Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
by Wilhelm Marstrand (1847)
One of the greatest literary works that has ever been written and one which most people have never read is Don Quixote de la Mancha, written by Miguel de Cervantes in 1605 and 1612. The original title of Cervantes’s book was The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha.
According to the Wikipedia, the story of Don Quixote “revolves around the adventures of a member of the lowest nobility, an hidalgo from La Mancha named Alonso Quijano, who reads so many chivalric romances that he either loses or pretends to have lost his mind in order to become a knight-errant to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha.”
“He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthy wit in dealing with Don Quixote’s rhetorical monologues on knighthood, already considered old-fashioned at the time, and representing the most droll realism in contrast to his master’s idealism.”
In one of his dialogues with Don Quixote, Sancho Panza tries to dissuade Don Quixote from his dream of becoming a knight. Sancho Panza said to his master if he wanted to read a great book full of adventure, he should read the book of Judges:
Come now, Don Quixote, take pity on yourself,
and restore yourself to the bosom of good sense,
and make use of the generous amount of it
that heaven has been kind to you,
by applying your splendid gifts of mind to different reading matter
that will benefit your conscience and increase your honor!
And if following your natural inclinations,
you still want to read books of adventure and chivalry,
take the Scriptures and read the book of Judges,
and there you will find great truths and deeds as authentic as they are brave.
“With these words Don Quixote’s squire, Sancho Panza, tries to dissuade the misguided knight from illusions of being enchanted. Ancient heroic deeds, both brave and true, are recommended instead to Don Quixote. The recommended readings begin with the Scripture and the book of Judges.”
The quote above was taken from the commentary by Mark S. Smith and Elizabeth M. Bloch-Smith, Judges 1: A Commentary on Judges 1:1 – 10:5. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2021, page xv.
In an upcoming post, I will review this latest entry on the Hermeneia series. This commentary is a thorough exegesis of the book of Judges which studies every verse and almost every word of the first ten chapters of the book of Judges.
Claude Mariottini
Emeritus Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
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Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament 
L.S. 1) “Don Quixote de la Mancha, written by Miguel de Cervantes in 1605 and 1612,” you say.. but it was not written but composed by Miguel de Cervantes: “compuesto por”. That’s different. Cervantes received the translated text by Th. Shelton and handed this to the publisher in Valladolid. He, Cervantes, had sold his name to survive. The two translated books were published in Spain in 1605 and 1615. The two original editions were published in London in 1612 and 1620, so later than the translations.
2) “The original title of Cervantes’s book was The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha,” you say… but the original title of Cervantes’s publication was “el ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha.” The real original title was: “The history of the valorous and wittie Knight-Errant Don-Quixote of the Mancha.”
3) “ an hidalgo from La Mancha,” you quote.. but please, that’s another misunderstanding..that region didn’t exist until 80 years later: a) Mancha means dirty-spot b) Manχa was the Arabic word for dry fields of grass, spawning grass. c) la Manche is the channel between France and England. So, Don Quixote was the knight of the sea and of the land.
4) “the book of Judges”.. you say, but do you know that the inventor of the DQ was Francis Bacon, in name an Anglican, but .. that’s why he published the DQ ( the three books) in Spain, a catholic country.
In July 1604, King James decided to have an English translation made of the Bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament. This new Bible is known as the King James Bible (KJB), started in 1604 and ended in 1609. The translators of the Bible were all members of the Church of England. When the version was finished in 1609, the King left the manuscript under the supervision of Francis Bacon for a year. Francis changed it in such a way that it now contains secrets of both Freemasonry and the Rosicrucian, but also that a unity of language and rhythm was achieved.
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Jettie,
Thank you for this information. I am not familiar with the history behind the publication of Don Quixote. Thus, your information stands as presented.
As for Francis Bacon and his relation to the King James Bible, this is not true and has no historical evidence to suppor this claim. You can read about the falsehood of this claim here.
Claude Mariottini
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