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“I’ll guarantee that he won’t run away,” responded Sancho.

“And I’ll guarantee that and more,” said the canon, “if he gives me his word as a gentleman and a knight that he will not go away from us until we agree he can.”

“I do give it,” responded Don Quixote, who was listening to everything, “especially since one who is enchanted, as I am, is not free to do with his person what he might wish, because whoever enchanted him can make him stand stock still and not move from a spot for three centuries, and if he were to flee, he would be flown back through the air.”

Since this was true, they could certainly release him, especially because it would be to everyone’s benefit, and he protested that if they did not release him, the smell would surely trouble them unless they moved a good distance away.

The canon took one of Don Quixote’s hands, although both were tied together, and on the basis of the knight’s promise and word, they let him out of the cage, and he was infinitely and immensely happy to find himself free, and the first thing he did was to stretch his entire body, and then he went up to Rocinante, slapped him twice on the haunches, and said:

“I still hope to God and His Blessed Mother, O flower and paragon of horses, that we soon shall see ourselves as we wish to be: you, with your master on your back, and I, mounted on you and exercising the profession for which God put me in this world.”

And having said this, Don Quixote moved away with Sancho to a remote spot and returned much relieved and even more desirous of putting his squire’s plan into effect.

The canon looked at him, marveling at the strangeness of his profound madness and at how he displayed a very fine intelligence when he spoke and responded to questions, his feet slipping from the stirrups, as has been said many times before, only when the subject was chivalry. And so, after everyone had sat on the green grass to wait for the provisions, the canon, moved by compassion, said to him:

“Is it possible, Señor, that the grievous and idle reading of books of chivalry could have so affected your grace that it has unbalanced your judgment and made you believe that you are enchanted, along with other things of this nature, which are as far from being true as truth is from lies? How is it possible that any human mind could be persuaded that there has existed in the world that infinity of Amadises, and that throng of so many famous knights, so many emperors of Trebizond, so many Felixmartes of Hyrcania, so many palfreys and wandering damsels, so many serpents and dragons and giants, so many unparalleled adventures and different kinds of enchantments, so many battles and fierce encounters, so much splendid attire, so many enamored princesses and squires who are counts and dwarves who are charming, so many love letters, so much wooing, so many valiant women, and, finally, so many nonsensical matters as are contained in books of chivalry? For myself, I can say that when I read them, as long as I do not set my mind to thinking that they are all frivolous lies, I do derive some pleasure from them, but when I realize what they actually are, I throw even the best of them against the wall, and would even toss them in the fire if one were near, and think they richly deserved the punishment, for being deceptive and false and far beyond the limits of common sense, like the founders of new sects and new ways of life, and for giving the ignorant rabble a reason to believe and consider as true all the absurdities they contain.

They are so audacious, they dare perturb the minds of judicious and wellborn gentlemen, as can be plainly seen in what they have done to your grace, for they have brought you to the point where it has been necessary to lock you in a cage and carry you on an oxcart as if you were a lion or tiger being transported from town to town so that people could pay to see you. Come, come, Señor Don Quixote, take pity on yourself! Return to the bosom of good sense, and learn to use the considerable intelligence that heaven was pleased to give