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By Root 910 0

what Felixmarte of Hyrcania did, when with one reverse stroke he split five giants down to the waist like the dolls children make out of beans. Another time he attacked a huge, powerful army that had more than a million six hundred thousand soldiers, all of them armed from head to foot, and he routed them like herds of sheep. And what would you say of the good Don Cirongilio of Thrace, who was so valiant and brave, as you can see in the book where it tells us that once when he was sailing down a river a fiery serpent rose up from the water, and as soon as he saw it he attacked it and straddled it, right across its scaly shoulders, and with both hands he squeezed its throat so tight that the serpent, seeing that he was being strangled, could only dive down to the bottom of the river, taking with him the knight who wouldn’t let him go. And when they got down there, he found himself in palaces and gardens that were so pretty they were a marvel to see, and then the serpent turned into an old, old man who told him so many things it was really something to hear. Be quiet, Señor, because if you heard this, you’d go mad with pleasure. I don’t give two figs for the Great Captain or that Diego García!”

When Dorotea heard this, she said very quietly to Cardenio:

“Our host doesn’t have far to go to be a second Don Quixote.”

“I agree,” responded Cardenio. “According to what he says, he believes that everything these books say really happened just as written, and not even discalced friars could make him think otherwise.”

“Listen, my dear brother,” the priest said again, “there never was a Felixmarte of Hyrcania in this world, or a Don Cirongilio of Thrace, or any other knights like them that the books of chivalry tell about, because it is all fiction made up by idle minds, composed to create the effect you mentioned, to while away the time, just as your harvesters amuse themselves by reading them. Really, I swear to you, there never were knights like these in the world, and their great deeds, and all that other nonsense, never happened.”

“Throw that bone to another dog!” responded the innkeeper. “As if I didn’t know how to add two and three or where my shoe pinches! Your grace shouldn’t try to treat me like a child, because, by God, I’m not an idiot. That’s really something: your grace wants me to think that everything these good books say is foolishness and lies, when they’ve been printed with the permission of the gentlemen on the Royal Council, as if they were the kind of people who’d allow the printing of so many lies, and so many battles and so many enchantments it could drive you crazy!”

“I have already told you, my friend,” replied the priest, “that these books are intended to amuse our minds in moments of idleness; just as in well-ordered nations games such as chess and ball and billiards are permitted for the entertainment of those who do not have to, or should not, or cannot work, the printing of such books is also permitted, on the assumption, which is true, that no one will be so ignorant as to mistake any of these books for true history. If it were correct for me to do so now, and those present were to request it, I would have something to say about the characteristics that books of chivalry ought to have in order to be good books, and perhaps it would be advantageous and even pleasurable for some, but I hope the time will come when I may communicate this to someone who can remedy it; in the meantime, you should believe, Señor Innkeeper, what I have told you, and take your books, and decide on their truths or lies, and much good may they do you; God willing you won’t follow in the footsteps of your guest Don Quixote.”

“I won’t,” responded the innkeeper, “because I wouldn’t be crazy enough to become a knight errant; I see very well that these days are different from the old days, when they say those famous knights wandered through the world.”

Sancho had returned in the middle of this conversation and was left very confused and bewildered when he heard that nowadays there were no more knights errant and that all the