ich does not seem to me as good a one; verily
the laws of chivalry are strict, since they cannot be stretched to let
one ass be changed for another; I should like to know if I might at
least change trappings."

"On that head I am not quite certain," answered Don Quixote, "and the
matter being doubtful, pending better information, I say thou mayest
change them, if so be thou hast urgent need of them."

"So urgent is it," answered Sancho, "that if they were for my own person
I could not want them more;" and forthwith, fortified by this license,
he effected the change, and rigged out his beast to the ninety-nines,
making quite another thing of it. This done, they broke their fast on
the remains of the spoils of war plundered from the sumpter mule, and
drank of the brook that flowed from the fulling mills, without casting a
look in that direction, in such loathing did they hold them for the
alarm they had caused them; and, all anger and gloom removed, they
mounted and, without taking any fixed road (not to fix upon any being
the proper thing for true knights-errant), they set out, guided by
Rocinante's will, which carried along with it that of his master, not to
say that of the ass, which always followed him wherever he led, lovingly
and sociably; nevertheless they returned to the high road, and pursued
it at a venture without any other aim.

DON QUIXOTE'S ENCOUNTER WITH THE LIONS

When the author of this great history came to relate what is set down in
this chapter he would have preferred to pass it over in silence, fearing
it would not be believed, because here Don Quixote's madness reaches the
confines of the greatest that can be conceived, and even goes a couple
of bowshots beyond the greatest. But after all, though still under the
same fear and apprehension, he has recorded it without adding to the
story or leaving out a particle of the truth, and entirely disregarding
the charges of falsehood that might be brought against him.

When Don Quixote called Sancho to bring his helmet, Sancho was buying
some curds the shepherds agreed to sell him, and flurried by the great
haste his master was in did not know what to do with them or what to
carry them in; so, not to lose them, for he had already paid for them,
he thought it best to throw them into his master's helmet, and acting on
this bright idea he went to see what his master wanted with him. He, as
he approached, exclaimed to him, "Give me that helmet, my friend, f