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VOLUME[ PART 2  ]  

CHAPTER[ XXVII. WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN WHO MASTER PEDRO AND HIS APE WERE, TOGETHER WITH THE

MISHAP DON QUIXOTE HAD IN THE BRAYING ADVENTURE, WHICH HE DID NOT

CONCLUDE AS HE WOULD HAVE LIKED OR AS HE HAD EXPECTED

Cide Hamete, the chronicler of this great history, begins this chapter

with these words, "I swear as a Catholic Christian;" with regard to which

his translator says that Cide Hamete's swearing as a Catholic Christian,

he being--as no doubt he was--a Moor, only meant that, just as a Catholic

Christian taking an oath swears, or ought to swear, what is true, and

tell the truth in what he avers, so he was telling the truth, as much as

if he swore as a Catholic Christian, in all he chose to write about

Quixote, especially in declaring who Master Pedro was and what was the

divining ape that astonished all the villages with his divinations. He

says, then, that he who has read the First Part of this history will

remember well enough the Gines de Pasamonte whom, with other galley

slaves, Don Quixote set free in the Sierra Morena: a kindness for which

he afterwards got poor thanks and worse payment from that evil-minded,

ill-conditioned set. This Gines de Pasamonte--Don Ginesillo de Parapilla,

Don Quixote called him--it was that stole Dapple from Sancho Panza;

which, because by the fault of the printers neither the how nor the when

was stated in the First Part, has been a puzzle to a good many people,

who attribute to the bad memory of the author what was the error of the

press. In fact, however, Gines stole him while Sancho Panza was asleep on

his back, adopting the plan and device that Brunello had recourse to when

he stole Sacripante's horse from between his legs at the siege of

Albracca; and, as has been told, Sancho afterwards recovered him. This

Gines, then, afraid of being caught by the officers of justice, who were

looking for him to punish him for his numberless rascalities and offences

(which were so many and so great that he himself wrote a big book giving

an account of them), resolved to shift his quarters into the kingdom of

Aragon, and cover up his left eye, and take up the trade of a

puppet-showman; for this, as well as juggling, he knew how to practise to

perfection. From some released Christians returning from Barbary, it so

happened, he bought the ape, which he taught to mount upon his shoulder

on his making a certain sign, and to whisper, or seem to do so, in his

ear. Thus prepared, before entering any village whither he was bound with

his show and his ape, he used to inform himself at the nearest village,

or from the most likely person he could find, as to what particular

things had happened there, and to whom; and bearing them well in mind,

the first thing he did was to exhibit his show, sometimes one story,

sometimes another, but all lively, amusing, and familiar. As soon as the

exhibition was over he brought forward the accomplishments of his ape,

assuring the public that he divined all the past and the present, but as

to the future he had no skill. For each question answered he asked two

reals, and for some he made a reduction, just as he happened to feel the

pulse of the questioners; and when now and then he came to houses where

things that he knew of had happened to the people living there, even if

they did not ask him a question, not caring to pay for it, he would make

the sign to the ape and then declare that it had said so and so, which

fitted the case exactly. In this way he acquired a prodigious name and

all ran after him; on other occasions, being very crafty, he would answer

in such a way that the answers suited the questions; and as no one

cross-questioned him or pressed him to tell how his ape divined, he made

fools of them all and filled his pouch. The instant he entered the inn he

knew Don Quixote and Sancho, and with that knowledge it was easy for him

to astonish them and all who were there; but it would have cost him dear

had Don Quixote brought down his hand a little lower when he cut off King

Marsilio's head and destroyed all his horsemen, as related in the

preceeding chapter.

So much for Master Pedro and his ape; and now to return to Don Quixote of

La Mancha. After he had left the inn he determined to visit, first of

all, the banks of the Ebro and that neighbourhood, before entering the

city of Saragossa, for the ample time there was still to spare before the

jousts left him enough for all. With this object in view he followed the

road and travelled along it for two days, without meeting any adventure

worth committing to writing until on the third day, as he was ascending a

hill, he heard a great noise of drums, trumpets, and musket-shots. At

first he imagined some regiment of soldiers was passing that way, and to

see them he spurred Rocinante and mounted the hill. On reaching the top

he saw at the foot of it over two hundred men, as it seemed to him, armed

with weapons of various sorts, lances, crossbows, partisans, halberds,

and pikes, and a few muskets and a great many bucklers. He descended the

slope and approached the band near enough to see distinctly the flags,

make out the colours and distinguish the devices they bore, especially

one on a standard or ensign of white satin, on which there was painted in

a very life-like style an ass like a little sard, with its head up, its

mouth open and its tongue out, as if it were in the act and attitude of

braying; and round it were inscribed in large characters these two lines--

They did not bray in vain,

Our alcaldes twain.

From this device Don Quixote concluded that these people must be from the

braying town, and he said so to Sancho, explaining to him what was

written on the standard. At the same time he observed that the man who

had told them about the matter was wrong in saying that the two who

brayed were regidors, for according to the lines of the standard they

were alcaldes. To which Sancho replied, "Senor, there's nothing to stick

at in that, for maybe the regidors who brayed then came to be alcaldes of

their town afterwards, and so they may go by both titles; moreover, it

has nothing to do with the truth of the story whether the brayers were

alcaldes or regidors, provided at any rate they did bray; for an alcalde

is just as likely to bray as a regidor." They perceived, in short,

clearly that the town which had been twitted had turned out to do battle

with some other that had jeered it more than was fair or neighbourly.

Don Quixote proceeded to join them, not a little to Sancho's uneasiness,

for he never relished mixing himself up in expeditions of that sort. The

members of the troop received him into the midst of them, taking him to

be some one who was on their side. Don Quixote, putting up his visor,

advanced with an easy bearing and demeanour to the standard with the ass,

and all the chief men of the army gathered round him to look at him,

staring at him with the usual amazement that everybody felt on seeing him

for the first time. Don Quixote, seeing them examining him so

attentively, and that none of them spoke to him or put any question to

him, determined to take advantage of their silence; so, breaking his own,

he lifted up his voice and said, "Worthy sirs, I entreat you as earnestly

as I can not to interrupt an argument I wish to address to you, until you

find it displeases or wearies you; and if that come to pass, on the

slightest hint you give me I will put a seal upon my lips and a gag upon

my tongue."

They all bade him say what he liked, for they would listen to him

willingly.

With this permission Don Quixote went on to say, "I, sirs, am a

knight-errant whose calling is that of arms, and whose profession is to

protect those who require protection, and give help to such as stand in

need of it. Some days ago I became acquainted with your misfortune and

the cause which impels you to take up arms again and again to revenge

yourselves upon your enemies; and having many times thought over your

business in my mind, I find that, according to the laws of combat, you

are mistaken in holding yourselves insulted; for a private individual

cannot insult an entire community; unless it be by defying it

collectively as a traitor, because he cannot tell who in particular is

guilty of the treason for which he defies it. Of this we have an example

in Don Diego Ordonez de Lara, who defied the whole town of Zamora,

because he did not know that Vellido Dolfos alone had committed the

treachery of slaying his king; and therefore he defied them all, and the

vengeance and the reply concerned all; though, to be sure, Senor Don

Diego went rather too far, indeed very much beyond the limits of a

defiance; for he had no occasion to defy the dead, or the waters, or the

fishes, or those yet unborn, and all the rest of it as set forth; but let

that pass, for when anger breaks out there's no father, governor, or

bridle to check the tongue. The case being, then, that no one person can

insult a kingdom, province, city, state, or entire community, it is clear

there is no reason for going out to avenge the defiance of such an

insult, inasmuch as it is not one. A fine thing it would be if the people

of the clock town were to be at loggerheads every moment with everyone

who called them by that name,--or the Cazoleros, Berengeneros,

Ballenatos, Jaboneros, or the bearers of all the other names and titles

that are always in the mouth of the boys and common people! It would be a

nice business indeed if all these illustrious cities were to take huff

and revenge themselves and go about perpetually making trombones of their

swords in every petty quarrel! No, no; God forbid! There are four things

for which sensible men and well-ordered States ought to take up arms,

draw their swords, and risk their persons, lives, and properties. The

first is to defend the Catholic faith; the second, to defend one's life,

which is in accordance with natural and divine law; the third, in defence

of one's honour, family, and property; the fourth, in the service of

one's king in a just war; and if to these we choose to add a fifth (which

may be included in the second), in defence of one's country. To these

five, as it were capital causes, there may be added some others that may

be just and reasonable, and make it a duty to take up arms; but to take

them up for trifles and things to laugh at and he amused by rather than

offended, looks as though he who did so was altogether wanting in common

sense. Moreover, to take an unjust revenge (and there cannot be any just

one) is directly opposed to the sacred law that we acknowledge, wherein

we are commanded to do good to our enemies and to love them that hate us;

a command which, though it seems somewhat difficult to obey, is only so

to those who have in them less of God than of the world, and more of the

flesh than of the spirit; for Jesus Christ, God and true man, who never

lied, and could not and cannot lie, said, as our law-giver, that his yoke

was easy and his burden light; he would not, therefore, have laid any

command upon us that it was impossible to obey. Thus, sirs, you are bound

to keep quiet by human and divine law."

"The devil take me," said Sancho to himself at this, "but this master of

mine is a tologian; or, if not, faith, he's as like one as one egg is

like another."

Don Quixote stopped to take breath, and, observing that silence was still

preserved, had a mind to continue his discourse, and would have done so

had not Sancho interposed with his smartness; for he, seeing his master

pause, took the lead, saying, "My lord Don Quixote of La Mancha, who once

was called the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, but now is called the

Knight of the Lions, is a gentleman of great discretion who knows Latin

and his mother tongue like a bachelor, and in everything that he deals

with or advises proceeds like a good soldier, and has all the laws and

ordinances of what they call combat at his fingers' ends; so you have

nothing to do but to let yourselves be guided by what he says, and on my

head be it if it is wrong. Besides which, you have been told that it is

folly to take offence at merely hearing a bray. I remember when I was a

boy I brayed as often as I had a fancy, without anyone hindering me, and

so elegantly and naturally that when I brayed all the asses in the town

would bray; but I was none the less for that the son of my parents who

were greatly respected; and though I was envied because of the gift by

more than one of the high and mighty ones of the town, I did not care two

farthings for it; and that you may see I am telling the truth, wait a bit

and listen, for this art, like swimming, once learnt is never forgotten;"

and then, taking hold of his nose, he began to bray so vigorously that

all the valleys around rang again.

One of those, however, that stood near him, fancying he was mocking them,

lifted up a long staff he had in his hand and smote him such a blow with

it that Sancho dropped helpless to the ground. Don Quixote, seeing him so

roughly handled, attacked the man who had struck him lance in hand, but

so many thrust themselves between them that he could not avenge him. Far

from it, finding a shower of stones rained upon him, and crossbows and

muskets unnumbered levelled at him, he wheeled Rocinante round and, as

fast as his best gallop could take him, fled from the midst of them,

commending himself to God with all his heart to deliver him out of this

peril, in dread every step of some ball coming in at his back and coming

out at his breast, and every minute drawing his breath to see whether it

had gone from him. The members of the band, however, were satisfied with

seeing him take to flight, and did not fire on him. They put up Sancho,

scarcely restored to his senses, on his ass, and let him go after his

master; not that he was sufficiently in his wits to guide the beast, but

Dapple followed the footsteps of Rocinante, from whom he could not remain

a moment separated. Don Quixote having got some way off looked back, and

seeing Sancho coming, waited for him, as he perceived that no one

followed him. The men of the troop stood their ground till night, and as

the enemy did not come out to battle, they returned to their town

exulting; and had they been aware of the ancient custom of the Greeks,

they would have erected a trophy on the spot.

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