OK, DON QUIXOTE'S REVERIE. 35 



reverie of the golden age, Antonio's song was to the following 

 waking dream ; for the knight was so singular in his character that 

 he lived rather in his own thoughts than by outward observation, 

 and, by a strange deceptio visits, saw everything as he wished 

 everything to be. The rough tones of Antonio's voice were soft- 

 ened by the bell-like tinkle of the rebeck: what he wanted in 

 knowledge he made up by the plain tiveness of his manner. The 

 knight composes himself to listen ; he places his broken helmet on 

 the grass ; his long, scanty, and slightly-grizzled hair, parted in the 

 middle, falls on each side his high intellectual brow. The upper 

 part of his face bespeaks a character of almost feminine benevolence, 

 but the slight curl of his moustachioed lip shews an heroical con- 

 tempt of danger. His features are lighted by his imaginations of 

 knights and ladies fair, of joust and tournament, of all the bright 

 heraldry of honour. The knight attends — Antonio sings of love : 

 the good knight thinks of his ladie — ^lie wanders in the green 

 arcades of Toboso — ^he hears every note, but Antonio and his 

 rebeck are forgotten — the goatherds are forgotten — Sancho is 

 dead: Don Quixote sees only the peerless Dulcinea. He at 

 once grows young and handsome as Chilates — ^he springs from 

 the back of Rozinante, a more noble animal than Cyd's Ba~ 

 bieca — ^he kneels at the feet of the peerless Dulcinea — she smiles 

 upon him — she binds his arm with a bracelet of her own golden 

 hair — ^he gazes on her with the fascination of a lover, the devotion 

 of a worshipper, and the purity of a knight — heavenly emanation, 

 '^the high heavens that with your divinity divinely fortify you 

 with the stars ;'* but ere he could proceed he is struck to the 

 ground by an invisible power — Urganda, the sorcerer, seizes on the 

 peerless Dulcinea and bears her away — her cries die away like the 

 breath of the evening breeze — in vain he laments her loss, in vain 

 he calls on the delight of his soul. He springs upon his steed — the 

 last beams of the sun glitter on his armour as he passes into the in- 

 extricable mazes of a wood. He wanders on, with no other sup- 

 port than what his own thoughts afford him, and is saved from de- 

 spair only by the sight of the bracelet of his Dulcinea. 



The knight revives as if touched by a charm ; he braves the 

 desert, and defies the storm that beats around him. Thus he pursues 

 his devious and uncertain course, and, after overcoming innumera- 

 ble dangers, approaches the castle of the dreadful sorceress Pinti- 

 quiniestra. The Don kisses his bracelet : as he passes the black 

 towers of the castle not a sound is heard, not an object appears. 

 At length he meets with a little old woman, whose hobbling legs 



