I’ve been reading Cervantes’ Don Quixote and I wanted to share this scene.
Our “knight-errant” has decided to block the road and demand a party traveling thereon to…
…confess that in all the world there is no maiden fairer than the Empress of La Mancha, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso.
The band quickly figures out that our chivalrist doesn’t have all the dots on his dice yet decide to play the game. They state they’d be happy to swear if they could but see the lady. Señor de La Mancha decides there would be nothing required of them if they beheld her beauty — their confession would be made compulsory by the evidence. Their reply “made me to laugh”:
…your worship will be pleased to show us some portrait of this lady, though it be no bigger than a grain of wheat; for by the thread one gets at the ball, and in this way we shall be satisfied and easy, and you will be content and pleased; nay, I believe we are already so far agreed with you that even though her portrait should show her blind of one eye, and distilling vermilion and sulphur from the other, we would nevertheless, to gratify your worship, say all in her favour that you desire.”
That the traveler’s spokesman is engaged with this lost man to a willingness to paint an image of a one-(blood-shot and yellow)-eyed nonpareil maiden just wipes me out. May I gain such presence of mind and willingness to dance with whatever I encounter on my road.
Thank you, Miguel de Cervantes and John Ormsby for giving me something worth trying to pass on.