Where the antics that don Quixote, in the role of a lover, did in the Sierra Morena are continued.
W HEN THE history comes to relate what the Woebegone One did after he found himself alone, it goes on to say that as soon as don Quixote did those somersaults, naked from the waist down and dressed from the waist up, and saw that Sancho had gone without waiting to see more capers, he climbed to the top of a tall boulder, and there began to think about what he’d thought about many times, without having resolved the matter; namely, would it be more fitting to imitate Roland in the outrageous crazy acts he performed, or Amadís in his more sedate, melancholy ones? Talking to himself, he said: “If Roland was as good and as valiant a knight as everyone says, what’s so wonderful about that? He was enchanted after all, and he couldn’t be killed except by piercing the front of his foot with a large straight pin, and he always wore shoes with seven iron soles, although this device didn’t do him any good against Bernardo del Carpio, who saw through it, and squeezed the life out of him in Roncesvalles. But setting aside the matter of his courage, let’s move on to the question of his loss of sanity—because it’s certain he went crazy owing to the signs his destiny led him to find, and also the news that the shepherd gave him that Angélica had slept two siestas with Medoro, the little Moor with curly hair, Agramante’s page. And if he understood this was the truth and his lady had committed an outrage, it was not surprising that he was driven crazy. But I—how can I imitate him in his crazy acts unless I share the same circumstances? My Dulcinea del Toboso, I’ll dare to swear, has never seen a Moor in traditional garb in all the days of her life, and she’s as chaste today as the mother who bore her. I would do her a grave injustice if I, imagining anything else about her, let myself go crazy in the style of Roland.
“On the other hand, I see that Amadís de Gaula, without going mad and without doing crazy acts, became famous as a lover like the best of them, because what he did—according to his history—when he saw himself spurned by his lady Oriana, who commanded him not to appear before her until she let him, was to go to Peña Pobre in the company of a hermit, and there got his fill of weeping and commending himself to God, until heaven intervened in the midst of his greatest affliction and need. And if this is true—as it certainly is—why should I want to get undressed, and spoil these trees, which haven’t done me any harm at all; nor do I have a reason to muddy these clear streams, which have to provide me with something to drink when I feel the need? Long live the memory of Amadís, and let him be imitated by don Quixote de La Mancha in every way he can, and they’ll say about him what they said about another person, that if he didn’t attain great things, at least he died trying, and if I’m neither rejected nor spurned by Dulcinea del Toboso, all I need to do, as I said, is absent myself from her. All right, let’s get at it! Oh, deeds of Amadís, come to my memory now and show me how to imitate you! But now I remember, what he did the most was to pray and commend himself to God. But what’ll I do for a rosary? I don’t have one.”
It then occurred to him how to make one. He tore off a strip of cloth from his shirttails, and he made eleven knots, one larger than the rest, and this served him as a rosary while he was there, where he prayed a million Hail Marys. What nagged at him was that there was no hermit there to whom he could confess and through whom he could be consoled. He whiled away the time strolling about in the little meadow, writing and carving poems on barks of trees and on the fine sand, each one appropriate to his sorrow, and some of them praising Dulcinea. Those that could be found whole and could be read after they found him there were only these that follow:
The added «del Toboso» caused no little laughter on the part of those who found the verses transcribed above, because they thought that don Quixote figured that if he just said «Dulcinea» and didn’t include «del Toboso», you couldn’t understand the stanza, and it was the truth, as don Quixote later confessed. He wrote many other poems, but, as has been said, none could be made out in its entirety except these three stanzas. He occupied himself writing poetry, sighing, and calling on fauns and satyrs of those forests, as well as the nymphs of the rivers, the sorrowful and tearful Echo, to respond, console, and listen to him, and in looking for some herbs for sustenance until Sancho returned (and if Sancho had delayed three weeks instead of just three days, the Woebegone Knight would have had his looks so altered even his own mother wouldn’t have recognized him).
He can now be left with his sighs and verses so we can say what happened to Sancho Panza while on his errand. On reaching the highway he went toward El Toboso, and the following day he came to the inn where he’d suffered the disgrace of the blanketing. As soon as he saw it, it seemed to him that he was flying in the air once again, and he didn’t want to go inside, although it was the time of day when he could and should have, since it was lunch time, and he was longing for something hot, since all he’d eaten for days on end were cold cuts. This need caused him to approach the inn, wondering if he should go in or not. And while he was in thought, two people came out of the inn who recognized him immediately, and one said to the other: “Tell me, señor licenciado, that man on horseback, isn’t that Sancho Panza, the fellow who the housekeeper of our adventurer said had left with her master to be his squire?”
“It most certainly is,” said the licenciado, “and he’s on don Quixote’s horse.”
They knew him well because they were the priest and the barber of his village, and the ones who had tried and sentenced the books. As soon as they saw Sancho Panza and Rocinante, since they wanted to find out about don Quixote, they went towards him, and the priest called him by name, saying: “Friend Sancho Panza, where is your master?”
Sancho recognized them immediately and resolved not to reveal either his master’s whereabouts or his plight, or in what state he was in. So he answered them that he was engaged in a certain place on certain important business that he couldn’t tell them about for anything in the world.
“No, no,” said the barber, “Sancho Panza, if you don’t tell us where he is, we’ll think—and we’re already thinking it—that you killed and robbed him, since you’re riding his horse. In short, you must produce the owner of the nag or you’re in trouble.”
“There’s no need to threaten me since I’m not the kind of fellow who goes around robbing or killing anyone—let everyone be killed by his fortune or by the God who made him. My master is doing penance in the heart of these mountains, and all of it very much to his liking.”
And then, all at once and without stopping, he told them all about his present errand and past adventures, and how he was carrying a letter to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, who was really the daughter of Lorenzo Corchuelo, with whom don Quixote was in love up to his eyes. The two were amazed at what Sancho Panza told them, and although they were aware of don Quixote’s madness, every time they heard something new about it, they were more and more astonished. They asked Sancho Panza to show them the letter he was taking to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso. He said it was in a diary, and that his master had told him to have it copied onto good paper in the first village he came to. The priest asked him to show it to them, for he himself would copy it in a very fine hand. Sancho Panza put his hand inside his shirt looking for the little book, but couldn’t find it, nor would he have found it if he’d kept looking for it until now, because it was still with don Quixote, who hadn’t given it to him, nor did Sancho have the presence of mind to ask for it.
When Sancho realized that he couldn’t find the book, his face became deathly pale, and began to search himself furiously, and when he confirmed that he didn’t have it, he began clutching his beard with both hands and yanked out half of it, then gave himself half a dozen punches on his face and nose, bathing them in blood. The priest and barber witnessed all this and asked him what had happened to cause such a frenzy.
“What has happened,” responded Sancho, “is that from one second to the next, in an instant, I’ve lost three donkeys, each one worth a castle.”
“How’s that?” replied the barber.
“I’ve lost the diary,” responded Sancho, “where the letter for Dulcinea and the bill of exchange signed by my master were written, and in which he directed his niece to give me three donkeys of the four or five that he owns.”
He then related about the loss of his own donkey. The priest consoled him and told him that when they found his master, they would ask him to prepare a new order, because those in diaries were never accepted or honored in any case. Sancho was consoled by this and said since that was the case, it didn’t grieve him for having lost the letter to Dulcinea, because he knew it almost by heart, and he could have it written down wherever and whenever they wanted.
“Recite it, then, Sancho,” said the barber, “and afterwards, we’ll copy it down.”
Sancho hesitated and scratched his head to bring the letter to mind, and he switched his weight first to one foot, then to the other. Sometimes he looked up, then he looked down, and after he’d gnawed off half of the tip of his finger, holding in suspense those who had asked him to recite it, at long last, he said: “My God, señor licenciado, may the devil take me if I can remember anything from the letter, but it started this way: ‘High and slobbering señora.’ ”
“He probably didn’t say «slobbering»,” said the barber, “but rather «sovereign» señora.’ ”
“That’s it,” said Sancho, “and then, if I remember correctly, it went on… if I remember correctly, ‘the wounded, the wanting of sleep, and the pierced, kisses the hands of your grace, hateful and ungrateful one,’ and some such stuff about health and sickness he was sending her, then it went along until it ended in ‘Yours until death, the Woebegone Knight.’ ”
The two took no little pleasure in the good memory of Sancho Panza, and they praised him very much, and asked him to recite the letter twice more, so they also could learn it by heart, and he recited it again three more times and again said three thousand more foolish things. After this, he told them other things about his master, but didn’t mention anything about his own blanketing at that inn, which he refused to enter. He also said that, if he received a favorable reply from Dulcinea, his master would immediately get on the road to becoming an emperor, or at least a monarch, for that’s what the two of them had decided. And it would be very easy for him to become such a ruler, owing to his courage and the might of his arm. And once he was an emperor, don Quixote would marry him off—because by then he would doubtless be a widower—to a lady-in-waiting to an empress, who would inherit a rich and large estate on the mainland (no ínsulas this time, since he didn’t want one anymore).
Sancho said this with such serenity, wiping his nose from time to time, and with so little sense, that the two were astonished anew at the intense nature of the madness of don Quixote and how it took along with it the sanity of that poor man. They didn’t try to free him from his delusion, considering that since it didn’t hurt his conscience, it would be better to leave him alone, and for them it would be more fun to hear his foolish remarks. So they told him to pray to God for the health of his master, and that it seemed possible and likely that with the passage of time he could get to be an emperor, as he’d said, or at least an archbishop errant, or other similar office.
To which Sancho replied: “Señores, if Fortune arranged things so that my master wouldn’t get the idea to be an emperor, but rather an archbishop, I’d like to know now how archbishops errant reward their squires.”
“They usually give them,” responded the priest, “a simple church-related job, or a curate, or the office of sexton, which brings in a good income, not to mention altar fees that earn as much.”
“But for this,” replied Sancho, “the squire will have to be unmarried and be able to help out at mass, at least, and if this is true, woe is me! I’m married and I don’t know the first letter of the ABCs. What will become of me if my master fancies becoming an archbishop and not an emperor, as is the custom with knights errant?”
“Don’t worry, friend Sancho,” said the barber, “we’ll implore and advise your master—in fact, we’ll put it before him as a matter of conscience—that he should become an emperor and not an archbishop, because it’ll be easier for him since he’s more a soldier than a student.”
“That’s what it seems like to me,” responded Sancho, “even though I always say that he’s good at anything. What I think I’ll do on my part is to pray to our Lord to do what is best for him, and to place him where he can do me the most good.”
“You’re talking like an astute man,” said the priest, “and you’ll do it like a good Christian. But what we must do now is figure out how to remove your master from that useless penance you say he’s doing; and in order to consider what we have to do—and also to have something to eat, because it’s time—it’d be good to go into this inn.”
Sancho told them to go in, but he would wait outside, and afterwards he’d tell them why he wouldn’t go in, and why it wasn’t fitting that he should. But he asked them to bring him something hot to eat, and also some barley for Rocinante. They went in, leaving him behind, and a bit later, the barber took him something to eat. After that, when the two of them had thought about what they should do in order to accomplish their intent, the priest hit upon an idea admirably suited both to don Quixote’s taste and to their own motivation. He told the barber what he came up with: that he—the priest—would dress up as a wandering maiden, and that he—the barber—would dress up as well as he could as a squire, and they would go to don Quixote, the one pretending to be a distressed and needy maiden, and she would ask him for a boon, and he—being a brave knight errant—couldn’t refuse. The boon that he planned to ask for would be for him to go with her wherever she would take him, to right a wrong that an evil knight had done her, and that she would entreat him not to ask her to lift her veil, or ask anything about her state of affairs until he’d avenged her on that scoundrel of a knight. He firmly believed that don Quixote would go along with anything she would ask along these lines, and in this way, they would be able to take him from where he was and lead him back to his village, where they would try to see if there was any cure for his madness.