About the wise and amusing conversation between Sancho Panza and his wife Teresa Panza, and other events worthy of happy remembrance.
WHEN THE translator of this history begins to write this fifth chapter, he says that he thinks it’s apocryphal, because in it Sancho Panza speaks in a way quite different from what could be expected from his limited intelligence, and he says such subtle things that the translator thinks it’s impossible that he could know them. But he didn’t want to refuse to translate it, to comply with the obligations of his profession, and so he continued, saying:
Sancho went home so joyful and jubilant that his wife could see how happy he was from a crossbow shot away, so much so that she felt she should ask: “What’s happened, Sancho my friend, that makes you so happy?”
To which he answered: “Wife, if God so wished, I would be pleased not to be as happy as I seem.”
“I don’t understand you, husband,” she replied, “and I don’t know what you mean when you say you would be pleased, if God wished, if you weren’t so happy, because, even though I’m not very smart, I don’t know who it pleases not to be happy.”
“Look, Teresa,” responded Sancho, “I’m joyful because I’ve decided to serve my master once again. He wants to go out on a third expedition to seek adventures, and I’m going with him because I really want to go and I hope I’ll find another hundred escudos like the ones already spent, although I’m sad to have to leave you and my children. And if God wanted to supply me with food in the comfort of my home, without having to trudge along rough trails and pass through crossroads—and he could do it easily, just by willing it—it’s obvious that my joy would be more lasting and certain, since it’s mixed with the sadness of having to leave you. Thus I said well that I would be pleased, if God so wished, for me not to be so happy.”
“Look, Sancho,” replied Teresa, “since you’ve been a part of a knight errant, you speak in such a roundabout way no one can understand you.”
“It’s enough for God to understand me, wife,” responded Sancho. “He understands all things, and that’s it. Be advised, sister, it’s your job to look after the donkey these next three days so he’ll be ready to carry arms. Double his feed, prepare the packsaddle and the other gear, because we’re not going to a wedding, but rather to roam the world and to have it out with giants, dragons, and horrible monsters, and to hear whistles, roars, bellowing, and shouts. All this would be trivial if we didn’t have to deal with Yangüesans and enchanted Moors.”
“I believe, husband,” replied Teresa, “that squires errant earn the bread they eat, and so I’ll stay here praying to Our Lord to deliver you from such misadventures.”
“I tell you, wife,” responded Sancho, “that if I didn’t think I’d be a governor of an ínsula before long, I’d keel over.”
“Not that, husband,” said Teresa. “«Let the chicken live even with the pip». Live on, I say, and let the devil haul off all the governments in the world. Without a government you came from your mother’s womb, and you’ve lived without a government until now, and without a government you’ll go—or they’ll carry you—to your grave, when God pleases. How many are there in the world who live without a government, yet don’t cease to exist or be counted among the living? «The best gravy in the world is hunger», and since hunger is never lacking among the poor, they always eat with pleasure. But look, Sancho, if you by chance come into a government, don’t forget me and your children. You know that Sanchico is already fifteen years old and it’s only right that he should start going to school, if his uncle the abbot will let him go into the Church. And look, Mari Sancha, your daughter, wouldn’t die if we married her off—she gives me hints that she’d like to have a husband, just like you want that government, and when all is said and done, «a daughter with a bad marriage is better than one in happy concubinage».”
“By my faith,” responded Sancho, “if God should give me something of a government, my wife, I’ll marry Mari Sancha so high that she’ll have to be called LADYSHIP.”
“Not that, Sancho;” responded Teresa, “marry her to her equal, which is the best thing. If you take her out of her clogs and put her in fine shoes, and from her grey flannel into hoop skirts made of silk, and from MARICA and a simple YOU to DOÑA and LADY SO-AND-SO, the poor girl won’t know where she is, and will commit a hundred gaffes at every step, showing the thread of the coarse cloth she’s cut from.”
“Hush, ninny,” said Sancho, “she’ll only have to practice it for two or three years, and after that her rank and dignity will fit her like a glove, and if not, what’s the difference? It’s going to be LADYSHIP, and that’s final!”
“Measure yourself, Sancho, against your equals,” responded Teresa.
“Don’t try to raise your social level, and remember the saying that says: «clean off the nose of your neighbor’s child and take him to your house». How nice it would be to marry our María to a big old count or to a high-falutin’ knight who would put her in her place whenever he felt like it by calling her a country girl, daughter of a clodhopper, and a thread spinner. Not while I’m alive, husband! I certainly didn’t raise her for this! You bring home some money, and as for marrying her off, leave it to me. There’s Lope Tocho, the son of Juan Tocho, a plump and healthy lad, and we know him, and I know that he has given her some interested glances, and with him, who’s our equal, she’d be well married, and we’d always have them nearby, and we’ll be a big family, parents and children, grandchildren and children-in-law, and the peace of God and His blessing would be among us. I won’t have you marrying her off in those courts and in those big palaces where they won’t understand her and where she won’t fit.”
“Tell me, you fool and Barabbas’s wife,” replied Sancho, ”why do you want—for no reason—to prevent me from marrying my daughter to someone who will give me grandchildren who’ll be known as YOUR LORDSHIP? Look, Teresa, I’ve always heard my elders say that anyone who doesn’t catch hold of Opportunity when it comes his way shouldn’t complain when it passes him by. It wouldn’t be good, now that it’s knocking at our door, to slam the door in its face. Let’s let ourselves be carried by this favorable wind at our backs.” [Because of this way of talking and because of what Sancho says below, the translator of this history said that he thought this chapter was apocryphal.]
“Doesn’t it seem to you, creature,” Sancho went on, “that it’ll be good for me to get myself into some profitable governorship that’ll take our feet out of the mud? Let Mari Sancha marry whoever I want and you’ll see that they’ll call you DOÑA TERESA PANZA, and in church you’ll sit on a pew cushion nestled in pillows and brocades, despite all the highborn ladies in the village. No, you just want to stay as you are, without growing larger or smaller—just like a tapestry figure! We won’t talk of this again, because Sanchica will be a countess no matter what you say.”
“Do you know what you’re saying, husband?” responded Teresa. “With all this, I think that my daughter’s county will be her ruination. Do what you want—make her a duchess or princess! But I can tell you that it will be against my will and without my consent. I always favored equality, brother, and I don’t like to see people putting on airs for no reason. They called me Teresa at my baptism, a plain and simple name, without additions or trimmings, and without the adornment of DOÑA. Casacajo was my father’s name, and they call me—being your wife—Teresa Panza, but by rights they should call me Teresa Cascajo. But «kings go where laws want», and with this name I’m satisfied without their putting a DON on top of it that will weigh so much you can hardly carry it. I don’t want to give anyone the occasion to say, when they see me walking down the street dressed like a countess or a governor’s wife: ‘Look how conceited that repulsive woman is! Only yesterday she was spinning flax and went to mass with her head covered by the tail of her skirt instead of a shawl, and today she goes with a hoopskirt and brooches, and haughty as well, as if we didn’t know her.’ If God lets me keep my seven or five senses, or however many I’ve got, I never plan to let myself get into such an awkward situation. You, brother, go and get to be governor or ínsulo, and be as conceited as you like, and my daughter and I won’t move a step from our village, not on the life of my mother. «The reputable woman has a broken leg and stays at home», and «the virtuous girl’s recreation is keeping busy.» Go with your don Quixote and with your adventures and leave us to our misfortune, for God will help us if we’re good… And I don’t know who gave him the right to use DON since his parents and his grandparents didn’t use that title.”
“I say now,” replied Sancho, “that you have a devil inside your body! God help you, woman, how many things have you been stringing together without head or tail! What do gravel, brooches, sayings, and haughtiness have to do with what I’ve been saying? Come, now, you ignorant blockhead—for that’s what I should call you, since you don’t understand my words and you seem to be fleeing from happiness—if I told my daughter to leap from a tower, or to roam the world like the princess doña Urraca wanted to, you’d be right in not yielding to my wishes. But, if in an instant and in the twinkling of an eye I give her a DON and a LADYSHIP, taking her out of the fields and putting her under a canopy and on a dais in a drawing room with more velvet cushions than the Moors have in their lineage of Almohadas in Morocco, why do you refuse to consent and not want what I also want?”
“Do you know why, husband,” responded Teresa, “because of the proverb that says: «he that covers you, discovers you». All eyes pass the poor man by, but they stop on the rich man, and if that rich man was once poor, the gossiping and the cursing starts. There’s no stopping those backbiters, because there are lots of them in the streets, like swarms of bees.”
“Look, Teresa,” responded Sancho, “and listen to what I’m going to tell you, something you may have never heard in all the days of your life, and I’m not talking about me this time. All I’m going to say are maxims from the priest who was preaching last Lent in this town, and he said, if I remember correctly, that all things our eyes see as they are now remain in our memory much more than things we saw in the past do.”
[All these words that Sancho is saying are the second reason that the translator holds this chapter to be apocryphal, for they exceed the mental capacity of Sancho, who went on saying:]
“So when we see a person decked out in rich clothing and with a show of servants, it seems that we’re forced, we’re moved, and invited to have respect for him, even though at that moment we recall a time when we saw him in a low state. That low condition—maybe due to poverty or lineage—since it’s in the past, doesn’t exist anymore, and there’s only what we see right now. And if this person who Fortune raised from his low level—these were the priest’s very words—to the heights of prosperity, assuming he’s well-mannered, liberal, and courteous with everyone, and doesn’t try to vie with those who are noble by birth, be certain, Teresa, that no one will remember the way he was but will respect the way he is, if they aren’t envious, from which no good fortune is safe.”
“I don’t understand you, husband,” replied Teresa, “but do whatever you want and don’t break my head with your harangues and rhetoric. And if you’re revolved to doing what you say…”
“Resolved, you mean to say, wife,” said Sancho, “and not revolved.”
“Don’t begin arguing with me, husband,” said Teresa. “I speak the way God pleases and I don’t beat around the bush. I say if you’re fiercely determined to have that government, take your son Sancho with you and teach him right now how to govern, for it’s a good thing for children to inherit and learn their professions from their parents.”
“When I have my government,” said Sancho, “I’ll send for him right away, and I’ll send you money—which I won’t lack—since governors always have people to lend them money when they’re short, and dress them in a way that hides what they are and makes them look like what they’re going to be.”
“You send the money,” said Teresa, “and I’ll put lots of clothing on him.”
“So, we’re agreed,” said Sancho, “that our daughter will be a countess?”
“The day I see her a countess,” responded Teresa, “I’ll think I’m burying her. But once again I tell you to do whatever you want, because we women are born with this burden of being obedient to our husbands, even though they’re blockheads.”
And with this she began to cry with so much emotion that it was as if her daughter had died and was buried. Sancho consoled her telling her that though he was bound to make her a countess, he’d postpone it as long as he could. With this their conversation ended, and Sancho went back to see don Quixote to arrange for their departure.