Chap. XII Of the Strange Adventure That Happened to the Valiant Don Quixote, in His Encounter With the Knight of the Mirrours
The night that followed the rencounter with Death, Don Quixote and his squire passed among some tall and shady trees; the knight, by Sancho’s persuasion, having eaten of what was found in the store that Dapple carried. During this meal, Sancho said to his master, ‘What a fool should I have been, Signior, if I had chosen, by way of gratification, the spoils of your worship’s first adventure, instead of the three foals? Verily, verily, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush.’—‘But, for all that,’ answered Don Quixote, ‘hadst thou suffered me to attack them, as I intended, thou wouldst have enjoyed among the spoils the emperor’s golden crown, with Cupid’s painted wings, which I would have stripped off against the grain, and put into thy possession.’—‘The sceptres and crowns of your stage emperors are never made of pure gold, but of tin or tinsel,’ replied the squire. ‘True,’ said the knight, ‘the ornaments of comedy ought not to be rich and real, but feigned and artificial, like the drama itself, which I would have thee respect, Sancho, and receive into favour, together with those who represent and compose it; for they are all instruments of great benefit to the commonwealth, holding, as it were, a looking-glass always before us, in which we see naturally delineated all the actions of life; and no other companion whatever represents to us more lively what we are, and what we ought to be, than comedy and her attendants; for example, hast thou never seen a play acted, in which kings, emperors, popes, knights, ladies, and many other characters, were introduced? One acts the ruffian, another the sharper, a third the merchant, a fourth the soldier, a fifth the designing fool, and a sixth the simple lover; but the play being ended, and the dresses laid aside, all the actors remain upon an equal footing.’—‘Yes, I have seen all this,’ answered Sancho. ‘Then the very same thing,’ said the knight, ‘happens in the comedy and commerce of this world, where one meets with some people playing the parts of emperors, others in the characters of popes; and, finally, all the different personages that can be introduced in a comedy; but when the play is done, that is, when life is at an end, Death strips them of the robes that distinguished their stations, and they become all equal in the grave.’—‘A brave comparison!’ cried Sancho, ‘though not so new but I have heard it made on divers and sundry occasions as well as that of the game of chess, during which every piece maintains a particular station and character; and when the game is over, they are all mixed, jumbled, and shaken together in a bag, like mortals in the grave.’—‘Sancho,’ resumed the knight, ‘every day you become less simple and more discreet.’—‘Yes,’ said the squire, ‘some small portion of your worship’s discretion must needs stick to me; as lands which are, in their own nature, sapless and barren, being well dunged and cultivated, come to yield excellent fruit. My meaning is, that your worship’s conversation hath fallen like dung upon the barren desart of my understanding, which being cultivated by the time of my service and communication, will, I hope, produce blessed fruit, such as shall not disgrace, nor stray from the path of that good breeding which your worship hath bestowed on my narrow capacity.’
Don Quixote could not help smiling at the affected terms in which Sancho delivered himself, though what he said of his own improvement was actually true; for at certain times he talked to admiration; and yet when he attempted to argue, or speak in a polite stile, his efforts always, or for the most part, ended in precipitating himself from the pinnacle of simplicity to the depth of ignorance; his chief talent laying in his memory, which never failed to furnish him with proverbs that he lugged into his discourse, whether they were pat to the purpose or not, as may be seen and observed through the whole course of this history.
In this, and other such conversation, the greatest part of the night elapsed, when Sancho began to be inclined to let fall the portcullices of his eyes, as he termed it, when he wanted to go to sleep: he therefore unpannelled Dapple, to let him graze among the rich pasture with which the place abounded; but Rozinante’s saddle he would not remove, in consequence of his master’s express order, which was never to unsaddle his steed while they were in the field, or did not sleep under cover; it being an ancient established custom, observed by all knights errant, in these cases, to take the bridle out of the horse’s mouth, and hang it upon the pummel of the saddle, but to leave the saddle itself untouched. This expedient was accordingly performed by Sancho, who turned Rozinante loose with Dapple; and between these two animals such a strict reciprocal friendship subsisted, that, according to tradition from father to son, the author of this true history wrote particular chapters on this very subject; but, in order to preserve the decency and decorum which belongs to such an heroick composition, omitted them; though sometimes he seems to neglect this precaution, and writes, that these two friends used to approach and scrub each other most lovingly; and after they had rested and refreshed themselves, Rozinante would stretch his head more than half a yard over Dapple’s neck, while the two were wont to stand in this posture, with their eyes fixed upon the ground, three whole days together; at least, till they were parted, or compelled by hunger to go in quest of sustenance; nay, it is confidently reported, that the author had compared their mutual attachment to the friendship of Nisus or Euryalus, or that which subsisted between Pylades and Orestes. If this be the case, we may with admiration conceive how firm the fellowship of those two pacifick animals must have been; to the utter confusion of mankind, who so little regard the laws of friendship and society, according to the common saying, ‘there is no trust in profession; the staff will turn into a spear150,’ and, as the song goes, ‘the modes of the court so common are grown, that a true friend can hardly be met.’ Let no man imagine the author went out of his road, in comparing the friendship of brutes with that of the human species; for men have received valuable hints, and learned many things of importance from beasts, such as the clyster from storks, gratitude and the use of vomits from dogs, vigilance from the crane, foresight and frugality from the ant, honesty from the elephant, and loyalty from the horse.
In fine, Sancho went to sleep at the root of a cork-tree, and Don Quixote began to slumber under an oak; but being in a very little time awaked by a noise behind him, he started up, and employing both eyes and ears to distinguish whence it proceeded, he perceived two men on horseback, one of whom, letting himself drop, as it were, from the saddle, said to the other, ‘Alight, my friend, and unbit the horses; for this place seems to abound with pasture for them, and with silence and solitude, which are the necessary food of my amorous thoughts.’ He had no sooner pronounced these words, than he threw himself upon the ground, and his armour rattled as he fell, furnishing Don Quixote with a manifest proof of his being a knight-errant: he therefore approached Sancho, who was asleep, and shaking him by the arm, with no small difficulty, brought him to himself; saying, in a low voice, ‘Brother Sancho, here is an adventure.’—‘God grant it may be a good one,’ answered the squire; ’and pray, Signior, whereabouts may her ladyship be?’—‘Where?’ said Don Quixote, ‘turn thine eyes this way, and behold lying upon the grass a knight-errant, who, by what I have already observed, cannot be over and above easy in his mind? for I saw him throw himself upon the ground, with evident marks of vexation, and heard his armour clatter in his fall.’—‘But how has your worship found that this is an adventure?’ replied the squire. ‘I will not positively say that it is altogether an adventure,’ answered the knight, ‘but rather the beginning of one: for thus they usually commence: but hark! he seems to tune a lute or rebeck, and by his hawking and hemming, I suppose he is going to sing.’—‘In good faith, it is even so,’ said Sancho, ’and he must be some knight-errant in love.’—‘All knights-errant are so,’ resumed Don Quixote; ‘but let us listen, and by the thread of his song, discover the clue of his thoughts; for, From the abundance of the heart the tongue speaketh.’
Sancho would have made some reply, but was prevented by the voice of the Knight of the Wood, which was neither very sweet nor disagreeable; and, listening with surprize, they heard him sing the following song:
I.
‘Subjected to thy sov’reign will,
Ah, cruel maid! my fate decree:
The sentence, tho’ inhuman, still
Shall never be declin’d by me.
II.
‘Say, that my death thy joy would move,
My breath with freedom I’ll resign—
Or wouldst thou listen to my love,
The God himself shall whisper mine.
III.
‘This heart, thy vassal whilst I live,
Like ductile wax, and diamond hard,
Thy stamp will yieldingly receive,
And keep th’ impression unimpair’d.’
The Knight of the Wood finished this complaint with an ‘Ah!’ that seemed to be heaved from the bottom of his soul, and soon after exclaimed, in a sorrowful tone, ‘O thou most beautiful and ungrateful woman upon earth! is it possible, that the most serene Casildea de Vandalia has doomed this her captive knight to consume and exhaust himself in continual peregrinations, in harsh and rugged toils? Is it not enough that I have established the fame of thy beauty above all comparison, by the extorted confession of all the knights of Navarre, Leon, Tartesia, Castile, and finally of La Mancha?’
‘Not so, neither,’ cried Don Quixote, interposing; ‘for I, who am of La Mancha, never made any such acknowledgment; neither could I, or ought I, to make a confession so prejudicial to the beauty of my own mistress: therefore, Sancho, this knight must certainly be disordered in his judgment; but let us listen, perhaps he will explain himself.’—‘Very like,’ answered the squire, ‘he seems to be in the humour of complaining for a whole month.’
But this was not the case; for the Knight of the Wood, hearing people talk so near him, proceeded no farther in his lamentation, but starting up, called with a courteous and sonorous voice, ‘Who is there? are you of the number of the happy or afflicted?’—‘Of the afflicted,’ replied Don Quixote.—‘Come hither, then,’ resumed the stranger, ’and depend upon it you will find the very essence of sorrow and affliction.’
Don Quixote hearing him speak in such civil and pathetick terms, went towards him, with Sancho at his back, when the complaining knight took him by the hand, saying, ‘Sit down, Sir knight, for that you are one of those who profess knight-errantry, I am convinced by finding you in this place, accompanied by solitude and the dews of night, which are the peculiar companions of those who belong to our order.’
To this address Don Quixote replied, ‘I am a knight of that order you mention; and though melancholy, mischance, and misfortune, have taken up their habitation in my soul, they have not been able to banish from it that compassion which I feel for the unhappy. From the soliloquy you just now uttered, I gather that your misfortunes are of the amorous kind; I mean, that they proceed from the passion you entertain for that beautiful ingrate whom you named in your complaint.’ While this conversation passed, they sat down together upon the grass, with all the marks of amity and good fellowship, as if at break of day they had not been doomed to break each other’s head. ‘Perchance, Sir Knight,’ said the stranger, ‘you are in love?’—‘By mischance I am so,’ answered Don Quixote, ‘though the vexation that proceeds from well placed affection ought rather to be deemed a benefit than misfortune.’—‘True,’ said the Knight of the Wood, ‘if our judgment and reason are not disturbed by disdain, which, if exerted severely, seems a-kin to revenge.’—‘I never was disdained by my mistress,’ replied Don Quixote. ‘No, indeed,’ (cried Sancho, who stood hard by) ‘my lady is as meek as a lamb, and as soft as butter.’
The stranger knight asked if that was his squire; and the other answering in the affirmative, ‘I never saw a squire,’ said he, ‘that, like him, durst intrude upon his master’s conversation; at least, I can say so much for mine, who, though as tall as his father, was never known to open his lips, when I was engaged in discourse.’—‘In good faith!’ cried Sancho, ‘I have spoke, and will speak again, before as good a man as—but let that rest—the more you stir it, the more it will——.’
Here the other squire took hold on Sancho by the arm, saying, ‘Let you and I go somewhere, and talk our bellies-full, in our own way, and leave our masters at liberty to recount their amours; for sure I am, the night will be spent before they are done.’—‘With all my heart,’ replied Sancho, ’and I will tell your worship who I am, that you may see whether or not I am qualified to be ranked among your talking squires.’ They accordingly retired together, and between them passed a conversation every bit as merry as that of their masters was grave.