Level C2 · Part One, Chapter 22
The galley slaves: thieves' cant and the art of the euphemism
A chain of convicts on the road to the galleys, and each one explains his crime in the slang of the underworld. Don Quixote understands none of it. This unit is about germanía, the thieves' cant of Golden Age Spain, and about a vocabulary in which every word for a crime is a joke.
The passage, exactly as Cervantes wrote it
Miguel de Cervantes, Part One, Chapter 22. Public domain, and not adapted, shortened or modernised in any way.
Éste, señor, va por canario; digo, por músico y cantor. — Pues, ¿cómo —repitió don Quijote—, por músicos y cantores van también a galeras? — Sí, señor —respondió el galeote—, que no hay peor cosa que cantar en el ansia. — Antes, he yo oído decir —dijo don Quijote— que quien canta sus males espanta. — Acá es al revés —dijo el galeote—, que quien canta una vez llora toda la vida. — No lo entiendo —dijo don Quijote. Mas una de las guardas le dijo: — Señor caballero, cantar en el ansia se dice, entre esta gente non santa, confesar en el tormento. A este pecador le dieron tormento y confesó su delito, que era ser cuatrero, que es ser ladrón de bestias, y, por haber confesado, le condenaron por seis años a galeras, amén de docientos azotes que ya lleva en las espaldas. Y va siempre pensativo y triste, porque los demás ladrones que allá quedan y aquí van le maltratan y aniquilan, y escarnecen y tienen en poco, porque confesó y no tuvo ánimo de decir nones.
This one, sir, goes as a canary, I mean as a musician and singer. What, said don Quixote, do people go to the galleys for being musicians and singers too? Yes sir, replied the galley slave, for there is nothing worse than singing under the squeeze. On the contrary, said don Quixote, I have heard it said that he who sings frightens off his troubles. Here it is the other way round, said the galley slave, for he who sings once weeps for the rest of his life. I do not understand it, said don Quixote. But one of the guards said to him: Sir knight, among these unholy people, singing under the squeeze means confessing under torture. They put this sinner to the torture and he confessed his crime, which was being a cuatrero, which is a stealer of beasts, and because he confessed they sentenced him to six years in the galleys, on top of the two hundred lashes he already carries on his back. And he goes along always brooding and sad, because the other thieves, those who stayed behind and those who are here, abuse him and crush him and mock him and think nothing of him, because he confessed and did not have the courage to say no.
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.
Este, señor, va por canario, quiero decir, por músico y cantante. ¿Cómo?, repitió don Quijote. ¿También mandan a galeras a los músicos y cantantes? Sí, señor, respondió el galeote, que no hay nada peor que cantar en el potro. Pues yo he oído decir, dijo don Quijote, que quien canta sus males espanta. Aquí es al revés, dijo el galeote, que quien canta una vez llora toda la vida. No lo entiendo, dijo don Quijote. Pero uno de los guardias le dijo: Señor caballero, entre esta gente de mal vivir, cantar en el ansia quiere decir confesar bajo tortura. A este pobre lo torturaron y confesó su delito, que era ser cuatrero, es decir, ladrón de ganado, y por haber confesado lo condenaron a seis años de galeras, además de doscientos azotes que ya lleva en la espalda. Y va siempre pensativo y triste, porque los demás ladrones, los que se quedaron allí y los que van aquí, lo maltratan, lo humillan, se burlan de él y lo desprecian, porque confesó y no tuvo valor para decir que no.
What changed, form by form
| In the text | Today | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| canario | cantante | In germanía, the slang of the underworld, a canary is a man who sings, and a man who sings is a man who talks. |
| cantar | confesar, y hoy también cantar | Still the slang verb for owning up to the police, four centuries later. |
| en el ansia | en la tortura | In the cant, the water torture. The ordinary word means anguish, and that is the euphemism. |
| quien canta sus males espanta | lo mismo hoy | A real proverb, still in use: singing scares your troubles away. Don Quixote hears the everyday meaning. |
| gente non santa | gente de mal vivir | Non is the Latin form again, here for mock solemnity. The phrase is still current. |
| cuatrero | ladrón de ganado | Still the word for a rustler, in Spain and in Latin America. |
| docientos | doscientos | The older form, before the s came in. |
| una de las guardas | uno de los guardias | Guarda was feminine even when it meant a man, the way la persona still is. |
| decir nones | decir que no | No turned into a plural noun. Still understood, and now rare. |
The syntax
The scene is a dialogue in two languages that share every word. The prisoners speak germanía, in which cantar is to confess, ansia is torture and canario is a man who talks. Don Quixote hears ordinary Castilian and answers with a proverb that means the opposite. It takes a guard, who speaks both, to translate, and his explanation is the only part of the passage built like standard written prose, with clauses that gloss the slang term by term: confesar en el tormento, cuatrero, que es ser ladrón de bestias.
What a Spanish reader hears
Every word the thieves use for their trade is a euphemism, and every euphemism is a joke: the man caught hugging a basket of laundry went for love, the man tortured into confessing went for singing. It is gallows humour in the strict sense, from men on their way to the oars. And the guard's explanation holds the sharpest idea in the chapter. Among the prisoners the crime is not stealing cattle, it is having confessed. Don Quixote says he understands. By the end of the chapter he has set them all free, and they thank him with stones.
Where the course prepares you for this
- The present perfectLesson 37The king’s prisoners