A box, tea, a bed
Read the full text in our reader
venha e dormirá aqui na cidade; dou-lhe camarote, dou-lhe chá, dou-lhe cama;
come, and you'll sleep here in the city; I'll give you a box, I'll give you tea, I'll give you a bed;
come, and you'll sleep here in the city; I'll give you a box, I'll give you tea, I'll give you a bed;
The note swells into a little aria of hospitality, built on repetition: 'dou-lhe camarote, dou-lhe chá, dou-lhe cama' — I'll give you a box, I'll give you tea, I'll give you a bed. The anaphora, that insistent 'dou-lhe… dou-lhe… dou-lhe', is doing comic work: each identical clause piles another comfort onto the reluctant recluse, the friend heaping temptations to overwhelm his resistance — theatre box, warm drink, a place to stay, no excuse left standing. And the mounting parallel structure is not accidental; it is a setup. A list that repeats and repeats is a joke winding its spring, and the reader can feel a punchline coming, some final item that will break the pattern. Machado is a superb comic timer, and he has arranged this whole generous crescendo for the sake of the single wry subtraction that closes it in the next line.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Dom Casmurro 1.21 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the Dom Casmurro — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Dom Casmurro 1.21 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/domcasmurro/1.21/