Level C1 · Part One, Chapter 2
Vuestra merced: how people addressed each other in 1605
Usted did not exist yet. What existed was vuestra merced, which takes a third person verb because it is grammatically a noun, and vos, and tú, and the choice between them said everything about who you were talking to. This is the innkeeper answering a madman with perfect courtesy and open mockery at the same time.
The passage, exactly as Cervantes wrote it
Miguel de Cervantes, Part One, Chapter 2. Public domain, and not adapted, shortened or modernised in any way.
Según eso, las camas de vuestra merced serán duras peñas, y su dormir, siempre velar; y siendo así, bien se puede apear, con seguridad de hallar en esta choza ocasión y ocasiones para no dormir en todo un año, cuanto más en una noche.
By that account your worship's beds must be hard rock and your sleep a perpetual watch, and if that is so you may certainly dismount, sure of finding in this hovel occasion and occasions enough not to sleep for a whole year, let alone for a single night.
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.
Según eso, sus camas serán duras rocas y su dormir un velar continuo; y siendo así, puede bajarse del caballo tranquilo, seguro de encontrar en esta choza motivos de sobra para no dormir en todo un año, y no digamos en una noche.
What changed, form by form
| In the text | Today | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| vuestra merced | usted | Literally "your grace". Usted is worn down from it, and the third person verb is the fossil of that. |
| su dormir | el hecho de dormir | An infinitive used as a noun, with a possessive in front of it. |
| apear | bajar del caballo | Still used, but now mostly of getting off a train. |
| cuanto más | y no digamos | A comparison meaning "let alone", still alive but formal. |
| choza | cabaña | The innkeeper is calling his own inn a hut, which is part of the joke. |
The syntax
Vuestra merced governs a third person verb: serán, se puede. The second half runs on ellipsis, with the verb missing from su dormir, siempre velar, and the reader supplies it. Both habits survive in written Spanish and neither survives in speech.
What a Spanish reader hears
The innkeeper has understood exactly what he is dealing with and answers in the same high style, which is the cheapest and most effective form of mockery there is. He agrees with every word: yes, your beds are rock, and here you will find occasion and occasions not to sleep. He is promising a bad night in the language of chivalry.
Where the course prepares you for this
- Writing a letter: tú and usted on paperLesson 41The letter to Dulcinea