The Gentleman of La Mancha (Part One, Prologue and Chapters 1–5)

Prologue

Idle reader: you may believe me without any oath that I would have wished this book, as the child of my brain, to be the handsomest, the gayest and the cleverest that could be imagined. But I could not go against the order of nature, by which each thing begets its like; and what could my barren, ill-cultivated wit beget but the story of a dry, shrivelled, whimsical son, full of thoughts never imagined by anyone else — as one might expect of a book begotten in a prison? I wanted to give it to you plain and bare, without the ornament of a prologue, or the endless catalogue of sonnets and epigrams and learned notes that are usually put at the beginning of books. A friend of mine, seeing me perplexed, laughed, and told me to invent the sonnets myself and father them on whom I pleased, and to fill the margins with Latin I knew by heart; for this book of mine has but one aim — to destroy the authority and the vogue that books of chivalry have in the world. I took his advice; and so I give you, without more ado, the history of the famous Don Quixote de la Mancha, and of his squire, Sancho Panza, in whom I think I give you all the squirely graces scattered through the swarm of empty books of chivalry. And so, God give you health — and not forget me. Vale.

Chapter 1. Which treats of the character and pursuits of the famous gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha

In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. He had in his house a housekeeper past forty, a niece under twenty, and a lad for the field and the market-place. Our gentleman was bordering on fifty; he was of a hardy habit, spare, gaunt-featured, a very early riser and a great sportsman. They will have it his surname was Quixada or Quesada; though by reasonable conjecture it seems plain that he was called Quexana. But this matters little to our tale; it will be enough not to stray a hair's breadth from the truth in the telling of it.

You must know, then, that in his leisure hours — which were most of the year — this gentleman gave himself up to reading books of chivalry with such ardour and delight that he almost entirely neglected the chase, and even the management of his property; and to such a pitch did his folly reach that he sold many an acre of tillage land to buy books of chivalry to read. Above all he loved those of the famous Feliciano de Silva, for their lucid style and their intricate conceits, where he would often find such passages as "the reason of the unreason with which my reason is afflicted so weakens my reason that with reason I complain of your beauty." Over this sort of thing the poor gentleman lost his wits, and lay awake striving to understand it and worm the meaning out of it — which Aristotle himself could not have done, had he come back to life for that purpose alone. He had many arguments with the curate of his village, a learned man, and with Master Nicholas, the village barber, as to which had been the better knight, Palmerin of England or Amadis of Gaul.

In short, he became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from dusk to dawn, and his days from dawn to dusk, in reading; and so, from little sleep and much reading, his brain shrivelled up and he lost his wits. His fancy grew full of what he read: enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, agonies and impossible nonsense; and it so possessed his mind that the whole fabric of invention he read of was true, that to him no history in the world was better substantiated.

And so, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever madman in this world hit upon: it seemed to him fitting and necessary, as well for the increase of his honour as for the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant of himself, and roam the world with his horse and armour in quest of adventures, righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself to danger, by which he would win eternal renown and fame.

The first thing he did was to clean up some armour that had belonged to his great-grandfather, which had lain for ages forgotten in a corner, eaten with rust and covered with mildew. He found one great defect in it: it had no closed helmet, only a simple morion. This his ingenuity supplied, for he contrived a sort of visor out of pasteboard, which, fitted to the morion, looked like a whole helmet. To see if it was strong, he drew his sword and gave it two slashes, the first of which undid in an instant what had taken him a week to do. He made it again, putting bars of iron inside; and, without caring to try another experiment upon it, he passed it and took it for a very good one.

He next went to see his nag; and though it had more quarters than a real and more blemishes than the steed of Gonela, it seemed to him that neither the Bucephalus of Alexander nor the Babieca of the Cid could equal it. Four days were spent in thinking what name to give it, and after many names devised, rejected and invented again, he decided upon Rocinante — a name, to his thinking, lofty, sonorous, and significant of his condition as a hack before, and what he now was, before all the hacks of the world. Having got a name for his horse so much to his taste, he was eight days more pondering one for himself, and at last called himself Don Quixote; and, like Amadis of Gaul, he added the name of his country, and styled himself Don Quixote de la Mancha.

Nothing more remained but to look out for a lady to be in love with; for a knight-errant without love was like a tree without leaves or fruit, or a body without a soul. In a village near his own, it is believed, there was a very good-looking farm girl with whom he had been at one time in love — though, so far as is known, she never knew it nor gave a thought to the matter. Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo; and upon her he thought fit to confer the title of Lady of his Thoughts; and, searching for a name that should not be out of harmony with her own, and that should suggest a princess and great lady, he decided to call her Dulcinea del Toboso — she being a native of El Toboso — a name, to his mind, musical, uncommon and significant, like all those he had already bestowed upon himself and his belongings.

Chapters 2–3. Of the first sally of the ingenious Don Quixote, and of the pleasant way he was dubbed a knight

So one morning before dawn — one of the hottest days of July — without telling anyone of his intention, he armed himself, mounted Rocinante, and by the back door of his yard sallied forth upon the plain, rejoicing to see with what ease he had made a beginning. But scarcely did he find himself in the open than a terrible thought struck him: he had not been dubbed a knight, and by the law of chivalry he neither could nor ought to bear arms against any knight. Madness prevailing over reason, he resolved to have himself dubbed by the first one he came across. And as he rode he said to himself: "Who knows but that in time to come, when the veracious history of my famous deeds is made known, the sage who writes it will begin thus: 'Scarce had the rubicund Apollo spread over the face of the broad spacious earth the golden threads of his bright hair, when the renowned knight Don Quixote de la Mancha, quitting the lazy down, mounted his celebrated steed Rocinante, and began to traverse the ancient and famous Campo de Montiel'" — which in fact he was actually traversing.

All that day he rode, and at nightfall he and his hack were dead tired and dying of hunger, when he saw an inn not far from the road, which he took for a castle with its four turrets and pinnacles of shining silver, drawbridge, moat and all. At the door stood two young women of the easy sort, who were on their way to Seville with some carriers; these he took for two fair damsels taking their ease at the castle gate. Just then a swineherd blew his horn to call his pigs together, and it seemed to Don Quixote to be what he was expecting — the signal of a dwarf announcing his arrival. The women fled at the sight of a man in armour; he raised his pasteboard visor and addressed them with courtly speech, calling them maidens, which made them laugh. Then the innkeeper came out — a very fat man, and therefore very peaceable — and Don Quixote, taking him for the governor of the castle, was received there. They took off his breastplate; but they could not undo his helmet, which was tied on with green ribbons, and so he sat down to supper with it on. They brought him a portion of ill-soaked and worse-cooked stockfish, and a piece of bread as black and mouldy as his armour; and to give him drink, the innkeeper bored a reed and put one end in his mouth and poured the wine in at the other. All this he bore with patience, rather than have the ribbons cut.

But he was troubled at not being yet a knight. So he shut himself up in the stable with the innkeeper, and fell on his knees before him, and would not rise till he granted him a boon: to dub him knight the next morning. The innkeeper — who was something of a wag, and had been in his youth a great rogue in the Percheles of Málaga and the Isles of Riarán and the Compás of Seville — saw his guest was mad, and resolved to humour him. He told him to watch his armour that night in the yard, and asked if he had money. Don Quixote said he had not a farthing, for he had never read that knights-errant carried any; and the innkeeper told him he was mistaken, for the histories left it out only because it was too obvious to mention: knights carried money, and clean shirts, and a little box of ointment for wounds.

Don Quixote laid his armour on a trough by the well, and paced up and down before it with his lance, by moonlight. A carrier came to water his mules, and moved the armour; and Don Quixote, raising his eyes to heaven and commending himself to his lady Dulcinea, lifted his lance with both hands and gave the carrier such a blow on the head that he laid him on the ground. A second carrier did the same, and fared the same. Then the carriers' companions began to shower stones on him from a distance; and the innkeeper, thinking it best to make an end of it, brought out the book in which he entered the straw and barley he served to the carriers, and, with a candle-end carried by a boy, and the two damsels, came to Don Quixote, and bade him kneel. Reading from his account-book as if he were saying some devout prayer, he gave him a sturdy blow on the neck, and then, with his own sword, a smart slap on the shoulder, always muttering between his teeth. Then he bade one of the ladies gird on his sword, which she did with great self-possession and gravity; and the other buckled on his spur. Don Quixote asked their names, so that he might know to whom he was beholden; one was called La Tolosa, the daughter of a cobbler of Toledo, the other La Molinera, the daughter of a miller of Antequera; and he begged them both to add "Doña" to their names from then on. The ceremony over, he saddled Rocinante at once, and rode away; and the innkeeper, glad to see him go, let him go without asking for the cost of his lodging.

Chapter 4. Of what happened to our knight when he left the inn

Day was dawning when Don Quixote left the inn, so happy, so gay, so exhilarated at finding himself a knight, that his joy was like to burst his horse-girths. Remembering the innkeeper's advice, he resolved to go home and provide himself with money and shirts, and a squire. But he had not gone far when he heard cries from a wood, and found a youth of about fifteen tied to an oak, naked from the waist up, whom a stout farmer was flogging with a belt. "I won't do it again, master," the boy cried; "I'll take more care of the flock." Don Quixote, in an angry voice, bade the farmer mount his horse and fight. The farmer, seeing a figure all in armour brandishing a lance over his face, said meekly that the boy was his servant, and lost him a sheep every day, and that he flogged him for his carelessness; and the boy said it was because he asked for his wages. Don Quixote made the farmer untie him, and reckoned the debt: nine months at seven reals — sixty-three reals. The farmer, Juan Haldudo the Rich, of Quintanar, swore by all the orders of knighthood that he would pay; and Don Quixote rode off, content, saying: "Remember, Andrés, that I am the valiant Don Quixote de la Mancha, the undoer of wrongs and injuries." The moment he was out of sight, the farmer tied the boy to the oak again and gave him so many lashes that he left him for dead, saying, "Call the undoer of wrongs now, and see if he'll undo this." And so the valiant Don Quixote righted that wrong.

Further on, he met a party of traders of Toledo, on their way to buy silk at Murcia, six of them, with four servants on horseback and three muleteers on foot. Planting himself in the road, he cried: "Let all the world stand, unless all the world confess that in all the world there is no maiden fairer than the Empress of La Mancha, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso." The traders halted. One of them, who was a bit of a joker, begged him to show them some portrait of the lady, though it were no bigger than a grain of wheat, and they would confess it, even if it showed her blind of one eye and distilling vermilion and brimstone from the other. Don Quixote charged at him in fury; and if luck had not made Rocinante stumble in mid-career, it would have gone hard with the rash trader. Down went Rocinante, and over went his master, and with lance, buckler, spurs and helmet he could not get up. One of the muleteers, not very good-natured, took his lance, broke it in pieces, and with one of them began to thrash him until he left him like wheat in a mill.

Chapter 5. In which the narrative of our knight's mishap is continued

Seeing that he could not stir, he fell back on his usual remedy, which was to think of some passage in his books; and his madness brought to mind that of Baldwin and the Marquis of Mantua, when Carloto left him wounded on the mountain-side. He began to roll on the ground and to repeat, in a weak voice, the very words of that old ballad. And as chance would have it, a labourer from his own village was passing, a neighbour, and found him so, and asked him who he was and what was the matter, and Don Quixote answered him with the words of the ballad. The labourer took off his visor, which was already broken to pieces by the beating, wiped the dust from his face, and knew him: "Señor Quixana!" — for so he must have been called when he was in his senses. He lifted him on his ass, and gathered up the arms, even the splinters of the lance, and led him home, while Don Quixote went on speaking of the Moor Abindarráez and the fair Jarifa. "Look, your worship," said the labourer, "I am not Don Rodrigo de Narváez, nor the Marquis of Mantua, but Pedro Alonso your neighbour; and your worship is neither Baldwin nor Abindarráez, but the honourable gentleman Señor Quixana." "I know who I am," replied Don Quixote, "and I know that I may be not only those I have named, but all the Twelve Peers of France, and even all the Nine Worthies."

He waited till it was dark, so that no one should see the poor beaten gentleman so ill mounted, and then brought him into the village, where the curate and the barber were with the housekeeper, who was crying out: "Those cursed books of chivalry have turned his brain!" The niece said the same, and more. Don Quixote, from his ass, cried out that he was badly wounded through the fault of his horse, and that they should carry him to his bed and call, if possible, the wise Urganda to cure his wounds. They put him to bed, and found no wound on him; and he told them it was all bruises from a fall he had had with Rocinante while fighting ten giants, the most monstrous and the boldest to be found anywhere on earth. "So, so!" said the curate. "Giants in the dance? By the sign of the cross, I'll burn them all tomorrow before the day is out."