Level B2 · Chapter 84
Arriving in Barcelona
Don Quixote and Sancho see the sea for the first time, and in a house in the city a bronze head speaks to them.
What you will learn
- Describe a place by saying what there is, where it is and what it is.
- Compare the size of two things that are nothing like each other.
- Tell of a marvel and then explain how it was built.
Before you read
Watch how a place gets described. Sometimes Spanish says what there is (había una mesa de jaspe), sometimes where something known is (sobre el agua estaban las galeras), and sometimes what a thing is (era el mar). Three verbs, three jobs, and they cannot be swapped.The story in easy Spanish
Don Quijote y Sancho llegaron a la playa de Barcelona la víspera de San Juan, de noche.
Don Quixote and Sancho reached the shore at Barcelona on the eve of Saint John, at night.
Venían de pasar tres días escondidos entre bandoleros, por atajos y sendas encubiertas.
They had spent three days hidden among bandits, travelling by shortcuts and covered paths.
Se quedaron esperando el día, don Quijote a caballo y sin desarmarse.
They stayed waiting for daylight, Don Quixote on horseback and still in his armour.
No tardó mucho en aclararse el cielo por el este y en salir la aurora.
It was not long before the sky lightened in the east and dawn came up.
Con ella llegó también ruido de chirimías, de tambores y de cascabeles.
With it came the noise of shawms, of drums and of little bells.
Delante de ellos, donde no había habido nada, apareció una cosa enorme y movida.
In front of them, where there had been nothing, something vast and moving appeared.
Era el mar, y ninguno de los dos lo había visto en toda su vida.
It was the sea, and neither of them had seen it in his whole life.
Les pareció anchísimo, mucho mayor que las lagunas de Ruidera que habían visto en la Mancha.
It struck them as immense, far larger than the Ruidera lagoons they had seen in La Mancha.
Sobre el agua estaban las galeras, con los toldos quitados y las banderas al viento.
Out on the water lay the galleys, awnings struck and banners flying.
Dentro sonaban clarines y trompetas, y el viento traía olor a sal y ruido de remos.
Inside them bugles and trumpets sounded, and the wind brought a smell of salt and the noise of oars.
Las galeras empezaron a moverse y a hacer como si pelearan unas con otras.
The galleys began to move and to make as if they were fighting one another.
Dispararon toda su artillería, y respondió la de las murallas de la ciudad.
They fired all their artillery, and the artillery on the city walls answered.
El agua saltaba, el aire se llenó de humo y la tierra temblaba con el estruendo.
The water leapt, the air filled with smoke and the ground shook with the din.
Por la playa venían corriendo hacia ellos muchos jinetes con libreas vistosas.
Along the beach many horsemen in bright livery came galloping towards them.
Sancho no llegaba a entender cómo podían tener tantos pies aquellos bultos del mar.
Sancho could not work out how those bulks out at sea could have so many feet.
Uno de los jinetes se adelantó y saludó a don Quijote a voces delante de todos.
One of the horsemen came forward and greeted Don Quixote aloud in front of everyone.
Lo llamó espejo, farol y norte de toda la caballería andante.
He called him the mirror, the lantern and the north star of all knight-errantry.
Dijo además que era el verdadero, y no el falso de las historias que habían salido aquel año.
He added that this was the true one, not the false one of the histories printed that year.
Al entrar en la ciudad, dos muchachos les metieron unas matas de aliaga bajo las colas.
As they entered the city, two boys shoved handfuls of gorse under the animals’ tails.
Rocinante y el rucio dieron mil corcovos y echaron a sus dueños al suelo.
Rocinante and the donkey bucked a thousand times and threw their masters to the ground.
Los recibió en su casa un caballero rico de la ciudad, don Antonio Moreno.
A wealthy gentleman of the city, Don Antonio Moreno, took them into his house.
Era hombre discreto y aficionado a divertirse, pero sin hacer daño a nadie.
He was a sensible man, fond of amusing himself, but without doing anybody harm.
Paseó a don Quijote por las calles con un cartel cosido a la espalda.
He paraded Don Quixote through the streets with a placard sewn to his back.
El cartel decía su nombre, y toda Barcelona salió a mirarlo como a un mono amaestrado.
The placard gave his name, and the whole of Barcelona came out to look at him as at a trained monkey.
En una sala apartada de aquella casa había una mesa de jaspe sobre un pie de lo mismo.
In a private room of that house there was a jasper table on a pedestal of the same stone.
Encima de la mesa había una cabeza de bronce, como de emperador romano.
On the table there was a bronze head, like that of a Roman emperor.
Don Antonio le contó en secreto que era una cabeza encantada y que respondía al oído.
Don Antonio told him in secret that it was an enchanted head and that it answered whatever was whispered to it.
Le explicó que los viernes estaba muda y que había que esperar al día siguiente.
He explained that on Fridays it was mute and that they would have to wait until the next day.
Al otro día se encerraron en la sala unas cuantas personas y fueron preguntando por turno.
The next day a few people shut themselves into the room and asked their questions in turn.
A una dama que preguntó qué haría para ser hermosa le contestó que fuese muy honesta.
To a lady who asked what she should do to be beautiful it answered that she should be very virtuous.
A otra, que quería saber si su marido la quería, le dijo que mirase cómo la trataba.
To another, who wanted to know whether her husband loved her, it said she should look at how he treated her.
A un caballero que preguntó por los deseos de su hijo mayor le contestó que enterrarlo.
To a gentleman who asked what his eldest son wanted, it answered that he wanted to bury him.
Sancho preguntó por su gobierno, por su mujer y por sus hijos.
Sancho asked about his governorship, about his wife and about his children.
Le dijo que en su casa mandaría, y que si volvía a ella los vería a todos.
It told him that in his own house he would give the orders, and that if he went back he would see them all.
Sancho dijo que aquello no lo dijera mejor el profeta Perogrullo.
Sancho said that the prophet Perogrullo could not have put it better.
Don Quijote preguntó por la cueva de Montesinos y por los azotes de su escudero.
Don Quixote asked about the cave of Montesinos and about his squire’s lashes.
La cabeza contestó que de lo de la cueva había mucho que decir, de todo tenía.
The head answered that concerning the cave there was much to be said, that it had a bit of everything.
Añadió que los azotes irían despacio y que el desencanto llegaría a su debido efecto.
It added that the lashes would go slowly and that the disenchantment would come about in due course.
La maravilla tenía su explicación, y era más sencilla de lo que parecía.
The marvel had its explanation, and it was simpler than it looked.
El pie de la mesa era hueco, la sala de abajo también, y los unía un tubo de hojalata.
The pedestal of the table was hollow, so was the room below, and a tin pipe joined the two.
Abajo estaba un sobrino de don Antonio, estudiante agudo, con la boca pegada al tubo.
Below sat a nephew of Don Antonio’s, a sharp student, with his mouth against the pipe.
Pero eso se supo después, y la cabeza duró todavía diez o doce días.
But that was learnt afterwards, and the head lasted another ten or twelve days.
Aquella noche don Quijote se acostó creyendo que el bronce le había hablado.
That night Don Quixote went to bed believing that the bronze had spoken to him.
Vocabulary
The sea and the galleys
- la víspera
- the eve
- la aurora
- the dawn
- la laguna
- the lagoon
- el toldo
- the awning
- el olor a sal
- the smell of salt
- el bulto
- the shape, the bulk
- ancho
- wide
- saltar
- to leap
The city on a feast day
- la muralla
- the city wall
- la artillería
- the artillery
- disparar
- to fire
- la librea
- the livery
- el cartel
- the placard
- amaestrado
- trained
- el corcovo
- the buck, the leap
- vistoso
- showy
The enchanted head
- el jaspe
- jasper
- el bronce
- bronze
- hueco
- hollow
- la hojalata
- tin plate
- el tubo
- the pipe
- mudo
- mute
- al oído
- in the ear, whispered
- la maravilla
- the marvel
Hay, está and es for describing a place
En una sala apartada había una mesa de jaspe.
Sobre el agua estaban las galeras, con los toldos quitados.
Era el mar, y ninguno de los dos lo había visto nunca.
All three sentences describe what is in front of the characters, and none of the three verbs could be swapped for another. The choice is not about the place, it is about whether the listener already knows the thing.
| verb | job | what comes after it |
|---|---|---|
| hay, había, habrá | brings something into the scene for the first time | un, una, unos, dos, mucho, nada, algo |
| estar | places something the listener already has in mind | el, la, los, las, mi, este, a name |
| ser | identifies or classifies | a noun that answers what is it |
The practical test is the article. ✓ Hay una mesa en la sala. ✗ Hay la mesa en la sala. ✓ La mesa está en la sala. ✗ La mesa hay en la sala. Get that one habit and most of the errors disappear at once.
Hay never becomes plural
Hay is invariable, and so is había. One table or forty tables, the verb does not move. ✓ Había una galera, ✓ Había cuarenta galeras. ✗ Habían cuarenta galeras. Native speakers in several countries do say habían, and it is still marked wrong in writing.
Comparing sizes, which is what this chapter does all day
| form | example |
|---|---|
| más que | El mar es más ancho que las lagunas. |
| mayor que, menor que | Mucho mayor que las lagunas de Ruidera. |
| tan como | No es tan hondo como parece. |
| -ísimo | Les pareció anchísimo. |
Two things to note. The intensifier before a comparative is mucho, not muy: ✓ mucho mayor, ✗ muy mayor. And Cervantes uses harto más, an older way of saying mucho más that survives today mostly in the sense of fed up, estoy harto.
The only big city in the novel
This is the only large city Don Quixote enters in the entire novel. Everything before it happens in villages, inns, roads, mountains and one country house. Barcelona has a sea, an arsenal, a printing press, a viceroy and a crowd, and every one of those things is used against him in the space of a few chapters. Cervantes knew the city and liked it, and the enthusiasm in the description of the harbour on the morning of Saint John is not ironic. The rest of the visit is.
The placard is the detail to hold on to. Don Antonio Moreno is explicitly described as a man who enjoys himself without harming anyone, and the narrator says of him that jokes which hurt are not jokes and there is no entertainment worth harm to a third party. Then he sews a sign onto a guest’s back so that a whole city can point at him. The gap between the principle and the behaviour is the same gap the duke and duchess opened, and Cervantes does not comment on it. He does let one anonymous Catalan in the street say the plain thing, that this man is mad and that anybody who eggs him on is madder, and then has the household tell him to mind his own business.
The head has a real ancestor and a real ending. Talking bronze heads were attributed to Albertus Magnus and to Roger Bacon in medieval legend, and mechanical speaking devices with hidden tubes were genuinely built as entertainments. Cervantes gives the trick away in full, tube, hollow pedestal and student nephew, and then adds the flattest sentence in the chapter: it lasted ten or twelve days, until the Inquisition heard about it and ordered it destroyed.
Cervantes in the original
vieron el mar, hasta entonces dellos no visto; parecióles espaciosísimo y largo, harto más que las lagunas de Ruidera, que en la Mancha habían visto
they saw the sea, never seen by them until then, and it struck them as vast and long, far more so than the Ruidera lagoons they had seen in La Mancha
Two men from an inland village look at the Mediterranean, and Cervantes does not reach for a single grand adjective from outside their world. He measures the sea against the only large water they have ever seen, the lagoons of Ruidera in La Mancha, which Don Quixote visited a few chapters earlier when he went down the cave of Montesinos. That is why the comparison is there: it is not decoration, it is the last thing in their experience big enough to try. The grammar is worth reading slowly. Dellos is de ellos run together, normal in this period. Parecióles puts the pronoun on the end of the verb. Espaciosísimo is the superlative this course keeps meeting, and harto más is the older form of mucho más, which survives today mainly in estoy harto, I have had enough. A man who had been a soldier at Lepanto and a captive in Algiers is describing the sea through the eyes of two people who have never seen it, and he gets out of their way to do it.