Bab Bab 120 · CHAPTER LXVIII. OF THE BRISTLY ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE

. CHAPTER LXVIII. OF THE BRISTLY ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE

CHAPTER LXVIII.

OF THE BRISTLY ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE

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The night was somewhat dark, for though there was a moon in the sky it

was not in a quarter where she could be seen; for sometimes the lady

Diana goes on a stroll to the antipodes, and leaves the mountains all

black and the valleys in darkness. Don Quixote obeyed nature so far as

to sleep his first sleep, but did not give way to the second, very

different from Sancho, who never had any second, because with him sleep

lasted from night till morning, wherein he showed what a sound

constitution and few cares he had. Don Quixote’s cares kept him

restless, so much so that he awoke Sancho and said to him, “I am

amazed, Sancho, at the unconcern of thy temperament. I believe thou art

made of marble or hard brass, incapable of any emotion or feeling

whatever. I lie awake while thou sleepest, I weep while thou singest, I

am faint with fasting while thou art sluggish and torpid from pure

repletion. It is the duty of good servants to share the sufferings and

feel the sorrows of their masters, if it be only for the sake of

appearances. See the calmness of the night, the solitude of the spot,

inviting us to break our slumbers by a vigil of some sort. Rise as thou

livest, and retire a little distance, and with a good heart and

cheerful courage give thyself three or four hundred lashes on account

of Dulcinea’s disenchantment score; and this I entreat of thee, making

it a request, for I have no desire to come to grips with thee a second

time, as I know thou hast a heavy hand. As soon as thou hast laid them

on we will pass the rest of the night, I singing my separation, thou

thy constancy, making a beginning at once with the pastoral life we are

to follow at our village.”

“Señor,” replied Sancho, “I’m no monk to get up out of the middle of my

sleep and scourge myself, nor does it seem to me that one can pass from

one extreme of the pain of whipping to the other of music. Will your

worship let me sleep, and not worry me about whipping myself? or you’ll

make me swear never to touch a hair of my doublet, not to say my

flesh.”

“O hard heart!” said Don Quixote, “O pitiless squire! O bread

ill-bestowed and favours ill-acknowledged, both those I have done thee

and those I mean to do thee! Through me hast thou seen thyself a

governor, and through me thou seest thyself in immediate expectation of

being a count, or obtaining some other equivalent title, for I—_post

tenebras spero lucem_.”

“I don’t know what that is,” said Sancho; “all I know is that so long

as I am asleep I have neither fear nor hope, trouble nor glory; and

good luck betide him that invented sleep, the cloak that covers over

all a man’s thoughts, the food that removes hunger, the drink that

drives away thirst, the fire that warms the cold, the cold that tempers

the heat, and, to wind up with, the universal coin wherewith everything

is bought, the weight and balance that makes the shepherd equal with

the king and the fool with the wise man. Sleep, I have heard say, has

only one fault, that it is like death; for between a sleeping man and a

dead man there is very little difference.”

“Never have I heard thee speak so elegantly as now, Sancho,” said Don

Quixote; “and here I begin to see the truth of the proverb thou dost

sometimes quote, ‘Not with whom thou art bred, but with whom thou art

fed.’”

“Ha, by my life, master mine,” said Sancho, “it’s not I that am

stringing proverbs now, for they drop in pairs from your worship’s

mouth faster than from mine; only there is this difference between mine

and yours, that yours are well-timed and mine are untimely; but anyhow,

they are all proverbs.”

At this point they became aware of a harsh indistinct noise that seemed

to spread through all the valleys around. Don Quixote stood up and laid

his hand upon his sword, and Sancho ensconced himself under Dapple and

put the bundle of armour on one side of him and the ass’s pack-saddle

on the other, in fear and trembling as great as Don Quixote’s

perturbation. Each instant the noise increased and came nearer to the

two terrified men, or at least to one, for as to the other, his courage

is known to all. The fact of the matter was that some men were taking

above six hundred pigs to sell at a fair, and were on their way with

them at that hour, and so great was the noise they made and their

grunting and blowing, that they deafened the ears of Don Quixote and

Sancho Panza, and they could not make out what it was. The wide-spread

grunting drove came on in a surging mass, and without showing any

respect for Don Quixote’s dignity or Sancho’s, passed right over the

pair of them, demolishing Sancho’s entrenchments, and not only

upsetting Don Quixote but sweeping Rocinante off his feet into the

bargain; and what with the trampling and the grunting, and the pace at

which the unclean beasts went, pack-saddle, armour, Dapple and

Rocinante were left scattered on the ground and Sancho and Don Quixote

at their wits’ end.

Sancho got up as well as he could and begged his master to give him his

sword, saying he wanted to kill half a dozen of those dirty unmannerly

pigs, for he had by this time found out that that was what they were.

“Let them be, my friend,” said Don Quixote; “this insult is the penalty

of my sin; and it is the righteous chastisement of heaven that jackals

should devour a vanquished knight, and wasps sting him and pigs trample

him under foot.”

“I suppose it is the chastisement of heaven, too,” said Sancho, “that

flies should prick the squires of vanquished knights, and lice eat

them, and hunger assail them. If we squires were the sons of the

knights we serve, or their very near relations, it would be no wonder

if the penalty of their misdeeds overtook us, even to the fourth

generation. But what have the Panzas to do with the Quixotes? Well,

well, let’s lie down again and sleep out what little of the night

there’s left, and God will send us dawn and we shall be all right.”

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“Sleep thou, Sancho,” returned Don Quixote, “for thou wast born to

sleep as I was born to watch; and during the time it now wants of dawn

I will give a loose rein to my thoughts, and seek a vent for them in a

little madrigal which, unknown to thee, I composed in my head last

night.”

“I should think,” said Sancho, “that the thoughts that allow one to

make verses cannot be of great consequence; let your worship string

verses as much as you like and I’ll sleep as much as I can;” and

forthwith, taking the space of ground he required, he muffled himself

up and fell into a sound sleep, undisturbed by bond, debt, or trouble

of any sort. Don Quixote, propped up against the trunk of a beech or a

cork tree—for Cide Hamete does not specify what kind of tree it

was—sang in this strain to the accompaniment of his own sighs:

When in my mind

I muse, O Love, upon thy cruelty,

To death I flee,

In hope therein the end of all to find.

But drawing near

That welcome haven in my sea of woe,

Such joy I know,

That life revives, and still I linger here.

Thus life doth slay,

And death again to life restoreth me;

Strange destiny,

That deals with life and death as with a play!

He accompanied each verse with many sighs and not a few tears, just

like one whose heart was pierced with grief at his defeat and his

separation from Dulcinea.

And now daylight came, and the sun smote Sancho on the eyes with his

beams. He awoke, roused himself up, shook himself and stretched his

lazy limbs, and seeing the havoc the pigs had made with his stores he

cursed the drove, and more besides. Then the pair resumed their

journey, and as evening closed in they saw coming towards them some ten

men on horseback and four or five on foot. Don Quixote’s heart beat

quick and Sancho’s quailed with fear, for the persons approaching them

carried lances and bucklers, and were in very warlike guise. Don

Quixote turned to Sancho and said, “If I could make use of my weapons,

and my promise had not tied my hands, I would count this host that

comes against us but cakes and fancy bread; but perhaps it may prove

something different from what we apprehend.” The men on horseback now

came up, and raising their lances surrounded Don Quixote in silence,

and pointed them at his back and breast, menacing him with death. One

of those on foot, putting his finger to his lips as a sign to him to be

silent, seized Rocinante’s bridle and drew him out of the road, and the

others driving Sancho and Dapple before them, and all maintaining a

strange silence, followed in the steps of the one who led Don Quixote.

The latter two or three times attempted to ask where they were taking

him to and what they wanted, but the instant he began to open his lips

they threatened to close them with the points of their lances; and

Sancho fared the same way, for the moment he seemed about to speak one

of those on foot punched him with a goad, and Dapple likewise, as if he

too wanted to talk. Night set in, they quickened their pace, and the

fears of the two prisoners grew greater, especially as they heard

themselves assailed with—“Get on, ye Troglodytes;” “Silence, ye

barbarians;” “March, ye cannibals;” “No murmuring, ye Scythians;”

“Don’t open your eyes, ye murderous Polyphemes, ye blood-thirsty

lions,” and suchlike names with which their captors harassed the ears

of the wretched master and man. Sancho went along saying to himself,

“We, tortolites, barbers, animals! I don’t like those names at all;

‘it’s in a bad wind our corn is being winnowed;’ ‘misfortune comes upon

us all at once like sticks on a dog,’ and God grant it may be no worse

than them that this unlucky adventure has in store for us.”

Don Quixote rode completely dazed, unable with the aid of all his wits

to make out what could be the meaning of these abusive names they

called them, and the only conclusion he could arrive at was that there

was no good to be hoped for and much evil to be feared. And now, about

an hour after midnight, they reached a castle which Don Quixote saw at

once was the duke’s, where they had been but a short time before. “God

bless me!” said he, as he recognised the mansion, “what does this mean?

It is all courtesy and politeness in this house; but with the

vanquished good turns into evil, and evil into worse.”

They entered the chief court of the castle and found it prepared and

fitted up in a style that added to their amazement and doubled their

fears, as will be seen in the following chapter.

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