Selecciona una palabra y presiona la tecla d para obtener su definición.

  —13→  

ArribaAbajo Jacinto María Delgado and Cide Hamete Benengeli: A Semi-Classic Recovered and A Bibliographical Labyrinth Explored

Howard Mancing



Purdue University

Primero, se identifican las varias ediciones de la novela titulada Adiciones a la historia del ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha... (1786) y se discute la crítica que se ha publicado en torno a esta obra. Luego se comenta la confusión que existe sobre la identidad del autor, que es Jacinto María Delgado y no Juan Francisco de la Jara u otro de los muchos que se han asociado con esta novela. Finalmente, se comenta el papel original e interesante del supuesto narrador, Cide Hamete Benengeli, en la obra.


The recent publication of a facsimile edition of Jacinto María Delgado's Adiciones a la historia de Don Quixote de la Mancha (Madrid: Grupo Editorial Babilonia, 1984) not only gives Cervantes scholars and partisans a welcome opportunity to read a little-known and neglected work of eighteenth-century literature, but also serves as a reminder of how far we have yet to go in constructing the bibliography and history of cervantismo. In this brief introduction to the subject, I propose to: 1) review the interesting publishing and critical history of Delgado's novel, 2) look at the bibliographical confusion surrounding this and some related works, and 3) examine the role of Cide Hamete Benengeli in the novel.


- I -

Jacinto María Delgado first published his Adiciones á la historia del ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, en que se prosiguen los sucesos ocurridos a su escudero el famoso Sancho Panza, escritas en arábigo por Cide-Hamete Benengeli, y traducidas al castellano con las memorias de la vida de este por don   —14→   Jacinto María Delgado in Madrid with the Imprenta de Blas Román in 1786. The date is not mentioned on the title page, but the newly published book was announced and summarized in Memorial Literario 9 (July, 1786), 285-86 (see Baig Baños, pp. 354-55). The work has a complicated set of introductory pieces that consists of the following:

  • a dedication by Delgado «Al público de Madrid»
  • a «Censura» by a supposed «Dr. D. Celestino Antero» directed to Delgado;
  • a «Carta crítica-legal» by «El Licenciado Don Gómez de Villoria» addressed to both of the above;
  • a brief «Prólogo» by Delgado;
  • a «Nota: Advertencia del traductor» in which Delgado responds to Antero's remarks above; and
  • a tabla of chapters.

This is followed by the 355-page text of the novel of Sancho Panza, divided into fifteen chapters. Finally, there is a short essay entitled «Memorias del esclarecido Cide-Hamete Benengeli, autor celebérrimo de la historia del ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Recogidas por Melique Zulema, Autor igualmente verdadero, que Arabigo».

Although the text occasionally displays moments of stylistic excellence and wry humor, and Delgado maintains an appealing intertextual relationship with Cervantes' novel (see section III), this story of Sancho's life after the death of Don Quijote is not very appealing to twentieth-century tastes. The local priest, Pero Pérez, and other friends of the late knight-errant, worried about the health of the former squire and governor, write of their concerns to the Duke and Duchess. The latter respond with an offer to name Sancho the Duke's «Consultor» in order to enjoy more laughs at his expense. Sancho is elaborately trained for his new charge by the local authorities and by a certain Don Aniceto, a genial confidence man who advises Sancho in matters of wardrobe and in the fine art of «pedeografía», elegance in carriage and gesture. Sancho assumes his new title in a solemn ceremony and takes up his administrative duties. After a while he is named «Barón de Casa-Panza», and, some days later, dies after overindulging at a banquet. The main purpose in writing the novel was to satirize certain contemporary social customs, particularly in imitation of French culture (see Río y Rico, p. 530).

Delgado's Adiciones is perhaps the most significant and influential creative work related to Cervantes written in the late eighteenth century, a period of renewed interest in Cervantes that began with   —15→   the publication of the monumental editions of Don Quijote by the Real Academia de la Lengua (that included Vicente de los Ríos' important Análisis del Quixote) in 1780 and John Bowle in 1781. Even more significant, however, was the polemical fervor that followed the 1782 publication of Nicholas Masson de Moruilliers' essay on Spain in the Encyclopédie Méthodique in which the French editor rhetorically asked what the world owed to Spain and what Spain had ever done for Europe. Juan Pablo Forner, the leading figure in the polemic, and others used the works of Cervantes, especially Don Quijote, as a primary example of Spain's greatness.13 Delgado's novel and the reactions to it are clearly related to the broader issue of the nation's intellectual and artistic integrity. In the supposed «Censura» to the novel, «Celestino Antero» cites and comments on Delgado's letter of transmission in which the matter of national pride is clearly addressed:

Dice vmd. en el tercer Capítulo de su carta de remision esta clausula: Es cierto que el caracter de Don Quixote no fue otro, ni su oficio de Caballero andante se reduxo á mas que á enderezar tuertos y vengar agravios... Del mismo modo sus Adiciones quieren enderezar algunas ridiculeces que se han introducido insensiblemente, de que á la nacion le resulta una cierta burla, que nos hacen los extrangeros, agravios que pueden cortarse con las Adiciones.

¡Quántas y quántas veces hemos tocado este punto, y quántas y quántas veces hemos visto con qué justo motivo las naciones extrangeras, y aún nuestros mismos nacionales se burlan de cierto gremio de calaveras, hombres que se han tomado por empeño hacerse ridículos por autoridad propia, sin querer saber, que lo que hacen causa una general burla, que se pone por universal á la Nacion, y se incluyen en el dicho aún los que están opuestos al hecho!


(Italics in the original.)

A sensational contemporary reaction to the Adiciones14 is the attack entitled «apología irónica de las Adiciones á la historia de Don Quixote» by Pedro Centeno writing under the pseudonym of D. Policarpo Chinchilla Galiano in his periodical El Apologista universal   —16→   (no. 2, 17-32),15 essay which Baig Baños has honored by calling it «en realidad, el primer artículo cervantino publicado en la prensa madrileña» (p. 357). Ridiculing the novel, Centeno affirms that «este libro era sin duda aquel con que jugaban los diablos en la famosa vision de Altisidora, del que dixo uno de ellos que él no lo podia hacer peor» (p. 21). He concludes with this exhortation to his readers:

Asi, pues, Clientes amados míos, y vosotros verdaderos amantes de la Patria, indagad, averiguad y escudriñad, por todas las vias imaginables y posibles, el nombre, patria, padres, estudios, empleos ú oficio de nuestro inmortal Autor D. Jacinto Maria Delgado, y hallado que sea todo esto, hacedlo estampar en una panza de oveja con caractéres de á palmo, y colocadlo, con las debidas ceremonias, en el salon de la Academia Argamasillesca...


(p. 31)                


It is probably this final comment that has led some to suppose that the name Jacinto María Delgado is a pseudonym. Although this possibility cannot be rejected definitively it seems more probable that Delgado was an obscure figure who made only a brief excursion into the world of letters; at any rate, I will assume that Delgado did exist and that he was the author of the Adiciones.

In response to Centeno's criticism and to that of an anonymous «Carta del Duende de medida mayor»16 an anonymous pamphlet was published: «Justa repulsa á la apologia irónica-satírica, que en el num. II hizo el señor don Policarpo de Chinchilla, por el Libro Adiciones á la Historia del ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Publícase para vindicación del Adicionador, y diversion del Duende aficionado al Señor Chinchilla (alias) El Apologista Universal» (n. p.: n. p., n. d.; but obviously Madrid, 1786).17 The author of this 20-page essay claims that he is not «el que muchos juzgan Autor de las Adiciones al Quixote, ni el que públicamente   —17→   está declarado Traductor de ellas; uno y otro lo afirmo sanamente, y en caso necesario, estoy pronto a jurarlo» (p. 1). Rather, he claims, he is merely a friend of the man who wrote the Adiciones and who, offended by the piece in the Apologista universal, wrote to the author of the novel urging him to reply in his own defense. The latter, he says, wrote back a letter (quoted at length) declining the invitation to respond to the unjust attack. The introductory section of the essay is brought to a close with the following statement:

Mas dejando á parte fruslerias, no puedo negar, que siento ver maltratado al Adicionador, porque es mi Amigo, y si Amicus est alter ego, y amicorum omnia communia, hagome el Adicionador, apropiome sus Adiciones como si fuesen mias, y doy principio á su defensa...


(pp. 6-7)                


Although it is possible that the author of this essay is literally a friend of Delgado's, it seems more likely that it is Delgado himself, engaging in more of the ludic masquerading that characterizes much of the writing of the epoch. It is also worth noting that at one point the author of this pamphlet reveals the identity of his critic: «Mucho nos hemos distraído del grano, Señor Chinchilla, no es la culpa mia ciertamente, sino el haber que limpiarle de tanta paja de centeno» (p. 14; italics mine18).

The 1786 edition of the Adiciones was the only one published in the eighteenth century,19 but two editions were published in the mid-nineteenth century. The first was in México by the Imprenta   —18→   del ciudadano Santiago Pérez in 1842.20 The prefatory material consists only of Delgado's dedication and prologue, which are followed by the text of the novel and the appendix on the life of Cide Hamete Benengeli. This is the first illustrated edition, with seventeen full-page engravings, some signed by Ortega and others by Lucio. It is also the rarest edition of the novel and the one printed on the highest quality paper («de Maguay»).21 The second nineteenth-century edition was published with the reduced title Adiciones a la historia del ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, continuación de la vida de Sancho Panza, with no reference anywhere to Delgado (Madrid: Mellado, 1845). This time all of the prefatory material is eliminated, leaving only the novel and the «Memorias». There are 24 engravings (six full-page) by Oliveros.22 Although Cejador lists a Madrid edition of 1835 (p. 464) and Palau lists another in Madrid, about 1866, by Blas Román (2nd ed.: 7, 154), these seem to be errors based on typographical or copying mistakes   —19→   (1835 for 1845 and 1866 for 1786). There was, in addition, a French translation by the Countess of Bassanville: Suite de la vie de Sancho Pança. Ce qu'il advint après la mort de l'illustre Don Quichotte (Paris: Desserts, 1851).23

Nineteenth-century literary critics did not completely ignore the Adiciones. In 1870 Ramón León Máinez, with no explanation of how he came across the novel, reference to the 1842 or 1845 editions, or reason for writing about an 84-year old book, published a scathing review of Delgado's novel. His conclusion and summary is as follows:

... [C]oncluimos diciendo que la imitacion de que hemos hablado en el presente escrito cervántico, bajo todos los puntos de vista que se la considere, es detestable, más que detestable, detestabilísima; pero bajo el punto de vista literario apreciada, es rematadamente infeliz, incorrecta, desmazalada, diabólica, piramidalmente mala, pobre en la invencion, más pobre en el lenguaje, más pobre aún en el estilo, y merecedora, en una palabra, de ser quemada á fuego lento, y por una eternidad imperdurable, en los hornos, no apagados, sino encendidos, muy encendiditos, de los profundos infiernos del olvido y del silencio.

Para el alma del bueno del imitador, para el espíritu del atrevido Sr. D. Jacinto María Delgado, pidamos una sola cosa: Paz, paz eterna!!!

Aun nos resta algo de compasion!24


Two years later León Máinez published an excerpt of a letter sent to him by Cayetano Alberto de la Barrera, which includes the following comments:

En el singular libro Adiciones..., he creído yo traslucir alusiones, que con dificultad pudieron ya explicarse ni descifrarse, á personas de la época de su composicion. Satirízanse en él picantemente las ridículas modas de aquel tiempo, la manía genealógica, la aficion á curiosidades arqueológicas y muchas viciosas ó risibles costumbres.


(«Noticias varias», p. 103)                


La Barrera goes on to summarize the attacks by Centeno and the author of the «Carta del Duende» and the response in the «Justa   —20→   repulsa», with which León Máinez states that he was not familiar when he wrote his essay. Ticknor (p. 516, n. 10), Rius (2, 277), and Cotarelo (p. 83) also make brief, rather flippant and sarcastic statements about the novel's quality.

As part of the 1905 third centennial celebration of the publication of the first part of Don Quijote a new edition of the Adiciones was released in Barcelona by the Casa Editorial Maucci and simultaneously in Buenos Aires by the related Maucci Hermanos. It is worth quoting the editor's preface to the reader:

Hace algunos días, entretenidos en dar un vistazo á libros viejos, cayó en nuestras manos uno antiquísimo y rebosante de interés, del cual quedarán por el mundo contadísimos ejemplares, y en cuya portada se lee: Adiciones...

Este libro fué impreso allá por los años 1775 á 80.

Como todo to que se refiere á la portentosa obra de Cervantes llama en estos momentos tan poderosamente la atención, y como, por otra parte, las Adiciones dichas no merecen, ni con mucho, el olvido de los que al estudio de las buenas letras se dedican, hemos considerado oportuno publicar la presente edición en la seguridad de servir de este modo á las letras patrias.

No es nuestro intento detenernos en hacer un prólogo para explicarle al lector bellezas que con volver la hoja puede empezar á saborear á su antojo; únicamente queríamos hacer constar que al publicar una nueva edición de este curiosísimo é interesante libro, no nos guía otro propósito que el de no dejar en el olvido en estos momentos, tan sabrosas é interesantes Adiciones.


(pp. v-vi)                


As if one twentieth-century revival were not enough, the new facsimile edition has again placed Delgado's novel at the disposal of interested readers. The new editors announce that this text initiates a series designed to «difundir y dar a conocer los libros antiguos a precios moderados.» They cite Palau's bibliographical summary of editions (1786, 1842, 1845, the erroneous 1866, and 1905) but give no indication of having seen any other than the first edition, and do not comment on the similar aims of their edition and that of Maucci in 1905.

In summary, then, we can list the following editions of Delgado's Adiciones:

1.- Madrid: Blas Román, 1786.

2.- México: Santiago Pérez, 1842.

3.- Madrid: Mellado, 1845.

4.- In French, Paris: Desserts, 1851.

5.- Barcelona and Buenos Aires: Maucci, 1905.

6.- Madrid: Babilonia, 1984.

  —21→  

The new edition of the novel is to be welcomed, as no scholar writing after the 1905 revival by Maucci whose work I have seen has taken any notice of the book's existence.25 Particularly unfortunate is the complete absence of reference to the Adiciones (or to any of the other works cited later in this essay) in Flores' brief and superficial paragraph on the fortunes of Sancho Panza in eighteenth-century Spain (p. 42), the one study in which such works specifically should be discussed.

It is ironic that a novel that has rarely received any critical praise in nearly three centuries (its twentieth-century editors present it more as a curiosity than as a work of artistic excellence) and that has been the target of some notable vituperative criticism should have enjoyed a French translation and five Spanish editions, including two modern revivals. As I will suggest in the final section of this essay, there may be some merit in the popularity of the Adiciones. But before looking at the text, it is necessary to enter into a Borgesian bibliographical labyrinth that is almost beyond belief in the supposedly rational world of academia.

We begin with two simple questions: Who was Jacinto María Delgado? What did he write?




- II -

Who was Jacinto María Delgado? The only bit of biographical information I have been able to glean is the following entry in the Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada: «Escritor español que vivió en el siglo XVIII, si bien creen los críticos que este nombre fué un seudónimo. Se sabe que residió en Madrid, y publicó los libros [sic]: Adiciones...»   —22→   (17, 1433). Although his novel has been saved from oblivion, Delgado himself has become nothing more than a name.

What did he write? Here is where we enter into the labyrinth; I will retrace the early steps of my own path. On the assumption that a good place to begin to answer this question would be with a standard Cervantes bibliography, I first consulted Grismer. Here (1, 53), under the heading of «Delgado, Jacinto María ('Cide Hamete Benengeli')», we find listed the 1786, 1842, 1845, and 1905 editions of the Adiciones, together with another entered as «DCad 1870, n. 1181», clearly an error (copied, as we will see later, from Ford and Lansing; see n. 24) for León Máinez's review of the novel discussed in the last section. But then the following entries are listed: -Diálogo entre Don Quijote de la Mancha y Sancho Panza... Valencia, 1811. (Full bibliographical entries for this and other works listed here will be provided below.)

  • Libros que enloquecieron a Don Quijote... Madrid, 1918.
  • La moral del más famoso escudero Sancho Panza... Madrid, 1793.
  • Suite nouvelle et véritable de l'histoire... de Don Quichotte... Paris, 1722-26. 6 vols.
  • Idem. Paris, 1741. 6 vols.

In other words, Delgado published works of fiction and criticism having to do with Don Quijote in both French and Spanish in a long career that extended from 1722 to 1918. Quite an accomplishment. But surely Grismer was careless, including under a single heading various works in which the authors used the Cervantine pseudonym of Cide Hamete Benengeli26. Better to check a more recent and more authoritative source, so I went next to the Library of Congress' National Union Catalogue: Pre-1956 Imprints.

In the NUC (138, 71) Delgado is listed only as a pseudonym for Juan Francisco de la Jara y Sánchez de Molina. Under Jara's name (278, 124-25) are listed five editions of the Adiciones (1786, an erroneous 1790,27 1842, 1845, and 1905), together with the following works:

  —23→  

  • Estudio histórico-topográfico de... Don Quijote... Madrid, 1916. (There is a cross reference for full entry under Cervantes.)
  • Libros que enloquecieron a Don Quijote... Madrid, 1918.
  • La moral del más famoso escudero... Madrid, 1793.
  • Suite nouvelle et véritable... Paris, 1726. 2 vols. (Jara is cited here as the «Supposed author».)

The problem was hardly solved at this point: all I had learned was that perhaps the long-lived polyglot author involved was named Jara rather than Delgado and that there is some uncertainty as to what books he wrote. Matters were destined to get far worse. I will not attempt to retrace the entire garden of forking paths that eventually led to a set of tentative conclusions about who wrote what, when, and in what languages. In the paragraphs that follow I provide the most accurate description I can of each work and author associated at one time or another with Delgado, together with some comments on their treatment by literary historians, bibliographers and cataloguers.


1. The Suite nouvelle

It is quite clear that neither Delgado nor any other Spanish author was ever involved in the composition of the following French sequel to Don Quijote written in the early eighteenth century: Suite nouvelle et véritable de l'histoire et des avantures de l'incomparable Don Quichotte de la Manche. Traduite d'un manuscrit espagnol de Cide-Hamet Benengely, son véritable historien. Avec La véritable histoire de Sancho Pansa alcalde de Blandanda, 6 vols. (Paris: C. Le Clerc, 1722-26). Vols. 1-5 present new adventures of the knight and squire, while vol. 6 is devoted to Sancho Panza after his master's death. There was a second edition, also in six volumes, published in Paris by Clousier in 1741.28 The sixth volume was also translated into German: Die Geschichte des Sancho Pansa, vormahligen Stallsmeisters des Don Quichotte; aus dem Franzoesischen uebersezt (Leipzig: Johann Michael Teubner, 1754).

Lengthy, accurate descriptions of and comments on this genuinely interesting and original work once attributed erroneously   —24→   to Le Sage are provided by Asensio,29 Rius (2, 298-300), Bardon (1, 424-36), and Givanel (1, 229-31, 235-36, 274). Palau never attributed the Suite nouvelle either to Delgado or Jara; but it is inexplicably confused with the Adiciones and attributed to Delgado by Ford and Lansing (p. 123), Grismer (1, 53), Rogers and Lapuente (p. 86), and again independently by Rogers (who persists in stating inaccurately that the Adiciones is «apparently... an adaptation of the Suite nouvelle»; p. 145), and Lapuente (p. 142). As noted above, Jara receives the attribution by the Library of Congress.




2. Jacinto María Delgado

Delgado is probably only the author of the Adiciones and perhaps the «Justa repulsa» discussed in the previous section. Ford and Lansing seem to have been the first to make massive, illogical attributions of works purported to have been written by Cide Hamete Benengeli to Delgado. They attribute the 1786, 1842, 1845, and 1905 editions of the Adiciones, along with the 1722-26 and 1741 editions of the Suite nouvelle, the Moral del más famoso, the «Diálogo», and León Máinez's review of the Adiciones all to Delgado (p. 123), and later, in another section of their bibliography, also give Delgado credit for the Libros (p. 197). It is obvious that Grismer indiscriminately accepted Ford and Lansing's multiple attributions. As we will see later, Ford and Lansing are also the first to make attributions to Jara.




3. Pedro Centeno

Centeno did not abandon the quixotic fray with his attack on Delgado. Writing under the pseudonym of Eugenio Habela Patiño, he published El Teniente del Apologista universal, no. 1 (Madrid: D. Antonio Espinosa, 1788), which, after a brief prologue in which the author explains how the Apologista Universal encouraged him to take up his pen in further support of his causes,30 contains the   —25→   «Primera salida de D. Quixote el Segundo, alias El Escolástico», a satire on Forner in the guise of a Cervantine imitation. Using the same pseudonym, Centeno published a sequel a year later: Apéndice á la primera salida de Don Quixote el Escolástico (Madrid: D. Antonio Espinosa, 1789).31 The unfortunate Augustinian friar Pedro Centeno (1730-1803), member of the Real Academia de la Historia and relatively talented writer, eventually came into conflict with the Inquisition for his supposed heretical views and spent his last years in anguish and perhaps madness.32




4. Pedro Gatell

Gatell was Delgado's major rival as the author of imaginative works inspired in Don Quijote in the late eighteenth century. He published as many as four books during the period:

  1. La moral de Don Quixote deducida de la historia que de sus gloriosas hazañas escribió Cide-Hamete Benengelí. Por su grande Amigo el Cura. Dala a luz el Br. D. P. Gatell. 2 vols. Madrid: Josef Herrera, 1789; and Madrid: Imprenta de González, 1792. The two parts were also published together, Madrid: Imprenta de González, 1793. It was later published in Barcelona: José Solá, 1832, with (according to Palau; 2nd ed.: 6, 139) a continuation in Barcelona: Benito Espona, 1834.
  2. —26→
  3. Instrucciones económicas y políticas, Dadas por el famoso Sancho Panza, Gobernador de la Insula Barataria, á un hijo suyo, apoyándolas con refranes castellanos, en que le prescribe el método de gobernarse en todas las edades y empleos. Segunda impresión aumentada con otra instruccion. Las da á luz D. A. A. P. y G. Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1791.33 Reprinted in 1876 by Sbarbi (pp. 1-39).34
  4. La moral del mas famoso escudero Sancho Panza, con arreglo á la historia que del mas hidalgo manchego Don Quixote de la Mancha escribió Cide Hamete Benengeli. Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1793.
  5. Historia del mas famoso escudero Sancho Panza, desde la gloriosa muerte de Don Quixote de la Mancha hasta el último dia y postrera hora de su vida. Parte primera. Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1793. Another edition, 1794. Parte segunda. Madrid: La Imprenta de Villalpando, 1798.

In the unnumbered preliminary pages of La moral de Don Quixote the author claims to have purchased from a pharmacist in La Mancha a manuscript written by Pero Pérez; he reproduces it here, adding; «Yo solo pongo de mi parte la aplicacion de la Moral, escrita por el Cura en su tiempo, á la epoca presente» (p. [5]). In the introduction to La moral del mas famoso, Gatell states that he searched for but never found a manuscript like the priest's on Don Quijote, so he has had to do this work entirely on his own (p. [2]). He defends his previous work and announces that he intends to write the history of Sancho Panza after the death of Don Quijote (p. [13]). Gatell does not identify himself in this work but signs the introduction thus: «B. L. M. de V. / su Capellán sin órdenes / El Autor» (p. [16]). Palau attributes the Moral del mas famoso first to Cide Hamete Benengeli (1st ed.: 1, 200) and then, when grouping several Benengeli-related items together, to Jara (2nd ed.: 7, 155). Ford and Lansing (p. 123) and Grismer (1, 53) attribute it to Delgado.

  —27→  

In the introductory pages to the first part of the Historia, Gatell states that after writing the two moral books he decided to «escribir un rasgo de su imitacion» (pp. [2-3]). In the prologue to the second part of the Historia the following claim is made:

El autor de la primera parte de esta obrita, hace quatro años que murió, y aunque ofreció concluirla con el segundo tomo, como en su primero verás, en el escrutinio de sus papeles, por mas cuidado que se ha puesto, no se han hallado, ni originales, ni borradores que traten de esto: por este accidente quedó imperfecta la obra, y sin gloria su autor, pues como los adictos á saber, ven solo un primer tomo, la desprecian, aunque el mérito sea sublime, porque asunto que se propone, y no se concluye mal ó bien, poco merece, por esto dispuse (con el fin de que el primer tomo luciese) formar este segundo, siguiendo la idea del primero, dándole conclusion con la muerte de Sancho, como en él previene.


(pp. [2-3])                


This sequel is generally attributed to Gatell, which seems quite reasonable since the passage quoted above is probably no more than a new and extreme variant on the constant game of authorial disguise.35

It is worth noting, also, that the author of the second part of the Historia specifically places his text in competition with Delgado's Adiciones:

A penas, lector mio, te veo satisfecho por tu prudencia de mi verdad, que ya crees, quando oygo que me sales con el reparo de decirme, y á unas adiciones que se venden impresas del célebre Cide Hamete Benengeli que son la mayor parte de la vida de Sancho Panza (quando quiera favorecerte con mi sufrimiento en leer to que dispares en este segundo tomo), ¿en qué grado quieres que las ponga? á eso repondo, que la idea del primer tomo es séria, y su formacion va coordinada, y separada totalmente de la ficcion burlesca...


(pp. [4-5])                


He then goes on to warn the reader that he will hear «á los críticos modernos decir (que sí dirán), que es atrevimiento, á vista de los primeros originales, tener valor para quererlos imitar» (pp. [9-10]) and defends his new version of Sancho and other characters in anticipation of the kind of criticism leveled at Delgado's novel.

  —28→  

The major bibliographical inconsistency involving the Historia is Palau's double attribution. The bookseller / bibliographer correctly lists the work under Gatell (1st ed.: 3, 323; 2nd ed.: 6, 139) but simultaneously appears to consider a work entitled Historia de Sancho Panza, Madrid, 1793-98, 2 parts (obviously Gatell's text) as a Spanish translation of the Suite nouvelle (1st ed.: 4, 51; 2nd ed.: 6, 618). The confusion may be due, at least in part, to the similarity with the title of the Countess of Bassanville's French translation of the Adiciones: Suite de la vie de Sancho Pança.

Delgado has at least had his sequel to Don Quijote published twice in the twentieth century, but Gatell has not enjoyed such good fortune. Gatell has, however, been praised as the sole author of his time who displayed some affection for Sancho Panza (by Romero Flores, pp. 85-86, n. 1), and has been cited as the best example of how eighteenth-century writers conceived of Don Quijote as a moral work (Smith, p. 1035). Aguilar Piñal does not discuss Gatell's Historia but does affirm that La moral del mas famoso and Delgado's Adiciones are «las dos principales continuaciones del Quijote que se publican en el siglo XVIII» («Cervantes», p. 159).




5. The «Diálogo entre Don Quijote... y Sancho Panza»

The 12-page pamphlet entitled «Diálogo entre Don Quijote de la Mancha y Sancho Panza su escudero, escrito en lengua árabe por Cide Amete Benengeli, testigo presencial, y traducido al español por D. E. R. H.» (Valencia: José Tomás Nebot, 1811) is attributed to Delgado only by Ford and Lansing (p. 123) and Grismer (1, 53), the latter presumably accepting the attribution of the former. I can see no reason for making such an attribution. Authors who signed works with initials, a practice (as we have already seen) much in vogue in the eighteenth century, tended to at least hint of their identity through these initials. Since «D. E. R. H.» hardly points to Jacinto María Delgado, and since this is the only work under consideration that was published in Valencia rather than in Madrid, the Cide Hamete Benengeli authorship ploy alone hardly provides grounds for making any attribution at all. There appears to be no way to identify the author of this work.




6. Juan Francisco de la Jara y Sánchez de Molina

One might expect some difficulty in identifying eighteenth-century writers like Delgado or Gatell, but surely it should not be so hard to learn something about a twentieth-century author like Jara.   —29→   But such is not the case: I have been unable to locate the slightest allusion to Jara in any encyclopedia, dictionary of literature, or other reference work. Jara is clearly not the author of the Suite nouvelle, the Adiciones or the Moral de Don Quixote. I had thought for a while that Jara might be a pseudonym, perhaps for Luis Esteso (see below), but there is sufficient evidence for us to accept his existence as the author of the following works:

  • «¡Honremos al genio con algo verdad! 23 Abril 1616-1916. A Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra: conferencia imaginada, por Hamete-Abén-Xaráh, el Beturani». Madrid: Imprenta Española, 1916.
  • Estudio histórico-topográfico de El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, deducido de su lectura, y aplicando las leyendas de importantes sucesos y las consejas populares de la «región beturiana», con conocimiento exacto del terreno que describió Cervantes, donde la tradicion conserva los nombres que justifican los pasajes más culminantes de esta fantástica obra, por un manchego, que luego se dirá. Madrid: Imprenta Española, 1916. 2 vols. Vol. 2, without title page, has only the following title (which is also on the cover of vol. 1): El ingenioso hidalgo de la Mancha: Estudio de Don Quixote, por Hamete Aben Xaráh, el Beturani.
  • Libros que enloquecieron a Don Quijote, por Cide Hamete Benengeli. Juventud de Don Alonso Quijano, con una extensa bibliografía de los libros existentes en la biblioteca de Don Quijote, más las dos historias completas de «Tablante de Ricamonte» y «Orlando furioso». Biblioteca de Autores Célebres, 17. Madrid: Imprenta de Juan Pueyo, 1918.

The prologue to the reader of «Honremos» is signed only «Hamete», but on the back cover there is an announcement that the «Biblioteca Cervántica de Hamete-Abén-Xaráh, el Beturaní», that includes not only this 22-page pamphlet but also a two-volume edition of Don Quijote (clearly the Estudio), can be purchased in the Librería de San Martín and at the home of D. Juan Francisco de la Jara (presumably «Xaráh» is a phonetic approximation of «Jara»). Contemporary bibliographical references confirm the authorship of Jara.36

The Estudio is Jara's edition of Cervantes' novel, in which the editor attempts in his introductory material and notes to prove that   —30→   the geography of the novel is that of the southernmost part of La Mancha between the Guadiana and Guadalquivir rivers known as Beturia. Jara, who signs the introductory material with his full name, claims -in a fashion much like what we have seen with the eighteenth-century authors above- to be a friend of «Hamete» who will help the latter reveal the truth about Cervantes' novel (1, 9).37

The Libros consists first of a brief fictional account of how the reading of Tablante and Orlando was what finally led Alonso Quijano to become Don Quijote, and then of a prose version of these two works. There is no reference to Jara or to his obsession Beturia in the book, and it is quite possible that Jara is not the author.38 But since this work is most often attributed to Jara, it seems to be the best assumption to include it here.

It would be appropriately ironic if Jara, the prolific author listed in the NUC and other sources, were merely a pseudonym, but, as was the case earlier with Delgado, the most logical assumption is that he did exist and was the author of the books listed above. It is obviously the use of the names Hamete Aben Xaráh and Cide Hamete Benengeli that has led superficial literary historians to associate these works with others from the eighteenth century that also include the name of Cervantes' fictional chronicler. The earliest incidence of this confusion that I can locate is in the 1931 bibliography of Ford and Lansing. In addition to their omnibus attribution to Delgado cited above, they attribute the «Honremos» and the Estudio to Jara, not under listings in his name but identifying him as the author behind the pseudonym of Hamete Aben Xarah (pp. 171, 210). Then in the 1942 dictionary of pseudonyms by Ponce de León and Zamora, both Cide Hamete Benengeli, in the Adiciones, and Hamete-Aben-Xarah el Beturani, in the Estudio, are identified as Jara (pp. 28, 50). This gross error of attributing to Jara works published 130 years apart is repeated by the normally meticulous   —31→   Palau in the second edition of the Manual del librero39. But perhaps the most confusing set of errors and impossible attributions involving Jara is to be found in the dictionary of pseudonyms by Rogers and Lapuente. By misreading both Beltrán (see Beltrán, pp. 112, 148-49) and Palau (see Palau, 2nd ed.: 5, 183, and 7, 155), Rogers and Lapuente attribute: 1) the Suite nouvelle to Cide Hamete Benengeli: Jacinto María Delgado, 2) the Libros to «este autor» (which has to be read as a reference to Benengeli) in collaboration with Luis Esteso, and 3) the Adiciones to Jara and Esteso in collaboration (p. 86).40




7. Luis Esteso y López de Haro

Esteso, a minor but easily identifiable humorist, dramatist and novelist of the early twentieth century (1879-1928),41 probably never published any Cervantine works in collaboration with Jara.42 Among his many books, the following have some relevance for this essay:

  • Viajes por España. Viaje cómico. El nieto de Don Quijote. Viaje de placer. Prologue by Aldo B. Alarcón. Madrid: Fernando Fe, 1914.
  • Nuevo Viaje al Parnaso; La Musa Picaresca. Los Poetas, Novelistas, Autores Dramáticos y Críticos que escribían en el año 1917 y varios monólogos más. -De Jacinto Benavente á Luis Esteso. Diferencias literarias. Prólogo de EL LAZARILLO DE TORMES. Madrid: Imprenta de Juan Pueyo, 1917.
  • Cartas amorosas. Nuevas cartas amorosas. Despertadoras de amantes sufridos. Nuevo formulario para expresar el amor. Con un prólogo de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, y una invocación en verso a Don Quijote. Madrid: Imprenta de Juan Pueyo, Viuda de Pueyo, 1918.
  • —32→
  • El Nieto de Don Quijote: Andanzas y correrias por algunos pueblos de España: En colaboración con Cervantes, Antonio de Guevara, el Arcipreste de Hita, Gil Polo, Quevedo, Rojas Villandrando, Enríquez Gómez, José de Acosta y otros ingenios; en el que se demuestra que el «Falso Quijote» lo escribió Lope de Vega. Por el Rey del Hambre y de la Risa. Biblioteca de Autores Célebres, 9. Madrid: Imp. de Juan Pueyo, Libr. de Fe, 1918.
  • Novelas picarescas. Alaridos eróticos. Monólogos escogidos. Biblioteca de Autores Célebres, 19. Madrid: Imprenta de Juan Pueyo, 1919.

Esteso was a shameless self-promoter who, for example, advertised himself on the cover of Novelas picarescas as «Rival de Azorín» and announced that «Esta obra es la más grande que se ha pergeñado en castellano después de 'El Quijote', 'El Nieto de Don Quijote' y 'Libros que enloquecieron á Don Quijote'». The opening words of the «Elogio de Luis Esteso, por el autor de este libro» of the Novelas picarescas are the following; «Luis Esteso es el literato más hondo, más chispeante y más genial de España, en este precioso siglo» (p. 7). Throughout his works Esteso boasts of his own excellence and cites newspaper articles, reviews and books that praise his publications.

The praise of the Libros cited in the last paragraph suggests the possibility that Esteso may be the author of that book since he rarely compliments the work of anyone but himself, and especially since he is listed as author or editor of nine of the nineteen books published in the Biblioteca de Autores Célebres series (Novelas picarescas, pp. [3-4]). But since he never fails to identify himself in his other works I have seen, since the lists of his books published that are regularly included in his works never contain the title of the Libros, and since the tone of this book is somewhat erudite and considerably more reserved than anything of Esteso's that I have consulted, it seems unlikely that he is the author of this work.43 Esteso may have been a friend of Jara's (although the latter's name is not among the many contemporary authors cited in the Nuevo Viaje) but I can find no evidence that they ever collaborated on any Cervantine publication, as was suggested by Rogers and Lapuente.



  —33→  
8. Leonardo Castellani

Finally, in an attempt to bring the speed and accuracy of modern technology to bear on the problem, I conducted a series of computerized searches involving many of the authors and works cited above. Much to my surprise I found that the author of the Libros was identified (at least at the library of California State University at Los Angeles) not as Jara, Jara and Esteso, or Delgado, but Leonardo Castellani (1899-), an Argentine Jesuit priest who also wrote several creative works. Among the latter there is one particularly interesting title: El nuevo gobierno de Sancho; traducción directa del arábigo por Jerónimo del Rey (Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 1942). There is a second edition, augmented: Buenos Aires: Penca, 1944.44 There is no reason to believe that Castellani is in any way involved with any work cited previously. It would be tempting at this point to continue with the Borges-inspired imagery of the labyrinth and perhaps to add that of the infinite library or invoke the name of the enigmatic Pierre Menard. But it is time to put Borgesian play aside and affirm that the evidence presented in this essay suggests some sobering conclusions. This brief, introductory survey reveals only too clearly that Cervantes has not always been served well by literary history. There is no excuse for the existence of many of the faulty, superficial, inconsistent, and patently absurd bibliographical descriptions, authorial attributions, and critical silences we have just observed. There is more need than ever for authoritative, descriptive bibliographies and catalogues, both of the works of Cervantes and of other authors associated with him. There is no sufficiently detailed, accurate history of cervantismo in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries.45 Texts, such as the new edition of the Adiciones, of the works of writers like Centeno, Gatell,   —34→   and many others not cited in this study should be made available. Perhaps some publisher should undertake the publication of a series of Cervantine texts (sequels, imitations, parodies, commentaries, and so forth) through the ages. Finally, and above all, we have the right to expect, and should be provided with, modern literary history and criticism that avoids gross and elementary errors of commission and omission such as those that have been pointed out and commented on throughout this essay.

The following statement by José María Asensio might serve as a fitting conclusion to this study:

Tarea es delicadísima y necesaria, no menos que meritoria, la de procurar desvanecer las nieblas que obscurecen la verdad de los hechos en muchos puntos de nuestra historia literaria... Preciso es tener siempre muy en cuenta el principio de que un error no por ser antiguo es más respetable, ni deja de ser tan falso como funesto, porque to repitan célebres escritores.


(p. 199)                







- III -

Cervantes' Cide Hamete Benengeli may be the most prodigious narrator in the history of prose fiction. He is the prototype for self-conscious and unreliable narrators from Tristram Shandy to the present day. The recurring use of his name in the works discussed above, as well as in many others from the seventeenth century to the present, is an implicit expression of admiration for and appreciation of Cervantes' skill and originality in using the age-old device of the pseudo-chronicler. It is interesting, though, that while Cide Hamete Benengeli was often imitated by novelistic practitioners (albeit normally in a mechanical and unoriginal fashion), he was seldom discussed and never really analyzed until more recent times. Symptomatic of this tendency is the fact that while the novelistic contents of Delgado's Adiciones -the episodes that make up the life of Sancho Panza after the death of Don Quijote- are summarized and discussed at some length, not a single critic or bibliographer of the novel has ever commented on the role of the narrator in the text. Furthermore, the most original and amusing aspect of Delgado's text, the life of Cide Hamete Benengeli that is appended to the story of Sancho, is totally ignored except for Rius' brief dismissal of these «Memorias» as «tan insulsas como lo demás» (2, 277).

Cide Hamete's presence is constant in the Adiciones, even to a greater extent than in Don Quijote. The opening words of the text are:

  —35→  

Descolgó su bien cortada pluma el prudentísimo Cide-Hamete Benengeli, (porque le pareció no tenerla ociosa, y colgada segun la dexó en el Capítulo LXXIV de su ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha) para seguir la historia de su Escudero Sancho Panza, lustre y blason de su Patria, y digno por sus buenos servicios y famosos hechos, de que no quedase al olvido este segundo Heroe, de cuyo calibre, como de el de su Señor, se hallan muy pocos en el dilatado ámbito de la tierra: no quiero decir que en todas no se halle abundante número de Quixotes y Sanchos, que el pensarlo sería mucho agravio; sino que aquel calibre de valor en el uno, y entendimiento en el otro, con dificultad se hallarán.

Empezando á escribir los sucesos de este Escudero, inseparable del valeroso Don Quixote, dice el veracísimo Benengeli asi:...


(pp. 1-3)                


Phrases like «dice Benengeli que» or «dice la historia que», and several variants referring to the author and/or his text, appear well over fifty times in the relatively short novel (I would estimate that it is just over 40,000 words long, only about one-tenth the length of Cervantes' novel). Recalling the clever and multifaceted activities of Cide Hamete in Don Quijote, there are items when Delgado's version of the Moorish historian:

  • makes parenthetical asides: «(En esto dice Cide-Hamete por un parentesis, que...» (pp. 65-66);
  • is praised for accuracy and attention to detail: «Sigue la historia al exâctísimo Cide-Hamete con mejor puntualidad que ha tenido en lo que de ella nos dexó escrito: porque desde aquí manifiesta exâctamente un por menor de cosas sucedidas, que deben perpetuarse en la memoria manchega» (p. 149);
  • does not provide all the details he might: «mas no dice Benengeli de qué Pueblo ni Iglesia era, solo sí dice que conoció al Secretario del Duque» (p. 228);
  • swears: «Juro, dice Cide-Hamete, empezando este Capítulo, que estoy por no creer lo que escribo» (p. 276);
  • lacks the words to describe a scene: «En este punto, dice el puntualísimo historiador, me faltan palabras para dar á entender el grande que causó...» (p. 337); and
  • exclaims: «Ya murió Sancho, exclama Benengeli» (p. 350).

Delgado's Benengeli is a frequent philosopher, interrupting his narrative text with digressive commentary, usually in the form of an apostrophe directed to Sancho on the theme of fortune. The opening paragraph of Chapter II exemplifies this tendency:

  —36→  

Valgate tu poder, fortuna, dice Benengeli, pues quando tú quieres todo to allanas: ayer estaba Sancho desvalído, y ya hoy es, quando menos, Consultor de un Duque: ya lo instruye en política un Cura Párroco: ya lo quiere poner culto y civil un caballero franco: quando á tí se te antoja, todo lo facilitas: ¡quién supiera de tí quien te hace fuerza! Ruegote, Sancho, que aproveches el tiempo que te sea favorable, y mira que si este se te huye, no pienses que lo hallarás despues; porque tiempo que una vez se vá, nunca vuelve, y el de la fortuna huye quando menos se espera


(pp. 50-51; see also pp. 17, 118, 168, 276)                


Such passages reflect not only an ironic textual self-consciousness and provide a comic emphasis, but they also underscore the didactic and satiric neoclassic social message.

At one point in the text Pero Pérez asks Sansón Carrasco how it is that Sancho can at times display a wisdom and intelligence that is far beyond the capabilities of an uneducated rustic. Benengeli notes that he has often wondered the same thing, and that he asked this very question of the «gran Físico de Tremecen Abdala Benanzel, Moro instruidísimo» (p. 30). Benanzel responded with a letter explaining this anomaly that Benengeli reproduces in its entirety (pp. 30-39). This multiplication of wise Moorish authorities (that will continue with the «Memorias» on the life of Benengeli by the Moor Melique Zulema) tends to demythologize and humanize Cide Hamete Benengeli, as well as playfully increase the levels of textual narration.

One of the attractive features of Delgado's novel is his intertextual reliance on Cervantes' original work. Incidents and characters from Don Quijote are recalled with such frequency that the reader is invited to feel comfortable in recognizing the authentic world created by Cervantes. This lends relative authority to Delgado's text and implies a continuity in both social and human terms. Life goes on in the village of La Mancha, not only for Sancho Panza and his family, but also for the rest of the world.

In a letter to her husband, Teresa Panza recounts some local occurrences, including one involving the barber and Don Quijote's niece:

Maese Nicolás ha vendido el Potrillo fiado, y ahora ha tenido que sentir con la sobrina del amo la Antonia Quixano, sobre una bacía que dice se llevo de su casa, y la piden para no sé quien, y ha venido justicia de no sé donde, y está que toma el Cielo con las manos, y no quiere que se diga, llora como una Magdalena por la tal bacía, y se ha puesto mala.


(pp. 250-51)                


  —37→  

The following chapter (XI) is totally digressive: Benengeli leaves the events in the Duke's castle in order to relate those involving Antonia's donation of her uncle's armor to the Academia de la Argamasilla, the dispute between Antonia and Maese Nicolás over possession of the barber's basin /Mambrino's helmet, and the fire that destroyed the Academy building (pp. 256-75). It is one of the best chapters in the novel.46 Equally good comic, satiric passages are those in which Benengeli explains in a marginal note how Sansón Carrasco can be so perceptive at some times and so credulous at others (pp. 192-93), and comments on why he does not devote as much attention to the coat-of-arms of Maese Nicolás as he had earlier with Sancho's (pp. 341-43).

Just as there is a great deal of attention devoted to historian-translator-editor relationships in Don Quijote, Delgado occasionally enters into the text in his guise as translator-editor. On half a dozen occasions Delgado records that authors other than Cide Hamete have made statements relevant to the matters at hand (see, for example, pp. 54, 180, 257, 310). Perhaps the most comic of these involves the horse Sansón rode when he accompanied Sancho to the Duke's palace, in which the fate of Rocinante is also revealed:

aunque hay autor que afirma que el que llevó fue rocinante, que se vendió por la sobrina de Don Quixote, y compró para este caso en precio tan corto como su andadura; pero otro lo contradice, asegurando positivamente haber muerto al mes y dos dias del fallecimiento de Don Quixote de un hartazo de cebada, que se dió en el granero uno de los dias que se hacia el inventario, y no pudo digerir por mas que le ayudó Maese Nicolás.


(p. 116)                


On one occasion Delgado discusses Benengeli' s interest in eating utensils and informs us that «hay escritor extrangero que puso su nombre en cifra en una obra utilísima que tituló en su idioma: 'Uso del tenedor con cuchillo, y sin él, para el lucimiento de todo hombre de Corte'» (pp. 165-66). On another, the meticulous translator admits that he does not know how to translate the arabic word borceguíes, offering botas, botines, or polainas as possibilities (pp. 183-84). Finally, he notes that once when Cide Hamete was pausing to   —38→   contemplate the phrasing of a difficult passage, he must have sharpened his pen, for his manuscript continues «con letra mas menudita y algo carrasposa» (p. 337).

I do not mean to imply that Cide Hamete is more important or more prominent than Sancho in the Adiciones, for such is not the case. What I do believe, however, is that while the story of Sancho's life in his final days is rather mediocre and uninspired, Delgado manages, primarily by his use of the figure of Cide Hamete Benengeli, to make the text humorous and interesting, and worthy of appreciation by modern students of narration. I assume that because Delgado was so fond of his narrator, and perhaps realizing consciously that he had used this device with some degree of originality and talent, that he appended to the novel the etiological «Memorias del esclarecido Cide-Hamete Benengeli, autor celebérrimo de la historia del ingenioso Don Quixote de la Mancha. Recogidas por Melique Zulema, Autor igualmente verdadero, que Arabigo» (p. 356).

Melique Zulema's «Memorias» (pp. 356-74) are divided into sixteen numbered paragraphs and can be summarized as follows:

  1. Cide Hamete Benengeli was born in the African city of Mascara; his father, Muley Benengeli, was a tailor, and his mother, Fatima Aben-Amar, a professional mourner and janitress at the local Mosque.
  2. The boy studied his father's trade, but was always inclined to books and was instructed by his uncle Benacél.
  3. Some Arabic authors claim that the young Benengeli wrote a history of Calaínos, but this is probably not true.
  4. He earned the title of Cide, or Captain, perhaps in recognition of his excellent services as the Bey's tailor.
  5. He is described as average in stature, noteworthy perhaps only for the ravages of small-pox on his face, his somewhat vacant gaze, some missing teeth, and a limp in his left leg.
  6. He was fond of practical jokes and planned those involving Altisidora, part of the procession of enchanters, and the bag of cats when Don Quijote was at the Duke's residence.
  7. Benengeli was an excellent tailor, and gave classes of instruction in the trade to poor young women.
  8. At the Duke's palace he supervised the making of the costumes involved in the deceptions staged during Don Quijote's visit.
  9. Benengeli was taken captive by a Genoese soldier, subjected to various humiliations (but he refused to eat donkey meat when it was served to him), and eventually sold to a Spanish captain, who made him his cook.
  10. —39→
  11. The captain lived several years in Aragón, where Cide Hamete wrote the first part of the history of Don Quijote; when the captain visited his relatives the Duke and Duchess, the latter were so taken by Benengeli that they insisted on buying him, to which the captain reluctantly assented; Benengeli thus became the Duke's chef and was given time off by the Majordomo to continue writing the history of Don Quijote.
  12. He was an excellent chef, specializing in dishes such as alcuzcuz, azemite (which he taught to Melique Zulema), and almoronía, an invention of his own.
  13. He also cooked acelgas very well.
  14. Benengeli was an outstanding musician and taught many Manchegan women to dance the zambra and seguidillas; he learned to play the Galician bagpipe, and even modified this instrument's construction.
  15. He was a talented painter, and studied under Orbaneja, the painting master from Ubeda.
  16. In recognition of Benengeli's good service and advanced age, the Duke granted him his freedom so that he might return to his homeland; the lackey Tosilos accompanied him on part of his journey to Africa.
  17. Cide Hamete promised to write to the Duke and Duchess immediately upon his arrival at home but was prevented from this at first because of illness; whether he eventually died of this illness or was simply ungrateful is not clear.

There is a charming whimsicality to these «Memorias». Some of the details are comically absurd: his mother sweeping out the Mosque, his small-pox, his recipe for acelgas, his modification of the bagpipe, and others. The generally prosaic nature of his life, the offhand way in which it is stated that he composed Don Quijote, and the anticlimactic ambiguity of the final paragraph further humanize his figure. The idea that he was a prominent member of the Duke's staff, perhaps second only to the Majordomo, during Don Quijote's visit there gives him an intimate association with the figure whose partial biography he wrote.

The outline of the life of Cide Hamete Benengeli is a minor piece of imaginative intertextual creation that can probably only interest devotees of Don Quijote. But, following as it does the text of the Adiciones in which Cide Hamete plays such a prominent role, it suggests that Jacinto María Delgado may have been the individual who most profoundly appreciated Cervantes' achievement with his   —40→   narrator in the centuries that preceded our modern critical understanding and aesthetic appreciation of that figure.47

I have made no exhaustive attempt to examine illustrated editions of Don Quijote and other manifestations of quixotic iconography in order to determine when and where the first graphic representation of the Moorish chronicler was published. I suspect, however, that it was in the 1842 Mexican edition of the Adiciones. The figure of Cide Hamete done for that edition by Ortega was then imitated by Oliveros in the 1845 Madrid edition of the novel. It seems only appropriate that the cover of this issue of Cervantes should be graced with a reproduction of the first known engraving of the illustrious historian Cide Hamete Benengeli.48



  —41→  
Works Cited

Aguilar Piñal, Francisco. Bibliografía de autores españoles del siglo XVIII. Vol. 2. Madrid: C. S. I. C., 1983.

_____. «Cervantes en el siglo XVIII». Anales Cervantinos 21 (1983): 153-63.

_____. La prensa española en el siglo XVIII: Diarios, revistas y pronósticos. Cuadernos Bibliográficos, XXXV. Madrid: C. S. I. C., 1978.

Aguirre, José Luis. Cervantes y Don Quijote. Valencia: Cosmos, 1959.

Asensio, José María. «Los continuadores de El ingenioso hidalgo: La obra de un Avellaneda desconocido». In Cervantes y sus obras. Barcelona: F. Seix, 1902, 199-232.

Baig Baños, Aurelio. «Antiguallas cervantinas de la prensa madrileña». Revista de la Biblioteca, Archivo y Museo 4 (1927): 345-58.

Barbier, Ant.-Alex. Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes. 3rd ed. Vol. 4. Paris: Paul Daffis, 1879.

Bardon, Maurice. «Don Quichotte» en France au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siècle, 1605-1815. 2 vols. 1931; rpt. Genève: Slatkine, 1974.

Beltrán, Francisco. Catálogo de una importante colección de libros y folletos españoles y extrangeros referentes a bibliografía, biografía, bibliología, bibliofilia, la imprenta y sus artes auxiliares, &, &, formada, catalogada y puesta en venta. Madrid: Librería Española y Extranjera, 1927.

«Bibliografía». Boletín de la Real Academia Española 4 (1917): 545-52.

_____. Revista de Filología Española 3 (1916): 425-64; 4 (1917): 77-104; 5 (1918): 85-110; 6 (1919): 203-31.

Brown, Reginald F. La novela española, 1700-1850. Madrid: Bibliografías de Archivos y Bibliotecas, 1953.

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Cherchi, Paolo. Capitoli di critica cervantina (1605-1789). Biblioteca di Cultura, 89. Roma: Bulzoni, 1977.

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