Chapter 16

Sancho listened to all this romantic muster-roll as mute as a fish, with amazement; all that he could do was now and then to turn his head on this side and the other side, to see if he could discern the knights and giants whom his master named. But at length, not being able to discover any, "Why," cried he, "you had as good tell me it snows; the devil of any knight, giant, or man can I see, of all those you talk of now; who knows but all this may be witchcraft and spirits, like yesternight?"--"How," replied Don Quixote; "dost thou not hear their horses neigh, their trumpets sound, and their drums beat?"--"Not I," quoth Sancho, "I prick up my ears like a sow in the beans, and yet I can hear nothing but the bleating of sheep." Sancho might justly say so indeed, for by this time the two flocks were got very near them. "Thy fears disturb thy senses," said Don Quixote, "and hinder thee from hearing and seeing right; but it is no matter; withdraw to some place of safety, since thou art so terrified; for I alone am sufficient to give the victory to that side which I shall favor with my assistance." With that he couched his lance, clapped spurs to Rozinante, and rushed like a thunderbolt from the hillock into the plain. Sancho bawled after him as loud as he could. "Hold, sir!" cried Sancho; "for heaven's sake come back! What do you mean? as sure as I am a sinner those you are going to maul are nothing but poor harmless sheep. Come back, I say. Woe to him that begot me! Are you mad, sir? there are no giants, no knights, no cats, no asparagus gardens, no golden quarters nor what-d'-ye-call-thems. Does the devil possess you? you are leaping over the hedge before you come at the stile. You are taking the wrong sow by the ear. Oh, that I was ever born to see this day!" But Don Quixote still riding on, deaf and lost to good advice, out-roared his expostulating squire. "Courage, brave knights!" cried he; "march up, fall on, all you who fight under the standard of the valiant Pentapolin with the naked arm; follow me, and you shall see how easily I will revenge him on that infidel Alifanfaron of Taprobana."

So saying, he charged into the midst of the squadron of sheep and commenced to spear them with his lance with as much gallantry and resolution as if he were verily engaging with his mortal enemies.

The shepherds and drovers, seeing their sheep go to wreck, called out to him; till finding fair means ineffectual, they unloosed their slings, and began to ply him with stones as big as their fists. But the champion, disdaining such a distant war, spite of their showers of stones rushed among the routed sheep, trampling both the living and the slain in a most terrible manner, impatient to meet the general of the enemy, and end the war at once. "Where, where art thou?" cried he, "proud, Alifanfaron? Appear! See here a single knight who seeks thee everywhere, to try now, hand to hand, the boasted force of thy strenuous arm, and deprive thee of life, as a due punishment for the unjust war which thou hast audaciously waged with the valiant Pentapolin." Just as he had said this, while the stones flew about his ears, one unluckily hit upon his small ribs, and had like to have buried two of the shortest deep in the middle of his body.

The knight thought himself slain, or at least desperately wounded; and therefore calling to mind his precious balsam, and pulling out his earthen jug, he clapped it to his mouth; but before he had swallowed a sufficient dose, souse comes another of those bitter almonds, that spoiled his draught, and hit him so pat upon the jug, hand, and teeth, that it broke the first, maimed the second, and struck out three or four of the last. These two blows were so violent that the boisterous knight, falling from his horse, lay upon the ground as quiet as the slain; so that the shepherds, fearing he was killed, got their flock together with all speed, and carrying away their dead, which were no less than seven sheep, they made what haste they could out of harm's way, without looking any further into the matter.

All this while Sancho stood upon the hill, where he was mortified upon the sight of this mad adventure. There he stamped and swore, and banned his master to the bottomless pit; he tore his beard for madness, and cursed the moment he first knew him; but seeing him at last knocked down and settled, the shepherds being scampered, he thought he might venture to come down, and found him in a very ill plight, though not altogether senseless. "Ah! master," quoth he, "this comes of not taking my counsel. Did I not tell you it was a flock of sheep, and no army?"--"Friend Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "know, it is an easy matter for necromancers to change the shapes of things as they please: thus that malicious enchanter, who is my inveterate enemy, to deprive me of the glory which he saw me ready to acquire, while I was reaping a full harvest of laurels, transformed in a moment the routed squadrons into sheep. If thou wilt not believe me, Sancho, yet do one thing for my sake; do but take thy ass, and follow those supposed sheep at a distance, and I dare engage thou shalt soon see them resume their former shapes, and appear such as I described them."

THE CONQUEST OF MAMBRINO'S HELMET

_By Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra_

At the same time it began to rain, and Sancho would fain have taken shelter in the fulling mills; but Don Quixote had conceived such an antipathy against them for the shame they had put upon him that he would by no means be prevailed with to go in; and turning to the right hand he struck into a highway, where they had not gone far before he discovered a horseman, who wore upon his head something that glittered like gold. The knight had no sooner spied him, but, turning to his squire, "Sancho," cried he, "I believe there is no proverb but what is true; they are all so many sentences and maxims drawn from experience, the universal mother of sciences; for instance, that saying that where one door shuts, another opens: thus fortune, that last night deceived us with the false prospect of an adventure, this morning offers us a real one to make us amends; and such an adventure, Sancho, that if I do not gloriously succeed in it, I shall have now no pretense to an excuse, no darkness, no unknown sounds, to impute my disappointment to: in short, in all probability yonder comes the man who wears on his head Mambrino's helmet, and thou knowest the vow I have made."--"Good sir," quoth Sancho, "mind what you say, and take heed what you do; for I would willingly keep my carcass and the case of my understanding from being pounded, mashed, and crushed with fulling hammers."--"The block-head!" cried Don Quixote; "is there no difference between a helmet and a fulling mill?"--"I don't know," saith Sancho, "but I am sure, were I suffered to speak my mind now as I was wont, mayhap, I would give you such main reasons, that yourself should see you are wide of the matter."--"How can I be mistaken, thou eternal misbeliever!" cried Don Quixote; "dost thou not see that knight that comes riding up directly towards us upon a dapple-gray steed, with a helmet of gold on his head."--"I see what I see," replied Sancho, "and the devil of anything I can spy but a fellow on such another gray ass as mine is, with something that glitters o' top of his head."--"I tell thee, that is Mambrino's helmet," replied Don Quixote; "do thou stand at a distance, and leave me to deal with him; thou shalt see, that without trifling away so much as a moment in needless talk, I will finish this adventure, and possess myself of the desired helmet."--"I shall stand at a distance, you may be sure," quoth Sancho; "but God grant that it be not the fulling mills again."--"I have warned you already, fellow," said Don Quixote, "not so much as to name the fulling mills; dare but once more to do it, nay, but to think on it, and I vow to--I say no more, but I'll full your very soul." These threats were more than sufficient to padlock Sancho's lips, for he had no mind to have his master's vow fulfilled at the expense of his bones.

Now the truth of the story was this: there were in that part of the country two villages, one of which was so little that it had not so much as a shop in it, nor any barber; so that the barber of the greater village served also the smaller. And thus a person happening to have occasion to be let blood, and another to be shaved, the barber was going thither with his brass basin, which he had clapped upon his head to keep his hat, that chanced to be a new one, from being spoiled by the rain; and as the basin was new scoured, it made a glittering show a great way off. As Sancho had well observed, he rode upon a gray ass, which Don Quixote as easily took for a dapple-gray steed, as he took the barber for a knight, and his brass basin for a golden helmet; his distracted brain easily applying every object to his romantic ideas. Therefore, when he saw the poor imaginary knight draw near, he fixed his lance, or javelin, to his thigh, and without staying to hold a parley with his adversary, flew at him as fiercely as Rozinante would gallop, resolved to pierce him through and through; crying out in the midst of his career, "Caitiff, wretch, defend thyself, or immediately surrender that which is so justly my due."

The barber, who, as he peaceably went along, saw that terrible apparition come thundering upon him at unawares, had no other way to avoid being run through with his lance, but to throw himself off from his ass to the ground; and then as hastily getting up, he took to his heels, and ran over the fields swifter than the wind, leaving his ass and his basin behind him. Don Quixote finding himself thus master of the field and of the basin, "The miscreant," cried he, "who has left this helmet, has shown himself as prudent as the beaver, who, finding himself hotly pursued by the hunters, to save his life, tears and cuts off with his teeth that for which his natural instinct tells him he is followed."--Then he ordered Sancho to take up the helmet.--"On my word," quoth Sancho, having taken it up, "it is a special basin, and as well worth a piece of eight as a thief is worth a halter."

With that he gave it to his master, who presently clapped it on his head, turning it every way to find out the beaver or vizor; and at last seeing it had none, "Doubtless," said he, "the pagan for whom this famous helmet was first made, had a head of a prodigious size; but the worst is, that there is at least one-half of it wanting." Sancho could not forbear smiling to hear his master call the barber's basin a helmet, and, had not his fear dashed his mirth, he had certainly laughed outright. "What does the fool grin at now?" cried Don Quixote.--"I laugh," said he, "to think what a hugeous jolt-head he must needs have had who was the owner of this same helmet, that looks for all the world like a barber's basin."--"I fancy," said Don Quixote, "this enchanted helmet has fallen by some strange accident into the hands of some person who, not knowing the value of it, for the lucre of a little money, finding it to be of pure gold, melted one half, and of the other made this headpiece, which, as thou sayest, has some resemblance to a barber's basin: but to me, who know the worth of it, the metamorphosis signifies little; for as soon as ever I come to some town where there is an armorer, I will have it altered so much for the better, that then even the helmet which the god of smiths made for the god of war shall not deserve to be compared with it. In the meantime I'll wear it as it is; it is better than nothing, and will serve at least to save part of my head from the violent encounter of a stone."--"Ay, that it will," quoth Sancho, "so it is not hurled out of a sling, as were those at the battle between the two armies, when they hit you that confounded dowse o' the chops, that saluted your worship's cheek-teeth, and broke the pot about your ears in which you kept that blessed drench."--"True," cried Don Quixote, "there I lost my precious balsam indeed; but I do not much repine at it, for thou knowest I have the receipt in my memory."--"So have I, too," quoth Sancho, "and shall have while I have breath to draw; but if ever I make any of that stuff, or taste it again, may I give up the ghost with it! Besides, I don't intend ever to do anything that may give occasion for the use of it, for my fixed resolution is, with all my five senses, to preserve myself from hurting and from being hurt by anybody. As to being tossed in a blanket again, I have nothing to say to that, for there is no remedy for accidents but patience, it seems; so if it ever be my lot to be served so again, I'll even shrink up my shoulders, hold my breath, and shut my eyes, and then happy be lucky, let the blanket and fortune even toss on to the end of the chapter."

"Truly," said Don Quixote, "I am afraid thou art no good Christian, Sancho, thou never forgettest injuries. Let me tell thee, it is the part of noble and generous spirits to pass by trifles. Where art thou lame? which of thy ribs is broken, or what part of thy skull is bruised, that thou canst never think on that jest without malice? for, after all, it was nothing but a jest, a harmless piece of pastime; had I looked upon it otherwise, I had returned to that place before this time, and had made more noble mischief in revenge of the abuse than ever the incensed Grecians did at Troy, for the detention of their Helen, that famed beauty of the ancient world; who, however, had she lived in our age, or had my Dulcinea adorned hers, would have found her charms outrivaled by my mistress's perfections;" and saying this, he heaved up a deep sigh. "Well, then," quoth Sancho, "I will not rip up old sores; let it go for a jest, since there is no revenging it in earnest."

DON QUIXOTE'S BATTLE WITH THE GIANTS

_By Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra_

Sancho Panza came running out of Don Quixote's chamber in a terrible fright, crying out, "Help, help, good people, help my master! He is just now at it, tooth and nail, with that same giant, the Princess Micomicona's foe; I never saw a more dreadful battle in my born days. He has lent him such a sliver, that whip off went the giant's head, as round as a turnip."--"You are mad, Sancho," said the curate, interrupted in his reading; "is thy master such a devil of a hero, as to fight a giant at two thousand leagues' distance?" Upon this, they presently heard a noise and bustle in the chamber, and Don Quixote bawling out, "Stay, villain, robber, stay; since I have thee here, thy scimitar shall but little avail thee;" and with this, they heard him strike with his sword, with all his force, against the walls.--"Good folks," said Sancho, "my master does not want your hearkening; why do not you run in and help him? though I believe there's no need now, for sure the giant is by this time dead, and giving an account of his ill life: for I saw his blood run all about the house, and his head sailing in the middle on it; but such a head! it is bigger than any wine skin in Spain."--"Death and hell!" cries the innkeeper, "I will be cut like a cucumber, if this Don Quixote, or Don Devil, has not been hacking my wine skins that stood filled at his bed's head, and this coxcomb has taken the spilt liquor for blood." Then running with the whole company into the room, they found the poor knight in the most comical posture imaginable.

He was standing in his shirt, and he wore on his head a little red greasy cast nightcap of the innkeeper's; he had wrapped one of the bed blankets about his left arm for a shield; and wielded his drawn sword in the right, laying about him pellmell; with now and then a start of some military expression, as if he had been really engaged with some giant. But the best jest of all, he was all this time fast asleep; for the thoughts of the adventure he had undertaken had so wrought on his imagination that his depraved fancy had in his sleep represented to him the kingdom Micomicon, and the giant; and dreaming that he was then fighting him, he assaulted the wine skins so desperately that he set the whole chamber afloat with good wine. The innkeeper, enraged to see the havoc, flew at Don Quixote with his fists; and had not Cardenio and the curate taken him off, he had proved a giant indeed against the knight. All this could not wake the poor knight, till the barber, throwing a bucket of cold water on him, wakened him from his sleep, though not from his dream.

Sancho ran up and down the room searching for the giant's head, till, finding his labor fruitless, "Well, well," said he, "now I see plainly that this house is haunted, for when I was here before, in this very room was I beaten like any stockfish, but knew no more than the man in the moon who struck me; and now the giant's head that I saw cut off with these eyes, is vanished; and I am sure I saw the body spout blood like a pump."--"What a prating and a nonsense about blood and a pump, and I know not what," said the innkeeper; "I tell you, rascal, it is my wine skins that are slashed, and my wine that runs about the floor here, and I hope to see the soul of him that spilt it swimming in hell for his pains."--"Well, well," said Sancho, "do not trouble me; I only tell you, that I cannot find the giant's head, and my earldom is gone after it, and so I am undone, like salt in water." And truly Sancho's waking dream was worse than his master's when asleep. The innkeeper was almost mad to see the foolish squire harp so on the same string with his frantic master, and swore they should not come off now as before; that their chivalry should be no satisfaction for his wine, but that they should pay him sauce for the damage, and for the very leathern patches which the wounded wine skins would want.

Don Quixote, in the meanwhile, believing he had finished his adventure, and mistaking the curate, that held him by the arms, for the Princess Micomicona, fell on his knees before him, and with a respect due to a royal presence, "Now may your highness," said he, "great and illustrious princess, live secure, free from any further apprehensions from your conquered enemy; and now I am acquitted of my engagement, since, by the assistance of Heaven and the influence of her favor by whom I live and conquer, your adventure is so happily achieved."--"Did not I tell you so, gentlefolks?" said Sancho; "who is drunk or mad now? See if my master has not already put the giant in pickle? Here are the bulls, and I am an earl." The whole company, except the innkeeper, were like to split at the extravagances of master and man. At last, the barber, Cardenio, and the curate having with much ado got Don Quixote to bed, he presently fell asleep, being heartily tired; and then they left him to comfort Sancho Panza for the loss of the giant's head; but it was no easy matter to appease the innkeeper, who was at his wit's end for the unexpected and sudden fate of his wine skins.

DON QUIXOTE MEETS THE LIONS

_By Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra_

The history relates, that Sancho was chaffering with the shepherds for some curds, when Don Quixote called to him to bring his helmet; and finding that his master was in haste, he did not know what to do with them, nor what to bring them in; yet loth to lose his purchase (for he had already paid for them), he bethought himself at last of clapping them into the helmet, where having them safe, he went to know his master's pleasure. As soon as he came up to him, "Give me that helmet, friend," said the knight, "for if I understand anything of adventures, I descry one yonder that obliges me to arm."

The gentleman in green, hearing this, looked about to see what was the matter, but could perceive nothing but a wagon, which made towards them; and by the little flags about it, he judged it to be one of his majesty's treasure vans, and so he told Don Quixote. But his head was too much possessed with notions of adventures to give any credit to what the gentleman said. "Sir," answered he, "forewarned, forearmed; a man loses nothing by standing on his guard. I know by experience that I have enemies visible and invisible, and I cannot tell when nor where nor in what shape they may attack me." At the same time he snatched the helmet out of Sancho's hands, before he could discharge it of the curds, and clapped it on his head, without examining the contents. The curds being thus squeezed, the whey began to run all about his face and beard; which so frighted him that, calling to Sancho, "What's this," cried he, "Sancho? What's the matter with me? Sure my skull is growing soft, or my brains are melting, or else I sweat from head to foot! But if I do, I am sure it is not for fear. This certainly must be a dreadful adventure that is approaching. Give me something to wipe me, if thou canst, for I am almost blinded with the torrent of sweat."

Sancho did not say a word, but giving him a cloth, thanked Heaven that his master had not found him out. Don Quixote dried himself, and taking off the helmet to see what it should be that felt so cold on his head, perceiving some white morsels, and putting it to his nose, soon found what it was. "Now, by the life of my lady Dulcinea del Toboso," cried he, "thou hast put curds in my helmet, vile traitor and unmannerly squire!"--replied Sancho cunningly, and keeping his countenance, "if they be curds, good your worship, give them me hither, and I will eat them. But hold, now I think on it, the devil eat them for me; for he himself must have put them there. What! I dare offer to defile your helmet! you must know who dared to do it! As sure as I am alive, sir, I have got my enchanters too, that owe me a grudge, and plague me as a limb of your worship; and I warrant have put that nasty stuff there on purpose to set you against me, and make you fall foul on my bones. But I hope they have missed their aim this time, i' troth! My master is a wise man, and must needs know that I had neither curds nor milk, nor anything of that kind; and if I had met with curds, I should sooner have put them in my belly than in the helmet."--"Well," said Don Quixote, "there may be something in that."