“Everything your grace says is fine,” said Sancho. “But I’d like to know, if the time for rewards happens not to come and it’s necessary to fall back on wages, how much the squire of a knight errant earned in those days, and if he was paid by the month or by the day, like a mason’s helpers.”
“I do not believe,” Don Quixote responded, “that those squires ever received wages, but only favors. And if I have mentioned you in the last will and testament that I left in my house, it was because of what might happen, for I do not yet know the standing of chivalry in these our calamitous times, and I should not want my soul to suffer in the next world on account of trivial details. Because I want you to know, Sancho, that there is no profession more dangerous than that of adventuring knight.”
“That’s true,” said Sancho, “for just the noise of the fulling hammers could upset and disturb the heart of an adventuring knight errant as valiant as your grace. But you can be sure that from now on my lips will not open to joke about your grace’s affairs, but only to honor you as my master and natural lord.”
“In that way,” replied Don Quixote, “you will live long on the face of the earth, for after parents, masters must be respected as if they were progenitors.”
CHAPTER XXI
Which relates the high adventure and rich prize of the helmet of Mambrino, as well as other things that befell our invincible knight
At this point a light rain began to fall, and Sancho would have liked for them to take shelter in the fulling mill, but Don Quixote had acquired such an aversion to it because of the insufferable deception that under no circumstances did he wish to go inside, and so, turning to the right, they came upon another road similar to the one they had followed on the previous day.
A short while later, Don Quixote caught sight of a man riding toward them and wearing on his head something that glistened as if it were made of gold, and no sooner had he seen him than he turned to Sancho and said:
“It seems to me, Sancho, that there is no proverb that is not true, because all of them are judgments based on experience, the mother of all knowledge, in particular the one that says: ‘One door closes and another opens.’ I say this because if last night fortune closed the door on what we were seeking, deceiving us with fulling hammers, now she opens wide another that will lead to a better and truer adventure; if I do not succeed in going through this door, the fault will be mine, and I shall not be able to blame my ignorance of fulling hammers or the dark of night. I say this because, unless I am mistaken, coming toward us is a man who wears on his head the helmet of Mambrino,1 concerning which, as you well know, I have made a vow.”
“Your grace, be careful what you say, and more careful what you do,” said Sancho, “for you wouldn’t want this to be more fulling hammers that end up hammering and battering our senses.”
“The devil take the man!” replied Don Quixote. “What does a helmet have to do with fulling hammers?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” responded Sancho, “but by my faith, if I could talk as much as I used to, maybe I could say some things that would make your grace see that you were mistaken in what you said.”
“How can I be mistaken in what I say, you doubting traitor?” said Don Quixote. “Tell me, do you not see that knight coming toward us, mounted on a dappled gray and wearing on his head a helmet of gold?”
“What I see and can make out,” responded Sancho, “is just a man riding a donkey that’s gray like mine, and wearing something shiny on his head.”
“Well, that is the helmet of Mambrino,” said Don Quixote. “Move aside and let me face him alone; you will see that without speaking a word so as not to waste time, I shall bring this adventure to a conclusion and acquire the helmet I have so long desired.”
“I’ll be sure to move aside,” replied Sancho, “but may it please God,” he continued, “that it turns out to be oregano and not fulling hammers.”2
“I have already told you, brother, not to mention or even think about mentioning those fulling hammers to me,” said Don Quixote, “or I swear…I shall say no more, but I shall hammer and full your soul.”
Sancho fell silent, fearful his master might carry out the vow, as roundly categorical as a ball, that he had hurled at him.
This is the truth concerning the helmet, the horse, and the knight that Don Quixote saw: in that area there were two villages, one of them so small it did not have an apothecary or a barber, but the other, which was nearby, did, and so the barber in the larger one served the smaller, where a man happened to be sick and needed to be bled, and another needed to have his beard trimmed, and consequently the barber was traveling there, carrying a brass basin; as luck would have it, as he was traveling it began to rain, and to keep his hat from being stained, for it must have been new, he put the basin on his head, and since it was clean, at a distance of half a league, it glistened. He was riding a gray donkey, as Sancho had said, which gave rise to Don Quixote’s thinking that he saw a dappled gray, a knight, and a gold helmet, for everything he saw he very easily accommodated to his chivalric nonsense and errant thoughts. And when he saw the poor gentleman approaching, without saying a word to him, and with Rocinante at full gallop, he attacked with lowered pike, intending to run him through, but when he drew near, without stopping the fury of his charge, he cried:
“Defend yourself, base creature, or hand over to me of your own free will what is so rightly mine!”
The barber, who never imagined or feared such a thing when he saw that apparition bearing down on him, had no other choice, in order to protect himself from the lance, than to fall off his donkey; and as soon as he touched the ground, he leaped up as nimbly as a deer and began to run across the plain, so fast the wind could not catch him. He left the basin on the ground, which satisfied Don Quixote, who said that the heathen had behaved with discretion and imitated the beaver, which, finding itself pursued by hunters, bites and tears off the thing for which he knows, by natural instinct, he is being hunted down.3 He told Sancho to pick up the helmet, and the squire, lifting the basin in his hands, said:
“By God, this is a good basin and must be worth eight reales if it’s worth a maravedí.”
And he gave it to his master, who then put it on his head, turning it around from one side to the other, looking for the visor; and since he did not find it, he said:
“No doubt the heathen for whom this famous sallet helmet was first forged must have had an extremely large head; worst of all, half of it is missing.”
When Sancho heard the basin called a sallet, he could not contain his laughter, but then he recalled his master’s wrath, and he broke off in the middle.
“Why are you laughing, Sancho?” said Don Quixote.
“It makes me laugh,” he responded, “to think of the big head on that heathen owner of this old helmet, which looks exactly like a barber’s basin.”
“Do you know what I imagine, Sancho? This famous piece of the enchanted helmet, by some strange accident, must have fallen into the hands of one who could not recognize or estimate its value, and not knowing what he was doing, and seeing that it was made of purest gold, he must have melted down one half to take advantage of its high price, and from the other half he made this, which resembles a barber’s basin, as you say. Be that as it may, I recognize it, and its transmutation does not matter to me, for I shall repair it in the first village that has a blacksmith, and in a manner that will leave far behind the one made and forged by the god of smithies for the god of war;4 in the meantime, I shall do the best I can to wear it, for something is better than nothing, especially since it will serve quite well to protect me from any stones that people may throw at me.”
“It will,” said Sancho, “if they’re not using a slingshot like they did in the battle of the two armies, when they made the sign of the cross over your grace’s molars and broke the cruet that held the blessed potion that made me vomit up my innards.”
“Losing it does not grieve me greatly, for you k
now, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that I have the recipe committed to memory.”
“So do I,” responded Sancho, “but if I ever make it or taste it again in my life, let this be my final hour. Besides, I don’t intend to put myself in the position of needing it, because I plan to use all my five senses to keep from being wounded or wounding anybody else. As for being tossed in a blanket again, I won’t say another word, for such misfortunes are difficult to foresee, and if they come, all you can do is shrug your shoulders, hold your breath, close your eyes, and let yourself go where luck and the blanket take you.”
“You are a bad Christian, Sancho,” said Don Quixote when he heard this, “because you never forget an injury once it has been done to you, but you should know that noble and generous bosoms do not pay attention to trifles. Were you left with a lame foot, a cracked rib, a broken skull? Is that why you never can forget the jest? For, if the matter is viewed correctly, it was merely a jest and a diversion; if I did not understand it in this way, I should have returned and, in avenging you, inflicted more harm than the Greeks did because of the abducted Helen, who, if she had lived in this time, or my Dulcinea lived in hers, could be certain of not enjoying the reputation for beauty she has now.”
Whereupon he heaved a sigh and sent it heavenward. And Sancho said:
“Let it pass as a joke, since it can’t be avenged in reality, but I know what this reality and this joke mean, and I also know they won’t fall away from my memory any more than they’ll fade from my back. But, leaving that aside, your grace should tell me what we’re going to do with this dappled gray horse that looks like a gray donkey and was left behind by that Martino5 who was toppled by your grace, because seeing how he took to his heels and ran like Villadiego,6 he has no intention of ever coming back for it. By my beard, this dappled gray is a good one!”
“It has never been my practice,” said Don Quixote, “to plunder those I conquer, nor is it a knightly custom to deprive them of their horses and leave them on foot, unless the victor has lost his mount in the battle; in such cases, it is licit to take that of the conquered knight as the spoils of legitimate combat. Therefore, Sancho, leave this horse, or donkey, or whatever you say it is, for when its owner sees that we have departed, he will return for it.”
“God knows I’d like to take it,” replied Sancho, “or at least exchange it for this one of mine, because I don’t think it’s as good. Really, the laws of chivalry are strict if they can’t be stretched to let you trade one donkey for another; I’d like to know if I could at least swap the trappings.”
“I am not certain about that,” responded Don Quixote. “In case of doubt, until I am better informed, I should say that you may exchange them if you are in dire need of them.”
“So dire,” responded Sancho, “that if they were for my own person I couldn’t need them more.”
Then, on the basis of that permission, he executed a mutatio capparum7 and decked out his donkey, showing him off to great advantage.
Having done this, they ate the remains of the food that had been taken from the pack mule and drank from the stream where the fulling hammers were, not turning their faces to look at them, so great was their loathing because of how much they had frightened them.
Having pacified their hunger and tempered their melancholy, they remounted, and with no fixed destination, since it was very much in the tradition of knights errant not to follow a specific route, they began to ride wherever Rocinante’s will took them; behind his will came his master’s, and even the donkey’s, who always followed wherever the horse led, in virtuous love and companionship. And so they returned to the king’s highway and followed it with no set plan or purpose in mind.
As they were riding along, Sancho said to his master:
“Señor, does your grace wish to give me leave to talk a little? After you gave me that harsh order of silence, more than a few things have been spoiling in my stomach, and one that I have now on the tip of my tongue I wouldn’t want to go to waste.”
“Say it,” Don Quixote said, “and be brief, for no speech is pleasing if it is long.”
“What I have to say, Señor,” responded Sancho, “is that for the past few days I’ve been thinking how little gain or profit there is in looking for the adventures that your grace looks for in these deserted places and crossroads, because even when you conquer and conclude the most dangerous, there’s nobody to see them or know about them, and so they remain in perpetual silence, which isn’t your grace’s intention or what they deserve. And so it seems to me it would be better, unless your grace thinks otherwise, if we went to serve some emperor or other great prince who’s involved in some war, and in his service your grace could demonstrate the valor of your person, your great strength, and even greater understanding; and when the lord we serve sees this, he’ll have to reward us, each according to his merits, and there’s sure to be somebody there who’ll put into writing your grace’s great deeds so they can be remembered forever. About mine I don’t say anything, for they won’t go beyond squirely limits, though I can say that if it’s customary in chivalry to write about the deeds of squires, I don’t think mine will be forgotten.”
“You speak sensibly, Sancho,” responded Don Quixote, “but before one reaches that point, it is necessary to wander the world as a kind of test, seeking adventures, so that by concluding some of them, the knight acquires a reputation and fame, and when he goes to the court of some great monarch he is known by his deeds, and as soon as the boys see him ride through the gate of the city, they all follow and surround him, shouting and saying: ‘Here is the Knight of the Sun,’ or of the Serpent, or of some other device under which he accomplished great feats. ‘Here is,’ they will say, ‘the one who conquered in singular combat the gigantic Brocabruno the Mighty; the one who freed the Great Mameluke of Persia from the long enchantment he suffered for almost nine hundred years.’
In this manner, news of his deeds passes from person to person, and then, to the cheers of the boys and the rest of the populace, the king of the land will appear at the windows of his royal palace, and as soon as he sees the knight, knowing him by his armor or the device on his shield, he perforce will say: ‘Hark, look lively! Go forth, my knights, all who are in my court, to greet the flower of chivalry who now comes riding!’ At this command all will go forth, and the king will come halfway down the stairs, and embrace the knight warmly, and bid him welcome, kissing him on the face, and then he will lead him by the hand to the chamber of my lady the queen, where the knight will find her with the princess, their daughter, who is, beyond any doubt, one of the most beauteous and perfect damsels that one could find anywhere in the known regions of the earth. After this she will very chastely turn her eyes to the knight, and he will turn his eyes to hers, and each will seem to the other more divine than human, and without knowing how or why, they will be captured and caught in the intricate nets of love, with great affliction in their hearts because they do not know how they will speak and reveal to one another their yearnings and desires.
Then he will no doubt be taken to a sumptuously appointed room in the palace, where, having removed his armor, they will bring him a rich scarlet cloak and drape it around him; and if he looked comely in armor, he looks just as comely and even more so in his quilted doublet. When night falls, he will have supper with the king, queen, and princess, and he will never take his eyes off the maiden, his looks hidden from the rest, and she will do the same with the same sagacity because, as I have said, she is a very discreet damsel. The tables will be cleared and then suddenly, through the door of the chamber, an ugly dwarf will enter, followed by a beauteous duenna between two giants, who tells of a certain adventure devised by an extremely ancient wise man, and whosoever brings it to a conclusion will be deemed the greatest knight in the world. Then the king will command all those present to attempt it, and none will end or finish it except the knight who is his guest, which will add greatly to his fame and make the princess extremely happy, and she wi
ll think of herself as exceedingly well-rewarded and compensated for having placed her affections so high. And the fortunate part is that this king, or prince, or whatever he is, is waging a fierce war with another as powerful as he, and the knight who is his guest asks him (after spending a few days in his court) for permission to serve him in that war. The king will give it willingly, and the knight will courteously kiss his hands in gratitude for the boon he has granted him.
And that night he will take his leave of his lady the princess through the grillework at the window of the bedchamber where she sleeps, which overlooks a garden, and through this grillework he has already spoken to her many times, their go-between and confidante being a lady-in-waiting greatly trusted by the princess. He will sigh, she will swoon, the lady-in-waiting will bring water, sorely troubled because morning is coming and, for the sake of her lady’s honor, she does not wish them to be discovered. Finally the princess will regain consciousness and pass her white hands through the grillework to the knight, who will kiss them over and over again and bathe them in his tears. The two of them will agree on the manner in which they will keep each other informed of their fortunes and misfortunes, and the princess will beg him to tarry as little as possible; he will promise, making many vows; he will kiss her hands one more time and say goodbye with so much emotion that his life will almost come to an end. Then he goes to his room, throws himself on the bed, cannot sleep because of the pain of their parting, arises very early in the morning, and goes to take his leave of the king, the queen, and the princess; they tell him, when he has bade farewell to the first two, that her highness the princess is indisposed and cannot receive visitors; the knight thinks it is because of her sorrow at his leaving, his heart is wounded, and it is all he can do not to show clear signs of his suffering. The lady-in-waiting, their confidante, is present, and she will take note of everything and recount it all to her lady, who receives her in tears and tells her that one of her greatest griefs is not knowing who her knight is, or if he is of royal lineage; the lady-in-waiting assures her that the degree of courtesy, gallantry, and valor displayed by her knight can exist only in a royal and illustrious person; the suffering princess consoles herself with this; she attempts to find consolation so as not to appear in a bad light before her parents, and after two days she appears in public.
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