Chap. III The Ludicrous Conversation That Passed Between Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and the Batchelor Sampson Carrasco
Don Quixote remained extremely pensive, in expectation of the Batchelor Sampson Carrasco, from whom he hoped to hear news of himself, in print, according to Sancho’s information; though he could hardly persuade himself that there could be such a history extant; the blood of his enemies whom he had slain, being scarce, as yet, dry upon the blade of his sword, and yet they would have his high atchievements already recorded in printed books. He therefore imagined that some sage, either friend or foe, had cast them off, by the power of inchantment: if a friend, in order to aggrandize and extol them above the most distinguished exploits of knight-errantry; if an enemy, to annihilate and depress them beneath the meanest actions that ever were recorded of any squire. ‘Although,’ said he, within himself, ‘the deeds of squires are never committed to writing; and if my history actually exists, seeing it treats of a knight-errant, it must, of necessity, be pompous, sublime, surprizing, magnificent, and true.’ This reflection consoled him a little; but he became uneasy again, when he recollected that his author was a Moor, as appeared by the name of Cid; and that no truth was to be expected from that people, who are all false, deceitful, and chimerical. He was afraid that his amours were treated with some indecency, that might impair and prejudice the honour of his Lady Dulcinea del Toboso, wishing for nothing more than a true representation of his fidelity, and the decorum he always preserved, in refusing queens, empresses, and damsels of all ranks, thus keeping the impulse of his passions under the rein. Tossed, therefore, and fluctuating on these and many other fancies, he was found by Sancho and Carrasco, whom the knight received with great courtesy.
The batchelor, though his name was Sampson, was not very big, but a great wag, of a pale complexion and excellent understanding; he was about the age of four and twenty; had a round visage, flat nose, and capacious mouth, all symptoms of a mischievous disposition, addicted to jokes and raillery; as appeared when he approached Don Quixote, before whom he fell upon his knees, saying, ‘Permit me to kiss your most puissant hand, Signior Don Quixote de La Mancha; for by the habit of St. Peter, which I wear, though I have received no other orders than the first four, your worship is one of the most famous knights-errant that ever were, or ever will be, within the circumference of the globe! Blessed be Cid Hamet Benengeli, who wrote the history of your greatness! and thrice blessed that curious person who took care to have it translated from the Arabick into our mother-tongue, for the entertainment of mankind!’ Don Quixote, raising him up, said, ‘’Tis true, then, that there is a history of me, and that the sage who composed it is a Moor.’—‘So true, Signior,’ said Sampson, ‘that, to my certain knowledge, there are twelve thousand volumes of it this day in print; let Portugal, Barcelona, and Valencia, where they were printed, contradict me if they can. It is even reported to be now in the press at Antwerp; and I can easily perceive, that there is scarce a nation or language into which it will not be translated.’—‘One of the things,’ said Don Quixote on this occasion, ‘which ought to afford the greatest satisfaction to a virtuous and eminent man, is to live and see himself celebrated in different languages, and his actions recorded in print, with universal approbation; I say, with approbation; because, to be represented otherwise, is worse than the worst of deaths.’—‘In point of reputation and renown,’ said the batchelor, ‘your worship alone bears away the palm from all other knights-errant; for the Moor in Arabick, and the Christian in his language, have been careful in painting the gallantry of your worship to the life; your vast courage in encountering dangers, your patience in adversity, your fortitude in the midst of wounds and mischance, together with the honour and chastity of your platonick love for my Lady Donna Dulcinea del Toboso.’
Here Sancho interposing, said, ‘I never heard my lady called Donna Dulcinea, but simply the Lady Dulcinea del Toboso; so that there the history is wrong.’—‘That is no material objection,’ answered Carrasco. ‘No, sure,’ replied the knight. ‘But tell me, Mr. Batchelor, which of my exploits is most esteemed in this history.’—’As to that particular,’ said the batchelor, ‘there are as many different opinions as there are different tastes. Some stick to the adventure of the wind-mills, which to your worship appeared monstrous giants; others, to that of the fulling-mills; this reader, to the description of the two armies, which were afterwards metamorphosed into flocks of sheep; while another magnifies that of the dead body, which was carrying to the place of interment at Segovia: one says, that the deliverance of the galley-slaves excels all the rest; and a second affirms, that none of them equals the adventure of the Benedictine giants, and your battle with the valiant Biscayner.’
Here Sancho interrupting him again, said, ‘Tell me, Mr. Batchelor, is the adventure of the Yanguesians mentioned, when our modest Rozinante longed for green peas in December131.’—‘Nothing,’ replied Sampson, ‘has escaped the pen of the sage author, who relates every thing most minutely, even to the capers which honest Sancho cut in the blanket.’—‘I cut no capers in the blanket,’ answered Sancho; ‘but in the air, I grant you, I performed more than I desired.’—‘In my opinion,’ said Don Quixote, ‘there is no human history that does not contain reverses of fortune, especially those that treat of chivalry, which cannot always be attended with success.’—‘Nevertheless,’ resumed the batchelor, ‘some who have read your history, say they should not have been sorry, had the author forgot a few of those infinite drubbings which, in different encounters, were bestowed on the great Don Quixote.’—‘But in this consists the truth of history,’ said the squire.
Don Quixote observed, that they might as well have omitted them; for those incidents, which neither change nor affect the truth of the story, ought to be left out, if they tend to depreciate the chief character. ‘Take my word for it,’ said he, ‘Æneas was not so pious as Virgil represents him, nor Ulysses so prudent as he is exhibited by Homer,’—‘True,’ said Sampson; ‘but it is one thing to compose as a poet, and another to record as an historian: the poet may relate or rehearse things, not as they were, but as they ought to have been; whereas an historian must transmit them, not as they ought to have been, but exactly as they were; without adding to, or subtracting the least tittle from the truth.’—‘Since this Moorish gentleman has told all the truth,’ said Sancho, ‘I don’t doubt that, among the drubbings of my master, he has mentioned mine also; for they never took the measure of his shoulders, without crossing my whole body: but at this I ought not to wonder, since, as he observes, when the head aches, the members ought to have their share of the pain.’—‘You are a sly rogue, Sancho,’ replied Don Quixote; ’and I find you don’t want memory, when you think proper to use it.’—‘If I had all the mind in the world,’ said Sancho, ‘to forget the blows I have received, the marks, which are still fresh upon my carcase, would by no means allow me.’
‘Hold your peace, Sancho,’ said the knight, ‘and don’t interrupt Mr. Batchelor, whom I intreat to proceed; and let me know what more is said of me in this same history.’—‘Aye, and of me too,’ cried Sancho; ‘who, they say, am one of the principal personages of it.’—‘You mean persons, and not personages, friend Sancho,’ said Sampson. ‘What! have we got another reprimander of words?’ said the squire; ‘since it is come to this, we shall never have done.’—‘Plague light on me! Sancho!’ replied the batchelor, ‘if you are not the second person of the history; and there are many who would rather hear you speak than the first character in the book; though some there be also, who say you are excessively credulous, in believing there could be any foundation for the government of that island, which was promised to you by Signior Don Quixote, here present.’—‘There is no time lost132,’ said Don Quixote; ‘while thou art advancing in years, Sancho, age will bring experience; and then thou wilt be more qualified and fit to govern than thou art at present.’—‘’Fore God! Sir,’ said Sancho, ‘the island which I cannot govern with these years, I shall never govern, were I as old as Methusalem: the mischief is, that this same island is delayed I don’t know how; not that I want noddle to govern it.’—‘Recommend it, Sancho,’ said Don Quixote, ‘to the direction of Heaven, which does all for the best, and may, perhaps, exceed your expectation; for not a leaf can move upon a tree, without the permission of God.’—‘True,’ said Sampson, ‘if it be the will of God, Sancho shall not want a thousand islands, much less one, to govern.’—‘I have seen governors in my time,’ quoth Sancho, ‘who, to my thinking, did not come up to the sole of my shoe, and yet they were called your lordship, and served in plate.’—‘Those were not governors of islands,’ replied Sampson, ‘but of other governments more easily managed; for such as govern islands ought at least to have some grammatical knowledge.’—‘I know very well how to cram133,’ said Sancho; ‘but as to the matted cawl, I will neither meddle nor make, because I don’t understand it; but leaving this government in the hands of God, who will dispose of me the best for his own service, I am, Mr. Batchelor, Sampson Carrasco, infinitely pleased and rejoiced that the author of our history has spoke of me in such a manner as not to give offence; for, by the faith of a good squire! if he had said any thing of me, that did not become an old Christian, as I am, the deaf should have heard of it.’—‘That were a miracle, indeed!’ answered Sampson. ‘Miracle or no miracle,’ said Sancho, ‘let every man take care how he speaks or writes of honest people, and not set down at a venture the first thing that comes into his jolter-head.’
‘One of the faults that are found with the history,’ added the batchelor, ‘is, that the author has inserted in it a novel, intitled, The Impertinent Curiosity. Not that the thing itself is bad, or poorly executed, but because it is unseasonable, and has nothing to do with the story of his worship Signior Don Quixote.’—‘I’ll lay a wager,’ cried Sancho, ‘that this son of a cur has made a strange hodge-podge of the whole.’—‘Now I find,’ said the knight, ‘that the author of my history is no sage, but some ignorant prater, who, without either judgment or premeditation, has undertaken to write it at random, like Orbaneja the painter of Ubeda, who being asked what he painted, answered, “Just as it happens;” and when he would sometimes scrawl out a misshapen cock, was fain to write under it in Gothick letters, “This is a cock;” and my history being of the same kind, will need a commentary to make it intelligible.’—‘Not at all,’ answered Sampson, ‘it is already so plain, that there is not the least ambiguity in it; the very children handle it, boys read it, men understand, and old people applaud it: in short, it is so thumbed, so read, so well known by every body, that no sooner a meagre horse appears, than they say, “There goes Rozinante!”, but those who peruse it most, are your pages; you cannot go into a nobleman’s antichamber where you won’t find a Don Quixote, which is no sooner laid down by one, than another takes it up, some struggling, and some intreating for a sight of it; in fine, this history is the most delightful and least prejudicial entertainment that ever was seen; for in the whole book there is not the least shadow of a dishonourable word, nor one thought unworthy of a good Catholick.’—‘To write otherwise,’ said Don Quixote, ‘were not to publish truth, but to propagate lyes; and those historians who deal in such, ought to be burnt like coiners of false money; but I cannot imagine what induced the author to avail himself of novels and stories that did not belong to the subject, when he had such a fund of my adventures to relate: he, doubtless, stuck to the proverb, So the gizzard is crammed, it matters not how134; for truly, had he confined himself to the manifestation of my reveries, my sighs, my tears, my benevolence, and undertakings, he might have compiled a volume larger, or as large, as all the works of Tostatus bound together135. Really, Mr. Batchelor, according to my comprehension, it requires great judgment, and a ripe understanding, to compose histories, or indeed any books whatever; for to write with elegance and wit, is the province of great geniuses only. The wittiest person in the comedy is he that plays the fool; for he must be no simpleton who can exhibit a diverting representation of folly. History is a sacred subject, because the soul of it is truth; and where truth is, there the divinity will reside: yet there are some who compose and cast off books, as if they were tossing up a dish of pancakes.’
‘There is no book so bad,’ said the batchelor, ‘but you may find something good in it.’—‘Doubtless,’ replied the knight; ‘but it frequently happens, that those who have deservedly purchased and acquired great reputation by their writings, lose it all, or at least forfeit a part of it, in printing them.’—‘The reason,’ said Sampson, ’is, that printed works are perused with leisure, consequently their faults easily observed; and the greater the reputation of the author is, the more severely are they scrutinized: men celebrated for their genius, great poets, and illustrious historians, are, for the most part, if not always, envied by those whose pleasure and particular entertainment consists in criticising the works of others, without having obliged the world with any thing of their own.’—‘That is not to be wondered at,’ said Don Quixote; ‘for there are many theologists who make but a poor figure in the pulpit, and yet are excellent in discerning the faults and superfluities of those who preach well.’—‘That is all true, Signior Don Quixote,’ said Carrasco; ’and I could wish that those censurers were either a little more compassionate, or something less scrupulous, than to insist upon such blemishes of the work they decry, as may be compared to little spots in the sun, and as aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus, consider how long the author watched, in order to display the light of his performance, with as little shade as possible. Perhaps, too, those things which disgust them are no other than moles, that sometimes add to the beauty of the face on which they grow; and therefore I affirm, that he who publishes a book runs an immense risk; because it is absolutely impossible to compose such an one as will please and entertain every reader.’—‘I believe few will relish that which treats of me,’ said the knight. ‘Quite the contrary,’ answered Sampson; ‘for, as stultorum infinitus est numerus, the number of those who are delighted with your history is infinite; though some accuse the author’s memory as false or faulty, because he has forgot to tell who the thief was that stole Sancho’s Dapple, of whom there was not a word mentioned: we can only infer from the history, that he was stolen; and by-and-by we find the squire mounted on the same beast, without knowing how he was retrieved. They say, likewise, that he has omitted telling what Sancho did with those hundred crowns which he found in the portmanteau, in Sierra Morena; and which are never mentioned though many people desire to know what use he made of them; and this is one of the chief defects in the work.’
‘Mr. Sampson,’ answered the squire, ‘I am not in an humour at present to give accounts and reckonings of that affair; for I feel a certain qualmishness in my stomach, and if I don’t recruit it with a couple of draughts of old stingo, I shall be in most grievous taking136; I have the cordial at home, and my dame waits for me; but when I have filled my belly, I will return and satisfy your worship, and all the world, in whatever they shall desire to ask, both with regard to the loss of my beast, and the spending of the hundred crowns.’ So, without expecting a reply, or speaking another word, he hied him home, while Don Quixote desired and intreated the batchelor to stay and do penance with him. The batchelor accepted the invitation, and stayed; a pair of pigeons was added to the knight’s ordinary; he talked of nothing but chivalry at table, and Carrasco encouraged the discourse. The repast ended, they took their afternoon’s nap, Sancho returned, and the former conversation was renewed.