The weird of the wanderer Being the papyrus records of some incidents in one of the previous lives of Mr. Nicholas Crabbe
wisdom as is not lawful to be written, nor even to be uttered, on
account of a religious reason.
But we journeyed on to the court of Benares; and, having shewn my
charters, we departed as speedily as possible. For it would have been a
shameful deed, to have exposed Queen Helen to the evil communications
of a horde of riotous brutes, apes, reptiles, abortions, frightful
malformations, greasy with rancid butter, dripping with fresh blood
and mildewed with stale, interminably-headed illimitably-armed
innumerably-nippled smirking bestialities, at whose amorous activities
even Olympians were wont to say Phy. For which cause, we just went to
Benares, and we just came from Benares.
But we journeyed on to the mountain of Sinai. There, at its foot, we
stood silently, during the space of a night and a day and a night,
revering unmentioned and unthought-of mystery.
But we journeyed on to the court of the gods of Khem. And Mother Isis
being amazed to greet one of her priests and a master of masters of
magic in one who had risen to the rank of a hero and immortal of
Olympos, of her own free will released me from the oath which I swore
to her before Amenemhat the priest of Tanis: for (as she said) it
seemed that the Supreme had dispositions regarding me otherwhere. And
Ptah the Pain-lessener explained why he neglected my torments in the
ordeal of the scorching staff: saying that there was a law in Khem,
made by Ra himself, which ordained that no alleviation of pain should
be due to a mage who, willingly, should accept the ordeals of wisdom’s
way. To whom I answered wilily (reserving a private opinion of my own);
and I said that the laws of the master were good in the eyes of the
servant, and that this law was particularly to be praised: for, had
I been rendered able to hold the scorching staff, I should not have
fallen backward through the rolling wheels of time, regaining Golden
Helen, the Treasure of Hades, nor Love, the Crown of all Wisdom. Which
answer was greatly admired. And so, for a little space, we dwelled with
the well-mannered gods of Khem, amid the groves and fountains of Duät,
hunting with holy cats and kittens by night on the banks of the Nile,
and by day among the dark hills of Amentet. Moreover, having withdrawn
our shapes from the gaze of mortals we visited the temple at Tanis,
where, formerly, I had done many wily deeds. But my friend Amenemhat
had submitted himself to white Death; and I saw his form at Philai,
conveniently mummied in the manner which I myself had invented. For the
eyes of immortals, peers of Pan, obey their particular desires, seeing
(at will) through stone or wood or any other substance, excepting the
substances whose names and virtues and properties are known only to
masters who have the proper spells for using them. But I obtained as
a sweet guest-gift from the gods of Khem, that they would deal kindly
with dead Amenemhat (till I myself could provide for him), lightening
his dreary lot in tedious Amentet as with frequent cups of cream. And,
I must not omit to mention that, while we were still over Egypt, Queen
Helen would have me go with her one day to Nilemouth: for, having once
innocently slain me there, with the kiss of an immortal goddess given
in honourable love to a mortal man, the gentle mind in her fragrant
breast persuaded me that she owed me an amend. And there, indeed,
having openly kissed me on the lips, she hid her rose-red face on mine
while she whispered a secret joy. For I lived again in another.
But we journeyed on to find the court of the gods of the sea-girt
island, the kingdom of Victory queen of the stalwart stately Anglicans.
And, at length, we found, indeed, the sea-girt island: but there were
no Anglicans, nor venerable Victory the queen, nor any gods at all.
Instead, we saw the place to be infested with a rabble of pygmies,
some black-hairy, others sandy-hairy, all cannibals, obscenely naked,
painted blue, inarticulately howling, whose hag-toothed breastless
females mutilated their innumerable slain abominably. Moreover, they
were worshipping very bad devils, dwarves, giants, furies, hobgoblins,
and other dubious monsters, with hekatombs of idiot boys and girls,
bandy-legged, hairy, knock-kneed, stunted, scraggy, whose throats
they tore with sharp stones, stretching them out stark on cyclopean
boulders, or else with twisted-ozier baskets of human shape, fifty
cubits high, which they stuffed full of babies and enemies, burning
them alive with fire, to the music of screeching. From which horrors
we flew away with Love, having laid hideous inchantments on those
barbarians in relief of the earth which sustained them.[62]
But we journeyed on to the court of the gods of Scandinavia. For I was
very desirous of seeing Baldur the Beautiful, and of lifting the hammer
of their Thor; and my desire was not ungratified. Baldur, indeed, was
a comely youth in a crude gaunt-boned pink-fleshy way, such as I have
seen a many of among the Argives: but he could not be named with Hermes
of the golden wand, or with any of the olympian immortals, lacking
the effulgent limpidity and transcendent agility of mind without
which a fair body and sprightly limbs are merely dull and devoid of
spiritual quality. And, as for the so-called ponderous hammer of Thor,
it was as a feather in the wily knack-knowing hands of the man who
had burst the fetters of Hades. But the other gods and goddesses of
Scandinavia offered us a disgusting banquet of fishes and bones of
beeves half-charred, half-raw, whereon they themselves browsed, gnawing
interminably, and washing down the gobbets with bucketfuls of fiery
potions, wherewith (anon) they drowned themselves in drunkenness,
stertorously dropping on sleep in the slime where they fell. For which
cause we left them while the night was dark.
But we journeyed on to the court of the gods of Rome, where Great Zeys
maintained Nestor of Gerenia, lord of chariots, that very wise and
ancient hero, as his embassador. And, in the vast palace of Capitoline
Juppiter was the abode of the Olympian embassage, where, for a time,
I dwelled with Queen Helen, being Nestor’s guests. But it seemed
that nothing could stay the division of counsels among the immortals
any longer. For the Latin gods, implacable, boundless in audacity,
persisted in claiming the sacrifices of all pious persons who dwell
on the wide-bosomed earth: nor would they listen to most interesting
conversations, being tribeless lawless homeless fanulloni, disguised
in the shape of their betters, having not the most rudimentary notion
of the difference between meum and tuum, and loving nothing better
than strife. And day by day they inflated themselves to bursting with
overweening fury, desiring to obtain a monopoly, spurning the just and
moderate claim for supremacy by prescriptive right made by Olympian
Zeys. Yet knightly Nestor, pleasant of speech, the clear-voiced orator
of the Pylians, from whose tongue flowed discourses sweeter than honey,
bravely strove to find some ground of agreement. For he still hoped
that his conversations would avert war.
And, being over Rome, it seemed to me fitting that I should pass
certain words with that blameless senator whom I once had seen at
Tanis. Him, indeed, I found (by certain simple magic) to be called
Gajus Gargilius Gnipho;[63] and to him I addressed myself without
delay, entering his palace on a moonbeam, at midnight, radiant in my
silver splendour, in stature and in aspect very much more than mortal.
For the fellow had comported himself rather too superciliously, when
he saw me as a stranger in the land of Khem and not very flourishing
of appearance. But, when he saw me in Rome, he fell flat before me,
quaking with terror, babbling obsequious deprecations with a rust-hot
tongue. But I, having twitted him with his former blindness to my
divinity, so severely that he wished himself unborn, gave him sundry
comfortable words: whereat, of his own free will, he vowed a blooming
shrine to me at his villa near Caere, with a flamen and two casmilli
of free birth, and a weekly sacrifice of two white sea-gulls and a
crab, as long as the world should endure men. For thus anxious are rich
mortals to purchase the inattention of the immortals.
And, by chance, one day, it happened that, when I returned from going
to and fro, alone and unseen, among mortals in the city, hearing the
speech of men, on entering the palace I found old Nestor lying stunned
in my antechamber. And, instantly, terrible Fear invaded the mind in my
breast on account of Golden Helen.
But, rushing forward, inflaming myself by the way, I found her in her
chamber, gagged with a silken cincture, and struggling in the arms of
truculent Mars. Him, indeed, I dragged about the room, as one drags
an impatient bullock from the altar before his bloody turn, twisting
him; and I dashed the blameless god to the floor with not-innocuous
concussion. But, having released my faithful wife, I bade her to go to
Nestor in his need, and to heal his ill: for she herself was unharmed,
excepting for certain bruises of her lily-like skin which she took from
the grip of the ruffian. And, for these, I made him pay a just price.
First, indeed, he rose from the floor, black in the face with rage.
But I cursed him thereto in good and concise Latin, while he stood
all amazed, being too stupid to think of me as aught but an Olympian
speaking the limpid language of gods and Argives. And I rejoiced in
my lordly mind, at my faculty of venomously-scathing invective, when
I saw how I could exasperate him with my tongue. For the language
of immortals is voluble, and the discourses in it are numerous
and varied; and vast is the distribution of words here and there.
Moreover, whatsoever word one shall speak, such also shall one hear;
and, whatsoever deed one shall do to another shall be repeated with
interest upon oneself. But, when my lickerish swashbuckler had winced
sufficiently, we took to our swords. Now Mars was a war-god whose
habit was to supervise slaughter from his cloudy citadel, descending
to massacre fugitives, and to glut himself with human gore: but he
personally was no more than a slow and clumsy warrior, able (certainly)
to overcome mortals by sheer weight, but no match whatever for an
immortal hero skilled in wiles and expert in all the arts of war.
Wherefore, having dug him well in head and foot, I began to beat him,
abominably bruising his paps. But he bellowed with pain; and fought
wildly, exposing his tender places so that I carved him at my pleasure.
And, when, hacked to shreds, he was ready to fall apart, he took a
great toss from me, hideous in immensity, being pitched from the window
of the palace into the city beneath. But his atoms fell sprawling in
the forecourt of his own temple, crushing the Flamen Martialis as flat
as a corn-cake. But the Romans took it for a portent; and were filled
with forebodings of evil.
Then, Queen Helen begged me to bear her away from the sullen court
of the blameless Latin divinities, returning to the peak of Olympos,
where the star-crowned Twins would guard her honour during my absence,
if absent I was obliged to be. Even wise old Nestor agreed that
conversations must end here, and war begin.
But, first, I demanded audience of Juppiter Stator (the most righteous
of gods): whom I told of the crime of his son, and the penalty paid,
demanding also the usual compensations. Whereat the blooming pretender
was very angry, and made a menacing pass at me with his thunder. But,
him, indeed, I mocked most shockingly, flinging at his feet a bunch of
fat fingers hewed off blameless Mars, and giving him warning, on the
part of all the immortals of Olympos, to prepare for war. But he, too
late, cowered, and was for offering satisfaction, saying that he would