Level B2 · Chapter 88
The Plan to Become Shepherds
On the road home, forbidden to take up arms for a year, Don Quixote decides to become a shepherd. The first thing he hands out is the names.
What you will learn
- Recognise a Spanish suffix and know what it does to the word underneath.
- Use the diminutive for affection, contempt or unimportance, not only for size.
- Notice when a text is laughing at the genre it is written in.
Before you read
This chapter is mostly a man inventing names. Every one of them is an ordinary name with an ending stuck on it, and each ending does something different to the word. Collect them as you read. The grammar section takes the endings apart afterwards, and they are among the most useful things in Spanish.The story in easy Spanish
Vencido en Barcelona y obligado a no tomar las armas en un año, volvía a su pueblo.
Beaten at Barcelona and bound not to take up arms for a year, he was going back to his village.
Iba por el mismo camino por donde había salido, y sin prisa ninguna.
He went by the same road he had left by, and in no hurry at all.
Andaba a pie parte del día, con Rocinante detrás y el rucio al lado.
He walked part of each day, with Rocinante behind and the donkey alongside.
Hablaba mucho más de lo que había hablado en todo el viaje anterior.
He talked a great deal more than he had in the whole journey before.
Un día llegaron al prado donde meses antes habían visto a unos pastores fingidos.
One day they came to the meadow where months earlier they had seen some make-believe shepherds.
Era gente rica del lugar, vestida de zagales, que representaba églogas en el campo.
They were well-off local people dressed as shepherd lads, performing eclogues out in the fields.
Habían inventado una Arcadia de mentira para entretener el verano.
They had invented a pretend Arcadia to pass the summer.
Don Quijote se acordó de aquello y se le encendió una idea nueva.
Don Quixote remembered it, and a new idea took fire in him.
Si no podía ser caballero andante durante un año, sería pastor.
If he could not be a knight errant for a year, he would be a shepherd.
Comprarían ovejas y todo lo demás que el oficio pidiera, sin reparar en gastos.
They would buy sheep and everything else the trade required, sparing no expense.
Se irían por los montes, por las selvas y por los prados, cantando de día y de noche.
They would go off over the hills, the woods and the meadows, singing by day and by night.
Beberían agua de las fuentes y de los arroyos limpios, que allí no falta nunca.
They would drink water from the springs and the clean streams, which never run short there.
Comerían de lo que dieran las encinas y dormirían a la sombra de los sauces.
They would eat what the holm oaks gave and sleep in the shade of the willows.
La caballería tenía sus libros, y la vida pastoril tenía los suyos.
Chivalry had its books, and the pastoral life had its own.
Ya traía repartidos los nombres, que en aquel género es lo primero de todo.
He had the names worked out already, which in that genre is the very first thing.
Él se llamaría el pastor Quijotiz, y Sancho tendría que llamarse el pastor Pancino.
He would be the shepherd Quixotiz, and Sancho would have to be the shepherd Pancino.
Al cura, cuyo nombre no se prestaba, le pondrían el pastor Curiambro.
The priest, whose name did not lend itself, would be called the shepherd Curiambro.
El bachiller Sansón Carrasco sería el pastor Sansonino o el pastor Carrascón.
Sansón Carrasco would be the shepherd Sansonino or the shepherd Carrascón.
Y el barbero maese Nicolás podría llamarse Miculoso, si le parecía bien.
And Nicolás the barber could call himself Miculoso, if he liked the sound of it.
Faltaban las pastoras, porque sin dama no hay égloga que valga nada.
Shepherdesses were still needed, because without a lady no eclogue is worth anything.
Él cantaría a Dulcinea del Toboso, que sirve igual de pastora que de princesa.
He would sing of Dulcinea del Toboso, who does as well for a shepherdess as for a princess.
Sancho dijo que a la suya la llamaría Teresona, y explicó delante de todos por qué.
Sancho said he would call his Teresona, and explained in front of everyone why.
Aquel nombre le venía bien con su gordura y también con el propio que ya tenía.
That name suited her stoutness and also suited the real one she already had.
Al cura no le pondrían pastora, dijo, por dar buen ejemplo al pueblo.
The priest would get no shepherdess, he said, so as to set the village a good example.
Don Quijote le fue contando los instrumentos que sonarían en aquellos montes.
Don Quixote went on telling him the instruments that would sound in those hills.
Habría gaitas, tamborines, sonajas, rabeles y hasta unos albogues que Sancho no conocía.
There would be bagpipes, tabors, rattles, rebecs and even albogues, which Sancho had never heard of.
Los albogues eran unas chapas de metal que suenan al chocar una con otra.
Albogues were metal plates that make a sound when struck one against the other.
Y aprovechó para explicarle que las palabras que empiezan por al son moriscas.
And he took the chance to explain that words beginning with al are Moorish.
Sancho lo aceptó todo de golpe, y con bastantes más ganas que su amo.
Sancho accepted the whole thing at once, and rather more eagerly than his master.
Le pareció que aquella vida era descansada, porque en ella se comía y se dormía.
That life struck him as restful, because there was eating and sleeping in it.
Se ofreció a comprar él mismo los animales y a labrar cucharas de palo.
He offered to buy the animals himself and to carve wooden spoons.
Dijo que su hija Sanchica les llevaría la comida al hato todos los días.
He said his daughter Sanchica would bring them their food out to the camp every day.
Pero luego se acordó de que la muchacha era guapa y de que hay pastores maliciosos.
But then he remembered that the girl was pretty and that some shepherds are sly.
Y encadenó cuatro refranes seguidos hasta que su amo le mandó parar.
And he strung four proverbs together until his master told him to stop.
Don Quijote iba componiendo versos mentalmente mientras andaba, y le salían tristes.
Don Quixote composed verses in his head as he walked, and they came out sad.
Cambiaba de género literario, pero no cambiaba en nada su manera de vivir.
He was changing literary genre, but he was not changing his way of living at all.
Seguía queriendo entrar en un libro, y lo único que hacía era mudar de estante.
He still wanted to get inside a book, and all he was doing was moving shelves.
Pasaba de las novelas de caballerías a las novelas pastoriles, y nada más.
He was moving from the romances of chivalry to the pastoral novels, and no further.
Aquella tarde los atropelló una piara de más de seiscientos cerdos que iba a la feria.
That afternoon a drove of more than six hundred pigs on its way to market ran them down.
Los dejó a los dos en el suelo, sucios y molidos, entre gruñidos y polvo.
It left the two of them on the ground, filthy and battered, amid grunting and dust.
Don Quijote dijo que se lo merecía por vencido, y no se quejó más.
Don Quixote said he deserved it as a beaten man, and complained no further.
Los pastores Quijotiz y Pancino siguieron su camino a pie, entre el polvo.
The shepherds Quixotiz and Pancino went on their way on foot, through the dust.
Vocabulary
The pastoral countryside
- el pastor
- the shepherd
- el zagal
- the shepherd lad
- la oveja
- the sheep
- el hato
- the flock, the camp
- la encina
- the holm oak
- el sauce
- the willow
- el arroyo
- the stream
- el prado
- the meadow
Make-believe literature
- la égloga
- the eclogue
- fingido
- make-believe
- el género
- the genre
- pastoril
- pastoral
- representar
- to act out, to perform
- componer versos
- to compose verses
- mudar de estante
- to move shelves
- la gaita
- the bagpipe
Back down to earth
- la cuchara de palo
- the wooden spoon
- la piara
- the drove of pigs
- atropellar
- to run over
- el gruñido
- the grunt
- el polvo
- the dust
- descansado
- restful
- malicioso
- sly
- la gordura
- stoutness
Suffixes: how Spanish manufactures new words
Yo seré el pastor Quijotiz y tú el pastor Pancino.
A la mía la llamaré Teresona, por su gordura.
El bachiller será Sansonino o Carrascón, como quiera.
Spanish builds new words by hanging endings on old ones, and it does it constantly, in speech, all day. This is not decoration and it is not childish. A speaker who never uses a suffix sounds flat and slightly foreign even when every word is correct.
1. The diminutives, and why they are not about size
| form | looks like | actually says |
|---|---|---|
| un momentito | a small moment | please be patient with me |
| un cafécito | a small coffee | a friendly coffee, any size |
| ¿Leoncitos a mí? | little lions | I refuse to be impressed |
| ahorita | a little now | right now, or in an hour, by country |
| pobrecito | a small poor person | pity, and often condescension |
The default is -ito. -illo is common in the south of Spain and often turns slightly mocking. -ín is northern. Words ending in -e, -n or -r take -cito: cochecito, jovencito, amorcito. Watch for the spelling shifts that keep the sound: chico gives chiquito, amigo gives amiguito.
2. The augmentatives
| ending | example | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| -ón | un hombrón | a big man, admiring or alarming |
| -ón on a verb | un mandón, un preguntón | somebody who does it too much |
| -azo | un cochazo | an impressive car |
| -azo again | un portazo, un codazo | a blow given with that thing |
| -ote | grandote, muchachote | big and a bit clumsy |
Two traps here. -ón sometimes changes the gender and the meaning entirely: la silla is a chair, el sillón is an armchair, and la rata is a rat while el ratón is a mouse. And -azo has the two unrelated senses in the table, so un golazo is a magnificent goal but un balonazo is being hit by the ball.
3. The unkind ones
-ejo, -ucho and -astro exist to belittle. Un librejo is a worthless book, una casucha is a hovel, un poetastro is a bad poet. Recognise them. Use them sparingly, because they are rude on purpose.
4. What Cervantes is doing with all this
| name | made from | ending |
|---|---|---|
| Quijotiz | Quijote | a fake poetic ending |
| Pancino | Panza | diminutive, so a small belly |
| Sansonino | Sansón | diminutive of a giant’s name |
| Carrascón | Carrasco | augmentative |
| Teresona | Teresa | augmentative, and he says why |
Pastoral novels were full of shepherds called Nemoroso and Salicio. Don Quixote produces his versions by machine, out of the surnames of a barber, a priest and a farmhand, and the joke is that the machinery shows. Sancho then takes his wife’s name, adds the ending that means big, and explains in front of everybody that it suits her because she is fat, which is the whole distance between the genre and the village in one word.
The other fashionable genre
The pastoral novel was to the sixteenth century roughly what the romance of chivalry was to the fifteenth: everybody read it, nobody quite believed it, and the countryside it described had no relation to any countryside in Spain. Its shepherds were noblemen in disguise who spoke in verse, never sheared anything and suffered elegantly beside streams. Cervantes had written one himself. La Galatea came out in 1585, sold moderately, and he promised a second part for thirty years without producing it. He mentions it again on his deathbed in the dedication of his last book.
So this chapter is not a stranger mocking a genre. It is a man burning a boat he built. Don Quixote proposes the pastoral life in a long, beautiful, entirely conventional speech about singing under willows and drinking from crystal streams, and Sancho immediately converts it into food, sleep and wooden spoons. Then a herd of six hundred pigs walks over both of them.
The point underneath the joke is harder than the joke. The knight has been ordered to stop, and within a day he has found another book to live inside. He is not cured. He has simply moved shelves, from one section of the library that destroyed him to the section next to it, and the only thing that finally stops him is not an argument or a defeat but the end of his own life, three chapters away.
Cervantes in the original
llamándome yo el pastor Quijotiz, y tú el pastor Pancino, nos andaremos por los montes, por las selvas y por los prados
with me calling myself the shepherd Quixotiz, and you the shepherd Pancino, we shall wander over the hills, through the woods and across the meadows
From II, 67. The lesson fits inside two invented names. Quijotiz takes the surname the character invented for himself in chapter one and adds an ending borrowed from the pastoral books, where shepherds are called things like Salicio and Nemoroso, so it is a fake poetic name built on top of a fake chivalric one, two layers of pretence deep. Pancino is a diminutive of Panza, belly, and therefore means something like little paunch, which is what you get when you try to make a literary name out of a farmhand. Notice the rhythm of the rest, three parallel phrases with the preposition repeated, por los montes, por las selvas y por los prados. That is the sound of the genre he is imitating, and he produces it perfectly, which is the problem. Sancho answers a page later by naming his wife Teresona, with the augmentative, and explaining out loud that the ending suits her because she is fat. The distance between those two endings, the poetic one and the honest one, is the distance between the book Don Quixote wants to live in and the country he is actually walking through.