IN WHICH IS CONCLUDED AND FINISHED THE TERRIFIC BATTLE BETWEEN THE
GALLANT BISCAYAN AND THE VALIANT MANCHEGAN
In the First Part of this history we left the valiant
Biscayan and the renowned Don Quixote with drawn swords
uplifted, ready to deliver two such furious slashing
blows that if they had fallen full and fair they would
at least have split and cleft them asunder from top
to toe and laid them open like a pomegranate; and
at this so critical point the delightful history came
to a stop and stood cut short without any intimation
from the author where what was missing was to be found.
This distressed me greatly, because the pleasure derived
from having read such a small portion turned to vexation
at the thought of the poor chance that presented itself
of finding the large part that, so it seemed to me,
was missing of such an interesting tale. It appeared
to me to be a thing impossible and contrary to all
precedent that so good a knight should have been without
some sage to undertake the task of writing his marvellous
achievements; a thing that was never wanting to any
of those knights-errant who, they say, went after
adventures; for every one of them had one or two sages
as if made on purpose, who not only recorded their
deeds but described their most trifling thoughts and
follies, however secret they might be; and such a
good knight could not have been so unfortunate as
not to have what Platir and others like him had in
abundance. And so I could not bring myself to
believe that such a gallant tale had been left maimed
and mutilated, and I laid the blame on Time, the devourer
and destroyer of all things, that had either concealed
or consumed it.
On the other hand, it struck me that, inasmuch as
among his books there had been found such modern ones
as “The Enlightenment of Jealousy” and
the “Nymphs and Shepherds of Henares,”
his story must likewise be modern, and that though
it might not be written, it might exist in the memory
of the people of his village and of those in the neighbourhood.
This reflection kept me perplexed and longing to know
really and truly the whole life and wondrous deeds
of our famous Spaniard, Don Quixote of La Mancha,
light and mirror of Manchegan chivalry, and the first
that in our age and in these so evil days devoted
himself to the labour and exercise of the arms of
knight-errantry, righting wrongs, succouring widows,
and protecting damsels of that sort that used to ride
about, whip in hand, on their palfreys, with all their
virginity about them, from mountain to mountain and
valley to valley—for, if it were not for
some ruffian, or boor with a hood and hatchet, or
monstrous giant, that forced them, there were in days
of yore damsels that at the end of eighty years, in
all which time they had never slept a day under a
roof, went to their graves as much maids as the mothers
that bore them. I say, then, that in these and
