"As austere it may perhaps be," replied our Don Quixote, "but so
necessary for the world I am very much inclined to doubt. For, if the
truth is to be told, the soldier who executes what his captain orders
does no less than the captain himself who gives the order. My meaning,
is, that churchmen in peace and quiet pray to Heaven for the welfare of
the world, but we soldiers and knights carry into effect what they pray
for, defending it with the might of our arms and the edge of our swords,
not under shelter but in the open air, a target for the intolerable rays
of the sun in summer and the piercing frosts of winter. Thus are we God's
ministers on earth and the arms by which his justice is done therein. And
as the business of war and all that relates and belongs to it cannot be
conducted without exceeding great sweat, toil, and exertion, it follows
that those who make it their profession have undoubtedly more labour than
those who in tranquil peace and quiet are engaged in praying to God to
help the weak. I do not mean to say, nor does it enter into my thoughts,
that the knight-errant's calling is as good as that of the monk in his
cell; I would merely infer from what I endure myself that it is beyond a
doubt a more laborious and a more belaboured one, a hungrier and
thirstier, a wretcheder, raggeder, and lousier; for there is no reason to
doubt that the knights-errant of yore endured much hardship in the course
of their lives. And if some of them by the might of their arms did rise
to be emperors, in faith it cost them dear in the matter of blood and
sweat; and if those who attained to that rank had not had magicians and
sages to help them they would have been completely baulked in their
ambition and disappointed in their hopes."
"That is my own opinion," replied the traveller; "but one thing among
many others seems to me very wrong in knights-errant, and that is that
when they find themselves about to engage in some mighty and perilous
adventure in which there is manifest danger of losing their lives, they
never at the moment of engaging in it think of commending themselves to
God, as is the duty of every good Christian in like peril; instead of
which they commend themselves to their ladies with as much devotion as if
these were their gods, a thing which seems to me to savour somewhat of
heathenism."
"Sir," answered Don Quixote, "that cannot be on any account omitted, and
the knight-errant would be disgraced who acted otherwise: for it is usual
and customary in knight-errantry that the knight-errant, who on engaging
in any great feat of arms has his lady before him, should turn his eyes
towards her softly and lovingly, as though with them entreating her to
favour and protect him in the hazardous venture he is about to undertake,
and even though no one hear him, he is bound to say certain words between
his teeth, commending himself to her with all his heart, and of this we
have innumerable instances in the histories. Nor is it to be supposed
from this that they are to omit commending themselves to God, for there
will be time and opportunity for doing so while they are engaged in their
task."