Don Quixote

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

  "Oh, well, if none of you understand me," responded Sancho, "it's no wonder my sayings are taken for nonsense. But it doesn't matter: I understand what I'm saying, and I know there's not much foolishness in what I said, but your grace is always sentencing what I say, and even what I do."

  "Censuring is what you should say," said Don Quixote, "and not sentencing, you corrupter of good language, may God confound you!"

  "Your grace shouldn't get angry with me," responded Sancho, "because you know I didn't grow up at court or study at Salamanca, so how would I know if I'm adding or taking away letters from my words? God save me! You can't force a Sayagan to talk like a Toledan,2 and there may be some Toledans who don't talk better than anybody else."

  "That's true," said the licentiate, "because those who grew up in Tenerias and in Zocodover cannot speak as well as those who spend almost the entire day strolling in the cloister of the cathedral, and all of them are Toledans. Pure language, appropriate, elegant, and clear, is used by discerning courtiers even if they were born in Majalahonda.3 I said discerning, because there are many who are not, and discernment is the grammar of good language, which is acquired with use. I, Senores, for my sins, have studied canon law at Salamanca and am rather proud of speaking with words that are clear, plain, and meaningful."

  "If you hadn't been prouder of how you move those foils you're carrying than of how you wag your tongue," said the other student, whose name was Corchuelo, "maybe you would have placed first for your licentiate instead of last."

  "Look, Bachelor," responded the licentiate, "you hold the most erroneous opinion in the world about skill with the sword, since you consider it useless."

  "As far as I'm concerned, it's not an opinion but an established truth," replied Corchuelo, "and if you would like me to prove it to you experientially, you're carrying the foils, there's a convenient spot, I have a steady hand, and strength, and together with my courage, which is no small thing, they will make you confess that I am not mistaken. Dismount, and use your changes of posture, your circles, your angles, and your science; I expect to make you see stars at midday with my crude, modern skills, and after God I put my trust in them, and there's no man born who will make me turn away, and none in the world whom I can't force to retreat."4

  "I won't get involved in questions of turning or not turning away," replied the master swordsman, "though it might be that on the spot where you first set your foot, your grave will open wide: I mean, that you'll be lying dead there on account of the mastery you despise so much."

  "Now we'll see," responded Corchuelo.

  And he dismounted his donkey with great agility and furiously seized one of the foils that the licentiate was carrying on his animal.

  "It should not be this way," said Don Quixote at that moment, "for I wish to be the master of this duel and the judge of this question so frequently left unresolved."

  And after dismounting Rocinante and grasping his lance, he stood in the middle of the road, at the same time that the licentiate, with spirited grace and measured steps, was advancing on Corchuelo, who came toward him, his eyes, as the saying goes, blazing. The two peasants who had accompanied them did not dismount their donkeys, but served as spectators to the mortal tragedy. The innumerable lunges, slashes, downward thrusts, reverse strokes, and two-handed blows executed by Corchuelo were denser than liver and more minute than hail. He attacked like an angry lion but was met with a blow to the mouth by the tip of the licentiate's foil, which stopped him in the middle of his fury, and which he had to kiss as if it were a relic, though not as devotedly as relics should be kissed, and usually are.

  Finally, the licentiate's lunges accounted for all the buttons on the short cassock the bachelor was wearing and slashed its skirts into the arms of an octopus; twice he knocked off his hat, and tired him so much that in fury, anger, and rage the bachelor seized his foil by the hilt and threw it into the air with so much force that one of the peasants, who was a notary, went to retrieve it and subsequently testified that it had flown almost three-quarters of a league, and this testimony serves and has served to demonstrate and prove the truth that force is vanquished by art.

  Corchuelo sat down, exhausted, and Sancho approached him and said:

  "By my faith, Senor Bachelor, if your grace will take my advice, from now on you won't challenge anybody to a duel, but to wrestling or hurling the bar, since you're young enough and strong enough for that, because I've heard that the ones they call master swordsmen can put the tip of their sword through the eye of a needle."

  "I'm happy," responded Corchuelo, "that I fell off my high horse, and that experience has shown me a truth I refused to acknowledge."

  And, standing up, he embraced the licentiate, and they were better friends than before; and not wanting to wait for the notary who had gone after the foil because it seemed it would take too long, they resolved to continue on their way in order to reach Quiteria's village early, for that is where all of them were from.

  For the rest of their journey the licentiate told them about the excellencies of the sword, with so many demonstrations and figures and mathematical proofs that all of them were well-informed regarding the virtues of the science, and Corchuelo's obstinacy was overcome.

  It was dusk, but before they arrived it seemed to everyone that the village sky was filled with innumerable brilliant stars. They also heard the sweet, confused sounds of various instruments, such as flutes, tambors, psalteries, flageolets, tambourines, and timbrels, and when they came close they saw that a bower of trees, erected at the entrance to the village, was filled with lights, which were not disturbed by the wind that was blowing so gently it did not have the strength to move the leaves on the trees. The musicians were the entertainers at the wedding, and in various bands they wandered around that pleasant spot, some of them dancing, others singing, and still others playing the variety of aforementioned instruments. In fact, it seemed that in the meadow joy was dancing and happiness leaping.

  Many other people were busy raising platforms where, on the following day, plays and dances could be comfortably viewed when they were performed in that place dedicated to solemnizing the marriage of rich Camacho and the funeral rites of Basilio. Don Quixote did not want to enter the village, though both the peasant and the bachelor asked him to, but he gave as an excuse, which seemed more than sufficient to him, that it was the custom of knights errant to sleep in fields and forests rather than in towns, even under gilded ceilings; and saying this, he went a little way off the road, much against the will of Sancho, who remembered the fine accommodations he had enjoyed in the castle or house of Don Diego.

  CHAPTER XX

  Which recounts the wedding of rich Camacho, as well as what befell poor Basilio

  No sooner had fair-complexioned dawn allowed bright Phoebus, with the ardor of his burning rays, to dry the liquid pearls of her golden tresses, than Don Quixote, shaking idleness from his limbs, rose to his feet and called to his squire, Sancho, who was still snoring; and Don Quixote saw this, and before he woke him he said:

  "O thou, more fortunate than all those who live on the face of the earth, for thou dost not envy nor art thou envied, and thou sleepest with a tranquil spirit, and thou art not pursued by enchanters, nor art thou alarmed by enchantments! Thou sleepest, I say it again and shall say it a hundred times more, without jealousy of thy lady keeping thee continually awake, nor thoughts of how to pay the debts thou owest, nor what thou must do to feed thyself and thy small, anguished family for another day. Ambition doth not disturb thee, nor doth the vain pomp of the world trouble thee, for the limits of thy desires extendeth not beyond caring for thy donkey; thou hast placed care for thine own person on my shoulders, a weight and a burden that nature and custom hath given to masters. The servant sleepeth, and the master standeth watch, thinking of how he may sustain him, and improve him, and grant him favors. The anguish of seeing the sky turning to bronze and not giving succor to the earth with needed dew doth not afflict the servant but the
master, who must sustain in barrenness and hunger the one who served in fertility and plenty."

  Sancho did not respond to any of this because he was asleep, and he would not have awakened very quickly if Don Quixote, with the blunt end of his lance, had not brought him back to consciousness. He awoke, finally, sleepy and lazy, and turning his head in every direction, he said:

  "Coming from the direction of that bower, if I'm not mistaken, there's an aroma that smells much more like a roasted side of bacon than reeds and thyme: by my faith, weddings that begin with smells like this must be plentiful and generous."

  "Enough, you glutton," said Don Quixote. "Come, we shall go to this ceremony to see what the scorned Basilio will do."

  "No matter what he does, what he'd like," responded Sancho, "is not to be poor and to marry Quiteria. He doesn't have a cuarto and he wants to rise up above the clouds? By my faith, Senor, I think a poor man should be content with whatever he finds and not go asking for the moon. I bet an arm that Camacho can bury Basilio in reales, and if that's true, as it must be, Quiteria would be a fool to give up the fine gifts and jewels that Camacho must have given her already, and still can give her, for the way Basilio hurls the bar and fences. A good throw and some nice swordplay won't get you a half-liter of wine at the tavern. Talents and skills that can't be sold are fine for Count Dirlos,1 but when those talents fall to somebody who has good money, then that's the life I'd like to have. With a good foundation you can build a good building, and the best foundation and groundwork in the world is money."

  "For the love of God, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that's enough of your harangue. I really believe that if you were allowed to go on with the ones you are constantly beginning, you would not have time to eat or sleep: you would spend all of it talking."

  "If your grace had a good memory," replied Sancho, "you'd remember the provisions of our agreement before we left home this last time: one of them was that you'd have to let me talk all I wanted as long as I didn't say anything against my neighbor or your grace's authority, and so far it seems to me I haven't disobeyed that provision."

  "I do not remember, Sancho," responded Don Quixote, "any such provision, and since that is so, I want you to be quiet and come along now; the instruments we heard last night again gladden the valleys, and no doubt the wedding will be celebrated in the coolness of the morning, not in the heat of the afternoon."

  Sancho did as his master commanded and placed the saddle on Rocinante and the packsaddle on the donkey; the two men mounted, and at an unhurried pace, they rode under the bower.

  The first thing that appeared before Sancho's eyes was an entire steer on a roasting spit made of an entire elm; and in the fire where it was to roast, a fair-size mountain of wood was burning, and six pots that were placed around the fire were not made in the common mold of other pots, because these were six huge cauldrons, each one large enough to hold the contents of an entire slaughterhouse: they contained and enclosed entire sheep, which sank out of view as if they were doves; the hares without their skins and the chickens without their feathers that were hanging from the trees, waiting to be buried in the cauldrons, were without number; the various kinds of fowl and game hanging from the trees to cool in the breeze were infinite.

  Sancho counted more than sixty wineskins, each one holding more than two arrobas, 2 and all of them filled, as was subsequently proven, with excellent wines; there were also mounds of snowy white loaves of bread, heaped up like piles of wheat on the threshing floor; cheeses, crisscrossed like bricks, formed a wall; and two kettles of oil larger than a dyer's vats were used to fry rounds of dough, which were then removed with two strong paddles and plunged into another kettle filled with honey that stood nearby.

  The cooks, male and female, numbered more than fifty, all of them devoted, diligent, and contented. Twelve small, tender suckling pigs were sewn into the expanded belly of the steer to give it flavor and make it tender. The various spices seemed to have been bought not by the pound but by the arroba, and all of them were clearly visible in a large chest. In short, the provisions for the wedding were rustic, but so abundant they could have fed an army.

  Sancho Panza observed everything, and contemplated everything, and felt affection for everything. First, his desire was captivated and conquered by the cauldrons, from which he gladly would have filled a medium-size pot; then his affections were won over by the wineskins; finally, the fruits of the skillet, if one could call the big-bellied kettles skillets; and so, when he could bear it no longer, and it was not in his power to do anything else, he approached one of the diligent cooks and in courteous and hungry terms asked to be allowed to dip a crust of bread into one of those cauldrons. To which the cook responded:

  "Brother, thanks to rich Camacho, hunger has no jurisdiction today. Dismount and see if you can find a ladle, and skim off a chicken or two, and hearty appetite to you."

  "I don't see one," responded Sancho.

  "Wait," said the cook. "Lord save me, but what a squeamish, fussy fellow you must be!"

  And having said this, he seized a pot and dipped it into one of the cauldrons, then took out three chickens and two geese and said to Sancho:

  "Eat, my friend, and break your fast with these skimmings until it's time to eat."

  "I don't have anything to put them in," responded Sancho.

  "Then take everything, the pot and all," said the cook, "for the riches and the happiness of Camacho will overlook that."

  While Sancho was engaged in these matters, Don Quixote watched as some twelve farmers, dressed in their best holiday clothes and mounted on twelve beautiful mares decked out in rich and colorful rustic trappings, with a good number of bells on the breast straps of their harnesses, rode under the bower; in an orderly troop they galloped not once but many times around the meadow, joyfully crying and shouting:

  "Long live Camacho and Quiteria! He's as rich as she's fair, and she's the fairest in the world!"

  Hearing which, Don Quixote said to himself:

  "It certainly seems that they have not seen my Dulcinea of Toboso, for if they had, they would restrain their praises of Quiteria."

  A short while later, many different groups of dancers began to come under the bower, among them one performing a sword dance with twenty-four young men of gallant and spirited appearance, all dressed in thin white linen and wearing head scarves of fine, multicolored silk; one of the men mounted on mares asked their leader, an agile youth, if any of the dancers had been hurt.

  "So far, thank God, nobody's been hurt: we're all fine."

  And then he began to wind his way among his companions, twisting and turning with so much skill that although Don Quixote had seen many such dances, he had never seen one as good as this.

  He also liked another group that came in, composed of beautiful young maidens, none younger than fourteen, none older than eighteen, all dressed in fine green cloth, their hair partly braided and partly hanging loose, and so blond it could compete with the rays of the sun; and in their hair they wore garlands made of jasmine, roses, amaranth, and honeysuckle. They were led by a venerable old man and an ancient matron, more agile and nimble than their years would lead one to expect. Their music was played by a Zamoran bagpipe, and the maidens, with modesty in their eyes and on their faces, and with agility in their feet, showed themselves to be the best dancers in the world.

  Behind them came another troop in an ingenious dance, the kind that is called a spoken dance. It consisted of eight nymphs, divided into two lines: at the head of one line was the god Cupid, and at the head of the other, Interest, the former adorned with wings, a bow, and a quiver of arrows, the latter dressed in richly colored silks and gold. The nymphs who followed Love had their names, written on white parchment in large letters, on their backs. Poetry was the name of the first, Discretion the name of the second, the third was called Good Lineage, and the fourth Valor. Those who followed Interest were identified in the same fashion: Liberality was the name of the first, Gifts the name of
the second, the third was called Treasure, and the fourth Peaceful Ownership. At the head of all of them came a wooden castle, drawn by four savages dressed in ivy and green-dyed hemp and looking so natural they almost frightened Sancho. On the main facade of the castle, and on all four of its sides, was written The Castle of Caution. Their music was played on the timbrel and flute by four skilled musicians.

  Cupid began the dance, and having completed two figures, he raised his eyes and shot an arrow at a maiden standing on the parapets of the castle, saying:

  I am a god most powerful

  in the air and on the land

  and the wide, wind-driven sea,

  and in the fiery pit

  and the fearful hell it contains.

  Fear's something I've never known;

  whatever I wish I can do,

  though it may well be impossible;

  in the realm of the possible I rule,

  and give and take away at will.

  He finished the strophe, shot an arrow over the castle, and returned to his place. Then Interest came forward and executed another two figures; the timbrels fell silent, and he said:

  I am mightier than Love,

  though it is Love who guides me;

  I am of the finest stock,

  the best known and the noblest,

  that heaven breeds on earth.

  I am Interest, and for my sake

  few men do the deeds they should,

  though deeds sans me are miracles;

  I swear my devotion to you

  forever, world without end, amen.

  Interest stepped back, Poetry came forward, and after performing her figures as the others had, she turned her eyes toward the maiden of the castle and said:

  In conceits most sweet and high,

  noble, solemn, and discreet,

  gentle Poetry, my lady,

  sends her soul to you in lines

  found in a thousand new sonnets.

  If my pleas and constant prayers