Some bard of defter quill may sing some day;

and this was no doubt a kind of prophecy, for poets are also called
vates, that is to say diviners; and its truth was made plain; for since
then a famous Andalusian poet has lamented and sung her tears, and
another famous and rare poet, a Castilian, has sung her beauty."

"Tell me, Senor Don Quixote," said the barber here, "among all those who
praised her, has there been no poet to write a satire on this Lady
Angelica?"

"I can well believe," replied Don Quixote, "that if Sacripante or Roland
had been poets they would have given the damsel a trimming; for it is
naturally the way with poets who have been scorned and rejected by their
ladies, whether fictitious or not, in short by those whom they select as
the ladies of their thoughts, to avenge themselves in satires and
libels--a vengeance, to be sure, unworthy of generous hearts; but up to
the present I have not heard of any defamatory verse against the Lady
Angelica, who turned the world upside down."

"Strange," said the curate; but at this moment they heard the housekeeper
and the niece, who had previously withdrawn from the conversation,
exclaiming aloud in the courtyard, and at the noise they all ran out.




CHAPTER II.

WHICH TREATS OF THE NOTABLE ALTERCATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HAD WITH DON