When it comes to literature as the subject of this blog – that is, books, generally – it can be taken as read that I have actually read said books. And whilst that is normally the case, my integrity compels me to admit that I never finished today’s subject, Miguel de Cervantes’ epic masterpiece, Don Quixote. I think I got about a quarter of the way through before surrender, many years ago now. It’s a long, dense book and really, there are better things to do than wade through early 17th century Spanish novels. Nonetheless, Don Quixote remains an important piece of work worthy of inspection.
For one thing, Don Quixote (the full title being The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha), originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, is considered a founding work of Western literature and is often said to be the first modern novel. Of course, the claim to be ‘first novel’ is inevitably going to be contentious, since much depends on the definition of the word ‘novel’. Vying for that title are everything from Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740), Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) and even Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur (c. 1485), but we needn’t worry about that now. All we need to know is that Don Quixote is one of the most translated and best-selling books of all time, and that it has bequeathed to the lexicon the word ‘quixotic’ and the phrase ‘tilting at windmills’.
The plot revolves around the adventures of a hidalgo from La Mancha who reads so many chivalric romances that he decides to become a knight-errant himself under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha, and sets out with his squire, Sancho Panza, to save his lady love Dulcinea del Toboso, in the name of chivalry and all that is noble and good. It’s clear that Don Quixote has essentially lost his mind and is living a fantasy life, and whilst in his mind we know that he is living out an epic knightly story of honour and glory, we are seeing a fantasist being humoured, ignored, or attacked by all he encounters.
The adventures begin with the famous windmill scene, in which Don Quixote mistakes a group of windmills for ferocious giants and charges at them, armed with a lance, on his old horse Rocinante. Whilst Sancho Panza tries to ground him in reality, it is a lost cause: even when Don Quixote realises that they are indeed windmills, he claims that a magician must have transformed the giants. ‘Tilting at windmills’ has become synonymous with wasting time and energy on the wrong targets or taking on hopelessly lost causes or imaginary foes. Here’s the relevant excerpt, and you have to admire Don Quixote for the courage of his conviction! It’s funny, and I might just have to go back and finish the last three-quarters of the book some time.
Just then, they discovered thirty or forty windmills in that plain. And as soon as don Quixote saw them, he said to his squire: “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we could have ever hoped. Look over there, Sancho Panza, my friend, where there are thirty or more monstrous giants with whom I plan to do battle and take all their lives, and with their spoils we’ll start to get rich. This is righteous warfare, and it’s a great service to God to rid the earth of such a wicked seed.”
“What giants?” said Sancho Panza.
“Those that you see over there,” responded his master, “with the long arms—some of them almost two leagues long.”
“Look, your grace,” responded Sancho, “what you see over there aren’t giants—they’re windmills; and what seems to be arms are the sails that rotate the millstone when they’re turned by the wind.”
“It seems to me,” responded don Quixote, “that you aren’t well-versed in adventures—they are giants; and if you’re afraid, get away from here and start praying while I go into fierce and unequal battle with them.”
And saying this, he spurred his horse Rocinante without heeding what his squire Sancho was shouting to him, that he was attacking windmills and not giants. But he was so certain they were giants that he paid no attention to his squire Sancho’s shouts, nor did he see what they were, even though he was very close. Rather, he went on shouting: “Do not flee, cowards and vile creatures, for it’s just one knight attacking you!”
At this point, the wind increased a bit and the large sails began to move, which don Quixote observed and said: “Even though you wave more arms than Briaræus, you’ll have to answer to me.”
When he said this—and commending himself with all his heart to his lady Dulcinea, asking her to aid him in that peril, well-covered by his shield, with his lance on the lance rest —he attacked at Rocinante’s full gallop and assailed the first windmill he came to. He gave a thrust into the sail with his lance just as a rush of air accelerated it with such fury that it broke the lance to bits, taking the horse and knight with it, and tossed him rolling onto the ground, very battered.
Sancho went as fast as his donkey could take him to help his master, and when he got there, he saw that don Quixote couldn’t stir—such was the result of Rocinante’s landing on top of him. “God help us,” said Sancho. “Didn’t I tell you to watch what you were doing; that they were just windmills, and that only a person who had windmills in his head could fail to realize it?”
“Keep still, Sancho, my friend,” responded don Quixote. “Things associated with war, more than others, are subject to continual change. Moreover, I believe—and it’s true—that the sage Frestón—he who robbed me of my library—has changed these giants into windmills to take away the glory of my having conquered them, such is the enmity he bears me. But in the long run, his evil cunning will have little power over the might of my sword.”
“God’s will be done,” responded Sancho Panza.”
