Don Quixote

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

  'Think about what you are saying, Licentiate, don't let the devil deceive you,' replied the madman. 'Keep your feet still, and stay peacefully in your house, and you'll save yourself the trouble of having to come back.'

  'I know I am cured,' replied the licentiate, 'and will not have to do any of this again.'

  'You, cured?' said the madman. 'Well, well, time will tell; go with God, but I vow by Jupiter, whose majesty I represent on earth, that on account of the sin that Sevilla commits today by taking you out of this madhouse and calling you sane, I must inflict on her a punishment so severe that its memory will endure for all eternity, amen. And don't you know, you miserable little licentiate, that I can do it? For, as I have said, I am Jupiter the Thunderer, and in my hands I hold the flaming thunderbolts with which I can threaten and destroy the world. But I wish to punish this ignorant city with only one thing: I will not rain on it or its environs for three whole years, which will be counted from the day and hour when the threat was made. You free, and healthy, and sane, while I am mad, and sick, and confined...? I would just as soon rain as hang myself.'

  Those who were nearby heard the shouts and the words of the madman, but our licentiate, turning to the chaplain and grasping his hands, said:

  'Your grace should not be concerned by or pay attention to what this madman has said, for if he is Jupiter and does not wish to rain, I, who am Neptune, father and god of waters, shall rain whenever I please and whenever it is necessary.'

  To which the chaplain replied:

  'Even so, Senor Neptune, it would not be a good idea to anger Senor Jupiter; your grace should stay in your house, and another day, when it is more convenient and there is more time, we shall come back for your grace.'

  The superintendent and the bystanders all laughed, and their laughter mortified the chaplain; they stripped the licentiate, who remained in the madhouse, and that was the end of the story."

  "Well, Senor Barber, this is the story," said Don Quixote, "so much to the point that you had to tell it? Ah, Senor Shaver, Senor Shaver, how blind must one be not to see through a sieve? Is it possible your grace does not know that comparisons of intelligence, or valor, or beauty, or lineage are always hateful and badly received? I, Senor Barber, am not Neptune, the god of waters, nor do I attempt to persuade anyone that I am clever when I am not; I only devote myself to making the world understand its error in not restoring that happiest of times when the order of knight errantry was in flower. But our decadent age does not deserve to enjoy the good that was enjoyed in the days when knights errant took it as their responsibility to bear on their own shoulders the defense of kingdoms, the protection of damsels, the safeguarding of orphans and wards, the punishment of the proud, and the rewarding of the humble. Most knights today would rather rustle in damasks, brocades, and the other rich fabrics of their clothes than creak in chain mail; no longer do knights sleep in the fields, subject to the rigors of heaven, wearing all their armor from head to foot; no longer does anyone, with his feet still in the stirrups and leaning on his lance, catch forty winks, as they say, as the knights errant used to do. No longer does anyone ride out of this forest and into those mountains, and from there tread upon a bare and desolate beach, the sea most often stormy and tempestuous, and find along the shore a small boat without oars, sail, mast, or any kind of rigging, and with intrepid heart climb in and give himself over to the implacable waves of the deepest ocean, which first raise him up to heaven and then toss him into the abyss; and, with his breast turned to the insurmountable storm, when he least expects it he finds himself more than three thousand leagues distant from the place where he embarked, and he leaps out of the boat onto a distant unknown land, and there things occur that are worthy of being written not on parchment, but bronze.

  Now, however, sloth triumphs over diligence, idleness over work, vice over virtue, arrogance over valor, and theory over the practice of arms, which lived and shone only in the Golden Age and in the time of the knights errant. If you do not agree, then tell me: who was more virtuous and valiant than the famed Amadis of Gaul? Who more intelligent than Palmerin of England? Who more accommodating and good-natured than Tirant lo Blanc? Who more gallant than Lisuarte of Greece? Who more combative with the sword than Don Belianis? Who more intrepid than Perion of Gaul, or more audacious in the face of danger than Felixmarte of Hyrcania, or more sincere than Esplandian? Who bolder than Don Cirongilio of Thrace? Who more courageous than Rodamonte? Who more prudent than King Sobrino? Who more daring than Reinaldos? Who more invincible than Roland? And who more elegant and courteous than Ruggiero, from whom the modern-day Dukes of Ferrara are descended, according to Turpin in his Cosmography? All these knights, and many others I could mention, Senor Priest, were knights errant, the light and glory of chivalry. They, or knights like them, are the ones I would like for my scheme; if they were part of it, His Majesty would be well served and save a good deal of money, and the Turk would be left tearing his beard; therefore I shall remain in my house, since the chaplain has not taken me out of it, and if his Jupiter, as the barber has said, does not rain, here am I, and I shall rain whenever I please. I say this so that Senor Basin will know I understand him."

  "The truth is, Senor Don Quixote," said the barber, "this is not why I told the story, and as God is my witness my intentions were good, and your grace should not be offended."

  "I know very well," responded Don Quixote, "whether or not I should be offended."

  At this juncture the priest said:

  "Although I have hardly said a word until now, I should like to express some misgivings that are gnawing and scratching at my conscience, and were caused by what Senor Don Quixote said here."

  "The Senor Priest has permission for many things," responded Don Quixote, "and so he may state his misgivings, for it is not pleasant to have a conscience filled with them."

  "Well, having received this approval," responded the priest, "I say that these are my misgivings: I am not at all convinced that this crowd of knights errant to whom your grace, Senor Don Quixote, has referred, were really and truly persons of flesh and blood who lived in the world; rather, I imagine they are all fiction, fable, falsehood--dreams told by men when they are awake, or, I should say, half-asleep."

  "That is another error," responded Don Quixote, "into which many have fallen: they do not believe that such knights ever existed in the world, and with a variety of people and on different occasions, I have often attempted to bring this common misconception into the light of truth; sometimes I have not succeeded in my intention, and at other times I have, supporting it on the shoulders of truth, and this truth is so certain I can almost say I have seen Amadis of Gaul with my own eyes: tall, with a pale face and nicely trimmed black beard and a gaze both gentle and severe, he was a man of few words, slow to anger and quick to put aside wrath; and just as I have depicted Amadis, I could, I believe, portray and describe all the knights errant who wander through all the histories in the world, because it is my understanding that they were just as their histories recount, and by means of the deeds they performed and the circumstances in which they lived, and by using sound philosophy, one can deduce their features, their natures, and their stature."

  "Then how tall does your grace, Senor Don Quixote," asked the barber, "think the giant Morgante was?"

  "In the matter of giants," responded Don Quixote, "there are different opinions as to whether or not they ever existed in the world, but Holy Scripture, which cannot deviate an iota from the truth, shows us that they did by telling us the history of that huge Philistine Goliath, whose stature was seven and a half cubits, which is inordinately tall. And on the island of Sicily, shin bones and shoulder bones have been discovered which are so large that it is clear they belonged to giants as tall as a tall tower; geometry proves this truth beyond any doubt. But despite all this, I could not say with certainty how big Morgante was, though I imagine he was not very tall; I am of this opinion because in his history, when there is particular mention of his de
eds, he often was sleeping under a roof, and since he could find a house large enough to hold him, it is obvious his size was not exceptional."

  "That is true," said the priest, who enjoyed hearing so much foolishness, and asked his feelings with regard to the appearance of Reinaldos de Montalban, Don Roland, and the other Twelve Peers of France, for they all had been knights errant.

  "With respect to Reinaldos," responded Don Quixote, "I daresay his face was broad and ruddy, his eyes merry and rather prominent, his temperament excessively punctilious and choleric, and that he was a friend of thieves and other dissolute people. With respect to Roland, or Roldan, or Rotolando, or Orlando, for he is called all these names in the histories, I believe and declare that he was of medium height, broad-shouldered, somewhat bowlegged, with a dark complexion and a blond beard, a hairy body and a threatening demeanor, a man of few words but very courteous and well-bred."

  "If Roland was not more of a gentleman than your grace has indicated," replied the priest, "it is not surprising that Senora Angelica the Fair scorned him and left him for the elegance, spirit, and charm that the downy-cheeked Moorish lad to whom she gave herself must have possessed, and she was wise to fall madly in love with Medoro's gentleness rather than Roland's harshness."

  "Angelica, Senor Priest," responded Don Quixote, "was a pleasure-seeker, a gadabout, and a somewhat capricious damsel, and she left the world as full of her impertinences as it was filled with the fame of her beauty: she scorned a thousand brave and intelligent gentlemen, and was satisfied with a little beardless page who had no property or name other than a reputation for gratitude because of his loyalty to a friend. The great singer of her beauty, the famous Ariosto, did not dare or wish to sing what happened to the lady after she so ruinously gave herself to Medoro, for they could not have been overly virtuous things, and he left her at the point where he says:

  And of how she gained the scepter of Cathay,

  perhaps another will sing in a better style.3

  And no doubt this was a kind of prophecy; poets are called vates, which means they are soothsayers. This truth can be clearly seen because since then a famous Andalusian poet wept over and sang of her tears, and another famous and unique Castilian poet sang of her beauty."4

  "Tell me, Senor Don Quixote," said the barber, "among all those who praised her, hasn't there ever been a poet who wrote a satire of this Senora Angelica?"5

  "I do believe," responded Don Quixote, "that if Sacripante or Roland had been poets, they would already have reprimanded the damsel as she deserved, because it is right and natural for poets who have been scorned and rejected by their imagined ladies, or by the imagined ladies of the characters they have created in their works, whom they have chosen as the mistresses of their thoughts, to take their revenge with satires and attacks, a revenge most certainly unworthy of generous hearts; but until now I have not heard of a single verse attacking Senora Angelica, who turned the world upside down."

  "Miraculous!" said the priest.

  And at this point they heard the housekeeper and niece, who had already abandoned the conversation, shouting in the courtyard, and they all hurried to the site of the noise.

  CHAPTER II

  Which deals with the notable dispute that Sancho Panza had with Don Quixote's niece and housekeeper, as well as other amusing topics

  Our history recounts that the cries heard by Don Quixote, the priest, and the barber came from the niece and housekeeper and were directed at Sancho Panza, who was struggling to come in to see Don Quixote, while they barred his way, shouting:

  "What does this vagabond want in our house? Go back home, brother, for you and nobody else lead our master astray and lure him out of his house and take him to those godforsaken places."

  To which Sancho responded:

  "Housekeeper from hell, the one who's lured and led astray and taken to godforsaken places is me, not your master; he led me everywhere, and you two are deceived and are blaming the wrong person; he lured me out of my house with tricks and lies, promising me an insula that I'm still waiting for."

  "I hope you choke on those damned insulas, Sancho, you wretch," responded the niece. "And what are insulas? Something to eat, you greedy glutton?"

  "It's not something to eat," replied Sancho, "but something to govern and rule better than any town council or magistrate in criminal court."

  "Even so," said the housekeeper, "you won't come in, you bag of evil and sack of wickedness. Go and govern your own house and work your parcel of land and stop trying to rule insulas or insulos or whatever you call them."

  The priest and the barber were delighted to hear this three-way conversation, but Don Quixote, fearful that Sancho would blurt out and disclose a quantity of malicious nonsense and touch on points that would not redound to his credit, called to him and made the two women be quiet and allow him to enter. Sancho came in, and the priest and the barber took their leave of Don Quixote, in despair over his health, for they saw how fixed his foolish ideas were and how enthralled he was by the nonsense of his calamitously errant chivalry; and so, the priest said to the barber:

  "You'll see, compadre, that when we least expect it, our gentleman will leave again and beat the bushes, putting all the birds to flight."

  "I have no doubt about that," responded the barber, "but I'm not as astounded by the madness of the knight as I am by the simplicity of the squire, who has so much faith in the story of the insula that I don't believe all the disappointments imaginable will ever get it out of his head."

  "May God help them," said the priest, "and let us be on the alert: we'll see where all the foolishness in this knight and squire will lead, because it seems as if both were made from the same mold, and that the madness of the master, without the simplicity of the servant, would not be worth anything."

  "That's true," said the barber, "and I'd certainly like to know what they're talking about now."

  "I assure you," responded the priest, "that the niece or the housekeeper will tell us later, because they're not the kind not to eavesdrop."

  In the meantime, Don Quixote had taken Sancho into his room and closed the door, and when they were alone, he said:

  "It grieves me, Sancho, that you have said and still say that I lured you away, knowing that I did not remain in my own house; we went out together, we left together, and we traveled together; together we shared a single fortune and a single fate: if you were tossed in a blanket once, I was battered and bruised a hundred times, and that is the one advantage I have over you."

  "That was right and proper," responded Sancho, "because, according to your grace, misfortunes afflict knights errant more than their squires."

  "You are wrong, Sancho," said Don Quixote. "As the saying goes, Quando caput dolet--"

  "I don't understand any language but my own," responded Sancho.

  "I mean," said Don Quixote, "that when the head aches, all the other members ache, too; since I am your lord and master, I am your head, and you my part, for you are my servant; for this reason, the evil that touches or may touch me will cause you pain, and yours will do the same to me."

  "That's how it should be," said Sancho, "but when they tossed me, a member, in the blanket, my head was behind the fence watching me fly through the air and not feeling any pain at all; since the members are obliged to suffer the pains of the head, the head should be obliged to feel their pains, too."

  "Do you mean to say, Sancho," responded Don Quixote, "that I felt no pain when you were tossed in the blanket? If that is what you mean, do not say it and do not think it, for at the time I felt more pain in my spirit than you did in your body. But let us put that aside for now; there will be time for us to ponder this and draw the proper conclusion; tell me, Sancho my friend: what are people saying about me in the village? What opinion of me do the commoners have, and the gentlefolk, and the knights? What do they say about my valor, my deeds, and my courtesy? What is the talk with regard to my undertaking to revive and bring back to the world the forgott
en order of chivalry? In short, Sancho, I want you to tell me what has reached your ears regarding this, and you must tell me without adding anything to the good or taking anything away from the bad, for it is fitting that loyal vassals tell the exact and unvarnished truth to their lords, not swelling it because of adulation or allowing any other idle considerations to lessen it; and I want you to know, Sancho, that if the naked truth, bare of flattery, were to reach the ears of princes, the times would be different and other ages would be deemed to be of iron when compared to our own, which, I believe, would be considered golden. Heed this warning, Sancho, and with good sense and intentions bring to my ears the truth of what you know in response to what I have asked you."

  "I will do that very gladly, Senor," responded Sancho, "on the condition that your grace will not be angry at what I say, since you want me to tell the naked truth and not dress it in any clothes except the ones it was wearing when I heard it."

  "Under no circumstances shall I be angry," responded Don Quixote. "You may certainly speak freely, Sancho, without evasions."

  "Well, the first thing I'll say," he said, "is that the common people think your grace is a great madman, and that I'm just as great a simpleton. The gentry say you have not stayed within the bounds of being a gentleman and have called yourself Don 1 and rushed into being a knight when you have just a vine or two and a couple of fields and nothing but rags on your back. The knights say they wouldn't want the minor gentry to compete with them, especially those squirish gentlefolk who polish their shoes with lampblack and mend their black stockings with green thread."

  "That," said Don Quixote, "has nothing to do with me, because I am always well-dressed, and never in patches; my clothes may be frayed, but more by my armor than by time."

  "As for your grace's valor, courtesy, deeds, and undertakings," Sancho continued, "there are different opinions. Some say, 'Crazy, but amusing'; others, 'Brave, but unfortunate'; and others, 'Courteous, but insolent'; and they go on and on so much in this vein that they don't leave an untouched bone in your grace's body or mine."