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| Don Quixote and the lion |
EXTRACT FROM: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 2003 [1604] The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha (J. Rutherford transl), London: Penguin Books.
About events that revealed the very highest peak ever reached by Don Quixote's unprecedented courage, in the happily concluded adventure of the lions
The history says that when Don Quixote shouted to Sancho for his helmet, Sancho was buying some curds from the shepherds and, flustered by his master's urgency, he didn't know what to do with them or where to put them; and so, determined not to leave them behind, because he'd already paid for them, he decided to put them into the helmet and, once he'd taken this wise precaution, went to see what his master wanted.
Don Quixote said:'Give me that helmet, my friend; either I am a poor judge of adventures or what I can see over there is one that will require me to take up arms, and indeed is doing so at this very instant'.
The man in the green topcoat heard this and looked around in all directions, but all he could see was a cart coming towards them bearing two or three small flags, which gave him to understand that it must be carrying a load of the King's money, and this is what he said to Don Quixote; but Don Quixote wouldn't accept what he said, believing as always that everything that happened to him must be adventures and still more adventures, and so he replied to the hidalgo:'He is wise who looks ahead, and nothing is lost by my looking ahead, because I know from experience that I have both visible and invisible enemies, and I do not know when, or where, or at what moment, or in what shape they will attack me'.
And turning to Sancho he again asked for his helmet; Sancho, with no time to remove the curds, had to hand it over as it was. Don Quixote took it and, not noticing what was inside, rammed it down over his head, which gave the curds a thorough pressing and sent the whey running down over his face and his beard, alarming him so much that he exclaimed:'What can this be, Sancho? It is as if my brain-box were softening, or as if my brains themselves were melting, or as if I were perspiring from head to toe! And if I am perspiring, it is most certainly not from fear: I am quite sure now that the adventure about to befall me is a terrible one indeed. Give me something with which to wipe myself, if you have anything about you: all this perspiration in my eyes is blinding me.'
Sancho kept quiet and gave his master a cloth and God thanks that his master hadn't tumbled to what had happened. Don Quixote wiped his face and removed his helmet to see what it was that had given him a cold head, if not cold feet; and then he saw all that white pap in there, and then he lifted it to his nose, and as soon as he smelled it said:'By the life of my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, these are curds you've put in here, you treacherous villainous, ill-mannered squire!'
To which Sancho replied with imperturbable duplicity:'if it's curds, let's have them and I'll eat them. But better let the devil eat them, because it must have been him that put them in there. ... I must have my enchanters, too, pursuing me because I'm your creature and your limb, and they must have put that muck in there to make you lose your temper and beat me up as you usually do... I put my trust in my master's good sense, he knows full well that I haven't got any curds or milk or anything of the sort, and if I had I'd put them in my belly not your helmet'.
...'What you say could be true', said Don Quixote.... 'And now, come what may! Here I wait to join battle with Satan himself in person'.As he said this the cart with the flags rolled up, accompanied only by the carter, riding one of the mules, and by another man sitting on the front seat. Don Quixote planted himself before the cart and said:'Where are you going, my good men? What cart is this, what are you carrying on it and what flags are these?'
To which the carter replied:'The cart is mine, on it are two fierce lions in crates, which the general in Oran is sending to court as a present for His Majesty; and the flags are the King's banners, showing that what we're carrying here belongs to him'.
END OF EXTRACT
Cervantes'
comic genius lies in sketching out so vividly the fine line between
madness and reason, and the way it keeps slipping away from the
characters. At the point where this story picks up, Don Quixote has just
managed to persuade the hidalgo in green, a fellow traveller, that he
is sane. He wasn't trying to persuade him, but incidentally achieved
this by giving the hidalgo good advice and entertaining him with his
knowledge of poetry and the classics. However, the minute this
conversation is completed Don Quixote promptly sees the cart coming
along wheupon he engages in his most dangerous and pointless mad feat to
date. Not only does he do this, but there is a brilliant bit of farce
with the curds. Sancho's influence is not entirely blameless either as
one moment he is egging his master on, and confirming his belief that he
is subject to evil enchanters to further his own ends, and the next
moment tries to reason with him as if he were a normal person. The
prologue's characterisation of the pair as a sane madman and a wise fool
is worked out in the finest of nuances.
Cervantes himself served as a valet to a wealthy Roman priest (later elevated to cardinal) and then enrolled in the Spanish Navy only to be captured by Algerian corsairs (there is a subplot which mythologises the great feats against the Turks of "the soldier Saavedra" (himself) in one of the subsidiary romances included in the second part of Don Quixote). Later he worked as a tax collector and ended up in jail because of discrepancies in his accounts, before becoming a successful writer once Don Quixote was published, and settling in Madrid for the rest of his life.
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