University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.

Sailing from Padulla, after many pleasant things had
been said concerning the sights there beheld; Babbalanja
thus addressed Yoomy—“Warbler, the last song you sung
was about moonlight, and paradise, and fabulous pleasures
evermore: now, have you any hymns about earthly felicity?”

“If so, minstrel,” said Media, “jet it forth, my fountain,
forthwith.”

“Just now, my lord,” replied Yoomy, “I was singing to myself,
as I often do, and by your leave, I will continue aloud.”

“Better begin at the beginning, I should think,” said the
chronicler, both hands to his chin, beginning at the top to
new braid his beard.

“No: like the roots of your beard, old Mohi, all beginnings
are stiff,” cried Babbalanja. “We are lucky in living
midway in eternity. So sing away, Yoomy, where you left
off,” and thus saying he unloosed his girdle for the song, as
Apicius would for a banquet.

“Shall I continue aloud, then, my lord?”

My lord nodded, and Yoomy sang:—

“Whose arms?” cried Mohi.

Sang Yoomy:—

“What mermaid is this?” cried Mohi.

Sang Yoomy:—

“And why not?” demanded Media, “why could no trace
be found?”

Said Braid - Beard, “Perhaps owing, my lord, to the
flatness of the mermaid's foot. But no; that can not be;
for mermaids are all vertebræ below the waist.”

“Your fragment is pretty good, I dare say, Yoomy,” observed
Media, “but as Braid-Beard hints, rather flat.”

“Flat as the foot of a man with his mind made up,”
cried Braid-Beard. “Yoomy, did you sup on flounders last
night?”

But Yoomy vouchsafed no reply, he was ten thousand
leagues off in a reverie: somewhere in the Hyades perhaps.

Conversation proceeding, Braid-Beard happened to make
allusion to one Rotato, a portly personage, who, though a
sagacious philosopher, and very ambitious to be celebrated
as such, was only famous in Mardi as the fattest man of his
tribe.

Said Media, “Then, Mohi, Rotato could not pick a
quarrel with Fame, since she did not belie him. Fat he
was, and fat she published him.”

“Right, my lord,” said Babbalanja, “for Fame is not
always so honest. Not seldom to be famous, is to be widely
known for what you are not, says Alla-Malolla. Whence
it comes, as old Bardianna has it, that for years a man may
move unnoticed among his fellows; but all at once, by some
chance attitude, foreign to his habit, become a trumpet-full
for fools; though, in himself, the same as ever. Nor has
he shown himself yet; for the entire merit of a man can

never be made known; nor the sum of his demerits, if he
have them. We are only known by our names; as letters
sealed up, we but read each other's superscriptions.

“So with the commonalty of us Mardians. How then
with those beings who every way are but too apt to be riddles.
In many points the works of our great poet Vavona, now
dead a thousand moons, still remain a mystery. Some call
him a mystic; but wherein he seems obscure, it is, perhaps,
we that are in fault; not by premeditation spoke he those
archangel thoughts, which made many declare, that Vavona,
after all, was but a crack-pated god, not a mortal of sound
mind. But had he been less, my lord, he had seemed more.
Saith Fulvi, `Of the highest order of genius, it may be
truly asserted, that to gain the reputation of superior power,
it must partially disguise itself; it must come down, and
then it will be applauded for soaring.' And furthermore,
`that there are those who falter in the common tongue, because
they think in another; and these are accounted stutterers
and stammerers.”'

“Ah! how true!” cried the Warbler.

“And what says the archangel Vavona, Yoomy, in that
wonderful drama of his, `The Souls of the Sages?'—`Beyond
most barren hills, there are landscapes ravishing; with
but one eye to behold; which no pencil can portray.' What
wonder then, my lord, that Mardi itself is so blind. `Mardi
is a monster,' says old Bardianna, `whose eyes are fixed in
its head, like a whale's; it can see but two ways, and those
comprising but a small are of a perfect vision. Poets, heroes,
and men of might, are all around this monster Mardi.
But stand before me on stilts, or I will behold you not, says
the monster; brush back your hair; inhale the wind largely;
lucky are all men with dome-like foreheads; luckless
those with pippin-heads; loud lungs are a blessing; a lion is
no lion that can not roar.' Says Aldina, `There are those
looking on, who know themselves to be swifter of foot than the
racers, but are confounded with the simpletons that stare.”'

“The mere carping of a disappointed cripple,” cried Mohi.
“His biographer states, that Aldina had only one leg.”

“Braid-Beard, you are witty,” said Babbalanja, adjusting
his robe. “My lord, there are heroes without armies,
who hear martial music in their souls.”

“Why not blow their trumpets louder, then,” cried Media,
“that all Mardi may hear?”

“My lord Media, too, is witty, Babbalanja,” said Mohi.

Breathed Yoomy, “There are birds of divinest plumage,
and most glorious song, yet singing their lyrics to themselves.”

Said Media, “The lark soars high, cares for no auditor,
yet its sweet notes are heard here below. It sings, too, in
company with myriads of mates. Your soliloquists, Yoomy,
are mostly herons and owls.”

Said Babbalanja, “Very clever, my lord; but think you
not, there are men eloquent, who never babble in the marketplace?”

“Ay, and arrant babblers at home. In few words, Babbalanja,
you espouse a bad cause. Most of you mortals are
peacocks; some having tails, and some not; those who have
them will be sure to thrust their plumes in your face; for
the rest, they will display their bald cruppers, and still
screech for admiration. But when a great genius is born
into Mardi, he nods, and is known.”

“More wit, but, with deference, perhaps less truth, my
lord. Say what you will, Fame is an accident; merit a
thing absolute. But what matter? Of what available
value reputation, unless wedded to power, dentals, or place?
To those who render him applause, a poet's may seem a
thing tangible; but to the recipient, 'tis a fantasy; the poet
never so stretches his imagination, as when striving to comprehend
what it is; often, he is famous without knowing it.”

“At the sacred games of Lazella,” said Yoomy, “slyly
crowned from behind with a laurel fillet, for many hours, the
minstrel Jarmi wandered about ignorant of the honors he
bore. But enlightened at last, he doffed the wreath; then,

holding it at arm's length, sighed forth—Oh, ye laurels! to
be visible to me, ye must be removed from my brow!”

“And what said Botargo,” cried Babbalanja, “hearing
that his poems had been translated into the language of the
remote island of Bertranda?—`It stirs me little; already,
in merry fancies, have I dreamed of their being trilled by
the blessed houris in paradise; I can only imagine the same
of the damsels of Bertranda.' Says Boldo, the Materialist,—`Substances
alone are satisfactory.' ”

“And so thought the mercenary poet, Zenzi,” said Yoomy.
“Upon receiving fourteen ripe yams for a sonnet, one for
every line, he said to me,—`Yoomy, I shall make a better
meal upon these, than upon so many compliments.' ”

“Ay,” cried Babbalanja, “ `Bravos,' saith old Bardianna,
but induce flatulency.' ”

Said Media, “And do you famous mortals, then, take no
pleasure in hearing your bravos?”

“Much, my good lord; at least such famous mortals,
so enamored of a clamorous notoriety, as to bravo for themselves,
when none else will huzza; whose whole existence is
an unintermitting consciousness of self; whose very persons
stand erect and self-sufficient as their infallible index, the
capital letter I; who relish and comprehend no reputation
but what attaches to the carcass; who would as lief be renowned
for a splendid mustache, as for a splendid drama:
who know not how it was that a personage, to posterity so
universally celebrated as the poet Vavona, ever passed
through the crowd unobserved; who deride the very thunder
for making such a noise in Mardi, and yet disdain to manifest
itself to the eye.”

“Wax not so warm, Babbalanja; but tell us, if to his
contemporaries Vavona's person was almost unknown, what
satisfaction did he derive from his genius?”

“Had he not its consciousness?—an empire boundless as
the West. What to him were huzzas? Why, my lord,
from his privacy, the great and good Logodora sent liniment

to the hoarse throats without. But what said Bardianna,
when they dunned him for autographs?—`Who keeps the
register of great men? who decides upon noble actions?
and how long may ink last? Alas! Fame has dropped
more rolls than she displays; and there are more lost chronicles,
than the perished books of the historian Livella.' But
what is lost forever, my lord, is nothing to what is now unseen.
There are more treasures in the bowels of the earth,
than on its surface.”

“Ah! no gold,” cried Yoomy, “but that comes from
dark mines.”

Said Babbalanja, “Bear witness, ye gods! cries fervent
old Bardianna, that besides disclosures of good and evil undreamed
of now, there will be other, and more astounding
revelations hereafter, of what has passed in Mardi unbeheld.”

“A truce to your everlasting pratings of old Bardianna,”
said King Media; “why not speak your own thoughts,
Babbalanja? then would your discourse possess more completeness;
whereas, its warp and woof are of all sorts,—
Bardianna, Alla-Malolla, Vavona, and all the writers that
ever have written. Speak for yourself, mortal!”

“May you not possibly mistake, my lord? for I do not
so much quote Bardianna, as Bardianna quoted me, though
he flourished before me; and no vanity, but honesty to say
so. The catalogue of true thoughts is but small; they are
ubiquitous; no man's property; and unspoken, or bruited,
are the same. When we hear them, why seem they so
natural, receiving our spontaneous approval? why do we
think we have heard them before? Because they but reiterate
ourselves; they were in us, before we were born.
The truest poets are but mouth-pieces; and some men are
duplicates of each other; I see myself in Bardianna.”

“And there, for Oro's sake, let it rest, Babbalanja; Bardianna
in you, and you in Bardianna forever!”