Don Quijote de la Mancha: los molinos de viento Don Quixote: The Windmills

Alonso Quijano leía muchos libros de caballeros. Leyó tanto que empezó a confundir la ficción con la realidad. Decidió ser caballero y se llamó Don Quijote de la Mancha.

In a village in the region of La Mancha lived a minor nobleman named Alonso Quijano. He was an older man, thin, of modest means, who spent his nights and days reading novels of chivalry: stories of brave knights, enchanted castles and beautiful ladies. He read so many books, and with such passion, that his mind filled up with those adventures and, little by little, he stopped telling fiction apart from reality. One day he decided that he too would become a knight-errant. He changed his name to a nobler one, Don Quijote de la Mancha, found an old suit of armour he kept at home and cleaned it carefully. So began his transformation from a simple nobleman into the knight of the novels he loved so much.

Don Quijote buscó un escudero y eligió a Sancho Panza, un labrador simple. Le prometió una isla si lo acompañaba. Sancho aceptó y montó en su burro.

A knight needed a squire to accompany him, so Don Quijote went to speak with a neighbour of his, a simple, practical farmer named Sancho Panza. He promised that if Sancho followed him on his adventures, he would one day give him an island to govern as a reward. Sancho, who was not rich and had a head full of curiosity, accepted the offer, even though he did not quite understand what island his neighbour was talking about. He left his wife and children, mounted his donkey, and got ready to accompany Don Quijote along the roads of La Mancha. Sancho was the complete opposite of his master: he spoke in popular sayings, thought with his feet on the ground, and doubted things he could not see clearly.

Don Quijote y Sancho salieron a caminar por el campo. Don Quijote iba en su caballo Rocinante y Sancho en su burro. Vieron muchos molinos de viento a lo lejos.

The two of them set out into the countryside: Don Quijote riding his horse Rocinante, an old, thin but faithful animal, and Sancho behind him on his donkey. They rode across the plain of La Mancha for hours, looking for adventures worthy of a knight-errant. Then, in the middle of the open field, they saw something in the distance: thirty or forty windmills, their great sails turning slowly under the sky. The windmills were used to grind wheat, a very common sight in that region, but from a distance, with their long arms moving in the air, they had a strange, unsettling shape. Don Quijote stared at them for a long moment, his eyes shining with excitement.

Don Quijote dijo que los molinos eran gigantes y quiso luchar contra ellos. Sancho le explicó varias veces que eran solo molinos, no gigantes, pero Don Quijote no le hizo caso.

Don Quijote pointed at the windmills and told Sancho, quite convinced, that those were giants with extremely long arms, and that he intended to fight them all to win fame and glory and to rid the world of such an evil race. Sancho, astonished, replied that those were not giants but simple windmills, and that what looked like arms were just the sails turning in the wind. Don Quijote paid him no attention; he insisted that Sancho was afraid and understood nothing about matters of chivalry. He explained that a brave knight should never hesitate before danger, even if the danger seemed impossible. Sancho repeated his warning two or three more times, but Don Quijote was no longer listening: he prepared for battle.

Don Quijote pidió ayuda a su dama Dulcinea y atacó el molino con su lanza. El viento movió el aspa y golpeó a Don Quijote, tirándolo al suelo junto con su caballo. Sancho corrió a ayudarlo.

Don Quijote loudly commended himself to his imagined lady, Dulcinea, asking for strength for the fight, and dug his spurs into Rocinante's flanks. With his lance lowered and pointing forward, he charged at full speed at the nearest windmill, shouting that even if it had more arms than the giant Briareus, it would have to pay for its wickedness. At that moment, the wind blew hard and one of the mill's great sails suddenly turned. The sail struck Don Quijote's lance and lifted him into the air along with his horse, throwing them violently to the ground. Sancho, who had watched it all from a distance, rode as fast as he could on his donkey to help his master, who lay on the ground badly hurt, barely able to move.

Sancho ayudó a Don Quijote a levantarse. Don Quijote dijo que un hechicero había convertido a los gigantes en molinos para quitarle la victoria. Aunque estaba herido, siguió su camino sin rendirse.

Sancho helped Don Quijote get up, worried about his injuries, and repeated that he had already warned him they were windmills, not giants. But Don Quijote, badly hurt and with his pride as damaged as his body, replied that a wise sorcerer, his great enemy, must have transformed the giants into windmills at the very last moment, purely to rob him of the glory of victory. He added that this kind of injustice always followed knights-errant, and that the wizards' envy was greater than any real danger. Despite the pain and the blows, Don Quijote refused to be discouraged. He climbed back onto Rocinante with effort, encouraged Sancho to continue the road, and the two carried on their journey in search of new adventures, with the fall changing nothing about his faith in chivalry.