Abrazza had a cool retreat--a grove of dates; where we were used to lounge of noons, and mix our converse with the babble of the rills; and mix our punches in goblets chased with grapes. And as ever, King Abrazza was the prince of hosts.
"Your crown," he said to Media; and with his own, he hung it on a bough.
"Be not ceremonious:" and stretched his royal legs upon the turf.
"Wine!" and his pages poured it out.
So on the gra.s.s we lounged; and King Abrazza, who loved his antique ancestors; and loved old times; and would not talk of moderns;--bade Yoomy sing old songs; bade Mohi rehea.r.s.e old histories; bade Babbalanja tell of old ontologies; and commanded all, meanwhile, to drink his old, old wine.
So, all round we quaffed and quoted.
At last, we talked of old Homeric bards:--those who, ages back, harped, and begged, and groped their blinded way through all this charitable Mardi; receiving coppers then, and immortal glory now.
ABRAZZA--How came it, that they all were blind?
BABBALANJA--It was endemical, your Highness. Few grand poets have good eyes; for they needs blind must be, who ever gaze upon the sun.
Vavona himself was blind: when, in the silence of his secret bower, he said--"I will build another world. Therein, let there be kings and slaves, philosophers and wits; whose checkered actions--strange, grotesque, and merry-sad, will entertain my idle moods." So, my lord, Vavona played at kings and crowns, and men and manners; and loved that lonely game to play.
ABRAZZA--Vavona seemed a solitary Mardian; who seldom went abroad; had few friends; and shunning others, was shunned by them.
BABBALANJA--But shunned not himself, my lord; like G.o.ds, great poets dwell alone; while round them, roll the worlds they build.
MEDIA--You seem to know all authors:--you must have heard of Lombardo, Babbalanja; he who flourished many ages since.
BABBALANJA--I have; and his grand Kortanza know by heart.
MEDIA (_to Abrazza._)--A very curious work, that, my lord.
ABRAZZA--Yes, my dearest king. But, Babbalanja, if Lombardo had aught to tell to Mardi--why choose a vehicle so crazy?
BABBALANJA--It was his nature, I suppose.
ABRAZZA--But so it would not have been, to me.
BABBALANJA--Nor would it have been natural, for my n.o.ble lord Abrazza, to have worn Lombardo"s head:--every man has his own, thank Oro!
ABBRAZZA--A curious work: a very curious work. Babbalanja, are you acquainted with the history of Lombardo?
BABBALANJA--None better. All his biographies have I read.
ABRAZZA--Then, tell us how he came to write that work. For one, I can not imagine how those poor devils contrive to roll such thunders through all Mardi.
MEDIA--Their thunder and lightning seem spontaneous combustibles, my lord.
ABRAZZA--With which, they but consume themselves, my prince beloved.
BABBALANJA--In a measure, true, your Highness. But pray you, listen; and I will try to tell the way in which Lombardo produced his great Kortanza.
MEDIA--But hark you, philosopher! this time no incoherencies; gag that devil, Azzageddi. And now, what was it that originally impelled Lombardo to the undertaking?
BABBALANJA--Primus and forever, a full heart:--brimful, bubbling, sparkling; and running over like the flagon in your hand, my lord.
Secundo, the necessity of bestirring himself to procure his yams.
ABRAZZA--Wanting the second motive, would the first have sufficed, philosopher?
BABBALANJA--Doubtful. More conduits than one to drain off the soul"s overflowings. Besides, the greatest fullnesses overflow not spontaneously; and, even when decanted, like rich syrups, slowly ooze; whereas, poor fluids glibly flow, wide-spreading. Hence, when great fullness weds great indolence;--that man, to others, too often proves a cipher; though, to himself, his thoughts form an Infinite Series, indefinite, from its vastness; and incommunicable;--not for lack of power, but for lack of an omnipotent volition, to move his strength.
His own world is full before him; the fulcrum set; but lever there is none. To such a man, the giving of any boor"s resoluteness, with tendons braided, would be as hanging a claymore to Valor"s side, before unarmed. Our minds are cunning, compound mechanisms; and one spring, or wheel, or axle wanting, the movement lags, or halts.
Cerebrum must not overbalance cerebellum; our brains should be round as globes; and planted on capacious chests, inhaling mighty morning- inspirations. We have had vast developments of parts of men; but none of manly wholes. Before a full-developed man, Mardi would fall down and worship. We are idiot, younger-sons of G.o.ds, begotten in dotages divine; and our mothers all miscarry. Giants are in our germs; but we are dwarfs, staggering under heads overgrown. Heaped, our measures burst. We die of too much life.
MEDIA (_to Abrazza_)--Be not impatient, my lord; he"ll recover presently. You were talking of Lombardo, Babbalanja.
BABBALANJA--I was, your Highness. Of all Mardians, by nature, he was the most inert. Hast ever seen a yellow lion, all day basking in the yellow sun:--in reveries, rending droves of elephants; but his vast loins supine, and eyelids winking? Such, Lombardo; but fierce Want, the hunter, came and roused his roar. In hairy billows, his great mane tossed like the sea; his eyeb.a.l.l.s flamed two h.e.l.ls; his paw had stopped a rolling world.
ABRAZZA--In other words, yams were indispensable, and, poor devil, he roared to get them.
BABBALANJA (_bowing_)--Partly so, my literal lord. And as with your own golden scepter, at times upon your royal teeth, indolent tattoos you beat; then, potent, sway it o"er your isle; so, Lombardo. And ere Necessity plunged spur and rowel into him, he knew not his own paces.
_That_ churned him into consciousness; and brought ambition, ere then dormant, seething to the top, till he trembled at himself. No mailed hand lifted up against a traveler in woods, can so, appall, as we ourselves. We are full of ghosts and spirits; we are as grave-yards full of buried dead, that start to life before us. And all our dead sires, verily, are in us; _that_ is their immortality. From sire to son, we go on multiplying corpses in ourselves; for all of which, are resurrections. Every thought"s a soul of some past poet, hero, sage.
We are fuller than a city. Woe it is, that reveals these things. He knows himself, and all that"s in him, who knows adversity. To scale great heights, we must come out of lowermost depths. The way to heaven is through h.e.l.l. We need fiery baptisms in the fiercest flames of our own bosoms. We must feel our hearts hot--hissing in us. And ere their fire is revealed, it must burn its way out of us; though it consume us and itself. Oh, sleek-cheeked Plenty! smiling at thine own dimples;--vain for thee to reach out after greatness. Turn! turn! from all your tiers of cushions of eider-down--turn! and be broken on the wheels of many woes. At white-heat, brand thyself; and count the scars, like old war-worn veterans, over camp-fires. Soft poet!
brushing tears from lilies--this way! and howl in sackcloth and in ashes! Know, thou, that the lines that live are turned out of a furrowed brow. Oh! there is a fierce, a cannibal delight, in the grief that shrieks to multiply itself. That grief is miserly of its own; it pities all the happy. Some d.a.m.ned spirits would not be otherwise, could they.
ABRAZZA (_to Media_)--Pray, my lord, is this good gentleman a devil?
MEDIA.--No, my lord; but he"s possessed by one. His name is Azzageddi.
You may hear more of him. But come, Babbalanja, hast forgotten all about Lombardo? How set he about that great undertaking, his Kortanza?
ABRAZZA (_to Media_)--Oh, for all the ravings of your Babbalanja, Lombardo took no special pains; hence, deserves small commendation.
For, genius must be somewhat like us kings,--calm, content, in consciousness of power. And to Lombardo, the scheme of his Kortanza must have come full-fledged, like an eagle from the sun.
BABBALANJA--No, your Highness; but like eagles, his thoughts were first callow; yet, born plumeless, they came to soar.
ABRAZZA--Very fine. I presume, Babbalanja, the first thing he did, was to fast, and invoke the muses.
BABBALANJA--Pardon, my lord; on the contrary he first procured a ream of vellum, and some st.u.r.dy quills: indispensable preliminaries, my worshipful lords, to the writing of the sublimest epics.
ABRAZZA--Ah! then the muses were afterward invoked.
BABBALANJA--Pardon again. Lombardo next sat down to a fine plantain pudding.
YOOMY--When the song-spell steals over me, I live upon olives.
BABBALANJA--Yoomy, Lombardo eschewed olives. Said he, "What fasting soldier can fight? and the fight of all fights is to write." In ten days Lombardo had written--
ABRAZZA--Dashed off, you mean.
BABBALANJA--He never dashed off aught.
ABRAZZA--As you will.