Miguel Cervantes - Feminist

A friend of mine urged me to read Don Quixote in the original Spanish. I am not up to that but I started the book a few days ago - it is well worth the investment. One of the adventures that Quixote and Sancho get involved with is in the burial of a victim of unrequited love. The guy who died of the broken heart was named Chrysostom and the object of his affection was named Marcela. Marcela, we are told, came from a wealthy family and her father said he would allow her to make her choice on whether and who she would marry. And she chose not to marry but to become a goatherd. But Chrysostom pursued her none-the-less. At the start of the chapter we hear a poem from Chrysostom which talks about the horror of his pain in wonderful detail. But then Marcela shows up and asks why should I be blamed because this guy died because I rejected him. She has a great statement which describes the problems she faced for her choices and clearly helps us understand why it is inappropriate for one to blame her for Chrysostom's actions. She says in part " He was persistent in spite of warning, he despaired without being hated. Bethink you now if it be reasonable that his suffering should be laid to my charge. Let him who has been deceived complain, let him give way to despair whose encouraged hopes have proved vain, let him flatter himself whom I shall entice, let him boast whom I shall receive; but let not him call me cruel or homicide to whom I make no promise, upon whom I practise no deception, whom I neither entice nor receive. It has not been so far the will of Heaven that I should love by fate, and to expect me to love by choice is idle. Let this general declaration serve for each of my suitors on his own account, and let it be understood from this time forth that if anyone dies for me it is not of jealousy or misery he dies, for she who loves no one can give no cause for jealousy to any, and candour is not to be confounded with scorn. Let him who calls me wild beast and basilisk, leave me alone as something noxious and evil; let him who calls me ungrateful, withhold his service; who calls me wayward, seek not my acquaintance; who calls me cruel, pursue me not; for this wild beast, this basilisk, this ungrateful, cruel, wayward being has no kind of desire to seek, serve, know, or follow them. If Chrysostom's impatience and violent passion killed him, why should my modest behaviour and circumspection be blamed? If I preserve my purity in the society of the trees, why should he who would have me preserve it among men, seek to rob me of it?"

Quixote mixes the absurd and the substantive in wonderful ways. I am really enjoying the book.