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Don Quixote's tears are on the flow,

And all for distant Dulcinea

Del Toboso.

The lealest lover time can show,

Doomed for a lady-love to languish,

Among these solitudes doth go,

A prey to every kind of anguish.

Why Love should like a spiteful foe

Thus use him, he hath no idea,

But hogsheads full—this doth he know—

Don Quixote's tears are on the flow,

And all for distant Dulcinea

Del Toboso.

Adventure-seeking doth he go

Up rugged heights, down rocky valleys,

But hill or dale, or high or low,

Mishap attendeth all his sallies:

Love still pursues him to and fro,

And plies his cruel scourge—ah me! a

Relentless fate, an endless woe;

Don Quixote's tears are on the flow,

And all for distant Dulcinea

Del Toboso.

{verse

The addition of "Del Toboso" to Dulcinea's name gave rise to no little laughter among those who found the above lines, for they suspected Don Quixote must have fancied that unless he added "del Toboso" when he introduced the name of Dulcinea the verse would be unintelligible; which was indeed the fact, as he himself afterwards admitted. He wrote many more, but, as has been said, these three verses were all that could be plainly and perfectly deciphered. In this way, and in sighing and calling on the fauns and satyrs of the woods and the nymphs of the streams, and Echo, moist and mournful, to answer, console, and hear him, as well as in looking for herbs to sustain him, he passed his time until Sancho's return; and had that been delayed three weeks, as it was three days, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance would have worn such an altered countenance that the mother that bore him would not have known him: and here it will be well to leave him, wrapped up in sighs and verses, to relate how Sancho Panza fared on his mission.