63. CHAPTER LXIII.
Time now to enter upon some further description of the
island and its lord.
And first for Media: a gallant gentleman and king.
From a goodly stock he came. In his endless pedigree,
reckoning deities by decimals, innumerable kings, and scores
of great heroes, chiefs, and priests. Nor in person, did he
belie his origin. No far-descended dwarf was he, the least
of a receding race. He stood like a palm tree; about
whose acanthus capital droops not more gracefully the silken
fringes, than Media's locks upon his noble brow. Strong
was his arm to wield the club, or hurl the javelin; and
potent, I ween, round a maiden's waist.
Thus much here for Media. Now comes his isle.
Our pleasant ramble found it a little round world by
itself; full of beauties as a garden; chequered by charming
groves; watered by roving brooks; and fringed all
round by a border of palm trees, whose roots drew nourishment
from the water. But though abounding in other
quarters of the Archipelago, not a solitary bread-fruit grew
in Odo. A noteworthy circumstance, observable in these
regions, where islands close adjoining, so differ in their soil,
that certain fruits growing genially in one, are foreign to
another. But Odo was famed for its guavas, whose flavor
was likened to the flavor of new-blown lips; and for its
grapes, whose juices prompted many a laugh and many a
groan.
Beside the city where Media dwelt, there were few other
clusters of habitations in Odo. The higher classes living,
here and there, in separate households; but not as eremites.
Some buried themselves in the cool, quivering bosoms of the
groves. Others, fancying a marine vicinity, dwelt hard by
the beach in little cages of bamboo; whence of mornings
they sallied out with jocund cries, and went plunging into
the refreshing bath, whose frothy margin was the threshold
of their dwellings. Others still, like birds, built their nests
among the sylvan nooks of the elevated interior; whence
all below, and hazy green, lay steeped in languor the
island's throbbing heart.
Thus dwelt the chiefs and merry men of mark. The
common sort, including serfs, and Helots, war-captives held
in bondage, lived in secret places, hard to find. Whence
it came, that, to a stranger, the whole isle looked care-free
and beautiful. Deep among the ravines and the rocks,
these beings lived in noisome caves, lairs for beasts, not
human homes; or built them coops of rotten boughs—
living trees were banned them—whose mouldy hearts
hatched vermin. Fearing infection of some plague, born of
this filth, the chiefs of Odo seldom passed that way; and
looking round within their green retreats, and pouring out
their wine, and plucking from orchards of the best, marveled
how these swine could grovel in the mire, and wear
such sallow cheeks. But they offered no sweet homes;
from that mire they never sought to drag them out; they
open threw no orchard; and intermitted not the mandates
that condemned their drudges to a life of deaths. Sad
sight! to see those round-shouldered Helots, stooping in
their trenches: artificial, three in number, and concentric:
the isle well nigh surrounding. And herein, fed by oozy
loam, and kindly dew from heaven, and bitter sweat from
men, grew as in hot-beds the nutritious Taro.
Toil is man's allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands,
or a grief that's more than either, the grief and sin of
idleness. But when man toils and slays himself for masters
who withhold the life he gives to them—then, then,
the soul screams out, and every sinew cracks. So with
these poor serfs. And few of them could choose but be the
brutes they seemed.
Now needs it to be said, that Odo was no land of pleasure
unalloyed, and plenty without a pause?—Odo, in whose
lurking-places infants turned from breasts, whence flowed no
nourishment.—Odo, in whose inmost haunts, dark groves
were brooding, passing which you heard most dismal cries,
and voices cursing Media. There, men were scourged;
their crime, a heresy; the heresy, that Media was no demi-god.
For this they shrieked. Their fathers shrieked before;
their fathers, who, tormented, said, “Happy we to
groan, that our children's children may be glad.” But their
children's children howled. Yet these, too, echoed previous
generations, and loudly swore, “The pit that's dug for us
may prove another's grave.”
But let all pass. To look at, and to roam about of holidays,
Odo seemed a happy land. The palm-trees waved—
though here and there you marked one sear and palsy-smitten;
the flowers bloomed—though dead ones moldered in
decay; the waves ran up the strand in glee—though, receding,
they sometimes left behind bones mixed with shells.
But else than these, no sign of death was seen throughout
the isle. Did men in Odo live for aye? Was Ponce
de Leon's fountain there? For near and far, you saw no
ranks and files of graves, no generations harvested in winrows.
In Odo, no hard-hearted nabob slept beneath a
gentle epitaph; no requiescat-in-pace mocked a sinner
damned; no memento-mori admonished men to live while
yet they might. Here Death hid his skull; and hid it in
the sea, the common sepulcher of Odo. Not dust to dust,
but dust to brine; not hearses but canoes. For all who
died upon that isle were carried out beyond the outer reef,
and there were buried with their sires' sires. Hence came
the thought, that of gusty nights, when round the isles, and
high toward heaven, flew the white reef's rack and foam,
that then and there, kept chattering watch and ward, the
myriads that were ocean-tombed.
But why these watery obsequies?
Odo was but a little isle, and must the living make way
for the dead, and Life's small colony be dislodged by Death's
grim hosts; as the gaunt tribes of Tamerlane o'erspread the
tented pastures of the Khan?
And now, what follows, said these Islanders: “Why
sow corruption in the soil which yields us life? We would
not pluck our grapes from over graves. This earth's an
urn for flowers, not for ashes.”
They said that Oro, the supreme, had made a cemetery
of the sea.
And what more glorious grave? Was Mausolus more
sublimely urned? Or do the minster-lamps that burn before
the tomb of Charlemagne, show more of pomp, than
all the stars, that blaze above the shipwrecked mariner?
But no more of the dead; men shrug their shoulders,
and love not their company; though full soon we shall all
have them for fellows.
