ARTicles vol. 6 i.4: Don Quixote and the Double Falsehood

Synopsis of Chapters 23-34 of Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes

Wandering through the mountains, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza encounter a half-dressed wild man, who introduces himself as Cardenio. He consents to share his story on the condition that no one interrupt him.

Cardenio is the son of a nobleman who has loved the beautiful Luscinda since childhood. She loves him too, and a marriage seems inevitable.  Before he is able to propose, however, Cardenio is sent off to the Duke’s court.  At the court, Cardenio befriends the Duke’s son, Don Fernando, who confides to Cardenio that he’s in love with a peasant girl, Dorotea.  In order to lure her to bed, Don Fernando promises to marry Dorotea.  But after sleeping with her, Don Fernando leaves his father’s estate and hides out at Cardenio’s home, where he then falls in love with Luscinda.

With Cardenio still away from home, Don Fernando rushes to marry Luscinda after securing her parents’ consent.  Luscinda manages to send a message to Cardenio.  He arrives just before the wedding ceremony and finds Luscinda, who swears she will kill herself if she’s forced to marry Don Fernando. Cardenio watches the ceremony helplessly through a window as Luscinda says “I do,” then faints. Cardenio then flees to the mountains, believing that, since Luscinda didn’t kill herself, she must love Don Fernando.

Just as Cardenio finishes his story, they hear a cry from someone who turns out to be Dorotea, the beautiful peasant girl who fled to the mountains after being abandoned by Don Fernando. Before running off to the mountains, she followed Don Fernando to Cardenio’s city, where she heard about the wedding. She tells the group that after Cardenio ran away, Luscinda’s dress was opened and a suicide note in which she declared herself Cardenio’s bride was discovered on her breast. The next day, Luscinda disappeared. Soon after, Don Fernando vanished as well.

By this point, Don Quixote has left, but two of his friends, a priest and a barber, have joined the group.  They prevail on Dorotea and Cardenio to help them get Don Quixote back to his village. In the course of this adventure, they come to an inn, where they settle in for the night.

At the inn, the priest discovers a manuscript for a novella, “The Story of the Curious Impertinent,” which he reads aloud. It tells the story of Anselmo and Lothario, two friends who are closer than brothers. A few months after Anselmo marries, he asks Lothario to flirt with his wife Camila to test her honor. Lothario refuses, arguing that Anselmo shouldn’t go looking for trouble where there isn’t any.  But Anselmo insists.

Lothario initially avoids Camila, but Anselmo keeps forcing him to spend time alone with her. Gradually, Lothario finds himself falling in love with Camila. His advances become real, and Camila’s defenses fail. In the absence of her husband, she falls for Lothario. The lovers maintain the cover that Lothario advanced on Anselmo’s command and that Camila remained faithful.

The lovers hide their affair, despite several close calls, until Camila believes her servant will betray them. In shame, she runs away to a convent. When Anselmo goes to Lothario for help, he finds Lothario gone, too.

Soon Anselmo is told the truth about his wife and his best friend. He acknowledges that he brought it on himself, and dies of a broken heart. Meanwhile, a repentant Lothario has been killed in a war, and, upon hearing of the death of her lover, Camila dies.

As the priest ends the story, several masked men and a masked lady descend on the inn. Hearing Cardenio’s voice, the lady starts, and her mask slips off — it is Luscinda, abducted from the convent to which she had fled. A man grabs her, and in the struggle, his mask comes off to reveal Don Fernando. Cardenio, Dorotea, and the priest prevail upon Don Fernando to let Luscinda go. Eventually, he is persuaded by Luscinda’s indifference towards him and by Dorotea’s beauty to give Luscinda back to Cardenio and fulfill his promise of marriage to Dorotea.

Compiled by Sarah Ollove, second-year dramaturgy student at the A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theatre Training

Synopsis of The Double Falsehood by Lewis Theobald

The Double Falsehood follows the plot of the Cardenio story from Don Quixote, but it includes several scenes left of out of Cervantes’ story and gets rid of the Don Quixote framing device altogether.

Cardenio, Luscinda, Don Fernando, and Dorotea become Julio, Leonora, Henriquez, and Violante. The Double Falsehood starts as Henriquez sets in motion the plot that will part Leonora and Julio. Leonora begs Julio not to go, suspicious of Henriquez’s intentions. Several scenes make it clear that Violante has been more or less raped by Henriquez. Though the memory of Violante still tugs at his conscience, Henriquez turns his attention to Leonora.

Despite her opposition, Leonora’s father Don Bernard insists she marry Henriquez. Camillo, Julio’s father, tries to reason with Don Bernard on behalf of his son to no avail.

After the wedding, Leonora, Henriquez, and Julio all separately disappear. Don Bernard, Henriquez’s older brother Roderick, and Camillo seek out their relatives in the mountains. Meanwhile, Julio has encountered Violante, who, though she dresses as a boy, has nearly been assaulted several times by lustful rustic men. Julio and Violante resolve to wander the mountains together, consoling each other.

Roderick finds his brother, and reluctantly agrees to help him abduct Leonora from a convent.  Roderick then sends a letter to his father, asking him to meet the brothers at an inn. With the unwilling Leonora in tow, the brothers approach the inn when Violante, still disguised as a boy, appears to beg a word with Roderick.

The Duke, Camillo, and Don Bernard wait at the inn. Roderick enters with Henriquez and Leonora. Violante produces an incriminating letter and proves to the Duke that Henriquez belongs to her. Violante then takes off her disguise to reveal herself to Henriquez. When confronted with her beauty, Henriquez takes her back, promising to do penance for wronging Julio, whom everyone but Violante still believes is dead. Julio, disguised as Violante’s page, then reveals himself and reunites with Leonora.

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