Discover Don Quijote de la Mancha, Part II - chapters 1 - 23 - donquijote.ufm.edu/en

Lesson 21: Sancho’s political mantra 58
Lesson 23: “We’ve come up against the church, Sancho!” 65
Lesson 22: Sancho’s discourse on infamy 60
Lesson 24: The first encounter with Dulcinea 67
Lesson 25: Don Quijote, classic romantic lover 69
Lesson 1: Reason of State 7
Lesson 2: Don Quijote has the solution 9
Lesson 3: The barber tells the story of the madman of Seville 11
Lesson 4: The Order of Knight Errantry 13
Chapters 01 - 02
Lesson 5: Sancho wants to govern his isle 18
Lesson 6: Don Quijote wants to know what people are saying 21
Lesson 7: Sansón Carrasco has read the first part 23
Chapters 03 - 04
Lesson 8: Reflections on the first part of Don Quijote 25
Lesson 11: “The author’s interested in money and profit?” 31
Lesson 9: Cervantes and the definition of a good writer 27
Lesson 12: Sancho cites the war cry of Spain:“Charge for Santiago and Spain!” 33
Lesson 10: The perfect novel according to Cervantes 29
Chapters 09 - 12
Lesson 18: The feudal relationship between master and servant 51
Lesson 19: Don Quijote says better to be a thief than greedy 53
Lesson 20: El Toboso: the first adventure of the third sally 55
Lesson 26: Don Quijote and“The Assembly of Death” 71
Lesson 27:“My Lord, the Devil has made off with my gray 73
Lesson 28: The Knight of the Mirrors 78
Chapters 05 - 08
Lesson 13: Sancho is transformed 38
Lesson 15: The fantasies of Teresa and Sancho 42
Lesson 17: Don Quijote’s theory of the four lineages 46
Lesson 14: Sancho’s family 40
Lesson 16: Don Quijote and humanism 44
Discover Don Quijote de la Mancha
donquijote.ufm.edu/en
Part II
Chapters 01 - 23
Index

Lesson 34: The identity of the Knight of the Mirrors 91 Lesson 48: The incredible adventure of the Cave of Montesinos 129
Lesson 41: The Knight of the Lions 111
Lesson 35: The conspiracy of the priest, the barber, and Sansón Carrasco 93 Lesson 49: Don Quijote, Fugger 131
Lesson 42: The fencing match of Corchuelo and the licentiate 113
Chapters 13 - 15 Chapters 20 - 23
Chapters 16 - 19
Lesson 29: The Knight of the Woods and his squire 81 Lesson 43: Camacho and Quiteria’s wedding 116
Lesson 36: The most intimate thoughts of Don Quijote 97
Lesson 31: Sancho Panza, sommelier 85 Lesson 45: The second part of Camacho and Quiteria’s wedding 123
Lesson 38: “The Adventure of the Lions” 101
Lesson 33: Sancho Panza, pacifist squire 89 Lesson 47: Don Quijote’s descent into the Cave of Montesinos 127
Lesson 40: The poetry of Lorenzo de Miranda 109
Lesson 30:“Knights and squires split up” 83 Lesson 44: Interest and Love battle for the affections of the damsel 118
Lesson 37: Don Quijote defends the interests of Miranda’s son 99
Lesson 32: The feats of the Knight of the Woods 87 Lesson 46: Don Quijote counsels Basilio 125
Lesson 39: The domestic life of Diego de Miranda 107
Part II
Chapters 01 - 23
Course activities 135

“There’s only
one difference
between a crazy
man and me. The
crazy man thinks
he’s sane; I know
I’m crazy.”.
—Salvador Dalí

5
Part II
Chapters 01-23:
Introduction
Chapter01INTRODUCTION
A
lthough it was published in 1615, a full ten years after part one, the second part of DQ is clearly a continuation of the first,
sharing most of its themes, symbols, and characters. Madness, desire, violence, and religion are again key issues, and the
novel is still structured according to a basic conflict between chivalric fantasy and everyday realism. The symbolisms of
asses and inns also carry over from part one. Similarly, the priest, the barber, the housekeeper, and the niece are all present early on,
and even Ginés de Pasamonte makes another cameo appearance.
But there are major differences. The second part sounds more natural than the first, more intimate, more immediate, as if Cervantes’s
method of writing had become more spontaneous. Furthermore, its tone is darker, for DQ, instead of a buffoon and a general menace,
becomes a more tragic and human figure. At the same time, part two contains even more innovative, almost postmodern textual
moments, which constantly break traditional narrative boundaries: such as when SP questions the veracity of a vision that his master
has while in the Cave of Montesinos, or when the knight attacks a puppet show that other characters are enjoying, or when DQ and
SP learn that they are characters in a novel. Also, DQ and SP often switch roles in part two, with our hidalgo starting to accept reality
and our peasant insisting on fantastical interpretations of the same phenomena. Another difference is that instead of heading south
into the Sierra Morena, the pair head east, toward Zaragoza and Barcelona. And there are important new characters, such as the Duke
and Duchess and Sansón Carrasco, who play major roles and interact with knight and squire in ways not seen in part one, because they
aggressively participate in chivalric fantasies that they themselves construct around our hero. As another example, we will meet three
different Dulcineas in part two, all of them making radical gestures toward DQ and requesting that he perform specific actions. Finally,
part two of DQ is a more overtly political novel than part one. Indeed, chapter one announces this theme at the outset.

6
The tone of
the second
part is darker
In the very first words of part two, Cervantes acknowledges the original Moorish author: “According to Cide Hamete Benengeli, in
the second part of this history.” This not only links part two to the end of part one, where the narrator alluded to a third adventure;
it turns part one’s anxieties about the looming Expulsion of the Moriscos into bitter reflections on the fact that the policy was actually
carried out during the five years prior to the publication of part two. Cervantes then employs the accepted medical discourse of the
era when he informs us that DQ has been convalescing but that “his heart and his head” are still problems. In other words, the
interconnected sources of his emotional and intellectual temperaments are still out of balance. It is difficult not to read DQ’s altered
state as a metaphor for the Morisco policy.

7
Reason of State
P
art two’s first scene takes shape when the priest and the barber visit our hero: “they decided to visit him and verify his
improvement.” They agree not to mention anything related to DQ’s chivalric fantasy, which the narrator describes as a still
tender wound: “they agreed not to touch on any threads related to knight errantry so as not to risk breaking the sutures
on his wounds, which were still so fresh.” After a description of DQ wearing a bodice, “a gilet of green flannel,” and a nightcap, “a
red Toledan bonnet,” the narrator indicates that DQ is as dry as ever: “he seemed nothing less than a mummy.” These colors and this
dryness allude to the era’s stereotypical image of a crazy man. Due to his initial presentation in part two, DQ still seems insane, yet he
receives his friends “with very good judgment and many elegant words.”
After this brief exposition, the political theme erupts in full when the narrator tells us that, during their conversation, barber, priest,
and hidalgo “began to discuss what is known as ‘reason of state.’” We must remember that political theory since the time of Plato
always employs medical discourse. States and leaders are considered as if they were patients and in terms of their relative health. DQ’s
insanity represents the political state of Habsburg Spain. Also, the explicit reference to “reason of state” connects the novel to one of
the most popular genres of the Renaissance: the princely advice manuals penned by everyone from Machiavelli, Erasmus, and Bodin to
Rivadeneyra, Mariana, and Hobbes. Cervantes is even more specific: DQ and his friends are profoundly utopian as they discuss different
“modes of governance.” Note also how the verb “banishing” recalls the exile of the Moriscos, which was justified precisely in terms
of “reason of state,” that is, as a necessary step for the preservation of the state: “correcting one abuse and condemning another,
reforming this custom and banishing that, each of the three became a new legislator, a modern Lycurgus, a latter-day Solon,
and they so transmuted the republic that it was as if they had placed it in a forge and removed one different from the original.”
LESSON01

By describing all three men as classical law-givers and
statesmen, Cervantes mocks the era’s overabundance of
political pundits, the so-called arbitristas, who proffered reams
of ridiculous advice on how to solve Spain’s domestic and
foreign policy problems. The irony is that, although DQ appears
to speak with such “discretion” that his friends as well as the
housekeeper and the niece think he is cured –“completely
well and with his sanity restored”–, the truth is that all three
men suffer delusions political grandeur.

9
LESSON02
A
t this point the priest discards the plan of avoiding topics related to chivalry. He mentions that there is news at court “that
the Turks were approaching with a powerful armada.” The news probes DQ’s particular madness because it relates to the
numerous militia calls in the latter part of the sixteenth century, calls which justified the existence of the outmoded hidalgo
caste. Furthermore, the priest says that Philip III has reinforced Naples, Sicily, and Malta, this last island famously defended against the
Turks by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. Notice, too, how all this relates to Cervantes’s own heroism at the Battle of Lepanto.
DQ takes the bait and says he has the perfect solution. Here we get our first glimpse of a character’s inner thoughts in part two. The
priest observes to himself that DQ has now fallen from “the high peak” of his insanity to “the deep abyss” of his foolishness. We also
get part two’s first conflict as the barber says that DQ’s solution might join “the list of those many impertinent recommendations
which are so often given to princes.” DQ is clearly upset, mocking the barber by calling him “Mister Shaver.” All pretense now drops
as the priest even calls our hero by his chivalric name, DQ. When DQ says he did not want to share his solution with others who might
steal his idea, the barber alludes to chess, swearing that he won’t divulge DQ’s idea “to neither the king nor the rook.” He also refers
to a certain ballad about a thief who robs a priest of 100 “doblas” and “his mule with the wandering gate,” thereby recalling two
major issues from part one: SP’s money and his missing ass. We also get our first case of bourgeois jargon in part two when the priest
vouches for the barber using contractual language: “I vouch for him and guarantee his word.” When DQ asks who vouches for the
priest, we get part two’s first case of blasphemy. The priest responds that he doesn’t need anybody to vouch for him. He alludes to the
sacrament of confession, claiming that his profession is enough: “it’s all about keeping secrets.” DQ’s reaction mocks the phrase that
accompanies the bread distributed during the Eucharist: “Here’s the body!”
Don
Quijote has
thesolution

10
DQ argues that the King could destroy the Turk if he were to enlist only a handful of men like Amadís of Gaul and Don Belianís.
However, since those men are no longer to be found, the job falls to him. DQ invokes God twice: “God will look after His people... and
God understands me.” At these words his niece reacts in fear –“Kill me now if my Lord doesn’t want to be a knight errant again!”–,
but DQ remains defiant: “I shall die a knight errant.”

11
LESSON03
The barber tells
the story of the
madmanof Seville
N
ow we experience a beautiful reprise of Cervantes’s labyrinthical technique in part one: the mise en abîme or “Russian doll”
structure, the narrative within the narrative which reflects back on the original narrative. The barber asks the group to give
him “license” to tell a story that took place in Seville, “because it fits perfectly here.” The story of the inmate who almost
escapes an insane asylum by pretending to be cured has folkloric origins, but Cervantes crafts it to suit his own ends. For example,
because it takes place in the “Hospital of the Innocents,” it alludes to the medical discourse of the previous political discussion. It also
cuts to the issues of philosophy and knowledge, because the insane man is a “licentiate” from Osuna, a minor university which the
barber contrasts with Salamanca. The story also contains more of Cervantes’s criticisms of the Inquisition. He mocks the superficiality
of differences between religions as if people of different faiths were choosing between Jupiter and Neptune. And he objects to the
way that the Inquisition often stole and redistributed the property of people it accused of heresy. The inmate writes letters to the
“archbishop” atop the Church hierarchy in which he explains that his relatives had him committed in order to take control of his
“estate.” Note how this also alludes to DQ’s own situation at the beginning of part one, where his insanity had caused him to stop
managing his affairs. Note, too, that there is something universally poignant about the plight of the second inmate who protests that
he is not insane: “You’re free, you’re cured, and you’re sane? While I’m crazy, I’m sick, and I’m confined?”

12
“You’re free, you’re
cured, and you’re sane?
While I’m crazy, I’m sick,
and I’m confined?”
The story’s own internal conclusion, as well as DQ’s reaction to it, underscore the power dynamics involved in laughter. When the
chaplain sent by the archbishop has to acknowledge that the man he has come to free is indeed still insane –“Even so, Lord Neptune,
it would not be a good idea to upset Lord Jupiter”–, he becomes the object of the laughter of the rector and his assistants who have
warned as much. Moreover, the chaplain is clearly humiliated: “by whose laughter the chaplain was rather mortified.” As he was early
in part one, DQ is angered by this laughter. He realizes full well that the barber has just compared him to an insane man pretending to
be cured: “I, Lord Barber, am not Neptune, the god of waters, nor am I trying to persuade anyone that I am clever when I am not.”
Also, DQ twice calls the barber “rapista,” a pejorative term meaning “shaver,” but which can also mean “thief.”

13
W
hat follows is another of DQ’s energetic defenses of “the order of knight errantry.” Echoing Virgil and the Bible, he
proclaims that knight errantry’s purpose is “the punishment of the proud and the rewarding of the humble.” He
laments the lack of real knights and the modern surplus of courtly knights, and even launches into an impassioned
retelling of the Arthurian legend of the “enchanted boat.” After another nostalgic contrast between the Golden Ages of the past and the
Iron Age of the present –“now, however, sloth triumphs over diligence, idleness over work, vice over virtue”–, DQ then praises a
series of chivalric heroes. We find his usual favorites, Amadís of Gaul, Palmerín of England, Tirante el Blanco, and Don Belianís, and also
the occasional contradiction, such as when he lauds both the Saracen warrior Rodomonte and the Christian Roland. Just when he seems
to approach the peak of his insanity, DQ takes a final, sophisticated jab at the barber. He says that if the Philip III follows his advice “the
Turk will be left tugging at beards,” meaning that the Turk will be left pulling out his beard in shame, but also that, upon his defeat,
he will be turned into a barber.
This is funny, yes, but it’s also hostile: “I say this so that Lord Basin here will know that I understand him.” Telling and listening
to stories are like combat. Is Cervantes revealing something about his art? The barber backs down, but the priest presses DQ about his
obsessions in ways that recall part one: “I hold that these are all fictions, fables, and falsehoods, dreams retold by men who are
awake, or, I should say, half-asleep.” DQ rejects the criticism as “another error” and he insists that chivalric knights were real because
he has actually seen them. Hinting at the theme of race, he says Amadís had white skin, but a black beard, as opposed to the blonde
ideal, and then he insists that he had “good physiognomy.” Nevertheless, DQ expresses doubts when the barber asks about giants. He
indicates the Philistine Goliath as a biblical giant and brings up the archeological discovery of certain bones in Sicily, the geometry of
which suggests that they belonged to huge beings. But in the end, and quite reasonably, he suspects that Morgante’s size was normal
because he slept under a roof like everybody else.
The Order of
KnightErrantry
LESSON04

14
Confusion continues in DQ’s description of Reinaldos.
Unlike his admiration in part one, now DQ sees Reinaldos as
treacherous, “overly choleric, a friend of thieves and other
degenerate people.” Similarly, his description of Roland
makes him sound like a famous Ottoman pirate, “with a dark
complexion and a red beard.” Finally, DQ returns to the
problematic love triangle between Roland, Angélica, and the
Moor Medoro, which we saw halfway through part one. At first
DQ follows the priest’s lead, considering Angélica a whore –“a
wanderer and somewhat capricious”– and suggesting that
author Ariosto left her ruling in “Cathay” (China) because he
did not want to go into more detail about her. But then DQ
retreats, saying that libels and satires are beneath his chivalric
code and he even cites a favorable poem about her by Lope de
Vega. At this point, cries are heard in the patio and the chapter
ends. Who could it be?

15
Chapter 01
review

16
Part two begins with a dense review of major aspects of part one, but with
a few twists. We have the immediate Arabic presence of Cide Hamete, then we
get a review of DQ’s illness followed by one of the novel’s most explicit forays
into Renaissance politics, especially the ongoing war against the Turk and the
debate over “reason of state,” a popular excuse among the era’s tyrants. There
are familiar notes of blasphemy, and very early in the novel we get another
intense story within a story, one that destabilizes orthodox definitions
of insanity and heresy. The loco cuerdo or “sane madman” anticipates the
Romantic hero struggling against his oppressive society. Also, we note that
laughter is already a major problem: truthful, yet also sadistic, both within the
story and without. Finally, DQ’s angry defense of chivalry focuses on beards
(a recurring theme in part two) and, of course, race: our knight once again
contemplates the ethnic difficulties implied by the love triangle formed by
Angélica, Roland, and Medoro. Textual and archeological data are doubtful.
Biblical enemies like Goliath might have been giants and bones found in Sicily
seem to confirm their existence, yet DQ points out that an attentive reader can
rightly question the size of Morgante. Finally, in the middle of a meandering
debate over Angélica’s relative purity, another character arrives at DQ’s house.
Let’s review

“The ass is funny!”
—Fernando de Rojas, La Celestina

18
Chapter02LESSON05
Sancho
wants to
govern his isle
S
ancho Panza’s arrival causes quite an interruption at the end of chapter one. The voices heard turn out to be those of the niece
and the housekeeper, who are militant in their defense of DQ’s house. The housekeeper insults SP, calling him a “vagabond”
and accusing him of leading DQ astray. SP responds with equal vitriol, calling her “Housekeeper of Satan” and claiming that
it was DQ who lead him astray and that he has yet to receive the “isle” he was promised.
If part two is more political than part one, it is also more explicitly focused on economics. SP tells the housekeeper that she is off
by “half the just price,” which alludes to the era’s hotly debated issue of whether prices should be determined according to the free
market or, rather, according to the calculations of appointed regulators. The School of Salamanca generally argued in favor of the free
market; monopolists and certain religious and government officials argued that they should set prices. Ironically, even though SP
accuses the housekeeper of mispricing his relationship with DQ, he still has corrupt intentions. He hopes for more profit from ruling
his island than “four court judges.” The housekeeper snaps back that he should be content with what he has: “Go and govern your
own house and work your parcels of land.” Here is Cervantes’s novel in a nutshell: the contrast between chivalric adventurism and the
simple, though apparently difficult, art of managing one’s own household.

19
Once they are alone, DQ chastises SP for mischaracterizing their relationship during his argument with the housekeeper. He uses
medical and anatomical discourse in order to reassert a kind of natural, feudal bond between master and servant. Cervantes underscores
this by having DQ begin with a Latin phrase: “You are deluded, Sancho... as the saying goes, quanto caput dolet, etcetera... I mean...
that when the head aches, all the other members also ache; and seeing as I am your lord and master, I am your head, and you my
member, for you are my servant; and for this reason, any evil that touches, or might touch, me will cause you pain, and yours will
do the same to me.” SP’s response is brilliant and comical, but it also reestablishes an important tension between our heroes that we
saw in part one. SP recalls the episode in DQ 1.17 when he was blanketed for refusing to pay the innkeeper: “but when they tossed me
in the blanket like a member, my head was behind the fence, watching me fly through the air, not feeling any pain whatsoever.”
DQ insists that he felt the squire’s pain in a spiritual sense and then he changes the topic.
“Go and govern your
own house and work
your parcels of land.”

21
Chapter02LESSON06
Don Quijote
wants to know
what people are saying
P
erhaps prompted by the barber’s story in the previous chapter, DQ wants to know what people are saying about him,
specifically, the masses, “the commoners,” the low nobility, “the hidalgos,” and the high nobility, “the gentlemen,” i.e., the
caballeros. He also recalls the earlier theme of princely advice and mocks the corruption and flattery practiced by the political
class: “I want you to know, Sancho, that if the naked truth, unclothed by flattery, were to reach the ears of princes, the times
would be different, other ages would be considered iron when compared to our own, which I have heard is considered golden
among present nations.” Notice how complex this is. DQ recognizes that, compared to life in other countries, Spaniards are living a
golden age, but he still insists that it is more corrupt than it should be.
SP is brutally honest. Commoners believe that DQ is simply insane, “a great madman”; the hidalgos think he has gone too far by
calling himself “don,” or “Sir,” when all he owns are “four vine stumps and a couple of fields”; and the high gentry is offended that
the low gentry dares to compete with them, especially since DQ is one of those who “polish their shoes with soot” and “mend their
black stockings with green thread.” Notice how, like the beginning of part one, part two opens with detailed information about how
both hidalgo and squire are dirt poor. Finally, SP reports that many people question DQ’s character, calling him “crazy, but amusing,”
“brave, but unfortunate,” and “courteous, but impertinent.”
DQ either ignores or dismisses these criticisms and points out that slander has attended all great heroes: Julius Cesar was called
overly ambitious, Alexander the Great a drunk, Hercules self-indulgent, Don Galaor too quarrelsome, and his brother Amadís of Gaul a
crybaby. But when the knight asks the squire if there is anything else, the exposition of part two takes a radically absurd turn that once
again displays Cervantes’s literary genius. Cervantes is not just the inventor of the modern novel; he is the inventor of the modernist

22
novel. Incredibly, SP reports that his neighbor Sansón Carrasco,
who has just returned from his first year at the University of
Salamanca, is currently reading a book about their adventures
“called The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quijote of La Mancha.”
Wow! Not only is the month between parts one and two not
enough time for such a book to have been composed and
published, SP is shocked because the author describes “things
that happened when we were alone, which made me cross
myself out of fear about how the historian who wrote them
could have known about them.”
This hint of existentialist trauma is mitigated by a comedic
discussion between knight and squire about the identity of
the author of their story. DQ affirms that he must be a “wise
enchanter,” as per the narrators of the books of chivalry, and SP
reports that his name is “Cide Hamete Berenjena,” confusing
the surname “Benengeli” with the Spanish word for “eggplant.”
DQ notes that this name is Moorish and that “Cide” means
“Lord” in Arabic, but when SP agrees because “the Moors are
fond of eggplants,” the knight doubts that the squire is correct
about the surname. Notice how Cervantes makes fun of racism
here. At this point, SP rushes off to get the bachelor Carrasco
who will tell DQ more.

23
Chapter03LESSON07
SansónCarrasco
has read the
first part
C
hapter three opens with DQ meditating about the book mentioned by SP. The narrator underscores the temporal problem
while also giving us indirect access to DQ’s delusions of grandeur: “he could not persuade himself that such a history
could exist, for the blood of the enemies he had slain was not yet dry on the blade of his sword, and yet they already
wanted his chivalric exploits to go about in print.” DQ is also disturbed by the Moorish status of the author: “from Moors one could
not expect any truth whatsoever, because they are all tricksters, liars, and swindlers.” He worries the author might have written
something against “the modesty of his lady Dulcinea of Toboso” or perhaps misrepresented his own faithful decorum. DQ has always
kept “at bay the impulses of his natural passions.” Remember Maritornes? She can vouch for DQ’s ability to control his passions,
right?
In the midst of these worries, Sancho and Carrasco are suddenly present. In spite of his name, Sánson (Samson) is described as
small in stature, about twenty-four years old, and having a round face, snub nose, and large smile, “all signs that he was mischievous
in nature and fond of pranks and jokes.” Carrasco immediately plays with our knight, throwing himself at his feet and swearing by
his bachelor’s robe –“by the habit of Saint Peter that I wear”– that DQ is “one of the most famous knights errant that there ever
was, or ever will be, anywhere on the face of the earth.” He also praises Cide Hamete Benengeli for having written down DQ’s “great
deeds” as well as the Christian narrator for having taken care to “have them translated from Arabic into our vernacular Castilian.”
Note that if DQ does not trust Moorish authors, his more immediate problem is a false neighbor.

24
In fact, Carrasco represents a range of problems. We are only at the beginning of chapter three and Carrasco’s commentary highlights
the mindboggling mise-en-abîme structure of the narrative that we have seen elsewhere. We assume Cervantes is the author, but others
are involved: Cide Hamete, the Christian narrator, and presumably another Morisco translator. To top it all off, we now have Carrasco, a
character inside all of these narrative frames who claims to have already read the first part of the novel. He does more. He notes that the
novel has been printed in Portugal, Valencia, Barcelona, and Antwerp; and he even anticipates the future when he observes that “there
will be no nation or language that will not have its translation.” Evidently, as we can also gather from the dedication of 1615, by now
Cervantes knew that he had written something amazing. There were already at least nine editions of DQ 1, and it had been translated
into English and French in 1612 and 1614.

25
LESSON08
Reflections
on the first part of
Don Quijote
T
hroughout part two Cervantes will deploy this kind of self-reflection, whereby narrators and characters refer to the novel itself.
The result is comical and intellectual instability. In chapter three, the technique creates a full-blown crisis. Carrasco begins
by praising the accuracy of both the Moorish author and the Christian translator of part one, and then he cuts straight to
DQ’s chief anxiety: “the modesty and continence of the Platonic love between your grace and my lady Doña Dulcinea of Toboso.”
This reference to the era’s Neoplatonic theory of love suggests a complex philosophical aspect to the novel which most readers ignore
(cf. León Hebreo). At the same time, this is Cervantes’s first response to certain errors that readers claim to have found in part one. SP
says he has never heard anybody refer to Dulcinea with the title “don” and states “so the history’s already wrong on that account.”
However, DQ referred to her with this title twice in part one, but SP was not present. Moreover, Carrasco dismisses SP’s criticism: “That’s
not an important objection.” Really? Duclinea’s status is unimportant? The relative accuracy and sophistication of different readers’
understandings of part one are now a major issue.
Next, DQ asks Carrasco which of his adventures receive the most attention in this book. The bachelor recalls numerous episodes: the
windmills, the fulling-mills, the battle with the sheep, the dead body adventure on the road to Segovia, the freeing of the galley slaves,
the battle with the Basque, Rocinante’s adventure with the Galician mares, even SP’s blanketing. DQ observes that all true histories
have their “ups and downs,” but Carrasco reports that, even so, some readers would have preferred that the author overlook “some
of the infinite beatings given to Lord Quijote on various occasions.” Author Vladimir Nabokov made the same complaint over three
hundred years later. SP quips that these beatings are the essence of the story: “That’s where the truth of the history comes in.” When
DQ notes that Aeneas and Odysseus were not as perfect as Virgil and Homer described them, Carrasco makes a theoretical distinction
between writing “as a poet” and writing “as an historian.” Apparently, Cide Hamete is an historian.

26
Now SP enters the discussion in big ways, asserting his own importance and quarrelling with both DQ and Carrasco about textual
details. He says that if true history is the Moorish author’s goal, then “surely among my master’s beatings are to be found my own.”
DQ is annoyed by SP’s refusal to forget certain events. The squire insists that he is one of the novel’s major “presonages” and Carrasco
corrects his pronunciation: “Personages, not presonages, Sancho my friend.” Carrasco reports that some readers find SP too gullible
regarding “the governorship of that isle offered by Lord Don Quijote.” Things get political again when SP insists he is qualified
to be a governor and that there have been governors “who don’t measure up to the sole of my shoe.” Finally, SP warns that there
would have been trouble if the author of the history had slandered his superior ethnic status: “if he had said things about me that
did not suit the Old Christian that I am, even the deaf would have heard us.” Carrasco responds with an ironic jab: “That would be
miraculous.” Making the deaf hear would be a miracle, but Carrasco insinuates that representing SP as a perfect Old Christian would
be yet another.

27
LESSON09
Cervantes and the
definition of a good writer
A
t this point, SP frames a fundamental debate about creative writing: “Miracles or no miracles... each man should watch
what he says or writes about presons and not put down willy-nilly the first thing that pops into his noggin.” SP’s
idiomatic expressions and his inability to pronounce “persons” make his warning sound casual, but it’s not. Whether or not
novelists should use fantastic events to spice up their plots, to what degree a character’s speech should correspond to her social status,
and just how spontaneous an author should be while writing, are all major issues in Cervantes’s day and even our own. An author’s
ability to coordinate the right mix of subplots while maintaining a coherent and plausible main story was also hotly debated. SP alludes
to classical concepts, like Aristotle’s insistence on the unities of action, time, and place, or his emphasis on realism or mimesis.
Carrasco cuts to the chase by bringing up the first of three major objections to the first part of the novel. According to many readers,
The Novel of the Curious Impertinent, the interpolated tale of DQ 1.33-35, does not have anything to do with DQ’s story. This is huge!
Cervantes actually has characters discuss whether or not he is a bad writer. Ironically and paradoxically, DQ’s first reaction is to endorse
the criticism: “the author of my history was no wise man but an ignorant gossiper who, groping and without any clear discourse,
set himself to writing it.” Think about this: DQ has just called Cervantes an incoherent idiot. Next he makes a harsh analogy between
Cervantes’s flimsy technique and that of a certain painter from Úbeda who was so improvisational that he had to label his works. After
painting “Whatever comes out,” the painter would write “This is a cock” beneath what nobody could recognize as a cock. Still, DQ’s
final comment suggests that Cervantes’s readers will need help to comprehend the true meaning of his art: “that must be how my
history is: a commentary will be needed to understand it.” You will forgive me if I have to agree.

28
Carrasco then gives us specific information regarding just who was reading Cervantes’s novel: “there’s no antechamber in which
a lord does not have his copy of Don Quijote.” Hmmm, apparently, the novel was read by an educated leisure class somewhere in
between the intelligentsia and the masses. For those of us who read Don Quijote as a satire against the orthodoxy of ethnocentric
imperialists, Carrasco’s subsequent praise of the novel sounds duplicitous: “in no place does it contain even a hint of immodest
language or a less than Catholic thought.” Moreover, when DQ agrees, he refers to the problem of monetary debasement that we
saw throughout DQ 1: “To write any other way... would not be to write truths, but lies, and historians who avail themselves of lies
ought to be burned like those who make counterfeit money.” The heavy irony here is that DQ says that bad authors who produce
lies for their readers are as despicable as counterfeiters who extract wealth from their fellow citizens. And for readers who realize that
the Habsburg kings did this as much as anyone, Cervantes’s novel is neither simple nor harmless.
“in no place does it contain even
a hint of immodest language or
a less than Catholic thought.”

29
LESSON10
The perfect
novelaccording
to Cervantes
D
on Quijote and Carrasco now agree that writing requires wisdom and skill and that critics are usually ignorant and arrogant:
“to compose histories and books of whatever type, it is necessary to have great judgment and mature understanding.”
When DQ emphasizes that this is especially true of humorous writing, he refers to the comic figures in the era’s theater: “the
most astute character in a play is the fool, because he who wishes to be taken for a simpleton cannot afford to be one.” Carrasco
then says that those who write prose face an additional problem: “since printed works are taken in slowly, it is easy to spy their
flaws.” Moreover, those who are not themselves writers should hold their tongue: “those who enjoy and take particular pleasure in
judging the writings of others without having brought anything of their own into the light of the world.” Carrasco argues that
critics miss the forest for the trees, for they pay too much attention “to the atoms of the bright sun of the work which they criticize.”
Even Homer made errors, but then Carrasco points out that what some think are errors might actually be beauty marks: “it just might
be that what seems wrong to them might be beauty marks which often increase the splendor of the face that has them.” Wow!
Cervantes lets Carrasco argue that his so-called mistakes have made his novel even more perfect!

The chapter ends with a glance at the two other major
complaints that readers had about part one. This passage is
confusing, paradoxical even. Carrasco first quotes Eclesiastés
1.15, «stultorum infinitus est numerus», meaning “infinite
is the number of fools,” but then he affirms that “infinite are
those who have enjoyed this history.” Switching gears again,
he gives voice to readers perplexed by SP’s missing ass and the
100 escudos that SP found in the suitcase in the Sierra Morena:
“he forgets to tell who was the thief who stole Sancho’s gray”
and “They also say that he forgot to include what Sancho
did with those hundred escudos that he found in the valise
in the Sierra Morena.” At this point Sancho gets nervous and
excuses himself, complaining of “an upset stomach.” Before
departing, however, he promises to respond to Carrasco and all
the other critics: “I’ll come back and satisfy your grace and
everybody else who wants to ask questions, regarding the
loss of my ass as well as how I spent the hundred escudos.”
After DQ and Carrasco finish their “banquet” and take a
“siesta,” SP returns.

31
LECCIÓN11
“The author’s
interested in
moneyandprofit?”
I
n chapter four SP returns to DQ’s house prepared to tell Carrasco about the theft of his ass and what he did with the 100 escudos.
His explanation of how someone robbed his ass from beneath him while he was sleeping is funny and absurd: “he took the
opportunity to suspend me on four stakes which he placed at the four sides of my saddle in such a way that he left me
mounted on it and took my gray from underneath me without my even sensing it.” We are reminded of those figures propped up
on crutches in Dalí’s paintings. SP also reminds us of his extreme emotional attachment to his ass: “tears welled up in my eyes, and I
made a great lamentation.” He then tells how he recovered the animal while in the company of Princess Micomicona: “traveling with
my lady Princess of Micomicón, I saw my ass, and on him I saw that Ginés de Pasamonte traveling dressed like a Gypsy.” Carrasco’s
response focuses on a specific narrative inconsistency. It’s funny because it takes the wind out of SP’s sails: “The error doesn’t lie
there... but in the fact that before the donkey reappeared the author says that Sancho was riding on that same gray.” SP has no
explanation: “To that... I don’t know how to respond, except that the historian got confused or else the printer made a mistake.”
Carrasco presses SP harder on the matter of the 100 escudos: “what happened to the hundred escudos? Did they vanish?” Now
Sancho gets defensive. He admits that he spent the money on his family and ultimately blames his wife: “if after so much time I had
returned without a copper and without my ass, a black future would be waiting for me.” Still, he insists he has nothing to apologize
for: “I’ll answer to the king himself in preson, and nobody has any reason to stick his nose into whether or not I took them or
whether or not I spent them.” He even claims the escudos are a kind of payment for his many beatings in the company of his master,
noting that they would not amount to half of what he is owed: “another hundred escudos wouldn’t amount to half what I’m owed.”
And he protests again that nobody has a right to judge him: “let each man put his hand over his heart and not go judging white as
black and black as white; for we are as God made us, and often much worse.” Note race.
Capítulo04

32
Carrasco makes clear that the errors he has mentioned are the main ones and then he notes
that the author plans a sequel: “when he finds the history, which he seeks with extraordinary
diligence, he will have it printed right away, motivated more by earnings than praise.”
Sancho’s reaction recalls the third censor’s “approval” at the beginning of part two, which also
highlighted Cervantes’s financial motives for writing: “The author’s interested in money and
profit?” This is huge. Cervantes was indeed on the cusp of being able to make a living as an author.
For SP, the idea of an author recording their exploits is the perfect excuse for another adventure:
“if my master would take my advice, we’d already be out in those fields righting wrongs and
undoing injustices, as is the habit and custom of good knights errant.” At these words by SP,
the narrator tells us that “the neighing of Rocinante reached their ears, which neighing Don
Quijote took as a very good omen.” So they plan a third sally.
a third sally

33
LESSON12
Sancho cites the war
cry of Spain: “Charge for
Santiago and Spain!”
C
arrasco outlines the general plan: “it seemed to him that he should go to the Kingdom of Aragón and the city of Zaragoza,
where in a few days they would be holding the solemn jousts of the Festival of Saint George, in which he could win
fame by vanquishing all the knights of Aragón, which would be like vanquishing all the knights of the world.” This
information is historically accurate: the only people more obsessed with chivalry than DQ were the Aragonese nobility. When Carrasco
says that DQ should be more cautious because the world depends on him, SP agrees in very sophisticated terms, referring to Ecclesiastes
3.1-8 –“Yes, for there’s a time to attack and a time to retreat”– and alluding to a rallying cry from the days of the Reconquest:
“yes, for it can’t always be ‘Charge for Santiago and Spain!’” Finally, he cites Aristotle’s dictum that virtue is found in the middle of
extremes: “between the extremes of cowardice and recklessness lies the middle way of valor” (cf. in medio stat virtus).
As usual, SP wants nothing to do with violence: “to imagine that I have to raise my sword, even against lowborn scoundrels
with caps and axes, is to imagine what will never happen.” The reason is that he wants to save himself for his governorship. But
even on this topic, he reveals intellectual skepticism and senses his own tragic downfall: “my bread will taste as good, and perhaps
better, ungoverned or as governor; and besides, how do I know whether or not the devil has set a trap for me that will make me
stumble and fall and knock out all my teeth?” Carrasco is impressed –“you have spoken like a university professor”–, at which
point SP recovers his courage: “I have taken my own pulse and I find myself healthy enough to rule kingdoms and govern isles.”
But Carrasco’s final comment is ominous, insinuating that political power might corrupt SP: “offices can change behavior, and it could
happen that when you see yourself governor, you won’t recognize the mother who bore you” (cf. honores mutant mores).

34
SP is offended and insists yet again on his good breeding. He has pure Christian blood and, as such, he would never disrespect anyone:
“That’s the case... with those who are lowborn and not with those whose soul has four lines of the might of Old Christians, like
mine. No, first know my character, which would never been ungrateful to anybody!” We should keep SP’s claims about his innate
Christianity in mind as we read part two.
The chapter ends when DQ asks Carrasco to compose a farewell poem on his behalf to Dulcinea. He insists that the poem be written
as an acrostic, that is, using the first letters of “Dulcinea del Toboso” at the beginning of each line. This way, Dulcinea will know that
the poem is sincere and has been composed for her alone. Hello! Note how openly deceitful DQ is here. Is this the same DQ who would
be put in a cage for his beloved? Carrasco cannot think of a viable poetic form given that Dulcinea’s name has seventeen letters, but he
will find a way.
“Dulcinea
delToboso”

35
Chapter 02 - 04
review

36
Let’s review: Most striking about chapters two, three, and four is the
existentialist, self-referential nature of Cervantes’s composition, which
reaches such a pitch that even SP becomes discombobulated and has to
take a break when his tummy starts to hurt. First, SP reports that members
of all social castes are critical of DQ. Then he relates the astounding news
that a book has been written about their adventures. This is unsettling
enough; then the idea that the author is a Moor is almost too much to
handle. When Sansón Carrasco arrives, things get even more complicated,
for he has been reading the book in question. Moreover, there appear
to be serious errors in the narrative. Does Dulcinea deserve the title
“Doña”? Is the interpolated Novel of the Curious Impertinent appropriate?
And what about SP’s intermittent ass and the money he seems to have
stolen from the suitcase in the Sierra Morena? At one point, DQ declares
that his own author must be incompetent and ignorant. Most amazing
of all, Carrasco suggests that all these supposed errors might actually be
beauty marks. For his part, note how SP’s moral character is the real issue.
He takes Carrasco’s inquiries personally and gets very defensive. Note
also how SP twice insists on his ethnic purity, complains repeatedly about
DQ’s previous mistreatment of him, and restates his interest in ruling his
island. Cervantes is already having his way with us, and if Rocinante’s
brays are any indication, we are in for a wonderful journey to Zaragoza.
Let’s review

“All those families
that today shine
according to their
brilliant lineages had
low and obscure
beginnings.”
—Juan de Mariana,
La dignidad real y la educación del rey

38
Chapters05LESSON13
Sancho is
transformed
C
hapters five and six of part two offer separate looks inside the respective households of SP and DQ. DQ’s speech to his
niece on the meaning of lineage, or what we would call today “heredity,” is one of the most humanistic passages in all of
Cervantes’s writings, and I would argue that it likely represents the author’s own values. Just as interesting is the dialogue
between SP and his wife Teresa, which deals with the same topic.
The first thing we note about chapter five is that the fictional narrator repeatedly interrupts SP’s discourse with critical comments
made by the fictional translator: “When the narrator came to write this fifth chapter, he says that he thinks it’s apocryphal,
because here Sancho Panza speaks in a style different from what one would expect from his limited intelligence and he says
very subtle things which he doesn’t think it possible for him to know.” Thus, Cervantes achieves three effects: 1) he establishes the
transformation of SP as a major theme; 2) he mocks the Aristotelian idea of mimesis as simplistic, too restrictive for his creativity; 3) he
makes readers take note of his authorial presence and think critically about his fictional characters.
SP announces to his wife that he plans another adventure with DQ: “because of my need and the hope, which makes me happy,
of imagining that I might find another hundred escudos like the ones we have already spent.” Not only does SP keep alive the issue
of the missing 100 escudos, he again emphasizes the profit motive that we associate with both him and our author. When SP expresses
his mixed feelings about his departure, he sounds like a cultured poet: “I’d be delighted not to be as happy as I appear.” Teresa
doesn’t understand: “I don’t know how anybody can be happy not to be happy.” SP explains: “it makes me sad to have to leave you
and my children; and if it were God’s will to give me food with my feet dry and in my own house, without dragging me through
wastelands and crossroads, He could do it at little cost and just by willing it.” This is labyrinthical stuff, but if we read closely, it’s

39
not a paradox. SP doesn’t want to have to ramble, but since he
needs money, he goes. This recalls the School of Salamanca’s
insistence that it’s natural that man should be concerned with
his own wellbeing.
But let’s not overlook the comedy here. SP’s expresses his
usual obsession with his ass as if he were a crusader whose
lady should tend his warhorse: “you take special care of
the gray these next three days, so that he’s ready to carry
weapons: double his feed, inspect the packsaddle and the
other trappings, because we’re not going to a wedding.”
SP also reiterates that he will soon be “governor of an isle.”
Teresa is skeptical regarding his political ambitions. She puns
on the word “government,” meaning political power but also
“judgement” or “commonsense.” And if we listen closely, she
even sounds anarchistic: “Oh please, no, husband of mine...
just live your life, and let the devil take all the governments
there are in the world; without government you were born
from your mother’s womb, without government you have
lived until now, and without government you will leave
this world... There are many who live without government,
and yet that doesn’t make them give up or stop counting
themselves among the peoples of the earth.” Ironically, she
then contradicts her skepticism, sensing a chance for personal
gain: “But look here, Sancho: if you happen to find yourself
in charge of some government, don’t forget about me
and your children.” By the way, this is the first time that we
learn Teresa’s real name. She was called “Juana Gutiérrez” in
part one. Cervantes mocks perfectionist readers, but he’s also
telling us what makes for an individual: self-interest and critical
awareness of others.

40
LESSON14
Sancho’s family
T
he discussion now centers on the future of SP’s children. We learn that his family is pre-nuclear, composed of two parents
and two children: “Sanchico’s already fifteen,” and though he has not gone to school, he can expect help from “his uncle
the abbot”; and “Mari Sancha” is old enough to marry. SP fantasizes about marrying her to a noble: “woman of mine, I’ll
marry Mari Sancha so high up that nobody will be able to reach her without calling her ‘your grace.’” Pragmatic, Teresa objects:
“Oh please, no, Sancho... marry her to an equal.” She tells SP to focus on money: “You bring home the bacon, Sancho, and leave
the matter of her marriage to me.” She doesn’t want to see her daughter “in those courts and in those great palaces, where they
won’t understand her and she won’t even understand herself.” SP’s response is funny but also ominous. Technically, he makes
himself analogous to the rebellious criminal famously freed in exchange for Christ: “Come here, beast, wife of Barabbas... Why would
you want to stop me now, and for no good reason, from marrying my daughter to someone who’ll give me grandchildren they’ll
call Lord and Lady?” (cf. Mk. 15.7).
Here the narrator again interrupts to note the implausible nature of SP’s discourse: “This manner of speaking, and what SP will
say below, are why the translator of this history says that he considers this chapter apocryphal.” SP’s language also reveals
his corrupt view of government as a means of obtaining wealth: “it will be good for me to land myself a lucrative governorship
which will lift me out of the mud.” In other words, SP’s a rent seeker. We should also pay attention to SP’s choice of Arabic words
for certain textiles when he imagines his wife’s wealthy future. He adopts the medieval perspective of a crusader who gets rich by
reconquering the Moorish South: “you’ll see how they’ll call you ‘Doña Teresa Panza’ and you’ll sit in church on a carpet, with
cushions and tapestries (alcatifa, almohadas y arambeles), all regardless of and in spite of the town’s hidalgas.” Note the social
tension expressed by a peasant whose ambition is to compete with the hidalgo caste.

41
Teresa wants wealth, but she insists that Sanchica should marry within her own rank. She will resist SP’s desire to climb the social
ladder by ruling over a frontier province, and she does not care about titles: “I fear that if my daughter becomes a countess, it will be
her ruin. You do what you want, whether you make her a duchess or a princess, but I say to you that it won’t be with my agreement
or consent... They baptized me ‘Teresa,’ a modest and simple name, without any additions or decorations or trimmings of Dons
or Doñas.” She also takes a swipe at DQ’s desire to transgress the social hierarchy: “You go with your Don Quijote... and, by the way,
I don’t know who gave him a Don, because neither his parents nor his grandparents had one.”

42
LESSON15
Thefantasies
of Teresa
and Sancho
S
ancho Panza is stubborn. He continues to fantasize about enriching Teresa’s daughter: “I’ll put her on a pedestal and under a
canopy for you and up in a drawing room with more velvet shams than there were Moors in the line of the Almohashams
of Morroco.” The pun here is on the word almohadas, meaning “pillows,” but SP’s error alludes to the Moorish almohades who
conquered Andalucía in the twelfth century. Note also how the presence of Moors complicates the issue of lineage. Racial identity is
also highlighted by SP’s allusion to Fernando de Rojas’s La Celestina, which revolves around prohibitions against marriage between Old
Christians and Jewish conversos. When SP says that his wife is being unreasonable, as if he were asking that Sanchica “throw herself
from a tower,” he refers to the suicide of Melibea in Rojas’s novel.
Still trying to convince his wife to let Sanchica marry above her station, SP now deploys a sophisticated philosophical argument,
which again causes the narrator to cite the translator’s skepticism. SP becomes a Neoplatonist, arguing that what a person becomes
in life trumps what she might have been in the past: “all things which are present before our eyes appear, are, and remain in our
memory much more clearly and powerfully than things in the past... This gives rise to the fact that when we see a person who
is well dressed and with fine vestments and with a train of servants, it seems that some force moves and induces us to have
respect for him, even though in that instant our memory recalls for us some lowliness in which we once saw that person; and
that disgrace, whether it be of poverty or lineage, since it is in the past, is no longer and what exists is only that which we see
before us in the present.” This complex discourse on what defines a person’s identity from a man who mispronounces “persona” as
“presona.” Note that SP’s moral point is that one’s racial heritage should not matter. Only “envious people” care about lineage, and who
can avoid being envied?

43
The chapter concludes comically and ironically. Sage SP now corrects his wife’s pronunciation. Then, sounding corrupt again, and
alluding to Spain’s fiscal problems under the Habsburgs, he promises to send money as soon as he’s a governor: “I’ll send you money,
which I will have plenty of, because governors always have someone to lend it to them when they don’t have any.” When Teresa
erupts in tears, saying that the day she sees her daughter become a countess will be the day her daughter dies, the narrator reports
SP’s absurdly stubborn response: “Sancho consoled her by saying that even though he had to make her a countess, he would wait
as long possible to do it.” Teresa surrenders, but her last comment contains a feminist jab: “we women are born with the obligation
to obey our husbands even if they are idiots.” This is all ridiculous, of course: both parents are counting their olives and they don’t
even have an orchard.
“I’ll put her on a pedestal and under
a canopy for you and up in a drawing
room with more velvet shams than
there were Moors in the line of the
Almohashams of Morroco.”

44
Chapter06
T
he header that summarizes chapter six, “Regarding what happened between Don Quijote and his niece and housekeeper,
and which is one of the most important chapters in this entire history,” echoes the kind of ridiculous overstatement that
we find throughout DQ. However, in the context of the racialist atmosphere of Inquisitional Spain, there’s a hint of sincerity
here. This is because the chapter features DQ’s most radically humanist speech about lineage. Humanist intellectuals, many of them
self-taught, from Machiavelli to Erasmus, argued that personal virtue was not an inherited characteristic, a subversive idea in a caste
society that placed so much emphasis on one’s ancestry.
Two points about the beginning of this chapter. Cervantes uses the adjective“impertinent”twice, recalling his supposed compositional
indiscretion in part one’s Novel of the Curious Impertinent. Also, his tone is once again political. DQ’s comment, “if I were king,” recalls
the theoretical musings of our three arbitristas in chapter one. When the housekeeper argues that DQ should be a courtly knight instead
of a knight errant, he launches into a distinction that we have seen before (cf. DQ 1.7): “not all knights can be courtly, nor can or
should all courtly knights be knights errant.” Again, DQ clearly despises decadent knights, i.e., courtly advisors who rule the world
at a safe distance, “looking over a map” and fussing over “childish things” and “other ceremonies,” such as “whether or not one
carries a shorter lance or sword.” DQ seems crazy because his examples of superior caballeros come from fantasy literature, but if we
listen closely, he is criticizing the corruption of the modern political class.
Don
Quijoteand
humanism
LESSON16

45
Now the niece adds another layer of meaning to the discussion. Recalling the burning of the books in part one, she says that DQ’s
chivalric novels are heretical and that if they are not to be put to death, then they should at least be made to dress like the victims
of the Inquisition: “all that you say about knights errant is fake and false, and their histories, if they weren’t burned, deserve,
every last one of them, to be clothed in a sambenito or some sign that would indicate their infamy.” Remember this image of
the penitent heretic wearing his sambenito; it will appear again in important episodes. Continuing the theme, DQ labels his niece’s
comment “blasphemy.” In his own peculiar way, and in reference to distinct categories of knights, he voices humanistic concern with
personal virtue. Note also how his words lash out at courtly advisors who advocate monetary devaluation: “some are discourteous
cowards; nor are those called knights all knights through and through; for some are gold and others are alchemical, and all
appear to be knights, but not all can pass the test of the touchstone of truth.”
“all that you say about knights errant is fake
and false, and their histories, if they weren’t
burned, deserve, every last one of them, to
be clothed in a sambenito or some sign that
would indicate their infamy.”

46
LESSON17
DonQuijote’s
theory of the
four lineages
T
he niece counterattacks by bringing up yet another distinction, one that undercuts DQ’s vision of himself. She states that,
technically speaking, DQ cannot be a caballero because “although hidalgos can be knights, poor hidalgos never are.” In
other words, DQ is too poor to be a knight. A true knight had to have enough income to support his military and political
lifestyle at court, whereas DQ’s inferior title only indicates that he is descended from hidalgos. Cervantes has prepared us well for the
speech that follows. Precisely in this moment of sociological and psychological crisis, we get DQ’s passionate theory of lineage.
DQ says that there are four kinds of lineages: “some had humble beginnings and extended and expanded until they reached a
great peak”; “others, which had great beginnings... conserve and maintain them”; “others, which, even though they had great
beginnings, ended in a point, like a pyramid, having diminished and annihilated their beginnings until they came to nothing”;
and finally, “the rest, which had neither a good beginning nor a reasonable middle, and thus will have no name in the end.”
This dynamic range of possibilities is radical enough, but even more astonishing are the examples that DQ gives for each case. None
other than the dreaded Ottoman Turks embody those who have transformed themselves from humble to great. The static nobility is
represented by princes who manage to remain at peace with their neighbors, “remaining peacefully within the limits of their states.”
The example DQ gives of dead-end lineages is striking. He indicates the Pharaohs and Ptolemies of Egypt, the Caesars of Rome, and
then adds a phrase that mocks authorities everywhere: “that entire horde (if that name may be given to them) of infinite princes,
monarchs, and lords.” The rest are simply the masses. In the end, the Pharaohs and the Caesars of the world would seem to amount to
little more than the masses. Maybe they’re even worse.

Whereas Teresa sounded feminist in her debate with SP, DQ now sounds misogynistic in his final reply to the women of his household.
He’s angered by their skepticism, but notice also that his final point discards the idea that virtue is something that can be inherited:
“From all that I have said I want you to infer, my stupid girls, that there is great confusion regarding lineages, and that the only
ones that are truly distinguished and illustrious are those that display these qualities by way of their virtue.” Make no mistake:
this is a meditation on the nature and origins of virtue. The term occurs eight times. And DQ clearly adopts the more liberal, humanist
point of view: “A poor knight has no other means of showing that he is a knight except by way of his virtue,” and those poor
knights that manage to do so will be seen as “of good breeding, and not to be seen as such would be a miracle.”
Finally, recalling another topic we saw in part one, our hidalgo points out that there are two routes to glory: “letters” and “arms.”
Recall that Cervantes himself gained his fame via both the sword and the pen. DQ underscores this combination when he quotes
directly from “that great Castilian poet of ours,” that is, Garcilaso de la Vega, the great anti-imperialist Petrarchan poet from the era
of Charles V. Note, however, that DQ recognizes that achieving greatness brings with it the responsibility of choosing wisely and acting
morally: “I know that the road of virtue is quite narrow, and the road of wickedness, wide and spacious.” Very much like SP, DQ
has essentially endorsed the possibility of attaining social stature regardless of heredity. Thus, when SP arrives at the end of chapter
six, DQ’s gesture makes sense: “his lord Don Quijote came to great him with open arms.” And note the huge irony connecting parts
one and two of the novel involved in the niece’s sarcastic response that on top of everything else he’s a poet: “Oh, woe is me... for my
uncle’s also a poet. He knows all, he sees all. I’d wager that if he wanted to be a bricklayer, he’d know how to fashion a house as
well as he does a cage.” This cage must remind us of the one used to transport DQ home at the end of part one.
There are two routes to
glory: “letters” and “arms.”

48
Chapter 05 - 06
review

49
Although not immediately apparent, chapters five and six contain much
philosophical thinking about individual self-worth. At the same time, there are
numerous hints that Cervantes thinks many of his readers have overlooked the
complexity and seriousness of his art. For example, if, like the translator, we dismiss
SP’s speeches as implausible, we are unlikely to ponder their moral significance,
their critique of hierarchical privilege. Similarly, if we think of DQ as an“impertinent”
fool who dares to claim titles like “don” and “caballero,” which he does not legally
deserve, then we risk missing an important political aspect of his quest. Now is a
good time to ponder the subtle change in the title of Cervantes’s continuation:
Second Part of the Ingenious Caballero Don Quijote de la Mancha. At the same time,
we must remember that even Cervantes’s heroes have their blind spots: SP clings to
a racist Reconquest mentality and he sees political power as a means of acquiring
wealth; and DQ, at the height of his humanist defense of personal virtue, forgets
momentarily that true caballeros value respect for women.
Let’s review

“...for a man’s
labour also is
a commodity
exchangeable for
benefit, as well as
any other thing.”
—Thomas Hobbes, Leviatán

51
LESSON18
The feudal
relationshipbetween
master and servant
A
t the beginning of chapter seven, the housekeeper begs bachelor Carrasco to prevent her master from going on another
adventure. After a brief comical dialogue, Sansón tells her not to worry, that he will think of something: “you know that I am
a bachelor from Salamanca, so all that’s needed is for me to produce some bachelor babble.” The misunderstandings
in their conversation, as well as the constant emphasis on Sansón’s academic status, provide context for yet another set of confusions
that then take place between SP and DQ. Note also how, as he just did with his looks inside the respective households of SP and DQ,
Cervantes narrates different events that are occurring simultaneously. He links these events via one of his favorite rhetorical figures, the
“zeugma,” which deploys a term in one sentence but leaves that term implicit in another. Here, “time” is the linking term: “the bachelor
went straightaway to find the priest, in order to communicate to him what will be related in due time. And during theirs alone,
Don Quijote and Sancho had a conversation which the history recounts truthfully and in great detail.” This beautiful device
serves many purposes. For one, it reveals the complex nature of Cervantes’s narrative universe and of reality in general. Can you think
of others?
Let’s look at the conversation between SP and DQ. SP reports that he has convinced his wife to let him go on another adventure. But
his word choice is wrong: “I’ve conwinced my wife to let me go with your grace.” DQ corrects him: “Convinced you mean to say.” The
irony here is that DQ’s reducida means “convinced,” but SP’s relucida, which means “shined,” could also mean “severely whipped,” which
would certainly be a more severe kind of convincing. The act of whipping an animal or a person will be a major theme of part two. SP
responds that his master should not correct him so abruptly. If DQ would just wait a bit, then SP would be more open to criticism. But
again his word choice is confusing: “for I’m so focile...” This could be a mispronunciation of focil, meaning “touchy” or “defensive,” or
maybe SP meant to say fácil, meaning “easy to convince.” Note that this cuts straight to the nature of the relationship between master
and servant: SP is either too sensitive or easily dominated. DQ prefers the more obedient option: “you mean to say that you are so
docile, pliant and fainthearted.”
Chapter07

52
This confusion is the perfect context for the true topic that SP wants to discuss:
compensation for his services. Ironically, given that he claims to have controlled his
wife, SP now says that Teresa has forced him to get serious with DQ, adding that
any man who does not listen to a woman’s advice “is insane.” Also ironic, given
that DQ has recently called the women of his household “stupid girls,” our knight
wholeheartedly agrees with SP’s deference to women. SP gets up the nerve to ask
for a salary: “that your grace should specify for me a fixed salary that you’ll give
me for every month that I serve you, and that this salary should be paid to me
from your estate, for I don’t want to depend on anybody’s promised favors.” This
is huge! Cervantes’s novel is very modern on this point. SP rejects feudalism, which
depends on his master’s generosity; he wants a contract. His logic is also interesting.
His reasoning is grounded in the fact of Death. Because we are mortal beings, our
time has value: “no one is guaranteed in this world any more hours of life than
those that God decides to grant him.”
“no one is guaranteed in this world
any more hours of life than those
that God decides to grant him.”

53
LESSON19
Don Quijote says
better to be a thief
than greedy
N
ow we have another symbolic misunderstanding. SP says he is willing to discount the value of the promised island from his
salary on a prorated basis: “I’m not so ungrateful... that I won’t want the rent from the isle to be totaled and deducted
pro rat from my salary.” SP wants to say “prorated,” and DQ corrects him with a joke: “sometimes a rat is as good as a cat.”
There is another layer of irony here. The word gata, or “cat,” implies larceny or theft. DQ has said it is sometimes better to be a thief than
a miser. Careful readers will hear a reference to SP’s theft of Cardenio’s 100 escudos in part one.
DQ rejects SP’s request. At a comedic level he does so because he cannot think of any squires who ever got salaries in the books of
chivalry: “I do not recall having read that any knight errant ever specified a fixed salary for his squire.” The novel takes another
modern turn when he adds that the labor market is competitive: “if you don’t wish to accompany me as my vassal and assume
the same risks that I do, then go with God and may He turn you into a saint, for I will not lack squires more obedient, more
considerate, and less crass and talkative than yourself.” At this, SP’s heart drops: “his sky filled with clouds and the wings fell
from his heart.” To make matters worse, now Carrasco arrives and after praising DQ –“O honor and mirror of the Spanish nation!”–
and proclaiming his hope that DQ go on another adventure and that his enemies never trap him “in the labyrinth of their desires,”
he suddenly offers his own services: “and if anything is needed to bring this about, here am I to supply it with my person and my
treasure; and if it is necessary for me to serve your magnificence as squire, I will consider it a blessed stroke of good fortune.”

54
This is funny, but it is also serious economic theory in action. It is the kind of natural philosophy that the
late scholastic theologians of the School of Salamanca applied to their analyses of market relations: labor is also
subject to the law of supply and demand. Cervantes lets us know this via two aspects of DQ’s response to Carrasco’s
offer. First, he repeats that the labor market is competitive: “Did I not tell you, Sancho, that I would have
plenty of squires from which to choose?” Second, he relates Carrasco’s subtle sophistication to the University
of Salamanca, calling him “perpetual diversion and delight of the courtyards of the schools of Salamanca.”
SP knows that he has lost all leverage from which to negotiate and so he backtracks and agrees to serve
DQ in the feudal manner. When he does so, he mangles some legalistic terminology, which the narrator tells us
convinced Carrasco that SP is “one of the most solemn idiots of our time.” Carrasco then provides DQ with a
“sallet helmet,” and DQ and SP depart. Our heroes travel in familiar fashion, with “Don Quijote on his good
Rocinante, and Sancho on his same old ass,” but they have also made pragmatic adjustments. They take food
and DQ provides a pool of money for future expenses: “Sancho’s saddlebags supplied with food and provisions,
and his purse with money given to him by Don Quijote for any contingencies.” Also note that another zeugma
describes their departure: “Sansón made his way back to his village, and the two men made theirs toward the
great city of El Toboso.”
“DonQuijoteonhis
good Rocinante,
and Sancho on his
same old ass,”

55
LESSON20
El Toboso: the
first adventure
of the third sally
C
hapter eight opens with what is probably the most overtly Islamic formulation in all of Cervantes’s writings: “‘Blessed be all
powerful Allah!’ says Hamete Benengeli at the beginning of this eighth chapter. ‘Blessed be Allah!’ he repeats three
times.” It’s easy to take this as mere playfulness regarding the problematic authorship of the novel. Nevertheless, these are
also the first words of the Koran, and as Francisco Rico notes, Spanish Moriscos traditionally sang this phrase three times at sunset. Note
too that whereas DQ’s first sally began at dawn, part two’s adventure starts at dusk. And where are our heroes headed? El Toboso, a town
that scholars think was home to many Moriscos relocated there after the Alpujarras War of 1568-71.
Next, we have an hilarious reminder of the good omens associated with the sounds made by Rocinante and SP’s ass: “scarcely had
Sansón departed, when Rocinante began to neigh and the gray began to whisper, which both men, knight and squire, took to
be a good sign and a happy omen.” The “whispers” of SP’s mount are a euphemism for farts, and these were indeed considered good
omens since antiquity. But Cervantes pushes the meaning of the farts further: “although, if truth be told, the gray whispered and
brayed more than the nag neighed, from which Sancho concluded that his good fortune would surpass and go beyond that of
his master.”
Chapter08

56
Now SP recalls the episodes of part one “in the heart of the Sierra Morena” and his embassy to Dulcinea. He anticipates that she
will not now give her blessing to DQ unless she does so from the fences of her corral where he saw her when he delivered DQ’s letter.
DQ rejects the image, saying that SP must have confused fences for “galleries, or corridors, or porticoes, or whatever they’re called,
of rich and royal palaces.” This comical contrast between DQ’s chivalric fantasy and SP’s insistence on low reality also contains some
sophisticated Neoplatonic theory about the ennobling effects of courtly love. According to DQ: “any ray of light that from the sun of
her beauty reaches my eyes will illuminate my understanding and fortify my heart.” SP’s responds that he cannot recall any such
solar perfection: “all the dust she was kicking up acted like a cloud in front of her face and darkened it.” Note the allusion to race.
At this point, DQ draws on Garcilaso’s notion of writing as a process of weaving threads together: “those verses by our poet in
which he paints for us the labors performed in their crystal dwellings by those four nymphs who raised their heads from the
beloved Tagus River and sat down in the green meadow to work those rich fabrics which the ingenious poet describes for us as
all intertwined and interwoven with gold, silk, and pearls.” Ah, those pre-industrial textiles again! Given SP’s contrary descriptions,
DQ fears that some enemy has distorted his woven reality, perhaps even altered the essence of his story: “the envy that some evil
enchanter must have of my dealings changes and inverts all those that would give pleasure into figures quite different from
what they are; and, thus, I fear that in that history of my deeds which they say goes about in print, if by chance its author was
some sage sorcerer who is my enemy, he will have substituted certain things for others.” Who might this evil enchanter be?
Regardless, note that envy, the emotional motive for social violence indicated by everyone from Virgil to Nietzsche, is the ultimate
cause of DQ’s problem: “O envy, root of infinite evils and woodworm of virtues!”

—Thomas Hobbes, Leviatán
“...for a man’s
labour also is
a commodity
exchangeable for
benefit, as well as
any other thing.”

58
Chapter08LESSON21
Sancho’s
politicalmantra
S
ancho Panza’s egocentric response to this line of thinking is complex. First he says that he is too poor to be envied. Then
he defends his personal honor by insisting on his orthodoxy and his ethnic purity. Note how he expresses a certain moral
contradiction: “I’ve always believed, firmly and truly, in God and in everything that is maintained and believed by
the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and then there’s my being a mortal enemy, as I am, of the Jews, and so the historians should
take pity on me and treat me well in their writings.” SP asks for pity from the mysterious authors of his story while simultaneously
bragging that he has none for Jews. Finally, SP affirms that no matter what anyone else says, he is always fair with everyone: “I was
born naked, and I’m naked now: I neither lose nor gain a thing.” This will be SP’s mantra in part two. Cervantes is preparing us for a
serious examination of SP’s character.
SP ends this already contradictory speech with a kind of paradox. He will accept infamy if it grants him fame: “although, seeing
myself now rendered in books and passed about in the world from hand to hand, I don’t care one fig: they can say anything they
want to about me.” At this, DQ launches into a labyrinthical speech of his own, focusing on famous examples of SP’s odd logic. Here
he is pushing the limits of a common rhetorical exercise practiced by humanist scholars of the Renaissance. He mentions that certain
women at court were offended at being left out of a vicious satire written about them. He recalls Erostratus, who set fire to the temple
of Diana just so he could be famous. He mentions other figures who were daringly destructive, such as Caesar when he crossed the
Rubicon and Hernán Cortés, “that most courteous Cortés,” when he burnt his ships at Veracruz. This is confusing, and quite funny. DQ
slips casually from clear examples of idiots to examples of men that many consider to be heroes.

59
Even more confusing, other exemplars mentioned by DQ do not at all fit the paradoxical notion of doing
something wrong for the sake of fame. Rather, they express the opposite: simple, heroic self-sacrifice. We
have Horatius Cocles, who defended the oldest bridge of ancient Rome against invaders; Gaius Mucius
Scaevola, who put his hand in a fire when threatened with torture; and most important of all, given DQ’s
own profession, Marcus Curtius, a classical knight who threw himself and his horse into a “deep burning
abyss” (profunda sima ardiente), which had threatened to destroy Rome after an earthquake in 362 BC.
However, the most fascinating example involves Charles V, who fashioned himself as a modern Caesar.
The Holy Roman Emperor made a triumphant visit to Rome in 1536 after conquering Tunis the year before.
He wanted to visit the Roman Pantheon, known in the sixteenth century as Santa Maria della Rotonda.
This incredibly famous architectural wonder contains “a round skylight, which is at its peak,” that is, at
the zenith (cima) of its dome, which is perfectly spherical, or as DQ says, “shaped like half an orange.”
According to DQ, the Emperor took a tour of this building and was standing on the dome above this skylight
looking down, after which his guide, “a Roman gentleman,” made a shocking confession: “A thousand
times, Your Sacred Majesty, I have felt the urge to embrace Your Majesty and then hurl myself down
from that skylight, in order that my fame should leave its eternal mark on the world.” The Emperor
thanked him and ordered him to keep his distance. But DQ ultimately rejects the desire for fame, and his
words emphasize the importance of not transgressing the limits of Christian morality: “Thus, O Sancho, our
actions should not transcend the limits placed upon us by the Christian religion that we profess.” A
lesson for an anti-Semitic Old Christian squire?

60
LESSON22
Sancho’s
discourse
oninfamy
S
ancho Panza takes the new topic, Christian morality, as a new line of inquiry. Once again, he mixes up his vocabulary: “I would
like your grace to absolve a doubt that has come to mind.” DQ corrects him: “Resolve, you mean to say.” SP asks about
whatever became of all those Caesars. DQ says that the pagans are all in hell and that the Christians, “if they were good
Christians,” are in purgatory or heaven. This hints at the famous controversy over the fate of good pagans who died before Christ, but
it also alludes to the modern debate over Purgatory, which distinguished Protestantism from Catholicism. Note how moral, theological
even, this chapter has become.
But don’t miss the humor. SP pushes his master, asking specifically what happened to the actual body parts of the Caesars and whether
or not they became sacred objects like those that now attract Christian pilgrims. DQ seems too mesmerized by History’s examples to
understand the gist of SP’s question. With Caesars still on his mind, the knight muses that Julius Caesar’s ashes were placed “at the top of
an extraordinarily large stone pyramid,” which is the obelisk known today as “St. Peter’s Needle.” He also mentions that Hadrian was
buried in what is today the Castel Santangelo in Rome. By the way, this building served as a refuge for Pope Clement VII during the Sack of
Rome by Charles V’s troops in 1527, an event which the Emperor’s triumphant tour in 1536 was supposed to have ameliorated. SP cuts to
the chase: “which is the greater deed, to raise a dead man or to kill a giant?” DQ affirms: “to raise a dead man.”

61
Remember how, near the end of part one, SP got the supposedly enchanted DQ to
admit that he had to release “major waters”? Well, here SP is again pleased with himself
for managing to undercut DQ’s chivalric fantasy: “Now I’ve got you.” He suggests that
they should try to be saints rather than knights, because the chains of a couple of tortured
martyrs or two dozen self-lashings are more esteemed by God than two thousand lance
thrusts by military heroes. DQ admits that SP is right, but he says that not all of us can be
martyrs. Besides, he says: “chivalry is a religion, and there are mounted saints in the
glory of heaven.” Which saints are these? Think about it. We’ll find out much later.
The heroes travel on without incident for a couple of days and then they arrive, once
again “at nightfall,” at “the great city of El Toboso.” To tell the truth, El Toboso is not a
great city but, rather, a tiny, insignificant town. Or is it? The chapter ends with DQ elated
by the sight of El Toboso; but SP is depressed because now he has a serious problem: “Don
Quijote’s spirit was joyful and Sancho’s was saddened, because he did not know which
house belonged to Dulcinea, nor had he seen it in all his life.” Uh-oh.
61

62
Chapter 07 - 08
review

63
This part of DQ is full of word games: “focile,” “docile,” “pro rat,” “cat,”
“absolve,” “resolve.” Note how these hint at real themes: SP’s submissiveness,
the difference between being a thief and being a servant, and the possibility of
forgiveness for one’s sins. The salary discussion is radically explicit: the tension
between knight and squire evolves before our eyes into that between employer
and employee. And there are other matters: Cide Hamete sings major praise of
Allah as his heroes approach El Toboso at night; the weird notion that farts are
good omens gives way to another debate over Dulcinea’s relative purity; and SP’s
anti-Semitism and ethnic pride are clearly on display. Note the densely woven
historical anecdotes of chapter eight, which start as a meditation on heroism
in contrast to seeking fame through criminal acts. DQ enthralls us with his
architectural knowledge during his version of Charles V’s visit to Rome. Finally,
we have SP’s interest in sainthood contrasted with Caesar’s ashes placed at the
top of a pyramid. If I recall, according to DQ, in terms of lineage, pyramids are
like dead ends. Are Caesars dead ends? Or can they hope to leave something
behind? Another question: what’s the difference between a cima or zenith and a
sima or abyss? If you are a Spaniard from La Mancha, you will insist that you can
hear an obvious difference, but if you pronounce Spanish like an Andalusian or a
Mexican... Let’s just say that one man’s zenith is another man’s abyss.
Let’s review

“You are an ass, and you
will always be an ass, and
you will end the course of
your life as an ass, and, as
far as I can tell, your life will
reach its final day before
you accept and realize that
you are an animal.”
—Miguel de Cervantes,
Don Quijote de la Mancha

65
Chapter09
C
hapter nine starts with one of Cervantes’s most absurdly funny headers: “In which it is recounted what will now be seen.”
That’s obvious, right? Or is it? How can one actually see what is narrated? And what if what’s narrated occurs in the dark?
The first line of the chapter is also ridiculous. It’s exactly midnight, more or less: “It was the stroke of midnight, more or
less, when Don Quijote and Sancho left the hills and entered El Toboso.” As it turns out, there is moonlight: “The night was pretty
clear.” The moon is the symbol of the goddess Diana, whom we saw in the previous chapter, and with whom we now begin to associate
Dulcinea. The moon also figures prominently on Islamic flags beginning in the fourteenth century. Note also the sound of dogs barking,
punctuated by the sounds of other animals that are symbolic in DQ: “Now and again an ass brayed, pigs grunted, cats meowed.”
DQ takes all this as a “bad omen,” but he still insists SP guide him “to Dulcinea’s palace.” SP’s response is blasphemous and
establishes a conflict between our heroes regarding Dulcinea’s abode: “By Heaven, what palace am I supposed to guide you to...
when the place where I saw her highness was nothing but a tiny house?” DQ insists SP must have seen her in “some apartment in
her alcázar.” This Arabic term for castle appears seven times in this chapter, emphasizing the difference between the squire’s and the
knight’s perspectives on Dulcinea.
Now DQ sees a massive shape in the night, which he says must be Dulcinea’s palace. SP says to guide on, but he expresses doubts as
if he were Saint Thomas confronted by the resurrection of Christ: “that might be; although I’ll believe it when I see it with my eyes
and touch it with my hands.” When Dulcinea’s citadel turns out to be a church, we read one of the most famous lines of the novel:
“We’ve come up against the church, Sancho.” Today this is a proverb, indicating the danger and futility of contradicting an intractable
authority. When SP assumes that DQ should recognize Dulcinea’s house, the knight’s anger extends the theme of religious orthodoxy:
“We’ve come
up against the
church,Sancho!”
LESSON23

66
66
“Come here, you heretic: Have I not told you a thousand times that in all the days of my life I have never seen the incomparable
Dulcinea... that I am only in love with her according to what I’ve heard about her?” SP now gets himself into trouble: “well, if you
have never seen her, then neither have I.” So did he lie to DQ about his embassy to El Toboso in part one? SP recovers with hilarious
absurdity: “it’s also the case that I only heard about seeing her and about the answer that I brought to you.”
At this point a laborer appears: “there came to pass by them a man with two mules.” He is singing a famous ballad, one which
hints at the north-south problem of Spanish identity: “A bad time you had, Frenchmen, / at that defeat at Roncesvalles.” When DQ
asks for directions to Dulcinea’s palace, the man explains why he does not know –“I’m a stranger and I’ve only spent a few days in this
town serving a rich peasant”–, but he suggests DQ contact the town’s religious authorities who have a register of all the inhabitants:
“they have a list of everyone who lives in El Toboso.” All of this begs the question: just who lived in El Toboso at the beginning of the
seventeenth century? Some say quite a few Moriscos who were relocated there after the Alpujarras War of 1568-71. That might have
made local priests rather anxious, no?
SP now suggests that knight and squire retreat to a nearby woods. He offers to search for Dulcinea in the morning. DQ is pleased:
“the advice you have just given me I appreciate and receive most willingly.” SP is relieved: “Sancho was anxious to get his master
out of the town, so that he would not discover his lie about the response from Dulcinea that he had delivered to him in the Sierra
Morena.” The narrator concludes the chapter with a strange phrase. He tells us the next chapter contains events that require attention
and trust: “novel attention and renewed credit.”

67
LESSON24
Thefirstencounter
with Dulcinea
T
he great comparative literature scholar Erich Auerbach wrote an important essay on chapter ten in which he argued that
it exhibits the essence of Cervantes’s novel as a conflict between fantasy and reality. We notice a particular aspect of this
conflict as SP goes off to find “the palaces or alcázares of my lady.” Auerbach did not consider this cultural contrast between
synonyms.
As SP heads toward El Toboso, he performs a private “soliloquy.” This is more than the kind of monologue that we might hear from
Hamlet. SP actually carries on a conversation with himself: “‘Now, brother Sancho, let’s find out exactly where your grace is going.
Are you going to look for a certain ass that’s been lost?’ ‘Absolutely not.’ ‘Well, then, what do you seek?’ ‘I am seeking –as if it
were a simple thing to do– a princess, and in her the sun of beauty and the rest of heaven above.’ ‘And where do you hope to
find all this, Sancho?’‘Where? Why, in the great city of El Toboso.’” Cervantes is not just a master of dialogue, he is now a master of
interior dialogue, which reveals a character’s hidden anxieties. Why this particularly rare technique now? What does it tell us about SP?
SP’s immediate problem is how to find a woman who does not exist. He decides to improvise, relying on his master’s gullibility:
“Being, then, crazy, which he certainly is, and with the kind of craziness that takes some things for others and judges white to
be black and black to be white... it will not be all that difficult to make him believe that a peasant woman, the first one I come
across around here, is the lady Dulcinea.” Then he sees just what he needs: “when he got up to mount the gray, he saw that riding
out toward where he was from El Toboso were three peasant women on three jackasses, or she-asses, for the author does not
specify.” Two aspects of the description that follows should interest us. First, there is much confusion about the sex of these women’s
mounts, which as Francisco Rico notes, echoes the medieval debate over the sex of angels. Second, the narrator makes excessive
Chapter10

68
excuses about why this should not interest us. Do we trust this narrator? There
is more wordplay regarding the women’s asses. When SP goes to inform his
master that he has found Dulcinea, he mistakenly deploys a biblical term,
referring to the Canaanites of ancient Palestine, enemies of the Israelites:
“She and her damsels... come mounted atop three spotted Canaanite
Trotters.” DQ corrects his confusion regarding the breed of Dulcinea’s horses:
“Arabian Canterers, you must mean, Sancho.” SP then echoes the narrator’s
evasiveness: “There’s little difference... between Canaanites and Arabians;
but, no matter what they’re riding, they’re the most beautiful ladies one
could ever wish to see.” What would Canaanites be doing in El Toboso?
Regardless, DQ is overjoyed. Recalling the theme of SP’s salary, DQ offers
his squire the spoils of future conquests, and then he adds a more realistic
form of incentive: “I hereby grant you the best spoils that I shall win in the
first adventure I have, and if that does not satisfy you, then I promise you
the fillies that my three mares will give me this year, which, as you know,
are about to give birth on the commons of our town.” SP wisely accepts the
fillies because “it is far from certain that the spoils of our first adventure
will be good.” Then again, just how good are horses raised on public lands
likely to be? Juan de Mariana’s famous phrase comes to mind: “When an ass
belongs to many, the wolves eat it.”
“ArabianCanterers,
you must mean,
Sancho.”

69
LESSON25
Don Quijote,
classic romantic
lover
N
ow we have a conflict between SP’s and DQ’s points of view: “I don’t see, Sancho... but three peasant women atop three
donkeys.” SP plays a consciously deceptive role, describing what he sees according to the dictates of chivalric fantasy: “God
save me now from the Devil!... Is it possible that three Arabians, or whatever you call them, white as the driven snow,
look like donkeys to your grace? God help us, and may my beard be plucked out if that’s true!” Weird, no? SP just bet his beard that
he knows the truth. DQ insists on reality: “that they’re asses, or she-asses, is as true as I am Don Quijote and you Sancho Panza.”
But wait! DQ and SP are fictional characters. SP addresses Dulcinea: “Queen and princess and duchess of beauty, may your highness
and mightiness be served by receiving with your good graces and dispositions this your captive knight.” DQ is forced to follow
SP’s lead, but he is visibly confused: “by now Don Quijote had kneeled down next to Sancho and with shocked eyes and disturbed
vision he gazed at the woman whom Sancho was addressing as queen and lady.” The narrator tells us Dulcinea is ugly: “a peasant
girl, and not a particularly attractive one, because she was round-faced and snubbed nose.” Moreover, she gets angry: “Get out
of the way, dammit, and let us pass, for we’re in a hurry.”
Depressed, DQ explains to Dulcinea what has happened: “the evil enchanter who persecuteth me hath placed clouds and
cataracts over my eyes, such that for them alone and not for others he hath mutated and transformed thy unequalled beauty
and appearance into those of a lowly peasant.” But he insists he still loves her and begs her to understand: “ceaseth not to gaze
upon me kindly and lovingly, taking note, in this submission and in this kneeling that I perform before your deformed beauty,
the humility with which my soul adoreth thee.” Dulcinea attempts to escape, but the pain she inflicts on her ass becomes a problem:
“since the jenny felt the spike of the prod, which irritated her more than usual, she started to buck, such that she threw the lady
Dulcinea to the ground.” DQ wants to help Dulcinea back on her mount, but she refuses, for she can ride an ass as well as any man:

Discover Don Quijote de la Mancha, Part II - chapters 1 - 23 - donquijote.ufm.edu/en

Discover Don Quijote de la Mancha, Part II - chapters 1 - 23 - donquijote.ufm.edu/en

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Discover Don Quijote de la Mancha, Part II - chapters 1 - 23 - donquijote.ufm.edu/en