Como el perro, desentierro
Lo que enterrado estaba
09 June, 2015
Fictive Kings
I.
There is freedom in slavery to a kind master. But most often one does not choose him. One is bought, and sold, given as a present. As one gives robes and mantles, heads of cattle to a king peace would have us befriend; some nations add youths, trained in the virile arts, and able-bodied female slaves.
Some slaves are born to slaves, but most were once free.
II.
Many crowns are worn in the Isle of Cats. The cats worship no gods. The victims offer themselves, or are taken without asking. King and queen are those who would call themselves such, though few of them should have a name but the scent of their cheek. With this they will sign what is theirs, and no more. Many more will disrespect the mark, and claim the object for their own. This to no disturbance in the social order.
The Isle of Cats rounds hardly ten miles, square. So the little lions must live in tolerance of each other, or be flung into the sea.
If you ask your guide if you are dreaming, she will cut you across the cheek. You will continue to doubt the sight before hand.
A white queen rubs her head to your palm. She is asking you to take her off this island. Her eyes are one green and the other blue, so she is deaf in one ear. The lady is clean, but she cannot be young. The teeth betray her three years.
She does not tell you that if you leave her she must die.
Pray you do not tarry on this port, or you will see the young cats die. The mothers take them to the dock and leave them, hoping that a kind soul may pick them, and take them to the ships. But more often they are used as bait, or die of hunger, being too young. Meanwhile the mother expects to live one more year. It is uneconomic to give suck, and give life -- work enough for one's own.
Rare are these among all cats to take up the rattsey custom. When times are rough, which is each time, they will sup on their own without ceremony.
III.
Before the king is given to the bowel of the bog, he is symbolically deprived of his name and his humanity. He is made to wear the skin of the animal, and so becomes it. It is the skin of a deer; othertimes, of a dog. It is the executor's choice whether to use the rope or the iron knife. But it is the king who first chooses to die, as his people's most valuable possession.
The people are given life in exchange for his, if the gods see that there has been, indeed, a sacrifice. The offering of a craven, or an unpromising king is counted for naught. And it is not rare for the gods, instead, to take offence at such a mean gift. Less fortunate they who offer jewels, or ointments brought from abroad, for the gods desire only for food and drink. The vanities of man and woman do not fulfill them. Sooner they take a red bead, or the promise of a great deed.
There is freedom in slavery to a kind master. But most often one does not choose him. One is bought, and sold, given as a present. As one gives robes and mantles, heads of cattle to a king peace would have us befriend; some nations add youths, trained in the virile arts, and able-bodied female slaves.
Some slaves are born to slaves, but most were once free.
II.
Many crowns are worn in the Isle of Cats. The cats worship no gods. The victims offer themselves, or are taken without asking. King and queen are those who would call themselves such, though few of them should have a name but the scent of their cheek. With this they will sign what is theirs, and no more. Many more will disrespect the mark, and claim the object for their own. This to no disturbance in the social order.
The Isle of Cats rounds hardly ten miles, square. So the little lions must live in tolerance of each other, or be flung into the sea.
If you ask your guide if you are dreaming, she will cut you across the cheek. You will continue to doubt the sight before hand.
A white queen rubs her head to your palm. She is asking you to take her off this island. Her eyes are one green and the other blue, so she is deaf in one ear. The lady is clean, but she cannot be young. The teeth betray her three years.
She does not tell you that if you leave her she must die.
Pray you do not tarry on this port, or you will see the young cats die. The mothers take them to the dock and leave them, hoping that a kind soul may pick them, and take them to the ships. But more often they are used as bait, or die of hunger, being too young. Meanwhile the mother expects to live one more year. It is uneconomic to give suck, and give life -- work enough for one's own.
Rare are these among all cats to take up the rattsey custom. When times are rough, which is each time, they will sup on their own without ceremony.
III.
Before the king is given to the bowel of the bog, he is symbolically deprived of his name and his humanity. He is made to wear the skin of the animal, and so becomes it. It is the skin of a deer; othertimes, of a dog. It is the executor's choice whether to use the rope or the iron knife. But it is the king who first chooses to die, as his people's most valuable possession.
The people are given life in exchange for his, if the gods see that there has been, indeed, a sacrifice. The offering of a craven, or an unpromising king is counted for naught. And it is not rare for the gods, instead, to take offence at such a mean gift. Less fortunate they who offer jewels, or ointments brought from abroad, for the gods desire only for food and drink. The vanities of man and woman do not fulfill them. Sooner they take a red bead, or the promise of a great deed.
28 May, 2015
Time Out of Mind
Who is the fly that draws blood from your eye / and why do you leave it open?
How long have you known this man / that you should drink from his cup and call him brother?
The back of my neck is stiff, where the god first placed his hand and asked me to run with him.
I am old, but each day younger than I have been.
This day I see a man and a bear, standing at the edge of a wood.
Says the bear, "You speared me before I could run from you; now spare me."
This man has listened to the songs and sung them, since he was a child at his mother's breast. It is long known, by him and his people, that this is not how it ends. Time out of mind, man and bear have been brothers by law, since the Great Bear took the chief's daughter to wife, and got on her fifty sons and fifty daughters. The cousins, come of age, could not be contained, and oftener warred with each other than shared a bed or dining hall.
There is one that goes like this, as played by a small woman on a fiery drum.
Goodbrother Bear, I will hold you over the hearth fire, and share you among my kin.
I will make you into a hood, that men should be in fear of me; and I will ever wear you, that you should watch over my shoulder. When I am dead, my sons will wrap you around my shape, that you should lead me to the other world, as a friend.
If the brother wishes I will burn his skin, and his soul with it. For bearskin is a poor shield from the rain, and collects snow, that melts. When a stranger meets me, he will say that I am a man of valour, to have killed a bear and be wearing the bear skin.
I will lay the pelt with the bones that I buried under this rock, and there I will burn them. This if he gives the sign. But if the brother does not protest I will carry him on my back, even if a king asks for him, as a gift.
So it was, in the days of the fathers and grandfathers, that no man could continue to call himself a man who had surrendered the skin of his bonded brother. But the late men and women of the hill would put anything in a stranger's hand to get in turn sweet steel, and wine, and finely carved pipes, and handsome youths made slaves.
The wound is weeping near the breast. It is deep, but the man draws no nearer. Is this the time? It is the time he became a man. He does not utter breath, nor does he raise the end of his spear, the jaggedness daubed in aconite. Forgive, brother, the fair death I give you, says the man to the bear, after a long moment. There is no knowing if the bear consents, when he finally hangs his head, but there is no preparing either for the shot of lead that bursts his valve, no repairing the farmhand's reproach that he should be more careful, son, and next time bring a gun.
How long have you known this man / that you should drink from his cup and call him brother?
The back of my neck is stiff, where the god first placed his hand and asked me to run with him.
I am old, but each day younger than I have been.
This day I see a man and a bear, standing at the edge of a wood.
Says the bear, "You speared me before I could run from you; now spare me."
This man has listened to the songs and sung them, since he was a child at his mother's breast. It is long known, by him and his people, that this is not how it ends. Time out of mind, man and bear have been brothers by law, since the Great Bear took the chief's daughter to wife, and got on her fifty sons and fifty daughters. The cousins, come of age, could not be contained, and oftener warred with each other than shared a bed or dining hall.
There is one that goes like this, as played by a small woman on a fiery drum.
Goodbrother Bear, I will hold you over the hearth fire, and share you among my kin.
I will make you into a hood, that men should be in fear of me; and I will ever wear you, that you should watch over my shoulder. When I am dead, my sons will wrap you around my shape, that you should lead me to the other world, as a friend.
If the brother wishes I will burn his skin, and his soul with it. For bearskin is a poor shield from the rain, and collects snow, that melts. When a stranger meets me, he will say that I am a man of valour, to have killed a bear and be wearing the bear skin.
I will lay the pelt with the bones that I buried under this rock, and there I will burn them. This if he gives the sign. But if the brother does not protest I will carry him on my back, even if a king asks for him, as a gift.
So it was, in the days of the fathers and grandfathers, that no man could continue to call himself a man who had surrendered the skin of his bonded brother. But the late men and women of the hill would put anything in a stranger's hand to get in turn sweet steel, and wine, and finely carved pipes, and handsome youths made slaves.
The wound is weeping near the breast. It is deep, but the man draws no nearer. Is this the time? It is the time he became a man. He does not utter breath, nor does he raise the end of his spear, the jaggedness daubed in aconite. Forgive, brother, the fair death I give you, says the man to the bear, after a long moment. There is no knowing if the bear consents, when he finally hangs his head, but there is no preparing either for the shot of lead that bursts his valve, no repairing the farmhand's reproach that he should be more careful, son, and next time bring a gun.
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