DON QUIXOTE

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take it, like a tender young maiden of supreme beauty, to array, bedeck,
and adorn whom is the task of several other maidens, who are all the rest
of the sciences; and she must avail herself of the help of all, and all
derive their lustre from her. But this maiden will not bear to be
handled, nor dragged through the streets, nor exposed either at the
corners of the market-places, or in the closets of palaces. She is the
product of an Alchemy of such virtue that he who is able to practise it,
will turn her into pure gold of inestimable worth. He that possesses her
must keep her within bounds, not permitting her to break out in ribald
satires or soulless sonnets. She must on no account be offered for sale,
unless, indeed, it be in heroic poems, moving tragedies, or sprightly and
ingenious comedies. She must not be touched by the buffoons, nor by the
ignorant vulgar, incapable of comprehending or appreciating her hidden
treasures. And do not suppose, senor, that I apply the term vulgar here
merely to plebeians and the lower orders; for everyone who is ignorant,
be he lord or prince, may and should be included among the vulgar. He,
then, who shall embrace and cultivate poetry under the conditions I have