The Scarlet Fig: Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series

IX The Scarlet Fig

Sea monsters lay rotting on the beach in shoals, where had he read that? in The Strabo, perhaps. It seemed as true now as ever. At some sound of distress, as Vergil muffled up his face (not his whole face, only that part of it below the bridge of his nose: the lower face, which the Masked Men called the thag — a part of the body which had no name among all the other people of the world), the helmsman said, “Yea, they do stink intensely bad, but I rather smell they on the beach, and they dead, than fear they, saunce smell, in the water, and they alive.”

“From what cause are they dead, helmsman?”

“That I dunno, Messer, ‘t’s a rare sight, but un sees it now and then — by Here and Merc!” and he pushed hard at the helm.

Vergil heard, or perhaps only felt, the ship shiver as it nudged a shoal; it hung for a moment, then swung loose and free. Said the seaman, “There did not use to be so many shallows … and sometimes you gets into a false channel which it’s so choked with weeds and hardly you may go through … navigation, now, that’s harder than it was, ‘longside these shores … ‘less we goes out so deep, to deep, deep sea. We do fear the deeps, and we fear the Punic sea-fleets more.”

“They say it was the Punes who first invented navigation —”

“They say. And some of them wants, beseemingly, to keep a monopole upon it.”

Vergil gave a soft sigh, and said no more. Much had he heard this voyage on the subject: Carthage had relinquished this and that: Carthage had been destroyed: and even so and even now, some New Carthage savagely still harried and pursued ships of other provenance if this could be done outside the explicit area of the Empery. And … sometimes even if it could not.

And Vergil, remembering that rage which he had seen upon that Punic face in Tingitana (and what had become of that sad, sick, hopelessly hopeful man who was called “Jugurthas VI, Titular King of Tingitana”? whom Vergil had so long ago encountered? — he did not know, and though it would be an aggrandizement of the fact to say he did not care, it would not be much of one), Vergil, recollecting what he considered the holy rage of the man who was, after all, not merely One Hemdibal, a merchant and a shroff: a Pune, but actually … or actually called … Josaias, King of Carthage! wherever Carthage now actually was: Vergil could hardly wonder that the shipmen, mere maggots though the Carthagans might consider them, shivered as they spoke of it.

… much loved by Juno, ancient Carthage, stained with purple, and heavy with gold …

It would take indeed much purple, worth its weight in gold though it was, and much, much gold, for any newer Carthage to attempt once again, after three resounding defeats and one sky-shattering destruction, to contend with Rome.

Which by no means guaranteed that this could not be once again assayed.

The ship sailed on, onward sailed the ship, sometimes it did not sail, but then see the seamen up and out with their oars; on they went. They went on. One day they raised an island he, by cert, had never seen before: out of the faint pink flushes of dawn that streaked the sky whose stars were well-nigh pallid where they lingered still at all, an island raised itself watch by watch out of the sea; mountains for surely he could discern. And at least one thin line of smoke anent the shore, so one for sure blower of fire there must be upon or by that shore, whether almost he bent himself into the fire to blow with his naked breath or whether merely he leaned over to it and blowed with a hollow tube which might be any length. Watch by watch and a half, the island showed itself to be two islands. The blue outlines became green. Mountains on the one island still half-hidden in a mist, crags upon the other island and their outlines clearer by each straining stroke of oar. And a most, then, curious thing: the line of smoke stopped, then it began again, then it was estopped again, and then at last it rose and rose upon the sleepy air.

Vergil asked aloud the question traditional to be asked of passenger to pilot, much as What thing? was asked of pilot unto pilot, were they near enough for that; Vergil asked, as he had asked a muckle times before, “What coast? What shore of people?” The pilot moved to speak to him, and turned a bit his head; the pilot turned his head again, and to him did not speak. But someone else did speak, as near as the curl of hair above his ear-hole.

“It is an outpost, or a settlement, as one might say, of the Guaramanty folk,” the shipper said, and he eyed him in his eye, so closely that Vergil might see the little man within that eye. And smell the dates, and even more, the onions, which the man had eaten and which the languid airs had not wafted away with any waft of wind. The line of smoke still rose up, straight up.

“ ‘The Guaramanty folk,’ ” Vergil repeated. “ ‘The Guaramanty folk?’ Why, that folk surely dwell a yond the desert and a yond a river of the interior in which the Herodote does relate the cockodrills copulate and crawl, the lump-lizards they are more common called; and their stunky excrements be valued much for that they fix well such perfumery as might otherwise evaporate and pass, such as your nard, radix, or that root by eminence —” and here he ceased this line of speech, for he felt that he might else in another moment gin to fall into a sing-song utterance of one who has read little but read it much, whatever the it of it, and loves to speak of it aloud. “However came the Guaramanty folk to dwell upon islands in the wide great stream of Ocean?”

The shipper of that shabby ship (and yet no dauncier vessel showed itself, nor had he seen any such for long and long) still fixed him with his eye and even bathed him in his unsweet breath. “Why, me lord ser, to be sure that great dog-holding people do indeed mostly dwell where me lord ser does wisely say; this is merely a settlement of some. And as to why they sojourne here so far from their natterai and natal home, why, leave we a go ashore and your lordshift mought ask of them whiles the rest of us do fill the barrels and the great jars a-full of frish water.”

Surely it was to see new peoples and strange peoples and stranger sights and seeings that Vergil had chose to linger on this ship and not taken his congée and waited in Tingitayne for a next vessel to return Romewards or even by reason of luck, to Naples itself: after he had assured himself that no search was being made for him, no writ of seizure ran for that passing, flashing moment of the Virgin Vestal. So he did not bother to remind the master of the craft of what Huldah had once, and he had heard her, had once assured the shipmen that the water of a certain spring she pointed out (the silvery bangles or armils tinkling on her slender wrists) would never spoil nor taint nor breed no vermin howso long it might tarry in the containers (her slender wrists, her slender hands and fingers on his flesh: enough!).

And then they were upon the beach, and some crowd of people stood a bit apart, not frightened, no, but perhaps shy. And one other man stepped forward and he and the shipper clasped each others’ hands and for a moment it seemed their fingers made motions one or more upon the others; then Vergil looked about him: a sweet shore, with leaning trees, a gentle coast of gentle people; they did laugh gentle laughter when he spoke to them in Latin, then they came closer and of their own motion, and the language which they spoke was soft and they spoke it slowly and they smiled. He did not of course know the lingua of the Guaramanty and so he did not know if this was it at all.

“Where are you going?” he called to the crewmen. “We have only just come ashore,” for they were wading out to their vessel, which they had not deigned to beach.

“Let your heart be easy, ser and lord,” the captain called. “This poor fellow hath been a cast away here some long time while, so long the while that he has not eaten bread nor ought of his familiar diet,” as he spoke he turned his head and spoke over his shoulder and kept on wading into the deepening shallow. “So soon as we have victualed him and give him fresh clouts to wear upon his carc and as the poet says, ‘Wine to make his face shine,’ we do return with goods for trade.” He scuttled up the side of the craft after his crewmen, calling loud, “Fear the folk not, taste their quaint grub and drink their liquid fruit, we’ll not be half a smallish sand-glass.” He shouted a word, merely a syllable, towards the shore, Vergil knew it not, clearly the islanders knew it well; at once, almost, one of them offered a vessel with a tempting liquor within, repeating what seemed the same word the shipman called.

Vergil sniffed it; it was very fragrant. He sipped of it; it was quite delicious; without further delay he drained it down, without further thought he held the vessel out, noting only that it was old: where the handle had been was rubbed quite smooth with use: but it was clean. With a happy murmur the people filled it from a larger jug; no doubt —

He left the thought forgotten, and he drank again. Again, the slow and simple laughter of the locals. They were naked, and they were not ashamed. He paused, the cup at his lip. “Guaramanties?” They chuckled and they said something; it was not quite the same word, but it seemed similar. Was their name simel, but not the same? Did they imitate him, not with total success? They touched him, they rubbed his skin, they ran their fingers through his hair, they touched his virile member as it had been, say, his nose … all: very, very, gently. Gently they pulled at him, gently they pushed at him, gently they drew him to where a larger number of them reclined between the sunlight and the shade. And here the same slow, soft, smiling scene was repeated.

The sunlight had wandered quite a ways away and the shade had gone all long when Vergil, seeing of a sudden through a gap atween the trees the ship far off under sail, chuckled aloud. “Well they have diddled me!” he said. “They recognized by the semaphores of the smoke that they had a fellow-member of some league and coven here ashore, and, as twas clear to them at once, as tis clear to me now, there would not fit in comfort or perhaps in supplies yet another man aboard the ship, they simply set me on this shore and took him aboard instead. Well done, was well and clever done!” and here he laughed until the tears, swam down into his beard.

And all the islanders laughed with him. It was not likely that they understood at all why he was a-laugh, but they were all quick to merriment anyway; in a moment they had turned away from him and gan a languid game of tossing some golden fruit from one to another, and this amused him quite as much as had the contemplation of the trickery. “And now it is my own turn to wait until some ship of men from that world of sweat and sorrow, wars and woes, may find me here. And if this be not so swift, well, well enough.” Here he made gestures to them that he was thirsty, but it seemed they heard him not. He forced himself to think of a word, no force had force with him, but soon enough he thought he recked it well enough. “Nawm!” he called. “Mawn!” he called. “Num-num. Numma!” It must have been near enough, for at once a one of them let throw the fruit and turned aside and poured him somewhat from the great jug. And he drank of it, drank he of it deep. “I am tired,” he muttered. “I would not think more. I would sleep.” And he fell laxly on his back and in a moment he turned slowly to one side, as little loath as the babb that turneth in the womb.

Slowly seeketh the mind of a man who hath travelled over far lands and dreameth in the folly of his heart. ‘Would that I were here, or would that I were there,’ and many are the wishes he conceiveth. And yet he too is fated to lie low in dust and blood amongst the dead. And do the dead have dreams?[8]

Perhaps he felt the warmth of the sun retreating from the sands. Perhaps the chill he felt was that of night. Was dew falling? was all the world gone damp? It was in no way unpleasant, merely he wondered. Merely he wondered what voice he heard, calling from afar, in scrannel tones a-calling, “The Mother of the Owl is cold, is cold! The Mother of the Owl is cold …”

Somehow he knew the old one’s name was Teter, and that in him there was no harm. And somehow he knew that the large one’s name was Alcinoüs. Somehow he knew that these were no names ever they gave themselves.

And somehow he knew that Alcinoüs meant to kill him. Although, somehow, he knew not why. There were many things he knew not now, and sometimes his mind seemed clear and sometimes it did not. Sometimes he thought, Now the Black Dream again again. And sometimes he did not.

Despite the taken-for-granted teaches of the organized and historical religion, the goat-footed nymphs were nought but the she-forms of the goat-footed satyrs. Another article of faith a-shattered … not through the scornful preaching of some peripatetic philosopher or from any word of home-grown cynic; but from the simple sight. His sight was clearer now. Often. “Numph,” said the old one, jerking his lugs (“ears” they could scarce be called) to the scarp of rock and shale and scree, through which over and down floated a whisp, a fraction, a ghost of a breeze: “Numph” — and hardly had his nares recognized a slight new scent, scarcely had he time more than to reflect on that well-known vowel-shift: hybris to hubris, Ludda to Lydda, Cumae to Kyme, Tur to Tyre, than she appeared, far less dainty than dumpty, thumping rather than tripping, tween tree and tree; in her hair flowers … or … anyway what looked like parsnip greens; the nymph was scarcely of the sort seen on krater or in illumed pages of parchment. The nymph of that island, someone had writted, smites the hearts of men as twere the face and form of Elen of Troy. Vergil swiftly thought on all this with a sinking of the spirit (his spirit must have risen if it could sink at all now) at the sight of this figure, this native of the rocks: low-hipped of body, long of head, heavy and almost horse-like yellow teeth broken here and there, huge nose, huge chin: could only allow himself, astonnied, to listen to the vatic voice (who knew if Troy had yet burned in war or if Troy and war and burning were yet to come?) “Was this the face that launched the thousand ships, and burned the topless towers of Ilium?” — “Numph,” emphasized old Teter. “Numph.”

Vergil felt rather somewhat the same surprise as once, when so very young a man as scarcely to be called a man at all, after even so some long time (to him, then, some long time) of not having seen a certain sight, a certain she had bared her breast to him: a gesture in the great game between the sexes (“The silly game,” who had said that? certain it was not that certain she, he’d instantly bethought him), but where he’d thought to have seen something like the size and shape and color of one-half the small fruit of the rose-mulberry, he saw instead something like an omelette made from the egg of a damned odd bird. And the voice of Emmalina murmured at his ear-well, “Now you know what a woman’s nipple looks like.” And what am I supposed to do about it? was his thought. Emmalina solved the mystery, said to the servant, unseen by him till then, “Give me the child.”

The satyrs had sometimes been beset by children of men (though certainly and surely not by any children of the Lotophages, and indeed they left the one the other entirely alone: why did the satyrs never drink of the liquid of the Scarlet Fig nor eat of its fruit? because it reminded them of honey they conceited it was of honey-taste, a laithly taste to them. The satyrs were always enemy to the bee.) … beset by children of men, who hooted and cast stones. In saying, “children of men,” this is metaphor as used by the ever-licensed poet; one does not mean boys and girls. The crew of foreign ships is meant, or some of the crew; crews very seldom being recruited from aristocrates or philosophes. Nor would one suppose them to be the crews of ships of Tartis: the Tartis-system, though in decay, would from ancient usage and experience well know better than to antagonize any on any shore or coast. Men off casually-come-thither ships of the less dulcet ports of empery had sometimes hooted and cast stones. Did thee and me ask them why, the whores’ gets, they would stone thee and me. The satyrs were perhaps not very deep of apprehension, yet perhaps they were … Beset, they fled to their homes in the rocks, to eat of their harsh, dull diet: the prickly eringion, for example, which grows only on salt sea-sand or on rugged, stoney waste and is by mankind used only as antidote for deadly nightshade; such things as those they ate.

But of the soothing Scarlet Fig, ate they never, not.

Folk thought that satyrs were funny. It was common and frequent at festivals for some to be got up as satyrs — the horns all wrong and the ears all wrong — mincing along or conveyed along in wagon, wearing protrusive artifacts fashioned of wood and leather; and folk would laugh, for folk thought that satyrs were funny. But they were not funny. Word could not convey their sometime brutal malignity.

There were no happy satyrs.

Often he had seen them eating samphire, raw, on crag-faces where, he might have, moments earlier, have made his oath, even the chamois and the rock-tibbu dared not adventure; once, in such a place, just, he had seen them copulating, fast and bloody and fierce. Twice he had encountered a set of them mumbling off the splintered ground handfulls of windfalls of some small stone-fruit which lay in ragged heaps smelling as sour as an unwashed rustic wine-press; two simply moved away as even sheep would move away; old Teter remained squatting and munching; and one had stamped off, making that noise deep in his chest; and one, before leaving, had looked at him — for a swift flash of time like a glint off a shard of glass — had looked into his face, and spat the small fruit-stone at his, the man’s chest. Perhaps — ah no! the first time the satyr had spet the stone on the man’s back; it was the second time that one spat it almost in his face, but hit his chest: the spittle had left a stain, a smear. Samphire and stone-fruit often had he seen them eat … harsh eryngion carobs, often; pod and all … and the fleshy leaves of some thick succulent, and stalks of giant fennel and mallows in the marsh, he had seen them eat.

He had seen them crushing between their inhuman teeth the seeds and stalks of the common asphodella: a lily, edible, but just quite barely.

One need be very well-fed indeed to admire a mead of golden asphodel indeed from an æsthetic viewpoint alone, and from as far away as possible. It damned well stank, for one thing. Its seeds were hard to gather and hard to grind, for another. Hard-handed, hard-hearted masters would feed the mealy mush of asphodella to their slaves; wild men and satyrs would crunch it and munch it, seeds, stalks, and all. It was, in short, well-suited to feed the common ghosts in hell, whilst the shades of kings and queens and heroes dined off golden apples in The Islands of the Blessed; far, far beyond the twain Pillars of Melcarth or Hercul or Atlas (take your pick), nigh unto the inhumanely wide and wild waters of the great dark grey and green Atlantis Sea, there where Melcarth bathed. So The Matter sayeth. And more, The Matter sayeth not.

Asphodel the man knew, samphire, small stone-fruit he knew, eryngion and carobs, succulents and fennel and mallows of the marsh he knew: and he knew the satyrs ate them for their meat.

What else did the satyrs eat?

What else.

Once, abruptly and terrifyingly, he had turned a corner of some natural buttress below the cliffs, and there squatted a band or sept of them: all stained with blood, they were eating … well, one of them was eating … the still-green content of a goat-kid’s maw. And the rest of them were eating the goat-kid. There was of course, no fire.

After that, he made him careful where he walked. And in what mind and manner. By now he was quite sure that the insolence of the satyrs towards him was daily growing; they must not have been used to the near-presence of a man so much, and it hostiled them. By now he was sure in particular of one such sullen satyr in particular, a shaggy, scarred bull-buck with half-coil horns turning sharply aside which did not quite match; and he was sure, too, of the thick, thick nails upon the creature’s so-odd hands or paws (though in no manner odd for a satyr) thick, thick spotted yellow-brown nails they were, like … in a way … the nails upon the toes of some rough country man of the human folk. And he was sure, too, of the bull-buck’s member: in full view, one could hardly call it his privy member: set, like those of all bull-buck satyrs, at a prominent angle forward and upward; this phallus, then, though not in full truth ithyphallic (those of the younger bucks, dark-glans half-slid forward had half-protruding from the hoodskin more like those of some men, like so many men, like so many acorns: and it seemed to him, to this man, that he himself for long had felt assured that this was why the oak was most sacred of sacral trees, in that it sembled, this generative part of this tree, this acorn, that same part of man himself) — and, he felt, this man, that he felt, this man, he felt he knew his name was Vergil (Vergilius M., carved thin and deep into the small wooden spoon still in the pouch he still had been able to keep with him), and this feeling was a now fairly new one, for, living among the satyrs, almost, and living much upon their own wild fresh food (he had not eaten any flesh-meat-food): and no more upon the sweet and yielding fruit and its liquid juices used of the island men and women, he felt, too, that his mind was clearer now than foretime.

Clearer now than foretime, but not at all by all means clear, “foretime” itself was not clear; uncertainties and fears swirled about him in more ways than that now. So much more often, rocks fell upon him: stones, then, they had not gotten to rocks; stones clinked and clicked and clattered, rather like the clattering and clicking of the satyr hooves. Stones bouncing off the hills and clifts and clephts upon him, not hurled (it seemed), merely they had been scruffed and kicked down upon him; not by an accident had their compact turds — good that they were compact! — had their dungins been thrown … not yet … could the satyrs throw things, actually? one did not know … of much other was he uncertain, also fearful, and it was the uncertain nature of his fears, and the fearfulness of his uncertainties which lunged and rippled in his mind and heart.

— dungballs like some small dark-brown fruits; idly the thought, as he now and then saw them smoking and could feel, from very near, their natural heat, hot from the hotter heats of the natural bodies that produced them; idly the thought that one might dry them and use them for fuel … or, saunce drying, heap them and husband their heats: level them: and thus they would supply a heat which, if not fiercely hot, would be steady hot, keeping a closed container very warm and a steady rate of warmth … something one could not say of other heats, perhaps not even under the steadiest of attendance and attention. Nor remembered why he’d thought this (alchemy! occymy! such odd words!), nor what, further it meant or even could mean either … it hardly mattered … the mists still swirled somewhat in his head, hardly did it even matter that the bull-buck satyr with the rather crooked horns had, very clearly — if anything was clear — determined to kill him.

Near the great Pillars, someone (Hercules, Mercules, Herodotus, Helcarth, Melcarth: who were they? who were they?) had said, there lived the people called … called … the words now thick-a-mist in Vergil’s mind … ah! called Atlanteans; who were said to eat no sentient things and … and what? The rude winds rule the mists, the old heath-hags say. As anyone may say, may see, but … The notion that by eating one’s like, however distantly like — The Atlanteans eat no living thing and never dream — there!

Where?

— that eating, awake, one’s like, like by reason of life, might cause a semblance of life to appear during sleep, this was a thought he thought might be interesting to examine; but so swiftly as the thought had come, even so swiftly had it gone.

And there was the crook-horn much-scarred satyr, the brazen bull-buck (was he hateful of the man because the man had merely looked upon the nymph and smelled of her in her season and her heat?), high upon a ledge, quite easily they leaped from ledge to ledge, his eyes ruddled and his swarty-beardy face set between a rictus and a scowl, his shag hip pressed straining against a boulder, and now the man did not feel that he himself could move, and yet he saw the boulder move.

There were rumors that there were islands in the west where great dogs roamed, and the shipskipper had said that the people of this island were of the far-off Guaramanty folk: the Guaramanties were famous for their dogs, anyone might cite you the story of King Cyril of Guaramantia, made captive and captive carried away by the Berbari; one thousand of his own trained dogs-of-war, cuffed and caressed by his own hands, fed from his own fingers with bread warmed even briefly in his own oxters that they might know his own-most scent, wearing his own scarlet harness; one thousand of them, so men said, had traced and tracked him down across the leagues and leagues of desert, full of dead men’s cities where the dead had turned to stone and yet still stood, oddly, upon pedestals, men and women made into marble — had tracked him along at first by night and then at first in early dawn and then in level daylight, then they gat them close to earth and crawled upon their bellies like the lizards so that none saw them and then at length in moonless night had in full force attacked and roaring in their rage had the Guaramanty war-dogs girt their own king’s captors round about and then attacked and tore their royal master’s captors into mere offals, so soon to be bloated and fly-blown: all but himself the Emir of Berbary who scorned not to squat and crouch between King Cyril’s legs like any petty-dog: whence he half-arose and at Cyril’s command unloosed his bounds: and then King Cyril allowed his dogs one half-day’s feasting upon the dead, after which he took the scarlet harness off the body of Sargo, his single dog which died (died of joy, some said, to lick his Royal Master’s hands) and fastened it upon the trembling body of the Emir and marched him back with his nape in a leash which Cyril held himself. The list of that one’s ransom would fill many a thick great codex and the last item on that lengthy list was all and every woman in the Emirs house held: which and whom he gat. He scorned to sink his poise on any single one of them, merely he kept them ever at turning the querns to grind the meal from which was baked the very bread which fed his, King Cyril’s thousand dogs of war: anyone might cite you this story

Often.

If, now, as the boulder trembled and the boulder moved and Vergil, illaday, could not move; if all the dogs alleged to roam what western island and if all the dogs of all the Guaramanties and if all the hounds of all Molossia (where sang all the singing cauldrons of high Dodona’s oakenshaws with all their vatic voices) and if every dog of every dead had been summoned by the power of every Gunta: there could not have risen such a hellish clamor as rose then amidst the crags. All color fled the face of half-maddened Alcinoüs, his dirty-fleecy legs trembled and he be-pissed himself: then he turned and fled. All the satyrs fled, save only old Teter, who was too old to flee: he crawled up to Vergil, his half-human face torn with terror, and Vergil, recalling the old tale of a sudden gained power to move and moved the old creature tween his own legs, to assure him that he be safe. Shapes of darkness lurched and shambled swiftly through the meads and marshes and up among the crags. No single satyr, not the biggest bull-buck, even, made that noise in his chest; but quite another sort of noises they were making: dost ever hear the hare scream out when the weasel pounce upon him? suppose the hare the size of buck or bull, then conjecture hearing how that sounds … and by how many made.

“I now remember who am I,” the man cried out. “I am Vergil Marius Mago! Let this doing now be done!”

And he sank and set himself upon his knees and he clasped old uncomprehending Teter round the old thing’s neck and he held him and he wept.

In a lagoon near where the islanders some times took their rest (ha! were they not always at rest?), or tended to their single fire (although how they remembered always to feed it, he could not imagine), odd birds waded and, seemingly, fed: for they quite often bent down their heads with the peculiar beaks and dipped them in the waters, surely not to drink, for the waters were not fresh. Their heads were not alone of them peculiar; their legs so long and thin the birds gave the impression of walking on stilts. And their plumage was entirely pink, much resembling a certain confection of marchipane, the specialty of a certain shop which sold sweetmeats, half-way upon the hill back there in Naples. Somehow he thought that the name of these birds was Flemingo, though why such a bird, very clearly a creature of the warm south, should be called after the natives of Flaunders, in the cool north, indeed he could not say. Now and then the island-folk, Guaramanties or Guaramanchies or however they called themselves, would sing all of them together, and beat time with sticks upon some naturally-hollowed logs: then all the wild, gaunt, pink birds would dance in time to the music: twas a rare fine sight, indeed. Flemingoes.

After some while, turning from the crags towards the sea, he saw the waves coming in, like students to a school. His mind, seeing them, was in an instant back a measure of years: when he, he himself a student, too: a single portmantle containing all his garb and gear, lived with others such — they shared one floor, one mess, one servant, and one set of books (they were very worn books, and for that matter, it was a very worn servant, too lacking one eye and one ear about his large and tufty head) — and all took turn and turn about. He could not imagine why a copse of exotic palm-trees was growing in the middle of their commons room now, he did not remember them, but there they were; and there were many things which he could neither imagine nor remember. It was said of such a group of student thriftbudgets that even a load of grass or hay served them at least three, even four, times: once to stuff their pallet-ticks; once, the stuffing having worn so flat or thin that they could feel the grain of the boards beneath, once to strew upon the floor in lieu of reeds or carpet; a third once, the strewing being grown thinner yet … and, for that matter, grosser, too! … to fuel the fire; and the fourth and last once the ashes served to polish knives and spoons.

Such a group of students was called a res, which was cant for a word not generally thought safe to use in public use: the thing, then, let it be called. At stated times they elected two consuls for themselves. Anselmo was Emperor then: arms, a shield of silver with five red roses. Rose, said to be in his honor (they relished even the touch of servility, that they might safely sneer upon it when in secret: Here’s two cheeks for you-know-who, one of them was sure enough to say when setting his naked buttocks on the cloak while dressing in the morn). Rose was the lining of their ragged cloaks, and they considered it themselves a brave sight and gesture with one motion to throw back the cloaks over the right shoulder as they walked along the lane: whereat passers-by or shop- or stall-keepers were expected to say, “The roses bloom …” Their particular res occupied the third floor and rooftop room of a tenement which clung like a wasp-nest to the surviving section of the curtain-wall of the Castello of Orland the Proud; the Castello of course itself was long gone, only here and there a stone of that famed honey-color was pointed out as being of such provenance. It was considered rather brave of them, the students, not to mind The Crone Below (so they called her when the door was at bolt); this was the old woman Iadwicka who lived in one room on the street floor and had a better beard than any of they students. Iadwicka in pits in part of the yard kept vipers and fed them with rats bought off the outcaste boys at five-a-stiver: one copperkin for five. Of which vipers she day by day killed such-and-such a number and them she stewed with honey and with dill till all the meat left all the bones: flesh and flour, vetch-meal and verjuice and broth she moiled in a mull and divided the mass into trochees of the lesser theriac[9]; this did she of the forenoons, and all the afternoons the hooded pothecaries in their hooded cloaks (none ragged) and their prentice-boys came upon their rounds and bought them up by weight in the scales the boys did tote, to be used as ingredient for many receipts and prescriptives.

It was considered rather brave of them to dwell there unmindful of the vipers (questioned, Were they a-feared? answered, that the vipers kept down the mice; sometimes, added, the fleas, or the lice, as well), but it was considered far from good taste to hiss. Once only someone did this, an ill-favored lumpkin whom none much liked; but so unskillfully that his imposture was soon discovered; instead of rueful laughter and rough good cheer which clearly and stupidly he had expected, they rated him at some long length, nor yielding to point out his bumpy skin and stinking feet and how ill he got his lessons; then they fined him. He was sullen after that a good long time and they by and by had reason to believe that he was mad, but they tried nothing to cure him. Merely they passed him by for mess-duty, fearing lest he introduce who knew what into the food, the while they wondered what to do with him. But soon he did it to himself, donned his cloak and went by ladder to the roof-peak and cast himself off.

“What a rare rose bloomed that day!” a pothecary’s prentice said, though his master growled and cuffed him for it.

They the students of that res dyed all of them their cloaks black from the linings out, and said it was for mourning, but in truth they knew it was for shame.

But why grew the grove of exotic palm-trees from the middle of their commons-rooms? Palms of such a sort, nor giant stalks of fennel, did not use to grow in Naples, nor samphire in the crannies of their raddled house-walls.

Fortunatus, the laughter of the Neopolitan court of its heavy Doge still ringing in his ears (only a certain sage, by name Vergil, had not laughed scornfully with the others: but did he not, behind his civil mask smile a bittle? — perhaps he did, a bittle, smile), Fortunatus scuttled through the door which the majordomo’s fingersnap had caused to be opened for him, half he turned for one further bow, but perceiving that the majordomo was already hastening off, Fortunatus gave half a shrug, then went his way. The courtly kindness had not ended with the gift of the purse which held fast on its thong against his belly (to be sure it was not a very heavy purse, but twas heavier than Fortunatus’s own purse ever was), for a torch parted from the cluster by the gate and a torchbearer said, trotting over before Fortunatus could vanish into the black, “If the Master Philosopher will just give me the directions — The house of Messer Magus, of course I so often —” Fortunatus, after a somewhat startled look to see that the sage, Vergil, had indeed come away from the levée and was standing right behind him, declared, “The Alley of the Hornscrapers, which lies yet other side of Oxen Shambles, past Fodder Lane. Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

Rapted in talk about the Latitudes and Zones (seldom he gat a chance for such talk … with Vergil or with anyone else), almost he forgot to make his single stop, by Poultry Court. Vergil observed with light surprise that the flemincoe or Flemengoe birds were wading in the puddle where live ducks were sometimes set to paddle and freshen before becoming dead ducks. The tall pink birds seemed quite at home, though Vergil had no thought that ever he had seen them in Naples before at all. Strange sights, well, some said these were strange times: likely they were right.

“Who in the bloody little hell knocks at such an hour?”

“Poulterer, the Doge’s Torchbearer; open, open, ope!”

“May his Grace’s torch be set to my house and out-sheds if me taxes be not already fully paid and tallies isshied — What, Messer Fortunatu? What?” The man startled at the sight of Vergil, but gave him a deep nod as good as any bow; it was difficult to bow at a tiny window which showed little but one’s face and neck.

“My man, at once, at once, one quarter of a hen-chicken, at once! Yes, yes, yes, yes.” Fortunatus at once resumed talk of the Zone in which lay Great Zeugma, known as the richest toll-bridge in the world, as it crosseth River Eupherate; but soon the thunk! thunk! of the cleaver on the block distracted him.

“Fo! the thick chickeny stenk o’ the place,” the torchman said, staring down the family, and the neighbors, and perhaps a score or so of onlookers who seemed to have appeared from nowhere to speculate and point … until eyed down, for the torchman wore a livery which all knew, and by the proud stance and glance of him he might have been the Master of the Doge’s guard. (Did he pose, thus, there, of course, they would have cuffed him).

At his house in the Alley of the Hornscrapers — the Alley was full of the strong, rich olor of neats’-horn, which none who ever smelled of it ever forget; to which added sundry stenks from the Ox Shambles: let the Fisc term cattle-butchering one of the Infamous Trades and tax it as such, that made it smell no sweeter. Not that Fortunatus showed any sign of noticing. He fumbled now in his own ratty purse, so different from the one which held the ducal bounty; gave the torchbearer sundry copper coins, received his thanks. Somewhat hesitantly he said, “I do not usually invite people to my chamber, but if the Messer Vergil would care to climb aloft —?”

The sage Messer Vergil would feel honored. There was merely a slight problem. The torchbearer, saying, “If Messer Magus would care to go aloft a bit, I shall be pleased to wait below, and I haves a spare torch to enlight him home,” Vergil nodded his assent. The Master Philosopher suddenly pointed into the shadows, “Did you drop a coin?” asked he; and whilst the torchbearer peered and gaped, Fortunatus swiftly, deftly, furtively, found the end of a rope concealed somewhere, and hauled upon it, then as swiftly hid it away again. Down slid a ladder. Up went Fortunatus, Vergil following after. Below they heard the torchman mutter, as he clinked his coins and counted them, that he saw nowt missing, but thanked Messer Fortunatu none the less.

“Please to step carefully as you enters,” said Messer Fortunatus. He let the ladder stay where it was, and tied the rope fast. “Down there in the street be dangers,” he muttered. “Did you see the way some of yon rabble looked upon me? They would have rabbled me and stole away my quartern hen-chicken, if they could. — but here be safety.”

By dim light (and no doubt even without it) as easily as if it were level daylight, Fortunatus moved about. He unsmoored the fire, blew the sleeping coals a-bright, added a few more, lit a spill, by it lit his lamp, swiftly, carefully, blew out the spill. He took the quarter a hen-chicken in its wrapping of clean cabbage-leaf, dropped it, cabbage-leaf and all, along with an onion, a parsnip, a cluft of garlic, a juniper berry, a single peppercorn, and the two small pippins whose selection from the sideboard of the Doge had made so much merriment (Did he know it was customary to take both hands full of the gilded sweetmeats — including the rosy marchipanes — when the Doge gestured, saying, Have what you will, and …? No, he did not.); dropped all into his sole black chauldron, covered all with a fiasco of rain water deftly drained from the cistern-on-the roof, and put his meal (supper? it would be supper, dawn-dish, noon-mess and all to him, with his scanty and disciplined diet) to cook upon the embers. From the one lamp lit, he lit others, all the others … that is, all both of the others …

Vergil looked round the room, the his, Fortunatus’s room, crazy and cranky (but his!), at the top of the house, with no way thither into it now from inside or outside the building. He saw the books, scrolls, the massive folios (oliphaunt folios, some called them, either because elephant was part of the bindings or because they were the size, so to speak, of oliphaunts), instruments, plans, charts whereby one could instantly tell the hour and half-the-hour (even on rainy or cloudy days), pictures (of the Great Gnomon at Syene, for ensample), the tiny plants which he maintained, in his cranky way, purified the air (Mercules! it did need such, in this neighborhood!); globes celestial and terrestrial and crowded cabinets; and that odd, odd bird of unknown provenance, silent bird, sitting silent on its perch (the whisper in the lane had it that Fortunatus had frequent converse with it in a foreign tongue). It would munch the remnants of his meal, whatever his meal might be; no meal at all? then the bird, too, would make do with no meal at all; at such times the neighbors said that they could tell it was Hunger Day, for all day long the bird plucked the strings of an ancient lute a-hanging by its perch: every note from umma to summa, one after the other, all day long, all the long, long, day.

If any one was untactly enough to sound such series of notes on his own lute: “Leave off!” (at once), “Leave off! Tis Fortunatus’s bird, gone gant!”

But little cared Fortunatus for any of this. Here he might be (even if, by his own choice, he was not now) alone. Here no one could (unless he himself chose) disturb him. Here he, and not others, put his own value on things. The whisper, indeed, the loud and raucous rumble in the lane, said nothing about Fortunatus’s life concerning women, … or, for that matter, boys or girls or men … But a statue of a beautiful she, half life-size, stood int the corner. Many a Patrician of the Kingdom of Naples (the Kingdom was extinct: not the title) would have given many a golden solid or golden pæleólogus for to have it: Haro the sculptor had groaned it up himself by ropes and pullies, and selected a choice-most nook for it in the best light, purely out of respect for a fellow-artificer; Fortunatus used it to dry his breeches on in the hot weather, the while he went bare … though in the cold he set the brazier of heated ashes by it, (the while himself he shivered), lest it freeze and crack.

Having attended to the matter of food (it would remind him by savory smell when it was ready, he was not one of your hour-glass or water-clock cooks), he prepared to sit him down — and suddenly bethought himself that he had a guest; “Is the sage, Vergil, interested in the mathematics?” he asked.

“It would be a further favor,” the sage Vergil began, but one word attended the ear of the Master Philosopher.

“ ‘A favor’ yes. A favor. One may ask a favor? ah?. By the boon and bounty of the learned Doge …” (many had called Tauro many things, referring to his habits, his parents, his coarseness, and his size: no one before, under the Consulate of Heaven, had, surely, ever called him learned!)

“… Doge, I now have enough for parchment, pens, ink, pounce … one thing Doge’s boon and bounty cannot bring me … If I might come to the house of the sage Vergil and copy but one passage out of the great book Almagest …?”

“Come whenso you will and copy what you please. I shall advise them at the door and inform them in the library. Might the hour of noon be to the Master Philosopher’s convenience? The light —”

It would not. “At the hour of — at the hour mentioned, according to my own calculation mathmatical, the most-favorable spirits would not be in the ascendant …”

So, thought Vergil; even Fortunatus feared the hour of noon, when, since men cast no shadows, one could not tell real men from false: the Demon, the Dukos, the Simulacre and the Sand-Jack shed no shade. Well, so be it. The sage Vergil, with a murmur and a gesture, made the Master Fortunatus free of whatso hour ever he might desire. The sage Vergil wore a civil face, yet, beneath the civil face, did he not smile a bittle? Beneath the civil face, he did smile … a bittle.

Making nought of his host’s thanks, swift he pressed him that he had a favor of his own to ask: see the philosopher startle in surprise. “Can the Master tell me ought of, how shall I call it, hath it yet a name? device and art whereby to depict things a-dwindle in the distance, yet all in proper ratio?”

Fortunatus understood instantly; “Proportion, this we call proportion and perspective, what would see perspectively?”

A bit amazed as, it seemed, being instantly understood. Vergil said, “Whatever you please … a man beyond houses, a house in between trees yet a farther away from them somewhat … a doorway in a building on a pier and beyond it the end of a pier and moored thereto a boat … whatever —”

Before Vergil had finished the words, Fortunatus had quickly taken up a much-used piece of papyrus (a more than-once-palimpsest it seemed), turned it over to its back on which the lineaments of whatever had been there were now but so many — or so few — grey ghosts, slapped it flat on the table and gave it another slap as it were he feared it would flee, else; took up a very small piece of charcoal, drew a single stroke with it, evidently discovered, suddenly, that it was blunt — as any boy too small to be trusted yet in breeches might have told him at a glance — gave it a sudden snap, as a hungry dog might give a morsel; and commenced, swiftly, almost savagely, to draw lines.

“Your ichnography is not enough,” Fortunatus breathed; stroke, stroke; “Your divisional construction is not enough;” stroke, stroke: did the strokes, what was the word? converge —? “Your sudivisional construction is not enough,” stroke, stroke, stroke. “Observe, you Vergil —” (no mention of sage now: You Vergil. Well and good, he might not be “sage,” but he was, was he not? you Vergil. It was somehow a great comfort, much more than mere adjectives of flattery) … stroke … stroke “Observe, observe, observe! What is I say, essential, is your point of convergence; your vanishing point is essential …”

There on the old and soiled apyrus, amidst the strokes and lines, or upon the strokes and lines: suddenly there had appeared a doorway, beyond the doorway a mole or pier, perceptibly a distance, though no large distance, away; at the edge of the dock was, in scarce time at all, ‘a boat and all her apparell’ moored fore and aft, scratch, scratch, stroke, stroke. The wide gates of a harbor …

“It is not a fantasma!” exclaimed Fortunatus. Suddenly Vergil could smell the garlic, could he not smell, also, basil among the small pots of plants? it was some while yet before a seasoned cook would add the basil to the cook-pot — “Not a fantasma, at all, as say those fools, maledictions fall upon them! It is a truth, a philosophic truth, I say: the circle can be squared!” He was panting now, as a man panteth upon a woman. “Gold projected out of dross, indeed! As well project dross out of gold!” One could hear, among the thick and heavy breath of passion, the hard sound of grinding teeth. In a second or a score of seconds, doorway, dock, ship, harbor, horizon were obliterated: and so was all knowledge of the presence of one You Vergil … or of anyone else alone. With an impatient gesture and an abrupt sigh, the old papyrus was swept onto the floor; Fortunatus swilled a half a mouthful of water, spewed it into his palms, rubbed his fingers clean of charcoal, rubbed them dry upon his robe.

Below and all around lay poverty, guarded by riches: Fortunatus cared not at all of either. Now with a bliss-filled sigh he drew an almost perfectly clean sheet of parchment from underneath an almost perfectly clean dust-sheet; and from another place he took up his compass and his protractor and his rule. Now everything in the world fell away from him as though uncreated. He and the pure forms, the Pure Forms, were quite alone, and might love one another to their endlessly full contentment: the Pure Forms: the line, the triangle, the rectangle, the circle and the square. Beauty bare. Beauty bare.

Vergil on tip-toe made his way from the room, paused only for a single backward glance before he turned and made his way down the crannied wall to the ground where the torchbearer awaited, open mouthed and silent and alone.

Silent as well, Vergil gestured to the man, and they set off together through the torch-pierced dark. One thing above all did wonder him, You Vergil, as they went.

He heard, in the otherwise silence, the chafing of the cicadas in the distant trees and fields, and the small but ceaseless lisping of the pitch in the burning torch.

Why, as though intent, did the flamingoe peer over Fortunatus’ shoulder as he drew upon his parchment?

One did not know. One Vergil did not know.

He felt that he must get him to the beach, and seek the comfort of the island-men: faint comfort though it was. On the way thither he saw the gleam of water through the trees; it was not the sea, it was a pool. He thought he might sink into it and refresh his body and be cool and clarify his mind. Trees and shrubs and scented flowers circled round. The man, without much taking thought, sank to his knees and cupped his hands to take up water and to drink. But before thrusting in his close-paired palms upturned, he paused and looked down. As in a dream he gazed and saw a face a-looing up at him.

It was not his face.

Neither was it the face of someone just behind him, for, as he quickly turned, there was no one behind him. As he moved his upper body around and looked again down, he saw that, reflected in the pool was a woman’s face, she seemed somedel troubled and concerned, and he knew that he had seen that face and that look before. And it came to him the word Huldah. He knew he knew it but he knew not how. Huldah meant the genet and the weasel, it also meant the cat, biss, one called it, familiarly. And yet. The Region called Huldah, what did that mean? No answer came, save that in a moment he was on his feet, walking swift away. He had not been swift but a little while ago. He had been as one who walks in a dream. For some reason he thought of the local nymphs, and of the brute impetuous beings who so lusted after them. Not only the satyrs lusted after nymphs; Priapus the son of Aphrodite, he: Protector of Goats, the randy creatures; Priapus “the Ever-Erect,” had lusted after the nymph called Lotis: had she appreciate the honor? no, not she, and when awakened by the braying of an ass (perhaps jealous of his ithyphallic rival), the nymph Lotis changed at once into a lotus-tree: a fact well-known. Whence had she the puissance? some guardian genie, doubtless. Some guardian genie doubtless it was which had substituted another’s face for that of his own, for to dream of seeing one’s own reflection in a dream was the best-known omen of one’s own impending death.

The sea, the sea.

Faintly forming at first; forming, faintly in his mind, the image of a man running quickly, rapidly, ever so swiftly, man running, feet raised high with each step, arm raised high of the man, something in the hand of the arm raised high of the man; it had seemed (and how could this be?) that the man was skimming ever so swiftly over the surface of a languid sea: to one side of the man, a low-lying bank of cloud: quite quite dark, the cloud, and the cloud quite low. This vision was oft repeated, did that mean it was merely some vision oft repeated, or did it mean that what was seen in this vision, this image, this vision of the day, was it of something which he had often seen? Who was he? Who was “Who”? The he himself of whom he now knew more (his mind less clouded), some certainty there (here), of this than before. He was You Vergil now, he was a certain man, hight Vergil, a thaumaturge, a philosophe and necromaunt; that was certainly certain, a certain man, hight Vergil, that was a line from a document, rectangulate in shape, and he would now, right now, putting of it off no longer, turn to that said document and read of it: and then he would know more about You Vergil. He turned, there was no document, there were people round about and hemming him in, they were crowding round about him close, this would not do.

Love is a much-reflective surface, who had said that? why?

He shook his head to dislodge this alien and interruptive thought, this would not do, a crowd and throng were hemming him in. Abrech! he called, this certain man, hight Vergil. Abrech! For he knew that the Abrech meant Clear the way, it meant Make clear the way, but he did not know in what language it meant this, certainly not his own, nor how he came to know it.

Out at sea, a cloud.

In his head, a cloud.

They did not clear the way, they were not flouting him, they did not know the word or its usage at all, a way was not made clear for him, they hemmed him in all round about, their light bodies pressing, and all their fingers pointing, pointing to the man at sea, out at sea, that arm of sea between this land and another land (between this island and another island?), man running oh so swiftly coming nearer, nearer, fastly, even desperately running he skimmed along the sea. In the upraised hand of the upraised arm of this man (coming closer, ever closer, this man) was something like a mace, or a, or a — all about him now, this certain man hight You Vergil, as they stood upon the beach, the tawny-sandy beach — Fire! they shouted, they shouted Fire! and though he knew but nothing of it, he found himself shouting Fire! There was no document, rectangulate or any other shape. What had made him believe that there was or even could be a document? This was no place of document, although it may have been mentioned in the Homer and the Homer was a document, was sometimes many documents for sure. King Alexander Magnus, it was well-known, had had such a document of Homer, some said of occamy, some of geography, which was written on the inner skin of a dragon and was three hundred feet long, or so some said: but as to that, if so one said, no one was saying it here, where was here, many other things were missing here. He looked for her, he saw her face all wet with tears; tears (it seemed) ran down her cheeks, but no: it was not tears, even from her wet-sleeked hair the water ran; the tears were his, not hers. Then the … something … o sod and straw and staff! he knew the word, but like the butter in an ill-charmed churn it would not separate, it would not rise … the Something, or the memory of something, did its work once more. No document, no her, no tears; he was standing on a familiar beach and he was shouting Fire! one amongst many shouting and crying the same cry and shout.

From the tip of whatever it was (rhabdon, vergis, bacculum; wand, staff, rod, mace?) held by the swiftly running man, and he ran as though the lionel, the lioness, the pard, were all snarling at his ham-strings (no, twas thicker than any rod, wand, staff … mace? what mace?), from the thing’s tip there came a shimmer and then a line of smoke, came now a gust of flame, was he at the Games of Olympia in hollow, sacred, Elis? nay, he was not. The running man fell upon the tawny beach, the torch — not suffered to reach the ground — swift plucked up and borne away, and the low-lying cloud, clouds, they rolled away over the waters on which the running man had trod, everyone retreating from the low-lain beach to a stand above the mark of highest water; the clouds rolled rolling upon the path o’er which the man had run, racing for his life; rolled with a low thunder and a noise as though in a distance; the sound of an armed camp in the early night. The bearer of the torch had not alone been running to deliver the fire (the fire, one assumed, had at last, or, likelier, once again, through neglect gone out, and it had been needful to go at great hazard to kindle it again … at what hazard! … how unlike these dreamy slothful folk, or any one of them, to make such effort!), he had been running for his very life as well. That path upon the surface of the sea was a spit or causeway so low-lying that even as it lay exposed, a skin of water thin as any membrane covered it over as it lay connecting the lesser island with another island — or else with the main, the muckle land — whatever, and wherever it might lie, might he now not lie upon a couch and unroll a map rectangulate to show him where it lay; a map perhaps drawn from mapless Homer, blind Homer; blind perhaps from looking long and long into the athenor, the alchemist’s furnace, his talk of black ships, what was that but a metaphor for The Work, the projection from base to noble, all blackened in the fires of occymy? Blind, yet also he the true Father of Geography: little gat he for his Fatherhood, for did not

Seven cities claim blind Homer, dead,

Through which blind Homer, living, begged his bread …?

Yes.

Yes … but here was neither couch nor map, no document, no Homer and no harpists harping of Priam’s topless Trojan town a-flaming and a-burn, nor of the burning reedy river by the Trojan shore. There were no shouts, no cries, now, but still the murmur of the same, same word: fire, it was, fire … fire, fire (contentedly now) … fire … Someone brought liquid in a large gourd, someone poured it then, carefully, into a large shallow shell, and someone lifted the fallen runner’s hanging head and someone gave him a sip of what was in the shell. Once more, water and the wind and sand and murmuring voices, voices murmuring low, the soft sea-breeze: and now someone brought thither the jar in which the gourd had dipped, a common jar (how came it here, they made no jars, or potters-work of any kind: someone must have brought it there, or, anyway, left it there); a common jar of glazed earthernware, light grey and brown, such as house-dames use to make pickle of cucumber (and swift as the rushing of the tidal bore, almost like an attack: the smells of garlic and the smells of dill: swift! how he remembered, and remembered much: his aunt, his father, the kitchen-corner where such ferments of loaf-dough and cake-dough, of yeast-dough and of other things were oft going on; he remembered this road and that road, and Caca in the cave, and Numa dwelling in the Cave of Caca (or … was “the thing” not named Alcinoüs?) … and the stinking faces hanging at the doorside of the cave … he remembered much, yet not enough; yet faintly knowing there was more); and the exhausted runner — someone had placed a garland on his sweaty head — half-sat upright, half was lifted up; as from the jar, call it crock, then, someone reached and took, hand dripping liquid, took a something which … he knew, he knew, he knew must know … it was the Scarlet Fig and it dripped of its own juice and moisture; “Mm,” murmured the runner. And the others repeated the sound, some in one way, some in another: “Ma mma, manna, manya, nya, nyama …” And all these words at the root meant this one thing, the Scarlet Fig; the Greeks had a word for it. and that word was … Lotus …

Attempts were endless to identify the lotus of Lotusland with the known fruits and roots and flowers of the welladay world. Its like had been “discovered” again and again, and in many a tended garden within the Empery there grew plants asserted with great firmness to be the lotus, of Lotusland, the Land of the Lotophages; these plants, these flowers, fruits, roots and rhyzomes, were of many a different provenance: Lybya, Cilicia, Ægypt, the Lands of the Sinæ and the Serices, and of the Embri whose ewes bear, thrice a year, lambs already horned: no two were the same plant and no two had quite the same effect, some had no effect at all save that produced in the minds of their eaters by virtue of their beliefs in the powers of what they were eating, others were of certain and sure effect: never twice from two different plants the same. The eater might forget for a few moments who he was or why he was there, wherever there was. Whoso ate the pseudo-lotus might dance about as one all aflame, and declare later that he had sung sweet songs and rare, and demand: aghast! Why had no one noted their measures, modes, tunes, tones, words, and so on: to those present merely the eater of that particular “lotus” had moaned or cried discordantly or screamed, made strange sound past description, perhaps by the time of dwindling effect, shouted rather raucously. But no songs had been discerned. Other users of these odd plants might merely subside into a strange trance, saying and doing nothing whatsoever; later to arouse and get them up and declare a recollection of a rich, rich dream: as one embroidered with broidery fit for the favorite of a duke, count, or king: but as for specific memory, why, not one theme, not one scene, not one action, notion, motion, word or sound.

Again and again those learned in leech-craft (and the blood-sucking creatures were named after the craft, and not tother way around) would declare that, by all the tests demanded by the Pseudo-Theophrastus (to identify whom would be easier than to identify what song the sirens sang, a question which Averroes had asked his ministers in vain), the presence of flower, fragrance, and forgetfulness of woe, the alleged lotus in the garden of this magnate and that margrave, ought to be the Lotus … and, indeed, perhaps had ought to be; long journeyings and grave dangers risked — risked, and sometimes encountered — Tiberio torn by lionels, Duke Naimon carried off by a dragon, King Oliver lost to captivity: naming only a few notables by name — the endless numbers of the nameless brave, lost, like those lost before Agamemnon in the forgotten fields where even the asphodella does not grow — yet save for one thing nought was certain, and this the one thing certain: it was not.

The lotus, the lotus, i’seemed, alas, it would not travel: like some “small wine” of distant provenance in the Over-Seas, much esteemed by embassadore, proconsul, viceroy or baill when in its native region, though said official (traveller, trader, captains of ships of burthen or ships of war), however well they poured it through filters into amphorae or kegs, however well-caulked or well-cooped or well-stoppled and well-smoked: what emerged, back home, was invariably a drink flatter than the Plains of Parthia, of less worth, even, than a good common vinegar — so with the rare and strange lotus of Lotusland, where dwell the gentle Lotophages: such wines could not be by any means preserved, and neither could the true and proper lotus.

And as for its other, and second-most common name, the Scarlet Fig, why, every other mage or sage one asked on it, would freely declare that, in truth, it was neither scarlet nor a fig: what, then, was it, and what was it, then? The other moiety of those wise in wisdom would but sigh and shrug, declare, I do not know. It was indeed said of the Emperor Marcus, that he himself had made that difficult voyage to the island where lived the gentle Lotophagoi, had eaten of the Scarlet Fig, had drunk of its juices and of the winey sap of its stalk in season; had lingered long enough to have need to eat of its roots or rhyzomes in season when there grew upon the branch no flowers, no fruit, nor flowed from its stalk any dewy sap or juice: the Emperor Marcus constrained (as he had in advance commanded and directed), was eventually obliged by men through gentle force to retire from Lotusland, weeping and sobbing like a small bairn removed from her Mother: what had, then, the very emperor to show to know for his stay there? Moonstones and tourmalines he had to show. Sweet memories of dulcet days and painless, without memories, he had to know, though could not show. Moonstones and tourmalines he had to show. And some slime, some sludge, some nameless slop at the bottoms of vessels — jars, jugs, kegs — he had to show … though actually he had not shown it, having handed them over to his leechcrafters, his apothercaries, and his alchymists, for to make assay and essay, and for to make try and trial of it: the results? … nothing that anyone could ever say was truly worthy of the time and trial: though many were the rumors … and every rumor had its many tongues.

And so and after all of this, did anyone, lord or thrall, enquire: Is there no assoilment for my sorrow? Let then the priest or the philosopher or the wise woman in her secret grove, say several sundry conjectured things: yet at the end of all such, see them all hold up their hands and cast down their eyes: what say they then? No…. None … save thou go and eat of the Scarlet Fig that grows in the land of the gentle Lotophages.

Small comfort, then, to hear further such things, as, This was revealed in olden times by Polydamna, the wife of Thon, that if man and woman should eat and drink of it, though they had seen Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Daughter, Husband, Wife, and Child slain by the pitiless sword, they should not let fall a tear upon their cheeks. Was it true? was true that the Scarlet Fig maketh cease from grief and the many pains that distress both mind and heart, maketh take consolation and be not afraid nor sicken in the soul?

It grew in far-off Lotusland which lay beyond the Columns of Heaven-Upholding Atlas, beyond the Pillars of Mercules, lost in the misty distance of the great grey green Sea of Atlantis; whither ne poor man could, ne no rich man would, adventure there to navigate …

It was not precisely scarlet, a tinge of crimson lay within its color. Rather larger, rather longer, even rather softer than the fig. From a middle distance one might say it was a pomegranate, but coming closer, plain one saw that no pomegranate it was. Its flower was richer than an empery of other flowers, both in color and in olor, more fragrant, richer. Its taste was, though one might call it holy, as more so than the holy eiobab which, though ever so holy compared to things profane, was yet (the eiobab) a thing confected: and the lotus grew, even as rank and common weed, shunned by the starvling asses of rough, scruff coats and coasts, grow: yet aside from that one single and certainly singular environ, grew it nowhere else; and neither it nor its taste nor fragrance nor its forgetfulness of woe might ever be confected.

That which was eat from the cymbal during the Mysteries of Attic Eleusis might be eat by anyone who had the Greek speech and the price of attending: who had “seen the Sun rise at Midnight” had seen perhaps the greatest sight there lay in not alone the Empery but in the Œconomion to be seen. Yet these Great Mysteries might be availed solely because certain men and women of known name and family had arranged for them to be availed. And besides, Vergil had already been some while ago made free of the Eleusinian bridehood and the groomhood, a mystagogue was he, of that and of other mysteries, perhaps lesser known, if not, who shall say: less worthy He had heard the oracles speaking, squeaking, sighing, soughing, groaning, droning from out the chauldrons high in high Dordona’s oakengroves.

And he had learned, through his stay amongst the Lotophages, that balm perpetual for sorrow there was not. Tempted by scent and taste, and with valor born of ignorance, he had drunk so deeply of the liquor of the Scarlet Fig (not yet knowing it to be just that) that he had not even cared upon observing that he had been cast away. Through repeated draughts of the enchanting liquid he had indeed forgot his native land; almost he had forgotten his own language. And for a while he had certainly forgotten the usages of civil man; of man in the complex and civilized world. True that when among the Lotus Eaters he had suffered neither sorrow nor pain, and he had forgotten not alone his concerns and longings and worries: he had forgotten the very conceptions of sorrow, pain, concern and worry. But something there was within him which would not allow him tarry among the naked gentle Lotophages, forgetful of almost all things. Even the Lotophages did long for the comfort of the fruit and drink of the lotus; even, they desired the comfort of the fire that burned at night — though precisely whence they had recovered fire when their own inexorable lentor allowed their single fire to fade away, of this he had little notion.

Something within him had pressed, pressed gently but pressed … after some while … insistently … and so he had left the gentle company of those who, as who had put it? nummed the honey-sweet lotus and drank its fragrant liquor. Huldah had said that. He had as it were torn himself away from the gentle company upon the coast, had forced himself to flee into the wilderness where dwelt the far from always gentle satyrs. Wild honey he had found none, but part of his new diet was locust rather than lotus: the pods of the locust tree, called also carob, or acacia. And, slowly, oh so slowly, his mind had cleared. The mists and fogs had slowly been blown away. Once again he was in the midst of the island folk and gazing at a ship far out at sea.

Little though the Romans loved the sea and little though Vergil had been accustomed to judge of such matters, still, he felt to a certainty that this was not the same ship which had marooned him here. But he felt no such certainty that this vessel would of a certainty put in to this haven. Perhaps they knew not the nature of the land. Perhaps they knew very well and for that reason particularly desired to avoid it. Or … merely … perhaps their course lay elsewhere and they simply had no reason to divert or diverge.

No certainty.

Much perhaps.

Why was he of a sudden striding away from the point whereat he stood? Memory of a previous scene moved his legs and feet, was why. Memory of a more than half fallen-down hutch, doubtless intended for a cabin by some alien long ago: alien, for sure these islanders built no structures at all. Were the nights uncommon cool, simply they slept together … not, to be sure, in one great huddled mass … but rather parted into smaller groups which lay, all of a cuddle, each group by an each. Or else: they crept close together to the fire that burns by night, and fed it, many times and often, while the stars moved: for of fallen wood there was no lack where their groves and small forests grew: and of driftwood upon the beach, which had mayhap grown in far Aspamia or in (even) farthermost Thule, where there is little need for wooden fuel, there being (so men say) stones of black ice which burns like pitch-pine: pyrobolim[10], so some call them.

And in that withering hovel found he … what? His old soft doe-skin budget, for one. And a mass of rags roughly sewn together so as to form a semblance of a cape: this was none of his.

But twould do.

Here (or, there) was the fire that burns by night. Level daylight it was not, yet the fire burned. Now and then someone passing by languidly fed it; eventually that someone, any someone, every someone, would forget to feed it — how ancient this image of fire as a living thing which craved food and must be fed! — forgotten, it would dwindle and die: then see once again that scene of some man, braver or keener of wit than others, swift run along the main to whatever was their only known source of fire (for as to rubbing hard wood against soft, let alone the sophisticated spark of flint and steel and tinder: certes they knew nought). The old cape, almost coming apart in his hands, was fitter for tinder than for any use of clothing, but he had yet another use for it. Swift he sopped it in a shallow pool nearby, swift he wrung it out till it was but damp. Slowly, slowly, the column of smoke rose up, rose up. He cast the sodden cape upon it.

The column of smoke ceased, was estopped.

At once he swept the cloak away.

The smoke at once arose again.

Once more he covered it with the ragged cloak, that cape of rags.

Again the column of smoke was stopped.

Then he culled the mass of rotting cloth away, cast it aside.

The smoke rose and rose: unvexed again, it rose upon the sleepy air.