91
Although this statement conflicts with Gerald Gingras's thesis concerning the «conservatism» of Don Diego's tastes («Diego de Miranda, "Bufón" or Spanish Gentleman?»), it does not conflict with the rationale behind the pertinent legal decrees («pragmáticas») that Gingras cites in support of his arguments. Indeed, as Gingras implies, these decrees were aimed at curbing the ostentatious, extravagant habits of the hidalgo class. Don Diego's «conservatism» is, therefore, relative to a decadent norm. Again, his attire signals his conformism, together with the noticeable, if less than glaring, vanity of his display. (N. from the A.)
92
About these verses, Luis Andrés Murillo notes, in his edition of the Quixote (v. 2, p. 140, n. 7): «Son o de un romance antiguo (perdido) o de la pluma de Alvar Gómez de Ciudad Real que los empleó en su traslación de los Trionfi de Petrarca
(Triumphus Cupidinis, III, vss. 79-84), sin que haya en la obra original nada que se parezca a ellos». The same verses are mentioned twice in Part I: I, 9; and I, 49.
(N. from the A.)
93
For a masterful discussion of the sources and significance of «maravilloso silencio» in this passage, see Francisco Márquez Villanueva, «El Caballero del Verde Gabán», pp. 155-159. Also see Alan S. Trueblood, «El silencio en el Quijote», Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 12 (1958), pp. 160-180. A more recent study on Cervantes' silences, with good bibliography on the Quixote, is Aurora Egido, «Los silencios del Persiles», On Cervantes: Essays for L. A. Murillo, James Parr, ed. (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 1991), pp. 21-46. (N. from the A.)
94
35 Cf. Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Terrence Irwin, tr., Book 2, chapter 9, 1109b (New York: Hackett Publishing Company, 1985), pp. 52-53:
Aristotle closes the second book of his Ethics with these words:
In 1109a (p. 50), Aristotle's remarks support the previous statement of Don Quixote: «In some cases the deficiency, in others the excess, is more opposed to the intermediate condition; e. g., it is cowardice, the deficiency, not rashness, the excess, that is more opposed to bravery»
. Also, on the remedy for either excessive or defective vice, compare Thomas Aquinas' Commentary on the "Nichomachean Ethics", C. I. Litzinger, O. P., tr., Lecture XI:C 369-381, v. 1 (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1964), pp. 164-168. In paragraph 381 (ibid., p. 168), Aquinas writes: «However, sometimes we must incline toward excess and sometimes toward defect either on account of the nature of the virtue or on account of our inclination.... Thus the mean according to which a thing is done well [i.e., virtuously] will be easily discovered»
.
(N. from the A.)
95
Speaking of the ideal knight errant's heroic virtue to Don Lorenzo, Don Quixote states (II, 18; 171-172):
On the Epicurean adage, «nothing in excess»
, see Márquez Villanueva «El Caballero del Verde Gabán», p. 177.
(N. from the A.)
96
St. Isidore's formula in the Etymologies (I, 39, 9) is: «For hero is the name given to men who by their wisdom and courage are worthy of heaven»
(emphasis added), quoted and translated in E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, Willard R. Trask, tr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 175. On the history of the canonization process, and the centrality of «heroic virtue», see «Canonization of Saints (History and Procedure)», The New Catholic Encyclopedia, v. 3 (New York: McGraw Hill, 1967), pp. 55-59.
(N. from the A.)
97
Dunn makes a similar point, but without suggesting that this attitude is the measure of a character's madness or folly, in a comparison between Ginés de Pasamonte's self-naming and Don Quixote's naming of himself, Dulcinea and Rocinante, in «Cervantes De/Re-Constructs the Picaresque», Cervantes 2 (1982), pp. 119-120. As Dunn astutely observes (ibid., p. 119), Ginés de Pasamonte, like Don Quixote, «aspires to make his life total discourse, to abolish the difference between story and diegesis, between the teller, the telling, and the told»
.
(N. from the A.)
98
My thanks to Carroll Johnson, whose insightful questions led me to clarify my observations on this aspect of Don Diego's self-portrait. (N. from the A.)
99
For words and concepts related to the verb «mirar», including the surname Miranda, I have found especially useful the entry MIRAR in J. Corominas, Diccionario crítico etimológico de la lengua castellana, v. 3 (Bern, Switzerland: Editorial Francke, 1954), pp. 382-384. (N. from the A.)
100
On Neo-Epicurean aurea mediocritas, see Márquez Villanueva, «El Caballero del Verde Gabán», p. 161. Lurking beneath this doctrine, of course, is lukewarmness, one of the chief enemies of the spiritual life, associated with worldly riches, first denounced in the book of Revelation (3: 15-18), in John's letter to the seventh church at Laodicea:
(N. from the A.)