"That is true," said the curate, and yielding to the enjoyment of hearing

such nonsense, he asked him what was his notion of the features of

Reinaldos of Montalban, and Don Roland and the rest of the Twelve Peers

of France, for they were all knights-errant.

"As for Reinaldos," replied Don Quixote, "I venture to say that he was

broad-faced, of ruddy complexion, with roguish and somewhat prominent

eyes, excessively punctilious and touchy, and given to the society of

thieves and scapegraces. With regard to Roland, or Rotolando, or Orlando

(for the histories call him by all these names), I am of opinion, and

hold, that he was of middle height, broad-shouldered, rather bow-legged,

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swarthy-complexioned, red-bearded, with a hairy body and a severe

expression of countenance, a man of few words, but very polite and

well-bred."

"If Roland was not a more graceful person than your worship has

described," said the curate, "it is no wonder that the fair Lady Angelica

rejected him and left him for the gaiety, liveliness, and grace of that

budding-bearded little Moor to whom she surrendered herself; and she

showed her sense in falling in love with the gentle softness of Medoro

rather than the roughness of Roland."

"That Angelica, senor curate," returned Don Quixote, "was a giddy damsel,

flighty and somewhat wanton, and she left the world as full of her

vagaries as of the fame of her beauty. She treated with scorn a thousand

gentlemen, men of valour and wisdom, and took up with a smooth-faced

sprig of a page, without fortune or fame, except such reputation for

gratitude as the affection he bore his friend got for him. The great poet

who sang her beauty, the famous Ariosto, not caring to sing her

adventures after her contemptible surrender (which probably were not over

and above creditable), dropped her where he says:

How she received the sceptre of Cathay,

Some bard of defter quill may sing some day;

and this was no doubt a kind of prophecy, for poets are also called

vates, that is to say diviners; and its truth was made plain; for since

then a famous Andalusian poet has lamented and sung her tears, and

another famous and rare poet, a Castilian, has sung her beauty."

"Tell me, Senor Don Quixote," said the barber here, "among all those who

praised her, has there been no poet to write a satire on this Lady

Angelica?"

"I can well believe," replied Don Quixote, "that if Sacripante or Roland

had been poets they would have given the damsel a trimming; for it is

naturally the way with poets who have been scorned and rejected by their

ladies, whether fictitious or not, in short by those whom they select as

the ladies of their thoughts, to avenge themselves in satires and

libels--a vengeance, to be sure, unworthy of generous hearts; but up to

the present I have not heard of any defamatory verse against the Lady

Angelica, who turned the world upside down."




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