Book III.
Don Quixote
113
replied Don Quixote, are perhaps accustomed to bear the like Showers, but mine nursed between † Cottons and Hollands, it is most evident that they must feel the Grief of this Disgrace: And were it not that I imagine (but why do I say I imagine?) I know certainly that all these Incommodities are annex'd to the Exercise of Arms, I would here die for very Wrath and Displeasure. To this the Squire answer'd, Sir, seeing these Disgraces are of the ‡ Essence of Knighthood, I pray you whether they succeed very often, or whether they have certain Times limited wherein they befal: For methinks that within two Adventures more, we shall wholly remain disenabled for the third, if the Gods in mercy do not succour us.
Know, Friend Sancho, reply'd Don Quxiote, that the Life of Knights-Errant is subject to a thousand Dangers and Misfortunes; and it is also as well in the next Degree and Power to make them Kings and Emperors, as Experience hath shown in sundry Knights, of whole Histories I have entire Notice. And I could recount unto thee now (did the Pain I suffer permit me) of some of them which have mounted to such high Degrees which I have said, only by the Valour of their Arm; and the very same Men found them, both before and after, in divers Miseries and Calamities; for the valorous Amadis de Gaule saw himself in the power of his mortal Enemy Arcalaus the Enchanter, of whom the Opinion runs infallible, that he gave unto him, being his Prisoner, more than two hundred Stripes with his Horse-bridle, after he had ty'd him to a Pillar in his base Court And there is moreover a secret Author of no little Credit, who lays, that the Chevalier del Febo being taken in a Gin like unto a Snatch that slipt under his Feet, in a certain Castle, after the Fall, round himself in a deep Dungeon under the Earth bound Hands and Feet; and there they gave unto him a Glyster of Snow-water and Sand which brought him almost to the end| † Sinabafas. | ‡ Cosecha. |
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