The History of Don Quixote, Vol. I., Part 9. - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
"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, senor, 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."
"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.
CHAPTER XXVI.
IN WHICH ARE CONTINUED THE REFINEMENTS WHEREWITH DON QUIXOTE PLAYED THE
PART OF A LOVER IN THE SIERRA MORENA
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 Pena 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 mountain side 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:
"Senor 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 note-book, 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 note-book
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 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 note-book," 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, senor 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.
CHAPTER XXVII.
OF HOW THE CURATE AND THE BARBER PROCEEDED WITH THEIR SCHEME; TOGETHER
WITH OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF RECORD IN THIS GREAT HISTORY
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.