Don Quixote Ch. 112: Roque Guinart and Claudia

Summary

Quixote quits the inn for Barcelona by the direct road avoiding Saragossa to expose the lying historian; after six quiet days he broods in a thicket that Dulcinea is perishing, thou art living on regardless, while Sancho sleeps, and reasoning like Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian knot that lashes need not be voluntary he tries to whip Sancho with Rocinante's reins until Sancho overpowers him, singing traitor and Doña Sancha's foe, and Quixote swears not to touch a hair.

Sancho then feels men's feet and legs in the trees; Quixote identifies hanged freebooters and guesses they near Barcelona; at dawn Roque Guinart's band surrounds them, strips Dapple though the duke's crowns in Sancho's girdle escape, and the captain greets them with merciful words, marveling when Quixote names himself and laments being caught unbridged.

Claudia Jeronima rides up in green damask, tells Roque she shot Don Vicente for betraying their pledge to marry another; they find him dying, he denies the marriage and offers her his hand in death, she wrings his hands and faints on his bleeding breast as the insuperable and cruel might of jealousy ends both lives, and she vows a monastery while Roque offers protection and applauds her piety.

Roque restores Sancho's goods though three kerchiefs worth three cities are missing, divides loot with scrupulous exactness, and Sancho says justice is such a good thing even among thieves; Quixote urges the band toward knight-errantry, Roque robs two captains, pilgrims, and the regent's lady Doña Guiomar but lends crowns with safe-conducts, saying it is by his singing the abbot gets his dinner, spares pilgrims' hoard, gives Sancho ten crowns, and slays a saucy Gascon who grumbled about generosity.

Roque writes Barcelona to deposit Quixote in full armour mounted on Rocinante with Sancho on an ass in the middle of the strand on Saint John the Baptist's Day for the Niarros' sport, assuring his friend the knight is the drollest and wisest man in the world, and the letter goes by a squire disguised as a peasant while Quixote and Sancho wait among outlaws who live by spies, sentinels, and divided spoils.

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Why This Matters

Reading When Outlaws Show Mercy and Jealousy Writes Tragedy

What happens when Don Quixote meets Roque Guinart's band, Claudia Jeronima's jealous tragedy unfolds, and Barcelona is told to expect the knight in armour. Roque restores Sancho's goods though three kerchiefs worth three cities are missing, divides loot with scrupulous exactness, and Sancho says justice is such a good thing even among thieves; Quixote urges the band toward knight-errantry, Roque robs two captains, pilgrims, and the regent's lady Doña Guiomar but lends crowns with safe-conducts, saying it is by his singing the abbot gets his dinner, spares pilgrims' hoard, gives Sancho ten crowns, and slays a saucy Gascon who grumbled about generosity.

That the road to the city mixes bandit mercy, love turned fatal, and public spectacle arranged in advance.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: Don Vicente

Don Vicente, dying, tells Claudia his "cruel fortune" carried the tidings that drove her jealousy, and that he never meant to wrong her. The satisfaction he offers is the marriage she thought she was preventing: "press my hands and take me for thy husband". He can clear himself only by becoming, in the last minute, the husband the false news had named.

Read the full psychological reading

Coming Up in Chapter 113

Don Quixote spends three days and three nights with Roque Guinart among spies, sentinels, and sudden marches; on Saint John's Eve Roque leaves him on the strand with ten crowns and they enter Barcelona at dawn.

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Original text

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Chapter 112

Roque Guinart and Claudia Jeronima

CHAPTER LX. OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE ON HIS WAY TO BARCELONA It was a fresh morning giving promise of a cool day as Don Quixote quitted the inn, first of all taking care to ascertain the most direct road to Barcelona without touching upon Saragossa; so anxious was he to make out this new historian, who they said abused him so, to be a liar. Well, as it fell out, nothing worthy of being recorded happened him for six days, at the end of which, having turned aside out of the road, he was overtaken by night in a…

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Roque Guinart and Claudia Jeronima

Summary

Why This Matters