Apostrophe

The speaker addresses someone absent or dead, a thing, a place, or an idea, as if they could hear.

In Don Quixote

happy age and happy centuries those to which the ancients gave the name golden, not because gold, so prized in this iron age of ours, was obtained then without any labor, but because the people who lived in them did not know these two words: yours and mine.

The speech begins by addressing its own age, "happy age and happy centuries," as if it could hear, and that solemn tone of invocation clashes with the handful of acorns and the goatherds who listen.

Part One: Marcela and the Inn, Don Quixote, to the goatherds, with a handful of acorns in his hand

Allah knows well that I could do nothing but what I did, and that these Christians owe nothing to my will; for even if I had wished not to come with them and to stay in my house, it would have been impossible, given the haste my soul pressed upon me to carry out this thing, which seems to me as good as you, beloved father, judge it bad.

Part One: The Arms and the Captive, Zoraida, to her father, as the boat moves away from the shore

come here, my companion and my friend, and bearer of my labors and miseries: when I got along with you and had no other thoughts than those the care of mending your gear and keeping your little body fed gave me, my hours, days, and years were happy; but after I left you and climbed up the towers of ambition and pride, a thousand miseries, a thousand troubles, and four thousand unrests have entered my soul.

Part Two: The Governorship of the Island, Sancho, to his donkey, in the stable, as he leaves the government