DON QUIXOTE

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women consists in reputation; and since thy wife's is of that high
excellence that thou knowest, wherefore shouldst thou seek to call that
truth in question? Remember, my friend, that woman is an imperfect
animal, and that impediments are not to be placed in her way to make her
trip and fall, but that they should be removed, and her path left clear
of all obstacles, so that without hindrance she may run her course freely
to attain the desired perfection, which consists in being virtuous.
Naturalists tell us that the ermine is a little animal which has a fur of
purest white, and that when the hunters wish to take it, they make use of
this artifice. Having ascertained the places which it frequents and
passes, they stop the way to them with mud, and then rousing it, drive it
towards the spot, and as soon as the ermine comes to the mud it halts,
and allows itself to be taken captive rather than pass through the mire,
and spoil and sully its whiteness, which it values more than life and
liberty. The virtuous and chaste woman is an ermine, and whiter and purer
than snow is the virtue of modesty; and he who wishes her not to lose it,
but to keep and preserve it, must adopt a course different from that