ORLANDO FURIOSO
TO DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA.
SONNET.
If thou art not a Peer, peer thou hast none;[1]
Among a thousand Peers thou art a peer;
Nor is there room for one when thou art near,
Unvanquished victor, great unconquered one!
Orlando, by Angelica undone,
Am I; o'er distant seas condemned to steer.
And to Fame's altars as an offering bear
Valor respected by oblivion.
I can not be thy rival, for thy fame
And prowess rise above all rivalry,
Albeit both bereft of wits we go.
But, though the Scythian or the Moor to tame
Was not thy lot, still thou dost rival me:
Love binds us in a fellowship of woe.
THE KNIGHT OF PHŒBUS[2]
TO DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA.
|
My sword was not to be compared with thine, |
- ↑ The play upon the word "Peer" is justified by Orlando's rank as one of the Twelve Peers. This sonnet is pronounced "truly unintelligble and bad" by Clemencin, and it is, it must be confessed, very feeble and obscure. I have adopted a suggestion of Hartzenbusch's which makes somewhat better sense of the concluding lines, but no emendation can do much. Nor are the remaining sonnets much better; there is some drollery in the dialogue between Babieca and Rocinante, but the sonnets of the Knight of Phœbus and Solisdan are weak. There was no particular call for Cervantes to be funny, but if he thought otherwise it would have been just as well not to leave the fun out.
- ↑ The Knights of Phœbus, or of the Sun—Caballero del Febo, espejo de Principes y Caballeros—a ponderous romance by Diego Ortuñez de Calaborra and Marcos Martinez, in four parts, the first printed at Saragossa in 1562, the others at Alcalá de Henares in 1580.
