Morning Read: Miranda
¶ In Don Quixote, the three chapters comprising our hero’s gracious encounter with Don Diego de Miranda (whom Quixote regards as The Knight of the Green Coat) seem to be written in a new and different tone; I could not beat down the sensation that Don Diego was my contemporary, not Quixote’s, and that the episode, which culminates in a very agreeable and comfortable visit to Don Diego’s manor, was taking place in modern Texas. Quixote’s encouragement to Don Lorenzo, his host’s son, to persevere in his pursuit of poetry reads something like a blog entry offering career advice. It must be something I ate.
And then there is the adventure of the lazy lion, which reads like a Monty Python skit.
Then the lion keeper, in great detail and with many pauses, recounted the outcome of the contest, exaggerating to the best of his ability and skill the valor of Don Quixote, the sight of whom made a coward of the lion, and refused and did not dare to leave his cage, although he had kept the door open for some time; and only because he had told the knight that it was tempting God to provoke the lion and force him come out, which is what he wanted him to do, and despite the knight’s wishes and against his will, he had allowed the door to be closed again.
“What do you think of that, Sancho?” said Don Quixote. “Are there any enchantments that can prevail against true courage? Enchanters only deprive me of good fortune, but of spirit and courage, never!”
In this second part of the epic, Cervantes certainly treats enchantment as a blank check on which to draw from a vast bank account.