Rodrigo de Vivar (1043?-1099)
Rodrigo or Ruy Díaz de Vivar, better known as el Cid or el Campeador, is the hero of the Castilian epic poem, Poema (or Cantar) de mío Cid.

The Poema is not a historical document but a literary work inspired by Rodrigo’s life during his second exile and his relationship with his king, Alfonso VI. Historically, Rodrigo’s life differs in many respects from that depicted in the Poema.

Historical Context.
Some historical context might help us understand the political jungle of 11th-century Spain, in which the Cid lived. In a broad sense, the Spanish Peninsula was divided into two general groups identified by religion: Christian Spain and al-Andalus (Muslim Spain).

Both these groups were further subdivided. Christian Spain was made up of the kingdoms of León-Castile, Aragón, Navarra, and the County of Barcelona.

Al-Andalus was composed of several small kingdoms (taifas), following the break up of the Caliphate of Córdoba in 1031. The main taifas bordering the Christian kingdoms were Toledo, Zaragoza, and Badajoz. Valencia, which features prominently in the Cid`s life and in the Poema, was not so distant from the County of Barcelona.

There are some important points to keep in mind here.
1. All borders were very unstable, not only between Christian Spain and al-Andalus, but also between the Christian and taifa kingdoms themselves.
2. The Christian kingdoms were stronger than the taifas, and were regularly able to extract parias (tributes) from the taifa rulers in return for protection.
3. Christian and Muslim kingdoms frequently fought among themselves.
4. In their struggles to retain or expand their power, Christian rulers enlisted Muslim soldiers against fellow Christians, and vice versa Muslim rulers sought help from Christians against fellow Muslims.
5. Mercenary soldiers were commonplace; the Cid himself is an example.

At the time Rodrigo was born, the most powerful Christian kingdom was León-Castile, united under Ferdinand I (ruled 1035-65). Fernando had arranged for his kingdom to be divided between his three sons upon his death. The events that followed can be summarised simply: instability and chaos as the brothers struggled for dominance.

The oldest, Sancho (who had inherited Castile), prevailed, conquering Galicia from the youngest (García) and forcing Alfonso, who had received León, into exile … in Moorish Toledo! (García went to Seville). But fate was not generous to Sancho. In 1072 he was assassinated while besieging the town of Zamora. Since he was childless, he was replaced by the exiled Alfonso, whose reign as king jointly of León and Castile (1065-1109) was to be decisive for the reconquest of the peninsula.

Rodrigo de Vivar (1043?-99): His Life.
Born into the lower nobility in the Castilian village of Vivar (just north of Burgos) around 1043, Rodrigo entered the court of Ferdinand I some time in his youth as a member of Sancho’s household.

He first distinguished himself in the Battle of Graus, 1063. Not a particularly important battle in itself, it nevertheless exemplifies the political complexities of the time. King Ramiro I of Aragón had attacked the Muslim (i.e. taifa) kingdom of Zaragoza. Ferdinand I of León-Castile sent Sancho to help the king of Zaragoza, al-Muqtadir, recover Graus!

Why? Very simply because Ferdinand feared the expansion of Aragón. Sancho was successful and Ramiro was killed in the battle. It so happens that Ramiro was Sancho’s uncle; so much for blood being thicker than water! One historian describes the situation succinctly: a Castilian prince defeats and kills his Aragonese uncle in order to preserve the territorial integrity of a Muslim ally (Fletcher 113).

When Ferdinand died, Rodrigo remained a loyal and important figure in Sancho’s court in Castile. He was elevated to commander of the royal troops when only 22 years old, a sure recognition of his military prowess and organising abilities.

In the ensuing power struggles between Sancho and Alfonso, Rodrigo was instrumental in helping Sancho defeat his brother. Following Sancho’s assassination in Zamora in 1072, Rodrigo then passed into the service of Alfonso upon the latter’s return from exile. Although he did not enjoy the same stature as he had under Sancho, Rodrigo was nevertheless entrusted with various tasks for Alfonso, which he seems to have carried out diligently.

In 1074 or 1075, Rodrigo married a young noblewoman from León, Jimena Díaz. Little is known about Jimena’s family, but it is believed that she was a niece or distant cousin of the king himself.

The couple had one son and two daughters. The son, Diego, was killed in Consuegra in 1097, fighting against the Almoravids. The older daughter, Cristina, married the Prince of Navarra, and the younger, María, married Ramón Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona.

In 1079 Rodrigo was in Seville charged with collecting the paria owed to Alfonso by that taifa kingdom. Here he got himself entangled in local politics. Another mission had been sent by Alfonso to the neighbouring taifa of Granada for the same purpose of collecting paria. Whilst the two missions were in the respective taifa capitals, the two Muslim leaders took advantage of their Christian visitors to settle scores between themselves.

As a result the Cid found himself in battle against fellow Christians from the court of Alfonso VI, the most notable being the Count García Ordóñez. The events that followed were embarrassing for the Count. The forces from Granada were defeated and the Count found himself a prisoner of the Cid for three days and then divested of his weapons before being freed.

It so happens that the Count García Ordóñez was one of Alfonso’a closest advisers, and had accompanied the king during his exile in Toledo. With such a powerful enemy at court, the Cid’s position was precarious and rumours soon circulated that the Cid had kept for himself some of the paria from Seville.

Exile.
Still, it wasn’t until 1081 that the Cid fell foul of the king, when he made an unauthorised raid into the taifa of Toledo, then under Alfonso’s protection. The Cid’s audacious and arbitrary action made it easy for the king to banish him and undoubtedly pleased his enemies at court. Cast upon his own devices, the Cid spent the next five years as a mercenary, fighting against both the Christian and Moorish enemies of his new master, al-Muqtadir, the Muslim king of Zaragoza (the same ruler he had helped defend at the Battle of Graus), and his successors.

For a brief period (1086-89), the Cid was back in Alfonso’s service, but once again he was exiled, this time for having ostensibly failed to come to Alfonso’s aid against the Almoravids in Aledo, south west of Murcia. Alfonso reacted angrily, confiscating Rodrigo’s property and briefly imprisoning his family.

This time the Cid struck out on his own, gathering around him his own army, pillaging the land along the Mediterranean and fighting Christians (notably the Count of Barcelona, Berenguer Ramón II) and Moors alike.

By 1089, Rodrigo was sufficiently powerful to make the Moorish ruler of Valencia, al-Qadir, his tributary, in effect replacing Alfonso as al-Qadir’s protector. Alfonso responded in 1092 by preparing a siege against Valencia. However, he was forced to lift the siege when news reached him that the Cid had plundered an area of his kingdom in the upper Ebro valley.

More specifically, it was the county that belonged to García Ordóñez, the same García whom the Cid had humiliated in 1079, and who was, as the Poema indicates (verse 2998), a bitter enemy of the Cid. García Ordóñez was left impotent, and Alfonso undoubtedly uncomfortable at the power Rodrigo had amassed.

In the meantime, the Almoravids were advancing steadily northwards and Rodrigo decided to capture Valencia outright. After a siege of almost a year, he entered the city in June of 1094. By now the Cid was one of the most powerful men in Christian Spain, and the conquest of Valencia confirmed his status.

But the loss of Valencia was keenly felt in al-Andalus and by late 1094 a large Almoravid force was sent to recover the city. Rather than await a siege, the Cid took the unusual step of sallying out against the approaching Almoravids.

Dividing his forces into two parts, each leaving the city by different gates, he succeeded in routing the Almoravids at Cuart de Poblet, just north-west of the city. It was a victory that resounded far and wide, praised by Christians and lamented by Muslims.

We know little of the relationship between Rodrigo and Alfonso following the capture of Valencia. The fact that Rodrigo’s son, Diego, died fighting under Alfonso in 1097 suggests that they probably reached an accommodation. Nevertheless, Alfonso must always have been suspicious of such a powerful figure, one who although still nominally his vassal was in fact ruler of his own fiefdom (which he defended successfully against the Almoravids on several occasions).

Rodrigo died in bed, in October 1099, having demonstrated to other Christians that the Almoravids were not invincible. Undoubtedly many took note, too, that a modestly born lower noble had, by his own efforts, succeeded in becoming a man of considerable consequence, so much so that he was able to marry his daughters into royal families.

Almoravid pressure on Valencia continued after Rodrigo’s death. His widow, Jimena, defended the city until 1102, when she eventually obeyed Alfonso`s command to abandon it to the enemy.

Alfonso had considered defending the city, but Valencia was far away and he needed his troops to defend his territories inland. Jimena took Rodrigo`s remains with her and interred them in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña, just south of Burgos. After her death, she was buried alongside him. Their remains were later transferred to Burgos and buried in the transept of the cathedral.

Sources.
Blackburn, Paul transl. Poem of the Cid Norman: Oklahoma 1966 (1998)
Dodds, Jerrylin; Menocal, Maria R; Balbale, Abigail K The Arts of Intimacy: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the making of Castilian Culture New Haven 2008
Fletcher, Richard The Quest for El Cid London 1989
Hamilton, Rita & Perry, Janet The Poem of the Cid Manchester 1975; Penguin 1984 Prose translation, with very useful introduction.
Lowney, Chris A Vanished World: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain Oxford 2006
Smith, Colin Poema de Mío Cid Madrid 1996
Watt, Montgomery and Cachia, Pierre A History of Islamic Spain Edinburgh 1965
A very useful web site -in both Spanish and English- on matters relating to the Cid can be found at: www.caminodelcid.org
Map: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Maps_of_Spain

Tirso de Molina. El Burlador de Sevilla/ The Trickster of Seville.
Tirso de Molina, pseudonym of Fray Gabriel Téllez (1581?-1648), was a prolific writer. Member of the religious Order of Mercy, Tirso ranks with Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderón de la Barca as the most outstanding dramatist of Spain’s Golden Age. He is widely recognised as the bridge between Lope’s lyrical spontaneity and Calderón’s highly structured artistry.

His best known play, El burlador de Sevilla (The Trickster of Seville, ca. 1618-1630), is an anthology favourite and the main source of the myth of the iconic lover Don Juan. It’s a fast moving play with several themes intertwined: the theological problem of grace, free will and predestination, good and evil, actions and consequences, honour, friendship, fame, corruption, disrespect for authority, order and disorder.

ACT I.
The play opens in the king’s palace in Naples in the 14th century. It’s nighttime. The duchess, Isabela, has invited her lover, Duke Octavio, to her room but the man with her is in fact Don Juan. When Isabela realises it’s not Don Octavio, she screams for help.

The king arrives, carrying a candlestick. Summing up the situation, he calls for the guards and orders “this man” (l. 26) to be arrested. The guards arrive accompanied by Don Pedro Tenorio, Spanish Ambassador to Naples and Don Juan’s uncle. The king, without ascertaining Don Juan’s identity, orders Don Pedro to punish the intruder and leaves. When Don Juan reveals that he is related to the Spanish ambassador, Don Pedro orders everyone else to leave (l. 46).

Alone with Don Pedro, Don Juan then discloses (l. 54) that he is his (i.e. Don Pedro’s) nephew. Angry, Don Pedro asks for explanations. Don Juan excuses himself saying that he is young, and that since his uncle was young once he should understand.

He then admits that he deceived and seduced Isabela by pretending to be Don Octavio (ll. 67-71). Don Pedro cuts him off, and in an aside reveals that this not the first time that Don Juan has deceived women and that his father had sent him from Castile for that reason.

However, instead of punishing Don Juan, Don Pedro lets him escape and advises him to head for Sicily or Milan. As he departs, Don Juan –in an aside— discloses that he is going to return to Spain.

A conversation follows between Don Pedro and the king (ll. 121-57), in which Don Pedro lies, saying that Don Juan escaped over a balcony, defending himself valiantly against the guards. He compounds the lie adding that the deceived woman was Isabela and that she was seduced by Duke Octavio (ll. 146-151).

The king sends for Isabela (l. 138) and accuses her of profaning the palace by her actions. He then orders her to be imprisoned without allowing her to explain or defend herself. At the same time he commands Don Octavio to be arrested.

Don Pedro arrives to apprehend Octavio (l. 250). He again lies, telling Octavio (ll. 292-94) that the king had seen Isabela in the arms of some man and that Isabela had confessed that it was he, Octavio, who had seduced her while promising to marry her.

The bewildered Octavio believes that Isabela has betrayed him but, with the connivance of Don Pedro, escapes and heads for Spain.

Lines 375-696. We move to the coast of Spain, near the town of Tarragona. Tisbea, a fisher girl, appears and in a long, lyrical soliloquy proudly boasts that she is free from the power of love. What’s more, she scorns (ll. 413, 431) the young men who pursue her. She enjoys making them unhappy, and laughs at the envy shown by other girls (because she has many suitors).

She identifies one particular suitor, Anfriso, and mocks his faithful attention despite her rejection. All the girls pine for him (l. 459), but she cruelly takes “pleasure in his suffering,” (l. 457) while guarding her honour “in straw/ like a tasty fruit” (ll. 423-24).

Her musings are cut short when she witnesses two men leap from a boat as it is about to sink (ll. 481-84). They are Don Juan and his servant Catalinón. Having saved Catalinón’s life, Don Juan falls unconscious (presumably in the shallow water) and Catalinón then carries him to the shore.

At Tisbea’s request, Catalinón goes for help. Left alone with Don Juan, Tisbea cradles him on her lap. When he comes to, he immediately starts to court her, and –captivated by his bravery and flattery— she falls in love with him. At the same time, she hopes that he is not lying (Plega a Dios que no mintáis: “I hope to God you are not lying” l. 612).

When Catalinón returns with some fishermen (including Anfriso), Tisbea orders them to carry Don Juan to her cottage (l. 673) where she will care for him. Don Juan calls Catalinón to his side and –unaware that Catalinón has already told Tisbea his name (ll. 577-78)— whispers to him not to let Tisbea know who he is because he intends to seduce her that night. The scene ends with Tisbea repeating for the fourth time “I hope to God you are not lying.”

Lines 697-877 take us to the royal court of the Spanish king, Alfonso XI, in Seville. One of the king’s ministers, Don Gonzalo, has just returned from Lisbon and launches into a long, anachronistic** praise of the city (ll. 721-85) that does not advance the plot. [** NB. Lisbon did not belong to Spain in the 14th century.]

The king is pleased with Don Gonzalo and decides to reward him by arranging a marriage between his (Don Gonzalo’s) daughter and Don Juan (ll. 867-73)!

In ll. 877-913, we return to Don Juan and Catalinón in Tarragona. During their conversation, Catalinón chides his master for violating Tisbea’s hospitality. In addition, he warns him for the first time that if he persists in seducing women, he will pay for it when he dies. Don Juan’s reply is dismissive, !Qué largo me lo fiáis! (roughly: “What a long time you are giving me” i.e. I’ve got plenty of time to repent).

Catalinón leaves and Tisbea appears. She tells Don Juan she’ll surrender to him provided he promises to marry her. Giving her his hand, he swears he will. Twice Tisbea warns him of God’s punishment if he is lying (ll. 943-44, 960) and twice he replies !Qué largo me lo fiáis!

The act ends with Tisbea’s cottage going up in flames, which she likens to the burning of her soul. She has been tricked, seduced and abandoned, and resolves to go to the king to seek vengeance.

ACT II.
The act returns us to the court of King Alfonso in Seville. A letter has arrived from Don Pedro in Naples informing Don Diego Tenorio, Don Juan’s father, of what happened in the court at Naples. Don Diego, in turn, informs King Alfonso who immediately decides that Don Juan must marry Isabela (ll. 1058-59), and in the meantime be exiled to the town of Lebrija (l. 1065; Lebrija: a town about 60 kilometres south of Seville).

This, of course, leaves the king with a problem since he had earlier arranged for Don Juan to marry Ana, daughter of Don Gonzalo (ll. 867-73). His decision will offend them, but the solution arrives conveniently in the form of Duke Octavio who has just arrived in search of justice (ll. 1094+).

Since he cannot marry Isabela (she is now betrothed to Don Juan), Octavio will marry Ana, and Don Gonzalo will be elevated to Comendador Mayor (Knight Commander) of Calatrava. Everyone is satisfied and the disorder created by Don Juan appears to have been resolved thanks to King Alfonso.

After the king and Don Diego depart, Don Juan and Catalinón appear. From Octavio and Don Juan’s conversation, it is evident that Octavio does not know that Don Juan betrayed their friendship when he seduced Isabela. Don Juan also lies when he tells Octavio that his speedy departure from Naples was in answer to a summons from King Alfonso (ll. 1157-63).

Octavio departs as the Marqués de la Mota, an old friend of Don Juan, arrives (l. 1199). Don Juan wants to catch up with the gossip about various Seville women, which is mostly unflattering (ll. 1213-49). After a brief comment on the latest burlas (“tricks” or deceptions), the Marqués confesses (ll. 1262+) that he is attracted to the recently arrived Doña Ana (from Lisbon).

He is aware that the king has arranged her marriage, but he doesn’t know to whom (ll. 1277-78). She appears to favour him and even writes to him, the Marqués adds. Don Juan encourages the Marqués to write in reply and deceive her (Escribidla y engañadla l. 1285). Duly encouraged, the Marqués leaves, followed by Catalinón.

At this point (l. 1297) a lady whispers to Don Juan through a window grille and, believing that he is a friend of the Marqués, hands him a letter. This immediately provides Don Juan with an opportunity for another “trick” (ll. 1315-18 “I’m known in Seville as The Trickster/ and my greatest pleasure / is to deceive a woman/ and leave her without honour,” he boasts).

He opens the letter. It is from Doña Ana. In it she blames her father for marrying her off secretly (actually it was the king), and suggests a rendezvous with the Marqués that evening at 11 p.m. Don Juan is delighted with the opportunity presented to him. “By God, I’ll have her! With the same cunning and stealth/ [that I used] on Isabela in Naples” “ll. 1347-40).

Catalinón returns and learning that Don Juan is planning another “trick” he disapproves, warning his master that he will have to pay for his sins (ll. 1352-1359). Don Juan dismisses the warning. When the Marqués returns, Don Juan conveys Ana’s message to him, but says that he should be at her door at midnight. The Marqués leaves happy with the news.

Don Diego appears and conveys the king’s order that Don Juan must leave Seville for Lebrija. At the same time, he reprimands his son’s behaviour, even calling him a traitor whom God will punish when he dies (ll. 1439-48). Don Juan again dismisses the warning with Tan largo me lo fiáis, there’s still plenty of time. After Don Diego departs, Don Juan prepares for the next “trick” (i.e. the seduction of Doña Ana), which will be really famous (l. 1477).

The conversation that follows between Don Juan and the Marqués (ll. 1491-1561), is rather complicated, but the gist is that the Marqués had another “trick” planned for that evening, but on learning that Doña Ana is expecting him at midnight, he gives Don Juan the opportunity to carry out the “trick.” To make matters easier for Don Juan, the Marqués gives him his cape, so that the lady in question will believe her visitor is the Marqués. This is perfect for Don Juan, who now heads for Ana’s house by 11.00 p.m. wearing the Marqués’s cape.

Don Juan succeeds in entering Doña Ana’s house but on discovering that her visitor is not the Marqués (ll. 1562-63), Ana screams. Don Gonzalo bursts in and confronts Don Juan. In the ensuing sword fight, Don Juan kills Don Gonzalo.

As Don Juan and Catalinón flee, the Marqués arrives. Don Juan returns his cape to the Marqués and leaves him implicated in the crime. The king orders the bewildered Marqués arrested while Doña Ana is under the protection of the Queen.

Lines 1680-1797. A country wedding in the village of Dos Hermanas is interrupted by Don Juan on his way to exile in Lebrija. The groom, Batricio, immediately expresses foreboding at Don Juan’s presence, especially when Don Juan seats himself next to the bride, Aminta (ll. 1761-62). “A noble at my wedding/[is a] bad omen!” he concludes.

ACT III.
The action moves rapidly in this act. It opens in Dos Hermanas with Batricio, alone, reaffirming that Don Juan’s presence is a bad omen. Don Juan interrupts Batricio’s thoughts, informing him that Aminta has sent him (Don Juan) a letter asking him to go and see her. He ends by threatening to kill Batricio if he objects (ll. 1875-77).

The letter is a lie, of course, but Batricio accepts Don Juan’s words without question, preferring to criticise women as bad for men’s honour when they become objects of gossip. He leaves Don Juan who anticipates seducing Aminta that night, and has prepared the way by talking to Aminta’s father, Gaseno.

In the meantime, a confused Aminta confides to her friend, Belisa, that she can’t understand why Batricio is so downcast (ll. 1921-22).

After successfully negotiating with Gaseno, Don Juan boasts to Catalinón that the seduction of Aminta will be the best yet (ll. 1957-58) and dismisses his servant’s warning. After all, his father, he adds, is the king’s favourite and in charge of administering justice (ll.1960-2), so there’s no need to worry. He has also decided that he will not go to Lebrija but return to Seville, thus disobeying the king’s command.

It is night when Don Juan enters Aminta’s room, declares his love for her and his determination to marry her, regardless of any objection his father or the king might raise. Aminta demurs, wondering if he lying. Don Juan takes her hand and swears upon it (ll. 2070-01). He further calls on God to have him killed by a “dead … man” if he betrays his word (but at the same time -in an aside- asks God not to let any “living man” kill him. ll. 2079-80). Aminta then surrenders herself to him.

Lines 2098 -2205. The next scene switches to Tarragona, where Isabela has landed en route to Seville to marry Don Juan, according to King Alfonso’s command (at beginning of Act II, ll. 1058-59). She and her servant, Fabio, catch sight of a weeping fisher girl. It is Tisbea, who discloses her seduction and abandonment by Don Juan. This news infuriates Isabela, who now seeks revenge on Don Juan rather than marriage. She invites Tisbea to accompany her to Seville (ll. 2203-04).

Back in Seville, Don Juan and Catalinón have entered a church. Catalinón informs him that Octavio and the Marques have found out about his deceptions, that Isabela is on her way, and that Aminta thinks that she is a noble (adding the title Doña to her name). The past is catching up with Don Juan.

In the church, Don Juan and Catalinón come upon the statue of Don Gonzalo. On the tomb are inscribed the words: “Here lies the most loyal/ knight of the Lord/ waiting to have revenge on a traitor.” Don Juan mocks the statue and invites it to dinner and to seek its revenge that night at the inn where he is staying ll. 2255-60).

At the inn, servants prepare a table for Don Juan. There is a knock at the door. A fearful Catalinón opens and the statue of Don Gonzalo enters. He has accepted Don Juan’s invitation to dine. Catalinón and the servants are terrified but Don Juan is unafraid. After the servants and Catalinón have left, Don Juan asks the statue what it wants. Whatever it is, he will fulfil on his word as a caballero (ll. 2432-40).

At the statue’s request, Don Juan gives it his hand and accepts its invitation to dine with it in the church next evening. As the statue disappears, Don Juan shudders with fear but then rationalises that it is all in his imagination and that he should not fear the dead (ll. 2473-76).

Meanwhile, the king and Don Diego discuss the latest complications regarding Don Juan. The king decrees that Isabela must marry Don Juan despite her objection. To appease her, Don Juan is to become count of Lebrija so that although she has lost a duke (Octavio), she has gained a count. Also the king has agreed to Doña Ana’s request to marry the Marqués rather than Octavio (as was the arrangement at the beginning of Act II). The loser is Octavio, who is now left without a bride.

At this moment, an angry Octavio arrives bent on a duel with Don Juan. Don Diego tries to intervene and even draws his sword, which is totally unacceptable in the presence of the king. The king defuses the situation reminding Don Diego that Don Juan is his (i.e. the king’s) chamberlain and therefore his responsibility. He and Don Diego depart, leaving Octavio with the promise that arrangements will be made on the next day for his marriage (ll. 2582—83; but without identifying the would-be bride!).

Gaseno and Aminta turn up so that Aminta and Don Juan can be officially married. Octavio, recognising that Don Juan has deceived Aminta, sees an opportunity to avenge himself on Don Juan.

On their way to the church with Catalinón (ll. 2635+), Don Juan confirms that he has seen the king and that he is to marry Isabela. But first he has to keep his word and dine with the statue of Don Gonzalo. The statue is surprised that Don Juan has come since he expected him to behave as he had done when carrying out his “tricks” (ll. 2687-89; i.e. not keep his word).

Dinner is ready. Plates of vipers and scorpions and glasses of bile and vinegar are served, after which the statue asks Don Juan to give it his hand. It then drags Don Juan into the tomb. Don Juan tries to stab the statue and realising that it is ineffectual calls out for confession and absolution (ll. 2765-66). But it is too late. As Don Juan is dragged under, the statue declares that what has been done is God’s justice, and that quien tal hace, que tal pague (ll. 2772-73; the meaning is “you reap what you sow“).

In the final scene, the king and Don Diego are joined by Don Juan’s victims each calling for justice. As each blames Don Juan, the king orders him arrested and killed, a punishment which his father, Don Diego, does not oppose. However, Catalinón arrives with the news that Don Juan has been killed at the hands of the statue of Don Gonzalo.

The king reaffirms that God’s justice has been carried out, and since the cause of all the chaos is now dead, marriage arrangements can be settled. Octavio is to marry Isabela, Ana is confirmed as the Marqués’s bride-to-be, and Batricio and Aminta are reunited. Only Tisbea remains unattached.

Translations.
Bentley, Eric Life is a Dream and other Spanish Classics (includes Fuenteovejuna/ The Sheepwell and El burlador de Sevilla/The Trickster of Seville) New York 1985.
Edwards, Gwynne The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest Warminster 1985

Spanish Text used.
Martel, Alpern, Mades Diez comedias del Siglo de Oro 2nd. ed. New York, London 1968. Translations into English are mine.

One of the first things we learn about Don Quixote in Part I, Chapter 1, is that after reading so many novels of chivalry he comes to believe that all the fictitious events he has read about are true and historically accurate: “so embedded in his imagination was the belief that all those resounding fictions he read were true, that for him no history in the world was more authentic.”

But Don Quixote is not the only character to believe in the historical accuracy of romances of chivalry. Another is the illiterate Juan Palomeque, owner of the inn where several important characters in Part I meet. Responding to the priest’s attack on novels of chivalry as simply fiction for entertainment and that their heroes never existed, the innkeeper passionately defends the truth of such books and calls on the authority of the Royal Council to buttress his argument. “As if,” he concludes “they [i.e. members of the Council] were people who would allow all those lies to be published, with all those battles and enchantments which drive you out of your mind” (Part I, 32). The priest insists on their entertainment value and their publication is allowed only, he believes, because “there can’t be anyone so ignorant as to think that any of these books is a true history.”

Verdadera historia (“True history“) is an expression that recurs on numerous occasions in Don Quixote, mostly referring to Don Quixote himself, although occasionally alluding to historical individuals (e.g. Part I, 32 the true story of the historical Gonzalo Hernández de Córdoba).

But who was Don Quixote and by what authority can his “history” be called verdadera? At the very beginning we are informed that he was a minor noble from a village in La Mancha, that he owned a lance, an ancient shield, an emaciated nag and a fast greyhound. He ate modestly: stew, hash most nights, bacon and eggs on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays and some pigeon as well on Sundays. And so on.

But who exactly is it who tells us this? Cervantes informs us in the Prologue that he is not the “father” of the work but the “stepfather.” This distancing device was commonly used by authors of romances of chivalry. They claimed that their texts were translations of ancient texts written in a foreign tongue (e.g. Greek, Latin, Arabic) and discovered under unusual circumstances.

Such provenance was intended to give their works the air of historical authority and truthfulness. What Cervantes does is adopt this device, not merely to parody but to question the truthfulness of any work that claimed to be a verdadera historia.

In Part I, Chapters 1 and 2, an unidentified narrator (“I” - Yo) informs us that all these matters relating to Don Quixote have been extracted from the Archives of La Mancha. From what the narrator says, several writers penned something about Don Quixote, but were not always in agreement. For example, there was discrepancy over Don Quixote’s real surname, with “the authors of this verdadera historia’ concluding that he must have been called Quijada and not Quesada nor Quejana (Part I, 1. To complicate matters further, a neighbour in Chapter 5 calls him Quijana!)**. They didn’t agree over Don Quixote first adventure: did it take place in Puerto Lápice or was it the episode of the windmills? This uncertainty paradoxically confirms Don Quixote’s “life” in that no one denies his existence.

In Chapter 9, the unidentified “I” describes how he bought a notebook written in Arabic while wandering through a market street in Toledo. After finding a Morisco (Moriscos: Muslim converts to Christianity or their descendants) to translate it for him into Spanish “without adding or taking away anything,” he learnt to his delight that the notebook contained the story of Don Quixote written by Cide Hamete Benengeli, an Arab historian. The interrupted fight with the Biscayan gentleman now continues. From this point on, then, we are ostensibly reading a translation.

Translations, however, are unreliable and inevitably distort to some degree the original. In English, we say “there’s something lost in the translation;” Italian has a more graphic phrase: Traduttore, traditore, “Translator, traitor” (Johnson 81). Still, the Morisco translator promised to translate the notebook “well and faithfully” (Part I, 9) but is this so? Evidently not because we read, for example, in In Part II, 18, that the translator omitted details about Don Quixote’s visit to Don Diego de Miranda’s house because “they weren’t relevant to the main aim of the story.”

Later, at the beginning of Chapter 24, Part II, the translator questions Cide Hamete’s comments about Don Quixote’s descent into the Cave of Montesinos; Chapter 44, Part II, opens with the observation that the translator did not translate the chapter as Cide Hamete Benengeli had written it. Clearly, such editing or comments on the part of the Morisco translator undermines any notion of a verdadera historia of Don Quixote’s adventures.

And what about Cide Hamete Benengeli himself? We are told that he is an historian, but also an Arab-speaking Moor (Part II, 27, II, 53) and “it is very typical of members of that race to be liars.” (Part I, 9). But he is also sabio (“learned” (Part I, 15), “very accurate in everything” (Part I, 16), a “trustworthy author” (Part I, 52), and “meticulous investigator of the details of this verdadera historia” (Part II, 50).

These contradictions are undoubtedly intentional, underlining the unstable nature of the text: is everything we read about Don Quixote a fiction or is it historically accurate? (It is in fact a combination: Don Quixote is a fictional character who travels in realistic and historically identifiable places, even meeting with and talking to a contemporary historical figure (Roque Guinart, Part II, 60).

Finally, who is the unidentified narrator (“I”)? The text we read has been transcribed by him, but we know nothing about him. All we can say is that he is the final contributor to at least four levels of textual transmission: 1. The Archives of La Mancha containing versions by more than one author; 2. Cide Hamete Benengeli’s notebook in Arabic; 3. The Morisco translator; 4. The unidentified narrator.

Anyone who has played the popular party game “Broken Telephone” (whereby a message, whispered in turn by several people, ends up considerably changed) understands the technique employed by Cervantes. How can there be a true or definitive story if it has passed through several mouths? This suggests that Cervantes believed any claim to truth is doomed to failure, and that all histories are to a greater or lesser degree fictions, or stories. That is what the “history” of Don Quixote is in fact: a story.
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Cervantes’s critique of verdaderas historias comes at a time when the writing of pseudo histories claiming to be true histories was in vogue. For example, in 1589, Miguel de Luna published his Historia verdadera del rey don Rodrigo (The True History of King Rodrigo). Luna interestingly was a Morisco, and his work is not a true history but a highly fictional version of the legend of Rodrigo, the last Visigothic king who disappeared in 711 following his defeat by invading Muslim forces.

According to Luna, the work was composed in the 8th century by the “learned” (sabio) Albucacim Tarif, who claimed to have written “without any invention … and with truth the history … of the war of Spain” (Wardropper 9b). Luna offered himself merely as the translator!

In 1595, Ginés Pérez de Hita published the first part of his Guerras civiles de Granada (Civil Wars of Granada), entitled Historia de los bandos de Zegríes y Abencerrajes (History of the Factions of the Zegríes and Abencerrajes). Pérez presents his work as a translation into Castilian of an Arabic work penned by a certain Aben Hamin, witness (autor de vista) to the events described. Such authoritative provenance —-the “learned” Albucacim Tarif and the “witness” Aben Hamin—endowed their works with authority and historicity.

It is tempting to think that Cervantes may have had such false “true histories” in mind when he attacked the authority enjoyed by novels of chivalry in his Prologue to Don Quixote. The problem was not only that these false histories purported to be true, but the fact that they were widely accepted as authentic. In this sense, Don Quixote’s belief in the historicity of romances of chivalry may also point to the gullibility of those who accepted these contemporary false histories as true.

Sources:
Close, Anthony in The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature ed. David T Gies, Cambridge 2009, pp. 201-21
Gerli, Michael in The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature ed. David T Gies, Cambridge 2009, pp. 178-200
Johnson, Carroll B Don Quixote: The Quest for Modern Fiction Boston 1990
Labanyi, Jo Spanish Literature: A Very Short Introduction Oxford 2010
Wardropper, Bruce “Don Quixote: Story or History,” Modern Philology LXIII (1965), 1-11.

Sancho Panza is the squire and inseparable companion of Don Quixote (Part I published 1605, Part II, published 1615). Sancho makes his appearance in Part I, chapter 7, following the return of Don Quixote from his first adventure. Don Quixote’s decision to return is prompted by the innkeeper’s reminder that knights-errant always had money which was carried by their squires, although these things -the innkeeper adds- were not mentioned in romances of chivalry because they were taken for granted (I, 3).

First described as “not too bright” (de muy poca sal en la mollera), Sancho actually turns out to be canny, shrewd, and practical, and a perfect foil to his master. A proud “old Christian” **(I, 21, 47, II, 3, 4), he is persuaded to accompany Don Quixote only because he has been promised an island to govern (I, 7).

The first adventure they share is the famous windmill episode (I, 8). From a distance Don Quixote sees what he believes to be giants. Sancho sees only windmills. The result is one of the most iconic scenes in literature, provoking immediate laughter. But it is more than pure comedy; it also establishes one of the basic themes that Cervantes examines throughout the book: what is reality?

Sancho is necessary for this because he provides another voice that questions and challenges what Don Quixote sees. (Don Quixote blames the windmill debacle on enchanters, and tells Sancho to shut up (Calla, amigo Sancho) reminding him at the same time of his ignorance of romances of chivalry.)

In I, 19 Sancho begins his proverbial sayings, and acquires depth of character as a fount of home-spun wisdom. But the most notable change occurs at the beginning of Part II when he becomes aware of his fame as an important character in the recently published Part I. See his excited reaction, for example, in chapters 2 and 3 of Part II, when news has just arrived of the publication of Part I: “They say I’m mentioned in it,” he says proudly (II, 2), “They say that I am one of the main ‘presonages’ in it” (II, 3).

Significantly it is Sancho who suggests that he and Don Quixote undertake further adventures to provide material for another book,(II, 4): “I and my master will easily give the author more than enough material to write about (note how Sancho places himself first!)… What I can say is that if my master were to take my advice, we would be out in the fields now undoing injuries and righting wrongs.”

Despite the beatings and discomfort suffered in Part I, Sancho feels enough of the allure of knight-errantry to want to be famous as the best squire to have ever served a knight: “I’m not thinking of being famous for my valour but as the best and most loyal squire that ever served a knight-errant.” Sancho has not lost sight of his promised island, but fame has also become a major motivation.

The pair’s first business in Part II is to head for El Toboso (II, 10) so that Don Quixote can be blessed by Dulcinea (II, 8) whom he has never previously seen. Sancho is to lead him since he has supposedly delivered a letter from Don Quixote to Dulcinea (I, 25, 31). It is night and their search is unsuccessful, so Sancho suggests they wait outside the village for Dulcinea.

Once outside, Don Quixote becomes impatient and orders Sancho back to El Toboso to ask Dulcinea if she will see him and favour him with her blessing. Once out of sight of Don Quixote, Sancho sits under a tree (II, 10). Reviewing his situation, he reasons that Don Quixote will transform things as usual, and so decides to tell him that the first woman he sees leaving the village the following morning is the Dulcinea.

And so it happens that when three village girls on donkey back approach, Sancho points one out to Don Quixote as the peerless Dulcinea! But significantly Sancho has not noticed that Don Quixote transformed nothing in El Toboso, not even the church looming in the dark. At first he assumed that it was Dulcinea’s palace but on closer inspection realised that it was a church. The point is that Don Quixote is no longer reshaping reality to fit his chivalric fantasies, so that the girl pointed out by Sancho is not his beautiful lady but an ugly, garlic-smelling peasant girl

It’s a pivotal moment in Part II and parallels the windmill adventure although Sancho and Don Quixote now reverse roles. Now Don Quixote sees things as they are and it is Sancho who converts reality -to cover up his lie in Part I about talking to Dulcinea and delivering Don Quixote’s letter to her (I, 25, 31). (And it is Sancho who now says Calle (“Quiet“) in defence of his “reality”.) This moment has implications for Sancho when he and his master reach the palace of the duke and duchess.

Unfortunately for Don Quixote and Sancho, the duke and duchess had read Part I, and recognising their guests, set about creating “adventures” for their own amusement. Knight and squire are the butts of a series of practical jokes (burlas is repeated like a leitmotiv throughout the long episode) which, in the last analysis, only serve to show how superficial and cruel their two hosts are.

One such trick is to have Sancho whip himself voluntarily 3,300 times in order to disenchant Dulcinea (II, 35). Since Don Quixote’s main preoccupation now is to disenchant Dulcinea, he frequently urges his squire to carry out the whipping, even attacking him on one occasion (II, 60). Sancho finally concedes, but only after Don Quixote agrees to pay him (II, 71). Sancho then withdraws out of sight and proceeds to lash numerous tree trunks, sighing and moaning as he “whips himself!”

Of course the allure of being governor has been constant for Sancho since I, 7, and is finally fulfilled when the duke offers him the “island” of Barataria (II, 42 838). Unknown to Sancho and Don Quixote, this is one of the practical jokes fashioned by the duke and duchess. But Sancho does a very good job at it and demonstrates that he is a far better governor than the socially superior duke. Called upon (II, 45) to give judgement on various issues, his solutions are fair, sound and perceptive. However, the ongoing jokes he is subjected to (and which are reported back to the duke and duchess for their amusement) frustrate him. The final straw comes when he is expected to defend Barataria and is trussed up like a tortoise between two shields (II, 53). Unable to move he is trampled upon and beaten.

Predictably, Sancho’s experience as governor (II, 44-55) leaves him profoundly disillusioned and he abandons the “island.” The experience, however, has not been without benefit because Sancho has learnt something about himself: that he “was not born to be a governor.” (II, 53). It reflects self awareness: he knows who he is through experience.

When Sancho leaves his “island,” it would seem a good moment for him to return home, but instead he makes his way back to Don Quixote. Why? Because of the deep affection he has for his master “whose company pleased him more than being the governor of all the islands in the world” (II, 54).

The bond has always been there, and confirmed forthrightly earlier by Sancho in his conversation with the squire of the Knight of the Mirrors (“I love him as dearly as my heartstrings and can’t conceive of leaving him no matter how much nonsense he does” II, 13), and later with the duchess (“I have to follow him: we are from the same place, I’ve eaten his bread and I love him dearly … and above all I am loyal.” II, 33). His return is an excellent example of “talking the talk and walking the walk.”

Notwithstanding the pleasure he enjoys from being famous, Sancho never loses sight of the practicalities of life, the most important being his material well-being. Fame may be a spur, but so too is Sancho’s poverty, as he points out to his wife in II, 5: “I’m leaving with him (i.e. with Don Quixote) because of my poverty (necesidad), and I’m hoping to find another 100 “escudos” just like the ones we’ve already spent.” Later, in II, 7, he attempts to persuade Don Quixote to pay him a salary, but fails. The matter is not forgotten, however, and eventually he does convince his master to pay him in II, 28.

The power of money is never far from Sancho’s mind. “A good building is constructed on solid foundations and the most solid foundation is money,” (II, 20) he tells Don Quixote when discussing the differences between the wealthy Camacho and the impoverished Basilio. And when he and Don Quixote finally arrive within sight of their village, Sancho’s pleasure is expressed in terms of the money he is bringing with him, Dineros llevo (“I’m bringing money”).

Its importance is emphasised shortly after, when he responds to his wife’s criticism: “Be quiet, Teresa… I bring money -which is what matters- gained by my labours and without harming anyone.” (II, 74). Money, for Sancho, is a sign of his success in the world; for Don Quixote it symbolises the destruction of his chivalric ideals (in that he has to pay to disenchant Dulcinea, the very embodiment of his chivalric world).
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Some scholars have seen in the evolution of both Don Quixote and Sancho an instance of the passage from feudalism to modern capitalism. They have a persuasive argument, but we’ll leave that for another page.

Sources.
The literature is vast. The following are very good introductions in English to various aspects of the novel.
Bjornson, Richard ed. Approaches to Teaching Cervantes’ Don Quixote New York 1984
Johnson, Carroll B. “Don Quixote”: The Quest for Modern Fiction Boston 1990
Riley, E. C. “Don Quixote” London 1986
Russell, Peter Cervantes Oxford 1985
Image of Sancho Panza and Don Quixote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote

Don Quixote. Part 11 Summary.
Part II is more tightly structured and more psychologically penetrating than Part I. There is a clear trajectory: Don Quixote and Sancho head for Zaragoza, but Don Quixote changes his mind -see chapter 59 below- and they proceed to Barcelona before returning home. There are virtually no interpolated tales, farce is much reduced and Don Quixote and Sancho are central to the whole development of Part II.

Chapter:
1. The priest and barber visit Don Quixote. He appears to be sane until the priest questions him on what the king should do against a perceived Turkish threat. Don Quixote’s replies that the king should call on all the knights-errant in Spain to defeat the Turks. Don Quixote makes a passionate defence of knight-errantry and insists that knights-errant really existed. He even gives a description of some, including Amadís of Gaul.

2. Sancho Panza appears. Don Quixote asks him what people are saying about him. Sancho also informs Don Quixote that a student from the village –Sansón Carrasco—has told him that a book has been published about their adventures, with the title El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha.

3. Conversation between Don Quixote, Sancho and Sansón Carrasco. Don Quixote is disappointed that the author of the book was a Moor and it contains no great deeds of his. Sancho is delighted that he is one of the main characters in the book. There are also comments about the interpolated tales of Part I.

4. Sancho urges Don Quixote to go out on a third sally, and he will accompany him provided he does not have to fight. Wants to be known as the most loyal squire to have ever served a knight-errant. Sansón suggests they head to Zaragoza to participate in some jousts.

5. Conversation between Sancho and his wife, Teresa. Sancho talks of marrying their daughter to someone important if he becomes a governor; his wife objects, saying she should marry someone of her social status. Sancho ends by correcting his wife’s language (as Don Quixote has done with him!)

6. Conversation between Don Quixote and his niece. He defends knight-errantry following her assertion that all knights were fictitious.

7. Sancho asks Don Quixote for a salary. Don Quixote has never heard of knights-errant paying their squires, and he refuses, telling Sancho that he can find plenty of squires… whereupon Sansón Carrasco turns up and offers himself as squire! Sancho capitulates.

8. Set off on third sally. First, Don Quixote wants to call at El Toboso to see Dulcinea.

9. Arrive at El Toboso at night. Can’t find Dulcinea’s palace. Sancho persuades Don Quixote to wait outside the village while he looks for Dulcinea.

10. Sancho sees three village girls on donkeys, and tells Don Quixote that Dulcinea is approaching accompanied by two ladies-in-waiting. Don Quixote is puzzled because he can only see three ugly, garlic-smelling peasant girls. After a disastrous encounter, he rationalises that Dulcinea has been transformed by some evil enchanters (who have always persecuted him).

11. Incident with the actors. Don Quixote is perplexed and comments on the dangers of appearances. He accepts Sancho’s advice not to attack the actors because they are not knights.

12 – 15. Don Quixote battles with the Knight of the Mirrors (also called the Knight of the Forest). Against all odds, he succeeds in defeating him. His adversary turns out to be Sansón Carrasco, who had dressed up as knight, confident that he would defeat Don Quixote and therefore oblige him to return to the village. Result: Don Quixote continues, his resolve strengthened after his victory (again rationalises that the Knight of the Mirrors was made to look like Sansón Carrasco by those enchanters!). Meanwhile, an angry Sansón Carrasco swears vengeance.

16. Meets Don Diego de Miranda, Knight of the Green Coat. Each narrates his life story to the other.

17. Adventure of the Lion. Don Quixote against all advice orders the door to the cage opened and awaits the lion’s challenge, but all it does is yawn and turn its back to him.

18. Arrive at Don Diego’s house. Conversation with Don Diego’s son about poetry. Decide to continue to Zaragoza, but first Don Quixote wants to visit the Cave of Montesinos.

19. They meet two students and two peasants on donkeys. Students tell them they are on the way to an arranged wedding between Camacho and Quiteria. The wealthy Camacho, however, has a rival, Basilio. Don Quixote and Sancho decide to accompany them.

20 – 21. The wedding. How Basilio tricks them all and ends up marrying Quiteria.

22. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza discuss marriage before heading for the Cave of Montesinos. Descent into and return from the cave.

23. Don Quixote describes what he saw in the cave. All those he met there –including Dulcinea- were enchanted and awaiting him as their disenchanter. Montesinos was to let Don Quixote know how he would do this. This cheered Don Quixote enormously. The only dissonant note was that Dulcinea –through one of her “maids”- had asked him for a loan.

24. Don Quixote and Sancho meet a soldier going off to war and a man carrying lances and halberds to his village. The soldier is going only because he is being paid.

25. Don Quixote and Sancho stop at an inn where the man carrying arms tells them why he is doing so. Introduces tale of the lost donkey and the braying aldermen. Arrival of Maese Pedro and his prophesying ape. Don Quixote asks Maese Pedro if the ape can tell him whether what he saw in the Cave of Montesinos was real or a dream.

26. Maese Pedro puts on a puppet show. Don Quixote ends up destroying the puppet theatre. He agrees to pay for the damage and tells Sancho to hand over the money to Maese Pedro. Maese Pedro turns out to be a convicted galley slave freed by Don Quixote in Part I, chapter 22.

27. Don Quixote and Sancho run into villagers bearing arms in support of the braying aldermen (chptr 25). The village has been insulted by a neighbouring village. Sancho inadvertently offends them and gets beaten. Don Quixote, after initially trying to help Sancho, turns tail.

28. Sancho complains about his lot and Don Quixote agrees to pay him a salary.

29. They arrive on the banks of the River Ebro. Adventure of the enchanted boat. Don Quixote pays for the destroyed boat.

30-57. Don Quixote and Sancho arrive at the palace of the Duke and Duchess. This is the beginning of the longest and most complicated “episode” of the entire book.

The duke and duchess have heard of Don Quixote and organize a series of intricate pranks throughout this episode in order to have fun at the expense of both Don Quixote and Sancho.

30-43. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are together in the palace. In chapter 35, Don Quixote finds out how Dulcinea is to be disenchanted: Sancho has to whip himself voluntarily 3,300 times!! In chapter 42, the duke gives Sancho the island of Barataria to govern (this has been Sancho’s dream). Don Quixote gives Sancho advice (chapter 43) on how to govern before the latter leaves for Barataria.

44-55. Sancho departs for Barataria, leaving Don Quixote in the palace. These chapters cover what happens to Don Quixote at the palace and Sancho at Barataria. They also contain several letters: from Don Quixote to Sancho, from Sancho to Don Quixote, from Sancho to his wife, Teresa, and her reply, and even a letter from the duchess to Teresa with the latter’s reply.

Both Don Quixote and Sancho are disillusioned with their experiences. Sancho returns to Don Quixote in Chapter 55.

58. Don Quixote and Sancho leave the palace of the duke and duchess. Discuss topic of liberty. They meet some travelers carrying religious images and later some wealthy individuals playing at being shepherds.

59. They arrive at an inn where they meet don Jerónimo and don Juan who are discussing Part II of Don Quixote! This is an allusion to a false continuation of Don Quixote which appeared in 1614. Both don Jerónimo and don Juan agree that the Don Quixote and Sancho they are talking to are the “real” ones. Don Quixote decides to head for Barcelona rather than Zaragoza, which is where the false Don Quixote had gone to.

60. Don Quixote and Sancho meet Roque Guinart, an authentic historical figure and famous Catalan bandit. Tale of Claudia Jerónima and Don Vicente Torrellas. Roque talks about himself.

61. Don Quixote and Sancho arrive in Barcelona. Some boys place thorns beneath the tails of Rocinante and Sancho’s donkey, causing them to toss Don Quixote and Sancho to the ground.

62. Don Quixote is a guest of Don Antonio Moreno, a wealthy noble who shows him around Barcelona at the same time as having some fun at his guest’s expense. They enter a printer’s shop where Don Quixote sees the false continuation of his life being printed.

63. That evening Don Antonio takes his guests aboard a galley ship. They chase and capture a pirate ship, whose master turns out to be a Morisca, a Christian woman of Muslim origin born in Spain. She is dressed as a man. Her name is Ana Felix, daughter of Ricote, a Morisco whom Sancho had met after renouncing his governship (chapter 54). She gives her life story, including how she and her father were forced into exile (allusion to the historical expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain between 1609 and 1614). Plans are made to rescue don Gaspar Gregorio, Ana Felix’s boyfriend, held captive in Algiers.

64. Appearance of the Knight of the White Moon who challenges and defeats Don Quixote. As a condition of his defeat, Don Quixote has to return to his village for a year or until the victor thinks fit. The Knight of the White Moon turns out to be Sansón Carrasco, disguised again as a knight (see chapters 12-15 above).

65. A despondent Don Quixote remains in bed for six days. Good news of the rescue of don Gaspar.

66. Don Quixote and Sancho leave Barcelona.

67. They talk of becoming shepherds. Don Quixote also wonders how he can disenchant Dulcinea.

68. Don Quixote is trampled by pigs, can’t sleep and is depressed by his defeat and by his absence from Dulcinea.

69 – 70. Return to the duke and duchess’s palace. Sancho helps to resuscitate a damsel, Altisidora (who had “died” pining for Don Quixote) by being slapped and pinched.

71. Since Sancho has been instrumental in reviving Altisidora, Don Quixote urges him to whip himself in order to disenchant Dulcinea (See chptr. 35). Sancho consents but only after Don Quixote has agreed to pay for each lash.

72. Don Quixote and Sancho meet don Alvaro Tarfe at an inn. Don Alvaro is a major character from the false Part II who, after talking to “our” Don Quixote and Sancho, agrees to swear before the local mayor and sign a document confirming that they are indeed the “real” Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

73. Final return to the village. Don Quixote tells the priest and barber that he intends to become a shepherd for a year until he can return to his chivalric life.

74. Don Quixote falls ill and takes to his bed. He falls into a deep sleep and, after awakening, rejects the absurdities of knight-errantry and declares himself an enemy of Amadís of Gaul and all his offspring. He is no longer Don Quixote, but merely Alonso Quijano (the first time we know his proper name!). After confessing, making his will and receiving the sacraments, Don Quixote -or rather Alonso Quijano- dies.

Don Quixote. Part 1 Summary.
Neither Part I nor Part II of Don Quixote is easy to summarise, especially Part I (pub 1605) which contains several interpolated tales. Don Quixote at best plays a peripheral role in some of these tales, but by and large they are self contained stories even when the narration is interrupted by outside events.

Outline. Chapter:

1. Don Quixote decides to become a knight-errant. Names his skinny nag (horse) Rocinante and his lady Dulcinea.
2. First sally; he arrives at an inn which he believes is a castle, and meets two prostitutes whom he takes for ladies.
3. Don Quixote keeps watch over his arms, and the roguish innkeeper dubs him knight.
4. First adventures: episodes with Andrés and later some merchants.
5. A neighbour takes Don Quixote back to his village.
6. Examination of Don Quixote’s library.
7. Second sally, this time accompanied by Sancho Panza. Sancho promised an island.
8. Adventure of the windmills; Don Quixote attacks a Basque traveller. Story cut short.
9. Search for a continuation of the story; battle with the Basque ends.
10. Discussion about the balm of Fierabras to cure wounds and the need to search for another helmet.

11-14. [11. Speech on the Golden Age]
[12. Goatherd tells the story of Grisóstomo and Marcela]
[13. Discussion with Vivaldo on the world of chivalry.]
[14. Burial of Grisóstomo and Marcela’s speech defending herself]

15. Adventure of the Galicians; Don Quixote beaten up.
16. They arrive at an inn; “adventure” with Maritornes; a muleteer leaves Don Quixote half dead, and Sancho, Maritornes and the innkeeper end up pummelling each other in the dark.
17. An officer hits Don Quixote with a lamp; Don Quixote takes a balm and throws it all up; Sancho also takes it and “empties himself at both ends!” Sancho is tossed in a blanket.
18. Adventure of the two flocks of sheep which Don Quixote takes for two armies. He is stoned by the shepherds. Takes more balm and is sick again.
19. Adventure of a funeral group. A victory for Don Quixote. Sancho begins his popular sayings.
20. Adventure of the fulling mills. Sancho defecates in his pants out of fear
21. Adventure of the helmet of Mambrino. Don Quixote takes a barber’s basin for the golden helmet of Mambrino. Sancho sees it as a basin. Another victory. Discussion with Sancho about the world of chivalry.
22. Adventure of the galley slaves. The freed slaves throw stones at Don Quixote and Sancho.
23. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza enter the Sierra Morena. They meet Cardenio.
23-36 [Episode of Cardenio/ Luscinda and Fernando/ Dorotea.
24 [Cardenio begins his story.]
25. Importance of imitation. Don Quixote decides to do penance in the Sierra Morena and writes a letter to Dulcinea. Don Quixote gives a relativist description of Mambrino’s helmet: what to Sancho is a barber’s basin is to him Mambrino’s helmet and possibly something else to another person.
26. Don Quixote does penance and Sancho takes Don Quixote’s letter to Dulcinea. Sancho runs into the priest and barber from their village at the inn where the episode with Maritornes took place (chapter 16). They decide to take Don Quixote back to the village. Sancho goes ahead and the priest and barber follow.
27. The priest and barber run into Cardenio. Cardenio continues his tale.
28. The priest, barber and Cardenio come across Dorotea. Dorotea’s tale.
29. They all meet Don Quixote, and Dorotea pretends to be Princess Micomicona, who is seeking the help of Don Quixote.
30. Princess Micomicona tells her “story.”
31. Conversation between Don Quixote and Sancho about Sancho’s “visit” to Dulcinea.
32-46 All return to the inn. Next 15 chapters at the inn.
32. Don Quixote falls asleep. Conversation between the innkeeper and the priest about romances of chivalry.
33-35 [Tale of the Unwisely Curious Husband]
35. Adventure of the wine skins. [Conclusion of Tale of the Unwisely Curious Husband]
36. Fernando and Luscinda arrive. The four lovers (Fernando/Dorotea, Cardenio/Luscinda) meet up again.
37. Don Quixote wakes up and meets Micomicona. Don Quixote begins his speech on arms and letters.
38. The speech continues.
39-41. [Tale of the Captured Captain]
42. The brother of the captain arrives by chance. Joyful reunion.
42-44. [Story of Luis and Clara]
43. Maritornes and the daughter of the innkeeper play a trick on Don Quixote. He is left with his hands tied to the hay-loft door while seated on Rocinante. Falls off Rocinante and is left suspended.
45. Fight over Mambrino’s helmet.
46. Don Quixote object of a trick by Fernando et al. They disguise themselves and tie his feet and hands and place him in cage on a cart to return him to the village.
47. They meet a canon. Discussion between the canon and the priest on romances of chivalry.
48. Don Quixote still in his cage.
49. Don Quixote allowed out of the cage. Conversation between Don Quixote and the canon on knight-errantry.
50. The conversation continues.
51. [Episode of Leandra and Eugenio]
52. Last adventure: disagreement with a goatherd and then some penitents. Another beating before Don Quixote is returned to the cage. Return to the village.

Image of Don Quixote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote

Don Quixote is an hidalgo (minor noble), almost 50 years old living in the barren stretches of La Mancha towards the end of the 16th century. He decides to imitate the actions of the great knights-errant he has read about and revive the past glories of knight-errantry by redressing injustices and protecting the needy (including damsels, widows, and orphans, Part I, e.g. chapters 1, 9, 11).

However, knights-errant are fantasy figures living in a fantasy world of the past and Don Quixote’s decision to go out into the world and imitate those knights brings him face to face with reality. Still, as we read in the first chapter “so embedded in his imagination was the belief that all those resounding fictions he read were true, that for him no history in the world was more authentic.”

Don Quixote: Hero?
Don Quixote’s fame is assured whether he is viewed as a hero faithful to the noble ideals of chivalry or as a well-meaning knight whose misadventures are a source of laughter. His intention to redress injustices etc. is admirable but the means he uses to justify that end are highly questionable. He imposes his views aggressively both by word and deed against the challenges of the world around him.

Indeed, he can be positively dangerous and attack innocent people with little or no provocation (e.g. merchants from Toledo Part I, 4; muleteers I, 15; mourners I, 19; a barber I, 21; penitents I, 52). He even assaults Sancho without warning (I, 30) and gets embroiled in a fight with him (Part II, 60).

He destroys property (killing sheep, I, 18; smashing a puppet theatre II, 26 and a boat II, 29).

He gets angry easily when he feels the truth of his chivalric world is questioned or ridiculed and can be verbally belligerent (e.g. in I, 4, the merchants are “despicable swine;” in I, 30 he labels anyone who disagrees with his actions in freeing the galley slaves as an “ill-begotten son of a bitch” –hideputa y mal nacido-; he describes the canon “deranged and enchanted” in I, 49; his niece is an ignorant child, II, 6; he frequently chides Sancho: e.g. II, 29 where he accuses him of cowardice: butter-heart, town mouse ).

He is vain and exaggerates his “conquests” (with the Gentleman of the Green Coat, II, 16; the duchess II, 32) and on one occasion (when he abandons Sancho to face an angry mob (II, 17) he is more cowardly than heroic.

Such less-than-ideal conduct hardly conforms to the views of Don Quixote as hero. To see him as an individual who heroically fights for his ideals is to miss the point, namely that his ideal is to get everyone to agree with his point of view, to believe and accept what he believes. He doesn’t stand up against the world around him but in fact insistently tries to impose his vision/belief/truth on it to such an extent that we might justifiably call him –in modern terms- an extremist or fundamentalist.

The Limits of Madness.
Nevertheless, Don Quixote’s violent and impetuous behaviour is limited to his actions when under the spell of the romances of chivalry, and there is a marked change in his behavior when he is not under that spell. In Part I, 30, 37, 38 and 49, we are informed in no uncertain terms that Don Quixote’s madness is confined to the world of chivalry and that in all other matters he is a man of sound mind and judgement.

The same point is made at the very beginning of Part II, 1 when the barber and priest decided to test Don Quixote to see if he was still mad, but he answered their questions “with such good sense in everything they discussed that they believed without doubt that he was completely recovered and entirely sane and in his right mind.”

And in case we have forgotten, the narrator reminds us in II, 43 that “as has been said many times in the course of this great story, [Don Quixote] only went off the rails when touching upon knight-errantry, and in all other discussions he demonstrated a clear and measured understanding.” And finally in II, 65, the student, Sansón Carrasco -hoping to defeat Don Quixote in battle and thereby bring him back to his senses— confirms what others have said: “he (Don Quixote) is sane as long as he is free of the nonsense of knight errantry.”

It’s not that Don Quixote’s madness disappears, but it is much reduced and his rational other-half comes more to the fore. There are numerous examples of this sane Don Quixote (e.g. on the Golden Age I, 11; on Arms y Letters I 1 37, 38; on Poetry II 16; on Marriage II, 22; on the difference between “offence” (agravio) and affront (afrenta) II, 32; on governance II 42, 43).

The point is that a perfectly clear-thinking individual can behave irrationally, even violently, when under the influence of a belief-system that demands unquestioning acceptance or faith. For the mad Don Quixote, chivalry is a religion, as we’ll see shortly.

Belief and Confession.
Belief in the world of knight-errantry is fine as long as Don Quixote remains at home reading, but it becomes a problem when he leaves and starts to impose his belief verbally or by force on those around him.

In one of his first adventures (I, 4) he demands that some Toledan merchants, en route to Murcia to buy silk, believe that Dulcinea is the most beautiful maiden in the world. When they demur, saying that they do not know her, Don Quixote insists that what matters is that “without having seen her, you must believe, confess, affirm, swear and defend [her beauty].” In fact, he himself has never seen Dulcinea (II, 9), but accepts her beauty as peerless because that is how maidens are described in romances of chivalry. He believes without seeing.

It was common for knights-errant to insist on the peerless beauty of their ladies, but Don Quixote’s demand of confession, affirmation and acceptance is the language of religion in the social context of Spain at the end of the 16th century.

It would not have escaped readers of the day that the reference to silk trade and merchants from Toledo would almost certainly signal activities associated with Conversos (i.e. Jews who converted to Christianity or their descendants). Don Quixote’s demands are those of a fundamentalist: believe and confess.

The merchants’ response is comical but ends with a telling phrase “to please your honour, we’ll say whatever you want in her favour.” Conversos, caught in the net of social stigma and distrust of being required to believe in a new (for them) religion –with its prominent Virgin— regularly said what was publicly necessary while in many cases practicing Judaism at home.

Blasphemy and Error.
The comically disrespectful description of Dulcinea (squinting with one eye and dripping sulphur from the other) offered by one of the Toledan merchants infuriates Don Quixote who after insulting them accuses the group of blasfemia (blasphemy).

This is a loaded word; in the land of the Inquisition, the accusation of blasphemy would weigh heavily on the accused, whether Converso, Morisco (converted Muslims or their descendants) or anyone suspected of heresy.

In I, 49, 50, Don Quixote accuses a much more significant figure of blasphemy, none other than a member of the church hierarchy, the canon of Toledo (a canon is a priest, member of a cathedral). Both he and the canon engage in a long discussion over the truth of romances of chivalry.

The canon ridicules the knight’s belief in books of chivalry, and accuses their authors of being “creators of new sects and new ways of life …which lead ignorant masses to believe in and hold true all the absurdities that they contain.” He further suggests that Don Quixote should read the Book of Judges from the Bible and the deeds of historic heroes. Don Quixote’s response is to accuse the canon of being the one who is deranged and enchanted “for daring to utter so many blasphemies against something that is so widely accepted in the world.” He repeats the accusation a short time later: “Be quiet, your honour, and don’t utter such blasphemy” before launching into a long defence of the romances.

Here, as elsewhere, Don Quixote insists on the truth of the novels of chivalry with the zeal of a religious fundamentalist defending the inerrant truth of the Bible. Ironically, the canon cannot prove the truth of his assertions any more than Don Quixote can his.

Don Quixote is called upon again, in the first chapter of Part II, to defend his world, this time against the assertions of his village priest and the barber that knights-errant did not exist and that the novels were pure fiction and lies. “That is another error,” replies Don Quixote, “in which many have fallen.”

Like “blasphemy,” “error” –a departure from the truth- was another common accusation made of unbelievers (Don Quixote makes the same accusation in II, 32 directed at the priest in the duke and duchess’s palace; the priest is in “error” for denying the existence of knights-errant). To support his argument, Don Quixote then proceeds to describe what Amadís and other knights looked like (II, 1).

Of course, all this is the fruit of his imagination, but aren’t images of Christ, the Virgin Mary, the apostles or saints also fruits of the imagination and have no more historical truth than Don Quixote’s descriptions of the knights?

In II, 6, it is Don Quixote’s niece who calls the romances of chivalry “fictions and lies” which, she continues, if not burned they should be made to “wear a sambenito” (a yellow woolen shirt with a red cross worn by penitents sentenced by the Inquisition). Furious, Don Quixote reprimands her “for the blasphemy that you have uttered.”

The niece, however, is a spirited young woman and responds telling her uncle that at a pinch he could climb a pulpit or preach in the streets so blind is he and so foolish. This is a telling observation, because Don Quixote is indeed a preacher who defends his belief with the zeal of a convert, which is what he is!

At the very beginning of Part I, Alonso Quijano (Don Quixote’s real name) undergoes a life changing conversion from a sedentary hidalgo to a knight, changes his name to Don Quixote and leaves his village with a mission.

He is “reborn” with a new name, a new belief or faith, blind insistence on the truth of that faith, and a missionary zeal … all common traits in converts transformed into fundamentalists, extremists or ideologues. Is Don Quixote, when caught up in the world of knight-errantry, any madder than religious fanatics caught in the grip of religious zeal?

Knight-errantry and Religion.
The world of knight-errantry was not alien to religion or vice versa. For example, in the Spanish romances (novels) of chivalry of the 16th century the Christian piety of knights-errant and the crusading spirit and conversion episodes of pagans to Christianity resonated with Spanish readers.

Among those who were avid readers of the romances in their youth were famous religious figures such as the mystic St Theresa of Avila, the energetic reformer and founder of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, and St Ignatius of Loyola, former soldier (i.e. knight!) and founder of the Jesuit Order.

There were also romances of chivalry a lo divino, i.e. knightly adventures in which the protagonists were religious figures. One often cited example is the Caballería celestial de la rosa fragrante (1554) in which Christ appears as the Caballero del León (Knight of the Lion), the apostles as the twelve knights of the Round Table and the devil as the Knight of the Serpent.

In Don Quixote, Pero Pérez, priest and friend of Don Quixote, is well acquainted with romances of chivalry, discusses them with Don Quixote (I, 1; and the innkeeper I, 47), and appreciates the artistry of the best of them (I, 6: the examination of Don Quixote’s library).

He is far more interested in reading about knightly pursuits than in religious or devotional works. In fact, he mentions no religious texts –the Bible, lives of saints etc.—, is never seen in church and only once engages in a religious duty –when he hears Don Quixote’s confession in the last chapter of the book. Furthermore, in order to return Don Quixote to his village, it is the priest who first volunteers to dress up as a “maiden-errant” in distress in search of Don Quixote’s help (I, 26).

However, he changes his mind when he sees how ridiculous he looks and urges the barber to take over the role of maiden in distress. A timely encounter with Dorotea allows both of them to avoid the embarrassment, since she will take on the role of the princess. But it is the priest who invents the name “Micomicona” for the disguised Dorotea (I, 29).

The canon of Toledo is similarly attracted to the world of chivalry. He even confesses to have written some 200 pages of a chivalric romance (I, 48), but mentions no similar interest in writing a religious work. Furthermore, he also alludes to the similarity in the calling of knight-errantry and religion when referring to three Spanish military religious orders (religión militar): Santiago, Calatrava and Alcántara (created in the late 12th century, I, 49). Later, Don Quixote identifies Saints George, James (Santiago) and Paul –venerated by the church—as fellow knights-errant (11, 58).

Don Quixote obeys the same ethos as religious knights; he considers himself a Christian knight-errant (See I, 19), doing his Christian duty. For example, justifying his release of the galley slaves (I, 22), Don Quixote claims (I, 30) that he was only doing what mi religión (my religion) demanded of him.

The “religion” he refers to is clearly the belief system he has created from the world of knight-errantry. In case the similarity between religion and knight-errantry is not clear, Don Quixote is quite unequivocal in Part II, 8, 596, when Sancho Panza suggests that they become saints. His reply is: Religión es la caballería (“Chivalry is religion”).

The Dangers of Knight-errantry/ Religion.
What Cervantes suggests through Don Quixote’s madness and militant zeal is the danger inherent in religious fanaticism and the blind faith that it demands. It results in violence and/or verbal aggression to achieve its aims. Don Quixote’s madness is a means of questioning blind, uncritical faith.

The target here is likely to be the Catholic Church with its absolute demand for religious orthodoxy throughout the country and persecution (through the Inquisition) of all suspected of heresy.

Of course, Cervantes cannot be openly critical of the Church or religion for to do so would be to invite the unwanted attention of the Inquisition or the sharp eyes of censors**.

Cervantes generally avoids the problems of censorship under the veil of comedy as we laugh at the comical antics of a madman. But laughter can be very subversive and Cervantes is the master of irony and ambiguity. This is why the world of Don Quixote is complex, multilayered, ambivalent, contradictory, ever changing, and always challenging.

The questioning of religious authority and certainty is just one example of the book’s constant questioning of the nature of truth and the search for meaning. Simply put, can there be just one voice, one truth imposed on others? Cervantes objects to such an extremist view. In the Quixote and indeed in all of Cervantes’s works there are many voices, many “truths” which are no more than opinions.

The Church’s insistence that it holds the key to truth is as unacceptable as Don Quixote’s view that romances of chivalry are true and must be believed. The Church has no more claim to la verdadera religión than the novel’s claim to be the verdadera historia of Don Quixote (see The True Story of Don Quixote).

At the end of the novel, Don Quixote dies in bed attended by his friends, the priest, barber, the student Sansón Carrasco, his niece, housekeeper, and of course Sancho Panza. At the same time, he repents in the strongest terms having read the “detestable” romances of chivalry, and admits to their “absurdities and deceits.” He also asks for confession, makes his will and receives the last sacrament. This is the only time that Don Quixote openly turns to the church; during his adventures he never attends mass or takes confession despite frequently being in the company of priests. And the only blessing he seeks is Dulcinea’s (II, 8)!

The death scene is in fact conventional, following the prescribed ritual of the Catholic Church. It is also an expedient way for Cervantes to disarm any potential criticism of unorthodoxy … or blasphemy.

Cervantes: Converso.
Cervantes’s critique of religious truth in Don Quixote may owe something to the probability that he himself had Jewish blood (i.e. was a Converso or Cristiano nuevo). There is no direct proof that Cervantes was a Converso, but there is compelling circumstantial evidence that suggests that he was: 1. there is a 15th-century document that lists a Cervantes family as being Converso; 2. on his paternal side, Cervantes’s ancestors had been cloth merchants, a trade pursued almost exclusively by Conversos; 3. his father was an itinerant barber surgeon, another business overwhelmingly occupied by Conversos; 4. Conversos were barred from emigrating to Las Indias (America)… Cervantes’s request to emigrate to the Indias was twice turned down (some Conversos did make it to the New World by signing on as crew members and then jumping ship); 5. Cervantes’s Entremés (Interlude Play), El Retablo de las Maravillas pokes fun at the obsession with limpieza de sangre (purity of blood, i.e. having no Jewish –or Moorish- blood), and reveals it to be no more than a ridiculous sham.

Sources:
Close, Anthony “Miguel de Cervantes” in The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature, ed. David T. Gies, Cambridge 2009, pp. 201-21.
Johnson, Carroll B. Don Quixote: The Quest for Modern Fiction. Boston 1990.

Don Quixote: Hero or Fool?
Don Quixote is a heroic figure for many people nowadays, a dreamer who fights against odds and remains faithful to his noble goals. His death is the tragic end of an idealist crushed under the weight of reality.

When he first set out as knight-errant, Don Quixote wanted to revive the past glories of chivalry by imitating the deeds of famous knights (especially Amadís of Gaul), and thereby earn eternal fame. Implicit in this dream was the desire to be seen as a chivalresque hero who redressed injustices, and protected the needy, including damsels, widows, and orphans (Part I, e.g. chapters 1, 9, 11).

The trouble is that Don Quixote was following an impossible vision because knights-errant were youthful super humans from distant times and places, and he was a contemporary 50 year-old, low-born noble (hidalgo) from the arid wastes of La Mancha in Spain. As a result, his “chivalric” adventures are a parody and demythification of those encountered in romances of chivalry. Don Quixote did become famous, but for all the wrong reasons: for his misadventures rather than his heroic deeds.

Don Quixote’s adventures are in many cases pure slapstick and make us laugh, as they did early readers of the novel. However, heroism -especially of the kind found in epic verse or in romances of chivalry— is serious business and laughter undermines it. Don Quixote wanted to be taken seriously, but people laughed at him or, at best, expressed amazement that a mad man could sometimes hold rational discussions.

Laughter in Don Quixote takes many forms, from the humour of bodily functions (e.g. Sancho vomiting and suffering diarrhoea at the same time, I, 17) to subtle irony (Sancho’s superiority as governor over his social superior, the duke, II, 44-55).

At the time Cervantes was writing, laughter’s uplifting, therapeutic was widely recognised, but it was also commonly held that laughter could not issue from the actions of nobles but from lower members of society. For example, Francisco de Cascales, a contemporary of Cervantes, wrote that los hechos de los principales y nobles caballeros no pueden induzir a risa. ?Pues quien? Los hombres humildes: el truhan, la alcahueta, el mozo, el vejete… Si un principe es burlado, se agravia y ofende… Todo lo qual es puramente tragico. Segun esto, la gente baxa es la que engendra risa. Tablas poéticas (pub 1617). “The deeds of the high-born and nobles cannot provoke laughter. Who can? Humble people: rogues or buffoons, go-betweens, young fellows, foolish old men…If a prince is mocked, he is insulted and offended… all of which leads to tragedy. So, the low born are the ones who provoke laughter.” By the standards of the time, Don Quixote is a vejete, an old man whose actions are ridiculous. And being an hidalgo –the lowest rank of nobility- was not a saving grace. By this time, hidalgos were a discredited lot, ridiculed for their pretensions and their general uselessness in society.

Heroes, for early 17th-century society by and large, were still expected to engage in valiant exploits. A dictionary by Cervantes’s contemporary, Sebastian de Covarrubias, the Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, 1611, defines heroic action as follows: Como hecho heroico, vale ilustre, grande: dixose de la palabra “heros, herois” que cerca de los antiguos significava tanto como hombres que, no embargante fuesen mortals, eran sus hazañas tan grandiosas que parecian tener en si alguna divinidad (“Heroic action, i.e. illustrious or great, comes from the word ‘heros, herois,’ which for the ancients referred to men who, even if they were mortals, were so magnificent in their deeds that they seemed to partake of divinity.” Such a description cannot apply to Don Quixote. His deeds are not magnificent however much he would like to think they were.

How is it, then, that Don Quixote is now viewed as a hero by so many? It’s largely a change of taste and philosophy beginning with 18th-century rationalism. In England the book was subject to several critical editions and a proliferation of translations. English readers sided with Don Quixote, seeing him as a lovable, albeit flawed character, and their laughter is tinged with sympathy rather than ridicule.

These are the first steps leading to the 19th-century romantic view of Don Quixote as hero, a knight of indomitable spirit, firm in his noble beliefs against all odds. To be seen as a hero would undoubtedly please Don Quixote, and in view of his rejection of the world of chivalry and all it stood for on his deathbed, he might also be satisfied with the romantic interpretation of his heroism. (Don Quixote would undoubtedly object to the view that he is a dangerous fundamentalist. See Don Quixote: Knight-errantry and Religion.)

Still, since the 1960s there have been many who urge a reappraisal of an uncritical acceptance of Don Quixote as a hero, and argue for a return to the view of the book’s earliest readers that Don Quixote is a comical figure.

They object to the disregard for the novel’s comic dimensions and to the downplaying of Cervantes’s stated purpose: to parody romances of chivalry. Followers of this position have been called “hard” critics, while those opposed are known as “soft” critics. There are those who fall into neither camp, who might be called “perspectivists” or “relativists.”

It is puzzling how readers can arrive at such diametrically opposed views of Don Quixote and by extension of the novel itself. Hero or fool? Does it have be either/or? Cervantes himself , whether consciously or not, seems to suggest an answer in the episode of the barber’s shaving basin (bacía) Part I, 21. Don Quixote was convinced it was the magic helmet (yelmo) of Mambrino (the “soft” view), Sancho that it was nothing more than a shaving basin (the “hard” position).

Later, Part I, 25, Don Quixote compromises and allows that “what looks like a barber’s basin to you, looks like Mambrino’s helmet to me, and it may look like something else to someone else.” In Part I, 44, Sancho comes up with a clever solution, calling it a baciyelmo, a “basinhelmet.” Can we apply that analogy to Don Quixote itself? “What for you is a funny book is for me a serious book.” Or even better, it’s a “funnyserious” work.

Whether Don Quixote is hero or fool or something in between – “herofool?”-makes for a lively debate for which there is unlikely to be total agreement.

Sources.
Allen, J. J Don Quixote. Hero or Fool Gainesville, Florida Part I 1969, Part II 1979
Close, Anthony J The Romantic Approach to Don Quixote: A Critical History of the Romantic Tradition in Quixote Criticism 1978
Close, Anthony J A Companion to Don Quixote London 2008
Mancing, Howard Cervantes’ Don Quixote: A Reference Guide Westport, CT 2006
Russell, Peter “Don Quixote as a Funny Book” in Modern Language Review, 64(1969): 312-26

Don Quixote and Reality: Part II (1615).
Part II of Don Quixote appeared ten years after Part I (1605), although in the “lives” of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza only a month or so had passed (II,1,).

Part II starts with Don Quixote vigorously defending his chivalric world from attacks by the village priest (II, 1) and later his niece (whom he accuses of “blasphemy” II, 6). He is keen to know what his neighbours think of his heroic feats and is dejected when Sancho tells him that they consider him mad (II, 2). And when told by Sancho that a book (i.e. Part I) has just been published about their adventures, Don Quixote is pensive (pensativo) fearing that his deeds might not have been described adequately (II, 3).

It turns out that Don Quixote has reason to be concerned because instead of narrating his “heroic” exploits, Part I exposes him to ridicule (II, 3: the episodes referred to are in Part I, 8, 9, 18, 19, 20, and 22). Sancho, however, is delighted when he learns that he is one of the main characters in the book, and flushed with his fame, it is now he and not Don Quixote who initiates their next sally, prompted also by the neighing of Rocinante and the advice of the student, Sansón Carrasco, that they should go to some jousts in Zaragoza (II, 4).

Before heading for Zaragoza, Don Quixote insists on calling by El Toboso so the Dulcinea can bless his endeavours (II, 8). (Don Quixote has never seen Dulcinea, but he believes Sancho has when the latter supposedly delivered a letter from him to her in I, 25, 31.) It is night and their search is unsuccessful, so Sancho suggests they wait outside the village for Dulcinea.

Here, separate from Don Quixote, Sancho reasons (II, 10) that Don Quixote will transform things as usual, and so decides to tell him that the first woman he sees leaving the village the following morning is the Dulcinea. And so it happens that when three village girls -each riding a donkey- approach, Sancho points one out as the peerless Dulcinea!

But significantly Sancho has not noticed that Don Quixote transformed nothing in El Toboso, not even the church looming in the dark. He sees it as a church and not –say- a castle. The point is that Don Quixote no longer reshapes reality as in Part I, and what he sees approaching is not his beautiful lady but an ugly, garlic-smelling peasant girl.

The visit to El Toboso parallels the windmill adventure in I, 8, except that the roles of Don Quixote and Sancho are reversed. Now it is Sancho who “converts” reality and Don Quixote who sees things as they are. And it is Sancho who now says Calle (“Be quiet.” Compare Don Quixote in I, 8, after the windmill episode) in defence of his “reality” (all this to cover up a lie in Part I, when Sancho told Don Quixote that he had delivered the latter’s letter to Dulcinea and had talked to her, I, 25, 31).

How does Don Quixote reconcile what he sees with what Sancho tells him? He has no reason to think that Sancho is lying, so he resorts to blaming enchanters as usual; they have enchanted the very source of his inspiration into an ugly peasant wench. This is devastating, and Dulcinea`s disenchantment will be Don Quixote’s constant preoccupation for the rest of the novel.

Part II, 11 begins Pensativo … iba Don Quijote por su camino (“Don Quixote … was pensive as he went on his way”), and his next encounter with a group of actors does nothing to restore his confidence. Slowly the worm of doubt is creeping in. After challenging the actors (II, 11), he is left disillusioned, commenting “I affirm that it is necessary to touch appearances with our hands in order not to be deceived.”

By now Don Quixote badly needs a tonic, which comes immediately when a knight –who goes under the name of the Knight of the Mirrors- suddenly appears and challenges him. Against all odds, Don Quixote emerges victorious, leaving the defeated Knight of the Mirrors – he is the student Sansón Carrasco in disguise- swearing revenge as his adversary trots off “extremely happy, joyful and proud ” (II, 15 and repeated almost word for word in II, 16).

It is Don Quixote’s first engagement with an “authentic” knight i.e. dressed like the knights from romances of chivalry, and comes at a psychologically important moment. He badly needed something positive to keep his spirit up following the enchantment of Dulcinea and the unhappy encounter with the actors.

He receives a further boost in the episode of the Cave of Montesinos (II, 23). While he is is the cave, Don Quixote is told by Montesinos that all those enchanted figures he sees there -including significantly the ugly Dulcinea of II, 10— are awaiting him as their liberator. With time, Montesinos adds, Don Quixote will be told how he is to disenchant them all. Predictably, Don Quixote feels very happy when he emerges from the cave. It was the “most beautiful and agreeable sight any human being ever saw,” (II, 22) he tells Sancho and the guide who led them to the cave; it gives him hope, something to strive for.

There was only one thing that troubled him, and that was when one of Dulcinea’s maids approached him for a loan! It seems a trivial matter, but the presence of money in the chivalric dream world of the cave is a graphic representation of the reality that has always surrounded Don Quixote, and which he has managed to overcome.

Money is incompatible with knight-errantry, but in the Cave of Montesinos it has clearly insinuated itself into Don Quixote’s world, and has significant consequences later. Indeed, it turns up immediately after Don Quixote and Sancho leave the cave. As they continue on their way (II ,24), they run into a young man singing a song as he heads off to war: “Poverty is why I’m off to war, if I had money I wouldn’t go, believe me,” the young soldier sings.

This is contrary to the chivalric ethos upheld by Don Quixote, but it is the reality of daily life, and very soon Don Quixote, too, resorts to the use of money. For example, he pays for the puppets that he demolishes in II, 26 and the enchanted boat he destroys in II, 29. More important, however, Don Quixote even agrees (in II, 28) to something that he has previously strongly resisted (see II, 7): to pay Sancho a salary!

After leaving the Cave of Montesinos, Don Quixote and Sancho get embroiled in three adventures (the puppet show, the braying villagers and the enchanted boat, II, 26, 27, 29), none of which turns out well for Don Quixote. By the end of II, 29, he is thoroughly despondent. “God help us,” he tells Sancho, “but this whole world is full of tricks and deceptions, one set against the other.” Don Quixote is badly in need of another psychological pick-me-up, and it seems that he has arrived at the right place…

Leaving the demolished boat “depressed and out of sorts,” Don Quixote and Sancho arrive at the palace of the duke and duchess, where they are greeted in a manner befitting knights-errant. It is, as the narrator makes clear, the first time that Don Quixote really believes himself to be a knight-errant: “And that was the first day that he truly knew and believed he was a true and not imagined knight-errant, seeing himself treated in the same way that he had read about those knights of the past” (II, 31). Here, as in his battle with the knight of the Mirrors (II, 14), he doesn’t have to transform reality; others do it for him.

Unfortunately for both Don Quixote and Sancho, however, the duke and duchess had read Part I, and recognising them -and knowing about Don Quixote’s madness- they set about creating “adventures” for their own amusement. Knight and squire are the butts of a series of practical jokes (burlas repeated like a leitmotiv throughout the long episode) which, in the last analysis, only serve to show how superficial and cruel their two hosts were. One such trick, that will have a bearing later, is the news that in order for Dulcinea to be disenchanted, Sancho has to whip himself voluntarily 3,300 times (II, 35)!

Don Quixote’s experience in the palace turns out to be disastrous. An object of ridicule, he hardly does anything. Elaborate practical jokes confuse him, he has to mend a run in his stocking (II, 44: how chivalric is that!), a cat scratches his face (II, 46), and when Doña Rodríguez comes to ask him for help (II, 48), he covers himself up in bed so that only his face can be seen (what would Amadís de Gaula say!).

Words such as pensativo y pesaroso, (“pensive and dispirited,”) despechado y pesaroso, (“irritated and dispirited,”) mohino y melancolico, (“annoyed and sad”) appear with greater frequency. In a letter to Sancho (II, 51), Don Quixote alludes to “this idle life I’m living right now.” Everything that has happened to Don Quixote in the palace is actually alien to the world of chivalry, as the narrator makes clear at the very beginning of II, 52. Not surprisingly, after receiving permission from the duke to leave, Don Quixote’s first words touch on the joy of liberty (II, 58).

Don Quixote’s confidence, however, has been seriously undermined. “Up to now I don’t know what I am conquering by the strength of my labours,” he tells Sancho shortly after leaving the palace (II, 58). The sé quien soy (“I know who I am”) of Part I, 5, has given way to doubt, and it’s a downward journey for Don Quixote from now to the end of the novel.

There are still moments of satisfaction for him, but these have less to do with his knightly prowess and more with Cervantes’s concern about the recent publication in 1614 of a false continuation. What Cervantes does twice -in II, 59, 72- is demolish the spurious continuation by having readers of and characters from that continuation appear in his book and swear that “his” Don Quixote is the authentic one. (There are other uncomplimentary references to the false continuation in II, 61, 62.)

In Barcelona, Don Quixote suffers a major defeat at the hands of the Knight of the White Moon (II, 64). This is Sansón Carrasco (II, 12-15), who has pursued Don Quixote all the way from La Mancha to exact revenge for his earlier humiliating defeat (II, 14). As a condition of his defeat, Don Quixote is obliged to return to his village for a year.

This is deeply felt, but Don Quixote suffers an even greater defeat when he eventually agrees to pay Sancho to whip himself and thereby disenchant Dulcinea (II, 71). It is not the power of Don Quixote’s arm, then, that finally disenchants Dulcinea but the power of his money!

Nothing could be further from the chivalric ethos and nothing more destructive to Don Quixote’s ideals than the squalid reality of money! Poderoso caballero, es don Dinero wrote Cervantes’s great contemporary, Francisco de Quevedo. “A powerful knight/ is Sir Money.” Indeed, Sir Money is the one “knight” who has worn down Don Quixote’s resistance and finally conquered him.

Don Quixote falls ill in the final chapter (II, 74) and dies in his bed shortly after rejecting the absurdities of knight-errantry, and leaving Sancho, his niece and his housemaid in tears. Not everyone agrees that Don Quixote dies, but rather Alonso Quijano the Good (el Bueno). Don Quixote lives on achieving the kind of fame and immortality he craved, although ironically not for his chivalric deeds. He has passed into myth, his renown reflected in books, film, theatre, opera, ballet, musical compositions, painting, sculpture, radio, cartoons, television …

Sources:
Allen, J. J Don Quixote: Hero or Fool Gainesville, Florida Part I 1969, Part II 1979
Close, Anthony J A Companion to “Don Quixote“, London 2008
Johnson, Carroll B. “Don Quixote”: The Quest for Modern Fiction Boston 1990
Mancing, Howard Cervantes’ “Don Quixote”: A Reference Guide Westport, CT 2006
Riley, E. C. “Don Quixote” London 1986
Russell, Peter Cervantes Oxford 1985

Don Quixote and Reality Transformed: Part I (1605).
Alonso Quijano, a low-born nobleman (hidalgo) from La Mancha spent so much time reading romances of chivalry that he lost his mind and decided to become a knight-errant.

Under his chivalric illusion, he reshaped the world around him, creating his own reality. He began by changing his name to Don Quijote de La Mancha, giving his skinny nag (horse) a comically pretentious name -Rocinante- and choosing a peasant girl, Aldonza Lorenzo, as his peerless lady -Dulcinea del Toboso. And then, as he went out into the world, inns changed into castles, windmills became giants, tavern wenches were maidens and flocks of sheep armies, and so on.

Let’s take a closer look at this Don Quixote. 1. We’ll look at the importance of his initial encounters with reality (i.e. the world around him); then 2. consider an important change in his character in the second half of Part I, and finally 3. see how people and circumstances, and sensory susceptibility, contrive to sustain Don Quixote’s belief in knight-errantry.

1. Once Don Quixote decided to become a knight-errant, he cleaned and repaired some rusty, mouldy armour belonging to his ancestors (I, 1). Noting, however, that the helmet had no visor, Don Quixote fashioned a piece of cardboard like a visor so that the helmet looked complete. Then testing it for strength with his sword, he destroyed in a flash what had taken him a week to put together. He repaired the helmet but did not test it again. Why not? Was he afraid of destroying his illusions after this first contact with reality?

Don Quixote sets out on his chivalric adventures early one morning, without telling anyone of his intentions (I, 2). He is suddenly horrified by the thought that has not been dubbed a knight, something essential for any knight-errant. He arrives at an inn, which he transforms into a castle. The sound of a pig herder’s horn he takes as a trumpet call announcing his arrival. The two prostitutes at the door are to him two graceful maidens whom he addresses in an archaic language they do not understand. The innkeeper becomes the lord of the castle, who duly dubs him knight (I, 3).

These are critical moments for the new and untested knight, but fortunately for him all the people at the inn play along with his fantasy albeit for motives of their own, primarily fun. No-one tells Don Quixote he is mad, no-one shatters his illusions, no-one threatens this recently created world of his, so that when he departs he feels “so happy, so dashing, and so exhilarated at seeing himself dubbed knight…” (I, 4). All that remains now is to find a squire, so returns to his village because he has in mind a neighbour, Sancho Panza.

What could be better at this time than an adventure to confirm his knightly status! It comes immediately (I, 4) on his way home when he hears cries and sees a young boy, tied to a tree, being flogged by his master, a farmer. Challenged, the farmer –addressing Don Quixote as Caballero (“Sir Knight“)— agrees to free the boy and accept the terms imposed by his “vanquisher”. Off goes Don Quixote “extremely happy with what had happened for it seemed to him that he had made a most happy beginning to his chivalric life.” (The outcome for the young boy, however, was anything but happy once Don Quixote was on his way … more flogging!!)

Almost immediately after, Don Quixote runs into some merchants (I, 4) whom he challenges to admit that his lady, Dulcinea, is the most beautiful damsel in the world. Not sure where the situation is leading, they address him as “Sir Knight” (Señor caballero) but anger him by some facetious comments regarding Dulcinea’s beauty.

On hearing these remarks, Don Quixote charges but unfortunately Rocinante slips and our knight ends up beaten by a muleteer. What might be construed as a setback for Don Quixote is easily explained: it was Rocinante’s fault. But equally important is the fact that the merchants addressed Don Quixote in chivalric terms.

The reality of his chivalric world is now so firmly embedded in Don Quixote’s mind by these early events, that he is certain he is a knight-errant. Sé quien soy, (“I know who I am”) he insists (I, 5) to a neighbour who found him on the side of the road following the beating by the muleteer.

How is it that Don Quixote can stand the assaults of the real world when he so often suffers at its hands? His principal defence is to blame enchanters, whose existence was confirmed by none other than his niece, the village priest and the barber (I, 7).

Rather than admit they have just walled up Don Quixote’s library so that he wouldn’t be able to read his romances, they attribute the library’s disappearance to the machinations of an enchanter. But by doing so, they ironically and inadvertently corroborate the existence of enchanters and strengthen Don Quixote’s belief in them.

Don Quixote uses this belief in enchanters in the very first adventure Sancho and he have together: the iconic windmill episode. Don Quixote attributes his defeat to “that magician Freston who robbed me of my room and books [and] changed these giants into windmills” (I, 8). But he also tells Sancho to shut up Calla, amigo Sancho, a useful way to cut short any comment by Sancho!

It’s easy to overlook, in our laughter, Don Quixote’s vanity and dogmatic certainty about his chivalric life, especially in his early adventures. In many instances, he is the author of his mishaps as he tries to impose his version of reality on those he meets. We have seen two examples in I, 4, and I, 8, above.

Other instances include I, 15, when Don Quixote attacks a group of Galicians who have just upended his horse, Rocinante, for having cavorted with their mares. Don Quixote ignores Sancho’s warning that they are only two against more than twenty. “I am worth more than a hundred,” he pronounces, but of course, he isn’t and ends up stretched on the ground beside Rocinante.

In I, 16, he and Sancho arrive at an inn. During the night, Don Quixote is pounded by a muleteer after presumptuously dreaming that the innkeeper’s daughter -a damsel in his eyes- is madly in love with him. In I, 18, the dust created by two flocks of sheep are easily transformed by Don Quixote into two armies. Addressing Sancho, Don Quixote boasts that “This is the day … that I shall perform deeds that will be written in the Book of Fame for all future generations.” Pride leads to yet another fall.

How long can we keep laughing at these antics, which include vomiting, broken teeth, and in Sancho’s case diarrhoea and flatulence, before we become bored? It is difficult in these early adventures to feel too sorry for Don Quixote because in most cases his vanity and certainty “set him up” for a fall. However, this succession of slapstick episodes (in most of which Sancho also suffers) can lead to boredom if continued too long. Something has to change, and this is what Cervantes does in the second half of Part I.

2. It’s very easy to enjoy the mad antics of Don Quixote, especially in the early chapters, and overlook an important change that occurs in his character in the second half of Part I: Cervantes limits the madness of Don Quixote to matters of chivalry. The slapstick is reduced (not eliminated!) and other characters now pointedly comment on Don Quixote’s good sense and judgement in everything except on the subject of knight-errantry.

The detail is clearly important to Cervantes because he refers to it on several occasions in Part I. In I, 30, for example, the village priest observes that if people talk to him on anything other than chivalry, “he speaks very rationally and shows a clear and complete understanding of everything; indeed, as long as they didn’t touch on knight-errantry, no-one would take him for anything but a man of sound judgement.”

The same sentiment is echoed in I, 37, 38 and 49. For instance, we read in I, 49: “The canon looked at him, and was amazed at the strangeness of his way-out madness, and at the excellent sense he showed in his conversation and his answers, only losing his marbles when talking of knight-errantry, as we’ve said before.”

[The same point is made at the very beginning of Part II. In II, 1, the barber and priest decide to test Don Quixote to see if he was still mad, but he answered their questions “with such good sense in everything they discussed that they believed without doubt that he was completely recovered and entirely sane and in his right mind.” Also II, 43, 843: “as has been said many times in the course of this great story, [he, Don Quixote] only went off the rails when touching upon knight-errantry, and in all other discussions he demonstrated a clear and measured understanding.”]

At the same time, Don Quixote becomes more passive and more inclined to engage in conversation than in rash attacks. Even the withering criticisms of knight-errantry by the canon (I, 49, 50) elicit a verbal rather than physical counterattack, during which Don Quixote twice accuses his adversary of “blasphemy” (as well as telling him to be quiet Calle, vuestra merced, I, 50).

Gradually, we laugh less at Don Quixote as his other qualities become more evident, and we feel a stirring sympathy for him as he is tied up and placed in a cage on a cart to return home (I, 46). He immediately assumes that he has been enchanted, a conclusion easily reached thanks to the disguises worn by the priest and barber of his village and their co-conspirators.

Momentarily released from his cage, Don Quixote’s last adventures in Part I are an attack on a goatherd, followed immediately by an assault on a group of penitents praying for rain and carrying an image of a weeping Virgin Mary (I, 52). In his attempts to free the Virgin –whose tears are proof for Don Quixote of her captivity— he is knocked off Rocinante and left unconscious on the ground.

This finale of slapstick reminds us that, although he has journeyed a long way and has changed in the meantime, Don Quixote is still in the grip of his chivalric fantasy. The very popularity of Part I after it was published in 1605 suggests that readers wanted to know more about this unusual knight-errant. They had to wait ten years, but they were not to be disappointed.

3. There is no doubt that Don Quixote is mad from having read too many romances of chivalry. What is literature is for him real, but at the same time from the very beginning of the book, people and circumstances also contrive to help Don Quixote reshape what he sees and sustain his belief in his chivalric world.

We’ve seen how in Part I, chptrs. 2, 3, the innkeeper and the prostitutes play along with Don Quixote for fun, and in I, 7, how the priest, barber and Don Quixote’s niece unwittingly and ironically confirm the existence of enchanters.

The most complicated example begins in I, 29, when Dorotea and her companions conspire with the priest and barber to get Don Quixote to return to his village. Dorotea dresses as the princess Micomicona who has come in search of Don Quixote because she needs his help against the threatened invasion of her kingdom by the monstrous giant Pandafilando. Later, in I, 46, when a sleepy and bewildered Don Quixote is tied up and placed in a cart for his journey back to the village, he is assured by a prophetic voice (the barber’s) that he will marry Dulcinea.

In other words, the Dorotea and her companions and the priest and barber create a “chivalric world” compatible with Don Quixote’s. He has plenty of help in transforming reality.

In other cases, circumstances together with sensory susceptibility combine to fortify Don Quixote’s fantasy. At a time when the evidence of the senses was seriously questioned under the influence of skepticism, the eyes were considered the most likely to be deceived. In the famous windmill adventure (I, 8), distance lends some credence to Don Quixote’s transformation.

In I, 18, Don Quixote believes he sees -through huge clouds of dust- two armies approaching each other, whereas in reality they are two flocks of sheep.

(Even Sancho gets caught up in Don Quixote’s illusion until the flocks come closer!) In I, 19, darkness and an isolated spot make it easy for Don Quixote to transform a black-draped coffin escorted by several mourners dressed in white into a fantastical adventure. In I, 35, Don Quixote attacks some wine skins believing he is fighting a giant. Here sight cannot be blamed but the power of his untramelled imagination because Don Quixote is asleep and dreaming that he has arrived at the kingdom of Princess Micomicona.

In our laughter, it’s easy to be complacent about Don Quixote`s madness, but we should recognise at the same time that there is something familiar in his fantasy. His chivalric world is a projection of a particular obsession, and who of us can say that our obsessions haven’t at some time or other reshaped what we see or think!
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Ten years after publishing Part I (1605), Cervantes published Part II. As he says in the Prologue to Part II, the content is “cut by the same creator and from the same cloth as the first part.” That is true, but both creator and cloth have undergone some significant alterations in those 10 years.

Sources:
Allen, J. J Don Quixote: Hero or Fool Gainesville, Florida Part I 1969, Part II 1979
Close, Anthony J A Companion to “Don Quixote“, London 2008
Johnson, Carroll B. “Don Quixote”: The Quest for Modern Fiction Boston 1990
Mancing, Howard Cervantes’ “Don Quixote”: A Reference Guide Westport, CT 2006
Riley, E. C. Don Quixote London 1986
Russell, Peter Cervantes Oxford 1985