Pena Pobre is associated with Don Quixote’s imagined station of penance, a place he believed he had taken up because of his lady’s scorn. Its significance in the account lies less in any description of the location than in the role it plays in his delusion and in the plan to return him to his village.

Don Quixote’s imagined station

The curate explains that Don Quixote fancied himself stationed at Pena Pobre because he believed his lady had scorned him. The place thus belongs to the chivalric explanation Don Quixote gives his withdrawal: his self-imposed station is tied to romantic rejection rather than presented as an ordinary stop on a journey.

Role in the plan to bring him home

The curate recounts that he and his companions had used a stratagem to withdraw Don Quixote from Pena Pobre and bring him home. When Dorothea’s good fortune made it impossible to continue with their original purpose, they recognized that another means of getting him back to his village would be needed. Pena Pobre therefore marks both the imagined setting of Don Quixote’s penance and the point from which the rescuers’ plan had to move him.