Level B2 · Chapter 76
The Countess Trifaldi’s Beard
A duenna with a man’s beard comes into the castle garden, and she speaks the Spanish of two hundred years earlier.
What you will learn
- Recognise the old forms of Spanish when they turn up in a text.
- Turn an archaic sentence into modern Spanish without losing anything.
- Hear when a text is making fun of the style it is imitating.
Before you read
You are about to meet words no Spaniard says today. Forms like non, fermosura and fasta were already two centuries out of date when Cervantes wrote them, and he uses them the way a film today uses fake medieval English. Learn them to recognise them, not to use them.The story in easy Spanish
Una tarde, en el jardín del castillo, se oyó el son tristísimo de un pífano y un tambor destemplado.
One afternoon, in the castle garden, there came the mournful sound of a fife and an out-of-tune drum.
Sancho, que se asustaba de todo, se fue derecho a las faldas de la duquesa.
Sancho, who was frightened of everything, made straight for the duchess’s skirts.
Entraron por el jardín dos hombres de luto, con las capas tan largas que las arrastraban por el suelo.
Two men in mourning came into the garden, their cloaks so long that they dragged along the ground.
Detrás venía un personaje enorme, cubierto de negro y ceñido con un alfanje desmesurado.
Behind them came an enormous figure, covered in black and girded with a huge scimitar.
Se descubrió el rostro y enseñó la barba más blanca y más poblada que nadie había visto nunca.
He uncovered his face and showed the whitest, thickest beard anyone had ever seen.
Dijo que se llamaba Trifaldín el de la Barba Blanca y que servía a la condesa Trifaldi.
He said his name was Trifaldín of the White Beard and that he served the Countess Trifaldi.
Habló con las palabras antiguas de los libros de caballerías, que ya nadie usaba desde hacía doscientos años.
He spoke in the old language of the books of chivalry, which nobody had used for two hundred years.
Llamó al duque «altísimo y poderoso señor» y a don Quijote «el valeroso y jamás vencido caballero».
He called the duke «most high and mighty lord» and Don Quixote «the valorous and never vanquished knight».
Pidió licencia para que su señora entrase a contar su cuita, y el duque se la dio.
He asked leave for his lady to come in and tell her grief, and the duke granted it.
Volvieron los tambores, y entraron doce dueñas en dos hileras, con unas tocas blancas larguísimas.
The drums returned, and twelve duennas came in in two rows, wearing very long white headdresses.
Tras ellas venía la condesa Trifaldi, con la falda de tres puntas que le daba el nombre.
Behind them came Countess Trifaldi, with the three-pointed skirt that gave her the name.
Don Quijote callaba, y Sancho se moría de ganas de verles la cara a todas aquellas dueñas.
Don Quixote said nothing, and Sancho was dying to see the faces of all those duennas.
La Dolorida empezó su discurso con las palabras más hinchadas que pudo encontrar.
The Distressed Duenna began her speech with the most inflated words she could find.
Llamó a los presentes «discretísimos circunstantes» y preguntó por «el escuderísimo Panza».
She called those present «most discreet bystanders» and asked after «the most squirely Panza».
Sancho le contestó en el mismo tono y dijo que allí estaban todos prontos y aparejadísimos.
Sancho answered her in the same tone and said they were all ready and most exceedingly prepared.
Contó luego la historia de la infanta Antonomasia, heredera de Candaya, de quien ella había sido gobernanta.
She then told the story of the Infanta Antonomasia, heiress of Candaya, whose governess she had been.
La infanta se enamoró de un caballero particular que tocaba la guitarra y componía coplas.
The infanta fell in love with a private gentleman who played the guitar and wrote songs.
Se casaron en secreto, y del disgusto murió a los tres días la reina Maguncia.
They married in secret, and Queen Maguncia died of the shock three days later.
Sobre la sepultura de la reina apareció entonces el gigante Malambruno, encantador y primo de la muerta.
On the queen’s grave there then appeared the giant Malambruno, an enchanter and cousin of the dead woman.
Dejó a los dos esposos encantados, a ella hecha una mona de bronce y a él un cocodrilo de metal.
He left the two spouses enchanted, she turned into a bronze ape and he into a metal crocodile.
A las dueñas de palacio, por no haber vigilado a su señora, les puso barbas en la cara.
On the palace duennas, for not having watched over their lady, he put beards on their faces.
Al decir esto, las doce se levantaron los velos y enseñaron barbas rubias, negras, blancas y pintadas.
As she said this, the twelve raised their veils and showed beards blond, black, white and speckled.
La condesa dijo que preferían perder la cabeza antes que llevar aquel bosque encima.
The countess said they would rather lose their heads than carry that forest about with them.
Solo un caballero podía deshacer el encanto, y ese caballero estaba sentado delante de ella.
Only one knight could undo the spell, and that knight was sitting in front of her.
Se echó a sus pies y lo llamó basa y coluna de la andante caballería.
She threw herself at his feet and called him the base and pillar of knight-errantry.
Sancho preguntó si aquellas barbas se podrían aprovechar para algo, y le contestaron que no.
Sancho asked whether those beards might be put to some use, and was told they might not.
Don Quijote juró que iría a Candaya y que raparía a las doce, aunque el reino estuviese al otro cabo del mundo.
Don Quixote swore he would go to Candaya and shave all twelve, even if the kingdom lay at the other end of the earth.
Todo era invento de los duques, y las barbas eran postizas y estaban pegadas con mucho arte.
It was all an invention of the duke and duchess, and the beards were false and stuck on with great art.
Pero el escuadrón hablaba tan en serio que dos criados pasaron la noche persignándose.
But the squadron spoke so gravely that two servants spent the night crossing themselves.
Vocabulary
The entrance in the garden
- el pífano
- the fife
- destemplado
- out of tune
- el alfanje
- the scimitar
- la toca
- the headdress
- el escuadrón
- the squadron
- ceñido
- girded
- desmesurado
- outsized
- arrastrar
- to drag
The countess’s story
- la cuita
- the grief
- la gobernanta
- the governess
- la infanta
- the king’s daughter
- la heredera
- the heiress
- la sepultura
- the grave
- la mona
- the she-ape
- vigilar
- to watch over
- el castigo
- the punishment
The beards
- postizo
- false, stuck on
- rapar
- to shave off
- pegado
- stuck on
- el velo
- the veil
- poblado
- thick, bushy
- persignarse
- to cross oneself
- hinchado
- inflated
- la coluna
- the pillar
Old Spanish and how to parody it
Non fuyades, cobardes criaturas.
La vuestra fermosura puede facer lo que quisiere.
Fasta que la vuestra bondad me otorgue un don.
Cervantes did not invent the archaic language in this chapter. He copied it from the chivalry romances of a hundred years before, which already read as quaint in 1615, and he uses it exactly as a film today uses fake medieval English. Once you know the four changes, the old Spanish stops being a wall.
| change | old | modern |
|---|---|---|
| initial f became h | fermosura, facer, fasta, fijo, fablar, fazaña | hermosura, hacer, hasta, hijo, hablar, hazaña |
| non lost its n | non fuyades | no huyáis |
| vos endings in -ades and -edes | fuyades, habedes, sodes | huyáis, habéis, sois |
| article before the possessive | la vuestra fermosura, el mi señor | su hermosura, mi señor |
The other joke, and this one is alive
The Distressed Duenna talks in superlatives, and Sancho throws them back at her. Spanish forms these with -ísimo on the adjective, and unlike English it can pile them on anything, including nouns and words that logically have no degree.
| normal | with -ísimo | what it does |
|---|---|---|
| triste | tristísimo | ordinary and current, use it freely |
| largo | larguísimo | note the spelling, gu keeps the hard g |
| rico | riquísimo | c becomes qu for the same reason |
| escudero | escuderísimo | a noun, so it is a joke, and Cervantes means it as one |
The stem sometimes changes as well, and the irregular ones are worth learning whole: bueno gives bonísimo or buenísimo, fuerte gives fortísimo, antiguo gives antiquísimo, joven gives jovencísimo.
Laughing at a genre already dying
The chivalry romances that Don Quixote reads were a real publishing phenomenon of the early sixteenth century, and by 1615 they were finished. Very few new ones had appeared for decades. Cervantes is not attacking a living rival here, he is imitating a corpse, and the archaic Spanish is how he signals that. Trifaldín announcing himself with altísimo y poderoso señor is doing a period accent, and the duke, the duchess and every servant in the garden know it.
The invention itself is worth pausing on. A bearded woman was a real spectacle in Spain in this period, painted by Ribera in 1631 and shown at fairs, so the audience for this scene would have found the image both grotesque and topical. Cervantes multiplies it by twelve and gives the beards different colours, which turns a freak show into farce. The duennas themselves get a whole running joke, because the dueña, the older woman kept on in great houses as a chaperone, was one of the standard butts of Golden Age comedy, and Sancho has already said that no good ever comes of them.
What makes the chapter uncomfortable is where the laughter is aimed. The duke and duchess have hired actors, sewn on beards and rehearsed a language nobody speaks in order to send a fifty-year-old man on an imaginary journey. Don Quixote listens to all of it and swears on his honour to help. He is the only person in the garden treating a woman’s reported grief as something that deserves an answer.
Cervantes in the original
Don Quijote callaba, y Sancho andaba muerto por ver el rostro de la Trifaldi y de alguna de sus muchas dueñas
Don Quixote was silent, and Sancho was dying to see the face of the Trifaldi and of some of her many duennas
One line, and it sorts everybody in the garden into two kinds of reader. Don Quixote is silent because he has accepted the fiction completely and is waiting respectfully for it to unfold. Sancho is muerto por ver, dying to see, which is not belief and not disbelief but curiosity about the machinery. He wants the veil lifted. Note the verb: andar plus an adjective is ordinary spoken Spanish for a state you are stuck in, ando cansado, anda preocupado, and it is still used exactly like this. Cervantes has just spent two pages on invented archaic Spanish, and then drops into the plainest sentence in the chapter to tell you what each man is doing with it.