Level B2 · Chapter 80
The Governor Goes Hungry
They set the richest table on the island in front of him, and a doctor with a rod who takes every dish away.
What you will learn
- Say what would have happened if things had gone differently.
- Complain about something by saying what you would have spared yourself.
- Tell the three kinds of si sentence apart.
Before you read
You will meet a lot of sentences with si hubiera and habría. Every one of them is about something that did not happen: what Sancho would have eaten, what he would never have accepted, where he would have stayed. This is the tense of regret, and by the end of the chapter Sancho has a great deal to regret.The story in easy Spanish
Sancho Panza llevaba medio día gobernando la ínsula Barataria y todavía no había comido nada.
Sancho Panza had been governing the island of Barataria for half a day and had still eaten nothing.
Del juzgado lo llevaron a un palacio, y al entrar en la sala sonaron las chirimías.
From the courtroom they took him to a palace, and as he came into the hall the shawms sounded.
Salieron cuatro pajes a darle aguamanos, y él los recibió con mucha gravedad.
Four pages came out to pour water over his hands, and he received them with great solemnity.
La mesa era rica, el mantel limpísimo y los platos, muchos y muy variados.
The table was fine, the cloth spotless and the dishes many and varied.
Lo sentaron en la cabecera, porque en toda la mesa no había más que aquel asiento.
They sat him at the head, because there was no other seat at the whole table.
Un paje le puso un babador, y a su lado se colocó de pie un hombre callado.
A page put a bib on him, and a silent man took up his position standing beside him.
Aquel hombre llevaba en la mano una varilla de ballena y no la soltó en toda la comida.
That man held a thin whalebone rod in his hand and did not put it down all through the meal.
Sancho tendió la mano hacia una fuente de fruta y comió un solo bocado.
Sancho reached out towards a dish of fruit and ate a single mouthful.
El hombre tocó el plato con la varilla y se lo quitaron delante de las narices.
The man touched the plate with his rod and it was whisked away from under his nose.
Lo mismo pasó con el segundo plato, y con el tercero, siempre con la misma limpieza de manos.
The same happened with the second dish, and with the third, always with the same neat sleight of hand.
Sancho preguntó si aquella comida se comía como los juegos de manos de las ferias.
Sancho asked whether that meal was to be eaten the way conjuring tricks are done at fairs.
El hombre se presentó, y dijo que era médico y que estaba asalariado por la ínsula.
The man introduced himself, and said he was a doctor salaried by the island.
Explicó que su oficio era cuidar la salud de los gobernadores, que le importaba más que la suya.
He explained that his job was to look after the health of governors, which mattered to him more than his own.
De ahí en adelante, cada plato tuvo su razón médica y su aforismo.
From then on, every dish had its medical reason and its maxim.
La fruta era demasiado húmeda y el guisado demasiado caliente y demasiado especiado.
The fruit was too moist and the stew too hot and too heavily spiced.
Las perdices, dijo, eran dañosas, y citó en latín que la hartura de perdiz es malísima.
Partridges, he said, were harmful, and he quoted in Latin that a surfeit of partridge is the worst of all.
Sancho señaló entonces una olla podrida que humeaba al fondo de la mesa.
Sancho then pointed to a great meat stew steaming at the far end of the table.
El médico contestó que aquello era lo peor de todo y que se dejase para los canónigos.
The doctor answered that this was the worst of all and should be left to the cathedral clergy.
Y si Sancho hubiera probado una sola cucharada, según él, habría estado enfermo una semana.
And if Sancho had tasted a single spoonful, according to him, he would have been ill for a week.
Le ofreció en su lugar unos barquillos y unas tajadas finas de membrillo.
He offered him instead some wafers and a few thin slices of quince paste.
Sancho lo miró de hito en hito y le preguntó cómo se llamaba y dónde había estudiado.
Sancho looked him up and down and asked what his name was and where he had studied.
Contestó que era el doctor Pedro Recio de Agüero, natural de un lugar llamado Tirteafuera.
He answered that he was Doctor Pedro Recio de Agüero, from a place called Tirteafuera.
Sancho miraba la mesa cargada y no llegaba a nada de lo que había encima.
Sancho looked at the loaded table and could get at none of what was on it.
Dijo que de aquel gobierno se moriría, y no de fiebre sino de hambre.
He said that this governorship would be the death of him, and not of fever but of hunger.
Dijo que a un gobernador se le mata igual quitándole el pan que dándole veneno.
He said that starving a governor kills him just as surely as poisoning him.
Añadió que en su casa había comido peor y con muchísimo más gusto.
He added that at home he had eaten worse food and enjoyed it a great deal more.
Al final estalló, se levantó de la silla y la cogió con las dos manos.
In the end he exploded, got up from his chair and seized it with both hands.
Todo encendido en cólera, amenazó con estrellársela en la cabeza al médico.
Burning with rage, he threatened to smash it over the doctor’s head.
Pidió pan, uvas y un pedazo de queso, y que se llevaran de allí las delicadezas.
He asked for bread, grapes and a piece of cheese, and for the delicacies to be taken away.
Dijo que un oficio que no da de comer a su dueño no vale dos habas.
He said that a job which does not feed the man who holds it is not worth two beans.
Aquella noche le escribió a su amo una carta que dictó al secretario.
That night he wrote his master a letter, dictating it to the secretary.
Si hubiera sabido lo que era gobernar, le decía, no habría dejado el campo por la ínsula.
If he had known what governing was, he told him, he would not have left the fields for the island.
Contaba que había entrado en el gobierno con hambre y que saldría de él con más.
He wrote that he had come into office hungry and would leave it hungrier still.
Nunca había pensado que un plato lleno pudiera estar tan lejos de una boca.
He had never imagined that a full plate could be so far away from a mouth.
Y sin embargo, al día siguiente volvió a la sala y siguió juzgando con el mismo tino.
And yet the next day he went back to the courtroom and went on judging as soundly as before.
El hambre no le quitó el juicio, solo le enseñó lo que es un gobernador.
Hunger did not take away his good sense, it only taught him what a governor is.
Un hombre a quien todos sirven y a quien nadie da de comer.
A man whom everybody serves and whom nobody feeds.
Vocabulary
The governor’s table
- el maestresala
- the head server
- el aguamanos
- water for the hands
- el babador
- the bib
- el mantel
- the tablecloth
- el manjar
- the dish
- la fuente
- the serving dish
- la delicadeza
- the delicacy
- el bocado
- the mouthful
What he is not allowed to eat
- la olla podrida
- the great meat stew
- la perdiz
- the partridge
- el guisado
- the stew
- la conserva
- the preserve
- el membrillo
- quince paste
- especiado
- spiced
- húmedo
- moist
- hartarse
- to eat one’s fill
The doctor and the rage
- la varilla de ballena
- the whalebone rod
- asalariado
- on a salary
- el aforismo
- the medical maxim
- la dieta
- going without
- dañoso
- harmful
- la cólera
- rage
- de hito en hito
- straight in the eye
- estrellar
- to smash
If he had eaten, he would have been ill
Si hubiera probado la olla, habría estado enfermo una semana.
Si hubiera sabido lo que era gobernar, no habría dejado el campo.
Si el médico se hubiera callado, Sancho habría cenado tranquilo.
This is the sentence for a past that never happened, and Spanish is stricter about it than English. There are exactly two slots and each one takes one form.
| the si half | the result half |
|---|---|
| si + hubiera or hubiese + participle | habría + participle |
| Si hubiera probado la olla, | habría estado enfermo. |
| Si hubiese dejado la ínsula antes, | habría cenado en su casa. |
Hubiera and hubiese are interchangeable here. Hubiera is commoner in speech and both are fully correct.
Three si sentences, and how to tell them apart
| type | si half | result half | meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| real | si come | se pone enfermo | whenever he eats, he gets ill |
| unreal present | si comiera | se pondría enfermo | if he ate, which he is not doing |
| unreal past | si hubiera comido | se habría puesto enfermo | he did not eat, and nothing followed |
Notice that the present indicative is fine after si in the first type, but the present subjunctive is never possible after si. ✗ si coma does not exist in Spanish, in any type.
The mixed one, which is very common
A past cause can have a present result, and Spanish handles it by taking one line from each row: Si hubiera aceptado el gobierno, ahora estaría gordo. If he had accepted the governorship, he would be fat now. The si half is past, the result half is present conditional.
A third possibility you will hear
In speech, and in Cervantes, the result half sometimes also takes hubiera: si hubiera comido, hubiera estado enfermo. This is correct and normal. What is not correct is the reverse, putting habría in the si half.
A doctor called Get Out of Here
Doctor Pedro Recio de Agüero is a joke assembled out of three pieces, and every piece would have landed with a Spanish reader in 1615. Recio means harsh. Agüero means omen, and Sancho immediately upgrades him to Pedro Recio de Mal Agüero, of ill omen. Tirteafuera is a real village in Ciudad Real, still there, and its name sounds exactly like the order tírate afuera, get yourself out of here. Cervantes then has him take his degree at Osuna, a small university that appears in the book more than once as a byword for a qualification nobody respects.
The medicine is period-accurate, which is what makes it funny. Galenic doctors classified foods as hot, cold, moist and dry, and treated almost everything by removing rather than adding. The Latin the doctor quotes, omnis saturatio mala, perdices autem pessima, is a genuine tag from the Hippocratic tradition. Cervantes lost a great deal to the medicine of his own century, and the portrait here is not affectionate.
Underneath the farce is the political point the whole Barataria sequence keeps making. Sancho is surrounded by a household whose entire function is to serve him, and every single one of them is preventing him from doing the thing a man needs to do to stay alive. He is not being neglected. He is being served to death, expensively and with excellent manners, and the joke belongs to the duke and duchess who arranged it.
Cervantes in the original
Y denme de comer, o si no, tómense su gobierno, que oficio que no da de comer a su dueño no vale dos habas.
And give me something to eat, or else take back your governorship, for a job that does not feed the man who holds it is not worth two beans.
Sancho has been polite, then patient, then sarcastic, and this is where the register breaks. Grammatically it is worth noticing what kind of conditional it is: not the impossible sort this lesson teaches but the plain, real kind, an imperative followed by o si no, and it is the most direct sentence anyone speaks in the whole Barataria sequence. No vale dos habas is a set phrase, still current in the form no vale un pimiento or no vale nada, and it belongs to a whole family of Spanish expressions that measure worth in cheap vegetables. The thought underneath is the one Cervantes keeps coming back to in this stretch of the novel. Sancho does not want power, or ceremony, or the title of don. He wants dinner, and an office that cannot deliver dinner has failed at the only test he applies to it.