Root and flower of the “adventure” of the fulling mills (DQ 1:20)

Abstract

Critics have called the episode of the fulling mills an «incomplete adventure». So that readers can interpret it in a way that relates well to the major themes of the novel, a couple of links have been suggested to Virgil’s Aeneid, specifically to Aeneas’ descent to the underworld and the forging of his armor by Vulcan’s cyclops on Etna. However, the content matches more fully, perhaps as a complement to the Virgilian source, the Spanish legend of King Rodrigo’s forbidden entrance into the Cave of Hercules located in Toledo.Cervantes would have read the ideologically charged version by the royal translator Miguel de Luna, a Morisco writer used by Lope in an antithetical way in the composition of his Último godo. Luna added the resounding torrent of water that with burlesque humor Cervantes turned into the seemingly terrifying sound of fulling mills, a racket misinterpreted by his protagonist as yet another chivalric adventure. Pedro de Rojas, conde de Mora, and Cristóbal Lozano later told the story of the legend once again, the latter making use of a change in perspective taken from Cervantes’ ironic adaptation.