The History of Don Quixote, Volume II., Complete - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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Sancho had hardly uttered these words when the neighing of Rocinante fell
upon their ears, which neighing Don Quixote accepted as a happy omen, and
he resolved to make another sally in three or four days from that time.
Announcing his intention to the bachelor, he asked his advice as to the
quarter in which he ought to commence his expedition, and the bachelor
replied that in his opinion he ought to go to the kingdom of Aragon, and
the city of Saragossa, where there were to be certain solemn joustings at
the festival of St. George, at which he might win renown above all the
knights of Aragon, which would be winning it above all the knights of the
world. He commended his very praiseworthy and gallant resolution, but
admonished him to proceed with greater caution in encountering dangers,
because his life did not belong to him, but to all those who had need of
him to protect and aid them in their misfortunes.
"There's where it is, what I abominate, Senor Samson," said Sancho here;
"my master will attack a hundred armed men as a greedy boy would half a
dozen melons. Body of the world, senor bachelor! there is a time to
attack and a time to retreat, and it is not to be always 'Santiago, and
close Spain!' Moreover, I have heard it said (and I think by my master
himself, if I remember rightly) that the mean of valour lies between the
extremes of cowardice and rashness; and if that be so, I don't want him
to fly without having good reason, or to attack when the odds make it
better not. But, above all things, I warn my master that if he is to take
me with him it must be on the condition that he is to do all the
fighting, and that I am not to be called upon to do anything except what
concerns keeping him clean and comfortable; in this I will dance
attendance on him readily; but to expect me to draw sword, even against
rascally churls of the hatchet and hood, is idle. I don't set up to be a
fighting man, Senor Samson, but only the best and most loyal squire that
ever served knight-errant; and if my master Don Quixote, in consideration
of my many faithful services, is pleased to give me some island of the
many his worship says one may stumble on in these parts, I will take it
as a great favour; and if he does not give it to me, I was born like
everyone else, and a man must not live in dependence on anyone except
God; and what is more, my bread will taste as well, and perhaps even
better, without a government than if I were a governor; and how do I know
but that in these governments the devil may have prepared some trip for
me, to make me lose my footing and fall and knock my grinders out? Sancho
I was born and Sancho I mean to die. But for all that, if heaven were to
make me a fair offer of an island or something else of the kind, without
much trouble and without much risk, I am not such a fool as to refuse it;
for they say, too, 'when they offer thee a heifer, run with a halter; and
'when good luck comes to thee, take it in.'"
"Brother Sancho," said Carrasco, "you have spoken like a professor; but,
for all that, put your trust in God and in Senor Don Quixote, for he will
give you a kingdom, not to say an island."
"It is all the same, be it more or be it less," replied Sancho; "though I
can tell Senor Carrasco that my master would not throw the kingdom he
might give me into a sack all in holes; for I have felt my own pulse and
I find myself sound enough to rule kingdoms and govern islands; and I
have before now told my master as much."
"Take care, Sancho," said Samson; "honours change manners, and perhaps
when you find yourself a governor you won't know the mother that bore
you."
"That may hold good of those that are born in the ditches," said Sancho,
"not of those who have the fat of an old Christian four fingers deep on
their souls, as I have. Nay, only look at my disposition, is that likely
to show ingratitude to anyone?"
"God grant it," said Don Quixote; "we shall see when the government
comes; and I seem to see it already."
He then begged the bachelor, if he were a poet, to do him the favour of
composing some verses for him conveying the farewell he meant to take of
his lady Dulcinea del Toboso, and to see that a letter of her name was
placed at the beginning of each line, so that, at the end of the verses,
"Dulcinea del Toboso" might be read by putting together the first
letters. The bachelor replied that although he was not one of the famous
poets of Spain, who were, they said, only three and a half, he would not
fail to compose the required verses; though he saw a great difficulty in
the task, as the letters which made up the name were seventeen; so, if he
made four ballad stanzas of four lines each, there would be a letter
over, and if he made them of five, what they called decimas or
redondillas, there were three letters short; nevertheless he would try to
drop a letter as well as he could, so that the name "Dulcinea del Toboso"
might be got into four ballad stanzas.
"It must be, by some means or other," said Don Quixote, "for unless the
name stands there plain and manifest, no woman would believe the verses
were made for her."
They agreed upon this, and that the departure should take place in three
days from that time. Don Quixote charged the bachelor to keep it a
secret, especially from the curate and Master Nicholas, and from his
niece and the housekeeper, lest they should prevent the execution of his
praiseworthy and valiant purpose. Carrasco promised all, and then took
his leave, charging Don Quixote to inform him of his good or evil
fortunes whenever he had an opportunity; and thus they bade each other
farewell, and Sancho went away to make the necessary preparations for
their expedition.
CHAPTER V.
OF THE SHREWD AND DROLL CONVERSATION THAT PASSED BETWEEN SANCHO PANZA AND
HIS WIFE TERESA PANZA, AND OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF BEING DULY RECORDED
The translator of this history, when he comes to write this fifth
chapter, says that he considers it apocryphal, because in it Sancho Panza
speaks in a style unlike that which might have been expected from his
limited intelligence, and says things so subtle that he does not think it
possible he could have conceived them; however, desirous of doing what
his task imposed upon him, he was unwilling to leave it untranslated, and
therefore he went on to say:
Sancho came home in such glee and spirits that his wife noticed his
happiness a bowshot off, so much so that it made her ask him, "What have
you got, Sancho friend, that you are so glad?"
To which he replied, "Wife, if it were God's will, I should be very glad
not to be so well pleased as I show myself."
"I don't understand you, husband," said she, "and I don't know what you
mean by saying you would be glad, if it were God's will, not to be well
pleased; for, fool as I am, I don't know how one can find pleasure in not
having it."
"Hark ye, Teresa," replied Sancho, "I am glad because I have made up my
mind to go back to the service of my master Don Quixote, who means to go
out a third time to seek for adventures; and I am going with him again,
for my necessities will have it so, and also the hope that cheers me with
the thought that I may find another hundred crowns like those we have
spent; though it makes me sad to have to leave thee and the children; and
if God would be pleased to let me have my daily bread, dry-shod and at
home, without taking me out into the byways and cross-roads--and he could
do it at small cost by merely willing it--it is clear my happiness would
be more solid and lasting, for the happiness I have is mingled with
sorrow at leaving thee; so that I was right in saying I would be glad, if
it were God's will, not to be well pleased."
"Look here, Sancho," said Teresa; "ever since you joined on to a
knight-errant you talk in such a roundabout way that there is no
understanding you."
"It is enough that God understands me, wife," replied Sancho; "for he is
the understander of all things; that will do; but mind, sister, you must
look to Dapple carefully for the next three days, so that he may be fit
to take arms; double his feed, and see to the pack-saddle and other
harness, for it is not to a wedding we are bound, but to go round the
world, and play at give and take with giants and dragons and monsters,
and hear hissings and roarings and bellowings and howlings; and even all
this would be lavender, if we had not to reckon with Yanguesans and
enchanted Moors."
"I know well enough, husband," said Teresa, "that squires-errant don't
eat their bread for nothing, and so I will be always praying to our Lord
to deliver you speedily from all that hard fortune."
"I can tell you, wife," said Sancho, "if I did not expect to see myself
governor of an island before long, I would drop down dead on the spot."
"Nay, then, husband," said Teresa; "let the hen live, though it be with
her pip, live, and let the devil take all the governments in the world;
you came out of your mother's womb without a government, you have lived
until now without a government, and when it is God's will you will go, or
be carried, to your grave without a government. How many there are in the
world who live without a government, and continue to live all the same,
and are reckoned in the number of the people. The best sauce in the world
is hunger, and as the poor are never without that, they always eat with a
relish. But mind, Sancho, if by good luck you should find yourself with
some government, don't forget me and your children. Remember that
Sanchico is now full fifteen, and it is right he should go to school, if
his uncle the abbot has a mind to have him trained for the Church.
Consider, too, that your daughter Mari-Sancha will not die of grief if we
marry her; for I have my suspicions that she is as eager to get a husband
as you to get a government; and, after all, a daughter looks better ill
married than well whored."
"By my faith," replied Sancho, "if God brings me to get any sort of a
government, I intend, wife, to make such a high match for Mari-Sancha
that there will be no approaching her without calling her 'my lady."
"Nay, Sancho," returned Teresa; "marry her to her equal, that is the
safest plan; for if you put her out of wooden clogs into high-heeled
shoes, out of her grey flannel petticoat into hoops and silk gowns, out
of the plain 'Marica' and 'thou,' into 'Dona So-and-so' and 'my lady,'
the girl won't know where she is, and at every turn she will fall into a
thousand blunders that will show the thread of her coarse homespun
stuff."
"Tut, you fool," said Sancho; "it will be only to practise it for two or
three years; and then dignity and decorum will fit her as easily as a
glove; and if not, what matter? Let her he 'my lady,' and never mind what
happens."
"Keep to your own station, Sancho," replied Teresa; "don't try to raise
yourself higher, and bear in mind the proverb that says, 'wipe the nose
of your neigbbour's son, and take him into your house.' A fine thing it
would be, indeed, to marry our Maria to some great count or grand
gentleman, who, when the humour took him, would abuse her and call her
clown-bred and clodhopper's daughter and spinning wench. I have not been
bringing up my daughter for that all this time, I can tell you, husband.
Do you bring home money, Sancho, and leave marrying her to my care; there
is Lope Tocho, Juan Tocho's son, a stout, sturdy young fellow that we
know, and I can see he does not look sour at the girl; and with him, one
of our own sort, she will be well married, and we shall have her always
under our eyes, and be all one family, parents and children,
grandchildren and sons-in-law, and the peace and blessing of God will
dwell among us; so don't you go marrying her in those courts and grand
palaces where they won't know what to make of her, or she what to make of
herself."
"Why, you idiot and wife for Barabbas," said Sancho, "what do you mean by
trying, without why or wherefore, to keep me from marrying my daughter to
one who will give me grandchildren that will be called 'your lordship'?
Look ye, Teresa, I have always heard my elders say that he who does not
know how to take advantage of luck when it comes to him, has no right to
complain if it gives him the go-by; and now that it is knocking at our
door, it will not do to shut it out; let us go with the favouring breeze
that blows upon us."
It is this sort of talk, and what Sancho says lower down, that made the
translator of the history say he considered this chapter apocryphal.
"Don't you see, you animal," continued Sancho, "that it will be well for
me to drop into some profitable government that will lift us out of the
mire, and marry Mari-Sancha to whom I like; and you yourself will find
yourself called 'Dona Teresa Panza,' and sitting in church on a fine
carpet and cushions and draperies, in spite and in defiance of all the
born ladies of the town? No, stay as you are, growing neither greater nor
less, like a tapestry figure--Let us say no more about it, for Sanchica
shall be a countess, say what you will."
"Are you sure of all you say, husband?" replied Teresa. "Well, for all
that, I am afraid this rank of countess for my daughter will be her ruin.
You do as you like, make a duchess or a princess of her, but I can tell
you it will not be with my will and consent. I was always a lover of
equality, brother, and I can't bear to see people give themselves airs
without any right. They called me Teresa at my baptism, a plain, simple
name, without any additions or tags or fringes of Dons or Donas; Cascajo
was my father's name, and as I am your wife, I am called Teresa Panza,
though by right I ought to be called Teresa Cascajo; but 'kings go where
laws like,' and I am content with this name without having the 'Don' put
on top of it to make it so heavy that I cannot carry it; and I don't want
to make people talk about me when they see me go dressed like a countess
or governor's wife; for they will say at once, 'See what airs the slut
gives herself! Only yesterday she was always spinning flax, and used to
go to mass with the tail of her petticoat over her head instead of a
mantle, and there she goes to-day in a hooped gown with her broaches and
airs, as if we didn't know her!' If God keeps me in my seven senses, or
five, or whatever number I have, I am not going to bring myself to such a
pass; go you, brother, and be a government or an island man, and swagger
as much as you like; for by the soul of my mother, neither my daughter
nor I are going to stir a step from our village; a respectable woman
should have a broken leg and keep at home; and to be busy at something is
a virtuous damsel's holiday; be off to your adventures along with your
Don Quixote, and leave us to our misadventures, for God will mend them
for us according as we deserve it. I don't know, I'm sure, who fixed the
'Don' to him, what neither his father nor grandfather ever had."
"I declare thou hast a devil of some sort in thy body!" said Sancho. "God
help thee, what a lot of things thou hast strung together, one after the
other, without head or tail! What have Cascajo, and the broaches and the
proverbs and the airs, to do with what I say? Look here, fool and dolt
(for so I may call you, when you don't understand my words, and run away
from good fortune), if I had said that my daughter was to throw herself
down from a tower, or go roaming the world, as the Infanta Dona Urraca
wanted to do, you would be right in not giving way to my will; but if in
an instant, in less than the twinkling of an eye, I put the 'Don' and 'my
lady' on her back, and take her out of the stubble, and place her under a
canopy, on a dais, and on a couch, with more velvet cushions than all the
Almohades of Morocco ever had in their family, why won't you consent and
fall in with my wishes?"
"Do you know why, husband?" replied Teresa; "because of the proverb that
says 'who covers thee, discovers thee.' At the poor man people only throw
a hasty glance; on the rich man they fix their eyes; and if the said rich
man was once on a time poor, it is then there is the sneering and the
tattle and spite of backbiters; and in the streets here they swarm as
thick as bees."
"Look here, Teresa," said Sancho, "and listen to what I am now going to
say to you; maybe you never heard it in all your life; and I do not give
my own notions, for what I am about to say are the opinions of his
reverence the preacher, who preached in this town last Lent, and who
said, if I remember rightly, that all things present that our eyes
behold, bring themselves before us, and remain and fix themselves on our
memory much better and more forcibly than things past."
These observations which Sancho makes here are the other ones on account
of which the translator says he regards this chapter as apocryphal,
inasmuch as they are beyond Sancho's capacity.
"Whence it arises," he continued, "that when we see any person well
dressed and making a figure with rich garments and retinue of servants,
it seems to lead and impel us perforce to respect him, though memory may
at the same moment recall to us some lowly condition in which we have
seen him, but which, whether it may have been poverty or low birth, being
now a thing of the past, has no existence; while the only thing that has
any existence is what we see before us; and if this person whom fortune
has raised from his original lowly state (these were the very words the
padre used) to his present height of prosperity, be well bred, generous,
courteous to all, without seeking to vie with those whose nobility is of
ancient date, depend upon it, Teresa, no one will remember what he was,
and everyone will respect what he is, except indeed the envious, from
whom no fair fortune is safe."
"I do not understand you, husband," replied Teresa; "do as you like, and
don't break my head with any more speechifying and rethoric; and if you
have revolved to do what you say-"
"Resolved, you should say, woman," said Sancho, "not revolved."
"Don't set yourself to wrangle with me, husband," said Teresa; "I speak
as God pleases, and don't deal in out-of-the-way phrases; and I say if
you are bent upon having a government, take your son Sancho with you, and
teach him from this time on how to hold a government; for sons ought to
inherit and learn the trades of their fathers."
"As soon as I have the government," said Sancho, "I will send for him by
post, and I will send thee money, of which I shall have no lack, for
there is never any want of people to lend it to governors when they have
not got it; and do thou dress him so as to hide what he is and make him
look what he is to be."
"You send the money," said Teresa, "and I'll dress him up for you as fine
as you please."
"Then we are agreed that our daughter is to be a countess," said Sancho.
"The day that I see her a countess," replied Teresa, "it will be the same
to me as if I was burying her; but once more I say do as you please, for
we women are born to this burden of being obedient to our husbands,
though they be dogs;" and with this she began to weep in earnest, as if
she already saw Sanchica dead and buried.
Sancho consoled her by saying that though he must make her a countess, he
would put it off as long as possible. Here their conversation came to an
end, and Sancho went back to see Don Quixote, and make arrangements for
their departure.
CHAPTER VI.
OF WHAT TOOK PLACE BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS NIECE AND HOUSEKEEPER; ONE
OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTERS IN THE WHOLE HISTORY
While Sancho Panza and his wife, Teresa Cascajo, held the above
irrelevant conversation, Don Quixote's niece and housekeeper were not
idle, for by a thousand signs they began to perceive that their uncle and
master meant to give them the slip the third time, and once more betake
himself to his, for them, ill-errant chivalry. They strove by all the
means in their power to divert him from such an unlucky scheme; but it
was all preaching in the desert and hammering cold iron. Nevertheless,
among many other representations made to him, the housekeeper said to
him, "In truth, master, if you do not keep still and stay quiet at home,
and give over roaming mountains and valleys like a troubled spirit,
looking for what they say are called adventures, but what I call
misfortunes, I shall have to make complaint to God and the king with loud
supplication to send some remedy."
To which Don Quixote replied, "What answer God will give to your
complaints, housekeeper, I know not, nor what his Majesty will answer
either; I only know that if I were king I should decline to answer the
numberless silly petitions they present every day; for one of the
greatest among the many troubles kings have is being obliged to listen to
all and answer all, and therefore I should be sorry that any affairs of
mine should worry him."
Whereupon the housekeeper said, "Tell us, senor, at his Majesty's court
are there no knights?"
"There are," replied Don Quixote, "and plenty of them; and it is right
there should be, to set off the dignity of the prince, and for the
greater glory of the king's majesty."
"Then might not your worship," said she, "be one of those that, without
stirring a step, serve their king and lord in his court?"
"Recollect, my friend," said Don Quixote, "all knights cannot be
courtiers, nor can all courtiers be knights-errant, nor need they be.
There must be all sorts in the world; and though we may be all knights,
there is a great difference between one and another; for the courtiers,
without quitting their chambers, or the threshold of the court, range the
world over by looking at a map, without its costing them a farthing, and
without suffering heat or cold, hunger or thirst; but we, the true
knights-errant, measure the whole earth with our own feet, exposed to the
sun, to the cold, to the air, to the inclemencies of heaven, by day and
night, on foot and on horseback; nor do we only know enemies in pictures,
but in their own real shapes; and at all risks and on all occasions we
attack them, without any regard to childish points or rules of single
combat, whether one has or has not a shorter lance or sword, whether one
carries relics or any secret contrivance about him, whether or not the
sun is to be divided and portioned out, and other niceties of the sort
that are observed in set combats of man to man, that you know nothing
about, but I do. And you must know besides, that the true knight-errant,
though he may see ten giants, that not only touch the clouds with their
heads but pierce them, and that go, each of them, on two tall towers by
way of legs, and whose arms are like the masts of mighty ships, and each
eye like a great mill-wheel, and glowing brighter than a glass furnace,
must not on any account be dismayed by them. On the contrary, he must
attack and fall upon them with a gallant bearing and a fearless heart,
and, if possible, vanquish and destroy them, even though they have for
armour the shells of a certain fish, that they say are harder than
diamonds, and in place of swords wield trenchant blades of Damascus
steel, or clubs studded with spikes also of steel, such as I have more
than once seen. All this I say, housekeeper, that you may see the
difference there is between the one sort of knight and the other; and it
would be well if there were no prince who did not set a higher value on
this second, or more properly speaking first, kind of knights-errant;
for, as we read in their histories, there have been some among them who
have been the salvation, not merely of one kingdom, but of many."
"Ah, senor," here exclaimed the niece, "remember that all this you are
saying about knights-errant is fable and fiction; and their histories, if
indeed they were not burned, would deserve, each of them, to have a
sambenito put on it, or some mark by which it might be known as infamous
and a corrupter of good manners."
"By the God that gives me life," said Don Quixote, "if thou wert not my
full niece, being daughter of my own sister, I would inflict a
chastisement upon thee for the blasphemy thou hast uttered that all the
world should ring with. What! can it be that a young hussy that hardly
knows how to handle a dozen lace-bobbins dares to wag her tongue and
criticise the histories of knights-errant? What would Senor Amadis say if
he heard of such a thing? He, however, no doubt would forgive thee, for
he was the most humble-minded and courteous knight of his time, and
moreover a great protector of damsels; but some there are that might have
heard thee, and it would not have been well for thee in that case; for
they are not all courteous or mannerly; some are ill-conditioned
scoundrels; nor is it everyone that calls himself a gentleman, that is so
in all respects; some are gold, others pinchbeck, and all look like
gentlemen, but not all can stand the touchstone of truth. There are men
of low rank who strain themselves to bursting to pass for gentlemen, and
high gentlemen who, one would fancy, were dying to pass for men of low
rank; the former raise themselves by their ambition or by their virtues,
the latter debase themselves by their lack of spirit or by their vices;
and one has need of experience and discernment to distinguish these two
kinds of gentlemen, so much alike in name and so different in conduct."