The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  Here ended Sir Henry’s Privie Journall except for one final entry, dated several weeks after his return to Jamestown and only a few months prior to his conscription for the fateful voyage up the Chesapeake:

  March, 1608: Pocahontas, the Emperours daughter, having at long last regayn’d full possession of her health, is ever at the gates of the towne, with a retinue of her people, enquiring after my Captain. He shuns her as much as possible, albeit in her absence, and in his Historie, he makes the finest speaches in her praise. The truth is, he feares his fowle adventure will out, and I suspect he is torn betwixt his reluctance to wed her (and thus make an honest woman of her), and his desire once againe to sate his lust on her. For albeit the verie sownd of his voice doth sicken my stomacke, so do I loathe him, yet he cannot contain his lewd exployt, but must still catch privilie my eare, and declare that hers was the most succulent flowr ever he pluckt, & cet., & cet.

  As for the Princesse, she still lingers at the gate, all wystfullie, and sends him, by her attendants, woven basketts of great dry’d egg-plants…

  “God’s body!” Burlingame cried at the end. “Your Excellency, look here!”

  Nicholson smiled from the green table, where he was completing the transaction with Sowter. “New matter against Coode, is’t?”

  “Coode be damned!” Burlingame replied. “Here, read it, sir! ’Tis all about the mysterious eggplant business I spoke of before! I’God, if only the recipe were there as well! ’Tis some encaustic, or aphrodisiac, don’t ye think, Eben? That ‘fyrie hue’ sounds like phlogosis… But marry, what is the trick? I could save this miserable Province with it!”

  “Go to, ye lose me!” Nicholson protested, as mystified as everyone else except Ebenezer; but when the contents of the Journall and their significance were explained to him, his face grew grave. “ ’Twere a risky adventure even so,” he declared, referring to Burlingame’s proposed embassy to Bloodsworth Island, “but with this eggplant trick to confound ’em…”

  “I could do it!” Burlingame insisted. “I’d be King of the Ahatchwhoops by the week’s end if I had that recipe! Smith!” He turned upon the wondering cooper. “Where’s the missing part of these papers? I swear you’ll not leave the Province till we have it!”

  To Ebenezer’s surprise, before the cooper could protest his bewilderment, Joan Toast spoke up for the first time.

  “ ’Tis vain to threaten him,” she said. “He hath no idea what you want, or where to find it. I stole those pages, and I mean to keep them.”

  Burlingame, Nicholson, and Sir Thomas all pleaded with her to surrender the missing passages, or at least to disclose the trick which Captain John Smith had employed to win the day in Virginia; they explained the gravity of the situation on Bloodsworth Island and Henry’s strategy to forestall an insurrection—but to no avail.

  “Look at me!” the girl cried bitterly. “Behold the fruits of lustfulness! Swived in my twelfth year, poxed in my twentieth, and dead in my twenty-first! Ravaged, ruined, raped, and betrayed! Woman’s lot is wretched enough at best; d’ye think I’ll pass on that murtherous receipt to make it worse?”

  In vain then did Burlingame vow never to employ Smith’s formula for carnal purposes, but only to demonstrate his identity to the Ahatchwhoops.

  “The Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be,” Joan retorted. “The time will come when ye crave a child by Anna yonder, or some other… I shan’t e’en make the vile stuff for ye myself!”

  “Then it is some potion he takes!” cried Henry. “Or is’t a sort of plaster?”

  Nicholson pounded his stick pn the floor. “We must know, girl! Name thy price for’t!”

  Joan laughed. “D’ye think to bribe the dead? Nay, sir, the Great Tom Leech bites sore enough, God knows; I’ll not give him more teeth than he hath already! But stay—” Her manner suddenly became shrewd, like Sowter’s. “I may name my price, ye say?”

  “Within reason, of course,” the Governor affirmed. “What ye ask must be ours to give.”

  “Very well, then,” Joan declared. “My price is Malden.”

  “Nay!” Andrew cried.

  “Nay, prithee!” pleaded Ebenezer, who until then had found the discussion as embarrassing as had Anna.

  “ ’Tis a hard price,” Burlingame observed, regarding her curiously.

  “Not for doing so great a disservice to my sex,” Joan replied.

  Now even McEvoy was moved to join the chorus of objections. “Whate’er will ye do with this estate, my dear?” he asked gently. “ ’Tis of no use to ye now. If there is someone ye wish to provide for, why, peradventure the Governor can make arrangements.”

  Joan turned her face to him, and her expression softened, if her resolution did not. “Ye know as well as I there’s no one, John. Why d’ye ask? Can it be ye’ve forgot the whoremonger’s first principle?” For the benefit of the others she repeated it: “Ye may ask a whore her price, but not her reasons. My price is the title to Cooke’s Point, forever and aye: ye may take it or leave it.”

  Nicholson and Burlingame exchanged glances.

  “Done,” said the Governor. “Draw up the papers, Tom.”

  “Nay, b’m’faith!” cried Andrew. “ ’Tis unlawful! When Smith gave o’er his claim, the title reverted to me!”

  “Not at all,” said Burlingame. “It reverted to the Province.”

  “Damn ye, man! Whose side are ye on?”

  “On the side of the Province, for the nonce,” Henry answered. “Those pages are worth a brace of Maidens.”

  Andrew threatened to appeal to the Lords Commissioners, but the Governor was not to be intimidated.

  “I’ve seldom stood on firmer ground than this,” he declared. “When I move to save the Province ye may appeal to the King himself, for aught ye’ll gain by’t, and Godspeed. Where are the papers, Mrs. Cooke?”

  Not until he heard the unfamiliar mode of address did Ebenezer have the least hint of Joan’s motives. Now suddenly, though a hint was all he had, his backbone tingled; his heart glowed.

  “Where are thine?” she demanded in reply, nor would she stir until Sir Thomas had conveyed the title to Cooke’s Point into her possession. Then she calmly reached into her bodice and withdrew a tightly folded paper which, when she handed it to Burlingame for unfolding, proved to be three missing pages of the Journall.

  “ ’Sheart, Eben, look here!” Henry cried. “May he look, Joan?”

  “ ’Tis not mine to forbid,” the girl said glumly, and seemed to relapse into her former apathy.

  First [read the missing fragment] he pour’d a deale of water into the dish of floure, and worked the mess to a thick paste with his fingers. Then he set the remainder of the water, in its vessell, next the smalle fyre, wch the Salvage had been Christian enough to make us, against the cold. Whenas he sawe this water commence to steem and bubble, then drewe he from his pockett (wch forsooth must needs have been a spacious one!), divers ingredients, and added them to the paste. Of these I cd name but few, forasmuch as I durst not discover to my Captain that my sleep was feign’d; but I did learn later from his boasting that it was a receipt much priz’d for a certain purpose (whereof I was as yet innocent) by the blackamoors of Africka, from whom he had learnt it. To witt: a quantitie of Tightening Wood (wch is to say, the bark of that tree, Nux vomica, wherefrom is got the brucine and strychnyne of apothecaries), 2 or 3 small dry’d pimyentoes (that the blackamoors call Zozos), a dozen peppercorns, and as many whole cloves, with 1 or 2 beanes of vanilla to give it fragrance. At the same time he boyl’d a second decoction of water mix’d with some dropps of oyl of mallow, to what end I cd not guesse. These severall herbs and spyces, I shd add, he still carr’d on his person, not alone for their present employment, but as well to season his food, wch in his yeeres of fighting the Moors he had learnt to savour hott; and for this cause he did prevaile upon the masters of vessells, to fetch him such spyces from there ports of call in the Indies.

  When that the paste was done, and the water fa
st aboyle in both vessells, my Captain busy’d him selfe with cutting the eggplant, and this in a singular wise. For it is the wont of men to lay hold of an Aubergine and slyce across the topp, to the end of making thinne rownd sections. But my Captain, drawing his knife from his waiste, did sever the frute into halves, splitting it lengthwise from top to bottom. Next he scor’d out a deep hollow ditch in either moietie, in such wise, but when the two halves were joyn’d, like halves of an iron-mould, the effect was of a deep cylindrick cavitie in the center, perhaps 3 inches in dyameter, and 7 or 8 in profunditie, for that it was an uncommon large egg-plant. All this I did observe with mounting curiositie, yet careful not to discover my pretence of sleep.

  The strange brewes having cook’d a certain time, my Captain then remov’d them from the fyre. The first, that had in it all the spyces, he stirr’d and kneaded into the paste, till the whole took on the semblance of a plaister. He next disrob’d him selfe, and before my wondering eyes lay’d hands upon his member, drawing back that part, that the Children of Israel are wont to offer to Jehovah, and exposing the carnall glans. His codd thus bar’d (wch poets have liken’d to that Serpent, that did tempt Mother Eve in the Garden), he apply’d thereto the plaister, and lay’d it within the two halves of the egg-plant. There it linger’d some minutes, notwithstanding the ordeall must needs have been painfull, for all the spyce & hott things in the receipt. His face did wrythe & twist, as though it were straight into the fyre he had thrust his yard, and whenas he at last remov’d the Aubergine, and wash’d away the plaister with his oyl-of-mallow brewe, I cd observe with ease that his part was burnt in sooth! Moreover, he did seem loath to touch it for feare of the payne thereby occasion’d.

  Now albeit this spectacle was far from edifying, to a man of good conscience & morall virtue, I yet must own, I took greate interest in it, both by reason of naturall curiositie, as well as to gage for my selfe the depths of my Captains depravitie. For it is still pleasing, to a Christian man, to suffer him selfe the studie of wickednesse, that he may content him selfe (without sinfull pride) upon the contrast thereof with his owne rectitude. To say naught of that truth, whereto Augustine and other Fathers beare witnesse: that true virtue lieth not in innocence, but in full knowledge of the Devils subtile arts…

  Thus ended the fragment, having brought Sir Henry to his unintended sleep and rude awakening.

  “I can do’t!” Burlingame murmured. “ ’Tis all I need!”

  Ebenezer looked away, revolted not only by the narrative but by other, more immediate images. He observed that Anna too, though she had not read the Journall, was aware of its significance: her eyes were lowered; her cheeks aflame.

  “Well, now,” declared the Governor, rising from his place. “I think our business here is done, Tom. Fetch those rascals aboard my ship in the morning and see they’re ferried to Pennsylvania.”

  The others stirred as well.

  “La, Master Laureate!” Sowter jeered from across the room. “The party’s done, and thou’rt still as penceless as St Giles!”

  Andrew cursed, and Nicholson frowned uncomfortably.

  “Thou’rt mistaken, Dick Sowter,” Joan said from the couch.

  Everyone turned to her at once.

  “I’ve little time to live,” she declared, “and a wife’s estate passes to her husband when she dies.”

  Andrew gasped. “I’cod! D’ye hear that, Eben?”

  All except Sowter and Smith rejoiced at this disclosure of her motive. Ebenezer rushed to embrace her, and Andrew wept for joy.

  “Splendid girl! She is a very saint, Roxanne!”

  But Joan turned away her face. “There remains but a single danger, that I can see,” she said. “As hath been observed already today, a false marriage such as ours may be disallowed, and my bequests thus contested in the courts—inasmuch as it hath yet to be consummated.”

  The company fell silent; the twins drew back aghast.

  “Dear Heav’n!” Roxanne whispered, and clutched at Andrew’s arm. Burlingame’s expression was fascinated.

  The cooper laughed harshly. “Oh, my word! Ah! Ah! D’ye hear the wench, Sowter? She is the very Whore o’ Babylon, and Cooke muyt swive her for’s estate! Oh, ha! I’d not touch her with a sot-weed stick!”

  “My boy—” Andrew spoke with difficulty to his son. “She hath—the social malady, don’t ye know—and albeit I love Malden as I love my life, I’d ne’er think ill o’ ye—”

  “Stay,” interrupted Burlingame. “Ye’ll take her pox, Eben, but ye’ll not die of’t, me thinks: belike ’tis a mere dev’lish clap and not the French disease. Marry, lad, inasmuch as Malden hangs in the balance—”

  Ebenezer shook his head. “ ’Tis of no importance, Henry. Whate’er she hath, she hath on my account, by reason of our ill-starred love. I little care now for my legacy, save that I must earn it. ’Tis atonement I crave: redemption for my sins against the girl, against my father, against Anna, e’en against you, Henry—”

  “What sins?” protested Anna, coming to his side. “Of all men on the planet, Eben, thou’rt freest from sin! What else drew Joan half round the globe, do you think, through all those horrors, if not that quality in you that hath ruined me for other men and driven e’en Henry to near distraction—”

  She blushed, realizing she had spoken too much. “Thou’rt the very spirit of Innocence,” she finished quietly.

  “That is the crime I stand indicted for,” her brother replied: “the crime of innocence, whereof the Knowledged must bear the burthen. There’s the true Original Sin our souls are born in: not that Adam learned, but that he had to learn—in short, that he was innocent.”

  He sat on the edge of the couch and took Joan’s hand. “Once before, this girl had shriven me of that sin, and I compounded it by deserting her. Whate’er the outcome, I rejoice at this second chance for absolution.”

  “Marry!” McEvoy said. “Ye mean to do’t?”

  “Aye.”

  Anna threw her arms about his neck and wept. “How I love you! The four of us will live here, and if Henry doth not stay on Bloodsworth Island—” Her voice failed; Burlingame drew her back gently from the couch.

  Ebenezer kissed Joan’s hand until at last she turned her haggard eyes to him.

  “Thou’rt weary, Joan.”

  She closed her eyes. “Beyond imagining.”

  He stood up, still holding her hand. “I’ve not strength enough yet to carry you to our chamber…” He looked about awkwardly, his features dancing. All the women were in tears; the men either shook their heads, like McEvoy and the Governor, or winced, like Andrew, or merely frowned a grudging awe, like Smith and Sowter.

  “I claim the honor!” Burlingame cried, and the spell was broken. Everyone stirred himself to cover the general embarrassment: Andrew and John McEvoy busied themselves comforting their women; Sir Thomas and the Governor assembled their papers and called for tobacco; Smith and Sowter, accompanied by the sergeant-at-arms, left the room.

  Burlingame lifted Joan in his arms. “Good night all!” he called merrily. “Tell cook we’ll want a wedding breakfast in the morning, Andrew!” As he headed for the hallway he added with a laugh, “See to what lengths the fallen go, to increase their number! Come along, Anna; this errand wants a chaperon.”

  Blushing, Anna took Ebenezer’s arm, and the twins followed their chuckling tutor up the stairs.

  “Ah, well now!” their father’s voice cried from the parlor. “We’ve a deal to drink to, lords and ladies!” And addressing the unseen servant in the kitchen he called “Grace? Grace! ’Sblood, Grace, fetch us a rundlet!”

  PART IV: THE AUTHOR APOLOGIZES TO HIS READERS; THE LAUREATE COMPOSES HIS EPITAPH

  LEST IT BE OBJECTED by a certain stodgy variety of squint-minded antiquarians that he has in this lengthy history played more fast and loose with Clio, the chronicler’s muse, than ever Captain John Smith dared, the Author here posits in advance, by way of surety, three blue-chip replies arranged in order of decreasing rele
vancy. In the first place be it remembered, as Burlingame himself observed, that we all invent our pasts, more or less, as we go along, at the dictates of Whim and Interest; the happenings of former times are a clay in the present moment that will-we, nill-we, the lot of us must sculpt. Thus Being does make Positivists of us all. Moreover, this Clio was already a scarred and crafty trollop when the Author found her; it wants a nice-honed casuist, with her sort, to separate seducer from seduced. But if, despite all, he is convicted at the Public Bar of having forced what slender virtue the strumpet may make claim to, then the Author joins with pleasure the most engaging company imaginable, his fellow fornicators, whose ranks include the noblest in poetry, prose, and politics; condemnation at such a bar, in short, on such a charge, does honor to artist and artifact alike, of the same order of magnitude as election to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum or suppression by the Watch and Ward.

  Thus much for the rival claims of Fact and Fancy, which the artist, like Governor Nicholson, may override with fair impunity. However, when the litigants’ claims are formal, rather than substantial, they pose a dilemma from which few tale-tellers escape without a goring. Such is the Author’s present plight, as he who reads may judge.

  The story of Ebenezer Cooke is told; Drama wants no more than his consent to Joan Toast’s terms, their sundry implications being clear. All the rest is anticlimax: the stairs that take him up to the bridal-chamber take him down the steep incline of denouement. To the history, on the other hand, there is so much more—all grounded on meager fact and solid fancy—that the Author must risk those rude cornadas to resume it, and trust that the Reader is interested enough in the fate of the twins, their tutor, Bertrand Burton, Slye and Scurry, and the rest, to indulge some pandering to Curiosity at Form’s expense…