David Treuer

from dr apelles

There is only one event in life which really astonishes a man and startles him out of his prepared opinions. Everything else befalls him very much as he expected.

– Robert Louis Stevenson, On Falling In Love

“ Read it aloud, your grace,” said Sancho. “I really like things that have to do with love.”

– Cervantes, Don Quixote

Apelles’ Song

CUPID and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses,—Cupid paid;
He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows,
His mother’s doves, and team of sparrows:
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose
Growing on’s cheek (but none knows how);
With these the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin:
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes;
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love, has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?

– John Lyly, Alexander and Campaspe, 1584

Translator’s Introduction

I was looking for a book.

A very particular book in a vast and wonderful library. I found what I was looking for. It hadn’t been opened for quite a long time judging by the dust that coated the upper edge and by the way the paper had yellowed on all the sides creeping toward the gutter. When I opened it, some loose pages different from those of the book fell onto the floor. I picked them up and noticed that they were covered with text in a language I did not understand.

After much searching I found someone who could make sense of those words for me. I listened as he spoke the story out loud. What I heard was the most amazing tale I’ve ever heard—full of Indians beautiful to look at and also Indians who were treacherous, full also of hunting episodes, of capture and recapture. The tale was about foundlings (who are only called that because once they were lost) and about animals, too, and kidnappers and prostitutes. In this story there is war and reconciliation, a marriage, and the death of a boy. Ultimately, what I heard was a story about the quest for beauty. It is sometimes surprising where you find it.

I was moved. What I heard was profound. And I decided to try and render that story into English and into a language, an idiom that, God willing, can be translated into other languages as easily as we shed one set of clothes only to don another. I have also tried to paint a portrait of the body underneath those clothes that is beautiful even in its smallest part and that will be beautiful no matter what language it wears. Because, above all, I have written this down as an offering, as an offering to the world, an offering of beauty and of _____. But I cannot write that because that word has lost its meaning. So. An offering of beauty because beauty endures no matter what and no one is immune to it, no one has escaped from it, and no one ever will so long as there are eyes to see, ears to hear, and ink with which we can preserve it forever.

I hope you accept this offering, this book, this gift of beauty, and that you read it to the end. And then, turn back here and read it again.

In the meantime, the task is before me. I only hope that I can hear what few have heard, see what few have seen, and emerge full, whole, healed, on the other side. I hope I can relate the lives and feelings of others, the beauty of it all, without losing my mind. But as with many beautiful things, this story was born out of conflict. They were difficult times. It was a time of

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