Quote 5
For
me alone Don Quixote was born and I for him. His was the power of
action, mine of writing.
These parting words of Cide Hamete Benengeli,
in Chapter LXXIV of the Second Part, reflect Cervantes’s words at
the novel’s beginning. At the start, Cervantes declares that Don
Quixote is only his stepson—in other words, that he is not fully
responsible for creating the character of Don Quixote. Don Quixote’s
real father, according to Cervantes’s account, is Benengeli, the
Moor from whose manuscript Cervantes claims to translate Don
Quixote. Such remarks give the text a mythical, unreal
tone that leaves us unsure whom to trust or to whom to attribute
the story of Don Quixote. Additionally, the powerful sentiment that
Benengeli expresses here contributes to the novel’s claim that Don
Quixote was a real person. Benengeli de-emphasizes his role in bringing
Don Quixote’s story to light by casting himself as a mere recorder
of a great man’s life and deeds.
