“The one that tells about me,” said Don Quixote, “must have pleased very few.”
“Just the opposite is true; since stultorum infinitus est numerus,6 an infinite number of people have enjoyed the history, though some have found fault and failure in the author’s memory, because he forgets to tell who the thief was who stole Sancho’s donkey, for it is never stated and can only be inferred from the writing that it was stolen, and soon after that we see Sancho riding on that same donkey and don’t know how it reappears. They also say that he forgot to put in what Sancho did with the hundred escudos he found in the traveling case in the Sierra Morena, for it is never mentioned again, and there are many who wish to know what he did with them, or how he spent them, for that is one of the substantive points of error in the work.”
Sancho responded:
“I, Señor Sansón, am in no condition now to give accounts or accountings; my stomach has begun to flag, and if I don’t restore it with a couple of swallows of mellow wine, I’ll be nothing but skin and bone. I keep some at home; my missus is waiting for me; when I finish eating I’ll come back and satisfy your grace and anybody else who wants to ask questions about the loss of my donkey or the hundred escudos.”
And without waiting for a reply or saying another word, he left for his house.
Don Quixote asked and invited the bachelor to stay and eat with him. The bachelor accepted: he stayed, a couple of squab were added to the ordinary meal, chivalry was discussed at the table, Carrasco humored the knight, the banquet ended, they took a siesta, Sancho returned, and their earlier conversation was resumed.
CHAPTER IV
In which Sancho Panza satisfies Bachelor Sansón Carrasco with regard to his doubts and questions, with other events worthy of being known and recounted
Sancho came back to Don Quixote’s house, and returning to their earlier discussion, he said:
“As for what Señor Sansón said about people wanting to know who stole my donkey, and how, and when, I can answer by saying that on the same night we were running from the Holy Brotherhood, and entered the Sierra Morena after the misadventurous adventure of the galley slaves, and of the dead man being carried to Segovia, my master and I rode into a stand of trees where my master rested on his lance, and I on my donkey, and battered and tired from our recent skirmishes, we began to sleep as if we were lying on four featherbeds; I was so sound asleep that whoever the thief was could come up to me, and put me on four stakes that he propped under the four sides of my packsaddle, and leave me mounted on them, and take my donkey out from under me without my even knowing it.”
“That is an easy thing to do, and nothing new; the same thing happened to Sacripante when he was at the siege of Albraca; with that same trick the famous thief named Brunelo took his horse from between his legs.”1
“Dawn broke,” Sancho continued, “and as soon as I moved, the stakes gave way and I fell to the ground; I looked for the donkey and didn’t see him; tears filled my eyes, and I began to lament, and if the author of our history didn’t put that in, you can be sure he left out something good. After I don’t know how many days, when we were traveling with the Señora Princess Micomicona, I saw my donkey, and riding him, dressed like a Gypsy, was Ginés de Pasamonte, the lying crook that my master and I freed from the chain.”
“The error doesn’t lie there,” replied Sansón, “but in the fact that before the donkey appeared, the author says that Sancho was riding on that same animal.”
“I don’t know how to answer that,” said Sancho, “except to say that either the historian was wrong or the printer made a mistake.”
“That must be the case, no doubt about it,” said Sansón, “but what happened to the hundred escudos? Are they gone?”
“I spent them for myself, and my wife, and my children, and they are the reason my wife patiently puts up with my traveling highways and byways in the service of my master, Don Quixote; if after so much time I came back home without a blanca and without my donkey, a black future would be waiting for me; if there’s any more to know about me, here I am, and I’ll answer the king himself in person, and nobody has any reason to worry about whether I kept them or didn’t keep them, spent them or didn’t spend them; if the beatings I got on these journeys were paid for in money, even if they didn’t cost more than four maravedís a piece, another hundred escudos wouldn’t pay for half of them; so let each man put his hand over his own heart and not start judging white as black and black as white; each of us is as God made him, and often much worse.”
“I’ll be sure,” said Carrasco, “to tell the author of the history that if it has a second printing, he should not forget what our good Sancho has said, for that would elevate it a good half-span higher than it is now.”
“Is there anything else that needs to be corrected in the book, Señor Bachelor?” asked Don Quixote.
“I’m sure there is,” he responded, “but nothing as important as the ones we’ve already mentioned.”
“And by any chance,” said Don Quixote, “does the author promise a second part?”
“Yes, he does,” responded Sansón, “but he says he hasn’t found it and doesn’t know who has it, and so we don’t know if it will be published or not; for this reason, and because some people say: ‘Second parts were never very good,’ and others say: ‘What’s been written about Don Quixote is enough,’ there is some doubt there will be a second part; but certain people who are more jovial than saturnine say: ‘Let’s have more quixoticies: let Don Quixote go charging and Sancho Panza keep talking, and whatever else happens, that will make us happy.’”
“And what does the author say to all of this?”
“He says,” responded Sansón, “that as soon as he finds the history, which he is searching for with extraordinary diligence, he will immediately have it printed, for he is more interested in earning his profit than in winning any praise.”
Sancho responded to this by saying:
“The author’s interested in money and profit? I’d be surprised if he got any, because all he’ll do is rush rush rush, like a tailor on the night before a holiday, and work done in a hurry is never as perfect as it should be. Let this Moorish gentleman, or whatever he is, pay attention to what he’s doing; my master and I will give him such an abundance of adventures and so many different deeds that he’ll be able to write not just a second part, but a hundred more parts. No doubt about it, the good man must think we’re asleep here; well, just let him try to shoe us, and he’ll know if we’re lame or not. What I can say is that if my master would take my advice, we’d already be out in those fields righting wrongs and undoing injustices, which is the habit and custom of good knights errant.”
No sooner had Sancho said these words than the sound of Rocinante neighing reached their ears; Don Quixote took this as a very good omen and resolved that in three or four days he would undertake another sally, and after declaring his intention to the bachelor, he asked his advice as to the direction he should take on his journey; the bachelor responded that in his opinion, he ought to go to the kingdom of Aragón and the city of Zaragoza, where in a few days they would be holding solemn jousts for the Festival of San Jorge, and there he could win fame vanquishing all the Aragonese knights, which would be the same as vanquishing all the knights in the world. He praised his determination as being most honorable and brave and warned him to be more cautious about rushing into danger, because his life belonged not to him alone but to all those who needed him to protect and defend them in their misfortunes.
“That’s exactly what I hate most, Señor Sansón,” said Sancho. “My master goes charging at a hundred armed men like a greedy boy attacking half a dozen melons. Good Lord, Señor Bachelor! There are times to attack and times to retreat, and not everything’s ‘Charge for Santiago and Spain!’2 And besides, I’ve heard it said, I think by my master himself, if I remember correctly, that between the extremes of cowardice and recklessness lies the middle way of valor, and if this is true, I don’t
want him to run for no reason or attack when the numbers demand something else. But above all, I advise my master that if he wants to take me with him, it has to be on the condition that he’ll do all the battles and I won’t be obliged to do anything except look after his person in questions of cleanliness and food; as far as this goes, I’ll do everything he asks, but to think that I’ll raise my sword, even against lowborn scoundrels with their caps and axes, is to think something that will never happen. I, Señor Sansón, don’t plan to win fame as a valiant man but as the best and most loyal squire who ever served a knight errant; and if my master, Don Quixote, as a reward for my many good services, wants to give me one of the many ínsulas that his grace says are to be found out there, I’ll be very happy to accept it; and if he doesn’t give it to me, I’m a human being, and a man shouldn’t live depending on anybody but God; besides, bread will taste as good, and maybe even better, whether I’m a governor or not; for all I know, in those governorships the devil could have set a snare for me that will make me stumble and fall and knock out all my teeth. Sancho I was born, and Sancho I plan to die; but even so, if heaven should be so kind as to offer me, without too much trouble or risk, an ínsula or something else like that, I’m not such a fool that I’d turn it down, because, as they say: ‘When they give you a heifer, don’t forget to bring a rope,’ and ‘When good comes along, lock it in your house.’”
“You, brother Sancho,” said Carrasco, “have spoken like a university professor, but still, trust in God and in Señor Don Quixote, who will give you a kingdom, not merely an ínsula.”
“Whatever it is, it’s all the same to me,” responded Sancho, “though I can tell Señor Carrasco that my master won’t be tossing that kingdom into a sack with holes in it; I’ve taken my own pulse and I’m healthy enough to rule kingdoms and govern ínsulas, and this is something I’ve already told my master.”
“Be careful, Sancho,” said Sansón, “for offices can alter behavior, and it might be that when you are governor you won’t know the mother who bore you.”
“That’s something that may apply,” responded Sancho, “to people of low birth, but not to those who have in their souls a little of the spirit of Old Christians, like me. No, first get to know my character and then tell me if I could be ungrateful to anybody!”
“God willing,” said Don Quixote, “we shall see when the governorship comes along, for I seem to see it right before my eyes.”
Having said this, he asked the bachelor, if he was a poet, to be so kind as to compose a few verses for him that would deal with the farewell he intended to make to his lady Dulcinea of Toboso, and he said that at the beginning of each line he was to place a letter of her name, so that when one reached the last verse and read all the first letters together, it would say: Dulcinea of Toboso.
The bachelor responded that although he was not one of the famous poets of Spain, who, as people said, did not number more than three and a half, he would be sure to write the lines, although he found a great difficulty in their composition because the number of letters in her name was seventeen, and if he made four Castilian stanzas of four octosyllabic lines each, there would be one letter too many, and if he made the stanzas of five octosyllabic lines each, the ones called décimas or redondillas,3 there would be three letters too few; despite this, however he would attempt to somehow shrink one letter so that the name Dulcinea of Toboso would fit into four Castilian stanzas.
“It must fit in, however you do it,” said Don Quixote, “because if the name is not there to see, patent and obvious, no woman will believe that the verses were written for her.”
They agreed to this, and to the knight’s departing in eight days. Don Quixote asked the bachelor to keep this secret, especially from the priest and Master Nicolás, and from his niece and housekeeper, so that they would not interfere with his honorable and valiant resolve. Carrasco promised he would, and then he took his leave, asking Don Quixote to keep him informed, when possible, of all his successes and failures; and so they said goodbye, and Sancho left to make preparations for their journey.
CHAPTER V
Concerning the clever and amusing talk that passed between Sancho Panza and his wife, Teresa Panza, and other events worthy of happy memory
(When the translator1 came to write this fifth chapter, he says he thought it was apocryphal, because in it Sancho Panza speaks in a manner different from what one might expect of his limited intelligence, and says things so subtle one would not think it possible that he knew them; but the translator did not wish to omit it, for the sake of his professional obligations, and so he continued, saying:)
Sancho came home so happy and joyful that his wife could see his joy at a distance, which obliged her to ask:
“What’s the news, Sancho my friend, that makes you so happy?”
To which he responded:
“My wife, if it were God’s will, I’d be delighted not to be as happy as I appear.”
“Husband, I don’t understand you,” she replied, “and I don’t know what you mean when you say you’d be delighted, if it were God’s will, not to be happy; I may be a fool, but I don’t know how anybody can be happy not to be happy.”
“Look, Teresa,” responded Sancho, “I’m happy because I’ve decided to serve my master, Don Quixote, again, for he wants to leave a third time to seek adventures; and I’ll leave with him again, because of my need and the hope, which makes me happy, of thinking that I may find another hundred escudos like the ones that have already been spent, though it makes me sad to have to leave you and my children; and if it was God’s will to give me food with my feet dry and in my own house, not leading me through wastelands and crossroads, He could do it at very little cost and just by wanting it, then of course my happiness would be firmer and truer, for what I feel now is mixed with the sorrow of leaving you; and so, I was right to say that I would be delighted, if it was God’s will, not to be happy.”
“Look, Sancho,” replied Teresa, “ever since you became a knight errant’s servant your talk is so roundabout nobody can understand you.”
“It’s enough if God understands me, my wife,” responded Sancho, “for He understands all things, and say no more about it for now; you should know, Teresa, that you have to take special care of the donkey for the next three days, so that he’s ready to carry weapons: double his feed and look over the packsaddle and the rest of the trappings; we’re not going to a wedding but to travel the world and have our battles with giants, dragons, and monsters, and hear their hisses, roars, bellows, and shrieks, and none of that would matter very much if we didn’t have to contend with Yanguesans and enchanted Moors.”
“I do believe, my husband, that squires errant don’t get their bread for nothing, and so I’ll keep praying that Our Lord delivers you soon from so much misfortune.”
“I’ll tell you, Teresa,” responded Sancho, “that if I didn’t expect to be the governor of an ínsula before too much more time goes by, I’d fall down dead right here.”
“Not that, my husband,” said Teresa, “let the chicken live even if she has the pip; may you live, and let the devil take all the governorships there are in the world; you came out of your mother’s womb without a governorship, and you’ve lived until now without a governorship, and when it pleases God you’ll go, or they’ll carry you, to the grave without a governorship. Many people in the world live without a governorship, and that doesn’t make them give up or not be counted among the living. The best sauce in the world is hunger, and since poor people have plenty of that, they always eat with great pleasure. But look, Sancho: if you happen to find yourself a governor somewhere, don’t forget about me and your children. Remember that Sanchico is already fifteen, and he ought to go to school if his uncle the abbot is going to bring him into the Church. And don’t forget that our daughter, Mari Sancha, won’t die if we marry her; she keeps dropping hints that she wants a husband as much as you want to be a governor, and when all is said and done, a daughter’s better of
f badly married than happily kept.”
“By my faith, Teresa,” responded Sancho, “if God lets me have any kind of governorship, I’ll marry Mari Sancha so high up that nobody will be able to reach her unless they call her Señora.”
“Don’t do that, Sancho,” responded Teresa. “She should marry an equal, that’s the best thing; if you raise her from wooden clogs to cork-soled mules, from homespun petticoats to silken hoopskirts and dressing gowns, and from you, Marica to Doña and my lady, the girl won’t know who she is, and wherever she turns she’ll make a thousand mistakes and show that the threads of her cloth are rough and coarse.”
“Quiet, fool,” said Sancho, “she just needs to practice for two or three years, and then the nobility and the dignity will be a perfect fit; if not, what difference does it make? Let her be my lady, and it won’t matter.”
“Be content with your station,” responded Teresa, “and don’t try to go to a higher one; remember the proverb that says: ‘Take your neighbor’s son, wipe his nose, and bring him into your house.’ Sure, it would be very nice to marry our María to some wretch of a count or gentleman who might take a notion to insult her and call her lowborn, the daughter of peasants and spinners! Not in my lifetime, my husband! I didn’t bring up my daughter for that! You bring the money, Sancho, and leave her marrying to me; there’s Lope Tocho, the son of Juan Tocho, a sturdy, healthy boy, and we know him, and I know for a fact that he doesn’t dislike the girl; he’s our equal, and she would make a good marriage with him, and we’d always see her, and we’d all be together, parents and children, grandchildren and in-laws, and the peace and blessing of God would be with us; so don’t go marrying her in those courts and great palaces where they don’t understand her and she won’t understand herself.”
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