Excerpt from The Pied Piper of Hamelin, by Robert Browning, 1842 (lines 208 - 255)
The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood
As if they were changed into blocks of wood,
Unable to move a step, or cry
To the children merrily skipping by,
-- Could only follow with the eye
That joyous crowd at the Piper's back.
But how the Mayor was on the rack,
And the wretched Council's bosoms beat,
As the Piper turned from the High Street
To where the Weser rolled its waters
Right in the way of their sons and daughters!
However he turned from South to West,
And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,
And after him the children pressed;
Great was the joy in every breast.
"He never can cross that mighty top!
"He's forced to let the piping drop,
"And we shall see our children stop!"
When, lo, as they reached the mountain-side,
A wondrous portal opened wide,
As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;
And the Piper advanced and the children followed,
And when all were in to the very last,
The door in the mountain-side shut fast.
Did I say, all? No! One was lame,
And could not dance the whole of the way;
And in after years, if you would blame
His sadness, he was used to say, --
"It's dull in our town since my playmates left!
"I can't forget that I'm bereft
"Of all the pleasant sights they see,
"Which the Piper also promised me.
"For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
"Joining the town and just at hand,
"Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,
"And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
"And everything was strange and new;
"The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
"And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
"And honey-bees had lost their stings,
"And horses were born with eagles' wings;
"And just as I became assured
"My lame foot would be speedily cured,
"The music stopped and I stood still,
"And found myself outside the hill,
"Left alone against my will,
"To go now limping as before,
"And never hear of that country more!"
---
Of all the versions of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, this verse by Robert Browning is perhaps the most famous -- at least within the Western Anglophone world.
For a long while, I wondered if the piteous figure of the little lame boy, who desperately wanted to keep up with his playmates, but could not, was an invention of Browning's -- a romantic figure to tug at the heartstrings.
But a version of the story collected by the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: The Children of Hameln (Translated by D. L. Ashliman), also includes the detail of two children who were kept back by their "impairments": A blind boy, who could hear the music, but not see the trail, and a mute (deaf) child, who could see the trail, but could not hear the music.
Two things strike me about the depiction of Disability in these two versions. On the one hand, they're each an open acknowledgement that "all" doesn't necessarily mean All -- that not every child (and hence, every adult) can do everything in the same way as the majority. Some of us have to take the long way 'round, and thus we can't keep up and reach the "Promised Land." On the other hand, these impairments are also depicted as extremely isolating. Why didn't the deaf child and the blind child work together, for example?*
Of course, what seems like a tragedy at first may end up being a happy ending, and what seems a golden promise turns out to be a poisoned one. In a few other versions of the story (compiled, along with the Grimms' story linked to above, by Dr. Ashliman), the grown-ups eventually learn that the children who were led away ended up being sold into slavery, or taken off to war, and killed in battle. And thus, those marked as "Weak" and "Outcast" when things are going well, end up being the founders of the next generation after disaster strikes. Ultimately, these children -- the ones left behind -- are put in their perennial role of Omen-bearers, acting (unwillingly) as both witness and Sign that their society had fallen out of balance, and had become corrupted, incurring some Divine Wrath.**
We could, as a society, choose to be aware of those we are shutting out, and leaving in isolation. And we could choose to change, and be more inclusive. It is possible. Some would say it's even simple. That might be the first step in overturning our corruption, and bringing our society back into balance. It's far easier, though, to wrap ourselves in pity and sentimentality, and keep on doing as we've always done.
But either way, we're going to have to pay the piper, someday. How we pay is the choice before us.
-------------
*Though this particular view of Disability may be a quirk of the Western, European, culture this story comes from; for comparison, see the Aesop Fable The Blind Man and the Lame Man
**For an explanation of the link between Disability and Prophecy, see this entry, which I posted last April: Monsters: a Key motif, and a Symbol of Disability
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Showing posts with label blindness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blindness. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Friday, July 15, 2011
The Squirrel and the Fox -- Awe and fear in the face of Disability
Before I share this story, a few comments on my "process."
I've known most of the stories here for many years. And, for the folktales, at least, I've read several different translations and versions. They fit my mind the way old fuzzy slippers fit my feet. As such, I feel as comfortable claiming them as "mine," and retelling them in my own words, as I would telling a remembered event in my own childhood.
This story is new to me. It was recommended to me for this blog by a friend, this spring, and I only got a chance to read it last month, in 1984 paperback reprint of a volume originally published in 1933.* The story was originally collected and translated by the linquist John Sampson at the end of the Nineteenth Century.
Folktales, at that time, were presented to the reading public unadulterated, ancient, and authentic And the role of the good folklorist was seen to be a mute and faithful recorder. I'm highly dubious of this claim, especially since the portrayals of the gypsy heroes in these tales conform to the privileged biases of the dominant culture, and show them to be simultaneously exotic, heroic, unsophisticated and slightly untrustworthy.
However, I have an even greater distrust of my own biases. And so, to ensure that I do not twist the tale, and give it meanings it was never intended to have, I present it here word-for-word from the book at hand; the only changes I've made are to substitute line breaks for pilcrows and the word "and" for ampersands.
THE SQUIRREL AND THE FOX
(A Welsh-Romany folktale, collected and translated by John Sampson)
There was a little village down in England, and two brothers living there. They were poor as poor could be: they knew not what to do.
They went seek for work, but no work could they find. Said one to the other: "There is a little old woman who lives down yonder in a small cave. Let us go thither. The old woman will tell us whether there is good fortune before us." "Yes, let us go," replied the other.
They came to the little dwelling, and hallooed to the old woman. The old woman knew they were coming and what they wanted. There was a great stone before the door. The old woman bade them drag away the stone. They dragged away the stone. "Carry me outside and set me on the stone, and I will tell you everything." The old woman had neither arms nor legs: thus she had been born.
"Hearken both of you to what I am going to tell you." Then quoth the armless one to Jack: "Here is a little stone for thee." (It was no bigger than a halfpenny.) "Keep this, and do not take it out of the handkerchief until thou comest to three roads."
The two brothers journeyed on. They reached these three cross-roads. They halted and Jack pulled the stone out of the handkerchief. He looked at it. One side was yellow as gold and the other side was back as coal.
"What are we to do with this stone?" he asked of his brother. No sooner was the word utteredthan he heard something whisper in his ear: "Spit upon it and toss it high in the air. If the stone fall at thy feet with the golden side uppermost, take the road on thy right hand; and if it fall with the black side uppermost, take the road on thy left hand."
He tossed the stone high into the air, and it fell at his feet with the golden side uppermost. Jack said to his brother: "Thou art to take the road on the left, and I will take the road on the right."
Now the two sat down and had a little talk together. "I go whither I go," quoth Jack. "Do thou remember to here to these three cross-roads in a year and a day; and if thou arrive before me wait here for me, and if I arrive before thee I will wait for thee, if I am still alive."
They set off. It was a hot summer's day. Jack tramped mile after mile. He could see no house, and night set in. He walked all night until morning broke. Now he hears dogs barking: he stood still to listen again.
He went on a little farther. He beheld a giant beside a tree, and heard a young woman weeping. She was crying out: "Stop, father! Leave me alone! do not treat me thus!" She was the giant's daughter. The giant was about to put a rope around her neck; he meant to hang her. The giant wished her to marry a certain man, but the young woman did not love him.
What did Jack do? Jack took the stone and threw it, and it struck the giant on the head and killed him.
What said the young woman to Jack? "If thou bury my father somewhere in a secret place where none may find him, I will give thee as much gold as you can carry away with thee." "Good!" quoth Jack, "I will lay him where none may find him.
He was about to bury him, when he found the little stone in the giant's head. He heard something whisper in his ear: "Leave him where he is, and place the stone at his left foot, and he will never be seen again."
Now they both went to the giant's house. The young woman opened a cupboard: in it were the giant's bags of gold. She gave one of them to Jack, who put it on his shoulder and departed.
Lo! he travels now over lofty mountains until he reaches the sea. He was weary, and the bag that he carried was heavy. He sat down and slept for three or four hours. He awoke and saw a man coming towards him with a great sack on his back.
The man came up to him. He recognized him. He stated to him: "Good God, thou art my brother!" "Yes, I am thy brother, and I am weary." He sat down and opened his great sack. "I am hungry. See, I am going to eat!" "And I am hungry, too," replied Jack. "Why dost thou not eat, then?" quoth the other. "I have naught to eat." "What is in thy sack?" "I have no food," said Jack, "I have nothing but gold." "Then if thou hast gold, buy thy food." "Gladly," quoth Jack, "give me my bellyful." "I will give thee thy bellyful if thou give me a hatful of gold."Jack opened his sack and filled his brother's hat with sovereigns. His brother gave him a little bread and meat.
The two tramped for miles and miles. They met no one; they grew hungry again. They sat down to eat. Jack was obliged to give his brother another hatful of gold before he would give him anything to eat.
And thus they went on until they rested again. They had not much food left. The brother would not give Jack anything to eat. "Thou hast all my money," quoth poor Jack, "I have no more; and if thou wilt not give me a morsel of food, I shall die of hunger." "No, I have told thee, I will give thee nothing except for thou pay for it." "I have nothing left to give thee." "I will tell thee what I will do will do with thee," quoth his brother. "Give me one of thine eyes and I will give thee a little food."
Jack plucked out one of his eyes and gave it to him. His brother gave him a litttle food. They finished their meal, and went on their way again.
Another day passed; Jack grew hungry once more. He was afraid to ask his brother to give him something to eat. Jack grew hungrier and hungrier. He asked his brother to give him a morsel of food. "Not I," quoth the brother, "I have not much left. If thou wantest any more, pluck out thine other eye and give it to me." He plucked out the other eye and gave it to his brother. His brother gave him a tiny morsel of food.
Poor Jack was blind now. The other brother took all the gold and left Jack alone. Jack knew not what to do. He crawled along on his hands and knees. He knew not whether it was day or whether it was night. He crept under a big tree. He did not care whether he lived or died. "If I am to die, I will die here."
Presently, he heard creatures talking in the tree above his head. And who were they? A Squirrel and a Fox talking together. These two were in the habit of meeting here once a twelvemonth to tell each other the chief discoveries they had made during the year.
Said the Fox to the Squirrel: "There is a great city four miles on the other side of the mountain, and all the people are dying of thirst. The water is dried up. And if they only knew it," continued the Fox, "were they to dig a well near the great clock they would find enough water to serve for three towns."
"And hast though heard, thou old Goose-stealer, that the mayor of that place lost his sight last week?" "Not I," quoth the Fox, "I have heard naught of it." The fox plucked a leaf. "Dost thou see this leaf, White-tail?" "Yes," quoth the squirrel. "What fools the people of those parts are! If they were just to rub his eyes with this leaf, he would recover his sight."
"Wait a minute, Sir Fox, I will tell you something." "Let me hear it," quoth the Fox. "In the same town there is a princess with two horns growing out of her forehead." "Well," quoth the Fox. "If they were to give her oranges, the horns would dwindle away. There is a reward offered by the queen to whomsoever rids her of them."
And the poor blind fellow beneath the three was listening to everything they said. Then the Fox leaped down and the Squirrel scampered after him.
Poor Jack arose and took a few of the leaves, and rubbed his eyes with them. As soon as he rubbed them, lo! he recovered his sight. He was astonished. "Well, I will be off to the city now."
He crossed the mountain and came to the hall where the blind lord dwelt. He knocked on the door and was invited inside. "I am a doctor come to restore the lord's eyesight."
He went upstairs. There was the lord seated in his easy-chair. Jack drew near to examine the lord's eyes. He boiled the leaves and bottled them, dipped a feather in the bottle, and passed it twice across the mayor's eyes. The lord regained his sight. His spirits rose, he did not know how to reward the doctor sufficiently. "What is thy fee, doctor?" quoth the mayor. He gave Jack what he asked.
"Wait a minute," quoth Jack, there is one other thing I should like to do before I leave the hall. I understand, my lord, that the water in your town is dried up." "In truth, it is dried up." "Come with me, and I will show you where there is plenty of water." As soon as the mayor heard this, he ran up to Jack and clasped him to his breast. "If thou find water for us, I will give thee three bags of gold pieces."
They went forth, and Jack led him toward the town clock. "Seest thou this spot? Bring thy men hither." "I will bring them at once." He brought them. "Now then," quoth Jack, "dig down here." The men stripped for the job. They dug down a little way. They found enough water for three towns. The mayor paid Jack, and Jack departed with the reward. He shrugged his shoulders. "I am doing well in this town, and I have still the king's daughter to deal with."
Then he bought a basketful of apples and a basketful of oranges, and set them down close by the gate of the palace. He waited there for three days. On the third day the old king and queen and their daughter came forth in their chariot. And the girl had two horns growing out of her head.
The young lady cast her eye on the apples. "Stay, mother, look at those beautiful apples over yonder!" "Would you like a few of them, daughter? "Yes," quoth the young lady. They bought a few. The young lady ate two or three that day. She arose in the morning. She looked in her mirror. The horns had grown bigger. The king's daughter was horrified.
Jack disguised himself again as a doctor, and went to visit her a day or two afterwards. "Welcome, doctor, I am rejoiced to see thee," quoth the princess. "Thou seest these horns on my forehead; dost thou know of aught that will reduce them?" "Yes." quoth Jack, "but though must give me such and such a sum of money." "Thou shalt have it," quoth the young lady.
Jack pulled an orange out of his pocket, cut a slice from it with his knife, and went up to the princess. "Open thy mouth, my lady, put out thy tongue." He placed the slice on the lady's tongue. "Swallow that. I will return to-morrow morning." The doctor took his leave.
Now it was morn. The young lady arose and looked in the mirror. Both horns seemed smaller. The doctor paid her another visit. The lady sprang up and gave him her hand. "The horns have shrunk a little, doctor." He gave her a slice of orange. "I shall come for my fee, your highness, in the morning."
She awoke in the morning and looked in her mirror. The horns had disappeared. The king and queen heard how the horns had been removed by the doctor. They gave him as much money as he could carry.
Jack took his money and went back to the three roads, where he was to meet his brother. It was midnight: he fell asleep under the hedge. In the morning he saw his brother approaching. "Who comes there?" "It is I," quoth his brother; "so thou art here before me, eh?" "What sort of luck hast thou had, my boy?" "I have gained naught, I am destitute, I have lost all my money. And how didst thou reach here, being blind?" "I have had better luck than thou," quoth Jack, "I have got new eyes, and a bag of money twice as big as the one though didst take when thou madest me blind."
So now the two brothers set off together to the cave to visit the old woman, the armless and legless one. They found her and rewarded her with a few gold pieces. And the thwo brothers went to their own little village and built a new house there. And there they live together with a little maid-servant, and now, they never fall out with one another.
That is all I know of about these two brothers. Find out more for yourselves if ye would.
There are two primary instances of disability in this tale: the old woman, who was born with neither arms nor legs, and the hero Jack, who is compelled to inflict blindness on himself. The princess with horns is a third instance, but the consequences of her affliction are not explored, outside the reward bestowed on Jack for the cure.
The old woman takes the ancient Roman idea of monstrum -- a creature born with missing or extra limbs, and seen as a bad omen -- one step further. She is more than a "sign" to be interpreted by seers; she is the seer. And while she is presented in the context of good luck, rather than bad, she is still kept away from human society, sealed away in the cave. In many ways, she is the personification of the Earth, itself, rather than a human -- like the stone on which she sits when first giving her prophecy to the brothers, and like the gold and black pebble through which she advises Jack.
Jack's trial with blindness is more a reflection of sighted society's fears than actual, lived, experience -- such as not knowing whether it is day or night without his eyes, and how being left alone and blind is equated with being left for dead. And the cure Jack learns of -- rubbing an herb over his eyes, when he no longer had eyes -- belies the sighted society's attitude that sight is more a spiritual than physical sense, thus making it easier to attribute moral and/or spiritual meaning to the state of blindness, itself.
However, I can't help but recognize one truth of life with a disability that's reflected in Jack's adventure: the fact that having a disability seems to cast a "Cloak of Invisability" over your shoulders, so those around you (like the Squirrel and Fox of the title) speak as freely as if you weren't there at all.
Since this is such a new story in my personal collection, I don't have deeper thoughts than that, at the moment. But I welcome your insights.
*Published in the United States by Salem House, 1984. A member of the Merrimack Publishers' Circle, 47 Pelham Road, Salem, N.H. 03079
I've known most of the stories here for many years. And, for the folktales, at least, I've read several different translations and versions. They fit my mind the way old fuzzy slippers fit my feet. As such, I feel as comfortable claiming them as "mine," and retelling them in my own words, as I would telling a remembered event in my own childhood.
This story is new to me. It was recommended to me for this blog by a friend, this spring, and I only got a chance to read it last month, in 1984 paperback reprint of a volume originally published in 1933.* The story was originally collected and translated by the linquist John Sampson at the end of the Nineteenth Century.
Folktales, at that time, were presented to the reading public unadulterated, ancient, and authentic And the role of the good folklorist was seen to be a mute and faithful recorder. I'm highly dubious of this claim, especially since the portrayals of the gypsy heroes in these tales conform to the privileged biases of the dominant culture, and show them to be simultaneously exotic, heroic, unsophisticated and slightly untrustworthy.
However, I have an even greater distrust of my own biases. And so, to ensure that I do not twist the tale, and give it meanings it was never intended to have, I present it here word-for-word from the book at hand; the only changes I've made are to substitute line breaks for pilcrows and the word "and" for ampersands.
THE SQUIRREL AND THE FOX
(A Welsh-Romany folktale, collected and translated by John Sampson)
There was a little village down in England, and two brothers living there. They were poor as poor could be: they knew not what to do.
They went seek for work, but no work could they find. Said one to the other: "There is a little old woman who lives down yonder in a small cave. Let us go thither. The old woman will tell us whether there is good fortune before us." "Yes, let us go," replied the other.
They came to the little dwelling, and hallooed to the old woman. The old woman knew they were coming and what they wanted. There was a great stone before the door. The old woman bade them drag away the stone. They dragged away the stone. "Carry me outside and set me on the stone, and I will tell you everything." The old woman had neither arms nor legs: thus she had been born.
"Hearken both of you to what I am going to tell you." Then quoth the armless one to Jack: "Here is a little stone for thee." (It was no bigger than a halfpenny.) "Keep this, and do not take it out of the handkerchief until thou comest to three roads."
The two brothers journeyed on. They reached these three cross-roads. They halted and Jack pulled the stone out of the handkerchief. He looked at it. One side was yellow as gold and the other side was back as coal.
"What are we to do with this stone?" he asked of his brother. No sooner was the word utteredthan he heard something whisper in his ear: "Spit upon it and toss it high in the air. If the stone fall at thy feet with the golden side uppermost, take the road on thy right hand; and if it fall with the black side uppermost, take the road on thy left hand."
He tossed the stone high into the air, and it fell at his feet with the golden side uppermost. Jack said to his brother: "Thou art to take the road on the left, and I will take the road on the right."
Now the two sat down and had a little talk together. "I go whither I go," quoth Jack. "Do thou remember to here to these three cross-roads in a year and a day; and if thou arrive before me wait here for me, and if I arrive before thee I will wait for thee, if I am still alive."
They set off. It was a hot summer's day. Jack tramped mile after mile. He could see no house, and night set in. He walked all night until morning broke. Now he hears dogs barking: he stood still to listen again.
He went on a little farther. He beheld a giant beside a tree, and heard a young woman weeping. She was crying out: "Stop, father! Leave me alone! do not treat me thus!" She was the giant's daughter. The giant was about to put a rope around her neck; he meant to hang her. The giant wished her to marry a certain man, but the young woman did not love him.
What did Jack do? Jack took the stone and threw it, and it struck the giant on the head and killed him.
What said the young woman to Jack? "If thou bury my father somewhere in a secret place where none may find him, I will give thee as much gold as you can carry away with thee." "Good!" quoth Jack, "I will lay him where none may find him.
He was about to bury him, when he found the little stone in the giant's head. He heard something whisper in his ear: "Leave him where he is, and place the stone at his left foot, and he will never be seen again."
Now they both went to the giant's house. The young woman opened a cupboard: in it were the giant's bags of gold. She gave one of them to Jack, who put it on his shoulder and departed.
Lo! he travels now over lofty mountains until he reaches the sea. He was weary, and the bag that he carried was heavy. He sat down and slept for three or four hours. He awoke and saw a man coming towards him with a great sack on his back.
The man came up to him. He recognized him. He stated to him: "Good God, thou art my brother!" "Yes, I am thy brother, and I am weary." He sat down and opened his great sack. "I am hungry. See, I am going to eat!" "And I am hungry, too," replied Jack. "Why dost thou not eat, then?" quoth the other. "I have naught to eat." "What is in thy sack?" "I have no food," said Jack, "I have nothing but gold." "Then if thou hast gold, buy thy food." "Gladly," quoth Jack, "give me my bellyful." "I will give thee thy bellyful if thou give me a hatful of gold."Jack opened his sack and filled his brother's hat with sovereigns. His brother gave him a little bread and meat.
The two tramped for miles and miles. They met no one; they grew hungry again. They sat down to eat. Jack was obliged to give his brother another hatful of gold before he would give him anything to eat.
And thus they went on until they rested again. They had not much food left. The brother would not give Jack anything to eat. "Thou hast all my money," quoth poor Jack, "I have no more; and if thou wilt not give me a morsel of food, I shall die of hunger." "No, I have told thee, I will give thee nothing except for thou pay for it." "I have nothing left to give thee." "I will tell thee what I will do will do with thee," quoth his brother. "Give me one of thine eyes and I will give thee a little food."
Jack plucked out one of his eyes and gave it to him. His brother gave him a litttle food. They finished their meal, and went on their way again.
Another day passed; Jack grew hungry once more. He was afraid to ask his brother to give him something to eat. Jack grew hungrier and hungrier. He asked his brother to give him a morsel of food. "Not I," quoth the brother, "I have not much left. If thou wantest any more, pluck out thine other eye and give it to me." He plucked out the other eye and gave it to his brother. His brother gave him a tiny morsel of food.
Poor Jack was blind now. The other brother took all the gold and left Jack alone. Jack knew not what to do. He crawled along on his hands and knees. He knew not whether it was day or whether it was night. He crept under a big tree. He did not care whether he lived or died. "If I am to die, I will die here."
Presently, he heard creatures talking in the tree above his head. And who were they? A Squirrel and a Fox talking together. These two were in the habit of meeting here once a twelvemonth to tell each other the chief discoveries they had made during the year.
Said the Fox to the Squirrel: "There is a great city four miles on the other side of the mountain, and all the people are dying of thirst. The water is dried up. And if they only knew it," continued the Fox, "were they to dig a well near the great clock they would find enough water to serve for three towns."
"And hast though heard, thou old Goose-stealer, that the mayor of that place lost his sight last week?" "Not I," quoth the Fox, "I have heard naught of it." The fox plucked a leaf. "Dost thou see this leaf, White-tail?" "Yes," quoth the squirrel. "What fools the people of those parts are! If they were just to rub his eyes with this leaf, he would recover his sight."
"Wait a minute, Sir Fox, I will tell you something." "Let me hear it," quoth the Fox. "In the same town there is a princess with two horns growing out of her forehead." "Well," quoth the Fox. "If they were to give her oranges, the horns would dwindle away. There is a reward offered by the queen to whomsoever rids her of them."
And the poor blind fellow beneath the three was listening to everything they said. Then the Fox leaped down and the Squirrel scampered after him.
Poor Jack arose and took a few of the leaves, and rubbed his eyes with them. As soon as he rubbed them, lo! he recovered his sight. He was astonished. "Well, I will be off to the city now."
He crossed the mountain and came to the hall where the blind lord dwelt. He knocked on the door and was invited inside. "I am a doctor come to restore the lord's eyesight."
He went upstairs. There was the lord seated in his easy-chair. Jack drew near to examine the lord's eyes. He boiled the leaves and bottled them, dipped a feather in the bottle, and passed it twice across the mayor's eyes. The lord regained his sight. His spirits rose, he did not know how to reward the doctor sufficiently. "What is thy fee, doctor?" quoth the mayor. He gave Jack what he asked.
"Wait a minute," quoth Jack, there is one other thing I should like to do before I leave the hall. I understand, my lord, that the water in your town is dried up." "In truth, it is dried up." "Come with me, and I will show you where there is plenty of water." As soon as the mayor heard this, he ran up to Jack and clasped him to his breast. "If thou find water for us, I will give thee three bags of gold pieces."
They went forth, and Jack led him toward the town clock. "Seest thou this spot? Bring thy men hither." "I will bring them at once." He brought them. "Now then," quoth Jack, "dig down here." The men stripped for the job. They dug down a little way. They found enough water for three towns. The mayor paid Jack, and Jack departed with the reward. He shrugged his shoulders. "I am doing well in this town, and I have still the king's daughter to deal with."
Then he bought a basketful of apples and a basketful of oranges, and set them down close by the gate of the palace. He waited there for three days. On the third day the old king and queen and their daughter came forth in their chariot. And the girl had two horns growing out of her head.
The young lady cast her eye on the apples. "Stay, mother, look at those beautiful apples over yonder!" "Would you like a few of them, daughter? "Yes," quoth the young lady. They bought a few. The young lady ate two or three that day. She arose in the morning. She looked in her mirror. The horns had grown bigger. The king's daughter was horrified.
Jack disguised himself again as a doctor, and went to visit her a day or two afterwards. "Welcome, doctor, I am rejoiced to see thee," quoth the princess. "Thou seest these horns on my forehead; dost thou know of aught that will reduce them?" "Yes." quoth Jack, "but though must give me such and such a sum of money." "Thou shalt have it," quoth the young lady.
Jack pulled an orange out of his pocket, cut a slice from it with his knife, and went up to the princess. "Open thy mouth, my lady, put out thy tongue." He placed the slice on the lady's tongue. "Swallow that. I will return to-morrow morning." The doctor took his leave.
Now it was morn. The young lady arose and looked in the mirror. Both horns seemed smaller. The doctor paid her another visit. The lady sprang up and gave him her hand. "The horns have shrunk a little, doctor." He gave her a slice of orange. "I shall come for my fee, your highness, in the morning."
She awoke in the morning and looked in her mirror. The horns had disappeared. The king and queen heard how the horns had been removed by the doctor. They gave him as much money as he could carry.
Jack took his money and went back to the three roads, where he was to meet his brother. It was midnight: he fell asleep under the hedge. In the morning he saw his brother approaching. "Who comes there?" "It is I," quoth his brother; "so thou art here before me, eh?" "What sort of luck hast thou had, my boy?" "I have gained naught, I am destitute, I have lost all my money. And how didst thou reach here, being blind?" "I have had better luck than thou," quoth Jack, "I have got new eyes, and a bag of money twice as big as the one though didst take when thou madest me blind."
So now the two brothers set off together to the cave to visit the old woman, the armless and legless one. They found her and rewarded her with a few gold pieces. And the thwo brothers went to their own little village and built a new house there. And there they live together with a little maid-servant, and now, they never fall out with one another.
That is all I know of about these two brothers. Find out more for yourselves if ye would.
There are two primary instances of disability in this tale: the old woman, who was born with neither arms nor legs, and the hero Jack, who is compelled to inflict blindness on himself. The princess with horns is a third instance, but the consequences of her affliction are not explored, outside the reward bestowed on Jack for the cure.
The old woman takes the ancient Roman idea of monstrum -- a creature born with missing or extra limbs, and seen as a bad omen -- one step further. She is more than a "sign" to be interpreted by seers; she is the seer. And while she is presented in the context of good luck, rather than bad, she is still kept away from human society, sealed away in the cave. In many ways, she is the personification of the Earth, itself, rather than a human -- like the stone on which she sits when first giving her prophecy to the brothers, and like the gold and black pebble through which she advises Jack.
Jack's trial with blindness is more a reflection of sighted society's fears than actual, lived, experience -- such as not knowing whether it is day or night without his eyes, and how being left alone and blind is equated with being left for dead. And the cure Jack learns of -- rubbing an herb over his eyes, when he no longer had eyes -- belies the sighted society's attitude that sight is more a spiritual than physical sense, thus making it easier to attribute moral and/or spiritual meaning to the state of blindness, itself.
However, I can't help but recognize one truth of life with a disability that's reflected in Jack's adventure: the fact that having a disability seems to cast a "Cloak of Invisability" over your shoulders, so those around you (like the Squirrel and Fox of the title) speak as freely as if you weren't there at all.
Since this is such a new story in my personal collection, I don't have deeper thoughts than that, at the moment. But I welcome your insights.
*Published in the United States by Salem House, 1984. A member of the Merrimack Publishers' Circle, 47 Pelham Road, Salem, N.H. 03079
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
"The Lame Man, the Blind Man, and the Donkey" -- a Fable on the Birth of a Fable
This is a story I learned from my mother. My memories of her telling it go back at least forty years. She would retell it often, to the point where just mentioning it would make us giggle. She mentioned, once or twice, that it was from the Bible -- a parable. That was something I never once thought to question.
When I got to college, I'd refer to the story to my friends, as we'd walk along, and they'd nod and chuckle, too. As if they knew the story from their mothers (or fathers, or cousins, or grandparents), too. It was one of those jokes that you didn't need to tell, anymore, because everyone knew the punchline. But it was still funny.
This is the story my mother told:
It wasn't until this last spring, when I was starting to collect stories for this blog, that I thought of finding my mother's original source, so I could talk about its meaning in context.
And that's when I came upon the following surprise: apparently, this story doesn't exist.
I tried Googling "Lame Leading the Blind" and "Bible," and got zero (0) hits. There were many references to "The Blind Leading the Blind" (Mathew 15: 14) but that's about sinners looking to other sinners for advice, because they like what they hear, and both of them wandering into ditches and trouble. And its take-away messege is exactly the opposite of the one my mother taught me -- that you should trust your own experience. It also equates "blindness" with helplessness and sin, rather than perfectly capable, as long as you have the tools you need. Taking "Bible" out of the search term, I got several more hits. Nearly all of them, however, were from modern articles, written about the modern state of affairs in the Disability Advocacy movement, without a single mention of a donkey.
But what about all those other people -- friends of mine -- who would nod knowingly and chuckle when I'd say: "here we are, the lame leading the blind." (often, each were, in fact, visually impaired, and following the sound of my motorized wheelchair as we went together from one place to another, on campus) ? Why did not one of them say: "Wait a minute -- what are you talking about?" Were they just being polite, while I put my foot in my mouth? How could an artifact of such common social currency just disappear?
Late at night, frustrated to the point of pulling my hair, I posted a retelling of Mother's story to my personal journal. Two well-read friends, from different sides of the globe, each recognized motifs of stories they'd seen before. Anna recognized this one: The Blind Man and the Lame Man (this is most likely the story my college friends thought I was referring to); Paul recognized another The Man, His Son, and His Donkey.
Both stories are available as etexts on exactly the same site (i.e. a Web version of a single book): Aesop's Fables, by J. (Jenny) H. Stickney, originally published in 1915. There are 21 stories listed between the one and the other -- so, in a paper-printed book, less than a dozen pages between them.
My mother was born in 1934. I would not be at all surprised if Aesop's Fables were on her family bookshelf, or perhaps she borrowed it, once, from the the local library (either schoolhouse or public), and mother, in her youth, wolfed down several stories in one sitting, the way you do, when the stories are short and witty. Years later, I came along, J. H. Stickney's anthology had long been out of her reach, and she could not go back and disentangle the two of them from the knot they had formed in her memory.
Technically, I suppose, this story (as I learned it) is beyond the perview of this blog, since it is neither a traditional folktale nor has its origins before the start of World War I. But I'm including it as an illustration of how lived experience (especially the lived experience of Disability) shapes the formation of our stories, and how we then use those stories to support and give meaning to our experiences.
No parent expects to be confronted with the prospect of raising a disabled child -- certainly not back in the 1960s, before the existance of prenatal testing. So here was my mother, raising me, facing down doctors, and therapists, and psychologists who were all too ready to tell her all the things I couldn't do, and all the things she should do, for my good.
One hospital-appointed psychologist was ready, when I was two years old, to label me as "Profoundly retarded," and was going to recommend that I be placed in an asylum. And then, there was the occupational therapist, who recommended that Mother keep a sandbox in the house for me to play in, to help develop my fine-motor skills, disregarding the fact that we had four housecats. (...) These professional experts were like the strangers on the road to the city, who, in the original Aesop tale The Man, His Son, and His Donkey, were ready to tell us we were doing everything wrong, even though they only saw us for a brief moment, and knew nothing of the road we'd traveled before we met them.
Meanwhile, at home, my mother saw that I was far from helpless -- she recognized that, as in The Blind Man and the Lame Man, the only thing I could not do was walk, and that if I had help with that, there was a lot I could do to help others.
And, looking back now, I can see how it was her own experience, and powers of observation, that gave new purpose and meaning to the donkey in her story that never existed in either of her sources: the power of aids and assistive devices to effectively "erase" the appearance of disability. Give me an alternative way to get up the stairs, and let me have a desk I could roll my wheelchair up to, and there was absolutely no reason why I couldn't go to a regular school with the other children in my neighborhood. I can also see how, as she argued with experts and fought to maintain her composure while pleading my case, this new wrinkle would become the most important part of the story, and the hinge-pin on which the moral turned. And because the two fables, taken together, reflected a truth she recognized so deeply in her day-to-day life, she mistakenly thought it was a truth that many people had shared, going all the way back (at least) to the writing down of the Bible.
But I'm convinced this is a case of reverse Cryptomnesia. Usually, people read something written by someone else, and when, after many years of being nearly forgotten, experience brings the memory back, they think it was theiir own, original, idea. My mother invented her own story, and attributed it to something she read in a book of wisdom, long ago (even though she was a bit fuzzy on which book it was).
There is no mention of cerebral palsy, or hospital corridors, or meetings with teachers and principals before the start of a new school year, but that, ultimately, is what my mother's version of "The Lame Leading the Blind" is all about. And so, I believe, it is with so many stories of the outcasts and the odd that appear in folktales through the years. Sometimes, though, the telling details get blurred, without the lens of personal experience to bring them into focus.
When I got to college, I'd refer to the story to my friends, as we'd walk along, and they'd nod and chuckle, too. As if they knew the story from their mothers (or fathers, or cousins, or grandparents), too. It was one of those jokes that you didn't need to tell, anymore, because everyone knew the punchline. But it was still funny.
This is the story my mother told:
Once upon a time, there was a blind man and a lame man, who had but one donkey between them. So, one day, they decided to travel to the city. The blind man rode the donkey, and the lame man walked, leaning on the donkey for support. And this worked out very well.
Until they met a man coming the other way. The man scolded the rider: "How dare you," he said, "with two good legs, ride in comfort, while you force the lame man to walk?"
After the stranger had passed, the two of them thought maybe he made a good point, so they switched places. It was a little bit trickier, because the lame man had to remember to call out whenever there was a stone or sudden dip in the road. But after a while, they got the hang of it, and were going along quite comfortably.
Until they met another stranger, who scolded the rider: "How dare you, with two good eyes, ride in comfort while you force the blind man to walk?"
So, again -- they switched places.
But for whichever was riding the donkey, their impairment -- whether blindness or lameness -- disappeared in the eyes of any stranger they met coming the other way. So they spent all their time switching places, in order to avoid censure, that they never did get to the city.
The lesson, my mother said, was "to find your own way through the world, and if it works, stick to it, and don't let yourself be swayed by strangers who think they know the situation, but don't.
It wasn't until this last spring, when I was starting to collect stories for this blog, that I thought of finding my mother's original source, so I could talk about its meaning in context.
And that's when I came upon the following surprise: apparently, this story doesn't exist.
I tried Googling "Lame Leading the Blind" and "Bible," and got zero (0) hits. There were many references to "The Blind Leading the Blind" (Mathew 15: 14) but that's about sinners looking to other sinners for advice, because they like what they hear, and both of them wandering into ditches and trouble. And its take-away messege is exactly the opposite of the one my mother taught me -- that you should trust your own experience. It also equates "blindness" with helplessness and sin, rather than perfectly capable, as long as you have the tools you need. Taking "Bible" out of the search term, I got several more hits. Nearly all of them, however, were from modern articles, written about the modern state of affairs in the Disability Advocacy movement, without a single mention of a donkey.
But what about all those other people -- friends of mine -- who would nod knowingly and chuckle when I'd say: "here we are, the lame leading the blind." (often, each were, in fact, visually impaired, and following the sound of my motorized wheelchair as we went together from one place to another, on campus) ? Why did not one of them say: "Wait a minute -- what are you talking about?" Were they just being polite, while I put my foot in my mouth? How could an artifact of such common social currency just disappear?
Late at night, frustrated to the point of pulling my hair, I posted a retelling of Mother's story to my personal journal. Two well-read friends, from different sides of the globe, each recognized motifs of stories they'd seen before. Anna recognized this one: The Blind Man and the Lame Man (this is most likely the story my college friends thought I was referring to); Paul recognized another The Man, His Son, and His Donkey.
Both stories are available as etexts on exactly the same site (i.e. a Web version of a single book): Aesop's Fables, by J. (Jenny) H. Stickney, originally published in 1915. There are 21 stories listed between the one and the other -- so, in a paper-printed book, less than a dozen pages between them.
My mother was born in 1934. I would not be at all surprised if Aesop's Fables were on her family bookshelf, or perhaps she borrowed it, once, from the the local library (either schoolhouse or public), and mother, in her youth, wolfed down several stories in one sitting, the way you do, when the stories are short and witty. Years later, I came along, J. H. Stickney's anthology had long been out of her reach, and she could not go back and disentangle the two of them from the knot they had formed in her memory.
Technically, I suppose, this story (as I learned it) is beyond the perview of this blog, since it is neither a traditional folktale nor has its origins before the start of World War I. But I'm including it as an illustration of how lived experience (especially the lived experience of Disability) shapes the formation of our stories, and how we then use those stories to support and give meaning to our experiences.
No parent expects to be confronted with the prospect of raising a disabled child -- certainly not back in the 1960s, before the existance of prenatal testing. So here was my mother, raising me, facing down doctors, and therapists, and psychologists who were all too ready to tell her all the things I couldn't do, and all the things she should do, for my good.
One hospital-appointed psychologist was ready, when I was two years old, to label me as "Profoundly retarded," and was going to recommend that I be placed in an asylum. And then, there was the occupational therapist, who recommended that Mother keep a sandbox in the house for me to play in, to help develop my fine-motor skills, disregarding the fact that we had four housecats. (...) These professional experts were like the strangers on the road to the city, who, in the original Aesop tale The Man, His Son, and His Donkey, were ready to tell us we were doing everything wrong, even though they only saw us for a brief moment, and knew nothing of the road we'd traveled before we met them.
Meanwhile, at home, my mother saw that I was far from helpless -- she recognized that, as in The Blind Man and the Lame Man, the only thing I could not do was walk, and that if I had help with that, there was a lot I could do to help others.
And, looking back now, I can see how it was her own experience, and powers of observation, that gave new purpose and meaning to the donkey in her story that never existed in either of her sources: the power of aids and assistive devices to effectively "erase" the appearance of disability. Give me an alternative way to get up the stairs, and let me have a desk I could roll my wheelchair up to, and there was absolutely no reason why I couldn't go to a regular school with the other children in my neighborhood. I can also see how, as she argued with experts and fought to maintain her composure while pleading my case, this new wrinkle would become the most important part of the story, and the hinge-pin on which the moral turned. And because the two fables, taken together, reflected a truth she recognized so deeply in her day-to-day life, she mistakenly thought it was a truth that many people had shared, going all the way back (at least) to the writing down of the Bible.
But I'm convinced this is a case of reverse Cryptomnesia. Usually, people read something written by someone else, and when, after many years of being nearly forgotten, experience brings the memory back, they think it was theiir own, original, idea. My mother invented her own story, and attributed it to something she read in a book of wisdom, long ago (even though she was a bit fuzzy on which book it was).
There is no mention of cerebral palsy, or hospital corridors, or meetings with teachers and principals before the start of a new school year, but that, ultimately, is what my mother's version of "The Lame Leading the Blind" is all about. And so, I believe, it is with so many stories of the outcasts and the odd that appear in folktales through the years. Sometimes, though, the telling details get blurred, without the lens of personal experience to bring them into focus.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
An Aesop fable, presented without a moral (because questions are more interesting than answers)
THE BLIND OLD WOMAN AND THE PHYSICIAN
(Retold from this version by the Rev. George Fyler Townsend (1867))
There was once an old woman who had become totally blind. She hired a physician who promised he could cure her, and in front of witnesses, made the following agreement: If he succeeded in curing her, and restoring her sight, she would pay him a set fee, but she would only pay him after the cure was complete.
The physician made several visits to her house, and applied his ointment to her eyes each time. But then, before he left, he would quietly steal one item from her house, until, at last, he had stolen everything she owned.
Then, he came for a last treatment, applying the ointment to her eyes, and removing the bandages.
The old woman looked around her house, and said nothing.
The physician demanded his payment.
The old woman refused.
The physician brought her before a judge, and told his story, to compel her to pay his fee.
Before the judge rendered his verdict, however, he asked the old woman for her side of the story.
"Well," she said, "This doctor claims to have cured me. But he hasn't."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. I know for a fact that my house is full of valuable things; I remember everything I own, from before I went blind. The doctor's cure is not complete yet, because I still can't see a single one of them."
[*rim-shot*]
***
This fable reminds me of the "Logic puzzle" that was fairly well-known when I was growing up in the 1970s, and the first time I heard it, when I was about 10 or 12, I was completely stumped:
The answer, of course, is that the ER surgeon is the boy's mother. This story is only a "puzzle" because of the cultural bias we have that all doctors are men.
The "twist" in this fable only works if, like the physician in tale, you assume that the elderly and blind are helpless and clueless about what is going on around them -- that an old, blind, woman can only sit in the middle of her house and wait to be cured, that it's even possible for the doctor to "quietly steal" all her worldly possessions, over an extended period of time, and she'd know nothing about it until the blindness was removed from her eyes.
Now, go back and read that story again. And this time, assume that she knows the physician is stealing from her from the first time he slips that silver teaspoon into his pocket.
Why would she decide to remain silent, and pretend to be ignorant until she's brought before a judge as a defendant? Could it be that she's afraid the cure would be withheld? Or maybe that she wouldn't be believed, because it would be the word of an old blind woman against that of a successful male doctor? And what about the assumption that a cure for blindness is so desirable that she'd put up with such a long, drawn-out thievery in the first place?
***
This story may have had its two thousand years ago, but all these questions are still being wrestled with by the disabled and the elderly who have to wade through a medical-judicial-economic system.
(Retold from this version by the Rev. George Fyler Townsend (1867))
There was once an old woman who had become totally blind. She hired a physician who promised he could cure her, and in front of witnesses, made the following agreement: If he succeeded in curing her, and restoring her sight, she would pay him a set fee, but she would only pay him after the cure was complete.
The physician made several visits to her house, and applied his ointment to her eyes each time. But then, before he left, he would quietly steal one item from her house, until, at last, he had stolen everything she owned.
Then, he came for a last treatment, applying the ointment to her eyes, and removing the bandages.
The old woman looked around her house, and said nothing.
The physician demanded his payment.
The old woman refused.
The physician brought her before a judge, and told his story, to compel her to pay his fee.
Before the judge rendered his verdict, however, he asked the old woman for her side of the story.
"Well," she said, "This doctor claims to have cured me. But he hasn't."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. I know for a fact that my house is full of valuable things; I remember everything I own, from before I went blind. The doctor's cure is not complete yet, because I still can't see a single one of them."
[*rim-shot*]
***
This fable reminds me of the "Logic puzzle" that was fairly well-known when I was growing up in the 1970s, and the first time I heard it, when I was about 10 or 12, I was completely stumped:
(Quote) A doctor and his son were in a car crash. The doctor was killed, and the boy was rushed to the hospital. The attending surgeon in the emergency room looks down at the boy on the operating table and announces that another doctor must perform the operation, "Because this is my son." How is this possible? (Unquote)
The answer, of course, is that the ER surgeon is the boy's mother. This story is only a "puzzle" because of the cultural bias we have that all doctors are men.
The "twist" in this fable only works if, like the physician in tale, you assume that the elderly and blind are helpless and clueless about what is going on around them -- that an old, blind, woman can only sit in the middle of her house and wait to be cured, that it's even possible for the doctor to "quietly steal" all her worldly possessions, over an extended period of time, and she'd know nothing about it until the blindness was removed from her eyes.
Now, go back and read that story again. And this time, assume that she knows the physician is stealing from her from the first time he slips that silver teaspoon into his pocket.
Why would she decide to remain silent, and pretend to be ignorant until she's brought before a judge as a defendant? Could it be that she's afraid the cure would be withheld? Or maybe that she wouldn't be believed, because it would be the word of an old blind woman against that of a successful male doctor? And what about the assumption that a cure for blindness is so desirable that she'd put up with such a long, drawn-out thievery in the first place?
***
This story may have had its two thousand years ago, but all these questions are still being wrestled with by the disabled and the elderly who have to wade through a medical-judicial-economic system.
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