Level B1 · Chapter 54
The Brawl at the Inn
The argument over the packsaddle ends in blows, with the Holy Brotherhood in the middle of it. Don Quixote imposes peace with his voice, and then an arrest warrant turns up with his name on it.
What you will learn
- Say that somebody changes, and in what way they change.
- Choose between ponerse, volverse, hacerse and quedarse.
- Describe how a situation heats up and how it cools down.
Before you read
In this lesson everybody changes. The argument turns ugly, a constable goes wild with rage, the innkeeper starts shouting, a man goes pale, Don Quixote turns solemn, the inn goes quiet. English does all of that with one verb, to get, plus turn, go and become used more or less interchangeably. Spanish uses four different verbs and the choice is not free. Watch which one goes with which kind of change.The story in easy Spanish
La discusión sobre la albarda se puso fea muy deprisa.
The argument over the packsaddle turned ugly very fast.
El barbero repetía que era suya, Sancho decía que no, y los 2 gritaban a la vez.
The barber kept saying it was his, Sancho said it was not, and the two of them shouted at once.
En la venta había también 3 cuadrilleros de la Santa Hermandad.
At the inn there were also three constables of the Holy Brotherhood.
Eran hombres armados que vigilaban los caminos y no tenían fama de pacientes.
They were armed men who policed the roads and had no reputation for patience.
Uno de ellos se volvió loco de rabia cuando entendió que se reían de él.
One of them went wild with rage when he realised they were laughing at him.
En un momento se hizo imposible saber quién pegaba a quién.
In a moment it became impossible to tell who was hitting whom.
El barbero tiraba de la barba de Sancho, y Sancho le devolvía los golpes.
The barber was pulling Sancho’s beard, and Sancho was hitting him back.
Don Fernando sujetaba a un cuadrillero con el pie y se reía sin querer.
Don Fernando was pinning a constable down with his foot and laughing in spite of himself.
El ventero se puso a gritar desde la puerta que le rompían la casa entera.
The innkeeper started shouting from the doorway that they were wrecking his whole house.
Alguien dio la voz de alarma, aunque allí no quedaba nadie a quien avisar.
Somebody raised the alarm, though there was no one left to warn.
Un remero del cautivo salió cojo de aquella sala y no dijo una palabra.
One of the captive’s oarsmen came out of that room lame and said nothing.
Don Quijote, en medio de todo aquello, se puso muy serio de repente.
Don Quixote, in the middle of it all, suddenly turned very solemn.
Levantó los brazos y pidió con voz de trueno que se hiciera la paz.
He raised his arms and called in a voice of thunder for peace to be made.
Dijo que estaban en el castillo de una princesa y que aquello era una vergüenza.
He said they were in a princess’s castle and that this was a disgrace.
Y entonces ocurrió algo muy raro, porque todos pararon a la vez.
And then something very odd happened, because everyone stopped at the same time.
No fue por respeto, sino porque estaban cansados y les extrañó aquel tono.
It was not out of respect, but because they were tired and the tone startled them.
Se hizo un silencio corto en toda la sala.
A short silence fell over the whole room.
Entonces uno de los cuadrilleros se acordó de un papel que llevaba encima.
Then one of the constables remembered a paper he was carrying.
Se puso pálido, lo sacó despacio y leyó una orden de detención en voz alta.
He went pale, took it out slowly and read out an arrest warrant.
Era contra un hombre que había soltado a unos presos en el camino.
It was against a man who had set some prisoners free on the road.
El nombre del papel era el de don Quijote.
The name on the paper was Don Quixote’s.
El cura tuvo que hacerse el amable durante media hora larga.
The priest had to make himself agreeable for a good half hour.
Explicó que el caballero estaba enfermo del juicio y que no era responsable.
He explained that the knight was sick in his wits and was not responsible.
Además le pagó al ventero todo lo roto, y lamentó cada moneda.
He also paid the innkeeper for everything broken, and regretted every coin.
Cuando por fin se hizo de noche, la venta se quedó en calma.
When night finally came, the inn settled into calm.
Don Quijote se durmió convencido de que había impuesto la paz él solo.
Don Quixote fell asleep convinced that he had imposed peace all by himself.
Al amanecer, ya nadie se acordaba de la albarda.
By daybreak, nobody remembered the packsaddle any more.
Vocabulary
Verbs of change
- ponerse
- to go, to turn (a mood or colour)
- volverse
- to turn (for good, deep down)
- hacerse
- to become (by effort or time)
- quedarse
- to end up, to be left
- llegar a ser
- to get to be, to rise to
- convertirse en
- to turn into
- ponerse a
- to start doing
- hacerse el
- to play the, to act the
The brawl
- la rabia
- rage
- pegar
- to hit
- el golpe
- the blow
- sujetar
- to hold down
- la barba
- the beard
- la alarma
- the alarm
- cojo
- lame
- la vergüenza
- disgrace
The law and the calm
- el cuadrillero
- the constable
- la detención
- the arrest
- el preso
- the prisoner
- soltar
- to set free
- la carta
- the letter, the document
- la lengua
- the tongue, the language
- la paz
- peace
- la calma
- calm
Ponerse, volverse, hacerse, quedarse
La discusión se puso fea muy deprisa.
Uno de ellos se volvió loco de rabia.
En un momento se hizo imposible saber quién pegaba a quién.
English has one workhorse for this, get, plus go, turn and become used loosely. Spanish splits the job four ways, and the split is not about politeness or register. It is about what kind of change you are describing.
1. The four
| verb | kind of change | what follows it | from this story |
|---|---|---|---|
| ponerse | mood, colour, physical state, temporary | adjective | se puso pálido |
| volverse | deep, involuntary, looks permanent | adjective or un + noun | se volvió loco de rabia |
| hacerse | gradual, or the result of a decision | adjective or noun | se hizo imposible |
| quedarse | the state you are left in afterwards | adjective | se quedó en calma |
Two contrasts make the system click. Ponerse enfermo is getting ill this week, while volverse loco is losing your mind. Hacerse rico is getting rich over years, by working or by luck, while quedarse pobre is what you are left as after something happened to you.
That last verb, quedarse, is the one learners never use and natives use constantly, because Spanish likes to describe an aftermath: se quedó ciego, se quedó solo, se quedó sin dinero, la venta se quedó en calma.
2. What each one is allowed to take
| ✗ wrong | ✓ right | why |
|---|---|---|
| se puso cuadrillero | se hizo cuadrillero | ponerse never takes a noun |
| se hizo pálido | se puso pálido | colour is a passing state |
| se volvió médico | se hizo médico | a profession is a decision |
| se puso loco para siempre | se volvió loco | permanent and involuntary |
3. Two more you will meet
| form | use | example |
|---|---|---|
| llegar a ser | reaching something after a long climb | llegó a ser gobernador |
| convertirse en | turning into something else entirely | la broma se convirtió en pelea |
4. Two traps that look the same
Ponerse a plus an infinitive is not a change of state at all. It means to start doing something abruptly: el ventero se puso a gritar. Compare el ventero se puso furioso, which is a mood.
And hacerse el plus an adjective means to pretend, to play a part: el cura tuvo que hacerse el amable, the priest had to act the pleasant man. He did not become pleasant. He performed it for half an hour so that nobody arrested his friend. Spanish has a whole family of these: hacerse el tonto, hacerse el sordo, hacerse el interesante.
The Holy Brotherhood walks into the novel
The Santa Hermandad, the Holy Brotherhood, was a rural police force paid for by the towns of Castile. Its jurisdiction was the open country, the roads and fields where ordinary courts did not reach, and its reputation rested on speed rather than procedure: it arrested, it judged quickly, and its favoured punishment was to tie a man to a post and shoot him with arrows. Country people feared it in a way that the novel expects its readers to feel without being told.
Its arrival here changes the temperature of the book. Up to this point everything Don Quixote does has consequences of a comic kind: he is beaten with sticks, he loses teeth, he goes hungry, people laugh. Freeing the galley slaves back in lesson 37 was different, and Cervantes has let twenty lessons pass without mentioning it. Now a tired constable at an inn remembers a paper in his pocket, unfolds it, and reads out a name. Nobody in the room finds it funny.
Notice how the scene is resolved, because it is not resolved by chivalry. It is resolved by the priest talking for half an hour and by money changing hands. The formula he uses, that the knight is sick in his wits and therefore not responsible, is a real legal defence of the period, and it works. Don Quixote sleeps through the negotiation and wakes up convinced that his own voice imposed peace on the whole inn.
Keep this scene in mind for the next lesson. The priest has just discovered that talking about Don Quixote as a madman gets results, and he is about to build a plan on it.
Cervantes in the original
los demás cuadrilleros, que vieron tratar mal a su compañero, alzaron la voz pidiendo favor a la Santa Hermandad
the other constables, who saw their companion badly treated, raised their voices calling for the aid of the Holy Brotherhood.
This is the sentence where a brawl turns into a legal proceeding, and it is worth watching how little Cervantes needs to do it. Alzar la voz pidiendo favor a la Santa Hermandad was not a description of shouting. It was a formula, the official cry by which a constable summoned the force of the institution behind him, and every reader of 1605 would have heard it as such. The instant it is spoken, the men rolling on the floor of an inn are no longer squabbling about a packsaddle: they are resisting the crown. Note the relative clause in the middle, que vieron tratar mal a su compañero, which supplies the legal justification in passing, exactly the way a report would. And note the plural. Up to now there has been one angry constable and the scene was comic. There are three of them, and the other two have just remembered what they are.