The Kukalix, known in scholastic shorthand as LDB.III (ie, Poem 3 of the Lesser Deeds of Bimpnos), is a curious poem in 54(6?) six-line stanzas, written in Archaic Ekeusian. I here shall present my own clumsy translation of the thing, attempting as well as I can to maintain the original feel in meter and in rhyme. I shall also provide scholastic notes to illuminate various parts of the text.
Note that my poetic meters so far are virtual clones in many respects of classical meter. I hope to rectify this situation in time, but Iâ,¬,,¢m content with Kukalix maintaining this style, since it is in many ways an â,¬Ëoddballâ,¬,,¢ of Classical Ekeusian literature.
The Story:
A small village is terrorized by a monsterous entity known as the Kukalix. They pray for the aid of Bimpnos. Bimpnos comes and promises that he will fight the monster. He does so and he wins. He extracts the liver of the Kukalix as a trophy of his triumph, and is praised first by the villagers, second by Onaleus the King of the Gods, and finally by the narrator.
The following several sections are only really of interest to those people who have been following my setting or want to get a taste for the pedantic nature of my creation/scholarship. It may be skipped by those just interested in a semi-whimsical poem. Resume reading either at the underlined section Style and Meter, if you are interested in those things, or at the boldfaced section labeled "Things to Know".
The History of the Tale
The monstrous Kukalix was mentioned in passing only in one place in Otho's Hyrkachtharos (the third part of his trilogy). In book X of that work, during the second Council of the Gods, Bimpnos is epithetized "slayer of the Kukalix with iron claws".
More attention is given to the story in the Athobatos of Simo (part of the Heroic cycle), where in six lines we are told how Bimpnos slew the Kukalix, preserved its liver with enchantments and gave it to the hero Athos. Again, however, no description is given of the beast except that he has iron claws.
These two are the only poetic or prose works to deal with the Kukalix until the late Imperial period, by which time the Second World doctrine had already come into play and transformed the beast into a monster slain by Bimpnos during his mortal life.
The History of the Poem
According to the popular tradition, Kukalix was one of the earliest poems of the Lesser Deeds. This is based on credible evidence - the poet Herithamos, who lived in the second generation after Otho and Simo and was usually quite talented, produced an uncharacteristically bad hymn in praise of Onaleus in a style which can only be considered a poor attempt to imitate Kukalix. Thus, we can confidentally state that the author lived within two generations of the time of Otho and Simo.
The poem appears to have enjoyed short-term popularity - in the first four generations of poets, there are five extant examples of attempts to copy the style of Kukalix. Because all of these are forced and unwieldy works, it is generally assumed that Kukalix was the original.
The work was lost into the mists of time somewhere around 300 MP, and was only rediscovered by accident in 220 YP when a tombrobber was arrested having in his possession (among other stolen treasures) a copy of the poem written on a scroll. (Another of these very early manuscript was recently discovered when Ekeusion was re-liberated.)
Ordinarily, the Ekeusians burned things stolen from tombs along with the thief - in this way, the wronged spirits not only received a victim to placate them, but they get to reclaim their own possessions. Fortunately, however, some lowly scribe or official thought to copy the manuscript text before burning it, and interest in Kukalix was rekindled. Since that time, Kukalix has remained one of the more popular poems of ancient Ekeusion.
Manuscript Tradition
Several hundred manuscripts have come down to moderns based on the copy made of the Tomb Scroll. Of course, as with all texts copied by hand, these are riddled with errors and disagree with each other in numerous places. Fortunately, however, the original copy ALSO still survives, having passed from Ekeusion to Philstaros with the fall of the Empire. It is kept in the libraries of the Academy of Leporon, and is known for that reason as Manuscript L.
As mentioned previously, however, a second ancient copy of the poem was found during the liberation of Ekeusion. From the style of parchment used, it appears that the copy may well be two thousand years old - by a century older than the original from which L was copied. This manuscript is slightly damaged - the first half of lines 115-122 are missing, and the last half of the final stanza is completely gone - but it also contains the addition of two stanzas not in L - they are found before the epilogue and consist of Bimpnosâ,¬,,¢s parents praising him (These lines are important because they boost the total number of stanzas to 56 - a multiple of 14, the number which from early times was sacred to the Ekeusians.)
Manuscript E (as this new copy is called) also includes a number of word variations compared with L - some of these are minor choices, but a few make major differences for the sense of the poem.
For the purpose of this translation, I shall use E as my primary source excluding only those places mentioned above where E has been damaged beyond reconstruction. When I feel that a word difference between the two versions is significant, I will make a note of the alternative presented in L.
Style and Meter
The meter of Kukalix is really something unprecedented in Ekeusian literature. Like most of the poems of the Lesser Deeds (and most of the poems of classical antiquity on earth), the fundamental unit of meter is the dactyl â,¬' a combination of one long and two short syllables. However, while most verse has a set number of dactyls per line (pentameter, hexameter and heptameter being the most popular), the Kukalix poet is flexible in his line-length. There are certain rules that he does obey â,¬' in a given six-line stanza, the first and final lines may have either 5 or 6 feet, the second and fifth lines must have six feet, and the third and fourth lines may have either six or seven feet. (When a stanza contains pure hexameter, it is called an even stanza. When it comes in the form 5.6.7.7.6.5, it is called a round stanza.)
As with most dactylic poetry, any dactyl save the penultimate one in a line can become a spondee (two longs) instead. Distinct to this poem, however, is the ability for any save the penultimate foot to become a trochee (one long and one short). The final foot is always either a spondee or a trochee instead of a dactyl.
The rhyme scheme of the poem is also unique â,¬' rhyme did not enter Ekeusian poetry as a whole until the post-imperial period, and even then the idea of a regular scheme of rhyme for the endings of lines took centuries to develop. (Even today, most poetry does not rhyme.) And yet Kukalix has not one but several distinct rhyme schemes. Each of these appears to serve a particular purpose and appear in particular settings:
ABCBDB: This is the standard rhyme scheme in which the majority of the poem is written. The last line of each â,¬Ëcoupletâ,¬,,¢ in the stanza each end in rhyming words, but the initial lines of each stanza do not.
ABABCC: This is the meter of speech in the poem â,¬' the villagers entreating Bimpnos use it, Bimpnosâ,¬,,¢s reply to them uses it, and Onaleusâ,¬,,¢ praise of him uses it.
AABBCD: The proem and the â,¬Ëepilogueâ,¬,,¢ stanzas use this scheme â,¬' two sets of rhyming couplets, followed by a couplet that does not rhyme.
Alliteration is very frequent also in the poem, both within lines and across them. The words spoken by the gods (Bimpnos and Onaleus) in the poem display this trait most clearly â,¬' it is almost universally the case that the last word of a line and the first word of the next line in divine speech are alliterated. This is one convention in which Kukalix actually follows in the footsteps of the earlier works by Otho and Simo, who employed a similar technique.
A last stylistic note should be made â,¬' the poet of Kukalix appears very willing to create original vocabulary to suit his needs. A wide number of words have their first instance here. Some of them (the verb â,¬Ëarataphaionâ,¬,,¢, to impale with a spike, is the most noteworthy example), were picked up and used by other poets and even entered the prose language. Most, however, remain hapax legomena. A number of these appear to be onomatopoeic.
On the Translation
One lamentable fact about this poem is that I am compelled for the sake of clarity to provide it in translation. I am an average poet when permitted my choice of meters, but my passion for this work compels me to stick to the metrics and style of the original, and this will doubtlessly decrease my art.
I have endeavored to translate the quantitative meter of the original to a stress meter more appropriate to English. I maintain the same number of stressed beats in the English line as long syllables were present in the original. Thus, most will have either five, six or seven, but the presence of spondees may inflate this. I also do my best to represent the short syllables with weak beats, though I am not as perfectly consistent in this element as I am with the long syllables. (In this general scheme I am inspired by Edward McCrorieâ,¬,,¢s excellent verse translation of the Odyssey, though he, being a poet, is able to wield it to much subtler effect.) The rhyme scheme too, I have endeavored to redner as best as possible by giving rhymes in the same places as the Ekeusian original.
Things you need to know
I will update this section as major terms or other things come up which the reader needs to know in order to appreciate the poem. These terms will be familiar to anyone who has read the Tasothilos thread on the Wizards Boards â,¬' more obscure details will be handled in the notes.
Bimpnos The hero of the poem, and one of the fourteen mightiest deities of Ekeusion. He is the trickster of the gods, always portrayed as a short, hunched-over little man with a short grey beard, a jaunty cap, a twinkle in his eye and a wicked grin. In later times, he is reimagined as a gnome.
Onaleus: the regal, winged king of the fourteen Gods
Suphie: The earth-goddess, mother of Bimpnos.
Rholerek: God of the wild and of flames, the father of Bimpnos.
Ekeusion: an ancient empire renowned both for its military prowess and for its literature.
I apologize for the length of the preceding entry. Without further ado, the first stanza of the poem.
(Please note that this is very much a work in progress, so I'll be editting a lot. If you have suggestions how to sort out the clunkier parts of the meter, please let me know.)
Bimpnos! Mellifluous Ache, recount to us great deeds
done by Suphinedo - he, whose single love is to mislead
gods. It was fiery Rholerek sired him, a trouble to mortal minds,
tempter of youths and the prince of the cutpurses. Yet adores he mankind,
Guards them with zeal, and will never allow any harm to befall them.
Goddess, we long to be told of this marvellous spirit!
Notes:
This poem begins as many of the poems of the Lesser Deeds do â,¬' with a solemn invocation. In this respect, Kukalix starts off quite conservatively â,¬' except for the rhyme scheme, it follows the normal pattern without deviation. First, the subject is named and a divine agent is called upon to help the poet relate the tale. Then, we are given some further piece of information about the subject â,¬' usually, this includes his parentage and some deed (other than the main one of the poem) for which he is famous. That Bimpnosâ,¬,,¢s hymn neglects including a specific famous deed to instead mention his general reputation is not normal, but it is not a unique occurrence either. The second invocation of the divinity (line 6) is atypical, but given the stanza-system, the repetition is quite understandable as a coda.
Line 1: Ache: When beginning an epic poem or part of the heroic cycle, it is usual to call on Maxiner, the god of epic and war-poetry. Frequently, however, the Lesser Deeds invoke Ache (pronounced Ahâ,¬,,¢-khay, or in some dialects Ahâ,¬,,¢-shay â,¬' the apostrophe here represents stress). She is the daughter of Maxiner by a beautiful nymph, and she was adopted by Anarina to be the scribe of the tales of the gods.
Line 2: Suphinedos: the â,¬'nedo suffix is from *Ainedo, an archaic word for â,¬Ëwombâ,¬,,¢ (> CE andes). It occurs frequently at the end of compounds indicating â,¬Å"Son of ___â,¬Â Literally, it is a bahuvrihi compound meaning, â,¬Å"whose womb is Suphie.â,¬Â Interestingly, Suphinedo is a word frequently used of peasants as well, since they work the land and harvest produce from Suphieâ,¬,,¢s â,¬Ëwomb.â,¬,,¢
mislead / gods The enjambement is striking, but appropriate. Many are the stories of the tricks with Bimpnos has played on his fellow gods. However, unlike Loki (for instance), while his tricks may embarrass and certainly aim to lower the haughty, he is also loyal to his fellows, much though he vexes them.
Line 4: tempter of youths: So called because whenever a child would play a joke on his friends and get caught, he would claim that Bimpnos had inspired him to do it. This is still current today.
Prince of the Cutpurses: This is a very unusual appellation for Bimpnos. It is not accurate within any theological grounds known today, and it certainly doesnâ,¬,,¢t appear in Otho and Simo â,¬' for them, the prince of thieves is Antiod. Most modern readers assume that it is introduced simply to give sharp contrast to the thing which follows â,¬' that is, his great love for humankind.
Line 6: spirit: The word here is â,¬Ëobeloâ,¬,,¢, a word with a very general meaning of â,¬Ësupernatural entityâ,¬,,¢. It can be applied alike to the great gods, the minor gods, the nymphs, and in rare cases even the spirits of the dead.
Questions already asked and answered:
What do you mean by "mellifluous"?
Mellifluous means "pleasant to hear" (literally, it means 'flowing with honey', and this is close to the Ekeusian original 'honey-sweet', so I kept it.)
Is the idea of Rholerek and Suphie as Bimpnos' parents unique to this poem? It doesn't appear in modern theology, does it?
The idea of the divine family went out the window with the Second World doctrine and no longer appears, but in the original mythology, yes, Bimpnos is the son of Rholerek and Suvj (several modern theologians try to tackle the 'metaphorical' meaning of phrases like this.) This is the sort of thing I may post somewhere (here or WotC) shortly.
Have you also written the "original" (Eukeusian) version?
I'm writing the two simultaneously. If there's demand, I will publish both, though the Ekeusian is in a MUCH rougher state than the English, which is itself pretty rough.
Who is the "I" in the introduction? Does this refer to CBG-member KalosMer or some Salabrian poet?
Picture it almost as the Tolkienian conceit of the author/scholar/translator. I haven't quite identified the author of the version I'm providing, though any comments I make about the poor quality of my own verse should be interpreted as the genuine regrets of Kalos Mer the boards poster.
Any chance you're going to break down the meter, so those of us who know what it means but are too incapable / lazy to figure it out themselves can keep up in that regard?
I will provide a metric breakdown for you if you wish. It's PRETTY close to English conversation, though in some cases (much like the original text) the meter gets a little disjointed with common speech.
More later. I probably will post several stanzas at a time from here on, as the rhyme scheme is a little easier.