Don Quixote

by Miguel de Cervantes

  All these difficulties, and many others I will not mention, would cease if there were at court an intelligent and judicious person who would examine each play before it was performed, not only those produced in the capital, but also those put on anywhere in Spain, and without his approval, stamp, and signature, no magistrate anywhere would permit a play to be performed; in this fashion, the players would be careful to send their plays to court, and then they could perform them in safety, and those who write them would consider what they were doing with more thought and care, knowing that their works would have to undergo a rigorous examination by one who understands the art; in this way good plays would be written and their purposes achieved: the entertainment of the common people, the good opinion of creative minds in Spain, the legitimate interests and safety of the actors, and the avoidance of the need to punish them.

  And if another official, or this same person, were charged with examining the new books of chivalry that are written, no doubt some with the perfections your grace has mentioned would be published, thereby enriching our language with the pleasing and precious treasure of eloquence, and allowing some of the old books to be obscured by the light of the new ones that would provide virtuous entertainment, not only to the idle but to those who are most occupied, for the bow cannot always be pulled taut, and it is not in the nature of human frailty to endure without honest recreation.”

  The canon and the priest had reached this point in their conversation when the barber rode up to them and said to the priest:

  “This, Señor Licentiate, is the place I mentioned, where we can rest and the oxen can find abundant fresh grass.”

  “I agree,” responded the priest.

  He told his companion what they planned to do, and the canon decided to remain with them, for he was drawn by the sight of the beautiful valley that lay before them. In order to enjoy the valley and the conversation of the priest, for whom he had developed a liking, and to learn in more detail the deeds of Don Quixote, the canon ordered some of his servants to go to the inn that was not far away and bring back whatever they could find to eat, enough for everyone, because he had resolved to rest there that afternoon; to which one of his servants responded that the pack mule, which probably had reached the inn already, carried enough provisions so that they would have no need for anything from the inn except barley for the animals.

  “If that is true,” said the canon, “take all the animals there and bring back the pack mule.”

  In the meantime, Sancho saw that he could speak to his master without the continual presence of the priest and barber, whom he regarded with suspicion, and he rode up to the cage that carried his master and said to him:

  “Señor, I want to relieve my conscience and tell you what is going on in this matter of your enchantment; the fact is that these two riding here with their faces covered are the priest and barber from our village, and I believe they’ve come up with this way of transporting you out of sheer envy, because your deeds are more famous than theirs. If what I say is true, it means that you’re not enchanted but deceived and misled. To prove it, I want to ask you one thing, and if you answer in the way I think you’ll answer, you’ll put your finger right on the deception and see that you haven’t been enchanted but had your wits turned around.”

  “Ask what you wish, Sancho my son,” responded Don Quixote, “for I shall answer and respond as much as you desire. As for your saying that those men riding here with us are the priest and barber, it well may be that they seem to be our compatriots and friends, but you must not believe for a moment that they really and truly are. What you ought to believe and understand is that if they resemble them, as you say, it must be because those who have enchanted me have taken on their appearance and likeness, because it is easy for enchanters to assume whatever semblance they choose; they must have assumed that of our friends in order to give you a reason to think what you think and enter into a labyrinth of imaginings from which not even the cord of Theseus will help you to escape. And they also must have done this so that I would waver in my understanding and not be able to determine the origin of this calamity; if, on one hand, you tell me that I am accompanied by the barber and priest of our village, and if, on the other, I find myself in a cage and know that nothing human but only a supernatural power would be sufficient to put me in a cage, what can I say or think except that the manner of my enchantment exceeds anything I have read in all the histories that deal with knights errant who have been enchanted? Therefore you can rest easy and be assured regarding their being who you say they are, because if they really are, then I am a Turk. As for wanting to ask me something, speak, and I shall respond even if you ask me questions from now until tomorrow.”

  “By the Blessed Virgin!” responded Sancho with a great shout. “Is it possible that your grace is so thickheaded and so short on brains that you cannot see that what I’m telling you is the absolute truth, and that malice has more to do with your imprisonment and misfortune than enchantment? Even so, I’ll prove to you you’re not enchanted. Just tell me, when God frees you from this torment and you find yourself in the arms of the Señora Dulcinea when you least expect it—”

  “Enough conjuring,” said Don Quixote, “and just ask what you wish; I have already told you I shall answer everything completely.”

  “That’s all I ask,” replied Sancho, “and what I want to know is for you to tell me, without adding or taking away anything, but truthfully, which is what we expect of all those who profess arms, as your grace professes them, and who call themselves knights errant—”

  “I say that I shall not lie in anything,” responded Don Quixote. “Ask your question, for the truth is, Sancho, I am growing weary of all your vows and supplications and preambles.”

  “I say that I’m sure of my master’s goodness and truthfulness, and so I’ll ask something that goes right to the heart of the matter; speaking with respect, since your grace has been locked in the cage, enchanted, in your opinion, have you had the desire and will to pass what they call major and minor waters?”

  “I do not understand what you mean by passing waters, Sancho; speak more clearly if you want me to respond in a straightforward way.”

  “Is it possible that your grace doesn’t understand what it means to pass minor or major waters? Even schoolboys know that. Well, what I mean is, have you had the desire to do the thing nobody else can do for you?”

  “Ah, now I understand you, Sancho! Yes, I have, quite often, and even do now. Save me from this danger, for not everything is absolutely pristine!”

  CHAPTER XLIX

  Which recounts the clever conversation that Sancho Panza had with his master, Don Quixote

  “Ah!” said Sancho. “I’ve got you there: that’s what I wanted to know with all my heart and soul. Come, Señor, can you deny what people usually say when a person’s not feeling well: ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with so-and-so, he doesn’t eat, or drink, or sleep, or answer sensibly when you talk to him, he must be enchanted.’ From that you can conclude that people who don’t eat, or drink, or sleep, or do the natural things I’ve mentioned are enchanted, but not people who want to do what your grace wants to do, and who drink when someone hands them water, and eat when there’s food to be had, and answer every question that’s asked of them.”

  “What you say is true, Sancho,” responded Don Quixote, “but I have already told you that there are many forms of enchantment, and it well may be that in the course of time one sort has replaced another, and perhaps in the kinds they use nowadays those who have been enchanted do everything I do, although they did not do so before. In short, one must not argue with or draw conclusions from the custom of the day. I know and believe that I am enchanted, and that suffices to make my conscience easy, for it would weigh heavily on me if I thought I was not enchanted, and in sloth and cowardice had allowed myself to be imprisoned in this cage, depriving the helpless and weak of the assistance I could provide, for at this very moment there must be many in u
rgent need of my succor and protection.”

  “Even so,” replied Sancho, “for your greater ease and satisfaction, it would be a good idea for your grace to try to get out of this prison, and I promise I’ll do everything I can to help get your grace out and back on your good Rocinante, who also seems enchanted, he’s so melancholy and sad; and when we’ve done that, we’ll try our luck again and search for more adventures, and if things don’t go well for us, we’ll still have time to get back to the cage, where I promise, like a good and loyal squire, to lock myself up along with your grace in case your grace is so unfortunate, or I’m so simple, that we can’t manage to do what I’ve said.”

  “I am happy to do as you say, Sancho my brother,” replied Don Quixote, “and when you have the opportunity to effect my liberty, I shall obey you completely in everything, but you will see, Sancho, how mistaken you are in your understanding of my misfortune.”

  This conversation engaged the knight errant and his erring squire until they reached the spot where the priest, the canon, and the barber, who had already dismounted, were waiting for them. The driver unyoked the oxen from the cart and allowed them to roam free in that green and peaceful place whose freshness was so inviting, if not to persons as enchanted as Don Quixote, then to those as capable and clever as his squire, who pleaded with the priest to allow his master out of the cage for a while, because if they did not let him out, his prison would not be as clean as decency demanded for a knight like his master. The priest understood him and said he would gladly do as he asked if he were not afraid that as soon as his master found himself free, he would do one of those mad things so typical of him, and go away, and never be seen by anyone again.

  “I’ll guarantee that he won’t run away,” responded Sancho.

  “And I’ll guarantee that and more,” said the canon, “if he gives me his word as a gentleman and a knight that he will not go away from us until we agree he can.”

  “I do give it,” responded Don Quixote, who was listening to everything, “especially since one who is enchanted, as I am, is not free to do with his person what he might wish, because whoever enchanted him can make him stand stock still and not move from a spot for three centuries, and if he were to flee, he would be flown back through the air.”

  Since this was true, they could certainly release him, especially because it would be to everyone’s benefit, and he protested that if they did not release him, the smell would surely trouble them unless they moved a good distance away.

  The canon took one of Don Quixote’s hands, although both were tied together, and on the basis of the knight’s promise and word, they let him out of the cage, and he was infinitely and immensely happy to find himself free, and the first thing he did was to stretch his entire body, and then he went up to Rocinante, slapped him twice on the haunches, and said:

  “I still hope to God and His Blessed Mother, O flower and paragon of horses, that we soon shall see ourselves as we wish to be: you, with your master on your back, and I, mounted on you and exercising the profession for which God put me in this world.”

  And having said this, Don Quixote moved away with Sancho to a remote spot and returned much relieved and even more desirous of putting his squire’s plan into effect.

  The canon looked at him, marveling at the strangeness of his profound madness and at how he displayed a very fine intelligence when he spoke and responded to questions, his feet slipping from the stirrups, as has been said many times before, only when the subject was chivalry. And so, after everyone had sat on the green grass to wait for the provisions, the canon, moved by compassion, said to him:

  “Is it possible, Señor, that the grievous and idle reading of books of chivalry could have so affected your grace that it has unbalanced your judgment and made you believe that you are enchanted, along with other things of this nature, which are as far from being true as truth is from lies? How is it possible that any human mind could be persuaded that there has existed in the world that infinity of Amadises, and that throng of so many famous knights, so many emperors of Trebizond, so many Felixmartes of Hyrcania, so many palfreys and wandering damsels, so many serpents and dragons and giants, so many unparalleled adventures and different kinds of enchantments, so many battles and fierce encounters, so much splendid attire, so many enamored princesses and squires who are counts and dwarves who are charming, so many love letters, so much wooing, so many valiant women, and, finally, so many nonsensical matters as are contained in books of chivalry? For myself, I can say that when I read them, as long as I do not set my mind to thinking that they are all frivolous lies, I do derive some pleasure from them, but when I realize what they actually are, I throw even the best of them against the wall, and would even toss them in the fire if one were near, and think they richly deserved the punishment, for being deceptive and false and far beyond the limits of common sense, like the founders of new sects and new ways of life, and for giving the ignorant rabble a reason to believe and consider as true all the absurdities they contain.

  They are so audacious, they dare perturb the minds of judicious and wellborn gentlemen, as can be plainly seen in what they have done to your grace, for they have brought you to the point where it has been necessary to lock you in a cage and carry you on an oxcart as if you were a lion or tiger being transported from town to town so that people could pay to see you. Come, come, Señor Don Quixote, take pity on yourself! Return to the bosom of good sense, and learn to use the considerable intelligence that heaven was pleased to give you, and devote your intellectual talents to another kind of reading that redounds to the benefit of your conscience and the increase of your honor! And if, following your natural inclination, you still wish to read books about great chivalric deeds, read Judges in Holy Scripture, and there you will find magnificent truths and deeds both remarkable and real. Lusitania had a Viriato,1 Rome had a Caesar, Carthage a Hannibal, Greece an Alexander, Castilla a Count Fernán González,2 Valencia a Cid, Andalucía a Gonzalo Fernández,3 Extremadura a Diego García de Paredes,4 Jerez a Garcí Pérez de Vargas,5 Toledo a Garcilaso,6 Sevilla a Don Manuel de León.7 Reading about their valorous deeds can entertain, instruct, delight, and astonish the highest minds. This would certainly be a study worthy of your grace’s intelligence, Señor Don Quixote, and from it you would emerge learned in history, enamored of virtue, instructed in goodness, improved in your customs, valiant but not rash, bold and not cowardly, and all of this would honor God, and benefit you, and add to the fame of La Mancha where, I have learned, your grace has his origin and birthplace.”

  Don Quixote listened very attentively to the canon’s words, and when he saw that he had concluded, he looked at him for a long time and said:

  “It seems to me, Señor, that the intention of your grace’s discourse has been to persuade me that there have been no knights errant in the world, and that all the books of chivalry are false, untrue, harmful, and of no value to the nation, and that I have done wrong to read them, and worse to believe them, and worse yet to imitate them by setting myself the task of following the extremely difficult profession of knight errantry which they teach, and you deny that there ever were Amadises in the world, whether of Gaul or of Greece, or any of the other knights that fill the writings.”

  “That is precisely what I meant; what you have said is absolutely correct,” said the canon.

  To which Don Quixote responded:

  “Your grace also said that these books have done me a good deal of harm, for they turned my wits and put me in a cage, and it would be better for me to alter and change my reading and devote myself to books that are truer and more pleasant and more instructive.”

  “That is true,” said the canon.

  “Well, then,” replied Don Quixote, “it is my opinion that the one who is deranged and enchanted is your grace, for you have uttered so many blasphemies against something so widely accepted in the world as true that whoever denies it, as your grace has done, deserves the same punishment that your grace says you giv
e to books when you read them and they anger you. Because wanting to convince anyone that there was no Amadís in the world or any of the adventuring knights who fill the histories, is the same as trying to persuade that person that the sun does not shine, ice is not cold, and the earth bears no crops, for what mind in the world can persuade another that the story of Princess Floripes and Guy de Bourgogne is not true, or the tale of Fierabrás and the Bridge of Mantible, which occurred in the time of Charlemagne, and is as true as the fact that it is now day?8 If that is a lie, it must also be true that there was no Hector, no Achilles, no Trojan War, no Twelve Peers of France, no King Arthur of England who was transformed into a crow and whose return is awaited in his kingdom to this day. Who will go so far as to say that the history of Guarino Mezquino is false,9 and the search for the Holy Grail, and that the loves of Don Tristan and Queen Iseult, and those of Guinevere and Lancelot, are apocryphal, even though there are persons who can almost remember having seen the Duenna Quintañona,10 who was the greatest pourer of wine in Great Britain? And this is so true that I remember my paternal grandmother saying, whenever she saw a lady with a formal headdress: ‘My boy, she looks like the Duenna Quintañona.’ And from this I argue that she must have known her, or at least seen a portrait of her. And who can deny the truth of the history of Pierres and the beautiful Magalona,11 for even today one can see in the royal armory the peg, slightly larger than a carriage pole, with which the valiant Pierres directed the wooden horse as he rode it through the air. And next to the peg is the saddle of Babieca, and at Roncesvalles there is Roland’s horn, the size of a large rafter, from which one can infer that there were Twelve Peers, and a Pierres, and a Cid, and other knights like them: