"It seems to me," said Sancho, "that your worship is like the commonsaying, 'Said the frying-pan to the kettle, Get away, blackbreech.'You chide me for uttering proverbs, and you string them in couplesyourself."
"Observe, Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "I bring in proverbs tothe purpose, and when I quote them they fit like a ring to the finger;thou bringest them in by the head and shoulders, in such a way thatthou dost drag them in, rather than introduce them; if I am notmistaken, I have told thee already that proverbs are short maximsdrawn from the experience and observation of our wise men of old;but the proverb that is not to the purpose is a piece of nonsenseand not a maxim. But enough of this; as nightfall is drawing on let usretire some little distance from the high road to pass the night; whatis in store for us to-morrow God knoweth."
They turned aside, and supped late and poorly, very much againstSancho's will, who turned over in his mind the hardships attendantupon knight-errantry in woods and forests, even though at times plentypresented itself in castles and houses, as at Don Diego deMiranda's, at the wedding of Camacho the Rich, and at Don AntonioMoreno's; he reflected, however, that it could not be always day,nor always night; and so that night he passed in sleeping, and hismaster in waking.CHAPTER LXVIII
OF THE BRISTLY ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE
THE night was somewhat dark, for though there was a moon in thesky it was not in a quarter where she could be seen; for sometimes thelady Diana goes on a stroll to the antipodes, and leaves the mountainsall black and the valleys in darkness. Don Quixote obeyed nature sofar as to sleep his first sleep, but did not give way to the second,very different from Sancho, who never had any second, because with himsleep lasted from night till morning, wherein he showed what a soundconstitution and few cares he had. Don Quixote's cares kept himrestless, so much so that he awoke Sancho and said to him, "I amamazed, Sancho, at the unconcern of thy temperament. I believe thouart made of marble or hard brass, incapable of any emotion orfeeling whatever. I lie awake while thou sleepest, I weep while thousingest, I am faint with fasting while thou art sluggish and torpidfrom pure repletion. It is the duty of good servants to share thesufferings and feel the sorrows of their masters, if it be only forthe sake of appearances. See the calmness of the night, the solitudeof the spot, inviting us to break our slumbers by a vigil of somesort. Rise as thou livest, and retire a little distance, and with agood heart and cheerful courage give thyself three or four hundredlashes on account of Dulcinea's disenchantment score; and this Ientreat of thee, making it a request, for I have no desire to cometo grips with thee a second time, as I know thou hast a heavy hand. Assoon as thou hast laid them on we will pass the rest of the night, Isinging my separation, thou thy constancy, making a beginning atonce with the pastoral life we are to follow at our village."
"Senor," replied Sancho, "I'm no monk to get up out of the middle ofmy sleep and scourge myself, nor does it seem to me that one canpass from one extreme of the pain of whipping to the other of music.Will your worship let me sleep, and not worry me about whippingmyself? or you'll make me swear never to touch a hair of my doublet,not to say my flesh."
"O hard heart!" said Don Quixote, "O pitiless squire! O breadill-bestowed and favours ill-acknowledged, both those I have done theeand those I mean to do thee! Through me hast thou seen thyself agovernor, and through me thou seest thyself in immediate expectationof being a count, or obtaining some other equivalent title, for I-post tenebras spero lucem."
"I don't know what that is," said Sancho; "all I know is that solong as I am asleep I have neither fear nor hope, trouble nor glory;and good luck betide him that invented sleep, the cloak that coversover all a man's thoughts, the food that removes hunger, the drinkthat drives away thirst, the fire that warms the cold, the cold thattempers the heat, and, to wind up with, the universal coin wherewitheverything is bought, the weight and balance that makes the shepherdequal with the king and the fool with the wise man. Sleep, I haveheard say, has only one fault, that it is like death; for between asleeping man and a dead man there is very little difference."
"Never have I heard thee speak so elegantly as now, Sancho," saidDon Quixote; "and here I begin to see the truth of the proverb thoudost sometimes quote, 'Not with whom thou art bred, but with whom thouart fed.'"
"Ha, by my life, master mine," said Sancho, "it's not I that amstringing proverbs now, for they drop in pairs from your worship'smouth faster than from mine; only there is this difference betweenmine and yours, that yours are well-timed and mine are untimely; butanyhow, they are all proverbs."
At this point they became aware of a harsh indistinct noise thatseemed to spread through all the valleys around. Don Quixote stoodup and laid his hand upon his sword, and Sancho ensconced himselfunder Dapple and put the bundle of armour on one side of him and theass's pack-saddle on the other, in fear and trembling as great asDon Quixote's perturbation. Each instant the noise increased andcame nearer to the two terrified men, or at least to one, for as tothe other, his courage is known to all. The fact of the matter wasthat some men were taking above six hundred pigs to sell at a fair,and were on their way with them at that hour, and so great was thenoise they made and their grunting and blowing, that they deafened theears of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and they could not make out whatit was. The wide-spread grunting drove came on in a surging mass,and without showing any respect for Don Quixote's dignity or Sancho's,passed right over the pair of them, demolishing Sancho'sentrenchments, and not only upsetting Don Quixote but sweepingRocinante off his feet into the bargain; and what with the tramplingand the grunting, and the pace at which the unclean beasts went,pack-saddle, armour, Dapple and Rocinante were left scattered on theground and Sancho and Don Quixote at their wits' end.
Sancho got up as well as he could and begged his master to givehim his sword, saying he wanted to kill half a dozen of those dirtyunmannerly pigs, for he had by this time found out that that waswhat they were.
"Let them be, my friend," said Don Quixote; "this insult is thepenalty of my sin; and it is the righteous chastisement of heaven thatjackals should devour a vanquished knight, and wasps sting him andpigs trample him under foot."
"I suppose it is the chastisement of heaven, too," said Sancho,"that flies should prick the squires of vanquished knights, and liceeat them, and hunger assail them. If we squires were the sons of theknights we serve, or their very near relations, it would be nowonder if the penalty of their misdeeds overtook us, even to thefourth generation. But what have the Panzas to do with the Quixotes?Well, well, let's lie down again and sleep out what little of thenight there's left, and God will send us dawn and we shall be allright."
"Sleep thou, Sancho," returned Don Quixote, "for thou wast born tosleep as I was born to watch; and during the time it now wants of dawnI will give a loose rein to my thoughts, and seek a vent for them in alittle madrigal which, unknown to thee, I composed in my head lastnight."
"I should think," said Sancho, "that the thoughts that allow oneto make verses cannot be of great consequence; let your worship stringverses as much as you like and I'll sleep as much as I can;" andforthwith, taking the space of ground he required, he muffledhimself up and fell into a sound sleep, undisturbed by bond, debt,or trouble of any sort. Don Quixote, propped up against the trunk of abeech or a cork tree- for Cide Hamete does not specify what kind oftree it was- sang in this strain to the accompaniment of his ownsighs:
When in my mind
I muse, O Love, upon thy cruelty,
To death I flee,
In hope therein the end of all to find.
But drawing near
That welcome haven in my sea of woe,
Such joy I know,
That life revives, and still I linger here.
Thus life doth slay,
And death again to life restoreth me;
Strange destiny,
That deals with life and death as with a play!
He accompanied each verse with many sighs and not a few tears,just like one whose heart was pierced with grief at his defeat and hisseparation from Dulcinea.
And now daylight came, and the sun smote Sancho on the eyes with hisbeams. He awoke, roused himself up, shook himself and stretched hislazy limbs, and seeing the havoc the pigs had made with his storeshe cursed the drove, and more besides. Then the pair resumed theirjourney, and as evening closed in they saw coming towards them someten men on horseback and four or five on foot. Don Quixote's heartbeat quick and Sancho's quailed with fear, for the persons approachingthem carried lances and bucklers, and were in very warlike guise.Don Quixote turned to Sancho and said, "If I could make use of myweapons, and my promise had not tied my hands, I would count this hostthat comes against us but cakes and fancy bread; but perhaps it mayprove something different from what we apprehend." The men onhorseback now came up, and raising their lances surrounded Don Quixotein silence, and pointed them at his back and breast, menacing him withdeath. One of those on foot, putting his finger to his lips as asign to him to be silent, seized Rocinante's bridle and drew him outof the road, and the others driving Sancho and Dapple before them, andall maintaining a strange silence, followed in the steps of the onewho led Don Quixote. The latter two or three times attempted to askwhere they were taking him to and what they wanted, but the instant hebegan to open his lips they threatened to close them with the pointsof their lances; and Sancho fared the same way, for the moment heseemed about to speak one of those on foot punched him with a goad,and Dapple likewise, as if he too wanted to talk. Night set in, theyquickened their pace, and the fears of the two prisoners grew greater,especially as they heard themselves assailed with- "Get on, yeTroglodytes;" "Silence, ye barbarians;" "March, ye cannibals;" "Nomurmuring, ye Scythians;" "Don't open your eyes, ye murderousPolyphemes, ye blood-thirsty lions," and suchlike names with whichtheir captors harassed the ears of the wretched master and man. Sanchowent along saying to himself, "We, tortolites, barbers, animals! Idon't like those names at all; 'it's in a bad wind our corn is beingwinnowed;' 'misfortune comes upon us all at once like sticks on adog,' and God grant it may be no worse than them that this unluckyadventure has in store for us."