Don Quixote Ch. 87: Merlin's Three Thousand Lashes

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Merlin's Three Thousand Lashes

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Summary

A triumphal car advances to music, bearing penitents with tapers and a nymph beside Merlin, who rises as Death and recites how Dulcinea's enchantment can end only if Sancho lays three thousand three hundred lashes on his own bare buttocks.

Sancho refuses outright; Quixote threatens to tie him naked to a tree and double the count. Merlin says the lashes must be voluntary and at Sancho's chosen time, but the page playing Dulcinea scolds him as soul of a pitcher and weeps until Quixote feels his soul stuck in his throat like a crossbow nut.

Sancho still says abernuncio, complains of abuse without gifts, and notes he is a governor, not a charity-boy. The duke warns he must become softer than a ripe fig or lose the island; Merlin demands an instant answer.

Sancho bargains: he will administer the lashes when he chooses, Merlin will keep count, fly-flappers count, and he need not draw blood. He accepts the penance; Quixote kisses him, music and muskets sound, Dulcinea curtseys, and at dawn the duke and duchess return delighted, for no reality could afford them more amusement.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Reading When Release Comes With a Body Bill

Merlin's triumphal car delivers not magic but a bill: three thousand three hundred lashes on Sancho's bare buttocks, voluntary yet urgent, tied to Dulcinea's release and Sancho's governorship. Merlin says the lashes must be voluntary and at Sancho's chosen time, but the page playing Dulcinea scolds him as soul of a pitcher and weeps until Quixote feels his soul stuck in his throat like a crossbow nut.

Notice when salvation is staged as a contract on someone else's skin while the hosts wait for amusement.

Coming Up in Chapter 88

The duke's majordomo played Merlin; the next day the duchess asks whether Sancho has begun his penance, and a distressed duenna arrives with stranger business still The majordomo who played Merlin prepares another joke as the duchess asks Sancho whether he has begun his lash penance; he says he gave himself five overnight with his hand, and she calls that slaps, not lashes, promising.

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Original text

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Chapter 87

Merlin's Three Thousand Lashes

WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN TO DON QUIXOTE TOUCHING THE DISENCHANTMENT OF DULCINEA, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MARVELLOUS INCIDENTS They saw advancing towards them, to the sound of this pleasing music, what they call a triumphal car, drawn by six grey mules with white linen housings, on each of which was mounted a penitent, robed also in white, with a large lighted wax taper in his hand. The car was twice or, perhaps, three times as large as the former ones, and in front and on the sides stood twelve more penitents, all as white as snow and all with…

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Critical Thinking Exercise

10 minutes

Name the When Disenchantment Has a Price Move

Re-read the chapter summary and write down where when disenchantment has a price 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 disenchantment has a price in your own life. What finally made the pattern impossible to ignore?

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Summary