C2 · Part Two, Chapter 24
The cave of Montesinos: the author writes in the margin
Don Quixote comes up from the cave of Montesinos with a story of enchanted knights and a Dulcinea who asks him for money. Then the narrator reports a note found in the margin of the manuscript, in Cide Hamete's own hand, saying he cannot believe it. This unit is about the grammar of doubt: verbs of belief, the subjunctive they trigger, and a verdict left to the reader.
The passage, exactly as Cervantes wrote it
Miguel de Cervantes, Part Two, Chapter 24. Unadapted.
No me puedo dar a entender, ni me puedo persuadir, que al valeroso don Quijote le pasase puntualmente todo lo que en el antecedente capítulo queda escrito: la razón es que todas las aventuras hasta aquí sucedidas han sido contingibles y verisímiles, pero ésta desta cueva no le hallo entrada alguna para tenerla por verdadera, por ir tan fuera de los términos razonables. Pues pensar yo que don Quijote mintiese, siendo el más verdadero hidalgo y el más noble caballero de sus tiempos, no es posible; que no dijera él una mentira si le asaetearan. Por otra parte, considero que él la contó y la dijo con todas las circunstancias dichas, y que no pudo fabricar en tan breve espacio tan gran máquina de disparates; y si esta aventura parece apócrifa, yo no tengo la culpa; y así, sin afirmarla por falsa o verdadera, la escribo. Tú, letor, pues eres prudente, juzga lo que te pareciere, que yo no debo ni puedo más; puesto que se tiene por cierto que al tiempo de su fin y muerte dicen que se retrató della, y dijo que él la había inventado, por parecerle que convenía y cuadraba bien con las aventuras que había leído en sus historias
I cannot bring myself to understand, nor can I persuade myself, that everything written in the previous chapter happened exactly so to the valiant don Quixote. The reason is that all the adventures that have happened so far have been possible and likely, but for this one of the cave I can find no way in that would let me take it as true, since it goes so far beyond the bounds of reason. Yet to think that don Quixote lied, being the most truthful gentleman and the noblest knight of his times, is not possible, for he would not have told a lie if they had shot him full of arrows. On the other hand, I consider that he told it and said it with all the details given, and that he could not have built so great a machine of nonsense in so short a time. So if this adventure seems apocryphal, the fault is not mine, and so, without declaring it false or true, I write it down. You, reader, since you are prudent, judge as you see fit, for I neither owe nor can do more. Although it is held as certain that at the time of his end and death, they say, he retracted it, and said that he had invented it, because he thought it fitted and matched the adventures he had read in his histories.
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.
No consigo entender ni me puedo convencer de que al valeroso don Quijote le pasara exactamente todo lo que queda escrito en el capítulo anterior. La razón es que todas las aventuras que han pasado hasta aquí han sido posibles y verosímiles, pero a esta de la cueva no le encuentro manera de tenerla por verdadera, porque se sale tanto de lo razonable. Pero pensar que don Quijote mintiera, siendo el hidalgo más sincero y el caballero más noble de su tiempo, no es posible, que no diría una mentira aunque lo acribillaran a flechazos. Por otra parte, considero que él la contó y la dijo con todos los detalles dichos, y que no pudo inventar en tan poco tiempo semejante montaña de disparates. Y si esta aventura parece falsa, yo no tengo la culpa, y así, sin afirmar que sea falsa o verdadera, la escribo. Tú, lector, que eres prudente, juzga lo que te parezca, que yo no debo ni puedo más. Aunque se tiene por cierto que, cuando le llegó la hora de morir, dicen que se retractó y dijo que se la había inventado, porque le pareció que encajaba bien con las aventuras que había leído en sus libros.
What changed, form by form
| In the text | Today | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| No me puedo dar a entender | no consigo entender | Darse a entender algo, to make yourself understand it. A verb of belief that fails. |
| que ... le pasase | que le pasara | Subjunctive after a negated verb of belief. The grammar of doubt. |
| contingibles | posibles | A learned word for things that can happen. It has left the language. |
| verisímiles | verosímiles | The Latin spelling again. |
| no le hallo entrada | no le encuentro manera | To find no way in. A spatial image for an argument, and about a cave. |
| si le asaetearan | aunque lo acribillaran a flechazos | Si with the imperfect subjunctive in the sense of even if. A saeta is an arrow. |
| máquina de disparates | montaña de disparates | Máquina meaning a huge construction, not a machine. |
| letor | lector | The consonant group simplified. |
| juzga lo que te pareciere | juzga lo que te parezca | A tú imperative to the reader, followed by a future subjunctive. |
| puesto que | aunque | Puesto que meaning although. Today it only means since, and the old sense catches readers out. |
| se retrató della | se retractó de ella | Retratarse, the older form of retractarse. Today retratarse means to have your portrait made. |
The syntax
The note moves between belief and doubt clause by clause. It opens with two negated verbs of believing, no me puedo dar a entender, ni me puedo persuadir, so the verb that follows, pasase, goes into the subjunctive. It then weighs the case on both sides with por otra parte, and hands the verdict to the reader with an imperative, juzga. The last sentence, which starts with puesto que in its old sense of although, undoes all of it with a rumour, dicen que, about a retraction on the deathbed.
What a Spanish reader hears
This is the most dizzying page in the book. The fictional author doubts his own chapter, writes his doubt in the margin, and the fictional translator copies the margin into the text. He cannot believe that don Quixote lied, and cannot believe that he told the truth, and then he mentions in passing a deathbed confession that the real last chapter never shows. The reader is the only judge left, and the title of the previous chapter, cuya imposibilidad y grandeza hace que se tenga esta aventura por apócrifa, has already told the reader what to decide.
Where the course prepares you for this
- The imperfect subjunctive: how it is builtLesson 69Down into Montesinos’ Cave