telaraña . spider web
It is always a pleasure to spend time with kind and wise Charlotte. Her words never fail to make me cry (no matter the language I read them in!).
-¿Por qué hiciste todo esto por mí? -preguntó-. No me lo merezco. Jamás hice nada por ti.
(“Why did you do all of this for me?” he asked. “I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.”)
-Has sido mi amigo -replicó Carlota-. Eso es algo importante. Yo tejí mis telarañas para ti porque te apreciaba. Al fin y al cabo, ¿qué es la vida, en cualquier caso? Nacemos, vivimos un tiempo y luego morimos. La vida de una araña es un desastre, con todas estas trampas y comiendo moscas. Al ayudarte, quizás trataba de elevar mi vida un tanto. Dios sabe que cualquiera puede hacer lo mismo con su existencia."
(“You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte “That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life anyway? We’re born, we live a little, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”)
[Capítulo XXI. El último día, p. 185]
A couple weeks ago we found a very large yellow and black spider making her web across some spinach plants in our garden. We learned she was an Argiope aurantia or Araña Amarilla de Jardín (Yellow Garden Spider). E.B. White describes in detail how Carlota spins her webs and catches her food. Reading this peaked our curiosity about this spider's web and also helped us to describe our observations in Spanish.
Una mosca que había estado husmeando por el comedero de Wilbur echó a volar y aterrizó en la parte inferior de la telaraña. Pronto se enredó en sus hilos pegajosos. La mosca batía las alas con furia, tratando de soltarse y escapar.
(A fly that had been crawling along Wilbur’s trough had flown up and blundered up into the lower part of Charlotte’s web and was tangled in the sticky threads.)
-Primero -dijo Carlota-. Me lanzo hacia ella. Se tiró cabeza abajo hacia la mosca. Al descender un hilo fino y sedoso se desenrolló de su parte posterior.
(“First,” said Charlotte, “I dive at him.” She plunged headfirst toward the fly. As she dropped, a tiny silken thread unwound from her rear end.)
-Ahora la atrapo. Se apoderó de la mosca. Lanzó más hilo en torno de ella, le dio varias vueltas y la mosca quedó tan sujeta que no podía moverse.
(“Next, I wrap him up.” She grabbed the fly, threw a few jets of silk around it, and rolled it over and over, wrapping it so that it couldn’t move.)
pp. 42-43