Where it is revealed who maese Pedro and his ape were, together with the unfortunate outcome don Quixote had in the Adventure of the Braying, which didn’t turn out as he wanted and planned.
CIDE HAMETE Benengeli, chronicler of this great history begins this chapter with the words: “I swear as a Catholic Christian,” which his translator says that when Cide Hamete swears «as a Catholic Christian», since he’s a Moor, as he doubtless was, he only wanted to say that when a Catholic Christian swears, he swears, or ought to swear the truth and speak the truth in whatever he says, and so he said that he was telling the truth as a Catholic Christian might when he wrote about don Quixote, especially when he said who maese Pedro and his divining ape—who caused people so much wonder with his miraculous guesses—were.
He says, then, that the person who read the First Part of this history will remember that a certain Ginés de Pasamonte, whom don Quixote liberated along with the other galley slaves, in the Sierra Morena—a reward that was ill-thanked and less repaid by those ungrateful and ill-mannered people. This Ginés de Pasamonte, whom don Quixote called Ginesillo de Parapilla, was the fellow who stole Sancho Panza’s donkey, which, since it wasn’t explained in the First Part—a printer’s error—has baffled many readers, who attributed it to the author’s bad memory rather than the mistake of the print shop. So, Ginés stole it when Sancho Panza was sleeping on the saddle, with the trick that Brunelo used at the siege of Albraca, when he removed Sacripante’s horse from between his legs. Later, Sancho recovered his donkey as has been described. This Ginés, then, fearful he would be discovered by the law that was looking for him to punish him for his infinite number of tricks and crimes—which were so many and so bad that he himself wrote a large volume about them—resolved to go the Kingdom of Aragón and cover his left eye, and became a puppeteer. He knew how to do this and also perform sleight-of-hand extremely well.
It happened, then, that he bought the ape from a recently-freed Christian, coming from the Barbary Coast, and he taught the ape to come up on his shoulder when he made a certain signal, and to murmur—or at least pretend to murmur—into his ear. Once the ape knew how to do this, before he would go into a village where he was going with his puppet theater and ape, he’d find out in the nearest village, or from an appropriate individual, what things had happened in that village and to which persons. He would keep all these things in his memory, and the first thing he’d do was put on his show, sometimes using one story, sometimes another, but all of them light hearted, cheerful, and well-known. When the show was over, he would mention the skill of his ape, telling the people that he could divine the past and the present, but couldn’t tell the future. For every correct answer he would get two reales. Sometimes he would discount his price, depending on what he felt about the people asking questions. Once in a while he was in the house of people whose doings he knew, and although they didn’t ask anything so as not to have to pay him, he gave the ape the signal, and then he would say that the ape had told him such-and-such things, which jibed perfectly with what had happened. With this he got incredible credit and everyone flocked to him. Other times, since he was so clever, he would make his answers fit the questions very well, and since no one investigated or pressed him to say how his ape divined, he made monkeys out of them all and filled his purse.
The instant he went into the inn, he recognized don Quixote and Sancho, and since he knew them, it was easy to amaze them and all those who were there. But it would have cost him dearly if don Quixote had lowered his hand a little more when he cut off King Marsilio’s head and destroyed his cavalry, as has been said in the previous chapter.
This is what there is to say about maese Pedro and his ape. And going back to don Quixote de La Mancha, I’ll say that after he left the inn, he resolved to see the shores of the Ebro River and that whole area before he went into the city of Zaragoza, since there was quite a bit of time before the jousts were to begin. With this intention he went along his way and for two days nothing happened to him worthy of setting down in writing, until the third day, when he was going up a hill, he heard a great din of drums, trumpets, and muskets.
At first, he thought some regiment of soldiers was moving through that area, and to see them better, he spurred Rocinante and went higher on the hill, and when he was at its highest point, he saw at the foot of the hill what seemed to him to be more than two hundred men armed in different ways—with lances, crossbows, large and small halberds, pikes, and some muskets, and many round shields. He went down the slope, approached the squadron and could easily see their banners, distinguish their colors, and note their devices. There was a banner or pennant in particular made of white satin on which a very lifelike small donkey was painted, his head in the air, his mouth open and tongue sticking out, in the act and posture of braying. Surrounding it were written these verses in large letters:
By this, don Quixote gathered that those persons must be from the braying village and that’s what he told Sancho, repeating to him what was written on the banner. He told him also that the person who had told them the story was mistaken when he referred to the two aldermen who had brayed since according to the verses on the banner they were magistrates.
To which Sancho Panza responded: “Señor, that doesn’t matter, because the two aldermen who brayed then with time might have become magistrates of their town, and thus they can be called both ways, but in any case it makes no difference to the truth of the story whether or not the brayers were aldermen or magistrates, since they did bray, and it’s just as likely for a magistrate to bray as it is for an alderman.”
They soon figured out that the ridiculed town was going out to fight with another village that had offended them more than was called for, and more than neighborly decency should allow. Don Quixote went over to them, not without some distress on Sancho’s part, since he never liked to be in such situations. The men of the squadron surrounded him, thinking he must be a person favoring their cause. Don Quixote lifted his visor, and with a certain dash and demeanor went to the banner with the donkey, and the leaders of the army gathered around to see him, astonished in the same way all who see him for the first time are.
Don Quixote, who saw them looking at him so attentively, none of them saying a word, wanted to take advantage of that silence, and breaking his own, raised his voice and said: “Good men, I earnestly ask you not to interrupt a speech I want to deliver to you until you see that it bores or annoys you. If this is the case, at the least sign you give me, I’ll seal my lips and will put a gag on my tongue.”
They all told him to say what he wanted, and they would be happy to hear what he had to say. With this license, don Quixote continued, saying: “I, señores míos, am a knight errant, whose profession is that of arms, and whose occupation is to help the needy and to relieve the oppressed. Some days ago I learned of your misfortune and the reason that you’ve taken up arms on occasion to take vengeance on your enemies. And having mulled over your situation once and even many times in my mind, I find that—according to the laws of the duel—you’re mistaken in considering yourselves insulted, because no individual can insult a whole population, unless it is to call the whole population traitorous because he doesn’t know the individual who committed the treason. An example of this we have in don Diego de Ordóñez de Lara who challenged the whole city of Zamora because he didn’t know that only Vellido Dolfos had committed the treason of killing the king, so he challenged everyone, and everyone had to deal with vengeance and with answering him. Although it’s true that señor don Diego went a bit far and even exceeded the limits of the challenge, since he had no reason to challenge the dead, nor the water, nor the bread, nor those who were still unborn, nor other trivialities that are mentioned there. But, hey! when anger overflows its banks, it’s almost impossible to stop it. This being the case, since a single person cannot offend a kingdom, province, city, republic, nor an entire population, it follows that there’s no reason to go to war to avenge such an insult, because there was no insult to begin with. It would really be unfortunate if the town known as the Clockers went around killing those who called the town that, and the same with the Casserolers, Eggplanters, Whalers, Soapers, or any of those other names that circulate in mouths of boys and the rabble in general. Wouldn’t it be lovely, certainly, if all these notable cities were offended and wanted to take vengeance, and always went around taking their swords out over every little quarrel! No, no, God won’t allow it, nor does He want it.
“Men of discretion and well-ordered republics should take up arms and unsheathe their swords and put themselves, their lives, and their estates at risk for four reasons: first, to defend the Catholic faith; second, to defend themselves, and this obeys laws both natural and divine; third, in defense of their honor, their family, and their estate; and fourth, in service of their king in a just war; and if we want to add a fifth one, which fits into the second, it is in defense of their country. To these five causes, as the main ones, you might add a few other reasonable ones that might make you take up arms, but to take them up on account of trifles, and because of things that are more laughable and amusing than offensive, it seems that anyone who would take up arms in those situations lacks logic—more so since there can be no just vengeance that is unjust—and goes directly against the holy law that we profess, which requires us to do good to our enemies and to love those who hate us, a commandment that, although seems difficult to comply with, is only so for those having less of God than the world, and more of flesh than spirit. Jesus Christ—God, and true man, who never lied, nor could he lie—since he was our Lawgiver, said that his yoke was easy and his burden was light, and so he wouldn’t command us to do anything that was impossible to obey. So, señores míos, your graces are obliged by divine and human laws to go in peace.”
“May the devil carry me off,” said Sancho, to himself, “if this master of mine isn’t a thologian, and if he isn’t, he seems like it, «as one egg is like the next one».”
Don Quixote took a breath, and seeing that they were still quiet, tried to go on in his talk, and would have if the astute Sancho hadn’t seen that he’d stopped, and took the floor, saying: “My master don Quixote de La Mancha, who was known as the Woebegone Knight for a while and now is known as the Knight of the Lions, is an hidalgo of great intelligence, who knows Latin and Spanish like a bachelor, and everything he talks about and advises comes from his being a good soldier, and he has all the laws and ordinances at his fingertips, so there’s nothing to do but take his advice, and you can blame me if it’s bad advice. More so because it’s foolishness to be offended because of hearing a single bray.
“I remember, when I was a boy, I brayed whenever I felt like it, without anybody stopping me, and with such grace and propriety that when I brayed, all the donkeys of the village brayed too, and yet for this I didn’t stop being the son of my parents, who were very honorable people. And even if I was envied for this skill by more than four snooty boys from my town, I couldn’t have cared less. And so you’ll see that I’m telling the truth, wait a second and listen. This is just like swimming—once you learn it, you never forget it.”
And then he put his hand to his nose and began to bray so loudly that all the nearby valleys resounded. One of the fellows next to him, thinking he was making fun of them, raised the staff he held in his hand and gave Sancho such a thwack that he could’t help but fall to the ground. Don Quixote, who saw Sancho in such bad shape, attacked the person who had hit Sancho with his lance. But so many people intervened that he couldn’t avenge his squire. Seeing the shower of stones raining down on him and that a thousand crossbows were aimed at him and no fewer muskets, he turned Rocinante around, and at the fastest gallop he could muster, shot away, commending himself to God with all his heart to free him from that danger, fearing at every step that a bullet would go in through his back and come out his chest, and he constantly drew breath to make sure he could still breathe.
But the squadron was content for him to flee without shooting at him. They put Sancho—who was barely conscious, and couldn’t yet ride properly—across his donkey, and let him follow his master. The donkey followed the trail of Rocinante, from whom he was never separated.
After don Quixote had traveled a good distance, he turned his head back and saw that Sancho was coming along, and waited for him, seeing that no one else was following. The people of the squadron waited until nightfall, and since their adversaries didn’t show up, they returned to their town joyful and happy, and if they had known the ancient Greek custom, they would have erected a monument in that field.