Use the following persistent identifier: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_LordA.The_Singer_Resumes_the_Tale.1995.
10. The Transitional Text
We have seen what Calvino has said in his introduction about his criteria. We can observe him at work as well through his notes, where, indeed, he tells us what he has done.
Calvino began with one version, then departed from the text, yet still following “other Southern versions,” and ended by borrowing an episode from elsewhere. He did not make up anything new (except for the final outcome) but consciously used and manipulated traditional material.
Knjigu piše od Kotara kneže, Po imenu starac Radovane, Ter je šalje pobratimu svomu, Mjelovanu od gorice crne. [24] |
The knez of Kotar wrote a letter, namely the Old Man Radovan, and sent it to his blood-brother, Mjelovan of the Black Mountain. |
ter je šalje Jelešković Muji: [25]
The Turkish prisoner Mujo wrote a letter,
and sent it to Jelešković Mujo.
U knjizi ga lipo pozdravljaše, ter ovako starac besiđaše: “Mjelovane, sva je vjeka na te! probudi se, biće bolje za te!” |
In the letter he greeted him well, and thus the old man said: “Mjelovan, long life to you! Wake up, it will be better for you!” |
Mjelovan answers:
Ali ćeš se prija prestaviti, kano čvrčak pjevajuć do mraka, nego li ćeš, pobre, izbrojiti koliko je na svijetu junaka. |
You will die sooner, like a cricket singing until dusk, my blood-brother, than count out how many heroes there are in the world. |
There are, of course, a number of traditional formulas or formulaic lines, such as the first seven lines of the poem and line 29, the formulaic introduction to a reply in writing, which constitute the frame of the exchange of letters. All these familiar marks of the traditional style and even theme are there to be sure. But to return to the content of the letters themselves, it is not traditional epic story. Whence does it come?
već njeg krvca iz obraza biše. [30]
He did not write it with what a letter is written with,
but it was his blood from his cheek.
are an accommodation of a very traditional pair of formulaic lines to the nontraditional written literary rhyme. These are traditional lines:
već od krvi iz svoga obraza.
He did not write it with what a letter is written with,
but with blood from his own cheek.
Biše ‘it was’ is awkward and distorts the natural flow of the traditional formulas. One can see in such examples the traditional style changing to a {230|231} literary style before one’s very eyes. Because of the traditional type of content and the many traditional formulaic lines on the one hand and the nontraditional rhymed couplets on the other, one might call these poems by Grabovac transitional. For me, however, I must confess that the rhymed couplets in themselves place the poems in the literary rather than transitional category.
po imenu Savo kaluđere.
One was a carnation flower
by name Sava the monk.
(But cvitak kalopere belongs in lyric, not epic.) {231|232}
koji suzam svoje lišće pere.
The second was Sava the monk,
who washed his face with tears.
(The second line is not traditional epic.)
od vojnika đenerale bane
The third was Captain Sava
General commander of the army
61-62 Četvrti je ruža izabrana
od kolina Nemanić Stipana
The fourth is a choice rose
of the family of Stipan Nemanić
(But with ruža izabrana we are again with flowers and lyrics.)
Kaluđere oblači mantije.
Sava doffed his golden clothes,
he donned his monk’s cassock.
Or there is a theme associated more with hajduks than with saints:
a vedrim se nebom pokrivaše {232|233}
the earth was Sava’s blanket beneath him,
and he covered himself with the clear sky.
Četu kupi Lekić Hasan-bego od krvave šeher-Podgorice, malu četu četrdeset drugah. [35] |
Hasan beg Lekič gathered a band from the bloody city Podgorica, a small band, forty comrades. |
Another, No. 56, Mali Radojica,”Little Radojica,” begins:
Muški plaču trideset hajdukah u tavnici paše od Travnika; cmile jako tri neđelje danah, doklena se paši dojadilo, te tavnici na kapiju pođe, upituje trideset hajdukah: [36] |
Manfully thirty hajduks wept in the prison of the pasha of Travnik; they screamed loudly for three weeks, until it annoyed the pasha, and he went to the door of the prison, and asked the thirty hajduks: |
Except for muški plaču ‘manfully wept’, this is all traditional epic wording; it would be familiar to anyone knowing the traditional songs.
Footnotes