“But I’ll take you, Don Clown stuffed with garlic,” said Don Quixote, “and tie you to a tree as naked as when your mother brought you forth, and give you, not to say three thousand three hundred, but six thousand six hundred lashes, and so well laid on that they won’t be got rid of if you try three thousand three hundred times; don’t answer me a word or I’ll tear your soul out.”

On hearing this Merlin said, “That will not do, for the lashes worthy Sancho has to receive must be given of his own free will and not by force, and at whatever time he pleases, for there is no fixed limit assigned to him; but it is permitted him, if he likes to commute by half the pain of this whipping, to let them be given by the hand of another, though it may be somewhat weighty.”