C2 · Part One, front matter
Urganda's poem: verses with the endings cut off
Among the poems at the front of the 1605 edition is one in which every line stops a syllable short. The missing ending is always obvious to a native speaker and never to anyone else, which makes it the purest reading test in the book. This unit restores the endings and explains what the poem is making fun of.
The passage, exactly as Cervantes wrote it
Miguel de Cervantes, Part One, front matter. Unadapted.
Si de llegarte a los bue-, libro, fueres con letu-, no te dirá el boquirru- que no pones bien los de-. Mas si el pan no se te cue- por ir a manos de idio-, verás de manos a bo-, aun no dar una en el cla-, si bien se comen las ma- por mostrar que son curio-.
If you go, book, with enough care to reach good readers, no fool will tell you that you do not know how to place your fingers. But if you are itching to fall into the hands of idiots, you will see them, all of a sudden, fail to hit a single nail on the head, though they are dying to show how clever they are.
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.
Si, para llegar a los buenos, libro, vas con cuidado, no te dirá el bobo que no pones bien los dedos. Pero si estás impaciente por caer en manos de idiotas, verás de repente que no dan ni una en el clavo, aunque se mueren por demostrar que son entendidos.
What changed, form by form
| In the text | Today | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| bue- | buenos | The line with its ending cut off, verso de cabo roto. The reader supplies the rest of the word. |
| letu- | letura, lectura | Letura, with the consonant group simplified, as it was pronounced. |
| boquirru- | boquirrubio | Literally fair mouthed. A simpleton who talks too much. |
| no pones bien los de- | no pones bien los dedos | Not placing your fingers right, as on an instrument. Not knowing what you are doing. |
| si el pan no se te cue- | si el pan no se te cuece | No cocérsele a uno el pan, to be impatient, unable to wait. |
| idio- | idiotas | Idiota meant unlettered as much as stupid. It is the reader Cervantes fears. |
| de manos a bo- | de manos a boca, de repente | Suddenly, without warning. The phrase is gone. |
| no dar una en el cla- | no dar una en el clavo | Still said. Dar en el clavo, to hit the nail on the head. |
| se comen las ma- | se comen las manos | Comerse las manos, to be desperately eager. Gone. |
| curio- | curiosos | Curioso meaning careful and learned, not inquisitive. |
The syntax
Every line drops its ending from the stressed vowel on, and the reader completes it. That only works because the grammar makes each ending predictable: fueres con letu- can only be letura, no pones bien los de- can only be dedos. Read aloud, the poem is a game of completion, and it works like a test. A native speaker fills every gap without noticing. A learner has to stop at each line, and how often you stop is a fair measure of how far you have come.
What a Spanish reader hears
Verses with cut off endings were a fashion of the moment, and Cervantes gives them to Urganda, a sorceress out of Amadís de Gaula, so the joke is double: a comic form spoken by a figure from the very books the novel attacks. And the poem is about readers. It warns the book against idiotas who want to look curiosos, which is to say against half educated readers who comment on everything. The first thing the novel does, before it has even started, is choose its readers.
Where the course prepares you for this
- The present tense of -ER and -IR verbsLesson 4The books of chivalry