DID CERVANTES KNOW THECAVALLERO ZIFAR?

Abstract

One of the most frequently encountered—and least substantiated—clichés in histories of Spanish literature is the assertion that Cervantes modelled his Sancho Panza, a creation of which he was justifiably proud, on the Ribaldo, the squire of the knight Zifar in the early fourteenth-century romance El libro del cavallero Zifar. Recently, however, this time-honoured assumption has been challenged in passing by Jules Piccus in two articles, neither of which is concerned primarily with this problem but with particular aspects of the Zifar, as the titles show. My purpose in this article is to examine in more detail the arguments on both sides and offer some new evidence for consideration. The main points that have been advanced in favour of the hypothesis that Cervantes used the Ribaldo as a prototype for Sancho can be summarized very briefly. First, both men differ significantly from the conventional squires of chivalric literature. They are not fledgling knights but peasants; and they show all the qualities that amateur sociologists like to ascribe to peasants—practicality and home-spun wisdom, astuteness and mild dishonesty, down-to-earthness and humour. Secondly—and this is the point that has received most emphasis—both squires frequently express themselves through the medium of proverbs, the acknowledged vehicle of ‘folk wisdom’. In these two respects at least it is possible to agree entirely with Menéndez Pelayo's statement that the Ribaldo ‘es hasta ahora el único antecesor conocido de Sancho Panza’.