Chapter 15

As they jogged on, "I beseech your worship, Sir Knight-errant," quoth Sancho to his master, "be sure you don't forget what you promised me about the island; for I dare say I shall make shift to govern it, let it be never so big."--"You must know, friend Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "that it has been the constant practice of knights-errant in former ages to make their squires governors of the islands or kingdoms they conquered. Now I am not only resolved to keep up that laudable custom, but even to improve it, and outdo my predecessors in generosity; for whereas sometimes, or rather most commonly, other knights delayed rewarding their squires till they were grown old, and worn out with services, bad days, worse nights, and all manner of hard duty, and then put them off with some title, either of count, or at least marquis of some valley or province, of great or small extent; now, if thou and I do but live, it may happen that before we have passed six days together I may conquer some kingdom, having many other kingdoms annexed to its imperial crown; and this would fall out most luckily for thee; for then would I presently crown thee king of one of them. Nor do thou imagine this to be a mighty matter; for so strange accidents and revolutions, so sudden and so unforeseen, attend the profession of chivalry, that I might easily give thee a great deal more than I have promised."--"Why, should this come to pass," quoth Sancho Panza, "and I be made a king by some such miracle, as your worship says, then Joan Gutierez (my mis'ess) would be at least a queen, and my children infantas."--"Who doubts of that?" cried Don Quixote. "I doubt of it," replied Sancho Panza; "for I cannot help believing, that though it should rain kingdoms down upon the face of the earth, not one of them would sit well upon Mary Gutierez's head; for I must needs tell you, she's not worth two brass jacks to make a queen of: no, countess would be better for her, an't please you; and that too, God help her, will be as much as she can handsomely manage."--"Recommend the matter to Providence," returned Don Quixote, "'twill be sure to give what is most expedient for thee; but yet disdain to entertain inferior thoughts, and be not tempted to accept less than the dignity of a viceroy."--"No more I won't, sir," quoth Sancho, "especially since I have so rare a master as your worship, who will take care to give me whatever may be fit for me, and what I may be able to deal with."

As they were thus discoursing, they discovered some thirty or forty windmills that are in that plain; and as soon as the knight had spied them, "Fortune," cried he, "directs our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished: look yonder, friend Sancho, there are at least thirty outrageous giants, whom I intend to encounter; and having deprived them of life, we will begin to enrich ourselves with their spoils; for they are lawful prize; and the extirpation of that cursed brood will be an acceptable service to Heaven."--"What giants?" quoth Sancho Panza. "Those whom thou seest yonder," answered Don Quixote, "with their long extended arms; some of that detested race have arms of so immense a size, that sometimes they reach two leagues in length."--"Pray look better, sir," quoth Sancho; "those things yonder are no giants, but windmills, and the arms you fancy, are their sails, which being whirled about by the wind, make the mill go." "'Tis a sign," cried Don Quixote, "thou art but little acquainted with adventures! I tell thee, they are giants; and therefore if thou art afraid, go aside and say thy prayers, for I am resolved to engage in a dreadful unequal combat against them all." This said, he clapt spurs to his horse Rozinante, without giving ear to his squire Sancho, who bawled out to him, and assured him that they were windmills, and no giants. But he was so fully possessed with a strong conceit of the contrary, that he did not so much as hear his squire's outcry, nor was he sensible of what they were, although he was already very near them; far from that: "Stand, cowards," cried he as loud as he could; "stand your ground, ignoble creatures, and fly not basely from a single knight, who dares encounter you all!" At the same time, the wind rising, the mill-sails began to move, which when Don Quixote spied, "Base miscreants," cried he, "though you move more arms than the giant Briareus, you shall pay for your arrogance." He most devoutly recommended himself to his Lady Dulcinea, imploring her assistance in this perilous adventure; and so covering himself with his shield, and couching his lance, he rushed with Rozinante's utmost speed upon the first windmill he could come at, and running his lance into the sail, the wind whirled it about with such swiftness, that the rapidity of the motion presently broke the lance into shivers, and hurled away both knight and horse along with it, till down he fell, rolling a good way off in the field. Sancho Panza ran as fast as his ass could drive to help his master, whom he found lying, and not able to stir, such a blow had he and Rozinante received. "Mercy o' me!" cried Sancho, "did not I give your worship fair warning? Did not I tell you they were windmills, and that nobody could think otherwise, unless he had also windmills in his head?"--"Peace, friend Sancho," replied Don Quixote: "there is nothing so subject to the inconstancy of fortune as war. I am verily persuaded that cursed necromancer Freston, who carried away my study and my books, has transformed these giants into windmills to deprive me of the honor of the victory; such is his inveterate malice against me; but in the end, all his pernicious wiles and stratagems shall prove ineffectual against the prevailing edge of my sword."--"Amen, say I," replied Sancho. And so heaving him up again upon his legs, once more the knight mounted poor Rozinante, that was half shoulder-slipped with his fall.

This adventure was the subject of their discourse, as they made the best of their way towards the pass of Lapice, for Don Quixote took that road, believing he could not miss of adventure in one so mightily frequented. However, the loss of his lance was no small affliction to him; and as he was making his complaint about it to his squire, "I have read," said he, "friend Sancho, that a certain Spanish knight, whose name was Diego Perez de Vargas, having broke his sword in the heat of an engagement, pulled up by the roots a huge oak tree, or at least tore down a massy branch, and did such wonderful execution, crushing and grinding so many Moors with it that day, that he won himself and his posterity the surname of The Pounder, or Bruiser. I tell thee this, because I intend to tear up the next oak or holm tree we meet; with the trunk whereof I hope to perform such wondrous deeds that thou wilt esteem thyself particularly happy in having had the honor to behold them, and been the ocular witness of achievements which posterity will scarce be able to believe."--"Heaven grant you may," cried Sancho; "I believe it all, because your worship says it. But, an't please you, sit a little more upright in your saddle; you ride sideling methinks; but that, I suppose, proceeds from your being bruised by the fall."--"It does so," replied Don Quixote; "and if I do not complain of the pain, it is because a knight-errant must never complain of his wounds, though his bowels were dropping out through them."--"Then I have no more to say," quoth Sancho; "and yet Heaven knows my heart, I should be glad to hear your worship hone a little now and then when something ails you: for my part, I shall not fail to bemoan myself when I suffer the smallest pain, unless indeed it can be proved, that the rule of not complaining extends to the squires as well as knights."

Don Quixote could not forbear smiling at the simplicity of his squire; and told him he gave him leave to complain not only when he pleased, but as much as he pleased, whether he had any cause or no; for he had never yet read anything to the contrary in any books of chivalry.

THE INNKEEPER'S BILL

_By Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra_

But Don Quixote, as we have said, found himself in an excellent temper; and his active soul loathing an inglorious repose, he presently was impatient to depart to perform the duties of his adventurous profession; for he thought those moments that were trifled away in amusements or other concerns only a blank in life; and all delays a depriving distressed persons and the world in general of his needed assistance. The confidence which he reposed in his balsam, heightened, if possible, his resolution; and thus carried away by his eager thoughts, he saddled Rozinante himself, and then put the pannel upon the ass, and his squire upon the pannel, after he had helped him to huddle on his clothes; that done, he mounted his steed; and having spied a javelin that stood in a corner, he seized and appropriated it to himself, to supply the want of his lance. Above twenty people that were in the inn stood spectators of all these transactions; and among the rest the innkeeper's daughter, from whom Don Quixote had not power to withdraw his eyes, breathing out at every glance a deep sigh from the very bottom of his heart; which those who had seen him so mortified the night before took to proceed from the pain of his bruises.

And now being ready to set forward, he called for the master of the house, and with a grave delivery, "My lord governor," cried he, "the favors I have received in your castle are so great and extraordinary that they bind my grateful soul to an eternal acknowledgment; therefore that I may be so happy as to discharge part of the obligation, think if there be ever a proud mortal breathing on whom you desire to be revenged for some affront or other injury, and acquaint me with it now; and by my order of knighthood, which binds me to protect the weak, relieve the oppressed, and punish the bad, I promise you I'll take effectual care, that you shall have ample satisfaction to the utmost of your wishes."--"Sir Knight," answered the innkeeper, with an austere gravity, "I shall not need your assistance to revenge any wrong that may be offered to my person; for I would have you to understand that I am able to do myself justice whenever any man presumes to do me wrong; therefore all the satisfaction I desire is, that you will pay your reckoning for horse-meat and man's meat, and all your expenses in my inn."--"How!" cried Don Quixote, "is this an inn?"--"Yes," answered the host, "and one of the most noted, and of the best repute upon the road."--"How strangely have I been mistaken, then!" cried Don Quixote; "upon my honor I took it for a castle, and a considerable one too; but if it be an inn, and not a castle, all I have to say is, that you must excuse me from paying anything; for I would by no means break the laws which we knights-errant are bound to observe; nor was it ever known, that they ever paid in any inn whatsoever; for this is the least recompense that can be allowed them for the intolerable labors they endure day and night, winter and summer, on foot and on horseback, pinched with hunger, choked with thirst, and exposed to all the injuries of the air and all the inconveniences in the world."--"I have nothing to do with all this," cried the innkeeper; "pay your reckoning, and don't trouble me with your foolish stories of a cock and a bull; I can't afford to keep house at that rate."--"Thou art both a fool and a knave of an innkeeper," replied Don Quixote, and with that clapping spurs to Rozinante, and brandishing his javelin at his host, he rode out of the inn without any opposition, and got a good way from it, without so much as once looking behind him to see whether his squire came after him.

The knight being marched off, there remained only the squire, who was stopped for the reckoning. However, he swore he would not pay a cross; for the selfsame law that acquitted the knight acquitted the squire. This put the innkeeper into a great passion, and made him threaten Sancho very hard, telling him if he would not pay him by fair means, he would have him laid by the heels that moment. Sancho swore by his master's knighthood he would sooner part with his life than his money on such an account; nor should the squires in after ages ever have occasion to upbraid him with giving so ill a precedent, or breaking their rights.

As ill luck would have it, there happened to be in the inn four Segovia clothiers, three Cordova pointmakers, and two Seville hucksters, all brisk, gamesome, roguish fellows; who agreeing all in the same design, encompassed Sancho, and pulled him off his ass, while one of them went and got a blanket. Then they put the unfortunate squire into it, and observing the roof of the place they were in to be somewhat too low for their purpose, they carried him into the back yard, which had no limits but the sky, and there they tossed him for several times together in the blanket, as they do dogs on Shrove Tuesday. Poor Sancho made so grievous an outcry all the while that his master heard him, and imagined those lamentations were of some person in distress, and consequently the occasion of some adventure; but having at last distinguished the voice, he made to the inn with a broken gallop; and finding the gates shut, he rode about to see whether he might not find some other way to get in. But he no sooner came to the back-yard wall, which was none of the highest, when he was an eyewitness of the scurvy trick that was put upon his squire. There he saw him ascend and descend, and frolic and caper in the air with so much nimbleness and agility, that it is thought the knight himself could not have forborne laughing, had he been anything less angry. He did his best to get over the wall, but alas, he was so bruised, that he could not so much as alight from his horse. This made him fume and chafe, and vent his passion in a thousand threats and curses, so strange and various that it is impossible to repeat them. But the more he stormed, the more they tossed and laughed; Sancho on his side begging, and howling, and threatening, and cursing, to as little purpose as his master, for it was weariness alone could make the tossers give over. Then they charitably put an end to his high dancing, and set him upon his ass again, carefully wrapped in his mantle.

But Maritornes, pitying a creature in such tribulation and thinking he had danced and tumbled enough to be dry, was so generous as to help him to a draught of water, which she purposely drew from the well that moment, that it might be the cooler. Sancho clapped the pot to his mouth, but his master made him desist. "Hold, hold," cried he, "son Sancho, drink no water, child, it will kill thee; behold I have here the most holy balsam, two drops of which will cure thee effectually."--"Ha," replied Sancho, shaking his head, and looking sourly on the knight with a side face, "have you again forgot that I am no knight? Keep your brewings for yourself, in the devil's name, and let me alone." With that he lifted up the jug to his nose, but finding it to be mere element, he spirted out again the little he had tasted, and desired the wench to help him to some better liquor; so she went and fetched him wine to make him amends, and paid for it too out of her own pocket. As soon as Sancho had tipped off his wine, he visited his ass's ribs twice or thrice with his heels, and, free egress being granted him, he trooped off, well content with the thoughts of having had his ends, and got off scot free, though at the expense of his shoulders, his usual sureties. It is true, the innkeeper kept his wallet for the reckoning; but the poor squire was so dismayed, and in such haste to be gone, that he never missed it. The host was for shutting the inn doors after him, for fear of the worst; but the tossers would not let him, being a sort of fellows that would not have cared for Don Quixote a straw, though he had really been one of the Knights of the Round Table.

THE BATTLE OF THE SHEEP

_By Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra_

They went on discoursing, when Don Quixote, perceiving a thick cloud of dust arise right before them in the road, "The day is come," said he, turning to his squire, "the day is come, Sancho, that shall usher in the happiness which fortune has reserved for me; this day shall the strength of my arm be signalized by such exploits as shall be transmitted even to the latest posterity. Seest thou that cloud of dust, Sancho? It is raised by a prodigious army marching this way, and composed of an infinite number of nations."--"Why then, at this rate," quoth Sancho, "there should be two armies; for yonder is as great a dust on the other side." With that Don Quixote looked, and was transported with joy at the sight, firmly believing that two vast armies were ready to engage each other in that plain; for his imagination was so crowded with those battles, enchantments, surprising adventures, amorous thoughts, and other whimsies which he had read of in romances, that his strong fancy changed everything he saw into what he desired to see; and thus he could not conceive that the dust was only raised by two large flocks of sheep that were going the same road from different parts, and could not be discerned till they were very near; he was so positive that they were two armies, that Sancho firmly believed him at last. "Well, sir," quoth the squire, "what are we to do, I beseech you?"--"What shall we do," replied Don Quixote, "but assist the weaker and injured side? for know, Sancho, that the army which now moves towards us is commanded by the great Alifanfaron, emperor of the vast island of Taprobana; the other that advances behind us is his enemy, the king of the Garamantians, Pentapolin with the naked arm, so called because he always enters into the battle with his right arm bare."--"Pray, sir," quoth Sancho, "why are these two great men going together by the ears?"--"The occasion of their quarrel is this," answered Don Quixote: "Alifanfaron, a strong Pagan, is in love with Pentapolin's daughter, a very beautiful lady and a Christian; now her father refuses to give her in marriage to the heathen prince, unless he abjure his false belief and embrace the Christian religion."--"Burn my beard," said Sancho, "if Pentapolin be not in the right on it; I will stand by him, and help him all I may."--"I commend thy resolution," replied Don Quixote, "it is not only lawful, but requisite; for there is no need of being a knight to fight in such battles."--"I guessed as much," quoth Sancho; "but where shall we leave my ass in the meantime, that I may be sure to find him again after the battle; for I fancy you never heard of any man that ever charged upon such a beast."--"It is true," answered Don Quixote, "and therefore I would have thee turn him loose, though thou wert sure never to find him again; for we shall have so many horses after we have got the day that even Rozinante himself will be in danger of being changed for another."

Then mounting to the top of a hillock, whence they might have seen both the flocks, had not the dust obstructed their sight, "Look yonder, Sancho!" cried Don Quixote; "that knight whom thou seest in the gilded arms, bearing in his shield a crowned lion couchant at the feet of a lady, is the valiant Laurcalco, lord of the silver bridge. He in the armor powdered with flowers of gold, bearing three crows argent in a field azure, is the formidable Micocolembo, the great duke of Quiracia. That other, of a gigantic size, that marches on his right, is the undaunted Brandabarbaran of Boliche, sovereign of the three Arabias; he is arrayed in a serpent's skin, and carries instead of a shield a huge gate, which they say belonged to the temple which Samson pulled down at his death, when he revenged himself upon his enemies. But cast thy eyes on this side, Sancho, and at the head of the other army see the victorious Timonel of Carcaiona, prince of New Biscay, whose armor is quartered azure, vert, or, and argent, and who bears in his shield a cat or, in a field gules, with these four letters, MIAU, for a motto, being the beginning of his mistress's name, the beautiful Miaulina, daughter to Alfeñiquen, duke of Algarva. That other monstrous load upon the back of yonder wild horse, with arms as white as snow, and a shield without any device, is a Frenchman, now created knight, called Pierre Papin, baron of Utrique; he whom you see pricking that pied courser's flanks with his armed heels is the mighty duke of Nervia, Espartafilardo of the Wood, bearing for device on his shield an asparagus plant with this motto in Castilian, _Rastrea mi suerte_ (Divine my fate)." And thus he went on, naming a great number of others in both armies, to every one of whom his fertile imagination assigned arms, colors, impresses, and mottoes, as readily as if they had really been that moment in being before his eyes. And then proceeding without the least hesitation, "That vast body," said he, "that is just opposite to us is composed of several nations. There you see those who drink the pleasant stream of the famous Xanthus; there the mountaineers that till the Massilian fields; those that sift the pure gold of Arabia Felix: those that inhabit the renowned and delightful banks of Thermodon. Yonder, those who so many ways sluice and drain the golden Pactolus for its precious sand; the Numidians, unsteady and careless of their promises; the Persians, excellent archers; the Medes and Parthians, who fight flying; the Arabs, who have no fixed habitations; the Scythians, cruel and savage, though fair-complexioned; the sooty Ethiopians, that bore their lips; and a thousand other nations whose countenances I know, though I have forgotten their names. On the other side come those whose country is watered with the crystal streams of Betis, shaded with olive trees; those who bathe their limbs in the rich flood of the golden Tagus; those whose mansions are laved by the profitable stream of the divine Genil; those who range the verdant Tartesian meadows; those who indulge their luxurious temper in the delicious pastures of Xerez; the wealthy inhabitants of La Mancha, crowned with golden ears of corn; the ancient offspring of the Goths, cased in iron; those who wanton in the lazy current of Pisuerga; those who feed their numerous flocks in the ample plains where the Guadiana, so celebrated for its hidden course, pursues its wandering race; those who shiver with extremity of cold on the woody Pyrenean hills or on the hoary tops of the snowy Apennines,--in a word, all that Europe includes within its spacious bounds, half a world in an army." It is scarce to be imagined how many countries he had run over, how many nations he enumerated, distinguishing every one by what is peculiar to them, with an incredible vivacity of mind, and that still in the puffy style of his fabulous books.