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As led thee gentle Quixote to dismiss! |
GANDALIN, SQUIRE OF AMADIS OF GAUL,
TO SANCHO PANZA, SQUIRE OF DON QUIXOTE.
SONNET.
All hail, illustrious man! Fortune, when she
Bound thee apprentice to the esquire trade,
Her care and tenderness of thee displayed,
Shaping thy course from misadventure free.
No longer now doth proud knight-errantry
Regard with scorn the sickle and the spade;
Of towering arrogance less count is made
Than of plain esquire-like simplicity.
I envy thee thy Dapple, and thy name.
And those alforjas thou wast wont to stuff
With comforts that thy providence proclaim,
Excellent Sancho! hail to thee again!
To thee alone the Ovid of our Spain
Does homage with the rustic kiss and cuff.[1]
FROM EL DONOSO, THE MOTLEY POET,[2]
ON SANCHO PANZA AND ROCINANTE.
ON SANCHO.
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I am the esquire Sancho Pan— |
- ↑ "Rustic kiss and cuff"—buzcorona—a boorish practical joke the point of which lay in inducing some simpleton to kiss the joker's hand, which as he stoops gives him a cuff on the cheek. The application here is not very obvious, for it is the person who does homage who receives the buzcorona. It is not clear who is meant by the Spanish Ovid; some say Cervantes himself; others, as Hartzenbusch, Lope de Vega.
- ↑ "Motley poet"—Poeta entreverado. Entreverado is properly "mixed fat and lean," as bacon should be. Commentators have been at some
