ds overtook us, even to the fourth generation. But what
have the Panzas to do with the Quixotes? Well, well, let's lie down again
and sleep out what little of the night there's left, and God will send us
dawn and we shall be all right."
"Sleep thou, Sancho," returned Don Quixote, "for thou wast born to sleep
as I was born to watch; and during the time it now wants of dawn I will
give a loose rein to my thoughts, and seek a vent for them in a little
madrigal which, unknown to thee, I composed in my head last night."
"I should think," said Sancho, "that the thoughts that allow one to make
verses cannot be of great consequence; let your worship string verses as
much as you like and I'll sleep as much as I can;" and forthwith, taking
the space of ground he required, he muffled himself up and fell into a
sound sleep, undisturbed by bond, debt, or trouble of any sort. Don
Quixote, propped up against the trunk of a beech or a cork tree--for Cide
Hamete does not specify what kind of tree it was--sang in this strain to
the accompaniment of his own sighs:
When in my mind
I muse, O Love, upon thy cruelty,
To death I flee,
In hope therein the end of all to find.
But drawing near
That welcome haven in my sea of woe,
Such joy I know,
That life revives, and still I linger here.
Thus life doth slay,
And death again to life restoreth me;
Strange destiny,
That deals with life and death as with a play!
He accompanied each verse with many sighs and not a few tears, just like
one whose heart was pierced with grief at his defeat and his separation
from Dulcinea.
And now daylight came, and the sun smote Sancho on the eyes with his
beams. He awoke, roused himself up, shook himself and stretched his lazy
limbs, and seeing the havoc the pigs had made with his stores he cursed
the drove, and more besides. Then the pair resumed their journey, and as
evening closed in they saw coming towards them some ten men on horseback
and four or five on foot. Don Quixote's heart beat quick and Sancho's
quailed with fear, for the persons approaching them carried lances and
bucklers, and were in very warlike guise. Don Quixote turned to Sancho
and said, "If I could make use of my weapons, and my promise had not tied
my hands, I would count this host that comes against us but cakes and
fancy bread; but perhaps it may prove something different from what we
apprehend." The men on horseback now came up, and raising their lances
surrou
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