Beauty and the Beast by Maria Tatar

Author:Maria Tatar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-02-10T10:10:13+00:00

ANIMAL GROOMS

THE CONDOR AND THE SHEPHERDESS

Bolivia

Using the pretext of a pourquoi tale, or origins story, about how parrots came into being, “The Condor and the Shepherdess” gives us an emphatically unromantic pairing of woman and beast. It remains hauntingly enigmatic in its refusal to ennoble the condor as a totemic animal. Taking up the nature/culture divide, it creates a liminal space for the heroine, who tries to adjust to the condor colony and its carrion-eating habits. The contrast between condor and parrot, with the one a wild bird of prey, the other a tamed species that mimics human speech, adds much to the grotesque story of origins enacted in the tale’s conclusion.

A condor fell in love with a shepherdess, who had a brown face, black eyes, and a sweet countenance. Because he was unable to satisfy his passionate desires in the shape of a bird, the condor adopted the form of a handsome youth. To hide his scaly neck, he covered himself with a white handkerchief. Thus attired, he presented himself to the little shepherdess while she was tending her cattle.

“Lulu, what are you doing here?” he asked.

“I am grazing my lambs, singing, and using my slingshot to drive away the fox who wants to eat my sheep and the condor who is trying to snatch me away.”

“Would you like me to accompany you and help you pursue the fox and frighten the condor?”

“No,” she said to him, “companions spoil the young. I love my sheep, I adore my freedom in the wild, and I want to live alone, singing happily, oblivious to the sorrows of love.”

“Then I will leave. Until tomorrow.”

The following day the condor returned in the same disguise.

“Lulu, could we talk?” he said to the little shepherdess with the beautiful face and black eyes.

“We can talk,” she replied. “Tell me where you are from.”

“I have come here from the highest mountain, where terrifying thunder resounds. Its summit receives the first kisses of the rising sun and the final rays of the dying light. The snow shines like a diamond in that place, where solitude and silence prevail. Would you like to come with me? You will be the queen of the air. The sky, always clear and blue, will be the ceiling that covers our home. The flowers from the valley will send us their sweet scent to make our lives pleasant. Well, do you want to leave with me?”

“No, I do not want the hills you come from. I love my mother, who would cry on account of my absence. I love my fields, my sheep. Look at that lamb, so white and sweet—how much, how much it would suffer without me!”

“Well, Lulu, I won’t pester you. I only ask that you lend me your broach so that I can scratch my back. I feel an itch.”

The girl with the black eyes and coral lips gave him her broach, which he returned to her after using it.

The next day, the young man returned.

“Lulu, Lulu,” he said, “your eyes have bewitched me.

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