I’m reading (listening to?) the massive unabridged audiobook Don Quixote and finding it utterly hilarious, especially the proverbs of Don Quixote’s sidekick, Sancho Panza. In the book there are some slow points and a few annoyingly long tangential stories, but excluding that it’s a great read.  Here’s an excerpt from the book with one of my favorite conversations between these two lunatics. I love both of these characters. I think I may at some point have to model one, if not both of them in one of my books.  I put the proverbs in bold and italics to emphasize them.

“I can sign my name,” responded Sancho, “because when I was a steward in my town, I learred to make some letters like they use to mark on bales, and they said that it was my name. Besides, I can pretend that my right hand is maimed and I can have someone else sign for me. There’s a remedy for everything except death, and holding the power and the staff, I’ll do whatever I want. And what’s more, he who has a bailiff for a father… And since I’ll be governor, which is higher than bailiff, come on and we’ll see what happens! Let them scorn and slander me! They’ll come for wool and go back shorn and the lucky man has nothing to worry about. And the foolish remarks of the rich man pass for wisdom in the world. And being governor and liberal at the same time, as I plan to be, they’ll think I’m flawless. Make yourself into honey and the flies will eat you up. As my grandmother used to say: you’re worth as much as you have. And you can’t take vengeance on the landed gentry.”

“May God curse you, Sancho!” said don Quixote. “May sixty thousand devils haul you and your proverbs off! It’s been an hour since you started stringing them together and torturing me with each one. I can assure you that these proverbs will lead you to the gallows one day. Because of them your vassals will take away your government, or it will cause them to revolt against you. Tell me, you ignoramus, where do you find them? or how to you apply them, you idiot? For me to say a single one and apply it well, I sweat and work as if I were digging a ditch.”

“Before God, señor our master,” replied Sancho, “you’re complaining about very little. Why the devil do you get angry because I’m using my heritage, since it’s all I have? My only wealth is proverbs and more proverbs. And right now four of them come to mind that fit the situation exactly, like peaches in a basket. But I won’t say them, because good silence is called Sancho.

“That’s not you,” said don Quixote, “because not only are you not ‘good silence,’ you’re ‘bad speech’ and obstinate as well. But even so, I’d like to find out which four proverbs just came to you that fit the situation so well. I’ve been ransacking my brain, and I can’t think of a single one that’s à propos.”

“What better ones are there than never put your thumbs between your wisdom teeth, and to ‘leave my home’ and ‘what do you want with my wife?’ there’s nothing to answer, and if the pitcher hits the stone or the stone hits the pitcher, it’s bad for the pitcher? All of them fit perfectly. No one should take on their governor, nor anyone who’s in charge, because he’ll come out hurt, just like someone who puts his finger between his wisdom teeth, and even if they’re not the wisdom teeth, as long as they’re molars it doesn’t make any difference. And no matter what the governor asks, there’s nothing to say, just like ‘leave my house’ and ‘what do you want with my wife?’ And the one about the pitcher and the rock, a blind man can see it. So, why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye with never a thought for the plank in your own, lest it be said of him: the dead woman was frightened to see another with a slit throat. And your grace already knows the one about the fool knows more in his own house than the wise man in someone else’s.”

“Not so, Sancho,” responded don Quixote, “for the fool in his own house or in anyone else’s doesn’t know anything because on the foundation of foolishness you can’t build the edifice of intelligence. And let’s let it go here, Sancho, because if you govern badly, yours will be the blame and mine will be the shame. But I can console myself in that I’ve done what I should by advising you with truths and with whatever discretion I could. With that I’m discharged from my obligation and promise. May God guide you, Sancho, and may He govern you in your government, and take from me the misgiving that I have that you might wind up with the ínsula flat on its back, something that I could prevent by revealing to the duke who you are, telling him that the little fat person that you are is nothing more than a sack filled with proverbs and mischief.”

“Señor,” replied Sancho, “if your grace thinks that I’m not right for this government, I’ll give it up right now. I love the tiniest part of my soul more than my whole body, and I’ll survive simply as Sancho with bread and onions than a governor with partridges and capons. And what’s more, when they’re asleep, everyone is the same—the grandees and the little folk, the rich and the poor, and if you think about it, you’ll see that you alone made me start to think about being a governor. I don’t know any more about governing ínsulas than a vulture does, and if you think that if I become a governor the devil will carry off my soul, I’d prefer to go to heaven as Sancho than to hell as a governor.”

“By God, Sancho,” said don Quixote, “with just these last words you’ve said, I judge that you deserve to be governor of a thousand ínsulas. You have a good instinct, without which knowledge is worthless. Commend yourself to God, and try not to err in your main purpose. I mean that you should always keep a firm intent and purpose to do right in all things because heaven supports worthy aims. Let’s go eat now, because these people are waiting for us.”

Have you read Don Quixote? Have a favorite scene? Let me know in the comments!

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