[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

in the fight parts and nearly killed each other. And Spearshaker would jump up
and down and pull his hair which had already begun to fall out, for some
reason and sometimes weep, and when he had settled down we would try again.
Verily, my lot is harder than that of the
Iewes of
Moses
. For Scripture saith, that
Pharo did command that they make Brickes without Strawe, wherefore their
trauail was greate: but now I must make my
Brickes, euen without Mudd.
Let me tell you the story of Spearshaker s plei
.
Once there was a great war chief who was killed by his own brother. Not in a
fight, but secretly, by poison. The brother took over as chief, and also took
his dead brother s woman, who didn t object.
But the dead man had a son, a young warrior named Amaledi. One night the dead
chief appeared to
Amaledi and told him the whole story. And, of course, demanded that he do
something about it.
Poor Amaledi was in a bad fix. Obviously he mustn t go against his mother s
wishes, and kill her new man without her permission. On the other hand, no one
wants to anger a ghost and this one was plenty angry already.
So Amaledi couldn t decide what to do. To make things worse, the bad brother
had guessed that
Amaledi knew something. He and this really nasty, windy old man named
Quolonisi sounds like
Otter began trying to get rid of Amaledi.
To protect himself Amaledi became a Crazy, doing and saying everything
backward, or in ways that made no sense. This made his medicine strong enough
to protect him from his uncle and Quolonisi, at least for a time.
Quolonisi had a daughter, Tsigalili, who wanted Amaledi for her man. But she
didn t want to live with a Crazy who does? and she kept coming around and
crying and begging him to quit. At the same time his mother was giving him a
hard time for being disrespectful toward her new man. And all the while the
ghost kept showing up and yelling at Amaledi for taking so long. It got so bad
Amaledi thought about killing himself, but then he realized that he would go
to the spirit world, where his father would never leave him alone.
So Amaledi thought of a plan. There was a big dance one night to honor the new
chief, and some visiting singers from another town were going to take part.
Amaledi took their lead singer aside and got him to change the song, telling
him the new words had been given to him in a dream. And that night, with the
dancers going around the fire and the women shaking the turtle shells and the
whole town watching, the visiting leader sang:
 Now he pours it,
Now he is pouring the poison,
See, there are two brothers,
See, now there is one.
That was when it all blew up like a hot rock in a fire. The bad chief jumped
up and ran away from the dance grounds, afraid he had just been witched.
Amaledi had a big argument with his mother and told her what he thought of the
way she was acting. Then he killed Quolonisi. He said it was an accident but I
think he was just tired of listening to the old fool.
Page 192
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Tsigalili couldn t stand any more. She jumped into a waterfall and killed
herself. There was a fine funeral.
Now Amaledi was determined to kill his uncle. The uncle was just as determined
to kill Amaledi, but he was too big a coward to do it himself. So he got
Quolonisi s son Panther to call Amaledi out for a fight.
Panther was a good fighter and he was hot to kill Amaledi, because of his
father and his sister. But the chief wasn t taking any chances. He put some
poison on Panther s spear. He also had a gourd of water, with poison in it, in
case nothing else worked.
So Amaledi and Panther painted their faces red and took their spears and faced
each other, right in front of the chief s house. Amaledi was just as good as
Panther, but finally he got nicked on the arm. Before the poison could act,
they got into some hand-to-hand wrestling, and the spears got mixed up. Now
Panther took a couple of hits. Yes, with the poisoned spear.
Meanwhile Amaledi s mother got thirsty and went over and took a drink, before
anyone could stop her, from the poisoned gourd. Pretty soon she fell down.
Amaledi and Panther stopped fighting and rushed over, but she was already
dead.
By now they were both feeling the poison themselves. Panther fell down and
died. So did Amaledi, but before he went down he got his uncle with the
poisoned spear. So in the end everyone died.
You do?
Well, I suppose you had to be there.
And so  tis afoote: to-morrow night we are to perform. Thank God
Burbage cannot be there to witnesse it: for it were a Question which should
come first, that he dye of Laughter, or I of Shame. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]