"I cut no capers in the blanket," returned Sancho; "in the air I did, and
more of them than I liked."
"There is no human history in the world, I suppose," said Don Quixote,
"that has not its ups and downs, but more than others such as deal with
chivalry, for they can never be entirely made up of prosperous
adventures."
"For all that," replied the bachelor, "there are those who have read the
history who say they would have been glad if the author had left out some
of the countless cudgellings that were inflicted on Senor Don Quixote in
various encounters."
"That's where the truth of the history comes in," said Sancho.
"At the same time they might fairly have passed them over in silence,"
observed Don Quixote; "for there is no need of recording events which do
not change or affect the truth of a history, if they tend to bring the
hero of it into contempt. AEneas was not in truth and earnest so pious as
Virgil represents him, nor Ulysses so wise as Homer describes him."
"That is true," said Samson; "but it is one thing to write as a poet,
another to write as a historian; the poet may describe or sing things,
not as they were, but as they ought to have been; but the historian has
to write them down, not as they ought to have been, but as they were,
without adding anything to the truth or taking anything from it."
"Well then," said Sancho, "if this senor Moor goes in for telling the
truth, no doubt among my master's drubbings mine are to be found; for
they never took the measure of his worship's shoulders without doing the
same for my whole body; but I have no right to wonder at that, for, as my
master himself says, the members must share the pain of the head."
"You are a sly dog, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "i' faith, you have no
want of memory when you choose to remember."
"If I were to try to forget the thwacks they gave me," said Sancho, "my
weals would not let me, for they are still fresh on my ribs."
"Hush, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and don't interrupt the bachelor, whom
I entreat to go on and tell all that is said about me in this history."
"And about me," said Sancho, "for they say, too, that I am one of the
principal presonages in it."
"Personages, not presonages, friend Sancho," said Samson.
"What! Another word-catcher!" said Sancho; "if that's to be the way we
shall not make an end in a lifetime."