Cardenio and Dorotea’s stories come together, then give way to a performance meant to lead Don Quixote out of the mountains.
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Summary
Cardenio identifies himself to Dorotea and regains hope after hearing about Luscinda’s declaration. He promises to help her make Fernando honor his commitment. Both accept the priest’s offer to accompany him to his village.
Having read romances of chivalry, Dorotea volunteers to play a distressed princess. As Micomicona, she asks Don Quixote to follow her and recover her kingdom without taking up other adventures. He agrees and ends his penance. The priest and Cardenio join the party in prepared appearances. When the barber’s false beard falls off, the priest restores it with a supposed miraculous remedy. He later invents a robbery blamed on the freed galley prisoners to unsettle Don Quixote.
Characters and relationships
Dorotea moves from telling her own misfortune to acting an invented one. The priest directs the plan and the barber supports it with his disguise. Don Quixote and Sancho believe in the princess, but Sancho mainly anticipates the rewards of a royal marriage.
Narration, humor, and language
Readers know the trick and watch actors performing before an unsuspecting audience. The fallen beard threatens to expose the whole scene. Familiar chivalric language lends credibility to a story that has no factual basis.
Reading reflection
Sancho’s ambition takes a disturbing turn when he imagines selling the supposed kingdom’s Black inhabitants in Spain to enrich himself. This fantasy of enslavement should not be treated as harmless ingenuity. The comedy of social advancement also reveals how a desire for profit can erase other people’s humanity.
What to distinguish
Micomicón and the giant’s wrongdoing belong to the performance. Cardenio’s promise of help addresses the personal history Dorotea has actually related.
Source and reading
Cervantes’s text in Rodríguez Marín’s La Lectura edition (1911–1913), volume 3. Checked passages: P. 82, p. 84, p. 91, p. 94, p. 99. Original summary, analysis, and reflection by QuixoteGuide.
