And as Lockhart omits this, I may quote the opening in Gibson’s excellent version[15]:—
The winds were sadly moaning, the moon was on the change,
The fishes they were gasping, the skies were wild and strange,
’Twas then that Don Rodrigo beside La Cava slept.
Within a tent of splendour, with golden hangings deckt.
Three hundred cords of silver did hold it firm and free,
Within a hundred maidens stood passing fair to see;
The fifty they were playing with finest harmonie,
The fifty they were singing with sweetest melodie.
A maid they called Fortuna uprose and thus she spake: