Madax Goodir Kudu

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Madax Goodir

Mar aan gaban ahaa beri

Galab aan adoogay

Geed uu fadhiyi jirey

Sheeko kooban kaga guray,

Wuxuu yidhi: "guyaal hore

Boqor geesalaa jirey

Oo goostay weligii

Inaan iinta lagu garan.

Fule waa geddiisoo

Wuxuu goorba hubiyoo

Gedfo oo cimaamado,

Nin gaaraa sirtii helay

Godob buuse taransaday

Garashadu u sabab tahay

Qof gafaana laga dhigay,

Hadduu gaabsan waayana

Inuu gowrac jiro maqal.

Hadba giirka loo kici

Goldalooladuu helay

Inay gudubto loo diid.

Isna waa gartiisee

Liqi waa gasiinkii

War guntamay la foolqaad

Hadba gaadhka meel dhigay

Dadka uurka googo'ay

Isna garay ka wada qari,

Kuna oloshey gogoshii."

"Goobyaalka layliga

Kolkay gama' is waayeen

Gelin dhexe rugtiisiyo

Gurigii ka soo bood,

Gudcur beegsey duurkiyo

Gelliyada dugaagga leh

Mugdigii galaydhkiyo

Garanuugta kala didi,

Gocoshiyo xasuus iyo

Kalgacayl sabooleed

Gaashaan ka sii dhigay."

"Wuxuu gebidhacleeyaba

Kolkii waagu galac yidhi

Geed hoostii faadhfaadh

Sidii bahal god dheer qoday,

Dabadeed gafuurkiyo

Gadhka ciidda saaryoo

La faq goofkii keligii

Dulucdiina gaadhsii,

‘Inuu boqorka Goojaa

Madax goodir leeyahay'."

"Hadda iga ma goyside

Waxaad iga guraysaa,

Sheeko beri la ii galay.

Geeskii warkiisii

Kii cabudhay kolkii ganay

Garbihiisa laga duul

Gebigii fudayd noqoy

Goobtiina aasyoo

Ka hurgufay go'iisii

Galbay oo ka sii socoy."

"Ka gadaalna meeshii

Laye ‘goortii roob helay,

Geesaa ka soo baxay.'"

Kudu

My father told me this story

when I was a child. We sat

in the shade of a tree and he began:

Long ago there lived a king

who sprouted a pair of horns - just buds,

at first, but he checked them every day

and wore his turban low to hide

this blemish, to hide this mark of shame.

But a king, of course, doesn't wash his own hair!

His man-servant knew all about the king's shame

and day by day the knowledge grew

inside him, a word that had to be spoken,

a terrible secret that had to be told.

They said, You're mistaken.

He said, No.

They said, Dead men keep secrets.

He said, Ah...

There were people, he knew, who would feed on such news,

but his daily bread stuck in his throat.

There were people, he knew, who dreamed of such news,

but he slept on a bed of burning coals.

Then, one night, he could bear it no longer.

He left his house, he walked out of the village,

mile after mile in a torrent of darkness

and came to the watering holes, where the eagle

took flight at his footstep, where the gentle gazelle

shied and ran. He sat by the water

and thought, ‘There was a time when such things

could be openly said. Yes, there was a time

when even the poor could be told the truth.'

When dawn-light shone through the trees, he dug

with his hands, deep down, as a beast digs a den

and placed his mouth close to the hole

he'd made and whispered his terrible secret

to the earth: ‘King Goojaa, King Goojaa has horns.

Horns like the kudu. The king has horns!'

Don't interrupt, my father said.

Please don't ask me what these things mean.

It's just a story I got from my father,

And he from his. Do you want to know

how it ends? Then listen: when the man told his tale

to the earth, the burden left him, it went

underground, and the man, why, he brushed himself down

and went on his way. And this is the strangest

part of the story: that even today,

when the soft rain falls on that place in the bush,

that very same place where he planted his secret,

horns like the kudu's grow from the ground.

Madax Goodir

Once when I was a child

one afternoon, from my father,

under a tree where he used to sit,

I gathered a [kooban forming a full circle] rounded? story.

He said: "[Many] rainy seasons ago,

there was a king with horns,

who decided that never should

the defect be known of him.

A coward has his ways.

He checked them [the horns] all the time

hid them and wrapped them in a turban.

A man who was a servant found out the secret,

but he built up resentment.

The knowledge [of the defect] was the reason for that

and/but he was said to be a person who was mistaken

and, if he did not refrain,

he heard that there would be throat cutting. [i.e. that he would be killed]

And so now the gear [as in a car] was moved up for/against him;

the path of danger which he had found [i.e. the dangerous situation he found himself in]

that it [the news he had] pass across was refused to him. [i.e. he was refused the opportunity of telling the news, refused the opportunity of passing beyond that situation]

And he is his verdict. [He understood the predicament he was in]

Food could not be swallowed;

the news which was knotted kept him awake.

He wandered from place to place;

and from all the people who were broken up in the belly [i.e. who were hungry [for the news]]

he decided to keep it [the news] hidden.

And with that his sleeping mat caught fire. [figurative: he was so wound up it was as if his bed was on fire and so he couldn't sleep]

In the empty space of the night,

when deep sleep was lacking,

in the middle of the night, from his home

and his house, he leapt.

He headed for the darkness of the bush

and the pools with the wild animals.

In the darkness, the eagle

and the Waller's gazelle fled away.

Constant memory and remembrance and

affection for the poor

put a shield down for him. [they were his only defence/ the only thing that kept him going(?)]

He wandered about directionless.

When the dawn shimmered,

he dug under a tree

like a wild animal which dug a deep hole.

Then he put his face

and his beard on the ground

and whispered with [as in talked with] the hole on its own

and passed on the content [of his news]

'that the king Goojaa

Has the head of a kudu'.

Now don't interrupt me. [this is the father speaking to the child remember]

What you are collecting from me

is a story which entered me once.

The account of the horns.

The one stuffed with it [i.e. the servant who knew the truth of the horns and was stuffed full of it, as if he had eaten a huge amount] when he shot it/threw it, [i.e. when he had spoken it and got rid of it]

when it flew from his shoulders,

everything became light.

And at that place of burial

he dusted off his go', [part of his clothing]

set off and moved on.

And later on, in that place,

it was said ‘When it rained

horns emerged/grew'"