Tarzan of Burne Hogarth
Images are from Riccardo Corbo's
In Memoria di Burne Hogarth site, from the Italian version
of
Hogarth/Burroughs' TARZAN OF THE APES (1972) traduzione di
I.Ripamonti.
English
text is from the Robert M. Hodes adaptation (Watson-Guptill
Publications/New York).
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It was on a sultry day of the dry season that he and one of his cousins
had gone down to the bank to drink. As they leaned over,
both little faces were mirrored on the placid pool: The
fierce and terrible features of the ape beside those of
the aristocratic scion of an old English House. Tarzan
was appalled. It had been bad enough to be hairless, but
to own such a countenance! He wondered that the other
apes could look at him at all. That tiny slit of a mouth
and those puny white teeth! How they looked beside the
mighty lips and powerful fangs of his more fortunate
brothers! And the little pinched nose of his; so thin was
it that it looked half starved. He turned red as he
compared it with the beautiful broad nostrils of his
companion. Such a generous nose! Why it spread half
across his face! It certainly must be fine to be so
handsome, thought poor little Tarzan. But when he saw his
own eyes; ah, that was the final blow — a brown
spot, a gray circle, and then blank whiteness! Frightful!
Not even the snakes had such hideous eyes as he.
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The death of Kala
Tarzan's grief and anger were unbounded. He roared out his hideous
challenge time and again. He beat upon his great chest with his clenched
fists. And then he fell upon the body of Kala and sobbed out the pitiful
sorrowing of his lonely heart. To lose the only creature in all one's
world who ever had manifested love and affection for one is a great
bereavement indeed. What though Kala was a fierce and hideous ape! To
Tarzan she had been kind, she had been beautiful. Upon her he had
lavished, unknown to himself, all the reverence and respect and love that
a normal English boy feels for his own mother. He had never known
another, and so to Kala was given, though mutely, all that would have
belonged to the fair and lovely Lady Alice had she lived.
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The death of Kerchak
Withdrawing the knife that had so often rendered him master of far
mightier muscles than his own, Tarzan of the Apes placed his foot upon
the neck of his vanquished enemy, and once again, loud through the forest
rang the fierce, wild cry of conqueror.
And thus came the young Lord
Greystoke into the kingship of the apes.
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