Level A2 · Chapter 25
The student who died of love
Beside the fire, a goatherd tells the story of Grisóstomo and the shepherdess Marcela.
What you will learn
- Tell a whole story in the past, with a beginning, a middle and an end.
- Choose between preterite and imperfect according to what each sentence does.
- Order the events with un día, entonces, después and al final.
Before you read
In this text the two past tenses work together for the first time. The imperfect paints the background and the preterite tells the steps of the story. Watch how each paragraph mixes them.The story in easy Spanish
Aquella noche, junto al fuego, un cabrero llamado Pedro contó una historia triste.
That night, beside the fire, a goatherd called Pedro told a sad story.
En el pueblo vivía un estudiante rico y muy listo. Se llamaba Grisóstomo.
In the village there lived a rich and very clever student. His name was Grisóstomo.
Volvió de Salamanca con muchos libros. Sabía leer el cielo y las estrellas.
He came back from Salamanca with many books. He could read the sky and the stars.
También vivía allí Marcela, una muchacha huérfana. Era hermosa y tenía mucho dinero.
Marcela also lived there, an orphan girl. She was beautiful and had a great deal of money.
Muchos hombres querían casarse con ella. Marcela decía que no a todos.
Many men wanted to marry her. Marcela said no to all of them.
Un día se vistió de pastora y se fue al monte con sus cabras.
One day she dressed as a shepherdess and went off to the hills with her goats.
Entonces los enamorados se vistieron también de pastores. La siguieron por el campo.
Then her suitors dressed as shepherds too. They followed her across the countryside.
Grisóstomo escribía canciones para ella cada mañana. La muchacha nunca le respondió.
Grisóstomo wrote songs for her every morning. The girl never answered him.
El estudiante se puso enfermo de tristeza. Murió muy joven, en pocos meses.
The student fell ill with sadness. He died very young, within a few months.
Antes de morir pidió una cosa rara. Quería una tumba en el campo, junto a una fuente.
Before dying he asked for something strange. He wanted a grave out in the country, beside a spring.
Cuando Pedro terminó, la noche estaba muy oscura y fría. Nadie hablaba.
When Pedro finished, the night was very dark and cold. Nobody was speaking.
Don Quijote decidió ir al entierro. Quería ver a aquella pastora con sus ojos.
Don Quixote decided to go to the burial. He wanted to see that shepherdess with his own eyes.
Vocabulary
The people of the hills
- el cabrero
- the goatherd
- el pastor / la pastora
- the shepherd / the shepherdess
- el estudiante
- the student
- el enamorado
- the man in love, the suitor
- huérfano / huérfana
- orphan
Love and sorrow
- casarse con
- to marry someone
- la canción
- the song
- la tristeza
- sadness
- responder
- to answer
- morir
- to die
Telling a story
- un día
- one day
- entonces
- then, at that point
- después
- afterwards
- en pocos meses
- within a few months
- al final
- in the end
Telling a story: preterite and imperfect
En el pueblo vivía un estudiante rico y muy listo.
Un día se vistió de pastora y se fue al monte.
Grisóstomo escribía canciones, pero la muchacha nunca le respondió.
You have met both tenses already. This lesson is about using them in the same paragraph, which is what telling a story really means.
The preterite takes the steps. The imperfect holds everything still around those steps.
| imperfecto | indefinido | |
|---|---|---|
| what it does | background, description, habit | one finished step of the story |
| question it answers | what was everything like? | what happened next? |
| typical markers | siempre, cada mañana, mientras | un día, entonces, después, en pocos meses |
| from the story | vivía, era, tenía, escribía | contó, se vistió, murió, pidió |
How one paragraph is built
Read the fourth paragraph again. Era hermosa y tenía mucho dinero is the camera resting on Marcela. Nothing moves there.
Then comes un día se vistió de pastora, and the story takes a step. That is the whole system in 2 sentences.
A test that works almost every time: if the English could be used to or was doing, Spanish wants the imperfect. If the English is a plain past that happened once and finished, Spanish wants the preterite.
The same verb in both tenses
A few common verbs change meaning, not just aspect. This surprises everyone the first time.
| imperfecto | indefinido |
|---|---|
| Marcela quería vivir libre. (a wish that lasted) | Marcela quiso vivir libre. (she went and did it) |
| Grisóstomo sabía muchas cosas. (he knew them) | Grisóstomo supo la verdad. (he found out) |
| Conocía a Marcela. (he knew her) | Conoció a Marcela. (he met her) |
| No podía dormir. (he was unable) | No pudo dormir. (he tried and failed that night) |
The shape of a told story
Most Spanish stories open in the imperfect. En el pueblo vivía un estudiante rico. That is the Spanish equivalent of once upon a time.
Then a marker such as un día or entonces flips the tense, and the preterite carries the plot to the end. The imperfect comes back whenever the story pauses to look at something.
The fashion for dressing as a shepherd
The strangest thing in this lesson is not that a rich student died of love. It is that he and his friends dressed up as shepherds to do it, and that nobody in the story finds this odd.
The pastoral novel was the other bestseller of the age, right beside the books of chivalry. In it, shepherds have perfect manners, endless free time and enormous vocabularies. Nobody smells of goat.
Real people copied it. Wealthy young Spaniards genuinely put on the crook and the sheepskin and went out to the countryside to sing about their sorrows. Cervantes had written one of these novels himself, La Galatea, in 1585, and he was still promising a second part on the day he died.
So Grisóstomo is playing a part he read in a book, exactly as Don Quixote is. The difference is that nobody laughs at Grisóstomo. Cervantes lets the pastoral world run at full seriousness for 3 chapters. Then he sends Marcela down onto a rock to say what no shepherdess in any of those novels ever said, and the machine breaks. That is the next lesson.
Cervantes in the original
Creció la niña con tanta belleza, que nos hacía acordar de la de su madre.
The girl grew up so beautiful that she reminded us of her mother.
The whole lesson in one sentence of the original. Creció is the preterite, one finished movement from child to young woman. Hacía acordar is the imperfect, something that went on happening every time the neighbours saw her. The goatherd Pedro is speaking, and he tells the story exactly the way you have just learned to tell it.