Don Quixote Ch. 99: Doctor Recio and the

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Doctor Recio and the Farmer's Suit

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Summary

From the justice court Sancho is carried to a palace where clarions sound, pages wash his hands, and Doctor Pedro Recio stands with a whalebone wand, whisking away every dish as too moist, hot, or furry while praising wafer cakes and quince conserve and forbidding even olla podrida at a governor's table.

Sancho asks if dinner is a jugglery trick, cites Hippocrates against partridge, and swears he is dying of hunger; he renames Recio de Malaguero, threatens a cudgel and chair, and declares a trade that does not feed its master is not worth two beans until a sweating courier arrives with the duke's letter.

The letter warns of a night attack and four disguised assassins, bids Sancho eat nothing presented, and Sancho orders Recio jailed as a slow-killing hunger enemy, then eats bread and grapes because poison cannot enter them and the tripes carry the heart.

His Biscayan secretary, newly named to that post, is told to obey the duke, kiss the duchess's hands, and send word to Teresa and Don Quixote; a farmer from Miguelturra paints Clara Perlerina's one-eyed, pitted, crooked charms and asks a recommendation plus three or six hundred ducats for his possessed bachelor son.

Sancho rises with his chair, calls him Don Bumpkin and devil's own painter at this hour of business, and drives him out for asking six hundred ducats half a day into rule; Hamete leaves Sancho in wrath and returns to Don Quixote still bandaged from the cat fright for eight days.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Reading When Office Is Starved Then Sued for Cash

Recio starves Sancho's feast; the duke warns of assassins; Sancho jails the doctor, eats bread and grapes, and a farmer paints Clara Perlerina then asks for six hundred ducats. His Biscayan secretary, newly named to that post, is told to obey the duke, kiss the duchess's hands, and send word to Teresa and Don Quixote; a farmer from Miguelturra paints Clara Perlerina's one-eyed, pitted, crooked charms and asks a recommendation plus three or six hundred ducats for his possessed bachelor son.

That sham governorship pairs hunger theatre with petitions that test how far the squire will perform wrath.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: The secretary

A letter needs a hand, and Sancho asks "Which of you is my secretary" and one of those present answers that he is. The office has a writer before the governor has chosen one. He can send the dishes away and still have his correspondence opened by a man who was already in the room.

Continue this thoughtPart II Steals the Authorship

Coming Up in Chapter 100

Bandaged from the cat attack, Quixote lies awake until Doña Rodriguez enters with a candle, begging him to vindicate her daughter betrayed by the rich farmer's son.

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Original text

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Chapter 99

Doctor Recio and the Farmer's Suit

LVII. WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE ACCOUNT OF HOW SANCHO PANZA CONDUCTED HIMSELF IN HIS GOVERNMENT The history says that from the justice court they carried Sancho to a sumptuous palace, where in a spacious chamber there was a table laid out with royal magnificence. The clarions sounded as Sancho entered the room, and four pages came forward to present him with water for his hands, which Sancho received with great dignity. The music ceased, and Sancho seated himself at the head of the table, for there was only that seat placed, and no more than one cover laid. A personage,…

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Doctor Recio and the Farmer's Suit

Summary

Why This Matters