XXXV

of time. Of magic prince, of Zoroastric lore Monarch and treasurer, with jealous eye I view the efforts of the age to hide The gallant deeds of doughty errant knights, Who are, and ever have been, dear to me. Enchanters and magicians and their kind Are mostly hard of heart; not so am I; For mine is tender, soft, compassionate, And its delight is doing good to all. In the dim caverns of the gloomy Dis, Where, tracing mystic lines and characters, My soul abideth now, there came to me The sorrow-laden plaint of her, the fair, The peerless Dulcinea del Toboso. I knew of her enchantment and her fate, From highborn dame to peasant wench transformed And touched with pity, first I turned the leaves Of countless volumes of my devilish craft, And then, in this grim grisly skeleton Myself encasing, hither have I come To show where lies the fitting remedy To give relief in such a piteous case. O thou, the pride and pink of all that wear The adamantine steel! O shining light, O beacon, polestar, path and guide of all Who, scorning slumber and the lazy down, Adopt the toilsome life of bloodstained arms! To thee, great hero who all praise transcends, La Mancha’s lustre and Iberia’s star, Don Quixote, wise as brave, to thee I say⁠— For peerless Dulcinea del Toboso Her pristine form and beauty to regain, ’Tis needful that thy esquire Sancho shall, On his own sturdy buttocks bared to heaven, Three thousand and three hundred lashes lay, And that they smart and sting and hurt him well. Thus have the authors of her woe resolved. And this is, gentles, wherefore I have come.