Arrival at the Duke’s Castle

What you will learn

• Recognise the courtly register and the formulas it is made of.
• Hear irony when the words say one thing and the situation says another.
• Use a few courtesy formulas without sounding absurd.

Before you read

The story in easy Spanish

En un prado verde, camino de Zaragoza, don Quijote vio venir una partida de caza.

In a green meadow, on the road to Saragossa, Don Quixote saw a hunting party approaching.

Delante de todos iba una señora montada en un caballo blanco, vestida toda de verde.

At the head of them all rode a lady on a white horse, dressed all in green.

Llevaba un halcón en el guante izquierdo y no miraba a nadie en particular.

She carried a falcon on her left glove and was looking at nobody in particular.

A don Quijote le pareció la mujer más gallarda que había visto en su vida.

She struck Don Quixote as the most splendid woman he had ever seen in his life.

Mandó a Sancho que fuese a besarle las manos de su parte con mucha reverencia.

He ordered Sancho to go and kiss her hands on his behalf with a deep bow.

Le mandó también que le dijese con toda cortesía quién era su amo y señor.

He also ordered him to tell her with all courtesy who his master and lord was.

Sancho salió corriendo con el rucio y llegó ante la duquesa sin aliento ninguno.

Sancho set off at a trot on his donkey and arrived before the duchess quite out of breath.

Habló allí de «la sin par Dulcinea» y de «el Caballero de los Leones».

There he spoke of "the peerless Dulcinea" and of "the Knight of the Lions".

Así se hacía llamar entonces don Quijote, desde la aventura de las jaulas de África.

That was what Don Quixote called himself at the time, ever since the adventure of the African cages.

Lo que Sancho no sabía era mucho más grave de lo que él podía imaginarse.

What Sancho did not know was a great deal more serious than he could imagine.

Los duques habían leído la primera parte del libro, impresa y vendida por toda España.

The duke and duchess had read the first part of the book, printed and sold all over Spain.

Sabían de memoria quién era cada uno de aquellos dos hombres del camino.

They knew by heart who each of those two men on the road was.

Llevaban meses deseando que pasasen por sus tierras para poder divertirse un poco con ellos.

They had spent months wishing the pair might pass through their lands so they could amuse themselves.

La duquesa respondió a Sancho con una cortesía perfecta, sin un gesto de más.

The duchess answered Sancho with perfect courtesy, without one gesture too many.

Dijo que sería para ella singular merced y honra recibir a caballero tan famoso.

She said it would be a singular favour and honour to receive so famous a knight.

Rogó que su marido, el duque, tuviese el gusto de acompañarlos hasta el castillo.

She asked that her husband, the duke, might have the pleasure of escorting them to the castle.

Ni una palabra fuera de sitio, ni una sonrisa que se le pudiera reprochar a nadie.

Not one word out of place, not one smile that anybody could be reproached for.

Don Quijote quiso apearse del caballo para ir a besarle la mano a la señora.

Don Quixote wanted to dismount and go and kiss the lady’s hand.

Se bajó como pudo, con la armadura puesta y con una lentitud que dolía verla.

He got down as best he could, in full armour and with a slowness that hurt to watch.

Sancho, que le sujetaba el estribo, se enredó en una cuerda de la albarda del rucio.

Sancho, who was holding his stirrup, got tangled in a cord of the donkey’s packsaddle.

Los dos, amo y escudero, dieron con sus cuerpos en el suelo del prado.

The two of them, master and squire, went sprawling on the ground of the meadow.

Cayeron delante de toda la comitiva, de los criados, de los perros y de los halcones.

They fell in front of the whole retinue, the servants, the dogs and the falcons.

Nadie se rió en voz alta, y ese silencio fue lo más cortés de todo.

Nobody laughed out loud, and that silence was the most courteous thing of all.

Los criados corrieron a levantarlos y a limpiarles el polvo de la ropa y de las armas.

The servants ran to help them up and brush the dust off their clothes and armour.

El duque dijo que sentía mucho que el señor caballero hubiera hecho tan mala entrada.

The duke said he was very sorry that the lord knight had made so poor an entrance.

Añadió que de la desgracia de un escudero descuidado suele sacarse buena fortuna al final.

He added that good fortune is often drawn in the end from a careless squire’s mishap.

Llegaron al castillo cuando ya empezaba a caer la tarde sobre los campos de trigo.

They reached the castle as evening was beginning to fall over the wheat fields.

En la puerta salieron dos hileras de criados con antorchas encendidas en las manos.

At the door two rows of servants came out with lit torches in their hands.

Desde los balcones les echaron agua de olor, como se hacía con los reyes.

From the balconies scented water was thrown down on them, as was done for kings.

Unas doncellas le quitaron las armas a don Quijote llamándolo «señor» todo el rato.

Maidservants took Don Quixote’s armour off him, calling him "my lord" the whole time.

Una de ellas dijo en voz alta que aquel día honraba la casa la flor de la caballería.

One of them said aloud that on that day the flower of knight-errantry was honouring the house.

Todo estaba preparado de antemano, desde las órdenes de la cocina hasta las antorchas.

Everything had been arranged in advance, from the kitchen orders to the torches.

Los duques habían montado un teatro entero para ellos dos solos, y les había costado dinero.

The duke and duchess had staged an entire theatre for those two alone, and it had cost them money.

Los dos actores principales no sabían todavía que lo eran ni lo sospecharon nunca.

The two leading actors did not yet know that they were, and never suspected it.

Don Quijote se dejó llevar de sala en sala, muy despacio y muy serio.

Don Quixote let himself be led from room to room, very slowly and very gravely.

Y por primera vez creyó del todo que era un caballero andante de verdad.

And for the first time he believed completely that he was a real knight errant.

Lo creyó sin sombra de duda, y ya no de mentira como hasta aquella tarde.

He believed it without a shadow of doubt, and no longer as make-believe as until that afternoon.

Vocabulary

The hunting party

la partida de caza

the hunting party

el halcón

the falcon

el guante

the glove

la comitiva

the retinue

gallardo

splendid, dashing

apearse

to dismount

el estribo

the stirrup

enredarse

to get tangled up

Courtesy formulas

la merced

the favour

la honra

the honour

tener el gusto de

to have the pleasure of

servirse de

to be so good as to

la reverencia

the bow

besar las manos

to kiss the hands

de mi parte

on my behalf

sentir mucho

to be very sorry

The house made ready

la hilera

the row

la antorcha

the torch

el agua de olor

scented water

de antemano

in advance

la sala

the hall

reprochar

to reproach

el aliento

the breath

sospechar

to suspect

Speaking like a duke, and what that hides

Sería para ella singular merced y honra recibir a caballero tan famoso.

Rogó que el duque tuviese el gusto de acompañarlos.

Sentía mucho que el caballero hubiera hecho tan mala entrada.

Courtly Spanish is not a different language. It is ordinary Spanish put through four filters, and each filter puts distance between the speaker and what he means.

1. The conditional instead of the present

Sería para ella singular merced, not es. The conditional makes a statement hypothetical and therefore less pushy. This survives intact in modern Spanish: ¿Le importaría…?, Querría pedirle…, Sería mejor que…, and it is the single most useful politeness device the language has.

2. Softer verbs of asking

Rogar and suplicar replace pedir, and they take the subjunctive exactly as pedir does. Rogó que tuviese el gusto de acompañarlos. Modern equivalents: Le agradecería que…, Le ruego que…, both still alive in written Spanish.

3. Nouns instead of verbs

Singular merced y honra rather than me alegro mucho. Piling up abstract nouns is what makes a sentence sound official in any language, and Spanish does it with a small closed set: merced, honra, gusto, favor, servicio, voluntad.

4. Talking about the person instead of to them

Que el señor caballero se sirva pasar, said to his face. This is where modern usted comes from. Vuestra merced, your grace, took a third person verb, and centuries of wear turned it into usted, which is why usted still takes third person endings today. Cervantes is writing at the exact moment when both forms are in use.

Irony

Irony is not a grammatical form and there is no ending that marks it. It happens when the words are impeccable and the situation contradicts them. The duke says he is very sorry about a fall he has been hoping for since spring. The maid announces that the flower of knight-errantry honours the house, having been told that morning to say precisely that. Nothing in the sentences is wrong. Everything about them is false, and Cervantes never once tells you so.

The first readers inside the book

The first part of Don Quixote was published in 1605 and sold across Spain and its empire within a year. The second part, which you are reading now, appeared in 1615, and Cervantes does something with that ten-year gap that nobody had done before. His characters walk into a country where everyone has already read about them. The duke and duchess are not meeting a madman on the road. They are meeting a book they own, and they have been waiting for it.

What follows in the novel is a long stay at the castle, the longest single episode in either part, and every event in it is staged for the amusement of the household. The courtesy is real courtesy, executed correctly by people who have practised it since childhood. That is what makes it cruel. Nobody is rude to Don Quixote, nobody laughs where he can hear, and the whole apparatus is running for the pleasure of watching a poor gentleman believe it.

Cervantes then closes the chapter with the sentence quoted below, and it is the coldest line in the book. The knight finally achieves what he has wanted since chapter one, complete belief in himself as a knight errant, and he achieves it on the one afternoon when the belief has been manufactured for him by people who find him funny. From here on the madness is no longer only his.

Cervantes in the original

Aquél fue el primer día que de todo en todo conoció y creyó ser caballero andante verdadero, y no fantástico

That was the first day on which he wholly knew and believed himself to be a true knight errant, and not an imaginary one

From the end of II, 31. Two words need translating before the sentence works. De todo en todo is an old phrase meaning wholly, in every respect, with nothing held back. And fantástico here does not mean marvellous, which is a modern sense: it means existing only in the imagination, which makes it the precise opposite of verdadero. So the line says that this was the first day he knew and believed himself to be an actual knight errant rather than an imagined one. Everything before this, on this reading, he had been half performing. What makes the sentence the coldest in the novel is where Cervantes puts it. It arrives at the close of a chapter in which every torch, every bow and every word of scented courtesy has been arranged in advance by two bored aristocrats who read about him in a book. He gets what he has wanted since the first page, and he gets it as a gift from people who are laughing at him. Cervantes writes it in one flat sentence and moves on.