Dulcinea del Toboso

Also known as: Aldonza Lorenzo / Doña Dulcinea del Toboso / Dulcinea / Dulcinea Del Toboso / Princess Dulcinea / fair Dulcinea / fair Dulcinea del Toboso / his lady Dulcinea / his lady Dulcinea del Toboso / lady Aldonza Lorenzo / lady Dulcinea / lady Dulcinea del Toboso / lady mine / my Dulcinea / my lady / my lady Dulcinea / my lady Dulcinea del Toboso / my lady the princess Dulcinea / the Empress of La Mancha / the lady Dulcinea / the lady Dulcinea del Toboso / the lady of my heart / the lady of your thoughts / the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso · Family: El Toboso · Role: lady of Don Quixote's thoughts · First appears: Part 1, Ch. 1.2

In Part 1, Ch. 1, Don Quixote chose the name Dulcinea del Toboso for Aldonza Lorenzo, a good-looking farm girl he had once loved without her knowing it: “he decided upon calling her Dulcinea del Toboso—she being of El Toboso—a name, to his mind, musical, uncommon, and significant”. He later proclaimed her his queen and lady, and treated her as the sole lady of his thoughts, refusing Maritornes and declining marriage with Dorothea because of his pledged devotion. He sent Sancho Panza with messages and letters, ordered freed prisoners to present themselves before her, and revealed that she was the daughter of Lorenzo Corchuelo and Aldonza Nogales, who had raised her in retirement and seclusion.

Sancho Panza reported that Dulcinea tore up Don Quixote’s letter to keep its secrets from the village, urged him to end his penance and return to El Toboso, and gave Sancho bread and sheep’s-milk cheese over the yard-wall. Don Quixote defended her against Sancho’s insults, while Sancho both served her cause and complained about what was required for her disenchantment. Dorothea called herself Dulcinea’s servant, and Don Quixote continued to protect Dulcinea’s honor and reject other women.

In Part 2, it was revealed at El Toboso that neither Don Quixote nor Sancho Panza had ever actually seen Dulcinea or personally received her reply. Sancho then presented a peasant girl as the enchanted Dulcinea; she was thrown from her she-ass but remounted it unaided, and Don Quixote took her condition as proof that enchanters had transformed Dulcinea from a princess into a peasant. In the cave of Montesinos, he was shown a country girl he identified as Dulcinea, who was said to need money; he gave her his remaining four reals and vowed to roam the earth until he disenchanted her. The duchess promised to believe that Dulcinea was living, beautiful, and nobly born, while staged messages announced that her disenchantment required Sancho Panza to give himself three thousand three hundred lashes. Sancho eventually accepted the penance and, in 1614, began it with five lashes; Dulcinea’s eventual disenchantment was still promised, while Don Quixote continued to declare, “I was born to belong to Dulcinea del Toboso”.