Level C1 · Part One, Chapter 25
Sancho and the proverbs: spoken Spanish in 1605
The other half of the book's language. Sancho does not argue, he strings proverbs together until his point is somewhere inside the pile, and most of them are still in use four centuries later. This unit is the register at the opposite end from the love letter.
The passage, exactly as Cervantes wrote it
Miguel de Cervantes, Part One, Chapter 25. Public domain, and not adapted, shortened or modernised in any way.
Ni yo lo digo ni lo pienso —respondió Sancho—: allá se lo hayan; con su pan se lo coman. Si fueron amancebados, o no, a Dios habrán dado la cuenta. De mis viñas vengo, no sé nada; no soy amigo de saber vidas ajenas; que el que compra y miente, en su bolsa lo siente. Cuanto más, que desnudo nací, desnudo me hallo: ni pierdo ni gano; mas que lo fuesen, ¿qué me va a mí? Y muchos piensan que hay tocinos y no hay estacas. Mas, ¿quién puede poner puertas al campo?
I neither say it nor think it, Sancho answered. Let them settle it themselves, and much good may it do them. Whether they were lovers or not, they will have answered for it to God. I come from my own vineyard and I know nothing. I am not one for prying into other people's lives. He who buys and lies feels it in his purse. Besides, naked I was born and naked I find myself, so I neither lose nor gain, and even if they were, what is it to me? Plenty of people expect bacon where there is not even a hook to hang it on. And who can put gates on open country?
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.
Ni lo digo ni lo pienso, respondió Sancho. Que se lo resuelvan ellos, y que les aproveche. Si fueron amantes o no, ya se lo habrán explicado a Dios. Yo vengo de mis viñas y no sé nada; no me gusta meterme en la vida de los demás, que el que compra y miente lo nota en el bolsillo. Además, desnudo nací y desnudo estoy: ni pierdo ni gano, y aunque lo fueran, ¿a mí qué me importa? Muchos creen que hay tocino donde no hay ni ganchos para colgarlo. Y además, ¿quién puede poner puertas al campo?
What changed, form by form
| In the text | Today | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| allá se lo hayan | que se lo resuelvan ellos | A washing of the hands. The verb is a subjunctive with no trigger in front of it. |
| con su pan se lo coman | que les aproveche | Still said today, and still faintly hostile. |
| a Dios habrán dado la cuenta | ya se lo habrán explicado a Dios | Future perfect used for a guess about the past. |
| mas que lo fuesen | aunque lo fueran | Mas que for aunque, gone from the modern language. |
| qué me va a mí | qué me importa | Ir a alguien in the sense of concerning them. |
| hay tocinos y no hay estacas | creer que hay algo donde no hay nada | A proverb about the hooks a bacon side hangs from. |
| poner puertas al campo | lo mismo hoy | Alive and unchanged. You cannot stop people talking. |
The syntax
There is almost no subordination. The proverbs are hooked together with que and cuanto más, which is how spoken Spanish builds a long turn without building a long sentence. Compare that with the single sentence of the golden age speech and you have the two poles of the book.
What a Spanish reader hears
A man who cannot read cites authority the only way he can, by quoting what everybody says. It is a real argument and don Quixote refuses to hear it as one: two lines later he tells Sancho off for threading together nonsense. Half the book is those two registers failing to understand each other, and Cervantes does not take a side.
Where the course prepares you for this
- Kitchen Spanish and proverbsLesson 59Sancho and Teresa Argue