# Don Quixote (Cervantes/Ormsby)/Volume 1/Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI.
OF THE DIVERTING AND IMPORTANT SCRUTINY WHICH THE CURATE AND THE BARBER MADE IN THE LIBRARY OF OUR INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN.
He was still sleeping; so the curate asked the niece for the keys of the room where the books, the authors of all the mischief, were, and right willingly she gave them. They all went in, the housekeeper with them, and found more than a hundred volumes of big books very well bound, and some other small ​ones. The moment the housekeeper saw them she turned about and ran out of the room, and came back immediately with a saucer of holy water and a sprinkler, saying, "Here, your worship, señor licentiate, sprinkle this room; don't leave any magician of the many there are in these books to bewitch us in revenge for our design of banishing them from the world."
The simplicity of the housekeeper made the licentiate laugh, and he directed the barber to give him the books one by one to see what they were about, as there might be some to be found among them that did not deserve the penalty of fire.
"No," said the niece, "there is no reason for showing mercy to any of them; they have every one of them done mischief; better fling them out of the window into the court and make a pile of them and set fire to them; or else carry them into the yard, and there a bonfire can be made without the smoke giving any annoyance." The housekeeper said the same, so eager were they for the slaughter of those innocents, but the curate would not agree to it without first reading at any rate the titles.
The first that Master Nicholas put into his hand was the four books of "Amadis of Gaul." "This seems a mysterious thing," said the curate, "for, as I have heard said, this was the first book of chivalry printed in Spain, and from this all the others derive their birth and origin; so it seems to me that we ought inexorably to condemn it to the flames as the founder of so vile a sect."
"Nay, sir," said the barber, "I, too, have heard say that this is the best of all the books of this kind that have been written, and so, as something singular in its line, it ought to be pardoned."
​"True," said the curate; "and for that reason let its life be spared for the present. Let us see that other which is next to it."
"It is," said the barber, "the 'Sergas de Esplandian, the lawful son of Amadis of Gaul.'"
"Then verily," said the curate, "the merit of the father must not be put down to the account of the son. Take it, mistress housekeeper; open the window and fling it into the yard and lay the foundation of the pile for the bonfire we are to make."
The housekeeper obeyed with great satisfaction, and the worthy "Esplandian" went flying into the yard to await with all patience the fire that was in store for him.
"Proceed," said the curate.
"This that comes next," said the barber, "is 'Amadis of Greece,' and, indeed, I believe all those on this side are of the same Amadis lineage."
"Then to the yard with the whole of them," said the curate; "for to have the burning of Queen Pintiquiniestra, and the shepherd Darinel and his eclogues, and the bedevilled and involved discourses of his author, I would burn with them the father who begot me if he were going about in the guise of a knight-errant."
"I am of the same mind," said the barber.
"And so am I," added the niece.
"In that case," said the housekeeper, "here, into the yard with them!"
They were handed to her, and as there were many of them, she spared herself the staircase, and flung them down out of the window.
"Who is that tub there?" said the curate.
"This," said the barber, "is 'Don Olivante de Laura.'"
​"The author of that book," said the curate, "was the same that wrote 'The Garden of Flowers,' and truly there is no deciding which of the two books is the more truthful, or, to put it better, the less lying; all I can say is, send this one into the yard for a swaggering fool."
"This that follows is 'Florismarte of Hircania,'" said the barber.
Señor Florismarte here?" said the curate; "then by my faith he must take up his quarters in the yard, in spite of his marvellous birth and visionary adventures, for the stiffness and dryness of his style deserve nothing else; into the yard with him and the other, mistress housekeeper."
"With all my heart, señor," said she, and executed the order with great delight.
"This," said the barber, "is 'The Knight Platir.'"
"An old book that," said the curate, "but I find no reason for clemency in it; send it after the others without appeal;" which was done.
Another book was opened, and they saw it was entitled, "The Knight of the Cross."
"For the sake of the holy name this book has," said the curate, "its ignorance might be excused; but then, they say, 'behind the cross there's the devil;' to the fire with it."
Taking down another book, the barber said, "This is 'The Mirror of Chivalry.'"
exceptionally stout as the description in the text implies. The Garden of Flowers (1575), a treatise of wonders natural and supernatural, was translated into English in 1600, as The Spanish Mandeville, a title which may seem to justify the curate's criticism; but it does not come with a good grace from Cervantes, who made free use of the book in the First Part of Persiles and Sigismunda, and in the Second Part of Don Quixote. The book is really an entertaining one.
"Well, I have him in Italian," said the barber, "but I do not understand him."
"Nor would it be well that you should understand him," said the curate, "and on that score we might have excused the Captain if he had not brought him into Spain and turned him into Castilian. He robbed him of a great deal of his natural force, and so do all those who try to turn books written in verse into another language, for, with all the pains they take and all the cleverness they show, they never can reach the level of the originals as they were first produced. In short, I say that this book, and all that may be found treating of those French affairs, should he thrown into or deposited in some dry well, until after more consideration it is settled what is to be done with them; excepting always one 'Bernardo del Carpio' that is going about, and another called 'Roncesvalles;' for these, if they come into my hands, shall pass into those of
the Twelve Peers, it was the most popular of the Carlovingian series of romances. It is creditable to Cervantes as a critic that he should have mentioned Boiardo as he does, at a time when it was the fashion to regard the Orlando Innamorato as a rude and semi-barbarous production, only endurable in the rifacimento of Ludovico Domenichi.
To all this the barber gave his assent, and looked upon it as right and proper, being persuaded that the curate was so stanch to the Faith and loyal to the Truth that he would not for the world say anything opposed to them. Opening another book he saw it was "Palmerin de Oliva," and beside it was another called "Palmerin of England," seeing which the licentiate said, "Let the Olive be made firewood of at once and burned until no ashes even are left; and let that Palm of England be kept and preserved as a thing that stands alone, and let such another case be made for it as that which Alexander found among the spoils of Darius and set aside for the safe keeping of the words of the poet Homer. This book, gossip, is of authority for two reasons, first because it is very good, and secondly because it is said to have been written by a wise and witty king of Portugal. All the adventures at the Castle of Miraguarda are excellent and of admirable contrivance, and the language is polished and clear, studying and observing the style befitting the speaker with propriety and judgment. So then, provided it seems good to you, Master Nicholas, I say let this and 'Amadis of Gaul' be remitted the penalty of fire, and as for all the rest, let them perish without further question or query."
"Nay, gossip," said the barber, "for this that I have here is the famous 'Don Belianis.'"
​"Well," said the curate, "that and the second, third, and fourth parts all stand in need of a little rhubarb to purge their excess of bile, and they must be cleared of all that stuff about the Castle of Fame and other greater affectations, to which end let them be allowed the over-seas term, and, according as they mend, so shall mercy or justice be meted out to them; and in the meantime, gossip, do you keep them in your house and let no one read them."
"With all my heart," said the barber; and not caring to tire himself with reading more books of chivalry, he told the housekeeper to take all the big ones and throw them into the yard. It was not said to one dull or deaf, but to one who enjoyed burning them more than weaving the broadest and finest web that could be; and seizing about eight at a time, she flung them out of the window.
In carrying so many together she let one fall at the feet of the barber, who took it up, curious to know whose it was, and found it said, "History of the Famous Knight, Tirante el Blanco."
"God bless me!" said the curate with a shout, "'Tirante el Blanco' here! Hand it over, gossip, for in it I reckon I have found a treasury of enjoyment and a mine of recreation. Here is Don Kyrieleison of Montalvan, a valiant knight, and his brother Thomas of Montalvan, and the knight Fonseca, with the battle the bold Tirante fought with the mastiff, and the witticisms of the damsel Placerdemivida, and the loves and wiles of the widow Reposada, and the empress in love with the squire Hipólito—in truth, gossip, by right of its style it is the best book in the world. Here knights eat and sleep, and die in their beds, and make their wills before dying, and a great deal more of which there is nothing in all the other books. Nevertheless, I say he who wrote it, for deliberately composing such fooleries, deserves to be sent to the galleys for life. Take it home with you and read it, and you will see that what I have said is true."
​"As you will," said the barber; "but what are we to do with these little books that are left?"
"These must be, not chivalry, but poetry," said the curate; and opening one he saw it was the "Diana" of Jorge de Montemayor, and, supposing all the others to be of the same sort, "these," he said, "do not deserve to be burned like the others, for they neither do nor can do the mischief the books of chivalry have done, being books of entertainment that can hurt no one."
"Ah, señor!" said the niece, "your worship had better order these to be burned as well as the others; for it would be no wonder if, after being cured of his chivalry disorder, my uncle, by reading these, took a fancy to turn shepherd and range the woods and fields singing and piping; or, what would be still worse, to turn poet, which they say is an incurable and infectious malady."
"The damsel is right," said the curate, "and it will be well to put this stumbling-block and temptation out of our friend's way. To begin, then, with the 'Diana' of Montemayor. I am of opinion it should not be burned, but that it should be cleared of all that about the sage Felicia and the magic water, and of almost all the longer pieces of verse; let it keep, and welcome, its prose and the honor of being the first of books of the kind."
"This that comes next," said the barber, "is the 'Diana,' entitled the 'Second Part, by the Salamancan,' and this other has the same title, and its author is Gil Polo."
"As for that of the Salamancan," replied the curate, "let it go to swell the number of the condemned in the yard, and let Gil Polo's be preserved as if it came from Apollo himself; but get on, gossip, and make haste, for it is growing late."
"This book," said the barber, opening another, "is the ten
Don Pascual de Gayangos is in doubt whether the curate's eulugy is to be taken as ironical or serious, but rather inclines to the belief that Cervantes meant to praise the book. It would be rash to differ with such an authority, otherwise I should say that the laudation is rather too boisterously expressed and too like the extravagant eulogy of Lo Frasso farther on, to be sincerely meant.
"By the orders I have received," said the curate, "since Apollo has been Apollo, and the Muses have been Muses, and poets have been poets, so droll and absurd a book as this has never been written, and in its way it is the best and the most singular of all of this species that have as yet appeared, and he who has not read it may be sure he has never read what is delightful. Give it here, gossip, for I make more account of having found it than if they had given me a cassock of Florence stuff."
He put it aside with extreme satisfaction, and the barber went on, "These that come next are 'The Shepherd of Iberia,' 'The Nymphs of Henares,' and 'The Enlightenment of Jealousy.'"
"Then all we have to do," said the curate, "is to hand them over to the secular arm of the housekeeper, and ask me not why, or we shall never have done."
"This next is the 'Pastor de Fílida.'"
"No Pastor that," said the curate, "but a highly polished courtier; let it be preserved as a precious jewel."
"This large one here," said the barber, "is called 'The Treasury of various Poems.'"
"If there were not so many of them," said the curate, "they would be more relished: this book must be weeded and cleansed of certain vulgarities which it has with its
at Valencia, has been generally preferred. The pun on Polo and Apolo is not so obvious in English. An excellent English translation of all three by Bartholomew Yong was published in 1598. ​excellences; let it be preserved because the author is a friend of mine, and out of respect for other more heroic and loftier works that he has written."
"This," continued the barber, "is the 'Cancionero' of Lopez de Maldonado."
"The author of that book, too," said the curate, "is a great friend of mine, and his verses from his own mouth are the admiration of all who hear them, for such is the sweetness of his voice that he enchants when he chants them: it gives rather too much of its eclogues, but what is good was never yet plentiful: let it be kept with those that have been set apart. But what book is that next it?"
"The 'Galatea' of Miguel de Cervantes." said the barber.
"That Cervantes has been for many years a great friend of mine, and to my knowledge he has had more experience in reverses than in verses. His book has some good invention in it, it presents us with something but brings nothing to a conclusion: we must wait for the Second Part it promises: perhaps with amendment it may succeed in winning the full measure of grace that is now denied it; and in the meantime do you, señor gossip, keep it shut up in your own quarters."
"Very good," said the barber; "and here come three together, the 'Araucana' of Don Alonso de Ercilla, the 'Austriada' of Juan Rufo, Justice of Cordova, and the 'Montserrate ' of Christobal de Virués, the Valencian poet." ​"These three books," said the curate, "are the best that have been written in Castilian in heroic verse, and they may compare with the most famous in Italy; let them be preserved as the richest treasures of poetry that Spain possesses."
The curate was tired and would not look into any more books, and so he decided that, "contents uncertified," all the rest should be burned; but just then the barber held open one, called "The Tears of Angelica."
"I should have shed tears myself," said the curate when he heard the title, "had I ordered that book to be burned, for its author was one of the famous poets of the world, not to say of Spain, and was very happy in the translation of some of Ovid's fables."
* ↑ In the original the passage runs: "Who was even still sleeping. He asked the niece for the keys," etc. It is a minor instance of Cervantes' disregard of the ordinary laws of composition, and also a proof that at this stage of the work he had not originally contemplated a division into chapters.
* ↑ The romances of chivalry were, with not more than two or three exceptions, produced in the folio form, while the books of poetry, the pastorals, the cancioneros, and romanceros, were either in small quarto or much more commonly in small octavo corresponding in size with our duodecimo.
* ↑ The court the niece speaks of, was the patio or open space in the middle of the house; the corral or yard was on the outside.
* ↑ The curate was quite correct in his idea that Amadis of Gaul was the parent of the chivalry literature, but not in his statement that it was the first book of the kind printed in Spain, for it is not likely it was printed before Tirant lo Blanch, Oliveros de Castilla, or the Carcel de Amor. The earliest known edition was printed in Rome in 1519, but there can be no doubt that this is a reprint of a Spanish edition, of perhaps even an earlier date than 1510, which has been given as that of the first edition.
* ↑ Las Sergas (i.e. ιας ἔργα—the achievements) de Esplandian (1521) forms the fifth book of the Amadis Series, and is the composition of Montalvo himself, as is also, apparently, the fourth book of Amadis of Gaul. He only claims to have edited the first three.
* ↑ Amadis of Greece, by Feliciano de Silva (1535), forms the ninth book of the Amadis Series. Pintiquiniestra was Queen of Sobradisa, and Darinel was a shepherd and wrestler of Alexandria. The Spanish romances of "the lineage of Amadis" are twelve in number, and there are besides doubtful members of the family in Italian and French.
* ↑ Olivante de Laura, by Antonio de Torquemada, appeared first at Barcelona in 1564. Gayangos suggests that Cervantes must have been thinking of a later quarto or octavo edition, for the original folio is not soexceptionally stout as the description in the text implies. The Garden of Flowers (1575), a treatise of wonders natural and supernatural, was translated into English in 1600, as The Spanish Mandeville, a title which may seem to justify the curate's criticism; but it does not come with a good grace from Cervantes, who made free use of the book in the First Part of Persiles and Sigismunda, and in the Second Part of Don Quixote. The book is really an entertaining one.
* ↑ The correct title is Historia del muy Animoso y Esforzado Principe Felixmarte de Hircania, but the hero is also called Florismarte. It was by Melchor Ortega de Ubeda, and appeared in 1556.
* ↑ Platir is the fourth book of the Palmerin Series. The hero is the son of Primaleon, and grandson of Palmerin de Oliva. Its author is unknown. It appeared first in 1533.
* ↑ The Knight of the Cross appeared in two parts: the first, under the title of Lepolemo, by an unknown author, in 1543; the second, with the achievements of Leandro el Bel, the son of Lepolemo, by Pedro de Luxan, in 1563. "Behind the Cross," etc., Prov. 75, was evidently a favorite proverb with Cervantes.
* ↑ The Mirror of Chivalry—Espejo de Caballerias—was published at Seville in four parts, 1533-50. Next to the history of Charlemagne andthe Twelve Peers, it was the most popular of the Carlovingian series of romances. It is creditable to Cervantes as a critic that he should have mentioned Boiardo as he does, at a time when it was the fashion to regard the Orlando Innamorato as a rude and semi-barbarous production, only endurable in the rifacimento of Ludovico Domenichi.
* ↑ An Oriental mode of showing respect for a document.
* ↑ Geronimo Jiménez de Urrea, whose translation of Ariosto into Spanish was first printed at Antwerp in 1549. This is not the only passage in which Cervantes declares against translation. In chapter lxii. of the Second Part he puts his objection still more strongly, and there extends it to translation of prose. And yet of all great writers there is not one who is under such obligations to translation as Cervantes. The influence of Homer and Virgil would be scarcely less than it is if they had never been translated; Shakespeare and Milton wrote in a language destined to become the most widely read on the face of the globe, and no reader of any culture needs an interpreter for Molière or Le Sage. But how would Cervantes have fared in the world if, according to his own principles, he had been confined to his native Castilian?
* ↑ The condemned books are the History of the deeds of Bernardo del Carpio, by Augustin Alonso of Salamanca (Toledo, 1585); and the Famous Battle of Roncesvalles, by Francisco Garrido de Villena (Valencia, 1555).
* ↑ Palmerin de Oliva, the founder of the Palmerin Series of Romances, was first printed at Salamanca in 1511. It is said to have been written by a lady of Augustobriga (i.e. Burgos, according to some, but more probably Cindad Rodrigo), but nothing certain is known of the author. Palmerin de Inglaterra, like Amadis, was until lately supposed to be, as Cervantes supposed it, of Portuguese origin; but the question was settled a few years ago by Vincente Salvá, who discovered a Toledo edition of 1547, twenty years earlier than the Portuguese edition on which the claims of Francisco de Moraes, or of John II, rested. An acrostic gives the name of the author, Luis Hurtado.
* ↑ Miraguarda is not the name of the Castle, but of the lady who lived in it, and whose charms were the cause of the adventures.
* ↑ Belianis de Grecia, already mentioned in the first chapter as one of Don Quixote's special studies.
* ↑ The "over-seas term" was the allowance of time granted in the case of persons beyond the seas, when sued or indicted, to enable them to appear and show cause why judgment should not be given against them.
* ↑ Tirante el Blanco is the title of the translation into Castilian of the romance of Tirant lo Blanch, first published in Valencian at Valencia in 1490. Joanot Martorell, who is said to have translated it from English into Portuguese and thence into Valencian, was no doubt the author. Only three copies are known to exist, one in the University at Valencia, another in the College of the Sapienza in Rome, and the third in the British Museum. The Castilian version appeared at Valladolid in 1511.Don Pascual de Gayangos is in doubt whether the curate's eulugy is to be taken as ironical or serious, but rather inclines to the belief that Cervantes meant to praise the book. It would be rash to differ with such an authority, otherwise I should say that the laudation is rather too boisterously expressed and too like the extravagant eulogy of Lo Frasso farther on, to be sincerely meant.
* ↑ Los Siete Libros de la Diana de Jorge de Montemayor. Impreso en Valencia, 4to. The first edition is undated, and from the dedication appears to have been printed in the author's lifetime. He died in 1561, in which year the second edition, with additions, appeared. (V. note 1, page 28.) The Diana was the first and best of the Spanish pastoral romances, the taste for which was created by Sannazaro's Arcadia. The Salamancan was Alonso Perez, who published a continuation of the Diana at Alcalá de Henares in 1564, but Gil Polo's, printed the same yearat Valencia, has been generally preferred. The pun on Polo and Apolo is not so obvious in English. An excellent English translation of all three by Bartholomew Yong was published in 1598.
* ↑ The Fortuna d'Amor, por Antonio de lo Frasso, Militar, Sardo, appeared at Barcelona in 1573. In the Viage del Parnaso Cervantes treats the book in the same bantering strain, which misled Pedro de Pineda, one of the editors of Lord Carteret's Quixote, and induced him to bring out a new edition in 1740. The book is an utterly worthless one, and highly prized by collectors.
* ↑ The books here referred to are the Pastor de Iberia, by Bernardo de la Vega (Seville, 1591); the Nimphas y Pastores de Henares, by Bernardo Gonzalez de Bovadilla (Alcalá de Henares, 1587); and the Desengaño de Zelos, by Bartolme Lopes de Enciso (Madrid, 1586).
* ↑ The Pastor de Filida (Madrid, 1582), one of the best of the pastorals, was by Luis Galvez de Montalvo of Guadalajara, a retainer of the great Mendoza family, and apparently an intimate personal friend of Cervantes, who, under the name of Tirsi, is referred to in the pastoral as a clarissimo ingenio worthy of being mentioned with Ercilla. Montalvo, in return, is introduced under the name of Siralvo into the Galatea of Cervantes, to which he contributed a complimentary sonnet.
* ↑ Tesoro de varias Poesias, compuesto por Pedro de Padilla (Madrid, 1580). The author is one of those praised by Cervantes in the "Canto de Caliope " in the Galatea.
* ↑ Lopez de Maldonado, whose Cancionero appeared at Madrid in 1586, is another of the poets praised in the Galatea.
* ↑ Prov. 26.
* ↑ The play upon words in the original is "more versed in misfortunes than in verses." This introduction of himself and his forgotten pastoral is Cervantes all over in its tone of playful stoicism with a certain quiet self-assertion. It shows, moreover, pretty clearly, that until Don Quixote had made the author's name known, the Galatea had remained unnoticed.
* ↑ These three are examples of Spanish epic poetry. The Araucana of Ercilla (Madrid, 1569, 1578, 1590) is, next to the Poem of the Cid, the best effort in that direction in the language. The Austriada, which appeared first at Madrid in 1584, deals with the life and achievements of Don John of Austria, but it was probably the memory of Lepanto rather than the merits of the poem that made Cervantes give it a place here. The Montserrate of the dramatist Virués (Madrid, 1588) had for its subject the repulsive Oriental legend which became popular in Spain with Garin the hermit of Monserrat for its hero, and which M. G. Lewis made the foundation of his famous romance, The Monk.
* ↑ The anti-climax here almost equals that famous one of Waller's: "Under the tropic is our language spoke, And part of Flanders hath received our yoke." The book referred to was entitled simply the Angelica by Luis Barahona de Soto (Madrid, 1586). In his praise of this poem we have one more instance of Cervantes' loyalty to a friend getting the better of his critical judgment.