Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (98 page)

Sancho heard this, and to himself he said:

“This master of mine, when I talk about things of pith and substance, usually says that I could take a pulpit in hand and go through the world preaching fine sermons; and I say of him that when he begins to string together judgments and to give advice, he could not only take a pulpit in hand but hang two on each finger, and go through the squares and say exactly the right thing. What a devil of a knight errant you are, and what a lot of things you know! I thought in my heart that he would only know things that had to do with his chivalry, but there’s nothing he doesn’t pick at or poke his spoon into.”

Sancho was mumbling this, and his master heard him and asked:

“What are you mumbling about, Sancho?”

“I’m not saying anything, and I’m not mumbling anything,” responded Sancho. “I was just saying to myself that I wish I’d heard what your grace said here before I married; maybe then I’d be saying now: ‘The ox who’s free can lick where he pleases.’”
¹

“Is your Teresa so bad, Sancho?” said Don Quixote.

“She’s not very bad,” responded Sancho, “but she’s not very good, either; at least, she’s not as good as I’d like.”

“It is wrong of you, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “to speak ill of your wife, who is, in fact, the mother of your children.”

“We don’t owe each other a thing,” responded Sancho, “because she speaks ill of me too whenever she feels like it, especially when she’s jealous, and then not even Satan himself can bear her.”

In short, they spent three days with the newlyweds and were regaled and entertained as if they were kings. Don Quixote asked the skilled licentiate
²
to give him a guide who would lead him to the Cave of Montesinos,
³
because he had a great desire to enter it and see with his own eyes if the marvels told about it throughout the surrounding area were true. The licentiate said that he would give him one of his cousins, who was a famous student and very fond of reading novels of chivalry, and would be very happy to bring him to the mouth of the cave and show him the Lakes of Ruidera, famous in all of La Mancha, and even in all of Spain; and he said that he would find him pleasant company because he was a lad who knew how to write books that would be printed and how to dedicate them to princes. At last, the cousin arrived on a pregnant donkey, its packsaddle covered by a small striped rug or brightly colored burlap. Sancho saddled Rocinante, readied the donkey, and provisioned his saddlebags that then joined the cousin’s, which were also well-stocked, and after commending themselves to God and taking their leave of everyone, they set out on their journey, traveling in the direction of the famous Cave of Montesinos.

On the road, Don Quixote questioned the cousin regarding the character and nature of his activities, his profession, and his studies, to which he responded that his profession was being a humanist, his activities and studies, composing books for publishing, all of them very beneficial and no less diverting for the nation; one was entitled
On Liveries,
in which he depicts seven hundred and three liveries with their colors, devices, and emblems, from which courtier knights could pick and choose the ones they liked for festivals and celebrations and would not have to go begging them from anybody or overtaxing their brains,
as they say, in order to find ones that matched their desires and intentions.

“Because I give to the jealous, the disdained, the forgotten, and the absent the liveries that suit them best and fit them perfectly. I also have another book that I intend to call
Metamorphoses, or the Spanish Ovid,
a new and rare invention, because in it, in a parodic imitation of Ovid, I describe who La Giralda of Sevilla was, and the Angel of the Magdalena,
⁴
and the Vecinguerra Drainpipe in Córdoba,
⁵
who the Bulls of Guisando, and the Sierra Morena, and the fountains of Leganitos and Lavapiés, in Madrid, not forgetting the fountains of El Piojo and El Caño Dorado, and the fountain of La Priora,
⁶
and each has its allegories, metaphors, and transformations that delight, astonish, and instruct, all at the same time. I have another book that I call
Supplement to Virgilio Polidoro,
⁷
which deals with the invention of things and is a work of great erudition and scholarship because the things of substance that Polidoro omitted I investigate and write about in an elegant style. Virgilio forgot to tell us who was the first man in the world to have a cold, and the first who used ointments to cure himself of the French disease;
⁸
I elucidate everything very precisely, citing more than twenty-five authors, and so your grace can see that I have done good work and that the book will be very useful to everyone.”

Sancho, who had been very attentive during the cousin’s narration, said:

“Tell me, Señor, and may God give you good luck in the printing of your books, would you know, and you must know, because you know everything, but could you tell me who the first man was to scratch his head? To my mind it must have been our father Adam.”

“Yes, it must have been,” responded the cousin, “because Adam undoubtedly had a head and hair, and this being the case, and Adam being the first man in the world, at some time he must have scratched his head.”

“I think so, too,” responded Sancho, “but now tell me, who was the first acrobat in the world?”

“The truth is, my friend,” responded the cousin, “that is something I cannot determine until I study it, and I shall study it as soon as I return to my books, and I shall satisfy your curiosity when next we meet, for this cannot be the last time.”

“Well, look, Señor,” replied Sancho, “don’t go to any trouble, for I just found the answer to the question I asked. Let me say that the first acrobat in the world was Lucifer, when he was tossed or thrown out of heaven and went tumbling down into the pit.”

“You’re right, my friend,” said the cousin.

And Don Quixote said:

“That question and answer are not yours, Sancho; you heard someone else say them.”

“Be quiet, Señor,” replied Sancho, “for by my faith, if I start asking and answering, I won’t finish until tomorrow. As for asking fool questions and giving nonsensical answers, I don’t need to go around asking my neighbors for help.”

“You have said more, Sancho, than you realize,” said Don Quixote, “for there are some who exhaust themselves learning and investigating things that, once learned and investigated, do not matter in the slightest to the understanding or the memory.”

The day was spent in this agreeable conversation, and others like it, and at night they stayed in a small village which, the cousin told Don Quixote, was no more than two leagues from the Cave of Montesinos, and if he was determined to go inside, he would need to have ropes so that he could tie them around himself and lower himself into its depths.

Don Quixote said that even if the cave went down into the abyss, he had to see where it ended, and so they bought almost a hundred fathoms of rope, and the next day, at two in the afternoon, they reached the cave, whose mouth is spacious and wide but filled with brambles and box thorn, wild fig trees and briars, so thick and intertwined that they completely cover and hide it. As soon as they saw it, the cousin, Sancho, and Don Quixote dismounted, and the first two tied him very securely with the ropes, and while they were wrapping them around him and tightening them, Sancho said:

“Señor, your grace should think about what you’re doing: you don’t want to be buried alive, or be in a place where you’re like a jar that’s
hung down a well to cool. Oh yes, it isn’t your grace’s concern or business to go exploring this place that must be worse than a dungeon.”

“Tie the rope and be quiet,” responded Don Quixote, “for an undertaking like this, Sancho my friend, was intended only for me.”
⁹

And then their guide said:

“I beg your grace, Señor Don Quixote, that you observe carefully and scrutinize with a thousand eyes what you find inside: perhaps there are things I can put in my book
Transformations.”

“The tambourine’s in just the right hands,”
¹⁰
responded Sancho Panza.

This being said, and Don Quixote’s ropes having been secured—they were attached not to his armor, but to the doublet he wore under-neath—Don Quixote said:

“It was an oversight not to have bought a small cowbell to tie next to me on this rope, for its sound would let you know that I was still descending and still alive; but since that is no longer possible, may the hand of God guide me.”

And then he kneeled and said a prayer in a quiet voice, asking God to help him and grant him good fortune in this apparently dangerous new adventure, and then he said aloud:

“O lady of my actions and movements, most illustrious and peerless Dulcinea of Toboso! If it is possible that the prayers and supplications of this thy fortunate lover reach thine ears, for the sake of thy extraordinary beauty I implore thee to hear them, for they beg thee only not to deny me thy favor and protection now that I am in such great need of them. I am going to hurl myself, throw myself, and plunge into the abyss I see here before me, so that the world may know that if thou favorest me, nothing is impossible for me to undertake and bring to a happy conclusion.”

And saying this, he approached the chasm; he saw that it was not possible to lower himself or make his way to the entrance except by the strength of his arm or the thrusts of his blade, and so he put his hand to his sword and began to slash and cut the thicket at the mouth of the cave; with the clamor and din, an infinite number of huge crows and rooks flew out of it, and there were so many flying so quickly that they knocked Don Quixote to the ground; if he were as much of a soothsayer as he was a Catholic Christian, he would have taken this as a bad omen and refused to go down into such a place.

At last he stood, and seeing that no more crows or other nocturnal birds such as bats, which had come out along with the crows, were flying about, and with the cousin and Sancho gradually letting out the rope, he began to lower himself down to the bottom of the fearful cavern; and as he entered, Sancho blessed him and made the sign of a thousand crosses over him, saying:

“May God be your guide, and the Peña de Francia,
¹¹
together with the Trinidad de Gaeta,
¹²
O flower and cream and skimmings of all knights errant! There you go, the bravest in the world, heart of steel, arms of bronze! Again, may God be your guide and bring you back safe and sound and free to the light of this life that you are leaving to bury yourself in the darkness you are looking for!”

The cousin said almost the same prayers and entreaties.

Don Quixote kept calling out for rope, more rope, and they paid it out slowly; and when his cries, which were channeled out of the cave, could no longer be heard, they had already unwound the hundred fathoms of rope, and it seemed to them that they ought to bring Don Quixote up again since they could not give him more rope. But they waited for about half an hour, and at the end of that time they began to pull up the rope, very easily, and with no weight on it at all, which made them imagine that Don Quixote had remained inside, and because he believed this, Sancho began to cry bitterly and to pull very quickly in order to learn the truth; but when there was a little more than eighty fathoms of rope left, they felt a weight, which made them extremely happy. Finally, when there were ten fathoms remaining, they saw Don Quixote clearly and Sancho began to shout to him, saying:

“A very hearty welcome to your grace, Señor; we thought you were going to stay down there and start a family.”

But Don Quixote did not say a word, and when they had pulled him all the way out, they saw that his eyes were closed, as if he were sleeping. They laid him on the ground and untied him, and still he did not awaken, but they turned him this way and that, and shook him and moved him so much, that after a fairly long time he regained consciousness, stretching as if he were waking from a deep and profound sleep, and looking around, as if in alarm, he said:

“May God forgive you, friends, for you have taken me away from the
sweetest life and most pleasant sights that any human being has ever seen or experienced. In truth, now I realize that all the pleasures of this life pass like shadows and dreams, or wither like the flowers in the field. O unfortunate Montesinos! O gravely wounded Durandarte! O luckless Belerma! O weeping Guadiana, and you unhappy daughters of Ruidera, who show in your waters the number of tears shed by your beautiful eyes!”

The cousin and Sancho listened to the words of Don Quixote, who spoke them as if he were tearing them with great sorrow from the very depths of his being. They begged him to explain what he was saying and to tell them what he had seen in that hell.

“You call it hell?” said Don Quixote. “Do not call it that, for it does not deserve the name, as you shall soon see.”

He asked them to give him something to eat, for he was very hungry. They spread the cousin’s burlap on the green grass, had recourse to the provisions in the saddlebags, and the three of them sat in companionable friendship and ate both dinner and supper at the same time. When the burlap had been cleared, Don Quixote of La Mancha said:

“Let no one get up, my friends, and listen to me carefully.”

CHAPTER XXIII

It must have been four in the afternoon when the sun, hidden by clouds, its light faint and its rays temperate, gave Don Quixote an opportunity free of oppressive heat to recount what he had seen in the Cave of Montesinos to his two illustrious listeners, and he began in the following manner: