Chapter LI. Of the progress of Sancho Panza’s government, with other events as good as they are

Day dawned after the night of the governor’s round, which the table steward spent without sleeping, his thoughts taken up with the face, spirit, and beauty of the disguised damsel; and the steward spent what was left of it writing to his master and mistress what Sancho Panza was doing and saying, as amazed at his deeds as at his sayings, for his words and his actions went mixed together, with glimmers of good sense and of foolishness.

At last the lord governor got up, and, by order of Doctor Pedro Recio, they had him breakfast on a little fruit preserve and four swallows of cold water, which Sancho would gladly have swapped for a hunk of bread and a cluster of grapes; but, seeing that this was more a matter of force than of choice, he put up with it, to the great grief of his soul and the distress of his stomach, Pedro Recio making him believe that few and delicate dishes sharpened the wit, which was what most befitted persons placed in command and in grave offices, where they must make use not so much of the strength of the body as of the strength of the understanding.

With this sophistry Sancho suffered hunger, and such hunger that in secret he cursed the government and even the man who had given it to him; but, with his hunger and his preserve, he sat in judgment that day, and the first matter brought to him was a question from a stranger, with the steward and the rest of the acolytes present for all of it, which was this:

“Sir, a mighty river divided two districts of one and the same lordship (and let your grace pay attention, for the case is important and somewhat difficult). I say, then, that over this river there was a bridge, and at the end of it a gallows and a sort of courthouse, in which there were usually four judges who judged by the law laid down by the owner of the river, the bridge, and the lordship, which was in this form: ‘If anyone crosses by this bridge from one side to the other, he must first swear where he is going and for what; and if he swears truly, let him pass; and if he tells a lie, let him die for it, hanged on the gallows displayed there, without any reprieve.’ This law and its harsh condition being known, many crossed, and from what they swore it was soon seen that they were telling the truth, and the judges let them pass freely. It happened, then, that when they put a man to his oath, he swore and said that by the oath he was taking he was going to die on that gallows standing there, and for nothing else. The judges considered the oath and said, ‘If we let this man pass freely, he lied in his oath, and, by the law, he must die; and if we hang him, he swore he was going to die on that gallows, and, having sworn truly, by the same law he must go free.’ It is asked of your grace, lord governor, what the judges are to do with this man; for even now they are still in doubt and suspense. And, having heard of your grace’s sharp and lofty understanding, they sent me to beg your grace on their behalf to give your opinion on so tangled and doubtful a case.”

To which Sancho answered:

“Truly those lord judges who send you to me could have spared themselves the trouble, because I’m a man who has more of the dullard than of the sharp one about him; but for all that, tell me the business over again so that I understand it: it may be that I’ll hit the mark.”

The questioner went over what he had said at first again and yet again, and Sancho said:

“To my mind, I’ll set out this business in two shakes, and it’s like this: the man swears he is going to die on the gallows, and if he dies on it, he swore the truth, and by the law laid down he deserves to go free and cross the bridge; and if they don’t hang him, he swore a lie, and by the same law he deserves to be hanged.”

“It is just as the lord governor says,” said the messenger, “and as for the fullness and understanding of the case, there is nothing more to ask or to doubt.”

“Then what I say now,” replied Sancho, “is that the part of this man that swore truly be let pass, and the part that told a lie be hanged, and in this way the condition for crossing will be carried out to the letter.”

“But, lord governor,” replied the questioner, “it will be necessary for this man to be divided into parts, into a lying one and a truthful one; and if he is divided, he must of necessity die, and so nothing of what the law demands is achieved, and it is of express necessity that it be complied with.”

“Come here, my good sir,” answered Sancho. “This traveler you speak of, either I’m a blockhead or he has the same reason to die as to live and cross the bridge; because if the truth saves him, the lie condemns him equally; and, this being so, as it is, my opinion is that you should tell those gentlemen who sent you to me that, since the reasons for condemning him or absolving him hang on a hair’s balance, they should let him pass freely, for doing good is always more praised than doing ill; and I’d put my name to this, if I knew how to write it; and in this case I haven’t spoken out of my own head, but there came to my memory a precept, among many others my master Don Quixote gave me the night before I came to be governor of this isle, which was that when justice was in doubt I should lean toward mercy and take shelter in it; and God has been pleased that I should remember it now, since it fits this case as if cast in a mold.”

“That is so,” answered the steward, “and I hold that Lycurgus himself, who gave laws to the Lacedaemonians, could not have given a better sentence than the one the great Panza has given. And let the morning’s hearing end with this, and I will give orders for the lord governor to dine very much to his liking.”

“That’s what I ask, and no tricks,” said Sancho. “Give me something to eat, and let cases and doubts rain down on me, for I’ll trim the wicks of them in midair.”

The steward kept his word, for it seemed to him a matter of conscience to starve so sensible a governor to death; and besides, he meant to finish with him that very night by playing on him the last jest he had been commissioned to play.

It happened, then, that, Sancho having dined that day against the rules and aphorisms of Doctor Tirteafuera, as the cloths were being taken up a courier came in with a letter from Don Quixote for the governor. Sancho told the secretary to read it over silently first, and if there was nothing in it that called for secrecy, to read it aloud. The secretary did so, and, running his eye over it first, said:

“It may very well be read aloud, for what Señor Don Quixote writes to your grace deserves to be printed and written in letters of gold, and it says this:”

Letter from Don Quixote of La Mancha to Sancho Panza, governor of the isle of Barataria

When I expected to hear news of your carelessness and blunders, Sancho my friend, I heard news of your good sense, for which I gave particular thanks to heaven, which knows how to raise the poor from the dunghill and make sensible men out of fools. They tell me you govern as if you were a man, and that you are a man as if you were a beast, such is the humility with which you carry yourself; and I want you to note, Sancho, that it is often fitting and necessary, for the dignity of the office, to go against the humility of the heart; for the proper dress of a person placed in grave posts must accord with what they demand, and not with the measure to which his humble condition inclines him. Dress well, for a stick dressed up does not look like a stick. My meaning is not that you should wear trinkets or finery, or dress like a soldier when you are a judge, but that you should adorn yourself with the garb your office requires, provided it is clean and well kept.

To win the goodwill of the people you govern, you must do two things among others: one, be well-mannered with everyone, though I have told you this once before; and the other, see to it that there is an abundance of provisions; for there is nothing that wears down the hearts of the poor more than hunger and scarcity.

Do not make many decrees; and if you make them, see that they are good, and above all that they are kept and carried out; for decrees that are not kept are the same as if they did not exist; rather they give it to be understood that the prince who had the wisdom and authority to make them did not have the courage to see that they were kept; and laws that frighten and are not enforced come to be like the log that was king of the frogs: at first it frightened them, and in time they scorned it and climbed up on top of it.

Be a father to the virtues and a stepfather to the vices. Do not be always harsh, nor always soft, and choose the mean between these two extremes, for in this lies the point of good sense. Visit the jails, the butcher shops, and the markets, for the governor’s presence in such places is of great importance: it comforts the prisoners, who hope for the speedy dispatch of their cases; it is a bogeyman to the butchers, who for the time being make their weights honest, and a scarecrow to the market women, for the same reason. Do not show yourself, even if by chance you are so—which I do not believe—greedy, a woman chaser, or a glutton; because once the people and those who deal with you know your particular inclination, they will lay their battery against you there until they bring you down into the depths of perdition.

Look and look again, go over and over the counsels and instructions I gave you in writing before you left here for your government, and you will see how you find in them, if you keep them, an allowance to help you bear the labors and difficulties that governors meet at every step. Write to your master and mistress and let them see your gratitude, for ingratitude is pride’s daughter and among the worst sins we know of, and the person who is grateful to those who have done him good gives a sign that he will also be grateful to God, who has done him so much good and does him good continually.

My lady the duchess sent off a messenger of her own with your suit and another present to your wife Teresa Panza; we expect an answer any moment.

I have been a little out of sorts from a certain cat-clawing that befell me, not much to the credit of my nose; but it was nothing, for if there are enchanters who ill-treat me, there are also some who defend me.

Let me know whether the steward who is with you had anything to do with the doings of the Trifaldi, as you suspected, and you will keep me informed of everything that happens to you, since the distance is so short; all the more since I mean to leave this idle life I am leading soon, for I was not born for it.

A matter has come up that I believe is going to put me out of favor with these lords; but though it matters a great deal to me, it matters nothing to me, since, in the end, in the end, I must comply with my profession before their pleasure, according to what is often said: amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas (Plato is a friend, but truth a greater friend). I tell you this Latin because I take it that, since you became a governor, you will have learned it. And God be with you, and may he keep you from anyone’s having pity on you.

Your friend,

Don Quixote of La Mancha.

Sancho heard the letter with great attention, and it was praised and held to be wise by those who heard it; and then Sancho got up from the table, and, calling the secretary, shut himself up with him in his room, and, without delaying any longer, wished to answer his master Don Quixote at once, and told the secretary to write down what he told him, without adding or taking away anything, and so he did; and the letter of reply ran as follows:

Letter from Sancho Panza to Don Quixote of La Mancha

I’m so taken up with business that I don’t get a moment to scratch my head, or even to pare my nails; and so I’m wearing them so long that God help them. I say this, master of my soul, so that your grace won’t be shocked if I haven’t let you know before now how well or badly I’m doing in this government, in which I’m hungrier than when the two of us went wandering through the woods and the wilds.

The duke, my lord, wrote to me the other day, warning me that certain spies had come into this isle to kill me, and so far I haven’t discovered any but a certain doctor who is on salary in this town to kill every governor who comes here: he is called Doctor Pedro Recio, and he’s a native of Tirteafuera: so your grace can see what a name it is, and whether I’ve no reason to fear I’ll die at his hands! This doctor says himself of himself that he doesn’t cure illnesses when there are any, but heads them off so they don’t come; and his medicines are diet and then more diet, till a person is worn down to the bare bones, as if weakness weren’t a worse ill than fever. In short, he’s killing me with hunger, and I’m dying of vexation, for when I thought I’d be coming to this government to eat hot and drink cold, and to take my ease between Holland sheets on feather mattresses, I’ve come to do penance, as if I were a hermit; and since I don’t do it of my own free will, I think that in the end, in the end, the devil is going to carry me off.

So far I haven’t touched a fee or taken a bribe, and I can’t think what this is coming to; because here they’ve told me that the governors who usually come to this isle, before they come into it, have been given or lent a great deal of money by the people of the town, and that this is the ordinary custom with others who go to governments too, not just in this one.

Last night, making the rounds, I came on a very beautiful damsel in men’s clothes and a brother of hers dressed as a woman; my table steward fell in love with the girl and chose her in his imagination for his wife, so he has said, and I chose the boy for my son-in-law; today the two of us will put our ideas before the father of the pair of them, who is a certain Diego de la Llana, as much an hidalgo and Old Christian as anyone could want.

I visit the markets, as your grace advises me, and yesterday I found a woman stall keeper selling new hazelnuts, and I found out that she had mixed a fanega of old ones, empty and rotten, in with a fanega of new; I handed them all over to the orphan children of the catechism school, who would know very well how to tell them apart, and sentenced her not to come into the market for fifteen days. They’ve told me I acted valiantly; what I can tell your grace is that it’s common talk in this town that there are no worse people than market women, because they are all shameless, heartless, and bold, and I believe it, from those I’ve seen in other towns.

I’m very pleased that my lady the duchess has written my wife Teresa Panza a letter and made her the present your grace speaks of, and I’ll try to show myself grateful in due course: kiss her hands for me, your grace, saying that I say it hasn’t gone into a torn sack, as she’ll see by the deed.

I wouldn’t want your grace to have any falling out over accounts with those lords of mine, because if your grace gets angry with them, it’s clear it will redound to my harm, and it won’t be right, since I’m being counseled to be grateful, for your grace not to be grateful to those who have done you so many favors and treated you so handsomely in their castle.

That cat-clawing business I don’t understand, but I imagine it must be one of the wicked tricks the wicked enchanters are always playing on your grace; I’ll find out when we see each other.

I’d like to send your grace something, but I don’t know what to send, unless it’s some syringe tubes, which they make very nicely in this isle to go with bladders; though if my office lasts, I’ll find something to send, by the skirts or by the sleeves.

If my wife Teresa Panza writes to me, pay the postage, your grace, and send me the letter, for I’m dying to know how things stand at home, with my wife and my children. And with this, may God deliver your grace from ill-intentioned enchanters, and bring me out of this government safe and in peace, which I doubt, because I expect to leave it along with my life, the way Doctor Pedro Recio is treating me.

Your grace’s servant,

Sancho Panza, the Governor.

The secretary sealed the letter and dispatched the courier at once; and those who were making fun of Sancho, getting together, agreed among themselves how to dispatch him from the government; and that afternoon Sancho spent in making some ordinances touching the good government of what he imagined to be an isle, and he ordered that there should be no hucksters reselling provisions in the commonwealth, and that wine might be brought in from whatever parts people liked, with the proviso that they declare the place it came from, so that a price could be set on it according to its worth, quality, and reputation, and that whoever watered it or changed its name should lose his life for it.

He lowered the price of all footwear, chiefly that of shoes, because it seemed to him to be running to excess; he set a cap on servants’ wages, which were galloping at full rein down the road of self-interest; he laid very heavy penalties on those who sang lewd and indecent songs, whether by night or by day. He ordered that no blind man should sing a miracle in verses unless he brought authentic testimony that it was true, for it seemed to him that most of those the blind men sing are made up, to the detriment of the true ones.

He made and created a constable of the poor, not to persecute them, but to examine them as to whether they were poor, because under cover of feigned maiming and false sores go thieving arms and drunken health. In short, he ordained things so good that they are kept in that town to this day, and are called The Constitutions of the Great Governor Sancho Panza.