Translated from the Spanish by Geoff Hargreaves
One morning, two knights errant meet upstream, at a bend in the river, in a small clearing that could have been designed expressly for a sword-fight. It is eleven o'clock on a bright spring morning, with both the hour and the season ideal for dueling. Some time later, at twelve or one, when the sun is beating down hard, their suits of armor will get as hot as ovens and it will be torture to move inside them.
As soon as the two knights see each other, they get off their steeds, tie the reins to a tree, and take up their positions in the clearing. There is not much to say, except to declare in a loud voice the name of the lord each one serves, which is frequently the same for both combatants, though that is no impediment to a fight, possibly because each one announces it in his own particular way, selecting the parts of those grandiose, interminable names that most appeal to him, or because their nervousness at the approaching combat deafens them to what the other is shouting. Then they unsheathe their swords and exchange their first sword-thrusts, and the din, in the words of the poets, “makes the woodlands tremble.”