A TEI Project

Chapter II

Which deals with the notable struggle that Sancho Panza had with don Quixote’s niece and housekeeper, with other amusing matters.

THE HISTORY relates that the shouts don Quixote, the priest, and the barber heard were from the niece and housekeeper, who were yelling at Sancho and barring his way at the door, while he was struggling to get inside to see don Quixote.

“What does this lowlife want in this house? Go home, brother! It’s you and no one else who delude and entice my master to go away, and take him down those by-roads.”

To which Sancho responded: “Satan’s housekeeper! The enticed and the deluded one is me, and not your master. He took me off through the world. You’re badly mistaken; he enticed me away from my home with deceptions, promising me an ínsula I’m still waiting for.”

“May you choke on bad ínsulas,” responded the niece. “Damn you, Sancho, and what are ínsulas, anyway? Are they something to eat, you glutton?”

“You don’t eat them,” replied Sancho, “you govern and rule them, and they’re better than four cities and four judgeships.”

“All the same,” said the housekeeper, “you’ll not come in here, you bag of misdeeds and sack of wickedness. Go govern your house and work your fields, and stop looking for ínsulas or ínsulos.

The priest and barber were delighted to hear the conversation of the three of them, but don Quixote—fearing that Sancho would open up and spew out a pile of mischievous gaffes, and would touch on things not to his master’s credit—called him and told the two women to be quiet and let him come in. Sancho went in, and the priest and barber took leave of don Quixote, despairing about his recovery, seeing how set he was in his extravagant thoughts and how immersed he was in the simplicity of his ill-errant chivalry, and so the priest said to the barber: “You’ll see, my friend, how when least we expect it, our hidalgo will be off on another expedition.”

“I don’t doubt that,” said the barber, “but I’m not so much amazed at the madness of the knight as I am at the simplicity of the squire, who is so confident about that ínsula business. No matter how we try to enlighten him, it won’t be enough to get it out of his head.”

“May God help the both of them,” said the priest, “and let’s keep on the lookout. We’ll see what becomes of these absurdities of the knight and squire. It looks like the two were cast from the same mold and that the master’s lunacy wouldn’t be worth an ardite without the servant’s foolishness.”

“That’s right,” responded the barber, “and I’d really like to find out what the two are talking about.”

“I’m sure,” responded the priest, “the niece and housekeeper will tell us afterwards, because they’re certainly going to listen in.”

Meanwhile, don Quixote shut himself up in his room with Sancho, and when they were alone, he said: “It distresses me quite a bit, Sancho, that you’ve said I was the one who took you from your cottage, even though you knew that I didn’t stay at home either. Together we set out, together we went off, and together we roamed—a common fortune and a common fate has befallen both of us. If they blanketed you once, they beat me up a hundred times, and this is where I’ve come out ahead of you.”

“That seems reasonable,” responded Sancho, “because, as your grace says, misfortunes are more suited to knights errant than they are to their squires.”

“You’re mistaken, Sancho,” said don Quixote, “according to that old saying: quando caput dolet, ”

“I don’t understand any other language but my own,” responded Sancho.

“What I mean,” said don Quixote, “is that when your head hurts, the rest of your body hurts along with it, and since I’m your master and lord, I’m your head and you’re a part of me, since you’re my servant; for this reason any suffering that may come to me has to affect you, and vice-versa.”

“That’s the way it should have been,” said Sancho, “but when they were blanketing me, as a part of your body, there was my head on the other side of the fence, watching me fly through the air, without feeling any pain at all. Since the parts of the body are supposed to feel the pain in the head, the head should feel their pain, too.”

“Do you mean to say, Sancho,” responded don Quixote, “that I didn’t suffer when they were blanketing you? If you do say it, stop! Don’t even think it, since I felt more pain in my soul than you did in your body. But let’s let this go for the moment—there’ll be time to consider this and settle the matter. So, tell me, Sancho, what are they saying about me in town? What do the common folk say about me? What do the hidalgos and knights say? What do they say about my bravery, about my deeds, and about my courtesy? What is being said about my having resuscitated and brought back to the world the now forgotten order of chivalry? Finally, I want you, Sancho, to tell me exactly what has come to your ears, and you have to tell me without adding anything to the good or taking away anything from the bad, for faithful vassals are supposed to tell the truth to their masters as it really is, without exaggerating the good things nor diminishing the bad out of respect. And I want you to know, Sancho, that if the naked truth reached the ears of important people, without being dressed in flattery, things would be quite different, and other eras would be held more as Iron Ages, more so than ours, which I consider to be the Golden Age.”

“I’ll do that with pleasure,” responded Sancho, “on the condition that your grace won’t be angry about what I say, since you want me to repeat it stark naked without putting more clothes on it than the way it came to me.”

“In no way will I get angry,” responded don Quixote. “You can speak freely without beating around the bush, Sancho.”

“Well, the first thing I can say,” he said, “is that the common people think you’re very crazy and that I’m no less a dullard. The hidalgos say that you’re not satisfied just being a member of their class, but have insisted on adding a don to your name and have dared to call yourself a knight with just four grapevines and two yokes of land, wearing a shirt that’s nothing but tatters. The knights say that they don’t want hidalgos trying to rival them, especially the squirely ones who polish their shoes with soot and darn their black socks with green thread.”

“That,” said don Quixote, “has nothing to do with me since I’m always well dressed and never wear mended clothing —threadbare, maybe, but most of that damage is due to the wear and tear caused by my armor and not by its wearing out through time.”

“Insofar as your grace’s bravery, courtesy, deeds, and endeavors are concerned,” Sancho went on, “there are differing opinions: some say ‘crazy but amusing,’ others say ‘valiant but unfortunate,’ still others, ‘courteous but ill-advised.’ There are so many things being said about us that they haven’t left either of us with a sound bone in our bodies.”

“Look, Sancho,” said don Quixote, “wherever there’s a high level of virtue, it’s pursued. Few or none of the famous men who passed this way have not been slandered with malice. Julius Cæsar, a very spirited, very prudent, and very brave captain, was regarded as ambitious and thought to be not very clean, either in his clothing or in his customs. Alexander, whose deeds earned him fame as being GREAT, is said to have been a bit of a drunk. About Hercules—the one of the many labors—they say that he was lascivious and effeminate. Of don Galaor, the brother of Amadís de Gaula, it’s murmured that he was more than somewhat lustful, and of his brother, they say he was a sniveler. So, Sancho, amidst so much slander lashed out at these good men, what has been said about me is insignificant.”

“There’s the rub, on my father’s grave,” replied Sancho.

“You mean, there’s more?” asked don Quixote.

“«The tail has yet to be skinned»,” said Sancho, “you haven’t heard anything yet, but if your grace wants to find out everything about the slanders they’re laying on you, I’ll bring over someone right now who can tell you about them all, without omitting anything. Last night Bartolomé Carrasco’s son came back home—he was studying at Salamanca and is now a bachelor—and when I went to greet him, he told me that the history of your grace is circulating in books with the title Ingenious Hidalgo don Quixote de La Mancha. And he says that they mention me in it with my real name, Sancho Panza, and señora Dulcinea del Toboso, too, and other things that happened to us when were alone. It made me cross myself in amazement how the historian who wrote it could have known about everything.”

“I assure you, Sancho,” said don Quixote, “that some wise enchanter must be the author of our history, since nothing of what they want to write about is hidden from them.”

“But how,” said Sancho, “can he be wise and an enchanter—according to the bachelor Sansón Carrasco, because that’s the name of the fellow I mentioned—if the author is named Cide Hamete Berenjena!”

“That’s a Moorish name,” responded don Quixote. “That’s right,” responded Sancho, “because I’ve heard that the Moors are fond of berenjenas.”

“You must, Sancho,” said don Quixote, “be mistaken about the last name of that Cide, which in Arabic means señor.”

“That may be,” replied Sancho, “but if your grace wants me to have him come over here, I can go get him in a hurry.

“It will please me quite a bit, my friend,” said don Quixote, “for what you told me has me very anxious, and I won’t eat anything that tastes good until I’ve learned everything.”

“All right, I’m going to get him,” responded Sancho.

And leaving his master, he went to fetch the bachelor, and came back with him in a short while, and among the three of them there ensued a very amusing conversation.


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Date: June 1, 2009
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