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Alternate Arbitrios: Status, Justice, and Decline in Chapters 
I-XVIII of !e Second Part of the Ingenious Gentleman 
Don Quixote of La Mancha

by Petra Ellerby

 J.H. Elliott's seminal essay on "Self-Perception 
and Decline in Early Seventeenth-Century Spain" 
opens with a letter from the Count-Duke of Olivares, 
an impassioned rejoinder to the accusation by an 
elderly countryman that “se va todo a fonda—‘the 
ship is going down.’”1 Enumerating a list of national 
successes to counter his compatriot's dire vision, 
Olivares seeks to frame Spain's foundering fortunes 
within actionable terms, serving as a proxy for the 
countless arbitristas (reformers) who composed 
“tracts and treatises, published and unpublished, 
which [aimed] to analyse and prescribe remedies for 
Castile's many woes.”2  But as Elliott argues, Olivares' 
e"orts were for naught. While the reformers' 
reactions to an approaching catastrophe can be 
considered both expected and understandable,3  
they now function as a sort of intellectual archive for 
the circumscribed worldview that presaged Spain's 
progressive fall.
 A similarly unsettling atmosphere of decay and 
disillusionment is introduced in the initial pages 
of Miguel de Cervantes' 1615 Second Part of the 
Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha,4 
although the novel's response to this disquieting shi# 
does not conform to the historical choices catalogued 
within Elliott's study. On the part of several key 
characters, an awareness of decline is coupled with 
corresponding forays into cultural commentary, 
exercises in (more productive) argumentation which 

1 J. H. Elliott, “Self-Perception and Decline in Early 
Seventeenth-Century Spain,” Past and Present 74, no. 1 
(1977): pp. 41-61, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/74.1.41, 
241. 
2 Elliott, "Self-Perception", 243. !e term 'arbitrista' refers 
here to the writers of 'arbitrios', the "tracts and treatises" 
invoked above.
3 To a certain extent. According to Elliott's account, 
the good-faith advice dispensed by various nobles was 
interspersed with a not insigni$cant number of crackpot 
theories. Cf. ibid., 243.
4 Henceforth "Quixote" or "DQ II."

act to highlight critical questions involving status, 
stature, ethics and action. As is true of Quixote's $rst 
volume, the conduct of Don Quixote himself serves 
to structure these assorted explorations, though 
a number of incisive assessments also stem from 
each episode's more peripheral inhabitants.5  But 
while the text's core concerns are addressed via the 
words and deeds of disparate actors, introduced in 
a meandering, equivocal, and piecemeal manner, 
it is this essay's argument that there is a deep 
associative—and perhaps causal—relationship 
between decline/disenchantment, the re-evaluation 
of hierarchy/lineage/power, and a foregrounding of 
right behavior or just action on the part of Cervantes' 
cast.
 In accordance with this overarching claim, close 
readings of a few critical passages will be combined 
with an inquiry into the opinions expressed by 
Cervantes (as narrator), Don Quixote, and the 
wife of Quixote's squire. Within each arena, an 
engagement with darkness or decline—via poverty/
precarity for Cervantes and Teresa Panza, by means 
of Golden-Age desengaño for Quixote—engenders 
both a reckoning with extant status-systems and a 
corresponding re-articulation of personal integrity. 
!ese incidental e"orts at ethical 'revision' cannot 
be directly tied with the work of "Self-Perception's" 
arbitristas, but their narrative e"ect does function to 
provide a modi$ed mirror for Elliott's argument. In 
his dramatization of an alternate national reaction, 
an unchosen path of reform, Cervantes constructs 
an imaginary Spain that is made real within the lives 
and minds of Quixote's characters.

1.
 !e alteration in tone which attends DQ II's 
prefatory remarks becomes apparent only gradually. 
Cervantes' introduction involves a dedication—to 
5 I.e., individuals who exist at the outskirts of both plot 
and context. !ese marginal $gures are not irrelevant, and 
indeed act to add weight and verisimilitude alongside the 
knight-errant's narrative role. See below.



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Aisthesis      Volume 14,  202369

the Count of Lemos, his patron and protector—which 
appears at $rst to buttress a traditional assessment. 
!is opening device acts to endow the work with 
an air of conventionality, a familiarity that is only 
heightened by DQ II's status as a sequel to what had 
already become a classic tale. Cervantes reports in 
his opening paragraph that "Don Quixote [has] his 
spurs ready" and is poised to make his journey to 
greet the reader; the implication, of course, is that 
this continuation has been much anticipated.6  By 
all accounts, Quixote's arrival should be a joyous 
occasion, and even the Emperor of China is said to 
have begged Cervantes for his presence, requesting 
that he

send the knight to him [the emperor], because 
he wanted to establish a college in which the 
Castilian language would be read, and the book 
he wanted the students to read was the history of 
Don Quixote...7 

Entertainment does indeed hold a privileged place 
within the world of Quixote, a prerogative that our 
author makes clear in his preface to DQ's $rst volume.8 
But the present project is not so straightforward. 
Alongside this introduction's familiarity and humor 
lies a di"erent sort of sentiment, an ambience and 
argument at once threatening and hopeful. DQ II's 
dedication is hounded  by the time elapsed between 
Parts I and II, preoccupied with the vagaries of 
encroaching events (and authors!),9 and formulated 
in a manner which raises more than one relevant 
question. !ere is a notable focus on Avellaneda, 
the pseudonymous writer whose apocryphal 
continuation to the original Quixote was so odious 

6 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote, trans. Edith 
Grossman (New York, NY: Ecco, 2003), 453. 
7 Cervantes, Quixote, 453.
8 Cf. ibid., 8, where Cervantes writes that "reading [his 
work] should move the melancholy to laughter, increase 
the joy of the cheerful, not irritate the simple, $ll the clever 
with admiration for its invention, not give the serious 
reason to scorn it, and allow the prudent to praise it..."
9 !e reference here is to Avellaneda's e"orts (addressed 
below), but might also be understood to invoke the 1609 
expulsion of Spanish Moriscos, an event which adds 
political valence—and personal poignancy—to Cervantes' 
use of an Arabic 'historian' (Cide Hamete Benengeli) as 
his novel's basic framing device.

as to warrant more than two full pages of scathing 
condemnation;10  there is the inclusion of three 
strange, ambiguous, and surprisingly unsettling 
parables about dogs and madmen;11  and there is, too, 
a repeated interaction with the less-than-cheerful 
material facts of Cervantes' literary life. "[N]ot only 
am I ailing", reads the author's response to China's 
‘request,’ "but I am lacking in funds."12 
 !is odd exposition is matched by an unexpected 
or even unorthodox articulation of status and 
nobility, an authorial undertaking which undermines 
even the dedication's mollifying role. In expressing 
his debt to the "Great Count of Lemos," Cervantes 
writes that he "considers [himself] luckier and richer 
than if fortune had brought [him] to the heights by 
any other means."13  But the Spaniard's framing of 
successfully executed noblesse oblige is followed by a 
reformulation of status and character which appears 
almost to disambiguate the two. "A poor man may 
have honor," Cervantes continues, "but not a villain; 
need may cloud nobility, but not hide it completely; 
if virtue sheds her light, even along the craigs and 
cracks of poverty, it will be esteemed by high, noble 
spirits, and so be favored."14 
 !e contradictions apparent within this passage 
are not insigni$cant. While attributing the entirety 
of his literary output to the auspices of an hereditary 
lord, Cervantes manages to articulate a conception 
of status and justice which divorces honor from 
wealth. By using his own economic circumstances 
as a model, and by situating his success both in 
terms of internal e"ort and as a result of Lemos' 
generosity, our author presents an unusual portrait of 
conventional taxonomies, a surreptitious inversion 
of status-quo cultural categorizations. In Cervantes' 
construction, it is not chance nor fate but right action 
and individual worth which hold the reins of ethics 
and esteem—that is, in an ideal situation. What, an 
intrepid reader might ask, would result if this happy 
coincidence had not materialized?15 Could there 
be other Cervanteses wandering the countryside, 
destitute talents brimming with unwritten books?

10 See especially ibid., 455.
11 Ibid., 456-7.
12 Ibid., 454.
13 Ibid., 457-8. 
14 Ibid., 458.
15 In other words: without Lemos, would we have Don 
Quixote? 



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Aisthesis      Volume 14,  202370

 !is shi# from an amorphous unease to an 
engagement with poverty to a celebration of 
individual virtue is not (by itself) de$nitive. Analyzed 
alone, Cervantes' comments cannot be ascribed to 
some shockingly radical or fully-realized critique. 
Nevertheless, DQ II's second preface functions to set 
a precedent, to establish a pattern of thought which 
echoes within the volume's $rst $#een-odd chapters. 
!e incremental intervention conceived in these 
collected passages paves the way for a more expansive 
reformulation of integrity and power, a continued 
conversation which unfolds alongside Cervantes' 
plot. !roughout the novel's next hundred pages, 
the complexity of Lemos' presentation is extended 
and enriched by a series of episodes which—
while unique—follow a philosophical trajectory 
established in Quixote's inaugural lines.16 

2.
 Uncertainty and unhappiness birth a similar re-
orientation on the part of Cervantes' protagonist. 
!e overcast and ever-darkening narrative context 
established at the novel's outset is progressively 
tied with a sense or awareness of each character's 
historical-cultural milieu, and this process is 
nowhere more apparent than in the introductory 
deeds of Don Quixote himself.
 A#er a month-long stay at his home in La 
Mancha, Quixote's wayward hidalgo is visited by 
a set of familiar friends. Burning with curiosity, 
the novel's priest and barber "decide to [call on 
Quixote] and see his [post-adventure] improvement 
for themselves."17  In order to avoid triggering their 
neighbor's now-infamous chivalric delusions, these 
concerned companions "agree[ ] not to make any 
mention at all of knight errantry so as not to run the 
risk of reopening his wounds."18  Pursuant to such 
delicate psychological ends, the priest steers their 
discourse towards matters of statecra#, setting the 
stage for a dialog on "ways of governing, correcting 
this abuse and condemning that one, reforming one 

16 A trajectory, that is, from considerations/
acknowledgments of darkness/decline to a re-evaluation 
of status and its behavioral/ethical requirements (or lack 
thereof).
17 Ibid., 459.
18 Ibid., 459.

custom and eliminating another."19  Nevertheless, 
matters soon dri# in the direction of knightly 
endeavors, and Don Quixote is launched into an 
arbitrista-esque monologue on the political merits 
of chivalric creeds. Cervantes' barber attempts to 
intervene, cautioning Quixote (and echoing Elliott) 
by noting that "all or most of the schemes presented 
to [the king] are either impossible, or absurd, or 
harmful," but is met with a forceful retort.20  "Mine," 
Quixote claims, "is neither impossible or absurd, but 
is, rather, the easiest, most just, most practical, and 
shrewdest that has ever occurred."21 
 !e barber's attempted diversion signals a 
certain topical tendency within Quixote's thoughts, 
but the nature of our knight's fantastical harangue is 
both wildly sensational and strangely apt, subversive 
in its own nonsensical way.22  Like Cervantes' 
dedication, this episode stems from a place of 
unease—about Quixote's mind, about the health of 
his nation—that then moves towards an engagement 
with contemporaneous structures, wending its way 
from darkness to re-examination to the proposal 
of something new. Beginning with the contention 
that "His Majesty [should] command by public 
proclamation that on a speci$c day all the knights 
errant wandering through Spain are to gather at 
court," Quixote backtracks to provide a contextual 
basis for his proposal, arguing that he

only devote[s himself] to making the world 
understand its error in not restoring that 
happiest of times when the order of knight 
errantry was in %ower. But our decadent age 
does not deserve to enjoy the good that was 
enjoyed in the days when knights errant took 
it as their responsibility to bear on their own 
shoulders the defense of kingdoms [...]. Now, 
[...] sloth triumphs over diligence, idleness over 

19 Ibid., 459-90. 
20 Ibid., 460. 
21 Ibid., 461.
22 In another formulation: by virtue of its compound 
composition, which includes both reform-oriented tenets 
and a fundamentally delusional substrate, Quixote's credo 
transcends the categories of relevance/irrelevance as they 
are constructed within seventeenth-century arbitrista-
discourse. 



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Aisthesis      Volume 14,  202371

work, vice over virtue, arrogance over valor, and 
theory over the practice of arms, which lived and 
shone only in the Golden Age.23 

It is an outlandish vision, a utopian view, but Quixote's 
musings do share a certain a&nity with those of 
Elliott's arbitristas. !e moralizing tone taken by 
one Martín Gonzáles de Cellorigo in a 1600 tract is 
distinctly reminiscent of the hidalgo's complaints, 
and Cellorigo's contention that Spain's woes stem 
from a combination of inactivity and "excess wealth" 
reads almost as a less-eloquent gloss on Quixote's 
speech.24  Nevertheless, the knight-errant's language 
is notable in its dearth of the ingredients associated 
with a species of self-serving status-climbing that (as 
Elliott identi$es) was endemic to the arbitrio genre, 
and a similar principle is in operation regarding 
Quixote's larger case.25  Here and below, a refusal 
to articulate a national 'solution' founded in the 
reinforcement or revitalization of an idealized system 
for political strati$cation marks a break from the 
gubernatorial preoccupation which haunted Spain's 
historical reformers. Quixote's hopes are—like those 
of many arbitristas—oriented toward a romanticized 
past,26  but our protagonist's proposition is soon 
revealed to contain key provisions which are 

23 Ibid., 461, 464-5.
24 Cf. Jon Cowans, Early Modern Spain: A Documentary 
History (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania 
Press, 2003), 134-5: "!e decline in [Spain's] population 
[... has] not arise[n] so much from wars as from the 
shortcomings in all things caused by the laziness of our 
people..."; "!ere is nothing worse than the excessive wealth 
[...] which has done so much to disorient our republic"; 
etc. !e population-oriented prescriptions found within 
this manifesto may appear to coincide with some of the 
counter-historical reforms proposed by Cervantes, but 
Cellorigo's armchair status lends these lines a good deal of 
venom and condescension which is entirely absent from 
the ethics espoused by Quixote (& co). For each set of 
DQ II's characters, any proposed action entails their own 
e!ort. Cellorigo's status-informed perspective was such 
that he could not practice what he preached.
25 Cf. Elliott, "Self-Perception", 243: "!e arbitrista was 
the product of a society which took it for granted that 
the vassal had a duty to advise when he had something to 
communicate of bene$t to king and commonwealth, the 
assumption being that he would also bene$t himself."
26 See also Cervantes, Quixote, pp. 76 and 142. 

progressive in a way that even Elliott's most forward-
looking arbitrios were not.27  !e hidalgo harbors a 
dream which is quite complex, a compound wish 
that functions (however unexpectedly) in a manner 
hostile to the discrete hierarchical categories which 
were embodied and epitomized by an increasingly 
baroque Iberian court.
 It is in a sequel to Quixote's original speech that 
these egalitarian leanings become most apparent. 
Defending his delusions against the protests of a 
niece, the knight-errant posits that 

Not all those called knights are knights through 
and through; some are gold, others alchemical, 
and all appear to be knights, but not all can pass 
a test by touch-stone. !ere are baseborn men 
desperate to seem knights, and highborn knights 
who appear ready to die in order to seem base; 
the former rise up through ambition or virtue, 
the latter descend through idleness and vice, 
and it is necessary for us to use our knowledge 
and discernment to distinguish between these 
two kinds of knights, so similar in names, so 
dissimilar in actions.28 

!e action-oriented ethics of Cervantes' dedication 
resound throughout this passage, adding an 
important point of intra-textual substantiation to 
bolster Quixote's sentiment. Within our protagonist's 
Weltanschauung, it is not birth but conduct that 
determines an individual's merit. By emphasizing a 
process of ethical di"erentiation centered on behavior 
and agency, the hidalgo constructs a framework for 
honor which eschews titles and demands e!ort. As 
Quixote argues, "the path of virtue is very narrow, 
and the road of wickedness is broad and spacious; 
[...] the expansive, spacious road of wickedness 
ends in death, and the road of virtue, so narrow and 
di&cult, ends in life."29 

27 Cf. Elliott, "Self-Perception", 258 and 261: even 
"proponents of innovating economic remedies [...] tended 
to think in terms of collective guilt [...]. Jeronimo de 
Ceballos, who proposed the introduction of a national 
banking system, also wished Castile to devote its energies 
to the reconquest of Jerusalem...." 
28 Cervantes, Quixote, 495. Emphasis mine.
29 Ibid., 495. 



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Aisthesis      Volume 14,  202372

 But this is no mere—or mediocre—meritocracy. 
Quixote's re-articulation of virtue and status is 
indeed substantial and is also accompanied by a 
particular view of justice. Individual accomplishment 
cannot be constructed in a void, and benevolent 
behavior (or 'right action') wears a very speci$c face. 
!e code of chivalry is opened for anyone to follow, 
but only the most magnanimous conduct can turn 
a given adherent into the 'kind of knight' which can 
be considered gold. !at this system a"ords speci$c 
praise for those who "rise up through [...] virtue" is 
not irrelevant.30  And likewise for the potential to 
fall.
 Quixote's strategic divorce between titles and 
virtues is also made evident within a lecture on 
lineage which almost immediately abuts this original 
argument. In a continued attempt to assuage his 
niece's assorted concerns, the ersatz knight veers o" 
into an extended discourse with descent as its initial 
focus. "Look, my friends," his defense begins: "the 
confusion surrounding lineages is great" indeed, 
but only bloodlines that are truly "distinguished 
and illustrious" act in accordance with their 
aspirations, "display those qualities in their virtue, 
and [demonstrate magnanimity] in the wealth and 
generosity of their nobles."31  Quixote continues, 
echoing his earlier case:

[T]he great man who is vicious will be extremely 
vicious, and the close$sted rich man will be a 
miserly beggar, for the person who possesses 
wealth is not made happy by having it but by 
spending it, and not spending it haphazardly but 
in knowing how to spend it well.32  

!e proper choice among these collected options 
is nonnegotiable within our protagonist's preferred 
practice, all-but-imperative as per the code and 
conduct of noble pursuits.33  As the hidalgo argues, 
an "impoverished knight

has no way to show that he is a knight except 
through his virtue, by being a"able, well-
mannered, courteous, civil, and diligent, not 

30 Ibid., 495. 
31 Ibid., 493-4.
32 Ibid.
33 'Noble', of course, in the abstract sense. 

proud, arrogant, or prone to gossip, and above 
all, by being charitable, for with two maravedís 
given joyfully to a poor man, he will show that he 
is as generous as the man who gives alms to the 
loud ringing of bells...34 

Once again, an emphasis on right action is paired 
with an understanding of its inverse—as well as an 
acknowledgment of the circumstantial darkness or 
contextual injustice which drives Quixote's chivalric 
convictions. A#er all, it is a world in which "sloth 
triumphs over diligence, idleness over work, vice 
over virtue, [and] arrogance over valor" that has 
made such a rigorous ethos so utterly imperative;35  
and it is, too, a speci$c set of material realities which 
necessitate alms-giving from the poor to the poor.36  
As was true of Cervantes' opening dedication, so 
also here. Perceptions and realities of darkness and 
decline act as the catalyst for a reimagined world.

3.
 In spite of its narrative centrality, Quixote's 
provincial status does not prevent his chivalric vision 
from adopting a universalizing lens. !e nature of the 
knight's madness is such that even his most intimate 

34 Ibid.
35 Ibid., 464-5.
36  !e realization that Quixote himself numbers among 
the impoverished petty nobility is also germane. When 
the hidalgo's action-oriented arguments are considered 
alongside his relative destitution (introduced in the 
novel's opening lines and emphasized throughout its 
span), it becomes clear that this unconventional $gure 
both illuminates and embodies the structures he seeks to 
challenge. !e o#en threadbare and frequently fanciful 
nature of institutional nobility is epitomized in Quixote's 
undigni$ed material circumstances, and the frivolity of 
performative status becomes more than evident within his 
disordered words. Our madman is a part of the Spanish 
nobility, however nominal; he takes part in the gentry's 
discussions and participates in its arbitrios. Nevertheless, 
his own prescriptions are subversive of its aims, and his 
verbal emphasis on status' illusory nature is borne out by 
the hardship that he himself—as hidalgo—endures. 
 It is in this sense that Don Quixote is a liminal $gure, 
a rebellious member of his rejected reality. Perceived 
conditions of decay and decline are (thus) substantiated 
by both word and deed.



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Aisthesis      Volume 14,  202373

conversations are subject to civilizational interludes, 
interruptions made necessary by the missionary 
(and messianic) character of our protagonist's 
delusion. Cervantes' novel would not function were 
Quixote not $xated on a proselytizing $ction, for it 
is the knight-errant's expansive/expansionist activity 
which drives both plot and psychology. Quixote's 
dreams escape the particularity of his character's 
predicament, cra#ing national parables and inter-
state fantasies out of a hallucination limited to the 
mind of one very singular man.37 
 Similar e"ects can also be attributed to the e"orts 
of less 'imperial' individuals. Don Quixote's foray into 
the world of Elliott's arbitristas is directly connected 
with his ability to loudly espouse an unconventional 
message, but a matching pattern of reorientation and 
re-evaluation is likewise apparent in some of DQ II's 
less public passages. !e $nal episode addressed in 
this brief essay involves (indeed) a very personal 
debate, a familial disagreement which reveals one 
$nal parallel to Cervantes' paradigmatic preface. 
 A dive into the a"airs of Quixote's wayward 
squire provides the best introduction to this 
concluding investigation. !e novel's $#h chapter, 
"[c]oncerning the clever and amusing talk that 
passed between Sancho Panza and his wife, Teresa 
Panza," acts as a window into the experience of 
status as articulated by those who live within its 
lower rungs.38  In this episode, Sancho—who has 
once again been promised an ínsula kingdom by his 
master—takes it upon himself to elevate his daughter 
in a corresponding manner. A#er explaining to his 
wife that he has "decided to serve [his] master [...] 
again" (i.e. to follow Quixote on another adventure), 
the peasant launches into a rhapsodic oration on the 
assorted luxuries that such an opportunity might 
a"ord his family.39  But while Sancho recovers his 
breath for a fresh round of fantasizing, Teresa takes 
the opportunity to emphasize her husband's worldly 
duties, noting that he has managed to survive 

37 For the full geographical scale of Quixote's imagined 
domain, cf. DQ I's Micomicona episode (chapters XXXX-
VI- approx. XLIII). 
38 Ibid., 485.
39 Ibid., 485.

without any ostentatious titles during his $rst forty-
odd years. Sancho's response is predictably oblivious, 
a high-%ying retort which evinces no small measure 
of hubris. "By my faith," the squire says, "if God lets 
me have any kind of governorship, I'll marry Mari 
Sancha so high up that nobody will be able to reach 
her."40 
 !e argument which ensues acts as a second 
echo or recapitulation of Cervantes' introductory 
reorientation. In a manner which also mirrors 
Quixote's soliloquy, this fresh view of familiar 
considerations is introduced via an engagement 
with grubby realities, a tally of the stakes which 
attend Sancho's hypothetical windfall. !e Panzas 
do not live in squalor; of that Teresa is sure.41  But 
the potential security that could be a"orded by such 
an unusual opportunity is not to be overlooked. 
As is true of Quixote's speech, the awareness of an 
unhappy material reality presages this discourse; as 
is true of Cervantes preface, the following points are 
presented—at least at $rst—in what can appear to be 
quite conventional terms.
 A#er her husband suggests his starry-eyed 
marriage scheme, Teresa responds by positing that 
their daughter

should marry an equal, that's the best thing; if 
you raise her from wooden clogs to cork-soled 
mules, from homespun petticoats to silken 
hoopskirts and dressing gowns, [...], the girl 
won't know who she is, and wherever she turns 
she'll make a thousand mistakes.42 

Sancho retorts that María simply "needs to practice 
for two or three years," but Teresa does not take 
the bait. "Be content with your station," she replies, 
"and don't try to go to a higher one; remember the 
proverb that says: 'Take your neighbor's son, wipe his 
nose, and bring him intro your house.'"43  "Sure," she 
continues,

40 Ibid., 487. 
41 See below. 
42 Ibid., 487. 
43 Ibid. Emphasis mine. 



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it would be very nice to marry our María to 
some wretch of a count or gentleman who might 
take a notion to insult her and call her lowborn, 
the daughter of peasants and spinners! Not in 
my lifetime, my husband!44  I didn't bring up my 
daughter for that! You bring the money, Sancho, 
and leave her marrying to me; there's Lope 
Tocho, [...] a sturdy, healthy boy, and we know 
him, and I know for a fact that he doesn't dislike 
the girl; he's our equal, and she would make a 
good marriage with him, and we'd always see her, 
and we'd all be together, parents and children, 
grandchildren and in-laws, and the peace and 
blessing of God would be with us; so don't go 
marrying her in these courts and great palaces 
were they don't understand her and she won't 
understand herself.45 

Once again, a progression from economic 
acknowledgments to an emphasis on well-being or 
prudent action is met with a rejection of expected 
aspirations. While it is indeed possible to read this 
passage as a reinforcement of hierarchical mores, 
Teresa's repeated emphasis on María's welfare—
coupled with a healthy dose of skepticism about 
the manners and scruples of high-status suitors—
indicates the coexistence of another eventuality. 
For the Panzas, as for Quixote, social climbing 
can appear as a means of escape, a route by which 
poverty might be overcome. But for the Panzas, as 
for Quixote, this understanding is not the end of the 
line. !e mismatch between Sancho's materialism 
and Teresa's familial focus is signi$cant indeed; as the 
mother argues, there is both an unbecoming frivolity 
and a legitimate risk to the uncritical acceptance of 
unalloyed wealth. Faced with Sancho's continuing 
obstinance, Teresa argues that "if [her] daughter 
becomes a countess it will be to her ruin. 

44 !is sentiment contrasts quite nicely with the injunction 
of silence contained within Luis de León's 1583 discourse 
on "!e Perfect Wife" (Cowans, Early Modern Spain, 117-
125). 
45 Cervantes, Quixote, 487. Emphasis mine. 

You'll do whatever you want, whether you 
make her a duchess or a princess, but I can tell 
you it won't be with my agreement or consent. 
Sancho, I've always been in favor of equality, 
and I can't stand to see someone putting on 
airs for no reason. !ey baptized me Teresa, a 
plain and simple name without any additions or 
decorations or trimmings of Dons or Doñas, [...] 
and I'm satis$ed with this name without anybody 
adding on a Doña that weighs so much I can't 
carry it,46  and I don't want to give people who 
see me walking around dressed in a countish or 
governorish way a chance to say: 'Look at the airs 
that sow is putting on!' [...] You, my husband, go 
and be a governor or an insular [sic] and put on 
all the airs you like; I swear on my mother's life 
that my daughter and I won't set foot out of our 
village."47 

Like Quixote's commentary on his imagined 
chivalric ideal, this expression can at $rst glance 
appear to reinforce customary conceptions of status 
and strati$cation. (Teresa's repeated invocation of a 
“right” place for impoverished peasants certainly jives 
with the strict hierarchical separation espoused by 
Elliott's assorted arbitristas.48) But there is something 
more to this case, and the bulk of the mother's 
argument appears to operate upon quite di"erent 
lines. Here, status qua status is seen as something 
almost silly; as is apparent in Quixote's tale, nobility 
itself is not without its own more risible aspects.49  For 
Teresa, too, there is something insidious about these 

46  It is Elliott's argument that such was the fate of Spain. 
Cf. Elliott, 'Self-Perception", 261.
47 Cervantes, Quixote, 488. Emphasis mine. 
48 Cf. Elliott, "Self-Perception", 255 for the anxiety which 
attended increases in social mobility. Cellorigo's tract also 
contains a similar concern. Cf. Cowans, Early Modern 
Spain, 140: "In former days, [the high nobles], together 
with the rich and noble hidalgos [...] were in proper 
balance with the number of the others, the poor and those 
in the middle... Since then, [those in the middle] have 
been moving to either to the side of the rich or to the side 
of the poor..." 
49 And is (indeed) o#en of a hollow, performative sort. See 
note 50 below. 

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image-oriented practices, an unnatural a"ectation 
which acts to undermine hard-earned happiness.50  
!at the Panzas' status-quo existence is presented 
in such a positive light is likewise relevant, and the 
mother's insistence upon her preexisting dignity 
appears itself to be a radical act.51  
 It is easy enough to identify a Quixotic or 
Cervantine trajectory from darkness to status to 
re-evaluation in this rich exchange, but where 
in the mix might we locate virtue? Teresa Panza 
certainly provides a compelling case for the rejection 
of contemporaneous ambitions, but what—if 
anything—is o"ered up to replace these goals?
 Like Don Quixote's chivalry-speech, the peasant's 
thesis contains both a unique formulation of right 
action as well as a call for its proper application. Like 
Cervantes' preface, this conversation includes an 
emphasis on character as it con%icts with titles and 
estates. Unlike these two e"orts, however, Teresa's 
argument outlines a vision of virtue which consists of 
being. !ere is no positive or prescriptive code to be 
found within this particular passage; instead, agency 
involves a repudiation of vice and a corresponding 
acceptance of one's own inalienable adequacy. Here, 
“right action” is equated with well-placed priorities 
and an emphasis on existence.

50 Teresa's decision to couch her description of local 
nobles in highly aesthetic terms is rendered even 
more reasonable when considered alongside Elliott's 
emphasis on the ine"ectual, self-interested, and 
outlandish schemes of Spain's historical arbitristas. !is 
preoccupation with appearances also applies in matters 
of inter-state interaction; cf. Elliott, "Self-Perception", 
260: "!e overwhelming concern with 'reputation' in the 
conduct of Spanish foreign policy was at least in part the 
compensating response of ministers uneasily conscious 
of their country's declinación. Ironically it was Olivares' 
son-in-law, the statesman of a new generation, who 
despairingly observed a#er $#y years of obstinate e"ort 
culminating in the great disasters of the middle years of 
the century that 'the true reputation of states does not 
consist of mere appearances'...."
51 Cf. "!ey baptized me Teresa," etc. !e plain but 
compelling logical force (as well as the rhetorical skill) 
hidden within Teresa's harangue is one other aspect which 
begs to be addressed. 

 Cervantes' inaugural insistence on the dignity 
of virtue exercised sans status and without wealth is 
yet again germane. But the humble nature of Teresa's 
challenge is not merely relevant, and indeed indicates 
something of critical importance about each of this 
study's interconnected investigations. In all of these 
arenas, there is no blatant, unambiguous, or outright 
'activism'; the brilliance of each actor's intervention 
involves its proximity to (or place within) the systems 
it serves to subvert. We can now argue that there 
are “critical” commentaries present on the parts of 
Cervantes, Quixote, and Teresa Panza, alternate 
arbitrios that place a refreshing emphasis on the 
sorts of individual agency that Elliott's actors were 
unwilling to admit. But none of these cases exist 
outside of their larger cultural context, and every act 
is dependent upon its own circumstantial impetus.
 Quixote's speeches and Cervantes' writings, then, 
can be said to act both in tandem—as a result of—
and in combat with an increasingly unhappy image 
of their constituent characters' contemporaneous 
context. It is no coincidence that each passage's 
intervention appears or is augmented right alongside 
the novel's descriptions of decay and decline. In every 
iteration or adventure or episode, these attempted 
reforms are framed within an acknowledgment that 
something about Spain's upper echelons has gone 
seriously awry. Don Quixote does not desire to be a 
man of high status (or high status alone) but rather 
a virtuous knight-errant; Teresa Panza refuses—as 
Elliott implies most did not—to climb the social 
ladder in order that she might live among her 
'betters'; and Cervantes himself constructs an image 
of individual merit that operates outside the con$nes 
of hierarchical orthodoxy.52 
 Nevertheless, the question can be asked: why is 
all of this so this salient? Why does each character's 
reformulation or reorientation $t so well within the 
"darkening vision" of Don Quixote's second half?53 
 !e absurdity of abstract status as it is portrayed 
in the e"orts of Cervantes, Quixote, and Teresa Panza 
contrasts quite clearly against a notable purity of 
ethical vision apparent in each character's credo, but 
the systems and structures which act as these agents' 

52 See Elliott, "Self-Perception", 243-4. 
53 !is felicitous phrase is borrowed from a Harold Bloom 
essay excerpted in the frontmatter of Edith Grossman's 
2003 translation. 

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opponent were not the object of a unidimensional 
or universal dislike. While emphasizing a di!erent 
vision on a societal scale, Teresa endows one aspect 
of her current context with the dignity that it in truth 
deserves; in his paean to a forgotten 'era',54  Quixote 
attacks the present by ennobling a still-related 
Spanish past; and Cervantes' introduction frames a 
cultural failure within an ode to his own (Lemos-
bestowed) economic success. Every character puts 
forth a new vision of good-faith reform, acting as an 
idealized arbitrista but an arbitrista nonetheless.55  
!at these assorted approaches are tied with a well-
delimited historical moment via the documents of 
Elliott's interest is of no little relevance, and each 
actor's individual convictions shine a rejuvenating 
light upon the political project undertaken by a 
generation of Iberian gentry.56  
 In the end, it is this more benevolent moral 
foundation which allows Don Quixote's 'reform' to 
avoid the cynicism one might otherwise expect. !e 
novel's continued investment in a reimagined topical 
discourse imbues Spain's national occupation with 
a strange sort of counterfactual grace, a legitimate 
honor however farfetched. Within a world of turmoil 
and uncertainty, Cervantes' characters persist in their 
attempts, placing justi$ed action over and above the 
possibility of pro$t. It is an e"ort both tragic and 
inspired, a doomed image su"used with unexpected 
hope. What can we say to this tale, a#er all? Plus ça 
change?
 

54 An age of dubious historicity, that is. 
55 However incidental such a 'political' e"ect might 
actually be. Not all 'interventions' are created (or 
presented) alike; Don Quixote's speech is the most explicit 
in its public-facing nature, while Cervantes' intervention 
is more muddled. By virtue of its more personal context, 
Teresa's case is quite challenging to connect with explicit 
or intended e"orts at national reform. Nevertheless, this 
very feature—an inward-oriented focus on community 
health—is itself sociologically signi$cant. Cervantes' 
audience is called to complete Teresa's implicit work. 
56 See Elliott, "Self-Perception", 243 and Teo$lo F. Ruiz, 
Spanish Society, 1348-1700 (London: Routledge, 2017), 
288 for the prevalence of these pursuits... and for a survey 
of their products' use in constructing cultural-historical 
analyses. 

References
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. Don Quixote. 

Translated by Edith Grossman. New York, NY: 
Ecco, 2003.

Cowans, Jon. Early Modern Spain: A Documentary 
History. Philadelphia, PA: University of 
Pennsylvania Press, 2003.

Elliott, J. H. “Self-Perception and Decline in Early 
Seventeenth-Century Spain.” Past and Present 
74, no. 1 (1977): 41–61. https://doi.org/10.1093/
past/74.1.41.

Levy, Evonne Anita, and Kenneth Mills. Lexikon of 
the Hispanic Baroque: Transatlantic Exchange 
and Transformation. Austin, TX: University of 
Texas Press, 2014.

Ruiz, Teo$lo F. Spanish Society, 1348-1700. London: 
Routledge, 2017.

Rummel, Erika, and Erasmus. “Julius Excluded from 
Heaven.” Essay. In "e Erasmus Reader, 216–38. 
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.

         

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