Borbonese: Inspirations

Borbonese_The Butterfly Inspiration

toriums, hence the English word “pavilion.”

In modern Greek, the butterfly is called petalouda, a word which is refers to the spreading-out of leaves and petals, again signaling the coming of spring. Similarly, the Norwegian sommerfugl translates to “summerfly,” and the Yiddish word for butterfly, zomerfeygele, means “summerbird.”

terfly plays a huge role at birth, death and in the afterlife. In Madagascar, for instance, the Naga of Manipur trance their ancestry from a butterfly; the Maori of New Zealand believe that the soul returns to earth after death as a butterfly; and in the Solomon Islands a dying person, who has a choice as to what he will become after death, often chooses to become a butterfly. In Islamic Sufism, the moth that immolates itself in the candle flame is the soul losing itself in the divine fire.

The double-winged shape of the Minoan Labyrinth is believed to be based upon the a pair of butterfly wings. In Ancient Greece, the butterfly was called Psyche, who was the Goddess of the Soul and the wife of Eros, the God of Love, which is why lovers are often depicted in Ancient Greek art surrounded by butterflies. In Greek mythology, butterflies are linked to the human soul (psyche is another word for “soul”); it was thought that the soul was transported out of the body in the form of a butterfly. The Russian name for butterfly is babochka which, too, means “little soul.”

Although there is no evidence to the fact, poetic conjecture supports the theory that, before they were known as butterflies, they were called flutterbys, hence the child’s rhyme, “butterfly flutterby” (the Sioux name for butterfly is “fluttering wings”). Onomatopoeia plays an enormous role in the naming of butterflies in various languages, where repetitious letters, the doubling of morphemes, and echoing of sounds mimic the fluttering of butterfly wings. The following is a list butterfly names from various cultures around the world, organized alphabetically and syllabically. Spoken aloud, they form a mesmerizing sound poem:

In Aztec and Mayan mythology, the goddess Itzpapalotl (known as the “Obsidian Butterfly”) frees souls that are bound up in volcanic rock. Many cultures believe that the but-

choo; bébe, chocho, chouchou, fefe, kokaa, nabi, nahby, pempem, pepen, pinpirin, teeter,

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Butterfly txt 2

While the butterfly has been praised for its delicacy and beauty in countless poems and works of literature, we rarely stop to consider where it got its unusual name. While few insects are worthy of such a poetic appellation—another one that comes to mind is the firefly—the English word butterfly is believed to be derived from the Old English buterfleoge, a compound of butere (butter) and fleoge (fly).

Later, during the reign of Middle English, they were variously known as buterflies, butturflyes, and boterflyes. Since many species of English butterflies were yellow, it is thought that they were named for the color of butter, but that doesn’t explain the untold number of butterflies dotting the English countryside that were purple, green, orange, or blue.

Another theory comes from the fact that butterflies were often seen in kitchens stealing sips of milk or bits of butter in the middle of

the night. One German word for butterfly is milchdieb, which translates as “milk-thief.”

Another, schmetterling—which derives from the Czech word smetana meaning “cream”— refers to their proclivity for hovering over milk pails and butter churns. The birthing of calves, the churning of butter, and emergence of butterflies from cocoons are all signs that spring has arrived, signifying nourishment and rebirth.

In other languages, the names of butterflies derive from their unique shape. In Italy, foodv and shape unite in the pasta known as farfalle (in English known as “bow-tie” pasta) which derives from the Italian word for butterfly. In Latin, the name for butterfly is papilio from which the French papillon is derived. In France, parking tickets are called papillons—big pieces of yellow paper which, when placed beneath windshield wipers, flap in the wind

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le of each verse for extra flair. He also expanded upon the poem’s rather limited subject matter—the first seven days had originally been all birds—to include milkmaids, pipers, dancers, lords, and drummers.

Still, people have long puzzled over why Austin gave “a partridge in a pear tree” such prominence. Why a partridge? And why a pear tree?

partridge is incarnated into a human form as Daedalus’s nephew—named Perdix— who served as his uncle’s apprentice as an inventor. But while Daedalus was a good inventor, Perdix proved himself to be better. Daedalus, feeling threatened, brought Perdix up to the top of the Acropolis to admire the view, and gave him a shove off the edge. But just as he was falling, the goddess Athena intervened and turned him into a partridge. Perdix flew away from the tower, shaken up. But as a bird, he could no longer invent, now reduced to the menial tasks of gathering seeds and small insects.

After his brush with death, he became a local bird, keeping close to the ground, never migrating and rarely flying—characteristics that mark the partridge to this day. Because of his circumscribed world, the partridge is known as a symbol of domestication and security.

It turns out that these symbols have deep and wide roots, stretching back to antiquity and across the globe. Let’s see if we can’t connect the dots.

To begin with, the partridge is an Old World bird, akin to a pheasant; in size, it is somewhere between a quail and turkey. Its genus, perdix, is Greek for “partridge.” In Greek mythology, the

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stication and security. There’s an American Indian myth that tells of a partridge with worldly ambitions, but when he gets into his canoe to set out on his journey, he doesn’t know how to paddle. After spinning around and around all day in circles, he gives up, returns to shore, and hides himself out of shame under low bushes, close to the earth, where he yet remains to this day.

Still, this doesn’t explain the partridge’s connection to the pear tree. Why would an earthbound creature be found in a pear tree? One explanation is that before he was a bird, Perdix was an Athenian king known as Lord of the Pear Trees, and Athena was worshipped as the Mother of the Pear Trees, which explains why she came to his rescue.

Because pear trees live so long, they’re seen as symbols of endurance and longevity—in many parts of the world, pear trees are planted upon the birth of a child. The pear itself is a symbol for femininity, motherhood, domestic stability, and patience. In Hindu mythology, Vishnu was known as Lord of the Pear Tree, because he spent a lot of time patiently meditating under them trying to seek lost or hidden truths (perdix means “the lost one”). This Greek cosmology was later adapted by the Christians, with Christ representing perdix, and the Virgin Mother

as the pear tree, all of which goes a long way to explaining the metaphysics behind their inclusion in the carol.

And yet, the mystery might be a great deal simpler: the partridge and the pear tree may have been the result of a “mondgreen” or misheard lyric. It’s the sort of slippage that happens when you think you hear Jimi Hendrix singing “scuse me while I kiss this guy,” when he’s really saying, “scuse me while I kiss the sky.” The poem that Austin set his music to was originally written in French, and like a child’s game of “telephone,” successive generations of Englishmen did some creative (mis) translation by taking the word for partridge, “perdix” (pronounced “pear dree”) and mishearing it as “pear tree.”

To continue the “telephone game” metaphor, when the song travels to other English-speaking countries, the interpretations tend to take o n a local flavor. The Australian version, for instance, is chockfull of Aussie animals: “Twelve parrots prattling, eleven numbats nagging, ten lizards leaping, nine wombats working, eight dingoes digging, seven possums playing, six brolgas dancing… FIVE KANGAROOS… four koalas cuddling,

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