After Don Quixote's death, his squire, Sancho Panza, has been unable to settle back into his former life. He longs for more romance than reality can supply. He confides in the local barber and together they conspire to escape from their village and create an ideal pastoral life for themselves up in the hills. Once there they will live like classical shepherds in Arcadia writing sonnets, enjoying milk and honey, and wooing perfect shepherdesses. When they turn this fantasy into reality the resulting confusions are observed, and partly related, by Don Quixote's old horse Rocinante, and Sancho's ageless donkey, Rucio. Thanks to their knowledge of their owners' previous adventures readers of this sequel to Don Quixote need not have read Cervantes's masterpiece.