DON QUIXOTE AND THE WINDMILLS

DON QUIXOTE AND THE WINDMILLS

(Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)

(Summary: Don Quixote was a Spanish gentleman who spent a lot of time reading books about knights and their adventures. Eventually, he decided to become a knight himself, travelling around the world in shining armor and mounted on a spirited horse as he searched for adventure, righting wrongs, and rescuing maidens in distress. He got hold of an old suit of armor and a pitiful horse that was all skin and bones whom he called “Rocinante.” Because in the books he had read, all knights had fair ladies, he decided on a healthy farm girl he had once admired and invented fro her the finest name he could think of: Dulcinea del Taboso.” For himself he gave the splendid title “Don Quixote de la Mancha.” He convinced a simple farm boy, Sancho Panza, to go with him as his squire. And off they went on a series of sometimes laughable, sometimes pitiful adventures, the knight on his bony Rocinante, and his squire on a donkey.)

            “Look, Sir Knight-errant,” said Sancho,” your Grace should not forget that island you promised me; for no matter how big it is, I’ll be able to govern it right enough.”

            “I would have you know, Sancho Panza,” replied Don Quixote, “that among the knights-errant of old it was very custom to make squires governors of the islands or the kingdoms that they won, and I am resolved that in my case so pleasing a usage shall not fall into desuetude. I even mean to go them one better; for they very often, perhaps most of the time, waited untl their squires were ld men who have  their fill of serving their masters during bad days and worse nights, whereupon they would give them the title of count, or marquis at most, of some valley or province more or less. But if you live and I live, it well may be that within a week I shall win some kingdom with others dependent upon it, and it will be the easiest thing in the world to crown you king of one of them. You need not marvel at his, for all sorts of unforeseen things happen to knights like me, and I may readily be able to give you even more that I have promised.”

            “In that case,” said Sancho Panza, “if by one of those miracles of which your Grace was speaking I should become king, I would certainly send for Juana Gutierrez, my old lady, to come and be my queen, and the young ones could be infants.”

            “There is no doubt about, “ Don Quixote assure him.

            “Well, I doubt it,” said Sancho,” for I think that teven if Gow were to rain kingdoms upon the earth, no crown would sit well on the head of Mari Gutierrez, for I am telling you, sir, as queen she is not worth two maravedis. She would do better as a countess, God help her.”

            “Leave everything to God, Sancho,” said Don Quixote,” and He will give you whatever is most fitting; but I trust you will not be so pusillanimous as to be content with anything less than the title of viceroy.”

                        “That I will not,” said Sancho Panza,” especially seeing that I have in your Grace so illustrious a master who can give me all that is suitable to me and all that I can manage.”

            At this point they caught sight of thirty or forty windmills which were standing on the plain there, and no sooner had Don Quixote laid his eyes upon the, that he turned to his squire and said, “Fortune is guiding our affairs better that we could have wished; for you see there before you, friend Sancho Panza, some thirty or more lawless giants with whom I mean to do battle I shall deprive them of their lives, and with the spoils from this encounter, we shall begin to enrich ourselves; for this is righteous warfare, and it is a great service to God to remove so accurse a breed from the face of the earth.”

            “What giants?” said Sancho Panza.

            Those that you see there,” replied his master, “those with the long arms some of which are as much as two leagues in length.”

            “But look, your Grace, those are not giants but windmills, and what appear to be arms are their wings which, when whirled in the breeze, cause the millstone to go.”

            “It is plain to be seen,” said Don Quixote, “that you have had little experience in this matter of adventures. If you are afraid, go off to one side and say your prayers wile I am engaging them in fierce, unequal combat.”

            Saying this, he gave spurs o his steed Rocinante, without payingany heed to Sancho’s warning that these were truly windmills and not giants that he was riding forth to attack. Nor even when he was close upon them did he perceive what they really were, but shouted at the top of his lungs, “Do not seek to flee, cowards and vile creatures that you are, for it is but a single knight with whom you have deal!”

            At that moment a little wind came up and big wings began turning.

            “Though you flourish as many arms as did the giant Briareus,” said Don Quixote when he perceived this, “you still have to answer to me.”

            He thereupon commended himself with all his heart to his lady Dulcinea, beseeching her to succor him in his peril; and being well covered with his shield and with his lance at rest, he bore down upon the first mill that stood in his way, giving a thrust at the wing, which was whirling at such  speed that his lance was broken into bits and both horse and horseman went rolling over the pain, very battered indeed. Sancho upon his donkey came hurrying to his master’s assistance as fast as he could, but when he reached the spot, the knight was unable to move, so great was  the shock with which he and Rocinante had hit the ground.

            “Go help us!” exclaimed Sancho, “did I not tell your Grace to look well, that those were nothing but windmills, a fact which no one to see unless he had other mills of the same sort in his head?”

            “Be quiet, friend Sancho,” said Don Quixote. “Such are the fortunes of war, which more than any other are subject to constant change. What is more, when I come to think of it, I am sure that this must be the work of that magician Freston, the one who robbed me of my study and my books, and who has thus changed the giants into windmills in order to deprive me of the glory of overcoming them, so great is the enmity that the bears me, but in the end his evil arts shall not prevail against this trusty sword of mine.”

            “May God’s will be done,” was Sancho Panza’s response. And with the aid of his squire the knight once more mounted on Rocinante, who stood there with one shoulder half out of joint.