Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Molière, Cow That Cuts

Sometimes I dream in prose without even realizing it.

"Translate it into French and say that Molière wrote it."

"What? Why?"

"It is an added constraint."

"And who is Molière to you?"

"We call him Cow That Cuts."

And that's all I remember. I could not see my interlocutor but understood him to be non-human -- a spirit, perhaps, or a Gray. I am not sure what text I was being asked to translate, but I believe it was something German and was neither a comedy nor a work of drama. In other words, it would have taken quite a bit of reworking to "translate" it into a passable forgery of Molière.

The significance of the name "Cow That Cuts" -- I guess the French would be vache qui coupe -- is a mystery. My immediate thought, in the dream, was that it referred to a cow that cuts grass rather than eating it -- so it would keep your lawn trimmed for you, but you'd still have to feed it. The relevance to Molière is unclear.

5 comments:

Otto said...

What comes to mind is La Vache Qui Rit, a well-known cheese brand, but perhaps not so well-known in the USA. Perhaps relating to the genre of comedy.

Otto said...

Year of the Laughing Ox.

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

Good link, Otto! We have that brand in Taiwan, so I know it.

So I guess this raises the question: Who cut the cheese?

Otto said...

“Who moooooed my cheese?”, asked the Ox to the Rat.

Otto said...

The Year of the Vaccine, from vacca (vache, cow).



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