I BEGIN LIFE

In the year 1518, being eighteen years of age and nearly nineteen, I found myself fatherless and poor of estate, though rich in lineage, with a mother, who was a very talkative yet honest, good, and pious woman. She was not able to provide for me, seeing that I was growing up, though not of an age to marry, and so from necessity I married. Oppressed with poverty, and desirous of riches, I determined to go in search of adventures, and set out from the city of Seville, which was my native place, with a horse, a mule, a bed, and sixty ducats. I resolved to write down all that happened to me, and not to record anything which is not worthy of credit. My name is Don Alonzo Enriquez de Guzman. I am a descendant of the Count of Gijon, who was son of the King Don Enrique, of Castile. My mother was named Dona Catalina de Guevara.

HOW I SET OUT, IN THE NAME OF GOD

I went to Cordova, and to Granada, and to Baeza, where I met with a captain named Montalvo. He was going to Italy, and I to the court of the King of Castille, who was in Barcelona. Our roads were the same as far as Murcia, and there we had to separate on our respective journeys. At a distance of four or five leagues from the said city of Baeza, where we met, we went to pass the night at an inn.