Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II

by Herman Melville

  "And what are they?" said old Mohi.

  "Of various sorts; which, again, are diverse. Thus: my contrary axiomsare Disjunctive, and Subdisjunctive; and so, with the rest. So, too,in degree, with my Syllogisms."

  "And what of them?"

  "Did I not just hint what they were, my child? I repeat, they are ofvarious sorts: Connex, and Conjunct, for example."

  "And what of them?" persisted Mohi; while Babbalanja, arms folded,stood serious and mute; a sneer on his lip.

  "As with other branches of my dialectics: so, too, in their way, withmy Syllogisms. Thus: when I say,--If it be warm, it is not cold:--that's a simple Sumption. If I add, But it is warm:--that's an_Ass_umption."

  "So called from the syllogist himself, doubtless;" said Mohi, strokinghis beard.

  "Poor ignorant babe! no. Listen:--if finally, I say,--Therefore it isnot cold that's the final inference."

  "And a most triumphant one it is!" cried Babbalanja. "Thrice profound,and sapient Doxodox! Light of Mardi! and Beacon of the Universe! didstever hear of the Shark-Syllogism?"

  "Though thy epithets be true, my child, I distrust thy sincerity. Ihave not yet heard of the syllogism to which thou referrest."

  "It was thus. A shark seized a swimmer by the leg; addressing him:'Friend, I will liberate you, if you truly answer whether you think Ipurpose harm.' Well knowing that sharks seldom were magnanimous, hereplied: Kind sir, you mean me harm; now go your ways.' 'No, no; myconscience forbids. Nor will I falsify the words of so veracious amortal. You were to answer truly; but you say I mean you harm:--soharm it is:--here goes your leg.'"

  "Profane jester! Would'st thou insult me with thy torn-foolery?Begone--all of ye! tramp! pack! I say: away with ye!" and into thewoods Doxodox himself disappeared.

  "Bravely done, Babbalanja!" cried Media. "You turned the corner toadmiration."

  "I have hopes of our Philosopher yet," said Mohi.

  "Outrageous impostor! fool, dotard, oaf! Did he think to bejuggle mewith his preposterous gibberish? And is this shallow phraseman therenowned Doxodox whom I have been taught so highly to reverence? Alas,alas--Odonphi there is none!"

  "His fit again," sighed Yoomy.

  CHAPTER LXVIIIKing Media Dreams

  That afternoon was melting down to eve; all but Media broad awake; yetall motionless, as the slumberer upon the purple mat. Sailing on, withopen eyes, we slept the wakeful sleep of those, who to the body onlygive repose, while the spirit still toils on, threading her mountainpasses.

  King Media's slumbers were like the helmed sentry's in the saddle.From them, he started like an antlered deer, bursting from out acopse. Some said he never slept; that deep within himself he butintensified the hour; or, leaving his crowned brow in marble quiet,unseen, departed to far-off councils of the gods. Howbeit, his lidsnever closed; in the noonday sun, those crystal eyes, like diamonds,sparkled with a fixed light.

  As motionless we thus reclined, Media turned and muttered:--"Brothergods, and demi-gods, it is not well. These mortals should have less ormore. Among my subjects is a man, whose genius scorns the commontheories of things; but whose still mortal mind can not fathom theocean at his feet. His soul's a hollow, wherein he raves."

  "List, list," whispered Yoomy--"our lord is dreaming; and what a royaldream."

  "A very royal and imperial dream," said Babbalanja--"he is arraigningme before high heaven;--ay, ay; in dreams, at least, he deems himselfa demi-god."

  "Hist," said Mohi--"he speaks again."

  "Gods and demi-gods! With one gesture all abysses we may disclose; andbefore this Mardi's eyes, evoke the shrouded time to come. Were thiswell? Like lost children groping in the woods, they falterthrough their tangled paths; and at a thousand angles, baffled, startupon each other. And even when they make an onward move, 'tis but anendless vestibule, that leads to naught. In my own isle of Odo--Odo!Odo! How rules my viceroy there?--Down, down, ye madding mobs! Ho,spearmen, charge! By the firmament, but my halberdiers fly!"

  "His dream has changed," said Babbalanja. "He is in Odo, whither hisanxieties impel him."

  "Hist, hist," said Yoomy.

  "I leap upon the soil! Render thy account, Almanni! Where's my throne?Mohi, am I not a king? Do not thy chronicles record me? Yoomy, am Inot the soul of some one glorious song? Babbalanja, speak.--Mohi! Yoomy!"

  "What is it, my lord? thou dost but dream."

  Staring wildly; then calmly gazing round, Media smiled. "Ha! how weroyalties ramble in our dreams! I've told no secrets?"

  "While he seemed to sleep, my lord spoke much," said Mohi.

  "I knew it not, old man; nor would now; but that ye tell me."

  "We dream not ourselves," said Babbalanja, "but the thing within us."

  "Ay?--good-morrow Azzageddi!--But come; no more dreams: Vee-Vee! wine."

  And straight through that livelong night, immortal Media plied the can.

  CHAPTER LXIXAfter A Long Interval, By Night They Are Becalmed

  Now suns rose, and set; moons grew, and waned; till, at last, the starthat erewhile heralded the dawn, presaged the eve; to us, sad token!--while deep within the deepest heart of Mardi's circle, we sailed fromsea to sea; and isle to isle; and group to group;--vast empiresexplored, and inland valleys, to their utmost heads; and for every rayin heaven, beheld a king.

  Needless to recount all that then befell; what tribes and caravans wesaw; what vast horizons; boundless plains: and sierras, in their everyintervale, a nation nestling.

  Enough that still we roamed.

  It was evening; and as the red sun, magnified, launched into the wave,once more, from a wild strand, we launched our three canoes.

  Soon, from her clouds, hooded Night, like a nun from a convent, drewnigh. Rustled her train, yet no spangles were there. But high on herbrow, still shone her pale crescent; haloed by bandelets--violet, red,and yellow. So looked the lone watcher through her rainbow-iris; sosad, the night without stars.

  The winds were laid; the lagoon, still, as a prairie of an August noon.

  "Let us dream out the calm," said Media. "One of ye paddlers, watch:Ho companions! who's for Cathay?"

  Sleep reigned throughout the canoes, sleeping upon the waters. Butnearer and nearer, low-creeping along, came mists and vapors, athousand; spotted with twinklings of Will-o-Wisps fromneighboring shores. Dusky leopards, stealing on by crouches, thosevapors seemed.

  Hours silently passed. When startled by a cry, Taji sprang to hisfeet; against which something rattled; then, a quick splash! and adark form bounded into the lagoon.

  The dozing watcher had called aloud; and, about to stab, the assassin,dropping his stiletto, plunged.

  Peering hard through those treacherous mists, two figures in ashallop, were espied; dragging another, dripping, from the brine.

  "Foiled again, and foiled forever. No foe's corpse was I."

  As we gazed, in the gloom quickly vanished the shallop; ere ours couldbe reversed to pursue.

  Then, from the opposite mists, glided a second canoe; and beneath theIris round the moon, shone now another:--Hautia's flowery flag!

  Vain to wave the sirens off; so still they came.

  One waved a plant of sickly silver-green.

  "The Midnight Tremmella!" cried Yoomy; "the falling-star of flowers!--Still I come, when least foreseen; then flee."

  The second waved a hemlock top, the spike just tapering its finalpoint. The third, a convolvulus, half closed. "The end draws nigh, andall thy hopes are waning." Then they proffered grapes.

  But once more waved off, silently they vanished.

  Again the buried barb tore, at my soul; again Yillah was invoked, butHautia made reply.

  Slowly wore out the night. But when uprose the sun, fled clouds, andfled sadness.

  CHAPTER LXXThey Land At Hooloomooloo

  "Keep all three prows, for yonder rock." cried Media; "No sadness onthis merry morn! And now for the Isle of Cripples,--evenHooloomooloo."

  "The Isle of Cripples?"

  "Ay; why not? Moh
i, tell how they came to club." In substance, thiswas the narration.

  Averse to the barbarous custom of destroying at birth all infants notsymmetrically formed; but equally desirous of removing from theirsight those unfortunate beings; the islanders of a neighboring grouphad long ago established an asylum for cripples; where they lived,subject to their own regulations; ruled by a king of their ownelection; in short, forming a distinct class of beings by themselves.

  One only restriction was placed upon them: on no account must theyquit the isle assigned them. And to the surrounding islanders, sounpleasant the sight of a distorted mortal, that a stranger landing atHooloomooloo, was deemed a prodigy. Wherefore, respecting anyknowledge of aught beyond them, the cripples were well nigh asisolated, as if Hooloomooloo was the only terra-firma extant.

  Dwelling in a community of their own, these unfortunates, whootherwise had remained few in number, increased and multipliedgreatly. Nor did successive generations improve in symmetry upon thosepreceding them.

  Soon, we drew nigh to the isle.

  Heaped up, and jagged with rocks; and, here and there, covered withdwarfed, twisted thickets, it seemed a fit place for its denizens.

  Landing, we were surrounded by a heterogeneous mob; and thus escorted,took our way inland, toward the abode of their lord, King Yoky.

  What a scene!

  Here, helping himself along with two crotched roots, hobbled a dwarfwithout legs; another stalked before, one arm fixed in the air, like alightning rod; a third, more active than any, seal-like, flirted apair of flippers, and went skipping along; a fourth hopped on asolitary pin, at every bound, spinning round like a top, to gaze;while still another, furnished with feelers or fins, rolled himself upin a ball, bowling over the ground in advance.

  With curious instinct, the blind stuck close to our side; with theirchattering finger, the deaf and the dumb described angles, obtuse andacute in the air; and like stones rolling down rocky ravines, scoresof stammerers stuttered. Discord wedded deformity. All asses' brayswere now harmonious memories; all Calibans, as angels.

  Yet for every stare we gave them, three stares they gave us.

  At last, we halted before a tenement of rude stones; crooked Banianboughs its rafters, thatched with fantastic leaves. So rambling andirregular its plan, it seemed thrown up by the eruption, according tosage Mohi, the origin of the isle itself.

  Entering, we saw King Yoky.

  Ah! sadly lacking was he, in all the requisites of an efficient ruler.Deaf and dumb he was; and save arms, minus every thing but anindispensable trunk and head. So huge his all-comprehensive mouth, itseemed to swallow up itself.

  But shapeless, helpless as was Yoky,--as king of Hooloomooloo, he wascompetent; the state being a limited monarchy, of which his Highnesswas but the passive and ornamental head.

  As his visitors advanced, he fell to gossiping with his fingers: aservitor interpreting. Very curious to note the rapidity withwhich motion was translated into sound; and the simultaneousness withwhich meaning made its way through four successive channels to themind--hand, sight, voice, and tympanum.

  Much amazement His Highness now expressed; horrified his glances.

  "Why club such frights as ye? Herd ye, to keep in countenance; or areafraid of your own hideousness, that ye dread to go alone? Monsters!speak."

  "Great Oro!" cried Mohi, "are we then taken for cripples, by the veryKing of the Cripples? My lord, are not our legs and arms all right?"

  "Comelier ones were never turned by turners, Mohi. But royal Yoky! insooth we feel abashed before thee."

  Some further stares were then exchanged; when His Highness sought toknow, whether there were any Comparative Anatomists among hisvisitors.

  "Comparative Anatomists! not one."

  "And why may King Yoky ask that question?" inquired Babbalanja.

  Then was made the following statement.

  During the latter part of his reign, when he seemed fallen into hisdotage, the venerable predecessor of King Yoky had been much attachedto an old gray-headed Chimpanzee, one day found meditating in thewoods. Rozoko was his name. He was very grave, and reverend of aspect;much of a philosopher. To him, all gnarled and knotty subjects werefamiliar; in his day he had cracked many a crabbed nut. And so in lovewith his Timonean solitude was Rozoko, that it needed many bribes andbland persuasions, to induce him to desert his mossy, hillside,misanthropic cave, for the distracting tumult of a court.

  But ere long, promoted to high offices, and made the royal favorite,the woodland sage forgot his forests; and, love for love, returned theaged king's caresses. Ardent friends they straight became; dined anddrank together; with quivering lips, quaffed long-drawn, soberbumpers; comparing all their past experiences; and canvassing thosehidden themes, on which octogenarians dilate.

  For when the fires and broils of youth are passed, and Mardi wears itstruer aspect--then we love to think, not act; the present seems moreunsubstantial than the past; then, we seek out gray-beards likeourselves; and hold discourse of palsies, hearses, shrouds, and tombs;appoint our undertakers; our mantles gather round us, like to winding-sheets; and every night lie down to die. Then, the world's greatbubble bursts; then, Life's clouds seem sweeping by, revealing heavento our straining eyes; then, we tell our beads, and murmur pater-nosters; and in trembling accents cry--"Oro! be merciful."

  So, the monarch and Rozoko.

  But not always were they thus. Of bright, cheerful mornings, they tookslow, tottering rambles in the woods; nodding over grotesque walking-sticks, of the Chimpanzee's handiwork. For sedate Rozoko was adilletante-arborist: an amateur in canes. Indeed, canes at last becamehis hobby. For half daft with age, sometimes he straddled his goodstaff and gently rode abroad, to take the salubrious evening air;deeming it more befitting exercise, at times, than walking. Into thismenage, he soon initiated his friend, the king; and side by side theyoften pranced; or, wearying of the saddle, dismounted; and paused toponder over prostrate palms, decaying across the path. Their mysticrings they counted; and, for every ring, a year in their owncalendars.

  Now, so closely did the monarch cleave to the Chimpanzee, that, ingood time, summoning his subjects, earnestly he charged it on them,that at death, he and his faithful friend should be buried in onetomb.

  It came to pass, the monarch died; and Poor Rozoko, now reduced tosecond childhood, wailed most dismally:--no one slept that night inHooloomooloo. Never did he leave the body; and at last, slowly goinground it thrice, he laid him down; close nestled; andnoiselessly expired.

  The king's injunctions were remembered; and one vault received themboth.

  Moon followed moon; and wrought upon by jeers and taunts, the peopleof the isle became greatly scandalized, that a base-born baboon shouldshare the shroud of their departed lord; though they themselves hadtucked in the aged AEneas fast by the side of his Achates.

  They straight resolved, to build another vault; and over it, a loftycairn; and thither carry the remains they reverenced.

  But at the disinterring, a sad perplexity arose. For lo surpassingSaul and Jonathan, not even in decay were these fast friends divided.So mingled every relic,--ilium and ulna, carpus and metacarpus;--andso similar the corresponding parts, that like the literary remains ofBeaumont and of Fletcher, which was which, no spectacles could tell.Therefore, they desisted; lest the towering monument they had reared,might commemorate an ape, and not a king.

  Such the narration; hearing which, my lord Media kept stately silence.But in courtly phrase, as beseemed him, Babbalanja, turban in hand,thus spoke:--

  "My concern is extreme, King Yoky, at the embarrassment into whichyour island is thrown. Nor less my grief, that I myself am not theman, to put an end to it. I could weep that Comparative Anatomists arenot so numerous now, as hereafter they assuredly must become; whentheir services shall be in greater request; when, at the last, lastday of all, millions of noble and ignoble spirits will loudly clamorfor lost skeletons; when contending claimants shall start up for onepoor, carious spine; and,
dog-like, we shall quarrel over our ownbones."

  Then entered dwarf-stewards, and major-domos; aloft bearing twistedantlers; all hollowed out in goblets, grouped; announcing dinner.

  Loving not, however, to dine with misshapen Mardians, King Media wasloth to move. But Babbalanja, quoting the old proverb--"Strike me inthe face, but refuse not my yams," induced him to sacrifice hisfastidiousness.

  So, under a flourish of ram-horn bugles, court and company proceededto the banquet.

  Central was a long, dislocated trunk of a wild Banian; like a hugecentipede crawling on its hundred branches, sawn of even lengths forlegs. This table was set out with wry-necked gourds; deformities ofcalabashes; and shapeless trenchers, dug out of knotty woods.

  The first course was shrimp-soup, served in great clamp-shells; thesecond, lobsters, cuttle-fish, crabs, cockles, cray-fish; the third,hunchbacked roots of the Taro-plant--plantains, perversely curling atthe end, like the inveterate tails of pertinacious pigs; and fordessert, ill-shaped melons, huge as idiots' heads, plainly sufferingfrom water in the brain.

  Now these viands were commended to the favorable notice of all guests;not only for their delicacy of flavor, but for their symmetry.

  And in the intervals of the courses, we were bored with hints toadmire numerous objects of vertu: bow-legged stools of mangrove wood;zig-zag rapiers of bone; armlets of grampus-vertebrae; outlandishtureens of the callipees of terrapin; and cannakins of the skulls ofbaboons.

  The banquet over, with many congees, we withdrew.