Where the words that Sancho Panza said to his master don Quixote are recorded, with other adventures worthy of being told.
Sancho reached his master so exhausted and faint that he could hardly drive his donkey. When don Quixote saw him in that state, he said: “I believe now, good Sancho, that that castle or inn is enchanted without any doubt, since those men so cruelly had fun at your expense. What could they have been but phantoms and people from the other world? And I can confirm this for having seen that when I was near the walls of the corral witnessing the unfolding of your sad tragedy, I couldn’t get over the walls, much less get off Rocinante, because they must have enchanted me. I swear to you, on the faith of who I am, that, if it had been possible for me to get over the walls or get off my horse, I would have avenged you so that those rogues and brigands would remember that joke forever, even if it meant that I’d have to go against the laws of chivalry, since, as I’ve already told you many times, they don’t allow a knight to raise his hand against anyone who is not one himself, except in self defense, and then only in the case of pressing and urgent need.”
“I would have avenged myself if I could have, dubbed a knight or not, but I couldn’t. But I do firmly believe that those who were having such a good time at my expense weren’t phantoms or enchanted men, as your grace says, but rather men of flesh and blood like us. And all of them had names—I heard them call each other by name. One of them was called Pedro Martínez, and the other was Tenorio Hernández, and the innkeeper was called Juan Palomeque, the Left-Handed. So, señor, not being able to climb over the fence of the corral or get off your horse had to do with something other than enchantment. And what I conclude from all this is that these adventures we go looking for, in the end will bring us nothing but misfortune, so we won’t even know which is our right foot. And what would be the best thing for us to do, in my limited understanding, is to return to our village now, since it’s harvest time, and tend to the farm, and stop going «from Ceca to Mecca», and «from a rock to a hard place», as they say.”
“How little you know, Sancho, about chivalry!” responded don Quixote. “Keep quiet and be patient, for the day will come when you’ll see with your own eyes what an honorable thing it is to engage in this profession. If not, tell me, what greater content can there be in the world, or what pleasure can rival that of winning a battle and of triumphing over your enemy? None, without any doubt.”
“It must be that way,” responded Sancho, “although I have no way of knowing. I only know that since we’ve been knights errant, or rather since your grace has been—there’s no reason to count me among such an honorable group—we’ve never won any battle except the one with the Basque, and even there your grace left it with only half an ear and half a helmet gone, and since then it’s been whacks and more whacks, punches and more punches; and in addition to all that, I’ve been blanketed by enchanted persons who I can’t take vengeance on, so I can’t know the pleasure you get when you conquer an enemy, as you say.”
“This bothers me, and must bother you as well, Sancho,” responded don Quixote, “but as soon as I can, I’ll try to get a sword made with such powers that whoever has it with him cannot suffer any kind of enchantment. And it may even be that good fortune will bring me Amadís’ sword, when he was called the Knight of the Burning Sword. It was one of the best swords that any knight ever had, because—aside from the powers I just mentioned—it cut like a razor, and there was no armor, no matter how sturdy and enchanted it might be, that could withstand it.”
“My luck is such,” said Sancho, “that when this came to pass, and you found such a sword, it would only be of use to knights, as with the balm, and as for squires… they’ll be out in the cold once again.”
“Don’t worry about that, Sancho,” said don Quixote, “because heaven will treat you better.”
Don Quixote and his squire were having this conversation, when don Quixote saw on the road they were on an enormous thick cloud of dust. When he saw it, he turned to Sancho and said: “This is the day, Sancho, that Fate has reserved for me. This is the day on which will be demonstrated, more than on any other day, the strength of my arm, and on which I’ll do deeds that will be written in the Book of Fame for all future ages. Do you see that cloud of dust swirling up over there, Sancho? Well, it has been churned up by a colossal marching army consisting of innumerable soldiers from many different places.”
“In that case, there must be two armies,” said Sancho, “because from the other side there’s a similar cloud of dust.”
Don Quixote turned to see it, and he saw that it was true. It gladdened him beyond measure, since he thought there were doubtless two armies that had come to attack and do battle in the middle of that spacious plain, because his imagination had him filled at all times with the combats, enchantments, incidents, follies, romances, and challenges recounted in the romances of chivalry, and everything he said, thought, or did, was along those lines. It turned out that the clouds of dust he’d seen were made by two large flocks of sheep that were coming from two different directions along that same road, and because of the dust, the sheep themselves couldn’t be seen until they drew near. Don Quixote insisted with such ardor that they were armies that Sancho came to believe him and said: “Señor, what should we do?”
“What?” said don Quixote, “why, help the needy and weak side. I want you to know, Sancho, that the army coming toward us is led by the great Emperor Alifanfarón, lord of the great island of Trapobana. This other army marching at our backs is the one belonging to his enemy, the king of the Central African Garamantans, Pentapolén of the Rolled-up Sleeve, because he always goes into battle with his right arm bared.”
“So why do they hate each other, these two señores?” asked Sancho.
“They hate each other,” responded don Quixote, “because this Alefanfarón is a raging pagan, and is in love with the Pentapolín’s daughter, a very beautiful and very graceful señora. She’s a Christian, and her father doesn’t want to let the pagan king have her unless he first leaves the law of the false prophet Muhammad and adopts his own religion.”
“By my beard,” said Sancho, “Pentapolín is quite right, and I’ll help him as much as I can.”
“In this you’ll be doing what you should,” said don Quixote, “because to enter into such battles, you don’t need to be dubbed a knight.”
“I understand that,” responded Sancho. “But where can we put the donkey so that we can find him after the fray is over? I don’t think that such an animal has been used in a battle up to now.”
“That’s the truth,” said don Quixote, “but you can just let him roam free, whether he comes back or not, because we’ll have so many horses after we win the battle that even Rocinante runs the risk of being exchanged for another. But listen carefully, and look, because I want to tell you about the most important knights of both armies. And so that you can see and observe better, let’s go up to that little hill over there, from where we can see both armies.”
They went onto the hill from where they could see both flocks—which don Quixote thought were armies because the clouds of dust they caused had obscured the flocks and blinded his eyes. But in spite of all this, seeing in his imagination what he didn’t see with his eyes and wasn’t there, he began to say in a loud voice: “That knight you see over there with the yellow armor with the shield that has a lion wearing a crown subdued at a maiden’s feet, is the brave Laurcalco, Lord of the Silver Bridge; the other one with golden flowers on his armor, who has a shield with three silver crowns on a field of blue, is the feared Micolembo, the Grand Duke of Quirocia. The other one to Micolembo’s right, with gigantic arms and legs, is the ever-dauntless Brandabarbarán de Boliche, lord of the three Arabias, who is protected by that serpent skin, and uses a gate for a shield, which, fame has it, is one from the temple that Samson pulled down, when he took vengeance on his enemies through his own death.
“But look at the other side now and you’ll see facing the other army the always-conquering and never-conquered Timonel of Carcajona, Prince of New Biscay, who wears armor divided into four colors: blue, green, white, and yellow, and holds a shield with a golden cat on an orangish background with a caption that says Miau, which is almost like the beginning of the name of the lady who, so they say, is the peerless Miulina, daughter of Duke Alefeñiquén de Algarve. The other one, who sits on and squeezes the loins of that powerful horse and wears armor white as snow and wields a white shield without any motto, is a novice knight from France, called Pierres Papín, Lord of the Baronies of Utrique. The other one, who is spurring the flanks of a striped and light-footed zebra, and has a shield with alternating bars of blue and white, is the powerful Duke of Nerbia, Espartifilardo of the Forest, who has an asparagus plant on his shield with a caption in Spanish that says My luck drags behind.”
And in this way he went along naming many knights from both squadrons that he imagined, and he improvised the armor, colors, devices, and mottos of them all, and without stopping, he continued: “This squadron in front is made up of people from different nations. Here are those that drink the waters of the famous Xanthus River; the woodsmen who tread the Massilian Plains; those who sift the fine gold dust of Felix Arabia; those who enjoy the famous and cool shores of the clear Thermodon River; those who drink from the golden Pactolus River; the Numidians, who hesitate in their promises; Persians, famous for their bows and arrows; Parthians and Medes who fight as they flee; Arabs, of movable houses; Scythians, as cruel as they are fair of skin; Ethiopians with bored lips; and an infinite number of other peoples, whose faces I know but I don’t remember their names.
“In this other squadron there are those who drink the crystalline running water of the olive-bearing Bætis River; those who wash their faces with the liquid from the always rich and golden Tajo River; those who enjoy the health-restoring waters of the Genil River; those who tread upon the Tartessian fields with their abundant pasture; those who delight in the Elysian Fields near Jérez; Manchegans, whose rich fields are covered with golden wheat; those dressed in iron, ancient remnants of Gothic blood; those who bathe in the Pisuerga River, famous for the gentleness of its current; those who graze their cattle on the extensive pastures of the twisting Guadiana River, celebrated for its underground flows; those who shiver in the cold of the sylvan Pyrenees Mountains and in the white snowflakes of the Apennine Mountains. In short, you’ll find represented every nation that Europe’s borders hold.”
Goodness, gracious! How many provinces he mentioned, how many nations he named, ascribing to each one, with marvelous speed, its attributes, based entirely on what he’d read in his lying books.
Sancho Panza was hanging on every word, not saying a single one himself, and once in a while he turned his head to see if he could make out the knights and giants his master was describing, and since he didn’t see any, he said to him: “Señor, I don’t see any man or giant or knight of the many that you’ve mentioned. Maybe it’s just enchantment, like the phantoms of last night.”
“How can you say that?” responded don Quixote. “Don’t you hear the neighing of horses, the sounding of bugles, the rolling of drums?” “I don’t hear anything,” responded Sancho Panza, “except the bleating of sheep.”
And it was the truth, because the flocks were drawing near.
“It’s your fear,” said don Quixote, “that makes you unable to see or hear things the way they are. One of the effects of fear is to confuse one’s senses and make things not seem like what they are. And if you’re so afraid, step aside and leave me alone, for I alone can give victory to the side I favor.”
And saying this, he spurred Rocinante, braced his lance, and went down the slope like a bolt of lightning.
Sancho shouted after him, saying: “Come back, your grace don Quixote! I swear to God that it’s rams and ewes that you’re about to attack! Come back! Woe to the unfortunate father that bore me! What kind of lunacy is this? Look, there are no giants or knights, nor cats or armor, nor divided, nor shields, nor blue or bedeviled bars! What are you doing, sinner that I am!?”
These words had no effect on don Quixote. Instead, he went forward shouting: “Ho, knights who follow and do battle under the standards of the valorous Emperor Pentapolín of the Rolled-up Sleeve, follow me, all of you. You’ll see how easily I take vengeance on his enemy Alefanfarón of Trapobana!”
Saying this, he dashed into the middle of the squadron of sheep and began to attack them with his lance with as much ire and daring as if he were really fighting his mortal enemies. The shepherds with the flock shouted at him to stop, but since it was doing no good, they took out their slingshots and began to greet his ears with stones as big as your fist. Don Quixote paid no attention to the stones, but scurried in all directions saying: “Where are you, arrogant Alifanfarón? Come to me! One knight alone wants to test your strength in singular combat and take your life to punish you for the misery you’ve caused the brave Pentapolín the Garamantan.”
At that moment a stone from a stream bed hit him in the side, caving in two ribs. Seeing himself so abused, he thought he was dead or badly wounded, and remembering his potion, he took out the cruet and put it to his mouth, and began to drink the liquid. But before he could take what he thought was enough, another smooth stone struck both his hand and the cruet squarely, breaking it to pieces, taking along with it three or four teeth from his mouth, and smashing two fingers of his hand badly.
The first blow was such, and the blow from the second was such, that the poor knight couldn’t help but fall from his horse to the ground. At this point the shepherds arrived and thought they had killed him, so they herded their livestock with great haste, picked up more than seven dead sheep, and fled without further ado.
Sancho was on the hill, all the while watching his master’s mad acts, pulling his beard and cursing the moment when Fate had brought them together. Seeing him fall to the ground, and that the shepherds had departed, he went down the hill and found his master in very bad shape, but still conscious, and said to him: “Didn’t I tell you señor don Quixote, to come back, and you were not attacking armies but flocks of sheep?”
“That thieving necromancer, my enemy, can falsify and make such things as these vanish. Sancho, I want you to know that it’s very easy for those sorcerors to make us believe whatever they want, and this wicked one who persecutes me, envious of the glory that he foresaw I’d garner from this battle, changed those squadrons of enemies into flocks of sheep. If you want to find out for yourself, Sancho, do this: get on your donkey and follow them stealthily, without their noticing, and you’ll see that, when they get some distance away, they’ll change back from sheep into the men they originally were, exactly as I described to you… But don’t go just now—I need your help. Come over here and see how many teeth are missing, because it seems to me I don’t have any left in my mouth.”
Sancho got so close to him that his eyes were almost inside his mouth, and it happened that it was at that very instant that the balm in don Quixote’s stomach began to have its effect; and just when Sancho was about to look inside his mouth, don Quixote—like a bullet from a rifle—discharged everything from his stomach onto the beard of his compassionate squire.
“Holy Mary!” said Sancho. “What has happened to me? This sinner is doubtless mortally wounded since he’s vomiting blood through his mouth.” But when he examined it a bit more, he discovered through its color, taste and smell, that it wasn’t blood, but rather the balm from the cruet that he’d seen him drink, and the nausea that it brought him was so great that his stomach began to churn, and he vomited out his whole insides onto his master, and both of them were a sight to see. Sancho went to his donkey to get something from his saddlebags to clean himself with and to treat his master’s wounds, and when he didn’t find the saddlebags, he was on the verge of losing his mind. He cursed himself again and resolved in his heart to leave his master and return home, even though he’d lose the salary for the time he’d served, and all hopes of governing the promised ínsula.
Don Quixote managed to get up, his left hand on his mouth so that the rest of his teeth wouldn’t fall out, and with the other hand, he took the reins of Rocinante (who never had moved an inch from the side of his master, so loyal and well trained was he), and went over to his squire. He found him leaning against his donkey with his hand on his cheek, like a very pensive man. Seeing him in that posture, looking so unhappy, don Quixote said to him: “Sancho, no man is more than another unless he does more than another. All these little storms that overtake us are signs that very soon the weather will clear up and good things will start happening to us, because neither good nor bad can last forever. Thus it follows that, since the adversity has lasted such a long time, good luck must be around the corner. So don’t take my humiliations to heart since none of them befalls you.”
“How do you figure that,” responded Sancho. “By chance, yesterday was it someone other than the son of my father who was blanketed? And the saddlebags missing today with all my stuff, did they belong to another other than myself?”
“You mean the saddlebags are missing?” said don Quixote.
“Yes, they are,” responded Sancho.
“That means we won’t eat today,” responded don Quixote.
“That would be true,” responded Sancho, “only if there were no herbs in these fields that your grace knows about, which unfortunate knights errant, such as yourself, eat when there’s nothing else around.”
“Even so,” responded don Quixote, “I’d prefer a loaf of bread, or even half a loaf, and the heads of two herrings to all the herbs that Discorides describes, even from the commentated edition by Dr. Laguna. But anyway, get on your donkey, good Sancho, and follow me. God, who provides everything, won’t fail us, and more so since we’re so much in His service. Since He doesn’t fail the gnats in the air, nor the worms in the earth, nor the tadpoles in the water, and is so merciful that He makes the sun shine on the good and the bad, and rains on the unjust and the just.”
“Your grace might be,” said Sancho, “a better preacher than a knight errant.”
“Knights errant knew, and have to know everything, Sancho,” said don Quixote, “because there were knights errant in past centuries who would stop to give a sermon or a discourse in the middle of a military camp, as if they were graduates of the University of Paris, and from this we learn that the lance never dulled the pen, nor the pen the lance.”
“All right, let it be just as your grace says,” responded Sancho. “Let’s get on our way and try to find a place to stay tonight, and may it please God that it not be where there are blankets or blanketers or phantoms or enchanted Moors, because if there are, may the devil take it all away.”
“Ask it of God, son,” said don Quixote, “and you can lead us wherever you like. I’ll let you find a place for us to stay. But first give me your hand, and feel inside my mouth with your finger, and see how many teeth are missing from this upper right side of my jaw since that’s where it hurts.” Sancho put his fingers in and felt around and said: “How many back teeth did your grace use to have on this side?”
“Four,” responded don Quixote, “except for the wisdom tooth, all of them were whole and healthy.”
“Consider carefully what you’re saying, señor,” responded Sancho.
“There were four, if not five,” responded don Quixote, “because no molar was ever extracted in my whole life, nor has any fallen out, nor been damaged by cavities or abscesses.”
“Well, on the bottom,” said Sancho, “your grace has only two and a half, and in the upper part, neither half a molar nor any at all. It’s as smooth as the palm of my hand.”
“Woe is me,” said don Quixote when he heard the sad news that his squire gave him, “I’d have preferred that they rip off an arm, as long it wasn’t the one I use for my sword, because I’ll have you know, Sancho, that a mouth without molars is like a mill without a millstone; and a tooth should be more treasured than a diamond. But all of us who profess the rigorous order of knighthood are susceptible to all this. Mount your donkey, my friend, and lead on, and I’ll follow at whatever pace you want.”
Sancho did exactly that, and went toward where he thought they could find a place, never leaving the highway, which was very straight at that point. Going slowly, since the pain in don Quixote’s jaws kept him in discomfort and didn’t allow him to go very fast, Sancho wanted to entertain and amuse him by telling him something, and among the things he said, was what will be recounted in the next chapter.