Why Read the Classics? by Italo Calvino Page A

sentiments reach new peaks. For example, in the story of the two men who go on a journey, one who resigns himself to the will of God, the other who wants to have a rational explanation for everything, the psychological characterisation of the two men is so persuasive that it is impossible not to empathise more with the first man: he never loses sight of the complexity of everything, while the second is a malevolent and mean spirited know-all. The moral that we can derive from this is that what counts is not so much one’s philosophical stance as how to live in harmony with the truth one believes in.
    However, it is impossible to separate the various traditions which converge in
The Seven Princesses
because Nezami’s heady figurative language blends them all together in his creative melting pot, and he spreads over every page a gilded patina studded with metaphors which are embedded inside each other like precious gems in a dazzling necklace. The result is that the stylistic unity of the book seems all-pervasive, extending even to the introductory sections on wisdom and mysticism. (In connection with the latter I will mention the vision of Mohammed, who rises to heaven upon a winged angel, upwards to the point where all three dimensions disappear and ‘the Prophet saw God but no space, and heard words that came from no lips and carried no sounds’.)
    The decorations of this verbal tapestry are so luxuriant that any parallels we might find in Western literature (beyond the analogies of medieval thematics and the wealth of fantasy in Renaissance works by Shakespeare and Ariosto) would naturally be with works of heaviest baroque; but even Marino’s
Adonis
and Basile’s
Pentameron
are works of laconic sobrietycompared to the proliferation of metaphors which encrust Nezami’s tale and germinate a hint of narrative in every single image.
    This universe of metaphors has characteristics and constants all of its own. The onager, the wild ass of the Iranian highlands — which if you see it in encyclopedias and, if I remember correctly, in zoos, is no more than an average-sized donkey—in Nezami’s verses acquires the dignity of more noble, heraldic creatures, and appears almost on every page. In Prince Bahrain’s hunts the onager is the most sought after and difficult quarry, often cited alongside the lion as the foe against which the hunter measures his strength and skill. When it comes to metaphors, the onager is an image of strength, and even virile sexual power, but also of amorous prey (the onager pursued by the lion), of female beauty and of youth in general. And since its flesh is extremely tasty, we find ‘maidens with onagers’ eyes, roasting onager thighs on the fire’.
    Another polyvalent metaphor is that of the cypress tree: used to evoke virile strength as well as being a phallic symbol, we also find it used as a paragon of feminine beauty (height is always especially prized), and associated with female hair, but also with flowing waters and even with the morning sun. Almost all the metaphorical functions of the cypress tree are applied also at one point to a lit candle, as well as having several other functions. In fact the delirium of similes here is such that anything can mean anything else.
    There are some bravura passages of strings of metaphors one after the other: for instance, a description of winter in which a series of frosty images (‘the attack of cold had turned the swords into water and water into swords’: the notes explain that the swords of the sun’s rays turn into the water of rain and the rain becomes the sword-like flashes of lightning; and even if the explanation is not accurate, it is still a beautiful image) is followed by an apotheosis of fire, and a corresponding description of spring, full of plant personifications such as ‘the breeze was then pawned for the basil’s perfume’.
    Another catalyst of metaphors is each of the seven colours which dominate each tale. How can one