Torn by my parents from my home, from warm places of my delight, from various maidens, all enamoured of my person, I am sent to be a sailor.

A life of horror, believe me who say it to you! Wetness, cold and work; work, cold and wetness! Behold the sea! may it be accursed, and dry up at the earliest moment! I come here, on this so disastrous voyage.

Have I poetry, think you, on board this vessel?
Is the pig-faced armadillo yonder a companion for me, for Franci?
Is my beauty, the gentleness and grace of my soul appreciated here?
even the Patron, a person in some ways of understanding, has for me only the treatment of a child, of a servant.

Crushed to the ground by these afflictions, how do I revenge myself?
How do I make possible the passage of time in this wooden prison?
I make for myself the action, I make for myself the theatre.

Born for the grace of life, deprived of it, let me have the horrors! In effect, I would not hurt the safety of a flea; in appearance, I desire blood, blood, blood!" He shrieked the last words aloud, and leaped upon the boy, his eyes glaring like a madman's; but John was on his own ground now; his eyes shone with appreciation.
"That's splendid!" he cried.