Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (25 page)

“I’ll tell you,” responded Sancho. “I was looking at you for a while in the light of the torch that unlucky man was carrying, and the truth is that your grace has the sorriest-looking face I’ve seen recently, and it must be on account of your weariness after this battle, or the molars and teeth you’ve lost.”

“It is not that,” responded Don Quixote, “but rather that the wise man whose task it will be to write the history of my deeds must have thought it would be a good idea if I took some appellative title as did the knights of the past: one was called
The Knight of the Blazing Sword;
another,
The Knight of the Unicorn;
yet another,
The Knight of the Damsels;
this one,
The Knight of the Phoenix;
that one,
The Knight of the Griffon;
the other,
The Knight of Death;
³
and by these names and insignias they were known all around the world. And so I say that the wise man I have already mentioned must have put on your tongue and in your thoughts the idea of calling me
The Knight of the Sorrowful Face,
which is what I plan to call myself from now on; and so that this name may be even more fitting, I resolve to have depicted on my shield, when there is time, a very sorrowful face.”

“There’s no reason to waste time and money making that face,” said Sancho. “What your grace should do instead is uncover yours and show it to those who are looking at you, and right away, without any images or shields, they’ll call you
The Knight of the Sorrowful Face;
believe me, I’m telling you the truth, because I promise your grace, Señor, and I’m only joking, that hunger and your missing teeth give you such a sorry-looking face that, as I’ve said, you can easily do without the sorrowful picture.”

Don Quixote laughed at Sancho’s witticism, but even so, he resolved to call himself by that name as soon as his shield, or buckler, could be painted as he had imagined.

Then the bachelor returned and said to Don Quixote:

“I forgot to say that your grace should be advised that you have been
excommunicated for having laid violent hands on something sacred,
juxta illud: Si quis suadente diabolo,
etc.”
⁴

“I do not understand those Latin words,” Don Quixote responded, “but I do know very well that I did not use my hands but this lance; furthermore, I did not think I was attacking priests or things of the Church, which I respect and adore as the Catholic and faithful Christian I am, but phantoms and apparitions of the next world. Even so, I remember what happened to El Cid Ruy Díaz when he broke the chair of the king’s ambassador before his holiness the pope, for which he was excommunicated, and on that day good Rodrigo de Vivar showed himself to be a very honored and valiant knight.”
⁵

On hearing this, the bachelor left without saying a word in reply. Don Quixote wanted to see if the body on the litter was actually bones or not, but Sancho did not agree, saying:

“Señor, your grace has come to the end of this dangerous adventure more safely than all the others I have seen; these people, though they’ve been defeated and routed, may realize that only one man defeated them and be ashamed and embarrassed by that, and they may rally and look for us, and give us something we won’t forget. The donkey is carrying what it should, the mountains are nearby, hunger is pressing, and there’s nothing else to do but withdraw as fast as we can and, as they say, let the dead go to the grave and the living to the loaf of bread.”

And riding ahead on his donkey, he asked his master to follow him, and since it seemed to Don Quixote that Sancho was right, he followed him without another word. After riding a short while between two hills, they found themselves in a broad, secluded valley, where they dismounted, and Sancho lightened the donkey’s load, and they stretched out on the green grass, and with hunger as their sauce, they had breakfast, lunch, dinner, and supper all at once, satisfying their stomachs with more than one of the comestibles that the dead man’s priests—who rarely permit themselves to go hungry—carried in their saddlebag of provisions.

But they suffered another misfortune, which Sancho considered the worst of all, and it was that they had no wine to drink or even water to put to their lips; troubled by thirst, Sancho, seeing that the meadow where they were sitting was full of abundant green grass, said what will be recounted in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XX

“It’s not possible, Señor, for this grass not to be a sign that somewhere nearby there’s a spring or brook that waters these plants, and so it would be a good idea for us to go a little farther until we find a place where we can quench this terrible thirst that’s plaguing us and is, no doubt about it, harder to bear than hunger.”

This seemed good advice to Don Quixote, and after packing away the remains of their supper on the donkey, he led Rocinante by the reins, and Sancho held his donkey’s halter, and they began to walk to the top of the meadow, feeling their way because the dark of night did not allow them to see anything at all; but they had not gone two hundred paces when a sound of crashing reached their ears, as if water were hurtling over large, high cliffs. The sound made them very happy, and they stopped to hear where it was coming from, when they suddenly heard another exceedingly loud noise that watered down their joy at finding water, especially Sancho’s, for he was naturally fearful and not very brave. I say that they heard the sound of rhythmic pounding, along with a certain clanking of irons and chains that, accompanied by the clamorous fury of the water, would have put terror in any heart other than Don Quixote’s.

The night, as we have said, was dark, and they happened to walk under some tall trees whose leaves, moved by the gentle breeze, made a muffled, frightening sound; in short, the solitude, the place, the darkness, the noise of the water, and the murmur of the leaves all combined to cause panic and consternation, especially when they saw that the
pounding did not stop, the wind did not cease, and morning did not come; added to this was their not knowing where they were. But Don Quixote, accompanied by his intrepid heart, leaped onto Rocinante, and, holding his shield, he grasped his lance and said:

“Sancho, my friend, know that I was born, by the will of heaven, in this our iron age, to revive the one of gold, or the Golden Age, as it is called. I am he for whom are reserved dangers, great deeds, valiant feats. I am, I repeat, he who is to revive the Knights of the Round Table, the Twelve Peers of France, the Nine Worthies, he who is to make the world forget the Platirs, Tablants, Olivants, and Tirants, the Phoebuses and Belianises, and the entire horde of famous knights errant of a bygone age, by performing in this time in which I find myself such great and extraordinary deeds and feats of arms that they will overshadow the brightest they ever achieved. Note well, my faithful and loyal squire, the darkness of this night, its strange silence, the indistinct and confused sound of these trees, the fearful clamor of the water we came seeking, which seems to be falling and crashing from the high mountains of the moon, and the unceasing noise of pounding that wounds and pains our ears; all these things, taken together and separately, are enough to instill fear, terror, and dread in the bosom of Mars himself, not to mention one who is unaccustomed to such occurrences and adventures. But these things I have described for you are inspiration and encouragement to my valor, which makes my heart almost burst in my bosom with the desire to embark on this adventure, no matter how difficult it may prove to be. And so, tighten the cinches on Rocinante, and God be with you, and wait for me here no more than three days, and if I have not come back by then, you may return to our village, and from there, as a boon and good deed for my sake, you will go to Toboso and tell my peerless lady Dulcinea that her captive knight died performing deeds that would make him worthy of being called her own.”

When Sancho heard his master’s words, he began to cry with the greatest tenderness in the world, and he said:

“Señor, I don’t know why your grace wants to embark on this fearful adventure; it’s night, nobody can see us here, we can turn around and get away from the danger, even if we don’t drink anything for three days, and since there’s nobody here to see us, there’s nobody to call us cowards; besides, I’ve heard the sermons of our village priest, and your grace knows him very well, and he says that whoever goes looking for danger perishes; so it isn’t a good idea to tempt God by undertaking something so terrible
that you can’t get out of it except through some miracle, and heaven has done enough of them for your grace, letting you escape being tossed in the blanket, like I was, and letting you come out victorious, free, and unharmed, over so many enemies who were escorting the dead man. And if all this doesn’t touch or soften your hard heart, let it be moved by thinking and believing that as soon as your grace has left this place, fear will make me give up my soul to anybody who wants to take it. I left my home and my children and my wife to serve your grace, thinking I would be better off, not worse; but just as greed makes the sack burst, it has torn my hopes apart when they were brightest for getting that wretched, ill-starred ínsula your grace has promised me so often; I see that as payment and reward you want to leave me now in a desolate place far from all other human beings. By the One God, Señor, you must not wrong me so, and if your grace absolutely refuses to think again about embarking on this deed, at least put it off until morning, for the lore I learned when I was a shepherd tells me it’s less than three hours till dawn, because the mouth of the Horn is over my head and midnight’s in line with my left arm.”
¹

“How can you, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “see where that line is, or where the mouth of any Horn or any head is, if the night is so dark there is not a single star visible in all the sky?”

“That’s true,” said Sancho, “but fear has many eyes and can see things under the ground, let alone high in the sky; even so, it stands to reason that it won’t be long until daylight.”

“However long it may be,” responded Don Quixote, “let no one say of me, now or ever, that tears and pleas turned me from doing what I, as a knight, was obliged to do; and so I beg you, Sancho, to be quiet, for God, who has placed in my heart the desire to embark on this incomparable and most fearsome adventure, will surely look after my well-being and console you in your grief. What you must do is tighten Rocinante’s cinches and remain here; I shall soon return, either alive or dead.”

Sancho, seeing his master’s firm resolve, and how little he accomplished with tears, advice, and pleas, decided to take advantage of his task and do what he could to make Don Quixote wait until day, and so, as he was tightening the horse’s cinches, he very cunningly and quietly tied Rocinante’s forelegs together with his donkey’s halter, and when
Don Quixote tried to leave he could not because his horse could not move except by hops and jumps. Seeing the success of his deception, Sancho Panza said:

“Oh, Señor, heaven, moved by my tears and prayers, has willed Rocinante not to move, and if you persist, and spur and urge him on, that will anger Fortune, and it will be, as they say, like kicking at thorns.”

At this Don Quixote grew desperate, for no matter how hard he spurred his horse, he could not make him move; then, not realizing that the animal’s legs had been tied, he thought it a good idea to be calm and wait, either for the dawn or until Rocinante could move forward, believing, no doubt, that this situation was caused by something other than Sancho’s labors, and so he said to him:

“Well, Sancho, since Rocinante cannot move, I am content to wait until dawn smiles upon us, although I weep at how long she will take to arrive.”

“There’s no reason to cry,” responded Sancho. “I’ll entertain your grace by telling you stories until daylight, unless you want to dismount and sleep a little on the green grass, in the manner of knights errant, so that you’ll be rested when day comes, and ready to embark on the unrivaled adventure that awaits you.”

“What do you mean, dismount and sleep?” said Don Quixote. “Am I, perchance, one of those knights who take their rest in the midst of dangers? You sleep, for you were born to sleep, or do whatever you wish, and I shall do what I deem most becoming to my profession.”

“Señor, your grace shouldn’t be angry,” responded Sancho, “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

And, going up to him, Sancho placed one hand on the front of the saddle and the other on the rear, so that he stood with his arms around his master’s left thigh, not daring to move a finger’s breadth away from him, so great was the fear he had of the pounding, which continued to sound rhythmically. Don Quixote told him to recount some story to amuse him, as he had promised, to which Sancho replied that he would, if his terror at what he was hearing allowed him to.

“But, even so, I’ll make an effort to tell a story, and if I manage to tell it and my fear doesn’t stop me, it’s the best of all stories; and your grace should pay careful attention, because here I go. ‘Once upon a time, and may good come to all and evil to him who seeks it…’ And, Señor, your grace should notice that the beginnings the ancients gave to their tales didn’t come out of nowhere; this was a maxim of the Roman Cato Non
sensor,
²
and it says: ‘Evil to him who seeks it,’ which fits here like the ring on your finger and means that your grace should stay put and not go looking for evil anywhere, and we should take another route, nobody’s forcing us to continue on this one with so many frightening things to scare us.”

“You go on with your story, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “and leave the route we shall follow to me.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” Sancho continued, “that somewhere in Extremadura there was a goatherd, I mean to say the man tended goats, and this goatherd I was telling you about in my story was named Lope Ruiz, and this Lope Ruiz was in love with a shepherdess named Torralba, and this shepherdess named Torralba was the daughter of a rich herder, and this rich herder—”