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Authors: Ismaíl Kadaré, Barbara Bray
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three voices.
They obviously meant “Where on earth did you get that idea? What bee have you got in your bonnet now?”
“I was talking to the Austrian ambassador yesterday,” Kurt continued, “and do you know what he said? He said, ‘You Quprilis are the only great family left in Europe, probably in the world, who are the subject of an epic.’ ”
“Ah,” said the elder of the uncles, “now I see!” “According to him the epic devoted to us is in the same class as the Nibelungenlied, and he said, ‘If a hundredth of what is sung about you in the Balkans were still sung today about a French or German family, they’d shout it from the housetops as their highest claim to fame. Whereas you Quprilis scarcely deign to notice it.’ That’s what he said.”
“I see,” repeated the other uncle. “But there’s one thing I don’t understand. You mentioned Albanian rhapsodists, didn’t you? If you’re talking about the epic we all know, what have Albanian rhapsodists got to do with it?”
Kurt Quprili looked him straight in the eye but didn’t answer. Debate about the family epic was as ancient as the priceless antique vases, the gifts of various sovereigns, that were piously handed down from one generation of Quprilis to the next. Mark-Alem had heard his relations talking about the epic since his earliest childhood. At first he’d imagined the epos, as they called it, as a long thin animal, midway between a hydra and a snake, which lived far away in some snowy mountains, and which, like a beast of fable, carried within its body the fate of the family. But as he grew older he gradually realized what the epic really was, though still in a confused sort of way. He couldn’t quite see how it was that the Quprilis lived and lorded it in the imperial capital, while people recited an epic about them in a faraway province called Bosnia in the middle of the Balkans. Why in Bosnia and not in Albania, where the Quprilis originally came from? And above all, why was it sung not in Albanian but in Serbian? Once a year, during the month of Ramadan, some rhapsodists would come from Bosnia. They would stay with the Quprilis for several days, reciting their long epics to their own plaintive musical accompaniment. It was a custom that had lasted for hundreds of years, and recent generations of the Quprilis hadn’t dared to drop or even modify it. They would gather in the great guest hall and listen to the dronings of the Slav bards, not understanding a single word except Tchuprili, the visitors’ pronunciation of the family name. Then the rhapsodists would receive their usual reward and go home again, leaving behind them an atmosphere of emptiness and unsolved mystery, in which for several days their erstwhile hosts would heave vague sighs, like those provoked by a sudden change in the weather.
Rumor had it, however, that the Sovereign was jealous of the Quprilis because of the epic. Dozens of diwans and poems had been written in his honor by the official poets, but nowhere had anyone composed an epos about him like the one the Quprilis had inspired. It was even said that this jealousy was one reason for the thunderbolts the Sovereign regularly unleashed upon the Quprilis.
“Why don’t we just give the epic to the Sultan and avert such troubles once and for all?” little Mark-Alem had suggested one day after hearing the grown-ups repining.
“Hush!” said his mother. “An epic isn’t something you can present to someone else. It’s like a wedding ring or the family jewels—something you can’t give away even if you want to.”
“He said it was in the same class as the Nibelungenlied, ” repeated Kurt pensively. “And for days I’ve been pondering the question we’ve all asked so often: Why have the Slavs composed an epic in our honor, while our compatriots the Albanians don’t mention us in their epic?”
“Nothing simpler,” said one of the cousins. “They don’t say anything about us because they
They obviously meant “Where on earth did you get that idea? What bee have you got in your bonnet now?”
“I was talking to the Austrian ambassador yesterday,” Kurt continued, “and do you know what he said? He said, ‘You Quprilis are the only great family left in Europe, probably in the world, who are the subject of an epic.’ ”
“Ah,” said the elder of the uncles, “now I see!” “According to him the epic devoted to us is in the same class as the Nibelungenlied, and he said, ‘If a hundredth of what is sung about you in the Balkans were still sung today about a French or German family, they’d shout it from the housetops as their highest claim to fame. Whereas you Quprilis scarcely deign to notice it.’ That’s what he said.”
“I see,” repeated the other uncle. “But there’s one thing I don’t understand. You mentioned Albanian rhapsodists, didn’t you? If you’re talking about the epic we all know, what have Albanian rhapsodists got to do with it?”
Kurt Quprili looked him straight in the eye but didn’t answer. Debate about the family epic was as ancient as the priceless antique vases, the gifts of various sovereigns, that were piously handed down from one generation of Quprilis to the next. Mark-Alem had heard his relations talking about the epic since his earliest childhood. At first he’d imagined the epos, as they called it, as a long thin animal, midway between a hydra and a snake, which lived far away in some snowy mountains, and which, like a beast of fable, carried within its body the fate of the family. But as he grew older he gradually realized what the epic really was, though still in a confused sort of way. He couldn’t quite see how it was that the Quprilis lived and lorded it in the imperial capital, while people recited an epic about them in a faraway province called Bosnia in the middle of the Balkans. Why in Bosnia and not in Albania, where the Quprilis originally came from? And above all, why was it sung not in Albanian but in Serbian? Once a year, during the month of Ramadan, some rhapsodists would come from Bosnia. They would stay with the Quprilis for several days, reciting their long epics to their own plaintive musical accompaniment. It was a custom that had lasted for hundreds of years, and recent generations of the Quprilis hadn’t dared to drop or even modify it. They would gather in the great guest hall and listen to the dronings of the Slav bards, not understanding a single word except Tchuprili, the visitors’ pronunciation of the family name. Then the rhapsodists would receive their usual reward and go home again, leaving behind them an atmosphere of emptiness and unsolved mystery, in which for several days their erstwhile hosts would heave vague sighs, like those provoked by a sudden change in the weather.
Rumor had it, however, that the Sovereign was jealous of the Quprilis because of the epic. Dozens of diwans and poems had been written in his honor by the official poets, but nowhere had anyone composed an epos about him like the one the Quprilis had inspired. It was even said that this jealousy was one reason for the thunderbolts the Sovereign regularly unleashed upon the Quprilis.
“Why don’t we just give the epic to the Sultan and avert such troubles once and for all?” little Mark-Alem had suggested one day after hearing the grown-ups repining.
“Hush!” said his mother. “An epic isn’t something you can present to someone else. It’s like a wedding ring or the family jewels—something you can’t give away even if you want to.”
“He said it was in the same class as the Nibelungenlied, ” repeated Kurt pensively. “And for days I’ve been pondering the question we’ve all asked so often: Why have the Slavs composed an epic in our honor, while our compatriots the Albanians don’t mention us in their epic?”
“Nothing simpler,” said one of the cousins. “They don’t say anything about us because they
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