Variation IX
THE CONFLICT WITH THE TWO SORCERERS
Don Quixote meets two wayfarers whom he takes to be the magicians whose sorcery has worked him ill. They are merely a pair of inoffensive monks, but the knight attacks them, with victorious results.
Variation X
THE COMBAT WITH THE KNIGHT OF THE SILVER MOON,
AND THE OVERTHROW OF DON QUIXOTE
The bachelor Samson Carrasco, the "Knight of the Silver Moon," one of Don Quixote's townsmen, does battle with him for the sake of his own good and to cure him of his delusions: "so to have him in his own house, I thought upon this device." The music portrays the contest between them, which is thus described by Cervantes: "They both of them set spurs to their horses, and the Knight of the White Moon's being the swifter, met Don Quixote ere he had run a quarter of his career so forcibly (without touching him with his lance, for it seemed he carried it aloft on purpose) that he tumbled horse and man both to the ground, and Don Quixote had a terrible fall; so he got straight on the top of him; and, clapping his lance's point upon his visor, said, 'You are vanquished, Knight, and a dead man, if you confess not, according to the conditions of our combat.' Don Quixote, all bruised and amazed, without heaving up his visor, as if he had spoken out of a tomb, with a faint and weak voice said, 'Dulcinea del Toboso is the fairest woman in the world, and I the unfortunatest knight on earth; and it is not fit that my weakness defraud this truth; thrust your lance into me, Knight, and kill me, since you have bereaved me of my honor.' 'Not so, truly,' quoth he of the White Moon; 'let the fame of my Lady Dulcinea's beauty live in her entireness; I am only contented that the grand Don Quixote retire home for a year, or till such time as I please, as we agreed before we began the battle.' And Don Quixote answered that, so nothing were required of him in prejudice of his Lady Dulcinea, he would accomplish all the rest, like a true and punctual knight."
Don Quixote, defeated, broken-hearted, his illusions vanishing one by one, rides homeward with his squire in profound dejection; and here the orchestra evolves out of a pathetic variant of his theme an eloquent and vivid commentary.
Finale
THE DEATH OF DON QUIXOTE
The knight, once more a sane and wise man, his brain cleared of its mists, his reason restored, lies dying peacefully in his bed. "They stood all gazing one upon another, wondering at Don Quixote's sound reasons, although they made some doubt to believe them. One of the signs which induced them to conjecture that he was near unto death's door was that with such facility he was from a stark fool become a wise man. For, to the words already alleged, he added many more so significant, so Christian-like, and so well couched, that without doubt they confidently believed that Don Quixote was become a right wise man.... Amidst the wailful plaints and blubbering tears of the bystanders he yielded up the ghost—that is to say, he died."[155] The music which portrays his end is simple and very peaceful. The chords which, at the beginning, indicated his aberration, are now orderly, tranquil, and composed.