ABSTRACT

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. 1 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. 2