CERVANTES

May I set the stage? I shall impersonate a man.

Come, enter into my imagination and see him!

His name... Alonso Quijana... a country squire,

no longer young... bony, hollow-faced... eyes

that burn with the fire of inner vision. Being

retired, he has much time for books. He studies

them from morn to night and often through the

night as well. And all he reads oppresses him...

fills him with indignation at man's murderous

ways toward man. And he conceives the strangest

project ever imagined... to become a knight-errant

and sally forth into the world to right all

wrongs. No longer shall he be plain Alonso Quijana...

but a dauntless knight known as -

Don Quixote de La Mancha!



DON QUIXOTE

Hear me now

Oh thou bleak and unbearable world,

Thou art base and debauched as can be;

And a knight with his banners all bravely unfurled

Now hurls down his gauntlet to thee!

I am I, Don Quixote,

The Lord of La Mancha,

My destiny calls and I go,

And the wild winds of fortune

Will carry me onward,

Oh whithersoever they blow.

Whithersoever they blow,

Onward to glory I go!



SANCHO PANZA

I'm Sancho! Yes, I'm Sancho!

I'll follow my master till the end.

I'll tell all the world proudly

I'm his squire! I'm his friend!



DON QUIXOTE

Hear me, heathens and wizards

And serpents of sin!

All your dastardly doings are past,

For a holy endeavor is now to begin

And virtue shall triumph at last!



(Don Quixote and Sancho Panza mount their horses and set out along a road)



DON QUIXOTE

I am I, Don Quixote,

The Lord of la Mancha,

My destiny calls and I go,

And the wild winds of fortune

Will carry me onward,

Oh whithersoever they blow!

SANCHO

I'm Sancho! Yes, I'm Sancho!

I'll follow my master till the end.

I'll tell all the world proudly

I'm his squire! I'm his friend!



DON QUIXOTE, SANCHO

Whithersoever they blow,

Onward to glory I {we} go!



At an Inn full of rough men - Muleteers - and rough women