Chapter XI. Of the strange adventure that befell the valiant Don Quixote with the cart, or wagon, of The Parliament of Death

Don Quixote went on his way lost in thought, brooding over the cruel trick the enchanters had played on him in turning his lady Dulcinea into the ugly shape of the village girl, and he could not imagine what remedy he might find to restore her to her former self; and these thoughts carried him so far out of himself that, without noticing, he let the reins drop on Rocinante’s neck, and Rocinante, feeling the freedom he was given, stopped at every step to graze on the green grass with which those fields abounded. Sancho Panza roused him from his trance, saying:

“Sir, sorrows weren’t made for beasts but for men; but if men feel them too much, they turn into beasts. Let your grace pull yourself together, and come back to yourself, and take up Rocinante’s reins, and liven up and wake up, and show the gallantry that befits knights-errant. What the devil is this? What sort of drooping is this? Are we here, or in France? Let Satan carry off every Dulcinea there is in the world, for the health of a single knight-errant is worth more than all the enchantments and transformations on earth.”

“Be quiet, Sancho,” answered Don Quixote, in a voice not very faint. “Be quiet, I say, and do not blaspheme against that enchanted lady, for the blame for her misfortune and mishap is mine alone: her ill fortune is born of the envy the wicked bear me.”

“That’s just what I say,” answered Sancho. “Whoever saw her then and sees her now, what heart is there that doesn’t weep?”

“You may well say so, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “since you saw her in the full perfection of her beauty, for the enchantment did not extend to clouding your sight or hiding her loveliness from you: against me alone and against my eyes is the force of its venom directed. But for all that, Sancho, one thing has struck me, and it is that you described her beauty to me badly, because, if I remember rightly, you said that her eyes were like pearls, and eyes that look like pearls belong rather to a sea bream than to a lady; and, as I believe, Dulcinea’s must be of green emeralds, wide and long, with two heavenly arches that serve them for eyebrows; so take those pearls away from her eyes and move them to her teeth, for no doubt you got them mixed up, Sancho, and took the eyes for the teeth.”

“Anything’s possible,” answered Sancho, “because her beauty confused me the same as her ugliness did your grace. But let’s commend it all to God, for He’s the one who knows the things that are to happen in this vale of tears, in this wicked world of ours, where you can hardly find anything without some mixture of wickedness, humbug, and roguery. One thing troubles me, my master, more than the others, and it is wondering what’s to be done when your grace defeats some giant or some other knight and commands him to go and present himself before the lady Dulcinea’s beauty: where’s this poor giant, or this poor miserable beaten knight, to find her? I can just see them wandering through El Toboso like a pack of gawking fools, looking for my lady Dulcinea, and even if they run into her in the middle of the street, they’ll know her no better than they’d know my father.”

“Perhaps, Sancho,” answered Don Quixote, “the enchantment will not extend so far as to take away the knowledge of Dulcinea from the giants and knights who are vanquished and present themselves to her; and with one or two of the first that I vanquish and send to her, we shall make the experiment whether they see her or not, ordering them to come back and give me an account of what befell them in this matter.”

“I say, sir,” replied Sancho, “that what your grace has said seems good to me, and that with that device we’ll come to know what we want to know; and if it turns out that she hides herself from your grace alone, the misfortune will be more your grace’s than hers; but so long as the lady Dulcinea has health and contentment, we here on our side will make do and get along as best we can, seeking our adventures and leaving time to get up to its own tricks, for it’s the best doctor for these ailments and for greater ones.”

Don Quixote meant to answer Sancho Panza, but he was prevented by a cart that came out across the road, loaded with the most varied and strange personages and figures that could be imagined. The one who drove the mules and served as carter was a hideous demon. The cart came open to the sky, with no awning or wicker hood. The first figure that met Don Quixote’s eyes was that of Death herself, with a human face; beside her came an angel with large painted wings; to one side stood an emperor with a crown, of gold to all appearances, on his head; at the feet of Death was the god they call Cupid, without the blindfold over his eyes, but with his bow, quiver, and arrows. There came also a knight armed from head to foot, except that he wore no morion or helmet but a hat full of feathers of many colors; and with these came other persons of different costumes and faces. All of which, seen so suddenly, threw Don Quixote into some agitation and put fear into Sancho’s heart; but then Don Quixote grew glad, believing that some new and perilous adventure was offering itself to him, and with this thought, and with a spirit ready to take on any danger, he placed himself across the cart’s path and, in a loud, threatening voice, said:

“Carter, coachman, or devil, or whatever you are, be quick to tell me who you are, where you are going, and who the people are that you carry in your wagon, which looks more like Charon’s boat than any cart in common use.”

To which the Devil, stopping the cart, mildly answered:

“Sir, we are players of the company of Angulo the Bad; this morning, which is the octave of Corpus Christi, we performed the sacramental play of The Parliament of Death in a village behind that hill, and this afternoon we are to perform it in that village you can see from here; and since it is so near, and to save ourselves the trouble of undressing and dressing again, we travel in the very costumes we perform in. That young man goes as Death; the other, as the Angel; that woman, who is the manager’s wife, as the Queen; the other, as the Soldier; that one, as the Emperor; and I, as the Demon, and I am one of the principal figures of the play, for in this company I play the leading parts. If your grace wishes to know anything else about us, ask me, for I shall be able to answer you with all exactness; since, being a demon, I know everything.”

“By the faith of a knight-errant,” answered Don Quixote, “as soon as I saw this cart, I imagined that some great adventure was offering itself to me; and now I say that one must touch appearances with one’s hand before one can be undeceived. Go with God, good people, and hold your festival, and see whether there is anything you would have of me in which I can be of service to you, for I shall do it gladly and with good will, because from a boy I was fond of the masque, and in my youth my eyes would run after the strolling players.”

While they were in this talk, fate would have it that one of the company came up, dressed as a mummer’s fool, with a great many jingle bells, and at the end of a stick he carried three blown-up cow’s bladders; and this buffoon, coming up to Don Quixote, began to flourish the stick and to beat the ground with the bladders and to leap high in the air, jangling the bells, and the evil sight of him so startled Rocinante that, without Don Quixote being able to hold him, he took the bit between his teeth and set off running across the field with more speed than the bones of his skeleton ever promised. Sancho, who saw the danger his master was in of being thrown, jumped off the gray and ran in all haste to his aid; but when he got there, his master already lay on the ground, with Rocinante beside him, who had come down along with him: the usual end and resting place of Rocinante’s friskiness and daring.

But no sooner had Sancho left his mount to go to Don Quixote than the dancing demon with the bladders jumped on the gray and whacked him with them, and the fright and the noise, more than the pain of the blows, sent him flying across the countryside toward the village where they were going to hold the festival. Sancho watched his gray’s flight and his master’s fall, and he did not know which of the two needs to attend to first; but in effect, being a good squire and a good servant, his love for his master weighed more with him than his fondness for his donkey, though each time he saw the bladders lifted into the air and brought down on his gray’s rump, it was agony and mortal fright to him, and he would rather those blows had been given to him on the apples of his eyes than on the least hair of his donkey’s tail. In this perplexed tribulation he arrived where Don Quixote was, a good deal more battered than he would have liked, and, helping him up onto Rocinante, he said to him:

“Sir, the Devil has carried off the gray.”

“What devil?” asked Don Quixote.

“The one with the bladders,” answered Sancho.

“Then I shall recover him,” replied Don Quixote, “even if the fellow should lock himself up with him in hell’s deepest and murkiest dungeons. After me, Sancho, for the cart moves slowly, and with its mules I shall make good the loss of the gray.”

“There’s no need to go to that trouble, sir,” answered Sancho. “Let your grace cool your anger, for, as it seems to me, the Devil has already let go of the gray, and he’s heading back to his own stall.”

And so it truly was; for the Devil, having fallen with the gray, in imitation of Don Quixote and Rocinante, went off to the village on foot, and the donkey came back to his master.

“For all that,” said Don Quixote, “it would be well to punish that demon’s discourtesy on one of the people in the cart, even if it should be the emperor himself.”

“Put that out of your grace’s head,” replied Sancho, “and take my advice, which is never to pick a quarrel with play-actors, for they’re a favored lot. I’ve seen a player arrested for two killings and come out free and without paying costs. Your grace should know that, since they’re merry folk and people of pleasure, everyone favors them, everyone shelters them, helps them, and thinks well of them, and all the more when they’re from the royal and titled companies, who all, or most of them, look like so many princes in their dress and bearing.”

“Even so,” answered Don Quixote, “that play-acting demon shall not go off boasting at my expense, though the whole human race should favor him.”

And, saying this, he turned back toward the cart, which was by now quite close to the village. He went shouting as he rode, saying:

“Halt, wait, you merry and festive crew, for I mean to make you understand how the donkeys and beasts that serve as mounts for the squires of knights-errant are to be treated.”

So loud were Don Quixote’s shouts that those in the cart heard and understood them; and, judging the intention of the speaker by his words, in an instant Death jumped down from the cart, and after her the Emperor, the Devil who drove it, and the Angel, nor did the Queen or the god Cupid stay behind; and they all loaded themselves with stones and drew up in line, waiting to receive Don Quixote on the points of their pebbles. Don Quixote, seeing them formed into so gallant a squadron, their arms raised in the act of hurling the stones with great force, reined in Rocinante and set himself to think how he might attack them with the least danger to his person. While he was halted there, Sancho came up, and, seeing him in the posture of one about to charge the well-ordered squadron, said to him:

“It would be madness and then some to try such an enterprise. Consider, your grace, my master, that against brook-stone soup ladled out till your cap flies off, there’s no defensive armor in the world, unless it’s to stuff yourself and shut yourself up inside a bronze bell; and you must consider, too, that it’s more rashness than courage for one man alone to attack an army where Death is, and where emperors fight in person, and which the good angels and the bad ones help; and if this consideration doesn’t move you to keep still, let it move you to know for certain that, among all those who are there, though they look like kings, princes, and emperors, there isn’t a single knight-errant.”

“Now indeed, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “you have hit on the point that can and must turn me from my already settled intent. I cannot and must not draw my sword, as I have told you many other times, against anyone who has not been dubbed a knight. It is for you, Sancho, if you wish to take vengeance for the wrong done to your gray; and I shall help you from here with shouts and wholesome warnings.”

“There’s no reason, sir,” answered Sancho, “to take vengeance on anyone, for it isn’t for good Christians to take it for wrongs done them; besides, I’ll get my donkey to leave his offense in the hands of my will, which is to live peaceably for the days that heaven grants me of life.”

“Since that is your resolve,” replied Don Quixote, “good Sancho, sensible Sancho, Christian Sancho, and sincere Sancho, let us leave these phantoms and go back to seeking better and worthier adventures; for I see that this country is of such a kind that it cannot lack many and most marvelous ones.”

He turned his reins at once, Sancho went to catch his gray, Death and all her flying squadron went back to their cart and continued their journey, and such was the happy end of the fearful adventure of the cart of Death, thanks be given to the wholesome advice that Sancho Panza gave his master; to whom, the next day, there befell another, with an enamored knight-errant, of no less suspense than the last.