Don Diego de Miranda

Also known as: Don Diego / he of the green gaban / the Knight of the Green Gaban / the gentleman / the man in green / the traveller · Family: Miranda household · Role: discreet gentleman · First appears: Part 2, Ch. 16.1

In Part 2, Ch. 16.1, Don Diego de Miranda, the gentleman in green, meets Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on the road and joins them as a friend. He reveals himself as a well-born, well-off gentleman from the village they are travelling toward, saying, “I, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, am a gentleman by birth, native of the village where, please God, we are going to dine to-day; I am more than fairly well off, and my name is Don Diego de Miranda.” Sancho Panza listens closely to Don Diego’s account of his life and treats him with devout admiration, while Don Diego comes to doubt that Don Quixote is crazy.

In Ch. 17, Don Diego acts as a mentor to Don Quixote, warning him that knights-errant should pursue adventures with hope of success rather than risking reckless deeds. He then invites Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to his village house, where they arrive that afternoon. There, with Doña Christina and Don Lorenzo, he receives Don Quixote as a distinguished guest, presents him publicly as “a knight-errant, and the bravest and wisest in the world,” and entertains him sumptuously for four days. Don Lorenzo questions his father about the guest, while Sancho Panza, pleased by the abundance of Don Diego’s household, is reluctant to return to the hardships of the road.