{"id":249,"date":"2019-12-01T16:45:25","date_gmt":"2019-12-01T16:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/donquixoteoflamancha\/chapter\/second-part-chapter-xiii-2\/"},"modified":"2020-03-24T10:01:58","modified_gmt":"2020-03-24T10:01:58","slug":"second-part-chapter-xiii","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/www.publiconsulting.com\/wordpress\/donquixoteoflamancha\/chapter\/second-part-chapter-xiii\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Part. Chapter XIII"},"content":{"raw":"CHAPTER XIII<\/a>\r\n
\r\n

In which the adventure of the Knight of the Wood continues, along with perceptive, unprecedented, and amiable conversation between the two squires<\/span><\/h2>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n

Knights and squires were separated, the latter recounting their lives and the former their loves, but the history first relates the conversation of the servants and then goes on to that of their masters, and so it says that as they moved a short distance away, the Squire of the Wood said to Sancho:<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWe have a difficult life, Se\u00f1or, those of us who are squires to knights errant: the truth is we eat our bread by the sweat of our brow, which is one of God\u2019s curses on our first parents.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cYou could also say,\u201d added Sancho, \u201cthat we eat it in the icy cold of our bodies, because who suffers more heat and cold than the wretched squires of knight errantry? If we ate, it would be easier because sorrows fade with a little bread, but sometimes we can go a day or two with nothing for our breakfast but the wind that blows.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cAll of this is made bearable and tolerable,\u201d said the Squire of the Wood, \u201cby our hope of a reward, because if the knight errant is not too unfortunate, in a little while the squire who serves him will be rewarded with an attractive governorship of an \u00ednsula or a fine countship.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI,\u201d replied Sancho, \u201chave already told my master that I\u2019ll be content with the governorship of an \u00ednsula, and he\u2019s so noble and generous that he\u2019s promised it to me on many different occasions.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI,\u201d said the Squire of the Wood, \u201cwill be satisfied with a canonship as payment for my services, and my master has already set one aside for me, and what a nice canonship it is!\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cYour grace\u2019s master,\u201d said Sancho, \u201cmust be an ecclesiastical kind of knight who can do favors like that for his good squires, but mine is a lay <\/a>knight, though I do remember when some very wise people, though I think they were malicious, too, advised him to become an archbishop, but he only wanted to be an emperor, and I was trembling at the thought that he\u2019d decide to enter the Church, because I didn\u2019t think I was qualified to hold any benefices, because I can tell your grace that even though I look like a man, I\u2019m nothing but an animal when it comes to entering the Church.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWell, the truth is your grace is mistaken,\u201d said the Squire of the Wood, \u201cbecause not all insular governorships are good. Some are crooked, some are poor, and some are gloomy, and even the proudest and best of them bring a heavy burden of cares and troubles that has to be borne on the shoulders of the unlucky man who happens to be governor. It would be much better for those of us who perform this miserable service to return home and do some easier work, like hunting or fishing, for is there any squire in the world so poor he doesn\u2019t have a horse, a couple of greyhounds, and a fishing pole to help him pass the time?\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI have all those things,\u201d responded Sancho. \u201cWell, the truth is I don\u2019t have a horse, but my donkey is worth twice as much as my master\u2019s nag. May God send me evil days, starting tomorrow, if I\u2019d ever trade with him, even if he threw in four bushelweights of barley. Your grace must think I\u2019m joking about the value I put on my gray, for gray is the color of my donkey. And I wouldn\u2019t need greyhounds because there are plenty of them in my village; besides, hunting is much nicer when you do it at somebody else\u2019s expense.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThe truth of the matter, Se\u00f1or Squire,\u201d responded the Squire of the Wood, \u201cis that I\u2019ve decided and resolved to leave the crazy goings-on of these knights and go back to my village and rear my children, for I have three as beautiful as Oriental pearls.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI have two,\u201d said Sancho, \u201cwho could be presented to the pope himself, especially the girl, who I\u2019m bringing up to be a countess, God willing, though her mother\u2019s against it.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cAnd how old is this lady who\u2019s being brought up to be a countess?\u201d asked the Squire of the Wood.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cFifteen, give or take a couple of years,\u201d responded Sancho, \u201cbut she\u2019s as tall as a lance, and as fresh as a morning in April, and as strong as a laborer.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThose are qualities,\u201d responded the Squire of the Wood, \u201cfor being not only a countess but a nymph of the greenwood. O whoreson, but that damned little whore must be strong!\u201d<\/p>\r\n

To which Sancho replied, rather crossly:<\/p>\r\n

\u201cShe isn\u2019t a whore, and neither was her mother, and neither of them will ever be one, God willing, as long as I\u2019m alive. And speak more politely; for somebody who\u2019s spent time with knights errant, who are courtesy itself, your grace isn\u2019t very careful about your words.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cOh, Se\u00f1or Squire, how little your grace understands,\u201d replied the Squire of the Wood, \u201cabout paying a compliment! Can it be that you don\u2019t know that when a knight gives the bull in the square a good thrust with the lance, or when anybody does anything well, commoners always say: \u2018Oh whoreson, but that damned little whoreson did that well!\u2019? And in that phrase, what seems to be an insult is a wonderful compliment, and you should disavow, Se\u00f1or, any sons or daughters who do not perform deeds that bring their parents that kind of praise.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI do disavow them,\u201d responded Sancho, \u201cand in that sense and for that reason your grace could dump a whole whorehouse on me and my children and my wife, because everything they do and say deserves the best compliments, and I want to see them again so much that I pray God to deliver me from mortal sin, which would be the same as delivering me from this dangerous squirely work that I\u2019ve fallen into for a second time, tempted and lured by a purse with a hundred ducados<\/span> that I found one day in the heart of the Sierra Morena; and the devil places before my eyes, here, there, not here but over there, a sack filled with doblones,<\/span> and at every step I take I seem to touch it with my hand, and put my arms around it, and take it to my house, and hold mortgages, and collect rents, and live like a prince, and when I\u2019m thinking about that, all the trials I suffer with this simpleton of a master seem easy to bear, even though I know he\u2019s more of a madman than a knight.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThat,\u201d responded the Squire of the Wood, \u201cis why they say that it\u2019s greed that tears the sack, and if we\u2019re going to talk about madmen, there\u2019s nobody in the world crazier than my master, because he\u2019s one of those who say: \u2018Other people\u2019s troubles kill the donkey,\u2019 and to help another knight find the wits he\u2019s lost, he pretends to be crazy and goes around looking for something that I think will hit him right in the face when he finds it.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cIs he in love, by any chance?\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said the Squire of the Wood, \u201cwith a certain Casildea of Vandalia, the cruelest lady in the world, and the hardest to stomach, but indigestibility isn\u2019t her greatest fault; her other deceits are growling in his belly, and they\u2019ll make themselves heard before too many hours have gone by.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no road so smooth,\u201d replied Sancho, \u201cthat it doesn\u2019t have <\/a>some obstacle or stumbling block; they cook beans everywhere, but in my house they do it by the potful; craziness must have more companions and friends than wisdom. But if what they say is true, that misery loves company, then I can find comfort with your grace, because you serve a master who\u2019s as great a fool as mine.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cA fool, but brave,\u201d responded the Squire of the Wood, \u201cand more of a scoundrel than foolish or brave.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cNot mine,\u201d responded Sancho. \u201cI mean, there\u2019s nothing of the scoundrel in him; mine\u2019s as innocent as a baby; he doesn\u2019t know how to harm anybody, he can only do good to everybody, and there\u2019s no malice in him: a child could convince him it\u2019s night in the middle of the day, and because he\u2019s simple I love him with all my heart and couldn\u2019t leave him no matter how many crazy things he does.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cEven so, Se\u00f1or,\u201d said the Squire of the Wood, \u201cif the blind man leads the blind man, they\u2019re both in danger of falling into the ditch. Brother, we\u2019d better leave soon and go back where we came from; people who look for adventures don\u2019t always find good ones.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Sancho had been spitting often, it seems, a certain kind of sticky, dry saliva, and the charitable woodish squire, seeing and noting this, said:<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve talked so much our tongues are sticking to the roofs of our mouths, but I have an unsticker hanging from my saddlebow, and it\u2019s a pretty good one.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

And he stood up and came back in a little while carrying a large wineskin and a meat pie half a meter long, and this is not an exaggeration, because it held a white rabbit so large that Sancho, when he touched it, thought it was a goat, and not a kid, either; and when Sancho saw this, he said:<\/p>\r\n

\u201cSe\u00f1or, did you bring this with you?\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWell, what did you think?\u201d responded the other man. \u201cAm I by any chance a run-of-the-mill squire? I carry better provisions on my horse\u2019s rump than a general does when he goes marching.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Sancho ate without having to be asked twice, and in the dark he wolfed down mouthfuls the size of the knots that hobble a horse. And he said:<\/p>\r\n

\u201cYour grace is a faithful and true, right and proper, magnificent and great squire, as this feast shows, and if you haven\u2019t come here by the arts of enchantment, at least it seems that way to me; but I\u2019m so poor and unlucky that all I have in my saddlebags is a little cheese, so hard you could break a giant\u2019s skull with it, and to keep it company some four dozen <\/a>carob beans and the same number of hazelnuts and other kinds of nuts, thanks to the poverty of my master and the idea he has and the rule he keeps that knights errant should not live and survive on anything but dried fruits and the plants of the field.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cBy my faith, brother,\u201d replied the Squire of the Wood, \u201cmy stomach isn\u2019t made for thistles or wild pears or forest roots. Let our masters have their knightly opinions and rules and eat what their laws command. I have my baskets of food, and this wineskin hanging from the saddlebow, just in case, and I\u2019m so devoted to it and love it so much that I can\u2019t let too much time pass without giving it a thousand kisses and a thousand embraces.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

And saying this, he placed the wineskin in Sancho\u2019s hands, who tilted it back and put it to his mouth and looked at the stars for a quarter of an hour, and when he had finished drinking, he leaned his head to one side, heaved a great sigh, and said:<\/p>\r\n

\u201cO whoreson, you damned rascal, but that\u2019s good!\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cDo you see?\u201d said the Squire of the Wood when he heard Sancho\u2019s \u201cwhoreson.\u201d \u201cYou complimented the wine by calling it whoreson.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cAnd I say,\u201d responded Sancho, \u201cthat I confess to knowing it\u2019s no dishonor to call anybody a whoreson when your intention is to compliment him. But tell me, Se\u00f1or, by the thing you love most: is this wine from Ciudad Real?\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cBravo! What a winetaster!\u201d responded the Squire of the Wood. \u201cIt\u2019s from there and no place else, and it\u2019s aged a few years.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t fool me!\u201d said Sancho. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t think it was beyond me to know about this wine. Does it surprise you, Se\u00f1or Squire, that I have so great and natural an instinct for knowing wines that if I just smell one I know where it comes from, its lineage, its taste, its age, and how it will change, and everything else that has anything to do with it? But it\u2019s no wonder, because in my family, on my father\u2019s side, were the two best winetasters that La Mancha had in many years, and to prove it I\u2019ll tell you a story about them. The two of them were asked to taste some wine from a cask and say what they thought about its condition and quality, and whether it was a good or bad wine. One tasted it with the tip of his tongue; the other only brought it up to his nose. The first said that the wine tasted of iron, the second that it tasted more of tanned leather. The owner said the cask was clean and the wine had not been fortified in a way that could have given it the taste of iron or leather. Even so, the two famous winetasters insisted that what they said was true. Time passed, the wine was sold, and when the cask was cleaned, inside it they <\/a>found a small key on a leather strap. So your grace can see that a man who comes from that kind of family can give his opinion about matters like these.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I say,\u201d said the Squire of the Wood, \u201cthat we should stop looking for adventures, and if we have loaves of bread, we shouldn\u2019t go around looking for cakes, and we ought to go back home: God will find us there, if He wants to.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI\u2019ll serve my master until he gets to Zaragoza; after that, we\u2019ll work out something.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

In short, the two good squires spoke so much and drank so much that only sleep could stop their tongues and allay their thirst, for it would have been impossible to take it away altogether; and so, with both of them holding on to the almost empty wineskin, and with mouthfuls of food half-chewed in their mouths, they fell asleep, which is where we shall leave them now in order to recount what befell the Knight of the Wood and the Knight of the Sorrowful Face.<\/p>\r\n","rendered":"

CHAPTER XIII<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

In which the adventure of the Knight of the Wood continues, along with perceptive, unprecedented, and amiable conversation between the two squires<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

Knights and squires were separated, the latter recounting their lives and the former their loves, but the history first relates the conversation of the servants and then goes on to that of their masters, and so it says that as they moved a short distance away, the Squire of the Wood said to Sancho:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a difficult life, Se\u00f1or, those of us who are squires to knights errant: the truth is we eat our bread by the sweat of our brow, which is one of God\u2019s curses on our first parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could also say,\u201d added Sancho, \u201cthat we eat it in the icy cold of our bodies, because who suffers more heat and cold than the wretched squires of knight errantry? If we ate, it would be easier because sorrows fade with a little bread, but sometimes we can go a day or two with nothing for our breakfast but the wind that blows.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of this is made bearable and tolerable,\u201d said the Squire of the Wood, \u201cby our hope of a reward, because if the knight errant is not too unfortunate, in a little while the squire who serves him will be rewarded with an attractive governorship of an \u00ednsula or a fine countship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI,\u201d replied Sancho, \u201chave already told my master that I\u2019ll be content with the governorship of an \u00ednsula, and he\u2019s so noble and generous that he\u2019s promised it to me on many different occasions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI,\u201d said the Squire of the Wood, \u201cwill be satisfied with a canonship as payment for my services, and my master has already set one aside for me, and what a nice canonship it is!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour grace\u2019s master,\u201d said Sancho, \u201cmust be an ecclesiastical kind of knight who can do favors like that for his good squires, but mine is a lay <\/a>knight, though I do remember when some very wise people, though I think they were malicious, too, advised him to become an archbishop, but he only wanted to be an emperor, and I was trembling at the thought that he\u2019d decide to enter the Church, because I didn\u2019t think I was qualified to hold any benefices, because I can tell your grace that even though I look like a man, I\u2019m nothing but an animal when it comes to entering the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, the truth is your grace is mistaken,\u201d said the Squire of the Wood, \u201cbecause not all insular governorships are good. Some are crooked, some are poor, and some are gloomy, and even the proudest and best of them bring a heavy burden of cares and troubles that has to be borne on the shoulders of the unlucky man who happens to be governor. It would be much better for those of us who perform this miserable service to return home and do some easier work, like hunting or fishing, for is there any squire in the world so poor he doesn\u2019t have a horse, a couple of greyhounds, and a fishing pole to help him pass the time?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have all those things,\u201d responded Sancho. \u201cWell, the truth is I don\u2019t have a horse, but my donkey is worth twice as much as my master\u2019s nag. May God send me evil days, starting tomorrow, if I\u2019d ever trade with him, even if he threw in four bushelweights of barley. Your grace must think I\u2019m joking about the value I put on my gray, for gray is the color of my donkey. And I wouldn\u2019t need greyhounds because there are plenty of them in my village; besides, hunting is much nicer when you do it at somebody else\u2019s expense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth of the matter, Se\u00f1or Squire,\u201d responded the Squire of the Wood, \u201cis that I\u2019ve decided and resolved to leave the crazy goings-on of these knights and go back to my village and rear my children, for I have three as beautiful as Oriental pearls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have two,\u201d said Sancho, \u201cwho could be presented to the pope himself, especially the girl, who I\u2019m bringing up to be a countess, God willing, though her mother\u2019s against it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd how old is this lady who\u2019s being brought up to be a countess?\u201d asked the Squire of the Wood.<\/p>\n

\u201cFifteen, give or take a couple of years,\u201d responded Sancho, \u201cbut she\u2019s as tall as a lance, and as fresh as a morning in April, and as strong as a laborer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are qualities,\u201d responded the Squire of the Wood, \u201cfor being not only a countess but a nymph of the greenwood. O whoreson, but that damned little whore must be strong!\u201d<\/p>\n

To which Sancho replied, rather crossly:<\/p>\n

\u201cShe isn\u2019t a whore, and neither was her mother, and neither of them will ever be one, God willing, as long as I\u2019m alive. And speak more politely; for somebody who\u2019s spent time with knights errant, who are courtesy itself, your grace isn\u2019t very careful about your words.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Se\u00f1or Squire, how little your grace understands,\u201d replied the Squire of the Wood, \u201cabout paying a compliment! Can it be that you don\u2019t know that when a knight gives the bull in the square a good thrust with the lance, or when anybody does anything well, commoners always say: \u2018Oh whoreson, but that damned little whoreson did that well!\u2019? And in that phrase, what seems to be an insult is a wonderful compliment, and you should disavow, Se\u00f1or, any sons or daughters who do not perform deeds that bring their parents that kind of praise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do disavow them,\u201d responded Sancho, \u201cand in that sense and for that reason your grace could dump a whole whorehouse on me and my children and my wife, because everything they do and say deserves the best compliments, and I want to see them again so much that I pray God to deliver me from mortal sin, which would be the same as delivering me from this dangerous squirely work that I\u2019ve fallen into for a second time, tempted and lured by a purse with a hundred ducados<\/span> that I found one day in the heart of the Sierra Morena; and the devil places before my eyes, here, there, not here but over there, a sack filled with doblones,<\/span> and at every step I take I seem to touch it with my hand, and put my arms around it, and take it to my house, and hold mortgages, and collect rents, and live like a prince, and when I\u2019m thinking about that, all the trials I suffer with this simpleton of a master seem easy to bear, even though I know he\u2019s more of a madman than a knight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat,\u201d responded the Squire of the Wood, \u201cis why they say that it\u2019s greed that tears the sack, and if we\u2019re going to talk about madmen, there\u2019s nobody in the world crazier than my master, because he\u2019s one of those who say: \u2018Other people\u2019s troubles kill the donkey,\u2019 and to help another knight find the wits he\u2019s lost, he pretends to be crazy and goes around looking for something that I think will hit him right in the face when he finds it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs he in love, by any chance?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said the Squire of the Wood, \u201cwith a certain Casildea of Vandalia, the cruelest lady in the world, and the hardest to stomach, but indigestibility isn\u2019t her greatest fault; her other deceits are growling in his belly, and they\u2019ll make themselves heard before too many hours have gone by.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no road so smooth,\u201d replied Sancho, \u201cthat it doesn\u2019t have <\/a>some obstacle or stumbling block; they cook beans everywhere, but in my house they do it by the potful; craziness must have more companions and friends than wisdom. But if what they say is true, that misery loves company, then I can find comfort with your grace, because you serve a master who\u2019s as great a fool as mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA fool, but brave,\u201d responded the Squire of the Wood, \u201cand more of a scoundrel than foolish or brave.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot mine,\u201d responded Sancho. \u201cI mean, there\u2019s nothing of the scoundrel in him; mine\u2019s as innocent as a baby; he doesn\u2019t know how to harm anybody, he can only do good to everybody, and there\u2019s no malice in him: a child could convince him it\u2019s night in the middle of the day, and because he\u2019s simple I love him with all my heart and couldn\u2019t leave him no matter how many crazy things he does.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven so, Se\u00f1or,\u201d said the Squire of the Wood, \u201cif the blind man leads the blind man, they\u2019re both in danger of falling into the ditch. Brother, we\u2019d better leave soon and go back where we came from; people who look for adventures don\u2019t always find good ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sancho had been spitting often, it seems, a certain kind of sticky, dry saliva, and the charitable woodish squire, seeing and noting this, said:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve talked so much our tongues are sticking to the roofs of our mouths, but I have an unsticker hanging from my saddlebow, and it\u2019s a pretty good one.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he stood up and came back in a little while carrying a large wineskin and a meat pie half a meter long, and this is not an exaggeration, because it held a white rabbit so large that Sancho, when he touched it, thought it was a goat, and not a kid, either; and when Sancho saw this, he said:<\/p>\n

\u201cSe\u00f1or, did you bring this with you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, what did you think?\u201d responded the other man. \u201cAm I by any chance a run-of-the-mill squire? I carry better provisions on my horse\u2019s rump than a general does when he goes marching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sancho ate without having to be asked twice, and in the dark he wolfed down mouthfuls the size of the knots that hobble a horse. And he said:<\/p>\n

\u201cYour grace is a faithful and true, right and proper, magnificent and great squire, as this feast shows, and if you haven\u2019t come here by the arts of enchantment, at least it seems that way to me; but I\u2019m so poor and unlucky that all I have in my saddlebags is a little cheese, so hard you could break a giant\u2019s skull with it, and to keep it company some four dozen <\/a>carob beans and the same number of hazelnuts and other kinds of nuts, thanks to the poverty of my master and the idea he has and the rule he keeps that knights errant should not live and survive on anything but dried fruits and the plants of the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy my faith, brother,\u201d replied the Squire of the Wood, \u201cmy stomach isn\u2019t made for thistles or wild pears or forest roots. Let our masters have their knightly opinions and rules and eat what their laws command. I have my baskets of food, and this wineskin hanging from the saddlebow, just in case, and I\u2019m so devoted to it and love it so much that I can\u2019t let too much time pass without giving it a thousand kisses and a thousand embraces.\u201d<\/p>\n

And saying this, he placed the wineskin in Sancho\u2019s hands, who tilted it back and put it to his mouth and looked at the stars for a quarter of an hour, and when he had finished drinking, he leaned his head to one side, heaved a great sigh, and said:<\/p>\n

\u201cO whoreson, you damned rascal, but that\u2019s good!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you see?\u201d said the Squire of the Wood when he heard Sancho\u2019s \u201cwhoreson.\u201d \u201cYou complimented the wine by calling it whoreson.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I say,\u201d responded Sancho, \u201cthat I confess to knowing it\u2019s no dishonor to call anybody a whoreson when your intention is to compliment him. But tell me, Se\u00f1or, by the thing you love most: is this wine from Ciudad Real?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBravo! What a winetaster!\u201d responded the Squire of the Wood. \u201cIt\u2019s from there and no place else, and it\u2019s aged a few years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t fool me!\u201d said Sancho. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t think it was beyond me to know about this wine. Does it surprise you, Se\u00f1or Squire, that I have so great and natural an instinct for knowing wines that if I just smell one I know where it comes from, its lineage, its taste, its age, and how it will change, and everything else that has anything to do with it? But it\u2019s no wonder, because in my family, on my father\u2019s side, were the two best winetasters that La Mancha had in many years, and to prove it I\u2019ll tell you a story about them. The two of them were asked to taste some wine from a cask and say what they thought about its condition and quality, and whether it was a good or bad wine. One tasted it with the tip of his tongue; the other only brought it up to his nose. The first said that the wine tasted of iron, the second that it tasted more of tanned leather. The owner said the cask was clean and the wine had not been fortified in a way that could have given it the taste of iron or leather. Even so, the two famous winetasters insisted that what they said was true. Time passed, the wine was sold, and when the cask was cleaned, inside it they <\/a>found a small key on a leather strap. So your grace can see that a man who comes from that kind of family can give his opinion about matters like these.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I say,\u201d said the Squire of the Wood, \u201cthat we should stop looking for adventures, and if we have loaves of bread, we shouldn\u2019t go around looking for cakes, and we ought to go back home: God will find us there, if He wants to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll serve my master until he gets to Zaragoza; after that, we\u2019ll work out something.\u201d<\/p>\n

In short, the two good squires spoke so much and drank so much that only sleep could stop their tongues and allay their thirst, for it would have been impossible to take it away altogether; and so, with both of them holding on to the almost empty wineskin, and with mouthfuls of food half-chewed in their mouths, they fell asleep, which is where we shall leave them now in order to recount what befell the Knight of the Wood and the Knight of the Sorrowful Face.<\/p>\n

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