Читать книгу The Beginnings of Poetry онлайн
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Granted the need to use the analogy with caution, it is well to note how wary one must be in dealing with the evidence itself. The warning may be brought home by an illustration somewhat out of the beaten track of ethnological material.[34] Nearly a century ago, Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, United States senator from New York, was “a sort of permanent chairman of the committee on Indian affairs”; and he gives an account of a song “in the Osage tongue,” which was sung at his house in Washington, “translated into French by Mr. Choteau, the interpreter, and rendered into English immediately, January 1, 1806.” It is well to see what came of this process in the shape of the song “On War.”
Say, warriors, why, when arms are sung,
And dwell on every native tongue,
Do thoughts of Death intrude?
Why weep the common lot of all?
Why think that you yourselves may fall,
Pursuing or pursued?
There is more in the same pensive but smooth and elegant vein; and one regrets to learn that this excellent Wanapaska, who would have pleased Chateaubriand, “died suddenly ... a few nights after having sung this song to the translator,”—who, however, unblushingly lived on. But he could be truthful on occasion, this translator, and he tells the truth about two Cherokee songs of friendship which may not have seemed capable of conversion into tender English monody. Here is silly sooth. The songs, one is told, “consist of but one sentence each with a chorus. Nothing of greater length seems to exist among” the Cherokees. “They repeat the song and chorus until they are tired. The words of both were written for me[35] by Mr. Hicks, a Cherokee of the half blood, with his own hand, both original and version.... Neither among the Osages nor the Cherokees could there be found a single poetical or musical sentiment founded on the tender passion between the sexes. Though often asked, they produced no song of love.”[36] The two songs follow,—they have the same chorus and belong together,—with interlinear translation:—