Читать книгу Don Quixote онлайн

129 страница из 316

Heaving the cruel stone, come Tityus

With vulture, and with wheel Ixion come,

And come the sisters of the ceaseless toil;

And all into this breast transfer their pains,

And (if such tribute to despair be due)

Chant in their deepest tones a doleful dirge

Over a corse unworthy of a shroud.

Let the three-headed guardian of the gate,

And all the monstrous progeny of hell,

The doleful concert join: a lover dead

Methinks can have no fitter obsequies.

Lay of despair, grieve not when thou art gone

Forth from this sorrowing heart: my misery

Brings fortune to the cause that gave thee birth;

Then banish sadness even in the tomb.

{verse

The "Lay of Chrysostom" met with the approbation of the listeners, though the reader said it did not seem to him to agree with what he had heard of Marcela's reserve and propriety, for Chrysostom complained in it of jealousy, suspicion, and absence, all to the prejudice of the good name and fame of Marcela; to which Ambrosio replied as one who knew well his friend's most secret thoughts, "Senor, to remove that doubt I should tell you that when the unhappy man wrote this lay he was away from Marcela, from whom he had voluntarily separated himself, to try if absence would act with him as it is wont; and as everything distresses and every fear haunts the banished lover, so imaginary jealousies and suspicions, dreaded as if they were true, tormented Chrysostom; and thus the truth of what report declares of the virtue of Marcela remains unshaken, and with her envy itself should not and cannot find any fault save that of being cruel, somewhat haughty, and very scornful."