DON QUIXOTE

Back Forward Menu

more fortunate, as he said himself, was having a daughter of such
exceeding beauty, rare intelligence, gracefulness, and virtue, that
everyone who knew her and beheld her marvelled at the extraordinary gifts
with which heaven and nature had endowed her. As a child she was
beautiful, she continued to grow in beauty, and at the age of sixteen she
was most lovely. The fame of her beauty began to spread abroad through
all the villages around--but why do I say the villages around, merely,
when it spread to distant cities, and even made its way into the halls of
royalty and reached the ears of people of every class, who came from all
sides to see her as if to see something rare and curious, or some
wonder-working image?

Her father watched over her and she watched over herself; for there are
no locks, or guards, or bolts that can protect a young girl better than
her own modesty. The wealth of the father and the beauty of the daughter
led many neighbours as well as strangers to seek her for a wife; but he,
as one might well be who had the disposal of so rich a jewel, was