CHAPTER 45
IN WHICH THE DOUBTFUL QUESTION OF MAMBRINO’S HELMET AND THE PACK-SAD-
DLE IS FINALLY SETTLED, WITH OTHER ADVENTURES THAT OCCURRED IN TRUTH AND
EARNEST
“What do you think now, gentlemen,” said the barber, “of what these gen-
tles say, when they want to make out that this is a helmet?”
“And whoever says the contrary,” said Don Quixote, “I will let him know
he lies if he is a knight, and if he is a squire that he lies again a thousand
times.”
Our own barber, who was present at all this, and understood Don
Quixote’s humour so thoroughly, took it into his head to back up his delu-
sion and carry on the joke for the general amusement; so addressing the oth-
er barber he said:
“Senor barber, or whatever you are, you must know that I belong to your
profession too, and have had a licence to practise for more than twenty
years, and I know the implements of the barber craft, every one of them,
perfectly well; and I was likewise a soldier for some time in the days of my
youth, and I know also what a helmet is, and a morion, and a headpiece
with a visor, and other things pertaining to soldiering, I meant to say to sol-
diers’ arms; and I say-saving better opinions and always with submission to
sounder judgments—that this piece we have now before us, which this wor-
thy gentleman has in his hands, not only is no barber’s basin, but is as far
from being one as white is from black, and truth from falsehood; I say,
moreover, that this, although it is a helmet, is not a complete helmet.”
“Certainly not,” said Don Quixote, “for half of it is wanting, that is to say
the beaver.”
“It is quite true,” said the curate, who saw the object of his friend the bar-
ber; and Cardenio, Don Fernando and his companions agreed with him, and
even the Judge, if his thoughts had not been so full of Don Luis’s affair,
would have helped to carry on the joke; but he was so taken up with the se-
rious matters he had on his mind that he paid little or no attention to these
facetious proceedings.
“God bless me!” exclaimed their butt the barber at this; “is it possible that
such an honourable company can say that this is not a basin but a helmet?
Why, this is a thing that would astonish a whole university, however wise it
might be! That will do; if this basin is a helmet, why, then the pack-saddle
must be a horse’s caparison, as this gentleman has said.”
“To me it looks like a pack-saddle,” said Don Quixote; “but I have al-
ready said that with that question I do not concern myself.”
“As to whether it be pack-saddle or caparison,” said the curate, “it is only
for Senor Don Quixote to say; for in these matters of chivalry all these gen-
tlemen and I bow to his authority.”
“By God, gentlemen,” said Don Quixote, “so many strange things have
happened to me in this castle on the two occasions on which I have so-
journed in it, that I will not venture to assert anything positively in reply to
any question touching anything it contains; for it is my belief that every-
thing that goes on within it goes by enchantment. The first time, an enchant-
ed Moor that there is in it gave me sore trouble, nor did Sancho fare well
among certain followers of his; and last night I was kept hanging by this
arm for nearly two hours, without knowing how or why I came by such a
mishap. So that now, for me to come forward to give an opinion in such a
puzzling matter, would be to risk a rash decision. As regards the assertion
that this is a basin and not a helmet I have already given an answer; but as
to the question whether this is a pack-saddle or a caparison I will not ven-
ture to give a positive opinion, but will leave it to your worships’ better
judgment. Perhaps as you are not dubbed knights like myself, the enchant-
ments of this place have nothing to do with you, and your faculties are un-
fettered, and you can see things in this castle as they really and truly are,
and not as they appear to me.”
“There can be no question,” said Don Fernando on this, “but that Senor
Don Quixote has spoken very wisely, and that with us rests the decision of
this matter; and that we may have surer ground to go on, I will take the
votes of the gentlemen in secret, and declare the result clearly and fully.”
To those who were in the secret of Don Quixote’s humour all this afford-
ed great amusement; but to those who knew nothing about it, it seemed the
greatest nonsense in the world, in particular to the four servants of Don
Luis, as well as to Don Luis himself, and to three other travellers who had
by chance come to the inn, and had the appearance of officers of the Holy
Brotherhood, as indeed they were; but the one who above all was at his
wits’ end, was the barber basin, there before his very eyes, had been turned
into Mambrino’s helmet, and whose pack-saddle he had no doubt whatever
was about to become a rich caparison for a horse. All laughed to see Don
Fernando going from one to another collecting the votes, and whispering to
them to give him their private opinion whether the treasure over which
there had been so much fighting was a pack-saddle or a caparison; but after
he had taken the votes of those who knew Don Quixote, he said aloud, “The
fact is, my good fellow, that I am tired collecting such a number of opin-
ions, for I find that there is not one of whom I ask what I desire to know,
who does not tell me that it is absurd to say that this is the pack-saddle of an
ass, and not the caparison of a horse, nay, of a thoroughbred horse; so you
must submit, for, in spite of you and your ass, this is a caparison and no
pack-saddle, and you have stated and proved your case very badly.”
“May I never share heaven,” said the poor barber, “if your worships are
not all mistaken; and may my soul appear before God as that appears to me
a pack-saddle and not a caparison; but, ‘laws go,’-I say no more; and indeed
I am not drunk, for I am fasting, except it be from sin.”
The simple talk of the barber did not afford less amusement than the ab-
surdities of Don Quixote, who now observed:
“There is no more to be done now than for each to take what belongs to
him, and to whom God has given it, may St. Peter add his blessing.”
But said one of the four servants, “Unless, indeed, this is a deliberate
joke, I cannot bring myself to believe that men so intelligent as those
present are, or seem to be, can venture to declare and assert that this is not a
basin, and that not a pack-saddle; but as I perceive that they do assert and
declare it, I can only come to the conclusion that there is some mystery in
this persistence in what is so opposed to the evidence of experience and
truth itself; for I swear by”—and here he rapped out a round oath-“all the
people in the world will not make me believe that this is not a barber’s basin
and that a jackass’s pack-saddle.”
“It might easily be a she-ass’s,” observed the curate.
“It is all the same,” said the servant; “that is not the point; but whether it
is or is not a pack-saddle, as your worships say.”
On hearing this one of the newly arrived officers of the Brotherhood, who
had been listening to the dispute and controversy, unable to restrain his
anger and impatience, exclaimed, “It is a pack-saddle as sure as my father is
my father, and whoever has said or will say anything else must be drunk.”
“You lie like a rascally clown,” returned Don Quixote; and lifting his
pike, which he had never let out of his hand, he delivered such a blow at his
head that, had not the officer dodged it, it would have stretched him at full
length. The pike was shivered in pieces against the ground, and the rest of
the officers, seeing their comrade assaulted, raised a shout, calling for help
for the Holy Brotherhood. The landlord, who was of the fraternity, ran at
once to fetch his staff of office and his sword, and ranged himself on the
side of his comrades; the servants of Don Luis clustered round him, lest he
should escape from them in the confusion; the barber, seeing the house
turned upside down, once more laid hold of his pack-saddle and Sancho did
the same; Don Quixote drew his sword and charged the officers; Don Luis
cried out to his servants to leave him alone and go and help Don Quixote,
and Cardenio and Don Fernando, who were supporting him; the curate was
shouting at the top of his voice, the landlady was screaming, her daughter
was wailing, Maritornes was weeping, Dorothea was aghast, Luscinda ter-
ror-stricken, and Dona Clara in a faint. The barber cudgelled Sancho, and
Sancho pommelled the barber; Don Luis gave one of his servants, who ven-
tured to catch him by the arm to keep him from escaping, a cuff that bathed
his teeth in blood; the Judge took his part; Don Fernando had got one of the
officers down and was belabouring him heartily; the landlord raised his
voice again calling for help for the Holy Brotherhood; so that the whole inn
was nothing but cries, shouts, shrieks, confusion, terror, dismay, mishaps,
sword-cuts, fisticuffs, cudgellings, kicks, and bloodshed; and in the midst of
all this chaos, complication, and general entanglement, Don Quixote took it
into his head that he had been plunged into the thick of the discord of Agra-
mante’s camp; and, in a voice that shook the inn like thunder, he cried out:
“Hold all, let all sheathe their swords, let all be calm and attend to me as
they value their lives!”
All paused at his mighty voice, and he went on to say, “Did I not tell you,
sirs, that this castle was enchanted, and that a legion or so of devils dwelt in
it? In proof whereof I call upon you to behold with your own eyes how the
discord of Agramante’s camp has come hither, and been transferred into the
midst of us. See how they fight, there for the sword, here for the horse, on
that side for the eagle, on this for the helmet; we are all fighting, and all at
cross purposes. Come then, you, Senor Judge, and you, senor curate; let the
one represent King Agramante and the other King Sobrino, and make peace
among us; for by God Almighty it is a sorry business that so many persons
of quality as we are should slay one another for such trifling cause.” The
officers, who did not understand Don Quixote’s mode of speaking, and
found themselves roughly handled by Don Fernando, Cardenio, and their
companions, were not to be appeased; the barber was, however, for both his
beard and his pack-saddle were the worse for the struggle; Sancho like a
good servant obeyed the slightest word of his master; while the four ser-
vants of Don Luis kept quiet when they saw how little they gained by not
being so. The landlord alone insisted upon it that they must punish the inso-
lence of this madman, who at every turn raised a disturbance in the inn; but
at length the uproar was stilled for the present; the pack-saddle remained a
caparison till the day of judgment, and the basin a helmet and the inn a cas-
tle in Don Quixote’s imagination.
All having been now pacified and made friends by the persuasion of the
Judge and the curate, the servants of Don Luis began again to urge him to
return with them at once; and while he was discussing the matter with them,
the Judge took counsel with Don Fernando, Cardenio, and the curate as to
what he ought to do in the case, telling them how it stood, and what Don
Luis had said to him. It was agreed at length that Don Fernando should tell
the servants of Don Luis who he was, and that it was his desire that Don
Luis should accompany him to Andalusia, where he would receive from the
marquis his brother the welcome his quality entitled him to; for, otherwise,
it was easy to see from the determination of Don Luis that he would not re-
turn to his father at present, though they tore him to pieces. On learning the
rank of Don Fernando and the resolution of Don Luis the four then settled it
between themselves that three of them should return to tell his father how
matters stood, and that the other should remain to wait upon Don Luis, and
not leave him until they came back for him, or his father’s orders were
known. Thus by the authority of Agramante and the wisdom of King Sobri-
no all this complication of disputes was arranged; but the enemy of concord
and hater of peace, feeling himself slighted and made a fool of, and seeing
how little he had gained after having involved them all in such an elaborate
entanglement, resolved to try his hand once more by stirring up fresh quar-
rels and disturbances.
It came about in this wise: the officers were pacified on learning the rank
of those with whom they had been engaged, and withdrew from the contest,
considering that whatever the result might be they were likely to get the
worst of the battle; but one of them, the one who had been thrashed and
kicked by Don Fernando, recollected that among some warrants he carried
for the arrest of certain delinquents, he had one against Don Quixote, whom
the Holy Brotherhood had ordered to be arrested for setting the galley
slaves free, as Sancho had, with very good reason, apprehended. Suspecting
how it was, then, he wished to satisfy himself as to whether Don Quixote’s
features corresponded; and taking a parchment out of his bosom he lit upon
what he was in search of, and setting himself to read it deliberately, for he
was not a quick reader, as he made out each word he fixed his eyes on Don
Quixote, and went on comparing the description in the warrant with his
face, and discovered that beyond all doubt he was the person described in it.
As soon as he had satisfied himself, folding up the parchment, he took the
warrant in his left hand and with his right seized Don Quixote by the collar
so tightly that he did not allow him to breathe, and shouted aloud, “Help for
the Holy Brotherhood! and that you may see I demand it in earnest, read
this warrant which says this highwayman is to be arrested.”
The curate took the warrant and saw that what the officer said was true,
and that it agreed with Don Quixote’s appearance, who, on his part, when he
found himself roughly handled by this rascally clown, worked up to the
highest pitch of wrath, and all his joints cracking with rage, with both hands
seized the officer by the throat with all his might, so that had he not been
helped by his comrades he would have yielded up his life ere Don Quixote
released his hold. The landlord, who had perforce to support his brother of-
ficers, ran at once to aid them. The landlady, when she saw her husband en-
gaged in a fresh quarrel, lifted up her voice afresh, and its note was immedi-
ately caught up by Maritornes and her daughter, calling upon heaven and all
present for help; and Sancho, seeing what was going on, exclaimed, “By the
Lord, it is quite true what my master says about the enchantments of this
castle, for it is impossible to live an hour in peace in it!”
Don Fernando parted the officer and Don Quixote, and to their mutual
contentment made them relax the grip by which they held, the one the coat
collar, the other the throat of his adversary; for all this, however, the officers
did not cease to demand their prisoner and call on them to help, and deliver
him over bound into their power, as was required for the service of the King
and of the Holy Brotherhood, on whose behalf they again demanded aid and
assistance to effect the capture of this robber and footpad of the highways.
Don Quixote smiled when he heard these words, and said very calmly,
“Come now, base, ill-born brood; call ye it highway robbery to give free-
dom to those in bondage, to release the captives, to succour the miserable,
to raise up the fallen, to relieve the needy? Infamous beings, who by your
vile grovelling intellects deserve that heaven should not make known to you
the virtue that lies in knight-errantry, or show you the sin and ignorance in
which ye lie when ye refuse to respect the shadow, not to say the presence,
of any knight-errant! Come now; band, not of officers, but of thieves; foot-
pads with the licence of the Holy Brotherhood; tell me who was the ignora-
mus who signed a warrant of arrest against such a knight as I am? Who was
he that did not know that knights-errant are independent of all jurisdictions,
that their law is their sword, their charter their prowess, and their edicts
their will? Who, I say again, was the fool that knows not that there are no
letters patent of nobility that confer such privileges or exemptions as a
knight-errant acquires the day he is dubbed a knight, and devotes himself to
the arduous calling of chivalry? What knight-errant ever paid poll-tax, duty,
queen’s pin-money, king’s dues, toll or ferry? What tailor ever took payment
of him for making his clothes? What castellan that received him in his cas-
tle ever made him pay his shot? What king did not seat him at his table?
What damsel was not enamoured of him and did not yield herself up wholly
to his will and pleasure? And, lastly, what knight-errant has there been, is
there, or will there ever be in the world, not bold enough to give, single-
handed, four hundred cudgellings to four hundred officers of the Holy
Brotherhood if they come in his way?”
