Chapter X. In which is told the scheme Sancho used to enchant the lady Dulcinea, and other events as ridiculous as they are true

When the author of this great history comes to tell what is told in this chapter, he says that he would have liked to pass over it in silence, fearing that he would not be believed, because here Don Quixote’s follies reached the limit and boundary of the greatest that can be imagined, and even went two crossbow shots beyond the greatest. At last, though with this fear and misgiving, he wrote them down just as Don Quixote performed them, without adding to the history or taking from it one atom of the truth, and without caring a whit for the objections that might be raised against him as a liar. And he was right, because the truth may be stretched thin but it does not break, and it always floats above the lie, as oil floats above water.

And so, going on with his history, he says that as soon as Don Quixote had hidden himself in the forest, oak grove, or woodland near the great El Toboso, he ordered Sancho to go back to the city and not to return to his presence without having first spoken on his behalf to his lady, begging her to be pleased to let herself be seen by her captive knight, and to deign to give him her blessing, so that by it he might hope for the happiest outcome in all his attempts and difficult enterprises. Sancho undertook to do just as he was ordered, and to bring him as good an answer as he had brought him the first time.

“Go, my son,” replied Don Quixote, “and do not be flustered when you find yourself before the light of the sun of beauty you are going to seek. Happy are you above all the squires in the world! Keep it in your memory, and do not let it slip from it, how she receives you: whether her color changes while you are giving her my message; whether she grows restless and flustered on hearing my name; whether she cannot keep still on her cushion, if by chance you find her seated on the rich dais of her authority; and if she is standing, watch whether she shifts now onto one foot, now onto the other; whether she repeats the answer she gives you two or three times; whether she changes it from gentle to harsh, from sour to loving; whether she raises her hand to her hair to smooth it, though it be not untidy; in short, my son, watch all her actions and movements; for if you report them to me as they were, I shall draw out what she keeps hidden in the secret of her heart concerning the matter of my love; for you must know, Sancho, if you do not know it, that among lovers the outward actions and movements they show, when their love is in question, are most certain couriers that bring news of what is passing there in the depths of the soul. Go, my friend, and may a better fortune than mine guide you, and may it bring you back with a better outcome than the one I remain fearing and hoping for in this bitter solitude in which you leave me.”

“I’ll go and be back soon,” said Sancho, “and let your grace, my master, widen that little heart of yours, which must be no bigger than a hazelnut right now, and consider that it’s commonly said that a stout heart breaks bad luck, and that where there’s no bacon, there are no pegs; and they also say: the hare leaps out where you least expect it. I say it because if we didn’t find my lady’s palaces or castles last night, now that it’s day I mean to find them when I least expect it, and once they’re found, leave me alone with her.”

“Certainly, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “you always bring in your proverbs as pat to our matter as I pray God may bring me better fortune in what I desire.”

This said, Sancho turned his back and switched his gray, and Don Quixote stayed on horseback, resting in his stirrups and leaning on his lance, full of sad and confused imaginings, and there we shall leave him and go with Sancho Panza, who went away from his master no less confused and thoughtful than he left him; so much so that he had scarcely come out of the wood when, turning his head and seeing that Don Quixote was out of sight, he got down from his donkey, and, sitting at the foot of a tree, began to talk to himself and say:

“Now let’s find out, brother Sancho, where your grace is going. Is your grace going to look for some donkey you’ve lost? ‘No, certainly not.’ Then what are you going to look for? ‘I’m going to look for a princess, as if it were nothing, and in her for the sun of beauty and the whole heaven besides.’ And where do you think you’ll find this thing you speak of, Sancho? ‘Where? In the great city of El Toboso.’ Very well: and on whose behalf are you going to look for her? ‘On behalf of the famous knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who rights wrongs, and gives food to the thirsty and drink to the hungry.’ All that is very well. And do you know her house, Sancho? ‘My master says it must be some royal palaces or proud castles.’ And has it ever happened that you saw her? ‘Not once, and my master never has either.’ And do you think it would be wise and well done, if the people of El Toboso found out that you’re here meaning to go and lure away their princesses and unsettle their ladies, that they should come and pound your ribs to pieces with sticks and not leave you a bone unbroken? ‘In truth they’d be very right, unless they bore in mind that I’m under orders, and that “a messenger you are, my friend, you bear no blame, nay.”’ Don’t trust to that, Sancho, because the people of La Mancha are as hot-tempered as they are honest, and they won’t stand any tickling from anybody. As God lives, if they get wind of you, I promise you bad luck. ‘Begone, you bugger! Go strike elsewhere, lightning! No, I’d sooner go looking for three feet on the cat for somebody else’s pleasure! And besides, looking for Dulcinea in El Toboso will be like looking for Marica in Ravenna, or for the bachelor in Salamanca. It was the devil, the devil and nobody else, who got me into this!’”

This soliloquy Sancho held with himself, and what he got out of it was that he said to himself again:

“Well, now, there’s a remedy for everything except death, under whose yoke we must all pass, like it or not, at the end of our lives. This master of mine, as a thousand signs have shown me, is a madman who ought to be tied up, and I’m not far behind him either, for I’m a bigger fool than he is, since I follow him and serve him, if the proverb is true that says: ‘Tell me who you keep company with, and I’ll tell you who you are,’ and that other one, ‘Not who you’re born with, but who you graze with.’ So, since he’s mad, as he is, and his madness most of the time mistakes one thing for another, and judges white for black and black for white, as could be seen when he said that the windmills were giants, and the friars’ mules dromedaries, and the flocks of sheep armies of enemies, and many other things in this vein, it won’t be very hard to make him believe that a peasant girl, the first one I come across around here, is the lady Dulcinea; and if he doesn’t believe it, I’ll swear it; and if he swears, I’ll swear again; and if he insists, I’ll insist harder, so that I’ll always keep my peg on the mark, come what may. Maybe with this insisting I’ll get him not to send me on such errands again, seeing what poor answers I bring him back from them; or maybe he’ll think, as I imagine he will, that some wicked enchanter, one of those he says have it in for him, has changed her shape to do him harm and injury.”

With this that Sancho Panza thought, his spirit was set at rest, and he considered his business as good as done, and he stayed there until the afternoon, to give Don Quixote time to think he had had enough of it to go to El Toboso and back; and everything turned out so well for him that, when he got up to mount the gray, he saw coming from El Toboso toward where he was three peasant girls on three young donkeys, or she-donkeys, for the author does not make it clear, although it is more to be believed that they were she-asses, that being the usual mount of village women; but since not much hangs on this, there is no reason to stop and find it out. In short, as soon as Sancho saw the peasant girls, he went back at a fast pace to look for his master Don Quixote, and found him sighing and uttering a thousand lovelorn laments. As soon as Don Quixote saw him, he said to him:

“What news, Sancho, my friend? Shall I mark this day with a white stone or with a black?”

“It’ll be better,” answered Sancho, “for your grace to mark it with red ochre, like the notices painted up for professors’ chairs, so that whoever looks at it can see it plainly.”

“In that case,” replied Don Quixote, “you bring good news.”

“So good,” answered Sancho, “that your grace has nothing more to do than spur Rocinante and come out into the open to see the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, who is coming with two of her damsels to see your grace.”

“Holy God! What is it you say, Sancho, my friend?” said Don Quixote. “Take care not to deceive me, or try to cheer my true sorrows with false joys.”

“What would I get out of deceiving your grace,” answered Sancho, “especially when I’m so close to having my truth found out? Spur, sir, and come, and you’ll see the princess, our mistress, coming, dressed and adorned, in short, as befits who she is. She and her damsels are all a blaze of gold, all strings of pearls, all diamonds, all rubies, all cloth of brocade more than ten piles deep; their hair loose over their shoulders, like so many rays of the sun playing with the wind; and, best of all, they come riding on three piebald cananeys, the finest sight there is.”

“Hackneys, you mean, Sancho.”

“There’s little difference,” answered Sancho, “between cananeys and hackneys; but whatever they come riding on, they come as the most elegant ladies anyone could wish for, especially the princess Dulcinea, my lady, who stuns the senses.”

“Let us go, Sancho, my son,” answered Don Quixote, “and as a reward for this news, as unexpected as it is good, I promise you the best spoils I win in the first adventure I have; and if this does not content you, I promise you the foals my three mares give me this year, which, as you know, are left to foal in our village’s common pasture.”

“I’ll hold to the foals,” answered Sancho, “because it’s not too certain that the spoils of the first adventure will be good.”

By now they had come out of the woods and saw the three village girls close by. Don Quixote cast his eyes all along the road to El Toboso, and, since he saw nothing but the three peasant girls, he was greatly troubled and asked Sancho whether he had left them outside the city.

“What do you mean, outside the city?” he answered. “Has your grace by any chance got your eyes in the back of your head, that you don’t see that these are they, the ones coming here, shining like the very sun at noon?”

“I see nothing, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “but three peasant girls on three donkeys.”

“Now God deliver me from the devil!” answered Sancho. “And is it possible that three hackneys, or whatever they’re called, as white as driven snow, look like donkeys to your grace? As the Lord lives, may I pluck out this beard if that were true!”

“Well, I tell you, Sancho, my friend,” said Don Quixote, “that it is as true that they are he-donkeys, or she-donkeys, as that I am Don Quixote and you Sancho Panza; at least, that is how they look to me.”

“Hush, sir,” said Sancho, “don’t say such a thing, but open those eyes wide, and come and do reverence to the lady of your thoughts, who is drawing near now.”

And, saying this, he went forward to meet the three village girls; and, getting down from the gray, he took hold of the halter of the donkey of one of the three peasant girls, and, going down on both knees on the ground, he said:

“Queen and princess and duchess of beauty, may your haughtiness and greatness be pleased to receive into your grace and good pleasure this captive knight of yours, who stands there turned to marble stone, all flustered and pulseless at finding himself before your magnificent presence. I am Sancho Panza, his squire, and he is the wayworn knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called the Knight of the Sorry Figure.”

By this time Don Quixote had gone down on his knees beside Sancho, and was looking with starting eyes and troubled sight at the one Sancho called queen and lady; and since he could see nothing in her but a village girl, and not a very good-looking one, for she was round-faced and snub-nosed, he was bewildered and amazed, not daring to open his lips. The peasant girls were just as astonished, seeing those two men, so different from each other, on their knees and keeping their companion from going forward; but the one who had been stopped broke the silence, and, thoroughly ungracious and cross, said:

“Get out of the road, bad luck to you, and let us by, for we’re in a hurry.”

To which Sancho answered:

“O princess and universal lady of El Toboso! How is it that your magnanimous heart does not melt at seeing kneeling before your sublimated presence the pillar and prop of knight-errantry?”

On hearing this, another of the other two said:

“Whoa there, let me curry you, my father-in-law’s she-ass! Look at the way these young gentlemen come along now to make fun of village girls, as if we here didn’t know how to throw jibes as well as they do! Go on your way, and let us go on ours, and it’ll be healthier for you.”

“Get up, Sancho,” said Don Quixote at this point, “for I see now that Fortune, not yet sated with my ills, has taken every road by which any happiness might come to this wretched soul I have in my flesh. And you, O extreme of all the worth that can be desired, utmost bound of human gentleness, sole remedy of this afflicted heart that adores you! since the malignant enchanter persecutes me, and has put clouds and cataracts on my eyes, and for them alone and not for others has changed and transformed your peerless beauty and face into those of a poor peasant girl, if he has not also changed mine into that of some monster, to make it hateful to your eyes, do not fail to look on me gently and lovingly, seeing in this submission and kneeling that I offer to your misshapen beauty the humility with which my soul adores you.”

“Tell that to my grandad!” answered the village girl. “Much I care for brandishments! Out of the way, let us go, and we’ll thank you.”

Sancho moved aside and let her go, delighted at having got out of his tangle so well.

The village girl who had played the part of Dulcinea had scarcely seen herself free when, pricking her cananey with a goad she carried on the end of a stick, she set off running across the meadow. And, as the she-ass felt the point of the goad, which was tormenting her more than usual, she began to buck, so that she threw the lady Dulcinea to the ground; and, seeing this, Don Quixote ran to lift her up, and Sancho to set straight and girth the packsaddle, which had slipped around to the she-ass’s belly as well. When the packsaddle had been put right, and Don Quixote wanted to lift his enchanted lady in his arms onto the she-ass, the lady, getting up off the ground, spared him the trouble, for, drawing back a little, she took a short run, and, placing both hands on the she-ass’s haunches, landed her body, lighter than a falcon, on the packsaddle, and sat astride as if she were a man; and then Sancho said:

“By Saint Roch, our lady and mistress is nimbler than a hobby-hawk, and she could teach the most skillful rider in Córdoba or Mexico to mount in the short-stirrup style! Over the saddle’s cantle she went at a single bound, and with no spurs at all she makes the hackney run like a zebra. And her damsels don’t lag behind her, for they all run like the wind.”

And so it was in truth, because, as soon as Dulcinea saw herself mounted, they all spurred after her and dashed off at a run, and never looked back for upward of half a league. Don Quixote’s eyes followed them, and, when he saw they were out of sight, he turned to Sancho and said to him:

“Sancho, what do you think of how hated I am by enchanters? And see how far their malice and the grudge they bear me extend, since they have chosen to deprive me of the happiness it would have given me to see my lady as she really is. In effect, I was born to be an example to the unfortunate, and to be the target and the mark at which the arrows of ill fortune are aimed and leveled. And you must also take note, Sancho, that these traitors were not content with having changed and transformed my Dulcinea, but they transformed and changed her into a figure as low and as ugly as that of that village girl, and at the same time they took from her what belongs so much to ladies of rank, which is a sweet smell, from always moving among ambergris and flowers. For I tell you, Sancho, that when I went to lift Dulcinea onto her hackney, as you say it was, though it looked to me like a she-ass, she gave off a smell of raw garlic that went to my head and poisoned my very soul.”

“Oh, the rabble!” shouted Sancho at this point. “Oh, ill-starred and evil-minded enchanters, and would I could see you all strung up by the gills like sardines on a reed! Much you know, much you can do, and much more you do. It ought to have been enough for you, you villains, to have changed the pearls of my lady’s eyes into cork-oak galls, and her hair of purest gold into bristles from a red ox’s tail, and, in short, all her features from good to bad, without touching her smell; for by that at least we could have made out what was hidden under that ugly rind; although, to tell the truth, I never saw her ugliness, only her beauty, which was raised in point and carat by a mole she had above her right lip, like a mustache, with seven or eight blond hairs like threads of gold, and more than a span long.”

“To match that mole,” said Don Quixote, “according to the correspondence there is between those of the face and those of the body, Dulcinea must have another on the flat of her thigh, on the same side as the one on her face; but hairs of the length you have indicated are very long for moles.”

“Well, I can tell your grace,” answered Sancho, “that they looked as if they had grown there on purpose.”

“I believe it, my friend,” replied Don Quixote, “because whatever nature put in Dulcinea was perfect and finely finished; and so, had she a hundred such moles as you describe, on her they would not be moles, lunares, but lunas, moons, and shining stars. But tell me, Sancho: that thing which looked to me like a packsaddle, and which you put right, was it a flat saddle or a lady’s saddle?”

“It was nothing but a short-stirrup saddle,” answered Sancho, “with a field cloth so rich it’s worth half a kingdom.”

“And to think that I saw none of it, Sancho!” said Don Quixote. “Now I say again, and I shall say it a thousand times, that I am the most unfortunate of men.”

That rogue Sancho had all he could do to hide his laughter, hearing the foolish talk of his master, so delicately deceived. At last, after many other words had passed between the two of them, they mounted their beasts again and followed the road to Zaragoza, where they meant to arrive in time to be present at some solemn festivities which that illustrious city is accustomed to hold each year. But before they reached it, things befell them which, being many, great, and new, deserve to be written and read, as will be seen further on.