lady Dulcinea to the ground;
seeing which, Don Quixote ran to raise her up, and Sancho to fix and
girth the pack-saddle, which also had slipped under the ass's belly. The
pack-saddle being secured, as Don Quixote was about to lift up his
enchanted mistress in his arms and put her upon her beast, the lady,
getting up from the ground, saved him the trouble, for, going back a
little, she took a short run, and putting both hands on the croup of the
ass she dropped into the saddle more lightly than a falcon, and sat
astride like a man, whereat Sancho said, "Rogue! but our lady is lighter
than a lanner, and might teach the cleverest Cordovan or Mexican how to
mount; she cleared the back of the saddle in one jump, and without spurs
she is making the hackney go like a zebra; and her damsels are no way
behind her, for they all fly like the wind;" which was the truth, for as
soon as they saw Dulcinea mounted, they pushed on after her, and sped
away without looking back, for more than half a league.

Don Quixote followed them with his eyes, and when they were no longer in
sight, he turned to Sancho and said, "How now, Sancho? thou seest how I
am hated by enchanters! And see to what a length the malice and spite
they bear me go, when they seek to deprive me of the happiness it would
give me to see my lady in her own proper form. The fact is I was born to
be an example of misfortune, and the target and mark at which the arrows
of adversity are aimed and directed. Observe too, Sancho, that these
traitors were not content with changing and transforming my Dulcinea, but
they transformed and changed her into a shape as mean and ill-favoured as
that of the village girl yonder; and at the same time they robbed her of
that which is such a peculiar property of ladies of distinction, that is
to say, the sweet fragrance that comes of being always among perfumes and
flowers. For I must tell thee, Sancho, that when I approached to put
Dulcinea upon her hackney (as thou sayest it was, though to me it
appeared a she-ass), she gave me a whiff of raw garlic that made my head
reel, and poisoned my very heart."

"O scum of the earth!" cried Sancho at this, "O miserable, spiteful
enchanters! O that I could see you all strung by the gills, like sardines
on a twig! Ye know a great deal, ye can do a great deal, and ye do a
great deal more. It ought to have been enough for you, ye scoundrels, to
have changed the pearls of my lady's eyes into oak galls, a