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Наши авторы в переводах:
Александр Грановский
Alexander Granovsky
Translated by Galina Granovsky



Jade Hare

Нефритовый Заяц

Перевод на английский Галины Грановской.




"The mountain Tall Defense is called first in the list of the Third Book of "Catalogue of Occidental Mountains". And there is another mountain, which is situated four hundred and twenty li further to the north-west, it is called Mee. There are many Trees of Immortality, Dan-Shue, on its top. There is the beginning of the river Dan-Shuy, it is the river of Immortality. It streams to the West and flows into Lake Millet. There's much white jade around there and a wonderful spring of jade nectar is there. The spring gushes up and bubbles up at its source. Yellow Forefather eats till he is satiated with this nectar in the morning and in the noon. The holy jade arises there. The spring of jade is streaming to water one of the Trees of Immortality. The Tree blossoms with five flowers only once every five years... Yellow Forefather picks jade flowers on the Mee-mountain and then plants them on the southern slope of the Bell-mountain. The jade "hu-ie-uye" from this place is the most beautiful. It is hard and strong, shining and smooth, as if it is polished".

In his commentary on this, very ancient and miraculously intact, text the famous orientalist and expert in mythology E. Nikiforoff throws, like a bone, at starving scientific world his theory of Universal Myth, according which, formerly all myths were united in the single Myth Map, but then, because of some enigmatic cataclysm, only odd parts are left over from the Map. And the main task of scratch all today's researchers is to restore this beautiful creation of the past, without which we will not be able to understand not only the present, but we will be unable to build the future. The future, that will become the past for someone.

Of course, E. Nikiforoff attracts attention to divine jade "hu-ie-uye" not without purpose, naturally, it is the most beautiful jade, because it is hard and strong, shining and smooth, as if it is polished. Maybe Jade Hare, Uy-Tue, is made of this jade, that Jade Hare, which, according to another myth, lives on the Moon under cinnamon tree and crushes his divine drug for immortality in his mortar?

To answer this question, it is necessary, according to myth tradition, to go back to the time, "when wild beasts were people". In our case, the wild beast is a hare. To give the whole picture, E.Nikiforoff even made up a kind of image of Hare, which can be regarded as a certain zoomorphic code, which describes theoretically and symbolically a system of some knowledge, which is expected following interpretation, decoding and comments.

In a generally accepted sense the Hare was a symbol of the same ones, and he was considered as immoral, as virtuous. But significance and discrepancy of the Hare's image in the world mythology took away thoughts beyond the bounds of search of truth.

For example, Jews considered that hare was an unclean animal (Deuteronomy IV.7).

Rabanmavr saw him as a symbol of voluptuousness and fertility. However, in the epoch of Gotic style hare became an allegory of velocity and zealous service.(Hare crushes his divine drug for immortality in his mortar). He is depicted in this context on many Gotic sepulcheres (Pinedo Ramiro de Pinedo, "Symbolism in the Medieval Spanish Culture")

Feminine traits are inalienable from the main symbols of this figure, as Bomon wrote in the book "Symbolism in Ornamental Chinese Art". Therefore it was characteristic that Hare was the second of 12 emblems of Chinese Imperiors, symbolized the feminine beginning, YIN, in monarch's life.

The Chinese themselves considered, the Hare was the eternal animal, who was sentenced to live on the Moon. (But why? No explanations).

In system of Egyptian hyeroglyphs, the Hare was a determinative sign of notion "creature". It is symbolical by virtue its elementariness and spontaneity, said Enel in his book, published in Paris in 1932.

American Indians Algonkians considered, the Great Hare was "animal-demiurge". And the Egytians held the same opinion. Hares associated with Hecate Goddess for the ancient Greeks, informs Crapp (Paris, 1952).

Carl Yung calls the Hare "animal-helper", which shows the way to a blind man, or a man, whose eyes are bandaged - to "non-awakening". According to the same author, the Hare is escaping God Mercury in his role of a guide, who leads a "blind man" to revelation, until some mystery opens him.

According to Hermes tradition, Mercury is many-sided, changeable and deceptive. His main feature is duality, duplicity.

In "Aurelia occulta" is given the description of the Hare-Mercury: "I am a dragon sated with poison, ubiquitous and open to everybody. That thing, on which I repose, and that thing, which is reposed on me, everybody, who is in search according to the rules of art, can obtain...

I am existing everywhere on the earth, I am Father and Mother, an adolescent and an old man, the all-powerful and the weakest, I am death and resurrection, visible and invisible thing, I am hard and soft, I am coming down to the earth and going up to the heaven...

I am gleaming, sparkling carbuncle, I am clear land..."

Because of duel, contradictory nature of the Mercury-Hare, he was called hermaphrodite. Sometimes they said, that he had woman's body and man's spirit, sometimes they said to the contrary.

Millius calls him "hermaphroditic monster".

As one of the most popular folklore expert tells in his book, some savage tribes (for example, the Hottentots) connect the Moon phases with idea of Immortality, accepting the visible waning of the Moon and the growth of the luminary as a real process of uninterrupted, taken in turn, destruction and renewal, decline and development. Even the Moon rising and going away seem to them like its birth and death. They tell, that ages and ages ago the Moon decided to send a message about immortality to mankind, and a Hare volunteered to be a herald. The Moon entrusted him to go to people and to declare them: "You will die and rise from the dead like me". The Hare came to people and said, perverting the words of the message (maybe his memory had failed him, maybe he said that with malicious intent): You will die and not to rise from the dead again, like me".

The Hare came back, and the Moon asked him, what he had said to people. When the Moon heard, that he had perverted the words, she became so angry, that threw a stick at him and split his lip.(That's why the Hare's lip is split until now.)The Hare ran away and still continues to run now. Some people add, that before he had run away, the Hare had scratched the Moon's face, and now you can see the signs of the scratches in any moonlit night.

It seems, "according the rules of art", E.Nikiforoff lifts slightly the veil of this exciting mystery of dedicated persons in his comments to another ancient text "Plums are dropping already". Mercury-Hare in Abraham's Book is called Adam Cadmon, that means primogenitor, who gave the beginning for new life, which, possibly, exists now. So, it's possible, in some sense, we, people, can suppose, that we descended from a Hare, and more, from Mercury-Hare, not from notorious Ape... if someone descended from Ape, it was, probably, only Sir Charles Robert Darwin...

According to a theory and researches of E.Nikiforoff (who affirms, that he managed to decode one ancient mythical code),during that immemorial time, "when all animals were still people", strange, odd, and sometimes inexplicable events took place on the earth...

At first mammoths, which were considered animals" tsar and managed all other animals then, became extinct. They died loudly, with the last trump shattening the trees and stones around themselves in search of invisible enemies, who took their lives. The mammoths' dead bodies looked like mountains, and mighty eagles with their curved beaks sat proudly on the top of them.

Then, imperceptibly, sabre-toothed tigers began to vanish, they died quietly, as if they fell asleep, and they went to some caves or just to the mountains, keeping out of the others' sight.

Then wolves turn came. They preferred to die in struggle, to give up their place to younger and stronger leaders. Many young wolves desired to be leaders, so the battles took place continuously, and soon only females remained alive. They would have tried to have interosexual contacts with foxes and some other animals, but they were often infected with mysterious illness, began to lose their hair, their noses began to sink down.

Only small, big-eared Hares, seemed, lived without any problem. They multiplied and propagated, opening up a lot of new lands and territories

Because of good quiet life or something else, even their appearances have changed. Their heads became larger, and to keep them better in horizontal position their bodies became lager too. Then, some of them, the most quick-witted Hares, stood on their hind legs more often and often to look round neighborhoods from higher level and to see green glades of untouched grass first. And they discovered, it was easier to keep head in vertical position of the body, and their ears became such an additional counterbalance, when they walked. Soon some of them began to go on their hind legs very well and even proudly, looking at their fellow-tribesmen, whose noses were buried in the ground, scornfully from the acquiring height.

Forelegs became free and, of course, they needed to be busy. And now no one could remember, who first decided to take a stick to knock down ripe fruit (it seems, they were plums).

But after all, there came a time, when Hares procreated too many and soon they had not enough of their ritual plums and other fruit, and then hungry hordes of them, organized spontaneously, began to eat up everything on their way, right up to the last root and blade of grass.

Probably at that time, the First Great Division took place, when the Hares, who walked just on their hind legs, because of their acquiring advantages, not only stood out of the multitude, but, little by little, seized power, that means, that they became the "awaken" ones, to show others (who saw nothing, except their carrot and blade of grass) the way to New Lands, which are mentioned in the Third Book of "Catalogue of Occidental Mountains". It is there, on the New Lands, enigmatic mountain Mee is situated, and many Trees of Immortality Dan-Shue grow on its top...

E.Nikiforoff considers, that it was the first mention of root of life, ginseng, (Panax Ginsengi), which was the cause of the Second Great Division of the Hares. There were two groups now among those, who walked on their hind legs: a)Hares, who ate the root of life; b)Hares, who did not eat it... and satisfied with cinnamon tree, eating which, they approached more to eternity, instead of immortality.

Probably, root-eating Hares became later Gods and created prosperous civilization Uye, where the main monetary equivalent was the holy jade "Hu-Ie-Uye". It was hard and strong, shining and smooth, like polished.

But there was one Hare, Tue, who did not want immortality and he called the simple Hares to struggle against hated jade regime Hu-Ie-Uye, he called to become possessing of equal rights, that meant, to become happy at the same time.

And then the Hare Tue was sent far away, they did not want he embarrassed the others. Now the others did the only thing - they all searched their happiness, sometimes they forgot even to breed.

In this way the Hare Tue found himself on the Moon under cinnamon tree Shue, where he crushed the divine drug for immortality, standing on his hind legs. Probably he did it for his Hare-brothers.

We can add to this, that well-known expert in mythology, orientalist E.Nikiforoff considers that this Jade Hare Uye-Tue became a prototype of Prometheus, who was, according to another myth, chained to the mountain Ararat because he also wanted to make all people happy.



© Александр Грановский, 2001-2024.
© Галина Грановская, перевод, 2001-2024.
© Сетевая Словесность, 2001-2024.





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