Chapter IX. In which the stupendous battle between the gallant Biscayan and the valiant Manchegan is concluded and brought to an end

At the close of the first part of this history, the valiant Biscayan and the famous Don Quixote were left with naked swords held high, about to deal two furious downstrokes, such that, had they landed squarely, they would at the very least have split and cleft each other from top to bottom and laid each other open like a pomegranate; and at that most doubtful point so delightful a history stopped short and broke off, without its author giving us any word of where the part of it that was missing might be found.

This grieved me sorely, for the pleasure of having read so little turned into displeasure when I thought what a bad road lay before me for finding the great deal that, as it seemed to me, was still missing from so delightful a tale. It struck me as an impossible thing, and against every good custom, that so fine a knight should have lacked some sage to take on the task of writing his never-seen exploits, a thing that no knight-errant ever lacked,

of those of whom the people say
that they ride forth on their adventures,

because every one of them had one or two sages, made to order, who not only wrote down his deeds but painted his slightest thoughts and childish trifles, however hidden they might be; and so fine a knight could not have been so unlucky as to lack what Platir and others like him had to spare. And so I could not bring myself to believe that so gallant a history had been left maimed and crippled, and I laid the blame on the malice of time, the devourer and consumer of all things, which had either hidden it or consumed it.

On the other hand, it seemed to me that, since among his books had been found some as modern as Jealousy Undeceived and Nymphs and Shepherds of Henares, his history too must be modern; and that, even if it had not been written down, it would still live in the memory of the people of his village and of the villages round about. This notion kept me puzzled and eager to learn, really and truly, the whole life and miracles of our famous Spaniard Don Quixote of La Mancha, the light and mirror of Manchegan chivalry, and the first who in our age and in these most calamitous times took up the toil and exercise of knight-errant arms, and the undoing of grievances, the succoring of widows, the protecting of damsels, those damsels who went about with their whips and their palfreys, carrying their whole virginity with them, from mountain to mountain and from valley to valley; for, unless some caitiff, or some peasant with an ax and an iron cap, or some monstrous giant forced her, there was many a damsel in times past who, at the end of eighty years, in all of which she never slept a day under a roof, went to her grave as whole as the mother who bore her. I say, then, that for these and many other reasons our gallant Quixote is worthy of constant and memorable praise; and even I should not be denied my share of it, for the labor and diligence I spent in looking for the end of this pleasant history; though I know very well that if heaven, chance, and fortune do not help me, the world will be left without the pastime and pleasure that for nearly two hours together anyone who reads it attentively may have. The finding of it, then, came about in this way.

One day, when I was in the Alcaná of Toledo, a boy came along to sell some notebooks and old papers to a silk merchant; and, as I am fond of reading, even if it is torn papers in the street, I was carried away by this natural bent of mine and picked up one of the notebooks the boy was selling, and saw that it was written in characters I knew to be Arabic. And since, though I recognized them, I could not read them, I went looking about to see whether some Spanish-speaking Morisco might turn up who could read them for me; and it was not very hard to find such an interpreter, for even had I been looking for one of a better and older language, I would have found him. In the end, chance sent me one, and when I told him what I wanted and put the book in his hands, he opened it in the middle, and after reading a little of it he began to laugh.

I asked him what he was laughing at, and he answered that it was at something the book had in its margin, set down there as a gloss. I told him to tell me what it was; and he, still laughing, said:

“Here in the margin, as I said, is written this: ‘This Dulcinea del Toboso, so often mentioned in this history, is said to have had the best hand for salting pork of any woman in all La Mancha.’”

When I heard the words “Dulcinea del Toboso,” I stood astonished and amazed, for it came to me at once that those notebooks held the history of Don Quixote. With this in mind I pressed him to read the beginning, and he did so, turning the Arabic into Castilian on the spot, and he said that it read: History of Don Quixote of La Mancha, set down by Cide Hamete Benengeli, Arab historian. It took a great deal of discretion to hide my delight on hearing the book’s title; and, cutting in ahead of the silk merchant, I bought all the papers and notebooks from the boy for half a real; and had he had any discretion and known how much I wanted them, he might well have counted on getting, and gotten, more than six reales for them. I then took the Morisco aside to the cathedral cloister and begged him to turn those notebooks, all the ones that dealt with Don Quixote, into the Castilian tongue, without taking anything away from them or adding anything to them, and I offered him whatever payment he wished. He was satisfied with two arrobas of raisins and two fanegas of wheat, and promised to translate them well and faithfully and very quickly. But I, to make the business easier and so as not to let so fine a find out of my hands, brought him to my house, where he translated the whole of it in little more than a month and a half, just as it is set down here.

In the first notebook there was a picture, drawn very true to life, of Don Quixote’s battle with the Biscayan, the two of them in the very posture the history describes, their swords raised, the one covered by his buckler, the other by his cushion, and the Biscayan’s mule so lifelike that you could tell from a crossbow shot away that it was a hired one. At the Biscayan’s feet there was a caption that said Don Sancho de Azpetia, which must no doubt have been his name, and at Rocinante’s feet there was another that said Don Quixote. Rocinante was marvelously drawn, so long and stretched out, so thin and lean, with so much backbone, so confirmed a consumptive, that he showed quite openly with what good judgment and fitness the name Rocinante had been given him. Beside him stood Sancho Panza, holding his ass by the halter, and at his feet there was another label that said Sancho Zancas; and it must have been that he had, to judge by the picture, a big belly, a short body, and long shanks, and that is why he must have been given the names Panza and Zancas, Paunch and Shanks, for the history sometimes calls him by these two surnames. There were some other small details to notice, but they are all of little importance and have nothing to do with the true account of the history; for no history is bad so long as it is true.

If any objection can be raised against this one as to its truth, it can only be that its author was an Arab, since lying is very much the habit of those of that nation; though, being such enemies of ours, they can sooner be thought to have fallen short in it than to have gone too far. And so it seems to me, for where he could and should have let his pen run on in praise of so fine a knight, he seems to pass over it in silence on purpose: a thing ill done and worse intended, since historians ought to be, and are bound to be, exact, truthful, and not in the least swayed by passion, and neither interest nor fear, rancor nor affection, should make them turn aside from the road of truth, whose mother is history, the rival of time, the storehouse of deeds, the witness of the past, the example and counsel of the present, the warning of what is to come. In this one I know that everything will be found that one could wish for in the most agreeable history; and if anything good is missing from it, I hold that it was the fault of its dog of an author rather than any lack in the subject. In short, its second part, following the translation, began in this way:

With the keen-edged swords of the two valiant and angry combatants raised on high and poised, they seemed for all the world to be threatening heaven, earth, and the abyss, such was the daring and bearing they had. And the first to bring down his blow was the choleric Biscayan, and it was dealt with such force and such fury that, had the sword not turned in his hand on its way down, that single blow would have been enough to put an end to their fierce contest and to all the adventures of our knight; but good fortune, which was keeping him for greater things, twisted his opponent’s sword so that, though it caught him on the left shoulder, it did him no other harm than to strip all the armor off that side, carrying away with it a great part of his helmet along with half of his ear; and all of it came crashing to the ground with a dreadful ruin, leaving him in a very sorry state.

God save us! And who is there who could fitly tell now the rage that entered the heart of our Manchegan when he saw himself served in that way? Let no more be said than that it was such that he rose up again in his stirrups and, gripping his sword more tightly in both hands, brought it down on the Biscayan with such fury, catching him full on the cushion and on the head, that, so good a defense being of no use to him, as though a mountain had fallen on him, the Biscayan began to bleed from his nose and his mouth and his ears, and to show signs of tumbling down off his mule, from which he would no doubt have fallen had he not flung his arms around its neck; but even so, he drew his feet out of the stirrups and then let go with his arms; and the mule, frightened by the terrible blow, broke into a run across the field, and with a few bucks threw its master to the ground.

Don Quixote sat watching him with great calm, and as soon as he saw him fall, he leaped from his horse, came up to him very nimbly, and, holding the point of his sword before his eyes, told him to surrender, or else he would cut off his head. The Biscayan was so dazed that he could not answer a word, and it would have gone badly with him, blind as Don Quixote was, had the ladies in the coach, who until then had watched the fray in great dismay, not gone over to where he stood and begged him most earnestly to do them the great kindness and favor of sparing the life of that squire of theirs. To which Don Quixote replied, with much loftiness and gravity:

“Assuredly, fair ladies, I am well content to do what you ask of me; but it must be on one condition and covenant, which is that this knight must promise me to go to the village of El Toboso and present himself on my behalf before the peerless Doña Dulcinea, so that she may do with him whatever is most to her liking.”

The frightened and disconsolate lady, without considering what Don Quixote was asking and without inquiring who Dulcinea might be, promised him that the squire would do all that he was commanded on his behalf.

“Then on the faith of that word, I will do him no further harm, though he had well deserved it of me.”