Gintong putik
OurLady's Juggler
In the days of King Louis there lived a poor juggler by the name of Barnabas, a native of Compiegne, who wandered from city to city performing tricks of skill and prowess.
On fair days he would lay down in the public square a worn and aged carpet, and after having attracted a group of children and idlers by certain amusing remarks which he had learned from an old juggler, and which he invariably repeated in the same fashion without altering a word, he would assume the strangest postures and balance a pewter plate on the tip of his nose. At first, the crowd regarded him with indifference, but when, with his hands and head on the ground he threw into the air and caught with his feet six copper balls that glittered in the sunlight, or when, throwing himself back until his neck touched his heels, he assumed the form of a perfect wheel and in that position juggled with twelve knives, he elicited a murmur of admiration from his audience, and small coins rained on his carpet.
Still, Barnabas of Compiegne, like most of those who exist by their accomplishments, had a hard time making a living. Earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, he bore rather than his share of those miseries we are all heir to through the fault of our Father Adam.
Besides, he was unable to work as much as he would have liked, for in order to exhibit his wonderful talents, he required like trees the warmth of the sun and the heat of the day. In wintertime, he was no more than a tree stripped of its leaves, in fact, half-dead. The frozen earth was too hard for the juggler. Like the cicada mentioned by Marie de France, he suffered during the bad season from hunger and cold. But since he had a simple heart, he suffered in silence.
He had never thought much about the origin of wealth nor about the inequality of human conditions. He firmly believed that if this world was evil the next could not be good, and this faith upheld him. He was not like the clever fellows who sell
In the days of King Louis there lived a poor juggler by the name of Barnabas, a native of Compiegne, who wandered from city to city performing tricks of skill and prowess.
On fair days he would lay down in the public square a worn and aged carpet, and after having attracted a group of children and idlers by certain amusing remarks which he had learned from an old juggler, and which he invariably repeated in the same fashion without altering a word, he would assume the strangest postures and balance a pewter plate on the tip of his nose. At first, the crowd regarded him with indifference, but when, with his hands and head on the ground he threw into the air and caught with his feet six copper balls that glittered in the sunlight, or when, throwing himself back until his neck touched his heels, he assumed the form of a perfect wheel and in that position juggled with twelve knives, he elicited a murmur of admiration from his audience, and small coins rained on his carpet.
Still, Barnabas of Compiegne, like most of those who exist by their accomplishments, had a hard time making a living. Earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, he bore rather than his share of those miseries we are all heir to through the fault of our Father Adam.
Besides, he was unable to work as much as he would have liked, for in order to exhibit his wonderful talents, he required like trees the warmth of the sun and the heat of the day. In wintertime, he was no more than a tree stripped of its leaves, in fact, half-dead. The frozen earth was too hard for the juggler. Like the cicada mentioned by Marie de France, he suffered during the bad season from hunger and cold. But since he had a simple heart, he suffered in silence.
He had never thought much about the origin of wealth nor about the inequality of human conditions. He firmly believed that if this world was evil the next could not be good, and this faith upheld him. He was not like the clever fellows who sell