Argentina Palacios - Adventures of Don Quixote

O NCE, there was a man who went crazy from too much reading. He only read books about knighthood; that was the problem. Those books told about the adventures of knights in armortheir fantastic encounters with dragons, monsters, giants, wizards, and even other knights. There was also talk of love, because each knight had a lady of his dreams.

Soon the man came to believe that all those fantastic tales were true. One day, he decided to become a knight, for he wanted to right all that was wrong in the world, and punish evil. Alone in his room, he practiced jousting. Wham wham wham! Like the heroes in his books, he always won.

All this happened in a little village in a province called La Mancha, in the heart of Spain. The man had lived in the same place all his life, as his parents and grandparents had before him. He was about fifty, tall and thin, and he had a small beard. No one would ever expect anything bad from him or think anything wrong about him, for he was an honorable man, a perfect gentleman. Two other people lived in his home; they were his pretty, cheerful, innocent niece, about twenty, and his plump housekeeper, about forty, who was a good, friendly soul, with strong opinions about everything. A boy did chores around the house.

It is not clear what the gentlemans real name was. Some think it was Alonso Quixano, but the last name could have been Quixada, Quesada, or Quexana. He came from a respectable familythats why he was called Don Alonso. He had inherited a little land, but very little else. When he became ill, he sold many acres of good farmland to buy more of his favorite books.

One day he began the actual preparations to become a knight. Somewhere in the house there was an old suit of armor that had belonged to his great-grandfather. He cleaned it, polished it, and fixed it up as best he could. The helmet was in such bad shape that it had to be tied together. A horse he already hadold and bony, not much of a horse, but a mount nonetheless. He spent four whole days thinking of a good name for his horse. It would be Rocinante. And what a good name it was! Rocn is a Spanish word that means nag or workhorse; and antes means before. To most people, the name means This was once a horse, but to Don Alonso, it meant a steed above and beyond all other horses in the world!

His own name, Don Alonso, didnt seem good enough for a knight. He changed it to Don Quixote, and added de la Mancha so everyone would know where he came from. Don Quixote de la Mancha. What a fine-sounding name for a knight!

But he still needed a lady, a lady to dream about, a lady to receive homage from his defeated enemies. No one knew he was in love, but he was ... so secretly, it seems, that even the lady herself didnt know he liked her! She was a farm girl from nearby El Toboso, and she was plain, rough, ordinary. Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo. He had seen her only once in his life. Without her knowledge, Don Quixote pronounced her his lady and called her Dulcinea del Toboso. Her name, like the others, was well chosen: it comes from the Spanish word dulce, which means sweet.

Don Quixote was very pleased with his preparations.