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Don Quixote · Part Two

The Defeat and Death

Appearance and RealityLanguage and NarrationHonor and ReputationMadness

Section summary

After Barcelona the book heads for home, and what drives it ceases to be adventure and becomes the reckoning: the defeat that obliges Don Quixote to a year without arms, the dukes' joke that repeats the farce of Dulcinea, the book of Avellaneda that invades the story and is expelled from it before a magistrate. The bachelor Sansón Carrasco won in order to cure, and the cure works: the knight wakes sensible, takes the name Alonso Quijano the Good, and dies in bed as no knight of books ever died. Cide Hamete Benengeli closes the work by hanging up his pen and keeping the character for himself.

Chapter LXIII: The Galleys and Ana Félix

Chapter summary

Don Quixote spends the day brooding over the reply of the enchanted head, which he takes as a sure promise of the disenchantment of Dulcinea del Toboso, and walks back and forth laughing to himself, convinced he will soon see the fulfillment. Sancho Panza, who has given up the government and keeps saying it bores him, lets slip what remained of it:

Analysis

y Sancho, aunque aborrecía el ser gobernador, como queda dicho, todavía deseaba volver a mandar y a ser obedecido; que esta mala ventura trae consigo el mando, aunque sea de burlas, and Sancho, although he detested being governor, as has been said, still desired to command again and to be obeyed; for this ill fortune comes with command, even if it is only in jest.

The narrator refutes Sancho's complaint: the man who left the post after hunger and beatings now confesses, without telling anyone, that he missed being obeyed. The "in jest" applies to the dukes' government and applies to any command, and the pleasure of commanding does not require the post to be real. Two readings: the narrator's bitter irony about all power; or the portrait of a squire who already knows he has been made a fool of and still covets the farce.

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Chapter LXIV: The Defeat on the Beach of Barcelona

Chapter summary

Ana Félix arrives at the house of Don Antonio Moreno and enchants the lady of the house, who falls in love with the Morisca's beauty and good sense; the whole city comes to see her, like a bell being rung. Don Quixote thinks the plan adopted to free Don Gregorio is more dangerous than advisable, and that it would be better to put him in Barbary with arms and a horse, from where he would take him out, despite all the Moorish host, as Don Gaiferos took his wife Melisendra. Sancho Panza objects that Don Gaiferos took his wife from solid ground and carried her to France by solid ground, and that there is the sea in between; the master replies that there is a remedy for everything, except death, and that when the boat reaches the marina they will board it, even if the whole world prevents them. Sancho concludes that from saying to doing there is a great distance, and that he trusts the renegade, who seems to him an honest man; Don Antonio adds that, if the renegade fails, they will resort to the expedient of sending the great Don Quixote to Barbary. The renegade departs two days later in a swift boat with six oars a side, with brave oarsmen, and two days later the galleys sail for the Levant.

Analysis

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Chapter LXV: The Bachelor Unmasked

Madness

Chapter summary

Don Antonio Moreno follows the Knight of the White Moon, followed himself and pursued by many boys, until the knight shuts himself into an inn in the city; he goes in after him, unable to wait to find out who he is, and the knight, seeing that he will not leave him in peace, says that while his servant disarms him he will tell everything, without leaving out a single point of the truth:

Analysis

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Chapter LXVI: The Return and the Promise

Chapter summary

On leaving Barcelona, toward the village where he must stay for a year because he lost the duel with the Knight of the White Moon, Don Quixote looks back at the spot where he fell and says:

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Chapter LXVII: The Plan to Become a Shepherd

Chapter summary

If many thoughts wearied Don Quixote before he was knocked down, even more wearied him after he fell: in the shade of the tree, "like flies to honey," some came to him about the disenchantment of Dulcinea del Toboso, and others about the life he would have to lead in forced retreat. When Sancho Panza arrives, praising the generous nature of the footman Tosilos, the gentleman wonders that he still takes for a true footman the man he saw, after having seen Dulcinea turned into a peasant woman and the Knight of the Mirrors turned into the bachelor Sansón Carrasco, all works of the enchanters who pursue him. He then asks whether the squire wanted to know from Tosilos what God had done with Altisidora, whether he wept for his absence or gave up to forgetfulness the lovesick thoughts that wearied him in his presence. Sancho answers that the thoughts he himself had left him no room to ask such foolish questions, and asks whether his master is now in a state to inquire into other people's thoughts, and amorous ones at that. Don Quixote explains:

Analysis

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Chapter LXVIII: The Pigs

Chapter summary

The night is dark, because the moon, being in the sky beyond the reach of sight, seems to be strolling through the antipodes, and leaves the hills and valleys black. Don Quixote keeps nature's law by sleeping the first sleep without making room for a second, unlike Sancho Panza, who never had a second, because his night's sleep lasts until morning. The gentleman's cares keep him awake, and he wakes the squire. He marvels at Sancho's freedom of condition, whom he imagines made of marble or hard bronze, without movement or feeling: he keeps watch when the other sleeps, weeps when the other sings, and faints from hunger when the other is lazy and downcast from sheer fullness. It is the mark of good servants to bear their masters' sufferings and share their feelings, at least for appearance's sake. He asks him to get up, move off a little, and give himself three or four hundred lashes on account of the disenchantment of Dulcinea, and swears he will not wrestle with him as he did the last time, because he knows the squire has heavy arms. Afterward they will spend the rest of the night singing, he about his absence and Sancho about his constancy, beginning from now the pastoral exercise they will practice in the village. Sancho replies that he is not a religious man to get up from the middle of his sleep and flog himself, nor does it seem to him that one can pass from the extreme of the pain of lashes to that of music. Let his master let him sleep and not press him on it, because he will make him swear never to touch so much as the nap of his jacket, let alone his flesh. Don Quixote calls him a hardened soul, a pitiless squire, wasted bread, and ill-deserved favors, those he has done and intends to do: thanks to him Sancho saw himself governor, and thanks to him he now has hopes of soon being a count, and these will not take longer than this year, because, he says, "after darkness I hope for light." Sancho says he does not understand that. He only understands that while he sleeps he has no fear, hope, labor, or glory:

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Chapter LXIX: The Funeral of Altisidora

Love

Chapter summary

The knights dismount, and with the men on foot they quickly seize Sancho and Don Quixote and carry them into the castle courtyard, where nearly a hundred torches blaze in their sconces and more than five hundred lamps line the corridors, so that the lack of daylight goes unnoticed. In the middle of the courtyard stands a tomb two rods high, covered with a canopy of black velvet, with white wax candles in more than a hundred silver candlesticks, and upon it the dead body of a maiden so beautiful that she makes death itself look beautiful, with her head on a brocade cushion, crowned with flowers, her hands crossed on her breast holding a branch of yellow, victorious palm. At one side there is a stage with two chairs where two figures crowned and scepter-bearing sit, true or feigned kings, and beside it two more chairs where the captors seat the gentleman and the squire, signaling them to be silent. They fall silent without being told, because their astonishment has tied their tongues. The Duke and Duchess climb onto the stage, whom Don Quixote recognizes, and he also recognizes in the body on the tomb the beautiful Altisidora. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza rise and make a deep bow to them, and the duke and duchess respond by slightly inclining their heads. A functionary puts on Sancho a robe of black buckram painted with flames, takes off his cap, and places on his head a coroza, like those worn by penitents of the Holy Office, and whispers in his ear not to part his lips, or they will gag him or take his life. Sancho, who sees himself in flames that do not burn, does not value them at two cents, and says to himself that at least the flames do not scorch him and the devils do not carry him off. Don Quixote, though fear has suspended his senses, cannot help laughing at the sight. From under the tomb a soft music of flutes rises, and a youth dressed in the Roman style sings, to the sound of a harp, two stanzas in which he promises to sing the beauty and the misfortune of Altisidora, slain by the cruelty of Don Quixote, with a better plectrum than the singer of Thrace, and to halt the waters of oblivion with his voice.

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Chapter LXX: Altisidora's Hell

Chapter summary

Sancho sleeps on a trundle bed in the same room as Don Quixote, something he would rather avoid, because he knows his master will not let him sleep without questions and answers, and because the pains of the day's martyrdoms tie his tongue. It would have been better to sleep alone in a hut. His fear is confirmed: as soon as the gentleman lies down, he asks what he thinks of the night's events, and says that the power of lovesick disdain is great, since Sancho saw with his own eyes Altisidora dead, not by arrow, sword, or poison, but by the thought of the harshness and disdain with which he always treated her. Sancho replies that she may die at a good hour, whenever and however she likes, and leave him in peace at home, since he neither made her fall in love with him nor disdained her in life. He does not know how the health of a maiden "more capricious than wise" has anything to do with the martyrdoms of Sancho Panza, but now he sees clearly and distinctly that there are enchanters and enchantments in the world, God save him from them, for he does not know how to free himself. He asks that they let him sleep. Don Quixote tells him to sleep, if the pins, pinches, and slaps he received leave him room to do so. Sancho replies that no pain came close to the affront of the slaps, merely because a duenna gave them, and may she be put to shame, for sleep is the relief of the miseries of those who have them awake.

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Chapter LXXI: The Lashes on the Trees

Chapter summary

Don Quixote goes along pensive on one side and very cheerful on the other: the sadness comes from the defeat, and the cheer from considering the virtue of Sancho Panza, as shown in the resurrection of Altisidora, though some scruple remains about whether the lovesick maiden really died. Sancho is not cheerful at all, because it grieves him that Altisidora did not keep her word to give him the shirts, and he tells his master that he is the most wretched doctor in the world. There are physicians, he says, who, when they kill the patient they are treating, still want to be paid for the work, which is only to sign a little prescription, and the medicines are not made by them but by the apothecary. Whereas he, to whom the health of others costs drops of blood, slaps, pinches, pinpricks, and lashes, is not given a penny. And if they bring him another patient, they will have to grease his palm before he cures him. The master agrees with him and says that Altisidora did very wrong in not giving the promised shirts. And although Sancho's virtue is "gratis data," which cost him no study at all, more than study, it is receiving martyrdom in his own person. If Sancho wanted payment for the lashes of the disenchantment of Dulcinea del Toboso, he would already have accepted it as fair. He does not know whether the payment will suit the cure, and does not want the reward to hinder the medicine, but there is no harm in trying: let Sancho decide what he wants and whip himself at once, and let him pay himself on the spot with his own hand, since the money is his master's. Sancho opens his eyes and ears a full span, consents in his heart, and resolves to please his master to his own advantage, for the love of his children and wife makes him show himself interested; and he asks how much he will receive for each lash. The gentleman replies that for the greatness of the remedy the treasure of Venice and the mines of Potosí would be too little. Let Sancho take care of what he takes from him and set the price:

Analysis

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Chapter LXXII: Don Álvaro Tarfe and the Village in Sight

Language and NarrationHonor and Reputation

Chapter summary

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza spend the whole day at the inn, waiting for night: one to finish, in open country, the round of his discipline, and the other to see its end, in which the end of his desire consists. A traveler arrives on horseback, with three or four servants, and one of the servants says to what seems to be their master: here your grace, Don Álvaro Tarfe, may take a siesta today, for the inn seems clean and cool. Hearing the name, the gentleman tells Sancho that when he leafed through the book of the second part of his history, it seems to him he came across that name in passing. The traveler dismounts, lodges in a room facing Don Quixote's chamber, and, when he steps out onto the porch where the gentleman walks, asks him where he is going. On learning that it is to a nearby village, his native place, he says that he himself is going to Granada, his homeland. Don Quixote asks him his name, because it seems to him that it matters to know more than he can say, and, hearing that he is Don Álvaro Tarfe, says that he must be the one who appears in print in the Second Part of the history of Don Quixote de la Mancha, "newly printed and brought to light by a modern author." The traveler confirms it: that same Don Quixote, the principal character of the story, was a very great friend of his, and it was he who drew him out of his land, or at least moved him to go to the jousts in Saragossa, where he himself was going. He made him many friends and saved him from having the executioner slap his back, for he was too bold. Don Quixote asks whether he resembles that one in any way, and hears that he does not in any way; and when he asks whether that one had a squire called Sancho Panza, he hears that he did, and that although he had a reputation for being very witty, he never heard him say a joke worth the name. Sancho joins the talk to say that making jokes is not for everyone, and that the Sancho the gentleman speaks of must be a great scoundrel, a glutton and a thief at the same time, because the real Sancho Panza is himself, who has more wit than rain. The true Don Quixote de la Mancha, the famous, the valiant, the wise, the lover, the righter of wrongs, the guardian of wards and orphans, the shelter of widows, the slayer of maidens, the one whose only lady is the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, is the gentleman present here, who is his master; any other Don Quixote and any other Sancho Panza is a sham and a thing of dreams. Don Álvaro replies that, by God, he believes it, because his friend said in four sentences more witty things than the other Sancho in everything he ever heard from him, and that Sancho had more of the glutton than of the eloquent, and more of the simpleton than of the wit. He holds it for certain that the enchanters who pursue Don Quixote, the good one, wanted to pursue him through Don Quixote, the bad one. But he does not know what to say, for he would swear that he left him shut up in the house of the Nuncio in Toledo, to be cured, and now here appears another Don Quixote, quite different from his own.

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Chapter LXXIII: The Omens of the Village

Chapter summary

At the entrance to the village, according to Cide Hamete Benengeli, Don Quixote sees two boys fighting on the threshing floors, and one says to the other: "Don't tire yourself, Periquillo, for you will never see her in all the days of your life." The gentleman takes note of the phrase and asks Sancho Panza whether he did not notice that, applied to his own intention, the word means he will no longer see Dulcinea del Toboso. Sancho was about to answer, but he is interrupted by the sight of a hare fleeing across the field, pursued by many greyhounds and hunters, which crouches to hide beneath the feet of Dapple. Sancho catches it safe in his hand and hands it to Don Quixote, who is saying:

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Chapter LXXIV: The Illness, the Will, and the Death of Alonso Quijano

Language and NarrationHonor and ReputationMadness

Chapter summary

As human things are not eternal and always decline from their beginnings to their last end, especially the lives of men, and as the life of Don Quixote had no privilege from heaven to halt the course of his own, the end came when he least expected it. Either through the melancholy that the sight of his defeat caused him, or by the disposition of heaven, which so ordained it, a fever took root in him and kept him six days in bed, during which the priest and the barber and the bachelor Sansón Carrasco, his friends, visited him often, while Sancho Panza, his good squire, did not leave the bedside. His friends, believing that the sadness of seeing himself defeated, and of not seeing fulfilled his desire for freedom and for the disenchantment of Dulcinea del Toboso, is what has him so, try to cheer him by every means. The bachelor tells him to take heart and rise to begin the pastoral exercise, for which he has already composed an eclogue that leaves behind as many as Sannazaro composed, and has already bought with his own money two famous dogs to guard the flock, Barcino and Butrón, which a breeder from Quintanar sold them. But even so, the gentleman does not give up his sadness. They call the physician, who takes his pulse, is not content, and says that, one way or the other, they should attend to the health of the soul, because that of the body is in danger. Don Quixote hears him with a calm spirit, but not the housekeeper, the niece, and the squire, who weep tenderly, as if they had already seen him dead before them. The physician's verdict is that melancholy and vexations are finishing him. The gentleman asks that they leave him alone, because he wants to sleep a little, and he sleeps in one breath, as they say, for more than six hours, so that the housekeeper and the niece think he will remain asleep. He wakes at the end of that time and, lifting his voice, says: blessed be the mighty God, who has done him so much good, for his mercies have no limit, nor are they shortened or hindered by the sins of men. The niece, attentive to her uncle's reasons, finds them more orderly than he was accustomed to speak them, at least in that illness, and asks him what mercies these are and what sins of men. He answers:

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Reading of the Part

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