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“I do not understand,” responded Don Quixote, “what your grace says or means to say about my slipping away.”

“I’ll explain later,” responded Don Lorenzo, “but for now your grace should listen to the glossed verses and to the gloss, which read like this:

If my was would be an is,

not waiting for a will be,

or if at last the time would come

when later is now and here…

GLOSS

At last, since all things pass,

the good that Fortune gave me

passed too, though once o’erflowing,

and never to me returned,

neither scant nor in abundance.

Not for centuries, O Fortune,

have you seen me at your feet;

make me contented once more;

my great good fortune will be

if my was would be an is.

I wish no joy or glory,

neither honor nor victory,

no other triumph or conquest,

but to return to the joy

that’s nothing but grief in memory.

If you can return me there

O Fortune, this fiery torment

will ease; do it now, I pray,

not waiting for a will be.

What I ask is the impossible,

for there is no force on earth

that has the power to turn

back time that has passed us by,

to bring back what once was ours.

Time races, it flies, it charges

past, and will never return,

and only a fool would beg

a halt, or if the time would pass,

or if at last the time would come.

I live a life of perplexity,

torn between hoping and fear:

this is a death in life for me;

much better to end my sorrow

and die the death of the tomb.

And though my wish is to end

my life, my reason tells me no,

and hands me back my gloomy life

in terror of that after time

when later is now and here.”

When Don Lorenzo finished reciting his gloss, Don Quixote rose to his feet, and in a loud voice that was almost a shout, and grasping Don Lorenzo’s right hand in his own, he said:

“Praise be to heaven on high, magnanimous youth, for you are the best poet on earth, and you deserve to be crowned with a laurel wreath, not by Cyprus or Gaeta, as a poet once said,3 may God forgive him, but by the academies of Athens, if they still existed today, and by those that do in Paris, Bologna, and Salamanca! May it please heaven that the judges who would deprive you of first place be pierced by the arrows of Phoebus, and may the Muses never cross the thresholds of their houses! If you please, Señor, tell me some verses in a long line,4 for I wish to explore your admirable talent thoroughly.”

Is it surprising to anyone that Don Lorenzo was extremely happy to be praised by Don Quixote, even though he considered him mad? O Flattery, how powerful you are, how far you extend, how widespread the boundaries of your pleasant domain! Don Lorenzo gave credence to this truth by acceding to the request and desire of Don Quixote, and reciting this sonnet on the tale or history of Pyramus and Thisbe:

SONNET

The wall is breached by the beauteous maid

who pierced the gallant bosom of Pyramus;

Love flies from Cyprus, faster than an arrow,

to see the rift, so prodigious and so narrow.

Silence speaks there, no human voice will dare

to pass through a cleft so strait and constrained;

but enamored souls will, for love’s sweet speed

can ease the rigors of that perilous deed.

Desire broke its tether, and the reckless steps

of th’ emboldened damsel seemed to demand

death as the sole response to longed-for pleasure.

Oh, a rare tale and strange! Both at one moment

are killed, and interred, and recalled forever:

one sword, one grave, one memory for two.

“Praise be to God!” said Don Quixote when he had heard Don Lorenzo’s sonnet. “Among the infinite number of consumptive poets, Señor, I have seen a consummate poet, which is what your grace is, and what the artfulness of this sonnet leads me to believe.”

For four days Don Quixote was wonderfully regaled in the house of Don Diego, and at the end of this time he asked permission to leave, telling his host that he was grateful for the kind and generous treatment he had received in his house, but because it did not seem right for knights errant to devote too many hours to idleness and leisure, he wished