Chương Chương 64 · CHAPTER XII. OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE WHICH BEFELL THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE WITH THE

. CHAPTER XII. OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE WHICH BEFELL THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE WITH THE

CHAPTER XII.

OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE WHICH BEFELL THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE WITH THE

BOLD KNIGHT OF THE MIRRORS

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The night succeeding the day of the encounter with Death, Don Quixote

and his squire passed under some tall shady trees, and Don Quixote at

Sancho’s persuasion ate a little from the store carried by Dapple, and

over their supper Sancho said to his master, “Señor, what a fool I

should have looked if I had chosen for my reward the spoils of the

first adventure your worship achieved, instead of the foals of the

three mares. After all, ‘a sparrow in the hand is better than a vulture

on the wing.’”

“At the same time, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “if thou hadst let me

attack them as I wanted, at the very least the emperor’s gold crown and

Cupid’s painted wings would have fallen to thee as spoils, for I should

have taken them by force and given them into thy hands.”

“The sceptres and crowns of those play-actor emperors,” said Sancho,

“were never yet pure gold, but only brass foil or tin.”

“That is true,” said Don Quixote, “for it would not be right that the

accessories of the drama should be real, instead of being mere fictions

and semblances, like the drama itself; towards which, Sancho—and, as a

necessary consequence, towards those who represent and produce it—I

would that thou wert favourably disposed, for they are all instruments

of great good to the State, placing before us at every step a mirror in

which we may see vividly displayed what goes on in human life; nor is

there any similitude that shows us more faithfully what we are and

ought to be than the play and the players. Come, tell me, hast thou not

seen a play acted in which kings, emperors, pontiffs, knights, ladies,

and divers other personages were introduced? One plays the villain,

another the knave, this one the merchant, that the soldier, one the

sharp-witted fool, another the foolish lover; and when the play is

over, and they have put off the dresses they wore in it, all the actors

become equal.”

“Yes, I have seen that,” said Sancho.

“Well then,” said Don Quixote, “the same thing happens in the comedy

and life of this world, where some play emperors, others popes, and, in

short, all the characters that can be brought into a play; but when it

is over, that is to say when life ends, death strips them all of the

garments that distinguish one from the other, and all are equal in the

grave.”

“A fine comparison!” said Sancho; “though not so new but that I have

heard it many and many a time, as well as that other one of the game of

chess; how, so long as the game lasts, each piece has its own

particular office, and when the game is finished they are all mixed,

jumbled up and shaken together, and stowed away in the bag, which is

much like ending life in the grave.”

“Thou art growing less doltish and more shrewd every day, Sancho,” said

Don Quixote.

“Ay,” said Sancho; “it must be that some of your worship’s shrewdness

sticks to me; land that, of itself, is barren and dry, will come to

yield good fruit if you dung it and till it; what I mean is that your

worship’s conversation has been the dung that has fallen on the barren

soil of my dry wit, and the time I have been in your service and

society has been the tillage; and with the help of this I hope to yield

fruit in abundance that will not fall away or slide from those paths of

good breeding that your worship has made in my parched understanding.”

Don Quixote laughed at Sancho’s affected phraseology, and perceived

that what he said about his improvement was true, for now and then he

spoke in a way that surprised him; though always, or mostly, when

Sancho tried to talk fine and attempted polite language, he wound up by

toppling over from the summit of his simplicity into the abyss of his

ignorance; and where he showed his culture and his memory to the

greatest advantage was in dragging in proverbs, no matter whether they

had any bearing or not upon the subject in hand, as may have been seen

already and will be noticed in the course of this history.

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In conversation of this kind they passed a good part of the night, but

Sancho felt a desire to let down the curtains of his eyes, as he used

to say when he wanted to go to sleep; and stripping Dapple he left him

at liberty to graze his fill. He did not remove Rocinante’s saddle, as

his master’s express orders were, that so long as they were in the

field or not sleeping under a roof Rocinante was not to be stripped—the

ancient usage established and observed by knights-errant being to take

off the bridle and hang it on the saddle-bow, but to remove the saddle

from the horse—never! Sancho acted accordingly, and gave him the same

liberty he had given Dapple, between whom and Rocinante there was a

friendship so unequalled and so strong, that it is handed down by

tradition from father to son, that the author of this veracious history

devoted some special chapters to it, which, in order to preserve the

propriety and decorum due to a history so heroic, he did not insert

therein; although at times he forgets this resolution of his and

describes how eagerly the two beasts would scratch one another when

they were together and how, when they were tired or full, Rocinante

would lay his neck across Dapple’s, stretching half a yard or more on

the other side, and the pair would stand thus, gazing thoughtfully on

the ground, for three days, or at least so long as they were left

alone, or hunger did not drive them to go and look for food. I may add

that they say the author left it on record that he likened their

friendship to that of Nisus and Euryalus, and Pylades and Orestes; and

if that be so, it may be perceived, to the admiration of mankind, how

firm the friendship must have been between these two peaceful animals,

shaming men, who preserve friendships with one another so badly. This

was why it was said-

For friend no longer is there friend;

The reeds turn lances now.

And someone else has sung—

Friend to friend the bug, etc.

and let no one fancy that the author was at all astray when he compared

the friendship of these animals to that of men; for men have received

many lessons from beasts, and learned many important things, as, for

example, the clyster from the stork, vomit and gratitude from the dog,

watchfulness from the crane, foresight from the ant, modesty from the

elephant, and loyalty from the horse.

Sancho at last fell asleep at the foot of a cork tree, while Don

Quixote dozed at that of a sturdy oak; but a short time only had

elapsed when a noise he heard behind him awoke him, and rising up

startled, he listened and looked in the direction the noise came from,

and perceived two men on horseback, one of whom, letting himself drop

from the saddle, said to the other, “Dismount, my friend, and take the

bridles off the horses, for, so far as I can see, this place will

furnish grass for them, and the solitude and silence my love-sick

thoughts need of.” As he said this he stretched himself upon the

ground, and as he flung himself down, the armour in which he was clad

rattled, whereby Don Quixote perceived that he must be a knight-errant;

and going over to Sancho, who was asleep, he shook him by the arm and

with no small difficulty brought him back to his senses, and said in a

low voice to him, “Brother Sancho, we have got an adventure.”

“God send us a good one,” said Sancho; “and where may her ladyship the

adventure be?”

“Where, Sancho?” replied Don Quixote; “turn thine eyes and look, and

thou wilt see stretched there a knight-errant, who, it strikes me, is

not over and above happy, for I saw him fling himself off his horse and

throw himself on the ground with a certain air of dejection, and his

armour rattled as he fell.”

“Well,” said Sancho, “how does your worship make out that to be an

adventure?”

“I do not mean to say,” returned Don Quixote, “that it is a complete

adventure, but that it is the beginning of one, for it is in this way

adventures begin. But listen, for it seems he is tuning a lute or

guitar, and from the way he is spitting and clearing his chest he must

be getting ready to sing something.”

“Faith, you are right,” said Sancho, “and no doubt he is some enamoured

knight.”

“There is no knight-errant that is not,” said Don Quixote; “but let us

listen to him, for, if he sings, by that thread we shall extract the

ball of his thoughts; because out of the abundance of the heart the

mouth speaketh.”

Sancho was about to reply to his master, but the Knight of the Grove’s

voice, which was neither very bad nor very good, stopped him, and

listening attentively the pair heard him sing this

SONNET

Your pleasure, prithee, lady mine, unfold;

Declare the terms that I am to obey;

My will to yours submissively I mould,

And from your law my feet shall never stray.

Would you I die, to silent grief a prey?

Then count me even now as dead and cold;

Would you I tell my woes in some new way?

Then shall my tale by Love itself be told.

The unison of opposites to prove,

Of the soft wax and diamond hard am I;

But still, obedient to the laws of love,

Here, hard or soft, I offer you my breast,

Whate’er you grave or stamp thereon shall rest

Indelible for all eternity.

With an “Ah me!” that seemed to be drawn from the inmost recesses of

his heart, the Knight of the Grove brought his lay to an end, and

shortly afterwards exclaimed in a melancholy and piteous voice, “O

fairest and most ungrateful woman on earth! What! can it be, most

serene Casildea de Vandalia, that thou wilt suffer this thy captive

knight to waste away and perish in ceaseless wanderings and rude and

arduous toils? It is not enough that I have compelled all the knights

of Navarre, all the Leonese, all the Tartesians, all the Castilians,

and finally all the knights of La Mancha, to confess thee the most

beautiful in the world?”

“Not so,” said Don Quixote at this, “for I am of La Mancha, and I have

never confessed anything of the sort, nor could I nor should I confess

a thing so much to the prejudice of my lady’s beauty; thou seest how

this knight is raving, Sancho. But let us listen, perhaps he will tell

us more about himself.”

“That he will,” returned Sancho, “for he seems in a mood to bewail

himself for a month at a stretch.”

But this was not the case, for the Knight of the Grove, hearing voices

near him, instead of continuing his lamentation, stood up and exclaimed

in a distinct but courteous tone, “Who goes there? What are you? Do you

belong to the number of the happy or of the miserable?”

“Of the miserable,” answered Don Quixote.

“Then come to me,” said he of the Grove, “and rest assured that it is

to woe itself and affliction itself you come.”

Don Quixote, finding himself answered in such a soft and courteous

manner, went over to him, and so did Sancho.

The doleful knight took Don Quixote by the arm, saying, “Sit down here,

sir knight; for, that you are one, and of those that profess

knight-errantry, it is to me a sufficient proof to have found you in

this place, where solitude and night, the natural couch and proper

retreat of knights-errant, keep you company.” To which Don made answer,

“A knight I am of the profession you mention, and though sorrows,

misfortunes, and calamities have made my heart their abode, the

compassion I feel for the misfortunes of others has not been thereby

banished from it. From what you have just now sung I gather that yours

spring from love, I mean from the love you bear that fair ingrate you

named in your lament.”

In the meantime, they had seated themselves together on the hard ground

peaceably and sociably, just as if, as soon as day broke, they were not

going to break one another’s heads.

“Are you, sir knight, in love perchance?” asked he of the Grove of Don

Quixote.

“By mischance I am,” replied Don Quixote; “though the ills arising from

well-bestowed affections should be esteemed favours rather than

misfortunes.”

“That is true,” returned he of the Grove, “if scorn did not unsettle

our reason and understanding, for if it be excessive it looks like

revenge.”

“I was never scorned by my lady,” said Don Quixote.

“Certainly not,” said Sancho, who stood close by, “for my lady is as a

lamb, and softer than a roll of butter.”

“Is this your squire?” asked he of the Grove.

“He is,” said Don Quixote.

“I never yet saw a squire,” said he of the Grove, “who ventured to

speak when his master was speaking; at least, there is mine, who is as

big as his father, and it cannot be proved that he has ever opened his

lips when I am speaking.”

“By my faith then,” said Sancho, “I have spoken, and am fit to speak,

in the presence of one as much, or even—but never mind—it only makes it

worse to stir it.”

The squire of the Grove took Sancho by the arm, saying to him, “Let us

two go where we can talk in squire style as much as we please, and

leave these gentlemen our masters to fight it out over the story of

their loves; and, depend upon it, daybreak will find them at it without

having made an end of it.”

“So be it by all means,” said Sancho; “and I will tell your worship who

I am, that you may see whether I am to be reckoned among the number of

the most talkative squires.”

With this the two squires withdrew to one side, and between them there

passed a conversation as droll as that which passed between their

masters was serious.

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