Don Quixote Ch. 13: Sancho's Rise to Power

Summary

At dawn five of the six goatherds rouse Don Quixote for Chrysostom's burial. They have not gone a quarter of a league when they meet six shepherds in black sheepskins, crowned with cypress and bitter oleander, and two men of quality on horseback with three servants. All are bound for the same grave. One rider, Vivaldo, already calls Marcela a homicide shepherdess from what the mourners have told him that morning.

Vivaldo asks why a man goes armed in so peaceful a country. Quixote answers that ease is for courtiers and toil for knights-errant, then traces the order from King Arthur and the Round Table through Amadis, Tirante el Blanco, and Don Belianis. The travellers set him down as mad. Vivaldo keeps him talking: the calling is more austere than a Carthusian's, yet knights commend themselves to ladies rather than to God in the charge. Quixote will not omit the lady, and says no true knight lacks one, Don Galaor being a swallow that does not make summer. Pressed for a name, he sighs out Dulcinea of El Toboso, a princess whose hairs are gold and whose eyes are suns, of a lineage modern enough to furnish gentle blood for ages to come. Sancho alone half believes, knowing his neighbour from birth, yet he has never heard of any such princess though he lives close to El Toboso.

Twenty shepherds then come down between two mountains with a flower-covered bier. Ambrosio confirms the rock: here Chrysostom first saw that mortal enemy of the human race, declared an honourable passion, and was scorned. He eulogises a phoenix in friendship who wooed a wild beast and pursued the wind, and says the papers on the bier must burn after the body is laid in the earth. Vivaldo will not let Augustus Caesar's fault be repeated; he snatches some sheets so Marcela's cruelty may live as a warning. Ambrosio grants those already taken and no more. Vivaldo opens the last paper the unhappy man wrote. Its title is Lay of Despair, and he is to read it aloud while the grave is dug.

In this chapter:Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Recognizing Performed Identity

A mission can become a monologue long before the facts are in. Quixote explains knight-errantry to travellers on the road to a funeral, names Dulcinea in impossible terms, and Ambrosio calls Marcela the mortal enemy of the human race before she appears.

Notice when someone is performing a calling for an audience rather than responding to what actually happened.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: Vivaldo

The travellers set Quixote down as mad the instant his speech turns to knights-errant, and Vivaldo does not leave. He asks on, to "discover what kind of madness his was," and they keep the knight talking until the grave. The funeral was already on the road, and the madness is why they stayed for it.

Continue this thoughtHe Authors a Self and Then Has to Believe It

Coming Up in Chapter 14

Marcela appears on the rock above the open grave and answers the mourners: beauty is not her fault, and she never promised Chrysostom hope. Don Quixote draws his sword to stop anyone who pursues her after she speaks.

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Original text

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Chapter 13

Sancho's Rise to Power

IN WHICH IS ENDED THE STORY OF THE SHEPHERDESS MARCELA, WITH OTHER INCIDENTS But hardly had day begun to show itself through the balconies of the east, when five of the six goatherds came to rouse Don Quixote and tell him that if he was still of a mind to go and see the famous burial of Chrysostom they would bear him company. Don Quixote, who desired nothing better, rose and ordered Sancho to saddle and pannel at once, which he did with all despatch, and with the same they all set out forthwith. They had not gone a quarter…

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Sancho's Rise to Power

Summary

Why This Matters