Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes

First published:El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, Part One, 1605; Part Two, 1615 (English translation, 1612–20)

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Mock-heroic

Time of plot: Late sixteenth century

Locale: Spain

Principal Characters

• Don Quixote de la Mancha, a knight-errant
• Sancho Panza, his squire
• Aldonza Lorenzo, a farm girl Quixote calls Dulcinea, his “illusionary lady”
• Pedro Perez, a village curate
• Master Nicholas, a barber
• Samson Carrasco, a young bachelor of arts

The Story

A retired and impoverished gentleman named Alonzo Quixano lives in the Spanish province of La Mancha. He reads so many romances of chivalry that his mind becomes overwhelmed with fantastic accounts of tournaments, knightly quests, damsels in distress, and strange enchantments. He decides one day to imitate the heroes of the books he reads and to revive the ancient custom of knight-errantry. Changing his name to Don Quixote de la Mancha, he is dubbed a knight by a publican whose miserable inn he mistakes for a turreted castle.

For armor he dons an old suit of mail that belonged to his great-grandfather. Then, upon a bony old nag he calls Rosinante, he sets out upon his first adventure. Not far from his village he falls into the company of some traveling merchants who think the old man mad and beat him severely when he challenges them to a passage at arms.

Back home recovering from his cuts and bruises, he is closely watched by his good neighbor, Pedro Perez, the village priest, and Master Nicholas, the barber. Hoping to cure him of his fancies, the curate and the barber burn his library of chivalric romances. Don Quixote, however, believes that his books were carried off by a wizard. Undaunted by his misfortunes, he determines to set out on the road again with an uncouth rustic named Sancho Panza as his squire. As the mistress to whom he will dedicate his deeds of valor, he chooses a buxom peasant wench famous for her skill in salting pork. He calls her Dulcinea del Toboso.

The knight and his squire sneak out of the village under cover of darkness, but in their own minds they present a brave appearance: the lean old man on his bony horse and his squat, black-browed servant on a small ass, Dapple. The don carries his sword and lance, Sancho Panza a canvas wallet and a leather bottle. Sancho goes with the don because, in his shallow-brained way, he hopes to become governor of an island.

The don’s first encounter is with a score of windmills on the plains of Montiel. Mistaking them for monstrous giants, he couches his lance, sets spurs to Rosinante’s thin flanks, and charges full tilt against them. One of the whirling vanes lifts him from his saddle and throws him into the air. When Sancho runs to pick him up, Quixote explains that sorcerers changed the giants into windmills.

Shortly afterward he encounters two monks riding in company with a lady in a coach escorted by men on horseback. Quixote imagines that the lady is a captive princess. Haughtily demanding her release, he unhorses one of the friars in an attempted rescue. Sancho is beaten by the lady’s lackeys. Quixote betters her Biscayan squire in a sword fight, sparing the man’s life on the condition that he go to Toboso and yield himself to the peerless Dulcinea. Sancho, having little taste for violence, wants to get on to his island as quickly as possible.

At an inn, Quixote becomes involved in an assignation between a carrier and a servant girl. He is trounced by the carrier. The don, insulted by the innkeeper’s demand for payment, rides away without paying. To his terror, Sancho is tossed in a blanket as payment for his master’s debt. The pair come upon dust clouds stirred up by two large flocks of sheep. Quixote, sure that they are two medieval armies closing in combat, intervenes, only to be pummeled with rocks by the indignant shepherds whose sheep he scattered.

At night the don thinks a funeral procession is a parade of monsters. He attacks and routs the mourners and is called Knight of the Sorry Aspect by Sancho. The two come upon a roaring noise in the night. Quixote, believing it to be made by giants, wants to attack immediately, but Sancho judiciously hobbles Rosinante so he cannot move. The next day, they discover that the noise came from the pounding of a mill.

Quixote attacks an itinerant barber and seizes the poor barber’s bowl, which he declares to be the famous golden helmet of Mambrino, and his packsaddle, which he believes to be a richly jeweled caparison. Next, the pair come upon a chain gang being taken to the galleys. The don interviews various prisoners and decides to succor the afflicted. He frees them, only to be insulted by their remarks concerning his lady, the fair Dulcinea. Sancho, afraid of what will ensue from their releasing of the galley slaves, leads Quixote into the mountains for safety. There they come upon a hermit, a nobleman, who tells them a long story of unrequited love. Quixote and the hermit fight over the virtues of their respective loves. Deciding to do penance and to fast for the love of Dulcinea, Quixote gives a letter to Sancho to deliver to the maiden. When Sancho returns to the village, Quixote’s friends learn from Sancho the old man’s whereabouts. They return with Sancho to the mountains, hoping they can trick Quixote into returning with them. The priest devises a scheme whereby a young peasant woman will pose as a princess in distress. Quixote, all but dead from hunger and exposure, is easily deceived, and the party starts homeward.

They come to the inn where Sancho was tossed in the blanket. The priest explains the don’s vagaries to the alarmed innkeeper, who admits that he, too, is addicted to the reading of romances of chivalry. At the inn, Quixote fights in his sleep with ogres and runs his sword through two of the innkeeper’s precious wineskins. The itinerant barber stops by and demands the return of his basin and packsaddle. After the party has sport at the expense of the befuddled barber, restitution is made. An officer appears with a warrant for the arrest of the don and Sancho for releasing the galley slaves. The priest explains his friend’s mental condition, and the officer departs.

Seeing no other means of getting Quixote quietly home, his friends disguise themselves and place the don in a cage mounted on an oxcart. He is later released under oath not to attempt to escape. A churchman joins the party and seeks to bring Quixote to his senses by logical argument against books of knight-errantry. The don refutes the man with a charming and brilliant argument and goes on to narrate a typical romance of derring-do. Before the group reaches home, they come upon a goatherd who tells them a story and by whom Quixote is beaten through a misunderstanding.

Sometime later the priest and the barber visit the convalescing Quixote to give him news of Spain and of the world. When they tell him there is danger of an attack on Spain by the Turks, the don suggests that the king assemble all of Spain’s knights-errant to repulse the enemy. At this time Sancho enters, despite efforts to bar him. He brings word that a book telling of their adventures appeared. The sight of Sancho inspires the don to sally forth again. His excuse is a great tournament to be held at Saragossa. Failing to dissuade Quixote from going forth again, his friends are reassured when a village student promises to waylay the flighty old gentleman.

Quixote’s first destination is the home of Dulcinea in nearby El Toboso. While the don waits in a forest, Sancho sees three peasant girls riding out of the village. He rides to his master and tells him that Dulcinea with two handmaidens approaches. Frightened by the don’s fantastic speech, the girls flee. Quixote swears that Dulcinea is not enchanted.

Benighted in a forest, the knight and his squire are awakened by the arrival of another knight and squire. The other knight boasts that he defeated in combat all Spanish knights. The don, believing the knight to be mistaken, challenges him. They fight by daylight and, miraculously, Quixote unhorses the Knight of the Wood, who is Samson Carrasco, the village student, in disguise. His squire is an old acquaintance of Sancho. The don declares the resemblances are the work of magicians and continues on his way. Upset by his failure, Carrasco swears vengeance on Quixote.

Sancho fills Quixote’s helmet with curds which he procures from shepherds. When the don suddenly claps on his helmet at the approach of another adventure, he thinks his brains are melting. This new adventure takes the form of a wagon bearing two caged lions. Quixote, ever intrepid, commands the keeper to open one cage—he will engage a lion in combat. Unhappily, the keeper obeys. Quixote stands ready, but the lion yawns and refuses to come out.

The don and Sancho join a wedding party and subsequently attend a wedding festival at which the rejected lover tricks the bride into marrying him instead of the rich man she chose. Next, the pair are taken to the Caves of Montesinos, where Quixote is lowered underground. He is brought up an hour later asleep, and, upon awakening, he tells a story of having spent three days in a land of palaces and magic forests where he saw his enchanted Dulcinea.

At an inn, Quixote meets a puppeteer who has a divining ape. By trickery, the puppeteer identifies the don and Sancho with the help of the ape. He presents a melodramatic puppet show which Quixote, carried away by the make-believe story, demolishes with his sword. The don pays for the damage done and strikes out for the nearby River Ebro. He and Sancho take a boat and are carried by the current toward some churning mill wheels, which the don thinks are a beleaguered city awaiting deliverance. They are rescued by millers after the boat is wrecked and the pair are thoroughly soaked.

Later, in a forest, the pair meet a huntress who claims knowledge of the famous knight and his squire. They go with the lady to her castle and are welcomed by a duke and his duchess who read of their previous adventures and who are ready to have great fun at the pair’s expense. The hosts arrange an elaborate night ceremony to disenchant Dulcinea, who is represented by a disguised page. To his great discomfort, Sancho is told that he will receive five hundred lashes as his part of the disenchantment. Part of the jest is a ride through space on a magic wooden horse. Blindfolded, the pair mount their steed, and servants blow air in their faces from bellows and thrust torches near their faces.

Sancho departs to govern his isle, a village in the domains of the duke and duchess, while the female part of the household turns to the project of compromising Quixote in his worship of Dulcinea. Sancho governs for a week. He makes good laws and delivers wise judgments, but at the end of a week, he yearns for the freedom of the road. Together he and his master proceed toward Saragossa. Quixote changes their destination to Barcelona, however, when he hears that a citizen of that city wrote a spurious account of his adventures.

In Barcelona, they marvel at the city, the ships, and the sea. Quixote and Sancho are the guests of Moreno, who take them to inspect the royal galleys. The galley that they visit suddenly puts out to sea in pursuit of pirates, and a fight follows. Sancho is terrified.

There comes to Barcelona a Knight of the White Moon, who challenges Quixote to combat. After the old man is overcome, the strange knight, in reality the student Carrasco, sentences him to return home. Quixote goes back, determined next to follow a pastoral shepherd life. At home, the tired old man quickly declines. Before he dies, he renounces as nonsense all to do with knight-errantry, not realizing that in his high-minded, noble-hearted nature he is a great, chivalrous gentleman.

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