# III explained — Pablo de Segovia, the Spanish Sharper

> Chapter companion for Pablo de Segovia, the Spanish Sharper by Francisco de Quevedo.

## What happens

Pablo is sent as a servant to Don Diego Coronel at a boarding school run by the miserly Master Cabra, where the extreme poverty and starvation conditions are vividly described through the grotesque appearance of Cabra and the meager meals.

## Themes in this chapter

### Poverty and Desperation

The extreme hunger and deprivation at Cabra's school highlight the theme of poverty and desperation.

### Satire of Hypocrisy

Cabra's pious speeches about frugality and health mask his cruel miserliness, satirizing religious and moral hypocrisy.

### Appearance vs. Reality

Cabra's skeletal appearance and the school's facade of education contrast with the reality of starvation and neglect.

## Character check-ins

### Pablo de Segovia

Narrator and servant to Don Diego; suffers extreme hunger and plans to feign illness.

### Don Diego Coronel

Sent to boarding school by his father; conspires with Pablo to complain about the starvation.

### Master Cabra

The miserly and emaciated schoolmaster who starves his students and servants.

### Don Alonso Coronel de Zuñiga

Don Diego's father who arranges the boarding school placement.

## Key lines

> The master was a skeleton, a mere shotten herring, or like a long slender cane, with a little head upon it, and red haired; so that there needs no more to be said to such as know the proverb, that 'neither cat nor dog of that colour is good.'

Master Cabra was extremely thin and gaunt, with red hair, which according to proverb is a bad sign.

_Hyperbolic description emphasizing Cabra's emaciation and negative traits._

> They brought the broth in wooden dishes, but it was so clear, that Narcissus going to drink of it would be in worse danger than at the fountain.

The broth was so watery and transparent that it would have been more dangerous for Narcissus to drink than to gaze at his reflection.

_Satirical comparison highlighting the extreme thinness of the soup._

> I asked for drink; the rest, who had scarce broke their fast, never thinking of it, and they gave me a dish with some water, which I had no sooner laid to my lips, but the sharp-gutted lad I spoke of, snatched it away, as if I had been Tantalus and that the flitting river he stands in up to the chin.

When Pablo asked for water, a starving boy snatched it away immediately, like Tantalus in the myth.

_Allusion to Tantalus to illustrate the desperate hunger and thirst among the students._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/pablo_de_segovia_the_spanish_sharper_se/chapters/iii
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/pablo_de_segovia_the_spanish_sharper_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/pablo_de_segovia_the_spanish_sharper_se/chapters