Don Quixote

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1605

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Part 2, Chapters 60-69Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2, Chapter 60 Summary

Quixote notes that Panza has failed to whip himself to bring about the end of the enchantment placed on Dulcinea. He decides to whip Panza himself to accelerate the process. A fight breaks out between master and squire; Panza knocks Quixote to the ground and forces him to promise to stop the whipping. A group of bandits appears and steals everything from Quixote and Panza. However, their charismatic leader, Roque Guinart, insists he is an honorable man. He has heard of the famous Quixote, so he makes his men return everything that was stolen from the knight and his squire. After Guinart investigates the tragic story of a woman, Quixote marvels at the bandit leader’s eloquent style. Quixote and Panza witness Guinart being generous to another group of people as well as killing one of his own men for a dissenting remark. By the end of their encounter, Guinart writes a letter to his friend in Barcelona, telling the friend about Quixote’s arrival.

Part 2, Chapter 61 Summary

Guinart escorts Quixote and Panza to Barcelona where they are greeted by Guinart’s friend, Don Antonio Moreno. After Quixote and Panza fall from their horses, the people of Barcelona laugh at them. Moreno welcomes Quixote to the city and invites the knight and the squire to his home.

Part 2, Chapter 62 Summary

Quixote and Panza dine at Moreno’s house, where they are forced to explain that many of the events in the counterfeit second volume of Don Quixote stories are false. Moreno reveals a magical statue in his home. The bronze bust can answer any question whispered in its ear. The next day, Quixote and Panza ride around the city and thousands of people trail after them. Their identities are known because Moreno orders his men to hang a sign on Quixote’s back, revealing his name. That evening, they attend a ball and Quixote dances until he collapses. Panza is embarrassed at his master’s performance. The next day, they test Moreno’s magical statue. The statue is not actually magical; a hidden tube allows a servant in an adjoining room to listen to the question and provide an answer. When Quixote asks the statue whether his experience in Montesinos’s Cave was real, the statue responds that some parts were real, and some parts were false. Quixote is impressed. He asks the statute whether whipping Panza will end the enchantment on Dulcinea. The statue gives a vaguely positive answer. After, Quixote visits a publishing company that is printing copies of the counterfeit book. He discusses literature with the writers and translators.

Part 2, Chapter 63 Summary

Antonio takes Quixote and Panza to the harbor. They view the galleys and take a trip on one of the ships. Panza is amazed by the ship, even when the crew pulls a prank on him. When the captain of the ship spots pirates in the distance, he orders an attack. The sailors fight the pirates, and after the fight, the captain of the Moorish pirates is revealed to be a Christian woman named Anna Felix. She explains that she was sailing to Spain to recover a treasure buried by her exiled Moorish father. Ricote—Panza’s friend who is also at the harbor—recognizes Anna as his daughter. They reunite and work together on a plan to save Don Gregorio, Anna’s lover, who has been captured by Moors.

Part 2, Chapter 64 Summary

While riding through Barcelona one morning, Quixote meets the Knight of the White Moon. The knight challenges Quixote to a duel, insisting he must stay at home for an entire year if he is defeated. Quixote accepts the terms. The men duel and the Knight of the White Moon defeats Quixote, who agrees to return home for a year.

Part 2, Chapter 65 Summary

Moreno and other people speculate about the true identity of the Knight of the White Moon. They follow the knight to an inn, where they eventually reveal he is actually Sanson Carrasco. Moreno criticizes Sanson for tricking Quixote and trying to force him to return home when so many people adore his adventures. Quixote spends six days in bed, nursing his wounds. Nothing Panza says can cheer him. Gregorio is rescued from Algiers and returns to Barcelona to be reunited with Anna Felix.

Part 2, Chapter 66 Summary

After five days on the road, Quixote and Panza arrive at a small village inn. They witness an argument between two men regarding a race. Panza offers to judge the race and impresses the local people with his wise and reasonable views. The next day, Quixote and Panza meet Tosilos. He reveals that the duke whipped him because he disobeyed the direct orders of the duke, and Dona Rodriguez’s daughter was sent to a convent. Quixote suspects Tosilos is still under a magician’s spell.

Part 2, Chapter 67 Summary

Quixote and Panza pass the place where they were trampled by bulls. Once again, Quixote asks Panza to whip himself for the sake of Dulcinea. Panza does not believe that the whipping can end the enchantment. Growing despondent, Quixote wonders whether he and his friends should all become shepherds during his year of exile. Quixote and Panza have a conversation about shepherding that ends with Quixote criticizing Panza’s use of proverbs.

Part 2, Chapter 68 Summary

Quixote cannot sleep. He wakes Panza to criticize the squire for not whipping himself and for forcing Dulcinea to endure the magician’s spell. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of a herd of pigs being taken to the market. The pigs trample over Quixote and Panza. Quixote wonders whether he is being punished for his sinful defeat in the duel. The following day, Quixote and Panza encounter a group of men armed with lances. The men escort Quixote and Panza back to the palace of the duke and the duchess.

Part 2, Chapter 69 Summary

Quixote is dragged into the courtyard where he sees a seemingly dead Altisidora, her body laid out for a funeral. The duke has set up a court outside the castle, and he tells Quixote that Altisidora is near death. The only way to save her is for Panza to receive a beating. For all of Panza’s complaints that he is sick of being abused on behalf of Quixote’s romantic interests, he is beaten anyway. Altisidora seems to miraculously recover. Seeing the spell has worked, Quixote asks Panza to receive the whippings on behalf of Dulcinea. The revived Altisidora insults Quixote and thanks Panza.

Part 2, Chapters 60-69 Analysis

After deciding to travel to Barcelona, Quixote and Panza meet Roque Guinart. The charming leader of the group of bandits initially plans to rob them but then decides they are too interesting to rob. Guinart provides an alternative perspective on the lifestyle of the knights. Throughout the novel, Quixote has attacked people, robbed them, and then attributed all his failures to evil magicians and all his triumphs to the code of chivalry of knights. Roque comments that the lifestyle of the bandits is unlike anything else in the world, but for an audience who has spent dozens of chapters observing Quixote act in a similar fashion, the bandits’ lifestyle is not too unfamiliar. The novel has lauded the chivalric ideals of Quixote by viewing these events from his perspective and couching the suffering of the people he meets in absurdity and humor. The owner of the brass washbasin, for example, was beaten and robbed by Quixote, but their meetings were presented as a joke. Guinart’s comment makes the audience view Quixote’s actions in a new light. For all the talk of valor and honor, Quixote and the bandits are very similar. The meeting with Guinart becomes a satirical critique of the chivalric code itself, showing how it is not inherently moral.

Another way the novel re-examines itself as it draws to a close involves the presentation of the Moors. The term Moor was used at the time to refer to the Muslim population originally from North Africa who controlled Spain for centuries before the Christians regained control of the Iberian Peninsula and exiled the Moorish population, even though they were born and raised in Spain. For most of Don Quixote, the Moors are described as brutal, untrustworthy heathens who function as antagonists for the brave Christian men. The story of Don Gregorio, Anna Felix, and Ricote bring a new human dimension to the Moors. Ricote, for example, must disguise himself as a German pilgrim to sneak into Spain to recover his possessions. Meanwhile, his daughter is treated unfairly by the Spanish authorities and must risk her life and her honor to be happy. While the presentation of these characters still portrays the Moors as others, different from the Christians, it does untangle some of the complicated and discriminatory portrayals of other races that occurs earlier in the novel. Just like the novel critiques its own code of chivalry and the actions of its protagonist, it interrogates its narrator’s portrayal of Moors and non-Spanish, non-white people.

Get access to this full Study Guide and much more!

8,800+ In-Depth Study Guides
4,700+ Quick-Read Plot Summaries
Downloadable PDFs

As Quixote’s powers begin to wane and he loses his duel with Carrasco, Quixote returns to his primary objective. He began the second part of the novel with the aim of saving Dulcinea from a magician’s enchantment. He has been told the only way to reverse this enchantment is for Panza to whip himself. This self-flagellation is as much an invention as the magician’s curse itself, so Panza becomes entangled in an unfortunate web of lies. He must atone for his earlier lie by whipping himself 3,300 times across the backside. The original sin and the punishment are both absurd inventions, but Quixote believes them both. The need for an absurd self-flagellation to atone for earlier sins is a metaphor for the protagonist’s life. Quixote embarks on his adventure to bring meaning to a dull and listless existence. He regrets he has spent so long doing nothing substantial, so he invents an excuse to bring meaning to his life. His narrative is an act of self-flagellation, in which he actively punishes himself with public embarrassment and physical pain to try to bring some kind of resolution to his life. Like Panza’s punishment, the reasoning behind this excuse is faulty. Nevertheless, like Panza’s punishment, Quixote believes in it so sincerely that he turns it into reality.