Don Quixote Ch. 125: Omens, Homecoming, and Shepherd

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Omens, Homecoming, and Shepherd Quixotize

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Summary

At the village entrance Don Quixote hears a boy say Periquillo will never see something again as long as he lives and reads the words as proof he will never see Dulcinea. Sancho stays practical when a hunted hare hides under Dapple and Quixote cries malum signum, then learns the omen was only a stolen cricket cage, buys the cage for four cuartos, and declares the signs broken and destroyed.

They meet the curate and bachelor Samson on the green while Sancho still wears the duke's flame-painted robe and mitre on Dapple, and boys mock the decorated ass as the party enters town. Teresa Panza runs out half dressed expecting a governor and scolds Sancho for looking footsore and vagabond until he tells her to hold her tongue and come hear the money he earned. Alone with the curate and Samson, Quixote confesses his defeat, vows not to leave the village for a year, and proposes they all become shepherds with ready-made names: Quixotize, Carrascon, Curambro, and Pancino. They humour the plan to keep him home, Samson offers pastoral verses and borrowed shepherdess names, and the niece and housekeeper overhear, begging Quixote to stay respectable rather than turn young shepherd; he replies he knows his duty and asks to be put to bed.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Reading When Omens Collide With Homecoming

Anxious minds can turn every childhood sign into proof of loss. Don Quixote reads a boy's words and a hare as doom for Dulcinea until Sancho buys the cricket cage, they enter the village with the flame robe on Dapple, and Teresa scolds her footsore husband while Quixote plans the year as shepherd Quixotize.

Notice when fear interprets ordinary homecoming signs as final loss.

Coming Up in Chapter 126

As nothing that is man's can last for ever, but all tends ever downwards from its beginning to its end, and above all man's life, and as Don Quixote's enjoyed no special dispensation from heaven to stay its course, its end and close came when he least looked for it..

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Original text

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Chapter 125

Omens, Homecoming, and Shepherd Quixotize

CHAPTER LXXIII. OF THE OMENS DON QUIXOTE HAD AS HE ENTERED HIS OWN VILLAGE, AND OTHER INCIDENTS THAT EMBELLISH AND GIVE A COLOUR TO THIS GREAT HISTORY At the entrance of the village, so says Cide Hamete, Don Quixote saw two boys quarrelling on the village threshing-floor, one of whom said to the other, “Take it easy, Periquillo; thou shalt never see it again as long as thou livest.” Don Quixote heard this, and said he to Sancho, “Dost thou not mark, friend, what that boy said, ‘Thou shalt never see it again as long as thou livest’?” “Well,” said…

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Critical Thinking Exercise

10 minutes

Name the When Omens and Homecoming Collide With a New Craze Move

Re-read the chapter summary and write down where when omens and homecoming collide with a new craze first appears, who pays for it, and who benefits from keeping it going. Then write one sentence you could say to interrupt the pattern without shaming the person caught in it.

Consider:

•Separate the person's worth from the pattern's cost
•Notice who has power to stop or fuel the scene
•Ask what truth would require someone to give up

Journaling Prompt

Write about a time when you saw when omens and homecoming collide with a new craze in your own life. What finally made the pattern impossible to ignore?

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Omens, Homecoming, and Shepherd Quixotize

Summary