us plaza; a knight shows to advantage arrayed in glittering
armour, pacing the lists before the ladies in some joyous tournament, and
all those knights show to advantage that entertain, divert, and, if we
may say so, honour the courts of their princes by warlike exercises, or
what resemble them; but to greater advantage than all these does a
knight-errant show when he traverses deserts, solitudes, cross-roads,
forests, and mountains, in quest of perilous adventures, bent on bringing
them to a happy and successful issue, all to win a glorious and lasting
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
bounden duty to attack those lions that I just now attacked, although I
knew it to be the height of rashness; for I know well what valour is,
that it is a virtue that occupies a place between two vicious extremes,
cowardice and temerity; but it will be a lesser evil for him who is
valiant to rise till he reaches the point of rashness, than to sink until
he reaches the point of cowardice; for, as it is easier for the prodigal
than for the miser to become generous, so it is easier for a rash man to
prove truly valiant than for a coward to rise to true valour; and believe
me, Senor Don Diego, in attempting adventures it is better to lose by a
card too many than by a card too few; for to