• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“That is true,” replied Don Quixote, “because it would not be proper if the finery in plays were really valuable instead of merely illusory and apparent, as the plays themselves are; I want you, Sancho, to think well and to have a good opinion of plays, and to be equally well-disposed toward those who perform them and those who write them, because they are all the instruments whereby a great service is performed for the nation, holding up a mirror to every step we take and allowing us to see a vivid image of the actions of human life; there is no comparison that indicates what we are and what we should be more clearly than plays and players. If you do not agree, then tell me: have you ever seen a play that presents kings, emperors, and pontiffs, knights, ladies, and many other characters? One plays the scoundrel, another the liar, this one the merchant, that one the soldier, another the wise fool, yet another the foolish lover, but when the play is over and they have taken off their costumes, all the actors are equal.”

“Yes, I have seen that,” responded Sancho.

“Well, the same thing happens in the drama and business of this world, where some play emperors, others pontiffs, in short, all the figures that can be presented in a play, but at the end, which is when life is over, death removes all the clothing that differentiated them, and all are equal in the grave.”

“That’s a fine comparison,” said Sancho, “though not so new that I haven’t heard it many times before, like the one about chess: as long as the game lasts, each piece has its particular rank and position, but when the game’s over they’re mixed and jumbled and thrown together in a bag, just the way life is tossed into the grave.”1

“Every day, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “you are becoming less simple and more intelligent.”

“Yes, some of your grace’s intelligence has to stick to me,” responded Sancho, “for lands that are barren and dry on their own can produce good fruits if you spread manure on them and till them; I mean to say that your grace’s conversation has been the manure that has fallen on the barren soil of my dry wits; the time I have served you and talked to you has been the tilling; and so I hope to produce fruits that are a blessing and do not go to seed or stray from the paths of good cultivation that your grace has made in my parched understanding.”

Don Quixote laughed at Sancho’s pretentious words but thought that what he said about the change in him was true, because from time to time he spoke in a manner that amazed Don Quixote, although almost always, when Sancho wanted to speak in an erudite and courtly way, his words would plummet from the peaks of his simplicity into the depths of his ignorance; the area in which he displayed the most elegance and the best memory was in his use of proverbs, regardless of whether or not they had anything to do with the subject, as has been seen and noted in the course of this history.

They spent a good part of the night in this and other exchanges like it, until Sancho felt the desire to drop the gates of his eyes, as he said when he wanted to sleep, and, after unharnessing the donkey, he allowed him to graze freely on the abundant grass. He did not remove Rocinante’s saddle, for his master had expressly ordered that for the time they were out in the countryside or did not sleep under a roof, he should not unharness Rocinante: an ancient custom established and maintained by knights errant was to remove the bit and hang it from the saddlebow, but taking the saddle off the horse? Never! And so this is what Sancho did, and he gave Rocinante the same freedom he had given the donkey, for their friendship was so unusual and so firm that it has been claimed, in a tradition handed down from fathers to sons, that the author of this true history devoted particular chapters to it, but for the sake of maintaining the decency and decorum so heroic a history deserves, he did not include them, although at times he is remiss in his purpose and writes that as soon as the two animals were together