Abindarráez's Captivity

Abindarráez’s captivity is the hinge on which an episode of military defeat turns into a story of pledged honor, married fidelity, and reciprocal generosity. Captured by Rodrigo de Narváez while riding to meet Jarifa, he receives not only a captor’s restraint but the chance to keep his promise to return; when Jarifa joins him in confinement, Narváez uses his standing to secure their pardon. The episode is told by Felismena as an embedded tale, and its resolution makes captivity the proving ground for a shared chivalric ethic across religious and political boundaries.

Identity and Circumstances of the Capture

Abindarráez is a member of the Abencerrajes, a Granada family whose history of distinction and catastrophe gives his personal misfortune a political shadow. He is taken on a summer night while traveling from Cártama toward Coín to meet Jarifa, whom he intends to marry. His capture therefore interrupts a journey toward a long-awaited reunion: he is not returning from battle or carrying out a military mission, but riding secretly to the woman who has summoned him.

Rodrigo de Narváez and his men have ridden out from Álora on a night patrol, hoping to find their Moorish neighbors unprepared. After the party divides, five Christian knights emerge from concealment and attack Abindarráez. Though love occupies his thoughts, he fights with exceptional skill, bringing down three opponents and continuing against the remaining two despite a wound in his thigh. When he loses his lance, he feigns flight, rides back between his pursuers, and retrieves the weapon from beside a fallen knight. The horn sounds for assistance; Narváez arrives in time to prevent the fight from turning against his men.

Narváez then challenges Abindarráez himself, asking his companions to stand aside so that the outcome will be decided between the two captains. Their contest is close, but Abindarráez’s earlier exertions, wound, and exhausted horse count against him. Narváez grapples him from the saddle and declares him defeated. Abindarráez accepts that his life is in the victor’s hands, yet insists that he has already been conquered in another sense: by the love that has governed his choices. His response shifts the scene from an account of arms toward the cause of his distress.

A Captive Who Explains His Grief

Narváez notices that Abindarráez’s sorrow seems excessive for a warrior whose wounds are not life-threatening. He urges his prisoner not to lose heart and offers, on his word as a knight, to help if another trouble is weighing on him. In response, Abindarráez identifies himself and recounts the standing of the Abencerrajes: they were admired for courage, liberality, good judgment, and service to ladies, and were honored at the court of Granada. Their fall began with an injury inflicted by the king on two members of the family. A charge that they and ten kinsmen plotted to kill the king and divide the realm led to their arrest and execution before the people could intervene. Abindarráez presents this family disaster as the inheritance through which he learned to expect misfortune.

His immediate grief, however, is about to be separated from Jarifa. Narváez recognizes that Abindarráez was on his way to her and sees that delay, rather than bodily injury alone, threatens the lovers’ hopes. Moved by his account, he offers him freedom on the condition that he return to Álora within three days. Abindarráez accepts the pledge without bargaining over a ransom. Narváez provides a replacement horse because Abindarráez’s own was injured in the encounter; despite his wounds and the blood he has lost, the prisoner hurries toward Coín.

The Pledge and Jarifa’s Choice

At Coín, Abindarráez enters through a concealed door using the signal Jarifa’s attendant has given him. Jarifa greets him with joy, and he tells her that his journey has ended in a double captivity: he belongs both to her and to Narváez. Jarifa first offers the wealth in her father’s chests as a possible ransom. Abindarráez refuses to substitute payment for his personal return. Now that he has become her husband, he says, his obligation to keep his word is greater, not less.

Jarifa will not accept freedom for herself while he goes back alone. She decides to accompany him, despite the danger that her father may learn of their marriage. Before daybreak they set out for Álora; she travels with her face covered so that she will not be recognized. Abindarráez presents himself to Narváez as promised, bringing Jarifa with him and asking the commander to receive both as prisoners. The return matters because the temporary release has been honored freely: the captor’s generosity has not dissolved the captive’s obligation, and the captive’s fidelity gives Narváez reason to trust him further.

Narváez receives the couple courteously and treats Jarifa’s honor as a responsibility entrusted to him. Abindarráez’s wounds have worsened during the ride, so Narváez calls a surgeon. Jarifa is visibly troubled but keeps her composure to spare her husband additional distress. The wounds prove minor, and after four days of careful treatment Abindarráez has recovered. The interval turns the fortress from a place of mere custody into a setting where their captor’s conduct is measured by hospitality and care.

Pardon, Release, and Reciprocal Giving

Once recovered, Abindarráez asks Narváez to seek forgiveness for the marriage, which took place without Jarifa’s father’s permission. Narváez writes to the king of Granada, explaining the capture, the temporary release, the lovers’ marriage, and Abindarráez’s voluntary return. He also argues that Abindarráez and his father were innocent of the alleged conspiracy against the king. Narváez offers to waive the prisoner’s ransom and asks the king to direct Jarifa’s father to forgive the couple and receive Abindarráez as a son.

The king trusts Narváez and sends Jarifa’s father to Álora with instructions to pardon his children. Though the father is distressed by what has happened, he obeys; he tells them not to dwell on the past and acknowledges that Jarifa has chosen a good husband. Narváez then declares Abindarráez free without demanding a ransom. He accompanies the couple to Coín, where their marriage is celebrated. The release thus follows two acts of fidelity: Abindarráez’s return to captivity and the father’s compliance with the king’s command.

The exchange does not end with freedom. Jarifa’s father later gives the couple four thousand doblas to send to Narváez, along with six horses, six shields, and six lances. Jarifa also sends a fragrant cypress box containing fine linen. Narváez distributes the horses and weapons among the knights who joined the patrol, keeping one horse and the box Jarifa sent, but returns the four thousand doblas to be used for the wedding expenses. He refuses to treat the money as the price of Abindarráez’s release and welcomes Jarifa to regard his house as her own. Captivity gives way to an exchange in which neither side seeks to profit from the other’s vulnerability.

Narrative and Ethical Significance

Felismena tells the episode at the house of the wise Felicia after dinner, placing the account of Abindarráez within the larger pastoral narrative. Its nested form makes the captive’s story a narrated example, while the sequence itself tests conduct through concrete choices: Abindarráez could evade his pledge, but returns; Jarifa could remain safe at Coín, but shares his confinement; Narváez could claim a ransom, but seeks their pardon and declines the money offered afterward.

The story does not erase the religious and political divisions between its characters. Narváez is a Christian commander holding a Muslim prisoner, and the king of Granada must authorize the pardon that allows the marriage to stand openly. Yet the plot makes recognition possible through conduct rather than sameness: Narváez admires Abindarráez’s courage, trusts his word, treats the couple generously, and receives their gratitude without turning it into profit. Captivity begins as the consequence of an armed encounter and ends as the basis of friendship. Its decisive measure is not who possesses the prisoner, but whether power will be used with restraint and whether honor will be answered with honor.