The Tale of the Hedgehog
his mind so suddenly filled with all the words he knows.
Counting the verbs, more or less, they come to twenty-seven.
Later he thinks: The winter is over,
I am a hedgehog, Up fly two eagles, high up,
Snail, Worm, Insect, Spider, Frog,
which ponds or holes are you hiding in?
There is the river, This is my kingdom, I am hungry.
And he repeats: This is my kingdom, I am hungry,
Snail, Worm, Insect, Spider, Frog,
which ponds or holes are you hiding in?
However he remains still like a dry leaf, too,
because it is but midday and an old law
forbids him sun, sky and eagles.
But night comes, gone are the eagles; and the hedgehog,
Snail, Worm, Insect, Spider, Frog,
disregards the river and undertakes the steepness of the mountain,
as sure of his spines as a warrior
in Sparta or Corinth could have been of his shield;
and suddenly, he crosses the boundary
between the meadow and the new road
with a single step that takes him right into my and your time.
And given that his universal vocabulary has not been renewed
in the last seven thousand years,
he neither understands our car lights,
nor realises his forthcoming death.
Amaia Gabantxo, born in the Basque country in 1973, holds an MA in Literary Translation from the University of East Anglia, and is currently editing and translating an anthology of Basque literature, including work by writers in the three languages of the Basque country: Basque, Spanish and French. She writes: ‘As far as I am aware, there have been no previous attempts to translate literature written in Basque directly into English . . . this is precisely the gap I try to fill’.
Translated by Amaia Gabantxo
Page(s) 9-10
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