E.F. Watley, Editor
Don Quixote looms large in our cultural consciousness; most people are familiar with the phrase
'tilting at windmills', indicating a futile activity. But at the time Miguel Cervantes published the
story of the dutiful knight with a sadly feeble grip on reality it was not a simple comedy, but
rather a searing satire that put an end, once and for all, to the doggedly enduring pretenses of the
chivalric world. Cervantes (1547-1616) was a contemporary of Shakespeare, a tax collector who
endured a stint in prison for financial difficulties. He lived in a dramatically different world
from that of the middle ages - the insular world of King Arthur's wandering knights and their ilk
was a distant cultural memory. While now such images are recognizably stock elements of fantasy,
completely divorced from any reality, in Cervantes' day the mythos was still linked to the nobility,
however tenuously. The protagonist Alonso Quijano, a minor nobleman who reads one too many chivalric romances, is
painfully aware of this link. He develops the persona of Don Quixote as a desperate means of escaping
his stiflingly modest and decidedly unremarkable life.
The story of Don Quixote is so powerful because it juxtaposes the idealism of the wishful knight
with the extremely mundane. Even the language of the book reflected everyday speech, which was most
unusual for the literature of the day and which underscored the archaic quality of Quixote's speech.
Remarkably, the most enduring accomplishment Quijano
accomplishes as Don Quixote, within the story, is to inspire a book about his mad exploits, a feat
that the aged gentleman openly regrets upon his deathbed. This denial, however, of his own legend is
a curiously pointed end to the tale; Cervantes clearly wished there to be no ambiguity about the folly of
Don Quixote's deeds.
The following excerpt is from Don Quixote's defining duel against the windmills. His sidekick
Sancho, of course, sees the truth clearly the whole time.
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Excerpt from Miguel Cervantes: The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha (1605)
At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills on the plain, and as soon as Don
Quixote saw them he said to his squire, "Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could
have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more
monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose
spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes; for this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good
service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."
"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.
"Those thou seest there," answered his master, "with the long arms, and some have them nearly two
leagues long."
"Look, your worship," said Sancho; "what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem
to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go."
"It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that thou art not used to this business of adventures.
Those are giants; and if thou art afraid, away with thee out of this and betake thyself to prayer
while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat."
...A slight breeze at this moment sprang up, and the great sails began to move, seeing which Don
Quixote exclaimed, "Though ye flourish more arms than the giant Briareus, ye have to reckon with
me."
So saying, and commending himself with all his heart to his lady Dulcinea, imploring her to
support him in such a peril, with lance in rest and covered by his buckler, he charged at
Rocinante's fullest gallop and fell upon the first mill that stood in front of him; but as he drove
his lance-point into the sail the wind whirled it round with such force that it shivered the lance
to pieces, sweeping with it horse and rider, who went rolling over on the plain, in a sorry
condition.
..."God bless me!" said Sancho, "didn't I tell your worship to be careful? They're only windmills..."
"Hush, friend Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "the fortunes of war more than any other are liable
to frequent fluctuations; and moreover I think, and it is the truth, that that same wizard Friston
who carried off my study and books, has turned these giants into mills in order to rob me of the
glory of vanquishing them, such is the enmity he bears me; but in the end his wicked arts will avail
but little against my good sword."
The full text of Don Quixote is available at
the Project Gutenberg website.
E.F. Watley is the current administrator of HumorFeed. His own site is The Watley Review.
