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“All this is true, Señor Don Quixote,” said Carrasco, “but I should like those censurers to be more merciful and less severe and not pay so much attention to the motes in the bright sun of the work they criticize, for if aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus,5 they should consider how often he was awake to give a brilliant light to his work with the least amount of shadow possible; and it well may be that what seem defects to them are birthmarks that often increase the beauty of the face where they appear; and so I say that whoever prints a book exposes himself to great danger, since it is utterly impossible to write in a way that will satisfy and please everyone who reads it.”

“The one that tells about me,” said Don Quixote, “must have pleased very few.”

“Just the opposite is true; since stultorum infinitus est numerus,6 an infinite number of people have enjoyed the history, though some have found fault and failure in the author’s memory, because he forgets to tell who the thief was who stole Sancho’s donkey, for it is never stated and can only be inferred from the writing that it was stolen, and soon after that we see Sancho riding on that same donkey and don’t know how it reappears. They also say that he forgot to put in what Sancho did with the hundred escudos he found in the traveling case in the Sierra Morena, for it is never mentioned again, and there are many who wish to know what he did with them, or how he spent them, for that is one of the substantive points of error in the work.”

Sancho responded:

“I, Señor Sansón, am in no condition now to give accounts or accountings; my stomach has begun to flag, and if I don’t restore it with a couple of swallows of mellow wine, I’ll be nothing but skin and bone. I keep some at home; my missus is waiting for me; when I finish eating I’ll come back and satisfy your grace and anybody else who wants to ask questions about the loss of my donkey or the hundred escudos.”

And without waiting for a reply or saying another word, he left for his house.

Don Quixote asked and invited the bachelor to stay and eat with him. The bachelor accepted: he stayed, a couple of squab were added to the ordinary meal, chivalry was discussed at the table, Carrasco humored the knight, the banquet ended, they took a siesta, Sancho returned, and their earlier conversation was resumed.

CHAPTER IV

In which Sancho Panza satisfies Bachelor Sansón Carrasco with regard to his doubts and questions, with other events worthy of being known and recounted

Sancho came back to Don Quixote’s house, and returning to their earlier discussion, he said:

“As for what Señor Sansón said about people wanting to know who stole my donkey, and how, and when, I can answer by saying that on the same night we were running from the Holy Brotherhood, and entered the Sierra Morena after the misadventurous adventure of the galley slaves, and of the dead man being carried to Segovia, my master and I rode into a stand of trees where my master rested on his lance, and I on my donkey, and battered and tired from our recent skirmishes, we began to sleep as if we were lying on four featherbeds; I was so sound asleep that whoever the thief was could come up to me, and put me on four stakes that he propped under the four sides of my packsaddle, and leave me mounted on them, and take my donkey out from under me without my even knowing it.”

“That is an easy thing to do, and nothing new; the same thing happened to Sacripante when he was at the siege of Albraca; with that same trick the famous thief named Brunelo took his horse from between his legs.”1

“Dawn broke,” Sancho continued, “and as soon as I moved, the stakes gave way and I fell to the ground; I looked for the donkey and didn’t see him; tears filled my eyes, and I began to lament, and if the author of our history didn’t put that in, you can be sure he left out something good. After I don’t know how many days, when we were traveling with the Señora Princess Micomicona, I saw my donkey, and riding him, dressed like a Gypsy, was Ginés de Pasamonte, the lying crook that my