Don Quixote Part 2, Chapter 37 - 48

The Dolorous Duenna enters with several other veiled women of her vocation and entreats Don Quixote for his aid which he readily offers without pretense. The Duenna explains that she had in her charge the princess of the kingdom of Kandy whom she allowed to be seduced by a private knight. The princess and knight eventually married but the queen was quite distressed at the poor match of the couple and perished in grief. The queen’s brother was a large sorcerer named Malambruno who cursed the couple whose union had caused his sister’s death and transformed them both into inanimate sculptures. He declared that the lovers would only be restored when Don Quixote would meet Malambruno and defeat him in battle. The duennas also revealed that the sorcerer had cursed them as well as they lifted their veils to display heavily bearded faces. Don Quixote readily agrees to meet Malambruno in battle but Sancho Panza expresses trepidation and the Duenna insists that he must accompany his master for the spell to be truly broken. Sancho agrees to travel with his master after the duke stresses that the governorship of his island would be secure irrespective of how long it took him to return to them.

Don Quixote and Sancho then seat themselves on the magical wooden steed that Malambruno has sent for them to be conveyed to him through flight. They are blindfolded, and the duke's servants through contraptions like bellows and lanterns convince them that they are indeed flying. The duke’s men then light the horse’s tail so that it explodes with firecrackers and causes the riders to be hurled from their seats. Don Quixote discovers that they have ‘returned’ to the palace of the duke but all its occupants have been caused to faint. He finds the explanation in form of a letter that informs him that he has defeated Malambruno by simply attempting the chivalric deed, and reassures the knight that all the duennas have been relieved of their beards. Sancho Panza tells the duchess that he had peeked from under his blindfold while he had flying through the air and had even played with the constellations, which had been in the form of multicolored goats. Don Quixote contradicts his squire by claiming that they had certainly not crossed into the region of constellations as such Sancho was either lying or had been dreaming.

The next day, the duke and duchess decided to continue their pranks on Don Quixote and thus informed Sancho that he should now take over the government of the island that had been allocated to him. Don Quixote takes his squire aside and lectures him by reminding him that he was a dunderhead who had been favored by fortune into governing an island. He tells him to refrain from living a life of avarice, embrace his peasant background, and bend the rod of justice with mercy rather than the weight of bribes. The knight continues to advise his squire going so far as to tell him how he must eat and drink as a governor but Sancho worries that he will likely forget all that he has been told. He asks Don Quixote to write down the instructions so that he could have his helpers read them to him whenever he desires, and though Don Quixote writes the suggestions, Sancho forgets to take them. These instructions wind up in possession of the duke who finds them quite delightful. Don Quixote is rather melancholy to see his squire depart, and so sequesters himself in his room after denying requests that he take some maidservants along for company. The duchess and duke note the change in the knight and plot a new adventure to involve him.

Don Quixote finds that a maidservant is serenading him outside his bedroom windows, and he loudly laments the temptations that he has to deal with being the platonic lover of the lovely lady Dulcinea. On the other hand, Sancho is escorted to one of the duke’s best towns, whose council comes out to greet their new leader along with the duke butler, the man who had played the role of the Duenna with such aplomb. Sancho surprises all the townspeople with his intelligence in distributing justice when the petitioners are brought before him, but he is antagonized quite severely by the doctor. Don Quixote sees the maid, Altisidora, faint as he passes by her in the morning, and so decides to reply to her through song later at night. The maid tells the duke and duchess of Don Quixote’s intention, and the royal couple makes the arrangements to play a further harmless joke on the knight. Don Quixote sings of his devotion to lady Dulcinea but is interrupted when a bag of goat bells and cats is thrown from above his rooms. Don Quixote attacks the cats believing them to be enchanters and becomes locked in a mortal struggle with a cat that attaches onto his face with both claws and teeth. He is rescued by the duke but he is left quite severely injured and requires several days of bed rest to recuperate.

Sancho receives intelligence from the duke that enemies are planning to attack the island, and that Sancho’s life is under threat from assassins. Sancho instructs his retainers to make safety arrangements, especially food since he is quite hungry but has been instructed to beware of poisons. Don Quixote is scared half to death when the duenna Rodriguez, the duenna of the duchess, enters his room late at midnight to beg from him a favor. The old woman tells the knight about the early demise of her husband, who had left her to care for their only daughter. This daughter had now grown to be an excellent woman and had been courted by the son of an extremely rich farmer. The boy had refused to marry the duenna’s daughter and though the duenna had pleaded with the duke to intervene he had been unwilling to do so due to the enormous amount of wealth that the boy’s farmer had lent to the duke. Don Quixote comforts the woman and assures her that he would aid her, but the door suddenly bangs open when the duenna begins talking about 'fountains between the duchess's legs' and plummets them into darkness as the only candle of the room is extinguished. Unknown villains enter the room to assail the duenna with slaps and pinch the hapless knight. After the ordeal, the duenna departs the room in tears without uttering a word to the knight.

Analysis

Don Quixote and Sancho step outside their madness for a brief window before their departure, an episode that allows us to understand their personalities without the involvement of their obsession with chivalry. Don Quixote displays a wealth of knowledge as he gives Sancho sound political advice about his role as a leader of the government. The squire displays a critical and sharp mind, despite his lack of education, as he masterfully navigates through the hoax hearings that the duke had planned for him.

Don Quixote reminds Sancho not to put on airs about his origins, but rather to remain humble with the truth of his background. This piece of advice flies in the face of Don Quixote's conduct since he has abandoned his original station for one of a knight. It can be argued that Don Quixote is never truly pretending to be anything that he does not believe himself to be, for even in his conduct, Don Quixote is as honorable as a knight from his chivalry books.

Cervantes treats the second part more like a novel than a parody of old chivalry books, as he abandons his earlier style of ending chapters when the characters retired for the night and indicating the contents of the next chapter at the close of the first. In this second part, the smaller chapters are organized based on the feelings that the plot incites rather than the time of day in the story. This section also leads to the development of the duke and duchess as the villains of the novel since their actions begin to cause the characters real physical harm.