Rocinante a standalone word as well as a suffix. One meaning is "before" or "previously". Another is "in front of". As a suffix, "-ante" in Spanish is adverbial; "rocinante" refers to functioning as, or being, a "rocín". "Rocinante", then, follows Cervantes' pattern using ambiguous, multivalent words, which is common throughout the novel. Rocinante's name, then, signifies his change in status from the "old nag" of before to the "foremost" steed. As Cervantes describes Don Quixote's choice of name: "nombre a su parecer alto, sonoro y significativo de lo que había sido cuando fue rocín, antes de lo que ahora era, que
The Horse and His Boy The Horse and His Boy The Horse and His Boy is a novel for children by C. S. Lewis, published by Geoffrey Bles in 1954. Of the seven novels that comprise "The Chronicles of Narnia" (1950–1956), "The Horse and His Boy" was the fifth to be published; it is also one of four of the novels that Lewis finished writing before the first book in the series had been published. In recent editions of "The Chronicles of Narnia" that are sequenced according to the history of the fictional land of Narnia, "The Horse and His Boy" is the third book