Rocinante

Rocinante is the name of Don Quixote's horse, in the novel "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra.

_es. "Rocín" in Spanish means work-horse or low-quality horse ("nag"), but also illiterate or rough man. There are similar words in French ("roussin; rosse"), Portuguese ("rossim") and Italian ("ronzino"). The etymology is uncertain. The name is, however, a pun. On the first order, the Spanish "" means "before" or "previously". On the second order, it also translates as 'in front of'. On the third order, the suffix "-ante" in Spanish is adverbial; "rocinante" refers to functioning as or being a "rocín" reflexively. As such, Cervantes establishes a pattern of ambiguous interpretations present in many instances of verbiage in the novel.

As the narration of the novel reads at the beginning of the book, Don Quixote thinks of a name to give to his steed in order to set out on his adventures, and chooses 'Rocinante' to establish the horse as no longer a nag.

Other uses in literature

Elsewhere in literature, Rocinante refers to:
* The name John Steinbeck gives to the modified camper truck in which he travelled the country in his book "Travels With Charley"
* The interstellar vessel piloted into a black hole by a man who has fallen for his own misguided interest in it in the two part mini-saga "Cygnus X-1" by Canadian progressive rock band Rush
* Julia de Burgos's description of herself in her 1938 poem 'A Julia de Burgos': "que yo soy Rocinante corriendo desbocado" (trans. by Grace Schulman: "I am Rocinante, bolting free, wildly").
* The ship flown by Cervantes Quinn, a colorful freelance trader, in "Harbinger," the first volume of the Star Trek "Vanguard" novel series.
*The name "Rocinante" is also the name given to a captured alien ship in .
*Rocinante is the name of a horse in the Inside Track Betting in .
* Rosinante is the name of a defunct publication from Chile.
* "Rocinante" is the moniker bestowed upon Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht's tireless and only slightly-rusted 1984 Chevy Caprice Classic, which he has driven his entire tenure at the Court. In August 2008 after nearly 250,000 miles and four terms, Rocinante finally met a transmission problem no Texas mechanic could fix, and was retired. Rocinante was reportedly succeeded by a late-model Chevy Avalanche, dubbed "Rocinante II."

See also

* Rocinate - a music album