Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra [reading well .txt] 📗

At this Don Quixote could not keep himself from answering; and interposing between the two, and separating them, he placed the packsaddle on the ground, to lie there in sight until the truth was established, and said, “Your worships may perceive clearly and plainly the error under which this worthy squire lies when he calls a basin which was, is, and shall be the helmet of Mambrino which I won from him in fair war, and made myself master of by legitimate and lawful possession. With the packsaddle I do not concern myself; but I may tell you on that head that my squire Sancho asked my permission to strip off the caparison of this vanquished poltroon’s steed, and with it adorn his own; I allowed him, and he took it; and as to its having been changed from a caparison into a packsaddle, I can give no explanation except the usual one, that such transformations will take place in adventures of chivalry. To confirm all which, run, Sancho my son, and fetch hither the helmet which this good fellow calls a basin.”

“Egad, master,” said Sancho, “if we have no other proof of our case than what your worship puts forward, Mambrino’s helmet is just as much a basin as this good fellow’s caparison is a packsaddle.”

“Do as I bid thee,” said Don Quixote; “it cannot be that everything in this castle goes by enchantment.”

Sancho hastened to where the basin was, and brought it back with him, and when Don Quixote saw it, he took hold of it and said:

“Your worships may see with what a face this squire can assert that this is a basin and not the helmet I told you of; and I swear by the order of chivalry I profess, that this helmet is the identical one I took from him, without anything added to or taken from it.”

“There is no doubt of that,” said Sancho, “for from the time my master won it until now he has only fought one battle in it, when he let loose those unlucky men in chains; and if had not been for this basin-helmet he would not have come off over well that time, for there was plenty of stone-throwing in that affair.”

In which the doubtful question of Mambrino’s helmet and the packsaddle is finally settled, with other adventures that occurred in truth and earnest.

“What do you think now, gentlemen,” said the barber, “of what these gentles say, when they want to make out that this is a helmet?”

“And whoever says the contrary,” said Don Quixote, “I will let him know he lies if he is a knight, and if he is a squire that he lies again a thousand times.”

Our own barber, who was present at all this, and understood Don Quixote’s humour so thoroughly, took it into his head to back up his delusion and carry on the joke for the general amusement; so addressing the other barber he said:

“Señor barber, or whatever you are, you must know that I belong to your profession too, and have had a licence to practise for more than twenty years, and I know the implements of the barber craft, every one of them, perfectly well; and I was likewise a soldier for some time in the days of my youth, and I know also what a helmet is, and a morion, and a headpiece with a visor, and other things pertaining to soldiering, I meant to say to soldiers’ arms; and I say⁠—saving better opinions and always with submission to sounder judgments⁠—that this piece we have now before us, which this worthy gentleman has in his hands, not only is no barber’s basin, but is as far from being one as white is from black, and truth from falsehood; I say, moreover, that this, although it is a helmet, is not a complete helmet.”

“Certainly not,” said Don Quixote, “for half of it is wanting, that is to say the beaver.”

“It is quite true,” said the curate, who saw the object of his friend the barber; and Cardenio, Don Fernando and his companions agreed with him, and even the Judge, if his thoughts had not been so full of Don Luis’s affair, would have helped to carry on the joke; but he was so taken up with the serious matters he had on his mind that he paid little or no attention to these facetious proceedings.

“God bless me!” exclaimed their butt the barber at this; “is it possible that such an honourable company can say that this is not a basin but a helmet? Why, this is a thing that would astonish a whole university, however wise it might be! That will do; if this basin is a helmet, why, then the packsaddle must be a horse’s caparison, as this gentleman has said.”

“To me it looks like a packsaddle,” said Don Quixote; “but I have already said that with that question I do not concern myself.”

“As to whether it be packsaddle or caparison,” said the curate, “it is only for Señor Don Quixote to say; for in these matters of chivalry all these gentlemen and I bow to his authority.”

“By God, gentlemen,” said Don Quixote, “so many strange things have happened to me in this castle on the two occasions on which I have sojourned in it, that I will not venture to assert anything positively in reply to any question touching anything it contains; for it is my belief that everything that goes on within it goes by enchantment. The first time, an enchanted Moor that there is in it gave me sore trouble, nor did Sancho fare well among certain followers of his; and last night I was kept hanging by this arm for nearly two hours, without knowing how or why I came by such a mishap. So that now, for me to come forward to give an opinion in such a puzzling matter, would be to risk a rash