Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II

by Herman Melville

  "Back, curs!" cried Media. "Harm not a hair of his head. I cravepardon, King Abrazza, but no violence must be done Babbalanja."

  "Trumpets there!" said Abrazza; "so: the banquet is done--lights forKing Media! Good-night, my lord!"

  Now, thus, for the nonce, with good cheer, we close. And after manyfine dinners and banquets--through light and through shade; throughmirth, sorrow, and all--drawing nigh to the evening end of thesewanderings wild--meet is it that all should be regaled with a supper.

  CHAPTER LXXVIIIThey Embark

  Next morning, King Abrazza sent frigid word to Media that the day wasvery fine for yachting; but he much regretted that indisposition wouldprevent his making one of the party, who that morning doubtless woulddepart his isle.

  "My compliments to your king," said Media to the chamberlains, "andsay the royal notice to quit was duly received."

  "Take Azzageddi's also," said Babbalanja; "and say, I hope hisHighness will not fail in his appointment with me:--the first midnightafter he dies; at the grave-yard corner;--there I'll be, and grin again!"

  Sailing on, the next land we saw was thickly wooded: hedged roundabout by mangrove trees; which growing in the water, yet lifted hightheir boughs. Here and there were shady nooks, half verdure and halfwater. Fishes rippled, and canaries sung.

  "Let us break through, my lord," said Yoomy, "and seek the shore. Itssolitudes must prove reviving." "Solitudes they are," cried Mohi.

  "Peopled but not enlivened," said Babbalanja. "Hard landing here,minstrel! see you not the isle is hedged?"

  "Why, break through, then," said Media. "Yillah is not here."

  "I mistrusted it," sighed Yoomy; "an imprisoned island! full ofuncomplaining woes: like many others we must have glided by,unheedingly. Yet of them have I heard. This isle many pass, markingits outward brightness, but dreaming not of the sad secretshere embowered. Haunt of the hopeless! In those inland woods broodMardians who have tasted Mardi, and found it bitter--the draught sosweet to others!--maidens whose unimparted bloom has cankered in thebud; and children, with eyes averted from life's dawn--like those new-oped morning blossoms which, foreseeing storms, turn and close."

  "Yoomy's rendering of the truth," said Mohi.

  "Why land, then?" said Media. "No merry man of sense--no demi-god likeme, will do it. Let's away; let's see all that's pleasant, or thatseems so, in our circuit, and, if possible, shun the sad."

  "Then we have circled not the round reef wholly," said Babbalanja,"but made of it a segment. For this is far from being the first sadland, my lord, that we have slighted at your instance."

  "No more. I will have no gloom. A chorus! there, ye paddlers! spreadall your sails; ply paddles; breeze up, merry winds!"

  And so, in the saffron sunset, we neared another shore.

  A gloomy-looking land! black, beetling crags, rent by volcanic clefts;ploughed up with water-courses, and dusky with charred woods. Thebeach was strewn with scoria and cinders; in dolorous soughs, a chillwind blew; wails issued from the caves; and yellow, spooming surges,lashed the moaning strand.

  "Shall we land?" said Babbalanja.

  "Not here," cried Yoomy; "no Yillah here."

  "No," said Media. "This is another of those lands far better toavoid."

  "Know ye not," said Mohi, "that here are the mines of King Klanko,whose scourged slaves, toiling in their pits, so nigh approach thevolcano's bowels, they hear its rumblings? 'Yet they must work on,'cries Klanko, 'the mines still yield!' And daily his slaves' bones arebrought above ground, mixed with the metal masses."

  "Set all sail there, men! away!"

  "My lord," said Babbalanja; "still must we shun the unmitigated evil;and only view the good; or evil so mixed therewith, the mixture'sboth?"

  Half vailed in misty clouds, the harvest-moon now rose; and in thatpale and haggard light, all sat silent; each man in his own secretmood: best knowing his own thoughts.

  CHAPTER LXXIXBabbalanja At The Full Of The Moon

  "Ho, mortals! Go we to a funeral, that our paddles seem thus muffled?Up heart, Taji! or does that witch Hautia haunt thee? Be a demi-godonce more, and laugh. Her flowers are not barbs; and the avengers'arrows are too blunt to slay. Babbalanja! Mohi! Yoomy! up heart! upheart!--By Oro! I will debark the whole company on the next land wemeet. No tears for me. Ha, ha! let us laugh. Ho, Vee-Vee! awake;quick, boy,--some wine! and let us make glad, beneath the glad moon.Look! it is stealing forth from its clouds. Perdition to Hautia! Longlives, and merry ones to ourselves! Taji, my charming fellow, here'sto you:--May your heart be a stone! Ha, ha!--will nobody join me? Mylaugh is lonely as his who laughed in his tomb. Come, laugh; will noone quaff wine, I say? See! the round moon is abroad."

  "Say you so, my lord? then for one, I am with you;" cried Babbalanja."Fill me a brimmer. Ah! but this wine leaps through me like a panther.Ay, let us laugh: let us roar: let us yell! What, if I was sad butjust now? Life is an April day, that both laughs and weeps in abreath. But whoso is wise, laughs when he can. Men fly from a groan;but run to a laugh. Vee-Vee! your gourd. My lord, let me help you. Ah,how it sparkles! Cups, cups, Vee-Vee, more cups! Here, Taji, takethat: Mohi, take that: Yoomy, take that. And now let us drown awaygrief. Ha! ha! the house of mourning, is deserted, though of old goodcheer kept the funeral guests; and so keep I mine; here I sitby my dead, and replenish your wine cups. Old Mohi, your cup: Yoomy,yours: ha! ha! let us laugh, let us scream! Weeds are put off at afair; no heart bursts but in secret; it is good to laugh, though thelaugh be hollow; and wise to make merry, now and for aye. Laugh, andmake friends: weep, and they go. Women sob, and are rid of theirgrief: men laugh, and retain it. There is laughter in heaven, andlaughter in hell. And a deep thought whose language is laughter.Though wisdom be wedded to woe, though the way thereto is by tears,yet all ends in a shout. But wisdom wears no weeds; woe is more merrythan mirth; 'tis a shallow grief that is sad. Ha! ha! how demoniacsshout; how all skeletons grin; we all die with a rattle. Laugh! laugh!Are the cherubim grave? Humor, thy laugh is divine; whence, mirth-making idiots have been revered; and therefore may I. Ho! let us begay, if it be only for an hour, and Death hand us the goblet. Vee-Vee!bring on your gourds! Let us pledge each other in bumpers!--let uslaugh, laugh, laugh it out to the last. All sages have laughed,--letus; Bardianna laughed, let us; Demorkriti laughed,--let us: Amoreelaughed,--let us; Rabeelee roared,--let us; the hyenas grin, thejackals yell,--let us.--But you don't laugh, my lord? laugh away!"

  "No, thank you, Azzageddi, not after that infernal fashion; betterweep."

  "He makes me crawl all over, as if I were an ant-hill," said Mohi.

  "He's mad, mad, mad!" cried Yoomy.

  "Ay, mad, mad, mad!--mad as the mad fiend that rides me!--But come,sweet minstrel, wilt list to a song?--We madmen are all poets, youknow:--Ha! ha!--

  Stars laugh in the sky: Oh fugle-fi I The waves dimple below: Oh fugle-fo!

  "The wind strikes her dulcimers; the groves give a shout; thehurricane is only an hysterical laugh; and the lightning that blasts,blasts only in play. We must laugh or we die; to laugh is to live. Notto laugh is to have the tetanus. Will you weep? then laugh while youweep. For mirth and sorrow are kin; are published by identical nerves.Go, Yoomy: go study anatomy: there is much to be learned from thedead, more than you may learn from the living and I am dead though Ilive; and as soon dissect myself as another; I curiously look into mysecrets: and grope under my ribs. I have found that the heart is notwhole, but divided; that it seeks a soft cushion whereon to repose;that it vitalizes the blood; which else were weaker than water: I havefound that we can not live without hearts; though the heartless livelongest. Yet hug your hearts, ye handful that have them; 'tis ablessed inheritance! Thus, thus, my lord, I run on; from one pole tothe other; from this thing to that. But so the great world goes round,and in one Somerset, shows the sun twenty-five thousand miles of alandscape!"

  At that instant, down went the fiery full-moon, and the Dog-Star; andfar down into Media, a Tivoli of wine.


  CHAPTER LXXXMorning

  Life or death, weal or woe, the sun stays not his course. On: overbattle-field and bower; over tower, and town, he speeds,--peers in atbirths, and death-beds; lights up cathedral, mosque, and paganshrine;--laughing over all;--a very Democritus in the sky; and in onebrief day sees more than any pilgrim in a century's round.

  So, the sun; nearer heaven than we:--with what mind, then, may blessedOro downward look.

  It was a purple, red, and yellow East;--streaked, and crossed. Anddown from breezy mountains, robust and ruddy Morning came,--a plaidedHighlander, waving his plumed bonnet to the isles.

  Over the neighboring groves the larks soared high; and soaring, sangin jubilees; while across our bows, between two isles, a mighty mooseswam stately as a seventy-four; and backward tossed his antleredwilderness in air.

  Just bounding from fresh morning groves, with the brine he mixed thedew of leaves,--his antlers dripping on the swell, that rippled beforehis brown and bow-like chest.

  "Five hundred thousand centuries since," said Babbalanja, "this samesight was seen. With Oro, the sun is co-eternal; and the same lifethat moves that moose, animates alike the sun and Oro. All are partsof One. In me, in _me_, flit thoughts participated by the beingspeopling all the stars. Saturn, and Mercury, and Mardi, are brothers,one and all; and across their orbits, to each other talk, like souls.Of these things what chapters might be writ! Oh! that flesh can notkeep pace with spirit. Oh! that these myriad germ-dramas in me,should so perish hourly, for lack of power mechanic.--Worlds passworlds in space, as men, men,--in thoroughfares; and after periods ofthousand years, cry:--"Well met, my friend, again!"--To me to _me_,they talk in mystic music; I hear them think through all their zones.--Hail, furthest worlds! and all the beauteous beings in ye! Fan me,sweet Zenora! with thy twilight wings!--Ho! let's voyage toAldebaran.--Ha! indeed, a ruddy world! What a buoyant air! Not like toMardi, this. Ruby columns: minarets of amethyst: diamond domes! Who isthis?--a god? What a lake-like brow! transparent as the morning air. Isee his thoughts like worlds revolving--and in his eyes--like untoheavens--soft falling stars are shooting.--How these thousand passingwings winnow away my breath:--I faint:--back, back to some smallasteroid.--Sweet being! if, by Mardian word I may address thee--speak!--'I bear a soul in germ within me; I feel the first, fainttrembling, like to a harp-string, vibrate in my inmost being. Kill me,and generations die.'--So, of old, the unbegotten lived within thevirgin; who then loved her God, as new-made mothers their babes ereborn. Oh, Alma, Alma, Alma!--Fangs off, fiend!--will that name everlash thee into foam?--Smite not my face so, forked flames!"

  "Babbalanja! Babbalanja! rouse, man! rouse! Art in hell and damned,that thy sinews so snake-like coil and twist all over thee? Thy browis black as Ops! Turn, turn! see yonder moose!"

  "Hail! mighty brute!--thou feelest not these things: never canst_thou_ be damned. Moose! would thy soul were mine; for if thatscorched thing, mine, be immortal--so thine; and thy life hath not theconsciousness of death. I read profound placidity--deep--million--violet fathoms down, in that soft, pathetic, woman eye! What is man'sshrunk form to thine, thou woodland majesty?--Moose, moose!--my soulis shot again--Oh, Oro! Oro!"

  "He falls!" cried Media.

  "Mark the agony in his waning eye," said Yoomy;--"alas, poorBabbalanja! Is this thing of madness conscious to thyself? If everthou art sane again, wilt thou have reminiscences? Take my robe:--here, I strip me to cover thee and all thy woes. Oro! by this, thybeing's side, I kneel:--grant death or happiness to Babbalanja!"

  CHAPTER LXXXIL'ultima Sera

  Thus far, through myriad islands, had we searched: of all, no one penmay write: least, mine;--and still no trace of Yillah.

  But though my hopes revived not from their ashes; yet, so much ofMardi had we searched, it seemed as if the long pursuit must, ere manymoons, be ended; whether for weal or woe, my frenzy sometimes reeked not.

  After its first fair morning flushings, all that day was overcast. Wesailed upon an angry sea, beneath an angry sky. Deep scowled on deep;and in dun vapors, the blinded sun went down, unseen; though fulltoward the West our three prows were pointed; steadfast as threeprinted points upon the compass-card.

  "When we set sail from Odo, 'twas a glorious morn in spring," saidYoomy; "toward the rising sun we steered. But now, beneath autumnalnight-clouds, we hasten to its setting."

  "How now?" cried Media; "why is the minstrel mournful?--He whose placeit is to chase away despondency: not be its minister."

  "Ah, my lord, so _thou_ thinkest. But better can my verses soothe thesad, than make them light of heart. Nor are we minstrels so gay ofsoul as Mardi deems us. The brook that sings the sweetest, murmursthrough the loneliest woods:

  The isles hold thee not, thou departed! From thy bower, now issues no lay:-- In vain we recall perished warblings: Spring birds, to far climes, wing their way!"

  As Yoomy thus sang; unmindful of the lay, with paddle plying, in low,pleasant tones, thus hummed to himself our bowsman, a gamesome wight:--

  Ho! merrily ho! we paddlers sail! Ho! over sea-dingle, and dale!-- Our pulses fly, Our hearts beat high, Ho! merrily, merrily, ho!

  But a sudden splash, and a shrill, gurgling sound, like that of afountain subsiding, now broke upon the air. Then all was still, savethe rush of the waves by our keels.

  "Save him! Put back!"

  From his elevated seat, the merry bowsman, too gleefully reachingforward, had fallen into the lagoon.

  With all haste, our speeding canoes were reversed; but not till we haddarted in upon another darkness than that in which the bowsman fell.

  As, blindly, we groped back, deep Night dived deeper down in the sea.

  "Drop paddles all, and list."

  Holding their breath, over the six gunwales all now leaned; but theonly moans were the wind's.

  Long time we lay thus; then slowly crossed and recrossed our track,almost hopeless; but yet loth to leave him who, with a song in hismouth, died and was buried in a breath.

  "Let us away," said Media--"why seek more? He is gone."

  "Ay, gone," said Babbalanja, "and whither? But a moment since, he wasamong us: now, the fixed stars are not more remote than he. So faroff, can he live? Oh, Oro! this death thou ordainest, unmans themanliest. Say not nay, my lord. Let us not speak behind Death's back.Hard and horrible is it to die: blindfold to leap from life's verge!But thus, in clouds of dust, and with a trampling as of hoofs, thegenerations disappear; death driving them all into his treacherousfold, as wild Indians the bison herds. Nay, nay, Death isLife's last despair. Hard and horrible is it to die. Oro himself, inAlma, died not without a groan. Yet why, why live? Life is wearisometo all: the same dull round. Day and night, summer and winter, roundabout us revolving for aye. One moment lived, is a life. No new starsappear in the sky; no new lights in the soul. Yet, of changes thereare many. For though, with rapt sight, in childhood, we behold manystrange things beneath the moon, and all Mardi looks a tented fair--how soon every thing fades. All of us, in our very bodies, outlive ourown selves. I think of green youth as of a merry playmate departed;and to shake hands, and be pleasant with my old age, seems in prospecteven harder, than to draw a cold stranger to my bosom. But old age isnot for me. I am not of the stuff that grows old. This Mardi is notour home. Up and down we wander, like exiles transported to a planetafar:--'tis not the world _we_ were born in; not the world once solightsome and gay; not the world where we once merrily danced, dined,and supped; and wooed, and wedded our long-buried wives. Then let usdepart. But whither? We push ourselves forward then, start back inaffright. Essay it again, and flee. Hard to live; hard to die;intolerable suspense! But the grim despot at last interposes; and witha viper in our winding-sheets, we are dropped in the sea."

  "To me," said Mohi, his gray locks damp with night-dews, "death's darkdefile at times seems at hand, with no voice to cheer. That all havedied, makes it not easier for me to depart. And that many have beenquenched in infancy seems a mercy to
the slow perishing of my old age,limb by limb and sense by sense. I have long been the tomb of myyouth. And more has died out of me, already, than remains for the lastdeath to finish. Babbalanja says truth. In childhood, death stirred menot; in middle age, it pursued me like a prowling bandit on the road;now, grown an old man, it boldly leads the way; and ushers meon; and turns round upon me its skeleton gaze: poisoning thelast solaces of life. Maramma but adds to my gloom."

  "Death! death!" cried Yoomy, "must I be not, and millions be? Must Igo, and the flowers still bloom? Oh, I have marked what it is to bedead;--how shouting boys, of holidays, hide-and-seek among the tombs,which must hide all seekers at last."

  "Clouds on clouds!" cried Media, "but away with them all! Why not leapyour graves, while ye may? Time to die, when death comes, withoutdying by inches. 'Tis no death, to die; the only death is the fear ofit. I, a demi-god, fear death not."

  "But when the jackals howl round you?" said Babbalanja.

  "Drive them off! Die the demi-god's death! On his last couch ofcrossed spears, my brave old sire cried, 'Wine, wine; strike up, conchand cymbal; let the king die to martial melodies!'"

  "More valiant dying, than dead," said Babbalanja. "Our end of thewinding procession resounds with music and flaunts with banners withbrave devices: 'Cheer up!' 'Fear not!' 'Millions have died before!'--but in the endless van, not a pennon streams; all there, is silent andsolemn. The last wisdom is dumb."

  Silence ensued; during which, each dip of the paddles in the now calmwater, fell full and long upon the ear.

  Anon, lifting his head, Babbalanja thus:--"Yillah still eludes us. Andin all this tour of Mardi, how little have we found to fill the heartwith peace: how much to slaughter all our yearnings."