Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [461]
To which Sancho responded:
“Certainly those judges who sent you to me could have saved themselves the trouble, because I’m more of a dullard than a shrewd man, but even so, tell me this business again so I understand it; then maybe I’ll figure it out.”
The questioner repeated what he had said earlier, and then Sancho said:
“It seems to me I can pass judgment on this case in the blink of an eye, and it’s this: the man swears he’s going to die on the gallows, and if he dies there, his oath was true and by law he deserves to be free and cross over the bridge; and if they don’t hang him, his oath was false, and by the same law he deserves to be hanged.”
“It is just as your grace says, Señor Governor,” said the messenger, “and as for the completeness of your understanding, there can be no question or doubt about that.”
“Well then, I’ll say now,” replied Sancho, “that they let the part of the man that swore the truth pass freely, and hang the part that told a lie, and in this way the conditions for passing will be satisfied to the letter.”
“But, Señor Governor,” replied the questioner, “it will be necessary for the man to be divided into two parts, the lying part and the truthful, and if he is divided, of necessity he will die, and then nothing that the law demands is fulfilled, and it is an express obligation that it be obeyed.”
“Come here, my good man,” responded Sancho. “This traveler you’ve described, either I’m a fool or there’s as much reason for him to die as to live and cross over the bridge, because just as the truth saves him, the lie condemns him; if this is so, and it is, it’s my opinion that you should tell those gentlemen who sent you to me that since the reasons for condemning him or sparing him are balanced perfectly, they should let him pass freely, for doing good is always more praiseworthy than doing evil, and I’d sign this with my own name if I knew how to write, and in this case I haven’t said my own idea but a precept that came to mind, one of many that was given to me by my master, Don Quixote, the night before I came to be governor of this ínsula, and it was that when the law is in doubt, I should favor and embrace mercy; it was God’s will that I remembered it now, since it fits this case exactly.”
“That’s true,” responded the steward, “and in my opinion Lycurgus himself, who gave laws to the Lacedaemonians, could not have made a better judgment than the one the great Panza has given. And with this let the court close for the morning, and I will give orders for the governor to have food that he likes for dinner.”
“That’s all I ask, and no tricks,” said Sancho. “Give me something to eat, and let cases and doubts rain down on me, and I’ll take care of them in midair.”
The steward kept his word, for it seemed to him a matter of conscience not to starve to death so intelligent a governor; besides, he intended to be finished with him that night, when he would play the final trick on him that he had been commissioned to perform.
So it happened that when the governor, having eaten that day in defiance of all the rules and aphorisms of Dr. Tirteafuera, stood up from the table, a courier came in with a letter from Don Quixote. Sancho ordered the secretary to read it to himself and, if there was nothing in it that had to be kept secret, to then read it aloud. The secretary did so, and having first examined it, he said:
“It can certainly be read aloud, for what Señor Don Quixote writes to your grace deserves to be inscribed and written in letters of gold, and this is what it says:
LETTER FROM DON QUIXOTE