Sancho was about to reply to his master, but the Knight of the Grove's

voice, which was neither very bad nor very good, stopped him, and

listening attentively the pair heard him sing this

SONNET

Your pleasure, prithee, lady mine, unfold;

Declare the terms that I am to obey;

My will to yours submissively I mould,

And from your law my feet shall never stray.

Would you I die, to silent grief a prey?

Then count me even now as dead and cold;

Would you I tell my woes in some new way?

Then shall my tale by Love itself be told.

The unison of opposites to prove,

Of the soft wax and diamond hard am I;

But still, obedient to the laws of love,

Here, hard or soft, I offer you my breast,

Whate'er you grave or stamp thereon shall rest

Indelible for all eternity.

With an "Ah me!" that seemed to be drawn from the inmost recesses of his

heart, the Knight of the Grove brought his lay to an end, and shortly

afterwards exclaimed in a melancholy and piteous voice, "O fairest and

most ungrateful woman on earth! What! can it be, most serene Casildea de

Vandalia, that thou wilt suffer this thy captive knight to waste away and

perish in ceaseless wanderings and rude and arduous toils? It is not

enough that I have compelled all the knights of Navarre, all the Leonese,

all the Tartesians, all the Castilians, and finally all the knights of La

Mancha, to confess thee the most beautiful in the world?"

"Not so," said Don Quixote at this, "for I am of La Mancha, and I have

never confessed anything of the sort, nor could I nor should I confess a

thing so much to the prejudice of my lady's beauty; thou seest how this

knight is raving, Sancho. But let us listen, perhaps he will tell us more

about himself."

"That he will," returned Sancho, "for he seems in a mood to bewail

himself for a month at a stretch."

But this was not the case, for the Knight of the Grove, hearing voices

near him, instead of continuing his lamentation, stood up and exclaimed

in a distinct but courteous tone, "Who goes there? What are you? Do you

belong to the number of the happy or of the miserable?"

"Of the miserable," answered Don Quixote.

"Then come to me," said he of the Grove, "and rest assured that it is to

woe itself and affliction itself you come."

Don Quixote, finding himself answered in such a soft and courteous

manner, went over to him, and so did Sancho.




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