Chap. XVI Of the Bristly Adventure in Which Don Quixote Was Involved
The night was a little dark; for, although the moon was in the heavens, she was invisible to the people of our hemisphere, Madam Diana having taken a trip to the Antipodes, and left our mountains obumbrated and our vallies obscured.
Don Quixote, in compliance with nature, enjoyed his first sleep without indulging himself in a second, quite contrary to the practice of Sancho, who never desired a second, because the first always lasted from night till morning; a sure sign of little care, and an excellent constitution. As for the knight, his cares interfered so much with his repose, that he wakened his squire, to whom he said, ‘I am amazed, Sancho, at the indifference of thy disposition, and imagine thou art made of marble or obdurate brass, unsusceptible of sentiment or emotion. I watch whilst thou art snoring; I weep whilst thou art singing; I faint with fasting, whilst thou art overloaded and out of breath with eating! It is the province of a good servant to sympathize with his master’s pain, and to share his anguish, even for the sake of decorum. Observe the serenity of the sky and the solitude of the place, which invite us to make an intermission in our repose. I conjure thee, by thy life, to rise and go aside to some proper place, where, with good will and grateful inclination, thou mayest conveniently inflict upon thyself three or four hundred stripes, on account of Dulcinea’s inchantment; and this favour I humbly request, without any intention to try again the strength of thine arms, which I know to be heavy and robust: after the performance of that task, we will pass the remainder of the night in harmony; I, in singing the torments of absence, and thou, in chanting the constancy of thy passion; and thus will we begin the pastoral life which we are to lead at our own village.’—‘Signior,’ answered the squire, ‘I am no monk, to rise and discipline my flesh in the middle of the night; nor do I think the extremity of pain is such a provocative to musick; I therefore desire your worship will let me take out my nap, without pressing me farther to scourge myself, lest I should grow desperate, and solemnly swear never to whip the nap of my garment, much less an hair of my skin.’—‘Soul of a savage! flinty-hearted squire!’ cried Don Quixote: ‘O ill-bestowed bread! O ill-requited benefits, intended or conferred! By my means wast thou created governor; and through me alone dost thou now enjoy the near prospect of being a count, or something else of equal title; nor will the accomplishment of thy wishes be retarded longer than the term of one fleeting year; for, Post tenebras spero lucem.’—‘Your conclusion,’ said Sancho, ‘I do not understand; but well I know, that while I sleep, I am troubled neither with fear nor hope, nor toil nor glory; and praise be to him who invented sleep, which is the mantle that shrouds all human thoughts; the food that dispels hunger; the drink that quenches thirst; the fire that warms the cold; the cool breeze that moderates heat; in a word, the general coin that purchases every commodity; the weight and balance that makes the shepherd even with his sovereign, and the simple with the sage: there is only one bad circumstance, as I have heard, in sleep, it resembles death; inasmuch as between a dead corpse and a sleeping man there is no apparent difference.’—‘Truly, Sancho,’ said the knight, ‘I never heard thee talk so elegantly before, whence I perceive the truth of the proverb which thou hast often repeated, Not he with whom you was bred, but he by whom you are fed.’—‘Odds my life! Sir master of mine,’ cried Sancho, ‘I am not the only person who strings proverbs: they fall from your worship’s mouth in couples, faster than from mine; indeed, there is some difference; for your worship’s proverbs come at a proper time, whereas mine are always out of season; but, nevertheless, they are all proverbs.’
Thus far the conversation had proceeded, when they heard a dull confused noise, intermingled with very harsh sounds, that seemed to extend through the whole valley. The knight immediately started up and unsheathed his sword; while the squire squatted down under Dapple, fencing himself on each side with his master’s armour and the pannel of the ass, being as much afraid as Don Quixote was astonished; for the noise increased every moment, as the cause of it approached the two tremblers, or rather one trembler, for the other’s valour and courage are well known. The case, in fact, was this: some dealers were driving about six hundred hogs to a fair; and, as they travelled in the night, the noise of their feet, together with their grunting and blowing, made such a din, as almost deafened Don Quixote and Sancho, who could not conceive the meaning of such an uproar. Meanwhile, the numerous grunting herd advanced; and, without shewing the least respect to the authority of Don Quixote or Sancho, ran over them in a twinkling, demolished the barricadoes of the squire, and trampled down not only the master, but also his steed Rozinante; the thronging, the grunting, and the hurry of those unclean animals, throwing every thing in confusion, and strewing the master and the man, the horse and the ass, the pannel and the armour, along the ground. Sancho, getting up as well as he could, demanded his master’s sword, in order to sacrifice half a dozen of those discourteous gentlemen porkers; for by this time he had discovered what they were; but the knight refused to grant his request, saying, ‘Let them pass, friend Sancho; this affront is the punishment of my crime; and the just chastisement of Heaven inflicted upon a vanquished knight, is, that he shall be devoured by dogs, stung by wasps, and trampled upon by swine.’—‘At that rate, then,’ replied the squire, ‘the chastisement which Heaven inflicts upon squires of vanquished knight-errants, is, that they shall be bitten by fleas, devoured by lice, and assaulted by famine: if we squires were sons of the knights we serve, or even their near relations, it would be no great wonder if the punishment of our faults should overtake us to the fourth generation: but what affinity is there between the Panzas and the Quixotes? At present let us put things to rights again, so that we may sleep out the remainder of the night, and we shall be in better plight when God sends us a new day.’—‘Enjoy thy repose,’ said Don Quixote; ‘thou wast born to sleep and I to watch; and during the little of night that remains, I will give my thoughts the rein, and cool the furnace of my reflections with a short madrigal, which I have this evening, unknown to thee, composed in my own mind.’—‘In my opinion,’ answered the squire, ‘your thoughts could not be very troublesome and unruly, if they gave you leisure to make couplets; but, however, your worship may couple as many as you please, and I will sleep as much as I can.’ So saying, he chose his ground, on which he huddled himself up, and enjoyed a most profound sleep, which received no interruption from the remembrance of debt, surety, or any other grievance. As for Don Quixote, he leaned against a beech or cork-tree; for Cid Hamet Benengeli has not distinguished the genus; and, to the musick of his own sighs, sung the following stanzas.
I.
‘O cruel love! when I endure
The dreadful vengeance of thy bow,
I fly to death, the only cure
For such immensity of woe.
II.
‘But, when I touch the peaceful goal,
That port secure from storms of strife,
The fight revives my drooping soul,
I cannot enter for my life!
III.
‘Thus life exhausts my vital flame,
But death still keeps the spark alive;
O wond’rous fate! unknown to fame!
That life should kill, and death revive.’
Every verse he accompanied with a multitude of sighs and a torrent of tears, as if his heart had been transpierced with grief for his overthrow and the absence of Dulcinea. In this situation he was found by the day, when Phœbus darting his rays into Sancho’s eyes, the squire awoke, yawned, turned, stretched his lazy limbs, and surveying the havock which the swine had made in his store, he bitterly cursed the whole herd; aye, and even went farther with his maledictions.
Then the two proceeded in their journey; and, towards the close of the afternoon, descried about ten men on horseback, and half that number on foot, advancing towards them; a sight which made the knight’s heart throb with surprize, and the squire’s with terror; for this company was armed with lance and target, and approached in a very hostile manner. Don Quixote turning to his squire, ‘Sancho,’ said he, ‘if I could now exercise my arms, and my hands were not tied by a solemn promise, I would look upon that machine, which comes upon us, with contempt, as so much cake and gingerbread; but, perhaps, it may be something else than we apprehend.’ He had scarce pronounced these words, when the horsemen coming up, and couching their lances, surrounded him in a trice; then clapping the points of their weapons to his back and breast, seemed to threaten immediate death and destruction; while one of those on foot, laying his finger on his mouth, as a signal for him to be silent, seized Rozinante’s bridle, and led him out of the highway. The rest of the footpads drove Sancho and Dapple before them, and, while a wonderful silence prevailed, followed the knight, who attempted twice or thrice to ask whither they conducted him, and what they wanted; but scarce had he began to move his lips when they threatened to shut them for ever with the points of their spears. The same menaces were practiced upon Sancho, who no sooner expressed a desire to be talking, than he was pricked in the posteriors with a goad by one of his attendants; and Dapple met with the same fate, as if he too had made a motion to speak, like his master.
As night approached they quickened their pace, and the terrors of the captives increased in proportion as the darkness deepened, especially as their guard pronounced from time to time, ‘Dispatch, ye Troglodytes! silence, ye Barbarians! now ye shall suffer, ye Antropophagi! not a word of complaint, ye Scythians! open not your eyes, ye murderous Polyphemuses! ye carnivorous lions and beasts of prey.’ With these and other such appellations, they tormented the ears of the miserable master and the forlorn Sancho, who said within himself, ‘Draggle doits! Barber Anns! Henry puff a Jay! City hens! and Paulfamouses! these are fine names with a vengeance! I’m afraid this is a bad wind for winnowing our corn! the mischief comes upon us altogether, like drubbing to a dog; and I wish this misventrous adventure, that threatens so dismally, may end in nothing worse!’ As for Don Quixote, he was utterly astonished and confounded; nor could he, with all his reflection, comprehend the meaning of his own captivity, and those reproachful terms, from which he could only conclude, that no good but a great deal of mischief was to be expected. In this state of anxious suspense he continued till about an hour after it was dark, when they arrived at a castle; which the knight immediately recognizing to be the duke’s habitation, where he had so lately resided, ‘Good Heaven!’ cried he, ‘where will this adventure end! surely this is the dwelling place of politeness and hospitality; but to those who are vanquished, good is converted into bad, and bad to worse.’ This ejaculation he uttered as they entered the court of the castle, which was decorated in a strange manner that increased their admiration, and redoubled their fear, as will be seen in the following chapter.