Abstract: "Holy Moley: Don Quijote's Significant Señal"

Miguel de Cervantes

(1547-1616)

(Image from Wikipedia)

In speaking of Holbrook Jackson yesterday, I mentioned my upcoming article for publication in Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America, "Holy Moley: Don Quijote's Significant Señal," to appear this autumn. For those with interest, here's the abstract:

Cervantes is known for using strong irony in his novel Don Quijote to satirize and ridicule various figures. In a famous scene in which a lady in distress named Dorothea describes a certain mole to be found as the identifying mark on the back of the hero who will free her father's kingdom from a fierce giant, Don Quijote is revealed to have precisely that sort of mole . . . more or less. As early as 1777, John Bowle noted the parallel to the story of the Muslim conqueror Tarif, who was identified by the presence of a mole on his right shoulder as the man who would conquer Spain. This tale of Tarif had been related in Miguel de Luna's True History of Don Rodrigo (Historia verdadera del Rey Don Rodrigo), published shortly before the publication of Don Quijote, and was surely known by Cervantes. Separately, Mercedes García-Arenal has recently noted the parallel between the Tarif story in Luna's True History and the qisas al-anbiya', i.e., "Stories of the Prophets," adapted from the Qur'an. The specific connection lies in the special mark of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, a 'mole' on his back, which identified him as the "seal of the prophets." Interestingly, Cervantes seems to adapt his passage concerning the revelation of Quijote's mole more closely to the 'mole' of Muhammad, thereby raising the question as to whether or not Cervantes intended to implicitly ridicule Muhammad. The article broaches the answer to this question.

I suppose that by virtue of my penultimate statement, this is not an especially politically correct article, but I try to be honest, which makes political correctness difficult to maintain . . . though I do try valiantly to maintain it.

"Holy Moley: Don Quixote’s Significant Señal"

Official Emblem

Cervantes Society of America

(Image from CSA Website)

Readers -- some readers, anyway -- will be pleased to hear that my article on Don Quixote's "mole" has been accepted for publication by the Cervantes Society of America. I received the following note from Professor Thomas Lathrop a couple of days ago:

I am pleased to say that your article "Holy Moley" has been accepted for as early as the Fall number. The [reviewer] . . . has some suggestions, easy fixes.

I won't bore anyone with those details of my little failings. Rather, I'll just post the complimentary comments by the the reviewer:

I do indeed like the article . . . . I think it's a great short article; and nothing wrong with short articles if they're good. Lo bueno, si breve, dos veces bueno, right?

The Spanish expression comes from the 17th-century Jesuit and writer Baltasar Gracián and means something like "The good, if brief, is twice as good." For anyone who needs a reminder, here's an abstract of my article:

Cervantes is known for using strong irony in his novel Don Quixote to satirize and ridicule various figures. In a famous scene in which a lady in distress named Dorothea describes a certain mole to be found as the identifying mark on the back of the hero who will free her father's kingdom from a fierce giant, Don Quixote is revealed to have precisely that sort of mole . . . more or less. As early as 1777, John Bowle noted the parallel to the story of the Muslim conqueror Tarif, who was identified by the presence of a mole on his right shoulder as the man who would conquer Spain. This tale of Tarif had been related in Miguel de Luna's True History of Don Rodrigo (Historia verdadera del Rey Don Rodrigo), published shortly before the publication of Don Quixote and was surely known by Cervantes. Separately, Mercedes García-Arenal has recently noted the parallel between the Tarif story in Luna's True History and the qisas al-anbiya', i.e., "Stories of the Prophets," adapted from the Qur'an. The specific connection lies in the special mark of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, a 'mole' on his back, which identified him as the "seal of the prophets." Interestingly, Cervantes seems to adapt his passage concerning the revelation of Quixote's mole more closely to the 'mole' of Muhammad, thereby raising the question as to whether or not Cervantes intended to implicitly ridicule Muhammad. The article broaches the answer to this question.

As I hinted in my opening remark, some readers might be less than pleased to read this entry (for reasons that are "too much with us . . . late and soon"), but I'm merely a messenger here on what Cervantes might have been trying to say.

Professor Lathrop, who sent me the good news, not only edits the CSA's journal, he has what he refers to as his "Swashbuckling Webpage." Among his honors are his having been "Invested as an Officer in the Order of Isabel la Catolica, by the King of Spain," and his having been "Awarded the Order of Don Quijote by Sigma Delta Pi, the National Spanish Honorary Society."

Those two do sound rather swashbuckling.

Holy Moley: Don Quixote’s Significant Mole?

Honoré Daumier: Don Quixote leading Sancho Panza

On a mole-inspired quest . . .

(Image from Wikipedia)

I'm still working on that mole discovered on Don Quixote's back, which I linked to Muhammad's 'mole', known to Muslims as a seal of their "Prophet." Readers of Gypsy Scholar or of the more obscure Cervantes will recall the incident. A lovely lady in distress, Dorotea, is looking for a man to free her father's kingdom from a fierce giant, and the sign of that auspicious man would be a mole on his back:

-Don Quijote diría, señora -dijo a esta sazón Sancho Panza-, o, por otro nombre, el Caballero de la Triste Figura.
-Así es la verdad -dijo Dorotea-. «Dijo más: que había de ser alto de cuerpo, seco de rostro, y que en el lado derecho, debajo del hombro izquierdo, o por allí junto, había de tener un lunar pardo con ciertos cabellos a manera de cerdas.»
En oyendo esto don Quijote, dijo a su escudero:
-Ten aquí, Sancho, hijo, ayúdame a desnudar, que quiero ver si soy el caballero que aquel sabio rey dejó profetizado.
-Pues, ¿para qué quiere vuestra merced desnudarse? -dijo Dorotea.
-Para ver si tengo ese lunar que vuestro padre dijo -respondió don Quijote.
-No hay para qué desnudarse -dijo Sancho-, que yo sé que tiene vuestra merced un lunar desas señas en la mitad del espinazo, que es señal de ser hombre fuerte.
-Eso basta -dijo Dorotea-, porque con los amigos no se ha de mirar en pocas cosas, y que esté en el hombro o que esté en el espinazo, importa poco; basta que haya lunar, y esté donde estuviere, pues todo es una mesma carne (Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part 1, Chapter 30)

"'Don Quixote,' he must have said, senora," observed Sancho at this, "otherwise called the Knight of the Rueful Countenance."
"That is it," said Dorothea; "he said, moreover, that he would be tall of stature and lank featured; and that on his right side under the left shoulder, or thereabouts, he would have a grey [sic., brown (pardo)] mole with hairs like bristles."
On hearing this, Don Quixote said to his squire, "Here, Sancho my son, bear a hand and help me to strip, for I want to see if I am the knight that sage king foretold."
"What does your worship want to strip for?" said Dorothea.
"To see if I have that mole your father spoke of," answered Don Quixote.
"There is no occasion to strip," said Sancho; "for I know your worship has just such a mole on the middle of your backbone, which is the mark of a strong man."
"That is enough," said Dorothea, "for with friends we must not look too closely into trifles; and whether it be on the shoulder or on the backbone matters little; it is enough if there is a mole, be it where it may, for it is all the same flesh." (Cervantes, Part 1, Chapter 30 (Ormsby translation))

In A Letter to the Reverend Dr. Percy, Concerning a New and Classical Edition of Historia Del Valeroso Cavallero Don Quixote de la Mancha, John Bowle calls our attention to the specific point of contact between Don Quixote (1605 and 1615) and Miguel de Luna's True History of King Rodrigo (Historia verdadera del Rey Don Rodrigo)(1592 and 1600). The two, notes Bowle, abound with the same phrases and diction, and Cervantes "has with great humour ridiculed a circumstance gravely related . . . of a Christian woman taken by sentinels of the [Muslim] captain Tarif Abenziet [and] brought into his presence, [whereupon she] informed him that she had heard her father read" a 'prognosis' (10-11):

«un pronóstico, el cual decía que esta tierra la habían de perder los cristianos, y que había de ser conquistada de los moros. Y decía más que el capitán que la había de ganar, había de ser valeroso y fuerte, y para señal de su conocimiento había de tener un lunar peloso tan grande como un garbanzo sobre el hombro de la mano derecha. Acabadas de decir estas razones por aquella mujer, Tarif se holgó mucho, y en presencia de todos los suyos se desnudó; y habiendo mirado con cuidado hallaron el lunar que la mujer había dicho». (Bowle, 10-11)

A Prognostick which said, that the Christians were to lose that land, and that it was to be conquered by the Moors: it said farther, that the Captain that was to gain it, was to be valorous and strong; and for a proof of the knowledge of him, he was to have a hairy mole as large as a garvanzo, or vetch, over the shoulder of his right hand. On conclusion of these words by that woman, the Tariff was much pleased, and before all his retinue stripped himself, and having carefully looked, they found the mole as the woman had said. (Bowle, 11, footnote)

Note that Cervantes draws upon this source by the Morisco Miguel de Luna but uses it to implicitly ridicule the story of the Muslim captain Tarif who was to conquer under the sign of a mole. In the article "De la autoría morisca a la antigüedad sagrada de Granada, rescatada al Islam," Mercedes García-Arenal has noted the connection between the mole on Tarif's back and the 'mole' on Muhammad's back (but does not note a link to Don Quixote):

Luna introduce en su libro, . . . otro pronóstico claramente emparentado con las qisas al-anbiya’: una mujer se acerca al conquistador árabe, el capitán Tarif, recién desembarcado en la península y le reconoce como aquél del que habla un pronóstico que le había transmitido su padre, según el cual un hombre milagroso había de ganar la península y su seña había de ser «un lunar peloso, tan grande como un garvanco, . . . situado sobre el hombro de la mano derecha».:" Esta historia está claramente inspirada en la del monje Bahira, que aparece en todos los compendios de «historias de los profetas», un monje cristiano que fue el primero en reconocer la calidad profética de Mahoma al ver que tenía sobre el hombro derecho un lunar, la marca de la profecía. (García-Arenal, 564)

In his book, Luna introduces . . . an omen clearly related to the al-qisas anbiya' [sic. qisas al-anbiya', i.e., "Stories of the Prophets," adapted from the Qur'an]: a woman approaches the Arab conquistador, the captain Tarif, who has recently landed on the peninsula, and she recognizes him as the one spoken of in an omen handed down by her father, according to which a miraculous man would gain the peninsula, the sign being "a hairy mole, as big as a garbanzo . . . located on the shoulder of the right hand." This story is clearly inspired by that of the monk Bahira, which appears in all compendiums of "Stories of the Prophets," the tale of a Christian monk who was the first to recognize the prophetic qualities of the Prophet Muhammad, for this monk was to discover a mole on his right shoulder, the mark of prophecy. (my translation of García-Arenal, 564; corrections would be appreciated)

García-Arenal notes the allusion in Luna's passage concerning the mole on Tarif’s back to the Bahira story of the 'mole' on Muhammad's back. Muslim sources, however, generally locate the mark not on Muhammad's right shoulder but on his left shoulder or between his shoulder blades. If any Muslim sources speak of the mole being on Muhammad's right shoulder, then I would appreciate knowing the sources.

I have found a reference to Hakim al-Nishaburi's Al-Mustadrak alaa al-Sahihain (aka Mustadrak al-Hakim), which apparently reports "from Wahb bin Munabbih that Allah (the most High) did not send a Prophet except that upon him was the sign (shamah) of Prophethood on his right hand, except for our Prophet for his sign (shamah) of Prophethood is between his shoulders [al-Hakim 2/577]" (al-Nishaburi).

I found this reference on the blog Dar al-Hadith, but if anybody knows an official English translation of Hakim al-Nishaburi's Al-Mustadrak alaa al-Sahihain, I'd appreciate the bibliographical information. The bibliographical details to the specific hadith in the original Arabic would also be useful.

Also, in a comment to an earlier post on Gypsy Scholar, Aladdin explained that "Naged . . . is an archaic Arabic world that means, simply, shoulder blade." A bibliographical source for that information would be useful . . . if anyone has it.

Lady Bertilak's Gift to Gawain: luf-lace and drurye

Lady Bertilak?

Not that sort of 'girdle'...

(Image from Wikipedia)

I'm still working on my paper for the upcoming ICKS conference on "Celibacy and Enlightenment/Salvation" (August 2-3) and will likely continue right up to the deadline this coming Friday (July 6).

Thus, I'm churning out stuff like the short piece below, in which I investigate the Middle English terms drurye and luf-lace (referring to the girdel, i.e., "belt" (cf. line 1829) given him by Lady Bertilak) as part of my argument that Gawain commits adultery of the heart. The piece is still a rough draft, and I have yet a lot of reworking to do before the conference (not to mention a lot more research), but I'm posting it here in case any Medievalists should find it mildly interesting. Said Medievalists should feel free to provide advice.

The piece below follows the excursus through Part 1, Chapter 13 of Don Quixote, where Cervantes has the Don and a traveller discuss the 'pagan' practice of the knight errant as courtly lover offering an almost religious devotion to his lady:

By means of this excursus through Cervantes, we can now draw together two things happening through Gawain's acceptance of Lady Bertilak's gift. First, as just demonstrated, by accepting the 'magical' belt, Gawain objectively accepts Lady Bertilak as the object of his devotion, thereby displacing his devotion to the Virgin Mary and no longer relying upon the Virgin as his protectress. Second, by accepting Lady Bertilak's gift, Gawain makes himself her knight rather than Mary's knight and thus places himself in a relation of courtly lover to Lady Bertilak, a problematic connection since this sort of love can scarcely be distinguished from an adultery of the heart. The narrator emphasizes this latter point by two terms used in referring to this gift. After Lady Bertilak has given her 'magical' belt as a gift and left the bedroom, Gawain:

Tucked away the token the temptress had left,
Laid it reliably where he looked for it after.
(ll 1874-1875)

The Middle English word translated as "token" is actually luf-lace, literally, "love-belt." The belt is thus a love-token, a sign of Gawain's 'love' for the lady. The other term referring to Lady Bertilak's gift occurs in the passage in which Gawain puts the belt on just prior to leaving for his encounter with the Green Knight:

Yet he left not his love-gift, the lady's girdle;
Gawain, for his own good, forgot not that:
When the bright sword was belted and bound on his haunches,
Then twice with that token he twined him about.
(ll 2030-2033)

The Middle English word translated as "token" is actually drurye, which means "love-token" (or even "love-making"!). If we recall now that Gawain had also responded to Lady Bertilak's amorous glances at him at supper on the second day (cf. ll 1658-1660), then Gawain has likely fallen into an adultery of the heart so common to courtly love.

Next, in my paper at least, I'll have to deal with how Gawain's acceptance of the belt leads him to break faith with Lord Bertilak by failing to keep to their agreement to exchange each day's 'winnings', which I haven't yet mentioned on this blog.

On knights errant and courtly love...

Lady Bertilak at Gawain's Bed

"tempting someone else's fate"

(Image from Wikipedia)

In Part 1, Chapter 13 of Don Quixote, Cervantes has the great Knight of the Woeful Countenance describe to a fellow traveller the ennobling sufferings of a knight errant, comparing them to the rigors of a monk's life and suggesting that it is a divine calling because:

[C]hurchmen in peace and quiet pray to Heaven for the welfare of the world, but we soldiers and knights carry into effect what they pray for, defending it with the might of our arms and the edge of our swords, not under shelter but in the open air, a target for the intolerable rays of the sun in summer and the piercing frosts of winter. Thus are we God's ministers on earth and the arms by which his justice is done therein. (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote, Part 1, Chapter 13 (1605), translated by John Ormsby (London, 1885))

The traveller listens carefully to the great Don's words and courteously agrees, but with a significant caveat:

"That is my own opinion," replied the traveller; "but one thing among many others seems to me very wrong in knights-errant, and that is that when they find themselves about to engage in some mighty and perilous adventure in which there is manifest danger of losing their lives, they never at the moment of engaging in it think of commending themselves to God, as is the duty of every good Christian in like peril; instead of which they commend themselves to their ladies with as much devotion as if these were their gods, a thing which seems to me to savour somewhat of heathenism." (Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part 1, Chapter 13)

In effect, the traveller is politely calling into question the very thing that he had courteously agreed to. Knights errant may believe that they are carrying out God's work in this world, but in fact, they fall into something like the pagan practice of worshipping goddesses.

Don Quixote responds by appeal to the custom among knights errant:

"Sir," answered Don Quixote, "that cannot be on any account omitted, and the knight-errant would be disgraced who acted otherwise: for it is usual and customary in knight-errantry that the knight-errant, who on engaging in any great feat of arms has his lady before him, should turn his eyes towards her softly and lovingly, as though with them entreating her to favour and protect him in the hazardous venture he is about to undertake, and even though no one hear him, he is bound to say certain words between his teeth, commending himself to her with all his heart, and of this we have innumerable instances in the histories. Nor is it to be supposed from this that they are to omit commending themselves to God, for there will be time and opportunity for doing so while they are engaged in their task." (Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part 1, Chapter 13)

The great Don has not, of course, truly responded to the traveller's criticism of the knight errant's heathen devotion to his lady, for by re-emphasizing the knight errant's practice of "entreating her to favour and protect him in the hazardous venture he is about to undertake, and ... commending himself to her with all his heart," Quixote merely restates what the traveller finds troubling.

So, naturally, the traveller politely maintains his difference of opinion:

"For all that," answered the traveller, "I feel some doubt still, because often I have read how words will arise between two knights-errant, and from one thing to another it comes about that their anger kindles and they wheel their horses round and take a good stretch of field, and then without any more ado at the top of their speed they come to the charge, and in mid-career they are wont to commend themselves to their ladies; and what commonly comes of the encounter is that one falls over the haunches of his horse pierced through and through by his antagonist's lance, and as for the other, it is only by holding on to the mane of his horse that he can help falling to the ground; but I know not how the dead man had time to commend himself to God in the course of such rapid work as this; it would have been better if those words which he spent in commending himself to his lady in the midst of his career had been devoted to his duty and obligation as a Christian." (Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part 1, Chapter 13)

Cervantes, perhaps writing these words around 1600, was not the first to note the problem posed to the Christian knight by the practice of courtly love. In the latter 14th century, the Pearl Poet implicitly sets up the problem in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by first presenting Gawain as a good Christian knight:

And all his fealty was fixed upon the five wounds
That Christ got on the cross, as the creed tells;
And wherever this man in melee took part,
His one thought was of this, past all things else,
That all his force was founded on the five joys
That the high Queen of heaven had in her child.
And therefore, as I find, he fittingly had
On the inner part of his shield her image portrayed,
That when his look on it lighted, he never lost heart.
(Pearl Poet, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Marie Borroff (1967), Part 2, in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1, Seventh Edition, page 172, lines 642-650)

Gawain, a good Christian knight, maintains devotion to the Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, which therefore makes him Mary's knight (cf. line 1769) and thus protected against falling into the heathen practice of courtly devotion to a mere woman.

Yet Gawain's courtesy and concern for his own life move him to accept from the beautiful Lady Bertilak the gift of a purportedly magical green belt interlaced with threads of gold that will supposedly protect him from an otherwise certain death:

She released a knot lightly, and loosened a belt
That was caught about her kirtle, the bright cloak beneath,
Of a gay green silk, with gold overwrought,
And the borders all bound with embroidery fine,
And this she presses upon him, and pleads with a smile,
Unworthy though it were, that it would not be scorned.
But the man still maintains that he means to accept
Neither gold nor any gift, till by God's grace
The fate that lay before him was fully achieved.
"And be not offended, fair lady, I beg,
And give over your offer, for ever I must

decline.

I am grateful for favor shown
Past all deserts of mine,
And ever shall be your own
True servant, rain or shine."

"Now does my present displease you," she promptly inquired,
"Because it seems in your sight so simple a thing?
And belike, as it is little, it is less to praise,
But if the virtue that invests it were verily known,
It would be held, I hope, in higher esteem.
For the man that possesses this piece of silk,
If he bore it on his body, belted about,
There is no hand under heaven that could hew him down,
For he could not be killed by any craft on earth."
Then the man began to muse, and mainly he thought
It was a pearl for his plight, the peril to come
When he gains the Green Chapel to get his reward:
Could he escape unscathed, the scheme were noble!
The he bore with her words and withstood them no more.
And she repeated her petition and pleaded anew,
And he granted it, and gladly she gave him the belt,
And besought him for her sake to conceal it well,
Lest the noble lord should know -- and the knight agrees
That not a soul save themselves shall see it thenceforth

with sight.

He thanked her with fervent heart,
As often as ever he might;
Three times, before they part,
She has kissed the stalwart knight.

(Pearl Poet, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Marie Borroff, Part 2, Norton Anthology, Volume 1, page 196, lines 1830-1869)

Up until this moment, Gawain has courteously refused to accept any gift from the lady, for in the act of accepting a parting gift from a lady, a knight setting off on a quest is implictly accepting the lady herself as his lady. By accepting the magical belt, Gawain has exchanged the higher Queen of Heaven for the lower Lady Bertilak and thus relinquished the Virgin's protection from harm in return for Lady Bertilak's protection.

In this manner does Gawain lose his status as Mary's knight and adopt the practice of other knights errant, who "commend themselves to their ladies with as much devotion as if these were their gods, a thing which seems ... to savour somewhat of heathenism," and by accepting Lady Bertilak, he does, as do other knights with their ladies, "turn his eyes towards her softly and lovingly, as though ... entreating her to favour and protect him in the hazardous venture he is about to undertake," as both the traveller and Don Quixote, respectively, have already noted.

In doing so, ironically, Gawain falls into a well-constructed trap and puts his life at risk ... but that is a longer story.