The Song of the Cheese Spirit
Musical fantasias based on Ivan Krylov's fable "The Crow and the Fox"
Oft has the world
heard words like these:
"Flattery's vile!"
and yet,
it's still a potent art -
A liar's sure
to find
a place in someone's heart.
A crow, by grace of God,
obtained
a piece
of cheese;
She scaled a fir tree and, at last,
Was just about to break her fast,
But
had a thought,
the cheese
still in her bill.
Not far away, a fox
was running up the hill;
Ah!
What a scent...
the odour stops the fox.
The fox looks, sees the cheese;
the cheese entices, mocks.
The rogue advances to the fir-tree on tip-toe;
She twirls her tail, her eyes fixed on the crow,
And gently says,
in accents low and clear: -
"My songstress, you
are
such a dear!
Your neck's so fine,
your eyes so pretty!
Your fame would spread through any
city!
What pretty feathers!
What a bill!
And doubtless, your angelic voice is
finer still!
Sing, sunshine, don't be shy!
If, sister, in your leisure,
Your beauty were abetted
by song
that gave us pleasure, -
You'd be the queen of birds,
my treasure!"
The harbinger's head spun from such effusive praise,
It took her breath away, her crop filled with elation, -
And, answering the words that set her pride ablaze,
The vain crow
cawed out loud
with full determination:
The
cheese fell -
that fox slick
Made off with it right quick.
Musical solution: Duo "Zikr" (Olga Tkachenko and Igor Silin),
Vladimir Solyanik, Sergey Hmelyov
script, direction, design: Irina Smirnova
camera Irina Sergeyeva animator Natalya Marchenkova montage Yuliya Srebnitskaya
(c) Closed Joint-stock company "Artis" 1997
translation by Niffiwan Oct 2023 @ animatsiya.net