|
CERVANTES
May I set the stage? I shall impersonate a man.
Come, enter into my imagination and see him!
His name... Alonso Quijana... a country squire,
no longer young... bony, hollow-faced... eyes
that burn with the fire of inner vision. Being
retired, he has much time for books. He studies
them from morn to night and often through the
night as well. And all he reads oppresses him...
fills him with indignation at man's murderous
ways toward man. And he conceives the strangest
project ever imagined... to become a knight-errant
and sally forth into the world to right all
wrongs. No longer shall he be plain Alonso Quijana...
but a dauntless knight known as -
Don Quixote de La Mancha!
DON QUIXOTE
Hear me now
Oh thou bleak and unbearable world,
Thou art base and debauched as can be;
And a knight with his banners all bravely unfurled
Now hurls down his gauntlet to thee!
I am I, Don Quixote,
The Lord of La Mancha, þ
My destiny calls and I go,
And the wild winds of fortune
Will carry me onward,
Oh whithersoever they blow.
Whithersoever they blow,
Onward to glory I go!
SANCHO PANZA
I'm Sancho! Yes, I'm Sancho!
I'll follow my master till the end.
I'll tell all the world proudly
I'm his squire! I'm his friend!
DON QUIXOTE
Hear me, heathens and wizards
And serpents of sin!
All your dastardly doings are past,
For a holy endeavor is now to begin
And virtue shall triumph at last!
(Don Quixote and Sancho Panza mount their horses and set out along a road)
DON QUIXOTE
I am I, Don Quixote,
The Lord of la Mancha,
My destiny calls and I go,
And the wild winds of fortune
Will carry me onward,
Oh whithersoever they blow!
SANCHO
I'm Sancho! Yes, I'm Sancho!
I'll follow my master till the end.
I'll tell all the world proudly
I'm his squire! I'm his friend!
DON QUIXOTE, SANCHO
Whithersoever they blow,
Onward to glory I {we} go!
At an Inn full of rough men - Muleteers - and rough women
|