Seville is committing to-day in releasing you
from this house, and treating you as if you were in your senses, I shall
have to inflict such a punishment on it as will be remembered for ages
and ages, amen. Dost thou not know, thou miserable little licentiate,
that I can do it, being, as I say, Jupiter the Thunderer, who hold in my
hands the fiery bolts with which I am able and am wont to threaten and
lay waste the world? But in one way only will I punish this ignorant
town, and that is by not raining upon it, nor on any part of its district
or territory, for three whole years, to be reckoned from the day and
moment when this threat is pronounced. Thou free, thou cured, thou in thy
senses! and I mad, I disordered, I bound! I will as soon think of sending
rain as of hanging myself.

"Those present stood listening to the words and exclamations of the
madman; but our licentiate, turning to the chaplain and seizing him by
the hands, said to him, 'Be not uneasy, senor; attach no importance to
what this madman has said; for if he is Jupiter and will not send rain,
I, who am Neptune, the father and god of the waters, will rain as often
as it pleases me and may be needful.'

"The governor and the bystanders laughed, and at their laughter the
chaplain was half ashamed, and he replied, 'For all that, Senor Neptune,
it will not do to vex Senor Jupiter; remain where you are, and some other
day, when there is a better opportunity and more time, we will come back
for you.' So they stripped the licentiate, and he was left where he was;
and that's the end of the story."

"So that's the story, master barber," said Don Quixote, "which came in so
pat to the purpose that you could not help telling it? Master shaver,
master shaver! how blind is he who cannot see through a sieve. Is it
possible that you do not know that comparisons of wit with wit, valour
with valour, beauty with beauty, birth with birth, are always odious and
unwelcome? I, master barber, am not Neptune, the god of the waters, nor
do I try to make anyone take me for an astute man, for I am not one. My
only endeavour is to convince the world of the mistake it makes in not
reviving in itself the happy time when the order of knight-errantry was
in the field. But our depraved age does not deserve to enjoy such a
blessing as those ages enjoyed when knights-errant took upon their
shoulders the defence of kingdoms, the protection of damsels, the succour
of orphans and minors, the