Chap. IV The Savoury Conversation That Passed Between Don Quixote and His Squire Sancho Panza, With Many Other Incidents
‘All this is pretty well; proceed!’ said Don Quixote: ‘how was that queen of beauty employed, when you arrived? I dare say, you found her stringing pearls, or embroidering some device for this her captive knight, with threads of gold.’—‘No, truly,’ answered the squire; ‘I found her winnowing two bushels of wheat in the yard.’—‘Then you may depend upon it,’ resumed the knight, ‘the grains of that wheat were converted into pearls by the touch of her hand; and didst thou observe, my friend, whether it was of the finer or common sort?’—‘Why, neither!’ said Sancho; ‘it seemed to be, as it were, red wheat.’—‘But, since it was winnowed by her fair hands,’ answered Don Quixote, ‘I dare affirm, it will make the whitest bread in Spain. Go on with thy information. When the letter was delivered, did she not kiss it, and place it on the crown of her head, in token of respect? Did she not perform some ceremony worthy of such a letter? Pray, how did she receive it?’—‘When I presented the letter,’ answered Sancho, ‘she was in a main hurry, winnowing a large heap of wheat that was in her sieve; and said to me, “Friend, lay down the letter on that sack; for I cannot pretend to read it, until I have made an end of my work.”’—‘Discreet lady!’ cried the knight; ‘her intention certainly was to read it at her leisure, that she might recreate herself with the contents. Proceed, Sancho; and while she was thus employed, what conversation passed between you? what questions did she ask concerning me? and what answers didst thou make? Recount the whole, without leaving one syllable untold.’
‘She asked me no questions,’ replied the squire; ‘but I told her, how I had left your worship doing penance for love of her, skipping among those rocks, naked from the waist upwards, like a mere savage, sleeping on the bare ground; neglecting to eat your food like a Christian, or to comb your beard like a decent man; but whining, and weeping, and cursing your fortune.’—‘If you said I cursed my fortune, you misrepresented me,’ said Don Quixote; ‘for I bless my fate, and will bless it all the days of my life, for having made me worthy to aspire to the love of such an high lady as Dulcinea del Toboso.’—‘High indeed!’ answered Sancho, ‘for, in faith, she is a good hand taller than I am.’—‘How hast thou been measured with her, Sancho?’ said the knight. ‘I’ll tell you how,’ answered the squire; ‘while I was helping to lay a load of corn upon an ass, we came so close together, that I could easily perceive she over-topped me by a full hand.’—‘That may be true,’ said Don Quixote; ‘though her tallness is accompanied and adorned by a myriad of mental graces. But this you will not deny, Sancho, that while you was so near her, your nostrils were regaled by a Sabæan odour, an aromatick fragrance, a certain delicious sensation, for which there is no name. I mean, a scent, a perfume, such as fills the shop of some curious glover.’—‘All that I can say,’ answered Sancho, ’is, that I was sensible of a sort of rammish smell, which I believe was owing to her being in a muck sweat with hard work.’—‘That is impossible,’ cried the knight; ‘thy sense must have been depraved, or that smell must have proceeded from thy own body; for I am perfectly well acquainted with the odour of that rose among briars, that lily of the valley, that liquid amber.’—‘It may be so,’ said Sancho: ‘I have often known such smells come from myself, as then seemed to come from my Lady Dulcinea: but that is not to be wondered at; because, as the saying is, every fiend may stink of brimstone.’—‘Well, then,’ added Don Quixote, ‘she hath now winnowed the wheat and sent it to the mill; how did she behave after she had read my letter?’—‘The letter,’ answered Sancho, ‘was not read at all; for, as she could neither read nor write, she chose to rend and tear it to pieces, rather than give it to any body who might publish her secrets in the village, saying, she was very well satisfied with the information I gave her by word of mouth, concerning your worship’s love for her, and the extraordinary penance I left you doing on her account. Finally, she bade me tell you, that she kissed your worship’s hands, being much more desirous of seeing than writing to you; and therefore she entreated and commanded your worship, by these presents, to quit this desart, and leave off playing the fool, and forthwith set out on your journey to Toboso, provided that something else of greater importance should not happen, for she longed very much for a sight of your worship, and laughed heartily when I told her, that you had taken the name of the Knight with the Rueful Countenance. When I asked if the Biscayan had been lately with her, she answered, “Yes;” and that he was very much of a gentleman; but, when I enquired about the galley-slaves, she said she had as yet seen none of them.’
‘Hitherto all goes well,’ said the knight, ‘but pray tell me what jewel she gave you at parting, for the news you had brought of me her lover; for, it is an ancient practice and custom among knights-errant and their mistresses, to bestow upon their squires, damsels, or dwarfs, who bring them news of each other, some rich jewel, as a reward and acknowledgment for the message.’—‘It may be so,’ said Sancho; ’and I think it an excellent custom, but that must have been in time past; for in this age it is customary to give nothing but a piece of bread and cheese, which was all the present I received from my Lady Dulcinea, who reached it over the yard wall, when I took my leave; by this token, that the cheese was made of ewe’s milk.’—‘She is liberal to excess,’ said the knight; ’and if she omitted giving thee a jewel, it must certainly have been owing to her not having any by her; but all in good time89; I shall see her soon, and then every thing will be set to rights. Yet there is one thing, Sancho, which overwhelms me with astonishment. You seem to have travelled through the air; for you have spent little more than three days in your journey; though Toboso is more than thirty leagues distant from hence. From this extraordinary expedition, I conjecture, that the sage, who is my friend, and interests himself in my affairs, and such there certainly is, and must be, else I should be no true knight-errant; I say, this inchanter must have assisted thee in thy journey, though thou didst not perceive it; for some there are of that class, who will take up a knight-errant while he is asleep in his bed, and without his knowing any thing of the matter, he shall awake next morning in some place more than a thousand leagues from the house where he took up his lodging the night before; and without such sudden transportations, it would be impossible for knights to succour each other in distress, as they frequently do. A knight errant, for example, happens to be fighting in the desarts of Armenia, with some fierce dragon, dreadful goblin, or rival knight; and being worsted, and just at the point of being slain, behold, when he least expects it, there suddenly appears in a cloud or fiery chariot, another knight, a friend of his, who but a minute before resided in England, and who assists and delivers him from death; and that same night, he finds himself supping at his ease at his own house, which is often two or three thousand leagues from the field of battle; and all this is effected by the industry and art of sage inchanters, who take those valiant knights under their protection.
‘Wherefore, friend Sancho, I can easily believe that thou hast in so little time travelled from hence to Toboso and back again; because, as I have already observed, some friendly sage must have carried thee through the air, though thou didst not perceive it.’—‘Not unlikely,’ replied the squire, ‘for, in good faith, Rozinante went like a gypsy’s ass, with quicksilver in his ears.’—‘With quicksilver,’ cried the knight; ‘ay, and a legion of dæmons to boot, who are beings that travel themselves, and make other people travel as fast as they please, without tiring.
‘But, waving this subject, how doest thou think I ought to regulate my conduct, now that my mistress commands me to appear in her presence! for, although I find myself obliged to comply with her orders, I am utterly incapacitated by the boon I have granted to this princess: and I am bound by the laws of chivalry to fulfil my promise, before I indulge my inclination. On one hand, I am persecuted and harrassed by the desire of seeing Dulcinea; on the other, I am incited and invited by my honour and the glory I shall acquire in this enterprize. I am therefore determined to travel with all expedition, until I arrive at the place where the giant resides; and, when I shall have restored the princess to the peaceful possession of her kingdom, after having shortened the usurper by the head, I will return to the rays of that beauty which enlightens my thoughts, and excuse myself in such a manner as to obtain her forgiveness, as she will plainly perceive that my delay tended to the increase of her glory and fame; seeing all my reputation in arms, past, present, or to come, proceeds from her favour and inspiration.’—‘Lord!’ cried Sancho ‘how your worship is concerned about a parcel of potsherds. Pray tell me, Sir, do you intend to make this journey for nothing, and to let such a rich and noble marriage as this slip through your fingers; while the dowry is no less than a kingdom, which I have actually heard is more than twenty thousand leagues round, plentifully stored with every thing that is needful for the sustenance of mortal man, and larger than Portugal and Castile put together? Hold your tongue, a God’s name, and take shame to yourself, for what you have said; pardon my freedom, take my advice, and marry in the first place where we can find a curate, or make use of our friend the licentiate, who will buckle you handsomely. Take notice, therefore, that I am of an age to give good counsel, and this that I offer will fit you to a hair, for a bird in hand is worth two in the bush; and, as the saying is, He that hath good in his view, and yet will not evil eschew, his folly deserveth to rue.’
‘Sancho,’ answered Don Quixote, ‘if thou advisest me to marry, with a view of seeing me king, after I shall have killed the giant, that I may have an opportunity of rewarding thee with what I have promised, thou must know that I can easily gratify thy wishes, without wedding the princess; for, before I engage in the combat, I will covenant, that, provided I come off conqueror, and decline the marriage, I shall have it in my power to dispose of one part of the kingdom, as I shall think proper; and to whom should I give it but to thee?’—‘That is very plain,’ replied the squire; ‘but I beseech your worship to make choice of the sea-coast, because if I should happen to dislike the country, I may ship off my black slaves, and sell them, as I have already hinted. Wherefore, without troubling yourself at present, about my Lady Dulcinea, I would have you go and slay the giant, and conclude that affair from which, before God! we shall certainly reap much honour and advantage.’—‘I tell thee, Sancho,’ said Don Quixote, ‘thou art in the right, and I will follow thy advice, so far as it regards my attendance upon the princess, before I visit Dulcinea. But say not a word to any body, even those of our company not excepted, of this conversation; for, as she is so reserved and careful of concealing her sentiments, it would be inexcusable in me, if I, or any other through my means, should disclose them.’—‘Since this is the case,’ said the squire, ‘why does your worship command all those that are vanquished by your arm to go and present themselves before my Lady Dulcinea? you may as well give it under your hand, that you are her true and trusty lover; for, if you compel them to fall upon their knees before her, and say they are sent by your worship to pay homage to her, how is it possible that the sentiments of either you or her can be concealed?’
‘What an ignorant and simple fellow thou art!’ resumed the knight; ‘canst thou not see that all this redounds to her praise and exaltation? Thou must know, that in our stile of chivalry, it is deemed a great honour for a lady to be admired by a great many knights, whose wishes extend no farther than to the desire of serving her for her own sake, without expecting any other reward for their great and manifold services, than the glory of being admitted into the number of her knights.’—‘In like manner,’ said Sancho, ‘I have heard a priest in the pulpit observe, that we must love our Saviour for his own sake, without being moved thereto, by any fear of punishment or hopes of applause, though, for my own part, I am inclined to love and serve him on account of his power.’—‘Now, the devil take the clown!’ cried Don Quixote; ‘he sometimes makes such shrewd observations that one would think he had actually studied!’—’And yet, upon my conscience,’ answered the squire, ‘I know not so much as my letters.’ At that instant Master Nicholas calling aloud to them to stop a little, that the rest might have time to drink at a spring which they found in the way; Don Quixote turned back, to the no small satisfaction of Sancho, who was already tired with telling lyes, and afraid of being detected by his master; for, although he knew that Dulcinea was the daughter of a peasant at Toboso, he had never seen her in his life. By this time Cardenio had put on the cloaths which Dorothea wore when they found her; and, though they were none of the most elegant, he made a much better figure than with his tattered dress, which he now threw away. The whole company sat down, by the spring, where, while they appeased the keen hunger that possessed them all, with what the curate had brought from the inn, a lad chanced to pass that way, who, looking earnestly at the whole company, at length run up to Don Quixote, and embracing his knees, began to blubber most heartily, saying, ‘Ah! Signior, don’t you know me? look at me again; I am that same individual young man called Andrew, whom your worship delivered from the tree to which I was tied.’ The knight recollected his features, and taking him by the hand, addressed himself to the company in these words.
‘That you may see of what importance knight-errantry is, to redress the wrongs and grievances which are daily committed by the insolent and wicked wretches who live upon this earth; know, that as I passed by a wood some time ago, I heard the screams and woeful cries of some afflicted creature in the utmost distress: and in consequence of my oath and obligation, riding towards the place from which the lamentation seemed to come, I found this very young man tied to an oak tree; and I am glad from my soul that he is here in person, to bear witness to the truth. I say, he was bound to an oak, naked, from the waist upwards; and a peasant, who I afterwards understood was his master, stood scourging him with the reins of a bridle. When I enquired into the cause of this barbarous treatment, the rustick answered, that he only whipped his own servant for being guilty of some neglect that savoured more of knavishness than simplicity. The boy protested he had done nothing but asked his wages: to this affirmation the master replied, by some asseverations which I have forgot; but though I heard his excuses, I would not admit of them. In short, I ordered the peasant to untie the youth, and made him swear that he would carry him home and pay him his wages in ready cash, nay, and pay him in rials that should be perfumed. Is not this literally true, son Andrew? Didst thou not observe with what authority I commanded, and with what humility he promised to comply with every thing that I imposed, suggested, and desired? Answer without perturbation or doubt, and tell this honourable company what passed, that they may see and be convinced of what use it is, as I said, to have knights-errant continually upon duty.’
‘All that your worship hath told is very true,’ answered the young man; ‘but the end of the business was quite the reverse of what you imagined.’—‘How! the reverse!’ cried the knight; ‘has not the peasant paid thee thy wages?’—‘Far from paying me my wages,’ said Andrew, ‘your worship was no sooner out of the wood, and we by ourselves again, than he bound me a second time to the same oak, and lashed me so severely, that I remained like St. Bartholomew, flayed alive, and at every stripe he jeered and scoffed, and made game of your worship in such a manner, that if it had not been for the excessive pain I felt, I could not have refrained from laughing at what he said. In short, he treated me so cruelly, that till this very day, I have been in the hospital, for the cure of the wounds I received from that mischievous farmer; and truly your worship was the cause of all that I suffered; for if you had followed your own road, without going where nobody called you, or meddling with other people’s affairs, my master would have been satisfied with giving me a cool dozen or two, and then loosed and paid me my due. But when your worship abused him so unseasonably, and called him so many bad names, his choler was inflamed; and, as he could not be revenged upon you, as soon as you was gone, he discharged the storm of his wrath upon me, in such a manner that I shall never be my own man again.’
‘The misfortune,’ said the knight, ‘was in my leaving him before I had seen thee paid; for I ought to have known by long experience, that no peasant will keep his word, if he thinks it his interest to break it. But thou mayest remember, Andrew, that I swore if he did not perform his promise, I would return and search for him, until he should be found, even if he should hide himself in the whale’s belly.’—‘Very true,’ replied Andrew; ‘but that threat signified nothing.’—‘Thou shalt presently see what it signifies!’ resumed Don Quixote; who, getting up hastily, ordered Sancho to bridle Rozinante, who was following their example in refreshing himself with grass.
When Dorothea asked what he intended to do, he replied, he was going in quest of the peasant, to chastise him for his villainous behaviour, and make him pay Andrew to the last farthing, in despite and defiance of all the rusticks upon earth. To this declaration, she answered, by desiring him to consider, that according to the promised boon, he could not engage in any enterprize, until her affair should be finished; and since this stipulation was known to himself better than to any other person, she intreated him to repress his resentment till his return from her kingdom. ‘That is very true,’ resumed the knight, ‘and Andrew must wait with patience for my return, as your majesty observes; but I repeat my oath and my promise, never to desist until I shall have seen his wages paid, and his injuries revenged.’—‘I don’t trust to those oaths,’ said Andrew, ‘and would rather, at present, have wherewithal to bear my expences to Seville, than all the revenge in the world; be so good, if you have any victuals, to give me something to eat upon my journey, and the Lord be with your worship and all knights-errant, who, I wish, may always err as much in their own affairs, as they have done in mine.’ Sancho, taking a luncheon of bread and cheese from the store, gave it to the young man, saying, ‘Here, brother Andrew, take this; and now we have all shared in your misfortune.’ When Andrew asked what share of it had fallen to him, he replied, ‘That share of bread and cheese, which I have given you; and God knows whether I shall not feel the loss of it; for you must know, friend, that we squires of knights-errant are subject to many a hungry belly, with other misfortunes which are more easily felt than described.’
Andrew accepted of the bread and cheese, and seeing that nobody offered him any thing else, made his bows, and as the saying is, took his foot in his hand90. True it is, before he departed, he addressed himself to Don Quixote, saying, ‘For the love of God! Sir knight-errant, if ever you meet me again, spare yourself the trouble of coming to my assistance, even though you should see me cut into minced meat, but leave me to my misfortune, which cannot be so great but that it may be increased by the succour of your worship, whom God confound, together with all the knights errant that ever were born.’ Don Quixote started up, in order to chastise him, but he ran away with such nimbleness, that nobody attempted to pursue him; and the knight was so ashamed of his exploit, that the company were at great pains to contain their laughter, to prevent his being quite out of countenance.