POEM BY TORSTEN SCHWANKE
DEDICATED TO THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN OF AFRICA
CANTO I
Silence is sometimes an art,
But never as great an art
As certain people would have us believe,
Who are cleverest when they are silent.
When a wise man sees
That he is dealing with children,
Why should he think himself too wise
To speak to them after their manner?
I have indeed (said Democritus
To his curious company)
Been honest enough to confess
Tthat I have seen nothing of all
That you want me to have seen;
But do not imagine, therefore,
That in so many journeys by sea and by land
I have encountered nothing
That could satisfy your curiosity.
Believe me, there are things among them
That would perhaps seem
Even more wonderful to you
Than those we have been talking about.
At these words the beautiful Abderites
Drew nearer and pricked up their mouths and ears.
That is the word of a man who has travelled,
Exclaimed the short, fat councillor.
The scholar's brow furrowed in the hope
That he would get something
To reprove and improve,
Democritus might also say what he wanted.
I was once in a country, Democritus began,
Where I liked it so much
That in the first three or four days
I spent there I wished to be immortal,
To live there forever.
I have never come from Abdera,
Said the councillor, but I always thought
That there was no place in the world
Where I could like it better than Abdera.
And I feel just as you do about the country
Where you liked it so much;
I would gladly renounce the rest of the world
If only I could live forever in Abdera!
But why did you like it so much in that country
For only three days?
You will hear in a moment.
Imagine an immense country,
To which the most pleasant variety
Of mountains, valleys, forests, hills, and meadows,
Under the dominion of an eternal spring and autumn,
Gives everywhere you look the appearance
Of the most splendid pleasure garden:
All cultivated and watered,
All flowering and fertile;
Everywhere an everlasting green,
Ad ever fresh shade, and forests
Of the most beautiful fruit trees,
Dates, figs, lemons, pomegranates,
Growing without care, as in Thrace the acorns;
Groves of myrtles and shasmine;
Cupid's and Cytheraea's favourite flower
Not on hedges, as with us,
But growing in dense clumps on great trees,
And fully blossomed like the bosoms
Of my beautiful fellow-citizens...
(Democritus had not done this well;
And it may serve as a warning
To future narrators that one must look around
In one's society before one dares
To make compliments of this kind,
However binding they may sound to oneself.
The beauties held their hands
Before their eyes and blushed.
For unfortunately there was not one
Among those present
Who would have done honour to the flattering simile;
Though they did not fail to puff themselves up
As well as they could).
And these lovely groves, he continued,
Alive with the sweet song
Of innumerable kinds of birds,
And filled with a thousand coloured parrots,
Whose colours dazzle the eyes
In the gleam of the sun.
What a land!
I did not understand
Why the goddess of love
Would have chosen Cythere as her abode,
Since a land like this was in the world.
Where could the graces have danced
More pleasantly than at the edge
Of streams and springs, where,
Among short thick grass of the liveliest green,
Lilies and hyacinths, and ten thousands
Of even more beautiful flowers,
Which in our language are without a name,
Blossom freely and fill the air
With voluptuous fragrances?
The beautiful Abderite women,
As can easily be seen,
Had the imagination no less vivid
Than the Abderites; and the painting
Which Democritus presented to them,
Without thinking ill of it,
Was more than their little souls could endure.
Some sighed aloud with comfort;
Others looked as if they would slurp down
With mouth and nose the voluptuous odours
That perfumed their imagination;
The beautiful Juno sank back with her head
On a cushion of the canapé,
Half-closed her large eyes,
And found herself unnoticed
At the flowery edge of one of these lovely fountains,
Shaded by roses and lemon trees,
From whose branches clouds
Of ambrosial fragrance wafted down upon her.
In a gentle daze of sweet sensations
She was just beginning to fall asleep:
When she saw a youth,
Beautiful as Bacchus and urgent as Cupid,
Lying at her feet.
She straightened up to look at him the better,
And saw him so beautifully, so tenderly,
That the words with which she wanted to punish
His audacity died on her lips.
She had hardly -
And what do you think (continued Democritus)
Is the name of this enchanting land,
Of whose beauties anything I could say
Would hardly give you the shadow of an idea?
It is precisely this Ethiopia
Which my learned friend here populates
With monsters of men
Who are quite unworthy of such a beautiful fatherland.
But one thing he can say to me is true:
That in the whole of Ethiopia and Libya,
Although these names include
A multitude of different peoples,
There is not a man who does not have his nose
Where we have our nose,
Who does not have as many eyes and ears
As we have, and in short -
A great sigh of the kind
By which a heart pressed by pain or pleasure
Seeks to give vent to itself,
Lifted at this moment the bosom
Of the beautiful Abderite, who,
While Democritus continued in his speech,
In the dream-image in which we were concerned
To overhear her, had (as it seems)
Come upon a circumstance
In which her heart in one way or another
Took a very lively interest.
As the rest of those present
Could not know that the good lady,
Some hundred miles from Abdera,
Was swimming under an Ethiopian rose-tree,
In a sea of the sweetest perfumes,
Heard a thousand new birds singing
The happiness of love,
Saw a thousand coloured parrots fluttering
About before her eyes, and,
To make matters worse, had a youth
With yellow curls and coral lips lying at her feet, -
It was natural that the said sigh
Should be received with a general astonishment.
It was not understood
That Democritus' last words
Could have been the cause of such an effect.
What is the matter with you, Lysandra?
Cried the Abderites from one mouth,
Standing very anxiously about her.
The beautiful Lysandra,
Who at that moment again became aware
Of where she was, blushed,
And assured them that it was nothing.
Democritus, who now began to realise what it was,
Stood them in good stead
That a few draughts of fresh air
Would make everything all right again;
Bt in his heart he resolved henceforth
To paint his pictures with only one colour,
Like the painters in Thrace.
Good Gods! he thought,
What imagination these Abderites have!
Now my beautiful curious ones,
Democritus continued,
What colour do you think
The inhabitants of such a beautiful country are?
Of what colour?
Why should they be of a different colour
From the rest of the people?
Did you not tell us that they wore the nose
In the middle of their faces,
And were in all things men like us Greeks?
Human beings, no doubt;
But should they therefore be less human
If they were black or olive-coloured?
What do you mean by that?
I think that the most beautiful
Of the Ethiopian nations
(Namely, those who are the most beautiful
By our standards, that is, the most similar to us)
Are as olive-coloured as the Egyptians,
And those who live deeper in the solid land
And in the midday regions
Are as black from head to foot
And even a little blacker
Than the ravens of Abdera.
What you say!
And don't people get scared of each other
Wen they look at each other?
Frightened? Why this?
They please themselves very much
With their raven-blackness,
And think that nothing can be more beautiful.
O that's funny!
Exclaimed the Abderites.
Black all over, as if they were covered with pitch,
To let themselves dream of beauty!
What a stupid people they must be!
Have they no painters to paint them
Apollo, Bacchus, the Goddess of Love, and the Graces?
Or could they not already learn from Homer
That Juno has white arms, Thetis silver feet,
And Aurora rose fingers?
Ah, replied Democritus,
The good people have no Homer;
Or if they have, we may rely on his Juno
Having coal-black arms.
Of painters I heard nothing in Ethiopia.
But I saw a girl whose beauty
Did almost as much mischief
Among her countrymen
As the daughter of Leda did
Among the Greeks and Trojans;
And this African Helen
Was blacker than ebony.
O describe to us this monster of beauty!
cried the Abderites, who,
for the most natural reason in the world,
found infinite pleasure in this conversation.
You will have trouble getting an idea of it.
Imagine the complete opposite
of the Greek ideal of beauty:
the height of a Grazie,
and the thickness of a Ceres;
black hair, but not flowing
in long flowing curls around the shoulders,
but short and naturally frizzy like sheep's wool.
The forehead broad and strongly arched;
the nose turned up short,
and pressed flat in the middle of the cartilage;
the cheeks round like the cheeks of a trumpeter,
the mouth large -
(Philinna smiled to show how small hers was).
The lips very thick and upturned,
and two rows of teeth like strings of pearls -.
(The beauties laughed altogether,
though they could have no other cause
than to point out their own teeth:
for what else was there to laugh at?)
But her eyes? asked Lysandra. -
O for those, they were so small
and so water-coloured,
that I could not for a long time maintain myself
to think them beautiful -
Democritus is for Homer's cow-eyes, it seems, said Myris,
casting a scornful sidelong glance at the beauty
with the large eyes.
Indeed, (added Democritus,
with an expression from which a deaf man
would have concluded that he was telling her
the greatest flattery,) beautiful eyes
would have to be very large
if I were to find them too large;
and ugly ones, it seems to me,
can never be too small.
The beautiful Lysandra cast a triumphant glance
at her sisters, and then poured down
a whole glory of satisfaction
from her large eyes upon the happy Democritus.
May one know what you mean by beautiful eyes?
asked little Myris, her nose perceptibly wrinkling.
A glance from the beautiful Lysandra seemed to tell him:
you will not be embarrassed
to find the answer to this question.
I understand by it eyes
in which a beautiful soul paints itself, said Democritus.
Lysandra looked silly, like a person
who has been told something unexpected
and can't find an answer.
A beautiful soul! -
the Abderites all thought at once -
What whimsical things the man has brought
from distant lands! A beautiful soul!
This is yet above his monkeys and parrots!
But with all these subtleties,
said the fat councillor,
we are getting away from the main point.
It seems to me that the talk
was of the beautiful Helen of Aethiopia,
and I should like to hear what the honest people
could find so beautiful about her?
Everything, Democritus replied.
So they must have no concept of beauty at all,
said the scholar.
Forgive me, replied the narrator;
because this Ethiopian Helen
was the object of all desire,
it may be safely concluded that she resembled
the idea of beauty which every one found
in his imagination.
You are of the school of Parmenides?
said the scholar, seating himself
in a belligerent posture.
I am nothing - but myself, which is very little;
replied Democritus, half startled.
If you are averse to the word idea,
allow me to express myself differently.
The beautiful Gulleru -
that's what they called the black woman
we're talking about – Gulleru!
Gulleru? cried the Abderites,
bursting into a laughter that would not end;
Gulleru! what a name! -
And how did it go with your beautiful Gulleru?
asked the pointy-nosed Myris
with a look and in a tone three times
more pointy than her nose.
If you ever do me the honour of visiting me,
the philosopher replied
with the most casual politeness,
you shall hear how things went
with the beautiful Gulleru.
Now I must keep my promise to this gentleman.
So the figure of the beautiful Gulleru -
(The beautiful Gulleru,
the Abderites repeated and laughed again,
but without Democritus allowing himself
to be interrupted this time).
- instilled, to her misfortune,
the strongest passion in the young men of her country.
This seems to prove that they were found beautiful;
and no doubt the reason why they were found beautiful
lay in all that they were not thought ugly.
These Ethiopians, therefore,
found a difference between what they thought beautiful
and what they did not think beautiful;
and if ten different Ethiopians
agreed in their judgment of this Helen,
it was probably because they had the same idea
of beauty and ugliness.
This does not follow;
(said the Abderite scholar;)
could not every one among ten find
something different in her amiable?
The case is not impossible;
but it proves nothing against me.
Suppose one had found her small eyes,
another her swelling lips,
a third her large ears admirable
worthy of admiration:
this also always presupposes a comparison
between her and other Ethiopian beauties.
The others had eyes, ears
and lips as well as Gulleru.
Therefore, if one found hers more beautiful,
one had to have a certain model of beauty,
with which one compared, for example,
her eyes and other eyes;
and this is all I wanted to say with my ideal.
However, (replied the scholar)
you will not claim that this Gulleru
was the most beautiful of all the black girls
before her, next to her, and after her?
I mean, the most beautiful in comparison
with the model of which you said.
I do not know why I should assert this,
Democritus replied.
So there could be one who had, for example,
even smaller eyes, even thicker lips, even larger ears?
Possibly, for all I know.
And with regard to the latter,
the same presupposition undoubtedly applies,
and so ad infinitum.
So the Aethiopians had no model of beauty;
one would have to say, then,
that infinitely small eyes, infinitely thick lips,
infinitely large ears can be conceived?
How subtle the Abderite scholars are!
Democritus thought. If I admitted, he said,
that there could be a black girl
who had smaller eyes
or thicker lips than Gulleru,
I did not mean that this black girl
should therefore have seemed more beautiful
to the Ethiopians than Gulleru.
Beauty necessarily has a certain measure,
and that which exceeds it is
as far removed from it as
that which remains below it.
Who will conclude from the fact
that the Greeks place a part of perfect beauty
in the size of the eyes
and in the smallness of the mouth,
that a woman whose eyeball held a thumb
on the average, or whose mouth
was so small that one would have trouble
getting a straw into it, should be considered
all the more beautiful by the Greeks?
The Abderite was beaten, as you can see;
and he felt it. But an Abderite scholar
would rather have allowed himself to be strangled
than admit such a thing.
Were not Philinne and Lysandre,
and a short fat councillor there,
whose opinion of his mind he cared for?
And how little did it cost him
to get he-Abderites and she-Abderites on his side? -
Indeed, he did not immediately know what to say.
But firmly confident that he would think of something,
he answered with a mocking smile,
which at the same time indicated
that he despised his opponent's reasons
and that he was about to play the decisive trick.
Is it possible, he cried at last,
in a tone as if this were the answer
to Democritus's last speech,
that you can carry your love
of paradox so far as to assert,
in the face of this beauty,
that a creature such as you have described to us
this Gulleru is a Venus?
You have forgotten,
Democritus replied very calmly,
that the talk was not of me and these beauties,
but of Aethiopians. I did not claim anything;
I only told you what I had seen.
I described to you a beauty
after the Ethiopian fashion.
It is not my fault if Greek ugliness
is beauty in Ethiopia.
Nor do I see what could justify me
in deciding between the Greeks and the Ethiopians.
I suppose it could be that both would be right.
A loud laugh, like the kind one hears
when someone has said something
incomprehensibly incongruous,
echoed towards the philosopher
from all the necks present.
Let's hear, let's hear, cried the fat councillor,
holding his paunch with both hands,
what our countryman can say
to prove that they are both right!
For the life of me I like to hear such things asserted.
What else would you learned gentlemen be for? -
The earth is round; the snow is black;
the moon is ten times as big
as the whole Peloponnesus;
Achilles cannot catch a snail in a run -
Is it not true, Mr. Antistrepsiades? -
Isn't that so, Mr. Democritus? -
You see that I am also a little initiated
into your mysteries. Ha, Ha, Ha!
All the Abderites sympathetically lightened
their lungs once more,
and Mr Antistrepsiades, who had made an attack
on the jovial councillor's supper,
complacently supported the general laughter
with loud hand-clapping.
CANTO II
Democritus was in the mood
to make short work of his Abderites
and the Abderites of himself.
Too wise to resent any of their national
or individual infelicities,
he could well suffer them to regard him
as an overwise man
who had vaporised his Abderite mother wit
on his long wanderings,
and would now be good for nothing
but to give them something to laugh at
with his fancies and moods.
So he continued, after the laughter
at the fat councillor's witty conceit
had at last died down, with his usual phlegm,
where the little jovial man had interrupted him.
Didn't I say that if Greek ugliness
was beauty in Ethiopia,
it might well be that both parts were right?
Yes, yes, you said that,
and a man stands for his word.
If I said it, I suppose I must stand for it;
that is understood, Mr. Antistrepsiades?
If you can.
Am I not also an abderite? And besides,
I need only prove half of my sentence here
in order to have proved the whole:
for that the Greeks are right
must not first be proved;
this is a matter that has long since been settled
in all Greek minds.
But that the Ethiopians are also right,
therein lies the difficulty!
If I were to fence with sophisms,
or content myself with making my opponents mute
without convincing them, I should,
as the advocate of the Ethiopian Venus,
leave the whole question of dispute
to be decided by inward feeling.
Why, I would say, do people call
this or that figure, this or that colour, beautiful?
Because they like it. All right;
but why do they like it?
Because it is pleasant to them.
And why is it pleasing to them? -
O my lord, I would say, you must at last stop asking, or -
I will stop answering. A thing is pleasant to us
because it - makes an impression on us that is pleasant.
I challenge all your brooders
to give a better reason.
Now it would be ridiculous to deny to a man
that what is pleasant to him is pleasant to him;
or to prove to him that he is wrong
to be pleased with what makes
a pleasing impression on him.
If, therefore, the figure of a Gulleru
is pleasing to his eyes, it is pleasing to him;
and if it is pleasing to him, he calls it beautiful,
or only there should be no such word in his language.
And if - and if a madman ate horse-apples
for peaches? said Antistrepsiades.
Horse-apples for peaches! -
well said, on my honour! well said,
cried the councillor. Will you crack this, Mr. Democritus? -
Fi, Fi, but, Democritus, lisped the fair Myris,
holding her hand before her nose;
who will speak of horse-apples too?
At least spare our noses!
Everyone can see that the beautiful Myris
should have addressed this reference
to the witty Antistrepsiades,
who had first put the horse apples on the table,
and to the councillor, who even made
Democritus crack them open.
But it was intended to make Democritus ridiculous;
instinct took the place of an appointment
among all those present,
and Myris could not possibly let slip
this fine opportunity for a sting
that would bring the laughs to her side.
For the very circumstance that Democritus,
who in any case had enough to swallow
from Antistrepsiades' horse's asses,
received a reprimand on top of it,
seemed so funny to the Abderites
that they all began to laugh at the same time,
and behaved completely as if the philosopher
were now struck on the head
and could not get up again at all.
Too much is too much.
Too much is too much.
The good Democritus had indeed
wandered a great deal in twenty years:
but since he had left Abdera,
he had not met with a single imperious Abdera;
and now that he was back again,
he sometimes doubted for a moment or two
whether he was anywhere?
How was it possible to cope with such people?
Well, cousin? said the councillor,
can't you get the Antistrepsiades'
horse-apples down? Ha, ha, ha!
This idea was too abderitic
not to overwhelm the tenderness of all
the bent, blunt, square and pointed
noses in the company.
The ladies giggled a chirpy hi, hi, hi,
into the dull thundering ha, ha, ha,
of the man-persons.
You have won, cried Democritus;
and in token that I stretch my rifle
with good manner, you shall see
if I deserve the honour of being your countryman
and cousin. And now, with a dexterity
in which no Abderite equalled him,
he began to strike up a laughter
from the lowest note in gradual crescendo,
to the unison with the hi, hi, of the beautiful Abderites,
such as had never been heard so long
as Abdera stood on Thracian soil.
At first the ladies made an expression
as if they wanted to resist;
but there was no way they could hold out
against the desperate crescendo.
At last they were seized by it as by a torrent;
and as the force of the contagion added to it,
it soon came to such a pass
that the matter became serious.
The women begged with weeping eyes for mercy.
But Democritus had no ears,
and the laughter took over.
At last, as it seemed, he was induced
to grant them a respite; but, indeed,
only that they might the longer endure the torment
which he had intended for them.
For no sooner had they caught their breath,
than he began once more to laugh
through the same scale, a third higher,
but with so many trills and roulades mixed in,
that even the wrinkled assessors
of the infernal court, Minos, Aeacus,
and Rhadamanthus, in their infernal judicial regalia,
would have been put out of their temper by it.
The same thing had happened to them,
and it seemed that they had been forced to stop.
Unfortunately, two or three of our beauties
had not thought to put their persons in safety
against all possible consequences
of such vigorous exercise.
Shame and nature fought to the death
in the poor girls. In vain they pleaded
with their mouths and eyes for mercy
from the implacable Democritus;
in vain they called upon their sinews,
utterly slack from laughter, to make a final effort.
The tyrannical nature triumphed,
and in an instant the hall where the society was located
was seen at ***
The horror at such an accidental natural phenomenon
(which was all the more marvellous
because the general amazement
of the beautiful abderites seemed to prove
that it was an effect without a cause)
interrupted the laughter for a few moments,
only to be immediately released again
with redoubled force. Naturally,
the relieved beauties made every effort
to conceal the special share they had
in this incident by grimaces of astonishment
and disgust, and to cast suspicion
on their blameless neighbours,
who, by untimely but involuntary blushes of shame,
encouraged the undeserved suspicion
more than too much. The ridiculous quarrel
that arose among them; Democritus
and Antistrepsiades, who mischievously
hit each other in the middle,
and by ironic consolations stirred up
the anger of those who knew themselves
innocent even more; and in the midst of them all
the little fat councillor, who,
bursting with laughter, exclaimed once
over another that he would not take half
of Thrace that evening; all this together
made a scene worthy of the pen of a Hogarth,
if there had been a Hogarth then.
We cannot say how long it may have lasted:
for it is one of the virtues of the Abderites
that they cannot stop. But Democritus,
for whom everything had its time,
believed that a comedy which has no end
is the most boring of all short comedies.
So he quite calmly packed up all the nice things
he could have said to justify
the Ethiopian Venus,
had he been dealing with sensible creatures,
wished the Abderites - what they had not,
and went home, not without wonder
at the good company one ran the risk
of encountering when visiting -
a councillor of Abdera.
CANTO III
Good, artless, gentle-hearted Gulleru, -
said Democritus, having come home,
to a well-groomed curly-haired black woman
who waddled towards him with open arms -
come to my bosom, honest Gulleru!
You are black as the goddess of the night;
your hair is woolly, and your nose flat;
your eyes are small, your ears large,
and your lips like a burst carnation.
But thine heart is pure, and upright, and merry,
and feeleth with all nature.
You never think evil, never say anything foolish,
torment neither others nor yourself,
and do nothing that you may not confess.
Your soul is without falsehood,
like your face without make-up.
You know neither envy nor gloating;
and never has your honest flat nose wrinkled
to mock or embarrass one
of your secondary creatures.
Unconcerned whether you please or dislike,
you live, wrapped in your innocence,
at peace with yourself and all nature;
always skilled to give and receive pleasure,
and worthy that a man's heart
should rest at your bosom!
Good, gentle-hearted Gulleru!
I could give thee another name;
a fair, sonorous, Greek name on
ane or ide, arion or erion:
but thy name is fair enough, because it is thine;
and I am not Democritus,
or the time shall yet come
when every honest good heart shall beat
towards the name of Gulleru!
Gulleru did not too well understand
what Democritus meant by this sentimental address;
but she saw that it was an outpouring of his heart,
and so she understood just as much of it
as she had need of.
Was this Gulleru his wife?
No.
His concubine?
No.
His slave?
Judging by her suit, no.
How was she dressed then?
So good that she could have been
a fille d'honneur to the Queen of Sheba.
Strings of great fine pearls between her curls,
and round her neck and arms;
a robe full of beautifully brocaded folds,
of thin fire-coloured atlas
with stripes of what colour you please,
held together under her bosom
by a richly embroidered girdle,
closed by an agraffe of emeralds;
and - what do I know of it all -
The suit was rich enough.
The suit was rich enough.
At least you can take it from me
that, as she was, no prince of Senegal,
Angola, Gambia, Congo and Loango
would have looked at her with impunity.
But...
I see that you have not yet reached
the end of your questions. -
Who was this Gulleru?
Was she the one we spoke of earlier?
How did Democritus come to her?
On what foot did she live in his house? -
I confess, these are very cheap questions;
but to answer them I see no possibility before hand.
Do not think that I want to make
a conspiracy here, or that there is a special secret
under the matter. The reason why
I cannot answer it is the simplest in the world.
A thousand writers are a thousand times
in the same case; only hardly one
of a thousand is honest enough to confess
the true cause in such cases.
Shall I tell you mine, you will confess
that it is beyond all objection.
For, in short, I myself do not know a word
of all that you want to know from me;
and since I am not writing the story
of the beautiful Gulleru,
you understand that I am not bound to anything
with regard to this lady. If
(which I cannot foresee)
there should subsequently be an opportunity
to inquire something more detailed from Democritus
or from her: then you may rely on the fact
that you shall learn everything from word to word.