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Portuguese to English: The duckling that didn't learn how to fly General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - Portuguese Taco era um patinho. Era amarelo e fofo como todos os patinhos, quando acabam de sair dos ovos. Mamãe pata olhava feliz para Taco e seus nove irmãozinhos.
Papai pato conversava com os amigos e dizia, orgulhosos que seus filhos haveriam de ser lindos patos selvagens, capazes de voar longe, muito longe livres...
Brincavam o dia inteiro, fazendo uma enorme gritaria, com toda a criançada da vizinhança: os sabiás, os beija-flores, os coelhinhos.
E chegaram mesmo a ficar amigos de uns peixinhos, com quem gostavam de apostar corrida no ribeirão.
Tudo era só brincadeira até que o pai chamou todos os patinhos e, com ar muito sério disse:
-Chegou a hora de começar o treinamento para a liberdade. Taco perguntou logo se liberdade era coisa de comer, se era doce ou azeda. Nenhum patinho tinha ouvido esta palavra antes.
Papai pato deu uma risada e disse:
- Não, não é nada disto.
Liberdade é poder fazer aquilo que agente quer muito, muito mesmo. O que as nuvens mais querem é virar chuva. Porque a chuva faz as plantas brotarem.
E as nuvens ficam felizes quando viram chuva.
O que os sabiás mais querem é começar a cantar, antes do sol nascer, aquele canto triste e comprido, que faz com que todos os bichos fiquem felizes porque os sábias existem. O mundo seria tão triste sem eles...
O que os beija-flores mais querem é ser capazes de bater as asas tão rápido, que ninguém vê, e ficar voando, parados, na frente das flores, sugando o seu melzinho.
As flores sorriem para os beija-flores e os beija-flores sorriem para elas. E todos se sentem felizes.
O que as rosas mais desejam é tomar um banho de sol e espalhar o seu perfume...
E há um peixe que tem um desejo enorme de voltar às nascentes do rio onde nasceu.
E para voltar a este lugar encantado ele é capaz mesmo de soltar sobre cachoeiras...
-E nós, que é que nós mais queremos?- perguntou um dos irmãozinhos.
-Nós somos patos selvagens. Nosso maior desejo mais fundo, a coisa que mais queremos , é voar. Voar alto. Voar muito alto.
Voes verão, quando crescerem um pouco mais. Vocês sabem o que é saudade? Saudade é uma coisa que a gente sente quando alguém muito querido partiu e está muito longe. Saudade dói. Às vezes a gente chora de saudade. Pois bem: isto, que nós patos selvagens sentimos, se parece com saudade. Do mesmo jeito que o peixe faz tudo para voltar ao lugar onde nasceu, nós fazemos tudo para chegar às alturas. Nós nascemos para viver nas alturas.
Lá no alto é maravilhoso, continuou o pai. Ás vezes, de tarde, o sol vai se pondo, escondendo-se atrás das montanhas. As nuvens vão ficando vermelhas. Todos os bichos vão voltando para suas casas. As árvores, as matas, as montanhas, o vento, tudo está quietinho. Como se estivesse rezando. Só se ouve o flap-flap das nossas asas. E a gente sente que aquele momento é a coisa mais bonita da vida inteira...
Taco desatou numa gargalhada.
- Que é isto, papai? Voar nestas alturas? Aqui embaixo está tão bom. Eu não sei voar e não quero aprender a voar. Corro muito bem, brinco de pique, sei nadar, me divirto á beça com a meninada... Que coisa mais gostosa pode existir na vida?
Não existe nada que eu troque por uma brincadeira de esconde-esconde com os coelhinhos e os pardais...
O papai Pato parou de sorrir.
Seus olhos ficaram tristes.
Ele pensou antes de falar.
- Eu não queria falar sobre isto agora, porque é muito triste. Mas o pato que não aprende a ser livre acaba virando pato doméstico.
- O que é isto, pato doméstico?- perguntou um dos patinhos com um bocadinho de medo.
- A gente fica doméstico quando arranja um dono.
- E o que é isso? – perguntou Taco.
-Entre nós, bichos, não havia dono. Ninguém era dono de ninguém. Ninguém era animal doméstico. Foram os homens que inventaram isto.vieram os homens com laços e redes e puseram os animais dentro de cercados e os obrigaram a trabalhar para eles.
Os cavalos, em outros tempos tão orgulhosos e livres, correndo pela campinas, viraram bestas de montaria e de carga.
Não podem fazer o que querem porque os homens puseram freios nas suas bocas e apertam suas barrigas com esporas...
Ah! Como eles choram de noite por haver perdido sua liberdade.
Coisa parecida aconteceu com os cachorros, galinhas, vacas e bois, continuou o pai. Não são donos dos seus narizes. Têm de fazer o que os homens mandam. E quando não obedecem, apanham. Às vezes, quando não servem para mais nada, são mortos para serem comidos como churrasco ou como galinha assada. E a mesma coisa acontece com os patos que não aprendem a ser livres. Acabam virando animais domésticos. Passam a ter um dono...
Os patinhos estremeceram. Mas o pai continuou.
- Os homens descobriram, depois, que eles podiam domesticar uns aos outros, também.
E passaram a fazer uns aos outros aquilo que tinham feito aos animais. Os mais forte ficaram donos dos mais fracos. Os mais fracos são obrigados a fazer a vontade dos mais fortes. E há homens e mulheres, centenas, milhares, que passam a vida inteira sem realizar o seu desejo mais profundo, aquilo que nos faz felizes. Só sabem fazer a vontade dos outros.
Eles não aprenderam a liberdade.
Foram domesticados.
Taco, nesta hora, estava mais interessado em acompanhar o vôo de uma borboleta. Foi quando um bando de pardais passou, fazendo algazarra, com um convite:
- Vamos brincar de pega?
Taco, cansado com o “papo-furado’ do pai, saiu correndo e desapareceu. Foi atrás dos pardais. Brincar na verdade, era a única coisa que lhe interessava.
“Meu pai se preocupa demais com a vida” , ele pensou.
“Ainda há muito tempo. Depois eu penso nessa coisa chamada liberdade. A vida é muito boa...”.
Os outros patinhos começaram o treinamento.
Passavam horas a fio batendo as asas. Suas asas deveriam ser fortes para voar por muito tempo. Aprenderam a respeitar fundo porque, para voar nas alturas precisariam de muito ar. Seu pai lhe ensinou a voar sem esbarrar uns nos outros. E assim o tempo foi passando. Ficavam cansados. E tinham muita inveja do Taco, despreocupado.
O tempo passou.
O inverno foi chegando, aos poucos. O sol se escondia mais cedo. As folhas das árvores começaram a cair. A comida foi ficando mais difícil. Taco notou que não havia mais companheiros para a brincadeira... pareciam que todos haviam se escondido. Bandos de patos selvagens começaram a passar, voando lá nas alturas, perto das nuvens. Estavam de viagem, indo para onde era mais quente, para onde havia mais comida. Ele notou que sua família também se preparava para a viagem.
Chegara a hora que ele pensara nunca havia de chegar. E ele começou a ter medo. Ele nunca havia treinado para ser livre. Nunca havia voado nas alturas. Apalpou os músculos de suas asas. Eram fraquinhos, murchos...mas era tarde demais.
Chegou o dia da partida. Toda a família se reuniu e veio a ordem:
- Bater as asas...
Todos começaram a bater suas asas para esquentar o corpo.
- Voar – grasnou o pai.
Todos se elevaram.
Menos o taco. Seu pai o viu, sozinho, no chão. Disse à mãe que continuasse.
Haviam de se encontrar depois.
Ele tinha de ficar para proteger o filho que não treinara para a liberdade.
Fez uma longa cursa e voltou.
Taco não conseguiu mesmo voar.
O remédio era ficar, na esperança de que conseguiriam sobreviver.
A comida faltava. O pai tinha que voar longas distâncias para buscar comida. Aí chegaram os caçadores. Ninguém os viu. Só se ouvia o trovão de suas espingardas, ao longe. Um dia seu pai saiu e não voltou mais. Aí os caçadores apareceram, com seus laços e redes, em busca dos animais que poderiam ser domesticados. Taco tentou fugir, nadando. Mas uma grande rede redonda caiu sobre ele.
Foi levado para um sítio e bem tratado. A vida não era má. Ele tinha milho a vontade. Mas uma de suas asas foi cortada para não voar. E foi colocado atrás de uma cerca. Havia se transformado em um pato doméstico. Foi engordando, engordando... Quando o inverno ia chegando, havia o grasnar dos patos selvagens, voando lá nas alturas, brilhando sob a luz do sol.
Foi só então que ele compreendeu o que seu pai lhe havia dito. Sentia um desejo profundo, lá no fundo, coisa doída parecida com saudade. Queria voar, voar com todos os patos selvagens.
Por um momento esqueceu-se de tudo. Abriu suas asas, bateu-as com toda a força que era capaz. Chegou até a levantar os pés do chão. Mas era inútil. Muito gordo, músculos moles, asa cortada. Era um pato doméstico.
O pato selvagem só vivia lá dentro do seu coração, como um grande desejo.
Duas grossas lágrimas rolaram pela sua face.
Mas elas não adiantavam de nada.
Nesta hora, abriu-se a porta do cercadinho e seu dono jogou um punhado de milho.
Mas ele não tinha fome.
Translation - English Paddle was a duckling. He was yellow and cute like all other ducklings, when the eggs hatch. Mother Duck looked happily at Paddle and his nine little siblings.
Father Duck talked to his friends and said, proudly, his babies were going to be beautiful wild ducks, able to fly very far, very high, and free...
Paddle and his little brothers soon learned life was a delight.
They played all day long, making a real racket, with all the other babies in the neighborhood: the thrushes, the hummingbirds, and the baby bunnies.
And they even made friends with a few baby fish, with which they loved to race, on the river.
Everything was just a joke, until the father called all the ducklings and, in a very serious tone of voice, said:‘It’s time to start training for freedom.’
Paddle soon asked if freedom was something to eat, if it was sweet or sour. No duckling had heard this word before.
Father Duck chuckled and said:
‘No, it’s nothing like that.’
‘Freedom is being able to do what we want very, very much.’
‘What clouds want the most is to turn into rain. Because rain makes the plants sprout. And the clouds get happy when they turn to rain.’‘What thrushes want the most is to start to sing, before sunrise, that long, sad serenade, which makes all the animals glad that thrushes exist. The world would be so sad without them...’‘What hummingbirds want the most is to be able to flap their wings so fast that nobody can see them, and keep flying, still, in front of flowers, sucking their nectar.The flowers smile at the hummingbirds and the hummingbirds smile back at them. And everyone feels happy.’‘What roses want the most is to take a sunbath and spread their perfume...’
‘And there is a fish that has a great desire to go back to the headwaters of the river where it was born. And to return to this magic place it can even leap up waterfalls...’
‘And us, what do we want the most?’ asked one of his siblings.
‘We’re wild ducks. Our deepest desire, what we want the most is to fly. Fly high. Fly very high.’
‘You’ll see when you grow up a bit more. You know what longing is? Longing is something we feel when a loved one is gone and very far away. It hurts. Hurts so much it makes you cry. Well, as wild ducks, we feel something similar to longing. The same way the fish does everything to get back to the place where it was born, we do everything to reach the heights. We’re born to live up on high.’
‘Up there, it’s wonderful,’ the father continued. ‘Sometimes, in the afternoon, the sun sets, hiding behind the mountains. The clouds turn red and all the animals go back home. The trees, the forests, the mountains, the wind, everything falls quiet. As if they were praying. All that is heard is the flapping of our wings. And we feel that moment is the most beautiful thing in our entire life...'
Paddle burst out laughing. ‘What’s that, Dad? Flying up on high? Down here is so good. I don’t know how to fly and I don’t want to learn how to fly. I run really well, I play tag, I know how to swim, and I have a lot of fun with the other kids... What could be more delightful? There’s nothing I would swap for playing hide-and-seek with the bunnies and the sparrows...'Father Duck stopped smiling.
His eyes were sad.
He paused before speaking.
‘I didn’t want to talk about this now, because it’s very sad. But the duck that doesn’t learn to be free ends up becoming a domestic duck.’
‘What’s that, a domestic duck?’ asked one of the ducklings in fear.‘We become domestic when we have an owner.'‘And what’s that?’ asked Paddle.
‘Among us, animals, there weren’t any owners. No one owned anyone. Nobody was a pet. Men were the ones who invented that. Men came along with their tethers and nets, put the animals in pens and forced them to work for them.’
‘The horses, in the past, were so proud and free, galloping through meadows, but they were broken in and became beasts of burden.’
‘They cannot do what they want because men put bits in their mouths and prodded their bellies with spurs...’
‘Oh! They cry so much at night for having lost their freedom.’
‘Something similar happened with dogs, chicken, and cattle,’ continued the father. ‘They aren’t their own selves. They have to do what men tell them to. And when they don’t obey, they’re flogged. Sometimes, when they’re of no use for anything else, they’re killed and barbecued or roasted. And the same thing happens to ducks that don’t learn how to be free. They end up becom-ing domesticated. They end up having an owner…’
The ducklings shuddered. But their father continued.
‘Men found out, later on, they could domesticate each other, as well.’
‘And they started to do to each other what they had done to the animals. The strongest were the owners of the weakest. The weakest were made to do the things the strongest wanted. And there are men and women, hundreds, thousands, who spend their entire lives without accomplishing their deepest desire, that which makes us happy. They only know how to do what others want.’
‘They haven’t learned about freedom.’
‘They were domesticated.’
Right now, Paddle was more interested in following a flitting butterfly. That was when a flock of sparrows passed, whooping, with an invitation:
‘Let's play tag?’
Tired of his father’s “lecture”, Paddle ran off and disappeared. He followed the sparrows. Playing, in fact, was the only thing that interested him.
‘My father worries too much about life,’ he thought.
‘There’s still a long time. I’ll think about this thing called freedom later. Life is very good...’
The other ducklings began training.
They spent hours on end flapping. Their wings have to be strong to fly for a long time. They learned to breathe deeply because, to fly up on high, they need a lot of air. Their father taught them how to fly without bumping into each other. And so, time passed. They were tired. And they were very jealous of carefree Paddle.
Time went by.
Winter was coming, slowly. The sun hid earlier. The leaves began to fall. The food was get-ting harder to find. Paddle noticed there were no friends to play with... it seemed like everyone had hidden. Flocks of wild ducks began to pass, flying up on the high near the clouds. They were travel-ling, going where it was warmer, where there was more food. He noticed his family was preparing for going on a trip too.
There came the time he never thought would come. And he began to be afraid. He had never trained to be free. He had never flown up on high. He felt the muscles of his wings. They were weak and shriveled... but it was too late.
The day of departure had arrived. The whole family gathered and the order came:
‘Flap your wings...’
Everyone began flapping their wings to warm their bodies.
‘Fly,’ squawked the father.
Everyone rose.
Except for Paddle. His father saw him, alone, on the ground. He told the mother to travel on.
They would meet up later.
He had to stay and protect his son who had not trained to be free.
He flew around and returned.
Paddle could not fly at all.
The solution was to stay, in the hope they could survive.Food was scarce. The father had to fly long distances to find food. Then, the hunters arrived. Nobody saw them. Only the thunder of their guns could be heard, from a distance. One day, his father left and never came back. Then, the hunters appeared, with their leaches and nets in search of animals to domesticate. Paddle tried to escape by swimming, but a large round net fell upon him.He was taken to a farm and treated well. Life was not bad. He had corn a plenty. But one of his wings was cut so he could not fly. And he was placed behind a fence. He had become a domestic duck. He was getting fatter, and fatter... When winter came, he would hear the quacking of wild ducks, flying up on high, shining under the sunlight.It was only then he realized what his father had told him. He felt a desire, deep down, something ached like longing. He wanted to fly, fly with all the wild ducks.
For a moment, he forgot about everything. He opened his wings, flapped them with all the strength he could matter. He even lifted his feet off the ground. But it was useless. Too fat, flaccid muscles, wings cut. He was a domestic duck.
The wild duck only lived inside his heart, like a great desire.
Two big tears rolled down his face.
But they were of no use.
Just then, the door of the pen opened and his owner threw a handful of corn.
But he was not hungry.
This story is about freedom.
Maybe the parents will feel the anguish more than their children…
What that tells you is that freedom to fly is a gift that comes from discipline…
My friends told me that this story can lead to misunderstandings, like:
‘See, son, what happens to little boys who do not obey their parents?’
To avoid this danger, I suppose I should say that the tale is told by a fat duck in a yard full of corn, and that one day his son, seeing a sad expression on his face, asked him:
‘Why are you so sad, dad?’
And he would tell this tale, his own tale.
It is a tale about freedom that we, parents, fat ducks, have lost…
We would like to fly again on our children’s wings.
If they do not get fat like us…
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Bachelor's degree - University of Brasilia
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Years of experience: 10. Registered at ProZ.com: Dec 2013. Became a member: Mar 2020.
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Portuguese to English (Universidade de Brasília - Departamento de Línguas Estrangeiras e Tradução, verified)
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