“Verily, Señor Don Quixote,” said Don Lorenzo, “I wish I could catch your worship tripping at a stretch, but I cannot, for you slip through my fingers like an eel.”

“I don’t understand what you say, or mean by slipping,” said Don Quixote.

“I will explain myself another time,” said Don Lorenzo; “for the present pray attend to the glossed verses and the gloss, which run thus:

“Could ‘was’ become an ‘is’ for me,

Then would I ask no more than this;

Or could, for me, the time that is

Become the time that is to be!⁠—