Sonnet.
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." "That is true," replied the Knight of the Wood, "provided our reason and understanding be not affected by disdain, which, when carried to excess, is more like vengeance." "I never was disdained by my mistress," answered Don Quixote. "No, verily," quoth Sancho, who stood close by; "for my lady is as gentle as a lamb and as soft as butter." "Is this your squire?" demanded the Knight of the Wood. "He is," replied Don Quixote. "I never in my life saw a squire," said the Knight of the Wood, "who durst presume to speak where his lord was conversing; at least, there stands mine, as tall as his father, and it cannot be proved that he ever opened his lips where I was speaking." "Truly," quoth Sancho, "I have talked, and can talk before one as good as —— and perhaps, —— but let that rest: perhaps the less said the better." The Knight of the Wood's squire now took Sancho by the arm, and said, "Let us two go where we may chat squire-like together, and leave these masters of ours to talk over their loves to each other; for I warrant they will not have done before to-morrow morning." "With all my heart," quoth Sancho, "and I will tell you who I am, that you may judge whether I am not fit to make one among the talking squires." The squires then withdrew, and a dialogue passed between them as lively as that of their masters was grave.
CHAPTER XLV.
Wherein is continued the adventure of the Knight of the Wood, with the wise and witty dialogue between the two Squires.
Having retired a little apart, the Squire of the Wood said to Sancho, "This is a toilsome life we squires to knights-errant lead; in good truth, we eat our bread by the sweat of our brows, which is one of the curses God laid upon our first parents." "You may say too, that we eat it by the frost of our bodies," added Sancho; "for who has to bear more cold, as well as heat, than your miserable squires to knight-errantry? It would not be quite so bad if we could always get something to eat, for good fare lessens care; but how often we must pass whole days without breaking our fast—unless it be upon air!" "All this may be endured," quoth he of the Wood, "with the hopes of reward; for that knight-errant must be unlucky indeed who does not speedily recompense his squire with at least a handsome government, or some pretty earldom." "I," replied Sancho, "have already told my master that I should be satisfied with the government of an island; and he is so noble, and so generous, that he has promised it me a thousand times." "And I," said he of the Wood, "should think myself amply rewarded for all my services with a canonry; and I have my master's word for it too." "Why then," quoth Sancho, "belike your master is some knight of the church, and so can bestow rewards of that kind on his squires; mine is only a layman. Some of his wise friends advised him once to be an archbishop, but he would be nothing but an emperor, and I trembled all the while lest he should take a liking to the church; because, you must know, I am not gifted that way; to say the truth, sir, though I look like a man, I am a very beast in such matters." "Let me tell you, friend," quoth he of the Wood, "you are quite in the wrong; for these island-governments are often more plague than profit. Some are crabbed, some beggarly, some—in short, the best of them are sure to bring more care than they are worth, and are mostly too heavy for the shoulders that have to bear them. I suspect it would be wiser in us to quit this thankless drudgery and stay at home, where we may find easier work and better pastime; for he must be a sorry squire who has not his nag, his brace of greyhounds, and an angling-rod to enjoy himself with at home." "I am not without these things," answered Sancho; "it is true I have no horse, but then I have an ass which is worth twice as much as my master's steed. I would not swap with him, though he should offer me four bushels of barley to boot; no, that would not I, though you may take for a joke the price I set upon my Dapple,—for dapple, sir, is the colour of my ass. Greyhounds I cannot be in want of, as our town is overstocked with them; besides, the rarest sporting is that we find at other people's cost." "Really and truly, brother squire," answered he of the Wood, "I have resolved with myself to quit the frolics of these knights-errant, and get home again and look after my children; for I have three like Indian pearls." "And I have two," quoth Sancho, "fit to be presented to the Pope himself in person; especially my girl that I am breeding up for a countess, if it please God, in spite of her mother. But I beseech God to deliver me from this dangerous profession of squireship, into which I have run a second time, drawn and tempted by a purse of a hundred ducats, which I found one day among the mountains. In truth, my fancy is continually setting before my eyes, here, there, and everywhere, a bag full of gold pistoles, so that methinks at every step I am laying my hand upon it, hugging it, and carrying it home, buying lands, settling rents, and living like a prince; and while this runs in my head, I can bear all the toil which must be suffered with this foolish master of mine, who, to my knowledge, is more of the madman than the knight."