"Now, may God deliver me from the devil!" said Sancho, "and can it be
that your worship takes three hackneys--or whatever they're called-as
white as the driven snow, for jackasses? By the Lord, I could tear my
beard if that was the case!"
"Well, I can only say, Sancho, my friend," said Don Quixote, "that it is
as plain they are jackasses--or jennyasses--as that I am Don Quixote, and
thou Sancho Panza: at any rate, they seem to me to be so."
"Hush, senor," said Sancho, "don't talk that way, but open your eyes, and
come and pay your respects to the lady of your thoughts, who is close
upon us now;" and with these words he advanced to receive the three
village lasses, and dismounting from Dapple, caught hold of one of the
asses of the three country girls by the halter, and dropping on both
knees on the ground, he said, "Queen and princess and duchess of beauty,
may it please your haughtiness and greatness to receive into your favour
and good-will your captive knight who stands there turned into marble
stone, and quite stupefied and benumbed at finding himself in your
magnificent presence. I am Sancho Panza, his squire, and he the vagabond
knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called 'The Knight of the
Rueful Countenance.'"
Don Quixote had by this time placed himself on his knees beside Sancho,
and, with eyes starting out of his head and a puzzled gaze, was regarding
her whom Sancho called queen and lady; and as he could see nothing in her
except a village lass, and not a very well-favoured one, for she was
platter-faced and snub-nosed, he was perplexed and bewildered, and did
not venture to open his lips. The country girls, at the same time, were
astonished to see these two men, so different in appearance, on their
knees, preventing their companion from going on. She, however, who had
been stopped, breaking silence, said angrily and testily, "Get out of the
way, bad luck to you, and let us pass, for we are in a hurry."
To which Sancho returned, "Oh, princess and universal lady of El Toboso,
is not your magnanimous heart softened by seeing the pillar and prop of
knight-errantry on his knees before your sublimated presence?"
On hearing this, one of the others exclaimed, "Woa then! why, I'm rubbing
thee down, she-ass of my father-in-law! See how the lordlings come to
make game of the village girls now, as if we here could not chaff as well
as themselves. Go your own way, and let us go ours, and it will be better
for you."