I. Jornada primera
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A play of faith and despair, in verse, for B2
Damned for Despair El condenado por desconfiado
Tirso de Molina
The complete verse play traditionally attributed to Tirso de Molina and printed in 1635, not an adaptation. In the catalog it is B2: about 16,300 words and 7 words per sentence on average, a low figure because the verse is cut into short lines. Three jornadas set a hermit’s fear of damnation against the life of a bandit in Naples; the difficulty lies in the verse and the 17th-century Spanish, not in long sentences.
- B2
- 16 281 words
- 3-5 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the verse will slow you down: inverted word order, forms like aqueste, aquesto and agora, and long soliloquies such as Paulo’s opening prayer in the first jornada need patient, word-by-word reading.
B1B2
This text
You can manage it at B2: most of the play is quick dialogue in short lines, so you can read to the full stop, translate single words and, with the Reader plan, whole sentences in the long speeches.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 the play reads freely; what remains is the baroque wordplay on faith, grace and free will, and the background of the 17th-century stage and its theological debates.
Start readingThe average sentence has 7 words, which looks like an A2 figure but is not: in a verse play every speech is cut into short lines, speakers’ names stand on their own and the exchanges are quick, so full stops come often. One word in 22 has 9 letters or more (4.5%), at the lower edge of the B2 range, and no complete original in the catalog is rated below B2. The fair comparisons are El burlador de Sevilla, the other play traditionally attributed to Tirso here, with 7 words per sentence and also B2, and Life Is a Dream (La vida es sueño), which has 11 words per sentence and is B2 as well. The real difficulty is the verse and the Spanish of the 1630s: inverted word order to fit the rhyme, forms like aqueste, aquesto and agora, and long soliloquies full of theology. By jornada the average is about 7, 7 and 6 words per sentence. Hence B2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 16 281
- words
- 7
- words in an average sentence
- 3-5
- hours of reading
Wikisource. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
Paulo, a hermit who has spent ten years in the wilderness, asks God what end awaits him. An answer that seems to come from heaven tells him he will finish like Enrico, a notorious criminal in the city. Paulo, shaken, goes to find the man whose fate is meant to be his, with his comic servant Pedrisco at his side. In Naples he meets a violent, boastful Enrico who is ruthless with everyone but one person, his old father Anareto, and Paulo, driven to despair, makes a decision that will mark the rest of the play. How the two men end is not revealed here.
Compare two places
El condenado por desconfiado
II. Jornada segunda
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Choose an underlined word.
Aqueste is just este
In verse of 1635 you meet aqueste, aquesto and aquesta where today we say este, esto and esta, as in “Aqueste bien, Señor, habéis de hacerme”. Read them as the plain demonstratives, and note that the order is bent for the rhyme: the verb often comes last (“no queráis tenerme en esta confusión”).
Read to the full stop, not the line break
In this exchange one sentence runs over several short lines, as in “Esta derecha mano me tiene destruido; noventa y nueve escudos he perdido”. The line break is not a sentence break: keep reading until the full stop or question mark, then translate the whole stretch together.
Chapters
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
€1 a month
Early in the play Paulo’s sentence runs over four lines (“Treinta años de edad tengo, Señor mío, y los diez he gastado en el desierto, y si viviera un siglo, un siglo fío que lo mismo ha de ser; esto os advierto”) and the thought is only finished in the last one: whole-sentence translation in Reader keeps the thread.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
Spanish books B1 Earlier The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra Another book by the same author B2
All books at this level
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s adaptation: the complete play in three jornadas, in verse, traditionally attributed to Tirso de Molina and first printed in 1635. The reader follows the transcription on Spanish Wikisource, which does not name the edition it comes from; the cover shows the paper wrapper of a Calpe edition of 1919. The catalog also has El burlador de Sevilla, the other play attributed to Tirso, as a complete B2 text.
Is there an audiobook?
Damned for Despair has no audiobook on MovaReader: here the play is read on screen. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it most for the Spanish of the 1630s, such as aqueste, aquesto or agora.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. In verse it helps most where one sentence runs over several lines, like Paulo’s “Treinta años de edad tengo, Señor mío, y los diez he gastado en el desierto, y si viviera un siglo, un siglo fío que lo mismo ha de ser; esto os advierto”. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole play takes about 3-5 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. It has three jornadas of about 5,700, 5,600 and 5,000 words, so one jornada is a comfortable evening.
Where does the text get easier?
It is fairly even. The first two jornadas average about 7 words per sentence and the third about 6, so the last one reads a little faster. In every jornada the quick exchanges read more easily than the long speeches, such as Paulo’s opening prayer in the first jornada.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened, so you can return to the play where you left off. Each of the three jornadas also opens from the contents on this page, for example the second one, which begins with Enrico at the gaming table.