mean hath never yet
Been charged by any in reproach to you.
Your deeds are open proof in all men's view;
For you went forth injustice to abate,
And for your pains sore drubbings did you get
From many a rascally and ruffian crew.
If the fair Dulcinea, your heart's queen,
Be unrelenting in her cruelty,
If still your woe be powerless to move her,
In such hard case your comfort let it be
That Sancho was a sorry go-between:
A booby he, hard-hearted she, and you no lover.

DIALOGUE
Between Babieca and Rocinante

SONNET

B. "How comes it, Rocinante, you're so lean?"
R. "I'm underfed, with overwork I'm worn."
B. "But what becomes of all the hay and corn?"
R. "My master gives me none; he's much too mean."
B. "Come, come, you show ill-breeding, sir, I ween;
'T is like an ass your master thus to scorn."
R. He is an ass, will die an ass, an ass was born;
Why, he's in love; what's what's plainer to be seen?"
B. "To be in love is folly?"--R. "No great sense."
B. "You're metaphysical."--R. "From want of food."
B. "Rail at the squire, then."--R. "Why, what's the good?
I might indeed complain of him, I grant ye,
But, squire or master, where's the difference?
They're both as sorry hacks as Rocinante."

THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Idle reader: thou mayest believe me without any oath that I would this
book, as it is the child of my brain, were the fairest, gayest, and
cleverest that could be imagined. But I could not counteract Nature's law
that everything shall beget its like; and what, then, could this sterile,
illtilled wit of mine beget but the story of a dry, shrivelled, whimsical
offspring, full of thoughts of all sorts and such as never came into any
other imagination--just what might be begotten in a prison, where every
misery is lodged and every doleful sound makes its dwelling?
Tranquillity, a cheerful retreat, pleasant fields, bright skies,
murmuring brooks, peace of mind, these are the things that go far to make
even the most barren muses fertile, and bring into the world births that
fill it with wonder and delight. Sometimes when a father has an ugly,
loutish son, the love he bears him so blindfolds his eyes that he does
not see his defects, or, rather, takes them for gifts and charms of mind
and body, and talks of them to his friends as wit and grace. I,
however--for though I pass for the father, I am but the stepfather to
"Don Quixote"--have no desire to go with