On This Occasion He Was In One Of His Most Wilful, Mocking, Reckless
Moods, And Was No Sooner Seated Than He Began Smilingly, In His Quiet
Conversational Tone, To Discuss The Question Of The Singer And The
Tune.
Yes, he said, the Milkmaid was a good tune, but another name to
it would have suited the subject better.
Oh, the subject! Any one
might guess what that would be. The words mattered more than the air.
For here we had before us not a small sweet singer, a goldfinch in a
cage, but a cock - a fighting cock with well-trimmed comb and tail and
a pair of sharp spurs to its feet. Listen, friends, he is now about to
flap his wings and crow.
I was leaning against the table on which he sat and began to think it
was a dangerous place for me, since I was certain that every word was
distinctly heard by Barboza; yet he made no sign, but went on swaying
from side to side as if no mocking word had reached him, then launched
out in one of his most atrocious _decimas_, autobiographical and
philosophical. In the first stanza he mentions that he had slain
eleven men, but using a poet's license he states the fact in a
roundabout way, saying that he slew six men, and then five more,
making eleven in all:
Seis muertes e hecho y cinco son once.
which may be paraphrased thus:
Six men had I sent to hades or heaven,
Then added five more to make them eleven.
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