Muerte adminícula and ayudar a morir. On an Obscure Phrase of Sancho’s

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to attempt to clarify, once again, a passage from the Quixote (II, 47) which has so far puzzled all annotators, namely, the passage in which Sancho, as governor of the island, expresses his fear that the doctor may cause him a «muerte adminícula y pésima, como es la de la hambre». The adjective adminícula, a hapax legomenon until now misunderstood, reveals its possible meaning when compared to another passage (from Coloquio de las oposiciones, ca. 1600) in which this term also appears in combination with the word muerte, and in particular, given the fact that the expression ayudar a morir, in the sense of ‘to cause someone’s death, normally by means of poison’, became a common expression between the 16^th and 18^th centuries. Thus, the adjective adminícula, when refering to death, would mean ‘not natural, but induced’ (although not by the action of poison in this case, as the courtiers of the governor of Barataria seem to fear, but by simple deprivation of any kind of food).