Don Quixote Ch. 72: Camacho's Wedding Feast

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Camacho's Wedding Feast

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Summary

At dawn Don Quixote wakes Sancho with a long speech on the servant who sleeps while the master lies awake planning how to feed him. Sancho smells fried rashers from Camacho's wedding and they enter the arcade to witness the bridal and see what rejected Basilio will do.

Sancho argues that poverty should take what it can get, that the best foundation in the world is money, and that Camacho could bury Basilio in reals. Quixote begs him to stop haranguing and they find a feast vast enough for an army: an ox on an elm, wine-jars for stewpots, mountains of bread, and more than sixty full wine skins. Sancho skims hens and geese from the pots while Camacho's riders shout "Long live Camacho and Quiteria!"

Quixote, comparing Quiteria unfavorably to Dulcinea, watches sword dancers, golden-haired maidens, and a speaking dance called the Castle of Caution, where Cupid and Interest battle until gold breaks the boards open. Quixote wagers the choreographer favours Camacho over Basilio and satirizes the poor lover's gifts beside the rich groom's purse.

Sancho declares "The king is my cock; I stick to Camacho," and defends the Haves over the Haven'ts, saying an ass covered with gold looks better than a horse with a pack-saddle. Their comic duel on talk and appetite ends with Sancho preaching Death in rustic theology until Quixote admits the squire might mount a pulpit, and Sancho replies that he preaches well who lives well before returning to the bucket.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Reading Who the Feast Already Crowned

A wedding can teach its moral before the vows begin, through smoke, stewpots, dances, and the side people choose when they are fed. Camacho's meadow feeds an army while Sancho skims geese, sticks to the rich groom, and divides the world into Haves and Haven'ts as Don Quixote reads satire in the Castle of Caution dance.

Notice when wealth has already won the crowd before the rejected lover gets his scene.

Coming Up in Chapter 73

Shouts announce the bride and bridegroom's arrival, and Basilio's desperate move at Camacho's wedding is about to upend the feast What follows unsettles everything settled here Camacho and Quiteria arrive at the wedding theatre in full pageantry while Sancho rhapsodizes over the bride's jewels and velvet. Before vows can be spoken, Basilio appears in black and cypress crown, begs the crowd to wait, and.

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Original text

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Chapter 72

Camacho's Wedding Feast

WHEREIN AN ACCOUNT IS GIVEN OF THE WEDDING OF CAMACHO THE RICH, TOGETHER WITH THE INCIDENT OF BASILIO THE POOR Scarce had the fair Aurora given bright Phœbus time to dry the liquid pearls upon her golden locks with the heat of his fervent rays, when Don Quixote, shaking off sloth from his limbs, sprang to his feet and called to his squire Sancho, who was still snoring; seeing which Don Quixote ere he roused him thus addressed him: “Happy thou, above all the dwellers on the face of the earth, that, without envying or being envied, sleepest with tranquil…

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Critical Thinking Exercise

10 minutes

Name the When the Bountiful Pot Wins the Argument Move

Re-read the chapter summary and write down where when the bountiful pot wins the argument 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 the bountiful pot wins the argument in your own life. What finally made the pattern impossible to ignore?

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Camacho's Wedding Feast

Summary