DON QUIXOTE

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the world, but we soldiers and knights carry into effect what they pray
for, defending it with the might of our arms and the edge of our swords,
not under shelter but in the open air, a target for the intolerable rays
of the sun in summer and the piercing frosts of winter. Thus are we God's
ministers on earth and the arms by which his justice is done therein. And
as the business of war and all that relates and belongs to it cannot be
conducted without exceeding great sweat, toil, and exertion, it follows
that those who make it their profession have undoubtedly more labour than
those who in tranquil peace and quiet are engaged in praying to God to
help the weak. I do not mean to say, nor does it enter into my thoughts,
that the knight-errant's calling is as good as that of the monk in his
cell; I would merely infer from what I endure myself that it is beyond a
doubt a more laborious and a more belaboured one, a hungrier and
thirstier, a wretcheder, raggeder, and lousier; for there is no reason to
doubt that the knights-errant of yore endured much hardship in the course
of their lives. And if some of them by the might of their arms did rise
to be emperors, in faith it cost them dear in the matter of blood and