discover don quijote de la mancha, part ii - chapters 27 - 31 - donquijote.ufm.edu/en

Chapters 27 - 31

http://donquijote.ufm.edu/en

Discover Don Quijote de la Mancha

donquijote.ufm.edu/en

Part IIChapters 27 - 31

Index

Lesson 07: All about “just war” 6

Lesson 06: Master Pedro’s identity 4

Lesson 09: “The Adventure of the Enchanted Boat” 10

Lesson 12: On the nature of social relations 20

Lesson 10: The Duke and the Duchess 16

Lesson 08: The feudal bond between Don Quijote and Sancho 8

Lesson 11: The reception of Don Quijote at the court of the Duke and Duchess 18

Chapter 27 - 29 review 14

Chapter 30 - 31 review 23

Course activities 24

“Our livesare like riversthat flow into the sea”

—Jorge Manrique,

“Coplas a la muerte de su padre”

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Master Pedro’s identityC hapter twenty-seven extends “The Braying Tale” of chapter twenty-

five. As such, it also situates Master Pedro’s puppet show between two halves of a satire of civil war. The chapter opens with another

disorienting intervention by the original Moorish author Cide Hamete Benengeli. It’s ironic because he swears that he tells the truth as if he were a Catholic Christian: “Cide Hamete, the chronicler of this great history, begins this chapter with these words: ‘I swear as a Catholic Christian.’” This elicits an hilarious and extensive clarification by the translator: “At which the translator says that when Cide Hamete swore like a Catholic Christian, he being a Moor, as without a doubt he was, this did not mean anything more than that just as a Catholic Christian, when he swears, swears or ought to swear and state the truth in everything he says, thus he too told the truth as if he had sworn like a Catholic Christian regarding what he wanted to write about Don Quijote.” Labyrinthically funny, but the interruption again focuses our attention on the ethnic conflict between Old Christians and the Moriscos exiled in the years prior to part two of Don Quijote. Benengeli’s oath recalls for us that the Moriscos were technically Christians who faced mistrust regarding their loyalty to Spain.

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‘I swear as a Catholic Christian.’

About what does Benengeli swear to tell the truth? The identity of Master Pedro, who turns out to be Ginés de Pasamonte. The narrator even reminds the reader of DQ’s problematic liberation of the galley slaves in the Sierra Morena in DQ 1.22: “a charitable gesture that was later poorly appreciated and repaid even worse by those malignant and ill-mannered people.” On the one hand, this characterization hints at the disloyal Moriscos in Valencia and Aragón. On the other hand, the galley slaves were not Moriscos, so perhaps religion does not correlate with rebellion. The narrator further recalls the printer’s error regarding “the one who robbed Sancho Panza’s gray” and the incredible artifice that Pasamonte used to steal the ass from under SP as told by the squire in DQ 2.4. Note also the detailed presentation of Pasamonte’s relativistic theory of theater, which changes according to his audience: “sometimes he put on one story, other times another.” Also interesting is that Pasamonte “decided to cross over into the Kingdom of Aragón.” Perhaps chivalric theater is more welcome there; perhaps this places him beyond reach of Castile’s legal system; perhaps both.

So DQ and SP now head for Zaragoza, presumably following Pasamonte’s route. On the third day of their journey they hear “a great sound of drums, of trumpets and harquebuses.” Note how this reads like a projection of Master Pedro’s puppet show. The narrator tells us that DQ “at first thought that a regiment of soldiers was passing through the area.” This alludes to two recent civil wars. The Castilian infantry repressed the Moriscos in 1568-71 and the Aragonese nobility in 1591. Cervantes’s satire of war is relentless and hilarious. The people turn out to be a squadron of about two hundred men marching under ridiculous banners, one in particular: “one especially, which was written on a standard or a banner of white satin, on which was painted a most lifelike ass that looked like a small Sardinian, with head raised, mouth open, and tongue out, acting and standing as if it were braying.” Under the image is a motto: “They did not bray in vain / neither of the two mayors.” “The Braying Tale” has now become “The Braying Adventure.”

«menos mal hace el hipócrita que se finge bueno que el público pecador»

6 Discover Don Quijote de la Mancha


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All about“just war”

DQ immediately observes that the original storyteller made a mistake, because he had called the brayers “aldermen” (regidores) instead of “magistrates” (alcaldes). SP objects that DQ is being overly picky, adding that the aldermen might have become magistrates. Either way, DQ and SP realize that these men are from the town offended at being mocked by their neighbors,

whom they now plan to attack. DQ approaches the ass banner and delivers a long harangue in which he urges the men to lay down their arms. Let’s attend to DQ’s details and his meandering logic.

First, DQ points out that an entire town cannot be offended by a particular individual. But then he brings up a case in which this actually did happen: Diego Ordóñez de Lara, who upon the infamous murder of King Sancho II by Vellido Dolfos during the siege of Zamora, subsequently challenged the entire city. DQ then points out that Ordóñez went too far, citing a popular ballad: “although it is true that Sir Don Diego went a little too far and even went beyond the limits of a proper challenge, because he had no reason to challenge the dead, the water, the bread, the unborn, or all the other things that are mentioned there.” DQ argues it is absurd for people to go to war over name calling: “No and no, God would neither want nor permit it!” Next, mixing tradition and natural law, he gives four reasons why people and republics are indeed permitted to go to war: 1) “in defense of the Catholic faith,” 2) “in defense of one’s own life, which is a natural and divine right,” 3) “in defense of one’s honor,” 4) “in the service of one’s king in a just war.” Then, he awkwardly adds a fifth reason, perhaps most related to the forth: “in defense of one’s country.” Note the tenuous status of this modern appeal to nationalism.

The deeper problem, of course, is ancient. How is a “just war” defined? DQ appeals to reason, saying that none of the five reasons for taking up arms apply in this case: “he who takes them up for childish trifles and matters that are more laughable and amusing than offensive appears to lack all commonsense.” He goes even further, appealing to Christian morality, in particular, Matthew 5.44, which Cervantes cited in Latin in the prologue to DQ part one: “taking unjust revenge, for there’s no such thing as just revenge, goes directly against the holy law that we profess, according to which we are commanded to do good to our enemies and to love those who hate us.” He concludes by triumphantly calling on these men to cease and desist: “And so, dear sirs, your graces are



obliged by laws both divine and human to make peace.” SP is impressed, marveling to himself that DQ is a theologian: “The Devil take me... if this my master isn’t a thelogian; and if he’s not, well he’s as close as one egg is to another.” Notice our access to SP’s internal thoughts here and the equivalence between one egg and another. This is humanist morality on display.

Hilariously, SP now takes his turn chastising the townsmen: “it’s foolish to get angry just because you hear somebody bray.” But his mind wanders and he recalls his own braying abilities as a young man: “I remember, when I was a boy, I brayed where and whenever I wished, without anybody holding me back, and with such grace and propriety that when I brayed, all the asses in the town brayed back.” SP then gives the townsmen a sample of the “science” of braying: “And so you’ll see that I speak the truth, wait and listen, for this science is like that of swimming: once you learn, you never forget.” It’s an amazing moment: “And then, his hand on his nose, he began to bray so loudly that all the nearby valleys echoed the sound.” But the townsmen take offense and one of them strikes SP to the ground.

At this point, all of the talk of violence and war in the past four chapters reaches a tipping point. DQ’s instinct is to avenge SP by attacking the man that struck him, but he is prevented from doing so, not because of Christ’s injunction against revenge, but because he is outnumbered: “but so many men got between them that it was impossible to avenge him.” He retreats, checking his body for bullet holes as he flees. Meanwhile, the townsmen sling SP over his ass and let him go. The narrator’s report of the townsmen’s joy at their epic victory is hilarious: “if they had known the ancient Greek tradition, they would have erected a monument at that very spot and place.” Cervantes has reduced the most famous wars of classical history, such as the Trojan War, to a matter of bickering over ass calls.



C hapter twenty-eight opens with another ridiculous sounding subtitle: “Concerning things that Benengeli says will be known by he who reads him, if he reads them with attention.” Is this absurd humor? Or could Cervantes be signaling something? Let’s do as Benengeli says and read carefully. The chapter focuses on the increasingly tenuous relationship

between master and servant. SP feels betrayed. In other words, the feudal bond between DQ and SP has just been tested in the heat of battle, and DQ’s constant insistence on his squire’s loyalty now seems hypocritical. First, SP slips off his ass. It’s cinematographic: “once he had regained consciousness, he rode up to Don Quijote and let himself slip off his gray at Rocinante’s feet, anxious, thrashed, and badly beaten.” The narrator adopts DQ’s rhetorical style here: “Don Quijote dismounted and didst tend to his squire’s lacerations.” DQ then has the temerity to be angry: “In an evil hour didst thou take to braying, Sancho!”

SP’s response is brutal: “I will silence my braying, but I will never keep silent about how knights errant flee and leave their good squires to be thrashed like privet or chaff at the hands of their enemies.” Notice the milling theme from DQ 1.5 and 1.8. DQ justifies his actions with classical wisdom: “He who retreats does not flee... because you should know, Sancho, that valor which is not drawn from the base of prudence is called recklessness.” Here DQ appeals to Aristotelian moderation, in medio virtus. But this contradicts his argument in DQ 2.24, where he had quoted Terence’s phrase: “the soldier who dies in battle is more esteemed than the one who survives in flight.” SP complains of pain and DQ pedantically states the obvious: SP’s pain owes to the fact that the townsmen hit him on his back, which results in the most pain, and the more they hit him the more pain he feels. SP now becomes more sarcastic than anywhere in the novel: “By God... your grace has cleared up for me a great doubt, and you have put it so beautifully, too! By my body! Was the cause of my pain so mysterious that it was necessary to tell me that I hurt everywhere that I was struck?”

The feudal bond between Don Quijote and Sancho

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“Don Quijote dismounted and didst tend to his squire’s lacerations.”

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The tension between master and servant grows. SP is fed up. He anticipates Voltaire’s warning against adventurism: “I would do much better by myself, I say again, if I were to return home to my wife and children and support her and rear them with that which God has deigned to give me, and not go chasing after your grace down dead-end roads and trails and highways leading nowhere, short on drink and worse on food.” DQ calls his squire’s bluff, telling him to leave. Notice the more formal “vos” manner of address: “God forbid that I should stop you: you have my money, and you can add up how long ago we left our village on this third sally; so calculate what you can and should earn each month and pay yourself by your own hand.” Oops! DQ has just placed the issue of SP’s salary on the table again. What follows is an intense negotiation.

If we read carefully here, we learn a lot. SP normally works for Tomé Carrasco, the father of Sansón. He receives a salary: “I earned two ducados each month, in addition to meals.” The squire then lists the harsher conditions of his present occupation. DQ agrees: “Suppose I confess... that all you say, Sancho, is correct: How much do you think I should pay you beyond what Tomé Carrasco did?” SP calculates further: “I think... if your grace added two reales to my monthly salary, I would consider myself well paid.” Then he adds six more reales per month to cover the promised island, which has yet to materialize, and comes up with a total: “as for fulfilling your grace’s word and promise made to grant me governorship of an isle, it would be right to add another six reales, which comes to a total of thirty.” Note the amazing amount of information here regarding labor rates and the values of distinct currencies. We now know, for example, that a ducado is worth eleven reales.

Remarkably, DQ accepts the proposal of thirty reales per month: “Very well... calculate, Sancho, the rate times the amount, and determine what I owe you and pay yourself, as I have said, by your own hand.” But negotiations break down over the time of SP’s service. DQ says they have been travelling for twenty-five days. SP rightly wants to count the previous sally in part one. But he calculates an outrageous total period of service: “it has to be more than twenty years, give or take three days.” This is 240 times as much as DQ has just agreed to pay. DQ concedes a bit, agreeing to two months of total service. But he maintains his feudal position and again points out that there are no salaries for squires in the novels of chivalry: “where have you seen or read that any squire of a knight errant has engaged his master in ‘you should give me a little more each month for my services?’” He adds that if SP finds such evidence, he will submit to having it nailed to his forehead and having his face mussed four times. Messing with faces will be important in future episodes, as will this salary negotiation.

In the end, DQ indicates the Apuleian subtext of all this. He submits that SP is an ass: “You are an ass, and you will always be an ass, and you will end the course of your life as an ass.” SP admits as much and retracts his request: “My lord, I confess that in order to be a complete ass I lack but the tail, and if your grace wants to attach it to me, I will consider it well-placed, and I will serve you as an ass for the rest of the days of my life.” Our heroes make up, rest, and then proceed east, “in search of the banks of the famous Ebro.”



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“The Adventure of the Enchanted Boat”C hapter twenty-nine relates “The Adventure of the Enchanted Boat.” Finding a small fishing boat tied to a tree on the banks of

the Ebro River, DQ explains that they must board it. This might strike modern readers as odd, but it perfectly parodies similar events found in the books of chivalry, in which mysterious empty boats transport knights-errant to far off lands where other

adventures await them. DQ explains: “this is in accord with the books of chivalry and the enchanters.” SP reasons that the boat is probably owned by some local fishermen, but he still submits to the feudal relationship, with its proverbial promise of future rewards at his master’s proverbial table: “there’s nothing to do but obey and lower my head, following the proverb: ‘Do what your master commands and sit with him at his table.’”

Notable here is SP’s immediate panic at being adrift. Moreover, he laments the cries of his ass, whom they left tied to a tree with Rocinante: “he began to tremble, fearing his perdition, but nothing caused him greater pain than the sound of his gray braying and the sight of Rocinante struggling to break free.” DQ tells him not to worry and considers how far they have travelled: “we must have emerged from the river and travelled at least seven hundred or eight hundred leagues... we have already passed, or are about to pass, the equinoctial line.” It’s an absurd and ironic estimate: DQ may have a more reasonable sense of time than his squire; but he has zero sense of distance.

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Now DQ produces a long parody of cosmography, focusing on the international scope of the Spanish Empire and hinting at the scientific advancements of the day. He mentions the astrolabe, an instrument crucial for navigation, and refers to the calculation of one’s latitude using the pole star. But he also clings to a Ptolemaic view of the cosmos, which yielded to the Copernican system in the middle of the sixteenth century. Similarly, DQ’s story about fleas dying when sailors crossed the equator during voyages between Cádiz and the West Indies mocks a common belief. Note DQ’s strange allusion to economic incentive as proof. Upon crossing the equator no fleas are found, even if sailors are offered their weight in gold: “without there remaining a single one alive, nor could you find one anywhere on the ship, even if you were offered its weight in gold.” How much could fleas weigh?

Also funny is DQ’s accumulated list of nautical and astronomical terms with which he befuddles SP: “you don’t know anything about the colures, lines, parallels, zodiacs, ellipticals, poles, solstices, equinoxes, planets, signs, points, and measurements which compose the celestial and terrestrial spheres.” Amidst all of this, SP checks for fleas and finds quite a few, thus disproving DQ’s account of their voyage: “Either your experiment is false or else we have not gone as far as your grace says, not by many leagues.” Will DQ pay gold for these fleas? Of course not. Next, hidalgo and squire are dragged toward waterwheels (aceñas), used for milling wheat. DQ takes these for castles in which innocent victims are held against their will. He even confronts the millers who try to steer him away from certain destruction: “release and give liberty to the person whom you are holding captive in your fortress or prison.”

SP prays for divine intervention, but the narrator specifies that they are saved not by a miracle but by the efforts of the millers: “Sancho fell to his knees, devoutly praying to heaven to free him from that manifest danger, which it did via the industry and quickness of the millers, who stopped the boat by pushing their poles against it.” The phrase recalls Basilio’s trick at Camacho’s wedding. Bourgeois reality to the rescue once again! To be more precise, however, the narrator says that the heavens worked their magic indirectly, i.e., by way of the millers’ industry. This is an excellent distinction between the humanist belief system and those of Europe’s many religious fanatics. Still, the boat is destroyed and knight and squire must be rescued by the millers, who actually dive into the river to save them. Funny here is the narrator’s contradictory description of DQ: “this was fine by Don Quijote, who knew how to swim like a goose, although the weight of his arms took him to the bottom on two occasions.” DQ and SP avert a Trojan defeat. SP is annoyed, but he still pays the fishermen fifty reales for the destruction of their boat.



Note DQ’s reaction. First he accepts defeat, turning melancholic and stoic because he cannot help those trapped in the castle: “This adventure must be destined and reserved for another knight.” Cervantes scholars often read this as the beginning of the final fallen phase of DQ’s adventures. Even more interesting, DQ formulates the fruitlessness of his endeavors as a matter of two conflicting magical forces that have combined to neutralize his free will. He says this to himself: “Enough!... in this adventure two valiant enchanters must being doing battle, and one blocks what the other attempts: one bestowed this boat upon me and the other tossed me from it. May God save us, for the world is but machinations and deceptions all opposing one another. I can’t go on.” Astonishing! DQ has come to terms with the idea that the events of reality, perhaps of History itself, are beyond the control of a single man. Here is the Romantic hero of the nineteenth century, lost, dark, solipsistic, and resigned to defeat.

“release and give liberty to the person whom you are holding captive in your fortress or prison.”



Chapter 27 - 29 review



In these chapters, Cervantes extends his mockery of civil war as asinine and absurd. Then we have the employment negotiations between squire and hidalgo, complete with intense details regarding SP’s regular salary. The trip down the Ebro River is like a broken baptism, as well as a review of familiar themes: we have another mill, another beating, and another monetary reparation for damages to property. Think of “The Adventure of the Enchanted Boat” as Cervantes hitting the reset button. But keep in mind DQ’s fallen state of mind, which anticipates Romanticism by two hundred years. More than a tabula rasa, this is a dark tabula rasa. Now we are ready for the complex series of episodes at the mysterious palace of the unnamed Duke and the Duchess, near the Ebro River and Zaragoza, the capital of Aragón.

Let’s review

“Now if, as I was saying just now, they were to laugh at me, as you say they do at you, it would not be at all unpleasant to pass the time at the court with jests and laughter.”

—Platón, Euthyphro



I n chapter thirty our heroes meet the Duke and Duchess, two major characters who will remain unnamed throughout the remainder of part two. This brief but highly symbolic chapter has implications for feminist readings of DQ. It also develops further the links between the text of 1605 and that of 1615. The Duke and Duchess state clearly that they have read the first part of DQ and the

narrator informs us that they plan on having fun with knight and squire.

The chapter begins with our heroes depressed after the Adventure of the Boat, especially SP, “whose soul suffered for having to reach into the moneybag.” The narrator even tells us that SP resolves to leave his master: “he sought an occasion on which, without having to account to his master or say goodbye, one day he might tear himself away and go home.” But this idea evaporates when DQ and SP enter a meadow in which they find a hunting party, dominated by “an elegant woman mounted atop a pure white palfrey or trotter pony, adorned with green trappings and a silver saddle,” clear signs of nobility.

DQ sends SP on an “embassy” to greet this woman and SP happily obliges him, alluding ironically to his previous mission to find Dulcinea: “You know, this isn’t the first time that I’ve gone on embassies to high born ladies in this life.” SP communicates to her DQ’s desire “to serve your lofty highness and beauteousness,” and the Duchess recognizes “the one with the Sorrowful Face, about whom we have heard much in these parts” and expresses her approval: “tell your master that he is most welcome to serve me and the Duke, my husband, at a country estate we have nearby.” She then verifies with SP that DQ is “the one about whom there is now a printed history called The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quijote of La Mancha.” SP’s affirmation of his own identity exhibits meta-literary playfulness: “And I am Sancho Panza, unless they switched me with another in the cradle, I mean in the press.” The narrator makes clear the perspective of the nobles: “the two of them, having read the first part of this history and

The Duke and the Duchess

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having understood from it the twisted mental state of Don Quijote, were desirous of knowing him and waited for him with great pleasure.” He then explains that they plan to treat DQ “like a knight errant, during all the time that he would stay with them and with all the ceremonies that are customary in the books of chivalry, which they had read and of which they were fond.” We see here that the Aragonese nobility were fanatics about all things chivalric. Indeed, Aragón is perhaps the only place where DQ would have been truly at home. The jousts in Zaragoza that attract DQ throughout part two make perfect sense.

Now Cervantes provides slapstick humor, but it’s also symbolic of overarching tragedy, a fall from grace. As DQ approaches, SP falls off his ass, and DQ, unaware that SP is no longer holding his stirrup, also falls off Rocinante. The Duke expresses regret, and DQ responds with a hyperbole that is both ominous and funny. The hidalgo considers himself fortunate to have met this “most valiant prince... even if my fall were to have carried me to the depths of the abyss.” Then he praises the Duchess “noble mistress of beauty and universal princess of courtesy.” The Duke undercuts DQ’s praise, pointing out that “when my lady Doña Dulcinea is involved, it’s not proper to praise other beauteousnesses.” So not only SP but also the Duke are imitating DQ’s antiquated rhetoric via the medieval ‘F’ instead of the modern ‘H.’

SP’s comment is fascinating and sophisticated: “I have heard it said that what they call nature is like a potter who makes vases out of clay, and he who makes a beautiful vase can make two, or three, or a hundred: I say this because, by my faith, my lady the Duchess does not lag in beauty to my mistress lady Dulcinea of Toboso.” The “clay potter” recalls the giant urns of El Toboso made by Moriscos, which we saw at Miranda’s house and Camacho’s wedding. But there’s more going on here. SP alludes to the Demiurge, a mediating entity between the spiritual and the material worlds. Similarly, DQ refers to the Duchess as “your great celestialness.” The basis of modern feminism is respect for women. Here we see how much feminism owes to the Renaissance philosophy of Neoplatonism, which viewed women as divine manifestations, i.e., material projections of metaphysical perfection.

DQ is ashamed of his squire’s blunders and loquaciousness. Cervantes’s comedic use of this theatrical contrast will characterize DQ and SP’s time at the ducal palace. Hidalgo and squire now begin to play a modern kind of comedic odd couple, poking fun at each other’s antics and delighting in each other’s errors. Note also that the Duchess clearly favors SP. He will be her personal jester. There’s something very modern about this, too. Cervantes reconfigures medieval courtly love by adding humor as a factor of attraction on par with power, prestige, and wealth.

The Duke now invites our hero to his palace: “I suggest that Sir Knight of the Lions come to a castle of mine which is nearby, where he will find himself received with the dignity that his high person should justly expect.” As the group departs, the narrator produces yet another of a growing list of wordplays contrasting DQ and SP: “to the great pleasure of the Duke and the Duchess, who considered it their great fortune to welcome to their castle this errant knight and this squandered squire.”



A t the beginning of chapter thirty-one the narrator notes that SP was happy to find himself “in the favor of the Duchess.” He senses a positive experience, like those at the houses of Miranda and Basilio. The narrator also informs us of the first illusion performed for DQ by the Duke and Duchess. It’s an improvised reception for the chivalric hero. Note how their

abode is referred to as a “country estate or castle,” echoing but also contrasting with the “palace or citadel” that Cervantes often uses in reference to Dulcinea. Two servants appear, dressed in crimson robes of satin, and remove DQ from his horse. At the same time, two maidens “threw over the shoulders of Don Quijote a great cloak of fine scarlet” (cf. El Greco’s El expolio and Sargent’s Dr. Pozzi at Home). DQ then attempts to assist the Duchess but she insists on dismounting “in the arms of the Duke.” Perhaps this refers to the supposedly platonic nature of courtly love. The entire staff then sprinkles DQ with perfumed water, praising him as “the flower and cream of all knights errant.” The scene marks a major shift: “that was the first day on which he roundly and thoroughly knew and believed that he was a true knight errant and not a fantastical one.” The scene also contains bitter irony in the fact that DQ, who so often insists that “valiant knights” are superior to “courtly knights,” now finds validation in this regal reception at the court of the Duke and Duchess. In retrospect, DQ’s slapstick fall from Rocinante now makes sense. It’s classical tragedy: DQ betrays his ideals.

Right after the narrator’s crucial observation about DQ’s new status, SP gets into an argument with one of the Duchess’s maids regarding his ass. It’s one of those detailed divergences from the main story that modern readers might find difficult to understand. Just remember that SP’s ass marks all sorts of social, ethical, and racial problems. Here, Cervantes alludes to the moral hypocrisy of those who succeed in life forgetting about the fate of those who share their roots. Like his tragically transformed master, SP now feels so empowered that he mistreats other servants. The narrator even underscores that SP feels guilty about his attempt to stay close to the Duchess: “abandoning his gray, he fastened himself to the Duchess and went inside the castle; and when his conscience bothered him for having left the gray alone, he approached a respected duenna, who had come out with the other ladies to greet the Duchess.”

The reception of Don Quijote at the court of the Duke and Duchess

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SP asks this woman, Doña Rodríguez, to make sure that his ass is taken to the stable. She rebukes him and he claims he deserves more respect from her. Curiously, while noting his master’s identification with Lancelot, SP calls him “a diviner of the histories,” meaning that DQ perceives the deeper meaning of chivalric texts. Note how SP emphasizes the art of literary interpretation, what we might call careful reading. The irony, of course, is that SP continues to overvalue his ass: “when it comes to my ass, I would not trade it for the nag of Sir Lancelot.” Furthermore, he insults Doña Rodríguez, first forgetting her name, and then calling her old by way of a sophisticated metaphor based on counting the value of cards: “if years are points, your grace would never lose at any hand of cards.” Doña Rodríguez understands the mathematical insult. Does the reader understand the text? Doña Rodríguez reports the insult to the Duchess and SP tries to excuse himself: “I only said it because I’m so concerned about my ass.” Then the Duke calms SP in a way that recalls the equivalency between squire and ass: “relax Sancho, for he will be treated as if he were your very person.”

This ethical lesson about social status continues when servants attempt to dress DQ with a new shirt. Note the directional, even sadistic, nature of humor and laughter here. The servants and the nobles laugh at DQ’s appearance: “dry, tall, and thin, with cheeks that kissed each other in the middle of his mouth.” They must work to “hide their laughter.” Curiously, when they offer DQ the shirt, at first he refuses it, insisting they give it to SP, but then he takes SP into an adjacent bedroom and puts it on himself. The odd shift occurs in a single sentence: “Even so, he told them to give the shirt to Sancho; and then he went off with him into a room where there was a luxurious bed, and he stripped naked and put on the shirt.”

DQ then lectures SP about his behavior, insisting that the squire rise to the occasion of their noble hosts. This speech reveals two things about DQ, and readers who identify with him should feel disillusioned. First, he discloses his extreme anxiety about his own status. He does not want SP to inadvertently reveal their low origins. Second, he reveals that he too has delusions of grandeur. If they act well, they’ll be rich: “we’ll come out of this better off by a king’s third or fifth in both fame and wealth.” SP promises to behave himself and guard the secret of their lowliness: “that never through him would it be disclosed who they really were.” To repeat, all this betrays the meritocratic values that DQ so often defends. Returning to the main room, DQ dresses the part of a noble guest: “he girded his belt and sword, threw his scarlet cloak over his shoulders, put on the green riding cap that the maids of honor had given him, and thus adorned he strode into the main hall.”



N ow we have a dinner scene. Note two aspects: first, the presence of “a gravely serious ecclesiastic like those who often govern the households of princes”; second, SP’s anecdote about a similar dinner that an hidalgo once held for a farmer. The ecclesiastic is a complex figure. On the one hand, the narrator tells us that this man has a resentful and overly censorious

personality: “like those who, since they were not born princes themselves, never successfully instruct those who are how they should be; like those who want the greatest of the nobility to be measured according to the meagerness of their spirits; like those who, in an effort to show those whom they govern how to be restrained, end up making them miserly.” On the other hand, he is critical of DQ in a way that recalls Cervantes’s attack on the books of chivalry. He warns the Duke that “it was nonsensical to read such nonsense” and calls our knight’s antics “stupidities and hollow acts.” This is a paradox. The novel about DQ that the Duke has been reading is itself a parody of chivalric fantasy, but the ecclesiastic has taken it at face value, as if it were the kind of chivalric romance criticized by humanists like Erasmus and Vives. Does Cervantes hide his humanist tendencies here? Or does he expose how humanists can become self-righteous? Either way, he distinguishes between sincere romance and subtle satire.

SP’s anecdote focuses on caste distinctions. As such it’s a miniature version of the chapter we are reading. What prompts SP to tell his story? He witnesses a battle over decorum between the Duke and DQ. At first, DQ resists sitting at the head of the table, but after much urging he agrees. The ecclesiastic sits across from him, highlighting their conflict. SP seizes the opportunity: “I’ll tell you a story that happened in my village concerning this issue of seating arrangements.” Note the comical social discomfort here, as SP tells DQ that he will not forget his master’s recent advice “about speaking too long and being brief.” SP embarrasses DQ, who is forced to lie about having given him advice: “I remember no such thing, Sancho.” DQ begs the Duke and Duchess to forgive the impertinence of his squire, even suggesting “that your highnesses order this fool removed from here.” Hinting at a feminist alliance between her and SP, the Duchess comes to the squire’s rescue: “Sancho is not to stray from my side so much as a stitch.” He thanks her: “Many sensible days... may your holiness live for the good faith and credit that you have extended me.”

On the nature of social relations

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SP’s anecdote involves real figures from recent Spanish history who were involved in a disastrous military expedition sent to relieve Spanish troops in North Africa. In other words, SP’s tale assesses Spanish imperialism. He even attempts to get DQ to confirm the lineages of the characters of his story. DQ admits that his squire tells the truth but urges him to finish quickly. The ecclesiastic is also annoyed by “the dilations and pauses with which Sancho told his story.” Again, the Duchess defends the squire, saying he should speak as long as he wishes. And again, we note how often Cervantes’s art of storytelling concerns the art of storytelling.

SP’s story centers on an hidalgo who insisted on honoring his peasant neighbor. The neighbor refused to sit at the head of his host’s table, but the hidalgo finally forced him to do so: “placing both hands on his shoulders, he forced him to sit down, saying: ‘Sit down, you idiot, for wherever I sit will be the head of the table for you.’” On its surface, the story is another example of SP’s long-windedness. If we read carefully, however, it also highlights DQ’s arrogant disregard for his squire. It echoes, for example, the preamble to DQ’s Golden Age speech in DQ 1.11, where our knight forced SP to sit beside him. Note also how SP praises the “hidalgo host” of his story, who has since died: “may his soul rest in peace, for he’s dead now, and people tell me that all signs indicated that he died like an angel.” We might ask ourselves: Has some aspect of DQ died? Note how SP claims that his story is not out of place: “And there you have my story, and in truth I believe that it has not been told here without purpose.” The irony is that SP has consciously constructed a story that criticizes his master’s arrogance. Finally, the narrator’s description of DQ’s shame hints at race: “Don Quijote turned a thousand different colors, which all flashed and shifted like marble over his dark skin.”

Extending the conflict between squire and knight, the Duchess now enquires about Dulcinea. DQ says that he has found her, but she is now “enchanted and transformed into the ugliest peasant girl that one could imagine.” Embodying his own egalitarian lesson to his master, SP takes the radically opposite view, appealing to the Duchess for support: “I don’t know... it seems to me she’s the most beautiful creature on earth... by my faith, lady Duchess, she leaps from the ground onto an ass as if she were a cat.” He goes even further, discrediting his master’s claim that Dulcinea is enchanted: “She’s as enchanted as my father!”

Chapter thirty-one concludes with the ecclesiastic expressing his disapproval of both the Duke and DQ. The backdrop is a complex web of social relations: a priest, a pair of nobles, an hidalgo, and a laborer. Literary critics tend to take a negative view of the ecclesiastic, especially modern critics who sympathize with DQ, whom the ecclesiastic calls “simple soul.” Nevertheless, we have heard his advice before, from SP and from DQ’s niece. Anticipating the anti-colonialist message of Voltaire’s Candide, the ecclesiastic even embeds a quote within his speech to DQ, telling him what others should say to him: “Return to your home and care for your children, if you have any, and tend to your estate, and stop wandering about the world gaping at the wind and provoking the laughter of all who know you and all who don’t.” This infuriates DQ, who, “with a furious glance and an agitated face, stood up and said...” But here we have yet another interruption to be continued in the next chapter.



Chapter 30 - 31 review



The encounter with the Duke and Duchess contains deep social conflicts. Cervantes’s perspectivism is not just a matter of producing a more realistic narrative but, rather, of displaying the ethical or ideological contradictions of his characters, contradictions that often reveal these characters as hypocrites. In this way Cervantes’s art indicates the convoluted nature of social relations: the narrator criticizes the ecclesiastic, but the ecclesiastic also criticizes DQ, who criticizes SP, who criticizes Doña Rodríguez, etc. And the process works in reverse as well: SP forgets his own humble origins and goes too far in his criticism of Doña Rodríguez; but then he communicates the same lesson to DQ, who has lost his way by becoming an arrogant courtly knight. And what is the role of the Duchess in all this? She seems to be on the side of the less fortunate, the underdog, SP, especially when DQ tries to dismiss his squire as a clown. Does a woman have a natural understanding of what it feels like to be dismissed as a social inferior?

Let’s review

Instructions:

Here, you will find an illustrationby Christopher Roelofs representingchapter 30 of the second part of DonQuijote de la Mancha by Miguel deCervantes.

Ask interesting questions, formulaterelevant comments, and, more thananything, respond to some of yourclassmates’ contributions:

Which characters appearin the image?

What is the symbolic significance of the shown elements, actions,and forms?



Image by Christopher Roelofs

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Course activitiesPart IIChapters 27 - 31

UFM New Media productionUniversidad Francisco Marroquín

Project Management Stephanie FallaText Author Eric Clifford GrafCopy Editing Ainara Herrán Andrea M. Castelluccio Pedagogical Coordinator Lisa QuanIlustrations Gabriella Noriega Sergio Miranda Christopher RoelofsLayout Dagoberto GrajedaWebsite donquijote.ufm.edu/enDirection Calle Manuel F. Ayau (6ta Calle final), zona 10 Guatemala, Guatemala 01010Phone number (+502) 2338-7849

Guatemala, January 2017

This project has been possible thanks to a donationwe have received from John Templeton Foundation.

The opinions expressed by the author is his responsibility and donot necessarily reflect the John Templeton Foundation point ofview.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0.(CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) Copying, distribution and public communication is allowed,providing that the acknowledgement of the work is maintained and it is not used for business. If it is transformed or a secondary work is generated, it can only be distributed with an identical license.

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