Level A2 · Chapter 34
The scholar who came from Baeza
The fight over, Don Quixote wants to know who those people were and where they were taking the body. The answer takes the adventure out of his hands.
What you will learn
- Join two sentences into one with que, donde and quien.
- Explain which person or thing you are talking about.
- Describe a place by saying what happened there.
Before you read
This whole scene is a man on the ground answering questions about who he is, where he comes from and where he is going. To answer, Spanish keeps hooking one sentence onto another with three small words: que, donde and quien. As you read, look at what sits immediately in front of each of them. That word is the whole point.The story in easy Spanish
Después de la pelea, el campo quedó lleno de antorchas en el suelo.
After the fight, the field was left full of torches on the ground.
Don Quijote se acercó al hombre que estaba debajo de la mula.
Don Quixote went up to the man who was lying under the mule.
«Decidme quién sois y de dónde venís.»
"Tell me who you are and where you come from."
«Me llamo Alonso López y soy de Alcobendas.»
"My name is Alonso López and I am from Alcobendas."
«Soy el bachiller que acompaña este cuerpo muerto.»
"I am the graduate who is accompanying this dead body."
«Venimos de Baeza, que es la ciudad donde murió el caballero.»
"We come from Baeza, which is the city where the knight died."
«Vamos a Segovia, donde está su sepultura.»
"We are going to Segovia, where his grave is."
«¿Y quién lo mató?», preguntó don Quijote muy serio.
"And who killed him?" asked Don Quixote, very solemn.
«Nadie. Murió de unas fiebres que duraron muchos días.»
"Nobody. He died of a fever that lasted many days."
El caballero bajó la lanza y no dijo nada durante un rato.
The knight lowered his lance and said nothing for a while.
«Entonces aquí no hay muerte que vengar», contestó al final.
"Then there is no death to avenge here," he said at last.
«Yo soy el hombre que endereza los tuertos de este mundo.»
"I am the man who puts right the wrongs of this world."
El bachiller miró su pierna rota y no contestó nada.
The graduate looked at his broken leg and answered nothing.
Sancho llegó con un costal donde llevaba pan, queso y vino.
Sancho arrived with a sack in which he was carrying bread, cheese and wine.
Ayudó a sacar al bachiller, que subió otra vez a su mula.
He helped pull out the graduate, who got back onto his mule.
Antes de marcharse, Sancho le dio un recado para sus compañeros.
Before he left, Sancho gave him a message for his companions.
«Decidles que el valiente que os venció es don Quijote de la Mancha.»
"Tell them that the brave man who beat you is Don Quixote of La Mancha."
«Es el caballero a quien llaman el de la Triste Figura.»
"He is the knight whom they call the one of the Sorrowful Face."
Don Quijote preguntó por qué le daba aquel nombre.
Don Quixote asked why he was giving him that name.
«Porque a la luz de la antorcha vuestra cara daba miedo.»
"Because by torchlight your face was frightening."
«Y porque os faltan las muelas que perdisteis con las piedras.»
"And because you are missing the teeth you lost to those stones."
Don Quijote se rió, pero se quedó con el nombre.
Don Quixote laughed, but he kept the name.
Desde aquella noche fue el Caballero de la Triste Figura.
From that night on he was the Knight of the Sorrowful Face.
Vocabulary
Who is who
- el bachiller
- the graduate
- el compañero
- the companion
- el valiente
- the brave man
- el escudero
- the squire
- el difunto
- the deceased
From where and to where
- la ciudad
- the city
- la sepultura
- the grave
- el camino real
- the royal highway
- la legua
- the league
- el pueblo
- the town, the village
Telling and asking
- el recado
- the message
- la razón
- the reason
- enderezar
- to put right
- el tuerto
- the wrong, the injustice
- quedarse con
- to keep
Relatives: que, donde, quien
Soy el bachiller que acompaña este cuerpo muerto.
Vamos a Segovia, donde está su sepultura.
Es el caballero a quien llaman el de la Triste Figura.
A relative word takes a whole sentence and hangs it on a noun, so that the listener knows which person or thing you mean. English has a family of them, who, whom, which, that, and drops them constantly. Spanish has fewer and drops none.
que does almost everything
Que is the workhorse. It covers who, whom, which and that, and it does not care whether the noun in front is a person or an object:
| two sentences | one |
|---|---|
| El hombre estaba debajo de la mula. Don Quijote se acercó a él. | Don Quijote se acercó al hombre que estaba debajo de la mula. |
| Las fiebres duraron muchos días. Murió de ellas. | Murió de unas fiebres que duraron muchos días. |
| El valiente os venció. Es don Quijote. | El valiente que os venció es don Quijote. |
donde is for places
When the noun in front is a place, Spanish reaches for donde, exactly where English says where: Baeza, donde murió el caballero. You can also say en el que, and it is perfectly correct, but donde is what people actually say. Note that a relative donde has no accent. The question word does: ¿de dónde venís?
quien is for people, after a preposition
This is the one learners overuse. Quien refers only to people, and in ordinary Spanish it turns up mainly after a preposition, where que on its own would sound wrong:
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| el caballero a quien llaman así | the knight whom they call that |
| los señores con quienes viajaba | the gentlemen he was travelling with |
| el hombre de quien hablo | the man I am talking about |
It has a plural, quienes, which agrees with the people it refers to. And it can stand alone with no noun in front, meaning the one who: quien mucho habla, mucho yerra.
The comma changes the meaning
No comma means you are picking one out of several. A comma means you are adding information about something already identified.
| Spanish | what it means |
|---|---|
| Los hombres que huyeron eran doce. | Only the ones who fled. Others stayed. |
| Los hombres, que huyeron, eran doce. | All twelve of them, and by the way they fled. |
None of them carry an accent
Question words wear a written accent, relatives do not, and the pair sits side by side in this very chapter. ¿Quién sois? against a quien llaman. ¿De dónde venís? against Segovia, donde está su sepultura. Same word, different job, and the tilde is how Spanish tells you which.
Graduates, licentiates and the Latin of the Church
Watch what the man on the ground does with his own name. Cornered under a mule with a lance at his face, he announces that he is a licenciado. A minute later, calmer, he corrects himself: he is only a bachiller. Those were real rungs on a real ladder. Bachelor, licentiate, doctor, in that order, and the middle one carried genuine weight in a country where a degree was one of the few ways a man without land could rise. Cervantes lets him inflate himself and then quietly deflate, which tells you everything about the character in four words.
The claim is not vanity alone. He also says he has taken the first orders, meaning minor clerical orders, and that changes his legal status. Laying violent hands on a cleric brought automatic excommunication, which is why he pleads sacrilege rather than mercy. Don Quixote, when the scholar throws the Latin canon at him, answers that he did not lay hands on anyone, he laid a lance, and rides away pleased with the distinction.
The geography is exact too. Baeza and Segovia are three hundred kilometres apart across the whole of Castile. Twelve priests walking a corpse that distance by night, and the joke about putting wrongs straight told by a man whose leg has just been put crooked forever, are the two things this chapter is built from.
Cervantes in the original
diráles vuestra merced que es el famoso don Quijote de la Mancha, que por otro nombre se llama el Caballero de la Triste Figura
your worship will tell them that it is the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, who by another name is called the Knight of the Sorrowful Face
Two que in one line, doing two entirely different jobs, which is why this sentence is worth stopping at. The first is a conjunction: it opens the thing being said, like the that in tell them that. The second is the relative of this lesson, and it points back at Don Quixote himself, exactly like English who. Learn to feel the difference and half of Spanish subordination opens up. The other pleasure here is who is speaking. The name that will follow Don Quixote through the rest of the book is not chosen by him and not by the narrator. It is invented by an illiterate peasant standing in a dark field, looking at his master’s battered face by torchlight, and the knight then spends a page explaining why a wise enchanter must have put it in Sancho’s mouth.