"You'd be surprised!" Snail replied, and they decided to have a race.
Snail positioned all his friends and relatives along the racetrack, knowing that to Antelope they all looked alike.
As Antelope ran, he shouted, "Where are you, Snail?" and each time a Snail ahead of him on the track shouted back, "I'm way ahead of you!"
Antelope ran faster and faster, but Snail was always ahead.
Then, when he finally reached the finish-line running as fast as he could, Snail was there already.
"You really are fast," Antelope admitted.
Snail just smiled.
Inspired by: "The Antelope and the Snail" in Mabale Stories (published in Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies London) by J. Tanghe, 1931.
Notes: You can read the original story online, where you will find a literal interlinear translation plus a more fluid translation at the end. The Bamabale people live on the Congo River; the Mabale language belongs to the Bantu language family.
No comments:
Post a Comment