Page:The History of the Valorous and Wity Knight-Errant, Don-Quixote of the Mancha. Volume three.djvu/37

tain, and from thence tramples over a barren and desert shore of the sea, most commonly stormy and unquiet; and finding at the brink of it some little cock-boat, without oars, sail, mast, or any kind of tackling, casts himself into it with undaunted courage, yields himself to the implacable waves of the deep main, that now toss him as high as heaven and then cast him as low as hell; and he, exposed to the inevitable tempest, when he least dreams of it, finds himself at least three thousand leagues distant from the place where he embarked himself, and leaping on a remote and unknown shore, lights upon successes worthy to be written in brass and not parchment. But now sloth triumphs upon industry, idleness on labour, vice on virtue, presumption on valour, the theory on the practice of arms, which only lived and shined in those golden ages and in those knights-errant. If not, tell me who was more virtuous, more valiant than the renowned Amadis de Gaul; more discreet than Palmerin of England; more affable and free than Tirante the White; more gallant than Lisuart of Greece; a greater hackster or more hacked than Don Belianis; more undaunted than Perian of Gaul; who a greater undertaker of dangers than Felismarte of Hircania; who more sincere than Esplandian; who more courteous than Don Cierongilio of Thracia; who more fierce than Rodomant; who wiser than King Sobrinus; who more courageous than Eenaldo; who more invincible than Roldan; who more comely or more courteous than Bogero, from whom the Dukes of Ferrara at this day are descended, according to Turpin in his Cosmography? All these knights, and many more, master vicar, that I could tell you, were knights-errant, the very light and glory of knighthood. These, or such as these, are they I wish for; which if it could be, his