The Helmet of Mambrino
“Pray, good gentlemen,” said the barber,2 “let us have your opinion in this matter. I suppose you will grant this same helmet to be a basin?” “He that dares grant any such thing,” said Don Quixote, “must know that he lies plainly, if he is a knight; but, if a squire, he lies abominably.”
That’s right, my lord Don Quixote, that’s right. It is courage, it is the barefaced courage that is ready to affirm a thing aloud and before all the world and to defend the affirmation of it to the death, it is courage that creates all truths. Things are so much the truer the more they are believed, and it is not intelligence but will that imposes them upon the world.
“Now I swear before you all,” said Don Quixote, “by the order of knighthood which I profess, that that is the same individual helmet which I won from him, without the least addition or diminution.” To which Sancho added, in timid support of his master: “That I will swear, for since my lord won it, he never fought but once in it, and that was the battle wherein he freed those ungracious galley-slaves, who by the same token would have knocked out his brains with a shower of stones, had not this same honest basin-helmet saved his skull.”
In “The Tragic Sense of Life” Unamuno says: “I wrote my Vida de Don Quixote y Sancho in opposition to the Cervantists and erudite persons, in order to make a living work of what was and still is for the majority a dead letter. What does it matter to me what Cervantes intended or did not intend to put into it and what he actually did put into it? What is living in it is what I myself discover in it, whether Cervantes put it there or not, what I myself put into and under and over it, and what we all put into it. I wanted to track down our philosophy in it.”
Readers of Don Quixote will recall the encounter between the Knight of La Mancha and the barber who had clapped his brass basin on his head to keep his hat from being spoiled by the rain. Having routed his enemy, the Knight seized the basin, which he asserted to be the golden helmet of Mambrino, a famous Saracen (see Orlando Furioso, Canto I). When afterwards the barber met Don Quixote at an inn and claimed his basin, the dispute as to whether it was really a basin or a helmet was referred to the rest of the company, some of whom sided with the Knight and others with the barber.
Basin-helmet? Basin-helmet, Sancho? We must not do you the injustice to suppose that your calling it a basin-helmet was one of your sly jokes—no, it marks the progress of your faith. You were unable to pass from what your eyes assured you of, showing you the object in dispute in the likeness of a basin, to what faith in your master assured you, showing it to you in the likeness of a helmet, without catching at this compromise of a basin-helmet. In this respect there are many Sanchos like you and you have invented this notion that virtue consists in the via media. No, friend Sancho, no, there is no basin-helmet that is worth a straw. It is a helmet or it is a basin according to him who uses it, or rather it is basin and helmet at the same time for it serves both turns. Without the least addition or diminution it can and ought to be both helmet and basin, all of it helmet and all of it basin; but what it can never be nor ought to be, however much be added to it or taken away from it, is basin-helmet.
The barber to whom the basin belonged found the other barber, Master Nicolas, and Don Fernando and the curate and Cardenio and the judge more emphatic, for to the amazement of all the others who were present they insisted that it was a helmet. One of the four pursuivants, regarding this as a laborious joke, became annoyed and treated those who said it was a helmet as if they were drunk. Don Quixote called him a liar and hurled himself upon him; both sides prepared for battle and fell to blows. Then it was that Don Quixote, thinking that he was certainly involved in the disorder and confusion of King Agramant’s camp, lifted up his voice and quieted the tumult.
What! it surprises you that the question as to whether the basin was a basin or a helmet should have given rise to a general dispute? Other and more involved disputes have broken out in the world with regard to other basins and those not belonging to Mambrino. As to whether bread is bread and wine wine and the like. Human sheep flock round Knights of the Faith and maintain for various reasons or for no reason at all, that the basin is a helmet, as the Knights assert, and they are surprisingly rewarded for so maintaining it, and the strange thing is that most of those who contend that it is a helmet really believe it to be a basin. The heroism of Don Quixote communicated itself to his mockers, who became quixotized in spite of themselves, and Don Fernando made one of the pursuivants measure his length on the ground because he had dared to maintain that the basin was not a helmet but a basin. Heroical Don Fernando!
Thus we see Don Quixote’s mockers mocked by him, quixotized in their own despite, joining in the fray and fighting with all their might to defend the Faith of the Knight, although without sharing it. I am convinced—although Cervantes does not tell us so—I am convinced that the partisans of the Knight, the quixotists or helmetists, after having received and administered punishment, began themselves to doubt whether the basin were a basin and to believe that it really was the helmet of Mambrino, for their ribs bore evidence of their belief. It must be affirmed here yet again that it is martyrs who create faith rather than faith that creates martyrs.
In few of his adventures does Don Quixote appear greater than in this one, in which he imposes his faith upon those who mocked at it, so that they are led to defend it with kicks and blows and to suffer for it.
And what was it that inspired them to do so? Simply his courage in affirming before everybody that that basin, which he no less than they saw with his own eyes to be a basin, was the helmet of Mambrino, for to him it served the office of a helmet.
This is the courage of the purest water—that which resists not merely a shock to the reason or decay of fortune or loss of honour, but also being taken for a madman and an idiot.
This is the courage that we need in Spain and our soul remains paralysed because of the lack of it. It is because of the lack of it that we are neither powerful nor wealthy nor cultured; it is because of the lack of it that we have no system of irrigation, no good harvests; it is because of the lack of it that it doesn’t rain more on our drought-parched fields, or that when it does rain it rains in torrents, sweeping away the manure and sometimes sweeping away the houses too.
This seems to you like a paradox? Go into the country and propose to any farmer some improvement in his methods of cultivation or the introduction of a new kind of crop or of a new agricultural machine, and he will say: “That doesn’t pay here.” “Have you tried it?” you ask, and he simply repeats: “That doesn’t pay here.” He doesn’t know whether it pays or whether it doesn’t pay, for he hasn’t tried it and doesn’t mean to try it. He would try it if he were sure of its success beforehand, but the prospect of the possibility of a failure, with the consequent mockery and derision of his neighbours, the possibility of their taking him for a deluded fool or a lunatic, this prospect terrifies him and so he doesn’t experiment. And then people are surprised at the triumph of those who have the courage to face ridicule serenely, of those who rid themselves of the herd-instinct.
In the province of Salamanca there was a remarkable man who rose from the greatest poverty to be a millionaire. The peasants of the district, with the sheep-like instincts of their kind, were only able to explain his success by supposing that in his younger days he had embezzled money, for these wretched peasants, crusted over with common sense and entirely lacking in moral courage, believe only in theft and the lottery. But one day I was told of a quixotic feat which this cattle farmer had performed. It seems that he had brought sea-bream’s spawn from the Cantabrian coast to put in one of his ponds! When I heard that, I understood everything. He who has the courage to face the jeers which are bound to be provoked by bringing the spawn of a salt-water fish to put in a pond in Castile, he who does that deserves his fortune.
But it was absurd, you say? And who knows what is absurd and what is not? And even if it were! Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible. There is only one way of hitting the nail on the head and that is by hammering on the shoe a hundred times. And there is only one way of achieving a real triumph and that is by facing ridicule with serenity. And it is because our agriculturists haven’t the courage to face ridicule that our agriculture languishes in its present backward condition.
Yes, all our ills spring from moral cowardice, from the individual’s lack of staunch resolution in affirming his own truth, his own faith, and defending it. The soul of this people, this flock of somnolent sheep, is smothered and swathed in falsehood, and their stupidity proceeds from their very excess of prudence.
It is claimed that there are certain principles that are beyond discussion and when anyone attempts to criticize them the air rings with shouts of protest. Not long ago I proposed that we should demand the abolition of certain of the articles of our law of Public Instruction, and a pack of poltroons began to bellow that such a course was inopportune and impertinent, not to mention stronger and more offensive epithets that were used. I am sick of hearing everything that is most opportune called inopportune, everything that tends to disturb the digestion of the full-bellied and infuriates fools. What are they afraid of? That it will result in a brawl? that a new civil war will break out? Better and better. That’s what we need.
Yes, that’s what we need—a new civil war. It is necessary to assert that basins ought to be and are helmets and to get up a fight about it like the fight they got up at the inn. A new civil war, let the weapons be what they will. Can’t you hear those spiritless creatures whose hearts are dried and shrivelled up reiterating that these kinds of disputes lead to nothing practical? What do they understand by practical? Can’t you hear them reiterating that there are discussions which ought never to be broached?
There are plenty of cowardly spirits who are always drilling it into us that we ought to leave religious questions on one side, that the first thing to do is to become powerful and wealthy. And the poltroons don’t see that it is just because we ignore what concerns our inward well-being that we are not and never shall be wealthy and powerful. I repeat it yet again, there will never be any agriculture or industry or commerce in our country, nor roads where there ought to be roads, until we have discovered our Christianity, which is Quixotic Christianity. We shall never have a powerful and splendid and glorious and strong external life until we have kindled in the hearts of our people the fire of the eternal disquietudes. We cannot be rich so long as our life is nothing but deceit, and deceit is our spirit’s daily bread.
Can’t you hear the solemn ass that opens his mouth and says: “It’s forbidden to say that here”? Can’t you hear all those who are bound with the fetters of falsehood talking about peace, a peace that is more deadly than death itself? That terrible and ignominious rule which figures in the list of regulations of almost all the social clubs in Spain, “political and religious discussions prohibited”—does that say nothing to you?
Peace! peace! peace! all the frogs of our national pond croak in chorus.
Peace! peace! peace! Yes, but peace established upon the triumph of sincerity, peace established upon the overthrow of falsehood. Peace, but not a peace of compromise, not a hollow political agreement, but a comprehensive peace. Peace, yes, but only after the pursuivants have recognized Don Quixote’s right to assert that the basin is a helmet; and, furthermore, only after the pursuivants themselves have admitted and affirmed that in the hands of Don Quixote the basin is a helmet. And the wretched crowd that shout “Peace! peace!” dare to take upon their lips the name of Christ! They forget that Christ said that He came not to bring peace but war, and that because of Him they of the same household should be divided against one another, father against son and brother against brother. And this should be because of Him, because of Christ, that His kingdom might be established, the social kingdom of Jesus—which is the very reverse of that which the Jesuits call the social kingdom of Jesus Christ—the kingdom of real sincerity and real truth and real love and real peace. In order that the kingdom of Jesus may be established, there must be war.