"Pertelote lifted up her voice and began to sing on the battlefield. She sang as though she walked the rim of the universe, like the moon, a pale and lovely presence everywhere on earth.
"While she sang, the grey wolf Chinook left the form of Boreas and came to Pertelote and bowed her head and listened, and then there were two women together to make a common memory of the ones they loved. The women bore the same things in their hearts.
"While she sang the Animals lifted their heads from sleep and looked at the sky and saw the stars, and these became the blanket for their beds, and they resolved never to forget the song nor the singer.
"And far, far away the Brothers Mice pulled their noses from the circle in which they slept. 'Listen,' they said. 'Do you hear that? The dear Lady Pertelote is singing Compline. Oh, she remembered us with a Compline.' "
Walter Wangerin, Jr. The Book of Sorrows. Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 1985.
Posted by nickles at December 3, 2004 01:12 AMHey, you gave me that book for my 23rd Christmas. It's a really good book, though I think I need to be a bit older till I read it again. What exactly does this quote mean?
Posted by: Krista at December 3, 2004 04:03 PMAHA! Another Krista comment!
I dunno what it means. I think it's an important bit of resolution, though. Here Pertelote has undergone wordless sorrow, and yet there is something powerful in her singing. Although her singing is a last, final sorrow and a very personal tribute to her husband, the peace she finds therein connects on deep levels with those who hear her.
Something universally common to the Animal experience binds together the hearts of all who have felt sorrow, so that hearing Pertelote sing out her sorrow in peace makes her incidental audience resonate, take comfort, and reflect. The same might be said of the human experience, I think.
Posted by: bob at December 4, 2004 12:48 AM