CHAPTER VIII

“Blessed be almighty Allah!” says Hamete Benengeli at the beginning of the eighth chapter. “Blessed be Allah!” he repeats three times, and says he gives these blessings at seeing that he now has Don Quixote and Sancho in the countryside, and the readers of his amiable history can assume that from this point on, the feats and exploits of Don Quixote and his squire will commence, and he will persuade them to forget the past knightly deeds of the Ingenious Gentleman and set their eyes upon those that are still to come, for they begin now on the road to Toboso, just as the earlier ones began in the fields of Montiel, and what he asks is very little considering all that he promises, and so he continues, saying:

Don Quixote and Sancho were now alone, and as soon as Sansón rode away Rocinante began to neigh and the donkey to snort, and both knight and squire considered this a good sign and a fortunate omen; although, if truth be told, the donkey snorted and brayed more than the horse neighed, and from this Sancho concluded that his good fortune would exceed and go beyond that of his master, and I do not know if he based this on the astrology he may have known, since the history says nothing about that, although he had been heard to say whenever he stumbled or fell that he would have been happy if he had never left his house, because the only thing one got from stumbling or falling was a torn shoe or broken ribs, and though he was a fool, in this he was not far off the mark. Don Quixote said to him:

“Sancho my friend, night is coming on more hurriedly and more darkly than we require if we are to see Toboso at dawn, for I am determined to go there before I embark on another adventure, and there I shall receive the blessing and approval of the peerless Dulcinea, and with this approval I believe and am certain that I shall finish and bring to a happy conclusion every dangerous adventure, for nothing in this life makes knights errant more valiant than finding themselves favored by their ladies.”

“I believe that, too,” responded Sancho, “but I think it will be difficult for your grace to talk to her or be with her, at least any place where you can receive her blessing, unless she throws it down to you from the fence around the corral where I saw her the first time, when I brought her the letter with news of the foolish and crazy things your grace was doing in the heart of the Sierra Morena.”

“Did you imagine they were corral fences, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “which you looked through or over in order to see that never sufficiently praised elegance and beauty? Surely they were galleries, or passageways, or porticoes, or whatever they are called, of rich and regal palaces.”

“Anything’s possible,” responded Sancho, “but they looked like fences to me, unless my memory fails me.”

“Despite everything, Sancho, let us go there,” replied Don Quixote. “As long as I see her, it does not matter to me if it is through fences, or windows, or narrow cracks, or the grillework around a garden; any ray of light from the sun of her beauty that reaches my eyes will illuminate my understanding and fortify my heart, so that I shall be unique and incomparable in judgment and valor.”

“Well, the truth is, Señor,” responded Sancho, “that when I saw the sun of my lady Dulcinea of Toboso, it wasn’t bright enough to send out any rays, and it must have been that since her grace was sifting that wheat I told you about, the dust she raised made something like a cloud in front of her face and darkened it.”

“Do you still persist, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “in saying, thinking, believing, and insisting that my lady Dulcinea was sifting wheat, when that is a task and a practice far removed from everything that is done and should be done by highborn persons, who are created and intended for other practices and pastimes, which reveal their rank even at a distance…! Oh, Sancho, how badly you remember the verses of our poet³⁴⁶ in which he depicts for us the labors performed in their crystal dwellings by the four nymphs who raised their heads from their beloved river, the Tajo, and sat in a green meadow to embroider those rich cloths which the ingenious poet describes for us there, all of them intertwined and interwoven with gold, silk thread, and pearls. And the work of my lady must have been of this sort when you saw her, but the envy that an evil enchanter feels toward my affairs alters all things that can give me pleasure, and changes their appearance; I fear that in the history of my deeds, which they say has been published, if the author by chance was some wise man who is my enemy, he will have put in certain things instead of others, mixing a thousand lies with one truth, digressing to recount actions other than those required in the coherent narration of a truthful history. O envy, root of infinite evils and woodworm of virtues! All vices, Sancho, bring with them some kind of delight, but envy brings nothing but vexation, rancor, and rage.”

“That’s what I say, too,” responded Sancho, “and I think that in the legend or history about us that Bachelor Carrasco told us he saw, my good name must be turned upside down and dragged helter-skelter and hither and yon, as they say, through the streets. But by my faith as an honest man, I’ve never said anything bad about any enchanter, and I don’t own enough for anybody to envy me; true, I have some guile in me, and a touch of cunning, but all of it is covered and concealed by the great cloak of my simplicity, which is always natural and never sly. And even if I had nothing else, there is my belief, and I’ve always believed, firmly and truly, in God and in everything that is thought and believed by the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and there is my being, as I am, a mortal enemy of the Jews, and so the historians ought to take pity on me and treat me well in their writings. But let them say whatever they want; naked I was born, I’m naked now: I haven’t lost or gained a thing; as long as I’ve been put in books and passed from hand to hand out in the world, I don’t care what they say about me.”

“That reminds me, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “of what happened to a famous poet of our day who, having written a malicious satire against all the courtesans, did not include or mention a certain lady because he was not sure if she was one or not; and this lady, seeing that she was not on the list with the rest, complained to the poet, asking what he had seen in her to make him exclude her from their number, and saying that he ought to lengthen the satire and include her, and if he did not, he would wonder why he had ever been born. The poet did as she asked and said the most vicious things about her, and she was satisfied, for she had become famous, though her fame was infamous. And another tale that is relevant here is one they tell about the shepherd who set fire to and burned the famous Temple of Diana, counted as one of the seven wonders of the world, so that his name would live throughout the centuries; and though it was ordered that no one should name him or mention him in speech or in writing, so that his desire would not be accomplished, yet it was learned that his name was Erostratus. And also to the point is what happened to the great Emperor Charles V and a gentleman in Rome. The emperor wished to see the famous Temple of the Rotunda, which in antiquity was called the Temple of All the Gods, and today is known by the holier name of All Saints, and is the most complete surviving building of all those erected by the gentiles in Rome, and the one that best preserves the fame of its founders for grandeur and magnificence:³⁴⁷ it has the shape of half an orange and is extremely large, and it is well-lit, though the only light is from a window, or rather, a round skylight at the top, and it was there that the emperor looked down at the building, and at his side was a Roman gentle-man who pointed out the beauties and subtleties of that great structure and its memorable architecture; and when they had come down, he said to the emperor: ‘A thousand times, Most Sacred Majesty, I have felt the desire to embrace Your Majesty and then throw myself down from that skylight so my fame in the world will be eternal.’ The emperor responded: ‘I thank you for not having put so wicked a thought into effect, and from now on I shall not give you occasion to test your loyalty; I command you never to speak to me again or to be anywhere I am.’ And with these words he performed a great service for him.

I mean, Sancho, that the desire to achieve fame is extraordinarily active. What do you think made Horatius leap from the bridge, dressed in all his armor, into the depths of the Tiber? What burned the arm and hand of Mutius? What impelled Curtius to throw himself into the deep burning abyss that opened in the center of Rome? What, against all the unfavorable omens that had appeared, drove Caesar to cross the Rubicon? And, with more modern examples, what scuttled the ships and left the valiant Spaniards, led by the gallant Cortés, stranded and isolated in the New World? All these and many other great feats are, were, and will be the works of fame, which mortals desire as a reward and as part of the immortality which their famous deeds deserve, though we as Christians, Catholics, and knights errant must care more for future glory, eternal in the ethereal and celestial spheres, than for the vanity of the fame achieved in this present and transitory world; this fame, no matter how long it may last, must finally come to an end with the world itself, whose end has been determined. And so, O Sancho, our actions must not go beyond the limits placed there by the Christian religion, which we profess. We must slay pride by slaying giants; slay envy with generosity and a good heart; anger with serene bearing and tranquility of spirit; gluttony and sleep by eating little and watching always; lust and lasciviousness by maintaining our fealty toward those whom we have made mistresses of our thoughts; sloth by wandering everywhere in the world, seeking those occasions when we may become famous knights as well as Christians. Here you see, Sancho, the means by which one attains the highest praise that comes with fame and a good name.”

“Everything your grace has told me so far,” said Sancho, “I have understood very well, but even so, I would like your grace to absolve a doubt that has just come to mind.”

“Resolve is what you mean, Sancho,” said Don Quixote. “Come, tell me, and I shall answer the best I can.”

“Tell me, Señor,” Sancho continued, “all those Julys or Augusts,³⁴⁸ and all those brave knights you mentioned, the ones who are dead, where are they now?”

“The gentiles,” responded Don Quixote, “are undoubtedly in hell; the Christians, if they were good Christians, are either in purgatory or in heaven.”

“That’s fine,” said Sancho, “but tell me now: the tombs where the bodies of those big important knights are buried, do they have silver lamps burning in front of them, and are the walls of their chapels hung with crutches, shrouds, wigs, and legs and eyes of wax? And if not, how are they decorated?”

To which Don Quixote responded:

“The tombs of the gentiles were, for the most part, sumptuous temples: the ashes of Julius Caesar were placed at the top of an extraordinarily large stone pyramid, which in Rome they now call St. Peter’s Needle; the Emperor Hadrian had for his tomb a castle as large as a good-sized village, which was called Moles Hadriani, and today is the Castel Santangelo in Rome; Queen Artemisia buried her husband, Mausolus, in a tomb that was considered one of the seven wonders of the world; but none of these tombs, or the many others that the gentiles had, were adorned with shrouds or any of the offerings and signs indicating that those buried there were saints.”

“I’m coming to that,” replied Sancho. “Now, tell me which is the greater deed, raising a dead man or killing a giant?”

“The answer is self-evident,” responded Don Quixote. “It is greater to raise a dead man.”

“Then I’ve got you,” said Sancho. “The fame of those who raise the dead, give sight to the blind, heal the lame, and cure the sick, and whose tombs have lamps burning in front of them, and whose chapels are filled with devout people who adore the relics on their knees, that would be a better fame, in this world and the next, than the fame left behind by all the gentile emperors and knights errant who ever lived.”

“I admit that this is true,” responded Don Quixote.

“Well, this fame, these favors, these prerogatives, or whatever they’re called,” responded Sancho, “is what the bodies and relics of the saints have, and with the approval and permission of our Holy Mother Church, they also have lamps, candles, shrouds, crutches, paintings, wigs, eyes, and legs, and with these they deepen devotion and increase their Christian fame; the bodies of saints or their relics are carried on their shoulders by kings, and they kiss the fragments of their bones, and use them to decorate and adorn their private chapels and their favorite altars.”

“What do you wish me to infer, Sancho, from all that you have said?” said Don Quixote.

“I mean,” said Sancho, “that we should begin to be saints, and then we’ll win the fame we want in a much shorter time; and remember, Señor, that only yesterday or the day before—it happened so recently, it’s fair to say that—they canonized or beatified two discalced friars, and the iron chains they used to bind and torture their bodies are now thought to bring great good luck if you kiss and touch them, and are venerated, as I said, more than the sword of Roland in the armory of His Majesty the king, God save him. And so, Señor, it’s better to be a humble friar, in any order at all, than a valiant knight errant; two dozen lashings with a scourge have more effect on God than two thousand thrusts with a lance, whether they’re aimed at giants, or monsters, or dragons.”

“All of that is true,” responded Don Quixote, “but we cannot all be friars, and God brings His children to heaven by many paths: chivalry is a religion, and there are sainted knights in Glory.”

“Yes,” responded Sancho, “but I’ve heard that there are more friars in heaven than knights errant.”

“That is true,” responded Don Quixote, “because the number of religious is greater than the number of knights.”

“There are many who are errant,” said Sancho.

“Many,” responded Don Quixote, “but few who deserve to be called knights.”

They spent that night and the following day in this and other similar conversations, and nothing worth recounting happened to them, which caused no small sorrow to Don Quixote. Finally, the next day at dusk, they could see the great city of Toboso, a sight that brought joy to Don Quixote’s spirit and saddened Sancho’s, because he did not know which house was Dulcinea’s, for he had never seen it, just as his master had never seen it, so that both were in a state of high agitation, one with his desire to see it, the other because he had not, and Sancho could not imagine what he would do when his master sent him into Toboso. In short, Don Quixote decided to enter the city when night had fallen, and they waited for the hour of darkness in a stand of oaks growing near Toboso, and when the time came they entered the city, where things befell them that certainly were memorable.