Ego and shadow portrait of Quixote and Sancho
by the poet W. H. Auden
Without his comic lymphatic squire, the Knight of the Doleful Countenance would be incomplete. Sancho Panza’s official motive for following Don Quixote is the promise of a governorship. But this is a purely imaginary idea to the former, and in the end he reveals his motives, which are (a) for the excitement, (b) for love of his master. Sancho Panza sees the world that requires changing as it is, but has no wish himself to change it. Yet it turns out that he is the one who has to play the part of the Knight Errant and rescue his distressed master from misfortune. Don Quixote wishes to change the world but has no idea what the world is like. He fails to change anything except Sancho Panza’s character. So the two are eternally related. Don Quixote needs Sancho Panza as the one creature about whom he has no illusions but loves as he is; Sancho Panza needs Don Quixote as the one constant loyalty in his life which is independent of feeling. Take away Don Quixote and Sancho Panza is so nearly pure flesh, immediacy of feeling, so nearly without will that he becomes a hedonist pagan who rejects everything but matter. Take away Sancho Panza, on the other hand, and Don Quixote is so nearly pure spirit that he becomes a Manichee who rejects matter and feeling and is nothing but an egotistic will.