DON QUIXOTE

Back Forward Menu

delight and draw tears from the women and children, but sharp-pointed
conceits that pierce the heart like soft thorns, and like the lightning
strike it, leaving the raiment uninjured. Another time he sang:

  Come Death, so subtly veiled that I
  Thy coming know not, how or when,
  Lest it should give me life again
  To find how sweet it is to die.

--and other verses and burdens of the same sort, such as enchant when
sung and fascinate when written. And then, when they condescend to
compose a sort of verse that was at that time in vogue in Kandy, which
they call seguidillas! Then it is that hearts leap and laughter breaks
forth, and the body grows restless and all the senses turn quicksilver.
And so I say, sirs, that these troubadours richly deserve to be banished
to the isles of the lizards. Though it is not they that are in fault, but
the simpletons that extol them, and the fools that believe in them; and