Chapter XXVII. In which is told who Master Pedro and his ape were, with the bad outcome Don Quixote had in the adventure of the braying, which he did not finish as he would have wished and as he had planned

Cide Hamete, chronicler of this great history, comes into this chapter with these words: “I swear as a Catholic Christian…”; on which his translator says that when Cide Hamete swore as a Catholic Christian, though a Moor, as no doubt he was, he meant nothing else than that, just as a Catholic Christian, when he swears, swears or ought to swear the truth and tell it in whatever he says, so he was telling it, as if he swore as a Catholic Christian, in what he meant to write of Don Quixote, especially in telling who Master Pedro was, and who the divining ape that had all those villages amazed with its divinations.

He says, then, that whoever has read the first part of this history will well remember that Ginés de Pasamonte to whom, among other galley slaves, Don Quixote gave freedom in the Sierra Morena, a kindness for which he was afterward ill thanked and worse repaid by that wicked and ill-bred crew. This Ginés de Pasamonte, whom Don Quixote called Ginesillo de Parapilla, was the one who stole Sancho Panza’s gray; and because neither the how nor the when of it was set down in the first part, through the fault of the printers, it has given many people something to puzzle over, who put down the printing fault to the author’s poor memory. But, in short, Ginés stole him while Sancho Panza was asleep on his back, using the trick and method Brunelo used when, Sacripante being at the siege of Albraca, he drew his horse out from between his legs; and afterward Sancho got him back, as has been told. This Ginés, then, fearful of being found by the law, which was looking for him to punish him for his countless villainies and crimes, which were so many and of such a kind that he himself composed a great volume recounting them, resolved to pass over into the kingdom of Aragon and cover his left eye, taking up the trade of puppeteer; for this, and sleight of hand, he knew how to do to perfection.

It happened, then, that from some Christians newly freed and coming from Barbary he bought that ape, which he taught, at a certain signal he made, to climb onto his shoulder and murmur in his ear, or seem to. This done, before going into the village he was entering with his puppet show and ape, he would find out in the nearest village, or from whoever he best could, what particular things had happened in that village and to what persons; and, keeping them well in his memory, the first thing he did was show his puppet show, which was sometimes of one story and sometimes of another, but all of them merry, cheerful, and well known. When the show was over, he would put forward his ape’s skills, telling the people that it divined everything past and present, but that in matters to come it had no knack. For the answer to each question he asked two reales, and some he gave cheaply, according as he took the pulse of the questioners; and since now and then he came to the houses of people whose doings he knew about, even if they asked him nothing so as not to pay him, he would give the ape the signal and then say that it had told him such and such a thing, which fitted exactly with what had happened. With this he won unspeakable credit, and everyone went running after him. At other times, being so shrewd, he answered in such a way that the answers suited the questions; and since no one pressed him or pinned him down to say how his ape divined, he made monkeys of them all and filled his pouches.

As soon as he came into the inn he recognized Don Quixote and Sancho, and by recognizing them it was easy for him to astonish Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and everyone who was in the inn; but it would have cost him dear if Don Quixote’s hand had come down a little lower when he struck off King Marsilio’s head and laid waste his whole cavalry, as was told in the preceding chapter.

This is what there is to say about Master Pedro and his ape.

And, returning to Don Quixote of La Mancha, I say that after he had left the inn he resolved first to see the banks of the river Ebro and all that region before entering the city of Zaragoza, since the long time still left from then until the jousts gave him room for everything. With this intention he went on his way, along which he traveled for two days without anything happening to him worth putting in writing, until on the third, as he was climbing a hill, he heard a great noise of drums, trumpets, and harquebuses. At first he thought some regiment of soldiers was passing through that part, and to see them he spurred Rocinante and rode up the hill; and when he was on the top he saw at its foot, to his thinking, more than two hundred men armed with different sorts of arms, such as, let us say, long lances, crossbows, partisans, halberds and pikes, and some harquebuses, and many bucklers. He came down from the slope and drew near the squadron, so near that he could see the banners distinctly, made out their colors, and noted the devices they bore on them, especially one that came on a standard or pennon of white satin, on which there was painted to the life an ass like a little Sardinian donkey, its head raised, its mouth open, and its tongue hanging out, in the act and posture of braying; and around it these two lines were written in large letters:

Not in vain did they bray,
the one mayor and the other.

From this device Don Quixote gathered that those people must be from the braying village, and so he told Sancho, explaining to him what was written on the standard. He told him too that the man who had given them an account of the affair had been mistaken in saying that it was two aldermen who had brayed, for according to the lines on the standard they had been mayors. To which Sancho Panza answered:

“Sir, there’s no need to stick at that, for it may very well be that the aldermen who brayed back then came in time to be mayors of their village, and so they can be called by both titles; all the more since it makes no difference to the truth of the story whether the brayers were mayors or aldermen, so long as they really did bray; because a mayor is just as liable to bray as an alderman.”

In short, they learned and came to know that the mocked village was going out to fight another that mocked it more than was right and more than was owed to good neighborliness.

Don Quixote went on toward them, not a little to the distress of Sancho, who was never fond of finding himself in such undertakings. The men of the squadron took him into their midst, believing he was one of their own side. Don Quixote, raising his visor, with a fine spirit and bearing, rode up to the standard of the ass, and there the leading men of the army all crowded about him to get a look at him, struck with the usual wonder that fell upon all who looked at him for the first time. Don Quixote, seeing them so intent on looking at him without any of them speaking to him or asking him anything, wished to take advantage of that silence, and, breaking his own, raised his voice and said:

“Good sirs, as earnestly as I can, I beg you not to interrupt a discourse I wish to make to you, until you see that it displeases and annoys you; for if that happens, at the slightest sign you make me I shall put a seal on my mouth and a gag on my tongue.”

They all told him to say what he liked, for they would gladly listen to him. Don Quixote, with this leave, went on, saying:

“I, my good sirs, am a knight-errant; arms are my calling, and my profession is to favor those in need of favor and to help the needy. Some days ago I learned of your misfortune and the cause that moves you to take up arms at every turn to avenge yourselves on your enemies; and, having pondered your business once and many times in my understanding, I find, according to the laws of the duel, that you are mistaken in holding yourselves affronted, because no private person can affront a whole village, unless he challenges it as a traitor all together, because he does not know in particular who committed the treason for which he challenges it. We have an example of this in Don Diego Ordóñez de Lara, who challenged the whole people of Zamora, not knowing that the treason of killing his king was the work of Vellido Dolfos alone; and so he challenged them all, and the vengeance and the answer belonged to them all; though it is very true that Señor Don Diego went somewhat too far, and even passed well beyond the bounds of a challenge, because he had no call to challenge the dead, the waters, the loaves, those yet unborn, or the other trifles set out there; but there it is, for when anger leaves its mother channel, the tongue has neither father, tutor, nor bridle to correct it. This being so, then, that one man alone cannot affront a kingdom, province, city, commonwealth, or whole village, it comes out clean that there is no reason to go out to avenge the challenge of such an affront, since it is none; for a fine thing it would be if the people of the town of the Clock were to kill whoever calls them so at every turn, or the Stewpotters, the Eggplanters, the Whalelings, the Soapmakers, or those of other names and nicknames that go about in the mouths of boys and of people of no great account! A fine thing indeed it would be if all these illustrious towns were to take offense and avenge themselves, and go about forever with their swords working in and out like sackbuts at every quarrel, however small! No, no, God neither permit nor will it. Prudent men and well-ordered commonwealths must take up arms, unsheathe their swords, and put their persons, lives, and goods at risk for four things: the first, to defend the Catholic faith; the second, to defend their lives, which is by natural and divine law; the third, in defense of their honor, their family, and their goods; the fourth, in the service of their king in a just war; and if we wish to add a fifth, which may be counted as the second, it is in defense of their country. To these five causes, as the chief ones, some others may be added that are just and reasonable and oblige men to take up arms; but to take them up for childish things and for matters that are rather for laughter and pastime than for affront seems to show that whoever takes them up lacks all reasonable judgment; all the more since taking unjust vengeance (and just there can be none) goes straight against the holy law we profess, which bids us do good to our enemies and love those who hate us; a commandment which, though it seems somewhat difficult to fulfill, is not so except for those who have less of God than of the world, and more of the flesh than of the spirit; for Jesus Christ, true God and man, who never lied, nor could nor can lie, being our lawgiver, said that his yoke was easy and his burden light; and so he would not command us anything that was impossible to fulfill. So, my good sirs, your graces are bound by divine and human laws to be at peace.”

“The devil take me,” said Sancho to himself at this point, “if this master of mine isn’t a teologian; and if he isn’t, he looks like one as one egg looks like another.”

Don Quixote took a little breath, and, seeing that they still gave him silence, wished to go on with his discourse, as he would have done had not Sancho’s sharpness put itself in the way; for Sancho, seeing that his master was pausing, took the lead for him, saying:

“My master Don Quixote of La Mancha, who once called himself the Knight of the Sorry Figure and now calls himself the Knight of the Lions, is a very cautious hidalgo, who knows Latin and the vernacular like a bachelor, and in everything he deals with and advises he goes about it like a very good soldier, and he has all the laws and ordinances of what they call the duel at his fingertips; and so there’s nothing more to do but be guided by whatever he says, and on my head be it if you go wrong; all the more since it’s already been said that it’s foolishness to take offense just at hearing a bray, for I remember when I was a boy I brayed whenever and as often as I felt like it, without anybody holding me back, and with such grace and truth to life that when I brayed all the asses in the village brayed, and not for that did I stop being the son of my parents, who were most honorable people; and though for this skill I was envied by more than four of the stuck-up folk of my village, I didn’t care two ardites. And so that you see I’m telling the truth, wait and listen, for this science is like swimming: once learned, it’s never forgotten.”

And then, putting his hand to his nose, he began to bray so lustily that all the nearby valleys rang with it. But one of those who were next to him, thinking he was making fun of them, raised a pole he had in his hand and gave him such a blow with it that, without his being able to help it, it knocked Sancho Panza to the ground. Don Quixote, seeing Sancho so badly treated, charged at the man who had struck him, with his lance in hand, but so many came between them that it was not possible to avenge him; on the contrary, seeing that a cloudburst of stones was raining down on him, and that a thousand leveled crossbows and no smaller number of harquebuses were threatening him, he turned Rocinante’s reins and, as fast as his gallop could carry him, got out from among them, commending himself with all his heart to God to deliver him from that danger, fearing at every step that some bullet would enter at his back and come out at his breast; and every moment he drew in his breath to see whether it failed him.

But the men of the squadron were content to see him flee, without shooting at him. They put Sancho on his donkey, scarcely come to himself, and let him go after his master, not that he had the sense to guide him; but the gray followed in Rocinante’s tracks, for without him he was never at ease for a moment. Don Quixote, then, having got a good way off, turned his head and saw that Sancho was coming, and waited for him, seeing that no one was following him.

The men of the squadron stayed there until nightfall, and, since their enemies had not come out to battle, they went back to their village, merry and rejoicing; and if they had known the ancient custom of the Greeks, they would have raised a trophy in that place and spot.