Lope Ruíz has no choice but to take the goats across one by one. The road to Portugal takes him to the Guadiana River, which is flooding, and the only boat available is a tiny fishing vessel that can only accommodate the goatherd and a single animal. In order to pass the time, Sancho tells his master the tale of Ruíz's flight from amorous misfortune in the company of his herd of goats. It occurs to me that perhaps it would be best to abandon the Rabalaisian/Bakhtinian approach altogether, and take a cue about the episode's meaning from something else that happens in the chapter, Sancho's shaggy-dog tale of the goatherd Lope Ruíz. Others have shied away from this interpretation, noting that Cervantes's characters are too well-rounded, too human, for this instance of scatological humor to look anything like what we see in Gargantua and Pantagruel. The squire subverts the rule of his master, even if only temporarily, providing a necessary reprieve from the trials of his subaltern position. Sancho's shit provides an instance of carnivalesque inversion. The episode calls to mind the scatological humor typical of Rabelais, and has prompted some critics to read it along the lines suggested by Bakhtin's book on the French Renaissance author. Don Quixote is chagrined, and Sancho Panza cannot help but laugh. Come daybreak, they discover that the noise is not the sign of some heroic adventure, but the racket of a fulling mill, which has been operating through the night. Readers will remember that in chapter 20 of Part I of Don Quixote Sancho relieves himself while in close proximity to his master during the long night of fear and storytelling that he and Don Quixote pass after hearing a mysterious and frightening noise off in the distance.
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