Flemish Tapestry: A New Translation
Don Quixote, Part II, Chapter LXII:
Which deals with the adventure of the Enchanted Head, along
with other trifles that cannot be left out of the story
Don Quixote’s host was Don Antonio Moreno, a rich and discerning gentleman given to honest and kindhearted entertainment, who, seeing Don Quixote in his house, sought ways of drawing out his madness without harming him; for jests that injure are not jests, nor are pastimes worthwhile if they cause harm to another. The first thing he did was to remove Don Quixote’s armor and put him on display in his tight-fitting, tawny-colored clothes—the same outfit in which we have described and painted him many times—on a balcony that opened onto one of the main thoroughfares of the city, in full view of the people and the children, who looked at him as if he were a monkey. Crowds in fine livery once again paraded before him, looking as if they had dressed up for him alone rather than to celebrate the day’s festivities, and Sancho was delighted because it seemed to him that, though he knew not how or why, he found himself at another wedding like Camacho’s, another house like Don Diego de Miranda’s, and another castle like the Duke’s.
They ate that day with Don Antonio and some of his friends, honoring everyone and treating Don Quixote as a knight errant, for which, vain and pompous, he could not contain his happiness. Sancho’s jokes were so numerous that all of the servants and everyone who could hear seemed to hang on his every word. At the table, Don Antonio said to Sancho: “We have heard tell, good Sancho, that you have such a taste for pheasant in cream and grilled meatballs that, if ever you had some morsels left over, you would save them in your pocket for the next day.”
“That’s not true, my lord,” protested Sancho, “for I’m closer to clean living than gluttony, and my lord Don Quixote, who’s here before us, surely knows we’re used to passing eight days with only a handful of acorns or nuts between the two of us. Now it’s true that, if you give me a heifer, I’ll show up with the rope. I mean to say I use what’s given to me, and I take time as I find it, and whoever says I’m a heavy eater and not clean, well, you can take my word that it’s not the truth, and I’d say it another way if I didn’t respect the honorable old beards at this table.”
“Of course,” said Don Quixote, “the lack of haste and the cleanliness with which Sancho eats could be written down and etched onto sheets of bronze, to remain in the eternal memory of the coming centuries. The truth is that, when he is hungry, he may seem a bit of a glutton because he eats hurriedly and chews with both cheeks full, but even then he is always clean. And back in the days when Sancho was a governor, he learned to eat fussily: so much so that he would eat grapes, and even pomegranate kernels, with a fork.”
“What!” said Don Antonio. “Sancho has been a governor?”
“Yes,” responded Sancho, “of an island called Barataria. For ten days I governed it by the word of my mouth, and in that time I lost my mellowness and learned to look down on all the governments in the world. I left from it, fleeing, and fell into a cave, where I took myself for dead, and it was only by a miracle that I made it out alive.”
Don Quixote briefly recounted the events of Sancho’s governorship, which entertained the listeners to no end. Once the tables had been cleared, Don Antonio took Don Quixote by the hand and entered a separate chamber containing no more decoration than a single table, which seemed to be made of jasper and was supported by a foot of the same material. Upon the table rested a bust in the style of the heads of Roman emperors, cut from the breast upward, which seemed to be made of bronze. Don Antonio led Don Quixote all around the chamber, circling the table many times, after which he said, “Now, Sir Don Quixote, as I am sure no one is eavesdropping on us, and the door is sealed, I want to share with Your Lordship one of the strangest adventures, or, better said, novelties, that can ever be imagined. But Your Lordship must guard what I confide to you in the deepest recesses of secrecy.”
“I swear that it will be so,” responded Don Quixote, “and I shall even place a boulder on top for better protection. I desire Your Lordship to know, Sir Don Antonio,” (for he had by now learned the man’s name), “that you are conversing with one who, though I may have ears to hear, has no tongue to speak. Thus, Your Lordship may be secure in transferring what weighs upon your chest onto mine, knowing that it has been placed in the abysses of silence.”
“In faith of that promise,” responded Don Antonio, “I shall invite Your Lordship to marvel at what you are about to see and hear, and I will allow myself some reprieve from the agony of having no one with whom to communicate my secrets, which are not such as can be trusted with everyone.”
Don Quixote was astonished, waiting to learn whatever could require so many precautions. Don Antonio took his hand and passed it over the bronze head, all around the table, and over the jasper foot that supported it. And then he explained: “This head, Sir Don Quixote, was created and produced by one of the greatest enchanters and sorcerers that the world has ever seen: a man who, I believe, was Polish by nation and a disciple of the famous Escotillo, about whom so many marvels are told. He was here in my house and, for the sum of one thousand escudos that I gave him, he forged this head, which has the property and virtue of responding to any question spoken into its ear. He plotted directions, painted runes, observed constellations, and finally brought it out with all of the perfection that we will see tomorrow, since it is does not speak on Fridays, and, today being a Friday, it will make us wait until tomorrow. During this time, Your Lordship will be able to prepare whatever questions you wish to ask of it; and I know from experience that it will tell the truth in its responses.”
Don Quixote was amazed by the head’s virtue and property and felt tempted not to believe Don Antonio, but, realizing how little time remained before the experiment, he did not wish to say anything but to thank him for having revealed such a great secret. They left the chamber, Don Antonio locked the door with a key, and they went out into the hall where the other gentleman remained. During this time, Sancho had recounted many of the adventures and incidents that had befallen his master.
That evening they took Don Quixote for a ride, not in his armor, but out on the street, dressed in a cassock of tawny cloth, which would have been enough to make ice itself sweat at such a time. They ordered the servants to entertain Sancho so that he would not leave the house. Don Quixote did not ride Rocinante but instead a great stallion of even step, decorated quite lavishly. They put the cassock on him and, so that he would not see it, affixed a piece of parchment to his back on which they had written in large letters: This is Don Quixote de la Mancha. As they embarked on their journey, the sign caught the eyes of everyone who saw him and, as they all read This is Don Quixote de la Mancha, Don Quixote was amazed to see how many of the people who saw him called him by name and recognized him. Turning to Don Antonio, who rode at his side, he said, “Great is the privilege of knight errantry, for it makes the one who professes it known and famous in all the ends of the land. Sir Don Antonio, does Your Lordship see that even the children of this city, who have never seen me before today, know who I am?”
“So it is, Sir Don Quixote,” responded Don Antonio. “Just as fire can neither be hidden nor contained, virtue can never be left unrecognized, and the virtue attained in the profession of arms shines and flourishes over all others.”
It came to pass, then, that a Castilian, reading the sign on Don Quixote’s back and seeing him receive the praise that we have described, raised his voice, saying, “The Devil take you, Don Quixote! How did you make it here, without meeting your end under the infinite beatings you’ve had behind you? You’re mad! It wouldn’t be so terrible if you were in that state on your own, behind the doors of your madness, but you manage to turn everyone who deals with you or talks to you into madmen and fools. See; look at these gentlemen who accompany you. Go back to your house, fool, and look after your estate, your wife and children, and have done with the nonsense that eats at your senses and skims away your understanding.”
“Brother,” said Don Antonio, “go on your way, and do not give advice to those who do not ask for it. Sir Don Quixote de la Mancha is quite sensible, and those of us who accompany him are not idiots; virtue must be honored wherever it is found. So go away from here, and never again intrude where you are not called. May bad luck follow you.”
“My God, Your Lordship is right,” replied the Castilian. “Counseling this good man is like kicking against thorns; but despite all that, it saddens me deeply that the great wit they say you possess has drained down the channel of this fool’s knight errantry. May bad luck, as Your Lordship says, follow me and all of my descendants from this day forward, even if they live more days than Methuselah, and I’ll never give advice to anyone, even if they ask me for it.” The counseling man went away; the journey went forward, but the clamor being raised by the children and all the people reading the sign on Don Quixote was such that Don Antonio had to take it off of him, pretending to remove something else.
Night came and they returned home, where there was a party of ladies because Don Antonio’s wife, a distinguished, cheerful, beautiful, and modest lady, had invited her friends to come and honor their guest and enjoy his incomparable madness. Several came; they ate splendidly, and the party began at almost ten at night. Among the ladies were two of a mischievous and playful character who, though they were quite honorable, were rather indecorous in their desire to make entertaining but harmless jokes. They made such short work of rousing Don Quixote to dance that they exhausted him in both body and spirit. It was quite a sight to see Don Quixote’s figure: long, stretched, gaunt, tawny, tight in dress, slight, and most of all rather lightweight.
The damsels complimented him, as if in secret, and he, also as if in secret, rejected them. But, as they pressured him with compliments, he raised his voice and said: “Fugite, partes adversae! Leave me in peace, evil thoughts. Get thee away with your desires, ladies, for the one who is my queen, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, does not permit any other to command and conquer me but her alone.” And, so saying, he sat down on the floor in the middle of the hall, tired and worn out from the exercise of so much dancing.
Don Antonio made for him to be carried to his bed, and the first to lend a hand was Sancho, saying, “Why’ve you gone and danced at a time like this, master? Do you think that all valiant men are dancers, and all knights-errant are ballerinas? I say, if you think so then you’ve been tricked; a man must dare to kill a giant before doing a pirouette. If you wanted to tap, I could have made up for your lack, for I tap-dance like a king; but when it comes to dancing, I’ve got no chance.” With these and other exclamations, Sancho made the people at the party laugh, and he left his master in bed, tucking him in so that he would sweat off the coldness from his dance.
The next day, Don Antonio thought it was a good time for the experiment with the enchanted head, and, along with Don Quixote, Sancho, and two other friends, and with the two ladies who had exhausted Don Quixote at the dance, who had stayed with Don Antonio’s wife that night, he shut himself in the chamber with the head. He told them of its power, entrusted the secret to them, and told them that this was the first day on which he would test the virtue of that enchanted head; and, except for the two friends of Don Antonio, no other person knew that the enchantment was a trick, and if Don Antonio had not explained it to his friends first, they too would have felt the same admiration that fell on the others, without a possible doubt: such was the cleverness and precision with which it was made.
The first to approach the ear of the head was Don Antonio himself, and he said, in a voice that was submissive yet loud enough so that all of them could hear, “Tell, me, head, for the virtue contained in you, what are my thoughts at this moment?” And the head answered him, without moving its lips, in a clear and distinct voice so that all would hear it, with this response: “I do not judge thoughts.” All were stunned to hear it, especially seeing that nowhere in the chamber or around the table was there a human person who could have responded.
“How many of us are here?” Don Antonio asked instead. And the reply came in the same tenor: “There are you and your wife, with two of your friends, and two of her friends, and a famous knight called Don Quixote de la Mancha, and another, his squire, whose name is Sancho Panza.”
At this, their admiration for it rose yet again, and everyone’s hair went on end in complete shock. Stepping away from the head, Don Antonio said, “This is enough to lead me to believe that I was not deceived by the man who sold it to me, this wise head, speaking head, sensible and admirable head! Someone else, come close and ask it what you will.” And, as women are ordinarily hasty and curious for knowledge, the first person to come forward was one of the two friends of Don Antonio’s wife. She asked it: “Tell me, head, what can I do to be very beautiful?” And the answer came: “Be very honest.” “I’ll ask you no more,” said the questioner.
Then her companion came forward and said, “I would like to know, head, if my husband really loves me or not.” And it responded: “Look at the things he does for you, and you will know.” The married woman moved away, saying: “This answer needed no question, because, in effect, one’s works declare one’s will.”
Then one of Don Antonio’s friends came forward, and he asked it: “Who am I?” And he was answered: “You know the answer.” “I don’t mean to ask you that,” responded the gentleman, “but rather whether you can say if you know me.” “Yes” it answered, “I know that you are Don Pedro Noriz.” “I don’t want to know any more, but that is enough, oh head, to know that you know everything.”
And as he moved away, the other friend approached and asked it: “Tell me, head, what are my eldest son’s desires?” “I have already told you,” it answered, “that I do not judge desires, but, despite that, I know enough to tell you that your son intends to bury you.” “That is,” said the gentleman, “what I see through my eyes, what I point to with my finger.” And he asked no more.
Don Antonio’s wife came forward and said: “I do not know, head, what to ask; I would only like you to tell me whether I will enjoy many years of good marriage.” And it answered, “Yes, you will enjoy it, because your health and temperance of living promise many years of life, which many cut short for their lack of temperance.”
Then Don Quixote came forward and said, “Tell me, you who respond, was everything that I say happened to me in the Cave of Montesinos the truth or a dream? Is whipping Sancho, my squire, correct? Will it bring about Dulcinea’s disenchantment?” “Regarding the cave,” it answered, “there is much to be said; Sancho’s whipping will go slowly, and the disenchantment of Dulcinea will come with its proper execution.” “I wish to know no more,” said Don Quixote, “and, when I see Dulcinea disenchanted, I will realize suddenly that all the fortune one could wish for has come.”
The last to speak was Sancho, and this was his question: “By chance, head, will I run another government? Will I leave the hardship of being a squire? Will I see my wife and children again?” To which it answered: “You will govern in your home, and if you return to it, you will see your wife and your children, and ceasing to serve, you will cease being a squire.” “Good, my God!” said Sancho Panza. “What it’s told me, the prophet Perogrullo could say no more.” “Beast,” said Don Quixote, “what do you wish it to answer? It is not enough that this head’s answers match what is asked of it?” “Yes, it’s enough,” responded Sancho, “but I’d have preferred if it was clearer and had more to say.”
With this, the questions and answers ended, but everyone continued in their admiration except for Don Antonio’s two friends, who knew about the trick. Cide Hamete Benengeli chose to explain the thing at this point so as not to leave the world in suspense, believing some bewitching and extraordinary mystery was contained in that head. He says that Don Antonio Moreno, imitating another head that he saw in Madrid made by an engraver, had this one made in his house in order to entertain and trick the ignorant, and the creation worked in this way: the counter of the table was made of wood, painted and varnished to look like jasper, and the foot supporting it was of the same material, with four eagle talons going from it to better hold the weight. The head, which seemed to be the effigy and likeness of a Roman emperor, bronze in color, was totally hollow, and the counter of the table was just the same, joined so carefully that no sign of a seam was visible. The foot of the table was also hollow, matching the throat and breast of the bust, and all of this was connected to another chamber below the one with the head. All the way through the hollow foot, the table, the throat, and the breast of the aforementioned effigy and likeness was a tin pipe, channeled carefully so that it could be seen by no one. In the corresponding chamber below was the fellow whose job it was to answer, his mouth pressed to this pipe, so that, like an ear trumpet, voices went from above to below and below to above, in articulate and clear words, and in this way it was impossible to realize the trick. A nephew of Don Antonio’s, a clever and modest student, was the responder. Being advised by his uncle of who would be entering the chamber with the head that day, he could easily respond quickly and promptly to the first question and then answer the rest with conjectures; and, being discerning, he did so discerningly. Cide Hamete also says that the marvelous device lasted for ten or twelve days, but, as word spread about the city that Don Antonio had an enchanted head in his house that responded to whoever questioned it, the people feared the news would reach the ears of the vigilant guardians of our faith. Having told the truth to the inquisitors, they ordered that he unmake the head and leave the business there in order to avoid a shock among the ignorant masses; but, as far as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza knew, the head remained enchanted and responsive, more to the satisfaction of Don Quixote than to Sancho.
The gentlemen of the city, so as to please Don Antonio and to regale Don Quixote and lead him to discover his foolishness, arranged a game of the running of the rings in six days time, which ultimately did not take place due to the occasion that will be related ahead. Don Quixote wished to take a turn out from the city to the plains on foot, worrying that the children would follow him if he went on horseback, and so he and Sancho, along with two other servants that Don Antonio provided him, went out for a turn.
It happened then that, going down a street, Don Quixote raised his eyes and saw written over a door in great letters: Books Are Printed Here, which made him quite happy because he had never before seen a printing-house and desired to see how the thing was done. He went inside with his whole entourage and saw printing in one part, correcting in another, composing in another, amending in one, and finally the great apparatus that can be seen in large printing-houses. Don Quixote went over to one section and asked what was being done there; the workers explained and he expressed his amazement and passed onward. He went over to one man and asked what it was that he did. The worker responded: “Sir, this gentleman here,” and he indicated a man of great stature and appearance and of a certain gravity, “has translated a book from Tuscan into our Castilian language, and I am composing it to put it into print.”
To which the author responded: “Sir, the book, in Tuscan, is called Le Bagatelle.”
“And what does le bagatelle convey in our Castilian?” asked Don Quixote.
“Le Bagatelle,” said the author, “is as if we were to say ‘the playthings’ in Castilian, and, although this book is humble in name, there are many good, substantial things contained and enclosed within it.”
“I,” said Don Quixote, “know a bit of Tuscan, and I pride myself in singing some stanzas of Ariosto. But tell me, Your Lordship, my good Sir, and I don’t ask because I wish to examine Your Lordship’s genius, but only out of curiosity: have you found the word piñata used at some point in the writing?”
“Yes, many times,” responded the author.
“And how do you translate it, Your Lordship, in Castilian?” Don Quixote asked.
“How else to translate it,” replied the author, “but as stewpot?”
“Good lord,” said Don Quixote, “how advanced Your Lordship is in the Tuscan language. I’ll wager a good wager that, where the Tuscan says piache, Your Lordship will say plaza in Castilian; and where it says più, you’ll say more, and for declara up, and for giù down.”
“Yes, I say, of course,” said the author, “because these are the properly corresponding words.”
“I dare to swear,” said Don Quixote, “that Your Lordship is not well known in the world, which is always opposed to awarding colorful wit and laudable works. What abilities are lost here! What ingenuity forgotten! What virtues misjudged! But, despite all of that, it seems to me that translating from one language into another, other than from Greek and Latin, the queens among languages, is like looking at a Flemish Tapestry from the back; though the figures are still visible, they are covered with threads that obscure them and do not appear with the smooth complexion of the completed side; and translating from easy languages demonstrates neither ingenuity nor elocution, no more than copying one page onto another page. I do not mean to suggest by this that the exercise of translation is not laudable, for a man could occupy himself with worse, and less rewarding, things. Two famous translators go beyond this account: one, Doctor Cristóbal de Figueroa, with his Faithful Shepherd, and the other, Don Juan de Jáurigui, with his Aminta, in which they are fortunate enough to create doubt as to which is the translation and which is the original. But tell me, Your Lordship: do you print it on your own account, or is the privilege already sold to some bookseller?”
“I print it on my own account,” the author responded, “and expect to earn at least a thousand ducados with this first printing, which will be two thousand copies, and they will be sold at six reales apiece, quite quickly dispatched.”
“Your Lordship has figured it well!” responded Don Quixote. “But it seems you do not know the comings and goings of printers, and the correspondences between them; I promise you that, when you have two thousand copies of a book to deal with, you’ll see your body so tired, that you’ll be shocked, and even more so if the book is a bit wicked and rather risqué.”
“Well, what then?” said the author. “Does Your Lordship wish me to give it to a bookseller, who will give me three maravedís for the privilege and think he’s being generous with that much? I do not print my books to gain fame in the world, in which I’m already known for my own works: I want the profit, for good fame is not worth a cent without it.”
“God lead Your Lordship well,” responded Don Quixote. And he moved on to another section where he saw that they were correcting a page of a book entitled Light of the Soul; and, on seeing it, he said: “These books here, though there are many of this genre, are the sort that must be printed because the sinners who use them are numerous, and infinite lights are needed for so many in the dark.” He moved on and saw they were correcting another book at the same time, and, when he asked its title, they responded that it was called The Second Part of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha, composed by some fellow who lived in Tordesillas.
“I have already heard tell of this book,” said Don Quixote, “and, in truth, as far as I was aware I thought it had already been burned and turned to dust for its impertinence; but its day of judgment will come, as it comes to any swine. Imagined stories bring more goodness and delight the closer they approach the truth or its likeness, and truths are better the truer they are.”
And, so saying, with some show of spite, he left the printing-house. And that very day Don Antonio ordered that he be taken to see the galleys at the beach, and Sancho was greatly pleased that he would be able to see them in his lifetime. Don Antonio warned the quartermaster of the galleys that their guest, the famous Don Quixote de la Mancha, of whom the quartermaster and the neighbors in the city had already heard news, was coming to see them that afternoon; and what happened there will be recounted in the following chapter.
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Endnotes:
The city: The episode takes place in Barcelona.
The day’s festivities: The narrator is referring to el día de San Juan—Sant Joan in Catalán—a major annual festival that continues to be celebrated in Barcelona today.
Camacho: In Part II, Chapter XXI, Don Quixote and Sancho attend the wedding of Camacho and Quiteria, which is cut short when Quiteria’s lover Basilio appears and it is revealed that Quiteria is only marrying Camacho for his money.
Don Diego de Miranda: Don Quixote and Sancho meet Don Diego in Part II, Chapter XVI and briefly stay at his house, where they meet his son Lorenzo, a poet.
The Duke: The Duke and Duchess meet Don Quixote and Sancho in Part II, Chapter XXX, and—as they have read Part I Don Quixote—enjoy playing on Don Quixote’s delusions and Sancho Panza’s foolishness and greed.
Pheasant in cream and grilled meatballs: manjar blanco (a sweet dish consisting of poultry with cream and spices; the name now refers to a wide variety of dairy-based dishes throughout Spain and Latin America) and albondiguillas (small meatballs often served as street food).
Barataria: Sancho was allowed to govern a small town, which he believed was an island, by the Duke and Duchess in Part II, Chapter XLII; Barataria is a play on barato, meaning cheap.
Escotillo: May refer to Michael Scotus, a scholar in the Middle Ages who appeared in the eighth circle of hell (reserved for sorcerers and false prophets) in Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Escudo: A gold coin, one of the larger units of currency in Spain at the time, equivalent to roughly $1280 USD today.
Methuselah: The man recorded in biblical genealogies to have lived the longest—969 years according to the Hebrew Bible.
Fugite, partes adversae: Literally, “Flee, you parties of the Adversary,” which is a passage from St. Anthony’s Brief, a Catholic prayer against exorcism.
Cave of Montesinos: Don Quixote enters the Cave of Montesinos in Part II, Chapter XXII, and has a dream in which he sees Dulcinea,
Perogrullo: Pedro Grullo is a name to which truisms are attributed in Spanish, analogous to lapalissades in French.
Cide Hamete Benengeli: The fictional Arabic writer to whom Cervantes’s narrator attributes the original text.
Inquisitors: Cervantes references the Spanish Inquisition, a formidable institution responsible for censoring much of literature and culture at the time.
Running of the rings: La corrida de sortija was an equestrian sport in which riders had to catch a ring on the end of a small lance; the contest spread to gauchos in South America and is still practiced today.
Le Bagatelle: The book appears to have been one of Cervantes’s inventions rather than being based on a real text.
Ariosto: Ludovico Ariosto was an Italian poet who lived roughly a century before Cervantes; he wrote the epic Orlando Furioso, referenced as one of the works of chivalry with which Don Quixote became obsessed in Part I.
Piñata: A clay pot; the Tuscan word was actually spelled pignatta, indicating Don Quixote’s lack of real knowledge of the language and his transcription of the term based on its sound in Spanish.
Doctor Cristóbal de Figueroa: A Spanish writer who translated Giovanni Battista Guarini’s Il pastor fido.
Don Juan de Jáurigui: A Spanish poet and artist, referenced in Novelas ejemplares as having painted a portrait of Cervantes; Aminta is a play by Italian poet Torquato Tasso.
Ducado: An antiquated gold coin that was out of production but still in circulation at the time, worth about a tenth more than the gold escudo or $1400 USD today.
Real: A silver coin, valued at 1/16th of the gold escudo or $80 USD today.
Maravedí: A small silver coin, once valuable but reduced by this time to 1/34th of a silver real or about $2.5 USD today.
Cent: A cuatrín in the original, meaning a tiny (not specific) amount of money.
Light of the Soul: May refer to a catechism by Fray Felipe de Meneses.
The Second Part of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha: Referring to the unauthorized sequel to Part I of Don Quixote, published in 1614 by Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda.
Tordesillas: A town in Valladolid, Spain, north of Madrid and Salamanca.
Its day of judgment will come, as it comes to any swine: The original references the saying “A cada puerco le llega su San Martín” or “To every pig comes his Saint Martin”; dozens of pigs were traditionally slaughtered for the Spanish San Martín festival in honor of Martin of Tours, a well-known Christian saint.