PART I - CHAPTER XLIX.

by Miguel de Cervantes

　　WHICH TREATS OF THE SHREWD CONVERSATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HELD WITH HISMASTER DON QUIXOTE"Aha, I have caught you," said Sancho; "this is what in my heart and soulI was longing to know. Come now, senor, can you deny what is commonlysaid around us, when a person is out of humour, 'I don't know what ailsso-and-so, that he neither eats, nor drinks, nor sleeps, nor gives aproper answer to any question; one would think he was enchanted'? Fromwhich 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 areenchanted; but not those that have the desire your worship has, and drinkwhen drink is given them, and eat when there is anything to eat, andanswer every question that is asked them.""What thou sayest is true, Sancho," replied Don Quixote; "but I havealready told thee there are many sorts of enchantments, and it may bethat in the course of time they have been changed one for another, andthat 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 drawinferences against the usage of the time. I know and feel that I amenchanted, and that is enough to ease my conscience; for it would weighheavily on it if I thought that I was not enchanted, and that in afaint-hearted and cowardly way I allowed myself to lie in this cage,defrauding multitudes of the succour I might afford to those in need anddistress, who at this very moment may be in sore want of my aid andprotection.""Still for all that," replied Sancho, "I say that, for your greater andfuller satisfaction, it would be well if your worship were to try to getout of this prison (and I promise to do all in my power to help, and evento take you out of it), and see if you could once more mount your goodRocinante, who seems to be enchanted too, he is so melancholy anddejected; and then we might try our chance in looking for adventuresagain; and if we have no luck there will be time enough to go back to thecage; in which, on the faith of a good and loyal squire, I promise toshut 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 obeythee absolutely; but thou wilt see, Sancho, how mistaken thou art in thyconception of my misfortune."The knight-errant and the ill-errant squire kept up their conversationtill they reached the place where the curate, the canon, and the barber,who had already dismounted, were waiting for them. The carter at onceunyoked the oxen and left them to roam at large about the pleasant greenspot, the freshness of which seemed to invite, not enchanted people likeDon Quixote, but wide-awake, sensible folk like his squire, who beggedthe curate to allow his master to leave the cage for a little; for ifthey did not let him out, the prison might not be as clean as thepropriety of such a gentleman as his master required. The curateunderstood him, and said he would very gladly comply with his request,only that he feared his master, finding himself at liberty, would take tohis 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 aknight not to leave us without our consent."Don Quixote, who was listening to all this, said, "I give it;-moreoverone who is enchanted as I am cannot do as he likes with himself; for hewho had enchanted him could prevent his moving from one place for threeages, and if he attempted to escape would bring him back flying."--Andthat being so, they might as well release him, particularly as it wouldbe to the advantage of all; for, if they did not let him out, heprotested he would be unable to avoid offending their nostrils unlessthey kept their distance.The canon took his hand, tied together as they both were, and on his wordand promise they unbound him, and rejoiced beyond measure he was to findhimself out of the cage. The first thing he did was to stretch himselfall over, and then he went to where Rocinante was standing and giving hima couple of slaps on the haunches said, "I still trust in God and in hisblessed mother, O flower and mirror of steeds, that we shall soon seeourselves, both of us, as we wish to be, thou with thy master on thyback, and I mounted upon thee, following the calling for which God sentme into the world." And so saying, accompanied by Sancho, he withdrew toa retired spot, from which he came back much relieved and more eager thanever to put his squire's scheme into execution.The canon gazed at him, wondering at the extraordinary nature of hismadness, and that in all his remarks and replies he should show suchexcellent 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 arrivalof the provisions:"Is it possible, gentle sir, that the nauseous and idle reading of booksof chivalry can have had such an effect on your worship as to upset yourreason so that you fancy yourself enchanted, and the like, all as farfrom the truth as falsehood itself is? How can there be any humanunderstanding that can persuade itself there ever was all that infinityof Amadises in the world, or all that multitude of famous knights, allthose emperors of Trebizond, all those Felixmartes of Hircania, all thosepalfreys, and damsels-errant, and serpents, and monsters, and giants, andmarvellous adventures, and enchantments of every kind, and battles, andprodigious encounters, splendid costumes, love-sick princesses, squiresmade counts, droll dwarfs, love letters, billings and cooings,swashbuckler women, and, in a word, all that nonsense the books ofchivalry contain? For myself, I can only say that when I read them, solong as I do not stop to think that they are all lies and frivolity, theygive me a certain amount of pleasure; but when I come to consider whatthey are, I fling the very best of them at the wall, and would fling itinto the fire if there were one at hand, as richly deserving suchpunishment as cheats and impostors out of the range of ordinarytoleration, and as founders of new sects and modes of life, and teachersthat lead the ignorant public to believe and accept as truth all thefolly they contain. And such is their audacity, they even dare tounsettle the wits of gentlemen of birth and intelligence, as is shownplainly by the way they have served your worship, when they have broughtyou to such a pass that you have to be shut up in a cage and carried onan ox-cart as one would carry a lion or a tiger from place to place tomake money by showing it. Come, Senor Don Quixote, have some compassionfor yourself, return to the bosom of common sense, and make use of theliberal share of it that heaven has been pleased to bestow upon you,employing your abundant gifts of mind in some other reading that mayserve to benefit your conscience and add to your honour. And if, stillled away by your natural bent, you desire to read books of achievementsand of chivalry, read the Book of Judges in the Holy Scriptures, forthere you will find grand reality, and deeds as true as they are heroic.Lusitania had a Viriatus, Rome a Caesar, Carthage a Hannibal, Greece anAlexander, Castile a Count Fernan Gonzalez, Valencia a Cid, Andalusia aGonzalo Fernandez, Estremadura a Diego Garcia de Paredes, Jerez a GarciPerez de Vargas, Toledo a Garcilaso, Seville a Don Manuel de Leon, toread of whose valiant deeds will entertain and instruct the loftiestminds and fill them with delight and wonder. Here, Senor Don Quixote,will be reading worthy of your sound understanding; from which you willrise 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 LaMancha, whence, I am informed, 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, hereplied to him:"It appears to me, gentle sir, that your worship's discourse is intendedto persuade me that there never were any knights-errant in the world, andthat all the books of chivalry are false, lying, mischievous and uselessto the State, and that I have done wrong in reading them, and worse inbelieving them, and still worse in imitating them, when I undertook tofollow the arduous calling of knight-errantry which they set forth; foryou deny that there ever were Amadises of Gaul or of Greece, or any otherof the knights of whom the books are full.""It is all exactly as you state it," said the canon; to which Don Quixotereturned, "You also went on to say that books of this kind had done memuch harm, inasmuch as they had upset my senses, and shut me up in acage, and that it would be better for me to reform and change my studies,and read other truer books which would afford more pleasure andinstruction.""Just so," said the canon."Well then," returned Don Quixote, "to my mind it is you who are the onethat is out of his wits and enchanted, as you have ventured to utter suchblasphemies against a thing so universally acknowledged and accepted astrue that whoever denies it, as you do, deserves the same punishmentwhich you say you inflict on the books that irritate you when you readthem. For to try to persuade anybody that Amadis, and all the otherknights-adventurers with whom the books are filled, never existed, wouldbe like trying to persuade him that the sun does not yield light, or icecold, or earth nourishment. What wit in the world can persuade anotherthat 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 thetime of Charlemagne? For by all that is good it is as true as that it isdaylight now; and if it be a lie, it must be a lie too that there was aHector, or Achilles, or Trojan war, or Twelve Peers of France, or Arthurof England, who still lives changed into a raven, and is unceasinglylooked for in his kingdom. One might just as well try to make out thatthe history of Guarino Mezquino, or of the quest of the Holy Grail, isfalse, or that the loves of Tristram and the Queen Yseult are apocryphal,as well as those of Guinevere and Lancelot, when there are persons whocan almost remember having seen the Dame Quintanona, who was the bestcupbearer in Great Britain. And so true is this, that I recollect agrandmother of mine on the father's side, whenever she saw any dame in avenerable hood, used to say to me, 'Grandson, that one is like DameQuintanona,' from which I conclude that she must have known her, or atleast had managed to see some portrait of her. Then who can deny that thestory of Pierres and the fair Magalona is true, when even to this day maybe seen in the king's armoury the pin with which the valiant Pierresguided the wooden horse he rode through the air, and it is a triflebigger than the pole of a cart? And alongside of the pin is Babieca'ssaddle, and at Roncesvalles there is Roland's horn, as large as a largebeam; 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 calladventurers. Or perhaps I shall be told, too, that there was no suchknight-errant as the valiant Lusitanian Juan de Merlo, who went toBurgundy 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 MosenEnrique de Remesten, coming out of both encounters covered with fame andhonour; or adventures and challenges achieved and delivered, also inBurgundy, by the valiant Spaniards Pedro Barba and Gutierre Quixada (ofwhose family I come in the direct male line), when they vanquished thesons of the Count of San Polo. I shall be told, too, that Don Fernando deGuevara did not go in quest of adventures to Germany, where he engaged incombat with Micer George, a knight of the house of the Duke of Austria. Ishall 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, DonGonzalo de Guzman, were mere mockeries; as well as many otherachievements of Christian knights of these and foreign realms, which areso authentic and true, that, I repeat, he who denies them must be totallywanting in reason and good sense."The canon was amazed to hear the medley of truth and fiction Don Quixoteuttered, and to see how well acquainted he was with everything relatingor belonging to the achievements of his knight-errantry; so he said inreply:"I cannot deny, Senor Don Quixote, that there is some truth in what yousay, especially as regards the Spanish knights-errant; and I am willingto grant too that the Twelve Peers of France existed, but I am notdisposed to believe that they did all the things that the ArchbishopTurpin relates of them. For the truth of the matter is they were knightschosen by the kings of France, and called 'Peers' because they were allequal in worth, rank and prowess (at least if they were not they ought tohave been), and it was a kind of religious order like those of Santiagoand Calatrava in the present day, in which it is assumed that those whotake it are valiant knights of distinction and good birth; and just as wesay now a Knight of St. John, or of Alcantara, they used to say then aKnight of the Twelve Peers, because twelve equals were chosen for thatmilitary 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, Ihold to be very doubtful. In that other matter of the pin of CountPierres that you speak of, and say is near Babieca's saddle in theArmoury, I confess my sin; for I am either so stupid or so short-sighted,that, though I have seen the saddle, I have never been able to see thepin, 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 DonQuixote; "and more by token they say it is inclosed in a sheath ofcowhide to keep it from rusting.""All that may be," replied the canon; "but, by the orders I havereceived, 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 thoseAmadises and of all that multitude of knights they tell us about, nor isit reasonable that a man like your worship, so worthy, and with so manygood qualities, and endowed with such a good understanding, should allowhimself to be persuaded that such wild crazy things as are written inthose absurd books of chivalry are really true."