Short Stories of Jorge Luis Borges - The Giovanni Translations (58 page)

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Authors: Jorge Luis Borges (trans. by N.T. di Giovanni)

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BOOK: Short Stories of Jorge Luis Borges - The Giovanni Translations
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"Let's get on our way," said the other man.

They went out and if Dahlmann was without hope, he was also without fear. As he crossed the threshold, he felt that to die in a knife fight, under the open sky, and going forward to the attack, would have been a liberation, a joy, and a festive occasion, on the first night in the sanitarium, when they stuck him with the needle. He felt that if he had been able to choose, then, or to dream his death, this would have been the death he would have chosen or dreamt.

Firmly clutching his knife, which he perhaps would not know how to wield, Dahlmann went out into the plain.

- Translated by ANTHONY KERRIGAN

The Book of Imaginary Beings

Preface

Preface to the 1967 edition

Preface to the 1957 edition

A Bao A Qu

Abtu and Anet

The Amphisbaena

An Animal Imagined by Kafka

An Animal Imagined by C. S. Lewis

The Animal Imagined by Poe

Animals in the Form of Spheres

Antelopes with Six Legs

The Ass with Three Legs

Bahamut

Baldanders

The Banshee

The Barometz

The Basilisk

Behemoth

The Brownies

Burak

The Carbuncle

The Catoblepas

The Celestial Stag

The Centaur

Cerberus

The Cheshire Cat and the Kilkenny Cats

The Chimera

The Chinese Dragon

The Chinese Fox

The Chinese Phoenix

Chronos or Hercules

A Creature Imagined by C. S. Lewis

The Crocotta and the Leucrocotta

A Crossbreed

The Double

The Eastern Dragon

The Eater of the Dead

The Eight-Forked Serpent

The Elephant That Foretold the Birth of the Buddha

The Eloi and the Morlocks

The Elves

An Experimental Account of What Was Known, Seen, and Met by Mrs. Jane Lead in London in 1694

The Fairies

Fastitocalon

Fauna of Chile

Fauna of China

Fauna of Mirrors

Fauna of the United States

Garuda

The Gnomes

The Golem

The Griffon

Haniel, Kafziel, Azriel, and Aniel

Haokah, the Thunder God

Harpies

The Heavenly Cock

The Hippogriff

Hochigan

Humbaba

The Hundred-Heads

The Hydra of Lerna

Ichthyocentaurs

Jewish Demons

The Jinn

The Kami

A King of Fire and His Steed

The Kraken

Kujata

The Lamed Wufniks 

The Lamias

Laudatores Temporis Acti

The Lemures

The Leveller

Lilith

The Lunar Hare

The Mandrake

The Manticore

The Mermecolion

The Minotaur

The Monkey of the Inkpot

The Monster Acheron

The Mother of Tortoises

The Nagas

The Nasnas

The Norns

The Nymphs

The Odradek

An Offspring of Leviathan

One-Eyed Beings

The Panther

The Pelican

The Peryton

The Phoenix

The Pygmies

The Rain Bird

The Remora

The Rukh

The Salamander

The Satyrs

Scylla

The Sea Horse

The Shaggy Beast of La Ferté-Bernard

The Simurgh

Sirens

The Sow Harnessed with Chains and Other Argentine Fauna

The Sphinx

The Squonk

Swedenborg’s Angels

Swedenborg’s Devils

The Sylphs

Talos

The T’ao T’ieh

Thermal Beings

The Tigers of Annam

The Trolls

Two Metaphysical Beings

The Unicorn

The Unicorn of China

The Uroboros

The Valkyries

The Western Dragon

Youwarkee

 

Preface

 

As we all know, there is a kind of lazy pleasure in useless and out-of-the-way erudition. The compilation and translation of this volume have given us a great deal of such pleasure; we hope the reader will share something of the fun we felt when ransacking the bookshelves of our friends and the mazelike vaults of the Biblioteca Nacional in search of old authors and abstruse references. We have done our best to trace all our quoted material back to original sources and to translate it from the original tongues medieval Latin, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Lemprière and the Loeb and Bohn collections have, as is their wont, proved most helpful with the classics. As for our invincible ignorance of Eastern languages, it enables us to be grateful for the labours of such men as Giles, Burton, Lane, Waley, and Scholem. The first edition of this book, containing eighty-two pieces, was published in Mexico in 1957. It was called then
Manual de zoología fantástica
(Handbook of Fantastic Zoology). In 1967, a second edition
El libro de los seres imaginarios
was published in Buenos Aires with thirty-four additional articles. Now, for this English-language edition, we have altered a good number of the original articles, correcting, adding, or revising material, and we have also compiled a few brand-new ones. This latest edition contains 120 pieces. We extend warm thanks for their help to Marian Skedgell, of E. P. Dutton, and to José Edmundo Clemente, Assistant Director of the Argentine National Library.

 

Buenos Aires, 23 May 1969

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Preface to the 1967 Edition

 

The title of this book would justify the inclusion of Prince Hamlet, of the point, of the line, of the surface, of n-dimensional hyperplanes and hypervolumes, of all generic terms, and perhaps of each one of us and of the godhead. In brief, the sum of all things the universe. We have limited ourselves, however, to what is immediately suggested by the words ‘imaginary beings’; we have compiled a handbook of the strange creatures conceived through time and space by the human imagination. We are ignorant of the meaning of the dragon in the same way that we are ignorant of the meaning of the universe, but there is something in the dragon’s image that fits man’s imagination, and this accounts for the dragon’s appearance in different places and periods. A book of this kind is unavoidably incomplete; each new edition forms the basis of future editions, which themselves may grow on endlessly. We invite the eventual reader in Colombia or Paraguay to send us the names, accurate description, and most conspicuous traits of their local monsters. As with all miscellanies, as with the inexhaustible volumes of Robert Burton, of Frazer, or of Pliny, The Book of Imaginary Beings is not meant to be read straight through; rather, we should like the reader to dip into these pages at random, just as one plays with the shifting patterns of a kaleidoscope. The sources of this collection are manifold; they are re-corded in each piece. May we be forgiven any accidental omission.

 

Martínez, September 1967

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