sir, you are very much mistaken, and your ideas are very old-fashioned,
if you think that I have made a bad choice in So-and-so, fool as he
seems; because for all I want with him he knows as much and more
philosophy than Aristotle.' In the same way, Sancho, for all I want with
Dulcinea del Toboso she is just as good as the most exalted princess on
earth. It is not to be supposed that all those poets who sang the praises
of ladies under the fancy names they give them, had any such mistresses.
Thinkest thou that the Amarillises, the Phillises, the Sylvias, the
Dianas, the Galateas, the Filidas, and all the rest of them, that the
books, the ballads, the barber's shops, the theatres are full of, were
really and truly ladies of flesh and blood, and mistresses of those that
glorify and have glorified them? Nothing of the kind; they only invent
them for the most part to furnish a subject for their verses, and that
they may pass for lovers, or for men valiant enough to be so; and so it
suffices me to think and believe that the good Aldonza Lorenzo is fair
and virtuous; and as to her pedigree it is very little matter, for no one
will examine into it for the purpose of conferring any order upon her,
and I, for my part, reckon her the most exalted princess in the world.
For thou shouldst know, Sancho, if thou dost not know, that two things
alone beyond all others are incentives to love, and these are great
beauty and a good name, and these two things are to be found in Dulcinea
in the highest degree, for in beauty no one equals her and in good name
few approach her; and to put the whole thing in a nutshell, I persuade
myself that all I say is as I say, neither more nor less, and I picture
her in my imagination as I would have her to be, as well in beauty as in
condition; Helen approaches her not nor does Lucretia come up to her, nor
any other of the famous women of times past, Greek, Barbarian, or Latin;
and let each say what he will, for if in this I am taken to task by the
ignorant, I shall not be censured by the critical."