The Spanish Novelists (Volume 1); Don Juan Manuel. Mendoza. Mateo Aleman. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Paperback)

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: of opinion that this example was very excellent, caused it to be inserted in this book, and he also made these verses, to the following purport: ?which, being translated, were Man ne'er shall find so true a friend as he Who gave his life, man's race fiom death to free. CHAP. XLV. CONCERNING WHAT HAPPENED TO A CERTAIN YOUNG MAN UPON THE DAY OF HIS MARRIAGE. One day the Conde Lucanor, speaking with his counsellor Patronio, said, " Patronio, I have a servant who informs me that he has it in his power to marry a very wealthy woman, but who is higher in station than himself. It would, he says, be a very advantageous match for him, only for one difficulty which stands in the way, and it is this. He has it on good authority, that this woman is one of the most violent and wilful creatures in the world; and now I ask for your counsel, whether I ought to direct him to marry this woman, knowing what her character is, or advise him to give up the match ?" " My Lord Conde Lucanor," said Patronio, " if your man hath any resemblance to the son of a certain good man, who was a Moor, I advise him to marry at all venture, but if he be not like him, I think he had better desist." Vol. I. c And the Conde then enquired how that affair had been. THE HISTORY. Patronio said, that " in a certain town there lived a noble Moor, who had one son, the best young man ever known perhaps in the world. He was not, however, wealthy enough to enable him to accomplish half the many laudable objects which his heart prompted him to undertake, and for this reason he was in great perplexity, having the will and not the power to perform it. " Now in that same town there dwelt another Moor, far more honoured and rich than the youth's father; and he, too, had an only daughter, who offered a str...