Of the strange and wonderful manner in which Don Quixote de la Mancha was enchanted; with other remarkable occurrences. "Many very grave historians of knights-errant have I read," said Don Quixote, on finding himself thus cooped up and carted, "but I never read, saw, or heard of enchanted knights being transported in this manner, and so slowly as these lazy, heavy animals seem to proceed; for they were usually conveyed through the air with wonderful speed, enveloped in some thick and dark cloud, or on some chariot of fire, or mounted upon a hippogriff, or some such animal. But to be carried upon a team drawn by oxen, it overwhelms me with confusion!"

Don Fernando and Cardenio, fearing lest Sancho should see into the whole of their plot, resolved to hasten their departure; and calling the innkeeper aside, they ordered him to saddle Rozinante and pannel the ass, which he did with great expedition. In the mean while the priest engaged to pay the troopers to accompany Don Quixote home to his village. Cardenio made signs to Sancho to mount his ass and lead Rozinante by the bridle. But before the car moved forward, the hostess, her daughter, and Maritornes, came out to take their leave of Don Quixote, pretending to shed tears for grief at his misfortune. "Weep not, my good ladies," said the knight, "for disasters of this kind are incident to those of my profession. Pardon me, fair ladies, if I have through inadvertence given you any offence; for intentionally I never offended any person; and I beseech you to pray Heaven for my deliverance from my present thraldom; and if ever I find myself at liberty, I shall not forget the favours you have done me in this castle, but shall acknowledge and requite them as they deserve."

While this passed, the priest and the barber took their leave of Don Fernando and his companions, the captain, and of all the ladies, now supremely happy. Don Fernando requested the priest to give him intelligence of Don Quixote, assuring him that nothing would afford him more satisfaction than to hear of his future proceedings; and he promised, on his part, to inform him of whatever might amuse or please him respecting his own marriage, and the return of Lucinda to her parents, and also the issue of Don Louis's affair. The priest engaged to perform all that was desired of him with the utmost punctuality; after which they separated with many expressions of mutual cordiality and good-will. Don Quixote sat in the cage with his hands tied and his legs stretched out, leaning against the bars as silently and patiently as if he had been, not a man of flesh and blood, but a statue of stone. In this manner they travelled about two leagues, when they came to a valley which the waggoner thought a convenient place for resting and baiting his cattle; but, on his proposing it, the barber recommended that they should travel a little farther, as beyond the next rising ground there was a vale that afforded much better pasture; and this advice was followed.

The priest, happening about this time to look back, perceived behind them six or seven horsemen, well mounted and accoutred, who soon came up with them. One of the travellers, who was a canon of Toledo, and master to those who accompanied him, observing the orderly procession of the waggon, the troopers, Sancho, Rozinante, the priest, and the barber, and especially Don Quixote, caged up and imprisoned, could not forbear making some inquiries; though, on observing the badges of the holy brotherhood, he concluded that they were conveying some notorious robber or other criminal, whose punishment belonged to that fraternity. "Why the gentleman is carried in this manner," replied one of the troopers who was questioned, "he must tell you himself, for we know nothing about the matter." Upon which Don Quixote (having overheard what passed) said, "If perchance, gentlemen, you are conversant in the affairs of chivalry, I will acquaint you with my misfortunes; but if not, I will spare myself that trouble." The priest and the barber, perceiving that the travellers were speaking with Don Quixote, rode up to them, lest any thing should pass that might frustrate their plot. The canon, in answer to Don Quixote, said, "In truth, brother, I am more conversant in books of chivalry than in Villalpando's Summaries; you may, therefore, freely communicate to me whatever you please." "With Heaven's permission, then," replied Don Quixote, "be it known to you, sigÑor cavalier, that I am enchanted in this cage through the envy and fraud of wicked necromancers; for virtue is more persecuted by the wicked than beloved by the good. A knight-errant I am; not one of those whose names fame has forgotten, but one who, in despite of envy itself, and of all the magicians of Persia, the Brahmins of India, and the gymnosophists of Ethiopia, shall enrol his name in the temple of immortality, to serve as a model and mirror to future ages, whereby knights-errant may see the track they are to follow, if they are ambitious of reaching the honourable summit and pinnacle of true glory." "SigÑor Don Quixote de la Mancha says the truth," said the priest; "for he is conveyed in that enchanted state, not through his own fault or demerit, but the malice of those to whom virtue is odious and courage obnoxious. This, sir, is the Knight of the Sorrowful Figure, whose valorous exploits and heroic deeds shall be recorded on solid brass and everlasting marble, in despite of all the efforts of envy and malice to conceal and obscure them." The canon, upon hearing not only the imprisoned but the free man talk in such a style, crossed himself in amazement, nor were his followers less surprised; and Sancho now coming up, to mend the matter said, "Look ye, gentlemen, let it be well or ill taken, I will out with it: the truth of the case is, my master, Don Quixote, is just as much enchanted as my mother; he is in his perfect senses, he eats and drinks like other men, and as he did yesterday before they cooped him up. This being so, will you persuade me he is enchanted? The enchanted, I have heard say, neither eat, nor sleep, nor speak; but my master here, if nobody stops him, will talk ye more than thirty barristers." Then turning to the priest, he went on saying, "Ah, master priest, master priest, do I not know you? And think you I cannot guess what these new enchantments drive at? Let me tell you I know you, though you do hide your face, and understand you too, sly as you be. But the good cannot abide where envy rules, nor is generosity found in a beggarly breast. Evil befal the devil! Had it not been for your reverence, before this time his worship had been married to the Princess Micomicona, and I had been an earl at least; for I could expect no less from my master's bounty and the greatness of my services. But I find the proverb true, that 'the wheel of fortune turns swifter than a mill-wheel,' and they who were yesterday at the top are to-day at the bottom. I am grieved for my poor wife and children; for, when they might reasonably expect to see their father come home a governor or viceroy of some island or kingdom, they will now see him return a pitiful groom. All this I say, master priest, only to make your paternity feel some conscience in regard to what you are doing with my master; take heed that God does not call you to an account in the next life for this imprisonment of my lord, and require at your hands all the good he might have done during this time of his confinement." "Snuff me these candles," quoth the barber, interrupting the squire; "what! art thou, Sancho, of thy master's fraternity? I begin, indeed, to think thou art likely to keep him company in the cage for thy share of his humour and his chivalry. In an evil hour wert thou lured by his promises, and thy head filled with islands." "I am not lured by any body," answered Sancho; "and though I am a poor man, I am an old Christian, and owe no body any thing; and if I covet islands, there are others who covet worse things; and every one is the son of his own works; and being a man, I may come to be pope, and much more easily governor of an island, especially since my master may win so many that he may be at a loss where to bestow them."

The canon and his servants then rode on before with the priest, who entertained him with a circumstantial account of Don Quixote, from the first symptoms of his derangement to his present situation in the cage. The canon was surprised at what he heard. "Truly," said he to the curate, "those tales of chivalry are very prejudicial to the common weal; and, though led away by an idle and false taste, I have read in part almost all that are printed, I could never get through the whole of any one of them, they are all so much alike. In my opinion, this kind of writing and composition falls under the head of what are called Milesian fables, which are extravagant stories, calculated merely to amuse, and very unlike those moral tales which are no less instructive than entertaining; and though the principal object of such books is to please, I know not how they can attain that end by such monstrous absurdities; for the mind receives pleasure from the beauty and consistency of what is presented to the imagination, not from that which is incongruous and unnatural. Where is the sense or consistency of a tale in which a youth of sixteen hews down a giant as tall as a steeple, and splits him in two as if he were made of paste? Or how are we to be interested in the detail of a battle, when we are told that a hero contends alone against a million of adversaries, and obtains the victory by his single arm? I have never yet found a regular well-connected fable in any of our books of chivalry; they are all inconsistent and monstrous; the style is generally bad; and they abound with incredible exploits, absurd sentiments, and miraculous adventures; in short, they should be banished every Christian country."

The priest listened attentively to these observations of the canon, which he thought were perfectly just; and he told him that he also had such an enmity to those tales of chivalry, that he had destroyed all that Don Quixote had possessed, which were not a few in number; and he amused the canon very much by his account of the formal trial and condemnation through which they had passed.

The canon contemplated the Don with great surprise; for he displayed in conversation a very good understanding, and seemed, as it hath been before observed, only to lose his stirrups on the theme of chivalry; and he was induced, out of compassion to his infirmity, to address him on the subject:

"Is it possible, worthy sir," said the canon, "that the idle study of books of chivalry should so powerfully have affected your brain as to make you believe you are now enchanted, with other fancies of the same kind as far from truth as falsehood itself? For my own part, I confess, when I read them without reflecting on their falsehood and folly, they give me some amusement; but when I consider what they are, I dash them against the wall, and even commit them to the flames when I am near a fire, as well deserving such a fate, for their want of common sense, and their injurious tendency in misleading the uninformed. Nay, they may even disturb the intellects of sensible and well-born gentlemen, as is manifest by the effect they have had on your worship, who is reduced by them to such a state that you are forced to be shut up in a cage, and carried on a team from place to place, like some lion or tiger exhibited for money. Ah, SigÑor Don Quixote! have pity on yourself, shake off this folly, and employ the talents with which Heaven has blessed you in the cultivation of literature more subservient to your honour, as well as profitable to your mind. If a strong natural impulse still leads you to books containing the exploits of heroes, read in the Holy Scriptures the book of Judges, where you will meet with wonderful truths and achievements no less heroic than true."

Don Quixote listened with great attention to the canon till he had ceased speaking, and then, looking stedfastly in his face, he replied, "I conceive, sir, that you mean to insinuate that there never were knights-errant in the world; that all books of chivalry are false, mischievous, and unprofitable to the commonwealth; and that I have done ill in reading, worse in believing, and still worse in imitating them; and also that you deny that there ever existed the Amadises either of Gaul or of Greece, or any of those celebrated knights?" "I mean precisely what you say," replied the canon. "You also were pleased to add, I believe," continued Don Quixote, "that those books had done me much prejudice, having injured my brain, and occasioned my imprisonment in a cage; and that it would be better for me to change my course of study, and read other books, more true, more pleasant, and more instructive." "Just so," quoth the canon. "Why then," said Don Quixote, "in my opinion, sir, it is yourself who are deranged and enchanted, since you have deigned to blaspheme an order so universally acknowledged in the world, and its existence so authenticated, that he who denies it merits that punishment you are pleased to say you inflict on certain books. To assert that there never was an Amadis in the world, nor any other of the knights-adventurers of whom so many records remain, is to say that the sun does not enlighten, the frost produce cold, nor the earth yield sustenance. What human ingenuity can make us doubt the truth of that affair between the Infanta Floripes and Guy of Burgundy? Then who can deny the truth of the history of Peter of Provence and the fair Magalona? since even to this day you may see in the king's armory the very peg wherewith the valiant Peter steered the wooden horse that bore him through the air; which peg is somewhat larger than the pole of a coach; and near it lies the saddle of Babieca. In Roncesvalles, too, there may be seen Orlando's horn, the size of a great beam; not to mention many other matters, all so authentic and true, that I say again, whoever denies them must be wholly destitute of sense and reason."

The canon was astonished at Don Quixote's medley of truth and fiction, as well as at the extent of his knowledge on affairs of chivalry; and he replied, "I cannot deny, SigÑor Don Quixote, but that there is some truth in what you say. That there was a Cid no one will deny, and likewise a Bernardo del Carpio; but that they performed all the exploits ascribed to them I believe there is great reason to doubt. As to Peter of Provence's peg, and its standing near Babieca's saddle in the king's armory, I confess my sin in being so ignorant or short-sighted that, though I have seen the saddle, I never could discover the peg,—large as it is, according to your description." "Yet unquestionably there it is," replied Don Quixote, "and they say, moreover, that it is kept in a leathern case to prevent rust." "It may be so," answered the canon; "but, in truth, I do not remember to have seen it. Yet even granting it, I am not therefore bound to believe all the stories of so many Amadises, and the whole tribe of knights-errant; and it is extraordinary that a gentleman possessed of your understanding and talents should give credit to such extravagance and absurdity."