The knight has already gone; he does battle in the war, conquers the king’s enemy, takes many cities, emerges victorious from many combats, returns to court, sees his lady in the customary place, and they agree that he will ask her father for her hand in marriage in return for his services. The king does not wish to grant his request because he does not know who the knight is, but despite this, either because he abducts her or by some other means, the princess becomes his wife, and her father comes to consider this his great good fortune because he learns that this knight is the son of a valiant king, ruler of some kingdom I am not certain of because I do not believe it is on the map. The father dies, the princess inherits the kingdom, the knight, in a word, becomes king, and this is where his granting favors to his squire and to all those who helped him rise to so high an estate, comes in: he marries his squire to one of the princess’s ladies-in-waiting, the one, no doubt, who acted as mediator in his love affair, and who is the daughter of a very prominent duke.”8
“That’s what I want, honestly,” said Sancho, “and that’s what I’m counting on, and everything will happen exactly to the letter because now your grace calls yourself The Knight of the Sorrowful Face.”
“Do not doubt it, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote. “For in the same manner and by the same means as I have recounted, knights errant rise and have risen to be kings and emperors. All we need do now is to see which king of Christians or heathens is waging a war and has a beautiful daughter; but there will be time to think about this, for, as I have told you, first one must win fame elsewhere before arriving at court. There is also something else: in the event we find a king at war who has a beautiful daughter, and I have won incredible fame throughout the universe, I do not know how it can be discovered that I am of royal lineage, or, at least, a second cousin to the emperor; the king will not wish to give me his daughter’s hand in marriage unless he is very certain of this first, no matter how meritorious my famous deeds; as a consequence, for this reason, I fear I shall lose what my arm so justly deserves. It is certainly true that I am a gentleman of known lineage, with proprietary rights to an ancestral home, and entitlement to a payment of five hundred sueldos,9 and it well might be that the wise man who writes my history can elucidate my parentage and ancestry in such a way that I shall find myself to be a descendant, five or six times removed, of a king. Because I want you to know, Sancho, that there are two kinds of lineage in the world: some who trace and derive their ancestry from princes and monarchs, which time has gradually undone, and in the end they finish in a point, like a pyramid turned upside down; others have their origin in lowborn people, and they rise by degrees until they become great lords. Which means that the difference between them is that some were and no longer are, and others are what they once were not; I might be one of these, and it might turn out that I had a great and famous beginning, which ought to satisfy the king, my future father-in-law; if it does not, the princess will love me so much despite her father that he, knowing full well that I am the son of a water-carrier, will accept me as her lord and husband; if he does not, this is where abducting her and taking her wherever I choose comes in, for either time or death will put an end to her parents’ anger.”
“And that’s where something else comes in, too,” said Sancho, “because some wicked people say: ‘Don’t ask as a favor what you can take by force,’ though what fits even better is: ‘Escaping punishment is worth more than the pleading of good men.’ I say this because if my lord the king, your grace’s father-in-law, does not agree to giving you my lady the princess, there’s nothing else to do, like your grace says, but abduct her and hide her away. But the trouble with that is that until you make peace and calmly enjoy the kingdom, the poor squire may be starving for favors. Unless the go-between lady-in-waiting, who will be his wife, escapes with the princess, and he suffers misfortunes with her until heaven wills otherwise, because it well may be, I think, that his master will give her to him as his legitimate wife.”
“No one can deny him that,” said Don Quixote.
“Well, since that’s the case,” responded Sancho, “the best thing is to commend ourselves to God and let fate take us wherever it chooses.”
“May God grant,” replied Don Quixote, “what I desire and what you, Sancho, need, and let him be base who thinks himself base.”
“God’s will be done,” said Sancho, “for I am an Old Christian, and that alone is enough for me to be a count.”
“More than enough,” said Don Quixote, “and even if you were not, it would not change anything, because when I am king I can certainly grant you nobility without your buying it or serving me in any way. Because when you are made a count, you will find that you are a gentleman, too, and no matter what people say, they will have to call you lord, even if they do not wish to.”
“And by my faith, I’ll know how to carry off that tittle!” said Sancho.
“You mean title, not tittle,” said his master.
“Whatever it is,” responded Sancho Panza. “I say that I’ll know very well how to manage it, because, by my faith, once I was the beadle of a brotherhood, and the beadle’s outfit looked so good on me that everybody said I looked like I could be the steward of the brotherhood. Well, what will happen when I put a duke’s cape on my back, or dress in gold and pearls, like a foreign count? I think they’ll be coming to see me for a hundred leagues around.”
“You will look fine,” said Don Quixote, “but it will be necessary for you to shave your beard often; yours is so heavy, tangled, and unkempt that unless you shave with a razor at least every other day, people will see what you are from as far away as you can shoot a flintlock.”
“That’s easy,” said Sancho. “All I have to do is hire a barber and keep him in my house. And if I need to, I can have him follow along behind me, like a grandee’s groom.”
“But, how do you know,” asked Don Quixote, “that grandees have their grooms follow them?”
“I’ll tell you,” responded Sancho. “Years ago I spent a month not far from court, and there I saw a very small gentleman walking, and people said he was a grandee, and a man rode behind him no matter how many turns he made, and he looked like he was his tail. I asked why the man didn’t catch up but always came behind him. They told me he was the groom, and it was the custom of grandees to have their grooms follow behind. And since then I’ve know it so well that I’ve never forgotten it.”
“I say that you are correct,” said Don Quixote, “and in the same way you can have your barber follow behind you, for not all customs came into use or were invented at the same time, and you may be the first count to have his barber follow behind him, for you need greater confidence in the man who shaves you than in the one who saddles your horse.”
“Just leave the barber to me,” said Sancho, “and your grace can take care of becoming a king and making me a count.”
“That is what I shall do,” responded Don Quixote.
And looking up, he saw what will be recounted in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XXII
Regarding the liberty that Don Quixote gave to many unfortunate men who, against their wills, were being taken where they did not wish to go
It is recounted by Cide Hamete Benengeli, the Arabic and Manchegan author, in this most serious, high-sounding, detailed, sweet, and inventive history, that following the conversation between the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha and Sancho Panza, his squire, which is referred to at the end of chapter XXI, Don Quixote looked up and saw coming toward him on the same road he was traveling approximately twelve men on foot, strung together by their necks, like beads on a great iron chain, and all of them wearing manacles. Accompanying them were two men on horseback and two on foot; the ones on horseback had flintlocks, and those on foot carried javelins and swords; as soon as Sancho Panza saw them, he said:
“This is a chain of galley slaves, people forced by the king to go to the galleys.”
“What do you mean, forced?” asked Don Quixote. �
�Is it possible that the king forces anyone?”
“I’m not saying that,” responded Sancho, “but these are people who, because of their crimes, have been condemned to serve the king in the galleys, by force.”
“In short,” replied Don Quixote, “for whatever reason, these people are being taken by force and not of their own free will.”
“That’s right,” said Sancho.
“Well, in that case,” said his master, “here it is fitting to put into practice my profession: to right wrongs and come to the aid and assistance of the wretched.”
“Your grace shouldn’t forget,” said Sancho, “that justice, which is the king himself, does not force or do wrong to such people, but sentences them as punishment for their crimes.”
By now the chain of galley slaves had reached them, and Don Quixote, with very courteous speech, asked those who were guarding them to be so kind as to inform him and tell him the reason or reasons those people were being taken away in that fashion.
One of the mounted guards responded that they were galley slaves, His Majesty’s prisoners who were condemned to the galleys, and there was nothing more to say and nothing else he had to know.
“Even so,” replied Don Quixote, “I should like to know the particular reason for each one’s misfortune.”
To these words he added others so civil and discreet to persuade them to tell him what he wished to hear that the other mounted guard said:
“Although we have the record and certificate of sentence of each of these wretched men, this is not the proper time to stop and take them out and read them; your grace may approach and question the prisoners, and they will tell you themselves if they wish to, and they will, because these are people who take pleasure in doing and saying false and wicked things.”
With this authorization, which Don Quixote would have taken even if it had not been granted to him, he approached the chain and asked the first man what sins he had committed to be taken away in so unpleasant a manner. He responded that it was on account of his being a lover.
“Is that all?” replied Don Quixote. “If they throw men in the galleys for being lovers, I should have been rowing in one long ago.”
“It isn’t the kind of love your grace is thinking about,” said the galley slave. “Mine was a great love for a laundry basket filled with linen, and I loved it so much and embraced it so tightly that if the law hadn’t taken it from me by force, to this day I wouldn’t have let go of it willingly. I was caught red-handed, there was no need for torture, the trial concluded, they kissed my back a hundred times, gave me three in the gurapas, and that was the end of that.”1
“What are gurapas?” asked Don Quixote.
“Gurapas are galleys,” responded the galley slave.
He was a young man, about twenty-four years old, who said he was a native of Piedrahíta. Don Quixote asked the same question of the sec-ond man, who was so downcast and melancholy he did not say a word, but the first prisoner responded for him and said:
“This man, Señor, is being taken away for being a canary, I mean a musician and singer.”
“What?” Don Quixote repeated. “Men also go to the galleys for being musicians and singers?”
“Yes, Señor,” responded the galley slave, “because there’s nothing worse than singing when you’re in difficulty.”
“But I have heard it said,” said Don Quixote, “that troubles take wing for the man who can sing.”
“Here just the opposite is true,” said the galley slave. “Warble once, and you weep the rest of your days.”
“I do not understand,” said Don Quixote.
But one of the guards told him:
“Señor, among these non sancta people, singing when you’re in difficulty means confessing under torture. They tortured this sinner and he confessed his crime, which was rustling, or stealing livestock, and because he confessed he was sentenced to six years in the galleys, plus two hundred lashes, which he already bears on his back; he’s always very downhearted and sad because the rest of the thieves, the ones he left behind and the ones who are traveling with him, abuse and humiliate and insult him, and think very little of him, because he confessed and didn’t have the courage to say his nos. Because they say no has even fewer letters than yes, and a criminal is very lucky when his life or death depends on his own words and not on those of witnesses, or on evidence, and in my opinion, they’re not too far off the mark.”
“That is my understanding as well,” responded Don Quixote.
He passed on to the third prisoner and asked the question he had asked the others, and the man responded immediately, with great assurance, and said:
“I’m going to my ladies the gurapas for five years because I didn’t have ten gold ducados.”
“I should gladly give twenty,” said Don Quixote, “to free you from this sorrowful burden.”
“That seems to me,” responded the galley slave, “like a man who has money in the middle of the ocean and is dying of hunger and doesn’t have a place where he can buy what he needs. I say this because if I’d had those twenty ducados your grace is offering me now at the right time, I’d have greased the quill of the clerk and sharpened the wits of my attorney, and today I’d be in the middle of the Plaza de Zocodover in Toledo and not on this road, chained up like a greyhound; but God is great: all you need is patience.”
Don Quixote passed on to the fourth prisoner, a man of venerable countenance with a white beard that hung down to his chest; hearing himself asked the reason for his being there, he began to weep and did not say a word in reply; but the fifth prisoner served as his interpreter and said:
“This honest man is going to the galleys for four years, having been paraded through the usual streets in robes of state and on horseback.”2
“That, it seems to me,” said Sancho Panza, “means he was shamed in public.”
“That’s true,” replied the galley slave. “And the crime he was punished for was trading in ears, and even in entire bodies. In other words, I mean that this gentleman is going to the galleys for being a go-between,3 and for having a hint and a touch of the sorcerer about him.”
“If you had not added that hint and touch,” said Don Quixote, “for simply being an honest go-between, he does not deserve to be sent to the galleys to row, but to lead and command. Because the position of go-between is not for just anyone; it is an office for the discreet, one that is very necessary in a well-ordered nation and should not be practiced except by the wellborn; there should be supervisors and examiners of go-betweens, as there are for other professions, with a fixed number of known appointees, similar to brokers on the exchange, and in this way many evils would be avoided which are caused because this practice and profession is filled with idiotic and dim-witted people, such as foolish women, pages, and rascals with few years and little experience; when the occasion demands that they find a solution to an important problem, they allow the crumbs to freeze between their hand and their mouth and do not know their right hand from their left. I should like to continue and give reasons why it is appropriate to choose carefully those who fulfill so necessary a function in the nation, but this is not the proper place: one day I shall speak about it to someone who can remedy the situation. For now I shall say only that the sorrow caused in me at seeing this old white head and venerable face in so much distress for being a go-between is mitigated by his being a sorcerer, although I know very well there is no sorcery in the world that can move and compel our desires, as some simpleminded folk believe; our will is free, and there is no herb or spell that can force it. What certain foolish women and lying scoundrels do is prepare concoctions and poisons with which they drive men mad, claiming they have the power to make one person love another, when, as I say, it is impossible to compel desire.”
“That’s true,” said the old man, “and in fact, Señor, in the matter of sorcery I was innocent; in the matter of being a go-between, I could not deny it. But I never thought I was doing wrong: my ent
ire intention was for everybody to be happy and to live in peace and harmony, without discord or distress; but this virtuous desire did not prevent me from being sent to a place from which I do not expect to return, given the burden of my years and a urinary problem that does not give me a moment’s peace.”
And here he began to weep again, as he had earlier, and Sancho felt so much compassion for him that he took a four-real coin from inside his shirt and gave it to him as alms.
Don Quixote moved on and asked another prisoner his crime, and he responded with not less but much more spirit and wit than the previous man:
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