Don Quixote Ch. 123: Sancho's Priced Lashes

Summary

The vanquished Don Quixote is downcast over defeat yet pleased by the virtue Sancho showed when Altisidora revived, while Sancho grieves her unpaid smocks and complains he is the most unlucky doctor in the world, cured others at the cost of smacks and pinproddings while nobody pays him a farthing. Quixote says Altisidora behaved badly and offers to pay for lashes to disenchant Dulcinea since Sancho's virtue is gratis data, and Sancho promptly negotiates three thousand three hundred lashes at a quarter real apiece, stopping eight hundred and twenty-five reals from his master's money before whipping himself tonight in the open air.

At night Sancho strips to the waist and lays on with Dapple's halter while Quixote counts rosary lashes, but after six or eight he cries off on the score of a blind bargain and raises the price; the rogue then strikes beech trees while groaning until he cries Here dies Samson, and Quixote seizes the halter lest he kill himself for Dulcinea. They sleep, reach a village hostelry where painted serge shows the Rape of Helen and Dido, and Quixote says Troy and Carthage would have been saved had he lived then, compares the painter to Orbaneja and the new Don Quixote history to whatever it may turn out, and asks whether Sancho wants another turn indoors or out. Sancho answers with proverbs until Quixote cries For God's sake, Sancho, no more proverbs and asks him to speak straight-forwardly, and Sancho says he will mend if he can.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Reading When Penance Becomes Bargain and Theater

Homeward grief mixes with paid penance as Sancho prices three thousand lashes, whips trees instead of flesh, and Quixote grows more rational at a painted hostelry. At night Sancho strips to the waist and lays on with Dapple's halter while Quixote counts rosary lashes, but after six or eight he cries off on the score of a blind bargain and raises the price; the rogue then strikes beech trees while groaning until he cries Here dies Samson, and Quixote seizes the halter lest he kill himself for Dulcinea.

That homeward defeat turns miracle into commerce and comedy.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: Don Quixote

Quixote goes along downcast from the defeat and happy at "the virtue that lay in Sancho," which he takes as proved by Altisidora coming back. In the same breath he can barely persuade himself that she "had been really dead." The virtue needs the death to have been real. He is already having trouble keeping it so.

Continue this thoughtEnchantment Is How a Bruise Becomes Proof

Coming Up in Chapter 124

At a village inn Don Álvaro Tarfe arrives, a gentleman from the spurious Second Part; Don Quixote asks for a declaration before the alcalde that they are not Avellaneda's counterfeit knight and squire.

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Chapter 123

Sancho's Priced Lashes and the Trees That Bled

CHAPTER LXXI. OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE SANCHO ON THE WAY TO THEIR VILLAGE The vanquished and afflicted Don Quixote went along very downcast in one respect and very happy in another. His sadness arose from his defeat, and his satisfaction from the thought of the virtue that lay in Sancho, as had been proved by the resurrection of Altisidora; though it was with difficulty he could persuade himself that the love-smitten damsel had been really dead. Sancho went along anything but cheerful, for it grieved him that Altisidora had not kept her promise of giving…

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Sancho's Priced Lashes and the Trees That Bled

Summary

Why This Matters