Who He Is
Sancho Panza is the farm neighbor of Don Quixote: poor, with a wife and children, an honest man insofar as the title fits someone who is poor and not overly bright, the narrator says when he enters (ch. VII of Part One). He leaves home at night, without farewells, mounted on a donkey and carrying saddlebags, drawn by the promise of an insula. What defines him is the body and the reckoning: he knows hunger, beatings, weariness, and cost, and he measures each adventure by what it costs his back and his purse. He speaks in proverbs, bargains over wages, demands the insula, and is at once the only one who truly mourns his master and the only one the book lets say, at the end, that the greatest madness is to let oneself die (ch. LXXIV of Part Two). The novel makes him grow: from a neighbor who believes what he does not see, he becomes the inventor of Dulcinea's enchantment (ch. X of Part Two), governor of Barataria for ten days (ch. XLV of Part Two), and a squire who leaves the governorship as he entered it (ch. LIII of Part Two), and his name is already going around in books across the world when he talks with the duke and duchess (ch. XXXIII of Part Two).
Trajectory
On the road of the second departure, in ch. VII of Part One, Sancho collects what was promised him, and the master makes the promise grow as he speaks, from count to marquis and from marquis to king within six days. Sancho answers with the concrete reckoning of a man with a wife and children: if he became king, his wife would be queen, and he doubts the crown would sit well on her head.
Has de saber, amigo Sancho Panza, que fue costumbre muy usada de los caballeros andantes antiguos hacer gobernadores a sus escuderos de las ínsulas o reinos que ganaban, y yo tengo determinado de que por mí no falte tan agradecida usanza; antes, pienso aventajarme en ella: porque ellos algunas veces, y quizá las más, esperaban a que sus escuderos fuesen viejos; y, ya después de hartos de servir y de llevar malos días y peores noches, les daban algún título de conde, o, por lo mucho, de marqués, de algún valle o provincia de poco más a menos; pero, si tú vives y yo vivo, bien podría ser que antes de seis días ganase yo tal reino que tuviese otros a él adherentes, que viniesen de molde para coronarte por rey de uno dellos, know, friend Sancho Panza, that it was a very common custom among the ancient knights-errant to make governors of their squires of the insulas or kingdoms they won, and I am determined that no such gracious custom be lost through me; rather, I mean to surpass it, for they sometimes, and perhaps most often, waited until their squires were old; and then, worn out from serving and from bearing bad days and worse nights, gave them some title of count, or at most marquis, of some valley or province of little account; but if you live and I live, it may well be that within six days I win a kingdom with others attached to it, which will come in handy for crowning you king of one of them.
What moves him is the hope of gain, but with his feet on the ground. In ch. X of Part One, when his master describes the recipe for Fierabrás's balsam, Sancho accepts it without asking, because the sum works out for him, and between a government that exists only in his master's mouth and a recipe that can be sold, he chooses what has a price:
Si eso hay -dijo Panza-, yo renuncio desde aquí el gobierno de la prometida ínsula, y no quiero otra cosa, en pago de mis muchos y buenos servicios, sino que vuestra merced me dé la receta de ese estremado licor, if there is such a thing, said Panza, I renounce right here the governorship of the promised insula, and want no other payment for my many good services than that your grace hand me the recipe for that outstanding liquor.
In ch. XI of Part One, among the goatherds, his master wants him seated at the table, and he refuses on bodily grounds: he wants to eat in peace, without the ceremony that honor brings.
mucho mejor me sabe lo que como en mi rincón, sin melindres ni respetos, aunque sea pan y cebolla, que los gallipavos de otras mesas donde me sea forzoso mascar despacio, beber poco, limpiarme a menudo, no estornudar ni toser si me viene gana, ni hacer otras cosas que la soledad y la libertad traen consigo, I enjoy what I eat in my own corner far better, without fuss or ceremony, even if it is only bread and onion, than the turkeys at other tables, where I must chew slowly, drink little, wipe my mouth often, not sneeze or cough when I feel like it, nor do the other things that solitude and freedom bring with them.
In ch. XV of Part One and ch. XVI of Part One, the beating gives him the definition of the trade. Asked why he does not yet have so much as a county, he replies that it is too soon, that they have been chasing adventures for only a month:
caballero aventurero es una cosa que en dos palabras se ve apaleado y emperador. Hoy está la más desdichada criatura del mundo y la más menesterosa, y mañana tendría dos o tres coronas de reinos que dar a su escudero, a knight-errant is, in two words, someone seen beaten and then emperor. Today he is the most unfortunate and needy creature in the world, and tomorrow he would have two or three crowns of kingdoms to give his squire.
It may be naive faith in his master, or the wager of someone who has already spent too much time to back out. In ch. XVII of Part One, tossed in a blanket at the inn, he accepts the enchantment as a hypothesis and collects on it through his body: if the Moor does not show himself, he shows himself in the weight of the blows.
Si no se dejan ver, déjanse sentir -dijo Sancho-; si no, díganlo mis espaldas, if they do not let themselves be seen, let themselves be felt, said Sancho; if not, let my back say so.
On leaving, he adopts the knights' rule at the moment it saves him money: yesterday he swore never again to lay hand on a sword, today he invokes the law of chivalry so as not to pay. In ch. XVIII of Part One, without the saddlebags, he thinks of leaving, and faced with the dust his master takes for an army, he says what he hears:
No oigo otra cosa -respondió Sancho- sino muchos balidos de ovejas y carneros, I hear nothing but the many bleatings of ewes and rams, answered Sancho.
Sancho brings the facts and his master the meaning, and from his master's constant insistence the squire ends up believing. In ch. XXV of Part One, in the Sierra Morena, with the ban on speaking lifted, he asks whether Dulcinea is the daughter of Lorenzo Corchuelo, the same Aldonza, and praises her with what he knows of her: her strength, her voice that carries half a league, her taste for a joke:
Bien la conozco -dijo Sancho-, y sé decir que tira tan bien una barra como el más forzudo zagal de todo el pueblo [...] que es moza de chapa, hecha y derecha y de pelo en pecho, I know her well, said Sancho, and I can tell you she throws a bar as well as the strongest lad in the whole village [...] she is a first-rate girl, sturdy and upright, with hair on her chest.
He gives the lady the measure of the village, and his master, without refuting it, takes her to another measure. The astonishment is not contempt: he wants to know whether the Dulcinea of the books is the girl he knows by sight. In ch. XXVI of Part One, chosen to carry the letter, he thinks he knows the message by heart and recites it wrongly before the priest and the barber, so that "sobajada" ("abased") takes the place of "soberana" ("sovereign"):
Por Dios, señor licenciado, que los diablos lleven la cosa que de la carta se me acuerda; aunque en el principio decía: «Alta y sobajada señora». - No diría -dijo el barbero- sobajada, sino sobrehumana o soberana señora, by God, Sir Licentiate, the devils may take whatever I remember of the letter, though at the beginning it said: "High and abased lady." He would not say "abased," said the barber, but "superhuman" or "sovereign lady."
In ch. XXXI of Part One, having carried no letter at all, he invents a visit he never made, and each new answer brings a denial that his master redoubles into praise:
No la hallé -respondió Sancho- sino ahechando dos hanegas de trigo en un corral de su casa, I did not find her, answered Sancho, only sifting two bushels of wheat in a yard of her house.
Sancho lies to sustain his master's devotion, and his master explains the impossible so as not to contradict his squire. In ch. XXXV of Part One, at the inn, he calls for help for his master, who is fighting wineskins, and swears he saw blood running and a head cut off:
Acudid, señores, presto y socorred a mi señor, que anda envuelto en la más reñida y trabada batalla que mis ojos han visto, come quickly, gentlemen, and help my master, who is caught up in the fiercest and most desperate battle my eyes have ever seen.
The madness takes hold of him out of self-interest, because the dead giant would win him the county. When, in ch. XXXVII of Part One, the princess turns out to be Dorothea, he rejects the inn's enchantment with the only proof he has:
Todo lo creyera yo -respondió Sancho-, si también mi manteamiento fuera cosa dese jaez, mas no lo fue, sino real y verdaderamente; y vi yo que el ventero que aquí está hoy día tenía del un cabo de la manta, y me empujaba hacia el cielo con mucho donaire y brío, y con tanta risa como fuerza; y donde interviene conocerse las personas, tengo para mí, aunque simple y pecador, que no hay encantamento alguno, sino mucho molimiento y mucha mala ventura, I would believe all of that, Sancho replied, if my tossing in the blanket had been something of that sort, but it was not; it was real and true. I saw the innkeeper who is here today holding one end of the blanket and sending me up toward the sky with great grace and vigor, and with as much laughter as strength; and where people know one another, I hold, though simple and a sinner, that there is no enchantment at all, only a lot of pounding and a lot of bad luck.
His rule is to know people: where it is known who acts, there is no magician. In ch. XLVII of Part One, when he touches the masked men who drive the oxcart, he makes an observation that his master takes up as doctrine:
Par Dios, señor -replicó Sancho-, ya yo los he tocado; y este diablo que aquí anda tan solícito es rollizo de carnes, y tiene otra propiedad muy diferente de la que yo he oído decir que tienen los demonios; porque, según se dice, todos huelen a piedra azufre y a otros malos olores; pero éste huele a ámbar de media legua, by God, sir, Sancho replied, I have already touched them; and this devil who is so solicitous here is plump and has a very different property from what I have heard demons have, for, so they say, they all smell of brimstone and other foul odors; but this one smells of ambergris half a league away.
In ch. XLIX of Part One, he tests the matter through the body and its needs, ground where the squire knows everything, and cannot get his master out of the cage, because the master files each proof under the doctrine of the enchanters:
De donde se viene a sacar que los que no comen, ni beben, ni duermen, ni hacen las obras naturales que yo digo, estos tales están encantados; pero no aquellos que tienen la gana que vuestra merced tiene y que bebe cuando se lo dan, y come cuando lo tiene, y responde a todo aquello que le preguntan, from which one may infer that those who do not eat, nor drink, nor sleep, nor perform the natural functions I speak of, such as these are enchanted; but not those who have the appetite your grace has, who drink when they are given drink, eat when they have food, and answer everything they are asked.
In ch. L of Part One, to the one defect his master sees in him, lack of skill in governing, he finds a way out:
yo he oído decir que hay hombres en el mundo que toman en arrendamiento los estados de los señores, y les dan un tanto cada año, y ellos se tienen cuidado del gobierno, y el señor se está a pierna tendida, gozando de la renta que le dan, sin curarse de otra cosa, I have heard say there are men in the world who rent the estates of lords and pay them a set sum each year, and they take care of the governing, while the lord lounges at ease, enjoying the income they give him, without troubling himself about anything else.
In ch. LII of Part One, when his master is knocked down by the penitents, Sancho throws himself over his body, believes him dead, and delivers the funeral eulogy that, without meaning to, is the portrait the book has given of the gentleman:
¡Oh flor de la caballería, que con solo un garrotazo acabaste la carrera de tus tan bien gastados años [...] enamorado sin causa, imitador de los buenos, azote de los malos, enemigo de los ruines, en fin, caballero andante, que es todo lo que decir se puede, O flower of chivalry, who with a single cudgel blow ended the course of your so well spent years [...] enamored without cause, imitator of the good, scourge of the wicked, enemy of the base, in short, knight-errant, which is all one can say.
In Part Two Sancho is no longer the squire of a promise. In ch. II of Part Two, blocked at the door by the niece and the maidservant, who accuse him of luring his master away, he answers the question of what an insula is:
sino de gobernar y regir mejor que cuatro ciudades y que cuatro alcaldes de corte, but to govern and rule better than four cities and four royal court magistrates.
Sancho heard the word in ch. VII of Part One and, throughout the book, makes of it an office and not a piece of land: what the promise gave him is the idea of governing better than those who govern. Two readings: a settled ambition in a man who knows what he wants from life, or the wounded pride of someone who was called a glutton. In ch. IV of Part Two, when the bachelor Sansón Carrasco tells him that offices change customs, he does not dispute whether the office changes, only in whom:
Sancho nací, y Sancho pienso morir; pero si con todo esto, de buenas a buenas, sin mucha solicitud y sin mucho riesgo, me deparase el cielo alguna ínsula, o otra cosa semejante, no soy tan necio que la desechase, Sancho I was born, and Sancho I expect to die; but even so, in good time, without much anxiety and without much risk, if heaven were to provide me some insula or something similar, I am not so foolish as to refuse it.
Two readings: the vanity of a man who cannot see himself, or the sincerity of one who knows no other guarantee. In ch. V of Part Two he returns home and speaks with Teresa Panza about the new departure:
siempre he oído decir a mis mayores que el que no sabe gozar de la ventura cuando le viene, que no se debe quejar si se le pasa. Y no sería bien que ahora, que está llamando a nuestra puerta, se la cerremos; dejémonos llevar deste viento favorable que nos sopla, I have always heard my elders say that whoever does not know how to enjoy fortune when it comes should not complain if it passes by. And it would not be good now, when it is knocking at our door, to shut the door on it; let us be carried off by this favorable wind that blows on us.
Ambition, more than for wealth, is to be seen differently by the neighbors: grandchildren who will be called lordship, Teresa seated in church on a carpet. Two readings: love for son and wife, or the revenge of someone who was always looked down upon. In ch. VII of Part Two, on learning of the plan, he asks for wages, little or much, and says he wants to know them:
yo quiero saber lo que gano, poco o mucho que sea, que sobre un huevo pone la gallina, y muchos pocos hacen un mucho, y mientras se gana algo no se pierde nada, I want to know what I earn, little or much as it may be, since a hen lays one egg upon another, and many littles make a lot, and while you earn something you lose nothing.
In ch. VIII of Part Two, on the road to Toboso, he accepts his master's principle, that everything is done for fame, and from it draws the conclusion that dismantles chivalry:
más vale ser humilde frailecito, de cualquier orden que sea, que valiente y andante caballero; mas alcanzan con Dios dos docenas de diciplinas que dos mil lanzadas, it is better to be a humble friar, of whatever order, than a valiant knight-errant; for two dozen lashes obtain more from God than two thousand lance thrusts.
In ch. X of Part Two, not knowing where Dulcinea lives, he prepares to present as the lady the first farm girl he meets on the road:
no será muy difícil hacerle creer que una labradora, la primera que me topare por aquí, es la señora Dulcinea, it will not be very hard to make him believe that a farm girl, the first I come across around here, is the lady Dulcinea.
Two readings: a gesture of panic from someone fleeing being unmasked, or the first use of a cleverness that will amuse the squire. The comedy of the scene is born partly from this reversal, the realist squire fabricating the same chivalric illusion he had only watched from outside, and the knight saving the illusion against his own sense of smell. In ch. XIII of Part Two, talking with the Squire of the Wood, he says what he would not say to his master, and says what holds him:
el diablo me pone ante los ojos aquí, allí, acá no, sino acullá, un talego lleno de doblones, que me parece que a cada paso le toco con la mano, y me abrazo con él, y lo llevo a mi casa, y echo censos, y fundo rentas, y vivo como un príncipe; y el rato que en esto pienso se me hacen fáciles y llevaderos cuantos trabajos padezco con este mentecato de mi amo, de quien sé que tiene más de loco que de caballero, the devil shows me, here, there, not here but over there, a purse full of doubloons, which seems to me that at every step I touch with my hand, and I embrace it, and carry it home, and invest in annuities, and found incomes, and live like a prince; and the time I spend thinking of this makes all the hardships I suffer with this fool of a master easy and bearable, a master of whom I know he has more of the madman than of the knight.
What he sees in that illusion, hugging the purse, has the same shape as his master's adventure and the same substance, though he does not notice it. In ch. XXVIII of Part Two, when he reckons his service on the calendar, twenty-three days, and the promise by the weight it carries for him, twenty years, he says:
debe de haber más de veinte años, tres días más a menos, there must be more than twenty years, three days more or less.
Two readings: the haggling of someone who knows he exaggerates and holds the coin his master fears most, the threat to leave; or proof that he already lives inside the promise. In ch. XXXI of Part Two, at the castle of the Duke and Duchess, speaking of the enchanted Dulcinea, he says the sentence only he fully understands:
¿quién diablos sino yo fue el primero que cayó en el achaque del encantorio? ¡Tan encantada está como mi padre!, who the devil but me was the first to fall into the affliction of the enchantment? She is as enchanted as my father!
Two readings: a squire's joke, or a confession Sancho makes in public without anyone but himself knowing what he has confessed. In ch. XXXIII of Part Two, before the duchess, he lifts the hangings in the hall before speaking, and the precaution shows what he knows of the risk:
yo tengo a mi señor don Quijote por loco rematado, puesto que algunas veces dice cosas que, a mi parecer, y aun de todos aquellos que le escuchan, son tan discretas y por tan buen carril encaminadas, que el mesmo Satanás no las podría decir mejores; pero, con todo esto, verdaderamente y sin escrúpulo, a mí se me ha asentado que es un mentecato. Pues, como yo tengo esto en el magín, me atrevo a hacerle creer lo que no lleva pies ni cabeza, como fue aquello de la respuesta de la carta, y lo de habrá seis o ocho días, que aún no está en historia; conviene a saber: lo del encanto de mi señora doña Dulcinea, que le he dado a entender que está encantada, no siendo más verdad que por los cerros de Úbeda, I hold my master Don Quixote to be a madman through and through, although at times he says things that, in my view and even in the view of all who hear him, are so wise and so well directed that Satan himself could not say them better; but for all that, truly and without scruple, I have settled in my mind that he is a fool. So, since I keep this in my head, I dare make him believe what has neither head nor tail, like that business of the reply to the letter, and the one from six or eight days ago, which is not yet in history; namely the enchantment of my lady Doña Dulcinea, which I have given him to understand is enchanted, when it is no more true than the hills of Úbeda.
The duchess asks why he, who knows his master is mad, serves and follows him. Sancho does not use the hope of the insula to explain why he stays; he uses an inventory of small debts, the bread eaten, the affection, the little donkeys received, and closes with a word that needs no proof:
si yo fuera discreto, días ha que había de haber dejado a mi amo. Pero ésta fue mi suerte, y ésta mi malandanza; no puedo más, seguirle tengo: somos de un mismo lugar, he comido su pan, quiérole bien, es agradecido, diome sus pollinos, y, sobre todo, yo soy fiel; y así, es imposible que nos pueda apartar otro suceso que el de la pala y azadón, if I were wise, I would have left my master days ago. But this was my lot, and this my misfortune; I cannot do more, I have to follow him: we are from the same place, I have eaten his bread, I love him, he is grateful, he gave me his little donkeys, and above all, I am faithful; and so it is impossible for anything to part us except the shovel and the mattock.
Two readings: fidelity is the motive he truly believes he has, or it is the motive he knows how to give a duchess, in the same chapter in which he has just called his master a fool. The duchess then reverses the game without denying the confession:
porque real y verdaderamente yo sé de buena parte que la villana que dio el brinco sobre la pollina era y es Dulcinea del Toboso, y que el buen Sancho, pensando ser el engañador, es el engañado, because truly and in fact I know from a good source that the peasant girl who jumped onto the little donkey was and is Dulcinea del Toboso, and that good Sancho, thinking himself the deceiver, is the deceived.
The one who claimed to have invented it hears that he was only the instrument. In ch. XXXV of Part Two, Merlin imposes the three thousand three hundred lashes to disenchant Dulcinea, and the lie told in secret becomes the debt he must settle in public. Sancho refuses with a question that repeats, in the language of childbirth, the rule of responsibility:
¿Parí yo, por ventura, a la señora Dulcinea del Toboso, para que paguen mis posas lo que pecaron sus ojos?, did I, perhaps, give birth to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, that my buttocks should pay for what her eyes sinned?
In ch. XXXVI of Part Two, he writes to Teresa that his master is a sensible madman and that he is no less one himself:
Don Quijote, mi amo, según he oído decir en esta tierra, es un loco cuerdo y un mentecato gracioso, y que yo no le voy en zaga. Hemos estado en la cueva de Montesinos, y el sabio Merlín ha echado mano de mí para el desencanto de Dulcinea del Toboso, que por allá se llama Aldonza Lorenzo: con tres mil y trecientos azotes, menos cinco, que me he de dar, quedará desencantada como la madre que la parió, Don Quixote, my master, as I have heard said in this land, is a sensible madman and a witty fool, and I am no less than he. We have been in the cave of Montesinos, and the wise Merlin has laid hands on me for the disenchantment of Dulcinea del Toboso, who over there is called Aldonza Lorenzo: with three thousand three hundred lashes, minus five, which I am to give myself, she will be disenchanted like the mother who bore her.
Instead of telling his wife about the cave, where his master went down while he stayed at the mouth holding the rope, he writes "we have been there." In ch. XLI of Part Two, back from the flight of Clavileño, he says he saw the earth the size of a mustard seed and the men the size of hazelnuts, and when the duke doubts goats of such colors:
Son -respondió Sancho- las dos verdes, las dos encarnadas, las dos azules, y la una de mezcla, they are, answered Sancho, two green, two red, two blue, and one of a mixture.
Sancho, who had doubted his master's cave, now fabricates his celestial lie with the same ease. Two readings: deliberate imitation of his master, who taught him what can be asserted when no one is there to refute it, or the fantasy of a man, blindfolded and fanned by bellows, who almost believes. His master then proposes to him the pact of believing the other without proof.
In ch. XLV of Part Two, on taking possession of Barataria, the government gives him at the outset a name that is not his, and Sancho returns it:
Pues advertid, hermano -dijo Sancho-, que yo no tengo don, ni en todo mi linaje le ha habido: Sancho Panza me llaman a secas, y Sancho se llamó mi padre, y Sancho mi agüelo, y todos fueron Panzas, sin añadiduras de dones ni donas, then take note, brother, said Sancho, that I have no don, nor has there been one in my whole lineage: they call me plain Sancho Panza, and my father was called Sancho, and my grandfather Sancho, and all were Panzas, without additions of dons or doñas.
In the case of the cane that keeps the ten crowns, he stakes his whole reputation before knowing whether he has guessed right, and the broken cane holds the money in its hollow:
Sí -dijo el gobernador-; o si no, yo soy el mayor porro del mundo. Y ahora se verá si tengo yo caletre para gobernar todo un reino, yes, said the governor; or else I am the greatest fool in the world. And now we shall see whether I have the wit to govern a whole kingdom.
In the case of the woman who says she was forced, the proof he chooses lies in the gesture: whoever did not let her purse be snatched could not have been overpowered in her body.
Hermana mía, si el mismo aliento y valor que habéis mostrado para defender esta bolsa le mostrárades, y aun la mitad menos, para defender vuestro cuerpo, las fuerzas de Hércules no os hicieran fuerza, my sister, if you had shown the same spirit and courage in defending this purse, or even half as much in defending your body, the strength of Hercules could not have overpowered you.
Two readings: a shrewd justice that tests the complaint by what the complainant shows she could do, or a conclusion drawn from one gesture about an offense the text does not clarify. In ch. XLVII of Part Two, under the orders of Doctor Pedro Recio, who touches the dishes with a wand so that a page may carry them away, he reduces government to what keeps him alive:
que oficio que no da de comer a su dueño no vale dos habas, what office that does not feed its master is worth two broad beans.
What he asks for is food, not power. Two readings: the frankness of a man who never separated the table from command, or his first sentence as governor, passed against the authority that leaves him hungry. In ch. LI of Part Two, faced with the case of the bridge, where whoever swears the truth passes and whoever lies is hanged, he tries to make the paradox work piece by piece, and it is the stranger who corrects him. Then he changes course and hands the idea back to his master, to whom he owes the rule, and tells him in a letter what the government had promised him, hot food, cold drink, Holland linen sheets, and what he found:
cuando pensé venir a este gobierno a comer caliente y a beber frío, y a recrear el cuerpo entre sábanas de holanda, sobre colchones de pluma, he venido a hacer penitencia, como si fuera ermitaño; y, como no la hago de mi voluntad, pienso que, al cabo al cabo, me ha de llevar el diablo, when I thought I would come to this government to eat hot and drink cold, and to rest my body between Holland linen sheets, on feather mattresses, I have come to do penance, as if I were a hermit; and since I do not do it of my own will, I think that in the end the devil will carry me off.
Two readings: the complaint of someone who imagined power as a table, or an honest accounting by someone who pays for clean hands with hunger. In ch. LIII of Part Two, after the night of the mock attack, in which he falls between two shields and is trampled, he gives his farewell speech to the donkey:
Venid vos acá, compañero mío y amigo mío, y conllevador de mis trabajos y miserias: cuando yo me avenía con vos y no tenía otros pensamientos que los que me daban los cuidados de remendar vuestros aparejos y de sustentar vuestro corpezuelo, dichosas eran mis horas, mis días y mis años; pero, después que os dejé y me subí sobre las torres de la ambición y de la soberbia, se me han entrado por el alma adentro mil miserias, mil trabajos y cuatro mil desasosiegos, come here, my companion and my friend, and bearer of my labors and miseries: when I got along with you and had no other thoughts than those that came from mending your harness and feeding your little body, my hours, my days, and my years were happy; but after I left you and climbed the towers of ambition and pride, a thousand miseries, a thousand labors, and four thousand disquiets have crept into my very soul.
Asking those around him to let him pass, he puts liberty before any reason of office:
dejadme volver a mi antigua libertad; dejadme que vaya a buscar la vida pasada, para que me resucite de esta muerte presente, let me return to my old liberty; let me go seek the past life, so that it may raise me from this present death.
On leaving, he offers the empty purse as proof of his government, and no one contradicts it:
desnudo nací, desnudo me hallo: ni pierdo ni gano; quiero decir, que sin blanca entré en este gobierno y sin ella salgo, bien al revés de como suelen salir los gobernadores de otras ínsulas, naked I was born, naked I find myself: I neither lose nor gain; I mean that without a copper I entered this government and without one I leave it, quite the reverse of how the governors of other insulas usually leave.
Two readings: the legitimate pride of someone who leaves without profit, or the argument of someone who, in a few days and among men who told him what to eat, sees in the empty purse a honesty that time has barely tested. In ch. LIV of Part Two, on the way back, he meets the Moorish neighbor Ricote, expelled and disguised as a pilgrim, and refuses to help him dig up the treasure: he promises to keep silent, lets him go, and closes with a general proverb, without applying it to his friend. In ch. LX of Part Two, when his master, at night, tries to whip him in his sleep to disenchant Dulcinea, Sancho restrains him and answers:
Ni quito rey, ni pongo rey -respondió Sancho-, sino ayúdome a mí, que soy mi señor, I neither remove a king nor set one up, answered Sancho, but I help myself, for I am my own master.
In ch. LXVII of Part Two, after his master's defeat on the beach, he asks of him the proof his master's belief always demands of others:
yo no me puedo persuadir que los azotes de mis posaderas tengan que ver con los desencantos de los encantados, que es como si dijésemos: "Si os duele la cabeza, untaos las rodillas" [...] A lo menos, yo osaré jurar que en cuantas historias vuesa merced ha leído que tratan de la andante caballería no ha visto algún desencantado por azotes, I cannot persuade myself that the lashes on my buttocks have anything to do with disenchanting the enchanted, which is like saying: "If your head aches, rub your knees" [...] At least I would dare swear that in all the stories your grace has read about knight-errantry, you have never seen anyone disenchanted by lashes.
If no knight was ever disenchanted by lashes, Merlin's reckoning has no precedent. In ch. LXVIII of Part Two, one night when his master wakes him for the lashes, he tells him his truth, the kind in which no promise fits:
bien haya el que inventó el sueño, capa que cubre todos los humanos pensamientos, manjar que quita la hambre, agua que ahuyenta la sed, fuego que calienta el frío, frío que templa el ardor, y, finalmente, moneda general con que todas las cosas se compran, balanza y peso que iguala al pastor con el rey y al simple con el discreto. Sola una cosa tiene mala el sueño, según he oído decir, y es que se parece a la muerte, pues de un dormido a un muerto hay muy poca diferencia, blessed be he who invented sleep, a cloak that covers all human thoughts, food that drives out hunger, water that quenches thirst, fire that warms cold, cold that tempers ardor, and finally, the common coin with which all things are bought, the scale and weight that makes the shepherd equal to the king and the simple man equal to the wise. Only one thing is wrong with sleep, so I have heard, and that is that it resembles death, for between one asleep and one dead there is very little difference.
In the farce of Altisidora's funeral, in ch. LXIX of Part Two, he sees the pattern before anyone: twice in a row his body is the price of curing someone else's harm.
Encantan a Dulcinea, y azótanme para que se desencante; muérese Altisidora de males que Dios quiso darle, y hanla de resucitar hacerme a mí veinte y cuatro mamonas, y acribarme el cuerpo a alfilerazos y acardenalarme los brazos a pellizcos [...] Esas burlas, a un cuñado, que yo soy perro viejo, y no hay conmigo tus, tus, they enchant Dulcinea, and whip me so that she may be disenchanted; Altisidora dies of ailments God saw fit to give her, and to revive her they must give me twenty-four slaps, riddle my body with pins, and bruise my arms with pinches [...] These jokes are for a brother-in-law, for I am an old dog, and you cannot coax me with "tus, tus!"
In ch. LXXI of Part Two, at last, he haggles over the price of the lashing with his master:
Ellos -respondió Sancho- son tres mil y trecientos y tantos; de ellos me he dado hasta cinco [...] a cuartillo cada uno, que no llevaré menos si todo el mundo me lo mandase [...] son por todos ochocientos y veinte y cinco reales. Éstos desfalcaré yo de los que tengo de vuestra merced, y entraré en mi casa rico y contento, aunque bien azotado, they, answered Sancho, are three thousand three hundred and some; of them I have given myself as many as five [...] at a quarter real each, and I will take no less even if the whole world ordered me to [...] altogether that comes to eight hundred and twenty-five reales. These I will deduct from what your grace owes me, and I will go home rich and content, though well whipped.
The gentleman accepts the estimate without haggling and even adds a hundred reales, and Sancho beats the trees and shouts like the biblical Samson who brought down the temple. Two readings: the first fair deal between master and squire, in which what is done for Dulcinea stops being a debt and becomes a service, or the calculation of someone who already plans to pay himself without delivering the goods. In ch. LXXIV of Part Two, seeing his master die, he weeps and offers what he has:
no se muera vuestra merced, señor mío, sino tome mi consejo y viva muchos años, porque la mayor locura que puede hacer un hombre en esta vida es dejarse morir, sin más ni más, sin que nadie le mate, ni otras manos le acaben que las de la melancolía [...] vámonos al campo vestidos de pastores, como tenemos concertado: quizá tras de alguna mata hallaremos a la señora doña Dulcinea desencantada, que no haya más que ver, do not die, my lord, but take my advice and live many years, for the greatest madness a man can commit in this life is to let himself die, without more ado, with no one killing him, nor any other hands finishing him off than those of melancholy [...] let us go out to the fields dressed as shepherds, as we have arranged: perhaps behind some bush we will find the lady Doña Dulcinea disenchanted, with nothing more to be seen.
Two readings: the affection of a squire who wants his master alive and offers everything he has, or the loyalty of someone who, with no other word at hand, gives his master back the hope his master taught him. The will pays him in two coins, the reckoning and the esteem.
Themes Embodied
Sancho is the body of the novel, and through him the book measures Appearance and Reality by what can be felt: what does not let itself be seen lets itself be felt (ch. XVII of Part One), the enchantment that does not pay for the inn, the devil who smells of ambergris (ch. XLVII of Part One). He is the witness his master takes up as doctrine, and when the doctrine is left without a witness, it is Sancho who feeds it: he invents Dulcinea's enchantment to escape his master's quarrels (ch. X of Part Two) and sustains it, once it is set in place, even with his own lashes (ch. LXXI of Part Two).
In the governorship of Barataria the book tests Justice and Law with the only judge the gentleman could train. Sancho's sentences come from three sources the text does not separate: what his master advised him, the mercy of the one who judges (ch. XLII of Part Two, ch. LI of Part Two); a tale heard from the village priest, the cane (ch. XLV of Part Two); and the eye of someone who sees the gesture others let pass, the purse (ch. XLV of Part Two). The case of the bridge shows the limit, the law that does not foresee the case, and the way out comes from stepping outside the law by the rule of mercy his master gave him (ch. LI of Part Two).
Sancho carries Honor and Reputation underneath, in the gaze of the neighbors he wants to outdo and whom Teresa fears: the poor man goes unnoticed, the rich man is looked at, and the rich man who was once poor is persecuted (ch. V of Part Two). That is why what he asks of the insula is to be called lordship, and why, leaving the governorship, the empty purse is what he offers as proof (ch. LIII of Part Two). The don the government offers him he returns with the lineage of Sanchos and Panzas (ch. XLV of Part Two).
Freedom and Oppression appear in Sancho as bread and onion eaten in a corner (ch. XI of Part One), as sleep (ch. LXVIII of Part Two), and as the old freedom of plowing, digging, and pruning (ch. LIII of Part Two). He measures the difference between serving and being served by what he is given to eat or has taken from him, which is why the government, which promised him a table and Holland linen sheets, ends up for him as penance.
In Language and Narration, Sancho is the reader who enters the book. In ch. III of Part Two he learns that it exists in print, in ch. XXX of Part Two he jokes about having been swapped in the engraving, and in ch. XL of Part Two he holds the historians to account for what is missing from his masters' accounts: being named. He speaks in proverbs, and his master corrects him when he overdoes it, because he knows the difference between a sententious saying and a windy speech (ch. XLIII of Part Two).
Divergent Readings
The book itself gives two reasons for Sancho to follow his master and does not decide between them. The Squire of the Wood says that insular governments are not all of good yield, and Sancho answers with the purse of doubloons the devil shows him, here, there, not here but over there (ch. XIII of Part Two):
los gobiernos insulanos no son todos de buena data. Algunos hay torcidos, algunos pobres, algunos malencónicos, y finalmente, el más erguido y bien dispuesto trae consigo una pesada carga de pensamientos y de incomodidades, que pone sobre sus hombros el desdichado que le cupo en suerte, insular governments are not all of good yield. Some are crooked, some poor, some melancholy, and finally, the most upright and well-disposed brings with it a heavy burden of thoughts and discomforts, which the unfortunate man to whom it fell by lot places on his shoulders.
To the duchess, who asks why he serves a madman, he answers with an inventory of small debts and his word of fidelity (ch. XXXIII of Part Two). The second reason is exact about what he feels and blind to what the first one hides.
Sansón Carrasco warns that offices change customs and that Sancho, seeing himself a governor, might not recognize the mother who bore him (ch. IV of Part Two):
los oficios mudan las costumbres, y podría ser que viéndoos gobernador no conociésedes a la madre que os parió, offices change customs, and it could be that, seeing you a governor, you would not recognize the mother who bore you.
The book leaves the warning open and partly denies it: Sancho leaves the governorship as he entered it, but the narrator says that he, though he hated the office, still wished to command again and to be obeyed (ch. LXIII of Part Two):
y Sancho, aunque aborrecía el ser gobernador, como queda dicho, todavía deseaba volver a mandar y a ser obedecido; que esta mala ventura trae consigo el mando, aunque sea de burlas, and Sancho, though he hated being governor, as has been said, still wished to command again and to be obeyed; for this ill fortune comes with command, even when it is only in jest.
Readings diverge on what the government proves. Whoever reads it as the dukes' steward sees proof that the target of the joke had judgment, and the text says the plan did not reckon on a governor who passes sentence and gives warnings (ch. XLIX of Part Two). Whoever reads it through what Sancho says of himself sees a man who settled his accounts and became again what he was (ch. LV of Part Two). Against the first reading it is worth recalling that his sentences come from a tale he heard and from his master's advice, not from his own knowledge; against the second, that the squire who leaves the insula is the one of whom the narrator later says he missed being obeyed.
Relationships
- Don Quixote: the master who promises him the insula (ch. VII of Part One), with whom he shares the table and the beating (ch. XI of Part One, ch. XV of Part One), whose denials he tries to prove with his body (ch. XLIX of Part One), whom he counsels with his reckoning and mourns at the end (ch. LII of Part One, ch. LXXIV of Part Two).
- Teresa Panza: the wife who hears the promises (ch. LII of Part One), who refuses the title for preferring the plain name (ch. V of Part Two), and to whom he writes the letter about the government (ch. XXXVI of Part Two).
- Dulcinea del Toboso: the farm girl he knows by sight (ch. XXV of Part One), the visit he invents (ch. XXXI of Part One), and the village woman he enchants (ch. X of Part Two).
- The Duke and Duchess: the readers who have him sit beside the duchess as governor and squire and give him the insula (ch. XXXIII of Part Two, ch. XLV of Part Two).
- Sansón Carrasco: the bachelor who tells him he is already in books (ch. III of Part Two) and who warns him about the offices that change customs (ch. IV of Part Two).
- Ginés de Pasamonte: the galley slave who stole his grey donkey, a fact the 1605 book left unexplained and the 1615 book points out (ch. IV of Part Two, ch. XXVII of Part Two).
- Altisidora: the damsel who accuses him of theft at his departure (ch. LVII of Part Two) and who promises him shirts when she comes back to life (ch. LXIX of Part Two).
- The Priest and the Barber: those before whom he recites the letter he did not carry (ch. XXVI of Part One), and whom he recognizes under the disguises they wear when they take his master away in the cage (ch. XLVII of Part One).