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Home -> Miguel de Cervantes -> Don Quixote -> Chapter 4

Don Quixote - Chapter 4

1. The Author's Preface

2. Dedication of Volume I

3. Chapter 1

4. Chapter 2

5. Chapter 3

6. Chapter 4

7. Chapter 5

8. Chapter 6

9. Chapter 7

10. Chapter 8

11. Chapter 9

12. Chapter 10

13. Chapter 11

14. Chapter 12

15. Chapter 13

16. Chapter 14

17. Chapter 15

18. Chapter 16

19. Chapter 17

20. Chapter 18

21. Chapter 19

22. Chapter 20

23. Chapter 21

24. Chapter 22

25. Chapter 23

26. Chapter 24

27. Chapter 25

28. Chapter 26

29. Chapter 27

30. Chapter 28

31. Chapter 29

32. Chapter 30

33. Chapter 31

34. Chapter 32

35. Chapter 33

36. Chapter 34

37. Chapter 35

38. Chapter 36

39. Chapter 37

40. Chapter 38

41. Chapter 39

42. Chapter 40

43. Chapter 41

44. Chapter 42

45. Chapter 43

46. Chapter 44

47. Chapter 45

48. Chapter 46

49. Chapter 47

50. Chapter 48

51. Chapter 49

52. Chapter 50

53. Chapter 51

54. Chapter 52

55. Dedication of Volume II

56. The Author's Preface

57. Chapter 1

58. Chapter 2

59. Chapter 3

60. Chapter 4

61. Chapter 5

62. Chapter 6

63. Chapter 7

64. Chapter 8

65. Chapter 9

66. Chapter 10

67. Chapter 11

68. Chapter 12

69. Chapter 13

70. Chapter 14

71. Chapter 15

72. Chapter 16

73. Chapter 17

74. Chapter 18

75. Chapter 19

76. Chapter 20

77. Chapter 21

78. Chapter 22

79. Chapter 23

80. Chapter 24

81. Chapter 25

82. Chapter 26

83. Chapter 27

84. Chapter 28

85. Chapter 29

86. Chapter 30

87. Chapter 31

88. Chapter 32

89. Chapter 33

90. Chapter 34

91. Chapter 35

92. Chapter 36

93. Chapter 37

94. Chapter 38

95. Chapter 39

96. Chapter 40

97. Chapter 41

98. Chapter 42

99. Chapter 43

100. Chapter 44

101. Chapter 45

102. Chapter 46

103. Chapter 47

104. Chapter 48

105. Chapter 49

106. Chapter 50

107. Chapter 51

108. Chapter 52

109. Chapter 53

110. Chapter 54

111. Chapter 55

112. Chapter 56

113. Chapter 57

114. Chapter 58

115. Chapter 59

116. Chapter 60

117. Chapter 61

118. Chapter 62

119. Chapter 63

120. Chapter 64

121. Chapter 65

122. Chapter 66

123. Chapter 67

124. Chapter 68

125. Chapter 69

126. Chapter 70

127. Chapter 71

128. Chapter 72

129. Chapter 73

130. Chapter 74







CHAPTER IV.

IN WHICH SANCHO PANZA GIVES A SATISFACTORY REPLY TO THE DOUBTS AND
QUESTIONS OF THE BACHELOR SAMSON CARRASCO, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MATTERS
WORTH KNOWING AND TELLING


Sancho came back to Don Quixote's house, and returning to the late
subject of conversation, he said, "As to what Senor Samson said, that he
would like to know by whom, or how, or when my ass was stolen, I say in
reply that the same night we went into the Sierra Morena, flying from the
Holy Brotherhood after that unlucky adventure of the galley slaves, and
the other of the corpse that was going to Segovia, my master and I
ensconced ourselves in a thicket, and there, my master leaning on his
lance, and I seated on my Dapple, battered and weary with the late frays
we fell asleep as if it had been on four feather mattresses; and I in
particular slept so sound, that, whoever he was, he was able to come and
prop me up on four stakes, which he put under the four corners of the
pack-saddle in such a way that he left me mounted on it, and took away
Dapple from under me without my feeling it."

"That is an easy matter," said Don Quixote, "and it is no new occurrence,
for the same thing happened to Sacripante at the siege of Albracca; the
famous thief, Brunello, by the same contrivance, took his horse from
between his legs."

"Day came," continued Sancho, "and the moment I stirred the stakes gave
way and I fell to the ground with a mighty come down; I looked about for
the ass, but could not see him; the tears rushed to my eyes and I raised
such a lamentation that, if the author of our history has not put it in,
he may depend upon it he has left out a good thing. Some days after, I
know not how many, travelling with her ladyship the Princess Micomicona,
I saw my ass, and mounted upon him, in the dress of a gipsy, was that
Gines de Pasamonte, the great rogue and rascal that my master and I freed
from the chain."

"That is not where the mistake is," replied Samson; "it is, that before
the ass has turned up, the author speaks of Sancho as being mounted on
it."

"I don't know what to say to that," said Sancho, "unless that the
historian made a mistake, or perhaps it might be a blunder of the
printer's."

"No doubt that's it," said Samson; "but what became of the hundred
crowns? Did they vanish?"

To which Sancho answered, "I spent them for my own good, and my wife's,
and my children's, and it is they that have made my wife bear so
patiently all my wanderings on highways and byways, in the service of my
master, Don Quixote; for if after all this time I had come back to the
house without a rap and without the ass, it would have been a poor
look-out for me; and if anyone wants to know anything more about me, here
I am, ready to answer the king himself in person; and it is no affair of
anyone's whether I took or did not take, whether I spent or did not
spend; for the whacks that were given me in these journeys were to be
paid for in money, even if they were valued at no more than four
maravedis apiece, another hundred crowns would not pay me for half of
them. Let each look to himself and not try to make out white black, and
black white; for each of us is as God made him, aye, and often worse."

"I will take care," said Carrasco, "to impress upon the author of the
history that, if he prints it again, he must not forget what worthy
Sancho has said, for it will raise it a good span higher."

"Is there anything else to correct in the history, senor bachelor?" asked
Don Quixote.

"No doubt there is," replied he; "but not anything that will be of the
same importance as those I have mentioned."

"Does the author promise a second part at all?" said Don Quixote.

"He does promise one," replied Samson; "but he says he has not found it,
nor does he know who has got it; and we cannot say whether it will appear
or not; and so, on that head, as some say that no second part has ever
been good, and others that enough has been already written about Don
Quixote, it is thought there will be no second part; though some, who are
jovial rather than saturnine, say, 'Let us have more Quixotades, let Don
Quixote charge and Sancho chatter, and no matter what it may turn out, we
shall be satisfied with that.'"

"And what does the author mean to do?" said Don Quixote.

"What?" replied Samson; "why, as soon as he has found the history which
he is now searching for with extraordinary diligence, he will at once
give it to the press, moved more by the profit that may accrue to him
from doing so than by any thought of praise."

Whereat Sancho observed, "The author looks for money and profit, does he?
It will be a wonder if he succeeds, for it will be only hurry, hurry,
with him, like the tailor on Easter Eve; and works done in a hurry are
never finished as perfectly as they ought to be. Let master Moor, or
whatever he is, pay attention to what he is doing, and I and my master
will give him as much grouting ready to his hand, in the way of
adventures and accidents of all sorts, as would make up not only one
second part, but a hundred. The good man fancies, no doubt, that we are
fast asleep in the straw here, but let him hold up our feet to be shod
and he will see which foot it is we go lame on. All I say is, that if my
master would take my advice, we would be now afield, redressing outrages
and righting wrongs, as is the use and custom of good knights-errant."

Sancho had hardly uttered these words when the neighing of Rocinante fell
upon their ears, which neighing Don Quixote accepted as a happy omen, and
he resolved to make another sally in three or four days from that time.
Announcing his intention to the bachelor, he asked his advice as to the
quarter in which he ought to commence his expedition, and the bachelor
replied that in his opinion he ought to go to the kingdom of Aragon, and
the city of Saragossa, where there were to be certain solemn joustings at
the festival of St. George, at which he might win renown above all the
knights of Aragon, which would be winning it above all the knights of the
world. He commended his very praiseworthy and gallant resolution, but
admonished him to proceed with greater caution in encountering dangers,
because his life did not belong to him, but to all those who had need of
him to protect and aid them in their misfortunes.

"There's where it is, what I abominate, Senor Samson," said Sancho here;
"my master will attack a hundred armed men as a greedy boy would half a
dozen melons. Body of the world, senor bachelor! there is a time to
attack and a time to retreat, and it is not to be always 'Santiago, and
close Spain!' Moreover, I have heard it said (and I think by my master
himself, if I remember rightly) that the mean of valour lies between the
extremes of cowardice and rashness; and if that be so, I don't want him
to fly without having good reason, or to attack when the odds make it
better not. But, above all things, I warn my master that if he is to take
me with him it must be on the condition that he is to do all the
fighting, and that I am not to be called upon to do anything except what
concerns keeping him clean and comfortable; in this I will dance
attendance on him readily; but to expect me to draw sword, even against
rascally churls of the hatchet and hood, is idle. I don't set up to be a
fighting man, Senor Samson, but only the best and most loyal squire that
ever served knight-errant; and if my master Don Quixote, in consideration
of my many faithful services, is pleased to give me some island of the
many his worship says one may stumble on in these parts, I will take it
as a great favour; and if he does not give it to me, I was born like
everyone else, and a man must not live in dependence on anyone except
God; and what is more, my bread will taste as well, and perhaps even
better, without a government than if I were a governor; and how do I know
but that in these governments the devil may have prepared some trip for
me, to make me lose my footing and fall and knock my grinders out? Sancho
I was born and Sancho I mean to die. But for all that, if heaven were to
make me a fair offer of an island or something else of the kind, without
much trouble and without much risk, I am not such a fool as to refuse it;
for they say, too, 'when they offer thee a heifer, run with a halter; and
'when good luck comes to thee, take it in.'"

"Brother Sancho," said Carrasco, "you have spoken like a professor; but,
for all that, put your trust in God and in Senor Don Quixote, for he will
give you a kingdom, not to say an island."

"It is all the same, be it more or be it less," replied Sancho; "though I
can tell Senor Carrasco that my master would not throw the kingdom he
might give me into a sack all in holes; for I have felt my own pulse and
I find myself sound enough to rule kingdoms and govern islands; and I
have before now told my master as much."

"Take care, Sancho," said Samson; "honours change manners, and perhaps
when you find yourself a governor you won't know the mother that bore
you."

"That may hold good of those that are born in the ditches," said Sancho,
"not of those who have the fat of an old Christian four fingers deep on
their souls, as I have. Nay, only look at my disposition, is that likely
to show ingratitude to anyone?"

"God grant it," said Don Quixote; "we shall see when the government
comes; and I seem to see it already."

He then begged the bachelor, if he were a poet, to do him the favour of
composing some verses for him conveying the farewell he meant to take of
his lady Dulcinea del Toboso, and to see that a letter of her name was
placed at the beginning of each line, so that, at the end of the verses,
"Dulcinea del Toboso" might be read by putting together the first
letters. The bachelor replied that although he was not one of the famous
poets of Spain, who were, they said, only three and a half, he would not
fail to compose the required verses; though he saw a great difficulty in
the task, as the letters which made up the name were seventeen; so, if he
made four ballad stanzas of four lines each, there would be a letter
over, and if he made them of five, what they called decimas or
redondillas, there were three letters short; nevertheless he would try to
drop a letter as well as he could, so that the name "Dulcinea del Toboso"
might be got into four ballad stanzas.

"It must be, by some means or other," said Don Quixote, "for unless the
name stands there plain and manifest, no woman would believe the verses
were made for her."

They agreed upon this, and that the departure should take place in three
days from that time. Don Quixote charged the bachelor to keep it a
secret, especially from the curate and Master Nicholas, and from his
niece and the housekeeper, lest they should prevent the execution of his
praiseworthy and valiant purpose. Carrasco promised all, and then took
his leave, charging Don Quixote to inform him of his good or evil
fortunes whenever he had an opportunity; and thus they bade each other
farewell, and Sancho went away to make the necessary preparations for
their expedition.




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