perfection; and thus, nature combined with art, and art with nature, will
produce a perfect poet. To bring my argument to a close, I would say
then, gentle sir, let your son go on as his star leads him, for being so
studious as he seems to be, and having already successfully surmounted
the first step of the sciences, which is that of the languages, with
their help he will by his own exertions reach the summit of polite
literature, which so well becomes an independent gentleman, and adorns,
honours, and distinguishes him, as much as the mitre does the bishop, or
the gown the learned counsellor. If your son write satires reflecting on
the honour of others, chide and correct him, and tear them up; but if he
compose discourses in which he rebukes vice in general, in the style of
Horace, and with elegance like his, commend him; for it is legitimate for
a poet to write against envy and lash the envious in his verse, and the
other vices too, provided he does not single out individuals; there are,
however, poets who, for the sake of saying something spiteful, would run
the risk of being banished to the coast of Pontus. If the poet be pure in
his morals, he will be pure in his verses too; the pen is the tongue of
the mind, and as the thought engendered there, so will be the things that
it writes down. And when kings and princes observe this marvellous
science of poetry in wise, virtuous, and thoughtful subjects, they
honour, value, exalt them, and even crown them with the leaves of that
tree which the thunderbolt strikes not, as if to show that they whose
brows are honoured and adorned with such a crown are not to be assailed
by anyone."

He of the green gaban was filled with astonishment at Don Quixote's
argument, so much so that he began to abandon the notion he had taken up
about his being crazy. But in the middle of the discourse, it being not
very much to his taste, Sancho had turned aside out of the road to beg a
little milk from some shepherds, who were milking their ewes hard by; and