Level C1 · Part One, Chapter 25
Aldonza Lorenzo: Sancho describes the real Dulcinea
Don Quixote has just revealed that his peerless Dulcinea is Aldonza Lorenzo, a farm girl from El Toboso, and Sancho knows her. What follows is praise in the register of the village square, full of oaths and set phrases that were earthy in 1605 and are mostly gone now. It is the most thorough demolition of a courtly lady ever written, and every line of it is meant as a compliment.
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.
Bien la conozco —dijo Sancho—, y sé decir que tira tan bien una barra como el más forzudo zagal de todo el pueblo. ¡Vive el Dador, que es moza de chapa, hecha y derecha y de pelo en pecho, y que puede sacar la barba del lodo a cualquier caballero andante, o por andar, que la tuviere por señora! ¡Oh hideputa, qué rejo que tiene, y qué voz! Sé decir que se puso un día encima del campanario del aldea a llamar unos zagales suyos que andaban en un barbecho de su padre, y, aunque estaban de allí más de media legua, así la oyeron como si estuvieran al pie de la torre.
I know her well, said Sancho, and I can tell you she throws the bar as well as the strongest lad in the whole village. By the Giver, she is a sturdy girl, grown and full grown and with hair on her chest, and she could pull any knight errant's beard out of the mud, or any knight still to go erring, who had her for his lady. Oh, the whoreson, what strength she has, and what a voice! I can tell you that one day she climbed up the village bell tower to call some lads of hers who were out in one of her father's fallow fields, and although they were more than half a league away they heard her as if they had been standing at the foot of the tower.
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.
La conozco bien, dijo Sancho, y te aseguro que lanza la barra tan bien como el mozo más fuerte de todo el pueblo. ¡Por Dios, que es una chica de categoría, hecha y derecha y de pelo en pecho, y que puede sacar de un apuro a cualquier caballero andante, o por andar, que la tenga por señora! ¡Madre mía, qué fuerza tiene, y qué voz! Te aseguro que un día se subió al campanario del pueblo para llamar a unos mozos suyos que estaban en un barbecho de su padre, y aunque estaban a más de media legua, la oyeron como si estuvieran al pie de la torre.
What changed, form by form
| In the text | Today | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| sé decir | puedo decir, te aseguro | Saber plus infinitive for being in a position to say something. Still alive in no sabría decirte. |
| tira una barra | lanza la barra | Throwing an iron bar was a village sport, and a sport for men, which is the point. |
| ¡Vive el Dador! | ¡por Dios! | An oath by God the Giver. Sancho swears in the long form. |
| moza de chapa | chica de categoría | Chapa is a metal plate. A girl with some substance to her. |
| de pelo en pecho | lo mismo hoy | Still said, and still said of men. Said of Dulcinea, it is the joke. |
| sacar la barba del lodo | sacar de un apuro | To get someone out of a mess. The phrase is gone. |
| andante, o por andar | andante o futuro caballero | A pun on andante, errant, and por andar, still to walk. |
| hideputa | hijo de puta, de admiración | An insult used as a cry of admiration, exactly as it still is in colloquial Spanish. |
| rejo | fuerza, vigor | A country word for toughness. Rare today. |
| del aldea | de la aldea | El before a feminine noun starting with a, even unstressed. Today only before a stressed á, as in el agua. |
| la tuviere | la tenga | Future subjunctive in a relative clause about someone hypothetical. |
The syntax
Sancho speaks in exclamations and oaths, and the syntax follows. There are only two sentences of real narrative in the passage and both hang on sé decir que, a spoken frame that announces a story rather than introducing a subordinate clause. Notice how comparisons carry the whole description: tan bien como, así como si. Sancho does not describe Aldonza, he measures her against the lads of the village.
What a Spanish reader hears
The whole speech is praise, and every word of it destroys Dulcinea. Don Quixote has just admitted that his princess is a farm girl from El Toboso, and Sancho, delighted to know her, praises exactly what a courtly lover could never praise: her arm, her voice, the hair on her chest, and the fact that she jokes with everybody. He means every compliment. The comedy is that one woman is being described in two registers that cannot touch, and neither man notices.
Where the course prepares you for this
- Reflexive verbs and seLesson 9Dulcinea of El Toboso