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11.


## p. 3450 (#428) ###########################################

S
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## p. 3451 (#429) ###########################################

3451
CERVANTES
(1547-1616)
BY GEORGE SANTAYANA
ERVANTES is known to the world as the author of 'Don Quixote,'
and although his other works are numerous and creditable,
and his pathetic life is carefully recorded, yet it is as the
author of 'Don Quixote' alone that he deserves to be generally known
or considered. Had his wit not come by chance on the idea of the
Ingenious Hidalgo, Cervantes would never have attained his uni-
versal renown, even if his other works and the interest of his career
should have sufficed to give him a place in the literary history of his
country. Here, then, where our task is to present in miniature only
what has the greatest and most universal value, we may treat our
author as playwrights are advised to treat their heroes, saying of
him only what is necessary to the understanding of the single action
with which we are concerned. This single action is the writing of
'Don Quixote'; and what we shall try to understand is what there
was in the life and environment of Cervantes that enabled him to
compose that great book, and that remained imbedded in its charac-
ters, its episodes, and its moral.
There was in vogue in the Spain of the sixteenth century a species
of romance called books of chivalry. They were developments of the
legends dealing with King Arthur and the Knights of the Table
Round, and their numerous descendants and emulators. These
stories had appealed in the first place to what we should still think
of as the spirit of chivalry: they were full of tourneys and single
combats, desperate adventures and romantic loves. The setting was
in the same vague and wonderful region as the Coast of Bohemia,
where to the known mountains, seas, and cities that have poetic
names, was added a prodigious number of caverns, castles, islands,
and forests of the romancer's invention. With time and popularity
this kind of story had naturally intensified its characteristics until it
had reached the greatest extravagance and absurdity, and combined
in a way the unreality of the fairy tale with the bombast of the
melodrama.
Cervantes had apparently read these books with avidity, and was
not without a great sympathy with the kind of imagination they em-
bodied. His own last and most carefully written book, the Travails
of Persiles and Sigismunda,' is in many respects an imitation of


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CERVANTES
3452
them; it abounds in savage islands, furious tyrants, prodigious feats
of arms, disguised maidens whose discretion is as marvelous as their
beauty, and happy deliverances from intricate and hopeless situa-
tions. His first book also, the 'Galatea,' was an embodiment of a
kind of pastoral idealism: sentimental verses being interspersed with
euphuistic prose, the whole describing the lovelorn shepherds and
heartless shepherdesses of Arcadia.
But while these books, which were the author's favorites among
his own works, expressed perhaps Cervantes's natural taste and
ambition, the events of his life and the real bent of his talent, which
in time he came himself to recognize, drove him to a very different
sort of composition. His family was ancient but impoverished, and
he was forced throughout his life to turn his hand to anything that
could promise him a livelihood. His existence was a continuous
series of experiments, vexations, and disappointments. He adopted
at first the profession of arms, and followed his colors as a private
soldier upon several foreign expeditions. He was long quartered in
Italy; he fought at Lepanto against the Turks, where among other
wounds he received one that maimed his left hand, to the greater
glory, as he tells us, of his right; he was captured by Barbary pirates
and remained for five years a slave in Algiers; he was ransomed, and
returned to Spain only to find official favors and recognitions denied
him; and finally, at the age of thirty-seven, he abandoned the army
for literature.
His first thought as a writer does not seem to have been to make
direct use of his rich experience and varied observation; he was
rather possessed by an obstinate longing for that poetic gift which,
as he confesses in one place, Heaven had denied him. He began
with the idyllic romance, the 'Galatea,' already mentioned, and at
various times during the rest of his life wrote poems, plays, and
stories of a romantic and sentimental type. In the course of these
labors, however, he struck one vein of much richer promise. It was
what the Spanish call the picaresque; that is, the description of the
life and character of rogues, pickpockets, vagabonds, and all those
wretches and sorry wits that might be found about the highways, in
the country inns, or in the slums of cities. Of this kind is much of
what is best in his collected stories, the Novelas Exemplares. ' The
talent and the experience which he betrays in these amusing narra-
tives were to be invaluable to him later as the author of 'Don
Quixote,' where they enabled him to supply a foil to the fine world
of his poor hero's imagination.
We have now mentioned what were perhaps the chief elements of
the preparation of Cervantes for his great task. They were a great
familiarity with the romances of chivalry, and a natural liking for


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CERVANTES
3453
1
them; a life of honorable but unrewarded endeavor both in war and
in the higher literature; and much experience of Vagabondia, with
the art of taking down and reproducing in amusing profusion the
typical scenes and languages of low life. Out of these elements a
single spark, which we may attribute to genius, to chance, or to
inspiration, was enough to produce a new and happy conception:
that of a parody on the romances of chivalry, in which the extrava-
gances of the fables of knighthood should be contrasted with the
sordid realities of life. This is done by the ingenious device of
representing a country gentleman whose naturally generous mind,
unhinged by much reading of the books of chivalry, should lead him
to undertake the office of knight-errant, and induce him to ride
about the country clad in ancient armor, to right wrongs, to succor
defenseless maidens, to kill giants, and to win empires at least as
vast as that of Alexander.
This is the subject of Don Quixote. ' But happy as the concep-
tion is, it could not have produced a book of enduring charm and
well-seasoned wisdom, had it not been filled in with a great number
of amusing and lifelike episodes, and verified by two admirable
figures, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, characters at once inti-
mately individual and truly universal.
Don Quixote at first appears to the reader, and probably appeared
to the author as well, as primarily a madman,- -a thin and gaunt
old village squire, whose brain has been turned by the nonsense he
has read and taken for gospel truth; and who is punished for his
ridiculous mania by an uninterrupted series of beatings, falls, indig-
nities, and insults. But the hero and the author together, with the
ingenuity proper to madness and the inevitableness proper to genius,
soon begin to disclose the fund of intelligence and ideal passion
which underlies this superficial insanity. We see that Don Quixote
is only mad north-north-west, when the wind blows from the
quarter of his chivalrous preoccupation. At other times he shows
himself a man of great goodness and fineness of wit; virtuous, cour-
ageous, courteous, and generous, and in fact the perfect ideal of a
gentleman. When he takes, for instance, a handful of acorns from
the goat-herds' table and begins a grandiloquent discourse upon the
Golden Age, we feel how cultivated the man is, how easily the little
things of life suggest to him the great things, and with what delight
he dwells on what is beautiful and happy. The truth and pathos of
the character become all the more compelling when we consider
how naturally the hero's madness and calamities flow from this same
exquisite sense of what is good.
The contrast to this figure is furnished by that of Sancho Panza,
who embodies all that is matter-of-fact, gross, and plebeian. Yet he


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3454
CERVANTES
is willing to become Don Quixote's esquire, and by his credulity and
devotion shows what an ascendency a heroic and enthusiastic nature
can gain over the most sluggish of men. Sancho has none of the
instincts of his master. He never read the books of chivalry or
desired to right the wrongs of the world. He is naturally satisfied
with his crust and his onions, if they can be washed down with
enough bad wine. His good drudge of a wife never transformed
herself in his fancy into a peerless Dulcinea. Yet Sancho follows
his master into every danger, shares his discomfiture and the many
blows that rain down upon him, and hopes to the end for the gov-
ernorship of that Insula with which Don Quixote is some day to
reward his faithful esquire.
As the madness of Don Quixote is humanized by his natural in-
telligence and courage, so the grossness and credulity of Sancho are
relieved by his homely wit. He abounds in proverbs. He never
fails to see the reality of a situation, and to protest doggedly against
his master's visionary flights. He holds fast as long as he can to
the evidence of his senses, and to his little weaknesses of flesh and
spirit. But finally he surrenders to the authority of Don Quixote,
and of the historians of chivalry, although not without a certain
reluctance and some surviving doubts.
The character of Sancho is admirable for the veracity with which
its details are drawn. The traits of the boor, the glutton, and the
coward come most naturally to the surface upon occasion, yet Sancho
remains a patient, good-natured peasant, a devoted servant, and a
humble Christian. Under the cover of such lifelike incongruities,
and of a pervasive humor, the author has given us a satirical picture
of human nature not inferior, perhaps, to that furnished by Don
Quixote himself. For instance: Don Quixote, after mending his hel-
met, tries its strength with a blow that smashes it to pieces. He
mends it a second time, but now, without trial, deputes it to be
henceforth a strong and perfect helmet. Sancho, when he is sent to
bear a letter to Dulcinea, neglects to deliver it, and invents an ac-
count of his interview with the imaginary lady for the satisfaction of
his master. But before long, by dint of repeating the story, he
comes himself to believe his own lies. Thus self-deception in the
knight is the ridiculous effect of courage, and in the esquire the
not less ridiculous effect of sloth.
The adventures these two heroes encounter are naturally only
such as travelers along the Spanish roads would then have been
likely to come upon. The point of the story depends on the famili-
arity and commonness of the situations in which Don Quixote finds
himself, so that the absurdity of his pretensions may be overwhelm-
ingly shown. Critics are agreed in blaming the exceptions which


## p. 3455 (#433) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3455
Cervantes allowed himself to make to the realism of his scenes,
where he introduced romantic tales into the narrative of the first
part. The tales are in themselves unworthy of their setting, and
contrary to the spirit of the whole book. Cervantes doubtless yielded
here partly to his story-telling habits, partly to a fear of monotony
in the uninterrupted description of Don Quixote's adventures. He
avoided this mistake in the second part, and devised the visit to the
Duke's palace, and the intentional sport there made of the hero, to
give variety to the story.
More variety and more unity may still, perhaps, seem desirable
in the book. The episodes are strung together without much co-
herence, and without any attempt to develop either the plot or the
characters. Sancho, to be sure, at last tastes the governorship of
his Insula, and Don Quixote on his death-bed recovers his wits. But
this conclusion, appropriate and touching as it is, might have come
almost anywhere in the course of the story. The whole book has,
in fact, rather the quality of an improvisation. The episodes suggest
themselves to the author's fancy as he proceeds; a fact which gives
them the same unexpectedness and sometimes the same incomplete-
ness which the events of a journey naturally have. It is in the
genius of this kind of narrative to be a sort of imaginary diary, with-
out a general dramatic structure. The interest depends on the
characters and the incidents alone; on the fertility of the author's
invention, on the ingenuity of the turns he gives to the story, and
on the incidental scenes and figures he describes.
When we have once accepted this manner of writing fiction
which might be called that of the novelist before the days of the novel
we can only admire the execution of 'Don Quixote' as masterly
in its kind. We find here an abundance of fancy that is never at a
loss for some probable and interesting incident; we find a graphic
power that makes living and unforgettable many a minor character,
even if slightly sketched; we find the charm of the country rendered
by little touches without any formal descriptions; and we find a
humorous and minute reproduction of the manners of the time. All
this is rendered in a flowing and easy style, abounding in both char-
acterization and parody of diverse types of speech and composition;
and the whole is still but the background for the figures of Don
Quixote and Sancho, and for their pleasant discourse, the quality and
savor of which is maintained to the end. These excellences unite to
make the book one of the most permanently delightful in the world,
as well as one of the most diverting. Seldom has laughter been so
well justified as that which the reading of Don Quixote' continu-
ally provokes; seldom has it found its causes in such genuine fancy,
such profound and real contrast, and such victorious good-humor.


## p. 3456 (#434) ###########################################

3456
CERVANTES
We sometimes wish, perhaps, that our heroes were spared some
of their bruises, and that we were not asked to delight so much in
promiscuous beatings and floggings. But we must remember that
these three hundred years have made the European race much more
sensitive to physical suffering. Our ancestors took that doubtful
pleasure in the idea of corporal writhings which we still take in
the description of the tortures of the spirit. The idea of both evils
is naturally distasteful to a refined mind; but we admit more will-
ingly the kind which habit has accustomed us to regard as inevi-
table, and which personal experience very probably has made an old
friend.
'Don Quixote' has accordingly enjoyed a universal popularity, and
has had the singular privilege of accomplishing the object for which
it was written, which was to recall fiction from the extravagances of
the books of chivalry to the study of real life. This is the simple
object which Cervantes had and avowed.
He was a literary man
with literary interests, and the idea which came to him was to ridi-
cule the absurdities of the prevalent literary mode. The rich vein
which he struck in the conception of Don Quixote's madness and
topsy-turvy adventures encouraged him to go on. The subject and
the characters deepened under his hands, until from a parody of a
certain kind of romances the story threatened to become a satire on
human idealism. At the same time Cervantes grew fond of his hero,
and made him, as we must feel, in some sort a representative of his
own chivalrous enthusiasms and constant disappointments.
Just as
We need not, however, see in this transformation any deep-laid
malice or remote significance. As the tale opened out before the
author's fancy and enlisted his closer and more loving attention, he
naturally enriched it with all the wealth of his experience.
he diversified it with pictures of common life and manners,
so he
weighted it with the burden of human tragedy. He left upon it an
impress of his own nobility and misfortunes side by side with a record
of his time and country. But in this there was nothing intentional.
He only spoke out of the fullness of his heart. The highest motives
and characters had been revealed to him by his own impulses, and
the lowest by his daily experience.
There is nothing in the book that suggests a premeditated satire
upon faith and enthusiasm in general. The author's evident purpose
is to amuse, not to upbraid or to discourage. There is no bitterness
in his pathos or despair in his disenchantment; partly because he
retains a healthy fondness for this naughty world, and partly because
his heart is profoundly and entirely Christian. He would have re-
jected with indignation an interpretation of his work that would
see in it an attack on religion or even on chivalry.
His birth and


## p. 3457 (#435) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3457
nurture had made him religious and chivalrous from the beginning,
and he remained so by conviction to the end. He was still full of
plans and hopes when death overtook him, but he greeted it with
perfect simplicity, without lamentations over the past or anxiety for
the future.
If we could have asked Cervantes what the moral of Don Quixote
was to his own mind, he would have told us perhaps that it was this:
that the force of idealism is wasted when it does not recognize the
reality of things. Neglect of the facts of daily life made the absurd-
ity of the romances of chivalry and of the enterprise of Don Quixote.
What is needed is not, of course, that idealism should be surren-
dered, either in literature or in life; but that in both it should be
made efficacious by a better adjustment to the reality it would
transform.
Something of this kind would have been, we may believe, Cer-
vantes's own reading of his parable. But when parables are such
direct and full transcripts of life as is the story of Don Quixote, they
offer almost as much occasion for diversity of interpretation as does
the personal experience of men in the world. That the moral of
Don Quixote should be doubtful and that each man should be
tempted to see in it the expression of his own convictions, is after
all the greatest possible encomium of the book. For we may infer
that the truth has been rendered in it, and that men may return to
it always, as to Nature herself, to renew their theories or to forget
them, and to refresh their fancy with the spectacle of a living world.
S
Santayan
TREATING OF THE CHARACTER AND PURSUITS OF DON
QUIXOTE
IN
NA village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire.
to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gen-
tlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, and 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 Satur-
days, 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
VI-217


## p. 3458 (#436) ###########################################

3458
CERVANTES
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 Quixana.
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, when.
ever he was at leisure (which was mostly all the year round)
gave himself up to reading books of chivalry with such ardor 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 tillage-land 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 striv
ing 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, be-
cause 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.
-


## p. 3459 (#437) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3459
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 Phoebus, and that if
there was any 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 lachry-
mose like his brother, while in the matter of valor 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 every one he met,
and when beyond the seas he stole that image of Mahomet
which, as his history says, was entirely of gold. And 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 sup-
port of his own honor as for the service of his country, that he
should make a knight-errant of himself, roaming the world over
in full armor and on horseback in quest of adventures, and
putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the


## p. 3460 (#438) ###########################################

3460
CERVANTES
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 armor 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 sup-
plied, 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 experi-
ments 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 Gon-
ela, 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 Rosinante,- to his
thinking lofty, sonorous, and significant of his condition as a


## p. 3461 (#439) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3461
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 pon-
dering over this point, till at last he made up his mind to call
himself Don Quixote, whence, as has already been 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 honor to it in taking
his surname from it.
So then, his armor 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 occur-
rence 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 some one 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
some one 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


## p. 3462 (#440) ###########################################

3462
CERVANTES
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.
OF WHAT HAPPENED TO DON QUIXOTE WHEN HE LEFT
THE INN
DA
AY was dawning when Don Quixote quitted the inn, so happy,
so gay, so exhilarated at finding himself 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-laborer, a
neighbor of his, a poor man with a family, but very well quali
fied for the office of squire to a knight. With this object he
turned his horse's head towards his village, and Rosinante, 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 some one in distress; and the
instant he heard them he exclaimed:-"Thanks be to heaven for
the favor 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 pro-
tection;" and wheeling, he turned Rosinante 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


## p. 3463 (#441) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3463
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
armor, 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. "
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 set-off 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. "


## p. 3464 (#442) ###########################################

3464
CERVANTES
"He will do nothing of the kind," said Don Quixote; “I
have only to command and he will obey me, and he has sworn
to me by the order of knighthood which he has received.
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, every one is the son of his works. "
"That is true," said Andres; "but this master of mine- - of
what work is he the son, when he refuses me the wages of my
sweat and labor? »
―
"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 may 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 Rosinante 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 ad-
vised 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 to the oak again, where he gave him such a flogging that he
left him for dead.


## p. 3465 (#443) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3465
"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 as you feared. " 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 knight-
hood, 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 knight-
hood, 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 op-
pressor 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 Rosinante 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 sun-shades, 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


## p. 3466 (#444) ###########################################

3466
CERVANTES
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 con-
fession 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, con-
fess, 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 main-
tain. "
"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 Estre-
madura, 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 sat-
isfied and easy, and you will be content and pleased: nay, I be-
lieve 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 favor that you desire. "


## p. 3467 (#445) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3467
"She distills 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 hump-
backed, 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 leveled lance against the one
who had spoken, with such fury and fierceness that, if luck had
not contrived that Rosinante should stumble midway and come
down, it would have gone hard with the rash trader. Down
went Rosinante, and over went his master, rolling along the
ground for some distance; and when he tried to rise he was
unable, so incumbered was he with lance, buckler, spurs, hel-
met, and the weight of his old armor; 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. "
One of the muleteers in attendance, who could not have had
much good-nature in him, hearing the poor prostrate man blus
tering 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 belabor our Don Quixote that, notwithstanding and in spite
of his armor, he milled him like a measure of wheat.
His mas-
ters 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 dis-
charge 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 cudgeled. 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, bat-
tered in body as he was, to rise was beyond his power.


## p. 3468 (#446) ###########################################

3468
CERVANTES
DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO PANZA SALLY FORTH: AND THE
ADVENTURE WITH THE WINDMILLS
HR
E REMAINED at home fifteen days very quietly, without show-
ing any signs of a desire to take up with his former delu-
sions; 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 pre-
caution he would have been unable to bring him to reason.
Meanwhile Don Quixote worked upon a a farm-laborer, a
neighbor 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 at 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
laborer was called) left wife and children, and engaged himself
as esquire to his neighbor. 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 honorable mount
when a chance of it presented itself, by appropriating the horse
of the first discourteous knight he encountered.
Himself he pro-
vided with shirts and such other things as he could, according


## p. 3469 (#447) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3469
to the advice the host had given him; all which being settled.
and 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 traveled with less discom-
fort 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 dis-
tress 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 per-
haps 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.
-


## p. 3470 (#448) ###########################################

3470
CERVANTES
"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 Gutier-
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. "
rez.
"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; "especially as I have a
man of such quality for master in your Worship, who will be
able to give me all that will be suitable for me and that I can
bear. "
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 millstones 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 Rosinante, 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 it is a single knight that attacks
you! "


## p. 3471 (#449) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3471
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 Rosi-
nante'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 Rosinante
fallen with him.
"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. "
"God order it as he may," said Sancho Panza; and helping
him to rise, got him up again on Rosinante, 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.


## p. 3472 (#450) ###########################################

3472
CERVANTES
SANCHO PANZA AND HIS WIFE TERESA CONVERSE SHREWDLY
HE translator of this history, when he comes to write this fifth
chapter, says that 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 con-
ceived them; however, desirous of doing what his task imposed
upon him, he was unwilling to leave it untranslated, and there-
fore 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


## p. 3473 (#451) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3473
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 gov-
ernments in the world: you came out of your mother's womb
without a government, you have lived until now without a gov-
ernment, 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 gov-
ernment, 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 Maria-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
kept. "
"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 Maria-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 gray 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
VI-218


## p. 3474 (#452) ###########################################

3474
CERVANTES
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 practice 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 neighbor'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
humor 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 marry-
ing 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, grand-
children 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 grand-
children 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 favoring 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,


## p. 3475 (#453) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3475
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; Cas-
cajo 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 Cas-
cajo; 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 brooches 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 accord-
ing 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, woman, what a lot of things thou hast
strung together, one after the other, without head or tail! What
have Cascajo, and the brooches 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


## p. 3476 (#454) ###########################################

3476
CERVANTES
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 daïs, 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 mak-
ing 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 time 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, court-
eous 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 every one 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 rhetoric; and if you have revolved to do what you say


## p. 3477 (#455) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3477
"Resolved, you should say, woman," said Sancho, "not re-
volved. "
«< Don't set yourself to wrangle with me, husband," said Ter-
esa; "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 downright 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.
OF SANCHO PANZA'S DELECTABLE DISCOURSE WITH THE
DUCHESS
THE
HE 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 gov-
ernor and talk as squire, as in both respects he was worthy
of even the chair of Cid Ruy Diaz the Campeador. Sancho


## p. 3478 (#456) ###########################################

3478
CERVANTES
shrugged his shoulders, obeyed, and sat down, and all the duch-
ess's damsels and duennas gathered round him, waiting in pro-
found 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 Mo-
rena, how did he dare to invent the answer and all that about
finding her sifting wheat,-the whole story being a deception and
falsehood, and so much to the prejudice of the peerless Dulcinea's
good name; a thing that is not at all becoming the character and
fidelity of a good squire? "
At these words, Sancho, without uttering one in reply, got up
from his chair, and with noiseless steps, with his body bent and
his finger on his lips, went all round the room lifting up the
hangings; and this done, he came back to his seat and said:—
(( Now, señora, that I have seen that there is no one except the
bystanders listening to us on the sly, I will answer what you
have asked me, and all you may ask me, without fear or dread.
And the first thing I have got to say is, that for my own part I
hold my master Don Quixote to be stark mad, though sometimes
he says things that to my mind, and indeed everybody's that
listens to him, are so wise and run in such a straight furrow
that Satan himself could not have said them better; but for all
that, really and beyond all question, it's my firm belief he is
cracked. Well, then, as this is clear to my mind, I can venture
to make him believe things that have neither head nor tail, like
that affair of the answer to the letter, and that other of six or
eight days ago which is not yet in history,- that is to say, the
affair of the enchantment of my lady Dulcinea; for I made him
believe she is enchanted, though there's no more truth in it than
over the hills of Úbeda. »
-
The duchess begged him to tell her about the enchantment or
deception, so Sancho told the whole story exactly as it had hap-
pened, 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 ears that says, 'If Don Quixote


## p. 3479 (#457) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3479
be mad, crazy, cracked, and Sancho 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 ? >»
"My 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 have 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 pick-
axe 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 gray'; 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 broadcloth'; 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 plows and the yokes, Wamba the husbandman
was taken to be made king of Spain; and from among brocades


## p. 3480 (#458) ###########################################

3480
CERVANTES
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 laboring 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 sup-
port 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 fort-
night, I'll take kindly to the work and know more about it than
the field labor I have been brought up to. "


## p. 3481 (#459) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3481
"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 discuss-
ing just now, the enchantment of the lady Dulcinea: I look upon
it as certain, and something more than evident, that Sancho's
idea of practicing a deception upon his master, making him
believe that the peasant girl was Dulcinea and that if he did
not recognize 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 sub-
terfuge 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 scold-
ing, 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. "


## p. 3482 (#460) ###########################################

3482
CERVANTES
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 coun-
try wench Sancho saw on the way from El Toboso, it is no
doubt Dulcinea, and there are some very active and exceedingly
busy enchanters about. "
"So I say," said Sancho; "and if my lady Dulcinea is en-
chanted, 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 won-
ders, for one who has been a good squire will be a good gov
ernor. "
"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. ”


## p. 3483 (#461) ###########################################

CERVANTES
3483
"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 gov-
ernment, as he says. "
Sancho once more kissed the duchess's hand, and entreated
her to be so kind as 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.