and at morn,
O my love, I call you;
My mind turns insane,
My yearning clouds the sun.
Already, as if by a thorn, I am stung
By that pain that heals me,
And a tear bathes me.
The melody was sweet, the chords awoke unknown or dormant passions, and Baudolino thought of Beatrice.
"Dear Christ," the Poet said, "why can't I write verses that beautiful?"
"I don't want to become a poet. I sing for myself, nothing else. If you like, I will give them to you," Abdul said, also touched now.
"Oh, yes," the Poet replied, "but if I translate them from Provençal into German, they turn to shit...."
Abdul became the third member of that band, and when Baudolino tried not to think of Beatrice, that damned Moor with the red
hair would take his accursed instrument and sing songs that made Baudolino's heart ache.
If the nightingale amid the leaves
Bestows love and demands it,
And his companion replies,
And already mingles her song
With his, and the rivulet from the brook
With the happiness of the meadow
Feels joy in its heart.
In friendship melts my soul,
And greater benefice does not claim
Than the love that she returns
And that is promptly perceived
In my ailing heart, sick
With aching savor.
Baudolino told himself that one day he too would write songs for his faraway empress, but he did not clearly know how it was done, because neither Otto nor Rahewin had ever mentioned poetry to him, unless it was when they taught him some sacred anthem. For now at least he took advantage of Abdul to gain access to the library of Saint Victoire, where he spent long mornings stolen from his lessons, pondering, his lips parted, over the fabulous texts, not the manuals of grammar, but the stories of Pliny, the romance of Alexander, the geography of Solinus, and the etymologies of Isidore.
He read of distant lands, where crocodiles live, great aquatic serpents that, when they have eaten a man, weep, move their upper jaw and have no tongue; the hippopotami, half man and half horse; the leucochrocan beast, with the body of an ass, the behind of a stag, the breast and thighs of a lion, horse's hoofs, a bifurcated horn, a mouth stretching to the ears from which an almost human voice emerges,
and in the place of teeth, a single bone. He read of lands where there lived men without knee joints, men without tongues, men with huge ears that sheltered their body from the cold, and the skiapods, who run very swiftly on a single foot.
Since he could not send Beatrice songs not of his own composition (and even if he had written some, he would not have dared), he decided that, as one sends his beloved flowers or jewels, he would make her a gift of all the wonders that he was acquiring. So he wrote her of lands where honey trees and flour trees grow, of Mount Ararat, from whose peak, on clear days, you can glimpse the remains of Noah's ark, and those who have scaled it say they touch with their finger the hole through which the devil escaped when Noah recited the Benedicite. He told her of Albania, where men are whiter than elsewhere, and have hair sparse as a cat's whiskers; of a country where if one turns to the east he casts his shadow to his own right; and of another inhabited by people of the greatest ferocity, who go into deepest mourning when children are born, but hold a great festivity when people die; of lands where enormous mountains of gold rise, guarded by ants the size of dogs, and where the Amazons live, warrior women who keep their men in a neighboring region; if they bear a son they send him to his father or else they kill him, if they bear a female they remove her breast with a searing iron; if she is of high rank, they remove the left breast so that she can carry a shield, if of low degree, the right breast so that she can draw a bow. And finally he told her of the Nile, one of the four rivers springing from the Earthly Paradise, which runs through the deserts of India, goes underground, emerges near Mount Atlas, then empties into the sea after
O my love, I call you;
My mind turns insane,
My yearning clouds the sun.
Already, as if by a thorn, I am stung
By that pain that heals me,
And a tear bathes me.
The melody was sweet, the chords awoke unknown or dormant passions, and Baudolino thought of Beatrice.
"Dear Christ," the Poet said, "why can't I write verses that beautiful?"
"I don't want to become a poet. I sing for myself, nothing else. If you like, I will give them to you," Abdul said, also touched now.
"Oh, yes," the Poet replied, "but if I translate them from Provençal into German, they turn to shit...."
Abdul became the third member of that band, and when Baudolino tried not to think of Beatrice, that damned Moor with the red
hair would take his accursed instrument and sing songs that made Baudolino's heart ache.
If the nightingale amid the leaves
Bestows love and demands it,
And his companion replies,
And already mingles her song
With his, and the rivulet from the brook
With the happiness of the meadow
Feels joy in its heart.
In friendship melts my soul,
And greater benefice does not claim
Than the love that she returns
And that is promptly perceived
In my ailing heart, sick
With aching savor.
Baudolino told himself that one day he too would write songs for his faraway empress, but he did not clearly know how it was done, because neither Otto nor Rahewin had ever mentioned poetry to him, unless it was when they taught him some sacred anthem. For now at least he took advantage of Abdul to gain access to the library of Saint Victoire, where he spent long mornings stolen from his lessons, pondering, his lips parted, over the fabulous texts, not the manuals of grammar, but the stories of Pliny, the romance of Alexander, the geography of Solinus, and the etymologies of Isidore.
He read of distant lands, where crocodiles live, great aquatic serpents that, when they have eaten a man, weep, move their upper jaw and have no tongue; the hippopotami, half man and half horse; the leucochrocan beast, with the body of an ass, the behind of a stag, the breast and thighs of a lion, horse's hoofs, a bifurcated horn, a mouth stretching to the ears from which an almost human voice emerges,
and in the place of teeth, a single bone. He read of lands where there lived men without knee joints, men without tongues, men with huge ears that sheltered their body from the cold, and the skiapods, who run very swiftly on a single foot.
Since he could not send Beatrice songs not of his own composition (and even if he had written some, he would not have dared), he decided that, as one sends his beloved flowers or jewels, he would make her a gift of all the wonders that he was acquiring. So he wrote her of lands where honey trees and flour trees grow, of Mount Ararat, from whose peak, on clear days, you can glimpse the remains of Noah's ark, and those who have scaled it say they touch with their finger the hole through which the devil escaped when Noah recited the Benedicite. He told her of Albania, where men are whiter than elsewhere, and have hair sparse as a cat's whiskers; of a country where if one turns to the east he casts his shadow to his own right; and of another inhabited by people of the greatest ferocity, who go into deepest mourning when children are born, but hold a great festivity when people die; of lands where enormous mountains of gold rise, guarded by ants the size of dogs, and where the Amazons live, warrior women who keep their men in a neighboring region; if they bear a son they send him to his father or else they kill him, if they bear a female they remove her breast with a searing iron; if she is of high rank, they remove the left breast so that she can carry a shield, if of low degree, the right breast so that she can draw a bow. And finally he told her of the Nile, one of the four rivers springing from the Earthly Paradise, which runs through the deserts of India, goes underground, emerges near Mount Atlas, then empties into the sea after
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