The canon took his hand, tied together as they both were, and on hisword and promise they unbound him, and rejoiced beyond measure hewas to find himself out of the cage. The first thing he did was tostretch himself all over, and then he went to where Rocinante wasstanding and giving him a couple of slaps on the haunches said, "Istill trust in God and in his blessed mother, O flower and mirror ofsteeds, that we shall soon see ourselves, both of us, as we wish tobe, thou with thy master on thy back, and I mounted upon thee,following the calling for which God sent me into the world." And sosaying, accompanied by Sancho, he withdrew to a retired spot, fromwhich he came back much relieved and more eager than ever to put hissquire's scheme into execution.
The canon gazed at him, wondering at the extraordinary nature of hismadness, and that in all his remarks and replies he should show suchexcellent sense, and only lose his stirrups, as has been already said,when the subject of chivalry was broached. And so, moved bycompassion, he said to him, as they all sat on the green grassawaiting the arrival of the provisions:
"Is it possible, gentle sir, that the nauseous and idle reading ofbooks of chivalry can have had such an effect on your worship as toupset your reason so that you fancy yourself enchanted, and thelike, all as far from the truth as falsehood itself is? How canthere be any human understanding that can persuade itself there everwas all that infinity of Amadises in the world, or all thatmultitude of famous knights, all those emperors of Trebizond, allthose Felixmartes of Hircania, all those palfreys, and damsels-errant,and serpents, and monsters, and giants, and marvellous adventures, andenchantments of every kind, and battles, and prodigious encounters,splendid costumes, love-sick princesses, squires made counts, drolldwarfs, love letters, billings and cooings, swashbuckler women, and,in a word, all that nonsense the books of chivalry contain? Formyself, I can only say that when I read them, so long as I do not stopto think that they are all lies and frivolity, they give me acertain amount of pleasure; but when I come to consider what they are,I fling the very best of them at the wall, and would fling it into thefire if there were one at hand, as richly deserving such punishment ascheats and impostors out of the range of ordinary toleration, and asfounders of new sects and modes of life, and teachers that lead theignorant public to believe and accept as truth all the folly theycontain. And such is their audacity, they even dare to unsettle thewits of gentlemen of birth and intelligence, as is shown plainly bythe way they have served your worship, when they have brought you tosuch a pass that you have to be shut up in a cage and carried on anox-cart as one would carry a lion or a tiger from place to place tomake money by showing it. Come, Senor Don Quixote, have somecompassion for yourself, return to the bosom of common sense, and makeuse of the liberal share of it that heaven has been pleased tobestow upon you, employing your abundant gifts of mind in some otherreading that may serve to benefit your conscience and add to yourhonour. And if, still led away by your natural bent, you desire toread books of achievements and of chivalry, read the Book of Judges inthe Holy Scriptures, for there you will find grand reality, anddeeds as true as they are heroic. Lusitania had a Viriatus, Rome aCaesar, Carthage a Hannibal, Greece an Alexander, Castile a CountFernan Gonzalez, Valencia a Cid, Andalusia a Gonzalo Fernandez,Estremadura a Diego Garcia de Paredes, Jerez a Garci Perez deVargas, Toledo a Garcilaso, Seville a Don Manuel de Leon, to read ofwhose valiant deeds will entertain and instruct the loftiest minds andfill them with delight and wonder. Here, Senor Don Quixote, will bereading worthy of your sound understanding; from which you will riselearned in history, in love with virtue, strengthened in goodness,improved in manners, brave without rashness, prudent withoutcowardice; and all to the honour of God, your own advantage and theglory of La Mancha, whence, I am informed, your worship derives yourbirth."
Don Quixote listened with the greatest attention to the canon'swords, and when he found he had finished, after regarding him for sometime, he replied to him:
"It appears to me, gentle sir, that your worship's discourse isintended to persuade me that there never were any knights-errant inthe world, and that all the books of chivalry are false, lying,mischievous and useless to the State, and that I have done wrong inreading them, and worse in believing them, and still worse inimitating them, when I undertook to follow the arduous calling ofknight-errantry which they set forth; for you deny that there everwere Amadises of Gaul or of Greece, or any other of the knights ofwhom the books are full."
"It is all exactly as you state it," said the canon; to which DonQuixote returned, "You also went on to say that books of this kind haddone me much harm, inasmuch as they had upset my senses, and shut meup in a cage, and that it would be better for me to reform andchange my studies, and read other truer books which would affordmore pleasure and instruction."
"Just so," said the canon.
"Well then," returned Don Quixote, "to my mind it is you who are theone that is out of his wits and enchanted, as you have ventured toutter such blasphemies against a thing so universally acknowledged andaccepted as true that whoever denies it, as you do, deserves thesame punishment which you say you inflict on the books that irritateyou when you read them. For to try to persuade anybody that Amadis,and all the other knights-adventurers with whom the books arefilled, never existed, would be like trying to persuade him that thesun does not yield light, or ice cold, or earth nourishment. Whatwit in the world can persuade another that the story of the PrincessFloripes and Guy of Burgundy is not true, or that of Fierabras and thebridge of Mantible, which happened in the time of Charlemagne? Forby all that is good it is as true as that it is daylight now; and ifit be a lie, it must be a lie too that there was a Hector, orAchilles, or Trojan war, or Twelve Peers of France, or Arthur ofEngland, who still lives changed into a raven, and is unceasinglylooked for in his kingdom. One might just as well try to make out thatthe history of Guarino Mezquino, or of the quest of the Holy Grail, isfalse, or that the loves of Tristram and the Queen Yseult areapocryphal, as well as those of Guinevere and Lancelot, when there arepersons who can almost remember having seen the Dame Quintanona, whowas the best cupbearer in Great Britain. And so true is this, that Irecollect a grandmother of mine on the father's side, whenever she sawany dame in a venerable hood, used to say to me, 'Grandson, that oneis like Dame Quintanona,' from which I conclude that she must haveknown her, or at least had managed to see some portrait of her. Thenwho can deny that the story of Pierres and the fair Magalona istrue, when even to this day may be seen in the king's armoury thepin with which the valiant Pierres guided the wooden horse he rodethrough the air, and it is a trifle bigger than the pole of a cart?And alongside of the pin is Babieca's saddle, and at Roncesvallesthere is Roland's horn, as large as a large beam; whence we mayinfer that there were Twelve Peers, and a Pierres, and a Cid, andother knights like them, of the sort people commonly call adventurers.Or perhaps I shall be told, too, that there was no suchknight-errant as the valiant Lusitanian Juan de Merlo, who went toBurgundy and in the city of Arras fought with the famous lord ofCharny, Mosen Pierres by name, and afterwards in the city of Baslewith Mosen Enrique de Remesten, coming out of both encounterscovered with fame and honour; or adventures and challenges achievedand delivered, also in Burgundy, by the valiant Spaniards PedroBarba and Gutierre Quixada （of whose family I come in the directmale line）， when they vanquished the sons of the Count of San Polo.I shall be told, too, that Don Fernando de Guevara did not go in questof adventures to Germany, where he engaged in combat with MicerGeorge, a knight of the house of the Duke of Austria. I shall betold that the jousts of Suero de Quinones, him of the 'Paso,' andthe emprise of Mosen Luis de Falces against the Castilian knight,Don Gonzalo de Guzman, were mere mockeries; as well as many otherachievements of Christian knights of these and foreign realms, whichare so authentic and true, that, I repeat, he who denies them mustbe totally wanting in reason and good sense."
The canon was amazed to hear the medley of truth and fiction DonQuixote uttered, and to see how well acquainted he was with everythingrelating or belonging to the achievements of his knight-errantry; sohe said in reply:
"I cannot deny, Senor Don Quixote, that there is some truth inwhat you say, especially as regards the Spanish knights-errant; andI am willing to grant too that the Twelve Peers of France existed, butI am not disposed to believe that they did all the things that theArchbishop Turpin relates of them. For the truth of the matter is theywere knights chosen by the kings of France, and called 'Peers' becausethey were all equal in worth, rank and prowess （at least if theywere not they ought to have been）， and it was a kind of religiousorder like those of Santiago and Calatrava in the present day, inwhich it is assumed that those who take it are valiant knights ofdistinction and good birth; and just as we say now a Knight of St.John, or of Alcantara, they used to say then a Knight of the TwelvePeers, because twelve equals were chosen for that military order. Thatthere was a Cid, as well as a Bernardo del Carpio, there can be nodoubt; but that they did the deeds people say they did, I hold to bevery doubtful. In that other matter of the pin of Count Pierres thatyou speak of, and say is near Babieca's saddle in the Armoury, Iconfess my sin; for I am either so stupid or so short-sighted, that,though I have seen the saddle, I have never been able to see thepin, in spite of it being as big as your worship says it is."