bystander wrote:The Rim of Cervantes
NASA JHU-APL CIW | MESSENGER | 2011 Jun 03
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
The rim of the double-ring basin Cervantes cuts through the middle of this NAC image. Cervantes has a diameter of 213 kilometers and was named in honor of the Spanish novelist, playwright, and poet Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), best known for his novel Don Quixote. This image was acquired as part of MDIS's high-resolution surface morphology base map. The surface morphology base map will cover more than 90% of Mercury's surface with an average resolution of 250 meters/pixel (0.16 miles/pixel or 820 feet/pixel). Images acquired for the surface morphology base map typically have off-vertical Sun angles (i.e., high incidence angles) and visible shadows so as to reveal clearly the topographic form of geologic features.
----------------------------------------------------------http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mambrino wrote:
<<Mambrino was a fictional Moorish king, celebrated in the romances of chivalry. According to legend, Mambrino possessed a helmet of pure gold that rendered its wearer invulnerable. Possession of the helmet was the ambition of all the paladins of Charlemagne, and it was carried off by first by Gradasso, King of Sericane, and a second time by Rinaldo (Orlando Furioso), who slew Gradasso at Barcelona. Cervantes, in his novel Don Quixote de la Mancha, tells us of a barber who was caught in the rain, and to protect his hat clapped his brazen basin on his head. Don Quixote insisted that this basin was the enchanted helmet of the Moorish king. Don Quixote wishes to obtain the helmet in order to make himself invulnerable.>>[/float]
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra: Don Quixote, Part 1.
The Third Book: VII. Of the High Adventure and Rich Winning of the Helmet of Mambrino, with Other Successes Which Befel the Invincible Knight
IT began about this time to rain, and Sancho would fain have entered into the fulling-mills; but Don Quixote had conceived such hate against them for the jest recounted, as he would in no wise come near them; but, turning his way on the right hand, he fell into a highway, as much beaten as that wherein they rode the day before. Within a while after, Don Quixote espied one a-horseback, that bore on his head somewhat that glistered like gold; and scarce had he seen him, when he turned to Sancho, and said, ‘Methinks, Sancho, that there’s no proverb that is not true; for they are all sentences taken out of experience itself, which is the universal mother of sciences! and specially that proverb that says, “Where one door is shut, another is opened.” I say this because, if fortune did shut yesternight the door that we searched, deceiving us in the adventure of the iron maces, it lays us now wide open the door that may address us to a better and more certain adventure, whereon, if I cannot make a good entry, the fall shall be mine, without being able to attribute it to the little knowledge of the fulling-maces, or the darkness of the night; which I affirm because, if I be not deceived, there comes one towards us that wears on his head the helmet of Mambrino, for which I made the oath.’ ‘See well what you say, sir, and better what you do,’ quoth Sancho; ‘for I would not wish that this were new maces, to batter us and our understanding.’ ‘The devil take thee for a man!’ replied Don Quixote; ‘what difference is there betwixt a helmet and fulling-maces?’ ‘I know not,’ quoth Sancho; ‘but if I could speak as much as I was wont, perhaps I would give you such reasons as you yourself should see how much you are deceived in that you speak.’ ‘How may I be deceived in that I say, scrupulous traitor?’ quoth Don Quixote. ‘Tell me, seest thou not that knight which comes riding towards us on a dapple-grey horse, with a helmet of gold on his head?’ ‘That which I see and find out to be so,’ answered Sancho, ‘is none other than a man on a grey ass like mine own, and brings on his head somewhat that shines.’ ‘Why, that is Mambrino’s helmet,’ quoth Don Quixote. ‘Stand aside, and leave me alone with him; thou shalt see how, without speech, to cut off delays, I will conclude this adventure, and remain with the helmet as mine own which I have so much desired.’ ‘I will have care to stand off; but I turn again to say, that I pray God that it be a purchase of gold, and not fulling-mills.’ ‘I have already said unto thee that thou do not make any more mention, no, not in thought, of those maces; for if thou dost,’ said Don Quixote, ‘I vow, I say no more, that I will batter thy soul.’ Here Sancho, fearing lest his master would accomplish the vow which he had thrown out as round as a bowl, held his peace.
This therefore, is the truth of the history of the helmet, horse, and knight, which Don Quixote saw. There was in that commark two villages, the one so little as it had neither shop nor barber, but the greater, that was near unto it, was furnished of one; and he therefore did serve the little village when they had any occasion, as now it befell that therein lay one sick, and must be let blood, and another that desired to trim his beard; for which purpose the barber came, bringing with him a brazen basin. And as he travelled, it by chance began to rain, and therefore clapped his basin on his head to save his hat from staining, because it belike was a new one; and the basin being clean scoured, glistered half a league off. He rode on a grey ass, as Sancho said, and that was the reason why Don Quixote took him to be a dapple-grey steed, a knight, and a helmet of gold; for he did, with all facility, apply everything which he saw to his raving chivalry and ill-errant thoughts. And when he saw that the poor knight drew near, without settling himself to commune with him, he rested his javelin low on the thigh, and ran with all the force Rozinante might, thinking to strike him through and through; and, drawing near unto him, without stopping his horse, he cried, ‘Defend thyself, caitiff! or else render unto me willingly that which is my due by all reason.’
The barber, who so without fearing or surmising any such thing, saw that fantasy and spirit came upon him, had no other remedy, to avoid the blow of the lance, but to fall off his ass to the ground; and scarce had he touched the earth, when rising up again as light as a deer, he ran away so swiftly through the plain as the wind could scarce overtake him, leaving behind him on the ground his basin; wherewithal Don Quixote rested content, and said that pagan which lost it was discreet, and did imitate the castor, who seeing himself hotly pursued by the hunters, which tears and cuts away that with his teeth for which he knows by natural instinct he is followed.
Then he commanded Sancho to take up the helmet; who, lifting it, said, ‘The basin is a good one, by God, and is as well worth a real of eight as a marvedi.’ And, giving it to his lord, he presently set it on his head, turning about every way to see whether he could get the beaver; and, seeing he could not find it, he said, ‘The pagan for whom this famous helmet was first forged had doubtlessly a very great head; and that which grieves me principally is that this helmet wants the one half.’
When Sancho heard him call the basin a helmet, he could not contain his laughter; but presently remembering of his master’s choler, he checked it in the midst. ‘Why dost thou laugh, Sancho?’ quoth Don Quixote. ‘I laugh,’ said he, ‘to think on the great head the pagan owner of this helmet had; for it is for all the world like a barber’s basin.’ ‘Know, Sancho, that I imagine,’ quoth Don Quixote, ‘that this famous piece of this enchanted helmet did fall, by some strange accident, into some one’s hands that knew not the worth thereof, and seeing it was of pure gold, without knowing what he did, I think he hath molten the half, to profit himself therewithal, and made of the other half this, which seems a barber’s basin, as thou sayst: but be it what it list, to me who knows well what it is, his transmutation makes no matter; for I will dress it in the first town where I shall find a smith, as that which the God of Forges made for the God of War shall not surpass, no, nor come near it; and in the meanwhile I will wear it as I may, for something is better than nothing; and more, seeing it may very well defend me from the blow of a stone.’>>