Man Of La Mancha (From Man Of La Mancha)

CERVANTES
I shall impersonate a man.
His name… Alonso Quijana… a country squire,
no longer young.
Being retired, he has much time for books. He studies
them from morn to night and often through the night again.
And all he reads oppresses him…
Fills him with indignation at man’s murderous ways toward man.
He ponders the problem
Of how to make better a world
Where evil brings profit and virtue none at all.
He lays down the melancholy burden of sanity
And conceives the strangest project ever imagined…
To become a knight-errant,
And sally forth into the world in search of adventures;
To right all wrongs;
To mount a crusade;
To raise up the weak and those in need.
No longer will 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
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!