The history of the famous Princess Micomicona continued; with other pleasant adventures.

The joy of the whole company was unspeakable by the happy conclusion of this perplexed business. Dorothea, Cardenio, and Lucinda thought the sudden change of their affairs too surprising to be real; and could hardly be induced to believe their happiness. Fernando thanked Heaven a thousand times for having led him out of a labyrinth, in which his honour and virtue were like to have been lost. The curate, as he was very instrumental in the general reconciliation, had likewise no small share in the general joy; and that no discontent might sour their universal satisfaction, Cardenio and the curate engaged to see the hostess satisfied for all the damages committed by Don Quixote; only poor Sancho drooped sadly. He found his lordship and his hopes vanished into smoke; the Princess Micomicona was changed to Dorothea, and the giant to Don Fernando. Thus, very musty and melancholy, he slipt into his master's chamber, who had slept on, and was just wakened, little thinking of what had happened.

"I hope your early rising will do you no hurt," said he, "Sir Knight of the Sorrowful Figure; but you may now sleep on till doom's-day if you will; nor need you trouble your head any longer about killing any giant, or restoring the princess; for all that is done to your hand." "That is more than probable," answered the knight; "for I have had the most extraordinary, the most prodigious and bloody battle with the giant that I ever had, or shall have, during the whole course of my life. Yet with one cross stroke I laid his head on the ground, whence the great effusion of blood seemed like a violent stream of water." "Of wine, you mean," said Sancho; "for you must know (if you know it not already), that your worship's dead giant is a broached wine-skin; and the blood some thirty gallons of tent which it held in its body." "What sayest thou, madman?" said the Don; "thou art frantic, sure." "Rise, rise, sir," said Sancho, "and see what fine work you have cut out for yourself; here is your great queen changed into a private gentlewoman, called Dorothea, with some other such odd matters, that you will wonder with a vengeance." "I can wonder at nothing here," said Don Quixote, "where you may remember I told you all things were ruled by enchantment." "I believe it," quoth Sancho, "had my adventure with the blanket been of that kind; but sure it was likest the real tossing in a blanket of anything I ever knew in my life. And this same innkeeper, I remember very well, was one of those that tossed me into the air, and as cleverly and heartily he did it as a man could wish, I will say that for him; so that, after all, I begin to smell a rat, and do greatly suspect that all our enchantment will end in nothing but bruises and broken bones." "Heaven will retrieve all," said the knight; "I will therefore dress, and march to the discovery of these wonderful transformations."

Meanwhile the curate gave Don Fernando and the rest an account of Don Quixote's madness, and of the device he used to draw him from the desert, to which the supposed disdain of his mistress had banished him in imagination. Sancho's adventures made also a part in the story, which proved very diverting to the strangers. He added, that since Dorothea's change of fortune had baulked their design that way, some other scheme should be devised to decoy him home. Cardenio offered his service in the affair, and that Lucinda should personate Dorothea. "No, no," answered Don Fernando; "Dorothea shall humour the jest still, if this honest gentleman's habitation be not very far off." "Only two days' journey," said the curate. "I would ride twice as far," said Don Fernando, "for the pleasure of so good and charitable an action." By this time Don Quixote had sallied out armed cap-a-pie, Mambrino's helmet (with a great hole in it), on his head; his shield on his left arm, and with his right he leaned on his lance. His meagre, yellow, weather-beaten face of half a league in length; the unaccountable medley of his armour, together with his grave and solemn port, struck Don Fernando and his companions dumb with astonishment; while the champion, casting his eyes on Dorothea, with great gravity broke silence with these words:

"I am informed by this my squire, beautiful lady, that your greatness is annihilated, and your majesty reduced to nothing; for of a queen and mighty princess, as you used to be, you are become a private damsel. If any express order from the necromantic king your father, doubting the ability and success of my arm in the reinstating you, has occasioned this change, I must tell him that he is no conjuror in these matters, and does not know one half of his trade; nor is he skilled in the revolutions of chivalry; for had he been conversant in the study of knight-errantry as I have been, he might have found that in every age champions of less fame than Don Quixote de la Mancha have finished more desperate adventures; since the killing of a pitiful giant, how arrogant soever he may be, is no such great achievement; for not many hours past I encountered one myself; the success I will not mention, lest the incredulity of some people might distrust the reality; but time, the discoverer of all things, will disclose it when least expected. To conclude, most high and disinherited lady, if your father, for the reasons already mentioned, has caused this metamorphosis in your person, believe him not; for there is no peril on earth through which my sword shall not open a way; and assure yourself that in a few days, by the overthrow of your enemy's head, it shall fix on yours that crown which is your lawful inheritance." Here Don Quixote stopped, waiting the princess's answer; she, assured of Don Fernando's consent to carry on the jest till Don Quixote was got home, and assuming a face of gravity, answered, "Whosoever has informed you, valorous Knight of the Sorrowful Figure, that I have altered or changed my condition, has imposed upon you; for I am just the same to-day as yesterday. It is true some unexpected but fortunate accidents have varied some circumstances of my fortune, much to my advantage, and far beyond my hopes; but I am neither changed in my person, nor altered in my resolution of employing the force of your redoubtable and invincible arm in my favour. I therefore apply myself to your usual generosity, to have these words spoken to my father's dishonour recalled, and believe these easy and infallible means to redress my wrongs the pure effects of his wisdom and policy, as the good fortune I now enjoy has been the consequence of your surprising deeds, as this noble presence can testify. What should hinder us, then, from setting forward to-morrow morning, depending for a happy and successful conclusion on the will of Heaven, and the power of your unparalleled courage?"

The ingenious Dorothea having concluded, Don Quixote turning to Sancho with all the signs of fury imaginable, "Tell me, rogue, scoundrel, did not you just now inform me that this princess was changed into a little private damsel, called Dorothea, with a thousand other absurdities? I vow I have a mind so to use thee, as to make thee appear a miserable example to all succeeding squires that shall dare to tell a knight-errant a lie." "Good your worship," cried Sancho, "have patience, I beseech you; mayhap I am mistaken or so, about my lady Princess Micomicona's concern there; but that the giant's head came off the wine-skin's shoulders, and that the blood was as good tent as ever was tipt over tongue, I will take my oath on it; for are not the skins all hacked and slashed within there at your bed's-head, and the wine all in a puddle in your chamber? But you will guess at the meat presently by the sauce; the proof of the pudding is in the eating, master; and if my landlord here do not let you know it to your cost, he is a very honest and civil fellow, that is all." "Sancho," said the Don, "I pronounce thee non compos; I therefore pardon thee, and have done." "It is enough," said Don Fernando; "we, therefore, in pursuance of the princess's orders, will this night refresh ourselves, and to-morrow we will all of us set out to attend the lord Don Quixote in prosecution of this important enterprise he has undertaken, being all impatient to be eye-witnesses of his celebrated and matchless courage." "I shall be proud of the honour of serving and waiting upon you, my good lord," replied Don Quixote, "and reckon myself infinitely obliged by the favour and good opinion of so honourable a company; which I shall endeavour to improve and confirm, though at the expense of the last drop of my blood."

The night coming on, and the innkeeper, by order of Don Fernando's friends, having made haste to provide them the best supper he could, the cloth was laid on a long table, there being neither round nor square in the house. Don Quixote, after much ceremony, was prevailed upon to sit at the head; he desired the Lady Micomicona to sit next him; and the rest of the company having placed themselves according to their rank and convenience, they eat their supper very heartily. Don Quixote, to raise the diversion, never minded his meat, but inspired with the same spirit that moved him to preach so much to the goatherds, began to hold forth in this manner: "Certainly, gentlemen, if we rightly consider it, those who make knight-errantry their profession often meet with surprising and most stupendous adventures. For what mortal in the world, at this time entering within this castle, and seeing us sit together as we do, will imagine and believe us to be the same persons which in reality we are? Who is there that can judge that this lady by my side is the great queen we all know her to be, and that I am that Knight of the Sorrowful Figure so universally made known by fame? It is, then, no longer to be doubted but that this exercise and profession surpasses all others that have been invented by man, and is so much the more honourable as it is more exposed to dangers. Let none presume to tell me that the pen is preferable to the sword. This may be ascertained by regarding the end and object each of them aims at; for that intention is to be most valued which makes the noblest end its object. The scope and end of learning, I mean human learning (in this place I speak not of divinity, whose aim is to guide souls to Heaven, for no other can equal a design so infinite as that), is to give a perfection to distributive justice, bestowing upon every one his due, and to procure and cause good laws to be observed; an end really generous, great, and worthy of high commendation, but yet not equal to that which knight-errantry tends to, whose object and end is peace, which is the greatest blessing man can wish for in this life. And, therefore, the first good news that the world received was that which the angels brought in the night—the beginning of our day—when they sang in the air, 'Glory to God on high, peace on earth, and to men good-will.' And the only manner of salutation taught by our great Master to his friends and favourites was, that entering any house they should say, 'Peace be to this house.' And at other times he said to them, 'My peace I give to you,' 'My peace I leave to you,' 'Peace be among you.' A jewel and legacy worthy of such a donor, a jewel so precious that without it there can be no happiness either in earth or heaven. This peace is the true end of war; for arms and war are one and the same thing. Allowing, then, this truth, that the end of war is peace, and that in this it excels the end of learning, let us now weigh the bodily labours the scholar undergoes against those the warrior suffers, and then see which are greatest."

The method and language Don Quixote used in delivering himself were such, that none of his hearers at that time looked upon him as a madman; but on the contrary, most of them being gentlemen to whom the use of arms properly appertains, they gave him a willing attention; and he proceeded in this manner: "These, then, I say, are the sufferings and hardships a scholar endures. First, poverty (not that they are all poor, but to urge the worst that may be in this case); and having said he endures poverty, methinks nothing more need be urged to express his misery; for he that is poor enjoys no happiness, but labours under this poverty in all its parts, at one time in hunger, at another in cold, another in nakedness, and sometimes in all of them together; yet his poverty is not so great, but still he eats, though it be later than the usual hour, and of the scraps of the rich; neither can the scholar miss of somebody's stove or fireside to sit by; where, though he be not thoroughly heated, yet he may gather warmth, and at last sleep away the night under a roof. I will not touch upon other less material circumstances, as the want of linen, and scarcity of shoes, thinness and baldness of their clothes, and their surfeiting when good fortune throws a feast in their way; this is the difficult and uncouth path they tread, often stumbling and falling, yet rising again and pushing on, till they attain the preferment they aim at; whither being arrived, we have seen many of them, who having been carried by a fortunate gale through all these quick-sands, from a chair govern the world; their hunger being changed into satiety, their cold into comfortable warmth; their nakedness into magnificence of apparel, and the mats they used to lie upon, into stately beds of costly silks and softest linen, a reward due to their virtue. But yet their sufferings being compared to those the soldier endures, appear much inferior, as I shall in the next place make out."