Don Quixote: A Character and Relationship Map
Spoiler warning: This guide covers both parts of Don Quixote, including the ending.
When Sancho says he has found Dulcinea, Don Quixote sees an ordinary village girl. Sancho has given her the name his master once gave to another woman. That scene outside El Toboso is a good place to start if you have ever stopped mid-chapter to ask who is speaking, who is in disguise, or whose story you are reading.
Start with the knight and his household, or jump to the group you need. I and II refer to the two published parts of Cervantes’s novel. Chapter links open John Ormsby’s English translation. Common Spanish spellings appear alongside English variants where the names can be hard to match.
Contents
Don Quixote, Sancho and their households
Alonso Quijano / Don Quixote of La Mancha. A country gentleman sets out as a knight-errant under a name he chose. The opening narrator offers several possible surnames. In the final chapter he recovers his reason, renounces chivalric romances, and dies as Alonso Quijano the Good (Ormsby’s Alonso Quixano). Knight of the Rueful Countenance is Sancho’s nickname for him after the encounter with the funeral procession. He names himself Knight of the Lions after facing a lion that stays in its cage. (I.1, I.19, II.17, II.74)
Sancho Panza. Don Quixote’s neighbor joins the second expedition as his squire, hoping to govern an island. He bargains over rewards, invents the enchantment at El Toboso, and briefly governs Barataria. At the deathbed, Sancho begs his master to get up and keep their plans alive. Don Quixote tells him to pay himself what he is owed from the money he already holds and to keep what is left. (I.7, II.10, II.45–53, II.74)
Aldonza Lorenzo / Dulcinea del Toboso. Aldonza, the daughter of Lorenzo Corchuelo and Aldonza Nogales, is the woman from El Toboso on whom Don Quixote models his lady. His devotion is one-sided. He says he has hardly seen her, and Aldonza never appears in person as an identified speaker or participant. The girl Sancho presents outside El Toboso, the figure Don Quixote says he saw in the cave, and the duke’s page all bear Dulcinea’s name in different circumstances. (I.1, I.25, II.10, II.23, II.36)
The two homes in La Mancha
Antonia Quijana (Ormsby’s Quixana) is Don Quixote’s niece and lives with him. She and his unnamed housekeeper help the curate and barber sort his books. Antonia inherits the estate after the other bequests. Her prospective husband must be found ignorant of books of chivalry. If she marries him despite evidence to the contrary, she forfeits the bequest, which Don Quixote’s executors must give to charity. The housekeeper receives unpaid wages and twenty ducats for a gown. (I.6, II.74)
Pero Pérez, the curate, and Master Nicholas (Maese Nicolás), the village barber, are Don Quixote’s friends and neighbors. They inspect his library, help seal off the room, and later arrange his return in a cage. The curate also takes his confession and serves as an executor with Sansón Carrasco. (I.5–7, I.46–47, II.74)
Teresa Panza / Teresa Cascajo. Sancho’s wife names Cascajo as her father’s surname. In Part I, Sancho calls her Juana Gutiérrez and Mari Gutiérrez in the same conversation. The narrator calls her Teresa Panza at the end of Part I, and she calls herself Teresa Cascajo in Part II. Don Quixote holds the use of Mari Gutiérrez against Avellaneda’s sequel. Teresa favors a match for their daughter close to home and suggests Lope Tocho, Juan Tocho’s son. The novel records no wedding between them. (I.7, I.52, II.5, II.59)
Sanchica (also Mari-Sancha and Marica) is Sancho and Teresa’s daughter. She fetches her mother when a page brings letters from the duchess. Teresa considers schooling for their son Sanchico. If his uncle the abbot takes him in, the boy might train for the Church. (II.5, II.50)
Rocinante and Dapple. Don Quixote names his old horse Rocinante. Dapple is Sancho’s donkey, often called el rucio in Spanish. Its theft and return are easy to lose track of. In Part II, Sancho says he found Ginés de Pasamonte riding the animal, and Carrasco points out that the earlier book had already put Sancho back in the saddle before Dapple turned up. (I.1, II.3–4)
Figures from his books
Amadís of Gaul, also called Beltenebros, retreats to the Peña Pobre after Oriana rejects him. Don Quixote takes that penance for his model in the Sierra Morena. He considers a different example in Roland (Orlando), who goes mad after learning of Angelica and Medoro. Frestón (Ormsby’s Friston) is the enchanter Don Quixote blames when his books vanish and when the giants he thinks he is attacking turn out to be windmills. (I.7–8, I.25–26)
Part I · Roads, shepherds and the inn
The first roads out of La Mancha
The first innkeeper, La Tolosa, and La Molinera. The unnamed host at the first inn humors his guest with a makeshift knighting ceremony. La Tolosa straps on Don Quixote’s sword and La Molinera fastens his spur. He asks them to call themselves Doña Tolosa and Doña Molinera. Juan Palomeque keeps the inn that Don Quixote visits later, with Sancho. (I.2–3, I.16–18)
Andrés and Juan Haldudo the Rich. Andrés tends sheep for Haldudo, a farmer from Quintanar. Don Quixote finds him tied to an oak and being whipped, then rides off after making Haldudo promise to pay the boy’s wages. Haldudo resumes the beating. When Andrés meets his would-be rescuer again, he begs him to leave him alone next time. (I.4, I.31)
Pedro Alonso. A neighbor who finds Don Quixote beaten after his encounter with the Toledo merchants and brings him home. The injured man takes him first for the Marquis of Mantua, then for Rodrigo de Narváez, the captor of Abindarráez in a tale he has read. (I.4–5)
The Biscayan, Don Sancho de Azpeitia. A squire who challenges Don Quixote for interfering with a lady traveling to Seville. His name appears below his likeness in the manuscript illustration. He fights with a cushion for a shield, and the women in the coach plead for his life after Don Quixote defeats him. This Sancho serves the lady in the coach. (I.8–9)
The Yanguesan carriers. They beat Rocinante when he approaches their mares, then beat Don Quixote and Sancho after the pair attacks them. The two seek shelter at Juan Palomeque’s inn. (I.15–16)
Alonzo Lopez (Alonso López). A bachelor in minor orders escorting a coffin from Baeza to Segovia. Don Quixote attacks the party by torchlight, mistaking the mourners for something otherworldly. Lopez ends up with a broken leg. After this encounter, Sancho explains why he calls his master the Knight of the Rueful Countenance. (I.19)
The barber with the basin. A traveling barber whose brass basin Don Quixote claims as Mambrino’s helmet. Sancho exchanges his own donkey’s pack-saddle for the barber’s. The owner turns up at Palomeque’s inn and demands his gear. The village barber, Master Nicholas, joins the joke at the owner’s expense. The curate later pays for the basin. (I.21, I.44–46)
Ginés de Pasamonte. A prisoner sentenced to the galleys who objects to the nickname Ginesillo de Parapilla and boasts of the autobiography he has written. Don Quixote frees the prisoners and demands that they present themselves to Dulcinea. Ginés signals to the others, who stone their rescuers. Sancho later identifies him as the man he caught riding his stolen donkey. The same man turns up in Part II with a puppet show. (I.22–23, I.30; II.4, II.25–27)
The Holy Brotherhood (Santa Hermandad). The rural officers have a warrant for Don Quixote after he frees the galley prisoners. At the inn, the curate persuades them to drop the immediate arrest. Officers subsequently accompany the cart carrying Don Quixote for part of the journey home. (I.22–23, I.45–47, I.52)
Marcela and Grisóstomo
Marcela. The orphaned daughter of Guillermo the Rich, raised by an uncle who is a priest. Her uncle wants her to marry and leaves the choice to her. She takes to tending her own goats. At Grisóstomo’s burial, she answers those who blame her for his death. She says she had turned him down plainly and had given him no reason to expect her love. Don Quixote tells the men present to let her go in peace. (I.12–14)
Grisóstomo (Chrysostom in Ormsby). A wealthy former student at Salamanca who dresses as a shepherd to follow Marcela. The goatherds say he died for love of her. His verse speaks of jealousy, which his friend Ambrosio calls imaginary. The episode leaves the circumstances of his death uncertain. (I.12–14)
Pedro, Ambrosio and Vivaldo. Pedro is the goatherd who gives Don Quixote the village’s version of the story. Ambrosio studied with Grisóstomo, took up shepherd’s dress alongside him and carries out his burial wishes. Vivaldo, a traveler who comes to the funeral, rescues some of Grisóstomo’s papers from the fire and reads his poem aloud. (I.12–14)
Cardenio, Luscinda, Dorotea and Don Fernando
The four meet at Juan Palomeque’s inn. Cardenio and Dorotea have already told their stories in the Sierra Morena, where he promised to help her.
Cardenio. Luscinda’s childhood sweetheart. Duke Ricardo brings him into his household as a companion to his eldest son, but Cardenio becomes closer to the younger son, Fernando. He confides in Fernando, who sends him away and seeks Luscinda’s hand himself. After hearing Luscinda assent to the marriage, Cardenio flees to the Sierra Morena. The Ragged One and Knight of the Thicket are names for him there. (I.23–24, I.27, I.29, I.36)
Luscinda. She and Cardenio keep in touch by letter after her father bars Cardenio from the house. Under family pressure she says yes to Fernando at the ceremony, then faints. A note in her dress declares that she is already Cardenio’s. She takes refuge in a convent, where Fernando later seizes her. At the inn, she openly claims Cardenio as her husband. (I.24, I.27–28, I.36)
Dorotea (Dorothea in Ormsby). The daughter of Clenardo, a wealthy farmer and vassal of Duke Ricardo. Fernando enters her room and swears to marry her. She tells how she accepted his promise while fearing he would use force if she resisted. After he deserts her, she goes looking for him dressed as a man. In the mountains she helps the curate and barber by playing Princess Micomicona, whose invented quarrel with the giant Pandafilando draws Don Quixote out of his retreat. (I.28–30, I.36)
Don Fernando. Duke Ricardo’s younger son, once Cardenio’s confidant. He abandons Dorotea after pledging himself to her, then pursues Luscinda and takes her from the convent. At the inn, he releases Luscinda and acknowledges his obligation to Dorotea, who claims him as her husband. Luscinda and Cardenio reunite there. (I.24, I.27–29, I.36)
Duke Ricardo and the elder son. Ricardo is Fernando’s father and Cardenio’s patron. His elder son, the marquis, keeps Cardenio waiting on Fernando’s errand. Cardenio says the delay was Fernando’s scheme. Fernando later offers Don Luis the protection of this same household. (I.24, I.27, I.42, I.45)
Juan Palomeque’s inn
Several stories converge at this inn. Dorotea and Cardenio arrive with Don Quixote’s party. Fernando brings Luscinda. Then come the captive and Zoraida, the judge and Clara, and the young man who follows Clara in disguise. (I.32, I.36–37, I.42–44)
Juan Palomeque the Left-handed (el Zurdo). The innkeeper asks for payment, keeps books his guests read aloud, and eventually charges for the wineskins Don Quixote slashes in his sleep. Sancho learns Palomeque’s name during the quarrel that ends with other lodgers tossing him in a blanket. (I.16–18, I.32, I.35, I.46)
The landlady and her daughter. Palomeque’s wife and daughter help tend the injured Don Quixote. He imagines that the daughter is a princess in love with him. She later joins Maritornes in a trick that leaves his wrist tied to the straw-loft opening while he stands on Rocinante. When the horse moves, Don Quixote is left hanging until Maritornes unties him. (I.16, I.43–44)
Maritornes. An Asturian servant at the inn. She means to visit a muleteer at night when Don Quixote grabs her, believing her to be the innkeeper’s daughter. The muleteer strikes him and a brawl follows. After the blanket-tossing, Maritornes fetches Sancho water and pays for the wine he asks for instead. (I.16–17)
Zoraida and the Viedma family
Ruy Pérez de Viedma, the captive captain. The soldier who arrives at the inn with Zoraida. In the story he tells over supper, he is captured at Lepanto by El Uchali and later held in Algiers by Hassan Aga. Ruy recognizes his younger brother at the inn and asks the curate to find out how the judge will receive him. (I.37, I.39–42)
Zoraida, who asks to be called María. The only daughter of Hadji Morato. A Christian woman enslaved in her father’s household taught her to pray. In Algiers, Zoraida sends Ruy letters and money by lowering a reed from a window, then finances their escape. She proposes marriage if he is willing. The party makes plans for her baptism and marriage in Spain. Lela Marien is the Virgin Mary whom Zoraida invokes. (I.37, I.40–42)
Hadji Morato (Agi Morato). Zoraida’s wealthy father. The escape party takes him aboard when he wakes and discovers them. On learning that his daughter is leaving of her own will, he throws himself overboard. The men pull him from the water at Zoraida’s cry, and the party later puts him ashore. (I.40–41)
The renegade from Murcia. An unnamed convert from Christianity to Islam who translates Zoraida’s Arabic letters for Ruy. He buys the boat and helps get the fugitives out of Algiers, intending to return to Christianity himself. He is a different man from Hassan Aga, the Venetian convert who holds Ruy captive. (I.40–41)
Don Pedro de Aguilar. A fellow captive of Ruy’s and the author of the sonnets on the lost forts. When Ruy names him, one of Fernando’s companions at the inn identifies Aguilar as his own brother and confirms that he escaped and is alive. (I.39–40)
Juan Pérez de Viedma, the judge. The youngest of the three Viedma brothers. He follows a career in letters and is traveling with his daughter to take up a judgeship in Mexico. The middle brother, a merchant in Peru, has helped support Juan and their father. At the inn, Juan recognizes Ruy and offers help to him and Zoraida. (I.39, I.42)
Doña Clara de Viedma and Don Luis. Clara is the judge’s daughter. Luis, a neighbor’s son and only heir, follows her dressed as a muleteer. She tells Dorotea that she loves him, though they have never spoken. His father sends four servants to fetch him. Fernando arranges to take him to Andalusia while they seek his father’s decision. Their marriage remains unsettled when the party breaks up. (I.42–46)
Two stories with two Anselmos
“The Ill-Advised Curiosity.” The curate reads this manuscript aloud at the inn. Anselmo, a Florentine, asks his closest friend Lothario to test his wife Camilla by courting her. Lothario and Camilla become lovers, and Camilla’s maid Leonela helps them deceive Anselmo. When Anselmo catches a man leaving Leonela’s room, Camilla fears exposure and takes refuge in a convent with Lothario’s help. Anselmo dies after learning of the affair. Lothario dies in battle, and Camilla takes the veil and dies shortly afterward. (I.32–35)
Leandra’s story. Eugenio, a goatherd who meets the party taking Don Quixote home, tells this tale about himself and his rival Anselmo. Both court Leandra, who leaves with Vicente de la Roca, a soldier who promises to marry her. Eugenio says Leandra told them that Vicente took her money and jewels and left her in a cave, and that he did not sexually assault her. Her father sends her to a convent. Eugenio and Anselmo take their flocks into the valley to lament her absence. Leandra’s suitor is the Anselmo who plays the rebeck. The Florentine Anselmo is Camilla’s husband. (I.50–52)
The canon of Toledo. An unnamed churchman who meets the cart carrying Don Quixote home. He discusses books of chivalry with the curate, then debates the knight himself about the adventures he takes for history. He is among those who hear Eugenio’s story. (I.47–52)
Part II · El Toboso, the ducal court and Barcelona
El Toboso, the two masked knights, and the road through La Mancha
The three women from El Toboso. Sent to find Dulcinea, Sancho picks three travelers and introduces one of them as his master’s lady. Don Quixote sees a peasant woman and decides that enchanters must have changed her appearance. The woman and her companions go on their way. The book never identifies any of them as Aldonza Lorenzo. (II.9–10)
Sansón Carrasco (Ormsby’s Samson) is the young university graduate from Don Quixote’s village who brings word that Part I is already in print. He plots with the priest and barber to bring their neighbor home by defeating him under the rules of chivalry. As the Knight of the Mirrors, also called the Knight of the Grove, he loses and begins talking of revenge. In Barcelona, as the Knight of the White Moon, he wins and makes Don Quixote promise to retire to his village for a year. Carrasco later tells Don Antonio Moreno that his aim was to cure Don Quixote. (II.2–4, II.7, II.12–15, II.64–65, II.70)
Tomé Cecial (Tom Cecial in Ormsby) is Sancho’s neighbor. He wears a false nose as the Knight of the Mirrors’ squire, reveals himself after the duel, and abandons the enterprise. Casildea de Vandalia, the Knight of the Mirrors’ chosen lady, is his answer to Dulcinea. The masked knight says he fashioned the name from a Casilda of Andalusia. (II.12–16)
Angulo el Malo’s players. The Devil on the cart is an actor and the Queen is the company manager’s wife. Their troupe is traveling in costume between performances of The Cortes of Death. The jester who frightens Rocinante belongs to the company. (II.11)
Don Diego de Miranda, the Knight of the Green Gaban (green coat), is the country gentleman who tries to dissuade Don Quixote from challenging the lions and then takes him home as a guest. Doña Cristina (Christina) is his wife. Their son Don Lorenzo is a student and poet. The lion keeper opens a cage at Don Quixote’s insistence. The lion stays inside, and Don Quixote takes the name Knight of the Lions. (II.16–18)
Quiteria, Basilio, and Camacho. Quiteria and Basilio are childhood sweethearts. Her father arranges her marriage to the wealthy Camacho. At the wedding Basilio pretends to have wounded himself fatally and asks Quiteria to marry him before he dies. She consents, and after Basilio springs to his feet she confirms her choice. The crowd suspects they planned it together. The couple later tells Don Quixote and Sancho that Basilio enlisted friends and kept Quiteria out of the plan. Don Quixote defends the couple when Camacho’s supporters draw their swords. (II.19–22)
Bachelor Corchuelo, the fencing licentiate, and the cousin. Corchuelo challenges the licentiate’s skill with a sword and loses. The licentiate later sends his unnamed cousin to guide Don Quixote to the Cave of Montesinos. The cousin and Sancho hold the rope and pull him back up. (II.19, II.22)
Who appears in the Cave of Montesinos?
Montesinos is the cave’s keeper in Don Quixote’s telling. He says he cut out the heart of his dead cousin Durandarte at the latter’s request and carried it to Belerma, Durandarte’s beloved. Don Quixote describes Belerma carrying the heart in a procession of mourners. Montesinos blames Merlin for their enchantment and says that Durandarte’s squire Guadiana became a river, while the duenna Ruidera, her seven daughters, and two nieces became lakes. (II.22–23)
Don Quixote also says he saw three women in the cave who resemble the travelers from El Toboso. He takes one for Dulcinea again. She runs away, and one of her companions comes back to ask him for a loan on her behalf. Sancho disputes the story, and Cide Hamete leaves the cave story to the reader. His marginal note mentions a reported deathbed retraction, which the novel’s deathbed scene does not recount. (II.23–24, II.74)
Master Pedro, his ape, and the braying villagers
Master Pedro (Maese Pedro) is Ginés de Pasamonte in disguise, the galley prisoner Don Quixote freed in Part I. He also stole Sancho’s donkey. He gathers local gossip before arriving in a town and passes it off as divination by his trained ape. In the puppet show, Don Gaiferos rescues his wife Melisendra. Don Quixote rushes to help the pair and destroys the puppets. (I.22; II.4, II.25–27)
Two village officials imitate a donkey while searching for one of their animals. Nearby towns take up the sound to mock their village. When Don Quixote tries to calm an armed gathering, Sancho demonstrates his own braying and takes a beating for it. The storyteller who first reports the incident belongs to the mocked village. (II.25, II.27–28)
The ducal household and Barataria
The Duke and Duchess are married noble hosts who recognize Don Quixote and Sancho from the printed Part I. The Duchess gets Sancho to tell her how he invented Dulcinea’s enchantment, and the household turns his invention into an elaborate hunt-night spectacle. The Duke makes Sancho governor of a town on his estates that the household calls the Island of Barataria. An unnamed churchman in their circle rebukes Don Quixote and walks out when the Duke offers Sancho his government. (II.30–36, II.42–45)
The Duke’s steward, or majordomo, plays both Merlin and Countess Trifaldi, the Distressed Duenna. As Merlin, he says that Sancho must voluntarily undergo 3,300 lashes to disenchant Dulcinea. An unnamed page plays Dulcinea in the spectacle and later takes letters and gifts to Teresa Panza. Before Sancho sets off for Barataria, he recognizes the countess’s face and voice in the steward accompanying him. On the road home, Sancho agrees to be paid per lash. After the first few blows he strikes trees, and Dulcinea never appears disenchanted. (II.34–36, II.44, II.50, II.71–73)
Trifaldín of the White Beard announces the Distressed Duenna. In her staged tale, Trifaldi helped Don Clavijo court Princess Antonomasia, daughter of Queen Maguncia and King Archipiela. After Maguncia dies, her cousin Malambruno turns the lovers into metal animals and gives the duennas beards. The court provides Clavileño, a wooden horse rigged with fireworks, to carry the blindfolded Don Quixote and Sancho on their supposed rescue. (II.36–41)
Altisidora is one of the Duchess’s attendants. With her friend Emerencia playing along, she pretends to court Don Quixote. A bag of cats let loose during his serenade leaves him with a scratched face. The Duchess and Altisidora also lash out at Doña Rodríguez and Don Quixote after overhearing the duenna speak about them. On the travelers’ return, their hosts stage Altisidora’s death and resurrection, with actors as Minos and Rhadamanthus demanding that Sancho be struck, pinched, and pricked to revive her. (II.44, II.46, II.48, II.50, II.57, II.69–70)
Doña Rodríguez de Grijalba is the Duchess’s duenna and a widow. She seeks Don Quixote’s help for her unnamed daughter, whose suitor, a rich farmer’s son, has broken a promise of marriage. The Duke substitutes his servant Tosilos for the suitor in a duel. Tosilos refuses to fight and offers to marry the daughter himself. They never marry. Tosilos later says the Duke had him beaten, the daughter became a nun, and Doña Rodríguez returned to Castile. (II.31, II.48, II.50, II.52, II.54, II.56, II.66)
Doctor Pedro Recio of Tirteafuera oversees Sancho’s meals in Barataria and orders the dishes removed on medical grounds. The head-carver, secretary, and steward belong to the governor’s entourage. Sancho gives judgments and issues ordinances before resigning after a mock attack. Among the people he meets on his rounds are the unnamed children of Diego de la Llana, a widower. The sister and brother swap clothes to see the town at night. The girl first calls herself the daughter of Pedro Pérez Mazorca, a wool farmer. She admits that she borrowed a family acquaintance’s name to conceal her father’s. Mazorca and the curate Pero Pérez are different men. (II.45, II.47, II.49, II.51, II.53)
Ricote’s family, Roque’s band, and Barcelona
Ricote is Sancho’s Morisco neighbor, a shopkeeper displaced by the expulsion. He returns to Spain among pilgrims to recover a buried hoard and find his family. His wife is Francisca Ricota, their daughter Ana Félix, and Juan Tiopieyo is Francisca’s brother. Ricote refers to his daughter as Ricota before she introduces herself as Ana Félix. Sancho welcomes his old neighbor, then refuses to help dig up the hoard. (II.54, II.63)
Ana Félix and Don Gaspar Gregorio are in love. Gregorio follows Ana into exile. Sancho calls this young man Don Pedro Gregorio when he first mentions him to Ricote. Ana gives the name Gaspar. In Algiers she disguises him as a woman to protect him, then returns to Spain dressed as a man aboard a brigantine. An unnamed Spanish renegade aboard the brigantine identifies her as its captain. The galley commander threatens to execute her. The viceroy questions her, and the commander relents after hearing her story. The same renegade goes back to Algiers and rescues Gregorio. The renegade from Murcia who helps Ruy and Zoraida belongs to Part I. Ana stays with Don Antonio Moreno’s wife, Ricote with the viceroy, while Don Antonio offers to seek leave for father and daughter to stay in Spain. Their permission is still unsettled when the book leaves them. (II.54, II.63–65)
Roque Guinart leads the band of outlaws who stop Don Quixote and Sancho on the road. He treats the travelers courteously and sends word ahead to a friend in Barcelona, where they become Don Antonio Moreno’s guests. Claudia Jerónima, daughter of Roque’s friend Simón Forte, asks him for protection after shooting Don Vicente Torrellas, the man she had secretly promised to marry. Vicente is the son of Clauquel Torrellas, a rival of her father. Dying, Vicente denies he was about to marry Leonora, daughter of the wealthy Balvastro. He offers Claudia his hand and dies. Claudia says she will retire to the convent where her aunt is abbess. (II.60–62)
Don Antonio Moreno entertains the travelers in Barcelona and amuses his guests with an apparently enchanted head. Its voice belongs to his unnamed nephew, a student speaking through a concealed tube. Antonio follows the Knight of the White Moon after the duel and learns from him that he is Carrasco. The viceroy witnesses the duel and separately helps Ricote and Ana Félix. (II.61–65)
In a Barcelona printing shop, Don Quixote sees Avellaneda’s rival sequel being corrected. He has already changed his itinerary to contradict it. (II.59, II.62)
Who tells the story?
The narrator who buys the manuscript. As Don Quixote and the Biscayan raise their swords, the story breaks off. The first-person narrator says he finds more of the story among Arabic papers for sale in Toledo. He buys them and commissions a Spanish translation. The unnamed Morisco translator reads the manuscript and mediates what we are told, sometimes passing on the historian’s doubts or voicing his own. (I.8–9, II.5, II.24)
Cide Hamete Benengeli. Cervantes gives the manuscript an imagined Arab historian. Cide Hamete records Don Quixote’s story about the Cave of Montesinos without vouching for what happened below. Sancho calls him Cide Hamete Berengena when he first reports that the book is out. In Part II the pair meet people who have read their earlier adventures, including Carrasco and the duke and duchess. (I.9, II.2–3, II.24, II.30–31)
Avellaneda of Tordesillas. A rival sequel enters Cervantes’s Part II under this name. Don Juan and Don Jerónimo, readers at an inn, let the knight see the rival book. He decides to go to Barcelona instead of Zaragoza (Ormsby’s Saragossa), where the rival knight had gone. Later, Don Álvaro Tarfe, a character carried over from Avellaneda’s book, tells a magistrate that the knight before him is a different man from the one he knew. (II.59, II.72)
Names, aliases and disguises
Look for | Who or what the name refers to |
Alonso Quijano, Alonso Quixano, Don Quijote, Don Quixote, Knight of the Rueful Countenance, Knight of the Lions | The gentleman and the knight he becomes. Quixada, Quesada and Quexana are the opening narrator’s surname guesses in Ormsby. The knight |
Aldonza Lorenzo, Dulcinea del Toboso | The woman from El Toboso and the lady Don Quixote names after her. Aldonza Nogales is her mother. Dulcinea |
Anselmo | The Florentine husband in the manuscript and the rival of Eugenio in Leandra’s village are different people. Part I |
Antonia Quijana, Antonia Quixana | Don Quixote’s niece. The two households |
Ana Félix, Ana Felix | Ricote’s daughter. Part II |
Knight of the White Moon, Knight of the Mirrors, Knight of the Grove or the Wood, Sansón Carrasco, Samson Carrasco | The scholar’s name and his disguises. Part II |
Biscayan, Don Sancho de Azpeitia | The coach party’s defender, identified in an illustration in the found manuscript. Sancho Panza is Don Quixote’s squire. Part I |
Cardenio, the Ragged One, Knight of the Thicket | Luscinda’s childhood sweetheart in the Sierra Morena. Part I |
Casildea de Vandalia | The lady Carrasco claims to serve as the Knight of the Mirrors. He calls her Casilda of Andalusia. Part II |
Cide Hamete Berengena, Cid Hamete Benengeli | Sancho’s rendering and the manuscript’s spelling of Cide Hamete Benengeli. The storytellers |
Countess Trifaldi, the Distressed Duenna, Merlin | Parts played by the duke’s steward. The duchess’s attendant Doña Rodríguez is a different duenna. Part II |
Dapple, el rucio | Sancho’s donkey. Rocinante is Don Quixote’s horse. The two households |
Dorotea, Dorothea, Princess Micomicona | The woman Fernando promised to marry and the princess she plays. Part I |
Ginés de Pasamonte, Ginesillo de Parapilla, Maese Pedro, Master Pedro, Master Peter | The freed prisoner reappears as a puppeteer with an ape. Part II |
Gregorio, Don Pedro Gregorio, Don Gaspar Gregorio | Ana Félix’s beloved. Sancho calls him Pedro, and Ana calls him Gaspar. Part II |
Grisóstomo, Chrysostom | The student who becomes a shepherd and pursues Marcela. Part I |
Lela Zoraida, María | Zoraida wishes to be called María, the Christian name she chooses. Part I |
Knight of the Green Gaban, Knight of the Green Coat | Don Diego de Miranda, who hosts the travelers after the encounter with the lions. Part II |
Lope Tocho | Teresa’s proposed match for Sanchica. The two households |
Master Nicholas, Maese Nicolás | The village barber. The owner of the basin that Don Quixote takes for Mambrino’s helmet is another barber. Part I |
Pero Pérez, the curate | Don Quixote’s neighbor and eventual executor. Pedro Alonso is the neighbor who brings him home the first time. The two households |
Ricote | Sancho’s former neighbor. His daughter is Ana Félix. Part II |
Ruy Pérez de Viedma, the captive | The soldier who escapes from Algiers. His brother Juan Pérez de Viedma is the judge and Clara’s father. Part I |
Sancho Zancas | A second surname for Sancho Panza in the manuscript episode. Sanchico is his son. The two households |
Teresa Cascajo, Teresa Panza, Juana Gutiérrez, Mari Gutiérrez | Teresa’s own names in Part II and two names Sancho calls her in Part I. The two households |
Tomé Cecial, Tom Cecial | Sancho’s neighbor, disguised as the Knight of the Mirrors’ squire. Part II |
Back in La Mancha, Don Quixote has one more part for each of his friends to play. He could be the shepherd Quixotize, Carrasco could be Carrascon, the curate could be Curambro, and Sancho could come along as Pancino. When Alonso Quijano puts those names aside, it is Sancho who asks him to get out of bed and go to the fields. (II.73–74)
Sources
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote, Parts I and II, translated by John Ormsby (1885), Project Gutenberg eBook 996. Chapter references follow this edition.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quijote de la Mancha, Project Gutenberg eBook 2000. Spanish forms of names.
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