13.8.08

Physical Comedy At Its Best

The Scenario:   
Don Quixote, on one of his fantastical romps through La Mancha mistakes a herd of sheep for a great army. After wildly slaying a bunch of them, the sheep herders decide to get serious shepherd-style. Anyway, Sancho and Don Quixote get worked like marionettes and are left badly beaten. Don Quixote drinks a magical medicinal "balsam", read: some vinegar and random gross things, then asks Sancho to check if he lost many teeth in the scuffle. Sancho looks into his mouth only to get a face-first sampling of Quixote's stomach contents. Upon smelling the balsam that Quixote had ingested and remembering a previous event where he got very ill from it, Sancho proceeded to vomit all over Don Quixote. There they sat badly-beaten and vomiting on each other. Now that's comedy, seventeenth century-style!  
The Original: 
But go not just yet, for I want thy help and assistance; come hither, and see how many of my teeth and grinders are missing, for I feel as if there was not one left in my mouth." Sancho came so close that he almost put his eyes into his mouth; now just at that moment the balsam had acted on the stomach of Don Quixote, so, at the very instant when Sancho came to examine his mouth, he discharged all its contents with more force than a musket, and full into the beard of the compassionate squire. "Holy Mary!" cried Sancho, "what is this that has happened me? Clearly this sinner is mortally wounded, as he vomits blood from the mouth;" but considering the matter a little more closely he perceived by the colour, taste, and smell, that it was not blood but the balsam from the flask which he had seen him drink; and he was taken with such a loathing that his stomach turned, and he vomited up his inside over his very master, and both were left in a precious state. 

-Cervantes, 1605 (Vol 1. Chap. 18)

Why You Should Laugh: 

Rarely will you imagine you'll find a situation in classic literature where people are beaten and then vomit on each other. Not since Bob Saget's role in the documentary "The Aristocrats" has humanity been witness to such base yet outright funny vomit-humour.

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