TERMS STARTING WITH
TERMS ANYWHERE
Angels Over Sorceries—“the wizard Aod
FOD /fod/ [Abbreviation for "Finger of Death", originally a spell-name from fantasy gaming] To terminate with extreme prejudice and with no regard for other people. From {MUDs} where the wizard command "FOD "player"" results in the immediate and total death of "player", usually as punishment for obnoxious behaviour. This usage migrated to other circumstances, such as "I'm going to fod the process that is burning all the cycles." Compare {gun}. In aviation, FOD means Foreign Object Damage, e.g. what happens when a jet engine sucks up a rock on the runway or a bird in flight. Finger of Death is a distressingly apt description of what this generally does to the engine. [{Jargon File}]
munchkin /muhnch'kin/ [Squeaky-voiced little people in L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz"] A teenage-or-younger micro enthusiast hacking BASIC or something else equally constricted. A term of mild derision - munchkins are annoying but some grow up to be hackers after passing through a {larval stage}. The term {urchin} is also used. See also {wannabee}, {bitty box}. [{Jargon File}]
munchkin ::: /muhnch'kin/ [Squeaky-voiced little people in L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz] A teenage-or-younger micro enthusiast hacking BASIC or something else grow up to be hackers after passing through a larval stage. The term urchin is also used. See also wannabee, bitty box.[Jargon File]
pnambic "jargon" /p*-nam'bik/ (From the scene in the film, "The Wizard of Oz" in which the true nature of the wizard is first discovered: "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"). A term coined by Daniel Klein "dvk@lonewolf.com" for a stage of development of a process or function that, owing to incomplete implementation or to the complexity of the system, requires human interaction to simulate or replace some or all of its actions, inputs or outputs. The term may also be applied to a process or function whose apparent operations are wholly or partially falsified or one requiring {prestidigitization}. The ultimate pnambic product was "Dan Bricklin's Demo", a program which supported flashy user-interface design prototyping. There is a related maxim among hackers: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." See {magic} for illumination of this point. ["Open Channel", IEEE "Computer", November 1981]. [{Jargon File}] (1994-11-01)
pnambic ::: /p*-nam'bik/ (From the scene in the film, The Wizard of Oz in which the true nature of the wizard is first discovered: Pay no attention to the man behind also be applied to a process or function whose apparent operations are wholly or partially falsified or one requiring prestidigitization.The ultimate pnambic product was Dan Bricklin's Demo, a program which supported flashy user-interface design prototyping.There is a related maxim among hackers: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. See magic for illumination of this point.[Open Channel, IEEE Computer, November 1981].[Jargon File] (1994-11-01)
Purple Book ::: 1. (publication) The System V Interface Definition. The covers of the first editions were an amazingly nauseating shade of off-lavender.2. (publication) The Wizard Book.See also book titles.[Jargon File]
scrog /skrog/ [Bell Labs] To damage, trash, or corrupt a data structure. "The list header got scrogged." Also reported as "skrog", and ascribed to the comic strip "The Wizard of Id". Compare {scag}; possibly the two are related. Equivalent to {scribble} or {mangle}. [{Jargon File}]
scrog ::: /skrog/ [Bell Labs] To damage, trash, or corrupt a data structure. The list header got scrogged. Also reported as skrog, and ascribed to the comic strip The Wizard of Id. Compare scag; possibly the two are related. Equivalent to scribble or mangle.[Jargon File]
weikza. [alt. weikza-do]. In Burmese, a "wizard," deriving from the Pāli vijjādhara (S. VIDYĀDHARA). In Burmese popular religion, the weikza is portrayed as a powerful thaumaturge possessed of extraordinarily long life, whose abilities derive from a mastery of tranquillity meditation (P. samatha; S. sAMATHA) and a variety of occult sciences such as alchemy (B. ekiya), incantations (P. manta; S. MANTRA), and runes (B. ing, aing). Collectively, these disciplines are called weikza-lam or "the path of the wizard." Training in this path is esoteric, requiring initiation by a master (B. saya), and votaries typically are organized into semisecret societies called weikza-gaing (P. vijjāgana). Although concerned with the acquisition of supernatural powers and an invulnerable body, these attributes are ultimately dedicated to the altruistic purpose of assisting good people in times of need and protecting the Buddha's religion from evil forces. In this regard, weikza practitioners often act as healers and exorcists, and in the modern era weikza-sayas with large followings are among the country's notables, who have built monumental pagodas and restored national shrines. The perfected weikza has the ability to live until the advent of the future buddha Metteya (S. MAITREYA), at which time he can choose to pass into nibbāna (S. NIRVĀnA) as an enlightened disciple (P. sāvaka arahant; S. sRĀVAKA ARHAT), vow to become himself a solitary buddha (P. paccekabuddha; S. PRATYEKABUDDHA) or a perfect buddha (P. sammāsambuddha; S. SAMYAKSAMBUDDHA), or simply continue living as a weikza. Weikza practitioners typically eschew the practice of insight meditation (P. VIPASSANĀ; S. VIPAsYANĀ) on the grounds that this might cause them to attain nibbāna too quickly. Although largely domesticated to the prevailing worldview of Burmese THERAVĀDA orthodoxy, weikza practice and orientation ultimately derive from outside the Pāli textual tradition and show striking similarities to the Buddhist MAHĀSIDDHA tradition of medieval Bengal.
Wizard Book "publication" {Hal Abelson}, {Gerald Sussman} and Julie Sussman's "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" (MIT Press, 1984; ISBN 0-262-01077-1), an excellent computer science text used in introductory courses at MIT. So called because of the wizard on the jacket. One of the {bibles} of the LISP/Scheme world. Also, less commonly, known as the {Purple Book}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-01-10)
Wizard Book ::: (publication) Hal Abelson, Gerald Sussman and Julie Sussman's Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (MIT Press, 1984; ISBN 0-262-01077-1), called because of the wizard on the jacket. One of the bibles of the LISP/Scheme world. Also, less commonly, known as the Purple Book.[Jargon File] (1995-01-10)
KEYS (10k)
3 Sri Aurobindo
1 Shadowgate
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
44 J K Rowling
32 Terry Pratchett
12 L Frank Baum
8 R A Salvatore
6 Deepak Chopra
5 Scott Meyer
5 Gregory Maguire
4 Steven Erikson
4 Ilona Andrews
4 Danielle Paige
4 Charles C Mann
4 Amy Poehler
3 Rachel Hawthorne
3 Nicholas Eames
3 Michael J Sullivan
3 Max Lucado
3 J R R Tolkien
3 Jenny Nimmo
3 Cornelia Funke
3 Cinda Williams Chima
1:And channel to earth-mind the wizard ray
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day The Souls Choice and the Supreme Consummation,#KEYS
2:A few can climb to an unperishing sun,
Or live on the edges of the mystic moon
And channel to earth-mind the wizard ray. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day, The Soul's Choice and the Supreme Consummation,#KEYS
3:The last thing that you remember is standing before the wizard Lakmir as he gestured wildly and chanted in an archaic tongue. Now you find yourself staring at an entryway which lies at the edge of a forest. The Druid's words still ring in your ears: "Within the walls of the Castle Shadowgate lies your quest. If the prophecies hold true, the dreaded Warlock Lord will use his dark magic to raise the Behemoth, the deadliest of the Titans, from the depths of the earth. You are the seed of prophecy, the last of the line of kings, and only you can stop the Warlock Lord from darkening our world FOREVER. Fare thee well. ~ Shadowgate, #KEYS
4:Above her little finite steps she feels,
Careless of knot or pause, worlds which weave out
A strange perfection beyond law and rule,
A universe of self-found felicity,
An inexpressible rhythm of timeless beats,
The many-movemented heart-beats of the One,
Magic of the boundless harmonies of self,
Order of the freedom of the infinite,
The wonder-plastics of the Absolute.
There is the All-Truth and there the timeless bliss.
But hers are fragments of a star-lost gleam,
Hers are but careless visits of the gods.
They are a Light that fails, a Word soon hushed
And nothing they mean can stay for long on earth.
There are high glimpses, not the lasting sight.
A few can climb to an unperishing sun,
Or live on the edges of the mystic moon
And channel to earth-mind the wizard ray. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:The wizard [of Oz] says look inside yourself and find self. God says look inside yourself and find [the Holy Spirit]. The first will get you to Kansas. The latter will get you to heaven. Take your pick. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 2:If only that dratted wizard would leave young Frodo alone, perhaps he'll settle down and grow some hobbit-sense,' they said. And to all appearance the wizard did leave Frodo alone, and he did settle down, but the growth of hobbit-sense was not very noticable. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 3:There in seclusion and remote from men The wizard hand lies cold, Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen, And left the tale half told. Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power, And the lost clew regain? The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower Unfinished must remain! ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 4:Somehow the killing of the giant spider, all alone by himself in the dark without the help of the wizard or the dwarves or of anyone else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins. He felt a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach, as he wiped his sword on the grass and put it back into its sheath. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 5:Pippin glanced in some wonder at the face now close beside his own, for the sound of that laugh had been gay and merry. Yet in the wizard's face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:The wand chooses the wizard, ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
2:The wand chooses the wizard. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
3:got angry at the Wizard, and ~ L Frank Baum, #NFDB
4:We're off to see the Wizard ~ Danielle Paige, #NFDB
5:And we’re off to fuck the wizard. ~ Kresley Cole, #NFDB
6:When in doubt, shoot the wizard. ~ Tamora Pierce, #NFDB
7:To the wizard death is merely a belief. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
8:Nature reflects the moods of the wizard. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
9:Even in sleep, the wizard had an iron grip. ~ Jenny Nimmo, #NFDB
10:Nobody gets in to see the wizard. Not nobody. ~ L Frank Baum, #NFDB
11:Enemies,' the wizard said, 'are the price of honour. ~ Terry Goodkind, #NFDB
12:It's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
13:it’s really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
14:The Wizard of Oz.” “No, no, no,” said Sophie. She quickly ~ Lara Bergen, #NFDB
15:All your troubles are due to those 'ifs'," declared the Wizard. ~ L Frank Baum, #NFDB
16:If the Wizard of Oz were real he would be in Hollywood. ~ Nicolas Winding Refn, #NFDB
17:North Korea is the country that the monkeys in the Wizard of Oz came from. ~ Lewis Black, #NFDB
18:The wizard didn't give anything to the Tin Man that he didn't already have. ~ Steve Chandler, #NFDB
19:When in doubt," the mage Numair Salmalin had taught the pages, "Shoot the wizard. ~ Tamora Pierce, #NFDB
20:Gossip is instructive,” said the Wizard. “It tells which way the wind is blowing. ~ Gregory Maguire, #NFDB
21:I wanted to work with Bert Lahr [the 'Cowardly Lion' in 'The Wizard of Oz'], and I did. ~ Norman Lear, #NFDB
22:the earth under his feet, Timoken said, “I’m going for my camel.” “Your camel!” the wizard ~ Jenny Nimmo, #NFDB
23:The Wizard of Oz' is my favorite movie. It was the first movie I can ever remember watching. ~ Ezra Miller, #NFDB
24:Do you think there’s anything to eat in this forest?” “Yes,” said the wizard bitterly, “us. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
25:It was like the Wizard of Oz had spoken, and what he said was too ludicrous to take seriously. ~ Anthony Kiedis, #NFDB
26:Do you think there’s anything to eat in this forest?”
“Yes,” said the wizard bitterly, “us. ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
27:What's your specialty?"
The wizard squinted. "What would you like my specialty to be? ~ Patrick Weekes,#NFDB
28:Be careful, this is the greatest fencer since the death of the Wizard of Corsica. Do not burgle. ~ William Goldman, #NFDB
29:I was playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and it was my turn to speak. Dorothy is Hamlet for girls. ~ Amy Poehler, #NFDB
30:I suggest it’s time we head off to see the Wizard. The wonderful Wizard of Jesus We Are All So Fucked. ~ Mira Grant, #NFDB
31:No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style. ~ Steven Brust, #NFDB
32:Her clothes still smoked from the wizard’s assault. But to him, she always smelled of flowers. ~ Cinda Williams Chima, #NFDB
33:The wall read:
ELPHIE LIVES
OZMA LIVES
THE WIZARD LIVES
and then
EVERYONE LIVES BUT US. ~ Gregory Maguire,#NFDB
34:It's over the garden wall and we're going to see the Wizard, come what may and hell to pay.
-Elphaba ~ Gregory Maguire,#NFDB
35:The Wizard was from a place called America, and to him, a female ruler was a strange and unsettling notion. ~ Danielle Paige, #NFDB
36:we are like the wizard who weaves a labyrinth and is forced to wander through it till the end of his days ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #NFDB
37:The Wizard's First Rule: People are stupid; given proper motivation almost anyone will believe almost anything. ~ Terry Goodkind, #NFDB
38:The wizard!” She breathed. “But they said you were dead.”
“I got better,” I said mildly. ~ E William Brown,#NFDB
39:Working with civilians, like this was that TV show about the wizard with the talking skull and the twatty name. ~ Caitlin Kittredge, #NFDB
40:And channel to earth-mind the wizard ray
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day The Souls Choice and the Supreme Consummation,#NFDB
41:Because gifts must be earned, and good must triumph over evil if an adventure is to have an end,” said the Wizard. ~ John Joseph Adams, #NFDB
42:Crap,” I gasped. “I am not going to be known as the wizard who used his death curse thanks to a bunch of bitty nail guns. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
43:An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
44:What do I look like? The Wizard of Oz? You need a brain? You need a heart? Go ahead, take mine. Take everything I have. ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
45:I am the Wizard of Oz of housewives (in that I am both "Great and Terrible" and because I sometimes hide behind the curtains ~ Jenny Lawson, #NFDB
46:It’s strange. I keep forgetting you don’t have hands,” Hadrian commented.
“I don’t,” the wizard replied coldly. ~ Michael J Sullivan,#NFDB
47:Close your eyes, tap your heels together three times, and think to yourself, There’s No Place like Home. —THE WIZARD OF OZ ~ Melody Beattie, #NFDB
48:Keep him well,” the dwarf finished with a wink, and he slammed the door with a bang. “He hates my door,” the wizard lamented. ~ R A Salvatore, #NFDB
49:Drizzt halted before the throne and bowed low. The sight of Regis standing beside the wizard disturbed him more than a little, ~ R A Salvatore, #NFDB
50:Imagining [The Wizard of Oz] without Judy Garland is a bit like dancing on wet cement: you can do it, but why would you want to? ~ Pauline Kael, #NFDB
51:What is it with you and the Wizard of Oz references? Zombies and werewolves and vamps, oh my. Zombies and werewolves and... ~ Christopher Golden, #NFDB
52:After Arthur sent me away for my own good, it' like my life switched from color to black and white--like the ending of The Wizard of Oz. ~ Nick Nolan, #NFDB
53:I never went to business school. I was just bumbling through a lot of my life. I was like the guy behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz. ~ David Geffen, #NFDB
54:I walked away a little disheartened, thinking, 'Oh well. I came a long way to meet the Wizard of Oz, but I guess I won't. Such is life. ~ Anthony Kiedis, #NFDB
55:I would say anybody who's willing to listen to Dark Side of the Moon and watch The Wizard of Oz is already a very sensitive, creative person. ~ Wayne Coyne, #NFDB
56:A pair of ruby red slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz have been stolen. The thief is described as being armed and fabulous. ~ David Letterman, #NFDB
57:Ash only had one tattoo on his body--the wizard he'd etched on himself. From whatever angle I looked, it seemed like its throat had been cut. ~ Garrett Leigh, #NFDB
58:We are all vegetable, in this country. Are you not vegetable, also?" "No," answered the Wizard. "People on top of the earth are all meat. Will ~ L Frank Baum, #NFDB
59:Azkaban - the wizard prison, Goyle." said Malfoy, looking at him in disbelief. "Honestly, if you were any slower, you'd be going backward. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
60:I am the bridge between the bleeding edge and the dead center. I stand between the Wizard of Oz and the man behind the curtain. I am the curtain. ~ Peter Watts, #NFDB
61:My favorite movies growing up were things like 'The Wizard of Oz,' but as I got older, I really began to admire people like Steven Soderbergh. ~ Rainey Qualley, #NFDB
62:They seemed happy and contented, though," remarked the Wizard, "and those who are contented have nothing to regret and nothing more to wish for. ~ L Frank Baum, #NFDB
63:They seemed happy and contented, though,” remarked the Wizard, “and those who are contented have nothing to regret and nothing more to wish for. ~ L Frank Baum, #NFDB
64:You know what I would do? I would remake The Wizard of Oz with Robin Williams, and that's it. Just let him do the whole dang thing by himself. ~ Frank Caliendo, #NFDB
65:Also, the wizard’s response to having a skeletal deer leap in front of him and a bruised and whimpering elf fall off its back was to say, “Oh.” That ~ T Kingfisher, #NFDB
66:I am the bridge between the bleeding edge and the dead center. I stand between the Wizard of Oz and the man behind the curtain.
I am the curtain. ~ Peter Watts,#NFDB
67:Faith is hoping that the wizard behind the curtain will explain what the flying monkeys had to do with you realizing that there is no place like home. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
68:I've always taken 'The Wizard of Oz' very seriously, you know. I believe in the idea of the rainbow. And I've spent my entire life trying to get over it. ~ Judy Garland, #NFDB
69:I have never believed in the Wizard of Oz theory of consulting, that I am all-knowing and all-seeing, and that everyone around me is kind of a backbencher ~ David Axelrod, #NFDB
70:You’re still a little shy, I see, the wizard noted. I think if you ignore evil, my friend, it tends to grow stronger. (Quinhelm, the wizard - from BRIGGEN) ~ Ann B Keller, #NFDB
71:My favorite movie is The Wizard of Oz. I love the fairy tale of it. And Gone With the Wind was always one of my favorites because it's so dramatic and stunning. ~ Meredith Brooks, #NFDB
72:I worked on smiling at her, so she’d smile back. But it was an effort for me, a trip into the unfamiliar. It made me think of the tin man in The Wizard of Oz, ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde, #NFDB
73:I think probably the scariest thing, as weird as it sounds, was 'The Wizard of Oz' and the flying monkeys with the witch. I remember seeing that - it still seems freaky. ~ Rob Zombie, #NFDB
74:There is no doubt they intend to kill us as dead as possible in a short time." said the Wizard
"As dead as poss'ble would be pretty dead, wouldn't it?" asked Dorothy. ~ L Frank Baum,#NFDB
75:You’re a fool,” Quinhelm accused. “Any man who would allow himself to be bewitched by a woman needs a good dunking in a cold barrel of water.” (Quinhelm, the wizard, from BRIGGEN) ~ Ann B Keller, #NFDB
76:우리는 화폐의 역사에 대해서는 무지하다. ‘오즈의 마법사(The Wizard of Oz)’의 원제가 실은 ‘온스(=금)의 마법사(Wizard of Ounce)’였다는 사실을 아는 사람은 많지 않다. 도로시라는 소녀 주인공과 그 일행의 모험을 그린 이 동화에는 미국 독립 직후 화폐 제도를 둘러싼 남북의 깊은 정치적 갈등이 깔려 있다. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
77:If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with. —Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz ~ Pico Iyer, #NFDB
78:I WALKED INTO my house to see the knight and the wizard sitting in my kitchen, drinking coffee. If you added in Julie’s thieving skills and my sword, we almost had an adventuring party. ~ Ilona Andrews, #NFDB
79:On a shelf over the experiment table there was the inevitable skull, which the wizard put their to remind him of death, though it usually reminded him that he needed to go to the dentist. ~ John Bellairs, #NFDB
80:We plan on delivering our baby to the soundtrack of Pink Floyd’s The Wall while simultaneously watching The Wizard of Oz. If this kid works with us, we guarantee your minds will be blown! The ~ Amy Poehler, #NFDB
81:You got a name?"
"Uhad Ul-badir Taruk Ultani," the wizard said with a small dip of his chin.
Jackal blinked. "That name is a fucking nightmare. I'm going to call you Crafty. ~ Jonathan French,#NFDB
82:Robillard looked out the window to the late afternoon skyline. Smoke rose from several locations, adding to the gloom. “So much gray out there,” the wizard remarked. “So many shades of gray.… ~ R A Salvatore, #NFDB
83:They say Los Angeles is like The Wizard of Oz. One minute it’s small-town monochrome neighborhoods and then boom—all of a sudden you’re in a sprawling Technicolor freak show, dense with midgets. ~ David Wong, #NFDB
84:There were more old people. The world was full of them,' said the wizard.
'Yes, I know. And now it's full of young people. Funny, really. I mean, you'd expect it to be the other way round. ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
85:I think it may have pierced his heart.”
“The heart is on this side,” Rose pointed out.
“Is it?” The wizard frowned and placed a hand on his own breast. “Gods, you might be right. ~ Nicholas Eames,#NFDB
86:What is magic? There is the wizard's explanation... wizards talk about candles, circles, planets, stars, bananas, chants, runes and the importance of having at least four good meals every day. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
87:The Wizard of Oz—over the rainbow where everything is in color and you have the power to do what you’ve always wanted and that power has always been with you if only you knew how to tap into it—came ~ Vicki Myron, #NFDB
88:But why fight at all, in that case?" asked the girl. "So I may die with a clear conscience," returned the Wizard, gravely. "It's every man's duty to do the best he knows how; and I'm going to do it. ~ L Frank Baum, #NFDB
89:He’s the Wizard because he’s magic. He mysteriously passes through locked doors. He seems to read minds. He’s able to refuse dessert. And he can give me a hot flash with the touch of a fingertip. ~ Janet Evanovich, #NFDB
90:What is magic?
There is the wizard's explanation... wizards talk about candles, circles, planets, stars, bananas, chants, runes and the importance of having at least four good meals every day. ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
91:The wizard [of Oz] says look inside yourself and find self. God says look inside yourself and find [the Holy Spirit]. The first will get you to Kansas. The latter will get you to heaven. Take your pick. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
92:A few can climb to an unperishing sun,
Or live on the edges of the mystic moon
And channel to earth-mind the wizard ray. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day, The Soul’s Choice and the Supreme Consummation,#NFDB
93:My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from The Wizard of Oz. But I can tell you, my dog is always with me. WOOF! ~ Jack Nance, #NFDB
94:As I walked back to my room, a scene from The Wizard of Oz sprung into my head in which the Wizard tells the Tin Man, “A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.” I ~ Neil Strauss, #NFDB
95:The wizard [of Oz] says look inside yourself and find self. God says look inside yourself and find [the Holy Spirit]. The first will get you to Kansas.
The latter will get you to heaven.
Take your pick. ~ Max Lucado,#NFDB
96:We don’t need to play her witch’s games. They always want to get you and your little dog, too." "I knew I never should have let you watch The Wizard of Oz." "Toto didn’t deserve that kind of trauma. He was so tiny. ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
97:The road to your dreams is sometimes dark, and it sometimes magical, but The Wizard of Oz had one thing right: it's ultimately about the journey and the characters who accompany you on it, not about the destination. ~ Kelly Cutrone, #NFDB
98:Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember...I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter... After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things — terrible, yes, but great. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
99:I'll not deny I am impressed by your mastery of six warrens, Quick Ben. In retrospect, you should have held back on at least half of what you command." The man made to rise. "But, Bauchelain," the wizard replied, "I did. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
100:Now take all these qualities together: order, balance, evolution and intelligence. What you have is a description of love. It's not the popular ideal, it is the wizard's love - the force that upholds life and nurtures it. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
101:The basis of everything in the wizards' world rests upon the insight "All this is myself." Therefore, in accepting the world as it is, the wizard views everything in the light of self-acceptance, which is the light of love. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
102:The Wizard and the Prophet is a book about the way knowledgeable people might think about the choices to come, rather than what will happen in this or that scenario. It is a book about the future that makes no predictions. ~ Charles C Mann, #NFDB
103:..."but there is no doubt they intend to kill us as dead as possible in a short time." - said the Wizard
"As dead as poss'ble would be pretty dead, wouldn't it?" asked Dorothy.
from "Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz ~ L Frank Baum,#NFDB
104:I'll not deny I am impressed by your mastery of six warrens, Quick Ben. In retrospect, you should have held back on at least half of what you command." The man made to rise.
"But, Bauchelain," the wizard replied, "I did. ~ Steven Erikson,#NFDB
105:I did love that scene in the movie [ "Our Brand Is Crisis"] because it's like "The Wizard of Oz." You see the backstage action of politics. You have access to see behind the curtain. You see how it's all one big advertisement. ~ Sandra Bullock, #NFDB
106:Arista," the wizard said, "sharks don't eat seafood because they like it, but because chickens don't swim. We all do the best we can with the tools we have, but at some point you have to ask yourself where the tools came from. ~ Michael J Sullivan, #NFDB
107:IWALKED INTO my house to see the knight and the wizard sitting in my kitchen, drinking coffee. If you added in Julie’s thieving skills and my sword, we almost had an adventuring party. “It’s too bad we’re missing a cleric,” I said. ~ Ilona Andrews, #NFDB
108:I WALKED INTO my house to see the knight and the wizard sitting in my kitchen, drinking coffee. If you added in Julie’s thieving skills and my sword, we almost had an adventuring party. “It’s too bad we’re missing a cleric,” I said. ~ Ilona Andrews, #NFDB
109:Speaking of music, we will arrive with our own. We plan on delivering our baby to the soundtrack of Pink Floyd’s The Wall while simultaneously watching The Wizard of Oz. If this kid works with us, we guarantee your minds will be blown! ~ Amy Poehler, #NFDB
110:I'm fanatical about movies: African, European, Viking, Roman. I got into witchcraft and magic from watching 'Bewitched' and 'The Wizard of Oz,' which shows in some of my outfits. I dress to reflect the whole spectrum of the universe. ~ Afrika Bambaataa, #NFDB
111:Her face was framed by two wings of lank black hair that curled under her long, pointed chin, so she looked like the female version of the wizard who was always giving Harry Potter such a hard time in the movies. Professor Snail or something. ~ Joe Hill, #NFDB
112:Harry was turning over the wizard coins and looking at them. He had just thought of something that made him feel as though the happy balloon inside him had got a puncture. “Um — Hagrid?” “Mm?” said Hagrid, who was pulling on his huge boots. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
113:He reached out and laid a hand against Quick Ben's brow, then grunted. 'He's on his way back. It's protective sorcery that's keeping him asleep.' 'Can you speed things up?' 'Sure.' The healer slapped the wizard. 'Quick Ben's eyes snapped open. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
114:Behold Akar Kessell, the Tyrant of Icewind Dale!” he cried. “People of Ten-Towns, your master has come!” “Your words are a bit premature—” Cassius began, but Kessell cut him short with a frenzied scream. “Never interrupt me!” the wizard shouted, ~ R A Salvatore, #NFDB
115:H.M.," said the Woggle-Bug, pompously, "means Highly Magnified; and T.E. means Thoroughly Educated. I am, in reality, a very big bug, and doubtless the most intelligent being in all this broad domain."
"How well you disguise it," said the Wizard. ~ L Frank Baum,#NFDB
116:All right Arthur?" said the wizard, nodding at Mr Weasley. "What've you got there, Bob?" asked Mr Weasley, looking that the box.
"We're not sure," said the wizard seriously. "We thought it was a bog standard chicken until it started breathing fire. ~ J K Rowling,#NFDB
117:Chaos, the life force of the universe, is not human-hearted. Therefore the wizard cannot be human-hearted when he seeks to tap the force of the universe. He performs monstrous and arbitrary acts to loosen the hold of human limitations upon himself. ~ Peter J Carroll, #NFDB
118:The monkeys ignored him completely as they discussed wind currents and angle of approach, and even the Lion seemed to have forgotten he was there. He might as well be back in that field tied to a post for all the good the Wizard's gifts were doing him. ~ Danielle Paige, #NFDB
119:These shoes look like they're straight out of 'The Wizard of Oz,' but since I'm like the tornado that blew you into Oz, I guess you can wear Dorothy's red slippers. And if I'm gone and seem lost, maybe you can do a little click and I'll find my way home. ~ Portia Moore, #NFDB
120:(About a woman's funeral) Do you remember the part in The Wizard of Oz when the witch is dead and the Munchkins start singing? Think that kind of happiness. I swear every woman there was ready to break into song. Maybe a few of the men, too. (p. 80) ~ Julie Mulhern, #NFDB
121:Laughing, Bracken threw his sword aside and extended a hand towards the wizard. "To me," he said...The unicorn horn lept from the wizard's hand and streaked to Bracken, who caught it effortlessly. In his grasp the horn immediately transformed into a sword... ~ Brandon Mull, #NFDB
122:If only that dratted wizard would leave young Frodo alone, perhaps he'll settle down and grow some hobbit-sense,' they said. And to all appearance the wizard did leave Frodo alone, and he did settle down, but the growth of hobbit-sense was not very noticable. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
123:She always said education didn’t belong to anyone other than the one who was willing to take it. She also said education was more than words and marks on paper. ~ Joe R. Lansdale, The Wizard of the Trees, in George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois (eds.) Old Venus (2015), p. 475, #NFDB
124:My first thought was that a tornado had somehow picked me up and carried me off, like in the Wizard of Oz. No old witches pedaled by, and I didn't see any flying farm animals or chicken coops, and after a few agonizing minutes, I fell deep into unconsciousness again. ~ J R Rain, #NFDB
125:The winner of the tournaments takes control of the Wizard Council, which governs the guilds. Those who have come to power through the system are unlikely to change it. Our family is an aristocracy: privileged and idle, with little to do but spin intrigue. ~ Cinda Williams Chima, #NFDB
126:Comen out, leetle rodents,” the human called in a language that the companions could not understand. The wizard reiterated the request in another tongue, then in drow, and then in two more unknown tongues, and then in svirfneblin. He continued on for many minutes, ~ R A Salvatore, #NFDB
127:Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember. . . . I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter. . . . After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things — terrible, yes, but great. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
128:On the American side, some of the movies that I watched when I was a kid, like E.T. or The Wizard of Oz, those are films that changed my point of view of what film could be, of what you could do. Those are the ones that I remember were incredible when I was younger. ~ Cherien Dabis, #NFDB
129:Please enter,” Kessell said with false courtesy. “Fear not for my trolls that you injured, they will surely heal!” He threw his head back and laughed. Drizzt felt a fool; to think that all of his caution and stealth had served no better purpose than to amuse the wizard! ~ R A Salvatore, #NFDB
130:I shivered. The story was true. The Wizard of Oz had been real. Dorothy Gale had really been swept up by a tornado and brought to the Land of Oz. True, what I was living now didn't seem like the kind of storybook tale I was used to. But it didn't mean they didn't exist. ~ Danielle Paige, #NFDB
131:All books can be indecent books
Though recent books are bolder,
For filth, I'm glad to say, is in
The mind of the beholder.
When correctly viewed,
Everything is lewd.
I could tell you things about Peter Pan
And the Wizard of Oz, there's a dirty old man... ~ Tom Lehrer,#NFDB
132:The Wizard of Oz was a humbug. He's not great and powerful. He just pretends to be great and powerful. The Wicked Witch of the West is greater and powerfuller. She's got flying monkeys. She's like a mad scientist. She even has a secret weakness. Water is like Kryptonite to her. ~ Kelly Link, #NFDB
133:I do not listen when anyone uses the word immoral," said the Wizard. "In the young it is ridiculous, in the old it is sententious and reactionary and an early warning sign of apoplexy. In the middle-aged, who love and fear the idea of moral life the most, it is hypocritical. ~ Gregory Maguire, #NFDB
134:Thank you very much, Miss Badger," she said. "I appreciate your honesty. I realise this may have put you in a difficult position here, but I trust you will not have any trouble." Marcia glared at Jillie Djinn. "However, if you do, there is always a place for you at the Wizard Tower. ~ Angie Sage, #NFDB
135:The wizard stirs, opens his eyes, and looks at the reluctant boy. “Oh, you’ll get your heart broken,” he says. “Is that what you’re waiting to hear? It’ll be broken, all right. But you'll never get anything done if you walk around with an unchipped heart. That’s the way of it, boy. ~ Peter Straub, #NFDB
136:I WALKED INTO my house to see the knight and the wizard sitting in my kitchen, drinking coffee. If you added in Julie’s thieving skills and my sword, we almost had an adventuring party. “It’s too bad we’re missing a cleric,” I said. They both looked at me like I had grown a second head. ~ Ilona Andrews, #NFDB
137:There in seclusion and remote from men The wizard hand lies cold, Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen, And left the tale half told. Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power, And the lost clew regain? The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower Unfinished must remain! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
138:Lex surfed wicked, like the devil. He wasn’t afraid of anything, seemed like. He grinned at West as the waves came up toward them like towers of green glass, an emerald city. We’re off to see the wizard, he shouted. He whooped. His body crouched ready to fly. He shone against the sun. ~ Francesca Lia Block, #NFDB
139:Men embody adventure, women embody hearth and home, and that has been pretty much it.
Even as a child, I noticed that Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz spent her entire time trying to get back home to Kansas, and Alice in Wonderland dreamed her long adventure, then woke up just in time for tea. ~ Gloria Steinem,#NFDB
140:I just don't know when we all decided that if it doesn't fit in a Happy Meal box, it's not for kids. I remember flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz, and I grew up watching Monty Python. I think that kids can handle a lot more than we give them credit for, especially when it comes to the absurd. ~ Gore Verbinski, #NFDB
141:I glance back to the battle to find a witch with skin as dark as ebony screaming at the wizard, who’s near-on seven feet tall. Here we go, I think. They may be on the same side, but wizards and witches will never be friends. “It’s like reality TV,” Laney says. “The Real Housewitches of West Virginia. ~ David Estes, #NFDB
142:There was silence in the room, except for the distant rushing of the sea.
'You talk about wands like they’ve got feelings,’ said Harry, ‘like they can think for themselves.’
‘The wand chooses the wizard,’ said Ollivander. ‘That much has always been clear to those of us who have studied wandlore. ~ J K Rowling,#NFDB
143:It was like The Wizard of Oz, instant beautiful color, only Quinn had been living in worse than black-and-white Kansas. He’d been trapped in a monochromatic world of beige, of nice, of going with the flow, not making waves. Eli was the whole super-sized box of crayons, with no rules about staying in the lines. ~ K A Mitchell, #NFDB
144:He talks pretty big for a gutter wizard," he muttered. "You don't understand at all," said the wizard wearily. "I'm so scared of you my spine has turned to jelly, it's just that I'm suffering from an overdose of terror right now. I mean, when I've got over that then I'll have time to be decently frightened of you. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
145:A moment later the wizard was standing over him, shouting, “Tell it that if it singes me I’ll let the sword go! I will! I’ll let it go! So tell it!” The tip of the black sword was hovering over K!sdra’s throat. What was odd was that the wizard was obviously struggling with it, and it appeared to be singing to itself. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
146:He talks pretty big for a gutter wizard," he muttered.
"You don't understand at all," said the wizard wearily. "I'm so scared of you my spine has turned to jelly, it's just that I'm suffering from an overdose of terror right now. I mean, when I've got over that then I'll have time to be decently frightened of you. ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
147:The other suicide had been the actress Clara Blandick, who, one day in 1962, had got her hair fixed up and had carefully done her makeup and put on a formal gown and then pulled a plastic bag over her head and smothered herself. She was chiefly remembered for having played Auntie Em in the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz. ~ Tim Powers, #NFDB
148:I always loved all kinds of music. I would watch musicals a lot as a kid, on TV, watch the Fred Astaire movies. I'd watch 'The Wizard of Oz.' I was a big Jerry Lewis fan, and they'd have these big bands and someone singing - some siren, or some guy singing some gorgeous song. I was always enamored of that style of music. ~ Queen Latifah, #NFDB
149:Somehow the killing of the giant spider, all alone by himself in the dark without the help of the wizard or the dwarves or of anyone else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins. He felt a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach, as he wiped his sword on the grass and put it back into its sheath. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
150:Annie taught me that orphanages were a blast and being rich is the only thing that matters. Grease taught me being in a gang is nonstop fun and you need to dress sexier to have any chance of keeping a guy interested. But The Wizard of Oz was the ultimate. It dealt with friendship and fear and death and rainbows and sparkly red shoes. ~ Amy Poehler, #NFDB
151:What I think is great about Pippin, specifically, and I wouldn't make this generalization about all musicals, is that it is about how we tell stories and the way stories are very subjective. How we tell some things and leave other things out in the way The Princess Bride is or The Wizard of Oz is, which both have a framing device. ~ James Ponsoldt, #NFDB
152:NEFARIOUS means utterly, completely wicked. The character in The Wizard of Oz could have been called the Nefarious Witch of the West but authors like to use the same beginning consonant, often. Perhaps L. Frank Baum crossed out nefarious after wicked came to his mind. Thank goodness, because Nefarious would be a terrible name for a musical. ~ Lois Lowry, #NFDB
153:The Vampires have a plan to take over the world?" I asked. I felt a bit dumb, gasping in surprise at every twist to the story and incredulously repeating all the important of bits. But somehow Carter's version of things made sense. I felt like Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of Oz when the green curtain is pulled back to reveal the truth. ~ Emily McKay, #NFDB
154:We are the nation of dreams. We are seers. We are wizards. We speak in visions. Our letters are like flocks of doves, released from under our hats. We have only to stretch out our hand and desire, and what we wish for settles like a kerchief in our palm. We are a race of sorcerers, enchanters. We are Atlantis. We are the wizard-isle of Mu. ~ M T Anderson, #NFDB
155:In this state, the club was The Wizard of Oz made obvious: All the magic that went on here night after night, all the buzz and excitement, was really just a combination of electronics, booze, and chemicals, an illusion for the people who walked through the front doors, a fantasy that allowed them to be whatever they weren't in their day-to-day lives. ~ J R Ward, #NFDB
156:We are the nation of dreams. We are seers. We are wizards. We speak in visions. Our letters are like flocks of doves, released from under our hats. We have only to stretch out our hand and desire, and what we wish for settles like a kerchief in our palm. We are a race of sorcerers, enchanters. We are Atlantis. We are the wizard-isle of Mu. ~ Matthew Tobin Anderson, #NFDB
157:Death, although of course completely eyeless, watched Rincewind disappearing with what would, had His face possessed any mobility at all, have been a frown. Death, although exceptionally busy at all times, decided that He now had a hobby. There was something about the wizard that irked Him beyond measure. He didn’t keep appointments, for one thing. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
158:Pippin glanced in some wonder at the face now close beside his own, for the sound of that laugh had been gay and merry. Yet in the wizard's face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
159:if you are any wizard at all you will be able to channel your magic through almost any instrument. The best results, however, must always come where there is the strongest affinity between wizard and wand. These connections are complex. An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
160:The Wizard Of Oz" has secrets that are just too much. Or "Peter Pan" – the whole 'lost boys' thing is just incredible. They’re not childlike at all, they’re really, really deep; you can rule your life by them. Or say 'child-like', because children are the most brilliant people of all, that’s why they relate to those stories so well. Fairy-tales are wonderful. ~ Michael Jackson, #NFDB
161:Listen to this dumbass question,” she groaned that afternoon in Pearl’s kitchen, fishing the printed-out application from her bag. “‘Rewrite a famous story from a different perspective. For example, retell The Wizard of Oz from the point of view of the Wicked Witch.’ This is a college app, not creative writing. I’m taking AP English. At least ask me to write a real essay. ~ Celeste Ng, #NFDB
162:Leicester stared fixedly at the image before him, the color bleached from his face by its brilliance. Seph sensed the headmaster's mind questing out, trying to discover and destroy the wizard behind the image, but finding nothing, no trail of magic, no stone, no flesh and blood to focus on.
Jason Haley, the puppeteer, was safely ensconced in the gallery above. ~ Cinda Williams Chima,#NFDB
163:Kessell tried to goad the sweat out of him. The wizard swayed the deadly candle tantalizingly about, causing the rays to shift back and forth. When he finally realized that he would not hear any whimpering or begging out of the proud ranger, Kessell grew tired of the game. “Farewell, fool,” he growled and puckered his lips to puff on the flame. Regis blew out the candle. ~ R A Salvatore, #NFDB
164:Courage~ What makes the flag on the mast to wave? What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot?~Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz ~ L Frank Baum, #NFDB
165:In the early years of the show, I had earned a reputation as the prankster who planted stink bombs under the audience seats, greased doorknobs and hid crew members’ cars in bushes. I initiated practical jokes, laughter, ribbing and the sarcastic comments that flew around stage like the evil monkeys on The Wizard of Oz. My fellow cast members affectionately named me “Devil Boy. ~ Kirk Cameron, #NFDB
166:Mission motto, sir," said Carrot cheerfully. "Morituri Nolumus Mori. Rincewind suggested it."
"I imagine he did," said Lord Vetinari, observing the wizard coldly. "And would you care to give us a colloquial translation, Mr Rincewind?"
"Er..." Rincewind hesitated, but there really was no escape. "Er... roughly speaking, it means, 'We who are about to die don't want to', sir. ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
167:Golden tongues of fire licked the night-sky, lighting up Brenna’s ancient sky-line in terrible beauty. The wizard and his young companion watched the flames devour the city like a hungry beast. The knowledge they had only barely escaped from the Morg’s clutches did not fill them with relief but a sense of burgeoning panic – the sacking of Brenna was only a taste of what was to come. ~ Sam J Charlton, #NFDB
168:didn’t know about the wizard power, but she was right about being cute. I was sort of cute in a girl-next-door kind of way that didn’t seem to encourage dates. Glo was cute in a quirky, fun way that was obviously more approachable. Truth is, I wish I was more like Glo, but I’d feel like an idiot if I tried to wear a pink ballet tutu with green-and-black striped tights and motorcycle boots. ~ Janet Evanovich, #NFDB
169:The parallels between Borlaug and Vogt are inexact. Borlaug never wrote a manifesto and mostly declined the roles of theorist and exponent. Instead he became, by the example of his life, the emblem of a way of thought—the Wizard’s way. His success would show, at least to Wizards, that science and technology, properly applied, could allow humankind to produce its way into a prosperous future. ~ Charles C Mann, #NFDB
170:After an hour of blather, I started to understand Tyler Durden. Human interaction to him was a program. Behavior was determined by frames and congruence and state and validation and other big-chunk psychological principles. And he wanted to be the Wizard of Oz: the little guy behind the curtain, pulling the strings that made everyone around him think he was a big and powerful master of the realm. I ~ Neil Strauss, #NFDB
171:And though at nine I wasn’t sure what an “agent” was, I knew she must be extremely important to make even my parents nervous. Besides, I was afraid of anyone I didn’t know, let alone someone hiding behind a shroud of smoke. My imagination began to get the best of me. It was like we were in the presence of the Wizard. Instead of “I am the Great and Terrible Oz,” she was the Great and Terrible Agent. ~ Kirk Cameron, #NFDB
172:God’s unrivaled goodness undergirds everything else we can say about prayer. If he is like us, only slightly stronger, then why pray? If he grows weary, then why pray? If he has limitations, questions, and hesitations, then you might as well pray to the Wizard of Oz. However, if God is at once Father and Creator, holy—unlike us—and high above us, then we at any point are only a prayer away from help. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
173:I always hated those fantasy books where, at the end, all the kids had to go home. At the end of a Narnia book, you always got shown the door. Same with The Wizard Of Oz and The Phantom Tollbooth. You get kicked out of your magic land. It's like, "By the way, here's your next surprise: You get to go home!" And the kids are all like, "Yay, we get to go home!" I never bought that. Did anybody buy that? ~ Lev Grossman, #NFDB
174:A mouse was always depressed because he was afraid of cats. A great wizard took pity on him and turned him into a cat. Then he started to be afraid of dogs, and so the wizard turned him into a dog. Then he began to fear tigers. The wizard, who was very patient, used his powers to turn him into a tiger. Then he was afraid of hunters. Finally, the wizard gave up and turned him back into a mouse, saying: ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
175:Courage~ L Frank Baum What makes the flag on the mast to wave? What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot?~ L Frank BaumCowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz ~ L Frank Baum, #NFDB
176:
No, she knows you're here. She can see through the camouflage. But I think she's hiding something from me, and I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Never mind. Just listen. Once she drinks the tea, she will try ot surprise me with something. She is waiting for the contrast to be fully in effect before she says anything.
I knew I never should have let you watch The Wizard of Oz.
~ Kevin Hearne,#NFDB
177:In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, the wizard Saruman turns from wisdom to rapacity in his taste for power. He rips out the ancient trees and flattens the land to make room for the industries of war. The lesson is simple: All technology, along with its blessings, also carries a temptation—an appetite for control, a willingness to flatten the world (if needed) to make space for the human will. And ~ Charles J Chaput, #NFDB
178:In many ways, I think I'm a good person for it. I mean, I'm not a musical theater dude. Or rather, I don't watch everything, and love everything, and have every album. The ones that I love - like I've seen The Wizard of Oz a hundred times. West Side Story I love. I love Singing in the Rain, I love White Christmas. I love the Dennis Potter ones like Singing Detective and Pennies from Heaven. I love Sondheim. ~ James Ponsoldt, #NFDB
179:I've spoken about this completely independent of this movie prior to ever being attached to this film that as a kid the first movie that I remember seeing that resonated with me was the Wizard of Oz. I think just visually the color, the spectrum of it and how fantastical it was and how much you wanted to live in that world, for a nine-year old was so magical and so grand so I have the greatest, fondest memories of it. ~ Mila Kunis, #NFDB
180:I found a Cairn Terrier online. It’s perfect.”
“A what?”
“Pidge is from Kansas. It’s the same kind of dog Dorothy had in the Wizard of Oz.”
Shepley’s face was blank. “The Wizard of Oz.”
“What? I liked the scarecrow when I was a little kid, shut the fuck up.”
“It’s going to crap every where, Travis. It’ll bark and whine and … I don’t know.”
“So does America … minus the crapping. ~ Jamie McGuire,#NFDB
181:Joe and I started dancing. It was strange, because we weren’t touching, we were each kinda in our own little space. But the way Joe held my gaze the entire time, it was almost like there was an invisible thread pulling us toward each other.
And I couldn’t help but wonder if I wasn’t a little like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, searching far and wide for something that had been in my backyard the entire time. ~ Rachel Hawthorne,#NFDB
182:Oh, I love astronomy. I’m a Pisces. What sign are you?”
Which had made Mac laugh again, and he started to explain the difference between astronomy and astrology. Tiffany was apparently absolutely fascinated…and fascinating. His gaze--and Jason’s--was riveted on her.
I gave another little shrug, feeling a need to defend my sister, who might be in need of a trip down the yellow brick road to ask the wizard for some brains. ~ Rachel Hawthorne,#NFDB
183:Any true wizard, faced with a sign like 'Do not open this door. Really. We mean it. We're not kidding. Opening this door will mean the end of the universe,' would automatically open the door in order to see what all the fuss is about. This made signs rather a waste of time, but at least it meant that when you handed what was left of the wizard to his grieving relatives you could say, as they grasped the jar, 'We told him not to. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
184:Any true wizard, faced with a sign like 'Do not open this door. Really. We mean it. We're not kidding. Opening this door will mean the end of the universe,' would automatically open the door in order to see what all the fuss is about. This made signs rather a waste of time, but at least it meant that when you handed what was left of the wizard to his grieving relatives you could say, as they grasped the jar, 'We told him not to." ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
185:You have two hands, Mr Felix. I understand that's all a lonely single man needs." She clamped her lips together and forced herself to remain calm until the door closed behind her. She blinked in the late afternoon sunlight, feeling like she'd been inside a surreal film and the real world was definitely a relief. Sunset tinted the path as she followed the yellow brick road away from the rock star the newspapers called the Wizard of Aus. ~ Demelza Carlton, #NFDB
186:Ig knew her, of course. It was the same woman who had served him and Merrin drinks on their last night together. Her face was framed by two wings of lank black hair that curled under her long, pointed chin, so she looked like the female version of the wizard who was always giving Harry Potter such a hard time in the movies. Professor Snail or something. Ig had been waiting to read the books with the children he and Merrin planned to have together. ~ Joe Hill, #NFDB
187:The apple blossoms were in full bloom, and the orchard looked as if it had been dusted in pink snow. Every few seconds, a gusty, warm wind bellowed down the hillside and into the bay, a roar followed by a brief silence in which another sound would emerge: the hum of bees on the blossoms.
"Reminds me of The Wizard of Oz when the movie turned into Technicolor," Willo said, pushing up the sleeves on her long-sleeved T-shirt. "Feels like May. ~ Viola Shipman,#NFDB
188:It was, however, very angry. The moment it saw Moog the treant began thrashing against the cords binding it to the table. The branches too small to serve as limbs all strained toward the wizard, seeking to grasp hold of him. Though this creature looked far too frail to threaten a full-grown man, Clay was reminded again of Hollow Hill. The treants there had been huge and hale, capable of swallowing men whole or snapping them, ironically, like twigs. ~ Nicholas Eames, #NFDB
189:Once upon a time there was a king, and the king commissioned his favorite wizard to create a magic mirror. This mirror didn’t show you your reflection. It showed you your soul—it showed you who you really were.
The wizard couldn’t look at it without turning away. The king couldn’t look at it. The courtiers couldn’t look at it. A chestful of treasure was offered to anyone who could look at it for sixty seconds without turning away. And no one could. ~ Martin Amis,#NFDB
190:Ivan Lankowski,” said Petra. “The name I’d like to hear is the name of the one who sent you.” “One’s superior officer is never named. It is a basic rule of security.” Petra sighed. “I suppose this proves I’m not in Kansas anymore.” “I don’t believe,” said Lankowski, “that you have ever been in Kansas, Mrs. Delphiki.” “It was a reference to—” “I have seen The Wizard of Oz,” said Lankowski. “I am, after all, an educated man. And…I have been in Kansas. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
191:You are the Chosen One?”
“Of course I am,” said Harry calmly.
“But then . . . my dear boy . . . you’re asking a great deal . . .you’re asking me, in fact, to aid you in your attempt to destroy —”
“You don’t want to get rid of the wizard who killed Lily Evans?”
“Harry, Harry, of course I do, but —”
“You’re scared he’ll find out you helped me?”
Slughorn said nothing; he looked terrified.
“Be brave like my mother, Professor. . . . ~ J K Rowling,#NFDB
192:he drew from his pocket a tiny instrument which he placed against his ear. Ozma, observing this action in her Magic Picture, at once caught up a similar instrument from a table beside her and held it to her own ear. The two instruments recorded the same delicate vibrations of sound and formed a wireless telephone, an invention of the Wizard. Those separated by any distance were thus enabled to converse together with perfect ease and without any wire connection. ~ L Frank Baum, #NFDB
193:Somewhere in the distance he could hear a wireless playing Judy Garland's 'Over the Rainbow.' Wolf had seen the film but, had he been the one swept up to the magical land of Oz, he would have raised an army of flying monkeys, stuck the witches in a concentration camp, razed the Emerald City to the ground and executed the wizard for communist sympathies, being a Jew, a homosexual, intellectually retarded, or all of the above.
He did like the tune, though. ~ Lavie Tidhar,#NFDB
194:It broke her heart that they had come to this: if one knew the future, all the unexpected glimpses of the beloved, one might have trouble finding the courage to go on. This was probably the reason nine-tenths of the human brain had been rendered useless: to make you stupidly intrepid. One was working with only the animal brain, the Pringle brain. The wizard-god brain, the one that could see the future and move objects without touching them, was asleep. Fucking bastard. ~ Lorrie Moore, #NFDB
195:Witten's result showed that much as the Wizard of Oz's frightening visage was produced by an ordinary man, a rapacious black hole is the holographic projection of something equally ordinary: a bath of hot particles in the boundary theory (Figure 9.6). Like a real hologram and the image it generates, the two theories-a black hole in the interior and a hot quantum field theory on the boundary-bear no apparent resemblance to each other, and yet they embody identical information. ~ Brian Greene, #NFDB
196:The Hottentot Venus was well known in her time and even after. In the 1939 cinematic version of The Wizard of Oz, Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion asks in song, “What makes the Hottentot so hot?” He answers his own question with the word courage. The correct answer, though it is not said in the film, would most logically be: her derrière. Or perhaps Wizard of Oz songwriters Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen meant that it took a certain measure of courage to live through such degradation. ~ Rion Amilcar Scott, #NFDB
197:It may merely be apocryphal that when the Wizard saw the glass bottle he gasped, and clutched his heart. The story is told in so many ways, depending on who is doing the telling, and what needs to be heard at the time. It is a matter of history, however, that shortly thereafter, the Wizard absconded from the Palace. He left in the way he had first arrived-- a hot-air balloon-- just a few hours before seditious ministers were to lead a Palace revolt and to hold an execution without trial. ~ Gregory Maguire, #NFDB
198:Children being children, however, the grotesque Hopping Pot had taken hold of their imaginations. The solution was to jettison the pro-Muggle moral but keep the warty cauldron, so by the middle of the sixteenth century a different version of the tale was in wide circulation among wizarding families. In the revised story, the Hopping Pot protects an innocent wizard from his torch-bearing, pitchfork-toting neighbours by chasing them away from the wizard's cottage, catching them and swallowing them whole. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
199:The door was suddenly thrown open, and there was Moog. He was wearing what looked to Clay like one-piece pyjamas: tiny moons and stars scattered across a dark blue sky. He was skinny as ever, and his long beard was white as cotton. He’d gone bald up top, but the fringe that remained was long and wisp thin. His eyes were the same startling blue beneath bushy white brows. “Gabriel! Clay!” The wizard cackled delightedly and did a little dance that only reinforced the fact that he was dressed like a child, ~ Nicholas Eames, #NFDB
200:mouse was always depressed because he was afraid of cats. A great wizard took pity on him and turned him into a cat. Then he started to be afraid of dogs, and so the wizard turned him into a dog. Then he began to fear tigers. The wizard, who was very patient, used his powers to turn him into a tiger. Then he was afraid of hunters. Finally, the wizard gave up and turned him back into a mouse, saying: “Nothing I do will help you, because you never understood your growth. You are better being what you always were. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
201:Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads. Erica Jong To Cowardly Lion:"As for you my fine friend, you are a victim of disorganized thinking. You are under the unfortunate delusion that simply because you run away from danger, you have no courage. You're confusing courage with wisdom.Frank Morgan as the Wizard of Oz "Courage faces fear and thereby masters it."Martin Luther King, Jr. "These days I'm feeling all right'cept I can't tell my courage from my desperation ~ Bruce Springsteen, #NFDB
202:I feel any time you enter a dream world it's like you're working out things, it's all inside your mind and you're working it out, be it Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, or the kids in Narnia, they go through this weird journey that's not real, and they're going through this journey psychologically. It's that journey of discovery, of getting onself together, that fantasy and fairy tales are so good at. And while some people still look upon them as completely unrealistic, for me they're more real than most things that are perceived as real. ~ Tim Burton, #NFDB
203:All of us are navigating our own personal yellow brick roads. Some of us are still asleep in the poppy field; some of us remain content with the material pleasures of the Emerald City. Some of us still think that the Wizard is great and powerful and follow his arbitrary commands to curry favor, while others have seen the man behind the curtain and have become disillusioned or feel betrayed. For the rest of us, once we acknowledge that our hearts’ desires lie in our own backyard—inside of us—we’ll be closer to home. And there’s no place like home. ~ James Van Praagh, #NFDB
204:Bidding the wizard farewell, he turned to his daughter, who held up her finger and said, “Daddy, look — one of the gnomes actually bit me!” “How wonderful! Gnome saliva is enormously beneficial!” said Mr. Lovegood, seizing Luna’s outstretched finger and examining the bleeding puncture marks. “Luna, my love, if you should feel any burgeoning talent today — perhaps an unexpected urge to sing opera or to declaim in Mermish — do not repress it! You may have been gifted by the Gernumblies!” Ron, passing them in the opposite direction, let out a loud snort. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
205:Bidding the wizard farewell, he turned to his daughter, who held up her finger
and said, “Daddy, look — one of the gnomes actually bit me!”
“How wonderful! Gnome saliva is enormously beneficial!” said Mr. Lovegood, seizing Luna’s outstretched finger and examining the bleeding puncture marks. “Luna, my love, if you should feel any burgeoning talent today — perhaps an unexpected urge to sing opera or to declaim in Mermish — do not repress it! You may have been gifted by the Gernumblies!”
Ron, passing them in the opposite direction, let out a loud snort. ~ J K Rowling,#NFDB
206:Southwest,” he murmured. “A kindly wind, but sometimes wet.” Turning to Timoken, he said, “I don’t have an answer for you, but perhaps I’ll try and dream one if we get some peace.” “Thank you.” Timoken knew that Eri was a great wizard. Answers were a favor and he shouldn’t ask for too many. Yet there was someone he hadn’t mentioned, someone he hadn’t seen for a while, but whose memory was as fresh as though she were sitting before him at that very moment. The wizard bunched the top of his cloak around his neck and rubbed his hands. He gave Timoken a thoughtful ~ Jenny Nimmo, #NFDB
207:The mind may succeed in making you intelligent, but it is poorly equipped to make you happy, fulfilled, at peace with yourself. Merlin doesn’t argue with the mind. All debates are generated by thinking, and the wizard doesn’t think. He sees. And that is the key to the miraculous, for whatever you can see in your inner world you will bring into existence in the outer world. Live with this first lesson, let the water of wisdom begin to seep into the secret passages inside your being, and observe. The wizard is inside you, and he wants only one thing: to be born. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
208:Besides, when you found me, I was a much different person.”
“I remember,” the wizard said thoughtfully. “You were like a rabid dog, snapping at everything and everyone. Clearly, my genius in matching you up with Hadrian worked wonders. I knew his noble heart would eventually soften yours.”
“Yeah, well, travel with a guy long enough and you start picking up his bad habits. You have no idea how many times I almost killed him when we first started. I never bothered, because I expected the jobs would take care of that for me, but somehow he kept surviving. ~ Michael J Sullivan,#NFDB
209:The obvious differences apart, Karl Marx was no more a reliable prophet than was the Reverend Jim Jones. Karl Marx was a genius, an uncannily resourceful manipulator of world history who shoved everything he knew, thought, and devised into a Ouija board from whose movements he decocted universal laws. He had his following, during the late phases of the Industrial Revolution. But he was discredited by historical experience longer ago than the Wizard of Oz: and still, great grown people sit around, declare themselves to be Marxists, and make excuses for Gulag and Afghanistan. ~ William F Buckley Jr, #NFDB
210:By third grade, I was writing Timmy McBrown: Boy Detective stories on narrow-lined paper and secretly handing them around the classroom. In fourth grade, I typed out my first science fiction story on old Underwood upright. In fifth grade, I wrote and circulated an elaborate sequel to The Wizard of Oz. Occasionally these stories were intercepted by the teacher and I was scolded for wasting time. Thank God for that response! Writing, I'm convinced, should be a subversive activity -- frowned on by the authorities -- and not one cooed over and praised beyond common sense by some teacher. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
211:For they were alone, and he was one of the seven persons in the world who knew the Archmage's name. The others were the Master Namer of Roke; and Ogion the Silent, the wizard of Re Albi, who long ago on the mountain of Gont had given Ged that name; and the White Lady of Gont, Tenar of the Ring; and a village wizard in Iffish called Vetch; and in Iffish again, a house-carpenter's wife, mother of three girls, ignorant of all sorcery but wise in other things, who was called Yarrow; and finally, on the other side of Earthsea, in the farthest west, two dragons: Orm Embar and Kalessin. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
212:He selected one of these incantations and began to chant in a loud, wailing voice. All the clocks in the house suddenly went off at once, though it was only three-twenty; the copper pots hanging in the kitchen clanged and whanged against each other; and a couple of the wizard’s books fell off their shelves with a clump. But nothing else happened. Prospero slammed the magic book shut and slumped into an overstuffed chair. He fumbled in his smoking stand for his pipe and tobacco. “I learned that spell fifty years ago,” he mumbled as he lit his pipe. “And I still don’t know what it’s for. ~ John Bellairs, #NFDB
213:When I was young I longed to write a great novel that should win me fame. Now that I am getting old my first book is written to amuse children. For aside from my evident inability to do anything "great," I have learned to regard fame as a will-o-the-wisp which, when caught, is not worth the possession; but to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward. ~ L. Frank Baum, in a personal inscription on a copy of Mother Goose in Prose which he gave to his sister, Mary Louise Baum Brewster, quoted in The Making of the Wizard of Oz (1998) by Aljean Harmetz, p. 317., #NFDB
214:Beli, who'd been waiting for something exactly like her body her whole life, was sent over the moon by what she now knew. By the undeniable concreteness of her desirability which was, in its own way, Power. Like the accidental discovery of the One Ring. Like stumbling into the wizard Shazam's cave or finding the crashed ship of the Green Lantern! Hypatia Belicia Cabral finally had power and a true sense of self. Started pinching her shoulders back, wearing the tightest clothes she had. Dios mío, La Inca said every time the girl headed out. Why would God give you that burden in this country of all places! ~ Junot D az, #NFDB
215:The last thing that you remember is standing before the wizard Lakmir as he gestured wildly and chanted in an archaic tongue. Now you find yourself staring at an entryway which lies at the edge of a forest. The Druid's words still ring in your ears: "Within the walls of the Castle Shadowgate lies your quest. If the prophecies hold true, the dreaded Warlock Lord will use his dark magic to raise the Behemoth, the deadliest of the Titans, from the depths of the earth. You are the seed of prophecy, the last of the line of kings, and only you can stop the Warlock Lord from darkening our world FOREVER. Fare thee well. ~ Shadowgate, #NFDB
216:"Heard you choking, are you all right?"
"You're beautiful, a good kisser, this is our first date, my bed is in the room, I'm nervous as all heck and I just thought I was going to die choking after spitting out gum so no, I'm not all right."
Yes, that's what I blurted, word for word.
Chace stared at me.
I stared back both wondering if I could will myself to melt like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz and if that was what Laurie meant by honesty or if it was a tad over the top.
(...)
Then his tongue was in my mouth.
(...)
"Still nervous?"
"No," I whispered.
"Good," he muttered. ~ Kristen Ashley,#NFDB
217:Adultery: A Novel (Paulo Coelho) - Your Highlight on page 100 | Location 1522-1526 | Added on Saturday, September 20, 2014 2:28:07 PM A mouse was always depressed because he was afraid of cats. A great wizard took pity on him and turned him into a cat. Then he started to be afraid of dogs, and so the wizard turned him into a dog. Then he began to fear tigers. The wizard, who was very patient, used his powers to turn him into a tiger. Then he was afraid of hunters. Finally, the wizard gave up and turned him back into a mouse, saying: “Nothing I do will help you, because you never understood your growth. You are better being what you always were. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
218:But when the wizard is onstage as the main character, you have to adopt what I call the Jack Vance Rule. I call it this because Jack Vance is the first author successfully and adroitly to have applied this rule in his The Dying Earth. The Jack Vance Rule is: (1) The wizard has to be able to do something unusual, or else he is not a wizard, (2) he cannot do everything, or else there is no drama; therefore (3) the story teller has to communicate to the reader whatever the dividing line is that separates what the wizard can do from what he cannot do, so that the reader can have a reasonable expectation of knowing what the wizard can and cannot do. ~ John C Wright, #NFDB
219:What in Hood's name are you doing down here?'
'Hiding, what's it look like? That's always been your problem, Kal, your lack of subtlety. Sooner or later it's going to get you into trouble. Is it dark yet?'
'No. Listen, what's with this damned gale up top? It's all wrong-'
'You just noticed?'
Kalam scowled in the gloom. Well, at least he'd found the wizard. The High Mage of the Fourteenth, hiding between crates and casks and bales. Oh, how bloody encouraging is that?
...
Quick Ben moved further into the narrow space between cargo. 'Here, there's room.'
After a moment, Kalam joined him. 'You got anything to eat? Drink?'
'Naturally.'
'Good. ~ Steven Erikson,#NFDB
220:You talk about wands like they’ve got feelings,’ said Harry, ‘like they can think for themselves.’ ‘The wand chooses the wizard,’ said Ollivander. ‘That much has always been clear to those of us who have studied wandlore.’ ‘A person can still use a wand that hasn’t chosen them, though?’ asked Harry. ‘Oh yes, if you are any wizard at all you will be able to channel your magic through almost any instrument. The best results, however, must always come where there is the strongest affinity between wizard and wand. These connections are complex. An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand.’ The sea gushed ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
221:Once your focus was pinpointed on your breathing, you began running your own personal mantra through your head. Something that guided you, brought pleasant memories. Something that would take you to the next state of being. For Aunt Sue, it was The Wizard of Oz. Go figure.
That morning, mine was something that would bring me a great deal of satisfaction: Break a leg. Break a leg. Break a leg.
I was directing it toward Cynthia, which really isn’t how meditation works. It’s not like voodoo or something, where you try to throw a curse on someone, and, okay, it was a mean thought that I didn’t really want to come true. And it wasn’t exactly releasing negative energy . . . ~ Rachel Hawthorne,#NFDB
222:In this state, the club was The Wizard of Oz made obvious: All the magic that went on here night after night, all the buzz and excitement, was really just a combination of electronics, booze, and chemicals, an illusion for the people who walked through the front doors, a fantasy that allowed them to be whatever they weren’t in their day-to-day lives. Maybe they jonesed to be powerful because they felt weak, or sexual because they felt ugly, or chic and rich when they weren’t, or young when they were gaining speed on middle age. Maybe they wanted to burn off the pain of a failed relationship or get revenge over being jilted or pretend they weren’t searching for a mate when actually they were desperate for one. ~ J R Ward, #NFDB
223:Half An Hour
I never had you, nor will I ever have you
I suppose. A few words, an approach
as in the bar yesterday, and nothing more.
It is, undeniably, a pity. But we who serve Art
sometimes with intensity of mind, and of course only
for a short while, we create pleasure
which almost seems real.
So in the bar the day before yesterday -- the merciful alcohol
was also helping much -I had a perfectly erotic half-hour.
And it seems to me that you understood,
and stayed somewhat longer on purpose.
This was very necessary. Because
for all the imagination and the wizard alcohol,
I needed to see your lips as well,
I needed to have your body close.
~ Constantine P. Cavafy,#NFDB
224:(T)his world is pure illusion. It looks real but the first step of knowledge that the wizard must learn is not to trust his senses... The cycle of life and death continues forever, but only to the senses... (P)erhaps you were always alive, and birth was simply a moment of forgetting.... Light! It is all light.... The light is all, and in the light there is only one thing -- eternal life. It cannot be created or destroyed. The wizard is not afraid to walk in the darkness -- indeed he must -- because that is where illusion dies... (Wizards) dabble in eternity. The wizard looks around him and finds the eternal in all directions. His only choice is what to do with it.... It is also joy to pierce the illusion and find the wellspring of creative power. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
225:Rincewind agreed moodily. He tried to explain that magic had indeed once been wild and lawless, but had been tamed back in the mists of time by the Olden Ones, who had bound it to obey among other things the Law of Conservation of Reality; this demanded that the effort needed to achieve a goal should be the same regardless of the means used. In practical terms this meant that, say, creating the illusion of a glass of wine was relatively easy, since it involved merely the subtle shifting of light patterns. On the other hand, lifting a genuine wineglass a few feet in the air by sheer mental energy required several hours of systematic preparation if the wizard wished to prevent the simple principle of leverage flicking his brain out through his ears. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
226:Her constant orders for beheading are shocking to those modern critics of children's literature who feel that juvenile fiction should be free of all violence and especially violence with Freudian undertones. Even the Oz books of L. Frank Baum, so singularly free of the horrors to be found in Grimm and Andersen, contain many scenes of decapitation. As far as I know, there have been no empirical studies of how children react to such scenes and what harm if any is done to their psyche. My guess is that the normal child finds it all very amusing and is not damaged in the least, but that books like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz should not be allowed to circulate indiscriminately among adults who are undergoing analysis. ~ Martin Gardner, #NFDB
227:between the ink mage and the wizard, his mouth falling open at the sight. The hulk had nearly let her go after Talbun’s shock attack, but he recovered quickly and took her head in his meaty hands. Don’t. With appalling ease, the ink mage twisted. The snap was so loud, it made Brasley flinch even from across the chamber. His mouth fell open to scream. “No!” The brute’s mouth twisted into a contemptuous grin as he let the limp body fall from his hands. Brasley watched it happen in slow motion, almost like she was floating, eyes closed, face peaceful, hair floating up around her. It was as if life had been some tremendous weight, and now that it was gone, her shell drifted down to the floor like a dry leaf. Talbun’s body hit with a dull thud that brought Brasley back to reality. ~ Victor Gischler, #NFDB
228:Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it."
"There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice.
"That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry."
"For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries."
"And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland."
"So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about. ~ L Frank Baum,#NFDB
229:Picker studied Quick Ben as they trudged up yet another grass-backed hillside. 'You want us to get someone to carry you, Mage?'
Quick Ben wiped the sweat from his brow, shook his head. 'No, it's getting better. The Barghast spirits are thick here, and getting thicker. They're resisting the infection. I'll be all right, Corporal.'
'If you say so, only you're looking pretty rough to me.' And ain't that an understatement.
'Hood's warren is never a fun place.'
'That's bad news, Mage. What have we all got to look forward to, then?'
Quick Ben said nothing.
Picker scowled. 'That bad, huh? Well, that's just great. Wait till Antsy hears.'
The wizard managed a smile. 'You tell him news only to see him squirm, don't you?'
'Sure. The squad needs its entertainment, right? ~ Steven Erikson,#NFDB
230:VISION OF A WISARD
How many of you wish to be Wizards when you grow old?
How many of you want to fly?
I wished to become a dragon – he said
And he looked at us with eyes filled with fire
The Wizard of Earth’s Sea
Descended to tell us a secret of
ABRACADABRA
Get to know – he said - God’s true name
The word will initiate Power
Gate keepers of Ancient Knowledge
Will open their doors
Mythological Archetypes will start their dance
Leading you to your tribal clout
Skeletons scattered over the burial grounds
Ancestors with their weapons and spears
Saints and Demons
Doctors and Gypsies
Healers and Witches
Will join you to celebrate
The Birth of Self
Power of Mind over Body
The Vision of the Dominion of Light ~ Nata a Nuit Pantovi,#NFDB
231:Well, thought Harry, as he crossed Magnolia Crescent, turned into Magnolia Road and headed towards the darkening play park, he had (by and large) done as Sirius advised. He had at least resisted the temptation to tie his trunk to his broomstick and set off for The Burrow by himself. In fact, Harry thought his behaviour had been very good considering how frustrated and angry he felt at being stuck in Privet Drive so long, reduced to hiding in flowerbeds in the hope of hearing something that might point to what Lord Voldemort was doing. Nevertheless, it was quite galling to be told not to be rash by a man who had served twelve years in the wizard prison, Azkaban, escaped, attempted to commit the murder he had been convicted for in the first place, then gone on the run with a stolen Hippogriff. Harry ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
232:But you know, a wizard with black hair and a thick mustache put a curse on Moscow, and Petrograd, too, so that no one would be able to tell the truth without lying. If a novelist wrote a true story about how things really happened, no one would believe him, and he might even be punished for spreading propaganda. But if he wrote a book full of lies about things that could never really happen, with only a few true things hidden in it, well, he would be hailed as a hero of the People, given a seat at a writers' café, served wine and ukha, and not have to pay for any of it. He'd get a salaried summer on the dacha, and be feted. Even given a medal by the wizard with the thick mustache."
The waiter whistled. "That's a good curse. I should like to shake that wizard's hand and buy him a vodka or two. ~ Catherynne M Valente,#NFDB
233:As a boy, Ogion like all boys had thought it would be a very pleasant game to take by art-magic whatever shape one liked, man or beast, tree or cloud, and so to play at a thousand beings. But as a wizard he had learned the price of the game, which is the peril of losing one's self, playing away the truth. The longer a man stays in a form not his own, the greater this peril. Every prentice-sorcerer learns the tale of the wizard Bordger of Way, who delighted in taking bear's shape, and did so more and more often until the bear grew in him and the man died away, and he became a bear, and killed his own little son in the forests, and was hunted down and slain. And no one knows how many of the dolphins that leap in the waters of the Inmost Sea were men once, wise men, who forgot their wisdom and their name in the joy of the restless sea. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
234:One day a man's son was run over by a car and he was killed and all mangled up. The father couldn't go on living, he felt ill, he cried all day, he went to a wizard and gave him all his money to bring his son back to life. The wizard said: "Go home and wait. Your son will return tonight." The father waited, but the son did not come home, so in the end he went to bed. He was just falling asleep when he heard footsteps in the kitchen. He got up feeling very happy and saw his son, he was all mangle up and had one arm missing and his head was split open, with the brains running out and he said he hated him because he'd left him in the middle of the road to go with women and it was his fault he was dead.' 'So?' 'So the father got some petrol and set fire to him.' 'I don't blame him.' I threw and finally hit the target. 'Point!' 'Four-two. ~ Niccol Ammaniti, #NFDB
235:Kessell tried to goad the sweat out of him. The wizard swayed the deadly candle tantalizingly about, causing the rays to shift back and forth. When he finally realized that he would not hear any whimpering or begging out of the proud ranger, Kessell grew tired of the game. “Farewell, fool,” he growled and puckered his lips to puff on the flame. Regis blew out the candle. Everything seemed to come to a complete halt for several seconds. The wizard looked down at the halfling, whom he thought to be his slave, in horrified amazement. Regis merely shrugged his shoulders, as if he was as surprised by his uncharacteristically brave act as Kessell. Relying on instinct, the wizard threw the silver plate that held the candle through the glass of the mirror and ran screaming toward the back corner of the room to a small ladder hidden in the shadows. ~ R A Salvatore, #NFDB
236:Above her little finite steps she feels,
Careless of knot or pause, worlds which weave out
A strange perfection beyond law and rule,
A universe of self-found felicity,
An inexpressible rhythm of timeless beats,
The many-movemented heart-beats of the One,
Magic of the boundless harmonies of self,
Order of the freedom of the infinite,
The wonder-plastics of the Absolute.
There is the All-Truth and there the timeless bliss.
But hers are fragments of a star-lost gleam,
Hers are but careless visits of the gods.
They are a Light that fails, a Word soon hushed
And nothing they mean can stay for long on earth.
There are high glimpses, not the lasting sight.
A few can climb to an unperishing sun,
Or live on the edges of the mystic moon
And channel to earth-mind the wizard ray. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day,#NFDB
237:HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED RETURNS ‘In a brief statement on Friday night, Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge confirmed that He Who Must Not Be Named has returned to this country and is once more active. ‘“It is with great regret that I must confirm that the wizard styling himself Lord – well, you know who I mean – is alive and among us again,” said Fudge, looking tired and flustered as he addressed reporters. “It is with almost equal regret that we report the mass revolt of the Dementors of Azkaban, who have shown themselves averse to continuing in the Ministry’s employ. We believe the Dementors are currently taking direction from Lord – Thingy. ‘“We urge the magical population to remain vigilant. The Ministry is currently publishing guides to elementary home and personal defence which will be delivered free to all wizarding homes within the coming month. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
238:Then Hedge asked, ‘Can you do it, Quick? Some place with…with eternal torment. Can you do that, wizard? I asked if you can do that!’ Quick Ben faced Fiddler, a question in his eyes. Oh no, Quick, this one isn’t for me to say— ‘Fiddler, help me decide. Please.’ Gods, even Quick Ben’s grieving. Who was this warrior? ‘You’re High Mage, Quick Ben. Do what needs doing.’ The wizard turned back to Hedge. ‘Hood owes me, Hedge.’ ‘What kind of answer is that?’ But Quick Ben turned, gestured, and a dark blur rose round the Letherii, closed entirely about the man’s body, then shrank, as if down into the sand, until nothing remained. There was a faint scream as whatever awaited the Letherii had reached out to take hold of him. Then the wizard snapped out a hand and pulled Fiddler close, and his face was pale with rage. ‘Don’t you pity him, Fid. You understand me? ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
239:A Something In A Summer's Day
122
A something in a summer's Day
As slow her flambeaux burn away
Which solemnizes me.
A something in a summer's noon—
A depth—an Azure—a perfume—
Transcending ecstasy.
And still within a summer's night
A something so transporting bright
I clap my hands to see—
Then veil my too inspecting face
Lets such a subtle—shimmering grace
Flutter too far for me—
The wizard fingers never rest—
The purple brook within the breast
Still chafes it narrow bed—
Still rears the East her amber Flag—
Guides still the sun along the Crag
His Caravan of Red—
So looking on—the night—the morn
Conclude the wonder gay—
And I meet, coming thro' the dews
Another summer's Day!
~ Emily Dickinson,#NFDB
240:The rainbow comes and goes. Enjoy it while it lasts. Don’t be surprised by its departure, and rejoice when it returns. There is so much to be joyful about, so many different kinds of rainbows in one’s life: making love is an incredible rainbow, as is falling in love; knowing friendship; being able to really talk with someone who has a problem and say something that will help; waking up in the morning, looking out, and seeing a tree that has suddenly blossomed, like the one I have outside my window—what joy that brings. It may seem a small thing, but rainbows come in all sizes. I think about Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz singing, about where “bluebirds fly,” and Jan Peerce singing about “a bluebird of happiness.” Well, they may never find it, they may never reach it, and that’s okay. The searching, that’s what I think life is really all about. Don’t you? I ~ Anderson Cooper, #NFDB
241:GLINDA: Well,I'm a public figure now! People expect me to--
ELPHABA: Lie?
GLINDA: (fiercely) Be encouraging! And what exactly have you been doing? Besides riding on around on that filthy thing!
ELPHABA: Well, we can't all come and go by bubble. Whose invention was that, the Wizard's? Of course, even if it wasn't, I'm sure he'd still take credit for it.
GLINDA: Yes, well, a lot of us are taking things that don't belong to us, aren't we?
Uh oh! The two stare daggers at each other, then...
ELPHABA: Now, wait just a clock-tick. I know it's difficult for that blissful blonde brain of yours to comprehend that someone like him could actually choose someone like me!But it's happened. It's real. And you can wave that ridiculous wand all you want, you can't change it! He never belonged to you -- he doesn't love you, he never did! He loves me! ~ Stephen Schwartz,#NFDB
242:Morning, Reg!” called another wizard in navy blue robes as he let himself into a cubicle by inserting his golden token into a slot in the door. “Blooming pain in the bum, this, eh? Forcing us all to get to work this way! Who are they expecting to turn up, Harry Potter?”
The wizard roared with laughter at his own wit. Ron gave a forced chuckle.
“Yeah,” he said, “stupid, isn’t it?”
And he and Harry let themselves into adjoining cubicles.
To Harry’s left and right came the sound of flushing. He crouched down and peered through the gap at the bottom of the cubicle, just in time to see a pair of booted feet climbing into the toilet next door. He looked left and saw Ron blinking at him.
“We have to flush ourselves in?” he whispered.
“Looks like it,” Harry whispered back; his voice came out deep and gravelly.
They both stood up. Feeling exceptionally foolish, Harry clambered into the toilet. ~ J K Rowling,#NFDB
243:How The Old Mountains Drip With Sunset
291
How the old Mountains drip with Sunset
How the Hemlocks burn—
How the Dun Brake is draped in Cinder
By the Wizard Sun—
How the old Steeples hand the Scarlet
Till the Ball is full—
Have I the lip of the Flamingo
That I dare to tell?
Then, how the Fire ebbs like Billows—
Touching all the Grass
With a departing—Sapphire—feature—
As a Duchess passed—
How a small Dusk crawls on the Village
Till the Houses blot
And the odd Flambeau, no men carry
Glimmer on the Street—
How it is Night—in Nest and Kennel—
And where was the Wood—
Just a Dome of Abyss is Bowing
Into Solitude—
These are the Visions flitted Guido—
Titian—never told—
Domenichino dropped his pencil—
Paralyzed, with Gold—
~ Emily Dickinson,#NFDB
244:She was a wonder junkie. In her mind, she was a hill tribesman standing slack-jawed before the real Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon; Dorothy catching her first glimpse of the vaulted spires of the Emerald City of Oz; a small boy from darkest Brooklyn plunked down in the Corridor of Nations of the 1939 World’s Fair, the Trylon and Perisphere beckoning in the distance; she was Pocahontas sailing up the Thames estuary with London spread out before her from horizon to horizon. been voyaging between the stars when the ancestors of humans were still brachiating from branch to branch in the dappled sunlight of the forest canopy. Drumlin, like many others she had known over the years, had called her an incurable romantic; and she found herself wondering again why so many people thought it some embarrassing disability. Her romanticism had been a driving force in her life and a fount of delights. Advocate and practitioner of romance, she was off to see the Wizard. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
245:The machine couldn’t be stopped and certainly shouldn’t be destroyed, the wizard said. Destroying the machine might well cause this universe to stop existing, instantly. On the other hand, the Post Office was filling up, so one day Chief Postal Inspector Rumbelow had gone into the room with a crowbar, had ordered all the wizards out, and belted the machine until things stopped whirring. The letters ceased, at least. This came as a huge relief, but nevertheless, the Post Office had its Regulations, and so the chief postal inspector was brought before Postmaster Cowerby and asked why he had decided to risk destroying the whole universe in one go. According to Post Office legend, Mr. Rumbelow had replied: “Firstly, sir, I reasoned that if I destroyed the universe all in one go, no one would know; secondly, when I walloped the thing the first time, the wizards ran away, so I surmised that unless they has another universe to run to they weren’t really certain; and lastly, sir, the bloody thing was getting on my nerves. Never could stand machinery, sir. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
246:She asks, and something in your head tells you that what she’s doing is right – and that it’s the only reason she has to live. She asked me to die defending her – knowing I didn’t even like her much. Quick, for the rest of my life, I will never forget that moment.’
‘And you still can’t quite work out what happened.’
The assassin nodded. ‘All at once, it’s as if she’s somehow laid bare your soul and there it is, exposed, trembling, vulnerable beyond all belief – and she could take it, grasp it tight until the blood starts dripping. She could even stab it right through. But she didn’t – she didn’t do any of that, Quick. She reached down, her finger hovered, and then … gone, as if that was all she needed.’
‘You can stop now,’ the wizard muttered. ‘What you’re talking about – between two people – it almost never happens. Maybe it’s what we all want, but Kalam, it almost never happens.’
‘There was no respect in what Laseen offered,’ the assassin said. ‘It was a raw bribe, reaching for the worst in me. But from Tavore …’
‘Nothing but respect. Now I see it, Kal. I see it. ~ Steven Erikson,#NFDB
247:I said, "Mary, tell me something. Why do you have that picture from The Wizard of Oz on your wall?" Mary chuckled at my question. "Oh, that's my favorite move. I saw it the first time when I was five. But it's more than that. The story is so relevant to my life. That big, wise Wizard, you know. He's nothing. You pull back the curtain, it's just a man. I went through my whole life looking at the men at church as the Wizard, practically as God. I believed every word they said, every way they interpreted the bible, every condemning judgment on my gay son. After Bobby died, I started to study on my own, and I see the Bible through my own eyes now, not through theirs. I pulled back the curtain, and it was not God, just men. The tin man, he had a heart all along. The lion had courage all along. I knew the truth about Bobby all along, but I didn't listen inside, I listened outside. Most of us go on dancing down that yellow brick road to find the izard and be told the secret. But the secret is, the kingdom of God is within, inside every one of us. That picture, I keep it there to remind me." (49) ~ Carol Lynn Pearson, #NFDB
248: five-year-old could have told us as much,” sneered Snape. “The Inferius is a corpse that has been reanimated by a Dark wizard’s spells. It is not alive, it is merely used like a puppet to do the wizard’s bidding. A ghost, as I trust that you are all aware by now, is the imprint of a departed soul left upon the earth . . . and of course, as Potter so wisely tells us, transparent.” “Well, what Harry said is the most useful if we’re trying to tell them apart!” said Ron. “When we come face-to-face with one down a dark alley, we’re going to be having a shufti to see if it’s solid, aren’t we, we’re not going to be asking, ‘Excuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul?’” There was a ripple of laughter, instantly quelled by the look Snape gave the class. “Another ten points from Gryffindor,” said Snape. “I would expect nothing more sophisticated from you, Ronald Weasley, the boy so solid he cannot Apparate half an inch across a room.” “No!” whispered Hermione, grabbing Harry’s arm as he opened his mouth furiously. “There’s no point, you’ll just end up in detention again, leave it!” “Now open your books to page two hundred and ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
249:For almost a century, the school had been home to creative geniuses, radical thinkers, and innovators. Ellingham had no application, no list of requirements, no instructions other than, "If you would like to be considered for Ellingham Academy, please get in touch."
That was it.
One simple sentence that drove every high-flying student frantic. What did they want? What were they looking for? This was like a riddle from a fantasy story or fairy tale - something the wizard makes you do before you are allowed into the Cave of Secrets. Applications were supposed to be rigid lists of requirements and test scores and essays and recommendations and maybe a blood sample and a few bars from a popular musical. Not Elllingham. Just knock on the door. Just knock on the door in the special, correct way they would not describe. You just had to get in touch with something. They looked for a spark. If they saw such a spark in you, you could be one of the fifty students they took each year. The program was only two years long, just the junior and senior years of high school. There were no tuition fees. If you got in, it was free. You just had to get in. ~ Maureen Johnson,#NFDB
250:What the fuck is this?” he roared, striding into the centre of the room, water dripping from his beard, down through the grizzled white hairs on his chest, off his slapping fruits. It was a strange sight to see. A naked old man confronting three armed Practicals of the Inquisition. Ridiculous, and yet no one was laughing. There was something strangely terrifying about him, even without his clothes and running with wet. It was the Practicals who shifted backwards, confused, scared even. “You’re coming with us,” the woman repeated, though a certain doubt seemed to have entered her voice. One of her companions stepped warily towards Bayaz. Jezal felt a strange sensation in his stomach. A tugging, a sucking, an empty, sick feeling. It was like being back on the bridge, in the shadow of the Maker’s House. Only worse. The wizard’s face had turned terribly hard. “My patience is at an end.” Like a bottle dropped from a great height, the nearest Practical burst apart. There was no thunderclap, only a gentle squelching. One moment he was moving towards the old man, sword raised, entirely whole. The next he was a thousand fragments. Some unknown part of him thudded wetly against the plaster next to Jezal’s head. His sword dropped and rattled on the boards. “You were saying?” growled the First of the Magi. ~ Joe Abercrombie, #NFDB
251:Frost Magic
Now, in the moonrise, from a wintry sky,
The frost has come to charm with elfin might
This quiet room; to draw with symbols bright
Faces and forms in fairest charactery
Upon the casement; all the thoughts that lie
Deep hidden in my heart's core he would tell,
How the red shoots of fancy strike and swell,
How they are watered, what soil nourished by.
With eerie power he piles his atomies,
Incrusted gems, star-glances overborne
With lids of sleep pulled from the moth's bright eyes,
And forests of frail ferns, blanched and forlorn,
Where Oberon of unimagined size
Might in the silver silence wind his horn.
II
With these alone he draws in magic lines,
Faces that people dreams, and chiefly one
Happy and brilliant as the northern sun,
And by its darling side there gleams and shines
One of God's children with the laughing signs
Of dimples, and glad accents, and sweet cries,
That angels are and heaven's memories:
The wizard thus my soul's estate divines;
All it holds dear he sets alone apart,
Etches the past in likeness of dim groves
Silvered in quiet rime and with rare art,
In crystal spoils and fairy treasure-troves,
He draws the picture of the happy heart,
By those who love it most, whom most it loves.
~ Duncan Campbell Scott,#NFDB
252:In Iowa, the American Future Fund began airing an ad created by Larry McCarthy that Geoff Garin, the Democratic pollster, described as perhaps “the most egregious of the year.” The ad accused the then congressman Bruce Braley, an Iowa Democrat and a lawyer, of supporting a proposed Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, which it misleadingly called a “mosque at Ground Zero.” As footage of the destroyed World Trade Center rolled, a narrator said, “For centuries, Muslims built mosques where they won military victories.” Now it said a mosque celebrating 9/11 was to be built on the very spot “where Islamic terrorists killed three thousand Americans”; it was, the narrator suggested, as if the Japanese were to build a triumphal monument at Pearl Harbor. The ad then accused Braley of supporting the mosque. In fact, Braley had taken no position on the issue. No surprise for a congressman from Iowa. But an unidentified video cameraman had ambushed him at the Iowa State Fair and asked him about it. Braley replied that he regarded the matter as a local zoning issue for New Yorkers to decide. Soon afterward, he says, the attack ad “dropped on me like the house in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ ” Braley, who won his seat by a margin of 30 percent in 2008, barely held on in 2010. The American Future Fund’s effort against Braley was the most expensive campaign that year by an independent group. ~ Jane Mayer, #NFDB
253:How Great Is Our God! And I said, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God, Who keeps covenant, loving-kindness, and mercy for those who love Him and keep His commandments… NEHEMIAH 1:5 AMP When Dorothy finally met the wizard she had been searching for in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, she was disappointed. The “Great and Terrible” magician, who had promoted himself as an all-powerful man with a short temper, turned out to be a normal person behind a curtain—albeit one who was good at special effects. Rest assured, when we finally meet God, we won’t have the same kind of letdown. The Bible notes God’s inestimable qualities—unconditional love, unending mercy, unimaginable strength—with reverence. The New Testament authors also repeatedly wrote about God’s mercy and compassion, lest we despair of ever coming near Him. Of course, we need to fear the holy Creator and Maker of all things and strive to do His will, but as the One who formed us, God knows that we will fail (and loves us anyway). His love is why He sent Jesus to die on the cross. Today, think about God’s love, mercy, and strength as you go about your day. When you face problems, ask Him to solve them, instead of trying to fix them yourself. Repeatedly and reverently surrender to Him—because He is great, but He’s certainly not terrible. Creator, Maker, Redeemer God—You are wonderful. Thank You for Your wisdom, strength, and love. Amen. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
254:How does she do that?” Bird asked.
I didn’t have to ask who the she was. I knew it was Tiffany. Nor did I have to ask what Bird was referring to. Jason and Mac were leaning toward Tiffany, listening to whatever it was she was saying, like it was the most interesting thing in the world.
“Does she wear, like, turn-’em-stupid perfume or something?” Bird asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe guys like thinking they’re way smarter than girls.”
“It’s gotta be an act. No one is that brainless.” She grimaced. “I don’t mean to dis your sister, but really, does anyone think the moon actually turns blue?”
Yeah, Tiffany had asked, “So when does the moon turn blue?”
Mac had laughed and explained that a blue moon was the second full moon in a month, that a full moon appeared every twenty-nine nights, and so it was truly rare to have two full moons in any given month. He’d said he’d taken a class in astronomy.
“Oh, I love astronomy. I’m a Pisces. What sign are you?”
Which had made Mac laugh again, and he started to explain the difference between astronomy and astrology. Tiffany was apparently absolutely fascinated…and fascinating. His gaze--and Jason’s--was riveted on her.
I gave another little shrug, feeling a need to defend my sister, who might be in need of a trip down the yellow brick road to ask the wizard for some brains. “I wasn’t exactly sure what a blue moon was, either.”
“But you know the difference between astronomy and astrology. ~ Rachel Hawthorne,#NFDB
255:Bad or good, movies nearly always have a strange diminishing effect on works of fantasy (of course there are exceptions; The Wizard of Oz is an example which springs immediately to mind). In discussions, people are willing to cast various parts endlessly. I've always thought Robert Duvall would make a splendid Randall Flagg, but I've heard people suggest such people as Clint Eastwood, Bruce Dern and Christopher Walken. They all sound good, just as Bruce Springsteen would seem to make an interesting Larry Underwood, if ever he chose to try acting (and, based on his videos, I think he would do very well ... although my personal choice would be Marshall Crenshaw). But in the end, I think it's best for Stu, Larry, Glen, Frannie, Ralph, Tom Cullen, Lloyd, and that dark fellow to belong to the reader, who will visualize them through the lens of the imagination in a vivid and constantly changing way no camera can duplicate. Movies, after all, are only an illusion of motion comprised of thousands of still photographs. The imagination, however, moves with its own tidal flow. Films, even the best of them, freeze fiction - anyone who has ever seen One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and then reads Ken Kesey's novel will find it hard or impossible not to see Jack Nicholson's face on Randle Patrick McMurphy. That is not necessarily bad ... but it is limiting. The glory of a good tale is that it is limitless and fluid; a good tale belongs to each reader in its own particular way. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
256:We have also heard within the last few hours that Rubeus Hagrid”--all three of them gasped, and so nearly missed the rest of the sentence--“well-known gamekeeper at Hogwarts School, has narrowly escaped arrest within the grounds of Hogwarts, where he is rumored to have hosted a ‘Support Harry Potter’ party in his house. However, Hagrid was not taken into custody, and is, we believe, on the run.”
“I suppose it helps, when escaping from Death Eaters, if you’ve got a sixteen-foot-high half brother?” asked Lee.
“It would tend to give you an edge,” agreed Lupin gravely. “May I just add that while we here at Potterwatch applaud Hagrid’s spirit, we would urge even the most devoted of Harry’s supporters against following Hagrid’s lead. ‘Support Harry Potter’ parties are unwise in the present climate.”
“Indeed they are, Romulus,” said Lee, “so we suggest that you continue to show your devotion to the man with the lightning scar by listening to Potterwatch! And now let’s move to news concerning the wizard who is proving just as elusive as Harry Potter. We like to refer to him as the Chief Death Eater, and here to give his views on some of the more insane rumors circulating about him, I’d like to introduce a new correspondent: Rodent.”
“‘Rodent’?” said yet another familiar voice, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione cried out together:
“Fred!”
“No--is it George?”
“It’s Fred, I think,” said Ron, leaning in closer, as whichever twin it was said,
“I’m not being ‘Rodent,’ no way, I told you I wanted to be ‘Rapier’! ~ J K Rowling,#NFDB
257:this matter will not go uninvestigated.” He glanced at Madam Bones, who readjusted her monocle and stared back at him, frowning slightly. “I would remind everybody that the behavior of these dementors, if indeed they are not figments of this boy’s imagination, is not the subject of this hearing!” said Fudge. “We are here to examine Harry Potter’s offenses under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery!” “Of course we are,” said Dumbledore, “but the presence of dementors in that alleyway is highly relevant. Clause seven of the Decree states that magic may be used before Muggles in exceptional circumstances, and as those exceptional circumstances include situations that threaten the life of the wizard or witch himself, or witches, wizards, or Muggles present at the time of the —” “We are familiar with clause seven, thank you very much!” snarled Fudge. “Of course you are,” said Dumbledore courteously. “Then we are in agreement that Harry’s use of the Patronus Charm in these circumstances falls precisely into the category of exceptional circumstances it describes?” “If there were dementors, which I doubt —” “You have heard from an eyewitness,” Dumbledore interrupted. “If you still doubt her truthfulness, call her back, question her again. I am sure she would not object.” “I — that — not —” blustered Fudge, fiddling with the papers before him. “It’s — I want this over with today, Dumbledore!” “But naturally, you would not care how many times you heard from a witness, if the alternative was a serious miscarriage of justice,” said Dumbledore. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
258:Among them is a renegade king, he who sired five royal heirs without ever unzipping his pants. A man to whom time has imparted great wisdom and an even greater waistline, whose thoughtless courage is rivalled only by his unquenchable thirst.
At his shoulder walks a sorcerer, a cosmic conversationalist. Enemy of the incurable rot, absent chairman of combustive sciences at the university in Oddsford, and the only living soul above the age of eight to believe in owlbears.
Look here at a warrior born, a scion of power and poverty whose purpose is manifold: to shatter shackles, to murder monarchs, and to demonstrate that even the forces of good must sometimes enlist the service of big, bad motherfuckers. His is an ancient soul destined to die young.
And now comes the quiet one, the gentle giant, he who fights his battles with a shield. Stout as the tree that counts its age in aeons, constant as the star that marks true north and shines most brightly on the darkest nights.
A step ahead of these four: our hero. He is the candle burnt down to the stump, the cutting blade grown dull with overuse. But see now the spark in his stride. Behold the glint of steel in his gaze. Who dares to stand between a man such as this and that which he holds dear? He will kill, if he must, to protect it. He will die, if that is what it takes.
“Go get the boss,” says one guardsman to another. “This bunch looks like trouble.”
And they do. They do look like trouble, at least until the wizard trips on the hem of his robe. He stumbles, cursing, and fouls the steps of the others as he falls face-first onto the mud-slick hillside. ~ Nicholas Eames,#NFDB
259:In Iowa, the American Future Fund began airing an ad created by Larry McCarthy that Geoff Garin, the Democratic pollster, described as perhaps “the most egregious of the year.” The ad accused the then congressman Bruce Braley, an Iowa Democrat and a lawyer, of supporting a proposed Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, which it misleadingly called a “mosque at Ground Zero.” As footage of the destroyed World Trade Center rolled, a narrator said, “For centuries, Muslims built mosques where they won military victories.” Now it said a mosque celebrating 9/11 was to be built on the very spot “where Islamic terrorists killed three thousand Americans”; it was, the narrator suggested, as if the Japanese were to build a triumphal monument at Pearl Harbor. The ad then accused Braley of supporting the mosque. In fact, Braley had taken no position on the issue. No surprise for a congressman from Iowa. But an unidentified video cameraman had ambushed him at the Iowa State Fair and asked him about it. Braley replied that he regarded the matter as a local zoning issue for New Yorkers to decide. Soon afterward, he says, the attack ad “dropped on me like the house in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ ” Braley, who won his seat by a margin of 30 percent in 2008, barely held on in 2010. The American Future Fund’s effort against Braley was the most expensive campaign that year by an independent group. After the election, Braley accused McCarthy, the ad maker, of “profiting from Citizens United in the lowest way.” As for those who hired McCarthy, he said, they “are laughing all the way to the bank. It’s a good investment for them…They’re the winners. The losers are the American people, and the truth. ~ Jane Mayer, #NFDB
260:Dr. Pym,” Emma huffed, “what happened back there? What’s going on?” “I told you that we are here to see a man. What I did not say was that I have been searching for this individual for nearly a decade. Only recently did I finally track him to this village. You heard me asking the signora how to find his house.” “That’s it? That’s what made her drop the plate?” “Yes, it appears that he is regarded by the locals as something of a devil. Or perhaps the Devil. The signora was a bit flustered.” “Is he dangerous?” Michael asked. Then he added, “Because I’m the oldest now, and I’m responsible for Emma’s safety.” “Oh, please,” Emma groaned. “I wouldn’t say he’s dangerous,” the wizard said. “At least, not very.” They hiked on, following a narrow, twisting trail. They could hear goats bleating in the distance, the bells around their necks clanking dully in the still air. Stalks of dry grass scratched at the children’s ankles. The light was dying, and soon Michael could no longer see the town behind them. The trail ended at a badly maintained rock wall. Affixed to the wall was a piece of wood bearing a message scrawled in black paint. “What’s it say?” Emma asked. The wizard bent forward to translate. “It says, ‘Dear Moron’—oh my, what a beginning—‘you are about to enter private property. Trespassers will be shot, hanged, beaten with clubs, shot again; their eyeballs will be pecked out by crows, their livers roasted’—dear, this is disgusting, and it goes on for quite a while.…” He skipped to the bottom. “ ‘So turn around now, you blithering idiot. Sincerely, the Devil of Castel del Monte.’ ” Dr. Pym straightened up. “Not very inviting, is it? Well, come along.” And he climbed over the wall. Michael ~ John Stephens, #NFDB
261:As I walked toward the front door, a little motion to the left caught my eye. Jenny Sells stood in the hallway, a silent wraith. She regarded me with luminous green eyes, like her mother’s, like the dead aunt whose namesake she was. I stopped and faced her. I’m not sure why.
“You’re the wizard,” she said, quietly. “You’re Harry Dresden. I saw your picture in the newspaper, once. The Arcane.”
I nodded.
She studied my face for a long minute. “Are you going to help my mom?”
It was a simple question. But how do you tell a child that things just aren’t that simple, that some questions don’t have simple answers—or any answer at all?
I looked back into her too-knowing eyes, and then quickly away. I didn’t want her to see what sort of person I was, the things I had done. She didn’t need that. “I’m going to do everything I can to help your mom.”
She nodded. “Do you promise?”
I promised her.
She thought that over for a moment, studying me. Then she nodded. “My daddy used to be one of the good guys, Mr. Dresden. But I don’t think that he is anymore.” Her face looked sad. It was a sweet, unaffected expression. “Are you going to kill him?”
Another simple question.
“I don’t want to,” I told her. “But he’s trying to kill me. I might not have any choice.”
She swallowed and lifted her chin. “I loved my Aunt Jenny,” she said. Her eyes brightened with tears. “Momma won’t say, and Billy’s too little to figure it out, but I know what happened.” She turned, with more grace and dignity than I could have managed, and started to leave. Then said, quietly, “I hope you’re one of the good guys, Mr. Dresden. We really need a good guy. I hope you’ll be all right.” Then she vanished down the hall on bare, silent feet. ~ Jim Butcher,#NFDB
262:John Everett Millais
Now let no passing-bell be tolled,
Wail now no dirge of gloom;
Nor around purple pall unfold
The trappings of the tomb!
Dead? No, the Artist doth not die;
Enduring as the air, the sky,
He sees the mortal years roll by,
Indifferent to their doom.
With the abiding He abides,
Eternally the same;
From shore to shore Time's sounding tides
Roll and repeat His name.
Death, the kind pilot, from His home
But speeds Him unto widening foam,
Then leaves Him, sunk from sight, to roam
The ocean of his Fame.
Nor thus himself alone He lives,
But, by the magic known
To His ``so potent art,'' He gives
Life lasting as His own.
See, on the canvas, foiling Fate,
With kindling gaze and flashing gait,
Dead Statesmen still defend the State,
And vindicate the Throne.
Stayed by His hand, the loved, the lost,
Still keep their wonted place;
And, fondly fooled, our hearts accost
The vanished form and face.
Beauty, most frail of earthly shows,
That fades as fleetly as it blows,
By Him arrested, gleams and glows
With never-waning grace.
His, too, the wizard power to bring,
When city-pent we be,
The matron Autumn, maiden Spring,
294
Bracken and birchen-tree.
Look, 'twixt gray boulders fringed with fern,
The tawny torrents chafe and churn,
And, lined with light, the amber burn
Goes bounding to the sea.
Toll then for Him no funeral knell,
Nor around aisle and nave
Let sorrow's farewell anthem swell,
Nor solemn symbols wave.
Your very brightest banners bring,
Your gayest flowers! Sing, voices, sing!
And let Fame's lofty joybells ring
Their greeting at His grave!
~ Alfred Austin,#NFDB
263:So Oz finally became home; the imagined world became the actual world, as it does for us all, because the truth is that once we have left our childhood places and started out to make our own lives, armed only with what we have and are, we understand that the real secret of the ruby slippers is not that "there's no place like home," but rather that there is no longer such a place as home: except, of course, for the homes we make, or the homes that are made for us, in Oz, which is anywhere and everywhere, except the place from which we began.
In the place from which I began, after all, I watched the film from the child's - Dorothy's point of view. I experienced, with her, the frustration of being brushed aside by Uncle Henry and Auntie Em, busy with their dull grown-up counting. Like all adults, they couldn't focus on what was really important to Dorothy: namely, the threat to Toto. I ran away with Dorothy and then ran back. Even the shock of discovering that the Wizard was a humbug was a shock I felt as a child, a shock to the child's faith in adults. Perhaps, too, I felt something deeper, something I couldn't articulate; perhaps some half-formed suspicion about grown-ups was being confirmed.
Now, as I look at the movie again, I have become the fallible adult. Now I am a member of the tribe of imperfect parents who cannot listen to their children's voices. I, who no longer have a father, have become a father instead, and now it is my fate to be unable to satisfy the longings of a child. This is the last and most terrible lesson of the film: that there is one final, unexpected rite of passage. In the end, ceasing to be children, we all become magicians without magic, exposed conjurers, with only our simply humanity to get us through.
We are the humbugs now. ~ Salman Rushdie,#NFDB
264:HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED RETURNS ‘In a brief statement on Friday night, Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge confirmed that He Who Must Not Be Named has returned to this country and is once more active. ‘“It is with great regret that I must confirm that the wizard styling himself Lord – well, you know who I mean – is alive and among us again,” said Fudge, looking tired and flustered as he addressed reporters. “It is with almost equal regret that we report the mass revolt of the Dementors of Azkaban, who have shown themselves averse to continuing in the Ministry’s employ. We believe the Dementors are currently taking direction from Lord – Thingy. ‘“We urge the magical population to remain vigilant. The Ministry is currently publishing guides to elementary home and personal defence which will be delivered free to all wizarding homes within the coming month.” ‘The Minister’s statement was met with dismay and alarm from the wizarding community, which as recently as last Wednesday was receiving Ministry assurances that there was “no truth whatsoever in these persistent rumours that You-Know-Who is operating amongst us once more”. ‘Details of the events that led to the Ministry turnaround are still hazy, though it is believed that He Who Must Not Be Named and a select band of followers (known as Death Eaters) gained entry to the Ministry of Magic itself on Thursday evening. ‘Albus Dumbledore, newly reinstated Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, reinstated member of the International Confederation of Wizards and reinstated Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, has so far been unavailable for comment. He has insisted over the past year that You-Know-Who is not dead, as was widely hoped and believed, but is recruiting followers once more for a fresh attempt to seize power. Meanwhile, the “Boy Who Lived” – ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
265:And now let’s move to news concerning the wizard who is proving just as elusive as Harry Potter. We like to refer to him as the Chief Death Eater, and here to give his views on some of the more insane rumors circulating about him, I’d like to introduce a new correspondent: Rodent.”
“‘Rodent’?” said yet another familiar voice, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione cried out together:
“Fred!”
“No—is it George?”
“It’s Fred, I think,” said Ron, leaning in closer, as whichever twin it was said,
“I’m not being ‘Rodent,’ no way, I told you I wanted to be ‘Rapier’!”
“Oh, all right then. ‘Rapier,’ could you please give us your take on the various stories we’ve been hearing about the Chief Death Eater?”
“Yes, River, I can,” said Fred. “As our listeners will know, unless they’ve taken refuse at the bottom of a garden pond or somewhere similar, You-Know-Who’s strategy of remaining in the shadows is creating a nice little climate of panic. Mind you, if all the alleged sightings of him are genuine, we must have a good nineteen You-Know-Who’s running around the place.”
“Which suits him, of course,” said Kingsley. “The air of mystery is creating more terror than actually showing himself.”
“Agreed,” said Fred. “So, people, let’s try and calm down a bit. Things are bad enough without inventing stuff as well. For instance, this new idea that You-Know-Who can kill with a single glance from his eyes. That’s a basilisk, listeners. One simple test: Check whether the thing that’s glaring at you has got legs. If it has, it’s safe to look into his eyes, although if it really is You-Know-Who, that’s still likely to be the last thing you ever do.”
For the first time in weeks and weeks, Harry was laughing: He could feel the weight of tension leaving him.
“And the rumors that he keeps being sighted abroad?” asked Lee.
“Well, who wouldn’t want a nice little holiday after all the hard work he’s been putting in?” asked Fred. “Point is, people, don’t get lulled into a false sense of security, thinking he’s out of the country. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t, but the fact remains he can move faster than Severus Snape confronted with shampoo when he wants to, so don’t count on him being a long way away if you’re planning on taking any risks. I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but safety first! ~ J K Rowling,#NFDB
266:PANOTII LOOKS PUT OUT ABOUT BEING LEFT BEHIND AND dogs my steps as I stow his tack under the deep overhang on the south side of the wizard’s hovel. There’s plenty of grass here, water at the lake, and it’s not that cold yet, despite the shift in seasons. If the rains start before we get back, the horses can take shelter under the overhang. I’m not worried about them wandering off. Not one of them has stepped outside of the large makeshift corral of God Bolt pits since we got here.
“You can’t come with us,” I tell him. “It’ll be cold and slippery. And big monsters will want to eat you.” He tosses his head, snorting. “Really big monsters. There might be Dragons. And the Hydra. And I can’t vouch for the friendliness of the Ipotane toward regular horses.” I blow gently into his nose. Panotii chuffs back. “You’ll be safe here, and if anyone tries to steal you, Grandpa Zeus will throw down a thunderbolt. Boom! No more horse thief.”
“Zeus may have better things to do than babysit our horses,” Flynn says, stowing his own equine gear next to mine.
I glance northward toward the Gods’ mountain home and speak loudly. “In that case, I’m announcing right now that I’ll make an Olympian stink if anything happens to my horse.” Flynn looks nervous and moves away from me like he’s expecting a God Bolt to come thundering down.
“She’s not kidding.” Sunlight glints off Griffin’s windblown hair. Thick black stubble darkens his jaw. He flashes me a smile that brings out the slight hook in his nose, and something tightens in my belly.
I turn back to Panotii and scratch under his jaw. “You’re in charge here.” His enormous ears flick my way. “You keep the others in line.” Panotii nods. I swear to the Gods, my horse nods.
Brown Horse raises his head and pins me with a gimlet stare. I roll my eyes. “Fine. You can help. You’re both in charge.” Apparently satisfied, Griffin’s horse goes back to grazing, shearing the grass around him with neat, organized efficiency. Griffin and Brown Horse were made for each other.
Panotii shoves his nose into my shoulder, knocking me back a step. Taking a handful of his chestnut mane, I stretch up on my toes to whisper into one of his donkey ears. “Seriously, you’re in charge. I’ll bet you can even rhyme.”
Carver and Kato chuckle as they walk past. Griffin bands his arms around my waist from behind, surprising me. “I heard that. ~ Amanda Bouchet,#NFDB
267:Aladdin
Aladdin poor the wizard found,
Who moved from cavern’s mouth a stone;
Then bade him go beneath the ground,
And pace through unknown realms alone,
Till from a niche he bore away
A lamp—extinguishing its ray.
The youth obedient instant hied,
When fruits luxuriant met his sight;
The white were pearls in snowy pride,
Diamonds the clear—of brilliant light;
For red the rubies dazzling blazed,
Whereof Aladdin gathered store;
Then on the lamp in rapture gazed,
And from its niche the treasure bore.
Regained his home, he seized anon
The lamp, and cried “straight bring me food;”
The Genii instantly was gone,
But soon again before him stood.
The youth his fear-struck mother bore,
As plates of silver met his view;
Of viands choice, containing store,
And cups, with wine of rosy hue.
Aladdin next by chance descried,
The Sultan’s daughter, witching fair;
Love’s high control was not denied—
He sought to gain the beauty rare.
Before the Sultan lowly bent
His mother, and the jewels spread;
The Prince, astonished, gave consent,
And all Aladdin’s terrors fled.
In gorgeous robes the youth arrayed,
29
Vaulted anon his prancing steed;
And of the glittering, gay parade,
Right joyous smiling took the lead.
With loud huzzas then rang the air,
Which louder pealed, as gold amain
By slaves was cast, for mob to share,
That glittered on the vasty plain
Ne’er dreaming lamp so worn and old
More worth commanded than Peru,
Our Princess bartered wealth untold,
For the Magician’s lamp quite new:
So when this change the eunuch made
In scorn the rabble ’gan to shout;
Beholding such a silly trade,
They deemed the wizard fool and lout.
O’erwhelmed with grief, Aladdin prayed
Once more the Genii life would spare;
Beseeching he might be conveyed
Where late had stood his palace fair.
Then swift as thought, the spirit bore
The youth through airy realms above;
Who lighted safe on Afric’s shore,
And gained the chamber of his love
His foe the poison quaffed and fell—
A writhing form the wizard lay;
Aladdin knew how worked the spell,
And tore from vest the lamps, his prey.
The Princess with a panting heart,
Flew to receive affection’s kiss:
Thus met they, never more to part;
From that hour sealed their lasting blis
~ Anonymous Americas,#NFDB
268:You dare--?” said Voldemort again.
“Yes, I dare,” said Harry, “because Dumbledore’s last plan hasn’t backfired on me at all. It’s backfired on you, Riddle.”
Voldemort’s hand was trembling on the Elder Wand, and Harry gripped Draco’s very tightly. The moment, he knew, was seconds away.
“That wand still isn’t working properly for you because you murdered the wrong person. Severus Snape was never the true master of the Elder Wand. He never defeated Dumbledore.”
“He killed--”
“Aren’t you listening? Snape never beat Dumbledore! Dumbledore’s death was planned between them! Dumbledore intended to die undefeated, the wand’s last true master! If all had gone as planned, the wand’s power would have died with him, because it had never been won from him!”
“But then, Potter, Dumbledore as good as gave me the wand!” Voldemort’s voice shook with malicious pleasure. “I stole the wand from its last master’s tomb! I removed it against its last master’s wishes! Its power is mine!”
“You still don’t get it, Riddle, do you? Possessing the wand isn’t enough! Holding it, using it, doesn’t make it really yours. Didn’t you listen to Ollivander? The wand chooses the wizard…The Elder Wand recognized a new master before Dumbledore died, someone who never even laid a hand on it. The new master removed the wand from Dumbledore against his will, never realizing exactly what he had done, or that the world’s most dangerous wand had given him its allegiance…”
Voldemort’s chest rose and fell rapidly, and Harry could feel the curse coming, feel it building inside the wand pointed at his face.
“The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy.”
Blank shock showed in Voldemort’s face for a moment, but then it was gone.
“But what does it matter?” he said softly. “Even if you are right, Potter, it makes no difference to you and me. You no longer have the phoenix wand: We duel on skill alone…and after I have killed you, I can attend to Draco Malfoy…”
“But you’re too late,” said Harry. “You’ve missed your chance. I got there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took this wand from him.”
Harry twitched the hawthorn wand, and he felt the eyes of everyone in the Hall upon it.
“So it all comes down to this, doesn’t it?” whispered Harry. “Does the wand in your hand know its last master was Disarmed? Because if it does…I am the true master of the Elder Wand.”
A red-gold glow burst suddenly across the enchanted sky above them as an edge of dazzling sun appeared over the sill of the nearest window. The light hit both of their faces at the same time, so that Voldemort’s was suddenly a flaming blur. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he too yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand:
“Avada Kedavra!”
“Expelliarmus! ~ J K Rowling,#NFDB
269:Shepley walked out of his bedroom pulling a T-shirt over his head. His eyebrows pushed together. “Did they just leave?”
“Yeah,” I said absently, rinsing my cereal bowl and dumping Abby’s leftover oatmeal in the sink. She’d barely touched it.
“Well, what the hell? Mare didn’t even say goodbye.”
“You knew she was going to class. Quit being a cry baby.”
Shepley pointed to his chest. “I’m the cry baby? Do you remember last night?”
“Shut up.”
“That’s what I thought.” He sat on the couch and slipped on his sneakers. “Did you ask Abby about her birthday?”
“She didn’t say much, except that she’s not into birthdays.”
“So what are we doing?”
“Throwing her a party.” Shepley nodded, waiting for me to explain. “I thought we’d surprise her. Invite some of our friends over and have America take her out for a while.”
Shepley put on his white ball cap, pulling it down so low over his brows I couldn’t see his eyes. “She can manage that. Anything else?”
“How do you feel about a puppy?”
Shepley laughed once. “It’s not my birthday, bro.”
I walked around the breakfast bar and leaned my hip against the stool. “I know, but she lives in the dorms. She can’t have a puppy.”
“Keep it here? Seriously? What are we going to do with a dog?”
“I found a Cairn Terrier online. It’s perfect.”
“A what?”
“Pidge is from Kansas. It’s the same kind of dog Dorothy had in the Wizard of Oz.”
Shepley’s face was blank. “The Wizard of Oz.”
“What? I liked the scarecrow when I was a little kid, shut the fuck up.”
“It’s going to crap every where, Travis. It’ll bark and whine and … I don’t know.”
“So does America … minus the crapping.”
Shepley wasn’t amused.
“I’ll take it out and clean up after it. I’ll keep it in my room. You won’t even know it’s here.”
“You can’t keep it from barking.”
“Think about it. You gotta admit it’ll win her over.”
Shepley smiled. “Is that what this is all about? You’re trying to win over Abby?”
My brows pulled together. “Quit it.”
His smile widened. “You can get the damn dog…”
I grinned with victory.
“…if you admit you have feelings for Abby.”
I frowned in defeat. “C’mon, man!”
“Admit it,” Shepley said, crossing his arms. What a tool. He was actually going to make me say it.
I looked to the floor, and everywhere else except Shepley’s smug ass smile. I fought it for a while, but the puppy was fucking brilliant. Abby would flip out (in a good way for once), and I could keep it at the apartment. She’d want to be there every day.
“I like her,” I said through my teeth.
Shepley held his hand to his ear. “What? I couldn’t quite hear you.”
“You’re an asshole! Did you hear that?”
Shepley crossed his arms. “Say it.”
“I like her, okay?”
“Not good enough.”
“I have feelings for her. I care about her. A lot. I can’t stand it when she’s not around. Happy?”
“For now,” he said, grabbing his backpack off the floor. ~ Jamie McGuire,#NFDB
270:Not Aladdin magian
Ever such a work began;
Not the wizard of the Dee
Ever such a dream could see;
Not St. John, in Patmos' Isle,
In the passion of his toil,
When he saw the churches seven,
Golden aisl'd, built up in heaven,
Gaz'd at such a rugged wonder.
As I stood its roofing under
Lo! I saw one sleeping there,
On the marble cold and bare.
While the surges wash'd his feet,
And his garments white did beat.
Drench'd about the sombre rocks,
On his neck his well-grown locks,
Lifted dry above the main,
Were upon the curl again.
"What is this? and what art thou?"
Whisper'd I, and touch'd his brow;
"What art thou? and what is this?"
Whisper'd I, and strove to kiss
The spirit's hand, to wake his eyes;
Up he started in a trice:
"I am Lycidas," said he,
"Fam'd in funeral minstrely!
This was architectur'd thus
By the great Oceanus!--
Here his mighty waters play
Hollow organs all the day;
Here by turns his dolphins all,
Finny palmers great and small,
Come to pay devotion due--
Each a mouth of pearls must strew.
Many a mortal of these days,
Dares to pass our sacred ways,
Dares to touch audaciously
This Cathedral of the Sea!
I have been the pontiff-priest
Where the waters never rest,
Where a fledgy sea-bird choir
Soars for ever; holy fire
I have hid from mortal man;
Proteus is my Sacristan.
But the dulled eye of mortal
Hath pass'd beyond the rocky portal;
So for ever will I leave
Such a taint, and soon unweave
All the magic of the place."
* * * * * *
So saying, with a Spirit's glance
He dived!
'After a detention of a few hours at Inverary owing to Brown's suffering from sore feet, the travellers started again on the 19th of July, walked along "20 miles by the side of Loch Awe" -- southward, I suppose, for they next paused "between Loch Craignish and the sea just opposite Long Island," where Keats gives a very minute account to Tom of the locale. They then pushed on to Oban, "15 miles in a soaking rain" -- due north again. At Oban Keats finished the unpublished letter to Tom containing The Gadfly and the Stranger sonnet, and posted it, announcing that the travellers had given up the idea of Mull and Staffa on account of the expense. This was probably on the 22nd of July. On the 23rd he begins a fresh letter (Life, Letters &c.) stating that just after he had posted the other the guide to Mull came in and made a bargain with them. This latter letter is dated the 23rd of July, "Dunancullen" in the Life: "Dimancullen" is the name given in the same connexion in the New York World, where some Keats documents appeared; but probably the place indicated is Derrynaculen, which is at a situation on the walk through the southern part of the Isle of Mull corresponding with Keats's narrative. This narrative seems to show that on the 23rd of July they crossed from Oban to Kerrera by one ferry and from Kerrera to Mull by another, and walked across the south of the Island to the western extremity to cross to Iona by boat. By the 26th, Keats resumed his letter to Tom at Oban, and narrated that the thirty-seven miles of walking had been very miserable, and that he and Brown had taken a boat at a bargain to carry them from Iona to Staffa, and land them finally at the head of Loch Nakeal, whence they could return to Oban by a better route. He vividly describes Staffa, including Fingal's Cave, breaks into verse with the lines given above, and resumes prose with,
"I am sorry I am so indolent as to write such stuff as this." Probably the poem should be dated the 26th of July, 1818.'
~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895. by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
~ John Keats, Staffa
,#NFDB
271:A Dream Of Sunshine
I'm weary of this weather and I hanker for the ways
Which people read of in the psalms and preachers paraphrase-The grassy fields, the leafy woods, the banks where I can lie
And listen to the music of the brook that flutters by,
Or, by the pond out yonder, hear the redwing blackbird's call
Where he makes believe he has a nest, but hasn't one at all;
And by my side should be a friend--a trusty, genial friend,
With plenteous store of tales galore and natural leaf to lend;
Oh, how I pine and hanker for the gracious boon of spring-For _then_ I'm going a-fishing with John Lyle King!
How like to pigmies will appear creation, as we float
Upon the bosom of the tide in a three-by-thirteen boat-Forgotten all vexations and all vanities shall be,
As we cast our cares to windward and our anchor to the lee;
Anon the minnow-bucket will emit batrachian sobs,
And the devil's darning-needles shall come wooing of our bobs;
The sun shall kiss our noses and the breezes toss our hair
(This latter metaphoric--we've no fimbriae to spare!);
And I--transported by the bliss--shan't do a plaguey thing
But cut the bait and string the fish for John Lyle King!
Or, if I angle, it will be for bullheads and the like,
While he shall fish for gamey bass, for pickerel, and for pike;
I really do not care a rap for all the fish that swim-But it's worth the wealth of Indies just to be along with him
In grassy fields, in leafy woods, beside the water-brooks,
And hear him tell of things he's seen or read of in his books-To hear the sweet philosophy that trickles in and out
The while he is discoursing of the things we talk about;
A fountain-head refreshing--a clear, perennial spring
Is the genial conversation of John Lyle King!
Should varying winds or shifting tides redound to our despite-In other words, should we return all bootless home at night,
I'd back him up in anything he had a mind to say
Of mighty bass he'd left behind or lost upon the way;
I'd nod assent to every yarn involving piscine game-I'd cross my heart and make my affidavit to the same;
For what is friendship but a scheme to help a fellow out-And what a paltry fish or two to make such bones about!
Nay, Sentiment a mantle of sweet charity would fling
O'er perjuries committed for John Lyle King.
At night, when as the camp-fire cast a ruddy, genial flame,
He'd bring his tuneful fiddle out and play upon the same;
No diabolic engine this--no instrument of sin-No relative at all to that lewd toy, the violin!
But a godly hoosier fiddle--a quaint archaic thing
Full of all the proper melodies our grandmas used to sing;
With 'Bonnie Doon,' and 'Nellie Gray,' and 'Sitting on the Stile,'
'The Heart Bowed Down,' the 'White Cockade,' and 'Charming Annie Lisle'
Our hearts would echo and the sombre empyrean ring
Beneath the wizard sorcery of John Lyle King.
The subsequent proceedings should interest me no more-Wrapped in a woolen blanket should I calmly dream and snore;
The finny game that swims by day is my supreme delight-And _not_ the scaly game that flies in darkness of the night!
Let those who are so minded pursue this latter game
But not repine if they should lose a boodle in the same;
For an example to you all one paragon should serve-He towers a very monument to valor and to nerve;
No bob-tail flush, no nine-spot high, no measly pair can wring
A groan of desperation from John Lyle King!
A truce to badinage--I hope far distant is the day
When from these scenes terrestrial our friend shall pass away!
We like to hear his cheery voice uplifted in the land,
To see his calm, benignant face, to grasp his honest hand;
We like him for his learning, his sincerity, his truth,
His gallantry to woman and his kindliness to youth,
For the lenience of his nature, for the vigor of his mind,
For the fulness of that charity he bears to all mankind-That's why we folks who know him best so reverently cling
(And that is why I pen these lines) to John Lyle King.
And now adieu, a fond adieu to thee, O muse of rhyme-I do remand thee to the shades until that happier time
When fields are green, and posies gay are budding everywhere,
And there's a smell of clover bloom upon the vernal air;
When by the pond out yonder the redwing blackbird calls,
And distant hills are wed to Spring in veils of water-falls;
When from his aqueous element the famished pickerel springs
Two hundred feet into the air for butterflies and things-_Then_ come again, O gracious muse, and teach me how to sing
The glory of a fishing cruise with John Lyle King!
~ Eugene Field,#NFDB
272:A Description Of One Of The Pieces Of Tapistry At
Long-Leat
THUS Tapistry of old, the Walls adorn'd,
Ere noblest Dames the artful Shuttle scorn'd:
Arachne, then, with Pallas did contest,
And scarce th' Immortal Work was judg'd the Best.
Nor valorous Actions, then, in Books were fought;
But all the Fame, that from the Field was brought,
Employ'd the Loom, where the kind Consort wrought:
Whilst sharing in the Toil, she shar'd the Fame,
And with the Heroes mixt her interwoven Name.
No longer, Females to such Praise aspire,
And seldom now We rightly do admire.
So much, All Arts are by the Men engross'd,
And Our few Talents unimprov'd or cross'd;
Even I, who on this Subject wou'd compose,
Which the fam'd Urbin for his Pencil chose,
(And here, in tinctur'd Wool we now behold
Correctly follow'd in each Shade, and Fold)
Shou'd prudently from the Attempt withdraw,
But Inclination proves the stronger Law:
And tho' the Censures of the World pursue
These hardy Flights, whilst his Designs I view;
My burden'd Thoughts, which labour for a Vent,
Urge me t'explain in Verse, what by each Face is meant.
Of SERGIUS first, upon his lofty Seat,
With due Regard our Observations treat;
Who, whilst he thence on ELYMAS looks down,
Contracts his pensive Brow into a Frown,
With Looks inquistive he seeks the Cause
Why Nature acts not still by Natures Laws.
'Twas but a Moment, since the Sorcerer's Sight
Receiv'd the Day, and blaz'd infernal Light:
Untouch'd, the Optiques in a Moment fail'd,
Their fierce Illumination quench'd, or veil'd;
Throughout th' Extention of his ample Sway,
11
No Fact, like this, the Roman cou'd survey,
Who, with spread Hands, invites Mankind to gaze,
And sympathize in the profound Amaze.
To share his Wonder every one combines,
By diff'rent Aspects shewn, and diff'rent Signs.
A comely Figure, near the Consul plac'd,
With serious Mildness and Instruction grac'd,
To Others seems imparting what he saw,
And shews the Wretch with reverential Awe:
Whilst a more eager Person next we find,
Viewing the Wizard with a Skeptic's Mind;
Who his fixt Eyes so near him do's apply,
We think, enliv'ning Beams might from them fly,
To re-inkindle, by so just an Aim,
The radial Sparks, but lately check'd and tame,
As Tapers new put-out will catch approaching Flame.
But dire Surprize th' Enquiry do's succeed,
Whilst full Conviction in his Face we read,
And He, who question'd, now deplores the Deed.
To sacred PAUL a younger Figure guides,
With seeming Warmth, which still in Youth presides;
And pointing forward, Elder Men directs,
In Him, to note the Cause of these Effects;
Upon whose Brow do's evidently shine
Deputed Pow'r, t' inflict the Wrath Divine;
Whilst sad and solemn, suited to their Years,
Each venerable Countenance appears,
Where, yet we see Astonishment reveal'd,
Tho' by the Aged often 'tis conceal'd;
Who the Emotions of their Souls disguize,
Lest by admiring they shou'd seem less Wise.
But to thy Portrait, ELYMAS, we come
Whose Blindness almost strikes the Poet dumb;
And whilst She vainly to Describe thee seeks,
The Pen but traces, where the Pencil speaks.
Of Darkness to be felt, our Scriptures write,
Thou Darken'd seem'st, as thou would'st feel the Light;
And with projected Limbs, betray'st a Dread,
12
Of unseen Mischiefs, levell'd at thy Head.
Thro' all thy Frame such Stupefaction reigns,
As Night it self were sunk into thy Veins:
Nor by the Eyes alone thy Loss we find,
Each Lineament helps to proclaim thee Blind.
An artful Dimness far diffus'd we grant,
And failing seem all Parts through One important Want.
Oh! Mighty RAPHAEL, justly sure renown'd!
Since in thy Works such Excellence is found;
No Wonder, if with Nature Thou'rt at strife,
Who thus can paint the Negatives of Life;
And Deprivation more expressive make,
Than the most perfect Draughts, which Others take.
Whilst to this Chiefest Figure of the Piece,
All that surround it, Heightnings do encrease:
In some, Amazement by Extreams is shewn,
Who viewing his clos'd Lids, extend their Own.
Nor can, by that, enough their Thoughts express,
Which op'ning Months seem ready to confess.
Thus stand the LICTORS gazing on a Deed,
Which do's all humane Chastisements exceed;
Enfeebl'd seem their Instruments of smart,
When keener Words can swifter Ills impart.
Thou, BARNABAS, though Last, not least our Care,
Seem'st equally employ'd in Praise, and Prayer,
Acknowledging th' Omnipotent Decree,
Yet soft Compassion in thy Face we see;
Whilst lifted Hands implore a kind Relief,
Tho' no Impatience animates thy Grief;
But mild Suspence and Charity benign,
Do all th' excesses of thy Looks confine.
Thus far, our slow Imagination goes:
Wou'd the more skill'd THEANOR his disclose;
Expand the Scene, and open to our Sight
What to his nicer Judgement gives Delight;
13
Whose soaring Mind do's to Perfections climb,
Nor owns a Relish, but for Things sublime:
Then, wou'd the Piece fresh Beauties still present,
Nor Length of Time wou'd leave the Eye content:
As moments, Hours; as Hours the Days wou'd seem,
Observing here, taught to observe by HIM.
~ Anne Kingsmill Finch,#NFDB
273:
[Dedicated to General J.C.F. Fuller]
Velvet soft the night-star glowed
Over the untrodden road,
Through the giant glades of yew
Where its ray fell light as dew
Lighting up the shimmering veil
Maiden pure and aery frail
That the spiders wove to hide
Blushes of the sylvan bride
Earth, that trembled with delight
At the male caress of Night.
Velvet soft the wizard trod
To the Sabbath of his God.
With his naked feet he made
Starry blossoms in the glade,
Softly, softly, as he went
To the sombre sacrament,
Stealthy stepping to the tryst
In his gown of amethyst.
Earlier yet his soul had come
To the Hill of Martyrdom,
Where the charred and crooked stake
Like a black envenomed snake
By the hangman's hands is thrust
Through the wet and writhing dust,
Never black and never dried
Heart's blood of a suicide.
He had plucked the hazel rod
From the rude and goatish god,
Even as the curved moon's waning ray
Stolen from the King of Day.
He had learnt the elvish sign;
Given the Token of the Nine:
Once to rave, and once to revel,
Once to bow before the devil,
Once to swing the thurible,
Once to kiss the goat of hell,
Once to dance the aspen spring,
Once to croak, and once to sing,
Once to oil the savoury thighs
Of the witch with sea-green eyes
With the unguents magical.
Oh the honey and the gall
Of that black enchanter's lips
As he croons to the eclipse
Mingling that most puissant spell
Of the giant gods of hell
With the four ingredients
Of the evil elements;
Ambergris from golden spar,
Musk of ox from Mongol jar,
Civet from a box of jade,
Mixed with fat of many a maid
Slain by the inchauntments cold
Of the witches wild and old.
He had crucified a toad
In the basilisk abode,
Muttering the Runes averse
Mad with many a mocking curse.
He had traced the serpent sigil
In his ghastly virgin vigil.
Sursum cor! the elfin hill,
Where the wind blows deadly chill
From the world that wails beneath
Death's black throat and lipless teeth.
There he had stood - his bosom bare -
Tracing Life upon the Air
With the crook and with the flail
Lashing forward on the gale,
Till its blade that wavereth
Like the flickering of Death
Sank before his subtle fence
To the starless sea of sense.
Now at last the man is come
Haply to his halidom.
Surely as he waves his rod
In a circle on the sod
Springs the emerald chaste and clean
From the duller paler green.
Surely in the circle millions
Of immaculate pavilions
Flash upon the trembling turf
Like the sea-stars in the surf -
Millions of bejewelled tents
For the warrior sacraments.
Vaster, vaster, vaster, vaster,
Grows the stature of the master;
All the ringed encampment vies
With the infinite galaxies.
In the midst a cubic stone
With the Devil set thereon;
Hath a lamb's virginal throat;
Hath the body of a stoat;
Hath the buttocks of a goat;
Hath the sanguine face and rod
Of a goddess and a god!
Spell by spell and pace by pace!
Mystic flashes swing and trace
Velvet soft the sigils stepped
By the silver-starred adept.
Back and front, and to and fro,
Soul and body sway and flow
In vertiginous caresses
To imponderable recesses,
Till at last the spell is woven,
And the faery veil is cloven
That was Sequence, Space, and Stress
Of the soul-sick consciousness.
"Give thy body to the beasts!
Give thy spirit to the priests!
Break in twain the hazel rod
On the virgin lips of God!
Tear the Rosy Cross asunder!
Shatter the black bolt of thunder!
Suck the swart ensanguine kiss
Of the resolute abyss!"
Wonder-weft the wizard heard
This intolerable word.
Smote the blasting hazel rod
On the scarlet lips of God;
Trampled Cross and rosy core;
Brake the thunder-tool of Thor;
Meek and holy acolyte
Of the priestly hells of spite,
Sleek and shameless catamite
Of the beasts that prowl the night!
Like a star that streams from heaven
Through the virgin airs light-riven,
From the lift there shot and fell
An admirable miracle.
Carved minute and clean, a key
Of purest lapis-lazuli
More blue than the blind sky that aches
(Wreathed with the stars, her torturing snakes),
For the dead god's kiss that never wakes;
Shot with golden specks of fire
Like a virgin with desire.
Look, the levers! fern-frail fronds
Of fantastic diamonds,
Glimmering with ethereal azure
In each exquisite embrasure.
On the shaft the letters laced,
As if dryads lunar-chaste
With the satyrs were embraced,
Spelled the secret of the key:
Sic pervenias. And he
Went his wizard way, inweaving
Dreams of things beyond believing.
When he will, the weary world
Of the senses closely curled
Like a serpent round his heart
Shakes herself and stands apart.
So the heart's blood flames, expanding,
Strenuous, urgent, and commanding;
And the key unlocks the door
Where his love lives evermore.
She is of the faery blood;
All smaragdine flows its flood.
Glowing in the amber sky
To ensorcelled porphyry
She hath eyes of glittering flake
Like a cold grey water-snake.
She hath naked breasts of amber
Jetting wine in her bed-chamber,
Whereof whoso stoops and drinks
Rees the riddle of the Sphinx.
She hath naked limbs of amber
Whereupon her children clamber.
She hath five navels rosy-red
From the five wounds of God that bled;
Each wound that mothered her still bleeding,
And on that blood her babes are feeding.
Oh! like a rose-winged pelican
She hath bred blessed babes to Pan!
Oh! like a lion-hued nightingale
She hath torn her breast on thorns to avail
The barren rose-tree to renew
Her life with that disastrous dew,
Building the rose o' the world alight
With music out of the pale moonlight!
O She is like the river of blood
That broke from the lips of the bastard god,
When he saw the sacred mother smile
On the ibis that flew up the foam of Nile
Bearing the limbs unblessed, unborn,
That the lurking beast of Nile had torn!
So (for the world is weary) I
These dreadful souls of sense lay by.
I sacrifice these impure shoon
To the cold ray of the waning moon.
I take the forked hazel staff,
And the rose of no terrene graff,
And the lamp of no olive oil
With heart's blood that alone may boil.
With naked breast and feet unshod
I follow the wizard way to God.
Wherever he leads my foot shall follow;
Over the height, into the hollow,
Up to the caves of pure cold breath,
Down to the deeps of foul hot death,
Across the seas, through the fires,
Past the palace of desires;
Where he will, whether he will or no,
If I go, I care not whither I go.
For in me is the taint of the faery blood.
Fast, fast its emerald flood
Leaps within me, violent rude
Like a bestial faun's beatitude.
In me the faery blood runs hard:
My sires were a druid, a devil, a bard,
A beast, a wizard, a snake and a satyr;
For - as my mother said - what does it matter?
She was a fay, pure of the faery;
Queen Morgan's daughter by an aery
Demon that came to Orkney once
To pay the Beetle his orisons.
So, it is I that writhe with the twitch
Of the faery blood, and the wizard itch
To attain a matter one may not utter
Rather than sink in the greasy splutter
Of Britons munching their bread and butter;
Ailing boys and coarse-grained girls
Grown to sloppy women and brutal churls.
So, I am off with staff in hand
To the endless light of the nameless land.
Darkness spreads its sombre streams,
Blotting out the elfin dreams.
I might haply be afraid,
Were it not the Feather-maid
Leads me softly by the hand,
Whispers me to understand.
Now (when through the world of weeping
Light at last starrily creeping
Steals upon my babe-new sight,
Light - O light that is not light!)
On my mouth the lips of her
Like a stone on my sepulchre
Seal my speech with ecstasy,
Till a babe is born of me
That is silent more than I;
For its inarticulate cry
Hushes as its mouth is pressed
To the pearl, her honey breast;
While its breath divinely ripples
The rose-petals of her nipples,
And the jetted milk he laps
From the soft delicious paps,
Sweeter than the bee-sweet showers
In the chalice of the flowers,
More intoxicating than
All the purple grapes of Pan.
Ah! my proper lips are stilled.
Only, all the world is filled
With the Echo, that drips over
Like the honey from the clover.
Passion, penitence, and pain
Seek their mother's womb again,
And are born the triple treasure,
Peace and purity and pleasure.
- Hush, my child, and come aloft
Where the stars are velvet soft!
~ Aleister Crowley, The Wizard Way
,#NFDB
274:The Kalevala - Rune Xxxiii
KULLERVO AND THE CHEAT-CAKE.
Thereupon the lad, Kullervo,
Laid his luncheon in his basket,
Drove the herd to mountain-pastures,
O'er the hills and through the marshes,
To their grazings in the woodlands,
Speaking as he careless wandered:
'Of the youth am I the poorest,
Hapless lad and full of trouble,
Evil luck to me befallen!
I alas! must idly wander
O'er the hills and through the valleys,
As a watch-dog for the cattle!'
Then she sat upon the greensward,
In a sunny spot selected,
Singing, chanting words as follow:
'Shine, O shine, thou Sun of heaven,
Cast thy rays, thou fire of Ukko,
On the herdsman of the blacksmith,
On the head of Kullerwoinen,
On this poor and luckless shepherd,
Not in Ilmarinen's smithy,
Nor the dwellings of his people;
Good the table of the hostess,
Cuts the best of wheaten biscuit,
Honey-cakes she cuts in slices,
Spreading each with golden butter;
Only dry bread has the herdsman,
Eats with pain the oaten bread-crusts,'
Filled with chaff his and biscuit,
Feeds upon the worst of straw-bread,
Pine-tree bark, the broad he feeds on,
Sipping water from the birch-bark,
Drinking from the tips of grasses I
Go, O Sun, and go, O barley,
Haste away, thou light of Ukko,
Hide within the mountain pine-trees,
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Go, O wheat, to yonder thickets,
To the trees of purple berries,
To the junipers and alders,
Safely lead the herdsman homeward
To the biscuit golden-buttered,
To the honeyed cakes and viands!'
While the shepherd lad was singing
Kullerwoinen's song and echo,
Ilmarinen's wife was feasting
On the sweetest bread of Northland,
On the toothsome cakes of barley,
On the richest of provisions;
Only laid aside some cabbage,
For the herdsman, Kullerwoinen;
Set apart some wasted fragments,
Leavings of the dogs at dinner,
For the shepherd, home returning.
From the woods a bird came flying,
Sang this song to Kullerwoinen:
''Tis the time for forest-dinners,
For the fatherless companion
Of the herds to eat his viands,
Eat the good things from his basket!'
Kullerwoinen heard the songster,
Looked upon the Sun's long shadow,
Straightway spake the words that follow:
'True, the singing of the song-bird,
It is time indeed for feasting,
Time to eat my basket-dinner.'
Thereupon young Kullerwoinen
Called his herd to rest in safety,
Sat upon a grassy hillock,
Took his basket from his shoulders,
Took therefrom the and oat-loaf,
Turned it over in his fingers,
Carefully the loaf inspected,
Spake these words of ancient wisdom:
'Many loaves are fine to look on,
On the outside seem delicious,
On the inside, chaff and tan-bark!'
Then the shepherd, Kullerwoinen,
Drew his knife to cut his oat-loaf,
522
Cut the hard and arid biscuit;
Cuts against a stone imprisoned,
Well imbedded in the centre,
Breaks his ancient knife in pieces;
When the shepherd youth, Kullervo,
Saw his magic knife had broken,
Weeping sore, he spake as follows:
'This, the blade that I bold sacred,
This the one thing that I honor,
Relic of my mother's people!
On the stone within this oat-loaf,
On this cheat-cake of the hostess,
I my precious knife have broken.
How shall I repay this insult,
How avenge this woman's malice,
What the wages for deception?'
From a tree the raven answered:
'O thou little silver buckle,
Only son of old Kalervo,
Why art thou in evil humor,
Wherefore sad in thy demeanor?
Take a young shoot from the thicket,
Take a birch-rod from the valley,
Drive thy herd across the lowlands,
Through the quicksands of the marshes;
To the wolves let one half wander,
To the bear-dens, lead the other;
Sing the forest wolves together,
Sing the bears down from the mountains,
Call the wolves thy little children,
And the bears thy standard-bearers;
Drive them like a cow-herd homeward,
Drive them home like spotted cattle,
Drive them to thy master's milk-yards;
Thus thou wilt repay the hostess
For her malice and derision.'
Thereupon the wizard answered,
These the words of Kullerwoinen:
'Wait, yea wait, thou bride of Hisi!
Do I mourn my mother's relic,
Mourn the keep-sake thou hast broken?
Thou thyself shalt mourn as sorely
523
When thy, cows come home at evening!'
From the tree he cuts a birch-wand,
From the juniper a whip-stick,
Drives the herd across the lowlands,
Through the quicksands of the marshes,
To the wolves lets one half wander,
To the bear-dens leads the other;
Calls the wolves his little children,
Calls the bears his standard-bearers,
Changes all his herd of cattle
Into wolves and bears by magic.
In the west the Sun is shining,
Telling that the night is coming.
Quick the wizard, Kullerwoinen,
Wanders o'er the pine-tree mountain,
Hastens through the forest homeward,
Drives the wolves and bears before him
Toward the milk-yards of the hostess;
To the herd he speaks as follows,
As they journey on together:
'Tear and kill the wicked hostess,
Tear her guilty flesh in pieces,
When she comes to view her cattle,
When she stoops to do her milking!'
Then the wizard, Kullerwoinen,
From an ox-bone makes a bugle,
Makes it from Tuonikki's cow-horn,
Makes a flute from Kiryo's shin-bone,
Plays a song upon his bugle,
Plays upon his flute of magic,
Thrice upon the home-land hill-tops,
Six times near the coming gate-ways.
Ilmarinen's wife and hostess
Long had waited for the coming
Of her herd with Kullerwoinen,
Waited for the milk at evening,
Waited for the new-made butter,
Heard the footsteps in the cow-path,
On the heath she beard the bustle,
Spake these joyous words of welcome:
'Be thou praised, O gracious Ukko,
That my herd is home returning!
524
But I hear a bugle sounding,
'Tis the playing of my herdsman,
Playing on a magic cow-horn,
Bursting all our ears with music!'
Kullerwoinen, drawing nearer,
To the hostess spake as follows:
'Found the bugle in the woodlands,
And the flute among the rushes;
All thy herd are in the passage,
All thy cows within the hurdles,
This the time to build the camp-fire,
This the time to do the milking!'
Ilmarinen's wife, the hostess,
Thus addressed an aged servant:
'Go, thou old one, to the milking,
Have the care of all my cattle,
Do not ask for mine assistance,
Since I have to knead the biscuit.'
Kullerwoinen spake as follows:
'Always does the worthy hostess,
Ever does the wisdom-mother
Go herself and do the milking,
Tend the cows within the hurdles!'
Then the wife of Ilmarinen
Built a field-fire in the passage,
Went to milk her cows awaiting,
Looked upon her herd in wonder,
Spake these happy words of greeting:
'Beautiful, my herd of cattle,
Glistening like the skins of lynxes,
Hair as soft as fur of ermine,
Peaceful waiting for the milk-pail!'
On the milk-stool sits the hostess,
Milks one moment, then a second,
Then a third time milks and ceases;
When the bloody wolves disguising,
Quick attack the hostess milking,
And the bears lend their assistance,
Tear and mutilate her body
With their teeth and sharpened fingers.
Kullerwoinen, cruel wizard,
Thus repaid the wicked hostess,
525
Thus repaid her evil treatment.
Quick the wife of Ilmarinen
Cried aloud in bitter anguish,
Thus addressed the youth, Kullervo:
'Evil son, thou bloody herdsman,
Thou hast brought me wolves in malice,
Driven bears within my hurdles!
These the words of Kullerwoinen:
'Have I evil done as shepherd,
Worse the conduct of the hostess;
Baked a stone inside my oat-cake,
On the inside, rock and tan-bark,
On the stone my knife, was broken,
Treasure of my mother's household,
Broken virtue of my people!'
Ilmarinen's wife made answer:
'Noble herdsman, Kullerwoinen,
Change, I pray thee, thine opinion,
Take away thine incantations,
From the bears and wolves release me,
Save me from this spell of torture
I will give thee better raiment,
Give the best of milk and butter,
Set for thee the sweetest table;
Thou shalt live with me in welcome,
Need not labor for thy keeping.
If thou dost not free me quickly,
Dost not break this spell of magic,
I shall sink into the Death-land,
Shall return to Tuonela.'
This is Kullerwoinen's answer:
'It is best that thou shouldst perish,
Let destruction overtake thee,
There is ample room in Mana,
Room for all the dead in Kalma,
There the worthiest must slumber,
There must rest the good and evil.'
Ilmarinen's wife made answer:
'Ukko, thou O God in heaven,
Span the strongest of thy cross-bows,
Test the weapon by thy wisdom,
Lay an arrow forged from copper,
526
On the cross-bow of thy forging;
Rightly aim thy flaming arrow,
With thy magic hurl the missile,
Shoot this wizard through the vitals,
Pierce the heart of Kullerwoinen
With the lightning of the heavens,
With thine arrows tipped with copper.'
Kullerwoinen prays as follows:
'Ukko, God of truth and justice.
Do not slay thy magic servant,
Slay the wife of Ilmarinen,
Kill in her the worst of women,
In these hurdles let her perish,
Lest she wander hence in freedom,
To perform some other mischief,
Do some greater deed of malice!'
Quick as lightning fell the hostess,
Quick the wife of Ilmarinen
Fell and perished in the hurdles,
On the ground before her cottage
Thus the death of Northland's hostess,
Cherished wife of Ilmarinen,
Once the Maiden of the Rainbow,
Wooed and watched for many summers,
Pride and joy of Kalevala!
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
275:The Kalevala - Rune Xxxviii
ILMARINEN'S FRUITLESS WOOING.
Ilmarinen, the magician,
The eternal metal-artist,
Lays aside the golden image,
Beauteous maid of magic metals;
Throws the harness on his courser,
Binds him to his sledge of birch-wood,
Seats himself upon the cross-bench,
Snaps the whip above the racer,
Thinking once again to journey
To the mansions of Pohyola,
There to woo a bride in honor,
Second daughter of the Northland.
On he journeyed, restless, northward,
Journeyed one day, then a second,
So the third from morn till evening,
When he reached a Northland-village
On the plains of Sariola.
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Standing in the open court-yard,
Spied the hero, Ilmarinen,
Thus addressed the metal-worker:
'Tell me how my child is living,
How the Bride of Beauty prospers,
As a daughter to thy mother.'
Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Head bent down and brow dejected,
Thus addressed the Northland hostess:
'O, thou dame of Sariola,
Do not ask me of thy daughter,
Since, alas I in Tuonela
Sleeps the Maiden of the Rainbow,
Sleeps in death the Bride, of Beauty,
Underneath the fragrant heather,
In the kingdom of Manala.
Come I for a second daughter,
For the fairest of thy virgins.
568
Beauteous hostess of Pohyola,
Give to me thy youngest maiden,
For my former wife's compartments,
For the chambers of her sister.'
Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
Spake these words to Ilmarinen:
'Foolish was the Northland-hostess,
When she gave her fairest virgin,
In the bloom of youth and beauty
To the blacksmith of Wainola,
Only to be led to Mana,
Like a lambkin to the slaughter!
I shall never give my daughter,
Shall not give my youngest maiden
Bride of thine to be hereafter,
Life-companion at thy fireside.
Sooner would I give the fair one
To the cataract and whirlpool,
To the river of Manala,
To the waters of Tuoni!'
Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Drew away his head, disdainful,
Shook his sable locks in anger,
Entered to the inner court-room,
Where the maiden sat in waiting,
Spake these measures to the daughter:
'Come with me, thou bright-eyed maiden,
To the cottage where thy sister
Lived and lingered in contentment,
Baked for me the toothsome biscuit,
Brewed for me the beer of barley,
Kept my dwelling-place in order.'
On the floor a babe was lying,
Thus he sang to Ilmarinen:
'Uninvited, leave this mansion,
Go, thou stranger, from this dwelling;
Once before thou camest hither,
Only bringing pain and trouble,
Filling all our hearts with sorrow.
Fairest daughter of my mother,
Do not give this suitor welcome,
Look not on his eyes with pleasure,
569
Nor admire his form and features.
In his mouth are only wolf-teeth,
Cunning fox-claws in his mittens,
In his shoes art only bear-claws,
In his belt a hungry dagger;
Weapons these of blood and murder,
Only worn by the unworthy.'
Then the daughter spake as follows
To the blacksmith, Ilmarinen:
'Follow thee this maid will never,
Never heed unworthy suitors;
Thou hast slain the Bride of Beauty,
Once the Maiden of the Rainbow,
Thou wouldst also slay her sister.
I deserve a better suitor,
Wish a truer, nobler husband,
Wish to ride in richer sledges,
Have a better home-protection;
Never will I sweep the cottage
And the coal-place of a blacksmith.'
Then the hero, Ilmarinen,
The eternal metal-artist,
Turned his head away, disdainful,
Shook his sable locks in anger,
Quickly seized the trembling maiden,
Held her in his grasp of iron,
Hastened from the court of Louhi
To his sledge upon the highway.
In his sleigh he seats the virgin,
Snugly wraps her in his far-robes,
Snaps his whip above the racer,
Gallops on the high-road homeward;
With one hand the reins be tightens,
With the other holds the maiden.
Speaks the virgin-daughter, weeping:
We have reached the lowland-berries,
Here the herbs of water-borders;
Leave me here to sink and perish
As a child of cold misfortune.
Wicked Ilmarinen, Iisten!
If thou dost not quickly free me,
I will break thy sledge to pieces,
570
Throw thy fur-robes to the north-winds.'
Ilmarinen makes this answer:
'When the blacksmith builds his snow-sledge,
All the parts are hooped with iron;
Therefore will the beauteous maiden
Never beat my sledge to fragments.'
Then the silver-tinselled daughter
Wept and wailed in bitter accents,
Wrung her hands in desperation,
Spake again to Ilmarinen:
'If thou dost not quickly free me,
I shall change to ocean-salmon,
Be a whiting of the waters.'
'Thou wilt never thus escape me,
As a pike I'll fleetly follow.'
Then the maiden of Pohyola
Wept and wailed in bitter accents,
Wrung her hands in desperation,
Spake again to Ilmarinen;
'If thou dost not quickly free me,
I shall hasten to the forest,
Mid the rocks become an ermine!'
'Thou wilt never thus escape me,
As a serpent I will follow.'
Then the beauty of the Northland,
Wailed and wept in bitter accents,
Wrung her hands in desperation,
Spake once more to Ilmarinen:
'Surely, if thou dost not free me,
As a lark I'll fly the ether,
Hide myself within the storm-clouds.'
'Neither wilt thou thus escape me,
As an eagle I will follow.'
They had gone but little distance,
When the courser shied and halted,
Frighted at some passing object;
And the maiden looked in wonder,
In the snow beheld some foot-prints,
Spake these words to Ilmarinen:
Who has run across our highway?'
''Tis the timid hare', he answered.
Thereupon the stolen maiden
571
Sobbed, and moaned, in deeps of sorrow,
Heavy-hearted, spake these measures:
'Woe is me, ill-fated virgin!
Happier far my life hereafter,
If the hare I could but follow
To his burrow in the woodlands!
Crook-leg's fur to me is finer
Than the robes of Ilmarinen.'
Ilmarinen, the magician,
Tossed his head in full resentment,
Galloped on the highway homeward,
Travelled but a little distance,
When again his courser halted,
Frighted at some passing stranger.
Quick the maiden looked and wondered,
In the snow beheld some foot-prints,
Spake these measures to the blacksmith:
Who has crossed our snowy pathway?'
''Tis a fox', replied the minstrel.
Thereupon the beauteous virgin
Moaned again in depths of anguish,
Sang these accents, heavy-hearted:
'Woe is me, ill-fated maiden!
Happier far my life hereafter,
With the cunning fox to wander,
Than with this ill-mannered suitor;
Reynard's fur to me is finer
Than the robes of Ilmarinen.'
Thereupon the metal-worker
Shut his lips in sore displeasure,
Hastened on the highway homeward;
Travelled but a little distance,
When again his courser halted.
Quick the maiden looked in wonder,
in the snow beheld some foot-prints,
Spake these words to the magician:
Who again has crossed our pathway?'
''Tis the wolf', said Ilmarinen.
Thereupon the fated daughter
Fell again to bitter weeping,
And Intoned these words of sorrow:
'Woe is me, a hapless maiden!
572
Happier far my life hereafter,
Brighter far would be my future,
If these tracks I could but follow;
On the wolf the hair is finer
Than the furs of Ilmarinen,
Faithless suitor of the Northland.'
Then the minstrel of Wainola
Closed his lips again in anger,
Shook his sable locks, resentful,
Snapped the whip above the racer,
And the steed flew onward swiftly,
O'er the way to Kalevala,
To the village of the blacksmith.
Sad and weary from his journey,
Ilmarinen, home-returning,
Fell upon his couch in slumber,
And the maiden laughed derision.
In the morning, slowly waking,
Head confused, and locks dishevelled,
Spake the wizard, words as follow:
'Shall I set myself to singing
Magic songs and incantations?
Shall I now enchant this maiden
To a black-wolf on the mountains,
To a salmon of the ocean?
Shall not send her to the woodlands,
All the forest would be frighted;
Shall not send her to the waters,
All the fish would flee in terror;
This my sword shall drink her life-blood,
End her reign of scorn and hatred.'
Quick the sword feels his intention,
Quick divines his evil purpose,
Speaks these words to Ilmarinen:
'Was not born to drink the life-blood
Of a maiden pure and lovely,
Of a fair but helpless virgin.'
Thereupon the magic minstrel,
Filled with rage, began his singing;
Sang the very rocks asunder,
Till the distant hills re-echoed;
Sang the maiden to a sea-gull,
573
Croaking from the ocean-ledges,
Calling from the ocean-islands,
Screeching on the sandy sea-coast,
Flying to the winds opposing.
When his conjuring had ended,
Ilmarinen joined his snow-sledge,
Whipped his steed upon a gallop,
Hastened to his ancient smithy,
To his home in Kalevala.
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Comes to meet him on the highway,
Speaks these words to the magician:
'Ilmarinen, worthy brother,
Wherefore comest heavy-hearted
From the dismal Sariola?
Does Pohyola live and prosper?
Spake the minstrel, Ilmarinen:
'Why should not Pohyola prosper?
There the Sampo grinds unceasing,
Noisy rocks the lid in colors;
Grinds one day the flour for eating,
Grinds the second flour for selling,
Grinds the third day flour for keeping;
Thus it is Pohyola prospers.
While the Sampo is in Northland,
There is plowing, there is sowing,
There is growth of every virtue,
There is welfare never-ending.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Ilmarinen, artist-brother,
Where then is the Northland-daughter,
Far renowned and beauteous maiden,
For whose hand thou hast been absent?
These the words of Ilmarinen:
'I have changed the hateful virgin
To a sea-gull on the ocean;
Now she calls above the waters,
Screeches from the ocean-islands;
On the rocks she calls and murmurs
Vainly calling for a suitor.'
574
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
276:The Kalevala - Rune Xxviii
THE MOTHER'S COUNSEL.
Ahti, hero of the Islands,
Wild magician, Lemminkainen,
Also known as Kaukomieli,
Hastened from the great carousal,
From the banquet-halls of Louhi,
From the ever-darksome Northland,
From the dismal Sariola.
Stormful strode he from the mansion,
Hastened like the smoke of battle,
From the court-yard of Pohyola,
Left his crimes and misdemeanors
In the halls of ancient Louhi.
Then he looked in all directions,
Seeking for his tethered courser,
Anxious looked in field and stable,
But he did not find his racer;
Found a black thing in the fallow,
Proved to be a clump of willows.
Who will well advise the hero,
Who will give him wise directions,
Guide the wizard out of trouble,
Give his hero-locks protection,
Keep his magic head from danger
From the warriors of Northland?
Noise is beard within the village,
And a din from other homesteads,
From the battle-hosts of Louhi,
Streaming from the doors and window,
Of the homesteads of Pohyola.
Thereupon young Lemminkainen,
Handsome Islander and hero,
Changing both his form and features,
Clad himself in other raiment,
Changing to another body,
Quick became a mighty eagle,
Soared aloft on wings of magic,
479
Tried to fly to highest heaven,
But the moonlight burned his temples,
And the sunshine singed his feathers.
Then entreating, Lemminkainen,
Island-hero, turned to Ukko,
This the prayer that Ahti uttered:
'Ukko, God of love and mercy,
Thou the Wisdom of the heavens,
Wise Director of the lightning,
Thou the Author of the thunder,
Thou the Guide of all the cloudlets,
Give to me thy cloak of vapor,
Throw a silver cloud around me,
That I may in its protection
Hasten to my native country,
To my mother's Island-dwelling,
Fly to her that waits my coming,
With a mother's grave forebodings.'
Farther, farther, Lemminkainen
Flew and soared on eagle-pinions,
Looked about him, backwards, forwards,
Spied a gray-hawk soaring near him,
In his eyes the fire of splendor,
Like the eyes of Pohyalanders,
Like the eyes of Pohya's spearmen,
And the gray-hawk thus addressed him:
'Ho! There! hero, Lemminkainen,
Art thou thinking of our combat
With the, hero-heads of Northland?'
Thus the Islander made answer,
These the words of Kaukomieli:
'O thou gray-hawk, bird of beauty,
Fly direct to Sariola,
Fly as fast as wings can bear thee;
When thou hast arrived in safety,
On the plains of darksome Northland,
Tell the archers and the spearmen,
They will never catch the eagle,
In his journey from Pohyola,
To his Island-borne and fortress.'
Then the Ahti-eagle hastened
Straightway to his mother's cottage,
480
In his face the look of trouble,
In his heart the pangs of sorrow.
Ahti's mother ran to meet him,
When she spied him in the pathway,
Walking toward her island-dwelling;
These the words the mother uttered:
'Of my sons thou art the bravest,
Art the strongest of my children;
Wherefore then comes thine annoyance,
On returning from Pohyola?
Wert thou worsted at the banquet,
At the feast and great carousal?
At thy cups, if thou wert injured,
Thou shalt here have better treatment
Thou shalt have the cup thy father
Brought me from the hero-castle.'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Worthy mother, thou that nursed me,
If I had been maimed at drinking,
I the landlord would have worsted,
Would have slain a thousand heroes,
Would have taught them useful lessons.'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'Wherefore then art thou indignant,
Didst thou meet disgrace and insult,
Did they rob thee of thy courser?
Buy thou then a better courser
With the riches of thy mother,
With thy father's horded treasures.'
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'Faithful mother of my being,
If my steed had been insulted,
If for him my heart was injured,
I the landlord would have punished,
Would have punished all the horsemen,
All of Pohya's strongest riders.'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'Tell me then thy dire misfortune,
What has happened to my hero,
On his journey to Pohyola?
Have the Northland maidens scorned thee,
Have the women ridiculed thee?
481
If the maidens scorned thy presence.
If the women gave derision,
There are others thou canst laugh at,
Thou canst scorn a thousand women.'
Said the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Honored mother, fond and faithful,
If the Northland dames had scorned me
Or the maidens laughed derision,
I the maidens would have punished,
Would have scorned a thousand women.'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'Wherefore then are thou indignant,
Thus annoyed, and heavy-hearted,
On returning from Pohyola?
Was thy feasting out of season,
Was the banquet-beer unworthy,
Were thy dreams of evil import
When asleep in darksome Northland?'
This is Lemminkainen's answer:
'Aged women may remember
What they dream on beds of trouble;
I have seen some wondrous visions,
Since I left my Island-cottage.
My beloved, helpful mother,
Fill my bag with good provisions,
Flour and salt in great abundance,
Farther must thy hero wander,
He must leave his home behind him,
Leave his pleasant Island-dwelling,
Journey from this home of ages;
Men are sharpening their broadswords,
Sharpening their spears and lances,
For the death of Lemminkainen.'
Then again the mother questioned,
Hurriedly she asked the reason:
'Why the men their swords were whetting,
Why their spears are being sharpened.'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli:
'Therefore do they whet their broadswords,
Therefore sharpen they their lances:
It is for thy son's destruction,
482
At his heart are aimed their lances.
In the court-yard of Pohyola,
There arose a great contention,
Fierce the battle waged against me;
But I slew the Northland hero,
Killed the host of Sariola;
Quick to arms rose Louhi's people,
All the spears and swords of Northland
Were directed at thy hero;
All of Pohya turned against me,
Turned against a single foeman.'
This the answer of the mother:
'I had told thee this beforehand,
I had warned thee of this danger,
And forbidden thee to journey
To the hostile fields of Northland.
Here my hero could have lingered,
Passed his life in full contentment,
Lived forever with his mother,
With his mother for protection,
In the court-yard with his kindred;
Here no war would have arisen,
No contention would have followed.
Whither wilt thou go, my hero,
Whither will my loved one hasten,
To escape thy fierce pursuers,
To escape from thy misdoings,
From thy sins to bide in safety,
From thy crimes and misdemeanors,
That thy head be not endangered,
That thy body be not mangled,
That thy locks be not outrooted?'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Know I not a spot befitting,
Do not know a place of safety,
Where to hide from my pursuers,
That will give me sure protection
From the crimes by me committed.
Helpful mother of my being,
Where to flee wilt thou advise me?'
This the answer of the mother:
'I do not know where I can send thee;
483
Be a pine-tree on the mountain,
Or a juniper in lowlands?
Then misfortune may befall thee;
Often is the mountain pine-tree
Cut in splints for candle-lighters;
And the juniper is often
Peeled for fence-posts for the pastures.
Go a birch-tree to the valleys,
Or an elm-tree to the glenwood?
Even then may trouble find thee,
Misery may overtake thee;
Often is the lowland birch-tree
Cut to pieces in the ware-house;
Often is the elm-wood forest
Cleared away for other plantings.
Be a berry on the highlands,
Cranberry upon the heather,
Strawberry upon the mountains,
Blackberry along the fences?
Even there will trouble find thee,
There misfortune overtake thee,
For the berry-maids would pluck thee,
Silver-tinselled girls would get thee.
Be a pike then in the ocean,
Or a troutlet in the rivers?
Then would trouble overtake thee,
Would become thy life-companion;
Then the fisherman would catch thee,
Catch thee in his net of flax-thread,
Catch thee with his cruel fish-hook.
Be a wolf then in the forest,
Or a black-bear in the thickets?
Even then would trouble find thee,
And disaster cross thy pathway;
Sable hunters of the Northland
Have their spears and cross-bows ready
To destroy the wolf and black-bear.'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Know I well the worst of places,
Know where Death will surely follow,
Where misfortune's eye would find me;
Since thou gavest me existence,
484
Gavest nourishment in childhood,
Whither shall I flee for safety,
Whither hide from death and danger?
In my view is fell destruction,
Dire misfortune 'hovers o'er me;
On the morrow come the spearmen,
Countless warriors from Pohya,
Ahti's head their satisfaction.'
This the answer of the mother:
'I can name a goodly refuge,
Name a land of small dimensions,
Name a distant ocean-island,
Where my son may live in safety.
Thither archers never wander,
There thy head cannot be severed;
But an oath as strong as heaven,
Thou must swear before thy mother;
Thou wilt not for sixty summers
Join in war or deadly combat,
Even though thou wishest silver,
Wishest gold and silver treasures.'
Spake the grateful Lemminkainen:
'I will swear an oath of honor,
That I'll not in sixty summers
Draw my sword in the arena,
Test the warrior in battle;
I have wounds upon my shoulders,
On my breast two scars of broadsword,
Of my former battles, relies,
Relies of my last encounters,
On the battle-fields of Northland,
In the wars with men and heroes.'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'Go thou, take thy father's vessel,
Go and bide thyself in safety,
Travel far across nine oceans;
In the tenth, sail to the centre,
To the island, forest-covered,
To the cliffs above the waters,
Where thy father went before thee,
Where he hid from his pursuers,
In the times of summer conquests,
485
In the darksome days of battle;
Good the isle for thee to dwell in,
Goodly place to live and linger;
Hide one year, and then a second,
In the third return in safety
To thy mother's island dwelling,
To thy father's ancient mansion,
To my hero's place of resting.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
277:The Kalevala - Rune Xxxvi
KULLERWOINEN'S VICTORY AND DEATH.
Kullerwionen, wicked wizard,
In his purple-colored stockings,
Now prepares himself for battle;
Grinds a long time on his broadsword,
Sharpens well his trusty weapon,
And his mother speaks as follows:
'Do not go, my son beloved,
Go not to the wars, my hero,
Struggle not with hostile spearsmen.
Whoso goes to war for nothing,
Undertakes a fearful combat,
Undertakes a fatal issue;
Those that war without a reason
Will be slaughtered for their folly,
Easy prey to bows and arrows.
Go thou with a goat to battle,
Shouldst thou go to fight the roebuck,
'Tis the goat that will be vanquished,
And the roebuck will be slaughtered;
With a frog thou'lt journey homeward,
Victor, with but little honor!'
These the words of Kullerwoinen:
'Shall not journey through the marshes,
Shall not sink upon the heather,
On the home-land of the raven,
Where the eagles scream at day-break.
When I yield my life forever,
Bravely will I fall in battle,
Fall upon the field of glory,
Beautiful to die in armor,
And the clang and clash of armies,
Beautiful the strife for conquest!
Thus Kullervo soon will hasten
To the kingdom of Tuoni,
To the realm of the departed,
Undeformed by wasting sickness.'
553
This the answer of the mother:
'If thou diest in the conflict,
Who will stay to guard thy father,
Who will give thy sire protection?'
These the words of Kullerwoinen:
'Let him die upon the court-yard,
Sleeping out his life of sorrow!'
'Who then will protect thy mother,
Be her shield in times of danger?'
'Let her die within the stable,
Or the cabin where she lingers!'
'Who then will defend thy brother,
Give him aid in times of trouble?'
'Let him die within the forest,
Sleep his life away unheeded!'
'Who will comfort then thy sister,
Who will aid her in affliction?'
'Let her sink beneath the waters,
Perish in the crystal fountain,
Where the brook flows on in beauty,
Like a silver serpent winding
Through the valley to the ocean!'
Thereupon the wild Kullervo
Hastens from his home to battle,
To his father speaks, departing:
'Fare thou well, my aged father!
Wilt thou weep for me, thy hero,
When thou hearest I have perished,
Fallen from thy tribe forever,
Perished on the field of glory?'
Thus the father speaks in answer:
'I shall never mourn the downfall
Of my evil son, Kullervo;
Shall not weep when thou hast perished;
Shall beget a second hero
That will do me better service,
That will think and act in wisdom.'
Kullerwoinen gives this answer:
'Neither shall I mourn thy downfall,
Shall not weep when thou hast perished;
I shall make a second father,
Make the head from loam and sandstone,
554
Make the eyes from swamp-land berries,
Make the beard from withered sea-grass,
Make the feet from roots of willow,
Make the form from birch-wood fungus.'
Thereupon the youth, Kullervo,
To his brother speaks as follows:
'Fare thou well, beloved brother!
Wilt thou weep for me departed,
Shouldst thou hear that I have perished,
Fallen on the field of battle?'
This the answer of the brother:
'I shall never mourn the downfall
Of my brother, Kullerwoinen,
Shall not weep when thou hast perished;
I shall find a second brother '
Find one worthier and wiser!'
This is Kullerwoinen's answer:
'Neither shall I mourn thy downfall,
Shall not weep when thou hast perished;
I shall form a second brother,
Make the head from dust and ashes,
Make the eyes from pearls of ocean,
Make the beard from withered verdure,
Make the form from pulp of birch-wood.'
To his sister speaks Kullervo:
'Fare thou well, beloved sister!
Surely thou wilt mourn my downfall,
Weep for me when I have perished,
When thou hearest I have fallen
In the heat and din of battle,
Fallen from thy race forever!'
But the sister makes this answer:
'Never shall I mourn thy downfall,
Shall not weep when thou hast perished;
I shall seek a second brother,
Seek a brother, purer, better,
One that will not shame his sister!'
Kullerwoinen thus makes answer:
'Neither shall I mourn thee fallen,
Shall not weep when thou hast perished;
I shall form a second sister,
Make the head from whitened marble,
555
Make the eyes from golden moonbeams,
Make the tresses from the rainbow,
Make the ears from ocean-flowers,
And her form from gold and silver.
'Fare thou well, beloved mother,
Mother, beautiful and faithful!
Wilt thou weep when I have perished,
Fallen on the field of glory,
Fallen from thy race forever?'
Thus the mother speaks in answer:
'Canst not fathom love maternal,
Canst not smother her affection;
Bitterly I'll mourn thy downfall,
I would weep if thou shouldst perish,
Shouldst thou leave my race forever;
I would weep in court or cabin,
Sprinkle all these fields with tear-drops,
Weep great rivers to the ocean,
Weep to melt the snows of Northland,
Make the hillocks green with weeping,
Weep at morning, weep at evening,
Weep three years in bitter sorrow
O'er the death of Kullerwoinen!'
Thereupon the wicked wizard
Went rejoicing to the combat;
In delight to war he hastened
O'er the fields, and fens, and fallows,
Shouting loudly on the heather,
Singing o'er the hills and mountains,
Rushing through the glens and forests,
Blowing war upon his bugle.
Time had gone but little distance,
When a messenger appearing,
Spake these words to Kullerwoinen:
'Lo! thine aged sire has perished,
Fallen from thy race forever;
Hasten home and do him honor,
Lay him in the lap of Kalma.'
Kullerwoinen inade this answer:
'Has my aged father perished,
There is home a sable stallion
That will take him to his slumber,
556
Lay him in the lap of Kalma.'
Then Kullervo journeyed onward,
Calling war upon his bugle,
Till a messenger appearing,
Brought this word to Kullerwoinen:
'Lo! thy brother too has perished,
Dead he lies within the forest,
Manalainen's trumpet called him;
Home return and do him honor,
Lay him in the lap of Kalma.'
Kullerwoinen thus replying:
'Has my hero-brother perished,
There is home a sable stallion
That will take him' to his slumber,
Lay him in the lap of Kalma.'
Young Kullervo journeyed onward
Over vale and over mountain,
Playing on his reed of battle,
Till a messenger appearing
Brought the warrior these tidings:
'Lo! thy sister too has perished,
Perished in the crystal fountain,
Where the waters flow in beauty,
Like a silver serpent winding
Through the valley to the ocean;
Home return and do her honor,
Lay her in the lap of Kalma.'
These the words of Kullerwoinen:
'Has my beauteous sister perished,
Fallen from my race forever,
There is home a sable filly
That will take her to her resting,
Lay her in the lap of Kalma.'
Still Kullervo journeyed onward,
Through the fens he went rejoicing,
Sounding war upon his bugle,
Till a messenger appearing
Brought to him these words of sorrow:
'Lo! thy mother too has perished,
Died in anguish, broken-hearted;
Home return and do her honor,
Lay her in the lap of Kalma.'
557
These the measures of Kullervo:
'Woe is me, my life hard-fated,
That my mother too has perished,
She that nursed me in my cradle,
Made my couch a golden cover,
Twirled for me the spool and spindle!
Lo! Kullervo was not present
When his mother's life departed;
May have died upon the mountains,
Perished there from cold and hunger.
Lave the dead form of my mother
In the crystal waters flowing;
Wrap her in the robes of ermine,
Tie her hands with silken ribbon,
Take her to the grave of ages,
Lay her in the lap of Kalma.
Bury her with songs of mourning,
Let the singers chant my sorrow;
Cannot leave the fields of battle
While Untamo goes unpunished,
Fell destroyer of my people.'
Kullerwoinen journeyed onward,
Still rejoicing, to the combat,
Sang these songs in supplication:
'Ukko, mightiest of rulers,
Loan to me thy sword of battle,
Grant to me thy matchless weapon,
And against a thousand armies
I will war and ever conquer.'
Ukko, gave the youth his broadsword,
Gave his blade of magic powers
To the wizard, Kullerwoinen.
Thus equipped, the mighty hero
Slew the people of Untamo,
Burned their villages to ashes;
Only left the stones and ovens,
And the chimneys of their hamlets.
Then the conqueror, Kullervo,
Turned his footsteps to his home-land,
To the cabin of his father '
To his ancient fields and forests.
Empty did he find the cabin,
558
And the forests were deserted;
No one came to give him greeting,
None to give the hand of welcome;
Laid his fingers on the oven,
But he found it cold and lifeless;
Then he knew to satisfaction
That his mother lived no longer;
Laid his hand upon the fire-place,
Cold and lifeless were the hearth-stones;
Then he knew to satisfaction
That his sister too had perished;
Then he sought the landing-places,
Found no boats upon the rollers;
Then he knew to satisfaction
That his brother too had perished;
Then he looked upon the fish-nets,
And he found them torn and tangled;
And he knew to satisfaction
That his father too had perished.
Bitterly he wept and murmured,
Wept one day, and then a second,
On the third day spake as follows:
'Faithful mother, fond and tender,
Why hast left me here to sorrow
In this wilderness of trouble?
But thou dost not hear my calling,
Though I sing in magic accents,
Though my tear-drops speak lamenting,
Though my heart bemoans thine absence.
From her grave awakes the mother,
To Kullervo speaks these measures:
'Thou has still the dog remaining,
He will lead thee to the forest;
Follow thou the faithful watcher,
Let him lead thee to the woodlands,
To the farthest woodland border,
To the caverns of the wood-nymphs;
Kullerwoinen's Victory and Death
There the forest maidens linger,
They will give thee food and shelter,
Give my hero joyful greetings.'
Kullerwoinen, with his watch-dog,
559
Hastens onward through the forest,
Journeys on through fields and fallows;
Journeys but a little distance,
Till be comes upon the summit
Where he met his long-lost sister;
Finds the turf itself is weeping,
Finds the glen-wood filled with sorrow,
Finds the heather shedding tear-drops,
Weeping are the meadow-flowers,
O'er the ruin of his sister.
Kullerwoinen, wicked wizard,
Grasps the handle of his broadsword,
Asks the blade this simple question:
'Tell me, O my blade of honor,
Dost thou wish to drink my life-blood,
Drink the blood of Kullerwoinen?'
Thus his trusty sword makes answer,
Well divining his intentions:
Why should I not drink thy life-blood,
Blood of guilty Kullerwoinen,
Since I feast upon the worthy,
Drink the life-blood of the righteous?'
Thereupon the youth, Kullervo,
Wicked wizard of the Northland,
Lifts the mighty sword of Ukko,
Bids adieu to earth and heaven;
Firmly thrusts the hilt in heather,
To his heart he points the weapon,
Throws his weight upon his broadsword,
Pouring out his wicked life-blood,
Ere be journeys to Manala.
Thus the wizard finds destruction,
This the end of Kullerwoinen,
Born in sin, and nursed in folly.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
As he hears the joyful tidings,
Learns the death of fell Kullervo,
Speaks these words of ancient wisdom:
'O, ye many unborn nations,
Never evil nurse your children,
Never give them out to strangers,
Never trust them to the foolish!
560
If the child is not well nurtured,
Is not rocked and led uprightly,
Though he grow to years of manhood,
Bear a strong and shapely body,
He will never know discretion,
Never eat. the bread of honor,
Never drink the cup of wisdom.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
278:The Kalevala - Rune Xxxv
KULLERVO'S EVIL DEEDS.
Kullerwionen, youthful wizard,
In his blue and scarlet stockings,
Henceforth lingered with his parents;
But he could not change his nature,
Could not gain a higher wisdom,
Could not win a better judgment;
As a child he was ill-nurtured,
Early rocked in stupid cradles,
By a nurse of many follies,
By a minister of evil.
To his work went Kullerwoinen,
Strove to make his labors worthy;
First, Kullervo went a-fishing,
Set his fishing-nets in ocean;
With his hands upon the row-locks,
Kullerwoinen spake as follows:
'Shall I pull with all my forces,
Pull with strength of youthful heroes,
Or with weakness of the aged?'
From the stern arose a gray-beard,
And he answered thus Kullervo:
'Pull with all thy youthful vigor;
Shouldst thou row with magic power,
Thou couldst not destroy this vessel,
Couldst not row this boat to fragments.'
Thereupon the youth, Kullervo,
Rowed with all his youthful vigor,
With the mighty force of magic,
Rowed the bindings from the vessel,
Ribs of juniper he shattered,
Rowed the aspen-oars to pieces.
When the aged sire, Kalervo,
Saw the work of Kullerwoinen,
He addressed his son as follows:
'Dost not understand the rowing;
Thou hast burst the bands asunder,
544
Bands of juniper and willow,
Rowed my aspen-boat to pieces;
To the fish-nets drive the salmon,
This, perchance, will suit thee better.'
Thereupon the son, Kullervo,
Hastened to his work as bidden,
Drove the salmon to the fish-nets,
Spake in innocence as follows:
'Shall I with my youthful vigor
Scare the salmon to the fish-nets,
Or with little magic vigor
Shall I drive them to their capture?
Spake the master of the fish-nets:
'That would be but work of women,
Shouldst thou use but little power
In the frighting of the salmon!'
Kullerwoinen does as bidden,
Scares the salmon with the forces
Of his mighty arms and shoulders,
With the strength of youth and magic,
Stirs the water thick with black-earth,
Beats the scare-net into pieces,
Into pulp he beats the salmon.
When the aged sire, Kalervo,
Saw the work of Kullerwoinen,
To his son these words he uttered:
'Dost not understand this labor,
For this work thou art not suited,
Canst not scare the perch and salmon
To the fish-nets of thy father;
Thou hast ruined all my fish-nets,
Torn my scare-net into tatters,
Beaten into pulp the whiting,
Torn my net-props into fragments,
Beaten into bits my wedges.
Leave the fishing to another;
See if thou canst pay the tribute,
Pay my yearly contribution;
See if thou canst better travel,
On the way show better judgment!'
Thereupon the son, Kullervo,
Hapless youth in purple vestments,
545
In his magic shoes of deer-skin,
In his locks of golden color,
Sallied forth to pay the taxes,
Pay the tribute for his people.
When the youth had paid the tribute,
Paid the yearly contribution,
He returned to join the snow-sledge,
Took his place upon the cross-bench,
Snapped his whip above the courser,
And began his journey homeward;
Rattled on along the highway,
Measured as he galloped onward
Wainamoinen's hills and valleys,
And his fields in cultivation.
Came a golden maid to meet him,
On her snow-shoes came a virgin,
O'er the hills of Wainamoinen,
O'er his cultivated lowlands.
Quick the wizard-son, Kullervo,
Checked the motion of his racer,
Thus addressed the charming maiden
'Come, sweet maiden, to my snow-sledge,
In my fur-robes rest and linger!'
As she ran, the maiden answered:
'Let the Death-maid sit beside thee,
Rest and linger in thy fur-robes!'
Thereupon the youth, Kullervo,
Snapped his whip above the courser;
Fleet as wind he gallops homeward,
Dashes down along the highway;
With the roar of falling waters,
Gallops onward, onward, onward,
O'er the broad-back of the ocean,
O'er the icy plains of Lapland.
Comes a winsome maid to meet him,
Golden-haired, and wearing snow-shoes,
On the far outstretching ice-plains;
Quick the wizard checks his racer,
Charmingly accosts the maiden,
Chanting carefully these measures:
'Come, thou beauty, to my snow-sledge,
Hither come, and rest, and linger!
546
Tauntingly the maiden answered:
'Take Tuoni to thy snow-sledge,
At thy side let Manalainen
Sit with thee, and rest, and linger!'
Quick the wizard, Kullerwoinen,
Struck his fiery, prancing racer,
With the birch-whip of his father.
Like the lightning flew the fleet-foot,
Galloped on the highway homeward;
O'er the hills the snow-sledge bounded,
And the coming mountains trembled.
Kullerwoinen, wild magician,
Measures, on his journey homeward,
Northland's far-extending borders,
And the fertile plains of Pohya.
Comes a beauteous maid to meet him,
With a tin-pin on her bosom,
On the heather of Pohyola,
O'er the Pohya-hills and moorlands.
Quick the wizard son, Kullervo,
Holds the bridle of his courser,
Charmingly intones these measures:
'Come, fair maiden, to my snow-sledge,
In these fur-robes rest, and linger;
Eat with me the golden apples,
Eat the hazel-nut in joyance,
Drink with me the beer delicious,
Eat the dainties that I give thee.'
This the answer of the maiden
With the tin-pin on her bosom:
'I have scorn to give thy snow-sledge,
Scorn for thee, thou wicked wizard;
Cold is it beneath thy fur-robes,
And thy sledge is chill and cheerless.
Thereupon the youth, Kullervo,
Wicked wizard of the Northland,
Drew the maiden to his snow-sledge,
Drew her to a seat beside him,
Quickly in his furs enwrapped her;
And the tin-adorned made answer,
These the accents of the maiden:
'Loose me from thy magic power,
547
Let me leave at once thy presence,
Lest I speak in wicked accents,
Lest I say the prayer of evil;
Free me now as I command thee,
Or I'll tear thy sledge to pieces,
Throw these fur-robes to the north-winds.'
Straightway wicked Kullerwoinen,
Evil wizard and magician,
Opens all his treasure-boxes,
Shows the maiden gold and silver,
Shows her silken wraps of beauty,
Silken hose with golden borders,
Golden belts with silver buckles,
Jewelry that dims the vision,
Blunts the conscience of the virgin.
Silver leads one to destruction,
Gold entices from uprightness.
Kullerwoinen, wicked wizard,
Flatters lovingly the maiden,
One hand on the reins of leather,
One upon the maiden's shoulder;
Thus they journey through the evening,
Pass the night in merry-making.
When the day-star led the morning,
When the second day was dawning,
Then the maid addressed Kullervo,
Questioned thus the wicked wizard:
'Of what tribe art thou descended,
Of what race thy hero-father?
Tell thy lineage and kindred.`
This, Kullervo's truthful answer:
'Am not from a mighty nation,
Not the greatest, nor the smallest,
But my lineage is worthy:
Am Kalervo's son of folly,
Am a child of contradictions,
Hapless son of cold misfortune.
Tell me of thy race of heroes,
Tell thine origin and kindred.'
This the answer of the maiden:
'Came not from a race primeval,
Not the largest, nor the smallest,
548
But my lineage is worthy;
Am Kalervo's wretched daughter,
Am his long-lost child of error,
Am a maid of contradictions,
Hapless daughter of misfortune.
'When a child I lived in plenty
In the dwellings of my mother;
To the woods I went for berries,
Went for raspberries to uplands,
Gathered strawberries on mountains,
Gathered one day then a second;
But, alas! upon the third day,
Could not find the pathway homeward,
Forestward the highways led me,
All the footpaths, to the woodlands.
Long I sat in bitter weeping,
Wept one day and then a second,
Wept the third from morn till even.
Then I climbed a. lofty mountain,
There I called in wailing accents,
And the woodlands gave this answer,
Thus the distant hills re-echoed:
'Call no longer, foolish virgin,
All thy calls and tears are useless;
There is none to give thee answer,
Far away, thy home and people.'
'On the third and on the fourth days,
On the fifth, and sixth, and seventh,
Constantly I sought to perish;
But in vain were all my efforts,
Could not die upon the mountains.
If this wretched maid had perished,
In the summer of the third year,
She had fed earth's vegetation,
She had blossomed as a flower,
Knowing neither pain nor sorrow.'
Scarcely had the maiden spoken,
When she bounded from the snow-sledge,
Rushed upon the rolling river,
To the cataract's commotion,
To the fiery stream and whirlpool.
Thus Kullervo's lovely sister
549
Hastened to her own destruction,
To her death by fire and water,
Found her peace in Tuonela,
In the sacred stream of Mana.
Then the wicked Kullerwoinen
Fell to weeping, sorely troubled,
Wailed, and wept, and heavy-hearted,
Spake these words in bitter sorrow:
'Woe is me, my life hard-fated!
I have slain my virgin-sister,
Shamed the daughter of my mother;
Woe to thee, my ancient father!
Woe to thee, my gray-haired mother!
Wherefore was I born and nurtured,
Why this hapless child's existence?
Better fate to Kullerwoinen,
Had he never seen the daylight,
Or, if born, had never thriven
In these mournful days of evil!
Death has failed to do his duty,
Sickness sinned in passing by me,
Should have slain me in the cradle,
When the seventh day had ended!'
Thereupon he slips the collar
Of his prancing royal racer,
Mounts the silver-headed fleet-foot,
Gallops like the lightning homeward;
Gallops only for a moment,
When he halts his foaming courser
At the cabin of his father.
In the court-yard stood the mother,
Thus the wicked son addressed her:
'Faithful mother, fond and tender,
Hadst thou slain me when an infant,
Smoked my life out in the chamber,
In a winding-sheet hadst thrown me
To the cataract and whirlpool,
In the fire hadst set my cradle,
After seven nights had ended,
Worthy would have been thy service.
Had the village-maidens asked thee:
'Where is now the little cradle,
550
Wherefore is the bath-room empty?'
This had been a worthy answer:
'I have burned the wizard's cradle,
Cast the infant to the fire-dogs;
In the bath-room corn is sprouting,
From the barley malt is brewing.''
Thereupon the aged mother
Asks her wizard-son these questions:
'What has happened to my hero,
What new fate has overcome thee?
Comest thou as from Tuoni,
From the castles of Manala?'
This, Kullervo's frank confession:
'Infamous the tale I bring thee,
My confession is dishonor:
On the way I met a maiden,
Met thy long-lost, wayward daughter,
Did not recognize my sister,
Fatal was the sin committed!
When the taxes had been settled,
When the tribute had been gathered,
Came a matchless maid to meet me,
Whom I witless led to sorrow,
This my mother's long-lost daughter.
When she saw in me her brother,
Quick she bounded from the snow-sledge,
Hastened to the roaring waters,
To the cataract's commotion,
To the fiery stream and whirlpool,
Hastened to her full destruction.
'Now, alas! must I determine,
Now must find a spot befitting,
Where thy sinful son may perish;
Tell me, all-forgiving mother,
Where to end my life of trouble;
Let me stop the black-wolf's howling,
Let me satisfy the hunger
Of the vicious bear of Northland;
Let the shark or hungry sea-dog
Be my dwelling-place hereafter!'
This the answer of the mother:
'Do not go to stop the howling
551
Of the hungry wolf of Northland;
Do not haste to still the black-bear
Growling in his forest-cavern;
Let not shark, nor vicious sea-dog
Be thy dwelling-place hereafter.
Spacious are the rooms of Suomi,
Limitless the Sawa-borders,
Large enough to hide transgression,
Man's misdeeds to hide for ages,
With his sins and evil actions.
Six long years man's sins lie hidden
In the border-land of Kalma,
Even nine for magic heroes,
Till the years bring consolation,
Till they quiet all his mourning.'
Kullerwoinen, wicked wizard,
Answers thus his grieving mother:
'I can never hide from sorrow,
Cannot flee from my misconduct;
To the jaws of death I hasten,
To the open courts of Kalma,
To the hunting-grounds of Pohya,
To the battle-fields of heroes.
Untamoinen still is living,
Unmolested roams the wicked,
Unavenged my father's grievance,
Unavenged my mother's tortures,
Unavenged the wrongs I suffer!'
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
279:Yet, Freedom, yet, thy banner, torn but flying,
Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind.--BYRON.
I.
A glorious people vibrated again
The lightning of the nations: Liberty
From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain,
Scattering contagious fire into the sky,
Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay,
And in the rapid plumes of song
Clothed itself, sublime and strong;
As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among,
Hovering inverse o'er its accustomed prey;
Till from its station in the Heaven of fame
The Spirit's whirlwind rapped it, and the ray
Of the remotest sphere of living flame
Which paves the void was from behind it flung,
As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came
A voice out of the deep: I will record the same.
II.
The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth:
The burning stars of the abyss were hurled
Into the depths of Heaven. The daedal earth,
That island in the ocean of the world,
Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air:
But this divinest universe
Was yet a chaos and a curse,
For thou wert not: but, power from worst producing worse,
The spirit of the beasts was kindled there,
And of the birds, and of the watery forms,
And there was war among them, and despair
Within them, raging without truce or terms:
The bosom of their violated nurse
Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on worms,
And men on men; each heart was as a hell of storms.
III.
Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied
His generations under the pavilion
Of the Suns throne: palace and pyramid,
Temple and prison, to many a swarming million
Were, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves.
This human living multitude
Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude,
For thou wert not; but oer the populous solitude,
Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves,
Hung Tyranny; beneath, sate deified
The sister-pest, congregator of slaves;
Into the shadow of her pinions wide
Anarchs and priests, who feed on gold and blood
Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed,
Drove the astonished herds of men from every side.
IV.
The nodding promontories, and blue isles,
And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves
Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles
Of favouring Heaven: from their enchanted caves
Prophetic echoes flung dim melody.
On the unapprehensive wild
The vine, the corn, the olive mild,
Grew savage yet, to human use unreconciled;
And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea,
Like the mans thought dark in the infants brain,
Like aught that is which wraps what is to be,
Arts deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein
Of Parian stone; and, yet a speechless child,
Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain
Her lidless eyes for thee; when oer the Aegean main.
V.
Athens arose: a city such as vision
Builds from the purple crags and silver towers
Of battlemented cloud, as in derision
Of kingliest masonry: the ocean-floors
Pave it; the evening sky pavilions it;
Its portals are inhabited
By thunder-zoned winds, each head
Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded,--
A divine work! Athens, diviner yet,
Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will
Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set;
For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill
Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead
In marble immortality, that hill
Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle.
VI.
Within the surface of Times fleeting river
Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay
Immovably unquiet, and for ever
It trembles, but it cannot pass away!
The voices of thy bards and sages thunder
With an earth-awakening blast
Through the caverns of the past:
(Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast):
A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder,
Which soars where Expectation never flew,
Rending the veil of space and time asunder!
One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew;
One Sun illumines Heaven; one Spirit vast
With life and love makes chaos ever new,
As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew.
VII.
Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest,
Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmaean Maenad,
She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest
From that Elysian food was yet unweaned;
And many a deed of terrible uprightness
By thy sweet love was sanctified;
And in thy smile, and by thy side,
Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died.
But when tears stained thy robe of vestal-whiteness,
And gold profaned thy Capitolian throne, 100
Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness,
The senate of the tyrants: they sunk prone
Slaves of one tyrant: Palatinus sighed
Faint echoes of Ionian song; that tone
Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown
VIII.
From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill,
Or piny promontory of the Arctic main,
Or utmost islet inaccessible,
Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign,
Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks,
And every Naiads ice-cold urn,
To talk in echoes sad and stern
Of that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn?
For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks
Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's sleep.
What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks
Were quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not weep,
When from its sea of death, to kill and burn,
The Galilean serpent forth did creep,
And made thy world an undistinguishable heap.
IX.
A thousand years the Earth cried, 'Where art thou?'
And then the shadow of thy coming fell
On Saxon Alfreds olive-cinctured brow:
And many a warrior-peopled citadel.
Like rocks which fire lifts out of the flat deep,
Arose in sacred Italy,
Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea
Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned majesty;
That multitudinous anarchy did sweep
And burst around their walls, like idle foam,
Whilst from the human spirits deepest deep
Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb
Dissonant arms; and Art, which cannot die,
With divine wand traced on our earthly home
Fit imagery to pave Heavens everlasting dome.
X.
Thou huntress swifter than the Moon! thou terror
Of the worlds wolves! thou bearer of the quiver,
Whose sunlike shafts pierce tempest-winged Error,
As light may pierce the clouds when they dissever
In the calm regions of the orient day!
Luther caught thy wakening glance;
Like lightning, from his leaden lance
Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance
In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay;
And Englands prophets hailed thee as their queen,
In songs whose music cannot pass away,
Though it must flow forever: not unseen
Before the spirit-sighted countenance
Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene
Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien.
XI.
The eager hours and unreluctant years
As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood.
Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears,
Darkening each other with their multitude,
And cried aloud, 'Liberty!' Indignation
Answered Pity from her cave;
Death grew pale within the grave,
And Desolation howled to the destroyer, Save!
When like Heavens Sun girt by the exhalation
Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise.
Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation
Like shadows: as if day had cloven the skies
At dreaming midnight oer the western wave,
Men started, staggering with a glad surprise,
Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes.
XII.
Thou Heaven of earth! what spells could pall thee then
In ominous eclipse? a thousand years
Bred from the slime of deep Oppressions den.
Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears.
Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away;
How like Bacchanals of blood
Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood
Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Follys mitred brood!
When one, like them, but mightier far than they,
The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers,
Rose: armies mingled in obscure array,
Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred bowers
Of serene Heaven. He, by the past pursued,
Rests with those dead, but unforgotten hours,
Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral towers.
XIII.
England yet sleeps: was she not called of old?
Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder
Vesuvius wakens Aetna, and the cold
Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder:
Oer the lit waves every Aeolian isle 185
From Pithecusa to Pelorus
Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus:
They cry, 'Be dim; ye lamps of Heaven suspended o'er us!'
Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile
And they dissolve; but Spains were links of steel,
Till bit to dust by virtues keenest file.
Twins of a single destiny! appeal
To the eternal years enthroned before us
In the dim West; impress us from a seal,
All ye have thought and done! Time cannot dare conceal.
XIV.
Tomb of Arminius! render up thy dead
Till, like a standard from a watch-towers staff,
His soul may stream over the tyrants head;
Thy victory shall be his epitaph,
Wild Bacchanal of truths mysterious wine,
King-deluded Germany,
His dead spirit lives in thee.
Why do we fear or hope? thou art already free!
And thou, lost Paradise of this divine
And glorious world! thou flowery wilderness!
Thou island of eternity! thou shrine
Where Desolation, clothed with loveliness,
Worships the thing thou wert! O Italy,
Gather thy blood into thy heart; repress
The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces.
XV.
Oh, that the free would stamp the impious name
Of KING into the dust! or write it there,
So that this blot upon the page of fame
Were as a serpents path, which the light air
Erases, and the flat sands close behind!
Ye the oracle have heard:
Lift the victory-flashing sword.
And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word,
Which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind
Into a mass, irrefragably firm,
The axes and the rods which awe mankind;
The sound has poison in it, tis the sperm
Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred;
Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term,
To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm.
XVI.
Oh, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle
Such lamps within the dome of this dim world,
That the pale name of PRIEST might shrink and dwindle
Into the hell from which it first was hurled,
A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure;
Till human thoughts might kneel alone,
Each before the judgement-throne
Of its own aweless soul, or of the Power unknown!
Oh, that the words which make the thoughts obscure
From which they spring, as clouds of glimmering dew
From a white lake blot Heavens blue portraiture,
Were stripped of their thin masks and various hue
And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own,
Till in the nakedness of false and true
They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due!
XVII.
He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever
Can be between the cradle and the grave
Crowned him the King of Life. Oh, vain endeavour!
If on his own high will, a willing slave,
He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor
What if earth can clothe and feed
Amplest millions at their need,
And power in thought be as the tree within the seed?
Or what if Art, an ardent intercessor,
Driving on fiery wings to Natures throne,
Checks the great mother stooping to caress her,
And cries: Give me, thy child, dominion
Over all height and depth? if Life can breed
New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan,
Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousandfold for one!
XVIII.
Come thou, but lead out of the inmost cave
Of mans deep spirit, as the morning-star
Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave,
Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car
Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame;
Comes she not, and come ye not,
Rulers of eternal thought,
To judge, with solemn truth, lifes ill-apportioned lot?
Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame
Of what has been, the Hope of what will be?
O Liberty! if such could be thy name
Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee:
If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought
By blood or tears, have not the wise and free
Wept tears, and blood like tears?The solemn harmony
XIX.
Paused, and the Spirit of that mighty singing
To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn;
Then, as a wild swan, when sublimely winging
Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn,
Sinks headlong through the aereal golden light
On the heavy-sounding plain,
When the bolt has pierced its brain;
As summer clouds dissolve, unburthened of their rain;
As a far taper fades with fading night,
As a brief insect dies with dying day,--
My song, its pinions disarrayed of might,
Drooped; oer it closed the echoes far away
Of the great voice which did its flight sustain,
As waves which lately paved his watery way
Hiss round a drowners head in their tempestuous play.
Composed early in 1820, and published, with Prometheus Unbound, in the same year. A transcript in Shelley's hand of lines 1-21 is included in the Harvard manuscript book, and amongst the Boscombe manuscripts there is a fragment of a rough draft (Garnett).
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode To Liberty
,#NFDB
280:The Kalevala - Rune Xxxi
KULLERWOINEN SON OF EVIL.
In the ancient times a mother
Hatched and raised some swans and chickens,
Placed the chickens in the brushwood,
Placed her swans upon the river;
Came an eagle, hawk, and falcon,
Scattered all her swans and chickens,
One was carried to Karyala,
And a second into Ehstland,
Left a third at home in Pohya.
And the one to Ehstland taken
Soon became a thriving merchant;
He that journeyed to Karyala
Flourished and was called Kalervo;
He that hid away in Pohya
Took the name of Untamoinen,
Flourished to his father's sorrow,
To the heart-pain of his mother.
Untamoinen sets his fish-nets
In the waters of Kalervo;
Kullerwoinen sees the fish-nets,
Takes the fish home in his basket.
Then Untamo, evil-minded,
Angry grew and sighed for vengeance,
Clutched his fingers for the combat,
Bared his mighty arms for battle,
For the stealing of his salmon,
For the robbing of his fish-nets.
Long they battled, fierce the struggle,
Neither one could prove the victor;
Should one beat the other fiercely,
He himself was fiercely beaten.
Then arose a second trouble;
On the second and the third days,
Kalerwoinen sowed some barley
Near the barns of Untamoinen;
Untamoinen's sheep in hunger
499
Ate the crop of Kullerwoinen;
Kullerwoinen's dog in malice
Tore Untamo's sheep in pieces;
Then Untamo sorely threatened
To annihilate the people
Of his brother, Kalerwoinen,
To exterminate his tribe-folk,
To destroy the young and aged,
To out-root his race and kingdom;
Conjures men with broadswords girded,
For the war he fashions heroes,
Fashions youth with spears adjusted,
Bearing axes on their shoulders ,
Conjures thus a mighty army,
Hastens to begin a battle,
Bring a war upon his brother.
Kalerwoinen's wife in beauty
Sat beside her chamber-window,
Looking out along the highway,
Spake these words in wonder guessing:
'Do I see some smoke arising,
Or perchance a heavy storm-cloud,
Near the border of the forest,
Near the ending of the prairie?'
It was not some smoke arising,
Nor indeed a heavy storm-cloud,
It was Untamoinen's soldiers
Marching to the place of battle.
Warriors of Untamoinen
Came equipped with spears and arrows,
Killed the people of Kalervo,
Slew his tribe and all his kindred,
Burned to ashes many dwellings,
Levelled many courts and cabins,
Only, left Kalervo's daughter,
With her unborn child, survivors
Of the slaughter of Untamo;
And she led the hostile army
To her father's halls and mansion,
Swept the rooms and made them cheery,
Gave the heroes home-attentions.
Time had gone but little distance,
500
Ere a boy was born in magic
Of the virgin, Untamala,
Of a mother, trouble-laden,
Him the mother named Kullervo,
'Pearl of Combat,' said Untamo.
Then they laid the child of wonder,
Fatherless, the magic infant,
In the cradle of attention,
To be rocked, and fed, and guarded;
But he rocked himself at pleasure,
Rocked until his locks stood endwise;
Rocked one day, and then a second,
Rocked the third from morn till noontide;
But before the third day ended,
Kicks the boy with might of magic,
Forwards, backwards, upwards, downwards,
Kicks in miracles of power,
Bursts with might his swaddling garments
Creeping from beneath his blankets,
Knocks his cradle into fragments,
Tears to tatters all his raiment,
Seemed that he would grow a hero,
And his mother, Untamala,
Thought that be, when full of stature,
When he found his strength and reason,
Would become a great magician,
First among a thousand heroes.
When. three months the boy had thriven,
He began to speak as follows:
'When my form is full of stature,
When these arms grow strong and hardy,
Then will I avenge the murder
Of Kalervo and his people!'
Untamoinen bears the saying,
Speaks these words to those about him;
'To my tribe he brings destruction,
In him grows a new Kalervo!'
Then the heroes well considered,
And the women gave their counsel,
How to kill the magic infant,
That their tribe may live in safety.
It appeared the boy would prosper;
501
Finally, they all consenting,
He was placed within a basket,
And with willows firmly fastened,
Taken to the reeds and rushes,
Lowered to the deepest waters,
In his basket there to perish.
When three nights had circled over,
Messengers of Untamoinen
Went to see if be had perished
In his basket in the waters;
But the prodigy, was living,
Had not perished in the rushes;
He had left his willow-basket,
Sat in triumph on a billow,
In his hand a rod of copper,
On the rod a golden fish-line,
Fishing for the silver whiting,
Measuring the deeps beneath him;
In the sea was little water,
Scarcely would it fill three measures.
Untamoinen then reflected,
This the language of the wizard:
'Whither shall we take this wonder,
Lay this prodigy of evil,
That destruction may o'ertake him,
Where the boy will sink and perish?'
Then his messengers he ordered
To collect dried poles of brushwood,
Birch-trees with their hundred branches,
Pine-trees full of pitch and resin,
Ordered that a pyre be builded,
That the boy might be cremated,
That Kullervo thus might perish.
High they piled the and branches,
Dried limbs from the sacred birch-tree,
Branches from a hundred fir-trees,
Knots and branches full of resign;
Filled with bark a thousand sledges,
Seasoned oak, a hundred measures;
Piled the brushwood to the tree-tops,
Set the boy upon the summit,
Set on fire the pile of brushwood,
502
Burned one day, and then a second,
Burned the third from morn till evening.
When Untamo sent his heralds
To inspect the pyre and wizard,
There to learn if young Kullervo
Had been burned to dust and ashes,
There they saw the young boy sitting
On a pyramid of embers,
In his band a rod of copper,
Raking coals of fire about him,
To increase their heat and power;
Not a hair was burned nor injured,
Not a ringlet singed nor shrivelled.
Then Untamo, evil-humored,
Thus addressed his trusted heralds:
'Whither shall the boy be taken,
To what place this thing of evil,
That destruction may o'ertake him.
That the boy may sink and perish?'
Then they hung him to an oak-tree,
Crucified him in the branches,
That the wizard there might perish.
When three days and nights had ended,
Untamoinen spake as follows:
'It is time to send my heralds
To inspect the mighty oak-tree,
There to learn if young Kullervo
Lives or dies among the branches.'
Thereupon he sent his servants,
And the heralds brought this message:
'Young Kullervo has not perished,
Has not died among the branches
Of the oak-tree where we hung him.
In the oak he maketh pictures
With a wand between his fingers;
Pictures hang from all the branches,
Carved and painted by Kullervo;
And the heroes, thick as acorns,
With their swords and spears adjuste4
Fill the branches of the oak-tree,
Every leaf becomes a soldier.'
Who can help the grave Untamo
503
Kill the boy that threatens evil
To Untamo's tribe and country,
Since he will not die by water,
Nor by fire, nor crucifixion?
Finally it was decided
That his body was immortal,
Could not suffer death nor torture.
In despair grave Untamoinen
Thus addressed the boy, Kullervo:
'Wilt thou live a life becoming,
Always do my people honor,
Should I keep thee in my dwelling?
Shouldst thou render servant's duty,
Then thou wilt receive thy wages,
Reaping whatsoe'er thou sowest;
Thou canst wear the golden girdle,
Or endure the tongue of censure.'
When the boy had grown a little,
Had increased in strength and stature,
He was given occupation,
He was made to tend an infant,
Made to rock the infant's cradle.
These the words of Untamoinen:
'Often look upon the young child,
Feed him well and guard from danger,
Wash his linen in the river,
Give the infant good attention.'
Young Kullervo, wicked wizard,
Nurses one day then a second;
On the morning of the third day,
Gives the infant cruel treatment,
Blinds its eyes and breaks its fingers;
And when evening shadows gather,
Kills the young child while it slumbers,
Throws its body to the waters,
Breaks and burns the infant's cradle.
Untamoinen thus reflected:
'Never will this fell Kullervo
Be a worthy nurse for children,
Cannot rock a babe in safety;
Do not know how I can use him,
What employment I can give him!'
504
Then he told the young magician
He must fell the standing forest,
And Kullervo gave this answer:
'Only will I be a hero,
When I wield the magic hatchet;
I am young, and fair, and mighty,
Far more beautiful than others,
Have the skill of six magicians.'
Thereupon he sought the blacksmith,
This the order of Kullervo:
'Listen, O thou metal-artist,
Forge for me an axe of copper,
Forge the mighty axe of heroes,
Wherewith I may fell the forest,
Fell the birch, and oak, and aspen.'
This behest the blacksmith honors,
Forges him an axe of copper,
Wonderful the blade he forges.
Kullerwoinen grinds his hatchet,
Grinds his blade from morn till evening,
And the next day makes the handle;
Then he hastens to the forest,
To the upward-sloping mountain,
To the tallest of the birches,
To the mightiest of oak-trees;
There he swings his axe of copper,
Swings his blade with might of magic,
Cuts with sharpened edge the aspen,
With one blow he fells the oak-tree,
With a second blow, the linden;
Many trees have quickly fallen,
By the hatchet of Kullervo.
Then the wizard spake as follows:
'This the proper work of Lempo,
Let dire Hisi fell the forest!'
In the birch he sank his hatchet,
Made an uproar in the woodlands,
Called aloud in tones, of thunder,
Whistled to the distant mountains,
Till they echoed to his calling,
When Kullervo spake as follows:
'May the forest, in the circle
505
Where my voice rings, fall and perish,
In the earth be lost forever!
May no tree remain unlevelled,
May no saplings grow in spring-time,
Never while the moonlight glimmers,
Where Kullervo's voice has echoed,
Where the forest hears my calling;
Where the ground with seed is planted,
And the grain shall sprout and flourish,
May it never come to ripeness,
Mar the ears of corn be blasted!'
When the strong man, Untamoinen,
Went to look at early evening,
How Kullervo was progressing,
In his labors in the forest;
Little was the work accomplished,
Was not worthy of a here;
Untamoinen thus reflected:
'Young Kullervo is not fitted
For the work of clearing forests,
Wastes the best of all the timber,
To my lands he brings destruction;
I shall set him making fences.'
Then the youth began the building
Of a fence for Untamoinen;
Took the trunks of stately fir-trees,
Trimmed them with his blade for fence-posts,
Cut the tallest in the woodlands,
For the railing of his fences;
Made the smaller poles and cross-bars
From the longest of the lindens;
Made the fence without a pass-way,
Made no wicket in his fences,
And Kullervo spake these measures.
'He that does not rise as eagles,
Does not sail on wings through ether,
Cannot cross Kullervo's pickets,
Nor the fences he has builded.'
Untamoinen left his mansion
To inspect the young boy's labors,
View the fences of Kullervo;
Saw the fence without a pass-way,
506
Not a wicket in his fences;
From the earth the fence extended
To the highest clouds of heaven.
These the words of Untamoinen:
'For this work be is not fitted,
Useless is the fence thus builded;
Is so high that none can cross it,
And there is no passage through it:
He shall thresh the rye and barley.'
Young Kullervo, quick preparing
Made an oaken flail for threshing,
Threshed the rye to finest powder,
Threshed the barley into atoms,
And the straw to worthless fragments.
Untamoinen went at evening,
Went to see Kullervo's threshing,
View the work of Kullerwoinen;
Found the rye was ground to powder,
Grains of barley crushed to atoms,
And the straw to worthless rubbish.
Untamoinen then grew angry,
Spake these words in bitter accents:
'Kullerwoinen as a workman
Is a miserable failure;
Whatsoever work he touches
Is but ruined by his witchcraft;
I shall carry him to Ehstland,
In Karyala I shall sell him
To the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
There to swing the heavy hammer.'
Untamoinen sells Kullervo,
Trades him off in far Karyala,
To the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
To the master of the metals,
This the sum received in payment:
Seven worn and worthless sickles,
Three old caldrons worse than useless,
Three old scythes, and hoes, and axes,
Recompense, indeed, sufficient
For a boy that will not labor
For the good of his employer.
507
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
281: III - THE STUDY
FAUST
(Entering, with the poodle.)
Behind me, field and meadow sleeping,
I leave in deep, prophetic night,
Within whose dread and holy keeping
The better soul awakes to light.
The wild desires no longer win us,
The deeds of passion cease to chain;
The love of Man revives within us,
The love of God revives again.
Be still, thou poodle; make not such racket and riot!
Why at the threshold wilt snuffing be?
Behind the stove repose thee in quiet!
My softest cushion I give to thee.
As thou, up yonder, with running and leaping
Amused us hast, on the mountain's crest,
So now I take thee into my keeping,
A welcome, but also a silent, guest.
Ah, when, within our narrow chamber
The lamp with friendly lustre glows,
Flames in the breast each faded ember,
And in the heart, itself that knows.
Then Hope again lends sweet assistance,
And Reason then resumes her speech:
One yearns, the rivers of existence,
The very founts of Life, to reach.
Snarl not, poodle! To the sound that rises,
The sacred tones that my soul embrace,
This bestial noise is out of place.
We are used to see, that Man despises
What he never comprehends,
And the Good and the Beautiful vilipends,
Finding them often hard to measure:
Will the dog, like man, snarl his displeasure?
But ah! I feel, though will thereto be stronger,
Contentment flows from out my breast no longer.
Why must the stream so soon run dry and fail us,
And burning thirst again assail us?
Therein I've borne so much probation!
And yet, this want may be supplied us;
We call the Supernatural to guide us;
We pine and thirst for Revelation,
Which nowhere worthier is, more nobly sent,
Than here, in our New Testament.
I feel impelled, its meaning to determine,
With honest purpose, once for all,
The hallowed Original
To change to my beloved German.
(He opens a volume, and commences.)
'Tis written: "In the Beginning was the Word."
Here am I balked: who, now can help afford?
The Word?impossible so high to rate it;
And otherwise must I translate it.
If by the Spirit I am truly taught.
Then thus: "In the Beginning was the Thought"
This first line let me weigh completely,
Lest my impatient pen proceed too fleetly.
Is it the Thought which works, creates, indeed?
"In the Beginning was the Power," I read.
Yet, as I write, a warning is suggested,
That I the sense may not have fairly tested.
The Spirit aids me: now I see the light!
"In the Beginning was the Act," I write.
If I must share my chamber with thee,
Poodle, stop that howling, prithee!
Cease to bark and bellow!
Such a noisy, disturbing fellow
I'll no longer suffer near me.
One of us, dost hear me!
Must leave, I fear me.
No longer guest-right I bestow;
The door is open, art free to go.
But what do I see in the creature?
Is that in the course of nature?
Is't actual fact? or Fancy's shows?
How long and broad my poodle grows!
He rises mightily:
A canine form that cannot be!
What a spectre I've harbored thus!
He resembles a hippopotamus,
With fiery eyes, teeth terrible to see:
O, now am I sure of thee!
For all of thy half-hellish brood
The Key of Solomon is good.
SPIRITS (in the corridor)
Some one, within, is caught!
Stay without, follow him not!
Like the fox in a snare,
Quakes the old hell-lynx there.
Take heedlook about!
Back and forth hover,
Under and over,
And he'll work himself out.
If your aid avail him,
Let it not fail him;
For he, without measure,
Has wrought for our pleasure.
FAUST
First, to encounter the beast,
The Words of the Four be addressed:
Salamander, shine glorious!
Wave, Undine, as bidden!
Sylph, be thou hidden!
Gnome, be laborious!
Who knows not their sense
(These elements),
Their properties
And power not sees,
No mastery he inherits
Over the Spirits.
Vanish in flaming ether,
Salamander!
Flow foamingly together,
Undine!
Shine in meteor-sheen,
Sylph!
Bring help to hearth and shelf.
Incubus! Incubus!
Step forward, and finish thus!
Of the Four, no feature
Lurks in the creature.
Quiet he lies, and grins disdain:
Not yet, it seems, have I given him pain.
Now, to undisguise thee,
Hear me exorcise thee!
Art thou, my gay one,
Hell's fugitive stray-one?
The sign witness now,
Before which they bow,
The cohorts of Hell!
With hair all bristling, it begins to swell.
Base Being, hearest thou?
Knowest and fearest thou
The One, unoriginate,
Named inexpressibly,
Through all Heaven impermeate,
Pierced irredressibly!
Behind the stove still banned,
See it, an elephant, expand!
It fills the space entire,
Mist-like melting, ever faster.
'Tis enough: ascend no higher,
Lay thyself at the feet of the Master!
Thou seest, not vain the threats I bring thee:
With holy fire I'll scorch and sting thee!
Wait not to know
The threefold dazzling glow!
Wait not to know
The strongest art within my hands!
MEPHISTOPHELES
(while the vapor is dissipating, steps forth from behind the
stove, in the costume of a Travelling Scholar.)
Why such a noise? What are my lord's commands?
FAUST
This was the poodle's real core,
A travelling scholar, then? The casus is diverting.
MEPHISTOPHELES
The learned gentleman I bow before:
You've made me roundly sweat, that's certain!
FAUST
What is thy name?
MEPHISTOPHELES
A question small, it seems,
For one whose mind the Word so much despises;
Who, scorning all external gleams,
The depths of being only prizes.
FAUST
With all you gentlemen, the name's a test,
Whereby the nature usually is expressed.
Clearly the latter it implies
In names like Beelzebub, Destroyer, Father of Lies.
Who art thou, then?
MEPHISTOPHELES
Part of that Power, not understood,
Which always wills the Bad, and always works the Good.
FAUST
What hidden sense in this enigma lies?
MEPHISTOPHELES
I am the Spirit that Denies!
And justly so: for all things, from the Void
Called forth, deserve to be destroyed:
'Twere better, then, were naught created.
Thus, all which you as Sin have rated,
Destruction,aught with Evil blent,
That is my proper element.
FAUST
Thou nam'st thyself a part, yet show'st complete to me?
MEPHISTOPHELES
The modest truth I speak to thee.
If Man, that microcosmic fool, can see
Himself a whole so frequently,
Part of the Part am I, once All, in primal Night,
Part of the Darkness which brought forth the Light,
The haughty Light, which now disputes the space,
And claims of Mother Night her ancient place.
And yet, the struggle fails; since Light, howe'er it weaves,
Still, fettered, unto bodies cleaves:
It flows from bodies, bodies beautifies;
By bodies is its course impeded;
And so, but little time is needed,
I hope, ere, as the bodies die, it dies!
FAUST
I see the plan thou art pursuing:
Thou canst not compass general ruin,
And hast on smaller scale begun.
MEPHISTOPHELES
And truly 'tis not much, when all is done.
That which to Naught is in resistance set,
The Something of this clumsy world,has yet,
With all that I have undertaken,
Not been by me disturbed or shaken:
From earthquake, tempest, wave, volcano's brand,
Back into quiet settle sea and land!
And that damned stuff, the bestial, human brood,
What use, in having that to play with?
How many have I made away with!
And ever circulates a newer, fresher blood.
It makes me furious, such things beholding:
From Water, Earth, and Air unfolding,
A thousand germs break forth and grow,
In dry, and wet, and warm, and chilly;
And had I not the Flame reserved, why, really,
There's nothing special of my own to show!
FAUST
So, to the actively eternal
Creative force, in cold disdain
You now oppose the fist infernal,
Whose wicked clench is all in vain!
Some other labor seek thou rather,
Queer Son of Chaos, to begin!
MEPHISTOPHELES
Well, we'll consider: thou canst gather
My views, when next I venture in.
Might I, perhaps, depart at present?
FAUST
Why thou shouldst ask, I don't perceive.
Though our acquaintance is so recent,
For further visits thou hast leave.
The window's here, the door is yonder;
A chimney, also, you behold.
MEPHISTOPHELES
I must confess that forth I may not wander,
My steps by one slight obstacle controlled,
The wizard's-foot, that on your threshold made is.
FAUST
The pentagram prohibits thee?
Why, tell me now, thou Son of Hades,
If that prevents, how cam'st thou in to me?
Could such a spirit be so cheated?
MEPHISTOPHELES
Inspect the thing: the drawing's not completed.
The outer angle, you may see,
Is open left the lines don't fit it.
FAUST
Well,Chance, this time, has fairly hit it!
And thus, thou'rt prisoner to me?
It seems the business has succeeded.
MEPHISTOPHELES
The poodle naught remarked, as after thee he speeded;
But other aspects now obtain:
The Devil can't get out again.
FAUST
Try, then, the open window-pane!
MEPHISTOPHELES
For Devils and for spectres this is law:
Where they have entered in, there also they withdraw.
The first is free to us; we're governed by the second.
FAUST
In Hell itself, then, laws are reckoned?
That's well! So might a compact be
Made with you gentlemen and binding,surely?
MEPHISTOPHELES
All that is promised shall delight thee purely;
No skinflint bargain shalt thou see.
But this is not of swift conclusion;
We'll talk about the matter soon.
And now, I do entreat this boon
Leave to withdraw from my intrusion.
FAUST
One moment more I ask thee to remain,
Some pleasant news, at least, to tell me.
MEPHISTOPHELES
Release me, now! I soon shall come again;
Then thou, at will, mayst question and compel me.
FAUST
I have not snares around thee cast;
Thyself hast led thyself into the meshes.
Who traps the Devil, hold him fast!
Not soon a second time he'll catch a prey so precious.
MEPHISTOPHELES
An't please thee, also I'm content to stay,
And serve thee in a social station;
But stipulating, that I may
With arts of mine afford thee recreation.
FAUST
Thereto I willingly agree,
If the diversion pleasant be.
MEPHISTOPHELES
My friend, thou'lt win, past all pretences,
More in this hour to soo the thy senses,
Than in the year's monotony.
That which the dainty spirits sing thee,
The lovely pictures they shall bring thee,
Are more than magic's empty show.
Thy scent will be to bliss invited;
Thy palate then with taste delighted,
Thy nerves of touch ecstatic glow!
All unprepared, the charm I spin:
We're here together, so begin!
SPIRITS
Vanish, ye darking
Arches above him!
Loveliest weather,
Born of blue ether,
Break from the sky!
O that the darkling
Clouds had departed!
Starlight is sparkling,
Tranquiller-hearted
Suns are on high.
Heaven's own children
In beauty bewildering,
Waveringly bending,
Pass as they hover;
Longing unending
Follows them over.
They, with their glowing
Garments, out-flowing,
Cover, in going,
Landscape and bower,
Where, in seclusion,
Lovers are plighted,
Lost in illusion.
Bower on bower!
Tendrils unblighted!
Lo! in a shower
Grapes that o'ercluster
Gush into must, or
Flow into rivers
Of foaming and flashing
Wine, that is dashing
Gems, as it boundeth
Down the high places,
And spreading, surroundeth
With crystalline spaces,
In happy embraces,
Blossoming forelands,
Emerald shore-lands!
And the winged races
Drink, and fly onward
Fly ever sunward
To the enticing
Islands, that flatter,
Dipping and rising
Light on the water!
Hark, the inspiring
Sound of their quiring!
See, the entrancing
Whirl of their dancing!
All in the air are
Freer and fairer.
Some of them scaling
Boldly the highlands,
Others are sailing,
Circling the islands;
Others are flying;
Life-ward all hieing,
All for the distant
Star of existent
Rapture and Love!
MEPHISTOPHELES
He sleeps! Enough, ye fays! your airy number
Have sung him truly into slumber:
For this performance I your debtor prove.
Not yet art thou the man, to catch the Fiend and hold him!
With fairest images of dreams infold him,
Plunge him in seas of sweet untruth!
Yet, for the threshold's magic which controlled him,
The Devil needs a rat's quick tooth.
I use no leng thened invocation:
Here rustles one that soon will work my liberation.
The lord of rats and eke of mice,
Of flies and bed-bugs, frogs and lice,
Summons thee hither to the door-sill,
To gnaw it where, with just a morsel
Of oil, he paints the spot for thee:
There com'st thou, hopping on to me!
To work, at once! The point which made me craven
Is forward, on the ledge, engraven.
Another bite makes free the door:
So, dream thy dreams, O Faust, until we meet once more!
FAUST (awaking)
Am I again so foully cheated?
Remains there naught of lofty spirit-sway,
But that a dream the Devil counterfeited,
And that a poodle ran away?
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, THE STUDY (The Exorcism)
,#NFDB
282:The Kalevala - Rune Xxxix
WAINAMOINEN'S SAILING.
Wainamoinen, old and faithful,
Spake these words to Ilmarinen:
'O thou wonder-working brother,
Let us go to Sariola,
There to gain the magic Sampo,
There to see the lid in colors.'
Ilmarinen gave this answer:
'Hard indeed to seize the Sampo,
Neither can the lid be captured
From the never-pleasant Northland,
From the dismal Sariola.
Louhi took away the Sampo,
Carried off the lid in colors
To the stone-mount of Pohyola;
Hid it in the copper mountain,
Where nine locks secure the treasure.
Many young roots sprout around it,
Grow nine fathoms deep in sand-earth,
One great root beneath the mountain,
In the cataract a second,
And a third beneath the castle
Built upon the mount of ages.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Brother mine, and wonder-worker,
Let us go to Sariola,
That we may secure the Sampo;
Let us build a goodly vessel,
Bring the Sampo to Wainola,
Bring away the lid in colors,
From the stone-berg of Pohyola,
From the copper-bearing mountain.
Where the miracle lies anchored.'
Ilmarinen thus made answer:
'By the land the way is safer,
Lempo travels on the ocean,
Ghastly Death upon his shoulder;
534
On the sea the waves will drift us,
And the storm-winds wreck our vessel;
Then our bands must do the rowing,
And our feet must steer us homeward.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Safe indeed by land to journey,
But the way is rough and trying,
Long the road and full of turnings;
Lovely is the ship on ocean,
Beautiful to ride the billows,
Journey easy o'er the waters,
Sailing in a trusty vessel;
Should the West-wind cross our pathway,
Will the South-wind drive us northward.
Be that as it may, my brother,
Since thou dost not love the water,
By the land then let us journey.
Forge me now the sword of battle,
Forge for me the mighty fire-sword,
That I may destroy the wild-beasts,
Frighten all the Northland people,
As we journey for the Sampo
To the cold and dismal village,
To the never-pleasant Northland,
To the dismal Sariola.'
Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
The eternal forger-artist,
Laid the metals in the furnace,
In the fire laid steel and iron,
In the hot-coals, gold and silver,
Rightful measure of the metals;
Set the workmen at the furnace,
Lustily they plied the bellows.
Like the wax the iron melted,
Like the dough the hard steel softened,
Like the water ran the silver,
And the liquid gold flowed after.
Then the minstrel, Ilmarinen,
The eternal wonder-forger,
Looks within his magic furnace,
On the border of his oven,
There beholds the fire-sword forming,
535
Sees the blade with golden handle;
Takes the weapon from the furnace,
Lays it on his heavy anvil
For the falling of the hammer;
Forges well the blade of magic,
Well the heavy sword be tempers,
Ornaments the hero-weapon
With the finest gold and silver.
Wainamoinen, the magician,
Comes to view the blade of conquest,
Lifts admiringly the fire-sword,
Then these words the hero utters:
'Does the weapon match the soldier,
Does the handle suit the bearer?
Yea, the blade and hilt are molded
To the wishes of the minstrel.'
On the sword-point gleams the moonlight,
On the blade the sun is shining,
On the hilt the bright stars twinkle,
On the edge a horse is neighing,
On the handle plays a kitten,
On the sheath a dog is barking.
Wainamoinen wields his fire-sword,
Tests it on the iron-mountain,
And these words the hero utters:
'With this broadsword I could quickly
Cleave in twain the mount of Pohya,
Cut the flinty rocks asunder.'
Spake the blacksmith, Ilmarinen:
'Wherewith shall I guard from danger,
How protect myself from evil,
From the ills by land and water?
Shall I wear an iron armor,
Belt of steel around my body?
Stronger is a man in armor,
Safer in a mail of copper.'
Now the time has come to journey
To the never-pleasant Northland;
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
And his brother, Ilmarinen,
Hasten to the field and forest,
Searching for their fiery coursers,
536
In each shining belt a bridle,
With a harness on their shoulders.
In the woods they find a race;
In the glen a steed of battle,
Ready for his master's service.
Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
And the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Throw the harness on the courser,
Hitch him to the sledge of conquest,
Hasten on their journey Northward;
Drive along the broad-sea's margin
Till they bear some one lamenting
On the strand hear something wailing
Near the landing-place of vessels.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Speaks these words in wonder, guessing,
'This must be some maiden weeping,
Some fair daughter thus lamenting;
Let us journey somewhat nearer,
To discover whence this wailing.'
Drew they nearer, nearer, nearer,
Hoping thus to find a maiden
Weeping on the sandy sea-shore.
It was not a maiden weeping,
But a vessel, sad, and lonely,
Waiting on the shore and wailing.
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Why art weeping, goodly vessel,
What the cause of thy lamenting?
Art thou mourning for thy row-locks,
Is thy rigging ill-adjusted?
Dost thou weep since thou art anchored
On the shore in times of trouble?'
Thus the war-ship spake in answer:
'To the waters would this vessel
Haste upon the well-tarred rollers,
As a happy maiden journeys
To the cottage of her husband.
I, alas! a goodly vessel,
Weep because I lie at anchor,
Weep and wail because no hero
Sets me free upon the waters,
537
Free to ride the rolling billows.
It was said when I was fashioned,
Often sung when I was building,
That this bark should be for battle,
Should become a mighty war-ship,
Carry in my hull great treasures,
Priceless goods across the ocean.
Never have I sailed to conquest,
Never have I carried booty;
Other vessels not as worthy
To the wars are ever sailing,
Sailing to the songs of battle.
Three times in the summer season
Come they home with treasures laden,
In their hulls bring gold and silver;
I, alas! a worthy vessel,
Many months have lain at anchor,
I, a war-ship well constructed,
Am decaying in the harbor,
Never having sailed to conquest;
Worms are gnawing at my vitals,
In my hull their dwelling-places,
And ill-omened birds of heaven
Build their nests within my rigging;
Frogs and lizards of the forest
Play about my oars and rudder;
Three times better for this vessel
Were he but a valley birch-tree,
Or an aspen on the heather,
With the squirrels in his branches,
And the dogs beneath them barking!'
Wainamoinen, old and faithfull
Thus addressed the ship at anchor:
'Weep no more, thou goodly vessel,
Man-of-war, no longer murmur;
Thou shalt sail to Sariola,
Sing the war-songs of the Northland,
Sail with us to deadly combat.
Wert thou built by the Creator,
Thou canst sail the roughest waters,
Sidewise journey o'er the ocean;
Dost not need the hand to touch thee,
538
Dost not need the foot to turn thee,
Needing nothing to propel thee.'
Thus the weeping boat made answer:
'Cannot sail without assistance,
Neither can my brother-vessels
Sail unaided o'er the waters,
Sail across the waves undriven.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Should I lead thee to the broad-sea,
Wilt thou journey north unaided,
Sail without the help of rowers,
Sail without the aid of south-winds,
Sail without the b elm to guide thee?
Thus the wailing ship replying:
Cannot sail without assistance,
Neither can my brother-vessels
Sail without the aid of rowers,
Sail without the help of south-winds,
Nor without the helm to guide them.'
These the words of Wainamoinen:
'Wilt thou run with aid of oarsmen
When the south-winds give assistance,
Guided by a skillful pilot?'
This the answer of the war-ship:
'Quickly can I course these waters,
When my oars are manned by rowers,
When my sails are filled with south-winds,
All my goodly brother-vessels
Sail the ocean with assistance,
When the master holds the rudder.'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Left the racer on the sea-side,
Tied him to the sacred birch-tree,
Hung the harness on a willow,
Rolled the vessel to the waters,
Sang the ship upon the broad-sea,
Asked the boat this simple question:
'O thou vessel, well-appearing
From the mighty oak constructed,
Art thou strong to carry treasures
As in view thou art commanding?
Thus the goodly ship made answer:
539
'Strong am I to carry treasures,
In my hull a golden cargo;
I can bear a hundred oarsmen,
And of warriors a thousand.'
Wainamoinen, the magician,
Then began his wondrous singing.
On one side the magic vessel,
Sang he youth with golden virtues,
Bearded youth with strength of heroes,
Sang them into mail of copper.
On the other side the vessel,
Sang he silver-tinselled maidens,
Girded them with belts of copper,
Golden rings upon their fingers.
Sings again the great magician,
Fills the magic ship with heroes,
Ancient heroes, brave and mighty;
Sings them into narrow limits,
Since the young men came before them.
At the helm himself be seated,
Near the last beam of the vessel,
Steered his goodly boat in joyance,
Thus addressed the willing war-ship:
'Glide upon the trackless waters,
Sail away, my ship of magic,
Sail across the waves before thee,
Speed thou like a dancing bubble,
Like a flower upon the billows!'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Set the young men to the rowing,
Let the maidens sit in waiting.
Eagerly the youthful heroes
Bend the oars and try the row-locks,
But the distance is not lessened.
Then the minstrel, Wainamoinen,
Set the maidens to the rowing,
Let the young men rest in waiting.
Eagerly the merry maidens
Bend the aspen-oars in rowing,
But the distance is not lessened.
Then the master, Wainamoinen,
Set the old men to the rowing,
540
Let the youth remain in waiting.
Lustily the aged heroes
Bend and try the oars of aspen,
But the distance is not lessened.
Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Grasped the oars with master-magic,
And the boat leaped o'er the surges,
Swiftly sped across the billows;
Far and wide the oars resounded,
Quickly was the distance lessened.
With a rush and roar of waters
Ilmarinen sped his vessel,
Benches, ribs, and row-locks creaking,
Oars of aspen far resounding;
Flap the sails like wings of moor-cocks,
And the prow dips like a white-swan;
In the rear it croaks like ravens,
Loud the oars and rigging rattle.
Straightway ancient Wainamoinen
Sitting by the bending rudder,
Turns his magic vessel landward,
To a jutting promontory,
Where appears a Northland-village.
On the point stands Lemminkainen,
Kaukomieli, black magician,
Ahti, wizard of Wainola,
Wishing for the fish of Pohya,
Weeping for his fated dwelling,
For his perilous adventures,
Hard at work upon a vessel,
On the sail-yards of a fish-boat,
Near the hunger-point and island,
Near the village-home deserted.
Good the ears of the magician,
Good the wizard's eyes for seeing;
Casts his vision to the South-east,
Turns his eyes upon the sunset,
Sees afar a wondrous rainbow,
Farther on, a cloudlet hanging;
But the bow was a deception,
And the cloudlet a delusion;
'Tis a vessel swiftly sailing,
541
'Tis a war-ship flying northward,
O'er the blue-back of the broad-sea,
On the far-extending waters,
At the helm the master standing,
At the oars a mighty hero.
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Do not know this wondrous vessel,
Not this well-constructed war-ship,
Coming from the distant Suomi,
Rowing for the hostile Pohya.'
Thereupon wild Lemminkainen
Called aloud in tones of thunder
O'er the waters to the vessel;
Made the distant hills re-echo
With the music of his calling:
'Whence this vessel on the waters,
Whose the war-ship sailing hither?'
Spake the master of the vessel
To the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Who art thou from fen or forest,
Senseless wizard from the woodlands,
That thou dost not know this vessel,
Magic war-ship of Wainola?
Dost not know him at the rudder,
Nor the hero at the row-locks?'
Spake the wizard, Lemminkainen:
'Well I know the helm-director,
And I recognize the rower;
Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
At the helm directs the vessel;
Ilmarinen does the rowing.
Whither is the vessel sailing,
Whither wandering, my heroes?
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'We are sailing to the Northland,
There to gain the magic Sampo,
There to get the lid in colors,
From the stone-berg of Pohyola,
From the copper-bearing mountain.'
Spake the evil Lemminkainen:
'O, thou good, old Wainamoinen,
Take me with thee to Pohyola,
542
Make me third of magic heroes,
Since thou goest for the Sampo,
Goest for the lid in colors;
I shall prove a valiant soldier,
When thy wisdom calls for fighting;
I am skilled in arts of warfare!'
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Gave assent to Ahti's wishes;
Thereupon wild Lemminkainen
Hastened to Wainola's war-ship,
Bringing floats of aspen-timber,
To the ships of Wainamoinen.
Thus the hero of the Northland
Speaks to reckless Lemminkainen:
'There is aspen on my vessel,
Aspen-floats in great abundance,
And the boat is heavy-laden.
Wherefore dost thou bring the aspen
To the vessel of Wainola?'
Lemminkainen gave this answer:
'Not through caution sinks a vessel,
Nor a hay-stack by its proppings;
Seas abound in hidden dangers,
Heavy storms arise and threaten
Fell destruction to the sailor
That would brave the angry billows.'
Spake the good, old Wainamoinen:
'Therefore is this warlike vessel
Built of trusty steel and copper,
Trimmed and bound in toughest iron,
That the winds may, not destroy it,
May not harm my ship of magic.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
283:The Kalevala - Rune Xxvii
THE UNWELCOME GUEST.
I have brought young Kaukomieli,
Brought the Islander and hero,
Also known as Lemminkainen,
Through the jaws of death and ruin,
Through the darkling deeps of Kalma,
To the homesteads of Pohyola,
To the dismal courts of Louhi;
Now must I relate his doings,
Must relate to all my bearers,
How the merry Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,
Wandered through Pohyola's chambers,
Through the halls of Sariola,
How the hero went unbidden
To the feasting and carousal,
Uninvited to the banquet.
Lemminkainen full of courage,
Full of life, and strength, and magic.
Stepped across the ancient threshold,
To the centre of the court-room,
And the floors of linwood trembled,
Walls and ceilings creaked and murmured.
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen,
These the words that Ahti uttered:
'Be ye greeted on my coming,
Ye that greet, be likewise greeted!
Listen, all ye hosts of Pohya;
Is there food about this homestead,
Barley for my hungry courser,
Beer to give a thirsty stranger?
Sat the host of Sariola
At the east end of the table,
Gave this answer to the questions:
'Surely is there in this homestead,
For thy steed an open stable,
Never will this host refuse thee,
459
Shouldst thou act a part becoming,
Worthy, coming to these portals,
Waiting near the birchen rafters,
In the spaces by the kettles,
By the triple hooks of iron.'
Then the reckless Lemminkainen
Shook his sable locks and answered:
'Lempo may perchance come hither,
Let him fill this lowly station,
Let him stand between the kettles,
That with soot he may be blackened.
Never has my ancient father,
Never has the dear old hero,
Stood upon a spot unworthy,
At the portals near the rafters;
For his steed the best of stables,
Food and shelter gladly furnished,
And a room for his attendants,
Corners furnished for his mittens,
Hooks provided for his snow-shoes,
Halls in waiting for his helmet.
Wherefore then should I not find here
What my father found before me?'
To the centre walked the hero,
Walked around the dining table,
Sat upon a bench and waited,
On a bench of polished fir-wood,
And the kettle creaked beneath him.
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'As a guest am I unwelcome,
Since the waiters bring no viands,
Bring no dishes to the stranger?'
Ilpotar, the Northland hostess,
Then addressed the words that follow:
'Lemminkainen, thou art evil,
Thou art here, but not invited,
Thou hast not the look of kindness,
Thou wilt give me throbbing temples,
Thou art bringing pain and sorrow.
All our beer is in the barley,
All the malt is in the kernel,
All our grain is still ungarnered,
460
And our dinner has been eaten;
Yesterday thou shouldst have been here,
Come again some future season.'
Whereupon wild Lemminkainen
Pulled his mouth awry in anger,
Shook his coal-black locks and answered:
'All the tables here are empty,
And the feasting-time is over;
All the beer has left the goblets,
Empty too are all the pitchers,
Empty are the larger vessels.
O thou hostess of Pohyola,
Toothless dame of dismal Northland,
Badly managed is thy wedding,
And thy feast is ill-conducted,
Like the dogs hast thou invited;
Thou hast baked the honey-biscuit,
Wheaten loaves of greatest virtue,
Brewed thy beer from hops and barley,
Sent abroad thine invitations,
Six the hamlets thou hast honored,
Nine the villages invited
By thy merry wedding-callers.
Thou hast asked the poor and lowly,
Asked the hosts of common people,
Asked the blind, and deaf, and crippled,
Asked a multitude of beggars,
Toilers by the day, and hirelings;
Asked the men of evil habits,
Asked the maids with braided tresses,
I alone was not invited.
How could such a slight be given,
Since I sent thee kegs of barley?
Others sent thee grain in cupfuls,
Brought it sparingly in dippers,
While I sent thee fullest measure,
Sent the half of all my garners,
Of the richest of my harvest,
Of the grain that I had gathered.
Even now young Lemminkainen,
Though a guest of name and station
Has no beer, no food, no welcome,
461
Naught for him art thou preparing,
Nothing cooking in thy kettles,
Nothing brewing in thy cellars
For the hero of the Islands,
At the closing of his journey.'
Ilpotar, the ancient hostess,
Gave this order to her servants:
'Come, my pretty maiden-waiter,
Servant-girl to me belonging,
Lay some salmon to the broiling,
Bring some beer to give the stranger!'
Small of stature was the maiden,
Washer of the banquet-platters,
Rinser of the dinner-ladles,
Polisher of spoons of silver,
And she laid some food in kettles,
Only bones and beads of whiting,
Turnip-stalks and withered cabbage,
Crusts of bread and bits of biscuit.
Then she brought some beer in pitchers,
Brought of common drink the vilest,
That the stranger, Lemminkainen,
Might have drink, and meat in welcome,
Thus to still his thirst and hunger.
Then the maiden spake as follows:
'Thou art sure a mighty hero,
Here to drink the beer of Pohya,
Here to empty all our vessels!'
Then the minstrel, Lemminkainen,
Closely handled all the pitchers,
Looking to the very bottoms;
There beheld he writhing serpents,
In the centre adders swimming,
On the borders worms and lizards.
Then the hero, Lemminkainen,
Filled with anger, spake as follows:
Get ye hence, ye things of evil,
Get ye hence to Tuonela,
With the bearer of these pitchers,
With the maid that brought ye hither,
Ere the evening moon has risen,
Ere the day-star seeks the ocean!
462
0 thou wretched beer of barley,
Thou hast met with great dishonor,
Into disrepute hast fallen,
But I'll drink thee, notwithstanding,
And the rubbish cast far from me.'
Then the hero to his pockets
Thrust his first and unnamed finger,
Searching in his pouch of leather;
Quick withdraws a hook for fishing,
Drops it to the pitcher's bottom,
Through the worthless beer of barley;
On his fish-book hang the serpents,
Catches many hissing adders,
Catches frogs in magic numbers,
Catches blackened worms in thousands,
Casts them to the floor before him,
Quickly draws his heavy broad sword,
And decapitates the serpents.
Now he drinks the beer remaining,
When the wizard speaks as follows:
'As a guest am I unwelcome,
Since no beer to me is given
That is worthy of a hero;
Neither has a ram been butchered,
Nor a fattened calf been slaughtered,
Worthy food for Lemminkainen.'
Then the landlord of Pohyola
Answered thus the Island-minstrel:
'Wherefore hast thou journeyed hither,
Who has asked thee for thy presence?
Spake in answer Lemminkainen:
'Happy is the guest invited,
Happier when not expected;
Listen, son of Pohylander,
Host of Sariola, listen:
Give me beer for ready payment,
Give me worthy drink for money!'
Then the landlord of Pohyola,
In bad humor, full of anger,
Conjured in the earth a lakelet,
At the feet of Kaukomieli,
Thus addressed the Island-hero:
463
'Quench thy thirst from yonder lakelet,
There, the beer that thou deservest!'
Little heeding, Lemminkainen
To this insolence made answer:
'I am neither bear nor roebuck,
That should drink this filthy water,
Drink the water of this lakelet.'
Ahti then began to conjure,
Conjured he a bull before him,
Bull with horns of gold and silver,
And the bull drank from the lakelet,
Drank he from the pool in pleasure.
Then the landlord of Pohyola
There a savage wolf created,
Set him on the floor before him
To destroy the bull of magic,
Lemminkainen, full of courage,
Conjured up a snow-white rabbit,
Set him on the floor before him
To attract the wolf's attention.
Then the landlord of Pohyola
Conjured there a dog of Lempo,
Set him on the floor before him
To destroy the magic rabbit.
Lemminkainen, full of mischief,
Conjured on the roof a squirrel,
That by jumping on the rafters
He might catch the dog's attention.
But the master of the Northland
Conjured there a golden marten,
And he drove the magic squirrel
From his seat upon the rafters.
Lemminkainen, full of mischief,
Made a fox of scarlet color,
And it ate the golden marten.
Then the master of Pohyola
Conjured there a hen to flutter
Near the fox of scarlet color.
Lemminkainen, full of mischief,
Thereupon a hawk created,
That with beak and crooked talons
He might tear the hen to pieces.
464
Spake the landlord of Pohyola,
These the words the tall man uttered:
'Never will this feast be bettered
Till the guests are less in number;
I must do my work as landlord,
Get thee hence, thou evil stranger,
Cease thy conjurings of evil,
Leave this banquet of my people,
Haste away, thou wicked wizard,
To thine Island-home and people!
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Thus no hero will be driven,
Not a son of any courage
Will be frightened by thy presence,
Will be driven from thy banquet.'
Then the landlord of Pohyola
Snatched his broadsword from the rafters,
Drew it rashly from the scabbard,
Thus addressing Lemminkainen:
'Ahti, Islander of evil,
Thou the handsome Kaukomieli,
Let us measure then our broadswords,
Let our skill be fully tested;
Surely is my broadsword better
Than the blade within thy scabbard.'
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen.
'That my blade is good and trusty,
Has been proved on heads of heroes,
Has on many bones been tested;
Be that as it may, my fellow,
Since thine order is commanding,
Let our swords be fully tested,
Let us see whose blade is better.
Long ago my hero-father
Tested well this sword in battle,
Never failing in a conflict.
Should his son be found less worthy?'
Then he grasped his mighty broadsword,
Drew the fire-blade from the scabbard
Hanging from his belt of copper.
Standing on their hilts their broadswords,
Carefully their blades were measured,
465
Found the sword of Northland's master
Longer than the sword of Ahti
By the half-link of a finger.
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen.
'Since thou hast the longer broadsword,
Thou shalt make the first advances,
I am ready for thy weapon.'
Thereupon Pohyola's landlord
With the wondrous strength of anger,
Tried in vain to slay the hero,
Strike the crown of Lemminkainen;
Chipped the splinters from the rafters,
Cut the ceiling into fragments,
Could not touch the Island-hero.
Thereupon brave Kaukomieli,
Thus addressed Pohyola's master:
'Have the rafters thee offended?
What the crimes they have committed,
Since thou hewest them in pieces?
Listen now, thou host of Northland,
Reckless landlord of Pohyola,
Little room there is for swordsmen
In these chambers filled with women;
We shall stain these painted rafters,
Stain with blood these floors and ceilings;
Let us go without the mansion,
In the field is room for combat,
On the plain is space sufficient;
Blood looks fairer in the court-yard,
Better in the open spaces,
Let it dye the snow-fields scarlet.'
To the yard the heroes hasten,
There they find a monstrous ox-skin,
Spread it on the field of battle;
On the ox-skin stand the swordsmen.
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'Listen well, thou host of Northland,
Though thy broadsword is the longer,
Though thy blade is full of horror,
Thou shalt have the first advantage;
Use with skill thy boasted broadsword
Ere the final bout is given,
466
Ere thy head be chopped in pieces;
Strike with skill, or thou wilt perish,
Strike, and do thy best for Northland.'
Thereupon Pohyola's landlord
Raised on high his blade of battle,
Struck a heavy blow in anger,
Struck a second, then a third time,
But he could not touch his rival,
Could Dot draw a single blood-drop
From the veins of Lemminkainen,
Skillful Islander and hero.
Spake the handsome Kaukomieli:
'Let me try my skill at fencing,
Let me swing my father's broadsword,
Let my honored blade be tested!'
But the landlord of Pohyola,
Does not heed the words of Ahti,
Strikes in fury, strikes unceasing,
Ever aiming, ever missing.
When the skillful Lemminkainen
Swings his mighty blade of magic,
Fire disports along his weapon,
Flashes from his sword of honor,
Glistens from the hero's broadsword,
Balls of fire disporting, dancing,
On the blade of mighty Ahti,
Overflow upon the shoulders
Of the landlord of Pohyola.
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'O thou son of Sariola,
See! indeed thy neck is glowing
Like the dawning of the morning,
Like the rising Sun in ocean!'
Quickly turned Pohyola's landlord,
Thoughtless host of darksome Northland,
To behold the fiery splendor
Playing on his neck and shoulders.
Quick as lightning, Lemminkainen,
With his father's blade of battle,
With a single blow of broadsword,
With united skill and power,
Lopped the head of Pohya's master;
467
As one cleaves the stalks of turnips,
As the ear falls from the corn-stalk,
As one strikes the fins from salmon,
Thus the head rolled from the shoulders
Of the landlord of Pohyola,
Like a ball it rolled and circled.
In the yard were pickets standing,
Hundreds were the sharpened pillars,
And a head on every picket,
Only one was left un-headed.
Quick the victor, Lemminkainen,
Took the head of Pohya's landlord,
Spiked it on the empty picket.
Then the Islander, rejoicing,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,
Quick returning to the chambers,
Crave this order to the hostess:
'Evil maiden, bring me water,
Wherewithal to cleanse my fingers
From the blood of Northland's master,
Wicked host of Sariola.'
Ilpotar, the Northland hostess,
Fired with anger, threatened vengeance,
Conjured men with heavy broadswords,
Heroes clad in copper-armor,
Hundred warriors with their javelins,
And a thousand bearing cross-bows,
To destroy the Island-hero,
For the death of Lemminkainen.
Kaukomieli soon discovered
That the time had come for leaving,
That his presence was unwelcome
At the feasting of Pohyola,
At the banquet of her people.
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
284:The Kalevala - Rune Xxvii
THE UNWELCOME GUEST.
I have brought young Kaukomieli,
Brought the Islander and hero,
Also known as Lemminkainen,
Through the jaws of death and ruin,
Through the darkling deeps of Kalma,
To the homesteads of Pohyola,
To the dismal courts of Louhi;
Now must I relate his doings,
Must relate to all my bearers,
How the merry Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,
Wandered through Pohyola's chambers,
Through the halls of Sariola,
How the hero went unbidden
To the feasting and carousal,
Uninvited to the banquet.
Lemminkainen full of courage,
Full of life, and strength, and magic.
Stepped across the ancient threshold,
To the centre of the court-room,
And the floors of linwood trembled,
Walls and ceilings creaked and murmured.
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen,
These the words that Ahti uttered:
'Be ye greeted on my coming,
Ye that greet, be likewise greeted!
Listen, all ye hosts of Pohya;
Is there food about this homestead,
Barley for my hungry courser,
Beer to give a thirsty stranger?
Sat the host of Sariola
At the east end of the table,
Gave this answer to the questions:
'Surely is there in this homestead,
For thy steed an open stable,
Never will this host refuse thee,
469
Shouldst thou act a part becoming,
Worthy, coming to these portals,
Waiting near the birchen rafters,
In the spaces by the kettles,
By the triple hooks of iron.'
Then the reckless Lemminkainen
Shook his sable locks and answered:
'Lempo may perchance come hither,
Let him fill this lowly station,
Let him stand between the kettles,
That with soot he may be blackened.
Never has my ancient father,
Never has the dear old hero,
Stood upon a spot unworthy,
At the portals near the rafters;
For his steed the best of stables,
Food and shelter gladly furnished,
And a room for his attendants,
Corners furnished for his mittens,
Hooks provided for his snow-shoes,
Halls in waiting for his helmet.
Wherefore then should I not find here
What my father found before me?'
To the centre walked the hero,
Walked around the dining table,
Sat upon a bench and waited,
On a bench of polished fir-wood,
And the kettle creaked beneath him.
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'As a guest am I unwelcome,
Since the waiters bring no viands,
Bring no dishes to the stranger?'
Ilpotar, the Northland hostess,
Then addressed the words that follow:
'Lemminkainen, thou art evil,
Thou art here, but not invited,
Thou hast not the look of kindness,
Thou wilt give me throbbing temples,
Thou art bringing pain and sorrow.
All our beer is in the barley,
All the malt is in the kernel,
All our grain is still ungarnered,
470
And our dinner has been eaten;
Yesterday thou shouldst have been here,
Come again some future season.'
Whereupon wild Lemminkainen
Pulled his mouth awry in anger,
Shook his coal-black locks and answered:
'All the tables here are empty,
And the feasting-time is over;
All the beer has left the goblets,
Empty too are all the pitchers,
Empty are the larger vessels.
O thou hostess of Pohyola,
Toothless dame of dismal Northland,
Badly managed is thy wedding,
And thy feast is ill-conducted,
Like the dogs hast thou invited;
Thou hast baked the honey-biscuit,
Wheaten loaves of greatest virtue,
Brewed thy beer from hops and barley,
Sent abroad thine invitations,
Six the hamlets thou hast honored,
Nine the villages invited
By thy merry wedding-callers.
Thou hast asked the poor and lowly,
Asked the hosts of common people,
Asked the blind, and deaf, and crippled,
Asked a multitude of beggars,
Toilers by the day, and hirelings;
Asked the men of evil habits,
Asked the maids with braided tresses,
I alone was not invited.
How could such a slight be given,
Since I sent thee kegs of barley?
Others sent thee grain in cupfuls,
Brought it sparingly in dippers,
While I sent thee fullest measure,
Sent the half of all my garners,
Of the richest of my harvest,
Of the grain that I had gathered.
Even now young Lemminkainen,
Though a guest of name and station
Has no beer, no food, no welcome,
471
Naught for him art thou preparing,
Nothing cooking in thy kettles,
Nothing brewing in thy cellars
For the hero of the Islands,
At the closing of his journey.'
Ilpotar, the ancient hostess,
Gave this order to her servants:
'Come, my pretty maiden-waiter,
Servant-girl to me belonging,
Lay some salmon to the broiling,
Bring some beer to give the stranger!'
Small of stature was the maiden,
Washer of the banquet-platters,
Rinser of the dinner-ladles,
Polisher of spoons of silver,
And she laid some food in kettles,
Only bones and beads of whiting,
Turnip-stalks and withered cabbage,
Crusts of bread and bits of biscuit.
Then she brought some beer in pitchers,
Brought of common drink the vilest,
That the stranger, Lemminkainen,
Might have drink, and meat in welcome,
Thus to still his thirst and hunger.
Then the maiden spake as follows:
'Thou art sure a mighty hero,
Here to drink the beer of Pohya,
Here to empty all our vessels!'
Then the minstrel, Lemminkainen,
Closely handled all the pitchers,
Looking to the very bottoms;
There beheld he writhing serpents,
In the centre adders swimming,
On the borders worms and lizards.
Then the hero, Lemminkainen,
Filled with anger, spake as follows:
Get ye hence, ye things of evil,
Get ye hence to Tuonela,
With the bearer of these pitchers,
With the maid that brought ye hither,
Ere the evening moon has risen,
Ere the day-star seeks the ocean!
472
0 thou wretched beer of barley,
Thou hast met with great dishonor,
Into disrepute hast fallen,
But I'll drink thee, notwithstanding,
And the rubbish cast far from me.'
Then the hero to his pockets
Thrust his first and unnamed finger,
Searching in his pouch of leather;
Quick withdraws a hook for fishing,
Drops it to the pitcher's bottom,
Through the worthless beer of barley;
On his fish-book hang the serpents,
Catches many hissing adders,
Catches frogs in magic numbers,
Catches blackened worms in thousands,
Casts them to the floor before him,
Quickly draws his heavy broad sword,
And decapitates the serpents.
Now he drinks the beer remaining,
When the wizard speaks as follows:
'As a guest am I unwelcome,
Since no beer to me is given
That is worthy of a hero;
Neither has a ram been butchered,
Nor a fattened calf been slaughtered,
Worthy food for Lemminkainen.'
Then the landlord of Pohyola
Answered thus the Island-minstrel:
'Wherefore hast thou journeyed hither,
Who has asked thee for thy presence?
Spake in answer Lemminkainen:
'Happy is the guest invited,
Happier when not expected;
Listen, son of Pohylander,
Host of Sariola, listen:
Give me beer for ready payment,
Give me worthy drink for money!'
Then the landlord of Pohyola,
In bad humor, full of anger,
Conjured in the earth a lakelet,
At the feet of Kaukomieli,
Thus addressed the Island-hero:
473
'Quench thy thirst from yonder lakelet,
There, the beer that thou deservest!'
Little heeding, Lemminkainen
To this insolence made answer:
'I am neither bear nor roebuck,
That should drink this filthy water,
Drink the water of this lakelet.'
Ahti then began to conjure,
Conjured he a bull before him,
Bull with horns of gold and silver,
And the bull drank from the lakelet,
Drank he from the pool in pleasure.
Then the landlord of Pohyola
There a savage wolf created,
Set him on the floor before him
To destroy the bull of magic,
Lemminkainen, full of courage,
Conjured up a snow-white rabbit,
Set him on the floor before him
To attract the wolf's attention.
Then the landlord of Pohyola
Conjured there a dog of Lempo,
Set him on the floor before him
To destroy the magic rabbit.
Lemminkainen, full of mischief,
Conjured on the roof a squirrel,
That by jumping on the rafters
He might catch the dog's attention.
But the master of the Northland
Conjured there a golden marten,
And he drove the magic squirrel
From his seat upon the rafters.
Lemminkainen, full of mischief,
Made a fox of scarlet color,
And it ate the golden marten.
Then the master of Pohyola
Conjured there a hen to flutter
Near the fox of scarlet color.
Lemminkainen, full of mischief,
Thereupon a hawk created,
That with beak and crooked talons
He might tear the hen to pieces.
474
Spake the landlord of Pohyola,
These the words the tall man uttered:
'Never will this feast be bettered
Till the guests are less in number;
I must do my work as landlord,
Get thee hence, thou evil stranger,
Cease thy conjurings of evil,
Leave this banquet of my people,
Haste away, thou wicked wizard,
To thine Island-home and people!
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Thus no hero will be driven,
Not a son of any courage
Will be frightened by thy presence,
Will be driven from thy banquet.'
Then the landlord of Pohyola
Snatched his broadsword from the rafters,
Drew it rashly from the scabbard,
Thus addressing Lemminkainen:
'Ahti, Islander of evil,
Thou the handsome Kaukomieli,
Let us measure then our broadswords,
Let our skill be fully tested;
Surely is my broadsword better
Than the blade within thy scabbard.'
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen.
'That my blade is good and trusty,
Has been proved on heads of heroes,
Has on many bones been tested;
Be that as it may, my fellow,
Since thine order is commanding,
Let our swords be fully tested,
Let us see whose blade is better.
Long ago my hero-father
Tested well this sword in battle,
Never failing in a conflict.
Should his son be found less worthy?'
Then he grasped his mighty broadsword,
Drew the fire-blade from the scabbard
Hanging from his belt of copper.
Standing on their hilts their broadswords,
Carefully their blades were measured,
475
Found the sword of Northland's master
Longer than the sword of Ahti
By the half-link of a finger.
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen.
'Since thou hast the longer broadsword,
Thou shalt make the first advances,
I am ready for thy weapon.'
Thereupon Pohyola's landlord
With the wondrous strength of anger,
Tried in vain to slay the hero,
Strike the crown of Lemminkainen;
Chipped the splinters from the rafters,
Cut the ceiling into fragments,
Could not touch the Island-hero.
Thereupon brave Kaukomieli,
Thus addressed Pohyola's master:
'Have the rafters thee offended?
What the crimes they have committed,
Since thou hewest them in pieces?
Listen now, thou host of Northland,
Reckless landlord of Pohyola,
Little room there is for swordsmen
In these chambers filled with women;
We shall stain these painted rafters,
Stain with blood these floors and ceilings;
Let us go without the mansion,
In the field is room for combat,
On the plain is space sufficient;
Blood looks fairer in the court-yard,
Better in the open spaces,
Let it dye the snow-fields scarlet.'
To the yard the heroes hasten,
There they find a monstrous ox-skin,
Spread it on the field of battle;
On the ox-skin stand the swordsmen.
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'Listen well, thou host of Northland,
Though thy broadsword is the longer,
Though thy blade is full of horror,
Thou shalt have the first advantage;
Use with skill thy boasted broadsword
Ere the final bout is given,
476
Ere thy head be chopped in pieces;
Strike with skill, or thou wilt perish,
Strike, and do thy best for Northland.'
Thereupon Pohyola's landlord
Raised on high his blade of battle,
Struck a heavy blow in anger,
Struck a second, then a third time,
But he could not touch his rival,
Could Dot draw a single blood-drop
From the veins of Lemminkainen,
Skillful Islander and hero.
Spake the handsome Kaukomieli:
'Let me try my skill at fencing,
Let me swing my father's broadsword,
Let my honored blade be tested!'
But the landlord of Pohyola,
Does not heed the words of Ahti,
Strikes in fury, strikes unceasing,
Ever aiming, ever missing.
When the skillful Lemminkainen
Swings his mighty blade of magic,
Fire disports along his weapon,
Flashes from his sword of honor,
Glistens from the hero's broadsword,
Balls of fire disporting, dancing,
On the blade of mighty Ahti,
Overflow upon the shoulders
Of the landlord of Pohyola.
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'O thou son of Sariola,
See! indeed thy neck is glowing
Like the dawning of the morning,
Like the rising Sun in ocean!'
Quickly turned Pohyola's landlord,
Thoughtless host of darksome Northland,
To behold the fiery splendor
Playing on his neck and shoulders.
Quick as lightning, Lemminkainen,
With his father's blade of battle,
With a single blow of broadsword,
With united skill and power,
Lopped the head of Pohya's master;
477
As one cleaves the stalks of turnips,
As the ear falls from the corn-stalk,
As one strikes the fins from salmon,
Thus the head rolled from the shoulders
Of the landlord of Pohyola,
Like a ball it rolled and circled.
In the yard were pickets standing,
Hundreds were the sharpened pillars,
And a head on every picket,
Only one was left un-headed.
Quick the victor, Lemminkainen,
Took the head of Pohya's landlord,
Spiked it on the empty picket.
Then the Islander, rejoicing,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,
Quick returning to the chambers,
Crave this order to the hostess:
'Evil maiden, bring me water,
Wherewithal to cleanse my fingers
From the blood of Northland's master,
Wicked host of Sariola.'
Ilpotar, the Northland hostess,
Fired with anger, threatened vengeance,
Conjured men with heavy broadswords,
Heroes clad in copper-armor,
Hundred warriors with their javelins,
And a thousand bearing cross-bows,
To destroy the Island-hero,
For the death of Lemminkainen.
Kaukomieli soon discovered
That the time had come for leaving,
That his presence was unwelcome
At the feasting of Pohyola,
At the banquet of her people.
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
285:The Kalevala - Rune Xxx
THE FROST-FIEND.
Lemminkainen, reckless minstrel,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,
Hastens as the dawn is breaking,
At the dawning of the morning,
To the resting-place of vessels,
To the harbor of the island,
Finds the vessels sorely weeping,
Hears the wailing of the rigging,
And the ships intone this chorus:
'Must we wretched lie forever
In the harbor of this island,
Here to dry and fall in pieces?
Ahti wars no more in Northland,
Wars no more for sixty summers,
Even should he thirst for silver,
Should he wish the gold of battle.'
Lemminkainen struck his vessels
With his gloves adorned with copper,
And addressed the ships as follows:
'Mourn no more, my ships of fir-wood,
Strong and hardy is your rigging,
To the wars ye soon may hasten,
Hasten to the seas of battle;
Warriors may swarm your cabins
Ere to-morrow's morn has risen.!''
Then the reckless Lemminkainen
Hastened to his aged mother,
Spake to her the words that follow:
'Weep no longer, faithful mother,
Do not sorrow for thy hero,
Should he leave for scenes of battle,
For the hostile fields of Pohya;
Sweet revenge has fired my spirit,
And my soul is well determined,
To avenge the shameful insult
That the warriors of Northland
487
Gave to thee, defenseless woman.'
To restrain him seeks his mother,
Warns her son again of danger:
'Do not go, my son beloved,
To the wars in Sariola;
There the jaws of Death await thee,
Fell destruction lies before thee!'
Lemminkainen, little heeding,
Still determined, speaks as follows:
'Where may I secure a swordsman,
Worthy of my race of heroes,
To assist me in the combat?
Often I have heard of Tiera,
Heard of Kura of the islands,
This one I will take to help me,
Magic hero of the broadsword;
He will aid me in the combat,
Will protect me from destruction.'
Then he wandered to the islands,
On the way to Tiera's hamlet,
These the words that Ahti utters
As he nears the ancient dwellings:
Dearest friend, my noble Tiera,
My, beloved hero-brother,
Dost thou other times remember,
When we fought and bled together,
On the battle-fields of Northland?
There was not an island-village
Where there were not seven mansions,
In each mansion seven heroes,
And not one of all these foemen
Whom we did not slay with broadswords,
Victims of our skill and valor.'
Near the window sat the father
Whittling out a javelin-handle;
Near the threshold sat the mother
Skimming cream and making butter;
Near the portal stood the brother
Working on a sledge of birch-wood
Near the bridge-pass were the sisters
Washing out their varied garments.
Spake the father from the window,
488
From the threshold spake the mother,
From the portals spake the brother,
And the sisters from the bridge-pass:
'Tiera has no time for combat,
And his broadsword cannot battle;
Tiera is but late a bridegroom,
Still unveiled his bride awaits him.'
Near the hearth was Tiera lying,
Lying by the fire was Kura,
Hastily one foot was shoeing,
While the other lay in waiting.
From the hook he takes his girdle,
Buckles it around his body,
Takes a javelin from its resting,
Not the largest, nor the smallest,
Buckles on his mighty scabbard,
Dons his heavy mail of copper;
On each javelin pranced a charger,
Wolves were howling from his helmet,
On the rings the bears were growling.
Tiera poised his mighty javelin,
Launched the spear upon its errand;
Hurled the shaft across the pasture,
To the border of the forest,
O'er the clay-fields of Pohyola,
O'er the green and fragrant meadows,
Through the distant bills of Northland.
Then great Tiera touched his javelin
To the mighty spear of Ahti,
Pledged his aid to Lemminkainen,
As his combatant and comrade.
Thereupon wild Kaukomieli
Pushed his boat upon the waters;
Like the serpent through the heather,
Like the creeping of the adder,
Sails the boat away to Pohya,
O'er the seas of Sariola.
Quick the wicked hostess, Louhi,
Sends the black-frost of the heavens
To the waters of Pohyola,
O'er the far-extending sea-plains,
Gave the black-frost these directions:
489
'Much-loved Frost, my son and hero,
Whom thy mother has instructed,
Hasten whither I may send thee,
Go wherever I command thee,
Freeze the vessel of this hero,
Lemminkainen's bark of magic,
On the broad back of the ocean,
On the far-extending waters;
Freeze the wizard in his vessel,
Freeze to ice the wicked Ahti,
That he never more may wander,
Never waken while thou livest,
Or at least till I shall free him,
Wake him from his icy slumber!'
Frost, the son of wicked parents,
Hero-son of evil manners,
Hastens off to freeze the ocean,
Goes to fasten down the flood-gates,
Goes to still the ocean-currents.
As he hastens on his journey,
Takes the leaves from all the forest,
Strips the meadows of their verdure,
Robs the flowers of their colors.
When his journey he had ended,
Gained the border of the ocean,
Gained the sea-shore curved and endless,
On the first night of his visit,
Freezes he the lakes and rivers,
Freezes too the shore of ocean,
Freezes not the ocean-billows,
Does not check the ocean-currents.
On the sea a finch is resting,
Bird of song upon the waters,
But his feet are not yet frozen,
Neither is his head endangered.
When the second night Frost lingered,
He began to grow important,
He became a fierce intruder,
Fearless grew in his invasions,
Freezes everything before him;
Sends the fiercest cold of Northland,
Turns to ice the boundless waters.
490
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker,
Grew the ice on sea and ocean,
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper,
Fell the snow on field and forest,
Froze the hero's ship of beauty,
Cold and lifeless bark of Ahti;
Sought to freeze wild Lemminkainen,
Freeze him lifeless as his vessel,
Asked the minstrel for his life-blood,
For his ears, and feet, and fingers.
Then the hero, Lemminkainen,
Angry grew and filled with magic,
Hurled the black-frost to the fire-god,
Threw him to the fiery furnace,
Held him in his forge of iron,
Then addressed the frost as follows:
'Frost, thou evil son of Northland,
Dire and only son of Winter,
Let my members not be stiffened,
Neither ears, nor feet, nor fingers,
Neither let my head be frozen.
Thou hast other things to feed on,
Many other beads to stiffen;
Leave in peace the flesh of heroes,
Let this minstrel pass in safety,
Freeze the swamps, and lakes, and rivers,
Fens and forests, bills and valleys;
Let the cold stones grow still colder,
Freeze the willows in the waters,
Let the aspens freeze and suffer,
Let the bark peel from the birch-trees,
Let the Pines burst on the mountains,
Let this hero pass in safety,
Do not let his locks be stiffened.
'If all these prove insufficient,
Feed on other worthy matters;
Lot the hot stones freeze asunder,
Let the flaming rocks be frozen,
Freeze the fiery blocks of iron,
Freeze to ice the iron mountains;
Stiffen well the mighty Wuoksi,
Let Imatra freeze to silence;
491
Freeze the sacred stream and whirlpoo4
Let their boiling billows stiffen,
Or thine origin I'll sing thee,
Tell thy lineage of evil.
Well I know thine evil nature,
Know thine origin and power,
Whence thou camest, where thou goest,
Know thine ancestry of evil.
Thou wert born upon the aspen,
Wert conceived upon the willows,
Near the borders of Pohyola,
In the courts of dismal Northland;
Sin-begotten was thy father,
And thy mother was Dishonor.
'While in infancy who fed thee
While thy mother could not nurse thee?
Surely thou wert fed by adders,
Nursed by foul and slimy serpents;
North-winds rocked thee into slumber,
Cradled thee in roughest weather,
In the worst of willow-marshes,
In the springs forever flowing,
Evil-born and evil-nurtured,
Grew to be an evil genius,
Evil was thy mind and spirit,
And the infant still was nameless,
Till the name of Frost was given
To the progeny of evil.
'Then the young lad lived in hedges,
Dwelt among the weeds and willows,
Lived in springs in days of summer,
On the borders of the marshes,
Tore the lindens in the winter,
Stormed among the glens and forests,
Raged among the sacred birch-trees,
Rattled in the alder-branches,
Froze the trees, the shoots, the grasses,
Evened all the plains and prairies,
Ate the leaves within the woodlands,
Made the stalks drop down their blossoms,
Peeled the bark on weeds and willows.
'Thou hast grown to large proportions,
492
Hast become too tall and mighty;
Dost thou labor to benumb me,
Dost thou wish mine ears and fingers,
Of my feet wouldst thou deprive me?
Do not strive to freeze this hero,
In his anguish and misfortune;
In my stockings I shall kindle
Fire to drive thee from my presence,
In my shoes lay flaming faggots,
Coals of fire in every garment,
Heated sandstones in my rigging;
Thus will hold thee at a distance.
Then thine evil form I'll banish
To the farthest Northland borders;
When thy journey is completed,
When thy home is reached in safety,
Freeze the caldrons in the castle,
Freeze the coal upon the hearthstone,
In the dough, the hands of women,
On its mother's lap, the infant,
Freeze the colt beside its mother.
'If thou shouldst not heed this order,
I shall banish thee still farther,
To the carbon-piles of Hisi,
To the chimney-hearth of Lempo,
Hurl thee to his fiery furnace,
Lay thee on the iron anvil,
That thy body may be hammered
With the sledges of the blacksmith,
May be pounded into atoms,
Twixt the anvil and the hammer.
'If thou shouldst not heed this order,
Shouldst not leave me to my freedom,
Know I still another kingdom,
Know another spot of resting;
I shall drive thee to the summer,
Lead thy tongue to warmer climates,
There a prisoner to suffer,
Never to obtain thy freedom
Till thy spirit I deliver,
Till I go myself and free thee.'
Wicked Frost, the son of Winter,
493
Saw the magic bird of evil
Hovering above his spirit,
Straightway prayed for Ahti's mercy,
These the words the Frost-fiend uttered:
'Let us now agree together,
Neither one to harm the other,
Never in the course of ages,
Never while the moonlight glimmers
On the snow-capped hills of Northland.
If thou hearest that I bring thee
Cold to freeze thy feet and fingers,
Hurl me to the fiery furnace,
Hammer me upon the anvil
Of the blacksmith, Ilmarinen;
Lead my tongue to warmer climates,
Banish me to lands of summer,
There a prisoner to suffer,
Nevermore to gain my freedom.'
Thereupon wild Lemminkainen
Left his vessel in the ocean,
Frozen in the ice of Northland,
Left his warlike boat forever,
Started on his cheerless journey
To the borders of Pohyola,
And the mighty Tiera followed
In the tracks of his companion.
On the ice they journeyed northward
Briskly walked upon the ice-plain,
Walked one day, and then a second,
Till the closing of the third day,
When the Hunger-land approached them,
When appeared Starvation-island.
Here the hardy Lemminkainen
Hastened forward to the castle,
This the hero's prayer and question;
'Is there food within this castle,
Fish or fowl within its larders,
To refresh us on our journey,
Mighty heroes, cold and weary?
When the hero, Lemminkainen,
Found no food within the castle,
Neither fish, nor fowl, nor bacon,
494
Thus he cursed it and departed:
'May the fire destroy these chambers,
May the waters flood this dwelling,
Wash it to the seas of Mana!'
Then they hastened onward, onward,
Hastened on through field and forest,
Over by-ways long untrodden,
Over unknown paths and snow-fields;
Here the hardy Lemminkainen,
Reckless hero, Kaukomieli,
Pulled the soft wool from the ledges,
Gathered lichens from the tree-trunks,
Wove them into magic stockings,
Wove them into shoes and mittens,
On the settles of the hoar-frost,
In the stinging cold of Northland.
Then he sought to find some pathway,
That would guide their wayward footsteps,
And the hero spake as follows:
'O thou Tiera, friend beloved,
Shall we reach our destination,
Wandering for days together,
Through these Northland fields and forests?
Kura thus replies to Ahti:
'We, alas! have come for vengeance,
Come for blood and retribution,
To the battle-fields of Northland,
To the dismal Sariola,
Here to leave our souls and bodies,
Here to starve, and freeze, and perish,
In the dreariest of places,
In this sun-forsaken country!
Never shall we gain the knowledge,
Never learn it, never tell it,
Which the pathway that can guide us
To the forest-beds to suffer,
To the Pohya-plains to perish,
In the home-land of the ravens,
Fitting food for crows and eagles.
Often do the Northland vultures
Hither come to feed their fledgelings;
Hither bring the birds of heaven
495
Bits of flesh and blood of heroes;
Often do the beaks of ravens
Tear the flesh of kindred corpses,
Often do the eagle's talons
Carry bones and trembling vitals,
Such as ours, to feed their nestlings,
In their rocky homes and ledges.
'Oh! my mother can but wonder,
Never can divine the answer,
Where her reckless son is roaming,
Where her hero's blood is flowing,
Whether in the swamps and lowlands
Whether in the heat of battle,
Or upon the waves of the ocean,
Or upon the hop-feld mountains,
Or along some forest by-way.
Nothing can her mind discover
Of the frailest of her heroes,
Only think that he has perished.
Thus the hoary-headed mother
Weeps and murmurs in her chambers:
'Where is now my son beloved,
In the kingdom of Manala?
Sow thy crops, thou dread Tuoni,
Harrow well the fields of Kalma!
Now the bow receives its respite
From the fingers of my Tiera;
Bow and arrow now are useless,
Now the merry birds can fatten
In the fields, and fens, and forests;
Bears may live in dens of freedom,
On the fields may sport the elk-herds.''
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Thus it is, mine aged mother,
Thou that gavest me existence!
Thou hast reared thy broods of chickens,
Hatched and reared thy flights of white-swans
All of them the winds have scattered,
Or the evil Lempo frightened;
One flew hither, and one thither,
And a third one, lost forever!
Think thou of our former pleasures,
496
Of our better days together,
When I wandered like the flowers,
Like the berry in the meadows.
Many saw my form majestic,
Many thought me well-proportioned.
Now is not as then with Ahti,
Into evil days have fallen,
Since I see but storms and darkness!
Then my eyes beheld but sunshine,
Then we did not weep and murmur,
Did not fill our hearts with sorrow,
When the maids in joy were singing,
When the virgins twined their tresses;
Then the women joined in joyance,
Whether brides were happy-wedded,
Whether bridegrooms choose discreetly,
Whether they were wise or unwise.
'But we must not grow disheartened,
Let the Island-maidens cheer us;
Here we are not yet enchanted,
Not bewitched by magic singing,
On the paths not left to perish,
Sink and perish on our journey.
Full of youth we should not suffer,
Strong, we should not die unworthy,
Whom the wizards have enchanted,
Have bewitched with songs of magic;
Sorcerers may charm and conquer,
Bury them within their dungeons,
Hide them spell-bound in their cabins.
Let the wizards charm each other,
And bewitch their magic offspring,
Bring their tribes to fell destruction.
Never did my gray-haired father
Bow submission to a wizard,
Offer worship to magicians.
These the words my father uttered,
These the thoughts his son advances:
'Guard us, thou O great Creator,
Shield us, thou O God of mercy,
With thine arms of grace protect us,
Help us with thy strength and wisdom,
497
Guide the minds of all thy heroes,
Keep aright the thoughts of women,
Keep the old from speaking evil,
Keep the young from sin and folly,
Be to us a help forever,
Be our Guardian and our Father,
That our children may not wander
From the ways of their Creator,
From the path that God has given!''
Then the hero Lemminkainen,
Made from cares the fleetest racers,
Sable racers from his sorrows,
Reins he made from days of evil,
From his sacred pains made saddles.
To the saddle, quickly springing,
Galloped he away from trouble,
To his dear and aged mother;
And his comrade, faithful Tiera,
Galloped to his Island-dwelling.
Now departs wild Lemminkainen,
Brave and reckless Kaukomieli,
From these ancient songs and legends;
Only guides his faithful Kura
To his waiting bride and kindred,
While these lays and incantations
Shall be turned to other heroes.
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
286:The Kalevala - Rune Xlii
CAPTURE OF THE SAMPO.
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
With the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
With the reckless son of Lempo,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,
On the sea's smooth plain departed,
On the far-extending waters,
To the village, cold and dreary,
To the never-pleasant Northland,
Where the heroes fall and perish.
Ilmarinen led the rowers
On one side the magic war-ship,
And the reckless Lemminkainen
Led the rowers on the other.
Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
Laid his hand upon the rudder,
Steered his vessel o'er the waters,
Through the foam and angry billows
To Pohyola's place of landing,
To the cylinders of copper,
Where the war-ships lie at anchor.
When they had arrived at Pohya,
When their journey they had ended,
On the land they rolled their vessel,
On the copper-banded rollers,
Straightway journeyed to the village,
Hastened to the halls and hamlets
Of the dismal Sariola.
Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
Thus addressed the stranger-heroes:
Magic heroes of Wainola,
What the tidings ye are bringing
To the people of my village?'
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel.
Gave this answer to the hostess:
'All the hosts of Kalevala
Are inquiring for the Sampo,
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Asking for the lid in colors;
Hither have these heroes journeyed
To divide the priceless treasure.
Thus the hostess spake in answer:
'No one would divide a partridge,
Nor a squirrel, with three heroes;
Wonderful the magic Sampo,
Plenty does it bring to Northland;
And the colored lid re-echoes
From the copper-bearing mountains,
From the stone-berg of Pohyola,
To the joy of its possessors.'
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Thus addressed the ancient Louhi:
'If thou wilt not share the Sampo,
Give to us an equal portion,
We will take it to Wainola,
With its lid of many colors,
Take by force the hope of Pohya.'
Thereupon the Northland hostess
Angry grew and sighed for vengeance;
Called her people into council,
Called the hosts of Sariola,
Heroes with their trusted broadswords,
To destroy old Wainamoinen
With his people of the Northland.
Wainamoinen, wise and ancient,
Hastened to his harp of fish-bone,
And began his magic playing;
All of Pohya stopped and listened,
Every warrior was silenced
By the notes of the magician;
Peaceful-minded grew the soldiers,
All the maidens danced with pleasure,
While the heroes fell to weeping,
And the young men looked in wonder.
Wainamoinen plays unceasing,
Plays the maidens into slumber,
Plays to sleep the young and aged,
All of Northland sleeps and listens.
Wise and wondrous Wainamoinen,
The eternal bard and singer,
193
Searches in his pouch of leather,
Draws therefrom his slumber-arrows,
Locks the eyelids of the sleepers,
Of the heroes of Pohyola,
Sings and charms to deeper slumber
All the warriors of the Northland.
Then the heroes of Wainola
Hasten to obtain the Sampo,
To procure the lid in colors
From the copper-bearing mountains.
From behind nine locks of copper,
In the stone-berg of Pohyola.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Then began his wondrous singing,
Sang in gentle tones of magic,
At the entrance to the mountain,
At the border of the stronghold;
Trembled all the rocky portals,
And the iron-banded pillars
Fell and crumbled at his singing.
Ilmarinen, magic blacksmith,
Well anointed all the hinges,
All the bars and locks anointed,
And the bolts flew back by magic,
All the gates unlocked in silence,
Opened for the great magician.
Spake the minstrel Wainamoinen:
'O thou daring Lemminkainen,
Friend of mine in times of trouble,
Enter thou within the mountain,
Bring away the wondrous Sampo,
Bring away the lid in colors!'
Quick the reckless Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,
Ever ready for a venture,
Hastens to the mountain-caverns,
There to find the famous Sampo,
There to get the lid in colors;
Strides along with conscious footsteps,
Thus himself he vainly praises:
'Great am I and full of glory,
Wonder-hero, son of Ukko,
194
I will bring away the Sampo,
Turn about the lid in colors,
Turn it on its magic hinges!'
Lemminkainen finds the wonder,
Finds the Sampo in the mountain,
Labors long with strength heroic,
Tugs with might and main to turn it;
Motionless remains the treasure,
Deeper sinks the lid in colors,
For the roots have grown about it,
Grown nine fathoms deep in sand-earth.
Lived a mighty ox in Northland,
Powerful in bone and sinew,
Beautiful in form and color,
Horns the length of seven fathoms,
Mouth and eyes of wondrous beauty.
Lemminkainen, reckless hero,
Harnesses the ox in pasture,
Takes the master-plow of Pohya,
Plows the roots about the Sampo,
Plows around the lid in colors,
And the sacred Sampo loosens,
Falls the colored lid in silence.
Straightway ancient Wainamoinen
Brings the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Brings the daring Lemminkainen,
Lastly brings the magic Sampo,
From the stone-berg of Pohyola,
From the copper-bearing mountain,
Hides it in his waiting vessel,
In the war-ship of Wainola.
Wainamoinen called his people,
Called his crew of men and maidens,
Called together all his heroes,
Rolled his vessel to the water,
Into billowy deeps and dangers.
Spake the blacksmith, Ilmarinen:
'Whither shall we take the Sampo,
Whither take the lid in colors,
From the stone-berg of Pohyola,
From this evil spot of Northland?'
Wainamoinen, wise and faithful,
195
Gave this answer to the question:
'Thither shall we take the Sampo,
Thither take the lid in colors,
To the fog-point on the waters,
To the island forest-covered;
There the treasure may be hidden,
May remain in peace for ages,
Free from trouble, free from danger,
Where the sword will not molest it.'
Then the minstrel, Wainamoinen,
Joyful, left the Pohya borders,
Homeward sailed, and happy-hearted,
Spake these measures on departing:
'Turn, O man-of-war, from Pohya,
Turn thy back upon the strangers,
Turn thou to my distant country!
Rock, O winds, my magic vessel,
Homeward drive my ship, O billows,
Lend the rowers your assistance,
Give the oarsmen easy labor,
On this vast expanse of waters!
Give me of thine oars, O Ahto,
Lend thine aid, O King of sea-waves,
Guide as with thy helm in safety,
Lay thy hand upon the rudder,
And direct our war-ship homeward;
Let the hooks of metal rattle
O'er the surging of the billows,
On the white-capped waves' commotion.'
Then the master, Wainamoinen,
Guided home his willing vessel;
And the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
With the lively Lemminkainen,
Led the mighty host of rowers,
And the war-ship glided homeward
O'er the sea's unruffled surface,
O'er the mighty waste of waters.
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Once before I rode these billows,
There were viands for the heroes,
There was singing for the maidens;
But to-day I hear no singing,
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Hear no songs upon the vessel,
Hear no music on the waters.'
Wainamoinen, wise and ancient,
Answered thus wild Lemminkainen:
'Let none sing upon the blue-sea,
On the waters, no rejoicing;
Singing would prolong our journey,
Songs disturb the host of rowers;
Soon will die the silver sunlight,
Darkness soon will overtake us,
On this evil waste of waters,
On this blue-sea, smooth and level.'
These the words of Lemminkainen:
'Time will fly on equal pinions
Whether we have songs or silence;
Soon will disappear the daylight,
And the night as quickly follow,
Whether we be sad or joyous.'
Wainamoinen, the magician,
O'er the blue backs of the billows,
Steered one day, and then a second,
Steered the third from morn till even,
When the wizard, Lemminkainen,
Once again addressed the master:
'Why wilt thou, O famous minstrel,
Sing no longer for thy people,
Since the Sampo thou hast captured,
Captured too the lid in colors?'
These the words of Wainamoinen:
''Tis not well to sing too early!
Time enough for songs of joyance
When we see our home-land mansions,
When our journeyings have ended!'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'At the helm, if I were sitting,
I would sing at morn and evening,
Though my voice has little sweetness;
Since thy songs are not forthcoming
Listen to my wondrous singing!'
Thereupon wild Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,
Raised his voice above the waters,
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O'er the sea his song resounded;
But his measures were discordant,
And his notes were harsh and frightful.
Sang the wizard, Lemminkainen,
Screeched the reckless Kaukomieli,
Till the mighty war-ship trembled;
Far and wide was heard his singing,
Heard his songs upon the waters,
Heard within the seventh village,
Heard beyond the seven oceans.
Sat a crane within the rushes,
On a hillock clothed in verdure,
And the crane his toes was counting;
Suddenly he heard the singing
Of the wizard, Lemminkainen;
And the bird was justly frightened
At the songs of the magician.
Then with horrid voice, and screeching,
Flew the crane across the broad-sea
To the lakes of Sariola,
O'er Pohyola's hills and hamlets,
Screeching, screaming, over Northland,
Till the people of the darkness
Were awakened from their slumbers.
Louhi hastens to her hurdles,
Hastens to her droves of cattle,
Hastens also to her garners,
Counts her herds, inspects her store-house;
Undisturbed she finds her treasures.
Quick she journeys to the entrance
To the copper-bearing mountain,
Speaks these words as she approaches:
'Woe is me, my life hard-fated,
Woe to Louhi, broken-hearted!
Here the tracks of the destroyers,
All my locks and bolts are broken
By the hands of cruel strangers!
Broken are my iron hinges,
Open stand the mountain-portals
Leading to the Northland-treasure.
Has Pohyola lost her Sampo?'
Then she hastened to the chambers
198
Where the Sampo had been grinding;
But she found the chambers empty,
Lid and Sampo gone to others,
From the stone-berg of Pohyola,
From behind nine locks of copper,
In the copper-bearing mountain.
Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
Angry grew and cried for vengeance;
As she found her fame departing,
Found her-strength fast disappearing,
Thus addressed the sea-fog virgin:
'Daughter of the morning-vapors,
Sift thy fogs from distant cloud-land,
Sift the thick air from the heavens,
Sift thy vapors from the ether,
On the blue-back of the broad-sea,
On the far extending waters,
That the ancient Wainamoinen,
Friend of ocean-wave and billow,
May not baffle his pursuers!
'Should this prayer prove unavailing,
Iku-Turso, son of Old-age,
Raise thy head above the billows,
And destroy Wainola's heroes,
Sink them to thy deep sea-castles,
There devour them at thy pleasure;
Bring thou back the golden Sampo
To the people of Pohyola!
'Should these words be ineffective,
Ukko, mightiest of rulers,
Golden king beyond the welkin,
Sitting on a throne of silver,
Fill thy skies with heavy storm-clouds,
Call thy fleetest winds about thee,
Send them o'er the seven broad-seas,
There to find the fleeing vessel,
That the ancient Wainamoinen
May not baffle his pursuers!'
Quick the virgin of the vapors
Breathed a fog upon the waters,
Made it settle on the war-ship
Of the, heroes of the Northland,
199
Held the minstrel, Wainamoinen,
Anchored in the fog and darkness;
Bound him one day, then a second,
Then a third till dawn of morning,
In the middle of the blue-sea,
Whence he could not flee in safety
From the wrath of his pursuers.
When the third night had departed,
Resting in the sea, and helpless,
Wainamoinen spake as follows,
'Not a man of strength and courage,
Not the weakest of the heroes,
Who upon the sea will suffer,
Sink and perish in the vapors,
Perish in the fog and darkness!'
With his sword he smote the billows,
From his magic blade flowed honey;
Quick the vapor breaks, and rises,
Leaves the waters clear for rowing;
Far extend the sky and waters,
Large the ring of the horizon,
And the troubled sea enlarges.
Time had journeyed little distance,
Scarce a moment had passed over,
When they heard a mighty roaring,
Heard a roaring and a rushing
Near the border of the vessel,
Where the foam was shooting skyward
O'er the boat of Wainamoinen.
Straightway youthful Ilmarinen
Sank in gravest apprehension,
From his cheeks the blood departed;
Pulled his cap down o'er his forehead,
Shook and trembled with emotion.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Casts his eyes upon the waters
Near the broad rim of his war-ship;
There perceives an ocean-wonder
With his head above the sea-foam.
Wainamoinen, brave and mighty,
Seizes quick the water-monster,
Lifts him by his ears and questions:
200
'Iku-Turso, son of Old-age,
Why art rising from the blue-sea?
Wherefore dost thou leave thy castle,
Show thyself to mighty heroes,
To the heroes of Wainola?'
Iku-Turso, son of Old-age,
Ocean monster, manifested
Neither pleasure, nor displeasure,
Was not in the least affrighted,
Did not give the hero answer.
Whereupon the ancient minstrel,
Asked the second time the monster,
Urgently inquired a third time:
'Iku-Turso, son of Old-age,
Why art rising from the waters,
Wherefore dost thou leave the blue-sea?
Iku-Turso gave this answer:
For this cause I left my castle
Underneath the rolling billows:
Came I here with the intention
To destroy the Kalew-heroes,
And return the magic Sampo
To the people of Pohyola.
If thou wilt restore my freedom,
Spare my life, from pain and sorrow,
I will quick retrace my journey,
Nevermore to show my visage
To the people of Wainola,
Never while the moonlight glimmers
On the hills of Kalevala!'
Then the singer, Wainamoinen,
Freed the monster, Iku-Turso,
Sent him to his deep sea-castles,
Spake these words to him departing:
'Iku-Turso, son of Old-age,
Nevermore arise from ocean,
Nevermore let Northland-heroes
See thy face above the waters I
Nevermore has Iku-Turso
Risen to the ocean-level;
Never since have Northland sailors
Seen the head of this sea-monster.
201
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Onward rowed his goodly vessel,
Journeyed but a little distance,
Scarce a moment had passed over,
When the King of all creators,
Mighty Ukko of the heavens,
Made the winds blow full of power,
Made the storms arise in fury,
Made them rage upon the waters.
From the west the winds came roaring,
From the north-east came in anger,
Winds came howling from the south-west,
Came the winds from all directions,
In their fury, rolling, roaring,
Tearing branches from the lindens,
Hurling needles from the pine-trees,
Blowing flowers from the heather,
Grasses blowing from the meadow,
Tearing up the very bottom
Of the deep and boundless blue-sea.
Roared the winds and lashed the waters
Till the waves were white with fury;
Tossed the war-ship high in ether,
Tossed away the harp of fish-bone,
Magic harp of Wainamoinen,
To the joy of King Wellamo,
To the pleasure of his people,
To the happiness of Ahto,
Ahto, rising from his caverns,
On the floods beheld his people
Carry off the harp of magic
To their home below the billows.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Heavy-hearted, spake these measures:
'I have lost what I created,
I have lost the harp of joyance;
Now my strength has gone to others,
All my pleasure too departed,
All my hope and comfort vanished!
Nevermore the harp of fish-bone
Will enchant the hosts of Suomi!'
Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
202
Sorrow-laden, spake as follows:
'Woe is me, my life hard-fated!
Would that I had never journeyed
On these waters filled with dangers,
On the rolling waste before me,
In this war-ship false and feeble.
Winds and storms have I encountered,
Wretched days of toil and trouble,
I have witnessed in the Northland;
Never have I met such dangers
On the land, nor on the ocean,
Never in my hero life-time!'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Spake and these the words he uttered:
'Weep no more, my goodly comrades,
In my bark let no one murmur;
Weeping cannot mend disaster,
Tears can never still misfortune,
Mourning cannot save from evil.
'Sea, command thy warring forces,
Bid thy children cease their fury!
Ahto, still thy surging billows!
Sink, Wellamo, to thy slumber,
That our boat may move in safety.
Rise, ye storm-winds, to your kingdoms,
Lift your heads above the waters,
To the regions of your kindred,
To your people and dominions;
Cut the trees within the forest,
Bend the lindens of the valley,
Let our vessel sail in safety!'
Then the reckless Lemminkainen,
Handsome wizard, Kaukomieli,
Spake these words in supplication:
'Come, O eagle, Turyalander,
Bring three feathers from thy pinions,
Three, O raven, three, O eagle,
To protect this bark from evil!'
All the heroes of Wainola
Call their forces to the rescue,
And repair the sinking vessel.
By the aid of master-magic,
203
Wainamoinen saved his war-ship,
Saved his people from destruction,
Well repaired his ship to battle
With the roughest seas of Northland;
Steers his mighty boat in safety
Through the perils of the whirlpool,
Through the watery deeps and dangers.
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
287:Ben Jonson Entertains A Man From Stratford
You are a friend then, as I make it out,
Of our man Shakespeare, who alone of us
Will put an ass’s head in Fairyland
As he would add a shilling to more shillings,
All most harmonious,—and out of his
Miraculous inviolable increase
Fills Ilion, Rome, or any town you like
Of olden time with timeless Englishmen;
And I must wonder what you think of him—
All you down there where your small Avon flows
By Stratford, and where you’re an Alderman.
Some, for a guess, would have him riding back
To be a farrier there, or say a dyer;
Or maybe one of your adept surveyors;
Or like enough the wizard of all tanners.
Not you—no fear of that; for I discern
In you a kindling of the flame that saves—
The nimble element, the true caloric;
I see it, and was told of it, moreover,
By our discriminate friend himself, no other.
Had you been one of the sad average,
As he would have it,—meaning, as I take it,
The sinew and the solvent of our Island,
You’d not be buying beer for this Terpander’s
Approved and estimated friend Ben Jonson;
He’d never foist it as a part of his
Contingent entertainment of a townsman
While he goes off rehearsing, as he must,
If he shall ever be the Duke of Stratford.
And my words are no shadow on your town—
Far from it; for one town’s as like another
As all are unlike London. Oh, he knows it,—
And there’s the Stratford in him; he denies it,
And there’s the Shakespeare in him. So, God help him!
I tell him he needs Greek; but neither God
Nor Greek will help him. Nothing will help that man.
You see the fates have given him so much,
He must have all or perish,—or look out
Of London, where he sees too many lords.
59
They’re part of half what ails him: I suppose
There’s nothing fouler down among the demons
Than what it is he feels when he remembers
The dust and sweat and ointment of his calling
With his lords looking on and laughing at him.
King as he is, he can’t be king de facto,
And that’s as well, because he wouldn’t like it;
He’d frame a lower rating of men then
Than he has now; and after that would come
An abdication or an apoplexy.
He can’t be king, not even king of Stratford,—
Though half the world, if not the whole of it,
May crown him with a crown that fits no king
Save Lord Apollo’s homesick emissary:
Not there on Avon, or on any stream
Where Naiads and their white arms are no more,
Shall he find home again. It’s all too bad.
But there’s a comfort, for he’ll have that House—
The best you ever saw; and he’ll be there
Anon, as you’re an Alderman. Good God!
He makes me lie awake o’nights and laugh.
And you have known him from his origin,
You tell me; and a most uncommon urchin
He must have been to the few seeing ones—
A trifle terrifying, I dare say,
Discovering a world with his man’s eyes,
Quite as another lad might see some finches,
If he looked hard and had an eye for nature.
But this one had his eyes and their foretelling,
And he had you to fare with, and what else?
He must have had a father and a mother—
In fact I’ve heard him say so—and a dog,
As a boy should, I venture; and the dog,
Most likely, was the only man who knew him.
A dog, for all I know, is what he needs
As much as anything right here to-day,
To counsel him about his disillusions,
Old aches, and parturitions of what’s coming,—
A dog of orders, an emeritus,
To wag his tail at him when he comes home,
And then to put his paws up on his knees
60
And say, “For God’s sake, what’s it all about?”
I don’t know whether he needs a dog or not—
Or what he needs. I tell him he needs Greek;
I’ll talk of rules and Aristotle with him,
And if his tongue’s at home he’ll say to that,
“I have your word that Aristotle knows,
And you mine that I don’t know Aristotle.”
He’s all at odds with all the unities,
And what’s yet worse, it doesn’t seem to matter;
He treads along through Time’s old wilderness
As if the tramp of all the centuries
Had left no roads—and there are none, for him;
He doesn’t see them, even with those eyes,—
And that’s a pity, or I say it is.
Accordingly we have him as we have him—
Going his way, the way that he goes best,
A pleasant animal with no great noise
Or nonsense anywhere to set him off—
Save only divers and inclement devils
Have made of late his heart their dwelling place.
A flame half ready to fly out sometimes
At some annoyance may be fanned up in him,
But soon it falls, and when it falls goes out;
He knows how little room there is in there
For crude and futile animosities,
And how much for the joy of being whole,
And how much for long sorrow and old pain.
On our side there are some who may be given
To grow old wondering what he thinks of us
And some above us, who are, in his eyes,
Above himself,—and that’s quite right and English.
Yet here we smile, or disappoint the gods
Who made it so: the gods have always eyes
To see men scratch; and they see one down here
Who itches, manor-bitten to the bone,
Albeit he knows himself—yes, yes, he knows—
The lord of more than England and of more
Than all the seas of England in all time
Shall ever wash. D’ye wonder that I laugh?
He sees me, and he doesn’t seem to care;
And why the devil should he? I can’t tell you.
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I’ll meet him out alone of a bright Sunday,
Trim, rather spruce, and quite the gentleman.
“What ho, my lord!” say I. He doesn’t hear me;
Wherefore I have to pause and look at him.
He’s not enormous, but one looks at him.
A little on the round if you insist,
For now, God save the mark, he’s growing old;
He’s five and forty, and to hear him talk
These days you’d call him eighty; then you’d add
More years to that. He’s old enough to be
The father of a world, and so he is.
“Ben, you’re a scholar, what’s the time of day?”
Says he; and there shines out of him again
An aged light that has no age or station—
The mystery that’s his—a mischievous
Half-mad serenity that laughs at fame
For being won so easy, and at friends
Who laugh at him for what he wants the most,
And for his dukedom down in Warwickshire;—
By which you see we’re all a little jealous.…
Poor Greene! I fear the color of his name
Was even as that of his ascending soul;
And he was one where there are many others,—
Some scrivening to the end against their fate,
Their puppets all in ink and all to die there;
And some with hands that once would shade an eye
That scanned Euripides and Æschylus
Will reach by this time for a pot-house mop
To slush their first and last of royalties.
Poor devils! and they all play to his hand;
For so it was in Athens and old Rome.
But that’s not here or there; I’ve wandered off.
Greene does it, or I’m careful. Where’s that boy?
Yes, he’ll go back to Stratford. And we’ll miss him?
Dear sir, there’ll be no London here without him.
We’ll all be riding, one of these fine days,
Down there to see him—and his wife won’t like us;
And then we’ll think of what he never said
Of women—which, if taken all in all
With what he did say, would buy many horses.
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Though nowadays he’s not so much for women:
“So few of them,” he says, “are worth the guessing.”
But there’s a worm at work when he says that,
And while he says it one feels in the air
A deal of circumambient hocus-pocus.
They’ve had him dancing till his toes were tender,
And he can feel ’em now, come chilly rains.
There’s no long cry for going into it,
However, and we don’t know much about it.
But you in Stratford, like most here in London,
Have more now in the Sonnets than you paid for;
He’s put one there with all her poison on,
To make a singing fiction of a shadow
That’s in his life a fact, and always will be.
But she’s no care of ours, though Time, I fear,
Will have a more reverberant ado
About her than about another one
Who seems to have decoyed him, married him,
And sent him scuttling on his way to London,—
With much already learned, and more to learn,
And more to follow. Lord! how I see him now,
Pretending, maybe trying, to be like us.
Whatever he may have meant, we never had him;
He failed us, or escaped, or what you will,—
And there was that about him (God knows what,—
We’d flayed another had he tried it on us)
That made as many of us as had wits
More fond of all his easy distances
Than one another’s noise and clap-your-shoulder.
But think you not, my friend, he’d never talk!
Talk? He was eldritch at it; and we listened—
Thereby acquiring much we knew before
About ourselves, and hitherto had held
Irrelevant, or not prime to the purpose.
And there were some, of course, and there be now,
Disordered and reduced amazedly
To resignation by the mystic seal
Of young finality the gods had laid
On everything that made him a young demon;
And one or two shot looks at him already
As he had been their executioner;
And once or twice he was, not knowing it,—
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Or knowing, being sorry for poor clay
And saying nothing.… Yet, for all his engines,
You’ll meet a thousand of an afternoon
Who strut and sun themselves and see around ’em
A world made out of more that has a reason
Than his, I swear, that he sees here to-day;
Though he may scarcely give a Fool an exit
But we mark how he sees in everything
A law that, given we flout it once too often,
Brings fire and iron down on our naked heads.
To me it looks as if the power that made him,
For fear of giving all things to one creature,
Left out the first,—faith, innocence, illusion,
Whatever ’tis that keeps us out o’ Bedlam,—
And thereby, for his too consuming vision,
Empowered him out of nature; though to see him,
You’d never guess what’s going on inside him.
He’ll break out some day like a keg of ale
With too much independent frenzy in it;
And all for cellaring what he knows won’t keep,
And what he’d best forget—but that he can’t.
You’ll have it, and have more than I’m foretelling;
And there’ll be such a roaring at the Globe
As never stunned the bleeding gladiators.
He’ll have to change the color of its hair
A bit, for now he calls it Cleopatra.
Black hair would never do for Cleopatra.
But you and I are not yet two old women,
And you’re a man of office. What he does
Is more to you than how it is he does it,—
And that’s what the Lord God has never told him.
They work together, and the Devil helps ’em;
They do it of a morning, or if not,
They do it of a night; in which event
He’s peevish of a morning. He seems old;
He’s not the proper stomach or the sleep—
And they’re two sovran agents to conserve him
Against the fiery art that has no mercy
But what’s in that prodigious grand new House.
I gather something happening in his boyhood
Fulfilled him with a boy’s determination
To make all Stratford ’ware of him. Well, well,
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I hope at last he’ll have his joy of it,
And all his pigs and sheep and bellowing beeves,
And frogs and owls and unicorns, moreover,
Be less than hell to his attendant ears.
Oh, past a doubt we’ll all go down to see him.
He may be wise. With London two days off,
Down there some wind of heaven may yet revive him;
But there’s no quickening breath from anywhere
Small make of him again the poised young faun
From Warwickshire, who’d made, it seems, already
A legend of himself before I came
To blink before the last of his first lightning.
Whatever there be, there’ll be no more of that;
The coming on of his old monster Time
Has made him a still man; and he has dreams
Were fair to think on once, and all found hollow.
He knows how much of what men paint themselves
Would blister in the light of what they are;
He sees how much of what was great now shares
An eminence transformed and ordinary;
He knows too much of what the world has hushed
In others, to be loud now for himself;
He knows now at what height low enemies
May reach his heart, and high friends let him fall;
But what not even such as he may know
Bedevils him the worst: his lark may sing
At heaven’s gate how he will, and for as long
As joy may listen, but he sees no gate,
Save one whereat the spent clay waits a little
Before the churchyard has it, and the worm.
Not long ago, late in an afternoon,
I came on him unseen down Lambeth way,
And on my life I was afear’d of him:
He gloomed and mumbled like a soul from Tophet,
His hands behind him and his head bent solemn.
“What is it now,” said I,—“another woman?”
That made him sorry for me, and he smiled.
“No, Ben,” he mused; “it’s Nothing. It’s all Nothing.
We come, we go; and when we’re done, we’re done;
Spiders and flies—we’re mostly one or t’other—
We come, we go; and when we’re done, we’re done;
65
“By God, you sing that song as if you knew it!”
Said I, by way of cheering him; “what ails ye?”
“I think I must have come down here to think,”
Says he to that, and pulls his little beard;
“Your fly will serve as well as anybody,
And what’s his hour? He flies, and flies, and flies,
And in his fly’s mind has a brave appearance;
And then your spider gets him in her net,
And eats him out, and hangs him up to dry.
That’s Nature, the kind mother of us all.
And then your slattern housemaid swings her broom,
And where’s your spider? And that’s Nature, also.
It’s Nature, and it’s Nothing. It’s all Nothing.
It’s all a world where bugs and emperors
Go singularly back to the same dust,
Each in his time; and the old, ordered stars
That sang together, Ben, will sing the same
Old stave tomorrow.”
When he talks like that,
There’s nothing for a human man to do
But lead him to some grateful nook like this
Where we be now, and there to make him drink.
He’ll drink, for love of me, and then be sick;
A sad sign always in a man of parts,
And always very ominous. The great
Should be as large in liquor as in love,—
And our great friend is not so large in either:
One disaffects him, and the other fails him;
Whatso he drinks that has an antic in it,
He’s wondering what’s to pay in his insides;
And while his eyes are on the Cyprian
He’s fribbling all the time with that damned House.
We laugh here at his thrift, but after all
It may be thrift that saves him from the devil;
God gave it, anyhow,—and we’ll suppose
He knew the compound of his handiwork.
Today the clouds are with him, but anon
He’ll out of ’em enough to shake the tree
Of life itself and bring down fruit unheard-of,—
And, throwing in the bruised and whole together,
Prepare a wine to make us drunk with wonder;
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And if he live, there’ll be a sunset spell
Thrown over him as over a glassed lake
That yesterday was all a black wild water.
God send he live to give us, if no more,
What now’s a-rampage in him, and exhibit,
With a decent half-allegiance to the ages
An earnest of at least a casual eye
Turned once on what he owes to Gutenberg,
And to the fealty of more centuries
Than are as yet a picture in our vision.
“There’s time enough,—I’ll do it when I’m old,
And we’re immortal men,” he says to that;
And then he says to me, “Ben, what’s ‘immortal’?
Think you by any force of ordination
It may be nothing of a sort more noisy
Than a small oblivion of component ashes
That of a dream-addicted world was once
A moving atomy much like your friend here?”
Nothing will help that man. To make him laugh,
I said then he was a mad mountebank,—
And by the Lord I nearer made him cry.
I could have eat an eft then, on my knees,
Tail, claws, and all of him; for I had stung
The king of men, who had no sting for me,
And I had hurt him in his memories;
And I say now, as I shall say again,
I love the man this side idolatry.
He’ll do it when he’s old, he says. I wonder.
He may not be so ancient as all that.
For such as he, the thing that is to do
Will do itself,—but there’s a reckoning;
The sessions that are now too much his own,
The roiling inward of a stilled outside,
The churning out of all those blood-fed lines,
The nights of many schemes and little sleep,
The full brain hammered hot with too much thinking,
The vexed heart over-worn with too much aching,—
This weary jangling of conjoined affairs
Made out of elements that have no end,
And all confused at once, I understand,
67
Is not what makes a man to live forever.
O no, not now! He’ll not be going now:
There’ll be time yet for God knows what explosions
Before he goes. He’ll stay awhile. Just wait:
Just wait a year or two for Cleopatra,
For she’s to be a balsam and a comfort;
And that’s not all a jape of mine now, either.
For granted once the old way of Apollo
Sings in a man, he may then, if he’s able,
Strike unafraid whatever strings he will
Upon the last and wildest of new lyres;
Nor out of his new magic, though it hymn
The shrieks of dungeoned hell, shall he create
A madness or a gloom to shut quite out
A cleaving daylight, and a last great calm
Triumphant over shipwreck and all storms.
He might have given Aristotle creeps,
But surely would have given him his katharsis.
He’ll not be going yet. There’s too much yet
Unsung within the man. But when he goes,
I’d stake ye coin o’ the realm his only care
For a phantom world he sounded and found wanting
Will be a portion here, a portion there,
Of this or that thing or some other thing
That has a patent and intrinsical
Equivalence in those egregious shillings.
And yet he knows, God help him! Tell me, now,
If ever there was anything let loose
On earth by gods or devils heretofore
Like this mad, careful, proud, indifferent Shakespeare!
Where was it, if it ever was? By heaven,
’Twas never yet in Rhodes or Pergamon—
In Thebes or Nineveh, a thing like this!
No thing like this was ever out of England;
And that he knows. I wonder if he cares.
Perhaps he does.… O Lord, that House in Stratford!
~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,#NFDB
288:The Kalevala - Rune Xii
KYLLIKKI'S BROKEN VOW.
Lemminkainen, artful husband,
Reckless hero, Kaukomieli,
Constantly beside his young wife.,
Passed his life in sweet contentment,
And the years rolled swiftly onward;
Ahti thought not of the battles,
Nor Kyllikki of the dances.
Once upon a time it happened
That the hero, Lemminkainen,
Went upon the lake a-fishing,
Was not home at early evening,
As the cruel night descended;
To the village went Kyllikki,
To the dance of merry maidens.
Who will tell the evil story,
Who will bear the information
To the husband, Lemminkainen?
Ahti's sister tells the story,
And the sister's name, Ainikki.
Soon she spreads the cruel tidings,
Straightway gives the information,
Of Kyllikki's perjured honor,
These the words Ainikki utters:
'Ahti, my beloved brother,
To the village went Kyllikki,
To the hall of many strangers,
To the plays and village dances,
With the young men and the maidens,
With the maids of braided tresses,
To the halls of joy and pleasure.'
Lemminkainen, much dejected,
Broken-hearted, flushed with anger,
Spake these words in measured accents:
'Mother dear, my gray-haired mother,
Wilt thou straightway wash my linen
In the blood of poison-serpents,
139
In the black blood of the adder?
I must hasten to the combat,
To the camp-fires of the Northland,
To the battle-fields of Lapland;
To the village went Kyllikki,
To the play of merry maidens,
To the games and village dances,
With the maids of braided tresses.'
Straightway speaks the wife, Kyllikki:
'My beloved husband, Ahti,
Do not go to war, I pray thee.
In the evening I lay sleeping,
Slumbering I saw in dream-land
Fire upshooting from the chimney,
Flames arising, mounting skyward,
From the windows of this dwelling,
From the summits of these rafters,
Piercing through our upper chambers,
Roaring like the fall of waters,
Leaping from the floor and ceiling,
Darting from the halls and doorways.'
But the doubting Lemminkainen
Makes this answer to Kyllikki:
'I discredit dreams or women,
Have no faith in vows of maidens!
Faithful mother of my being,
Hither bring my mail of copper;
Strong desire is stirring in me
For the cup of deadly combat,
For the mead of martial conquest.'
This the pleading mother's answer:
'Lemminkainen, son beloved,
Do not go to war I pray thee;
We have foaming beer abundant,
In our vessels beer of barley,
Held in casks by oaken spigots;
Drink this beer of peace and pleasure,
Let us drink of it together.'
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'I shall taste no more the viands,
In the home of false Kyllikki;
Rather would I drink the water
140
From the painted tips of birch-oars;
Sweeter far to me the water,
Than the beverage of dishonor,
At my mother's home and fireside!
'Hither bring my martial doublet,
Bring me now the sword of battle,
Bring my father's sword of honor;
I must go to upper Northland,
To the battle-fields of Lapland,
There to win me gold and silver.'
This the anxious mother's answer:
'My beloved Kaukomieli,
We have gold in great abundance,
Gold and silver in the store-room;
Recently upon the uplands,
In the early hours of morning,
Toiled the workmen in the corn-fields,
Plowed the meadows filled with serpents,
When the plowshare raised the cover
From a chest of gold and silver,
Countless was the gold uncovered,
Hid beneath the grassy meadow;
This the treasure I have brought thee,
Take the countless gold in welcome.'
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'Do not wish thy household silver,
From the wars I'll earn my silver;
Gold and silver from the combat
Are to me of greater value
Than the wealth thou hast discovered.
Bring me now my heavy armor,
Bring me too my spear and broadsword;
To the Northland I must hasten,
To the bloody wars of Lapland,
Thither does my pride impel me,
Thitherward my heart is turning.
'I have heard a tale of Lapland,
Some believe the wondrous story,
That a maid in Pimentola
Lives that does not care for suitors,
Does not care for bearded heroes.'
This the aged mother's answer:
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'Warlike Athi, son beloved,
In thy home thou hast Kyllikki,
Fairest wife of all the islands;
Strange to see two wives abiding
In the home of but one husband.'
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'To the village runs Kyllikki;
Let her run to village dances,
Let her sleep in other dwellings,
With the village youth find pleasure,
With the maids of braided tresses.'
Seeks the mother to detain him,
Thus the anxious mother answers:
'Do not go, my son beloved,
Ignorant of Pohya-witchcraft,
To the distant homes of Northland
Till thou hast the art of magic,
Till thou hast some little wisdom
Do not go to fields of battle,
To the fires of Northland's children,
To the slaughter-fields of Lapland,
Till of magic thou art master.
There the Lapland maids will charm thee,
Turyalanders will bewitch thee,
Sing thy visage into charcoal,
Head and shoulders to the furnace,
Into ashes sing thy fore-arm,
Into fire direct thy footsteps.'
Spake the warlike Lemminkainen:
Wizards often have bewitched me,
And the fascinating serpents;
Lapland wizards, three in number,
On an eve in time of summer,
Sitting on a rock at twilight,
Not a garment to protect them,
Once bewitched me with their magic;
This much they have taken from me,
This the sum of all my losses:
What the hatchet gains from flint-stone,
What the auger bores from granite,
What the heel chips from the iceberg,
And what death purloins from tomb-stones.
142
'Horribly the wizards threatened,
Tried to sink me with their magic,
In the water of the marshes,
In the mud and treacherous quicksand,
To my chin in mire and water;
But I too was born a hero,
Born a hero and magician,
Was not troubled by their magic.
'Straightway I began my singing,
Sang the archers with their arrows,
Sang the spearmen with their weapons,
Sang the swordsmen with their poniards,
Sang the singers with their singing,
The enchanters with their magic,
To the rapids of the rivers,
To the highest fall of waters,
To the all-devouring whirlpool,
To the deepest depths of ocean,
Where the wizards still are sleeping,
Sleeping till the grass shoots upward
Through the beards and wrinkled faces,
Through the locks of the enchanters,
As they sleep beneath the billows.'
Still entreats the anxious mother,
Still beseeches Lemminkainen,
Trying to restrain the hero,
While Kyllikki begs forgiveness;
This the language of the mother:
'Do not go, my son beloved,
To the villages of Northland,
Nor to Lapland's frigid borders;
Dire misfortune will befall thee,
Star of evil settle o'er thee,
Lemminkainen's end, destruction.
'Couldst thou speak in tongues a hundred,
I could not believe thee able,
Through the magic of thy singing,
To enchant the sons of Lapland
To the bottom of the ocean,
Dost not know the Tury-language,
Canst but speak the tongue of Suomi,
Canst not win by witless magic.'
143
Lemminkainen, reckless hero,
Also known as Kaukomieli,
Stood beside his mother, combing
Out his sable locks and musing,
Brushing down his beard, debating,
Steadfast still in his decision,
Quickly hurls his brush in anger,
Hurls it to the wall opposing,
Gives his mother final answer,
These the words that Ahti uses:
'Dire misfortune will befall me,
Some sad fate will overtake me,
Evil come to Lemminkainen,
When the blood flows from that hair-brush,
When blood oozes from those bristles.'
Thus the warlike Lemminkainen
Goes to never-pleasant Lapland,
Heeding not his mother's warning,
Heeding not her prohibition.
Thus the hero, Kaukomieli,
Quick equips himself for warfare,
On his head a copper helmet,
On his shoulders caps of copper,
On his body iron armor,
Steel, the belt around his body;
As he girds himself for battle,
Ahti thus soliloquizing:
'Strong the hero in his armor,
Strong indeed in copper helmet,
Powerful in mail of iron,
Stronger far than any hero
On the dismal shores of Lapland,
Need not fear their wise enchanters,
Need not fear their strongest foemen,
Need not fear a war with wizards.'
Grasped he then the sword of battle,
Firmly grasped the heavy broadsword
That Tuoni had been grinding,
That the gods had brightly burnished,
Thrust it in the leathern scabbard,
Tied the scabbard to his armor.
How do heroes guard from danger,
144
Where protect themselves from evil?
Heroes guard their homes and firesides,
Guard their doors, and roofs, and windows,
Guard the posts that bold the torch-lights,
Guard the highways to the court-yard,
Guard the ends of all the gate-ways.
Heroes guard themselves from women,
Carefully from merry maidens;
If in this their strength be wanting,
Easy fall the heroes, victims
To the snares of the enchanters.
Furthermore are heroes watchful
Of the tribes of warlike giants,
Where the highway doubly branches,
On the borders of the blue-rock,
On the marshes filled with evil,
Near the mighty fall of waters,
Near the circling of the whirlpool,
Near the fiery springs and rapids.
Spake the stout-heart, Lemminkainen:
'Rise ye heroes of the broadsword,
Ye, the earth's eternal heroes,
From the deeps, ye sickle-bearers,
From the brooks, ye crossbow-shooters,
Come, thou forest, with thine archers,
Come, ye thickets, with your armies,
Mountain spirits, with your powers,
Come, fell Hisi, with thy horrors,
Water-mother, with thy dangers,
Come, Wellamo, with thy mermaids,
Come, ye maidens from the valleys,
Come, ye nymphs from winding rivers,
Be protection to this hero,
Be his day-and-night companions,
Body-guard to Lemminkainen,
Thus to blunt the spears of wizards,
Thus to dull their pointed arrows,
That the spears of the enchanters,
That the arrows of the archers,
That the weapons of the foemen,
May not harm this bearded hero.
'Should this force be insufficient,
145
I can call on other powers,
I can call the gods above me,
Call the great god of the heavens,
Him who gives the clouds their courses,
Him who rules through boundless ether,
Who directs the march of storm-winds.
'Ukko, thou O God above me,
Thou the father of creation,
Thou that speakest through the thunder,
Thou whose weapon is the lightning,
Thou whose voice is borne by ether,
Grant me now thy mighty fire-sword,
Give me here thy burning arrows,
Lightning arrows for my quiver,
Thus protect me from all danger,
Guard me from the wiles of witches,
Guide my feet from every evil,
Help me conquer the enchanters,
Help me drive them from the Northland;
Those that stand in front of battle,
Those that fill the ranks behind me,
Those around me, those above me,
Those beneath me, help me banish,.
With their knives, and swords, and cross-bows,
With their spears of keenest temper,
With their tongues of evil magic;
Help me drive these Lapland wizards
To the deepest depths of ocean,
There to wrestle with Wellamo.'
Then the reckless Lemminkainen
Whistled loudly for his stallion,
Called the racer from the hurdles,
Called his brown steed from the pasture,
Threw the harness on the courser,
Hitched the fleet-foot to the snow-sledge,
Leaped upon the highest cross-bench,
Cracked his whip above the racer,
And the steed flies onward swiftly,
Bounds the sleigh upon its journey,
And the golden plain re-echoes;
Travels one day, then a second,
Travels all the next day northward,
146
Till the third day evening brings him
To a sorry Northland village,
On the dismal shores of Lapland.
Here the hero, Lemminkainen,
Drove along the lowest highway,
Through the streets along the border,
To a court-yard in the hamlet,
Asked one standing in the doorway:
'Is there one within this dwelling,
That can loose my stallion's breastplate,
That can lift his heavy collar,
That these shafts can rightly lower?'
On the floor a babe was playing,
And the young child gave this answer:
'There is no one in this dwelling
That can loose thy stallion's breastplate,
That can lift his heavy collar,
That the shafts can rightly lower.'
Lemminkainen, not discouraged,
Whips his racer to a gallop,
Rushes forward through the village,
On the middle of the highways,
To the court-yard in the centre,
Asks one standing in the threshold,
Leaning on the penthouse door-posts:
'Is there any one here dwelling
That can slip my stallion's bridle,
That can loose his leathern breast-straps,
That can tend my royal racer?'
From the fire-place spake a wizard,
From her bench the witch made answer:
'Thou canst find one in this dwelling,
That can slip thy courser's bridle,
That can loose his heavy breastplate,
That can tend thy royal racer.
There are here a thousand heroes
That can make thee hasten homeward,
That can give thee fleet-foot stallions,
That can chase thee to thy country,
Reckless rascal and magician,
To thy home and fellow minstrels,
To the uplands of thy father,
147
To the cabins of thy mother,
To the work-bench of thy brother,
To the dairy or thy sister,
Ere the evening star has risen,
Ere the sun retires to slumber.'
Lemminkainen, little fearing,
Gives this answer to the wizard:
'I should slay thee for thy pertness,
That thy clatter might be silenced.'
Then he whipped his fiery charger,
And the steed flew onward swiftly,
On the upper of the highways,
To the court-yard on the summit.
When the reckless Lemminkainen
Had approached the upper court-yard,
Uttered he the words that follow:
'O thou Hisi, stuff this watch-dog,
Lempo, stuff his throat and nostrils,
Close the mouth of this wild barker,
Bridle well the vicious canine,
That the watcher may be silent
While the hero passes by him.'
Then he stepped within the court-room,
With his whip he struck the flooring,
From the floor arose a vapor,
In the fog appeared a pigmy,
Who unhitched the royal racer,
From his back removed the harness,
Gave the weary steed attention.
Then the hero, Lemminkainen,
Carefully advanced and listened.
No one saw the strange magician,
No one heard his cautious footsteps;
Heard he songs within the dwelling,
Through the moss-stuffed chinks heard voices.
Through the walls he beard them singing,
Through the doors the peals of laughter.
Then he spied within the court-rooms,
Lurking slyly in the hall-ways,
Found the court-rooms filled with singers,
By the walls were players seated,
Near the doors the wise men hovered,
148
Skilful ones upon the benches,
Near the fires the wicked wizards;
All were singing songs of Lapland,
Singing songs of evil Hisi.
Now the minstrel, Lemminkainen,
Changes both his form and stature,
Passes through the inner door-ways,
Enters he the spacious court-hall,
And these words the hero utters:
'Fine the singing quickly ending,
Good the song that quickly ceases;
Better far to keep thy wisdom
Than to sing it on the house-tops.'
Comes the hostess of Pohyola,
Fleetly rushing through the door-way,
To the centre of the court-room,
And addresses thus the stranger:
Formerly a dog lay watching,
Was a cur of iron-color,
Fond of flesh, a bone-devourer,
Loved to lick the blood of strangers.
Who then art thou of the heroes,
Who of all the host of heroes,
That thou art within my court-rooms,
That thou comest to my dwelling,
Was not seen without my portals,
Was not scented by my watch-dogs?
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Do not think that I come hither
Having neither wit nor wisdom,
Having neither art nor power,
Wanting in ancestral knowledge,
Lacking prudence of the fathers,
That thy watch-dogs may devour me.
'My devoted mother washed me,
When a frail and tender baby,
Three times in the nights of summer,
Nine times in the nights of autumn,
That upon my journeys northward
I might sing the ancient wisdom,
Thus protect myself from danger;
When at home I sing as wisely
149
As the minstrels of thy hamlet.'
Then the singer, Lemminkainen,
Ancient hero, Kaukomieli,
Quick began his incantations,
Straightway sang the songs of witchcraft,
From his fur-robe darts the lightning,
Flames outshooting from his eye-balls,
From the magic of his singing
From his wonderful enchantment.
Sang the very best of singers
To the very worst of minstrels,
Filled their mouths with dust and ashes,
Piled the rocks upon their shoulders,
Stilled the best of Lapland witches,
Stilled the sorcerers and wizards.
Then he banished all their heroes,
Banished all their proudest minstrels,
This one hither, that one thither,
To the lowlands poor in verdure,
To the unproductive uplands,
To the oceans wanting whiting,
To the waterfalls of Rutya,
To the whirlpool hot and flaming,
To the waters decked with sea-foam,
Into fires and boiling waters,
Into everlasting torment.
Then the hero, Lemminkainen,
Sang the foemen with their broadswords?
Sang the heroes with their weapons,
Sang the eldest, sang the youngest,
Sang the middle-aged, enchanted;
Only one he left his senses,
He a poor, defenseless shepherd,
Old and sightless, halt and wretched,
And the old man's name was Nasshut.
Spake the miserable shepherd:
'Thou hast old and young enchanted,
Thou hast banished all our heroes,
Why hast spared this wretched shepherd?'
This is Lemminkainen's answer:
'Therefore have I not bewitched thee:
Thou art old, and blind, and wretched
150
Feeble-minded thou, and harmless,
Loathsome now without my magic.
Thou didst, in thy better life-time,
When a shepherd filled with malice,
Ruin all thy mother's berries,
Make thy sister, too unworthy,
Ruin all thy brother's cattle,
Drive to death thy father's stallions,
Through the marshes, o'er the meadows,
Through the lowlands, o'er the mountains,
Heeding not thy mother's counsel.'
Thereupon the wretched Nasshut,
Angry grew and swore for vengeance,
Straightway limping through the door-way,
Hobbled on beyond the court-yard,
O'er the meadow-lands and pastures,
To the river of the death-land,
To the holy stream and whirlpool,
To the kingdom of Tuoni,
To the islands of Manala;
Waited there for Kaukomieli,
Listened long for Lemminkainen,
Thinking he must pass this river
On his journey to his country,
On. the highway to the islands,
From the upper shores of Pohya,
From the dreary Sariola.
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
289:The Kalevala - Rune L
MARIATTA--WAINAMOINEN'S DEPARTURE.
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Grew to maidenhood in Northland,
In the cabin of her father,
In the chambers of her mother,
Golden ringlets, silver girdles,
Worn against the keys paternal,
Glittering upon her bosom;
Wore away the father's threshold
With the long robes of her garments;
Wore away the painted rafters
With her beauteous silken ribbons;
Wore away the gilded pillars
With the touching of her fingers;
Wore away the birchen flooring
With the tramping of her fur-shoes.
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Magic maid of little stature,
Guarded well her sacred virtue,
Her sincerity and honor,
Fed upon the dainty whiting,
On the inner bark of birch-wood,
On the tender flesh of lambkins.
When she hastened in the evening
To her milking in the hurdles,
Spake in innocence as follows:
'Never will the snow-white virgin
Milk the kine of one unworthy!'
When she journeyed over snow-fields,
On the seat beside her father,
Spake in purity as follows:
'Not behind a steed unworthy
Will I ever ride the snow-sledge!'
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Lived a virgin with her mother,
As a maiden highly honored,
Lived in innocence and beauty,
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Daily drove her flocks to pasture,
Walking with the gentle lambkins.
When the lambkins climbed the mountains,
When they gamboled on the hill-tops,
Stepped the virgin to the meadow,
Skipping through a grove of lindens,
At the calling of the cuckoo,
To the songster's golden measures.
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Looked about, intently listened,
Sat upon the berry-meadow
Sat awhile, and meditated
On a hillock by the forest,
And soliloquized as follows:
'Call to me, thou golden cuckoo,
Sing, thou sacred bird of Northland,
Sing, thou silver breasted songster,
Speak, thou strawberry of Ehstland,
Tell bow long must I unmarried,
As a shepherdess neglected,
Wander o'er these bills and mountains,
Through these flowery fens and fallows.
Tell me, cuckoo of the woodlands,
Sing to me how many summers
I must live without a husband,
As a shepherdess neglected!'
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Lived a shepherd-maid for ages,
As a virgin with her mother.
Wretched are the lives of shepherds,
Lives of maidens still more wretched,
Guarding flocks upon the mountains;
Serpents creep in bog and stubble,
On the greensward dart the lizards;
But it was no serpent singing,
Nor a sacred lizard calling,
It was but the mountain-berry
Calling to the lonely maiden:
'Come, O virgin, come and pluck me,
Come and take me to thy bosom,
Take me, tinsel-breasted virgin,
Take me, maiden, copper-belted,
69
Ere the slimy snail devours me,
Ere the black-worm feeds upon me.
Hundreds pass my way unmindful,
Thousands come within my hearing,
Berry-maidens swarm about me,
Children come in countless numbers,
None of these has come to gather,
Come to pluck this ruddy berry.'
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Listened to its gentle pleading,
Ran to pick the berry, calling,
With her fair and dainty fingers,.
Saw it smiling near the meadow,
Like a cranberry in feature,
Like a strawberry in flavor;
But be Virgin, Mariatta,
Could not pluck the woodland-stranger,
Thereupon she cut a charm-stick,
Downward pressed upon the berry,
When it rose as if by magic,
Rose above her shoes of ermine,
Then above her copper girdle,
Darted upward to her bosom,
Leaped upon the maiden's shoulder,
On her dimpled chin it rested,
On her lips it perched a moment,
Hastened to her tongue expectant
To and fro it rocked and lingered,
Thence it hastened on its journey,
Settled in the maiden's bosom.
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Thus became a bride impregnate,
Wedded to the mountain-berry;
Lingered in her room at morning,
Sat at midday in the darkness,
Hastened to her couch at evening.
Thus the watchful mother wonders:
'What has happened to our Mary,
To our virgin, Mariatta,
That she throws aside her girdle,
Shyly slips through hall and chamber,
Lingers in her room at morning,
70
Hastens to her couch at evening,
Sits at midday in the darkness?'
On the floor a babe was playing,
And the young child thus made answer:
'This has happened to our Mary,
To our virgin, Mariatta,
This misfortune to the maiden:
She has lingered by the meadows,
Played too long among the lambkins,
Tasted of the mountain-berry.'
Long the virgin watched and waited,
Anxiously the days she counted,
Waiting for the dawn of trouble.
Finally she asked her mother,
These the words of Mariatta:
'Faithful mother, fond and tender,
Mother whom I love and cherish,
Make for me a place befitting,
Where my troubles may be lessened,
And my heavy burdens lightened.'
This the answer of the mother:
'Woe to thee, thou Hisi-maiden,
Since thou art a bride unworthy,
Wedded only to dishonor!'
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Thus replied in truthful measures:
'I am not a maid of Hisi,
I am not a bride unworthy,
Am not wedded to dishonor;
As a shepherdess I wandered
With the lambkins to the glen-wood,
Wandered to the berry-mountain,
Where the strawberry had ripened;
Quick as thought I plucked the berry,
On my tongue I gently laid it,
To and fro it rocked and lingered,
Settled in my heaving bosom.
This the source of all my trouble,
Only cause of my dishonor!'
As the mother was relentless,
Asked the maiden of her father,
This the virgin-mother's pleading:
71
O my father, full of pity,
Source of both my good and evil,
Build for me a place befitting,
Where my troubles may be lessened,
And my heavy burdens lightened.'
This the answer of the father,
Of the father unforgiving:
'Go, thou evil child of Hisi,
Go, thou child of sin and sorrow,
Wedded only to dishonor,
To the Great Bear's rocky chamber,
To the stone-cave of the growler,
There to lessen all thy troubles,
There to cast thy heavy burdens!'
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Thus made answer to her father:
'I am not a child of Hisi,
I am not a bride unworthy,
Am not wedded to dishonor;
I shall bear a noble hero,
I shall bear a son immortal,
Who will rule among the mighty,
Rule the ancient Wainamoinen.'
Thereupon the virgin-mother
Wandered hither, wandered thither,
Seeking for a place befitting,
Seeking for a worthy birth-place
For her unborn son and hero;
Finally these words she uttered
'Piltti, thou my youngest maiden,
Trustiest of all my servants,
Seek a place within the village,
Ask it of the brook of Sara,
For the troubled Mariatta,
Child of sorrow and misfortune.'
Thereupon the little maiden,
Piltti, spake these words in answer:
'Whom shall I entreat for succor,
Who will lend me his assistance?
These the words of Mariatta:
'Go and ask it of Ruotus,
Where the reed-brook pours her waters.'
72
Thereupon the servant, Piltti,
Ever hopeful, ever willing,
Hastened to obey her mistress,
Needing not her exhortation;
Hastened like the rapid river,
Like the flying smoke of battle
To the cabin of Ruotus.
When she walked the hill-tops tottered,
When she ran the mountains trembled;
Shore-reeds danced upon the pasture,
Sandstones skipped about the heather
As the maiden, Piltti, hastened
To the dwelling of Ruotus.
At his table in his cabin
Sat Ruotus, eating, drinking,
In his simple coat of linen.
With his elbows on the table
Spake the wizard in amazement:
'Why hast thou, a maid of evil,
Come to see me in my cavern,
What the message thou art bringing?
Thereupon the servant, Piltti,
Gave this answer to the wizard:
'Seek I for a spot befitting,
Seek I for a worthy birth-place,
For an unborn child and hero;
Seek it near the Sara-streamlet,
Where the reed-brook pours her waters.
Came the wife of old Ruotus,
Walking with her arms akimbo,
Thus addressed the maiden, Piltti:
'Who is she that asks assistance,
Who the maiden thus dishonored,
What her name, and who her kindred?'
'I have come for Mariatta,
For the worthy virgin-mother.'
Spake the wife of old Ruotus,
Evil-minded, cruel-hearted:
'Occupied are all our chambers,
All our bath-rooms near the reed-brook;
in the mount of fire are couches,
is a stable in the forest,
73
For the flaming horse of Hisi;
In the stable is a manger
Fitting birth-place for the hero
From the wife of cold misfortune,
Worthy couch for Mariatta!'
Thereupon the servant, Piltti,
Hastened to her anxious mistress,
Spake these measures, much regretting.
'There is not a place befitting,
on the silver brook of Sara.
Spake the wife of old Ruotus:
'Occupied are all the chambers,
All the bath-rooms near the reed-brook;
In the mount of fire are couches,
Is a stable, in the forest,
For the flaming horse of Hisi;
In the stable is a manger,
Fitting birth-place for the hero
From the wife of cold misfortune,
Worthy couch for Mariatta.''
Thereupon the hapless maiden,
Mariatta, virgin-mother,
Fell to bitter tears and murmurs,
Spake these words in depths of sorrow:
'I, alas! must go an outcast,
Wander as a wretched hireling,
Like a servant in dishonor,
Hasten to the burning mountain,
To the stable in the forest,
Make my bed within a manger,
Near the flaming steed of Hisi!'
Quick the hapless virgin-mother,
Outcast from her father's dwelling,
Gathered up her flowing raiment,
Grasped a broom of birchen branches,
Hastened forth in pain and sorrow
To the stable in the woodlands,
On the heights of Tapio's mountains,
Spake these words in supplication:
'Come, I pray thee, my Creator,
Only friend in times of trouble,
Come to me and bring protection
74
To thy child, the virgin-mother,
To the maiden, Mariatta,
In this hour of sore affliction.
Come to me, benignant Ukko,
Come, thou only hope and refuge,
Lest thy guiltless child should perish,
Die the death of the unworthy!'
When the virgin, Mariatta,
Had arrived within the stable
Of the flaming horse of Hisi,
She addressed the steed as follows:
'Breathe, O sympathizing fire-horse,
Breathe on me, the virgin-mother,
Let thy heated breath give moisture,
Let thy pleasant warmth surround me,
Like the vapor of the morning;
Let this pure and helpless maiden
Find a refuge in thy manger!'
Thereupon the horse, in pity,
Breathed the moisture of his nostrils
On the body of the virgin,
Wrapped her in a cloud of vapor,
Gave her warmth and needed comforts,
Gave his aid to the afflicted,
To the virgin, Mariatta.
There the babe was born and cradled
Cradled in a woodland-manger,
Of the virgin, Mariatta,
Pure as pearly dews of morning,
Holy as the stars in heaven.
There the mother rocks her infant,
In his swaddling clothes she wraps him,
Lays him in her robes of linen;
Carefully the babe she nurtures,
Well she guards her much-beloved,
Guards her golden child of beauty,
Her beloved gem of silver.
But alas! the child has vanished,
Vanished while the mother slumbered.
Mariatta, lone and wretched,
Fell to weeping, broken-hearted,
Hastened off to seek her infant.
75
Everywhere the mother sought him,
Sought her golden child of beauty,
Her beloved gem of silver;
Sought him underneath the millstone,
In the sledge she sought him vainly,
Underneath the sieve she sought him,
Underneath the willow-basket,
Touched the trees, the grass she parted,
Long she sought her golden infant,
Sought him on the fir-tree-mountain,
In the vale, and hill, and heather;
Looks within the clumps of flowers,
Well examines every thicket,
Lifts the juniper and willow,
Lifts the branches of the alder.
Lo! a star has come to meet her,
And the star she thus beseeches-.
'O, thou guiding-star of Northland,
Star of hope, by God created,
Dost thou know and wilt thou tell me
Where my darling child has wandered,
Where my holy babe lies hidden?'
Thus the star of Northland answers:
'If I knew, I would not tell thee;
'Tis thy child that me created,
Set me here to watch at evening,
In the cold to shine forever,
Here to twinkle in the darkness.'
Comes the golden Moon to meet her,
And the Moon she thus beseeches:
'Golden Moon, by Ukko fashioned,
Hope and joy of Kalevala,
Dost thou know and wilt thou tell me
Where my darling child has wandered,
Where my holy babe lies hidden?
Speaks the golden Moon in answer:
'If I knew I would not tell thee;
'Tis thy child that me created,
Here to wander in the darkness,
All alone at eve to wander
On my cold and cheerless journey,
Sleeping only in the daylight,
76
Shining for the good of others.'
Thereupon the virgin-mother
Falls again to bitter weeping,
Hastens on through fen and forest,
Seeking for her babe departed.
Comes the silver Sun to meet her,
And the Sun she thus addresses:
'Silver Sun by Ukko fashioned,
Source of light and life to Northland,
Dost thou know and wilt thou tell me
Where my darling child has wandered,
Where my holy babe lies hidden?'
Wisely does the Sun make answer:
'Well I know thy babe's dominions,
Where thy holy child is sleeping,
Where Wainola's light lies hidden;
'Tis thy child that me created,
Made me king of earth and ether,
Made the Moon and Stars attend me,
Set me here to shine at midday,
Makes me shine in silver raiment,
Lets me sleep and rest at evening;
Yonder is thy golden infant,
There thy holy babe lies sleeping,
Hidden to his belt in water,
Hidden in the reeds and rushes.'
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Virgin-mother of the Northland,
Straightway seeks her babe in Swamp-land,
Finds him in the reeds and rushes;
Takes the young child on her bosom
To the dwelling of her father.
There the infant grew in beauty,
Gathered strength, and light, and wisdom,
All of Suomi saw and wondered.
No one knew what name to give him;
When the mother named him, Flower,
Others named him, Son-of-Sorrow.
When the virgin, Mariatta,
Sought the priesthood to baptize him,
Came an old man, Wirokannas,
With a cup of holy water,
77
Bringing to the babe his blessing;
And the gray-beard spake as follows:
'I shall not baptize a wizard,
Shall not bless a black-magician
With the drops of holy water;
Let the young child be examined,
Let us know that he is worthy,
Lest he prove the son of witchcraft.'
Thereupon old Wirokannas
Called the ancient Wainamoinen,
The eternal wisdom-singer,
To inspect the infant-wonder,
To report him good or evil.
Wainamoinen, old and faithful,
Carefully the child examined,
Gave this answer to his people:
'Since the child is but an outcast,
Born and cradled in a manger,
Since the berry is his father;
Let him lie upon the heather,
Let him sleep among the rushes,
Let him live upon the mountains;
Take the young child to the marshes,
Dash his head against the birch-tree.'
Then the child of Mariatta,
Only two weeks old, made answer:
'O, thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Son of Folly and Injustice,
Senseless hero of the Northland,
Falsely hast thou rendered judgment.
In thy years, for greater follies,
Greater sins and misdemeanors,
Thou wert not unjustly punished.
In thy former years of trouble,
When thou gavest thine own brother,
For thy selfish life a ransom,
Thus to save thee from destruction,
Then thou wert not sent to Swamp-land
To be murdered for thy follies.
In thy former years of sorrow,
When the beauteous Aino perished
In the deep and boundless blue-sea,
78
To escape thy persecutions,
Then thou wert not evil-treated,
Wert not banished by thy people.'
Thereupon old Wirokannas,
Of the wilderness the ruler,
Touched the child with holy water,
Crave the wonder-babe his blessing,
Gave him rights of royal heirship,
Free to live and grow a hero,
To become a mighty ruler,
King and Master of Karyala.
As the years passed Wainamoinen
Recognized his waning powers,
Empty-handed, heavy-hearted,
Sang his farewell song to Northland,
To the people of Wainola;
Sang himself a boat of copper,
Beautiful his bark of magic;
At the helm sat the magician,
Sat the ancient wisdom-singer.
Westward, westward, sailed the hero
O'er the blue-back of the waters,
Singing as he left Wainola,
This his plaintive song and echo:
'Suns may rise and set in Suomi,
Rise and set for generations,
When the North will learn my teachings,
Will recall my wisdom-sayings,
Hungry for the true religion.
Then will Suomi need my coming,
Watch for me at dawn of morning,
That I may bring back the Sampo,
Bring anew the harp of joyance,
Bring again the golden moonlight,
Bring again the silver sunshine,
Peace and plenty to the Northland.'
Thus the ancient Wainamoinen,
In his copper-banded vessel,
Left his tribe in Kalevala,
Sailing o'er the rolling billows,
Sailing through the azure vapors,
Sailing through the dusk of evening,
79
Sailing to the fiery sunset,
To the higher-landed regions,
To the lower verge of heaven;
Quickly gained the far horizon,
Gained the purple-colored harbor.
There his bark be firmly anchored,
Rested in his boat of copper;
But be left his harp of magic,
Left his songs and wisdom-sayings,
To the lasting joy of Suomi.
EPILOGUE.
Now I end my measured singing,
Bid my weary tongue keep silence,
Leave my songs to other singers.
Horses have their times of resting
After many hours of labor;
Even sickles will grow weary
When they have been long at reaping;
Waters seek a quiet haven
After running long in rivers;
Fire subsides and sinks in slumber
At the dawning of the morning
Therefore I should end my singing,
As my song is growing weary,
For the pleasure of the evening,
For the joy of morn arising.
Often I have heard it chanted,
Often heard the words repeated:
'Worthy cataracts and rivers
Never empty all their waters.'
Thus the wise and worthy singer
Sings not all his garnered wisdom;
Better leave unsung some sayings
Than to sing them out of season.
Thus beginning, and thus ending,
Do I roll up all my legends,
Roll them in a ball for safety,
In my memory arrange them,
In their narrow place of resting,
Lest the songs escape unheeded,
While the lock is still unopened,
While the teeth remain unparted,
80
And the weary tongue is silent.
Why should I sing other legends,
Chant them in the glen and forest,
Sing them on the hill and heather?
Cold and still my golden mother
Lies beneath the meadow, sleeping,
Hears my ancient songs no longer,
Cannot listen to my singing;
Only will the forest listen,
Sacred birches, sighing pine-trees,
Junipers endowed with kindness,
Alder-trees that love to bear me,
With the aspens and the willows.
When my loving mother left me,
Young was I, and low of stature;
Like the cuckoo of the forest,
Like the thrush upon the heather,
Like the lark I learned to twitter,
Learned to sing my simple measures,
Guided by a second mother,
Stern and cold, without affection;
Drove me helpless from my chamber
To the wind-side of her dwelling,
To the north-side of her cottage,
Where the chilling winds in mercy
Carried off the unprotected.
As a lark I learned to wander,
Wander as a lonely song-bird,
Through the forests and the fenlands
Quietly o'er hill and heather;
Walked in pain about the marshes,
Learned the songs of winds and waters,
Learned the music of the ocean,
And the echoes of the woodlands.
Many men that live to murmur,
Many women live to censure,
Many speak with evil motives;
Many they with wretched voices
Curse me for my wretched singing,
Blame my tongue for speaking wisdom,
Call my ancient songs unworthy,
Blame the songs and curse the singer.
81
Be not thus, my worthy people,
Blame me not for singing badly,
Unpretending as a minstrel.
I have never had the teaching,
Never lived with ancient heroes,
Never learned the tongues of strangers,
Never claimed to know much wisdom.
Others have had language-masters,
Nature was my only teacher,
Woods and waters my instructors.
Homeless, friendless, lone, and needy,
Save in childhood with my mother,
When beneath her painted rafters,
Where she twirled the flying spindle,
By the work-bench of my brother,
By the window of my sister,
In. the cabin of my father,
In my early days of childhood.
Be this as it may, my people,
This may point the way to others,
To the singers better gifted,
For the good of future ages,
For the coming generations,
For the rising folk of Suomi.
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
290:The Kalevala - Rune Xx
THE BREWING OF BEER.
Now we sing the wondrous legends,
Songs of wedding-feasts and dances,
Sing the melodies of wedlock,
Sing the songs of old tradition;
Sing of Ilmarinen's marriage
To the Maiden of the Rainbow,
Fairest daughter of the Northland,
Sing the drinking-songs of Pohya.
Long prepared they for the wedding
In Pohyola's halls and chambers,
In the courts of Sariola;
Many things that Louhi ordered,
Great indeed the preparations
For the marriage of the daughter,
For the feasting of the heroes,
For the drinking of the strangers,
For the feeding of the poor-folk,
For the people's entertainment.
Grew an ox in far Karjala,
Not the largest, nor the smallest,
Was the ox that grew in Suomi;
But his size was all-sufficient,
For his tail was sweeping Jamen,
And his head was over Kemi,
Horns in length a hundred fathoms,
Longer than the horns his mouth was;
Seven days it took a weasel
To encircle neck and shoulders;
One whole day a swallow journeyed
From one horn-tip to the other,
Did not stop between for resting.
Thirty days the squirrel travelled
From the tail to reach the shoulders,
But he could not gain the horn-tip
Till the Moon had long passed over.
This young ox of huge dimensions,
335
This great calf of distant Suomi,
Was conducted from Karjala
To the meadows of Pohyola;
At each horn a hundred heroes,
At his head and neck a thousand.
When the mighty ox was lassoed,
Led away to Northland pastures,
Peacefully the monster journeyed
By the bays of Sariola,
Ate the pasture on the borders;
To the clouds arose his shoulders,
And his horns to highest heaven.
Not in all of Sariola
Could a butcher be discovered
That could kill the ox for Louhi,
None of all the sons of Northland,
In her hosts of giant people,
In her rising generation,
In the hosts of those grown older.
Came a hero from a distance,
Wirokannas from Karelen,
And these words the gray-beard uttered:
'Wait, O wait, thou ox of Suomi,
Till I bring my ancient war-club;
Then I'll smite thee on thy forehead,
Break thy skull, thou willing victim!
Nevermore wilt thou in summer
Browse the woods of Sariola,
Bare our pastures, fields, and forests;
Thou, O ox, wilt feed no longer
Through the length and breadth of Northland,
On the borders of this ocean!'
When the ancient Wirokannas
Started out the ox to slaughter,
When Palwoinen swung his war-club,
Quick the victim turned his forehead,
Flashed his flaming eyes upon him;
To the fir-tree leaped the hero,
In the thicket hid Palwoinen,
Hid the gray-haired Wirokannas.
Everywhere they seek a butcher,
One to kill the ox of Suomi,
336
In the country of Karelen,
And among the Suomi-giants,
In the quiet fields of Ehstland,
On the battle-fields of Sweden,
Mid the mountaineers of Lapland,
In the magic fens of Turya;
Seek him in Tuoni's empire,
In the death-courts of Manala.
Long the search, and unsuccessful,
On the blue back of the ocean,
On the far-outstretching pastures.
There arose from out the sea-waves,
Rose a hero from the waters,
On the white-capped, roaring breakers,
From the water's broad expanses;
Nor belonged he to the largest,
Nor belonged he to the smallest;
Made his bed within a sea-shell,
Stood erect beneath a flour-sieve,
Hero old, with hands of iron,
And his face was copper-colored;
Quick the hero full unfolded,
Like the full corn from the kernel.
On his head a hat of flint-stone,
On his feet were sandstone-sandals,
In his hand a golden cleaver,
And the blade was copper-handled.
Thus at last they found a butcher,
Found the magic ox a slayer.
Nothing has been found so mighty
That it has not found a master.
As the sea-god saw his booty,
Quickly rushed he on his victim,
Hurled him to his knees before him,
Quickly felled the calf of Suomi,
Felled the young ox of Karelen.
Bountifully meat was furnished;
Filled at least a thousand hogsheads
Of his blood were seven boatfuls,
And a thousand weight of suet,
For the banquet of Pohyola,
For the marriage-feast of Northland.
337
In Pohyola was a guest-room,
Ample was the hall of Louhi,
Was in length a hundred furlongs,
And in breadth was nearly fifty;
When upon the roof a rooster
Crowed at break of early morning,
No one on the earth could hear him;
When the dog barked at one entrance,
None could hear him at the other.
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Hastens to the hall and court-room,
In the centre speaks as follows:
'Whence indeed will come the liquor,
Who will brew me beer from barley,
Who will make the mead abundant,
For the people of the Northland,
Coming to my daughter's marriage,
To her drinking-feast and nuptials?
Cannot comprehend the malting,
Never have I learned the secret,
Nor the origin of brewing.'
Spake an old man from his corner:
'Beer arises from the barley,
Comes from barley, hops, and water,
And the fire gives no assistance.
Hop-vine was the son of Remu,
Small the seed in earth was planted,
Cultivated in the loose soil,
Scattered like the evil serpents
On the brink of Kalew-waters,
On the Osmo-fields and borders.
There the young plant grew and flourished,
There arose the climbing hop-vine,
Clinging to the rocks and alders.
'Man of good-luck sowed the barley
On the Osmo hills and lowlands,
And the barley grew and flourished,
Grew and spread in rich abundance,
Fed upon the air and water,
On the Osmo plains and highlands,
On the fields of Kalew-heroes.
'Time had travelled little distance,
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Ere the hops in trees were humming,
Barley in the fields was singing,
And from Kalew's well the water,
This the language of the trio:
'Let us join our triple forces,
Join to each the other's powers;
Sad alone to live and struggle,
Little use in working singly,
Better we should toil together.'
'Osmotar, the beer-preparer,
Brewer of the drink refreshing,
Takes the golden grains of barley,
Taking six of barley-kernels,
Taking seven tips of hop-fruit,
Filling seven cups with water,
On the fire she sets the caldron,
Boils the barley, hops, and water,
Lets them steep, and seethe, and bubble
Brewing thus the beer delicious,
In the hottest days of summer,
On the foggy promontory,
On the island forest-covered;
Poured it into birch-wood barrels,
Into hogsheads made of oak-wood.
'Thus did Osmotar of Kalew
Brew together hops and barley,
Could not generate the ferment.
Thinking long and long debating,
Thus she spake in troubled accents:
'What will bring the effervescence,
Who will add the needed factor,
That the beer may foam and sparkle,
May ferment and be delightful?'
Kalevatar, magic maiden,
Grace and beauty in her fingers,
Swiftly moving, lightly stepping,
In her trimly-buckled sandals,
Steps upon the birch-wood bottom,
Turns one way, and then another,
In the centre of the caldron;
Finds within a splinter lying
From the bottom lifts the fragment,
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Turns it in her fingers, musing:
'What may come of this I know not,
In the hands of magic maidens,
In the virgin hands of Kapo,
Snowy virgin of the Northland!'
'Kalevatar took the splinter
To the magic virgin, Kapo,
Who by unknown force and insight.
Rubbed her hands and knees together,
And produced a snow-white squirrel;
Thus instructed she her creature,
Gave the squirrel these directions:
'Snow-white squirrel, mountain-jewel,
Flower of the field and forest,
Haste thee whither I would send thee,
Into Metsola's wide limits,
Into Tapio's seat of wisdom;
Hasten through the heavy tree-tops,
Wisely through the thickest branches,
That the eagle may not seize thee,
Thus escape the bird of heaven.
Bring me ripe cones from the fir-tree,
From the pine-tree bring me seedlings,
Bring them to the hands of Kapo,
For the beer of Osmo's daughter.'
Quickly hastened forth the squirrel,
Quickly sped the nimble broad-tail,
Swiftly hopping on its journey
From one thicket to another,
From the birch-tree to the aspen,
From the pine-tree to the willow,
From the sorb-tree to the alder,
Jumping here and there with method,
Crossed the eagle-woods in safety,
Into Metsola's wide limits,
Into Tapio's seat of wisdom;
There perceived three magic pine-trees,
There perceived three smaller fir-trees,
Quickly climbed the dark-green branches,
Was not captured by the eagle,
Was not mangled in his talons;
Broke the young cones from the fir-tree,
340
Cut the shoots of pine-tree branches,
Hid the cones within his pouches,
Wrapped them in his fur-grown mittens
Brought them to the hands of Kapo,
To the magic virgin's fingers.
Kapo took the cones selected,
Laid them in the beer for ferment,
But it brought no effervescence,
And the beer was cold and lifeless.
'Osmotar, the beer-preparer,
Kapo, brewer of the liquor,
Deeply thought and long considered:
'What will bring the effervescence,
Who will lend me aid efficient,
That the beer may foam and sparkle,
May ferment and be refreshing?'
'Kalevatar, sparkling maiden,
Grace and beauty in her fingers,
Softly moving, lightly stepping,
In her trimly-buckled sandals,
Steps again upon the bottom,
Turns one way and then another,
In the centre of the caldron,
Sees a chip upon the bottom,
Takes it from its place of resting,
Looks upon the chip and muses
'What may come of this I know not,
In the hands of mystic maidens,
In the hands of magic Kapo,
In the virgin's snow-white fingers.'
'Kalevatar took the birch-chip
To the magic maiden, Kapo,
Gave it to the white-faced maiden.
Kapo, by the aid of magic,
Rubbed her hands and knees together,
And produced a magic marten,
And the marten, golden-breasted;
Thus instructed she her creature,
Gave the marten these directions.
'Thou, my golden-breasted marten,
Thou my son of golden color,
Haste thou whither I may send thee,
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To the bear-dens of the mountain,
To the grottoes of the growler,
Gather yeast upon thy fingers,
Gather foam from lips of anger,
From the lips of bears in battle,
Bring it to the hands of Kapo,
To the hands of Osmo's daughter.'
'Then the marten golden-breasted,
Full consenting, hastened onward,
Quickly bounding on his journey,
Lightly leaping through the distance
Leaping o'er the widest rivers,
Leaping over rocky fissures,
To the bear-dens of the mountain,
To the grottoes of the growler,
Where the wild-bears fight each other,
Where they pass a dread existence,
Iron rocks, their softest pillows,
In the fastnesses of mountains;
From their lips the foam was dripping,
From their tongues the froth of anger;
This the marten deftly gathered,
Brought it to the maiden, Kapo,
Laid it in her dainty fingers.
'Osmotar, the beer-preparer,
Brewer of the beer of barley,
Used the beer-foam as a ferment;
But it brought no effervescence,
Did not make the liquor sparkle.
'Osmotar, the beer-preparer,
Thought again, and long debated:
'Who or what will bring the ferment,
Th at my beer may not be lifeless?'
'Kalevatar, magic maiden,
Grace and beauty in her fingers,
Softly moving, lightly stepping,
In her trimly-buckled sandals,
Steps again upon the bottom,
Turns one way and then another,
In the centre of the caldron,
Sees a pod upon the bottom,
Lifts it in her snow-white fingers,
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Turns it o'er and o'er, and muses:
'What may come of this I know not,
In the hands of magic maidens,
In the hands of mystic Kapo,
In the snowy virgin's fingers?'
'Kalevatar, sparkling maiden,
Gave the pod to magic Kapo;
Kapo, by the aid of magic,
Rubbed the pod upon her knee-cap,
And a honey-bee came flying
From the pod within her fingers,
Kapo thus addressed her birdling:
'Little bee with honeyed winglets,
King of all the fragrant flowers,
Fly thou whither I direct thee,
To the islands in the ocean,
To the water-cliffs and grottoes,
Where asleep a maid has fallen,
Girdled with a belt of copper
By her side are honey-grasses,
By her lips are fragrant flowers,
Herbs and flowers honey-laden;
Gather there the sweetened juices,
Gather honey on thy winglets,
From the calyces of flowers,
From the tips of seven petals,
Bring it to the hands of Kapo,
To the hands of Osmo's daughter.'
'Then the bee, the swift-winged birdling,
Flew away with lightning-swiftness
On his journey to the islands,
O'er the high waves of the ocean;
Journeyed one day, then a second,
Journeyed all the next day onward,
Till the third day evening brought him
To the islands in the ocean,
To the water-cliffs and grottoes;
Found the maiden sweetly sleeping,
In her silver-tinselled raiment,
Girdled with a belt of copper,
In a nameless meadow, sleeping,
In the honey-fields of magic;
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By her side were honeyed grasses,
By her lips were fragrant flowers,
Silver stalks with golden petals;
Dipped its winglets in the honey,
Dipped its fingers in the juices
Of the sweetest of the flowers,
Brought the honey back to Kapo,
To the mystic maiden's fingers.
'Osmotar, the beer-preparer,
Placed the honey in the liquor;
Kapo mixed the beer and honey,
And the wedding-beer fermented;
Rose the live beer upward, upward,
From the bottom of the vessels,
Upward in the tubs of birch-wood,
Foaming higher, higher, higher,
Till it touched the oaken handles,
Overflowing all the caldrons;
To the ground it foamed and sparkled,
Sank away in sand and gravel.
'Time had gone but little distance,
Scarce a moment had passed over,
Ere the heroes came in numbers
To the foaming beer of Northland,
Rushed to drink the sparkling liquor.
Ere all others Lemminkainen
Drank, and grew intoxicated
On the beer of Osmo's daughter,
On the honey-drink of Kalew.
'Osmotar, the beer-preparer,
Kapo, brewer of the barley,
Spake these words in saddened accents:
'Woe is me, my life hard-fated,
Badly have I brewed the liquor,
Have not brewed the beer in wisdom,
Will not live within its vessels,
Overflows and fills Pohyola!'
'From a tree-top sings the redbreast,
From the aspen calls the robin:
'Do not grieve, thy beer is worthy,
Put it into oaken vessels,
Into strong and willing barrels
344
Firmly bound with hoops of copper.'
'Thus was brewed the beer or Northland,
At the hands of Osmo's daughter;
This the origin of brewing
Beer from Kalew-hops and barley;
Great indeed the reputation
Of the ancient beer of Kalew,
Said to make the feeble hardy,
Famed to dry the tears of women,
Famed to cheer the broken-hearted,
Make the aged young and supple,
Make the timid brave and mighty,
Make the brave men ever braver,
Fill the heart with joy and gladness,
Fill the mind with wisdom-sayings,
Fill the tongue with ancient legends,
Only makes the fool more foolish.'
When the hostess of Pohyola
Heard how beer was first fermented,
Heard the origin of brewing,
Straightway did she fill with water
Many oaken tubs and barrels;
Filled but half the largest vessels,
Mixed the barley with the water,
Added also hops abundant;
Well she mixed the triple forces
In her tubs of oak and birch-wood,
Heated stones for months succeeding,
Thus to boil the magic mixture,
Steeped it through the days of summer,
Burned the wood of many forests,
Emptied all the, springs of Pohya;
Daily did the, forests lesson,
And the wells gave up their waters,
Thus to aid the hostess, Louhi,
In the brewing of the liquors,
From the water, hops, and barley,
And from honey of the islands,
For the wedding-feast of Northland,
For Pohyola's great carousal
And rejoicings at the marriage
Of the Malden of the Rainbow
345
To the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Metal-worker of Wainola.
Smoke is seen upon the island,
Fire, upon the promontory,
Black smoke rising to the heavens
From the fire upon the island;
Fills with clouds the half of Pohya,
Fills Karelen's many hamlets;
All the people look and wonder,
This the chorus of the women:
'Whence are rising all these smoke-clouds,
Why this dreadful fire in Northland?
Is not like the smoke of camp-fires,
Is too large for fires of shepherds!'
Lemminkainen's ancient mother
Journeyed in the early morning
For some water to the fountain,
Saw the smoke arise to heaven,
In the region of Pohyola,
These the words the mother uttered:
''Tis the smoke of battle-heroes,
From the beat of warring armies!'
Even Ahti, island-hero,
Ancient wizard, Lemminkainen,
Also known as Kaukomieli,
Looked upon the scene in wonder,
Thought awhile and spake as follows:
'I would like to see this nearer,
Learn the cause of all this trouble,
Whence this smoke and great confusion,
Whether smoke from heat of battle,
Or the bonfires of the shepherds.'
Kaukomieli gazed and pondered,
Studied long the rising smoke-clouds;
Came not from the heat of battle,
Came not from the shepherd bonfires;
Heard they were the fires of Louhi
Brewing beer in Sariola,
On Pohyola's promontory;
Long and oft looked Lemminkainen,
Strained in eagerness his vision,
Stared, and peered, and thought, and wondered,
346
Looked abashed and envy-swollen,
'O beloved, second mother,
Northland's well-intentioned hostess,
Brew thy beer of honey-flavor,
Make thy liquors foam and sparkle,
For thy many friends invited,
Brew it well for Lemminkainen,
For his marriage in Pohyola
With the Maiden of the Rainbow.'
Finally the beer was ready,
Beverage of noble heroes,
Stored away in casks and barrels,
There to rest awhile in silence,
In the cellars of the Northland,
In the copper-banded vessels,
In the magic oaken hogsheads,
Plugs and faucets made of copper.
Then the hostess of Pohyola
Skilfully prepared the dishes,
Laid them all with careful fingers
In the boiling-pans and kettles,
Ordered countless loaves of barley,
Ordered many liquid dishes,
All the delicacies of Northland,
For the feasting of her people,
For their richest entertainment,
For the nuptial songs and dances,
At the marriage of her daughter
With the blacksmith, Ilmarinen.
When the loaves were baked and ready.
When the dishes all were seasoned,
Time had gone but little distance,
Scarce a moment had passed over,
Ere the beer, in casks imprisoned,
Loudly rapped, and sang, and murmured:
'Come, ye heroes, come and take me,
Come and let me cheer your spirits,
Make you sing the songs of wisdom,
That with honor ye may praise me,
Sing the songs of beer immortal!'
Straightway Louhi sought a minstrel,
Magic bard and artist-singer,
347
That the beer might well be lauded,
Might be praised in song and honor.
First as bard they brought a salmon,
Also brought a pike from ocean,
But the salmon had no talent,
And the pike had little wisdom;
Teeth of pike and gills of salmon
Were not made for singing legends.
Then again they sought a singer,
Magic minstrel, beer-enchanter,
Thus to praise the drink of heroes,
Sing the songs of joy and gladness;
And a boy was brought for singing;
But the boy had little knowledge,
Could not praise the beer in honor;
Children's tongues are filled with questions,
Children cannot speak in wisdom,
Cannot sing the ancient legends.
Stronger grew the beer imprisoned
In the copper-banded vessels,
Locked behind the copper faucets,
Boiled, and foamed, and sang, and murmured:
'If ye do not bring a singer,
That will sing my worth immortal,
That will sing my praise deserving,
I will burst these bands of copper,
Burst the heads of all these barrels;
Will not serve the best of heroes
Till he sings my many virtues.'
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Called a trusted maiden-servant,
Sent her to invite the people
To the marriage of her daughter,
These the words that Louhi uttered:
'O my trusted, truthful maiden,
Servant-maid to me belonging,
Call together all my people,
Call the heroes to my banquet,
Ask the rich, and ask the needy,
Ask the blind and deaf, and crippled,
Ask the young, and ask the aged;
Go thou to the hills, and hedges,
348
To the highways, and the by-ways,
Urge them to my daughter's wedding;
Bring the blind, and sorely troubled,
In my boats upon the waters,
In my sledges bring the halting,
With the old, and sick, and needy;
Ask the whole of Sariola,
Ask the people of Karelen,
Ask the ancient Wainamoinen,
Famous bard and wisdom-singer;
But I give command explicit
Not to ask wild Lemminkainen,
Not the island-dweller, Ahti!'
This the question of the servant:
'Why not ask wild Lemminkainen,
Ancient islander and minstrel?'
Louhi gave this simple answer:
'Good the reasons that I give thee
Why the wizard, Lemminkainen,
Must not have an invitation
To my daughter's feast and marriage
Ahti courts the heat of battle,
Lemminkainen fosters trouble,
Skilful fighter of the virtues;
Evil thinking, acting evil,
He would bring but pain and sorrow,
He would jest and jeer at maidens
In their trimly buckled raiment,
Cannot ask the evil-minded!'
Thus again the servant questions:
'Tell me how to know this Ahti,
Also known as Lemminkainen,
That I may not ask him hither;
Do not know the isle of Ahti,
Nor the home of Kaukomieli
Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
'Easy 'tis to know the wizard,
Easy find the Ahti-dwelling:
Ahti lives on yonder island,
On that point dwells Lemminkainen,
In his mansion near the water,
Far at sea his home and dwelling.'
349
Thereupon the trusted maiden
Spread the wedding-invitations
To the people of Pohyola,
To the tribes of Kalevala;
Asked the friendless, asked the homeless
Asked the laborers and shepherds,
Asked the fishermen and hunters,
Asked the deaf, the dumb, the crippled,
Asked the young, and asked the aged,
Asked the rich, and asked the needy;
Did not give an invitation
To the reckless Lemminkainen,
Island-dweller of the ocean.
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
291:The Kalevala - Rune Iii
WAINAMOINEN AND YOUKAHAINEN.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Passed his years in full contentment,
On the meadows of Wainola,
On the plains of Kalevala,
Singing ever wondrous legends,
Songs of ancient wit and wisdom,
Chanting one day, then a second,
Singing in the dusk of evening,
Singing till the dawn of morning,
Now the tales of old-time heroes,
Tales of ages long forgotten,
Now the legends of creation,
Once familiar to the children,
By our children sung no longer,
Sung in part by many heroes,
In these mournful days of evil,
Evil days our race befallen.
Far and wide the story travelled,
Far away men spread the knowledge
Of the chanting of the hero,
Of the song of Wainamoinen;
To the South were heard the echoes,
All of Northland heard the story.
Far away in dismal Northland,
Lived the singer, Youkahainen,
Lapland's young and reckless minstrel,
Once upon a time when feasting,
Dining with his friends and fellows,
Came upon his ears the story
That there lived a sweeter singer,
On the meadows of Wainola,
On the plains of Kalevala,
Better skilled in chanting legends,
Better skilled than Youkahainen,
Better than the one that taught him.
Straightway then the bard grew angry,
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Envy rose within his bosom,
Envy of this Wainamoinen,
Famed to be a sweeter singer;
Hastes he angry to his mother,
To his mother, full of wisdom,
Vows that he will southward hasten,
Hie him southward and betake him
To the dwellings of Wainola,
To the cabins of the Northland,
There as bard to vie in battle,
With the famous Wainamoinen.
'Nay,' replies the anxious father,
'Do not go to Kalevala.'
'Nay,' replies the fearful mother,
'Go not hence to Wainamoinen,
There with him to offer battle;
He will charm thee with his singing
Will bewitch thee in his anger,
He will drive thee back dishonored,
Sink thee in the fatal snow-drift,
Turn to ice thy pliant fingers,
Turn to ice thy feet and ankles.'
These the words of Youkahainen:
Good the judgement of a father,
Better still, a mother's counsel,
Best of all one's own decision.
I will go and face the minstrel,
Challenge him to sing in contest,
Challenge him as bard to battle,
Sing to him my sweet-toned measures,
Chant to him my oldest legends,
Chant to him my garnered wisdom,
That this best of boasted singers,
That this famous bard of Suomi,
Shall be worsted in the contest,
Shall become a hapless minstrel;
By my songs shall I transform him,
That his feet shall be as flint-stone,
And as oak his nether raiment;
And this famous, best of singers,
Thus bewitched, shall carry ever,
In his heart a stony burden,
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On his shoulder bow of marble,
On his hand a flint-stone gauntlet,
On his brow a stony visor.'
Then the wizard, Youkahainen,
Heeding not advice paternal,
Heeding not his mother's counsel,
Leads his courser from his stable,
Fire outstreaming from his nostrils,
From his hoofs, the sparks outshooting,
Hitches to his sledge, the fleet-foot,
To his golden sledge, the courser,
Mounts impetuous his snow-sledge,
Leaps upon the hindmost cross-bench,
Strikes his courser with his birch-whip,
With his birch-whip, pearl-enamelled.
Instantly the prancing racer
Springs away upon his journey;
On he, restless, plunges northward,
All day long be onward gallops,
All the next day, onward, onward,
So the third from morn till evening,
Till the third day twilight brings him
To the meadows of Wainola,
To the plains of Kalevala.
As it happened, Wainamoinen,
Wainamoinen, the magician,
Rode that sunset on the highway,
Silently for pleasure driving
Down Wainola's peaceful meadows,
O'er the plains of Kalevala.
Youkahainen, young and fiery,
Urging still his foaming courser,
Dashes down upon the singer,
Does not turn aside in meeting,
Meeting thus in full collision;
Shafts are driven tight together,
Hames and collars wedged and tangled,
Tangled are the reins and traces.
Thus perforce they make a stand-still,
Thus remain and well consider;
Water drips from hame and collar,
Vapors rise from both their horses.
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Speaks the minstrel, Wainamoinen:
'Who art thou, and whence? Thou comest
Driving like a stupid stripling,
Wainamoinen and Youkahainen.
Careless, dashing down upon me.
Thou hast ruined shafts and traces;
And the collar of my racer
Thou hast shattered into ruin,
And my golden sleigh is broken,
Box and runners dashed to pieces.'
Youkahainen then make answer,
Spake at last the words that follow:
'I am youthful Youkahainen,
But make answer first, who thou art,
Whence thou comest, where thou goest,
From what lowly tribe descended?'
Wainamolinen, wise and ancient,
Answered thus the youthful minstrel:
'If thou art but Youkahainen,
Thou shouldst give me all the highway;
I am many years thy senior.'
Then the boastful Youkahainen
Spake again to Wainamoinen:
'Young or ancient, little matter,
Little consequence the age is;
He that higher stands in wisdom,
He whose knowledge is the greater,
He that is the sweeter singer,
He alone shall keep the highway,
And the other take the roadside.
Art thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Famous sorcerer and minstrel?
Let us then begin our singing,
Let us sing our ancient legends,
Let us chant our garnered wisdom,
That the one may hear the other,
That the one may judge the other,
In a war of wizard sayings.'
Wainamoinen, wise and ancient,
Thus replied in modest accents:
'What I know is very little,
Hardly is it worth the singing,
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Neither is my singing wondrous:
All my days I have resided
In the cold and dreary Northland,
In a desert land enchanted,
In my cottage home for ayes;
All the songs that I have gathered,
Are the cuckoo's simple measures,
Some of these I may remember;
But since thou perforce demandest,
I accept thy boastful challenge.
Tell me now, my golden youngster,
What thou knowest more than others,
Open now thy store of wisdom.'
Thus made answer Youkahainen,
Lapland's young and fiery minstrel:
'Know I many bits of learning
This I know in perfect clearness:
Every roof must have a chimney,
Every fire-place have a hearth-stone;
Lives of seal are free and merry,
Merry is the life of walrus,
Feeding on incautious salmon,
Daily eating perch and whiting;
Whitings live in quiet shallows,
Salmon love the level bottoms;
Spawns the pike in coldest weather,
And defies the storms of winter.
Slowly perches swim in Autumn,
Wry-backed, hunting deeper water,
Spawn in shallows in the summer,
Bounding on the shore of ocean.
Should this wisdom seem too little,
I can tell thee other matters,
Sing thee other wizard sayings:
All the Northmen plow with reindeer,
Mother-horses plow the Southland,
Inner Lapland plows with oxen;
All the trees on Pisa-mountain,
Know I well in all their grandeur;
On the Horna-rock are fir-trees,
Fir-trees growing tall and slender;
Slender grow the trees on mountains.
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Three, the water-falls in number,
Three in number, inland oceans,
Three in number, lofty mountains,
Shooting to the vault of heaven.
Hallapyora's near to Yaemen,
Katrakoski in Karyala;
Imatra, the falling water,
Tumbles, roaring, into Wuoksi.'
Then the ancient Wainimoinen:
'Women's tales and children's wisdom
Do not please a bearded hero,
Hero, old enough for wedlock;
Tell the story of creation,
Tell me of the world's beginning,
Tell me of the creatures in it,
And philosophize a little.'
Then the youthful Youkahainen
Thus replied to Wainamoinen:
'Know I well the titmouse-fountains,
Pretty birdling is the titmouse;
And the viper, green, a serpent;
Whitings live in brackish waters;
Perches swim in every river;
Iron rusts, and rusting weakens;
Bitter is the taste of umber;
Boiling water is malicious;
Fire is ever full of danger;
First physician, the Creator;
Remedy the oldest, water;
Magic is the child of sea-foam;
God the first and best adviser;
Waters gush from every mountain;
Fire descended first from heaven;
Iron from the rust was fashioned;
Copper from the rocks created;
Marshes are of lands the oldest;
First of all the trees, the willow;
Fir-trees were the first of houses;
Hollowed stones the first of kettles.'
Now the ancient Wainamoinen
Thus addresses Youkahainen:
'Canst thou give me now some wisdom,
28
Is this nonsense all thou knowest?'
Youkahainen thus made answer:
'I can tell thee still a trifle,
Tell thee of the times primeval,
When I plowed the salt-sea's bosom,
When I raked the sea-girt islands,
When I dug the salmon-grottoes,
Hollowed out the deepest caverns,
When I all the lakes created,
When I heaped the mountains round them,
When I piled the rocks about them.
I was present as a hero,
Sixth of wise and ancient heroes,
Seventh of all primeval heroes,
When the heavens were created,
When were formed the ether-spaces,
When the sky was crystal-pillared,
When was arched the beauteous rainbow,
When the Moon was placed in orbit,
When the silver Sun was planted,
When the Bear was firmly stationed,
And with stars the heavens were sprinkled.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Thou art surely prince of liars,
Lord of all the host of liars;
Never wert thou in existence,
Surely wert thou never present,
When was plowed the salt-sea's bosom,
When were raked the sea-girt islands,
When were dug the salmon-grottoes,
When were hollowed out the caverns,
When the lakes were all created,
When were heaped the mountains round them,
When the rocks were piled about them.
Thou wert never seen or heard of
When the earth was first created,
When were made the ether-spaces,
When the air was crystal-pillared,
When the Moon was placed in orbit,
When the silver Sun was planted,
When the Bear was firmly stationed,
When the skies with stars were sprinkled.'
29
Then in anger Youkahainen
Answered ancient Wainamoinen:
'Then, sir, since I fail in wisdom,
With the sword I offer battle;
Come thou, famous bard and minstrel,
Thou the ancient wonder-singer,
Let us try our strength with broadswords,
let our blades be fully tested.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Not thy sword and not thy wisdom,
Not thy prudence, nor thy cunning,
Do I fear a single moment.
Let who may accept thy challenge,
Not with thee, a puny braggart,
Not with one so vain and paltry,
Will I ever measure broadswords.'
Then the youthful Youkahainen,
Mouth awry and visage sneering,
Shook his golden locks and answered:
'Whoso fears his blade to measure,
Fears to test his strength at broadswords,
Into wild-boar of the forest,
Swine at heart and swine in visage,
Singing I will thus transform him;
I will hurl such hero-cowards,
This one hither, that one thither,
Stamp him in the mire and bedding,
In the rubbish of the stable.'
Angry then grew Wainamoinen,
Wrathful waxed, and fiercely frowning,
Self-composed he broke his silence,
And began his wondrous singing.
Sang he not the tales of childhood,
Children's nonsense, wit of women,
Sang he rather bearded heroes,
That the children never heard of,
That the boys and maidens knew not
Known but half by bride and bridegroom,
Known in part by many heroes,
In these mournful days of evil,
Evil times our race befallen.
Grandly sang wise Wainamoinen,
30
Till the copper-bearing mountains,
And the flinty rocks and ledges
Heard his magic tones and trembled;
Mountain cliffs were torn to pieces,
All the ocean heaved and tumbled;
And the distant hills re-echoed.
Lo! the boastful Youkahainen
Is transfixed in silent wonder,
And his sledge with golden trimmings
Floats like brushwood on the billows;
Sings his braces into reed-grass,
Sings his reins to twigs of willow,
And to shrubs his golden cross-bench.
Lo! his birch-whip, pearl-enameled,
Floats a reed upon the border;
Lo! his steed with golden forehead,
Stands a statue on the waters;
Hames and traces are as fir-boughs,
And his collar, straw and sea-grass.
Still the minstrel sings enchantment,
Sings his sword with golden handle,
Sings it into gleam of lightning,
Hangs it in the sky above him;
Sings his cross-bow, gaily painted,
To a rainbow o'er the ocean;
Sings his quick and feathered arrows
Into hawks and screaming eagles;
Sings his dog with bended muzzle,
Into block of stone beside him;
Sings his cap from off his forehead,
Sings it into wreaths of vapor;
From his hands he sings his gauntlets
Into rushes on the waters;
Sings his vesture, purple-colored,
Into white clouds in the heavens;
Sings his girdle, set with jewels,
Into twinkling stars around him;
And alas! for Youkahainen,
Sings him into deeps of quick-sand;
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper,
In his torture, sinks the wizard,
To his belt in mud and water.
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Now it was that Youkahainen
Comprehended but too clearly
What his folly, what the end was,
Of the journey he had ventured,
Vainly he had undertaken
For the glory of a contest
With the grand, old Wainamoinen.
When at last young Youkahainen,
Pohyola's old and sorry stripling,
Strives his best to move his right foot,
But alas! the foot obeys not;
When he strives to move his left foot,
Lo! he finds it turned to flint-stone.
Thereupon sad Youkahainen,
In the deeps of desperation,
And in earnest supplication,
Thus addresses Wainamoinen:
'O thou wise and worthy minstrel,
Thou the only true, magician,
Cease I pray thee thine enchantment,.
Only turn away thy magic,
Let me leave this slough of horror,
Loose me from this stony prison,
Free me from this killing torment,
I will pay a golden ransom.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'What the ransom thou wilt give me
If I cease from mine enchantment,
If I turn away my magic,
Lift thee from thy slough of horror,
Loose thee from thy stony prison,
Free thee from thy killing torment?'
Answered youthful Youkahainen:
'Have at home two magic cross-bows,
Pair of bows of wondrous power,
One so light a child can bend it,
Only strength can bend the other,
Take of these the one that pleases.'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Do not wish thy magic cross-bows,
Have a few of such already,
Thine to me are worse than useless
32
I have bows in great abundance,
Bows on every nail and rafter,
Bows that laugh at all the hunters,
Bows that go themselves a-hunting.'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Sang alas! poor Youkahainen
Deeper into mud and water,
Deeper in the slough of torment.
Youkahainen thus made answer:
'Have at home two magic shallops,
Beautiful the boats and wondrous;
One rides light upon the ocean,
One is made for heavy burdens;
Take of these the one that pleases.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Do not wish thy magic shallops,
Have enough of such already;
All my bays are full of shallops,
All my shores are lined with shallops,
Some before the winds are sailors,
Some were built to sail against them.'
Still the Wainola bard and minstrel
Sings again poor Youkahainen
Deeper, deeper into torment,
Into quicksand to his girdle,
Till the Lapland bard in anguish
Speaks again to Wainamoinen:
'Have at home two magic stallions,
One a racer, fleet as lightning,
One was born for heavy burdens;
Take of these the one that pleases.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Neither do I wish thy stallions,
Do not need thy hawk-limbed stallions,
Have enough of these already;
Magic stallions swarm my stables,
Eating corn at every manger,
Broad of back to hold the water,
Water on each croup in lakelets.'
Still the bard of Kalevala
Sings the hapless Lapland minstrel
Deeper, deeper into torment,
33
To his shoulders into water.
Spake again young Youkahainen:
'O thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Thou the only true magician,
Cease I pray thee thine enchantment,
Only turn away thy magic,
I will give thee gold abundant,
Countless stores of shining silver;
From the wars my father brought it,
Brought it from the hard-fought battles.'
Spake the wise, old Wainamoinen:
'For thy gold I have no longing,
Neither do I wish thy silver,
Have enough of each already;
Gold abundant fills my chambers,
On each nail hang bags of silver,
Gold that glitters in the sunshine,
Silver shining in the moonlight.'
Sank the braggart, Youkahainen,
Deeper in his slough of torment,
To his chin in mud and water,
Ever praying, thus beseeching:
'O thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Greatest of the old magicians,
Lift me from this pit of horror,
From this prison-house of torture;
I will give thee all my corn-fields,
Give thee all my corn in garners,
Thus my hapless life to ransom,
Thus to gain eternal freedom.'
Wainamoinen thus made answer:
'Take thy corn to other markets,
Give thy garners to the needy;
I have corn in great abundance,
Fields have I in every quarter,
Corn in all my fields is growing;
One's own fields are always richer,
One's own grain is much the sweeter.'
Lapland's young and reckless minstrel,
Sorrow-laden, thus enchanted,
Deeper sinks in mud and water,
Fear-enchained and full of anguish,
34
In the mire, his beard bedrabbled,
Mouth once boastful filled with sea-weed,
In the grass his teeth entangled,
Youkahainen thus beseeches:
'O thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Wisest of the wisdom-singers,
Cease at last thine incantations,
Only turn away thy magic,
And my former life restore me,
Lift me from this stifling torment,
Free mine eyes from sand and water,
I will give thee sister, Aino,
Fairest daughter of my mother,
Bride of thine to be forever,
Bride of thine to do thy pleasure,
Sweep the rooms within thy cottage,
Keep thy dwelling-place in order,
Rinse for thee the golden platters,
Spread thy couch with finest linens,
For thy bed, weave golden covers,
Bake for thee the honey-biscuit.'
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Finds at last the wished-for ransom,
Lapland's young and fairest daughter,
Sister dear of Youkahainen;
Happy he, that he has won him,
In his age a beauteous maiden,
Bride of his to be forever,
Pride and joy of Kalevala.
Now the happy Wainamoinen,
Sits upon the rock of gladness,
Joyful on the rock of music,
Sings a little, sings and ceases,
Sings again, and sings a third time,
Thus to break the spell of magic,
Thus to lessen the enchantment,
Thus the potent charm to banish.
As the magic spell is broken,
Youkahainen, sad, but wiser,
Drags his feet from out the quicksand,
Lifts his beard from out the water,
From the rocks leads forth his courser,
35
Brings his sledge back from the rushes,
Calls his whip back from the ocean,
Sets his golden sledge in order,
Throws himself upon the cross-bench,
Snaps his whip and hies him homeward,
Hastens homeward, heavy-hearted,
Sad indeed to meet his mother,
Aino's mother, gray and aged.
Careless thus be hastens homeward,
Nears his home with noise and bustle,
Reckless drives against the pent-house,
Breaks the shafts against the portals,
Breaks his handsome sledge in pieces.
Then his mother, quickly guessing,
Would have chided him for rashness,
But the father interrupted:
'Wherefore dost thou break thy snow-sledge,
Wherefore dash thy thills in fragments,
Wherefore comest home so strangely,
Why this rude and wild behavior?'
Now alas! poor Youkahainen,
Cap awry upon his forehead,
Falls to weeping, broken-hearted,
Head depressed and mind dejected,
Eyes and lips expressing sadness,
Answers not his anxious father.
Then the mother quickly asked him,
Sought to find his cause for sorrow:
'Tell me, first-born, why thou weepest,
Why thou weepest, heavy-hearted,
Why thy mind is so dejected,
Why thine eyes express such sadness.'
Youkahainen then made answer:
'Golden mother, ever faithful,
Cause there is to me sufficient,
Cause enough in what has happened,
Bitter cause for this my sorrow,
Cause for bitter tears and murmurs:
All my days will pass unhappy,
Since, O mother of my being,
I have promised beauteous Aino,
Aino, thy beloved daughter,
36
Aino, my devoted sister,
To decrepit Wainamoinen,
Bride to be to him forever,
Roof above him, prop beneath him,
Fair companion at his fire-side.'
Joyful then arose the mother,
Clapped her hands in glee together,
Thus addressing Youkahainen:
'Weep no more, my son beloved,
Thou hast naught to cause thy weeping,
Hast no reason for thy sorrow,
Often I this hope have cherished;
Many years have I been praying
That this mighty bard and hero,
Wise and valiant Wainamoinen,
Spouse should be to beauteous Aino,
Son-in-law to me, her mother.'
But the fair and lovely maiden,
Sister dear of Youkahainen,
Straightway fell to bitter weeping,
On the threshold wept and lingered,
Wept all day and all the night long,
Wept a second, then a third day,
Wept because a bitter sorrow
On her youthful heart had fallen.
Then the gray-haired mother asked her:
'Why this weeping, lovely Aino?
Thou hast found a noble suitor,
Thou wilt rule his spacious dwelling,
At his window sit and rest thee,
Rinse betimes his golden platters,
Walk a queen within his dwelling.'
Thus replied the tearful Aino:
'Mother dear, and all-forgiving,
Cause enough for this my sorrow,
Cause enough for bitter weeping:
I must loose my sunny tresses,
Tresses beautiful and golden,
Cannot deck my hair with jewels,
Cannot bind my head with ribbons,
All to be hereafter hidden
Underneath the linen bonnet
37
That the wife. must wear forever;
Weep at morning, weep at evening,
Weep alas! for waning beauty,
Childhood vanished, youth departed,
Silver sunshine, golden moonlight,
Hope and pleasure of my childhood,
Taken from me now forever,
And so soon to be forgotten
At the tool-bench of my brother,
At the window of my sister,
In the cottage of my father.'
Spake again the gray-haired mother
To her wailing daughter Aino:
'Cease thy sorrow, foolish maiden,
By thy tears thou art ungrateful,
Reason none for thy repining,
Not the slightest cause for weeping;
Everywhere the silver sunshine
Falls as bright on other households;
Not alone the moonlight glimmers
Through thy father's open windows,
On the work-bench of thy brother;
Flowers bloom in every meadow,
Berries grow on every mountain;
Thou canst go thyself and find them,
All the day long go and find them;
Not alone thy brother's meadows
Grow the beauteous vines and flowers;
Not alone thy father's mountains
Yield the ripe, nutritious berries;
Flowers bloom in other meadows,
Berries grow on other mountains,
There as here, my lovely Aino.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
292:The Coming Of Arthur
Leodogran, the King of Cameliard,
Had one fair daughter, and none other child;
And she was the fairest of all flesh on earth,
Guinevere, and in her his one delight.
For many a petty king ere Arthur came
Ruled in this isle, and ever waging war
Each upon other, wasted all the land;
And still from time to time the heathen host
Swarmed overseas, and harried what was left.
And so there grew great tracts of wilderness,
Wherein the beast was ever more and more,
But man was less and less, till Arthur came.
For first Aurelius lived and fought and died,
And after him King Uther fought and died,
But either failed to make the kingdom one.
And after these King Arthur for a space,
And through the puissance of his Table Round,
Drew all their petty princedoms under him.
Their king and head, and made a realm, and reigned.
And thus the land of Cameliard was waste,
Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein,
And none or few to scare or chase the beast;
So that wild dog, and wolf and boar and bear
Came night and day, and rooted in the fields,
And wallowed in the gardens of the King.
And ever and anon the wolf would steal
The children and devour, but now and then,
Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce teat
To human sucklings; and the children, housed
In her foul den, there at their meat would growl,
And mock their foster mother on four feet,
Till, straightened, they grew up to wolf-like men,
Worse than the wolves. And King Leodogran
Groaned for the Roman legions here again,
And Csar's eagle: then his brother king,
Urien, assailed him: last a heathen horde,
Reddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood,
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And on the spike that split the mother's heart
Spitting the child, brake on him, till, amazed,
He knew not whither he should turn for aid.
But--for he heard of Arthur newly crowned,
Though not without an uproar made by those
Who cried, `He is not Uther's son'--the King
Sent to him, saying, `Arise, and help us thou!
For here between the man and beast we die.'
And Arthur yet had done no deed of arms,
But heard the call, and came: and Guinevere
Stood by the castle walls to watch him pass;
But since he neither wore on helm or shield
The golden symbol of his kinglihood,
But rode a simple knight among his knights,
And many of these in richer arms than he,
She saw him not, or marked not, if she saw,
One among many, though his face was bare.
But Arthur, looking downward as he past,
Felt the light of her eyes into his life
Smite on the sudden, yet rode on, and pitched
His tents beside the forest. Then he drave
The heathen; after, slew the beast, and felled
The forest, letting in the sun, and made
Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight
And so returned.
For while he lingered there,
A doubt that ever smouldered in the hearts
Of those great Lords and Barons of his realm
Flashed forth and into war: for most of these,
Colleaguing with a score of petty kings,
Made head against him, crying, `Who is he
That he should rule us? who hath proven him
King Uther's son? for lo! we look at him,
And find nor face nor bearing, limbs nor voice,
Are like to those of Uther whom we knew.
This is the son of Gorlos, not the King;
This is the son of Anton, not the King.'
And Arthur, passing thence to battle, felt
574
Travail, and throes and agonies of the life,
Desiring to be joined with Guinevere;
And thinking as he rode, `Her father said
That there between the man and beast they die.
Shall I not lift her from this land of beasts
Up to my throne, and side by side with me?
What happiness to reign a lonely king,
Vext--O ye stars that shudder over me,
O earth that soundest hollow under me,
Vext with waste dreams? for saving I be joined
To her that is the fairest under heaven,
I seem as nothing in the mighty world,
And cannot will my will, nor work my work
Wholly, nor make myself in mine own realm
Victor and lord. But were I joined with her,
Then might we live together as one life,
And reigning with one will in everything
Have power on this dark land to lighten it,
And power on this dead world to make it live.'
Thereafter--as he speaks who tells the tale-When Arthur reached a field-of-battle bright
With pitched pavilions of his foe, the world
Was all so clear about him, that he saw
The smallest rock far on the faintest hill,
And even in high day the morning star.
So when the King had set his banner broad,
At once from either side, with trumpet-blast,
And shouts, and clarions shrilling unto blood,
The long-lanced battle let their horses run.
And now the Barons and the kings prevailed,
And now the King, as here and there that war
Went swaying; but the Powers who walk the world
Made lightnings and great thunders over him,
And dazed all eyes, till Arthur by main might,
And mightier of his hands with every blow,
And leading all his knighthood threw the kings
Cardos, Urien, Cradlemont of Wales,
Claudias, and Clariance of Northumberland,
The King Brandagoras of Latangor,
With Anguisant of Erin, Morganore,
And Lot of Orkney. Then, before a voice
575
As dreadful as the shout of one who sees
To one who sins, and deems himself alone
And all the world asleep, they swerved and brake
Flying, and Arthur called to stay the brands
That hacked among the flyers, `Ho! they yield!'
So like a painted battle the war stood
Silenced, the living quiet as the dead,
And in the heart of Arthur joy was lord.
He laughed upon his warrior whom he loved
And honoured most. `Thou dost not doubt me King,
So well thine arm hath wrought for me today.'
`Sir and my liege,' he cried, `the fire of God
Descends upon thee in the battle-field:
I know thee for my King!' Whereat the two,
For each had warded either in the fight,
Sware on the field of death a deathless love.
And Arthur said, `Man's word is God in man:
Let chance what will, I trust thee to the death.'
Then quickly from the foughten field he sent
Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere,
His new-made knights, to King Leodogran,
Saying, `If I in aught have served thee well,
Give me thy daughter Guinevere to wife.'
Whom when he heard, Leodogran in heart
Debating--`How should I that am a king,
However much he holp me at my need,
Give my one daughter saving to a king,
And a king's son?'--lifted his voice, and called
A hoary man, his chamberlain, to whom
He trusted all things, and of him required
His counsel: `Knowest thou aught of Arthur's birth?'
Then spake the hoary chamberlain and said,
`Sir King, there be but two old men that know:
And each is twice as old as I; and one
Is Merlin, the wise man that ever served
King Uther through his magic art; and one
Is Merlin's master (so they call him) Bleys,
Who taught him magic, but the scholar ran
Before the master, and so far, that Bleys,
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Laid magic by, and sat him down, and wrote
All things and whatsoever Merlin did
In one great annal-book, where after-years
Will learn the secret of our Arthur's birth.'
To whom the King Leodogran replied,
`O friend, had I been holpen half as well
By this King Arthur as by thee today,
Then beast and man had had their share of me:
But summon here before us yet once more
Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere.'
Then, when they came before him, the King said,
`I have seen the cuckoo chased by lesser fowl,
And reason in the chase: but wherefore now
Do these your lords stir up the heat of war,
Some calling Arthur born of Gorlos,
Others of Anton? Tell me, ye yourselves,
Hold ye this Arthur for King Uther's son?'
And Ulfius and Brastias answered, `Ay.'
Then Bedivere, the first of all his knights
Knighted by Arthur at his crowning, spake-For bold in heart and act and word was he,
Whenever slander breathed against the King-`Sir, there be many rumours on this head:
For there be those who hate him in their hearts,
Call him baseborn, and since his ways are sweet,
And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man:
And there be those who deem him more than man,
And dream he dropt from heaven: but my belief
In all this matter--so ye care to learn-Sir, for ye know that in King Uther's time
The prince and warrior Gorlos, he that held
Tintagil castle by the Cornish sea,
Was wedded with a winsome wife, Ygerne:
And daughters had she borne him,--one whereof,
Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent,
Hath ever like a loyal sister cleaved
To Arthur,--but a son she had not borne.
And Uther cast upon her eyes of love:
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But she, a stainless wife to Gorlos,
So loathed the bright dishonour of his love,
That Gorlos and King Uther went to war:
And overthrown was Gorlos and slain.
Then Uther in his wrath and heat besieged
Ygerne within Tintagil, where her men,
Seeing the mighty swarm about their walls,
Left her and fled, and Uther entered in,
And there was none to call to but himself.
So, compassed by the power of the King,
Enforced was she to wed him in her tears,
And with a shameful swiftness: afterward,
Not many moons, King Uther died himself,
Moaning and wailing for an heir to rule
After him, lest the realm should go to wrack.
And that same night, the night of the new year,
By reason of the bitterness and grief
That vext his mother, all before his time
Was Arthur born, and all as soon as born
Delivered at a secret postern-gate
To Merlin, to be holden far apart
Until his hour should come; because the lords
Of that fierce day were as the lords of this,
Wild beasts, and surely would have torn the child
Piecemeal among them, had they known; for each
But sought to rule for his own self and hand,
And many hated Uther for the sake
Of Gorlos. Wherefore Merlin took the child,
And gave him to Sir Anton, an old knight
And ancient friend of Uther; and his wife
Nursed the young prince, and reared him with her own;
And no man knew. And ever since the lords
Have foughten like wild beasts among themselves,
So that the realm has gone to wrack: but now,
This year, when Merlin (for his hour had come)
Brought Arthur forth, and set him in the hall,
Proclaiming, "Here is Uther's heir, your king,"
A hundred voices cried, "Away with him!
No king of ours! a son of Gorlos he,
Or else the child of Anton, and no king,
Or else baseborn." Yet Merlin through his craft,
And while the people clamoured for a king,
578
Had Arthur crowned; but after, the great lords
Banded, and so brake out in open war.'
Then while the King debated with himself
If Arthur were the child of shamefulness,
Or born the son of Gorlos, after death,
Or Uther's son, and born before his time,
Or whether there were truth in anything
Said by these three, there came to Cameliard,
With Gawain and young Modred, her two sons,
Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent;
Whom as he could, not as he would, the King
Made feast for, saying, as they sat at meat,
`A doubtful throne is ice on summer seas.
Ye come from Arthur's court. Victor his men
Report him! Yea, but ye--think ye this king-So many those that hate him, and so strong,
So few his knights, however brave they be-Hath body enow to hold his foemen down?'
`O King,' she cried, `and I will tell thee: few,
Few, but all brave, all of one mind with him;
For I was near him when the savage yells
Of Uther's peerage died, and Arthur sat
Crowned on the das, and his warriors cried,
"Be thou the king, and we will work thy will
Who love thee." Then the King in low deep tones,
And simple words of great authority,
Bound them by so strait vows to his own self,
That when they rose, knighted from kneeling, some
Were pale as at the passing of a ghost,
Some flushed, and others dazed, as one who wakes
Half-blinded at the coming of a light.
`But when he spake and cheered his Table Round
With large, divine, and comfortable words,
Beyond my tongue to tell thee--I beheld
From eye to eye through all their Order flash
A momentary likeness of the King:
And ere it left their faces, through the cross
And those around it and the Crucified,
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Down from the casement over Arthur, smote
Flame-colour, vert and azure, in three rays,
One falling upon each of three fair queens,
Who stood in silence near his throne, the friends
Of Arthur, gazing on him, tall, with bright
Sweet faces, who will help him at his need.
`And there I saw mage Merlin, whose vast wit
And hundred winters are but as the hands
Of loyal vassals toiling for their liege.
`And near him stood the Lady of the Lake,
Who knows a subtler magic than his own-Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful.
She gave the King his huge cross-hilted sword,
Whereby to drive the heathen out: a mist
Of incense curled about her, and her face
Wellnigh was hidden in the minster gloom;
But there was heard among the holy hymns
A voice as of the waters, for she dwells
Down in a deep; calm, whatsoever storms
May shake the world, and when the surface rolls,
Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord.
`There likewise I beheld Excalibur
Before him at his crowning borne, the sword
That rose from out the bosom of the lake,
And Arthur rowed across and took it--rich
With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt,
Bewildering heart and eye--the blade so bright
That men are blinded by it--on one side,
Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world,
"Take me," but turn the blade and ye shall see,
And written in the speech ye speak yourself,
"Cast me away!" And sad was Arthur's face
Taking it, but old Merlin counselled him,
"Take thou and strike! the time to cast away
Is yet far-off." So this great brand the king
Took, and by this will beat his foemen down.'
Thereat Leodogran rejoiced, but thought
To sift his doubtings to the last, and asked,
580
Fixing full eyes of question on her face,
`The swallow and the swift are near akin,
But thou art closer to this noble prince,
Being his own dear sister;' and she said,
`Daughter of Gorlos and Ygerne am I;'
`And therefore Arthur's sister?' asked the King.
She answered, `These be secret things,' and signed
To those two sons to pass, and let them be.
And Gawain went, and breaking into song
Sprang out, and followed by his flying hair
Ran like a colt, and leapt at all he saw:
But Modred laid his ear beside the doors,
And there half-heard; the same that afterward
Struck for the throne, and striking found his doom.
And then the Queen made answer, `What know I?
For dark my mother was in eyes and hair,
And dark in hair and eyes am I; and dark
Was Gorlos, yea and dark was Uther too,
Wellnigh to blackness; but this King is fair
Beyond the race of Britons and of men.
Moreover, always in my mind I hear
A cry from out the dawning of my life,
A mother weeping, and I hear her say,
"O that ye had some brother, pretty one,
To guard thee on the rough ways of the world."'
`Ay,' said the King, `and hear ye such a cry?
But when did Arthur chance upon thee first?'
`O King!' she cried, `and I will tell thee true:
He found me first when yet a little maid:
Beaten I had been for a little fault
Whereof I was not guilty; and out I ran
And flung myself down on a bank of heath,
And hated this fair world and all therein,
And wept, and wished that I were dead; and he-I know not whether of himself he came,
Or brought by Merlin, who, they say, can walk
Unseen at pleasure--he was at my side,
And spake sweet words, and comforted my heart,
And dried my tears, being a child with me.
581
And many a time he came, and evermore
As I grew greater grew with me; and sad
At times he seemed, and sad with him was I,
Stern too at times, and then I loved him not,
But sweet again, and then I loved him well.
And now of late I see him less and less,
But those first days had golden hours for me,
For then I surely thought he would be king.
`But let me tell thee now another tale:
For Bleys, our Merlin's master, as they say,
Died but of late, and sent his cry to me,
To hear him speak before he left his life.
Shrunk like a fairy changeling lay the mage;
And when I entered told me that himself
And Merlin ever served about the King,
Uther, before he died; and on the night
When Uther in Tintagil past away
Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two
Left the still King, and passing forth to breathe,
Then from the castle gateway by the chasm
Descending through the dismal night--a night
In which the bounds of heaven and earth were lost-Beheld, so high upon the dreary deeps
It seemed in heaven, a ship, the shape thereof
A dragon winged, and all from stern to stern
Bright with a shining people on the decks,
And gone as soon as seen. And then the two
Dropt to the cove, and watched the great sea fall,
Wave after wave, each mightier than the last,
Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep
And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged
Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame:
And down the wave and in the flame was borne
A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet,
Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried "The King!
Here is an heir for Uther!" And the fringe
Of that great breaker, sweeping up the strand,
Lashed at the wizard as he spake the word,
And all at once all round him rose in fire,
So that the child and he were clothed in fire.
And presently thereafter followed calm,
582
Free sky and stars: "And this the same child," he said,
"Is he who reigns; nor could I part in peace
Till this were told." And saying this the seer
Went through the strait and dreadful pass of death,
Not ever to be questioned any more
Save on the further side; but when I met
Merlin, and asked him if these things were truth-The shining dragon and the naked child
Descending in the glory of the seas-He laughed as is his wont, and answered me
In riddling triplets of old time, and said:
`"Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow in the sky!
A young man will be wiser by and by;
An old man's wit may wander ere he die.
Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow on the lea!
And truth is this to me, and that to thee;
And truth or clothed or naked let it be.
Rain, sun, and rain! and the free blossom blows:
Sun, rain, and sun! and where is he who knows?
From the great deep to the great deep he goes."
`So Merlin riddling angered me; but thou
Fear not to give this King thy only child,
Guinevere: so great bards of him will sing
Hereafter; and dark sayings from of old
Ranging and ringing through the minds of men,
And echoed by old folk beside their fires
For comfort after their wage-work is done,
Speak of the King; and Merlin in our time
Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn
Though men may wound him that he will not die,
But pass, again to come; and then or now
Utterly smite the heathen underfoot,
Till these and all men hail him for their king.'
She spake and King Leodogran rejoiced,
But musing, `Shall I answer yea or nay?'
Doubted, and drowsed, nodded and slept, and saw,
Dreaming, a slope of land that ever grew,
Field after field, up to a height, the peak
Haze-hidden, and thereon a phantom king,
583
Now looming, and now lost; and on the slope
The sword rose, the hind fell, the herd was driven,
Fire glimpsed; and all the land from roof and rick,
In drifts of smoke before a rolling wind,
Streamed to the peak, and mingled with the haze
And made it thicker; while the phantom king
Sent out at times a voice; and here or there
Stood one who pointed toward the voice, the rest
Slew on and burnt, crying, `No king of ours,
No son of Uther, and no king of ours;'
Till with a wink his dream was changed, the haze
Descended, and the solid earth became
As nothing, but the King stood out in heaven,
Crowned. And Leodogran awoke, and sent
Ulfius, and Brastias and Bedivere,
Back to the court of Arthur answering yea.
Then Arthur charged his warrior whom he loved
And honoured most, Sir Lancelot, to ride forth
And bring the Queen;--and watched him from the gates:
And Lancelot past away among the flowers,
(For then was latter April) and returned
Among the flowers, in May, with Guinevere.
To whom arrived, by Dubric the high saint,
Chief of the church in Britain, and before
The stateliest of her altar-shrines, the King
That morn was married, while in stainless white,
The fair beginners of a nobler time,
And glorying in their vows and him, his knights
Stood around him, and rejoicing in his joy.
Far shone the fields of May through open door,
The sacred altar blossomed white with May,
The Sun of May descended on their King,
They gazed on all earth's beauty in their Queen,
Rolled incense, and there past along the hymns
A voice as of the waters, while the two
Sware at the shrine of Christ a deathless love:
And Arthur said, `Behold, thy doom is mine.
Let chance what will, I love thee to the death!'
To whom the Queen replied with drooping eyes,
`King and my lord, I love thee to the death!'
And holy Dubric spread his hands and spake,
584
`Reign ye, and live and love, and make the world
Other, and may thy Queen be one with thee,
And all this Order of thy Table Round
Fulfil the boundless purpose of their King!'
So Dubric said; but when they left the shrine
Great Lords from Rome before the portal stood,
In scornful stillness gazing as they past;
Then while they paced a city all on fire
With sun and cloth of gold, the trumpets blew,
And Arthur's knighthood sang before the King:-`Blow, trumpet, for the world is white with May;
Blow trumpet, the long night hath rolled away!
Blow through the living world--"Let the King reign."
`Shall Rome or Heathen rule in Arthur's realm?
Flash brand and lance, fall battleaxe upon helm,
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign.
`Strike for the King and live! his knights have heard
That God hath told the King a secret word.
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign.
`Blow trumpet! he will lift us from the dust.
Blow trumpet! live the strength and die the lust!
Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.
`Strike for the King and die! and if thou diest,
The King is King, and ever wills the highest.
Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.
`Blow, for our Sun is mighty in his May!
Blow, for our Sun is mightier day by day!
Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.
`The King will follow Christ, and we the King
In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing.
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign.'
So sang the knighthood, moving to their hall.
There at the banquet those great Lords from Rome,
585
The slowly-fading mistress of the world,
Strode in, and claimed their tribute as of yore.
But Arthur spake, `Behold, for these have sworn
To wage my wars, and worship me their King;
The old order changeth, yielding place to new;
And we that fight for our fair father Christ,
Seeing that ye be grown too weak and old
To drive the heathen from your Roman wall,
No tribute will we pay:' so those great lords
Drew back in wrath, and Arthur strove with Rome.
And Arthur and his knighthood for a space
Were all one will, and through that strength the King
Drew in the petty princedoms under him,
Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame
The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned.
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,#NFDB
293:SCENE 1.PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN. THE LORD AND THE HOST OF HEAVEN. ENTER THREE ARCHANGELS.
RAPHAEL:
The sun makes music as of old
Amid the rival spheres of Heaven,
On its predestined circle rolled
With thunder speed: the Angels even
Draw strength from gazing on its glance,
Though none its meaning fathom may:--
The worlds unwithered countenance
Is bright as at Creations day.
GABRIEL:
And swift and swift, with rapid lightness,
The adorned Earth spins silently,
Alternating Elysian brightness
With deep and dreadful night; the sea
Foams in broad billows from the deep
Up to the rocks, and rocks and Ocean,
Onward, with spheres which never sleep,
Are hurried in eternal motion.
MICHAEL:
And tempests in contention roar
From land to sea, from sea to land;
And, raging, weave a chain of power,
Which girds the earth, as with a band.--
A flashing desolation there,
Flames before the thunders way;
But Thy servants, Lord, revere
The gentle changes of Thy day.
CHORUS OF THE THREE:
The Angels draw strength from Thy glance,
Though no one comprehend Thee may;--
Thy worlds unwithered countenance
Is bright as on Creation's day.
The sun sounds, according to ancient custom,
In the song of emulation of his brother-spheres.
And its fore-written circle
Fulfils with a step of thunder.
Its countenance gives the Angels strength
Though no one can fathom it.
The incredible high works
Are excellent as at the first day.
GABRIEL:
And swift, and inconceivably swift
The adornment of earth winds itself round,
And exchanges Paradise--clearness
With deep dreadful night.
The sea foams in broad waves
From its deep bottom, up to the rocks,
And rocks and sea are torn on together
In the eternal swift course of the spheres.
MICHAEL:
And storms roar in emulation
From sea to land, from land to sea,
And make, raging, a chain
Of deepest operation round about.
There flames a flashing destruction
Before the path of the thunderbolt.
But Thy servants, Lord, revere
The gentle alternations of Thy day.
CHORUS:
Thy countenance gives the Angels strength,
Though none can comprehend Thee:
And all Thy lofty works
Are excellent as at the first day.
[ENTER MEPHISTOPHELES.]
MEPHISTOPHELES:
As thou, O Lord, once more art kind enough
To interest Thyself in our affairs,
And ask, How goes it with you there below?
And as indulgently at other times
Thou tookest not my visits in ill part,
Thou seest me here once more among Thy household.
Though I should scandalize this company,
You will excuse me if I do not talk
In the high style which they think fashionable;
My pathos certainly would make You laugh too,
Had You not long since given over laughing.
Nothing know I to say of suns and worlds;
I observe only how men plague themselves;--
The little god o the world keeps the same stamp,
As wonderful as on creations day:--
A little better would he live, hadst Thou
Not given him a glimpse of Heavens light
Which he calls reason, and employs it only
To live more beastlily than any beast.
With reverence to Your Lordship be it spoken,
Hes like one of those long-legged grasshoppers,
Who flits and jumps about, and sings for ever
The same old song i the grass. There let him lie,
Burying his nose in every heap of dung.
THE LORD:
Have you no more to say? Do you come here
Always to scold, and cavil, and complain?
Seems nothing ever right to you on earth?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
No, Lord! I find all there, as ever, bad at best.
Even I am sorry for mans days of sorrow;
I could myself almost give up the pleasure
Of plaguing the poor things.
THE LORD:
Knowest thou Faust?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
The Doctor?
THE LORD:
Ay; My servant Faust.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
In truth
He serves You in a fashion quite his own;
And the fools meat and drink are not of earth.
His aspirations bear him on so far
That he is half aware of his own folly,
For he demands from Heaven its fairest star,
And from the earth the highest joy it bears,
Yet all things far, and all things near, are vain
To calm the deep emotions of his breast.
THE LORD:
Though he now serves Me in a cloud of error,
I will soon lead him forth to the clear day.
When trees look green, full well the gardener knows
That fruits and blooms will deck the coming year.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What will You bet?--now am sure of winning--
Only, observe You give me full permission
To lead him softly on my path.
THE LORD:
As long
As he shall live upon the earth, so long
Is nothing unto thee forbiddenMan
Must err till he has ceased to struggle.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Thanks.
And that is all I ask; for willingly
I never make acquaintance with the dead.
The full fresh cheeks of youth are food for me,
And if a corpse knocks, I am not at home.
For I am like a cat--I like to play
A little with the mouse before I eat it.
THE LORD:
Well, well! it is permitted thee. Draw thou
His spirit from its springs; as thou findst power
Seize him and lead him on thy downward path;
And stand ashamed when failure teaches thee
That a good man, even in his darkest longings,
Is well aware of the right way.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Well and good.
I am not in much doubt about my bet,
And if I lose, then tis Your turn to crow;
Enjoy Your triumph then with a full breast.
Ay; dust shall he devour, and that with pleasure,
Like my old paramour, the famous Snake.
THE LORD:
Pray come here when it suits you; for I never
Had much dislike for people of your sort.
And, among all the Spirits who rebelled,
The knave was ever the least tedious to Me.
The active spirit of man soon sleeps, and soon 100
He seeks unbroken quiet; therefore I
Have given him the Devil for a companion,
Who may provoke him to some sort of work,
And must create forever.--But ye, pure
Children of God, enjoy eternal beauty;--
Let that which ever operates and lives
Clasp you within the limits of its love;
And seize with sweet and melancholy thoughts
The floating phantoms of its loveliness.
[HEAVEN CLOSES; THE ARCHANGELS EXEUNT.]
MEPHISTOPHELES:
From time to time I visit the old fellow,
And I take care to keep on good terms with Him.
Civil enough is the same God Almighty,
To talk so freely with the Devil himself.
SCENE 2.MAY-DAY NIGHT. THE HARTZ MOUNTAIN, A DESOLATE COUNTRY. FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Would you not like a broomstick? As for me
I wish I had a good stout ram to ride;
For we are still far from the appointed place.
FAUST:
This knotted staff is help enough for me,
Whilst I feel fresh upon my legs. What good
Is there in making short a pleasant way?
To creep along the labyrinths of the vales,
And climb those rocks, where ever-babbling springs,
Precipitate themselves in waterfalls,
Is the true sport that seasons such a path.
Already Spring kindles the birchen spray,
And the hoar pines already feel her breath:
Shall she not work also within our limbs?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Nothing of such an influence do I feel.
My body is all wintry, and I wish
The flowers upon our path were frost and snow.
But see how melancholy rises now,
Dimly uplifting her belated beam,
The blank unwelcome round of the red moon,
And gives so bad a light, that every step
One stumbles gainst some crag. With your permission,
Ill call on Ignis-fatuus to our aid:
I see one yonder burning jollily.
Halloo, my friend! may I request that you
Would favour us with your bright company?
Why should you blaze away there to no purpose?
Pray be so good as light us up this way.
IGNIS-FATUUS:
With reverence be it spoken, I will try
To overcome the lightness of my nature;
Our course, you know, is generally zigzag.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Ha, ha! your worship thinks you have to deal
With men. Go straight on, in the Devils name,
Or I shall puff your flickering life out.
IGNIS-FATUUS:
Well,
I see you are the master of the house;
I will accommodate myself to you.
Only consider that to-night this mountain
Is all enchanted, and if Jack-a-lantern
Shows you his way, though you should miss your own,
You ought not to be too exact with him.
FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, AND IGNIS-FATUUS, IN ALTERNATE CHORUS:
The limits of the sphere of dream,
The bounds of true and false, are past.
Lead us on, thou wandering Gleam,
Lead us onward, far and fast,
To the wide, the desert waste.
But see, how swift advance and shift
Trees behind trees, row by row,--
How, clift by clift, rocks bend and lift
Their frowning foreheads as we go.
The giant-snouted crags, ho! ho!
How they snort, and how they blow!
Through the mossy sods and stones,
Stream and streamlet hurry down
A rushing throng! A sound of song
Beneath the vault of Heaven is blown!
Sweet notes of love, the speaking tones
Of this bright day, sent down to say
That Paradise on Earth is known,
Resound around, beneath, above.
All we hope and all we love
Finds a voice in this blithe strain,
Which wakens hill and wood and rill,
And vibrates far oer field and vale,
And which Echo, like the tale
Of old times, repeats again.
To-whoo! to-whoo! near, nearer now
The sound of song, the rushing throng!
Are the screech, the lapwing, and the jay,
All awake as if twere day?
See, with long legs and belly wide,
A salamander in the brake!
Every root is like a snake,
And along the loose hillside,
With strange contortions through the night,
Curls, to seize or to affright;
And, animated, strong, and many,
They dart forth polypus-antennae,
To blister with their poison spume
The wanderer. Through the dazzling gloom
The many-coloured mice, that thread
The dewy turf beneath our tread,
In troops each others motions cross,
Through the heath and through the moss;
And, in legions intertangled,
The fire-flies flit, and swarm, and throng,
Till all the mountain depths are spangled.
Tell me, shall we go or stay?
Shall we onward? Come along!
Everything around is swept
Forward, onward, far away!
Trees and masses intercept
The sight, and wisps on every side
Are puffed up and multiplied.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Now vigorously seize my skirt, and gain
This pinnacle of isolated crag.
One may observe with wonder from this point,
How Mammon glows among the mountains.
FAUST:
Ay--
And strangely through the solid depth below
A melancholy light, like the red dawn,
Shoots from the lowest gorge of the abyss
Of mountains, lightning hitherward: there rise
Pillars of smoke, here clouds float gently by;
Here the light burns soft as the enkindled air,
Or the illumined dust of golden flowers;
And now it glides like tender colours spreading;
And now bursts forth in fountains from the earth;
And now it winds, one torrent of broad light,
Through the far valley with a hundred veins;
And now once more within that narrow corner
Masses itself into intensest splendour.
And near us, see, sparks spring out of the ground,
Like golden sand scattered upon the darkness;
The pinnacles of that black wall of mountains
That hems us in are kindled.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Rare: in faith!
Does not Sir Mammon gloriously illuminate
His palace for this festival?--it is
A pleasure which you had not known before.
I spy the boisterous guests already.
FAUST:
How
The children of the wind rage in the air!
With what fierce strokes they fall upon my neck!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Cling tightly to the old ribs of the crag.
Beware! for if with them thou warrest
In their fierce flight towards the wilderness,
Their breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag
Thy body to a grave in the abyss.
A cloud thickens the night.
Hark! how the tempest crashes through the forest!
The owls fly out in strange affright;
The columns of the evergreen palaces
Are split and shattered;
The roots creak, and stretch, and groan;
And ruinously overthrown,
The trunks are crushed and shattered
By the fierce blasts unconquerable stress.
Over each other crack and crash they all
In terrible and intertangled fall;
And through the ruins of the shaken mountain
The airs hiss and howl--
It is not the voice of the fountain,
Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl.
Dost thou not hear?
Strange accents are ringing
Aloft, afar, anear?
The witches are singing!
The torrent of a raging wizard song
Streams the whole mountain along.
CHORUS OF WITCHES:
The stubble is yellow, the corn is green,
Now to the Brocken the witches go;
The mighty multitude here may be seen
Gathering, wizard and witch, below.
Sir Urian is sitting aloft in the air;
Hey over stock! and hey over stone!
'Twixt witches and incubi, what shall be done?
Tell it who dare! tell it who dare!
A VOICE:
Upon a sow-swine, whose farrows were nine,
Old Baubo rideth alone.
CHORUS:
Honour her, to whom honour is due,
Old mother Baubo, honour to you!
An able sow, with old Baubo upon her,
Is worthy of glory, and worthy of honour!
The legion of witches is coming behind,
Darkening the night, and outspeeding the wind--
A VOICE:
Which way comest thou?
A VOICE:
Over Ilsenstein;
The owl was awake in the white moonshine;
I saw her at rest in her downy nest,
And she stared at me with her broad, bright eyne.
VOICES:
And you may now as well take your course on to Hell,
Since you ride by so fast on the headlong blast.
A VOICE:
She dropped poison upon me as I passed.
Here are the wounds--
CHORUS OF WITCHES:
Come away! come along!
The way is wide, the way is long,
But what is that for a Bedlam throng?
Stick with the prong, and scratch with the broom.
The child in the cradle lies strangled at home,
And the mother is clapping her hands.--
SEMICHORUS OF WIZARDS 1:
We glide in
Like snails when the women are all away;
And from a house once given over to sin
Woman has a thousand steps to stray.
SEMICHORUS 2:
A thousand steps must a woman take,
Where a man but a single spring will make.
VOICES ABOVE:
Come with us, come with us, from Felsensee.
VOICES BELOW:
With what joy would we fly through the upper sky!
We are washed, we are nointed, stark naked are we;
But our toil and our pain are forever in vain.
BOTH CHORUSES:
The wind is still, the stars are fled,
The melancholy moon is dead;
The magic notes, like spark on spark,
Drizzle, whistling through the dark. Come away!
VOICES BELOW:
Stay, Oh, stay!
VOICES ABOVE:
Out of the crannies of the rocks
Who calls?
VOICES BELOW:
Oh, let me join your flocks!
I, three hundred years have striven
To catch your skirt and mount to Heaven,--
And still in vain. Oh, might I be
With company akin to me!
BOTH CHORUSES:
Some on a ram and some on a prong,
On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along;
Forlorn is the wight who can rise not to-night.
A HALF-WITCH BELOW:
I have been tripping this many an hour:
Are the others already so far before?
No quiet at home, and no peace abroad!
And less methinks is found by the road.
CHORUS OF WITCHES:
Come onward, away! aroint thee, aroint!
A witch to be strong must anoint--anoint--
Then every trough will be boat enough;
With a rag for a sail we can sweep through the sky,
Who flies not to-night, when means he to fly?
BOTH CHORUSES:
We cling to the skirt, and we strike on the ground;
Witch-legions thicken around and around;
Wizard-swarms cover the heath all over.
[THEY DESCEND.]
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What thronging, dashing, raging, rustling;
What whispering, babbling, hissing, bustling;
What glimmering, spurting, stinking, burning,
As Heaven and Earth were overturning.
There is a true witch element about us;
Take hold on me, or we shall be divided:--
Where are you?
FAUST [FROM A DISTANCE]:
Here!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What!
I must exert my authority in the house.
Place for young Voland! pray make way, good people.
Take hold on me, doctor, an with one step
Let us escape from this unpleasant crowd:
They are too mad for people of my sort.
Just there shines a peculiar kind of light--
Something attracts me in those bushes. Come
This way: we shall slip down there in a minute.
FAUST:
Spirit of Contradiction! Well, lead on--
Twere a wise feat indeed to wander out
Into the Brocken upon May-day night,
And then to isolate oneself in scorn,
Disgusted with the humours of the time.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
See yonder, round a many-coloured flame
A merry club is huddled altogether:
Even with such little people as sit there
One would not be alone.
FAUST:
Would that I were
Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke,
Where the blind million rush impetuously
To meet the evil ones; there might I solve
Many a riddle that torments me.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Yet
Many a riddle there is tied anew
Inextricably. Let the great world rage!
We will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings.
Tis an old custom. Men have ever built
Their own small world in the great world of all.
I see young witches naked there, and old ones
Wisely attired with greater decency.
Be guided now by me, and you shall buy
A pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble.
I hear them tune their instruments--one must
Get used to this damned scraping. Come, Ill lead you
Among them; and what there you do and see,
As a fresh compact twixt us two shall be.
How say you now? this space is wide enough--
Look forth, you cannot see the end of it--
An hundred bonfires burn in rows, and they
Who throng around them seem innumerable:
Dancing and drinking, jabbering, making love,
And cooking, are at work. Now tell me, friend,
What is there better in the world than this?
FAUST:
In introducing us, do you assume
The character of Wizard or of Devil?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
In truth, I generally go about
In strict incognito; and yet one likes
To wear ones orders upon gala days.
I have no ribbon at my knee; but here
At home, the cloven foot is honourable.
See you that snail there?she comes creeping up,
And with her feeling eyes hath smelt out something.
I could not, if I would, mask myself here.
Come now, well go about from fire to fire:
Ill be the Pimp, and you shall be the Lover.
[TO SOME OLD WOMEN, WHO ARE SITTING ROUND A HEAP OF GLIMMERING COALS.]
Old gentlewomen, what do you do out here?
You ought to be with the young rioters
Right in the thickest of the revelry--
But every one is best content at home.
General.
Who dare confide in right or a just claim?
So much as I had done for them! and now--
With women and the people tis the same,
Youth will stand foremost ever,--age may go
To the dark grave unhonoured.
MINISTER:
Nowadays
People assert their rights: they go too far; 280
But as for me, the good old times I praise;
Then we were all in all--twas something worth
Ones while to be in place and wear a star;
That was indeed the golden age on earth.
PARVENU:
We too are active, and we did and do
What we ought not, perhaps; and yet we now
Will seize, whilst all things are whirled round and round,
A spoke of Fortunes wheel, and keep our ground.
AUTHOR:
Who now can taste a treatise of deep sense
And ponderous volume? tis impertinence
To write what none will read, therefore will I
To please the young and thoughtless people try.
MEPHISTOPHELES [WHO AT ONCE APPEARS TO HAVE GROWN VERY OLD]:
I find the people ripe for the last day,
Since I last came up to the wizard mountain;
And as my little cask runs turbid now,
So is the world drained to the dregs.
PEDLAR-WITCH:
Look here,
Gentlemen; do not hurry on so fast;
And lose the chance of a good pennyworth.
I have a pack full of the choicest wares
Of every sort, and yet in all my bundle
Is nothing like what may be found on earth;
Nothing that in a moment will make rich
Men and the world with fine malicious mischief--
There is no dagger drunk with blood; no bowl
From which consuming poison may be drained
By innocent and healthy lips; no jewel,
The price of an abandoned maidens shame;
No sword which cuts the bond it cannot loose,
Or stabs the wearers enemy in the back;
No--
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Gossip, you know little of these times.
What has been, has been; what is done, is past,
They shape themselves into the innovations
They breed, and innovation drags us with it.
The torrent of the crowd sweeps over us:
You think to impel, and are yourself impelled.
FAUST:
What is that yonder?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Mark her well. It is
Lilith.
FAUST:
Who?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Lilith, the first wife of Adam.
Beware of her fair hair, for she excels
All women in the magic of her locks;
And when she winds them round a young mans neck,
She will not ever set him free again.
FAUST:
There sit a girl and an old woman--they
Seem to be tired with pleasure and with play.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
There is no rest to-night for any one:
When one dance ends another is begun;
Come, let us to it. We shall have rare fun.
[FAUST DANCES AND SINGS WITH A GIRL, AND MEPHISTOPHELES WITH AN OLD WOMAN.]
FAUST:
I had once a lovely dream
In which I saw an apple-tree,
Where two fair apples with their gleam
To climb and taste attracted me.
THE GIRL:
She with apples you desired
From Paradise came long ago:
With you I feel that if required,
Such still within my garden grow.
...
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST:
What is this cursed multitude about?
Have we not long since proved to demonstration
That ghosts move not on ordinary feet?
But these are dancing just like men and women.
THE GIRL:
What does he want then at our ball?
FAUST:
Oh! he
Is far above us all in his conceit:
Whilst we enjoy, he reasons of enjoyment;
And any step which in our dance we tread,
If it be left out of his reckoning,
Is not to be considered as a step.
There are few things that scandalize him not:
And when you whirl round in the circle now,
As he went round the wheel in his old mill,
He says that you go wrong in all respects,
Especially if you congratulate him
Upon the strength of the resemblance.
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST:
Fly!
Vanish! Unheard-of impudence! What, still there!
In this enlightened age too, since you have been
Proved not to exist!--But this infernal brood
Will hear no reason and endure no rule.
Are we so wise, and is the POND still haunted?
How long have I been sweeping out this rubbish
Of superstition, and the world will not
Come clean with all my pains!--it is a case
Unheard of!
THE GIRL:
Then leave off teasing us so.
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST:
I tell you, spirits, to your faces now,
That I should not regret this despotism
Of spirits, but that mine can wield it not.
To-night I shall make poor work of it,
Yet I will take a round with you, and hope
Before my last step in the living dance
To beat the poet and the devil together.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
At last he will sit down in some foul puddle;
That is his way of solacing himself;
Until some leech, diverted with his gravity,
Cures him of spirits and the spirit together.
[TO FAUST, WHO HAS SECEDED FROM THE DANCE.]
Why do you let that fair girl pass from you,
Who sung so sweetly to you in the dance?
FAUST:
A red mouse in the middle of her singing
Sprung from her mouth.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
That was all right, my friend:
Be it enough that the mouse was not gray.
Do not disturb your hour of happiness
With close consideration of such trifles.
FAUST:
Then saw I--
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What?
FAUST:
Seest thou not a pale,
Fair girl, standing alone, far, far away?
She drags herself now forward with slow steps,
And seems as if she moved with shackled feet:
I cannot overcome the thought that she
Is like poor Margaret.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Let it be--pass on--
No good can come of it--it is not well
To meet itit is an enchanted phantom,
A lifeless idol; with its numbing look,
It freezes up the blood of man; and they
Who meet its ghastly stare are turned to stone,
Like those who saw Medusa.
FAUST:
Oh, too true!
Her eyes are like the eyes of a fresh corpse
Which no beloved hand has closed, alas!
That is the breast which Margaret yielded to me--
Those are the lovely limbs which I enjoyed!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
It is all magic, poor deluded fool!
She looks to every one like his first love.
FAUST:
Oh, what delight! what woe! I cannot turn
My looks from her sweet piteous countenance.
How strangely does a single blood-red line,
Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife,
Adorn her lovely neck!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Ay, she can carry
Her head under her arm upon occasion;
Perseus has cut it off for her. These pleasures
End in delusion.Gain this rising ground,
It is as airy here as in a...
And if I am not mightily deceived,
I see a theatre.What may this mean?
ATTENDANT:
Quite a new piece, the last of seven, for tis
The custom now to represent that number.
Tis written by a Dilettante, and
The actors who perform are Dilettanti;
Excuse me, gentlemen; but I must vanish.
I am a Dilettante curtain-lifter.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Scenes From The Faust Of Goethe
,#NFDB
294:The Kalevala - Rune Xviii
THE RIVAL SUITORS
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Long considered, long debated,
How to woo and win the daughter
Of the hostess of Pohyola,
How to lead the Bride of Beauty,
Fairy maiden of the rainbow,
To the meadows of Wainola,
From the dismal Sariola.
Now he decks his magic vessel,
Paints the boat in blue and scarlet,
Trims in gold the ship's forecastle,
Decks the prow in molten silver;
Sings his magic ship down gliding,
On the cylinders of fir-tree:
Now erects the masts of pine-wood,
On each mast the sails of linen,
Sails of blue, and white, and scarlet,
Woven into finest fabric.
Wainamoinen, the magician,
Steps aboard his wondrous vessel,
Steers the bark across the waters,
On the blue back of the broad-sea,
Speaks these words in sailing northward,
Sailing to the dark Pohyola:
'Come aboard my ship, O Ukko,
Come with me, thou God of mercy,
To protect thine ancient hero,
To support thy trusting servant,
On the breasts of raging billows,
On the far out-stretching waters.
'Rock, O winds, this wondrous vessel,
Causing not a single ripple;
Rolling waves, bear ye me northward,
That the oar may not be needed
In my journey to Pohyola,
O'er this mighty waste of waters.'
317
Ilmarinen's beauteous sister,
Fair and goodly maid, Annikki,
Of the Night and Dawn, the daughter,
Who awakes each morning early,
Rises long before the daylight,
Stood one morning on the sea-shore,
Washing in the foam her dresses,
Rinsing out her silken ribbons,
On the bridge of scarlet color,
On the border of the highway,
On a headland jutting seaward,
On the forest-covered island.
Here Annikki, looking round her,
Looking through the fog and ether,
Looking through the clouds of heaven,
Gazing far out on the blue-sea,
Sees the morning sun arising,
Glimmering along the billows,
Looks with eyes of distant vision
Toward the sunrise on the waters,
Toward the winding streams of Suomi,
Where the Wina-waves were flowing.
There she sees, on the horizon,
Something darkle in the sunlight,
Something blue upon the billows,
Speaks these words in wonder guessing:
What is this upon the surges,
What this blue upon the waters,
What this darkling in the sunlight?
'Tis perhaps a flock of wild-geese,
Or perchance the blue-duck flying;
Then upon thy wings arising,
Fly away to highest heaven.
'Art thou then a shoal of sea-trout,
Or perchance a school of salmon?
Dive then to the deep sea-bottom,
In the waters swim and frolic.
'Art thou then a cliff of granite,
Or perchance a mighty oak-tree,
Floating on the rough sea-billows?
May the floods then wash and beat thee
Break thee to a thousand fragments.'
318
Wainamoinen, sailing northward,
Steers his wondrous ship of magic
Toward the headland jutting seaward,
Toward the island forest-covered.
Now Annikki, goodly maiden,
Sees it is the magic vessel
Of a wonderful enchanter,
Of a mighty bard and hero,
And she asks this simple question:
'Art thou then my father's vessel,
Or my brother's ship of magic?
Haste away then to thy harbor,
To thy refuge in Wainola.
Hast thou come a goodly distance?
Sail then farther on thy journey,
Point thy prow to other waters.'
It was not her father's vessel,
Not a sail-boat from the distance,
'Twas the ship of Wainamoinen,
Bark of the eternal singer;
Sails within a hailing distance,
Swims still nearer o'er the waters,
Brings one word and takes another,
Brings a third of magic import.
Speaks the goodly maid, Annikki,
Of the Night and Dawn, the daughter,
To the sailor of the vessel:
'Whither sailest, Wainamoinen,
Whither bound, thou friend of waters,
Pride and joy of Kalevala?'
From the vessel Wainamomen
Gives this answer to the maiden:
'I have come to catch some sea-trout,
Catch the young and toothsome whiting,
Hiding in tbese-reeds and rushes.'
This the answer of Annikki:
'Do not speak to me in falsehood,
Know I well the times of fishing;
Long ago my honored father
Was a fisherman in Northland,
Came to catch the trout and whiting,
Fished within these seas and rivers.
319
Very well do I remember
How the fisherman disposes,
How he rigs his fishing vessel,
Lines, and gaffs, and poles, and fish-nets;
Hast not come a-fishing hither.
Whither goest, Wainamoinen,
Whither sailest, friend of waters?
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'I have come to catch some wild-geese,
Catch the hissing birds of Suomi,
In these far-extending borders,
In the Sachsensund dominions.'
Good Annikki gives this answer:
'Know I well a truthful speaker,
Easily detect a falsehood;
Formerly my aged father
Often came a-hunting hither,
Came to hunt the hissing wild-geese,
Hunt the red-bill of these waters.
Very well do I remember
How the hunter rigs his vessel,
Bows, and arrows, knives, and quiver,
Dogs enchained within the vessel,
Pointers hunting on the sea-shore,
Setters seeking in the marshes,
Tell the truth now Wainamoinen,
Whither is thy vessel sailing?'
Spake the hero of the Northland:
'To the wars my ship is sailing,
To the bloody fields of battle,
Where the streams run scarlet-colored,
Where the paths are paved with bodies!'
These the words of fair Annikki:
'Know I well the paths to battle.
Formerly my aged father
Often sounded war's alarum,
Often led the hosts to conquest;
In each ship a hundred rowers,
And in arms a thousand heroes,
Oil the prow a thousand cross-bows,
Swords, and spears, and battle-axes;
Know I well the ship of battle.
320
Speak Do longer fruitless falsehoods,
Whither sailest, Wainamoinen,
Whither steerest, friend of waters?
These the words of Wainamoinen:
'Come, O maiden, to my vessel,
In my magic ship be seated,
Then I'll give thee truthful answer.'
Thus Annikki, silver-tinselled,
Answers ancient Wainamoinen:
'With the winds I'll fill thy vessel,
To thy bark I'll send the storm-winds
And capsize thy ship of magic,
Break in pieces its forecastle,
If the truth thou dost not tell me,
If thou dost not cease thy falsehoods,
If thou dost not tell me truly
Whither sails thy magic vessel.'
These the words of Wainamoinen:
'Now I make thee truthful answer,
Though at first I spake deception:
I am sailing to the Northland
To the dismal Sariola,
Where the ogres live and flourish,
Where they drown the worthy heroes,
There to woo the Maid of Beauty
Sitting on the bow of heaven,
Woo and win the fairy virgin,
Bring her to my home and kindred,
To the firesides of Walnola.'
Then Aunikki, graceful maiden,
Of the Night and Dawn, the daughter,
As she heard the rightful answer,
Knew the truth was fully spoken,
Straightway left her coats unbeaten,
Left unwashed her linen garments,
Left unrinsed her silks and ribbons
On the highway by the sea-shore,
On the bridge of scarlet color
On her arm she threw her long-robes,
Hastened off with speed of roebuck
To the shops of Ilmarinen,
To the iron-forger's furnace,
321
To the blacksmith's home and smithy,
Here she found the hero-artist,
Forging out a bench of iron,
And adorning it with silver.
Soot lay thick upon his forehead,
Soot and coal upon his shoulders.
On the threshold speaks Annikki,
These the words his sister uses:
'Ilmarinen, dearest brother,
Thou eternal artist-forger,
Forge me now a loom of silver,
Golden rings to grace my fingers,
Forge me gold and silver ear-rings,
Six or seven golden girdles,
Golden crosslets for my bosom,
For my head forge golden trinkets,
And I'll tell a tale surprising,
Tell a story that concerns thee
Truthfully I'll tell the story.'
Then the blacksmith Ilmarinen
Spake and these the words he uttered:
'If thou'lt tell the tale sincerely,
I will forge the loom of silver,
Golden rings to grace thy fingers,
Forge thee gold and silver ear-rings,
Six or seven golden girdles,
Golden crosslets for thy bosom,
For thy head forge golden trinkets;
But if thou shouldst tell me falsely,
I shall break thy beauteous jewels,
Break thine ornaments in pieces,
Hurl them to the fire and furnace,
Never forge thee other trinkets.'
This the answer of Annikki:
'Ancient blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Dost thou ever think to marry
Her already thine affianced,
Beauteous Maiden of the Rainbow,
Fairest virgin of the Northland,
Chosen bride of Sariola?
Shouldst thou wish the Maid of Beauty,
Thou must forge, and forge unceasing,
322
Hammering the days and nights through;
Forge the summer hoofs for horses,
Forge them iron hoofs for winter,
In the long nights forge the snow-sledge,
Gaily trim it in the daytime,
Haste thou then upon thy journey
To thy wooing in the Northland,
To the dismal Sariola;
Thither journeys one more clever,
Sails another now before thee,
There to woo thy bride affianced,
Thence to lead thy chosen virgin,
Woo and win the Maid of Beauty;
Three long years thou hast been wooing.
Wainamoinen now is sailing
On the blue back of the waters,
Sitting at his helm of copper;
On the prow are golden carvings,
Beautiful his boat of magic,
Sailing fleetly o'er the billows,
To the never-pleasant Northland,
To the dismal Sariola.'
Ilmarinen stood in wonder,
Stood a statue at the story;
Silent grief had settled o'er him,
Settled o'er the iron-artist;
From one hand the tongs descended,
From the other fell the hammer,
As the blacksmith made this answer:
'Good Annikki, worthy sister,
I shall forge the loom of silver,
Golden rings to grace thy fingers,
Forge thee gold and silver ear-rings,
Six or seven golden girdles,
Golden crosslets for thy bosom;
Go and heat for me the bath-room,
Fill with heat the honey-chambers,
Lay the faggots on the fire-place,
Lay the smaller woods around them,
Pour some water through the ashes,
Make a soap of magic virtue,
Thus to cleanse my blackened visage,
323
Thus to cleanse the blacksmith's body,
Thus remove the soot and ashes.'
Then Annikki, kindly sister,
Quickly warmed her brother's bath-room,
Warmed it with the knots of fir-trees,
That the thunder-winds had broken;
Gathered pebbles from the fire-stream,
Threw them in the heating waters;
Broke the tassels from the birch-trees,
Steeped the foliage in honey,
Made a lye from milk and ashes,
Made of these a strong decoction,
Mixed it with the fat and marrow
Of the reindeer of the mountains,
Made a soap of magic virtue,
Thus to cleanse the iron-artist,
Thus to beautify the suitor,
Thus to make the hero worthy.
Ilmarinen, ancient blacksmith,
The eternal metal-worker,
Forged the wishes of his sister,
Ornaments for fair Annikki,
Rings, and bracelets, pins and ear-drops,
Forged for her six golden girdles,
Forged a weaving loom of silver,
While the maid prepared the bath-room,
Set his toilet-room in order.
To the maid he gave the trinkets,
Gave the loom of molten silver,
And the sister thus made answer:
'I have heated well thy bath-room,
Have thy toilet-things in order,
Everything as thou desirest;
Go prepare thyself for wooing,
Lave thy bead to flaxen whiteness,
Make thy cheeks look fresh and ruddy,
Lave thyself in Love's aroma,
That thy wooing prove successful.'
Ilmarinen, magic artist,
Quick repairing to his bath-room,
Bathed his head to flaxen whiteness,
Made his cheeks look fresh and ruddy,
324
Laved his eyes until they sparkled
Like the moonlight on the waters;
Wondrous were his form and features,
And his cheeks like ruddy berries.
These the words of Ilmarinen:
'Fair Annikki, lovely sister,
Bring me now my silken raiment,
Bring my best and richest vesture,
Bring me now my softest linen,
That my wooing prove successful.'
Straightway did the helpful sister
Bring the finest of his raiment,
Bring the softest of his linen,
Raiment fashioned by his mother;
Brought to him his silken stockings,
Brought him shoes of marten-leather,
Brought a vest of sky-blue color,
Brought him scarlet-colored trousers,
Brought a coat with scarlet trimming,
Brought a red shawl trimmed in ermine
Fourfold wrapped about his body;
Brought a fur-coat made of seal-skin,
Fastened with a thousand bottons,
And adorned with countless jewels;
Brought for him his magic girdle,
Fastened well with golden buckles,
That his artist-mother fashioned;
Brought him gloves with golden wristlets,
That the Laplanders had woven
For a head of many ringlets;
Brought the finest cap in Northland,
That his ancient father purchased
When he first began his wooing.
Ilmarinen, blacksmith-artist,
Clad himself to look his finest,
When he thus addressed a servant:
'Hitch for me a fleet-foot racer,
Hitch him to my willing snow-sledge,
For I start upon a journey
To the distant shores of Pohya,
To the dismal Sariola.'
Spake the servant thus in answer:
325
'Thou hast seven fleet-foot racers,
Munching grain within their mangers,
Which of these shall I make ready?'
Spake the blacksmith, Ilmarinen:
'Take the fleetest of my coursers,
Put the gray steed in the harness,
Hitch him to my sledge of magic;
Place six cuckoos on the break-board,
Seven bluebirds on the cross-bars,
Thus to charm the Northland maidens,
Thus to make them look and listen,
As the cuckoos call and echo.
Bring me too my largest bear-skin,
Fold it warm about the cross-bench;
Bring me then my marten fur-robes,
As a cover and protection.'
Straightway then the trusty servant
Of the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Put the gray steed in the harness,
Hitched the racer to the snow-sledge,
Placed six cuckoos on the break-board,
Seven bluebirds on the cross-bars,
On the front to sing and twitter;
Then he brought the largest bear-skin,
Folded it upon the cross-bench;
Brought the finest robes of marten,
Warm protection for the master.
Ilmarinen, forger-artist,
The eternal metal-worker,
Earnestly entreated Ukko:
'Send thy snow-flakes, Ukko, father,
Let them gently fall from heaven,
Let them cover all the heather,
Let them hide the berry-bushes,
That my sledge may glide in freedom
O'er the hills to Sariola!'
Ukko sent the snow from heaven,
Gently dropped the crystal snow-flakes,
Lending thus his kind assistance
To the hero, Ilmarinen,
On his journey to the Northland.
Reins in hand, the ancient artist
326
Seats him in his metal snow-sledge,
And beseeches thus his Master:
'Good luck to my reins and traces,
Good luck to my shafts and runners!
God protect my magic snow-sledge,
Be my safeguard on my journey
To the dismal Sariola!'
Now the ancient Ilmarinen
Draws the reins upon the racer,
Snaps his whip above the courser,
To the gray steed gives this order,
And the charger plunges northward:
'Haste away, my flaxen stallion,
Haste thee onward, noble white-face,
To the never-pleasant Pohya,
To the dreary Sariola!'
Fast and faster flies the fleet-foot,
On the curving snow-capped sea-coast,
On the borders of the lowlands,
O'er the alder-hills and mountains.
Merrily the steed flies onward,
Bluebirds singing, cuckoos calling,
On the sea-shore looking northward,
Through the sand and falling snow-flakes
Blinding winds, and snow, and sea-foam,
Cloud the hero, Ilmarinen,
As he glides upon his journey,
Looking seaward for the vessel
Of the ancient Wainamoinen;
Travels one day, then a second,
Travels all the next day northward,
Till the third day Ilmarinen
Overtakes old Wainamoinen,
Rails him in his magic vessel,
And addresses thus the minstrel:
'O thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Let us woo in peace the maiden,
Fairest daughter or the Northland,
Sitting on the bow of heaven,
Let each labor long to win her,
Let her wed the one she chooses,
Him selecting, let her follow.'
327
Wainamoinen thus makes answer:
'I agree to thy proposal,
Let us woo in peace the maiden,
Not by force, nor faithless measures,
Shall we woo the Maid of Beauty,
Let her follow him she chooses;
Let the unsuccessful suitor
Harbor neither wrath nor envy
For the hero that she follows.'
Thus agreeing, on they journey,
Each according to his pleasure;
Fleetly does the steed fly onward,
Quickly flies the magic vessel,
Sailing on the broad-sea northward;
Ilmarinen's fleet-foot racer
Makes the hills of Northland tremble,
As he gallops on his journey
To the dismal Sariola.
Wainamoinen calls the South-winds,
And they fly to his assistance;
Swiftly sails his ship of beauty,
Swiftly plows the rough sea-billows
In her pathway to Pohyola.
Time had gone but little distance,
Scarce a moment had passed over,
Ere the dogs began their barking,
In the mansions of the Northland,
In the courts of Sariola,
Watch-dogs of the court of Louhi;
Never had they growled so fiercely,
Never had they barked so loudly,
Never with their tails had beaten
Northland into such an uproar.
Spake the master of Pohyola:
'Go and learn, my worthy daughter,
Why the watch-dogs have been barking,
Why the black-dog signals danger.'
Quickly does the daughter answer:
'I am occupied, dear father,
I have work of more importance,
I must tend my flock of lambkins,
I must turn the nether millstone,
328
Grind to flour the grains of barley,
Run the grindings through the sifter,
Only have I time for grinding.'
Lowly growls the faithful watch-dog,
Seldom does he growl so strangely.
Spake the master of Pohyola:
'Go and learn, my trusted consort,
Why the Northland dogs are barking,
Why the black-dog signals danger.'
Thus his aged wife makes answer;
'Have no time, nor inclination,
I must feed my hungry household,
Must prepare a worthy dinner,
I must bake the toothsome biscuit,
Knead the dough till it is ready,
Only have I strength for kneading.'
Spake the master of Pohyola:
'Dames are always in a hurry,
Maidens too are ever busy,
Whether warming at the oven,
Or asleep upon their couches;
Go my son, and learn the danger,
Why the black-dog growls displeasure,'
Quickly does the son give answer:
'Have no time, nor inclination,
Am in haste to grind my hatchet;
I must chop this log to cordwood,
For the fire must cut the faggots,
I must split the wood in fragments,
Large the pile and small the fire-wood,
Only have I strength for chopping.'
Still the watch-dog growls in anger,
Growl the whelps within the mansion,
Growl the dogs chained in the kennel,
Growls the black-dog on the hill-top,
Setting Northland in an uproar.
Spake the master of Pohyola:
'Never, never does my black-dog
Growl like this without a reason;
Never does he bark for nothing,
Does not growl at angry billows,
Nor the sighing of the pine-trees.'
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Then the master of Pohyola
Went himself to learn the reason
For the barking of the watch-dogs;
Strode he through the spacious court-yard,
Through the open fields beyond it,
To the summit of the uplands.
Looking toward his black-dog barking,
He beholds the muzzle pointed
To a distant, stormy hill-top,
To a mound with alders covered;
There he learned the rightful reason,
Why his dogs had barked so loudly,
Why had growled the wool-tail bearer,
Why his whelps had signalled danger.
At full sail, he saw a vessel,
And the ship was scarlet-colored,
Entering the bay of Lempo;
Saw a sledge of magic colors,
Gliding up the curving sea-shore,
O'er the snow-fields of Pohyola.
Then the master of the Northland
Hastened straightway to his dwelling,
Hastened forward to his court-room,
These the accents of the master:
'Often strangers journey hither,
On the blue back of the ocean,
Sailing in a scarlet vessel,
Rocking in the bay of Lempo;
Often strangers come in sledges
To the honey-lands of Louhi.'
Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
How shall we obtain a token
Why these strangers journey hither?
My beloved, faithful daughter,
Lay a branch upon the fire-place,
Let it burn with fire of magic
If it trickle drops of scarlet,
War and bloodshed do they bring us;
If it trickle drops of water,
Peace and plenty bring the strangers.'
Northland's fair and slender maiden,
Beautiful and modest daughter,
330
Lays a sorb-branch on the fire-place,
Lights it with the fire of magic;
Does not trickle drops of scarlet,
Trickles neither blood, nor water,
From the wand come drops of honey.
From the corner spake Suowakko,
This the language of the wizard:
'If the wand is dripping honey,
Then the strangers that are coming
Are but worthy friends and suitors.'
Then the hostess of the Northland,
With the daughter of the hostess,
Straightway left their work, and hastened
From their dwelling to the court-yard;
Looked about in all directions,
Turned their eyes upon the waters,
Saw a magic-colored vessel
Rocking slowly in the harbor,
Having sailed the bay of Lempo,
Triple sails, and masts, and rigging,
Sable was the nether portion,
And the upper, scarlet-colored,
At the helm an ancient hero
Leaning on his oars of copper;
Saw a fleet-foot racer running,
Saw a red sledge lightly follow,
Saw the magic sledge emblazoned,
Guided toward the courts of Louhi;
Saw and heard six golden cuckoos
Sitting on the break-board, calling,
Seven bluebirds richly colored
Singing from the yoke and cross-bar;
In the sledge a magic hero,
Young, and strong, and proud, and handsome,
Holding reins upon the courser.
Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
'Dearest daughter, winsome maiden,
Dost thou wish a noble suitor?
Should these heroes come to woo thee,
Wouldst thou leave thy home and country,
Be the bride of him that pleases,
Be his faithful life-companion?
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'He that comes upon the waters,
Sailing in a magic vessel,
Having sailed the bay of Lempo,
Is the good, old Wainamoinen;
In his ship are countless treasures,
Richest presents from Wainola.
'He that rides here in his snow-sledge
In his sledge of magic beauty,
With the cuckoos and the bluebirds,
Is the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Cometh hither empty-handed,
Only brings some wisdom-sayings.
When they come within the dwelling,
Bring a bowl of honeyed viands,
Bring a pitcher with two handles,
Give to him that thou wouldst follow
Give it to old Wainamoinen,
Him that brings thee countless treasures,
Costly presents in his vessel,
Priceless gems from Kalevala.'
Spake the Northland's lovely daughter,
This the language of the maiden
'Good, indeed, advice maternal,
But I will not wed for riches,
Wed no man for countless treasures;
For his worth I'll choose a husband,
For his youth and fine appearance,
For his noble form and features;
In the olden times the maidens
Were not sold by anxious mothers
To the suitors that they loved not.
I shall choose without his treasures
Ilmarinen for his wisdom,
For his worth and good behavior,
Him that forged the wondrous Sampo,
Hammered thee the lid in colors.'
Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
'Senseless daughter, child of folly,
Thus to choose the ancient blacksmith,
From whose brow drips perspiration,
Evermore to rinse his linen,
Lave his hands, and eyes, and forehead,
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Keep his ancient house in order;
Little use his wit and wisdom
When compared with gold and silver.'
This the answer of the daughter:
'I will never, never, never,
Wed the ancient Wainamoinen
With his gold and priceless jewels;
Never will I be a helpmate
To a hero in his dotage,
Little thanks my compensation.'
Wainamoinen, safely landing
In advance of Ilmarinen,
Pulls his gaily-covered vessel
From the waves upon the sea-beach,
On the cylinders of birch-wood,
On the rollers copper-banded,
Straightway hastens to the guest-room
Of the hostess of Pohyola,
Of the master of the Northland,
Speaks these words upon the threshold
To the famous Maid of Beauty:
'Come with me, thou lovely virgin,
Be my bride and life-companion,
Share with me my joys and sorrows,
Be my honored wife hereafter!'
This the answer of the maiden:
'Hast thou built for me the vessel,
Built for me the ship of magic
From the fragments of the distaff,
From the splinters of the spindle?'
Wainamoinen thus replying:
'I have built the promised vessel,
Built the wondrous ship for sailing,
Firmly joined the parts by magic;
It will weather roughest billows,
Will outlive the winds and waters,
Swiftly glide upon the blue-back
Of the deep and boundless ocean
It will ride the waves in beauty,
Like an airy bubble rising,
Like a cork on lake and river,
Through the angry seas of Northland,
333
Through Pohyola's peaceful waters.'
Northland's fair and slender daughter
Gives this answer to her suitor:
'Will not wed a sea-born hero,
Do not care to rock the billows,
Cannot live with such a husband
Storms would bring us pain and trouble,
Winds would rack our hearts and temples;
Therefore thee I cannot follow,
Cannot keep thy home in order,
Cannot be thy life-companion,
Cannot wed old Wainamoinen.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
295:The Kalevala - Rune Xxvi
ORIGIN OF THE SERPENT.
Ahti, living on the island,
Near the Kauko-point and harbor,
Plowed his fields for rye and barley,
Furrowed his extensive pastures,
Heard with quickened ears an uproar,
Heard the village in commotion,
Heard a noise along the sea-shore,
Heard the foot-steps on the ice-plain,
Heard the rattle of the sledges;
Quick his mind divined the reason,
Knew it was Pohyola's wedding,
Wedding of the Rainbow-virgin.
Quick he stopped in disappointment,
Shook his sable locks in envy,
Turned his hero-head in anger,
While the scarlet blood ceased flowing
Through his pallid face and temples;
Ceased his plowing and his sowing,
On the field he left the furrows,
On his steed he lightly mounted,
Straightway galloped fleetly homeward
To his well-beloved mother,
To his mother old and golden,
Gave his mother these directions,
These the words of Lemminkainen:
'My beloved, faithful mother,
Quickly bring me beer and viands,
Bring me food for I am hungry,
Food and drink for me abundant,
Have my bath-room quickly heated,
Quickly set the room in order,
That I may refresh my body,
Dress myself in hero-raiment.'
Lemminkainen's aged mother
Brings her hero food in plenty,
Beer and viands for the hungry,
440
For her thirsting son and hero;
Quick she heats the ancient bath-room,
Quickly sets his bath in order.
Then the reckless Lemminkainen
Ate his meat with beer inspiring,
Hastened to his bath awaiting;
Only was the bullfinch bathing,
With the many-colored bunting;
Quick the hero laved his temples,
Laved himself to flaxen whiteness,
Quick returning to his mother,
Spake in haste the words that follow:
'My beloved, helpful mother,
Go at once to yonder mountain,
To the store-house on the hill-top,
Bring my vest of finest texture,
Bring my hero-coat of purple,
Bring my suit of magic colors,
Thus to make me look attractive,
Thus to robe myself in beauty.'
First the ancient mother asked him,
Asked her son this simple question:
'Whither dost thou go, my hero?
Dost thou go to hunt the roebuck,
Chase the lynx upon the mountains,
Shoot the squirrel in the woodlands?'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen,
Also known as Kaukomieli:
'Worthy mother of my being,
Go I not to hunt the roebuck,
Chase the lynx upon the mountains,
Shoot the squirrel on the tree-tops;
I am going to Pohyola,
To the feasting of her people.
Bring at once my purple vestments,
Straightway bring my nuptial outfit,
Let me don it for the marriage
Of the maiden of the Northland.'
But the ancient dame dissented,
And the wife forebade the husband;
Two of all the best of heroes,
Three of nature's fairest daughters,
441
Strongly urged wild Lemminkainen
Not to go to Sariola,
To Pohyola's great carousal,
To the marriage-feast of Northland,
'Since thou hast not been invited,
Since they do not wish thy presence.'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen.
These the words of Kaukomieli:
'Where the wicked are invited,
There the good are always welcome,
Herein lies my invitation;
I am constantly reminded
By this sword of sharpened edges,
By this magic blade and scabbard,
That Pohyola needs my presence.'
Lemminkainen's aged mother
Sought again to stay her hero:
'Do not go, my son beloved,
To the feasting in Pohyola;
Full of horrors are the highways,
On the road are many wonders,
Three times Death appears to frighten,
Thrice destruction hovers over!'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen,
These the words of Kaukomieli:
'Death is seen by aged people,
Everywhere they see perdition,
Death can never frighten heroes,
Heroes do not fear the spectre;
Be that as it may, dear mother,
Tell that I may understand thee,
Name the first of all destructions,
Name the first and last destroyers!'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'I will tell thee, son and hero,
Not because I wish to speak it,
But because the truth is worthy;
I will name the chief destruction,
Name the first of the destroyers.
When thou hast a distance journeyed,
Only one day hast thou travelled,
Comes a stream along the highway,
442
Stream of fire of wondrous beauty,
In the stream a mighty fire-spout,
In the spout a rock uprising,
On the rock a fiery hillock,
On the top a flaming eagle,
And his crooked beak he sharpens,
Sharpens too his bloody talons,
For the coming of the stranger,
For the people that approach him.'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli:
'Women die beneath the eagle,
Such is not the death of heroes;
Know I well a magic lotion,
That will heal the wounds of eagles;
Make myself a steed of alders,
That will walk as my companion,
That will stride ahead majestic;
As a duck I'll drive behind him,
Drive him o'er the fatal waters,
Underneath the flaming eagle,
With his bloody beak and talons.
Worthy mother of my being,
Name the second of destroyers.'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'This the second of destroyers:
When thou hast a distance wandered,
Only two clays hast thou travelled,
Comes a pit of fire to meet thee,
In the centre of the highway,
Eastward far the pit extending,
Stretches endless to the westward,
Filled with burning coals and pebbles,
Glowing with the heat of ages;
Hundreds has this monster swallowed,
In his jaws have thousands perished,
Hundreds with their trusty broadswords,
Thousands on their fiery chargers.'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli:
'Never will the hero perish
In the jaws of such a monster;
443
Know I well the means of safety,
Know a remedy efficient:
I will make of snow a master,
On the snow-clad fields, a hero,
Drive the snow-man on before me,
Drive him through the flaming vortex,
Drive him through the fiery furnace,
With my magic broom of copper;
I will follow in his shadow,
Follow close the magic image,
Thus escape the frightful monster,
With my golden locks uninjured,
With my flowing beard untangled.
Ancient mother of my being,
Name the last of the destructions,
Name the third of the destroyers.'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'This the third of fatal dangers:
Hast thou gone a greater distance,
Hast thou travelled one day longer,
To the portals of Pohyola,
To the narrowest of gate-ways,
There a wolf will rise to meet thee,
There the black-bear sneak upon thee-,
In Pohyola's darksome portals,
Hundreds in their jaws have perished,
Have devoured a thousand heroes;
Wherefore will they not destroy thee,
Since thy form is unprotected?'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli:
'Let them eat the gentle lambkins,
Feed upon their tender tissues,
They cannot devour this hero;
I am girded with my buckler,
Girded with my belt of copper,
Armlets wear I of the master,
From the wolf and bear protected,
Will not hasten to Untamo.
I can meet the wolf of Lempo,
For the bear I have a balsam,
For his mouth I conjure bridles,
444
For the wolf, forge chains of iron;
I will smite them as the willow,
Chop them into little fragments,
Thus I'll gain the open court-yard,
Thus triumphant end my journey.'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'Then thy journey is not ended,
Greater dangers still await thee,
Great the wonders yet before thee,
Horrors three within thy pathway;
Three great dangers of the hero
Still await thy reckless footsteps,
These the worst of all thy dangers:
When thou hast still farther wandered,
Thou wilt reach the Court of Pohya,
Where the walls are forged from iron,
And from steel the outer bulwark;
Rises from the earth to heaven,
Back again to earth returning;
Double spears are used for railings,
On each spear are serpents winding,
On each rail are stinging adders;
Lizards too adorn the bulwarks,
Play their long tails in the sunlight,
Hissing lizards, venomed serpents,
Jump and writhe upon the rampart,
Turn their horrid heads to meet thee;
On the greensward lie the monsters,
On the ground the things of evil,
With their pliant tongues of venom,
Hissing, striking, crawling, writhing;
One more horrid than the others,
Lies before the fatal gate-way,
Longer than the longest rafters,
Larger than the largest portals;
Hisses with the tongue of anger,
Lifts his head in awful menace,
Raises it to strike none other
Than the hero of the islands.'
Spake the warlike Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli:
'By such things the children perish,
445
Such is not the death of heroes;
Know I well the fire to manage,
I can quench the flames of passion,
I can meet the prowling wild-beasts,
Can appease the wrath of serpents,
I can heal the sting of adders,
I have plowed the serpent-pastures,
Plowed the adder-fields of Northland;
While my hands were unprotected,
Held the serpents in my fingers,
Drove the adders to Manala,
On my hands the blood of serpents,
On my feet the fat of adders.
Never will thy hero stumble
On the serpents of the Northland;
With my heel I'll crush the monsters,
Stamp the horrid things to atoms;
I will banish them from Pohya,
Drive them to Manala's kingdom,
Step within Pohyola's mansion,
Walk the halls of Sariola!'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'Do not go, my son beloved,
To the firesides of Pohyola,
Through the Northland fields and fallows;
There are warriors with broadswords,
Heroes clad in mail of copper,
Are on beer intoxicated,
By the beer are much embittered;
They will charm thee, hapless creature,
On the tips of swords of magic;
Greater heroes have been conjured,
Stronger ones have been outwitted.'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Formerly thy son resided
In the hamlets of Pohyola;
Laplanders cannot enchant me,
Nor the Turyalanders harm me
I the, Laplander will conjure,
Charm him with my magic powers,
Sing his shoulders wide asunder,
In his chin I'll sing a fissure,
446
Sing his collar-bone to pieces,
Sing his breast to thousand fragments.'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'Foolish son, ungrateful wizard,
Boasting of thy former visit,
Boasting of thy fatal journey!
Once in Northland thou wert living,
In the homesteads of Pohyola;
There thou tried to swim the whirlpool,
Tasted there the dog-tongue waters,
Floated down the fatal current,
Sank beneath its angry billows;
Thou hast seen Tuoni's river,
Thou hast measured Mana's waters,
There to-day thou wouldst be sleeping,
Had it not been for thy mother!
What I tell thee well remember,
Shouldst thou gain Pohyola's chambers,
Filled with stakes thou'lt find the court-yard,
These to hold the heads of heroes;
There thy head will rest forever,
Shouldst thou go to Sariola.'
Spake the warlike Lemminkainen:
'Fools indeed may heed thy counsel,
Cowards too may give attention;
Those of seven conquest-summers
Cannot heed such weak advising.
Bring to me my battle-armor.
Bring my magic mail of copper,
Bring me too my father's broadsword,
Keep the old man's blade from rusting;
Long it has been cold and idle,
Long has lain in secret places,
Long and constantly been weeping,
Long been asking for a bearer.'
Then he took his mail of copper,
Took his ancient battle-armor,
Took his father's sword of magic,
Tried its point against the oak-wood,
Tried its edge upon the sorb-tree;
In his hand the blade was bended,
Like the limber boughs of willow,
447
Like the juniper in summer.
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'There is none in Pohya's hamlets,
In the courts of Sariola,
That with me can measure broadswords,
That can meet this blade ancestral.'
From the nail he took a cross-bow,
Took the strongest from the rafters,
Spake these words in meditation:
'I shall recognize as worthy,
Recognize that one a hero
That can bend this mighty cross-bow,
That can break its magic sinews,
In the hamlets of Pohyola.'
Lemminkainen, filled with courage,
Girds himself in suit of battle,
Dons his mighty mail of copper,
To his servant speaks as follows:
'Trusty slave, and whom I purchased,
Whom I bought with gold and silver,
Quick prepare my fiery charger,
Harness well my steed of battle;
I am going to the feasting,
To the banquet-fields of Lempo.'
Quick obeys the faithful servant,
Hitches well the noble war-horse,
Quick prepares the fire-red stallion,
Speaks these words when all is I ready:
'I have done what thou hast hidden,
Ready harnessed is the charger,
Waiting to obey his master.'
Comes the hour of the departing
Of the hero, Lemminkainen,
Right hand ready, left unwilling,
All his anxious fingers pain him,
Till at last in full obedience,
All his members give permission;
Starts the hero on his journey,
While the mother gives him counsel,
At the threshold of the dwelling,
At the highway of the court-yard:
'Child of courage, my beloved,
448
Son of strength, my wisdom-hero,
If thou goest to the feasting,
Shouldst thou reach the great carousal,
Drink thou only a half a cupful,
Drink the goblet to the middle,
Always give the half remaining,
Give the worse half to another,
To another more unworthy;
In the lower half are serpents,
Worms, and frogs, and hissing lizards,
Feeding on the slimy bottom.'
Furthermore she tells her hero,
Gives her son these sage directions,
On the border of the court-yard,
At the portals farthest distant:
'If thou goest to the banquet,
Shouldst thou reach the great carousal,
Occupy but half the settle,
Take but half a stride in walking,
Give the second half to others,
To another less deserving;
Only thus thou'lt be a hero,
Thus become a son immortal;
In the guest-rooms look courageous,
Bravely move about the chambers,
In the gatherings of heroes,
With the hosts of magic valor.'
Thereupon wild Lemminkainen
Quickly leaped upon the cross-bench
Of his battle-sledge of wonder,
Raised his pearl-enamelled birch-rod,
Snapped his whip above his charger,
And the steed flew onward fleetly,
Galloped on his distant journey.
He had travelled little distance,
When a flight of hazel-chickens
Quick arose before his coming,
Flew before the foaming racer.
There were left some feathers lying,
Feathers of the hazel-chickens,
Lying in the hero's pathway.
These the reckless Lemminkainen
449
Gathered for their magic virtues,
Put them in his pouch of leather,
Did not know what things might happen
On his journey to Pohyola;
All things have some little value,
In a strait all things are useful.
Then he drove a little distance,
Galloped farther on the highway,
When his courser neighed in danger,
And the fleet-foot ceased his running.
Then the stout-heart, Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,
Rose upon his seat in wonder,
Craned his neck and looked about him
Found it as his mother told him,
Found a stream of fire opposing;
Ran the fire-stream like a river,
Ran across the hero's pathway.
In the river was a fire-fall,
In the cataract a fire-rock,
On the rock a fiery hillock,
On its summit perched an eagle,
From his throat the fire was streaming
To the crater far below him,
Fire out-shooting from his feathers,
Glowing with a fiery splendor;
Long he looked upon the hero,
Long he gazed on Lemminkainen,
Then the eagle thus addressed him:
'Whither art thou driving, Ahti,
Whither going, Lemminkainen?'
Kaukomieli spake in answer:
'To the feastings of Pohyola,
To the drinking-halls of Louhi,
To the banquet of her people;
Move aside and let me journey,
Move a little from my pathway,
Let this wanderer pass by thee,
I am warlike Lemminkainen.'
This the answer of the eagle,
Screaming from his throat of splendor:
'Though thou art wild Lemminkainen,
450
I shall let thee wander onward,
Through my fire-throat let thee journey,
Through these flames shall be thy passage
To the banquet-halls of Louhi,
To Pohyola's great carousal!'
Little heeding, Kaukomieli
Thinks himself in little trouble,
Thrusts his fingers in his pockets,
Searches in his pouch of leather,
Quickly takes the magic feathers,
Feathers from the hazel-chickens,
Rubs them into finest powder,
Rubs them with his magic fingers
Whence a flight of birds arises,
Hazel-chickens from the feathers,
Large the bevy of the young birds.
Quick the wizard, Lemminkainen,
Drives them to the eagle's fire-mouth,
Thus to satisfy his hunger,
Thus to quench the fire out-streaming.
Thus escapes the reckless hero,
Thus escapes the first of dangers,
Passes thus the first destroyer,
On his journey to Pohyola.
With his whip he strikes his courser,
With his birch-whip, pearl-enamelled;
Straightway speeds the fiery charger,
Noiselessly upon his journey,
Gallops fast and gallops faster,
Till the flying steed in terror
Neighs again and ceases running.
Lemminkainen, quickly rising,
Cranes his neck and looks about him,
Sees his mother's words were truthful,
Sees her augury well-taken.
Lo! before him yawned a fire-gulf,
Stretching crosswise through his pathway;
Far to east the gulf extending,
To the west an endless distance,
Filled with stones and burning pebbles,
Running streams of burning matter.
Little heeding, Lemminkainen
451
Cries aloud in prayer to Ukko:
'Ukko, thou O God above me,
Dear Creator, omnipresent,
From the north-west send a storm-cloud,
From the east, dispatch a second,
From the south send forth a third one;
Let them gather from the south-west,
Sew their edges well together,
Fill thou well the interspaces,
Send a snow-fall high as heaven,
Let it fall from upper ether,
Fall upon the flaming fire-pit,
On the cataract and whirlpool!'
Mighty Ukko, the Creator,
Ukko, father omnipresent,
Dwelling in the courts of heaven,
Sent a storm-cloud from the north-west,
From the east he sent a second,
From the south despatched a third one,
Let them gather from the south-west,
Sewed their edges well together,
Filled their many interspaces,
Sent a snow-fall high as heaven,
From the giddy heights of ether,
Sent it seething to the fire-pit,
On the streams of burning matter;
From the snow-fall in the fire-pond,
Grows a lake with rolling billows.
Quick the hero, Lemminkainen,
Conjures there of ice a passage
From one border to the other,
Thus escapes his second danger,
Thus his second trouble passes.
Then the reckless Lemminkainen
Raised his pearl-enamelled birch-rod,
Snapped his whip above his racer,
And the steed flew onward swiftly,
Galloped on his distant journey
O'er the highway to Pohyola;
Galloped fast and galloped faster,
Galloped on a greater distance,
When the stallion loudly neighing,
452
Stopped and trembled on the highway,
Then the lively Lemminkainen
Raised himself upon the cross-bench,
Looked to see what else had happened;
Lo I a wolf stands at the portals,
in the passage-way a black-bear,
At the high-gate of Pohyola,
At the ending of the journey.
Thereupon young Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,
Thrusts his fingers in his pockets,
Seeks his magic pouch of leather,
Pulls therefrom a lock of ewe-wool,
Rubs it firmly in his fingers,
In his hands it falls to powder;
Breathes the breath of life upon it,
When a flock of sheep arises,
Goats and sheep of sable color;
On the flock the black-wolf pounces,
And the wild-bear aids the slaughter,
While the reckless Lemminkainen
Rushes by them on his journey;
Gallops on a little distance,
To the court of Sariola,
Finds the fence of molten iron,
And of steel the rods and pickets,
In the earth a hundred fathoms,
To the azure sky, a thousand,
Double-pointed spears projecting;
On each spear were serpents twisted,
Adders coiled in countless numbers,
Lizards mingled with the serpents,
Tails entangled pointing earthward,
While their heads were skyward whirling,
Writhing, hissing mass of evil.
Then the stout-heart, Kaukomieli,
Deeply thought and long considered:
'It is as my mother told me,
This the wall that she predicted,
Stretching from the earth to heaven;
Downward deep are serpents creeping,
Deeper still the rails extending;
453
High as highest flight of eagles,
Higher still the wall shoots upward.'
But the hero, Lemminkainen,
Little cares, nor feels disheartened,
Draws his broadsword from its scabbard,
Draws his mighty blade ancestral,
Hews the wall with might of magic,
Breaks the palisade in pieces,
Hews to atoms seven pickets,
Chops the serpent-wall to fragments;
Through the breach he quickly passes
To the portals of Pohyola.
In the way, a serpent lying,
Lying crosswise in the entry,
Longer than the longest rafters,
Larger than the posts of oak-wood;
Hundred-eyed, the heinous serpent,
And a thousand tongues, the monster,
Eyes as large as sifting vessels,
Tongues as long as shafts of javelins,
Teeth as large as hatchet-handles,
Back as broad as skiffs of ocean.
Lemminkainen does not venture
Straightway through this host opposing,
Through the hundred heads of adders,
Through the thousand tongues of serpents.
Spake the magic Lemminkainen:
'Venomed viper, thing of evil,
Ancient adder of Tuoni,
Thou that crawlest in the stubble,
Through the flower-roots of Lempo,
Who has sent thee from thy kingdom,
Sent thee from thine evil coverts,
Sent thee hither, crawling, writhing,
In the pathway I would travel?
Who bestowed thy mouth of venom,
Who insisted, who commanded,
Thou shouldst raise thy head toward heaven,
Who thy tail has given action?
Was this given by the father,
Did the mother give this power,
Or the eldest of the brothers,
454
Or the youngest of the sisters,
Or some other of thy kindred?
'Close thy mouth, thou thing of evil,
Hide thy pliant tongue of venom,
In a circle wrap thy body,
Coil thou like a shield in silence,
Give to me one-half the pathway,
Let this wanderer pass by thee,
Or remove thyself entirely;
Get thee hence to yonder heather,
Quick retreat to bog and stubble,
Hide thyself in reeds and rushes,
In the brambles of the lowlands.
Like a ball of flax enfolding,
Like a sphere of aspen-branches,
With thy head and tail together,
Roll thyself to yonder mountain;
In the heather is thy dwelling,
Underneath the sod thy caverns.
Shouldst thou raise thy head in anger,
Mighty Ukko will destroy it,
Pierce it with his steel-tipped arrows,
With his death-balls made of iron!'
Hardly had the hero ended,
When the monster, little heeding,
Hissing with his tongue in anger,
Plying like the forked lightning,
Pounces with his mouth of venom
At the head of Lemminkainen;
But the hero, quick recalling,
Speaks the master-words of knowledge,
Words that came from distant ages,
Words his ancestors had taught him,
Words his mother learned in childhood,
These the words of Lemminkainen:
'Since thou wilt not heed mine order,
Since thou wilt not leave the highway,
Puffed with pride of thine own greatness,
Thou shall burst in triple pieces.
Leave thy station for the borders,
I will hunt thine ancient mother,
Sing thine origin of evil,
455
How arose thy head of horror;
Suoyatar, thine ancient mother,
Thing of evil, thy creator!'
'Suoyatar once let her spittle
Fall upon the waves of ocean;
This was rocked by winds and waters,
Shaken by the ocean-currents,
Six years rocked upon the billows,
Rocked in water seven summers,
On the blue-back of the ocean,
On the billows high as heaven;
Lengthwise did the billows draw it,
And the sunshine gave it softness,
To the shore the billows washed it,
On the coast the waters left it.
'Then appeared Creation's daughters,
Three the daughters thus appearing,
On the roaring shore of ocean,
There beheld the spittle lying,
And the daughters spake as follows:
'What would happen from this spittle,
Should the breath of the Creator
Fall upon the writhing matter,
Breathe the breath of life upon it,
Give the thing the sense of vision?
'The Creator heard these measures,
Spake himself the words that follow:
'Evil only comes from evil,
This is the expectoration
Of fell Suoyatar, its mother;
Therefore would the thing be evil,
Should I breathe a soul within it,
Should I give it sense of vision.'
'Hisi heard this conversation,
Ever ready with his mischief,
Made himself to be creator,
Breathed a soul into the spittle,
To fell Suoyatar's fierce anger.
Thus arose the poison-monster,
Thus was born the evil serpent,
This the origin of evil.
'Whence the life that gave her action'?
456
From the carbon-pile of Hisi.
Whence then was her heart created?
From the heart-throbs of her mother
Whence arose her brain of evil?
From the foam of rolling waters.
Whence was consciousness awakened?
From the waterfall's commotion.
Whence arose her head of venom?
From the seed-germs of the ivy.
Whence then came her eyes of fury?
From the flaxen seeds of Lempo.
Whence the evil ears for hearing?
From the foliage of Hisi.
Whence then was her mouth created?
This from Suoyatar's foam-currents
Whence arose thy tongue of anger r
From the spear of Keitolainen.
Whence arose thy fangs of poison?
From the teeth of Mana's daughter.
Whence then was thy back created?
From the carbon-posts of Piru.
How then was thy tail created?
From the brain of the hobgoblin.
Whence arose thy writhing entrails?
From the death-belt of Tuoni.
'This thine origin, O Serpent,
This thy charm of evil import,
Vilest thing of God's creation,
Writhing, hissing thing of evil,
With the color of Tuoni,
With the shade of earth and heaven,
With the darkness of the storm-cloud.
Get thee hence, thou loathsome monster,
Clear the pathway of this hero.
I am mighty Lemminkainen,
On my journey to Pohyola,
To the feastings and carousals,
In the halls of darksome Northland.'
Thereupon the snake uncoiling,
Hundred-eyed and heinous monster,
Crawled away to other portals,
That the hero, Kaukomieli,
457
Might proceed upon his errand,
To the dismal Sariola,
To the feastings and carousals
In the banquet-halls of Pohya.
~ Elias Lönnrot,#NFDB
296:TO MARY
(ON HER OBJECTING TO THE FOLLOWING POEM, UPON THE SCORE OF ITS CONTAINING NO HUMAN INTEREST)
I.
How, my dear Mary, -- are you critic-bitten
(For vipers kill, though dead) by some review,
That you condemn these verses I have written,
Because they tell no story, false or true?
What, though no mice are caught by a young kitten,
May it not leap and play as grown cats do,
Till its claws come? Prithee, for this one time,
Content thee with a visionary rhyme.
II.
What hand would crush the silken-wingd fly,
The youngest of inconstant April's minions,
Because it cannot climb the purest sky,
Where the swan sings, amid the sun's dominions?
Not thine. Thou knowest 'tis its doom to die,
When Day shall hide within her twilight pinions
The lucent eyes, and the eternal smile,
Serene as thine, which lent it life awhile.
III.
To thy fair feet a wingd Vision came,
Whose date should have been longer than a day,
And o'er thy head did beat its wings for fame,
And in thy sight its fading plumes display;
The watery bow burned in the evening flame,
But the shower fell, the swift Sun went his way
And that is dead.O, let me not believe
That anything of mine is fit to live!
IV.
Wordsworth informs us he was nineteen years
Considering and retouching Peter Bell;
Watering his laurels with the killing tears
Of slow, dull care, so that their roots to Hell
Might pierce, and their wide branches blot the spheres
Of Heaven, with dewy leaves and flowers; this well
May be, for Heaven and Earth conspire to foil
The over-busy gardener's blundering toil.
V.
My Witch indeed is not so sweet a creature
As Ruth or Lucy, whom his graceful praise
Clothes for our grandsonsbut she matches Peter,
Though he took nineteen years, and she three days
In dressing. Light the vest of flowing metre
She wears; he, proud as dandy with his stays,
Has hung upon his wiry limbs a dress
Like King Lear's 'looped and windowed raggedness.'
VI.
If you strip Peter, you will see a fellow
Scorched by Hell's hyperequatorial climate
Into a kind of a sulphureous yellow:
A lean mark, hardly fit to fling a rhyme at;
In shape a Scaramouch, in hue Othello.
If you unveil my Witch, no priest nor primate
Can shrive you of that sin, -- if sin there be
In love, when it becomes idolatry.
THE WITCH OF ATLAS.
I.
Before those cruel Twins, whom at one birth
Incestuous Change bore to her father Time,
Error and Truth, had hunted from the Earth
All those bright natures which adorned its prime,
And left us nothing to believe in, worth
The pains of putting into learnd rhyme,
A lady-witch there lived on Atlas' mountain
Within a cavern, by a secret fountain.
II.
Her mother was one of the Atlantides:
The all-beholding Sun had ne'er beholden
In his wide voyage o'er continents and seas
So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden
In the warm shadow of her loveliness;--
He kissed her with his beams, and made all golden
The chamber of gray rock in which she lay--
She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away.
III.
'Tis said, she first was changed into a vapour,
And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit,
Like splendour-wingd moths about a taper,
Round the red west when the sun dies in it:
And then into a meteor, such as caper
On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit:
Then, into one of those mysterious stars
Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.
IV.
Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent
Her bow beside the folding-star, and bidden
With that bright sign the billows to indent
The sea-deserted sand -- like children chidden,
At her command they ever came and went--
Since in that cave a dewy splendour hidden
Took shape and motion: with the living form
Of this embodied Power, the cave grew warm.
V.
A lovely lady garmented in light
From her own beauty -- deep her eyes, as are
Two openings of unfathomable night
Seen through a Temple's cloven roof -- her hair
Darkthe dim brain whirls dizzy with delight,
Picturing her form; her soft smiles shone afar,
And her low voice was heard like love, and drew
All living things towards this wonder new.
VI.
And first the spotted cameleopard came,
And then the wise and fearless elephant;
Then the sly serpent, in the golden flame
Of his own volumes intervolved -- all gaunt
And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame.
They drank before her at her sacred fount;
And every beast of beating heart grew bold,
Such gentleness and power even to behold.
VII.
The brinded lioness led forth her young,
That she might teach them how they should forego
Their inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung
His sinews at her feet, and sought to know
With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue
How he might be as gentle as the doe.
The magic circle of her voice and eyes
All savage natures did imparadise.
VIII.
And old Silenus, shaking a green stick
Of lilies, and the wood-gods in a crew
Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick
Cicadae are, drunk with the noonday dew:
And Dryope and Faunus followed quick,
Teasing the God to sing them something new;
Till in this cave they found the lady lone,
Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone.
IX.
And universal Pan, 'tis said, was there,
And though none saw him,through the adamant
Of the deep mountains, through the trackless air,
And through those living spirits, like a want,
He passed out of his everlasting lair
Where the quick heart of the great world doth pant,
And felt that wondrous lady all alone,
And she felt him, upon her emerald throne.
X.
And every nymph of stream and spreading tree,
And every shepherdess of Ocean's flocks,
Who drives her white waves over the green sea,
And Ocean with the brine on his gray locks,
And quaint Priapus with his company,
All came, much wondering how the enwombd rocks
Could have brought forth so beautiful a birth;
Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth.
XI.
The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came,
And the rude kings of pastoral Garamant
Their spirits shook within them, as a flame
Stirred by the air under a cavern gaunt:
Pigmies, and Polyphemes, by many a name,
Centaurs, and Satyrs, and such shapes as haunt
Wet clefts,and lumps neither alive nor dead,
Dog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed.
XII.
For she was beautifulher beauty made
The bright world dim, and everything beside
Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade:
No thought of living spirit could abide,
Which to her looks had ever been betrayed,
On any object in the world so wide,
On any hope within the circling skies,
But on her form, and in her inmost eyes.
XIII.
Which when the lady knew, she took her spindle
And twined three threads of fleecy mist, and three
Long lines of light, such as the dawn may kindle
The clouds and waves and mountains with; and she
As many star-beams, ere their lamps could dwindle
In the belated moon, wound skilfully;
And with these threads a subtle veil she wove
A shadow for the splendour of her love.
XIV.
The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling
Were stored with magic treasuressounds of air,
Which had the power all spirits of compelling,
Folded in cells of crystal silence there;
Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling
Will never dieyet ere we are aware,
The feeling and the sound are fled and gone,
And the regret they leave remains alone.
XV.
And there lay Visions swift, and sweet, and quaint,
Each in its thin sheath, like a chrysalis,
Some eager to burst forth, some weak and faint
With the soft burthen of intensest bliss
It was its work to bear to many a saint
Whose heart adores the shrine which holiest is,
Even Love's -- and others white, green, gray, and black,
And of all shapesand each was at her beck.
XVI.
And odours in a kind of aviary
Of ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept,
Clipped in a floating net, a love-sick Fairy
Had woven from dew-beams while the moon yet slept;
As bats at the wired window of a dairy.
They beat their vans; and each was an adept,
When loosed and missioned, making wings of winds,
To stir sweet thoughts or sad, in destined minds.
XVII.
And liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful might
Could medicine the sick soul to happy sleep,
And change eternal death into a night
Of glorious dreamsor if eyes needs must weep,
Could make their tears all wonder and delight,
She in her crystal vials did closely keep:
If men could drink of those clear vials, 'tis said
The living were not envied of the dead.
XVIII.
Her cave was stored with scrolls of strange device,
The works of some Saturnian Archimage,
Which taught the expiations at whose price
Men from the Gods might win that happy age
Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice;
And which might quench the Earth-consuming rage
Of gold and bloodtill men should live and move
Harmonious as the sacred stars above;
XIX.
And how all things that seem untameable,
Not to be checked and not to be confined,
Obey the spells of Wisdom's wizard skill;
Time, earth, and firethe ocean and the wind,
And all their shapes -- and man's imperial will;
And other scrolls whose writings did unbind
The inmost lore of Lovelet the profane
Tremble to ask what secrets they contain.
XX.
And wondrous works of substances unknown,
To which the enchantment of her father's power
Had changed those ragged blocks of savage stone,
Were heaped in the recesses of her bower;
Carved lamps and chalices, and vials which shone
In their own golden beams -- each like a flower,
Out of whose depth a fire-fly shakes his light
Under a cypress in a starless night.
XXI.
At first she lived alone in this wild home,
And her own thoughts were each a minister,
Clothing themselves, or with the ocean foam,
Or with the wind, or with the speed of fire,
To work whatever purposes might come
Into her mind; such power her mighty Sire
Had girt them with, whether to fly or run,
Through all the regions which he shines upon.
XXII.
The Ocean-nymphs and Hamadryades,
Oreads and Naiads, with long weedy locks,
Offered to do her bidding through the seas,
Under the earth, and in the hollow rocks,
And far beneath the matted roots of trees,
And in the gnarld heart of stubborn oaks,
So they might live for ever in the light
Of her sweet presence -- each a satellite.
XXIII.
'This may not be,' the wizard maid replied;
'The fountains where the Naiades bedew
Their shining hair, at length are drained and dried;
The solid oaks forget their strength, and strew
Their latest leaf upon the mountains wide;
The boundless ocean like a drop of dew
Will be consumedthe stubborn centre must
Be scattered, like a cloud of summer dust.
XXIV.
'And ye with them will perish, one by one;
If I must sigh to think that this shall be,
If I must weep when the surviving Sun
Shall smile on your decay -- oh, ask not me
To love you till your little race is run;
I cannot die as ye must -- over me
Your leaves shall glance -- the streams in which ye dwell
Shall be my paths henceforth, and so -- farewell!'--
XXV.
She spoke and wept:the dark and azure well
Sparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears,
And every little circlet where they fell
Flung to the cavern-roof inconstant spheres
And intertangled lines of light:a knell
Of sobbing voices came upon her ears
From those departing Forms, o'er the serene
Of the white streams and of the forest green.
XXVI.
All day the wizard lady sate aloof,
Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity,
Under the cavern's fountain-lighted roof;
Or broidering the pictured poesy
Of some high tale upon her growing woof,
Which the sweet splendour of her smiles could dye
In hues outshining heavenand ever she
Added some grace to the wrought poesy.
XXVII.
While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece
Of sandal wood, rare gums, and cinnamon;
Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is
Each flame of it is as a precious stone
Dissolved in ever-moving light, and this
Belongs to each and all who gaze upon.
The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand
She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand.
XXVIII.
This lady never slept, but lay in trance
All night within the fountain -- as in sleep.
Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty's glance;
Through the green splendour of the water deep
She saw the constellations reel and dance
Like fire-flies -- and withal did ever keep
The tenour of her contemplations calm,
With open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm.
XXIX.
And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended
From the white pinnacles of that cold hill,
She passed at dewfall to a space extended,
Where in a lawn of flowering asphodel
Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended,
There yawned an inextinguishable well
Of crimson firefull even to the brim,
And overflowing all the margin trim.
XXX.
Within the which she lay when the fierce war
Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor
In many a mimic moon and bearded star
O'er woods and lawns -- the serpent heard it flicker
In sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar--
And when the windless snow descended thicker
Than autumn leaves, she watched it as it came
Melt on the surface of the level flame.
XXXI.
She had a boat, which some say Vulcan wrought
For Venus, as the chariot of her star;
But it was found too feeble to be fraught
With all the ardours in that sphere which are,
And so she sold it, and Apollo bought
And gave it to this daughter: from a car
Changed to the fairest and the lightest boat
Which ever upon mortal stream did float.
XXXII.
And others say, that, when but three hours old,
The first-born Love out of his cradle lept,
And clove dun Chaos with his wings of gold,
And like an horticultural adept,
Stole a strange seed, and wrapped it up in mould,
And sowed it in his mother's star, and kept
Watering it all the summer with sweet dew,
And with his wings fanning it as it grew.
XXXIII.
The plant grew strong and green, the snowy flower
Fell, and the long and gourd-like fruit began
To turn the light and dew by inward power
To its own substance; woven tracery ran
Of light firm texture, ribbed and branching, o'er
The solid rind, like a leaf's veind fan--
Of which Love scooped this boat -- and with soft motion
Piloted it round the circumfluous ocean.
XXXIV.
This boat she moored upon her fount, and lit
A living spirit within all its frame,
Breathing the soul of swiftness into it.
Couched on the fountain like a panther tame,
One of the twain at Evan's feet that sit--
Or as on Vesta's sceptre a swift flame--
Or on blind Homer's heart a wingd thought,--
In joyous expectation lay the boat.
XXXV.
Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow
Together, tempering the repugnant mass
With liquid love -- all things together grow
Through which the harmony of love can pass;
And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow--
A living Image, which did far surpass
In beauty that bright shape of vital stone
Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion.
XXXVI.
A sexless thing it was, and in its growth
It seemed to have developed no defect
Of either sex, yet all the grace of both,--
In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked;
The bosom swelled lightly with its full youth,
The countenance was such as might select
Some artist that his skill should never die,
Imaging forth such perfect purity.
XXXVII.
From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings,
Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere,
Tipped with the speed of liquid lightenings,
Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere:
She led her creature to the boiling springs
Where the light boat was moored, and said: 'Sit here!'
And pointed to the prow, and took her seat
Beside the rudder, with opposing feet.
XXXVIII.
And down the streams which clove those mountains vast,
Around their inland islets, and amid
The panther-peopled forests, whose shade cast
Darkness and odours, and a pleasure hid
In melancholy gloom, the pinnace passed;
By many a star-surrounded pyramid
Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky,
And caverns yawning round unfathomably.
XXXIX.
The silver noon into that winding dell,
With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops,
Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell;
A green and glowing light, like that which drops
From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell,
When Earth over her face Night's mantle wraps;
Between the severed mountains lay on high,
Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky.
XL.
And ever as she went, the Image lay
With folded wings and unawakened eyes;
And o'er its gentle countenance did play
The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies,
Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay,
And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighs
Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain,
They had aroused from that full heart and brain.
XLI.
And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud
Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went:
Now lingering on the pools, in which abode
The calm and darkness of the deep content
In which they paused; now o'er the shallow road
Of white and dancing waters, all besprent
With sand and polished pebbles:mortal boat
In such a shallow rapid could not float.
XLII.
And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver
Their snow-like waters into golden air,
Or under chasms unfathomable ever
Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear
A subterranean portal for the river,
It fledthe circling sunbows did upbear
Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray,
Lighting it far upon its lampless way.
XLIII.
And when the wizard lady would ascend
The labyrinths of some many-winding vale,
Which to the inmost mountain upward tend
She called 'Hermaphroditus!'and the pale
And heavy hue which slumber could extend
Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale
A rapid shadow from a slope of grass,
Into the darkness of the stream did pass.
XLIV.
And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions,
With stars of fire spotting the stream below;
And from above into the Sun's dominions
Flinging a glory, like the golden glow
In which Spring clothes her emerald-wingd minions,
All interwoven with fine feathery snow
And moonlight splendour of intensest rime,
With which frost paints the pines in winter time.
XLV.
And then it winnowed the Elysian air
Which ever hung about that lady bright,
With its aethereal vansand speeding there,
Like a star up the torrent of the night,
Or a swift eagle in the morning glare
Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight,
The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings,
Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.
XLVI.
The water flashed, like sunlight by the prow
Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven;
The still air seemed as if its waves did flow
In tempest down the mountains; loosely driven
The lady's radiant hair streamed to and fro:
Beneath, the billows having vainly striven
Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel
The swift and steady motion of the keel.
XLVII.
Or, when the weary moon was in the wane,
Or in the noon of interlunar night,
The lady-witch in visions could not chain
Her spirit; but sailed forth under the light
Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain
Its storm-outspeeding wings, the Hermaphrodite;
She to the Austral waters took her way,
Beyond the fabulous Thamondocana,
XLVIII.
Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven,
Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake,
With the Antarctic constellations paven,
Canopus and his crew, lay the Austral lake
There she would build herself a windless haven
Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make
The bastions of the storm, when through the sky
The spirits of the tempest thundered by:
XLIX.
A haven beneath whose translucent floor
The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably,
And around which the solid vapours hoar,
Based on the level waters, to the sky
Lifted their dreadful crags, and like a shore
Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly
Hemmed in with rifts and precipices gray,
And hanging crags, many a cove and bay.
L.
And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash
Of the wind's scourge, foamed like a wounded thing,
And the incessant hail with stony clash
Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing
Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash
Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering
Fragment of inky thunder-smoke -- this haven
Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven,--
LI.
On which that lady played her many pranks,
Circling the image of a shooting star,
Even as a tiger on Hydaspes' banks
Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are,
In her light boat; and many quips and cranks
She played upon the water, till the car
Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan,
To journey from the misty east began.
LII.
And then she called out of the hollow turrets
Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,
The armies of her ministering spirits
In mighty legions, million after million,
They came, each troop emblazoning its merits
On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion
Of the intertexture of the atmosphere
They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.
LIII.
They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen
Of woven exhalations, underlaid
With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen
A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid
With crimson silk -- cressets from the serene
Hung there, and on the water for her tread
A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,
Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.
LIV.
And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caught
Upon those wandering isles of ary dew,
Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not,
She sate, and heard all that had happened new
Between the earth and moon, since they had brought
The last intelligence -- and now she grew
Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night--
And now she wept, and now she laughed outright.
LV.
These were tame pleasures; she would often climb
The steepest ladder of the crudded rack
Up to some beakd cape of cloud sublime,
And like Arion on the dolphin's back
Ride singing through the shoreless air; -- oft-time
Following the serpent lightning's winding track,
She ran upon the platforms of the wind,
And laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind.
LVI.
And sometimes to those streams of upper air
Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round,
She would ascend, and win the spirits there
To let her join their chorus. Mortals found
That on those days the sky was calm and fair,
And mystic snatches of harmonious sound
Wandered upon the earth where'er she passed,
And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.
LVII.
But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep,
To glide adown old Nilus, where he threads
Egypt and Aethiopia, from the steep
Of utmost Axum, until he spreads,
Like a calm flock of silver-fleecd sheep,
His waters on the plain: and crested heads
Of cities and proud temples gleam amid,
And many a vapour-belted pyramid.
LVIII.
By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes,
Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors,
Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes,
Or charioteering ghastly alligators,
Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes
Of those huge forms -- within the brazen doors
Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast,
Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.
LIX.
And where within the surface of the river
The shadows of the massy temples lie,
And never are erased -- but tremble ever
Like things which every cloud can doom to die,
Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever
The works of man pierced that serenest sky
With tombs, and towers, and fanes, 'twas her delight
To wander in the shadow of the night.
LX.
With motion like the spirit of that wind
Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet
Passed through the peopled haunts of humankind,
Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet,
Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined
With many a dark and subterranean street
Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep
She passed, observing mortals in their sleep.
LXI.
A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see
Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep.
Here lay two sister twins in infancy;
There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep;
Within, two lovers linkd innocently
In their loose locks which over both did creep
Like ivy from one stem;and there lay calm
Old age with snow-bright hair and folded palm.
LXII.
But other troubled forms of sleep she saw,
Not to be mirrored in a holy song--
Distortions foul of supernatural awe,
And pale imaginings of visioned wrong;
And all the code of Custom's lawless law
Written upon the brows of old and young:
'This,' said the wizard maiden, 'is the strife
Which stirs the liquid surface of man's life.'
LXIII.
And little did the sight disturb her soul.--
We, the weak mariners of that wide lake
Where'er its shores extend or billows roll,
Our course unpiloted and starless make
O'er its wild surface to an unknown goal:--
But she in the calm depths her way could take,
Where in bright bowers immortal forms abide
Beneath the weltering of the restless tide.
LXIV.
And she saw princes couched under the glow
Of sunlike gems; and round each temple-court
In dormitories ranged, row after row,
She saw the priests asleepall of one sort--
For all were educated to be so.
The peasants in their huts, and in the port
The sailors she saw cradled on the waves,
And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves.
LXV.
And all the forms in which those spirits lay
Were to her sight like the diaphanous
Veils, in which those sweet ladies oft array
Their delicate limbs, who would conceal from us
Only their scorn of all concealment: they
Move in the light of their own beauty thus.
But these and all now lay with sleep upon them,
And little thought a Witch was looking on them.
LXVI.
She, all those human figures breathing there,
Beheld as living spirits -- to her eyes
The naked beauty of the soul lay bare,
And often through a rude and worn disguise
She saw the inner form most bright and fair--
And then she had a charm of strange device,
Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone,
Could make that spirit mingle with her own.
LXVII.
Alas! Aurora, what wouldst thou have given
For such a charm when Tithon became gray?
Or how much, Venus, of thy silver heaven
Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina
Had half (oh! why not all?) the debt forgiven
Which dear Adonis had been doomed to pay,
To any witch who would have taught you it?
The Heliad doth not know its value yet.
LXVIII.
'Tis said in after times her spirit free
Knew what love was, and felt itself alone--
But holy Dian could not chaster be
Before she stooped to kiss Endymion,
Than now this lady -- like a sexless bee
Tasting all blossoms, and confined to none,
Among those mortal forms, the wizard-maiden
Passed with an eye serene and heart unladen.
LXIX.
To those she saw most beautiful, she gave
Strange panacea in a crystal bowl:--
They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave,
And lived thenceforward as if some control,
Mightier than life, were in them; and the grave
Of such, when death oppressed the weary soul,
Was as a green and overarching bower
Lit by the gems of many a starry flower.
LXX.
For on the night when they were buried, she
Restored the embalmers' ruining, and shook
The light out of the funeral lamps, to be
A mimic day within that deathy nook;
And she unwound the woven imagery
Of second childhood's swaddling bands, and took
The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche,
And threw it with contempt into a ditch.
LXXI.
And there the body lay, age after age,
Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying,
Like one asleep in a green hermitage,
With gentle smiles about its eyelids playing,
And living in its dreams beyond the rage
Of death or life; while they were still arraying
In liveries ever new, the rapid, blind
And fleeting generations of mankind.
LXXII.
And she would write strange dreams upon the brain
Of those who were less beautiful, and make
All harsh and crooked purposes more vain
Than in the desert is the serpent's wake
Which the sand coversall his evil gain
The miser in such dreams would rise and shake
Into a beggar's lap;the lying scribe
Would his own lies betray without a bribe.
LXXIII.
The priests would write an explanation full,
Translating hieroglyphics into Greek,
How the God Apis really was a bull,
And nothing more; and bid the herald stick
The same against the temple doors, and pull
The old cant down; they licensed all to speak
What'er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese,
By pastoral letters to each diocese.
LXXIV.
The king would dress an ape up in his crown
And robes, and seat him on his glorious seat,
And on the right hand of the sunlike throne
Would place a gaudy mock-bird to repeat
The chatterings of the monkey.Every one
Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet
Of their great Emperor, when the morning came,
And kissed -- alas, how many kiss the same!
LXXV.
The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and
Walked out of quarters in somnambulism;
Round the red anvils you might see them stand
Like Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm,
Beating their swords to ploughshares; -- in a band
The gaolers sent those of the liberal schism
Free through the streets of Memphis, much, I wis,
To the annoyance of king Amasis.
LXXVI.
And timid lovers who had been so coy,
They hardly knew whether they loved or not,
Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy,
To the fulfilment of their inmost thought;
And when next day the maiden and the boy
Met one another, both, like sinners caught,
Blushed at the thing which each believed was done
Only in fancy -- till the tenth moon shone;
LXXVII.
And then the Witch would let them take no ill:
Of many thousand schemes which lovers find,
The Witch found one,and so they took their fill
Of happiness in marriage warm and kind.
Friends who, by practice of some envious skill,
Were torn apart -- a wide wound, mind from mind!--
She did unite again with visions clear
Of deep affection and of truth sincere.
LXXVIII.
These were the pranks she played among the cities
Of mortal men, and what she did to Sprites
And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties
To do her will, and show their subtle sleights,
I will declare another time; for it is
A tale more fit for the weird winter nights
Than for these garish summer days, when we
Scarcely believe much more than we can see.
Composed at the Baths of San Giuliano, near Pisa, August 14-16, 1820; published in Posthumous Poems, ed. Mrs. Shelley, 1824. The dedication To Mary first appeared in the Poetical Works, 1839, 1st ed.
Note by Mrs. Shelley: 'We spent the summer of 1820 at the Baths of San Giuliano, four miles from Pisa. These baths were of great use to Shelley in soothing his nervous irritability. We made several excursions in the neighbourhood. The country around is fertile, and diversified and rendered picturesque by ranges of near hills and more distant mountains. The peasantry are a handsome intelligent race; and there was a gladsome sunny heaven spread over us, that rendered home and every scene we visited cheerful and bright. During some of the hottest days of August, Shelley made a solitary journey on foot to the summit of Monte San Pellegrino -- a mountain of some height, on the top of which there is a chapel, the object, during certain days of the year, of many pilgrimages. The excursion delighted him while it lasted; though he exerted himself too much, and the effect was considerable lsasitude and weakness on his return. During the expedition he conceived the idea, and wrote, in the three days immediately succeeding to his return, the Witch of Atlas.
This poem is peculiarly characteristic of his tastes -- wildly fanciful, full of brilliant imagery, and discarding human interest and passion, to revel in the fantastic ideas that his imagination suggested.'
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Witch Of Atlas
,#NFDB
297:Merlin And Vivien
A storm was coming, but the winds were still,
And in the wild woods of Broceliande,
Before an oak, so hollow, huge and old
It looked a tower of ivied masonwork,
At Merlin's feet the wily Vivien lay.
For he that always bare in bitter grudge
The slights of Arthur and his Table, Mark
The Cornish King, had heard a wandering voice,
A minstrel of Caerlon by strong storm
Blown into shelter at Tintagil, say
That out of naked knightlike purity
Sir Lancelot worshipt no unmarried girl
But the great Queen herself, fought in her name,
Sware by her--vows like theirs, that high in heaven
Love most, but neither marry, nor are given
In marriage, angels of our Lord's report.
He ceased, and then--for Vivien sweetly said
(She sat beside the banquet nearest Mark),
'And is the fair example followed, Sir,
In Arthur's household?'--answered innocently:
'Ay, by some few--ay, truly--youths that hold
It more beseems the perfect virgin knight
To worship woman as true wife beyond
All hopes of gaining, than as maiden girl.
They place their pride in Lancelot and the Queen.
So passionate for an utter purity
Beyond the limit of their bond, are these,
For Arthur bound them not to singleness.
Brave hearts and clean! and yet--God guide them--young.'
Then Mark was half in heart to hurl his cup
Straight at the speaker, but forbore: he rose
To leave the hall, and, Vivien following him,
Turned to her: 'Here are snakes within the grass;
And you methinks, O Vivien, save ye fear
The monkish manhood, and the mask of pure
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Worn by this court, can stir them till they sting.'
And Vivien answered, smiling scornfully,
'Why fear? because that fostered at THY court
I savour of thy--virtues? fear them? no.
As Love, if Love is perfect, casts out fear,
So Hate, if Hate is perfect, casts out fear.
My father died in battle against the King,
My mother on his corpse in open field;
She bore me there, for born from death was I
Among the dead and sown upon the wind-And then on thee! and shown the truth betimes,
That old true filth, and bottom of the well
Where Truth is hidden. Gracious lessons thine
And maxims of the mud! "This Arthur pure!
Great Nature through the flesh herself hath made
Gives him the lie! There is no being pure,
My cherub; saith not Holy Writ the same?"-If I were Arthur, I would have thy blood.
Thy blessing, stainless King! I bring thee back,
When I have ferreted out their burrowings,
The hearts of all this Order in mine hand-Ay--so that fate and craft and folly close,
Perchance, one curl of Arthur's golden beard.
To me this narrow grizzled fork of thine
Is cleaner-fashioned--Well, I loved thee first,
That warps the wit.'
Loud laughed the graceless Mark,
But Vivien, into Camelot stealing, lodged
Low in the city, and on a festal day
When Guinevere was crossing the great hall
Cast herself down, knelt to the Queen, and wailed.
'Why kneel ye there? What evil hath ye wrought?
Rise!' and the damsel bidden rise arose
And stood with folded hands and downward eyes
Of glancing corner, and all meekly said,
'None wrought, but suffered much, an orphan maid!
My father died in battle for thy King,
My mother on his corpse--in open field,
The sad sea-sounding wastes of Lyonnesse--
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Poor wretch--no friend!--and now by Mark the King
For that small charm of feature mine, pursued-If any such be mine--I fly to thee.
Save, save me thou--Woman of women--thine
The wreath of beauty, thine the crown of power,
Be thine the balm of pity, O Heaven's own white
Earth-angel, stainless bride of stainless King-Help, for he follows! take me to thyself!
O yield me shelter for mine innocency
Among thy maidens!
Here her slow sweet eyes
Fear-tremulous, but humbly hopeful, rose
Fixt on her hearer's, while the Queen who stood
All glittering like May sunshine on May leaves
In green and gold, and plumed with green replied,
'Peace, child! of overpraise and overblame
We choose the last. Our noble Arthur, him
Ye scarce can overpraise, will hear and know.
Nay--we believe all evil of thy Mark-Well, we shall test thee farther; but this hour
We ride a-hawking with Sir Lancelot.
He hath given us a fair falcon which he trained;
We go to prove it. Bide ye here the while.'
She past; and Vivien murmured after 'Go!
I bide the while.' Then through the portal-arch
Peering askance, and muttering broken-wise,
As one that labours with an evil dream,
Beheld the Queen and Lancelot get to horse.
'Is that the Lancelot? goodly--ay, but gaunt:
Courteous--amends for gauntness--takes her hand-That glance of theirs, but for the street, had been
A clinging kiss--how hand lingers in hand!
Let go at last!--they ride away--to hawk
For waterfowl. Royaller game is mine.
For such a supersensual sensual bond
As that gray cricket chirpt of at our hearth-Touch flax with flame--a glance will serve--the liars!
Ah little rat that borest in the dyke
Thy hole by night to let the boundless deep
367
Down upon far-off cities while they dance-Or dream--of thee they dreamed not--nor of me
These--ay, but each of either: ride, and dream
The mortal dream that never yet was mine-Ride, ride and dream until ye wake--to me!
Then, narrow court and lubber King, farewell!
For Lancelot will be gracious to the rat,
And our wise Queen, if knowing that I know,
Will hate, loathe, fear--but honour me the more.'
Yet while they rode together down the plain,
Their talk was all of training, terms of art,
Diet and seeling, jesses, leash and lure.
'She is too noble' he said 'to check at pies,
Nor will she rake: there is no baseness in her.'
Here when the Queen demanded as by chance
'Know ye the stranger woman?' 'Let her be,'
Said Lancelot and unhooded casting off
The goodly falcon free; she towered; her bells,
Tone under tone, shrilled; and they lifted up
Their eager faces, wondering at the strength,
Boldness and royal knighthood of the bird
Who pounced her quarry and slew it. Many a time
As once--of old--among the flowers--they rode.
But Vivien half-forgotten of the Queen
Among her damsels broidering sat, heard, watched
And whispered: through the peaceful court she crept
And whispered: then as Arthur in the highest
Leavened the world, so Vivien in the lowest,
Arriving at a time of golden rest,
And sowing one ill hint from ear to ear,
While all the heathen lay at Arthur's feet,
And no quest came, but all was joust and play,
Leavened his hall. They heard and let her be.
Thereafter as an enemy that has left
Death in the living waters, and withdrawn,
The wily Vivien stole from Arthur's court.
She hated all the knights, and heard in thought
Their lavish comment when her name was named.
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For once, when Arthur walking all alone,
Vext at a rumour issued from herself
Of some corruption crept among his knights,
Had met her, Vivien, being greeted fair,
Would fain have wrought upon his cloudy mood
With reverent eyes mock-loyal, shaken voice,
And fluttered adoration, and at last
With dark sweet hints of some who prized him more
Than who should prize him most; at which the King
Had gazed upon her blankly and gone by:
But one had watched, and had not held his peace:
It made the laughter of an afternoon
That Vivien should attempt the blameless King.
And after that, she set herself to gain
Him, the most famous man of all those times,
Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts,
Had built the King his havens, ships, and halls,
Was also Bard, and knew the starry heavens;
The people called him Wizard; whom at first
She played about with slight and sprightly talk,
And vivid smiles, and faintly-venomed points
Of slander, glancing here and grazing there;
And yielding to his kindlier moods, the Seer
Would watch her at her petulance, and play,
Even when they seemed unloveable, and laugh
As those that watch a kitten; thus he grew
Tolerant of what he half disdained, and she,
Perceiving that she was but half disdained,
Began to break her sports with graver fits,
Turn red or pale, would often when they met
Sigh fully, or all-silent gaze upon him
With such a fixt devotion, that the old man,
Though doubtful, felt the flattery, and at times
Would flatter his own wish in age for love,
And half believe her true: for thus at times
He wavered; but that other clung to him,
Fixt in her will, and so the seasons went.
Then fell on Merlin a great melancholy;
He walked with dreams and darkness, and he found
A doom that ever poised itself to fall,
An ever-moaning battle in the mist,
369
World-war of dying flesh against the life,
Death in all life and lying in all love,
The meanest having power upon the highest,
And the high purpose broken by the worm.
So leaving Arthur's court he gained the beach;
There found a little boat, and stept into it;
And Vivien followed, but he marked her not.
She took the helm and he the sail; the boat
Drave with a sudden wind across the deeps,
And touching Breton sands, they disembarked.
And then she followed Merlin all the way,
Even to the wild woods of Broceliande.
For Merlin once had told her of a charm,
The which if any wrought on anyone
With woven paces and with waving arms,
The man so wrought on ever seemed to lie
Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower,
From which was no escape for evermore;
And none could find that man for evermore,
Nor could he see but him who wrought the charm
Coming and going, and he lay as dead
And lost to life and use and name and fame.
And Vivien ever sought to work the charm
Upon the great Enchanter of the Time,
As fancying that her glory would be great
According to his greatness whom she quenched.
There lay she all her length and kissed his feet,
As if in deepest reverence and in love.
A twist of gold was round her hair; a robe
Of samite without price, that more exprest
Than hid her, clung about her lissome limbs,
In colour like the satin-shining palm
On sallows in the windy gleams of March:
And while she kissed them, crying, 'Trample me,
Dear feet, that I have followed through the world,
And I will pay you worship; tread me down
And I will kiss you for it;' he was mute:
So dark a forethought rolled about his brain,
As on a dull day in an Ocean cave
The blind wave feeling round his long sea-hall
370
In silence: wherefore, when she lifted up
A face of sad appeal, and spake and said,
'O Merlin, do ye love me?' and again,
'O Merlin, do ye love me?' and once more,
'Great Master, do ye love me?' he was mute.
And lissome Vivien, holding by his heel,
Writhed toward him, slided up his knee and sat,
Behind his ankle twined her hollow feet
Together, curved an arm about his neck,
Clung like a snake; and letting her left hand
Droop from his mighty shoulder, as a leaf,
Made with her right a comb of pearl to part
The lists of such a board as youth gone out
Had left in ashes: then he spoke and said,
Not looking at her, 'Who are wise in love
Love most, say least,' and Vivien answered quick,
'I saw the little elf-god eyeless once
In Arthur's arras hall at Camelot:
But neither eyes nor tongue--O stupid child!
Yet you are wise who say it; let me think
Silence is wisdom: I am silent then,
And ask no kiss;' then adding all at once,
'And lo, I clothe myself with wisdom,' drew
The vast and shaggy mantle of his beard
Across her neck and bosom to her knee,
And called herself a gilded summer fly
Caught in a great old tyrant spider's web,
Who meant to eat her up in that wild wood
Without one word. So Vivien called herself,
But rather seemed a lovely baleful star
Veiled in gray vapour; till he sadly smiled:
'To what request for what strange boon,' he said,
'Are these your pretty tricks and fooleries,
O Vivien, the preamble? yet my thanks,
For these have broken up my melancholy.'
And Vivien answered smiling saucily,
'What, O my Master, have ye found your voice?
I bid the stranger welcome. Thanks at last!
But yesterday you never opened lip,
Except indeed to drink: no cup had we:
In mine own lady palms I culled the spring
371
That gathered trickling dropwise from the cleft,
And made a pretty cup of both my hands
And offered you it kneeling: then you drank
And knew no more, nor gave me one poor word;
O no more thanks than might a goat have given
With no more sign of reverence than a beard.
And when we halted at that other well,
And I was faint to swooning, and you lay
Foot-gilt with all the blossom-dust of those
Deep meadows we had traversed, did you know
That Vivien bathed your feet before her own?
And yet no thanks: and all through this wild wood
And all this morning when I fondled you:
Boon, ay, there was a boon, one not so strange-How had I wronged you? surely ye are wise,
But such a silence is more wise than kind.'
And Merlin locked his hand in hers and said:
'O did ye never lie upon the shore,
And watch the curled white of the coming wave
Glassed in the slippery sand before it breaks?
Even such a wave, but not so pleasurable,
Dark in the glass of some presageful mood,
Had I for three days seen, ready to fall.
And then I rose and fled from Arthur's court
To break the mood. You followed me unasked;
And when I looked, and saw you following me still,
My mind involved yourself the nearest thing
In that mind-mist: for shall I tell you truth?
You seemed that wave about to break upon me
And sweep me from my hold upon the world,
My use and name and fame. Your pardon, child.
Your pretty sports have brightened all again.
And ask your boon, for boon I owe you thrice,
Once for wrong done you by confusion, next
For thanks it seems till now neglected, last
For these your dainty gambols: wherefore ask;
And take this boon so strange and not so strange.'
And Vivien answered smiling mournfully:
'O not so strange as my long asking it,
Not yet so strange as you yourself are strange,
372
Nor half so strange as that dark mood of yours.
I ever feared ye were not wholly mine;
And see, yourself have owned ye did me wrong.
The people call you prophet: let it be:
But not of those that can expound themselves.
Take Vivien for expounder; she will call
That three-days-long presageful gloom of yours
No presage, but the same mistrustful mood
That makes you seem less noble than yourself,
Whenever I have asked this very boon,
Now asked again: for see you not, dear love,
That such a mood as that, which lately gloomed
Your fancy when ye saw me following you,
Must make me fear still more you are not mine,
Must make me yearn still more to prove you mine,
And make me wish still more to learn this charm
Of woven paces and of waving hands,
As proof of trust. O Merlin, teach it me.
The charm so taught will charm us both to rest.
For, grant me some slight power upon your fate,
I, feeling that you felt me worthy trust,
Should rest and let you rest, knowing you mine.
And therefore be as great as ye are named,
Not muffled round with selfish reticence.
How hard you look and how denyingly!
O, if you think this wickedness in me,
That I should prove it on you unawares,
That makes me passing wrathful; then our bond
Had best be loosed for ever: but think or not,
By Heaven that hears I tell you the clean truth,
As clean as blood of babes, as white as milk:
O Merlin, may this earth, if ever I,
If these unwitty wandering wits of mine,
Even in the jumbled rubbish of a dream,
Have tript on such conjectural treachery-May this hard earth cleave to the Nadir hell
Down, down, and close again, and nip me flat,
If I be such a traitress. Yield my boon,
Till which I scarce can yield you all I am;
And grant my re-reiterated wish,
The great proof of your love: because I think,
However wise, ye hardly know me yet.'
373
And Merlin loosed his hand from hers and said,
'I never was less wise, however wise,
Too curious Vivien, though you talk of trust,
Than when I told you first of such a charm.
Yea, if ye talk of trust I tell you this,
Too much I trusted when I told you that,
And stirred this vice in you which ruined man
Through woman the first hour; for howsoe'er
In children a great curiousness be well,
Who have to learn themselves and all the world,
In you, that are no child, for still I find
Your face is practised when I spell the lines,
I call it,--well, I will not call it vice:
But since you name yourself the summer fly,
I well could wish a cobweb for the gnat,
That settles, beaten back, and beaten back
Settles, till one could yield for weariness:
But since I will not yield to give you power
Upon my life and use and name and fame,
Why will ye never ask some other boon?
Yea, by God's rood, I trusted you too much.'
And Vivien, like the tenderest-hearted maid
That ever bided tryst at village stile,
Made answer, either eyelid wet with tears:
'Nay, Master, be not wrathful with your maid;
Caress her: let her feel herself forgiven
Who feels no heart to ask another boon.
I think ye hardly know the tender rhyme
Of "trust me not at all or all in all."
I heard the great Sir Lancelot sing it once,
And it shall answer for me. Listen to it.
"In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours,
Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers:
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.
"It is the little rift within the lute,
That by and by will make the music mute,
And ever widening slowly silence all.
374
"The little rift within the lover's lute
Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit,
That rotting inward slowly moulders all.
"It is not worth the keeping: let it go:
But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no.
And trust me not at all or all in all."
O Master, do ye love my tender rhyme?'
And Merlin looked and half believed her true,
So tender was her voice, so fair her face,
So sweetly gleamed her eyes behind her tears
Like sunlight on the plain behind a shower:
And yet he answered half indignantly:
'Far other was the song that once I heard
By this huge oak, sung nearly where we sit:
For here we met, some ten or twelve of us,
To chase a creature that was current then
In these wild woods, the hart with golden horns.
It was the time when first the question rose
About the founding of a Table Round,
That was to be, for love of God and men
And noble deeds, the flower of all the world.
And each incited each to noble deeds.
And while we waited, one, the youngest of us,
We could not keep him silent, out he flashed,
And into such a song, such fire for fame,
Such trumpet-glowings in it, coming down
To such a stern and iron-clashing close,
That when he stopt we longed to hurl together,
And should have done it; but the beauteous beast
Scared by the noise upstarted at our feet,
And like a silver shadow slipt away
Through the dim land; and all day long we rode
Through the dim land against a rushing wind,
That glorious roundel echoing in our ears,
And chased the flashes of his golden horns
Till they vanished by the fairy well
That laughs at iron--as our warriors did-Where children cast their pins and nails, and cry,
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"Laugh, little well!" but touch it with a sword,
It buzzes fiercely round the point; and there
We lost him: such a noble song was that.
But, Vivien, when you sang me that sweet rhyme,
I felt as though you knew this cursd charm,
Were proving it on me, and that I lay
And felt them slowly ebbing, name and fame.'
And Vivien answered smiling mournfully:
'O mine have ebbed away for evermore,
And all through following you to this wild wood,
Because I saw you sad, to comfort you.
Lo now, what hearts have men! they never mount
As high as woman in her selfless mood.
And touching fame, howe'er ye scorn my song,
Take one verse more--the lady speaks it--this:
'"My name, once mine, now thine, is closelier mine,
For fame, could fame be mine, that fame were thine,
And shame, could shame be thine, that shame were mine.
So trust me not at all or all in all."
'Says she not well? and there is more--this rhyme
Is like the fair pearl-necklace of the Queen,
That burst in dancing, and the pearls were spilt;
Some lost, some stolen, some as relics kept.
But nevermore the same two sister pearls
Ran down the silken thread to kiss each other
On her white neck--so is it with this rhyme:
It lives dispersedly in many hands,
And every minstrel sings it differently;
Yet is there one true line, the pearl of pearls:
"Man dreams of Fame while woman wakes to love."
Yea! Love, though Love were of the grossest, carves
A portion from the solid present, eats
And uses, careless of the rest; but Fame,
The Fame that follows death is nothing to us;
And what is Fame in life but half-disfame,
And counterchanged with darkness? ye yourself
Know well that Envy calls you Devil's son,
And since ye seem the Master of all Art,
They fain would make you Master of all vice.'
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And Merlin locked his hand in hers and said,
'I once was looking for a magic weed,
And found a fair young squire who sat alone,
Had carved himself a knightly shield of wood,
And then was painting on it fancied arms,
Azure, an Eagle rising or, the Sun
In dexter chief; the scroll "I follow fame."
And speaking not, but leaning over him
I took his brush and blotted out the bird,
And made a Gardener putting in a graff,
With this for motto, "Rather use than fame."
You should have seen him blush; but afterwards
He made a stalwart knight. O Vivien,
For you, methinks you think you love me well;
For me, I love you somewhat; rest: and Love
Should have some rest and pleasure in himself,
Not ever be too curious for a boon,
Too prurient for a proof against the grain
Of him ye say ye love: but Fame with men,
Being but ampler means to serve mankind,
Should have small rest or pleasure in herself,
But work as vassal to the larger love,
That dwarfs the petty love of one to one.
Use gave me Fame at first, and Fame again
Increasing gave me use. Lo, there my boon!
What other? for men sought to prove me vile,
Because I fain had given them greater wits:
And then did Envy call me Devil's son:
The sick weak beast seeking to help herself
By striking at her better, missed, and brought
Her own claw back, and wounded her own heart.
Sweet were the days when I was all unknown,
But when my name was lifted up, the storm
Brake on the mountain and I cared not for it.
Right well know I that Fame is half-disfame,
Yet needs must work my work. That other fame,
To one at least, who hath not children, vague,
The cackle of the unborn about the grave,
I cared not for it: a single misty star,
Which is the second in a line of stars
That seem a sword beneath a belt of three,
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I never gazed upon it but I dreamt
Of some vast charm concluded in that star
To make fame nothing. Wherefore, if I fear,
Giving you power upon me through this charm,
That you might play me falsely, having power,
However well ye think ye love me now
(As sons of kings loving in pupilage
Have turned to tyrants when they came to power)
I rather dread the loss of use than fame;
If you--and not so much from wickedness,
As some wild turn of anger, or a mood
Of overstrained affection, it may be,
To keep me all to your own self,--or else
A sudden spurt of woman's jealousy,-Should try this charm on whom ye say ye love.'
And Vivien answered smiling as in wrath:
'Have I not sworn? I am not trusted. Good!
Well, hide it, hide it; I shall find it out;
And being found take heed of Vivien.
A woman and not trusted, doubtless I
Might feel some sudden turn of anger born
Of your misfaith; and your fine epithet
Is accurate too, for this full love of mine
Without the full heart back may merit well
Your term of overstrained. So used as I,
My daily wonder is, I love at all.
And as to woman's jealousy, O why not?
O to what end, except a jealous one,
And one to make me jealous if I love,
Was this fair charm invented by yourself?
I well believe that all about this world
Ye cage a buxom captive here and there,
Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower
From which is no escape for evermore.'
Then the great Master merrily answered her:
'Full many a love in loving youth was mine;
I needed then no charm to keep them mine
But youth and love; and that full heart of yours
Whereof ye prattle, may now assure you mine;
So live uncharmed. For those who wrought it first,
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The wrist is parted from the hand that waved,
The feet unmortised from their ankle-bones
Who paced it, ages back: but will ye hear
The legend as in guerdon for your rhyme?
'There lived a king in the most Eastern East,
Less old than I, yet older, for my blood
Hath earnest in it of far springs to be.
A tawny pirate anchored in his port,
Whose bark had plundered twenty nameless isles;
And passing one, at the high peep of dawn,
He saw two cities in a thousand boats
All fighting for a woman on the sea.
And pushing his black craft among them all,
He lightly scattered theirs and brought her off,
With loss of half his people arrow-slain;
A maid so smooth, so white, so wonderful,
They said a light came from her when she moved:
And since the pirate would not yield her up,
The King impaled him for his piracy;
Then made her Queen: but those isle-nurtured eyes
Waged such unwilling though successful war
On all the youth, they sickened; councils thinned,
And armies waned, for magnet-like she drew
The rustiest iron of old fighters' hearts;
And beasts themselves would worship; camels knelt
Unbidden, and the brutes of mountain back
That carry kings in castles, bowed black knees
Of homage, ringing with their serpent hands,
To make her smile, her golden ankle-bells.
What wonder, being jealous, that he sent
His horns of proclamation out through all
The hundred under-kingdoms that he swayed
To find a wizard who might teach the King
Some charm, which being wrought upon the Queen
Might keep her all his own: to such a one
He promised more than ever king has given,
A league of mountain full of golden mines,
A province with a hundred miles of coast,
A palace and a princess, all for him:
But on all those who tried and failed, the King
Pronounced a dismal sentence, meaning by it
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To keep the list low and pretenders back,
Or like a king, not to be trifled with-Their heads should moulder on the city gates.
And many tried and failed, because the charm
Of nature in her overbore their own:
And many a wizard brow bleached on the walls:
And many weeks a troop of carrion crows
Hung like a cloud above the gateway towers.'
And Vivien breaking in upon him, said:
'I sit and gather honey; yet, methinks,
Thy tongue has tript a little: ask thyself.
The lady never made UNWILLING war
With those fine eyes: she had her pleasure in it,
And made her good man jealous with good cause.
And lived there neither dame nor damsel then
Wroth at a lover's loss? were all as tame,
I mean, as noble, as the Queen was fair?
Not one to flirt a venom at her eyes,
Or pinch a murderous dust into her drink,
Or make her paler with a poisoned rose?
Well, those were not our days: but did they find
A wizard? Tell me, was he like to thee?
She ceased, and made her lithe arm round his neck
Tighten, and then drew back, and let her eyes
Speak for her, glowing on him, like a bride's
On her new lord, her own, the first of men.
He answered laughing, 'Nay, not like to me.
At last they found--his foragers for charms-A little glassy-headed hairless man,
Who lived alone in a great wild on grass;
Read but one book, and ever reading grew
So grated down and filed away with thought,
So lean his eyes were monstrous; while the skin
Clung but to crate and basket, ribs and spine.
And since he kept his mind on one sole aim,
Nor ever touched fierce wine, nor tasted flesh,
Nor owned a sensual wish, to him the wall
That sunders ghosts and shadow-casting men
Became a crystal, and he saw them through it,
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And heard their voices talk behind the wall,
And learnt their elemental secrets, powers
And forces; often o'er the sun's bright eye
Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud,
And lashed it at the base with slanting storm;
Or in the noon of mist and driving rain,
When the lake whitened and the pinewood roared,
And the cairned mountain was a shadow, sunned
The world to peace again: here was the man.
And so by force they dragged him to the King.
And then he taught the King to charm the Queen
In such-wise, that no man could see her more,
Nor saw she save the King, who wrought the charm,
Coming and going, and she lay as dead,
And lost all use of life: but when the King
Made proffer of the league of golden mines,
The province with a hundred miles of coast,
The palace and the princess, that old man
Went back to his old wild, and lived on grass,
And vanished, and his book came down to me.'
And Vivien answered smiling saucily:
'Ye have the book: the charm is written in it:
Good: take my counsel: let me know it at once:
For keep it like a puzzle chest in chest,
With each chest locked and padlocked thirty-fold,
And whelm all this beneath as vast a mound
As after furious battle turfs the slain
On some wild down above the windy deep,
I yet should strike upon a sudden means
To dig, pick, open, find and read the charm:
Then, if I tried it, who should blame me then?'
And smiling as a master smiles at one
That is not of his school, nor any school
But that where blind and naked Ignorance
Delivers brawling judgments, unashamed,
On all things all day long, he answered her:
'Thou read the book, my pretty Vivien!
O ay, it is but twenty pages long,
But every page having an ample marge,
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And every marge enclosing in the midst
A square of text that looks a little blot,
The text no larger than the limbs of fleas;
And every square of text an awful charm,
Writ in a language that has long gone by.
So long, that mountains have arisen since
With cities on their flanks--thou read the book!
And ever margin scribbled, crost, and crammed
With comment, densest condensation, hard
To mind and eye; but the long sleepless nights
Of my long life have made it easy to me.
And none can read the text, not even I;
And none can read the comment but myself;
And in the comment did I find the charm.
O, the results are simple; a mere child
Might use it to the harm of anyone,
And never could undo it: ask no more:
For though you should not prove it upon me,
But keep that oath ye sware, ye might, perchance,
Assay it on some one of the Table Round,
And all because ye dream they babble of you.'
And Vivien, frowning in true anger, said:
'What dare the full-fed liars say of me?
THEY ride abroad redressing human wrongs!
They sit with knife in meat and wine in horn!
THEY bound to holy vows of chastity!
Were I not woman, I could tell a tale.
But you are man, you well can understand
The shame that cannot be explained for shame.
Not one of all the drove should touch me: swine!'
Then answered Merlin careless of her words:
'You breathe but accusation vast and vague,
Spleen-born, I think, and proofless. If ye know,
Set up the charge ye know, to stand or fall!'
And Vivien answered frowning wrathfully:
'O ay, what say ye to Sir Valence, him
Whose kinsman left him watcher o'er his wife
And two fair babes, and went to distant lands;
Was one year gone, and on returning found
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Not two but three? there lay the reckling, one
But one hour old! What said the happy sire?'
A seven-months' babe had been a truer gift.
Those twelve sweet moons confused his fatherhood.'
Then answered Merlin, 'Nay, I know the tale.
Sir Valence wedded with an outland dame:
Some cause had kept him sundered from his wife:
One child they had: it lived with her: she died:
His kinsman travelling on his own affair
Was charged by Valence to bring home the child.
He brought, not found it therefore: take the truth.'
'O ay,' said Vivien, 'overtrue a tale.
What say ye then to sweet Sir Sagramore,
That ardent man? "to pluck the flower in season,"
So says the song, "I trow it is no treason."
O Master, shall we call him overquick
To crop his own sweet rose before the hour?'
And Merlin answered, 'Overquick art thou
To catch a loathly plume fallen from the wing
Of that foul bird of rapine whose whole prey
Is man's good name: he never wronged his bride.
I know the tale. An angry gust of wind
Puffed out his torch among the myriad-roomed
And many-corridored complexities
Of Arthur's palace: then he found a door,
And darkling felt the sculptured ornament
That wreathen round it made it seem his own;
And wearied out made for the couch and slept,
A stainless man beside a stainless maid;
And either slept, nor knew of other there;
Till the high dawn piercing the royal rose
In Arthur's casement glimmered chastely down,
Blushing upon them blushing, and at once
He rose without a word and parted from her:
But when the thing was blazed about the court,
The brute world howling forced them into bonds,
And as it chanced they are happy, being pure.'
'O ay,' said Vivien, 'that were likely too.
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What say ye then to fair Sir Percivale
And of the horrid foulness that he wrought,
The saintly youth, the spotless lamb of Christ,
Or some black wether of St Satan's fold.
What, in the precincts of the chapel-yard,
Among the knightly brasses of the graves,
And by the cold Hic Jacets of the dead!'
And Merlin answered careless of her charge,
'A sober man is Percivale and pure;
But once in life was flustered with new wine,
Then paced for coolness in the chapel-yard;
Where one of Satan's shepherdesses caught
And meant to stamp him with her master's mark;
And that he sinned is not believable;
For, look upon his face!--but if he sinned,
The sin that practice burns into the blood,
And not the one dark hour which brings remorse,
Will brand us, after, of whose fold we be:
Or else were he, the holy king, whose hymns
Are chanted in the minster, worse than all.
But is your spleen frothed out, or have ye more?'
And Vivien answered frowning yet in wrath:
'O ay; what say ye to Sir Lancelot, friend
Traitor or true? that commerce with the Queen,
I ask you, is it clamoured by the child,
Or whispered in the corner? do ye know it?'
To which he answered sadly, 'Yea, I know it.
Sir Lancelot went ambassador, at first,
To fetch her, and she watched him from her walls.
A rumour runs, she took him for the King,
So fixt her fancy on him: let them be.
But have ye no one word of loyal praise
For Arthur, blameless King and stainless man?'
She answered with a low and chuckling laugh:
'Man! is he man at all, who knows and winks?
Sees what his fair bride is and does, and winks?
By which the good King means to blind himself,
And blinds himself and all the Table Round
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To all the foulness that they work. Myself
Could call him (were it not for womanhood)
The pretty, popular cause such manhood earns,
Could call him the main cause of all their crime;
Yea, were he not crowned King, coward, and fool.'
Then Merlin to his own heart, loathing, said:
'O true and tender! O my liege and King!
O selfless man and stainless gentleman,
Who wouldst against thine own eye-witness fain
Have all men true and leal, all women pure;
How, in the mouths of base interpreters,
From over-fineness not intelligible
To things with every sense as false and foul
As the poached filth that floods the middle street,
Is thy white blamelessness accounted blame!'
But Vivien, deeming Merlin overborne
By instance, recommenced, and let her tongue
Rage like a fire among the noblest names,
Polluting, and imputing her whole self,
Defaming and defacing, till she left
Not even Lancelot brave, nor Galahad clean.
Her words had issue other than she willed.
He dragged his eyebrow bushes down, and made
A snowy penthouse for his hollow eyes,
And muttered in himself, 'Tell HER the charm!
So, if she had it, would she rail on me
To snare the next, and if she have it not
So will she rail. What did the wanton say?
"Not mount as high;" we scarce can sink as low:
For men at most differ as Heaven and earth,
But women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell.
I know the Table Round, my friends of old;
All brave, and many generous, and some chaste.
She cloaks the scar of some repulse with lies;
I well believe she tempted them and failed,
Being so bitter: for fine plots may fail,
Though harlots paint their talk as well as face
With colours of the heart that are not theirs.
I will not let her know: nine tithes of times
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Face-flatterer and backbiter are the same.
And they, sweet soul, that most impute a crime
Are pronest to it, and impute themselves,
Wanting the mental range; or low desire
Not to feel lowest makes them level all;
Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain,
To leave an equal baseness; and in this
Are harlots like the crowd, that if they find
Some stain or blemish in a name of note,
Not grieving that their greatest are so small,
Inflate themselves with some insane delight,
And judge all nature from her feet of clay,
Without the will to lift their eyes, and see
Her godlike head crowned with spiritual fire,
And touching other worlds. I am weary of her.'
He spoke in words part heard, in whispers part,
Half-suffocated in the hoary fell
And many-wintered fleece of throat and chin.
But Vivien, gathering somewhat of his mood,
And hearing 'harlot' muttered twice or thrice,
Leapt from her session on his lap, and stood
Stiff as a viper frozen; loathsome sight,
How from the rosy lips of life and love,
Flashed the bare-grinning skeleton of death!
White was her cheek; sharp breaths of anger puffed
Her fairy nostril out; her hand half-clenched
Went faltering sideways downward to her belt,
And feeling; had she found a dagger there
(For in a wink the false love turns to hate)
She would have stabbed him; but she found it not:
His eye was calm, and suddenly she took
To bitter weeping like a beaten child,
A long, long weeping, not consolable.
Then her false voice made way, broken with sobs:
'O crueller than was ever told in tale,
Or sung in song! O vainly lavished love!
O cruel, there was nothing wild or strange,
Or seeming shameful--for what shame in love,
So love be true, and not as yours is--nothing
Poor Vivien had not done to win his trust
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Who called her what he called her--all her crime,
All--all--the wish to prove him wholly hers.'
She mused a little, and then clapt her hands
Together with a wailing shriek, and said:
'Stabbed through the heart's affections to the heart!
Seethed like the kid in its own mother's milk!
Killed with a word worse than a life of blows!
I thought that he was gentle, being great:
O God, that I had loved a smaller man!
I should have found in him a greater heart.
O, I, that flattering my true passion, saw
The knights, the court, the King, dark in your light,
Who loved to make men darker than they are,
Because of that high pleasure which I had
To seat you sole upon my pedestal
Of worship--I am answered, and henceforth
The course of life that seemed so flowery to me
With you for guide and master, only you,
Becomes the sea-cliff pathway broken short,
And ending in a ruin--nothing left,
But into some low cave to crawl, and there,
If the wolf spare me, weep my life away,
Killed with inutterable unkindliness.'
She paused, she turned away, she hung her head,
The snake of gold slid from her hair, the braid
Slipt and uncoiled itself, she wept afresh,
And the dark wood grew darker toward the storm
In silence, while his anger slowly died
Within him, till he let his wisdom go
For ease of heart, and half believed her true:
Called her to shelter in the hollow oak,
'Come from the storm,' and having no reply,
Gazed at the heaving shoulder, and the face
Hand-hidden, as for utmost grief or shame;
Then thrice essayed, by tenderest-touching terms,
To sleek her ruffled peace of mind, in vain.
At last she let herself be conquered by him,
And as the cageling newly flown returns,
The seeming-injured simple-hearted thing
Came to her old perch back, and settled there.
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There while she sat, half-falling from his knees,
Half-nestled at his heart, and since he saw
The slow tear creep from her closed eyelid yet,
About her, more in kindness than in love,
The gentle wizard cast a shielding arm.
But she dislinked herself at once and rose,
Her arms upon her breast across, and stood,
A virtuous gentlewoman deeply wronged,
Upright and flushed before him: then she said:
'There must now be no passages of love
Betwixt us twain henceforward evermore;
Since, if I be what I am grossly called,
What should be granted which your own gross heart
Would reckon worth the taking? I will go.
In truth, but one thing now--better have died
Thrice than have asked it once--could make me stay-That proof of trust--so often asked in vain!
How justly, after that vile term of yours,
I find with grief! I might believe you then,
Who knows? once more. Lo! what was once to me
Mere matter of the fancy, now hath grown
The vast necessity of heart and life.
Farewell; think gently of me, for I fear
My fate or folly, passing gayer youth
For one so old, must be to love thee still.
But ere I leave thee let me swear once more
That if I schemed against thy peace in this,
May yon just heaven, that darkens o'er me, send
One flash, that, missing all things else, may make
My scheming brain a cinder, if I lie.'
Scarce had she ceased, when out of heaven a bolt
(For now the storm was close above them) struck,
Furrowing a giant oak, and javelining
With darted spikes and splinters of the wood
The dark earth round. He raised his eyes and saw
The tree that shone white-listed through the gloom.
But Vivien, fearing heaven had heard her oath,
And dazzled by the livid-flickering fork,
And deafened with the stammering cracks and claps
That followed, flying back and crying out,
388
'O Merlin, though you do not love me, save,
Yet save me!' clung to him and hugged him close;
And called him dear protector in her fright,
Nor yet forgot her practice in her fright,
But wrought upon his mood and hugged him close.
The pale blood of the wizard at her touch
Took gayer colours, like an opal warmed.
She blamed herself for telling hearsay tales:
She shook from fear, and for her fault she wept
Of petulancy; she called him lord and liege,
Her seer, her bard, her silver star of eve,
Her God, her Merlin, the one passionate love
Of her whole life; and ever overhead
Bellowed the tempest, and the rotten branch
Snapt in the rushing of the river-rain
Above them; and in change of glare and gloom
Her eyes and neck glittering went and came;
Till now the storm, its burst of passion spent,
Moaning and calling out of other lands,
Had left the ravaged woodland yet once more
To peace; and what should not have been had been,
For Merlin, overtalked and overworn,
Had yielded, told her all the charm, and slept.
Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm
Of woven paces and of waving hands,
And in the hollow oak he lay as dead,
And lost to life and use and name and fame.
Then crying 'I have made his glory mine,'
And shrieking out 'O fool!' the harlot leapt
Adown the forest, and the thicket closed
Behind her, and the forest echoed 'fool.'
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,#NFDB
298:BOOK THE SEVENTH
The Story of Medea and Jason
The Argonauts now stemm'd the foaming tide,
And to Arcadia's shore their course apply'd;
Where sightless Phineus spent his age in grief,
But Boreas' sons engage in his relief;
And those unwelcome guests, the odious race
Of Harpyes, from the monarch's table chase.
With Jason then they greater toils sustain,
And Phasis' slimy banks at last they gain,
Here boldly they demand the golden prize
Of Scythia's king, who sternly thus replies:
That mighty labours they must first o'ercome,
Or sail their Argo thence unfreighted home.
Meanwhile Medea, seiz'd with fierce desire,
By reason strives to quench the raging fire;
But strives in vain!- Some God (she said) withstands,
And reason's baffl'd council countermands.
What unseen Pow'r does this disorder move?
'Tis love,- at least 'tis like, what men call love.
Else wherefore shou'd the king's commands appear
To me too hard?- But so indeed they are.
Why shou'd I for a stranger fear, lest he
Shou'd perish, whom I did but lately see?
His death, or safety, what are they to me?
Wretch, from thy virgin-breast this flame expel,
And soon- Oh cou'd I, all wou'd then be well!
But love, resistless love, my soul invades;
Discretion this, affection that perswades.
I see the right, and I approve it too,
Condemn the wrong- and yet the wrong pursue.
Why, royal maid, shou'dst thou desire to wed
A wanderer, and court a foreign bed?
Thy native land, tho' barb'rous, can present
A bridegroom worth a royal bride's content:
And whether this advent'rer lives, or dies,
In Fate, and Fortune's fickle pleasure lies.
Yet may be live! for to the Pow'rs above,
A virgin, led by no impulse of love,
So just a suit may, for the guiltless, move.
Whom wou'd not Jason's valour, youth and blood
Invite? or cou'd these merits be withstood,
At least his charming person must encline
The hardest heart- I'm sure 'tis so with mine!
Yet, if I help him not, the flaming breath
Of bulls, and earth-born foes, must be his death.
Or, should he through these dangers force his way,
At last he must be made the dragon's prey.
If no remorse for such distress I feel,
I am a tigress, and my breast is steel.
Why do I scruple then to see him slain,
And with the tragick scene my eyes prophane?
My magick's art employ, not to asswage
The Salvages, but to enflame their rage?
His earth-born foes to fiercer fury move,
And accessary to his murder prove?
The Gods forbid- But pray'rs are idle breath,
When action only can prevent his death.
Shall I betray my father, and the state,
To intercept a rambling hero's fate;
Who may sail off next hour, and sav'd from harms
By my assistance, bless another's arms?
Whilst I, not only of my hopes bereft,
But to unpity'd punishment am left.
If he is false, let the ingrateful bleed!
But no such symptom in his looks I read.
Nature wou'd ne'er have lavish'd so much grace
Upon his person, if his soul were base.
Besides, he first shall plight his faith, and swear
By all the Gods; what therefore can'st thou fear?
Medea haste, from danger set him free,
Jason shall thy eternal debtor be.
And thou, his queen, with sov'raign state enstall'd,
By Graecian dames the Kind Preserver call'd.
Hence idle dreams, by love-sick fancy bred!
Wilt thou, Medea, by vain wishes led,
To sister, brother, father bid adieu?
Forsake thy country's Gods, and country too?
My father's harsh, my brother but a child,
My sister rivals me, my country's wild;
And for its Gods, the greatest of 'em all
Inspires my breast, and I obey his call.
That great endearments I forsake, is true,
But greater far the hopes that I pursue:
The pride of having sav'd the youths of Greece
(Each life more precious than our golden fleece);
A nobler soil by me shall be possest,
I shall see towns with arts and manners blest;
And, what I prize above the world beside,
Enjoy my Jason- and when once his bride,
Be more than mortal, and to Gods ally'd.
They talk of hazards I must first sustain,
Of floating islands justling in the main;
Our tender barque expos'd to dreadful shocks
Of fierce Charybdis' gulf, and Scylla's rocks,
Where breaking waves in whirling eddies rowl,
And rav'nous dogs that in deep caverns howl:
Amidst these terrors, while I lye possest
Of him I love, and lean on Jason's breast,
In tempests unconcern'd I will appear,
Or, only for my husband's safety fear.
Didst thou say husband?- canst thou so deceive
Thy self, fond maid, and thy own cheat believe?
In vain thou striv'st to varnish o'er thy shame,
And grace thy guilt with wedlock's sacred name.
Pull off the coz'ning masque, and oh! in time
Discover and avoid the fatal crime.
She ceas'd- the Graces now, with kind surprize,
And virtue's lovely train, before her eyes
Present themselves, and vanquish'd Cupid flies.
She then retires to Hecate's shrine, that stood
Far in the covert of a shady wood:
She finds the fury of her flames asswag'd,
But, seeing Jason there, again they rag'd.
Blushes, and paleness did by turns invade
Her tender cheeks, and secret grief betray'd.
As fire, that sleeping under ashes lyes,
Fresh-blown, and rous'd, does up in blazes rise,
So flam'd the virgin's breast-
New kindled by her lover's sparkling eyes.
For chance, that day, had with uncommon grace
Adorn'd the lovely youth, and through his face
Display'd an air so pleasing as might charm
A Goddess, and a Vestal's bosom warm.
Her ravish'd eyes survey him o'er and o'er,
As some gay wonder never seen before;
Transported to the skies she seems to be,
And thinks she gazes on a deity.
But when he spoke, and prest her trembling hand,
And did with tender words her aid demand,
With vows, and oaths to make her soon his bride,
She wept a flood of tears, and thus reply'd:
I see my error, yet to ruin move,
Nor owe my fate to ignorance, but love:
Your life I'll guard, and only crave of you
To swear once more- and to your oath be true.
He swears by Hecate he would all fulfil,
And by her grandfa ther's prophetick skill,
By ev'ry thing that doubting love cou'd press,
His present danger, and desir'd success.
She credits him, and kindly does produce
Enchanted herbs, and teaches him their use:
Their mystick names, and virtues he admires,
And with his booty joyfully retires.
The Dragon's Teeth transform'd to Men
Impatient for the wonders of the day,
Aurora drives the loyt'ring stars away.
Now Mars's mount the pressing people fill,
The crowd below, the nobles crown the hill;
The king himself high-thron'd above the rest,
With iv'ry scepter, and in purple drest.
Forthwith the brass-hoof'd bulls are set at large,
Whose furious nostrils sulph'rous flame discharge:
The blasted herbage by their breath expires;
As forges rumble with excessive fires,
And furnaces with fiercer fury glow,
When water on the panting mass ye throw;
With such a noise, from their convulsive breast,
Thro' bellowing throats, the struggling vapour prest.
Yet Jason marches up without concern,
While on th' advent'rous youth the monsters turn
Their glaring eyes, and, eager to engage,
Brandish their steel-tipt horns in threatning rage:
With brazen hoofs they beat the ground, and choak
The ambient air with clouds of dust and smoak:
Each gazing Graecian for his champion shakes,
While bold advances he securely makes
Thro' sindging blasts; such wonders magick art
Can work, when love conspires, and plays his part.
The passive savages like statues stand,
While he their dew-laps stroaks with soothing hand;
To unknown yokes their brawny necks they yield,
And, like tame oxen, plow the wond'ring field.
The Colchians stare; the Graecians shout, and raise
Their champion's courage with inspiring praise.
Embolden'd now, on fresh attempts he goes,
With serpent's teeth the fertile furrows sows;
The glebe, fermenting with inchanted juice,
Makes the snake's teeth a human crop produce.
For as an infant, pris'ner to the womb,
Contented sleeps, 'till to perfection come,
Then does the cell's obscure confinement scorn,
He tosses, throbs, and presses to be born;
So from the lab'ring Earth no single birth,
But a whole troop of lusty youths rush forth;
And, what's more strange, with martial fury warm'd,
And for encounter all compleatly arm'd;
In rank and file, as they were sow'd, they stand,
Impatient for the signal of command.
No foe but the Aemonian youth appears;
At him they level their steel-pointed spears;
His frighted friends, who triumph'd, just before,
With peals of sighs his desp'rate case deplore:
And where such hardy warriors are afraid,
What must the tender, and enamour'd maid?
Her spirits sink, the blood her cheek forsook;
She fears, who for his safety undertook:
She knew the vertue of the spells she gave,
She knew the force, and knew her lover brave;
But what's a single champion to an host?
Yet scorning thus to see him tamely lost,
Her strong reserve of secret arts she brings,
And last, her never-failing song she sings.
Wonders ensue; among his gazing foes
The massy fragment of a rock he throws;
This charm in civil war engag'd 'em all;
By mutual wounds those Earth-born brothers fall.
The Greeks, transported with the strange success,
Leap from their seats the conqu'ror to caress;
Commend, and kiss, and clasp him in their arms:
So would the kind contriver of the charms;
But her, who felt the tenderest concern,
Honour condemns in secret flames to burn;
Committed to a double guard of fame,
Aw'd by a virgin's, and a princess' name.
But thoughts are free, and fancy unconfin'd,
She kisses, courts, and hugs him in her mind;
To fav'ring Pow'rs her silent thanks she gives,
By whose indulgence her lov'd hero lives.
One labour more remains, and, tho' the last,
In danger far surmounting all the past;
That enterprize by Fates in store was kept,
To make the dragon sleep that never slept,
Whose crest shoots dreadful lustre; from his jaws
A tripple tire of forked stings he draws,
With fangs, and wings of a prodigious size:
Such was the guardian of the golden prize.
Yet him, besprinkled with Lethaean dew,
The fair inchantress into slumber threw;
And then, to fix him, thrice she did repeat
The rhyme, that makes the raging winds retreat,
In stormy seas can halcyon seasons make,
Turn rapid streams into a standing lake;
While the soft guest his drowzy eye-lids seals,
Th' ungarded golden fleece the stranger steals;
Proud to possess the purchase of his toil,
Proud of his royal bride, the richer spoil;
To sea both prize, and patroness he bore,
And lands triumphant on his native shore.
Old Aeson restor'd to Youth
Aemonian matrons, who their absence mourn'd,
Rejoyce to see their prosp'rous sons return'd:
Rich curling fumes of incense feast the skies,
An hecatomb of voted victims dies,
With gilded horns, and garlands on their head,
And all the pomp of death, to th' altar led.
Congratulating bowls go briskly round,
Triumphant shouts in louder musick drown'd.
Amidst these revels, why that cloud of care
On Jason's brow? (to whom the largest share
Of mirth was due)- His father was not there.
Aeson was absent, once the young, and brave,
Now crush'd with years, and bending to the grave.
At last withdrawn, and by the crowd unseen,
Pressing her hand (with starting sighs between),
He supplicates his kind, and skilful queen.
O patroness! preserver of my life!
(Dear when my mistress, and much dearer wife)
Your favours to so vast a sum amount,
'Tis past the pow'r of numbers to recount;
Or cou'd they be to computation brought,
The history would a romance be thought:
And yet, unless you add one favour more,
Greater than all that you conferr'd before,
But not too hard for love and magick skill,
Your past are thrown away, and Jason's wretched still.
The morning of my life is just begun,
But my declining father's race is run;
From my large stock retrench the long arrears,
And add 'em to expiring Aeson's years.
Thus spake the gen'rous youth, and wept the rest.
Mov'd with the piety of his request,
To his ag'd sire such filial duty shown,
So diff'rent from her treatment of her own,
But still endeav'ring her remorse to hide,
She check'd her rising sighs, and thus reply'd.
How cou'd the thought of such inhuman wrong
Escape (said she) from pious Jason's tongue?
Does the whole world another Jason bear,
Whose life Medea can to yours prefer?
Or cou'd I with so dire a change dispence,
Hecate will never join in that offence:
Unjust is the request you make, and I
In kindness your petition shall deny;
Yet she that grants not what you do implore,
Shall yet essay to give her Jason more;
Find means t' encrease the stock of Aeson's years,
Without retrenchment of your life's arrears;
Provided that the triple Goddess join
A strong confed'rate in my bold design.
Thus was her enterprize resolv'd; but still
Three tedious nights are wanting to fulfil
The circling crescents of th' encreasing moon;
Then, in the height of her nocturnal noon,
Medea steals from court; her ankles bare,
Her garments closely girt, but loose her hair;
Thus sally'd, like a solitary sprite,
She traverses the terrors of the night.
Men, beasts, and birds in soft repose lay charm'd,
No boistrous wind the mountain-woods alarm'd;
Nor did those walks of love, the myrtle-trees,
Of am'rous Zephir hear the whisp'ring breeze;
All elements chain'd in unactive rest,
No sense but what the twinkling stars exprest;
To them (that only wak'd) she rears her arm,
And thus commences her mysterious charms.
She turn'd her thrice about, as oft she threw
On her pale tresses the nocturnal dew;
Then yelling thrice a most enormous sound,
Her bare knee bended on the flinty ground.
O night (said she) thou confident and guide
Of secrets, such as darkness ought to hide;
Ye stars and moon, that, when the sun retires,
Support his empire with succeeding fires;
And thou, great Hecate, friend to my design;
Songs, mutt'ring spells, your magick forces join;
And thou, O Earth, the magazine that yields
The midnight sorcerer drugs; skies, mountains, fields;
Ye wat'ry Pow'rs of fountain, stream, and lake;
Ye sylvan Gods, and Gods of night, awake,
And gen'rously your parts in my adventure take.
Oft by your aid swift currents I have led
Thro' wand'ring banks, back to their fountain head;
Transformed the prospect of the briny deep,
Made sleeping billows rave, and raving billows sleep;
Made clouds, or sunshine; tempests rise, or fall;
And stubborn lawless winds obey my call:
With mutter'd words disarm'd the viper's jaw;
Up by the roots vast oaks, and rocks cou'd draw,
Make forests dance, and trembling mountains come,
Like malefactors, to receive their doom;
Earth groan, and frighted ghosts forsake their tomb.
Thee, Cynthia, my resistless rhymes drew down,
When tinkling cymbals strove my voice to drown;
Nor stronger Titan could their force sustain,
In full career compell'd to stop his wain:
Nor could Aurora's virgin blush avail,
With pois'nous herbs I turn'd her roses pale;
The fury of the fiery bulls I broke,
Their stubborn necks submitting to my yoke;
And when the sons of Earth with fury burn'd,
Their hostile rage upon themselves I turn'd;
The brothers made with mutual wounds to bleed,
And by their fatal strife my lover freed;
And, while the dragon slept, to distant Greece,
Thro' cheated guards, convey'd the golden fleece.
But now to bolder action I proceed,
Of such prevailing juices now have need,
That wither'd years back to their bloom can bring,
And in dead winter raise a second spring.
And you'll perform't-
You will; for lo! the stars, with sparkling fires,
Presage as bright success to my desires:
And now another happy omen see!
A chariot drawn by dragons waits for me.
With these last words he leaps into the wain,
Stroaks the snakes' necks, and shakes the golden rein;
That signal giv'n, they mount her to the skies,
And now beneath her fruitful Tempe lies,
Whose stories she ransacks, then to Crete she flies;
There Ossa, Pelion, Othrys, Pindus, all
To the fair ravisher, a booty fall;
The tri bute of their verdure she collects,
Nor proud Olympus' height his plants protects.
Some by the roots she plucks; the tender tops
Of others with her culling sickle crops.
Nor could the plunder of the hills suffice,
Down to the humble vales, and meads she flies;
Apidanus, Amphrysus, the next rape
Sustain, nor could Enipeus' bank escape;
Thro' Beebe's marsh, and thro' the border rang'd
Whose pasture Glaucus to a Triton chang'd.
Now the ninth day, and ninth successive night,
Had wonder'd at the restless rover's flight;
Mean-while her dragons, fed with no repast,
But her exhaling simples od'rous blast,
Their tarnish'd scales, and wrinkled skins had cast.
At last return'd before her palace gate,
Quitting her chariot, on the ground she sate;
The sky her only canopy of state.
All conversation with her sex she fled,
Shun'd the caresses of the nuptial bed:
Two altars next of grassy turf she rears,
This Hecate's name, that Youth's inscription bears;
With forest-boughs, and vervain these she crown'd;
Then delves a double trench in lower ground,
And sticks a black-fleec'd ram, that ready stood,
And drench'd the ditches with devoted blood:
New wine she pours, and milk from th' udder warm,
With mystick murmurs to compleat the charm,
And subterranean deities alarm.
To the stern king of ghosts she next apply'd,
And gentle Proserpine, his ravish'd bride,
That for old Aeson with the laws of Fate
They would dispense, and leng then his short date;
Thus with repeated pray'rs she long assails
Th' infernal tyrant and at last prevails;
Then calls to have decrepit Aeson brought,
And stupifies him with a sleeping draught;
On Earth his body, like a corpse, extends,
Then charges Jason and his waiting friends
To quit the place, that no unhallow'd eye
Into her art's forbidden secrets pry.
This done, th' inchantress, with her locks unbound,
About her altars trips a frantick round;
Piece-meal the consecrated wood she splits,
And dips the splinters in the bloody pits,
Then hurles 'em on the piles; the sleeping sire
She lustrates thrice, with sulphur, water, fire.
In a large cauldron now the med'cine boils,
Compounded of her late-collected spoils,
Blending into the mesh the various pow'rs
Of wonder-working juices, roots, and flow'rs;
With gems i' th' eastern ocean's cell refin'd,
And such as ebbing tides had left behind;
To them the midnight's pearly dew she flings,
A scretch-owl's carcase, and ill boding wings;
Nor could the wizard wolf's warm entrails scape
(That wolf who counterfeits a human shape).
Then, from the bottom of her conj'ring bag,
Snakes' skins, and liver of a long-liv'd stag;
Last a crow's head to such an age arriv'd,
That he had now nine centuries surviv'd;
These, and with these a thousand more that grew
In sundry soils, into her pot she threw;
Then with a wither'd olive-bough she rakes
The bubling broth; the bough fresh verdure takes;
Green leaves at first the perish'd plant surround,
Which the next minute with ripe fruit were crown'd.
The foaming juices now the brink o'er-swell;
The barren heath, where-e'er the liquor fell,
Sprang out with vernal grass, and all the pride
Of blooming May- When this Medea spy'd,
She cuts her patient's throat; th' exhausted blood
Recruiting with her new enchanted flood;
While at his mouth, and thro' his op'ning wound,
A double inlet her infusion found;
His feeble frame resumes a youthful air,
A glossy brown his hoary beard and hair.
The meager paleness from his aspect fled,
And in its room sprang up a florid red;
Thro' all his limbs a youthful vigour flies,
His empty'd art'ries swell with fresh supplies:
Gazing spectators scarce believe their eyes.
But Aeson is the most surpriz'd to find
A happy change in body and in mind;
In sense and constitution the same man,
As when his fortieth active year began.
Bacchus, who from the clouds this wonder view'd,
Medea's method instantly pursu'd,
And his indulgent nurse's youth renew'd.
The Death of Pelias
Thus far obliging love employ'd her art,
But now revenge must act a tragick part;
Medea feigns a mortal quarrel bred
Betwixt her, and the partner of her bed;
On this pretence to Pelias' court she flies,
Who languishing with age and sickness lies:
His guiltless daughters, with inveigling wiles,
And well dissembled friendship, she beguiles:
The strange achievements of her art she tells,
With Aeson's cure, and long on that she dwells,
'Till them to firm perswasion she has won,
The same for their old father may be done:
For him they court her to employ her skill,
And put upon the cure what price she will.
At first she's mute, and with a grave pretence
Of difficulty, holds 'em in suspense;
Then promises, and bids 'em, from the fold
Chuse out a ram, the most infirm and old;
That so by fact their doubts may be remov'd,
And first on him the operation prov'd.
A wreath-horn'd ram is brought, so far o'er-grown
With years, his age was to that age unknown
Of sense too dull the piercing point to feel,
And scarce sufficient blood to stain the steel.
His carcass she into a cauldron threw,
With drugs whose vital qualities she knew;
His limbs grow less, he casts his horns, and years,
And tender bleatings strike their wond'ring ears.
Then instantly leaps forth a frisking lamb,
That seeks (too young to graze) a suckling dam.
The sisters, thus confirm'd with the success,
Her promise with renew'd entreaty press;
To countenance the cheat, three nights and days
Before experiment th' inchantress stays;
Then into limpid water, from the springs,
Weeds, and ingredients of no force she flings;
With antique ceremonies for pretence
And rambling rhymes without a word of sense.
Mean-while the king with all his guards lay bound
In magick sleep, scarce that of death so sound;
The daughters now are by the sorc'ress led
Into his chamber, and surround his bed.
Your father's health's concern'd, and can ye stay?
Unnat'ral nymphs, why this unkind delay?
Unsheath your swords, dismiss his lifeless blood,
And I'll recruit it with a vital flood:
Your father's life and health is in your hand,
And can ye thus like idle gazers stand?
Unless you are of common sense bereft,
If yet one spark of piety is left,
Dispatch a father's cure, and disengage
The monarch from his toilsome load of age:
Come- drench your weapons in his putrid gore;
'Tis charity to wound, when wounding will restore.
Thus urg'd, the poor deluded maids proceed,
Betray'd by zeal, to an inhumane deed,
And, in compassion, make a father bleed.
Yes, she who had the kindest, tend'rest heart,
Is foremost to perform the bloody part.
Yet, tho' to act the butchery betray'd,
They could not bear to see the wounds they made;
With looks averted, backward they advance,
Then strike, and stab, and leave the blows to chance.
Waking in consternation, he essays
(Weltring in blood) his feeble arms to raise:
Environ'd with so many swords- From whence
This barb'rous usage? what is my offence?
What fatal fury, what infernal charm,
'Gainst a kind father does his daughters arm?
Hearing his voice, as thunder-struck they stopt,
Their resolution, and their weapons dropt:
Medea then the mortal blow bestows,
And that perform'd, the tragick scene to close,
His corpse into the boiling cauldron throws.
Then, dreading the revenge that must ensue,
High mounted on her dragon-coach she flew;
And in her stately progress thro' the skies,
Beneath her shady Pelion first she spies,
With Othrys, that above the clouds did rise;
With skilful Chiron's cave, and neighb'ring ground,
For old Cerambus' strange escape renown'd,
By nymphs deliver'd, when the world was drown'd;
Who him with unexpected wings supply'd,
When delug'd hills a safe retreat deny'd.
Aeolian Pitane on her left hand
She saw, and there the statu'd dragon stand;
With Ida's grove, where Bacchus, to disguise
His son's bold theft, and to secure the prize,
Made the stoln steer a stag to represent;
Cocytus' father's sandy monument;
And fields that held the murder'd sire's remains,
Where howling Moera frights the startled plains.
Euryphilus' high town, with tow'rs defac'd
By Hercules, and matrons more disgrac'd
With sprouting horns, in signal punishment,
From Juno, or resenting Venus sent.
Then Rhodes, which Phoebus did so dearly prize,
And Jove no less severely did chastize;
For he the wizard native's pois'ning sight,
That us'd the farmer's hopeful crops to blight,
In rage o'erwhelm'd with everlasting night.
Cartheia's ancient walls come next in view,
Where once the sire almost a statue grew
With wonder, which a strange event did move,
His daughter turn'd into a turtle-dove.
Then Hyrie's lake, and Tempe's field o'er-ran,
Fam'd for the boy who there became a swan;
For there enamour'd Phyllius, like a slave,
Perform'd what tasks his paramour would crave.
For presents he had mountain-vultures caught,
And from the desart a tame lion brought;
Then a wild bull commanded to subdue,
The conquer'd savage by the horns he drew;
But, mock'd so oft, the treatment he disdains,
And from the craving boy this prize detains.
Then thus in choler the resenting lad:
Won't you deliver him?- You'll wish you had:
Nor sooner said, but, in a peevish mood,
Leapt from the precipice on which he stood:
The standers-by were struck with fresh surprize,
Instead of falling, to behold him rise
A snowy swan, and soaring to the skies.
But dearly the rash prank his mother cost,
Who ignorantly gave her son for lost;
For his misfortune wept, 'till she became
A lake, and still renown'd with Hyrie's name.
Thence to Latona's isle, where once were seen,
Transform'd to birds, a monarch, and his queen.
Far off she saw how old Cephisus mourn'd
His son, into a seele by Phoebus turn'd;
And where, astonish'd at a stranger sight,
Eumelus gaz'd on his wing'd daughter's flight.
Aetolian Pleuron she did next survey,
Where sons a mother's murder did essay,
But sudden plumes the matron bore away.
On her right hand, Cyllene, a fair soil,
Fair, 'till Menephron there the beauteous hill
Attempted with foul incest to defile.
Her harness'd dragons now direct she drives
For Corinth, and at Corinth she arrives;
Where, if what old tradition tells, be true,
In former ages men from mushrooms grew.
But here Medea finds her bed supply'd,
During her absence, by another bride;
And hopeless to recover her lost game,
She sets both bride and palace in a flame.
Nor could a rival's death her wrath asswage,
Nor stopt at Creon's family her rage,
She murders her own infants, in despight
To faithless Jason, and in Jason's sight;
Yet e'er his sword could reach her, up she springs,
Securely mounted on her dragon's wings.
The Story of Aegeus
From hence to Athens she directs her flight,
Where Phineus, so renown'd for doing right;
Where Periphas, and Polyphemon's neece,
Soaring with sudden plumes amaz'd the towns of Greece.
Here Aegeus so engaging she addrest,
That first he treats her like a royal guest;
Then takes the sorc'ress for his wedded wife;
The only blemish of his prudent life.
Mean-while his son, from actions of renown,
Arrives at court, but to his sire unknown.
Medea, to dispatch a dang'rous heir
(She knew him), did a pois'nous draught prepare;
Drawn from a drug, was long reserv'd in store
For desp'rate uses, from the Scythian shore;
That from the Echydnaean monster's jaws
Deriv'd its origin, and this the cause.
Thro' a dark cave a craggy passage lies,
To ours, ascending from the nether skies;
Thro' which, by strength of hand, Alcides drew
Chain'd Cerberus, who lagg'd, and restive grew,
With his blear'd eyes our brighter day to view.
Thrice he repeated his enormous yell,
With which he scares the ghosts, and startles Hell;
At last outragious (tho' compell'd to yield)
He sheds his foam in fury on the field,-
Which, with its own, and rankness of the ground,
Produc'd a weed, by sorcerers renown'd,
The strongest constitution to confound;
Call'd Aconite, because it can unlock
All bars, and force its passage thro' a rock.
The pious father, by her wheedles won,
Presents this deadly potion to his son;
Who, with the same assurance takes the cup,
And to the monarch's health had drank it up,
But in the very instant he apply'd
The goblet to his lips, old Aegeus spy'd
The iv'ry hilted sword that grac'd his side.
That certain signal of his son he knew,
And snatcht the bowl away; the sword he drew,
Resolv'd, for such a son's endanger'd life,
To sacrifice the most perfidious wife.
Revenge is swift, but her more active charms
A whirlwind rais'd, that snatch'd her from his arms.
While conjur'd clouds their baffled sense surprize,
She vanishes from their deluded eyes,
And thro' the hurricane triumphant flies.
The gen'rous king, altho' o'er-joy'd to find
His son was safe, yet bearing still in mind
The mischief by his treach'rous queen design'd;
The horrour of the deed, and then how near
The danger drew, he stands congeal'd with fear.
But soon that fear into devotion turns,
With grateful incense ev'ry altar burns;
Proud victims, and unconscious of their fate,
Stalk to the temple, there to die in state.
In Athens never had a day been found
For mirth, like that grand festival, renown'd.
Promiscuously the peers, and people dine,
Promiscuously their thankful voices join,
In songs of wit, sublim'd by spritely wine.
To list'ning spheres their joint applause they raise,
And thus resound their matchless Theseus' praise.
Great Theseus! Thee the Marathonian plain
Admires, and wears with pride the noble stain
Of the dire monster's blood, by valiant Theseus slain.
That now Cromyon's swains in safety sow,
And reap their fertile field, to thee they owe.
By thee th' infested Epidaurian coast
Was clear'd, and now can a free commerce boast.
The traveller his journey can pursue,
With pleasure the late dreadful valley view,
And cry, Here Theseus the grand robber slew.
Cephysus' cries to his rescu'd shore,
The merciless Procrustes is no more.
In peace, Eleusis, Ceres' rites renew,
Since Theseus' sword the fierce Cercyon slew.
By him the tort'rer Sinis was destroy'd,
Of strength (but strength to barb'rous use employ'd)
That tops of tallest pines to Earth could bend,
And thus in pieces wretched captives rend.
Inhuman Scyron now has breath'd his last,
And now Alcatho's roads securely past;
By Theseus slain, and thrown into the deep:
But Earth nor Sea his scatter'd bones wou'd keep,
Which, after floating long, a rock became,
Still infamous with Scyron's hated name.
When Fame to count thy acts and years proceeds,
Thy years appear but cyphers to thy deeds.
For thee, brave youth, as for our common-wealth,
We pray; and drink, in yours, the publick health.
Your praise the senate, and plebeians sing,
With your lov'd name the court, and cottage ring.
You make our shepherds and our sailors glad,
And not a house in this vast city's sad.
But mortal bliss will never come sincere,
Pleasure may lead, but grief brings up the rear;
While for his sons' arrival, rev'ling joy
Aegeus, and all his subjects does employ;
While they for only costly feasts prepare,
His neighb'ring monarch, Minos, threatens war:
Weak in land-forces, nor by sea more strong,
But pow'rful in a deep resented wrong
For a son's murder, arm'd with pious rage;
Yet prudently before he would engage,
To raise auxiliaries resolv'd to sail,
And with the pow'rful princes to prevail.
First Anaphe, then proud Astypalaea gains,
By presents that, and this by threats obtains:
Low Mycone, Cymolus, chalky soil,
Tall Cythnos, Scyros, flat Seriphos' isle;
Paros, with marble cliffs afar display'd;
Impregnable Sithonia; yet betray'd
To a weak foe by a gold-admiring maid,
Who, chang'd into a daw of sable hue,
Still hoards up gold, and hides it from the view.
But as these islands chearfully combine,
Others refuse t' embark in his design.
Now leftward with an easy sail he bore,
And prosp'rous passage to Oenopia's shore;
Oenopia once, but now Aegina call'd,
And with his royal mother's name install'd
By Aeacus, under whose reign did spring
The Myrmidons, and now their reigning king.
Down to the port, amidst the rabble, run
The princes of the blood; with Telamon,
Peleus the next, and Phocus the third son:
Then Aeacus, altho' opprest with years,
To ask the cause of their approach appears.
That question does the Gnossian's grief renew,
And sighs from his afflicted bosom drew;
Yet after a short solemn respite made,
The ruler of the hundred cities said:
Assist our arms, rais'd for a murder'd son,
In this religious war no risque you'll run:
Revenge the dead- for who refuse to give
Rest to their urns, unworthy are to live.
What you request, thus Aeacus replies,
Not I, but truth and common faith denies;
Athens and we have long been sworn allies:
Our leagues are fix'd, confed'rate are our pow'rs,
And who declare themselves their foes, are ours.
Minos rejoins, Your league shall dearly cost
(Yet, mindful how much safer 'twas to boast,
Than there to waste his forces, and his fame,
Before in field with his grand foe he came),
Parts without blows- nor long had left the shore,
E're into port another navy bore,
With Cephalus, and all his jolly crew;
Th' Aeacides their old acquaintance knew:
The princes bid him welcome, and in state
Conduct the heroe to their palace gate;
Who entr'ring, seem'd the charming mein to wear,
As when in youth he paid his visit there.
In his right hand an olive-branch he holds,
And, salutation past, the chief unfolds
His embassy from the Athenian state,
Their mutual friendship, leagues of ancient date;
Their common danger, ev'ry thing cou'd wake
Concern, and his address successful make:
Strength'ning his plea with all the charms of sense,
And those, with all the charms of eloquence.
Then thus the king: Like suitors do you stand
For that assistance which you may command?
Athenians, all our listed forces use
(They're such as no bold service will refuse);
And when y' ave drawn them off, the Gods be prais'd,
Fresh legions can within our isle be rais'd:
So stock'd with people, that we can prepare
Both for domestick, and for distant war,
Ours, or our friends' insulters to chastize.
Long may ye flourish thus, the prince replies.
Strange transport seiz'd me as I pass'd along,
To meet so many troops, and all so young,
As if your army did of twins consist;
Yet amongst them my late acquaintance miss'd:
Ev'n all that to your palace did resort,
When first you entertain'd me at your court;
And cannot guess the cause from whence cou'd spring
So vast a change- Then thus the sighing king:
Illustrious guest, to my strange tale attend,
Of sad beginning, but a joyful end:
The whole to a vast history wou'd swell,
I shall but half, and that confus'dly, tell.
That race whom so deserv'dly you admir'd,
Are all into their silent tombs retir'd:
They fell; and falling, how they shook my state,
Thought may conceive, but words can ne'er relate.
The Story of Ants chang'd to Men
A dreadful plague from angry Juno came,
To scourge the land, that bore her rival's name;
Before her fatal anger was reveal'd,
And teeming malice lay as yet conceal'd,
All remedies we try, all med'cines use,
Which Nature cou'd supply, or art produce;
Th' unconquer'd foe derides the vain design,
And art, and Nature foil'd, declare the cause divine.
At first we only felt th' oppressive weight
Of gloomy clouds, then teeming with our fate,
And lab'ring to discarge unactive heat:
But ere four moons alternate changes knew,
With deadly blasts the fatal South-wind blew,
Infected all the air, and poison'd as it flew.
Our fountains too a dire infection yield,
For crowds of vipers creep along the field,
And with polluted gore, and baneful steams,
Taint all the lakes, and venom all the streams.
The young disease with milder force began,
And rag'd on birds, and beasts, excusing Man.
The lab'ring oxen fall before the plow,
Th' unhappy plow-men stare, and wonder how:
The tabid sheep, with sickly bleatings, pines;
Its wool decreasing, as its strength declines:
The warlike steed, by inward foes compell'd,
Neglects his honours, and deserts the field;
Unnerv'd, and languid, seeks a base retreat,
And at the manger groans, but wish'd a nobler fate:
The stags forget their speed, the boars their rage,
Nor can the bears the stronger herds engage:
A gen'ral faintness does invade 'em all,
And in the woods, and fields, promiscuously they fall.
The air receives the stench, and (strange to say)
The rav'nous birds and beasts avoid the prey:
Th' offensive bodies rot upon the ground,
And spread the dire contagion all around.
But now the plague, grown to a larger size,
Riots on Man, and scorns a meaner prize.
Intestine heats begin the civil war,
And flushings first the latent flame declare,
And breath inspir'd, which seem'd like fiery air.
Their black dry tongues are swell'd, and scarce can move,
And short thick sighs from panting lung are drove.
They gape for air, with flatt'ring hopes t' abate
Their raging flames, but that augments their heat.
No bed, no cov'ring can the wretches bear,
But on the ground, expos'd to open air,
They lye, and hope to find a pleasing coolness there.
The suff'ring Earth with that oppression curst,
Returns the heat which they imparted first.
In vain physicians would bestow their aid,
Vain all their art, and useless all their trade;
And they, ev'n they, who fleeting life recall,
Feel the same Pow'rs, and undistinguish'd fall.
If any proves so daring to attend
His sick companion, or his darling friend,
Th' officious wretch sucks in contagious breath,
And with his friend does sympathize in death.
And now the care and hopes of life are past,
They please their fancies, and indulge their taste;
At brooks and streams, regardless of their shame,
Each sex, promiscuous, strives to quench their flame;
Nor do they strive in vain to quench it there,
For thirst, and life at once extinguish'd are.
Thus in the brooks the dying bodies sink,
But heedless still the rash survivors drink.
So much uneasy down the wretches hate,
They fly their beds, to struggle with their fate;
But if decaying strength forbids to rise,
The victim crawls and rouls, 'till on the ground he lies.
Each shuns his bed, as each wou'd shun his tomb,
And thinks th' infection only lodg'd at home.
Here one, with fainting steps, does slowly creep
O'er heaps of dead, and strait augments the heap;
Another, while his strength and tongue prevail'd,
Bewails his friend, and falls himself bewail'd:
This with imploring looks surveys the skies,
The last dear office of his closing eyes,
But finds the Heav'ns implacable, and dies.
What now, ah! what employ'd my troubled mind?
But only hopes my subjects' fate to find.
What place soe'er my weeping eyes survey,
There in lamented heaps the vulgar lay;
As acorns scatter when the winds prevail,
Or mellow fruit from shaken branches fall.
You see that dome which rears its front so high:
'Tis sacred to the monarch of the sky:
How many there, with unregarded tears,
And fruitless vows, sent up successless pray'rs?
There fathers for expiring sons implor'd,
And there the wife bewail'd her gasping lord;
With pious off'rings they'd appease the skies,
But they, ere yet th' attoning vapours rise,
Before the altars fall, themselves a sacrifice:
They fall, while yet their hands the gums contain,
The gums surviving, but their off'rers slain.
The destin'd ox, with holy garlands crown'd,
Prevents the blow, and feels th' expected wound:
When I my self invok'd the Pow'rs divine,
To drive the fatal pest from me and mine;
When now the priest with hands uplifted stood,
Prepar'd to strike, and shed the sacred blood,
The Gods themselves the mortal stroke bestow,
The victim falls, but they impart the blow:
Scarce was the knife with the pale purple stain'd,
And no presages cou'd be then obtain'd,
From putrid entrails, where th' infection reign'd.
Death stalk'd around with such resistless sway,
The temples of the Gods his force obey,
And suppliants feel his stroke, while yet they pray.
Go now, said he, your deities implore
For fruitless aid, for I defie their pow'r.
Then with a curst malicious joy survey'd
The very altars, stain'd with trophies of the dead.
The rest grown mad, and frantick with despair,
Urge their own fate, and so prevent the fear.
Strange madness that, when Death pursu'd so fast,
T' anticipate the blow with impious haste.
No decent honours to their urns are paid,
Nor cou'd the graves receive the num'rous dead;
For, or they lay unbury'd on the ground,
Or unadorn'd a needy fun'ral found:
All rev'rence past, the fainting wretches fight
For fun'ral piles which were another's right.
Unmourn'd they fall: for, who surviv'd to mourn?
And sires, and mothers unlamented burn:
Parents, and sons sustain an equal fate,
And wand'ring ghosts their kindred shadows meet.
The dead a larger space of ground require,
Nor are the trees sufficient for the fire.
Despairing under grief's oppressive weight,
And sunk by these tempestuous blasts of Fate,
O Jove, said I, if common fame says true,
If e'er Aegina gave those joys to you,
If e'er you lay enclos'd in her embrace,
Fond of her charms, and eager to possess;
O father, if you do not yet disclaim
Paternal care, nor yet disown the name;
Grant my petitions, and with speed restore
My subjects num'rous as they were before,
Or make me partner of the fate they bore.
I spoke, and glorious lightning shone around,
And ratling thunder gave a prosp'rous sound;
So let it be, and may these omens prove
A pledge, said I, of your returning love.
By chance a rev'rend oak was near the place,
Sacred to Jove, and of Dodona's race,
Where frugal ants laid up their winter meat,
Whose little bodies bear a mighty weight:
We saw them march along, and hide their store,
And much admir'd their number, and their pow'r;
Admir'd at first, but after envy'd more.
Full of amazement, thus to Jove I pray'd,
O grant, since thus my subjects are decay'd,
As many subjects to supply the dead.
I pray'd, and strange convulsions mov'd the oak,
Which murmur'd, tho' by ambient winds unshook:
My trembling hands, and stiff-erected hair,
Exprest all tokens of uncommon fear;
Yet both the earth and sacred oak I kist,
And scarce cou'd hope, yet still I hop'd the best;
For wretches, whatsoe'er the Fates divine,
Expound all omens to their own design.
But now 'twas night, when ev'n distraction wears
A pleasing look, and dreams beguile our cares,
Lo! the same oak appears before my eyes,
Nor alter'd in his shape, nor former size;
As many ants the num'rous branches bear,
The same their labour, and their frugal care;
The branches too a like commotion sound,
And shook th' industrious creatures on the ground,
Who, by degrees (what's scarce to be believ'd)
A nobler form, and larger bulk receiv'd,
And on the earth walk'd an unusual pace,
With manly strides, and an erected face-
Their num'rous legs, and former colour lost,
The insects cou'd a human figure boast.
I wake, and waking find my cares again,
And to the unperforming Gods complain,
And call their promise, and pretences, vain.
Yet in my court I heard the murm'ring voice
Of strangers, and a mixt uncommon noise:
But I suspected all was still a dream,
'Till Telamon to my apartment came,
Op'ning the door with an impetuous haste,
O come, said he, and see your faith and hopes surpast:
I follow, and, confus'd with wonder, view
Those shapes which my presaging slumbers drew:
I saw, and own'd, and call'd them subjects; they
Confest my pow'r, submissive to my sway.
To Jove, restorer of my race decay'd,
My vows were first with due oblations paid,
I then divide with an impartial hand
My empty city, and my ruin'd land,
To give the new-born youth an equal share,
And call them Myrmidons, from what they were.
You saw their persons, and they still retain
The thrift of ants, tho' now transform'd to men.
A frugal people, and inur'd to sweat,
Lab'ring to gain, and keeping what they get.
These, equal both in strength and years, shall join
Their willing aid, and follow your design,
With the first southern gale that shall present
To fill your sails, and favour your intent.
With such discourse they entertain the day;
The ev'ning past in banquets, sport, and play:
Then, having crown'd the night with sweet repose,
Aurora (with the wind at east) arose.
Now Pallas' sons to Cephalus resort,
And Cephalus with Pallas' sons to court,
To the king's levee; him sleep's silken chain,
And pleasing dreams, beyond his hour detain;
But then the princes of the blood, in state,
Expect, and meet 'em at the palace gate.
The Story of Cephalus and Procris
To th' inmost courts the Grecian youths were led,
And plac'd by Phocus on a Tyrian bed;
Who, soon observing Cephalus to hold
A dart of unknown wood, but arm'd with gold:
None better loves (said he) the huntsman's sport,
Or does more often to the woods resort;
Yet I that jav'lin's stem with wonder view,
Too brown for box, too smooth a grain for yew.
I cannot guess the tree; but never art
Did form, or eyes behold so fair a dart!
The guest then interrupts him- 'Twou'd produce
Still greater wonder, if you knew its use.
It never fails to strike the game, and then
Comes bloody back into your hand again.
Then Phocus each particular desires,
And th' author of the wond'rous gift enquires.
To which the owner thus, with weeping eyes,
And sorrow for his wife's sad fate, replies,
This weapon here (o prince!) can you believe
This dart the cause for which so much I grieve;
And shall continue to grieve on, 'till Fate
Afford such wretched life no longer date.
Would I this fatal gift had ne'er enjoy'd,
This fatal gift my tender wife destroy'd:
Procris her name, ally'd in charms and blood
To fair Orythia courted by a God.
Her father seal'd my hopes with rites divine,
But firmer love before had made her mine.
Men call'd me blest, and blest I was indeed.
The second month our nuptials did succeed;
When (as upon Hymettus' dewy head,
For mountain stags my net betimes I spread)
Aurora spy'd, and ravish'd me away,
With rev'rence to the Goddess, I must say,
Against my will, for Procris had my heart,
Nor wou'd her image from my thoughts depart.
At last, in rage she cry'd, Ingrateful boy
Go to your Procris, take your fatal joy;
And so dismiss'd me: musing, as I went,
What those expressions of the Goddess meant,
A thousand jealous fears possess me now,
Lest Procris had prophan'd her nuptial vow:
Her youth and charms did to my fancy paint
A lewd adultress, but her life a saint.
Yet I was absent long, the Goddess too
Taught me how far a woman cou'd be true.
Aurora's treatment much suspicion bred;
Besides, who truly love, ev'n shadows dread.
I strait impatient for the tryal grew,
What courtship back'd with richest gifts cou'd do.
Aurora's envy aided my design,
And lent me features far unlike to mine.
In this disguise to my own house I came,
But all was chaste, no conscious sign of blame:
With thousand arts I scarce admittance found,
And then beheld her weeping on the ground
For her lost husband; hardly I retain'd
My purpose, scarce the wish'd embrace refrain'd.
How charming was her grief! Then, Phocus, guess
What killing beauties waited on her dress.
Her constant answer, when my suit I prest,
Forbear, my lord's dear image guards this breast;
Where-e'er he is, whatever cause detains,
Who-e'er has his, my heart unmov'd remains.
What greater proofs of truth than these cou'd be?
Yet I persist, and urge my destiny.
At length, she found, when my own form return'd,
Her jealous lover there, whose loss she mourn'd.
Enrag'd with my suspicion, swift as wind,
She fled at once from me and all mankind;
And so became, her purpose to retain,
A nymph, and huntress in Diana's train:
Forsaken thus, I found my flames encrease,
I own'd my folly, and I su'd for peace.
It was a fault, but not of guilt, to move
Such punishment, a fault of too much love.
Thus I retriev'd her to my longing arms,
And many happy days possess'd her charms.
But with herself she kindly did confer,
What gifts the Goddess had bestow'd on her;
The fleetest grey-hound, with this lovely dart,
And I of both have wonders to impart.
Near Thebes a savage beast, of race unknown,
Laid waste the field, and bore the vineyards down;
The swains fled from him, and with one consent
Our Grecian youth to chase the monster went;
More swift than light'ning he the toils surpast,
And in his course spears, men, and trees o'er-cast.
We slipt our dogs, and last my Lelaps too,
When none of all the mortal race wou'd do:
He long before was struggling from my hands,
And, e're we cou'd unloose him, broke his bands.
That minute where he was, we cou'd not find,
And only saw the dust he left behind.
I climb'd a neighb'ring hill to view the chase,
While in the plain they held an equal race;
The savage now seems caught, and now by force
To quit himself, nor holds the same strait course;
But running counter, from the foe withdraws,
And with short turning cheats his gaping jaws:
Which he retrieves, and still so closely prest,
You'd fear at ev'ry stretch he were possess'd;
Yet for the gripe his fangs in vain prepare;
The game shoots from him, and he chops the air.
To cast my jav'lin then I took my stand;
But as the thongs were fitting to my hand,
While to the valley I o'er-look'd the wood,
Before my eyes two marble statues stood;
That, as pursu'd appearing at full stretch,
This barking after, and at point to catch:
Some God their course did with this wonder grace,
That neither might be conquer'd in the chase.
A sudden silence here his tongue supprest,
He here stops short, and fain wou'd wave the rest.
The eager prince then urg'd him to impart,
The Fortune that attended on the dart.
First then (said he) past joys let me relate,
For bliss was the foundation of my fate.
No language can those happy hours express,
Did from our nuptials me, and Procris bless:
The kindest pair! What more cou'd Heav'n confer?
For she was all to me, and I to her.
Had Jove made love, great Jove had been despis'd;
And I my Procris more than Venus priz'd:
Thus while no other joy we did aspire,
We grew at last one soul, and one desire.
Forth to the woods I went at break of day
(The constant practice of my youth) for prey:
Nor yet for servant, horse, or dog did call,
I found this single dart to serve for all.
With slaughter tir'd, I sought the cooler shade,
And winds that from the mountains pierc'd the glade:
Come, gentle air (so was I wont to say)
Come, gentle air, sweet Aura come away.
This always was the burden of my song,
Come 'swage my flames, sweet Aura come along.
Thou always art most welcome to my breast;
I faint; approach, thou dearest, kindest guest!
These blandishments, and more than these, I said
(By Fate to unsuspected ruin led),
Thou art my joy, for thy dear sake I love
Each desart hill, and solitary grove;
When (faint with labour) I refreshment need,
For cordials on thy fragrant breath I feed.
At last a wand'ring swain in hearing came,
And cheated with the sound of Aura's name,
He thought I some assignation made;
And to my Procris' ear the news convey'd.
Great love is soonest with suspicion fir'd:
She swoon'd, and with the tale almost expir'd.
Ah! wretched heart! (she cry'd) ah! faithless man.
And then to curse th' imagin'd nymph began:
Yet oft she doubts, oft hopes she is deceiv'd,
And chides herself, that ever she believ'd
Her lord to such injustice cou'd proceed,
'Till she her self were witness of the deed.
Next morn I to the woods again repair,
And, weary with the chase, invoke the air:
Approach, dear Aura, and my bosom chear:
At which a mournful sound did strike my ear;
Yet I proceeded, 'till the thicket by,
With rustling noise and motion, drew my eye:
I thought some beast of prey was shelter'd there,
And to the covert threw my certain spear;
From whence a tender sigh my soul did wound,
Ah me! it cry'd, and did like Procris sound.
Procris was there, too well the voice I knew,
And to the place with headlong horror flew;
Where I beheld her gasping on the ground,
In vain attempting from the deadly wound
To draw the dart, her love's dear fatal gift!
My guilty arms had scarce the strength to lift
The beauteous load; my silks, and hair I tore
(If possible) to stanch the pressing gore;
For pity beg'd her keep her flitting breath,
And not to leave me guilty of her death.
While I intreat she fainted fast away,
And these few words had only strength to say:
By all the sacred bonds of plighted love,
By all your rev'rence to the Pow'rs above,
By all the truth for which you held me dear,
And last by love, the cause through which I bleed,
Let Aura never to my bed succeed.
I then perceiv'd the error of our fate,
And told it her, but found and told too late!
I felt her lower to my bosom fall,
And while her eyes had any sight at all,
On mine she fix'd them; in her pangs still prest
My hand, and sigh'd her soul into my breast;
Yet, being undeceiv'd, resign'd her breath
Methought more chearfully, and smil'd in death.
With such concern the weeping heroe told
This tale, that none who heard him cou'd with-hold
From melting into sympathizing tears,
'Till Aeacus with his two sons appears;
Whom he commits, with their new-levy'd bands,
To Fortune's, and so brave a gen'ral's hands.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
~ Ovid, BOOK THE SEVENTH
,#NFDB
299:Obiit Mdcccxxxiii (Entire)
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.
Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood, thou:
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.
Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.
We have but faith: we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.
Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,
But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock thee when we do not fear:
But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.
414
Forgive what seem’d my sin in me;
What seem’d my worth since I began;
For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.
Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.
Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;
Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in thy wisdom make me wise.
I.
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
But who shall so forecast the years
And find in loss a gain to match?
Or reach a hand thro’ time to catch
The far-off interest of tears?
Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown’d,
Let darkness keep her raven gloss:
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,
To dance with death, to beat the ground,
Than that the victor Hours should scorn
The long result of love, and boast,
‘Behold the man that loved and lost,
But all he was is overworn.’
II.
415
Old Yew, which graspest at the stones
That name the under-lying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.
The seasons bring the flower again,
And bring the firstling to the flock;
And in the dusk of thee, the clock
Beats out the little lives of men.
O not for thee the glow, the bloom,
Who changest not in any gale,
Nor branding summer suns avail
To touch thy thousand years of gloom:
And gazing on thee, sullen tree,
Sick for thy stubborn hardihood,
I seem to fail from out my blood
And grow incorporate into thee.
III.
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,
O Priestess in the vaults of Death,
O sweet and bitter in a breath,
What whispers from thy lying lip?
‘The stars,’ she whispers, ‘blindly run;
A web is wov’n across the sky;
From out waste places comes a cry,
And murmurs from the dying sun:
‘And all the phantom, Nature, stands–
With all the music in her tone,
A hollow echo of my own,–
A hollow form with empty hands.’
And shall I take a thing so blind,
Embrace her as my natural good;
Or crush her, like a vice of blood,
Upon the threshold of the mind?
416
IV.
To Sleep I give my powers away;
My will is bondsman to the dark;
I sit within a helmless bark,
And with my heart I muse and say:
O heart, how fares it with thee now,
That thou should’st fail from thy desire,
Who scarcely darest to inquire,
‘What is it makes me beat so low?’
Something it is which thou hast lost,
Some pleasure from thine early years.
Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears,
That grief hath shaken into frost!
Such clouds of nameless trouble cross
All night below the darken’d eyes;
With morning wakes the will, and cries,
‘Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.’
V.
I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
In words, like weeds, I’ll wrap me o’er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold:
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.
417
VI.
One writes, that ‘Other friends remain,’
That ‘Loss is common to the race’–
And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.
That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more:
Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.
O father, wheresoe’er thou be,
Who pledgest now thy gallant son;
A shot, ere half thy draught be done,
Hath still’d the life that beat from thee.
O mother, praying God will save
Thy sailor,–while thy head is bow’d,
His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
Drops in his vast and wandering grave.
Ye know no more than I who wrought
At that last hour to please him well;
Who mused on all I had to tell,
And something written, something thought;
Expecting still his advent home;
And ever met him on his way
With wishes, thinking, ‘here to-day,’
Or ‘here to-morrow will he come.’
O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove,
That sittest ranging golden hair;
And glad to find thyself so fair,
Poor child, that waitest for thy love!
For now her father’s chimney glows
In expectation of a guest;
And thinking ‘this will please him best,’
She takes a riband or a rose;
418
For he will see them on to-night;
And with the thought her colour burns;
And, having left the glass, she turns
Once more to set a ringlet right;
And, even when she turn’d, the curse
Had fallen, and her future Lord
Was drown’d in passing thro’ the ford,
Or kill’d in falling from his horse.
O what to her shall be the end?
And what to me remains of good?
To her, perpetual maidenhood,
And unto me no second friend.
VII.
Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,
A hand that can be clasp’d no more–
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.
He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.
VIII.
A happy lover who has come
To look on her that loves him well,
Who ’lights and rings the gateway bell,
And learns her gone and far from home;
419
He saddens, all the magic light
Dies off at once from bower and hall,
And all the place is dark, and all
The chambers emptied of delight:
So find I every pleasant spot
In which we two were wont to meet,
The field, the chamber and the street,
For all is dark where thou art not.
Yet as that other, wandering there
In those deserted walks, may find
A flower beat with rain and wind,
Which once she foster'd up with care;
So seems it in my deep regret,
O my forsaken heart, with thee
And this poor flower of poesy
Which little cared for fades not yet.
But since it pleased a vanish’d eye,
I go to plant it on his tomb,
That if it can it there may bloom,
Or dying, there at least may die.
IX.
Fair ship, that from the Italian shore
Sailest the placid ocean-plains
With my lost Arthur’s loved remains,
Spread thy full wings, and waft him o’er.
So draw him home to those that mourn
In vain; a favourable speed
Ruffle thy mirror’d mast, and lead
Thro’ prosperous floods his holy urn.
All night no ruder air perplex
Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright
As our pure love, thro’ early light
Shall glimmer on the dewy decks.
420
Sphere all your lights around, above;
Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow;
Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now,
My friend, the brother of my love;
My Arthur, whom I shall not see
Till all my widow’d race be run;
Dear as the mother to the son,
More than my brothers are to me.
X.
I hear the noise about thy keel;
I hear the bell struck in the night:
I see the cabin-window bright;
I see the sailor at the wheel.
Thou bring’st the sailor to his wife,
And travell’d men from foreign lands;
And letters unto trembling hands;
And, thy dark freight, a vanish’d life.
So bring him: we have idle dreams:
This look of quiet flatters thus
Our home-bred fancies: O to us,
The fools of habit, sweeter seems
To rest beneath the clover sod,
That takes the sunshine and the rains,
Or where the kneeling hamlet drains
The chalice of the grapes of God;
Than if with thee the roaring wells
Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine;
And hands so often clasp’d in mine,
Should toss with tangle and with shells.
XI.
421
Calm is the morn without a sound,
Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
And only thro’ the faded leaf
The chestnut pattering to the ground:
Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
And on these dews that drench the furze,
And all the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold:
Calm and still light on yon great plain
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
And crowded farms and lessening towers,
To mingle with the bounding main:
Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
These leaves that redden to the fall;
And in my heart, if calm at all,
If any calm, a calm despair:
Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,
And waves that sway themselves in rest,
And dead calm in that noble breast
Which heaves but with the heaving deep.
XII.
Lo, as a dove when up she springs
To bear thro’ Heaven a tale of woe,
Some dolorous message knit below
The wild pulsation of her wings;
Like her I go; I cannot stay;
I leave this mortal ark behind,
A weight of nerves without a mind,
And leave the cliffs, and haste away
O’er ocean-mirrors rounded large,
And reach the glow of southern skies,
And see the sails at distance rise,
And linger weeping on the marge,
422
And saying; ‘Comes he thus, my friend?
Is this the end of all my care?’
And circle moaning in the air:
‘Is this the end? Is this the end?’
And forward dart again, and play
About the prow, and back return
To where the body sits, and learn
That I have been an hour away.
XIII.
Tears of the widower, when he sees
A late-lost form that sleep reveals,
And moves his doubtful arms, and feels
Her place is empty, fall like these;
Which weep a loss for ever new,
A void where heart on heart reposed;
And, where warm hands have prest and closed,
Silence, till I be silent too.
Which weeps the comrade of my choice,
An awful thought, a life removed,
The human-hearted man I loved,
A Spirit, not a breathing voice.
Come Time, and teach me, many years,
I do not suffer in a dream;
For now so strange do these things seem,
Mine eyes have leisure for their tears;
My fancies time to rise on wing,
And glance about the approaching sails,
As tho’ they brought but merchants’ bales,
And not the burthen that they bring.
XIV.
423
If one should bring me this report,
That thou hadst touch’d the land to-day,
And I went down unto the quay,
And found thee lying in the port;
And standing, muffled round with woe,
Should see thy passengers in rank
Come stepping lightly down the plank,
And beckoning unto those they know;
And if along with these should come
The man I held as half-divine;
Should strike a sudden hand in mine,
And ask a thousand things of home;
And
And
And
And
I should tell him all my pain,
how my life had droop’d of late,
he should sorrow o’er my state
marvel what possess’d my brain;
And I perceived no touch of change,
No hint of death in all his frame,
But found him all in all the same,
I should not feel it to be strange.
XV.
To-night the winds begin to rise
And roar from yonder dropping day:
The last red leaf is whirl’d away,
The rooks are blown about the skies;
The forest crack’d, the waters curl’d,
The cattle huddled on the lea;
And wildly dash’d on tower and tree
The sunbeam strikes along the world:
And but for fancies, which aver
That all thy motions gently pass
Athwart a plane of molten glass,
I scarce could brook the strain and stir
424
That makes the barren branches loud;
And but for fear it is not so,
The wild unrest that lives in woe
Would dote and pore on yonder cloud
That rises upward always higher,
And onward drags a labouring breast,
And topples round the dreary west,
A looming bastion fringed with fire.
XVI.
What words are these have fall’n from me?
Can calm despair and wild unrest
Be tenants of a single breast,
Or sorrow such a changeling be?
Or doth she only seem to take
The touch of change in calm or storm;
But knows no more of transient form
In her deep self, than some dead lake
That holds the shadow of a lark
Hung in the shadow of a heaven?
Or has the shock, so harshly given,
Confused me like the unhappy bark
That strikes by night a craggy shelf,
And staggers blindly ere she sink?
And stunn’d me from my power to think
And all my knowledge of myself;
And made me that delirious man
Whose fancy fuses old and new,
And flashes into false and true,
And mingles all without a plan?
XVII.
425
Thou comest, much wept for: such a breeze
Compell’d thy canvas, and my prayer
Was as the whisper of an air
To breathe thee over lonely seas.
For I in spirit saw thee move
Thro’ circles of the bounding sky,
Week after week: the days go by:
Come quick, thou bringest all I love.
Henceforth, wherever thou may’st roam,
My blessing, like a line of light,
Is on the waters day and night,
And like a beacon guards thee home.
So may whatever tempest mars
Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark;
And balmy drops in summer dark
Slide from the bosom of the stars.
So kind an office hath been done,
Such precious relics brought by thee;
The dust of him I shall not see
Till all my widow’d race be run.
XVIII.
’Tis well; ’tis something; we may stand
Where he in English earth is laid,
And from his ashes may be made
The violet of his native land.
’Tis little; but it looks in truth
As if the quiet bones were blest
Among familiar names to rest
And in the places of his youth.
Come then, pure hands, and bear the head
That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep,
And come, whatever loves to weep,
And hear the ritual of the dead.
426
Ah yet, ev’n yet, if this might be,
I, falling on his faithful heart,
Would breathing thro’ his lips impart
The life that almost dies in me;
That dies not, but endures with pain,
And slowly forms the the firmer mind,
Treasuring the look it cannot find,
The words that are not heard again.
XIX.
The Danube to the Severn gave
The darken’d heart that beat no more;
They laid him by the pleasant shore,
And in the hearing of the wave.
There twice a day the Severn fills;
That salt sea-water passes by,
And hushes half the babbling Wye,
And makes a silence in the hills.
The Wye is hush’d nor moved along,
And hush’d my deepest grief of all,
When fill’d with tears that cannot fall,
I brim with sorrow drowning song.
The tide flows down, the wave again
Is vocal in its wooded walls;
My deeper anguish also falls,
And I can speak a little then.
XX.
The lesser griefs that may be said,
That breathe a thousand tender vows,
Are but as servants in a house
Where lies the master newly dead;
427
Who speak their feeling as it is,
And weep the fulness from the mind:
‘It will be hard,’ they say, ‘to find
Another service such as this.’
My lighter moods are like to these,
That out of words a comfort win;
But there are other griefs within,
And tears that at their fountain freeze;
For by the hearth the children sit
Cold in that atmosphere of Death,
And scarce endure to draw the breath,
Or like to noiseless phantoms flit:
But open converse is there none,
So much the vital spirits sink
To see the vacant chair, and think,
‘How good! how kind! and he is gone.’
XXI.
I sing to him that rests below,
And, since the grasses round me wave,
I take the grasses of the grave,
And make them pipes whereon to blow.
The traveller hears me now and then,
And sometimes harshly will he speak:
‘This fellow would make weakness weak,
And melt the waxen hearts of men.’
Another answers, ‘Let him be,
He loves to make parade of pain,
That with his piping he may gain
The praise that comes to constancy.’
A third is wroth: ‘Is this an hour
For private sorrow’s barren song,
When more and more the people throng
The chairs and thrones of civil power?
428
‘A time to sicken and to swoon,
When Science reaches forth her arms
To feel from world to world, and charms
Her secret from the latest moon?’
Behold, ye speak an idle thing:
Ye never knew the sacred dust:
I do but sing because I must,
And pipe but as the linnets sing:
And one is glad; her note is gay,
For now her little ones have ranged;
And one is sad; her note is changed,
Because her brood is stol’n away.
XXII.
The path by which we twain did go,
Which led by tracts that pleased us well,
Thro’ four sweet years arose and fell,
From flower to flower, from snow to snow:
And we with singing cheer’d the way,
And, crown’d with all the season lent,
From April on to April went,
And glad at heart from May to May:
But where the path we walk’d began
To slant the fifth autumnal slope,
As we descended following Hope,
There sat the Shadow fear’d of man;
Who broke our fair companionship,
And spread his mantle dark and cold,
And wrapt thee formless in the fold,
And dull’d the murmur on thy lip,
And bore thee where I could not see
Nor follow, tho’ I walk in haste,
And think, that somewhere in the waste
429
The Shadow sits and waits for me.
XXIII.
Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut,
Or breaking into song by fits,
Alone, alone, to where he sits,
The Shadow cloak’d from head to foot,
Who keeps the keys of all the creeds,
I wander, often falling lame,
And looking back to whence I came,
Or on to where the pathway leads;
And crying, How changed from where it ran
Thro’ lands where not a leaf was dumb;
But all the lavish hills would hum
The murmur of a happy Pan:
When each by turns was guide to each,
And Fancy light from Fancy caught,
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought
Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech;
And all we met was fair and good,
And all was good that Time could bring,
And all the secret of the Spring
Moved in the chambers of the blood;
And many an old philosophy
On Argive heights divinely sang,
And round us all the thicket rang
To many a flute of Arcady.
XXIV.
And was the day of my delight
As pure and perfect as I say?
The very source and fount of Day
430
Is dash’d with wandering isles of night.
If all was good and fair we met,
This earth had been the Paradise
It never look’d to human eyes
Since our first Sun arose and set.
And is it that the haze of grief
Makes former gladness loom so great?
The lowness of the present state,
That sets the past in this relief?
Or that the past will always win
A glory from its being far;
And orb into the perfect star
We saw not, when we moved therein?
XXV.
I know that this was Life,–the track
Whereon with equal feet we fared;
And then, as now, the day prepared
The daily burden for the back.
But this it was that made me move
As light as carrier-birds in air;
I loved the weight I had to bear,
Because it needed help of Love:
Nor could I weary, heart or limb,
When mighty Love would cleave in twain
The lading of a single pain,
And part it, giving half to him.
XXVI.
Still onward winds the dreary way;
I with it; for I long to prove
No lapse of moons can canker Love,
Whatever fickle tongues may say.
431
And if that eye which watches guilt
And goodness, and hath power to see
Within the green the moulder’d tree,
And towers fall’n as soon as built–
Oh, if indeed that eye foresee
Or see (in Him is no before)
In more of life true life no more
And Love the indifference to be,
Then might I find, ere yet the morn
Breaks hither over Indian seas,
That Shadow waiting with the keys,
To shroud me from my proper scorn.
XXVII.
I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:
I envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfetter’d by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;
Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor any want-begotten rest.
I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
XXVIII.
432
The time draws near the birth of Christ:
The moon is hid; the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.
Four voices of four hamlets round,
From far and near, on mead and moor,
Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:
Each voice four changes on the wind,
That now dilate, and now decrease,
Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.
This year I slept and woke with pain,
I almost wish’d no more to wake,
And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:
But they my troubled spirit rule,
For they controll’d me when a boy;
They bring me sorrow touch’d with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule.
XXIX.
With such compelling cause to grieve
As daily vexes household peace,
And chains regret to his decease,
How dare we keep our Christmas-eve;
Which brings no more a welcome guest
To enrich the threshold of the night
With shower’d largess of delight
In dance and song and game and jest?
Yet go, and while the holly boughs
Entwine the cold baptismal font,
Make one wreath more for Use and Wont,
That guard the portals of the house;
433
Old sisters of a day gone by,
Gray nurses, loving nothing new;
Why should they miss their yearly due
Before their time? They too will die.
XXX.
With trembling fingers did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
A rainy cloud possess’d the earth,
And sadly fell our Christmas-eve.
At our old pastimes in the hall
We gambol’d, making vain pretence
Of gladness, with an awful sense
Of one mute Shadow watching all.
We paused: the winds were in the beech:
We heard them sweep the winter land;
And in a circle hand-in-hand
Sat silent, looking each at each.
Then echo-like our voices rang;
We sung, tho’ every eye was dim,
A merry song we sang with him
Last year: impetuously we sang:
We ceased: a gentler feeling crept
Upon us: surely rest is meet:
‘They rest,’ we said, ‘their sleep is sweet,’
And silence follow’d, and we wept.
Our voices took a higher range;
Once more we sang: ‘They do not die
Nor lose their mortal sympathy,
Nor change to us, although they change;
‘Rapt from the fickle and the frail
With gather’d power, yet the same,
Pierces the keen seraphic flame
From orb to orb, from veil to veil.’
434
Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn,
Draw forth the cheerful day from night:
O Father, touch the east, and light
The light that shone when Hope was born.
XXXI.
When Lazarus left his charnel-cave,
And home to Mary’s house return’d,
Was this demanded–if he yearn’d
To hear her weeping by his grave?
‘Where wert thou, brother, those four days?’
There lives no record of reply,
Which telling what it is to die
Had surely added praise to praise.
From every house the neighbours met,
The streets were fill’d with joyful sound,
A solemn gladness even crown’d
The purple brows of Olivet.
Behold a man raised up by Christ!
The rest remaineth unreveal’d;
He told it not; or something seal’d
The lips of that Evangelist.
XXXII.
Her eyes are homes of silent prayer,
Nor other thought her mind admits
But, he was dead, and there he sits,
And he that brought him back is there.
Then one deep love doth supersede
All other, when her ardent gaze
Roves from the living brother’s face,
And rests upon the Life indeed.
435
All subtle thought, all curious fears,
Borne down by gladness so complete,
She bows, she bathes the Saviour’s feet
With costly spikenard and with tears.
Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers,
Whose loves in higher love endure;
What souls possess themselves so pure,
Or is there blessedness like theirs?
XXXIII.
O thou that after toil and storm
Mayst seem to have reach’d a purer air,
Whose faith has centre everywhere,
Nor cares to fix itself to form,
Leave thou thy sister when she prays,
Her early Heaven, her happy views;
Nor thou with shadow’d hint confuse
A life that leads melodious days.
Her faith thro’ form is pure as thine,
Her hands are quicker unto good:
Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood
To which she links a truth divine!
See thou, that countest reason ripe
In holding by the law within,
Thou fail not in a world of sin,
And ev’n for want of such a type.
XXXIV.
My own dim life should teach me this,
That life shall live for evermore,
Else earth is darkness at the core,
And dust and ashes all that is;
This round of green, this orb of flame,
436
Fantastic beauty; such as lurks
In some wild Poet, when he works
Without a conscience or an aim.
What then were God to such as I?
’Twere hardly worth my while to choose
Of things all mortal, or to use
A little patience ere I die;
’Twere best at once to sink to peace,
Like birds the charming serpent draws,
To drop head-foremost in the jaws
Of vacant darkness and to cease.
XXXV.
Yet if some voice that man could trust
Should murmur from the narrow house,
‘The cheeks drop in; the body bows;
Man dies: nor is there hope in dust:’
Might I not say? ‘Yet even here,
But for one hour, O Love, I strive
To keep so sweet a thing alive:’
But I should turn mine ears and hear
The moanings of the homeless sea,
The sound of streams that swift or slow
Draw down Æonian hills, and sow
The dust of continents to be;
And Love would answer with a sigh,
‘The sound of that forgetful shore
Will change my sweetness more and more,
Half-dead to know that I shall die.’
O me, what profits it to put
And idle case? If Death were seen
At first as Death, Love had not been,
Or been in narrowest working shut,
437
Mere fellowship of sluggish moods,
Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape
Had bruised the herb and crush’d the grape,
And bask’d and batten’d in the woods.
XXXVI.
Tho’ truths in manhood darkly join,
Deep-seated in our mystic frame,
We yield all blessing to the name
Of Him that made them current coin;
For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers,
Where truth in closest words shall fail,
When truth embodied in a tale
Shall enter in at lowly doors.
And so the Word had breath, and wrought
With human hands the creed of creeds
In loveliness of perfect deeds,
More strong than all poetic thought;
Which he may read that binds the sheaf,
Or builds the house, or digs the grave,
And those wild eyes that watch the wave
In roarings round the coral reef.
XXXVII.
Urania speaks with darken’d brow:
‘Thou pratest here where thou art least;
This faith has many a purer priest,
And many an abler voice than thou.
‘Go down beside thy native rill,
On thy Parnassus set thy feet,
And hear thy laurel whisper sweet
About the ledges of the hill.’
And my Melpomene replies,
438
A touch of shame upon her cheek:
‘I am not worthy ev’n to speak
Of thy prevailing mysteries;
‘For I am but an earthly Muse,
And owning but a little art
To lull with song an aching heart,
And render human love his dues;
‘But brooding on the dear one dead,
And all he said of things divine,
(And dear to me as sacred wine
To dying lips is all he said),
‘I murmur’d, as I came along,
Of comfort clasp’d in truth reveal’d;
And loiter’d in the master’s field,
And darken’d sanctities with song.’
XXXVIII.
With weary steps I loiter on,
Tho’ always under alter’d skies
The purple from the distance dies,
My prospect and horizon gone.
No joy the blowing season gives,
The herald melodies of spring,
But in the songs I love to sing
A doubtful gleam of solace lives.
If any care for what is here
Survive in spirits render’d free,
Then are these songs I sing of thee
Not all ungrateful to thine ear.
XXXIX.
Old warder of these buried bones,
439
And answering now my random stroke
With fruitful cloud and living smoke,
Dark yew, that graspest at the stones
And dippest toward the dreamless head,
To thee too comes the golden hour
When flower is feeling after flower;
But Sorrow–fixt upon the dead,
And darkening the dark graves of men,–
What whisper’d from her lying lips?
Thy gloom is kindled at the tips,
And passes into gloom again.
XL.
Could we forget the widow’d hour
And look on Spirits breathed away,
As on a maiden in the day
When first she wears her orange-flower!
When crown’d with blessing she doth rise
To take her latest leave of home,
And hopes and light regrets that come
Make April of her tender eyes;
And doubtful joys the father move,
And tears are on the mother’s face,
As parting with a long embrace
She enters other realms of love;
Her office there to rear, to teach,
Becoming as is meet and fit
A link among the days, to knit
The generations each with each;
And, doubtless, unto thee is given
A life that bears immortal fruit
In those great offices that suit
The full-grown energies of heaven.
Ay me, the difference I discern!
440
How often shall her old fireside
Be cheer’d with tidings of the bride,
How often she herself return,
And tell them all they would have told,
And bring her babe, and make her boast,
Till even those that miss’d her most
Shall count new things as dear as old:
But thou and I have shaken hands,
Till growing winters lay me low;
My paths are in the fields I know,
And thine in undiscover’d lands.
XLI.
The spirit ere our fatal loss
Did ever rise from high to higher;
As mounts the heavenward altar-fire,
As flies the lighter thro’ the gross.
But thou art turn’d to something strange,
And I have lost the links that bound
Thy changes; here upon the ground,
No more partaker of thy change.
Deep folly! yet that this could be–
That I could wing my will with might
To leap the grades of life and light,
And flash at once, my friend, to thee.
For tho’ my nature rarely yields
To that vague fear implied in death;
Nor shudders at the gulfs beneath,
The howlings from forgotten fields;
Yet oft when sundown skirts the moor
An inner trouble I behold,
A spectral doubt which makes me cold,
That I shall be thy mate no more,
441
Tho’ following with an upward mind
The wonders that have come to thee,
Thro’ all the secular to-be,
But evermore a life behind.
XLII.
I vex my heart with fancies dim:
He still outstript me in the race;
It was but unity of place
That made me dream I rank’d with him.
And so may Place retain us still,
And he the much-beloved again,
A lord of large experience, train
To riper growth the mind and will:
And what delights can equal those
That stir the spirit’s inner deeps,
When one that loves but knows not, reaps
A truth from one that loves and knows?
XLIII.
If Sleep and Death be truly one,
And every spirit’s folded bloom
Thro’ all its intervital gloom
In some long trance should slumber on;
Unconscious of the sliding hour,
Bare of the body, might it last,
And silent traces of the past
Be all the colour of the flower:
So then were nothing lost to man;
So that still garden of the souls
In many a figured leaf enrolls
The total world since life began;
And love will last as pure and whole
442
As when he loved me here in Time,
And at the spiritual prime
Rewaken with the dawning soul.
XLIV.
How fares it with the happy dead?
For here the man is more and more;
But he forgets the days before
God shut the doorways of his head.
The days have vanish’d, tone and tint,
And yet perhaps the hoarding sense
Gives out at times (he knows not whence)
A little flash, a mystic hint;
And in the long harmonious years
(If Death so taste Lethean springs),
May some dim touch of earthly things
Surprise thee ranging with thy peers.
If such a dreamy touch should fall,
O turn thee round, resolve the doubt;
My guardian angel will speak out
In that high place, and tell thee all.
XLV.
The baby new to earth and sky,
What time his tender palm is prest
Against the circle of the breast,
Has never thought that ‘this is I:’
But as he grows he gathers much,
And learns the use of ‘I,’ and ‘me,’
And finds ‘I am not what I see,
And other than the things I touch.’
So rounds he to a separate mind
From whence clear memory may begin,
443
As thro’ the frame that binds him in
His isolation grows defined.
This use may lie in blood and breath,
Which else were fruitless of their due,
Had man to learn himself anew
Beyond the second birth of Death.
XLVI.
We ranging down this lower track,
The path we came by, thorn and flower,
Is shadow’d by the growing hour,
Lest life should fail in looking back.
So be it: there no shade can last
In that deep dawn behind the tomb,
But clear from marge to marge shall bloom
The eternal landscape of the past;
A lifelong tract of time reveal’d;
The fruitful hours of still increase;
Days order’d in a wealthy peace,
And those five years its richest field.
O Love, thy province were not large,
A bounded field, nor stretching far;
Look also, Love, a brooding star,
A rosy warmth from marge to marge.
XLVII.
That each, who seems a separate whole,
Should move his rounds, and fusing all
The skirts of self again, should fall
Remerging in the general Soul,
Is faith as vague as all unsweet:
Eternal form shall still divide
The eternal soul from all beside;
444
And I shall know him when we meet:
And we shall sit at endless feast,
Enjoying each the other’s good:
What vaster dream can hit the mood
Of Love on earth? He seeks at least
Upon the last and sharpest height,
Before the spirits fade away,
Some landing-place, to clasp and say,
‘Farewell! We lose ourselves in light.’
XLVIII.
If these brief lays, of Sorrow born,
Were taken to be such as closed
Grave doubts and answers here proposed,
Then these were such as men might scorn:
Her care is not to part and prove;
She takes, when harsher moods remit,
What slender shade of doubt may flit,
And makes it vassal unto love:
And hence, indeed, she sports with words,
But better serves a wholesome law,
And holds it sin and shame to draw
The deepest measure from the chords:
Nor dare she trust a larger lay,
But rather loosens from the lip
Short swallow-flights of song, that dip
Their wings in tears, and skim away.
XLIX.
From art, from nature, from the schools,
Let random influences glance,
Like light in many a shiver’d lance
445
That breaks about the dappled pools:
The lightest wave of thought shall lisp,
The fancy’s tenderest eddy wreathe,
The slightest air of song shall breathe
To make the sullen surface crisp.
And look thy look, and go thy way,
But blame not thou the winds that make
The seeming-wanton ripple break,
The tender-pencil’d shadow play.
Beneath all fancied hopes and fears
Ay me, the sorrow deepens down,
Whose muffled motions blindly drown
The bases of my life in tears.
L.
Be near me when my light is low,
When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick
And tingle; and the heart is sick,
And all the wheels of Being slow.
Be near me when the sensuous frame
Is rack’d with pangs that conquer trust;
And Time, a maniac scattering dust,
And Life, a Fury slinging flame.
Be near me when my faith is dry,
And men the flies of latter spring,
That lay their eggs, and sting and sing
And weave their petty cells and die.
Be near me when I fade away,
To point the term of human strife,
And on the low dark verge of life
The twilight of eternal day.
LI.
446
Do we indeed desire the dead
Should still be near us at our side?
Is there no baseness we would hide?
No inner vileness that we dread?
Shall he for whose applause I strove,
I had such reverence for his blame,
See with clear eye some hidden shame
And I be lessen’d in his love?
I wrong the grave with fears untrue:
Shall love be blamed for want of faith?
There must be wisdom with great Death:
The dead shall look me thro’ and thro’.
Be near us when we climb or fall:
Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours
With larger other eyes than ours,
To make allowance for us all.
LII.
I cannot love thee as I ought,
For love reflects the thing beloved;
My words are only words, and moved
Upon the topmost froth of thought.
‘Yet blame not thou thy plaintive song,’
The Spirit of true love replied;
‘Thou canst not move me from thy side,
Nor human frailty do me wrong.
‘What keeps a spirit wholly true
To that ideal which he bears?
What record? not the sinless years
That breathed beneath the Syrian blue:
‘So fret not, like an idle girl,
That life is dash’d with flecks of sin.
Abide: thy wealth is gather’d in,
When Time hath sunder’d shell from pearl.’
447
LIII.
How many a father have I seen,
A sober man, among his boys,
Whose youth was full of foolish noise,
Who wears his manhood hale and green:
And dare we to this fancy give,
That had the wild oat not been sown,
The soil, left barren, scarce had grown
The grain by which a man may live?
Or, if we held the doctrine sound
For life outliving heats of youth,
Yet who would preach it as a truth
To those that eddy round and round?
Hold thou the good: define it well:
For fear divine Philosophy
Should push beyond her mark, and be
Procuress to the Lords of Hell.
LIV.
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy’d,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell’d in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another’s gain.
448
Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last–far off–at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.
LV.
The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?
Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;
That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,
I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world’s altar-stairs
That slope thro’ darkness up to God,
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.
LVI.
449
‘So careful of the type?’ but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, ‘A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go.
‘Thou makest thine appeal to me:
I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more.’ And he, shall he,
Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law–
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed–
Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal’d within the iron hills?
No more? A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match’d with him.
O life as futile, then, as frail!
O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.
LVII.
Peace; come away: the song of woe
Is after all an earthly song:
Peace; come away: we do him wrong
To sing so wildly: let us go.
450
Come; let us go: your cheeks are pale;
But half my life I leave behind:
Methinks my friend is richly shrined;
But I shall pass; my work will fail.
Yet in these ears, till hearing dies,
One set slow bell will seem to toll
The passing of the sweetest soul
That ever look’d with human eyes.
I hear it now, and o’er and o’er,
Eternal greetings to the dead;
And ‘Ave, Ave, Ave,’ said,
‘Adieu, adieu’ for evermore.
LVIII.
In those sad words I took farewell:
Like echoes in sepulchral halls,
As drop by drop the water falls
In vaults and catacombs, they fell;
And, falling, idly broke the peace
Of hearts that beat from day to day,
Half-conscious of their dying clay,
And those cold crypts where they shall cease.
The high Muse answer’d: ‘Wherefore grieve
Thy brethren with a fruitless tear?
Abide a little longer here,
And thou shalt take a nobler leave.’
LIX.
O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me
No casual mistress, but a wife,
My bosom-friend and half of life;
As I confess it needs must be;
O Sorrow, wilt thou rule my blood,
451
Be sometimes lovely like a bride,
And put thy harsher moods aside,
If thou wilt have me wise and good.
My centred passion cannot move,
Nor will it lessen from to-day;
But I’ll have leave at times to play
As with the creature of my love;
And set thee forth, for thou art mine,
With so much hope for years to come,
That, howsoe’er I know thee, some
Could hardly tell what name were thine.
LX.
He past; a soul of nobler tone:
My spirit loved and loves him yet,
Like some poor girl whose heart is set
On one whose rank exceeds her own.
He mixing with his proper sphere,
She finds the baseness of her lot,
Half jealous of she knows not what,
And envying all that meet him there.
The little village looks forlorn;
She sighs amid her narrow days,
Moving about the household ways,
In that dark house where she was born.
The foolish neighbours come and go,
And tease her till the day draws by:
At night she weeps, ‘How vain am I!
How should he love a thing so low?’
LXI.
If, in thy second state sublime,
452
Thy ransom’d reason change replies
With all the circle of the wise,
The perfect flower of human time;
And if thou cast thine eyes below,
How dimly character’d and slight,
How dwarf’d a growth of cold and night,
How blanch'd with darkness must I grow!
Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore,
Where thy first form was made a man:
I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can
The soul of Shakespeare love thee more.
LXII.
Tho’ if an eye that’s downward cast
Could make thee somewhat blench or fail,
Then be my love an idle tale,
And fading legend of the past;
And thou, as one that once declined,
When he was little more than boy,
On some unworthy heart with joy,
But lives to wed an equal mind;
And breathes a novel world, the while
His other passion wholly dies,
Or in the light of deeper eyes
Is matter for a flying smile.
LXIII.
Yet pity for a horse o’er-driven,
And love in which my hound has part,
Can hang no weight upon my heart
In its assumptions up to heaven;
And I am so much more than these,
As thou, perchance, art more than I,
And yet I spare them sympathy,
453
And I would set their pains at ease.
So mayst thou watch me where I weep,
As, unto vaster motions bound,
The circuits of thine orbit round
A higher height, a deeper deep.
LXIV.
Dost thou look back on what hath been,
As some divinely gifted man,
Whose life in low estate began
And on a simple village green;
Who breaks his birth’s invidious bar,
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance,
And grapples with his evil star;
Who makes by force his merit known
And lives to clutch the golden keys,
To mould a mighty state’s decrees,
And shape the whisper of the throne;
And moving up from high to higher,
Becomes on Fortune’s crowning slope
The pillar of a people’s hope,
The centre of a world’s desire;
Yet feels, as in a pensive dream,
When all his active powers are still,
A distant dearness in the hill,
A secret sweetness in the stream,
The limit of his narrower fate,
While yet beside its vocal springs
He play’d at counsellors and kings,
With one that was his earliest mate;
Who ploughs with pain his native lea
And reaps the labour of his hands,
454
Or in the furrow musing stands;
‘Does my old friend remember me?’
LXV.
Sweet soul, do with me as thou wilt;
I lull a fancy trouble-tost
With ‘Love’s too precious to be lost,
A little grain shall not be spilt.’
And in that solace can I sing,
Till out of painful phases wrought
There flutters up a happy thought,
Self-balanced on a lightsome wing:
Since we deserved the name of friends,
And thine effect so lives in me,
A part of mine may live in thee
And move thee on to noble ends.
LXVI.
You thought my heart too far diseased;
You wonder when my fancies play
To find me gay among the gay,
Like one with any trifle pleased.
The shade by which my life was crost,
Which makes a desert in the mind,
Has made me kindly with my kind,
And like to him whose sight is lost;
Whose feet are guided thro’ the land,
Whose jest among his friends is free,
Who takes the children on his knee,
And winds their curls about his hand:
He plays with threads, he beats his chair
For pastime, dreaming of the sky;
His inner day can never die,
455
His night of loss is always there.
LXVII.
When on my bed the moonlight falls,
I know that in thy place of rest
By that broad water of the west,
There comes a glory on the walls:
Thy marble bright in dark appears,
As slowly steals a silver flame
Along the letters of thy name,
And o’er the number of thy years.
The mystic glory swims away;
From off my bed the moonlight dies;
And closing eaves of wearied eyes
I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray:
And then I know the mist is drawn
A lucid veil from coast to coast,
And in the dark church like a ghost
Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn.
LXVIII.
When in the down I sink my head,
Sleep, Death’s twin-brother, times my breath;
Sleep, Death’s twin-brother, knows not Death,
Nor can I dream of thee as dead:
I walk as ere I walk’d forlorn,
When all our path was fresh with dew,
And all the bugle breezes blew
Reveillée to the breaking morn.
But what is this? I turn about,
I find a trouble in thine eye,
Which makes me sad I know not why,
Nor can my dream resolve the doubt:
456
But ere the lark hath left the lea
I wake, and I discern the truth;
It is the trouble of my youth
That foolish sleep transfers to thee.
LXIX.
I dream’d there would be Spring no more,
That Nature’s ancient power was lost:
The streets were black with smoke and frost,
They chatter’d trifles at the door:
I wander’d from the noisy town,
I found a wood with thorny boughs:
I took the thorns to bind my brows,
I wore them like a civic crown:
I met with scoffs, I met with scorns
From youth and babe and hoary hairs:
They call’d me in the public squares
The fool that wears a crown of thorns:
They call’d me fool, they call’d me child:
I found an angel of the night;
The voice was low, the look was bright;
He look’d upon my crown and smiled:
He reach’d the glory of a hand,
That seem’d to touch it into leaf:
The voice was not the voice of grief,
The words were hard to understand.
LXX.
I cannot see the features right,
When on the gloom I strive to paint
The face I know; the hues are faint
And mix with hollow masks of night;
457
Cloud-towers by ghostly masons wrought,
A gulf that ever shuts and gapes,
A hand that points, and palled shapes
In shadowy thoroughfares of thought;
And crowds that stream from yawning doors,
And shoals of pucker’d faces drive;
Dark bulks that tumble half alive,
And lazy lengths on boundless shores;
Till all at once beyond the will
I hear a wizard music roll,
And thro’ a lattice on the soul
Looks thy fair face and makes it still.
LXXI.
Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance
And madness, thou hast forged at last
A night-long Present of the Past
In which we went thro’ summer France.
Hadst thou such credit with the soul?
Then bring an opiate trebly strong,
Drug down the blindfold sense of wrong
That so my pleasure may be whole;
While now we talk as once we talk’d
Of men and minds, the dust of change,
The days that grow to something strange,
In walking as of old we walk’d
Beside the river’s wooded reach,
The fortress, and the mountain ridge,
The cataract flashing from the bridge,
The breaker breaking on the beach.
LXXII.
458
Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again,
And howlest, issuing out of night,
With blasts that blow the poplar white,
And lash with storm the streaming pane?
Day, when my crown’d estate begun
To pine in that reverse of doom,
Which sicken’d every living bloom,
And blurr’d the splendour of the sun;
Who usherest in the dolorous hour
With thy quick tears that make the rose
Pull sideways, and the daisy close
Her crimson fringes to the shower;
Who might’st have heaved a windless flame
Up the deep East, or, whispering, play’d
A chequer-work of beam and shade
Along the hills, yet look’d the same.
As wan, as chill, as wild as now;
Day, mark’d as with some hideous crime,
When the dark hand struck down thro’ time,
And cancell’d nature’s best: but thou,
Lift as thou may’st thy burthen’d brows
Thro’ clouds that drench the morning star,
And whirl the ungarner’d sheaf afar,
And sow the sky with flying boughs,
And up thy vault with roaring sound
Climb thy thick noon, disastrous day;
Touch thy dull goal of joyless gray,
And hide thy shame beneath the ground.
LXXIII.
So many worlds, so much to do,
So little done, such things to be,
How know I what had need of thee,
For thou wert strong as thou wert true?
459
The fame is quench’d that I foresaw,
The head hath miss’d an earthly wreath:
I curse not nature, no, nor death;
For nothing is that errs from law.
We pass; the path that each man trod
Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds:
What fame is left for human deeds
In endless age? It rests with God.
O hollow wraith of dying fame,
Fade wholly, while the soul exults,
And self-infolds the large results
Of force that would have forged a name.
LXXIV.
As sometimes in a dead man’s face,
To those that watch it more and more,
A likeness, hardly seen before,
Comes out–to some one of his race:
So, dearest, now thy brows are cold,
I see thee what thou art, and know
Thy likeness to the wise below,
Thy kindred with the great of old.
But there is more than I can see,
And what I see I leave unsaid,
Nor speak it, knowing Death has made
His darkness beautiful with thee.
LXXV.
I leave thy praises unexpress’d
In verse that brings myself relief,
And by the measure of my grief
I leave thy greatness to be guess’d;
What practice howsoe’er expert
460
In fitting aptest words to things,
Or voice the richest-toned that sings,
Hath power to give thee as thou wert?
I care not in these fading days
To raise a cry that lasts not long,
And round thee with the breeze of song
To stir a little dust of praise.
Thy leaf has perish’d in the green,
And, while we breathe beneath the sun,
The world which credits what is done
Is cold to all that might have been.
So here shall silence guard thy fame;
But somewhere, out of human view,
Whate’er thy hands are set to do
Is wrought with tumult of acclaim.
LXXVI.
Take wings of fancy, and ascend,
And in a moment set thy face
Where all the starry heavens of space
Are sharpen’d to a needle’s end;
Take wings of foresight; lighten thro’
The secular abyss to come,
And lo, thy deepest lays are dumb
Before the mouldering of a yew;
And if the matin songs, that woke
The darkness of our planet, last,
Thine own shall wither in the vast,
Ere half the lifetime of an oak.
Ere these have clothed their branchy bowers
With fifty Mays, thy songs are vain;
And what are they when these remain
The ruin’d shells of hollow towers?
461
LXXVII.
What hope is here for modern rhyme
To him, who turns a musing eye
On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie
Foreshorten’d in the tract of time?
These mortal lullabies of pain
May bind a book, may line a box,
May serve to curl a maiden’s locks;
Or when a thousand moons shall wane
A man upon a stall may find,
And, passing, turn the page that tells
A grief, then changed to something else,
Sung by a long-forgotten mind.
But what of that? My darken’d ways
Shall ring with music all the same;
To breathe my loss is more than fame,
To utter love more sweet than praise.
LXXVIII.
Again at Christmas did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
The silent snow possess’d the earth,
And calmly fell our Christmas-eve:
The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost,
No wing of wind the region swept,
But over all things brooding slept
The quiet sense of something lost.
As in the winters left behind,
Again our ancient games had place,
The mimic picture’s breathing grace,
And dance and song and hoodman-blind.
Who show’d a token of distress?
462
No single tear, no mark of pain:
O sorrow, then can sorrow wane?
O grief, can grief be changed to less?
O last regret, regret can die!
No–mixt with all this mystic frame,
Her deep relations are the same,
But with long use her tears are dry.
LXXIX.
‘More than my brothers are to me,’–
Let this not vex thee, noble heart!
I know thee of what force thou art
To hold the costliest love in fee.
But thou and I are one in kind,
As moulded like in Nature’s mint;
And hill and wood and field did print
The same sweet forms in either mind.
For us the same cold streamlet curl’d
Thro’ all his eddying coves; the same
All winds that roam the twilight came
In whispers of the beauteous world.
At one dear knee we proffer’d vows,
One lesson from one book we learn’d,
Ere childhood’s flaxen ringlet turn’d
To black and brown on kindred brows.
And so my wealth resembles thine,
But he was rich where I was poor,
And he supplied my want the more
As his unlikeness fitted mine.
LXXX.
If any vague desire should rise,
463
That holy Death ere Arthur died
Had moved me kindly from his side,
And dropt the dust on tearless eyes;
Then fancy shapes, as fancy can,
The grief my loss in him had wrought,
A grief as deep as life or thought,
But stay’d in peace with God and man.
I make a picture in the brain;
I hear the sentence that he speaks;
He bears the burthen of the weeks
But turns his burthen into gain.
His credit thus shall set me free;
And, influence-rich to soothe and save,
Unused example from the grave
Reach out dead hands to comfort me.
LXXXI.
Could I have said while he was here,
‘My love shall now no further range;
There cannot come a mellower change,
For now is love mature in ear.’
Love, then, had hope of richer store:
What end is here to my complaint?
This haunting whisper makes me faint,
‘More years had made me love thee more.’
But Death returns an answer sweet:
‘My sudden frost was sudden gain,
And gave all ripeness to the grain,
It might have drawn from after-heat.’
LXXXII.
I wage not any feud with Death
For changes wrought on form and face;
464
No lower life that earth’s embrace
May breed with him, can fright my faith.
Eternal process moving on,
From state to state the spirit walks;
And these are but the shatter’d stalks,
Or ruin’d chrysalis of one.
Nor blame I Death, because he bare
The use of virtue out of earth:
I know transplanted human worth
Will bloom to profit, otherwhere.
For this alone on Death I wreak
The wrath that garners in my heart;
He put our lives so far apart
We cannot hear each other speak.
LXXXIII.
Dip down upon the northern shore,
O sweet new-year delaying long;
Thou doest expectant nature wrong;
Delaying long, delay no more.
What stays thee from the clouded noons,
Thy sweetness from its proper place?
Can trouble live with April days,
Or sadness in the summer moons?
Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire,
The little speedwell’s darling blue,
Deep tulips dash’d with fiery dew,
Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire.
O thou, new-year, delaying long,
Delayest the sorrow in my blood,
That longs to burst a frozen bud
And flood a fresher throat with song.
465
LXXXIV.
When I contemplate all alone
The life that had been thine below,
And fix my thoughts on all the glow
To which thy crescent would have grown;
I see thee sitting crown’d with good,
A central warmth diffusing bliss
In glance and smile, and clasp and kiss,
On all the branches of thy blood;
Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine;
For now the day was drawing on,
When thou should’st link thy life with one
Of mine own house, and boys of thine
Had babbled ‘Uncle’ on my knee;
But that remorseless iron hour
Made cypress of her orange flower,
Despair of Hope, and earth of thee.
I seem to meet their least desire,
To clap their cheeks, to call them mine.
I see their unborn faces shine
Beside the never-lighted fire.
I see myself an honour’d guest,
Thy partner in the flowery walk
Of letters, genial table-talk,
Or deep dispute, and graceful jest;
While now thy prosperous labour fills
The lips of men with honest praise,
And sun by sun the happy days
Descend below the golden hills
With promise of a morn as fair;
And all the train of bounteous hours
Conduct by paths of growing powers,
To reverence and the silver hair;
Till slowly worn her earthly robe,
466
Her lavish mission richly wrought,
Leaving great legacies of thought,
Thy spirit should fail from off the globe;
What time mine own might also flee,
As link’d with thine in love and fate,
And, hovering o’er the dolorous strait
To the other shore, involved in thee,
Arrive at last the blessed goal,
And He that died in Holy Land
Would reach us out the shining hand,
And take us as a single soul.
What reed was that on which I leant?
Ah, backward fancy, wherefore wake
The old bitterness again, and break
The low beginnings of content.
LXXXV.
This truth came borne with bier and pall,
I felt it, when I sorrow’d most,
’Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all–
O true in word, and tried in deed,
Demanding, so to bring relief
To this which is our common grief,
What kind of life is that I lead;
And whether trust in things above
Be dimm’d of sorrow, or sustain’d;
And whether love for him have drain’d
My capabilities of love;
Your words have virtue such as draws
A faithful answer from the breast,
Thro’ light reproaches, half exprest,
And loyal unto kindly laws.
467
My blood an even tenor kept,
Till on mine ear this message falls,
That in Vienna’s fatal walls
God’s finger touch’d him, and he slept.
The great Intelligences fair
That range above our mortal state,
In circle round the blessed gate,
Received and gave him welcome there;
And led him thro’ the blissful climes,
And show'd him in the fountain fresh
All knowledge that the sons of flesh
Shall gather in the cycled times.
But I remained, whose hopes were dim,
Whose life, whose thoughts were little worth,
To wander on a darkened earth,
Where all things round me breathed of him.
friendship, equal poised control,
heart, with kindliest motion warm,
sacred essence, other form,
solemn ghost, O crowned soul!
Yet none could better know than I,
How much of act at human hands
The sense of human will demands
By which we dare to live or die.
Whatever way my days decline,
I felt and feel, tho’ left alone,
His being working in mine own,
The footsteps of his life in mine;
A life that all the Muses decked
With gifts of grace, that might express
All comprehensive tenderness,
All-subtilising intellect:
And so my passion hath not swerved
To works of weakness, but I find
468
An image comforting the mind,
And in my grief a strength reserved.
Likewise the imaginative woe,
That loved to handle spiritual strife,
Diffused the shock thro’ all my life,
But in the present broke the blow.
My pulses therefore beat again
For other friends that once I met;
Nor can it suit me to forget
The mighty hopes that make us men.
I woo your love: I count it crime
To mourn for any overmuch;
I, the divided half of such
A friendship as had master’d Time;
Which masters Time indeed, and is
Eternal, separate from fears:
The all-assuming months and years
Can take no part away from this:
But Summer on the steaming floods,
And Spring that swells the narrow brooks,
And Autumn, with a noise of rooks,
That gather in the waning woods,
And every pulse of wind and wave
Recalls, in change of light or gloom,
My old affection of the tomb,
And my prime passion in the grave:
My old affection of the tomb,
A part of stillness, yearns to speak:
‘Arise, and get thee forth and seek
A friendship for the years to come.
‘I watch thee from the quiet shore;
Thy spirit up to mine can reach;
But in dear words of human speech
We two communicate no more.’
469
And I, ‘Can clouds of nature stain
The starry clearness of the free?
How is it? Canst thou feel for me
Some painless sympathy with pain?’
And lightly does the whisper fall;
‘’Tis hard for thee to fathom this;
I triumph in conclusive bliss,
And that serene result of all.’
So hold I commerce with the dead;
Or so methinks the dead would say;
Or so shall grief with symbols play
And pining life be fancy-fed.
Now looking to some settled end,
That these things pass, and I shall prove
A meeting somewhere, love with love,
I crave your pardon, O my friend;
If not so fresh, with love as true,
I, clasping brother-hands aver
I could not, if I would, transfer
The whole I felt for him to you.
For which be they that hold apart
The promise of the golden hours?
First love, first friendship, equal powers,
That marry with the virgin heart.
Still mine, that cannot but deplore,
That beats within a lonely place,
That yet remembers his embrace,
But at his footstep leaps no more,
My heart, tho’ widow’d, may not rest
Quite in the love of what is gone,
But seeks to beat in time with one
That warms another living breast.
Ah, take the imperfect gift I bring,
470
Knowing the primrose yet is dear,
The primrose of the later year,
As not unlike to that of Spring.
LXXXVI.
Sweet after showers, ambrosial air,
That rollest from the gorgeous gloom
Of evening over brake and bloom
And meadow, slowly breathing bare
The round of space, and rapt below
Thro’ all the dewy-tassell’d wood,
And shadowing down the horned flood
In ripples, fan my brows and blow
The fever from my cheek, and sigh
The full new life that feeds thy breath
Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death,
Ill brethren, let the fancy fly
From belt to belt of crimson seas
On leagues of odour streaming far,
To where in yonder orient star
A hundred spirits whisper ‘Peace.’
LXXXVII.
I past beside the reverend walls
In which of old I wore the gown;
I roved at random thro’ the town,
And saw the tumult of the halls;
And heard one more in college fanes
The storm their high-built organs make,
And thunder-music, rolling, shake
The prophet blazon’d on the panes;
And caught one more the distant shout,
The measured pulse of racing oars
471
Among the willows; paced the shores
And many a bridge, and all about
The same gray flats again, and felt
The same, but not the same; and last
Up that long walk of limes I past
To see the rooms in which he dwelt.
Another name was on the door:
I linger’d; all within was noise
Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys
That crash’d the glass and beat the floor;
Where once we held debate, a band
Of youthful friends, on mind and art,
And labour, and the changing mart,
And all the framework of the land;
When one would aim an arrow fair,
But send it slackly from the string;
And one would pierce an outer ring,
And one an inner, here and there;
And last the master-bowman, he,
Would cleave the mark. A willing ear
We lent him. Who, but hung to hear
The rapt oration flowing free
From point to point, with power and grace
And music in the bounds of law,
To those conclusions when we saw
The God within him light his face,
And seem to lift the form, and glow
In azure orbits heavenly wise;
And over those ethereal eyes
The bar of Michael Angelo.
LXXXVIII.
472
Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet,
Rings Eden thro’ the budded quicks,
O tell me where the senses mix,
O tell me where the passions meet,
Whence radiate: fierce extremes employ
Thy spirits in the darkening leaf,
And in the midmost heart of grief
Thy passion clasps a secret joy:
And I–my harp would prelude woe–
I cannot all command the strings;
The glory of the sum of things
Will flash along the chords and go.
LXXXIX.
Witch-elms that counterchange the floor
Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright;
And thou, with all thy breadth and height
Of foliage, towering sycamore;
How often, hither wandering down,
My Arthur found your shadows fair,
And shook to all the liberal air
The dust and din and steam of town:
He brought an eye for all he saw;
He mixt in all our simple sports;
They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts
And dusty purlieus of the law.
O joy to him in this retreat,
Immantled in ambrosial dark,
To drink the cooler air, and mark
The landscape winking thro’ the heat:
O sound to rout the brood of cares,
The sweep of scythe in morning dew,
The gust that round the garden flew,
And tumbled half the mellowing pears!
473
O bliss, when all in circle drawn
About him, heart and ear were fed
To hear him, as he lay and read
The Tuscan poets on the lawn:
Or in the all-golden afternoon
A guest, or happy sister, sung,
Or here she brought the harp and flung
A ballad to the brightening moon:
Nor less it pleased in livelier moods,
Beyond the bounding hill to stray,
And break the livelong summer day
With banquet in the distant woods;
Whereat we glanced from theme to theme,
Discuss’d the books to love or hate,
Or touch’d the changes of the state,
Or threaded some Socratic dream;
But if I praised the busy town,
He loved to rail against it still,
For ‘ground in yonder social mill
We rub each other’s angles down,
‘And merge’ he said ‘in form and gloss
The picturesque of man and man.’
We talk’d: the stream beneath us ran,
The wine-flask lying couch’d in moss,
Or cool’d within the glooming wave;
And last, returning from afar,
Before the crimson-circled star
Had fall’n into her father’s grave,
And brushing ankle-deep in flowers,
We heard behind the woodbine veil
The milk that bubbled in the pail,
And buzzings of the honied hours.
474
XC.
He tasted love with half his mind,
Nor ever drank the inviolate spring
Where nighest heaven, who first could fling
This bitter seed among mankind;
That could the dead, whose dying eyes
Were closed with wail, resume their life,
They would but find in child and wife
An iron welcome when they rise:
’Twas well, indeed, when warm with wine,
To pledge them with a kindly tear,
To talk them o’er, to wish them here,
To count their memories half divine;
But if they came who past away,
Behold their brides in other hands;
The hard heir strides about their lands,
And will not yield them for a day.
Yea, tho’ their sons were none of these,
Not less the yet-loved sire would make
Confusion worse than death, and shake
The pillars of domestic peace.
Ah dear, but come thou back to me:
Whatever change the years have wrought,
I find not yet one lonely thought
That cries against my wish for thee.
XCI.
When rosy plumelets tuft the larch,
And rarely pipes the mounted thrush;
Or underneath the barren bush
Flits by the sea-blue bird of March;
Come, wear the form by which I know
Thy spirit in time among thy peers;
The hope of unaccomplish’d years
475
Be large and lucid round thy brow.
When summer’s hourly-mellowing change
May breathe, with many roses sweet,
Upon the thousand waves of wheat,
That ripple round the lonely grange;
Come: not in watches of the night,
But where the sunbeam broodeth warm,
Come, beauteous in thine after form,
And like a finer light in light.
XCII.
If any vision should reveal
Thy likeness, I might count it vain
As but the canker of the brain;
Yea, tho’ it spake and made appeal
To chances where our lots were cast
Together in the days behind,
I might but say, I hear a wind
Of memory murmuring the past.
Yea, tho’ it spake and bared to view
A fact within the coming year;
And tho’ the months, revolving near,
Should prove the phantom-warning true,
They might not seem thy prophecies,
But spiritual presentiments,
And such refraction of events
As often rises ere they rise.
XCIII.
I shall not see thee. Dare I say
No spirit ever brake the band
That stays him from the native land
476
Where first he walk’d when claspt in clay?
No visual shade of some one lost,
But he, the Spirit himself, may come
Where all the nerve of sense is numb;
Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost.
O, therefore from thy sightless range
With gods in unconjectured bliss,
O, from the distance of the abyss
Of tenfold-complicated change,
Descend, and touch, and enter; hear
The wish too strong for words to name;
That in this blindness of the frame
My Ghost may feel that thine is near.
XCIV.
How pure at heart and sound in head,
With what divine affections bold
Should be the man whose thought would hold
An hour’s communion with the dead.
In vain shalt thou, or any, call
The spirits from their golden day,
Except, like them, thou too canst say,
My spirit is at peace with all.
They haunt the silence of the breast,
Imaginations calm and fair,
The memory like a cloudless air,
The conscience as a sea at rest:
But when the heart is full of din,
And doubt beside the portal waits,
They can but listen at the gates,
And hear the household jar within.
XCV.
477
By night we linger’d on the lawn,
For underfoot the herb was dry;
And genial warmth; and o’er the sky
The silvery haze of summer drawn;
And calm that let the tapers burn
Unwavering: not a cricket chirr’d:
The brook alone far-off was heard,
And on the board the fluttering urn:
And bats went round in fragrant skies,
And wheel’d or lit the filmy shapes
That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes
And woolly breasts and beaded eyes;
While now we sang old songs that peal’d
From knoll to knoll, where, couch’d at ease,
The white kine glimmer’d, and the trees
Laid their dark arms about the field.
But when those others, one by one,
Withdrew themselves from me and night,
And in the house light after light
Went out, and I was all alone,
A hunger seized my heart; I read
Of that glad year which once had been,
In those fall’n leaves which kept their green,
The noble letters of the dead:
And strangely on the silence broke
The silent-speaking words, and strange
Was love’s dumb cry defying change
To test his worth; and strangely spoke
The faith, the vigour, bold to dwell
On doubts that drive the coward back,
And keen thro’ wordy snares to track
Suggestion to her inmost cell.
So word by word, and line by line,
The dead man touch’d me from the past,
478
And all at once it seem’d at last
The living soul was flash’d on mine,
And mine in this was wound, and whirl’d
About empyreal heights of thought,
And came on that which is, and caught
The deep pulsations of the world,
Æonian music measuring out
The steps of Time–the shocks of Chance–
The blows of Death. At length my trance
Was cancell’d, stricken thro’ with doubt.
Vague words! but ah, how hard to frame
In matter-moulded forms of speech,
Or ev’n for intellect to reach
Thro’ memory that which I became:
Till now the doubtful dusk reveal’d
The knolls once more where, couch’d at ease,
The white kine glimmer’d, and the trees
Laid their dark arms about the field:
And suck’d from out the distant gloom
A breeze began to tremble o’er
The large leaves of the sycamore,
And fluctuate all the still perfume,
And gathering freshlier overhead,
Rock’d the full-foliaged elms, and swung
The heavy-folded rose, and flung
The lilies to and fro, and said
‘The dawn, the dawn,’ and died away;
And East and West, without a breath,
Mixt their dim lights, like life and death,
To broaden into boundless day.
XCVI.
479
You say, but with no touch of scorn,
Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes
Are tender over drowning flies,
You tell me, doubt is Devil-born.
I know not: one indeed I knew
In many a subtle question versed,
Who touch’d a jarring lyre at first,
But ever strove to make it true:
Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music out.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
He fought his doubts and gather’d strength,
He would not make his judgment blind,
He faced the spectres of the mind
And laid them: thus he came at length
To find a stronger faith his own;
And Power was with him in the night,
Which makes the darkness and the light,
And dwells not in the light alone,
But in the darkness and the cloud,
As over Sinaï’s peaks of old,
While Israel made their gods of gold,
Altho’ the trumpet blew so loud.
XCVII.
My love has talk’d with rocks and trees;
He finds on misty mountain-ground
His own vast shadow glory-crown’d;
He sees himself in all he sees.
Two partners of a married life–
I look’d on these and thought of thee
In vastness and in mystery,
And of my spirit as of a wife.
480
These two–they dwelt with eye on eye,
Their hearts of old have beat in tune,
Their meetings made December June,
Their every parting was to die.
Their love has never past away;
The days she never can forget
Are earnest that he loves her yet,
Whate’er the faithless people say.
Her life is lone, he sits apart,
He loves her yet, she will not weep,
Tho’ rapt in matters dark and deep
He seems to slight her simple heart.
He
He
He
He
thrids the labyrinth of the mind,
reads the secret of the star,
seems so near and yet so far,
looks so cold: she thinks him kind.
She keeps the gift of years before,
A wither’d violet is her bliss:
She knows not what his greatness is,
For that, for all, she loves him more.
For him she plays, to him she sings
Of early faith and plighted vows;
She knows but matters of the house,
And he, he knows a thousand things.
Her faith is fixt and cannot move,
She darkly feels him great and wise,
She dwells on him with faithful eyes,
‘I cannot understand: I love.’
XCVIII.
You leave us: you will see the Rhine,
And those fair hills I sail’d below,
When I was there with him; and go
481
By summer belts of wheat and vine
To where he breathed his latest breath,
That City. All her splendour seems
No livelier than the wisp that gleams
On Lethe in the eyes of Death.
Let her great Danube rolling fair
Enwind her isles, unmark’d of me:
I have not seen, I will not see
Vienna; rather dream that there,
A treble darkness, Evil haunts
The birth, the bridal; friend from friend
Is oftener parted, fathers bend
Above more graves, a thousand wants
Gnarr at the heels of men, and prey
By each cold hearth, and sadness flings
Her shadow on the blaze of kings:
And yet myself have heard him say,
That not in any mother town
With statelier progress to and fro
The double tides of chariots flow
By park and suburb under brown
Of lustier leaves; nor more content,
He told me, lives in any crowd,
When all is gay with lamps, and loud
With sport and song, in booth and tent,
Imperial halls, or open plain;
And wheels the circled dance, and breaks
The rocket molten into flakes
Of crimson or in emerald rain.
XCIX.
Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again,
So loud with voices of the birds,
482
So thick with lowings of the herds,
Day, when I lost the flower of men;
Who tremblest thro’ thy darkling red
On yon swoll’n brook that bubbles fast
By meadows breathing of the past,
And woodlands holy to the dead;
Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves
A song that slights the coming care,
And Autumn laying here and there
A fiery finger on the leaves;
Who wakenest with thy balmy breath
To myriads on the genial earth,
Memories of bridal, or of birth,
And unto myriads more, of death.
O wheresoever those may be,
Betwixt the slumber of the poles,
To-day they count as kindred souls;
They know me not, but mourn with me.
C.
I climb the hill: from end to end
Of all the landscape underneath,
I find no place that does not breathe
Some gracious memory of my friend;
No gray old grange, or lonely fold,
Or low morass and whispering reed,
Or simple stile from mead to mead,
Or sheepwalk up the windy wold;
Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw
That hears the latest linnet trill,
Nor quarry trench’d along the hill
And haunted by the wrangling daw;
Nor runlet tinkling from the rock;
Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves
483
To left and right thro’ meadowy curves,
That feed the mothers of the flock;
But each has pleased a kindred eye,
And each reflects a kindlier day;
And, leaving these, to pass away,
I think once more he seems to die.
CI.
Unwatch’d, the garden bough shall sway,
The tender blossom flutter down,
Unloved, that beech will gather brown,
This maple burn itself away;
Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair,
Ray round with flames her disk of seed,
And many a rose-carnation feed
With summer spice the humming air;
Unloved, by many a sandy bar,
The brook shall babble down the plain,
At noon or when the lesser wain
Is twisting round the polar star;
Uncared for, gird the windy grove,
And flood the haunts of hern and crake;
Or into silver arrows break
The sailing moon in creek and cove;
Till from the garden and the wild
A fresh association blow,
And year by year the landscape grow
Familiar to the stranger’s child;
As year by year the labourer tills
His wonted glebe, or lops the glades;
And year by year our memory fades
From all the circle of the hills.
484
CII.
We leave the well-beloved place
Where first we gazed upon the sky;
The roofs, that heard our earliest cry,
Will shelter one of stranger race.
We go, but ere we go from home,
As down the garden-walks I move,
Two spirits of a diverse love
Contend for loving masterdom.
One whispers, ‘Here thy boyhood sung
Long since its matin song, and heard
The low love-language of the bird
In native hazels tassel-hung.’
The other answers, ‘Yea, but here
Thy feet have stray’d in after hours
With thy lost friend among the bowers,
And this hath made them trebly dear.’
These two have striven half the day,
And each prefers his separate claim,
Poor rivals in a losing game,
That will not yield each other way.
I turn to go: my feet are set
To leave the pleasant fields and farms;
They mix in one another’s arms
To one pure image of regret.
CIII.
On that last night before we went
From out the doors where I was bred,
I dream’d a vision of the dead,
Which left my after-morn content.
Methought I dwelt within a hall,
And maidens with me: distant hills
485
From hidden summits fed with rills
A river sliding by the wall.
The hall with harp and carol rang.
They sang of what is wise and good
And graceful. In the centre stood
A statue veil’d, to which they sang;
And which, tho’ veil’d, was known to me,
The shape of him I loved, and love
For ever: then flew in a dove
And brought a summons from the sea:
And when they learnt that I must go
They wept and wail’d, but led the way
To where a little shallop lay
At anchor in the flood below;
And on by many a level mead,
And shadowing bluff that made the banks,
We glided winding under ranks
Of iris, and the golden reed;
And still as vaster grew the shore
And roll’d the floods in grander space,
The maidens gather’d strength and grace
And presence, lordlier than before;
And I myself, who sat apart
And watch’d them, wax’d in every limb;
I felt the thews of Anakim,
The pulses of a Titan’s heart;
As one would sing the death of war,
And one would chant the history
Of that great race, which is to be,
And one the shaping of a star;
Until the forward-creeping tides
Began to foam, and we to draw
From deep to deep, to where we saw
A great ship lift her shining sides.
486
The man we loved was there on deck,
But thrice as large as man he bent
To greet us. Up the side I went,
And fell in silence on his neck:
Whereat those maidens with one mind
Bewail’d their lot; I did them wrong:
‘We served thee here’ they said, ‘so long,
And wilt thou leave us now behind?’
So rapt I was, they could not win
An answer from my lips, but he
Replying, ‘Enter likewise ye
And go with us:’ they enter’d in.
And while the wind began to sweep
A music out of sheet and shroud,
We steer’d her toward a crimson cloud
That landlike slept along the deep.
CIV.
The time draws near the birth of Christ;
The moon is hid, the night is still;
A single church below the hill
Is pealing, folded in the mist.
A single peal of bells below,
That wakens at this hour of rest
A single murmur in the breast,
That these are not the bells I know.
Like strangers’ voices here they sound,
In lands where not a memory strays,
Nor landmark breathes of other days,
But all is new unhallow’d ground.
CV.
487
To-night ungather’d let us leave
This laurel, let this holly stand:
We live within the stranger’s land,
And strangely falls our Christmas-eve.
Our father’s dust is left alone
And silent under other snows:
There in due time the woodbine blows,
The violet comes, but we are gone.
No more shall wayward grief abuse
The genial hour with mask and mime;
For change of place, like growth of time,
Has broke the bond of dying use.
Let cares that petty shadows cast,
By which our lives are chiefly proved,
A little spare the night I loved,
And hold it solemn to the past.
But let no footstep beat the floor,
Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm;
For who would keep an ancient form
Thro’ which the spirit breathes no more?
Be neither song, nor game, nor feast;
Nor harp be touch’d, nor flute be blown;
No dance, no motion, save alone
What lightens in the lucid east
Of rising worlds by yonder wood.
Long sleeps the summer in the seed;
Run out your measured arcs, and lead
The closing cycle rich in good.
CVI.
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
488
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring
Ring
Ring
Ring
out old shapes of foul disease;
out the narrowing lust of gold;
out the thousand wars of old,
in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
CVII.
It is the day when he was born,
A bitter day that early sank
489
Behind a purple-frosty bank
Of vapour, leaving night forlorn.
The time admits not flowers or leaves
To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies
The blast of North and East, and ice
Makes daggers at the sharpen’d eaves,
And bristles all the brakes and thorns
To yon hard crescent, as she hangs
Above the wood which grides and clangs
Its leafless ribs and iron horns
Together, in the drifts that pass
To darken on the rolling brine
That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine,
Arrange the board and brim the glass;
Bring in great logs and let them lie,
To make a solid core of heat;
Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat
Of all things ev’n as he were by;
We keep the day. With festal cheer,
With books and music, surely we
Will drink to him, whate’er he be,
And sing the songs he loved to hear.
CVIII.
I will not shut me from my kind,
And, lest I stiffen into stone,
I will not eat my heart alone,
Nor feed with sighs a passing wind:
What profit lies in barren faith,
And vacant yearning, tho’ with might
To scale the heaven’s highest height,
Or dive below the wells of Death?
What find I in the highest place,
But mine own phantom chanting hymns?
490
And on the depths of death there swims
The reflex of a human face.
I'll rather take what fruit may be
Of sorrow under human skies:
’Tis held that sorrow makes us wise,
Whatever wisdom sleep with thee.
CIX.
Heart-affluence in discursive talk
From household fountains never dry;
The critic clearness of an eye,
That saw thro’ all the Muses’ walk;
Seraphic intellect and force
To seize and throw the doubts of man;
Impassion’d logic, which outran
The hearer in its fiery course;
High nature amorous of the good,
But touch’d with no ascetic gloom;
And passion pure in snowy bloom
Thro’ all the years of April blood;
A love of freedom rarely felt,
Of freedom in her regal seat
Of England; not the schoolboy heat,
The blind hysterics of the Celt;
And manhood fused with female grace
In such a sort, the child would twine
A trustful hand, unask’d, in thine,
And find his comfort in thy face;
All these have been, and thee mine eyes
Have look’d on: if they look’d in vain,
My shame is greater who remain,
Nor let thy wisdom make me wise.
491
CX.
Thy converse drew us with delight,
The men of rathe and riper years:
The feeble soul, a haunt of fears,
Forgot his weakness in thy sight.
On thee the loyal-hearted hung,
The proud was half disarm’d of pride,
Nor cared the serpent at thy side
To flicker with his double tongue.
The stern were mild when thou wert by,
The flippant put himself to school
And heard thee, and the brazen fool
Was soften’d, and he knew not why;
While I, thy nearest, sat apart,
And felt thy triumph was as mine;
And loved them more, that they were thine,
The graceful tact, the Christian art;
Nor mine the sweetness or the skill,
But mine the love that will not tire,
And, born of love, the vague desire
That spurs an imitative will.
CXI.
The churl in spirit, up or down
Along the scale of ranks, thro’ all,
To him who grasps a golden ball,
By blood a king, at heart a clown;
The churl in spirit, howe’er he veil
His want in forms for fashion’s sake,
Will let his coltish nature break
At seasons thro’ the gilded pale:
For who can always act? but he,
To whom a thousand memories call,
492
Not being less but more than all
The gentleness he seem’d to be,
Best seem’d the thing he was, and join’d
Each office of the social hour
To noble manners, as the flower
And native growth of noble mind;
Nor ever narrowness or spite,
Or villain fancy fleeting by,
Drew in the expression of an eye,
Where God and Nature met in light;
And thus he bore without abuse
The grand old name of gentleman,
Defamed by every charlatan,
And soil’d with all ignoble use.
CXII.
High wisdom holds my wisdom less,
That I, who gaze with temperate eyes
On glorious insufficiencies,
Set light by narrower perfectness.
But thou, that fillest all the room
Of all my love, art reason why
I seem to cast a careless eye
On souls, the lesser lords of doom.
For what wert thou? some novel power
Sprang up for ever at a touch,
And hope could never hope too much,
In watching thee from hour to hour,
Large elements in order brought,
And tracts of calm from tempest made,
And world-wide fluctuation sway’d
In vassal tides that follow’d thought.
493
CXIII.
’Tis held that sorrow makes us wise;
Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee
Which not alone had guided me,
But served the seasons that may rise;
For can I doubt, who knew thee keen
In intellect, with force and skill
To strive, to fashion, to fulfil–
I doubt not what thou wouldst have been:
life in civic action warm,
soul on highest mission sent,
potent voice of Parliament,
pillar steadfast in the storm,
Should licensed boldness gather force,
Becoming, when the time has birth,
A lever to uplift the earth
And roll it in another course,
With thousand shocks that come and go,
With agonies, with energies,
With overthrowings, and with cries,
And undulations to and fro.
CXIV.
Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail
Against her beauty? May she mix
With men and prosper! Who shall fix
Her pillars? Let her work prevail.
But on her forehead sits a fire:
She sets her forward countenance
And leaps into the future chance,
Submitting all things to desire.
Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain–
She cannot fight the fear of death.
494
What is she, cut from love and faith,
But some wild Pallas from the brain
Of Demons? fiery-hot to burst
All barriers in her onward race
For power. Let her know her place;
She is the second, not the first.
A higher hand must make her mild,
If all be not in vain; and guide
Her footsteps, moving side by side
With wisdom, like the younger child:
For she is earthly of the mind,
But Wisdom heavenly of the soul.
O, friend, who camest to thy goal
So early, leaving me behind,
I would the great world grew like thee,
Who grewest not alone in power
And knowledge, but by year and hour
In reverence and in charity.
CXV.
Now fades the last long streak of snow,
Now burgeons every maze of quick
About the flowering squares, and thick
By ashen roots the violets blow.
Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue,
And drown’d in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.
Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail
On winding stream or distant sea;
Where now the seamew pipes, or dives
495
In yonder greening gleam, and fly
The happy birds, that change their sky
To build and brood; that live their lives
From land to land; and in my breast
Spring wakens too; and my regret
Becomes an April violet,
And buds and blossoms like the rest.
CXVI.
Is it, then, regret for buried time
That keenlier in sweet April wakes,
And meets the year, and gives and takes
The colours of the crescent prime?
Not all: the songs, the stirring air,
The life re-orient out of dust,
Cry thro’ the sense to hearten trust
In that which made the world so fair.
Not all regret: the face will shine
Upon me, while I muse alone;
And that dear voice, I once have known,
Still speak to me of me and mine:
Yet less of sorrow lives in me
For days of happy commune dead;
Less yearning for the friendship fled,
Than some strong bond which is to be.
CXVII.
O days and hours, your work is this
To hold me from my proper place,
A little while from his embrace
For fuller gain of after bliss:
That out of distance might ensue
Desire of nearness doubly sweet;
496
And unto meeting when we meet,
Delight a hundredfold accrue,
For every grain of sand that runs,
And every span of shade that steals,
And every kiss of toothed wheels,
And all the courses of the suns.
CXVIII.
Contemplate all this work of Time,
The giant labouring in his youth;
Nor dream of human love and truth,
As dying Nature’s earth and lime;
But trust that those we call the dead
Are breathers of an ampler day
For ever nobler ends. They say,
The solid earth whereon we tread
In tracts of fluent heat began,
And grew to seeming-random forms,
The seeming prey of cyclic storms,
Till at the last arose the man;
Who throve and branch’d from clime to clime,
The herald of a higher race,
And of himself in higher place,
If so he type this work of time
Within himself, from more to more;
Or, crown’d with attributes of woe
Like glories, move his course, and show
That life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And heated hot with burning fears,
And dipt in baths of hissing tears,
And batter’d with the shocks of doom
To shape and use. Arise and fly
497
The reeling Faun, the sensual feast;
Move upward, working out the beast,
And let the ape and tiger die.
CXIX.
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, not as one that weeps
I come once more; the city sleeps;
I smell the meadow in the street;
I hear a chirp of birds; I see
Betwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn
A light-blue lane of early dawn,
And think of early days and thee,
And bless thee, for thy lips are bland,
And bright the friendship of thine eye;
And in my thoughts with scarce a sigh
I take the pressure of thine hand.
CXX.
I trust I have not wasted breath:
I think we are not wholly brain,
Magnetic mockeries; not in vain,
Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death;
Not only cunning casts in clay:
Let Science prove we are, and then
What matters Science unto men,
At least to me? I would not stay.
Let him, the wiser man who springs
Hereafter, up from childhood shape
His action like the greater ape,
But I was born to other things.
498
CXXI.
Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun
And ready, thou, to die with him,
Thou watchest all things ever dim
And dimmer, and a glory done:
The team is loosen’d from the wain,
The boat is drawn upon the shore;
Thou listenest to the closing door,
And life is darken’d in the brain.
Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night,
By thee the world’s great work is heard
Beginning, and the wakeful bird;
Behind thee comes the greater light:
The market boat is on the stream,
And voices hail it from the brink;
Thou hear’st the village hammer clink,
And see’st the moving of the team.
Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name
For what is one, the first, the last,
Thou, like my present and my past,
Thy place is changed; thou art the same.
CXXII.
Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then,
While I rose up against my doom,
And yearn’d to burst the folded gloom,
To bare the eternal Heavens again,
To feel once more, in placid awe,
The strong imagination roll
A sphere of stars about my soul,
In all her motion one with law;
If thou wert with me, and the grave
Divide us not, be with me now,
And enter in at breast and brow,
499
Till all my blood, a fuller wave,
Be quicken’d with a livelier breath,
And like an inconsiderate boy,
As in the former flash of joy,
I slip the thoughts of life and death;
And all the breeze of Fancy blows,
And every dew-drop paints a bow,
The wizard lightnings deeply glow,
And every thought breaks out a rose.
CXXIII.
There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
O earth, what changes hast thou seen!
There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea.
The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands;
They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
But in my spirit will I dwell,
And dream my dream, and hold it true;
For tho’ my lips may breathe adieu,
I cannot think the thing farewell.
CXXIV.
That which we dare invoke to bless;
Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt;
He, They, One, All; within, without;
The Power in darkness whom we guess;
I found Him not in world or sun,
Or eagle’s wing, or insect’s eye;
Nor thro’ the questions men may try,
The petty cobwebs we have spun:
500
If e’er when faith had fall’n asleep,
I heard a voice ‘believe no more’
And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the Godless deep;
A warmth within the breast would melt
The freezing reason’s colder part,
And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answer’d ‘I have felt.’
No, like a child in doubt and fear:
But that blind clamour made me wise;
Then was I as a child that cries,
But, crying, knows his father near;
And what I am beheld again
What is, and no man understands;
And out of darkness came the hands
That reach thro’ nature, moulding men.
CXXV.
Whatever I have said or sung,
Some bitter notes my harp would give,
Yea, tho’ there often seem’d to live
A contradiction on the tongue,
Yet Hope had never lost her youth;
She did but look through dimmer eyes;
Or Love but play’d with gracious lies,
Because he felt so fix’d in truth:
And if the song were full of care,
He breathed the spirit of the song;
And if the words were sweet and strong
He set his royal signet there;
Abiding with me till I sail
To seek thee on the mystic deeps,
And this electric force, that keeps
501
A thousand pulses dancing, fail.
CXXVI.
Love is and was my Lord and King,
And in his presence I attend
To hear the tidings of my friend,
Which every hour his couriers bring.
Love is and was my King and Lord,
And will be, tho’ as yet I keep
Within his court on earth, and sleep
Encompass’d by his faithful guard,
And hear at times a sentinel
Who moves about from place to place,
And whispers to the worlds of space,
In the deep night, that all is well.
CXXVII.
And all is well, tho’ faith and form
Be sunder’d in the night of fear;
Well roars the storm to those that hear
A deeper voice across the storm,
Proclaiming social truth shall spread,
And justice, ev’n tho’ thrice again
The red fool-fury of the Seine
Should pile her barricades with dead.
But ill for him that wears a crown,
And him, the lazar, in his rags:
They tremble, the sustaining crags;
The spires of ice are toppled down,
And molten up, and roar in flood;
The fortress crashes from on high,
The brute earth lightens to the sky,
And the great Æon sinks in blood,
502
And compass’d by the fires of Hell;
While thou, dear spirit, happy star,
O’erlook’st the tumult from afar,
And smilest, knowing all is well.
CXXVIII.
The love that rose on stronger wings,
Unpalsied when he met with Death,
Is comrade of the lesser faith
That sees the course of human things.
No doubt vast eddies in the flood
Of onward time shall yet be made,
And throned races may degrade;
Yet O ye mysteries of good,
Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear,
If all your office had to do
With old results that look like new;
If this were all your mission here,
To
To
To
To
draw, to sheathe a useless sword,
fool the crowd with glorious lies,
cleave a creed in sects and cries,
change the bearing of a word,
To shift an arbitrary power,
To cramp the student at his desk,
To make old bareness picturesque
And tuft with grass a feudal tower;
Why then my scorn might well descend
On you and yours. I see in part
That all, as in some piece of art,
Is toil coöperant to an end.
CXXIX.
503
Dear friend, far off, my lost desire,
So far, so near in woe and weal;
O loved the most, when most I feel
There is a lower and a higher;
Known and unknown; human, divine;
Sweet human hand and lips and eye;
Dear heavenly friend that canst not die,
Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine;
Strange friend, past, present, and to be;
Loved deeplier, darklier understood;
Behold, I dream a dream of good,
And mingle all the world with thee.
CXXX.
Thy voice is on the rolling air;
I hear thee where the waters run;
Thou standest in the rising sun,
And in the setting thou art fair.
What art thou then? I cannot guess;
But tho’ I seem in star and flower
To feel thee some diffusive power,
I do not therefore love thee less:
My love involves the love before;
My love is vaster passion now;
Tho’ mix’d with God and Nature thou,
I seem to love thee more and more.
Far off thou art, but ever nigh;
I have thee still, and I rejoice;
I prosper, circled with thy voice;
I shall not lose thee tho’ I die.
CXXXI.
504
O living will that shalt endure
When all that seems shall suffer shock,
Rise in the spiritual rock,
Flow thro’ our deeds and make them pure,
That we may lift from out of dust
A voice as unto him that hears,
A cry above the conquer’d years
To one that with us works, and trust,
With faith that comes of self-control,
The truths that never can be proved
Until we close with all we loved,
And all we flow from, soul in soul.
_________
O true and tried, so well and long,
Demand not thou a marriage lay;
In that it is thy marriage day
Is music more than any song.
Nor have I felt so much of bliss
Since first he told me that he loved
A daughter of our house; nor proved
Since that dark day a day like this;
Tho’ I since then have number’d o’er
Some thrice three years: they went and came,
Remade the blood and changed the frame,
And yet is love not less, but more;
No longer caring to embalm
In dying songs a dead regret,
But like a statue solid-set,
And moulded in colossal calm.
Regret is dead, but love is more
Than in the summers that are flown,
For I myself with these have grown
To something greater than before;
Which makes appear the songs I made
505
As echoes out of weaker times,
As half but idle brawling rhymes,
The sport of random sun and shade.
But where is she, the bridal flower,
That must he made a wife ere noon?
She enters, glowing like the moon
Of Eden on its bridal bower:
On me she bends her blissful eyes
And then on thee; they meet thy look
And brighten like the star that shook
Betwixt the palms of paradise.
O when her life was yet in bud,
He too foretold the perfect rose.
For thee she grew, for thee she grows
For ever, and as fair as good.
And thou art worthy; full of power;
As gentle; liberal-minded, great,
Consistent; wearing all that weight
Of learning lightly like a flower.
But now set out: the noon is near,
And I must give away the bride;
She fears not, or with thee beside
And me behind her, will not fear.
For I that danced her on my knee,
That watch’d her on her nurse’s arm,
That shielded all her life from harm
At last must part with her to thee;
Now waiting to be made a wife,
Her feet, my darling, on the dead;
Their pensive tablets round her head,
And the most living words of life
Breathed in her ear. The ring is on,
The ‘wilt thou’ answer’d, and again
The ‘wilt thou’ ask’d, till out of twain
506
Her sweet ‘I will’ has made you one.
Now sign your names, which shall be read,
Mute symbols of a joyful morn,
By village eyes as yet unborn;
The names are sign’d, and overhead
Begins the clash and clang that tells
The joy to every wandering breeze;
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees
The dead leaf trembles to the bells.
O happy hour, and happier hours
Await them. Many a merry face
Salutes them–maidens of the place,
That pelt us in the porch with flowers.
O happy hour, behold the bride
With him to whom her hand I gave.
They leave the porch, they pass the grave
That has to-day its sunny side.
To-day the grave is bright for me,
For them the light of life increased,
Who stay to share the morning feast,
Who rest to-night beside the sea.
Let all my genial spirits advance
To meet and greet a whiter sun;
My drooping memory will not shun
The foaming grape of eastern France.
It circles round, and fancy plays,
And hearts are warm’d and faces bloom,
As drinking health to bride and groom
We wish them store of happy days.
Nor count me all to blame if I
Conjecture of a stiller guest,
Perchance, perchance, among the rest,
And, tho’ in silence, wishing joy.
507
But they must go, the time draws on,
And those white-favour’d horses wait;
They rise, but linger; it is late;
Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone.
A shade falls on us like the dark
From little cloudlets on the grass,
But sweeps away as out we pass
To range the woods, to roam the park,
Discussing how their courtship grew,
And talk of others that are wed,
And how she look’d, and what he said,
And back we come at fall of dew.
Again the feast, the speech, the glee,
The shade of passing thought, the wealth
Of words and wit, the double health,
The crowning cup, the three-times-three,
And last the dance;–till I retire:
Dumb is that tower which spake so loud,
And high in heaven the streaming cloud,
And on the downs a rising fire:
And rise, O moon, from yonder down,
Till over down and over dale
All night the shining vapour sail
And pass the silent-lighted town,
The white-faced halls, the glancing rills,
And catch at every mountain head,
And o’er the friths that branch and spread
Their sleeping silver thro’ the hills;
And touch with shade the bridal doors,
With tender gloom the roof, the wall;
And breaking let the splendour fall
To spangle all the happy shores
By which they rest, and ocean sounds,
And, star and system rolling past,
508
A soul shall draw from out the vast
And strike his being into bounds,
And, moved thro’ life of lower phase,
Result in man, be born and think,
And act and love, a closer link
Betwixt us and the crowning race
Of those that, eye to eye, shall look
On knowledge; under whose command
Is Earth and Earth’s, and in their hand
Is Nature like an open book;
No longer half-akin to brute,
For all we thought and loved and did,
And hoped, and suffer’d, is but seed
Of what in them is flower and fruit;
Whereof the man, that with me trod
This planet, was a noble type
Appearing ere the times were ripe,
That friend of mine who lives in God,
That God, which ever lives and loves,
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves.
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,#NFDB
9 Occultism
7 Fiction
6 Poetry
1 Mythology
1 Integral Yoga
1 Christianity
7 James George Frazer
4 Sri Aurobindo
4 H P Lovecraft
3 Percy Bysshe Shelley
3 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Aleister Crowley
7 The Golden Bough
4 Lovecraft - Poems
3 Shelley - Poems
3 Savitri
3 Labyrinths
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
02.11 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the Wizardry of an ordered universe.
The All-containing was contained in form,
05.07 - The Observer and the Observed, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Science also declared that it is not the observation of one person, however qualified, that determines the truth or otherwise of a fact, but the observation of many persons and the possibility of observations of all persons converging, coinciding, corroborating. It is only when observation has thus been tested and checked that one can be sure that the personal element has been eliminated. Indeed the ideal condition would be if the observer, the scientist himself, could act as part of the machine for observation: at the most he should be a mere assembler of the parts of the machine that would record itself, impersonally, automatically. The rocket instruments that are sent high up in the sky to record the temperature, pressure or other weather condition in the stratosphere or the deep-sea recording machines are ingenious inventions in that line. the Wizard Jagadish Chandra Bose showed his genius precisely in the way he made the plant itself declare its life-story: it is not what the scientist thinks or feels about the plant, but what the plant has to say of its own accord, as it wereits own tale of growth and decay, of suffering, spasm, swoon, suffocation or death under given conditions. This is the second step that Science took in the direction of impersonal and objective inquiry.
It was thought for long a very easy matterat least not extraordinarily difficultto eliminate the observer and keep only to the observed. It was always known how the view of the observer that is to say, his observation changed in respect of the observed fact with his change of position. The sun rises and sets to the observer on earth: to an observer on Mars, for example, the sun would rise and set, no doubt, but earth too along with, in the same way as Mars and sun appear to us now, while to an observer on the sun, the sun would seem fixed while the planets would be seen moving round. Again, we all know the observer in a moving train sees things outside the train moving past and himself at stand-still; the same observer would see another train moving alongside in the same direction and with the same speed as stuck to it and at stand-still, but as moving with double the speed if going in a contrary direction: and so on.
06.01 - The Word of Fate, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For it has read and broken the Wizard seals;
It has drunk of the Immortal's wells of joy,
1.03 - Sympathetic Magic, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
according to their own intrinsic nature and the skill of the Wizard
to tap or dam, as the case may be, the stream of weal or woe. In
1.04 - Magic and Religion, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
so far as that, the Wizard declared that he would scatter the bones
of Osiris or reveal his sacred legend, if the god proved
1.05 - The Magical Control of the Weather, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
their crops from the Wizards. If rain was needed, the Wizards fasted
and danced with pipes full of water in their mouths. The pipes were
--
and presage rain. Then the Wizards who were bled carry away the two
stones for about ten or fifteen miles, and place them as high as
--
too, that at the bidding of the Wizard they go and pour water on the
graves of twins. For they think that the grave of a twin ought
--
the side of a hill. "No wonder," says the Wizard in such a case,
"that the sky is fiery. Take up his body and dig him a grave on the
--
"wild woods of Broceliande," where, if legend be true, the Wizard
Merlin still sleeps his magic slumber in the hawthorn shade. Thither
--
moment when the sun rises, the Wizard holds the stone in his hand
and passes a burning brand repeatedly into the hole, while he says:
1.07 - BOOK THE SEVENTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
Nor could the Wizard wolf's warm entrails scape
(That wolf who counterfeits a human shape).
--
For he the Wizard native's pois'ning sight,
That us'd the farmer's hopeful crops to blight,
1.09 - Taras Ultimate Nature, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
scene from the Wizard of Oz in which the Wizard puts on a ery display, a big
ego trip, until Toto, the little dog, pulls back the curtain and exposes the person pulling all the switches. The feeling of the self-sufcient substantially
11.01 - The Eternal Day The Souls Choice and the Supreme Consummation, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And channel to earth-mind the Wizard ray.
The heroes and the demigods are few
1.18 - The Perils of the Soul, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
towards the sufferer, but purely as a matter of business. the Wizard
does not care whose soul he has captured, and will readily restore
--
Peninsula. Here the methods by which the Wizard works his will are
various, and so too are his motives. Sometimes he desires to destroy
1.22 - Tabooed Words, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
imparted to the Wizard the wondrous lore, the deity had no choice
but to submit humbly to the man or pay the penalty of his contumacy.
1.56 - The Public Expulsion of Evils, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
from under ground. It is then a busy season for the Wizards. In
every house you may hear them singing and praying, while they
1.67 - The External Soul in Folk-Custom, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
they fight, and then the Wizard whose external soul is beaten, falls
ill or dies. The weakest and most cowardly wizards are they whose
--
other. The alliance is thought to bring to the Wizard or sorcerer a
great accession of power, which he can turn to his advantage in
1.ac - The Wizard Way, #Crowley - Poems, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
object:1.ac - the Wizard Way
author class:Aleister Crowley
--
Velvet soft the Wizard trod
To the Sabbath of his God.
--
Wonder-weft the Wizard heard
This intolerable word.
--
I follow the Wizard way to God.
Wherever he leads my foot shall follow;
--
Of the faery blood, and the Wizard itch
To attain a matter one may not utter
1f.lovecraft - The Dunwich Horror, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
and which have inherited many forms and traditions from the Wizards of
the Saracenic world. That question, however, he did not deem vital;
1f.lovecraft - The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
object:1f.lovecraft - The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast
author class:H P Lovecraft
--
of the Wizard-beast, and their bones were laid in a strange pattern
before the mouth of the cave, as a warning to others.
--
piled high with precious objects; the hoard of the Wizard-beast.
At sight of this unattainable wealth, Yaldens fervour well-nigh
--
Then Anathas the Wizard-beast rolled fully out of the archway, mighty
in necromantic horror, and jested with the small frightened conqueror
--
Return to The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast
1f.lovecraft - The Man of Stone, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
handed down. We come from Nicholas Van Kauran, the Wizard, who was
hanged in Wijtgaart in 1587, and everybody knows he had made the
1f.lovecraft - Through the Gates of the Silver Key, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
the blasphemous uses to which old Edmund Carter the Wizard had put that
horrible grotto, and added later tales about the fondness which
--
Edmund Carter the Wizard. People wouldnt go there, and nobody but him
had ever noticed or squirmed through the root-choked fissure to that
--
recurrent dreams of the Wizard Zkauba on the planet Yaddith. They were
too persistentthey interfered with his duties in weaving spells to
--
all time and space he was two: Zkauba the Wizard of Yaddith, disgusted
with the thought of the repellent earth-mammal Carter that he was to be
--
and not to be duplicated by the Wizards of Yaddith. It had been written
on the undecipherable parchment in the hideously carven box with the
--
facet, you knowZkauba, the Wizard of Yaddith. . . .
The turbaned figure had now reached the abnormal clock, and the
1.jk - Staffa, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
Not the Wizard of the Dee
Ever such a dream could see;
1.pbs - Ode To Liberty, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
For neither didst thou watch the Wizard flocks
Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's sleep.
1.pbs - Scenes From The Faust Of Goethe, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
Since I last came up to the Wizard mountain;
And as my little cask runs turbid now,
1.pbs - The Witch Of Atlas, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
'This may not be,' the Wizard maid replied;
'The fountains where the Naiades bedew
--
All day the Wizard lady sate aloof,
Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity,
--
And when the Wizard lady would ascend
The labyrinths of some many-winding vale,
--
'This,' said the Wizard maiden, 'is the strife
Which stirs the liquid surface of man's life.'
--
Among those mortal forms, the Wizard-maiden
Passed with an eye serene and heart unladen.
3.09 - Of Silence and Secrecy, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
internal and external very useful. the Wizard Way (Equinox I (1))
gives a good idea of the sort of thing. So does the Evocation of
3.11 - Spells, #Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E, #unset, #Zen
By means of this spell, the Wizard is able to place another spell upon his person so that
the latter spell will come into effect under the conditions dictated during the casting of
--
affects the Wizard's person (feather fall, levitation, fly, feign death, etc.) and be of a spell
level no higher than 1/3 of the caster's experience level (rounded down), but not higher
--
contingency spell cast with an airy water spell might prescribe that any time the Wizard is
plunged into or otherwise engulfed in water or similar liquid, the airy water spell will
--
time the Wizard falls more than 2 feet. In all cases, the contingency immediately brings
into effect the second spell, the latter being "cast" instantaneously when the prescribed
--
creature. In addition, the spell requires a statuette of the Wizard carved from elephant
ivory (which is not destroyed, though it is subject to wear and tear), which must be
--
the Wizard must touch the weapon to be affected by the spell, but afterward anyone may wield it. The material component for this spell is a razor-thin shard of glass.
Disbelief ::: (Enchantment/Charm)
--
When this spell is cast, the Wizard creates the illusion of the most fearsome thing
imaginable to the victim, simply by forming the fears of the victim's subconscious mind
--
be tried but once), slaying or rendering unconscious the Wizard who cast the spell, or
rendering unconscious the target of the spell for its duration. To disbelieve the killer, the
--
By means of this spell, the Wizard is able to create a duplicate of any creature. The
duplicate appears to be exactly the same as the original, but there are differences: The
--
When this spell is cast by the Wizard, he influences the actions of the chosen recipient
by the utterance of a few words--phrases or a sentence or two--suggesting a course of
--
to understand the Wizard's suggestion--it must be spoken in a language that the spell
recipient understands.
--
would be refreshing is another matter. Urging a red dragon to stop attacking the Wizard's
party so that the dragon and party could jointly loot a rich treasure elsewhere is likewise a
Appendix 4 - Priest Spells, #Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E, #unset, #Zen
When the detect magic spell is cast, the priest detects magical radiations in a path 10 feet wide and up to 30 yards long, in the direction he is facing. The intensity of the magic can be detected (dim, faint, moderate, strong, or overwhelming). The caster has a 10% chance per level to determine the sphere of the magic, but unlike the Wizard version of the spell, the type of magic (alteration, conjuration, etc.) cannot be divined. The caster can turn, scanning a 60 arc per round. The spell is blocked by solid stone at least 1 foot thick, solid metal at least 1 inch thick, or solid wood at least 1 yard thick.
The spell requires the use of the priest's holy symbol.
--
Note that, unlike the Wizard version of this spell, only people can be affected, and that those of any level can be affected by the priest casting this spell.
SPELL - Flame Walk (Alteration)
--
The spell creates an opaque sheet of flame up to one 20-foot square per level of the spellcaster, or a ring with a radius of up to 10 feet + 5 feet for every two levels of experience of the Wizard, and 20 feet high.
The wall of fire must be cast so that it is vertical with respect to the caster. One side of the wall, selected by the caster, sends forth waves of heat, inflicting 2d4 points of damage upon creatures within 10 feet and 1d4 points of damage upon those within 20 feet. In addition, the wall inflicts 4d4 points of damage, plus 1 point of damage per level of the spellcaster, to any creature passing through it. Creatures especially subject to fire may
Deutsches Requiem, #Labyrinths, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
145That sword is slaying us, and we are comparable to the Wizard who
fashioned a labyrinth and was then doomed to wander in it to the end of his
The Book of the Prophet Isaiah, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the Wizards.
4 And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord;
The Circular Ruins, #Labyrinths, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
In the Gnostic cosmosgonies, demiurges fashion a red Adam who cannot stand; as a clumsy, crude and elemental as this Adam of dust was the Adam of dreams forged by the Wizard's nights. One afternoon, the man almost destroyed his entire work, but then changed his mind. (It would have been better had he destroyed it.) When he had exhausted all supplications to the deities of earth, he threw himself at the feet of the effigy which was perhaps a tiger or perhaps a colt and implored its unknown help. That evening, at twilight, he dreamt of the statue. He dreamt it was alive, tremulous: it was not an atrocious bastard of a tiger and a colt, but at the same time these two firey creatures and also a bull, a rose, and a storm. This multiple god revealed to him that his earthly name was Fire, and that in this circular temple (and in others like it) people had once made sacrifices to him and worshiped him, and that he would magically animate the dreamed phantom, in such a way that all creatures, except Fire itself and the dreamer, would believe to be a man of flesh and blood. He commanded that once this man had been instructed in all the rites, he should be sent to the other ruined temple whose pyramids were still standing downstream, so that some voice would glorify him in that deserted ediface. In the dream of the man that dreamed, the dreamed one awoke.
the Wizard carried out the orders he had been given. He devoted a certain length of time (which finally proved to be two years) to instructing him in the mysteries of the universe and the cult of fire. Secretly, he was pained at the idea of being seperated from him. On the pretext of pedagogical necessity, each day he increased the number of hours dedicated to dreaming. He also remade the right shoulder, which was somewhat defective. At times, he was disturbed by the impression that all this had already happened . . . In general, his days were happy; when he closed his eyes, he thought: Now I will be with my son. Or, more rarely: The son I have engendered is waiting for me and will not exist if I do not go to him.
--
His victory and peace became blurred with boredom. In the twilight times of dusk and dawn, he would prostrate himself before the stone figure, perhaps imagining his unreal son carrying out identical rites in other circular ruins downstream; at night he no longer dreamed, or dreamed as any man does. His perceptions of the sounds and forms of the universe became somewhat pallid: his absent son was being nourished by these diminution of his soul. The purpose of his life had been fulfilled; the man remained in a kind of ecstasy. After a certain time, which some chronicles prefer to compute in years and others in decades, two oarsmen awoke him at midnight; he could not see their faces, but they spoke to him of a charmed man in a temple of the North, capable of walking on fire without burning himself. the Wizard suddenly remembered the words of the god. He remembered that of all the creatures that people the earth, Fire was the only one who knew his son to be a phantom. This memory, which at first calmed him, ended by tormenting him. He feared lest his son should meditate on this abnormal privilege and by some means find out he was a mere simulacrum. Not to be a man, to be a projection of another man's dreams--what an incomparable humiliation, what madness! Any father is interested in the sons he has procreated (or permitted) out of the mere confusion of happiness; it was natural that the Wizard should fear for the future of that son whom he had thought out entrail by entrail, feature by feature, in a thousand and one secret nights.
His misgivings ended abruptly, but not without certain forewarnings. First (after a long drought) a remote cloud, as light as a bird, appeared on a hill; then, toward the South, the sky took on the rose color of leopard's gums; then came clouds of smoke which rusted the metal of the nights; afterwards came the panic-stricken flight of wild animals. For what had happened many centuries before was repeating itself. The ruins of the sanctuary of the god of Fire was destroyed by fire. In a dawn without birds, the Wizard saw the concentric fire licking the walls. For a moment, he thought of taking refuge in the water, but then he understood that death was coming to crown his old age and absolve him from his labors. He walked toward the sheets of flame. They did not bite his flesh, they caressed him and flooded him without heat or combustion. With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he also was an illusion, that someone else was dreaming him.
The Zahir, #Labyrinths, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
In the figure of speech called oxymoron a word is modified by an epithet which seems to contradict it: thus, the Gnostics spoke of dark light, and the alchemists of a black sun. For me it was a kind of oxymoron to go straight from my last visit with Clementina Villar to buy a drink at a bar; I was intrigued by the coarseness of the act, by its ease. (The contrast was heightened by the circumstance that there was a card game in progress.) I asked for a brandy. They gave me the Zahir in my change. I stared at it for a moment and went out into the street, perhaps with the beginnings of a fever. I reflected that every coin in the world is a symbol of those famous coins which glitter in history and fable. I thought of Charon's obol; of the obol for which Belisarius begged; of Judas' thirty coins; of the drachmas of La's, the famous courtesan; of the ancient coin which one of the Seven Sleepers proffered; of the shining coins of the Wizard in the 1001 Nights, that turned out to be bits of paper; of the inexhaustible penny of Isaac Laquedem; of the sixty thousand pieces of silver, one for each line of an epic, which Firdusi sent back to a king because they were not of
--
Wikipedia - Adaptations of The Wizard of Oz -- Wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz -- American Flash animated children's television series
Wikipedia - Kaytek the Wizard -- Book by Janusz Korczak
Wikipedia - List of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz episodes -- Wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - Oz Squad -- Comics based on the Wizard of Oz
Wikipedia - Ruby slippers -- Magical pair of shoes worn by Dorothy Gale as played by Judy Garland in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz
Wikipedia - The Wizard (1927 film) -- 1927 film
Wikipedia - The Wizard (Black Sabbath song) -- Song by Black Sabbath
Wikipedia - The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Universal Orlando Resort) -- Area in Universal Orlando theme parks
Wikipedia - The Wizarding World of Harry Potter -- Harry Potter themed area in Universal theme parks
Wikipedia - The Wizard of Gore -- 1970 film by Herschell Gordon Lewis
Wikipedia - The Wizard of Id -- American comic strip
Wikipedia - The Wizard of Lies -- 2017 film by Barry Levinson
Wikipedia - The Wizard of Linn -- Science fiction novel written by A. E. van Vogt
Wikipedia - The Wizard of New Zealand -- New Zealand cultural icon
Wikipedia - The Wizard of OS (song)
Wikipedia - The Wizard of Oz (1925 film) -- 1925 film
Wikipedia - The Wizard of Oz (1939 film) -- 1939 movie based on the book by L. Frank Baum
Wikipedia - The Wizard of Oz (1982 film) -- 1982 anime film directed by Fumihiko Takayama
Wikipedia - The Wizard of Oz (2011 musical) -- 2011 musical based on the 1939 film
Wikipedia - The Wizard of Oz (TV series) -- Animated television series based on the 1939 movie
Wikipedia - The Wizard of Speed and Time -- 1979 film
Wikipedia - The Wizard of the Strings -- 1985 film
Wikipedia - The Wizards Return: Alex vs. Alex
Wikipedia - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (2005 graphic novel) -- Collection of three stories set in the Wizard of Oz universe
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The Wizard (1986 - 1987) - David Rappaport is Simon Mckay as the Wizard.
Alf Tales (1988 - 1990) - In that show, Alf and his friends presented famous fairy-tales like: "The Wizard of Oz", "Peter Pan", "Robin Hood" etc'.
Monchichis (1983 - 1983) - Based on the toys, the show has the Monchichis trying to stop the evil Grumplins from finding the wizards magic.
The Brady Kids (1972 - 1974) - The Brady Kids are out on their own as a jumping pop group making the world a whole lot brighter with abrupt musical numbers and high jinks with a little help of their crazy pets: Mop Top the dog, Marlon the wizard mynah bird and those mischievous Chinese pandas Ping & Pong.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1987 - 1989) - This sunny family cartoon is about ayoung girl named Dorothy who is carried away to the Land of Oz by a vicious tornado and told that she needs to get to the wizard and ask him to help her return home. Along the way she meets a clueless scarecrow, a seemingly dull tin man, and a cowardly lion who al...
The Wizard of Oz (1990 - 1991) - Dorothy and Toto have returned to the magical land of Oz with the help of the magical ruby slippers. She is reunited with her friends Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion as they save the Wizard and Emerald City from the evil clutches of the Wicked Witch of the West. If she gets her hand on Dor...
Felix & The Wizard/Hall In Fun (1962 - 1965) - Local:WNEW TV Ch.5 NYC Weekday afternoons Monday September 3,1962-Friday September 3,1965 Host/Performer/Puppeteer/Cartoonist:Fred Hall.
Off to see the Wizard (1967 - 1968) - An ABC-TV Friday Night film anthology series featuring reruns of classic MGM family films. Featuring animated characters of The Wizard of Oz as animated by Chuck Jones / Abraham Levitow.
Little Wizards (1987 - 1987) - Young Prince Dexter runs away after his father dies and the evil sorcerer claims the crown. Dexter then becomes the apprentice of the wizard Phineus so he can learn magic for the day he would become king.
The Wizard(1989) - Corey and Jimmy Woods are two brothers who are being separated due to their parents divorcing. Jimmy is an autistic kid that has had problems ever since his sister died at a young age. One day, Corey discovers that Jimmy has a natural talent for playing video games. He is one of the best around, and...
The Wizard of Oz(1939) - Dorothy Gale and her dog, Toto, are swept away in their farmhouse by a tornado to the Land of Oz. She embarks on a journey to the Emerald City to seek the Wizard to help her get back home to her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry in Kansas. On the way, she befriends a Scarecrow who wants a brain, a Tin Man who...
The Wiz(1978) - Based on the Tony-winning musical, The Wiz places a urban twist on The Wizard of Oz. Diana Ross plays Dorothy, a shy kindergarten teacher who's "never been below 125th Street". During a large family dinner, her dog, Toto, escapes into a blizzard. She chases him, and is swept up by a whirlwind of sno...
The Hobbit(1977) - A Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins is whisk away on a journey by Gandalf the Wizard and a company of Dwarves. Together they search out Smaug the Dragon to raid his gold!
The Wiz (1978)(1978) - "2 hrs. 13 min. In this Sidney Lumet-directed Motown rendition of THE WIZARD OF OZ, Diana Ross plays a soulful Dorothy, accompanied by a cast peppered with R&B stars such as Roberta Flack and Luther Vandross
Hellraiser: Bloodline(1996) - Clive Barker's horrific creation Pinhead (Doug Bradley) returns to the screen for the fourth (and purportedly final) time in this time-juggling horror opus. In 18th century France, Phillippe LeMarchand (Bruce Ramsay) constructs a black puzzle box for the wizard Duc de L'Isle (Mickey Cottrell); howev...
Unico - To The Island of Magic(1983) - Based on "Unico and the Kingdom of the Sun," which was newly written as a theater version, this animated film features a battle between the wizard Kukuruku and Unico. Kukuruku builds a castle using dolls transformed from men as building parts. The story revolves around the sorrow and terror of men w...
Under the Rainbow(1981) - When Gestapo, Secret Service Agents, 150 midgets (extras for "The Wizard of Oz"), and a Japanese camera club converge on a California hotel, the predictable result is total chaos.
A Kid in King Arthur's Court(1995) - Young Kevin Fuller is pulled into king arthur's court by the wizard Merlin to save Camelot. He must thwart the evil Lord Belascoe, save the princess Catherine whe is in love with him, and return Arthur's confidence in himself.
The Muppets' Wizard of Oz(2005) - It's the classic tale Muppets' style as Ashanti stars as Dorothy Gale living in Kansas who dreams of being a superstar singer, but all that's about to change when a tornado sends her to Oz and starts her journey to the Emerald City to meet the Wizard with her friends Scarecrow (Kermit), Tin Thing (G...
The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True(1995) - Inspired by the classic 1939 film, this concert was performed on stage by an all-star cast at the Lincoln Center in New York City to benefit the Children's Defens
The Wizard of Baghdad(1960) - A lazy genie's (Dick Shawn) boss will turn him into a mortal if he fails to unite a prince (Barry Coe) and princess (Diane Baker).
Tom and Jerry & The Wizard of Oz(2011) - The cat & mouse duo gets swept in the Land of Oz in this fantastic animated collaboration film which consists of 2 franchises once owned by MGM.
Stunt Rock(1980) - Australian stuntman Grant Page goes to Los Angeles to work on a television series. He uses his spare time to lend his expertise to rock band Sorcery, whose act features duels between the King of the Wizards and the Prince of Darkness, with his cousin playing the Prince. Page helps the duo develop py...
Happily N'Ever After(2006) - Somewhere lives a magical wizard that controls all of the world's fairy tales. He maintains the balance between good and evil in Fairy Tale Land and ensures good characters always have their happily ever after. After the Wizard leaves for Scotland on an overdue vacation, he leaves the world in the h...
Emerald City ::: TV-14 | 1h | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy | TV Series (20162017) -- A modern reimagining of the stories that led to 'The Wizard of Oz'. Creators: Matthew Arnold, Josh Friedman
Emerald City ::: TV-14 | 1h | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy | TV Series (2016-2017) Episode Guide 10 episodes Emerald City Poster -- A modern reimagining of the stories that led to 'The Wizard of Oz'. Creators: Matthew Arnold, Josh Friedman
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) ::: 7.7/10 -- PG-13 | 2h 26min | Adventure, Family, Fantasy | 19 November 2010 (USA) -- As Harry, Ron, and Hermione race against time and evil to destroy the Horcruxes, they uncover the existence of the three most powerful objects in the wizarding world: the Deathly Hallows. Director: David Yates Writers:
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) ::: 7.5/10 -- PG-13 | 2h 18min | Action, Adventure, Family | 11 July 2007 (USA) -- With their warning about Lord Voldemort's return scoffed at, Harry and Dumbledore are targeted by the Wizard authorities as an authoritarian bureaucrat slowly seizes power at Hogwarts. Director: David Yates Writers:
The Wizard of Lies (2017) ::: 6.8/10 -- TV-MA | 2h 13min | Biography, Crime, Drama | TV Movie 20 May 2017 -- The fall of Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme robbed $65 billion from unsuspecting victims; the largest fraud in U.S. history. Director: Barry Levinson Writers: Sam Levinson (screenplay), John Burnham Schwartz (screenplay) | 3 more
The Wizard of Oz (1939) ::: 8.0/10 -- PG | 1h 42min | Adventure, Family, Fantasy | 25 August 1939 (USA) -- Dorothy Gale is swept away from a farm in Kansas to a magical land of Oz in a tornado and embarks on a quest with her new friends to see the Wizard who can help her return home to Kansas and help her friends as well. Directors: Victor Fleming, George Cukor (uncredited) | 4 more credits Writers:
The Wizards Return: Alex vs. Alex (2013) ::: 6.5/10 -- TV-G | 1h | Animation, Action, Adventure | TV Movie 15 March 2013 -- While visiting Tuscany, Italy, a young wizard accidentally creates an evil version of herself. Director: Victor Gonzalez Writers: Todd J. Greenwald (based on the series created by), Ben Montanio | 2 more credits Stars:
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Black Clover -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 170 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Black Clover Black Clover -- Asta and Yuno were abandoned at the same church on the same day. Raised together as children, they came to know of the "Wizard King"—a title given to the strongest mage in the kingdom—and promised that they would compete against each other for the position of the next Wizard King. However, as they grew up, the stark difference between them became evident. While Yuno is able to wield magic with amazing power and control, Asta cannot use magic at all and desperately tries to awaken his powers by training physically. -- -- When they reach the age of 15, Yuno is bestowed a spectacular Grimoire with a four-leaf clover, while Asta receives nothing. However, soon after, Yuno is attacked by a person named Lebuty, whose main purpose is to obtain Yuno's Grimoire. Asta tries to fight Lebuty, but he is outmatched. Though without hope and on the brink of defeat, he finds the strength to continue when he hears Yuno's voice. Unleashing his inner emotions in a rage, Asta receives a five-leaf clover Grimoire, a "Black Clover" giving him enough power to defeat Lebuty. A few days later, the two friends head out into the world, both seeking the same goal—to become the Wizard King! -- -- -- Licensor: -- Crunchyroll, Funimation -- 957,323 7.96
Code Geass: Soubou no Oz Picture Drama -- -- Sunrise -- 5 eps -- - -- Action Drama Mecha Military School Supernatural -- Code Geass: Soubou no Oz Picture Drama Code Geass: Soubou no Oz Picture Drama -- Code Geass: Soubou no Oz Picture Drama following the lives of two characters from opposite sides of the barricades: Orpheus Zevon—young theorist from KMF searching for the killer of his mistress and Oldrin Zevon—protiteristické member unit of the British Empire "Glindyni knights." Drama quite obviously inspired by the classic story of The Wizard of Oz. -- OVA - Jan 10, 2013 -- 12,041 6.28
Fairy Tail Movie 1: Houou no Miko -- -- A-1 Pictures, Satelight -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Adventure Comedy Fantasy Magic Shounen -- Fairy Tail Movie 1: Houou no Miko Fairy Tail Movie 1: Houou no Miko -- In the mountains of north Fiore lies the Fire Village, where a lush-blue relic known as the Phoenix Stone is preserved. Entrusted to a mystifying woman named Éclair, it is said to contain the power of an ancient phoenix. She wanders the land alone and protects the stone from harm, despite having no memory of why it was left in her care and only the faintest recollection of where she must take it. -- -- After encountering the wizard guild Fairy Tail, Éclair receives an offer from Natsu Dragneel and his friends to help her uncover the mysteries surrounding the stone. However, in the midst of the group's journey, Éclair is suddenly attacked and the stone is taken from her. With this, nefarious intentions to revive the blazing phoenix for its unparalleled power come to light, and the wizards of Fairy Tail find themselves in a situation that could spell calamity. They must now work together to prevent the revival of the phoenix and save the world from ruin. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- Movie - Aug 18, 2012 -- 171,203 7.39
Fairy Tail Movie 1: Houou no Miko -- -- A-1 Pictures, Satelight -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Adventure Comedy Fantasy Magic Shounen -- Fairy Tail Movie 1: Houou no Miko Fairy Tail Movie 1: Houou no Miko -- In the mountains of north Fiore lies the Fire Village, where a lush-blue relic known as the Phoenix Stone is preserved. Entrusted to a mystifying woman named Éclair, it is said to contain the power of an ancient phoenix. She wanders the land alone and protects the stone from harm, despite having no memory of why it was left in her care and only the faintest recollection of where she must take it. -- -- After encountering the wizard guild Fairy Tail, Éclair receives an offer from Natsu Dragneel and his friends to help her uncover the mysteries surrounding the stone. However, in the midst of the group's journey, Éclair is suddenly attacked and the stone is taken from her. With this, nefarious intentions to revive the blazing phoenix for its unparalleled power come to light, and the wizards of Fairy Tail find themselves in a situation that could spell calamity. They must now work together to prevent the revival of the phoenix and save the world from ruin. -- -- Movie - Aug 18, 2012 -- 171,203 7.39
Kono Danshi, Mahou ga Oshigoto Desu. -- -- CoMix Wave Films -- 4 eps -- Original -- Magic Fantasy Shounen Ai -- Kono Danshi, Mahou ga Oshigoto Desu. Kono Danshi, Mahou ga Oshigoto Desu. -- Chiharu Kashima, captain of the Wizard Bureau's Crisis Countermeasures Division, is among a handful of people who can use magic. While frequenting his favorite bar, he is approached by a friendly man named Toyohi Utsumi. Having always dreamt of being a wizard, Toyohi is enthralled by the idea of meeting one. Much to the young Captain's surprise, Toyohi confesses that he has fallen in love with Kashima. While little time as passed, the two begin to spend more time together. Not all is well, however, as Kashima fears that magic is all that he has and Toyohi is only in love with Kashima the Wizard. -- -- 23,086 7.03
Kuusen Madoushi Kouhosei no Kyoukan -- -- Diomedéa -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Drama Fantasy Magic School -- Kuusen Madoushi Kouhosei no Kyoukan Kuusen Madoushi Kouhosei no Kyoukan -- Years ago, humanity almost got wiped out by huge magical armored insects that had become too strong and aggressive to handle. Because of these giant bugs, humans do not live on the earth anymore, but in floating cities instead. However, this does not mean that everything is lost, because the wizards from prestigious floating wizard academies are fighting these monsters. -- -- Kanata Age is a young man now labelled as a traitor even though he was once praised as the "Black Master Swordsman." He gets a chance to repair his reputation by instructing the team E601, which seems to be facing some difficulties. It consists of three girls, Misora Whitale, Lecty Eisenach, and Rico Flamel, each with problems of their own. It appears that Kanata will get in deep waters more than once because of them... -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 204,840 6.38
Magma Taishi -- -- - -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Action Space Super Power Sci-Fi Shounen -- Magma Taishi Magma Taishi -- The alien invader Goa plots to conquer the Earth. He first warns the Murakami family (father Atsushi, mother Tomoko, and son Mamoru) of their invasion, and demonstrates his powers by transporting them to a prehistoric jungle and destroying a Giant Dinosaur before their very eyes. But they will not agree to surrender to Goa, so hope comes in the form of Magma, an armored, golden giant with long hair and antennae. He and his human-sized wife Mol, both created by the wizard Earth are sent to defend our world against Goa. They befriend Atsushi and Mamoru, the latter has Magma emotionally touched, as he wanted to have a child with his wife Mol, so Earth creates a duplicate of Mamoru, named Gam Earth gives Mamoru a whistle, with which he can call Gam Mol and Magma in times of crisis. So when Goa unleashes his various daikaiju, chances are, Magma, Mol, and Gam will fly to the rescue. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- OVA - Feb 21, 1993 -- 865 5.91
Mahoutsukai no Yome: Nishi no Shounen to Seiran no Kishi -- -- Studio Kafka -- 3 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Mahoutsukai no Yome: Nishi no Shounen to Seiran no Kishi Mahoutsukai no Yome: Nishi no Shounen to Seiran no Kishi -- The story takes place shortly before Cartaphilus took a nap and Chise became an auditor at the academy. -- -- Elias and his friends help Chise prepare for the academy, where in the middle of everyday life, Spriggan visits the mansion on a spooky horse with the words, "The appearance of the ghost hunting association is unusual this time." -- -- Gabriel, an ordinary boy who just moved from London, was bored of his environment of parting with friends, being in an unfamiliar location, and everything else. Sitting by the window and glancing beyond, he spotted a purple smoke and decided to chase after it, looking to escape his boredom. Though it should not, the world of the boy begins to converge with the wizards, who live on the other side behind a thick veil. -- -- (Source: MAL News) -- OVA - Sep 10, 2021 -- 18,799 N/A -- -- Ai Tenshi Densetsu Wedding Peach -- -- OLM -- 51 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Magic Comedy Romance Shoujo -- Ai Tenshi Densetsu Wedding Peach Ai Tenshi Densetsu Wedding Peach -- There are three known worlds—the human world, the angel world, and the devil world. The evil queen Raindevilla yearns to destroy the angel world with help or her many devil minions. The goddess Aphrodite sends an angel to the human world, Limone, to summon three love angels in the form of three school girls, Momoko Hanasaki, Yuri Tanima, and Hinagiku Tamano, who together become Angel Lilly, Angel Daisy, and Wedding Peach. The three girls must fight to overcome the evils of the devils, as well as their own lives, and restore peace to the angel world by gathering all pieces of the Sacred Four Somethings (or Saint Something Four) and defeat the evil queen once and for all. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films -- 18,769 6.68
Mahoutsukai no Yome: Nishi no Shounen to Seiran no Kishi -- -- Studio Kafka -- 3 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Mahoutsukai no Yome: Nishi no Shounen to Seiran no Kishi Mahoutsukai no Yome: Nishi no Shounen to Seiran no Kishi -- The story takes place shortly before Cartaphilus took a nap and Chise became an auditor at the academy. -- -- Elias and his friends help Chise prepare for the academy, where in the middle of everyday life, Spriggan visits the mansion on a spooky horse with the words, "The appearance of the ghost hunting association is unusual this time." -- -- Gabriel, an ordinary boy who just moved from London, was bored of his environment of parting with friends, being in an unfamiliar location, and everything else. Sitting by the window and glancing beyond, he spotted a purple smoke and decided to chase after it, looking to escape his boredom. Though it should not, the world of the boy begins to converge with the wizards, who live on the other side behind a thick veil. -- -- (Source: MAL News) -- OVA - Sep 10, 2021 -- 18,799 N/A -- -- Danchigai: Juusan Goutou Sentou Ikitai!! -- -- Creators in Pack -- 1 ep -- 4-koma manga -- Slice of Life Comedy -- Danchigai: Juusan Goutou Sentou Ikitai!! Danchigai: Juusan Goutou Sentou Ikitai!! -- Unaired episode of Danchigai included on the Blu-ray/DVD volume. -- Special - Sep 18, 2015 -- 18,734 6.44
Mahoutsukai no Yome: Nishi no Shounen to Seiran no Kishi -- -- Studio Kafka -- 3 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Mahoutsukai no Yome: Nishi no Shounen to Seiran no Kishi Mahoutsukai no Yome: Nishi no Shounen to Seiran no Kishi -- The story takes place shortly before Cartaphilus took a nap and Chise became an auditor at the academy. -- -- Elias and his friends help Chise prepare for the academy, where in the middle of everyday life, Spriggan visits the mansion on a spooky horse with the words, "The appearance of the ghost hunting association is unusual this time." -- -- Gabriel, an ordinary boy who just moved from London, was bored of his environment of parting with friends, being in an unfamiliar location, and everything else. Sitting by the window and glancing beyond, he spotted a purple smoke and decided to chase after it, looking to escape his boredom. Though it should not, the world of the boy begins to converge with the wizards, who live on the other side behind a thick veil. -- -- (Source: MAL News) -- OVA - Sep 10, 2021 -- 18,799 N/A -- -- Kyoushoku Soukou Guyver (2005) -- -- OLM -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Sci-Fi Shounen -- Kyoushoku Soukou Guyver (2005) Kyoushoku Soukou Guyver (2005) -- Sho Fukamachi, a normal teenager accidentally found an alien object called Unit and thus, changed his life forever. The Unit bonded with Sho, resulting in an incredibly powerful life-form called Guyver. With this great power, Sho battles the mysterious Chronos organization and it's Zoanoids, in order to protect his friends and his world. Unknown to Sho, the battle against Chronos will lead to the discovery of the origins of human, their destiny, and the Creators... -- -- (Source: ANN) -- 18,791 7.25
OZ -- -- Madhouse, Studio Fantasia -- 2 eps -- Manga -- Action Military Sci-Fi Drama Shoujo -- OZ OZ -- Loosely based on L.F. Baum's novel, The Wizard of Oz. Original manga done by Itsuki Natsumi. -- -- A nuclear war has killed most of humanity and split the USA into six warring states. By 2021, a legend has grown up about the fabled city of OZ where everything still works. Scientist Felicia sets out in search of it with the mercenary Muto and android 1019. At the end of the quest they only discover a military base and a madman. -- -- A mercenary was hired by a girl to bring her to the mythical Oz (a paradise) where her missing brother supposedly lived. Accompanying them was a cyborg sent by her brother. But Oz was not the paradise it seemed and her brother was not as sane as he was smart. -- -- (Source: AniDB) -- OVA - Aug 28, 1992 -- 1,523 5.48
Adaptations of The Wizard of Oz
Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne
Billy the Wizard: Rocket Broomstick Racing
Crypt of the Wizard
Defilers and Preservers: The Wizards of Athas
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz
Fantastic Beasts: Cases From the Wizarding World
Grey Star the Wizard
Kaytek the Wizard
Legacy of the Wizard
Nemesis: The Wizardry Adventure
Off to See the Wizard
Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz
Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe
Tales of the Wizard of Oz
The Magic of the Wizard's Dream
The Making of The Wizard of Oz
The Waif and the Wizard
The Wizard (1989 film)
The Wizard (DC Thomson)
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Universal Orlando Resort)
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Universal Studios Japan)
The Wizard in the Woods
The Wizard Knight
The Wizard (nickname)
The Wizard (novel)
The Wizard of A.I.D.S.
The Wizard of Gore
The Wizard of Id
The Wizard of Lemuria
The Wizard of Lies
The Wizard of Loneliness (film)
The Wizard of Mars
The Wizard of New Zealand
The Wizard of Odds
The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1902 musical)
The Wizard of Oz (1925 film)
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz (1942 musical)
The Wizard of Oz (1950 film)
The Wizard of Oz (1982 film)
The Wizard of Oz (1987 musical)
The Wizard of Oz (1993 video game)
The Wizard of Oz (album)
The Wizard of Oz (arcade game)
The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True
The Wizard of Oz (pinball)
The Wizard of Oz (TV series)
The Wizard of Speed and Time
The Wizard of Stone Mountain
The Wizard of the Emerald City
The Wizard of the Strings
The Wizard of Venus
The Wizard (Seinfeld)
The Wizards Return: Alex vs. Alex
The Wizard (TV series)
Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz
War of the Wizards
War of the Wizards (gamebook)
We're Off to See the Wizard
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