Don Quixote

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Progress Report Number 2

December 4, 1996

I’m happy to report the progress of reading Don Quixote has been very good. I am now in Chapter 35, Part II (page 702 of 940), and Don Quixote de la Mancha and Sancho Panza, his squire, are still running into incredible and ludicrous adventures on the road of knight errantry, that science of the old Catholic, Christian, and especially chivalric way of defending the oppressed and righting the wrongs on one’s journeys, in the spirit of Lancelot and Amadis of Gaul and others. It is all a satire on the old writings of Knights and Chivalry and kings and lords, but this author, Cervantes, makes you believe these characters take this stuff--honor, duty and virtue--very seriously.

Knight and squire have just come upon a beautiful lady and her husband, a Duke and Duchess, while riding their animals one day near where the Duke and Duchess were using their falcons or hunting birds. Don Quixote and Sancho are treated with the most elaborate ceremonies of hospitality by this pair, with nearly a week now of evenings of knightly talk. Their good reception is owing to the Duke and Duchess having read and admired the book of adventures of Don Quixote, and especially the foibles of his squire, Sancho Panza, to whom the Duke promises his long-awaited governorship of an isle and with whom the Duchess is often humored.

More recently, however, the Duchess has learned all that Sancho knows about Dulcinea, and that Don Quixote never has seen her, except once, when Sancho pointed out to him a common mistress whom he identified as Dulcinea. He did this because he was unable to find such a person in Toboso, and he didn’t want to admit to having told his master a lie earlier about having taken a message to her in Book I. On seeing the mistress, Don Quixote thought she was Dulcinea under enchantment by some wizard or spirit, but the enchantment was only with respect to how he saw the woman--not as to how Sancho was able to see her. Sancho said she appeared to him as a beautiful and well-born lady. Eager to have some fun, the Duchess has planned with the Duke a little joke on the Knight and his Squire.

While out hunting boar one evening, the Duke, Duchess, Don Quixote and Sancho, and a great number of hunters, come upon a large mounted band of characters, some in wagons, playing trumpets and sending a runner noisily ahead to announce their coming. When the Duke asks the runner to identify himself, the man with the death-head facial apparition tells the Duke he is speaking with the Devil, and following behind is Merlyn the magician, sent by someone in one of the Don’s previous apparition-laden adventures, to explain to Don Quixote how he can "disenchant" Dulcinea, letting her then be seen as the beautiful woman that she is. Indeed, further along the caravan is Merlyn. He tells Don Quixote that if Sancho Panza will give himself 3,300 lashes on his ample buttocks, then the disenchantment of Dulcina will take place. Sancho replies, "The devil take this way of disenchanting! I don't see what my buttocks have got to do with these enchantments. By God, if Master Merlin doesn't find another way of disenchanting the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, she may go enchanted to her grave!"

While it is ever so true that Cervantes did not leave any ink in the inkwell when writing this book, it is the occasional development and too-human response such as this one that makes one want to stay tuned.

© 1996 Herman Fontenot

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