In Spanish, hidalgo, the nobleman without title and, in the book, almost without property. The narrator presents the protagonist by what he has: a lance on its rest, an old leather shield, a skinny nag, and a fast greyhound. His niece reminds him that gentlemen can be knights and the poor cannot; he answers that greatness shows in virtue, and in chapter LII of Part Two he sets his gentility aside, just once, so that he can challenge a farmer.
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