Don Quixote Part 1, Book 3 (Chapters 1-13) Summary

Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 1

• Don Quixote and Sancho spend the next two hours in the woods looking for the woman named Marcela. When they can't find her, they emerge back into a pretty meadow. 
• Don Quixote and Sancho decide to sit down and have some lunch. But little do they realize that Don Quixote's horse, Rocinante, has spotted some mares nearby and wants to get a little frisky with them. 
• The mares, though, aren't interested; so they kick Rocinante. Worse yet, the mares' owners start wailing on Rocinante with their sticks. 
• Don Quixote and Sancho run to help Rocinante. Since the men hitting the horse aren't knights themselves, it's against the rules for Don Quixote to fight them. He wants Sancho Panza to do it, instead, but Sancho Panza says no way. 
• With that decided, Don Quixote attacks one of the carriers with his sword and gives him a deep gash in his shoulder. He and Sancho Panza quickly get surrounded and are beaten down by the carriers. The carriers then run away, worried that they might have just committed murder. 
• So now we have Sancho, Don Quixote, and Rocinante all lying injured on the ground. 
• Don Quixote criticizes Sancho for being unwilling to fight, since any true governor of an island must be willing to defend the island against enemies. 
• Eventually, Sancho gets to his feet, loads Don Quixote onto his donkey, and leads him and Rocinante to a nearby inn, which happens to be the same inn Don Quixote visited in Book 1. When they get there, Don Quixote argues that it's a castle, the foolishness of which statement frustrates Sancho deeply.

Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 2

• Seeing Don Quixote slung over the donkey's back, the innkeeper asks what's wrong. Rather than tell the truth, Sancho says that his master had a nasty fall. He and the innkeeper quickly put Don Quixote to bed. 
• In the inn, there is a woman named Maritornes. She rubs down Sancho's back with ointment to help heal him. 
• By the by, we find out that Maritornes has agreed to spend the night in the bed of one of the other men staying at the inn. She's told him that she'll get to him as soon as she's finished with all of her other duties. 
• The thing is that all of the people staying at the inn sleep in the same room, which makes a midnight romantic rendezvous kind of tough. 
• Don Quixote lies in bed, but he's wide awake. He also gets it into his head that the innkeeper's daughter is in love with him and is going to test his loyalty to Dulcinea del Toboso with sexual invitations. 
• While Don Quixote's thinking about these things, Maritornes sneaks into the room to get into bed with the guy she's promised to visit. Don Quixote hears her and assumes it's the beautiful daughter of the castle come to take his chastity from him. While Maritornes is sneaking past his bed, he grabs her by the wrist and makes her sit down on the edge of his bed. She stays quiet out of fear. 
• Don Quixote gives her a highfalutin' speech about how attractive she is; but then he says that he'll never be unfaithful to his true love, Dulcinea. 
• Meanwhile, the dude who's waiting for Maritornes in his bed realizes that she's being held by someone against her will. So he gets out of bed and smashes Don Quixote in the face. Not satisfied, he jumps on top of the knight and starts going to town on him. 
• The innkeeper hears the commotion, lights a candle, and comes into the room to see what's going on. Maritornes runs away and hides under Sancho's covers to avoid being seen. When Sancho wakes up, he doesn't know what's going on and starts throwing his fists at whatever is under his cover. Maritornes fights back, and soon the whole room is in chaos. 
• The carrier, seeing Maritornes getting hit by Sancho, gets off of Don Quixote and starts beating up Sancho. 
• While all this is going on, a member of the Holy Brotherhood (the police of 17th century Spain) jumps out of bed and comes in to tell everyone to pipe down. The first guy he reaches is Don Quixote, who can't even move because he's been so badly beaten. The man thinks that Don Quixote has been murdered, and orders the gates of the inn to be sealed. Everyone gets spooked by this and runs back to their normal places before the cop can find a light.

Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 3

• When everything has calmed down, Don Quixote calls to Sancho for help. Sancho says he can barely help himself with all the beatings he's been taking lately. 
• Don Quixote swears that they're staying in an enchanted castle. Sancho says that he wishes Don Quixote were dead for all the trouble he's caused him. 
• Don Quixote half-brags about how his bed was approached by a beautiful young damsel before he was attacked by a giant. 
• Don Quixote then offers to make his special potion that will heal both of them immediately. 
• At this point, the medieval cop comes in with a candle to see what's going on. Sancho and Don Quixote get into an argument over whether he's a ghost. The cop is astounded to hear them talking so calmly, since when he last left the room, it seemed like someone had just been murdered. 
• Eventually, Sancho goes to the innkeeper to get the ingredients for Don Quixote's potion. Don Quixote mixes the ingredients in a clay jar. Don drinks the first gulp and immediately starts vomiting everywhere. After that, he passes out and wakes up three hours later actually feeling pretty good. 
• Sancho feels encouraged by what the potion has done for his master. Sancho doesn't have as weak a stomach as Don Quixote, though, so he doesn't vomit. But the potion has a brutal effect on his gut, which makes him curse the day his master was ever born. Eventually, Cervantes tell us that the potion makes Sancho start spewing from "both ends" of his body at once. Yeah, it's pretty gross.
• Don Quixote thanks the owner of the "castle" for all of the hospitality and makes to go off. The innkeeper assures him that it's not a castle, but an inn, and that he needs to plunk down some money for his stay and all the damage he's caused. Don Quixote, once again, says he's never heard of this in any books, so he refuses to pay. 
• Don Quixote just takes off on his horse, leaving Sancho with the bill. Sancho also refuses to pay; so the innkeeper gets some buddies, and they toss Sancho up in the air over and over in a blanket, constantly threatening to let him fall onto the ground and break all his bones. Don Quixote sees this happening over one of the inn's walls but can't climb back in. 
• When the bullies finally let Sancho go, he runs away and feels good about not having to pay for his room at the inn. He doesn't seem to realize, though, that he's left behind his wallet.

Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 4

• Sancho is really shaken up about being tossed in the blanket, and he tells Don Quixote as much. Don Quixote thinks that it was spirits that tossed Sancho, but Sancho swears that it was just a bunch of normal dudes. 
• Sancho says that he wants to go home. The confidence he once had in Don Quixote has been ruined by seeing the guy beaten up so many times. 
• At this moment, Don Quixote looks ahead and sees a cloud of dust farther up the road they're on. Don Quixote imagines that this cloud of dust comes from two giant armies charging at one another. He says that as a knight, it's his duty to fight on the side of the losing party. Sancho can't really see anything through the cloud of dust but follows Don Quixote forward. 
• As they approach, Don Quixote names every single figure he sees participating in the battle. Everyone he names is some famous figure from one of his knight books. Hearing this, Sancho decides to stop at the top of a hill and watch Don Quixote fight from a safe distance. 
• Well, it turns out that those big clouds of dust were being kicked up by a large flock of sheep. But that doesn't stop Don Quixote from thinking that they're fierce warriors. He starts stabbing and slashing the sheep with all his might, killing sheep on every side of him. Meanwhile, some shepherds realize what's happening and throw stones at him. Don Quixote starts to drink from his magic potion to ease the pain, but one of the stones smacks him right in the mouth and knocks out a few of his teeth. He falls off his horse and onto the ground. 
• When the shepherds are gone, Sancho comes to tell Don Quixote what an idiot he is. But Don Quixote insists that the warriors he was fighting have been turned into sheep by some sort of wizard. 
• Don Quixote asks Sancho to check how many of his teeth are missing. When Sancho checks his mouth, Don Quixote vomits onto his face. The grossness of this makes Sancho vomit back onto Don Quixote's face; so the two of them just stand there, covered in each other's vomit. 
• The two of them pause to lick their wounds (metaphorically... we hope) and realize that with Sancho's wallet missing, they'll have to go on without food. They resolve to go look for a new lodging.

Part 1, Book 1, Chapter 5

• Sancho tells Don Quixote that he thinks he has terrible luck because he hasn't defeated another knight in battle yet or found himself a proper helmet.
• Soon, night overtakes them before they're able to find any sort of inn. 
• Suddenly, Don Quixote and Sancho see a bunch of lights in the darkness moving toward them. Sancho gets scared. 
• Pretty soon, Don Quixote and Sancho realize that there are about twenty men travelling on horseback, all of them carrying torches and wearing white. There are also six men following them in black, who look like they're in mourning. They're transporting a coffin somewhere. 
• Don Quixote thinks that they're transporting the body of a great knight, and that he (the Don) needs to get revenge for him. The people in the procession don't want to talk to him and try to move past. 
• Without warning, Don Quixote attacks all of them (including the unarmed mourners) until everyone runs away. Sancho's confidence in the Don grows again, seeing twenty men run away from him.
• Don Quixote interrogates one of the men, who has been left behind with a broken leg. The guy begs for his life and says he's just a clergyman. Don Quixote forgives him (ha), sets him back on his mule, and tells him to be on his way. Sancho adds, "And if anyone asks, tell 'im it was the famous Don Quixote de la Mancha!" He's really making an effort to spread the word, it seems.
• Sancho has also taken to calling Don Quixote that "Knight of the Woeful Figure." (This can also be translated as "Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance," "Knight of the Woeful Countenance," and so on.) Sancho calls him this because he thinks Don Quixote's face is mangled from being so badly beaten up. 
• Don Quixote wants to inspect the coffin, but Sancho is worried that the twenty guys will come back to kill them. He recommends that they skedaddle.
• Don Quixote and Sancho move off to a valley and eat a bunch of nice cold meats that they stole from the funeral people's horses. The salty meats make them thirsty, and they realize they have no wine to wash down their meals.

Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 6

• Looking around, Sancho realizes that the grass around is so fresh that there must be some sort of river nearby. By this point, he and Don Quixote are brutally thirsty.
• As they search, though, they suddenly hear a terrible noise, which sounds like a great blow being struck over and over again. Don Quixote can't even imagine what kinds of terrors surround them, since it's the middle of the night. But Sancho just wants to feel safe.
• To pass the night, Sancho tells a story about a guy who wanted to get a bunch of goats across the river, although he could only carry one goat on his boat at a time. Sancho meticulously talks through every trip the guy makes until Don Quixote gets frustrated and demands to know the end of the story. But when he interrupts Sancho, Sancho forgets how the rest goes and thinks it's a shame. Don Quixote is flabbergasted.
• To keep Don Quixote from trying to move toward the horrible sounds in the night, Sancho has tied Rocinante's hind legs to the legs of his own mule, named Dapple. This way, whenever Don Quixote tries to ride forward, his horse won't budge. 
• While all of this is going on, Sancho feels the brutal need to take a poop. (Sorry, folks; we're just the messengers.) Sancho doesn't want to wander off into the dark to do it, so he drops his pants and tries to let 'er rip as quietly as possible. At one point, though, a farting sound leaks out and rouses Don Quixote's attention.
• Now the stink has reached Don Quixote's nose. He suddenly tells Sancho that he must be very afraid, because it smells like he crapped his pants.
• When morning arrives, they decide to move forward to see what's up with the sounds they've been hearing all night. As they approach the noise, they realize that it's just coming from some mills that are being powered by the nearby river. 
• Don Quixote feels ashamed and confused when he realizes that there are no adventures waiting for him nearby. Just some regular old buildings. 
• Sancho can only laugh at Don Quixote for his foolishness. Don Quixote then gets really defensive and orders Sancho not to laugh. 
• The chapter ends with Sancho asking about how knights tend to pay their squires, whether it be by the month or by the week.

Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 7

• As Don Quixote and Sancho continue on their journeys, they see someone approaching them on a donkey with a big shiny metal object on his head. Don Quixote immediately believes that this shiny object is none other than the famous Helmet of Mambrino, a famous knight from one of his books.
• It just so happens that Don Quixote is in the market for a new helmet, so he heads toward the "knight" in order to challenge him to mortal combat.
• Well, as it always turns out, the dude on the horse is just a humble barber travelling from town to town, and the shiny thing on his head is a metal basin (you know, a portable sink) that he's wearing on his head to keep his hat dry.
• Don Quixote challenges the barber to a duel and charges him. The unarmed barber has no interest in fighting, so he just jumps off his horse and runs away, leaving his basin behind. The victorious Don Quixote picks up the basin and sets it on his head, feeling pretty good about himself. Sancho, though, tries to tell him it's not a golden helmet like he thinks it is. 
• Sancho asks why they don't just go find a king or emperor and do something for him so they can get bigger prizes. But the Don insists that they have to make a name for themselves before they graduate to that sort of thing. 
• Don Quixote and Sancho go on fantasizing together and discussing how they would like their lives to play out in the future.

Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 8

• As Don Quixote and Sancho ride on, they come across a group of men who are all chained together and being led by men on horseback. 
• Don Quixote rides up to one of the horsemen and asks what the deal is with the dudes in chains. The person tells him that the people are prisoners being transported to go row in the Spanish galleons (think giant rowboats).
• One by one, the prisoners tell Don Quixote their stories. Some try to sound sympathetic, but their excuses are all pretty lame. They've all done some less-than-good stuff. 
• One of the final people Don talks to is a famous criminal named Ginés de Passamonte. It turns out that this guy has a knack for escaping the authorities. He has written an autobiography and left it with a publisher, and as soon as he's free again, he's going to collect a ton of money for it. 
• Don Quixote feels like it's his job to help the oppressed, so he attacks the caravan and tries to free the prisoners. The guards should be able to fight off Don Quixote; but the prisoners all start fighting them at the same time, and they quickly have to retreat.
• Now that the men are freed, Don Quixote orders all of them to go to Toboso and tell the fair damsel Dulcinea about how bravely he has behaved. Ginés de Passamonte tells him that this is impossible, since all of the prisoners now have to go into hiding. Don Quixote says this isn't good enough, and the prisoners attack him. One of them even starts beating him with his new basin-helmet. Eventually, they rob him, too.
• By the time they leave, Don Quixote thinks that they've been a little ungrateful for being freed (duh, you think so?).

Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 9

• Don Quixote continues to complain about how poorly he's been treated by the people he was trying to help. Sancho can only agree. 
• Don Quixote and Sancho hop back on their animals and wander into a nearby set of desert mountains called the Sierra Morenas. Sancho likes this idea because he wants to avoid getting caught by the cops, who will surely be after them now that they've freed a bunch of convicts. 
• When Don Quixote and Sancho reach the mountains, they fall asleep. And who happens to be lurking nearby but Ginés de Passamonte. He decides to steal Sancho's donkey and rides away with him. 
• When Sancho wakes up, he's devastated to find his donkey gone. Don Quixote can only cheer him up by promising him three new donkeys to make up for his lost one.
• As Don Quixote and Sancho wander on, something really weird happens. We learn that Sancho is back sitting on his donkey. This seems to be some sort of editing mistake in the original version of Don Quixote, but hey, when you write a book this long, it's tough to keep track of everything that's happened.
• As Don Quixote and Sancho travel through the mountains, they come upon an old saddle and a little bag. Looking inside, Sancho sees that it contains some very fine shirts and a bunch of gold. Further inside the bag, he finds a fancy book.
• Don Quixote decides to read what's in the book to find out the identity of the person who left the saddle and the gold.
• What Don Quixote finds is a sonnet about someone who wants to die because he can't have the love of his life. Next, Don reads something written in plain prose, but it doesn't shed any further light on the identity of the person who wrote it, other than the fact that he seems to be suffering for love. 
• As Don Quixote and Sancho sit and ponder, Don Quixote glances up at the mountains and sees some sort of weird mountain man above them. He's not wearing a shirt and has a huge scraggly beard. He's also super good at jumping from rock to rock on the mountain. 
• Don Quixote tries to chase after the guy on his horse, but Rocinante can't handle the rocky mountain. Sancho doesn't want to go after the guy at all, for fear that he might be the rightful owner of the gold, which Sancho wants to keep. 
• After Don Quixote and Sancho give up on trying to find the mountain man, they see a shepherd and ask him if he knows anything about the strange guy. The shepherd fills them in on the mountain man's backstory. It turns out that he came to them a while ago, saying that he wanted to retreat from all human contact because love had betrayed him. He was definitely from an upper-class family and seemed to have lost his mind.
• The problem is that this mountain man has a tendency to start beating people (especially shepherds) without reason and without mercy at random times. Everyone just figures he's totally insane.
• Shortly after this conversation ends, the mountain man shows up again and approaches Don Quixote. It seems like he's willing to talk now.

Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 10

• Now that they have a chance to talk, Don Quixote asks the mountain man if there's anything he can do to help him. 
• After Don Quixote, Sancho, and the shepherd give the guy something to eat, he sits down with them and decides to tell his story. 
• His name is Cardenio, and he is from a good family. The story starts when he is just a little boy and he becomes best friends with a girl from his town named Lucinda. As they grow up, they become closer and closer until one day, Cardenio decides to ask his girlfriend's hand in marriage. 
• Before asking the girl herself, though, Cardenio thinks it best to ask her father. The girl's father then tells him to ask his own father, since he'll probably be the biggest obstacle to the marriage (dude is a little overbearing, it seems).
• Around this time, Cardenio is also invited to the house of a man named Duke Ricardo to be a friend to his eldest son. It's kind of like a 17th-century play date. That kind of puts Cardenio's plans for Lucinda on the backburner. So he asks her and her father to sit tight until he gets back from his time with the duke's son.
• When he gets to the duke's, Cardenio immediately becomes friends with one of the duke's sons, Don Fernando. Right away, Fernando decides to tell Cardenio all his deepest thoughts about his love life. It turns out that Fernando is obsessed with a young beauty from nearby. The problem is that she is much lower in class than him, so it will be a scandal if he marries her, which he says he wants to do.
• Later on, Cardenio learns that Fernando has had sex with this farmer's daughter, under the promise that he will marry her as soon as he figures out how to break the news to his father. The truth is, though, that as soon as Fernando had sex with the girl, he lost interest and reneged on his promise to marry her. 
• Don Fernando decides to get away from it all by taking a trip to Cardenio's home. While they're there, Cardenio sneaks off to go see his beloved Lucinda. 
• Eventually, Don Fernando gets wind of something and realizes that Cardenio has a girl. Cardenio is so effusive in talking about Lucinda's beauty and personality that eventually, Fernando sees her and falls in love with her, too. 
• During this time, Cardenio breaks off to mention that the books of knight-errantry that talk about female loyalty are all stupid. He names a particular example of a famous married woman named Queen Madasima sleeping with another man. Don Quixote takes exception to this and gets into a fight with Cardenio. 
• Cardenio picks up a huge rock and smashes Don Quixote's head with it. Then he takes out Sancho and the shepherd just as quickly. When he's finished with them all, he runs back into the wilderness.
• Sancho eventually dusts himself off and asks why Don Quixote had to interrupt Cardenio. Don says that he'd never let anyone get away with saying something bad about the immortal love found in knight stories. 
• Despite the beating they've all just taken, Don Quixote wants to hear the rest of Cardenio's story, and he pledges to find the young man again.

Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 11

• As they look for Cardenio, Sancho asks Don Quixote why he would go to so much trouble to defend the honor of a fictional person like Queen Madasima. Don Quixote, though, doesn't really distinguish reality from fiction anymore. 
• Don Quixote also gets it into his head that the Sierra Morena mountains are a great place for him to starve and torture himself out of love for his fair Dulcinea del Toboso. 
• Sancho doesn't understand why Don Quixote would do this to himself. As far as he's concerned, the Don has no reason at all to be upset. He just keeps making up reasons for the sake of being like the knights he reads about in books. 
• As Don Quixote and Sancho walk on, they find a place that Don Quixote thinks will be ideal to perform his "penance." At this point, he starts shouting into the mountains about how terrible his life is and how he'll never be able to live without his beloved Dulcinea (whom he's never met). He slaps Rocinante on the bum to make him run away, too, leaving Don Quixote to rant and rave on his own.
• Sancho, meanwhile, just sort of scratches his head and asks if there's anything more he can do.
• Don Quixote tells Sancho that he wants to write a letter to his fair Dulcinea and to have Sancho deliver it to her. Sancho tells him that he'll only do it if he also writes and signs an order for him to receive three of his donkeys. 
• Once they've agreed on all that, Sancho's next question is where he's supposed to find Dulcinea del Toboso. At this point, Don Quixote starts describing her, and eventually Sancho Panza puts two and two together and realizes that the famous Dulcinea is actually Aldonza Lorenzo, a strong and robust yet also attractive enough girl in his mind. 
• Don Quixote tells Sancho to stop talking about his beloved Dulcinea as some sort of farm girl (which she actually is). He also goes on an interesting little speech about how all the great ladies of poetry probably existed more in poets' imaginations than in real life. This is a strange thing for Don Quixote to say here, because it's like he's saying, "Hey, I know this is all going on in my head; but don't burst my bubble."
• Don Quixote then writes out the letter for Sancho to deliver to Dulcinea. But since Sancho can't read, he wants to hear the Don read it aloud to him. The letter turns out to be very beautiful, and Sancho can't help but admire it. Next, the Don writes out the order for the three donkeys to go to Sancho and signs it, making Sancho very happy. 
• Sancho is about to head off when Don Quixote asks him to stay and watch him get totally naked and rave, so that he can tell Dulcinea about how crazy Don Quixote is with passion. Sancho, though, just gives him the old thanks-but-no-thanks and walks away.
• But at the last moment, Sancho remembers his sense of humor and decides to watch Don Quixote act crazy. So Don takes off his pants and underwear and does a somersault, making his junk go flopping all over the place. Sancho shields Rocinante's eyes from the sight, then rides him away to deliver Don Quixote's letter and get his new donkeys.

Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 12

• After Sancho has left, Don Quixote climbs to the top of a rock and starts composing a poem about his fair Dulcinea. The poem is super awkward and poorly written—which, according to the narrator, caused a lot of laughter among people who later found it.
• Meanwhile, Sancho Panza is on his way to deliver Don Quixote's letter. The problem is that it's getting late, and the only place for Sancho to stay and get a decent meal is the same inn where he was tossed in a blanket only a few days earlier. 
• While Sancho's waiting outside, too scared to go in, two men come out of the inn. It turns out that they're the barber, Mr. Nicolás, and the curate from Don Quixote's village. They've been searching all over the place for Don Quixote. They see that Sancho is riding Don Quixote's horse, and tell Sancho that if he doesn't tell them right away where Quixote is, they'll accuse him of murder. 
• Sancho doesn't care one way or the other about these things, so he just tells the two men that he left Don Quixote half-naked in the Sienna Morenas. While he's doing this, he also remembers that he never actually brought the letter he was supposed to take to Dulcinea del Toboso. Worse yet, he didn't bring his order for the three donkeys, meaning his whole day's journey has been a waste.
• The curate and the barber want to hear Don Quixote's letter to Dulcinea, but Sancho can only remember it in little bits and pieces, and even these he gets pretty wrong. 
• Sancho starts worrying that his master Don Quixote might stop wanting to become an emperor and instead become an archbishop or something religious, which would leave Sancho with no island or province to govern.
• The curate suddenly hatches a plan, and says that he's going to dress up as a damsel in distress and ask for Don Quixote's help. The barber will dress up as his squire and they'll find a way to get Don Quixote on an adventure that will lead him back home.

Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 13

• The curate and the barber borrow some women's clothes so they can dress the curate up as a woman. Upon second thought, though, the clergyman decides that it would be better if the barber dressed up like a woman instead. They then plop the dude on a donkey and make their way back to Don Quixote. All this time, Sancho is careful not to mention the sack of gold he found in the Sierra Morenas. 
• On the other hand, Sancho doesn't want these dudes to take Don Quixote home, because he still wants the Don to make good on his promise of an island. 
• First, the curate and the barber send Sancho ahead to meet Don Quixote and tell him that Dulcinea responded to his letter and told him to come back home as soon as possible. This way, there might be no need for the barber and curate to carry out their elaborate scheme. 
• As Sancho, the curate, and the barber are heading back to Don Quixote, though, they hear a beautiful voice singing in the mountains and wonder where it's coming from. 
• Sancho, the curate, and the barber eventually come upon Cardenio, who's singing and squatting. He knows they're there but doesn't take much notice. 
• Cardenio says he knows what'll happen: these men will try to make him rejoin human society. He tells them that once they hear about his misfortunes, though, they will understand why he can't come back. 
• At this point, Cardenio takes up his story again where he last left off: his "buddy" Fernando got wind of how awesome his fiancée Lucinda was and fell in love himself. 
• At this time, Cardenio says, he himself resolved to marry Lucinda. 
• So guess what happens? Don Fernando tells Cardenio that he needs him to rush to his father's house for several days of business while Fernando stays behind. Cardenio doesn't feel right leaving his beloved Lucinda, especially since they're supposed to get married soon. 
• While he's staying with Don Fernando's dad, Cardenio gets an emergency letter from Lucinda saying that Fernando has proposed marriage to her and that her dad is forcing her to go through with it because Fernando is even more of a big shot than Cardenio is. 
• Cardenio rushes home just in time to hide behind a curtain. But the wedding ceremony is already beginning, so he just waits and watches. In hindsight, he wishes he would have just jumped out and stopped the wedding. But instead, he watches and waits as Lucinda says "I do" and officially marries Fernando. 
• Right after she does this, though, she faints and lets a dagger and a letter fall out of her dress. Fernando rushes to read the letter, and after seeing what it says, he tries to attack and murder Lucinda. People at the wedding hold him back, though. Now that the deal is sealed, Cardenio runs away into the wilderness, which is where Don Quixote and Sancho Panza found him living like a wild animal. 
• The curate is about to console Cardenio for his terrible fortune. But before he can speak, the group hears another voice crying out in complaint. And again, we've got ourselves a cliffhanger.