Page:The Garden of Romance - 1897.djvu/100

88 shepherd and the murderous shepherdess." "I am of the same opinion," answered Vivaldo, "and would not only tarry one day, but even four or five, on purpose to see it." Don Quixote asking what they had heard of Marcella and Chrysostom, the traveller replied, that early in the morning they had met with these shepherds, of whom inquiring the cause of their being clothed in such melancholy weeds, they had been informed of the coyness and beauty of a certain shepherdess called Marcella, and the hapless love of many who courted her, together with the death of that same Chrysostom to whose funeral they were going. In short, he recounted every circumstance of what Pedro had told Don Quixote before.

This conversation being ended, another began by Vivaldo's asking Don Quixote why he travelled thus in armour in a peaceable country? To this question the knight replied, "The exercise of my profession will not permit, or allow me to go in any other manner. Revels, feasting, and repose were invented by effeminate courtiers; but toil, anxiety, and arms are peculiar to those whom the world calls knights-errant, of which order I, though unworthy, and the least, am one." He had no sooner pronounced these words than all present took him for a madman: but, in order to confirm their opinion, and discover what species of madness it was, Vivaldo desired to know what he meant by "knights-errant." "What!" said Don Quixote, "have you never read the annals and history of England, which treat of the famous exploits of Arthur, who at present, in our Castilian language, is called King Artus, and of whom there is an ancient tradition, generally believed all over Great Britain, that he did not die, but was, by the art of enchantment,