38 Antonio's love song; &c. 



parted. The last beams of the western sun lights the pallid brow 

 of the Knight of the Sorrowful Figure as he seizes his helmet, and, 

 mounting Rozinante, leaves the place of wine-skins and flesh-pots, 

 love-song and reveries. 



" Sancho," said Don Quixote, checking the eagerness of Rozi- 

 nante that he might the better discourse with his squire — " Sancho, 

 dost thou believe in dreams — waking dreams ?" " I know not,'* 

 replied Sancho, " what your worship means by waking dreams, but 

 if I do not believe in dreams I am no knight's squire ; and would 

 you, sir, but give me your ear — '' " Give thee my ear, Sancho ! 

 that were an ungenerous gift, since that uncourtly knight whom I 

 defeated has already deprived me of one.'* " I mean, sir," quoth 

 Sancho, " your attention ; I would tell you, sir, a dream of mine 

 when I was by the side of Mary Gautierez, my wife, that was as true 

 as she herself can testify, and swear to. I went to bed — ** " Never 

 mind that, Sancho," said Don Quixote, " the dream." " Well, then, 

 your goodness, I dreamed Mary Gautierez, my wife, was beating 

 me, and, waking in a fright, found it was but too true, for she was 

 thrashing me for a fault no thrashing could cure me of." " Enough, 

 Sancho," said the knight — *^ It was enough, indeed, sir, and I wish 

 every dream of mine may prove as true, and I shall soon light upon 

 another company of goatherds, flesh-pots, and wine-skins, all of 

 which I dreamed of when your worship woke me for sleeping on 

 your worship's shoulder." " Sancho," said Don Quixote, rather 

 sorrowfully, " I have been in the enchanted castle of Pintiquinies- 

 tra, and have saved the peerless Dulcinea from the power of her 

 enemies." Sancho opened his mouth as if about to laugh, but see- 

 ing the melancholy face of his master, he restrained himself, and 

 asked where the beauteous Dulcinea had been left. " That's a 

 thing," replied the knight, " I cannot well inform thee of, inas- 

 much as I do not know myself." " Master of mine," said Sancho, 

 if this is not a waking dream I don't know what is; for nobody in* 

 their senses could have so mad a sleeping dream." " I am inclined 

 to suspect so myself, Sancho, but I do not the less believe that it is 

 a prophetic vision which is allowed to prepare me for the dangers 

 which lie before us." " Say, rather, before you, sir," quoth Sancho, 

 " for if dreams of sorcerers and dead men's bones are to come to pass, 

 I would rather be drubbed by my ' crooked rib,' Mary Gautierez, all 

 my life through ; but if dreams with your worship are ever to come 

 true, I beseech you. Sir, to dream of nothing but flesh-pots and 

 wine-skins." " Sancho, thou art an incorrigible feeder." " Any 

 thing, as it may be," muttered Sancho, " but meat for magicians," 

 and so they rode on. 



