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I . A Gentleman of La Mancha In a village of La Mancha , the name of which I have no desire to call to mind , there lived not long ago a gentleman . He was a hidalgo , a man from an old family . Hidalgos were noble , but many of them were poor , and he was poor too . He owned an old lance , an old shield , a thin horse and a fast dog for hunting . He lived with a housekeeper of more than forty and a niece of less than twenty . The housekeeper was the woman who looked after the house . He himself was nearly fifty , tall and very thin , and he got up very early . Some people say that his name was Quixada , and others say Quesada or Quexana . But this is not very important for our story . He had a lot of free time , and he spent it reading books of chivalry . These were adventure stories about knights - errant , knights who travelled the world on horseback with a sword and a lance . They fought giants , saved princesses and defeated wicked magicians . He loved these books so much that he forgot his hunting and his farm . He even sold many of his fields to buy more books . He read by day and by night . Sometimes he argued with his friends , the village priest and the barber , Master Nicholas . They argued about who was the best knight in the books . So , with too little sleep and too much reading , his brain dried up , and he lost his mind . He believed that everything in his books was true . Then one day he had the strangest idea that a madman ever had . He decided to become a knight - errant himself . He wanted to ride out into the world , help the weak , punish the wicked and win fame for ever . First he cleaned some very old armour . It had belonged to his great - grandfather , and for years it lay forgotten in a corner . But the helmet had no visor , the front part that protects the face . So he made one out of cardboard . To test it , he hit it twice with his sword . The first blow destroyed a week’s work ! He made it again , and this time he put some thin iron bars inside . He did not test it again , because now it seemed very strong to him . Then he went to look at his horse . It was old and thin , all skin and bone , but to him it seemed the best horse in the world . He spent four days thinking of a name for it . In the end he called it Rocinante . In Spanish , a rocín is a poor old horse . The name meant that it was once a rocín , but now it was the best of all . Then he spent eight more days looking for a name for himself . At last he chose Don Quixote . The famous Amadis added the name of his country and called himself Amadis of Gaul . So our knight called himself Don Quixote of La Mancha .
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