PART II - CHAPTER III.

by Miguel de Cervantes

　　OF THE LAUGHABLE CONVERSATION THAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE, SANCHOPANZA, AND THE BACHELOR SAMSON CARRASCODon Quixote remained very deep in thought, waiting for the bachelorCarrasco, from whom he was to hear how he himself had been put into abook as Sancho said; and he could not persuade himself that any suchhistory could be in existence, for the blood of the enemies he had slainwas not yet dry on the blade of his sword, and now they wanted to makeout that his mighty achievements were going about in print. For all that,he fancied some sage, either a friend or an enemy, might, by the aid ofmagic, have given them to the press; if a friend, in order to magnify andexalt them above the most famous ever achieved by any knight-errant; ifan enemy, to bring them to naught and degrade them below the meanest everrecorded of any low squire, though as he said to himself, theachievements of squires never were recorded. If, however, it were thefact that such a history were in existence, it must necessarily, beingthe story of a knight-errant, be grandiloquent, lofty, imposing, grandand true. With this he comforted himself somewhat, though it made himuncomfortable to think that the author was a Moor, judging by the titleof "Cide;" and that no truth was to be looked for from Moors, as they areall impostors, cheats, and schemers. He was afraid he might have dealtwith his love affairs in some indecorous fashion, that might tend to thediscredit and prejudice of the purity of his lady Dulcinea del Toboso; hewould have had him set forth the fidelity and respect he had alwaysobserved towards her, spurning queens, empresses, and damsels of allsorts, and keeping in check the impetuosity of his natural impulses.Absorbed and wrapped up in these and divers other cogitations, he wasfound by Sancho and Carrasco, whom Don Quixote received with greatcourtesy.The bachelor, though he was called Samson, was of no great bodily size,but he was a very great wag; he was of a sallow complexion, but verysharp-witted, somewhere about four-and-twenty years of age, with a roundface, a flat nose, and a large mouth, all indications of a mischievousdisposition and a love of fun and jokes; and of this he gave a sample assoon as he saw Don Quixote, by falling on his knees before him andsaying, "Let me kiss your mightiness's hand, Senor Don Quixote of LaMancha, for, by the habit of St. Peter that I wear, though I have no morethan the first four orders, your worship is one of the most famousknights-errant that have ever been, or will be, all the world over. Ablessing on Cide Hamete Benengeli, who has written the history of yourgreat deeds, and a double blessing on that connoisseur who took thetrouble of having it translated out of the Arabic into our Castilianvulgar tongue for the universal entertainment of the people!"Don Quixote made him rise, and said, "So, then, it is true that there isa history of me, and that it was a Moor and a sage who wrote it?""So true is it, senor," said Samson, "that my belief is there are morethan twelve thousand volumes of the said history in print this very day.Only ask Portugal, Barcelona, and Valencia, where they have been printed,and moreover there is a report that it is being printed at Antwerp, and Iam persuaded there will not be a country or language in which there willnot be a translation of it.""One of the things," here observed Don Quixote, "that ought to give mostpleasure to a virtuous and eminent man is to find himself in his lifetimein print and in type, familiar in people's mouths with a good name; I saywith a good name, for if it be the opposite, then there is no death to becompared to it.""If it goes by good name and fame," said the bachelor, "your worshipalone bears away the palm from all the knights-errant; for the Moor inhis own language, and the Christian in his, have taken care to set beforeus your gallantry, your high courage in encountering dangers, yourfortitude in adversity, your patience under misfortunes as well aswounds, the purity and continence of the platonic loves of your worshipand my lady Dona Dulcinea del Toboso-""I never heard my lady Dulcinea called Dona," observed Sancho here;"nothing more than the lady Dulcinea del Toboso; so here already thehistory is wrong.""That is not an objection of any importance," replied Carrasco."Certainly not," said Don Quixote; "but tell me, senor bachelor, whatdeeds of mine are they that are made most of in this history?""On that point," replied the bachelor, "opinions differ, as tastes do;some swear by the adventure of the windmills that your worship took to beBriareuses and giants; others by that of the fulling mills; one cries upthe description of the two armies that afterwards took the appearance oftwo droves of sheep; another that of the dead body on its way to beburied at Segovia; a third says the liberation of the galley slaves isthe best of all, and a fourth that nothing comes up to the affair withthe Benedictine giants, and the battle with the valiant Biscayan.""Tell me, senor bachelor," said Sancho at this point, "does the adventurewith the Yanguesans come in, when our good Rocinante went hankering afterdainties?""The sage has left nothing in the ink-bottle," replied Samson; "he tellsall and sets down everything, even to the capers that worthy Sancho cutin the blanket.""I cut no capers in the blanket," returned Sancho; "in the air I did, andmore of them than I liked.""There is no human history in the world, I suppose," said Don Quixote,"that has not its ups and downs, but more than others such as deal withchivalry, for they can never be entirely made up of prosperousadventures.""For all that," replied the bachelor, "there are those who have read thehistory who say they would have been glad if the author had left out someof the countless cudgellings that were inflicted on Senor Don Quixote invarious encounters.""That's where the truth of the history comes in," said Sancho."At the same time they might fairly have passed them over in silence,"observed Don Quixote; "for there is no need of recording events which donot change or affect the truth of a history, if they tend to bring thehero of it into contempt. AEneas was not in truth and earnest so pious asVirgil represents him, nor Ulysses so wise as Homer describes him.""That is true," said Samson; "but it is one thing to write as a poet,another to write as a historian; the poet may describe or sing things,not as they were, but as they ought to have been; but the historian hasto write them down, not as they ought to have been, but as they were,without adding anything to the truth or taking anything from it.""Well then," said Sancho, "if this senor Moor goes in for telling thetruth, no doubt among my master's drubbings mine are to be found; forthey never took the measure of his worship's shoulders without doing thesame for my whole body; but I have no right to wonder at that, for, as mymaster himself says, the members must share the pain of the head.""You are a sly dog, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "i' faith, you have nowant of memory when you choose to remember.""If I were to try to forget the thwacks they gave me," said Sancho, "myweals would not let me, for they are still fresh on my ribs.""Hush, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and don't interrupt the bachelor, whomI entreat to go on and tell all that is said about me in this history.""And about me," said Sancho, "for they say, too, that I am one of theprincipal presonages in it.""Personages, not presonages, friend Sancho," said Samson."What! Another word-catcher!" said Sancho; "if that's to be the way weshall not make an end in a lifetime.""May God shorten mine, Sancho," returned the bachelor, "if you are notthe second person in the history, and there are even some who wouldrather hear you talk than the cleverest in the whole book; though thereare some, too, who say you showed yourself over-credulous in believingthere was any possibility in the government of that island offered you bySenor Don Quixote.""There is still sunshine on the wall," said Don Quixote; "and when Sanchois somewhat more advanced in life, with the experience that years bring,he will be fitter and better qualified for being a governor than he is atpresent.""By God, master," said Sancho, "the island that I cannot govern with theyears I have, I'll not be able to govern with the years of Methuselah;the difficulty is that the said island keeps its distance somewhere, Iknow not where; and not that there is any want of head in me to governit.""Leave it to God, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "for all will be and perhapsbetter than you think; no leaf on the tree stirs but by God's will.""That is true," said Samson; "and if it be God's will, there will not beany want of a thousand islands, much less one, for Sancho to govern.""I have seen governors in these parts," said Sancho, "that are not to becompared to my shoe-sole; and for all that they are called 'yourlordship' and served on silver.""Those are not governors of islands," observed Samson, "but of othergovernments of an easier kind: those that govern islands must at leastknow grammar.""I could manage the gram well enough," said Sancho; "but for the mar Ihave neither leaning nor liking, for I don't know what it is; but leavingthis matter of the government in God's hands, to send me wherever it maybe most to his service, I may tell you, senor bachelor Samson Carrasco,it has pleased me beyond measure that the author of this history shouldhave spoken of me in such a way that what is said of me gives no offence;for, on the faith of a true squire, if he had said anything about me thatwas at all unbecoming an old Christian, such as I am, the deaf would haveheard of it.""That would be working miracles," said Samson."Miracles or no miracles," said Sancho, "let everyone mind how he speaksor writes about people, and not set down at random the first thing thatcomes into his head.""One of the faults they find with this history," said the bachelor, "isthat its author inserted in it a novel called 'The Ill-advisedCuriosity;' not that it is bad or ill-told, but that it is out of placeand has nothing to do with the history of his worship Senor Don Quixote.""I will bet the son of a dog has mixed the cabbages and the baskets,"said Sancho."Then, I say," said Don Quixote, "the author of my history was no sage,but some ignorant chatterer, who, in a haphazard and heedless way, setabout writing it, let it turn out as it might, just as Orbaneja, thepainter of Ubeda, used to do, who, when they asked him what he waspainting, answered, 'What it may turn out.' Sometimes he would paint acock in such a fashion, and so unlike, that he had to write alongside ofit in Gothic letters, 'This is a cock; and so it will be with my history,which will require a commentary to make it intelligible.""No fear of that," returned Samson, "for it is so plain that there isnothing in it to puzzle over; the children turn its leaves, the youngpeople read it, the grown men understand it, the old folk praise it; in aword, it is so thumbed, and read, and got by heart by people of allsorts, that the instant they see any lean hack, they say, 'There goesRocinante.' And those that are most given to reading it are the pages,for there is not a lord's ante-chamber where there is not a 'Don Quixote'to be found; one takes it up if another lays it down; this one pouncesupon it, and that begs for it. In short, the said history is the mostdelightful and least injurious entertainment that has been hitherto seen,for there is not to be found in the whole of it even the semblance of animmodest word, or a thought that is other than Catholic.""To write in any other way," said Don Quixote, "would not be to writetruth, but falsehood, and historians who have recourse to falsehood oughtto be burned, like those who coin false money; and I know not what couldhave led the author to have recourse to novels and irrelevant stories,when he had so much to write about in mine; no doubt he must have gone bythe proverb 'with straw or with hay, etc,' for by merely setting forth mythoughts, my sighs, my tears, my lofty purposes, my enterprises, he mighthave made a volume as large, or larger than all the works of El Tostadowould make up. In fact, the conclusion I arrive at, senor bachelor, is,that to write histories, or books of any kind, there is need of greatjudgment and a ripe understanding. To give expression to humour, andwrite in a strain of graceful pleasantry, is the gift of great geniuses.The cleverest character in comedy is the clown, for he who would makepeople take him for a fool, must not be one. History is in a measure asacred thing, for it should be true, and where the truth is, there Godis; but notwithstanding this, there are some who write and fling booksbroadcast on the world as if they were fritters.""There is no book so bad but it has something good in it," said thebachelor."No doubt of that," replied Don Quixote; "but it often happens that thosewho have acquired and attained a well-deserved reputation by theirwritings, lose it entirely, or damage it in some degree, when they givethem to the press.""The reason of that," said Samson, "is, that as printed works areexamined leisurely, their faults are easily seen; and the greater thefame of the writer, the more closely are they scrutinised. Men famous fortheir genius, great poets, illustrious historians, are always, or mostcommonly, envied by those who take a particular delight and pleasure incriticising the writings of others, without having produced any of theirown.""That is no wonder," said Don Quixote; "for there are many divines whoare no good for the pulpit, but excellent in detecting the defects orexcesses of those who preach.""All that is true, Senor Don Quixote," said Carrasco; "but I wish suchfault-finders were more lenient and less exacting, and did not pay somuch attention to the spots on the bright sun of the work they grumbleat; for if aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus, they should remember howlong he remained awake to shed the light of his work with as little shadeas possible; and perhaps it may be that what they find fault with may bemoles, that sometimes heighten the beauty of the face that bears them;and so I say very great is the risk to which he who prints a book exposeshimself, for of all impossibilities the greatest is to write one thatwill satisfy and please all readers.""That which treats of me must have pleased few," said Don Quixote."Quite the contrary," said the bachelor; "for, as stultorum infinitum estnumerus, innumerable are those who have relished the said history; butsome have brought a charge against the author's memory, inasmuch as heforgot to say who the thief was who stole Sancho's Dapple; for it is notstated there, but only to be inferred from what is set down, that he wasstolen, and a little farther on we see Sancho mounted on the same ass,without any reappearance of it. They say, too, that he forgot to statewhat Sancho did with those hundred crowns that he found in the valise inthe Sierra Morena, as he never alludes to them again, and there are manywho would be glad to know what he did with them, or what he spent themon, for it is one of the serious omissions of the work.""Senor Samson, I am not in a humour now for going into accounts orexplanations," said Sancho; "for there's a sinking of the stomach comeover me, and unless I doctor it with a couple of sups of the old stuff itwill put me on the thorn of Santa Lucia. I have it at home, and my oldwoman is waiting for me; after dinner I'll come back, and will answer youand all the world every question you may choose to ask, as well about theloss of the ass as about the spending of the hundred crowns;" and withoutanother word or waiting for a reply he made off home.Don Quixote begged and entreated the bachelor to stay and do penance withhim. The bachelor accepted the invitation and remained, a couple of youngpigeons were added to the ordinary fare, at dinner they talked chivalry,Carrasco fell in with his host's humour, the banquet came to an end, theytook their afternoon sleep, Sancho returned, and their conversation wasresumed.