Monday, July 20, 2009

July 19 is the official date of papa's death, though we'll never know for sure. I'm not myself these days, and today wasn't any different. Marta, as always, is a perfect distraction, as well as bookstores. Today I've bought a 1956 edition of Yosif Orbeli's translation of medieval Armenian fables, a lovely volume, and here is the first item from it, in my quick translation from Russian:

A Drop of Honey

One man kept a store and was selling honey there. A drop of honey fell on the ground, a bee sat on it, but then a cat came running and snapped the bee, and a dog ran after the cat and seized it, and the owner of the store hit the dog and killed it. Near this village was another one, and the dog was from that other village. When the dog's owner learned that the honey seller had killed it, he came running and killed the man. Then the peasants from both villages rose and started a great war amongst themselves, and such a carnage occurred that only one person survived. And all this - because of one drop of honey.

1 comment:

  1. Sometimes it seems like all wars boil down to a drop of honey ... or oil, or whatever else is valuable at the time. I'm glad you've found some distractions.

    ReplyDelete