Ginés de Pasamonte

Who He Is

Ginés de Pasamonte is the last of the chain of galley slaves whom Don Quixote frees in Part One, and the same man who, in Part Two, presents himself as Master Pedro, the puppeteer of a fortune-telling monkey and of a puppet show of Melisendra. In 1605 he is a prisoner with his hands shackled by a padlock and two rings at his throat, sentenced to ten years for more offenses than all the others together, and the book gives him one long speech, in which he corrects the name the gentleman gives him and announces that his life is written by these thumbs (chapter XXII of Part One). In 1615 he appears in disguise, with his left eye covered, and only at the opening of chapter XXVII, a chapter after the puppet show, does the narrator say that it is he (chapter XXVII of Part Two). He wants to be master of his own name and to finish the book of his own life; he fears the Holy Brotherhood, and that is why he refuses to take the chain to Toboso (chapter XXII of Part One); he knows how to profit from villages, by informing himself about the place before entering and answering, taking the pulse, whatever he is asked (chapter XXVII of Part Two); and he is mistaken in supposing the gentleman harmless: he meets him again as a puppeteer, and the gentleman, without recognizing him, destroys his puppet show (chapter XXVI of Part Two).

Trajectory

In chapter XXII of Part One, the gentleman sees coming along the road about a dozen men strung together by the neck on a great iron chain, with manacles on their hands, escorted by two men on horseback with wheel-lock muskets and two on foot. He asks the cause of each and hears from one that he loved a basket of white linen too much, from a canary-breeder who confessed under torture, from one to whom ten ducats went missing, from a pimp, and from a student who made fun of his cousins and sisters. The last one is bound in another way, with a chain at his foot that wraps around his body, two rings at his throat, and his hands locked with a padlock, so that he cannot reach his mouth with them nor lower his head to his hands. The guard says he is the famous Ginés de Pasamonte, also called Ginesillo de Parapilla. He does not accept it:

Ginés corrects the name before answering the gentleman: Ginés, not Ginesillo; Pasamonte, not Parapilla. He wants to be master of his own name, and the book that guarantees it is the life written by these thumbs, a phrase from someone whose hands are bound. The commissioner confirms that the book exists and is pawned in prison for two hundred reales, which Ginés plans to redeem for two hundred ducats. Ginés says the book is so good that it is bad times for Lazarillo de Tormes and for everyone who has written or will write in that genre, because it deals in truths so lovely and graceful that no lie can match them. The book is titled The Life of Ginés de Pasamonte, and, asked whether it is finished, he answers:

For Ginés, life is a book in progress, and the galleys are the place where he will have peace to finish it, because there he has many things left to say; he answers as an author and not as a convict. It may be the vanity of a pimp who compares himself to Lazarillo, and it may be the exact count of a text that closes only with life: the condemnation enters the book instead of interrupting it. To the gentleman, who thinks he seems clever, he answers that he is unlucky, because misfortunes pursue good wit, and the commissioner retorts that they pursue rogues. When the gentleman concludes from all he has heard that justice has failed each of them and asks the guards to release them, Sancho helps free Ginés, who is the first to jump free, takes the commissioner's sword and musket, and the guards flee before the musket and the stones of the freed men. Ginés answers for all of them that they cannot fulfill the charge of presenting themselves to Dulcinea, because they cannot walk the roads together, only alone and divided, and that the gentleman should turn that service into Hail Marys and Creeds; and when the gentleman, in anger, calls him a son of a bitch and Don Ginesillo de Paropillo, and orders him to go alone with the whole chain on his back, Pasamonte, who was not at all patient and already knew that the gentleman was not right in the head, makes a sign to his companions, and stones rain down on Don Quixote. The freed men break his basin over his back and carry off his jacket, and only the hose escape, because the greaves prevent it; Sancho's cloak goes too. The gratitude the gentleman asked for was paid in stones. In chapter XXX of Part One, the gentleman defends the act by the rule of his trade: the knight sees the suffering and does not ask about the guilt. Sancho's donkey vanishes in the Sierra Morena without the 1605 book saying how; the 1615 book explains it (chapter IV of Part Two, chapter XXVII of Part Two).

In Part Two, in chapter XXV of Part Two, a man with one eye covered arrives at the inn with a monkey and a puppet show: it is Master Pedro, the puppeteer. The innkeeper explains to the gentleman that the monkey, when asked, leaps to its master's shoulder and tells him the answer in his ear, and that Master Pedro declares it; he knows more about the past than the future, charges two reales per question, and gives the impression of having the devil in his body. Sancho, who does not forget Montesinos's cave, asks his master to have the monkey say whether what he lived through there was true, because for him it was all a trick. The gentleman agrees, with a certain scruple, and the monkey answers, through its master:

The answer fits any mouth: Sancho reads in it confirmation that he lied, and his master reads an invitation to time, which uncovers everything. The monkey uses the word that Cide Hamete used in the margin, plausible, and refuses to say where the line falls. An answer like that costs the puppeteer nothing and leaves both listeners content. In chapter XXVI of Part Two, Master Pedro's young interpreter announces the story of Don Gaiferos, who frees his wife Melisendra from captivity among the Moors of Sansueña, and the gentleman interrupts to correct every detail out of zeal for the truth. Master Pedro answers from the trench of his trade:

Theater lives on improprieties, and the public applauds. Don Quixote agrees and then promptly loses what he has just conceded: when the Moors set out in pursuit of Gaiferos and Melisendra, he thinks he really sees them, draws his sword, and smashes the puppet show. Master Pedro shouts:

Master Pedro does not say it is a play; he says what the figures are, paste, and what they cost him, his livelihood. The appeal is one of trade, not theory, and Don Quixote does not hear it: in the gentleman's head, the scale is different, and what is lost is a knight and a lady. The theory of the enchanters performs a new service here: it does not deny the damage and it protects the vision. The gentleman says he saw the figures as they were, and that whoever switched them was someone else, so the error belongs to those who pursue him and not to his perception; at the same time, he condemns himself to pay the costs and offers to pay. In chapter XXVII of Part Two, Cide Hamete opens the chapter swearing as a Catholic Christian and reveals who Master Pedro was:

The chapter answers the critics of the printed book, who in chapter IV of Part Two pointed out the donkey that reappears without explanation, and it takes the monkey out of the devil's jurisdiction: Don Quixote suspected a pact, and the trick is information gathered in the neighborhood. Ginés gathers information in the nearest place before entering, keeps the cases in memory, and answers by taking the pulse of whoever asks; the answer about the cave, part false and part plausible, now reads as that of someone who does not know and charges two reales. The monkey was bought from free Christians of Barbary and trained to leap to the shoulder at a signal and to murmur in the ear. Ginés recognized the gentleman and Sancho when they entered the inn, and that is why it was easy for him to astonish them; it would have cost him dearly if the gentleman had brought his hand down harder on King Marsilio.

Themes Embodied

Ginés is Justice and Law made flesh: the gentleman frees him without asking about his guilt, and he is, among all the galley slaves, the one with the most offenses. The scene in chapter XXII of Part One repeats the pattern of Andrés (chapter IV of Part One): chivalric good intention produces a harm that returns as a stone. The book does not resolve the question it leaves: did the gentleman err in freeing the guilty man, or did the courts err with the others?

In Language and Narration, Ginés is the author inside the book. He writes his own life in opposition to the Lazarillo, claims his name, pawns the manuscript in prison, and in Part Two stages a puppet theater whose text is a romance of France. The character who corrects the gentleman by saying he is not Ginesillo is the same one who, as Master Pedro, watches the gentleman destroy the story he tells.

The theme of Appearance and Reality passes through him twice: as disguise (the covered eye, the monkey, the stories of the past) and as an object of illusion (the paste figures the gentleman takes for Moors). Ginés is the one who uses fiction to live, and the gentleman is the one who uses it to be. The scene in chapter XXVI of Part Two sets them face to face without either knowing who the other is.

Divergent Readings

The book offers two readings of what Ginés wants. When he says his life is not yet finished and that he will go to the galleys to finish it, it is either the vanity of a pimp or the exact count of a text that closes only with life (chapter XXII of Part One). When he sets up the puppet show, he is an honest fairground artist, or a con man who exploits the credulity of his guests (chapter XXV of Part Two, chapter XXVII of Part Two).

Readings diverge on what Ginés is for the book. Whoever reads him as ingratitude that repays good with evil has the stones of chapter XXII of Part One; whoever reads him as a fairground artist has the monkey without a pact with the devil and the skill of someone who gathers information before entering (chapter XXVII of Part Two). Against the first reading, it is worth remembering that the puppeteer's trade is honest in what it promises, the theater, and that the gentleman indemnifies him for the costs (chapter XXVI of Part Two); against the second, that the man who pretended to guess about the cave charged two reales for an answer he did not know.

Relationships

• Don Quixote: the gentleman who frees him and is stoned by him (chapter XXII of Part One), and who, years later, destroys his puppet show without recognizing him (chapter XXVI of Part Two).
• Sancho Panza: the squire from whom Ginés stole the donkey (chapter XXVII of Part Two) and whose cloak he took on departure (chapter XXII of Part One).
• Cide Hamete Benengeli: the historian who reveals who Master Pedro is and attributes to the printing press the omission of the theft of the donkey (chapter XXVII of Part Two).
• Sansón Carrasco: the bachelor who, in chapter IV of Part Two, points out the error about the donkey that Part Two resolves through Master Pedro.