The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  “ ‘How is’t ye ladies of the court be sailing on such a privy as this?’ one asked, and the daughter replied they were not rich, but had only wealth enough to pay their promised ransom and would be paupers after. Another asked profanely of the mother, How was’t a noblewoman thought no better of her noble arse than to wed it to that craven lout her husband? This I thought a sharper question, for he was indeed a coarse and common tradesman, by the look of him. But the daughter spoke rapidly in French, and the lady replied, that her husband came from one of Virginia’s grandest families. To which the daughter added, ‘If you must know, ’twas a marriage of convenience,’ and went on to say in effect, that even as her father had bought her mother’s honor with his estate, so now she would buy it back from us, for that same estate. The men took this merrily and heaped no end of ridicule upon the husband, who was like to beshit himself with fright upon the deck. They were now of half a mind to swive and half to take the hundred pounds, but scarce knew whether or not to credit the women’s story.

  “Now you must know that ’twas my wont whenever I met a stranger to enquire of him, Had he ever known a wight by name of Burlingame? And would explain, I had a friend called Henry Burlingame Third, who greatly wished to prove he was no bastard. All the men aboard had got accustomed to’t, and made it their jest to speak amongst themselves of Henry Burlingame Third as some grand fellow whom all must know. For this reason, when the lady had made her speech a wag amongst us said, ‘If he be a great Virginia gentleman, then surely he must know Sir Henry Burlingame, the noblest Virginian that ever shat on sot-weed.’ And he added that if they knew him not they must needs be impostors, and to the rail with ’em. At this methought the game was done, inasmuch as ’twas but a fool’s test, to give excuse for swiving. But the maid replied, she did indeed know of a Henry Burlingame of Jamestown, that had come thither with the first settlers and declared himself a knight, and she went on to say, by way of proof, that ’twas much doubted in her circle whether he was in truth of noble origin.

  “At this the men were much surprised, none more than myself, and I resolved to risk my life, if need be, to spare theirs so I might query them farther on this head. I declared to the men that all the wench had said of Burlingame was true, and that for my part I believed the whole of her tale and was ready to trade her maidenhead for a hundred pounds. The greater part of the men seemed ready enough to do the same, now their first ardor was cooled—the more for that our pirating ere then had yielded little profit. Captain Pound raised then the question of hostages, and it was resolved that one of their number must remain behind till the ransom was paid, and forfeit life and honor if ’twere not. At this, mother and daughter spoke briefly in French, after which each pleaded to be left as hostage, so that the father might be spared.”

  “ ’Sheart, what solicitude!” Ebenezer cried. “The wretch merited no such affection!”

  Burlingame laughed. “So’t appeared to all the crew save me, who followed clearly what was said. Know, Eben, that these fine women were bald impostors. The daughter had conceived the ruse and told it to her mother in French. And when the matter of hostages arose, the mother had said ‘Pray God they will take Harry, for then we’d be quit of him for fair, and not a penny poorer.’ And the maiden’s brave reply was, ‘ ’Tis sure they will take thee or me for swiving, unless we persuade them of his value.’ ‘Fogh!’ had cried the mother. The beast hath not the value of bouc-merde!’—which is to say, the droppings of a billy goat. To this the maid replied, that such exactly were her sentiments, and the only recourse was to offer themselves and plead for his release, relying on our gullibility.

  “The men at first ignored the bait, until I asked the ladies Wherefore their devotion, seeing he was such a craven brute, who had shown no concern for them at all what time we made to swive them, but blubbered only for himself? To which the maid replied, that though ’twas true he cared naught for them and had liefer part with both than lose ten crown, yet they did adore him as foolish women will, and would perish ere they saw him injured. The husband was so entirely astonished by this speech, that at first he could not speak for rage and terror, and ere he could collect himself I declared that clearly he was not to be trusted ashore but must be our hostage, and the ladies sent for the ransom, inasmuch as their devotion to him assured their return. The men were most reluctant to set the wenches free, but Captain Pound saw reason in my argument, and ordered it so. The fellow was sent below in chains, the ladies fetched new clothing from their chests, and a boat was made ready to carry them ashore; but ere it left I got the Captain’s ear in secret, and implored him to send me with them to guarantee their return, inasmuch as I could understand their tongue, unknown to them, and would thus be forewarned of any treachery. He was loath to let me go, but at length I prevailed upon him, and rowed off with the ladies in a longboat. The plan was that Pound should go a-pirating for some weeks and come again to the Capes where I would rejoin him at the end of September. Moreover, to quiet the suspicions of the crew, and their envy of my lot, I declared to them aside that I would have the women themselves bring the ransom aboard, which once secured, they could be swived till the rail gave way!”

  “Henry!” Ebenezer exclaimed. “Can’t be that—”

  “Hold on,” Burlingame interrupted, “till the tale is done. We were put ashore near Accomac, on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, whence we were to start our journey to the ladies’ home. ’Twas dark when we landed, for we feared detection, and we resolved to go no farther until dawn, but make a fire upon the beach wherewith to warm ourselves. As we watched the pirates make sail and get under way in the moonlight, both women wept for very joy, and the mother said, in French, ‘God bless you, Henrietta; you have rid us of the pirates and your father in a single stroke!’ The maid replied, ‘Rather bless this fellow with us, who is so wondrous stupid to believe my lies.’ ‘Indeed,’ said the mother. ‘Who’d have looked for such a fool ’neath such a handsome skin?’ At this they laughed at their boldness, little dreaming I could grasp their every word, and to carry the sport yet farther the maid declared, ‘Aye, in sooth he is a pretty fellow, mother, such as you nor I have never spent a night with.’ ‘Nor would ever,’ said the other, ‘had we not got shed of Harry. I must own that had he made the threat alone, I’d have let him have his rape and saved our money. Yet I’d not have wished thee touched.’ ‘Oh la,’ the maid replied, ‘think not I plan to lose a penny: the handsome wretch will fall asleep anon, and we shall either flee or do him to death. As for my maidenhead, ’tis but a champagne cork to me, which must be popped ere the pleasantries commence.’ And looking me in the eye, she said for a tease, ‘What say you, fellow: veux-tu être mon tire-bouchon? Eh? Veux-tu me vriller avant que je te tue?’ “

  “I know not the tongue,” said Ebenezer, “but the sound is far from chaste.”

  “Shame on you, then, that you have not learned it,” Burlingame scolded. “ ’Tis a marvelous tongue for wooing in. I cannot tell how fetching ’twas to hear such lewdness spoke in such sweet tones. ‘Poinçonne-tu mon petit liège’ —I hear’t yet, i’faith, and sweat and shiver! I saw no need to carry the deception farther, and so replied in faultless Paris French, ‘ ’Twill be an honor, mademoiselle et madame, nor need you kill me after, for your joy at leaving those brigands behind doth not exceed my own.’ They had like to perish of astonishment and shame on hearing me, the maid especially; but when I explained how I had come to be among the pirates, and what it was I sought, they were soon pacified—nay, cordial, even more than cordial. They could scarce leave off expressing gratitude, and, seeing the cat was out of the bag, we spent the night a-sporting on the sand.”

  “A pretty tale indeed, if not a virtuous,” Ebenezer said. “But did you learn no more of that old Burlingame, for whom you’d saved the ladies?”

  “Aye,” said Burlingame. “That same night I queried them whether ’twas but a fiction they’d contrived regarding Burlingame. And the maid replied ’twas no fiction at all, that her fath
er was a great pretender to distinction, who, though he was in fact a bastard, was much concerned to glorify his lineage and was forever running hither and thither for ancient records, which his daughter had to search for the family name. ’Twas for just that cause they’d made the trip to Jamestown, where ‘mid numerous musty papers she’d found what looked to be some pages of a journal writ by one Henry Burlingame. Howbeit, she gave it but a cursory reading, seeing it made no mention of her family, and recalled only that it spoke of some journey or other from Jamestown; that Captain John Smith was the leader; and that there seemed some ill feeling ’twixt him and the author of the journal. Past that she’d read no more nor could remember aught. ’Twas not long ere I’d had my fill of amorosities—for thirty-five hath no great stamina in such matters—and fell asleep beside the fire. When the sun aroused me in the morning I found the women gone, nor have I seen them since. ’Twas delicacy, methinks, that moved them ere I waked—full many a deed smells sweet at night that stinks in the heat of the sun. What’s more, their reputations were secure, for at no time since we’d overhauled their ship had they revealed their names, nor more of where they lived save that ’twas on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.”

  “And did you make your way thence to Jamestown?”

  “Nay, to Anne Arundel County and Captain Hill. I wanted sore to learn whether Coode had harmed him, and too I had not a farthing about me wherewith to eat. ’Twas my design to work awhile for Hill and then pursue my quest, for I will own I was not indifferent toward the politics of the place, and would have welcomed another mission like the one I’d just returned from.”

  “Thou’rt a glutton for adventure,” Ebenezer said.

  “Mayhap I am, or better, a glutton for the great world, of which I ne’er can see and learn enough.”

  “I’ll warrant Captain Hill was pleased to see you, and surprised!”

  “He was in sooth, for he had heard naught of me since Leisler’s rebellion in New York, and feared me dead. He said his position was most perilous, inasmuch as Coode and his men were daily laying waste his enemies’ estates, and had spared his either through caprice or uncertainty as to Hill’s influence in England. ’Twas Coode’s conceit to call himself Masaniello, after the rebel of Naples; Colonel Henry Jowles of Calvert County, his chief lieutenant, played Count Scamburgh; Colonel Ninian Beale the Earl of Argyle; and Kenelm Cheseldyne, the speaker of the Assembly, was Speaker Williams. While they played at court in this manner, and bragged and plundered down in St. Mary’s, I spent the winter putting Hill’s estate in order. Whene’er ’twas useful I made excursions about the province to the end of fomenting opposition in the several counties, and in the spring, when he got wind of’t, Coode resolved to do us in. He trumped up a charge of treasonable speech and dispatched no fewer than forty men to destroy us. They seized the ship Hope, which Captain Hill had been at seven hundred pounds’ expense to fit out for a voyage, and rifled the estate, and ’twas only our good fortune in escaping to the woods preserved our lives. “I went at first to sundry other sea-captains, friends of Hill’s and enemies of Colonel Coode—”

  “Colonel!” Ebenezer broke in. “Methought he was a priest!”

  “The man is whate’er he chooses to call himself,” Burlingame replied. “He owns to no authority save himself, and is a rebel ’gainst man and God alike. In any case, I learned from these men that Francis Nicholson, deposed by Leisler as a Jacobite, was now lieutenant governor of Virginia (which is to say the chief officer, since the governor lives in England), and this by order of King William himself! It seems the King little bothers what a man is called by his enemies, so long as he doth his job well, and in sooth Old Nick is the very devil of a governor for all his faults. These tidings fell sweetly on my ear, inasmuch as Nicholson was the very man who’d best protect us, and Jamestown the very place I wished to go. I had Hill’s friends write letters to Nicholson, describing Coode’s barbarity and asking asylum for the Captain and his house, and ere June was done we were in Jamestown. ‘Masaniello’ and his crew begged and threatened Nicholson by turns to get their hands on us, but de’il the good it did him. ’Tis both a fault and a virtue in Virginia, that fugitives from Maryland e’er find haven there.”

  “But did you find the precious journal-book you sought?” asked Ebenezer. “Or was’t but a tale of a cock and a bull the lass on the strand had spun thee? Prithee put me off no farther on the matter; I must know whether such an odyssey bore fruit!”

  Burlingame laughed. “Make not such haste to reach the end, Eben; it spoils the pace and mixes the figures. Whoever saw an odyssey bear fruit?”

  “Tease no more!” Ebenezer cried.

  “Very well, Master Laureate: I did indeed lay hands upon the journal, what of’t there was; what’s more, I made a copy of it, faithful to the letter save for one or two dull passages that I summarized. I have it here in my coat, and in the morning you shall read it. Suffice it now to say, I am persuaded ’tis a bona fide journal of Sir Henry Burlingame, but whether or no the fellow is my ancestor I’ve still no proof.”

  “I’faith, I’m glad you found it, and scarce can wait till dawn! ’Tis good thy tale is not yet done, else ’twere a hard matter to fret away the hours. What wondrous thing befell you next?”

  “No more tonight,” Burlingame declared. “The road is smoother here, and the night’s nigh done. The balance of the tale can wait till Plymouth.” So saying, he would hear no protest from Ebenezer, but stretching out his legs as best he could, went to sleep at once. The poet, however, was less fortunate: try as he might, he could not manage even to keep his eyes closed, much less resign himself to sleep, though his head throbbed from weariness. Again his mind was filled with names, the names first heard from Baltimore and now fleshed out by Burlingame’s narration, and figures awful in their energy and purpose prowled his fancy—his friend and tutor first among them.

  6

  Burlingame’s Tale Carried Yet Farther; the Laureate Reads from The Privie Journall of Sir Henry Burlingame and Discourses on the Nature of Innocence

  WHEN AFTER DAWN the travelers stopped for their morning meal at Yeovil, Ebenezer demanded at once to see the document Burlingame had spoken of, but his tutor refused to hear of it until they’d eaten. Then, the sun having come out warm and bright, they retired outside to smoke and stretch their legs, and Burlingame fetched several folded sheets from the pocket of his coat. Atop the first the poet read The Privie Journall of Sir Henry Burlingame.

  “I should explain the title’s mine,” said Burlingame. “As you can see, the journal is a fragment, but the journey it describes is writ in John Smith’s Generall Historie. ’Twas in January of 1607, the first winter of the colony, and they traveled up the Chickahominy River to find the town of Powhatan, Emperor of the Indians. There was much ill feeling against Captain Smith in Jamestown at the time: some were alarmed at his machinations to unseat President Wingfield and President Ratcliffe; others charged him with flaunting the instructions of the London Company, in that he wasted little time searching for gold or for a water passage to the East; others yet were merely hungry, and thought he should arrange for trade with Powhatan. ’Tis plain the voyage up the Chickahominy was a happy expedient, for’t promised solution to all these grievances: the Captain would be out of politics for a while, for one thing, and some declared the Chickahominy ran west to the Orient; in any case, ’twas almost certain the Emperor’s town lay not many miles upriver. Smith tells in his Historie how he was made captive by one of Powhatan’s lieutenants, called Opecancanough, and escaped death by means of magical tricks with his compass. He swears next he was carried alone to Powhatan, condemned to death, and saved by intercession of the Emperor’s daughter. His version of’t I have writ there under the title.” Ebenezer read the brief superscription:

  Being ready with their clubs, to beate out his braines, Pocahontas, the Kings dearest daughter, when no entreaty could prevaile, got his head in her armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death; whereat th
e Emperour was contented he should live to make him hatchets, and her bells, beads, and copper; for they thought him as well of all occupations as themselves.

  “I’faith,” he said, “ ’tis a marvelous rescue!”

  “ ’Tis a marvelous romance,” Burlingame corrected, “for the substance of the Journall is, that this Burlingame witnessed the whole proceeding, which was not so wondrous heroic after all. I’ll say no more, but leave you to read the piece without delay.”

  So saying, Burlingame went inside the inn, and Ebenezer, rinding a bench in the sun, made himself comfortable and read in the Journall as follows:

  The Privie Journall of Sir Henry Burlingame

  I… had divers time caution’d [Smith], that our guide, a rascallie Salvage that had liefer steal yr purse than look at you, was nowise to be trusted, he being doubtless in the pay of the Empr [Powhatan]. But he wd none of this, and when, the River growing too shallowe for our vessels, this same Salvage propos’d we walk overland to the Emprs towne, wch he claim’d was hard bye, our Capt agreed at once, maugre the fact, wch I poynted out to him, that the woods there were thick as any jungle, and we wd be sett upon with ease by hostile Salvages. The Capt made the usuall rejoynders, that he ever maketh on being shown his ignorance and follie, to witt: that I was a coward, a parasite, a lillie-liver’d infant, and belike an Eunuch into the bargain. This last, he regardeth as the supremest insult he can hurl, for that he him selfe taketh inordinate pride in his virilitie. In sooth, such a devotee of Venus is our Capt, that rare are the times when he doth not boast openlie, and in lewdest terms, of his conquests and feats of love all over the Continent and among the Moors, Turks, and Africkans. He fancieth him selfe a Master of Venereall Arts, and boasteth to have known carnallie every kind of Woman on Earth, in all of Aretines positions. In addition to wch, he owneth an infamous lott of eroticka collected in his travells, items from wch he oft displayeth to certain of us privilie, with all the smuggness of a Connoisseur. More of this anon, but I may note here, that judging from our Capts preoccupation with these things, wch oft as not represent unnaturall as well as naturall vices, I wd be no whit surpris’d to learn, that his tastes comprehend more than those of the common libertine …