045. El León Y Angelina (The Lion and Angelina)
A man who was the owner of many fertile lands had three daughters, and all three were reputedly the most beautiful [women] in the region. The man was accustomed of going about his lands to see how they were being run, and one day when he was traveling through a forest that also belonged to him, he encountered a lion that came up to him and told him that it would eat him then and there to satisfy its hunger. The man, upon seeing his [imminent] death and being devoured by the beast, offered to return to his house and bring back as much food as it wanted if, in exchange, it would spare his life. The lion then reflected on this [offer] and said [to him]:
I will propose a pact with you, that instead of food you will bring me whoever that will come out to meet (greet) you [first] when you get back home.
I agree to this -said the man.
And if you don’t keep your words -added the lion- I will find you and kill you.
The man turned around and returned to his house. While he was riding back, he thought that as soon as he arrived his dog would come out to greet him, and that he would take her and then return to the forest to give her to the lion as soon as possible, for his daughters loved the dog very much and if he was to delay [any moment], it would cost him much more effort to keep his promise.
At last the man arrived home and, unfortunately, the youngest of his daughters, Angelina, came out to greet him. The man was greatly saddened [by this] that he locked himself in his room and only called for his wife after a long while to tell her what had happened. Then the wife told him:
Well, take the dog [to the forest]. After all, how can the lion know who had come out to greet you [first].
This seemed like a great idea to the man, so he picked up the dog and went back to the forest.
There the lion was waiting for him, and without letting him getting off his horse, it wrathfully said to him:
It should not be the dog who gets brought here, but your daughter Angelina, for she was the first one who came out to greet you! Return for her or you’ll be dead!
The man returned home even sadder than before, gathered his wife and daughters and told them his agonizing adventure. The two older daughters said that they would never go to the forest with the lion and that Angelina should not go either, that they should keep her at home, but Angelina replied:
Well, if it is necessary for me to go so that my father won’t die, then I’ll readily go no matter what happens.
She said and repeated it with such conviction that the father ended up accepting [her decision] and took her with him to the forest where the lion was waiting. The lion, as soon as it saw Angelina, grabbed her and carried her to a cave far from her father’s [watchful] eyes. They were walking for a good while and, at last, arrived at such a grand palace that Angelina uttered on seeing it:
What a beautiful palace! Who gets to live in it?
And the lion said:
This is where I live, and from now on, the palace is [also] yours.
Angelina was greatly pleased, because the palace was beautiful and lacked nothing, and [so] she lived there full of content.
One morning when Angelina was in her bedroom, she saw a little bird come to the window and looked at her as if it was waiting for something. It returned at noon and also in the evening and then she asked the lion about the meaning of this, and the lion told her:
It wants to say that your oldest sister is getting married the day after tomorrow.
And she then said to him:
Will you let me go to the wedding?
And the lion replied:
I will let you go. Take the flying horse, which will carry you there in the blink of an eye; but when you hear it neighing, you must return without delaying a minute.
Angelina promised [to do] this, mounted the horse and sure enough, the horse took her to her parents’ house in the time of a sigh [e.g. blink of an eye], where they received her with great joy on seeing that she was still alive. Everyone wanted to hear about her adventure and she told them that she lived happily and [full of] content.
She stayed for nearly a week in the house until one morning when she heard the flying horse neighing, and she said to her family:
If this horse is calling for me, then I have to go.
She said goodbye to her family, mounted the horse, and in the time of a sigh [breath] she was back at the palace. The lion, on seeing her, was so happy that there was no [longer any] wish of hers that it would not gladly grant.
Time passed by. One day when Angelina was about to close her window before heading to bed, a little bird with a broken wing came to her and stood there chirping. Angelina went to see the lion so he could explain to her what this meant and the lion was reluctant to tell her, but after much insistence, it said:
It wants to say that your father had just died.
Angelina began to weep uncontrollably until the lion’s heart was touched. So that when she asked it for permission to go to her father’s funeral, the lion granted her request, but with the same warning as in the previous time:
I will let you go. Take this flying horse and remember that, when you hear it neighing, you have to return [here] without delaying a minute.
Angelina arrived in time to accompany her father’s body to the cemetery. And she was so heartbroken that she stayed awake all night, and only fell asleep at dawn due to exhaustion; it was at this time that she did not hear the horse neighing.
In the morning she woke up and did not see the horse, and she understood what had happened. She then immediately went back to the cave in the forest and ran the entire way back to the palace; but when she arrived, the palace had disappeared and in its place there was only a pile of rock. And she began to call out:
Lion, lion! Where are you?
And from the depth of the earth the lion’s voice came forth, which said:
Why do you look for me now? Leave me and go away, for you have gotten me cursed forever!
And she, [being] heartbroken, told him:
And what do I have to do to lift this curse?
And the voice replied:
Buy a pair of iron shoes and the day in which you’ve worn them out, my curse would then be lifted.
Angelina kept wondering how she would be able to wear out a pair of iron shoes while walking, which seemed impossible to her, until it occurred to her that if she was to sit in the place of a soldier (e.g. walk in the soldier’s shoes, both literally and figuratively), as soldiers spend their lives fighting and walking from one place to another, perhaps she could wear them out [in this way]. And without further ado, she dressed up as a man and became a soldier.
She began to serve the king and one day the king’s son noticed her, and he told the queen that this soldier caught his attention for looking more like a woman than a man, so that he had fallen in love with the soldier. The queen counseled him to use a ruse which consisted of going out for a walk with the soldier in the palace’s gardens, to observe the soldier and if he saw that the soldier approached the flowers to pick them [in order] to make a bouquet, then the soldier was [definitely] a woman.
The prince did as his mother had told him and went with the soldier for a stroll in the gardens, but Angelina did not even pay attention to the flowers [planted] along the paths.
As the test did not work and the prince insisted on the idea that the soldier was a woman and not a man, the queen told him this time around:
Go with him to the lake and invite him to take a bath with you and then you will know for sure.
The prince hastened to invite him, but the soldier did not want to accompany the prince, citing an illness that he had which would prevent him from taking a bath on those days. So that, in view of the fact that these ruses did not clear up his doubts, the prince approached Angelina and said:
If you don’t admit to me that you are a woman, I will tell my father, the king, that you have boasted of killing a serpent which hides in the mountain
for there lived in the mountain a serpent which would eat one person everyday, who was given to it as tribute, and all the people in the region were terrorized [by it] and avoided the road through the mountain.
Angelina answered him:
That is what you say, for I have never said such a thing, but if the king gives me orders, [then] I will do it.
The king called for the soldier the next day and said to him:
Is it true what they told me, that you are going around saying that you have no fear in confronting the serpent?
And she replied:
I said no such thing to anyone, but tomorrow I will go in place of the person who is to be given to the serpent, and [there] I will face it.
Angelina left the palace prepared to fulfill what she had promised, because otherwise, the king would subject her to torture; and here she met a crow which came flying toward her and said:
Tomorrow when you go fight the serpent, ask the king for a horse, a sharp sword, and a wineskin [filled with wine]. You have to leave the wineskin open near the cave, and when you see the serpent appears and put its head in it [e.g the wineskin] to drink [the wine], wait until it is intoxicated with wine and you can cut off its head with the sword.
Angelina did this and killed the serpent. Then she went to the palace and showed the head to the king, and all the people in the region [festively] celebrated this feat.
The prince, however, did not give up and as he was more and more convinced that the soldier was a woman and not a man, and [as he] felt even more in love with her, he threatened Angelina once more with the hope that this time she would agree to show herself as he believed her to be:
Well if you don’t admit that you are a woman, I will tell my father, the king, that you say you will make the serpent’s head, which has been dead for three days, talks. And if you cannot make it talk, you will be subjected to tortures until you die.
And she replied:
I did not say that, but if I cannot make the serpent talk, I am prepared to die.
The prince, annoyed [by her response], told his father, the king, and he immediately sent for Angelina and said to her:
Is it true that you can make the head of a dead serpent talk?
And she replied:
I don’t know, but I’ll try.
Then the king got angry and ordered the soldier to be taken to the torture chamber and there they would present the serpent’s head to her, and if she could not manage to make it talk, they were to kill her then and there. They took her to a cell and upon nightfall of the next day she saw a crow perching on the window; and the crow said to her:
When they take you to where the serpent’s head is, first call for its name three times and then ask if it has already reached the deepest part of the earth, and if it says yes, stomp the ground three times with your shoes.
The next morning Angelina was brought in front of the serpent’s head and Angelina saw that the crow was perching next to the torturing device; then she approached the serpent and said:
Serpent, serpent, serpent.
And the head replied:
What do you want of me?
And Angelina said:
Tell me if you have already reached the deepest part of the earth.
And the serpent answered her:
Yes I have gotten there, and I have been there for [the last] three days.
At that moment, Angelina stomped three times on the ground and broke the iron shoes that she was wearing, and as soon as this happened, the lion whom Angelina loved appeared in the courtyard, who was immediately transformed into a well dressed, handsome man. And everyone there were all in awe of what they had just witnessed.
Then the young man approached Angelina, took her by the arm and said to the prince:
This person who dresses as a soldier is [indeed] a woman, but [she] is not for you.
And he put her on his horse and went with her to his palace in the forest, where they wedded and had many children, each one braver than the last.
—– VOCABULARY —–
Acabar de – just; (to complete) to finish
Accedar a – to gain access to, to reach, to get
Acceder – to agree, to accept
Aconsejar – to advise, to recommend
A cual más – the most, very
Afilado – sharp
Agotar – to exhaust, to wear out
Alba – dawn
Alegando que – claiming that; on the grounds that
Alegar – to claim, to cite
A partir de – from, as of, starting, since
Apostillar – to annotate (to add comments to); (to say) to add
Apresurar – to hurry, to speed up, to quicken
Argucia – sophistry; chicanery
Atemorizar – to frighten, to intimidate
A tiempo de – in time to, have time to
Atravesar – to cross, to go through
Atreverse – to dare
Comarca – region, district, county
Como cada vez – increasingly; with increasing
Comprometerse – to commit oneself, to promise
Confesar – to confess
Contrariado – upset, annoyed
Costar – (to be valued at) to cost; (to be difficult to) to be hard
Cuanto antes – as soon as possible
Demorarse – to be delayed, to take long
Desolado – desolated, devastated
Despedirse – to say goodbye
Despejar – to clear, to clear up
Dilación – delay
Disponerse a – to prepare, to get ready
Enternecer – to soften, to move, to touch
Esperanza – hope
Festejar – to celebrate
Fijarse – to pay attention; to notice
Gastar – to wear out; to spend; to consume, to use up
Grajo – (animal) rook (bird, crow family)
Harás – you will do; hacer – to do, to make
Hartarse – (to fill) to stuff oneself with; to gorge oneself on; to satisfy one’s desire; to get fed up
Hazaña – feat, achievement
Intentar – to try, to attempt
Iracundo – irascible; irate
Llamar la atención – to call attention to
Mole – bulk, mass
Nada más – as soon as
Odre – wineskin
Pajaril – birdlike
Pasado mañana – the day after tomorrow
Patio – courtyard, playground
Pertenecer – to belong to
Piar – to cheep, to chirp, to tweet
Plaza – (position of work) job; (position or location) space, spot, place
Posarse – to land, to perch; (to fall) to settle
Prestar atención – to pay attention
Proponer – to propose
Que hace – that makes
Ramo – bouquet, bunch
Recapacitar – to reconsider, to reflect on; to think again
Rehuir – to avoid, to shy away from
Relinchar – to neigh, to whinny
Roto – broken
Saciar – to quench, to satisfy
Saldras – future form of salir in second person; salir de dudas – to find out for sure
Sin remedio – hopeless; inevitably
Suplicio – torture, nightmare, ordeal
Surgir – to arise, to come up, to emerge, to appear
Suspiro – (expiration) sigh
Suyos – near friends, relations, acquantances
Tal como – (just as) exactly as
Terminar – to result, to end up
Traje – suit, dress, costume
Tuyo – yours
Valiente – brave, courageous