The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Author:Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra [Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-04-28T16:00:00+00:00

Bright queen, how shall your loving slave

Be sure not to displease?

Some rule of duty let him crave;

He begs no other ease.

Say, must I die, or hopeless live?

I'll act as you ordain;

Despair a silent death shall give,

Or Love himself complain.

My heart, though soft as wax, will prove

Like diamonds firm and true:

For what th' impression can remove,

That's stamp'd by love and you?

With a deep sigh, that seemed to be drawn from the very bottom of his heart, the Knight of the Wood ended his song; and after some pause, in a plaintive and dolorous voice, he exclaimed, "O thou most beautiful and most ungrateful of woman-kind! O divine Casildea de Vandalia! wilt thou, then, suffer this thy captive knight to consume and pine away in continual peregrinations and in severest toils? Is it not enough that I have caused thee to be acknowledged the most consummate beauty in the world by all the knights of Navarre, of Leon, of Tartesia, of Castile, and, in fine, by all the knights of La Mancha?" "Not so," said Don Quixote, "for I am of La Mancha, and never have made such an acknowledgment, nor ever will admit an assertion so prejudicial to the beauty of my mistress. Thou seest, Sancho, how this knight raves; but let us listen; perhaps he will make some farther declaration." "Ay, marry will he," replied Sancho, "for he seems to be in a humour to complain for a month to come." But they were mistaken; for the knight, hearing voices near them, proceeded no farther in his lamentation, but rising up, said aloud in a courteous voice, "Who goes there? What are ye? Of the number of the happy, or of the afflicted?" "Of the afflicted," answered Don Quixote. "Come to me, then," answered the Knight of the Wood, "and you will find sorrow and misery itself!" These expressions were uttered in so moving a tone, that Don Quixote, followed by Sancho, went up to the mournful knight, who, taking his hand, said to him, "Sit down here, sir knight; for to be assured that you profess the order of chivalry, it is sufficient that I find you here, encompassed by solitude and the cold dews of night, the proper station for knights-errant." "A knight I am," replied Don Quixote, "and of the order you name; and although my heart is the mansion of misery and woe, yet can I sympathise in the sorrows of others; from the strain I just now heard from you, I conclude that you are of the amorous kind—arising, I mean, from a passion for some ungrateful fair."

Whilst thus discoursing, they were seated together on the ground peaceably and sociably, not as if at daybreak they were to fall upon each other with mortal fury. "Perchance you too are in love, sir knight," said he of the Wood to Don Quixote. "Such is my cruel destiny," answered Don Quixote; "though the sorrows that may arise from well-placed affections ought rather to be accounted blessings than calamities.

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