Chapter II. Which deals with the notable quarrel Sancho Panza had with Don Quixote’s niece and housekeeper, with other amusing matters

The history tells that the shouts Don Quixote, the priest, and the barber heard came from the niece and the housekeeper, who were raising them at Sancho Panza as he fought to get in and see Don Quixote, and they barred the door to him:

“What does this stray want in this house? Go home to your own, brother, for it’s you, and no one else, who leads my master astray and lures him off and drags him through those wilds.”

To which Sancho answered:

“Satan’s own housekeeper, the one who’s led astray and lured off and dragged through those wilds is me, not your master; he’s the one who took me roaming the world, and you two are wrong by half the fair price: he coaxed me out of my house with tricks, promising me an isle, which I’m still waiting for.”

“May bad isles choke you,” answered the niece, “you cursed Sancho. And what are isles? Something to eat, you glutton, you guzzler, which is what you are?”

“They’re not for eating,” replied Sancho, “but for governing and ruling, better than four cities and better than four judges at court.”

“For all that,” said the housekeeper, “you shan’t come in here, you sack of mischief and bag of malice. Go and govern your own house and plow your own patches of land, and stop angling for isles or he-isles.”

The priest and the barber were greatly entertained to hear the three of them talk; but Don Quixote, afraid that Sancho would come unstitched and pour out some heap of malicious nonsense, and touch on points that would not be good for his credit, called him in and made the two women be quiet and let him enter. Sancho went in, and the priest and the barber took their leave of Don Quixote, of whose recovery they despaired, seeing how set he was on his wild notions and how steeped in the simplicity of his ill-errant chivalries; and so the priest said to the barber:

“You will see, neighbor, how, when we least expect it, our hidalgo goes flying off again.”

“I have no doubt of that,” answered the barber, “but I am not so much amazed at the madness of the knight as at the simplicity of the squire, who believes so firmly in that business of the isle that I don’t think all the disappointments imaginable will get it out of his skull.”

“God mend them,” said the priest, “and let us keep watch: we shall see where this whole machine of nonsense, of such a knight and such a squire, comes to a stop, for it seems they were both cast in the same mold, and that the madness of the master without the foolishness of the servant would not be worth a copper.”

“That is so,” said the barber, “and I would very much like to know what the two of them are talking about now.”

“I can promise you,” answered the priest, “that the niece or the housekeeper will tell us afterward, for they are not of a nature to leave off listening.”

Meanwhile Don Quixote shut himself up in his room with Sancho, and, when they were alone, he said to him:

“It grieves me very much, Sancho, that you have said, and say, that I was the one who took you out of your little house, when you know that I did not stay in my own: together we set out, together we went, and together we wandered; one same fortune and one same luck has run for both of us: if they tossed you in a blanket once, they have pounded me a hundred times, and that is the advantage I have over you.”

“That was only reasonable,” answered Sancho, “because, as your grace says, misfortunes belong more to knights-errant than to their squires.”

“You are mistaken, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “according to the saying quando caput dolet (when the head aches)…, et cetera.”

“I don’t understand any language but my own,” answered Sancho.

“I mean,” said Don Quixote, “that when the head aches, all the members ache; and so, since I am your master and lord, I am your head, and you are a part of me, since you are my servant; and for this reason any ill that touches me, or may touch me, must hurt you, and yours must hurt me.”

“That’s how it ought to be,” said Sancho, “but when they were tossing me in the blanket, me being a member, my head was standing behind the yard wall, watching me fly through the air, without feeling any pain at all; and since the members are bound to feel the head’s ills, the head ought to be bound to feel theirs.”

“Do you mean to say now, Sancho,” answered Don Quixote, “that I felt no pain when they were tossing you in the blanket? And if that is what you mean, do not say it, or even think it; for I felt more pain then in my spirit than you did in your body. But let us leave this aside for now, for there will be time to weigh it and set it right, and tell me, Sancho, my friend: what are they saying about me around the village? What opinion do the common people have of me, what the hidalgos, and what the gentlemen? What do they say of my valor, what of my deeds, and what of my courtesy? What is said of the task I have taken on, of bringing the now forgotten order of chivalry back to life and back into the world? In short, Sancho, I want you to tell me whatever has come to your ears about this; and you must tell it to me without adding anything to the good or taking anything away from the bad, for it is the part of loyal vassals to tell their lords the truth in its own shape and form, without flattery enlarging it or any other idle regard diminishing it; and I want you to know, Sancho, that if the naked truth reached the ears of princes, without the clothes of flattery, other times would come, other ages would be held more iron than ours, which I take to be the golden one among those now in use. Let this warning serve you, Sancho, so that you may sensibly and with good intent put into my ears the truth of what you know about what I have asked you.”

“That I’ll do very gladly, my master,” answered Sancho, “on condition that your grace isn’t to get angry at what I say, since you want me to say it stark naked, without dressing it in any clothes but the ones it came to me in.”

“I shall not get angry in any way,” answered Don Quixote. “You may speak freely, Sancho, without beating about the bush at all.”

“Well, the first thing I say,” he said, “is that the common people take your grace for the greatest madman ever, and me for no less of a fool. The hidalgos say that your grace, not keeping within the bounds of hidalgo rank, has stuck a ‘Don’ before your name and made a rush at knighthood with four vine stocks and two plowlands of ground and one rag behind and another in front. The gentlemen say they would not like hidalgos setting themselves up against them, especially those squirely hidalgos who smoke-black their shoes and darn their black stockings with green silk.”

“That,” said Don Quixote, “has nothing to do with me, for I always go well dressed, and never patched; torn, that may well be; and torn more by arms than by time.”

“As for your grace’s valor, courtesy, deeds, and undertaking,” Sancho went on, “there are different opinions; some say, ‘mad, but amusing’; others, ‘brave, but unlucky’; others, ‘courteous, but impertinent’; and so they go running on about so many things that they don’t leave your grace or me a single bone unbroken.”

“Look, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “wherever virtue stands in an eminent degree, persecution follows it. Few or none of the famous men of times past escaped being slandered by malice. Julius Caesar, a most spirited, most prudent, and most valiant captain, was taxed with being ambitious and somewhat unclean, both in his dress and in his habits. Alexander, whose deeds won him the name of the Great, is said to have had his certain touches of the drunkard. Of Hercules, he of the many labors, it is told that he was lascivious and soft. Of Don Galaor, brother of Amadís of Gaul, it is whispered that he was more than excessively lustful; and of his brother, that he was a weeper. So, O Sancho, among so many slanders of good men, mine may well pass, as long as there are no more than the ones you have told.”

“That’s just the sore spot, body of my father!” replied Sancho.

“Why, is there more?” asked Don Quixote.

“The tail is still left to skin,” said Sancho. “What we’ve had so far is cakes and fancy bread; but if your grace wants to know everything there is about the slanders they lay on you, I’ll bring you someone here right this minute who’ll tell you all of them, without missing a crumb; for last night the son of Bartolomé Carrasco came home from his studies at Salamanca, a bachelor now, and when I went to bid him welcome, he told me that your grace’s history was already going about in books, under the name of The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha; and he says it mentions me in it under my very own name of Sancho Panza, and the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, along with other things that passed between the two of us alone, so that I crossed myself in fright, wondering how the historian who wrote them could have known them.”

“I assure you, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “the author of our history must be some sage enchanter; for nothing they want to write about is hidden from such people.”

“A sage and an enchanter, and how!” said Sancho. “Since (according to the bachelor Sansón Carrasco, for that’s the name of the man I told you of) the author of the history is called Cide Hamete Berenjena, the Eggplant!”

“That is a Moor’s name,” answered Don Quixote.

“It must be,” answered Sancho, “because I’ve mostly heard said that Moors are fond of eggplants.”

“You must be mistaken, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “in the surname of this Cide, which in Arabic means lord.”

“It could well be,” replied Sancho, “but if your grace would like me to have him come here, I’ll fly to fetch him.”

“You will give me great pleasure, my friend,” said Don Quixote, “for what you have told me has me in suspense, and I shall not eat a mouthful that tastes good to me until I am informed of everything.”

“Then I’m off for him,” answered Sancho.

And, leaving his master, he went to look for the bachelor, with whom he came back a little while later, and the three of them held a most amusing colloquy.