Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (111 page)

“Of course they don’t lie!” said Doña Rodríguez the duenna, who was among those listening. “There’s a ballad that says they put King Rodrigo alive and kicking into a tomb filled with toads and snakes and lizards, and two days later, from inside the tomb, the king said in a low and mournful voice:

and so this gentleman is very correct when he says he’d rather be a peasant than a king if vermin are going to eat him.”

The duchess could not control her laughter when she heard her duenna’s simplemindedness, nor could she help but marvel at Sancho’s words and proverbs, and she said to him:

“Our good Sancho already knows that what a knight has promised he attempts to fulfill, even if it costs him his life. The duke, my lord and husband, though not a knight errant, is still a knight, and so he will keep his word regarding the promised ínsula, despite the world’s envy and malice. Sancho should be of good heart, for when he least expects it he will find himself seated on the throne of his ínsula and of his estate, and he will hold his governorship in his hand and not trade it for another of three-pile brocade.
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My charge to him is that he attend to how he governs his vassals, knowing that all of them are loyal and wellborn.”

“As for governing them well,” responded Sancho, “there’s no need to charge me with it, because I’m charitable by nature and have compassion for the poor; and if he kneads and bakes, you can’t steal his cakes; by my faith, they won’t throw me any crooked dice; I’m an old dog and understand every here, boy,
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and I know how to wake up at the right time, and I don’t allow cobwebs in front of my eyes, because I know if the shoe fits: I say this because with me good men will have my hand and a place in my house,
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and bad men won’t get a foot or permission to enter. And it seems to me that in this business of governorships it’s all a matter of starting, and it may be that after two weeks of being a governor I’ll be licking my lips over the work and know more about it than working in the fields, which is what I’ve grown up doing.”

“You’re right, Sancho,” said the duchess, “because nobody is born knowing, and bishops are made from men, not stones. But returning to the conversation we had a little while ago about the enchantment of Señora Dulcinea, I consider it true and verified beyond any doubt that the idea Sancho had of tricking his master and leading him to believe that the peasant was Dulcinea, and if his master did not know her, it had to be because she was enchanted, was all an invention of one of the enchanters who pursue Señor Don Quixote, because really and truly, I know from a reliable source that the peasant girl who leaped onto the donkey was and is Dulcinea of Toboso, and that our good Sancho, think-
ing he was the deceiver, is the deceived; there is no reason to doubt this truth any more than we doubt other things we have never seen, and Señor Sancho Panza should know that we too have enchanters here, and they love us dearly, and tell us what is going on in the world, purely and simply and without plots or complications; let Sancho believe me when I say that the leaping peasant girl was and is Dulcinea of Toboso, who is as enchanted as the mother who bore her; and when we least expect it we shall see her in her true form, and then Sancho will be free of the self-deception in which he lives.”

“That may be true,” said Sancho Panza, “and now I want to believe what my master says he saw in the Cave of Montesinos, where he says he saw Señora Dulcinea of Toboso in the same dress and garb that I said I had seen her wearing when I enchanted her for my own pleasure; it must all be the reverse, Señora, just like your grace says, because one can’t and shouldn’t think that in only an instant my poor wits could make up so clever a lie, and I don’t believe either that my master is so crazy that with powers of persuasion as weak and thin as mine he would believe something so unbelievable. But, Señora, it wouldn’t be right for your highness to consider me a villain because of it, for a dolt like me isn’t obliged to fathom the thoughts and evil intentions of wicked enchanters: I made it up to avoid a scolding from my master, Don Quixote, not to offend him, and if it’s turned out wrong, God’s in heaven and judges men’s hearts.”

“That is true,” said the duchess, “but now tell me, Sancho, what you were saying about the Cave of Montesinos; I’d like to know.”

Then Sancho Panza recounted point by point what has already been said about that adventure, and when the duchess heard it, she said:

“From this incident we can infer that since the great Don Quixote says he saw there the same peasant girl Sancho saw on the way out of Toboso, she no doubt is Dulcinea, and very clever and meddlesome enchanters are wandering around here.”

“That’s what I say,” said Sancho Panza. “If my lady Dulcinea of Toboso is enchanted, so much the worse for her, but I, I don’t have to take on my master’s enemies, and there must be a lot, all of them very wicked. It may be true that the woman I saw was a peasant, and I thought she was a peasant, and judged her to be a peasant; if that was Dulcinea, I’m not to blame, and nobody should hold me responsible; we’ll see about that. Picking fights with me all the time: ‘Sancho said this, Sancho did that, Sancho turned around, and Sancho went back,’ as if Sancho Panza were just anybody and not the same Sancho Panza who’s wandering the world now in books, which is what Sansón Carrasco told
me, and he’s nothing less than a bachelor from Salamanca, and people like him can’t lie except if they feel like it or it’s very convenient; and so nobody should blame me, and since I have a good reputation, and I’ve heard my master say that a good name’s worth more than great wealth, just let them pass this governorship on to me and they’ll see marvels, because whoever’s been a good squire will be a good governor.”

“Everything said here by our good Sancho,” said the duchess, “are Catonian sentences, or, at least, taken from the very heart of Micael Verino himself,
florentibus occidit annis.
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Well, well, to say it in his fashion, under a poor cloak you can find a good drinker.”

“The truth is, Señora,” responded Sancho, “that I never abused drink, though I might have been thirsty, because I’m no hypocrite; I drink when I want to, and when I don’t want to, and when somebody offers me a drink so as not to seem finicky or impolite; to toast a friend, whose heart is so like marble that he won’t lift a glass? But even if I do, I never dirty it, since the squires of knights errant almost always drink water, because they’re always traveling through woods, forests, and meadows, mountains and cliffs, without finding a charitable drop of wine even if they’d give an eye for it.”

“I believe that,” responded the duchess. “And for now, Sancho should go and rest, and we will speak at length later, and give the order to quickly pass this governorship, as he says, on to him.”

Sancho again kissed the hands of the duchess and implored her to be so kind as to take good care of his gray, because he was the light of his eyes.

“What gray is that?” asked the duchess.

“My jackass,” responded Sancho, “and so as not to call him by that name, I usually call him the gray, and when I entered this castle I asked this Señora Duenna to take care of him, and she got as angry as if I had called her ugly or old, since it must be more fitting and natural for duennas to give a thought to donkeys than to claim authority in castle halls. Oh, and Lord save me, what a dislike a nobleman from my village had for these ladies!”

“He must have been some peasant,” said Doña Rodríguez the duenna, “because if he were noble and wellborn, he would have praised them to the skies.”

“Well now,” said the duchess, “that’s enough: Doña Rodríguez, be
still, and Señor Panza, calm down, and let me take care of looking after this gray, for if he is Sancho’s jewel, I shall value him more highly than the apple of my eye.”

“It’s enough if he’s in the stable,” responded Sancho. “As for being valued more highly than the apple of your highness’s eye, he and I aren’t worthy of that even for an instant, and I would no more agree to it than to being stabbed; though my master says that in courtesies it’s better to lose by a card too many than a card too few, as far as donkeys and apples are concerned, you have to go with your compass in hand, and at a measured pace.”

“Let Sancho take him to his governorship,” said the duchess, “and there he can treat him as nicely as he wants, and even keep him from hard labor.”

“Your grace should not think, Señora Duchess, that you have said anything remarkable,” said Sancho, “for I have seen more than two jackasses go into governorships, and if I take mine with me, it won’t be anything new.”

Sancho’s words renewed the duchess’s laughter and delight, and after sending him to rest, she went to recount to the duke her conversation with Sancho; and between the two of them, they arranged and planned to play tricks on Don Quixote that would be remarkable and consonant with the chivalric style; and they devised so many, and ones so appropriate and clever, that they are some of the best adventures contained in this great history.

CHAPTER XXXIV

The duke and the duchess received great pleasure from Don Quixote’s conversation and that of Sancho Panza; they confirmed their intention of playing some tricks that would have the appearance and semblance of adventures, basing their plan on what Don Quixote had already told them about the Cave of Montesinos in order to create for him an adventure
that would be famous—though what most astonished the duchess was Sancho’s simplemindedness, so great that he had come to believe as an infallible truth that Dulcinea of Toboso was enchanted when he himself had been the enchanter and deceiver in that affair—and so, having given orders to their servants regarding everything they had to do, six days later they took Don Quixote hunting for big game, with so many hunters and trackers that it might have been the party of a crowned king. They gave Don Quixote a hunting outfit, and Sancho another of fine green cloth, but Don Quixote refused to put his on, saying that the next day he would have to return to the harsh profession of arms and could not carry wardrobes and furnishings with him. Sancho, however, accepted what they gave him, intending to sell it at the earliest opportunity.

When the long-awaited day arrived, Don Quixote put on his armor, Sancho donned his outfit, and, riding his donkey, for he did not wish to leave him behind even though they had provided him with a horse, he joined the troop of hunters. The duchess rode out in splendid attire, and Don Quixote, in his courtesy and politeness, took the reins of her palfrey although the duke did not wish to allow it, and finally they reached a forest that lay between two high mountains, where, having set up their posts, their blinds, and their traps, and assigning people to different positions, the hunt began with so great a clamor, so much shouting and calling and barking of dogs and sounding of horns, that they could not hear one another speak.

The duchess dismounted and, holding a sharp javelin in her hands, took up a post where she knew wild boar usually passed by. The duke and Don Quixote also dismounted and stationed themselves on either side of her; Sancho, who was behind them all, did not dismount the donkey, for he did not dare abandon him in the event some mishap befell him. And as soon as they and a good number of other servants had taken their places, then, pursued by the dogs and followed by the trackers, they saw a huge wild boar rushing toward them, grinding its teeth and tusks and foaming at the mouth; when he saw it, Don Quixote grasped his shield and drew his sword and stepped forward to meet it. The duke did the same with his javelin, but the duchess would have gone ahead of all of them if the duke had not stopped her. Only Sancho, when he saw the valiant beast, abandoned his donkey, and began to run as fast as he could, and attempted to climb to the top of a tall oak but failed; instead, when he was halfway up the tree, holding on to a branch as he struggled to reach the top, his luck was so bad and he was so unfortunate that the
branch broke, and when it fell to the ground he was still in the air, caught on the stump of a branch and unable to reach the ground. And seeing himself in this situation, and his green tunic tearing, and thinking that if the wild animal ran past it could reach him, he began to give so many shouts and to call for help with so much urgency that everyone who heard him and did not see him believed he was in the jaws of a savage beast.

Finally, the tusked boar was run through by the sharp points of the many javelins it encountered; Don Quixote, turning his head in the direction of Sancho’s shouting, for he had realized that the shouts were his, saw him hanging upside down from the oak, his donkey beside him, for the gray did not abandon him in his calamity, and Cide Hamete says he rarely saw Sancho Panza without his donkey, or the donkey without Sancho: such was the friendship and good faith that existed between the two of them.

Don Quixote approached and unhooked Sancho, who, finding himself free and on the ground, looked at how badly torn the hunting tunic was, and it pained him deeply, for he had thought of his outfit as an inheritance. In the meantime, the powerful boar was lain across a mule, covered with sprigs of rosemary and sprays of myrtle, and taken, as a sign of the spoils of victory, to some large field tents that had been pitched in the middle of the wood; there they found the tables prepared and the meal ready, a banquet so sumptuous and large that one could easily see in it the greatness and magnificence of the person who offered it. Sancho, showing the duchess the tears in his ripped tunic, said:

“If this had been a hunt of hares or small birds, my tunic would not have suffered this damage. I don’t know what pleasure there is in waiting for an animal that, if it gores you with a tusk, can kill you; I remember hearing an old ballad that says: