#yanez | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

elia-de-silentio · 2 years

Text

THE TIGERS OF MOMPRACEM

Chapter 1: The Pirates Of Mompracem

On the night of the 20th of December 1849 an extremely violent hurricane crashed upon Mompracem, a savage island, of sinister fame, hideout for terrific pirates, located in the sea of Malesia, a few hundred miles from Borneo’s western coasts.

In the sky, pushed by an irresistible wind, ran like wild horses, and mixing confusedly, black masses of vapors, which, from time to time, let fall furious storms on the dark forests of the island; on the sea, likewise lifted by the wind, huge waves crashed unorderly and crushed furiously, confounding their howls with the blasts, now short and dry now unending, of the lightnings.

Neither from the huts lined up at the end of the island’s bay, nor from the forts defending it, nor from the numerous boats secured beyond the cliffs, nor from under the woods, nor from the stormy surface of the sea, there was a light to be seen; but those who, coming from east, had looked up, would have seen on the peak of an high cliff, right on the sea, two bright spots, two windows vividly lightened.

Who could ever hold vigil at such an hour and with a similar storm, in the island of the bloodthirsty pirates?

In a labyrinth of crushed trenches, falling-apart embankments, gutted cages, next to which one could still glimpse broken weapons and human bones, rose a large and solid hut, decorated on the roof by a big red flag, with a tiger head in the middle.

A room in that house is lightened, the walls are covered in heavy red fabrics, velvets and brocades, of high quality, but crumpled, torn and stained here and there, and the floor vanishes under an high layer of Persian rugs, gleaming gold, but them too ripped and dirtied.

In the middle there’s an ebony table, engraved with mother-of-pearl and decorated with silver friezes, full of bottles and glasses of the rarest crystal; in the corner stand erect big scaffolds, partly ruined, chock full of jars overboarding golden bracelets, earrings, rings, lockets, precious sacred decorations, contorted or crushed, of pearls doubtlessly coming from the famous shores of Ceylan, of emeralds, rubies and diamonds that shone like many suns, under the reflexes of a golden lamp hanging from the ceiling.

In a corner sits a Turkish sofa with trimmings torn here and there; in another an ebony armonium with the keyboard missing and upturned, in a chaos beyond words, are scattered rolled up rugs, gorgeous dresses, paintings maybe due to famous brushes, upturned lamps, straight or upside down bottles, whole or crushed glasses, and then carved Indian carabines, Spanish arquebuses, sables, swords, axes, knives, guns.

In such an oddly decorated room, a man sits on a precarious chair; he’s tall, slender, with a powerful musculature, his features manly, energic, fierce and oddly beautiful.

Long hair falls on his upper arms; an extremely black beard frames his slightly tanned face.

His forehead is ample, shadowed by two wonderful, sharply arched eyebrows, a small mouth that shows teeth as sharp as those of the beasts, as shiny as pearls; two extremely black eyes, of a gleam that charms, that burns, that casts down every other gaze.

He had been sitting for a few minutes, his gaze fixed on the lamp, his hands nervously enclosed around the rich saber, which dangled from a large, red silken scarf, wrapped around a blue velvet tunic with golden embrodery. A formidable downpour, which shook the house down to its foundations, suddenly tore him away from such immobility. He threw down his long tresses, he fixed on his head the turban decorated with a beautiful diamond, as big as a walnut, and quickly rose, darting around a gaze in which one could read something dark and menacing.

“It’s midnight,” he muttered. “Midnight, and he still isn’t back!”

He slowly emptied a glass full of an amber liquid, then he opened the door, strode amongst the trenches that defended the hut and stopped on the brink of the great precipice, at which base the sea roared furiously. For a few minutes he stayed there, arms crossed, as still as the peak that supported him, breathing with pleasure the terrifying blows of the storm and gazing upon the upturned sea, then he slowly retreated, went back into the hut and stopped in front of the armonium.

“What a contrast!” he exclaimed. “Outside, the hurricane; inside, me. Which is the most dangerous?”

He brushed his fingers against the keyboard, producing extremely fast sounds, which had something strange, savage and then slowed down, until they extinguished amongst the thunders and the howling wind.

All of a sudden, he sharply turned his head towards the half-open door. For a moment he stood, listening, curved forward, his ears awake; then he quickly got out, right to the brink of the precipice.

In the brief light of a lightning he saw a small trunk of wood, the veils nearly lowered, enter the bay and mix with the still boats. Our man brought a golden whistle to his lips and sent three shrill notes; an high-pitched whistle answered a moment later.

-It’s him!- he exclaimed with true emotion. -It was about time!

Five minutes later a human being, huddled in a soaked cloak, stood in front of the hut.

“Yanez!” exclaimed the man with the turban, throwing his arms around him.

“Sandokan!” answered the newcomer, with a strong foreign accent. “Brr! What a hellish night, little brother”

“Come in!”

They quickly crossed the trenches and entered the lit up room, closing the door behind them.

Sandokan filled two glasses and giving one to the stranger, who had got rid from the cloak and the carabina at his neck, he told him with an accent of almost affection: “Drink, my good Yanez”

“To your health, Sandokan”

“To yours”

They emptied their glasses and sat at the table.

The newcomer was a man of about thirty-three or thirty-four years, that is, slightly older than his companion. He was of average height, extremely sturdy, with a very pale skin, regular features, clever grey eyes, his lips thin and sneering, clues of a steel will. One could tell at a glance that he was not only European, but belonging to some Southern race.

“Well, Yanez?” asked Sandokan with a certain emotion. “Did you see the golden-haired maiden?”

“I didn’t, but I do know what you wanted to know”

“Didn’t you go to Labuan?”

“Yes, but you’ll understand, on those coasts guarded by English cruisers, landing is difficult for people of our kind”

“Tell me about this maiden. Who is she?”

“I’ll tell you, she’s a marvelously beautiful creature, so beautiful that she’d bewitch the most formidable pirate”

“Ah!” exclaimed Sandokan.

“They told me her hair is as blonde as gold, her eyes more blue than the sea, her flesh as white as alabaster. I know that Alamba, one of our fiercest pirates, one evening saw her taking a walk in the island’s woods and he was so struck by such beauty that he stopped the boat to admire her better, at risk of getting butchered by the English cruisers”

“But, to whom does she belong?”

“Some say she’s the daughter of a colonist; others of a lord; other still that she’s no less than a relative of the governor of Labuan”

“Strange creature” Sandokan murmured, pressing his forehead on his hands.

“And so …?” Yanez asked.

The pirate didn’t answer. He had briskly risen under a lively emotion and he had gone in front of the harmonium, sliding his fingers on the keys.

Yanez just smiled and, taking out an old mandola, started plucking at its chords, saying:

“That’s good! Let’s do some music”

But he had barely begun playing a Portuguese little tune, wheen he saw Sandokan briskly approach the table, pressing his hands on it with such strenght as to bend it.

He wasn’t the same man anymore: his brow was stormly furrowed, his eyes shone darkly, his lips, retracted, showed convulsely clenched teeth, his limbs shivered. In that moment he was the formidable leader of the fierce Mompracem pirates, the man who had been bloodying the coasts of Malaysia for ten years, the man who had fought terrible battles in every place, the man whose extraordinary boldness, whose untamed bravery had earned him the moniker of Tiger of Malaysia.

“Yanez!” he cried with a voice that no longer held anything human. “What did the English do at Labuan?”

“They get stronger” answered the European calmly.

“Perhaps they are plotting something against me?”

“I believe so”.

“Ah! You believe so? Just they dare raise a finger against my Mompracem! Tell them that just they dare defy the pirates in their hideouts! The Tiger will destroy them down to the last man and will drink all of their blood. Tell me, what do they say about me?”

“That’s time to end it with such a ferocious pirate”

“Do they hate me very much?”

“Enough that they’d be content with losing all of their ships, if it was to hang you”

“Ah!”

“Do you perhaps doubt it? Little brother, it’s many years since you do one worse than the other. Every coast bears the traces of your attacks; every village and every city has been assaulted and sacked by you; every Dutch, Spanish and English forts have received your cannonballs and the deep of the sea is littered by ships you took down”

“It’s true, but whose fault is it? Perhaps that the white men haven’t been ruthless with me? Perhaps that they didn’t dethrone me with the excuse that I was becoming too powerful? Perhaps that they didn’t murder my mother, my brother and sisters, to destroy my descendence? What wrong had I done them? The white race had never had to complain about me, yet it wanted to crush me. Now I hate them, be they Spanish, or Dutch, or English, or Portugueses like you, I abhor them and I’ll have terrible vengeance on them, I swore so on the corpses of my family and I’ll keep my word!

Yet, if I have been ruthless with my enemies, I hope some voice will raise to say that I have been generous sometimes”

“Not one, but a hundred, a thousand voices can say that you have been even too generous with the weak” said Yanez. “This can attest all those women fell in your power that you brought back in the docks of white man, at risk of being brought down by cruisers; this can say the weak tribes against the pillages of the arrogant, the poor sailor deprived of their woods by storms and that you saved from the waves and covered in presents, and a hundred, a thousand others that will always remember your benefits, Sandokan.

But now tell me, little brother, what do you think to conclude?”

The Tiger of Malaysia didn’t answer. He had begun pacing up and down for the room with his arms crossed and his chin pressed down on his chest. What was that formidable man thinking about? The Portuguese Yanez, for whatever long he had known him, couldn’t have guessed.

“Sandokan” he said after a few minutes. “What are you thinking about?”

The Tiger stopped, staring at him, but still didn’t answer.

“Do you have some thoughts that torments you?” asked Yanez. “Ah! One would say you worry that the English hate you so much”

Again, the pirate remained silent.

The Portuguese rose, lit a cigarette and proceeded towards a door hidden in the tapestry, saying:

“Good night, little brother”

Sandokan was startled at these words and, stopping the Portuguese with a gesture, said:

“One word, Yanez”

“Speak then”

“Do you know that I want to go to Labuan?”

“You! … To Labuan!”

"Why such surprise?"

"Because you're too daring and you'd do something foolish in the hideout of your fiercest enemies"

Sandokan stared at him with blazing eyes and emitted a sort of low growl.

“Brother” the Portuguese continued. “Don’t try your luck too much. Beware! The famelic England has put its eyes on our Mompracem and maybe is just waiting for your death to throw itself at your tiger cubs and destroy them. Beware, because I’ve seen a cruiser full of cannons and armed men run around in our waters, and that’s a lion that is waiting for nothing but a prey”

“But it will meet the Tiger!” cried Sandokan, clutching his fist and shaking from head to toe.

“Yes, he’ll meet him and perhaps hee will perish in the fight, but his death cry will reach the coasts of Labuan and others will move against you. many lions will die, because you’re strong and terrible, but the Tiger will die too!”

“I …!”

Sandokan had jumped forward, his muscles tight in his wrath, his eyes ablaze, his hands clenched as if he was clutching weapons. It lasted for a moment, through: he sat in front of the table, he drank in one gulp a cup still full and he said with a perfectly calm voice:

“You’re right, Yanez; yet I will go to Labuan tomorrow. An irresistible force draws me to these beaches, and a voice whispers to me that I must see the golden-haired maiden, that I must …”

“Sandokan …!”

“Silence, little brother: let’s go to sleep”

Morale della fiaba: tira più un pelo di *mistoconnettendodallaretepubblica* che un carro da buoi. If you’re learning Italian and you want to translate that, you’re welcome.

Anyway, I admit I laughed pretty much from start to finish. I had never read the Sandokan novels before, and … to a modern point of view, they’re pretty trashy, alright. Exoticism, Sandokan’s almost histrionic attitude, the way we are hit with a truckload of exposition in the most obnoxiously tell-don’t-show way …well. Let’s try to explain some of the context around it to understand why it was so popular, then.

First of all, this stylistic choice might have been motivated that it was published chapter-by-chapter in a magazine, like many novels of the time, so Salgari had to grab the reader's attention from the get-go. So, in this first chapter, we are already promised exotic extravagance, adventure, and romance. And these were things that the audiences of the time liked: it was in full exoticism, the fascination for places outside the western world (often exaggerated and embellished) ran rampant. It was the age of Stevenson with his Treasure Island, Rudyard Kipling with his jungle novels. If anything, Salgari gets points for taking squarely the side of the natives and painting the British Empire as a bunch of ruthless invaders instead of the heroes of civilization.

Then, right in this first chapter, we see a type of character foiling Salgari liked a lot: a boisterous, volatile, passionate personality who has by his side a phlegmatic, relaxed, cold character (Sandokan and Yanez).

The Tigers of Mompracem was first published between 1883 and 1884 in a literary magazine, and then as a complete novel in 1900. To be clear, the geography is mostly invented, because Salgari never traveled more south than Brindisi; the setting is all fruit of his literary researches in the library. Mompracem, for one, doesn't really exist, even if it was indicated in the maps back in Salgari's day; a lot of attempts were made to identify an actual physical place among the Malaysian islands, but nothing certain was reached.

This is all for the moment. I hope you liked this translation!

If you did, please consider supporting me with a ko-fi (link in reblog)?

#emilio salgari #the tigers of mompracem #sandokan #yanez #italian literature #19th century #elia's translations

4 notes · View notes

xxtaneria · 2 months

Text

Boyfriend headcanons | seleccion sub-17

summary: just them being cute asf

warnings: fluff, headcanons

(here are some headcanons of them to kill u with cuteness :) )

- raul jimenez

─ whenever he holds you in his arms, and you trace the tattoos on his arm, he constantly get the the thought to get your name tatted on him

- hector fort

─ when he plays video games, and like, a cute thing comes up, hector always thinks of you

- daniel munoz

─ one thing about him, whenever you go shopping, he always insists on carrying your stuff for you, like he won't let you carry ANYTHING around him, even the smallest things

- jon martin

─ he kind of gets scared and isn't sure if he wanted to get a tattoo or not. so he asks you if he should but you have to go with him to prove it

- pau cubarsi

─ pau takes notes on his phone on what your favorite things are so, next time if he goes anywhere, he can look at it so he won't forget anything about you

pau prim

─ if you ever prank pau or like do something he thinks is pretty childish, he know how to get his way. he either pranks you back, or just smothers you with kisses until you say not to prank him again

- pablo lopez

─ he really hates being called 'pablito' by other people, because it makes him feel small . but, he only likes it when you call him 'pablito', like you're the only one who's allowed to call him that

- roberto martin

─ whenever you tease him or make him feel flustered, he waits when you least expect it, only to tease you back

- marc guiu

─ whenever marc goes to play for his national team, he gets extremely nervous, because he doesn't want his team to get eliminated out of any tournament their in . you always reassure him that he can get far and he's super happy about that

- juan hernandez

─ he sometimes gets made fun of for being short and you really don't like it when someone does that . so you're around him like all the time so you can make sure he won't be called 'short' . but, he's extremely grateful for you being with him

peio huestamendia

─ when you guys cuddle, peio really likes to be the little spoon . I mean, he doesn't really mind being the big spoon, but he likes your arms around him

- igor oyono

─ if igor sometimes makes you kinda mad at him, he regrets it almost every time . he will even cry just for you to forgive him, but you do eventually

fran arbol

─ sometimes you go to his matches and admire his goalkeeper skills . sometimes he struggles and asks you if he needs any improvement, you always tell him that's it's okay, and he sometimes does improve though

- izan merino

─ if you ever come to his city to play against whatever team you're going against, he always comes in your jersey, just to show a little support

- andres cuenca

─ the first time he lifted up his hair, you told him that his face is fine and he's beautiful, bangs or no bangs . because he always had an insecurity that he had a big forehead, so he often just tied his hair into a small ponytail when he sees you

- marc bernal

─ when he wakes up first, he tries to wake you up and you always tell him "5 more minutes Marc.." . so he always mentions that he made your favorite breakfast just to wake you up . sometimes he did, sometimes, he did.. not

- oscar mesa

─ oscar is most of the time a cold-blooded person and doesn't show much emotion to things . but when you come to madrid for your el clasico match, he cries . he was the definition of 'crybaby', and he treats you like he hadn't seen you in years . it was shocking, but you love it

- quim junyent

─ on the other hand, quim really likes it when you ruffle his hair, it's very soft and fluffy and it makes him feel special

- daniel yanez

─ sometimes he stresses out because apparently his shirts go 'missing' . but when daniel realized that you keep some of them, he didn't ask for them back, he lets you keep them

- paulo iago

─ whenever he sees you play against his female team of real madrid, he wants to support you by wearing your jersey, but he's afraid that he'll be a traitor to his team . so like, whenever he doesn't go out, he wears it, when nobody's looking

- marcos gonzalez

─ he's the type of person to get really scared whenever you aren't around him . so that's why, whenever you two are in the same bed, he uses hand to to search around for your body and pull you close to him

(their instas just incase: rauljimenezz, hctorfortt, danielmunoznavas_, jonmartin.4, paucubarsi, pauprim_06, ppabblo_, robertomartin_10, marcguiu9, juanht10, peiohuesta_, igoroyono_, fran_arbol, izan4_mr, andres_cuenca4, marcbernal_, oscarmesap17, quimjunyent, danielyb7, paulo.iago10, marcglezz_)

56 notes · View notes