Don Quixote

N WHICH SANCHO PANZA GIVES A SATISFACTORY REPLY TO THE DOUBTS AND
QUESTIONS OF THE BACHELOR SAMSON CARRASCO, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MATTERS
WORTH KNOWING AND TELLING
Sancho came back to Don Quixote’s house, and returning to the late
subject of conversation, he said, “As to what Señor Samson said, that
he would like to know by whom, or how, or when my ass was stolen, I say
in reply that the same night we went into the Sierra Morena, flying
from the Holy Brotherhood after that unlucky adventure of the galley
slaves, and the other of the corpse that was going to Segovia, my
master and I ensconced ourselves in a thicket, and there, my master
leaning on his lance, and I seated on my Dapple, battered and weary
with the late frays we fell asleep as if it had been on four feather
mattresses; and I in particular slept so sound, that, whoever he was,
he was able to come and prop me up on four stakes, which he put under
the four corners of the pack-saddle in such a way that he left me
mounted on it, and took away Dapple from under me without my feeling
it.”
“That is an easy matter,” said Don Quixote, “and it is no new
occurrence, for the same thing happened to Sacripante at the siege of
Albracca; the famous thief, Brunello, by the same contrivance, took his
horse from between his legs.”

“Day came,” continued Sancho, “and the moment I stirred the stakes gave
way and I fell to the ground with a mighty come down; I looked about
for the ass, but could not see him; the tears rushed to my eyes and I
raised such a lamentation that, if the author of our history has not
put it in, he may depend upon it he has left out a good thing. Some
days after, I know not how many, travelling with her ladyship the
Princess Micomicona, I saw my ass, and mounted upon him, in the dress
of a gipsy, was that Gines de Pasamonte, the great rogue and rascal
that my master and I freed from the chain.”

“That is not where the mistake is,” replied Samson; “it is, that before
the ass has turned up, the author speaks of Sancho as being mounted on
it.”

“I don’t know what to say to that,” said Sancho, “unless that the
historian made a mistake, or perhaps it might be a blunder of the
printer’s.”

“No doubt that’s it,” said Samson; “but what became of the hundred
crowns? Did they vanish?”

To which Sancho answered, “I spent them for my own good, and my wife’s,
and my children’s, and it is they that have made my wife bear so
patiently all my wanderings on highways and byways, in the service of
my master, Don Quixote; for if after all this time I had come back to
the house without a rap and without the ass, it would have been a poor
look-out for me; and if anyone wants to know anything more about me,
here I am, ready to answer the king himself in person; and it is no
affair of anyone’s whether I took or did not take, whether I spent or
did not spend; for the whacks that were given me in these journeys were
to be paid for in money, even if they were valued at no more than four
maravedis apiece, another hundred crowns would not pay me for half of
them. Let each look to himself and not try to make out white black, and
black white; for each of us is as God made him, aye, and often worse.”

“I will take care,” said Carrasco, “to impress upon the author of the
history that, if he prints it again, he must not forget what worthy
Sancho has said, for it will raise it a good span higher.”

“Is there anything else to correct in the history, señor bachelor?”
asked Don Quixote.

“No doubt there is,” replied he; “but not anything that will be of the
same importance as those I have mentioned.”

“Does the author promise a second part at all?” said Don Quixote.

“He does promise one,” replied Samson; “but he says he has not found
it, nor does he know who has got it; and we cannot say whether it will
appear or not; and so, on that head, as some say that no second part
has ever been good, and others that enough has been already written
about Don Quixote, it is thought there will be no second part; though
some, who are jovial rather than saturnine, say, ‘Let us have more
Quixotades, let Don Quixote charge and Sancho chatter, and no matter
what it may turn out, we shall be satisfied with that.’”

“And what does the author mean to do?” said Don Quixote.

“What?” replied Samson; “why, as soon as he has found the history which
he is now searching for with extraordinary diligence, he will at once
give it to the press, moved more by the profit that may accrue to him
from doing so than by any thought of praise.”

Whereat Sancho observed, “The author looks for money and profit, does
he? It will be a wonder if he succeeds, for it will be only hurry,
hurry, with him, like the tailor on Easter Eve; and works done in a
hurry are never finished as perfectly as they ought to be. Let master
Moor, or whatever he is, pay attention to what he is doing, and I and
my master will give him as much grouting ready to his hand, in the way
of adventures and accidents of all sorts, as would make up not only one
second part, but a hundred. The good man fancies, no doubt, that we are
fast asleep in the straw here, but let him hold up our feet to be shod
and he will see which foot it is we go lame on. All I say is, that if
my master would take my advice, we would be now afield, redressing
outrages and righting wrongs, as is the use and custom of good
knights-errant.”

Sancho had hardly uttered these words when the neighing of Rocinante
fell upon their ears, which neighing Don Quixote accepted as a happy
omen, and he resolved to make another sally in three or four days from
that time. Announcing his intention to the bachelor, he asked his
advice as to the quarter in which he ought to commence his expedition,
and the bachelor replied that in his opinion he ought to go to the
kingdom of Aragon, and the city of Saragossa, where there were to be
certain solemn joustings at the festival of St. George, at which he
might win renown above all the knights of Aragon, which would be
winning it above all the knights of the world. He commended his very
praiseworthy and gallant resolution, but admonished him to proceed with
greater caution in encountering dangers, because his life did not
belong to him, but to all those who had need of him to protect and aid
them in their misfortunes.

“There’s where it is, what I abominate, Señor Samson,” said Sancho
here; “my master will attack a hundred armed men as a greedy boy would
half a dozen melons. Body of the world, señor bachelor! there is a time
to attack and a time to retreat, and it is not to be always ‘Santiago,
and close Spain!’ Moreover, I have heard it said (and I think by my
master himself, if I remember rightly) that the mean of valour lies
between the extremes of cowardice and rashness; and if that be so, I
don’t want him to fly without having good reason, or to attack when the
odds make it better not. But, above all things, I warn my master that
if he is to take me with him it must be on the condition that he is to
do all the fighting, and that I am not to be called upon to do anything
except what concerns keeping him clean and comfortable; in this I will
dance attendance on him readily; but to expect me to draw sword, even
against rascally churls of the hatchet and hood, is idle. I don’t set
up to be a fighting man, Señor Samson, but only the best and most loyal
squire that ever served knight-errant; and if my master Don Quixote, in
consideration of my many faithful services, is pleased to give me some
island of the many his worship says one may stumble on in these parts,
I will take it as a great favour; and if he does not give it to me, I
was born like everyone else, and a man must not live in dependence on
anyone except God; and what is more, my bread will taste as well, and
perhaps even better, without a government than if I were a governor;
and how do I know but that in these governments the devil may have
prepared some trip for me, to make me lose my footing and fall and
knock my grinders out? Sancho I was born and Sancho I mean to die. But
for all that, if heaven were to make me a fair offer of an island or
something else of the kind, without much trouble and without much risk,
I am not such a fool as to refuse it; for they say, too, ‘when they
offer thee a heifer, run with a halter; and ‘when good luck comes to
thee, take it in.’”

“Brother Sancho,” said Carrasco, “you have spoken like a professor;
but, for all that, put your trust in God and in Señor Don Quixote, for
he will give you a kingdom, not to say an island.”

“It is all the same, be it more or be it less,” replied Sancho; “though
I can tell Señor Carrasco that my master would not throw the kingdom he
might give me into a sack all in holes; for I have felt my own pulse
and I find myself sound enough to rule kingdoms and govern islands; and
I have before now told my master as much.”

“Take care, Sancho,” said Samson; “honours change manners, and perhaps
when you find yourself a governor you won’t know the mother that bore
you.”

“That may hold good of those that are born in the ditches,” said
Sancho, “not of those who have the fat of an old Christian four fingers
deep on their souls, as I have. Nay, only look at my disposition, is
that likely to show ingratitude to anyone?”

“God grant it,” said Don Quixote; “we shall see when the government
comes; and I seem to see it already.”

He then begged the bachelor, if he were a poet, to do him the favour of
composing some verses for him conveying the farewell he meant to take
of his lady Dulcinea del Toboso, and to see that a letter of her name
was placed at the beginning of each line, so that, at the end of the
verses, “Dulcinea del Toboso” might be read by putting together the
first letters. The bachelor replied that although he was not one of the
famous poets of Spain, who were, they said, only three and a half, he
would not fail to compose the required verses; though he saw a great
difficulty in the task, as the letters which made up the name were
seventeen; so, if he made four ballad stanzas of four lines each, there
would be a letter over, and if he made them of five, what they called
decimas or redondillas, there were three letters short; nevertheless he
would try to drop a letter as well as he could, so that the name
“Dulcinea del Toboso” might be got into four ballad stanzas.

“It must be, by some means or other,” said Don Quixote, “for unless the
name stands there plain and manifest, no woman would believe the verses
were made for her.”

They agreed upon this, and that the departure should take place in
three days from that time. Don Quixote charged the bachelor to keep it
a secret, especially from the curate and Master Nicholas, and from his
niece and the housekeeper, lest they should prevent the execution of
his praiseworthy and valiant purpose. Carrasco promised all, and then
took his leave, charging Don Quixote to inform him of his good or evil
fortunes whenever he had an opportunity; and thus they bade each other
farewell, and Sancho went away to make the necessary preparations for
their expedition.

p04e.jpg (55K)