The History of Don Quixote, Vol. I, Complete - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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While engaged in this and other talk, night overtook them on the road
before they had reached or discovered any place of shelter; and what made
it still worse was that they were dying of hunger, for with the loss of
the alforjas they had lost their entire larder and commissariat; and to
complete the misfortune they met with an adventure which without any
invention had really the appearance of one. It so happened that the night
closed in somewhat darkly, but for all that they pushed on, Sancho
feeling sure that as the road was the king's highway they might
reasonably expect to find some inn within a league or two. Going along,
then, in this way, the night dark, the squire hungry, the master
sharp-set, they saw coming towards them on the road they were travelling
a great number of lights which looked exactly like stars in motion.
Sancho was taken aback at the sight of them, nor did Don Quixote
altogether relish them: the one pulled up his ass by the halter, the
other his hack by the bridle, and they stood still, watching anxiously to
see what all this would turn out to be, and found that the lights were
approaching them, and the nearer they came the greater they seemed, at
which spectacle Sancho began to shake like a man dosed with mercury, and
Don Quixote's hair stood on end; he, however, plucking up spirit a
little, said:
"This, no doubt, Sancho, will be a most mighty and perilous adventure, in
which it will be needful for me to put forth all my valour and
resolution."
"Unlucky me!" answered Sancho; "if this adventure happens to be one of
phantoms, as I am beginning to think it is, where shall I find the ribs
to bear it?"
"Be they phantoms ever so much," said Don Quixote, "I will not permit
them to touch a thread of thy garments; for if they played tricks with
thee the time before, it was because I was unable to leap the walls of
the yard; but now we are on a wide plain, where I shall be able to wield
my sword as I please."
"And if they enchant and cripple you as they did the last time," said
Sancho, "what difference will it make being on the open plain or not?"
"For all that," replied Don Quixote, "I entreat thee, Sancho, to keep a
good heart, for experience will tell thee what mine is."
"I will, please God," answered Sancho, and the two retiring to one side
of the road set themselves to observe closely what all these moving
lights might be; and very soon afterwards they made out some twenty
encamisados, all on horseback, with lighted torches in their hands, the
awe-inspiring aspect of whom completely extinguished the courage of
Sancho, who began to chatter with his teeth like one in the cold fit of
an ague; and his heart sank and his teeth chattered still more when they
perceived distinctly that behind them there came a litter covered over
with black and followed by six more mounted figures in mourning down to
the very feet of their mules--for they could perceive plainly they were
not horses by the easy pace at which they went. And as the encamisados
came along they muttered to themselves in a low plaintive tone. This
strange spectacle at such an hour and in such a solitary place was quite
enough to strike terror into Sancho's heart, and even into his master's;
and (save in Don Quixote's case) did so, for all Sancho's resolution had
now broken down. It was just the opposite with his master, whose
imagination immediately conjured up all this to him vividly as one of the
adventures of his books.
He took it into his head that the litter was a bier on which was borne
some sorely wounded or slain knight, to avenge whom was a task reserved
for him alone; and without any further reasoning he laid his lance in
rest, fixed himself firmly in his saddle, and with gallant spirit and
bearing took up his position in the middle of the road where the
encamisados must of necessity pass; and as soon as he saw them near at
hand he raised his voice and said:
"Halt, knights, or whosoever ye may be, and render me account of who ye
are, whence ye come, where ye go, what it is ye carry upon that bier,
for, to judge by appearances, either ye have done some wrong or some
wrong has been done to you, and it is fitting and necessary that I should
know, either that I may chastise you for the evil ye have done, or else
that I may avenge you for the injury that has been inflicted upon you."
"We are in haste," answered one of the encamisados, "and the inn is far
off, and we cannot stop to render you such an account as you demand;" and
spurring his mule he moved on.
Don Quixote was mightily provoked by this answer, and seizing the mule by
the bridle he said, "Halt, and be more mannerly, and render an account of
what I have asked of you; else, take my defiance to combat, all of you."
The mule was shy, and was so frightened at her bridle being seized that
rearing up she flung her rider to the ground over her haunches. An
attendant who was on foot, seeing the encamisado fall, began to abuse Don
Quixote, who now moved to anger, without any more ado, laying his lance
in rest charged one of the men in mourning and brought him badly wounded
to the ground, and as he wheeled round upon the others the agility with
which he attacked and routed them was a sight to see, for it seemed just
as if wings had that instant grown upon Rocinante, so lightly and proudly
did he bear himself. The encamisados were all timid folk and unarmed, so
they speedily made their escape from the fray and set off at a run across
the plain with their lighted torches, looking exactly like maskers
running on some gala or festival night. The mourners, too, enveloped and
swathed in their skirts and gowns, were unable to bestir themselves, and
so with entire safety to himself Don Quixote belaboured them all and
drove them off against their will, for they all thought it was no man but
a devil from hell come to carry away the dead body they had in the
litter.
Sancho beheld all this in astonishment at the intrepidity of his lord,
and said to himself, "Clearly this master of mine is as bold and valiant
as he says he is."
A burning torch lay on the ground near the first man whom the mule had
thrown, by the light of which Don Quixote perceived him, and coming up to
him he presented the point of the lance to his face, calling on him to
yield himself prisoner, or else he would kill him; to which the prostrate
man replied, "I am prisoner enough as it is; I cannot stir, for one of my
legs is broken: I entreat you, if you be a Christian gentleman, not to
kill me, which will be committing grave sacrilege, for I am a licentiate
and I hold first orders."
"Then what the devil brought you here, being a churchman?" said Don
Quixote.
"What, senor?" said the other. "My bad luck."
"Then still worse awaits you," said Don Quixote, "if you do not satisfy
me as to all I asked you at first."
"You shall be soon satisfied," said the licentiate; "you must know, then,
that though just now I said I was a licentiate, I am only a bachelor, and
my name is Alonzo Lopez; I am a native of Alcobendas, I come from the
city of Baeza with eleven others, priests, the same who fled with the
torches, and we are going to the city of Segovia accompanying a dead body
which is in that litter, and is that of a gentleman who died in Baeza,
where he was interred; and now, as I said, we are taking his bones to
their burial-place, which is in Segovia, where he was born."
"And who killed him?" asked Don Quixote.
"God, by means of a malignant fever that took him," answered the
bachelor.
"In that case," said Don Quixote, "the Lord has relieved me of the task
of avenging his death had any other slain him; but, he who slew him
having slain him, there is nothing for it but to be silent, and shrug
one's shoulders; I should do the same were he to slay myself; and I would
have your reverence know that I am a knight of La Mancha, Don Quixote by
name, and it is my business and calling to roam the world righting wrongs
and redressing injuries."
"I do not know how that about righting wrongs can be," said the bachelor,
"for from straight you have made me crooked, leaving me with a broken leg
that will never see itself straight again all the days of its life; and
the injury you have redressed in my case has been to leave me injured in
such a way that I shall remain injured for ever; and the height of
misadventure it was to fall in with you who go in search of adventures."
"Things do not all happen in the same way," answered Don Quixote; "it all
came, Sir Bachelor Alonzo Lopez, of your going, as you did, by night,
dressed in those surplices, with lighted torches, praying, covered with
mourning, so that naturally you looked like something evil and of the
other world; and so I could not avoid doing my duty in attacking you, and
I should have attacked you even had I known positively that you were the
very devils of hell, for such I certainly believed and took you to be."
"As my fate has so willed it," said the bachelor, "I entreat you, sir
knight-errant, whose errand has been such an evil one for me, to help me
to get from under this mule that holds one of my legs caught between the
stirrup and the saddle."
"I would have talked on till to-morrow," said Don Quixote; "how long were
you going to wait before telling me of your distress?"
He at once called to Sancho, who, however, had no mind to come, as he was
just then engaged in unloading a sumpter mule, well laden with provender,
which these worthy gentlemen had brought with them. Sancho made a bag of
his coat, and, getting together as much as he could, and as the bag would
hold, he loaded his beast, and then hastened to obey his master's call,
and helped him to remove the bachelor from under the mule; then putting
him on her back he gave him the torch, and Don Quixote bade him follow
the track of his companions, and beg pardon of them on his part for the
wrong which he could not help doing them.
And said Sancho, "If by chance these gentlemen should want to know who
was the hero that served them so, your worship may tell them that he is
the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called the Knight of the
Rueful Countenance."
The bachelor then took his departure.
I forgot to mention that before he did so he said to Don Quixote,
"Remember that you stand excommunicated for having laid violent hands on
a holy thing, juxta illud, si quis, suadente diabolo."
"I do not understand that Latin," answered Don Quixote, "but I know well
I did not lay hands, only this pike; besides, I did not think I was
committing an assault upon priests or things of the Church, which, like a
Catholic and faithful Christian as I am, I respect and revere, but upon
phantoms and spectres of the other world; but even so, I remember how it
fared with Cid Ruy Diaz when he broke the chair of the ambassador of that
king before his Holiness the Pope, who excommunicated him for the same;
and yet the good Roderick of Vivar bore himself that day like a very
noble and valiant knight."
On hearing this the bachelor took his departure, as has been said,
without making any reply; and Don Quixote asked Sancho what had induced
him to call him the "Knight of the Rueful Countenance" more then than at
any other time.
"I will tell you," answered Sancho; "it was because I have been looking
at you for some time by the light of the torch held by that unfortunate,
and verily your worship has got of late the most ill-favoured countenance
I ever saw: it must be either owing to the fatigue of this combat, or
else to the want of teeth and grinders."
"It is not that," replied Don Quixote, "but because the sage whose duty
it will be to write the history of my achievements must have thought it
proper that I should take some distinctive name as all knights of yore
did; one being 'He of the Burning Sword,' another 'He of the Unicorn,'
this one 'He of the Damsels,' that 'He of the Phoenix,' another 'The
Knight of the Griffin,' and another 'He of the Death,' and by these names
and designations they were known all the world round; and so I say that
the sage aforesaid must have put it into your mouth and mind just now to
call me 'The Knight of the Rueful Countenance,' as I intend to call
myself from this day forward; and that the said name may fit me better, I
mean, when the opportunity offers, to have a very rueful countenance
painted on my shield."
"There is no occasion, senor, for wasting time or money on making that
countenance," said Sancho; "for all that need be done is for your worship
to show your own, face to face, to those who look at you, and without
anything more, either image or shield, they will call you 'Him of the
Rueful Countenance' and believe me I am telling you the truth, for I
assure you, senor (and in good part be it said), hunger and the loss of
your grinders have given you such an ill-favoured face that, as I say,
the rueful picture may be very well spared."
Don Quixote laughed at Sancho's pleasantry; nevertheless he resolved to
call himself by that name, and have his shield or buckler painted as he
had devised.
Don Quixote would have looked to see whether the body in the litter were
bones or not, but Sancho would not have it, saying:
"Senor, you have ended this perilous adventure more safely for yourself
than any of those I have seen: perhaps these people, though beaten and
routed, may bethink themselves that it is a single man that has beaten
them, and feeling sore and ashamed of it may take heart and come in
search of us and give us trouble enough. The ass is in proper trim, the
mountains are near at hand, hunger presses, we have nothing more to do
but make good our retreat, and, as the saying is, the dead to the grave
and the living to the loaf."
And driving his ass before him he begged his master to follow, who,
feeling that Sancho was right, did so without replying; and after
proceeding some little distance between two hills they found themselves
in a wide and retired valley, where they alighted, and Sancho unloaded
his beast, and stretched upon the green grass, with hunger for sauce,
they breakfasted, dined, lunched, and supped all at once, satisfying
their appetites with more than one store of cold meat which the dead
man's clerical gentlemen (who seldom put themselves on short allowance)
had brought with them on their sumpter mule. But another piece of
ill-luck befell them, which Sancho held the worst of all, and that was
that they had no wine to drink, nor even water to moisten their lips; and
as thirst tormented them, Sancho, observing that the meadow where they
were was full of green and tender grass, said what will be told in the
following chapter.
CHAPTER XX.
OF THE UNEXAMPLED AND UNHEARD-OF ADVENTURE WHICH WAS ACHIEVED BY THE
VALIANT DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA WITH LESS PERIL THAN ANY EVER ACHIEVED
BY ANY FAMOUS KNIGHT IN THE WORLD
"It cannot be, senor, but that this grass is a proof that there must be
hard by some spring or brook to give it moisture, so it would be well to
move a little farther on, that we may find some place where we may quench
this terrible thirst that plagues us, which beyond a doubt is more
distressing than hunger."
The advice seemed good to Don Quixote, and, he leading Rocinante by the
bridle and Sancho the ass by the halter, after he had packed away upon
him the remains of the supper, they advanced the meadow feeling their
way, for the darkness of the night made it impossible to see anything;
but they had not gone two hundred paces when a loud noise of water, as if
falling from great rocks, struck their ears. The sound cheered them
greatly; but halting to make out by listening from what quarter it came
they heard unseasonably another noise which spoiled the satisfaction the
sound of the water gave them, especially for Sancho, who was by nature
timid and faint-hearted. They heard, I say, strokes falling with a
measured beat, and a certain rattling of iron and chains that, together
with the furious din of the water, would have struck terror into any
heart but Don Quixote's. The night was, as has been said, dark, and they
had happened to reach a spot in among some tall trees, whose leaves
stirred by a gentle breeze made a low ominous sound; so that, what with
the solitude, the place, the darkness, the noise of the water, and the
rustling of the leaves, everything inspired awe and dread; more
especially as they perceived that the strokes did not cease, nor the wind
lull, nor morning approach; to all which might be added their ignorance
as to where they were.
But Don Quixote, supported by his intrepid heart, leaped on Rocinante,
and bracing his buckler on his arm, brought his pike to the slope, and
said, "Friend Sancho, know that I by Heaven's will have been born in this
our iron age to revive revive in it the age of gold, or the golden as it
is called; I am he for whom perils, mighty achievements, and valiant
deeds are reserved; I am, I say again, he who is to revive the Knights of
the Round Table, the Twelve of France and the Nine Worthies; and he who
is to consign to oblivion the Platirs, the Tablantes, the Olivantes and
Tirantes, the Phoebuses and Belianises, with the whole herd of famous
knights-errant of days gone by, performing in these in which I live such
exploits, marvels, and feats of arms as shall obscure their brightest
deeds. Thou dost mark well, faithful and trusty squire, the gloom of this
night, its strange silence, the dull confused murmur of those trees, the
awful sound of that water in quest of which we came, that seems as though
it were precipitating and dashing itself down from the lofty mountains of
the Moon, and that incessant hammering that wounds and pains our ears;
which things all together and each of itself are enough to instil fear,
dread, and dismay into the breast of Mars himself, much more into one not
used to hazards and adventures of the kind. Well, then, all this that I
put before thee is but an incentive and stimulant to my spirit, making my
heart burst in my bosom through eagerness to engage in this adventure,
arduous as it promises to be; therefore tighten Rocinante's girths a
little, and God be with thee; wait for me here three days and no more,
and if in that time I come not back, thou canst return to our village,
and thence, to do me a favour and a service, thou wilt go to El Toboso,
where thou shalt say to my incomparable lady Dulcinea that her captive
knight hath died in attempting things that might make him worthy of being
called hers."
When Sancho heard his master's words he began to weep in the most
pathetic way, saying:
"Senor, I know not why your worship wants to attempt this so dreadful
adventure; it is night now, no one sees us here, we can easily turn about
and take ourselves out of danger, even if we don't drink for three days
to come; and as there is no one to see us, all the less will there be
anyone to set us down as cowards; besides, I have many a time heard the
curate of our village, whom your worship knows well, preach that he who
seeks danger perishes in it; so it is not right to tempt God by trying so
tremendous a feat from which there can be no escape save by a miracle,
and Heaven has performed enough of them for your worship in delivering
you from being blanketed as I was, and bringing you out victorious and
safe and sound from among all those enemies that were with the dead man;
and if all this does not move or soften that hard heart, let this thought
and reflection move it, that you will have hardly quitted this spot when
from pure fear I shall yield my soul up to anyone that will take it. I
left home and wife and children to come and serve your worship, trusting
to do better and not worse; but as covetousness bursts the bag, it has
rent my hopes asunder, for just as I had them highest about getting that
wretched unlucky island your worship has so often promised me, I see that
instead and in lieu of it you mean to desert me now in a place so far
from human reach: for God's sake, master mine, deal not so unjustly by
me, and if your worship will not entirely give up attempting this feat,
at least put it off till morning, for by what the lore I learned when I
was a shepherd tells me it cannot want three hours of dawn now, because
the mouth of the Horn is overhead and makes midnight in the line of the
left arm."
"How canst thou see, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "where it makes that
line, or where this mouth or this occiput is that thou talkest of, when
the night is so dark that there is not a star to be seen in the whole
heaven?"
"That's true," said Sancho, "but fear has sharp eyes, and sees things
underground, much more above in heavens; besides, there is good reason to
show that it now wants but little of day."
"Let it want what it may," replied Don Quixote, "it shall not be said of
me now or at any time that tears or entreaties turned me aside from doing
what was in accordance with knightly usage; and so I beg of thee, Sancho,
to hold thy peace, for God, who has put it into my heart to undertake now
this so unexampled and terrible adventure, will take care to watch over
my safety and console thy sorrow; what thou hast to do is to tighten
Rocinante's girths well, and wait here, for I shall come back shortly,
alive or dead."
Sancho perceiving it his master's final resolve, and how little his
tears, counsels, and entreaties prevailed with him, determined to have
recourse to his own ingenuity and compel him, if he could, to wait till
daylight; and so, while tightening the girths of the horse, he quietly
and without being felt, with his ass' halter tied both Rocinante's legs,
so that when Don Quixote strove to go he was unable as the horse could
only move by jumps. Seeing the success of his trick, Sancho Panza said:
"See there, senor! Heaven, moved by my tears and prayers, has so ordered
it that Rocinante cannot stir; and if you will be obstinate, and spur and
strike him, you will only provoke fortune, and kick, as they say, against
the pricks."
Don Quixote at this grew desperate, but the more he drove his heels into
the horse, the less he stirred him; and not having any suspicion of the
tying, he was fain to resign himself and wait till daybreak or until
Rocinante could move, firmly persuaded that all this came of something
other than Sancho's ingenuity. So he said to him, "As it is so, Sancho,
and as Rocinante cannot move, I am content to wait till dawn smiles upon
us, even though I weep while it delays its coming."
"There is no need to weep," answered Sancho, "for I will amuse your
worship by telling stories from this till daylight, unless indeed you
like to dismount and lie down to sleep a little on the green grass after
the fashion of knights-errant, so as to be fresher when day comes and the
moment arrives for attempting this extraordinary adventure you are
looking forward to."
"What art thou talking about dismounting or sleeping for?" said Don
Quixote. "Am I, thinkest thou, one of those knights that take their rest
in the presence of danger? Sleep thou who art born to sleep, or do as
thou wilt, for I will act as I think most consistent with my character."
"Be not angry, master mine," replied Sancho, "I did not mean to say
that;" and coming close to him he laid one hand on the pommel of the
saddle and the other on the cantle so that he held his master's left
thigh in his embrace, not daring to separate a finger's width from him;
so much afraid was he of the strokes which still resounded with a regular
beat. Don Quixote bade him tell some story to amuse him as he had
proposed, to which Sancho replied that he would if his dread of what he
heard would let him; "Still," said he, "I will strive to tell a story
which, if I can manage to relate it, and nobody interferes with the
telling, is the best of stories, and let your worship give me your
attention, for here I begin. What was, was; and may the good that is to
come be for all, and the evil for him who goes to look for it--your
worship must know that the beginning the old folk used to put to their
tales was not just as each one pleased; it was a maxim of Cato Zonzorino
the Roman, that says 'the evil for him that goes to look for it,' and it
comes as pat to the purpose now as ring to finger, to show that your
worship should keep quiet and not go looking for evil in any quarter, and
that we should go back by some other road, since nobody forces us to
follow this in which so many terrors affright us."
"Go on with thy story, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and leave the choice
of our road to my care."
"I say then," continued Sancho, "that in a village of Estremadura there
was a goat-shepherd--that is to say, one who tended goats--which shepherd
or goatherd, as my story goes, was called Lope Ruiz, and this Lope Ruiz
was in love with a shepherdess called Torralva, which shepherdess called
Torralva was the daughter of a rich grazier, and this rich grazier-"
"If that is the way thou tellest thy tale, Sancho," said Don Quixote,
"repeating twice all thou hast to say, thou wilt not have done these two
days; go straight on with it, and tell it like a reasonable man, or else
say nothing."