CHAPTER XVII

The history recounts that when Don Quixote called to Sancho to bring him his helmet, the squire was in the midst of buying curds from the shepherds, and flustered by his master’s great urgency, he did not know what to do with them or where to carry them, and in order not to lose them, since he had already paid for them, he placed them in the helmet. Having made this provision, he went back to see what his master wanted, and as soon as he approached, Don Quixote said:

“Friend, hand me the helmet, for either I know very little about adventures, or what I see there is one that will, and does, oblige me to take up arms.”

The Gentleman in the Green Coat heard this, and looked all around, and saw nothing but a wagon coming toward them, with two or three small flags on it, which led him to assume it was carrying currency that belonged to His Majesty, and he told this to Don Quixote, who did not accept what he said, for he always believed and thought that everything that happened to him had to be adventures and more adventures, and so he responded to the gentleman:

“Forewarned is forearmed: nothing is lost by cautioning me, although I know from experience that I have visible and invisible enemies, and I do not know when, or where, or how, or in what guise they will attack me.”

And turning to Sancho, he asked for his sallet helmet; Sancho did not have time to take out the curds and was obliged to hand him the helmet just as it was. Don Quixote took it, and without even glancing at what might be inside, he quickly placed it on his head; since the curds were pressed and squeezed together, the whey began to run down Don Quixote’s face and beard, which startled him so much that he said to Sancho:

“What can this be, Sancho? It seems as if my head is softening, or my brains are melting, or that I am bathed in perspiration from head to foot. And if I am perspiring, the truth is that it is not because of fear, although I undoubtedly must believe that the adventure about to befall me will be a terrible one. Give me something, if you have it, that I can use to wipe away this copious perspiration, for it is blinding me.”

Sancho remained silent and gave him a cloth, and with it he gave his thanks to God that his master had not detected the truth. Don Quixote wiped his face and took off his helmet to see what it was that seemed to be chilling his head, and seeing that white mush inside, he brought the helmet up to his nose, and smelling it, he said:

“By the life of my lady Dulcinea of Toboso, these are curds that you have placed here, you traitorous, shameless, discourteous squire.”

To which, with great aplomb and dissimulation, Sancho responded:

“If those are curds, your grace should give them to me and I’ll eat them…. But let the devil eat them, because he must be the one who put them there. Would I ever dare to dirty your grace’s helmet? You must know who the scoundrel is! By my faith, Señor, and the brains God gave me, I must also have enchanters who pursue me, since I’m your grace’s servant and one of your members, and they must have put that filth there to turn your patience to anger and move you to beat me around my ribs, as you so often do. But the truth is that this time they’re far off the mark, for I trust in the good sense of my master, who will consider that I don’t have any curds, or milk, or anything else along those lines, and if I did, I’d put them in my stomach and not in your sallet helmet.”

“All things are possible,” said Don Quixote.

And the gentleman observed all of this, and all of it amazed him, especially when Don Quixote, after carefully cleaning his head, face, beard, and sallet, steadied his feet in the stirrups, called for his sword, grasped his lance, and said:

“Now come what may, for here I am, ready to do battle with Satan himself.”

At this moment the wagon with the flags reached them, and the only people on it were the driver, leading the mules, and a man sitting at the front. Don Quixote stopped in front of the wagon and said:

“Where are you going, brothers? What wagon is this, and what are you carrying in it, and what flags are these?”

To which the driver responded:

“The wagon is mine; inside are two fierce lions in cages that the General of Oran is sending to court as a present for His Majesty; the flags belong to our master, the king, as a sign that what’s inside is his.”

“And are the lions big?” asked Don Quixote.

“So big,” responded the man riding at the door of the wagon, “that no lions bigger, or even as big, have ever been brought over from Africa to Spain; I’m the lion keeper, and I’ve brought over other lions, but none like these. They’re male and female; the male’s in this first cage and the female’s in the one behind, and they’re hungry now because they haven’t eaten today, and so, your grace, move out of the way because we have to hurry to the place where we can feed them.”

To which Don Quixote, smiling slightly, said:

“You talk of lions to me? To me you speak of these little lions, and at this hour? Well, by God, those gentlemen who sent them here will see if I am a man who is frightened by lions! Get down, my good man, and since you are the lion keeper, open those cages and bring out those beasts, for in the middle of these fields I shall let them know who Don Quixote of La Mancha is, in spite of and in defiance of the enchanters who have sent them to me.”

“Well, that proves it!” said the gentleman to himself. “Our good knight has shown exactly who he is: the curds, no doubt, have softened his head and ripened his brains.”

At this moment Sancho came up to him and said:

“Señor, for the love of God, your grace, do something to stop my master, Don Quixote, from doing battle with these lions; if he fights them, they’ll tear us all to pieces.”

“Well, is your master so crazy,” responded the gentleman, “that you fear and believe he’ll fight with such savage animals?”

“He isn’t crazy,” responded Sancho, “he’s just reckless.”

“I’ll do what I can to keep him from daring too much,” replied the gentleman.

And going up to Don Quixote, who was urging the lion keeper to open the cages, he said:

“Señor Knight, knights errant ought to undertake adventures that promise some hope of success, not those that are completely devoid of hope, for the valor that crosses over into temerity has more to do with madness than courage, particularly because these lions are not attacking your grace, or even dreaming of doing so: they are gifts to His Majesty, and it would not be wise to stop them or interfere with their journey.”

“Señor,” responded Don Quixote, “your grace should go and see to your tame decoy partridge and your bold ferret, and let each man do his work. This is mine, and I know whether or not these noble lions are attacking me.”

And turning to the lion keeper, he said:

“I swear, Don Scoundrel, that if you do not open the cages immediately, I shall pin you to the wagon with this lance!”

The driver, who saw the determination of that armed apparition, said:

“Señor, if it please your grace, I beg you, let me unyoke the mules and take them somewhere safe before the lions show themselves, because if they kill them, I’ll be ruined for life; the only thing I own is this wagon and these mules.”

“O man of little faith!” responded Don Quixote. “Get down, and unyoke them, and do whatever you wish, for soon you will see that you labored in vain and could have spared yourself the effort.”

The driver climbed down and quickly unyoked the mules, and the lion keeper cried out:

“Let all those here present bear witness that I have been forced against my will to open the cages and set free the lions, and that I declare to this gentleman that he is answerable and accountable for all the harm and damage these beasts may do, as well as for my salaries and fees. Your graces should take cover before I let them out, though I’m sure they won’t hurt me.”

Once again the gentleman tried to persuade him not to commit an act of such madness, for to engage in something so foolish was to tempt God. To which Don Quixote responded that he knew what he was doing. The gentleman responded that he should be careful, for he knew that Don Quixote was deceived.

“Now, Señor,” replied Don Quixote, “if your grace does not wish to be a witness to what you believe is going to be a tragedy, use your spurs on the dapple and hurry to safety.”

Hearing this, Sancho, with tears in his eyes, begged his master to desist from such an undertaking, compared to which the adventure of the windmills, and that of the waterwheels, and, in short, all the feats he had performed in the entire course of his life had been nothing but child’s play.

“Look, Señor,” said Sancho, “there’s no enchantment here or anything like it; I’ve seen through the gratings and cracks in the cage the claw of a real lion, and I think the lion that claw belongs to must be bigger than a mountain.”

“Your fear, at the very least,” responded Don Quixote, “will make it seem bigger to you than half the world. Withdraw, Sancho, and leave me; if I die here, you know our old agreement: you will present yourself to Dulcinea, and I shall say no more to you.”

To these words he added others with which he took away all hope that he might not pursue his mad intention. The Gentleman in the Green Coat would have liked to stop him, but he was not as well-armed, and he did not think it prudent to fight with a madman, for by now he thought Don Quixote was completely out of his mind. The knight again began to press the lion keeper and to repeat his threats, which gave the gentleman the opportunity to spur his mare, and Sancho to urge on his donkey, and the driver to hurry his mules, all of them attempting to get as far away from the wagon as they could before the lions were freed.

Sancho wept for the death of his master: this time he believed there was no doubt he would fall into the clutches of the lions; he cursed his luck and called it an evil hour when it had occurred to him to serve his master again, but his weeping and lamentations did not prevent him from kicking the donkey to hurry him away from the wagon. Then the lion keeper, seeing that those who were fleeing had reached safety, pleaded with and warned Don Quixote, using the same pleas and warnings he had used before, and Don Quixote responded that he had heard what he had to say, and he should not trouble himself with more warnings and pleas for they would be to no avail, and what he should do was hurry.

In the time it took the lion keeper to unlock the first cage, Don Quixote was considering if it would be better to do battle on foot or on horseback, and, finally, he decided to do battle on foot, fearing that Rocinante would become frightened at the sight of the lions. For this reason he leaped from his horse, tossed away his lance, took up his shield, unsheathed his sword, and at a deliberate pace, with marvelous courage and a valiant heart, he went to stand before the wagon, commending himself with all his heart first to God and then to his lady Dulcinea. And it is worth noting that when he reached this point, the author of this true history exclaimed:

“O most valiant and supremely courageous Don Quixote of La Mancha, paragon of all the brave men in the world, a second and new Don Manuel de León,³⁷⁷ the glory and honor of Spanish knights! What words shall I use to recount this fearsome deed, what phrases will lend it credence in times to come, what phrases can I find that do not suit and befit you even if they are the most hyperbolic of hyperboles? You on foot, you alone, you intrepid and of a noble mind, armed only with a sword, and not one of those with a dog on the blade,³⁷⁸ and with a shield not made of bright and shining steel, you stand waiting and anticipating the two most savage lions ever born in the African jungle. May your own deeds sing your praises, most valiant Manchegan; I shall leave them here in all their perfection, for I do not have the words with which to extol them.”

The aforementioned exclamation of the author ended here, and he moved on, picking up the thread of the history and saying that when the lion keeper saw that Don Quixote was in position, and that he himself could not avoid freeing the male lion without falling into disfavor with the wrathful and audacious knight, he opened wide the first cage, which held, as has been said, the male lion, who appeared to be of extraordinary size and fearsome and hideous aspect. The first thing the lion did was to turn around in the cage where he had been lying and unsheathe his claws and stretch his entire body; then he opened his mouth, and yawned very slowly, and extended a tongue almost two spans long, and cleaned the dust from his eyes and washed his face; when this was finished, he put his head out of the cage and looked all around with eyes like coals, a sight and a vision that could frighten temerity itself. Only Don Quixote looked at him attentively, wanting him to leap from the wagon and come within reach of his hands, for he intended to tear him to pieces.

These are the extremes to which Don Quixote’s unprecedented madness took him. But the magnanimous lion, more courteous than arrogant, took no notice of either childishness or bravado, and after looking in both directions, as has been said, he turned his back, and showed his hindquarters to Don Quixote, and with great placidity and calm went back inside the cage. Seeing this, Don Quixote ordered the lion keeper to hit him and provoke him into coming out.

“That I will not do,” responded the lion keeper, “because if I instigate him, the first one he’ll tear to pieces will be me. Señor, your grace should be content with what you have done, which is all that anyone could ask in the matter of courage, and not tempt fortune a second time. The lion’s door is open: it is up to him to come out or not, but if he hasn’t come out by now, he won’t come out for the rest of the day. The greatness of your grace’s heart has been clearly demonstrated: no brave warrior, to my understanding, is obliged to do more than challenge his opponent and wait for him in the field; if his adversary does not appear, the dishonor lies with him, and the one left waiting wins the crown of victory.”

“That is true,” responded Don Quixote, “and so, friend, close the door and give me the best statement you can regarding what you have seen me do, which is to say, you opened the lion’s cage, I waited for him, he did not come out, still I waited for him, and still he did not come out but lay down again. I need do no more, and so away with enchantments, and may God protect justice and truth and true chivalry; close the door, as I have said, while I signal to those who have fled and run away so that they may hear of this great deed from your own lips.”

The lion keeper did so, and Don Quixote, attaching to the end of his lance the cloth he had used to wipe away the downpour of curds on his face, began to call those who had not stopped fleeing or looking back at every step, all of them in a mad rush, with the gentleman at their head; but Sancho saw the signal with the white cloth, and he said:

“Strike me dead if my master hasn’t defeated the savage beasts, for he’s calling us.”

Everyone stopped and realized that the one signaling was Don Quixote, and losing some part of their fear, they gradually approached until they could clearly hear Don Quixote calling to them. Finally, they returned to the wagon, and when they arrived Don Quixote said to the driver:

“Yoke your mules again, my friend, and continue on your way, and you, Sancho, give him two gold escudos, one for him and one for the lion keeper, in recompense for the delay I have caused them.”

“I’ll do that gladly,” responded Sancho, “but what happened to the lions? Are they dead or alive?”

Then the lion keeper, in great detail and with many pauses, recounted the outcome of the contest, exaggerating to the best of his ability and skill the valor of Don Quixote, the sight of whom made a coward of the lion, who refused and did not dare to leave his cage, although he had kept the door open for some time; and only because he had told the knight that it was tempting God to provoke the lion and force him to come out, which is what he wanted him to do, and despite the knight’s wishes and against his will, he had allowed the door to be closed again.

“What do you think of that, Sancho?” said Don Quixote. “Are there any enchantments that can prevail against true courage? Enchanters may deprive me of good fortune, but of spirit and courage, never!”

Sancho gave the men the escudos, the driver yoked his team, the lion keeper kissed Don Quixote’s hands for the favor received and promised to recount that valiant feat to the king himself when he arrived in court.

“If, by chance, His Majesty asks who performed the deed, tell him it was The Knight of the Lions; from this day forth, I want the name I have had until now, The Knight of the Sorrowful Face, to be changed, altered, turned, and transformed into this, and in doing so, I follow the ancient usage of knights errant, who changed their names whenever they wished, or whenever it seemed appropriate.”

The wagon went on its way, and Don Quixote, Sancho, and the Gentleman of the Green Coat continued on theirs.

In all this time Don Diego de Miranda had not said a word but was careful to observe and note the actions and words of Don Quixote, who seemed to him a sane man gone mad and a madman edging toward sanity. He had not yet heard anything about the first part of Don Quixote’s history; if he had read it, he would no longer have been astonished by his actions and words, for he would have known the nature of his madness, but since he did not, he sometimes thought him sane and sometimes mad, because his speech was coherent, elegant, and eloquent and his actions nonsensical, reckless, and foolish. And he said to himself:

“What greater madness can there be than putting on a helmet full of curds and believing that enchanters had softened one’s head? And what greater temerity and foolishness than to attempt to do battle with lions?”

Don Quixote drew him away from these thoughts and this soliloquy by saying:

“Who can doubt, Señor Don Diego de Miranda, that in the opinion of your grace I am a foolish and witless man? And it would not be surprising if you did, because my actions do not attest to anything else. Even so, I would like your grace to observe that I am not as mad or as foolish as I must have seemed to you. A gallant knight is pleasing in the eyes of his king when, in the middle of a great plaza, he successfully thrusts his lance into a fierce bull; a knight is pleasing when, dressed in shining armor, he enters the field and contends in lively jousts before the ladies; and all those knights who engage in military exercises, or seem to, entertain and enliven and, if one may say so, honor the courts of their princes; but above and beyond all these, the best seems to be the knight errant, who travels wastelands and desolate places, crossroads and forests and mountains, seeking dangerous adventures and attempting to bring them to a happy and fortunate conclusion, his sole purpose being to achieve glorious and lasting fame. The knight errant who helps a widow in some deserted spot, seems better, I say, than a courtier knight flattering a damsel in the city. All knights have their own endeavors: let the courtier serve the ladies, and lend majesty to the court of his king with livery; let him sustain poor knights with the splendors of his table, arrange jousts, support tourneys, and show himself to be great, liberal, magnanimous, and, above all, a good Christian, and in this manner he will meet his precise obligations. But let the knight errant search all the corners of the world; let him enter into the most intricate labyrinths; attempt the impossible at each step he takes; resist in empty wastelands the burning rays of the sun in summer, and in winter the harsh rigors of freezing winds; let him not be dismayed by lions, or frightened by monsters, or terrified by dragons; searching for these and attacking those and vanquishing them all are his principal and true endeavors.

I, then, since it is my fortune to be counted in the number of knights errant, cannot help but attack all things that seem to me to fall within the jurisdiction of my endeavors; and so, it was my rightful place to attack the lions which I now attacked, although I knew it was exceedingly reckless, because I know very well what valor means; it is a virtue that occupies a place between two wicked extremes, which are cowardice and temerity, but it is better for the valiant man to touch on and climb to the heights of temerity than to touch on and fall to the depths of cowardice; and just as it is easier for the prodigal to be generous than the miser, it is easier for the reckless man to become truly brave than for the coward; and in the matter of undertaking adventures, your grace may believe me, Señor Don Diego, it is better to lose with too many cards than too few, because ‘This knight is reckless and daring’ sounds better to the ear of those who hear it than ‘This knight is timid and cowardly.’”

“Señor Don Quixote,” responded Don Diego, “I say that everything your grace has said and done has been balanced on the scale of reason itself, and I understand that if the code and laws of knight errantry were ever lost, they would be found again in your grace’s heart as if they were in their own repository and archive. And now let us hurry, for it is getting late; when we reach my village and house, your grace can rest from your recent labors, if not of the body then of the spirit, which can often lead to the body’s fatigue.”

“I consider your offer a great kindness and favor, Señor Don Diego,” responded Don Quixote.

And spurring their mounts more than they had up until then, at about two o’clock they reached the village and house of Don Diego, whom Don Quixote called The Knight of the Green Coat.