Ch 5 (cont) Dulcinea as Jarifa? Well, yes & "Jayanes in the dance, too"

Before taking a nap, DQ invokes the story of a Muslim princess:

Along the way, DQ insists that his rescuer is an imagined uncle and renowned knight-errant; but check out what he says about his fictional Dulcinea.

Sepa vuestra merced, señor don Rodrigo de Narváez, que esta hermosa Jarifa que he dicho es ahora la linda Dulcinea del Toboso por quien yo he hecho, hago y haré los más famosos hechos de caballerías que se han visto, vean ni verán en el mundo .

That your mercy, señor don Rodrigo de Narváez may know that the beautiful Jarifa, of whom I have spoken is now the beautiful Dulcinea del Toboso on whose behalf I have done, am doing and will continue to do the most famous knightly deeds that have ever been seen, are being seen or ever will be seen in the world.

Jarifa is a fictional, beautiful Moorish princess. 

Jarifa appears in an anonymous, so called, Moorish novel - novela morisca, entitled Historia del Abencerraje y de la hermosa Jarifa (Toledo, 1561).

What are we to make of this twist? -  a delusional Spanish knight announces that NOW his own highest, most beautiful patroness is a version of a Muslim princess.

Cervantes is creating circles within circles. 

His fictional creation, the hidalgo Quijana takes an assumed identity, don Quijote, who believes he has become the inspired protector of a Spanish princess, who is actually a farm girl that Quijana had a crush on. Now we are told, Dulcinea is a stand-in for a fictional Muslim princess. But Cervantes' hero, Quijana-Quijote, is insane. 

We are not going to dwell on the Jarifa-Dulcinea association since the story does not, but we at least take note. 

For a transport into a mood closer to all of these mythical characters, you are invited to listen to an annoyingly brief cut from #10 on the album El QUIJOTE,Romances, canciones y Danzas.

(You can hear the complete recording elsewhere, such as on "I Heart Radio" with a membership.)

Back to the plot:

DQ's peasant neighbor manages to get him on his feet and mounted up and then delivers him to his hacienda, where the rescuer, Pedro Alonzo, overhears the curate, the barber, the housekeeper and DQ's niece in a state of worry about the disappearance of their hidalgo.

The housekeeper - ama de casa - called here, ama, blames DQ's habits of reading as the cause of his insanity. She fetches a saucer of holy water and a sprinkler, so the burning of the heretical books may be sanctioned by holy ritual.

The ama may have a point about the drastic influence of the books on DQ's mental state.

DQ's niece chimes in - after a long bout of reading, DQ would slash the wall with his sword, reaching a state of exhaustion and shouting that he had just dispatched "giants" with the evidence being his sweat, which he took for blood seeping from his wounds. DQ would then make himself worse by drinking a large amount of cold water.

Pedro Alonzo, neighborly rescuer of DQ, having arrived outside the hacienda with DQ loaded on Rocinante, overhears this discussion. He enters the conversation by announcing the return of the knight-errant and himself as a knight of French legend.

DQ refuses to answer questions but insists that he needs medical attention; DQ ask for Urganda - fictional enchantress who came to the aid of  the iconic knight-errant Amadis de Gaula. The housekeeper refuses this request, saying no one needs a hurgada, a meddler (I think, is what is meant here.)

Medical aid denied him, DQ wishes only to eat and then sleep, having dispatched a number of "giants" before suffering injury occasioned by the antics of his horse.

¿Jayanes hay en la danza? Para mi santiguada que yo los queme mañana antes que llegue la noche.

"Are there giants (jayanes, wild men) in the dance?" 

asks the curate. If so, then books will need to be burned:

"By my sign of the Cross, I will burn them tomorrow before dusk."

With DQ tucked in, the discussion continues, in Chapter Six, not about whether but which books are tossed out on to the patio to be burned.

The pretension of faith, the burning of books

Capítulo V. Donde se prosigue la narración de la desgracia de nuestro caballero

Chapter Five - Wherein continues the narrative of the misfortune of our knight.

____________________

Prone on his back, unable to rise, DQ acordó de acogerse a su ordinario remedio - 'thought he would revert to his usual remedy'- que era pensar en algún paso de sus libros - 'which was to call to mind some passage from his books.' 

With his battered hero unable to get his feet under him, Cervantes takes up a couple of hot-button topics: the pretension of faith, and later in the chapter, the burning of books. 

Cervantes might have crafted a narrative that could get him into serious trouble but our novelist is too agile for the Inquisitor.

Cervantes roots DQ's present delusional mutterings not in Spain but north of the Pyrenees, in France. So, whatever follows, on the printed page, cannot be seen as a direct critique of contemporary Spanish attitudes, customs or beliefs.

What occurs to DQ, lying there in the dust, are the legends of a wounded (European - not Spanish) knight abandoned by his Liege. 

The remembered tale from one of DQ's books, is rooted in the semi-historical, hazy recollections of the reign of Charlemagne. This story is one of many sentimentalized Carolingian legends, which were sparked into existence by the nostalgic desire to recreate a lost (and never actual existent) 'Christian' Empire in celtic Europe, that is, in France and the British Isles. 

A famous epic poem, not obviously or directly influential with Cervantes, is the 12th century Song of Roland, which lauds the courageous nephew of Charlemagne, who preferred to die in battle with the Moors than call on his uncle Charlie for deliverance. With Arthur, his round table and Lancelot set to one side for the moment, Roland seems to be the ground on which the other French legends were built: "The stories of Roland and other such heroes of the Carolingian age were very popular among the warrior class of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries." (Helen Nicholson: The Knights Templar, 2010, p. 80)

But before continuing with his story of a beaten-up DQ lying in the dust, a question: 

does Cervantes anywhere have 

in mind The Poem of El Cid? 

Maybe we can answer this down the road.

The recollection by DQ of legends associated with an 8-9th century "Roman" emperor allows the incident to unfold without kindling any suspicion that Cervantes is not too impressed or happy about the social hierarchy of his contemporary Spain.

In an editorial aside, Cervantes wants his readers to believe we have before us:

historia sabida de los niños, no ignorada de los mozos, celebrada y aun creída de los viejos

'history memorized by children, not forgotten by young people, celebrated and believed by the old folks'

Triune components of faith are here proposed: 

(1) memorization 

(2) recall

(3) celebration & belief

each of which become the grounds and then the content of religious practice. Cervantes is proposing that religious faith contains elements that are not rooted in actual history, accessible by anyone with curiosity. 

No. Faith is composed of what children memorize, adults remember and old people commemorate. This analysis is not placed in the mouth or mind of any character but comes as gloss by the novelist.

In recalling the old legends, DQ acts out the three elements of faith, as Cervantes lays them out: (1) memorize (2) remember (3) venerate - by which a system of belief becomes the contents of faith. This works as well for an insane individual as it does for anyone.

Just as the reader begins to rest contentedly, savoring the formula which outlines the elements of faith, Cervantes slips in the shive between pious late-medieval ribs: 

. . . con todo esto no más verdadera que los milagros de . . . 

'. . . despite all this, no more true than the miracles of . . .' 

. . . of . . . Christ? . . . of Moses? . . . of one of the prophets or Apostles? Not a chance. 

Cervantes is not going to lead with his whiskered chin, not when Peninsular Islam is right there, recently destroyed and exiled to north Africa. Islam is all laid out, ready to become a foil and safe target, before Spanish readers. The tales of knights-errant are:

. . . no más verdadera que los milagros de Mahoma 

'. . . no more true than the miracles of  Muhammad.'

Another question: assuming that Cervantes is writing a send up of what he has garnered from writings, may we assume that if the ancient, pre-Roman Celts had left written records, Cervantes would have debunked forested, druidic gatherings, where priests conducted communal pantomimes of natural cyclic occurrences, while insisting that they and only they themselves rightly understood such mysteries?  

Having safely made his observation about the unreasoned structure of faith, Cervantes returns to the saga of DQ, who is still lying in the road, where a neighbor and peasant Pedro Alonzo comes upon him.

Pedro Alonzo is a savvy peasant - savvy precisely because a man of the laboring class must know and conform himself to the subtleties of the social hierarchy. 

This neighbor knows insanity when he sees it. Alonzo also knows, "Senor Quijana" outranks Alonzo socially.

This means that the helpless hidalgo is entitled to care and protection. Pedro Alonzo must go out of his way to return DQ to his own people and to his own house. Personal inconvenience or risk to the peasant is hardly worth a mention.

The laborer's place in the tale of don Quijote may advance the satire but without the laborer himself being made the butt, so far, of Cervantes' grand put-down of the pretensions of upper-class Spanish militarism. So far.