Don Quixote Chapter 15 Summary

The Yanguesan Beating

Don Quixote and Sancho rest after Chrysostom's burial; Rocinante is attacked by Yanguesan ponies and their drivers, and the two are brutally cudgelled before reaching an inn.

A shallow stream threads through tender, sun-bleached grass beneath a high canopy, light scattering in bright, dizzying patches. Trampled turf and flayed leather straps—fragments of a broken saddle and a few abandoned wooden stakes—lie scattered as if a violent episode just passed. The trees close in around the hollow, hemming the scene with quiet, leaf-shaded walls.
A shallow stream threads through tender, sun-bleached grass beneath a high canopy, light scattering in bright, dizzying patches. Trampled turf and flayed leather straps—fragments of a broken saddle and a few abandoned wooden stakes—lie scattered as if a violent episode just passed. The trees close in around the hollow, hemming the scene with quiet, leaf-shaded walls.

Summary

The chapter opens with the narrator Cid Hamete Benengeli relating how Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza, having left the company present at the burial of Chrysostom, enter the wood where they had seen Marcela and search for her for hours without success. Exhausted, they stop in a grassy glade by a stream to rest and eat, leaving Rocinante and Sancho's ass to feed. Rocinante, unhobbleed, is tempted by a nearby drove of Galician ponies tended by Yanguesan carriers; he approaches them and is savaged, his girths are broken, and the carriers beat him with stakes until he is badly injured.

Don Quixote and Sancho rush to help, and Don Quixote, declaring he

Chapter 15 in pictures

Rocinante, attracted to a drove of Galician ponies, breaks into a frantic trot and is set upon: girths snap and the mare is kicked and bitten as rough Yanguesan carriers rush in with stakes. Don Quixote and Sancho race toward the melee, alarmed and helpless, as the savage thrashing unfolds between animals and men.
Rocinante, attracted to a drove of Galician ponies, breaks into a frantic trot and is set upon: girths snap and the mare is kicked and bitten as rough Yanguesan carriers rush in with stakes. Don Quixote and Sancho race toward the melee, alarmed and helpless, as the savage thrashing unfolds between animals and men.

Read Don Quixote illustrated

Every scene in these notes comes from the Book2Life reader, where the full public-domain text is illustrated as you read, with character portraits and narration. Free in your browser and on iPhone.

Read Don Quixote free

Download Book2Life on the App Store