“Let Martha die, but let her die with a full belly”

“Let Martha die, but let her die with a full belly” is a proverb Sancho Panza uses to answer Don Quixote’s despair after the two have been trampled by bulls. Its blunt defense of eating and staying alive turns Sancho’s appetite into a practical rebuke to his master’s wish to let grief overcome him.

Use in the Scene

Resting beside a clear spring, Sancho takes food from his provisions while Don Quixote rinses his mouth and face but remains too vexed to eat. Sancho initially waits for his master to begin, then eats when Don Quixote remains absorbed in thought. When Don Quixote tells him to eat and says that he himself would rather die under the weight of his misfortunes, Sancho cites the proverb as his answer.

The saying makes bodily sustenance a response to sorrow, not a denial that sorrow exists. Sancho follows it with a cobbler’s image: as a cobbler stretches leather with his teeth, he intends to stretch his life by eating until it reaches its appointed end. He advises Don Quixote to eat, lie down on the grass, and sleep, expecting him to feel better on waking.

Contrast and Significance

The proverb’s humor comes from its plain, material counsel meeting Don Quixote’s elevated language of misfortune. He describes himself as famed in arms and honored by princes, yet reduced to grief because the bulls have trampled him; Sancho answers not with a knightly remedy but with food, rest, and the wish to keep living. Don Quixote recognizes the unexpected sense in his squire’s advice, finding it more philosophical than he would have expected.

The exchange does not settle their disagreement. Don Quixote soon asks Sancho to begin the hundreds of lashes connected to Dulcinea’s disenchantment, while Sancho postpones the task and says he still intends to fulfill his promise. Against that looming obligation, the proverb expresses Sancho’s immediate priority: life must be sustained before its future burdens can be faced.