Chapter VI

Where the Sage Conversation between Don Quixote and Sancho Continues,

With Other Debates Happily Recorded

“May God in heaven or devil on earth keep thy wits intact!” exclaimed Sancho, “My master turned historian now. It would scarce astonish me if tomorrow you professed brick-laying. What experience hast thou of history and writing?” “O foe to that respect which is due to royalty!” bellowed Don Quixote, “thou foul-mouthed knave! Have you no apprehension that this fearless knight is the repository of history; for who in la Mancha knows every knight like the back of his own two feet and every malicious evil-doer like the nape of his own neck? Has that knowledge not rooted out of a careful perusal of the great histories of olden times?”

Sancho, perceiving his master furious, cursed his tongue for its fluidity, and assuming a submissive posture, a little bent, a little shaken, addressed the knight in the following words: “O body of my father! I seek forgiveness on behalf of my reckless tongue, for its flawed communication with my brain causes me much stress and distress. I merely meant to inquire how thy worship plans to execute this endeavor, for it is new and unfamiliar ground to my untrained feet, while yours, worthy and tested, have tread this path for many a years.”

“Son Sancho,” Don Quixote replied regaining his composure, “The composition of history does not trouble me much, for I am acquainted with knight-errantry, the mother of all knowledge, and he who knows the mother, will bear the children.” “Does your worship not require the award or confirmation of a scholar to be dubbed a historian?” inquired Sancho. “People foreign to the occupation of knight-errantry; commonfolk, rustics and rulers require permission. But I, being a knight, have found enough verification in the Moor’s history to deem myself a worthy historian, for in multitudinous instances Mr. Bean-and-Jelly has acceded to my sound and logical discourse, my gift for talking like fifty barristers and resolving fights better with my arguments than my threats; though I agree not with the last clause for I find in it the suggestion that I should become a clergyman and ascend the pulpit.”

“A thought still plagues me Signor Quixote,” said Sancho, not paying attention to the knight’s recent declamation but drifting back from a former thought. “Plague not thy mind by withholding anything, worthy squire,” said Don Quixote, “for mischief in the mind causes mischief in the bowels, a circumstance I am not well-equipped to handle as my abode does not provide for a place of relieving oneself.” “The fact that confounds my understanding,” continued Sancho, “is the mysterious change of the Moor who hath proven himself an honest fellow for much of the writing of this history.” “The alteration in his constitution has me much vexed and perplexed too,” replied Don Quixote, “however the conjecture I make from my studies is that recording the truth; our detainment from sallying forth a third time and impediment from further venturing, would not have bode well for his own fame; for when an author attempts to entertain the ignorant and the learned, the plebian and the scholar alike, he succumbs to the folly of fulfilling public demand and not remaining true to the history.”

“Does your worship consider instruction or entertainment as the ultimate aim of a history?” Sancho questioned, “For if it is entertainment, why does the poet not become a historian, a career more favorable to his name and earning, and if it be instruction then the curate needs be the biggest historian.” “You have inquired like a true scholar Sancho,” replied the knight, effulgent at the growing seeds of intelligence in his deputy’s brain, “it requires great judgment and ripe understanding to compose histories, for history, being that select branch of scholarship which comprises both entertainment and instruction, requires the raillery of a fool and the earnestness of a priest.” “From what your scholarship speaks of it, history seems to be the pinnacle of all arts and sciences; surely the most arduous order of learning,” reflected Sancho, awe-struck. “It is the very fine line between truth and falsehood, thought and remembrance, that renders the vocation of a historian so perilous; for a poet and clergyman both may rehearse things not as they are but as they ought to be, but a historian must transmit them not as they ought to be but as they are; and historians who falter and propagate anything by adding or subtracting from the truth should be burnt, along with their books, like false coiners.” “That afears me master Quixote,” replied Sancho, “for you are recorded, throughout your escapades, as having incessantly mistaken black for white: windmills for giants, sheep for armies, penitents for abductors and I could quote a list here that ought to put the most accredited mathematician in la Mancha recount his numbers.” “Try not to exceed thy intelligence with me Sancho, for this is what the Moor records, but he remains ignorant of the spell the sage inchanter hath cast upon thy delusional master. The inchantment now withdrawn by the grace of heaven and my mistress Dulcinea, memory and imagination will follow a pleasant combination, for I find within my person a piece of a poet and a chunk of an historian. An agreeable story must needs emerge; the translation of this methodical madness into a harmonious medley of fiction and reality.”