CHAPTER 49
WHICH TREATS OF THE SHREWD CONVERSATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HELD WITH
HIS MASTER DON QUIXOTE
“Aha, I have caught you,” said Sancho; “this is what in my heart and soul
I was longing to know. Come now, senor, can you deny what is commonly
said around us, when a person is out of humour, ‘I don’t know what ails so-
and-so, that he neither eats, nor drinks, nor sleeps, nor gives a proper an-
swer to any question; one would think he was enchanted’? From which it is
to be gathered that those who do not eat, or drink, or sleep, or do any of the
natural acts I am speaking of-that such persons are enchanted; but not those
that have the desire your worship has, and drink when drink is given them,
and eat when there is anything to eat, and answer every question that is
asked them.”
“What thou sayest is true, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote; “but I have al-
ready told thee there are many sorts of enchantments, and it may be that in
the course of time they have been changed one for another, and that now it
may be the way with enchanted people to do all that I do, though they did
not do so before; so it is vain to argue or draw inferences against the usage
of the time. I know and feel that I am enchanted, and that is enough to ease
my conscience; for it would weigh heavily on it if I thought that I was not
enchanted, and that in a faint-hearted and cowardly way I allowed myself to
lie in this cage, defrauding multitudes of the succour I might afford to those
in need and distress, who at this very moment may be in sore want of my
aid and protection.”
“Still for all that,” replied Sancho, “I say that, for your greater and fuller
satisfaction, it would be well if your worship were to try to get out of this
prison (and I promise to do all in my power to help, and even to take you
out of it), and see if you could once more mount your good Rocinante, who
seems to be enchanted too, he is so melancholy and dejected; and then we
might try our chance in looking for adventures again; and if we have no
luck there will be time enough to go back to the cage; in which, on the faith
of a good and loyal squire, I promise to shut myself up along with your
worship, if so be you are so unfortunate, or I so stupid, as not to be able to
carry out my plan.”
“I am content to do as thou sayest, brother Sancho,” said Don Quixote,
“and when thou seest an opportunity for effecting my release I will obey
thee absolutely; but thou wilt see, Sancho, how mistaken thou art in thy
conception of my misfortune.”
The knight-errant and the ill-errant squire kept up their conversation till
they reached the place where the curate, the canon, and the barber, who had
already dismounted, were waiting for them. The carter at once unyoked the
oxen and left them to roam at large about the pleasant green spot, the fresh-
ness of which seemed to invite, not enchanted people like Don Quixote, but
wide-awake, sensible folk like his squire, who begged the curate to allow
his master to leave the cage for a little; for if they did not let him out, the
prison might not be as clean as the propriety of such a gentleman as his
master required. The curate understood him, and said he would very gladly
comply with his request, only that he feared his master, finding himself at
liberty, would take to his old courses and make off where nobody could
ever find him again.
“I will answer for his not running away,” said Sancho.
“And I also,” said the canon, “especially if he gives me his word as a
knight not to leave us without our consent.”
Don Quixote, who was listening to all this, said, “I give it;-moreover one
who is enchanted as I am cannot do as he likes with himself; for he who had
enchanted him could prevent his moving from one place for three ages, and
if he attempted to escape would bring him back flying.”—And that being
so, they might as well release him, particularly as it would be to the advan-
tage of all; for, if they did not let him out, he protested he would be unable
to avoid offending their nostrils unless they kept their distance.
The canon took his hand, tied together as they both were, and on his
word and promise they unbound him, and rejoiced beyond measure he was
to find himself out of the cage. The first thing he did was to stretch himself
all over, and then he went to where Rocinante was standing and giving him
a couple of slaps on the haunches said, “I still trust in God and in his
blessed mother, O flower and mirror of steeds, that we shall soon see our-
selves, both of us, as we wish to be, thou with thy master on thy back, and I
mounted upon thee, following the calling for which God sent me into the
world.” And so saying, accompanied by Sancho, he withdrew to a retired
spot, from which he came back much relieved and more eager than ever to
put his squire’s scheme into execution.
The canon gazed at him, wondering at the extraordinary nature of his
madness, and that in all his remarks and replies he should show such excel-
lent sense, and only lose his stirrups, as has been already said, when the
subject of chivalry was broached. And so, moved by compassion, he said to
him, as they all sat on the green grass awaiting the arrival of the provisions:
“Is it possible, gentle sir, that the nauseous and idle reading of books of
chivalry can have had such an effect on your worship as to upset your rea-
son so that you fancy yourself enchanted, and the like, all as far from the
truth as falsehood itself is? How can there be any human understanding that
can persuade itself there ever was all that infinity of Amadises in the world,
or all that multitude of famous knights, all those emperors of Trebizond, all
those Felixmartes of Hircania, all those palfreys, and damsels-errant, and
serpents, and monsters, and giants, and marvellous adventures, and enchant-
ments of every kind, and battles, and prodigious encounters, splendid cos-
tumes, love-sick princesses, squires made counts, droll dwarfs, love letters,
billings and cooings, swashbuckler women, and, in a word, all that non-
sense the books of chivalry contain? For myself, I can only say that when I
read them, so long as I do not stop to think that they are all lies and fri-
volity, they give me a certain amount of pleasure; but when I come to con-
sider what they are, I fling the very best of them at the wall, and would fling
it into the fire if there were one at hand, as richly deserving such punish-
ment as cheats and impostors out of the range of ordinary toleration, and as
founders of new sects and modes of life, and teachers that lead the ignorant
public to believe and accept as truth all the folly they contain. And such is
their audacity, they even dare to unsettle the wits of gentlemen of birth and
intelligence, as is shown plainly by the way they have served your worship,
when they have brought you to such a pass that you have to be shut up in a
cage and carried on an ox-cart as one would carry a lion or a tiger from
place to place to make money by showing it. Come, Senor Don Quixote,
have some compassion for yourself, return to the bosom of common sense,
and make use of the liberal share of it that heaven has been pleased to be-
stow upon you, employing your abundant gifts of mind in some other read-
ing that may serve to benefit your conscience and add to your honour. And
if, still led away by your natural bent, you desire to read books of achieve-
ments and of chivalry, read the Book of Judges in the Holy Scriptures, for
there you will find grand reality, and deeds as true as they are heroic. Lusi-
tania had a Viriatus, Rome a Caesar, Carthage a Hannibal, Greece an
Alexander, Castile a Count Fernan Gonzalez, Valencia a Cid, Andalusia a
Gonzalo Fernandez, Estremadura a Diego Garcia de Paredes, Jerez a Garci
Perez de Vargas, Toledo a Garcilaso, Seville a Don Manuel de Leon, to read
of whose valiant deeds will entertain and instruct the loftiest minds and fill
them with delight and wonder. Here, Senor Don Quixote, will be reading
worthy of your sound understanding; from which you will rise learned in
history, in love with virtue, strengthened in goodness, improved in manners,
brave without rashness, prudent without cowardice; and all to the honour of
God, your own advantage and the glory of La Mancha, whence, I am in-
formed, your worship derives your birth.”
Don Quixote listened with the greatest attention to the canon’s words, and
when he found he had finished, after regarding him for some time, he
replied to him:
“It appears to me, gentle sir, that your worship’s discourse is intended to
persuade me that there never were any knights-errant in the world, and that
all the books of chivalry are false, lying, mischievous and useless to the
State, and that I have done wrong in reading them, and worse in believing
them, and still worse in imitating them, when I undertook to follow the ar-
duous calling of knight-errantry which they set forth; for you deny that
there ever were Amadises of Gaul or of Greece, or any other of the knights
of whom the books are full.”
“It is all exactly as you state it,” said the canon; to which Don Quixote
returned, “You also went on to say that books of this kind had done me
much harm, inasmuch as they had upset my senses, and shut me up in a
cage, and that it would be better for me to reform and change my studies,
and read other truer books which would afford more pleasure and
instruction.”
“Just so,” said the canon.
“Well then,” returned Don Quixote, “to my mind it is you who are the one
that is out of his wits and enchanted, as you have ventured to utter such
blasphemies against a thing so universally acknowledged and accepted as
true that whoever denies it, as you do, deserves the same punishment which
you say you inflict on the books that irritate you when you read them. For to
try to persuade anybody that Amadis, and all the other knights-adventurers
with whom the books are filled, never existed, would be like trying to per-
suade him that the sun does not yield light, or ice cold, or earth nourish-
ment. What wit in the world can persuade another that the story of the
Princess Floripes and Guy of Burgundy is not true, or that of Fierabras and
the bridge of Mantible, which happened in the time of Charlemagne? For by
all that is good it is as true as that it is daylight now; and if it be a lie, it
must be a lie too that there was a Hector, or Achilles, or Trojan war, or
Twelve Peers of France, or Arthur of England, who still lives changed into a
raven, and is unceasingly looked for in his kingdom. One might just as well
try to make out that the history of Guarino Mezquino, or of the quest of the
Holy Grail, is false, or that the loves of Tristram and the Queen Yseult are
apocryphal, as well as those of Guinevere and Lancelot, when there are per-
sons who can almost remember having seen the Dame Quintanona, who
was the best cupbearer in Great Britain. And so true is this, that I recollect a
grandmother of mine on the father’s side, whenever she saw any dame in a
venerable hood, used to say to me, ‘Grandson, that one is like Dame Quin-
tanona,’ from which I conclude that she must have known her, or at least
had managed to see some portrait of her. Then who can deny that the story
of Pierres and the fair Magalona is true, when even to this day may be seen
in the king’s armoury the pin with which the valiant Pierres guided the
wooden horse he rode through the air, and it is a trifle bigger than the pole
of a cart? And alongside of the pin is Babieca’s saddle, and at Roncesvalles
there is Roland’s horn, as large as a large beam; whence we may infer that
there were Twelve Peers, and a Pierres, and a Cid, and other knights like
them, of the sort people commonly call adventurers. Or perhaps I shall be
told, too, that there was no such knight-errant as the valiant Lusitanian Juan
de Merlo, who went to Burgundy and in the city of Arras fought with the
famous lord of Charny, Mosen Pierres by name, and afterwards in the city
of Basle with Mosen Enrique de Remesten, coming out of both encounters
covered with fame and honour; or adventures and challenges achieved and
delivered, also in Burgundy, by the valiant Spaniards Pedro Barba and
Gutierre Quixada (of whose family I come in the direct male line), when
they vanquished the sons of the Count of San Polo. I shall be told, too, that
Don Fernando de Guevara did not go in quest of adventures to Germany,
where he engaged in combat with Micer George, a knight of the house of
the Duke of Austria. I shall be told that the jousts of Suero de Quinones,
him of the ‘Paso,’ and the emprise of Mosen Luis de Falces against the
Castilian knight, Don Gonzalo de Guzman, were mere mockeries; as well as
many other achievements of Christian knights of these and foreign realms,
which are so authentic and true, that, I repeat, he who denies them must be
totally wanting in reason and good sense.”
The canon was amazed to hear the medley of truth and fiction Don
Quixote uttered, and to see how well acquainted he was with everything re-
lating or belonging to the achievements of his knight-errantry; so he said in
reply:
“I cannot deny, Senor Don Quixote, that there is some truth in what you
say, especially as regards the Spanish knights-errant; and I am willing to
grant too that the Twelve Peers of France existed, but I am not disposed to
believe that they did all the things that the Archbishop Turpin relates of
them. For the truth of the matter is they were knights chosen by the kings of
France, and called ‘Peers’ because they were all equal in worth, rank and
prowess (at least if they were not they ought to have been), and it was a
kind of religious order like those of Santiago and Calatrava in the present
day, in which it is assumed that those who take it are valiant knights of dis-
tinction and good birth; and just as we say now a Knight of St. John, or of
Alcantara, they used to say then a Knight of the Twelve Peers, because
twelve equals were chosen for that military order. That there was a Cid, as
well as a Bernardo del Carpio, there can be no doubt; but that they did the
deeds people say they did, I hold to be very doubtful. In that other matter of
the pin of Count Pierres that you speak of, and say is near Babieca’s saddle
in the Armoury, I confess my sin; for I am either so stupid or so short-sight-
ed, that, though I have seen the saddle, I have never been able to see the
pin, in spite of it being as big as your worship says it is.”
“For all that it is there, without any manner of doubt,” said Don Quixote;
“and more by token they say it is inclosed in a sheath of cowhide to keep it
from rusting.”
“All that may be,” replied the canon; “but, by the orders I have received, I
do not remember seeing it. However, granting it is there, that is no reason
why I am bound to believe the stories of all those Amadises and of all that
multitude of knights they tell us about, nor is it reasonable that a man like
your worship, so worthy, and with so many good qualities, and endowed
with such a good understanding, should allow himself to be persuaded that
such wild crazy things as are written in those absurd books of chivalry are
really true.”
