Tilting at Windmills

Before we begin, let me emphasize that today I'll be talking with a wax figure that never existed– In this case, a figure from literature that was never flesh and bone, but the author of the literary work from which she came created a character that is extremely lifelike, and teaches us a great deal about human nature.

I know that in the early 21st century, a group of 100 prominent writers selected Don QUIOXOTE as the greatest novel of all time. In the novel– If I remember correctly–the author Miguel de Cervantes shows the negative consequences of following a way of life that is completely out of touch. He reminds us that even a supposedly intelligent person can become completely foolish in the character of Don QUIOXOTE of La Mancha.

I met that individual last night–or at least a wax figure of that character, and I knew that something was unusual when I saw that he was dressed in armor–that this could be a person or character who was following a way of life that was completely and unrealistically old-fashioned.

Transcript

This podcast blends history and imagination. Real historical figures appear alongside fictional situations and imagined conversations. While based on historical research, portions of the program are dramatized for storytelling purposes.

There seems to be no end to the the surprises that I encounter as a night watchmen in this wax museum.  I was somewhat prepared for the concept of wax figures who were living human beings an important to history– But I never thought that I would encounter wax figures of people who NEVER lived–SUCH as characters largely from books, plays, and novels.

Before we begin, let me emphasize that today I'll be talking with a wax figure that never existed– In this case, a figure from literature that was never flesh and bone, but the author of the literary work from which she came created a character that is extremely lifelike, and teaches us a great deal about human nature.

I know that in the early 21st century, a group of 100 prominent writers selected Don QUIOXOTE as the greatest novel of all time. In the novel– If I remember correctly–the author Miguel de Cervantes shows the negative consequences of following a way of life that is completely out of touch. He reminds us that even a supposedly intelligent person can become completely foolish in the character of Don QUIOXOTE of La Mancha.

George Bartley: PLAIN text
Don Quijote: BOLD text

I met that individual last night–or at least a wax figure of that character, and I knew that something was unusual when I saw that he was dressed in armor–that this could be a person or character who was following a way of life that was completely and unrealistically old-fashioned.

Hola, señor Don Quijote de La Mancha - welcome to this podcast. First, how would you describe yourself?

I like to think of myself as a gentleman of 50. I spend a great deal of my time reading books regarding chivalry and must admit that I become engrossed in such tales of nights and squires. In fact, I sometimes become so absorbed and their tales that I take them literally. Is there are those individuals who believe that I become so absorbed in my reading and ideas that I begin to take them literally. They believe this leads to madness, and I therefore must convince myself that my mission in life is to become a true knight.

That is most interesting Señor Quixote, but how would you go about fulfilling your mission?

In my situation, I found some armor that had belonged to my great grandfather and repaired it's broken helmet with pasteboard. Next I gave my horse the name Racinante -never mind that the horse was what some people might call a broken down nag. Of course, I decided to call myself Don Quijote de La Mancha.

Of course.

Of course I also needed a lady to be in love with, and while she did not realize it, I chose a farm girl to be my love. Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo, but I decided to call her Dulcinea DEL TOBOSO. AH, she was the inspiration for all of my future exploits - AH, Dulcinea!

You certainly seem to be convinced of all this!

Si, one morning I dressed myself in my armor and began my travels. My first adventure constituted the discovery of a farmer flogging a teenage boy. The farmer explained that he had hired the boy to watch a flock sheep, but the boy loses at least a sheep every day. I stopped the beating and threaten to beat the man unless he pays the boy the money that he owes the lad. Not surprisingly, the man promises to do so and I ride away in triumph.  But I later learned that as soon as I had written out of sight and the farmer could not see me, he again started beating the boy– Only this time worse than before.

Somehow, it seems like you are I want some kind of mission!

Oh yes, that is affair assessment. In fact, a few miles down the road I saw some merchants walking and I commanded that they stop and swear that in the entire world there is no maiden more beautiful than my Dulcinea! They somehow seemed hesitant if their responses, and I decided to charge at them with my horse. Unfortunately my horse stumbled and fell, and one of the men beats me and leaves me extremely bruised. Fortunately, two of my fellow villagers find me, and bring me home.

It sounds like you might have needed someone to help you

Precisely! To that very end, I convinced and illiterate form laborer by the name of Sancho Panza to be my squire, and we took to the road.

It was not long before we came to several windmills, which I believed were extremely tall giants the towered over the countryside. I declared that I will sweep the evil creatures from the face of the Earth, and call upon Dulcinea to support me in my mission.

Don't tell me that you charged at the windmills!

Ah, listen to this brief passage from the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.

At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that there are on that plain, and as soon as Don Quixote saw them he said to his squire, “Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes; for this is righteous warfare, and it is God’s good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth.”

“What giants?” said Sancho Panza.

“Those thou seest there,” answered his master, “with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long.”
“Look, your worship,” said Sancho; “what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go.”

“It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that thou art not used to this business of adventures; those are giants; and if thou art afraid, away with thee out of this and betake thyself to prayer while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat.”

What happened then?

But it happened as I drove my lance into the windmill, the weapon was shattered, and I was thrown to the ground. Fortunately I understood what it happened.

And what was that?

I knew that a magician wanted to deprive me of the honor of the victory, and he had changed the giants that I had imagined into windmills.  You see, the explanation is very simple, whenever I am bested, I know that it is because of the spell of a magician.

That could be dangerous!

Finally I arrived in Barcelona where an old friend in disguise learns me into single combat.

What happened?

The friend soundly defeated me!  Then he brought me home where I no longer had my illusions.

What was the result?

To be honest, I no longer held my earlier false beliefs and soon fell ill. Then I renounced chivalry, and died.

To quote the novel regarding my life–Don Quixote could not shake off his sadness. His friends called in the doctor, who felt his pulse and was not very well satisfied with it, and said that in any case it would be well for him to attend to the health of his soul, as that of his body was in a bad way. Don Quixote heard this calmly; but not so his housekeeper, his niece, and his squire, who fell weeping bitterly, as if they had him lying dead before them. The doctor’s opinion was that melancholy and depression were bringing him to his end. Don Quixote begged them to leave him to himself, as he had a wish to sleep a little. They obeyed, and he slept at one stretch, as the saying is, more than six hours, so that the housekeeper and niece thought he was going to sleep for ever. But at the end of that time he woke up, and in a loud voice exclaimed, “Blessed be Almighty God, who has shown me such goodness. In truth his mercies are boundless, and the sins of men can neither limit them nor keep them back!”

From what I understand, you left behind a new word–QUIXOTIC–meaning hopelessly naïve and impractical.

And yes, I must admit that such a concept involves impractical, extravagantly unrealistic, and doomed to failure. Such was my earthly life. Permit me to include the following eight lines from the novel Don QUIXOTE by Miguel Cervantes.

A doughty gentleman lies here;
A stranger all his life to fear;
Nor in his death could Death prevail,
In that last hour, to make him quail.

He for the world but little cared;
And at his feats the world was scared;
A crazy man his life he passed,
But in his senses died at last.

Nowadays, if someone says you're "tilting at windmills," they're not suggesting you need a helmet and a horse. They mean you're spending a lot of effort fighting something that isn't really the problem—or maybe isn't even there at all. Poor Don Quijote saw giants where everyone else saw windmills. The rest of us usually do the same thing with politics, technology, social media, and occasionally with our neighbors when they leave the trash cans out too long!

Ever since Cervantes wrote Don Quijote, the image of the old knight charging at windmills has taken on a life of its own. Today, when we say someone is "tilting at windmills," we usually mean that they are fighting an imaginary enemy, pursuing an impossible cause, or pouring their energy into a problem that doesn't really exist. Sometimes the phrase is used affectionately—for dreamers and idealists who refuse to give up. Other times, it suggests that a person has mistaken windmills for giants and is battling shadows instead of reality.

Yet perhaps we should be a little careful before laughing at Don Quijote. Every age has its own windmills. We all have causes that consume us, fears that loom larger than they really are, and assumptions that turn ordinary things into giants. The old knight reminds us that imagination can be noble and inspiring—but also that wisdom requires us to see things as they truly are.

In conclusion, let me end this podcast episode from the moving account of Don Quijote’s death.

Don Quixote could not shake off his sadness. His friends called in the doctor, who felt his pulse and was not very well satisfied with it, and said that in any case it would be well for him to attend to the health of his soul, as that of his body was in a bad way. Don Quixote heard this calmly; but not so his housekeeper, his niece, and his squire, who fell weeping bitterly, as if they had him lying dead before them. The doctor’s opinion was that melancholy and depression were bringing him to his end. Don Quixote begged them to leave him to himself, as he had a wish to sleep a little. They obeyed, and he slept at one stretch, as the saying is, more than six hours, so that the housekeeper and niece thought he was going to sleep for ever. But at the end of that time he woke up, and in a loud voice exclaimed, “Blessed be Almighty God, who has shown me such goodness. In truth his mercies are boundless, and the sins of men can neither limit them nor keep them back!”
The niece listened with attention to her uncle’s words, and they struck her as more coherent than what usually fell from him, at least during his illness, so she asked, “What are you saying, señor? Has anything strange occurred? What mercies or what sins of men are you talking of?”

“The mercies, niece,” said Don Quixote, “are those that God has this moment shown me, and with him, as I said, my sins are no impediment to them. My reason is now free and clear, rid of the dark shadows of ignorance that my unhappy constant study of those detestable books of chivalry cast over it. Now I see through their absurdities and deceptions, and it only grieves me that this destruction of my illusions has come so late that it leaves me no time to make some amends by reading other books that might be a light to my soul. Niece, Call in to me, my dear, my good friends the curate, the bachelor Samson Carrasco, and Master Nicholas the barber, for I wish to confess and make my will.” But his niece was saved the trouble by the entrance of the three. The instant Don Quixote saw them he exclaimed, “Good news for you, good sirs, that I am no longer Don Quixote of La Mancha, but Alonso Quixano, whose way of life won for him the name of Good.

When the three heard him speak in this way, they had no doubt whatever that some new craze had taken possession of him; and said Samson, “Hush, for heaven’s sake, be rational and let’s have no more nonsense.”

“All that nonsense,” said Don Quixote, “that until now has been a reality to my hurt, my death will, with heaven’s help, turn to my good. I feel, sirs, that I am rapidly drawing near death; a truce to jesting; let me have a confessor to confess me, and a notary to make my will; for in extremities like this, man must not trifle with his soul; and while the curate is confessing me let someone, I beg, go for the notary.”

They looked at one another, wondering at Don Quixote’s words; but, though uncertain, they were inclined to believe him, and one of the signs by which they came to the conclusion he was dying was this so sudden and complete return to his senses after having been mad; for to the words already quoted he added much more, so well expressed, so devout, and so rational, as to banish all doubt and convince them that he was sound of mind. The bachelor went for the notary and returned shortly afterwards with him and with Sancho, who, having already learned from the bachelor the condition his master was in, and finding the housekeeper and niece weeping, began to blubber and shed tears.

The confession over, the curate came out saying, “Alonso Quixano the Good is indeed dying, and is indeed in his right mind; we may now go in to him while he makes his will.”

This news gave a tremendous impulse to the brimming eyes of the housekeeper, niece, and Sancho Panza his good squire, making the tears burst from their eyes and a host of sighs from their hearts; for of a truth, as has been said more than once, whether as plain Alonso Quixano the Good, or as Don Quixote of La Mancha, Don Quixote was always of a gentle disposition and kindly in all his ways, and hence he was beloved, not only by those of his own house, but by all who knew him.

The notary came in with the rest, and as soon as the preamble of the will had been set out and Don Quixote had commended his soul to God with all the devout formalities that are usual, coming to the bequests, he said, “Item, it is my will that, touching certain moneys in the hands of Sancho Panza (whom in my madness I made my squire), inasmuch as between him and me there have been certain accounts and debits and credits, no claim be made against him, nor any account demanded of him in respect of them; but that if anything remain over and above, after he has paid himself what I owe him, the balance, which will be but little, shall be his, and much good may it do him; and if, as when I was mad I had a share in giving him the government of an island, so, now that I am in my senses, I could give him that of a kingdom, it should be his, for the simplicity of his character and the fidelity of his conduct deserve it.” And then, turning to Sancho, he said, “Forgive me, my friend, that I led thee to seem as mad as myself, making thee fall into the same error I myself fell into, that there were and still are knights-errant in the world.”

“Ah!” said Sancho weeping, “don’t die, master, but take my advice and live many years; for the foolishest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die without rhyme or reason, without anybody killing him, or any hands but melancholy’s making an end of him. Come, don’t be lazy, but get up from your bed.
If it be that you are dying of vexation at having been vanquished, lay the blame on me, and say you were overthrown because I had girthed Rocinante badly; besides you must have seen in your books of chivalry that it is a common thing for knights to upset one another, and for him who is conquered to-day to be conqueror to-morrow.”

“Sirs, not so fast,” said Don Quixote, “‘in last year’s nests there are no birds this year.’ I was mad, now I am in my senses; I was Don Quixote of La Mancha, I am now, as I said, Alonso Quixano the Good; and may my repentance and sincerity restore me to the esteem you used to have for me; and now let Master Notary proceed.

after all has been deducted from the most available portion of it that may be required to satisfy the bequests I have made. And the first disbursement I desire to be made is the payment of the wages I owe for the time my housekeeper has served me. The curate and the bachelor Samson Carrasco, now present, I appoint my executors.

man of whom it shall be first of all ascertained by information taken that he does not know what books of chivalry are; and if it should be proved that he does, and if, in spite of this, my niece insists upon marrying him, and does marry him, then that she shall forfeit the whole of what I have left her, which my executors shall devote to works of charity as they please.

With this he closed his will, and a faintness coming over him he stretched himself out at full length on the bed. All were in a flutter and made haste to relieve him, and during the three days he lived after that on which he made his will he fainted away very often. The house was all in confusion; but still the niece ate and the housekeeper drank and Sancho Panza enjoyed himself; for inheriting property wipes out or softens down in the heir the feeling of grief the dead man might be expected to leave behind him.


I'd like to end this podcast– Finally–with the following three sentences.
Don Quixote is often remembered as the man who tilted at windmills, but that's only part of the story. At its heart, the novel is about someone who refuses to let the world extinguish his imagination. Cervantes gives us a character who keeps believing that life can still hold nobility and adventure, even when circumstances are difficult.

Thank you for listening to the Hall of imagination.

This has been George Bartley.