Level B1 · Chapter 66
The Adventure of the Lions
Don Quixote orders a real lion’s cage opened and plants himself in front of it with his sword. The lion yawns and lies down again.
What you will learn
- Narrate a whole scene in the past, using all three past tenses.
- Combine subjunctive, neuter lo and comparatives in one text.
- Close the B1 block knowing what you have learnt and what is still missing.
Before you read
This is the last lesson of the B1 block, and the text has been built to contain almost everything the block taught: three past tenses working together, impersonal formulas with the subjunctive, time clauses about things that had not happened yet, neuter lo, comparatives and superlatives, and ser against estar. Read it once for the story, which is the best one in this stretch of the novel, and once looking for the grammar.The story in easy Spanish
Iban don Quijote, Sancho y don Diego por el camino cuando apareció un carro.
Don Quixote, Sancho and Don Diego were on the road when a cart appeared.
Llevaba banderas del rey y avanzaba despacio bajo un sol de justicia.
It flew the king’s flags and moved slowly under a punishing sun.
Dentro había dos jaulas grandes con dos leones enormes traídos de África.
Inside were two large cages holding two enormous lions brought from Africa.
Eran un regalo para la corte de Madrid y valían una fortuna.
They were a gift for the court in Madrid and were worth a fortune.
El carretero pidió permiso para pasar cuanto antes, con la gorra en la mano.
The carter asked leave to get past as soon as possible, cap in hand.
Explicó que los animales llevaban todo el día sin comer y estaban nerviosos.
He explained that the animals had gone all day without food and were on edge.
Don Quijote sonrió al oírlo, y aquella sonrisa no le gustó a nadie.
Don Quixote smiled when he heard it, and nobody liked that smile.
«¿Leoncitos a mí?», dijo. «Abrid las jaulas ahora mismo, buen hombre».
"Lion cubs, to me?" he said. "Open the cages this instant, my good man."
«Yo les enseñaré aquí quién es don Quijote de la Mancha».
"I will show them here and now who Don Quixote of La Mancha is."
Todos le suplicaron que no lo hiciera, cada uno con sus razones.
They all begged him not to do it, each of them with his own reasons.
Don Diego, que era el más sensato, le dijo que aquello era una locura.
Don Diego, who was the most level-headed, told him it was madness.
Sancho lloró y le pidió que dejara en paz a aquellos gatos grandes.
Sancho wept and asked him to leave those big cats alone.
Dijo que el caballero más valiente del mundo no pelea contra animales.
He said that the bravest knight in the world does not fight animals.
No hubo manera de convencerlo, porque ya se había bajado del caballo.
There was no way of convincing him, because he had already got off his horse.
Sancho, don Diego y el carretero se alejaron corriendo por el camino.
Sancho, Don Diego and the carter hurried away down the road.
El guardián, temblando, abrió por fin la puerta de la primera jaula.
The keeper, shaking, finally opened the door of the first cage.
Don Quijote se plantó delante, a pie, con la espada y el escudo.
Don Quixote planted himself in front of it, on foot, with sword and shield.
Esperaba que el león saliera de un salto y se le echara encima.
He was expecting the lion to leap out and throw itself on him.
El animal se levantó despacio y miró alrededor sin ninguna prisa.
The animal got up slowly and looked around without the slightest hurry.
Bostezó, se limpió la cara con la pata y estiró el cuerpo entero.
It yawned, cleaned its face with its paw and stretched its whole body.
Después dio media vuelta y se volvió a echar dentro de la jaula.
Then it turned round and lay down again inside the cage.
Lo más raro de todo fue el silencio que se quedó en el camino.
The strangest thing of all was the silence that settled over the road.
«Ya lo habéis visto», dijo el caballero. «El león no ha querido pelear».
"You have all seen it," said the knight. "The lion did not care to fight."
Pidió que desde aquel día lo llamaran el Caballero de los Leones.
He asked that from that day on they call him the Knight of the Lions.
Don Diego lo miraba sin saber si tenía delante a un loco o a un héroe.
Don Diego watched him, not knowing whether he had a madman or a hero in front of him.
Y así, sin haber ganado nada, don Quijote se sintió más grande que nunca.
And so, having won nothing at all, Don Quixote felt greater than ever.
Vocabulary
The lion cart
- la jaula
- the cage
- la bandera
- the flag
- el carretero
- the carter
- el guardián
- the keeper
- la corte
- the royal court
- el regalo
- the gift
- la gorra
- the cap
- la fortuna
- a fortune
What a lion does
- bostezar
- to yawn
- estirarse
- to stretch
- la pata
- the paw
- dar media vuelta
- to turn round
- echarse
- to lie down
- levantarse
- to get up
- mirar alrededor
- to look around
- sin prisa
- unhurried
Fear and courage
- suplicar
- to beg
- temblar
- to shake
- plantarse
- to plant yourself
- alejarse
- to move away
- convencer
- to convince
- la locura
- the madness
- el héroe
- the hero
- valiente
- brave
The whole of B1 in one scene
Le suplicaron que no lo hiciera.
Lo más raro de todo fue el silencio.
Ya se había bajado del caballo.
This is a review lesson, so there is no new rule. What follows is the map of the B1 block, with a line from this story for each point and a note on where it usually goes wrong.
1. The past, in three tenses at once
| tense | from this lesson | job |
|---|---|---|
| imperfecto | Iban por el camino… | the background, still running |
| indefinido | …cuando apareció un carro. | the event that cuts in |
| pluscuamperfecto | Ya se había bajado del caballo. | earlier than the rest |
The sentence that opens the story is the whole system in eleven words. Background in the imperfect, interruption in the preterite.
2. The subjunctive, in the four places it lives
| trigger | example |
|---|---|
| asking or wanting | Le pidió que dejara en paz a los leones. |
| impersonal judgement | Era una locura que abrieran la jaula. |
| time not yet arrived | Esperó hasta que el guardián abriera. |
| a thing not yet identified | No hay nadie que quiera abrir esa puerta. |
And the one place it does not live: after a statement of fact. Es verdad que el león bostezó.
3. Neuter lo
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Lo más raro fue el silencio. | The strangest thing was the silence. |
| No dijo lo que pensaba. | He did not say what he was thinking. |
4. Comparing
| Spanish | trap |
|---|---|
| el más valiente del mundo | de, never en |
| más grande que nunca | plain que before a word |
| más lento de lo que esperaban | de lo que before a verb |
5. Ser and estar
Era el más sensato de los tres, his character. Estaba muy nervioso, his state that afternoon. The lion era enormous and estaba hungry, and swapping the two produces nonsense in both directions.
6. Verb chains
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| volvió a echarse | lay down again |
| llevaban todo el día sin comer | had gone all day without eating |
| se puso a temblar | started shaking |
| dejó de discutir | stopped arguing |
The bravest and most pointless adventure
Everything else in the novel involves a mistake. Windmills are not giants, sheep are not armies, wineskins are not enemies, and the reader always knows more than the knight. Here, for once, there is no error at all. The cart is real, the flags are real, the lions are real, hungry and unfed since morning, and Don Quixote sees exactly what is in front of him. He then gets off his horse, sends everyone away, has the cage opened and stands in front of it on foot with a sword.
It is the bravest thing anybody does in the book, and it produces nothing. The lion looks at him, yawns, cleans its face, shows him its back and lies down again. There is no combat, no wound, no victory and nothing to tell. Cervantes then has the keeper give sworn written testimony of what happened, which is the funniest possible ending: the deed exists only as paperwork.
Don Quixote takes it as a triumph and changes his name. Since Part One he had been the Knight of the Sorrowful Face, a title Sancho invented as a joke about how he looked. From this afternoon he is the Knight of the Lions, and the new name is the one thing he genuinely earned. Whether courage that achieves nothing still counts as courage is the question the chapter leaves standing, with Don Diego on the road unable to decide, which is the position Cervantes wants his reader in as the B1 half of the story ends.
Cervantes in the original
¿Leoncitos a mí? ¿A mí leoncitos, y a tales horas?
Lion cubs, to me? To me, lion cubs, and at such an hour?
From II, 17, and after the windmills it is the best known sentence in the book. Three things are working at once. First the diminutive: leoncitos does not mean the lions are small, it means the speaker refuses to be impressed by them, which is a use of -ito that has nothing to do with size and everything to do with attitude. Second the repetition with the order reversed, a mí moving from the end to the front, which is how Spanish shouts. Third, and best, y a tales horas, and at this time of day, as though a lion released in the morning would have been a reasonable proposition and the objection is one of scheduling. What makes the line different from every other famous line in the novel is that nothing is being misperceived. The lions are real, they are hungry, everyone including Don Quixote knows it, and he opens the cage anyway. The joke and the courage are the same gesture, which is the closest this book comes to a definition of its hero.