Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (11 page)

“These,” said the priest, “are probably not about chivalry; they must be poetry.”

And opening one, he saw that it was
Diana,
by Jorge de Montemayor,
¹⁷
and he said, believing that all the others were of the same genre:

“These do not deserve to be burned like the rest, because they do not and will not cause the harm that books of chivalry have, for they are books of the understanding and do no injury to anyone.”

“Oh, Señor!” said the niece. “Your grace should send them to be burned, just like all the rest, because it’s very likely that my dear uncle, having been cured of the chivalric disease, will read these and want to become a shepherd and wander through the woods and meadows singing and playing, and, what would be even worse, become a poet, and that, they say, is an incurable and contagious disease.”

“What the girl says is true,” said the priest, “and it would be a good idea to remove from the path of our friend this obstacle and danger. And, to begin with Montemayor’s
Diana,
I am of the opinion that it should not be burned, but that everything having to do with the wise Felicia and the enchanted water, and almost all the long verses, should be excised, and let it happily keep all the prose and the honor of being the first of such books.”

“This next one,” said the barber, “is called
Diana the Second, by the Salamancan,
and here’s another one with the same name, whose author is Gil Polo.”
¹⁸

“The one by the Salamancan,” replied the priest, “should join and add to the number of those condemned in the corral, and the one by Gil Polo should be preserved as if it were by Apollo himself; and move on, my friend, and let’s hurry; it’s growing late.”

“This book,” said the barber, opening another one, “is
The Ten Books of Fortune in Love,
composed by Antonio de Lofraso, a Sardinian poet.”
¹⁹

“By the orders I received,” said the priest, “since Apollo was Apollo, and the muses muses, and poets poets, no book as amusing or nonsensical has ever been written, and since, in its way, it is the best and most unusual book of its kind that has seen the light of day, anyone who has not read it can assume that he has never read anything entertaining. Give it to me, friend, for I value finding it more than if I were given a cassock of rich Florentine cloth.”

He set it aside with great delight, and the barber continued, saying:

“These next ones are
The Shepherd of Iberia, Nymphs of Henares,
and
Deceptions of Jealousy.”
²⁰

“Well, there’s nothing else to do,” said the priest, “but turn them over to the secular arm of the housekeeper; and don’t ask me why, for I’d never finish.”

“This one is
The Shepherd of Fílida.”
²¹

“He isn’t a shepherd,” said the priest, “but a very prudent courtier; keep that as if it were a precious jewel.”

“This large one here,” said the barber, “is called
Treasury of Various Poems.
”
²²

“If there weren’t so many,” said the priest, “they would be more highly esteemed; this book needs a weeding and clearing out of certain base things contained among all its grandeurs. Keep it, because its author
is a friend of mine, and out of respect for other, more heroic and elevated works that he has written.”

“This,” said the barber, “is
The Songbook
by López Maldonado.”
²³

“The author of that book,” replied the priest, “is also a great friend of mine, and when he recites his verses they amaze anyone who hears them, and the delicacy of his voice when he sings them is enchanting. He’s somewhat long-winded in the eclogues, but you can’t have too much of a good thing: keep it with the chosen ones. But what’s that book next to it?”

“
La Galatea,
by Miguel de Cervantes,”
²⁴
said the barber.

“This Cervantes has been a good friend of mine for many years, and I know that he is better versed in misfortunes than in verses. His book has a certain creativity; it proposes something and concludes nothing. We have to wait for the second part he has promised; perhaps with that addition it will achieve the mercy denied to it now; in the meantime, keep it locked away in your house, my friend.”

“Gladly,” the barber responded. “And here are three all together:
La Araucana,
by Don Alonso de Ercilla,
La Austríada,
by Juan Rufo, a magistrate of Córdoba, and
El Monserrate,
by Cristóbal de Virués, a Valencian poet.”
²⁵

“All three of them,” said the priest, “are the best books written in heroic verse in the Castilian language, and they can compete with the most famous from Italy: keep them as the richest gems of poetry that Spain has.”

The priest wearied of seeing more books, and so, without further reflection, he wanted all the rest to be burned; but the barber already had one open, and it was called
The Tears of Angelica.
²⁶

“I would shed them myself,” said the priest when he heard the name, “if I had sent such a book to be burned, because its author was one of the famous poets not only of Spain but of the world, and he had great success translating some fables by Ovid.”

CHAPTER VII

At this point, Don Quixote began to shout, saying:

“Here, here, valiant knights; here each must show the might of his valiant arm, for the courtiers are winning the tourney.”

Because of their response to this noise and uproar, the examination of the remaining books went no further; and so, it is believed that into the flames, without being seen or heard, went
La Carolea
and
The Lion of Spain,
along with
The Deeds of the Emperor,
composed by Don Luis de Ávila,
¹
which no doubt were among the remaining books; perhaps, if the priest had seen them, they would not have suffered so harsh a sentence.

When they reached Don Quixote, he was already out of bed, still shouting and engaging in senseless acts, slashing forehand and backhand with his sword and as awake as if he had never slept. They seized him and forced him back to bed, and after he had calmed down somewhat, he turned to speak to the priest and said:

“In truth, Señor Archbishop Turpín, it is a great discredit to those of us called the Twelve Peers to do nothing more and allow the courtier knights victory in this tourney, when we, the knights who seek adventures, have won glory on the three previous days.”

“Be still, my friend,” said the priest, “for it is God’s will that fortune changes, and that what is lost today is won tomorrow; your grace should tend to your health now, for it seems to me your grace must be fatigued, if not badly wounded.”

“Not wounded,” said Don Quixote, “but bruised and broken, there is no doubt about that, for the ignoble Don Roland beat me mercilessly with the branch of an oak tree, all on account of envy, because he sees that I alone am his rival in valorous deeds. But my name would not be Reinaldos de Montalbán if, upon rising from this bed, I did not repay him in spite of all his enchantments; for now, bring me something to eat, since I know that is what I need most at present, and leave my revenge to me.”

They did as he asked: they gave him food, and he went back to sleep, and they marveled at his madness.

That night, the housekeeper burned and consigned to the flames all the books that were in the corral and in the house, and some must have been in the fire that should have been preserved in perpetual archives; but their destiny, and the sloth of the examiner, did not permit this, and so, as the proverb says, at times the just must pay for sinners.

One of the remedies that the priest and the barber devised for their friend’s illness was to wall up and seal off the room that held the books, so that when he got up he would not find them—perhaps by removing the cause, they would end the effect—and they would say that an enchanter had taken the books away, along with the room and everything in it; and this is what they did, with great haste. Two days later Don Quixote got out of bed, and the first thing he did was to go to see his books, and since he could not find the library where he had left it, he walked back and forth looking for it. He went up to the place where the door had been, and he felt it with his hands, and his eyes looked all around, and he did not say a word; but after some time had passed, he asked his housekeeper what had become of the library and his books. The housekeeper, who had been well-instructed in how she should respond, said:

“What library and what anything is your grace looking for? There’s no more library and no more books in this house, because the devil himself took them away.”

“It wasn’t a devil,” replied the niece, “but an enchanter who came on a cloud one night, after the day your grace left here, and he dismounted from the serpent he was riding and entered the library, and I don’t know what he did inside, but after a little while he flew up through the roof and left the house full of smoke; and when we had the presence of mind to see what he had done, we could find no books and no library; the only thing the housekeeper and I remember very clearly is that as the evil old man was leaving, he shouted that because of the secret enmity he felt for the owner of the books and the room, he had done damage in the house, which we would see soon enough. He also said he was called Muñatón the Wise.”

“He must have said Frestón,”
²
said Don Quixote.

“I don’t know,” the housekeeper replied, “if he was called Frestón or Fritón; all I know is that his name ended in
tón.
”

“That is true,” said Don Quixote. “He is a wise enchanter, a great enemy of mine who bears me a grudge because he knows through his arts and learning that I shall, in time, come to do battle in single combat with a knight whom he favors and whom I am bound to vanquish, and he will not be able to stop it, and for this reason he attempts to cause me all the difficulties he can; but I foresee that he will not be able to contravene or avoid what heaven has ordained.”

“Who can doubt it?” said the niece. “But, Señor Uncle, who has involved your grace in those disputes? Wouldn’t it be better to stay peacefully in your house and not wander around the world searching for bread made from something better than wheat, never stopping to think that many people go looking for wool and come back shorn?”

“Oh, my dear niece,” replied Don Quixote, “how little you understand! Before I am shorn I shall have plucked and removed the beard of any man who imagines he can touch even a single hair of mine.”

The two women did not wish to respond any further because they saw that he was becoming enraged.

So it was that he spent two very quiet weeks at home, showing no signs of wanting to repeat his initial lunacies, and during this time he had lively conversations with his two friends the priest and the barber, in which he said that what the world needed most were knights errant and that in him errant chivalry would be reborn. The priest at times contradicted him, and at other times he agreed, because if he did not maintain this ruse, he would not have been able to talk to him.

During this time, Don Quixote approached a farmer who was a neighbor of his, a good man—if that title can be given to someone who is poor—but without much in the way of brains. In short, he told him so much, and persuaded and promised him so much, that the poor peasant resolved to go off with him and serve as his squire. Among other things, Don Quixote said that he should prepare to go with him gladly, because it might happen that one day he would have an adventure that would gain him, in the blink of an eye, an ínsula,
³
and he would make him its governor. With these promises and others like
them, Sancho Panza,
⁴
for that was the farmer’s name, left his wife and children and agreed to be his neighbor’s squire.

Then Don Quixote determined to find some money, and by selling one thing, and pawning another, and undervaluing everything, he managed to put together a reasonable sum. He also acquired a round shield, which he borrowed from a friend, and doing the best he could to repair his broken helmet, he informed his squire of the day and time he planned to start out so that Sancho could supply himself with whatever he thought he would need. He ordered him in particular to bring along saddlebags, and Sancho said he certainly would bring them and also planned to take along a donkey he thought very highly of because he wasn’t one for walking any great distance. As for the donkey, Don Quixote had to stop and think about that for a while, wondering if he recalled any knight errant who had with him a squire riding on a donkey, and none came to mind, yet in spite of this he resolved to take Sancho along, intending to obtain a more honorable mount for him at the earliest opportunity by appropriating the horse of the first discourteous knight he happened to meet. He furnished himself with shirts and all the other things he could, following the advice the innkeeper had given him; and when this had been accomplished and completed, without Panza taking leave of his children and wife, or Don Quixote of his housekeeper and niece, they rode out of the village one night, and no one saw them, and they traveled so far that by dawn they were certain they would not be found even if anyone came looking for them.

Sancho Panza rode on his donkey like a patriarch, with his saddlebags, and his wineskin, and a great desire to see himself governor of the ínsula his master had promised him. Don Quixote happened to follow the same direction and route he had followed on his first sally, which was through the countryside of Montiel, and he rode there with less difficulty than he had the last time, because at that hour of the morning the sun’s rays fell obliquely and did not tire them. Then Sancho Panza said to his master: