IT WAS a somewhat dark night, although the moon was in the sky, but not where it could be seen. At times señora Diana travels to the far ends of the earth and makes the hills black and valleys dark. Don Quixote fulfilled his obligations to nature, and he slept his first sleep, without giving any room for his second, quite the opposite of Sancho, who never had a second one because the first one lasted from the night to the morning, which served to show his sturdy constitution and few cares.
Don Quixote’s own cares kept him awake, and he woke Sancho and said to him: “I’m amazed at how free and easy you are. I think you must be made of marble or of hard bronze, a person in whom there’s no emotion or feeling of any kind. I stay awake while you sleep, I cry while you sing, I faint and fast while you’re lazy and sluggish because you’re so stuffed.
“Good servants share the grief of their masters and feel their emotions, if only for the sake of appearances. Look at the serenity of this night, the solitude that surrounds us, that invites us to take a break from our sleep. Stand up, by golly. Go over there, and with a good heart and grateful spirit, give yourself three or four hundred lashes toward the disenchantment of Dulcinea. I’m begging you to do it. I don’t want to have to grapple with you like the last time, because I know that you’re strong. After you’ve lashed yourself, we’ll spend the rest of the night singing—I about my absence and you about your constancy, and we’ll begin our pastoral calling right now that we’ll continue in our village.”
“Señor,” responded Sancho, “I’m not like a friar who can wake up in the middle of the night and whip himself, nor do I think that after one extreme of the pain of the lashes I can go to the other extreme of music. Let me sleep, your grace, and not rush me into whipping myself. You’ll force me to swear that I’ll never touch even a hair on my coat, not to mention my flesh.”
“Oh, you hard-hearted, pitiless squire! Oh, bread ill-bestowed and favors ill-appreciated—both those I have done and plan to do for you! Because of me you’ve been a governor. Because of me you have firm hopes of being a count or getting some other appropriate title, and the fulfillment of these hopes will be delayed only as long as this year lasts. For I, POST TENEBRAS SPERO LUCEM.”
“I don’t understand any of that,” replied Sancho. “I only understand that while I’m sleeping, I have no fear, no hopes, no work, no glory. Blessed be the person who invented sleep, the cloak that covers all human thoughts, the food that removes all hunger, water that drives away thirst, fire that warms you when you’re cold, coolness that tempers heat, and, finally, is the general currency with which all things are purchased, the scale that makes the shepherd equal to the king, and the fool to the wise man. There’s only one thing bad about sleep, the way I hear it, and that is that it resembles death, because there’s not much difference between a sleeping man and a dead one.”
“Sancho, I have never heard you speak so elegantly as now,” said don Quixote, “which makes me realize that proverb—that you frequently use—is true that says: «it’s not with whom you’re bred, but rather with whom you’re fed».”
“Ah, woe is me!” replied Sancho, “señor our master, I’m not the one who’s stringing proverbs together now, for they drip from your mouth two at a time, better than from mine. The difference between yours and mine is that yours hit the mark while mine are scattered all over the place. But, still, they’re all proverbs.”
They were discussing this when they heard a deafening thunder and a harsh dissonance resound throughout those valleys. Don Quixote got up and took out his sword, and Sancho cowered beneath the grey, putting the bundle of armor on one side and the packsaddle on the other. He was trembling out of fear as much as don Quixote was agitated. Gradually the noise increased and drew near to the two fearful men, or at least near the one fearful man, for the other’s bravery is well known.
What was going on was that some men were driving more than six-hundred pigs to market at that late hour, and the noise they made, together with the grunting and snorting, deafened the ears of don Quixote and Sancho, and they didn’t know what it could be. The grunting massive herd, without showing respect either for don Quixote’s or for Sancho’s authority, trampled both of them, destroying Sancho’s protection and not only knocking over don Quixote but also taking Rocinante with him. The herd, the grunting, the speed with which the dirty animals arrived brought chaos to and toppled the packsaddle, the armor, the grey, Rocinante, Sancho, and don Quixote. Sancho got up as well as he could and asked his master for his sword, telling him that he wanted to kill half a dozen of those rude señores pigs, for he realized what they were.
Don Quixote told him: “Let them be, my friend, for this affront is atonement for my sin, and for a conquered knight errant to be eaten by jackals, stung by wasps, and trampled by pigs is a just punishment from heaven.”
“It must also be a punishment from heaven,” responded Sancho, “for flies to bite, lice to eat, and hunger to attack squires of knights errant. If we squires were children of the knight we serve, or very close relatives, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary if we suffered the punishment of our masters’ sins, even down to the fourth generation. But what have the Panzas to do with the Quixotes? Ah, well, let’s get comfortable again and sleep what little is left of the night. «Tomorrow is another day» and we’ll get along all right.”
“You sleep, Sancho,” responded don Quixote. “You were born to sleep. I, on the other hand, was born to keep vigil. In the time that remains until daybreak, I’ll give free rein to my thoughts, and I’ll release them in a little madrigal I composed last night in my head without your knowing about it.”
“It seems to me,” responded Sancho, “that there must not be many thoughts that can give rise to songs. Make as many verses as you want, and I’ll sleep as much as I can.”
And so, taking as much of the ground as he wanted, he curled up and slept a sound sleep, without bonds, debts, or any pain at all to prevent him from it. Don Quixote, leaning against the trunk of a beech or cork tree (for Cide Hamete Benengeli doesn’t distinguish what kind of tree it was) to the accompaniment of his own sighs, sang in this way:
Each verse was accompanied by many sighs and not a few tears, like one whose heart was pierced with the pain of vanquishment, and with the absence of Dulcinea. At this point, day came and the rays of the sun shone on Sancho’s face, and he woke up and stretched his limbs and shook himself. He saw the damage done to his supplies by the pigs, and cursed the herd in no uncertain terms.
Finally, the two of them got back on the road, and at the end of the day they saw coming toward them as many as ten men on horseback and four or five on foot. Don Quixote’s heart quickened and Sancho’s became distressed, because the people who were approaching were bringing lances and shields and appeared ready for battle.
Don Quixote turned to Sancho and said to him: “If I were free to take up arms, Sancho, and my promise hadn’t tied my hands, this predicament that has come upon us would be cookies and cakes. But it may be something other than what we fear.”
The men on horseback arrived just then, and, brandishing their lances, they surrounded don Quixote without saying a word, and pointed their lances at his chest and back, threatening him with death. One of those on foot, with his forefinger on his lips, indicating that he should remain quiet, took Rocinante’s bridle and led him from the road, and the others who were on foot, taking Sancho and the grey, maintaining that marvelous silence, followed the steps of the man leading don Quixote, who tried two or three times to ask where he was being taken, or what they wanted. But as soon as he began to move his lips, it looked like they were going to close them with their lances. And the same thing happened to Sancho, because as soon as he started to speak, one of those on foot pricked him with a spike, and the grey as well, as if he too were about to speak.
When night closed in, they quickened their pace, and fear increased in the prisoners, and more so when they heard the others say at regular intervals: “Keep walking, you brutes! Keep quiet, you barbarians! Pay up, you cannibals! Don’t complain, you Scythians! Don’t even open your eyes, Polyphemi, killers, butchering lions!” And they added other similar names to these, with which they used to torment the ears of the wretched master and servant. Sancho went along saying to himself: “They called us barbers and cannonballs? I don’t like any of these names—«an ill wind is threshing this wheat». Bad things come to us all at once, like smacks on a dog, and I hope that the threats will result in words and not the thwacks that this misadventure is threatening us with.”
Don Quixote was stunned, without being able to figure out with all his speculations, what all those names meant, but he did surmise he couldn’t expect anything good and should fear something bad. At this point they arrived, almost at nightfall, at a castle that don Quixote recognized as being the one belonging to the duke, where he’d recently stayed.
“God help me!” he said as soon as he recognized the place, “What can this be? Truly in this house all is courtesy and civility. But for the vanquished, good things turn bad, and bad things get worse.”
They entered into the main courtyard of the castle, and they saw it all decorated and set up in a way that increased their wonder and doubled their fear, as will be seen in the next chapter.