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“That’s true,” said the licentiate, “because those who grew up in Tenerías and in Zocodover cannot speak as well as those who spend almost the entire day strolling in the cloister of the cathedral, and all of them are Toledans. Pure language, appropriate, elegant, and clear, is used by discerning courtiers even if they were born in Majalahonda.3 I said discerning, because there are many who are not, and discernment is the grammar of good language, which is acquired with use. I, Señores, for my sins, have studied canon law at Salamanca and am rather proud of speaking with words that are clear, plain, and meaningful.”

“If you hadn’t been prouder of how you move those foils you’re carrying than of how you wag your tongue,” said the other student, whose name was Corchuelo, “maybe you would have placed first for your licentiate instead of last.”

“Look, Bachelor,” responded the licentiate, “you hold the most erroneous opinion in the world about skill with the sword, since you consider it useless.”

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s not an opinion but an established truth,” replied Corchuelo, “and if you would like me to prove it to you experientially, you’re carrying the foils, there’s a convenient spot, I have a steady hand, and strength, and together with my courage, which is no small thing, they will make you confess that I am not mistaken. Dismount, and use your changes of posture, your circles, your angles, and your science; I expect to make you see stars at midday with my crude, modern skills, and after God I put my trust in them, and there’s no man born who will make me turn away, and none in the world whom I can’t force to retreat.”4

“I won’t get involved in questions of turning or not turning away,” replied the master swordsman, “though it might be that on the spot where you first set your foot, your grave will open wide: I mean, that you’ll be lying dead there on account of the mastery you despise so much.”

“Now we’ll see,” responded Corchuelo.

And he dismounted his donkey with great agility and furiously seized one of the foils that the licentiate was carrying on his animal.

“It should not be this way,” said Don Quixote at that moment, “for I wish to be the master of this duel and the judge of this question so frequently left unresolved.”

And after dismounting Rocinante and grasping his lance, he stood in the middle of the road, at the same time that the licentiate, with spirited grace and measured steps, was advancing on Corchuelo, who came toward him, his eyes, as the saying goes, blazing. The two peasants who had accompanied them did not dismount their donkeys, but served as spectators to the mortal tragedy. The innumerable lunges, slashes, downward thrusts, reverse strokes, and two-handed blows executed by Corchuelo were denser than liver and more minute than hail. He attacked like an angry lion but was met with a blow to the mouth by the tip of the licentiate’s foil, which stopped him in the middle of his fury, and which he had to kiss as if it were a relic, though not as devotedly as relics should be kissed, and usually are.

Finally, the licentiate’s lunges accounted for all the buttons on the short cassock the bachelor was wearing and slashed its skirts into the arms of an octopus; twice he knocked off his hat, and tired him so much that in fury, anger, and rage the bachelor seized his foil by the hilt and threw it into the air with so much force that one of the peasants, who was a notary, went to retrieve it and subsequently testified that it had flown almost three-quarters of a league, and this testimony serves and has served to demonstrate and prove the truth that force is vanquished by art.

Corchuelo sat down, exhausted, and Sancho approached him and said:

“By my faith, Señor Bachelor, if your grace will take my advice, from now on you won’t challenge anybody to a duel, but to wrestling or hurling the bar, since you’re young enough and strong enough for that, because I’ve heard that the ones they call master swordsmen can put the tip of their sword through the eye of a