Giulio VARIBOBA
PROSE
OH HONOURED QUEEN
Introduction to "The Life of the Virgin Mary"
(1762)
I am bringing a new fruit to your
table this morning which you have not tasted since you have been
in heaven. In actual fact, it is a bit sour, wintry and wild.
It does not look attractive like the others which your faithful
servants bring you every day as presents. But do not reject it,
Lady Saint Mary. Taste this one too, as if in Christ’s protection.
I recall that once upon a time, a king ate some wild pears and
said, "Indeed, I have never eaten pears as sweet as these."
The king spoke thus not because the wild pears were actually
sweet, but because when he had eaten them, they seemed like sugar
to him. Let the two of us speak without misunderstanding now,
Lady Saint Mary. Did you ever expect that you would be presented
with an Arbëresh poem of the kind and length of the one
I am placing in your hands this morning? I know that you have
had innumerable long, sweet and beautiful poems in all the other
languages, but in our Arbëresh language I can state that
this is the first one you have received now, one which recounts
your whole life, all your joy and suffering and the nails that
transfixed your heart while you were here on earth. You have
certainly never had a song like this, not even the Arbëresh
would have imagined it. The Arbëresh language is so uncouth,
poor and rough that you would think it impossible to express
anything but swear words, curses, insults and indeed obscenities.
If one begins to speak in Arbëresh for prayer, for preaching,
for spiritual and intellectual thoughts, one sounds ridiculous.
[Oi e ndeermia Regin, from the
volume Ghiella e Shën Mëriis Virghiër, Rome
1762, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie, first published
in English in History of Albanian literature, New York
1995, vol. 1,p. 153] |
Albanian Literature in Translation
Early
Authors (16th - 18th centuries)
