Don Quixote roused him from these reflections and this soliloquy by

saying, "No doubt, Senor Don Diego de Miranda, you set me down in your

mind as a fool and a madman, and it would be no wonder if you did, for my

deeds do not argue anything else. But for all that, I would have you take

notice that I am neither so mad nor so foolish as I must have seemed to

you. A gallant knight shows to advantage bringing his lance to bear

adroitly upon a fierce bull under the eyes of his sovereign, in the midst

of a spacious plaza; a knight shows to advantage arrayed in glittering

armour, pacing the lists before the ladies in some joyous tournament, and

all those knights show to advantage that entertain, divert, and, if we

may say so, honour the courts of their princes by warlike exercises, or

what resemble them; but to greater advantage than all these does a

knight-errant show when he traverses deserts, solitudes, cross-roads,

forests, and mountains, in quest of perilous adventures, bent on bringing

them to a happy and successful issue, all to win a glorious and lasting

renown. To greater advantage, I maintain, does the knight-errant show

bringing aid to some widow in some lonely waste, than the court knight

dallying with some city damsel. All knights have their own special parts

to play; let the courtier devote himself to the ladies, let him add

lustre to his sovereign's court by his liveries, let him entertain poor

gentlemen with the sumptuous fare of his table, let him arrange

joustings, marshal tournaments, and prove himself noble, generous, and

magnificent, and above all a good Christian, and so doing he will fulfil

the duties that are especially his; but let the knight-errant explore the

corners of the earth and penetrate the most intricate labyrinths, at each

step let him attempt impossibilities, on desolate heaths let him endure

the burning rays of the midsummer sun, and the bitter inclemency of the

winter winds and frosts; let no lions daunt him, no monsters terrify him,

no dragons make him quail; for to seek these, to attack those, and to

vanquish all, are in truth his main duties. I, then, as it has fallen to

my lot to be a member of knight-errantry, cannot avoid attempting all

that to me seems to come within the sphere of my duties; thus it was my

bounden duty to attack those lions that I just now attacked, although I

knew it to be the height of rashness; for I know well what valour is,

that it is a virtue that occupies a place between two vicious extremes,

cowardice and temerity; but it will be a lesser evil for him who is

valiant to rise till he reaches the point of rashness, than to sink until

he reaches the point of cowardice; for, as it is easier for the prodigal

than for the miser to become generous, so it is easier for a rash man to

prove truly valiant than for a coward to rise to true valour; and believe

me, Senor Don Diego, in attempting adventures it is better to lose by a

card too many than by a card too few; for to hear it said, 'such a knight

is rash and daring,' sounds better than 'such a knight is timid and

cowardly.'"




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