Dorothea

Dorothea is a quick-witted mediator whose adopted princess identity gives her influence over Don Quixote while she uses her own judgment to protect and reassure others. At the inn, she promises to help a young woman in love, grants Don Quixote permission to intervene in a brawl, and then defuses his anger at Sancho Panza by recasting Sancho’s troubling words as the possible result of enchantment.

Mediation at the Inn

Dorothea listens as a young woman explains her secret attachment to Don Luis, a scholar and poet who has followed her despite the hardship of traveling on foot. The girl has never spoken to him, fears that her father will discover their love, and doubts that Don Luis’s wealthy, high-ranking father would accept her as a wife. She is not yet sixteen and would not marry without her own father’s knowledge; her immediate wish is that Don Luis return home, though she doubts separation will ease her pain. Dorothea answers with affection and reassurance, promising to help bring the affair to a happy resolution and asking the girl to wait for daylight.

Her role as an intermediary is tested when two guests attack the innkeeper after he catches them trying to leave without paying. The innkeeper’s daughter appeals to Don Quixote for help, but he refuses to act until he has completed the adventure to which he has pledged himself. Instead, he asks permission from Dorothea in her princess role. She grants it, and he goes to the gate with sword drawn. The episode shows how the invented authority of her role can direct his conduct: his commitment to chivalric procedure makes her consent a necessary step between a plea for help and his intervention.

Counsel and Departure

Once the quarrels at the inn have been settled, Don Quixote urges Dorothea to leave at once to confront the giant he believes threatens her dominions. He argues that delay may give the enemy time to fortify himself and presents haste as both prudent strategy and a knight’s duty. Dorothea replies in the elevated, commanding manner suited to the princess she is portraying. She thanks him for his readiness to help the orphaned and needy, expresses hope that their wishes will be fulfilled, and yields the timing and direction of their departure to his judgment.

Her agreement sustains Don Quixote’s imagined quest while moving the company onward. The exchange also contrasts his account of the danger with her deliberate performance: she accepts the terms of his story, but does so with composure and control, turning his expectations into a means of keeping the journey in motion.

Defusing the Quarrel with Sancho

Before the departure, Sancho makes a remark that Don Quixote takes as an outrageous insult. Don Quixote erupts, denounces his squire, and orders him away. Dorothea intervenes rather than allowing the anger to harden into a lasting rupture. By this point she understands Don Quixote’s humor well enough to answer within his imagined framework: since he has said that enchantment governs events in the castle, she suggests that Sancho may have seen what he describes through that same diabolical illusion. She also argues that Sancho’s good sense and Christian conscience make deliberate false testimony unlikely.

Dorothea’s explanation gives Don Quixote a way to forgive Sancho without abandoning his belief in enchantment. He accepts her reasoning and recognizes Sancho’s harmlessness; Don Fernando then urges him to restore the squire to favor. Dorothea thus serves as more than a participant in the inn’s staged adventures: her tact preserves the bond between master and squire by translating an uncomfortable accusation into terms Don Quixote can accept.