C2 · Part Two, prologue
The madman who inflated dogs: the prologue of 1615
The prologue to Part Two was written after a forged sequel had appeared, and every reader expected Cervantes to attack its author. Instead he tells a story about a madman in Seville who blew up dogs through a reed. This unit is about how a story can carry an insult that the storyteller never states.
The passage, exactly as Cervantes wrote it
Miguel de Cervantes, Part Two, prologue. Unadapted.
Había en Sevilla un loco que dio en el más gracioso disparate y tema que dio loco en el mundo. Y fue que hizo un cañuto de caña puntiagudo en el fin, y, en cogiendo algún perro en la calle, o en cualquiera otra parte, con el un pie le cogía el suyo, y el otro le alzaba con la mano, y como mejor podía le acomodaba el cañuto en la parte que, soplándole, le ponía redondo como una pelota; y, en teniéndolo desta suerte, le daba dos palmaditas en la barriga, y le soltaba, diciendo a los circunstantes, que siempre eran muchos: ''¿Pensarán vuestras mercedes ahora que es poco trabajo hinchar un perro?''» ¿Pensará vuestra merced ahora que es poco trabajo hacer un libro?
There was a madman in Seville who fell into the funniest piece of nonsense and obsession that any madman in the world ever fell into. It was that he made a reed tube sharpened at one end, and whenever he caught a dog in the street, or anywhere else, he held down one of its legs with his foot and lifted the other with his hand, and fitted the tube as best he could into the place where, by blowing, he could make it as round as a ball. And once he had it that way, he gave it two little pats on the belly and let it go, saying to the bystanders, who were always many: Do your worships think now that it is little work to blow up a dog? Does your worship think now that it is little work to make a book?
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.
Había en Sevilla un loco al que le dio por el disparate y la manía más graciosos que ha tenido ningún loco en el mundo. Y fue que hizo un tubo de caña afilado por un extremo, y, en cuanto pillaba algún perro en la calle, o en cualquier otro sitio, le sujetaba una pata con el pie y le levantaba la otra con la mano, y como mejor podía le metía el tubo por donde, soplando, lo dejaba redondo como una pelota. Y cuando lo tenía así, le daba dos palmaditas en la barriga y lo soltaba, diciendo a los presentes, que siempre eran muchos: ¿Pensarán ustedes ahora que es poco trabajo hinchar un perro? ¿Pensará usted ahora que es poco trabajo hacer un libro?
What changed, form by form
| In the text | Today | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| dio en | le dio por | Dar en algo, to take something into one's head. Still alive in le ha dado por ahí. |
| tema | manía | Tema as a feminine noun meaning an obsession. Today it is masculine and means a topic. |
| cañuto | tubo, canuto | A section of reed. Canuto is still the word. |
| en cogiendo | en cuanto cogía | En plus gerund for as soon as. Gone from speech. |
| con el un pie | con un pie | An article in front of un, meaning one of the two feet. |
| le cogía el suyo | le sujetaba la pata | Suyo standing for a noun already in the air, pie, applied to a dog. |
| en la parte que | por donde | The part that cannot be named. The euphemism is the joke. |
| desta suerte | de esta manera | Suerte meaning manner, not luck. |
| circunstantes | presentes | The people standing around. A learned word, now rare. |
| vuestras mercedes ... vuestra merced | ustedes ... usted | The madman speaks to the crowd in the plural. Cervantes turns to his reader in the singular. |
The syntax
The anecdote is one long narrative sentence held together by gerunds and by y: en cogiendo, soplándole, en teniéndolo, diciendo. It moves exactly as fast as the madman does. Then the madman's question closes it, and Cervantes repeats the question word for word with a single noun changed, perro becomes libro, and the plural vuestras mercedes becomes the singular vuestra merced. The whole point lies in that substitution, and it is never explained.
What a Spanish reader hears
The man being described is Avellaneda, the author of the forged Part Two, and Cervantes never says so. He has just told the reader that he will not insult him, and he keeps his word to the letter. What he does instead is tell a story about a man who puffs up something small with a lot of air through a reed and expects applause for the effort, and then ask the reader whether writing a book is easy. It is the most elegant insult in the book, and there is not one insulting word in it.
Where the course prepares you for this
- Talking about books and what gets publishedLesson 57Their story is in print