Quiteria

Also known as: Quiteria the fair / fair Quiteria / the bride / the fair Quiteria · Role: bride · First appears: Part 2, Ch. 19.1

From their earliest years, Quiteria and Basilio loved one another, and their affection became the talk of the town. But her father arranged her marriage to Camacho, and when Basilio learned that the fair Quiteria was to marry Camacho, he fell into despair. As Quiteria prepared for the scheduled wedding, Basilio was described as the rejected suitor, though Sancho Panza remarked that, if he were not poor, he would marry her.

On the wedding day, Basilio proposed marriage to Quiteria as the condition for making his confession and refused to confess until she gave him her hand. Camacho consented to the marriage if Quiteria was willing, and she and Basilio freely declared themselves husband and wife. When Basilio’s fatal wound was exposed as a deception involving a hollow tube of blood, Quiteria confirmed the marriage again despite its fraudulent appearance. Don Quixote defended the couple, while the curate blessed them, and Quiteria and Basilio remained newly married hosts to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza for three days; afterward, Basilio revealed that he had devised the sham wound to secure the marriage.