Mardi and a Voyage Thither

by Herman Melville

  "Drop, drop your grapes and metaphors!" cried Media. "Bring forth your thoughts like men; let them come naked into Mardi.-What do you mean, Babbalanja?"

  "This, my lord, Verdanna's worst evils are her own, not of another's giving. Her own hand is her own undoer. She stabs herself with bigotry, superstition, divided councils, domestic feuds, ignorance, temerity; she wills, but does not; her East is one black storm-cloud, that never bursts; her utmost fight is a defiance; she showers reproaches, where she should rain down blows. She stands a mastiff baying at the moon."

  "Tropes on tropes!" said. Media. "Let me tell the tale, — straightforward like a line. Verdanna is a lunatic-"

  "A trope! my lord," cried Babbalanja.

  "My tropes are not tropes," said Media, "but yours are.-Verdanna is a lunatic, that after vainly striving to cut another's throat, grimaces before a standing pool and threatens to cut his own. And is such a madman to be intrusted with himself? No; let another govern him, who is ungovernable to himself Ay, and tight hold the rein; and curb, and rasp the bit. Do I exaggerate? — Mohi, tell me, if, save one lucid interval, Verdanna, while independent of Dominora, ever discreetly conducted her affairs? Was she not always full of fights and factions? And what first brought her under the sway of Bello's scepter? Did not her own Chief Dermoddi fly to Bello's ancestor for protection against his own seditious subjects? And thereby did not her own king unking himself? What wonder, then, and where the wrong, if Henro, Bello's conquering sire, seized the diadem?"

  "What my lord cites is true," said Mohi, "but cite no more, I pray; lest, you harm your cause."

  "Yet for all this, Babbalanja," said Media, "Bello but holds lunatic Verdanna's lands in trust."

  "And may the guardian of an estate also hold custody of the ward, my lord?"

  "Ay, if he can. What can be done, may be: that's the Greed of demigods."

  "Alas, alas!" cried Yoomy, "why war with words over this poor, suffering land. See! for all her bloom, her people starve; perish her yams, ere taken from the soil; the blight of heaven seems upon them."

  "Not so," said Media. "Heaven sends no blights. Verdanna will not learn. And if from one season's rottenss, rottenness they sow again, rottenness must they reap. But Yoomy, you seem earnest in this matter;-come: on all hands it is granted that evils exist in Verdanna; now sweet Sympathizer, what must the royal Bello do to mend them?"

  "I am no sage," said Yoomy, "what would my lord Media do?"

  "What would you do, Babbalanja," said Media.

  "Mohi, what you?" asked the philosopher.

  "And what would the company do?" added Mohi.

  "Now, though these evils pose us all," said Babbalanja, "there lately died in Verdanna, one, who set about curing them in a humane and peaceable way, waving war and bloodshed. That man was Konno. Under a huge caldron, he kept a roaring fire."

  "Well, Azzageddi, how could that answer his purpose?" asked Media.

  "Nothing better, my lord. His fire boiled his bread-fruit; and so convinced were his countrymen, that he was well employed, that they almost stripped their scanty orchards to fill his caldron."

  "Konno was a knave," said Mohi.

  "Your pardon, old man, but that is only known to his ghost, not to us.

  At any rate he was a great man; for even assuming he cajoled his country, no common man could have done it."

  "Babbalanja," said Mohi, "my lord has been pleased to pronounce Verdanna crazy; now, may not her craziness arise from the irritating, tantalizing practices of Dominora?"

  "Doubtless, Braid-Beard, many of the extravagances of Verdanna, are in good part to be ascribed to the cause you mention; but, to be impartial, none the less does Verdanna essay to taunt and provoke Dominora; yet not with the like result. Perceive you, Braid-Beard, that the trade-wind blows dead across this strait from Dominora, and not from Verdanna? Hence, when King Bello's men fling gibes and insults, every missile hits; but those of Verdanna are blown back in its teeth: her enemies jeering her again and again."

  "King Bello's men are dastards for that," cried Yoomy. "It shows neither sense, nor spirit, nor humanity," said Babbalanja.

  "All wide of the mark," cried Media. "What is to be done for Verdanna?"

  "What will she do for herself?" said Babbalanja.

  "Philosopher, you are an extraordinary sage; and since sages should be seers, reveal Verdanna's future."

  "My lord, you will ever find true prophets, prudent; nor will any prophet risk his reputation upon predicting aught concerning this land. The isles are Oro's. Nevertheless, he who doctors Verdanna aright, will first medicine King Bello; who in some things is, himself a patient, though he would fain be a physician. However, my lord, there is a demon of a doctor in Mardi, who at last deals with these desperate cases. He employs only pills, picked off the Conroupta Quiancensis tree."

  "And what sort of a vegetable is that?" asked Mohi. "Consult the botanists," said Babbalanja.

  CHAPTER XLIX

  They Draw Nigh To Porpheero; Where They Behold A Terrific Eruption

  Gliding away from Verdanna at the turn of the tide, we cleared the strait, and gaining the more open lagoon, pointed our prows for Porpheero, from whose magnificent monarchs my lord Media promised himself a glorious reception.

  "They are one and all demi-gods," he cried, "and have the old demi-god feeling. We have seen no great valleys like theirs:-their scepters are long as our spears; to their sumptuous palaces, Donjalolo's are but inns:-their banquetting halls are as vistas; no generations run parallel to theirs:-their pedigrees reach back into chaos.

  "Babbalanja! here you will find food for philosophy:-the whole land checkered with nations, side by side contrasting in costume, manners, and mind. Here you will find science and sages; manuscripts in miles; bards singing in choirs.

  "Mohi! here you will flag over your page; in Porpheero the ages have hived all their treasures: like a pyramid, the past shadows over the land.

  "Yoomy! here you will find stuff for your songs:-blue rivers flowing through forest arches, and vineyards; velvet meads, soft as ottomans: bright maidens braiding the golden locks of the harvest; and a background of mountains, that seem the end of the world. Or if nature will not content you, then turn to the landscapes of art. See! mosaic walls, tattooed like our faces; paintings, vast as horizons; and into which, you feel you could rush: See! statues to which you could off turban; cities of columns standing thick as mankind; and firmanent domes forever shedding their sunsets of gilding: See! spire behind spire, as if the land were the ocean, and all Bello's great navy were riding at anchor.

  "Noble Taji! you seek for your Yillah;-give over despair! Porpheero's such a scene of enchantment, that there, the lost maiden must lurk."

  "A glorious picture!" cried Babbalanja, but turn the medal, my lord;-what says the reverse?"

  "Cynic! have done.-But bravo! we'll ere long be in Franko, the goodliest vale of them all; how I long to take her old king by the hand!"

  The sun was now setting behind us, lighting up the white cliffs of Dominora, and the green capes of Verdanna; while in deep shade lay before us the long winding shores of Porpheero.

  It was a sunset serene.

  "How the winds lowly warble in the dying day's ear," murmured Yoomy.

  "A mild, bright night, we'll have," said Media.

  "See you not those clouds over Franko, my lord," said Mohi, shaking his head.

  "Ah, aged and weather-wise as ever, sir chronicler;-I predict a fair night, and many to follow."

  "Patience needs no prophet," said Babbalanja. "The night, is at hand."

  Hitherto the lagoon had been smooth: but anon, it grew black, and stirred; and out of the thick darkness came clamorous sounds. Soon, there shot into the air a vivid meteor, which bursting at the zenith, radiated down the firmament in fiery showers, leaving treble darkness behind.

  Then as all held their breath, from Franko there spouted an eruption, which seemed to plant all Mardi in the foreground.

  As when Ve
suvius lights her torch, and in the blaze, the storm-swept surges in Naples' bay rear and plunge toward it; so now, showed Franko's multitudes, as they stormed the summit where their monarch's palace blazed, fast by the burning mountain.

  "By my eternal throne!" cried Media, starting, "the old volcano has burst forth again!"

  "But a new vent, my lord," said Babbalanja.

  "More fierce this, than the eruption which happened in my youth," said Mohi-"methinks that Franko's end has come."

  "You look pale, my lord," said Babbalanja, "while all other faces glow;-Yoomy, doff that halo in the presence of a king."

  Over the waters came a rumbling sound, mixed with the din of warfare, and thwarted by showers of embers that fell not, for the whirling blasts.

  "Off shore! off shore!" cried Media; and with all haste we gained a place of safety.

  Down the valley now poured Rhines and Rhones of lava, a fire-freshet, flooding the forests from their fastnesses, and leaping with them into the seething sea.

  The shore was lined with multitudes pushing off wildly in canoes.

  Meantime, the fiery storm from Franko, kindled new flames in the distant valleys of Porpheero; while driven over from Verdanna came frantic shouts, and direful jubilees. Upon Dominora a baleful glare was resting.

  "Thrice cursed flames!" cried Media. "Is Mardi to be one conflagration? How it crackles, forks, and roars! — Is this our funeral pyre?"

  "Recline, recline, my lord," said Babbalanja. "Fierce flames are ever brief-a song, sweet Yoomy! Your pipe, old Mohi! Greater fires than this have ere now blazed in Mardi. Let us be calm;-the isles were made to burn;-Braid-Beard! hereafter, in some quiet cell, of this whole scene you will but make one chapter;-come, digest it now."

  "My face is scorched," cried Media.

  "The last, last day!" cried Mohi.

  "Not so, old man," said Babbalanja, "when that day dawns, 'twill dawn serene. Be calm, be calm, my potent lord."

  "Talk not of calm brows in storm-time!" cried Media fiercely. "See! how the flames blow over upon Dominora!"

  "Yet the fires they kindle there are soon extinguished," said Babbalanja. "No, no; Dominora ne'er can burn with Franko's fires; only those of her own kindling may consume her."

  "Away! Away!" cried Media. "We may not touch Porpheero now.-Up sails! and westward be our course."

  So dead before the blast, we scudded.

  Morning broke, showing no sign of land.

  "Hard must it go with Franko's king," said Media, "when his people rise against him with the red volcanoes. Oh, for a foot to crush them!

  Hard, too, with all who rule in broad Porpheero. And may she we seek, survive this conflagration!"

  "My lord," said Babbalanja, "where'ere she hide, ne'er yet did Yillah lurk in this Porpheero; nor have we missed the maiden, noble Taji! in not touching at its shores."

  "This fire must make a desert of the land," said Mohi; "burn up and bury all her tilth."

  "Yet, Mohi, vineyards flourish over buried villages," murmured Yoomy.

  "True, minstrel," said Babbalanja, "and prairies are purified by fire.

  Ashes breed loam. Nor can any skill make the same surface forever fruitful. In all times past, things have been overlaid; and though the first fruits of the marl are wild and poisonous, the palms at last spring forth; and once again the tribes repose in shade. My lord, if calms breed storms, so storms calms; and all this dire commotion must eventuate in peace. It may be, that Perpheero's future has been cheaply won."

  CHAPTER L

  Wherein King Media Celebrates The Glories Of Autumn, The Minstrel, The Promise Of Spring

  "Ho, now!" cried Media, "across the wide waters, for that New Mardi, Vivenza! Let us indeed see, whether she who eludes us elsewhere, he at last found in Vivenza's vales."

  "There or nowhere, noble Taji," said Yoomy.

  "Be not too sanguine, gentle Yoomy," said Babbalanja.

  "Does Yillah choose rather to bower in the wild wilderness of Vivenza, than in the old vineyards of Porpheero?" said Braid-Beard.

  Sang Yoomy:- Her bower is not of the vine, But the wild, wild eglantine!

  Not climbing a moldering arch,

  But upheld by the fir-green larch.

  Old ruins she flies:

  To new valleys she hies:- Not the hoar, moss-wood, Ivied trees each a rood- Not in Maramma she dwells, Hollow with hermit cells.

  'Tis a new, new isle!

  An infant's its smile,

  Soft-rocked by the sea.

  Its bloom all in bud;

  No tide at its flood,

  In that fresh-born sea!

  Spring! Spring! where she dwells,

  In her sycamore dells,

  Where Mardi is young and new:

  Its verdure all eyes with dew.

  There, there! in the bright, balmy morns, The young deer sprout their horns, Deep-tangled in new-branching groves, Where the Red-Rover Robin roves, — Stooping his crest, To his molting breast- Rekindling the flambeau there!

  Spring! Spring! where she dwells,

  In her sycamore dells:- Where, fulfilling their fates, All creatures seek mates- The thrush, the doe, and the hare!

  "Thou art most musical, sweet Yoomy," said Media. "concerning this spring-land Vivenza. But are not the old autumnal valleys of Porpheero more glorious than those of vernal Vivenza? Vivenza shows no trophies of the summer time, but Dominora's full-blown rose hangs blushing on her garden walls; her autumn groves are glory-dyed."

  "My lord, autumn soon merges in winter, but the spring has all the seasons before. The full-blown rose is nearer withering than the bud.

  The faint morn is a blossom: the crimson sunset the flower."

  CHAPTER LI

  In Which Azzageddi Seems To Use Babbalanja For A Mouth-Piece

  Porpheero far astern, the spirits of the company rose. Once again, old Mohi serenely unbraided, and rebraided his beard; and sitting Turkwise on his mat, my lord Media smoking his gonfalon, diverted himself with the wild songs of Yoomy, the wild chronicles of Mohi, or the still wilder speculations of Babbalanja; now and then, as from pitcher to pitcher, pouring royal old wine down his soul.

  Among other things, Media, who at times turned over Babbalanja for an encyclopaedia, however unreliable, demanded information upon the subject of neap tides and their alleged slavish vassalage to the moon.

  When true to his cyclopaediatic nature, Babbalanja quoted from a still older and better authority than himself; in brief, from no other than eternal Bardianna. It seems that that worthy essayist had discussed the whole matter in a chapter thus headed: "On Seeing into Mysteries through Mill-Stones;" and throughout his disquisitions he evinced such a profundity of research, though delivered in a style somewhat equivocal, that the company were much struck by the erudition displayed.

  "Babbalanja, that Bardianna of yours must have been a wonderful student," said Media after a pause, "no doubt he consumed whole thickets of rush-lights."

  "Not so, my lord.-'Patience, patience, philosophers,' said Bardianna; 'blow out your tapers, bolt not your dinners, take time, wisdom will be plenty soon.'"

  "A notable hint! Why not follow it, Babbalanja?"

  "Because, my lord, I have overtaken it, and passed on."

  "True to your nature, Babbalanja; you stay nowhere."

  "Ay, keep moving is my motto; but speaking of hard students, did my lord ever hear of Midni the ontologist and entomologist?"

  "No."

  "Then, my lord, you shall hear of him now. Midni was of opinion that day-light was vulgar; good enough for taro-planting and traveling; but wholly unadapted to the sublime ends of study. He toiled by night; from sunset to sunrise poring over the works of the old logicans. Like most philosophers, Midni was an amiable man; but one thing invariably put him out. He read in the woods by glow-worm light; insect in hand, tracing over his pages, line by line. But glow-worms burn not long: and in the midst of some calm intricate thought, at some imminent comma, the insect often expired, and Mid
ni groped for a meaning. Upon such an occasion, 'Ho, Ho,' he cried; 'but for one instant of sunlight to see my way to a period!' But sun-light there was none; so Midni sprang to his feet, and parchment under arm, raced about among the sloughs and bogs for another glow-worm. Often, making a rapid descent with his turban, he thought he had caged a prize; but nay.

  Again he tried; yet with no better succcess. Nevertheless, at last he secured one; but hardly had he read three lines by its light, when out it went. Again and again this occurred. And thus he forever went halting and stumbling through his studies, and plunging through his quagmires after a glim."

  At this ridiculous tale, one of our silliest paddlers burst into uncontrollable mirth. Offended at which breach of decorum, Media sharply rebuked him.

  But he protested he could not help laughing.

  Again Media was about to reprimand him, when Babbalanja begged leave to interfere.

  "My lord, he is not to blame. Mark how earnestly he struggles to suppress his mirth; but he can not. It has often been the same with myself. And many a time have I not only vainly sought to check my laughter, but at some recitals I have both laughed and cried. But can opposite emotions be simultaneous in one being? No. I wanted to weep; but my body wanted to smile, and between us we almost choked. My lord Media, this man's body laughs; not the man himself."

  "But his body is his own, Babbalanja; and he should have it under better control."

  "The common error, my lord. Our souls belong to our bodies, not our bodies to our souls. For which has the care of the other? which keeps house? which looks after the replenishing of the aorta and auricles, and stores away the secretions? Which toils and ticks while the other sleeps? Which is ever giving timely hints, and elderly warnings? Which is the most authoritative? — Our bodies, surely. At a hint, you must move; at a notice to quit, you depart. Simpletons show us, that a body can get along almost without a soul; but of a soul getting along without a body, we have no tangible and indisputable proof. My lord, the wisest of us breathe involuntarily. And how many millions there are who live from day to day by the incessant operation of subtle processes in them, of which they know nothing, and care less? Little ween they, of vessels lacteal and lymphatic, of arteries femoral and temporal; of pericranium or pericardium; lymph, chyle, fibrin, albumen, iron in the blood, and pudding in the head; they live by the charity of their bodies, to which they are but butlers. I say, my lord, our bodies are our betters. A soul so simple, that it prefers evil to good, is lodged in a frame, whose minutest action is full of unsearchable wisdom. Knowing this superiority of theirs, our bodies are inclined to be willful: our beards grow in spite of us; and as every one knows, they sometimes grow on dead men."