of the peerless Dulcinea, the
burden being one worthy of other shoulders than mine, an enterprise
wherein the pencils of Parrhasius, Timantes, and Apelles, and the graver
of Lysippus ought to be employed, to paint it in pictures and carve it in
marble and bronze, and Ciceronian and Demosthenian eloquence to sound its
praises?"

"What does Demosthenian mean, Senor Don Quixote?" said the duchess; "it
is a word I never heard in all my life."

"Demosthenian eloquence," said Don Quixote, "means the eloquence of
Demosthenes, as Ciceronian means that of Cicero, who were the two most
eloquent orators in the world."

"True," said the duke; "you must have lost your wits to ask such a
question. Nevertheless, Senor Don Quixote would greatly gratify us if he
would depict her to us; for never fear, even in an outline or sketch she
will be something to make the fairest envious."

"I would do so certainly," said Don Quixote, "had she not been blurred to
my mind's eye by the misfortune that fell upon her a short time since,
one of such a nature that I am more ready to weep over it than to
describe it. For your highnesses must know that, going a few days back to
kiss her hands and receive her benediction, approbation, and permission
for this third sally, I found her altogether a different being from the
one I sought; I found her enchanted and changed from a princess into a
peasant, from fair to foul, from an angel into a devil, from fragrant to
pestiferous, from refined to clownish, from a dignified lady into a
jumping tomboy, and, in a word, from Dulcinea del Toboso into a coarse
Sayago wench."

"God bless me!" said the duke aloud at this, "who can have done the world
such an injury? Who can have robbed it of the beauty that gladdened it,
of the grace and gaiety that charmed it, of the modesty that shed a
lustre upon it?"

"Who?" replied Don Quixote; "who could it be but some malignant enchanter
of the many that persecute me out of envy--that accursed race born into
the world to obscure and bring to naught the achievements of the good,
and glorify and exalt the deeds of the wicked? Enchanters have persecuted
me, enchanters persecute me still, and enchanters will continue to
persecute me until they have sunk me and my lofty chivalry in the deep
abyss of oblivion; and they injure and wound me where they know I feel it
most. For to deprive a knight-errant of his lady is to deprive him of the
eyes he sees with, of the sun that gives