Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (93 page)

“What greater madness can there be than putting on a helmet full of curds and believing that enchanters had softened one’s head? And what greater temerity and foolishness than to attempt to do battle with lions?”

Don Quixote drew him away from these thoughts and this soliloquy by saying:

“Who can doubt, Señor Don Diego de Miranda, that in the opinion
of your grace I am a foolish and witless man? And it would not be surprising if you did, because my actions do not attest to anything else. Even so, I would like your grace to observe that I am not as mad or as foolish as I must have seemed to you. A gallant knight is pleasing in the eyes of his king when, in the middle of a great plaza, he successfully thrusts his lance into a fierce bull; a knight is pleasing when, dressed in shining armor, he enters the field and contends in lively jousts before the ladies; and all those knights who engage in military exercises, or seem to, entertain and enliven and, if one may say so, honor the courts of their princes; but above and beyond all these, the best seems to be the knight errant, who travels wastelands and desolate places, crossroads and forests and mountains, seeking dangerous adventures and attempting to bring them to a happy and fortunate conclusion, his sole purpose being to achieve glorious and lasting fame. The knight errant who helps a widow in some deserted spot, seems better, I say, than a courtier knight flattering a damsel in the city. All knights have their own endeavors: let the courtier serve the ladies, and lend majesty to the court of his king with livery; let him sustain poor knights with the splendors of his table, arrange jousts, support tourneys, and show himself to be great, liberal, magnanimous, and, above all, a good Christian, and in this manner he will meet his precise obligations. But let the knight errant search all the corners of the world; let him enter into the most intricate labyrinths; attempt the impossible at each step he takes; resist in empty wastelands the burning rays of the sun in summer, and in winter the harsh rigors of freezing winds; let him not be dismayed by lions, or frightened by monsters, or terrified by dragons; searching for these and attacking those and vanquishing them all are his principal and true endeavors.

I, then, since it is my fortune to be counted in the number of knights errant, cannot help but attack all things that seem to me to fall within the jurisdiction of my endeavors; and so, it was my rightful place to attack the lions which I now attacked, although I knew it was exceedingly reckless, because I know very well what valor means; it is a virtue that occupies a place between two wicked extremes, which are cowardice and temerity, but it is better for the valiant man to touch on and climb to the heights of temerity than to touch on and fall to the depths of cowardice; and just as it is easier for the prodigal to be generous than the miser, it is easier for the reckless man to become truly brave than for the coward; and in the matter of undertaking adventures, your grace may believe me, Señor Don Diego, it is better to lose with too many cards than too few,
because ‘This knight is reckless and daring’ sounds better to the ear of those who hear it than ‘This knight is timid and cowardly.’”

“Señor Don Quixote,” responded Don Diego, “I say that everything your grace has said and done has been balanced on the scale of reason itself, and I understand that if the code and laws of knight errantry were ever lost, they would be found again in your grace’s heart as if they were in their own repository and archive. And now let us hurry, for it is getting late; when we reach my village and house, your grace can rest from your recent labors, if not of the body then of the spirit, which can often lead to the body’s fatigue.”

“I consider your offer a great kindness and favor, Señor Don Diego,” responded Don Quixote.

And spurring their mounts more than they had up until then, at about two o’clock they reached the village and house of Don Diego, whom Don Quixote called
The Knight of the Green Coat.

CHAPTER XVIII

Don Quixote found Don Diego de Miranda’s house to be spacious in the rustic manner; his coat of arms, though of rough stone, was above the street door, the storeroom in the courtyard, the wine cellar, the entrance hall, and on many large earthenware jars, which, because they were from Toboso, revived in Don Quixote memories of his enchanted and transformed Dulcinea; and heaving a sigh, and not caring what he said or whom he was with, he said:

O Tobosan vessels, which have brought to mind the sweetest treasure of my deepest grief!”

He was heard to say this by the student poet, Don Diego’s son, who had come out with his mother to receive him, and both mother and son marveled to see the strange figure of Don Quixote, who, dismounting Rocinante, very courteously went up to her and asked to kiss her hands, and Don Diego said:

“Señora, welcome with your customary amiability Señor Don Quixote of La Mancha, whom you have here before you, the most valiant and intelligent knight errant in the world.”

The lady, whose name was Doña Cristina, received him with signs of great affection and courtesy, and Don Quixote responded with a number of judicious and courteous phrases. He used almost the same phrases with the student, who, when he heard Don Quixote speak, thought him a man of intelligence and wit.

Here the author depicts all the details of Don Diego’s house, portraying for us what the house of a wealthy gentleman farmer contains, but the translator of this history decided to pass over these and other similar minutiae in silence, because they did not accord with the principal purpose of the history, whose strength lies more in its truth than in cold digressions.

They led Don Quixote to a chamber, where Sancho removed his armor, leaving him in pantaloons and a chamois doublet that was stained with the grime of his armor; his collar was wide and soft like a student’s, without starch or lace trimming; his tights were date colored and his shoes waxed. He girded on his trusty sword, which hung from a swordbelt made of sealskin, for it is believed that for many years he suffered from a kidney ailment; over this he wore a short cape of good dark cloth; but first of all, with five pots, or perhaps six pots of water, there being some difference of opinion regarding the number, he washed his head and face, and still the water was the color of whey, thanks to Sancho’s gluttony and his purchase of the blackhearted curds that turned his master so white. With these adornments, and genteel grace and gallantry, Don Quixote went to another room, where the student was waiting to entertain him while the tables were being laid, for with the arrival of so noble a guest, Señora Doña Cristina wished to show that she knew how and was able to lavish attention on those who visited her house.

While Don Quixote was removing his armor, Don Lorenzo, which was the name of Don Diego’s son, had the opportunity to say to his father:

“Señor, who can this knight be whom you have brought to our house?
His name and appearance, and his saying that he is a knight errant, have baffled my mother and me.”

“Son, I don’t know what to tell you,” responded Don Diego. “I can say only that I have seen him do things worthy of the greatest madman in the world, and heard him say things so intelligent that they wipe out and undo his mad acts: speak to him, and explore what he knows, and since you are clever, you’ll make a reasonable judgment regarding his cleverness or foolishness, though to tell you the truth, I think he’s more mad than sane.”

Then Don Lorenzo went in to entertain Don Quixote, as has been said, and among other exchanges that passed between them, Don Quixote said to Don Lorenzo:

“Your grace’s father, Señor Don Diego de Miranda, has informed me of the rare ability and subtle ingenuity which your grace possesses, and, in particular, that your grace is a great poet.”

“A poet, perhaps,” responded Don Lorenzo, “but by no means great. The truth is, I have a predilection for poetry and for reading good poets, but that does not justify calling me great, as my father has done.”

“This humility does not seem a bad thing to me,” responded Don Quixote, “because there is no poet who is not arrogant and does not think himself the greatest poet in the world.”

“Every rule has its exception,” responded Don Lorenzo, “and there must be some who are great and do not think so.”

“Very few,” responded Don Quixote. “But tell me, your grace, what verses are you at work on now? Your father has told me that they have made you somewhat restive and thoughtful. If it is a gloss, I know something about the subject and would like very much to hear it; if the verses are for a literary competition, your grace should try to win second place; first is always won through favor or because of the high estate of the person, second is won because of pure justice, and by this calculation third becomes second, and first becomes third, in the manner of the degrees offered by universities; but, even so, being called
first
carries with it great celebrity.”

“So far,” said Don Lorenzo to himself, “I can’t call you crazy; let’s move on.”

And to Don Quixote he said:

“It seems to me that your grace has spent time in school: what sciences have you studied?”

“The science of knight errantry,” responded Don Quixote, “which is as good as poetry, and perhaps even a little better.”

“I don’t know that science,” replied Don Lorenzo. “I haven’t heard of it until now.”

“It is a science,” replied Don Quixote, “that contains all or most of the sciences in the world, because the man who professes it must be a jurist and know the laws of distributive and commutative justice so that he may give to each person what is his and what he ought to have; he must be a theologian so that he may know how to explain the Christian law he professes, clearly and distinctly, no matter where he is asked to do so; he must be a physician, and principally an herbalist, so that he may know, in the midst of wastelands and deserts, the herbs that have the virtue to heal wounds, for the knight errant cannot always go looking for someone to heal him; he must be an astrologer, so that he can tell by the stars how many hours of the night have passed, and in what part and climate of the world he finds himself; he must know mathematics, because at every step he will have need of them; and leaving aside the fact that he must be adorned with all the theological and cardinal virtues, and descending to the small details, I say that he must know how to swim as well as they say the fishman Nicolás, or Nicolao,
²
could swim; he must know how to shoe a horse and repair a saddle and bridle; and returning to what was said before, he must keep his faith in God and in his lady; he must be chaste in his thoughts, honest in his words, liberal in his actions, valiant in his deeds, long-suffering in his afflictions, charitable with those in need, and, finally, an upholder of the truth, even if it costs him his life to defend it. Of all these great and trivial parts a good knight errant is composed, and so your grace may judge, Señor Don Lorenzo, if the science learned by the knight who studies and professes it is a shallow one, and if it can be compared to the noblest that are taught in colleges and schools.”

“If this is true,” replied Don Lorenzo, “I say that this science surpasses all of them.”

“What do you mean, if this is true?” responded Don Quixote.

“What I mean to say,” said Don Lorenzo, “is that I doubt there have ever been knights errant, or that there are any now, who are adorned with so many virtues.”

“I have often said what I repeat now,” responded Don Quixote.
“Most of the people in the world are of the opinion that there never have been knights errant, and it seems to me that if heaven does not miraculously reveal to them the truth that they did exist and do exist now, any effort I make must be in vain, as experience has so often shown me, and so I do not wish to take the time now to free your grace from the error you share with many others; what I intend to do is pray that heaven frees you from it, and allows you to understand how beneficial and necessary knights errant were to the world in the past, and how advantageous they could be in the present if they were still in use, but what triumphs now, because of people’s sins, are sloth, idleness, gluttony, and self-indulgence.”

“Our guest has gotten away from us,” said Don Lorenzo to himself, “but even so, he is a gallant madman, and I would be a weak-minded fool if I didn’t think so.”

Here their conversation came to an end because they were called to the table. Don Diego asked his son what he had deduced regarding their guest’s wits, to which he responded:

“Not all the physicians and notaries in the world could make a final accounting of his madness: he is a combination madman who has many lucid intervals.”

They went in to eat, and the meal was just the kind that Don Diego had declared on the road that he usually provided for his guests: pure, abundant, and delicious; but what pleased Don Quixote the most was the marvelous silence that reigned throughout the house, which seemed like a Carthusian monastery. And so when the tablecloths had been removed, and thanks given to God, and water poured over hands, Don Quixote most earnestly asked Don Lorenzo to recite his verses for the literary competition, to which he responded that in order not to seem like one of those poets who refuse when they are asked to recite their verses and spew them forth when they aren’t asked…

“…I’ll recite my gloss, for which I don’t expect any prize at all; I’ve written it only to exercise my wits.”

“A wise friend of mine,” responded Don Quixote, “was of the opinion that nobody ought to tire of glossing verses, and the reason, he said, was that the gloss never could approach the text, and that many or most times the gloss strayed from the intention and purpose of what the text proposed; moreover, the laws of the gloss were too strict, for they did not allow questions, or
he said
or
I shall say,
or the making of verbs into nouns, or changing the significance, along with other restrictions and
regulations that set limits for those who write glosses, as your grace must know.”