Chapter III. In which is told the amusing way Don Quixote had himself dubbed a knight

And so, harassed by this thought, he cut short his scanty supper, such as inns provide; and when it was finished he called the innkeeper and, shutting himself up with him in the stable, fell on his knees before him and said:

“Never will I rise from where I am, valiant knight, until your courtesy grants me a boon I wish to ask of you, which will redound to your praise and to the good of the human race.”

The innkeeper, seeing his guest at his feet and hearing such words, gazed at him, at a loss, with no idea what to do or what to say to him, and he kept urging him to get up, and the knight would not, until the innkeeper had to tell him that he granted him the boon he asked.

“I expected no less of your great magnificence, my lord,” answered Don Quixote, “and so I tell you that the boon I have asked of you, and which your liberality has granted me, is that tomorrow, on that very day, you shall dub me a knight, and this night in the chapel of this your castle I shall keep vigil over my arms; and tomorrow, as I have said, what I so long for will be fulfilled, so that I may, as is fitting, go through all the four quarters of the world in search of adventures, on behalf of those in need, as is the charge of chivalry and of knights-errant such as I am, whose desire is bent upon such feats.”

The innkeeper, who, as has been said, was something of a sly joker and already had some inkling that his guest was short of wits, was fully convinced of it when he had heard him out, and, so as to have something to laugh at that night, he made up his mind to humor him; and so he told him that he was very right in what he desired and asked, and that such an aim was proper and natural to knights of such high standing as he seemed to be and as his gallant presence showed; and that he himself, likewise, in the years of his youth, had given himself to that honorable calling, going about in many parts of the world in search of his adventures, and had left out none of these: the Percheles of Málaga, the Isles of Riarán, the Compás of Seville, the Azoguejo of Segovia, the Olivera of Valencia, the Rondilla of Granada, the beach at Sanlúcar, the Potro of Córdoba, and the Ventillas of Toledo, and various other parts, where he had exercised the lightness of his feet and the nimbleness of his fingers, doing many wrongs, courting many widows, undoing a few maidens, and cheating a few orphans, and, in short, making himself known in almost every court and tribunal there is in all Spain; and that at last he had retired to this castle of his, where he lived on his own means and on other people’s, taking in all knights-errant of whatever quality and condition they might be, solely for the great affection he bore them, and so that they would share their goods with him in return for his kindness.

He told him also that in this castle of his there was no chapel at all where he could keep vigil over his arms, because it had been pulled down to be built anew; but that in case of need he knew that the vigil could be kept anywhere, and that tonight he might keep it in a courtyard of the castle; and that in the morning, God willing, the proper ceremonies would be performed, so that he would be left dubbed a knight, and as much a knight as anyone in the world could be.

He asked him whether he had any money; Don Quixote answered that he had not a blanca, because he had never read in the histories of knights-errant that any of them had carried any. To this the innkeeper said that he was mistaken; that, granting that the histories did not record it, because their authors had not thought it necessary to write down a thing so obvious and so needful to carry as money and clean shirts, it was not to be believed on that account that the knights did not carry them; and so he might take it as certain and proven that all the knights-errant with whom so many books are filled and crammed had their purses well lined against whatever might befall them; and that they also carried shirts and a little chest full of ointments to heal the wounds they received, because there was not always someone to tend them in the fields and wastelands where they fought and came away wounded, unless, that is, they had some sage enchanter for a friend, who would come at once to their aid, bringing through the air, on some cloud, some damsel or dwarf with a flask of water of such virtue that, on tasting a single drop of it, they were instantly healed of their sores and wounds, as if they had never suffered any harm. But that, for as long as there might be no such help, the knights of old had held it a sound practice for their squires to be provided with money and other necessary things, such as lint and ointments to treat themselves with; and when it happened that such knights had no squires, which was seldom and rarely, they carried everything themselves in a pair of saddlebags so slight that they could hardly be seen, on the horse’s croup, as though they were something of greater importance; because, except in such a case, this business of carrying saddlebags was not well looked upon among knights-errant; and for this reason he advised him, since he could still command him as his godson, which he was so soon to be, that from then on he should not travel without money and without the provisions he had mentioned, and he would see how glad he would be of them when he least expected it.

Don Quixote promised to do what he was advised with all exactness; and so arrangements were made at once for him to keep vigil over his arms in a large yard at one side of the inn; and Don Quixote, gathering up all his armor, laid it on a trough that stood beside a well, and, slipping his leather shield onto his arm, he grasped his lance and with a stately bearing began to pace up and down before the trough; and as he began his pacing, night was beginning to close in.

The innkeeper told everyone who was in the inn about his guest’s madness, the vigil over the arms, and the dubbing he was waiting for. They marveled at so strange a kind of madness and went to watch him from a distance, and they saw that, with a composed air, he would sometimes walk up and down; at other times, leaning on his lance, he would fix his eyes on his armor and not take them off it for a good long while. Night closed in completely, but with a moon so bright that it could vie with the one who lent it its light, so that whatever the novice knight did was plainly seen by all. At this point one of the mule drivers who were staying at the inn took it into his head to go and water his string of mules, and he had to move Don Quixote’s armor, which lay on the trough; and Don Quixote, seeing him come near, said to him in a loud voice:

“O you, whoever you are, rash knight, who come to lay hands on the arms of the most valiant errant knight that ever girded on a sword, look to what you do, and touch them not, unless you would leave your life in payment for your daring.”

The mule driver took no heed of these words (and he would have done better to heed them, for heeding them would have been looking after his health while he still had it); instead, seizing the straps, he flung the armor a good way from him. When Don Quixote saw this, he raised his eyes to heaven and, fixing his thoughts—so it seemed—on his lady Dulcinea, he said:

“Succor me, my lady, in this first affront offered to this your enthralled breast; let not your favor and protection fail me in this first ordeal.”

And, saying these and other such words, he let go of his leather shield, raised his lance in both hands, and dealt the mule driver such a blow on the head with it that he laid him on the ground, so battered that, had he followed it with a second, the man would have had no need of a surgeon to tend him. This done, he gathered up his armor and went back to his pacing as calmly as before. A little later, without anyone knowing what had happened (for the mule driver still lay stunned), another came with the same intention of watering his mules; and as he went to remove the armor to clear the trough, Don Quixote, without saying a word or asking anyone’s favor, let go of his leather shield once more and raised his lance once more, and, without breaking it to pieces, broke the second mule driver’s head into more than three, for he opened it in four places. At the noise all the people of the inn came running, and the innkeeper among them. When Don Quixote saw this, he slipped his leather shield onto his arm and, laying hand to his sword, said:

“O lady of beauteousness, strength and vigor of my enfeebled heart! Now is the time for you to turn the eyes of your greatness upon this your captive knight, who stands awaiting so mighty an adventure.”

With this, as he saw it, he took on so much courage that if all the mule drivers in the world had attacked him, he would not have given a foot of ground. The comrades of the wounded men, seeing them in that state, began from a distance to rain stones on Don Quixote, who shielded himself as best he could with his leather shield and did not dare move away from the trough so as not to abandon his armor. The innkeeper was shouting to them to let him be, for he had already told them he was mad, and as a madman he would go free even if he killed them all. Don Quixote was shouting too, and louder, calling them false and treacherous, and saying that the lord of the castle was a caitiff and a baseborn knight, since he allowed knights-errant to be treated in such a manner; and that, had he received the order of knighthood, he would make him understand his treachery:

“But of you, base and vile rabble, I take no account: throw, draw near, come on, and do me what harm ye can, for you shall see what wages you receive for your folly and insolence.”

He said this with such spirit and boldness that he struck a terrible fear into those who were attacking him; and, as much for this as because of the innkeeper’s persuasions, they stopped throwing at him, and he let the wounded be carried off and went back to the vigil over his arms with the same quiet and calm as before.

The innkeeper did not like his guest’s pranks, and he resolved to cut things short and give him that confounded order of knighthood at once, before some other misfortune occurred. And so, going up to him, he excused himself for the insolence those low people had used toward him without his knowing anything of it; but they had been well punished, he said, for their daring. He told him, as he had told him already, that there was no chapel in that castle, nor was one needed for what remained to be done; that the whole point of being dubbed a knight lay in the blow on the neck and the stroke on the shoulder, according to what he knew of the ceremonial of the order, and that this could be done in the middle of a field, and that he had already fulfilled all that concerned the vigil over the arms, for two hours of vigil were enough, and he had kept more than four. Don Quixote believed it all, and said that he was ready there to obey him, and that he should finish as quickly as he could; because if he were attacked again and found himself dubbed a knight, he did not intend to leave a living soul in the castle, except those the castellan might bid him spare, whom out of respect for him he would leave alone.

Warned and frightened by this, the castellan at once brought out a book in which he entered the straw and barley he supplied to the mule drivers, and, with a stub of candle that a boy carried for him and with the two damsels already mentioned, he came to where Don Quixote stood and ordered him to kneel; and, reading from his manual as if he were saying some devout prayer, in the middle of the reading he raised his hand and gave him a good blow on the neck, and after it, with Don Quixote’s own sword, a fine stroke across the shoulder, mumbling under his breath the whole time, as though at his prayers. This done, he ordered one of those ladies to gird on his sword, which she did with great ease and discretion, for no small amount of discretion was needed to keep from bursting with laughter at every point of the ceremonies; but the feats they had already seen the novice knight perform kept their laughter in check. As she girded on his sword, the good lady said:

“May God make your grace a most fortunate knight and give your grace good fortune in battle.”

Don Quixote asked her what her name was, so that he might know from then on to whom he was beholden for the favor received; for he meant to give her some share of the honor he would win by the valor of his arm. She answered with great humility that her name was La Tolosa, and that she was the daughter of a cobbler, a native of Toledo, who lived by the little shops of Sancho Bienaya, and that wherever she might be she would serve him and hold him as her lord. Don Quixote replied that, for love of him, she should do him the favor of taking the title of doña from then on and calling herself Doña Tolosa. She promised she would, and the other buckled on his spur, and with her he had almost the same exchange as with the one who girded on the sword: he asked her name, and she said she was called La Molinera, and that she was the daughter of an honest miller of Antequera; and Don Quixote begged her too to take the doña and call herself Doña Molinera, offering her fresh services and favors.

These never-before-seen ceremonies having been performed, then, at a gallop and in haste, Don Quixote could not wait for the hour when he would see himself on horseback and riding out in search of adventures; and, saddling Rocinante at once, he mounted him and, embracing his host, said such strange things to him, thanking him for the favor of having dubbed him a knight, that it is impossible to manage to set them down. The innkeeper, to see him out of the inn at last, answered his speeches with no less rhetoric, though in fewer words, and, without asking him for the cost of his lodging, let him go, and good luck to him.