Sancho listened to him with the deepest attention, and endeavouredto fix his counsels in his memory, like one who meant to follow themand by their means bring the full promise of his government to a happyissue. Don Quixote, then, went on to say:

"With regard to the mode in which thou shouldst govern thy personand thy house, Sancho, the first charge I have to give thee is to beclean, and to cut thy nails, not letting them grow as some do, whoseignorance makes them fancy that long nails are an ornament to theirhands, as if those excrescences they neglect to cut were nails, andnot the talons of a lizard-catching kestrel- a filthy and unnaturalabuse.

"Go not ungirt and loose, Sancho; for disordered attire is a sign ofan unstable mind, unless indeed the slovenliness and slackness is tohe set down to craft, as was the common opinion in the case ofJulius Caesar.

"Ascertain cautiously what thy office may be worth; and if it willallow thee to give liveries to thy servants, give them respectable andserviceable, rather than showy and gay ones, and divide them betweenthy servants and the poor; that is to say, if thou canst clothe sixpages, clothe three and three poor men, and thus thou wilt havepages for heaven and pages for earth; the vainglorious never thinkof this new mode of giving liveries.

"Eat not garlic nor onions, lest they find out thy boorish origin bythe smell; walk slowly and speak deliberately, but not in such a wayas to make it seem thou art listening to thyself, for allaffectation is bad.

"Dine sparingly and sup more sparingly still; for the health ofthe whole body is forged in the workshop of the stomach.

"Be temperate in drinking, bearing in mind that wine in excess keepsneither secrets nor promises.

"Take care, Sancho, not to chew on both sides, and not to eruct inanybody's presence."

"Eruct!" said Sancho; "I don't know what that means."

"To eruct, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "means to belch, and that isone of the filthiest words in the Spanish language, though a veryexpressive one; and therefore nice folk have had recourse to theLatin, and instead of belch say eruct, and instead of belches sayeructations; and if some do not understand these terms it matterslittle, for custom will bring them into use in the course of time,so that they will be readily understood; this is the way a language isenriched; custom and the public are all-powerful there."

"In truth, senor," said Sancho, "one of the counsels and cautionsI mean to bear in mind shall be this, not to belch, for I'm constantlydoing it."

"Eruct, Sancho, not belch," said Don Quixote.

"Eruct, I shall say henceforth, and I swear not to forget it,"said Sancho.

"Likewise, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "thou must not mingle such aquantity of proverbs in thy discourse as thou dost; for thoughproverbs are short maxims, thou dost drag them in so often by the headand shoulders that they savour more of nonsense than of maxims."

"God alone can cure that," said Sancho; "for I have more proverbs inme than a book, and when I speak they come so thick together into mymouth that they fall to fighting among themselves to get out; that'swhy my tongue lets fly the first that come, though they may not be patto the purpose. But I'll take care henceforward to use such as befitthe dignity of my office; for 'in a house where there's plenty, supperis soon cooked,' and 'he who binds does not wrangle,' and 'thebell-ringer's in a safe berth,' and 'giving and keeping requirebrains.'"

"That's it, Sancho!" said Don Quixote; "pack, tack, stringproverbs together; nobody is hindering thee! 'My mother beats me,and I go on with my tricks.' I am bidding thee avoid proverbs, andhere in a second thou hast shot out a whole litany of them, which haveas much to do with what we are talking about as 'over the hills ofUbeda.' Mind, Sancho, I do not say that a proverb aptly brought inis objectionable; but to pile up and string together proverbs atrandom makes conversation dull and vulgar.

"When thou ridest on horseback, do not go lolling with thy body onthe back of the saddle, nor carry thy legs stiff or sticking outfrom the horse's belly, nor yet sit so loosely that one wouldsuppose thou wert on Dapple; for the seat on a horse makes gentlemenof some and grooms of others.

"Be moderate in thy sleep; for he who does not rise early does notget the benefit of the day; and remember, Sancho, diligence is themother of good fortune, and indolence, its opposite, never yetattained the object of an honest ambition.

"The last counsel I will give thee now, though it does not tend tobodily improvement, I would have thee carry carefully in thy memory,for I believe it will be no less useful to thee than those I havegiven thee already, and it is this- never engage in a dispute aboutfamilies, at least in the way of comparing them one with another;for necessarily one of those compared will be better than the other,and thou wilt be hated by the one thou hast disparaged, and getnothing in any shape from the one thou hast exalted.

"Thy attire shall be hose of full length, a long jerkin, and a cloaka trifle longer; loose breeches by no means, for they are becomingneither for gentlemen nor for governors.

"For the present, Sancho, this is all that has occurred to me toadvise thee; as time goes by and occasions arise my instructions shallfollow, if thou take care to let me know how thou art circumstanced."

"Senor," said Sancho, "I see well enough that all these thingsyour worship has said to me are good, holy, and profitable; but whatuse will they be to me if I don't remember one of them? To be surethat about not letting my nails grow, and marrying again if I have thechance, will not slip out of my head; but all that other hash, muddle,and jumble- I don't and can't recollect any more of it than of lastyear's clouds; so it must be given me in writing; for though I can'teither read or write, I'll give it to my confessor, to drive it intome and remind me of it whenever it is necessary."

"Ah, sinner that I am!" said Don Quixote, "how bad it looks ingovernors not to know how to read or write; for let me tell thee,Sancho, when a man knows not how to read, or is left-handed, it arguesone of two things; either that he was the son of exceedingly meanand lowly parents, or that he himself was so incorrigible andill-conditioned that neither good company nor good teaching could makeany impression on him. It is a great defect that thou labourest under,and therefore I would have thee learn at any rate to sign thy name.""I can sign my name well enough," said Sancho, "for when I wassteward of the brotherhood in my village I learned to make certainletters, like the marks on bales of goods, which they told me made outmy name. Besides I can pretend my right hand is disabled and make someone else sign for me, for 'there's a remedy for everything exceptdeath;' and as I shall be in command and hold the staff, I can do as Ilike; moreover, 'he who has the alcalde for his father-,' and I'llbe governor, and that's higher than alcalde. Only come and see! Letthem make light of me and abuse me; 'they'll come for wool and go backshorn;' 'whom God loves, his house is known to Him;' 'the sillysayings of the rich pass for saws in the world;' and as I'll berich, being a governor, and at the same time generous, as I mean tobe, no fault will he seen in me. 'Only make yourself honey and theflies will suck you;' 'as much as thou hast so much art thou worth,'as my grandmother used to say; and 'thou canst have no revenge of aman of substance.'"

"Oh, God's curse upon thee, Sancho!" here exclaimed Don Quixote;"sixty thousand devils fly away with thee and thy proverbs! For thelast hour thou hast been stringing them together and inflicting thepangs of torture on me with every one of them. Those proverbs willbring thee to the gallows one day, I promise thee; thy subjects willtake the government from thee, or there will be revolts among them.Tell me, where dost thou pick them up, thou booby? How dost thou applythem, thou blockhead? For with me, to utter one and make it applyproperly, I have to sweat and labour as if I were digging."

"By God, master mine," said Sancho, "your worship is making a fussabout very little. Why the devil should you be vexed if I make useof what is my own? And I have got nothing else, nor any other stock intrade except proverbs and more proverbs; and here are three justthis instant come into my head, pat to the purpose and like pears in abasket; but I won't repeat them, for 'sage silence is called Sancho.'"

"That, Sancho, thou art not," said Don Quixote; "for not only artthou not sage silence, but thou art pestilent prate and perversity;still I would like to know what three proverbs have just now come intothy memory, for I have been turning over mine own- and it is a goodone- and none occurs to me."

"What can be better," said Sancho, "than 'never put thy thumbsbetween two back teeth;' and 'to "get out of my house" and "what doyou want with my wife?" there is no answer;' and 'whether thepitcher hits the stove, or the stove the pitcher, it's a badbusiness for the pitcher;' all which fit to a hair? For no oneshould quarrel with his governor, or him in authority over him,because he will come off the worst, as he does who puts his fingerbetween two back and if they are not back teeth it makes nodifference, so long as they are teeth; and to whatever the governormay say there's no answer, any more than to 'get out of my house'and 'what do you want with my wife?' and then, as for that about thestone and the pitcher, a blind man could see that. So that he 'whosees the mote in another's eye had need to see the beam in his own,'that it be not said of himself, 'the dead woman was frightened atthe one with her throat cut;' and your worship knows well that 'thefool knows more in his own house than the wise man in another's.'"

"Nay, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "the fool knows nothing, eitherin his own house or in anybody else's, for no wise structure of anysort can stand on a foundation of folly; but let us say no moreabout it, Sancho, for if thou governest badly, thine will he the faultand mine the shame; but I comfort myself with having done my duty inadvising thee as earnestly and as wisely as I could; and thus I amreleased from my obligations and my promise. God guide thee, Sancho,and govern thee in thy government, and deliver me from the misgiving Ihave that thou wilt turn the whole island upside down, a thing I mighteasily prevent by explaining to the duke what thou art and telling himthat all that fat little person of thine is nothing else but a sackfull of proverbs and sauciness."

"Senor," said Sancho, "if your worship thinks I'm not fit for thisgovernment, I give it up on the spot; for the mere black of the nailof my soul is dearer to me than my whole body; and I can live justas well, simple Sancho, on bread and onions, as governor, onpartridges and capons; and what's more, while we're asleep we're allequal, great and small, rich and poor. But if your worship looksinto it, you will see it was your worship alone that put me on to thisbusiness of governing; for I know no more about the government ofislands than a buzzard; and if there's any reason to think thatbecause of my being a governor the devil will get hold of me, I'drather go Sancho to heaven than governor to hell."

"By God, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "for those last words thouhast uttered alone, I consider thou deservest to be governor of athousand islands. Thou hast good natural instincts, without which noknowledge is worth anything; commend thyself to God, and try not toswerve in the pursuit of thy main object; I mean, always make it thyaim and fixed purpose to do right in all matters that come beforethee, for heaven always helps good intentions; and now let us go todinner, for I think my lord and lady are waiting for us."

CHAPTER XLIV

HOW SANCHO PANZA WAS CONDUCTED TO HIS GOVERNMENT, AND OF THE STRANGEADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE IN THE CASTLE

It is stated, they say, in the true original of this history, thatwhen Cide Hamete came to write this chapter, his interpreter did nottranslate it as he wrote it- that is, as a kind of complaint theMoor made against himself for having taken in hand a story so dryand of so little variety as this of Don Quixote, for he foundhimself forced to speak perpetually of him and Sancho, withoutventuring to indulge in digressions and episodes more serious and moreinteresting. He said, too, that to go on, mind, hand, pen alwaysrestricted to writing upon one single subject, and speaking throughthe mouths of a few characters, was intolerable drudgery, the resultof which was never equal to the author's labour, and that to avoidthis he had in the First Part availed himself of the device of novels,like "The Ill-advised Curiosity," and "The Captive Captain," whichstand, as it were, apart from the story; the others are given therebeing incidents which occurred to Don Quixote himself and could not beomitted. He also thought, he says, that many, engrossed by theinterest attaching to the exploits of Don Quixote, would take nonein the novels, and pass them over hastily or impatiently withoutnoticing the elegance and art of their composition, which would bevery manifest were they published by themselves and not as mereadjuncts to the crazes of Don Quixote or the simplicities of Sancho.Therefore in this Second Part he thought it best not to insert novels,either separate or interwoven, but only episodes, something like them,arising out of the circumstances the facts present; and even thesesparingly, and with no more words than suffice to make them plain; andas he confines and restricts himself to the narrow limits of thenarrative, though he has ability; capacity, and brains enough todeal with the whole universe, he requests that his labours may notbe despised, and that credit be given him, not alone for what hewrites, but for what he has refrained from writing.

Title: Don Quixote
Author: Miqeul de Cervantes
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