DON QUIXOTE

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renown. To greater advantage, I maintain, does the knight-errant show
bringing aid to some widow in some lonely waste, than the court knight
dallying with some city damsel. All knights have their own special parts
to play; let the courtier devote himself to the ladies, let him add
lustre to his sovereign's court by his liveries, let him entertain poor
gentlemen with the sumptuous fare of his table, let him arrange
joustings, marshal tournaments, and prove himself noble, generous, and
magnificent, and above all a good Christian, and so doing he will fulfil
the duties that are especially his; but let the knight-errant explore the
corners of the earth and penetrate the most intricate labyrinths, at each
step let him attempt impossibilities, on desolate heaths let him endure
the burning rays of the midsummer sun, and the bitter inclemency of the
winter winds and frosts; let no lions daunt him, no monsters terrify him,
no dragons make him quail; for to seek these, to attack those, and to
vanquish all, are in truth his main duties. I, then, as it has fallen to
my lot to be a member of knight-errantry, cannot avoid attempting all
that to me seems to come within the sphere of my duties; thus it was my