Level C1 · Part One, Chapter 14
Marcela and the speech that answers back
A shepherdess accused of killing a man by refusing to love him answers the accusation at his funeral. The speech is built like a legal argument, in short parallel sentences, and it is one of the most quoted passages in the book. This unit is about the grammar of a defence: ellipsis, fronted objects, and a gerund that carries the proof.
The passage, exactly as Cervantes wrote it
Miguel de Cervantes, Part One, Chapter 14. Public domain, and not adapted, shortened or modernised in any way.
Yo nací libre, y para poder vivir libre escogí la soledad de los campos. Los árboles destas montañas son mi compañía, las claras aguas destos arroyos mis espejos; con los árboles y con las aguas comunico mis pensamientos y hermosura. Fuego soy apartado y espada puesta lejos. A los que he enamorado con la vista he desengañado con las palabras. Y si los deseos se sustentan con esperanzas, no habiendo yo dado alguna a Grisóstomo ni a otro alguno, el fin de ninguno dellos bien se puede decir que antes le mató su porfía que mi crueldad.
I was born free, and to be able to live free I chose the solitude of the fields. The trees of these mountains are my company and the clear waters of these streams my mirrors. With the trees and the waters I share my thoughts and my beauty. I am a fire set apart and a sword laid far away. Those I have made fall in love by being seen I have undeceived by my words. And if desires feed on hope, since I gave none to Grisóstomo or to anyone else, it can fairly be said of the end of any of them that it was his own persistence that killed him rather than my cruelty.
The same thing in Spanish as it is written today
Read the two side by side. What has changed between them is the syllabus of this level.
Nací libre, y para poder vivir libre elegí la soledad del campo. Los árboles de estas montañas son mi compañía, y las aguas claras de estos arroyos, mis espejos. Con los árboles y con las aguas comparto mis pensamientos y mi belleza. Soy un fuego apartado y una espada puesta lejos. A los que he enamorado con mi aspecto los he desengañado con mis palabras. Y si los deseos se alimentan de esperanzas, como yo no le di ninguna a Grisóstomo ni a nadie, bien se puede decir que a cualquiera de ellos lo mató su insistencia antes que mi crueldad.
What changed, form by form
| In the text | Today | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| destas, destos | de estas, de estos | Preposition and demonstrative run together, as everywhere in the book. |
| las claras aguas destos arroyos mis espejos | las aguas claras son mis espejos | The verb son is said once and understood in the second half. Ellipsis, not a missing word. |
| Fuego soy apartado | soy un fuego apartado | Noun, then verb, then the adjective that belongs to the noun. Poetic order, and entirely deliberate. |
| A los que he enamorado ... he desengañado | a los que he enamorado los he desengañado | No resumptive pronoun. Modern Spanish repeats a fronted object with los. |
| no habiendo yo dado alguna | como no le di ninguna | A gerund clause with its own subject, carrying the cause. And alguna after a negative, where today ninguna is required. |
| a otro alguno | a nadie más | Alguno after the noun, with negative force. Still possible in writing: sin duda alguna. |
| antes le mató su porfía que mi crueldad | lo mató su insistencia antes que mi crueldad | Antes ... que for rather than. And le as a direct object for a man, still normal in much of Spain. |
| porfía | insistencia, terquedad | Obstinacy. Still in use, and porfiar is still the verb. |
The syntax
The speech is built as a proof. Each sentence is short, balanced and parallel: trees and waters, fire and sword, being seen and being told. Then the logic arrives in a single condition, si los deseos se sustentan con esperanzas, followed by a gerund clause that supplies the fact and a conclusion that turns the blame around. It is the kind of argument taught in universities, made by a shepherdess to a crowd of men at a funeral.
What a Spanish reader hears
Marcela is answering a charge. Grisóstomo has died of love for her, and his friends have just called her a murderer over his grave. The two images, fuego apartado and espada puesta lejos, are the core of her defence: a fire only burns and a sword only cuts the person who goes near them. The passage is often read as one of the first in European literature in which a woman claims the right to say no, and Cervantes lets her walk back into the woods at the end of it with nobody able to reply.
Where the course prepares you for this
- Ya, todavía, aún and acabar deLesson 26Marcela defends herself