CHAPTER 16
OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH A DISCREET GENTLEMAN OF LA MANCHA
Don Quixote pursued his journey in the high spirits, satisfaction, and
self-complacency already described, fancying himself the most valorous
knight-errant of the age in the world because of his late victory. All the ad-
ventures that could befall him from that time forth he regarded as already
done and brought to a happy issue; he made light of enchantments and en-
chanters; he thought no more of the countless drubbings that had been ad-
ministered to him in the course of his knight-errantry, nor of the volley of
stones that had levelled half his teeth, nor of the ingratitude of the galley
slaves, nor of the audacity of the Yanguesans and the shower of stakes that
fell upon him; in short, he said to himself that could he discover any means,
mode, or way of disenchanting his lady Dulcinea, he would not envy the
highest fortune that the most fortunate knight-errant of yore ever reached or
could reach.
He was going along entirely absorbed in these fancies, when Sancho said
to him, “Isn’t it odd, senor, that I have still before my eyes that monstrous
enormous nose of my gossip, Tom Cecial?”
“And dost thou, then, believe, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that the
Knight of the Mirrors was the bachelor Carrasco, and his squire Tom Cecial
thy gossip?”
“I don’t know what to say to that,” replied Sancho; “all I know is that the
tokens he gave me about my own house, wife and children, nobody else but
himself could have given me; and the face, once the nose was off, was the
very face of Tom Cecial, as I have seen it many a time in my town and next
door to my own house; and the sound of the voice was just the same.”
“Let us reason the matter, Sancho,” said Don Quixote. “Come now, by
what process of thinking can it be supposed that the bachelor Samson Car-
rasco would come as a knight-errant, in arms offensive and defensive, to
fight with me? Have I ever been by any chance his enemy? Have I ever giv-
en him any occasion to owe me a grudge? Am I his rival, or does he profess
arms, that he should envy the fame I have acquired in them?”
“Well, but what are we to say, senor,” returned Sancho, “about that
knight, whoever he is, being so like the bachelor Carrasco, and his squire so
like my gossip, Tom Cecial? And if that be enchantment, as your worship
says, was there no other pair in the world for them to take the likeness of?”
“It is all,” said Don Quixote, “a scheme and plot of the malignant magi-
cians that persecute me, who, foreseeing that I was to be victorious in the
conflict, arranged that the vanquished knight should display the counte-
nance of my friend the bachelor, in order that the friendship I bear him
should interpose to stay the edge of my sword and might of my arm, and
temper the just wrath of my heart; so that he who sought to take my life by
fraud and falsehood should save his own. And to prove it, thou knowest al-
ready, Sancho, by experience which cannot lie or deceive, how easy it is for
enchanters to change one countenance into another, turning fair into foul,
and foul into fair; for it is not two days since thou sawest with thine own
eyes the beauty and elegance of the peerless Dulcinea in all its perfection
and natural harmony, while I saw her in the repulsive and mean form of a
coarse country wench, with cataracts in her eyes and a foul smell in her
mouth; and when the perverse enchanter ventured to effect so wicked a
transformation, it is no wonder if he effected that of Samson Carrasco and
thy gossip in order to snatch the glory of victory out of my grasp. For all
that, however, I console myself, because, after all, in whatever shape he
may have been, I have victorious over my enemy.”
“God knows what’s the truth of it all,” said Sancho; and knowing as he
did that the transformation of Dulcinea had been a device and imposition of
his own, his master’s illusions were not satisfactory to him; but he did not
like to reply lest he should say something that might disclose his trickery.
As they were engaged in this conversation they were overtaken by a man
who was following the same road behind them, mounted on a very hand-
some flea-bitten mare, and dressed in a gaban of fine green cloth, with
tawny velvet facings, and a montera of the same velvet. The trappings of
the mare were of the field and jineta fashion, and of mulberry colour and
green. He carried a Moorish cutlass hanging from a broad green and gold
baldric; the buskins were of the same make as the baldric; the spurs were
not gilt, but lacquered green, and so brightly polished that, matching as they
did the rest of his apparel, they looked better than if they had been of pure
gold.
When the traveller came up with them he saluted them courteously, and
spurring his mare was passing them without stopping, but Don Quixote
called out to him, “Gallant sir, if so be your worship is going our road, and
has no occasion for speed, it would be a pleasure to me if we were to join
company.”
“In truth,” replied he on the mare, “I would not pass you so hastily but for
fear that horse might turn restive in the company of my mare.”
“You may safely hold in your mare, senor,” said Sancho in reply to this,
“for our horse is the most virtuous and well-behaved horse in the world; he
never does anything wrong on such occasions, and the only time he misbe-
haved, my master and I suffered for it sevenfold; I say again your worship
may pull up if you like; for if she was offered to him between two plates the
horse would not hanker after her.”
The traveller drew rein, amazed at the trim and features of Don Quixote,
who rode without his helmet, which Sancho carried like a valise in front of
Dapple’s pack-saddle; and if the man in green examined Don Quixote close-
ly, still more closely did Don Quixote examine the man in green, who
struck him as being a man of intelligence. In appearance he was about fifty
years of age, with but few grey hairs, an aquiline cast of features, and an
expression between grave and gay; and his dress and accoutrements showed
him to be a man of good condition. What he in green thought of Don
Quixote of La Mancha was that a man of that sort and shape he had never
yet seen; he marvelled at the length of his hair, his lofty stature, the lank-
ness and sallowness of his countenance, his armour, his bearing and his
gravity—a figure and picture such as had not been seen in those regions for
many a long day.
Don Quixote saw very plainly the attention with which the traveller was
regarding him, and read his curiosity in his astonishment; and courteous as
he was and ready to please everybody, before the other could ask him any
question he anticipated him by saying, “The appearance I present to your
worship being so strange and so out of the common, I should not be sur-
prised if it filled you with wonder; but you will cease to wonder when I tell
you, as I do, that I am one of those knights who, as people say, go seeking
adventures. I have left my home, I have mortgaged my estate, I have given
up my comforts, and committed myself to the arms of Fortune, to bear me
whithersoever she may please. My desire was to bring to life again knight-
errantry, now dead, and for some time past, stumbling here, falling there,
now coming down headlong, now raising myself up again, I have carried
out a great portion of my design, succouring widows, protecting maidens,
and giving aid to wives, orphans, and minors, the proper and natural duty of
knights-errant; and, therefore, because of my many valiant and Christian
achievements, I have been already found worthy to make my way in print to
well-nigh all, or most, of the nations of the earth. Thirty thousand volumes
of my history have been printed, and it is on the high-road to be printed
thirty thousand thousands of times, if heaven does not put a stop to it. In
short, to sum up all in a few words, or in a single one, I may tell you I am
Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called ‘The Knight of the Rueful
Countenance;’ for though self-praise is degrading, I must perforce sound my
own sometimes, that is to say, when there is no one at hand to do it for me.
So that, gentle sir, neither this horse, nor this lance, nor this shield, nor this
squire, nor all these arms put together, nor the sallowness of my counte-
nance, nor my gaunt leanness, will henceforth astonish you, now that you
know who I am and what profession I follow.”
With these words Don Quixote held his peace, and, from the time he took
to answer, the man in green seemed to be at a loss for a reply; after a long
pause, however, he said to him, “You were right when you saw curiosity in
my amazement, sir knight; but you have not succeeded in removing the as-
tonishment I feel at seeing you; for although you say, senor, that knowing
who you are ought to remove it, it has not done so; on the contrary, now
that I know, I am left more amazed and astonished than before. What! is it
possible that there are knights-errant in the world in these days, and histo-
ries of real chivalry printed? I cannot realise the fact that there can be any-
one on earth now-a-days who aids widows, or protects maidens, or defends
wives, or succours orphans; nor should I believe it had I not seen it in your
worship with my own eyes. Blessed be heaven! for by means of this history
of your noble and genuine chivalrous deeds, which you say has been print-
ed, the countless stories of fictitious knights-errant with which the world is
filled, so much to the injury of morality and the prejudice and discredit of
good histories, will have been driven into oblivion.”
“There is a good deal to be said on that point,” said Don Quixote, “as to
whether the histories of the knights-errant are fiction or not.”
“Why, is there anyone who doubts that those histories are false?” said the
man in green.
“I doubt it,” said Don Quixote, “but never mind that just now; if our jour-
ney lasts long enough, I trust in God I shall show your worship that you do
wrong in going with the stream of those who regard it as a matter of certain-
ty that they are not true.”
From this last observation of Don Quixote’s, the traveller began to have a
suspicion that he was some crazy being, and was waiting him to confirm it
by something further; but before they could turn to any new subject Don
Quixote begged him to tell him who he was, since he himself had rendered
account of his station and life. To this, he in the green gaban replied “I, Sir
Knight of the Rueful Countenance, am a gentleman by birth, native of the
village where, please God, we are going to dine today; I am more than fair-
ly well off, and my name is Don Diego de Miranda. I pass my life with my
wife, children, and friends; my pursuits are hunting and fishing, but I keep
neither hawks nor greyhounds, nothing but a tame partridge or a bold ferret
or two; I have six dozen or so of books, some in our mother tongue, some
Latin, some of them history, others devotional; those of chivalry have not as
yet crossed the threshold of my door; I am more given to turning over the
profane than the devotional, so long as they are books of honest entertain-
ment that charm by their style and attract and interest by the invention they
display, though of these there are very few in Spain. Sometimes I dine with
my neighbours and friends, and often invite them; my entertainments are
neat and well served without stint of anything. I have no taste for tattle, nor
do I allow tattling in my presence; I pry not into my neighbours’ lives, nor
have I lynx-eyes for what others do. I hear mass every day; I share my sub-
stance with the poor, making no display of good works, lest I let hypocrisy
and vainglory, those enemies that subtly take possession of the most watch-
ful heart, find an entrance into mine. I strive to make peace between those
whom I know to be at variance; I am the devoted servant of Our Lady, and
my trust is ever in the infinite mercy of God our Lord.”
Sancho listened with the greatest attention to the account of the gentle-
man’s life and occupation; and thinking it a good and a holy life, and that he
who led it ought to work miracles, he threw himself off Dapple, and run-
ning in haste seized his right stirrup and kissed his foot again and again
with a devout heart and almost with tears.
Seeing this the gentleman asked him, “What are you about, brother?
What are these kisses for?”
“Let me kiss,” said Sancho, “for I think your worship is the first saint in
the saddle I ever saw all the days of my life.”
“I am no saint,” replied the gentleman, “but a great sinner; but you are,
brother, for you must be a good fellow, as your simplicity shows.”
Sancho went back and regained his pack-saddle, having extracted a laugh
from his master’s profound melancholy, and excited fresh amazement in
Don Diego. Don Quixote then asked him how many children he had, and
observed that one of the things wherein the ancient philosophers, who were
without the true knowledge of God, placed the summum bonum was in the
gifts of nature, in those of fortune, in having many friends, and many and
good children.
“I, Senor Don Quixote,” answered the gentleman, “have one son, without
whom, perhaps, I should count myself happier than I am, not because he is
a bad son, but because he is not so good as I could wish. He is eighteen
years of age; he has been for six at Salamanca studying Latin and Greek,
and when I wished him to turn to the study of other sciences I found him so
wrapped up in that of poetry (if that can be called a science) that there is no
getting him to take kindly to the law, which I wished him to study, or to the-
ology, the queen of them all. I would like him to be an honour to his family,
as we live in days when our kings liberally reward learning that is virtuous
and worthy; for learning without virtue is a pearl on a dunghill. He spends
the whole day in settling whether Homer expressed himself correctly or not
in such and such a line of the Iliad, whether Martial was indecent or not in
such and such an epigram, whether such and such lines of Virgil are to be
understood in this way or in that; in short, all his talk is of the works of
these poets, and those of Horace, Perseus, Juvenal, and Tibullus; for of the
moderns in our own language he makes no great account; but with all his
seeming indifference to Spanish poetry, just now his thoughts are absorbed
in making a gloss on four lines that have been sent him from Salamanca,
which I suspect are for some poetical tournament.”
To all this Don Quixote said in reply, “Children, senor, are portions of
their parents’ bowels, and therefore, be they good or bad, are to be loved as
we love the souls that give us life; it is for the parents to guide them from
infancy in the ways of virtue, propriety, and worthy Christian conduct, so
that when grown up they may be the staff of their parents’ old age, and the
glory of their posterity; and to force them to study this or that science I do
not think wise, though it may be no harm to persuade them; and when there
is no need to study for the sake of pane lucrando, and it is the student’s good
fortune that heaven has given him parents who provide him with it, it would
be my advice to them to let him pursue whatever science they may see him
most inclined to; and though that of poetry is less useful than pleasurable, it
is not one of those that bring discredit upon the possessor. Poetry, gentle sir,
is, as I take it, like a tender young maiden of supreme beauty, to array, be-
deck, and adorn whom is the task of several other maidens, who are all the
rest of the sciences; and she must avail herself of the help of all, and all de-
rive their lustre from her. But this maiden will not bear to be handled, nor
dragged through the streets, nor exposed either at the corners of the market-
places, or in the closets of palaces. She is the product of an Alchemy of
such virtue that he who is able to practise it, will turn her into pure gold of
inestimable worth. He that possesses her must keep her within bounds, not
permitting her to break out in ribald satires or soulless sonnets. She must on
no account be offered for sale, unless, indeed, it be in heroic poems, moving
tragedies, or sprightly and ingenious comedies. She must not be touched by
the buffoons, nor by the ignorant vulgar, incapable of comprehending or ap-
preciating her hidden treasures. And do not suppose, senor, that I apply the
term vulgar here merely to plebeians and the lower orders; for everyone
who is ignorant, be he lord or prince, may and should be included among
the vulgar. He, then, who shall embrace and cultivate poetry under the con-
ditions I have named, shall become famous, and his name honoured
throughout all the civilised nations of the earth. And with regard to what
you say, senor, of your son having no great opinion of Spanish poetry, I am
inclined to think that he is not quite right there, and for this reason: the great
poet Homer did not write in Latin, because he was a Greek, nor did Virgil
write in Greek, because he was a Latin; in short, all the ancient poets wrote
in the language they imbibed with their mother’s milk, and never went in
quest of foreign ones to express their sublime conceptions; and that being
so, the usage should in justice extend to all nations, and the German poet
should not be undervalued because he writes in his own language, nor the
Castilian, nor even the Biscayan, for writing in his. But your son, senor, I
suspect, is not prejudiced against Spanish poetry, but against those poets
who are mere Spanish verse writers, without any knowledge of other lan-
guages or sciences to adorn and give life and vigour to their natural inspira-
tion; and yet even in this he may be wrong; for, according to a true belief, a
poet is born one; that is to say, the poet by nature comes forth a poet from
his mother’s womb; and following the bent that heaven has bestowed upon
him, without the aid of study or art, he produces things that show how truly
he spoke who said, ‘Est Deus in nobis,’ etc. At the same time, I say that the
poet by nature who calls in art to his aid will be a far better poet, and will
surpass him who tries to be one relying upon his knowledge of art alone.
The reason is, that art does not surpass nature, but only brings it to perfec-
tion; and thus, nature combined with art, and art with nature, will produce a
perfect poet. To bring my argument to a close, I would say then, gentle sir,
let your son go on as his star leads him, for being so studious as he seems to
be, and having already successfully surmounted the first step of the sci-
ences, which is that of the languages, with their help he will by his own ex-
ertions reach the summit of polite literature, which so well becomes an in-
dependent gentleman, and adorns, honours, and distinguishes him, as much
as the mitre does the bishop, or the gown the learned counsellor. If your son
write satires reflecting on the honour of others, chide and correct him, and
tear them up; but if he compose discourses in which he rebukes vice in gen-
eral, in the style of Horace, and with elegance like his, commend him; for it
is legitimate for a poet to write against envy and lash the envious in his
verse, and the other vices too, provided he does not single out individuals;
there are, however, poets who, for the sake of saying something spiteful,
would run the risk of being banished to the coast of Pontus. If the poet be
pure in his morals, he will be pure in his verses too; the pen is the tongue of
the mind, and as the thought engendered there, so will be the things that it
writes down. And when kings and princes observe this marvellous science
of poetry in wise, virtuous, and thoughtful subjects, they honour, value, ex-
alt them, and even crown them with the leaves of that tree which the thund-
erbolt strikes not, as if to show that they whose brows are honoured and
adorned with such a crown are not to be assailed by anyone.”
He of the green gaban was filled with astonishment at Don Quixote’s ar-
gument, so much so that he began to abandon the notion he had taken up
about his being crazy. But in the middle of the discourse, it being not very
much to his taste, Sancho had turned aside out of the road to beg a little
milk from some shepherds, who were milking their ewes hard by; and just
as the gentleman, highly pleased, was about to renew the conversation, Don
Quixote, raising his head, perceived a cart covered with royal flags coming
along the road they were travelling; and persuaded that this must be some
new adventure, he called aloud to Sancho to come and bring him his hel-
met. Sancho, hearing himself called, quitted the shepherds, and, prodding
Dapple vigorously, came up to his master, to whom there fell a terrific and
desperate adventure.
