Subj : English folklore
To   : Gleb Hlebov
From : Alexander Koryagin
Date : Thu Jan 16 2025 13:19:22


Hi, Gleb Hlebov!
I read your message from 15.01.2025 12:25


 AK>> In Russian folklore we have a beast with three heads. In England
 AK>> there are probably ones which have head and three bodies:

 GH> "... which have one head and..."

 AK>> The day has been so full of fret and care, and our hearts have
 AK>> been so full of evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has
 AK>> seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then Night, like some great loving
 AK>> mother, gently lays her hand upon our fevered head, and turns our
 AK>> little tear-stained faces up to hers, and smiles; and, though she
 AK>> does not speak, we know what she would say, and lay our hot
 AK>> flushed cheek against her bosom, and the pain is gone. [...]

 GH> This short passage feels quite like a piece of poetry, you may
 GH> think of it this way. However, there seems to be a certain logic to
 GH> that: only one head at a time that she'd lay her hand on, hence a
 GH> singular "our head".

 GH> The same with "our cheek", too, probably.

 GH> As with turning "our little tear-stained faces up to hers", it is
 GH> an immediate action that can be performed simultaneously by all of
 GH> the partakers, no matter how many or few. Well, assuming it's not a
 GH> single-head-multi-face type of monster.


The author should had been consistent -- he should had written "and turns our little tear-stained FACE and SMILE up to hers"  ;-) .


Bye, Gleb!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2025

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