her, heedless of the frank
+declaration they had heard; seeing which, and deeming this a fitting
+occasion for the exercise of his chivalry in aid of distressed damsels,
+Don Quixote, laying his hand on the hilt of his sword, exclaimed in a
+loud and distinct voice:
+
+“Let no one, whatever his rank or condition, dare to follow the
+beautiful Marcela, under pain of incurring my fierce indignation. She
+has shown by clear and satisfactory arguments that little or no fault
+is to be found with her for the death of Chrysostom, and also how far
+she is from yielding to the wishes of any of her lovers, for which
+reason, instead of being followed and persecuted, she should in justice
+be honoured and esteemed by all the good people of the world, for she
+shows that she is the only woman in it that holds to such a virtuous
+resolution.”
+
+Whether it was because of the threats of Don Quixote, or because
+Ambrosio told them to fulfil their duty to their good friend, none of
+the shepherds moved or stirred from the spot until, having finished the
+grave and burned Chrysostom’s papers, they laid his body in it, not
+without many tears from those who stood by. They closed the grave with
+a heavy stone until a slab was ready which Ambrosio said he meant to
+have prepared, with an epitaph which was to be to this effect:
+
+Beneath the stone before your eyes
+The body of a lover lies;
+In life he was a shepherd swain,
+In death a victim to disdain.
+Ungrateful, cruel, coy, and fair,
+Was she that drove him to despair,
+And Love hath made her his ally
+For spreading wide his tyranny.
+
+
+They then strewed upon the grave a profusion of flowers and branches,
+and all expressing their condolence with his friend Ambrosio, took
+their leave. Vivaldo and his companion did the same; and Don Quixote
+bade farewell to his hosts and to the travellers, who pressed him to
+come with them to Seville, as being such a convenient place for finding
+adventures, for they presented themselves in every street and round
+every corner oftener than anywhere else. Don Quixote thanked them for
+their advice and for the disposition they showed to do him a favour,
+and said that for the present he would not, and must not go to Seville
+until he had cleared all these mountains of highwaymen and robbers, of
+whom report said they were full. Seeing his good intention, the
+travellers were unwilling to press him further, and once more bidding
+him farewell, they left him and pursued their journey, in the course of
+which they did not fail to discuss the story of Marcela and Chrysostom
+as well as the madness of Don Quixote. He, on his part, resolved to go
+in quest of the shepherdess Marcela, and make offer to her of all the
+service he could render her; but things did not fall out with him as he
+expected, according to what is related in the course of this veracious
+history, of which the Second Part ends here.
+
+
+
+c14e.jpg (31K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+IN WHICH IS RELATED THE UNFORTUNATE ADVENTURE THAT DON QUIXOTE FELL IN
+WITH WHEN HE FELL OUT WITH CERTAIN HEARTLESS YANGUESANS
+
+
+
+
+c15a.jpg (81K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+The sage Cid Hamete Benengeli relates that as soon as Don Quixote took
+leave of his hosts and all who had been present at the burial of
+Chrysostom, he and his squire passed into the same wood which they had
+seen the shepherdess Marcela enter, and after having wandered for more
+than two hours in all directions in search of her without finding her,
+they came to a halt in a glade covered with tender grass, beside which
+ran a pleasant cool stream that invited and compelled them to pass
+there the hours of the noontide heat, which by this time was beginning
+to come on oppressively. Don Quixote and Sancho dismounted, and turning
+Rocinante and the ass loose to feed on the grass that was there in
+abundance, they ransacked the alforjas, and without any ceremony very
+peacefully and sociably master and man made their repast on what they
+found in them.
+
+
+
+c15b.jpg (376K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Sancho had not thought it worth while to hobble Rocinante, feeling
+sure, from what he knew of his staidness and freedom from incontinence,
+that all the mares in the Cordova pastures would not lead him into an
+impropriety. Chance, however, and the devil, who is not always asleep,
+so ordained it that feeding in this valley there was a drove of
+Galician ponies belonging to certain Yanguesan carriers, whose way it
+is to take their midday rest with their teams in places and spots where
+grass and water abound; and that where Don Quixote chanced to be suited
+the Yanguesans’ purpose very well. It so happened, then, that Rocinante
+took a fancy to disport himself with their ladyships the ponies, and
+abandoning his usual gait and demeanour as he scented them, he, without
+asking leave of his master, got up a briskish little trot and hastened
+to make known his wishes to them; they, however, it seemed, preferred
+their pasture to him, and received him with their heels and teeth to
+such effect that they soon broke his girths and left him naked without
+a saddle to cover him; but what must have been worse to him was that
+the carriers, seeing the violence he was offering to their mares, came
+running up armed with stakes, and so belaboured him that they brought
+him sorely battered to the ground.
+
+By this time Don Quixote and Sancho, who had witnessed the drubbing of
+Rocinante, came up panting, and said Don Quixote to Sancho:
+
+“So far as I can see, friend Sancho, these are not knights but base
+folk of low birth: I mention it because thou canst lawfully aid me in
+taking due vengeance for the insult offered to Rocinante before our
+eyes.”
+
+“What the devil vengeance can we take,” answered Sancho, “if they are
+more than twenty, and we no more than two, or, indeed, perhaps not more
+than one and a half?”
+
+“I count for a hundred,” replied Don Quixote, and without more words he
+drew his sword and attacked the Yanguesans and excited and impelled by
+the example of his master, Sancho did the same; and to begin with, Don
+Quixote delivered a slash at one of them that laid open the leather
+jerkin he wore, together with a great portion of his shoulder. The
+Yanguesans, seeing themselves assaulted by only two men while they were
+so many, betook themselves to their stakes, and driving the two into
+the middle they began to lay on with great zeal and energy; in fact, at
+the second blow they brought Sancho to the ground, and Don Quixote
+fared the same way, all his skill and high mettle availing him nothing,
+and fate willed it that he should fall at the feet of Rocinante, who
+had not yet risen; whereby it may be seen how furiously stakes can
+pound in angry boorish hands.
+
+
+
+c15c.jpg (362K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Then, seeing the mischief they had done, the Yanguesans with all the
+haste they could loaded their team and pursued their journey, leaving
+the two adventurers a sorry sight and in sorrier mood.
+
+Sancho was the first to come to, and finding himself close to his
+master he called to him in a weak and doleful voice, “Señor Don
+Quixote, ah, Señor Don Quixote!”
+
+“What wouldst thou, brother Sancho?” answered Don Quixote in the same
+feeble suffering tone as Sancho.
+
+“I would like, if it were possible,” answered Sancho Panza, “your
+worship to give me a couple of sups of that potion of the fiery Blas,
+if it be that you have any to hand there; perhaps it will serve for
+broken bones as well as for wounds.”
+
+“If I only had it here, wretch that I am, what more should we want?”
+said Don Quixote; “but I swear to thee, Sancho Panza, on the faith of a
+knight-errant, ere two days are over, unless fortune orders otherwise,
+I mean to have it in my possession, or my hand will have lost its
+cunning.”
+
+“But in how many does your worship think we shall have the use of our
+feet?” answered Sancho Panza.
+
+“For myself I must say I cannot guess how many,” said the battered
+knight Don Quixote; “but I take all the blame upon myself, for I had no
+business to put hand to sword against men who where not dubbed knights
+like myself, and so I believe that in punishment for having
+transgressed the laws of chivalry the God of battles has permitted this
+chastisement to be administered to me; for which reason, brother
+Sancho, it is well thou shouldst receive a hint on the matter which I
+am now about to mention to thee, for it is of much importance to the
+welfare of both of us. It is that when thou shalt see rabble of this
+sort offering us insult thou art not to wait till I draw sword against
+them, for I shall not do so at all; but do thou draw sword and chastise
+them to thy heart’s content, and if any knights come to their aid and
+defence I will take care to defend thee and assail them with all my
+might; and thou hast already seen by a thousand signs and proofs what
+the might of this strong arm of mine is equal to”—so uplifted had the
+poor gentleman become through the victory over the stout Biscayan.
+
+But Sancho did not so fully approve of his master’s admonition as to
+let it pass without saying in reply, “Señor, I am a man of peace, meek
+and quiet, and I can put up with any affront because I have a wife and
+children to support and bring up; so let it be likewise a hint to your
+worship, as it cannot be a mandate, that on no account will I draw
+sword either against clown or against knight, and that here before God
+I forgive the insults that have been offered me, whether they have
+been, are, or shall be offered me by high or low, rich or poor, noble
+or commoner, not excepting any rank or condition whatsoever.”
+
+To all which his master said in reply, “I wish I had breath enough to
+speak somewhat easily, and that the pain I feel on this side would
+abate so as to let me explain to thee, Panza, the mistake thou makest.
+Come now, sinner, suppose the wind of fortune, hitherto so adverse,
+should turn in our favour, filling the sails of our desires so that
+safely and without impediment we put into port in some one of those
+islands I have promised thee, how would it be with thee if on winning
+it I made thee lord of it? Why, thou wilt make it well-nigh impossible
+through not being a knight nor having any desire to be one, nor
+possessing the courage nor the will to avenge insults or defend thy
+lordship; for thou must know that in newly conquered kingdoms and
+provinces the minds of the inhabitants are never so quiet nor so well
+disposed to the new lord that there is no fear of their making some
+move to change matters once more, and try, as they say, what chance may
+do for them; so it is essential that the new possessor should have good
+sense to enable him to govern, and valour to attack and defend himself,
+whatever may befall him.”
+
+“In what has now befallen us,” answered Sancho, “I’d have been well
+pleased to have that good sense and that valour your worship speaks of,
+but I swear on the faith of a poor man I am more fit for plasters than
+for arguments. See if your worship can get up, and let us help
+Rocinante, though he does not deserve it, for he was the main cause of
+all this thrashing. I never thought it of Rocinante, for I took him to
+be a virtuous person and as quiet as myself. After all, they say right
+that it takes a long time to come to know people, and that there is
+nothing sure in this life. Who would have said that, after such mighty
+slashes as your worship gave that unlucky knight-errant, there was
+coming, travelling post and at the very heels of them, such a great
+storm of sticks as has fallen upon our shoulders?”
+
+“And yet thine, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “ought to be used to such
+squalls; but mine, reared in soft cloth and fine linen, it is plain
+they must feel more keenly the pain of this mishap, and if it were not
+that I imagine—why do I say imagine?—know of a certainty that all these
+annoyances are very necessary accompaniments of the calling of arms, I
+would lay me down here to die of pure vexation.”
+
+To this the squire replied, “Señor, as these mishaps are what one reaps
+of chivalry, tell me if they happen very often, or if they have their
+own fixed times for coming to pass; because it seems to me that after
+two harvests we shall be no good for the third, unless God in his
+infinite mercy helps us.”
+
+“Know, friend Sancho,” answered Don Quixote, “that the life of
+knights-errant is subject to a thousand dangers and reverses, and
+neither more nor less is it within immediate possibility for
+knights-errant to become kings and emperors, as experience has shown in
+the case of many different knights with whose histories I am thoroughly
+acquainted; and I could tell thee now, if the pain would let me, of
+some who simply by might of arm have risen to the high stations I have
+mentioned; and those same, both before and after, experienced divers
+misfortunes and miseries; for the valiant Amadis of Gaul found himself
+in the power of his mortal enemy Arcalaus the magician, who, it is
+positively asserted, holding him captive, gave him more than two
+hundred lashes with the reins of his horse while tied to one of the
+pillars of a court; and moreover there is a certain recondite author of
+no small authority who says that the Knight of Phœbus, being caught in
+a certain pitfall, which opened under his feet in a certain castle, on
+falling found himself bound hand and foot in a deep pit underground,
+where they administered to him one of those things they call clysters,
+of sand and snow-water, that well-nigh finished him; and if he had not
+been succoured in that sore extremity by a sage, a great friend of his,
+it would have gone very hard with the poor knight; so I may well suffer
+in company with such worthy folk, for greater were the indignities
+which they had to suffer than those which we suffer. For I would have
+thee know, Sancho, that wounds caused by any instruments which happen
+by chance to be in hand inflict no indignity, and this is laid down in
+the law of the duel in express words: if, for instance, the cobbler
+strikes another with the last which he has in his hand, though it be in
+fact a piece of wood, it cannot be said for that reason that he whom he
+struck with it has been cudgelled. I say this lest thou shouldst
+imagine that because we have been drubbed in this affray we have
+therefore suffered any indignity; for the arms those men carried, with
+which they pounded us, were nothing more than their stakes, and not one
+of them, so far as I remember, carried rapier, sword, or dagger.”
+
+“They gave me no time to see that much,” answered Sancho, “for hardly
+had I laid hand on my tizona when they signed the cross on my shoulders
+with their sticks in such style that they took the sight out of my eyes
+and the strength out of my feet, stretching me where I now lie, and
+where thinking of whether all those stake-strokes were an indignity or
+not gives me no uneasiness, which the pain of the blows does, for they
+will remain as deeply impressed on my memory as on my shoulders.”
+
+“For all that let me tell thee, brother Panza,” said Don Quixote, “that
+there is no recollection which time does not put an end to, and no pain
+which death does not remove.”
+
+“And what greater misfortune can there be,” replied Panza, “than the
+one that waits for time to put an end to it and death to remove it? If
+our mishap were one of those that are cured with a couple of plasters,
+it would not be so bad; but I am beginning to think that all the
+plasters in a hospital almost won’t be enough to put us right.”
+
+“No more of that: pluck strength out of weakness, Sancho, as I mean to
+do,” returned Don Quixote, “and let us see how Rocinante is, for it
+seems to me that not the least share of this mishap has fallen to the
+lot of the poor beast.”
+
+“There is nothing wonderful in that,” replied Sancho, “since he is a
+knight-errant too; what I wonder at is that my beast should have come
+off scot-free where we come out scotched.”
+
+“Fortune always leaves a door open in adversity in order to bring
+relief to it,” said Don Quixote; “I say so because this little beast
+may now supply the want of Rocinante, carrying me hence to some castle
+where I may be cured of my wounds. And moreover I shall not hold it any
+dishonour to be so mounted, for I remember having read how the good old
+Silenus, the tutor and instructor of the gay god of laughter, when he
+entered the city of the hundred gates, went very contentedly mounted on
+a handsome ass.”
+
+“It may be true that he went mounted as your worship says,” answered
+Sancho, “but there is a great difference between going mounted and
+going slung like a sack of manure.”
+
+To which Don Quixote replied, “Wounds received in battle confer honour
+instead of taking it away; and so, friend Panza, say no more, but, as I
+told thee before, get up as well as thou canst and put me on top of thy
+beast in whatever fashion pleases thee best, and let us go hence ere
+night come on and surprise us in these wilds.”
+
+“And yet I have heard your worship say,” observed Panza, “that it is
+very meet for knights-errant to sleep in wastes and deserts, and that
+they esteem it very good fortune.”
+
+“That is,” said Don Quixote, “when they cannot help it, or when they
+are in love; and so true is this that there have been knights who have
+remained two years on rocks, in sunshine and shade and all the
+inclemencies of heaven, without their ladies knowing anything of it;
+and one of these was Amadis, when, under the name of Beltenebros, he
+took up his abode on the Peña Pobre for—I know not if it was eight
+years or eight months, for I am not very sure of the reckoning; at any
+rate he stayed there doing penance for I know not what pique the
+Princess Oriana had against him; but no more of this now, Sancho, and
+make haste before a mishap like Rocinante’s befalls the ass.”
+
+“The very devil would be in it in that case,” said Sancho; and letting
+off thirty “ohs,” and sixty sighs, and a hundred and twenty
+maledictions and execrations on whomsoever it was that had brought him
+there, he raised himself, stopping half-way bent like a Turkish bow
+without power to bring himself upright, but with all his pains he
+saddled his ass, who too had gone astray somewhat, yielding to the
+excessive licence of the day; he next raised up Rocinante, and as for
+him, had he possessed a tongue to complain with, most assuredly neither
+Sancho nor his master would have been behind him.
+
+
+
+c15d.jpg (329K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+To be brief, Sancho fixed Don Quixote on the ass and secured Rocinante
+with a leading rein, and taking the ass by the halter, he proceeded
+more or less in the direction in which it seemed to him the high road
+might be; and, as chance was conducting their affairs for them from
+good to better, he had not gone a short league when the road came in
+sight, and on it he perceived an inn, which to his annoyance and to the
+delight of Don Quixote must needs be a castle. Sancho insisted that it
+was an inn, and his master that it was not one, but a castle, and the
+dispute lasted so long that before the point was settled they had time
+to reach it, and into it Sancho entered with all his team without any
+further controversy.
+
+
+
+c15e.jpg (31K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+OF WHAT HAPPENED TO THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN IN THE INN WHICH HE TOOK TO
+BE A CASTLE
+
+
+
+
+c16a.jpg (129K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+The innkeeper, seeing Don Quixote slung across the ass, asked Sancho
+what was amiss with him. Sancho answered that it was nothing, only that
+he had fallen down from a rock and had his ribs a little bruised. The
+innkeeper had a wife whose disposition was not such as those of her
+calling commonly have, for she was by nature kind-hearted and felt for
+the sufferings of her neighbours, so she at once set about tending Don
+Quixote, and made her young daughter, a very comely girl, help her in
+taking care of her guest. There was besides in the inn, as servant, an
+Asturian lass with a broad face, flat poll, and snub nose, blind of one
+eye and not very sound in the other. The elegance of her shape, to be
+sure, made up for all her defects; she did not measure seven palms from
+head to foot, and her shoulders, which overweighted her somewhat, made
+her contemplate the ground more than she liked. This graceful lass,
+then, helped the young girl, and the two made up a very bad bed for Don
+Quixote in a garret that showed evident signs of having formerly served
+for many years as a straw-loft, in which there was also quartered a
+carrier whose bed was placed a little beyond our Don Quixote’s, and,
+though only made of the pack-saddles and cloths of his mules, had much
+the advantage of it, as Don Quixote’s consisted simply of four rough
+boards on two not very even trestles, a mattress, that for thinness
+might have passed for a quilt, full of pellets which, were they not
+seen through the rents to be wool, would to the touch have seemed
+pebbles in hardness, two sheets made of buckler leather, and a coverlet
+the threads of which anyone that chose might have counted without
+missing one in the reckoning.
+
+On this accursed bed Don Quixote stretched himself, and the hostess and
+her daughter soon covered him with plasters from top to toe, while
+Maritornes—for that was the name of the Asturian—held the light for
+them, and while plastering him, the hostess, observing how full of
+wheals Don Quixote was in some places, remarked that this had more the
+look of blows than of a fall.
+
+It was not blows, Sancho said, but that the rock had many points and
+projections, and that each of them had left its mark. “Pray, señora,”
+he added, “manage to save some tow, as there will be no want of someone
+to use it, for my loins too are rather sore.”
+
+“Then you must have fallen too,” said the hostess.
+
+“I did not fall,” said Sancho Panza, “but from the shock I got at
+seeing my master fall, my body aches so that I feel as if I had had a
+thousand thwacks.”
+
+“That may well be,” said the young girl, “for it has many a time
+happened to me to dream that I was falling down from a tower and never
+coming to the ground, and when I awoke from the dream to find myself as
+weak and shaken as if I had really fallen.”
+
+“There is the point, señora,” replied Sancho Panza, “that I without
+dreaming at all, but being more awake than I am now, find myself with
+scarcely less wheals than my master, Don Quixote.”
+
+“How is the gentleman called?” asked Maritornes the Asturian.
+
+“Don Quixote of La Mancha,” answered Sancho Panza, “and he is a
+knight-adventurer, and one of the best and stoutest that have been seen
+in the world this long time past.”
+
+“What is a knight-adventurer?” said the lass.
+
+“Are you so new in the world as not to know?” answered Sancho Panza.
+“Well, then, you must know, sister, that a knight-adventurer is a thing
+that in two words is seen drubbed and emperor, that is to-day the most
+miserable and needy being in the world, and to-morrow will have two or
+three crowns of kingdoms to give his squire.”
+
+“Then how is it,” said the hostess, “that belonging to so good a master
+as this, you have not, to judge by appearances, even so much as a
+county?”
+
+“It is too soon yet,” answered Sancho, “for we have only been a month
+going in quest of adventures, and so far we have met with nothing that
+can be called one, for it will happen that when one thing is looked for
+another thing is found; however, if my master Don Quixote gets well of
+this wound, or fall, and I am left none the worse of it, I would not
+change my hopes for the best title in Spain.”
+
+To all this conversation Don Quixote was listening very attentively,
+and sitting up in bed as well as he could, and taking the hostess by
+the hand he said to her, “Believe me, fair lady, you may call yourself
+fortunate in having in this castle of yours sheltered my person, which
+is such that if I do not myself praise it, it is because of what is
+commonly said, that self-praise debaseth; but my squire will inform you
+who I am. I only tell you that I shall preserve for ever inscribed on
+my memory the service you have rendered me in order to tender you my
+gratitude while life shall last me; and would to Heaven love held me
+not so enthralled and subject to its laws and to the eyes of that fair
+ingrate whom I name between my teeth, but that those of this lovely
+damsel might be the masters of my liberty.”
+
+The hostess, her daughter, and the worthy Maritornes listened in
+bewilderment to the words of the knight-errant; for they understood
+about as much of them as if he had been talking Greek, though they
+could perceive they were all meant for expressions of good-will and
+blandishments; and not being accustomed to this kind of language, they
+stared at him and wondered to themselves, for he seemed to them a man
+of a different sort from those they were used to, and thanking him in
+pothouse phrase for his civility they left him, while the Asturian gave
+her attention to Sancho, who needed it no less than his master.
+
+The carrier had made an arrangement with her for recreation that night,
+and she had given him her word that when the guests were quiet and the
+family asleep she would come in search of him and meet his wishes
+unreservedly. And it is said of this good lass that she never made
+promises of the kind without fulfilling them, even though she made them
+in a forest and without any witness present, for she plumed herself
+greatly on being a lady and held it no disgrace to be in such an
+employment as servant in an inn, because, she said, misfortunes and
+ill-luck had brought her to that position. The hard, narrow, wretched,
+rickety bed of Don Quixote stood first in the middle of this star-lit
+stable, and close beside it Sancho made his, which merely consisted of
+a rush mat and a blanket that looked as if it was of threadbare canvas
+rather than of wool. Next to these two beds was that of the carrier,
+made up, as has been said, of the pack-saddles and all the trappings of
+the two best mules he had, though there were twelve of them, sleek,
+plump, and in prime condition, for he was one of the rich carriers of
+Arévalo, according to the author of this history, who particularly
+mentions this carrier because he knew him very well, and they even say
+was in some degree a relation of his; besides which Cid Hamete
+Benengeli was a historian of great research and accuracy in all things,
+as is very evident since he would not pass over in silence those that
+have been already mentioned, however trifling and insignificant they
+might be, an example that might be followed by those grave historians
+who relate transactions so curtly and briefly that we hardly get a
+taste of them, all the substance of the work being left in the inkstand
+from carelessness, perverseness, or ignorance. A thousand blessings on
+the author of “Tablante de Ricamonte” and that of the other book in
+which the deeds of the Conde Tomillas are recounted; with what
+minuteness they describe everything!
+
+To proceed, then: after having paid a visit to his team and given them
+their second feed, the carrier stretched himself on his pack-saddles
+and lay waiting for his conscientious Maritornes. Sancho was by this
+time plastered and had lain down, and though he strove to sleep the
+pain of his ribs would not let him, while Don Quixote with the pain of
+his had his eyes as wide open as a hare’s.
+
+
+
+c16b.jpg (333K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+The inn was all in silence, and in the whole of it there was no light
+except that given by a lantern that hung burning in the middle of the
+gateway. This strange stillness, and the thoughts, always present to
+our knight’s mind, of the incidents described at every turn in the
+books that were the cause of his misfortune, conjured up to his
+imagination as extraordinary a delusion as can well be conceived, which
+was that he fancied himself to have reached a famous castle (for, as
+has been said, all the inns he lodged in were castles to his eyes), and
+that the daughter of the innkeeper was daughter of the lord of the
+castle, and that she, won by his high-bred bearing, had fallen in love
+with him, and had promised to come to his bed for a while that night
+without the knowledge of her parents; and holding all this fantasy that
+he had constructed as solid fact, he began to feel uneasy and to
+consider the perilous risk which his virtue was about to encounter, and
+he resolved in his heart to commit no treason to his lady Dulcinea del
+Toboso, even though the queen Guinevere herself and the dame Quintañona
+should present themselves before him.
+
+While he was taken up with these vagaries, then, the time and the
+hour—an unlucky one for him—arrived for the Asturian to come, who in
+her smock, with bare feet and her hair gathered into a fustian coif,
+with noiseless and cautious steps entered the chamber where the three
+were quartered, in quest of the carrier; but scarcely had she gained
+the door when Don Quixote perceived her, and sitting up in his bed in
+spite of his plasters and the pain of his ribs, he stretched out his
+arms to receive his beauteous damsel. The Asturian, who went all
+doubled up and in silence with her hands before her feeling for her
+lover, encountered the arms of Don Quixote, who grasped her tightly by
+the wrist, and drawing her towards him, while she dared not utter a
+word, made her sit down on the bed. He then felt her smock, and
+although it was of sackcloth it appeared to him to be of the finest and
+softest silk: on her wrists she wore some glass beads, but to him they
+had the sheen of precious Orient pearls: her hair, which in some
+measure resembled a horse’s mane, he rated as threads of the brightest
+gold of Araby, whose refulgence dimmed the sun himself: her breath,
+which no doubt smelt of yesterday’s stale salad, seemed to him to
+diffuse a sweet aromatic fragrance from her mouth; and, in short, he
+drew her portrait in his imagination with the same features and in the
+same style as that which he had seen in his books of the other
+princesses who, smitten by love, came with all the adornments that are
+here set down, to see the sorely wounded knight; and so great was the
+poor gentleman’s blindness that neither touch, nor smell, nor anything
+else about the good lass that would have made any but a carrier vomit,
+were enough to undeceive him; on the contrary, he was persuaded he had
+the goddess of beauty in his arms, and holding her firmly in his grasp
+he went on to say in low, tender voice:
+
+“Would that I found myself, lovely and exalted lady, in a position to
+repay such a favour as that which you, by the sight of your great
+beauty, have granted me; but fortune, which is never weary of
+persecuting the good, has chosen to place me upon this bed, where I lie
+so bruised and broken that though my inclination would gladly comply
+with yours it is impossible; besides, to this impossibility another yet
+greater is to be added, which is the faith that I have pledged to the
+peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, sole lady of my most secret thoughts; and
+were it not that this stood in the way I should not be so insensible a
+knight as to miss the happy opportunity which your great goodness has
+offered me.”
+
+Maritornes was fretting and sweating at finding herself held so fast by
+Don Quixote, and not understanding or heeding the words he addressed to
+her, she strove without speaking to free herself. The worthy carrier,
+whose unholy thoughts kept him awake, was aware of his doxy the moment
+she entered the door, and was listening attentively to all Don Quixote
+said; and jealous that the Asturian should have broken her word with
+him for another, drew nearer to Don Quixote’s bed and stood still to
+see what would come of this talk which he could not understand; but
+when he perceived the wench struggling to get free and Don Quixote
+striving to hold her, not relishing the joke he raised his arm and
+delivered such a terrible cuff on the lank jaws of the amorous knight
+that he bathed all his mouth in blood, and not content with this he
+mounted on his ribs and with his feet tramped all over them at a pace
+rather smarter than a trot. The bed which was somewhat crazy and not
+very firm on its feet, unable to support the additional weight of the
+carrier, came to the ground, and at the mighty crash of this the
+innkeeper awoke and at once concluded that it must be some brawl of
+Maritornes’, because after calling loudly to her he got no answer. With
+this suspicion he got up, and lighting a lamp hastened to the quarter
+where he had heard the disturbance. The wench, seeing that her master
+was coming and knowing that his temper was terrible, frightened and
+panic-stricken made for the bed of Sancho Panza, who still slept, and
+crouching upon it made a ball of herself.
+
+The innkeeper came in exclaiming, “Where art thou, strumpet? Of course
+this is some of thy work.” At this Sancho awoke, and feeling this mass
+almost on top of him fancied he had the nightmare and began to
+distribute fisticuffs all round, of which a certain share fell upon
+Maritornes, who, irritated by the pain and flinging modesty aside, paid
+back so many in return to Sancho that she woke him up in spite of
+himself. He then, finding himself so handled, by whom he knew not,
+raising himself up as well as he could, grappled with Maritornes, and
+he and she between them began the bitterest and drollest scrimmage in
+the world. The carrier, however, perceiving by the light of the
+innkeeper candle how it fared with his ladylove, quitting Don Quixote,
+ran to bring her the help she needed; and the innkeeper did the same
+but with a different intention, for his was to chastise the lass, as he
+believed that beyond a doubt she alone was the cause of all the
+harmony. And so, as the saying is, cat to rat, rat to rope, rope to
+stick, the carrier pounded Sancho, Sancho the lass, she him, and the
+innkeeper her, and all worked away so briskly that they did not give
+themselves a moment’s rest; and the best of it was that the innkeeper’s
+lamp went out, and as they were left in the dark they all laid on one
+upon the other in a mass so unmercifully that there was not a sound
+spot left where a hand could light.
+
+It so happened that there was lodging that night in the inn a
+caudrillero of what they call the Old Holy Brotherhood of Toledo, who,
+also hearing the extraordinary noise of the conflict, seized his staff
+and the tin case with his warrants, and made his way in the dark into
+the room crying: “Hold! in the name of the Jurisdiction! Hold! in the
+name of the Holy Brotherhood!”
+
+The first that he came upon was the pummelled Don Quixote, who lay
+stretched senseless on his back upon his broken-down bed, and, his hand
+falling on the beard as he felt about, he continued to cry, “Help for
+the Jurisdiction!” but perceiving that he whom he had laid hold of did
+not move or stir, he concluded that he was dead and that those in the
+room were his murderers, and with this suspicion he raised his voice
+still higher, calling out, “Shut the inn gate; see that no one goes
+out; they have killed a man here!” This cry startled them all, and each
+dropped the contest at the point at which the voice reached him. The
+innkeeper retreated to his room, the carrier to his pack-saddles, the
+lass to her crib; the unlucky Don Quixote and Sancho alone were unable
+to move from where they were. The cuadrillero on this let go Don
+Quixote’s beard, and went out to look for a light to search for and
+apprehend the culprits; but not finding one, as the innkeeper had
+purposely extinguished the lantern on retreating to his room, he was
+compelled to have recourse to the hearth, where after much time and
+trouble he lit another lamp.
+
+
+
+c16e.jpg (32K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+IN WHICH ARE CONTAINED THE INNUMERABLE TROUBLES WHICH THE BRAVE DON
+QUIXOTE AND HIS GOOD SQUIRE SANCHO PANZA ENDURED IN THE INN, WHICH TO
+HIS MISFORTUNE HE TOOK TO BE A CASTLE
+
+
+
+c17a.jpg (87K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+By this time Don Quixote had recovered from his swoon; and in the same
+tone of voice in which he had called to his squire the day before when
+he lay stretched “in the vale of the stakes,” he began calling to him
+now, “Sancho, my friend, art thou asleep? sleepest thou, friend
+Sancho?”
+
+“How can I sleep, curses on it!” returned Sancho discontentedly and
+bitterly, “when it is plain that all the devils have been at me this
+night?”
+
+“Thou mayest well believe that,” answered Don Quixote, “because, either
+I know little, or this castle is enchanted, for thou must know—but this
+that I am now about to tell thee thou must swear to keep secret until
+after my death.”
+
+“I swear it,” answered Sancho.
+
+“I say so,” continued Don Quixote, “because I hate taking away anyone’s
+good name.”
+
+“I say,” replied Sancho, “that I swear to hold my tongue about it till
+the end of your worship’s days, and God grant I may be able to let it
+out to-morrow.”
+
+“Do I do thee such injuries, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that thou
+wouldst see me dead so soon?”
+
+“It is not for that,” replied Sancho, “but because I hate keeping
+things long, and I don’t want them to grow rotten with me from
+over-keeping.”
+
+“At any rate,” said Don Quixote, “I have more confidence in thy
+affection and good nature; and so I would have thee know that this
+night there befell me one of the strangest adventures that I could
+describe, and to relate it to thee briefly thou must know that a little
+while ago the daughter of the lord of this castle came to me, and that
+she is the most elegant and beautiful damsel that could be found in the
+wide world. What I could tell thee of the charms of her person! of her
+lively wit! of other secret matters which, to preserve the fealty I owe
+to my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, I shall pass over unnoticed and in
+silence! I will only tell thee that, either fate being envious of so
+great a boon placed in my hands by good fortune, or perhaps (and this
+is more probable) this castle being, as I have already said, enchanted,
+at the time when I was engaged in the sweetest and most amorous
+discourse with her, there came, without my seeing or knowing whence it
+came, a hand attached to some arm of some huge giant, that planted such
+a cuff on my jaws that I have them all bathed in blood, and then
+pummelled me in such a way that I am in a worse plight than yesterday
+when the carriers, on account of Rocinante’s misbehaviour, inflicted on
+us the injury thou knowest of; whence conjecture that there must be
+some enchanted Moor guarding the treasure of this damsel’s beauty, and
+that it is not for me.”
+
+“Not for me either,” said Sancho, “for more than four hundred Moors
+have so thrashed me that the drubbing of the stakes was cakes and
+fancy-bread to it. But tell me, señor, what do you call this excellent
+and rare adventure that has left us as we are left now? Though your
+worship was not so badly off, having in your arms that incomparable
+beauty you spoke of; but I, what did I have, except the heaviest whacks
+I think I had in all my life? Unlucky me and the mother that bore me!
+for I am not a knight-errant and never expect to be one, and of all the
+mishaps, the greater part falls to my share.”
+
+“Then thou hast been thrashed too?” said Don Quixote.
+
+“Didn’t I say so? worse luck to my line!” said Sancho.
+
+“Be not distressed, friend,” said Don Quixote, “for I will now make the
+precious balsam with which we shall cure ourselves in the twinkling of
+an eye.”
+
+By this time the cuadrillero had succeeded in lighting the lamp, and
+came in to see the man that he thought had been killed; and as Sancho
+caught sight of him at the door, seeing him coming in his shirt, with a
+cloth on his head, and a lamp in his hand, and a very forbidding
+countenance, he said to his master, “Señor, can it be that this is the
+enchanted Moor coming back to give us more castigation if there be
+anything still left in the ink-bottle?”
+
+“It cannot be the Moor,” answered Don Quixote, “for those under
+enchantment do not let themselves be seen by anyone.”
+
+“If they don’t let themselves be seen, they let themselves be felt,”
+said Sancho; “if not, let my shoulders speak to the point.”
+
+“Mine could speak too,” said Don Quixote, “but that is not a sufficient
+reason for believing that what we see is the enchanted Moor.”
+
+The officer came up, and finding them engaged in such a peaceful
+conversation, stood amazed; though Don Quixote, to be sure, still lay
+on his back unable to move from pure pummelling and plasters. The
+officer turned to him and said, “Well, how goes it, good man?”
+
+“I would speak more politely if I were you,” replied Don Quixote; “is
+it the way of this country to address knights-errant in that style, you
+booby?”
+
+The cuadrillero finding himself so disrespectfully treated by such a
+sorry-looking individual, lost his temper, and raising the lamp full of
+oil, smote Don Quixote such a blow with it on the head that he gave him
+a badly broken pate; then, all being in darkness, he went out, and
+Sancho Panza said, “That is certainly the enchanted Moor, Señor, and he
+keeps the treasure for others, and for us only the cuffs and
+lamp-whacks.”
+
+“That is the truth,” answered Don Quixote, “and there is no use in
+troubling oneself about these matters of enchantment or being angry or
+vexed at them, for as they are invisible and visionary we shall find no
+one on whom to avenge ourselves, do what we may; rise, Sancho, if thou
+canst, and call the alcaide of this fortress, and get him to give me a
+little oil, wine, salt, and rosemary to make the salutiferous balsam,
+for indeed I believe I have great need of it now, because I am losing
+much blood from the wound that phantom gave me.”
+
+Sancho got up with pain enough in his bones, and went after the
+innkeeper in the dark, and meeting the officer, who was looking to see
+what had become of his enemy, he said to him, “Señor, whoever you are,
+do us the favour and kindness to give us a little rosemary, oil, salt,
+and wine, for it is wanted to cure one of the best knights-errant on
+earth, who lies on yonder bed wounded by the hands of the enchanted
+Moor that is in this inn.”
+
+When the officer heard him talk in this way, he took him for a man out
+of his senses, and as day was now beginning to break, he opened the inn
+gate, and calling the host, he told him what this good man wanted. The
+host furnished him with what he required, and Sancho brought it to Don
+Quixote, who, with his hand to his head, was bewailing the pain of the
+blow of the lamp, which had done him no more harm than raising a couple
+of rather large lumps, and what he fancied blood was only the sweat
+that flowed from him in his sufferings during the late storm. To be
+brief, he took the materials, of which he made a compound, mixing them
+all and boiling them a good while until it seemed to him they had come
+to perfection. He then asked for some vial to pour it into, and as
+there was not one in the inn, he decided on putting it into a tin
+oil-bottle or flask of which the host made him a free gift; and over
+the flask he repeated more than eighty paternosters and as many more
+ave-marias, salves, and credos, accompanying each word with a cross by
+way of benediction, at all which there were present Sancho, the
+innkeeper, and the cuadrillero; for the carrier was now peacefully
+engaged in attending to the comfort of his mules.
+
+This being accomplished, he felt anxious to make trial himself, on the
+spot, of the virtue of this precious balsam, as he considered it, and
+so he drank near a quart of what could not be put into the flask and
+remained in the pigskin in which it had been boiled; but scarcely had
+he done drinking when he began to vomit in such a way that nothing was
+left in his stomach, and with the pangs and spasms of vomiting he broke
+into a profuse sweat, on account of which he bade them cover him up and
+leave him alone. They did so, and he lay sleeping more than three
+hours, at the end of which he awoke and felt very great bodily relief
+and so much ease from his bruises that he thought himself quite cured,
+and verily believed he had hit upon the balsam of Fierabras; and that
+with this remedy he might thenceforward, without any fear, face any
+kind of destruction, battle, or combat, however perilous it might be.
+
+Sancho Panza, who also regarded the amendment of his master as
+miraculous, begged him to give him what was left in the pigskin, which
+was no small quantity. Don Quixote consented, and he, taking it with
+both hands, in good faith and with a better will, gulped down and
+drained off very little less than his master. But the fact is, that the
+stomach of poor Sancho was of necessity not so delicate as that of his
+master, and so, before vomiting, he was seized with such gripings and
+retchings, and such sweats and faintness, that verily and truly he
+believed his last hour had come, and finding himself so racked and
+tormented he cursed the balsam and the thief that had given it to him.
+
+Don Quixote seeing him in this state said, “It is my belief, Sancho,
+that this mischief comes of thy not being dubbed a knight, for I am
+persuaded this liquor cannot be good for those who are not so.”
+
+“If your worship knew that,” returned Sancho—“woe betide me and all my
+kindred!—why did you let me taste it?”
+
+At this moment the draught took effect, and the poor squire began to
+discharge both ways at such a rate that the rush mat on which he had
+thrown himself and the canvas blanket he had covering him were fit for
+nothing afterwards. He sweated and perspired with such paroxysms and
+convulsions that not only he himself but all present thought his end
+had come. This tempest and tribulation lasted about two hours, at the
+end of which he was left, not like his master, but so weak and
+exhausted that he could not stand. Don Quixote, however, who, as has
+been said, felt himself relieved and well, was eager to take his
+departure at once in quest of adventures, as it seemed to him that all
+the time he loitered there was a fraud upon the world and those in it
+who stood in need of his help and protection, all the more when he had
+the security and confidence his balsam afforded him; and so, urged by
+this impulse, he saddled Rocinante himself and put the pack-saddle on
+his squire’s beast, whom likewise he helped to dress and mount the ass;
+after which he mounted his horse and turning to a corner of the inn he
+laid hold of a pike that stood there, to serve him by way of a lance.
+All that were in the inn, who were more than twenty persons, stood
+watching him; the innkeeper’s daughter was likewise observing him, and
+he too never took his eyes off her, and from time to time fetched a
+sigh that he seemed to pluck up from the depths of his bowels; but they
+all thought it must be from the pain he felt in his ribs; at any rate
+they who had seen him plastered the night before thought so.
+
+As soon as they were both mounted, at the gate of the inn, he called to
+the host and said in a very grave and measured voice, “Many and great
+are the favours, Señor Alcaide, that I have received in this castle of
+yours, and I remain under the deepest obligation to be grateful to you
+for them all the days of my life; if I can repay them in avenging you
+of any arrogant foe who may have wronged you, know that my calling is
+no other than to aid the weak, to avenge those who suffer wrong, and to
+chastise perfidy. Search your memory, and if you find anything of this
+kind you need only tell me of it, and I promise you by the order of
+knighthood which I have received to procure you satisfaction and
+reparation to the utmost of your desire.”
+
+The innkeeper replied to him with equal calmness, “Sir Knight, I do not
+want your worship to avenge me of any wrong, because when any is done
+me I can take what vengeance seems good to me; the only thing I want is
+that you pay me the score that you have run up in the inn last night,
+as well for the straw and barley for your two beasts, as for supper and
+beds.”
+
+
+
+c16c.jpg (326K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“Then this is an inn?” said Don Quixote.
+
+“And a very respectable one,” said the innkeeper.
+
+“I have been under a mistake all this time,” answered Don Quixote, “for
+in truth I thought it was a castle, and not a bad one; but since it
+appears that it is not a castle but an inn, all that can be done now is
+that you should excuse the payment, for I cannot contravene the rule of
+knights-errant, of whom I know as a fact (and up to the present I have
+read nothing to the contrary) that they never paid for lodging or
+anything else in the inn where they might be; for any hospitality that
+might be offered them is their due by law and right in return for the
+insufferable toil they endure in seeking adventures by night and by
+day, in summer and in winter, on foot and on horseback, in hunger and
+thirst, cold and heat, exposed to all the inclemencies of heaven and
+all the hardships of earth.”
+
+“I have little to do with that,” replied the innkeeper; “pay me what
+you owe me, and let us have no more talk of chivalry, for all I care
+about is to get my money.”
+
+“You are a stupid, scurvy innkeeper,” said Don Quixote, and putting
+spurs to Rocinante and bringing his pike to the slope he rode out of
+the inn before anyone could stop him, and pushed on some distance
+without looking to see if his squire was following him.
+
+The innkeeper when he saw him go without paying him ran to get payment
+of Sancho, who said that as his master would not pay neither would he,
+because, being as he was squire to a knight-errant, the same rule and
+reason held good for him as for his master with regard to not paying
+anything in inns and hostelries. At this the innkeeper waxed very
+wroth, and threatened if he did not pay to compel him in a way that he
+would not like. To which Sancho made answer that by the law of chivalry
+his master had received he would not pay a rap, though it cost him his
+life; for the excellent and ancient usage of knights-errant was not
+going to be violated by him, nor should the squires of such as were yet
+to come into the world ever complain of him or reproach him with
+breaking so just a privilege.
+
+The ill-luck of the unfortunate Sancho so ordered it that among the
+company in the inn there were four woolcarders from Segovia, three
+needle-makers from the Colt of Cordova, and two lodgers from the Fair
+of Seville, lively fellows, tender-hearted, fond of a joke, and
+playful, who, almost as if instigated and moved by a common impulse,
+made up to Sancho and dismounted him from his ass, while one of them
+went in for the blanket of the host’s bed; but on flinging him into it
+they looked up, and seeing that the ceiling was somewhat lower than
+what they required for their work, they decided upon going out into the
+yard, which was bounded by the sky, and there, putting Sancho in the
+middle of the blanket, they began to raise him high, making sport with
+him as they would with a dog at Shrovetide.
+
+
+
+c16d.jpg (285K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+The cries of the poor blanketed wretch were so loud that they reached
+the ears of his master, who, halting to listen attentively, was
+persuaded that some new adventure was coming, until he clearly
+perceived that it was his squire who uttered them. Wheeling about he
+came up to the inn with a laborious gallop, and finding it shut went
+round it to see if he could find some way of getting in; but as soon as
+he came to the wall of the yard, which was not very high, he discovered
+the game that was being played with his squire. He saw him rising and
+falling in the air with such grace and nimbleness that, had his rage
+allowed him, it is my belief he would have laughed. He tried to climb
+from his horse on to the top of the wall, but he was so bruised and
+battered that he could not even dismount; and so from the back of his
+horse he began to utter such maledictions and objurgations against
+those who were blanketing Sancho as it would be impossible to write
+down accurately: they, however, did not stay their laughter or their
+work for this, nor did the flying Sancho cease his lamentations,
+mingled now with threats, now with entreaties but all to little
+purpose, or none at all, until from pure weariness they left off. They
+then brought him his ass, and mounting him on top of it they put his
+jacket round him; and the compassionate Maritornes, seeing him so
+exhausted, thought fit to refresh him with a jug of water, and that it
+might be all the cooler she fetched it from the well. Sancho took it,
+and as he was raising it to his mouth he was stopped by the cries of
+his master exclaiming, “Sancho, my son, drink not water; drink it not,
+my son, for it will kill thee; see, here I have the blessed balsam (and
+he held up the flask of liquor), and with drinking two drops of it thou
+wilt certainly be restored.”
+
+At these words Sancho turned his eyes asquint, and in a still louder
+voice said, “Can it be your worship has forgotten that I am not a
+knight, or do you want me to end by vomiting up what bowels I have left
+after last night? Keep your liquor in the name of all the devils, and
+leave me to myself!” and at one and the same instant he left off
+talking and began drinking; but as at the first sup he perceived it was
+water he did not care to go on with it, and begged Maritornes to fetch
+him some wine, which she did with right good will, and paid for it with
+her own money; for indeed they say of her that, though she was in that
+line of life, there was some faint and distant resemblance to a
+Christian about her. When Sancho had done drinking he dug his heels
+into his ass, and the gate of the inn being thrown open he passed out
+very well pleased at having paid nothing and carried his point, though
+it had been at the expense of his usual sureties, his shoulders. It is
+true that the innkeeper detained his alforjas in payment of what was
+owing to him, but Sancho took his departure in such a flurry that he
+never missed them. The innkeeper, as soon as he saw him off, wanted to
+bar the gate close, but the blanketers would not agree to it, for they
+were fellows who would not have cared two farthings for Don Quixote,
+even had he been really one of the knights-errant of the Round Table.
+
+
+
+c17e.jpg (47K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+IN WHICH IS RELATED THE DISCOURSE SANCHO PANZA HELD WITH HIS MASTER,
+DON QUIXOTE, AND OTHER ADVENTURES WORTH RELATING
+
+
+
+c18a.jpg (79K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Sancho reached his master so limp and faint that he could not urge on
+his beast. When Don Quixote saw the state he was in he said, “I have
+now come to the conclusion, good Sancho, that this castle or inn is
+beyond a doubt enchanted, because those who have so atrociously
+diverted themselves with thee, what can they be but phantoms or beings
+of another world? and I hold this confirmed by having noticed that when
+I was by the wall of the yard witnessing the acts of thy sad tragedy,
+it was out of my power to mount upon it, nor could I even dismount from
+Rocinante, because they no doubt had me enchanted; for I swear to thee
+by the faith of what I am that if I had been able to climb up or
+dismount, I would have avenged thee in such a way that those braggart
+thieves would have remembered their freak for ever, even though in so
+doing I knew that I contravened the laws of chivalry, which, as I have
+often told thee, do not permit a knight to lay hands on him who is not
+one, save in case of urgent and great necessity in defence of his own
+life and person.”
+
+“I would have avenged myself too if I could,” said Sancho, “whether I
+had been dubbed knight or not, but I could not; though for my part I am
+persuaded those who amused themselves with me were not phantoms or
+enchanted men, as your worship says, but men of flesh and bone like
+ourselves; and they all had their names, for I heard them name them
+when they were tossing me, and one was called Pedro Martinez, and
+another Tenorio Hernandez, and the innkeeper, I heard, was called Juan
+Palomeque the Left-handed; so that, señor, your not being able to leap
+over the wall of the yard or dismount from your horse came of something
+else besides enchantments; and what I make out clearly from all this
+is, that these adventures we go seeking will in the end lead us into
+such misadventures that we shall not know which is our right foot; and
+that the best and wisest thing, according to my small wits, would be
+for us to return home, now that it is harvest-time, and attend to our
+business, and give over wandering from Zeca to Mecca and from pail to
+bucket, as the saying is.”
+
+“How little thou knowest about chivalry, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote;
+“hold thy peace and have patience; the day will come when thou shalt
+see with thine own eyes what an honourable thing it is to wander in the
+pursuit of this calling; nay, tell me, what greater pleasure can there
+be in the world, or what delight can equal that of winning a battle,
+and triumphing over one’s enemy? None, beyond all doubt.”
+
+“Very likely,” answered Sancho, “though I do not know it; all I know is
+that since we have been knights-errant, or since your worship has been
+one (for I have no right to reckon myself one of so honourable a
+number) we have never won any battle except the one with the Biscayan,
+and even out of that your worship came with half an ear and half a
+helmet the less; and from that till now it has been all cudgellings and
+more cudgellings, cuffs and more cuffs, I getting the blanketing over
+and above, and falling in with enchanted persons on whom I cannot
+avenge myself so as to know what the delight, as your worship calls it,
+of conquering an enemy is like.”
+
+“That is what vexes me, and what ought to vex thee, Sancho,” replied
+Don Quixote; “but henceforward I will endeavour to have at hand some
+sword made by such craft that no kind of enchantments can take effect
+upon him who carries it, and it is even possible that fortune may
+procure for me that which belonged to Amadis when he was called ‘The
+Knight of the Burning Sword,’ which was one of the best swords that
+ever knight in the world possessed, for, besides having the said
+virtue, it cut like a razor, and there was no armour, however strong
+and enchanted it might be, that could resist it.”
+
+“Such is my luck,” said Sancho, “that even if that happened and your
+worship found some such sword, it would, like the balsam, turn out
+serviceable and good for dubbed knights only, and as for the squires,
+they might sup sorrow.”
+
+“Fear not that, Sancho,” said Don Quixote: “Heaven will deal better by
+thee.”
+
+Thus talking, Don Quixote and his squire were going along, when, on the
+road they were following, Don Quixote perceived approaching them a
+large and thick cloud of dust, on seeing which he turned to Sancho and
+said:
+
+“This is the day, Sancho, on which will be seen the boon my fortune is
+reserving for me; this, I say, is the day on which as much as on any
+other shall be displayed the might of my arm, and on which I shall do
+deeds that shall remain written in the book of fame for all ages to
+come. Seest thou that cloud of dust which rises yonder? Well, then, all
+that is churned up by a vast army composed of various and countless
+nations that comes marching there.”
+
+“According to that there must be two,” said Sancho, “for on this
+opposite side also there rises just such another cloud of dust.”
+
+Don Quixote turned to look and found that it was true, and rejoicing
+exceedingly, he concluded that they were two armies about to engage and
+encounter in the midst of that broad plain; for at all times and
+seasons his fancy was full of the battles, enchantments, adventures,
+crazy feats, loves, and defiances that are recorded in the books of
+chivalry, and everything he said, thought, or did had reference to such
+things. Now the cloud of dust he had seen was raised by two great
+droves of sheep coming along the same road in opposite directions,
+which, because of the dust, did not become visible until they drew
+near, but Don Quixote asserted so positively that they were armies that
+Sancho was led to believe it and say, “Well, and what are we to do,
+señor?”
+
+
+
+c17b.jpg (339K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“What?” said Don Quixote: “give aid and assistance to the weak and
+those who need it; and thou must know, Sancho, that this which comes
+opposite to us is conducted and led by the mighty emperor Alifanfaron,
+lord of the great isle of Trapobana; this other that marches behind me
+is that of his enemy the king of the Garamantas, Pentapolin of the Bare
+Arm, for he always goes into battle with his right arm bare.”
+
+“But why are these two lords such enemies?”
+
+“They are at enmity,” replied Don Quixote, “because this Alifanfaron is
+a furious pagan and is in love with the daughter of Pentapolin, who is
+a very beautiful and moreover gracious lady, and a Christian, and her
+father is unwilling to bestow her upon the pagan king unless he first
+abandons the religion of his false prophet Mahomet, and adopts his
+own.”
+
+“By my beard,” said Sancho, “but Pentapolin does quite right, and I
+will help him as much as I can.”
+
+“In that thou wilt do what is thy duty, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “for
+to engage in battles of this sort it is not requisite to be a dubbed
+knight.”
+
+“That I can well understand,” answered Sancho; “but where shall we put
+this ass where we may be sure to find him after the fray is over? for I
+believe it has not been the custom so far to go into battle on a beast
+of this kind.”
+
+“That is true,” said Don Quixote, “and what you had best do with him is
+to leave him to take his chance whether he be lost or not, for the
+horses we shall have when we come out victors will be so many that even
+Rocinante will run a risk of being changed for another. But attend to
+me and observe, for I wish to give thee some account of the chief
+knights who accompany these two armies; and that thou mayest the better
+see and mark, let us withdraw to that hillock which rises yonder,
+whence both armies may be seen.”
+
+They did so, and placed themselves on a rising ground from which the
+two droves that Don Quixote made armies of might have been plainly seen
+if the clouds of dust they raised had not obscured them and blinded the
+sight; nevertheless, seeing in his imagination what he did not see and
+what did not exist, he began thus in a loud voice:
+
+“That knight whom thou seest yonder in yellow armour, who bears upon
+his shield a lion crowned crouching at the feet of a damsel, is the
+valiant Laurcalco, lord of the Silver Bridge; that one in armour with
+flowers of gold, who bears on his shield three crowns argent on an
+azure field, is the dreaded Micocolembo, grand duke of Quirocia; that
+other of gigantic frame, on his right hand, is the ever dauntless
+Brandabarbaran de Boliche, lord of the three Arabias, who for armour
+wears that serpent skin, and has for shield a gate which, according to
+tradition, is one of those of the temple that Samson brought to the
+ground when by his death he revenged himself upon his enemies. But turn
+thine eyes to the other side, and thou shalt see in front and in the
+van of this other army the ever victorious and never vanquished Timonel
+of Carcajona, prince of New Biscay, who comes in armour with arms
+quartered azure, vert, white, and yellow, and bears on his shield a cat
+or on a field tawny with a motto which says _Miau_, which is the
+beginning of the name of his lady, who according to report is the
+peerless Miaulina, daughter of the duke Alfeniquen of the Algarve; the
+other, who burdens and presses the loins of that powerful charger and
+bears arms white as snow and a shield blank and without any device, is
+a novice knight, a Frenchman by birth, Pierres Papin by name, lord of
+the baronies of Utrique; that other, who with iron-shod heels strikes
+the flanks of that nimble parti-coloured zebra, and for arms bears
+azure vair, is the mighty duke of Nerbia, Espartafilardo del Bosque,
+who bears for device on his shield an asparagus plant with a motto in
+Castilian that says, _‘Rastrea mi suerte’_.” And so he went on naming a
+number of knights of one squadron or the other out of his imagination,
+and to all he assigned off-hand their arms, colours, devices, and
+mottoes, carried away by the illusions of his unheard-of craze; and
+without a pause, he continued, “People of divers nations compose this
+squadron in front; here are those that drink of the sweet waters of the
+famous Xanthus, those that scour the woody Massilian plains, those that
+sift the pure fine gold of Arabia Felix, those that enjoy the famed
+cool banks of the crystal Thermodon, those that in many and various
+ways divert the streams of the golden Pactolus, the Numidians,
+faithless in their promises, the Persians renowned in archery, the
+Parthians and the Medes that fight as they fly, the Arabs that ever
+shift their dwellings, the Scythians as cruel as they are fair, the
+Ethiopians with pierced lips, and an infinity of other nations whose
+features I recognise and descry, though I cannot recall their names. In
+this other squadron there come those that drink of the crystal streams
+of the olive-bearing Betis, those that make smooth their countenances
+with the water of the ever rich and golden Tagus, those that rejoice in
+the fertilising flow of the divine Genil, those that roam the Tartesian
+plains abounding in pasture, those that take their pleasure in the
+Elysian meadows of Jerez, the rich Manchegans crowned with ruddy ears
+of corn, the wearers of iron, old relics of the Gothic race, those that
+bathe in the Pisuerga renowned for its gentle current, those that feed
+their herds along the spreading pastures of the winding Guadiana famed
+for its hidden course, those that tremble with the cold of the pineclad
+Pyrenees or the dazzling snows of the lofty Apennine; in a word, as
+many as all Europe includes and contains.”
+
+Good God! what a number of countries and nations he named! giving to
+each its proper attributes with marvellous readiness; brimful and
+saturated with what he had read in his lying books! Sancho Panza hung
+upon his words without speaking, and from time to time turned to try if
+he could see the knights and giants his master was describing, and as
+he could not make out one of them he said to him:
+
+“Señor, devil take it if there’s a sign of any man you talk of, knight
+or giant, in the whole thing; maybe it’s all enchantment, like the
+phantoms last night.”
+
+“How canst thou say that!” answered Don Quixote; “dost thou not hear
+the neighing of the steeds, the braying of the trumpets, the roll of
+the drums?”
+
+“I hear nothing but a great bleating of ewes and sheep,” said Sancho;
+which was true, for by this time the two flocks had come close.
+
+“The fear thou art in, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “prevents thee from
+seeing or hearing correctly, for one of the effects of fear is to
+derange the senses and make things appear different from what they are;
+if thou art in such fear, withdraw to one side and leave me to myself,
+for alone I suffice to bring victory to that side to which I shall give
+my aid;” and so saying he gave Rocinante the spur, and putting the
+lance in rest, shot down the slope like a thunderbolt. Sancho shouted
+after him, crying, “Come back, Señor Don Quixote; I vow to God they are
+sheep and ewes you are charging! Come back! Unlucky the father that
+begot me! what madness is this! Look, there is no giant, nor knight,
+nor cats, nor arms, nor shields quartered or whole, nor vair azure or
+bedevilled. What are you about? Sinner that I am before God!” But not
+for all these entreaties did Don Quixote turn back; on the contrary he
+went on shouting out, “Ho, knights, ye who follow and fight under the
+banners of the valiant emperor Pentapolin of the Bare Arm, follow me
+all; ye shall see how easily I shall give him his revenge over his
+enemy Alifanfaron of the Trapobana.”
+
+So saying, he dashed into the midst of the squadron of ewes, and began
+spearing them with as much spirit and intrepidity as if he were
+transfixing mortal enemies in earnest. The shepherds and drovers
+accompanying the flock shouted to him to desist; seeing it was no use,
+they ungirt their slings and began to salute his ears with stones as
+big as one’s fist. Don Quixote gave no heed to the stones, but, letting
+drive right and left kept saying:
+
+“Where art thou, proud Alifanfaron? Come before me; I am a single
+knight who would fain prove thy prowess hand to hand, and make thee
+yield thy life a penalty for the wrong thou dost to the valiant
+Pentapolin Garamanta.” Here came a sugar-plum from the brook that
+struck him on the side and buried a couple of ribs in his body. Feeling
+himself so smitten, he imagined himself slain or badly wounded for
+certain, and recollecting his liquor he drew out his flask, and putting
+it to his mouth began to pour the contents into his stomach; but ere he
+had succeeded in swallowing what seemed to him enough, there came
+another almond which struck him on the hand and on the flask so fairly
+that it smashed it to pieces, knocking three or four teeth and grinders
+out of his mouth in its course, and sorely crushing two fingers of his
+hand. Such was the force of the first blow and of the second, that the
+poor knight in spite of himself came down backwards off his horse. The
+shepherds came up, and felt sure they had killed him; so in all haste
+they collected their flock together, took up the dead beasts, of which
+there were more than seven, and made off without waiting to ascertain
+anything further.
+
+All this time Sancho stood on the hill watching the crazy feats his
+master was performing, and tearing his beard and cursing the hour and
+the occasion when fortune had made him acquainted with him. Seeing him,
+then, brought to the ground, and that the shepherds had taken
+themselves off, he ran to him and found him in very bad case, though
+not unconscious; and said he:
+
+“Did I not tell you to come back, Señor Don Quixote; and that what you
+were going to attack were not armies but droves of sheep?”
+
+“That’s how that thief of a sage, my enemy, can alter and falsify
+things,” answered Don Quixote; “thou must know, Sancho, that it is a
+very easy matter for those of his sort to make us believe what they
+choose; and this malignant being who persecutes me, envious of the
+glory he knew I was to win in this battle, has turned the squadrons of
+the enemy into droves of sheep. At any rate, do this much, I beg of
+thee, Sancho, to undeceive thyself, and see that what I say is true;
+mount thy ass and follow them quietly, and thou shalt see that when
+they have gone some little distance from this they will return to their
+original shape and, ceasing to be sheep, become men in all respects as
+I described them to thee at first. But go not just yet, for I want thy
+help and assistance; come hither, and see how many of my teeth and
+grinders are missing, for I feel as if there was not one left in my
+mouth.”
+
+Sancho came so close that he almost put his eyes into his mouth; now
+just at that moment the balsam had acted on the stomach of Don Quixote,
+so, at the very instant when Sancho came to examine his mouth, he
+discharged all its contents with more force than a musket, and full
+into the beard of the compassionate squire.
+
+“Holy Mary!” cried Sancho, “what is this that has happened me? Clearly
+this sinner is mortally wounded, as he vomits blood from the mouth;”
+but considering the matter a little more closely he perceived by the
+colour, taste, and smell, that it was not blood but the balsam from the
+flask which he had seen him drink; and he was taken with such a
+loathing that his stomach turned, and he vomited up his inside over his
+very master, and both were left in a precious state. Sancho ran to his
+ass to get something wherewith to clean himself, and relieve his
+master, out of his alforjas; but not finding them, he well-nigh took
+leave of his senses, and cursed himself anew, and in his heart resolved
+to quit his master and return home, even though he forfeited the wages
+of his service and all hopes of the promised island.
+
+Don Quixote now rose, and putting his left hand to his mouth to keep
+his teeth from falling out altogether, with the other he laid hold of
+the bridle of Rocinante, who had never stirred from his master’s
+side—so loyal and well-behaved was he—and betook himself to where the
+squire stood leaning over his ass with his hand to his cheek, like one
+in deep dejection. Seeing him in this mood, looking so sad, Don Quixote
+said to him:
+
+“Bear in mind, Sancho, that one man is no more than another, unless he
+does more than another; all these tempests that fall upon us are signs
+that fair weather is coming shortly, and that things will go well with
+us, for it is impossible for good or evil to last for ever; and hence
+it follows that the evil having lasted long, the good must be now nigh
+at hand; so thou must not distress thyself at the misfortunes which
+happen to me, since thou hast no share in them.”
+
+“How have I not?” replied Sancho; “was he whom they blanketed yesterday
+perchance any other than my father’s son? and the alforjas that are
+missing to-day with all my treasures, did they belong to any other but
+myself?”
+
+“What! are the alforjas missing, Sancho?” said Don Quixote.
+
+“Yes, they are missing,” answered Sancho.
+
+“In that case we have nothing to eat to-day,” replied Don Quixote.
+
+“It would be so,” answered Sancho, “if there were none of the herbs
+your worship says you know in these meadows, those with which
+knights-errant as unlucky as your worship are wont to supply such-like
+shortcomings.”
+
+“For all that,” answered Don Quixote, “I would rather have just now a
+quarter of bread, or a loaf and a couple of pilchards’ heads, than all
+the herbs described by Dioscorides, even with Doctor Laguna’s notes.
+Nevertheless, Sancho the Good, mount thy beast and come along with me,
+for God, who provides for all things, will not fail us (more especially
+when we are so active in his service as we are), since he fails not the
+midges of the air, nor the grubs of the earth, nor the tadpoles of the
+water, and is so merciful that he maketh his sun to rise on the good
+and on the evil, and sendeth rain on the unjust and on the just.”
+
+“Your worship would make a better preacher than knight-errant,” said
+Sancho.
+
+“Knights-errant knew and ought to know everything, Sancho,” said Don
+Quixote; “for there were knights-errant in former times as well
+qualified to deliver a sermon or discourse in the middle of an
+encampment, as if they had graduated in the University of Paris;
+whereby we may see that the lance has never blunted the pen, nor the
+pen the lance.”
+
+“Well, be it as your worship says,” replied Sancho; “let us be off now
+and find some place of shelter for the night, and God grant it may be
+somewhere where there are no blankets, nor blanketeers, nor phantoms,
+nor enchanted Moors; for if there are, may the devil take the whole
+concern.”
+
+“Ask that of God, my son,” said Don Quixote; and do thou lead on where
+thou wilt, for this time I leave our lodging to thy choice; but reach
+me here thy hand, and feel with thy finger, and find out how many of my
+teeth and grinders are missing from this right side of the upper jaw,
+for it is there I feel the pain.”
+
+Sancho put in his fingers, and feeling about asked him, “How many
+grinders used your worship have on this side?”
+
+“Four,” replied Don Quixote, “besides the back-tooth, all whole and
+quite sound.”
+
+“Mind what you are saying, señor.”
+
+“I say four, if not five,” answered Don Quixote, “for never in my life
+have I had tooth or grinder drawn, nor has any fallen out or been
+destroyed by any decay or rheum.”
+
+“Well, then,” said Sancho, “in this lower side your worship has no more
+than two grinders and a half, and in the upper neither a half nor any
+at all, for it is all as smooth as the palm of my hand.”
+
+“Luckless that I am!” said Don Quixote, hearing the sad news his squire
+gave him; “I had rather they despoiled me of an arm, so it were not the
+sword-arm; for I tell thee, Sancho, a mouth without teeth is like a
+mill without a millstone, and a tooth is much more to be prized than a
+diamond; but we who profess the austere order of chivalry are liable to
+all this. Mount, friend, and lead the way, and I will follow thee at
+whatever pace thou wilt.”
+
+Sancho did as he bade him, and proceeded in the direction in which he
+thought he might find refuge without quitting the high road, which was
+there very much frequented. As they went along, then, at a slow
+pace—for the pain in Don Quixote’s jaws kept him uneasy and
+ill-disposed for speed—Sancho thought it well to amuse and divert him
+by talk of some kind, and among the things he said to him was that
+which will be told in the following chapter.
+
+
+
+c18e.jpg (44K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+OF THE SHREWD DISCOURSE WHICH SANCHO HELD WITH HIS MASTER, AND OF THE
+ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL HIM WITH A DEAD BODY, TOGETHER WITH OTHER NOTABLE
+OCCURRENCES
+
+“It seems to me, señor, that all these mishaps that have befallen us of
+late have been without any doubt a punishment for the offence committed
+by your worship against the order of chivalry in not keeping the oath
+you made not to eat bread off a tablecloth or embrace the queen, and
+all the rest of it that your worship swore to observe until you had
+taken that helmet of Malandrino’s, or whatever the Moor is called, for
+I do not very well remember.”
+
+“Thou art very right, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “but to tell the
+truth, it had escaped my memory; and likewise thou mayest rely upon it
+that the affair of the blanket happened to thee because of thy fault in
+not reminding me of it in time; but I will make amends, for there are
+ways of compounding for everything in the order of chivalry.”
+
+“Why! have I taken an oath of some sort, then?” said Sancho.
+
+“It makes no matter that thou hast not taken an oath,” said Don
+Quixote; “suffice it that I see thou art not quite clear of complicity;
+and whether or no, it will not be ill done to provide ourselves with a
+remedy.”
+
+“In that case,” said Sancho, “mind that your worship does not forget
+this as you did the oath; perhaps the phantoms may take it into their
+heads to amuse themselves once more with me; or even with your worship
+if they see you so obstinate.”
+
+While engaged in this and other talk, night overtook them on the road
+before they had reached or discovered any place of shelter; and what
+made it still worse was that they were dying of hunger, for with the
+loss of the alforjas they had lost their entire larder and
+commissariat; and to complete the misfortune they met with an adventure
+which without any invention had really the appearance of one. It so
+happened that the night closed in somewhat darkly, but for all that
+they pushed on, Sancho feeling sure that as the road was the king’s
+highway they might reasonably expect to find some inn within a league
+or two. Going along, then, in this way, the night dark, the squire
+hungry, the master sharp-set, they saw coming towards them on the road
+they were travelling a great number of lights which looked exactly like
+stars in motion. Sancho was taken aback at the sight of them, nor did
+Don Quixote altogether relish them: the one pulled up his ass by the
+halter, the other his hack by the bridle, and they stood still,
+watching anxiously to see what all this would turn out to be, and found
+that the lights were approaching them, and the nearer they came the
+greater they seemed, at which spectacle Sancho began to shake like a
+man dosed with mercury, and Don Quixote’s hair stood on end; he,
+however, plucking up spirit a little, said:
+
+“This, no doubt, Sancho, will be a most mighty and perilous adventure,
+in which it will be needful for me to put forth all my valour and
+resolution.”
+
+“Unlucky me!” answered Sancho; “if this adventure happens to be one of
+phantoms, as I am beginning to think it is, where shall I find the ribs
+to bear it?”
+
+“Be they phantoms ever so much,” said Don Quixote, “I will not permit
+them to touch a thread of thy garments; for if they played tricks with
+thee the time before, it was because I was unable to leap the walls of
+the yard; but now we are on a wide plain, where I shall be able to
+wield my sword as I please.”
+
+“And if they enchant and cripple you as they did the last time,” said
+Sancho, “what difference will it make being on the open plain or not?”
+
+“For all that,” replied Don Quixote, “I entreat thee, Sancho, to keep a
+good heart, for experience will tell thee what mine is.”
+
+“I will, please God,” answered Sancho, and the two retiring to one side
+of the road set themselves to observe closely what all these moving
+lights might be; and very soon afterwards they made out some twenty
+encamisados, all on horseback, with lighted torches in their hands, the
+awe-inspiring aspect of whom completely extinguished the courage of
+Sancho, who began to chatter with his teeth like one in the cold fit of
+an ague; and his heart sank and his teeth chattered still more when
+they perceived distinctly that behind them there came a litter covered
+over with black and followed by six more mounted figures in mourning
+down to the very feet of their mules—for they could perceive plainly
+they were not horses by the easy pace at which they went. And as the
+encamisados came along they muttered to themselves in a low plaintive
+tone. This strange spectacle at such an hour and in such a solitary
+place was quite enough to strike terror into Sancho’s heart, and even
+into his master’s; and (save in Don Quixote’s case) did so, for all
+Sancho’s resolution had now broken down. It was just the opposite with
+his master, whose imagination immediately conjured up all this to him
+vividly as one of the adventures of his books.
+
+He took it into his head that the litter was a bier on which was borne
+some sorely wounded or slain knight, to avenge whom was a task reserved
+for him alone; and without any further reasoning he laid his lance in
+rest, fixed himself firmly in his saddle, and with gallant spirit and
+bearing took up his position in the middle of the road where the
+encamisados must of necessity pass; and as soon as he saw them near at
+hand he raised his voice and said:
+
+“Halt, knights, or whosoever ye may be, and render me account of who ye
+are, whence ye come, where ye go, what it is ye carry upon that bier,
+for, to judge by appearances, either ye have done some wrong or some
+wrong has been done to you, and it is fitting and necessary that I
+should know, either that I may chastise you for the evil ye have done,
+or else that I may avenge you for the injury that has been inflicted
+upon you.”
+
+“We are in haste,” answered one of the encamisados, “and the inn is far
+off, and we cannot stop to render you such an account as you demand;”
+and spurring his mule he moved on.
+
+Don Quixote was mightily provoked by this answer, and seizing the mule
+by the bridle he said, “Halt, and be more mannerly, and render an
+account of what I have asked of you; else, take my defiance to combat,
+all of you.”
+
+The mule was shy, and was so frightened at her bridle being seized that
+rearing up she flung her rider to the ground over her haunches. An
+attendant who was on foot, seeing the encamisado fall, began to abuse
+Don Quixote, who now moved to anger, without any more ado, laying his
+lance in rest charged one of the men in mourning and brought him badly
+wounded to the ground, and as he wheeled round upon the others the
+agility with which he attacked and routed them was a sight to see, for
+it seemed just as if wings had that instant grown upon Rocinante, so
+lightly and proudly did he bear himself. The encamisados were all timid
+folk and unarmed, so they speedily made their escape from the fray and
+set off at a run across the plain with their lighted torches, looking
+exactly like maskers running on some gala or festival night. The
+mourners, too, enveloped and swathed in their skirts and gowns, were
+unable to bestir themselves, and so with entire safety to himself Don
+Quixote belaboured them all and drove them off against their will, for
+they all thought it was no man but a devil from hell come to carry away
+the dead body they had in the litter.
+
+Sancho beheld all this in astonishment at the intrepidity of his lord,
+and said to himself, “Clearly this master of mine is as bold and
+valiant as he says he is.”
+
+A burning torch lay on the ground near the first man whom the mule had
+thrown, by the light of which Don Quixote perceived him, and coming up
+to him he presented the point of the lance to his face, calling on him
+to yield himself prisoner, or else he would kill him; to which the
+prostrate man replied, “I am prisoner enough as it is; I cannot stir,
+for one of my legs is broken: I entreat you, if you be a Christian
+gentleman, not to kill me, which will be committing grave sacrilege,
+for I am a licentiate and I hold first orders.”
+
+“Then what the devil brought you here, being a churchman?” said Don
+Quixote.
+
+“What, señor?” said the other. “My bad luck.”
+
+“Then still worse awaits you,” said Don Quixote, “if you do not satisfy
+me as to all I asked you at first.”
+
+“You shall be soon satisfied,” said the licentiate; “you must know,
+then, that though just now I said I was a licentiate, I am only a
+bachelor, and my name is Alonzo Lopez; I am a native of Alcobendas, I
+come from the city of Baeza with eleven others, priests, the same who
+fled with the torches, and we are going to the city of Segovia
+accompanying a dead body which is in that litter, and is that of a
+gentleman who died in Baeza, where he was interred; and now, as I said,
+we are taking his bones to their burial-place, which is in Segovia,
+where he was born.”
+
+“And who killed him?” asked Don Quixote.
+
+“God, by means of a malignant fever that took him,” answered the
+bachelor.
+
+“In that case,” said Don Quixote, “the Lord has relieved me of the task
+of avenging his death had any other slain him; but, he who slew him
+having slain him, there is nothing for it but to be silent, and shrug
+one’s shoulders; I should do the same were he to slay myself; and I
+would have your reverence know that I am a knight of La Mancha, Don
+Quixote by name, and it is my business and calling to roam the world
+righting wrongs and redressing injuries.”
+
+“I do not know how that about righting wrongs can be,” said the
+bachelor, “for from straight you have made me crooked, leaving me with
+a broken leg that will never see itself straight again all the days of
+its life; and the injury you have redressed in my case has been to
+leave me injured in such a way that I shall remain injured for ever;
+and the height of misadventure it was to fall in with you who go in
+search of adventures.”
+
+“Things do not all happen in the same way,” answered Don Quixote; “it
+all came, Sir Bachelor Alonzo Lopez, of your going, as you did, by
+night, dressed in those surplices, with lighted torches, praying,
+covered with mourning, so that naturally you looked like something evil
+and of the other world; and so I could not avoid doing my duty in
+attacking you, and I should have attacked you even had I known
+positively that you were the very devils of hell, for such I certainly
+believed and took you to be.”
+
+“As my fate has so willed it,” said the bachelor, “I entreat you, sir
+knight-errant, whose errand has been such an evil one for me, to help
+me to get from under this mule that holds one of my legs caught between
+the stirrup and the saddle.”
+
+“I would have talked on till to-morrow,” said Don Quixote; “how long
+were you going to wait before telling me of your distress?”
+
+He at once called to Sancho, who, however, had no mind to come, as he
+was just then engaged in unloading a sumpter mule, well laden with
+provender, which these worthy gentlemen had brought with them. Sancho
+made a bag of his coat, and, getting together as much as he could, and
+as the bag would hold, he loaded his beast, and then hastened to obey
+his master’s call, and helped him to remove the bachelor from under the
+mule; then putting him on her back he gave him the torch, and Don
+Quixote bade him follow the track of his companions, and beg pardon of
+them on his part for the wrong which he could not help doing them.
+
+And said Sancho, “If by chance these gentlemen should want to know who
+was the hero that served them so, your worship may tell them that he is
+the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called the Knight of the
+Rueful Countenance.”
+
+The bachelor then took his departure.
+
+I forgot to mention that before he did so he said to Don Quixote,
+“Remember that you stand excommunicated for having laid violent hands
+on a holy thing, _juxta illud, si quis, suadente diabolo_.”
+
+“I do not understand that Latin,” answered Don Quixote, “but I know
+well I did not lay hands, only this pike; besides, I did not think I
+was committing an assault upon priests or things of the Church, which,
+like a Catholic and faithful Christian as I am, I respect and revere,
+but upon phantoms and spectres of the other world; but even so, I
+remember how it fared with Cid Ruy Diaz when he broke the chair of the
+ambassador of that king before his Holiness the Pope, who
+excommunicated him for the same; and yet the good Roderick of Vivar
+bore himself that day like a very noble and valiant knight.”
+
+On hearing this the bachelor took his departure, as has been said,
+without making any reply; and Don Quixote asked Sancho what had induced
+him to call him the “Knight of the Rueful Countenance” more then than
+at any other time.
+
+“I will tell you,” answered Sancho; “it was because I have been looking
+at you for some time by the light of the torch held by that
+unfortunate, and verily your worship has got of late the most
+ill-favoured countenance I ever saw: it must be either owing to the
+fatigue of this combat, or else to the want of teeth and grinders.”
+
+“It is not that,” replied Don Quixote, “but because the sage whose duty
+it will be to write the history of my achievements must have thought it
+proper that I should take some distinctive name as all knights of yore
+did; one being ‘He of the Burning Sword,’ another ‘He of the Unicorn,’
+this one ‘He of the Damsels,’ that ‘He of the Phœnix,’ another ‘The
+Knight of the Griffin,’ and another ‘He of the Death,’ and by these
+names and designations they were known all the world round; and so I
+say that the sage aforesaid must have put it into your mouth and mind
+just now to call me ‘The Knight of the Rueful Countenance,’ as I intend
+to call myself from this day forward; and that the said name may fit me
+better, I mean, when the opportunity offers, to have a very rueful
+countenance painted on my shield.”
+
+“There is no occasion, señor, for wasting time or money on making that
+countenance,” said Sancho; “for all that need be done is for your
+worship to show your own, face to face, to those who look at you, and
+without anything more, either image or shield, they will call you ‘Him
+of the Rueful Countenance’ and believe me I am telling you the truth,
+for I assure you, señor (and in good part be it said), hunger and the
+loss of your grinders have given you such an ill-favoured face that, as
+I say, the rueful picture may be very well spared.”
+
+Don Quixote laughed at Sancho’s pleasantry; nevertheless he resolved to
+call himself by that name, and have his shield or buckler painted as he
+had devised.
+
+Don Quixote would have looked to see whether the body in the litter
+were bones or not, but Sancho would not have it, saying:
+
+“Señor, you have ended this perilous adventure more safely for yourself
+than any of those I have seen: perhaps these people, though beaten and
+routed, may bethink themselves that it is a single man that has beaten
+them, and feeling sore and ashamed of it may take heart and come in
+search of us and give us trouble enough. The ass is in proper trim, the
+mountains are near at hand, hunger presses, we have nothing more to do
+but make good our retreat, and, as the saying is, the dead to the grave
+and the living to the loaf.”
+
+And driving his ass before him he begged his master to follow, who,
+feeling that Sancho was right, did so without replying; and after
+proceeding some little distance between two hills they found themselves
+in a wide and retired valley, where they alighted, and Sancho unloaded
+his beast, and stretched upon the green grass, with hunger for sauce,
+they breakfasted, dined, lunched, and supped all at once, satisfying
+their appetites with more than one store of cold meat which the dead
+man’s clerical gentlemen (who seldom put themselves on short allowance)
+had brought with them on their sumpter mule. But another piece of
+ill-luck befell them, which Sancho held the worst of all, and that was
+that they had no wine to drink, nor even water to moisten their lips;
+and as thirst tormented them, Sancho, observing that the meadow where
+they were was full of green and tender grass, said what will be told in
+the following chapter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+OF THE UNEXAMPLED AND UNHEARD-OF ADVENTURE WHICH WAS ACHIEVED BY THE
+VALIANT DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA WITH LESS PERIL THAN ANY EVER ACHIEVED
+BY ANY FAMOUS KNIGHT IN THE WORLD
+
+
+
+c19a.jpg (147K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“It cannot be, señor, but that this grass is a proof that there must be
+hard by some spring or brook to give it moisture, so it would be well
+to move a little farther on, that we may find some place where we may
+quench this terrible thirst that plagues us, which beyond a doubt is
+more distressing than hunger.”
+
+The advice seemed good to Don Quixote, and, he leading Rocinante by the
+bridle and Sancho the ass by the halter, after he had packed away upon
+him the remains of the supper, they advanced the meadow feeling their
+way, for the darkness of the night made it impossible to see anything;
+but they had not gone two hundred paces when a loud noise of water, as
+if falling from great rocks, struck their ears. The sound cheered them
+greatly; but halting to make out by listening from what quarter it came
+they heard unseasonably another noise which spoiled the satisfaction
+the sound of the water gave them, especially for Sancho, who was by
+nature timid and faint-hearted. They heard, I say, strokes falling with
+a measured beat, and a certain rattling of iron and chains that,
+together with the furious din of the water, would have struck terror
+into any heart but Don Quixote’s. The night was, as has been said,
+dark, and they had happened to reach a spot in among some tall trees,
+whose leaves stirred by a gentle breeze made a low ominous sound; so
+that, what with the solitude, the place, the darkness, the noise of the
+water, and the rustling of the leaves, everything inspired awe and
+dread; more especially as they perceived that the strokes did not
+cease, nor the wind lull, nor morning approach; to all which might be
+added their ignorance as to where they were.
+
+
+
+c19b.jpg (204K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+But Don Quixote, supported by his intrepid heart, leaped on Rocinante,
+and bracing his buckler on his arm, brought his pike to the slope, and
+said, “Friend Sancho, know that I by Heaven’s will have been born in
+this our iron age to revive in it the age of gold, or the golden as it
+is called; I am he for whom perils, mighty achievements, and valiant
+deeds are reserved; I am, I say again, he who is to revive the Knights
+of the Round Table, the Twelve of France and the Nine Worthies; and he
+who is to consign to oblivion the Platirs, the Tablantes, the Olivantes
+and Tirantes, the Phœbuses and Belianises, with the whole herd of
+famous knights-errant of days gone by, performing in these in which I
+live such exploits, marvels, and feats of arms as shall obscure their
+brightest deeds. Thou dost mark well, faithful and trusty squire, the
+gloom of this night, its strange silence, the dull confused murmur of
+those trees, the awful sound of that water in quest of which we came,
+that seems as though it were precipitating and dashing itself down from
+the lofty mountains of the Moon, and that incessant hammering that
+wounds and pains our ears; which things all together and each of itself
+are enough to instil fear, dread, and dismay into the breast of Mars
+himself, much more into one not used to hazards and adventures of the
+kind. Well, then, all this that I put before thee is but an incentive
+and stimulant to my spirit, making my heart burst in my bosom through
+eagerness to engage in this adventure, arduous as it promises to be;
+therefore tighten Rocinante’s girths a little, and God be with thee;
+wait for me here three days and no more, and if in that time I come not
+back, thou canst return to our village, and thence, to do me a favour
+and a service, thou wilt go to El Toboso, where thou shalt say to my
+incomparable lady Dulcinea that her captive knight hath died in
+attempting things that might make him worthy of being called hers.”
+
+When Sancho heard his master’s words he began to weep in the most
+pathetic way, saying:
+
+“Señor, I know not why your worship wants to attempt this so dreadful
+adventure; it is night now, no one sees us here, we can easily turn
+about and take ourselves out of danger, even if we don’t drink for
+three days to come; and as there is no one to see us, all the less will
+there be anyone to set us down as cowards; besides, I have many a time
+heard the curate of our village, whom your worship knows well, preach
+that he who seeks danger perishes in it; so it is not right to tempt
+God by trying so tremendous a feat from which there can be no escape
+save by a miracle, and Heaven has performed enough of them for your
+worship in delivering you from being blanketed as I was, and bringing
+you out victorious and safe and sound from among all those enemies that
+were with the dead man; and if all this does not move or soften that
+hard heart, let this thought and reflection move it, that you will have
+hardly quitted this spot when from pure fear I shall yield my soul up
+to anyone that will take it. I left home and wife and children to come
+and serve your worship, trusting to do better and not worse; but as
+covetousness bursts the bag, it has rent my hopes asunder, for just as
+I had them highest about getting that wretched unlucky island your
+worship has so often promised me, I see that instead and in lieu of it
+you mean to desert me now in a place so far from human reach: for God’s
+sake, master mine, deal not so unjustly by me, and if your worship will
+not entirely give up attempting this feat, at least put it off till
+morning, for by what the lore I learned when I was a shepherd tells me
+it cannot want three hours of dawn now, because the mouth of the Horn
+is overhead and makes midnight in the line of the left arm.”
+
+“How canst thou see, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “where it makes that
+line, or where this mouth or this occiput is that thou talkest of, when
+the night is so dark that there is not a star to be seen in the whole
+heaven?”
+
+“That’s true,” said Sancho, “but fear has sharp eyes, and sees things
+underground, much more above in heavens; besides, there is good reason
+to show that it now wants but little of day.”
+
+“Let it want what it may,” replied Don Quixote, “it shall not be said
+of me now or at any time that tears or entreaties turned me aside from
+doing what was in accordance with knightly usage; and so I beg of thee,
+Sancho, to hold thy peace, for God, who has put it into my heart to
+undertake now this so unexampled and terrible adventure, will take care
+to watch over my safety and console thy sorrow; what thou hast to do is
+to tighten Rocinante’s girths well, and wait here, for I shall come
+back shortly, alive or dead.”
+
+Sancho perceiving it his master’s final resolve, and how little his
+tears, counsels, and entreaties prevailed with him, determined to have
+recourse to his own ingenuity and compel him, if he could, to wait till
+daylight; and so, while tightening the girths of the horse, he quietly
+and without being felt, with his ass’ halter tied both Rocinante’s
+legs, so that when Don Quixote strove to go he was unable as the horse
+could only move by jumps. Seeing the success of his trick, Sancho Panza
+said:
+
+“See there, señor! Heaven, moved by my tears and prayers, has so
+ordered it that Rocinante cannot stir; and if you will be obstinate,
+and spur and strike him, you will only provoke fortune, and kick, as
+they say, against the pricks.”
+
+Don Quixote at this grew desperate, but the more he drove his heels
+into the horse, the less he stirred him; and not having any suspicion
+of the tying, he was fain to resign himself and wait till daybreak or
+until Rocinante could move, firmly persuaded that all this came of
+something other than Sancho’s ingenuity. So he said to him, “As it is
+so, Sancho, and as Rocinante cannot move, I am content to wait till
+dawn smiles upon us, even though I weep while it delays its coming.”
+
+“There is no need to weep,” answered Sancho, “for I will amuse your
+worship by telling stories from this till daylight, unless indeed you
+like to dismount and lie down to sleep a little on the green grass
+after the fashion of knights-errant, so as to be fresher when day comes
+and the moment arrives for attempting this extraordinary adventure you
+are looking forward to.”
+
+“What art thou talking about dismounting or sleeping for?” said Don
+Quixote. “Am I, thinkest thou, one of those knights that take their
+rest in the presence of danger? Sleep thou who art born to sleep, or do
+as thou wilt, for I will act as I think most consistent with my
+character.”
+
+“Be not angry, master mine,” replied Sancho, “I did not mean to say
+that;” and coming close to him he laid one hand on the pommel of the
+saddle and the other on the cantle so that he held his master’s left
+thigh in his embrace, not daring to separate a finger’s width from him;
+so much afraid was he of the strokes which still resounded with a
+regular beat. Don Quixote bade him tell some story to amuse him as he
+had proposed, to which Sancho replied that he would if his dread of
+what he heard would let him; “Still,” said he, “I will strive to tell a
+story which, if I can manage to relate it, and nobody interferes with
+the telling, is the best of stories, and let your worship give me your
+attention, for here I begin. What was, was; and may the good that is to
+come be for all, and the evil for him who goes to look for it—your
+worship must know that the beginning the old folk used to put to their
+tales was not just as each one pleased; it was a maxim of Cato
+Zonzorino the Roman, that says ‘the evil for him that goes to look for
+it,’ and it comes as pat to the purpose now as ring to finger, to show
+that your worship should keep quiet and not go looking for evil in any
+quarter, and that we should go back by some other road, since nobody
+forces us to follow this in which so many terrors affright us.”
+
+“Go on with thy story, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and leave the choice
+of our road to my care.”
+
+“I say then,” continued Sancho, “that in a village of Estremadura there
+was a goat-shepherd—that is to say, one who tended goats—which shepherd
+or goatherd, as my story goes, was called Lope Ruiz, and this Lope Ruiz
+was in love with a shepherdess called Torralva, which shepherdess
+called Torralva was the daughter of a rich grazier, and this rich
+grazier—”
+
+“If that is the way thou tellest thy tale, Sancho,” said Don Quixote,
+“repeating twice all thou hast to say, thou wilt not have done these
+two days; go straight on with it, and tell it like a reasonable man, or
+else say nothing.”
+
+“Tales are always told in my country in the very way I am telling
+this,” answered Sancho, “and I cannot tell it in any other, nor is it
+right of your worship to ask me to make new customs.”
+
+“Tell it as thou wilt,” replied Don Quixote; “and as fate will have it
+that I cannot help listening to thee, go on.”
+
+“And so, lord of my soul,” continued Sancho, as I have said, this
+shepherd was in love with Torralva the shepherdess, who was a wild
+buxom lass with something of the look of a man about her, for she had
+little moustaches; I fancy I see her now.”
+
+“Then you knew her?” said Don Quixote.
+
+“I did not know her,” said Sancho, “but he who told me the story said
+it was so true and certain that when I told it to another I might
+safely declare and swear I had seen it all myself. And so in course of
+time, the devil, who never sleeps and puts everything in confusion,
+contrived that the love the shepherd bore the shepherdess turned into
+hatred and ill-will, and the reason, according to evil tongues, was
+some little jealousy she caused him that crossed the line and
+trespassed on forbidden ground; and so much did the shepherd hate her
+from that time forward that, in order to escape from her, he determined
+to quit the country and go where he should never set eyes on her again.
+Torralva, when she found herself spurned by Lope, was immediately
+smitten with love for him, though she had never loved him before.”
+
+“That is the natural way of women,” said Don Quixote, “to scorn the one
+that loves them, and love the one that hates them: go on, Sancho.”
+
+“It came to pass,” said Sancho, “that the shepherd carried out his
+intention, and driving his goats before him took his way across the
+plains of Estremadura to pass over into the Kingdom of Portugal.
+Torralva, who knew of it, went after him, and on foot and barefoot
+followed him at a distance, with a pilgrim’s staff in her hand and a
+scrip round her neck, in which she carried, it is said, a bit of
+looking-glass and a piece of a comb and some little pot or other of
+paint for her face; but let her carry what she did, I am not going to
+trouble myself to prove it; all I say is, that the shepherd, they say,
+came with his flock to cross over the river Guadiana, which was at that
+time swollen and almost overflowing its banks, and at the spot he came
+to there was neither ferry nor boat nor anyone to carry him or his
+flock to the other side, at which he was much vexed, for he perceived
+that Torralva was approaching and would give him great annoyance with
+her tears and entreaties; however, he went looking about so closely
+that he discovered a fisherman who had alongside of him a boat so small
+that it could only hold one person and one goat; but for all that he
+spoke to him and agreed with him to carry himself and his three hundred
+goats across. The fisherman got into the boat and carried one goat
+over; he came back and carried another over; he came back again, and
+again brought over another—let your worship keep count of the goats the
+fisherman is taking across, for if one escapes the memory there will be
+an end of the story, and it will be impossible to tell another word of
+it. To proceed, I must tell you the landing place on the other side was
+miry and slippery, and the fisherman lost a great deal of time in going
+and coming; still he returned for another goat, and another, and
+another.”
+
+“Take it for granted he brought them all across,” said Don Quixote,
+“and don’t keep going and coming in this way, or thou wilt not make an
+end of bringing them over this twelvemonth.”
+
+“How many have gone across so far?” said Sancho.
+
+“How the devil do I know?” replied Don Quixote.
+
+“There it is,” said Sancho, “what I told you, that you must keep a good
+count; well then, by God, there is an end of the story, for there is no
+going any farther.”
+
+“How can that be?” said Don Quixote; “is it so essential to the story
+to know to a nicety the goats that have crossed over, that if there be
+a mistake of one in the reckoning, thou canst not go on with it?”
+
+“No, señor, not a bit,” replied Sancho; “for when I asked your worship
+to tell me how many goats had crossed, and you answered you did not
+know, at that very instant all I had to say passed away out of my
+memory, and, faith, there was much virtue in it, and entertainment.”
+
+“So, then,” said Don Quixote, “the story has come to an end?”
+
+“As much as my mother has,” said Sancho.
+
+“In truth,” said Don Quixote, “thou hast told one of the rarest
+stories, tales, or histories, that anyone in the world could have
+imagined, and such a way of telling it and ending it was never seen nor
+will be in a lifetime; though I expected nothing else from thy
+excellent understanding. But I do not wonder, for perhaps those
+ceaseless strokes may have confused thy wits.”
+
+“All that may be,” replied Sancho, “but I know that as to my story, all
+that can be said is that it ends there where the mistake in the count
+of the passage of the goats begins.”
+
+“Let it end where it will, well and good,” said Don Quixote, “and let
+us see if Rocinante can go;” and again he spurred him, and again
+Rocinante made jumps and remained where he was, so well tied was he.
+
+Just then, whether it was the cold of the morning that was now
+approaching, or that he had eaten something laxative at supper, or that
+it was only natural (as is most likely), Sancho felt a desire to do
+what no one could do for him; but so great was the fear that had
+penetrated his heart, he dared not separate himself from his master by
+as much as the black of his nail; to escape doing what he wanted was,
+however, also impossible; so what he did for peace’s sake was to remove
+his right hand, which held the back of the saddle, and with it to untie
+gently and silently the running string which alone held up his
+breeches, so that on loosening it they at once fell down round his feet
+like fetters; he then raised his shirt as well as he could and bared
+his hind quarters, no slim ones. But, this accomplished, which he
+fancied was all he had to do to get out of this terrible strait and
+embarrassment, another still greater difficulty presented itself, for
+it seemed to him impossible to relieve himself without making some
+noise, and he ground his teeth and squeezed his shoulders together,
+holding his breath as much as he could; but in spite of his precautions
+he was unlucky enough after all to make a little noise, very different
+from that which was causing him so much fear.
+
+
+
+c19c.jpg (308K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Don Quixote, hearing it, said, “What noise is that, Sancho?”
+
+“I don’t know, señor,” said he; “it must be something new, for
+adventures and misadventures never begin with a trifle.” Once more he
+tried his luck, and succeeded so well, that without any further noise
+or disturbance he found himself relieved of the burden that had given
+him so much discomfort. But as Don Quixote’s sense of smell was as
+acute as his hearing, and as Sancho was so closely linked with him that
+the fumes rose almost in a straight line, it could not be but that some
+should reach his nose, and as soon as they did he came to its relief by
+compressing it between his fingers, saying in a rather snuffing tone,
+“Sancho, it strikes me thou art in great fear.”
+
+“I am,” answered Sancho; “but how does your worship perceive it now
+more than ever?”
+
+“Because just now thou smellest stronger than ever, and not of
+ambergris,” answered Don Quixote.
+
+“Very likely,” said Sancho, “but that’s not my fault, but your
+worship’s, for leading me about at unseasonable hours and at such
+unwonted paces.”
+
+“Then go back three or four, my friend,” said Don Quixote, all the time
+with his fingers to his nose; “and for the future pay more attention to
+thy person and to what thou owest to mine; for it is my great
+familiarity with thee that has bred this contempt.”
+
+“I’ll bet,” replied Sancho, “that your worship thinks I have done
+something I ought not with my person.”
+
+“It makes it worse to stir it, friend Sancho,” returned Don Quixote.
+
+With this and other talk of the same sort master and man passed the
+night, till Sancho, perceiving that daybreak was coming on apace, very
+cautiously untied Rocinante and tied up his breeches. As soon as
+Rocinante found himself free, though by nature he was not at all
+mettlesome, he seemed to feel lively and began pawing—for as to
+capering, begging his pardon, he knew not what it meant. Don Quixote,
+then, observing that Rocinante could move, took it as a good sign and a
+signal that he should attempt the dread adventure. By this time day had
+fully broken and everything showed distinctly, and Don Quixote saw that
+he was among some tall trees, chestnuts, which cast a very deep shade;
+he perceived likewise that the sound of the strokes did not cease, but
+could not discover what caused it, and so without any further delay he
+let Rocinante feel the spur, and once more taking leave of Sancho, he
+told him to wait for him there three days at most, as he had said
+before, and if he should not have returned by that time, he might feel
+sure it had been God’s will that he should end his days in that
+perilous adventure. He again repeated the message and commission with
+which he was to go on his behalf to his lady Dulcinea, and said he was
+not to be uneasy as to the payment of his services, for before leaving
+home he had made his will, in which he would find himself fully
+recompensed in the matter of wages in due proportion to the time he had
+served; but if God delivered him safe, sound, and unhurt out of that
+danger, he might look upon the promised island as much more than
+certain. Sancho began to weep afresh on again hearing the affecting
+words of his good master, and resolved to stay with him until the final
+issue and end of the business. From these tears and this honourable
+resolve of Sancho Panza’s the author of this history infers that he
+must have been of good birth and at least an old Christian; and the
+feeling he displayed touched his but not so much as to make him show
+any weakness; on the contrary, hiding what he felt as well as he could,
+he began to move towards that quarter whence the sound of the water and
+of the strokes seemed to come.
+
+Sancho followed him on foot, leading by the halter, as his custom was,
+his ass, his constant comrade in prosperity or adversity; and advancing
+some distance through the shady chestnut trees they came upon a little
+meadow at the foot of some high rocks, down which a mighty rush of
+water flung itself. At the foot of the rocks were some rudely
+constructed houses looking more like ruins than houses, from among
+which came, they perceived, the din and clatter of blows, which still
+continued without intermission. Rocinante took fright at the noise of
+the water and of the blows, but quieting him Don Quixote advanced step
+by step towards the houses, commending himself with all his heart to
+his lady, imploring her support in that dread pass and enterprise, and
+on the way commending himself to God, too, not to forget him. Sancho
+who never quitted his side, stretched his neck as far as he could and
+peered between the legs of Rocinante to see if he could now discover
+what it was that caused him such fear and apprehension. They went it
+might be a hundred paces farther, when on turning a corner the true
+cause, beyond the possibility of any mistake, of that dread-sounding
+and to them awe-inspiring noise that had kept them all the night in
+such fear and perplexity, appeared plain and obvious; and it was (if,
+reader, thou art not disgusted and disappointed) six fulling hammers
+which by their alternate strokes made all the din.
+
+When Don Quixote perceived what it was, he was struck dumb and rigid
+from head to foot. Sancho glanced at him and saw him with his head bent
+down upon his breast in manifest mortification; and Don Quixote glanced
+at Sancho and saw him with his cheeks puffed out and his mouth full of
+laughter, and evidently ready to explode with it, and in spite of his
+vexation he could not help laughing at the sight of him; and when
+Sancho saw his master begin he let go so heartily that he had to hold
+his sides with both hands to keep himself from bursting with laughter.
+Four times he stopped, and as many times did his laughter break out
+afresh with the same violence as at first, whereat Don Quixote grew
+furious, above all when he heard him say mockingly, “Thou must know,
+friend Sancho, that of Heaven’s will I was born in this our iron age to
+revive in it the golden or age of gold; I am he for whom are reserved
+perils, mighty achievements, valiant deeds;” and here he went on
+repeating the words that Don Quixote uttered the first time they heard
+the awful strokes.
+
+Don Quixote, then, seeing that Sancho was turning him into ridicule,
+was so mortified and vexed that he lifted up his pike and smote him two
+such blows that if, instead of catching them on his shoulders, he had
+caught them on his head there would have been no wages to pay, unless
+indeed to his heirs. Sancho seeing that he was getting an awkward
+return in earnest for his jest, and fearing his master might carry it
+still further, said to him very humbly, “Calm yourself, sir, for by God
+I am only joking.”
+
+“Well, then, if you are joking I am not,” replied Don Quixote. “Look
+here, my lively gentleman, if these, instead of being fulling hammers,
+had been some perilous adventure, have I not, think you, shown the
+courage required for the attempt and achievement? Am I, perchance,
+being, as I am, a gentleman, bound to know and distinguish sounds and
+tell whether they come from fulling mills or not; and that, when
+perhaps, as is the case, I have never in my life seen any as you have,
+low boor as you are, that have been born and bred among them? But turn
+me these six hammers into six giants, and bring them to beard me, one
+by one or all together, and if I do not knock them head over heels,
+then make what mockery you like of me.”
+
+“No more of that, señor,” returned Sancho; “I own I went a little too
+far with the joke. But tell me, your worship, now that peace is made
+between us (and may God bring you out of all the adventures that may
+befall you as safe and sound as he has brought you out of this one),
+was it not a thing to laugh at, and is it not a good story, the great
+fear we were in?—at least that I was in; for as to your worship I see
+now that you neither know nor understand what either fear or dismay
+is.”
+
+“I do not deny,” said Don Quixote, “that what happened to us may be
+worth laughing at, but it is not worth making a story about, for it is
+not everyone that is shrewd enough to hit the right point of a thing.”
+
+“At any rate,” said Sancho, “your worship knew how to hit the right
+point with your pike, aiming at my head and hitting me on the
+shoulders, thanks be to God and my own smartness in dodging it. But let
+that pass; all will come out in the scouring; for I have heard say ‘he
+loves thee well that makes thee weep;’ and moreover that it is the way
+with great lords after any hard words they give a servant to give him a
+pair of breeches; though I do not know what they give after blows,
+unless it be that knights-errant after blows give islands, or kingdoms
+on the mainland.”
+
+“It may be on the dice,” said Don Quixote, “that all thou sayest will
+come true; overlook the past, for thou art shrewd enough to know that
+our first movements are not in our own control; and one thing for the
+future bear in mind, that thou curb and restrain thy loquacity in my
+company; for in all the books of chivalry that I have read, and they
+are innumerable, I never met with a squire who talked so much to his
+lord as thou dost to thine; and in fact I feel it to be a great fault
+of thine and of mine: of thine, that thou hast so little respect for
+me; of mine, that I do not make myself more respected. There was
+Gandalin, the squire of Amadis of Gaul, that was Count of the Insula
+Firme, and we read of him that he always addressed his lord with his
+cap in his hand, his head bowed down and his body bent double, more
+turquesco. And then, what shall we say of Gasabal, the squire of
+Galaor, who was so silent that in order to indicate to us the greatness
+of his marvellous taciturnity his name is only once mentioned in the
+whole of that history, as long as it is truthful? From all I have said
+thou wilt gather, Sancho, that there must be a difference between
+master and man, between lord and lackey, between knight and squire: so
+that from this day forward in our intercourse we must observe more
+respect and take less liberties, for in whatever way I may be provoked
+with you it will be bad for the pitcher. The favours and benefits that
+I have promised you will come in due time, and if they do not your
+wages at least will not be lost, as I have already told you.”
+
+“All that your worship says is very well,” said Sancho, “but I should
+like to know (in case the time of favours should not come, and it might
+be necessary to fall back upon wages) how much did the squire of a
+knight-errant get in those days, and did they agree by the month, or by
+the day like bricklayers?”
+
+“I do not believe,” replied Don Quixote, “that such squires were ever
+on wages, but were dependent on favour; and if I have now mentioned
+thine in the sealed will I have left at home, it was with a view to
+what may happen; for as yet I know not how chivalry will turn out in
+these wretched times of ours, and I do not wish my soul to suffer for
+trifles in the other world; for I would have thee know, Sancho, that in
+this there is no condition more hazardous than that of adventurers.”
+
+“That is true,” said Sancho, “since the mere noise of the hammers of a
+fulling mill can disturb and disquiet the heart of such a valiant
+errant adventurer as your worship; but you may be sure I will not open
+my lips henceforward to make light of anything of your worship’s, but
+only to honour you as my master and natural lord.”
+
+“By so doing,” replied Don Quixote, “shalt thou live long on the face
+of the earth; for next to parents, masters are to be respected as
+though they were parents.”
+
+
+
+c19e.jpg (33K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+WHICH TREATS OF THE EXALTED ADVENTURE AND RICH PRIZE OF MAMBRINO’S
+HELMET, TOGETHER WITH OTHER THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO OUR INVINCIBLE
+KNIGHT
+
+
+
+
+c20a.jpg (73K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+It now began to rain a little, and Sancho was for going into the
+fulling mills, but Don Quixote had taken such an abhorrence to them on
+account of the late joke that he would not enter them on any account;
+so turning aside to right they came upon another road, different from
+that which they had taken the night before. Shortly afterwards Don
+Quixote perceived a man on horseback who wore on his head something
+that shone like gold, and the moment he saw him he turned to Sancho and
+said:
+
+“I think, Sancho, there is no proverb that is not true, all being
+maxims drawn from experience itself, the mother of all the sciences,
+especially that one that says, ‘Where one door shuts, another opens.’ I
+say so because if last night fortune shut the door of the adventure we
+were looking for against us, cheating us with the fulling mills, it now
+opens wide another one for another better and more certain adventure,
+and if I do not contrive to enter it, it will be my own fault, and I
+cannot lay it to my ignorance of fulling mills, or the darkness of the
+night. I say this because, if I mistake not, there comes towards us one
+who wears on his head the helmet of Mambrino, concerning which I took
+the oath thou rememberest.”
+
+“Mind what you say, your worship, and still more what you do,” said
+Sancho, “for I don’t want any more fulling mills to finish off fulling
+and knocking our senses out.”
+
+“The devil take thee, man,” said Don Quixote; “what has a helmet to do
+with fulling mills?”
+
+“I don’t know,” replied Sancho, “but, faith, if I might speak as I
+used, perhaps I could give such reasons that your worship would see you
+were mistaken in what you say.”
+
+“How can I be mistaken in what I say, unbelieving traitor?” returned
+Don Quixote; “tell me, seest thou not yonder knight coming towards us
+on a dappled grey steed, who has upon his head a helmet of gold?”
+
+“What I see and make out,” answered Sancho, “is only a man on a grey
+ass like my own, who has something that shines on his head.”
+
+“Well, that is the helmet of Mambrino,” said Don Quixote; “stand to one
+side and leave me alone with him; thou shalt see how, without saying a
+word, to save time, I shall bring this adventure to an issue and
+possess myself of the helmet I have so longed for.”
+
+“I will take care to stand aside,” said Sancho; “but God grant, I say
+once more, that it may be marjoram and not fulling mills.”
+
+“I have told thee, brother, on no account to mention those fulling
+mills to me again,” said Don Quixote, “or I vow—and I say no more—I’ll
+full the soul out of you.”
+
+Sancho held his peace in dread lest his master should carry out the vow
+he had hurled like a bowl at him.
+
+The fact of the matter as regards the helmet, steed, and knight that
+Don Quixote saw, was this. In that neighbourhood there were two
+villages, one of them so small that it had neither apothecary’s shop
+nor barber, which the other that was close to it had, so the barber of
+the larger served the smaller, and in it there was a sick man who
+required to be bled and another man who wanted to be shaved, and on
+this errand the barber was going, carrying with him a brass basin; but
+as luck would have it, as he was on the way it began to rain, and not
+to spoil his hat, which probably was a new one, he put the basin on his
+head, and being clean it glittered at half a league’s distance. He rode
+upon a grey ass, as Sancho said, and this was what made it seem to Don
+Quixote to be a dapple-grey steed and a knight and a golden helmet; for
+everything he saw he made to fall in with his crazy chivalry and
+ill-errant notions; and when he saw the poor knight draw near, without
+entering into any parley with him, at Rocinante’s top speed he bore
+down upon him with the pike pointed low, fully determined to run him
+through and through, and as he reached him, without checking the fury
+of his charge, he cried to him:
+
+“Defend thyself, miserable being, or yield me of thine own accord that
+which is so reasonably my due.”
+
+The barber, who without any expectation or apprehension of it saw this
+apparition coming down upon him, had no other way of saving himself
+from the stroke of the lance but to let himself fall off his ass; and
+no sooner had he touched the ground than he sprang up more nimbly than
+a deer and sped away across the plain faster than the wind.
+
+He left the basin on the ground, with which Don Quixote contented
+himself, saying that the pagan had shown his discretion and imitated
+the beaver, which finding itself pressed by the hunters bites and cuts
+off with its teeth that for which, by its natural instinct, it knows it
+is pursued.
+
+He told Sancho to pick up the helmet, and he taking it in his hands
+said:
+
+“By God the basin is a good one, and worth a real of eight if it is
+worth a maravedis,” and handed it to his master, who immediately put it
+on his head, turning it round, now this way, now that, in search of
+fitment, and not finding it he said, “Clearly the pagan to whose
+measure this famous head-piece was first forged must have had a very
+large head; but the worst of it is half of it is wanting.”
+
+When Sancho heard him call the basin a headpiece he was unable to
+restrain his laughter, but remembering his master’s wrath he checked
+himself in the midst of it.
+
+“What art thou laughing at, Sancho?” said Don Quixote.
+
+“I am laughing,” said he, “to think of the great head the pagan must
+have had who owned this helmet, for it looks exactly like a regular
+barber’s basin.”
+
+“Dost thou know what I suspect, Sancho?” said Don Quixote; “that this
+wonderful piece of this enchanted helmet must by some strange accident
+have come into the hands of someone who was unable to recognise or
+realise its value, and who, not knowing what he did, and seeing it to
+be of the purest gold, must have melted down one half for the sake of
+what it might be worth, and of the other made this which is like a
+barber’s basin as thou sayest; but be it as it may, to me who recognise
+it, its transformation makes no difference, for I will set it to rights
+at the first village where there is a blacksmith, and in such style
+that that helmet the god of smithies forged for the god of battles
+shall not surpass it or even come up to it; and in the meantime I will
+wear it as well as I can, for something is better than nothing; all the
+more as it will be quite enough to protect me from any chance blow of a
+stone.”
+
+“That is,” said Sancho, “if it is not shot with a sling as they were in
+the battle of the two armies, when they signed the cross on your
+worship’s grinders and smashed the flask with that blessed draught that
+made me vomit my bowels up.”
+
+“It does not grieve me much to have lost it,” said Don Quixote, “for
+thou knowest, Sancho, that I have the receipt in my memory.”
+
+“So have I,” answered Sancho, “but if ever I make it, or try it again
+as long as I live, may this be my last hour; moreover, I have no
+intention of putting myself in the way of wanting it, for I mean, with
+all my five senses, to keep myself from being wounded or from wounding
+anyone: as to being blanketed again I say nothing, for it is hard to
+prevent mishaps of that sort, and if they come there is nothing for it
+but to squeeze our shoulders together, hold our breath, shut our eyes,
+and let ourselves go where luck and the blanket may send us.”
+
+“Thou art a bad Christian, Sancho,” said Don Quixote on hearing this,
+“for once an injury has been done thee thou never forgettest it: but
+know that it is the part of noble and generous hearts not to attach
+importance to trifles. What lame leg hast thou got by it, what broken
+rib, what cracked head, that thou canst not forget that jest? For jest
+and sport it was, properly regarded, and had I not seen it in that
+light I would have returned and done more mischief in revenging thee
+than the Greeks did for the rape of Helen, who, if she were alive now,
+or if my Dulcinea had lived then, might depend upon it she would not be
+so famous for her beauty as she is;” and here he heaved a sigh and sent
+it aloft; and said Sancho, “Let it pass for a jest as it cannot be
+revenged in earnest, but I know what sort of jest and earnest it was,
+and I know it will never be rubbed out of my memory any more than off
+my shoulders. But putting that aside, will your worship tell me what
+are we to do with this dapple-grey steed that looks like a grey ass,
+which that Martino that your worship overthrew has left deserted here?
+for, from the way he took to his heels and bolted, he is not likely
+ever to come back for it; and by my beard but the grey is a good one.”
+
+“I have never been in the habit,” said Don Quixote, “of taking spoil of
+those whom I vanquish, nor is it the practice of chivalry to take away
+their horses and leave them to go on foot, unless indeed it be that the
+victor have lost his own in the combat, in which case it is lawful to
+take that of the vanquished as a thing won in lawful war; therefore,
+Sancho, leave this horse, or ass, or whatever thou wilt have it to be;
+for when its owner sees us gone hence he will come back for it.”
+
+“God knows I should like to take it,” returned Sancho, “or at least to
+change it for my own, which does not seem to me as good a one: verily
+the laws of chivalry are strict, since they cannot be stretched to let
+one ass be changed for another; I should like to know if I might at
+least change trappings.”
+
+“On that head I am not quite certain,” answered Don Quixote, “and the
+matter being doubtful, pending better information, I say thou mayest
+change them, if so be thou hast urgent need of them.”
+
+“So urgent is it,” answered Sancho, “that if they were for my own
+person I could not want them more;” and forthwith, fortified by this
+licence, he effected the _mutatio capparum_, and rigged out his beast
+to the ninety-nines and making quite another thing of it. This done,
+they broke their fast on the remains of the spoils of war plundered
+from the sumpter mule, and drank of the brook that flowed from the
+fulling mills, without casting a look in that direction, in such
+loathing did they hold them for the alarm they had caused them; and,
+all anger and gloom removed, they mounted and, without taking any fixed
+road (not to fix upon any being the proper thing for true
+knights-errant), they set out, guided by Rocinante’s will, which
+carried along with it that of his master, not to say that of the ass,
+which always followed him wherever he led, lovingly and sociably;
+nevertheless they returned to the high road, and pursued it at a
+venture without any other aim.
+
+As they went along, then, in this way Sancho said to his master,
+“Señor, would your worship give me leave to speak a little to you? For
+since you laid that hard injunction of silence on me several things
+have gone to rot in my stomach, and I have now just one on the tip of
+my tongue that I don’t want to be spoiled.”
+
+“Say, on, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and be brief in thy discourse,
+for there is no pleasure in one that is long.”
+
+“Well then, señor,” returned Sancho, “I say that for some days past I
+have been considering how little is got or gained by going in search of
+these adventures that your worship seeks in these wilds and
+cross-roads, where, even if the most perilous are victoriously
+achieved, there is no one to see or know of them, and so they must be
+left untold for ever, to the loss of your worship’s object and the
+credit they deserve; therefore it seems to me it would be better
+(saving your worship’s better judgment) if we were to go and serve some
+emperor or other great prince who may have some war on hand, in whose
+service your worship may prove the worth of your person, your great
+might, and greater understanding, on perceiving which the lord in whose
+service we may be will perforce have to reward us, each according to
+his merits; and there you will not be at a loss for someone to set down
+your achievements in writing so as to preserve their memory for ever.
+Of my own I say nothing, as they will not go beyond squirely limits,
+though I make bold to say that, if it be the practice in chivalry to
+write the achievements of squires, I think mine must not be left out.”
+
+“Thou speakest not amiss, Sancho,” answered Don Quixote, “but before
+that point is reached it is requisite to roam the world, as it were on
+probation, seeking adventures, in order that, by achieving some, name
+and fame may be acquired, such that when he betakes himself to the
+court of some great monarch the knight may be already known by his
+deeds, and that the boys, the instant they see him enter the gate of
+the city, may all follow him and surround him, crying, ‘This is the
+Knight of the Sun’—or the Serpent, or any other title under which he
+may have achieved great deeds. ‘This,’ they will say, ‘is he who
+vanquished in single combat the gigantic Brocabruno of mighty strength;
+he who delivered the great Mameluke of Persia out of the long
+enchantment under which he had been for almost nine hundred years.’ So
+from one to another they will go proclaiming his achievements; and
+presently at the tumult of the boys and the others the king of that
+kingdom will appear at the windows of his royal palace, and as soon as
+he beholds the knight, recognising him by his arms and the device on
+his shield, he will as a matter of course say, ‘What ho! Forth all ye,
+the knights of my court, to receive the flower of chivalry who cometh
+hither!’ At which command all will issue forth, and he himself,
+advancing half-way down the stairs, will embrace him closely, and
+salute him, kissing him on the cheek, and will then lead him to the
+queen’s chamber, where the knight will find her with the princess her
+daughter, who will be one of the most beautiful and accomplished
+damsels that could with the utmost pains be discovered anywhere in the
+known world. Straightway it will come to pass that she will fix her
+eyes upon the knight and he his upon her, and each will seem to the
+other something more divine than human, and, without knowing how or why
+they will be taken and entangled in the inextricable toils of love, and
+sorely distressed in their hearts not to see any way of making their
+pains and sufferings known by speech. Thence they will lead him, no
+doubt, to some richly adorned chamber of the palace, where, having
+removed his armour, they will bring him a rich mantle of scarlet
+wherewith to robe himself, and if he looked noble in his armour he will
+look still more so in a doublet. When night comes he will sup with the
+king, queen, and princess; and all the time he will never take his eyes
+off her, stealing stealthy glances, unnoticed by those present, and she
+will do the same, and with equal cautiousness, being, as I have said, a
+damsel of great discretion. The tables being removed, suddenly through
+the door of the hall there will enter a hideous and diminutive dwarf
+followed by a fair dame, between two giants, who comes with a certain
+adventure, the work of an ancient sage; and he who shall achieve it
+shall be deemed the best knight in the world.
+
+“The king will then command all those present to essay it, and none
+will bring it to an end and conclusion save the stranger knight, to the
+great enhancement of his fame, whereat the princess will be overjoyed
+and will esteem herself happy and fortunate in having fixed and placed
+her thoughts so high. And the best of it is that this king, or prince,
+or whatever he is, is engaged in a very bitter war with another as
+powerful as himself, and the stranger knight, after having been some
+days at his court, requests leave from him to go and serve him in the
+said war. The king will grant it very readily, and the knight will
+courteously kiss his hands for the favour done to him; and that night
+he will take leave of his lady the princess at the grating of the
+chamber where she sleeps, which looks upon a garden, and at which he
+has already many times conversed with her, the go-between and
+confidante in the matter being a damsel much trusted by the princess.
+He will sigh, she will swoon, the damsel will fetch water, much
+distressed because morning approaches, and for the honour of her lady
+he would not that they were discovered; at last the princess will come
+to herself and will present her white hands through the grating to the
+knight, who will kiss them a thousand and a thousand times, bathing
+them with his tears. It will be arranged between them how they are to
+inform each other of their good or evil fortunes, and the princess will
+entreat him to make his absence as short as possible, which he will
+promise to do with many oaths; once more he kisses her hands, and takes
+his leave in such grief that he is well-nigh ready to die. He betakes
+him thence to his chamber, flings himself on his bed, cannot sleep for
+sorrow at parting, rises early in the morning, goes to take leave of
+the king, queen, and princess, and, as he takes his leave of the pair,
+it is told him that the princess is indisposed and cannot receive a
+visit; the knight thinks it is from grief at his departure, his heart
+is pierced, and he is hardly able to keep from showing his pain. The
+confidante is present, observes all, goes to tell her mistress, who
+listens with tears and says that one of her greatest distresses is not
+knowing who this knight is, and whether he is of kingly lineage or not;
+the damsel assures her that so much courtesy, gentleness, and gallantry
+of bearing as her knight possesses could not exist in any save one who
+was royal and illustrious; her anxiety is thus relieved, and she
+strives to be of good cheer lest she should excite suspicion in her
+parents, and at the end of two days she appears in public. Meanwhile
+the knight has taken his departure; he fights in the war, conquers the
+king’s enemy, wins many cities, triumphs in many battles, returns to
+the court, sees his lady where he was wont to see her, and it is agreed
+that he shall demand her in marriage of her parents as the reward of
+his services; the king is unwilling to give her, as he knows not who he
+is, but nevertheless, whether carried off or in whatever other way it
+may be, the princess comes to be his bride, and her father comes to
+regard it as very good fortune; for it so happens that this knight is
+proved to be the son of a valiant king of some kingdom, I know not
+what, for I fancy it is not likely to be on the map. The father dies,
+the princess inherits, and in two words the knight becomes king. And
+here comes in at once the bestowal of rewards upon his squire and all
+who have aided him in rising to so exalted a rank. He marries his
+squire to a damsel of the princess’s, who will be, no doubt, the one
+who was confidante in their amour, and is daughter of a very great
+duke.”
+
+“That’s what I want, and no mistake about it!” said Sancho. “That’s
+what I’m waiting for; for all this, word for word, is in store for your
+worship under the title of the Knight of the Rueful Countenance.”
+
+“Thou needst not doubt it, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “for in the
+same manner, and by the same steps as I have described here,
+knights-errant rise and have risen to be kings and emperors; all we
+want now is to find out what king, Christian or pagan, is at war and
+has a beautiful daughter; but there will be time enough to think of
+that, for, as I have told thee, fame must be won in other quarters
+before repairing to the court. There is another thing, too, that is
+wanting; for supposing we find a king who is at war and has a beautiful
+daughter, and that I have won incredible fame throughout the universe,
+I know not how it can be made out that I am of royal lineage, or even
+second cousin to an emperor; for the king will not be willing to give
+me his daughter in marriage unless he is first thoroughly satisfied on
+this point, however much my famous deeds may deserve it; so that by
+this deficiency I fear I shall lose what my arm has fairly earned. True
+it is I am a gentleman of known house, of estate and property, and
+entitled to the five hundred sueldos mulet; and it may be that the sage
+who shall write my history will so clear up my ancestry and pedigree
+that I may find myself fifth or sixth in descent from a king; for I
+would have thee know, Sancho, that there are two kinds of lineages in
+the world; some there be tracing and deriving their descent from kings
+and princes, whom time has reduced little by little until they end in a
+point like a pyramid upside down; and others who spring from the common
+herd and go on rising step by step until they come to be great lords;
+so that the difference is that the one were what they no longer are,
+and the others are what they formerly were not. And I may be of such
+that after investigation my origin may prove great and famous, with
+which the king, my father-in-law that is to be, ought to be satisfied;
+and should he not be, the princess will so love me that even though she
+well knew me to be the son of a water-carrier, she will take me for her
+lord and husband in spite of her father; if not, then it comes to
+seizing her and carrying her off where I please; for time or death will
+put an end to the wrath of her parents.”
+
+“It comes to this, too,” said Sancho, “what some naughty people say,
+‘Never ask as a favour what thou canst take by force;’ though it would
+fit better to say, ‘A clear escape is better than good men’s prayers.’
+I say so because if my lord the king, your worship’s father-in-law,
+will not condescend to give you my lady the princess, there is nothing
+for it but, as your worship says, to seize her and transport her. But
+the mischief is that until peace is made and you come into the peaceful
+enjoyment of your kingdom, the poor squire is famishing as far as
+rewards go, unless it be that the confidante damsel that is to be his
+wife comes with the princess, and that with her he tides over his bad
+luck until Heaven otherwise orders things; for his master, I suppose,
+may as well give her to him at once for a lawful wife.”
+
+“Nobody can object to that,” said Don Quixote.
+
+“Then since that may be,” said Sancho, “there is nothing for it but to
+commend ourselves to God, and let fortune take what course it will.”
+
+“God guide it according to my wishes and thy wants,” said Don Quixote,
+“and mean be he who thinks himself mean.”
+
+“In God’s name let him be so,” said Sancho: “I am an old Christian, and
+to fit me for a count that’s enough.”
+
+“And more than enough for thee,” said Don Quixote; “and even wert thou
+not, it would make no difference, because I being the king can easily
+give thee nobility without purchase or service rendered by thee, for
+when I make thee a count, then thou art at once a gentleman; and they
+may say what they will, but by my faith they will have to call thee
+‘your lordship,’ whether they like it or not.”
+
+“Not a doubt of it; and I’ll know how to support the tittle,” said
+Sancho.
+
+“Title thou shouldst say, not tittle,” said his master.
+
+“So be it,” answered Sancho. “I say I will know how to behave, for once
+in my life I was beadle of a brotherhood, and the beadle’s gown sat so
+well on me that all said I looked as if I was to be steward of the same
+brotherhood. What will it be, then, when I put a duke’s robe on my
+back, or dress myself in gold and pearls like a count? I believe
+they’ll come a hundred leagues to see me.”
+
+“Thou wilt look well,” said Don Quixote, “but thou must shave thy beard
+often, for thou hast it so thick and rough and unkempt, that if thou
+dost not shave it every second day at least, they will see what thou
+art at the distance of a musket shot.”
+
+“What more will it be,” said Sancho, “than having a barber, and keeping
+him at wages in the house? and even if it be necessary, I will make him
+go behind me like a nobleman’s equerry.”
+
+“Why, how dost thou know that noblemen have equerries behind them?”
+asked Don Quixote.
+
+“I will tell you,” answered Sancho. “Years ago I was for a month at the
+capital and there I saw taking the air a very small gentleman who they
+said was a very great man, and a man following him on horseback in
+every turn he took, just as if he was his tail. I asked why this man
+did not join the other man, instead of always going behind him; they
+answered me that he was his equerry, and that it was the custom with
+nobles to have such persons behind them, and ever since then I know it,
+for I have never forgotten it.”
+
+“Thou art right,” said Don Quixote, “and in the same way thou mayest
+carry thy barber with thee, for customs did not come into use all
+together, nor were they all invented at once, and thou mayest be the
+first count to have a barber to follow him; and, indeed, shaving one’s
+beard is a greater trust than saddling one’s horse.”
+
+“Let the barber business be my look-out,” said Sancho; “and your
+worship’s be it to strive to become a king, and make me a count.”
+
+“So it shall be,” answered Don Quixote, and raising his eyes he saw
+what will be told in the following chapter.
+
+
+
+c20e.jpg (18K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+OF THE FREEDOM DON QUIXOTE CONFERRED ON SEVERAL UNFORTUNATES WHO
+AGAINST THEIR WILL WERE BEING CARRIED WHERE THEY HAD NO WISH TO GO
+
+
+
+
+c22a.jpg (178K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Cid Hamete Benengeli, the Arab and Manchegan author, relates in this
+most grave, high-sounding, minute, delightful, and original history
+that after the discussion between the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha
+and his squire Sancho Panza which is set down at the end of chapter
+twenty-one, Don Quixote raised his eyes and saw coming along the road
+he was following some dozen men on foot strung together by the neck,
+like beads, on a great iron chain, and all with manacles on their
+hands. With them there came also two men on horseback and two on foot;
+those on horseback with wheel-lock muskets, those on foot with javelins
+and swords, and as soon as Sancho saw them he said:
+
+“That is a chain of galley slaves, on the way to the galleys by force
+of the king’s orders.”
+
+“How by force?” asked Don Quixote; “is it possible that the king uses
+force against anyone?”
+
+“I do not say that,” answered Sancho, “but that these are people
+condemned for their crimes to serve by force in the king’s galleys.”
+
+“In fact,” replied Don Quixote, “however it may be, these people are
+going where they are taking them by force, and not of their own will.”
+
+“Just so,” said Sancho.
+
+“Then if so,” said Don Quixote, “here is a case for the exercise of my
+office, to put down force and to succour and help the wretched.”
+
+“Recollect, your worship,” said Sancho, “Justice, which is the king
+himself, is not using force or doing wrong to such persons, but
+punishing them for their crimes.”
+
+The chain of galley slaves had by this time come up, and Don Quixote in
+very courteous language asked those who were in custody of it to be
+good enough to tell him the reason or reasons for which they were
+conducting these people in this manner. One of the guards on horseback
+answered that they were galley slaves belonging to his majesty, that
+they were going to the galleys, and that was all that was to be said
+and all he had any business to know.
+
+
+
+c22b.jpg (298K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“Nevertheless,” replied Don Quixote, “I should like to know from each
+of them separately the reason of his misfortune;” to this he added more
+to the same effect to induce them to tell him what he wanted so civilly
+that the other mounted guard said to him:
+
+“Though we have here the register and certificate of the sentence of
+every one of these wretches, this is no time to take them out or read
+them; come and ask themselves; they can tell if they choose, and they
+will, for these fellows take a pleasure in doing and talking about
+rascalities.”
+
+With this permission, which Don Quixote would have taken even had they
+not granted it, he approached the chain and asked the first for what
+offences he was now in such a sorry case.
+
+He made answer that it was for being a lover.
+
+“For that only?” replied Don Quixote; “why, if for being lovers they
+send people to the galleys I might have been rowing in them long ago.”
+
+“The love is not the sort your worship is thinking of,” said the galley
+slave; “mine was that I loved a washerwoman’s basket of clean linen so
+well, and held it so close in my embrace, that if the arm of the law
+had not forced it from me, I should never have let it go of my own will
+to this moment; I was caught in the act, there was no occasion for
+torture, the case was settled, they treated me to a hundred lashes on
+the back, and three years of gurapas besides, and that was the end of
+it.”
+
+“What are gurapas?” asked Don Quixote.
+
+“Gurapas are galleys,” answered the galley slave, who was a young man
+of about four-and-twenty, and said he was a native of Piedrahita.
+
+Don Quixote asked the same question of the second, who made no reply,
+so downcast and melancholy was he; but the first answered for him, and
+said, “He, sir, goes as a canary, I mean as a musician and a singer.”
+
+“What!” said Don Quixote, “for being musicians and singers are people
+sent to the galleys too?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” answered the galley slave, “for there is nothing worse than
+singing under suffering.”
+
+“On the contrary, I have heard say,” said Don Quixote, “that he who
+sings scares away his woes.”
+
+“Here it is the reverse,” said the galley slave; “for he who sings once
+weeps all his life.”
+
+“I do not understand it,” said Don Quixote; but one of the guards said
+to him, “Sir, to sing under suffering means with the _non sancta_
+fraternity to confess under torture; they put this sinner to the
+torture and he confessed his crime, which was being a cuatrero, that is
+a cattle-stealer, and on his confession they sentenced him to six years
+in the galleys, besides two hundred lashes that he has already had on
+the back; and he is always dejected and downcast because the other
+thieves that were left behind and that march here ill-treat, and snub,
+and jeer, and despise him for confessing and not having spirit enough
+to say nay; for, say they, ‘nay’ has no more letters in it than ‘yea,’
+and a culprit is well off when life or death with him depends on his
+own tongue and not on that of witnesses or evidence; and to my thinking
+they are not very far out.”
+
+“And I think so too,” answered Don Quixote; then passing on to the
+third he asked him what he had asked the others, and the man answered
+very readily and unconcernedly, “I am going for five years to their
+ladyships the gurapas for the want of ten ducats.”
+
+“I will give twenty with pleasure to get you out of that trouble,” said
+Don Quixote.
+
+“That,” said the galley slave, “is like a man having money at sea when
+he is dying of hunger and has no way of buying what he wants; I say so
+because if at the right time I had had those twenty ducats that your
+worship now offers me, I would have greased the notary’s pen and
+freshened up the attorney’s wit with them, so that to-day I should be
+in the middle of the plaza of the Zocodover at Toledo, and not on this
+road coupled like a greyhound. But God is great; patience—there, that’s
+enough of it.”
+
+Don Quixote passed on to the fourth, a man of venerable aspect with a
+white beard falling below his breast, who on hearing himself asked the
+reason of his being there began to weep without answering a word, but
+the fifth acted as his tongue and said, “This worthy man is going to
+the galleys for four years, after having gone the rounds in ceremony
+and on horseback.”
+
+“That means,” said Sancho Panza, “as I take it, to have been exposed to
+shame in public.”
+
+“Just so,” replied the galley slave, “and the offence for which they
+gave him that punishment was having been an ear-broker, nay
+body-broker; I mean, in short, that this gentleman goes as a pimp, and
+for having besides a certain touch of the sorcerer about him.”
+
+“If that touch had not been thrown in,” said Don Quixote, “he would not
+deserve, for mere pimping, to row in the galleys, but rather to command
+and be admiral of them; for the office of pimp is no ordinary one,
+being the office of persons of discretion, one very necessary in a
+well-ordered state, and only to be exercised by persons of good birth;
+nay, there ought to be an inspector and overseer of them, as in other
+offices, and recognised number, as with the brokers on change; in this
+way many of the evils would be avoided which are caused by this office
+and calling being in the hands of stupid and ignorant people, such as
+women more or less silly, and pages and jesters of little standing and
+experience, who on the most urgent occasions, and when ingenuity of
+contrivance is needed, let the crumbs freeze on the way to their
+mouths, and know not which is their right hand. I should like to go
+farther, and give reasons to show that it is advisable to choose those
+who are to hold so necessary an office in the state, but this is not
+the fit place for it; some day I will expound the matter to someone
+able to see to and rectify it; all I say now is, that the additional
+fact of his being a sorcerer has removed the sorrow it gave me to see
+these white hairs and this venerable countenance in so painful a
+position on account of his being a pimp; though I know well there are
+no sorceries in the world that can move or compel the will as some
+simple folk fancy, for our will is free, nor is there herb or charm
+that can force it. All that certain silly women and quacks do is to
+turn men mad with potions and poisons, pretending that they have power
+to cause love, for, as I say, it is an impossibility to compel the
+will.”
+
+“It is true,” said the good old man, “and indeed, sir, as far as the
+charge of sorcery goes I was not guilty; as to that of being a pimp I
+cannot deny it; but I never thought I was doing any harm by it, for my
+only object was that all the world should enjoy itself and live in
+peace and quiet, without quarrels or troubles; but my good intentions
+were unavailing to save me from going where I never expect to come back
+from, with this weight of years upon me and a urinary ailment that
+never gives me a moment’s ease;” and again he fell to weeping as
+before, and such compassion did Sancho feel for him that he took out a
+real of four from his bosom and gave it to him in alms.
+
+Don Quixote went on and asked another what his crime was, and the man
+answered with no less but rather much more sprightliness than the last
+one.
+
+“I am here because I carried the joke too far with a couple of cousins
+of mine, and with a couple of other cousins who were none of mine; in
+short, I carried the joke so far with them all that it ended in such a
+complicated increase of kindred that no accountant could make it clear:
+it was all proved against me, I got no favour, I had no money, I was
+near having my neck stretched, they sentenced me to the galleys for six
+years, I accepted my fate, it is the punishment of my fault; I am a
+young man; let life only last, and with that all will come right. If
+you, sir, have anything wherewith to help the poor, God will repay it
+to you in heaven, and we on earth will take care in our petitions to
+him to pray for the life and health of your worship, that they may be
+as long and as good as your amiable appearance deserves.”
+
+This one was in the dress of a student, and one of the guards said he
+was a great talker and a very elegant Latin scholar.
+
+Behind all these there came a man of thirty, a very personable fellow,
+except that when he looked, his eyes turned in a little one towards the
+other. He was bound differently from the rest, for he had to his leg a
+chain so long that it was wound all round his body, and two rings on
+his neck, one attached to the chain, the other to what they call a
+“keep-friend” or “friend’s foot,” from which hung two irons reaching to
+his waist with two manacles fixed to them in which his hands were
+secured by a big padlock, so that he could neither raise his hands to
+his mouth nor lower his head to his hands. Don Quixote asked why this
+man carried so many more chains than the others. The guard replied that
+it was because he alone had committed more crimes than all the rest put
+together, and was so daring and such a villain, that though they
+marched him in that fashion they did not feel sure of him, but were in
+dread of his making his escape.
+
+“What crimes can he have committed,” said Don Quixote, “if they have
+not deserved a heavier punishment than being sent to the galleys?”
+
+“He goes for ten years,” replied the guard, “which is the same thing as
+civil death, and all that need be said is that this good fellow is the
+famous Gines de Pasamonte, otherwise called Ginesillo de Parapilla.”
+
+“Gently, señor commissary,” said the galley slave at this, “let us have
+no fixing of names or surnames; my name is Gines, not Ginesillo, and my
+family name is Pasamonte, not Parapilla as you say; let each one mind
+his own business, and he will be doing enough.”
+
+“Speak with less impertinence, master thief of extra measure,” replied
+the commissary, “if you don’t want me to make you hold your tongue in
+spite of your teeth.”
+
+“It is easy to see,” returned the galley slave, “that man goes as God
+pleases, but someone shall know some day whether I am called Ginesillo
+de Parapilla or not.”
+
+“Don’t they call you so, you liar?” said the guard.
+
+“They do,” returned Gines, “but I will make them give over calling me
+so, or I will be shaved, where, I only say behind my teeth. If you,
+sir, have anything to give us, give it to us at once, and God speed
+you, for you are becoming tiresome with all this inquisitiveness about
+the lives of others; if you want to know about mine, let me tell you I
+am Gines de Pasamonte, whose life is written by these fingers.”
+
+“He says true,” said the commissary, “for he has himself written his
+story as grand as you please, and has left the book in the prison in
+pawn for two hundred reals.”
+
+“And I mean to take it out of pawn,” said Gines, “though it were in for
+two hundred ducats.”
+
+“Is it so good?” said Don Quixote.
+
+“So good is it,” replied Gines, “that a fig for ‘Lazarillo de Tormes,’
+and all of that kind that have been written, or shall be written
+compared with it: all I will say about it is that it deals with facts,
+and facts so neat and diverting that no lies could match them.”
+
+“And how is the book entitled?” asked Don Quixote.
+
+“The ‘Life of Gines de Pasamonte,’” replied the subject of it.
+
+“And is it finished?” asked Don Quixote.
+
+“How can it be finished,” said the other, “when my life is not yet
+finished? All that is written is from my birth down to the point when
+they sent me to the galleys this last time.”
+
+“Then you have been there before?” said Don Quixote.
+
+“In the service of God and the king I have been there for four years
+before now, and I know by this time what the biscuit and courbash are
+like,” replied Gines; “and it is no great grievance to me to go back to
+them, for there I shall have time to finish my book; I have still many
+things left to say, and in the galleys of Spain there is more than
+enough leisure; though I do not want much for what I have to write, for
+I have it by heart.”
+
+“You seem a clever fellow,” said Don Quixote.
+
+“And an unfortunate one,” replied Gines, “for misfortune always
+persecutes good wit.”
+
+“It persecutes rogues,” said the commissary.
+
+“I told you already to go gently, master commissary,” said Pasamonte;
+“their lordships yonder never gave you that staff to ill-treat us
+wretches here, but to conduct and take us where his majesty orders you;
+if not, by the life of—never mind—; it may be that some day the stains
+made in the inn will come out in the scouring; let everyone hold his
+tongue and behave well and speak better; and now let us march on, for
+we have had quite enough of this entertainment.”
+
+The commissary lifted his staff to strike Pasamonte in return for his
+threats, but Don Quixote came between them, and begged him not to
+ill-use him, as it was not too much to allow one who had his hands tied
+to have his tongue a trifle free; and turning to the whole chain of
+them he said:
+
+“From all you have told me, dear brethren, I make out clearly that
+though they have punished you for your faults, the punishments you are
+about to endure do not give you much pleasure, and that you go to them
+very much against the grain and against your will, and that perhaps
+this one’s want of courage under torture, that one’s want of money, the
+other’s want of advocacy, and lastly the perverted judgment of the
+judge may have been the cause of your ruin and of your failure to
+obtain the justice you had on your side. All which presents itself now
+to my mind, urging, persuading, and even compelling me to demonstrate
+in your case the purpose for which Heaven sent me into the world and
+caused me to make profession of the order of chivalry to which I
+belong, and the vow I took therein to give aid to those in need and
+under the oppression of the strong. But as I know that it is a mark of
+prudence not to do by foul means what may be done by fair, I will ask
+these gentlemen, the guards and commissary, to be so good as to release
+you and let you go in peace, as there will be no lack of others to
+serve the king under more favourable circumstances; for it seems to me
+a hard case to make slaves of those whom God and nature have made free.
+Moreover, sirs of the guard,” added Don Quixote, “these poor fellows
+have done nothing to you; let each answer for his own sins yonder;
+there is a God in Heaven who will not forget to punish the wicked or
+reward the good; and it is not fitting that honest men should be the
+instruments of punishment to others, they being therein no way
+concerned. This request I make thus gently and quietly, that, if you
+comply with it, I may have reason for thanking you; and, if you will
+not voluntarily, this lance and sword together with the might of my arm
+shall compel you to comply with it by force.”
+
+“Nice nonsense!” said the commissary; “a fine piece of pleasantry he
+has come out with at last! He wants us to let the king’s prisoners go,
+as if we had any authority to release them, or he to order us to do so!
+Go your way, sir, and good luck to you; put that basin straight that
+you’ve got on your head, and don’t go looking for three feet on a cat.”
+
+“’Tis you that are the cat, rat, and rascal,” replied Don Quixote, and
+acting on the word he fell upon him so suddenly that without giving him
+time to defend himself he brought him to the ground sorely wounded with
+a lance-thrust; and lucky it was for him that it was the one that had
+the musket. The other guards stood thunderstruck and amazed at this
+unexpected event, but recovering presence of mind, those on horseback
+seized their swords, and those on foot their javelins, and attacked Don
+Quixote, who was waiting for them with great calmness; and no doubt it
+would have gone badly with him if the galley slaves, seeing the chance
+before them of liberating themselves, had not effected it by contriving
+to break the chain on which they were strung. Such was the confusion,
+that the guards, now rushing at the galley slaves who were breaking
+loose, now to attack Don Quixote who was waiting for them, did nothing
+at all that was of any use. Sancho, on his part, gave a helping hand to
+release Gines de Pasamonte, who was the first to leap forth upon the
+plain free and unfettered, and who, attacking the prostrate commissary,
+took from him his sword and the musket, with which, aiming at one and
+levelling at another, he, without ever discharging it, drove every one
+of the guards off the field, for they took to flight, as well to escape
+Pasamonte’s musket, as the showers of stones the now released galley
+slaves were raining upon them. Sancho was greatly grieved at the
+affair, because he anticipated that those who had fled would report the
+matter to the Holy Brotherhood, who at the summons of the alarm-bell
+would at once sally forth in quest of the offenders; and he said so to
+his master, and entreated him to leave the place at once, and go into
+hiding in the sierra that was close by.
+
+“That is all very well,” said Don Quixote, “but I know what must be
+done now;” and calling together all the galley slaves, who were now
+running riot, and had stripped the commissary to the skin, he collected
+them round him to hear what he had to say, and addressed them as
+follows: “To be grateful for benefits received is the part of persons
+of good birth, and one of the sins most offensive to God is
+ingratitude; I say so because, sirs, ye have already seen by manifest
+proof the benefit ye have received of me; in return for which I desire,
+and it is my good pleasure that, laden with that chain which I have
+taken off your necks, ye at once set out and proceed to the city of El
+Toboso, and there present yourselves before the lady Dulcinea del
+Toboso, and say to her that her knight, he of the Rueful Countenance,
+sends to commend himself to her; and that ye recount to her in full
+detail all the particulars of this notable adventure, up to the
+recovery of your longed-for liberty; and this done ye may go where ye
+will, and good fortune attend you.”
+
+Gines de Pasamonte made answer for all, saying, “That which you, sir,
+our deliverer, demand of us, is of all impossibilities the most
+impossible to comply with, because we cannot go together along the
+roads, but only singly and separate, and each one his own way,
+endeavouring to hide ourselves in the bowels of the earth to escape the
+Holy Brotherhood, which, no doubt, will come out in search of us. What
+your worship may do, and fairly do, is to change this service and
+tribute as regards the lady Dulcinea del Toboso for a certain quantity
+of ave-marias and credos which we will say for your worship’s
+intention, and this is a condition that can be complied with by night
+as by day, running or resting, in peace or in war; but to imagine that
+we are going now to return to the flesh-pots of Egypt, I mean to take
+up our chain and set out for El Toboso, is to imagine that it is now
+night, though it is not yet ten in the morning, and to ask this of us
+is like asking pears of the elm tree.”
+
+“Then by all that’s good,” said Don Quixote (now stirred to wrath),
+“Don son of a bitch, Don Ginesillo de Paropillo, or whatever your name
+is, you will have to go yourself alone, with your tail between your
+legs and the whole chain on your back.”
+
+Pasamonte, who was anything but meek (being by this time thoroughly
+convinced that Don Quixote was not quite right in his head as he had
+committed such a vagary as to set them free), finding himself abused in
+this fashion, gave the wink to his companions, and falling back they
+began to shower stones on Don Quixote at such a rate that he was quite
+unable to protect himself with his buckler, and poor Rocinante no more
+heeded the spur than if he had been made of brass. Sancho planted
+himself behind his ass, and with him sheltered himself from the
+hailstorm that poured on both of them. Don Quixote was unable to shield
+himself so well but that more pebbles than I could count struck him
+full on the body with such force that they brought him to the ground;
+and the instant he fell the student pounced upon him, snatched the
+basin from his head, and with it struck three or four blows on his
+shoulders, and as many more on the ground, knocking it almost to
+pieces. They then stripped him of a jacket that he wore over his
+armour, and they would have stripped off his stockings if his greaves
+had not prevented them. From Sancho they took his coat, leaving him in
+his shirt-sleeves; and dividing among themselves the remaining spoils
+of the battle, they went each one his own way, more solicitous about
+keeping clear of the Holy Brotherhood they dreaded, than about
+burdening themselves with the chain, or going to present themselves
+before the lady Dulcinea del Toboso. The ass and Rocinante, Sancho and
+Don Quixote, were all that were left upon the spot; the ass with
+drooping head, serious, shaking his ears from time to time as if he
+thought the storm of stones that assailed them was not yet over;
+Rocinante stretched beside his master, for he too had been brought to
+the ground by a stone; Sancho stripped, and trembling with fear of the
+Holy Brotherhood; and Don Quixote fuming to find himself so served by
+the very persons for whom he had done so much.
+
+
+
+c22e.jpg (44K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE IN THE SIERRA MORENA, WHICH WAS ONE OF THE
+RAREST ADVENTURES RELATED IN THIS VERACIOUS HISTORY
+
+
+
+
+c23a.jpg (148K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Seeing himself served in this way, Don Quixote said to his squire, “I
+have always heard it said, Sancho, that to do good to boors is to throw
+water into the sea. If I had believed thy words, I should have avoided
+this trouble; but it is done now, it is only to have patience and take
+warning for the future.”
+
+
+
+c23b.jpg (318K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“Your worship will take warning as much as I am a Turk,” returned
+Sancho; “but, as you say this mischief might have been avoided if you
+had believed me, believe me now, and a still greater one will be
+avoided; for I tell you chivalry is of no account with the Holy
+Brotherhood, and they don’t care two maravedis for all the
+knights-errant in the world; and I can tell you I fancy I hear their
+arrows whistling past my ears this minute.”
+
+“Thou art a coward by nature, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “but lest thou
+shouldst say I am obstinate, and that I never do as thou dost advise,
+this once I will take thy advice, and withdraw out of reach of that
+fury thou so dreadest; but it must be on one condition, that never, in
+life or in death, thou art to say to anyone that I retired or withdrew
+from this danger out of fear, but only in compliance with thy
+entreaties; for if thou sayest otherwise thou wilt lie therein, and
+from this time to that, and from that to this, I give thee lie, and say
+thou liest and wilt lie every time thou thinkest or sayest it; and
+answer me not again; for at the mere thought that I am withdrawing or
+retiring from any danger, above all from this, which does seem to carry
+some little shadow of fear with it, I am ready to take my stand here
+and await alone, not only that Holy Brotherhood you talk of and dread,
+but the brothers of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the Seven
+Maccabees, and Castor and Pollux, and all the brothers and brotherhoods
+in the world.”
+
+“Señor,” replied Sancho, “to retire is not to flee, and there is no
+wisdom in waiting when danger outweighs hope, and it is the part of
+wise men to preserve themselves to-day for to-morrow, and not risk all
+in one day; and let me tell you, though I am a clown and a boor, I have
+got some notion of what they call safe conduct; so repent not of having
+taken my advice, but mount Rocinante if you can, and if not I will help
+you; and follow me, for my mother-wit tells me we have more need of
+legs than hands just now.”
+
+Don Quixote mounted without replying, and, Sancho leading the way on
+his ass, they entered the side of the Sierra Morena, which was close
+by, as it was Sancho’s design to cross it entirely and come out again
+at El Viso or Almodóvar del Campo, and hide for some days among its
+crags so as to escape the search of the Brotherhood should they come to
+look for them. He was encouraged in this by perceiving that the stock
+of provisions carried by the ass had come safe out of the fray with the
+galley slaves, a circumstance that he regarded as a miracle, seeing how
+they pillaged and ransacked.
+
+
+
+c23c.jpg (297K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+That night they reached the very heart of the Sierra Morena, where it
+seemed prudent to Sancho to pass the night and even some days, at least
+as many as the stores he carried might last, and so they encamped
+between two rocks and among some cork trees; but fatal destiny, which,
+according to the opinion of those who have not the light of the true
+faith, directs, arranges, and settles everything in its own way, so
+ordered it that Gines de Pasamonte, the famous knave and thief who by
+the virtue and madness of Don Quixote had been released from the chain,
+driven by fear of the Holy Brotherhood, which he had good reason to
+dread, resolved to take hiding in the mountains; and his fate and fear
+led him to the same spot to which Don Quixote and Sancho Panza had been
+led by theirs, just in time to recognise them and leave them to fall
+asleep: and as the wicked are always ungrateful, and necessity leads to
+evildoing, and immediate advantage overcomes all considerations of the
+future, Gines, who was neither grateful nor well-principled, made up
+his mind to steal Sancho Panza’s ass, not troubling himself about
+Rocinante, as being a prize that was no good either to pledge or sell.
+While Sancho slept he stole his ass, and before day dawned he was far
+out of reach.
+
+
+
+c23d.jpg (256K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Aurora made her appearance bringing gladness to the earth but sadness
+to Sancho Panza, for he found that his Dapple was missing, and seeing
+himself bereft of him he began the saddest and most doleful lament in
+the world, so loud that Don Quixote awoke at his exclamations and heard
+him saying, “O son of my bowels, born in my very house, my children’s
+plaything, my wife’s joy, the envy of my neighbours, relief of my
+burdens, and lastly, half supporter of myself, for with the
+six-and-twenty maravedis thou didst earn me daily I met half my
+charges.”
+
+Don Quixote, when he heard the lament and learned the cause, consoled
+Sancho with the best arguments he could, entreating him to be patient,
+and promising to give him a letter of exchange ordering three out of
+five ass-colts that he had at home to be given to him. Sancho took
+comfort at this, dried his tears, suppressed his sobs, and returned
+thanks for the kindness shown him by Don Quixote. He on his part was
+rejoiced to the heart on entering the mountains, as they seemed to him
+to be just the place for the adventures he was in quest of. They
+brought back to his memory the marvellous adventures that had befallen
+knights-errant in like solitudes and wilds, and he went along
+reflecting on these things, so absorbed and carried away by them that
+he had no thought for anything else.
+
+
+
+c23e.jpg (280K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Nor had Sancho any other care (now that he fancied he was travelling in
+a safe quarter) than to satisfy his appetite with such remains as were
+left of the clerical spoils, and so he marched behind his master laden
+with what Dapple used to carry, emptying the sack and packing his
+paunch, and so long as he could go that way, he would not have given a
+farthing to meet with another adventure.
+
+While so engaged he raised his eyes and saw that his master had halted,
+and was trying with the point of his pike to lift some bulky object
+that lay upon the ground, on which he hastened to join him and help him
+if it were needful, and reached him just as with the point of the pike
+he was raising a saddle-pad with a valise attached to it, half or
+rather wholly rotten and torn; but so heavy were they that Sancho had
+to help to take them up, and his master directed him to see what the
+valise contained. Sancho did so with great alacrity, and though the
+valise was secured by a chain and padlock, from its torn and rotten
+condition he was able to see its contents, which were four shirts of
+fine holland, and other articles of linen no less curious than clean;
+and in a handkerchief he found a good lot of gold crowns, and as soon
+as he saw them he exclaimed:
+
+“Blessed be all Heaven for sending us an adventure that is good for
+something!”
+
+Searching further he found a little memorandum book richly bound; this
+Don Quixote asked of him, telling him to take the money and keep it for
+himself. Sancho kissed his hands for the favour, and cleared the valise
+of its linen, which he stowed away in the provision sack. Considering
+the whole matter, Don Quixote observed:
+
+“It seems to me, Sancho—and it is impossible it can be otherwise—that
+some strayed traveller must have crossed this sierra and been attacked
+and slain by footpads, who brought him to this remote spot to bury
+him.”
+
+“That cannot be,” answered Sancho, “because if they had been robbers
+they would not have left this money.”
+
+“Thou art right,” said Don Quixote, “and I cannot guess or explain what
+this may mean; but stay; let us see if in this memorandum book there is
+anything written by which we may be able to trace out or discover what
+we want to know.”
+
+He opened it, and the first thing he found in it, written roughly but
+in a very good hand, was a sonnet, and reading it aloud that Sancho
+might hear it, he found that it ran as follows:
+
+SONNET
+
+Or Love is lacking in intelligence,
+Or to the height of cruelty attains,
+Or else it is my doom to suffer pains
+Beyond the measure due to my offence.
+But if Love be a God, it follows thence
+That he knows all, and certain it remains
+No God loves cruelty; then who ordains
+This penance that enthrals while it torments?
+It were a falsehood, Chloe, thee to name;
+Such evil with such goodness cannot live;
+And against Heaven I dare not charge the blame,
+I only know it is my fate to die.
+To him who knows not whence his malady
+A miracle alone a cure can give.
+
+
+
+
+c23f.jpg (344K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“There is nothing to be learned from that rhyme,” said Sancho, “unless
+by that clue there’s in it, one may draw out the ball of the whole
+matter.”
+
+“What clue is there?” said Don Quixote.
+
+“I thought your worship spoke of a clue in it,” said Sancho.
+
+“I only said Chloe,” replied Don Quixote; “and that no doubt, is the
+name of the lady of whom the author of the sonnet complains; and,
+faith, he must be a tolerable poet, or I know little of the craft.”
+
+“Then your worship understands rhyming too?”
+
+“And better than thou thinkest,” replied Don Quixote, “as thou shalt
+see when thou carriest a letter written in verse from beginning to end
+to my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, for I would have thee know, Sancho,
+that all or most of the knights-errant in days of yore were great
+troubadours and great musicians, for both of these accomplishments, or
+more properly speaking gifts, are the peculiar property of
+lovers-errant: true it is that the verses of the knights of old have
+more spirit than neatness in them.”
+
+“Read more, your worship,” said Sancho, “and you will find something
+that will enlighten us.”
+
+Don Quixote turned the page and said, “This is prose and seems to be a
+letter.”
+
+“A correspondence letter, señor?”
+
+“From the beginning it seems to be a love letter,” replied Don Quixote.
+
+“Then let your worship read it aloud,” said Sancho, “for I am very fond
+of love matters.”
+
+“With all my heart,” said Don Quixote, and reading it aloud as Sancho
+had requested him, he found it ran thus:
+
+Thy false promise and my sure misfortune carry me to a place whence the
+news of my death will reach thy ears before the words of my complaint.
+Ungrateful one, thou hast rejected me for one more wealthy, but not
+more worthy; but if virtue were esteemed wealth I should neither envy
+the fortunes of others nor weep for misfortunes of my own. What thy
+beauty raised up thy deeds have laid low; by it I believed thee to be
+an angel, by them I know thou art a woman. Peace be with thee who hast
+sent war to me, and Heaven grant that the deceit of thy husband be ever
+hidden from thee, so that thou repent not of what thou hast done, and I
+reap not a revenge I would not have.
+
+
+When he had finished the letter, Don Quixote said, “There is less to be
+gathered from this than from the verses, except that he who wrote it is
+some rejected lover;” and turning over nearly all the pages of the book
+he found more verses and letters, some of which he could read, while
+others he could not; but they were all made up of complaints, laments,
+misgivings, desires and aversions, favours and rejections, some
+rapturous, some doleful. While Don Quixote examined the book, Sancho
+examined the valise, not leaving a corner in the whole of it or in the
+pad that he did not search, peer into, and explore, or seam that he did
+not rip, or tuft of wool that he did not pick to pieces, lest anything
+should escape for want of care and pains; so keen was the covetousness
+excited in him by the discovery of the crowns, which amounted to near a
+hundred; and though he found no more booty, he held the blanket
+flights, balsam vomits, stake benedictions, carriers’ fisticuffs,
+missing alforjas, stolen coat, and all the hunger, thirst, and
+weariness he had endured in the service of his good master, cheap at
+the price; as he considered himself more than fully indemnified for all
+by the payment he received in the gift of the treasure-trove.
+
+The Knight of the Rueful Countenance was still very anxious to find out
+who the owner of the valise could be, conjecturing from the sonnet and
+letter, from the money in gold, and from the fineness of the shirts,
+that he must be some lover of distinction whom the scorn and cruelty of
+his lady had driven to some desperate course; but as in that
+uninhabited and rugged spot there was no one to be seen of whom he
+could inquire, he saw nothing else for it but to push on, taking
+whatever road Rocinante chose—which was where he could make his
+way—firmly persuaded that among these wilds he could not fail to meet
+some rare adventure. As he went along, then, occupied with these
+thoughts, he perceived on the summit of a height that rose before their
+eyes a man who went springing from rock to rock and from tussock to
+tussock with marvellous agility. As well as he could make out he was
+unclad, with a thick black beard, long tangled hair, and bare legs and
+feet, his thighs were covered by breeches apparently of tawny velvet
+but so ragged that they showed his skin in several places.
+
+
+
+c23g.jpg (360K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+He was bareheaded, and notwithstanding the swiftness with which he
+passed as has been described, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance
+observed and noted all these trifles, and though he made the attempt,
+he was unable to follow him, for it was not granted to the feebleness
+of Rocinante to make way over such rough ground, he being, moreover,
+slow-paced and sluggish by nature. Don Quixote at once came to the
+conclusion that this was the owner of the saddle-pad and of the valise,
+and made up his mind to go in search of him, even though he should have
+to wander a year in those mountains before he found him, and so he
+directed Sancho to take a short cut over one side of the mountain,
+while he himself went by the other, and perhaps by this means they
+might light upon this man who had passed so quickly out of their sight.
+
+“I could not do that,” said Sancho, “for when I separate from your
+worship fear at once lays hold of me, and assails me with all sorts of
+panics and fancies; and let what I now say be a notice that from this
+time forth I am not going to stir a finger’s width from your presence.”
+
+“It shall be so,” said he of the Rueful Countenance, “and I am very
+glad that thou art willing to rely on my courage, which will never fail
+thee, even though the soul in thy body fail thee; so come on now behind
+me slowly as well as thou canst, and make lanterns of thine eyes; let
+us make the circuit of this ridge; perhaps we shall light upon this man
+that we saw, who no doubt is no other than the owner of what we found.”
+
+To which Sancho made answer, “Far better would it be not to look for
+him, for, if we find him, and he happens to be the owner of the money,
+it is plain I must restore it; it would be better, therefore, that
+without taking this needless trouble, I should keep possession of it
+until in some other less meddlesome and officious way the real owner
+may be discovered; and perhaps that will be when I shall have spent it,
+and then the king will hold me harmless.”
+
+“Thou art wrong there, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for now that we have
+a suspicion who the owner is, and have him almost before us, we are
+bound to seek him and make restitution; and if we do not see him, the
+strong suspicion we have as to his being the owner makes us as guilty
+as if he were so; and so, friend Sancho, let not our search for him
+give thee any uneasiness, for if we find him it will relieve mine.”
+
+And so saying he gave Rocinante the spur, and Sancho followed him on
+foot and loaded, and after having partly made the circuit of the
+mountain they found lying in a ravine, dead and half devoured by dogs
+and pecked by jackdaws, a mule saddled and bridled, all which still
+further strengthened their suspicion that he who had fled was the owner
+of the mule and the saddle-pad.
+
+
+
+c23h.jpg (381K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+As they stood looking at it they heard a whistle like that of a
+shepherd watching his flock, and suddenly on their left there appeared
+a great number of goats and behind them on the summit of the mountain
+the goatherd in charge of them, a man advanced in years. Don Quixote
+called aloud to him and begged him to come down to where they stood. He
+shouted in return, asking what had brought them to that spot, seldom or
+never trodden except by the feet of goats, or of the wolves and other
+wild beasts that roamed around. Sancho in return bade him come down,
+and they would explain all to him.
+
+The goatherd descended, and reaching the place where Don Quixote stood,
+he said, “I will wager you are looking at that hack mule that lies dead
+in the hollow there, and, faith, it has been lying there now these six
+months; tell me, have you come upon its master about here?”
+
+“We have come upon nobody,” answered Don Quixote, “nor on anything
+except a saddle-pad and a little valise that we found not far from
+this.”
+
+“I found it too,” said the goatherd, “but I would not lift it nor go
+near it for fear of some ill-luck or being charged with theft, for the
+devil is crafty, and things rise up under one’s feet to make one fall
+without knowing why or wherefore.”
+
+“That’s exactly what I say,” said Sancho; “I found it too, and I would
+not go within a stone’s throw of it; there I left it, and there it lies
+just as it was, for I don’t want a dog with a bell.”
+
+“Tell me, good man,” said Don Quixote, “do you know who is the owner of
+this property?”
+
+“All I can tell you,” said the goatherd, “is that about six months ago,
+more or less, there arrived at a shepherd’s hut three leagues, perhaps,
+away from this, a youth of well-bred appearance and manners, mounted on
+that same mule which lies dead here, and with the same saddle-pad and
+valise which you say you found and did not touch. He asked us what part
+of this sierra was the most rugged and retired; we told him that it was
+where we now are; and so in truth it is, for if you push on half a
+league farther, perhaps you will not be able to find your way out; and
+I am wondering how you have managed to come here, for there is no road
+or path that leads to this spot. I say, then, that on hearing our
+answer the youth turned about and made for the place we pointed out to
+him, leaving us all charmed with his good looks, and wondering at his
+question and the haste with which we saw him depart in the direction of
+the sierra; and after that we saw him no more, until some days
+afterwards he crossed the path of one of our shepherds, and without
+saying a word to him, came up to him and gave him several cuffs and
+kicks, and then turned to the ass with our provisions and took all the
+bread and cheese it carried, and having done this made off back again
+into the sierra with extraordinary swiftness. When some of us goatherds
+learned this we went in search of him for about two days through the
+most remote portion of this sierra, at the end of which we found him
+lodged in the hollow of a large thick cork tree. He came out to meet us
+with great gentleness, with his dress now torn and his face so
+disfigured and burned by the sun, that we hardly recognised him but
+that his clothes, though torn, convinced us, from the recollection we
+had of them, that he was the person we were looking for. He saluted us
+courteously, and in a few well-spoken words he told us not to wonder at
+seeing him going about in this guise, as it was binding upon him in
+order that he might work out a penance which for his many sins had been
+imposed upon him. We asked him to tell us who he was, but we were never
+able to find out from him: we begged of him too, when he was in want of
+food, which he could not do without, to tell us where we should find
+him, as we would bring it to him with all good-will and readiness; or
+if this were not to his taste, at least to come and ask it of us and
+not take it by force from the shepherds. He thanked us for the offer,
+begged pardon for the late assault, and promised for the future to ask
+it in God’s name without offering violence to anybody. As for fixed
+abode, he said he had no other than that which chance offered wherever
+night might overtake him; and his words ended in an outburst of weeping
+so bitter that we who listened to him must have been very stones had we
+not joined him in it, comparing what we saw of him the first time with
+what we saw now; for, as I said, he was a graceful and gracious youth,
+and in his courteous and polished language showed himself to be of good
+birth and courtly breeding, and rustics as we were that listened to
+him, even to our rusticity his gentle bearing sufficed to make it
+plain.
+
+“But in the midst of his conversation he stopped and became silent,
+keeping his eyes fixed upon the ground for some time, during which we
+stood still waiting anxiously to see what would come of this
+abstraction; and with no little pity, for from his behaviour, now
+staring at the ground with fixed gaze and eyes wide open without moving
+an eyelid, again closing them, compressing his lips and raising his
+eyebrows, we could perceive plainly that a fit of madness of some kind
+had come upon him; and before long he showed that what we imagined was
+the truth, for he arose in a fury from the ground where he had thrown
+himself, and attacked the first he found near him with such rage and
+fierceness that if we had not dragged him off him, he would have beaten
+or bitten him to death, all the while exclaiming, ‘Oh faithless
+Fernando, here, here shalt thou pay the penalty of the wrong thou hast
+done me; these hands shall tear out that heart of thine, abode and
+dwelling of all iniquity, but of deceit and fraud above all; and to
+these he added other words all in effect upbraiding this Fernando and
+charging him with treachery and faithlessness.
+
+“We forced him to release his hold with no little difficulty, and
+without another word he left us, and rushing off plunged in among these
+brakes and brambles, so as to make it impossible for us to follow him;
+from this we suppose that madness comes upon him from time to time, and
+that someone called Fernando must have done him a wrong of a grievous
+nature such as the condition to which it had brought him seemed to
+show. All this has been since then confirmed on those occasions, and
+they have been many, on which he has crossed our path, at one time to
+beg the shepherds to give him some of the food they carry, at another
+to take it from them by force; for when there is a fit of madness upon
+him, even though the shepherds offer it freely, he will not accept it
+but snatches it from them by dint of blows; but when he is in his
+senses he begs it for the love of God, courteously and civilly, and
+receives it with many thanks and not a few tears. And to tell you the
+truth, sirs,” continued the goatherd, “it was yesterday that we
+resolved, I and four of the lads, two of them our servants, and the
+other two friends of mine, to go in search of him until we find him,
+and when we do to take him, whether by force or of his own consent, to
+the town of Almodóvar, which is eight leagues from this, and there
+strive to cure him (if indeed his malady admits of a cure), or learn
+when he is in his senses who he is, and if he has relatives to whom we
+may give notice of his misfortune. This, sirs, is all I can say in
+answer to what you have asked me; and be sure that the owner of the
+articles you found is he whom you saw pass by with such nimbleness and
+so naked.”
+
+For Don Quixote had already described how he had seen the man go
+bounding along the mountainside, and he was now filled with amazement
+at what he heard from the goatherd, and more eager than ever to
+discover who the unhappy madman was; and in his heart he resolved, as
+he had done before, to search for him all over the mountain, not
+leaving a corner or cave unexamined until he had found him. But chance
+arranged matters better than he expected or hoped, for at that very
+moment, in a gorge on the mountain that opened where they stood, the
+youth he wished to find made his appearance, coming along talking to
+himself in a way that would have been unintelligible near at hand, much
+more at a distance. His garb was what has been described, save that as
+he drew near, Don Quixote perceived that a tattered doublet which he
+wore was amber-tanned, from which he concluded that one who wore such
+garments could not be of very low rank.
+
+Approaching them, the youth greeted them in a harsh and hoarse voice
+but with great courtesy. Don Quixote returned his salutation with equal
+politeness, and dismounting from Rocinante advanced with well-bred
+bearing and grace to embrace him, and held him for some time close in
+his arms as if he had known him for a long time. The other, whom we may
+call the Ragged One of the Sorry Countenance, as Don Quixote was of the
+Rueful, after submitting to the embrace pushed him back a little and,
+placing his hands on Don Quixote’s shoulders, stood gazing at him as if
+seeking to see whether he knew him, not less amazed, perhaps, at the
+sight of the face, figure, and armour of Don Quixote than Don Quixote
+was at the sight of him. To be brief, the first to speak after
+embracing was the Ragged One, and he said what will be told farther on.
+
+
+
+c23i.jpg (53K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIERRA MORENA
+
+
+
+
+c24a.jpg (151K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+The history relates that it was with the greatest attention Don Quixote
+listened to the ragged knight of the Sierra, who began by saying:
+
+“Of a surety, señor, whoever you are, for I know you not, I thank you
+for the proofs of kindness and courtesy you have shown me, and would I
+were in a condition to requite with something more than good-will that
+which you have displayed towards me in the cordial reception you have
+given me; but my fate does not afford me any other means of returning
+kindnesses done me save the hearty desire to repay them.”
+
+“Mine,” replied Don Quixote, “is to be of service to you, so much so
+that I had resolved not to quit these mountains until I had found you,
+and learned of you whether there is any kind of relief to be found for
+that sorrow under which from the strangeness of your life you seem to
+labour; and to search for you with all possible diligence, if search
+had been necessary. And if your misfortune should prove to be one of
+those that refuse admission to any sort of consolation, it was my
+purpose to join you in lamenting and mourning over it, so far as I
+could; for it is still some comfort in misfortune to find one who can
+feel for it. And if my good intentions deserve to be acknowledged with
+any kind of courtesy, I entreat you, señor, by that which I perceive
+you possess in so high a degree, and likewise conjure you by whatever
+you love or have loved best in life, to tell me who you are and the
+cause that has brought you to live or die in these solitudes like a
+brute beast, dwelling among them in a manner so foreign to your
+condition as your garb and appearance show. And I swear,” added Don
+Quixote, “by the order of knighthood which I have received, and by my
+vocation of knight-errant, if you gratify me in this, to serve you with
+all the zeal my calling demands of me, either in relieving your
+misfortune if it admits of relief, or in joining you in lamenting it as
+I promised to do.”
+
+The Knight of the Thicket, hearing him of the Rueful Countenance talk
+in this strain, did nothing but stare at him, and stare at him again,
+and again survey him from head to foot; and when he had thoroughly
+examined him, he said to him:
+
+“If you have anything to give me to eat, for God’s sake give it me, and
+after I have eaten I will do all you ask in acknowledgment of the
+goodwill you have displayed towards me.”
+
+Sancho from his sack, and the goatherd from his pouch, furnished the
+Ragged One with the means of appeasing his hunger, and what they gave
+him he ate like a half-witted being, so hastily that he took no time
+between mouthfuls, gorging rather than swallowing; and while he ate
+neither he nor they who observed him uttered a word. As soon as he had
+done he made signs to them to follow him, which they did, and he led
+them to a green plot which lay a little farther off round the corner of
+a rock. On reaching it he stretched himself upon the grass, and the
+others did the same, all keeping silence, until the Ragged One,
+settling himself in his place, said:
+
+“If it is your wish, sirs, that I should disclose in a few words the
+surpassing extent of my misfortunes, you must promise not to break the
+thread of my sad story with any question or other interruption, for the
+instant you do so the tale I tell will come to an end.”
+
+These words of the Ragged One reminded Don Quixote of the tale his
+squire had told him, when he failed to keep count of the goats that had
+crossed the river and the story remained unfinished; but to return to
+the Ragged One, he went on to say:
+
+“I give you this warning because I wish to pass briefly over the story
+of my misfortunes, for recalling them to memory only serves to add
+fresh ones, and the less you question me the sooner shall I make an end
+of the recital, though I shall not omit to relate anything of
+importance in order fully to satisfy your curiosity.”
+
+Don Quixote gave the promise for himself and the others, and with this
+assurance he began as follows:
+
+“My name is Cardenio, my birthplace one of the best cities of this
+Andalusia, my family noble, my parents rich, my misfortune so great
+that my parents must have wept and my family grieved over it without
+being able by their wealth to lighten it; for the gifts of fortune can
+do little to relieve reverses sent by Heaven. In that same country
+there was a heaven in which love had placed all the glory I could
+desire; such was the beauty of Luscinda, a damsel as noble and as rich
+as I, but of happier fortunes, and of less firmness than was due to so
+worthy a passion as mine. This Luscinda I loved, worshipped, and adored
+from my earliest and tenderest years, and she loved me in all the
+innocence and sincerity of childhood. Our parents were aware of our
+feelings, and were not sorry to perceive them, for they saw clearly
+that as they ripened they must lead at last to a marriage between us, a
+thing that seemed almost prearranged by the equality of our families
+and wealth. We grew up, and with our growth grew the love between us,
+so that the father of Luscinda felt bound for propriety’s sake to
+refuse me admission to his house, in this perhaps imitating the parents
+of that Thisbe so celebrated by the poets, and this refusal but added
+love to love and flame to flame; for though they enforced silence upon
+our tongues they could not impose it upon our pens, which can make
+known the heart’s secrets to a loved one more freely than tongues; for
+many a time the presence of the object of love shakes the firmest will
+and strikes dumb the boldest tongue. Ah heavens! how many letters did I
+write her, and how many dainty modest replies did I receive! how many
+ditties and love-songs did I compose in which my heart declared and
+made known its feelings, described its ardent longings, revelled in its
+recollections and dallied with its desires! At length growing impatient
+and feeling my heart languishing with longing to see her, I resolved to
+put into execution and carry out what seemed to me the best mode of
+winning my desired and merited reward, to ask her of her father for my
+lawful wife, which I did. To this his answer was that he thanked me for
+the disposition I showed to do honour to him and to regard myself as
+honoured by the bestowal of his treasure; but that as my father was
+alive it was his by right to make this demand, for if it were not in
+accordance with his full will and pleasure, Luscinda was not to be
+taken or given by stealth. I thanked him for his kindness, reflecting
+that there was reason in what he said, and that my father would assent
+to it as soon as I should tell him, and with that view I went the very
+same instant to let him know what my desires were. When I entered the
+room where he was I found him with an open letter in his hand, which,
+before I could utter a word, he gave me, saying, ‘By this letter thou
+wilt see, Cardenio, the disposition the Duke Ricardo has to serve
+thee.’ This Duke Ricardo, as you, sirs, probably know already, is a
+grandee of Spain who has his seat in the best part of this Andalusia. I
+took and read the letter, which was couched in terms so flattering that
+even I myself felt it would be wrong in my father not to comply with
+the request the duke made in it, which was that he would send me
+immediately to him, as he wished me to become the companion, not
+servant, of his eldest son, and would take upon himself the charge of
+placing me in a position corresponding to the esteem in which he held
+me. On reading the letter my voice failed me, and still more when I
+heard my father say, ‘Two days hence thou wilt depart, Cardenio, in
+accordance with the duke’s wish, and give thanks to God who is opening
+a road to thee by which thou mayest attain what I know thou dost
+deserve; and to these words he added others of fatherly counsel. The
+time for my departure arrived; I spoke one night to Luscinda, I told
+her all that had occurred, as I did also to her father, entreating him
+to allow some delay, and to defer the disposal of her hand until I
+should see what the Duke Ricardo sought of me: he gave me the promise,
+and she confirmed it with vows and swoonings unnumbered. Finally, I
+presented myself to the duke, and was received and treated by him so
+kindly that very soon envy began to do its work, the old servants
+growing envious of me, and regarding the duke’s inclination to show me
+favour as an injury to themselves. But the one to whom my arrival gave
+the greatest pleasure was the duke’s second son, Fernando by name, a
+gallant youth, of noble, generous, and amorous disposition, who very
+soon made so intimate a friend of me that it was remarked by everybody;
+for though the elder was attached to me, and showed me kindness, he did
+not carry his affectionate treatment to the same length as Don
+Fernando. It so happened, then, that as between friends no secret
+remains unshared, and as the favour I enjoyed with Don Fernando had
+grown into friendship, he made all his thoughts known to me, and in
+particular a love affair which troubled his mind a little. He was
+deeply in love with a peasant girl, a vassal of his father’s, the
+daughter of wealthy parents, and herself so beautiful, modest,
+discreet, and virtuous, that no one who knew her was able to decide in
+which of these respects she was most highly gifted or most excelled.
+The attractions of the fair peasant raised the passion of Don Fernando
+to such a point that, in order to gain his object and overcome her
+virtuous resolutions, he determined to pledge his word to her to become
+her husband, for to attempt it in any other way was to attempt an
+impossibility. Bound to him as I was by friendship, I strove by the
+best arguments and the most forcible examples I could think of to
+restrain and dissuade him from such a course; but perceiving I produced
+no effect I resolved to make the Duke Ricardo, his father, acquainted
+with the matter; but Don Fernando, being sharp-witted and shrewd,
+foresaw and apprehended this, perceiving that by my duty as a good
+servant I was bound not to keep concealed a thing so much opposed to
+the honour of my lord the duke; and so, to mislead and deceive me, he
+told me he could find no better way of effacing from his mind the
+beauty that so enslaved him than by absenting himself for some months,
+and that he wished the absence to be effected by our going, both of us,
+to my father’s house under the pretence, which he would make to the
+duke, of going to see and buy some fine horses that there were in my
+city, which produces the best in the world. When I heard him say so,
+even if his resolution had not been so good a one I should have hailed
+it as one of the happiest that could be imagined, prompted by my
+affection, seeing what a favourable chance and opportunity it offered
+me of returning to see my Luscinda. With this thought and wish I
+commended his idea and encouraged his design, advising him to put it
+into execution as quickly as possible, as, in truth, absence produced
+its effect in spite of the most deeply rooted feelings. But, as
+afterwards appeared, when he said this to me he had already enjoyed the
+peasant girl under the title of husband, and was waiting for an
+opportunity of making it known with safety to himself, being in dread
+of what his father the duke would do when he came to know of his folly.
+It happened, then, that as with young men love is for the most part
+nothing more than appetite, which, as its final object is enjoyment,
+comes to an end on obtaining it, and that which seemed to be love takes
+to flight, as it cannot pass the limit fixed by nature, which fixes no
+limit to true love—what I mean is that after Don Fernando had enjoyed
+this peasant girl his passion subsided and his eagerness cooled, and if
+at first he feigned a wish to absent himself in order to cure his love,
+he was now in reality anxious to go to avoid keeping his promise.
+
+“The duke gave him permission, and ordered me to accompany him; we
+arrived at my city, and my father gave him the reception due to his
+rank; I saw Luscinda without delay, and, though it had not been dead or
+deadened, my love gathered fresh life. To my sorrow I told the story of
+it to Don Fernando, for I thought that in virtue of the great
+friendship he bore me I was bound to conceal nothing from him. I
+extolled her beauty, her gaiety, her wit, so warmly, that my praises
+excited in him a desire to see a damsel adorned by such attractions. To
+my misfortune I yielded to it, showing her to him one night by the
+light of a taper at a window where we used to talk to one another. As
+she appeared to him in her dressing-gown, she drove all the beauties he
+had seen until then out of his recollection; speech failed him, his
+head turned, he was spell-bound, and in the end love-smitten, as you
+will see in the course of the story of my misfortune; and to inflame
+still further his passion, which he hid from me and revealed to Heaven
+alone, it so happened that one day he found a note of hers entreating
+me to demand her of her father in marriage, so delicate, so modest, and
+so tender, that on reading it he told me that in Luscinda alone were
+combined all the charms of beauty and understanding that were
+distributed among all the other women in the world. It is true, and I
+own it now, that though I knew what good cause Don Fernando had to
+praise Luscinda, it gave me uneasiness to hear these praises from his
+mouth, and I began to fear, and with reason to feel distrust of him,
+for there was no moment when he was not ready to talk of Luscinda, and
+he would start the subject himself even though he dragged it in
+unseasonably, a circumstance that aroused in me a certain amount of
+jealousy; not that I feared any change in the constancy or faith of
+Luscinda; but still my fate led me to forebode what she assured me
+against. Don Fernando contrived always to read the letters I sent to
+Luscinda and her answers to me, under the pretence that he enjoyed the
+wit and sense of both. It so happened, then, that Luscinda having
+begged of me a book of chivalry to read, one that she was very fond of,
+Amadis of Gaul—”
+
+Don Quixote no sooner heard a book of chivalry mentioned, than he said:
+
+“Had your worship told me at the beginning of your story that the Lady
+Luscinda was fond of books of chivalry, no other laudation would have
+been requisite to impress upon me the superiority of her understanding,
+for it could not have been of the excellence you describe had a taste
+for such delightful reading been wanting; so, as far as I am concerned,
+you need waste no more words in describing her beauty, worth, and
+intelligence; for, on merely hearing what her taste was, I declare her
+to be the most beautiful and the most intelligent woman in the world;
+and I wish your worship had, along with Amadis of Gaul, sent her the
+worthy Don Rugel of Greece, for I know the Lady Luscinda would greatly
+relish Daraida and Garaya, and the shrewd sayings of the shepherd
+Darinel, and the admirable verses of his bucolics, sung and delivered
+by him with such sprightliness, wit, and ease; but a time may come when
+this omission can be remedied, and to rectify it nothing more is needed
+than for your worship to be so good as to come with me to my village,
+for there I can give you more than three hundred books which are the
+delight of my soul and the entertainment of my life;—though it occurs
+to me that I have not got one of them now, thanks to the spite of
+wicked and envious enchanters;—but pardon me for having broken the
+promise we made not to interrupt your discourse; for when I hear
+chivalry or knights-errant mentioned, I can no more help talking about
+them than the rays of the sun can help giving heat, or those of the
+moon moisture; pardon me, therefore, and proceed, for that is more to
+the purpose now.”
+
+While Don Quixote was saying this, Cardenio allowed his head to fall
+upon his breast, and seemed plunged in deep thought; and though twice
+Don Quixote bade him go on with his story, he neither looked up nor
+uttered a word in reply; but after some time he raised his head and
+said, “I cannot get rid of the idea, nor will anyone in the world
+remove it, or make me think otherwise—and he would be a blockhead who
+would hold or believe anything else than that that arrant knave Master
+Elisabad made free with Queen Madasima.”
+
+“That is not true, by all that’s good,” said Don Quixote in high wrath,
+turning upon him angrily, as his way was; “and it is a very great
+slander, or rather villainy. Queen Madasima was a very illustrious
+lady, and it is not to be supposed that so exalted a princess would
+have made free with a quack; and whoever maintains the contrary lies
+like a great scoundrel, and I will give him to know it, on foot or on
+horseback, armed or unarmed, by night or by day, or as he likes best.”
+
+Cardenio was looking at him steadily, and his mad fit having now come
+upon him, he had no disposition to go on with his story, nor would Don
+Quixote have listened to it, so much had what he had heard about
+Madasima disgusted him. Strange to say, he stood up for her as if she
+were in earnest his veritable born lady; to such a pass had his unholy
+books brought him. Cardenio, then, being, as I said, now mad, when he
+heard himself given the lie, and called a scoundrel and other insulting
+names, not relishing the jest, snatched up a stone that he found near
+him, and with it delivered such a blow on Don Quixote’s breast that he
+laid him on his back. Sancho Panza, seeing his master treated in this
+fashion, attacked the madman with his closed fist; but the Ragged One
+received him in such a way that with a blow of his fist he stretched
+him at his feet, and then mounting upon him crushed his ribs to his own
+satisfaction; the goatherd, who came to the rescue, shared the same
+fate; and having beaten and pummelled them all he left them and quietly
+withdrew to his hiding-place on the mountain. Sancho rose, and with the
+rage he felt at finding himself so belaboured without deserving it, ran
+to take vengeance on the goatherd, accusing him of not giving them
+warning that this man was at times taken with a mad fit, for if they
+had known it they would have been on their guard to protect themselves.
+The goatherd replied that he had said so, and that if he had not heard
+him, that was no fault of his. Sancho retorted, and the goatherd
+rejoined, and the altercation ended in their seizing each other by the
+beard, and exchanging such fisticuffs that if Don Quixote had not made
+peace between them, they would have knocked one another to pieces.
+
+“Leave me alone, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance,” said Sancho,
+grappling with the goatherd, “for of this fellow, who is a clown like
+myself, and no dubbed knight, I can safely take satisfaction for the
+affront he has offered me, fighting with him hand to hand like an
+honest man.”
+
+“That is true,” said Don Quixote, “but I know that he is not to blame
+for what has happened.”
+
+With this he pacified them, and again asked the goatherd if it would be
+possible to find Cardenio, as he felt the greatest anxiety to know the
+end of his story. The goatherd told him, as he had told him before,
+that there was no knowing of a certainty where his lair was; but that
+if he wandered about much in that neighbourhood he could not fail to
+fall in with him either in or out of his senses.
+
+
+
+c24e.jpg (69K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO THE STOUT KNIGHT OF
+LA MANCHA IN THE SIERRA MORENA, AND OF HIS IMITATION OF THE PENANCE OF
+BELTENEBROS
+
+
+
+
+c25a.jpg (168K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Don Quixote took leave of the goatherd, and once more mounting
+Rocinante bade Sancho follow him, which he having no ass, did very
+discontentedly. They proceeded slowly, making their way into the most
+rugged part of the mountain, Sancho all the while dying to have a talk
+with his master, and longing for him to begin, so that there should be
+no breach of the injunction laid upon him; but unable to keep silence
+so long he said to him:
+
+“Señor Don Quixote, give me your worship’s blessing and dismissal, for
+I’d like to go home at once to my wife and children with whom I can at
+any rate talk and converse as much as I like; for to want me to go
+through these solitudes day and night and not speak to you when I have
+a mind is burying me alive. If luck would have it that animals spoke as
+they did in the days of Guisopete, it would not be so bad, because I
+could talk to Rocinante about whatever came into my head, and so put up
+with my ill-fortune; but it is a hard case, and not to be borne with
+patience, to go seeking adventures all one’s life and get nothing but
+kicks and blanketings, brickbats and punches, and with all this to have
+to sew up one’s mouth without daring to say what is in one’s heart,
+just as if one were dumb.”
+
+“I understand thee, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote; “thou art dying to
+have the interdict I placed upon thy tongue removed; consider it
+removed, and say what thou wilt while we are wandering in these
+mountains.”
+
+“So be it,” said Sancho; “let me speak now, for God knows what will
+happen by-and-by; and to take advantage of the permit at once, I ask,
+what made your worship stand up so for that Queen Majimasa, or whatever
+her name is, or what did it matter whether that abbot was a friend of
+hers or not? for if your worship had let that pass—and you were not a
+judge in the matter—it is my belief the madman would have gone on with
+his story, and the blow of the stone, and the kicks, and more than half
+a dozen cuffs would have been escaped.”
+
+“In faith, Sancho,” answered Don Quixote, “if thou knewest as I do what
+an honourable and illustrious lady Queen Madasima was, I know thou
+wouldst say I had great patience that I did not break in pieces the
+mouth that uttered such blasphemies, for a very great blasphemy it is
+to say or imagine that a queen has made free with a surgeon. The truth
+of the story is that that Master Elisabad whom the madman mentioned was
+a man of great prudence and sound judgment, and served as governor and
+physician to the queen, but to suppose that she was his mistress is
+nonsense deserving very severe punishment; and as a proof that Cardenio
+did not know what he was saying, remember when he said it he was out of
+his wits.”
+
+“That is what I say,” said Sancho; “there was no occasion for minding
+the words of a madman; for if good luck had not helped your worship,
+and he had sent that stone at your head instead of at your breast, a
+fine way we should have been in for standing up for my lady yonder, God
+confound her! And then, would not Cardenio have gone free as a madman?”
+
+“Against men in their senses or against madmen,” said Don Quixote,
+“every knight-errant is bound to stand up for the honour of women,
+whoever they may be, much more for queens of such high degree and
+dignity as Queen Madasima, for whom I have a particular regard on
+account of her amiable qualities; for, besides being extremely
+beautiful, she was very wise, and very patient under her misfortunes,
+of which she had many; and the counsel and society of the Master
+Elisabad were a great help and support to her in enduring her
+afflictions with wisdom and resignation; hence the ignorant and
+ill-disposed vulgar took occasion to say and think that she was his
+mistress; and they lie, I say it once more, and will lie two hundred
+times more, all who think and say so.”
+
+“I neither say nor think so,” said Sancho; “let them look to it; with
+their bread let them eat it; they have rendered account to God whether
+they misbehaved or not; I come from my vineyard, I know nothing; I am
+not fond of prying into other men’s lives; he who buys and lies feels
+it in his purse; moreover, naked was I born, naked I find myself, I
+neither lose nor gain; but if they did, what is that to me? many think
+there are flitches where there are no hooks; but who can put gates to
+the open plain? moreover they said of God—”
+
+“God bless me,” said Don Quixote, “what a set of absurdities thou art
+stringing together! What has what we are talking about got to do with
+the proverbs thou art threading one after the other? for God’s sake
+hold thy tongue, Sancho, and henceforward keep to prodding thy ass and
+don’t meddle in what does not concern thee; and understand with all thy
+five senses that everything I have done, am doing, or shall do, is well
+founded on reason and in conformity with the rules of chivalry, for I
+understand them better than all the world that profess them.”
+
+“Señor,” replied Sancho, “is it a good rule of chivalry that we should
+go astray through these mountains without path or road, looking for a
+madman who when he is found will perhaps take a fancy to finish what he
+began, not his story, but your worship’s head and my ribs, and end by
+breaking them altogether for us?”
+
+
+
+c25b.jpg (330K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“Peace, I say again, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for let me tell thee
+it is not so much the desire of finding that madman that leads me into
+these regions as that which I have of performing among them an
+achievement wherewith I shall win eternal name and fame throughout the
+known world; and it shall be such that I shall thereby set the seal on
+all that can make a knight-errant perfect and famous.”
+
+“And is it very perilous, this achievement?”
+
+“No,” replied he of the Rueful Countenance; “though it may be in the
+dice that we may throw deuce-ace instead of sixes; but all will depend
+on thy diligence.”
+
+“On my diligence!” said Sancho.
+
+“Yes,” said Don Quixote, “for if thou dost return soon from the place
+where I mean to send thee, my penance will be soon over, and my glory
+will soon begin. But as it is not right to keep thee any longer in
+suspense, waiting to see what comes of my words, I would have thee
+know, Sancho, that the famous Amadis of Gaul was one of the most
+perfect knights-errant—I am wrong to say he was one; he stood alone,
+the first, the only one, the lord of all that were in the world in his
+time. A fig for Don Belianis, and for all who say he equalled him in
+any respect, for, my oath upon it, they are deceiving themselves! I
+say, too, that when a painter desires to become famous in his art he
+endeavours to copy the originals of the rarest painters that he knows;
+and the same rule holds good for all the most important crafts and
+callings that serve to adorn a state; thus must he who would be
+esteemed prudent and patient imitate Ulysses, in whose person and
+labours Homer presents to us a lively picture of prudence and patience;
+as Virgil, too, shows us in the person of Æneas the virtue of a pious
+son and the sagacity of a brave and skilful captain; not representing
+or describing them as they were, but as they ought to be, so as to
+leave the example of their virtues to posterity. In the same way Amadis
+was the polestar, day-star, sun of valiant and devoted knights, whom
+all we who fight under the banner of love and chivalry are bound to
+imitate. This, then, being so, I consider, friend Sancho, that the
+knight-errant who shall imitate him most closely will come nearest to
+reaching the perfection of chivalry. Now one of the instances in which
+this knight most conspicuously showed his prudence, worth, valour,
+endurance, fortitude, and love, was when he withdrew, rejected by the
+Lady Oriana, to do penance upon the Peña Pobre, changing his name into
+that of Beltenebros, a name assuredly significant and appropriate to
+the life which he had voluntarily adopted. So, as it is easier for me
+to imitate him in this than in cleaving giants asunder, cutting off
+serpents’ heads, slaying dragons, routing armies, destroying fleets,
+and breaking enchantments, and as this place is so well suited for a
+similar purpose, I must not allow the opportunity to escape which now
+so conveniently offers me its forelock.”
+
+“What is it in reality,” said Sancho, “that your worship means to do in
+such an out-of-the-way place as this?”
+
+“Have I not told thee,” answered Don Quixote, “that I mean to imitate
+Amadis here, playing the victim of despair, the madman, the maniac, so
+as at the same time to imitate the valiant Don Roland, when at the
+fountain he had evidence of the fair Angelica having disgraced herself
+with Medoro and through grief thereat went mad, and plucked up trees,
+troubled the waters of the clear springs, slew shepherds, destroyed
+flocks, burned down huts, levelled houses, dragged mares after him, and
+perpetrated a hundred thousand other outrages worthy of everlasting
+renown and record? And though I have no intention of imitating Roland,
+or Orlando, or Rotolando (for he went by all these names), step by step
+in all the mad things he did, said, and thought, I will make a rough
+copy to the best of my power of all that seems to me most essential;
+but perhaps I shall content myself with the simple imitation of Amadis,
+who without giving way to any mischievous madness but merely to tears
+and sorrow, gained as much fame as the most famous.”
+
+“It seems to me,” said Sancho, “that the knights who behaved in this
+way had provocation and cause for those follies and penances; but what
+cause has your worship for going mad? What lady has rejected you, or
+what evidence have you found to prove that the lady Dulcinea del Toboso
+has been trifling with Moor or Christian?”
+
+“There is the point,” replied Don Quixote, “and that is the beauty of
+this business of mine; no thanks to a knight-errant for going mad when
+he has cause; the thing is to turn crazy without any provocation, and
+let my lady know, if I do this in the dry, what I would do in the
+moist; moreover I have abundant cause in the long separation I have
+endured from my lady till death, Dulcinea del Toboso; for as thou didst
+hear that shepherd Ambrosio say the other day, in absence all ills are
+felt and feared; and so, friend Sancho, waste no time in advising me
+against so rare, so happy, and so unheard-of an imitation; mad I am,
+and mad I must be until thou returnest with the answer to a letter that
+I mean to send by thee to my lady Dulcinea; and if it be such as my
+constancy deserves, my insanity and penance will come to an end; and if
+it be to the opposite effect, I shall become mad in earnest, and, being
+so, I shall suffer no more; thus in whatever way she may answer I shall
+escape from the struggle and affliction in which thou wilt leave me,
+enjoying in my senses the boon thou bearest me, or as a madman not
+feeling the evil thou bringest me. But tell me, Sancho, hast thou got
+Mambrino’s helmet safe? for I saw thee take it up from the ground when
+that ungrateful wretch tried to break it in pieces but could not, by
+which the fineness of its temper may be seen.”
+
+To which Sancho made answer, “By the living God, Sir Knight of the
+Rueful Countenance, I cannot endure or bear with patience some of the
+things that your worship says; and from them I begin to suspect that
+all you tell me about chivalry, and winning kingdoms and empires, and
+giving islands, and bestowing other rewards and dignities after the
+custom of knights-errant, must be all made up of wind and lies, and all
+pigments or figments, or whatever we may call them; for what would
+anyone think that heard your worship calling a barber’s basin
+Mambrino’s helmet without ever seeing the mistake all this time, but
+that one who says and maintains such things must have his brains
+addled? I have the basin in my sack all dinted, and I am taking it home
+to have it mended, to trim my beard in it, if, by God’s grace, I am
+allowed to see my wife and children some day or other.”
+
+“Look here, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “by him thou didst swear by just
+now I swear thou hast the most limited understanding that any squire in
+the world has or ever had. Is it possible that all this time thou hast
+been going about with me thou hast never found out that all things
+belonging to knights-errant seem to be illusions and nonsense and
+ravings, and to go always by contraries? And not because it really is
+so, but because there is always a swarm of enchanters in attendance
+upon us that change and alter everything with us, and turn things as
+they please, and according as they are disposed to aid or destroy us;
+thus what seems to thee a barber’s basin seems to me Mambrino’s helmet,
+and to another it will seem something else; and rare foresight it was
+in the sage who is on my side to make what is really and truly
+Mambrino’s helmet seem a basin to everybody, for, being held in such
+estimation as it is, all the world would pursue me to rob me of it; but
+when they see it is only a barber’s basin they do not take the trouble
+to obtain it; as was plainly shown by him who tried to break it, and
+left it on the ground without taking it, for, by my faith, had he known
+it he would never have left it behind. Keep it safe, my friend, for
+just now I have no need of it; indeed, I shall have to take off all
+this armour and remain as naked as I was born, if I have a mind to
+follow Roland rather than Amadis in my penance.”
+
+Thus talking they reached the foot of a high mountain which stood like
+an isolated peak among the others that surrounded it. Past its base
+there flowed a gentle brook, all around it spread a meadow so green and
+luxuriant that it was a delight to the eyes to look upon it, and forest
+trees in abundance, and shrubs and flowers, added to the charms of the
+spot. Upon this place the Knight of the Rueful Countenance fixed his
+choice for the performance of his penance, and as he beheld it
+exclaimed in a loud voice as though he were out of his senses:
+
+“This is the place, oh, ye heavens, that I select and choose for
+bewailing the misfortune in which ye yourselves have plunged me: this
+is the spot where the overflowings of mine eyes shall swell the waters
+of yon little brook, and my deep and endless sighs shall stir
+unceasingly the leaves of these mountain trees, in testimony and token
+of the pain my persecuted heart is suffering. Oh, ye rural deities,
+whoever ye be that haunt this lone spot, give ear to the complaint of a
+wretched lover whom long absence and brooding jealousy have driven to
+bewail his fate among these wilds and complain of the hard heart of
+that fair and ungrateful one, the end and limit of all human beauty!
+Oh, ye wood nymphs and dryads, that dwell in the thickets of the
+forest, so may the nimble wanton satyrs by whom ye are vainly wooed
+never disturb your sweet repose, help me to lament my hard fate or at
+least weary not at listening to it! Oh, Dulcinea del Toboso, day of my
+night, glory of my pain, guide of my path, star of my fortune, so may
+Heaven grant thee in full all thou seekest of it, bethink thee of the
+place and condition to which absence from thee has brought me, and make
+that return in kindness that is due to my fidelity! Oh, lonely trees,
+that from this day forward shall bear me company in my solitude, give
+me some sign by the gentle movement of your boughs that my presence is
+not distasteful to you! Oh, thou, my squire, pleasant companion in my
+prosperous and adverse fortunes, fix well in thy memory what thou shalt
+see me do here, so that thou mayest relate and report it to the sole
+cause of all,” and so saying he dismounted from Rocinante, and in an
+instant relieved him of saddle and bridle, and giving him a slap on the
+croup, said, “He gives thee freedom who is bereft of it himself, oh
+steed as excellent in deed as thou art unfortunate in thy lot; begone
+where thou wilt, for thou bearest written on thy forehead that neither
+Astolfo’s hippogriff, nor the famed Frontino that cost Bradamante so
+dear, could equal thee in speed.”
+
+Seeing this Sancho said, “Good luck to him who has saved us the trouble
+of stripping the pack-saddle off Dapple! By my faith he would not have
+gone without a slap on the croup and something said in his praise;
+though if he were here I would not let anyone strip him, for there
+would be no occasion, as he had nothing of the lover or victim of
+despair about him, inasmuch as his master, which I was while it was
+God’s pleasure, was nothing of the sort; and indeed, Sir Knight of the
+Rueful Countenance, if my departure and your worship’s madness are to
+come off in earnest, it will be as well to saddle Rocinante again in
+order that he may supply the want of Dapple, because it will save me
+time in going and returning: for if I go on foot I don’t know when I
+shall get there or when I shall get back, as I am, in truth, a bad
+walker.”
+
+“I declare, Sancho,” returned Don Quixote, “it shall be as thou wilt,
+for thy plan does not seem to me a bad one, and three days hence thou
+wilt depart, for I wish thee to observe in the meantime what I do and
+say for her sake, that thou mayest be able to tell it.”
+
+“But what more have I to see besides what I have seen?” said Sancho.
+
+“Much thou knowest about it!” said Don Quixote. “I have now got to tear
+up my garments, to scatter about my armour, knock my head against these
+rocks, and more of the same sort of thing, which thou must witness.”
+
+“For the love of God,” said Sancho, “be careful, your worship, how you
+give yourself those knocks on the head, for you may come across such a
+rock, and in such a way, that the very first may put an end to the
+whole contrivance of this penance; and I should think, if indeed knocks
+on the head seem necessary to you, and this business cannot be done
+without them, you might be content—as the whole thing is feigned, and
+counterfeit, and in joke—you might be content, I say, with giving them
+to yourself in the water, or against something soft, like cotton; and
+leave it all to me; for I’ll tell my lady that your worship knocked
+your head against a point of rock harder than a diamond.”
+
+“I thank thee for thy good intentions, friend Sancho,” answered Don
+Quixote, “but I would have thee know that all these things I am doing
+are not in joke, but very much in earnest, for anything else would be a
+transgression of the ordinances of chivalry, which forbid us to tell
+any lie whatever under the penalties due to apostasy; and to do one
+thing instead of another is just the same as lying; so my knocks on the
+head must be real, solid, and valid, without anything sophisticated or
+fanciful about them, and it will be needful to leave me some lint to
+dress my wounds, since fortune has compelled us to do without the
+balsam we lost.”
+
+“It was worse losing the ass,” replied Sancho, “for with him lint and
+all were lost; but I beg of your worship not to remind me again of that
+accursed liquor, for my soul, not to say my stomach, turns at hearing
+the very name of it; and I beg of you, too, to reckon as past the three
+days you allowed me for seeing the mad things you do, for I take them
+as seen already and pronounced upon, and I will tell wonderful stories
+to my lady; so write the letter and send me off at once, for I long to
+return and take your worship out of this purgatory where I am leaving
+you.”
+
+“Purgatory dost thou call it, Sancho?” said Don Quixote, “rather call
+it hell, or even worse if there be anything worse.”
+
+“For one who is in hell,” said Sancho, “_nulla est retentio_, as I have
+heard say.”
+
+“I do not understand what _retentio_ means,” said Don Quixote.
+
+“_Retentio_,” answered Sancho, “means that whoever is in hell never
+comes nor can come out of it, which will be the opposite case with your
+worship or my legs will be idle, that is if I have spurs to enliven
+Rocinante: let me once get to El Toboso and into the presence of my
+lady Dulcinea, and I will tell her such things of the follies and
+madnesses (for it is all one) that your worship has done and is still
+doing, that I will manage to make her softer than a glove though I find
+her harder than a cork tree; and with her sweet and honeyed answer I
+will come back through the air like a witch, and take your worship out
+of this purgatory that seems to be hell but is not, as there is hope of
+getting out of it; which, as I have said, those in hell have not, and I
+believe your worship will not say anything to the contrary.”
+
+“That is true,” said he of the Rueful Countenance, “but how shall we
+manage to write the letter?”
+
+“And the ass-colt order too,” added Sancho.
+
+“All shall be included,” said Don Quixote; “and as there is no paper,
+it would be well done to write it on the leaves of trees, as the
+ancients did, or on tablets of wax; though that would be as hard to
+find just now as paper. But it has just occurred to me how it may be
+conveniently and even more than conveniently written, and that is in
+the notebook that belonged to Cardenio, and thou wilt take care to have
+it copied on paper, in a good hand, at the first village thou comest to
+where there is a schoolmaster, or if not, any sacristan will copy it;
+but see thou give it not to any notary to copy, for they write a law
+hand that Satan could not make out.”
+
+“But what is to be done about the signature?” said Sancho.
+
+“The letters of Amadis were never signed,” said Don Quixote.
+
+“That is all very well,” said Sancho, “but the order must needs be
+signed, and if it is copied they will say the signature is false, and I
+shall be left without ass-colts.”
+
+“The order shall go signed in the same book,” said Don Quixote, “and on
+seeing it my niece will make no difficulty about obeying it; as to the
+loveletter thou canst put by way of signature, ‘_Yours till death, the
+Knight of the Rueful Countenance._’ And it will be no great matter if
+it is in some other person’s hand, for as well as I recollect Dulcinea
+can neither read nor write, nor in the whole course of her life has she
+seen handwriting or letter of mine, for my love and hers have been
+always platonic, not going beyond a modest look, and even that so
+seldom that I can safely swear I have not seen her four times in all
+these twelve years I have been loving her more than the light of these
+eyes that the earth will one day devour; and perhaps even of those four
+times she has not once perceived that I was looking at her: such is the
+retirement and seclusion in which her father Lorenzo Corchuelo and her
+mother Aldonza Nogales have brought her up.”
+
+“So, so!” said Sancho; “Lorenzo Corchuelo’s daughter is the lady
+Dulcinea del Toboso, otherwise called Aldonza Lorenzo?”
+
+“She it is,” said Don Quixote, “and she it is that is worthy to be lady
+of the whole universe.”
+
+“I know her well,” said Sancho, “and let me tell you she can fling a
+crowbar as well as the lustiest lad in all the town. Giver of all good!
+but she is a brave lass, and a right and stout one, and fit to be
+helpmate to any knight-errant that is or is to be, who may make her his
+lady: the whoreson wench, what sting she has and what a voice! I can
+tell you one day she posted herself on the top of the belfry of the
+village to call some labourers of theirs that were in a ploughed field
+of her father’s, and though they were better than half a league off
+they heard her as well as if they were at the foot of the tower; and
+the best of her is that she is not a bit prudish, for she has plenty of
+affability, and jokes with everybody, and has a grin and a jest for
+everything. So, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, I say you not
+only may and ought to do mad freaks for her sake, but you have a good
+right to give way to despair and hang yourself; and no one who knows of
+it but will say you did well, though the devil should take you; and I
+wish I were on my road already, simply to see her, for it is many a day
+since I saw her, and she must be altered by this time, for going about
+the fields always, and the sun and the air spoil women’s looks greatly.
+But I must own the truth to your worship, Señor Don Quixote; until now
+I have been under a great mistake, for I believed truly and honestly
+that the lady Dulcinea must be some princess your worship was in love
+with, or some person great enough to deserve the rich presents you have
+sent her, such as the Biscayan and the galley slaves, and many more no
+doubt, for your worship must have won many victories in the time when I
+was not yet your squire. But all things considered, what good can it do
+the lady Aldonza Lorenzo, I mean the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, to have
+the vanquished your worship sends or will send coming to her and going
+down on their knees before her? Because maybe when they came she’d be
+hackling flax or threshing on the threshing floor, and they’d be
+ashamed to see her, and she’d laugh, or resent the present.”
+
+“I have before now told thee many times, Sancho,” said Don Quixote,
+“that thou art a mighty great chatterer, and that with a blunt wit thou
+art always striving at sharpness; but to show thee what a fool thou art
+and how rational I am, I would have thee listen to a short story. Thou
+must know that a certain widow, fair, young, independent, and rich, and
+above all free and easy, fell in love with a sturdy strapping young
+lay-brother; his superior came to know of it, and one day said to the
+worthy widow by way of brotherly remonstrance, ‘I am surprised, señora,
+and not without good reason, that a woman of such high standing, so
+fair, and so rich as you are, should have fallen in love with such a
+mean, low, stupid fellow as So-and-so, when in this house there are so
+many masters, graduates, and divinity students from among whom you
+might choose as if they were a lot of pears, saying, ‘This one I’ll
+take, that I won’t take;’ but she replied to him with great
+sprightliness and candour, ‘My dear sir, you are very much mistaken,
+and your ideas are very old-fashioned, if you think that I have made a
+bad choice in So-and-so, fool as he seems; because for all I want with
+him he knows as much and more philosophy than Aristotle.’ In the same
+way, Sancho, for all I want with Dulcinea del Toboso she is just as
+good as the most exalted princess on earth. It is not to be supposed
+that all those poets who sang the praises of ladies under the fancy
+names they give them, had any such mistresses. Thinkest thou that the
+Amarillises, the Phillises, the Sylvias, the Dianas, the Galateas, the
+Fílidas, and all the rest of them, that the books, the ballads, the
+barber’s shops, the theatres are full of, were really and truly ladies
+of flesh and blood, and mistresses of those that glorify and have
+glorified them? Nothing of the kind; they only invent them for the most
+part to furnish a subject for their verses, and that they may pass for
+lovers, or for men valiant enough to be so; and so it suffices me to
+think and believe that the good Aldonza Lorenzo is fair and virtuous;
+and as to her pedigree it is very little matter, for no one will
+examine into it for the purpose of conferring any order upon her, and
+I, for my part, reckon her the most exalted princess in the world. For
+thou shouldst know, Sancho, if thou dost not know, that two things
+alone beyond all others are incentives to love, and these are great
+beauty and a good name, and these two things are to be found in
+Dulcinea in the highest degree, for in beauty no one equals her and in
+good name few approach her; and to put the whole thing in a nutshell, I
+persuade myself that all I say is as I say, neither more nor less, and
+I picture her in my imagination as I would have her to be, as well in
+beauty as in condition; Helen approaches her not nor does Lucretia come
+up to her, nor any other of the famous women of times past, Greek,
+Barbarian, or Latin; and let each say what he will, for if in this I am
+taken to task by the ignorant, I shall not be censured by the
+critical.”
+
+“I say that your worship is entirely right,” said Sancho, “and that I
+am an ass. But I know not how the name of ass came into my mouth, for a
+rope is not to be mentioned in the house of him who has been hanged;
+but now for the letter, and then, God be with you, I am off.”
+
+Don Quixote took out the notebook, and, retiring to one side, very
+deliberately began to write the letter, and when he had finished it he
+called to Sancho, saying he wished to read it to him, so that he might
+commit it to memory, in case of losing it on the road; for with evil
+fortune like his anything might be apprehended. To which Sancho
+replied, “Write it two or three times there in the book and give it to
+me, and I will carry it very carefully, because to expect me to keep it
+in my memory is all nonsense, for I have such a bad one that I often
+forget my own name; but for all that repeat it to me, as I shall like
+to hear it, for surely it will run as if it was in print.”
+
+“Listen,” said Don Quixote, “this is what it says:
+
+_“Don Quixote’s Letter to Dulcinea del Toboso_
+
+
+“Sovereign and exalted Lady,—The pierced by the point of absence, the
+wounded to the heart’s core, sends thee, sweetest Dulcinea del Toboso,
+the health that he himself enjoys not. If thy beauty despises me, if
+thy worth is not for me, if thy scorn is my affliction, though I be
+sufficiently long-suffering, hardly shall I endure this anxiety, which,
+besides being oppressive, is protracted. My good squire Sancho will
+relate to thee in full, fair ingrate, dear enemy, the condition to
+which I am reduced on thy account: if it be thy pleasure to give me
+relief, I am thine; if not, do as may be pleasing to thee; for by
+ending my life I shall satisfy thy cruelty and my desire.
+    “Thine till death,
+    “The Knight of the Rueful Countenance.”
+
+
+“By the life of my father,” said Sancho, when he heard the letter, “it
+is the loftiest thing I ever heard. Body of me! how your worship says
+everything as you like in it! And how well you fit in ‘The Knight of
+the Rueful Countenance’ into the signature. I declare your worship is
+indeed the very devil, and there is nothing you don’t know.”
+
+“Everything is needed for the calling I follow,” said Don Quixote.
+
+“Now then,” said Sancho, “let your worship put the order for the three
+ass-colts on the other side, and sign it very plainly, that they may
+recognise it at first sight.”
+
+“With all my heart,” said Don Quixote, and as he had written it he read
+it to this effect:
+
+“Mistress Niece,—By this first of ass-colts please pay to Sancho Panza,
+my squire, three of the five I left at home in your charge: said three
+ass-colts to be paid and delivered for the same number received here in
+hand, which upon this and upon his receipt shall be duly paid. Done in
+the heart of the Sierra Morena, the twenty-seventh of August of this
+present year.”
+
+
+“That will do,” said Sancho; “now let your worship sign it.”
+
+“There is no need to sign it,” said Don Quixote, “but merely to put my
+flourish, which is the same as a signature, and enough for three asses,
+or even three hundred.”
+
+“I can trust your worship,” returned Sancho; “let me go and saddle
+Rocinante, and be ready to give me your blessing, for I mean to go at
+once without seeing the fooleries your worship is going to do; I’ll say
+I saw you do so many that she will not want any more.”
+
+“At any rate, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “I should like—and there is
+reason for it—I should like thee, I say, to see me stripped to the skin
+and performing a dozen or two of insanities, which I can get done in
+less than half an hour; for having seen them with thine own eyes, thou
+canst then safely swear to the rest that thou wouldst add; and I
+promise thee thou wilt not tell of as many as I mean to perform.”
+
+“For the love of God, master mine,” said Sancho, “let me not see your
+worship stripped, for it will sorely grieve me, and I shall not be able
+to keep from tears, and my head aches so with all I shed last night for
+Dapple, that I am not fit to begin any fresh weeping; but if it is your
+worship’s pleasure that I should see some insanities, do them in your
+clothes, short ones, and such as come readiest to hand; for I myself
+want nothing of the sort, and, as I have said, it will be a saving of
+time for my return, which will be with the news your worship desires
+and deserves. If not, let the lady Dulcinea look to it; if she does not
+answer reasonably, I swear as solemnly as I can that I will fetch a
+fair answer out of her stomach with kicks and cuffs; for why should it
+be borne that a knight-errant as famous as your worship should go mad
+without rhyme or reason for a—? Her ladyship had best not drive me to
+say it, for by God I will speak out and let off everything cheap, even
+if it doesn’t sell: I am pretty good at that! she little knows me;
+faith, if she knew me she’d be in awe of me.”
+
+“In faith, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “to all appearance thou art no
+sounder in thy wits than I.”
+
+“I am not so mad,” answered Sancho, “but I am more peppery; but apart
+from all this, what has your worship to eat until I come back? Will you
+sally out on the road like Cardenio to force it from the shepherds?”
+
+“Let not that anxiety trouble thee,” replied Don Quixote, “for even if
+I had it I should not eat anything but the herbs and the fruits which
+this meadow and these trees may yield me; the beauty of this business
+of mine lies in not eating, and in performing other mortifications.”
+
+“Do you know what I am afraid of?” said Sancho upon this; “that I shall
+not be able to find my way back to this spot where I am leaving you, it
+is such an out-of-the-way place.”
+
+“Observe the landmarks well,” said Don Quixote, “for I will try not to
+go far from this neighbourhood, and I will even take care to mount the
+highest of these rocks to see if I can discover thee returning;
+however, not to miss me and lose thyself, the best plan will be to cut
+some branches of the broom that is so abundant about here, and as thou
+goest to lay them at intervals until thou hast come out upon the plain;
+these will serve thee, after the fashion of the clue in the labyrinth
+of Theseus, as marks and signs for finding me on thy return.”
+
+“So I will,” said Sancho Panza, and having cut some, he asked his
+master’s blessing, and not without many tears on both sides, took his
+leave of him, and mounting Rocinante, of whom Don Quixote charged him
+earnestly to have as much care as of his own person, he set out for the
+plain, strewing at intervals the branches of broom as his master had
+recommended him; and so he went his way, though Don Quixote still
+entreated him to see him do were it only a couple of mad acts. He had
+not gone a hundred paces, however, when he returned and said:
+
+“I must say, señor, your worship said quite right, that in order to be
+able to swear without a weight on my conscience that I had seen you do
+mad things, it would be well for me to see if it were only one; though
+in your worship’s remaining here I have seen a very great one.”
+
+
+
+c25c.jpg (261K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“Did I not tell thee so?” said Don Quixote. “Wait, Sancho, and I will
+do them in the saying of a credo,” and pulling off his breeches in all
+haste he stripped himself to his skin and his shirt, and then, without
+more ado, he cut a couple of gambados in the air, and a couple of
+somersaults, heels over head, making such a display that, not to see it
+a second time, Sancho wheeled Rocinante round, and felt easy, and
+satisfied in his mind that he could swear he had left his master mad;
+and so we will leave him to follow his road until his return, which was
+a quick one.
+
+
+
+c25e.jpg (20K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+IN WHICH ARE CONTINUED THE REFINEMENTS WHEREWITH DON QUIXOTE PLAYED THE
+PART OF A LOVER IN THE SIERRA MORENA
+
+
+
+
+c26a.jpg (111K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Returning to the proceedings of him of the Rueful Countenance when he
+found himself alone, the history says that when Don Quixote had
+completed the performance of the somersaults or capers, naked from the
+waist down and clothed from the waist up, and saw that Sancho had gone
+off without waiting to see any more crazy feats, he climbed up to the
+top of a high rock, and there set himself to consider what he had
+several times before considered without ever coming to any conclusion
+on the point, namely whether it would be better and more to his purpose
+to imitate the outrageous madness of Roland, or the melancholy madness
+of Amadis; and communing with himself he said:
+
+“What wonder is it if Roland was so good a knight and so valiant as
+everyone says he was, when, after all, he was enchanted, and nobody
+could kill him save by thrusting a corking pin into the sole of his
+foot, and he always wore shoes with seven iron soles? Though cunning
+devices did not avail him against Bernardo del Carpio, who knew all
+about them, and strangled him in his arms at Roncesvalles. But putting
+the question of his valour aside, let us come to his losing his wits,
+for certain it is that he did lose them in consequence of the proofs he
+discovered at the fountain, and the intelligence the shepherd gave him
+of Angelica having slept more than two siestas with Medoro, a little
+curly-headed Moor, and page to Agramante. If he was persuaded that this
+was true, and that his lady had wronged him, it is no wonder that he
+should have gone mad; but I, how am I to imitate him in his madness,
+unless I can imitate him in the cause of it? For my Dulcinea, I will
+venture to swear, never saw a Moor in her life, as he is, in his proper
+costume, and she is this day as the mother that bore her, and I should
+plainly be doing her a wrong if, fancying anything else, I were to go
+mad with the same kind of madness as Roland the Furious. On the other
+hand, I see that Amadis of Gaul, without losing his senses and without
+doing anything mad, acquired as a lover as much fame as the most
+famous; for, according to his history, on finding himself rejected by
+his lady Oriana, who had ordered him not to appear in her presence
+until it should be her pleasure, all he did was to retire to the Peña
+Pobre in company with a hermit, and there he took his fill of weeping
+until Heaven sent him relief in the midst of his great grief and need.
+And if this be true, as it is, why should I now take the trouble to
+strip stark naked, or do mischief to these trees which have done me no
+harm, or why am I to disturb the clear waters of these brooks which
+will give me to drink whenever I have a mind? Long live the memory of
+Amadis and let him be imitated so far as is possible by Don Quixote of
+La Mancha, of whom it will be said, as was said of the other, that if
+he did not achieve great things, he died in attempting them; and if I
+am not repulsed or rejected by my Dulcinea, it is enough for me, as I
+have said, to be absent from her. And so, now to business; come to my
+memory ye deeds of Amadis, and show me how I am to begin to imitate
+you. I know already that what he chiefly did was to pray and commend
+himself to God; but what am I to do for a rosary, for I have not got
+one?”
+
+And then it occurred to him how he might make one, and that was by
+tearing a great strip off the tail of his shirt which hung down, and
+making eleven knots on it, one bigger than the rest, and this served
+him for a rosary all the time he was there, during which he repeated
+countless ave-marias. But what distressed him greatly was not having
+another hermit there to confess him and receive consolation from; and
+so he solaced himself with pacing up and down the little meadow, and
+writing and carving on the bark of the trees and on the fine sand a
+multitude of verses all in harmony with his sadness, and some in praise
+of Dulcinea; but, when he was found there afterwards, the only ones
+completely legible that could be discovered were those that follow
+here:
+
+Ye on the mountainside that grow,
+Ye green things all, trees, shrubs, and bushes,
+Are ye aweary of the woe
+That this poor aching bosom crushes?
+If it disturb you, and I owe
+Some reparation, it may be a
+Defence for me to let you know
+Don Quixote’s tears are on the flow,
+And all for distant Dulcinea
+Del Toboso.
+
+The lealest lover time can show,
+Doomed for a lady-love to languish,
+Among these solitudes doth go,
+A prey to every kind of anguish.
+Why Love should like a spiteful foe
+Thus use him, he hath no idea,
+But hogsheads full—this doth he know—
+Don Quixote’s tears are on the flow,
+And all for distant Dulcinea
+Del Toboso.
+
+Adventure-seeking doth he go
+Up rugged heights, down rocky valleys,
+But hill or dale, or high or low,
+Mishap attendeth all his sallies:
+Love still pursues him to and fro,
+And plies his cruel scourge—ah me! a
+Relentless fate, an endless woe;
+Don Quixote’s tears are on the flow,
+And all for distant Dulcinea
+Del Toboso.
+
+
+The addition of “Del Toboso” to Dulcinea’s name gave rise to no little
+laughter among those who found the above lines, for they suspected Don
+Quixote must have fancied that unless he added “del Toboso” when he
+introduced the name of Dulcinea the verse would be unintelligible;
+which was indeed the fact, as he himself afterwards admitted. He wrote
+many more, but, as has been said, these three verses were all that
+could be plainly and perfectly deciphered. In this way, and in sighing
+and calling on the fauns and satyrs of the woods and the nymphs of the
+streams, and Echo, moist and mournful, to answer, console, and hear
+him, as well as in looking for herbs to sustain him, he passed his time
+until Sancho’s return; and had that been delayed three weeks, as it was
+three days, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance would have worn such
+an altered countenance that the mother that bore him would not have
+known him: and here it will be well to leave him, wrapped up in sighs
+and verses, to relate how Sancho Panza fared on his mission.
+
+As for him, coming out upon the high road, he made for El Toboso, and
+the next day reached the inn where the mishap of the blanket had
+befallen him. As soon as he recognised it he felt as if he were once
+more living through the air, and he could not bring himself to enter it
+though it was an hour when he might well have done so, for it was
+dinner-time, and he longed to taste something hot as it had been all
+cold fare with him for many days past. This craving drove him to draw
+near to the inn, still undecided whether to go in or not, and as he was
+hesitating there came out two persons who at once recognised him, and
+said one to the other:
+
+“Señor licentiate, is not he on the horse there Sancho Panza who, our
+adventurer’s housekeeper told us, went off with her master as esquire?”
+
+“So it is,” said the licentiate, “and that is our friend Don Quixote’s
+horse;” and if they knew him so well it was because they were the
+curate and the barber of his own village, the same who had carried out
+the scrutiny and sentence upon the books; and as soon as they
+recognised Sancho Panza and Rocinante, being anxious to hear of Don
+Quixote, they approached, and calling him by his name the curate said,
+“Friend Sancho Panza, where is your master?”
+
+Sancho recognised them at once, and determined to keep secret the place
+and circumstances where and under which he had left his master, so he
+replied that his master was engaged in a certain quarter on a certain
+matter of great importance to him which he could not disclose for the
+eyes in his head.
+
+“Nay, nay,” said the barber, “if you don’t tell us where he is, Sancho
+Panza, we will suspect as we suspect already, that you have murdered
+and robbed him, for here you are mounted on his horse; in fact, you
+must produce the master of the hack, or else take the consequences.”
+
+“There is no need of threats with me,” said Sancho, “for I am not a man
+to rob or murder anybody; let his own fate, or God who made him, kill
+each one; my master is engaged very much to his taste doing penance in
+the midst of these mountains;” and then, offhand and without stopping,
+he told them how he had left him, what adventures had befallen him, and
+how he was carrying a letter to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, the
+daughter of Lorenzo Corchuelo, with whom he was over head and ears in
+love. They were both amazed at what Sancho Panza told them; for though
+they were aware of Don Quixote’s madness and the nature of it, each
+time they heard of it they were filled with fresh wonder. They then
+asked Sancho Panza to show them the letter he was carrying to the lady
+Dulcinea del Toboso. He said it was written in a notebook, and that his
+master’s directions were that he should have it copied on paper at the
+first village he came to. On this the curate said if he showed it to
+him, he himself would make a fair copy of it. Sancho put his hand into
+his bosom in search of the notebook but could not find it, nor, if he
+had been searching until now, could he have found it, for Don Quixote
+had kept it, and had never given it to him, nor had he himself thought
+of asking for it. When Sancho discovered he could not find the book his
+face grew deadly pale, and in great haste he again felt his body all
+over, and seeing plainly it was not to be found, without more ado he
+seized his beard with both hands and plucked away half of it, and then,
+as quick as he could and without stopping, gave himself half a dozen
+cuffs on the face and nose till they were bathed in blood.
+
+Seeing this, the curate and the barber asked him what had happened him
+that he gave himself such rough treatment.
+
+“What should happen to me?” replied Sancho, “but to have lost from one
+hand to the other, in a moment, three ass-colts, each of them like a
+castle?”
+
+“How is that?” said the barber.
+
+“I have lost the notebook,” said Sancho, “that contained the letter to
+Dulcinea, and an order signed by my master in which he directed his
+niece to give me three ass-colts out of four or five he had at home;”
+and he then told them about the loss of Dapple.
+
+The curate consoled him, telling him that when his master was found he
+would get him to renew the order, and make a fresh draft on paper, as
+was usual and customary; for those made in notebooks were never
+accepted or honoured.
+
+Sancho comforted himself with this, and said if that were so the loss
+of Dulcinea’s letter did not trouble him much, for he had it almost by
+heart, and it could be taken down from him wherever and whenever they
+liked.
+
+“Repeat it then, Sancho,” said the barber, “and we will write it down
+afterwards.”
+
+Sancho Panza stopped to scratch his head to bring back the letter to
+his memory, and balanced himself now on one foot, now the other, one
+moment staring at the ground, the next at the sky, and after having
+half gnawed off the end of a finger and kept them in suspense waiting
+for him to begin, he said, after a long pause, “By God, señor
+licentiate, devil a thing can I recollect of the letter; but it said at
+the beginning, ‘Exalted and scrubbing Lady.’”
+
+“It cannot have said ‘scrubbing,’” said the barber, “but ‘superhuman’
+or ‘sovereign.’”
+
+“That is it,” said Sancho; “then, as well as I remember, it went on,
+‘The wounded, and wanting of sleep, and the pierced, kisses your
+worship’s hands, ungrateful and very unrecognised fair one; and it said
+something or other about health and sickness that he was sending her;
+and from that it went tailing off until it ended with ‘Yours till
+death, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance.’”
+
+It gave them no little amusement, both of them, to see what a good
+memory Sancho had, and they complimented him greatly upon it, and
+begged him to repeat the letter a couple of times more, so that they
+too might get it by heart to write it out by-and-by. Sancho repeated it
+three times, and as he did, uttered three thousand more absurdities;
+then he told them more about his master but he never said a word about
+the blanketing that had befallen himself in that inn, into which he
+refused to enter. He told them, moreover, how his lord, if he brought
+him a favourable answer from the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, was to put
+himself in the way of endeavouring to become an emperor, or at least a
+monarch; for it had been so settled between them, and with his personal
+worth and the might of his arm it was an easy matter to come to be one:
+and how on becoming one his lord was to make a marriage for him (for he
+would be a widower by that time, as a matter of course) and was to give
+him as a wife one of the damsels of the empress, the heiress of some
+rich and grand state on the mainland, having nothing to do with islands
+of any sort, for he did not care for them now. All this Sancho
+delivered with so much composure—wiping his nose from time to time—and
+with so little common-sense that his two hearers were again filled with
+wonder at the force of Don Quixote’s madness that could run away with
+this poor man’s reason. They did not care to take the trouble of
+disabusing him of his error, as they considered that since it did not
+in any way hurt his conscience it would be better to leave him in it,
+and they would have all the more amusement in listening to his
+simplicities; and so they bade him pray to God for his lord’s health,
+as it was a very likely and a very feasible thing for him in course of
+time to come to be an emperor, as he said, or at least an archbishop or
+some other dignitary of equal rank.
+
+To which Sancho made answer, “If fortune, sirs, should bring things
+about in such a way that my master should have a mind, instead of being
+an emperor, to be an archbishop, I should like to know what
+archbishops-errant commonly give their squires?”
+
+“They commonly give them,” said the curate, some simple benefice or
+cure, or some place as sacristan which brings them a good fixed income,
+not counting the altar fees, which may be reckoned at as much more.”
+
+“But for that,” said Sancho, “the squire must be unmarried, and must
+know, at any rate, how to help at mass, and if that be so, woe is me,
+for I am married already and I don’t know the first letter of the A B
+C. What will become of me if my master takes a fancy to be an
+archbishop and not an emperor, as is usual and customary with
+knights-errant?”
+
+“Be not uneasy, friend Sancho,” said the barber, “for we will entreat
+your master, and advise him, even urging it upon him as a case of
+conscience, to become an emperor and not an archbishop, because it will
+be easier for him as he is more valiant than lettered.”
+
+“So I have thought,” said Sancho; “though I can tell you he is fit for
+anything: what I mean to do for my part is to pray to our Lord to place
+him where it may be best for him, and where he may be able to bestow
+most favours upon me.”
+
+“You speak like a man of sense,” said the curate, “and you will be
+acting like a good Christian; but what must now be done is to take
+steps to coax your master out of that useless penance you say he is
+performing; and we had best turn into this inn to consider what plan to
+adopt, and also to dine, for it is now time.”
+
+Sancho said they might go in, but that he would wait there outside, and
+that he would tell them afterwards the reason why he was unwilling, and
+why it did not suit him to enter it; but he begged them to bring him
+out something to eat, and to let it be hot, and also to bring barley
+for Rocinante. They left him and went in, and presently the barber
+brought him out something to eat. By-and-by, after they had between
+them carefully thought over what they should do to carry out their
+object, the curate hit upon an idea very well adapted to humour Don
+Quixote, and effect their purpose; and his notion, which he explained
+to the barber, was that he himself should assume the disguise of a
+wandering damsel, while the other should try as best he could to pass
+for a squire, and that they should thus proceed to where Don Quixote
+was, and he, pretending to be an aggrieved and distressed damsel,
+should ask a favour of him, which as a valiant knight-errant he could
+not refuse to grant; and the favour he meant to ask him was that he
+should accompany her whither she would conduct him, in order to redress
+a wrong which a wicked knight had done her, while at the same time she
+should entreat him not to require her to remove her mask, nor ask her
+any question touching her circumstances until he had righted her with
+the wicked knight. And he had no doubt that Don Quixote would comply
+with any request made in these terms, and that in this way they might
+remove him and take him to his own village, where they would endeavour
+to find out if his extraordinary madness admitted of any kind of
+remedy.
+
+
+
+c26e.jpg (48K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+OF HOW THE CURATE AND THE BARBER PROCEEDED WITH THEIR SCHEME; TOGETHER
+WITH OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF RECORD IN THIS GREAT HISTORY
+
+
+
+
+c27a.jpg (169K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+The curate’s plan did not seem a bad one to the barber, but on the
+contrary so good that they immediately set about putting it in
+execution. They begged a petticoat and hood of the landlady, leaving
+her in pledge a new cassock of the curate’s; and the barber made a
+beard out of a grey-brown or red ox-tail in which the landlord used to
+stick his comb. The landlady asked them what they wanted these things
+for, and the curate told her in a few words about the madness of Don
+Quixote, and how this disguise was intended to get him away from the
+mountain where he then was. The landlord and landlady immediately came
+to the conclusion that the madman was their guest, the balsam man and
+master of the blanketed squire, and they told the curate all that had
+passed between him and them, not omitting what Sancho had been so
+silent about. Finally the landlady dressed up the curate in a style
+that left nothing to be desired; she put on him a cloth petticoat with
+black velvet stripes a palm broad, all slashed, and a bodice of green
+velvet set off by a binding of white satin, which as well as the
+petticoat must have been made in the time of king Wamba. The curate
+would not let them hood him, but put on his head a little quilted linen
+cap which he used for a night-cap, and bound his forehead with a strip
+of black silk, while with another he made a mask with which he
+concealed his beard and face very well. He then put on his hat, which
+was broad enough to serve him for an umbrella, and enveloping himself
+in his cloak seated himself woman-fashion on his mule, while the barber
+mounted his with a beard down to the waist of mingled red and white,
+for it was, as has been said, the tail of a clay-red ox.
+
+They took leave of all, and of the good Maritornes, who, sinner as she
+was, promised to pray a rosary of prayers that God might grant them
+success in such an arduous and Christian undertaking as that they had
+in hand. But hardly had he sallied forth from the inn when it struck
+the curate that he was doing wrong in rigging himself out in that
+fashion, as it was an indecorous thing for a priest to dress himself
+that way even though much might depend upon it; and saying so to the
+barber he begged him to change dresses, as it was fitter he should be
+the distressed damsel, while he himself would play the squire’s part,
+which would be less derogatory to his dignity; otherwise he was
+resolved to have nothing more to do with the matter, and let the devil
+take Don Quixote. Just at this moment Sancho came up, and on seeing the
+pair in such a costume he was unable to restrain his laughter; the
+barber, however, agreed to do as the curate wished, and, altering their
+plan, the curate went on to instruct him how to play his part and what
+to say to Don Quixote to induce and compel him to come with them and
+give up his fancy for the place he had chosen for his idle penance. The
+barber told him he could manage it properly without any instruction,
+and as he did not care to dress himself up until they were near where
+Don Quixote was, he folded up the garments, and the curate adjusted his
+beard, and they set out under the guidance of Sancho Panza, who went
+along telling them of the encounter with the madman they met in the
+Sierra, saying nothing, however, about the finding of the valise and
+its contents; for with all his simplicity the lad was a trifle
+covetous.
+
+The next day they reached the place where Sancho had laid the
+broom-branches as marks to direct him to where he had left his master,
+and recognising it he told them that here was the entrance, and that
+they would do well to dress themselves, if that was required to deliver
+his master; for they had already told him that going in this guise and
+dressing in this way were of the highest importance in order to rescue
+his master from the pernicious life he had adopted; and they charged
+him strictly not to tell his master who they were, or that he knew
+them, and should he ask, as ask he would, if he had given the letter to
+Dulcinea, to say that he had, and that, as she did not know how to
+read, she had given an answer by word of mouth, saying that she
+commanded him, on pain of her displeasure, to come and see her at once;
+and it was a very important matter for himself, because in this way and
+with what they meant to say to him they felt sure of bringing him back
+to a better mode of life and inducing him to take immediate steps to
+become an emperor or monarch, for there was no fear of his becoming an
+archbishop. All this Sancho listened to and fixed it well in his
+memory, and thanked them heartily for intending to recommend his master
+to be an emperor instead of an archbishop, for he felt sure that in the
+way of bestowing rewards on their squires emperors could do more than
+archbishops-errant. He said, too, that it would be as well for him to
+go on before them to find him, and give him his lady’s answer; for that
+perhaps might be enough to bring him away from the place without
+putting them to all this trouble. They approved of what Sancho
+proposed, and resolved to wait for him until he brought back word of
+having found his master.
+
+Sancho pushed on into the glens of the Sierra, leaving them in one
+through which there flowed a little gentle rivulet, and where the rocks
+and trees afforded a cool and grateful shade. It was an August day with
+all the heat of one, and the heat in those parts is intense, and the
+hour was three in the afternoon, all which made the spot the more
+inviting and tempted them to wait there for Sancho’s return, which they
+did. They were reposing, then, in the shade, when a voice unaccompanied
+by the notes of any instrument, but sweet and pleasing in its tone,
+reached their ears, at which they were not a little astonished, as the
+place did not seem to them likely quarters for one who sang so well;
+for though it is often said that shepherds of rare voice are to be
+found in the woods and fields, this is rather a flight of the poet’s
+fancy than the truth. And still more surprised were they when they
+perceived that what they heard sung were the verses not of rustic
+shepherds, but of the polished wits of the city; and so it proved, for
+the verses they heard were these:
+
+What makes my quest of happiness seem vain?
+Disdain.
+What bids me to abandon hope of ease?
+Jealousies.
+What holds my heart in anguish of suspense?
+Absence.
+If that be so, then for my grief
+Where shall I turn to seek relief,
+When hope on every side lies slain
+By Absence, Jealousies, Disdain?
+
+What the prime cause of all my woe doth prove?
+Love.
+What at my glory ever looks askance?
+Chance.
+Whence is permission to afflict me given?
+Heaven.
+If that be so, I but await
+The stroke of a resistless fate,
+Since, working for my woe, these three,
+Love, Chance and Heaven, in league I see.
+
+What must I do to find a remedy?
+Die.
+What is the lure for love when coy and strange?
+Change.
+What, if all fail, will cure the heart of sadness?
+Madness.
+If that be so, it is but folly
+To seek a cure for melancholy:
+Ask where it lies; the answer saith
+In Change, in Madness, or in Death.
+
+
+The hour, the summer season, the solitary place, the voice and skill of
+the singer, all contributed to the wonder and delight of the two
+listeners, who remained still waiting to hear something more; finding,
+however, that the silence continued some little time, they resolved to
+go in search of the musician who sang with so fine a voice; but just as
+they were about to do so they were checked by the same voice, which
+once more fell upon their ears, singing this
+
+SONNET
+
+When heavenward, holy Friendship, thou didst go
+Soaring to seek thy home beyond the sky,
+And take thy seat among the saints on high,
+It was thy will to leave on earth below
+Thy semblance, and upon it to bestow
+Thy veil, wherewith at times hypocrisy,
+Parading in thy shape, deceives the eye,
+And makes its vileness bright as virtue show.
+Friendship, return to us, or force the cheat
+That wears it now, thy livery to restore,
+By aid whereof sincerity is slain.
+If thou wilt not unmask thy counterfeit,
+This earth will be the prey of strife once more,
+As when primæval discord held its reign.
+
+
+The song ended with a deep sigh, and again the listeners remained
+waiting attentively for the singer to resume; but perceiving that the
+music had now turned to sobs and heart-rending moans they determined to
+find out who the unhappy being could be whose voice was as rare as his
+sighs were piteous, and they had not proceeded far when on turning the
+corner of a rock they discovered a man of the same aspect and
+appearance as Sancho had described to them when he told them the story
+of Cardenio. He, showing no astonishment when he saw them, stood still
+with his head bent down upon his breast like one in deep thought,
+without raising his eyes to look at them after the first glance when
+they suddenly came upon him. The curate, who was aware of his
+misfortune and recognised him by the description, being a man of good
+address, approached him and in a few sensible words entreated and urged
+him to quit a life of such misery, lest he should end it there, which
+would be the greatest of all misfortunes. Cardenio was then in his
+right mind, free from any attack of that madness which so frequently
+carried him away, and seeing them dressed in a fashion so unusual among
+the frequenters of those wilds, could not help showing some surprise,
+especially when he heard them speak of his case as if it were a
+well-known matter (for the curate’s words gave him to understand as
+much) so he replied to them thus:
+
+“I see plainly, sirs, whoever you may be, that Heaven, whose care it is
+to succour the good, and even the wicked very often, here, in this
+remote spot, cut off from human intercourse, sends me, though I deserve
+it not, those who seek to draw me away from this to some better
+retreat, showing me by many and forcible arguments how unreasonably I
+act in leading the life I do; but as they know, that if I escape from
+this evil I shall fall into another still greater, perhaps they will
+set me down as a weak-minded man, or, what is worse, one devoid of
+reason; nor would it be any wonder, for I myself can perceive that the
+effect of the recollection of my misfortunes is so great and works so
+powerfully to my ruin, that in spite of myself I become at times like a
+stone, without feeling or consciousness; and I come to feel the truth
+of it when they tell me and show me proofs of the things I have done
+when the terrible fit overmasters me; and all I can do is bewail my lot
+in vain, and idly curse my destiny, and plead for my madness by telling
+how it was caused, to any that care to hear it; for no reasonable
+beings on learning the cause will wonder at the effects; and if they
+cannot help me at least they will not blame me, and the repugnance they
+feel at my wild ways will turn into pity for my woes. If it be, sirs,
+that you are here with the same design as others have come with, before
+you proceed with your wise arguments, I entreat you to hear the story
+of my countless misfortunes, for perhaps when you have heard it you
+will spare yourselves the trouble you would take in offering
+consolation to grief that is beyond the reach of it.”
+
+As they, both of them, desired nothing more than to hear from his own
+lips the cause of his suffering, they entreated him to tell it,
+promising not to do anything for his relief or comfort that he did not
+wish; and thereupon the unhappy gentleman began his sad story in nearly
+the same words and manner in which he had related it to Don Quixote and
+the goatherd a few days before, when, through Master Elisabad, and Don
+Quixote’s scrupulous observance of what was due to chivalry, the tale
+was left unfinished, as this history has already recorded; but now
+fortunately the mad fit kept off, allowed him to tell it to the end;
+and so, coming to the incident of the note which Don Fernando had found
+in the volume of “Amadis of Gaul,” Cardenio said that he remembered it
+perfectly and that it was in these words:
+
+“_Luscinda to Cardenio._
+
+
+“Every day I discover merits in you that oblige and compel me to hold
+you in higher estimation; so if you desire to relieve me of this
+obligation without cost to my honour, you may easily do so. I have a
+father who knows you and loves me dearly, who without putting any
+constraint on my inclination will grant what will be reasonable for you
+to have, if it be that you value me as you say and as I believe you
+do.”
+
+
+“By this letter I was induced, as I told you, to demand Luscinda for my
+wife, and it was through it that Luscinda came to be regarded by Don
+Fernando as one of the most discreet and prudent women of the day, and
+this letter it was that suggested his design of ruining me before mine
+could be carried into effect. I told Don Fernando that all Luscinda’s
+father was waiting for was that mine should ask her of him, which I did
+not dare to suggest to him, fearing that he would not consent to do so;
+not because he did not know perfectly well the rank, goodness, virtue,
+and beauty of Luscinda, and that she had qualities that would do honour
+to any family in Spain, but because I was aware that he did not wish me
+to marry so soon, before seeing what the Duke Ricardo would do for me.
+In short, I told him I did not venture to mention it to my father, as
+well on account of that difficulty, as of many others that discouraged
+me though I knew not well what they were, only that it seemed to me
+that what I desired was never to come to pass. To all this Don Fernando
+answered that he would take it upon himself to speak to my father, and
+persuade him to speak to Luscinda’s father. O, ambitious Marius! O,
+cruel Catiline! O, wicked Sylla! O, perfidious Ganelon! O, treacherous
+Vellido! O, vindictive Julian! O, covetous Judas! Traitor, cruel,
+vindictive, and perfidious, wherein had this poor wretch failed in his
+fidelity, who with such frankness showed thee the secrets and the joys
+of his heart? What offence did I commit? What words did I utter, or
+what counsels did I give that had not the furtherance of thy honour and
+welfare for their aim? But, woe is me, wherefore do I complain? for
+sure it is that when misfortunes spring from the stars, descending from
+on high they fall upon us with such fury and violence that no power on
+earth can check their course nor human device stay their coming. Who
+could have thought that Don Fernando, a highborn gentleman,
+intelligent, bound to me by gratitude for my services, one that could
+win the object of his love wherever he might set his affections, could
+have become so obdurate, as they say, as to rob me of my one ewe lamb
+that was not even yet in my possession? But laying aside these useless
+and unavailing reflections, let us take up the broken thread of my
+unhappy story.
+
+“To proceed, then: Don Fernando finding my presence an obstacle to the
+execution of his treacherous and wicked design, resolved to send me to
+his elder brother under the pretext of asking money from him to pay for
+six horses which, purposely, and with the sole object of sending me
+away that he might the better carry out his infernal scheme, he had
+purchased the very day he offered to speak to my father, and the price
+of which he now desired me to fetch. Could I have anticipated this
+treachery? Could I by any chance have suspected it? Nay; so far from
+that, I offered with the greatest pleasure to go at once, in my
+satisfaction at the good bargain that had been made. That night I spoke
+with Luscinda, and told her what had been agreed upon with Don
+Fernando, and how I had strong hopes of our fair and reasonable wishes
+being realised. She, as unsuspicious as I was of the treachery of Don
+Fernando, bade me try to return speedily, as she believed the
+fulfilment of our desires would be delayed only so long as my father
+put off speaking to hers. I know not why it was that on saying this to
+me her eyes filled with tears, and there came a lump in her throat that
+prevented her from uttering a word of many more that it seemed to me
+she was striving to say to me. I was astonished at this unusual turn,
+which I never before observed in her, for we always conversed, whenever
+good fortune and my ingenuity gave us the chance, with the greatest
+gaiety and cheerfulness, mingling tears, sighs, jealousies, doubts, or
+fears with our words; it was all on my part a eulogy of my good fortune
+that Heaven should have given her to me for my mistress; I glorified
+her beauty, I extolled her worth and her understanding; and she paid me
+back by praising in me what in her love for me she thought worthy of
+praise; and besides we had a hundred thousand trifles and doings of our
+neighbours and acquaintances to talk about, and the utmost extent of my
+boldness was to take, almost by force, one of her fair white hands and
+carry it to my lips, as well as the closeness of the low grating that
+separated us allowed me. But the night before the unhappy day of my
+departure she wept, she moaned, she sighed, and she withdrew leaving me
+filled with perplexity and amazement, overwhelmed at the sight of such
+strange and affecting signs of grief and sorrow in Luscinda; but not to
+dash my hopes I ascribed it all to the depth of her love for me and the
+pain that separation gives those who love tenderly. At last I took my
+departure, sad and dejected, my heart filled with fancies and
+suspicions, but not knowing well what it was I suspected or fancied;
+plain omens pointing to the sad event and misfortune that was awaiting
+me.
+
+“I reached the place whither I had been sent, gave the letter to Don
+Fernando’s brother, and was kindly received but not promptly dismissed,
+for he desired me to wait, very much against my will, eight days in
+some place where the duke his father was not likely to see me, as his
+brother wrote that the money was to be sent without his knowledge; all
+of which was a scheme of the treacherous Don Fernando, for his brother
+had no want of money to enable him to despatch me at once.
+
+“The command was one that exposed me to the temptation of disobeying
+it, as it seemed to me impossible to endure life for so many days
+separated from Luscinda, especially after leaving her in the sorrowful
+mood I have described to you; nevertheless as a dutiful servant I
+obeyed, though I felt it would be at the cost of my well-being. But
+four days later there came a man in quest of me with a letter which he
+gave me, and which by the address I perceived to be from Luscinda, as
+the writing was hers. I opened it with fear and trepidation, persuaded
+that it must be something serious that had impelled her to write to me
+when at a distance, as she seldom did so when I was near. Before
+reading it I asked the man who it was that had given it to him, and how
+long he had been upon the road; he told me that as he happened to be
+passing through one of the streets of the city at the hour of noon, a
+very beautiful lady called to him from a window, and with tears in her
+eyes said to him hurriedly, ‘Brother, if you are, as you seem to be, a
+Christian, for the love of God I entreat you to have this letter
+despatched without a moment’s delay to the place and person named in
+the address, all which is well known, and by this you will render a
+great service to our Lord; and that you may be at no inconvenience in
+doing so take what is in this handkerchief;’ and said he, ‘with this
+she threw me a handkerchief out of the window in which were tied up a
+hundred reals and this gold ring which I bring here together with the
+letter I have given you. And then without waiting for any answer she
+left the window, though not before she saw me take the letter and the
+handkerchief, and I had by signs let her know that I would do as she
+bade me; and so, seeing myself so well paid for the trouble I would
+have in bringing it to you, and knowing by the address that it was to
+you it was sent (for, señor, I know you very well), and also unable to
+resist that beautiful lady’s tears, I resolved to trust no one else,
+but to come myself and give it to you, and in sixteen hours from the
+time when it was given me I have made the journey, which, as you know,
+is eighteen leagues.’
+
+“All the while the good-natured improvised courier was telling me this,
+I hung upon his words, my legs trembling under me so that I could
+scarcely stand. However, I opened the letter and read these words:
+
+The promise Don Fernando gave you to urge your father to speak to mine,
+he has fulfilled much more to his own satisfaction than to your
+advantage. I have to tell you, señor, that he has demanded me for a
+wife, and my father, led away by what he considers Don Fernando’s
+superiority over you, has favoured his suit so cordially, that in two
+days hence the betrothal is to take place with such secrecy and so
+privately that the only witnesses are to be the Heavens above and a few
+of the household. Picture to yourself the state I am in; judge if it be
+urgent for you to come; the issue of the affair will show you whether I
+love you or not. God grant this may come to your hand before mine shall
+be forced to link itself with his who keeps so ill the faith that he
+has pledged.
+
+
+“Such, in brief, were the words of the letter, words that made me set
+out at once without waiting any longer for reply or money; for I now
+saw clearly that it was not the purchase of horses but of his own
+pleasure that had made Don Fernando send me to his brother. The
+exasperation I felt against Don Fernando, joined with the fear of
+losing the prize I had won by so many years of love and devotion, lent
+me wings; so that almost flying I reached home the same day, by the
+hour which served for speaking with Luscinda. I arrived unobserved, and
+left the mule on which I had come at the house of the worthy man who
+had brought me the letter, and fortune was pleased to be for once so
+kind that I found Luscinda at the grating that was the witness of our
+loves. She recognised me at once, and I her, but not as she ought to
+have recognised me, or I her. But who is there in the world that can
+boast of having fathomed or understood the wavering mind and unstable
+nature of a woman? Of a truth no one. To proceed: as soon as Luscinda
+saw me she said, ‘Cardenio, I am in my bridal dress, and the
+treacherous Don Fernando and my covetous father are waiting for me in
+the hall with the other witnesses, who shall be the witnesses of my
+death before they witness my betrothal. Be not distressed, my friend,
+but contrive to be present at this sacrifice, and if that cannot be
+prevented by my words, I have a dagger concealed which will prevent
+more deliberate violence, putting an end to my life and giving thee a
+first proof of the love I have borne and bear thee.’ I replied to her
+distractedly and hastily, in fear lest I should not have time to reply,
+‘May thy words be verified by thy deeds, lady; and if thou hast a
+dagger to save thy honour, I have a sword to defend thee or kill myself
+if fortune be against us.’
+
+“I think she could not have heard all these words, for I perceived that
+they called her away in haste, as the bridegroom was waiting. Now the
+night of my sorrow set in, the sun of my happiness went down, I felt my
+eyes bereft of sight, my mind of reason. I could not enter the house,
+nor was I capable of any movement; but reflecting how important it was
+that I should be present at what might take place on the occasion, I
+nerved myself as best I could and went in, for I well knew all the
+entrances and outlets; and besides, with the confusion that in secret
+pervaded the house no one took notice of me, so, without being seen, I
+found an opportunity of placing myself in the recess formed by a window
+of the hall itself, and concealed by the ends and borders of two
+tapestries, from between which I could, without being seen, see all
+that took place in the room. Who could describe the agitation of heart
+I suffered as I stood there—the thoughts that came to me—the
+reflections that passed through my mind? They were such as cannot be,
+nor were it well they should be, told. Suffice it to say that the
+bridegroom entered the hall in his usual dress, without ornament of any
+kind; as groomsman he had with him a cousin of Luscinda’s and except
+the servants of the house there was no one else in the chamber. Soon
+afterwards Luscinda came out from an antechamber, attended by her
+mother and two of her damsels, arrayed and adorned as became her rank
+and beauty, and in full festival and ceremonial attire. My anxiety and
+distraction did not allow me to observe or notice particularly what she
+wore; I could only perceive the colours, which were crimson and white,
+and the glitter of the gems and jewels on her head dress and apparel,
+surpassed by the rare beauty of her lovely auburn hair that vying with
+the precious stones and the light of the four torches that stood in the
+hall shone with a brighter gleam than all. Oh memory, mortal foe of my
+peace! why bring before me now the incomparable beauty of that adored
+enemy of mine? Were it not better, cruel memory, to remind me and
+recall what she then did, that stirred by a wrong so glaring I may
+seek, if not vengeance now, at least to rid myself of life? Be not
+weary, sirs, of listening to these digressions; my sorrow is not one of
+those that can or should be told tersely and briefly, for to me each
+incident seems to call for many words.”
+
+To this the curate replied that not only were they not weary of
+listening to him, but that the details he mentioned interested them
+greatly, being of a kind by no means to be omitted and deserving of the
+same attention as the main story.
+
+“To proceed, then,” continued Cardenio: “all being assembled in the
+hall, the priest of the parish came in and as he took the pair by the
+hand to perform the requisite ceremony, at the words, ‘Will you, Señora
+Luscinda, take Señor Don Fernando, here present, for your lawful
+husband, as the holy Mother Church ordains?’ I thrust my head and neck
+out from between the tapestries, and with eager ears and throbbing
+heart set myself to listen to Luscinda’s answer, awaiting in her reply
+the sentence of death or the grant of life. Oh, that I had but dared at
+that moment to rush forward crying aloud, ‘Luscinda, Luscinda! have a
+care what thou dost; remember what thou owest me; bethink thee thou art
+mine and canst not be another’s; reflect that thy utterance of “Yes”
+and the end of my life will come at the same instant. O, treacherous
+Don Fernando! robber of my glory, death of my life! What seekest thou?
+Remember that thou canst not as a Christian attain the object of thy
+wishes, for Luscinda is my bride, and I am her husband!’ Fool that I
+am! now that I am far away, and out of danger, I say I should have done
+what I did not do: now that I have allowed my precious treasure to be
+robbed from me, I curse the robber, on whom I might have taken
+vengeance had I as much heart for it as I have for bewailing my fate;
+in short, as I was then a coward and a fool, little wonder is it if I
+am now dying shame-stricken, remorseful, and mad.
+
+“The priest stood waiting for the answer of Luscinda, who for a long
+time withheld it; and just as I thought she was taking out the dagger
+to save her honour, or struggling for words to make some declaration of
+the truth on my behalf, I heard her say in a faint and feeble voice, ‘I
+will:’ Don Fernando said the same, and giving her the ring they stood
+linked by a knot that could never be loosed. The bridegroom then
+approached to embrace his bride; and she, pressing her hand upon her
+heart, fell fainting in her mother’s arms. It only remains now for me
+to tell you the state I was in when in that consent that I heard I saw
+all my hopes mocked, the words and promises of Luscinda proved
+falsehoods, and the recovery of the prize I had that instant lost
+rendered impossible for ever. I stood stupefied, wholly abandoned, it
+seemed, by Heaven, declared the enemy of the earth that bore me, the
+air refusing me breath for my sighs, the water moisture for my tears;
+it was only the fire that gathered strength so that my whole frame
+glowed with rage and jealousy. They were all thrown into confusion by
+Luscinda’s fainting, and as her mother was unlacing her to give her air
+a sealed paper was discovered in her bosom which Don Fernando seized at
+once and began to read by the light of one of the torches. As soon as
+he had read it he seated himself in a chair, leaning his cheek on his
+hand in the attitude of one deep in thought, without taking any part in
+the efforts that were being made to recover his bride from her fainting
+fit.
+
+“Seeing all the household in confusion, I ventured to come out
+regardless whether I were seen or not, and determined, if I were, to do
+some frenzied deed that would prove to all the world the righteous
+indignation of my breast in the punishment of the treacherous Don
+Fernando, and even in that of the fickle fainting traitress. But my
+fate, doubtless reserving me for greater sorrows, if such there be, so
+ordered it that just then I had enough and to spare of that reason
+which has since been wanting to me; and so, without seeking to take
+vengeance on my greatest enemies (which might have been easily taken,
+as all thought of me was so far from their minds), I resolved to take
+it upon myself, and on myself to inflict the pain they deserved,
+perhaps with even greater severity than I should have dealt out to them
+had I then slain them; for sudden pain is soon over, but that which is
+protracted by tortures is ever slaying without ending life. In a word,
+I quitted the house and reached that of the man with whom I had left my
+mule; I made him saddle it for me, mounted without bidding him
+farewell, and rode out of the city, like another Lot, not daring to
+turn my head to look back upon it; and when I found myself alone in the
+open country, screened by the darkness of the night, and tempted by the
+stillness to give vent to my grief without apprehension or fear of
+being heard or seen, then I broke silence and lifted up my voice in
+maledictions upon Luscinda and Don Fernando, as if I could thus avenge
+the wrong they had done me. I called her cruel, ungrateful, false,
+thankless, but above all covetous, since the wealth of my enemy had
+blinded the eyes of her affection, and turned it from me to transfer it
+to one to whom fortune had been more generous and liberal. And yet, in
+the midst of this outburst of execration and upbraiding, I found
+excuses for her, saying it was no wonder that a young girl in the
+seclusion of her parents’ house, trained and schooled to obey them
+always, should have been ready to yield to their wishes when they
+offered her for a husband a gentleman of such distinction, wealth, and
+noble birth, that if she had refused to accept him she would have been
+thought out of her senses, or to have set her affection elsewhere, a
+suspicion injurious to her fair name and fame. But then again, I said,
+had she declared I was her husband, they would have seen that in
+choosing me she had not chosen so ill but that they might excuse her,
+for before Don Fernando had made his offer, they themselves could not
+have desired, if their desires had been ruled by reason, a more
+eligible husband for their daughter than I was; and she, before taking
+the last fatal step of giving her hand, might easily have said that I
+had already given her mine, for I should have come forward to support
+any assertion of hers to that effect. In short, I came to the
+conclusion that feeble love, little reflection, great ambition, and a
+craving for rank, had made her forget the words with which she had
+deceived me, encouraged and supported by my firm hopes and honourable
+passion.
+
+“Thus soliloquising and agitated, I journeyed onward for the remainder
+of the night, and by daybreak I reached one of the passes of these
+mountains, among which I wandered for three days more without taking
+any path or road, until I came to some meadows lying on I know not
+which side of the mountains, and there I inquired of some herdsmen in
+what direction the most rugged part of the range lay. They told me that
+it was in this quarter, and I at once directed my course hither,
+intending to end my life here; but as I was making my way among these
+crags, my mule dropped dead through fatigue and hunger, or, as I think
+more likely, in order to have done with such a worthless burden as it
+bore in me. I was left on foot, worn out, famishing, without anyone to
+help me or any thought of seeking help: and so thus I lay stretched on
+the ground, how long I know not, after which I rose up free from
+hunger, and found beside me some goatherds, who no doubt were the
+persons who had relieved me in my need, for they told me how they had
+found me, and how I had been uttering ravings that showed plainly I had
+lost my reason; and since then I am conscious that I am not always in
+full possession of it, but at times so deranged and crazed that I do a
+thousand mad things, tearing my clothes, crying aloud in these
+solitudes, cursing my fate, and idly calling on the dear name of her
+who is my enemy, and only seeking to end my life in lamentation; and
+when I recover my senses I find myself so exhausted and weary that I
+can scarcely move. Most commonly my dwelling is the hollow of a cork
+tree large enough to shelter this miserable body; the herdsmen and
+goatherds who frequent these mountains, moved by compassion, furnish me
+with food, leaving it by the wayside or on the rocks, where they think
+I may perhaps pass and find it; and so, even though I may be then out
+of my senses, the wants of nature teach me what is required to sustain
+me, and make me crave it and eager to take it. At other times, so they
+tell me when they find me in a rational mood, I sally out upon the
+road, and though they would gladly give it me, I snatch food by force
+from the shepherds bringing it from the village to their huts. Thus do
+pass the wretched life that remains to me, until it be Heaven’s will to
+bring it to a close, or so to order my memory that I no longer
+recollect the beauty and treachery of Luscinda, or the wrong done me by
+Don Fernando; for if it will do this without depriving me of life, I
+will turn my thoughts into some better channel; if not, I can only
+implore it to have full mercy on my soul, for in myself I feel no power
+or strength to release my body from this strait in which I have of my
+own accord chosen to place it.
+
+“Such, sirs, is the dismal story of my misfortune: say if it be one
+that can be told with less emotion than you have seen in me; and do not
+trouble yourselves with urging or pressing upon me what reason suggests
+as likely to serve for my relief, for it will avail me as much as the
+medicine prescribed by a wise physician avails the sick man who will
+not take it. I have no wish for health without Luscinda; and since it
+is her pleasure to be another’s, when she is or should be mine, let it
+be mine to be a prey to misery when I might have enjoyed happiness. She
+by her fickleness strove to make my ruin irretrievable; I will strive
+to gratify her wishes by seeking destruction; and it will show
+generations to come that I alone was deprived of that of which all
+others in misfortune have a superabundance, for to them the
+impossibility of being consoled is itself a consolation, while to me it
+is the cause of greater sorrows and sufferings, for I think that even
+in death there will not be an end of them.”
+
+Here Cardenio brought to a close his long discourse and story, as full
+of misfortune as it was of love; but just as the curate was going to
+address some words of comfort to him, he was stopped by a voice that
+reached his ear, saying in melancholy tones what will be told in the
+Fourth Part of this narrative; for at this point the sage and sagacious
+historian, Cid Hamete Benengeli, brought the Third to a conclusion.
+
+
+
+c27e.jpg (65K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE AND DELIGHTFUL ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL THE
+CURATE AND THE BARBER IN THE SAME SIERRA
+
+
+
+
+c28a.jpg (159K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Happy and fortunate were the times when that most daring knight Don
+Quixote of La Mancha was sent into the world; for by reason of his
+having formed a resolution so honourable as that of seeking to revive
+and restore to the world the long-lost and almost defunct order of
+knight-errantry, we now enjoy in this age of ours, so poor in light
+entertainment, not only the charm of his veracious history, but also of
+the tales and episodes contained in it which are, in a measure, no less
+pleasing, ingenious, and truthful, than the history itself; which,
+resuming its thread, carded, spun, and wound, relates that just as the
+curate was going to offer consolation to Cardenio, he was interrupted
+by a voice that fell upon his ear saying in plaintive tones:
+
+“O God! is it possible I have found a place that may serve as a secret
+grave for the weary load of this body that I support so unwillingly? If
+the solitude these mountains promise deceives me not, it is so; ah! woe
+is me! how much more grateful to my mind will be the society of these
+rocks and brakes that permit me to complain of my misfortune to Heaven,
+than that of any human being, for there is none on earth to look to for
+counsel in doubt, comfort in sorrow, or relief in distress!”
+
+All this was heard distinctly by the curate and those with him, and as
+it seemed to them to be uttered close by, as indeed it was, they got up
+to look for the speaker, and before they had gone twenty paces they
+discovered behind a rock, seated at the foot of an ash tree, a youth in
+the dress of a peasant, whose face they were unable at the moment to
+see as he was leaning forward, bathing his feet in the brook that
+flowed past. They approached so silently that he did not perceive them,
+being fully occupied in bathing his feet, which were so fair that they
+looked like two pieces of shining crystal brought forth among the other
+stones of the brook. The whiteness and beauty of these feet struck them
+with surprise, for they did not seem to have been made to crush clods
+or to follow the plough and the oxen as their owner’s dress suggested;
+and so, finding they had not been noticed, the curate, who was in
+front, made a sign to the other two to conceal themselves behind some
+fragments of rock that lay there; which they did, observing closely
+what the youth was about. He had on a loose double-skirted dark brown
+jacket bound tight to his body with a white cloth; he wore besides
+breeches and gaiters of brown cloth, and on his head a brown montera;
+and he had the gaiters turned up as far as the middle of the leg, which
+verily seemed to be of pure alabaster.
+
+
+
+c28b.jpg (339K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+As soon as he had done bathing his beautiful feet, he wiped them with a
+towel he took from under the montera, on taking off which he raised his
+face, and those who were watching him had an opportunity of seeing a
+beauty so exquisite that Cardenio said to the curate in a whisper:
+
+“As this is not Luscinda, it is no human creature but a divine being.”
+
+The youth then took off the montera, and shaking his head from side to
+side there broke loose and spread out a mass of hair that the beams of
+the sun might have envied; by this they knew that what had seemed a
+peasant was a lovely woman, nay the most beautiful the eyes of two of
+them had ever beheld, or even Cardenio’s if they had not seen and known
+Luscinda, for he afterwards declared that only the beauty of Luscinda
+could compare with this. The long auburn tresses not only covered her
+shoulders, but such was their length and abundance, concealed her all
+round beneath their masses, so that except the feet nothing of her form
+was visible. She now used her hands as a comb, and if her feet had
+seemed like bits of crystal in the water, her hands looked like pieces
+of driven snow among her locks; all which increased not only the
+admiration of the three beholders, but their anxiety to learn who she
+was. With this object they resolved to show themselves, and at the stir
+they made in getting upon their feet the fair damsel raised her head,
+and parting her hair from before her eyes with both hands, she looked
+to see who had made the noise, and the instant she perceived them she
+started to her feet, and without waiting to put on her shoes or gather
+up her hair, hastily snatched up a bundle as though of clothes that she
+had beside her, and, scared and alarmed, endeavoured to take flight;
+but before she had gone six paces she fell to the ground, her delicate
+feet being unable to bear the roughness of the stones; seeing which,
+the three hastened towards her, and the curate addressing her first
+said:
+
+“Stay, señora, whoever you may be, for those whom you see here only
+desire to be of service to you; you have no need to attempt a flight so
+heedless, for neither can your feet bear it, nor we allow it.”
+
+Taken by surprise and bewildered, she made no reply to these words.
+They, however, came towards her, and the curate taking her hand went on
+to say:
+
+“What your dress would hide, señora, is made known to us by your hair;
+a clear proof that it can be no trifling cause that has disguised your
+beauty in a garb so unworthy of it, and sent it into solitudes like
+these where we have had the good fortune to find you, if not to relieve
+your distress, at least to offer you comfort; for no distress, so long
+as life lasts, can be so oppressive or reach such a height as to make
+the sufferer refuse to listen to comfort offered with good intention.
+And so, señora, or señor, or whatever you prefer to be, dismiss the
+fears that our appearance has caused you and make us acquainted with
+your good or evil fortunes, for from all of us together, or from each
+one of us, you will receive sympathy in your trouble.”
+
+While the curate was speaking, the disguised damsel stood as if
+spell-bound, looking at them without opening her lips or uttering a
+word, just like a village rustic to whom something strange that he has
+never seen before has been suddenly shown; but on the curate addressing
+some further words to the same effect to her, sighing deeply she broke
+silence and said:
+
+“Since the solitude of these mountains has been unable to conceal me,
+and the escape of my dishevelled tresses will not allow my tongue to
+deal in falsehoods, it would be idle for me now to make any further
+pretence of what, if you were to believe me, you would believe more out
+of courtesy than for any other reason. This being so, I say I thank
+you, sirs, for the offer you have made me, which places me under the
+obligation of complying with the request you have made of me; though I
+fear the account I shall give you of my misfortunes will excite in you
+as much concern as compassion, for you will be unable to suggest
+anything to remedy them or any consolation to alleviate them. However,
+that my honour may not be left a matter of doubt in your minds, now
+that you have discovered me to be a woman, and see that I am young,
+alone, and in this dress, things that taken together or separately
+would be enough to destroy any good name, I feel bound to tell what I
+would willingly keep secret if I could.”
+
+All this she who was now seen to be a lovely woman delivered without
+any hesitation, with so much ease and in so sweet a voice that they
+were not less charmed by her intelligence than by her beauty, and as
+they again repeated their offers and entreaties to her to fulfil her
+promise, she without further pressing, first modestly covering her feet
+and gathering up her hair, seated herself on a stone with the three
+placed around her, and, after an effort to restrain some tears that
+came to her eyes, in a clear and steady voice began her story thus:
+
+“In this Andalusia there is a town from which a duke takes a title
+which makes him one of those that are called Grandees of Spain. This
+nobleman has two sons, the elder heir to his dignity and apparently to
+his good qualities; the younger heir to I know not what, unless it be
+the treachery of Vellido and the falsehood of Ganelon. My parents are
+this lord’s vassals, lowly in origin, but so wealthy that if birth had
+conferred as much on them as fortune, they would have had nothing left
+to desire, nor should I have had reason to fear trouble like that in
+which I find myself now; for it may be that my ill fortune came of
+theirs in not having been nobly born. It is true they are not so low
+that they have any reason to be ashamed of their condition, but neither
+are they so high as to remove from my mind the impression that my
+mishap comes of their humble birth. They are, in short, peasants, plain
+homely people, without any taint of disreputable blood, and, as the
+saying is, old rusty Christians, but so rich that by their wealth and
+free-handed way of life they are coming by degrees to be considered
+gentlefolk by birth, and even by position; though the wealth and
+nobility they thought most of was having me for their daughter; and as
+they have no other child to make their heir, and are affectionate
+parents, I was one of the most indulged daughters that ever parents
+indulged.
+
+“I was the mirror in which they beheld themselves, the staff of their
+old age, and the object in which, with submission to Heaven, all their
+wishes centred, and mine were in accordance with theirs, for I knew
+their worth; and as I was mistress of their hearts, so was I also of
+their possessions. Through me they engaged or dismissed their servants;
+through my hands passed the accounts and returns of what was sown and
+reaped; the oil-mills, the wine-presses, the count of the flocks and
+herds, the beehives, all in short that a rich farmer like my father has
+or can have, I had under my care, and I acted as steward and mistress
+with an assiduity on my part and satisfaction on theirs that I cannot
+well describe to you. The leisure hours left to me after I had given
+the requisite orders to the head-shepherds, overseers, and other
+labourers, I passed in such employments as are not only allowable but
+necessary for young girls, those that the needle, embroidery cushion,
+and spinning wheel usually afford, and if to refresh my mind I quitted
+them for a while, I found recreation in reading some devotional book or
+playing the harp, for experience taught me that music soothes the
+troubled mind and relieves weariness of spirit. Such was the life I led
+in my parents’ house and if I have depicted it thus minutely, it is not
+out of ostentation, or to let you know that I am rich, but that you may
+see how, without any fault of mine, I have fallen from the happy
+condition I have described, to the misery I am in at present. The truth
+is, that while I was leading this busy life, in a retirement that might
+compare with that of a monastery, and unseen as I thought by any except
+the servants of the house (for when I went to Mass it was so early in
+the morning, and I was so closely attended by my mother and the women
+of the household, and so thickly veiled and so shy, that my eyes
+scarcely saw more ground than I trod on), in spite of all this, the
+eyes of love, or idleness, more properly speaking, that the lynx’s
+cannot rival, discovered me, with the help of the assiduity of Don
+Fernando; for that is the name of the younger son of the duke I told
+of.”
+
+The moment the speaker mentioned the name of Don Fernando, Cardenio
+changed colour and broke into a sweat, with such signs of emotion that
+the curate and the barber, who observed it, feared that one of the mad
+fits which they heard attacked him sometimes was coming upon him; but
+Cardenio showed no further agitation and remained quiet, regarding the
+peasant girl with fixed attention, for he began to suspect who she was.
+She, however, without noticing the excitement of Cardenio, continuing
+her story, went on to say:
+
+“And they had hardly discovered me, when, as he owned afterwards, he
+was smitten with a violent love for me, as the manner in which it
+displayed itself plainly showed. But to shorten the long recital of my
+woes, I will pass over in silence all the artifices employed by Don
+Fernando for declaring his passion for me. He bribed all the household,
+he gave and offered gifts and presents to my parents; every day was
+like a holiday or a merry-making in our street; by night no one could
+sleep for the music; the love letters that used to come to my hand, no
+one knew how, were innumerable, full of tender pleadings and pledges,
+containing more promises and oaths than there were letters in them; all
+which not only did not soften me, but hardened my heart against him, as
+if he had been my mortal enemy, and as if everything he did to make me
+yield were done with the opposite intention. Not that the high-bred
+bearing of Don Fernando was disagreeable to me, or that I found his
+importunities wearisome; for it gave me a certain sort of satisfaction
+to find myself so sought and prized by a gentleman of such distinction,
+and I was not displeased at seeing my praises in his letters (for
+however ugly we women may be, it seems to me it always pleases us to
+hear ourselves called beautiful) but that my own sense of right was
+opposed to all this, as well as the repeated advice of my parents, who
+now very plainly perceived Don Fernando’s purpose, for he cared very
+little if all the world knew it. They told me they trusted and confided
+their honour and good name to my virtue and rectitude alone, and bade
+me consider the disparity between Don Fernando and myself, from which I
+might conclude that his intentions, whatever he might say to the
+contrary, had for their aim his own pleasure rather than my advantage;
+and if I were at all desirous of opposing an obstacle to his
+unreasonable suit, they were ready, they said, to marry me at once to
+anyone I preferred, either among the leading people of our own town, or
+of any of those in the neighbourhood; for with their wealth and my good
+name, a match might be looked for in any quarter. This offer, and their
+sound advice strengthened my resolution, and I never gave Don Fernando
+a word in reply that could hold out to him any hope of success, however
+remote.
+
+
+
+c28c.jpg (279K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“All this caution of mine, which he must have taken for coyness, had
+apparently the effect of increasing his wanton appetite—for that is the
+name I give to his passion for me; had it been what he declared it to
+be, you would not know of it now, because there would have been no
+occasion to tell you of it. At length he learned that my parents were
+contemplating marriage for me in order to put an end to his hopes of
+obtaining possession of me, or at least to secure additional protectors
+to watch over me, and this intelligence or suspicion made him act as
+you shall hear. One night, as I was in my chamber with no other
+companion than a damsel who waited on me, with the doors carefully
+locked lest my honour should be imperilled through any carelessness, I
+know not nor can conceive how it happened, but, with all this seclusion
+and these precautions, and in the solitude and silence of my
+retirement, I found him standing before me, a vision that so astounded
+me that it deprived my eyes of sight, and my tongue of speech. I had no
+power to utter a cry, nor, I think, did he give me time to utter one,
+as he immediately approached me, and taking me in his arms (for,
+overwhelmed as I was, I was powerless, I say, to help myself), he began
+to make such professions to me that I know not how falsehood could have
+had the power of dressing them up to seem so like truth; and the
+traitor contrived that his tears should vouch for his words, and his
+sighs for his sincerity.
+
+“I, a poor young creature alone, ill versed among my people in cases
+such as this, began, I know not how, to think all these lying
+protestations true, though without being moved by his sighs and tears
+to anything more than pure compassion; and so, as the first feeling of
+bewilderment passed away, and I began in some degree to recover myself,
+I said to him with more courage than I thought I could have possessed,
+‘If, as I am now in your arms, señor, I were in the claws of a fierce
+lion, and my deliverance could be procured by doing or saying anything
+to the prejudice of my honour, it would no more be in my power to do it
+or say it, than it would be possible that what was should not have
+been; so then, if you hold my body clasped in your arms, I hold my soul
+secured by virtuous intentions, very different from yours, as you will
+see if you attempt to carry them into effect by force. I am your
+vassal, but I am not your slave; your nobility neither has nor should
+have any right to dishonour or degrade my humble birth; and low-born
+peasant as I am, I have my self-respect as much as you, a lord and
+gentleman: with me your violence will be to no purpose, your wealth
+will have no weight, your words will have no power to deceive me, nor
+your sighs or tears to soften me: were I to see any of the things I
+speak of in him whom my parents gave me as a husband, his will should
+be mine, and mine should be bounded by his; and my honour being
+preserved even though my inclinations were not would willingly yield
+him what you, señor, would now obtain by force; and this I say lest you
+should suppose that any but my lawful husband shall ever win anything
+of me.’ ‘If that,’ said this disloyal gentleman, ‘be the only scruple
+you feel, fairest Dorothea’ (for that is the name of this unhappy
+being), ‘see here I give you my hand to be yours, and let Heaven, from
+which nothing is hid, and this image of Our Lady you have here, be
+witnesses of this pledge.’”
+
+
+
+c28d.jpg (289K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+When Cardenio heard her say she was called Dorothea, he showed fresh
+agitation and felt convinced of the truth of his former suspicion, but
+he was unwilling to interrupt the story, and wished to hear the end of
+what he already all but knew, so he merely said:
+
+“What! is Dorothea your name, señora? I have heard of another of the
+same name who can perhaps match your misfortunes. But proceed;
+by-and-by I may tell you something that will astonish you as much as it
+will excite your compassion.”
+
+Dorothea was struck by Cardenio’s words as well as by his strange and
+miserable attire, and begged him if he knew anything concerning her to
+tell it to her at once, for if fortune had left her any blessing it was
+courage to bear whatever calamity might fall upon her, as she felt sure
+that none could reach her capable of increasing in any degree what she
+endured already.
+
+“I would not let the occasion pass, señora,” replied Cardenio, “of
+telling you what I think, if what I suspect were the truth, but so far
+there has been no opportunity, nor is it of any importance to you to
+know it.”
+
+“Be it as it may,” replied Dorothea, “what happened in my story was
+that Don Fernando, taking an image that stood in the chamber, placed it
+as a witness of our betrothal, and with the most binding words and
+extravagant oaths gave me his promise to become my husband; though
+before he had made an end of pledging himself I bade him consider well
+what he was doing, and think of the anger his father would feel at
+seeing him married to a peasant girl and one of his vassals; I told him
+not to let my beauty, such as it was, blind him, for that was not
+enough to furnish an excuse for his transgression; and if in the love
+he bore me he wished to do me any kindness, it would be to leave my lot
+to follow its course at the level my condition required; for marriages
+so unequal never brought happiness, nor did they continue long to
+afford the enjoyment they began with.
+
+“All this that I have now repeated I said to him, and much more which I
+cannot recollect; but it had no effect in inducing him to forego his
+purpose; he who has no intention of paying does not trouble himself
+about difficulties when he is striking the bargain. At the same time I
+argued the matter briefly in my own mind, saying to myself, ‘I shall
+not be the first who has risen through marriage from a lowly to a lofty
+station, nor will Don Fernando be the first whom beauty or, as is more
+likely, a blind attachment, has led to mate himself below his rank.
+Then, since I am introducing no new usage or practice, I may as well
+avail myself of the honour that chance offers me, for even though his
+inclination for me should not outlast the attainment of his wishes, I
+shall be, after all, his wife before God. And if I strive to repel him
+by scorn, I can see that, fair means failing, he is in a mood to use
+force, and I shall be left dishonoured and without any means of proving
+my innocence to those who cannot know how innocently I have come to be
+in this position; for what arguments would persuade my parents that
+this gentleman entered my chamber without my consent?’
+
+“All these questions and answers passed through my mind in a moment;
+but the oaths of Don Fernando, the witnesses he appealed to, the tears
+he shed, and lastly the charms of his person and his high-bred grace,
+which, accompanied by such signs of genuine love, might well have
+conquered a heart even more free and coy than mine—these were the
+things that more than all began to influence me and lead me unawares to
+my ruin. I called my waiting-maid to me, that there might be a witness
+on earth besides those in Heaven, and again Don Fernando renewed and
+repeated his oaths, invoked as witnesses fresh saints in addition to
+the former ones, called down upon himself a thousand curses hereafter
+should he fail to keep his promise, shed more tears, redoubled his
+sighs and pressed me closer in his arms, from which he had never
+allowed me to escape; and so I was left by my maid, and ceased to be
+one, and he became a traitor and a perjured man.
+
+“The day which followed the night of my misfortune did not come so
+quickly, I imagine, as Don Fernando wished, for when desire has
+attained its object, the greatest pleasure is to fly from the scene of
+pleasure. I say so because Don Fernando made all haste to leave me, and
+by the adroitness of my maid, who was indeed the one who had admitted
+him, gained the street before daybreak; but on taking leave of me he
+told me, though not with as much earnestness and fervour as when he
+came, that I might rest assured of his faith and of the sanctity and
+sincerity of his oaths; and to confirm his words he drew a rich ring
+off his finger and placed it upon mine. He then took his departure and
+I was left, I know not whether sorrowful or happy; all I can say is, I
+was left agitated and troubled in mind and almost bewildered by what
+had taken place, and I had not the spirit, or else it did not occur to
+me, to chide my maid for the treachery she had been guilty of in
+concealing Don Fernando in my chamber; for as yet I was unable to make
+up my mind whether what had befallen me was for good or evil. I told
+Don Fernando at parting, that as I was now his, he might see me on
+other nights in the same way, until it should be his pleasure to let
+the matter become known; but, except the following night, he came no
+more, nor for more than a month could I catch a glimpse of him in the
+street or in church, while I wearied myself with watching for one;
+although I knew he was in the town, and almost every day went out
+hunting, a pastime he was very fond of. I remember well how sad and
+dreary those days and hours were to me; I remember well how I began to
+doubt as they went by, and even to lose confidence in the faith of Don
+Fernando; and I remember, too, how my maid heard those words in reproof
+of her audacity that she had not heard before, and how I was forced to
+put a constraint on my tears and on the expression of my countenance,
+not to give my parents cause to ask me why I was so melancholy, and
+drive me to invent falsehoods in reply. But all this was suddenly
+brought to an end, for the time came when all such considerations were
+disregarded, and there was no further question of honour, when my
+patience gave way and the secret of my heart became known abroad. The
+reason was, that a few days later it was reported in the town that Don
+Fernando had been married in a neighbouring city to a maiden of rare
+beauty, the daughter of parents of distinguished position, though not
+so rich that her portion would entitle her to look for so brilliant a
+match; it was said, too, that her name was Luscinda, and that at the
+betrothal some strange things had happened.”
+
+Cardenio heard the name of Luscinda, but he only shrugged his
+shoulders, bit his lips, bent his brows, and before long two streams of
+tears escaped from his eyes. Dorothea, however, did not interrupt her
+story, but went on in these words:
+
+“This sad intelligence reached my ears, and, instead of being struck
+with a chill, with such wrath and fury did my heart burn that I
+scarcely restrained myself from rushing out into the streets, crying
+aloud and proclaiming openly the perfidy and treachery of which I was
+the victim; but this transport of rage was for the time checked by a
+resolution I formed, to be carried out the same night, and that was to
+assume this dress, which I got from a servant of my father’s, one of
+the zagals, as they are called in farmhouses, to whom I confided the
+whole of my misfortune, and whom I entreated to accompany me to the
+city where I heard my enemy was. He, though he remonstrated with me for
+my boldness, and condemned my resolution, when he saw me bent upon my
+purpose, offered to bear me company, as he said, to the end of the
+world. I at once packed up in a linen pillow-case a woman’s dress, and
+some jewels and money to provide for emergencies, and in the silence of
+the night, without letting my treacherous maid know, I sallied forth
+from the house, accompanied by my servant and abundant anxieties, and
+on foot set out for the city, but borne as it were on wings by my
+eagerness to reach it, if not to prevent what I presumed to be already
+done, at least to call upon Don Fernando to tell me with what
+conscience he had done it. I reached my destination in two days and a
+half, and on entering the city inquired for the house of Luscinda’s
+parents. The first person I asked gave me more in reply than I sought
+to know; he showed me the house, and told me all that had occurred at
+the betrothal of the daughter of the family, an affair of such
+notoriety in the city that it was the talk of every knot of idlers in
+the street. He said that on the night of Don Fernando’s betrothal with
+Luscinda, as soon as she had consented to be his bride by saying ‘Yes,’
+she was taken with a sudden fainting fit, and that on the bridegroom
+approaching to unlace the bosom of her dress to give her air, he found
+a paper in her own handwriting, in which she said and declared that she
+could not be Don Fernando’s bride, because she was already Cardenio’s,
+who, according to the man’s account, was a gentleman of distinction of
+the same city; and that if she had accepted Don Fernando, it was only
+in obedience to her parents. In short, he said, the words of the paper
+made it clear she meant to kill herself on the completion of the
+betrothal, and gave her reasons for putting an end to herself all which
+was confirmed, it was said, by a dagger they found somewhere in her
+clothes. On seeing this, Don Fernando, persuaded that Luscinda had
+befooled, slighted, and trifled with him, assailed her before she had
+recovered from her swoon, and tried to stab her with the dagger that
+had been found, and would have succeeded had not her parents and those
+who were present prevented him. It was said, moreover, that Don
+Fernando went away at once, and that Luscinda did not recover from her
+prostration until the next day, when she told her parents how she was
+really the bride of that Cardenio I have mentioned. I learned besides
+that Cardenio, according to report, had been present at the betrothal;
+and that upon seeing her betrothed contrary to his expectation, he had
+quitted the city in despair, leaving behind him a letter declaring the
+wrong Luscinda had done him, and his intention of going where no one
+should ever see him again. All this was a matter of notoriety in the
+city, and everyone spoke of it; especially when it became known that
+Luscinda was missing from her father’s house and from the city, for she
+was not to be found anywhere, to the distraction of her parents, who
+knew not what steps to take to recover her. What I learned revived my
+hopes, and I was better pleased not to have found Don Fernando than to
+find him married, for it seemed to me that the door was not yet
+entirely shut upon relief in my case, and I thought that perhaps Heaven
+had put this impediment in the way of the second marriage, to lead him
+to recognise his obligations under the former one, and reflect that as
+a Christian he was bound to consider his soul above all human objects.
+All this passed through my mind, and I strove to comfort myself without
+comfort, indulging in faint and distant hopes of cherishing that life
+that I now abhor.
+
+“But while I was in the city, uncertain what to do, as I could not find
+Don Fernando, I heard notice given by the public crier offering a great
+reward to anyone who should find me, and giving the particulars of my
+age and of the very dress I wore; and I heard it said that the lad who
+came with me had taken me away from my father’s house; a thing that cut
+me to the heart, showing how low my good name had fallen, since it was
+not enough that I should lose it by my flight, but they must add with
+whom I had fled, and that one so much beneath me and so unworthy of my
+consideration. The instant I heard the notice I quitted the city with
+my servant, who now began to show signs of wavering in his fidelity to
+me, and the same night, for fear of discovery, we entered the most
+thickly wooded part of these mountains. But, as is commonly said, one
+evil calls up another and the end of one misfortune is apt to be the
+beginning of one still greater, and so it proved in my case; for my
+worthy servant, until then so faithful and trusty when he found me in
+this lonely spot, moved more by his own villainy than by my beauty,
+sought to take advantage of the opportunity which these solitudes
+seemed to present him, and with little shame and less fear of God and
+respect for me, began to make overtures to me; and finding that I
+replied to the effrontery of his proposals with justly severe language,
+he laid aside the entreaties which he had employed at first, and began
+to use violence.
+
+
+
+c28e.jpg (324K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“But just Heaven, that seldom fails to watch over and aid good
+intentions, so aided mine that with my slight strength and with little
+exertion I pushed him over a precipice, where I left him, whether dead
+or alive I know not; and then, with greater speed than seemed possible
+in my terror and fatigue, I made my way into the mountains, without any
+other thought or purpose save that of hiding myself among them, and
+escaping my father and those despatched in search of me by his orders.
+It is now I know not how many months since with this object I came
+here, where I met a herdsman who engaged me as his servant at a place
+in the heart of this Sierra, and all this time I have been serving him
+as herd, striving to keep always afield to hide these locks which have
+now unexpectedly betrayed me. But all my care and pains were
+unavailing, for my master made the discovery that I was not a man, and
+harboured the same base designs as my servant; and as fortune does not
+always supply a remedy in cases of difficulty, and I had no precipice
+or ravine at hand down which to fling the master and cure his passion,
+as I had in the servant’s case, I thought it a lesser evil to leave him
+and again conceal myself among these crags, than make trial of my
+strength and argument with him. So, as I say, once more I went into
+hiding to seek for some place where I might with sighs and tears
+implore Heaven to have pity on my misery, and grant me help and
+strength to escape from it, or let me die among the solitudes, leaving
+no trace of an unhappy being who, by no fault of hers, has furnished
+matter for talk and scandal at home and abroad.”
+
+
+
+c28f.jpg (42K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+WHICH TREATS OF THE DROLL DEVICE AND METHOD ADOPTED TO EXTRICATE OUR
+LOVE-STRICKEN KNIGHT FROM THE SEVERE PENANCE HE HAD IMPOSED UPON
+HIMSELF
+
+
+
+
+c29a.jpg (99K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“Such, sirs, is the true story of my sad adventures; judge for
+yourselves now whether the sighs and lamentations you heard, and the
+tears that flowed from my eyes, had not sufficient cause even if I had
+indulged in them more freely; and if you consider the nature of my
+misfortune you will see that consolation is idle, as there is no
+possible remedy for it. All I ask of you is, what you may easily and
+reasonably do, to show me where I may pass my life unharassed by the
+fear and dread of discovery by those who are in search of me; for
+though the great love my parents bear me makes me feel sure of being
+kindly received by them, so great is my feeling of shame at the mere
+thought that I cannot present myself before them as they expect, that I
+had rather banish myself from their sight for ever than look them in
+the face with the reflection that they beheld mine stripped of that
+purity they had a right to expect in me.”
+
+With these words she became silent, and the colour that overspread her
+face showed plainly the pain and shame she was suffering at heart. In
+theirs the listeners felt as much pity as wonder at her misfortunes;
+but as the curate was just about to offer her some consolation and
+advice Cardenio forestalled him, saying, “So then, señora, you are the
+fair Dorothea, the only daughter of the rich Clenardo?” Dorothea was
+astonished at hearing her father’s name, and at the miserable
+appearance of him who mentioned it, for it has been already said how
+wretchedly clad Cardenio was; so she said to him:
+
+“And who may you be, brother, who seem to know my father’s name so
+well? For so far, if I remember rightly, I have not mentioned it in the
+whole story of my misfortunes.”
+
+“I am that unhappy being, señora,” replied Cardenio, “whom, as you have
+said, Luscinda declared to be her husband; I am the unfortunate
+Cardenio, whom the wrong-doing of him who has brought you to your
+present condition has reduced to the state you see me in, bare, ragged,
+bereft of all human comfort, and what is worse, of reason, for I only
+possess it when Heaven is pleased for some short space to restore it to
+me. I, Dorothea, am he who witnessed the wrong done by Don Fernando,
+and waited to hear the ‘Yes’ uttered by which Luscinda owned herself
+his betrothed: I am he who had not courage enough to see how her
+fainting fit ended, or what came of the paper that was found in her
+bosom, because my heart had not the fortitude to endure so many strokes
+of ill-fortune at once; and so losing patience I quitted the house, and
+leaving a letter with my host, which I entreated him to place in
+Luscinda’s hands, I betook myself to these solitudes, resolved to end
+here the life I hated as if it were my mortal enemy. But fate would not
+rid me of it, contenting itself with robbing me of my reason, perhaps
+to preserve me for the good fortune I have had in meeting you; for if
+that which you have just told us be true, as I believe it to be, it may
+be that Heaven has yet in store for both of us a happier termination to
+our misfortunes than we look for; because seeing that Luscinda cannot
+marry Don Fernando, being mine, as she has herself so openly declared,
+and that Don Fernando cannot marry her as he is yours, we may
+reasonably hope that Heaven will restore to us what is ours, as it is
+still in existence and not yet alienated or destroyed. And as we have
+this consolation springing from no very visionary hope or wild fancy, I
+entreat you, señora, to form new resolutions in your better mind, as I
+mean to do in mine, preparing yourself to look forward to happier
+fortunes; for I swear to you by the faith of a gentleman and a
+Christian not to desert you until I see you in possession of Don
+Fernando, and if I cannot by words induce him to recognise his
+obligation to you, in that case to avail myself of the right which my
+rank as a gentleman gives me, and with just cause challenge him on
+account of the injury he has done you, not regarding my own wrongs,
+which I shall leave to Heaven to avenge, while I on earth devote myself
+to yours.”
+
+Cardenio’s words completed the astonishment of Dorothea, and not
+knowing how to return thanks for such an offer, she attempted to kiss
+his feet; but Cardenio would not permit it, and the licentiate replied
+for both, commended the sound reasoning of Cardenio, and lastly,
+begged, advised, and urged them to come with him to his village, where
+they might furnish themselves with what they needed, and take measures
+to discover Don Fernando, or restore Dorothea to her parents, or do
+what seemed to them most advisable. Cardenio and Dorothea thanked him,
+and accepted the kind offer he made them; and the barber, who had been
+listening to all attentively and in silence, on his part some kindly
+words also, and with no less good-will than the curate offered his
+services in any way that might be of use to them. He also explained to
+them in a few words the object that had brought them there, and the
+strange nature of Don Quixote’s madness, and how they were waiting for
+his squire, who had gone in search of him. Like the recollection of a
+dream, the quarrel he had had with Don Quixote came back to Cardenio’s
+memory, and he described it to the others; but he was unable to say
+what the dispute was about.
+
+
+
+c29b.jpg (351K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+At this moment they heard a shout, and recognised it as coming from
+Sancho Panza, who, not finding them where he had left them, was calling
+aloud to them. They went to meet him, and in answer to their inquiries
+about Don Quixote, he told them how he had found him stripped to his
+shirt, lank, yellow, half dead with hunger, and sighing for his lady
+Dulcinea; and although he had told him that she commanded him to quit
+that place and come to El Toboso, where she was expecting him, he had
+answered that he was determined not to appear in the presence of her
+beauty until he had done deeds to make him worthy of her favour; and if
+this went on, Sancho said, he ran the risk of not becoming an emperor
+as in duty bound, or even an archbishop, which was the least he could
+be; for which reason they ought to consider what was to be done to get
+him away from there. The licentiate in reply told him not to be uneasy,
+for they would fetch him away in spite of himself. He then told
+Cardenio and Dorothea what they had proposed to do to cure Don Quixote,
+or at any rate take him home; upon which Dorothea said that she could
+play the distressed damsel better than the barber; especially as she
+had there the dress in which to do it to the life, and that they might
+trust to her acting the part in every particular requisite for carrying
+out their scheme, for she had read a great many books of chivalry, and
+knew exactly the style in which afflicted damsels begged boons of
+knights-errant.
+
+“In that case,” said the curate, “there is nothing more required than
+to set about it at once, for beyond a doubt fortune is declaring itself
+in our favour, since it has so unexpectedly begun to open a door for
+your relief, and smoothed the way for us to our object.”
+
+Dorothea then took out of her pillow-case a complete petticoat of some
+rich stuff, and a green mantle of some other fine material, and a
+necklace and other ornaments out of a little box, and with these in an
+instant she so arrayed herself that she looked like a great and rich
+lady. All this, and more, she said, she had taken from home in case of
+need, but that until then she had had no occasion to make use of it.
+They were all highly delighted with her grace, air, and beauty, and
+declared Don Fernando to be a man of very little taste when he rejected
+such charms. But the one who admired her most was Sancho Panza, for it
+seemed to him (what indeed was true) that in all the days of his life
+he had never seen such a lovely creature; and he asked the curate with
+great eagerness who this beautiful lady was, and what she wanted in
+these out-of-the-way quarters.
+
+“This fair lady, brother Sancho,” replied the curate, “is no less a
+personage than the heiress in the direct male line of the great kingdom
+of Micomicon, who has come in search of your master to beg a boon of
+him, which is that he redress a wrong or injury that a wicked giant has
+done her; and from the fame as a good knight which your master has
+acquired far and wide, this princess has come from Guinea to seek him.”
+
+“A lucky seeking and a lucky finding!” said Sancho Panza at this;
+“especially if my master has the good fortune to redress that injury,
+and right that wrong, and kill that son of a bitch of a giant your
+worship speaks of; as kill him he will if he meets him, unless, indeed,
+he happens to be a phantom; for my master has no power at all against
+phantoms. But one thing among others I would beg of you, señor
+licentiate, which is, that, to prevent my master taking a fancy to be
+an archbishop, for that is what I’m afraid of, your worship would
+recommend him to marry this princess at once; for in this way he will
+be disabled from taking archbishop’s orders, and will easily come into
+his empire, and I to the end of my desires; I have been thinking over
+the matter carefully, and by what I can make out I find it will not do
+for me that my master should become an archbishop, because I am no good
+for the Church, as I am married; and for me now, having as I have a
+wife and children, to set about obtaining dispensations to enable me to
+hold a place of profit under the Church, would be endless work; so
+that, señor, it all turns on my master marrying this lady at once—for
+as yet I do not know her grace, and so I cannot call her by her name.”
+
+“She is called the Princess Micomicona,” said the curate; “for as her
+kingdom is Micomicon, it is clear that must be her name.”
+
+“There’s no doubt of that,” replied Sancho, “for I have known many to
+take their name and title from the place where they were born and call
+themselves Pedro of Alcalá, Juan of Úbeda, and Diego of Valladolid; and
+it may be that over there in Guinea queens have the same way of taking
+the names of their kingdoms.”
+
+“So it may,” said the curate; “and as for your master’s marrying, I
+will do all in my power towards it:” with which Sancho was as much
+pleased as the curate was amazed at his simplicity and at seeing what a
+hold the absurdities of his master had taken of his fancy, for he had
+evidently persuaded himself that he was going to be an emperor.
+
+By this time Dorothea had seated herself upon the curate’s mule, and
+the barber had fitted the ox-tail beard to his face, and they now told
+Sancho to conduct them to where Don Quixote was, warning him not to say
+that he knew either the licentiate or the barber, as his master’s
+becoming an emperor entirely depended on his not recognising them;
+neither the curate nor Cardenio, however, thought fit to go with them;
+Cardenio lest he should remind Don Quixote of the quarrel he had with
+him, and the curate as there was no necessity for his presence just
+yet, so they allowed the others to go on before them, while they
+themselves followed slowly on foot. The curate did not forget to
+instruct Dorothea how to act, but she said they might make their minds
+easy, as everything would be done exactly as the books of chivalry
+required and described.
+
+
+
+c29c.jpg (286K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+They had gone about three-quarters of a league when they discovered Don
+Quixote in a wilderness of rocks, by this time clothed, but without his
+armour; and as soon as Dorothea saw him and was told by Sancho that
+that was Don Quixote, she whipped her palfrey, the well-bearded barber
+following her, and on coming up to him her squire sprang from his mule
+and came forward to receive her in his arms, and she dismounting with
+great ease of manner advanced to kneel before the feet of Don Quixote;
+and though he strove to raise her up, she without rising addressed him
+in this fashion:
+
+“From this spot I will not rise, valiant and doughty knight, until your
+goodness and courtesy grant me a boon, which will redound to the honour
+and renown of your person and render a service to the most disconsolate
+and afflicted damsel the sun has seen; and if the might of your strong
+arm corresponds to the repute of your immortal fame, you are bound to
+aid the helpless being who, led by the savour of your renowned name,
+hath come from far distant lands to seek your aid in her misfortunes.”
+
+“I will not answer a word, beauteous lady,” replied Don Quixote, “nor
+will I listen to anything further concerning you, until you rise from
+the earth.”
+
+“I will not rise, señor,” answered the afflicted damsel, “unless of
+your courtesy the boon I ask is first granted me.”
+
+“I grant and accord it,” said Don Quixote, “provided without detriment
+or prejudice to my king, my country, or her who holds the key of my
+heart and freedom, it may be complied with.”
+
+“It will not be to the detriment or prejudice of any of them, my worthy
+lord,” said the afflicted damsel; and here Sancho Panza drew close to
+his master’s ear and said to him very softly, “Your worship may very
+safely grant the boon she asks; it’s nothing at all; only to kill a big
+giant; and she who asks it is the exalted Princess Micomicona, queen of
+the great kingdom of Micomicon of Ethiopia.”
+
+“Let her be who she may,” replied Don Quixote, “I will do what is my
+bounden duty, and what my conscience bids me, in conformity with what I
+have professed;” and turning to the damsel he said, “Let your great
+beauty rise, for I grant the boon which you would ask of me.”
+
+“Then what I ask,” said the damsel, “is that your magnanimous person
+accompany me at once whither I will conduct you, and that you promise
+not to engage in any other adventure or quest until you have avenged me
+of a traitor who against all human and divine law, has usurped my
+kingdom.”
+
+“I repeat that I grant it,” replied Don Quixote; “and so, lady, you may
+from this day forth lay aside the melancholy that distresses you, and
+let your failing hopes gather new life and strength, for with the help
+of God and of my arm you will soon see yourself restored to your
+kingdom, and seated upon the throne of your ancient and mighty realm,
+notwithstanding and despite of the felons who would gainsay it; and now
+hands to the work, for in delay there is apt to be danger.”
+
+The distressed damsel strove with much pertinacity to kiss his hands;
+but Don Quixote, who was in all things a polished and courteous knight,
+would by no means allow it, but made her rise and embraced her with
+great courtesy and politeness, and ordered Sancho to look to
+Rocinante’s girths, and to arm him without a moment’s delay. Sancho
+took down the armour, which was hung up on a tree like a trophy, and
+having seen to the girths armed his master in a trice, who as soon as
+he found himself in his armour exclaimed:
+
+“Let us be gone in the name of God to bring aid to this great lady.”
+
+The barber was all this time on his knees at great pains to hide his
+laughter and not let his beard fall, for had it fallen maybe their fine
+scheme would have come to nothing; but now seeing the boon granted, and
+the promptitude with which Don Quixote prepared to set out in
+compliance with it, he rose and took his lady’s hand, and between them
+they placed her upon the mule. Don Quixote then mounted Rocinante, and
+the barber settled himself on his beast, Sancho being left to go on
+foot, which made him feel anew the loss of his Dapple, finding the want
+of him now. But he bore all with cheerfulness, being persuaded that his
+master had now fairly started and was just on the point of becoming an
+emperor; for he felt no doubt at all that he would marry this princess,
+and be king of Micomicon at least. The only thing that troubled him was
+the reflection that this kingdom was in the land of the blacks, and
+that the people they would give him for vassals would be all black; but
+for this he soon found a remedy in his fancy, and said he to himself,
+“What is it to me if my vassals are blacks? What more have I to do than
+make a cargo of them and carry them to Spain, where I can sell them and
+get ready money for them, and with it buy some title or some office in
+which to live at ease all the days of my life? Not unless you go to
+sleep and haven’t the wit or skill to turn things to account and sell
+three, six, or ten thousand vassals while you would be talking about
+it! By God I will stir them up, big and little, or as best I can, and
+let them be ever so black I’ll turn them into white or yellow. Come,
+come, what a fool I am!” And so he jogged on, so occupied with his
+thoughts and easy in his mind that he forgot all about the hardship of
+travelling on foot.
+
+Cardenio and the curate were watching all this from among some bushes,
+not knowing how to join company with the others; but the curate, who
+was very fertile in devices, soon hit upon a way of effecting their
+purpose, and with a pair of scissors he had in a case he quickly cut
+off Cardenio’s beard, and putting on him a grey jerkin of his own he
+gave him a black cloak, leaving himself in his breeches and doublet,
+while Cardenio’s appearance was so different from what it had been that
+he would not have known himself had he seen himself in a mirror. Having
+effected this, although the others had gone on ahead while they were
+disguising themselves, they easily came out on the high road before
+them, for the brambles and awkward places they encountered did not
+allow those on horseback to go as fast as those on foot. They then
+posted themselves on the level ground at the outlet of the Sierra, and
+as soon as Don Quixote and his companions emerged from it the curate
+began to examine him very deliberately, as though he were striving to
+recognise him, and after having stared at him for some time he hastened
+towards him with open arms exclaiming, “A happy meeting with the mirror
+of chivalry, my worthy compatriot Don Quixote of La Mancha, the flower
+and cream of high breeding, the protection and relief of the
+distressed, the quintessence of knights-errant!” And so saying he
+clasped in his arms the knee of Don Quixote’s left leg. He, astonished
+at the stranger’s words and behaviour, looked at him attentively, and
+at length recognised him, very much surprised to see him there, and
+made great efforts to dismount. This, however, the curate would not
+allow, on which Don Quixote said, “Permit me, señor licentiate, for it
+is not fitting that I should be on horseback and so reverend a person
+as your worship on foot.”
+
+“On no account will I allow it,” said the curate; “your mightiness must
+remain on horseback, for it is on horseback you achieve the greatest
+deeds and adventures that have been beheld in our age; as for me, an
+unworthy priest, it will serve me well enough to mount on the haunches
+of one of the mules of these gentlefolk who accompany your worship, if
+they have no objection, and I will fancy I am mounted on the steed
+Pegasus, or on the zebra or charger that bore the famous Moor,
+Muzaraque, who to this day lies enchanted in the great hill of Zulema,
+a little distance from the great Complutum.”
+
+“Nor even that will I consent to, señor licentiate,” answered Don
+Quixote, “and I know it will be the good pleasure of my lady the
+princess, out of love for me, to order her squire to give up the saddle
+of his mule to your worship, and he can sit behind if the beast will
+bear it.”
+
+“It will, I am sure,” said the princess, “and I am sure, too, that I
+need not order my squire, for he is too courteous and considerate to
+allow a Churchman to go on foot when he might be mounted.”
+
+“That he is,” said the barber, and at once alighting, he offered his
+saddle to the curate, who accepted it without much entreaty; but
+unfortunately as the barber was mounting behind, the mule, being as it
+happened a hired one, which is the same thing as saying
+ill-conditioned, lifted its hind hoofs and let fly a couple of kicks in
+the air, which would have made Master Nicholas wish his expedition in
+quest of Don Quixote at the devil had they caught him on the breast or
+head. As it was, they so took him by surprise that he came to the
+ground, giving so little heed to his beard that it fell off, and all he
+could do when he found himself without it was to cover his face hastily
+with both his hands and moan that his teeth were knocked out. Don
+Quixote when he saw all that bundle of beard detached, without jaws or
+blood, from the face of the fallen squire, exclaimed:
+
+“By the living God, but this is a great miracle! it has knocked off and
+plucked away the beard from his face as if it had been shaved off
+designedly.”
+
+The curate, seeing the danger of discovery that threatened his scheme,
+at once pounced upon the beard and hastened with it to where Master
+Nicholas lay, still uttering moans, and drawing his head to his breast
+had it on in an instant, muttering over him some words which he said
+were a certain special charm for sticking on beards, as they would see;
+and as soon as he had it fixed he left him, and the squire appeared
+well bearded and whole as before, whereat Don Quixote was beyond
+measure astonished, and begged the curate to teach him that charm when
+he had an opportunity, as he was persuaded its virtue must extend
+beyond the sticking on of beards, for it was clear that where the beard
+had been stripped off the flesh must have remained torn and lacerated,
+and when it could heal all that it must be good for more than beards.
+
+“And so it is,” said the curate, and he promised to teach it to him on
+the first opportunity. They then agreed that for the present the curate
+should mount, and that the three should ride by turns until they
+reached the inn, which might be about six leagues from where they were.
+
+Three then being mounted, that is to say, Don Quixote, the princess,
+and the curate, and three on foot, Cardenio, the barber, and Sancho
+Panza, Don Quixote said to the damsel:
+
+“Let your highness, lady, lead on whithersoever is most pleasing to
+you;” but before she could answer the licentiate said:
+
+
+
+c29d.jpg (345K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“Towards what kingdom would your ladyship direct our course? Is it
+perchance towards that of Micomicon? It must be, or else I know little
+about kingdoms.”
+
+She, being ready on all points, understood that she was to answer
+“Yes,” so she said “Yes, señor, my way lies towards that kingdom.”
+
+“In that case,” said the curate, “we must pass right through my
+village, and there your worship will take the road to Cartagena, where
+you will be able to embark, fortune favouring; and if the wind be fair
+and the sea smooth and tranquil, in somewhat less than nine years you
+may come in sight of the great lake Meona, I mean Meotides, which is
+little more than a hundred days’ journey this side of your highness’s
+kingdom.”
+
+
+
+c29e.jpg (318K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“Your worship is mistaken, señor,” said she; “for it is not two years
+since I set out from it, and though I never had good weather,
+nevertheless I am here to behold what I so longed for, and that is my
+lord Don Quixote of La Mancha, whose fame came to my ears as soon as I
+set foot in Spain and impelled me to go in search of him, to commend
+myself to his courtesy, and entrust the justice of my cause to the
+might of his invincible arm.”
+
+“Enough; no more praise,” said Don Quixote at this, “for I hate all
+flattery; and though this may not be so, still language of the kind is
+offensive to my chaste ears. I will only say, señora, that whether it
+has might or not, that which it may or may not have shall be devoted to
+your service even to death; and now, leaving this to its proper season,
+I would ask the señor licentiate to tell me what it is that has brought
+him into these parts, alone, unattended, and so lightly clad that I am
+filled with amazement.”
+
+“I will answer that briefly,” replied the curate; “you must know then,
+Señor Don Quixote, that Master Nicholas, our friend and barber, and I
+were going to Seville to receive some money that a relative of mine who
+went to the Indies many years ago had sent me, and not such a small sum
+but that it was over sixty thousand pieces of eight, full weight, which
+is something; and passing by this place yesterday we were attacked by
+four footpads, who stripped us even to our beards, and them they
+stripped off so that the barber found it necessary to put on a false
+one, and even this young man here”—pointing to Cardenio—“they
+completely transformed. But the best of it is, the story goes in the
+neighbourhood that those who attacked us belong to a number of galley
+slaves who, they say, were set free almost on the very same spot by a
+man of such valour that, in spite of the commissary and of the guards,
+he released the whole of them; and beyond all doubt he must have been
+out of his senses, or he must be as great a scoundrel as they, or some
+man without heart or conscience to let the wolf loose among the sheep,
+the fox among the hens, the fly among the honey. He has defrauded
+justice, and opposed his king and lawful master, for he opposed his
+just commands; he has, I say, robbed the galleys of their feet, stirred
+up the Holy Brotherhood which for many years past has been quiet, and,
+lastly, has done a deed by which his soul may be lost without any gain
+to his body.” Sancho had told the curate and the barber of the
+adventure of the galley slaves, which, so much to his glory, his master
+had achieved, and hence the curate in alluding to it made the most of
+it to see what would be said or done by Don Quixote; who changed colour
+at every word, not daring to say that it was he who had been the
+liberator of those worthy people. “These, then,” said the curate, “were
+they who robbed us; and God in his mercy pardon him who would not let
+them go to the punishment they deserved.”
+
+
+
+c29f.jpg (53K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+WHICH TREATS OF ADDRESS DISPLAYED BY THE FAIR DOROTHEA, WITH OTHER
+MATTERS PLEASANT AND AMUSING
+
+
+
+
+c30a.jpg (147K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+The curate had hardly ceased speaking, when Sancho said, “In faith,
+then, señor licentiate, he who did that deed was my master; and it was
+not for want of my telling him beforehand and warning him to mind what
+he was about, and that it was a sin to set them at liberty, as they
+were all on the march there because they were special scoundrels.”
+
+“Blockhead!” said Don Quixote at this, “it is no business or concern of
+knights-errant to inquire whether any persons in affliction, in chains,
+or oppressed that they may meet on the high roads go that way and
+suffer as they do because of their faults or because of their
+misfortunes. It only concerns them to aid them as persons in need of
+help, having regard to their sufferings and not to their rascalities. I
+encountered a chaplet or string of miserable and unfortunate people,
+and did for them what my sense of duty demands of me, and as for the
+rest be that as it may; and whoever takes objection to it, saving the
+sacred dignity of the señor licentiate and his honoured person, I say
+he knows little about chivalry and lies like a whoreson villain, and
+this I will give him to know to the fullest extent with my sword;” and
+so saying he settled himself in his stirrups and pressed down his
+morion; for the barber’s basin, which according to him was Mambrino’s
+helmet, he carried hanging at the saddle-bow until he could repair the
+damage done to it by the galley slaves.
+
+Dorothea, who was shrewd and sprightly, and by this time thoroughly
+understood Don Quixote’s crazy turn, and that all except Sancho Panza
+were making game of him, not to be behind the rest said to him, on
+observing his irritation, “Sir Knight, remember the boon you have
+promised me, and that in accordance with it you must not engage in any
+other adventure, be it ever so pressing; calm yourself, for if the
+licentiate had known that the galley slaves had been set free by that
+unconquered arm he would have stopped his mouth thrice over, or even
+bitten his tongue three times before he would have said a word that
+tended towards disrespect of your worship.”
+
+“That I swear heartily,” said the curate, “and I would have even
+plucked off a moustache.”
+
+“I will hold my peace, señora,” said Don Quixote, “and I will curb the
+natural anger that had arisen in my breast, and will proceed in peace
+and quietness until I have fulfilled my promise; but in return for this
+consideration I entreat you to tell me, if you have no objection to do
+so, what is the nature of your trouble, and how many, who, and what are
+the persons of whom I am to require due satisfaction, and on whom I am
+to take vengeance on your behalf?”
+
+“That I will do with all my heart,” replied Dorothea, “if it will not
+be wearisome to you to hear of miseries and misfortunes.”
+
+“It will not be wearisome, señora,” said Don Quixote; to which Dorothea
+replied, “Well, if that be so, give me your attention.” As soon as she
+said this, Cardenio and the barber drew close to her side, eager to
+hear what sort of story the quick-witted Dorothea would invent for
+herself; and Sancho did the same, for he was as much taken in by her as
+his master; and she having settled herself comfortably in the saddle,
+and with the help of coughing and other preliminaries taken time to
+think, began with great sprightliness of manner in this fashion.
+
+“First of all, I would have you know, sirs, that my name is—” and here
+she stopped for a moment, for she forgot the name the curate had given
+her; but he came to her relief, seeing what her difficulty was, and
+said, “It is no wonder, señora, that your highness should be confused
+and embarrassed in telling the tale of your misfortunes; for such
+afflictions often have the effect of depriving the sufferers of memory,
+so that they do not even remember their own names, as is the case now
+with your ladyship, who has forgotten that she is called the Princess
+Micomicona, lawful heiress of the great kingdom of Micomicon; and with
+this cue your highness may now recall to your sorrowful recollection
+all you may wish to tell us.”
+
+“That is the truth,” said the damsel; “but I think from this on I shall
+have no need of any prompting, and I shall bring my true story safe
+into port, and here it is. The king my father, who was called Tinacrio
+the Sapient, was very learned in what they call magic arts, and became
+aware by his craft that my mother, who was called Queen Jaramilla, was
+to die before he did, and that soon after he too was to depart this
+life, and I was to be left an orphan without father or mother. But all
+this, he declared, did not so much grieve or distress him as his
+certain knowledge that a prodigious giant, the lord of a great island
+close to our kingdom, Pandafilando of the Scowl by name—for it is
+averred that, though his eyes are properly placed and straight, he
+always looks askew as if he squinted, and this he does out of
+malignity, to strike fear and terror into those he looks at—that he
+knew, I say, that this giant on becoming aware of my orphan condition
+would overrun my kingdom with a mighty force and strip me of all, not
+leaving me even a small village to shelter me; but that I could avoid
+all this ruin and misfortune if I were willing to marry him; however,
+as far as he could see, he never expected that I would consent to a
+marriage so unequal; and he said no more than the truth in this, for it
+has never entered my mind to marry that giant, or any other, let him be
+ever so great or enormous. My father said, too, that when he was dead,
+and I saw Pandafilando about to invade my kingdom, I was not to wait
+and attempt to defend myself, for that would be destructive to me, but
+that I should leave the kingdom entirely open to him if I wished to
+avoid the death and total destruction of my good and loyal vassals, for
+there would be no possibility of defending myself against the giant’s
+devilish power; and that I should at once with some of my followers set
+out for Spain, where I should obtain relief in my distress on finding a
+certain knight-errant whose fame by that time would extend over the
+whole kingdom, and who would be called, if I remember rightly, Don
+Azote or Don Gigote.”
+
+“‘Don Quixote,’ he must have said, señora,” observed Sancho at this,
+“otherwise called the Knight of the Rueful Countenance.”
+
+“That is it,” said Dorothea; “he said, moreover, that he would be tall
+of stature and lank featured; and that on his right side under the left
+shoulder, or thereabouts, he would have a grey mole with hairs like
+bristles.”
+
+On hearing this, Don Quixote said to his squire, “Here, Sancho my son,
+bear a hand and help me to strip, for I want to see if I am the knight
+that sage king foretold.”
+
+“What does your worship want to strip for?” said Dorothea.
+
+“To see if I have that mole your father spoke of,” answered Don
+Quixote.
+
+“There is no occasion to strip,” said Sancho; “for I know your worship
+has just such a mole on the middle of your backbone, which is the mark
+of a strong man.”
+
+“That is enough,” said Dorothea, “for with friends we must not look too
+closely into trifles; and whether it be on the shoulder or on the
+backbone matters little; it is enough if there is a mole, be it where
+it may, for it is all the same flesh; no doubt my good father hit the
+truth in every particular, and I have made a lucky hit in commending
+myself to Don Quixote; for he is the one my father spoke of, as the
+features of his countenance correspond with those assigned to this
+knight by that wide fame he has acquired not only in Spain but in all
+La Mancha; for I had scarcely landed at Osuna when I heard such
+accounts of his achievements, that at once my heart told me he was the
+very one I had come in search of.”
+
+“But how did you land at Osuna, señora,” asked Don Quixote, “when it is
+not a seaport?”
+
+But before Dorothea could reply the curate anticipated her, saying,
+“The princess meant to say that after she had landed at Malaga the
+first place where she heard of your worship was Osuna.”
+
+“That is what I meant to say,” said Dorothea.
+
+“And that would be only natural,” said the curate. “Will your majesty
+please proceed?”
+
+“There is no more to add,” said Dorothea, “save that in finding Don
+Quixote I have had such good fortune, that I already reckon and regard
+myself queen and mistress of my entire dominions, since of his courtesy
+and magnanimity he has granted me the boon of accompanying me
+whithersoever I may conduct him, which will be only to bring him face
+to face with Pandafilando of the Scowl, that he may slay him and
+restore to me what has been unjustly usurped by him: for all this must
+come to pass satisfactorily since my good father Tinacrio the Sapient
+foretold it, who likewise left it declared in writing in Chaldee or
+Greek characters (for I cannot read them), that if this predicted
+knight, after having cut the giant’s throat, should be disposed to
+marry me I was to offer myself at once without demur as his lawful
+wife, and yield him possession of my kingdom together with my person.”
+
+“What thinkest thou now, friend Sancho?” said Don Quixote at this.
+“Hearest thou that? Did I not tell thee so? See how we have already got
+a kingdom to govern and a queen to marry!”
+
+“On my oath it is so,” said Sancho; “and foul fortune to him who won’t
+marry after slitting Señor Pandahilado’s windpipe! And then, how
+illfavoured the queen is! I wish the fleas in my bed were that sort!”
+
+And so saying he cut a couple of capers in the air with every sign of
+extreme satisfaction, and then ran to seize the bridle of Dorothea’s
+mule, and checking it fell on his knees before her, begging her to give
+him her hand to kiss in token of his acknowledgment of her as his queen
+and mistress. Which of the bystanders could have helped laughing to see
+the madness of the master and the simplicity of the servant? Dorothea
+therefore gave her hand, and promised to make him a great lord in her
+kingdom, when Heaven should be so good as to permit her to recover and
+enjoy it, for which Sancho returned thanks in words that set them all
+laughing again.
+
+“This, sirs,” continued Dorothea, “is my story; it only remains to tell
+you that of all the attendants I took with me from my kingdom I have
+none left except this well-bearded squire, for all were drowned in a
+great tempest we encountered when in sight of port; and he and I came
+to land on a couple of planks as if by a miracle; and indeed the whole
+course of my life is a miracle and a mystery as you may have observed;
+and if I have been over minute in any respect or not as precise as I
+ought, let it be accounted for by what the licentiate said at the
+beginning of my tale, that constant and excessive troubles deprive the
+sufferers of their memory.”
+
+“They shall not deprive me of mine, exalted and worthy princess,” said
+Don Quixote, “however great and unexampled those which I shall endure
+in your service may be; and here I confirm anew the boon I have
+promised you, and I swear to go with you to the end of the world until
+I find myself in the presence of your fierce enemy, whose haughty head
+I trust by the aid of my arm to cut off with the edge of this—I will
+not say good sword, thanks to Gines de Pasamonte who carried away
+mine”—(this he said between his teeth, and then continued), “and when
+it has been cut off and you have been put in peaceful possession of
+your realm it shall be left to your own decision to dispose of your
+person as may be most pleasing to you; for so long as my memory is
+occupied, my will enslaved, and my understanding enthralled by her—I
+say no more—it is impossible for me for a moment to contemplate
+marriage, even with a Phœnix.”
+
+The last words of his master about not wanting to marry were so
+disagreeable to Sancho that raising his voice he exclaimed with great
+irritation:
+
+“By my oath, Señor Don Quixote, you are not in your right senses; for
+how can your worship possibly object to marrying such an exalted
+princess as this? Do you think Fortune will offer you behind every
+stone such a piece of luck as is offered you now? Is my lady Dulcinea
+fairer, perchance? Not she; nor half as fair; and I will even go so far
+as to say she does not come up to the shoe of this one here. A poor
+chance I have of getting that county I am waiting for if your worship
+goes looking for dainties in the bottom of the sea. In the devil’s
+name, marry, marry, and take this kingdom that comes to hand without
+any trouble, and when you are king make me a marquis or governor of a
+province, and for the rest let the devil take it all.”
+
+Don Quixote, when he heard such blasphemies uttered against his lady
+Dulcinea, could not endure it, and lifting his pike, without saying
+anything to Sancho or uttering a word, he gave him two such thwacks
+that he brought him to the ground; and had it not been that Dorothea
+cried out to him to spare him he would have no doubt taken his life on
+the spot.
+
+“Do you think,” he said to him after a pause, “you scurvy clown, that
+you are to be always interfering with me, and that you are to be always
+offending and I always pardoning? Don’t fancy it, impious scoundrel,
+for that beyond a doubt thou art, since thou hast set thy tongue going
+against the peerless Dulcinea. Know you not, lout, vagabond, beggar,
+that were it not for the might that she infuses into my arm I should
+not have strength enough to kill a flea? Say, scoffer with a viper’s
+tongue, what think you has won this kingdom and cut off this giant’s
+head and made you a marquis (for all this I count as already
+accomplished and decided), but the might of Dulcinea, employing my arm
+as the instrument of her achievements? She fights in me and conquers in
+me, and I live and breathe in her, and owe my life and being to her. O
+whoreson scoundrel, how ungrateful you are, you see yourself raised
+from the dust of the earth to be a titled lord, and the return you make
+for so great a benefit is to speak evil of her who has conferred it
+upon you!”
+
+Sancho was not so stunned but that he heard all his master said, and
+rising with some degree of nimbleness he ran to place himself behind
+Dorothea’s palfrey, and from that position he said to his master:
+
+“Tell me, señor; if your worship is resolved not to marry this great
+princess, it is plain the kingdom will not be yours; and not being so,
+how can you bestow favours upon me? That is what I complain of. Let
+your worship at any rate marry this queen, now that we have got her
+here as if showered down from heaven, and afterwards you may go back to
+my lady Dulcinea; for there must have been kings in the world who kept
+mistresses. As to beauty, I have nothing to do with it; and if the
+truth is to be told, I like them both; though I have never seen the
+lady Dulcinea.”
+
+“How! never seen her, blasphemous traitor!” exclaimed Don Quixote;
+“hast thou not just now brought me a message from her?”
+
+“I mean,” said Sancho, “that I did not see her so much at my leisure
+that I could take particular notice of her beauty, or of her charms
+piecemeal; but taken in the lump I like her.”
+
+“Now I forgive thee,” said Don Quixote; “and do thou forgive me the
+injury I have done thee; for our first impulses are not in our
+control.”
+
+“That I see,” replied Sancho, “and with me the wish to speak is always
+the first impulse, and I cannot help saying, once at any rate, what I
+have on the tip of my tongue.”
+
+“For all that, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “take heed of what thou
+sayest, for the pitcher goes so often to the well—I need say no more to
+thee.”
+
+“Well, well,” said Sancho, “God is in heaven, and sees all tricks, and
+will judge who does most harm, I in not speaking right, or your worship
+in not doing it.”
+
+“That is enough,” said Dorothea; “run, Sancho, and kiss your lord’s
+hand and beg his pardon, and henceforward be more circumspect with your
+praise and abuse; and say nothing in disparagement of that lady Toboso,
+of whom I know nothing save that I am her servant; and put your trust
+in God, for you will not fail to obtain some dignity so as to live like
+a prince.”
+
+Sancho advanced hanging his head and begged his master’s hand, which
+Don Quixote with dignity presented to him, giving him his blessing as
+soon as he had kissed it; he then bade him go on ahead a little, as he
+had questions to ask him and matters of great importance to discuss
+with him. Sancho obeyed, and when the two had gone some distance in
+advance Don Quixote said to him, “Since thy return I have had no
+opportunity or time to ask thee many particulars touching thy mission
+and the answer thou hast brought back, and now that chance has granted
+us the time and opportunity, deny me not the happiness thou canst give
+me by such good news.”
+
+“Let your worship ask what you will,” answered Sancho, “for I shall
+find a way out of all as I found a way in; but I implore you, señor,
+not to be so revengeful in future.”
+
+“Why dost thou say that, Sancho?” said Don Quixote.
+
+“I say it,” he returned, “because those blows just now were more
+because of the quarrel the devil stirred up between us both the other
+night, than for what I said against my lady Dulcinea, whom I love and
+reverence as I would a relic—though there is nothing of that about
+her—merely as something belonging to your worship.”
+
+“Say no more on that subject for thy life, Sancho,” said Don Quixote,
+“for it is displeasing to me; I have already pardoned thee for that,
+and thou knowest the common saying, ‘for a fresh sin a fresh penance.’”
+
+While this was going on they saw coming along the road they were
+following a man mounted on an ass, who when he came close seemed to be
+a gipsy; but Sancho Panza, whose eyes and heart were there wherever he
+saw asses, no sooner beheld the man than he knew him to be Gines de
+Pasamonte; and by the thread of the gipsy he got at the ball, his ass,
+for it was, in fact, Dapple that carried Pasamonte, who to escape
+recognition and to sell the ass had disguised himself as a gipsy, being
+able to speak the gipsy language, and many more, as well as if they
+were his own. Sancho saw him and recognised him, and the instant he did
+so he shouted to him, “Ginesillo, you thief, give up my treasure,
+release my life, embarrass thyself not with my repose, quit my ass,
+leave my delight, be off, rip, get thee gone, thief, and give up what
+is not thine.”
+
+There was no necessity for so many words or objurgations, for at the
+first one Gines jumped down, and at a like racing speed made off and
+got clear of them all. Sancho hastened to his Dapple, and embracing him
+he said, “How hast thou fared, my blessing, Dapple of my eyes, my
+comrade?” all the while kissing him and caressing him as if he were a
+human being. The ass held his peace, and let himself be kissed and
+caressed by Sancho without answering a single word. They all came up
+and congratulated him on having found Dapple, Don Quixote especially,
+who told him that notwithstanding this he would not cancel the order
+for the three ass-colts, for which Sancho thanked him.
+
+While the two had been going along conversing in this fashion, the
+curate observed to Dorothea that she had shown great cleverness, as
+well in the story itself as in its conciseness, and the resemblance it
+bore to those of the books of chivalry. She said that she had many
+times amused herself reading them; but that she did not know the
+situation of the provinces or seaports, and so she had said at
+haphazard that she had landed at Osuna.
+
+“So I saw,” said the curate, “and for that reason I made haste to say
+what I did, by which it was all set right. But is it not a strange
+thing to see how readily this unhappy gentleman believes all these
+figments and lies, simply because they are in the style and manner of
+the absurdities of his books?”
+
+“So it is,” said Cardenio; “and so uncommon and unexampled, that were
+one to attempt to invent and concoct it in fiction, I doubt if there be
+any wit keen enough to imagine it.”
+
+“But another strange thing about it,” said the curate, “is that, apart
+from the silly things which this worthy gentleman says in connection
+with his craze, when other subjects are dealt with, he can discuss them
+in a perfectly rational manner, showing that his mind is quite clear
+and composed; so that, provided his chivalry is not touched upon, no
+one would take him to be anything but a man of thoroughly sound
+understanding.”
+
+While they were holding this conversation Don Quixote continued his
+with Sancho, saying:
+
+“Friend Panza, let us forgive and forget as to our quarrels, and tell
+me now, dismissing anger and irritation, where, how, and when didst
+thou find Dulcinea? What was she doing? What didst thou say to her?
+What did she answer? How did she look when she was reading my letter?
+Who copied it out for thee? and everything in the matter that seems to
+thee worth knowing, asking, and learning; neither adding nor falsifying
+to give me pleasure, nor yet curtailing lest you should deprive me of
+it.”
+
+“Señor,” replied Sancho, “if the truth is to be told, nobody copied out
+the letter for me, for I carried no letter at all.”
+
+“It is as thou sayest,” said Don Quixote, “for the notebook in which I
+wrote it I found in my own possession two days after thy departure,
+which gave me very great vexation, as I knew not what thou wouldst do
+on finding thyself without any letter; and I made sure thou wouldst
+return from the place where thou didst first miss it.”
+
+“So I should have done,” said Sancho, “if I had not got it by heart
+when your worship read it to me, so that I repeated it to a sacristan,
+who copied it out for me from hearing it, so exactly that he said in
+all the days of his life, though he had read many a letter of
+excommunication, he had never seen or read so pretty a letter as that.”
+
+“And hast thou got it still in thy memory, Sancho?” said Don Quixote.
+
+“No, señor,” replied Sancho, “for as soon as I had repeated it, seeing
+there was no further use for it, I set about forgetting it; and if I
+recollect any of it, it is that about ‘Scrubbing,’ I mean to say
+‘Sovereign Lady,’ and the end ‘Yours till death, the Knight of the
+Rueful Countenance;’ and between these two I put into it more than
+three hundred ‘my souls’ and ‘my life’s’ and ‘my eyes.”
+
+
+
+c30e.jpg (13K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+OF THE DELECTABLE DISCUSSION BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO PANZA, HIS
+SQUIRE, TOGETHER WITH OTHER INCIDENTS
+
+
+
+
+c31a.jpg (151K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“All that is not unsatisfactory to me,” said Don Quixote. “Go on; thou
+didst reach her; and what was that queen of beauty doing? Surely thou
+didst find her stringing pearls, or embroidering some device in gold
+thread for this her enslaved knight.”
+
+“I did not,” said Sancho, “but I found her winnowing two bushels of
+wheat in the yard of her house.”
+
+“Then depend upon it,” said Don Quixote, “the grains of that wheat were
+pearls when touched by her hands; and didst thou look, friend? was it
+white wheat or brown?”
+
+“It was neither, but red,” said Sancho.
+
+“Then I promise thee,” said Don Quixote, “that, winnowed by her hands,
+beyond a doubt the bread it made was of the whitest; but go on; when
+thou gavest her my letter, did she kiss it? Did she place it on her
+head? Did she perform any ceremony befitting it, or what did she do?”
+
+“When I went to give it to her,” replied Sancho, “she was hard at it
+swaying from side to side with a lot of wheat she had in the sieve, and
+she said to me, ‘Lay the letter, friend, on the top of that sack, for I
+cannot read it until I have done sifting all this.”
+
+“Discreet lady!” said Don Quixote; “that was in order to read it at her
+leisure and enjoy it; proceed, Sancho; while she was engaged in her
+occupation what converse did she hold with thee? What did she ask about
+me, and what answer didst thou give? Make haste; tell me all, and let
+not an atom be left behind in the ink-bottle.”
+
+“She asked me nothing,” said Sancho; “but I told her how your worship
+was left doing penance in her service, naked from the waist up, in
+among these mountains like a savage, sleeping on the ground, not eating
+bread off a tablecloth nor combing your beard, weeping and cursing your
+fortune.”
+
+“In saying I cursed my fortune thou saidst wrong,” said Don Quixote;
+“for rather do I bless it and shall bless it all the days of my life
+for having made me worthy of aspiring to love so lofty a lady as
+Dulcinea del Toboso.”
+
+“And so lofty she is,” said Sancho, “that she overtops me by more than
+a hand’s-breadth.”
+
+“What! Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “didst thou measure with her?”
+
+“I measured in this way,” said Sancho; “going to help her to put a sack
+of wheat on the back of an ass, we came so close together that I could
+see she stood more than a good palm over me.”
+
+“Well!” said Don Quixote, “and doth she not of a truth accompany and
+adorn this greatness with a thousand million charms of mind! But one
+thing thou wilt not deny, Sancho; when thou camest close to her didst
+thou not perceive a Sabæan odour, an aromatic fragrance, a, I know not
+what, delicious, that I cannot find a name for; I mean a redolence, an
+exhalation, as if thou wert in the shop of some dainty glover?”
+
+“All I can say is,” said Sancho, “that I did perceive a little odour,
+something goaty; it must have been that she was all in a sweat with
+hard work.”
+
+“It could not be that,” said Don Quixote, “but thou must have been
+suffering from cold in the head, or must have smelt thyself; for I know
+well what would be the scent of that rose among thorns, that lily of
+the field, that dissolved amber.”
+
+“Maybe so,” replied Sancho; “there often comes from myself that same
+odour which then seemed to me to come from her grace the lady Dulcinea;
+but that’s no wonder, for one devil is like another.”
+
+“Well then,” continued Don Quixote, “now she has done sifting the corn
+and sent it to the mill; what did she do when she read the letter?”
+
+“As for the letter,” said Sancho, “she did not read it, for she said
+she could neither read nor write; instead of that she tore it up into
+small pieces, saying that she did not want to let anyone read it lest
+her secrets should become known in the village, and that what I had
+told her by word of mouth about the love your worship bore her, and the
+extraordinary penance you were doing for her sake, was enough; and, to
+make an end of it, she told me to tell your worship that she kissed
+your hands, and that she had a greater desire to see you than to write
+to you; and that therefore she entreated and commanded you, on sight of
+this present, to come out of these thickets, and to have done with
+carrying on absurdities, and to set out at once for El Toboso, unless
+something else of greater importance should happen, for she had a great
+desire to see your worship. She laughed greatly when I told her how
+your worship was called The Knight of the Rueful Countenance; I asked
+her if that Biscayan the other day had been there; and she told me he
+had, and that he was an honest fellow; I asked her too about the galley
+slaves, but she said she had not seen any as yet.”
+
+“So far all goes well,” said Don Quixote; “but tell me what jewel was
+it that she gave thee on taking thy leave, in return for thy tidings of
+me? For it is a usual and ancient custom with knights and ladies errant
+to give the squires, damsels, or dwarfs who bring tidings of their
+ladies to the knights, or of their knights to the ladies, some rich
+jewel as a guerdon for good news, and acknowledgment of the message.”
+
+“That is very likely,” said Sancho, “and a good custom it was, to my
+mind; but that must have been in days gone by, for now it would seem to
+be the custom only to give a piece of bread and cheese; because that
+was what my lady Dulcinea gave me over the top of the yard-wall when I
+took leave of her; and more by token it was sheep’s-milk cheese.”
+
+“She is generous in the extreme,” said Don Quixote, “and if she did not
+give thee a jewel of gold, no doubt it must have been because she had
+not one to hand there to give thee; but sleeves are good after Easter;
+I shall see her and all shall be made right. But knowest thou what
+amazes me, Sancho? It seems to me thou must have gone and come through
+the air, for thou hast taken but little more than three days to go to
+El Toboso and return, though it is more than thirty leagues from here
+to there. From which I am inclined to think that the sage magician who
+is my friend, and watches over my interests (for of necessity there is
+and must be one, or else I should not be a right knight-errant), that
+this same, I say, must have helped thee to travel without thy
+knowledge; for some of these sages will catch up a knight-errant
+sleeping in his bed, and without his knowing how or in what way it
+happened, he wakes up the next day more than a thousand leagues away
+from the place where he went to sleep. And if it were not for this,
+knights-errant would not be able to give aid to one another in peril,
+as they do at every turn. For a knight, maybe, is fighting in the
+mountains of Armenia with some dragon, or fierce serpent, or another
+knight, and gets the worst of the battle, and is at the point of death;
+but when he least looks for it, there appears over against him on a
+cloud, or chariot of fire, another knight, a friend of his, who just
+before had been in England, and who takes his part, and delivers him
+from death; and at night he finds himself in his own quarters supping
+very much to his satisfaction; and yet from one place to the other will
+have been two or three thousand leagues. And all this is done by the
+craft and skill of the sage enchanters who take care of those valiant
+knights; so that, friend Sancho, I find no difficulty in believing that
+thou mayest have gone from this place to El Toboso and returned in such
+a short time, since, as I have said, some friendly sage must have
+carried thee through the air without thee perceiving it.”
+
+“That must have been it,” said Sancho, “for indeed Rocinante went like
+a gipsy’s ass with quicksilver in his ears.”
+
+“Quicksilver!” said Don Quixote, “aye and what is more, a legion of
+devils, folk that can travel and make others travel without being
+weary, exactly as the whim seizes them. But putting this aside, what
+thinkest thou I ought to do about my lady’s command to go and see her?
+For though I feel that I am bound to obey her mandate, I feel too that
+I am debarred by the boon I have accorded to the princess that
+accompanies us, and the law of chivalry compels me to have regard for
+my word in preference to my inclination; on the one hand the desire to
+see my lady pursues and harasses me, on the other my solemn promise and
+the glory I shall win in this enterprise urge and call me; but what I
+think I shall do is to travel with all speed and reach quickly the
+place where this giant is, and on my arrival I shall cut off his head,
+and establish the princess peacefully in her realm, and forthwith I
+shall return to behold the light that lightens my senses, to whom I
+shall make such excuses that she will be led to approve of my delay,
+for she will see that it entirely tends to increase her glory and fame;
+for all that I have won, am winning, or shall win by arms in this life,
+comes to me of the favour she extends to me, and because I am hers.”
+
+“Ah! what a sad state your worship’s brains are in!” said Sancho. “Tell
+me, señor, do you mean to travel all that way for nothing, and to let
+slip and lose so rich and great a match as this where they give as a
+portion a kingdom that in sober truth I have heard say is more than
+twenty thousand leagues round about, and abounds with all things
+necessary to support human life, and is bigger than Portugal and
+Castile put together? Peace, for the love of God! Blush for what you
+have said, and take my advice, and forgive me, and marry at once in the
+first village where there is a curate; if not, here is our licentiate
+who will do the business beautifully; remember, I am old enough to give
+advice, and this I am giving comes pat to the purpose; for a sparrow in
+the hand is better than a vulture on the wing, and he who has the good
+to his hand and chooses the bad, that the good he complains of may not
+come to him.”
+
+“Look here, Sancho,” said Don Quixote. “If thou art advising me to
+marry, in order that immediately on slaying the giant I may become
+king, and be able to confer favours on thee, and give thee what I have
+promised, let me tell thee I shall be able very easily to satisfy thy
+desires without marrying; for before going into battle I will make it a
+stipulation that, if I come out of it victorious, even I do not marry,
+they shall give me a portion of the kingdom, that I may bestow it upon
+whomsoever I choose, and when they give it to me upon whom wouldst thou
+have me bestow it but upon thee?”
+
+“That is plain speaking,” said Sancho; “but let your worship take care
+to choose it on the seacoast, so that if I don’t like the life, I may
+be able to ship off my black vassals and deal with them as I have said;
+don’t mind going to see my lady Dulcinea now, but go and kill this
+giant and let us finish off this business; for by God it strikes me it
+will be one of great honour and great profit.”
+
+“I hold thou art in the right of it, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and I
+will take thy advice as to accompanying the princess before going to
+see Dulcinea; but I counsel thee not to say anything to anyone, or to
+those who are with us, about what we have considered and discussed, for
+as Dulcinea is so decorous that she does not wish her thoughts to be
+known it is not right that I or anyone for me should disclose them.”
+
+“Well then, if that be so,” said Sancho, “how is it that your worship
+makes all those you overcome by your arm go to present themselves
+before my lady Dulcinea, this being the same thing as signing your name
+to it that you love her and are her lover? And as those who go must
+perforce kneel before her and say they come from your worship to submit
+themselves to her, how can the thoughts of both of you be hid?”
+
+“O, how silly and simple thou art!” said Don Quixote; “seest thou not,
+Sancho, that this tends to her greater exaltation? For thou must know
+that according to our way of thinking in chivalry, it is a high honour
+to a lady to have many knights-errant in her service, whose thoughts
+never go beyond serving her for her own sake, and who look for no other
+reward for their great and true devotion than that she should be
+willing to accept them as her knights.”
+
+“It is with that kind of love,” said Sancho, “I have heard preachers
+say we ought to love our Lord, for himself alone, without being moved
+by the hope of glory or the fear of punishment; though for my part, I
+would rather love and serve him for what he could do.”
+
+“The devil take thee for a clown!” said Don Quixote, “and what shrewd
+things thou sayest at times! One would think thou hadst studied.”
+
+“In faith, then, I cannot even read.”
+
+Master Nicholas here called out to them to wait a while, as they wanted
+to halt and drink at a little spring there was there. Don Quixote drew
+up, not a little to the satisfaction of Sancho, for he was by this time
+weary of telling so many lies, and in dread of his master catching him
+tripping, for though he knew that Dulcinea was a peasant girl of El
+Toboso, he had never seen her in all his life. Cardenio had now put on
+the clothes which Dorothea was wearing when they found her, and though
+they were not very good, they were far better than those he put off.
+They dismounted together by the side of the spring, and with what the
+curate had provided himself with at the inn they appeased, though not
+very well, the keen appetite they all of them brought with them.
+
+While they were so employed there happened to come by a youth passing
+on his way, who stopping to examine the party at the spring, the next
+moment ran to Don Quixote and clasping him round the legs, began to
+weep freely, saying, “O, señor, do you not know me? Look at me well; I
+am that lad Andres that your worship released from the oak-tree where I
+was tied.”
+
+Don Quixote recognised him, and taking his hand he turned to those
+present and said: “That your worships may see how important it is to
+have knights-errant to redress the wrongs and injuries done by
+tyrannical and wicked men in this world, I may tell you that some days
+ago passing through a wood, I heard cries and piteous complaints as of
+a person in pain and distress; I immediately hastened, impelled by my
+bounden duty, to the quarter whence the plaintive accents seemed to me
+to proceed, and I found tied to an oak this lad who now stands before
+you, which in my heart I rejoice at, for his testimony will not permit
+me to depart from the truth in any particular. He was, I say, tied to
+an oak, naked from the waist up, and a clown, whom I afterwards found
+to be his master, was scarifying him by lashes with the reins of his
+mare. As soon as I saw him I asked the reason of so cruel a
+flagellation. The boor replied that he was flogging him because he was
+his servant and because of carelessness that proceeded rather from
+dishonesty than stupidity; on which this boy said, ‘Señor, he flogs me
+only because I ask for my wages.’ The master made I know not what
+speeches and explanations, which, though I listened to them, I did not
+accept. In short, I compelled the clown to unbind him, and to swear he
+would take him with him, and pay him real by real, and perfumed into
+the bargain. Is not all this true, Andres my son? Didst thou not mark
+with what authority I commanded him, and with what humility he promised
+to do all I enjoined, specified, and required of him? Answer without
+hesitation; tell these gentlemen what took place, that they may see
+that it is as great an advantage as I say to have knights-errant
+abroad.”
+
+“All that your worship has said is quite true,” answered the lad; “but
+the end of the business turned out just the opposite of what your
+worship supposes.”
+
+“How! the opposite?” said Don Quixote; “did not the clown pay thee
+then?”
+
+“Not only did he not pay me,” replied the lad, “but as soon as your
+worship had passed out of the wood and we were alone, he tied me up
+again to the same oak and gave me a fresh flogging, that left me like a
+flayed Saint Bartholomew; and every stroke he gave me he followed up
+with some jest or gibe about having made a fool of your worship, and
+but for the pain I was suffering I should have laughed at the things he
+said. In short he left me in such a condition that I have been until
+now in a hospital getting cured of the injuries which that rascally
+clown inflicted on me then; for all which your worship is to blame; for
+if you had gone your own way and not come where there was no call for
+you, nor meddled in other people’s affairs, my master would have been
+content with giving me one or two dozen lashes, and would have then
+loosed me and paid me what he owed me; but when your worship abused him
+so out of measure, and gave him so many hard words, his anger was
+kindled; and as he could not revenge himself on you, as soon as he saw
+you had left him the storm burst upon me in such a way, that I feel as
+if I should never be a man again.”
+
+“The mischief,” said Don Quixote, “lay in my going away; for I should
+not have gone until I had seen thee paid; because I ought to have known
+well by long experience that there is no clown who will keep his word
+if he finds it will not suit him to keep it; but thou rememberest,
+Andres, that I swore if he did not pay thee I would go and seek him,
+and find him though he were to hide himself in the whale’s belly.”
+
+“That is true,” said Andres; “but it was of no use.”
+
+“Thou shalt see now whether it is of use or not,” said Don Quixote; and
+so saying, he got up hastily and bade Sancho bridle Rocinante, who was
+browsing while they were eating. Dorothea asked him what he meant to
+do. He replied that he meant to go in search of this clown and chastise
+him for such iniquitous conduct, and see Andres paid to the last
+maravedi, despite and in the teeth of all the clowns in the world. To
+which she replied that he must remember that in accordance with his
+promise he could not engage in any enterprise until he had concluded
+hers; and that as he knew this better than anyone, he should restrain
+his ardour until his return from her kingdom.
+
+“That is true,” said Don Quixote, “and Andres must have patience until
+my return as you say, señora; but I once more swear and promise not to
+stop until I have seen him avenged and paid.”
+
+“I have no faith in those oaths,” said Andres; “I would rather have now
+something to help me to get to Seville than all the revenges in the
+world; if you have here anything to eat that I can take with me, give
+it me, and God be with your worship and all knights-errant; and may
+their errands turn out as well for themselves as they have for me.”
+
+Sancho took out from his store a piece of bread and another of cheese,
+and giving them to the lad he said, “Here, take this, brother Andres,
+for we have all of us a share in your misfortune.”
+
+“Why, what share have you got?”
+
+“This share of bread and cheese I am giving you,” answered Sancho; “and
+God knows whether I shall feel the want of it myself or not; for I
+would have you know, friend, that we squires to knights-errant have to
+bear a great deal of hunger and hard fortune, and even other things
+more easily felt than told.”
+
+Andres seized his bread and cheese, and seeing that nobody gave him
+anything more, bent his head, and took hold of the road, as the saying
+is. However, before leaving he said, “For the love of God, sir
+knight-errant, if you ever meet me again, though you may see them
+cutting me to pieces, give me no aid or succour, but leave me to my
+misfortune, which will not be so great but that a greater will come to
+me by being helped by your worship, on whom and all the knights-errant
+that have ever been born God send his curse.”
+
+Don Quixote was getting up to chastise him, but he took to his heels at
+such a pace that no one attempted to follow him; and mightily
+chapfallen was Don Quixote at Andres’ story, and the others had to take
+great care to restrain their laughter so as not to put him entirely out
+of countenance.
+
+
+
+c31e.jpg (32K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+WHICH TREATS OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE’S PARTY AT THE INN
+
+
+
+
+c32a.jpg (132K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Their dainty repast being finished, they saddled at once, and without
+any adventure worth mentioning they reached next day the inn, the
+object of Sancho Panza’s fear and dread; but though he would have
+rather not entered it, there was no help for it. The landlady, the
+landlord, their daughter, and Maritornes, when they saw Don Quixote and
+Sancho coming, went out to welcome them with signs of hearty
+satisfaction, which Don Quixote received with dignity and gravity, and
+bade them make up a better bed for him than the last time: to which the
+landlady replied that if he paid better than he did the last time she
+would give him one fit for a prince. Don Quixote said he would, so they
+made up a tolerable one for him in the same garret as before; and he
+lay down at once, being sorely shaken and in want of sleep.
+
+No sooner was the door shut upon him than the landlady made at the
+barber, and seizing him by the beard, said:
+
+“By my faith you are not going to make a beard of my tail any longer;
+you must give me back my tail, for it is a shame the way that thing of
+my husband’s goes tossing about on the floor; I mean the comb that I
+used to stick in my good tail.”
+
+But for all she tugged at it the barber would not give it up until the
+licentiate told him to let her have it, as there was now no further
+occasion for that stratagem, because he might declare himself and
+appear in his own character, and tell Don Quixote that he had fled to
+this inn when those thieves the galley slaves robbed him; and should he
+ask for the princess’s squire, they could tell him that she had sent
+him on before her to give notice to the people of her kingdom that she
+was coming, and bringing with her the deliverer of them all. On this
+the barber cheerfully restored the tail to the landlady, and at the
+same time they returned all the accessories they had borrowed to effect
+Don Quixote’s deliverance. All the people of the inn were struck with
+astonishment at the beauty of Dorothea, and even at the comely figure
+of the shepherd Cardenio. The curate made them get ready such fare as
+there was in the inn, and the landlord, in hope of better payment,
+served them up a tolerably good dinner. All this time Don Quixote was
+asleep, and they thought it best not to waken him, as sleeping would
+now do him more good than eating.
+
+While at dinner, the company consisting of the landlord, his wife,
+their daughter, Maritornes, and all the travellers, they discussed the
+strange craze of Don Quixote and the manner in which he had been found;
+and the landlady told them what had taken place between him and the
+carrier; and then, looking round to see if Sancho was there, when she
+saw he was not, she gave them the whole story of his blanketing, which
+they received with no little amusement. But on the curate observing
+that it was the books of chivalry which Don Quixote had read that had
+turned his brain, the landlord said:
+
+“I cannot understand how that can be, for in truth to my mind there is
+no better reading in the world, and I have here two or three of them,
+with other writings that are the very life, not only of myself but of
+plenty more; for when it is harvest-time, the reapers flock here on
+holidays, and there is always one among them who can read and who takes
+up one of these books, and we gather round him, thirty or more of us,
+and stay listening to him with a delight that makes our grey hairs grow
+young again. At least I can say for myself that when I hear of what
+furious and terrible blows the knights deliver, I am seized with the
+longing to do the same, and I would like to be hearing about them night
+and day.”
+
+“And I just as much,” said the landlady, “because I never have a quiet
+moment in my house except when you are listening to someone reading;
+for then you are so taken up that for the time being you forget to
+scold.”
+
+“That is true,” said Maritornes; “and, faith, I relish hearing these
+things greatly too, for they are very pretty; especially when they
+describe some lady or another in the arms of her knight under the
+orange trees, and the duenna who is keeping watch for them half dead
+with envy and fright; all this I say is as good as honey.”
+
+“And you, what do you think, young lady?” said the curate turning to
+the landlord’s daughter.
+
+“I don’t know indeed, señor,” said she; “I listen too, and to tell the
+truth, though I do not understand it, I like hearing it; but it is not
+the blows that my father likes that I like, but the laments the knights
+utter when they are separated from their ladies; and indeed they
+sometimes make me weep with the pity I feel for them.”
+
+“Then you would console them if it was for you they wept, young lady?”
+said Dorothea.
+
+“I don’t know what I should do,” said the girl; “I only know that there
+are some of those ladies so cruel that they call their knights tigers
+and lions and a thousand other foul names: and Jesus! I don’t know what
+sort of folk they can be, so unfeeling and heartless, that rather than
+bestow a glance upon a worthy man they leave him to die or go mad. I
+don’t know what is the good of such prudery; if it is for honour’s
+sake, why not marry them? That’s all they want.”
+
+“Hush, child,” said the landlady; “it seems to me thou knowest a great
+deal about these things, and it is not fit for girls to know or talk so
+much.”
+
+“As the gentleman asked me, I could not help answering him,” said the
+girl.
+
+“Well then,” said the curate, “bring me these books, señor landlord,
+for I should like to see them.”
+
+“With all my heart,” said he, and going into his own room he brought
+out an old valise secured with a little chain, on opening which the
+curate found in it three large books and some manuscripts written in a
+very good hand. The first that he opened he found to be “Don Cirongilio
+of Thrace,” and the second “Don Felixmarte of Hircania,” and the other
+the “History of the Great Captain Gonzalo Hernandez de Cordova, with
+the Life of Diego García de Paredes.”
+
+When the curate read the two first titles he looked over at the barber
+and said, “We want my friend’s housekeeper and niece here now.”
+
+“Nay,” said the barber, “I can do just as well to carry them to the
+yard or to the hearth, and there is a very good fire there.”
+
+“What! your worship would burn my books!” said the landlord.
+
+“Only these two,” said the curate, “Don Cirongilio, and Felixmarte.”
+
+“Are my books, then, heretics or phlegmatics that you want to burn
+them?” said the landlord.
+
+“Schismatics you mean, friend,” said the barber, “not phlegmatics.”
+
+“That’s it,” said the landlord; “but if you want to burn any, let it be
+that about the Great Captain and that Diego García; for I would rather
+have a child of mine burnt than either of the others.”
+
+“Brother,” said the curate, “those two books are made up of lies, and
+are full of folly and nonsense; but this of the Great Captain is a true
+history, and contains the deeds of Gonzalo Hernandez of Cordova, who by
+his many and great achievements earned the title all over the world of
+the Great Captain, a famous and illustrious name, and deserved by him
+alone; and this Diego García de Paredes was a distinguished knight of
+the city of Trujillo in Estremadura, a most gallant soldier, and of
+such bodily strength that with one finger he stopped a mill-wheel in
+full motion; and posted with a two-handed sword at the foot of a bridge
+he kept the whole of an immense army from passing over it, and achieved
+such other exploits that if, instead of his relating them himself with
+the modesty of a knight and of one writing his own history, some free
+and unbiased writer had recorded them, they would have thrown into the
+shade all the deeds of the Hectors, Achilleses, and Rolands.”
+
+
+
+c32b.jpg (395K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“Tell that to my father,” said the landlord. “There’s a thing to be
+astonished at! Stopping a mill-wheel! By God your worship should read
+what I have read of Felixmarte of Hircania, how with one single
+backstroke he cleft five giants asunder through the middle as if they
+had been made of bean-pods like the little friars the children make;
+and another time he attacked a very great and powerful army, in which
+there were more than a million six hundred thousand soldiers, all armed
+from head to foot, and he routed them all as if they had been flocks of
+sheep.”
+
+
+
+c32c.jpg (341K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“And then, what do you say to the good Cirongilio of Thrace, that was
+so stout and bold; as may be seen in the book, where it is related that
+as he was sailing along a river there came up out of the midst of the
+water against him a fiery serpent, and he, as soon as he saw it, flung
+himself upon it and got astride of its scaly shoulders, and squeezed
+its throat with both hands with such force that the serpent, finding he
+was throttling it, had nothing for it but to let itself sink to the
+bottom of the river, carrying with it the knight who would not let go
+his hold; and when they got down there he found himself among palaces
+and gardens so pretty that it was a wonder to see; and then the serpent
+changed itself into an old ancient man, who told him such things as
+were never heard. Hold your peace, señor; for if you were to hear this
+you would go mad with delight. A couple of figs for your Great Captain
+and your Diego García!”
+
+Hearing this Dorothea said in a whisper to Cardenio, “Our landlord is
+almost fit to play a second part to Don Quixote.”
+
+“I think so,” said Cardenio, “for, as he shows, he accepts it as a
+certainty that everything those books relate took place exactly as it
+is written down; and the barefooted friars themselves would not
+persuade him to the contrary.”
+
+“But consider, brother,” said the curate once more, “there never was
+any Felixmarte of Hircania in the world, nor any Cirongilio of Thrace,
+or any of the other knights of the same sort, that the books of
+chivalry talk of; the whole thing is the fabrication and invention of
+idle wits, devised by them for the purpose you describe of beguiling
+the time, as your reapers do when they read; for I swear to you in all
+seriousness there never were any such knights in the world, and no such
+exploits or nonsense ever happened anywhere.”
+
+“Try that bone on another dog,” said the landlord; “as if I did not
+know how many make five, and where my shoe pinches me; don’t think to
+feed me with pap, for by God I am no fool. It is a good joke for your
+worship to try and persuade me that everything these good books say is
+nonsense and lies, and they printed by the license of the Lords of the
+Royal Council, as if they were people who would allow such a lot of
+lies to be printed all together, and so many battles and enchantments
+that they take away one’s senses.”
+
+“I have told you, friend,” said the curate, “that this is done to
+divert our idle thoughts; and as in well-ordered states games of chess,
+fives, and billiards are allowed for the diversion of those who do not
+care, or are not obliged, or are unable to work, so books of this kind
+are allowed to be printed, on the supposition that, what indeed is the
+truth, there can be nobody so ignorant as to take any of them for true
+stories; and if it were permitted me now, and the present company
+desired it, I could say something about the qualities books of chivalry
+should possess to be good ones, that would be to the advantage and even
+to the taste of some; but I hope the time will come when I can
+communicate my ideas to someone who may be able to mend matters; and in
+the meantime, señor landlord, believe what I have said, and take your
+books, and make up your mind about their truth or falsehood, and much
+good may they do you; and God grant you may not fall lame of the same
+foot your guest Don Quixote halts on.”
+
+“No fear of that,” returned the landlord; “I shall not be so mad as to
+make a knight-errant of myself; for I see well enough that things are
+not now as they used to be in those days, when they say those famous
+knights roamed about the world.”
+
+Sancho had made his appearance in the middle of this conversation, and
+he was very much troubled and cast down by what he heard said about
+knights-errant being now no longer in vogue, and all books of chivalry
+being folly and lies; and he resolved in his heart to wait and see what
+came of this journey of his master’s, and if it did not turn out as
+happily as his master expected, he determined to leave him and go back
+to his wife and children and his ordinary labour.
+
+The landlord was carrying away the valise and the books, but the curate
+said to him, “Wait; I want to see what those papers are that are
+written in such a good hand.” The landlord taking them out handed them
+to him to read, and he perceived they were a work of about eight sheets
+of manuscript, with, in large letters at the beginning, the title of
+“Novel of the Ill-advised Curiosity.” The curate read three or four
+lines to himself, and said, “I must say the title of this novel does
+not seem to me a bad one, and I feel an inclination to read it all.” To
+which the landlord replied, “Then your reverence will do well to read
+it, for I can tell you that some guests who have read it here have been
+much pleased with it, and have begged it of me very earnestly; but I
+would not give it, meaning to return it to the person who forgot the
+valise, books, and papers here, for maybe he will return here some time
+or other; and though I know I shall miss the books, faith I mean to
+return them; for though I am an innkeeper, still I am a Christian.”
+
+“You are very right, friend,” said the curate; “but for all that, if
+the novel pleases me you must let me copy it.”
+
+“With all my heart,” replied the host.
+
+While they were talking Cardenio had taken up the novel and begun to
+read it, and forming the same opinion of it as the curate, he begged
+him to read it so that they might all hear it.
+
+“I would read it,” said the curate, “if the time would not be better
+spent in sleeping.”
+
+“It will be rest enough for me,” said Dorothea, “to while away the time
+by listening to some tale, for my spirits are not yet tranquil enough
+to let me sleep when it would be seasonable.”
+
+“Well then, in that case,” said the curate, “I will read it, if it were
+only out of curiosity; perhaps it may contain something pleasant.”
+
+Master Nicholas added his entreaties to the same effect, and Sancho
+too; seeing which, and considering that he would give pleasure to all,
+and receive it himself, the curate said, “Well then, attend to me
+everyone, for the novel begins thus.”
+
+
+
+c32e.jpg (11K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+IN WHICH IS RELATED THE NOVEL OF “THE ILL-ADVISED CURIOSITY”
+
+In Florence, a rich and famous city of Italy in the province called
+Tuscany, there lived two gentlemen of wealth and quality, Anselmo and
+Lothario, such great friends that by way of distinction they were
+called by all that knew them “The Two Friends.” They were unmarried,
+young, of the same age and of the same tastes, which was enough to
+account for the reciprocal friendship between them. Anselmo, it is
+true, was somewhat more inclined to seek pleasure in love than
+Lothario, for whom the pleasures of the chase had more attraction; but
+on occasion Anselmo would forego his own tastes to yield to those of
+Lothario, and Lothario would surrender his to fall in with those of
+Anselmo, and in this way their inclinations kept pace one with the
+other with a concord so perfect that the best regulated clock could not
+surpass it.
+
+Anselmo was deep in love with a high-born and beautiful maiden of the
+same city, the daughter of parents so estimable, and so estimable
+herself, that he resolved, with the approval of his friend Lothario,
+without whom he did nothing, to ask her of them in marriage, and did
+so, Lothario being the bearer of the demand, and conducting the
+negotiation so much to the satisfaction of his friend that in a short
+time he was in possession of the object of his desires, and Camilla so
+happy in having won Anselmo for her husband, that she gave thanks
+unceasingly to heaven and to Lothario, by whose means such good fortune
+had fallen to her. The first few days, those of a wedding being usually
+days of merry-making, Lothario frequented his friend Anselmo’s house as
+he had been wont, striving to do honour to him and to the occasion, and
+to gratify him in every way he could; but when the wedding days were
+over and the succession of visits and congratulations had slackened, he
+began purposely to leave off going to the house of Anselmo, for it
+seemed to him, as it naturally would to all men of sense, that friends’
+houses ought not to be visited after marriage with the same frequency
+as in their masters’ bachelor days: because, though true and genuine
+friendship cannot and should not be in any way suspicious, still a
+married man’s honour is a thing of such delicacy that it is held liable
+to injury from brothers, much more from friends. Anselmo remarked the
+cessation of Lothario’s visits, and complained of it to him, saying
+that if he had known that marriage was to keep him from enjoying his
+society as he used, he would have never married; and that, if by the
+thorough harmony that subsisted between them while he was a bachelor
+they had earned such a sweet name as that of “The Two Friends,” he
+should not allow a title so rare and so delightful to be lost through a
+needless anxiety to act circumspectly; and so he entreated him, if such
+a phrase was allowable between them, to be once more master of his
+house and to come in and go out as formerly, assuring him that his wife
+Camilla had no other desire or inclination than that which he would
+wish her to have, and that knowing how sincerely they loved one another
+she was grieved to see such coldness in him.
+
+To all this and much more that Anselmo said to Lothario to persuade him
+to come to his house as he had been in the habit of doing, Lothario
+replied with so much prudence, sense, and judgment, that Anselmo was
+satisfied of his friend’s good intentions, and it was agreed that on
+two days in the week, and on holidays, Lothario should come to dine
+with him; but though this arrangement was made between them Lothario
+resolved to observe it no further than he considered to be in
+accordance with the honour of his friend, whose good name was more to
+him than his own. He said, and justly, that a married man upon whom
+heaven had bestowed a beautiful wife should consider as carefully what
+friends he brought to his house as what female friends his wife
+associated with, for what cannot be done or arranged in the
+market-place, in church, at public festivals or at stations
+(opportunities that husbands cannot always deny their wives), may be
+easily managed in the house of the female friend or relative in whom
+most confidence is reposed. Lothario said, too, that every married man
+should have some friend who would point out to him any negligence he
+might be guilty of in his conduct, for it will sometimes happen that
+owing to the deep affection the husband bears his wife either he does
+not caution her, or, not to vex her, refrains from telling her to do or
+not to do certain things, doing or avoiding which may be a matter of
+honour or reproach to him; and errors of this kind he could easily
+correct if warned by a friend. But where is such a friend to be found
+as Lothario would have, so judicious, so loyal, and so true?
+
+Of a truth I know not; Lothario alone was such a one, for with the
+utmost care and vigilance he watched over the honour of his friend, and
+strove to diminish, cut down, and reduce the number of days for going
+to his house according to their agreement, lest the visits of a young
+man, wealthy, high-born, and with the attractions he was conscious of
+possessing, at the house of a woman so beautiful as Camilla, should be
+regarded with suspicion by the inquisitive and malicious eyes of the
+idle public. For though his integrity and reputation might bridle
+slanderous tongues, still he was unwilling to hazard either his own
+good name or that of his friend; and for this reason most of the days
+agreed upon he devoted to some other business which he pretended was
+unavoidable; so that a great portion of the day was taken up with
+complaints on one side and excuses on the other. It happened, however,
+that on one occasion when the two were strolling together outside the
+city, Anselmo addressed the following words to Lothario.
+
+“Thou mayest suppose, Lothario my friend, that I am unable to give
+sufficient thanks for the favours God has rendered me in making me the
+son of such parents as mine were, and bestowing upon me with no niggard
+hand what are called the gifts of nature as well as those of fortune,
+and above all for what he has done in giving me thee for a friend and
+Camilla for a wife—two treasures that I value, if not as highly as I
+ought, at least as highly as I am able. And yet, with all these good
+things, which are commonly all that men need to enable them to live
+happily, I am the most discontented and dissatisfied man in the whole
+world; for, I know not how long since, I have been harassed and
+oppressed by a desire so strange and so unusual, that I wonder at
+myself and blame and chide myself when I am alone, and strive to stifle
+it and hide it from my own thoughts, and with no better success than if
+I were endeavouring deliberately to publish it to all the world; and
+as, in short, it must come out, I would confide it to thy safe keeping,
+feeling sure that by this means, and by thy readiness as a true friend
+to afford me relief, I shall soon find myself freed from the distress
+it causes me, and that thy care will give me happiness in the same
+degree as my own folly has caused me misery.”
+
+The words of Anselmo struck Lothario with astonishment, unable as he
+was to conjecture the purport of such a lengthy preamble; and though he
+strove to imagine what desire it could be that so troubled his friend,
+his conjectures were all far from the truth, and to relieve the anxiety
+which this perplexity was causing him, he told him he was doing a
+flagrant injustice to their great friendship in seeking circuitous
+methods of confiding to him his most hidden thoughts, for he well knew
+he might reckon upon his counsel in diverting them, or his help in
+carrying them into effect.
+
+“That is the truth,” replied Anselmo, “and relying upon that I will
+tell thee, friend Lothario, that the desire which harasses me is that
+of knowing whether my wife Camilla is as good and as perfect as I think
+her to be; and I cannot satisfy myself of the truth on this point
+except by testing her in such a way that the trial may prove the purity
+of her virtue as the fire proves that of gold; because I am persuaded,
+my friend, that a woman is virtuous only in proportion as she is or is
+not tempted; and that she alone is strong who does not yield to the
+promises, gifts, tears, and importunities of earnest lovers; for what
+thanks does a woman deserve for being good if no one urges her to be
+bad, and what wonder is it that she is reserved and circumspect to whom
+no opportunity is given of going wrong and who knows she has a husband
+that will take her life the first time he detects her in an
+impropriety? I do not therefore hold her who is virtuous through fear
+or want of opportunity in the same estimation as her who comes out of
+temptation and trial with a crown of victory; and so, for these reasons
+and many others that I could give thee to justify and support the
+opinion I hold, I am desirous that my wife Camilla should pass this
+crisis, and be refined and tested by the fire of finding herself wooed
+and by one worthy to set his affections upon her; and if she comes out,
+as I know she will, victorious from this struggle, I shall look upon my
+good fortune as unequalled, I shall be able to say that the cup of my
+desire is full, and that the virtuous woman of whom the sage says ‘Who
+shall find her?’ has fallen to my lot. And if the result be the
+contrary of what I expect, in the satisfaction of knowing that I have
+been right in my opinion, I shall bear without complaint the pain which
+my so dearly bought experience will naturally cause me. And, as nothing
+of all thou wilt urge in opposition to my wish will avail to keep me
+from carrying it into effect, it is my desire, friend Lothario, that
+thou shouldst consent to become the instrument for effecting this
+purpose that I am bent upon, for I will afford thee opportunities to
+that end, and nothing shall be wanting that I may think necessary for
+the pursuit of a virtuous, honourable, modest and high-minded woman.
+And among other reasons, I am induced to entrust this arduous task to
+thee by the consideration that if Camilla be conquered by thee the
+conquest will not be pushed to extremes, but only far enough to account
+that accomplished which from a sense of honour will be left undone;
+thus I shall not be wronged in anything more than intention, and my
+wrong will remain buried in the integrity of thy silence, which I know
+well will be as lasting as that of death in what concerns me. If,
+therefore, thou wouldst have me enjoy what can be called life, thou
+wilt at once engage in this love struggle, not lukewarmly nor
+slothfully, but with the energy and zeal that my desire demands, and
+with the loyalty our friendship assures me of.”
+
+Such were the words Anselmo addressed to Lothario, who listened to them
+with such attention that, except to say what has been already
+mentioned, he did not open his lips until the other had finished. Then
+perceiving that he had no more to say, after regarding him for a while,
+as one would regard something never before seen that excited wonder and
+amazement, he said to him, “I cannot persuade myself, Anselmo my
+friend, that what thou hast said to me is not in jest; if I thought
+that thou wert speaking seriously I would not have allowed thee to go
+so far; so as to put a stop to thy long harangue by not listening to
+thee I verily suspect that either thou dost not know me, or I do not
+know thee; but no, I know well thou art Anselmo, and thou knowest that
+I am Lothario; the misfortune is, it seems to me, that thou art not the
+Anselmo thou wert, and must have thought that I am not the Lothario I
+should be; for the things that thou hast said to me are not those of
+that Anselmo who was my friend, nor are those that thou demandest of me
+what should be asked of the Lothario thou knowest. True friends will
+prove their friends and make use of them, as a poet has said, _usque ad
+aras;_ whereby he meant that they will not make use of their friendship
+in things that are contrary to God’s will. If this, then, was a
+heathen’s feeling about friendship, how much more should it be a
+Christian’s, who knows that the divine must not be forfeited for the
+sake of any human friendship? And if a friend should go so far as to
+put aside his duty to Heaven to fulfil his duty to his friend, it
+should not be in matters that are trifling or of little moment, but in
+such as affect the friend’s life and honour. Now tell me, Anselmo, in
+which of these two art thou imperilled, that I should hazard myself to
+gratify thee, and do a thing so detestable as that thou seekest of me?
+Neither forsooth; on the contrary, thou dost ask of me, so far as I
+understand, to strive and labour to rob thee of honour and life, and to
+rob myself of them at the same time; for if I take away thy honour it
+is plain I take away thy life, as a man without honour is worse than
+dead; and being the instrument, as thou wilt have it so, of so much
+wrong to thee, shall not I, too, be left without honour, and
+consequently without life? Listen to me, Anselmo my friend, and be not
+impatient to answer me until I have said what occurs to me touching the
+object of thy desire, for there will be time enough left for thee to
+reply and for me to hear.”
+
+“Be it so,” said Anselmo, “say what thou wilt.”
+
+Lothario then went on to say, “It seems to me, Anselmo, that thine is
+just now the temper of mind which is always that of the Moors, who can
+never be brought to see the error of their creed by quotations from the
+Holy Scriptures, or by reasons which depend upon the examination of the
+understanding or are founded upon the articles of faith, but must have
+examples that are palpable, easy, intelligible, capable of proof, not
+admitting of doubt, with mathematical demonstrations that cannot be
+denied, like, ‘_If equals be taken from equals, the remainders are
+equal:_’ and if they do not understand this in words, and indeed they
+do not, it has to be shown to them with the hands, and put before their
+eyes, and even with all this no one succeeds in convincing them of the
+truth of our holy religion. This same mode of proceeding I shall have
+to adopt with thee, for the desire which has sprung up in thee is so
+absurd and remote from everything that has a semblance of reason, that
+I feel it would be a waste of time to employ it in reasoning with thy
+simplicity, for at present I will call it by no other name; and I am
+even tempted to leave thee in thy folly as a punishment for thy
+pernicious desire; but the friendship I bear thee, which will not allow
+me to desert thee in such manifest danger of destruction, keeps me from
+dealing so harshly by thee. And that thou mayest clearly see this, say,
+Anselmo, hast thou not told me that I must force my suit upon a modest
+woman, decoy one that is virtuous, make overtures to one that is
+pure-minded, pay court to one that is prudent? Yes, thou hast told me
+so. Then, if thou knowest that thou hast a wife, modest, virtuous,
+pure-minded and prudent, what is it that thou seekest? And if thou
+believest that she will come forth victorious from all my attacks—as
+doubtless she would—what higher titles than those she possesses now
+dost thou think thou canst bestow upon her then, or in what will she be
+better then than she is now? Either thou dost not hold her to be what
+thou sayest, or thou knowest not what thou dost demand. If thou dost
+not hold her to be what thou sayest, why dost thou seek to prove her
+instead of treating her as guilty in the way that may seem best to
+thee? but if she be as virtuous as thou believest, it is an
+uncalled-for proceeding to make trial of truth itself, for, after
+trial, it will but be in the same estimation as before. Thus, then, it
+is conclusive that to attempt things from which harm rather than
+advantage may come to us is the part of unreasoning and reckless minds,
+more especially when they are things which we are not forced or
+compelled to attempt, and which show from afar that it is plainly
+madness to attempt them.
+
+“Difficulties are attempted either for the sake of God or for the sake
+of the world, or for both; those undertaken for God’s sake are those
+which the saints undertake when they attempt to live the lives of
+angels in human bodies; those undertaken for the sake of the world are
+those of the men who traverse such a vast expanse of water, such a
+variety of climates, so many strange countries, to acquire what are
+called the blessings of fortune; and those undertaken for the sake of
+God and the world together are those of brave soldiers, who no sooner
+do they see in the enemy’s wall a breach as wide as a cannon ball could
+make, than, casting aside all fear, without hesitating, or heeding the
+manifest peril that threatens them, borne onward by the desire of
+defending their faith, their country, and their king, they fling
+themselves dauntlessly into the midst of the thousand opposing deaths
+that await them. Such are the things that men are wont to attempt, and
+there is honour, glory, gain, in attempting them, however full of
+difficulty and peril they may be; but that which thou sayest it is thy
+wish to attempt and carry out will not win thee the glory of God nor
+the blessings of fortune nor fame among men; for even if the issue be
+as thou wouldst have it, thou wilt be no happier, richer, or more
+honoured than thou art this moment; and if it be otherwise thou wilt be
+reduced to misery greater than can be imagined, for then it will avail
+thee nothing to reflect that no one is aware of the misfortune that has
+befallen thee; it will suffice to torture and crush thee that thou
+knowest it thyself. And in confirmation of the truth of what I say, let
+me repeat to thee a stanza made by the famous poet Luigi Tansillo at
+the end of the first part of his ‘Tears of Saint Peter,’ which says
+thus:
+
+The anguish and the shame but greater grew
+    In Peter’s heart as morning slowly came;
+No eye was there to see him, well he knew,
+    Yet he himself was to himself a shame;
+Exposed to all men’s gaze, or screened from view,
+    A noble heart will feel the pang the same;
+A prey to shame the sinning soul will be,
+Though none but heaven and earth its shame can see.
+
+
+Thus by keeping it secret thou wilt not escape thy sorrow, but rather
+thou wilt shed tears unceasingly, if not tears of the eyes, tears of
+blood from the heart, like those shed by that simple doctor our poet
+tells us of, that tried the test of the cup, which the wise Rinaldo,
+better advised, refused to do; for though this may be a poetic fiction
+it contains a moral lesson worthy of attention and study and imitation.
+Moreover by what I am about to say to thee thou wilt be led to see the
+great error thou wouldst commit.
+
+“Tell me, Anselmo, if Heaven or good fortune had made thee master and
+lawful owner of a diamond of the finest quality, with the excellence
+and purity of which all the lapidaries that had seen it had been
+satisfied, saying with one voice and common consent that in purity,
+quality, and fineness, it was all that a stone of the kind could
+possibly be, thou thyself too being of the same belief, as knowing
+nothing to the contrary, would it be reasonable in thee to desire to
+take that diamond and place it between an anvil and a hammer, and by
+mere force of blows and strength of arm try if it were as hard and as
+fine as they said? And if thou didst, and if the stone should resist so
+silly a test, that would add nothing to its value or reputation; and if
+it were broken, as it might be, would not all be lost? Undoubtedly it
+would, leaving its owner to be rated as a fool in the opinion of all.
+Consider, then, Anselmo my friend, that Camilla is a diamond of the
+finest quality as well in thy estimation as in that of others, and that
+it is contrary to reason to expose her to the risk of being broken; for
+if she remains intact she cannot rise to a higher value than she now
+possesses; and if she give way and be unable to resist, bethink thee
+now how thou wilt be deprived of her, and with what good reason thou
+wilt complain of thyself for having been the cause of her ruin and
+thine own. Remember there is no jewel in the world so precious as a
+chaste and virtuous woman, and that the whole honour of women consists
+in reputation; and since thy wife’s is of that high excellence that
+thou knowest, wherefore shouldst thou seek to call that truth in
+question? Remember, my friend, that woman is an imperfect animal, and
+that impediments are not to be placed in her way to make her trip and
+fall, but that they should be removed, and her path left clear of all
+obstacles, so that without hindrance she may run her course freely to
+attain the desired perfection, which consists in being virtuous.
+Naturalists tell us that the ermine is a little animal which has a fur
+of purest white, and that when the hunters wish to take it, they make
+use of this artifice. Having ascertained the places which it frequents
+and passes, they stop the way to them with mud, and then rousing it,
+drive it towards the spot, and as soon as the ermine comes to the mud
+it halts, and allows itself to be taken captive rather than pass
+through the mire, and spoil and sully its whiteness, which it values
+more than life and liberty. The virtuous and chaste woman is an ermine,
+and whiter and purer than snow is the virtue of modesty; and he who
+wishes her not to lose it, but to keep and preserve it, must adopt a
+course different from that employed with the ermine; he must not put
+before her the mire of the gifts and attentions of persevering lovers,
+because perhaps—and even without a perhaps—she may not have sufficient
+virtue and natural strength in herself to pass through and tread under
+foot these impediments; they must be removed, and the brightness of
+virtue and the beauty of a fair fame must be put before her. A virtuous
+woman, too, is like a mirror, of clear shining crystal, liable to be
+tarnished and dimmed by every breath that touches it. She must be
+treated as relics are; adored, not touched. She must be protected and
+prized as one protects and prizes a fair garden full of roses and
+flowers, the owner of which allows no one to trespass or pluck a
+blossom; enough for others that from afar and through the iron grating
+they may enjoy its fragrance and its beauty. Finally let me repeat to
+thee some verses that come to my mind; I heard them in a modern comedy,
+and it seems to me they bear upon the point we are discussing. A
+prudent old man was giving advice to another, the father of a young
+girl, to lock her up, watch over her and keep her in seclusion, and
+among other arguments he used these:
+
+Woman is a thing of glass;
+    But her brittleness ’tis best
+    Not too curiously to test:
+Who knows what may come to pass?
+
+Breaking is an easy matter,
+    And it’s folly to expose
+    What you cannot mend to blows;
+What you can’t make whole to shatter.
+
+This, then, all may hold as true,
+    And the reason’s plain to see;
+    For if Danaës there be,
+There are golden showers too.
+
+
+“All that I have said to thee so far, Anselmo, has had reference to
+what concerns thee; now it is right that I should say something of what
+regards myself; and if I be prolix, pardon me, for the labyrinth into
+which thou hast entered and from which thou wouldst have me extricate
+thee makes it necessary.
+
+“Thou dost reckon me thy friend, and thou wouldst rob me of honour, a
+thing wholly inconsistent with friendship; and not only dost thou aim
+at this, but thou wouldst have me rob thee of it also. That thou
+wouldst rob me of it is clear, for when Camilla sees that I pay court
+to her as thou requirest, she will certainly regard me as a man without
+honour or right feeling, since I attempt and do a thing so much opposed
+to what I owe to my own position and thy friendship. That thou wouldst
+have me rob thee of it is beyond a doubt, for Camilla, seeing that I
+press my suit upon her, will suppose that I have perceived in her
+something light that has encouraged me to make known to her my base
+desire; and if she holds herself dishonoured, her dishonour touches
+thee as belonging to her; and hence arises what so commonly takes
+place, that the husband of the adulterous woman, though he may not be
+aware of or have given any cause for his wife’s failure in her duty, or
+(being careless or negligent) have had it in his power to prevent his
+dishonour, nevertheless is stigmatised by a vile and reproachful name,
+and in a manner regarded with eyes of contempt instead of pity by all
+who know of his wife’s guilt, though they see that he is unfortunate
+not by his own fault, but by the lust of a vicious consort. But I will
+tell thee why with good reason dishonour attaches to the husband of the
+unchaste wife, though he know not that she is so, nor be to blame, nor
+have done anything, or given any provocation to make her so; and be not
+weary with listening to me, for it will be for thy good.
+
+“When God created our first parent in the earthly paradise, the Holy
+Scripture says that he infused sleep into Adam and while he slept took
+a rib from his left side of which he formed our mother Eve, and when
+Adam awoke and beheld her he said, ‘This is flesh of my flesh, and bone
+of my bone.’ And God said ‘For this shall a man leave his father and
+his mother, and they shall be two in one flesh; and then was instituted
+the divine sacrament of marriage, with such ties that death alone can
+loose them. And such is the force and virtue of this miraculous
+sacrament that it makes two different persons one and the same flesh;
+and even more than this when the virtuous are married; for though they
+have two souls they have but one will. And hence it follows that as the
+flesh of the wife is one and the same with that of her husband the
+stains that may come upon it, or the injuries it incurs fall upon the
+husband’s flesh, though he, as has been said, may have given no cause
+for them; for as the pain of the foot or any member of the body is felt
+by the whole body, because all is one flesh, as the head feels the hurt
+to the ankle without having caused it, so the husband, being one with
+her, shares the dishonour of the wife; and as all worldly honour or
+dishonour comes of flesh and blood, and the erring wife’s is of that
+kind, the husband must needs bear his part of it and be held
+dishonoured without knowing it. See, then, Anselmo, the peril thou art
+encountering in seeking to disturb the peace of thy virtuous consort;
+see for what an empty and ill-advised curiosity thou wouldst rouse up
+passions that now repose in quiet in the breast of thy chaste wife;
+reflect that what thou art staking all to win is little, and what thou
+wilt lose so much that I leave it undescribed, not having the words to
+express it. But if all I have said be not enough to turn thee from thy
+vile purpose, thou must seek some other instrument for thy dishonour
+and misfortune; for such I will not consent to be, though I lose thy
+friendship, the greatest loss that I can conceive.”
+
+Having said this, the wise and virtuous Lothario was silent, and
+Anselmo, troubled in mind and deep in thought, was unable for a while
+to utter a word in reply; but at length he said, “I have listened,
+Lothario my friend, attentively, as thou hast seen, to what thou hast
+chosen to say to me, and in thy arguments, examples, and comparisons I
+have seen that high intelligence thou dost possess, and the perfection
+of true friendship thou hast reached; and likewise I see and confess
+that if I am not guided by thy opinion, but follow my own, I am flying
+from the good and pursuing the evil. This being so, thou must remember
+that I am now labouring under that infirmity which women sometimes
+suffer from, when the craving seizes them to eat clay, plaster,
+charcoal, and things even worse, disgusting to look at, much more to
+eat; so that it will be necessary to have recourse to some artifice to
+cure me; and this can be easily effected if only thou wilt make a
+beginning, even though it be in a lukewarm and make-believe fashion, to
+pay court to Camilla, who will not be so yielding that her virtue will
+give way at the first attack: with this mere attempt I shall rest
+satisfied, and thou wilt have done what our friendship binds thee to
+do, not only in giving me life, but in persuading me not to discard my
+honour. And this thou art bound to do for one reason alone, that,
+being, as I am, resolved to apply this test, it is not for thee to
+permit me to reveal my weakness to another, and so imperil that honour
+thou art striving to keep me from losing; and if thine may not stand as
+high as it ought in the estimation of Camilla while thou art paying
+court to her, that is of little or no importance, because ere long, on
+finding in her that constancy which we expect, thou canst tell her the
+plain truth as regards our stratagem, and so regain thy place in her
+esteem; and as thou art venturing so little, and by the venture canst
+afford me so much satisfaction, refuse not to undertake it, even if
+further difficulties present themselves to thee; for, as I have said,
+if thou wilt only make a beginning I will acknowledge the issue
+decided.”
+
+Lothario seeing the fixed determination of Anselmo, and not knowing
+what further examples to offer or arguments to urge in order to
+dissuade him from it, and perceiving that he threatened to confide his
+pernicious scheme to someone else, to avoid a greater evil resolved to
+gratify him and do what he asked, intending to manage the business so
+as to satisfy Anselmo without corrupting the mind of Camilla; so in
+reply he told him not to communicate his purpose to any other, for he
+would undertake the task himself, and would begin it as soon as he
+pleased. Anselmo embraced him warmly and affectionately, and thanked
+him for his offer as if he had bestowed some great favour upon him; and
+it was agreed between them to set about it the next day, Anselmo
+affording opportunity and time to Lothario to converse alone with
+Camilla, and furnishing him with money and jewels to offer and present
+to her. He suggested, too, that he should treat her to music, and write
+verses in her praise, and if he was unwilling to take the trouble of
+composing them, he offered to do it himself. Lothario agreed to all
+with an intention very different from what Anselmo supposed, and with
+this understanding they returned to Anselmo’s house, where they found
+Camilla awaiting her husband anxiously and uneasily, for he was later
+than usual in returning that day. Lothario repaired to his own house,
+and Anselmo remained in his, as well satisfied as Lothario was troubled
+in mind; for he could see no satisfactory way out of this ill-advised
+business. That night, however, he thought of a plan by which he might
+deceive Anselmo without any injury to Camilla. The next day he went to
+dine with his friend, and was welcomed by Camilla, who received and
+treated him with great cordiality, knowing the affection her husband
+felt for him. When dinner was over and the cloth removed, Anselmo told
+Lothario to stay there with Camilla while he attended to some pressing
+business, as he would return in an hour and a half. Camilla begged him
+not to go, and Lothario offered to accompany him, but nothing could
+persuade Anselmo, who on the contrary pressed Lothario to remain
+waiting for him as he had a matter of great importance to discuss with
+him. At the same time he bade Camilla not to leave Lothario alone until
+he came back. In short he contrived to put so good a face on the
+reason, or the folly, of his absence that no one could have suspected
+it was a pretence.
+
+Anselmo took his departure, and Camilla and Lothario were left alone at
+the table, for the rest of the household had gone to dinner. Lothario
+saw himself in the lists according to his friend’s wish, and facing an
+enemy that could by her beauty alone vanquish a squadron of armed
+knights; judge whether he had good reason to fear; but what he did was
+to lean his elbow on the arm of the chair, and his cheek upon his hand,
+and, asking Camilla’s pardon for his ill manners, he said he wished to
+take a little sleep until Anselmo returned. Camilla in reply said he
+could repose more at his ease in the reception-room than in his chair,
+and begged of him to go in and sleep there; but Lothario declined, and
+there he remained asleep until the return of Anselmo, who finding
+Camilla in her own room, and Lothario asleep, imagined that he had
+stayed away so long as to have afforded them time enough for
+conversation and even for sleep, and was all impatience until Lothario
+should wake up, that he might go out with him and question him as to
+his success. Everything fell out as he wished; Lothario awoke, and the
+two at once left the house, and Anselmo asked what he was anxious to
+know, and Lothario in answer told him that he had not thought it
+advisable to declare himself entirely the first time, and therefore had
+only extolled the charms of Camilla, telling her that all the city
+spoke of nothing else but her beauty and wit, for this seemed to him an
+excellent way of beginning to gain her good-will and render her
+disposed to listen to him with pleasure the next time, thus availing
+himself of the device the devil has recourse to when he would deceive
+one who is on the watch; for he being the angel of darkness transforms
+himself into an angel of light, and, under cover of a fair seeming,
+discloses himself at length, and effects his purpose if at the
+beginning his wiles are not discovered. All this gave great
+satisfaction to Anselmo, and he said he would afford the same
+opportunity every day, but without leaving the house, for he would find
+things to do at home so that Camilla should not detect the plot.
+
+Thus, then, several days went by, and Lothario, without uttering a word
+to Camilla, reported to Anselmo that he had talked with her and that he
+had never been able to draw from her the slightest indication of
+consent to anything dishonourable, nor even a sign or shadow of hope;
+on the contrary, he said she would inform her husband of it.
+
+“So far well,” said Anselmo; “Camilla has thus far resisted words; we
+must now see how she will resist deeds. I will give you to-morrow two
+thousand crowns in gold for you to offer or even present, and as many
+more to buy jewels to lure her, for women are fond of being becomingly
+attired and going gaily dressed, and all the more so if they are
+beautiful, however chaste they may be; and if she resists this
+temptation, I will rest satisfied and will give you no more trouble.”
+
+Lothario replied that now he had begun he would carry on the
+undertaking to the end, though he perceived he was to come out of it
+wearied and vanquished. The next day he received the four thousand
+crowns, and with them four thousand perplexities, for he knew not what
+to say by way of a new falsehood; but in the end he made up his mind to
+tell him that Camilla stood as firm against gifts and promises as
+against words, and that there was no use in taking any further trouble,
+for the time was all spent to no purpose.
+
+But chance, directing things in a different manner, so ordered it that
+Anselmo, having left Lothario and Camilla alone as on other occasions,
+shut himself into a chamber and posted himself to watch and listen
+through the keyhole to what passed between them, and perceived that for
+more than half an hour Lothario did not utter a word to Camilla, nor
+would utter a word though he were to be there for an age; and he came
+to the conclusion that what his friend had told him about the replies
+of Camilla was all invention and falsehood, and to ascertain if it were
+so, he came out, and calling Lothario aside asked him what news he had
+and in what humour Camilla was. Lothario replied that he was not
+disposed to go on with the business, for she had answered him so
+angrily and harshly that he had no heart to say anything more to her.
+
+“Ah, Lothario, Lothario,” said Anselmo, “how ill dost thou meet thy
+obligations to me, and the great confidence I repose in thee! I have
+been just now watching through this keyhole, and I have seen that thou
+hast not said a word to Camilla, whence I conclude that on the former
+occasions thou hast not spoken to her either, and if this be so, as no
+doubt it is, why dost thou deceive me, or wherefore seekest thou by
+craft to deprive me of the means I might find of attaining my desire?”
+
+Anselmo said no more, but he had said enough to cover Lothario with
+shame and confusion, and he, feeling as it were his honour touched by
+having been detected in a lie, swore to Anselmo that he would from that
+moment devote himself to satisfying him without any deception, as he
+would see if he had the curiosity to watch; though he need not take the
+trouble, for the pains he would take to satisfy him would remove all
+suspicions from his mind. Anselmo believed him, and to afford him an
+opportunity more free and less liable to surprise, he resolved to
+absent himself from his house for eight days, betaking himself to that
+of a friend of his who lived in a village not far from the city; and,
+the better to account for his departure to Camilla, he so arranged it
+that the friend should send him a very pressing invitation.
+
+Unhappy, shortsighted Anselmo, what art thou doing, what art thou
+plotting, what art thou devising? Bethink thee thou art working against
+thyself, plotting thine own dishonour, devising thine own ruin. Thy
+wife Camilla is virtuous, thou dost possess her in peace and quietness,
+no one assails thy happiness, her thoughts wander not beyond the walls
+of thy house, thou art her heaven on earth, the object of her wishes,
+the fulfilment of her desires, the measure wherewith she measures her
+will, making it conform in all things to thine and Heaven’s. If, then,
+the mine of her honour, beauty, virtue, and modesty yields thee without
+labour all the wealth it contains and thou canst wish for, why wilt
+thou dig the earth in search of fresh veins, of new unknown treasure,
+risking the collapse of all, since it but rests on the feeble props of
+her weak nature? Bethink thee that from him who seeks impossibilities
+that which is possible may with justice be withheld, as was better
+expressed by a poet who said:
+
+’Tis mine to seek for life in death,
+    Health in disease seek I,
+I seek in prison freedom’s breath,
+    In traitors loyalty.
+
+So Fate that ever scorns to grant
+    Or grace or boon to me,
+Since what can never be I want,
+    Denies me what might be.
+
+
+The next day Anselmo took his departure for the village, leaving
+instructions with Camilla that during his absence Lothario would come
+to look after his house and to dine with her, and that she was to treat
+him as she would himself. Camilla was distressed, as a discreet and
+right-minded woman would be, at the orders her husband left her, and
+bade him remember that it was not becoming that anyone should occupy
+his seat at the table during his absence, and if he acted thus from not
+feeling confidence that she would be able to manage his house, let him
+try her this time, and he would find by experience that she was equal
+to greater responsibilities. Anselmo replied that it was his pleasure
+to have it so, and that she had only to submit and obey. Camilla said
+she would do so, though against her will.
+
+Anselmo went, and the next day Lothario came to his house, where he was
+received by Camilla with a friendly and modest welcome; but she never
+suffered Lothario to see her alone, for she was always attended by her
+men and women servants, especially by a handmaid of hers, Leonela by
+name, to whom she was much attached (for they had been brought up
+together from childhood in her father’s house), and whom she had kept
+with her after her marriage with Anselmo. The first three days Lothario
+did not speak to her, though he might have done so when they removed
+the cloth and the servants retired to dine hastily; for such were
+Camilla’s orders; nay more, Leonela had directions to dine earlier than
+Camilla and never to leave her side. She, however, having her thoughts
+fixed upon other things more to her taste, and wanting that time and
+opportunity for her own pleasures, did not always obey her mistress’s
+commands, but on the contrary left them alone, as if they had ordered
+her to do so; but the modest bearing of Camilla, the calmness of her
+countenance, the composure of her aspect were enough to bridle the
+tongue of Lothario. But the influence which the many virtues of Camilla
+exerted in imposing silence on Lothario’s tongue proved mischievous for
+both of them, for if his tongue was silent his thoughts were busy, and
+could dwell at leisure upon the perfections of Camilla’s goodness and
+beauty one by one, charms enough to warm with love a marble statue, not
+to say a heart of flesh. Lothario gazed upon her when he might have
+been speaking to her, and thought how worthy of being loved she was;
+and thus reflection began little by little to assail his allegiance to
+Anselmo, and a thousand times he thought of withdrawing from the city
+and going where Anselmo should never see him nor he see Camilla. But
+already the delight he found in gazing on her interposed and held him
+fast. He put a constraint upon himself, and struggled to repel and
+repress the pleasure he found in contemplating Camilla; when alone he
+blamed himself for his weakness, called himself a bad friend, nay a bad
+Christian; then he argued the matter and compared himself with Anselmo;
+always coming to the conclusion that the folly and rashness of Anselmo
+had been worse than his faithlessness, and that if he could excuse his
+intentions as easily before God as with man, he had no reason to fear
+any punishment for his offence.
+
+In short the beauty and goodness of Camilla, joined with the
+opportunity which the blind husband had placed in his hands, overthrew
+the loyalty of Lothario; and giving heed to nothing save the object
+towards which his inclinations led him, after Anselmo had been three
+days absent, during which he had been carrying on a continual struggle
+with his passion, he began to make love to Camilla with so much
+vehemence and warmth of language that she was overwhelmed with
+amazement, and could only rise from her place and retire to her room
+without answering him a word. But the hope which always springs up with
+love was not weakened in Lothario by this repelling demeanour; on the
+contrary his passion for Camilla increased, and she discovering in him
+what she had never expected, knew not what to do; and considering it
+neither safe nor right to give him the chance or opportunity of
+speaking to her again, she resolved to send, as she did that very
+night, one of her servants with a letter to Anselmo, in which she
+addressed the following words to him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE NOVEL OF “THE ILL-ADVISED CURIOSITY”
+
+“It is commonly said that an army looks ill without its general and a
+castle without its castellan, and I say that a young married woman
+looks still worse without her husband unless there are very good
+reasons for it. I find myself so ill at ease without you, and so
+incapable of enduring this separation, that unless you return quickly I
+shall have to go for relief to my parents’ house, even if I leave yours
+without a protector; for the one you left me, if indeed he deserved
+that title, has, I think, more regard to his own pleasure than to what
+concerns you: as you are possessed of discernment I need say no more to
+you, nor indeed is it fitting I should say more.”
+
+Anselmo received this letter, and from it he gathered that Lothario had
+already begun his task and that Camilla must have replied to him as he
+would have wished; and delighted beyond measure at such intelligence he
+sent word to her not to leave his house on any account, as he would
+very shortly return. Camilla was astonished at Anselmo’s reply, which
+placed her in greater perplexity than before, for she neither dared to
+remain in her own house, nor yet to go to her parents’; for in
+remaining her virtue was imperilled, and in going she was opposing her
+husband’s commands. Finally she decided upon what was the worse course
+for her, to remain, resolving not to fly from the presence of Lothario,
+that she might not give food for gossip to her servants; and she now
+began to regret having written as she had to her husband, fearing he
+might imagine that Lothario had perceived in her some lightness which
+had impelled him to lay aside the respect he owed her; but confident of
+her rectitude she put her trust in God and in her own virtuous
+intentions, with which she hoped to resist in silence all the
+solicitations of Lothario, without saying anything to her husband so as
+not to involve him in any quarrel or trouble; and she even began to
+consider how to excuse Lothario to Anselmo when he should ask her what
+it was that induced her to write that letter. With these resolutions,
+more honourable than judicious or effectual, she remained the next day
+listening to Lothario, who pressed his suit so strenuously that
+Camilla’s firmness began to waver, and her virtue had enough to do to
+come to the rescue of her eyes and keep them from showing signs of a
+certain tender compassion which the tears and appeals of Lothario had
+awakened in her bosom. Lothario observed all this, and it inflamed him
+all the more. In short he felt that while Anselmo’s absence afforded
+time and opportunity he must press the siege of the fortress, and so he
+assailed her self-esteem with praises of her beauty, for there is
+nothing that more quickly reduces and levels the castle towers of fair
+women’s vanity than vanity itself upon the tongue of flattery. In fact
+with the utmost assiduity he undermined the rock of her purity with
+such engines that had Camilla been of brass she must have fallen. He
+wept, he entreated, he promised, he flattered, he importuned, he
+pretended with so much feeling and apparent sincerity, that he
+overthrew the virtuous resolves of Camilla and won the triumph he least
+expected and most longed for. Camilla yielded, Camilla fell; but what
+wonder if the friendship of Lothario could not stand firm? A clear
+proof to us that the passion of love is to be conquered only by flying
+from it, and that no one should engage in a struggle with an enemy so
+mighty; for divine strength is needed to overcome his human power.
+Leonela alone knew of her mistress’s weakness, for the two false
+friends and new lovers were unable to conceal it. Lothario did not care
+to tell Camilla the object Anselmo had in view, nor that he had
+afforded him the opportunity of attaining such a result, lest she
+should undervalue his love and think that it was by chance and without
+intending it and not of his own accord that he had made love to her.
+
+A few days later Anselmo returned to his house and did not perceive
+what it had lost, that which he so lightly treated and so highly
+prized. He went at once to see Lothario, and found him at home; they
+embraced each other, and Anselmo asked for the tidings of his life or
+his death.
+
+“The tidings I have to give thee, Anselmo my friend,” said Lothario,
+“are that thou dost possess a wife that is worthy to be the pattern and
+crown of all good wives. The words that I have addressed to her were
+borne away on the wind, my promises have been despised, my presents
+have been refused, such feigned tears as I shed have been turned into
+open ridicule. In short, as Camilla is the essence of all beauty, so is
+she the treasure-house where purity dwells, and gentleness and modesty
+abide with all the virtues that can confer praise, honour, and
+happiness upon a woman. Take back thy money, my friend; here it is, and
+I have had no need to touch it, for the chastity of Camilla yields not
+to things so base as gifts or promises. Be content, Anselmo, and
+refrain from making further proof; and as thou hast passed dryshod
+through the sea of those doubts and suspicions that are and may be
+entertained of women, seek not to plunge again into the deep ocean of
+new embarrassments, or with another pilot make trial of the goodness
+and strength of the bark that Heaven has granted thee for thy passage
+across the sea of this world; but reckon thyself now safe in port, moor
+thyself with the anchor of sound reflection, and rest in peace until
+thou art called upon to pay that debt which no nobility on earth can
+escape paying.”
+
+Anselmo was completely satisfied by the words of Lothario, and believed
+them as fully as if they had been spoken by an oracle; nevertheless he
+begged of him not to relinquish the undertaking, were it but for the
+sake of curiosity and amusement; though thenceforward he need not make
+use of the same earnest endeavours as before; all he wished him to do
+was to write some verses to her, praising her under the name of
+Chloris, for he himself would give her to understand that he was in
+love with a lady to whom he had given that name to enable him to sing
+her praises with the decorum due to her modesty; and if Lothario were
+unwilling to take the trouble of writing the verses he would compose
+them himself.
+
+“That will not be necessary,” said Lothario, “for the muses are not
+such enemies of mine but that they visit me now and then in the course
+of the year. Do thou tell Camilla what thou hast proposed about a
+pretended amour of mine; as for the verses I will make them, and if not
+as good as the subject deserves, they shall be at least the best I can
+produce.” An agreement to this effect was made between the friends, the
+ill-advised one and the treacherous, and Anselmo returning to his house
+asked Camilla the question she already wondered he had not asked
+before—what it was that had caused her to write the letter she had sent
+him. Camilla replied that it had seemed to her that Lothario looked at
+her somewhat more freely than when he had been at home; but that now
+she was undeceived and believed it to have been only her own
+imagination, for Lothario now avoided seeing her, or being alone with
+her. Anselmo told her she might be quite easy on the score of that
+suspicion, for he knew that Lothario was in love with a damsel of rank
+in the city whom he celebrated under the name of Chloris, and that even
+if he were not, his fidelity and their great friendship left no room
+for fear. Had not Camilla, however, been informed beforehand by
+Lothario that this love for Chloris was a pretence, and that he himself
+had told Anselmo of it in order to be able sometimes to give utterance
+to the praises of Camilla herself, no doubt she would have fallen into
+the despairing toils of jealousy; but being forewarned she received the
+startling news without uneasiness.
+
+The next day as the three were at table Anselmo asked Lothario to
+recite something of what he had composed for his mistress Chloris; for
+as Camilla did not know her, he might safely say what he liked.
+
+“Even did she know her,” returned Lothario, “I would hide nothing, for
+when a lover praises his lady’s beauty, and charges her with cruelty,
+he casts no imputation upon her fair name; at any rate, all I can say
+is that yesterday I made a sonnet on the ingratitude of this Chloris,
+which goes thus:
+
+SONNET
+
+At midnight, in the silence, when the eyes
+Of happier mortals balmy slumbers close,
+The weary tale of my unnumbered woes
+To Chloris and to Heaven is wont to rise.
+And when the light of day returning dyes
+The portals of the east with tints of rose,
+With undiminished force my sorrow flows
+In broken accents and in burning sighs.
+And when the sun ascends his star-girt throne,
+And on the earth pours down his midday beams,
+Noon but renews my wailing and my tears;
+And with the night again goes up my moan.
+Yet ever in my agony it seems
+To me that neither Heaven nor Chloris hears.”
+
+
+The sonnet pleased Camilla, and still more Anselmo, for he praised it
+and said the lady was excessively cruel who made no return for
+sincerity so manifest. On which Camilla said, “Then all that
+love-smitten poets say is true?”
+
+“As poets they do not tell the truth,” replied Lothario; “but as lovers
+they are not more defective in expression than they are truthful.”
+
+“There is no doubt of that,” observed Anselmo, anxious to support and
+uphold Lothario’s ideas with Camilla, who was as regardless of his
+design as she was deep in love with Lothario; and so taking delight in
+anything that was his, and knowing that his thoughts and writings had
+her for their object, and that she herself was the real Chloris, she
+asked him to repeat some other sonnet or verses if he recollected any.
+
+“I do,” replied Lothario, “but I do not think it as good as the first
+one, or, more correctly speaking, less bad; but you can easily judge,
+for it is this.
+
+SONNET
+
+I know that I am doomed; death is to me
+As certain as that thou, ungrateful fair,
+Dead at thy feet shouldst see me lying, ere
+My heart repented of its love for thee.
+If buried in oblivion I should be,
+Bereft of life, fame, favour, even there
+It would be found that I thy image bear
+Deep graven in my breast for all to see.
+This like some holy relic do I prize
+To save me from the fate my truth entails,
+Truth that to thy hard heart its vigour owes.
+Alas for him that under lowering skies,
+In peril o’er a trackless ocean sails,
+Where neither friendly port nor pole-star shows.”
+
+
+Anselmo praised this second sonnet too, as he had praised the first;
+and so he went on adding link after link to the chain with which he was
+binding himself and making his dishonour secure; for when Lothario was
+doing most to dishonour him he told him he was most honoured; and thus
+each step that Camilla descended towards the depths of her abasement,
+she mounted, in his opinion, towards the summit of virtue and fair
+fame.
+
+It so happened that finding herself on one occasion alone with her
+maid, Camilla said to her, “I am ashamed to think, my dear Leonela, how
+lightly I have valued myself that I did not compel Lothario to purchase
+by at least some expenditure of time that full possession of me that I
+so quickly yielded him of my own free will. I fear that he will think
+ill of my pliancy or lightness, not considering the irresistible
+influence he brought to bear upon me.”
+
+“Let not that trouble you, my lady,” said Leonela, “for it does not
+take away the value of the thing given or make it the less precious to
+give it quickly if it be really valuable and worthy of being prized;
+nay, they are wont to say that he who gives quickly gives twice.”
+
+“They say also,” said Camilla, “that what costs little is valued less.”
+
+“That saying does not hold good in your case,” replied Leonela, “for
+love, as I have heard say, sometimes flies and sometimes walks; with
+this one it runs, with that it moves slowly; some it cools, others it
+burns; some it wounds, others it slays; it begins the course of its
+desires, and at the same moment completes and ends it; in the morning
+it will lay siege to a fortress and by night will have taken it, for
+there is no power that can resist it; so what are you in dread of, what
+do you fear, when the same must have befallen Lothario, love having
+chosen the absence of my lord as the instrument for subduing you? and
+it was absolutely necessary to complete then what love had resolved
+upon, without affording the time to let Anselmo return and by his
+presence compel the work to be left unfinished; for love has no better
+agent for carrying out his designs than opportunity; and of opportunity
+he avails himself in all his feats, especially at the outset. All this
+I know well myself, more by experience than by hearsay, and some day,
+señora, I will enlighten you on the subject, for I am of your flesh and
+blood too. Moreover, lady Camilla, you did not surrender yourself or
+yield so quickly but that first you saw Lothario’s whole soul in his
+eyes, in his sighs, in his words, his promises and his gifts, and by it
+and his good qualities perceived how worthy he was of your love. This,
+then, being the case, let not these scrupulous and prudish ideas
+trouble your imagination, but be assured that Lothario prizes you as
+you do him, and rest content and satisfied that as you are caught in
+the noose of love it is one of worth and merit that has taken you, and
+one that has not only the four S’s that they say true lovers ought to
+have, but a complete alphabet; only listen to me and you will see how I
+can repeat it by rote. He is to my eyes and thinking, Amiable, Brave,
+Courteous, Distinguished, Elegant, Fond, Gay, Honourable, Illustrious,
+Loyal, Manly, Noble, Open, Polite, Quickwitted, Rich, and the S’s
+according to the saying, and then Tender, Veracious: X does not suit
+him, for it is a rough letter; Y has been given already; and Z Zealous
+for your honour.”
+
+Camilla laughed at her maid’s alphabet, and perceived her to be more
+experienced in love affairs than she said, which she admitted,
+confessing to Camilla that she had love passages with a young man of
+good birth of the same city. Camilla was uneasy at this, dreading lest
+it might prove the means of endangering her honour, and asked whether
+her intrigue had gone beyond words, and she with little shame and much
+effrontery said it had; for certain it is that ladies’ imprudences make
+servants shameless, who, when they see their mistresses make a false
+step, think nothing of going astray themselves, or of its being known.
+All that Camilla could do was to entreat Leonela to say nothing about
+her doings to him whom she called her lover, and to conduct her own
+affairs secretly lest they should come to the knowledge of Anselmo or
+of Lothario. Leonela said she would, but kept her word in such a way
+that she confirmed Camilla’s apprehension of losing her reputation
+through her means; for this abandoned and bold Leonela, as soon as she
+perceived that her mistress’s demeanour was not what it was wont to be,
+had the audacity to introduce her lover into the house, confident that
+even if her mistress saw him she would not dare to expose him; for the
+sins of mistresses entail this mischief among others; they make
+themselves the slaves of their own servants, and are obliged to hide
+their laxities and depravities; as was the case with Camilla, who
+though she perceived, not once but many times, that Leonela was with
+her lover in some room of the house, not only did not dare to chide
+her, but afforded her opportunities for concealing him and removed all
+difficulties, lest he should be seen by her husband. She was unable,
+however, to prevent him from being seen on one occasion, as he sallied
+forth at daybreak, by Lothario, who, not knowing who he was, at first
+took him for a spectre; but, as soon as he saw him hasten away,
+muffling his face with his cloak and concealing himself carefully and
+cautiously, he rejected this foolish idea, and adopted another, which
+would have been the ruin of all had not Camilla found a remedy. It did
+not occur to Lothario that this man he had seen issuing at such an
+untimely hour from Anselmo’s house could have entered it on Leonela’s
+account, nor did he even remember there was such a person as Leonela;
+all he thought was that as Camilla had been light and yielding with
+him, so she had been with another; for this further penalty the erring
+woman’s sin brings with it, that her honour is distrusted even by him
+to whose overtures and persuasions she has yielded; and he believes her
+to have surrendered more easily to others, and gives implicit credence
+to every suspicion that comes into his mind. All Lothario’s good sense
+seems to have failed him at this juncture; all his prudent maxims
+escaped his memory; for without once reflecting rationally, and without
+more ado, in his impatience and in the blindness of the jealous rage
+that gnawed his heart, and dying to revenge himself upon Camilla, who
+had done him no wrong, before Anselmo had risen he hastened to him and
+said to him, “Know, Anselmo, that for several days past I have been
+struggling with myself, striving to withhold from thee what it is no
+longer possible or right that I should conceal from thee. Know that
+Camilla’s fortress has surrendered and is ready to submit to my will;
+and if I have been slow to reveal this fact to thee, it was in order to
+see if it were some light caprice of hers, or if she sought to try me
+and ascertain if the love I began to make to her with thy permission
+was made with a serious intention. I thought, too, that she, if she
+were what she ought to be, and what we both believed her, would have
+ere this given thee information of my addresses; but seeing that she
+delays, I believe the truth of the promise she has given me that the
+next time thou art absent from the house she will grant me an interview
+in the closet where thy jewels are kept (and it was true that Camilla
+used to meet him there); but I do not wish thee to rush precipitately
+to take vengeance, for the sin is as yet only committed in intention,
+and Camilla’s may change perhaps between this and the appointed time,
+and repentance spring up in its place. As hitherto thou hast always
+followed my advice wholly or in part, follow and observe this that I
+will give thee now, so that, without mistake, and with mature
+deliberation, thou mayest satisfy thyself as to what may seem the best
+course; pretend to absent thyself for two or three days as thou hast
+been wont to do on other occasions, and contrive to hide thyself in the
+closet; for the tapestries and other things there afford great
+facilities for thy concealment, and then thou wilt see with thine own
+eyes and I with mine what Camilla’s purpose may be. And if it be a
+guilty one, which may be feared rather than expected, with silence,
+prudence, and discretion thou canst thyself become the instrument of
+punishment for the wrong done thee.”
+
+Anselmo was amazed, overwhelmed, and astounded at the words of
+Lothario, which came upon him at a time when he least expected to hear
+them, for he now looked upon Camilla as having triumphed over the
+pretended attacks of Lothario, and was beginning to enjoy the glory of
+her victory. He remained silent for a considerable time, looking on the
+ground with fixed gaze, and at length said, “Thou hast behaved,
+Lothario, as I expected of thy friendship: I will follow thy advice in
+everything; do as thou wilt, and keep this secret as thou seest it
+should be kept in circumstances so unlooked for.”
+
+Lothario gave him his word, but after leaving him he repented
+altogether of what he had said to him, perceiving how foolishly he had
+acted, as he might have revenged himself upon Camilla in some less
+cruel and degrading way. He cursed his want of sense, condemned his
+hasty resolution, and knew not what course to take to undo the mischief
+or find some ready escape from it. At last he decided upon revealing
+all to Camilla, and, as there was no want of opportunity for doing so,
+he found her alone the same day; but she, as soon as she had the chance
+of speaking to him, said, “Lothario my friend, I must tell thee I have
+a sorrow in my heart which fills it so that it seems ready to burst;
+and it will be a wonder if it does not; for the audacity of Leonela has
+now reached such a pitch that every night she conceals a gallant of
+hers in this house and remains with him till morning, at the expense of
+my reputation; inasmuch as it is open to anyone to question it who may
+see him quitting my house at such unseasonable hours; but what
+distresses me is that I cannot punish or chide her, for her privity to
+our intrigue bridles my mouth and keeps me silent about hers, while I
+am dreading that some catastrophe will come of it.”
+
+As Camilla said this Lothario at first imagined it was some device to
+delude him into the idea that the man he had seen going out was
+Leonela’s lover and not hers; but when he saw how she wept and
+suffered, and begged him to help her, he became convinced of the truth,
+and the conviction completed his confusion and remorse; however, he
+told Camilla not to distress herself, as he would take measures to put
+a stop to the insolence of Leonela. At the same time he told her what,
+driven by the fierce rage of jealousy, he had said to Anselmo, and how
+he had arranged to hide himself in the closet that he might there see
+plainly how little she preserved her fidelity to him; and he entreated
+her pardon for this madness, and her advice as to how to repair it, and
+escape safely from the intricate labyrinth in which his imprudence had
+involved him. Camilla was struck with alarm at hearing what Lothario
+said, and with much anger, and great good sense, she reproved him and
+rebuked his base design and the foolish and mischievous resolution he
+had made; but as woman has by nature a nimbler wit than man for good
+and for evil, though it is apt to fail when she sets herself
+deliberately to reason, Camilla on the spur of the moment thought of a
+way to remedy what was to all appearance irremediable, and told
+Lothario to contrive that the next day Anselmo should conceal himself
+in the place he mentioned, for she hoped from his concealment to obtain
+the means of their enjoying themselves for the future without any
+apprehension; and without revealing her purpose to him entirely she
+charged him to be careful, as soon as Anselmo was concealed, to come to
+her when Leonela should call him, and to all she said to him to answer
+as he would have answered had he not known that Anselmo was listening.
+Lothario pressed her to explain her intention fully, so that he might
+with more certainty and precaution take care to do what he saw to be
+needful.
+
+“I tell you,” said Camilla, “there is nothing to take care of except to
+answer me what I shall ask you;” for she did not wish to explain to him
+beforehand what she meant to do, fearing lest he should be unwilling to
+follow out an idea which seemed to her such a good one, and should try
+or devise some other less practicable plan.
+
+Lothario then retired, and the next day Anselmo, under pretence of
+going to his friend’s country house, took his departure, and then
+returned to conceal himself, which he was able to do easily, as Camilla
+and Leonela took care to give him the opportunity; and so he placed
+himself in hiding in the state of agitation that it may be imagined he
+would feel who expected to see the vitals of his honour laid bare
+before his eyes, and found himself on the point of losing the supreme
+blessing he thought he possessed in his beloved Camilla. Having made
+sure of Anselmo’s being in his hiding-place, Camilla and Leonela
+entered the closet, and the instant she set foot within it Camilla
+said, with a deep sigh, “Ah! dear Leonela, would it not be better,
+before I do what I am unwilling you should know lest you should seek to
+prevent it, that you should take Anselmo’s dagger that I have asked of
+you and with it pierce this vile heart of mine? But no; there is no
+reason why I should suffer the punishment of another’s fault. I will
+first know what it is that the bold licentious eyes of Lothario have
+seen in me that could have encouraged him to reveal to me a design so
+base as that which he has disclosed regardless of his friend and of my
+honour. Go to the window, Leonela, and call him, for no doubt he is in
+the street waiting to carry out his vile project; but mine, cruel it
+may be, but honourable, shall be carried out first.”
+
+“Ah, señora,” said the crafty Leonela, who knew her part, “what is it
+you want to do with this dagger? Can it be that you mean to take your
+own life, or Lothario’s? for whichever you mean to do, it will lead to
+the loss of your reputation and good name. It is better to dissemble
+your wrong and not give this wicked man the chance of entering the
+house now and finding us alone; consider, señora, we are weak women and
+he is a man, and determined, and as he comes with such a base purpose,
+blind and urged by passion, perhaps before you can put yours into
+execution he may do what will be worse for you than taking your life.
+Ill betide my master, Anselmo, for giving such authority in his house
+to this shameless fellow! And supposing you kill him, señora, as I
+suspect you mean to do, what shall we do with him when he is dead?”
+
+“What, my friend?” replied Camilla, “we shall leave him for Anselmo to
+bury him; for in reason it will be to him a light labour to hide his
+own infamy under ground. Summon him, make haste, for all the time I
+delay in taking vengeance for my wrong seems to me an offence against
+the loyalty I owe my husband.”
+
+Anselmo was listening to all this, and every word that Camilla uttered
+made him change his mind; but when he heard that it was resolved to
+kill Lothario his first impulse was to come out and show himself to
+avert such a disaster; but in his anxiety to see the issue of a
+resolution so bold and virtuous he restrained himself, intending to
+come forth in time to prevent the deed. At this moment Camilla,
+throwing herself upon a bed that was close by, swooned away, and
+Leonela began to weep bitterly, exclaiming, “Woe is me! that I should
+be fated to have dying here in my arms the flower of virtue upon earth,
+the crown of true wives, the pattern of chastity!” with more to the
+same effect, so that anyone who heard her would have taken her for the
+most tender-hearted and faithful handmaid in the world, and her
+mistress for another persecuted Penelope.
+
+Camilla was not long in recovering from her fainting fit and on coming
+to herself she said, “Why do you not go, Leonela, to call hither that
+friend, the falsest to his friend the sun ever shone upon or night
+concealed? Away, run, haste, speed! lest the fire of my wrath burn
+itself out with delay, and the righteous vengeance that I hope for melt
+away in menaces and maledictions.”
+
+“I am just going to call him, señora,” said Leonela; “but you must
+first give me that dagger, lest while I am gone you should by means of
+it give cause to all who love you to weep all their lives.”
+
+“Go in peace, dear Leonela, I will not do so,” said Camilla, “for rash
+and foolish as I may be, to your mind, in defending my honour, I am not
+going to be so much so as that Lucretia who they say killed herself
+without having done anything wrong, and without having first killed him
+on whom the guilt of her misfortune lay. I shall die, if I am to die;
+but it must be after full vengeance upon him who has brought me here to
+weep over audacity that no fault of mine gave birth to.”
+
+Leonela required much pressing before she would go to summon Lothario,
+but at last she went, and while awaiting her return Camilla continued,
+as if speaking to herself, “Good God! would it not have been more
+prudent to have repulsed Lothario, as I have done many a time before,
+than to allow him, as I am now doing, to think me unchaste and vile,
+even for the short time I must wait until I undeceive him? No doubt it
+would have been better; but I should not be avenged, nor the honour of
+my husband vindicated, should he find so clear and easy an escape from
+the strait into which his depravity has led him. Let the traitor pay
+with his life for the temerity of his wanton wishes, and let the world
+know (if haply it shall ever come to know) that Camilla not only
+preserved her allegiance to her husband, but avenged him of the man who
+dared to wrong him. Still, I think it might be better to disclose this
+to Anselmo. But then I have called his attention to it in the letter I
+wrote to him in the country, and, if he did nothing to prevent the
+mischief I there pointed out to him, I suppose it was that from pure
+goodness of heart and trustfulness he would not and could not believe
+that any thought against his honour could harbour in the breast of so
+stanch a friend; nor indeed did I myself believe it for many days, nor
+should I have ever believed it if his insolence had not gone so far as
+to make it manifest by open presents, lavish promises, and ceaseless
+tears. But why do I argue thus? Does a bold determination stand in need
+of arguments? Surely not. Then traitors avaunt! Vengeance to my aid!
+Let the false one come, approach, advance, die, yield up his life, and
+then befall what may. Pure I came to him whom Heaven bestowed upon me,
+pure I shall leave him; and at the worst bathed in my own chaste blood
+and in the foul blood of the falsest friend that friendship ever saw in
+the world;” and as she uttered these words she paced the room holding
+the unsheathed dagger, with such irregular and disordered steps, and
+such gestures that one would have supposed her to have lost her senses,
+and taken her for some violent desperado instead of a delicate woman.
+
+Anselmo, concealed behind some tapestries where he had hidden himself,
+beheld and was amazed at all, and already felt that what he had seen
+and heard was a sufficient answer to even greater suspicions; and he
+would have been now well pleased if the proof afforded by Lothario’s
+coming were dispensed with, as he feared some sudden mishap; but as he
+was on the point of showing himself and coming forth to embrace and
+undeceive his wife he paused as he saw Leonela returning, leading
+Lothario. Camilla when she saw him, drawing a long line in front of her
+on the floor with the dagger, said to him, “Lothario, pay attention to
+what I say to thee: if by any chance thou darest to cross this line
+thou seest, or even approach it, the instant I see thee attempt it that
+same instant will I pierce my bosom with this dagger that I hold in my
+hand; and before thou answerest me a word I desire thee to listen to a
+few from me, and afterwards thou shalt reply as may please thee. First,
+I desire thee to tell me, Lothario, if thou knowest my husband Anselmo,
+and in what light thou regardest him; and secondly I desire to know if
+thou knowest me too. Answer me this, without embarrassment or
+reflecting deeply what thou wilt answer, for they are no riddles I put
+to thee.”
+
+Lothario was not so dull but that from the first moment when Camilla
+directed him to make Anselmo hide himself he understood what she
+intended to do, and therefore he fell in with her idea so readily and
+promptly that between them they made the imposture look more true than
+truth; so he answered her thus: “I did not think, fair Camilla, that
+thou wert calling me to ask questions so remote from the object with
+which I come; but if it is to defer the promised reward thou art doing
+so, thou mightst have put it off still longer, for the longing for
+happiness gives the more distress the nearer comes the hope of gaining
+it; but lest thou shouldst say that I do not answer thy questions, I
+say that I know thy husband Anselmo, and that we have known each other
+from our earliest years; I will not speak of what thou too knowest, of
+our friendship, that I may not compel myself to testify against the
+wrong that love, the mighty excuse for greater errors, makes me inflict
+upon him. Thee I know and hold in the same estimation as he does, for
+were it not so I had not for a lesser prize acted in opposition to what
+I owe to my station and the holy laws of true friendship, now broken
+and violated by me through that powerful enemy, love.”
+
+“If thou dost confess that,” returned Camilla, “mortal enemy of all
+that rightly deserves to be loved, with what face dost thou dare to
+come before one whom thou knowest to be the mirror wherein he is
+reflected on whom thou shouldst look to see how unworthily thou
+wrongest him? But, woe is me, I now comprehend what has made thee give
+so little heed to what thou owest to thyself; it must have been some
+freedom of mine, for I will not call it immodesty, as it did not
+proceed from any deliberate intention, but from some heedlessness such
+as women are guilty of through inadvertence when they think they have
+no occasion for reserve. But tell me, traitor, when did I by word or
+sign give a reply to thy prayers that could awaken in thee a shadow of
+hope of attaining thy base wishes? When were not thy professions of
+love sternly and scornfully rejected and rebuked? When were thy
+frequent pledges and still more frequent gifts believed or accepted?
+But as I am persuaded that no one can long persevere in the attempt to
+win love unsustained by some hope, I am willing to attribute to myself
+the blame of thy assurance, for no doubt some thoughtlessness of mine
+has all this time fostered thy hopes; and therefore will I punish
+myself and inflict upon myself the penalty thy guilt deserves. And that
+thou mayest see that being so relentless to myself I cannot possibly be
+otherwise to thee, I have summoned thee to be a witness of the
+sacrifice I mean to offer to the injured honour of my honoured husband,
+wronged by thee with all the assiduity thou wert capable of, and by me
+too through want of caution in avoiding every occasion, if I have given
+any, of encouraging and sanctioning thy base designs. Once more I say
+the suspicion in my mind that some imprudence of mine has engendered
+these lawless thoughts in thee, is what causes me most distress and
+what I desire most to punish with my own hands, for were any other
+instrument of punishment employed my error might become perhaps more
+widely known; but before I do so, in my death I mean to inflict death,
+and take with me one that will fully satisfy my longing for the revenge
+I hope for and have; for I shall see, wheresoever it may be that I go,
+the penalty awarded by inflexible, unswerving justice on him who has
+placed me in a position so desperate.”
+
+As she uttered these words, with incredible energy and swiftness she
+flew upon Lothario with the naked dagger, so manifestly bent on burying
+it in his breast that he was almost uncertain whether these
+demonstrations were real or feigned, for he was obliged to have
+recourse to all his skill and strength to prevent her from striking
+him; and with such reality did she act this strange farce and
+mystification that, to give it a colour of truth, she determined to
+stain it with her own blood; for perceiving, or pretending, that she
+could not wound Lothario, she said, “Fate, it seems, will not grant my
+just desire complete satisfaction, but it will not be able to keep me
+from satisfying it partially at least;” and making an effort to free
+the hand with the dagger which Lothario held in his grasp, she released
+it, and directing the point to a place where it could not inflict a
+deep wound, she plunged it into her left side high up close to the
+shoulder, and then allowed herself to fall to the ground as if in a
+faint.
+
+Leonela and Lothario stood amazed and astounded at the catastrophe, and
+seeing Camilla stretched on the ground and bathed in her blood they
+were still uncertain as to the true nature of the act. Lothario,
+terrified and breathless, ran in haste to pluck out the dagger; but
+when he saw how slight the wound was he was relieved of his fears and
+once more admired the subtlety, coolness, and ready wit of the fair
+Camilla; and the better to support the part he had to play he began to
+utter profuse and doleful lamentations over her body as if she were
+dead, invoking maledictions not only on himself but also on him who had
+been the means of placing him in such a position: and knowing that his
+friend Anselmo heard him he spoke in such a way as to make a listener
+feel much more pity for him than for Camilla, even though he supposed
+her dead. Leonela took her up in her arms and laid her on the bed,
+entreating Lothario to go in quest of someone to attend to her wound in
+secret, and at the same time asking his advice and opinion as to what
+they should say to Anselmo about his lady’s wound if he should chance
+to return before it was healed. He replied they might say what they
+liked, for he was not in a state to give advice that would be of any
+use; all he could tell her was to try and stanch the blood, as he was
+going where he should never more be seen; and with every appearance of
+deep grief and sorrow he left the house; but when he found himself
+alone, and where there was nobody to see him, he crossed himself
+unceasingly, lost in wonder at the adroitness of Camilla and the
+consistent acting of Leonela. He reflected how convinced Anselmo would
+be that he had a second Portia for a wife, and he looked forward
+anxiously to meeting him in order to rejoice together over falsehood
+and truth the most craftily veiled that could be imagined.
+
+Leonela, as he told her, stanched her lady’s blood, which was no more
+than sufficed to support her deception; and washing the wound with a
+little wine she bound it up to the best of her skill, talking all the
+time she was tending her in a strain that, even if nothing else had
+been said before, would have been enough to assure Anselmo that he had
+in Camilla a model of purity. To Leonela’s words Camilla added her own,
+calling herself cowardly and wanting in spirit, since she had not
+enough at the time she had most need of it to rid herself of the life
+she so much loathed. She asked her attendant’s advice as to whether or
+not she ought to inform her beloved husband of all that had happened,
+but the other bade her say nothing about it, as she would lay upon him
+the obligation of taking vengeance on Lothario, which he could not do
+but at great risk to himself; and it was the duty of a true wife not to
+give her husband provocation to quarrel, but, on the contrary, to
+remove it as far as possible from him.
+
+Camilla replied that she believed she was right and that she would
+follow her advice, but at any rate it would be well to consider how she
+was to explain the wound to Anselmo, for he could not help seeing it;
+to which Leonela answered that she did not know how to tell a lie even
+in jest.
+
+“How then can I know, my dear?” said Camilla, “for I should not dare to
+forge or keep up a falsehood if my life depended on it. If we can think
+of no escape from this difficulty, it will be better to tell him the
+plain truth than that he should find us out in an untrue story.”
+
+“Be not uneasy, señora,” said Leonela; “between this and to-morrow I
+will think of what we must say to him, and perhaps the wound being
+where it is it can be hidden from his sight, and Heaven will be pleased
+to aid us in a purpose so good and honourable. Compose yourself,
+señora, and endeavour to calm your excitement lest my lord find you
+agitated; and leave the rest to my care and God’s, who always supports
+good intentions.”
+
+Anselmo had with the deepest attention listened to and seen played out
+the tragedy of the death of his honour, which the performers acted with
+such wonderfully effective truth that it seemed as if they had become
+the realities of the parts they played. He longed for night and an
+opportunity of escaping from the house to go and see his good friend
+Lothario, and with him give vent to his joy over the precious pearl he
+had gained in having established his wife’s purity. Both mistress and
+maid took care to give him time and opportunity to get away, and taking
+advantage of it he made his escape, and at once went in quest of
+Lothario, and it would be impossible to describe how he embraced him
+when he found him, and the things he said to him in the joy of his
+heart, and the praises he bestowed upon Camilla; all which Lothario
+listened to without being able to show any pleasure, for he could not
+forget how deceived his friend was, and how dishonourably he had
+wronged him; and though Anselmo could see that Lothario was not glad,
+still he imagined it was only because he had left Camilla wounded and
+had been himself the cause of it; and so among other things he told him
+not to be distressed about Camilla’s accident, for, as they had agreed
+to hide it from him, the wound was evidently trifling; and that being
+so, he had no cause for fear, but should henceforward be of good cheer
+and rejoice with him, seeing that by his means and adroitness he found
+himself raised to the greatest height of happiness that he could have
+ventured to hope for, and desired no better pastime than making verses
+in praise of Camilla that would preserve her name for all time to come.
+Lothario commended his purpose, and promised on his own part to aid him
+in raising a monument so glorious.
+
+And so Anselmo was left the most charmingly hoodwinked man there could
+be in the world. He himself, persuaded he was conducting the instrument
+of his glory, led home by the hand of him who had been the utter
+destruction of his good name; whom Camilla received with averted
+countenance, though with smiles in her heart. The deception was carried
+on for some time, until at the end of a few months Fortune turned her
+wheel and the guilt which had been until then so skilfully concealed
+was published abroad, and Anselmo paid with his life the penalty of his
+ill-advised curiosity.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+WHICH TREATS OF THE HEROIC AND PRODIGIOUS BATTLE DON QUIXOTE HAD WITH
+CERTAIN SKINS OF RED WINE, AND BRINGS THE NOVEL OF “THE ILL-ADVISED
+CURIOSITY” TO A CLOSE
+
+There remained but little more of the novel to be read, when Sancho
+Panza burst forth in wild excitement from the garret where Don Quixote
+was lying, shouting, “Run, sirs! quick; and help my master, who is in
+the thick of the toughest and stiffest battle I ever laid eyes on. By
+the living God he has given the giant, the enemy of my lady the
+Princess Micomicona, such a slash that he has sliced his head clean off
+as if it were a turnip.”
+
+“What are you talking about, brother?” said the curate, pausing as he
+was about to read the remainder of the novel. “Are you in your senses,
+Sancho? How the devil can it be as you say, when the giant is two
+thousand leagues away?”
+
+Here they heard a loud noise in the chamber, and Don Quixote shouting
+out, “Stand, thief, brigand, villain; now I have got thee, and thy
+scimitar shall not avail thee!” And then it seemed as though he were
+slashing vigorously at the wall.
+
+“Don’t stop to listen,” said Sancho, “but go in and part them or help
+my master: though there is no need of that now, for no doubt the giant
+is dead by this time and giving account to God of his past wicked life;
+for I saw the blood flowing on the ground, and the head cut off and
+fallen on one side, and it is as big as a large wine-skin.”
+
+“May I die,” said the landlord at this, “if Don Quixote or Don Devil
+has not been slashing some of the skins of red wine that stand full at
+his bed’s head, and the spilt wine must be what this good fellow takes
+for blood;” and so saying he went into the room and the rest after him,
+and there they found Don Quixote in the strangest costume in the world.
+He was in his shirt, which was not long enough in front to cover his
+thighs completely and was six fingers shorter behind; his legs were
+very long and lean, covered with hair, and anything but clean; on his
+head he had a little greasy red cap that belonged to the host, round
+his left arm he had rolled the blanket of the bed, to which Sancho, for
+reasons best known to himself, owed a grudge, and in his right hand he
+held his unsheathed sword, with which he was slashing about on all
+sides, uttering exclamations as if he were actually fighting some
+giant: and the best of it was his eyes were not open, for he was fast
+asleep, and dreaming that he was doing battle with the giant. For his
+imagination was so wrought upon by the adventure he was going to
+accomplish, that it made him dream he had already reached the kingdom
+of Micomicon, and was engaged in combat with his enemy; and believing
+he was laying on the giant, he had given so many sword cuts to the
+skins that the whole room was full of wine. On seeing this the landlord
+was so enraged that he fell on Don Quixote, and with his clenched fist
+began to pummel him in such a way, that if Cardenio and the curate had
+not dragged him off, he would have brought the war of the giant to an
+end. But in spite of all the poor gentleman never woke until the barber
+brought a great pot of cold water from the well and flung it with one
+dash all over his body, on which Don Quixote woke up, but not so
+completely as to understand what was the matter. Dorothea, seeing how
+short and slight his attire was, would not go in to witness the battle
+between her champion and her opponent. As for Sancho, he went searching
+all over the floor for the head of the giant, and not finding it he
+said, “I see now that it’s all enchantment in this house; for the last
+time, on this very spot where I am now, I got ever so many thumps
+without knowing who gave them to me, or being able to see anybody; and
+now this head is not to be seen anywhere about, though I saw it cut off
+with my own eyes and the blood running from the body as if from a
+fountain.”
+
+“What blood and fountains are you talking about, enemy of God and his
+saints?” said the landlord. “Don’t you see, you thief, that the blood
+and the fountain are only these skins here that have been stabbed and
+the red wine swimming all over the room?—and I wish I saw the soul of
+him that stabbed them swimming in hell.”
+
+“I know nothing about that,” said Sancho; “all I know is it will be my
+bad luck that through not finding this head my county will melt away
+like salt in water;”—for Sancho awake was worse than his master asleep,
+so much had his master’s promises addled his wits.
+
+The landlord was beside himself at the coolness of the squire and the
+mischievous doings of the master, and swore it should not be like the
+last time when they went without paying; and that their privileges of
+chivalry should not hold good this time to let one or other of them off
+without paying, even to the cost of the plugs that would have to be put
+to the damaged wine-skins. The curate was holding Don Quixote’s hands,
+who, fancying he had now ended the adventure and was in the presence of
+the Princess Micomicona, knelt before the curate and said, “Exalted and
+beauteous lady, your highness may live from this day forth fearless of
+any harm this base being could do you; and I too from this day forth am
+released from the promise I gave you, since by the help of God on high
+and by the favour of her by whom I live and breathe, I have fulfilled
+it so successfully.”
+
+“Did not I say so?” said Sancho on hearing this. “You see I wasn’t
+drunk; there you see my master has already salted the giant; there’s no
+doubt about the bulls; my county is all right!”
+
+Who could have helped laughing at the absurdities of the pair, master
+and man? And laugh they did, all except the landlord, who cursed
+himself; but at length the barber, Cardenio, and the curate contrived
+with no small trouble to get Don Quixote on the bed, and he fell asleep
+with every appearance of excessive weariness. They left him to sleep,
+and came out to the gate of the inn to console Sancho Panza on not
+having found the head of the giant; but much more work had they to
+appease the landlord, who was furious at the sudden death of his
+wine-skins; and said the landlady half scolding, half crying, “At an
+evil moment and in an unlucky hour he came into my house, this
+knight-errant—would that I had never set eyes on him, for dear he has
+cost me; the last time he went off with the overnight score against him
+for supper, bed, straw, and barley, for himself and his squire and a
+hack and an ass, saying he was a knight adventurer—God send unlucky
+adventures to him and all the adventurers in the world—and therefore
+not bound to pay anything, for it was so settled by the knight-errantry
+tariff: and then, all because of him, came the other gentleman and
+carried off my tail, and gives it back more than two cuartillos the
+worse, all stripped of its hair, so that it is no use for my husband’s
+purpose; and then, for a finishing touch to all, to burst my wine-skins
+and spill my wine! I wish I saw his own blood spilt! But let him not
+deceive himself, for, by the bones of my father and the shade of my
+mother, they shall pay me down every quarto; or my name is not what it
+is, and I am not my father’s daughter.” All this and more to the same
+effect the landlady delivered with great irritation, and her good maid
+Maritornes backed her up, while the daughter held her peace and smiled
+from time to time. The curate smoothed matters by promising to make
+good all losses to the best of his power, not only as regarded the
+wine-skins but also the wine, and above all the depreciation of the
+tail which they set such store by. Dorothea comforted Sancho, telling
+him that she pledged herself, as soon as it should appear certain that
+his master had decapitated the giant, and she found herself peacefully
+established in her kingdom, to bestow upon him the best county there
+was in it. With this Sancho consoled himself, and assured the princess
+she might rely upon it that he had seen the head of the giant, and more
+by token it had a beard that reached to the girdle, and that if it was
+not to be seen now it was because everything that happened in that
+house went by enchantment, as he himself had proved the last time he
+had lodged there. Dorothea said she fully believed it, and that he need
+not be uneasy, for all would go well and turn out as he wished. All
+therefore being appeased, the curate was anxious to go on with the
+novel, as he saw there was but little more left to read. Dorothea and
+the others begged him to finish it, and he, as he was willing to please
+them, and enjoyed reading it himself, continued the tale in these
+words:
+
+The result was, that from the confidence Anselmo felt in Camilla’s
+virtue, he lived happy and free from anxiety, and Camilla purposely
+looked coldly on Lothario, that Anselmo might suppose her feelings
+towards him to be the opposite of what they were; and the better to
+support the position, Lothario begged to be excused from coming to the
+house, as the displeasure with which Camilla regarded his presence was
+plain to be seen. But the befooled Anselmo said he would on no account
+allow such a thing, and so in a thousand ways he became the author of
+his own dishonour, while he believed he was insuring his happiness.
+Meanwhile the satisfaction with which Leonela saw herself empowered to
+carry on her amour reached such a height that, regardless of everything
+else, she followed her inclinations unrestrainedly, feeling confident
+that her mistress would screen her, and even show her how to manage it
+safely. At last one night Anselmo heard footsteps in Leonela’s room,
+and on trying to enter to see who it was, he found that the door was
+held against him, which made him all the more determined to open it;
+and exerting his strength he forced it open, and entered the room in
+time to see a man leaping through the window into the street. He ran
+quickly to seize him or discover who he was, but he was unable to
+effect either purpose, for Leonela flung her arms round him crying, “Be
+calm, señor; do not give way to passion or follow him who has escaped
+from this; he belongs to me, and in fact he is my husband.”
+
+Anselmo would not believe it, but blind with rage drew a dagger and
+threatened to stab Leonela, bidding her tell the truth or he would kill
+her. She, in her fear, not knowing what she was saying, exclaimed, “Do
+not kill me, señor, for I can tell you things more important than any
+you can imagine.”
+
+“Tell me then at once or thou diest,” said Anselmo.
+
+“It would be impossible for me now,” said Leonela, “I am so agitated:
+leave me till to-morrow, and then you shall hear from me what will fill
+you with astonishment; but rest assured that he who leaped through the
+window is a young man of this city, who has given me his promise to
+become my husband.”
+
+Anselmo was appeased with this, and was content to wait the time she
+asked of him, for he never expected to hear anything against Camilla,
+so satisfied and sure of her virtue was he; and so he quitted the room,
+and left Leonela locked in, telling her she should not come out until
+she had told him all she had to make known to him. He went at once to
+see Camilla, and tell her, as he did, all that had passed between him
+and her handmaid, and the promise she had given him to inform him
+matters of serious importance.
+
+There is no need of saying whether Camilla was agitated or not, for so
+great was her fear and dismay, that, making sure, as she had good
+reason to do, that Leonela would tell Anselmo all she knew of her
+faithlessness, she had not the courage to wait and see if her
+suspicions were confirmed; and that same night, as soon as she thought
+that Anselmo was asleep, she packed up the most valuable jewels she had
+and some money, and without being observed by anybody escaped from the
+house and betook herself to Lothario’s, to whom she related what had
+occurred, imploring him to convey her to some place of safety or fly
+with her where they might be safe from Anselmo. The state of perplexity
+to which Camilla reduced Lothario was such that he was unable to utter
+a word in reply, still less to decide upon what he should do. At length
+he resolved to conduct her to a convent of which a sister of his was
+prioress; Camilla agreed to this, and with the speed which the
+circumstances demanded, Lothario took her to the convent and left her
+there, and then himself quitted the city without letting anyone know of
+his departure.
+
+As soon as daylight came Anselmo, without missing Camilla from his
+side, rose eager to learn what Leonela had to tell him, and hastened to
+the room where he had locked her in. He opened the door, entered, but
+found no Leonela; all he found was some sheets knotted to the window, a
+plain proof that she had let herself down from it and escaped. He
+returned, uneasy, to tell Camilla, but not finding her in bed or
+anywhere in the house he was lost in amazement. He asked the servants
+of the house about her, but none of them could give him any
+explanation. As he was going in search of Camilla it happened by chance
+that he observed her boxes were lying open, and that the greater part
+of her jewels were gone; and now he became fully aware of his disgrace,
+and that Leonela was not the cause of his misfortune; and, just as he
+was, without delaying to dress himself completely, he repaired, sad at
+heart and dejected, to his friend Lothario to make known his sorrow to
+him; but when he failed to find him and the servants reported that he
+had been absent from his house all night and had taken with him all the
+money he had, he felt as though he were losing his senses; and to make
+all complete on returning to his own house he found it deserted and
+empty, not one of all his servants, male or female, remaining in it. He
+knew not what to think, or say, or do, and his reason seemed to be
+deserting him little by little. He reviewed his position, and saw
+himself in a moment left without wife, friend, or servants, abandoned,
+he felt, by the heaven above him, and more than all robbed of his
+honour, for in Camilla’s disappearance he saw his own ruin. After long
+reflection he resolved at last to go to his friend’s village, where he
+had been staying when he afforded opportunities for the contrivance of
+this complication of misfortune. He locked the doors of his house,
+mounted his horse, and with a broken spirit set out on his journey; but
+he had hardly gone half-way when, harassed by his reflections, he had
+to dismount and tie his horse to a tree, at the foot of which he threw
+himself, giving vent to piteous heartrending sighs; and there he
+remained till nearly nightfall, when he observed a man approaching on
+horseback from the city, of whom, after saluting him, he asked what was
+the news in Florence.
+
+The citizen replied, “The strangest that have been heard for many a
+day; for it is reported abroad that Lothario, the great friend of the
+wealthy Anselmo, who lived at San Giovanni, carried off last night
+Camilla, the wife of Anselmo, who also has disappeared. All this has
+been told by a maid-servant of Camilla’s, whom the governor found last
+night lowering herself by a sheet from the windows of Anselmo’s house.
+I know not indeed, precisely, how the affair came to pass; all I know
+is that the whole city is wondering at the occurrence, for no one could
+have expected a thing of the kind, seeing the great and intimate
+friendship that existed between them, so great, they say, that they
+were called ‘The Two Friends.’”
+
+“Is it known at all,” said Anselmo, “what road Lothario and Camilla
+took?”
+
+“Not in the least,” said the citizen, “though the governor has been
+very active in searching for them.”
+
+“God speed you, señor,” said Anselmo.
+
+“God be with you,” said the citizen and went his way.
+
+This disastrous intelligence almost robbed Anselmo not only of his
+senses but of his life. He got up as well as he was able and reached
+the house of his friend, who as yet knew nothing of his misfortune, but
+seeing him come pale, worn, and haggard, perceived that he was
+suffering some heavy affliction. Anselmo at once begged to be allowed
+to retire to rest, and to be given writing materials. His wish was
+complied with and he was left lying down and alone, for he desired
+this, and even that the door should be locked. Finding himself alone he
+so took to heart the thought of his misfortune that by the signs of
+death he felt within him he knew well his life was drawing to a close,
+and therefore he resolved to leave behind him a declaration of the
+cause of his strange end. He began to write, but before he had put down
+all he meant to say, his breath failed him and he yielded up his life,
+a victim to the suffering which his ill-advised curiosity had entailed
+upon him. The master of the house observing that it was now late and
+that Anselmo did not call, determined to go in and ascertain if his
+indisposition was increasing, and found him lying on his face, his body
+partly in the bed, partly on the writing-table, on which he lay with
+the written paper open and the pen still in his hand. Having first
+called to him without receiving any answer, his host approached him,
+and taking him by the hand, found that it was cold, and saw that he was
+dead. Greatly surprised and distressed he summoned the household to
+witness the sad fate which had befallen Anselmo; and then he read the
+paper, the handwriting of which he recognised as his, and which
+contained these words:
+
+“A foolish and ill-advised desire has robbed me of life. If the news of
+my death should reach the ears of Camilla, let her know that I forgive
+her, for she was not bound to perform miracles, nor ought I to have
+required her to perform them; and since I have been the author of my
+own dishonour, there is no reason why—”
+
+So far Anselmo had written, and thus it was plain that at this point,
+before he could finish what he had to say, his life came to an end. The
+next day his friend sent intelligence of his death to his relatives,
+who had already ascertained his misfortune, as well as the convent
+where Camilla lay almost on the point of accompanying her husband on
+that inevitable journey, not on account of the tidings of his death,
+but because of those she received of her lover’s departure. Although
+she saw herself a widow, it is said she refused either to quit the
+convent or take the veil, until, not long afterwards, intelligence
+reached her that Lothario had been killed in a battle in which M. de
+Lautrec had been recently engaged with the Great Captain Gonzalo
+Fernandez de Cordova in the kingdom of Naples, whither her too late
+repentant lover had repaired. On learning this Camilla took the veil,
+and shortly afterwards died, worn out by grief and melancholy. This was
+the end of all three, an end that came of a thoughtless beginning.
+
+“I like this novel,” said the curate; “but I cannot persuade myself of
+its truth; and if it has been invented, the author’s invention is
+faulty, for it is impossible to imagine any husband so foolish as to
+try such a costly experiment as Anselmo’s. If it had been represented
+as occurring between a gallant and his mistress it might pass; but
+between husband and wife there is something of an impossibility about
+it. As to the way in which the story is told, however, I have no fault
+to find.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+WHICH TREATS OF MORE CURIOUS INCIDENTS THAT OCCURRED AT THE INN
+
+
+
+
+c36a.jpg (124K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Just at that instant the landlord, who was standing at the gate of the
+inn, exclaimed, “Here comes a fine troop of guests; if they stop here
+we may say _gaudeamus_.”
+
+“What are they?” said Cardenio.
+
+“Four men,” said the landlord, “riding _à la jineta_, with lances and
+bucklers, and all with black veils, and with them there is a woman in
+white on a side-saddle, whose face is also veiled, and two attendants
+on foot.”
+
+“Are they very near?” said the curate.
+
+“So near,” answered the landlord, “that here they come.”
+
+Hearing this Dorothea covered her face, and Cardenio retreated into Don
+Quixote’s room, and they hardly had time to do so before the whole
+party the host had described entered the inn, and the four that were on
+horseback, who were of highbred appearance and bearing, dismounted, and
+came forward to take down the woman who rode on the side-saddle, and
+one of them taking her in his arms placed her in a chair that stood at
+the entrance of the room where Cardenio had hidden himself. All this
+time neither she nor they had removed their veils or spoken a word,
+only on sitting down on the chair the woman gave a deep sigh and let
+her arms fall like one that was ill and weak. The attendants on foot
+then led the horses away to the stable. Observing this the curate,
+curious to know who these people in such a dress and preserving such
+silence were, went to where the servants were standing and put the
+question to one of them, who answered him.
+
+“Faith, sir, I cannot tell you who they are, I only know they seem to
+be people of distinction, particularly he who advanced to take the lady
+you saw in his arms; and I say so because all the rest show him
+respect, and nothing is done except what he directs and orders.”
+
+“And the lady, who is she?” asked the curate.
+
+“That I cannot tell you either,” said the servant, “for I have not seen
+her face all the way: I have indeed heard her sigh many times and utter
+such groans that she seems to be giving up the ghost every time; but it
+is no wonder if we do not know more than we have told you, as my
+comrade and I have only been in their company two days, for having met
+us on the road they begged and persuaded us to accompany them to
+Andalusia, promising to pay us well.”
+
+“And have you heard any of them called by his name?” asked the curate.
+
+“No, indeed,” replied the servant; “they all preserve a marvellous
+silence on the road, for not a sound is to be heard among them except
+the poor lady’s sighs and sobs, which make us pity her; and we feel
+sure that wherever it is she is going, it is against her will, and as
+far as one can judge from her dress she is a nun or, what is more
+likely, about to become one; and perhaps it is because taking the vows
+is not of her own free will, that she is so unhappy as she seems to
+be.”
+
+“That may well be,” said the curate, and leaving them he returned to
+where Dorothea was, who, hearing the veiled lady sigh, moved by natural
+compassion drew near to her and said, “What are you suffering from,
+señora? If it be anything that women are accustomed and know how to
+relieve, I offer you my services with all my heart.”
+
+To this the unhappy lady made no reply; and though Dorothea repeated
+her offers more earnestly she still kept silence, until the gentleman
+with the veil, who, the servant said, was obeyed by the rest,
+approached and said to Dorothea, “Do not give yourself the trouble,
+señora, of making any offers to that woman, for it is her way to give
+no thanks for anything that is done for her; and do not try to make her
+answer unless you want to hear some lie from her lips.”
+
+“I have never told a lie,” was the immediate reply of her who had been
+silent until now; “on the contrary, it is because I am so truthful and
+so ignorant of lying devices that I am now in this miserable condition;
+and this I call you yourself to witness, for it is my unstained truth
+that has made you false and a liar.”
+
+Cardenio heard these words clearly and distinctly, being quite close to
+the speaker, for there was only the door of Don Quixote’s room between
+them, and the instant he did so, uttering a loud exclamation he cried,
+“Good God! what is this I hear? What voice is this that has reached my
+ears?” Startled at the voice the lady turned her head; and not seeing
+the speaker she stood up and attempted to enter the room; observing
+which the gentleman held her back, preventing her from moving a step.
+In her agitation and sudden movement the silk with which she had
+covered her face fell off and disclosed a countenance of incomparable
+and marvellous beauty, but pale and terrified; for she kept turning her
+eyes, everywhere she could direct her gaze, with an eagerness that made
+her look as if she had lost her senses, and so marked that it excited
+the pity of Dorothea and all who beheld her, though they knew not what
+caused it. The gentleman grasped her firmly by the shoulders, and being
+so fully occupied with holding her back, he was unable to put a hand to
+his veil which was falling off, as it did at length entirely, and
+Dorothea, who was holding the lady in her arms, raising her eyes saw
+that he who likewise held her was her husband, Don Fernando. The
+instant she recognised him, with a prolonged plaintive cry drawn from
+the depths of her heart, she fell backwards fainting, and but for the
+barber being close by to catch her in his arms, she would have fallen
+completely to the ground. The curate at once hastened to uncover her
+face and throw water on it, and as he did so Don Fernando, for he it
+was who held the other in his arms, recognised her and stood as if
+death-stricken by the sight; not, however, relaxing his grasp of
+Luscinda, for it was she that was struggling to release herself from
+his hold, having recognised Cardenio by his voice, as he had recognised
+her. Cardenio also heard Dorothea’s cry as she fell fainting, and
+imagining that it came from his Luscinda burst forth in terror from the
+room, and the first thing he saw was Don Fernando with Luscinda in his
+arms. Don Fernando, too, knew Cardenio at once; and all three,
+Luscinda, Cardenio, and Dorothea, stood in silent amazement scarcely
+knowing what had happened to them.
+
+They gazed at one another without speaking, Dorothea at Don Fernando,
+Don Fernando at Cardenio, Cardenio at Luscinda, and Luscinda at
+Cardenio. The first to break silence was Luscinda, who thus addressed
+Don Fernando: “Leave me, Señor Don Fernando, for the sake of what you
+owe to yourself; if no other reason will induce you, leave me to cling
+to the wall of which I am the ivy, to the support from which neither
+your importunities, nor your threats, nor your promises, nor your gifts
+have been able to detach me. See how Heaven, by ways strange and hidden
+from our sight, has brought me face to face with my true husband; and
+well you know by dear-bought experience that death alone will be able
+to efface him from my memory. May this plain declaration, then, lead
+you, as you can do nothing else, to turn your love into rage, your
+affection into resentment, and so to take my life; for if I yield it up
+in the presence of my beloved husband I count it well bestowed; it may
+be by my death he will be convinced that I kept my faith to him to the
+last moment of life.”
+
+Meanwhile Dorothea had come to herself, and had heard Luscinda’s words,
+by means of which she divined who she was; but seeing that Don Fernando
+did not yet release her or reply to her, summoning up her resolution as
+well as she could she rose and knelt at his feet, and with a flood of
+bright and touching tears addressed him thus:
+
+“If, my lord, the beams of that sun that thou holdest eclipsed in thine
+arms did not dazzle and rob thine eyes of sight thou wouldst have seen
+by this time that she who kneels at thy feet is, so long as thou wilt
+have it so, the unhappy and unfortunate Dorothea. I am that lowly
+peasant girl whom thou in thy goodness or for thy pleasure wouldst
+raise high enough to call herself thine; I am she who in the seclusion
+of innocence led a contented life until at the voice of thy
+importunity, and thy true and tender passion, as it seemed, she opened
+the gates of her modesty and surrendered to thee the keys of her
+liberty; a gift received by thee but thanklessly, as is clearly shown
+by my forced retreat to the place where thou dost find me, and by thy
+appearance under the circumstances in which I see thee. Nevertheless, I
+would not have thee suppose that I have come here driven by my shame;
+it is only grief and sorrow at seeing myself forgotten by thee that
+have led me. It was thy will to make me thine, and thou didst so follow
+thy will, that now, even though thou repentest, thou canst not help
+being mine. Bethink thee, my lord, the unsurpassable affection I bear
+thee may compensate for the beauty and noble birth for which thou
+wouldst desert me. Thou canst not be the fair Luscinda’s because thou
+art mine, nor can she be thine because she is Cardenio’s; and it will
+be easier, remember, to bend thy will to love one who adores thee, than
+to lead one to love thee who abhors thee now. Thou didst address
+thyself to my simplicity, thou didst lay siege to my virtue, thou wert
+not ignorant of my station, well dost thou know how I yielded wholly to
+thy will; there is no ground or reason for thee to plead deception, and
+if it be so, as it is, and if thou art a Christian as thou art a
+gentleman, why dost thou by such subterfuges put off making me as happy
+at last as thou didst at first? And if thou wilt not have me for what I
+am, thy true and lawful wife, at least take and accept me as thy slave,
+for so long as I am thine I will count myself happy and fortunate. Do
+not by deserting me let my shame become the talk of the gossips in the
+streets; make not the old age of my parents miserable; for the loyal
+services they as faithful vassals have ever rendered thine are not
+deserving of such a return; and if thou thinkest it will debase thy
+blood to mingle it with mine, reflect that there is little or no
+nobility in the world that has not travelled the same road, and that in
+illustrious lineages it is not the woman’s blood that is of account;
+and, moreover, that true nobility consists in virtue, and if thou art
+wanting in that, refusing me what in justice thou owest me, then even I
+have higher claims to nobility than thine. To make an end, señor, these
+are my last words to thee: whether thou wilt, or wilt not, I am thy
+wife; witness thy words, which must not and ought not to be false, if
+thou dost pride thyself on that for want of which thou scornest me;
+witness the pledge which thou didst give me, and witness Heaven, which
+thou thyself didst call to witness the promise thou hadst made me; and
+if all this fail, thy own conscience will not fail to lift up its
+silent voice in the midst of all thy gaiety, and vindicate the truth of
+what I say and mar thy highest pleasure and enjoyment.”
+
+All this and more the injured Dorothea delivered with such earnest
+feeling and such tears that all present, even those who came with Don
+Fernando, were constrained to join her in them. Don Fernando listened
+to her without replying, until, ceasing to speak, she gave way to such
+sobs and sighs that it must have been a heart of brass that was not
+softened by the sight of so great sorrow. Luscinda stood regarding her
+with no less compassion for her sufferings than admiration for her
+intelligence and beauty, and would have gone to her to say some words
+of comfort to her, but was prevented by Don Fernando’s grasp which held
+her fast. He, overwhelmed with confusion and astonishment, after
+regarding Dorothea for some moments with a fixed gaze, opened his arms,
+and, releasing Luscinda, exclaimed:
+
+“Thou hast conquered, fair Dorothea, thou hast conquered, for it is
+impossible to have the heart to deny the united force of so many
+truths.”
+
+Luscinda in her feebleness was on the point of falling to the ground
+when Don Fernando released her, but Cardenio, who stood near, having
+retreated behind Don Fernando to escape recognition, casting fear aside
+and regardless of what might happen, ran forward to support her, and
+said as he clasped her in his arms, “If Heaven in its compassion is
+willing to let thee rest at last, mistress of my heart, true, constant,
+and fair, nowhere canst thou rest more safely than in these arms that
+now receive thee, and received thee before when fortune permitted me to
+call thee mine.”
+
+At these words Luscinda looked up at Cardenio, at first beginning to
+recognise him by his voice and then satisfying herself by her eyes that
+it was he, and hardly knowing what she did, and heedless of all
+considerations of decorum, she flung her arms around his neck and
+pressing her face close to his, said, “Yes, my dear lord, you are the
+true master of this your slave, even though adverse fate interpose
+again, and fresh dangers threaten this life that hangs on yours.”
+
+A strange sight was this for Don Fernando and those that stood around,
+filled with surprise at an incident so unlooked for. Dorothea fancied
+that Don Fernando changed colour and looked as though he meant to take
+vengeance on Cardenio, for she observed him put his hand to his sword;
+and the instant the idea struck her, with wonderful quickness she
+clasped him round the knees, and kissing them and holding him so as to
+prevent his moving, she said, while her tears continued to flow, “What
+is it thou wouldst do, my only refuge, in this unforeseen event? Thou
+hast thy wife at thy feet, and she whom thou wouldst have for thy wife
+is in the arms of her husband: reflect whether it will be right for
+thee, whether it will be possible for thee to undo what Heaven has
+done, or whether it will be becoming in thee to seek to raise her to be
+thy mate who in spite of every obstacle, and strong in her truth and
+constancy, is before thine eyes, bathing with the tears of love the
+face and bosom of her lawful husband. For God’s sake I entreat of thee,
+for thine own I implore thee, let not this open manifestation rouse thy
+anger; but rather so calm it as to allow these two lovers to live in
+peace and quiet without any interference from thee so long as Heaven
+permits them; and in so doing thou wilt prove the generosity of thy
+lofty noble spirit, and the world shall see that with thee reason has
+more influence than passion.”
+
+All the time Dorothea was speaking, Cardenio, though he held Luscinda
+in his arms, never took his eyes off Don Fernando, determined, if he
+saw him make any hostile movement, to try and defend himself and resist
+as best he could all who might assail him, though it should cost him
+his life. But now Don Fernando’s friends, as well as the curate and the
+barber, who had been present all the while, not forgetting the worthy
+Sancho Panza, ran forward and gathered round Don Fernando, entreating
+him to have regard for the tears of Dorothea, and not suffer her
+reasonable hopes to be disappointed, since, as they firmly believed,
+what she said was but the truth; and bidding him observe that it was
+not, as it might seem, by accident, but by a special disposition of
+Providence that they had all met in a place where no one could have
+expected a meeting. And the curate bade him remember that only death
+could part Luscinda from Cardenio; that even if some sword were to
+separate them they would think their death most happy; and that in a
+case that admitted of no remedy his wisest course was, by conquering
+and putting a constraint upon himself, to show a generous mind, and of
+his own accord suffer these two to enjoy the happiness Heaven had
+granted them. He bade him, too, turn his eyes upon the beauty of
+Dorothea and he would see that few if any could equal much less excel
+her; while to that beauty should be added her modesty and the
+surpassing love she bore him. But besides all this, he reminded him
+that if he prided himself on being a gentleman and a Christian, he
+could not do otherwise than keep his plighted word; and that in doing
+so he would obey God and meet the approval of all sensible people, who
+know and recognised it to be the privilege of beauty, even in one of
+humble birth, provided virtue accompany it, to be able to raise itself
+to the level of any rank, without any slur upon him who places it upon
+an equality with himself; and furthermore that when the potent sway of
+passion asserts itself, so long as there be no mixture of sin in it, he
+is not to be blamed who gives way to it.
+
+To be brief, they added to these such other forcible arguments that Don
+Fernando’s manly heart, being after all nourished by noble blood, was
+touched, and yielded to the truth which, even had he wished it, he
+could not gainsay; and he showed his submission, and acceptance of the
+good advice that had been offered to him, by stooping down and
+embracing Dorothea, saying to her, “Rise, dear lady, it is not right
+that what I hold in my heart should be kneeling at my feet; and if
+until now I have shown no sign of what I own, it may have been by
+Heaven’s decree in order that, seeing the constancy with which you love
+me, I may learn to value you as you deserve. What I entreat of you is
+that you reproach me not with my transgression and grievous
+wrong-doing; for the same cause and force that drove me to make you
+mine impelled me to struggle against being yours; and to prove this,
+turn and look at the eyes of the now happy Luscinda, and you will see
+in them an excuse for all my errors: and as she has found and gained
+the object of her desires, and I have found in you what satisfies all
+my wishes, may she live in peace and contentment as many happy years
+with her Cardenio, as on my knees I pray Heaven to allow me to live
+with my Dorothea;” and with these words he once more embraced her and
+pressed his face to hers with so much tenderness that he had to take
+great heed to keep his tears from completing the proof of his love and
+repentance in the sight of all. Not so Luscinda, and Cardenio, and
+almost all the others, for they shed so many tears, some in their own
+happiness, some at that of the others, that one would have supposed a
+heavy calamity had fallen upon them all. Even Sancho Panza was weeping;
+though afterwards he said he only wept because he saw that Dorothea was
+not as he fancied the queen Micomicona, of whom he expected such great
+favours. Their wonder as well as their weeping lasted some time, and
+then Cardenio and Luscinda went and fell on their knees before Don
+Fernando, returning him thanks for the favour he had rendered them in
+language so grateful that he knew not how to answer them, and raising
+them up embraced them with every mark of affection and courtesy.
+
+He then asked Dorothea how she had managed to reach a place so far
+removed from her own home, and she in a few fitting words told all that
+she had previously related to Cardenio, with which Don Fernando and his
+companions were so delighted that they wished the story had been
+longer; so charmingly did Dorothea describe her misadventures. When she
+had finished Don Fernando recounted what had befallen him in the city
+after he had found in Luscinda’s bosom the paper in which she declared
+that she was Cardenio’s wife, and never could be his. He said he meant
+to kill her, and would have done so had he not been prevented by her
+parents, and that he quitted the house full of rage and shame, and
+resolved to avenge himself when a more convenient opportunity should
+offer. The next day he learned that Luscinda had disappeared from her
+father’s house, and that no one could tell whither she had gone.
+Finally, at the end of some months he ascertained that she was in a
+convent and meant to remain there all the rest of her life, if she were
+not to share it with Cardenio; and as soon as he had learned this,
+taking these three gentlemen as his companions, he arrived at the place
+where she was, but avoided speaking to her, fearing that if it were
+known he was there stricter precautions would be taken in the convent;
+and watching a time when the porter’s lodge was open he left two to
+guard the gate, and he and the other entered the convent in quest of
+Luscinda, whom they found in the cloisters in conversation with one of
+the nuns, and carrying her off without giving her time to resist, they
+reached a place with her where they provided themselves with what they
+required for taking her away; all which they were able to do in
+complete safety, as the convent was in the country at a considerable
+distance from the city. He added that when Luscinda found herself in
+his power she lost all consciousness, and after returning to herself
+did nothing but weep and sigh without speaking a word; and thus in
+silence and tears they reached that inn, which for him was reaching
+heaven where all the mischances of earth are over and at an end.
+
+
+
+c36b.jpg (319K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+c36e.jpg (36K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE STORY OF THE FAMOUS PRINCESS MICOMICONA, WITH
+OTHER DROLL ADVENTURES
+
+
+
+
+c37a.jpg (159K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+To all this Sancho listened with no little sorrow at heart to see how
+his hopes of dignity were fading away and vanishing in smoke, and how
+the fair Princess Micomicona had turned into Dorothea, and the giant
+into Don Fernando, while his master was sleeping tranquilly, totally
+unconscious of all that had come to pass. Dorothea was unable to
+persuade herself that her present happiness was not all a dream;
+Cardenio was in a similar state of mind, and Luscinda’s thoughts ran in
+the same direction. Don Fernando gave thanks to Heaven for the favour
+shown to him and for having been rescued from the intricate labyrinth
+in which he had been brought so near the destruction of his good name
+and of his soul; and in short everybody in the inn was full of
+contentment and satisfaction at the happy issue of such a complicated
+and hopeless business. The curate as a sensible man made sound
+reflections upon the whole affair, and congratulated each upon his good
+fortune; but the one that was in the highest spirits and good humour
+was the landlady, because of the promise Cardenio and the curate had
+given her to pay for all the losses and damage she had sustained
+through Don Quixote’s means. Sancho, as has been already said, was the
+only one who was distressed, unhappy, and dejected; and so with a long
+face he went in to his master, who had just awoke, and said to him:
+
+“Sir Rueful Countenance, your worship may as well sleep on as much as
+you like, without troubling yourself about killing any giant or
+restoring her kingdom to the princess; for that is all over and settled
+now.”
+
+“I should think it was,” replied Don Quixote, “for I have had the most
+prodigious and stupendous battle with the giant that I ever remember
+having had all the days of my life; and with one back-stroke—swish!—I
+brought his head tumbling to the ground, and so much blood gushed forth
+from him that it ran in rivulets over the earth like water.”
+
+“Like red wine, your worship had better say,” replied Sancho; “for I
+would have you know, if you don’t know it, that the dead giant is a
+hacked wine-skin, and the blood four-and-twenty gallons of red wine
+that it had in its belly, and the cut-off head is the bitch that bore
+me; and the devil take it all.”
+
+“What art thou talking about, fool?” said Don Quixote; “art thou in thy
+senses?”
+
+“Let your worship get up,” said Sancho, “and you will see the nice
+business you have made of it, and what we have to pay; and you will see
+the queen turned into a private lady called Dorothea, and other things
+that will astonish you, if you understand them.”
+
+“I shall not be surprised at anything of the kind,” returned Don
+Quixote; “for if thou dost remember the last time we were here I told
+thee that everything that happened here was a matter of enchantment,
+and it would be no wonder if it were the same now.”
+
+“I could believe all that,” replied Sancho, “if my blanketing was the
+same sort of thing also; only it wasn’t, but real and genuine; for I
+saw the landlord, who is here to-day, holding one end of the blanket
+and jerking me up to the skies very neatly and smartly, and with as
+much laughter as strength; and when it comes to be a case of knowing
+people, I hold for my part, simple and sinner as I am, that there is no
+enchantment about it at all, but a great deal of bruising and bad
+luck.”
+
+“Well, well, God will give a remedy,” said Don Quixote; “hand me my
+clothes and let me go out, for I want to see these transformations and
+things thou speakest of.”
+
+Sancho fetched him his clothes; and while he was dressing, the curate
+gave Don Fernando and the others present an account of Don Quixote’s
+madness and of the stratagem they had made use of to withdraw him from
+that Pena Pobre where he fancied himself stationed because of his
+lady’s scorn. He described to them also nearly all the adventures that
+Sancho had mentioned, at which they marvelled and laughed not a little,
+thinking it, as all did, the strangest form of madness a crazy
+intellect could be capable of. But now, the curate said, that the lady
+Dorothea’s good fortune prevented her from proceeding with their
+purpose, it would be necessary to devise or discover some other way of
+getting him home.
+
+Cardenio proposed to carry out the scheme they had begun, and suggested
+that Luscinda would act and support Dorothea’s part sufficiently well.
+
+“No,” said Don Fernando, “that must not be, for I want Dorothea to
+follow out this idea of hers; and if the worthy gentleman’s village is
+not very far off, I shall be happy if I can do anything for his
+relief.”
+
+“It is not more than two days’ journey from this,” said the curate.
+
+“Even if it were more,” said Don Fernando, “I would gladly travel so
+far for the sake of doing so good a work.”
+
+At this moment Don Quixote came out in full panoply, with Mambrino’s
+helmet, all dinted as it was, on his head, his buckler on his arm, and
+leaning on his staff or pike. The strange figure he presented filled
+Don Fernando and the rest with amazement as they contemplated his lean
+yellow face half a league long, his armour of all sorts, and the
+solemnity of his deportment. They stood silent waiting to see what he
+would say, and he, fixing his eyes on the fair Dorothea, addressed her
+with great gravity and composure:
+
+“I am informed, fair lady, by my squire here that your greatness has
+been annihilated and your being abolished, since, from a queen and lady
+of high degree as you used to be, you have been turned into a private
+maiden. If this has been done by the command of the magician king your
+father, through fear that I should not afford you the aid you need and
+are entitled to, I may tell you he did not know and does not know half
+the mass, and was little versed in the annals of chivalry; for, if he
+had read and gone through them as attentively and deliberately as I
+have, he would have found at every turn that knights of less renown
+than mine have accomplished things more difficult: it is no great
+matter to kill a whelp of a giant, however arrogant he may be; for it
+is not many hours since I myself was engaged with one, and—I will not
+speak of it, that they may not say I am lying; time, however, that
+reveals all, will tell the tale when we least expect it.”
+
+“You were engaged with a couple of wine-skins, and not a giant,” said
+the landlord at this; but Don Fernando told him to hold his tongue and
+on no account interrupt Don Quixote, who continued, “I say in
+conclusion, high and disinherited lady, that if your father has brought
+about this metamorphosis in your person for the reason I have
+mentioned, you ought not to attach any importance to it; for there is
+no peril on earth through which my sword will not force a way, and with
+it, before many days are over, I will bring your enemy’s head to the
+ground and place on yours the crown of your kingdom.”
+
+Don Quixote said no more, and waited for the reply of the princess, who
+aware of Don Fernando’s determination to carry on the deception until
+Don Quixote had been conveyed to his home, with great ease of manner
+and gravity made answer, “Whoever told you, valiant Knight of the
+Rueful Countenance, that I had undergone any change or transformation
+did not tell you the truth, for I am the same as I was yesterday. It is
+true that certain strokes of good fortune, that have given me more than
+I could have hoped for, have made some alteration in me; but I have not
+therefore ceased to be what I was before, or to entertain the same
+desire I have had all through of availing myself of the might of your
+valiant and invincible arm. And so, señor, let your goodness reinstate
+the father that begot me in your good opinion, and be assured that he
+was a wise and prudent man, since by his craft he found out such a sure
+and easy way of remedying my misfortune; for I believe, señor, that had
+it not been for you I should never have lit upon the good fortune I now
+possess; and in this I am saying what is perfectly true; as most of
+these gentlemen who are present can fully testify. All that remains is
+to set out on our journey to-morrow, for to-day we could not make much
+way; and for the rest of the happy result I am looking forward to, I
+trust to God and the valour of your heart.”
+
+So said the sprightly Dorothea, and on hearing her Don Quixote turned
+to Sancho, and said to him, with an angry air, “I declare now, little
+Sancho, thou art the greatest little villain in Spain. Say, thief and
+vagabond, hast thou not just now told me that this princess had been
+turned into a maiden called Dorothea, and that the head which I am
+persuaded I cut off from a giant was the bitch that bore thee, and
+other nonsense that put me in the greatest perplexity I have ever been
+in all my life? I vow” (and here he looked to heaven and ground his
+teeth) “I have a mind to play the mischief with thee, in a way that
+will teach sense for the future to all lying squires of knights-errant
+in the world.”
+
+“Let your worship be calm, señor,” returned Sancho, “for it may well be
+that I have been mistaken as to the change of the lady princess
+Micomicona; but as to the giant’s head, or at least as to the piercing
+of the wine-skins, and the blood being red wine, I make no mistake, as
+sure as there is a God; because the wounded skins are there at the head
+of your worship’s bed, and the wine has made a lake of the room; if not
+you will see when the eggs come to be fried; I mean when his worship
+the landlord calls for all the damages: for the rest, I am heartily
+glad that her ladyship the queen is as she was, for it concerns me as
+much as anyone.”
+
+“I tell thee again, Sancho, thou art a fool,” said Don Quixote;
+“forgive me, and that will do.”
+
+“That will do,” said Don Fernando; “let us say no more about it; and as
+her ladyship the princess proposes to set out to-morrow because it is
+too late to-day, so be it, and we will pass the night in pleasant
+conversation, and to-morrow we will all accompany Señor Don Quixote;
+for we wish to witness the valiant and unparalleled achievements he is
+about to perform in the course of this mighty enterprise which he has
+undertaken.”
+
+“It is I who shall wait upon and accompany you,” said Don Quixote; “and
+I am much gratified by the favour that is bestowed upon me, and the
+good opinion entertained of me, which I shall strive to justify or it
+shall cost me my life, or even more, if it can possibly cost me more.”
+
+Many were the compliments and expressions of politeness that passed
+between Don Quixote and Don Fernando; but they were brought to an end
+by a traveller who at this moment entered the inn, and who seemed from
+his attire to be a Christian lately come from the country of the Moors,
+for he was dressed in a short-skirted coat of blue cloth with
+half-sleeves and without a collar; his breeches were also of blue
+cloth, and his cap of the same colour, and he wore yellow buskins and
+had a Moorish cutlass slung from a baldric across his breast. Behind
+him, mounted upon an ass, there came a woman dressed in Moorish
+fashion, with her face veiled and a scarf on her head, and wearing a
+little brocaded cap, and a mantle that covered her from her shoulders
+to her feet. The man was of a robust and well-proportioned frame, in
+age a little over forty, rather swarthy in complexion, with long
+moustaches and a full beard, and, in short, his appearance was such
+that if he had been well dressed he would have been taken for a person
+of quality and good birth. On entering he asked for a room, and when
+they told him there was none in the inn he seemed distressed, and
+approaching her who by her dress seemed to be a Moor, he took her down
+from the saddle in his arms. Luscinda, Dorothea, the landlady, her
+daughter and Maritornes, attracted by the strange, and to them entirely
+new costume, gathered round her; and Dorothea, who was always kindly,
+courteous, and quick-witted, perceiving that both she and the man who
+had brought her were annoyed at not finding a room, said to her, “Do
+not be put out, señora, by the discomfort and want of luxuries here,
+for it is the way of road-side inns to be without them; still, if you
+will be pleased to share our lodging with us (pointing to Luscinda)
+perhaps you will have found worse accommodation in the course of your
+journey.”
+
+To this the veiled lady made no reply; all she did was to rise from her
+seat, crossing her hands upon her bosom, bowing her head and bending
+her body as a sign that she returned thanks. From her silence they
+concluded that she must be a Moor and unable to speak a Christian
+tongue.
+
+At this moment the captive came up, having been until now otherwise
+engaged, and seeing that they all stood round his companion and that
+she made no reply to what they addressed to her, he said, “Ladies, this
+damsel hardly understands my language and can speak none but that of
+her own country, for which reason she does not and cannot answer what
+has been asked of her.”
+
+“Nothing has been asked of her,” returned Luscinda; “she has only been
+offered our company for this evening and a share of the quarters we
+occupy, where she shall be made as comfortable as the circumstances
+allow, with the good-will we are bound to show all strangers that stand
+in need of it, especially if it be a woman to whom the service is
+rendered.”
+
+“On her part and my own, señora,” replied the captive, “I kiss your
+hands, and I esteem highly, as I ought, the favour you have offered,
+which, on such an occasion and coming from persons of your appearance,
+is, it is plain to see, a very great one.”
+
+“Tell me, señor,” said Dorothea, “is this lady a Christian or a Moor?
+for her dress and her silence lead us to imagine that she is what we
+could wish she was not.”
+
+“In dress and outwardly,” said he, “she is a Moor, but at heart she is
+a thoroughly good Christian, for she has the greatest desire to become
+one.”
+
+“Then she has not been baptised?” returned Luscinda.
+
+“There has been no opportunity for that,” replied the captive, “since
+she left Algiers, her native country and home; and up to the present
+she has not found herself in any such imminent danger of death as to
+make it necessary to baptise her before she has been instructed in all
+the ceremonies our holy mother Church ordains; but, please God, ere
+long she shall be baptised with the solemnity befitting her which is
+higher than her dress or mine indicates.”
+
+By these words he excited a desire in all who heard him, to know who
+the Moorish lady and the captive were, but no one liked to ask just
+then, seeing that it was a fitter moment for helping them to rest
+themselves than for questioning them about their lives. Dorothea took
+the Moorish lady by the hand and leading her to a seat beside herself,
+requested her to remove her veil. She looked at the captive as if to
+ask him what they meant and what she was to do. He said to her in
+Arabic that they asked her to take off her veil, and thereupon she
+removed it and disclosed a countenance so lovely, that to Dorothea she
+seemed more beautiful than Luscinda, and to Luscinda more beautiful
+than Dorothea, and all the bystanders felt that if any beauty could
+compare with theirs it was the Moorish lady’s, and there were even
+those who were inclined to give it somewhat the preference. And as it
+is the privilege and charm of beauty to win the heart and secure
+good-will, all forthwith became eager to show kindness and attention to
+the lovely Moor.
+
+Don Fernando asked the captive what her name was, and he replied that
+it was Lela Zoraida; but the instant she heard him, she guessed what
+the Christian had asked, and said hastily, with some displeasure and
+energy, “No, not Zoraida; Maria, Maria!” giving them to understand that
+she was called “Maria” and not “Zoraida.” These words, and the touching
+earnestness with which she uttered them, drew more than one tear from
+some of the listeners, particularly the women, who are by nature
+tender-hearted and compassionate. Luscinda embraced her affectionately,
+saying, “Yes, yes, Maria, Maria,” to which the Moor replied, “Yes, yes,
+Maria; Zoraida macange,” which means “not Zoraida.”
+
+Night was now approaching, and by the orders of those who accompanied
+Don Fernando the landlord had taken care and pains to prepare for them
+the best supper that was in his power. The hour therefore having
+arrived they all took their seats at a long table like a refectory one,
+for round or square table there was none in the inn, and the seat of
+honour at the head of it, though he was for refusing it, they assigned
+to Don Quixote, who desired the lady Micomicona to place herself by his
+side, as he was her protector. Luscinda and Zoraida took their places
+next her, opposite to them were Don Fernando and Cardenio, and next the
+captive and the other gentlemen, and by the side of the ladies, the
+curate and the barber. And so they supped in high enjoyment, which was
+increased when they observed Don Quixote leave off eating, and, moved
+by an impulse like that which made him deliver himself at such length
+when he supped with the goatherds, begin to address them:
+
+“Verily, gentlemen, if we reflect upon it, great and marvellous are the
+things they see, who make profession of the order of knight-errantry.
+Say, what being is there in this world, who entering the gate of this
+castle at this moment, and seeing us as we are here, would suppose or
+imagine us to be what we are? Who would say that this lady who is
+beside me was the great queen that we all know her to be, or that I am
+that Knight of the Rueful Countenance, trumpeted far and wide by the
+mouth of Fame? Now, there can be no doubt that this art and calling
+surpasses all those that mankind has invented, and is the more
+deserving of being held in honour in proportion as it is the more
+exposed to peril. Away with those who assert that letters have the
+preeminence over arms; I will tell them, whosoever they may be, that
+they know not what they say. For the reason which such persons commonly
+assign, and upon which they chiefly rest, is, that the labours of the
+mind are greater than those of the body, and that arms give employment
+to the body alone; as if the calling were a porter’s trade, for which
+nothing more is required than sturdy strength; or as if, in what we who
+profess them call arms, there were not included acts of vigour for the
+execution of which high intelligence is requisite; or as if the soul of
+the warrior, when he has an army, or the defence of a city under his
+care, did not exert itself as much by mind as by body. Nay; see whether
+by bodily strength it be possible to learn or divine the intentions of
+the enemy, his plans, stratagems, or obstacles, or to ward off
+impending mischief; for all these are the work of the mind, and in them
+the body has no share whatever. Since, therefore, arms have need of the
+mind, as much as letters, let us see now which of the two minds, that
+of the man of letters or that of the warrior, has most to do; and this
+will be seen by the end and goal that each seeks to attain; for that
+purpose is the more estimable which has for its aim the nobler object.
+The end and goal of letters—I am not speaking now of divine letters,
+the aim of which is to raise and direct the soul to Heaven; for with an
+end so infinite no other can be compared—I speak of human letters, the
+end of which is to establish distributive justice, give to every man
+that which is his, and see and take care that good laws are observed:
+an end undoubtedly noble, lofty, and deserving of high praise, but not
+such as should be given to that sought by arms, which have for their
+end and object peace, the greatest boon that men can desire in this
+life. The first good news the world and mankind received was that which
+the angels announced on the night that was our day, when they sang in
+the air, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of
+good-will;’ and the salutation which the great Master of heaven and
+earth taught his disciples and chosen followers when they entered any
+house, was to say, ‘Peace be on this house;’ and many other times he
+said to them, ‘My peace I give unto you, my peace I leave you, peace be
+with you;’ a jewel and a precious gift given and left by such a hand: a
+jewel without which there can be no happiness either on earth or in
+heaven. This peace is the true end of war; and war is only another name
+for arms. This, then, being admitted, that the end of war is peace, and
+that so far it has the advantage of the end of letters, let us turn to
+the bodily labours of the man of letters, and those of him who follows
+the profession of arms, and see which are the greater.”
+
+Don Quixote delivered his discourse in such a manner and in such
+correct language, that for the time being he made it impossible for any
+of his hearers to consider him a madman; on the contrary, as they were
+mostly gentlemen, to whom arms are an appurtenance by birth, they
+listened to him with great pleasure as he continued: “Here, then, I say
+is what the student has to undergo; first of all poverty: not that all
+are poor, but to put the case as strongly as possible: and when I have
+said that he endures poverty, I think nothing more need be said about
+his hard fortune, for he who is poor has no share of the good things of
+life. This poverty he suffers from in various ways, hunger, or cold, or
+nakedness, or all together; but for all that it is not so extreme but
+that he gets something to eat, though it may be at somewhat
+unseasonable hours and from the leavings of the rich; for the greatest
+misery of the student is what they themselves call ‘going out for
+soup,’ and there is always some neighbour’s brazier or hearth for them,
+which, if it does not warm, at least tempers the cold to them, and
+lastly, they sleep comfortably at night under a roof. I will not go
+into other particulars, as for example want of shirts, and no
+superabundance of shoes, thin and threadbare garments, and gorging
+themselves to surfeit in their voracity when good luck has treated them
+to a banquet of some sort. By this road that I have described, rough
+and hard, stumbling here, falling there, getting up again to fall
+again, they reach the rank they desire, and that once attained, we have
+seen many who have passed these Syrtes and Scyllas and Charybdises, as
+if borne flying on the wings of favouring fortune; we have seen them, I
+say, ruling and governing the world from a chair, their hunger turned
+into satiety, their cold into comfort, their nakedness into fine
+raiment, their sleep on a mat into repose in holland and damask, the
+justly earned reward of their virtue; but, contrasted and compared with
+what the warrior undergoes, all they have undergone falls far short of
+it, as I am now about to show.”
+
+
+
+c37e.jpg (13K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+WHICH TREATS OF THE CURIOUS DISCOURSE DON QUIXOTE DELIVERED ON ARMS AND
+LETTERS
+
+
+
+
+c38a.jpg (180K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Continuing his discourse Don Quixote said: “As we began in the
+student’s case with poverty and its accompaniments, let us see now if
+the soldier is richer, and we shall find that in poverty itself there
+is no one poorer; for he is dependent on his miserable pay, which comes
+late or never, or else on what he can plunder, seriously imperilling
+his life and conscience; and sometimes his nakedness will be so great
+that a slashed doublet serves him for uniform and shirt, and in the
+depth of winter he has to defend himself against the inclemency of the
+weather in the open field with nothing better than the breath of his
+mouth, which I need not say, coming from an empty place, must come out
+cold, contrary to the laws of nature. To be sure he looks forward to
+the approach of night to make up for all these discomforts on the bed
+that awaits him, which, unless by some fault of his, never sins by
+being over narrow, for he can easily measure out on the ground as he
+likes, and roll himself about in it to his heart’s content without any
+fear of the sheets slipping away from him. Then, after all this,
+suppose the day and hour for taking his degree in his calling to have
+come; suppose the day of battle to have arrived, when they invest him
+with the doctor’s cap made of lint, to mend some bullet-hole, perhaps,
+that has gone through his temples, or left him with a crippled arm or
+leg. Or if this does not happen, and merciful Heaven watches over him
+and keeps him safe and sound, it may be he will be in the same poverty
+he was in before, and he must go through more engagements and more
+battles, and come victorious out of all before he betters himself; but
+miracles of that sort are seldom seen. For tell me, sirs, if you have
+ever reflected upon it, by how much do those who have gained by war
+fall short of the number of those who have perished in it? No doubt you
+will reply that there can be no comparison, that the dead cannot be
+numbered, while the living who have been rewarded may be summed up with
+three figures. All which is the reverse in the case of men of letters;
+for by skirts, to say nothing of sleeves, they all find means of
+support; so that though the soldier has more to endure, his reward is
+much less. But against all this it may be urged that it is easier to
+reward two thousand soldiers, for the former may be remunerated by
+giving them places, which must perforce be conferred upon men of their
+calling, while the latter can only be recompensed out of the very
+property of the master they serve; but this impossibility only
+strengthens my argument.
+
+“Putting this, however, aside, for it is a puzzling question for which
+it is difficult to find a solution, let us return to the superiority of
+arms over letters, a matter still undecided, so many are the arguments
+put forward on each side; for besides those I have mentioned, letters
+say that without them arms cannot maintain themselves, for war, too,
+has its laws and is governed by them, and laws belong to the domain of
+letters and men of letters. To this arms make answer that without them
+laws cannot be maintained, for by arms states are defended, kingdoms
+preserved, cities protected, roads made safe, seas cleared of pirates;
+and, in short, if it were not for them, states, kingdoms, monarchies,
+cities, ways by sea and land would be exposed to the violence and
+confusion which war brings with it, so long as it lasts and is free to
+make use of its privileges and powers. And then it is plain that
+whatever costs most is valued and deserves to be valued most. To attain
+to eminence in letters costs a man time, watching, hunger, nakedness,
+headaches, indigestions, and other things of the sort, some of which I
+have already referred to. But for a man to come in the ordinary course
+of things to be a good soldier costs him all the student suffers, and
+in an incomparably higher degree, for at every step he runs the risk of
+losing his life. For what dread of want or poverty that can reach or
+harass the student can compare with what the soldier feels, who finds
+himself beleaguered in some stronghold mounting guard in some ravelin
+or cavalier, knows that the enemy is pushing a mine towards the post
+where he is stationed, and cannot under any circumstances retire or fly
+from the imminent danger that threatens him? All he can do is to inform
+his captain of what is going on so that he may try to remedy it by a
+counter-mine, and then stand his ground in fear and expectation of the
+moment when he will fly up to the clouds without wings and descend into
+the deep against his will. And if this seems a trifling risk, let us
+see whether it is equalled or surpassed by the encounter of two galleys
+stem to stem, in the midst of the open sea, locked and entangled one
+with the other, when the soldier has no more standing room than two
+feet of the plank of the spur; and yet, though he sees before him
+threatening him as many ministers of death as there are cannon of the
+foe pointed at him, not a lance length from his body, and sees too that
+with the first heedless step he will go down to visit the profundities
+of Neptune’s bosom, still with dauntless heart, urged on by honour that
+nerves him, he makes himself a target for all that musketry, and
+struggles to cross that narrow path to the enemy’s ship. And what is
+still more marvellous, no sooner has one gone down into the depths he
+will never rise from till the end of the world, than another takes his
+place; and if he too falls into the sea that waits for him like an
+enemy, another and another will succeed him without a moment’s pause
+between their deaths: courage and daring the greatest that all the
+chances of war can show. Happy the blest ages that knew not the dread
+fury of those devilish engines of artillery, whose inventor I am
+persuaded is in hell receiving the reward of his diabolical invention,
+by which he made it easy for a base and cowardly arm to take the life
+of a gallant gentleman; and that, when he knows not how or whence, in
+the height of the ardour and enthusiasm that fire and animate brave
+hearts, there should come some random bullet, discharged perhaps by one
+who fled in terror at the flash when he fired off his accursed machine,
+which in an instant puts an end to the projects and cuts off the life
+of one who deserved to live for ages to come. And thus when I reflect
+on this, I am almost tempted to say that in my heart I repent of having
+adopted this profession of knight-errant in so detestable an age as we
+live in now; for though no peril can make me fear, still it gives me
+some uneasiness to think that powder and lead may rob me of the
+opportunity of making myself famous and renowned throughout the known
+earth by the might of my arm and the edge of my sword. But Heaven’s
+will be done; if I succeed in my attempt I shall be all the more
+honoured, as I have faced greater dangers than the knights-errant of
+yore exposed themselves to.”
+
+All this lengthy discourse Don Quixote delivered while the others
+supped, forgetting to raise a morsel to his lips, though Sancho more
+than once told him to eat his supper, as he would have time enough
+afterwards to say all he wanted. It excited fresh pity in those who had
+heard him to see a man of apparently sound sense, and with rational
+views on every subject he discussed, so hopelessly wanting in all, when
+his wretched unlucky chivalry was in question. The curate told him he
+was quite right in all he had said in favour of arms, and that he
+himself, though a man of letters and a graduate, was of the same
+opinion.
+
+They finished their supper, the cloth was removed, and while the
+hostess, her daughter, and Maritornes were getting Don Quixote of La
+Mancha’s garret ready, in which it was arranged that the women were to
+be quartered by themselves for the night, Don Fernando begged the
+captive to tell them the story of his life, for it could not fail to be
+strange and interesting, to judge by the hints he had let fall on his
+arrival in company with Zoraida. To this the captive replied that he
+would very willingly yield to his request, only he feared his tale
+would not give them as much pleasure as he wished; nevertheless, not to
+be wanting in compliance, he would tell it. The curate and the others
+thanked him and added their entreaties, and he finding himself so
+pressed said there was no occasion to ask, where a command had such
+weight, and added, “If your worships will give me your attention you
+will hear a true story which, perhaps, fictitious ones constructed with
+ingenious and studied art cannot come up to.” These words made them
+settle themselves in their places and preserve a deep silence, and he
+seeing them waiting on his words in mute expectation, began thus in a
+pleasant quiet voice.
+
+
+
+c38e.jpg (18K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+WHEREIN THE CAPTIVE RELATES HIS LIFE AND ADVENTURES
+
+
+
+
+c39a.jpg (137K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+My family had its origin in a village in the mountains of Leon, and
+nature had been kinder and more generous to it than fortune; though in
+the general poverty of those communities my father passed for being
+even a rich man; and he would have been so in reality had he been as
+clever in preserving his property as he was in spending it. This
+tendency of his to be liberal and profuse he had acquired from having
+been a soldier in his youth, for the soldier’s life is a school in
+which the niggard becomes free-handed and the free-handed prodigal; and
+if any soldiers are to be found who are misers, they are monsters of
+rare occurrence. My father went beyond liberality and bordered on
+prodigality, a disposition by no means advantageous to a married man
+who has children to succeed to his name and position. My father had
+three, all sons, and all of sufficient age to make choice of a
+profession. Finding, then, that he was unable to resist his propensity,
+he resolved to divest himself of the instrument and cause of his
+prodigality and lavishness, to divest himself of wealth, without which
+Alexander himself would have seemed parsimonious; and so calling us all
+three aside one day into a room, he addressed us in words somewhat to
+the following effect:
+
+“My sons, to assure you that I love you, no more need be known or said
+than that you are my sons; and to encourage a suspicion that I do not
+love you, no more is needed than the knowledge that I have no
+self-control as far as preservation of your patrimony is concerned;
+therefore, that you may for the future feel sure that I love you like a
+father, and have no wish to ruin you like a stepfather, I propose to do
+with you what I have for some time back meditated, and after mature
+deliberation decided upon. You are now of an age to choose your line of
+life or at least make choice of a calling that will bring you honour
+and profit when you are older; and what I have resolved to do is to
+divide my property into four parts; three I will give to you, to each
+his portion without making any difference, and the other I will retain
+to live upon and support myself for whatever remainder of life Heaven
+may be pleased to grant me. But I wish each of you on taking possession
+of the share that falls to him to follow one of the paths I shall
+indicate. In this Spain of ours there is a proverb, to my mind very
+true—as they all are, being short aphorisms drawn from long practical
+experience—and the one I refer to says, ‘The church, or the sea, or the
+king’s house;’ as much as to say, in plainer language, whoever wants to
+flourish and become rich, let him follow the church, or go to sea,
+adopting commerce as his calling, or go into the king’s service in his
+household, for they say, ‘Better a king’s crumb than a lord’s favour.’
+I say so because it is my will and pleasure that one of you should
+follow letters, another trade, and the third serve the king in the
+wars, for it is a difficult matter to gain admission to his service in
+his household, and if war does not bring much wealth it confers great
+distinction and fame. Eight days hence I will give you your full shares
+in money, without defrauding you of a farthing, as you will see in the
+end. Now tell me if you are willing to follow out my idea and advice as
+I have laid it before you.”
+
+Having called upon me as the eldest to answer, I, after urging him not
+to strip himself of his property but to spend it all as he pleased, for
+we were young men able to gain our living, consented to comply with his
+wishes, and said that mine were to follow the profession of arms and
+thereby serve God and my king. My second brother having made the same
+proposal, decided upon going to the Indies, embarking the portion that
+fell to him in trade. The youngest, and in my opinion the wisest, said
+he would rather follow the church, or go to complete his studies at
+Salamanca. As soon as we had come to an understanding, and made choice
+of our professions, my father embraced us all, and in the short time he
+mentioned carried into effect all he had promised; and when he had
+given to each his share, which as well as I remember was three thousand
+ducats apiece in cash (for an uncle of ours bought the estate and paid
+for it down, not to let it go out of the family), we all three on the
+same day took leave of our good father; and at the same time, as it
+seemed to me inhuman to leave my father with such scanty means in his
+old age, I induced him to take two of my three thousand ducats, as the
+remainder would be enough to provide me with all a soldier needed. My
+two brothers, moved by my example, gave him each a thousand ducats, so
+that there was left for my father four thousand ducats in money,
+besides three thousand, the value of the portion that fell to him which
+he preferred to retain in land instead of selling it. Finally, as I
+said, we took leave of him, and of our uncle whom I have mentioned, not
+without sorrow and tears on both sides, they charging us to let them
+know whenever an opportunity offered how we fared, whether well or ill.
+We promised to do so, and when he had embraced us and given us his
+blessing, one set out for Salamanca, the other for Seville, and I for
+Alicante, where I had heard there was a Genoese vessel taking in a
+cargo of wool for Genoa.
+
+It is now some twenty-two years since I left my father’s house, and all
+that time, though I have written several letters, I have had no news
+whatever of him or of my brothers; my own adventures during that period
+I will now relate briefly. I embarked at Alicante, reached Genoa after
+a prosperous voyage, and proceeded thence to Milan, where I provided
+myself with arms and a few soldier’s accoutrements; thence it was my
+intention to go and take service in Piedmont, but as I was already on
+the road to Alessandria della Paglia, I learned that the great Duke of
+Alva was on his way to Flanders. I changed my plans, joined him, served
+under him in the campaigns he made, was present at the deaths of the
+Counts Egmont and Horn, and was promoted to be ensign under a famous
+captain of Guadalajara, Diego de Urbina by name. Some time after my
+arrival in Flanders news came of the league that his Holiness Pope Pius
+V. of happy memory, had made with Venice and Spain against the common
+enemy, the Turk, who had just then with his fleet taken the famous
+island of Cyprus, which belonged to the Venetians, a loss deplorable
+and disastrous. It was known as a fact that the Most Serene Don John of
+Austria, natural brother of our good king Don Philip, was coming as
+commander-in-chief of the allied forces, and rumours were abroad of the
+vast warlike preparations which were being made, all which stirred my
+heart and filled me with a longing to take part in the campaign which
+was expected; and though I had reason to believe, and almost certain
+promises, that on the first opportunity that presented itself I should
+be promoted to be captain, I preferred to leave all and betake myself,
+as I did, to Italy; and it was my good fortune that Don John had just
+arrived at Genoa, and was going on to Naples to join the Venetian
+fleet, as he afterwards did at Messina. I may say, in short, that I
+took part in that glorious expedition, promoted by this time to be a
+captain of infantry, to which honourable charge my good luck rather
+than my merits raised me; and that day—so fortunate for Christendom,
+because then all the nations of the earth were disabused of the error
+under which they lay in imagining the Turks to be invincible on sea—on
+that day, I say, on which the Ottoman pride and arrogance were broken,
+among all that were there made happy (for the Christians who died that
+day were happier than those who remained alive and victorious) I alone
+was miserable; for, instead of some naval crown that I might have
+expected had it been in Roman times, on the night that followed that
+famous day I found myself with fetters on my feet and manacles on my
+hands.
+
+It happened in this way: El Uchali, the king of Algiers, a daring and
+successful corsair, having attacked and taken the leading Maltese
+galley (only three knights being left alive in it, and they badly
+wounded), the chief galley of John Andrea, on board of which I and my
+company were placed, came to its relief, and doing as was bound to do
+in such a case, I leaped on board the enemy’s galley, which, sheering
+off from that which had attacked it, prevented my men from following
+me, and so I found myself alone in the midst of my enemies, who were in
+such numbers that I was unable to resist; in short I was taken, covered
+with wounds; El Uchali, as you know, sirs, made his escape with his
+entire squadron, and I was left a prisoner in his power, the only sad
+being among so many filled with joy, and the only captive among so many
+free; for there were fifteen thousand Christians, all at the oar in the
+Turkish fleet, that regained their longed-for liberty that day.
+
+They carried me to Constantinople, where the Grand Turk, Selim, made my
+master general at sea for having done his duty in the battle and
+carried off as evidence of his bravery the standard of the Order of
+Malta. The following year, which was the year seventy-two, I found
+myself at Navarino rowing in the leading galley with the three
+lanterns. There I saw and observed how the opportunity of capturing the
+whole Turkish fleet in harbour was lost; for all the marines and
+janizzaries that belonged to it made sure that they were about to be
+attacked inside the very harbour, and had their kits and pasamaques, or
+shoes, ready to flee at once on shore without waiting to be assailed,
+in so great fear did they stand of our fleet. But Heaven ordered it
+otherwise, not for any fault or neglect of the general who commanded on
+our side, but for the sins of Christendom, and because it was God’s
+will and pleasure that we should always have instruments of punishment
+to chastise us. As it was, El Uchali took refuge at Modon, which is an
+island near Navarino, and landing forces fortified the mouth of the
+harbour and waited quietly until Don John retired. On this expedition
+was taken the galley called the Prize, whose captain was a son of the
+famous corsair Barbarossa. It was taken by the chief Neapolitan galley
+called the She-wolf, commanded by that thunderbolt of war, that father
+of his men, that successful and unconquered captain Don Álvaro de
+Bazan, Marquis of Santa Cruz; and I cannot help telling you what took
+place at the capture of the Prize.
+
+The son of Barbarossa was so cruel, and treated his slaves so badly,
+that, when those who were at the oars saw that the She-wolf galley was
+bearing down upon them and gaining upon them, they all at once dropped
+their oars and seized their captain who stood on the stage at the end
+of the gangway shouting to them to row lustily; and passing him on from
+bench to bench, from the poop to the prow, they so bit him that before
+he had got much past the mast his soul had already got to hell; so
+great, as I said, was the cruelty with which he treated them, and the
+hatred with which they hated him.
+
+We returned to Constantinople, and the following year, seventy-three,
+it became known that Don John had seized Tunis and taken the kingdom
+from the Turks, and placed Muley Hamet in possession, putting an end to
+the hopes which Muley Hamida, the cruelest and bravest Moor in the
+world, entertained of returning to reign there. The Grand Turk took the
+loss greatly to heart, and with the cunning which all his race possess,
+he made peace with the Venetians (who were much more eager for it than
+he was), and the following year, seventy-four, he attacked the Goletta
+and the fort which Don John had left half built near Tunis. While all
+these events were occurring, I was labouring at the oar without any
+hope of freedom; at least I had no hope of obtaining it by ransom, for
+I was firmly resolved not to write to my father telling him of my
+misfortunes. At length the Goletta fell, and the fort fell, before
+which places there were seventy-five thousand regular Turkish soldiers,
+and more than four hundred thousand Moors and Arabs from all parts of
+Africa, and in the train of all this great host such munitions and
+engines of war, and so many pioneers that with their hands they might
+have covered the Goletta and the fort with handfuls of earth. The first
+to fall was the Goletta, until then reckoned impregnable, and it fell,
+not by any fault of its defenders, who did all that they could and
+should have done, but because experiment proved how easily
+entrenchments could be made in the desert sand there; for water used to
+be found at two palms depth, while the Turks found none at two yards;
+and so by means of a quantity of sandbags they raised their works so
+high that they commanded the walls of the fort, sweeping them as if
+from a cavalier, so that no one was able to make a stand or maintain
+the defence.
+
+It was a common opinion that our men should not have shut themselves up
+in the Goletta, but should have waited in the open at the
+landing-place; but those who say so talk at random and with little
+knowledge of such matters; for if in the Goletta and in the fort there
+were barely seven thousand soldiers, how could such a small number,
+however resolute, sally out and hold their own against numbers like
+those of the enemy? And how is it possible to help losing a stronghold
+that is not relieved, above all when surrounded by a host of determined
+enemies in their own country? But many thought, and I thought so too,
+that it was special favour and mercy which Heaven showed to Spain in
+permitting the destruction of that source and hiding place of mischief,
+that devourer, sponge, and moth of countless money, fruitlessly wasted
+there to no other purpose save preserving the memory of its capture by
+the invincible Charles V.; as if to make that eternal, as it is and
+will be, these stones were needed to support it. The fort also fell;
+but the Turks had to win it inch by inch, for the soldiers who defended
+it fought so gallantly and stoutly that the number of the enemy killed
+in twenty-two general assaults exceeded twenty-five thousand. Of three
+hundred that remained alive not one was taken unwounded, a clear and
+manifest proof of their gallantry and resolution, and how sturdily they
+had defended themselves and held their post. A small fort or tower
+which was in the middle of the lagoon under the command of Don Juan
+Zanoguera, a Valencian gentleman and a famous soldier, capitulated upon
+terms. They took prisoner Don Pedro Puertocarrero, commandant of the
+Goletta, who had done all in his power to defend his fortress, and took
+the loss of it so much to heart that he died of grief on the way to
+Constantinople, where they were carrying him a prisoner. They also took
+the commandant of the fort, Gabrio Cerbellon by name, a Milanese
+gentleman, a great engineer and a very brave soldier. In these two
+fortresses perished many persons of note, among whom was Pagano Doria,
+knight of the Order of St. John, a man of generous disposition, as was
+shown by his extreme liberality to his brother, the famous John Andrea
+Doria; and what made his death the more sad was that he was slain by
+some Arabs to whom, seeing that the fort was now lost, he entrusted
+himself, and who offered to conduct him in the disguise of a Moor to
+Tabarca, a small fort or station on the coast held by the Genoese
+employed in the coral fishery. These Arabs cut off his head and carried
+it to the commander of the Turkish fleet, who proved on them the truth
+of our Castilian proverb, that “though the treason may please, the
+traitor is hated;” for they say he ordered those who brought him the
+present to be hanged for not having brought him alive.
+
+
+
+c39b.jpg (371K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Among the Christians who were taken in the fort was one named Don Pedro
+de Aguilar, a native of some place, I know not what, in Andalusia, who
+had been ensign in the fort, a soldier of great repute and rare
+intelligence, who had in particular a special gift for what they call
+poetry. I say so because his fate brought him to my galley and to my
+bench, and made him a slave to the same master; and before we left the
+port this gentleman composed two sonnets by way of epitaphs, one on the
+Goletta and the other on the fort; indeed, I may as well repeat them,
+for I have them by heart, and I think they will be liked rather than
+disliked.
+
+The instant the captive mentioned the name of Don Pedro de Aguilar, Don
+Fernando looked at his companions and they all three smiled; and when
+he came to speak of the sonnets one of them said, “Before your worship
+proceeds any further I entreat you to tell me what became of that Don
+Pedro de Aguilar you have spoken of.”
+
+“All I know is,” replied the captive, “that after having been in
+Constantinople two years, he escaped in the disguise of an Arnaut, in
+company with a Greek spy; but whether he regained his liberty or not I
+cannot tell, though I fancy he did, because a year afterwards I saw the
+Greek at Constantinople, though I was unable to ask him what the result
+of the journey was.”
+
+“Well then, you are right,” returned the gentleman, “for that Don Pedro
+is my brother, and he is now in our village in good health, rich,
+married, and with three children.”
+
+“Thanks be to God for all the mercies he has shown him,” said the
+captive; “for to my mind there is no happiness on earth to compare with
+recovering lost liberty.”
+
+“And what is more,” said the gentleman, “I know the sonnets my brother
+made.”
+
+“Then let your worship repeat them,” said the captive, “for you will
+recite them better than I can.”
+
+“With all my heart,” said the gentleman; “that on the Goletta runs
+thus.”
+
+
+
+c39e.jpg (38K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+IN WHICH THE STORY OF THE CAPTIVE IS CONTINUED.
+
+
+
+
+c40a.jpg (131K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+SONNET
+
+“Blest souls, that, from this mortal husk set free,
+In guerdon of brave deeds beatified,
+Above this lowly orb of ours abide
+Made heirs of heaven and immortality,
+With noble rage and ardour glowing ye
+Your strength, while strength was yours, in battle plied,
+And with your own blood and the foeman’s dyed
+The sandy soil and the encircling sea.
+It was the ebbing life-blood first that failed
+The weary arms; the stout hearts never quailed.
+Though vanquished, yet ye earned the victor’s crown:
+Though mourned, yet still triumphant was your fall
+For there ye won, between the sword and wall,
+In Heaven glory and on earth renown.”
+
+
+“That is it exactly, according to my recollection,” said the captive.
+
+“Well then, that on the fort,” said the gentleman, “if my memory serves
+me, goes thus:
+
+SONNET
+
+“Up from this wasted soil, this shattered shell,
+Whose walls and towers here in ruin lie,
+Three thousand soldier souls took wing on high,
+In the bright mansions of the blest to dwell.
+The onslaught of the foeman to repel
+By might of arm all vainly did they try,
+And when at length ’twas left them but to die,
+Wearied and few the last defenders fell.
+And this same arid soil hath ever been
+A haunt of countless mournful memories,
+As well in our day as in days of yore.
+But never yet to Heaven it sent, I ween,
+From its hard bosom purer souls than these,
+Or braver bodies on its surface bore.”
+
+
+The sonnets were not disliked, and the captive was rejoiced at the
+tidings they gave him of his comrade, and continuing his tale, he went
+on to say:
+
+The Goletta and the fort being thus in their hands, the Turks gave
+orders to dismantle the Goletta—for the fort was reduced to such a
+state that there was nothing left to level—and to do the work more
+quickly and easily they mined it in three places; but nowhere were they
+able to blow up the part which seemed to be the least strong, that is
+to say, the old walls, while all that remained standing of the new
+fortifications that the Fratin had made came to the ground with the
+greatest ease. Finally the fleet returned victorious and triumphant to
+Constantinople, and a few months later died my master, El Uchali,
+otherwise Uchali Fartax, which means in Turkish “the scabby renegade;”
+for that he was; it is the practice with the Turks to name people from
+some defect or virtue they may possess; the reason being that there are
+among them only four surnames belonging to families tracing their
+descent from the Ottoman house, and the others, as I have said, take
+their names and surnames either from bodily blemishes or moral
+qualities. This “scabby one” rowed at the oar as a slave of the Grand
+Signor’s for fourteen years, and when over thirty-four years of age, in
+resentment at having been struck by a Turk while at the oar, turned
+renegade and renounced his faith in order to be able to revenge
+himself; and such was his valour that, without owing his advancement to
+the base ways and means by which most favourites of the Grand Signor
+rise to power, he came to be king of Algiers, and afterwards
+general-on-sea, which is the third place of trust in the realm. He was
+a Calabrian by birth, and a worthy man morally, and he treated his
+slaves with great humanity. He had three thousand of them, and after
+his death they were divided, as he directed by his will, between the
+Grand Signor (who is heir of all who die and shares with the children
+of the deceased) and his renegades. I fell to the lot of a Venetian
+renegade who, when a cabin boy on board a ship, had been taken by
+Uchali and was so much beloved by him that he became one of his most
+favoured youths. He came to be the most cruel renegade I ever saw: his
+name was Hassan Aga, and he grew very rich and became king of Algiers.
+With him I went there from Constantinople, rather glad to be so near
+Spain, not that I intended to write to anyone about my unhappy lot, but
+to try if fortune would be kinder to me in Algiers than in
+Constantinople, where I had attempted in a thousand ways to escape
+without ever finding a favourable time or chance; but in Algiers I
+resolved to seek for other means of effecting the purpose I cherished
+so dearly; for the hope of obtaining my liberty never deserted me; and
+when in my plots and schemes and attempts the result did not answer my
+expectations, without giving way to despair I immediately began to look
+out for or conjure up some new hope to support me, however faint or
+feeble it might be.
+
+In this way I lived on immured in a building or prison called by the
+Turks a baño in which they confine the Christian captives, as well
+those that are the king’s as those belonging to private individuals,
+and also what they call those of the Almacen, which is as much as to
+say the slaves of the municipality, who serve the city in the public
+works and other employments; but captives of this kind recover their
+liberty with great difficulty, for, as they are public property and
+have no particular master, there is no one with whom to treat for their
+ransom, even though they may have the means. To these baños, as I have
+said, some private individuals of the town are in the habit of bringing
+their captives, especially when they are to be ransomed; because there
+they can keep them in safety and comfort until their ransom arrives.
+The king’s captives also, that are on ransom, do not go out to work
+with the rest of the crew, unless when their ransom is delayed; for
+then, to make them write for it more pressingly, they compel them to
+work and go for wood, which is no light labour.
+
+I, however, was one of those on ransom, for when it was discovered that
+I was a captain, although I declared my scanty means and want of
+fortune, nothing could dissuade them from including me among the
+gentlemen and those waiting to be ransomed. They put a chain on me,
+more as a mark of this than to keep me safe, and so I passed my life in
+that baño with several other gentlemen and persons of quality marked
+out as held to ransom; but though at times, or rather almost always, we
+suffered from hunger and scanty clothing, nothing distressed us so much
+as hearing and seeing at every turn the unexampled and unheard-of
+cruelties my master inflicted upon the Christians. Every day he hanged
+a man, impaled one, cut off the ears of another; and all with so little
+provocation, or so entirely without any, that the Turks acknowledged he
+did it merely for the sake of doing it, and because he was by nature
+murderously disposed towards the whole human race. The only one that
+fared at all well with him was a Spanish soldier, something de Saavedra
+by name, to whom he never gave a blow himself, or ordered a blow to be
+given, or addressed a hard word, although he had done things that will
+dwell in the memory of the people there for many a year, and all to
+recover his liberty; and for the least of the many things he did we all
+dreaded that he would be impaled, and he himself was in fear of it more
+than once; and only that time does not allow, I could tell you now
+something of what that soldier did, that would interest and astonish
+you much more than the narration of my own tale.
+
+To go on with my story; the courtyard of our prison was overlooked by
+the windows of the house belonging to a wealthy Moor of high position;
+and these, as is usual in Moorish houses, were rather loopholes than
+windows, and besides were covered with thick and close lattice-work. It
+so happened, then, that as I was one day on the terrace of our prison
+with three other comrades, trying, to pass away the time, how far we
+could leap with our chains, we being alone, for all the other
+Christians had gone out to work, I chanced to raise my eyes, and from
+one of these little closed windows I saw a reed appear with a cloth
+attached to the end of it, and it kept waving to and fro, and moving as
+if making signs to us to come and take it. We watched it, and one of
+those who were with me went and stood under the reed to see whether
+they would let it drop, or what they would do, but as he did so the
+reed was raised and moved from side to side, as if they meant to say
+“no” by a shake of the head. The Christian came back, and it was again
+lowered, making the same movements as before. Another of my comrades
+went, and with him the same happened as with the first, and then the
+third went forward, but with the same result as the first and second.
+Seeing this I did not like not to try my luck, and as soon as I came
+under the reed it was dropped and fell inside the baño at my feet. I
+hastened to untie the cloth, in which I perceived a knot, and in this
+were ten cianis, which are coins of base gold, current among the Moors,
+and each worth ten reals of our money.
+
+It is needless to say I rejoiced over this godsend, and my joy was not
+less than my wonder as I strove to imagine how this good fortune could
+have come to us, but to me specially; for the evident unwillingness to
+drop the reed for any but me showed that it was for me the favour was
+intended. I took my welcome money, broke the reed, and returned to the
+terrace, and looking up at the window, I saw a very white hand put out
+that opened and shut very quickly. From this we gathered or fancied
+that it must be some woman living in that house that had done us this
+kindness, and to show that we were grateful for it, we made salaams
+after the fashion of the Moors, bowing the head, bending the body, and
+crossing the arms on the breast. Shortly afterwards at the same window
+a small cross made of reeds was put out and immediately withdrawn. This
+sign led us to believe that some Christian woman was a captive in the
+house, and that it was she who had been so good to us; but the
+whiteness of the hand and the bracelets we had perceived made us
+dismiss that idea, though we thought it might be one of the Christian
+renegades whom their masters very often take as lawful wives, and
+gladly, for they prefer them to the women of their own nation. In all
+our conjectures we were wide of the truth; so from that time forward
+our sole occupation was watching and gazing at the window where the
+cross had appeared to us, as if it were our pole-star; but at least
+fifteen days passed without our seeing either it or the hand, or any
+other sign and though meanwhile we endeavoured with the utmost pains to
+ascertain who it was that lived in the house, and whether there were
+any Christian renegade in it, nobody could ever tell us anything more
+than that he who lived there was a rich Moor of high position, Hadji
+Morato by name, formerly alcaide of La Pata, an office of high dignity
+among them. But when we least thought it was going to rain any more
+cianis from that quarter, we saw the reed suddenly appear with another
+cloth tied in a larger knot attached to it, and this at a time when, as
+on the former occasion, the baño was deserted and unoccupied.
+
+
+
+c40b.jpg (288K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+We made trial as before, each of the same three going forward before I
+did; but the reed was delivered to none but me, and on my approach it
+was let drop. I untied the knot and I found forty Spanish gold crowns
+with a paper written in Arabic, and at the end of the writing there was
+a large cross drawn. I kissed the cross, took the crowns and returned
+to the terrace, and we all made our salaams; again the hand appeared, I
+made signs that I would read the paper, and then the window was closed.
+We were all puzzled, though filled with joy at what had taken place;
+and as none of us understood Arabic, great was our curiosity to know
+what the paper contained, and still greater the difficulty of finding
+someone to read it. At last I resolved to confide in a renegade, a
+native of Murcia, who professed a very great friendship for me, and had
+given pledges that bound him to keep any secret I might entrust to him;
+for it is the custom with some renegades, when they intend to return to
+Christian territory, to carry about them certificates from captives of
+mark testifying, in whatever form they can, that such and such a
+renegade is a worthy man who has always shown kindness to Christians,
+and is anxious to escape on the first opportunity that may present
+itself. Some obtain these testimonials with good intentions, others put
+them to a cunning use; for when they go to pillage on Christian
+territory, if they chance to be cast away, or taken prisoners, they
+produce their certificates and say that from these papers may be seen
+the object they came for, which was to remain on Christian ground, and
+that it was to this end they joined the Turks in their foray. In this
+way they escape the consequences of the first outburst and make their
+peace with the Church before it does them any harm, and then when they
+have the chance they return to Barbary to become what they were before.
+Others, however, there are who procure these papers and make use of
+them honestly, and remain on Christian soil. This friend of mine, then,
+was one of these renegades that I have described; he had certificates
+from all our comrades, in which we testified in his favour as strongly
+as we could; and if the Moors had found the papers they would have
+burned him alive.
+
+I knew that he understood Arabic very well, and could not only speak
+but also write it; but before I disclosed the whole matter to him, I
+asked him to read for me this paper which I had found by accident in a
+hole in my cell. He opened it and remained some time examining it and
+muttering to himself as he translated it. I asked him if he understood
+it, and he told me he did perfectly well, and that if I wished him to
+tell me its meaning word for word, I must give him pen and ink that he
+might do it more satisfactorily. We at once gave him what he required,
+and he set about translating it bit by bit, and when he had done he
+said:
+
+“All that is here in Spanish is what the Moorish paper contains, and
+you must bear in mind that when it says ‘Lela Marien’ it means ‘Our
+Lady the Virgin Mary.’”
+
+We read the paper and it ran thus:
+
+“When I was a child my father had a slave who taught me to pray the
+Christian prayer in my own language, and told me many things about Lela
+Marien. The Christian died, and I know that she did not go to the fire,
+but to Allah, because since then I have seen her twice, and she told me
+to go to the land of the Christians to see Lela Marien, who had great
+love for me. I know not how to go. I have seen many Christians, but
+except thyself none has seemed to me to be a gentleman. I am young and
+beautiful, and have plenty of money to take with me. See if thou canst
+contrive how we may go, and if thou wilt thou shalt be my husband
+there, and if thou wilt not it will not distress me, for Lela Marien
+will find me someone to marry me. I myself have written this: have a
+care to whom thou givest it to read: trust no Moor, for they are all
+perfidious. I am greatly troubled on this account, for I would not have
+thee confide in anyone, because if my father knew it he would at once
+fling me down a well and cover me with stones. I will put a thread to
+the reed; tie the answer to it, and if thou hast no one to write for
+thee in Arabic, tell it to me by signs, for Lela Marien will make me
+understand thee. She and Allah and this cross, which I often kiss as
+the captive bade me, protect thee.”
+
+Judge, sirs, whether we had reason for surprise and joy at the words of
+this paper; and both one and the other were so great, that the renegade
+perceived that the paper had not been found by chance, but had been in
+reality addressed to someone of us, and he begged us, if what he
+suspected were the truth, to trust him and tell him all, for he would
+risk his life for our freedom; and so saying he took out from his
+breast a metal crucifix, and with many tears swore by the God the image
+represented, in whom, sinful and wicked as he was, he truly and
+faithfully believed, to be loyal to us and keep secret whatever we
+chose to reveal to him; for he thought and almost foresaw that by means
+of her who had written that paper, he and all of us would obtain our
+liberty, and he himself obtain the object he so much desired, his
+restoration to the bosom of the Holy Mother Church, from which by his
+own sin and ignorance he was now severed like a corrupt limb. The
+renegade said this with so many tears and such signs of repentance,
+that with one consent we all agreed to tell him the whole truth of the
+matter, and so we gave him a full account of all, without hiding
+anything from him. We pointed out to him the window at which the reed
+appeared, and he by that means took note of the house, and resolved to
+ascertain with particular care who lived in it. We agreed also that it
+would be advisable to answer the Moorish lady’s letter, and the
+renegade without a moment’s delay took down the words I dictated to
+him, which were exactly what I shall tell you, for nothing of
+importance that took place in this affair has escaped my memory, or
+ever will while life lasts. This, then, was the answer returned to the
+Moorish lady:
+
+“The true Allah protect thee, Lady, and that blessed Marien who is the
+true mother of God, and who has put it into thy heart to go to the land
+of the Christians, because she loves thee. Entreat her that she be
+pleased to show thee how thou canst execute the command she gives thee,
+for she will, such is her goodness. On my own part, and on that of all
+these Christians who are with me, I promise to do all that we can for
+thee, even to death. Fail not to write to me and inform me what thou
+dost mean to do, and I will always answer thee; for the great Allah has
+given us a Christian captive who can speak and write thy language well,
+as thou mayest see by this paper; without fear, therefore, thou canst
+inform us of all thou wouldst. As to what thou sayest, that if thou
+dost reach the land of the Christians thou wilt be my wife, I give thee
+my promise upon it as a good Christian; and know that the Christians
+keep their promises better than the Moors. Allah and Marien his mother
+watch over thee, my Lady.”
+
+The paper being written and folded I waited two days until the baño was
+empty as before, and immediately repaired to the usual walk on the
+terrace to see if there were any sign of the reed, which was not long
+in making its appearance. As soon as I saw it, although I could not
+distinguish who put it out, I showed the paper as a sign to attach the
+thread, but it was already fixed to the reed, and to it I tied the
+paper; and shortly afterwards our star once more made its appearance
+with the white flag of peace, the little bundle. It was dropped, and I
+picked it up, and found in the cloth, in gold and silver coins of all
+sorts, more than fifty crowns, which fifty times more strengthened our
+joy and doubled our hope of gaining our liberty. That very night our
+renegade returned and said he had learned that the Moor we had been
+told of lived in that house, that his name was Hadji Morato, that he
+was enormously rich, that he had one only daughter the heiress of all
+his wealth, and that it was the general opinion throughout the city
+that she was the most beautiful woman in Barbary, and that several of
+the viceroys who came there had sought her for a wife, but that she had
+been always unwilling to marry; and he had learned, moreover, that she
+had a Christian slave who was now dead; all which agreed with the
+contents of the paper. We immediately took counsel with the renegade as
+to what means would have to be adopted in order to carry off the
+Moorish lady and bring us all to Christian territory; and in the end it
+was agreed that for the present we should wait for a second
+communication from Zoraida (for that was the name of her who now
+desires to be called Maria), because we saw clearly that she and no one
+else could find a way out of all these difficulties. When we had
+decided upon this the renegade told us not to be uneasy, for he would
+lose his life or restore us to liberty. For four days the baño was
+filled with people, for which reason the reed delayed its appearance
+for four days, but at the end of that time, when the baño was, as it
+generally was, empty, it appeared with the cloth so bulky that it
+promised a happy birth. Reed and cloth came down to me, and I found
+another paper and a hundred crowns in gold, without any other coin. The
+renegade was present, and in our cell we gave him the paper to read,
+which was to this effect:
+
+“I cannot think of a plan, señor, for our going to Spain, nor has Lela
+Marien shown me one, though I have asked her. All that can be done is
+for me to give you plenty of money in gold from this window. With it
+ransom yourself and your friends, and let one of you go to the land of
+the Christians, and there buy a vessel and come back for the others;
+and he will find me in my father’s garden, which is at the Babazon gate
+near the seashore, where I shall be all this summer with my father and
+my servants. You can carry me away from there by night without any
+danger, and bring me to the vessel. And remember thou art to be my
+husband, else I will pray to Marien to punish thee. If thou canst not
+trust anyone to go for the vessel, ransom thyself and do thou go, for I
+know thou wilt return more surely than any other, as thou art a
+gentleman and a Christian. Endeavour to make thyself acquainted with
+the garden; and when I see thee walking yonder I shall know that the
+baño is empty and I will give thee abundance of money. Allah protect
+thee, señor.”
+
+These were the words and contents of the second paper, and on hearing
+them, each declared himself willing to be the ransomed one, and
+promised to go and return with scrupulous good faith; and I too made
+the same offer; but to all this the renegade objected, saying that he
+would not on any account consent to one being set free before all went
+together, as experience had taught him how ill those who have been set
+free keep promises which they made in captivity; for captives of
+distinction frequently had recourse to this plan, paying the ransom of
+one who was to go to Valencia or Majorca with money to enable him to
+arm a bark and return for the others who had ransomed him, but who
+never came back; for recovered liberty and the dread of losing it again
+efface from the memory all the obligations in the world. And to prove
+the truth of what he said, he told us briefly what had happened to a
+certain Christian gentleman almost at that very time, the strangest
+case that had ever occurred even there, where astonishing and
+marvellous things are happening every instant. In short, he ended by
+saying that what could and ought to be done was to give the money
+intended for the ransom of one of us Christians to him, so that he
+might with it buy a vessel there in Algiers under the pretence of
+becoming a merchant and trader at Tetuan and along the coast; and when
+master of the vessel, it would be easy for him to hit on some way of
+getting us all out of the baño and putting us on board; especially if
+the Moorish lady gave, as she said, money enough to ransom all, because
+once free it would be the easiest thing in the world for us to embark
+even in open day; but the greatest difficulty was that the Moors do not
+allow any renegade to buy or own any craft, unless it be a large vessel
+for going on roving expeditions, because they are afraid that anyone
+who buys a small vessel, especially if he be a Spaniard, only wants it
+for the purpose of escaping to Christian territory. This however he
+could get over by arranging with a Tagarin Moor to go shares with him
+in the purchase of the vessel, and in the profit on the cargo; and
+under cover of this he could become master of the vessel, in which case
+he looked upon all the rest as accomplished. But though to me and my
+comrades it had seemed a better plan to send to Majorca for the vessel,
+as the Moorish lady suggested, we did not dare to oppose him, fearing
+that if we did not do as he said he would denounce us, and place us in
+danger of losing all our lives if he were to disclose our dealings with
+Zoraida, for whose life we would have all given our own. We therefore
+resolved to put ourselves in the hands of God and in the renegade’s;
+and at the same time an answer was given to Zoraida, telling her that
+we would do all she recommended, for she had given as good advice as if
+Lela Marien had delivered it, and that it depended on her alone whether
+we were to defer the business or put it in execution at once. I renewed
+my promise to be her husband; and thus the next day that the baño
+chanced to be empty she at different times gave us by means of the reed
+and cloth two thousand gold crowns and a paper in which she said that
+the next Juma, that is to say Friday, she was going to her father’s
+garden, but that before she went she would give us more money; and if
+it were not enough we were to let her know, as she would give us as
+much as we asked, for her father had so much he would not miss it, and
+besides she kept all the keys.
+
+We at once gave the renegade five hundred crowns to buy the vessel, and
+with eight hundred I ransomed myself, giving the money to a Valencian
+merchant who happened to be in Algiers at the time, and who had me
+released on his word, pledging it that on the arrival of the first ship
+from Valencia he would pay my ransom; for if he had given the money at
+once it would have made the king suspect that my ransom money had been
+for a long time in Algiers, and that the merchant had for his own
+advantage kept it secret. In fact my master was so difficult to deal
+with that I dared not on any account pay down the money at once. The
+Thursday before the Friday on which the fair Zoraida was to go to the
+garden she gave us a thousand crowns more, and warned us of her
+departure, begging me, if I were ransomed, to find out her father’s
+garden at once, and by all means to seek an opportunity of going there
+to see her. I answered in a few words that I would do so, and that she
+must remember to commend us to Lela Marien with all the prayers the
+captive had taught her. This having been done, steps were taken to
+ransom our three comrades, so as to enable them to quit the baño, and
+lest, seeing me ransomed and themselves not, though the money was
+forthcoming, they should make a disturbance about it and the devil
+should prompt them to do something that might injure Zoraida; for
+though their position might be sufficient to relieve me from this
+apprehension, nevertheless I was unwilling to run any risk in the
+matter; and so I had them ransomed in the same way as I was, handing
+over all the money to the merchant so that he might with safety and
+confidence give security; without, however, confiding our arrangement
+and secret to him, which might have been dangerous.
+
+
+
+c40e.jpg (34K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+IN WHICH THE CAPTIVE STILL CONTINUES HIS ADVENTURES
+
+
+
+
+c41a.jpg (106K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Before fifteen days were over our renegade had already purchased an
+excellent vessel with room for more than thirty persons; and to make
+the transaction safe and lend a colour to it, he thought it well to
+make, as he did, a voyage to a place called Shershel, twenty leagues
+from Algiers on the Oran side, where there is an extensive trade in
+dried figs. Two or three times he made this voyage in company with the
+Tagarin already mentioned. The Moors of Aragon are called Tagarins in
+Barbary, and those of Granada Mudéjares; but in the Kingdom of Fez they
+call the Mudéjares Elches, and they are the people the king chiefly
+employs in war. To proceed: every time he passed with his vessel he
+anchored in a cove that was not two crossbow shots from the garden
+where Zoraida was waiting; and there the renegade, together with the
+two Moorish lads that rowed, used purposely to station himself, either
+going through his prayers, or else practising as a part what he meant
+to perform in earnest. And thus he would go to Zoraida’s garden and ask
+for fruit, which her father gave him, not knowing him; but though, as
+he afterwards told me, he sought to speak to Zoraida, and tell her who
+he was, and that by my orders he was to take her to the land of the
+Christians, so that she might feel satisfied and easy, he had never
+been able to do so; for the Moorish women do not allow themselves to be
+seen by any Moor or Turk, unless their husband or father bid them: with
+Christian captives they permit freedom of intercourse and
+communication, even more than might be considered proper. But for my
+part I should have been sorry if he had spoken to her, for perhaps it
+might have alarmed her to find her affairs talked of by renegades. But
+God, who ordered it otherwise, afforded no opportunity for our
+renegade’s well-meant purpose; and he, seeing how safely he could go to
+Shershel and return, and anchor when and how and where he liked, and
+that the Tagarin his partner had no will but his, and that, now I was
+ransomed, all we wanted was to find some Christians to row, told me to
+look out for any I should be willing to take with me, over and above
+those who had been ransomed, and to engage them for the next Friday,
+which he fixed upon for our departure. On this I spoke to twelve
+Spaniards, all stout rowers, and such as could most easily leave the
+city; but it was no easy matter to find so many just then, because
+there were twenty ships out on a cruise and they had taken all the
+rowers with them; and these would not have been found were it not that
+their master remained at home that summer without going to sea in order
+to finish a galliot that he had upon the stocks. To these men I said
+nothing more than that the next Friday in the evening they were to come
+out stealthily one by one and hang about Hadji Morato’s garden, waiting
+for me there until I came. These directions I gave each one separately,
+with orders that if they saw any other Christians there they were not
+to say anything to them except that I had directed them to wait at that
+spot.
+
+This preliminary having been settled, another still more necessary step
+had to be taken, which was to let Zoraida know how matters stood that
+she might be prepared and forewarned, so as not to be taken by surprise
+if we were suddenly to seize upon her before she thought the
+Christians’ vessel could have returned. I determined, therefore, to go
+to the garden and try if I could speak to her; and the day before my
+departure I went there under the pretence of gathering herbs. The first
+person I met was her father, who addressed me in the language that all
+over Barbary and even in Constantinople is the medium between captives
+and Moors, and is neither Morisco nor Castilian, nor of any other
+nation, but a mixture of all languages, by means of which we can all
+understand one another. In this sort of language, I say, he asked me
+what I wanted in his garden, and to whom I belonged. I replied that I
+was a slave of the Arnaut Mami (for I knew as a certainty that he was a
+very great friend of his), and that I wanted some herbs to make a
+salad. He asked me then whether I were on ransom or not, and what my
+master demanded for me. While these questions and answers were
+proceeding, the fair Zoraida, who had already perceived me some time
+before, came out of the house in the garden, and as Moorish women are
+by no means particular about letting themselves be seen by Christians,
+or, as I have said before, at all coy, she had no hesitation in coming
+to where her father stood with me; moreover her father, seeing her
+approaching slowly, called to her to come. It would be beyond my power
+now to describe to you the great beauty, the high-bred air, the
+brilliant attire of my beloved Zoraida as she presented herself before
+my eyes. I will content myself with saying that more pearls hung from
+her fair neck, her ears, and her hair than she had hairs on her head.
+On her ankles, which as is customary were bare, she had carcajes (for
+so bracelets or anklets are called in Morisco) of the purest gold, set
+with so many diamonds that she told me afterwards her father valued
+them at ten thousand doubloons, and those she had on her wrists were
+worth as much more. The pearls were in profusion and very fine, for the
+highest display and adornment of the Moorish women is decking
+themselves with rich pearls and seed-pearls; and of these there are
+therefore more among the Moors than among any other people. Zoraida’s
+father had to the reputation of possessing a great number, and the
+purest in all Algiers, and of possessing also more than two hundred
+thousand Spanish crowns; and she, who is now mistress of me only, was
+mistress of all this. Whether thus adorned she would have been
+beautiful or not, and what she must have been in her prosperity, may be
+imagined from the beauty remaining to her after so many hardships; for,
+as everyone knows, the beauty of some women has its times and its
+seasons, and is increased or diminished by chance causes; and naturally
+the emotions of the mind will heighten or impair it, though indeed more
+frequently they totally destroy it. In a word she presented herself
+before me that day attired with the utmost splendour, and supremely
+beautiful; at any rate, she seemed to me the most beautiful object I
+had ever seen; and when, besides, I thought of all I owed to her I felt
+as though I had before me some heavenly being come to earth to bring me
+relief and happiness.
+
+As she approached her father told her in his own language that I was a
+captive belonging to his friend the Arnaut Mami, and that I had come
+for salad.
+
+She took up the conversation, and in that mixture of tongues I have
+spoken of she asked me if I was a gentleman, and why I was not
+ransomed.
+
+I answered that I was already ransomed, and that by the price it might
+be seen what value my master set on me, as they had given one thousand
+five hundred zoltanis for me; to which she replied, “Hadst thou been my
+father’s, I can tell thee, I would not have let him part with thee for
+twice as much, for you Christians always tell lies about yourselves and
+make yourselves out poor to cheat the Moors.”
+
+“That may be, lady,” said I; “but indeed I dealt truthfully with my
+master, as I do and mean to do with everybody in the world.”
+
+“And when dost thou go?” said Zoraida.
+
+“To-morrow, I think,” said I, “for there is a vessel here from France
+which sails to-morrow, and I think I shall go in her.”
+
+“Would it not be better,” said Zoraida, “to wait for the arrival of
+ships from Spain and go with them and not with the French who are not
+your friends?”
+
+“No,” said I; “though if there were intelligence that a vessel were now
+coming from Spain it is true I might, perhaps, wait for it; however, it
+is more likely I shall depart to-morrow, for the longing I feel to
+return to my country and to those I love is so great that it will not
+allow me to wait for another opportunity, however more convenient, if
+it be delayed.”
+
+“No doubt thou art married in thine own country,” said Zoraida, “and
+for that reason thou art anxious to go and see thy wife.”
+
+“I am not married,” I replied, “but I have given my promise to marry on
+my arrival there.”
+
+“And is the lady beautiful to whom thou hast given it?” said Zoraida.
+
+“So beautiful,” said I, “that, to describe her worthily and tell thee
+the truth, she is very like thee.”
+
+At this her father laughed very heartily and said, “By Allah,
+Christian, she must be very beautiful if she is like my daughter, who
+is the most beautiful woman in all this kingdom: only look at her well
+and thou wilt see I am telling the truth.”
+
+Zoraida’s father as the better linguist helped to interpret most of
+these words and phrases, for though she spoke the bastard language,
+that, as I have said, is employed there, she expressed her meaning more
+by signs than by words.
+
+While we were still engaged in this conversation, a Moor came running
+up, exclaiming that four Turks had leaped over the fence or wall of the
+garden, and were gathering the fruit though it was not yet ripe. The
+old man was alarmed and Zoraida too, for the Moors commonly, and, so to
+speak, instinctively have a dread of the Turks, but particularly of the
+soldiers, who are so insolent and domineering to the Moors who are
+under their power that they treat them worse than if they were their
+slaves. Her father said to Zoraida, “Daughter, retire into the house
+and shut thyself in while I go and speak to these dogs; and thou,
+Christian, pick thy herbs, and go in peace, and Allah bring thee safe
+to thy own country.”
+
+I bowed, and he went away to look for the Turks, leaving me alone with
+Zoraida, who made as if she were about to retire as her father bade
+her; but the moment he was concealed by the trees of the garden,
+turning to me with her eyes full of tears she said, “Tameji, cristiano,
+tameji?” that is to say, “Art thou going, Christian, art thou going?”
+
+I made answer, “Yes, lady, but not without thee, come what may: be on
+the watch for me on the next Juma, and be not alarmed when thou seest
+us; for most surely we shall go to the land of the Christians.”
+
+This I said in such a way that she understood perfectly all that passed
+between us, and throwing her arm round my neck she began with feeble
+steps to move towards the house; but as fate would have it (and it
+might have been very unfortunate if Heaven had not otherwise ordered
+it), just as we were moving on in the manner and position I have
+described, with her arm round my neck, her father, as he returned after
+having sent away the Turks, saw how we were walking and we perceived
+that he saw us; but Zoraida, ready and quickwitted, took care not to
+remove her arm from my neck, but on the contrary drew closer to me and
+laid her head on my breast, bending her knees a little and showing all
+the signs and tokens of fainting, while I at the same time made it seem
+as though I were supporting her against my will. Her father came
+running up to where we were, and seeing his daughter in this state
+asked what was the matter with her; she, however, giving no answer, he
+said, “No doubt she has fainted in alarm at the entrance of those
+dogs,” and taking her from mine he drew her to his own breast, while
+she sighing, her eyes still wet with tears, said again, “Ameji,
+cristiano, ameji”—“Go, Christian, go.” To this her father replied,
+“There is no need, daughter, for the Christian to go, for he has done
+thee no harm, and the Turks have now gone; feel no alarm, there is
+nothing to hurt thee, for as I say, the Turks at my request have gone
+back the way they came.”
+
+
+
+c41b.jpg (320K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“It was they who terrified her, as thou hast said, señor,” said I to
+her father; “but since she tells me to go, I have no wish to displease
+her: peace be with thee, and with thy leave I will come back to this
+garden for herbs if need be, for my master says there are nowhere
+better herbs for salad than here.”
+
+“Come back for any thou hast need of,” replied Hadji Morato; “for my
+daughter does not speak thus because she is displeased with thee or any
+Christian: she only meant that the Turks should go, not thou; or that
+it was time for thee to look for thy herbs.”
+
+With this I at once took my leave of both; and she, looking as though
+her heart were breaking, retired with her father. While pretending to
+look for herbs I made the round of the garden at my ease, and studied
+carefully all the approaches and outlets, and the fastenings of the
+house and everything that could be taken advantage of to make our task
+easy.
+
+
+
+c41c.jpg (326K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Having done so I went and gave an account of all that had taken place
+to the renegade and my comrades, and looked forward with impatience to
+the hour when, all fear at an end, I should find myself in possession
+of the prize which fortune held out to me in the fair and lovely
+Zoraida. The time passed at length, and the appointed day we so longed
+for arrived; and, all following out the arrangement and plan which,
+after careful consideration and many a long discussion, we had decided
+upon, we succeeded as fully as we could have wished; for on the Friday
+following the day upon which I spoke to Zoraida in the garden, the
+renegade anchored his vessel at nightfall almost opposite the spot
+where she was. The Christians who were to row were ready and in hiding
+in different places round about, all waiting for me, anxious and
+elated, and eager to attack the vessel they had before their eyes; for
+they did not know the renegade’s plan, but expected that they were to
+gain their liberty by force of arms and by killing the Moors who were
+on board the vessel. As soon, then, as I and my comrades made our
+appearance, all those that were in hiding seeing us came and joined us.
+It was now the time when the city gates are shut, and there was no one
+to be seen in all the space outside. When we were collected together we
+debated whether it would be better first to go for Zoraida, or to make
+prisoners of the Moorish rowers who rowed in the vessel; but while we
+were still uncertain our renegade came up asking us what kept us, as it
+was now the time, and all the Moors were off their guard and most of
+them asleep. We told him why we hesitated, but he said it was of more
+importance first to secure the vessel, which could be done with the
+greatest ease and without any danger, and then we could go for Zoraida.
+We all approved of what he said, and so without further delay, guided
+by him we made for the vessel, and he leaping on board first, drew his
+cutlass and said in Morisco, “Let no one stir from this if he does not
+want it to cost him his life.” By this almost all the Christians were
+on board, and the Moors, who were fainthearted, hearing their captain
+speak in this way, were cowed, and without any one of them taking to
+his arms (and indeed they had few or hardly any) they submitted without
+saying a word to be bound by the Christians, who quickly secured them,
+threatening them that if they raised any kind of outcry they would be
+all put to the sword. This having been accomplished, and half of our
+party being left to keep guard over them, the rest of us, again taking
+the renegade as our guide, hastened towards Hadji Morato’s garden, and
+as good luck would have it, on trying the gate it opened as easily as
+if it had not been locked; and so, quite quietly and in silence, we
+reached the house without being perceived by anybody. The lovely
+Zoraida was watching for us at a window, and as soon as she perceived
+that there were people there, she asked in a low voice if we were
+“Nizarani,” as much as to say or ask if we were Christians. I answered
+that we were, and begged her to come down. As soon as she recognised me
+she did not delay an instant, but without answering a word came down
+immediately, opened the door and presented herself before us all, so
+beautiful and so richly attired that I cannot attempt to describe her.
+The moment I saw her I took her hand and kissed it, and the renegade
+and my two comrades did the same; and the rest, who knew nothing of the
+circumstances, did as they saw us do, for it only seemed as if we were
+returning thanks to her, and recognising her as the giver of our
+liberty. The renegade asked her in the Morisco language if her father
+was in the house. She replied that he was and that he was asleep.
+
+“Then it will be necessary to waken him and take him with us,” said the
+renegade, “and everything of value in this fair mansion.”
+
+“Nay,” said she, “my father must not on any account be touched, and
+there is nothing in the house except what I shall take, and that will
+be quite enough to enrich and satisfy all of you; wait a little and you
+shall see,” and so saying she went in, telling us she would return
+immediately and bidding us keep quiet without making any noise.
+
+I asked the renegade what had passed between them, and when he told me,
+I declared that nothing should be done except in accordance with the
+wishes of Zoraida, who now came back with a little trunk so full of
+gold crowns that she could scarcely carry it. Unfortunately her father
+awoke while this was going on, and hearing a noise in the garden, came
+to the window, and at once perceiving that all those who were there
+were Christians, raising a prodigiously loud outcry, he began to call
+out in Arabic, “Christians, Christians! thieves, thieves!” by which
+cries we were all thrown into the greatest fear and embarrassment; but
+the renegade seeing the danger we were in and how important it was for
+him to effect his purpose before we were heard, mounted with the utmost
+quickness to where Hadji Morato was, and with him went some of our
+party; I, however, did not dare to leave Zoraida, who had fallen almost
+fainting in my arms. To be brief, those who had gone upstairs acted so
+promptly that in an instant they came down, carrying Hadji Morato with
+his hands bound and a napkin tied over his mouth, which prevented him
+from uttering a word, warning him at the same time that to attempt to
+speak would cost him his life. When his daughter caught sight of him
+she covered her eyes so as not to see him, and her father was
+horror-stricken, not knowing how willingly she had placed herself in
+our hands. But it was now most essential for us to be on the move, and
+carefully and quickly we regained the vessel, where those who had
+remained on board were waiting for us in apprehension of some mishap
+having befallen us. It was barely two hours after night set in when we
+were all on board the vessel, where the cords were removed from the
+hands of Zoraida’s father, and the napkin from his mouth; but the
+renegade once more told him not to utter a word, or they would take his
+life. He, when he saw his daughter there, began to sigh piteously, and
+still more when he perceived that I held her closely embraced and that
+she lay quiet without resisting or complaining, or showing any
+reluctance; nevertheless he remained silent lest they should carry into
+effect the repeated threats the renegade had addressed to him.
+
+Finding herself now on board, and that we were about to give way with
+the oars, Zoraida, seeing her father there, and the other Moors bound,
+bade the renegade ask me to do her the favour of releasing the Moors
+and setting her father at liberty, for she would rather drown herself
+in the sea than suffer a father that had loved her so dearly to be
+carried away captive before her eyes and on her account. The renegade
+repeated this to me, and I replied that I was very willing to do so;
+but he replied that it was not advisable, because if they were left
+there they would at once raise the country and stir up the city, and
+lead to the despatch of swift cruisers in pursuit, and our being taken,
+by sea or land, without any possibility of escape; and that all that
+could be done was to set them free on the first Christian ground we
+reached. On this point we all agreed; and Zoraida, to whom it was
+explained, together with the reasons that prevented us from doing at
+once what she desired, was satisfied likewise; and then in glad silence
+and with cheerful alacrity each of our stout rowers took his oar, and
+commending ourselves to God with all our hearts, we began to shape our
+course for the island of Majorca, the nearest Christian land. Owing,
+however, to the Tramontana rising a little, and the sea growing
+somewhat rough, it was impossible for us to keep a straight course for
+Majorca, and we were compelled to coast in the direction of Oran, not
+without great uneasiness on our part lest we should be observed from
+the town of Shershel, which lies on that coast, not more than sixty
+miles from Algiers. Moreover we were afraid of meeting on that course
+one of the galliots that usually come with goods from Tetuan; although
+each of us for himself and all of us together felt confident that, if
+we were to meet a merchant galliot, so that it were not a cruiser, not
+only should we not be lost, but that we should take a vessel in which
+we could more safely accomplish our voyage. As we pursued our course
+Zoraida kept her head between my hands so as not to see her father, and
+I felt that she was praying to Lela Marien to help us.
+
+
+
+c41d.jpg (266K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+We might have made about thirty miles when daybreak found us some three
+musket-shots off the land, which seemed to us deserted, and without
+anyone to see us. For all that, however, by hard rowing we put out a
+little to sea, for it was now somewhat calmer, and having gained about
+two leagues the word was given to row by batches, while we ate
+something, for the vessel was well provided; but the rowers said it was
+not a time to take any rest; let food be served out to those who were
+not rowing, but they would not leave their oars on any account. This
+was done, but now a stiff breeze began to blow, which obliged us to
+leave off rowing and make sail at once and steer for Oran, as it was
+impossible to make any other course. All this was done very promptly,
+and under sail we ran more than eight miles an hour without any fear,
+except that of coming across some vessel out on a roving expedition. We
+gave the Moorish rowers some food, and the renegade comforted them by
+telling them that they were not held as captives, as we should set them
+free on the first opportunity.
+
+The same was said to Zoraida’s father, who replied, “Anything else,
+Christian, I might hope for or think likely from your generosity and
+good behaviour, but do not think me so simple as to imagine you will
+give me my liberty; for you would have never exposed yourselves to the
+danger of depriving me of it only to restore it to me so generously,
+especially as you know who I am and the sum you may expect to receive
+on restoring it; and if you will only name that, I here offer you all
+you require for myself and for my unhappy daughter there; or else for
+her alone, for she is the greatest and most precious part of my soul.”
+
+As he said this he began to weep so bitterly that he filled us all with
+compassion and forced Zoraida to look at him, and when she saw him
+weeping she was so moved that she rose from my feet and ran to throw
+her arms round him, and pressing her face to his, they both gave way to
+such an outburst of tears that several of us were constrained to keep
+them company.
+
+But when her father saw her in full dress and with all her jewels about
+her, he said to her in his own language, “What means this, my daughter?
+Last night, before this terrible misfortune in which we are plunged
+befell us, I saw thee in thy everyday and indoor garments; and now,
+without having had time to attire thyself, and without my bringing thee
+any joyful tidings to furnish an occasion for adorning and bedecking
+thyself, I see thee arrayed in the finest attire it would be in my
+power to give thee when fortune was most kind to us. Answer me this;
+for it causes me greater anxiety and surprise than even this misfortune
+itself.”
+
+The renegade interpreted to us what the Moor said to his daughter; she,
+however, returned him no answer. But when he observed in one corner of
+the vessel the little trunk in which she used to keep her jewels, which
+he well knew he had left in Algiers and had not brought to the garden,
+he was still more amazed, and asked her how that trunk had come into
+our hands, and what there was in it. To which the renegade, without
+waiting for Zoraida to reply, made answer, “Do not trouble thyself by
+asking thy daughter Zoraida so many questions, señor, for the one
+answer I will give thee will serve for all; I would have thee know that
+she is a Christian, and that it is she who has been the file for our
+chains and our deliverer from captivity. She is here of her own free
+will, as glad, I imagine, to find herself in this position as he who
+escapes from darkness into the light, from death to life, and from
+suffering to glory.”
+
+“Daughter, is this true, what he says?” cried the Moor.
+
+“It is,” replied Zoraida.
+
+“That thou art in truth a Christian,” said the old man, “and that thou
+hast given thy father into the power of his enemies?”
+
+To which Zoraida made answer, “A Christian I am, but it is not I who
+have placed thee in this position, for it never was my wish to leave
+thee or do thee harm, but only to do good to myself.”
+
+“And what good hast thou done thyself, daughter?” said he.
+
+“Ask thou that,” said she, “of Lela Marien, for she can tell thee
+better than I.”
+
+The Moor had hardly heard these words when with marvellous quickness he
+flung himself headforemost into the sea, where no doubt he would have
+been drowned had not the long and full dress he wore held him up for a
+little on the surface of the water. Zoraida cried aloud to us to save
+him, and we all hastened to help, and seizing him by his robe we drew
+him in half drowned and insensible, at which Zoraida was in such
+distress that she wept over him as piteously and bitterly as though he
+were already dead. We turned him upon his face and he voided a great
+quantity of water, and at the end of two hours came to himself.
+Meanwhile, the wind having changed we were compelled to head for the
+land, and ply our oars to avoid being driven on shore; but it was our
+good fortune to reach a creek that lies on one side of a small
+promontory or cape, called by the Moors that of the “Cava rumia,” which
+in our language means “the wicked Christian woman;” for it is a
+tradition among them that La Cava, through whom Spain was lost, lies
+buried at that spot; “cava” in their language meaning “wicked woman,”
+and “rumia” “Christian;” moreover, they count it unlucky to anchor
+there when necessity compels them, and they never do so otherwise. For
+us, however, it was not the resting-place of the wicked woman but a
+haven of safety for our relief, so much had the sea now got up. We
+posted a look-out on shore, and never let the oars out of our hands,
+and ate of the stores the renegade had laid in, imploring God and Our
+Lady with all our hearts to help and protect us, that we might give a
+happy ending to a beginning so prosperous. At the entreaty of Zoraida
+orders were given to set on shore her father and the other Moors who
+were still bound, for she could not endure, nor could her tender heart
+bear to see her father in bonds and her fellow-countrymen prisoners
+before her eyes. We promised her to do this at the moment of departure,
+for as it was uninhabited we ran no risk in releasing them at that
+place.
+
+Our prayers were not so far in vain as to be unheard by Heaven, for
+after a while the wind changed in our favour, and made the sea calm,
+inviting us once more to resume our voyage with a good heart. Seeing
+this we unbound the Moors, and one by one put them on shore, at which
+they were filled with amazement; but when we came to land Zoraida’s
+father, who had now completely recovered his senses, he said:
+
+“Why is it, think ye, Christians, that this wicked woman is rejoiced at
+your giving me my liberty? Think ye it is because of the affection she
+bears me? Nay verily, it is only because of the hindrance my presence
+offers to the execution of her base designs. And think not that it is
+her belief that yours is better than ours that has led her to change
+her religion; it is only because she knows that immodesty is more
+freely practised in your country than in ours.” Then turning to
+Zoraida, while I and another of the Christians held him fast by both
+arms, lest he should do some mad act, he said to her, “Infamous girl,
+misguided maiden, whither in thy blindness and madness art thou going
+in the hands of these dogs, our natural enemies? Cursed be the hour
+when I begot thee! Cursed the luxury and indulgence in which I reared
+thee!”
+
+But seeing that he was not likely soon to cease I made haste to put him
+on shore, and thence he continued his maledictions and lamentations
+aloud; calling on Mohammed to pray to Allah to destroy us, to confound
+us, to make an end of us; and when, in consequence of having made sail,
+we could no longer hear what he said we could see what he did; how he
+plucked out his beard and tore his hair and lay writhing on the ground.
+But once he raised his voice to such a pitch that we were able to hear
+what he said. “Come back, dear daughter, come back to shore; I forgive
+thee all; let those men have the money, for it is theirs now, and come
+back to comfort thy sorrowing father, who will yield up his life on
+this barren strand if thou dost leave him.”
+
+
+
+c41e.jpg (281K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+All this Zoraida heard, and heard with sorrow and tears, and all she
+could say in answer was, “Allah grant that Lela Marien, who has made me
+become a Christian, give thee comfort in thy sorrow, my father. Allah
+knows that I could not do otherwise than I have done, and that these
+Christians owe nothing to my will; for even had I wished not to
+accompany them, but remain at home, it would have been impossible for
+me, so eagerly did my soul urge me on to the accomplishment of this
+purpose, which I feel to be as righteous as to thee, dear father, it
+seems wicked.”
+
+But neither could her father hear her nor we see him when she said
+this; and so, while I consoled Zoraida, we turned our attention to our
+voyage, in which a breeze from the right point so favoured us that we
+made sure of finding ourselves off the coast of Spain on the morrow by
+daybreak. But, as good seldom or never comes pure and unmixed, without
+being attended or followed by some disturbing evil that gives a shock
+to it, our fortune, or perhaps the curses which the Moor had hurled at
+his daughter (for whatever kind of father they may come from these are
+always to be dreaded), brought it about that when we were now in
+mid-sea, and the night about three hours spent, as we were running with
+all sail set and oars lashed, for the favouring breeze saved us the
+trouble of using them, we saw by the light of the moon, which shone
+brilliantly, a square-rigged vessel in full sail close to us, luffing
+up and standing across our course, and so close that we had to strike
+sail to avoid running foul of her, while they too put the helm hard up
+to let us pass. They came to the side of the ship to ask who we were,
+whither we were bound, and whence we came, but as they asked this in
+French our renegade said, “Let no one answer, for no doubt these are
+French corsairs who plunder all comers.”
+
+
+
+c41f.jpg (268K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Acting on this warning no one answered a word, but after we had gone a
+little ahead, and the vessel was now lying to leeward, suddenly they
+fired two guns, and apparently both loaded with chain-shot, for with
+one they cut our mast in half and brought down both it and the sail
+into the sea, and the other, discharged at the same moment, sent a ball
+into our vessel amidships, staving her in completely, but without doing
+any further damage. We, however, finding ourselves sinking began to
+shout for help and call upon those in the ship to pick us up as we were
+beginning to fill. They then lay to, and lowering a skiff or boat, as
+many as a dozen Frenchmen, well armed with match-locks, and their
+matches burning, got into it and came alongside; and seeing how few we
+were, and that our vessel was going down, they took us in, telling us
+that this had come to us through our incivility in not giving them an
+answer. Our renegade took the trunk containing Zoraida’s wealth and
+dropped it into the sea without anyone perceiving what he did. In short
+we went on board with the Frenchmen, who, after having ascertained all
+they wanted to know about us, rifled us of everything we had, as if
+they had been our bitterest enemies, and from Zoraida they took even
+the anklets she wore on her feet; but the distress they caused her did
+not distress me so much as the fear I was in that from robbing her of
+her rich and precious jewels they would proceed to rob her of the most
+precious jewel that she valued more than all. The desires, however, of
+those people do not go beyond money, but of that their covetousness is
+insatiable, and on this occasion it was carried to such a pitch that
+they would have taken even the clothes we wore as captives if they had
+been worth anything to them. It was the advice of some of them to throw
+us all into the sea wrapped up in a sail; for their purpose was to
+trade at some of the ports of Spain, giving themselves out as Bretons,
+and if they brought us alive they would be punished as soon as the
+robbery was discovered; but the captain (who was the one who had
+plundered my beloved Zoraida) said he was satisfied with the prize he
+had got, and that he would not touch at any Spanish port, but pass the
+Straits of Gibraltar by night, or as best he could, and make for La
+Rochelle, from which he had sailed. So they agreed by common consent to
+give us the skiff belonging to their ship and all we required for the
+short voyage that remained to us, and this they did the next day on
+coming in sight of the Spanish coast, with which, and the joy we felt,
+all our sufferings and miseries were as completely forgotten as if they
+had never been endured by us, such is the delight of recovering lost
+liberty.
+
+It may have been about mid-day when they placed us in the boat, giving
+us two kegs of water and some biscuit; and the captain, moved by I know
+not what compassion, as the lovely Zoraida was about to embark, gave
+her some forty gold crowns, and would not permit his men to take from
+her those same garments which she has on now. We got into the boat,
+returning them thanks for their kindness to us, and showing ourselves
+grateful rather than indignant. They stood out to sea, steering for the
+straits; we, without looking to any compass save the land we had before
+us, set ourselves to row with such energy that by sunset we were so
+near that we might easily, we thought, land before the night was far
+advanced. But as the moon did not show that night, and the sky was
+clouded, and as we knew not whereabouts we were, it did not seem to us
+a prudent thing to make for the shore, as several of us advised, saying
+we ought to run ourselves ashore even if it were on rocks and far from
+any habitation, for in this way we should be relieved from the
+apprehensions we naturally felt of the prowling vessels of the Tetuan
+corsairs, who leave Barbary at nightfall and are on the Spanish coast
+by daybreak, where they commonly take some prize, and then go home to
+sleep in their own houses. But of the conflicting counsels the one
+which was adopted was that we should approach gradually, and land where
+we could if the sea were calm enough to permit us. This was done, and a
+little before midnight we drew near to the foot of a huge and lofty
+mountain, not so close to the sea but that it left a narrow space on
+which to land conveniently. We ran our boat up on the sand, and all
+sprang out and kissed the ground, and with tears of joyful satisfaction
+returned thanks to God our Lord for all his incomparable goodness to us
+on our voyage. We took out of the boat the provisions it contained, and
+drew it up on the shore, and then climbed a long way up the mountain,
+for even there we could not feel easy in our hearts, or persuade
+ourselves that it was Christian soil that was now under our feet.
+
+The dawn came, more slowly, I think, than we could have wished; we
+completed the ascent in order to see if from the summit any habitation
+or any shepherds’ huts could be discovered, but strain our eyes as we
+might, neither dwelling, nor human being, nor path nor road could we
+perceive. However, we determined to push on farther, as it could not
+but be that ere long we must see someone who could tell us where we
+were. But what distressed me most was to see Zoraida going on foot over
+that rough ground; for though I once carried her on my shoulders, she
+was more wearied by my weariness than rested by the rest; and so she
+would never again allow me to undergo the exertion, and went on very
+patiently and cheerfully, while I led her by the hand. We had gone
+rather less than a quarter of a league when the sound of a little bell
+fell on our ears, a clear proof that there were flocks hard by, and
+looking about carefully to see if any were within view, we observed a
+young shepherd tranquilly and unsuspiciously trimming a stick with his
+knife at the foot of a cork tree. We called to him, and he, raising his
+head, sprang nimbly to his feet, for, as we afterwards learned, the
+first who presented themselves to his sight were the renegade and
+Zoraida, and seeing them in Moorish dress he imagined that all the
+Moors of Barbary were upon him; and plunging with marvellous swiftness
+into the thicket in front of him, he began to raise a prodigious
+outcry, exclaiming, “The Moors—the Moors have landed! To arms, to
+arms!” We were all thrown into perplexity by these cries, not knowing
+what to do; but reflecting that the shouts of the shepherd would raise
+the country and that the mounted coast-guard would come at once to see
+what was the matter, we agreed that the renegade must strip off his
+Turkish garments and put on a captive’s jacket or coat which one of our
+party gave him at once, though he himself was reduced to his shirt; and
+so commending ourselves to God, we followed the same road which we saw
+the shepherd take, expecting every moment that the coast-guard would be
+down upon us. Nor did our expectation deceive us, for two hours had not
+passed when, coming out of the brushwood into the open ground, we
+perceived some fifty mounted men swiftly approaching us at a
+hand-gallop. As soon as we saw them we stood still, waiting for them;
+but as they came close and, instead of the Moors they were in quest of,
+saw a set of poor Christians, they were taken aback, and one of them
+asked if it could be we who were the cause of the shepherd having
+raised the call to arms. I said “Yes,” and as I was about to explain to
+him what had occurred, and whence we came and who we were, one of the
+Christians of our party recognised the horseman who had put the
+question to us, and before I could say anything more he exclaimed:
+
+“Thanks be to God, sirs, for bringing us to such good quarters; for, if
+I do not deceive myself, the ground we stand on is that of Velez Malaga
+unless, indeed, all my years of captivity have made me unable to
+recollect that you, señor, who ask who we are, are Pedro de Bustamante,
+my uncle.”
+
+The Christian captive had hardly uttered these words, when the horseman
+threw himself off his horse, and ran to embrace the young man, crying:
+
+“Nephew of my soul and life! I recognise thee now; and long have I
+mourned thee as dead, I, and my sister, thy mother, and all thy kin
+that are still alive, and whom God has been pleased to preserve that
+they may enjoy the happiness of seeing thee. We knew long since that
+thou wert in Algiers, and from the appearance of thy garments and those
+of all this company, I conclude that ye have had a miraculous
+restoration to liberty.”
+
+“It is true,” replied the young man, “and by-and-by we will tell you
+all.”
+
+As soon as the horsemen understood that we were Christian captives,
+they dismounted from their horses, and each offered his to carry us to
+the city of Velez Malaga, which was a league and a half distant. Some
+of them went to bring the boat to the city, we having told them where
+we had left it; others took us up behind them, and Zoraida was placed
+on the horse of the young man’s uncle. The whole town came out to meet
+us, for they had by this time heard of our arrival from one who had
+gone on in advance. They were not astonished to see liberated captives
+or captive Moors, for people on that coast are well used to see both
+one and the other; but they were astonished at the beauty of Zoraida,
+which was just then heightened, as well by the exertion of travelling
+as by joy at finding herself on Christian soil, and relieved of all
+fear of being lost; for this had brought such a glow upon her face,
+that unless my affection for her were deceiving me, I would venture to
+say that there was not a more beautiful creature in the world—at least,
+that I had ever seen. We went straight to the church to return thanks
+to God for the mercies we had received, and when Zoraida entered it she
+said there were faces there like Lela Marien’s. We told her they were
+her images; and as well as he could the renegade explained to her what
+they meant, that she might adore them as if each of them were the very
+same Lela Marien that had spoken to her; and she, having great
+intelligence and a quick and clear instinct, understood at once all he
+said to her about them. Thence they took us away and distributed us all
+in different houses in the town; but as for the renegade, Zoraida, and
+myself, the Christian who came with us brought us to the house of his
+parents, who had a fair share of the gifts of fortune, and treated us
+with as much kindness as they did their own son.
+
+We remained six days in Velez, at the end of which the renegade, having
+informed himself of all that was requisite for him to do, set out for
+the city of Granada to restore himself to the sacred bosom of the
+Church through the medium of the Holy Inquisition. The other released
+captives took their departures, each the way that seemed best to him,
+and Zoraida and I were left alone, with nothing more than the crowns
+which the courtesy of the Frenchman had bestowed upon Zoraida, out of
+which I bought the beast on which she rides; and, I for the present
+attending her as her father and squire and not as her husband, we are
+now going to ascertain if my father is living, or if any of my brothers
+has had better fortune than mine has been; though, as Heaven has made
+me the companion of Zoraida, I think no other lot could be assigned to
+me, however happy, that I would rather have. The patience with which
+she endures the hardships that poverty brings with it, and the
+eagerness she shows to become a Christian, are such that they fill me
+with admiration, and bind me to serve her all my life; though the
+happiness I feel in seeing myself hers, and her mine, is disturbed and
+marred by not knowing whether I shall find any corner to shelter her in
+my own country, or whether time and death may not have made such
+changes in the fortunes and lives of my father and brothers, that I
+shall hardly find anyone who knows me, if they are not alive.
+
+I have no more of my story to tell you, gentlemen; whether it be an
+interesting or a curious one let your better judgments decide; all I
+can say is I would gladly have told it to you more briefly; although my
+fear of wearying you has made me leave out more than one circumstance.
+
+
+
+c41g.jpg (33K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+WHICH TREATS OF WHAT FURTHER TOOK PLACE IN THE INN, AND OF SEVERAL
+OTHER THINGS WORTH KNOWING
+
+
+
+
+c42a.jpg (139K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+With these words the captive held his peace, and Don Fernando said to
+him, “In truth, captain, the manner in which you have related this
+remarkable adventure has been such as befitted the novelty and
+strangeness of the matter. The whole story is curious and uncommon, and
+abounds with incidents that fill the hearers with wonder and
+astonishment; and so great is the pleasure we have found in listening
+to it that we should be glad if it were to begin again, even though
+to-morrow were to find us still occupied with the same tale.” And while
+he said this Cardenio and the rest of them offered to be of service to
+him in any way that lay in their power, and in words and language so
+kindly and sincere that the captain was much gratified by their
+good-will. In particular Don Fernando offered, if he would go back with
+him, to get his brother the marquis to become godfather at the baptism
+of Zoraida, and on his own part to provide him with the means of making
+his appearance in his own country with the credit and comfort he was
+entitled to. For all this the captive returned thanks very courteously,
+although he would not accept any of their generous offers.
+
+By this time night closed in, and as it did, there came up to the inn a
+coach attended by some men on horseback, who demanded accommodation; to
+which the landlady replied that there was not a hand’s breadth of the
+whole inn unoccupied.
+
+“Still, for all that,” said one of those who had entered on horseback,
+“room must be found for his lordship the Judge here.”
+
+At this name the landlady was taken aback, and said, “Señor, the fact
+is I have no beds; but if his lordship the Judge carries one with him,
+as no doubt he does, let him come in and welcome; for my husband and I
+will give up our room to accommodate his worship.”
+
+“Very good, so be it,” said the squire; but in the meantime a man had
+got out of the coach whose dress indicated at a glance the office and
+post he held, for the long robe with ruffled sleeves that he wore
+showed that he was, as his servant said, a Judge of appeal. He led by
+the hand a young girl in a travelling dress, apparently about sixteen
+years of age, and of such a high-bred air, so beautiful and so
+graceful, that all were filled with admiration when she made her
+appearance, and but for having seen Dorothea, Luscinda, and Zoraida,
+who were there in the inn, they would have fancied that a beauty like
+that of this maiden’s would have been hard to find. Don Quixote was
+present at the entrance of the Judge with the young lady, and as soon
+as he saw him he said, “Your worship may with confidence enter and take
+your ease in this castle; for though the accommodation be scanty and
+poor, there are no quarters so cramped or inconvenient that they cannot
+make room for arms and letters; above all if arms and letters have
+beauty for a guide and leader, as letters represented by your worship
+have in this fair maiden, to whom not only ought castles to throw
+themselves open and yield themselves up, but rocks should rend
+themselves asunder and mountains divide and bow themselves down to give
+her a reception. Enter, your worship, I say, into this paradise, for
+here you will find stars and suns to accompany the heaven your worship
+brings with you, here you will find arms in their supreme excellence,
+and beauty in its highest perfection.”
+
+The Judge was struck with amazement at the language of Don Quixote,
+whom he scrutinized very carefully, no less astonished by his figure
+than by his talk; and before he could find words to answer him he had a
+fresh surprise, when he saw opposite to him Luscinda, Dorothea, and
+Zoraida, who, having heard of the new guests and of the beauty of the
+young lady, had come to see her and welcome her; Don Fernando,
+Cardenio, and the curate, however, greeted him in a more intelligible
+and polished style. In short, the Judge made his entrance in a state of
+bewilderment, as well with what he saw as what he heard, and the fair
+ladies of the inn gave the fair damsel a cordial welcome. On the whole
+he could perceive that all who were there were people of quality; but
+with the figure, countenance, and bearing of Don Quixote he was at his
+wits’ end; and all civilities having been exchanged, and the
+accommodation of the inn inquired into, it was settled, as it had been
+before settled, that all the women should retire to the garret that has
+been already mentioned, and that the men should remain outside as if to
+guard them; the Judge, therefore, was very well pleased to allow his
+daughter, for such the damsel was, to go with the ladies, which she did
+very willingly; and with part of the host’s narrow bed and half of what
+the Judge had brought with him, they made a more comfortable
+arrangement for the night than they had expected.
+
+The captive, whose heart had leaped within him the instant he saw the
+Judge, telling him somehow that this was his brother, asked one of the
+servants who accompanied him what his name was, and whether he knew
+from what part of the country he came. The servant replied that he was
+called the Licentiate Juan Perez de Viedma, and that he had heard it
+said he came from a village in the mountains of Leon. From this
+statement, and what he himself had seen, he felt convinced that this
+was his brother who had adopted letters by his father’s advice; and
+excited and rejoiced, he called Don Fernando and Cardenio and the
+curate aside, and told them how the matter stood, assuring them that
+the judge was his brother. The servant had further informed him that he
+was now going to the Indies with the appointment of Judge of the
+Supreme Court of Mexico; and he had learned, likewise, that the young
+lady was his daughter, whose mother had died in giving birth to her,
+and that he was very rich in consequence of the dowry left to him with
+the daughter. He asked their advice as to what means he should adopt to
+make himself known, or to ascertain beforehand whether, when he had
+made himself known, his brother, seeing him so poor, would be ashamed
+of him, or would receive him with a warm heart.
+
+“Leave it to me to find out that,” said the curate; “though there is no
+reason for supposing, señor captain, that you will not be kindly
+received, because the worth and wisdom that your brother’s bearing
+shows him to possess do not make it likely that he will prove haughty
+or insensible, or that he will not know how to estimate the accidents
+of fortune at their proper value.”
+
+“Still,” said the captain, “I would not make myself known abruptly, but
+in some indirect way.”
+
+“I have told you already,” said the curate, “that I will manage it in a
+way to satisfy us all.”
+
+By this time supper was ready, and they all took their seats at the
+table, except the captive, and the ladies, who supped by themselves in
+their own room. In the middle of supper the curate said:
+
+“I had a comrade of your worship’s name, Señor Judge, in
+Constantinople, where I was a captive for several years, and that same
+comrade was one of the stoutest soldiers and captains in the whole
+Spanish infantry; but he had as large a share of misfortune as he had
+of gallantry and courage.”
+
+“And how was the captain called, señor?” asked the Judge.
+
+“He was called Ruy Perez de Viedma,” replied the curate, “and he was
+born in a village in the mountains of Leon; and he mentioned a
+circumstance connected with his father and his brothers which, had it
+not been told me by so truthful a man as he was, I should have set down
+as one of those fables the old women tell over the fire in winter; for
+he said his father had divided his property among his three sons and
+had addressed words of advice to them sounder than any of Cato’s. But I
+can say this much, that the choice he made of going to the wars was
+attended with such success, that by his gallant conduct and courage,
+and without any help save his own merit, he rose in a few years to be
+captain of infantry, and to see himself on the high-road and in
+position to be given the command of a corps before long; but Fortune
+was against him, for where he might have expected her favour he lost
+it, and with it his liberty, on that glorious day when so many
+recovered theirs, at the battle of Lepanto. I lost mine at the Goletta,
+and after a variety of adventures we found ourselves comrades at
+Constantinople. Thence he went to Algiers, where he met with one of the
+most extraordinary adventures that ever befell anyone in the world.”
+
+Here the curate went on to relate briefly his brother’s adventure with
+Zoraida; to all which the Judge gave such an attentive hearing that he
+never before had been so much of a hearer. The curate, however, only
+went so far as to describe how the Frenchmen plundered those who were
+in the boat, and the poverty and distress in which his comrade and the
+fair Moor were left, of whom he said he had not been able to learn what
+became of them, or whether they had reached Spain, or been carried to
+France by the Frenchmen.
+
+The captain, standing a little to one side, was listening to all the
+curate said, and watching every movement of his brother, who, as soon
+as he perceived the curate had made an end of his story, gave a deep
+sigh and said with his eyes full of tears, “Oh, señor, if you only knew
+what news you have given me and how it comes home to me, making me show
+how I feel it with these tears that spring from my eyes in spite of all
+my worldly wisdom and self-restraint! That brave captain that you speak
+of is my eldest brother, who, being of a bolder and loftier mind than
+my other brother or myself, chose the honourable and worthy calling of
+arms, which was one of the three careers our father proposed to us, as
+your comrade mentioned in that fable you thought he was telling you. I
+followed that of letters, in which God and my own exertions have raised
+me to the position in which you see me. My second brother is in Peru,
+so wealthy that with what he has sent to my father and to me he has
+fully repaid the portion he took with him, and has even furnished my
+father’s hands with the means of gratifying his natural generosity,
+while I too have been enabled to pursue my studies in a more becoming
+and creditable fashion, and so to attain my present standing. My father
+is still alive, though dying with anxiety to hear of his eldest son,
+and he prays God unceasingly that death may not close his eyes until he
+has looked upon those of his son; but with regard to him what surprises
+me is, that having so much common sense as he had, he should have
+neglected to give any intelligence about himself, either in his
+troubles and sufferings, or in his prosperity, for if his father or any
+of us had known of his condition he need not have waited for that
+miracle of the reed to obtain his ransom; but what now disquiets me is
+the uncertainty whether those Frenchmen may have restored him to
+liberty, or murdered him to hide the robbery. All this will make me
+continue my journey, not with the satisfaction in which I began it, but
+in the deepest melancholy and sadness. Oh dear brother! that I only
+knew where thou art now, and I would hasten to seek thee out and
+deliver thee from thy sufferings, though it were to cost me suffering
+myself! Oh that I could bring news to our old father that thou art
+alive, even wert thou in the deepest dungeon of Barbary; for his wealth
+and my brother’s and mine would rescue thee thence! Oh beautiful and
+generous Zoraida, that I could repay thy goodness to a brother! That I
+could be present at the new birth of thy soul, and at thy bridal that
+would give us all such happiness!”
+
+All this and more the Judge uttered with such deep emotion at the news
+he had received of his brother that all who heard him shared in it,
+showing their sympathy with his sorrow. The curate, seeing, then, how
+well he had succeeded in carrying out his purpose and the captain’s
+wishes, had no desire to keep them unhappy any longer, so he rose from
+the table and going into the room where Zoraida was he took her by the
+hand, Luscinda, Dorothea, and the Judge’s daughter following her. The
+captain was waiting to see what the curate would do, when the latter,
+taking him with the other hand, advanced with both of them to where the
+Judge and the other gentlemen were and said, “Let your tears cease to
+flow, Señor Judge, and the wish of your heart be gratified as fully as
+you could desire, for you have before you your worthy brother and your
+good sister-in-law. He whom you see here is the Captain Viedma, and
+this is the fair Moor who has been so good to him. The Frenchmen I told
+you of have reduced them to the state of poverty you see that you may
+show the generosity of your kind heart.”
+
+The captain ran to embrace his brother, who placed both hands on his
+breast so as to have a good look at him, holding him a little way off
+but as soon as he had fully recognised him he clasped him in his arms
+so closely, shedding such tears of heartfelt joy, that most of those
+present could not but join in them. The words the brothers exchanged,
+the emotion they showed can scarcely be imagined, I fancy, much less
+put down in writing. They told each other in a few words the events of
+their lives; they showed the true affection of brothers in all its
+strength; then the judge embraced Zoraida, putting all he possessed at
+her disposal; then he made his daughter embrace her, and the fair
+Christian and the lovely Moor drew fresh tears from every eye. And
+there was Don Quixote observing all these strange proceedings
+attentively without uttering a word, and attributing the whole to
+chimeras of knight-errantry. Then they agreed that the captain and
+Zoraida should return with his brother to Seville, and send news to his
+father of his having been delivered and found, so as to enable him to
+come and be present at the marriage and baptism of Zoraida, for it was
+impossible for the Judge to put off his journey, as he was informed
+that in a month from that time the fleet was to sail from Seville for
+New Spain, and to miss the passage would have been a great
+inconvenience to him. In short, everybody was well pleased and glad at
+the captive’s good fortune; and as now almost two-thirds of the night
+were past, they resolved to retire to rest for the remainder of it. Don
+Quixote offered to mount guard over the castle lest they should be
+attacked by some giant or other malevolent scoundrel, covetous of the
+great treasure of beauty the castle contained. Those who understood him
+returned him thanks for this service, and they gave the Judge an
+account of his extraordinary humour, with which he was not a little
+amused. Sancho Panza alone was fuming at the lateness of the hour for
+retiring to rest; and he of all was the one that made himself most
+comfortable, as he stretched himself on the trappings of his ass,
+which, as will be told farther on, cost him so dear.
+
+The ladies, then, having retired to their chamber, and the others
+having disposed themselves with as little discomfort as they could, Don
+Quixote sallied out of the inn to act as sentinel of the castle as he
+had promised. It happened, however, that a little before the approach
+of dawn a voice so musical and sweet reached the ears of the ladies
+that it forced them all to listen attentively, but especially Dorothea,
+who had been awake, and by whose side Doña Clara de Viedma, for so the
+Judge’s daughter was called, lay sleeping. No one could imagine who it
+was that sang so sweetly, and the voice was unaccompanied by any
+instrument. At one moment it seemed to them as if the singer were in
+the courtyard, at another in the stable; and as they were all
+attention, wondering, Cardenio came to the door and said, “Listen,
+whoever is not asleep, and you will hear a muleteer’s voice that
+enchants as it chants.”
+
+“We are listening to it already, señor,” said Dorothea; on which
+Cardenio went away; and Dorothea, giving all her attention to it, made
+out the words of the song to be these:
+
+
+
+c42e.jpg (11K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+WHEREIN IS RELATED THE PLEASANT STORY OF THE MULETEER, TOGETHER WITH
+OTHER STRANGE THINGS THAT CAME TO PASS IN THE INN
+
+
+
+
+c43a.jpg (127K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Ah me, Love’s mariner am I
+On Love’s deep ocean sailing;
+I know not where the haven lies,
+I dare not hope to gain it.
+
+One solitary distant star
+Is all I have to guide me,
+A brighter orb than those of old
+That Palinurus lighted.
+
+And vaguely drifting am I borne,
+I know not where it leads me;
+I fix my gaze on it alone,
+Of all beside it heedless.
+
+But over-cautious prudery,
+And coyness cold and cruel,
+When most I need it, these, like clouds,
+Its longed-for light refuse me.
+
+Bright star, goal of my yearning eyes
+As thou above me beamest,
+When thou shalt hide thee from my sight
+I’ll know that death is near me.
+
+
+The singer had got so far when it struck Dorothea that it was not fair
+to let Clara miss hearing such a sweet voice, so, shaking her from side
+to side, she woke her, saying:
+
+“Forgive me, child, for waking thee, but I do so that thou mayest have
+the pleasure of hearing the best voice thou hast ever heard, perhaps,
+in all thy life.”
+
+Clara awoke quite drowsy, and not understanding at the moment what
+Dorothea said, asked her what it was; she repeated what she had said,
+and Clara became attentive at once; but she had hardly heard two lines,
+as the singer continued, when a strange trembling seized her, as if she
+were suffering from a severe attack of quartan ague, and throwing her
+arms round Dorothea she said:
+
+“Ah, dear lady of my soul and life! why did you wake me? The greatest
+kindness fortune could do me now would be to close my eyes and ears so
+as neither to see or hear that unhappy musician.”
+
+“What art thou talking about, child?” said Dorothea. “Why, they say
+this singer is a muleteer!”
+
+“Nay, he is the lord of many places,” replied Clara, “and that one in
+my heart which he holds so firmly shall never be taken from him, unless
+he be willing to surrender it.”
+
+Dorothea was amazed at the ardent language of the girl, for it seemed
+to be far beyond such experience of life as her tender years gave any
+promise of, so she said to her:
+
+“You speak in such a way that I cannot understand you, Señora Clara;
+explain yourself more clearly, and tell me what is this you are saying
+about hearts and places and this musician whose voice has so moved you?
+But do not tell me anything now; I do not want to lose the pleasure I
+get from listening to the singer by giving my attention to your
+transports, for I perceive he is beginning to sing a new strain and a
+new air.”
+
+“Let him, in Heaven’s name,” returned Clara; and not to hear him she
+stopped both ears with her hands, at which Dorothea was again
+surprised; but turning her attention to the song she found that it ran
+in this fashion:
+
+Sweet Hope, my stay,
+That onward to the goal of thy intent
+Dost make thy way,
+Heedless of hindrance or impediment,
+Have thou no fear
+If at each step thou findest death is near.
+
+No victory,
+No joy of triumph doth the faint heart know;
+Unblest is he
+That a bold front to Fortune dares not show,
+But soul and sense
+In bondage yieldeth up to indolence.
+
+If Love his wares
+Do dearly sell, his right must be contest;
+What gold compares
+With that whereon his stamp he hath imprest?
+And all men know
+What costeth little that we rate but low.
+
+Love resolute
+Knows not the word “impossibility;”
+And though my suit
+Beset by endless obstacles I see,
+Yet no despair
+Shall hold me bound to earth while heaven is there.
+
+
+Here the voice ceased and Clara’s sobs began afresh, all which excited
+Dorothea’s curiosity to know what could be the cause of singing so
+sweet and weeping so bitter, so she again asked her what it was she was
+going to say before. On this Clara, afraid that Luscinda might overhear
+her, winding her arms tightly round Dorothea put her mouth so close to
+her ear that she could speak without fear of being heard by anyone
+else, and said:
+
+“This singer, dear señora, is the son of a gentleman of Aragon, lord of
+two villages, who lives opposite my father’s house at Madrid; and
+though my father had curtains to the windows of his house in winter,
+and lattice-work in summer, in some way—I know not how—this gentleman,
+who was pursuing his studies, saw me, whether in church or elsewhere, I
+cannot tell, and, in fact, fell in love with me, and gave me to know it
+from the windows of his house, with so many signs and tears that I was
+forced to believe him, and even to love him, without knowing what it
+was he wanted of me. One of the signs he used to make me was to link
+one hand in the other, to show me he wished to marry me; and though I
+should have been glad if that could be, being alone and motherless I
+knew not whom to open my mind to, and so I left it as it was, showing
+him no favour, except when my father, and his too, were from home, to
+raise the curtain or the lattice a little and let him see me plainly,
+at which he would show such delight that he seemed as if he were going
+mad. Meanwhile the time for my father’s departure arrived, which he
+became aware of, but not from me, for I had never been able to tell him
+of it. He fell sick, of grief I believe, and so the day we were going
+away I could not see him to take farewell of him, were it only with the
+eyes. But after we had been two days on the road, on entering the
+posada of a village a day’s journey from this, I saw him at the inn
+door in the dress of a muleteer, and so well disguised, that if I did
+not carry his image graven on my heart it would have been impossible
+for me to recognise him. But I knew him, and I was surprised, and glad;
+he watched me, unsuspected by my father, from whom he always hides
+himself when he crosses my path on the road, or in the posadas where we
+halt; and, as I know what he is, and reflect that for love of me he
+makes this journey on foot in all this hardship, I am ready to die of
+sorrow; and where he sets foot there I set my eyes. I know not with
+what object he has come; or how he could have got away from his father,
+who loves him beyond measure, having no other heir, and because he
+deserves it, as you will perceive when you see him. And moreover, I can
+tell you, all that he sings is out of his own head; for I have heard
+them say he is a great scholar and poet; and what is more, every time I
+see him or hear him sing I tremble all over, and am terrified lest my
+father should recognise him and come to know of our loves. I have never
+spoken a word to him in my life; and for all that I love him so that I
+could not live without him. This, dear señora, is all I have to tell
+you about the musician whose voice has delighted you so much; and from
+it alone you might easily perceive he is no muleteer, but a lord of
+hearts and towns, as I told you already.”
+
+“Say no more, Doña Clara,” said Dorothea at this, at the same time
+kissing her a thousand times over, “say no more, I tell you, but wait
+till day comes; when I trust in God to arrange this affair of yours so
+that it may have the happy ending such an innocent beginning deserves.”
+
+“Ah, señora,” said Doña Clara, “what end can be hoped for when his
+father is of such lofty position, and so wealthy, that he would think I
+was not fit to be even a servant to his son, much less wife? And as to
+marrying without the knowledge of my father, I would not do it for all
+the world. I would not ask anything more than that this youth should go
+back and leave me; perhaps with not seeing him, and the long distance
+we shall have to travel, the pain I suffer now may become easier;
+though I daresay the remedy I propose will do me very little good. I
+don’t know how the devil this has come about, or how this love I have
+for him got in; I such a young girl, and he such a mere boy; for I
+verily believe we are both of an age, and I am not sixteen yet; for I
+will be sixteen Michaelmas Day, next, my father says.”
+
+Dorothea could not help laughing to hear how like a child Doña Clara
+spoke. “Let us go to sleep now, señora,” said she, “for the little of
+the night that I fancy is left to us: God will soon send us daylight,
+and we will set all to rights, or it will go hard with me.”
+
+With this they fell asleep, and deep silence reigned all through the
+inn. The only persons not asleep were the landlady’s daughter and her
+servant Maritornes, who, knowing the weak point of Don Quixote’s
+humour, and that he was outside the inn mounting guard in armour and on
+horseback, resolved, the pair of them, to play some trick upon him, or
+at any rate to amuse themselves for a while by listening to his
+nonsense. As it so happened there was not a window in the whole inn
+that looked outwards except a hole in the wall of a straw-loft through
+which they used to throw out the straw. At this hole the two
+demi-damsels posted themselves, and observed Don Quixote on his horse,
+leaning on his pike and from time to time sending forth such deep and
+doleful sighs, that he seemed to pluck up his soul by the roots with
+each of them; and they could hear him, too, saying in a soft, tender,
+loving tone, “Oh my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, perfection of all beauty,
+summit and crown of discretion, treasure house of grace, depositary of
+virtue, and finally, ideal of all that is good, honourable, and
+delectable in this world! What is thy grace doing now? Art thou,
+perchance, mindful of thy enslaved knight who of his own free will hath
+exposed himself to so great perils, and all to serve thee? Give me
+tidings of her, oh luminary of the three faces! Perhaps at this moment,
+envious of hers, thou art regarding her, either as she paces to and fro
+some gallery of her sumptuous palaces, or leans over some balcony,
+meditating how, whilst preserving her purity and greatness, she may
+mitigate the tortures this wretched heart of mine endures for her sake,
+what glory should recompense my sufferings, what repose my toil, and
+lastly what death my life, and what reward my services? And thou, oh
+sun, that art now doubtless harnessing thy steeds in haste to rise
+betimes and come forth to see my lady; when thou seest her I entreat of
+thee to salute her on my behalf: but have a care, when thou shalt see
+her and salute her, that thou kiss not her face; for I shall be more
+jealous of thee than thou wert of that light-footed ingrate that made
+thee sweat and run so on the plains of Thessaly, or on the banks of the
+Peneus (for I do not exactly recollect where it was thou didst run on
+that occasion) in thy jealousy and love.”
+
+Don Quixote had got so far in his pathetic speech when the landlady’s
+daughter began to signal to him, saying, “Señor, come over here,
+please.”
+
+At these signals and voice Don Quixote turned his head and saw by the
+light of the moon, which then was in its full splendour, that someone
+was calling to him from the hole in the wall, which seemed to him to be
+a window, and what is more, with a gilt grating, as rich castles, such
+as he believed the inn to be, ought to have; and it immediately
+suggested itself to his imagination that, as on the former occasion,
+the fair damsel, the daughter of the lady of the castle, overcome by
+love for him, was once more endeavouring to win his affections; and
+with this idea, not to show himself discourteous, or ungrateful, he
+turned Rocinante’s head and approached the hole, and as he perceived
+the two wenches he said:
+
+“I pity you, beauteous lady, that you should have directed your
+thoughts of love to a quarter from whence it is impossible that such a
+return can be made to you as is due to your great merit and gentle
+birth, for which you must not blame this unhappy knight-errant whom
+love renders incapable of submission to any other than her whom, the
+first moment his eyes beheld her, he made absolute mistress of his
+soul. Forgive me, noble lady, and retire to your apartment, and do not,
+by any further declaration of your passion, compel me to show myself
+more ungrateful; and if, of the love you bear me, you should find that
+there is anything else in my power wherein I can gratify you, provided
+it be not love itself, demand it of me; for I swear to you by that
+sweet absent enemy of mine to grant it this instant, though it be that
+you require of me a lock of Medusa’s hair, which was all snakes, or
+even the very beams of the sun shut up in a vial.”
+
+“My mistress wants nothing of that sort, sir knight,” said Maritornes
+at this.
+
+“What then, discreet dame, is it that your mistress wants?” replied Don
+Quixote.
+
+“Only one of your fair hands,” said Maritornes, “to enable her to vent
+over it the great passion, passion which has brought her to this
+loophole, so much to the risk of her honour; for if the lord her father
+had heard her, the least slice he would cut off her would be her ear.”
+
+“I should like to see that tried,” said Don Quixote; “but he had better
+beware of that, if he does not want to meet the most disastrous end
+that ever father in the world met for having laid hands on the tender
+limbs of a love-stricken daughter.”
+
+Maritornes felt sure that Don Quixote would present the hand she had
+asked, and making up her mind what to do, she got down from the hole
+and went into the stable, where she took the halter of Sancho Panza’s
+ass, and in all haste returned to the hole, just as Don Quixote had
+planted himself standing on Rocinante’s saddle in order to reach the
+grated window where he supposed the lovelorn damsel to be; and giving
+her his hand, he said, “Lady, take this hand, or rather this scourge of
+the evil-doers of the earth; take, I say, this hand which no other hand
+of woman has ever touched, not even hers who has complete possession of
+my entire body. I present it to you, not that you may kiss it, but that
+you may observe the contexture of the sinews, the close network of the
+muscles, the breadth and capacity of the veins, whence you may infer
+what must be the strength of the arm that has such a hand.”
+
+“That we shall see presently,” said Maritornes, and making a running
+knot on the halter, she passed it over his wrist and coming down from
+the hole tied the other end very firmly to the bolt of the door of the
+straw-loft.
+
+Don Quixote, feeling the roughness of the rope on his wrist, exclaimed,
+“Your grace seems to be grating rather than caressing my hand; treat it
+not so harshly, for it is not to blame for the offence my resolution
+has given you, nor is it just to wreak all your vengeance on so small a
+part; remember that one who loves so well should not revenge herself so
+cruelly.”
+
+But there was nobody now to listen to these words of Don Quixote’s, for
+as soon as Maritornes had tied him she and the other made off, ready to
+die with laughing, leaving him fastened in such a way that it was
+impossible for him to release himself.
+
+He was, as has been said, standing on Rocinante, with his arm passed
+through the hole and his wrist tied to the bolt of the door, and in
+mighty fear and dread of being left hanging by the arm if Rocinante
+were to stir one side or the other; so he did not dare to make the
+least movement, although from the patience and imperturbable
+disposition of Rocinante, he had good reason to expect that he would
+stand without budging for a whole century. Finding himself fast, then,
+and that the ladies had retired, he began to fancy that all this was
+done by enchantment, as on the former occasion when in that same castle
+that enchanted Moor of a carrier had belaboured him; and he cursed in
+his heart his own want of sense and judgment in venturing to enter the
+castle again, after having come off so badly the first time; it being a
+settled point with knights-errant that when they have tried an
+adventure, and have not succeeded in it, it is a sign that it is not
+reserved for them but for others, and that therefore they need not try
+it again. Nevertheless he pulled his arm to see if he could release
+himself, but it had been made so fast that all his efforts were in
+vain. It is true he pulled it gently lest Rocinante should move, but
+try as he might to seat himself in the saddle, he had nothing for it
+but to stand upright or pull his hand off. Then it was he wished for
+the sword of Amadis, against which no enchantment whatever had any
+power; then he cursed his ill fortune; then he magnified the loss the
+world would sustain by his absence while he remained there enchanted,
+for that he believed he was beyond all doubt; then he once more took to
+thinking of his beloved Dulcinea del Toboso; then he called to his
+worthy squire Sancho Panza, who, buried in sleep and stretched upon the
+pack-saddle of his ass, was oblivious, at that moment, of the mother
+that bore him; then he called upon the sages Lirgandeo and Alquife to
+come to his aid; then he invoked his good friend Urganda to succour
+him; and then, at last, morning found him in such a state of
+desperation and perplexity that he was bellowing like a bull, for he
+had no hope that day would bring any relief to his suffering, which he
+believed would last for ever, inasmuch as he was enchanted; and of this
+he was convinced by seeing that Rocinante never stirred, much or
+little, and he felt persuaded that he and his horse were to remain in
+this state, without eating or drinking or sleeping, until the malign
+influence of the stars was overpast, or until some other more sage
+enchanter should disenchant him.
+
+But he was very much deceived in this conclusion, for daylight had
+hardly begun to appear when there came up to the inn four men on
+horseback, well equipped and accoutred, with firelocks across their
+saddle-bows. They called out and knocked loudly at the gate of the inn,
+which was still shut; on seeing which, Don Quixote, even there where he
+was, did not forget to act as sentinel, and said in a loud and
+imperious tone, “Knights, or squires, or whatever ye be, ye have no
+right to knock at the gates of this castle; for it is plain enough that
+they who are within are either asleep, or else are not in the habit of
+throwing open the fortress until the sun’s rays are spread over the
+whole surface of the earth. Withdraw to a distance, and wait till it is
+broad daylight, and then we shall see whether it will be proper or not
+to open to you.”
+
+“What the devil fortress or castle is this,” said one, “to make us
+stand on such ceremony? If you are the innkeeper bid them open to us;
+we are travellers who only want to feed our horses and go on, for we
+are in haste.”
+
+“Do you think, gentlemen, that I look like an innkeeper?” said Don
+Quixote.
+
+“I don’t know what you look like,” replied the other; “but I know that
+you are talking nonsense when you call this inn a castle.”
+
+“A castle it is,” returned Don Quixote, “nay, more, one of the best in
+this whole province, and it has within it people who have had the
+sceptre in the hand and the crown on the head.”
+
+“It would be better if it were the other way,” said the traveller, “the
+sceptre on the head and the crown in the hand; but if so, maybe there
+is within some company of players, with whom it is a common thing to
+have those crowns and sceptres you speak of; for in such a small inn as
+this, and where such silence is kept, I do not believe any people
+entitled to crowns and sceptres can have taken up their quarters.”
+
+“You know but little of the world,” returned Don Quixote, “since you
+are ignorant of what commonly occurs in knight-errantry.”
+
+But the comrades of the spokesman, growing weary of the dialogue with
+Don Quixote, renewed their knocks with great vehemence, so much so that
+the host, and not only he but everybody in the inn, awoke, and he got
+up to ask who knocked. It happened at this moment that one of the
+horses of the four who were seeking admittance went to smell Rocinante,
+who melancholy, dejected, and with drooping ears stood motionless,
+supporting his sorely stretched master; and as he was, after all,
+flesh, though he looked as if he were made of wood, he could not help
+giving way and in return smelling the one who had come to offer him
+attentions. But he had hardly moved at all when Don Quixote lost his
+footing; and slipping off the saddle, he would have come to the ground,
+but for being suspended by the arm, which caused him such agony that he
+believed either his wrist would be cut through or his arm torn off; and
+he hung so near the ground that he could just touch it with his feet,
+which was all the worse for him; for, finding how little was wanted to
+enable him to plant his feet firmly, he struggled and stretched himself
+as much as he could to gain a footing; just like those undergoing the
+torture of the strappado, when they are fixed at “touch and no touch,”
+who aggravate their own sufferings by their violent efforts to stretch
+themselves, deceived by the hope which makes them fancy that with a
+very little more they will reach the ground.
+
+
+
+c43b.jpg (272K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+c43e.jpg (20K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+IN WHICH ARE CONTINUED THE UNHEARD-OF ADVENTURES OF THE INN
+
+
+
+
+c44a.jpg (144K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+So loud, in fact, were the shouts of Don Quixote, that the landlord
+opening the gate of the inn in all haste, came out in dismay, and ran
+to see who was uttering such cries, and those who were outside joined
+him. Maritornes, who had been by this time roused up by the same
+outcry, suspecting what it was, ran to the loft and, without anyone
+seeing her, untied the halter by which Don Quixote was suspended, and
+down he came to the ground in the sight of the landlord and the
+travellers, who approaching asked him what was the matter with him that
+he shouted so. He without replying a word took the rope off his wrist,
+and rising to his feet leaped upon Rocinante, braced his buckler on his
+arm, put his lance in rest, and making a considerable circuit of the
+plain came back at a half-gallop exclaiming:
+
+“Whoever shall say that I have been enchanted with just cause, provided
+my lady the Princess Micomicona grants me permission to do so, I give
+him the lie, challenge him and defy him to single combat.”
+
+The newly arrived travellers were amazed at the words of Don Quixote;
+but the landlord removed their surprise by telling them who he was, and
+not to mind him as he was out of his senses. They then asked the
+landlord if by any chance a youth of about fifteen years of age had
+come to that inn, one dressed like a muleteer, and of such and such an
+appearance, describing that of Doña Clara’s lover. The landlord replied
+that there were so many people in the inn he had not noticed the person
+they were inquiring for; but one of them observing the coach in which
+the Judge had come, said, “He is here no doubt, for this is the coach
+he is following: let one of us stay at the gate, and the rest go in to
+look for him; or indeed it would be as well if one of us went round the
+inn, lest he should escape over the wall of the yard.” “So be it,” said
+another; and while two of them went in, one remained at the gate and
+the other made the circuit of the inn; observing all which, the
+landlord was unable to conjecture for what reason they were taking all
+these precautions, though he understood they were looking for the youth
+whose description they had given him.
+
+It was by this time broad daylight; and for that reason, as well as in
+consequence of the noise Don Quixote had made, everybody was awake and
+up, but particularly Doña Clara and Dorothea; for they had been able to
+sleep but badly that night, the one from agitation at having her lover
+so near her, the other from curiosity to see him. Don Quixote, when he
+saw that not one of the four travellers took any notice of him or
+replied to his challenge, was furious and ready to die with indignation
+and wrath; and if he could have found in the ordinances of chivalry
+that it was lawful for a knight-errant to undertake or engage in
+another enterprise, when he had plighted his word and faith not to
+involve himself in any until he had made an end of the one to which he
+was pledged, he would have attacked the whole of them, and would have
+made them return an answer in spite of themselves. But considering that
+it would not become him, nor be right, to begin any new emprise until
+he had established Micomicona in her kingdom, he was constrained to
+hold his peace and wait quietly to see what would be the upshot of the
+proceedings of those same travellers; one of whom found the youth they
+were seeking lying asleep by the side of a muleteer, without a thought
+of anyone coming in search of him, much less finding him.
+
+The man laid hold of him by the arm, saying, “It becomes you well
+indeed, Señor Don Luis, to be in the dress you wear, and well the bed
+in which I find you agrees with the luxury in which your mother reared
+you.”
+
+The youth rubbed his sleepy eyes and stared for a while at him who held
+him, but presently recognised him as one of his father’s servants, at
+which he was so taken aback that for some time he could not find or
+utter a word; while the servant went on to say, “There is nothing for
+it now, Señor Don Luis, but to submit quietly and return home, unless
+it is your wish that my lord, your father, should take his departure
+for the other world, for nothing else can be the consequence of the
+grief he is in at your absence.”
+
+“But how did my father know that I had gone this road and in this
+dress?” said Don Luis.
+
+“It was a student to whom you confided your intentions,” answered the
+servant, “that disclosed them, touched with pity at the distress he saw
+your father suffer on missing you; he therefore despatched four of his
+servants in quest of you, and here we all are at your service, better
+pleased than you can imagine that we shall return so soon and be able
+to restore you to those eyes that so yearn for you.”
+
+“That shall be as I please, or as heaven orders,” returned Don Luis.
+
+“What can you please or heaven order,” said the other, “except to agree
+to go back? Anything else is impossible.”
+
+All this conversation between the two was overheard by the muleteer at
+whose side Don Luis lay, and rising, he went to report what had taken
+place to Don Fernando, Cardenio, and the others, who had by this time
+dressed themselves; and told them how the man had addressed the youth
+as “Don,” and what words had passed, and how he wanted him to return to
+his father, which the youth was unwilling to do. With this, and what
+they already knew of the rare voice that heaven had bestowed upon him,
+they all felt very anxious to know more particularly who he was, and
+even to help him if it was attempted to employ force against him; so
+they hastened to where he was still talking and arguing with his
+servant. Dorothea at this instant came out of her room, followed by
+Doña Clara all in a tremor; and calling Cardenio aside, she told him in
+a few words the story of the musician and Doña Clara, and he at the
+same time told her what had happened, how his father’s servants had
+come in search of him; but in telling her so, he did not speak low
+enough but that Doña Clara heard what he said, at which she was so much
+agitated that had not Dorothea hastened to support her she would have
+fallen to the ground. Cardenio then bade Dorothea return to her room,
+as he would endeavour to make the whole matter right, and they did as
+he desired. All the four who had come in quest of Don Luis had now come
+into the inn and surrounded him, urging him to return and console his
+father at once and without a moment’s delay. He replied that he could
+not do so on any account until he had concluded some business in which
+his life, honour, and heart were at stake. The servants pressed him,
+saying that most certainly they would not return without him, and that
+they would take him away whether he liked it or not.
+
+“You shall not do that,” replied Don Luis, “unless you take me dead;
+though however you take me, it will be without life.”
+
+By this time most of those in the inn had been attracted by the
+dispute, but particularly Cardenio, Don Fernando, his companions, the
+Judge, the curate, the barber, and Don Quixote; for he now considered
+there was no necessity for mounting guard over the castle any longer.
+Cardenio being already acquainted with the young man’s story, asked the
+men who wanted to take him away, what object they had in seeking to
+carry off this youth against his will.
+
+“Our object,” said one of the four, “is to save the life of his father,
+who is in danger of losing it through this gentleman’s disappearance.”
+
+Upon this Don Luis exclaimed, “There is no need to make my affairs
+public here; I am free, and I will return if I please; and if not, none
+of you shall compel me.”
+
+“Reason will compel your worship,” said the man, “and if it has no
+power over you, it has power over us, to make us do what we came for,
+and what it is our duty to do.”
+
+“Let us hear what the whole affair is about,” said the Judge at this;
+but the man, who knew him as a neighbour of theirs, replied, “Do you
+not know this gentleman, Señor Judge? He is the son of your neighbour,
+who has run away from his father’s house in a dress so unbecoming his
+rank, as your worship may perceive.”
+
+The judge on this looked at him more carefully and recognised him, and
+embracing him said, “What folly is this, Señor Don Luis, or what can
+have been the cause that could have induced you to come here in this
+way, and in this dress, which so ill becomes your condition?”
+
+Tears came into the eyes of the young man, and he was unable to utter a
+word in reply to the Judge, who told the four servants not to be
+uneasy, for all would be satisfactorily settled; and then taking Don
+Luis by the hand, he drew him aside and asked the reason of his having
+come there.
+
+But while he was questioning him they heard a loud outcry at the gate
+of the inn, the cause of which was that two of the guests who had
+passed the night there, seeing everybody busy about finding out what it
+was the four men wanted, had conceived the idea of going off without
+paying what they owed; but the landlord, who minded his own affairs
+more than other people’s, caught them going out of the gate and
+demanded his reckoning, abusing them for their dishonesty with such
+language that he drove them to reply with their fists, and so they
+began to lay on him in such a style that the poor man was forced to cry
+out, and call for help. The landlady and her daughter could see no one
+more free to give aid than Don Quixote, and to him the daughter said,
+“Sir knight, by the virtue God has given you, help my poor father, for
+two wicked men are beating him to a mummy.”
+
+To which Don Quixote very deliberately and phlegmatically replied,
+“Fair damsel, at the present moment your request is inopportune, for I
+am debarred from involving myself in any adventure until I have brought
+to a happy conclusion one to which my word has pledged me; but that
+which I can do for you is what I will now mention: run and tell your
+father to stand his ground as well as he can in this battle, and on no
+account to allow himself to be vanquished, while I go and request
+permission of the Princess Micomicona to enable me to succour him in
+his distress; and if she grants it, rest assured I will relieve him
+from it.”
+
+“Sinner that I am,” exclaimed Maritornes, who stood by; “before you
+have got your permission my master will be in the other world.”
+
+“Give me leave, señora, to obtain the permission I speak of,” returned
+Don Quixote; “and if I get it, it will matter very little if he is in
+the other world; for I will rescue him thence in spite of all the same
+world can do; or at any rate I will give you such a revenge over those
+who shall have sent him there that you will be more than moderately
+satisfied;” and without saying anything more he went and knelt before
+Dorothea, requesting her Highness in knightly and errant phrase to be
+pleased to grant him permission to aid and succour the castellan of
+that castle, who now stood in grievous jeopardy. The princess granted
+it graciously, and he at once, bracing his buckler on his arm and
+drawing his sword, hastened to the inn-gate, where the two guests were
+still handling the landlord roughly; but as soon as he reached the spot
+he stopped short and stood still, though Maritornes and the landlady
+asked him why he hesitated to help their master and husband.
+
+“I hesitate,” said Don Quixote, “because it is not lawful for me to
+draw sword against persons of squirely condition; but call my squire
+Sancho to me; for this defence and vengeance are his affair and
+business.”
+
+Thus matters stood at the inn-gate, where there was a very lively
+exchange of fisticuffs and punches, to the sore damage of the landlord
+and to the wrath of Maritornes, the landlady, and her daughter, who
+were furious when they saw the pusillanimity of Don Quixote, and the
+hard treatment their master, husband and father was undergoing. But let
+us leave him there; for he will surely find someone to help him, and if
+not, let him suffer and hold his tongue who attempts more than his
+strength allows him to do; and let us go back fifty paces to see what
+Don Luis said in reply to the Judge whom we left questioning him
+privately as to his reasons for coming on foot and so meanly dressed.
+
+To which the youth, pressing his hand in a way that showed his heart
+was troubled by some great sorrow, and shedding a flood of tears, made
+answer:
+
+“Señor, I have no more to tell you than that from the moment when,
+through heaven’s will and our being near neighbours, I first saw Doña
+Clara, your daughter and my lady, from that instant I made her the
+mistress of my will, and if yours, my true lord and father, offers no
+impediment, this very day she shall become my wife. For her I left my
+father’s house, and for her I assumed this disguise, to follow her
+whithersoever she may go, as the arrow seeks its mark or the sailor the
+pole-star. She knows nothing more of my passion than what she may have
+learned from having sometimes seen from a distance that my eyes were
+filled with tears. You know already, señor, the wealth and noble birth
+of my parents, and that I am their sole heir; if this be a sufficient
+inducement for you to venture to make me completely happy, accept me at
+once as your son; for if my father, influenced by other objects of his
+own, should disapprove of this happiness I have sought for myself, time
+has more power to alter and change things, than human will.”
+
+With this the love-smitten youth was silent, while the Judge, after
+hearing him, was astonished, perplexed, and surprised, as well at the
+manner and intelligence with which Don Luis had confessed the secret of
+his heart, as at the position in which he found himself, not knowing
+what course to take in a matter so sudden and unexpected. All the
+answer, therefore, he gave him was to bid him to make his mind easy for
+the present, and arrange with his servants not to take him back that
+day, so that there might be time to consider what was best for all
+parties. Don Luis kissed his hands by force, nay, bathed them with his
+tears, in a way that would have touched a heart of marble, not to say
+that of the Judge, who, as a shrewd man, had already perceived how
+advantageous the marriage would be to his daughter; though, were it
+possible, he would have preferred that it should be brought about with
+the consent of the father of Don Luis, who he knew looked for a title
+for his son.
+
+The guests had by this time made peace with the landlord, for, by
+persuasion and Don Quixote’s fair words more than by threats, they had
+paid him what he demanded, and the servants of Don Luis were waiting
+for the end of the conversation with the Judge and their master’s
+decision, when the devil, who never sleeps, contrived that the barber,
+from whom Don Quixote had taken Mambrino’s helmet, and Sancho Panza the
+trappings of his ass in exchange for those of his own, should at this
+instant enter the inn; which said barber, as he led his ass to the
+stable, observed Sancho Panza engaged in repairing something or other
+belonging to the pack-saddle; and the moment he saw it he knew it, and
+made bold to attack Sancho, exclaiming, “Ho, sir thief, I have caught
+you! hand over my basin and my pack-saddle, and all my trappings that
+you robbed me of.”
+
+Sancho, finding himself so unexpectedly assailed, and hearing the abuse
+poured upon him, seized the pack-saddle with one hand, and with the
+other gave the barber a cuff that bathed his teeth in blood. The
+barber, however, was not so ready to relinquish the prize he had made
+in the pack-saddle; on the contrary, he raised such an outcry that
+everyone in the inn came running to know what the noise and quarrel
+meant. “Here, in the name of the king and justice!” he cried, “this
+thief and highwayman wants to kill me for trying to recover my
+property.”
+
+“You lie,” said Sancho, “I am no highwayman; it was in fair war my
+master Don Quixote won these spoils.”
+
+Don Quixote was standing by at the time, highly pleased to see his
+squire’s stoutness, both offensive and defensive, and from that time
+forth he reckoned him a man of mettle, and in his heart resolved to dub
+him a knight on the first opportunity that presented itself, feeling
+sure that the order of chivalry would be fittingly bestowed upon him.
+
+In the course of the altercation, among other things the barber said,
+“Gentlemen, this pack-saddle is mine as surely as I owe God a death,
+and I know it as well as if I had given birth to it, and here is my ass
+in the stable who will not let me lie; only try it, and if it does not
+fit him like a glove, call me a rascal; and what is more, the same day
+I was robbed of this, they robbed me likewise of a new brass basin,
+never yet handselled, that would fetch a crown any day.”
+
+At this Don Quixote could not keep himself from answering; and
+interposing between the two, and separating them, he placed the
+pack-saddle on the ground, to lie there in sight until the truth was
+established, and said, “Your worships may perceive clearly and plainly
+the error under which this worthy squire lies when he calls a basin
+which was, is, and shall be the helmet of Mambrino which I won from him
+in fair war, and made myself master of by legitimate and lawful
+possession. With the pack-saddle I do not concern myself; but I may
+tell you on that head that my squire Sancho asked my permission to
+strip off the caparison of this vanquished poltroon’s steed, and with
+it adorn his own; I allowed him, and he took it; and as to its having
+been changed from a caparison into a pack-saddle, I can give no
+explanation except the usual one, that such transformations will take
+place in adventures of chivalry. To confirm all which, run, Sancho my
+son, and fetch hither the helmet which this good fellow calls a basin.”
+
+“Egad, master,” said Sancho, “if we have no other proof of our case
+than what your worship puts forward, Mambrino’s helmet is just as much
+a basin as this good fellow’s caparison is a pack-saddle.”
+
+“Do as I bid thee,” said Don Quixote; “it cannot be that everything in
+this castle goes by enchantment.”
+
+Sancho hastened to where the basin was, and brought it back with him,
+and when Don Quixote saw it, he took hold of it and said:
+
+“Your worships may see with what a face this squire can assert that
+this is a basin and not the helmet I told you of; and I swear by the
+order of chivalry I profess, that this helmet is the identical one I
+took from him, without anything added to or taken from it.”
+
+“There is no doubt of that,” said Sancho, “for from the time my master
+won it until now he has only fought one battle in it, when he let loose
+those unlucky men in chains; and if it had not been for this
+basin-helmet he would not have come off over well that time, for there
+was plenty of stone-throwing in that affair.”
+
+
+
+c44e.jpg (13K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+IN WHICH THE DOUBTFUL QUESTION OF MAMBRINO’S HELMET AND THE PACK-SADDLE
+IS FINALLY SETTLED, WITH OTHER ADVENTURES THAT OCCURRED IN TRUTH AND
+EARNEST
+
+
+
+
+c45a.jpg (154K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“What do you think now, gentlemen,” said the barber, “of what these
+gentles say, when they want to make out that this is a helmet?”
+
+“And whoever says the contrary,” said Don Quixote, “I will let him know
+he lies if he is a knight, and if he is a squire that he lies again a
+thousand times.”
+
+Our own barber, who was present at all this, and understood Don
+Quixote’s humour so thoroughly, took it into his head to back up his
+delusion and carry on the joke for the general amusement; so addressing
+the other barber he said:
+
+“Señor barber, or whatever you are, you must know that I belong to your
+profession too, and have had a licence to practise for more than twenty
+years, and I know the implements of the barber craft, every one of
+them, perfectly well; and I was likewise a soldier for some time in the
+days of my youth, and I know also what a helmet is, and a morion, and a
+headpiece with a visor, and other things pertaining to soldiering, I
+meant to say to soldiers’ arms; and I say—saving better opinions and
+always with submission to sounder judgments—that this piece we have now
+before us, which this worthy gentleman has in his hands, not only is no
+barber’s basin, but is as far from being one as white is from black,
+and truth from falsehood; I say, moreover, that this, although it is a
+helmet, is not a complete helmet.”
+
+“Certainly not,” said Don Quixote, “for half of it is wanting, that is
+to say the beaver.”
+
+“It is quite true,” said the curate, who saw the object of his friend
+the barber; and Cardenio, Don Fernando and his companions agreed with
+him, and even the Judge, if his thoughts had not been so full of Don
+Luis’s affair, would have helped to carry on the joke; but he was so
+taken up with the serious matters he had on his mind that he paid
+little or no attention to these facetious proceedings.
+
+“God bless me!” exclaimed their butt the barber at this; “is it
+possible that such an honourable company can say that this is not a
+basin but a helmet? Why, this is a thing that would astonish a whole
+university, however wise it might be! That will do; if this basin is a
+helmet, why, then the pack-saddle must be a horse’s caparison, as this
+gentleman has said.”
+
+“To me it looks like a pack-saddle,” said Don Quixote; “but I have
+already said that with that question I do not concern myself.”
+
+“As to whether it be pack-saddle or caparison,” said the curate, “it is
+only for Señor Don Quixote to say; for in these matters of chivalry all
+these gentlemen and I bow to his authority.”
+
+“By God, gentlemen,” said Don Quixote, “so many strange things have
+happened to me in this castle on the two occasions on which I have
+sojourned in it, that I will not venture to assert anything positively
+in reply to any question touching anything it contains; for it is my
+belief that everything that goes on within it goes by enchantment. The
+first time, an enchanted Moor that there is in it gave me sore trouble,
+nor did Sancho fare well among certain followers of his; and last night
+I was kept hanging by this arm for nearly two hours, without knowing
+how or why I came by such a mishap. So that now, for me to come forward
+to give an opinion in such a puzzling matter, would be to risk a rash
+decision. As regards the assertion that this is a basin and not a
+helmet I have already given an answer; but as to the question whether
+this is a pack-saddle or a caparison I will not venture to give a
+positive opinion, but will leave it to your worships’ better judgment.
+Perhaps as you are not dubbed knights like myself, the enchantments of
+this place have nothing to do with you, and your faculties are
+unfettered, and you can see things in this castle as they really and
+truly are, and not as they appear to me.”
+
+“There can be no question,” said Don Fernando on this, “but that Señor
+Don Quixote has spoken very wisely, and that with us rests the decision
+of this matter; and that we may have surer ground to go on, I will take
+the votes of the gentlemen in secret, and declare the result clearly
+and fully.”
+
+To those who were in on the secret of Don Quixote’s humour all this
+afforded great amusement; but to those who knew nothing about it, it
+seemed the greatest nonsense in the world, in particular to the four
+servants of Don Luis, as well as to Don Luis himself, and to three
+other travellers who had by chance come to the inn, and had the
+appearance of officers of the Holy Brotherhood, as indeed they were;
+but the one who above all was at his wits’ end was the barber whose
+basin, there before his very eyes, had been turned into Mambrino’s
+helmet, and whose pack-saddle he had no doubt whatever was about to
+become a rich caparison for a horse. All laughed to see Don Fernando
+going from one to another collecting the votes, and whispering to them
+to give him their private opinion whether the treasure over which there
+had been so much fighting was a pack-saddle or a caparison; but after
+he had taken the votes of those who knew Don Quixote, he said aloud,
+“The fact is, my good fellow, that I am tired collecting such a number
+of opinions, for I find that there is not one of whom I ask what I
+desire to know, who does not tell me that it is absurd to say that this
+is the pack-saddle of an ass, and not the caparison of a horse, nay, of
+a thoroughbred horse; so you must submit, for, in spite of you and your
+ass, this is a caparison and no pack-saddle, and you have stated and
+proved your case very badly.”
+
+“May I never share heaven,” said the poor barber, “if your worships are
+not all mistaken; and may my soul appear before God as that appears to
+me a pack-saddle and not a caparison; but, ‘laws go,’—I say no more;
+and indeed I am not drunk, for I am fasting, except it be from sin.”
+
+The simple talk of the barber did not afford less amusement than the
+absurdities of Don Quixote, who now observed:
+
+“There is no more to be done now than for each to take what belongs to
+him, and to whom God has given it, may St. Peter add his blessing.”
+
+But said one of the four servants, “Unless, indeed, this is a
+deliberate joke, I cannot bring myself to believe that men so
+intelligent as those present are, or seem to be, can venture to declare
+and assert that this is not a basin, and that not a pack-saddle; but as
+I perceive that they do assert and declare it, I can only come to the
+conclusion that there is some mystery in this persistence in what is so
+opposed to the evidence of experience and truth itself; for I swear
+by”—and here he rapped out a round oath—“all the people in the world
+will not make me believe that this is not a barber’s basin and that a
+jackass’s pack-saddle.”
+
+“It might easily be a she-ass’s,” observed the curate.
+
+“It is all the same,” said the servant; “that is not the point; but
+whether it is or is not a pack-saddle, as your worships say.”
+
+On hearing this one of the newly arrived officers of the Brotherhood,
+who had been listening to the dispute and controversy, unable to
+restrain his anger and impatience, exclaimed, “It is a pack-saddle as
+sure as my father is my father, and whoever has said or will say
+anything else must be drunk.”
+
+“You lie like a rascally clown,” returned Don Quixote; and lifting his
+pike, which he had never let out of his hand, he delivered such a blow
+at his head that, had not the officer dodged it, it would have
+stretched him at full length. The pike was shivered in pieces against
+the ground, and the rest of the officers, seeing their comrade
+assaulted, raised a shout, calling for help for the Holy Brotherhood.
+The landlord, who was of the fraternity, ran at once to fetch his staff
+of office and his sword, and ranged himself on the side of his
+comrades; the servants of Don Luis clustered round him, lest he should
+escape from them in the confusion; the barber, seeing the house turned
+upside down, once more laid hold of his pack-saddle and Sancho did the
+same; Don Quixote drew his sword and charged the officers; Don Luis
+cried out to his servants to leave him alone and go and help Don
+Quixote, and Cardenio and Don Fernando, who were supporting him; the
+curate was shouting at the top of his voice, the landlady was
+screaming, her daughter was wailing, Maritornes was weeping, Dorothea
+was aghast, Luscinda terror-stricken, and Doña Clara in a faint. The
+barber cudgelled Sancho, and Sancho pommelled the barber; Don Luis gave
+one of his servants, who ventured to catch him by the arm to keep him
+from escaping, a cuff that bathed his teeth in blood; the Judge took
+his part; Don Fernando had got one of the officers down and was
+belabouring him heartily; the landlord raised his voice again calling
+for help for the Holy Brotherhood; so that the whole inn was nothing
+but cries, shouts, shrieks, confusion, terror, dismay, mishaps,
+sword-cuts, fisticuffs, cudgellings, kicks, and bloodshed; and in the
+midst of all this chaos, complication, and general entanglement, Don
+Quixote took it into his head that he had been plunged into the thick
+of the discord of Agramante’s camp; and, in a voice that shook the inn
+like thunder, he cried out:
+
+“Hold all, let all sheathe their swords, let all be calm and attend to
+me as they value their lives!”
+
+All paused at his mighty voice, and he went on to say, “Did I not tell
+you, sirs, that this castle was enchanted, and that a legion or so of
+devils dwelt in it? In proof whereof I call upon you to behold with
+your own eyes how the discord of Agramante’s camp has come hither, and
+been transferred into the midst of us. See how they fight, there for
+the sword, here for the horse, on that side for the eagle, on this for
+the helmet; we are all fighting, and all at cross purposes. Come then,
+you, Señor Judge, and you, señor curate; let the one represent King
+Agramante and the other King Sobrino, and make peace among us; for by
+God Almighty it is a sorry business that so many persons of quality as
+we are should slay one another for such trifling cause.” The officers,
+who did not understand Don Quixote’s mode of speaking, and found
+themselves roughly handled by Don Fernando, Cardenio, and their
+companions, were not to be appeased; the barber was, however, for both
+his beard and his pack-saddle were the worse for the struggle; Sancho
+like a good servant obeyed the slightest word of his master; while the
+four servants of Don Luis kept quiet when they saw how little they
+gained by not being so. The landlord alone insisted upon it that they
+must punish the insolence of this madman, who at every turn raised a
+disturbance in the inn; but at length the uproar was stilled for the
+present; the pack-saddle remained a caparison till the day of judgment,
+and the basin a helmet and the inn a castle in Don Quixote’s
+imagination.
+
+All having been now pacified and made friends by the persuasion of the
+Judge and the curate, the servants of Don Luis began again to urge him
+to return with them at once; and while he was discussing the matter
+with them, the Judge took counsel with Don Fernando, Cardenio, and the
+curate as to what he ought to do in the case, telling them how it
+stood, and what Don Luis had said to him. It was agreed at length that
+Don Fernando should tell the servants of Don Luis who he was, and that
+it was his desire that Don Luis should accompany him to Andalusia,
+where he would receive from the marquis his brother the welcome his
+quality entitled him to; for, otherwise, it was easy to see from the
+determination of Don Luis that he would not return to his father at
+present, though they tore him to pieces. On learning the rank of Don
+Fernando and the resolution of Don Luis the four then settled it
+between themselves that three of them should return to tell his father
+how matters stood, and that the other should remain to wait upon Don
+Luis, and not leave him until they came back for him, or his father’s
+orders were known. Thus by the authority of Agramante and the wisdom of
+King Sobrino all this complication of disputes was arranged; but the
+enemy of concord and hater of peace, feeling himself slighted and made
+a fool of, and seeing how little he had gained after having involved
+them all in such an elaborate entanglement, resolved to try his hand
+once more by stirring up fresh quarrels and disturbances.
+
+It came about in this wise: the officers were pacified on learning the
+rank of those with whom they had been engaged, and withdrew from the
+contest, considering that whatever the result might be they were likely
+to get the worst of the battle; but one of them, the one who had been
+thrashed and kicked by Don Fernando, recollected that among some
+warrants he carried for the arrest of certain delinquents, he had one
+against Don Quixote, whom the Holy Brotherhood had ordered to be
+arrested for setting the galley slaves free, as Sancho had, with very
+good reason, apprehended. Suspecting how it was, then, he wished to
+satisfy himself as to whether Don Quixote’s features corresponded; and
+taking a parchment out of his bosom he lit upon what he was in search
+of, and setting himself to read it deliberately, for he was not a quick
+reader, as he made out each word he fixed his eyes on Don Quixote, and
+went on comparing the description in the warrant with his face, and
+discovered that beyond all doubt he was the person described in it. As
+soon as he had satisfied himself, folding up the parchment, he took the
+warrant in his left hand and with his right seized Don Quixote by the
+collar so tightly that he did not allow him to breathe, and shouted
+aloud, “Help for the Holy Brotherhood! and that you may see I demand it
+in earnest, read this warrant which says this highwayman is to be
+arrested.”
+
+The curate took the warrant and saw that what the officer said was
+true, and that it agreed with Don Quixote’s appearance, who, on his
+part, when he found himself roughly handled by this rascally clown,
+worked up to the highest pitch of wrath, and all his joints cracking
+with rage, with both hands seized the officer by the throat with all
+his might, so that had he not been helped by his comrades he would have
+yielded up his life ere Don Quixote released his hold. The landlord,
+who had perforce to support his brother officers, ran at once to aid
+them. The landlady, when she saw her husband engaged in a fresh
+quarrel, lifted up her voice afresh, and its note was immediately
+caught up by Maritornes and her daughter, calling upon heaven and all
+present for help; and Sancho, seeing what was going on, exclaimed, “By
+the Lord, it is quite true what my master says about the enchantments
+of this castle, for it is impossible to live an hour in peace in it!”
+
+Don Fernando parted the officer and Don Quixote, and to their mutual
+contentment made them relax the grip by which they held, the one the
+coat collar, the other the throat of his adversary; for all this,
+however, the officers did not cease to demand their prisoner and call
+on them to help, and deliver him over bound into their power, as was
+required for the service of the King and of the Holy Brotherhood, on
+whose behalf they again demanded aid and assistance to effect the
+capture of this robber and footpad of the highways.
+
+Don Quixote smiled when he heard these words, and said very calmly,
+“Come now, base, ill-born brood; call ye it highway robbery to give
+freedom to those in bondage, to release the captives, to succour the
+miserable, to raise up the fallen, to relieve the needy? Infamous
+beings, who by your vile grovelling intellects deserve that heaven
+should not make known to you the virtue that lies in knight-errantry,
+or show you the sin and ignorance in which ye lie when ye refuse to
+respect the shadow, not to say the presence, of any knight-errant! Come
+now; band, not of officers, but of thieves; footpads with the licence
+of the Holy Brotherhood; tell me who was the ignoramus who signed a
+warrant of arrest against such a knight as I am? Who was he that did
+not know that knights-errant are independent of all jurisdictions, that
+their law is their sword, their charter their prowess, and their edicts
+their will? Who, I say again, was the fool that knows not that there
+are no letters patent of nobility that confer such privileges or
+exemptions as a knight-errant acquires the day he is dubbed a knight,
+and devotes himself to the arduous calling of chivalry? What
+knight-errant ever paid poll-tax, duty, queen’s pin-money, king’s dues,
+toll or ferry? What tailor ever took payment of him for making his
+clothes? What castellan that received him in his castle ever made him
+pay his shot? What king did not seat him at his table? What damsel was
+not enamoured of him and did not yield herself up wholly to his will
+and pleasure? And, lastly, what knight-errant has there been, is there,
+or will there ever be in the world, not bold enough to give,
+single-handed, four hundred cudgellings to four hundred officers of the
+Holy Brotherhood if they come in his way?”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+OF THE END OF THE NOTABLE ADVENTURE OF THE OFFICERS OF THE HOLY
+BROTHERHOOD; AND OF THE GREAT FEROCITY OF OUR WORTHY KNIGHT, DON
+QUIXOTE
+
+
+
+
+c46a.jpg (163K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+While Don Quixote was talking in this strain, the curate was
+endeavouring to persuade the officers that he was out of his senses, as
+they might perceive by his deeds and his words, and that they need not
+press the matter any further, for even if they arrested him and carried
+him off, they would have to release him by-and-by as a madman; to which
+the holder of the warrant replied that he had nothing to do with
+inquiring into Don Quixote’s madness, but only to execute his
+superior’s orders, and that once taken they might let him go three
+hundred times if they liked.
+
+“For all that,” said the curate, “you must not take him away this time,
+nor will he, it is my opinion, let himself be taken away.”
+
+In short, the curate used such arguments, and Don Quixote did such mad
+things, that the officers would have been more mad than he was if they
+had not perceived his want of wits, and so they thought it best to
+allow themselves to be pacified, and even to act as peacemakers between
+the barber and Sancho Panza, who still continued their altercation with
+much bitterness. In the end they, as officers of justice, settled the
+question by arbitration in such a manner that both sides were, if not
+perfectly contented, at least to some extent satisfied; for they
+changed the pack-saddles, but not the girths or head-stalls; and as to
+Mambrino’s helmet, the curate, under the rose and without Don Quixote’s
+knowing it, paid eight reals for the basin, and the barber executed a
+full receipt and engagement to make no further demand then or
+thenceforth for evermore, amen. These two disputes, which were the most
+important and gravest, being settled, it only remained for the servants
+of Don Luis to consent that three of them should return while one was
+left to accompany him whither Don Fernando desired to take him; and
+good luck and better fortune, having already begun to solve
+difficulties and remove obstructions in favour of the lovers and
+warriors of the inn, were pleased to persevere and bring everything to
+a happy issue; for the servants agreed to do as Don Luis wished; which
+gave Doña Clara such happiness that no one could have looked into her
+face just then without seeing the joy of her heart. Zoraida, though she
+did not fully comprehend all she saw, was grave or gay without knowing
+why, as she watched and studied the various countenances, but
+particularly her Spaniard’s, whom she followed with her eyes and clung
+to with her soul. The gift and compensation which the curate gave the
+barber had not escaped the landlord’s notice, and he demanded Don
+Quixote’s reckoning, together with the amount of the damage to his
+wine-skins, and the loss of his wine, swearing that neither Rocinante
+nor Sancho’s ass should leave the inn until he had been paid to the
+very last farthing. The curate settled all amicably, and Don Fernando
+paid; though the Judge had also very readily offered to pay the score;
+and all became so peaceful and quiet that the inn no longer reminded
+one of the discord of Agramante’s camp, as Don Quixote said, but of the
+peace and tranquillity of the days of Octavianus: for all which it was
+the universal opinion that their thanks were due to the great zeal and
+eloquence of the curate, and to the unexampled generosity of Don
+Fernando.
+
+Finding himself now clear and quit of all quarrels, his squire’s as
+well as his own, Don Quixote considered that it would be advisable to
+continue the journey he had begun, and bring to a close that great
+adventure for which he had been called and chosen; and with this high
+resolve he went and knelt before Dorothea, who, however, would not
+allow him to utter a word until he had risen; so to obey her he rose,
+and said, “It is a common proverb, fair lady, that ‘diligence is the
+mother of good fortune,’ and experience has often shown in important
+affairs that the earnestness of the negotiator brings the doubtful case
+to a successful termination; but in nothing does this truth show itself
+more plainly than in war, where quickness and activity forestall the
+devices of the enemy, and win the victory before the foe has time to
+defend himself. All this I say, exalted and esteemed lady, because it
+seems to me that for us to remain any longer in this castle now is
+useless, and may be injurious to us in a way that we shall find out
+some day; for who knows but that your enemy the giant may have learned
+by means of secret and diligent spies that I am going to destroy him,
+and if the opportunity be given him he may seize it to fortify himself
+in some impregnable castle or stronghold, against which all my efforts
+and the might of my indefatigable arm may avail but little? Therefore,
+lady, let us, as I say, forestall his schemes by our activity, and let
+us depart at once in quest of fair fortune; for your highness is only
+kept from enjoying it as fully as you could desire by my delay in
+encountering your adversary.”
+
+Don Quixote held his peace and said no more, calmly awaiting the reply
+of the beauteous princess, who, with commanding dignity and in a style
+adapted to Don Quixote’s own, replied to him in these words, “I give
+you thanks, sir knight, for the eagerness you, like a good knight to
+whom it is a natural obligation to succour the orphan and the needy,
+display to afford me aid in my sore trouble; and heaven grant that your
+wishes and mine may be realised, so that you may see that there are
+women in this world capable of gratitude; as to my departure, let it be
+forthwith, for I have no will but yours; dispose of me entirely in
+accordance with your good pleasure; for she who has once entrusted to
+you the defence of her person, and placed in your hands the recovery of
+her dominions, must not think of offering opposition to that which your
+wisdom may ordain.”
+
+“On, then, in God’s name,” said Don Quixote; “for, when a lady humbles
+herself to me, I will not lose the opportunity of raising her up and
+placing her on the throne of her ancestors. Let us depart at once, for
+the common saying that in delay there is danger, lends spurs to my
+eagerness to take the road; and as neither heaven has created nor hell
+seen any that can daunt or intimidate me, saddle Rocinante, Sancho, and
+get ready thy ass and the queen’s palfrey, and let us take leave of the
+castellan and these gentlemen, and go hence this very instant.”
+
+Sancho, who was standing by all the time, said, shaking his head, “Ah!
+master, master, there is more mischief in the village than one hears
+of, begging all good bodies’ pardon.”
+
+“What mischief can there be in any village, or in all the cities of the
+world, you booby, that can hurt my reputation?” said Don Quixote.
+
+“If your worship is angry,” replied Sancho, “I will hold my tongue and
+leave unsaid what as a good squire I am bound to say, and what a good
+servant should tell his master.”
+
+“Say what thou wilt,” returned Don Quixote, “provided thy words be not
+meant to work upon my fears; for thou, if thou fearest, art behaving
+like thyself; but I like myself, in not fearing.”
+
+“It is nothing of the sort, as I am a sinner before God,” said Sancho,
+“but that I take it to be sure and certain that this lady, who calls
+herself queen of the great kingdom of Micomicon, is no more so than my
+mother; for, if she was what she says, she would not go rubbing noses
+with one that is here every instant and behind every door.”
+
+Dorothea turned red at Sancho’s words, for the truth was that her
+husband Don Fernando had now and then, when the others were not
+looking, gathered from her lips some of the reward his love had earned,
+and Sancho seeing this had considered that such freedom was more like a
+courtesan than a queen of a great kingdom; she, however, being unable
+or not caring to answer him, allowed him to proceed, and he continued,
+“This I say, señor, because, if after we have travelled roads and
+highways, and passed bad nights and worse days, one who is now enjoying
+himself in this inn is to reap the fruit of our labours, there is no
+need for me to be in a hurry to saddle Rocinante, put the pad on the
+ass, or get ready the palfrey; for it will be better for us to stay
+quiet, and let every jade mind her spinning, and let us go to dinner.”
+
+Good God, what was the indignation of Don Quixote when he heard the
+audacious words of his squire! So great was it, that in a voice
+inarticulate with rage, with a stammering tongue, and eyes that flashed
+living fire, he exclaimed, “Rascally clown, boorish, insolent, and
+ignorant, ill-spoken, foul-mouthed, impudent backbiter and slanderer!
+Hast thou dared to utter such words in my presence and in that of these
+illustrious ladies? Hast thou dared to harbour such gross and shameless
+thoughts in thy muddled imagination? Begone from my presence, thou born
+monster, storehouse of lies, hoard of untruths, garner of knaveries,
+inventor of scandals, publisher of absurdities, enemy of the respect
+due to royal personages! Begone, show thyself no more before me under
+pain of my wrath;” and so saying he knitted his brows, puffed out his
+cheeks, gazed around him, and stamped on the ground violently with his
+right foot, showing in every way the rage that was pent up in his
+heart; and at his words and furious gestures Sancho was so scared and
+terrified that he would have been glad if the earth had opened that
+instant and swallowed him, and his only thought was to turn round and
+make his escape from the angry presence of his master.
+
+But the ready-witted Dorothea, who by this time so well understood Don
+Quixote’s humour, said, to mollify his wrath, “Be not irritated at the
+absurdities your good squire has uttered, Sir Knight of the Rueful
+Countenance, for perhaps he did not utter them without cause, and from
+his good sense and Christian conscience it is not likely that he would
+bear false witness against anyone. We may therefore believe, without
+any hesitation, that since, as you say, sir knight, everything in this
+castle goes and is brought about by means of enchantment, Sancho, I
+say, may possibly have seen, through this diabolical medium, what he
+says he saw so much to the detriment of my modesty.”
+
+“I swear by God Omnipotent,” exclaimed Don Quixote at this, “your
+highness has hit the point; and that some vile illusion must have come
+before this sinner of a Sancho, that made him see what it would have
+been impossible to see by any other means than enchantments; for I know
+well enough, from the poor fellow’s goodness and harmlessness, that he
+is incapable of bearing false witness against anybody.”
+
+“True, no doubt,” said Don Fernando, “for which reason, Señor Don
+Quixote, you ought to forgive him and restore him to the bosom of your
+favour, _sicut erat in principio_, before illusions of this sort had
+taken away his senses.”
+
+Don Quixote said he was ready to pardon him, and the curate went for
+Sancho, who came in very humbly, and falling on his knees begged for
+the hand of his master, who having presented it to him and allowed him
+to kiss it, gave him his blessing and said, “Now, Sancho my son, thou
+wilt be convinced of the truth of what I have many a time told thee,
+that everything in this castle is done by means of enchantment.”
+
+“So it is, I believe,” said Sancho, “except the affair of the blanket,
+which came to pass in reality by ordinary means.”
+
+“Believe it not,” said Don Quixote, “for had it been so, I would have
+avenged thee that instant, or even now; but neither then nor now could
+I, nor have I seen anyone upon whom to avenge thy wrong.”
+
+They were all eager to know what the affair of the blanket was, and the
+landlord gave them a minute account of Sancho’s flights, at which they
+laughed not a little, and at which Sancho would have been no less out
+of countenance had not his master once more assured him it was all
+enchantment. For all that his simplicity never reached so high a pitch
+that he could persuade himself it was not the plain and simple truth,
+without any deception whatever about it, that he had been blanketed by
+beings of flesh and blood, and not by visionary and imaginary phantoms,
+as his master believed and protested.
+
+The illustrious company had now been two days in the inn; and as it
+seemed to them time to depart, they devised a plan so that, without
+giving Dorothea and Don Fernando the trouble of going back with Don
+Quixote to his village under pretence of restoring Queen Micomicona,
+the curate and the barber might carry him away with them as they
+proposed, and the curate be able to take his madness in hand at home;
+and in pursuance of their plan they arranged with the owner of an
+oxcart who happened to be passing that way to carry him after this
+fashion. They constructed a kind of cage with wooden bars, large enough
+to hold Don Quixote comfortably; and then Don Fernando and his
+companions, the servants of Don Luis, and the officers of the
+Brotherhood, together with the landlord, by the directions and advice
+of the curate, covered their faces and disguised themselves, some in
+one way, some in another, so as to appear to Don Quixote quite
+different from the persons he had seen in the castle. This done, in
+profound silence they entered the room where he was asleep, taking his
+rest after the past frays, and advancing to where he was sleeping
+tranquilly, not dreaming of anything of the kind happening, they seized
+him firmly and bound him fast hand and foot, so that, when he awoke
+startled, he was unable to move, and could only marvel and wonder at
+the strange figures he saw before him; upon which he at once gave way
+to the idea which his crazed fancy invariably conjured up before him,
+and took it into his head that all these shapes were phantoms of the
+enchanted castle, and that he himself was unquestionably enchanted as
+he could neither move nor help himself; precisely what the curate, the
+concoctor of the scheme, expected would happen. Of all that were there
+Sancho was the only one who was at once in his senses and in his own
+proper character, and he, though he was within very little of sharing
+his master’s infirmity, did not fail to perceive who all these
+disguised figures were; but he did not dare to open his lips until he
+saw what came of this assault and capture of his master; nor did the
+latter utter a word, waiting to the upshot of his mishap; which was
+that bringing in the cage, they shut him up in it and nailed the bars
+so firmly that they could not be easily burst open.
+
+
+
+c46b.jpg (342K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+They then took him on their shoulders, and as they passed out of the
+room an awful voice—as much so as the barber, not he of the pack-saddle
+but the other, was able to make it—was heard to say, “O Knight of the
+Rueful Countenance, let not this captivity in which thou art placed
+afflict thee, for this must needs be, for the more speedy
+accomplishment of the adventure in which thy great heart has engaged
+thee; the which shall be accomplished when the raging Manchegan lion
+and the white Tobosan dove shall be linked together, having first
+humbled their haughty necks to the gentle yoke of matrimony. And from
+this marvellous union shall come forth to the light of the world brave
+whelps that shall rival the ravening claws of their valiant father; and
+this shall come to pass ere the pursuer of the flying nymph shall in
+his swift natural course have twice visited the starry signs. And thou,
+O most noble and obedient squire that ever bore sword at side, beard on
+face, or nose to smell with, be not dismayed or grieved to see the
+flower of knight-errantry carried away thus before thy very eyes; for
+soon, if it so please the Framer of the universe, thou shalt see
+thyself exalted to such a height that thou shalt not know thyself, and
+the promises which thy good master has made thee shall not prove false;
+and I assure thee, on the authority of the sage Mentironiana, that thy
+wages shall be paid thee, as thou shalt see in due season. Follow then
+the footsteps of the valiant enchanted knight, for it is expedient that
+thou shouldst go to the destination assigned to both of you; and as it
+is not permitted to me to say more, God be with thee; for I return to
+that place I wot of;” and as he brought the prophecy to a close he
+raised his voice to a high pitch, and then lowered it to such a soft
+tone, that even those who knew it was all a joke were almost inclined
+to take what they heard seriously.
+
+Don Quixote was comforted by the prophecy he heard, for he at once
+comprehended its meaning perfectly, and perceived it was promised to
+him that he should see himself united in holy and lawful matrimony with
+his beloved Dulcinea del Toboso, from whose blessed womb should proceed
+the whelps, his sons, to the eternal glory of La Mancha; and being
+thoroughly and firmly persuaded of this, he lifted up his voice, and
+with a deep sigh exclaimed, “Oh thou, whoever thou art, who hast
+foretold me so much good, I implore of thee that on my part thou
+entreat that sage enchanter who takes charge of my interests, that he
+leave me not to perish in this captivity in which they are now carrying
+me away, ere I see fulfilled promises so joyful and incomparable as
+those which have been now made me; for, let this but come to pass, and
+I shall glory in the pains of my prison, find comfort in these chains
+wherewith they bind me, and regard this bed whereon they stretch me,
+not as a hard battle-field, but as a soft and happy nuptial couch; and
+touching the consolation of Sancho Panza, my squire, I rely upon his
+goodness and rectitude that he will not desert me in good or evil
+fortune; for if, by his ill luck or mine, it may not happen to be in my
+power to give him the island I have promised, or any equivalent for it,
+at least his wages shall not be lost; for in my will, which is already
+made, I have declared the sum that shall be paid to him, measured, not
+by his many faithful services, but by the means at my disposal.”
+
+Sancho bowed his head very respectfully and kissed both his hands, for,
+being tied together, he could not kiss one; and then the apparitions
+lifted the cage upon their shoulders and fixed it upon the ox-cart.
+
+
+
+c46e.jpg (56K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+OF THE STRANGE MANNER IN WHICH DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA WAS CARRIED
+AWAY ENCHANTED, TOGETHER WITH OTHER REMARKABLE INCIDENTS
+
+
+
+
+c47a.jpg (181K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+When Don Quixote saw himself caged and hoisted on the cart in this way,
+he said, “Many grave histories of knights-errant have I read; but never
+yet have I read, seen, or heard of their carrying off enchanted
+knights-errant in this fashion, or at the slow pace that these lazy,
+sluggish animals promise; for they always take them away through the
+air with marvellous swiftness, enveloped in a dark thick cloud, or on a
+chariot of fire, or it may be on some hippogriff or other beast of the
+kind; but to carry me off like this on an ox-cart! By God, it puzzles
+me! But perhaps the chivalry and enchantments of our day take a
+different course from that of those in days gone by; and it may be,
+too, that as I am a new knight in the world, and the first to revive
+the already forgotten calling of knight-adventurers, they may have
+newly invented other kinds of enchantments and other modes of carrying
+off the enchanted. What thinkest thou of the matter, Sancho my son?”
+
+
+
+c47b.jpg (357K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“I don’t know what to think,” answered Sancho, “not being as well read
+as your worship in errant writings; but for all that I venture to say
+and swear that these apparitions that are about us are not quite
+catholic.”
+
+“Catholic!” said Don Quixote. “Father of me! how can they be Catholic
+when they are all devils that have taken fantastic shapes to come and
+do this, and bring me to this condition? And if thou wouldst prove it,
+touch them, and feel them, and thou wilt find they have only bodies of
+air, and no consistency except in appearance.”
+
+“By God, master,” returned Sancho, “I have touched them already; and
+that devil, that goes about there so busily, has firm flesh, and
+another property very different from what I have heard say devils have,
+for by all accounts they all smell of brimstone and other bad smells;
+but this one smells of amber half a league off.” Sancho was here
+speaking of Don Fernando, who, like a gentleman of his rank, was very
+likely perfumed as Sancho said.
+
+“Marvel not at that, Sancho my friend,” said Don Quixote; “for let me
+tell thee devils are crafty; and even if they do carry odours about
+with them, they themselves have no smell, because they are spirits; or,
+if they have any smell, they cannot smell of anything sweet, but of
+something foul and fetid; and the reason is that as they carry hell
+with them wherever they go, and can get no ease whatever from their
+torments, and as a sweet smell is a thing that gives pleasure and
+enjoyment, it is impossible that they can smell sweet; if, then, this
+devil thou speakest of seems to thee to smell of amber, either thou art
+deceiving thyself, or he wants to deceive thee by making thee fancy he
+is not a devil.”
+
+Such was the conversation that passed between master and man; and Don
+Fernando and Cardenio, apprehensive of Sancho’s making a complete
+discovery of their scheme, towards which he had already gone some way,
+resolved to hasten their departure, and calling the landlord aside,
+they directed him to saddle Rocinante and put the pack-saddle on
+Sancho’s ass, which he did with great alacrity. In the meantime the
+curate had made an arrangement with the officers that they should bear
+them company as far as his village, he paying them so much a day.
+Cardenio hung the buckler on one side of the bow of Rocinante’s saddle
+and the basin on the other, and by signs commanded Sancho to mount his
+ass and take Rocinante’s bridle, and at each side of the cart he placed
+two officers with their muskets; but before the cart was put in motion,
+out came the landlady and her daughter and Maritornes to bid Don
+Quixote farewell, pretending to weep with grief at his misfortune; and
+to them Don Quixote said:
+
+“Weep not, good ladies, for all these mishaps are the lot of those who
+follow the profession I profess; and if these reverses did not befall
+me I should not esteem myself a famous knight-errant; for such things
+never happen to knights of little renown and fame, because nobody in
+the world thinks about them; to valiant knights they do, for these are
+envied for their virtue and valour by many princes and other knights
+who compass the destruction of the worthy by base means. Nevertheless,
+virtue is of herself so mighty, that, in spite of all the magic that
+Zoroaster its first inventor knew, she will come victorious out of
+every trial, and shed her light upon the earth as the sun does upon the
+heavens. Forgive me, fair ladies, if, through inadvertence, I have in
+aught offended you; for intentionally and wittingly I have never done
+so to any; and pray to God that he deliver me from this captivity to
+which some malevolent enchanter has consigned me; and should I find
+myself released therefrom, the favours that ye have bestowed upon me in
+this castle shall be held in memory by me, that I may acknowledge,
+recognise, and requite them as they deserve.”
+
+While this was passing between the ladies of the castle and Don
+Quixote, the curate and the barber bade farewell to Don Fernando and
+his companions, to the captain, his brother, and the ladies, now all
+made happy, and in particular to Dorothea and Luscinda. They all
+embraced one another, and promised to let each other know how things
+went with them, and Don Fernando directed the curate where to write to
+him, to tell him what became of Don Quixote, assuring him that there
+was nothing that could give him more pleasure than to hear of it, and
+that he too, on his part, would send him word of everything he thought
+he would like to know, about his marriage, Zoraida’s baptism, Don
+Luis’s affair, and Luscinda’s return to her home. The curate promised
+to comply with his request carefully, and they embraced once more, and
+renewed their promises.
+
+The landlord approached the curate and handed him some papers, saying
+he had discovered them in the lining of the valise in which the novel
+of “The Ill-advised Curiosity” had been found, and that he might take
+them all away with him as their owner had not since returned; for, as
+he could not read, he did not want them himself. The curate thanked
+him, and opening them he saw at the beginning of the manuscript the
+words, “Novel of Rinconete and Cortadillo,” by which he perceived that
+it was a novel, and as that of “The Ill-advised Curiosity” had been
+good he concluded this would be so too, as they were both probably by
+the same author; so he kept it, intending to read it when he had an
+opportunity. He then mounted and his friend the barber did the same,
+both masked, so as not to be recognised by Don Quixote, and set out
+following in the rear of the cart. The order of march was this: first
+went the cart with the owner leading it; at each side of it marched the
+officers of the Brotherhood, as has been said, with their muskets; then
+followed Sancho Panza on his ass, leading Rocinante by the bridle; and
+behind all came the curate and the barber on their mighty mules, with
+faces covered, as aforesaid, and a grave and serious air, measuring
+their pace to suit the slow steps of the oxen. Don Quixote was seated
+in the cage, with his hands tied and his feet stretched out, leaning
+against the bars as silent and as patient as if he were a stone statue
+and not a man of flesh. Thus slowly and silently they made, it might
+be, two leagues, until they reached a valley which the carter thought a
+convenient place for resting and feeding his oxen, and he said so to
+the curate, but the barber was of opinion that they ought to push on a
+little farther, as at the other side of a hill which appeared close by
+he knew there was a valley that had more grass and much better than the
+one where they proposed to halt; and his advice was taken and they
+continued their journey.
+
+Just at that moment the curate, looking back, saw coming on behind them
+six or seven mounted men, well found and equipped, who soon overtook
+them, for they were travelling, not at the sluggish, deliberate pace of
+oxen, but like men who rode canons’ mules, and in haste to take their
+noontide rest as soon as possible at the inn which was in sight not a
+league off. The quick travellers came up with the slow, and courteous
+salutations were exchanged; and one of the new comers, who was, in
+fact, a canon of Toledo and master of the others who accompanied him,
+observing the regular order of the procession, the cart, the officers,
+Sancho, Rocinante, the curate and the barber, and above all Don Quixote
+caged and confined, could not help asking what was the meaning of
+carrying the man in that fashion; though, from the badges of the
+officers, he already concluded that he must be some desperate
+highwayman or other malefactor whose punishment fell within the
+jurisdiction of the Holy Brotherhood. One of the officers to whom he
+had put the question, replied, “Let the gentleman himself tell you the
+meaning of his going this way, señor, for we do not know.”
+
+Don Quixote overheard the conversation and said, “Haply, gentlemen, you
+are versed and learned in matters of errant chivalry? Because if you
+are I will tell you my misfortunes; if not, there is no good in my
+giving myself the trouble of relating them;” but here the curate and
+the barber, seeing that the travellers were engaged in conversation
+with Don Quixote, came forward, in order to answer in such a way as to
+save their stratagem from being discovered.
+
+The canon, replying to Don Quixote, said, “In truth, brother, I know
+more about books of chivalry than I do about Villalpando’s elements of
+logic; so if that be all, you may safely tell me what you please.”
+
+“In God’s name, then, señor,” replied Don Quixote; “if that be so, I
+would have you know that I am held enchanted in this cage by the envy
+and fraud of wicked enchanters; for virtue is more persecuted by the
+wicked than loved by the good. I am a knight-errant, and not one of
+those whose names Fame has never thought of immortalising in her
+record, but of those who, in defiance and in spite of envy itself, and
+all the magicians that Persia, or Brahmans that India, or Gymnosophists
+that Ethiopia ever produced, will place their names in the temple of
+immortality, to serve as examples and patterns for ages to come,
+whereby knights-errant may see the footsteps in which they must tread
+if they would attain the summit and crowning point of honour in arms.”
+
+“What Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha says,” observed the curate, “is
+the truth; for he goes enchanted in this cart, not from any fault or
+sins of his, but because of the malevolence of those to whom virtue is
+odious and valour hateful. This, señor, is the Knight of the Rueful
+Countenance, if you have ever heard him named, whose valiant
+achievements and mighty deeds shall be written on lasting brass and
+imperishable marble, notwithstanding all the efforts of envy to obscure
+them and malice to hide them.”
+
+When the canon heard both the prisoner and the man who was at liberty
+talk in such a strain he was ready to cross himself in his
+astonishment, and could not make out what had befallen him; and all his
+attendants were in the same state of amazement.
+
+At this point Sancho Panza, who had drawn near to hear the
+conversation, said, in order to make everything plain, “Well, sirs, you
+may like or dislike what I am going to say, but the fact of the matter
+is, my master, Don Quixote, is just as much enchanted as my mother. He
+is in his full senses, he eats and he drinks, and he has his calls like
+other men and as he had yesterday, before they caged him. And if that’s
+the case, what do they mean by wanting me to believe that he is
+enchanted? For I have heard many a one say that enchanted people
+neither eat, nor sleep, nor talk; and my master, if you don’t stop him,
+will talk more than thirty lawyers.” Then turning to the curate he
+exclaimed, “Ah, señor curate, señor curate! do you think I don’t know
+you? Do you think I don’t guess and see the drift of these new
+enchantments? Well then, I can tell you I know you, for all your face
+is covered, and I can tell you I am up to you, however you may hide
+your tricks. After all, where envy reigns virtue cannot live, and where
+there is niggardliness there can be no liberality. Ill betide the
+devil! if it had not been for your worship my master would be married
+to the Princess Micomicona this minute, and I should be a count at
+least; for no less was to be expected, as well from the goodness of my
+master, him of the Rueful Countenance, as from the greatness of my
+services. But I see now how true it is what they say in these parts,
+that the wheel of fortune turns faster than a mill-wheel, and that
+those who were up yesterday are down to-day. I am sorry for my wife and
+children, for when they might fairly and reasonably expect to see their
+father return to them a governor or viceroy of some island or kingdom,
+they will see him come back a horse-boy. I have said all this, señor
+curate, only to urge your paternity to lay to your conscience your
+ill-treatment of my master; and have a care that God does not call you
+to account in another life for making a prisoner of him in this way,
+and charge against you all the succours and good deeds that my lord Don
+Quixote leaves undone while he is shut up.
+
+“Trim those lamps there!” exclaimed the barber at this; “so you are of
+the same fraternity as your master, too, Sancho? By God, I begin to see
+that you will have to keep him company in the cage, and be enchanted
+like him for having caught some of his humour and chivalry. It was an
+evil hour when you let yourself be got with child by his promises, and
+that island you long so much for found its way into your head.”
+
+“I am not with child by anyone,” returned Sancho, “nor am I a man to
+let myself be got with child, if it was by the King himself. Though I
+am poor I am an old Christian, and I owe nothing to nobody, and if I
+long for an island, other people long for worse. Each of us is the son
+of his own works; and being a man I may come to be pope, not to say
+governor of an island, especially as my master may win so many that he
+will not know whom to give them to. Mind how you talk, master barber;
+for shaving is not everything, and there is some difference between
+Peter and Peter. I say this because we all know one another, and it
+will not do to throw false dice with me; and as to the enchantment of
+my master, God knows the truth; leave it as it is; it only makes it
+worse to stir it.”
+
+The barber did not care to answer Sancho lest by his plain speaking he
+should disclose what the curate and he himself were trying so hard to
+conceal; and under the same apprehension the curate had asked the canon
+to ride on a little in advance, so that he might tell him the mystery
+of this man in the cage, and other things that would amuse him. The
+canon agreed, and going on ahead with his servants, listened with
+attention to the account of the character, life, madness, and ways of
+Don Quixote, given him by the curate, who described to him briefly the
+beginning and origin of his craze, and told him the whole story of his
+adventures up to his being confined in the cage, together with the plan
+they had of taking him home to try if by any means they could discover
+a cure for his madness. The canon and his servants were surprised anew
+when they heard Don Quixote’s strange story, and when it was finished
+he said, “To tell the truth, señor curate, I for my part consider what
+they call books of chivalry to be mischievous to the State; and though,
+led by idle and false taste, I have read the beginnings of almost all
+that have been printed, I never could manage to read any one of them
+from beginning to end; for it seems to me they are all more or less the
+same thing; and one has nothing more in it than another; this no more
+than that. And in my opinion this sort of writing and composition is of
+the same species as the fables they call the Milesian, nonsensical
+tales that aim solely at giving amusement and not instruction, exactly
+the opposite of the apologue fables which amuse and instruct at the
+same time. And though it may be the chief object of such books to
+amuse, I do not know how they can succeed, when they are so full of
+such monstrous nonsense. For the enjoyment the mind feels must come
+from the beauty and harmony which it perceives or contemplates in the
+things that the eye or the imagination brings before it; and nothing
+that has any ugliness or disproportion about it can give any pleasure.
+What beauty, then, or what proportion of the parts to the whole, or of
+the whole to the parts, can there be in a book or fable where a lad of
+sixteen cuts down a giant as tall as a tower and makes two halves of
+him as if he was an almond cake? And when they want to give us a
+picture of a battle, after having told us that there are a million of
+combatants on the side of the enemy, let the hero of the book be
+opposed to them, and we have perforce to believe, whether we like it or
+not, that the said knight wins the victory by the single might of his
+strong arm. And then, what shall we say of the facility with which a
+born queen or empress will give herself over into the arms of some
+unknown wandering knight? What mind, that is not wholly barbarous and
+uncultured, can find pleasure in reading of how a great tower full of
+knights sails away across the sea like a ship with a fair wind, and
+will be to-night in Lombardy and to-morrow morning in the land of
+Prester John of the Indies, or some other that Ptolemy never described
+nor Marco Polo saw? And if, in answer to this, I am told that the
+authors of books of the kind write them as fiction, and therefore are
+not bound to regard niceties of truth, I would reply that fiction is
+all the better the more it looks like truth, and gives the more
+pleasure the more probability and possibility there is about it. Plots
+in fiction should be wedded to the understanding of the reader, and be
+constructed in such a way that, reconciling impossibilities, smoothing
+over difficulties, keeping the mind on the alert, they may surprise,
+interest, divert, and entertain, so that wonder and delight joined may
+keep pace one with the other; all which he will fail to effect who
+shuns verisimilitude and truth to nature, wherein lies the perfection
+of writing. I have never yet seen any book of chivalry that puts
+together a connected plot complete in all its numbers, so that the
+middle agrees with the beginning, and the end with the beginning and
+middle; on the contrary, they construct them with such a multitude of
+members that it seems as though they meant to produce a chimera or
+monster rather than a well-proportioned figure. And besides all this
+they are harsh in their style, incredible in their achievements,
+licentious in their amours, uncouth in their courtly speeches, prolix
+in their battles, silly in their arguments, absurd in their travels,
+and, in short, wanting in everything like intelligent art; for which
+reason they deserve to be banished from the Christian commonwealth as a
+worthless breed.”
+
+
+
+c47c.jpg (300K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+The curate listened to him attentively and felt that he was a man of
+sound understanding, and that there was good reason in what he said; so
+he told him that, being of the same opinion himself, and bearing a
+grudge to books of chivalry, he had burned all Don Quixote’s, which
+were many; and gave him an account of the scrutiny he had made of them,
+and of those he had condemned to the flames and those he had spared,
+with which the canon was not a little amused, adding that though he had
+said so much in condemnation of these books, still he found one good
+thing in them, and that was the opportunity they afforded to a gifted
+intellect for displaying itself; for they presented a wide and spacious
+field over which the pen might range freely, describing shipwrecks,
+tempests, combats, battles, portraying a valiant captain with all the
+qualifications requisite to make one, showing him sagacious in
+foreseeing the wiles of the enemy, eloquent in speech to encourage or
+restrain his soldiers, ripe in counsel, rapid in resolve, as bold in
+biding his time as in pressing the attack; now picturing some sad
+tragic incident, now some joyful and unexpected event; here a beauteous
+lady, virtuous, wise, and modest; there a Christian knight, brave and
+gentle; here a lawless, barbarous braggart; there a courteous prince,
+gallant and gracious; setting forth the devotion and loyalty of
+vassals, the greatness and generosity of nobles. “Or again,” said he,
+“the author may show himself to be an astronomer, or a skilled
+cosmographer, or musician, or one versed in affairs of state, and
+sometimes he will have a chance of coming forward as a magician if he
+likes. He can set forth the craftiness of Ulysses, the piety of Æneas,
+the valour of Achilles, the misfortunes of Hector, the treachery of
+Sinon, the friendship of Euryalus, the generosity of Alexander, the
+boldness of Cæsar, the clemency and truth of Trajan, the fidelity of
+Zopyrus, the wisdom of Cato, and in short all the faculties that serve
+to make an illustrious man perfect, now uniting them in one individual,
+again distributing them among many; and if this be done with charm of
+style and ingenious invention, aiming at the truth as much as possible,
+he will assuredly weave a web of bright and varied threads that, when
+finished, will display such perfection and beauty that it will attain
+the worthiest object any writing can seek, which, as I said before, is
+to give instruction and pleasure combined; for the unrestricted range
+of these books enables the author to show his powers, epic, lyric,
+tragic, or comic, and all the moods the sweet and winning arts of poesy
+and oratory are capable of; for the epic may be written in prose just
+as well as in verse.”
+
+
+
+c47e.jpg (67K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+IN WHICH THE CANON PURSUES THE SUBJECT OF THE BOOKS OF CHIVALRY, WITH
+OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF HIS WIT
+
+
+
+
+c48a.jpg (80K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“It is as you say, señor canon,” said the curate; “and for that reason
+those who have hitherto written books of the sort deserve all the more
+censure for writing without paying any attention to good taste or the
+rules of art, by which they might guide themselves and become as famous
+in prose as the two princes of Greek and Latin poetry are in verse.”
+
+“I myself, at any rate,” said the canon, “was once tempted to write a
+book of chivalry in which all the points I have mentioned were to be
+observed; and if I must own the truth I have more than a hundred sheets
+written; and to try if it came up to my own opinion of it, I showed
+them to persons who were fond of this kind of reading, to learned and
+intelligent men as well as to ignorant people who cared for nothing but
+the pleasure of listening to nonsense, and from all I obtained
+flattering approval; nevertheless I proceeded no farther with it, as
+well because it seemed to me an occupation inconsistent with my
+profession, as because I perceived that the fools are more numerous
+than the wise; and, though it is better to be praised by the wise few
+than applauded by the foolish many, I have no mind to submit myself to
+the stupid judgment of the silly public, to whom the reading of such
+books falls for the most part.
+
+“But what most of all made me hold my hand and even abandon all idea of
+finishing it was an argument I put to myself taken from the plays that
+are acted now-a-days, which was in this wise: if those that are now in
+vogue, as well those that are pure invention as those founded on
+history, are, all or most of them, downright nonsense and things that
+have neither head nor tail, and yet the public listens to them with
+delight, and regards and cries them up as perfection when they are so
+far from it; and if the authors who write them, and the players who act
+them, say that this is what they must be, for the public wants this and
+will have nothing else; and that those that go by rule and work out a
+plot according to the laws of art will only find some half-dozen
+intelligent people to understand them, while all the rest remain blind
+to the merit of their composition; and that for themselves it is better
+to get bread from the many than praise from the few; then my book will
+fare the same way, after I have burnt off my eyebrows in trying to
+observe the principles I have spoken of, and I shall be ‘the tailor of
+the corner.’ And though I have sometimes endeavoured to convince actors
+that they are mistaken in this notion they have adopted, and that they
+would attract more people, and get more credit, by producing plays in
+accordance with the rules of art, than by absurd ones, they are so
+thoroughly wedded to their own opinion that no argument or evidence can
+wean them from it.
+
+“I remember saying one day to one of these obstinate fellows, ‘Tell me,
+do you not recollect that a few years ago, there were three tragedies
+acted in Spain, written by a famous poet of these kingdoms, which were
+such that they filled all who heard them with admiration, delight, and
+interest, the ignorant as well as the wise, the masses as well as the
+higher orders, and brought in more money to the performers, these three
+alone, than thirty of the best that have been since produced?’
+
+“‘No doubt,’ replied the actor in question, ‘you mean the “Isabella,”
+the “Phyllis,” and the “Alexandra.”’
+
+“‘Those are the ones I mean,’ said I; ‘and see if they did not observe
+the principles of art, and if, by observing them, they failed to show
+their superiority and please all the world; so that the fault does not
+lie with the public that insists upon nonsense, but with those who
+don’t know how to produce something else. “The Ingratitude Revenged”
+was not nonsense, nor was there any in “The Numantia,” nor any to be
+found in “The Merchant Lover,” nor yet in “The Friendly Fair Foe,” nor
+in some others that have been written by certain gifted poets, to their
+own fame and renown, and to the profit of those that brought them out;’
+some further remarks I added to these, with which, I think, I left him
+rather dumbfoundered, but not so satisfied or convinced that I could
+disabuse him of his error.”
+
+“You have touched upon a subject, señor canon,” observed the curate
+here, “that has awakened an old enmity I have against the plays in
+vogue at the present day, quite as strong as that which I bear to the
+books of chivalry; for while the drama, according to Tully, should be
+the mirror of human life, the model of manners, and the image of the
+truth, those which are presented now-a-days are mirrors of nonsense,
+models of folly, and images of lewdness. For what greater nonsense can
+there be in connection with what we are now discussing than for an
+infant to appear in swaddling clothes in the first scene of the first
+act, and in the second a grown-up bearded man? Or what greater
+absurdity can there be than putting before us an old man as a
+swashbuckler, a young man as a poltroon, a lackey using fine language,
+a page giving sage advice, a king plying as a porter, a princess who is
+a kitchen-maid? And then what shall I say of their attention to the
+time in which the action they represent may or can take place, save
+that I have seen a play where the first act began in Europe, the second
+in Asia, the third finished in Africa, and no doubt, had it been in
+four acts, the fourth would have ended in America, and so it would have
+been laid in all four quarters of the globe? And if truth to life is
+the main thing the drama should keep in view, how is it possible for
+any average understanding to be satisfied when the action is supposed
+to pass in the time of King Pepin or Charlemagne, and the principal
+personage in it they represent to be the Emperor Heraclius who entered
+Jerusalem with the cross and won the Holy Sepulchre, like Godfrey of
+Bouillon, there being years innumerable between the one and the other?
+or, if the play is based on fiction and historical facts are
+introduced, or bits of what occurred to different people and at
+different times mixed up with it, all, not only without any semblance
+of probability, but with obvious errors that from every point of view
+are inexcusable? And the worst of it is, there are ignorant people who
+say that this is perfection, and that anything beyond this is affected
+refinement. And then if we turn to sacred dramas—what miracles they
+invent in them! What apocryphal, ill-devised incidents, attributing to
+one saint the miracles of another! And even in secular plays they
+venture to introduce miracles without any reason or object except that
+they think some such miracle, or transformation as they call it, will
+come in well to astonish stupid people and draw them to the play. All
+this tends to the prejudice of the truth and the corruption of history,
+nay more, to the reproach of the wits of Spain; for foreigners who
+scrupulously observe the laws of the drama look upon us as barbarous
+and ignorant, when they see the absurdity and nonsense of the plays we
+produce. Nor will it be a sufficient excuse to say that the chief
+object well-ordered governments have in view when they permit plays to
+be performed in public is to entertain the people with some harmless
+amusement occasionally, and keep it from those evil humours which
+idleness is apt to engender; and that, as this may be attained by any
+sort of play, good or bad, there is no need to lay down laws, or bind
+those who write or act them to make them as they ought to be made,
+since, as I say, the object sought for may be secured by any sort. To
+this I would reply that the same end would be, beyond all comparison,
+better attained by means of good plays than by those that are not so;
+for after listening to an artistic and properly constructed play, the
+hearer will come away enlivened by the jests, instructed by the serious
+parts, full of admiration at the incidents, his wits sharpened by the
+arguments, warned by the tricks, all the wiser for the examples,
+inflamed against vice, and in love with virtue; for in all these ways a
+good play will stimulate the mind of the hearer be he ever so boorish
+or dull; and of all impossibilities the greatest is that a play endowed
+with all these qualities will not entertain, satisfy, and please much
+more than one wanting in them, like the greater number of those which
+are commonly acted now-a-days. Nor are the poets who write them to be
+blamed for this; for some there are among them who are perfectly well
+aware of their faults, and know what they ought to do; but as plays
+have become a salable commodity, they say, and with truth, that the
+actors will not buy them unless they are after this fashion; and so the
+poet tries to adapt himself to the requirements of the actor who is to
+pay him for his work. And that this is the truth may be seen by the
+countless plays that a most fertile wit of these kingdoms has written,
+with so much brilliancy, so much grace and gaiety, such polished
+versification, such choice language, such profound reflections, and in
+a word, so rich in eloquence and elevation of style, that he has filled
+the world with his fame; and yet, in consequence of his desire to suit
+the taste of the actors, they have not all, as some of them have, come
+as near perfection as they ought. Others write plays with such
+heedlessness that, after they have been acted, the actors have to fly
+and abscond, afraid of being punished, as they often have been, for
+having acted something offensive to some king or other, or insulting to
+some noble family. All which evils, and many more that I say nothing
+of, would be removed if there were some intelligent and sensible person
+at the capital to examine all plays before they were acted, not only
+those produced in the capital itself, but all that were intended to be
+acted in Spain; without whose approval, seal, and signature, no local
+magistracy should allow any play to be acted. In that case actors would
+take care to send their plays to the capital, and could act them in
+safety, and those who write them would be more careful and take more
+pains with their work, standing in awe of having to submit it to the
+strict examination of one who understood the matter; and so good plays
+would be produced and the objects they aim at happily attained; as well
+the amusement of the people, as the credit of the wits of Spain, the
+interest and safety of the actors, and the saving of trouble in
+inflicting punishment on them. And if the same or some other person
+were authorised to examine the newly written books of chivalry, no
+doubt some would appear with all the perfections you have described,
+enriching our language with the gracious and precious treasure of
+eloquence, and driving the old books into obscurity before the light of
+the new ones that would come out for the harmless entertainment, not
+merely of the idle but of the very busiest; for the bow cannot be
+always bent, nor can weak human nature exist without some lawful
+amusement.”
+
+The canon and the curate had proceeded thus far with their
+conversation, when the barber, coming forward, joined them, and said to
+the curate, “This is the spot, señor licentiate, that I said was a good
+one for fresh and plentiful pasture for the oxen, while we take our
+noontide rest.”
+
+“And so it seems,” returned the curate, and he told the canon what he
+proposed to do, on which he too made up his mind to halt with them,
+attracted by the aspect of the fair valley that lay before their eyes;
+and to enjoy it as well as the conversation of the curate, to whom he
+had begun to take a fancy, and also to learn more particulars about the
+doings of Don Quixote, he desired some of his servants to go on to the
+inn, which was not far distant, and fetch from it what eatables there
+might be for the whole party, as he meant to rest for the afternoon
+where he was; to which one of his servants replied that the sumpter
+mule, which by this time ought to have reached the inn, carried
+provisions enough to make it unnecessary to get anything from the inn
+except barley.
+
+“In that case,” said the canon, “take all the beasts there, and bring
+the sumpter mule back.”
+
+While this was going on, Sancho, perceiving that he could speak to his
+master without having the curate and the barber, of whom he had his
+suspicions, present all the time, approached the cage in which Don
+Quixote was placed, and said, “Señor, to ease my conscience I want to
+tell you the state of the case as to your enchantment, and that is that
+these two here, with their faces covered, are the curate of our village
+and the barber; and I suspect they have hit upon this plan of carrying
+you off in this fashion, out of pure envy because your worship
+surpasses them in doing famous deeds; and if this be the truth it
+follows that you are not enchanted, but hoodwinked and made a fool of.
+And to prove this I want to ask you one thing; and if you answer me as
+I believe you will answer, you will be able to lay your finger on the
+trick, and you will see that you are not enchanted but gone wrong in
+your wits.”
+
+“Ask what thou wilt, Sancho my son,” returned Don Quixote, “for I will
+satisfy thee and answer all thou requirest. As to what thou sayest,
+that these who accompany us yonder are the curate and the barber, our
+neighbours and acquaintances, it is very possible that they may seem to
+be those same persons; but that they are so in reality and in fact,
+believe it not on any account; what thou art to believe and think is
+that, if they look like them, as thou sayest, it must be that those who
+have enchanted me have taken this shape and likeness; for it is easy
+for enchanters to take any form they please, and they may have taken
+those of our friends in order to make thee think as thou dost, and lead
+thee into a labyrinth of fancies from which thou wilt find no escape
+though thou hadst the cord of Theseus; and they may also have done it
+to make me uncertain in my mind, and unable to conjecture whence this
+evil comes to me; for if on the one hand thou dost tell me that the
+barber and curate of our village are here in company with us, and on
+the other I find myself shut up in a cage, and know in my heart that no
+power on earth that was not supernatural would have been able to shut
+me in, what wouldst thou have me say or think, but that my enchantment
+is of a sort that transcends all I have ever read of in all the
+histories that deal with knights-errant that have been enchanted? So
+thou mayest set thy mind at rest as to the idea that they are what thou
+sayest, for they are as much so as I am a Turk. But touching thy desire
+to ask me something, say on, and I will answer thee, though thou
+shouldst ask questions from this till to-morrow morning.”
+
+“May Our Lady be good to me!” said Sancho, lifting up his voice; “and
+is it possible that your worship is so thick of skull and so short of
+brains that you cannot see that what I say is the simple truth, and
+that malice has more to do with your imprisonment and misfortune than
+enchantment? But as it is so, I will prove plainly to you that you are
+not enchanted. Now tell me, so may God deliver you from this
+affliction, and so may you find yourself when you least expect it in
+the arms of my lady Dulcinea—”
+
+“Leave off conjuring me,” said Don Quixote, “and ask what thou wouldst
+know; I have already told thee I will answer with all possible
+precision.”
+
+“That is what I want,” said Sancho; “and what I would know, and have
+you tell me, without adding or leaving out anything, but telling the
+whole truth as one expects it to be told, and as it is told, by all who
+profess arms, as your worship professes them, under the title of
+knights-errant—”
+
+“I tell thee I will not lie in any particular,” said Don Quixote;
+“finish thy question; for in truth thou weariest me with all these
+asseverations, requirements, and precautions, Sancho.”
+
+“Well, I rely on the goodness and truth of my master,” said Sancho;
+“and so, because it bears upon what we are talking about, I would ask,
+speaking with all reverence, whether since your worship has been shut
+up and, as you think, enchanted in this cage, you have felt any desire
+or inclination to go anywhere, as the saying is?”
+
+“I do not understand ‘going anywhere,’” said Don Quixote; “explain
+thyself more clearly, Sancho, if thou wouldst have me give an answer to
+the point.”
+
+“Is it possible,” said Sancho, “that your worship does not understand
+‘going anywhere’? Why, the schoolboys know that from the time they were
+babes. Well then, you must know I mean have you had any desire to do
+what cannot be avoided?”
+
+“Ah! now I understand thee, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “yes, often, and
+even this minute; get me out of this strait, or all will not go right.”
+
+
+
+c48e.jpg (32K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+WHICH TREATS OF THE SHREWD CONVERSATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HELD WITH
+HIS MASTER DON QUIXOTE
+
+
+
+
+c49a.jpg (181K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“Aha, I have caught you,” said Sancho; “this is what in my heart and
+soul I was longing to know. Come now, señor, can you deny what is
+commonly said around us, when a person is out of humour, ‘I don’t know
+what ails so-and-so, that he neither eats, nor drinks, nor sleeps, nor
+gives a proper answer to any question; one would think he was
+enchanted’? From which it is to be gathered that those who do not eat,
+or drink, or sleep, or do any of the natural acts I am speaking of—that
+such persons are enchanted; but not those that have the desire your
+worship has, and drink when drink is given them, and eat when there is
+anything to eat, and answer every question that is asked them.”
+
+“What thou sayest is true, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote; “but I have
+already told thee there are many sorts of enchantments, and it may be
+that in the course of time they have been changed one for another, and
+that now it may be the way with enchanted people to do all that I do,
+though they did not do so before; so it is vain to argue or draw
+inferences against the usage of the time. I know and feel that I am
+enchanted, and that is enough to ease my conscience; for it would weigh
+heavily on it if I thought that I was not enchanted, and that in a
+faint-hearted and cowardly way I allowed myself to lie in this cage,
+defrauding multitudes of the succour I might afford to those in need
+and distress, who at this very moment may be in sore want of my aid and
+protection.”
+
+“Still for all that,” replied Sancho, “I say that, for your greater and
+fuller satisfaction, it would be well if your worship were to try to
+get out of this prison (and I promise to do all in my power to help,
+and even to take you out of it), and see if you could once more mount
+your good Rocinante, who seems to be enchanted too, he is so melancholy
+and dejected; and then we might try our chance in looking for
+adventures again; and if we have no luck there will be time enough to
+go back to the cage; in which, on the faith of a good and loyal squire,
+I promise to shut myself up along with your worship, if so be you are
+so unfortunate, or I so stupid, as not to be able to carry out my
+plan.”
+
+“I am content to do as thou sayest, brother Sancho,” said Don Quixote,
+“and when thou seest an opportunity for effecting my release I will
+obey thee absolutely; but thou wilt see, Sancho, how mistaken thou art
+in thy conception of my misfortune.”
+
+The knight-errant and the ill-errant squire kept up their conversation
+till they reached the place where the curate, the canon, and the
+barber, who had already dismounted, were waiting for them. The carter
+at once unyoked the oxen and left them to roam at large about the
+pleasant green spot, the freshness of which seemed to invite, not
+enchanted people like Don Quixote, but wide-awake, sensible folk like
+his squire, who begged the curate to allow his master to leave the cage
+for a little; for if they did not let him out, the prison might not be
+as clean as the propriety of such a gentleman as his master required.
+The curate understood him, and said he would very gladly comply with
+his request, only that he feared his master, finding himself at
+liberty, would take to his old courses and make off where nobody could
+ever find him again.
+
+“I will answer for his not running away,” said Sancho.
+
+“And I also,” said the canon, “especially if he gives me his word as a
+knight not to leave us without our consent.”
+
+Don Quixote, who was listening to all this, said, “I give it;—moreover
+one who is enchanted as I am cannot do as he likes with himself; for he
+who had enchanted him could prevent his moving from one place for three
+ages, and if he attempted to escape would bring him back flying.”—And
+that being so, they might as well release him, particularly as it would
+be to the advantage of all; for, if they did not let him out, he
+protested he would be unable to avoid offending their nostrils unless
+they kept their distance.
+
+The canon took his hand, tied together as they both were, and on his
+word and promise they unbound him, and rejoiced beyond measure he was
+to find himself out of the cage. The first thing he did was to stretch
+himself all over, and then he went to where Rocinante was standing and
+giving him a couple of slaps on the haunches said, “I still trust in
+God and in his blessed mother, O flower and mirror of steeds, that we
+shall soon see ourselves, both of us, as we wish to be, thou with thy
+master on thy back, and I mounted upon thee, following the calling for
+which God sent me into the world.” And so saying, accompanied by
+Sancho, he withdrew to a retired spot, from which he came back much
+relieved and more eager than ever to put his squire’s scheme into
+execution.
+
+The canon gazed at him, wondering at the extraordinary nature of his
+madness, and that in all his remarks and replies he should show such
+excellent sense, and only lose his stirrups, as has been already said,
+when the subject of chivalry was broached. And so, moved by compassion,
+he said to him, as they all sat on the green grass awaiting the arrival
+of the provisions:
+
+“Is it possible, gentle sir, that the nauseous and idle reading of
+books of chivalry can have had such an effect on your worship as to
+upset your reason so that you fancy yourself enchanted, and the like,
+all as far from the truth as falsehood itself is? How can there be any
+human understanding that can persuade itself there ever was all that
+infinity of Amadises in the world, or all that multitude of famous
+knights, all those emperors of Trebizond, all those Felixmartes of
+Hircania, all those palfreys, and damsels-errant, and serpents, and
+monsters, and giants, and marvellous adventures, and enchantments of
+every kind, and battles, and prodigious encounters, splendid costumes,
+love-sick princesses, squires made counts, droll dwarfs, love letters,
+billings and cooings, swashbuckler women, and, in a word, all that
+nonsense the books of chivalry contain? For myself, I can only say that
+when I read them, so long as I do not stop to think that they are all
+lies and frivolity, they give me a certain amount of pleasure; but when
+I come to consider what they are, I fling the very best of them at the
+wall, and would fling it into the fire if there were one at hand, as
+richly deserving such punishment as cheats and impostors out of the
+range of ordinary toleration, and as founders of new sects and modes of
+life, and teachers that lead the ignorant public to believe and accept
+as truth all the folly they contain. And such is their audacity, they
+even dare to unsettle the wits of gentlemen of birth and intelligence,
+as is shown plainly by the way they have served your worship, when they
+have brought you to such a pass that you have to be shut up in a cage
+and carried on an ox-cart as one would carry a lion or a tiger from
+place to place to make money by showing it. Come, Señor Don Quixote,
+have some compassion for yourself, return to the bosom of common sense,
+and make use of the liberal share of it that heaven has been pleased to
+bestow upon you, employing your abundant gifts of mind in some other
+reading that may serve to benefit your conscience and add to your
+honour. And if, still led away by your natural bent, you desire to read
+books of achievements and of chivalry, read the Book of Judges in the
+Holy Scriptures, for there you will find grand reality, and deeds as
+true as they are heroic. Lusitania had a Viriatus, Rome a Cæsar,
+Carthage a Hannibal, Greece an Alexander, Castile a Count Fernan
+Gonzalez, Valencia a Cid, Andalusia a Gonzalo Fernandez, Estremadura a
+Diego García de Paredes, Jerez a Garci Perez de Vargas, Toledo a
+Garcilaso, Seville a Don Manuel de Leon, to read of whose valiant deeds
+will entertain and instruct the loftiest minds and fill them with
+delight and wonder. Here, Señor Don Quixote, will be reading worthy of
+your sound understanding; from which you will rise learned in history,
+in love with virtue, strengthened in goodness, improved in manners,
+brave without rashness, prudent without cowardice; and all to the
+honour of God, your own advantage and the glory of La Mancha, whence, I
+am informed, your worship derives your birth.”
+
+Don Quixote listened with the greatest attention to the canon’s words,
+and when he found he had finished, after regarding him for some time,
+he replied to him:
+
+“It appears to me, gentle sir, that your worship’s discourse is
+intended to persuade me that there never were any knights-errant in the
+world, and that all the books of chivalry are false, lying, mischievous
+and useless to the State, and that I have done wrong in reading them,
+and worse in believing them, and still worse in imitating them, when I
+undertook to follow the arduous calling of knight-errantry which they
+set forth; for you deny that there ever were Amadises of Gaul or of
+Greece, or any other of the knights of whom the books are full.”
+
+“It is all exactly as you state it,” said the canon; to which Don
+Quixote returned, “You also went on to say that books of this kind had
+done me much harm, inasmuch as they had upset my senses, and shut me up
+in a cage, and that it would be better for me to reform and change my
+studies, and read other truer books which would afford more pleasure
+and instruction.”
+
+“Just so,” said the canon.
+
+“Well then,” returned Don Quixote, “to my mind it is you who are the
+one that is out of his wits and enchanted, as you have ventured to
+utter such blasphemies against a thing so universally acknowledged and
+accepted as true that whoever denies it, as you do, deserves the same
+punishment which you say you inflict on the books that irritate you
+when you read them. For to try to persuade anybody that Amadis, and all
+the other knights-adventurers with whom the books are filled, never
+existed, would be like trying to persuade him that the sun does not
+yield light, or ice cold, or earth nourishment. What wit in the world
+can persuade another that the story of the Princess Floripes and Guy of
+Burgundy is not true, or that of Fierabras and the bridge of Mantible,
+which happened in the time of Charlemagne? For by all that is good it
+is as true as that it is daylight now; and if it be a lie, it must be a
+lie too that there was a Hector, or Achilles, or Trojan war, or Twelve
+Peers of France, or Arthur of England, who still lives changed into a
+raven, and is unceasingly looked for in his kingdom. One might just as
+well try to make out that the history of Guarino Mezquino, or of the
+quest of the Holy Grail, is false, or that the loves of Tristram and
+the Queen Yseult are apocryphal, as well as those of Guinevere and
+Lancelot, when there are persons who can almost remember having seen
+the Dame Quintañona, who was the best cupbearer in Great Britain. And
+so true is this, that I recollect a grandmother of mine on the father’s
+side, whenever she saw any dame in a venerable hood, used to say to me,
+‘Grandson, that one is like Dame Quintañona,’ from which I conclude
+that she must have known her, or at least had managed to see some
+portrait of her. Then who can deny that the story of Pierres and the
+fair Magalona is true, when even to this day may be seen in the king’s
+armoury the pin with which the valiant Pierres guided the wooden horse
+he rode through the air, and it is a trifle bigger than the pole of a
+cart? And alongside of the pin is Babieca’s saddle, and at Roncesvalles
+there is Roland’s horn, as large as a large beam; whence we may infer
+that there were Twelve Peers, and a Pierres, and a Cid, and other
+knights like them, of the sort people commonly call adventurers. Or
+perhaps I shall be told, too, that there was no such knight-errant as
+the valiant Lusitanian Juan de Merlo, who went to Burgundy and in the
+city of Arras fought with the famous lord of Charny, Mosen Pierres by
+name, and afterwards in the city of Basle with Mosen Enrique de
+Remesten, coming out of both encounters covered with fame and honour;
+or adventures and challenges achieved and delivered, also in Burgundy,
+by the valiant Spaniards Pedro Barba and Gutierre Quixada (of whose
+family I come in the direct male line), when they vanquished the sons
+of the Count of San Polo. I shall be told, too, that Don Fernando de
+Guevara did not go in quest of adventures to Germany, where he engaged
+in combat with Micer George, a knight of the house of the Duke of
+Austria. I shall be told that the jousts of Suero de Quiñones, him of
+the ‘Paso,’ and the emprise of Mosen Luis de Falces against the
+Castilian knight, Don Gonzalo de Guzman, were mere mockeries; as well
+as many other achievements of Christian knights of these and foreign
+realms, which are so authentic and true, that, I repeat, he who denies
+them must be totally wanting in reason and good sense.”
+
+The canon was amazed to hear the medley of truth and fiction Don
+Quixote uttered, and to see how well acquainted he was with everything
+relating or belonging to the achievements of his knight-errantry; so he
+said in reply:
+
+“I cannot deny, Señor Don Quixote, that there is some truth in what you
+say, especially as regards the Spanish knights-errant; and I am willing
+to grant too that the Twelve Peers of France existed, but I am not
+disposed to believe that they did all the things that the Archbishop
+Turpin relates of them. For the truth of the matter is they were
+knights chosen by the kings of France, and called ‘Peers’ because they
+were all equal in worth, rank and prowess (at least if they were not
+they ought to have been), and it was a kind of religious order like
+those of Santiago and Calatrava in the present day, in which it is
+assumed that those who take it are valiant knights of distinction and
+good birth; and just as we say now a Knight of St. John, or of
+Alcántara, they used to say then a Knight of the Twelve Peers, because
+twelve equals were chosen for that military order. That there was a
+Cid, as well as a Bernardo del Carpio, there can be no doubt; but that
+they did the deeds people say they did, I hold to be very doubtful. In
+that other matter of the pin of Count Pierres that you speak of, and
+say is near Babieca’s saddle in the Armoury, I confess my sin; for I am
+either so stupid or so short-sighted, that, though I have seen the
+saddle, I have never been able to see the pin, in spite of it being as
+big as your worship says it is.”
+
+“For all that it is there, without any manner of doubt,” said Don
+Quixote; “and more by token they say it is inclosed in a sheath of
+cowhide to keep it from rusting.”
+
+“All that may be,” replied the canon; “but, by the orders I have
+received, I do not remember seeing it. However, granting it is there,
+that is no reason why I am bound to believe the stories of all those
+Amadises and of all that multitude of knights they tell us about, nor
+is it reasonable that a man like your worship, so worthy, and with so
+many good qualities, and endowed with such a good understanding, should
+allow himself to be persuaded that such wild crazy things as are
+written in those absurd books of chivalry are really true.”
+
+
+
+c49e.jpg (22K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+OF THE SHREWD CONTROVERSY WHICH DON QUIXOTE AND THE CANON HELD,
+TOGETHER WITH OTHER INCIDENTS
+
+
+
+
+c50a.jpg (160K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“A good joke, that!” returned Don Quixote. “Books that have been
+printed with the king’s licence, and with the approbation of those to
+whom they have been submitted, and read with universal delight, and
+extolled by great and small, rich and poor, learned and ignorant,
+gentle and simple, in a word by people of every sort, of whatever rank
+or condition they may be—that these should be lies! And above all when
+they carry such an appearance of truth with them; for they tell us the
+father, mother, country, kindred, age, place, and the achievements,
+step by step, and day by day, performed by such a knight or knights!
+Hush, sir; utter not such blasphemy; trust me I am advising you now to
+act as a sensible man should; only read them, and you will see the
+pleasure you will derive from them. For, come, tell me, can there be
+anything more delightful than to see, as it were, here now displayed
+before us a vast lake of bubbling pitch with a host of snakes and
+serpents and lizards, and ferocious and terrible creatures of all sorts
+swimming about in it, while from the middle of the lake there comes a
+plaintive voice saying: ‘Knight, whosoever thou art who beholdest this
+dread lake, if thou wouldst win the prize that lies hidden beneath
+these dusky waves, prove the valour of thy stout heart and cast thyself
+into the midst of its dark burning waters, else thou shalt not be
+worthy to see the mighty wonders contained in the seven castles of the
+seven Fays that lie beneath this black expanse;’ and then the knight,
+almost ere the awful voice has ceased, without stopping to consider,
+without pausing to reflect upon the danger to which he is exposing
+himself, without even relieving himself of the weight of his massive
+armour, commending himself to God and to his lady, plunges into the
+midst of the boiling lake, and when he little looks for it, or knows
+what his fate is to be, he finds himself among flowery meadows, with
+which the Elysian fields are not to be compared.
+
+
+
+c50b.jpg (344K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“The sky seems more transparent there, and the sun shines with a
+strange brilliancy, and a delightful grove of green leafy trees
+presents itself to the eyes and charms the sight with its verdure,
+while the ear is soothed by the sweet untutored melody of the countless
+birds of gay plumage that flit to and fro among the interlacing
+branches. Here he sees a brook whose limpid waters, like liquid
+crystal, ripple over fine sands and white pebbles that look like sifted
+gold and purest pearls. There he perceives a cunningly wrought fountain
+of many-coloured jasper and polished marble; here another of rustic
+fashion where the little mussel-shells and the spiral white and yellow
+mansions of the snail disposed in studious disorder, mingled with
+fragments of glittering crystal and mock emeralds, make up a work of
+varied aspect, where art, imitating nature, seems to have outdone it.
+
+
+
+c50c.jpg (334K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“Suddenly there is presented to his sight a strong castle or gorgeous
+palace with walls of massy gold, turrets of diamond and gates of
+jacinth; in short, so marvellous is its structure that though the
+materials of which it is built are nothing less than diamonds,
+carbuncles, rubies, pearls, gold, and emeralds, the workmanship is
+still more rare. And after having seen all this, what can be more
+charming than to see how a bevy of damsels comes forth from the gate of
+the castle in gay and gorgeous attire, such that, were I to set myself
+now to depict it as the histories describe it to us, I should never
+have done; and then how she who seems to be the first among them all
+takes the bold knight who plunged into the boiling lake by the hand,
+and without addressing a word to him leads him into the rich palace or
+castle, and strips him as naked as when his mother bore him, and bathes
+him in lukewarm water, and anoints him all over with sweet-smelling
+unguents, and clothes him in a shirt of the softest sendal, all scented
+and perfumed, while another damsel comes and throws over his shoulders
+a mantle which is said to be worth at the very least a city, and even
+more? How charming it is, then, when they tell us how, after all this,
+they lead him to another chamber where he finds the tables set out in
+such style that he is filled with amazement and wonder; to see how they
+pour out water for his hands distilled from amber and sweet-scented
+flowers; how they seat him on an ivory chair; to see how the damsels
+wait on him all in profound silence; how they bring him such a variety
+of dainties so temptingly prepared that the appetite is at a loss which
+to select; to hear the music that resounds while he is at table, by
+whom or whence produced he knows not. And then when the repast is over
+and the tables removed, for the knight to recline in the chair, picking
+his teeth perhaps as usual, and a damsel, much lovelier than any of the
+others, to enter unexpectedly by the chamber door, and herself by his
+side, and begin to tell him what the castle is, and how she is held
+enchanted there, and other things that amaze the knight and astonish
+the readers who are perusing his history.
+
+
+
+c50d.jpg (433K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+“But I will not expatiate any further upon this, as it may be gathered
+from it that whatever part of whatever history of a knight-errant one
+reads, it will fill the reader, whoever he be, with delight and wonder;
+and take my advice, sir, and, as I said before, read these books and
+you will see how they will banish any melancholy you may feel and raise
+your spirits should they be depressed. For myself I can say that since
+I have been a knight-errant I have become valiant, polite, generous,
+well-bred, magnanimous, courteous, dauntless, gentle, patient, and have
+learned to bear hardships, imprisonments, and enchantments; and though
+it be such a short time since I have seen myself shut up in a cage like
+a madman, I hope by the might of my arm, if heaven aid me and fortune
+thwart me not, to see myself king of some kingdom where I may be able
+to show the gratitude and generosity that dwell in my heart; for by my
+faith, señor, the poor man is incapacitated from showing the virtue of
+generosity to anyone, though he may possess it in the highest degree;
+and gratitude that consists of disposition only is a dead thing, just
+as faith without works is dead. For this reason I should be glad were
+fortune soon to offer me some opportunity of making myself an emperor,
+so as to show my heart in doing good to my friends, particularly to
+this poor Sancho Panza, my squire, who is the best fellow in the world;
+and I would gladly give him a county I have promised him this ever so
+long, only that I am afraid he has not the capacity to govern his
+realm.”
+
+Sancho partly heard these last words of his master, and said to him,
+“Strive hard you, Señor Don Quixote, to give me that county so often
+promised by you and so long looked for by me, for I promise you there
+will be no want of capacity in me to govern it; and even if there is, I
+have heard say there are men in the world who farm seigniories, paying
+so much a year, and they themselves taking charge of the government,
+while the lord, with his legs stretched out, enjoys the revenue they
+pay him, without troubling himself about anything else. That’s what
+I’ll do, and not stand haggling over trifles, but wash my hands at once
+of the whole business, and enjoy my rents like a duke, and let things
+go their own way.”
+
+“That, brother Sancho,” said the canon, “only holds good as far as the
+enjoyment of the revenue goes; but the lord of the seigniory must
+attend to the administration of justice, and here capacity and sound
+judgment come in, and above all a firm determination to find out the
+truth; for if this be wanting in the beginning, the middle and the end
+will always go wrong; and God as commonly aids the honest intentions of
+the simple as he frustrates the evil designs of the crafty.”
+
+“I don’t understand those philosophies,” returned Sancho Panza; “all I
+know is I would I had the county as soon as I shall know how to govern
+it; for I have as much soul as another, and as much body as anyone, and
+I shall be as much king of my realm as any other of his; and being so I
+should do as I liked, and doing as I liked I should please myself, and
+pleasing myself I should be content, and when one is content he has
+nothing more to desire, and when one has nothing more to desire there
+is an end of it; so let the county come, and God be with you, and let
+us see one another, as one blind man said to the other.”
+
+“That is not bad philosophy thou art talking, Sancho,” said the canon;
+“but for all that there is a good deal to be said on this matter of
+counties.”
+
+To which Don Quixote returned, “I know not what more there is to be
+said; I only guide myself by the example set me by the great Amadis of
+Gaul, when he made his squire count of the Insula Firme; and so,
+without any scruples of conscience, I can make a count of Sancho Panza,
+for he is one of the best squires that ever knight-errant had.”
+
+The canon was astonished at the methodical nonsense (if nonsense be
+capable of method) that Don Quixote uttered, at the way in which he had
+described the adventure of the knight of the lake, at the impression
+that the deliberate lies of the books he read had made upon him, and
+lastly he marvelled at the simplicity of Sancho, who desired so eagerly
+to obtain the county his master had promised him.
+
+By this time the canon’s servants, who had gone to the inn to fetch the
+sumpter mule, had returned, and making a carpet and the green grass of
+the meadow serve as a table, they seated themselves in the shade of
+some trees and made their repast there, that the carter might not be
+deprived of the advantage of the spot, as has been already said. As
+they were eating they suddenly heard a loud noise and the sound of a
+bell that seemed to come from among some brambles and thick bushes that
+were close by, and the same instant they observed a beautiful goat,
+spotted all over black, white, and brown, spring out of the thicket
+with a goatherd after it, calling to it and uttering the usual cries to
+make it stop or turn back to the fold. The fugitive goat, scared and
+frightened, ran towards the company as if seeking their protection and
+then stood still, and the goatherd coming up seized it by the horns and
+began to talk to it as if it were possessed of reason and
+understanding: “Ah wanderer, wanderer, Spotty, Spotty; how have you
+gone limping all this time? What wolves have frightened you, my
+daughter? Won’t you tell me what is the matter, my beauty? But what
+else can it be except that you are a she, and cannot keep quiet? A
+plague on your humours and the humours of those you take after! Come
+back, come back, my darling; and if you will not be so happy, at any
+rate you will be safe in the fold or with your companions; for if you
+who ought to keep and lead them, go wandering astray, what will become
+of them?”
+
+The goatherd’s talk amused all who heard it, but especially the canon,
+who said to him, “As you live, brother, take it easy, and be not in
+such a hurry to drive this goat back to the fold; for, being a female,
+as you say, she will follow her natural instinct in spite of all you
+can do to prevent it. Take this morsel and drink a sup, and that will
+soothe your irritation, and in the meantime the goat will rest
+herself,” and so saying, he handed him the loins of a cold rabbit on a
+fork.
+
+The goatherd took it with thanks, and drank and calmed himself, and
+then said, “I should be sorry if your worships were to take me for a
+simpleton for having spoken so seriously as I did to this animal; but
+the truth is there is a certain mystery in the words I used. I am a
+clown, but not so much of one but that I know how to behave to men and
+to beasts.”
+
+“That I can well believe,” said the curate, “for I know already by
+experience that the woods breed men of learning, and shepherds’ huts
+harbour philosophers.”
+
+“At all events, señor,” returned the goatherd, “they shelter men of
+experience; and that you may see the truth of this and grasp it, though
+I may seem to put myself forward without being asked, I will, if it
+will not tire you, gentlemen, and you will give me your attention for a
+little, tell you a true story which will confirm this gentleman’s word
+(and he pointed to the curate) as well as my own.”
+
+To this Don Quixote replied, “Seeing that this affair has a certain
+colour of chivalry about it, I for my part, brother, will hear you most
+gladly, and so will all these gentlemen, from the high intelligence
+they possess and their love of curious novelties that interest, charm,
+and entertain the mind, as I feel quite sure your story will do. So
+begin, friend, for we are all prepared to listen.”
+
+“I draw my stakes,” said Sancho, “and will retreat with this pasty to
+the brook there, where I mean to victual myself for three days; for I
+have heard my lord, Don Quixote, say that a knight-errant’s squire
+should eat until he can hold no more, whenever he has the chance,
+because it often happens them to get by accident into a wood so thick
+that they cannot find a way out of it for six days; and if the man is
+not well filled or his alforjas well stored, there he may stay, as very
+often he does, turned into a dried mummy.”
+
+“Thou art in the right of it, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “go where thou
+wilt and eat all thou canst, for I have had enough, and only want to
+give my mind its refreshment, as I shall by listening to this good
+fellow’s story.”
+
+“It is what we shall all do,” said the canon; and then begged the
+goatherd to begin the promised tale.
+
+The goatherd gave the goat which he held by the horns a couple of slaps
+on the back, saying, “Lie down here beside me, Spotty, for we have time
+enough to return to our fold.” The goat seemed to understand him, for
+as her master seated himself, she stretched herself quietly beside him
+and looked up in his face to show him she was all attention to what he
+was going to say, and then in these words he began his story.
+
+
+
+c50e.jpg (27K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+WHICH DEALS WITH WHAT THE GOATHERD TOLD THOSE WHO WERE CARRYING OFF DON
+QUIXOTE
+
+
+
+
+c51a.jpg (115K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+Three leagues from this valley there is a village which, though small,
+is one of the richest in all this neighbourhood, and in it there lived
+a farmer, a very worthy man, and so much respected that, although to be
+so is the natural consequence of being rich, he was even more respected
+for his virtue than for the wealth he had acquired. But what made him
+still more fortunate, as he said himself, was having a daughter of such
+exceeding beauty, rare intelligence, gracefulness, and virtue, that
+everyone who knew her and beheld her marvelled at the extraordinary
+gifts with which heaven and nature had endowed her. As a child she was
+beautiful, she continued to grow in beauty, and at the age of sixteen
+she was most lovely. The fame of her beauty began to spread abroad
+through all the villages around—but why do I say the villages around,
+merely, when it spread to distant cities, and even made its way into
+the halls of royalty and reached the ears of people of every class, who
+came from all sides to see her as if to see something rare and curious,
+or some wonder-working image?
+
+Her father watched over her and she watched over herself; for there are
+no locks, or guards, or bolts that can protect a young girl better than
+her own modesty. The wealth of the father and the beauty of the
+daughter led many neighbours as well as strangers to seek her for a
+wife; but he, as one might well be who had the disposal of so rich a
+jewel, was perplexed and unable to make up his mind to which of her
+countless suitors he should entrust her. I was one among the many who
+felt a desire so natural, and, as her father knew who I was, and I was
+of the same town, of pure blood, in the bloom of life, and very rich in
+possessions, I had great hopes of success. There was another of the
+same place and qualifications who also sought her, and this made her
+father’s choice hang in the balance, for he felt that on either of us
+his daughter would be well bestowed; so to escape from this state of
+perplexity he resolved to refer the matter to Leandra (for that is the
+name of the rich damsel who has reduced me to misery), reflecting that
+as we were both equal it would be best to leave it to his dear daughter
+to choose according to her inclination—a course that is worthy of
+imitation by all fathers who wish to settle their children in life. I
+do not mean that they ought to leave them to make a choice of what is
+contemptible and bad, but that they should place before them what is
+good and then allow them to make a good choice as they please. I do not
+know which Leandra chose; I only know her father put us both off with
+the tender age of his daughter and vague words that neither bound him
+nor dismissed us. My rival is called Anselmo and I myself Eugenio—that
+you may know the names of the personages that figure in this tragedy,
+the end of which is still in suspense, though it is plain to see it
+must be disastrous.
+
+About this time there arrived in our town one Vicente de la Roca, the
+son of a poor peasant of the same town, the said Vicente having
+returned from service as a soldier in Italy and divers other parts. A
+captain who chanced to pass that way with his company had carried him
+off from our village when he was a boy of about twelve years, and now
+twelve years later the young man came back in a soldier’s uniform,
+arrayed in a thousand colours, and all over glass trinkets and fine
+steel chains. To-day he would appear in one gay dress, to-morrow in
+another; but all flimsy and gaudy, of little substance and less worth.
+The peasant folk, who are naturally malicious, and when they have
+nothing to do can be malice itself, remarked all this, and took note of
+his finery and jewellery, piece by piece, and discovered that he had
+three suits of different colours, with garters and stockings to match;
+but he made so many arrangements and combinations out of them, that if
+they had not counted them, anyone would have sworn that he had made a
+display of more than ten suits of clothes and twenty plumes. Do not
+look upon all this that I am telling you about the clothes as uncalled
+for or spun out, for they have a great deal to do with the story. He
+used to seat himself on a bench under the great poplar in our plaza,
+and there he would keep us all hanging open-mouthed on the stories he
+told us of his exploits. There was no country on the face of the globe
+he had not seen, nor battle he had not been engaged in; he had killed
+more Moors than there are in Morocco and Tunis, and fought more single
+combats, according to his own account, than Garcilaso, Diego García de
+Paredes and a thousand others he named, and out of all he had come
+victorious without losing a drop of blood. On the other hand he showed
+marks of wounds, which, though they could not be made out, he said were
+gunshot wounds received in divers encounters and actions. Lastly, with
+monstrous impudence he used to say “you” to his equals and even those
+who knew what he was, and declare that his arm was his father and his
+deeds his pedigree, and that being a soldier he was as good as the king
+himself. And to add to these swaggering ways he was a trifle of a
+musician, and played the guitar with such a flourish that some said he
+made it speak; nor did his accomplishments end here, for he was
+something of a poet too, and on every trifle that happened in the town
+he made a ballad a league long.
+
+
+
+c51b.jpg (372K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+This soldier, then, that I have described, this Vicente de la Roca,
+this bravo, gallant, musician, poet, was often seen and watched by
+Leandra from a window of her house which looked out on the plaza. The
+glitter of his showy attire took her fancy, his ballads bewitched her
+(for he gave away twenty copies of every one he made), the tales of his
+exploits which he told about himself came to her ears; and in short, as
+the devil no doubt had arranged it, she fell in love with him before
+the presumption of making love to her had suggested itself to him; and
+as in love-affairs none are more easily brought to an issue than those
+which have the inclination of the lady for an ally, Leandra and Vicente
+came to an understanding without any difficulty; and before any of her
+numerous suitors had any suspicion of her design, she had already
+carried it into effect, having left the house of her dearly beloved
+father (for mother she had none), and disappeared from the village with
+the soldier, who came more triumphantly out of this enterprise than out
+of any of the large number he laid claim to. All the village and all
+who heard of it were amazed at the affair; I was aghast, Anselmo
+thunderstruck, her father full of grief, her relations indignant, the
+authorities all in a ferment, the officers of the Brotherhood in arms.
+They scoured the roads, they searched the woods and all quarters, and
+at the end of three days they found the flighty Leandra in a mountain
+cave, stript to her shift, and robbed of all the money and precious
+jewels she had carried away from home with her.
+
+
+
+c51c.jpg (275K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+They brought her back to her unhappy father, and questioned her as to
+her misfortune, and she confessed without pressure that Vicente de la
+Roca had deceived her, and under promise of marrying her had induced
+her to leave her father’s house, as he meant to take her to the richest
+and most delightful city in the whole world, which was Naples; and that
+she, ill-advised and deluded, had believed him, and robbed her father,
+and handed over all to him the night she disappeared; and that he had
+carried her away to a rugged mountain and shut her up in the cave where
+they had found her. She said, moreover, that the soldier, without
+robbing her of her honour, had taken from her everything she had, and
+made off, leaving her in the cave, a thing that still further surprised
+everybody. It was not easy for us to credit the young man’s continence,
+but she asserted it with such earnestness that it helped to console her
+distressed father, who thought nothing of what had been taken since the
+jewel that once lost can never be recovered had been left to his
+daughter. The same day that Leandra made her appearance her father
+removed her from our sight and took her away to shut her up in a
+convent in a town near this, in the hope that time may wear away some
+of the disgrace she has incurred. Leandra’s youth furnished an excuse
+for her fault, at least with those to whom it was of no consequence
+whether she was good or bad; but those who knew her shrewdness and
+intelligence did not attribute her misdemeanour to ignorance but to
+wantonness and the natural disposition of women, which is for the most
+part flighty and ill-regulated.
+
+Leandra withdrawn from sight, Anselmo’s eyes grew blind, or at any rate
+found nothing to look at that gave them any pleasure, and mine were in
+darkness without a ray of light to direct them to anything enjoyable
+while Leandra was away. Our melancholy grew greater, our patience grew
+less; we cursed the soldier’s finery and railed at the carelessness of
+Leandra’s father. At last Anselmo and I agreed to leave the village and
+come to this valley; and, he feeding a great flock of sheep of his own,
+and I a large herd of goats of mine, we pass our life among the trees,
+giving vent to our sorrows, together singing the fair Leandra’s
+praises, or upbraiding her, or else sighing alone, and to heaven
+pouring forth our complaints in solitude. Following our example, many
+more of Leandra’s lovers have come to these rude mountains and adopted
+our mode of life, and they are so numerous that one would fancy the
+place had been turned into the pastoral Arcadia, so full is it of
+shepherds and sheep-folds; nor is there a spot in it where the name of
+the fair Leandra is not heard. Here one curses her and calls her
+capricious, fickle, and immodest, there another condemns her as frail
+and frivolous; this pardons and absolves her, that spurns and reviles
+her; one extols her beauty, another assails her character, and in short
+all abuse her, and all adore her, and to such a pitch has this general
+infatuation gone that there are some who complain of her scorn without
+ever having exchanged a word with her, and even some that bewail and
+mourn the raging fever of jealousy, for which she never gave anyone
+cause, for, as I have already said, her misconduct was known before her
+passion. There is no nook among the rocks, no brookside, no shade
+beneath the trees that is not haunted by some shepherd telling his woes
+to the breezes; wherever there is an echo it repeats the name of
+Leandra; the mountains ring with “Leandra,” “Leandra” murmur the
+brooks, and Leandra keeps us all bewildered and bewitched, hoping
+without hope and fearing without knowing what we fear. Of all this
+silly set the one that shows the least and also the most sense is my
+rival Anselmo, for having so many other things to complain of, he only
+complains of separation, and to the accompaniment of a rebeck, which he
+plays admirably, he sings his complaints in verses that show his
+ingenuity. I follow another, easier, and to my mind wiser course, and
+that is to rail at the frivolity of women, at their inconstancy, their
+double dealing, their broken promises, their unkept pledges, and in
+short the want of reflection they show in fixing their affections and
+inclinations. This, sirs, was the reason of words and expressions I
+made use of to this goat when I came up just now; for as she is a
+female I have a contempt for her, though she is the best in all my
+fold. This is the story I promised to tell you, and if I have been
+tedious in telling it, I will not be slow to serve you; my hut is close
+by, and I have fresh milk and dainty cheese there, as well as a variety
+of toothsome fruit, no less pleasing to the eye than to the palate.
+
+
+
+c51e.jpg (14K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+OF THE QUARREL THAT DON QUIXOTE HAD WITH THE GOATHERD, TOGETHER WITH
+THE RARE ADVENTURE OF THE PENITENTS, WHICH WITH AN EXPENDITURE OF SWEAT
+HE BROUGHT TO A HAPPY CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+c52a.jpg (40K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+The goatherd’s tale gave great satisfaction to all the hearers, and the
+canon especially enjoyed it, for he had remarked with particular
+attention the manner in which it had been told, which was as unlike the
+manner of a clownish goatherd as it was like that of a polished city
+wit; and he observed that the curate had been quite right in saying
+that the woods bred men of learning. They all offered their services to
+Eugenio but he who showed himself most liberal in this way was Don
+Quixote, who said to him, “Most assuredly, brother goatherd, if I found
+myself in a position to attempt any adventure, I would, this very
+instant, set out on your behalf, and would rescue Leandra from that
+convent (where no doubt she is kept against her will), in spite of the
+abbess and all who might try to prevent me, and would place her in your
+hands to deal with her according to your will and pleasure, observing,
+however, the laws of chivalry which lay down that no violence of any
+kind is to be offered to any damsel. But I trust in God our Lord that
+the might of one malignant enchanter may not prove so great but that
+the power of another better disposed may prove superior to it, and then
+I promise you my support and assistance, as I am bound to do by my
+profession, which is none other than to give aid to the weak and
+needy.”
+
+The goatherd eyed him, and noticing Don Quixote’s sorry appearance and
+looks, he was filled with wonder, and asked the barber, who was next
+him, “Señor, who is this man who makes such a figure and talks in such
+a strain?”
+
+“Who should it be,” said the barber, “but the famous Don Quixote of La
+Mancha, the undoer of injustice, the righter of wrongs, the protector
+of damsels, the terror of giants, and the winner of battles?”
+
+“That,” said the goatherd, “sounds like what one reads in the books of
+the knights-errant, who did all that you say this man does; though it
+is my belief that either you are joking, or else this gentleman has
+empty lodgings in his head.”
+
+“You are a great scoundrel,” said Don Quixote, “and it is you who are
+empty and a fool. I am fuller than ever was the whoreson bitch that
+bore you;” and passing from words to deeds, he caught up a loaf that
+was near him and sent it full in the goatherd’s face, with such force
+that he flattened his nose; but the goatherd, who did not understand
+jokes, and found himself roughly handled in such good earnest, paying
+no respect to carpet, tablecloth, or diners, sprang upon Don Quixote,
+and seizing him by the throat with both hands would no doubt have
+throttled him, had not Sancho Panza that instant come to the rescue,
+and grasping him by the shoulders flung him down on the table, smashing
+plates, breaking glasses, and upsetting and scattering everything on
+it. Don Quixote, finding himself free, strove to get on top of the
+goatherd, who, with his face covered with blood, and soundly kicked by
+Sancho, was on all fours feeling about for one of the table-knives to
+take a bloody revenge with. The canon and the curate, however,
+prevented him, but the barber so contrived it that he got Don Quixote
+under him, and rained down upon him such a shower of fisticuffs that
+the poor knight’s face streamed with blood as freely as his own. The
+canon and the curate were bursting with laughter, the officers were
+capering with delight, and both the one and the other hissed them on as
+they do dogs that are worrying one another in a fight. Sancho alone was
+frantic, for he could not free himself from the grasp of one of the
+canon’s servants, who kept him from going to his master’s assistance.
+
+
+
+c52b.jpg (348K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+At last, while they were all, with the exception of the two bruisers
+who were mauling each other, in high glee and enjoyment, they heard a
+trumpet sound a note so doleful that it made them all look in the
+direction whence the sound seemed to come. But the one that was most
+excited by hearing it was Don Quixote, who though sorely against his
+will he was under the goatherd, and something more than pretty well
+pummelled, said to him, “Brother devil (for it is impossible but that
+thou must be one since thou hast had might and strength enough to
+overcome mine), I ask thee to agree to a truce for but one hour for the
+solemn note of yonder trumpet that falls on our ears seems to me to
+summon me to some new adventure.” The goatherd, who was by this time
+tired of pummelling and being pummelled, released him at once, and Don
+Quixote rising to his feet and turning his eyes to the quarter where
+the sound had been heard, suddenly saw coming down the slope of a hill
+several men clad in white like penitents.
+
+The fact was that the clouds had that year withheld their moisture from
+the earth, and in all the villages of the district they were organising
+processions, rogations, and penances, imploring God to open the hands
+of his mercy and send the rain; and to this end the people of a village
+that was hard by were going in procession to a holy hermitage there was
+on one side of that valley. Don Quixote when he saw the strange garb of
+the penitents, without reflecting how often he had seen it before, took
+it into his head that this was a case of adventure, and that it fell to
+him alone as a knight-errant to engage in it; and he was all the more
+confirmed in this notion, by the idea that an image draped in black
+they had with them was some illustrious lady that these villains and
+discourteous thieves were carrying off by force. As soon as this
+occurred to him he ran with all speed to Rocinante who was grazing at
+large, and taking the bridle and the buckler from the saddle-bow, he
+had him bridled in an instant, and calling to Sancho for his sword he
+mounted Rocinante, braced his buckler on his arm, and in a loud voice
+exclaimed to those who stood by, “Now, noble company, ye shall see how
+important it is that there should be knights in the world professing
+the order of knight-errantry; now, I say, ye shall see, by the
+deliverance of that worthy lady who is borne captive there, whether
+knights-errant deserve to be held in estimation,” and so saying he
+brought his legs to bear on Rocinante—for he had no spurs—and at a full
+canter (for in all this veracious history we never read of Rocinante
+fairly galloping) set off to encounter the penitents, though the
+curate, the canon, and the barber ran to prevent him. But it was out of
+their power, nor did he even stop for the shouts of Sancho calling
+after him, “Where are you going, Señor Don Quixote? What devils have
+possessed you to set you on against our Catholic faith? Plague take me!
+mind, that is a procession of penitents, and the lady they are carrying
+on that stand there is the blessed image of the immaculate Virgin. Take
+care what you are doing, señor, for this time it may be safely said you
+don’t know what you are about.” Sancho laboured in vain, for his master
+was so bent on coming to quarters with these sheeted figures and
+releasing the lady in black that he did not hear a word; and even had
+he heard, he would not have turned back if the king had ordered him. He
+came up with the procession and reined in Rocinante, who was already
+anxious enough to slacken speed a little, and in a hoarse, excited
+voice he exclaimed, “You who hide your faces, perhaps because you are
+not good subjects, pay attention and listen to what I am about to say
+to you.” The first to halt were those who were carrying the image, and
+one of the four ecclesiastics who were chanting the Litany, struck by
+the strange figure of Don Quixote, the leanness of Rocinante, and the
+other ludicrous peculiarities he observed, said in reply to him,
+“Brother, if you have anything to say to us say it quickly, for these
+brethren are whipping themselves, and we cannot stop, nor is it
+reasonable we should stop to hear anything, unless indeed it is short
+enough to be said in two words.”
+
+“I will say it in one,” replied Don Quixote, “and it is this; that at
+once, this very instant, ye release that fair lady whose tears and sad
+aspect show plainly that ye are carrying her off against her will, and
+that ye have committed some scandalous outrage against her; and I, who
+was born into the world to redress all such like wrongs, will not
+permit you to advance another step until you have restored to her the
+liberty she pines for and deserves.”
+
+From these words all the hearers concluded that he must be a madman,
+and began to laugh heartily, and their laughter acted like gunpowder on
+Don Quixote’s fury, for drawing his sword without another word he made
+a rush at the stand. One of those who supported it, leaving the burden
+to his comrades, advanced to meet him, flourishing a forked stick that
+he had for propping up the stand when resting, and with this he caught
+a mighty cut Don Quixote made at him that severed it in two; but with
+the portion that remained in his hand he dealt such a thwack on the
+shoulder of Don Quixote’s sword arm (which the buckler could not
+protect against the clownish assault) that poor Don Quixote came to the
+ground in a sad plight.
+
+Sancho Panza, who was coming on close behind puffing and blowing,
+seeing him fall, cried out to his assailant not to strike him again,
+for he was a poor enchanted knight, who had never harmed anyone all the
+days of his life; but what checked the clown was, not Sancho’s
+shouting, but seeing that Don Quixote did not stir hand or foot; and
+so, fancying he had killed him, he hastily hitched up his tunic under
+his girdle and took to his heels across the country like a deer.
+
+By this time all Don Quixote’s companions had come up to where he lay;
+but the processionists seeing them come running, and with them the
+officers of the Brotherhood with their crossbows, apprehended mischief,
+and clustering round the image, raised their hoods, and grasped their
+scourges, as the priests did their tapers, and awaited the attack,
+resolved to defend themselves and even to take the offensive against
+their assailants if they could. Fortune, however, arranged the matter
+better than they expected, for all Sancho did was to fling himself on
+his master’s body, raising over him the most doleful and laughable
+lamentation that ever was heard, for he believed he was dead. The
+curate was known to another curate who walked in the procession, and
+their recognition of one another set at rest the apprehensions of both
+parties; the first then told the other in two words who Don Quixote
+was, and he and the whole troop of penitents went to see if the poor
+gentleman was dead, and heard Sancho Panza saying, with tears in his
+eyes, “Oh flower of chivalry, that with one blow of a stick hast ended
+the course of thy well-spent life! Oh pride of thy race, honour and
+glory of all La Mancha, nay, of all the world, that for want of thee
+will be full of evil-doers, no longer in fear of punishment for their
+misdeeds! Oh thou, generous above all the Alexanders, since for only
+eight months of service thou hast given me the best island the sea
+girds or surrounds! Humble with the proud, haughty with the humble,
+encounterer of dangers, endurer of outrages, enamoured without reason,
+imitator of the good, scourge of the wicked, enemy of the mean, in
+short, knight-errant, which is all that can be said!”
+
+
+
+c52c.jpg (325K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+At the cries and moans of Sancho, Don Quixote came to himself, and the
+first word he said was, “He who lives separated from you, sweetest
+Dulcinea, has greater miseries to endure than these. Aid me, friend
+Sancho, to mount the enchanted cart, for I am not in a condition to
+press the saddle of Rocinante, as this shoulder is all knocked to
+pieces.”
+
+“That I will do with all my heart, señor,” said Sancho; “and let us
+return to our village with these gentlemen, who seek your good, and
+there we will prepare for making another sally, which may turn out more
+profitable and creditable to us.”
+
+“Thou art right, Sancho,” returned Don Quixote; “It will be wise to let
+the malign influence of the stars which now prevails pass off.”
+
+The canon, the curate, and the barber told him he would act very wisely
+in doing as he said; and so, highly amused at Sancho Panza’s
+simplicities, they placed Don Quixote in the cart as before. The
+procession once more formed itself in order and proceeded on its road;
+the goatherd took his leave of the party; the officers of the
+Brotherhood declined to go any farther, and the curate paid them what
+was due to them; the canon begged the curate to let him know how Don
+Quixote did, whether he was cured of his madness or still suffered from
+it, and then begged leave to continue his journey; in short, they all
+separated and went their ways, leaving to themselves the curate and the
+barber, Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and the good Rocinante, who regarded
+everything with as great resignation as his master. The carter yoked
+his oxen and made Don Quixote comfortable on a truss of hay, and at his
+usual deliberate pace took the road the curate directed, and at the end
+of six days they reached Don Quixote’s village, and entered it about
+the middle of the day, which it so happened was a Sunday, and the
+people were all in the plaza, through which Don Quixote’s cart passed.
+They all flocked to see what was in the cart, and when they recognised
+their townsman they were filled with amazement, and a boy ran off to
+bring the news to his housekeeper and his niece that their master and
+uncle had come back all lean and yellow and stretched on a truss of hay
+on an ox-cart. It was piteous to hear the cries the two good ladies
+raised, how they beat their breasts and poured out fresh maledictions
+on those accursed books of chivalry; all which was renewed when they
+saw Don Quixote coming in at the gate.
+
+At the news of Don Quixote’s arrival Sancho Panza’s wife came running,
+for she by this time knew that her husband had gone away with him as
+his squire, and on seeing Sancho, the first thing she asked him was if
+the ass was well. Sancho replied that he was, better than his master
+was.
+
+“Thanks be to God,” said she, “for being so good to me; but now tell
+me, my friend, what have you made by your squirings? What gown have you
+brought me back? What shoes for your children?”
+
+“I bring nothing of that sort, wife,” said Sancho; “though I bring
+other things of more consequence and value.”
+
+“I am very glad of that,” returned his wife; “show me these things of
+more value and consequence, my friend; for I want to see them to cheer
+my heart that has been so sad and heavy all these ages that you have
+been away.”
+
+“I will show them to you at home, wife,” said Sancho; “be content for
+the present; for if it please God that we should again go on our
+travels in search of adventures, you will soon see me a count, or
+governor of an island, and that not one of those everyday ones, but the
+best that is to be had.”
+
+“Heaven grant it, husband,” said she, “for indeed we have need of it.
+But tell me, what’s this about islands, for I don’t understand it?”
+
+“Honey is not for the mouth of the ass,” returned Sancho; “all in good
+time thou shalt see, wife—nay, thou wilt be surprised to hear thyself
+called ‘your ladyship’ by all thy vassals.”
+
+“What are you talking about, Sancho, with your ladyships, islands, and
+vassals?” returned Teresa Panza—for so Sancho’s wife was called, though
+they were not relations, for in La Mancha it is customary for wives to
+take their husbands’ surnames.
+
+“Don’t be in such a hurry to know all this, Teresa,” said Sancho; “it
+is enough that I am telling you the truth, so shut your mouth. But I
+may tell you this much by the way, that there is nothing in the world
+more delightful than to be a person of consideration, squire to a
+knight-errant, and a seeker of adventures. To be sure most of those one
+finds do not end as pleasantly as one could wish, for out of a hundred,
+ninety-nine will turn out cross and contrary. I know it by experience,
+for out of some I came blanketed, and out of others belaboured. Still,
+for all that, it is a fine thing to be on the look-out for what may
+happen, crossing mountains, searching woods, climbing rocks, visiting
+castles, putting up at inns, all at free quarters, and devil take the
+maravedi to pay.”
+
+While this conversation passed between Sancho Panza and his wife, Don
+Quixote’s housekeeper and niece took him in and undressed him and laid
+him in his old bed. He eyed them askance, and could not make out where
+he was. The curate charged his niece to be very careful to make her
+uncle comfortable and to keep a watch over him lest he should make his
+escape from them again, telling her what they had been obliged to do to
+bring him home. On this the pair once more lifted up their voices and
+renewed their maledictions upon the books of chivalry, and implored
+heaven to plunge the authors of such lies and nonsense into the midst
+of the bottomless pit. They were, in short, kept in anxiety and dread
+lest their uncle and master should give them the slip the moment he
+found himself somewhat better, and as they feared so it fell out.
+
+But the author of this history, though he has devoted research and
+industry to the discovery of the deeds achieved by Don Quixote in his
+third sally, has been unable to obtain any information respecting them,
+at any rate derived from authentic documents; tradition has merely
+preserved in the memory of La Mancha the fact that Don Quixote, the
+third time he sallied forth from his home, betook himself to Saragossa,
+where he was present at some famous jousts which came off in that city,
+and that he had adventures there worthy of his valour and high
+intelligence. Of his end and death he could learn no particulars, nor
+would he have ascertained it or known of it, if good fortune had not
+produced an old physician for him who had in his possession a leaden
+box, which, according to his account, had been discovered among the
+crumbling foundations of an ancient hermitage that was being rebuilt;
+in which box were found certain parchment manuscripts in Gothic
+character, but in Castilian verse, containing many of his achievements,
+and setting forth the beauty of Dulcinea, the form of Rocinante, the
+fidelity of Sancho Panza, and the burial of Don Quixote himself,
+together with sundry epitaphs and eulogies on his life and character;
+but all that could be read and deciphered were those which the
+trustworthy author of this new and unparalleled history here presents.
+And the said author asks of those that shall read it nothing in return
+for the vast toil which it has cost him in examining and searching the
+Manchegan archives in order to bring it to light, save that they give
+him the same credit that people of sense give to the books of chivalry
+that pervade the world and are so popular; for with this he will
+consider himself amply paid and fully satisfied, and will be encouraged
+to seek out and produce other histories, if not as truthful, at least
+equal in invention and not less entertaining. The first words written
+on the parchment found in the leaden box were these:
+
+THE ACADEMICIANS OF ARGAMASILLA,
+A VILLAGE OF LA MANCHA,
+ON THE LIFE AND DEATH OF DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA,
+HOC SCRIPSERUNT
+MONICONGO, ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA,
+ON THE TOMB OF DON QUIXOTE
+
+
+EPITAPH
+
+The scatterbrain that gave La Mancha more
+Rich spoils than Jason’s; who a point so keen
+Had to his wit, and happier far had been
+If his wit’s weathercock a blunter bore;
+The arm renowned far as Gaeta’s shore,
+Cathay, and all the lands that lie between;
+The muse discreet and terrible in mien
+As ever wrote on brass in days of yore;
+He who surpassed the Amadises all,
+And who as naught the Galaors accounted,
+Supported by his love and gallantry:
+Who made the Belianises sing small,
+And sought renown on Rocinante mounted;
+Here, underneath this cold stone, doth he lie.
+
+
+PANIAGUADO, ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA,
+IN LAUDEM DULCINEAE DEL TOBOSO
+
+
+SONNET
+
+She, whose full features may be here descried,
+High-bosomed, with a bearing of disdain,
+Is Dulcinea, she for whom in vain
+The great Don Quixote of La Mancha sighed.
+For her, Toboso’s queen, from side to side
+He traversed the grim sierra, the champaign
+Of Aranjuez, and Montiel’s famous plain:
+On Rocinante oft a weary ride.
+Malignant planets, cruel destiny,
+Pursued them both, the fair Manchegan dame,
+And the unconquered star of chivalry.
+Nor youth nor beauty saved her from the claim
+Of death; he paid love’s bitter penalty,
+And left the marble to preserve his name.
+
+
+CAPRICHOSO, A MOST ACUTE ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA,
+IN PRAISE OF ROCINANTE, STEED OF DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA
+
+
+SONNET
+
+On that proud throne of diamantine sheen,
+Which the blood-reeking feet of Mars degrade,
+The mad Manchegan’s banner now hath been
+By him in all its bravery displayed.
+There hath he hung his arms and trenchant blade
+Wherewith, achieving deeds till now unseen,
+He slays, lays low, cleaves, hews; but art hath made
+A novel style for our new paladin.
+If Amadis be the proud boast of Gaul,
+If by his progeny the fame of Greece
+Through all the regions of the earth be spread,
+Great Quixote crowned in grim Bellona’s hall
+To-day exalts La Mancha over these,
+And above Greece or Gaul she holds her head.
+Nor ends his glory here, for his good steed
+Doth Brillador and Bayard far exceed;
+As mettled steeds compared with Rocinante,
+The reputation they have won is scanty.
+
+
+BURLADOR, ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA,
+ON SANCHO PANZA
+
+
+SONNET
+
+The worthy Sancho Panza here you see;
+A great soul once was in that body small,
+Nor was there squire upon this earthly ball
+So plain and simple, or of guile so free.
+Within an ace of being Count was he,
+And would have been but for the spite and gall
+Of this vile age, mean and illiberal,
+That cannot even let a donkey be.
+For mounted on an ass (excuse the word),
+By Rocinante’s side this gentle squire
+Was wont his wandering master to attend.
+Delusive hopes that lure the common herd
+With promises of ease, the heart’s desire,
+In shadows, dreams, and smoke ye always end.
+
+
+CACHIDIABLO, ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA,
+ON THE TOMB OF DON QUIXOTE
+
+
+EPITAPH
+
+The knight lies here below,
+Ill-errant and bruised sore,
+Whom Rocinante bore
+In his wanderings to and fro.
+By the side of the knight is laid
+Stolid man Sancho too,
+Than whom a squire more true
+Was not in the esquire trade.
+
+
+TIQUITOC, ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA,
+ON THE TOMB OF DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO
+
+
+EPITAPH
+
+Here Dulcinea lies.
+Plump was she and robust:
+Now she is ashes and dust:
+The end of all flesh that dies.
+A lady of high degree,
+With the port of a lofty dame,
+And the great Don Quixote’s flame,
+And the pride of her village was she.
+
+
+These were all the verses that could be deciphered; the rest, the
+writing being worm-eaten, were handed over to one of the Academicians
+to make out their meaning conjecturally. We have been informed that at
+the cost of many sleepless nights and much toil he has succeeded, and
+that he means to publish them in hopes of Don Quixote’s third sally.
+
+_“Forse altro cantera con miglior plettro.”_
+
+
+
+
+c52e.jpg (54K)
+
+
+
+Volume II
+
+p003.jpg (307K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+DEDICATION OF VOLUME 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
+
+
+
+part2.jpg (130K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+part2e.jpg (37K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+OF THE INTERVIEW THE CURATE AND THE BARBER HAD WITH DON QUIXOTE ABOUT
+HIS MALADY
+
+
+
+
+p01a.jpg (156K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 anyone 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
+someone, 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.
+
+
+
+p01e.jpg (15K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+WHICH TREATS OF THE NOTABLE ALTERCATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HAD WITH DON
+QUIXOTE’S NIECE, AND HOUSEKEEPER, TOGETHER WITH OTHER DROLL MATTERS
+
+
+
+
+p02a.jpg (159K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Cæsar, 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.
+
+
+
+p02e.jpg (23K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+OF THE LAUGHABLE CONVERSATION THAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE, SANCHO
+PANZA, AND THE BACHELOR SAMSON CARRASCO
+
+
+
+
+p03a.jpg (131K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Doña Dulcinea del Toboso—”
+
+“I never heard my lady Dulcinea called Doña,” 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 Úbeda, 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.
+
+
+
+p03e.jpg (49K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p04a.jpg (143K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p04b.jpg (270K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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.
+
+
+
+p04e.jpg (55K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p05a.jpg (129K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 ‘Doña 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 ‘Doña 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 Doñas; 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 Doña 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.
+
+
+
+p05e.jpg (49K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+OF WHAT TOOK PLACE BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS NIECE AND HOUSEKEEPER;
+ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTERS IN THE WHOLE HISTORY
+
+
+
+
+p06a.jpg (93K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Cæsars 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.
+
+
+
+p06e.jpg (19K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE, TOGETHER WITH OTHER
+VERY NOTABLE INCIDENTS
+
+
+
+
+p07a.jpg (140K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p07e.jpg (24K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE ON HIS WAY TO SEE HIS LADY
+DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO
+
+
+
+
+p08a.jpg (65K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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.”
+
+
+
+p08b.jpg (283K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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 Cæsar 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
+Cortés 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 Cæsar’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.
+
+
+
+p08e.jpg (49K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT WILL BE SEEN THERE
+
+
+
+
+p09a.jpg (79K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+’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 someone
+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 Doña 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.
+
+
+
+p09e.jpg (34K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+WHEREIN IS RELATED THE CRAFTY DEVICE SANCHO ADOPTED TO ENCHANT THE LADY
+DULCINEA, AND OTHER INCIDENTS AS LUDICROUS AS THEY ARE TRUE
+
+
+
+
+p10a.jpg (142K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p10b.jpg (319K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p10e.jpg (56K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE WHICH THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE HAD WITH THE CAR
+OR CART OF “THE CORTES OF DEATH”
+
+
+
+
+p11a.jpg (172K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Cortés 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.
+
+
+
+p11b.jpg (327K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p11e.jpg (20K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE WHICH BEFELL THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE WITH THE
+BOLD KNIGHT OF THE MIRRORS
+
+
+
+
+p12a.jpg (98K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p12b.jpg (298K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 someone 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.
+
+
+
+p12e.jpg (15K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p13a.jpg (126K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p13e.jpg (43K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE GROVE
+
+
+
+
+p14a.jpg (120K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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,
+someone 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 someone 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.
+
+
+
+p14e.jpg (56K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+WHEREIN IT IS TOLD AND KNOWN WHO THE KNIGHT OF THE MIRRORS AND HIS
+SQUIRE WERE
+
+
+
+
+p15a.jpg (122K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p15e.jpg (17K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH A DISCREET GENTLEMAN OF LA MANCHA
+
+
+
+
+p16a.jpg (85K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 been 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.
+
+
+
+p16e.jpg (49K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p17a.jpg (137K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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!”
+
+
+
+p17b.jpg (352K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p17e.jpg (76K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p18a.jpg (133K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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!”
+
+
+
+p18b.jpg (300K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Doña 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, Doña 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 someone 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 Phœbus 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.
+
+
+
+p18e.jpg (18K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+IN WHICH IS RELATED THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENAMOURED SHEPHERD, TOGETHER
+WITH OTHER TRULY DROLL INCIDENTS
+
+p19a.jpg (131K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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, someone 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.
+
+
+
+p19e.jpg (29K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+WHEREIN AN ACCOUNT IS GIVEN OF THE WEDDING OF CAMACHO THE RICH,
+TOGETHER WITH THE INCIDENT OF BASILIO THE POOR
+
+
+
+
+p20a.jpg (125K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+Scarce had the fair Aurora given bright Phœbus 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.”
+
+
+
+p20b.jpg (365K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p20c.jpg (415K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p20d.jpg (351K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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.
+
+
+
+p20e.jpg (361K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p20f.jpg (41K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+IN WHICH CAMACHO’S WEDDING IS CONTINUED, WITH OTHER DELIGHTFUL
+INCIDENTS
+
+
+
+
+p21a.jpg (118K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p21b.jpg (374K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p21c.jpg (417K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+p21e.jpg (49K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p22a.jpg (112K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p22b.jpg (344K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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 someone 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 Peña 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.
+
+
+
+p22c.jpg (365K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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!”
+
+
+
+p22d.jpg (318K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p22e.jpg (48K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p23a.jpg (148K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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?’
+
+
+
+p23b.jpg (243K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“As he said this, the wretched Durandarte cried out in a loud voice:
+
+O cousin Montesinos!
+’Twas 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.
+
+
+
+p23c.jpg (331K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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 Doña 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 Quintañona, 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.”
+
+
+
+p23e.jpg (54K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+WHEREIN ARE RELATED A THOUSAND TRIFLING MATTERS, AS TRIVIAL AS THEY ARE
+NECESSARY TO THE RIGHT UNDERSTANDING OF THIS GREAT HISTORY
+
+
+
+
+p24a.jpg (137K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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
+Cæsar, 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.
+
+
+
+p24e.jpg (61K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p25a.jpg (154K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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!”
+
+
+
+p25b.jpg (373K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p25e.jpg (28K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE DROLL ADVENTURE OF THE PUPPET-SHOWMAN,
+TOGETHER WITH OTHER THINGS IN TRUTH RIGHT GOOD
+
+
+
+
+p26a.jpg (157K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Sansueña, 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
+Sansueña, 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 Sansueña 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.”
+
+
+
+p26b.jpg (342K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Doña
+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.
+
+
+
+p26e.jpg (34K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p27a.jpg (135K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 be 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 someone 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.
+
+
+
+p27b.jpg (330K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Ordoñez 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.
+
+
+
+p27e.jpg (47K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+OF MATTERS THAT BENENGELI SAYS HE WHO READS THEM WILL KNOW, IF HE READS
+THEM WITH ATTENTION
+
+
+
+
+p28a.jpg (111K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p28e.jpg (36K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+OF THE FAMOUS ADVENTURE OF THE ENCHANTED BARK
+
+
+
+
+p29a.jpg (127K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p29b.jpg (314K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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.
+
+
+
+p29e.jpg (54K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+OF DON QUIXOTE’S ADVENTURE WITH A FAIR HUNTRESS
+
+
+
+
+p30a.jpg (134K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p30b.jpg (334K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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
+Doña 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.
+
+
+
+p30e.jpg (54K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+WHICH TREATS OF MANY AND GREAT MATTERS
+
+
+
+
+p31a.jpg (155K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p31b.jpg (334K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Doña 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 Doña 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 Doña 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 Doña Mencia de Quiñones, the
+daughter of Don Alonso de Marañon, 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.
+
+
+
+p31e.jpg (46K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+OF THE REPLY DON QUIXOTE GAVE HIS CENSURER, WITH OTHER INCIDENTS, GRAVE
+AND DROLL
+
+
+
+
+p32a.jpg (152K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Antæus, 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.
+
+
+
+p32e.jpg (16K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+OF THE DELECTABLE DISCOURSE WHICH THE DUCHESS AND HER DAMSELS HELD WITH
+SANCHO PANZA, WELL WORTH READING AND NOTING
+
+
+
+
+p33a.jpg (138K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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?”
+
+
+
+p33b.jpg (326K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Úbeda.”
+
+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 Doña 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 Doña 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, Doña
+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.
+
+
+
+p33e.jpg (34K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p34a.jpg (141K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p34e.jpg (47K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN TO DON QUIXOTE TOUCHING THE
+DISENCHANTMENT OF DULCINEA, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MARVELLOUS INCIDENTS
+
+
+
+
+p35a.jpg (108K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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:
+
+
+
+p35b.jpg (232K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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,
+’Tis 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 I 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 Doña 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.
+
+
+
+p35c.jpg (284K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p35e.jpg (10K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p36a.jpg (150K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 in 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.”
+
+
+
+p36e.jpg (22K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE NOTABLE ADVENTURE OF THE DISTRESSED DUENNA
+
+
+
+
+p37a.jpg (94K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Doña 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 Doña 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 Doña 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.
+
+
+
+p37e.jpg (21K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+WHEREIN IS TOLD THE DISTRESSED DUENNA’S TALE OF HER MISFORTUNES
+
+
+
+
+p38a.jpg (54K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Doña 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 Phœnix
+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.
+
+
+
+p38e.jpg (22K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+IN WHICH THE TRIFALDI CONTINUES HER MARVELLOUS AND MEMORABLE STORY
+
+
+
+
+p39a.jpg (96K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Doña 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.
+
+
+
+p39e.jpg (27K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+OF MATTERS RELATING AND BELONGING TO THIS ADVENTURE AND TO THIS
+MEMORABLE HISTORY
+
+
+
+
+p40a.jpg (129K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Doña 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.
+
+
+
+p40e.jpg (13K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+OF THE ARRIVAL OF CLAVILEÑO AND THE END OF THIS PROTRACTED ADVENTURE
+
+
+
+
+p41a.jpg (138K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 someone 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.”
+
+
+
+p41e.jpg (38K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p42a.jpg (120K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p42e.jpg (17K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+OF THE SECOND SET OF COUNSELS DON QUIXOTE GAVE SANCHO PANZA
+
+
+
+
+p43a.jpg (129K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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
+Cæsar.
+
+“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 Úbeda.’ 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 someone 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.”
+
+
+
+p43e.jpg (41K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+HOW SANCHO PANZA WAS CONDUCTED TO HIS GOVERNMENT, AND OF THE STRANGE
+ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE IN THE CASTLE
+
+
+
+
+p44a.jpg (140K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 someone 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.
+
+
+
+p44b.jpg (341K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+p44c.jpg (266K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p44e.jpg (145K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+OF HOW THE GREAT SANCHO PANZA TOOK POSSESSION OF HIS ISLAND, AND OF HOW
+HE MADE A BEGINNING IN GOVERNING
+
+
+
+
+p45a.jpg (141K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+O perpetual discoverer of the antipodes, torch of the world, eye of
+heaven, sweet stimulator of the water-coolers! Thimbraeus here, Phœbus
+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 anyone 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 Doñas 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.”
+
+
+
+p45b.jpg (400K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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.
+
+
+
+p45e.jpg (11K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+OF THE TERRIBLE BELL AND CAT FRIGHT THAT DON QUIXOTE GOT IN THE COURSE
+OF THE ENAMOURED ALTISIDORA’S WOOING
+
+
+
+
+p46a.jpg (58K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p46b.jpg (320K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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;
+’Tis 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.
+
+
+
+p46e.jpg (65K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE ACCOUNT OF HOW SANCHO PANZA CONDUCTED HIMSELF
+IN HIS GOVERNMENT
+
+
+
+
+p47a.jpg (139K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p47b.jpg (372K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“_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 Almodóvar 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 Almodóvar 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.
+
+
+
+p47e.jpg (12K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH DOÑA RODRIGUEZ, THE DUCHESS’S DUENNA,
+TOGETHER WITH OTHER OCCURRENCES WORTHY OF RECORD AND ETERNAL
+REMEMBRANCE
+
+
+
+
+p48a.jpg (131K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p48b.jpg (316K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 someone 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.
+
+
+
+p48c.jpg (249K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Doña 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 Doña 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 Doña 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 Doña 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 Doña 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
+Doña 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, Doña 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 Doña 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 Doña 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
+someone 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; 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; Doña 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.
+
+
+
+p48e.jpg (28K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+OF WHAT HAPPENED SANCHO IN MAKING THE ROUND OF HIS ISLAND
+
+
+
+
+p49a.jpg (170K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 to 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 someone 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 on 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.
+
+
+
+p49e.jpg (55K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p50a.jpg (104K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+Cide Hamete, the painstaking investigator of the minute points of this
+veracious history, says that when Doña 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 Doña 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, Doña 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 Doña 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
+someone 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 it 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.
+
+
+
+p50e.jpg (19K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+OF THE PROGRESS OF SANCHO’S GOVERNMENT, AND OTHER SUCH ENTERTAINING
+MATTERS
+
+
+
+
+p51a.jpg (188K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 the 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_.
+
+
+
+p51e.jpg (32K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+WHEREIN IS RELATED THE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND DISTRESSED OR AFFLICTED
+DUENNA, OTHERWISE CALLED DOÑA RODRIGUEZ
+
+
+
+
+p52a.jpg (131K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Doña 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. Doña 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 Doña 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.
+
+
+
+p52e.jpg (13K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+OF THE TROUBLOUS END AND TERMINATION SANCHO PANZA’S GOVERNMENT CAME TO
+
+
+
+
+p53a.jpg (109K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p53b.jpg (332K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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.
+
+
+
+p53c.jpg (389K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p53e.jpg (56K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+WHICH DEALS WITH MATTERS RELATING TO THIS HISTORY AND NO OTHER
+
+
+
+
+p54a.jpg (109K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Doña 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 someone of them would grasp Sancho’s right hand in
+his own saying, “Español y Tudesqui tuto uno: bon compaño;” and Sancho
+would answer, “Bon compaño, 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.
+
+
+
+p54e.jpg (40K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+OF WHAT BEFELL SANCHO ON THE ROAD, AND OTHER THINGS THAT CANNOT BE
+SURPASSED
+
+
+
+
+p55a.jpg (126K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 someone 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.”
+
+
+
+p55b.jpg (273K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Doña 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 someone 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.
+
+
+
+p55e.jpg (18K)
+
+
+
+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 DOÑA RODRIGUEZ
+
+
+
+
+p56a.jpg (158K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Doña 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 Doña 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 Doña 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, Doña Rodriguez and her daughter remained perfectly
+contented when they saw that any way the affair must end in marriage,
+and Tosilos wanted nothing else.
+
+
+
+p56e.jpg (46K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p57a.jpg (119K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p57b.jpg (370K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Úbeda.’”
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p57e.jpg (71K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+WHICH TELLS HOW ADVENTURES CAME CROWDING ON DON QUIXOTE IN SUCH NUMBERS
+THAT THEY GAVE ONE ANOTHER NO BREATHING-TIME
+
+
+
+
+p58a.jpg (105K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p58b.jpg (452K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p58c.jpg (399K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p58e.jpg (68K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+WHEREIN IS RELATED THE STRANGE THING, WHICH MAY BE REGARDED AS AN
+ADVENTURE, THAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE
+
+
+
+
+p59a.jpg (126K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p59b.jpg (370K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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 he 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.”
+
+
+
+p60b.jpg (336K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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.
+
+
+
+p59e.jpg (48K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX.
+OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE ON HIS WAY TO BARCELONA
+
+
+
+
+p60a.jpg (129K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 someone 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 Doña 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.
+
+
+
+p60c.jpg (250K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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?
+
+
+
+p60d.jpg (439K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p60e.jpg (420K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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
+Doña Guiomar de Quiñones, 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 Doña Guiomar de
+Quiñones 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.”
+
+
+
+p60f.jpg (426K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p60g.jpg (42K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI.
+OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE ON ENTERING BARCELONA, TOGETHER WITH OTHER
+MATTERS THAT PARTAKE OF THE TRUE RATHER THAN OF THE INGENIOUS
+
+
+
+
+p61a.jpg (143K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p61b.jpg (271K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p61c.jpg (448K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p61e.jpg (32K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+WHICH DEALS WITH THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENCHANTED HEAD, TOGETHER WITH
+OTHER TRIVIAL MATTERS WHICH CANNOT BE LEFT UNTOLD
+
+
+
+
+p62a.jpg (156K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p62b.jpg (373K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p62c.jpg (342K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 adversæ!_ 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
+someone 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?”
+
+
+
+p62d.jpg (391K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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 _sù_ by _arriba_ and _giù_ 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 Cristóbal de Figueroa,
+in his _Pastor Fido_, and Don Juan de Jáuregui, 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.
+
+
+
+p62e.jpg (18K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII.
+OF THE MISHAP THAT BEFELL SANCHO PANZA THROUGH THE VISIT TO THE
+GALLEYS, AND THE STRANGE ADVENTURE OF THE FAIR MORISCO
+
+
+
+
+p63a.jpg (151K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p63e.jpg (23K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV.
+TREATING OF THE ADVENTURE WHICH GAVE DON QUIXOTE MORE UNHAPPINESS THAN
+ALL THAT HAD HITHERTO BEFALLEN HIM
+
+
+
+
+p64a.jpg (80K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p64b.jpg (344K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p64e.jpg (44K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV.
+WHEREIN IS MADE KNOWN WHO THE KNIGHT OF THE WHITE MOON WAS; LIKEWISE
+DON GREGORIO’S RELEASE, AND OTHER EVENTS
+
+
+
+
+p65a.jpg (149K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+Don Antonio 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.
+
+
+
+p65e.jpg (43K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI.
+WHICH TREATS OF WHAT HE WHO READS WILL SEE, OR WHAT HE WHO HAS IT READ
+TO HIM WILL HEAR
+
+
+
+
+p66a.jpg (125K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p66b.jpg (251K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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 someone 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.”
+
+
+
+p66c.jpg (389K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Doña 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
+Doña 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.
+
+
+
+p66e.jpg (29K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p67a.jpg (145K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 _borceguí, zaquizamí_, and _maravedí. Alhelí_ and _alfaquí_
+are seen to be Arabic, as well by the _al_ at the beginning as by the
+_í_ 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.
+
+
+
+p67e.jpg (55K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVIII.
+OF THE BRISTLY ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE
+
+
+
+
+p68a.jpg (119K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p68b.jpg (345K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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.
+
+
+
+p68e.jpg (49K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIX.
+OF THE STRANGEST AND MOST EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON
+QUIXOTE IN THE WHOLE COURSE OF THIS GREAT HISTORY
+
+
+
+
+p69a.jpg (141K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 it 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 he 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 line, 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.
+
+
+
+p69e.jpg (60K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXX.
+WHICH FOLLOWS SIXTY-NINE AND DEALS WITH MATTERS INDISPENSABLE FOR THE
+CLEAR COMPREHENSION OF THIS HISTORY
+
+
+
+
+p70a.jpg (131K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+p70e.jpg (73K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXI.
+OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE SANCHO ON THE WAY TO
+THEIR VILLAGE
+
+
+
+
+p71a.jpg (82K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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!”
+
+
+
+p71b.jpg (349K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Úbeda, 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 _Dé 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.
+
+
+
+p71e.jpg (42K)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXII.
+OF HOW DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO REACHED THEIR VILLAGE
+
+
+
+
+p72a.jpg (155K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 Álvaro 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 Álvaro 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 Álvaro Tarfe,” replied the traveller.
+
+To which Don Quixote returned, “I have no doubt whatever that your
+worship is that Don Álvaro 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 Álvaro,” 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 Álvaro; “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 Álvaro; “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
+Álvaro 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 Álvaro
+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 Álvaro; “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 Álvaro. 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 Álvaro 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 Álvaro 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
+Álvaro and Don Quixote, in the course of which the great Manchegan
+displayed such good taste that he disabused Don Álvaro 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 Álvaro 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 Álvaro 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 Álvaro, 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.”
+
+
+
+p72b.jpg (375K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+“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.
+
+
+
+p72e.jpg (35K)
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+p73a.jpg (141K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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, Fílidas,
+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
+
+
+
+
+p74a.jpg (96K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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 someone, 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.
+
+
+
+p74b.jpg (391K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+p74e.jpg (49K)
+
+Full Size
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DON QUIXOTE ***
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
+be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the
+United States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
+the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
+of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
+copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
+easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
+of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
+Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
+do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
+by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
+license, especially commercial redistribution.
+
+START: FULL LICENSE
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
+person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
+1.E.8.
+
+1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
+Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country other than the United States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
+on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
+phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+
+  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.
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg™ License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
+other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
+Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
+provided that:
+
+• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+  the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
+  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
+  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+  Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+  Literary Archive Foundation.”
+
+• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
+  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
+  works.
+
+• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+  receipt of the work.
+
+• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+  distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
+the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
+forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
+of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you “AS-IS”, WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
+
+Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™'s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
+www.gutenberg.org
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
+Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
+to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website
+and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
+widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
+state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+
+Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
+facility: www.gutenberg.org
+
+This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+