Chương Chương 15 · CHAPTER XV. IN WHICH IS RELATED THE UNFORTUNATE ADVENTURE THAT DON QUIXOTE FELL IN

. CHAPTER XV. IN WHICH IS RELATED THE UNFORTUNATE ADVENTURE THAT DON QUIXOTE FELL IN

CHAPTER XV.

IN WHICH IS RELATED THE UNFORTUNATE ADVENTURE THAT DON QUIXOTE FELL IN

WITH WHEN HE FELL OUT WITH CERTAIN HEARTLESS YANGUESANS

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The sage Cid Hamete Benengeli relates that as soon as Don Quixote took

leave of his hosts and all who had been present at the burial of

Chrysostom, he and his squire passed into the same wood which they had

seen the shepherdess Marcela enter, and after having wandered for more

than two hours in all directions in search of her without finding her,

they came to a halt in a glade covered with tender grass, beside which

ran a pleasant cool stream that invited and compelled them to pass

there the hours of the noontide heat, which by this time was beginning

to come on oppressively. Don Quixote and Sancho dismounted, and turning

Rocinante and the ass loose to feed on the grass that was there in

abundance, they ransacked the alforjas, and without any ceremony very

peacefully and sociably master and man made their repast on what they

found in them.

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Sancho had not thought it worth while to hobble Rocinante, feeling

sure, from what he knew of his staidness and freedom from incontinence,

that all the mares in the Cordova pastures would not lead him into an

impropriety. Chance, however, and the devil, who is not always asleep,

so ordained it that feeding in this valley there was a drove of

Galician ponies belonging to certain Yanguesan carriers, whose way it

is to take their midday rest with their teams in places and spots where

grass and water abound; and that where Don Quixote chanced to be suited

the Yanguesans’ purpose very well. It so happened, then, that Rocinante

took a fancy to disport himself with their ladyships the ponies, and

abandoning his usual gait and demeanour as he scented them, he, without

asking leave of his master, got up a briskish little trot and hastened

to make known his wishes to them; they, however, it seemed, preferred

their pasture to him, and received him with their heels and teeth to

such effect that they soon broke his girths and left him naked without

a saddle to cover him; but what must have been worse to him was that

the carriers, seeing the violence he was offering to their mares, came

running up armed with stakes, and so belaboured him that they brought

him sorely battered to the ground.

By this time Don Quixote and Sancho, who had witnessed the drubbing of

Rocinante, came up panting, and said Don Quixote to Sancho:

“So far as I can see, friend Sancho, these are not knights but base

folk of low birth: I mention it because thou canst lawfully aid me in

taking due vengeance for the insult offered to Rocinante before our

eyes.”

“What the devil vengeance can we take,” answered Sancho, “if they are

more than twenty, and we no more than two, or, indeed, perhaps not more

than one and a half?”

“I count for a hundred,” replied Don Quixote, and without more words he

drew his sword and attacked the Yanguesans and excited and impelled by

the example of his master, Sancho did the same; and to begin with, Don

Quixote delivered a slash at one of them that laid open the leather

jerkin he wore, together with a great portion of his shoulder. The

Yanguesans, seeing themselves assaulted by only two men while they were

so many, betook themselves to their stakes, and driving the two into

the middle they began to lay on with great zeal and energy; in fact, at

the second blow they brought Sancho to the ground, and Don Quixote

fared the same way, all his skill and high mettle availing him nothing,

and fate willed it that he should fall at the feet of Rocinante, who

had not yet risen; whereby it may be seen how furiously stakes can

pound in angry boorish hands.

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Then, seeing the mischief they had done, the Yanguesans with all the

haste they could loaded their team and pursued their journey, leaving

the two adventurers a sorry sight and in sorrier mood.

Sancho was the first to come to, and finding himself close to his

master he called to him in a weak and doleful voice, “Señor Don

Quixote, ah, Señor Don Quixote!”

“What wouldst thou, brother Sancho?” answered Don Quixote in the same

feeble suffering tone as Sancho.

“I would like, if it were possible,” answered Sancho Panza, “your

worship to give me a couple of sups of that potion of the fiery Blas,

if it be that you have any to hand there; perhaps it will serve for

broken bones as well as for wounds.”

“If I only had it here, wretch that I am, what more should we want?”

said Don Quixote; “but I swear to thee, Sancho Panza, on the faith of a

knight-errant, ere two days are over, unless fortune orders otherwise,

I mean to have it in my possession, or my hand will have lost its

cunning.”

“But in how many does your worship think we shall have the use of our

feet?” answered Sancho Panza.

“For myself I must say I cannot guess how many,” said the battered

knight Don Quixote; “but I take all the blame upon myself, for I had no

business to put hand to sword against men who where not dubbed knights

like myself, and so I believe that in punishment for having

transgressed the laws of chivalry the God of battles has permitted this

chastisement to be administered to me; for which reason, brother

Sancho, it is well thou shouldst receive a hint on the matter which I

am now about to mention to thee, for it is of much importance to the

welfare of both of us. It is that when thou shalt see rabble of this

sort offering us insult thou art not to wait till I draw sword against

them, for I shall not do so at all; but do thou draw sword and chastise

them to thy heart’s content, and if any knights come to their aid and

defence I will take care to defend thee and assail them with all my

might; and thou hast already seen by a thousand signs and proofs what

the might of this strong arm of mine is equal to”—so uplifted had the

poor gentleman become through the victory over the stout Biscayan.

But Sancho did not so fully approve of his master’s admonition as to

let it pass without saying in reply, “Señor, I am a man of peace, meek

and quiet, and I can put up with any affront because I have a wife and

children to support and bring up; so let it be likewise a hint to your

worship, as it cannot be a mandate, that on no account will I draw

sword either against clown or against knight, and that here before God

I forgive the insults that have been offered me, whether they have

been, are, or shall be offered me by high or low, rich or poor, noble

or commoner, not excepting any rank or condition whatsoever.”

To all which his master said in reply, “I wish I had breath enough to

speak somewhat easily, and that the pain I feel on this side would

abate so as to let me explain to thee, Panza, the mistake thou makest.

Come now, sinner, suppose the wind of fortune, hitherto so adverse,

should turn in our favour, filling the sails of our desires so that

safely and without impediment we put into port in some one of those

islands I have promised thee, how would it be with thee if on winning

it I made thee lord of it? Why, thou wilt make it well-nigh impossible

through not being a knight nor having any desire to be one, nor

possessing the courage nor the will to avenge insults or defend thy

lordship; for thou must know that in newly conquered kingdoms and

provinces the minds of the inhabitants are never so quiet nor so well

disposed to the new lord that there is no fear of their making some

move to change matters once more, and try, as they say, what chance may

do for them; so it is essential that the new possessor should have good

sense to enable him to govern, and valour to attack and defend himself,

whatever may befall him.”

“In what has now befallen us,” answered Sancho, “I’d have been well

pleased to have that good sense and that valour your worship speaks of,

but I swear on the faith of a poor man I am more fit for plasters than

for arguments. See if your worship can get up, and let us help

Rocinante, though he does not deserve it, for he was the main cause of

all this thrashing. I never thought it of Rocinante, for I took him to

be a virtuous person and as quiet as myself. After all, they say right

that it takes a long time to come to know people, and that there is

nothing sure in this life. Who would have said that, after such mighty

slashes as your worship gave that unlucky knight-errant, there was

coming, travelling post and at the very heels of them, such a great

storm of sticks as has fallen upon our shoulders?”

“And yet thine, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “ought to be used to such

squalls; but mine, reared in soft cloth and fine linen, it is plain

they must feel more keenly the pain of this mishap, and if it were not

that I imagine—why do I say imagine?—know of a certainty that all these

annoyances are very necessary accompaniments of the calling of arms, I

would lay me down here to die of pure vexation.”

To this the squire replied, “Señor, as these mishaps are what one reaps

of chivalry, tell me if they happen very often, or if they have their

own fixed times for coming to pass; because it seems to me that after

two harvests we shall be no good for the third, unless God in his

infinite mercy helps us.”

“Know, friend Sancho,” answered Don Quixote, “that the life of

knights-errant is subject to a thousand dangers and reverses, and

neither more nor less is it within immediate possibility for

knights-errant to become kings and emperors, as experience has shown in

the case of many different knights with whose histories I am thoroughly

acquainted; and I could tell thee now, if the pain would let me, of

some who simply by might of arm have risen to the high stations I have

mentioned; and those same, both before and after, experienced divers

misfortunes and miseries; for the valiant Amadis of Gaul found himself

in the power of his mortal enemy Arcalaus the magician, who, it is

positively asserted, holding him captive, gave him more than two

hundred lashes with the reins of his horse while tied to one of the

pillars of a court; and moreover there is a certain recondite author of

no small authority who says that the Knight of Phœbus, being caught in

a certain pitfall, which opened under his feet in a certain castle, on

falling found himself bound hand and foot in a deep pit underground,

where they administered to him one of those things they call clysters,

of sand and snow-water, that well-nigh finished him; and if he had not

been succoured in that sore extremity by a sage, a great friend of his,

it would have gone very hard with the poor knight; so I may well suffer

in company with such worthy folk, for greater were the indignities

which they had to suffer than those which we suffer. For I would have

thee know, Sancho, that wounds caused by any instruments which happen

by chance to be in hand inflict no indignity, and this is laid down in

the law of the duel in express words: if, for instance, the cobbler

strikes another with the last which he has in his hand, though it be in

fact a piece of wood, it cannot be said for that reason that he whom he

struck with it has been cudgelled. I say this lest thou shouldst

imagine that because we have been drubbed in this affray we have

therefore suffered any indignity; for the arms those men carried, with

which they pounded us, were nothing more than their stakes, and not one

of them, so far as I remember, carried rapier, sword, or dagger.”

“They gave me no time to see that much,” answered Sancho, “for hardly

had I laid hand on my tizona when they signed the cross on my shoulders

with their sticks in such style that they took the sight out of my eyes

and the strength out of my feet, stretching me where I now lie, and

where thinking of whether all those stake-strokes were an indignity or

not gives me no uneasiness, which the pain of the blows does, for they

will remain as deeply impressed on my memory as on my shoulders.”

“For all that let me tell thee, brother Panza,” said Don Quixote, “that

there is no recollection which time does not put an end to, and no pain

which death does not remove.”

“And what greater misfortune can there be,” replied Panza, “than the

one that waits for time to put an end to it and death to remove it? If

our mishap were one of those that are cured with a couple of plasters,

it would not be so bad; but I am beginning to think that all the

plasters in a hospital almost won’t be enough to put us right.”

“No more of that: pluck strength out of weakness, Sancho, as I mean to

do,” returned Don Quixote, “and let us see how Rocinante is, for it

seems to me that not the least share of this mishap has fallen to the

lot of the poor beast.”

“There is nothing wonderful in that,” replied Sancho, “since he is a

knight-errant too; what I wonder at is that my beast should have come

off scot-free where we come out scotched.”

“Fortune always leaves a door open in adversity in order to bring

relief to it,” said Don Quixote; “I say so because this little beast

may now supply the want of Rocinante, carrying me hence to some castle

where I may be cured of my wounds. And moreover I shall not hold it any

dishonour to be so mounted, for I remember having read how the good old

Silenus, the tutor and instructor of the gay god of laughter, when he

entered the city of the hundred gates, went very contentedly mounted on

a handsome ass.”

“It may be true that he went mounted as your worship says,” answered

Sancho, “but there is a great difference between going mounted and

going slung like a sack of manure.”

To which Don Quixote replied, “Wounds received in battle confer honour

instead of taking it away; and so, friend Panza, say no more, but, as I

told thee before, get up as well as thou canst and put me on top of thy

beast in whatever fashion pleases thee best, and let us go hence ere

night come on and surprise us in these wilds.”

“And yet I have heard your worship say,” observed Panza, “that it is

very meet for knights-errant to sleep in wastes and deserts, and that

they esteem it very good fortune.”

“That is,” said Don Quixote, “when they cannot help it, or when they

are in love; and so true is this that there have been knights who have

remained two years on rocks, in sunshine and shade and all the

inclemencies of heaven, without their ladies knowing anything of it;

and one of these was Amadis, when, under the name of Beltenebros, he

took up his abode on the Peña Pobre for—I know not if it was eight

years or eight months, for I am not very sure of the reckoning; at any

rate he stayed there doing penance for I know not what pique the

Princess Oriana had against him; but no more of this now, Sancho, and

make haste before a mishap like Rocinante’s befalls the ass.”

“The very devil would be in it in that case,” said Sancho; and letting

off thirty “ohs,” and sixty sighs, and a hundred and twenty

maledictions and execrations on whomsoever it was that had brought him

there, he raised himself, stopping half-way bent like a Turkish bow

without power to bring himself upright, but with all his pains he

saddled his ass, who too had gone astray somewhat, yielding to the

excessive licence of the day; he next raised up Rocinante, and as for

him, had he possessed a tongue to complain with, most assuredly neither

Sancho nor his master would have been behind him.

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To be brief, Sancho fixed Don Quixote on the ass and secured Rocinante

with a leading rein, and taking the ass by the halter, he proceeded

more or less in the direction in which it seemed to him the high road

might be; and, as chance was conducting their affairs for them from

good to better, he had not gone a short league when the road came in

sight, and on it he perceived an inn, which to his annoyance and to the

delight of Don Quixote must needs be a castle. Sancho insisted that it

was an inn, and his master that it was not one, but a castle, and the

dispute lasted so long that before the point was settled they had time

to reach it, and into it Sancho entered with all his team without any

further controversy.

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