Chapter XLVII
Sancho goes to dinner hungry on the first day on his alleged
isle, only to discover that a physician there will not let him eat
anything for fear that it might be bad for him. In a fury, Sancho
threatens the physician and sends him out of the room. A courier
then arrives with a letter from the Duke telling Sancho that he
has learned about a plan to attack the isle and to kill Sancho.
Sancho becomes convinced that the physician is one of the men threatening
his life. A businessman arrives to ask Sancho for a letter of recommendation
for his “bewitched” son (who likely suffers from autism) to marry
the maimed, hunchbacked daughter of his neighbor. When the businessman
also asks Sancho for six hundred ducats, Sancho flies into a rage
and threatens to kill him.
Chapter XLVIII
In the middle of the night, Doña Rodriguez creeps into
Don Quixote’s room to ask him a favor. She tells Don Quixote the
story of her daughter, who was wooed by a farmer’s son who now refuses
to marry her. The Duke refuses to force the farmer’s son to marry
Doña Rodriguez’s daughter, since the farmer is wealthy and the Duke
does not want to risk losing the money he collects from the farmer.
Don Quixote agrees to help Doña Rodriguez. She tells him that the Duchess
has such a nice complexion because a physician drains the evil humors
out of her legs. Doña Rodriguez’s announcement shocks Don Quixote
because he considers the Duchess an upright woman, but he admits
that if Doña Rodriguez says it is true it must be so. At this point,
someone rushes in and slaps and pinches both Doña Rodriguez and
Don Quixote.
Chapter XLIX
Sancho encounters two criminal incidents on his rounds
and then comes across a young girl dressed as a boy. The girl begins
to cry, telling Sancho that her father, a widower, keeps her locked
up day and night and never lets her see the world. She has switched
clothes with her brother, she says, and snuck out to see the town
because she is curious. As she tells her story, a guard catches
her brother. Sancho takes them both home and tells them to be more
careful next time.
Chapter L
The Duchess and Altisidora, Cervantes tells us, were listening
outside Don Quixote’s door to Doña Rodriguez’s story about the Duchess’s
legs. It was the Duchess and Altisidora who ran in and pinched the
two. The Duchess then sent a page to Teresa Panza to deliver Sancho’s
letter, along with a letter and a necklace of coral from the Duchess.
Teresa receives the page and is thrilled by the news that her husband
has been made a governor. She runs off to tell Sampson and the priest,
who do not believe her until they speak with the page. Sampson offers
to take dictation for Teresa’s letter back to Sancho, but she does
not trust him and goes to a friar to have him write it for her.
Chapter LI
The morning after his rounds, Sancho hears the petition
of some judges who cannot decide whether to hang a man. The judges
sit by a bridge whose owner demands that anyone wishing to cross
must disclose his or her destination. If the person crossing tells
the truth, he or she may pass, but if the person lies, he or she
must be hanged on the gallows on the other side. A man has come
to the bridge saying that he is going to be hanged on the gallows,
which has confused the judges. If they set him free, then the man
will be condemned by law to hang on the gallows, but if they hang
him, then they must subsequently free him. Sancho sets the man free
on the grounds that it is better to be too lenient than too strict.
Sancho receives a letter from Don Quixote that includes
more advice about governing, along with the news that Don Quixote plans
to do something that will anger the Duke and Duchess. Sancho replies
with a long letter full of news, asking Don Quixote not to provoke
the Duke and Duchess, since he does not want to lose his governorship.
Sancho then makes the only laws he imposes during his governorship:
a declaration that wine may be imported from anywhere as long as
it clearly states its place of origin, along with a decree that
he will lower the price of footwear, fix the wages of servants,
and forbid the blind from singing about miracles unless the miracles
are true. These laws please the populace so much, Cervantes says,
that they still remain in effect and people call them “The Constitutions
of the great Governor Sancho Panza.”
