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When the goatherd perceived Don Quixote's strange behavior and appearance and heard his remarkable language, he was struck with amazement, and asked the barber what madness was his, who talked like the knights he had read about in the books of knight-errantry. Scarcely had Don Quixote heard that he was being taken for a madman by the goatherd than he flew at him in a raging fit.
The introduction represents Don Quixote buried in books of chivalrous romance; and we have to see in the music, as we do in little Flemish and Dutch pictures, not only Don Quixote's features, but the words of the books he reads.
He explained to them the curious nature of Don Quixote's madness, and Cardenio mentioned to the curate his meeting with the knight. Sancho had found Don Quixote nearly dead with hunger, crying aloud for his Dulcinea; and when his squire entreated him in her name to return to El Toboso, he refused, declaring that his penitence was not yet complete; that he was not yet worthy of her favor.
Don Quixote held his peace and said no more, calmly awaiting the reply of the beauteous princess, who, with commanding dignity and in a style adapted to Don Quixote's own, replied to him in these words, "I give you thanks, sir knight, for the eagerness you, like a good knight to whom it is a natural obligation to succour the orphan and the needy, display to afford me aid in my sore trouble; and heaven grant that your wishes and mine may be realised, so that you may see that there are women in this world capable of gratitude; as to my departure, let it be forthwith, for I have no will but yours; dispose of me entirely in accordance with your good pleasure; for she who has once entrusted to you the defence of her person, and placed in your hands the recovery of her dominions, must not think of offering opposition to that which your wisdom may ordain."
When the reading was finished the landlord took Don Quixote's sword and tapped him sharply on the shoulder, pretending to mutter more prayers while he was doing it, and one of the girls girded the sword about Don Quixote's waist, saying, as she did so: "May God make your Worship a very fortunate knight, and grant you success in battle!" Thus the ceremony was ended and Don Quixote was satisfied.
On hearing this, the Distressed Duenna made as though she would throw herself at Don Quixote's feet, and actually did fall before them and said, as she strove to embrace them, "Before these feet and legs I cast myself, O unconquered knight, as before, what they are, the foundations and pillars of knight-errantry; these feet I desire to kiss, for upon their steps hangs and depends the sole remedy for my misfortune, O valorous errant, whose veritable achievements leave behind and eclipse the fabulous ones of the Amadises, Esplandians, and Belianises!"
Then Tug warmed up to the scrimmage, and his right and left arms flew about like Don Quixote's windmill for a few minutes, until two of the two dozen Crows lighted on his back and pinioned his arms down and bore him gradually to his knees.
At this point they became aware of a harsh indistinct noise that seemed to spread through all the valleys around. Don Quixote stood up and laid his hand upon his sword, and Sancho ensconced himself under Dapple and put the bundle of armour on one side of him and the ass's pack-saddle on the other, in fear and trembling as great as Don Quixote's perturbation.
The wide-spread grunting drove came on in a surging mass, and without showing any respect for Don Quixote's dignity or Sancho's, passed right over the pair of them, demolishing Sancho's entrenchments, and not only upsetting Don Quixote but sweeping Rocinante off his feet into the bargain; and what with the trampling and the grunting, and the pace at which the unclean beasts went, pack-saddle, armour, Dapple and Rocinante were left scattered on the ground and Sancho and Don Quixote at their wits' end.
Because of his blows and bruises, Don Quixote had a hard task sitting upright on the ass, and he emphasized the romance of his situation by constantly heaving sighs to heaven. But every time the peasant was driven by these sighs to ask him his trouble, he replied in the language of a different hero from a different book. It was nightfall when they arrived at Don Quixote's house in the village.
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