Great Works of Literature I (Fall 2016)

(571) But she pressed me, saying, “You must butcher this bull,” and I bound him and took the knife…

I took the knife to the bull’s throat, and as he was gnawing against the rope that bound him and mercilessly kicking the dirt beneath his hoofs, I looked at him. I looked at his body, writhing and convulsing in an attempt to hold on to its life. I looked at his soft fur and fought a strange desire to reach out and touch it. Lastly, I looked into his eyes, bulging out with fear. I kept my glance firmly on him and gasped at what I saw – I saw her. I saw the woman whom I spent so many nights mourning. The woman who had borne me a son, when my own wife could not. As the bull caught my staring at him, he stopped convulsing and returned my glance. There we stood looking at one another until the knife fell from my hand.

I told my wife that I was tired and that I would take care of the bull tomorrow. I had never felt such a strong connection with an animal before, I could not bare to kill the thing before I understood why I was so drawn to it. I laid on the damp dirt with it, and pet its fur gingerly. I could feel sadness in its eyes, however, the fear from earlier in the day had subsided. I asked him “Dear animal, What are you? Who are you? and why do I feel so drawn to you?”

Shortly after, my wife came to the barn to ask me when I was coming to bed. The previously calm bull began bellowing and convulsing, same as he did when I held a knife to his throat. My wife gasped in surprise at the sight of the writhing bull, and ran back into the house. I did not feel compelled to run after her and spend the rest of the night dealing with her annoyance at not killing the animal earlier. So I stayed with the bull.

The following morning I strolled into my Kingdom, desperate for my bed and some food to eat. A disparate maid came running to me “Your Highness, your wife, She’s gone.” “Gone, what do you mean gone?” I responded. I ran up the stairs, and into the room that we shared, and sure enough, her drawer’s were emptied and boudoir cleaned.

I no longer felt hungry. I did not know what to do with myself. I wrapped the rope around the bull’s neck and walked him to the market. At the market, a south-sayer circled us and said “Your Highness, there is something peculiar about your bull.” He asked to examine the bull, and I obliged, curious as to what he was thinking about the animal with whom I felt such a connection. He touched and smelled the bull, and looked at me with astonishment in his eyes and said “Your Highness, this bull here.. he is your son, the one that you thought ran away from you.”

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I started pleading with the south-sayer to convert the bull back to his human form this instant. The south-sayer said a spell and threw dirt at the bull as a crowd gathered. The bull started spinning, and from the cycles emerged my dear son. We embraced and cried, and I held him as he told me all about what my wife did to him. Together, we vowed to find her and kill her…

Then the third old man said, “Demon, don’t disappoint me. If I told you a story that is stranger and more amazing than the first two would you grant me one-third of your claim on him for his crime?” The demon replied, “I will.” Then the old man said, “Demon, listen.”

But morning overtook Shahrazad, and she lapsed into silence. Then her sister said, “What an amazing story!” Shahrazad replied, “The rest is even more amazing.” The king said to himself, “I will not have her put to death until I hear what happened to the old man and the demon; then I will have her put to death, as is my custom with the others.”

THE EIGHTH NIGHT

The following night Dinarzad said to her sister Shahrazad, “For God’s sake, sister, if you are not sleepy, tell us one of your lovely little tales to while away the night.” Shahrazad replied, “With the greatest pleasure”:

[The Third Old Man’s Tale]

This mule was once a woman, my wife. I was young, some fifty years ago. I had gone off on a journey and was absent from her for a whole year. When I returned, I realized at once that I had forgotten to tell her before I left, where I was going and why. She did not speak to me for forty days straight. I begged and pleaded and told her I would do anything, because she was my wife and I wanted to please her, but still she did not speak to me. I was a soft man in those days, not like any other man you might meet who tells his wife what to do and kicks her around and forces himself upon her whenever he gets an urging to. But my wife, she did not see it that way. She did not realize how good she had it, the stubborn little devil, and she behaved like a spoiled child who did not get his way. She never did listen to reason, my wife. Very thickheaded. She was a stubborn woman.

And so, it went on like that for a while, her pouting about like a puppy dog, and me acting like a fool in trying to persuade her to have mercy on me. It was an honest mistake, forgetting to tell her where I had gone, and I had meant her no harm. Surely she understood that but carried out her act for attention. I thought I might leave again after some time had passed, because what was the point of staying at home? My journey had been long and grueling, and I had even lost the sight in my left eye—I still cannot see from it today. But I thought, anything would be better than this. I was a prisoner in my own home.

On the fortieth night, I had packed all my things, which were not very many, in an old sack from out back where we kept the livestock. The next morning, the forty-first day, I rose earlier than usual to get a good start on my journey in that first day. I went back out to collect my sack of things and be off, but when I opened the sack to make sure I had not forgotten anything, inside it was my wife! I was surprised, of course. I did not understand how a woman could fit into a sack, or when she had gone there, but she did, and there she was.

I thought I might turn around and go, just leave my things wherever my wife had put them and run off. I started to, but then my wife jumped out of the sack, and suddenly she changed, right before my eye. She became a mule, this very mule right here, and she has been a mule ever since then.

It did not take me a long time to understand—well, to remember. Long before that, years and years ago, when my wife was not yet my wife but merely a girl, something had happened to her. She had told me the story, but I never once even considered believing it until that day, when she turned into a mule right before my eye. The story she told me was this.

When my wife was a young girl, there had been a strange visitor at her father’s home, an old woman with a leathery face and mean eyes and a crotchety voice. The woman had stayed longer than expected, living out back with my wife’s father’s livestock. One day, when my wife had run off from her mother to pet the animals, the woman had come out of her haystack and said to my wife something like this: “Little girl, you think yourself so pretty, don’t you? Just wait until you become old like me.”

“I will never be old like you,” my wife had said. And the mean old woman’s eyes went red and she grabbed my wife by the hair and poured a sour elixir down her throat.

“There you go, little girl,” the old woman had said. “If you think you will never grow old, then let it be true. You do not have to be like me. But one day, an uncertain day far into the future—but not so far that it will never come—you will become on the outside exactly what you are on the inside. Whatever is worst about you, most vile and unbecoming, is what you will become. This is what you deserve, pretty little girl. For the world to see you as you are on the inside, not as some pretty little girl whose insides do not match her face.”

And so my wife, stubborn as she was, had become a mule right before my eye, and she has been by my side, the mule that she is, since that morning.

“King Yunan, who was beginning to feel angry, replied, ‘You are right, vizier. The sage may well be what you say and may have come to destroy me. He who has cured me with something to hold can kill me with something to smell'” (The Sixteenth Night, 588).

“If I don’t take care of him soon, let me perish like the king who was deceived by a merchant.” The vizier asked King Yunan, “What is their story?” King Yunan replied:

[The Tale of the King and the Merchant]

Vizier, there was once a king who reigned over one of the great Byzantine cities. He was loved by all the men, women, and children of his city. Everyone under his reign was more than fairly treated. There have been multiple accounts of him giving gifts and endowments to those in his realm. Then a wandering merchant entered into the king’s palace, offering merchandise and trading goods from far off lands. The king welcomed this stranger and insisted that he stayed as a guest for the night, and in return he would provide the merchant with two thousand dinars along with gifts he can trade. The merchant agreed to stay the night and said to himself, “This king is so willing to give me these gifts, that I may be able to rid myself this life of a merchant.”

The next morning, after receiving the king’s gifts, the merchant left the palace. Just outside of the city, the merchant found a large tree, buried all of his possessions, collected some herbs and waited until nightfall. Once the moon reached its peak in the clouds, the merchant rushed back to the king’s palace. He arrived disheveled and said to the king, “On my journey to the next city, two thieves robbed me of all my merchandise and even took the dinars you so generously gave me!” The king shook his head in disgust of the robbers and said, “Please merchant, stay with me and my wife in my palace. You will never get robbed here for as long as I am king.” The merchant replied, “I am so grateful for your generosity Your Majesty, I am forever in debt to you.”

A year went by with the merchant still residing in the king’s palace. During that year, the merchant became the king’s confidant and vizier. One day when the king was sitting on his throne, the merchant came in to offer the king some tea and said, “About a year ago when those thieves robbed me of all my possessions, the one thing they didn’t take from me is these Indian tea leaves. They are very hard to come by, but I traded four robes of honor for them. I’ve brewed them into this tea and would like you to have some, Your Majesty, to show you my gratitude for helping me during that time.” The king happily drank the merchant’s tea, but little did he know that he was consuming poisonous herbs the merchant harvested before returning back to the king’s palace. The merchant watched as the king suffocated on his throne. So you see vizier, to not end up like that king, I must have the sage dealt with.

“Then the king asked the vizier, ‘My vizier and good counselor, how should I deal with him?'” (The Sixteenth Night, 588).

Taken from pg 589, where King Yunan plans on executing the sage who cured him:

Then the sage added, “Is this my reward from your Majesty? It is like the reward of the crocodile.” The king asked, “What is the story of the crocodile?” The sage replied, “I am in no condition to tell you a story, but if you will spare me and not return my good deed for your evil one, before God, I will tell you.”

[The Tale of the Crocodile]

The story of the crocodile, your Majesty, starts like this. It was said very long ago that there once was a swamp that housed a proud and conniving crocodile. The crocodile had great jaws with which he caught his enemies, and a long tail that he was very proud of. The men in a nearby village feared this crocodile because he was so big and fierce, and one day, a young hunter left his house to try and kill him. The hunter hid in the swamp until he came within fifteen feet of the crocodile, and hurled his spear, where it impaled the crocodile’s tail to the ground. The crocodile flashed his eyes and roared so loudly, the young man fled in terror.

For three days, the crocodile’s tail remained impaled to the ground by the spear, and the proud beast was reduced to the laughing stock of the swamp.

“Somebody help me,” the crocodile roared, thrashing his head weakly from hunger. The birds tittered in the air, but one small, kind frog with beautiful skin hopped up to the crocodile.

“I’ll help you, if you promise that you and your kind will never eat me or my kind again,” the little frog said. The crocodile laughed. “You? How could you possibly move man’s spear? But if you are able to, friend, we will spare you,” the crocodile said, his eyes flashing.

The frog hopped to the crocodile’s tail and examined the spear. He looked this way and that, and then proceeded to dig a hole around the spear. The little frog dug for two days and two nights, and finally, the crocodile was able to pull his tail and the spear from the ground. The crocodile could move again, but the spear was still stuck in his tail, so he was forced to hold it above his head.

“Come, friend,” the crocodile said to the exhausted frog, “You have helped me this far. Come closer so I may at least thank you for letting me move again.”

The tired frog hopped weakly to the crocodile, but when he came drew near, the crocodile lunged forward and swallowed him whole. The birds in the air twittered angrily, but the crocodile laughed and fell asleep with a satisfied belly. The frog, however, had been poisonous, and when the hunter gathered his courage and came back to finish the crocodile off, he found the animal dead with a spear in his tail. And it has always been since that frogs and crocodiles were enemies.

Then the sage asked again, “Is this my reward from your majesty? Like the reward of the crocodile? For God’s sake, spare me, and God will spare you. Destroy me, and God will destroy you.”

But the king insisted, “I must kill you.”

Then the demon released the merchant and departed. The merchant turned to the three old men and thanked them, and they congratulated him on his deliverance and bade him good-bye. Then they separated, and each of them went on his way. The merchant himself went back home to his family, his wife, and his children, and he lived with them until the day he died. (Pg 577)

But this story is not as strange or as amazing as the story of the gambler.

Dinarzad asked, “Please, sister, what is the story of the gambler?” Shahrazad said:…

[The Story of the Gambler and a Young Woman]

I heard, O happy king, that there once was a gambler, who had never lost any of his gambles. He would travel the streets, making silly bets with passer-byes along the way, such as being able to guess the number of fingers they’re holding up or what they had for dinner last night. He was able to do this after making a deal with a demon; the power to read minds. However, if he were to tell anyone of his ability, he would lose his ability and his voice.

After winning a fair share of gambles, he would return to his house and count his winnings. One day, during his trite routine, a young woman approaches him and asks him for directions. The beauty of this women enchanted him to the point where he offers to bring her to her location. After arriving at her destination, the gambler, unwilling to separate from her, asks her to make a bet. Unsure of his motive, the young woman asks “What does this bet consist of?” The gambler says, “If I am able to guess correctly every thought you have for the next year, you will have to marry me.” The young woman, extremely skeptical, but in complete disbelief that he will be able to complete such a feat, decides to accept his bet.

Every day for the next few months, the gambler and the young woman meet at the same location. The gambler manages to correctly guess every animal, color, food, and any other thought she had that day. They meet every day, and the young woman begins to slowly enjoy the time she spends with him. However, on the very last day of the bet, the gambler fails to show up…

But morning overtook Shahrazad, and she lapsed into silence. Then her sister Dinarzad said, “Sister, what a lovely story!” Shahrazad replied, “Tomorrow night I shall tell you something even lovelier, stranger, and more wonderful if I live, the Almighty God willing.”

The king, the enchanted young man, and the fisherman lived peacefully thereafter, and the fisherman become one of the richest men of his time, with daughters married to kings.

But morning overtook Shahrazad, and she lapsed into silence. Then Dinarzad said, “What an amazing and entertaining story!” Shahrazad replied, “What is this compared with that I shall tell you tomorrow night if the king spares me and lets me live!”

The king said to himself  “What an interesting story, and she says this one doesn’t even compare to the next one. I will not have her put to death until I hear the next story; then I will have her put to death, as is my custom with the others.”

THE TWENTY-EIGTH NIGHT

 [The Tale of the Swan and the Jealous Wife]

The following night Dinarzad said to her sister Shahraza, “If you are not sleepy, tell us one of your lovely, little tales to while away the night.” Shahrazad replied, “With the greatest pleasure”:

It is said, O wise and merciful King, that once there was a son of a merchant, who grew up to look like a slice of the moon. Everywhere Ajmal went, everyone would fawn over his looks, not bothering to learn what was in his mind. Many women wanted to marry him but his father had promised his hand to the daughter of the man who saved his life long ago. When they were of a marriageable age, their fathers planned for them to meet. Ajmal met Qatil and they began their life together. Ajmal was happy to have someone that would listen to his thoughts and ideas. On the other hand, Qatil has unhappy. His wife, jealous of all the looks he repeatedly got and angry towards all the people who told her she was too ugly for him, had a plan. Once night fell and Ajmal was soundly asleep on their bed, she, who had just begun learning soothsaying and magic, cast a spell to freeze his body so that he could not move.

“Everyone believes you to be too beautiful for me, in order to rid myself of the hatred of all the jealous townswomen and jokes of the men, I will turn you into something that will preserve your beauty but  rid my anger.”

She filled a bowl of water and was about to utter an incantation and an oath to turn him into a swan when Ajmal interrupted.

Ajmal looking at his wife and wept and mourned, “Forgive me, and God will grant you forgiveness. Destroy me, and God will inflict on you one who will destroy you.” Qatar replied, “It must be.” When Ajmal was certain of his fate, he mourned saying, “Your situation and mine is like that of …

But morning overtook Shahrazad, and she lapsed into silence. The Dinarzas said, “O my lady, what an amazing and entertaining story!” Shahrazad replied, “What is this compared with that I shall tell you tomorrow night if the king spares me and lets me live!”

(Page 577)
The merchant himself went back home to his family, his wife, and his children, and he lived with them until the day he dies. But this story is not as strange or as amazing as the story of the fisherman.

Dinarzad asked, Please, sister, what is the story of the fisherman?” Shahrazad said…

[The Story of the Fisherman and the Demon]
There was an poor fisherman who live alone in a wooden house by the lake. He lacked family and friends. His only company was his neighbor who lived on the other side of the lake. After his morning fishing session, the fisherman started to pack up his equipment when a demon approached him. The dark figure made the fisherman jump out of his skin. Not only did the presence of the demon scare of but the presence of someone at his home surprised him. The demon, angered by the the fisherman said, “You keep taking all of my fish and eating it for yourself. If I see you fishing here again, I will kill you.” The fisherman quickly returned home after the sudden fright. Originally dejected, the fisherman was afraid to leave his home and fish. However, the fisherman’s desire to fish grew as he thought of a way out of this dilemma. That night, the fisherman thought he could outwit the demon and fish on the other side of the lake to hide from him.

That night, the fisherman caught a fish on his first throw. He was afraid that the demon was watching so he quickly left for home. However, as he was heading home, his neighbor stopped him. He came out and said, “Why are you holding a woman by her feet? Do you know that this fish is a woman who was turned into a fish?” The fisherman was surprised and asked for the woman to be returned to her true form. His neighbor complied and the fish became a beautiful woman. Thankful, the woman offered the fisherman to become his wife. The fisherman responded, “Thank you so much. Of course I want to marry you and your beauty but I am also so thankful that the demon cannot come after me. You cannot believe what just happened between me and the demon. It must be the strangest story you will ever hear.” Chuckling, the women responded, “Of course I believe you but I think the story of me and the butcher will be stranger than yours. Do you wish to hear it?”

But morning overtook Shahrazad, and she lapsed into silence. Then her sister said, “What an amazing story!” Shahrazad replied, “The rest is even more amazing.” The king said to himself, “I must hear the rest of the story before I put her to death.”

It is related, O happy King, that the first old man with the deer approached the demon and, kissing his hands and feet, said, “Fiend and King of the demon kings, if I tell you what happened to me and that deer, and you find it strange and amazing, indeed stranger and more amazing than what happened to you and the merchant, will you grant me a third of your claim on him for his crime and guilt?” The demon replied, “I will.” The old man said:

That deer is my grandson, a former chamberlain to King Khosrau II. Demon, my grandson was married to a woman that came from a humble family and did not have much. She was very beautiful and she caught the attention of my grandson rather quickly. He immediately made the decision to marry her, regardless of her social background. But when she crossed over from her world of humility to the world of luxury, she began to have sudden urges of lavishness and extravagance. My grandson, wary of her insatiety, began to chastise her financially. He hid his money away from her and gave her only what she needed to look noble- nothing more. This was not fair to her, she saw the other husbands of the royal house giving their wives money to spend on themselves and thus giving them financial freedom. But my grandson, foolishly wise, did not grant this freedom to a wife who had come from a humble background. Then at one time, she caught my grandson stowing away some of his money into a black box in his study. She had thus discovered the place where my grandson hid his money away from her. From that night on, she started stealing his money little by little. Then one day, when my grandson was out hunting, she began to take money out of his box without any precaution, for she thought she was in the clear. Meanwhile, my grandson ran out of provisions in his hunt and came back home ahead of schedule. When he entered his home, he wanted to meet his wife to tell her that he has come back early. As he entered his study, he caught his wife putting a few dinars in a sewn secret pocket in her abdomen. He became infuriated, drew his sword, and struck his wife there and then.

Depressed and decieved, my grandson traveled to the mountain of Zarathustra to seek some advice. As he made way to the cave, he saw Zarathustra meditating with his serpent and staff beside him. He said, “Oh, hearcaller of the Overman, I have come into some troubles with my marriage life and I do not know what to do”. Zarathustra, a bit annoyed, opened his eyes from his deep meditation and asked, “what happened?” And my grandson answered back, “I caught my wife stealing my money”. And Zarathustra, with wisdom up his sleeve, asked, “Why do you think she was stealing from you?” And my grandson replied, “Because she was poor, but then I made her rich and all the luxury got to her head”. Zarathustra picked up his staff and walked closer to my grandson. He said, “Son, that was not it, it was you that yielded this fate. You were foolish, your wife probably saw the other women with lavish things and she wanted the same for herself, but you did not allow her that freedom and that constraint led her to do that deed”. My grandson, foolishly wise, did not like what Zarathustra had to say, he yelled, “You pestilent old man, you don’t know anything!” Zarathustra, aware of my grandson’s hot head, went back to his meditative state and told my grandson to leave.

When my grandson came back to the royal house, aware now of the other women that probably influenced his wife and led her to do that deed, he started to raid all their rooms and began to burn all their possessions- including their money. The women began to scream and wail, calling for their husbands, but my grandson, foolishly wise, had already stuck their bodyless heads on standing spears for their display. The women were helpless, “This man has gone crazy!” they yelled; “We must get help from Zarathustra, he’s the only man we can trust!” yelled one of them. They managed to escape and traveled to the mountain. As they entered the cave, Zarathustra was meditating with his staff and serpent by his side. The women started to plea, “Oh, hearcaller of the Overman, a man of our household has gone crazy and we cannot stop him- we need your help!”. Zarathustra, a human that was all too human, opened his eyes from his deep meditation and said to himself, “Oh women, what a delight!” He picked up his staff and walked closer to them and said, “My eagle has already seen the smoke of the fire, I shall help you ladies”. Zarathustra and the women went down the mountain to the royal house. Zarathustra spotted the man that had met him before, took his staff and drew a spell on him. For he could not kill, he had turned my grandson to this deer that stands in front of you today, demon. Now I am wandering with this foolishly wise deer, looking for Zarathustra to reverse the spell. He seems to have disappeared when the Arabs started moving in. But this is my story, demon, my strange and amazing story.

Then, O King Shahrayar, the second old man with the two black dogs approached the demon and said, “I too shall tell you what happened to me and to these two dogs, and if I tell it to you and you find it stranger and more amazing than this man’s story will you grant me one third of this man’s life?” The demon replied, “I will.” Then the old man began to tell his story, saying . . .

(beginning on 566)

[The vizier warned,] “If you don’t relent, I shall do to you what the merchant did to his wife.” [Shahrazad] said, “Such tales don’t deter me from my request. You ignore an alternate ending of the tale: how the merchant’s wife saved her husband from his curse.”

[The Tale of the Merchant’s Wife and the Curse]

When the merchant’s wife saw how desperate her husband was to keep his secret, she suspected there was more to the situation than there seemed. She sought advice from a nearby shepherd’s daughter, known for her fondness of soothsaying and magic, adept in the art of oaths and spells. The merchant’s wife described her husband’s ear perking to the garbled voices of animals, saying, “He laughs at air and explains nothing.” The shepherd’s daughter listened and responded, “There are those who understand the scrambled minds of animals, but such an ability does not come without danger: I fear for your husband’s life if he harbors this secret alone any longer.”

The merchant’s wife returned to her husband and told him she knew of his burden. He hid his face in fear, cheeks soaked with tears. She asked, “Why do you weep, husband?” He said, “Now that I have revealed my ability, I will surely die.” His wife laughed and reassured him, “No, my husband, you have revealed nothing. I have watched you and understood you—your secret is in my hands now.” His wife stood beside him and shouldered the invisible burden he struggled mute beneath, and the merchant rejoiced, relief shining through his tears.

Future misunderstandings surrounding her husband’s strange ability met quick resolution by the merchant’s wife, as she was unbound by his same constraints, and the couple grew more open and close to each other with every shared step.

“Do you see now why I must go to the king and help him understand the world? The king is blinded by self-pity and paranoia because he has never had someone to sincerely share his burden, as the merchant’s wife did for his husband. I can do this, Father. Trust me.”

Libre de la memoria y de la esperanza,
ilimitado, abstracto, casi futuro,
el muerto no es un muerto:  es la muerte.
Como el Díos de los místicos
de Quien deben negarse todos los predicados,
el muerto ubicuamente ajeno
no es sino la perdición y ausencia del mundo.

Translation 1
Free from memory and hope
And an unlimited abstract future,
The dead man is not a dead man, he is death
Like the gods of the mystics
Of Whom cannot predict all,
The dead man is an alien everywhere
The dead is the is the loss and absence of the world.

Here, I tried literally translating the Spanish words to English, allowing for some slight changes to the poem’s phrasing. It was a bit tough because some of the words used are not common phrases in Spanish and are not able to be objectively translated from Spanish.

Translation 2
The dead man has no memory and no hope
For an unlimited future
The dead person is no longer a person, he is dead
Like the gods of the mystics
Of whom nobody knows anything about,
The dead man does not  belong anywhere,
He lost the presence of being in the world.

Here, I tried to bring out a bit more of what I think Borges meant when he wrote the poem, and tried to interpret its meaning, although it is still a bit abstract. However, the attempt at interpretation takes away from the poem’s structure, which is already diminished when the poem is translated from Spanish.