_Mother._ Fortune has, since I bore thee, my sweet child, Hidden her face--the heavens are dark--the sea And the wild winds combine for my dismay; The very elements our enemies! Thou knowest not thy misery, although Thou art its victim--and such ignorance Is happiness for thee! My only love, Since to see thee no more I am allow'd, I pray thee never to forget to seek The favour of the Virgin in thy prayers-- The queen of goodness she--of grace and hope She can unloose thy chain, and set thee free. _Aydar._ Hark to the Christian what advice she gives! Thoud'st have him lost as thee, false infidel! _Juan._ My mother, let me stay--let not these Moors Take me away. _Mother._ My treasures go with thee. _Juan._ In faith, I fear these men! _Mother._ But I more fear Thou wilt forget thy God, me and thyself, When thou art gone: thy tender years are such, That thou wilt lose thy faith amidst this race Of infidels--teachers of lies. _Crier._ Silence! And fear, old wicked woman, that thy head Pay for thy tongue!" At the end of the play, Juan is seduced by fine clothes and sweetmeats to become a Mahometan. When we think of the Spanish horror of renegades, and its fierce punishment, we may imagine the effect that such scenes, brought vividly before them, must have had. The play ends with the arrival of a vessel, with a friar on board, charged with money to redeem the captives, and the universal joy the Christians feel; Cervantes had felt such himself, and well could paint it. The whole play, though without plot, and rendered wild and strange by the introduction of allegorical personages, yet is full of the interest of pathetic situations and natural feelings, simply, but vividly represented; such doubtless, roused every sentiment of horror and compassion, and even vengeance in a Spanish audience. In some respects we feel otherwise; and when one of the captives relates the cruel death of a priest burnt by slow fire, by the Moors, in retaliation of a Moor burnt by the inquisition, our indignation is rather levelled against that nefarious institution, which, unprovoked, punished those who adhered to the faith of their fathers, and filled the whole world with abhorrence for its name. Such, Cervantes could not feel; and in reading his works, and those of all his countrymen, nothing jars with our feelings so much as the praise ever given to the most savage cruelties of the Dominicans, and the merciless reprobation expressed towards those who dared revenge their wrongs.