Having thus lost his understanding, he unluckily stumbled upon the oddest fancy that ever entered into a madman’s brain; for now he thought it convenient and necessary, as well for the increase of his own honor as the service of the public, to turn knight-errant, and roam through the whole world, armed cap-a-pie, and mounted on his steed, in quest of adventures; that thus imitating those knights-errant of whom he had read, and following their course of life, redressing all manner of grievances, and exposing himself to danger on all occasions, at last, after a happy conclusion of his enterprises, he might purchase everlasting honor and renown.  Transported with these agreeable delusions, the poor gentleman already grasped in imagination the imperial sceptre of Trebizond, and, hurried away by his mighty expectations, he prepares with all expedition to take the field.

The first thing he did was to scour a suit of armor that had belonged to his great-grandfather, and had lain time out of mind carelessly rusting in a corner; but when he had cleaned and repaired it as well as he could, he perceived there was a material piece wanting; for, instead of a complete helmet, there was only a single headpiece.  However, his industry supplied that defect; for with some pasteboard he made a kind of half-beaver, or vizor, which, being fitted to the headpiece, made it look like an entire helmet.  Then, to know whether it were cutlass-proof, he drew his sword, and tried its edge upon the pasteboard vizor; but with the very first stroke he unluckily undid in a moment what he had been a whole week a-doing.  He did not like its being broken with so much ease, and therefore, to secure it from the like accident, he made it anew, and fenced it with thin plates of iron, which he fixed on the inside of it so artificially that at last he had reason to be satisfied with the solidity of the work; and so, without any further experiment, he resolved it should pass to all intents and purposes for a full and sufficient helmet.

It was time to look to his horse, who had more false quarter than real, being a worse jade than Gonela’s, qui tantum pellis et ossa fuit; however, his master thought that neither Alexander’s Bucephalus nor the Cid’s Babieca could be compared with him.  He was four days considering what name to give him; for, as he argued with himself, there was no reason that a horse bestrid by so famous a knight, and withal so excellent in himself, should not be distinguished by a particular name; and therefore he studied to give him such a one as should demonstrate as well what kind of horse he had been before his master was a knight-errant, as what he was now; thinking it but just, since the owner changed his profession, that the horse should also change his title, and be dignified with another; a good big word, such a one as should fill the mouth, and seem consonant with the quality and profession of his master.  And thus, after many names which he devised, rejected, changed, liked, disliked, and pitched upon again, he concluded to call him Rozinante; a name, in his opinion, lofty, sounding, and significant of what he had been before, and also of what he was now; in a word, a horse before, or above, all the vulgar breed of horses in the world.