C1 · Part One, Chapter 20
Sancho's goat story: how spoken Spanish tells a tale
Terrified in the dark, Sancho tells his master a story to keep him from riding off, and he tells it the way stories were told in his village: every noun repeated, every step announced. Don Quixote tells him to speak like an educated man. This unit is about the grammar of oral storytelling, and about a defence of it in two lines.
The passage, exactly as Cervantes wrote it
Miguel de Cervantes, Part One, Chapter 20. Unadapted.
«Digo, pues —prosiguió Sancho—, que en un lugar de Estremadura había un pastor cabrerizo (quiero decir que guardaba cabras), el cual pastor o cabrerizo, como digo, de mi cuento, se llamaba Lope Ruiz; y este Lope Ruiz andaba enamorado de una pastora que se llamaba Torralba, la cual pastora llamada Torralba era hija de un ganadero rico, y este ganadero rico...» — Si desa manera cuentas tu cuento, Sancho —dijo don Quijote—, repitiendo dos veces lo que vas diciendo, no acabarás en dos días; dilo seguidamente y cuéntalo como hombre de entendimiento, y si no, no digas nada. — De la misma manera que yo lo cuento —respondió Sancho—, se cuentan en mi tierra todas las consejas, y yo no sé contarlo de otra, ni es bien que vuestra merced me pida que haga usos nuevos.
I say, then, Sancho went on, that in a village in Extremadura there was a goat shepherd, I mean he kept goats, which shepherd or goatherd, as I say, of my story, was called Lope Ruiz, and this Lope Ruiz was in love with a shepherdess called Torralba, which shepherdess called Torralba was the daughter of a rich cattleman, and this rich cattleman... If you tell your story that way, Sancho, said don Quixote, repeating everything you say twice, you will not finish in two days. Tell it straight through, and tell it like a man of understanding, or else say nothing. The way I tell it, replied Sancho, is the way all the tales are told in my part of the world, and I do not know how to tell it any other way, and it is not right for your worship to ask me to take up new customs.
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.
Pues digo, siguió Sancho, que en un pueblo de Extremadura había un pastor de cabras, o sea, que cuidaba cabras, y este pastor o cabrero de mi cuento, como digo, se llamaba Lope Ruiz, y este Lope Ruiz estaba enamorado de una pastora que se llamaba Torralba, y esta pastora llamada Torralba era hija de un ganadero rico, y este ganadero rico... Si cuentas así tu cuento, Sancho, dijo don Quijote, repitiendo dos veces lo que vas diciendo, no acabarás en dos días. Cuéntalo seguido y como un hombre inteligente, y si no, no digas nada. Tal como yo lo cuento, respondió Sancho, se cuentan en mi tierra todos los cuentos, y yo no sé contarlo de otra manera, ni está bien que vuestra merced me pida que cambie de costumbres.
What changed, form by form
| In the text | Today | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Digo, pues | pues digo | The storyteller's opening. Pues after the verb, picking the thread back up. |
| cabrerizo | cabrero | The older word for a goatherd. |
| quiero decir que | o sea que | The self correction of spoken Spanish. Today o sea does the same job. |
| el cual pastor | y este pastor | El cual with a noun after it, repeating the antecedent. A habit of notaries, here in the mouth of a peasant. |
| la cual pastora llamada Torralba | y esta pastora | The same again. Each clause picks up the last words of the one before. |
| desa manera | de esa manera | De plus esa run together. |
| seguidamente | seguido, de corrido | Straight through, without going back. |
| consejas | cuentos, historias | Old wives' tales. The word is literary now. |
| ni es bien que | ni está bien que | Ser bien, to be right. Today the verb is estar. |
| haga usos nuevos | cambie de costumbres | Usos meaning customs, ways of doing things. |
The syntax
Sancho's sentence is built by linking, not by nesting. Each new clause picks up the last noun of the one before, Lope Ruiz ... y este Lope Ruiz, Torralba ... la cual pastora llamada Torralba, rico ... y este ganadero rico, so the listener can never lose the thread. That is exactly how oral storytellers keep an audience with them, and it produces a sentence that never ends. Don Quixote wants the written style, seguidamente, and Sancho refuses on the grounds of custom.
What a Spanish reader hears
Sancho is stalling. It is pitch dark, there is a terrible pounding noise somewhere ahead, and he has tied Rocinante's legs together so that his master cannot leave, so the story is meant to be slow. But his answer to the criticism is serious: this is how stories are told where I come from, and you have no right to ask me for new ways. It is one of the earliest moments in literature when a character defends his own way of speaking against correction. And the story, about ferrying goats across a river one at a time, turns out to have no ending at all.
Where the course prepares you for this
- Adverbs in -menteLesson 35The night of the fulling hammers