I. Los duendes del Cuzco
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Colonial Peru in 27 witty tales for C1
Peruvian Traditions Tradiciones peruanas
Ricardo Palma
A selection of 27 tradiciones by Ricardo Palma, each one complete, not an adaptation: short historical tales of colonial Peru, from Cuzco and Lima to the port of Callao, told with gossip and irony. Project Gutenberg’s ebook no. 21282 does not say which series or printing it follows. In the catalog it is C1: about 47,600 words and 26 words per sentence on average, in 27 chapters, one per tradición, from about 400 to 3,900 words.
- C1
- 47 632 words
- 8-13 hours
Will this text hold?
B2
Earlier
At B2 the 26-word sentences with several asides in a row, and colonial words like corregidor or monjío, will slow you down; plan on translating whole sentences.
B2C1
This text
You can manage it at C1: each tradición is short, so one is a single sitting, and old spellings like fué and dió or colonial terms need only a quick look-up.
Check this passageC2
With room to spare
At C2 the book reads freely; only Palma’s puns, proverbs and the long sentences of chapter XXVII still ask for a second look.
Start readingThe average sentence has 26 words, and one word in nine has 9 letters or more (11.0%). Both put the book at C1: the catalog’s B2 originals stop at 9.2% long words, and C1 starts at 9.9%. Colonial vocabulary (corregidor, virrey, monjío, Cabildo) and Palma’s old spellings (fué, dió) push the share of long words up. The difficulty is fairly even: chapter averages run from 19 words per sentence (XXIII, La llorona del Viernes Santo) to 36 (XXVII, Tres cuestiones históricas sobre Pizarro), with 9% to 13% long words in every chapter, so no tradición is a rest stop. Other C1 titles in the catalog measure alike: Trafalgar (24 words) and Jekyll (26 words). This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 47 632
- words
- 26
- words in an average sentence
- 8-13
- hours of reading
Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
The book is a collection, not one plot. In “Los duendes del Cuzco” the poet viceroy Esquilache has to deal with a death that Cuzco blames on the devil; “Los polvos de la condesa” follows a viceroy’s wife and the healing bark of the quina tree; “La gatita de Mari-Ramos” opens with Benedicta Salazar, a Lima beauty of 1776, and the aunt who wants to marry her off. “El corregidor de Tinta” and “El justicia mayor de Laycacota” bring in colonial officials, “El fraile y la monja del Callao” and “La llorona del Viernes Santo” turn to monks, nuns and ghosts, and the last tradición asks what became of Pizarro’s banner. How each tale ends is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Tradiciones peruanas
X. La gatita de Mari-Ramos que halaga con la cola y araña con las manos
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Choose an underlined word.
Where the verb hides
In the last sentence the subject Felipe III waits for its verb, dijo, behind a relative clause: a cuyo regio oído, y contra la costumbre, llegaron las murmuraciones means “to whose royal ear, against custom, the grumbling reached”. Skip it on the first read and join Felipe III to dijo. The dash after dijo: opens the king’s words, which run to the end of the sentence without a closing mark, as Spanish prose of Palma’s time often did.
The name comes last
The whole passage is one sentence: a list of features separated by semicolons (veinte abriles, cutis, ojos, boca, cuerpo, pie), and only at the end tal era, “such was”, delivers the name, Benedicta Salazar. Read the list first and let tal era gather it. Palma colours it with jokes, such as ojos más negros que noche de trapisonda, “eyes blacker than a night of uproar”, and old spelling like dió, today dio.
Chapters
- ILos duendes del Cuzco
- IILos polvos de la condesa
- IIIEl justicia mayor de Laycacota
- IVRacimo de horca
- VAmor de madre
- VILucas el sacrílego
- VIIRudamente, pulidamente, mañosamente
- VIIIEl resucitado
- IXEl corregidor de Tinta
- XLa gatita de Mari-Ramos que halaga con la cola y araña con las manos
- XI¡A la cárcel todo Cristo!
- XIINadie se muere hasta que Dios quiere
- XIIIEl fraile y la monja del Callao
- XIVPor beber una copa de oro
- XVUna excomunión famosa
- XVIAceituna, una
- XVIIOficiosidad no agradecida
- XVIIIEl alma de fray Venancio
- XIXLa trenza de sus cabellos
- XXDe asta y rejón
- XXILos argumentos del corregidor
- XXIILa niña del antojo
- XXIIILa llorona del Viernes Santo
- XXIV¡A nadar, peces!
- XXVConversión de un libertino
- XXVIEl rey del monte
- XXVIITres cuestiones históricas sobre Pizarro
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
In “Los duendes del Cuzco” the sentence “Pero Felipe III, a cuyo regio oído, y contra la costumbre, llegaron las murmuraciones, dijo...” keeps its verb dijo several commas away from its subject: translating the whole sentence in Reader keeps the thread.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this levelBefore you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s adaptation: a selection of 27 complete tradiciones by Ricardo Palma (1833-1919), whose Tradiciones peruanas appeared in series between 1872 and 1910. The text is Project Gutenberg’s ebook no. 21282, which does not say which series or printing it follows, so the catalog names none. It opens with Los duendes del Cuzco and ends with Tres cuestiones históricas sobre Pizarro; the footnotes at the end of the ebook are left out, and the spelling is Palma’s own, with forms like fué and dió.
Is there an audiobook?
Tradiciones peruanas has no audiobook on MovaReader: the text is read on screen. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it most for colonial and bookish words such as menjurjes or trapisonda.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. Palma’s sentences average 26 words and chain asides, for example “a cuyo regio oído, y contra la costumbre, llegaron las murmuraciones”, which is where translating the whole sentence helps most. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole selection takes about 8-13 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. The 27 chapters run from about 400 to 3,900 words, so one or two make an evening.
Where does the text get easier?
It stays fairly even, so do not wait for it to get easier. Chapter averages run from about 19 words per sentence in XXIII (La llorona del Viernes Santo) and 21 in XXI (Los argumentos del corregidor) to 36 in the last one, XXVII. If you want a gentler start, begin with XXIII or XII (Nadie se muere hasta que Dios quiere).
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 come back to the book every evening where you left off. Any of the 27 chapters also opens from the contents on this page, for example chapter XXIII, La llorona del Viernes Santo.