Don Quixote

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Sancho got up as well as he could and begged his master to give him his sword, saying he wanted to kill half a dozen of those dirty unmannerly pigs, for he had by this time found out that that was what they were. “Let them be, my friend,” said Don Quixote; “this insult is the penalty of my sin; and it is the righteous chastisement of heaven that jackals should devour a vanquished knight, and wasps sting him and pigs trample him under foot.” “I suppose it is the chastisement of heaven, too,” said Sancho, “that flies should prick the squires of vanquished knights, and lice eat them, and hunger assail them. If we squires were the sons of the knights we serve, or their very near relations, it would be no wonder if the penalty of their misdeeds overtook us, even to the fourth generation. But what have the Panzas to do with the Quixotes? Well, well, let’s lie down again and sleep out what little of the night there’s left, and God will send us dawn and we shall be all right.”