Altisidora’s farewell song

Altisidora’s farewell song is a mock-lament sung as Don Quixote of La Mancha leaves The Duke and The Duchess’s castle. With a refrain that returns after each verse, it transforms a departure into a theatrical accusation: Altisidora casts herself as the abandoned lover, blames the knight for carrying away her heart and belongings, and finally curses him in increasingly mundane terms. The song’s extravagant register is undercut by the small, disputed objects at its center—and by Sancho Panza’s matter-of-fact admission that he has some of them.

The Song at the Departure

Don Quixote of La Mancha has asked to leave the castle because he believes that remaining amid its luxuries would make him idle and leave him answerable to Heaven for his seclusion. The Duke and The Duchess grant permission, though they regret his departure. On the morning of the leave-taking, Don Quixote appears in full armor in the courtyard, while Sancho Panza sits on Dapple with his travel belongings. The castle household watches, and The Duke and The Duchess come out to see the travelers off. This public gathering gives Altisidora an audience for a last performance.

Sancho’s own farewell mood is practical and mixed. The Duchess has returned his wife’s letters, and he reflects that the hopes Teresa Panza had attached to his governorship have given way to a return to wandering with his master. He is nevertheless pleased that Teresa sent acorns in gratitude, and regards the gift as no bribe because it arrived after he had received the governorship. He sums up his departure from office as a return to his original condition: “naked I was born, naked I find myself, I neither lose nor gain.” Meanwhile, he is quietly pleased that the majordomo has given him two hundred gold crowns for the road, a gift Don Quixote does not yet know about. The contrast between Sancho’s accounting of gains and losses and Altisidora’s staged emotional complaint frames the song’s mixture of genuine departure and ongoing castle entertainment.

A Mock-Lover’s Complaint

Altisidora begins by addressing the departing knight as cruel and asking him to rein in his horse. She denies being a dragon or even a sheep, instead presenting herself as a “tender young lamb.” The contrast is comic: the speaker makes herself sound harmless and vulnerable while delivering a pointed accusation. She describes herself as a maiden as beautiful as a nymph of Diana or Venus, then names Bireno and Aeneas as comparisons for the faithless man she claims to be leaving her. The reference to celebrated lovers gives a literary grandeur to the complaint, but the song soon brings that grandeur down to the concrete business of what has supposedly been taken.

The refrain, “Bireno, AEneas, what worse shall I call thee?” is answered each time by “Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee!” Repetition turns the lines into a refrain of mock condemnation: the song keeps circling back to the charge even as its supporting details change. In one verse Altisidora calls the knight a ruthless robber who carries off the heart of a meek, loving maid, then specifies the alleged property: three kerchiefs and a pair of garters. Her image of sighs powerful enough to burn two thousand Troy Towns inflates a petty theft into an epic consequence. The disproportion is central to the joke, but the objects also make the accusation testable within the scene.

Curses from the Grand to the Ordinary

The next verse makes Altisidora’s supposed rejection reverberate beyond herself. She wishes that Sancho receive no mercy and that Dulcinea del Toboso remain enchanted, so that the punishment for Don Quixote’s alleged falsehood will fall on the lady he serves. The curse links the song’s flirtatious fiction to the continuing story of Dulcinea’s enchantment: Altisidora turns the knight’s devotion into a target, wishing his adventures to end in defeat, his joys to prove dreams, and his love to be forgotten. The repeated refrain keeps these wishes tethered to the same accusation of betrayal.

The final verse shifts from legendary lovers and enchanted ladies to daily irritations. Altisidora wishes the knight’s name to be hated from London to England and Seville to Cadiz, his cards to be unlucky at primera, his corns to be cut to the quick, and his extracted grinders to keep their roots. The sequence moves through reputation, gambling, foot pain, and dental trouble. Rather than ending in tragic separation, the song closes by accumulating petty misfortunes; its scale shrinks, but its inventive malice grows. These ordinary bodily and domestic curses give the grand, repeated refrain an unmistakably comic landing.

The Accusation Becomes a Joke Between Others

Throughout the song, Don Quixote of La Mancha stares at Altisidora without replying. When she finishes, he turns not to her but to Sancho Panza, solemnly asking whether he has taken the three kerchiefs and the garters mentioned in the complaint. The interruption shifts the focus from Altisidora’s performance to the evidence of a possible theft. Sancho answers that he has the three kerchiefs but not the garters. His reply partly confirms the accusation while refusing its full terms; the scene does not establish how the kerchiefs came into his possession.

The Duke takes up the joke by reproaching Don Quixote for carrying off the items after receiving hospitality at the castle. He treats the supposed theft as a stain on the knight’s reputation and demands the return of the garters, threatening a combat to the death if they are not restored. The Duchess, by contrast, is astonished by Altisidora’s boldness: she knows her to be lively and impudent, but has not expected her to speak so freely. The different reactions preserve the performance’s ambiguity as a social spectacle: Altisidora acts out a desperate farewell, Sancho supplies a blunt, incomplete confession, and The Duke prolongs the teasing for the assembled household.

Literary and Comic Effect

The song’s design depends on the collision of elevated and low registers. Mythic allusions, the image of a lamb, a heart carried off like prey, and the imagined destruction of Troy stand beside kerchiefs, garters, card-game luck, corns, and bad teeth. Its repeated refrain makes the verses feel at once like a lament and a comic routine, each return renewing the charge while allowing the next curse to escalate or change direction. The claims of heartbreak are thus performed through recognizable forms of romantic complaint, but their accumulation exposes the playful construction of the scene.

The song also functions as the castle’s parting entertainment. Don Quixote is leaving because he fears that luxurious idleness conflicts with his vocation, yet the final morning does not simply release him from the household’s games. Altisidora’s verse draws him into one more staged incident, and his grave concern over Sancho’s belongings gives The Duke an opening to extend it. The farewell song therefore closes the castle episode not with a quiet leave-taking, but with a performance whose mock pathos, disputed property, and improvised challenge keep its central characters entangled until the last moment.