He who sings scares away his woes

“He who sings scares away his woes” is a proverb Don Quixote cites while questioning a galley slave about the suffering behind a fellow prisoner’s melancholy. Its ordinary promise of relief becomes an ironic point of contrast when the slave explains that, in this case, singing was bound to torture and its lasting consequences.

Meaning and Use

The saying presents song as a means of easing sorrow: Don Quixote says he has heard that “he who sings scares away his woes.” He offers it as a familiar counterpoint to the prisoners’ distress, not as a description of what has happened to them. In the scene, its hopeful generality meets a particular history of coercion.

The Prisoners’ Reversal

The first galley slave explains that the silent man beside him had been tortured until he confessed to cattle-stealing. He had already received two hundred lashes and was sentenced to six years in the galleys. The other thieves, the guard says, jeer at him for confessing rather than denying the accusation. Against that background, the slave answers Don Quixote’s proverb with a grim inversion: “he who sings once weeps all his life.” Here, singing refers not to freely chosen music but to confession under torture; the apparent relief promised by the proverb is replaced by punishment and continuing humiliation.

Narrative Significance

The exchange makes the proverb’s meaning depend on circumstance. Don Quixote initially hears singing as a remedy for woe, while the prisoner’s experience turns the same image into a sign of suffering. The guard’s explanation clarifies the difference between the two meanings and shows how a general saying can fail when applied without regard to the conditions behind it. The line’s force comes from that abrupt collision between an uplifting commonplace and the prisoner’s concrete experience.