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The Complete Works of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The Complete Works of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Author:Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE LIBERAL LOVER. ' Oh lamentable ruins of the ill-starred Nicosia,1 on which the blood of your valiant and most unfortunate defenders has scarcely dried, if... more » in the solitude where we now stand, ye were to find the sensibility of which ye are devoid, we could together mourn our disasters, and perhaps the accident of having found companionship in them would lessen our woe. This hope may have remained to you, sadly dismantled towers, that on another occasion ye may see yourselves raised again, although in defence of no cause so just as that in which they shattered you. But I, ill-fated wretch, what good can I expect in the miserable strait in which I now see myself, although the condition return, in which I was previously to that in which I now find myself? Such is my evil fortune, that when free I was without happiness, and in captivity I do not have it nor hope for it.' These words were uttered by a Christian captive surveying from a height the shattered walls of the lately lost Nicosia, and thus did he commune with them, comparing his miseries to theirs as if they had been capable of understanding him ; the characteristic condition of afflicted mortals who, carried away by their imaginations, do and say things alien to all reason and sound conclusions. At this moment there stepped out of a pavilion or tent, one of four pitched in that position, a young Turk of very good bearing and appearance, who, approaching the Christian, said to him : ' I dare wager, friend Ricardo, that thy continual musings draw thee to this spot.' ' They do,' replied Ricardo, for that was the name of the captive ; ' but what do I gain if in no spot whither I go, do I find truce or ease from them ? Rather have yonder ruins which I behold from here augmented my sorrow.' ' Those of Nicosia, ...« less