Level A2 · Chapter 30
The balm and the blanket
Everything hurts. Don Quixote boils up a miracle medicine, Sancho tries it, and out in the yard a blanket is waiting for him.
What you will learn
- Name the parts of the body using the article.
- Say what hurts with me duele and me duelen.
- Say how you feel: better, worse, dizzy, exhausted.
Before you read
The whole chapter hurts today, so the vocabulary of the body arrives on its own. Watch one thing above all: Spanish never says I hurt my head. It says me duele la cabeza, and the head is the subject of the sentence.The story in easy Spanish
Por la mañana a don Quijote le dolía todo el cuerpo.
In the morning Don Quixote ached all over.
Le dolían la cabeza, la espalda y las costillas.
His head, his back and his ribs hurt.
A Sancho le dolían los hombros y no podía levantar los brazos.
Sancho’s shoulders hurt and he could not lift his arms.
«Amigo, conozco la receta de un bálsamo que cura cualquier herida.»
"My friend, I know the recipe for a balm that heals any wound."
Sancho bajó y pidió al ventero aceite, vino, sal y romero.
Sancho went down and asked the innkeeper for oil, wine, salt and rosemary.
Don Quijote lo mezcló todo y lo coció mucho rato en una olla.
Don Quixote mixed it all together and boiled it a long while in a pot.
Luego rezó más de 80 oraciones sobre el líquido caliente.
Then he said more than 80 prayers over the hot liquid.
Bebió un buen trago y enseguida empezó a vomitar.
He drank a good draught and at once started to vomit.
Vomitó, sudó mucho y se durmió tres horas seguidas.
He vomited, sweated a great deal and slept for three hours straight.
Al despertar se encontraba mejor y creía de verdad en su medicina.
When he woke up he felt better and truly believed in his medicine.
Sancho bebió lo que quedaba en la olla, con mucha esperanza.
Sancho drank what was left in the pot, full of hope.
Su estómago no era tan fino como el de su señor.
His stomach was not as delicate as his master’s.
El pobre escudero sudó, tembló y lo pasó fatal durante dos horas.
The poor squire sweated, shook and had a dreadful time of it for two hours.
Al final le dolía el cuerpo más que antes del bálsamo.
In the end his body hurt more than before the balm.
Don Quijote quiso salir a buscar aventuras aquella misma mañana.
Don Quixote wanted to ride out after adventures that same morning.
El ventero le pidió el dinero de la cena y de las camas.
The innkeeper asked him for the money for the supper and the beds.
El caballero contestó que los caballeros andantes nunca pagan en las ventas.
The knight replied that knights errant never pay at inns.
Salió por la puerta sin mirar atrás y dejó allí a Sancho.
He rode out of the gate without looking back and left Sancho behind.
Unos hombres alegres cogieron al escudero y lo pusieron sobre una manta.
Some cheerful men grabbed the squire and laid him on a blanket.
Lo lanzaron al aire muchas veces, en mitad del corral.
They tossed him into the air many times, in the middle of the yard.
Don Quijote oyó los gritos, pero estaba demasiado molido para saltar el muro.
Don Quixote heard the shouting, but he was too battered to climb the wall.
Al final lo dejaron y Maritornes le trajo agua del pozo.
They let him go at last and Maritornes brought him water from the well.
Sancho prefirió vino. Ella lo pagó de su propio dinero.
Sancho preferred wine. She paid for it out of her own money.
Los dos salieron de la venta sin pagar nada y sin las alforjas.
The two of them left the inn without paying anything and without the saddlebags.
Vocabulary
The body
- la cabeza
- the head
- la espalda
- the back
- la costilla
- the rib
- el hombro
- the shoulder
- el brazo
- the arm
- el estómago
- the stomach
Being ill
- doler
- to hurt
- el dolor
- the pain
- vomitar
- to vomit
- sudar
- to sweat
- la herida
- the wound
- curar
- to heal, to treat
The inn and the blanket
- el bálsamo
- the balm
- la olla
- the pot
- la manta
- the blanket
- el corral
- the yard
- las alforjas
- the saddlebags
- pagar
- to pay
The body and the verb doler
A don Quijote le dolía todo el cuerpo.
Le dolían la cabeza, la espalda y las costillas.
A Sancho le dolían los hombros.
This is the same machine as gustar, and once you see that, it costs nothing. The person is not the subject. The body part is.
| to whom | one part | several parts |
|---|---|---|
| a mí | me duele la cabeza | me duelen los brazos |
| a ti | te duele la cabeza | te duelen los brazos |
| a él, a ella, a usted | le duele la cabeza | le duelen los brazos |
| a nosotros | nos duele la cabeza | nos duelen los brazos |
| a vosotros | os duele la cabeza | os duelen los brazos |
| a ellos, a ustedes | les duele la cabeza | les duelen los brazos |
Read me duele la cabeza as the head is hurting to me and the endings stop being a mystery. Two ribs, two verbs in the plural: me duelen las costillas.
The article, never the possessive
English marks the owner: my head hurts. Spanish has already marked it with me, so it uses the plain article: me duele la cabeza. Saying me duele mi cabeza is the single most audible mistake in this whole area. The same rule runs through the body: se rompió el brazo, le cogió la muñeca, levantó la mano.
The name and the clarification
le and les are vague, so Spanish often adds a plus the name at the front: A Sancho le dolían los hombros. That a is not optional decoration, it is how you say whose shoulders. The same trick works for emphasis with the other persons: a mí me duele todo.
The parts of the body you need today
| Spanish | English | plural |
|---|---|---|
| la cabeza | the head | las cabezas |
| la espalda | the back | las espaldas |
| el hombro | the shoulder | los hombros |
| la costilla | the rib | las costillas |
| el brazo | the arm | los brazos |
| la pierna | the leg | las piernas |
| el estómago | the stomach | los estómagos |
| la boca | the mouth | las bocas |
Saying how you are
Three more ways to answer the same question, all of them normal in a Spanish chemist’s shop:
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| tengo dolor de cabeza | I have a headache |
| estoy malo, estoy mala | I am ill |
| me encuentro mejor | I feel better |
| me encuentro peor | I feel worse |
Note me encuentro, literally I find myself, which is what Spanish says where English says I feel. It is the verb Don Quixote needs when he wakes up after 3 hours convinced the balm has worked.
Medicine, the balm and the blanket
Fierabrás was a giant in a French chivalry romance who carried two barrels of the balm that had embalmed Christ, and whoever drank it was healed of any wound. That is a real book, and Don Quixote has read it. What he does with it is the whole joke of his character: he treats a plot device as a prescription, and he even gets the pharmacy right, because oil, wine, salt and rosemary were the standard ingredients of a country wound dressing. The only fictional part is drinking it.
Medicine in 1605 still ran on the four humours. Health was a balance of fluids, and a cure meant getting the bad ones out of the body, by bleeding, by purging or by sweating. So when Don Quixote vomits, sweats and sleeps for 3 hours, he wakes up genuinely convinced that the treatment worked, and by the medical theory of his own century he is not being stupid. Sancho, who gets the same dose, provides the control experiment.
The blanket at the end is not invented either. Mantear was a real punishment, done to servants, to beggars and to dogs at carnival, and it was public humiliation rather than a game. Sancho never forgets it. He brings it up again and again for the rest of the book, right through to the second part, where he is still counting it against his master forty chapters later.
Cervantes in the original
Levántose Sancho con harto dolor de sus huesos, y fue ascuras donde estaba el ventero.
Sancho got up with a good deal of pain in his bones, and went off in the dark to where the innkeeper was.
The noun of this lesson, dolor, sitting in the original next to the verb it produces, doler. Harto here means plenty, not fed up, which is what it means today. Ascuras is the old spelling of a oscuras, written as one word. And notice Levantóse: in 1605 the pronoun was regularly stuck on the end of a past tense at the start of a sentence, where today you write Se levantó. You will meet that inversion on every page of Cervantes, so learn to read it now.