Fifty One Tales by Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
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Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett] >> Fifty One Tales
And they said to him:
"If you think we have time for that sort of nonsense nowadays
you cannot know much of the progress of modern commerce."
And the poet wept for he said: "Alas! They are damned."
THE LATEST THING
I saw an unclean-feeder by the banks of the river of Time. He crouched
by orchards numerous with apples in a happy land of flowers; colossal
barns stood near which the ancients had stored with grain, and the sun
was golden on serene far hills behind the level lands. But his back was
to all these things. He crouched and watched the river. And whatever
the river chanced to send him down the unclean-feeder clutched at
greedily with his arms, wading out into the water.
Now there were in those days, and indeed still are, certain uncleanly
cities upon the river of Time; and from them fearfully nameless things
came floating shapelessly by. And whenever the odor of these came
down the river before them the unclean-feeder plunged into the dirty
water and stood far out, expectant. And if he opened his mouth one
saw these things on his lips.
Indeed from the upper reaches there came down sometimes the
fallen rhododendron's petal, sometimes a rose; but they were useless
to the unclean-feeder, and when he saw them he growled.
A poet walked beside the river's bank; his head was lifted and his
look was afar; I think he saw the sea, and the hills of Fate from which
the river ran. I saw the unclean-feeder standing voracious, up to his
waist in that evil-smelling river.
"Look," I said to the poet.
"The current will sweep him away," the poet said.
"But those cities that poison the river," I said to him.
He answered: "Whenever the centuries melt on the hills of Fate the
river terribly floods."
THE DEMAGOGUE AND THE DEMI-MONDE
A demagogue and a demi-mondaine chanced to arrive together at
the gate of Paradise. And the Saint looked sorrowfully at them both.
"Why were you a demagogue?" he said to the first.
"Because," said the demagogue, "I stood for those principles that
have made us what we are and have endeared our Party to the great
heart of the people. In a word I stood unflinchingly on the plank of
popular representation."
"And you?" said the Saint to her of the demi-monde.
"I wanted money," said the demi-mondaine.
And after some moments' thought the Saint said: "Well, come in;
though you don't deserve to."
But to the demagogue he said: "We genuinely regret that the limited
space at our disposal and our unfortunate lack of interest in those
Questions that you have gone so far to inculate and have so ably
upheld in the past, prevent us from giving you the support for which
you seek."
And he shut the golden door.
THE GIANT POPPY
I dreamt that I went back to the hills I knew, whence on a clear day
you can see the walls of Ilion and the plains of Roncesvalles. There
used to be woods along the tops of those hills with clearings in them
where the moonlight fell, and there when no one watched the fairies
danced.
But there were no woods when I went back, no fairies nor distant
glimpse of Ilion or plains of Roncesvalles, only one giant poppy waved
in the wind, and as it waved it hummed "Remember not." And by its
oak-like stem a poet sat, dressed like a shepherd and playing an
ancient tune softly upon a pipe. I asked him if the fairies had passed
that way or anything olden.
He said: "The poppy has grown apace and is killing gods and
fairies. Its fumes are suffocating the world, and its roots drain it
of its beautiful strength." And I asked him why he sat on the hills I
knew, playing an olden tune.
And he answered: "Because the tune is bad for the poppy, which
would otherwise grow more swiftly; and because if the brotherhood
of which I am one were to cease to pipe on the hills men would stray
over the world and be lost or come to terrible ends. We think we have
saved Agamemnon."
Then he fell to piping again that olden tune, while the wind among the
poppy's sleepy petals murmured "Remember not. Remember not."
ROSES
I know a roadside where the wild rose blooms with a strange
abundance. There is a beauty in the blossoms too of an almost
exotic kind, a taint of deeper pink that shocks the Puritan flowers.
Two hundred generations ago (generations, I mean, of roses) this
was a village street; there was a floral decadence when they left their
simple life and the roses came from the wilderness to clamber round
houses of men.
Of all the memories of that little village, of all the cottages that stood
there, of all the men and women whose homes they were, nothing
remains but a more beautiful blush on the faces of the roses.
I hope that when London is clean passed away and the defeated fields
come back again, like an exiled people returning after a war, they may
find some beautiful thing to remind them of it all; because we have loved
a little that swart old city.
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN EAR-RINGS
It may be that I dreamed this. So much at least is certain--that I
turned one day from the traffic of a city, and came to its docks and
saw its slimy wharves going down green and steep into the water, and
saw the huge grey river slipping by and the lost things that went with it
turning over and over, and I thought of the nations and unpitying Time,
and saw and marvelled at the queenly ships come newly from the sea.
It was then, if I mistake not, that I saw leaning against a wall, with his
face to the ships, a man with golden ear-rings. His skin had the dark
tint of the southern men: the deep black hairs of his moustache were
whitened a little with salt; he wore a dark blue jacket such as sailors
wear, and the long boots of seafarers, but the look in his eyes was
further afield than the ships, he seemed to be beholding the farthest
things.
Even when I spoke to him he did not call home that look, but
answered me dreamily with that same fixed stare as though his
thoughts were heaving on far and lonely seas. I asked him what ship
he had come by, for there were many there. The sailing ships were
there with their sails all furled and their masts straight and still like a
wintry forest; the steamers were there, and great liners, puffing up idle
smoke into the twilight. He answered he had come by none of them.
I asked him what line he worked on, for he was clearly a sailor; I
mentioned well-known lines, but he did not know them. Then I asked
him where he worked and what he was. And he said: "I work in the
Sargasso Sea, and I am the last of the pirates, the last left alive." And
I shook him by the hand I do not know how many times. I said: "We
feared you were dead. We feared you were dead." And he answered
sadly: "No. No. I have sinned too deeply on the Spanish seas: I am
not allowed to die."
THE DREAM OF KING KARNA-VOOTRA
King Karna-Vootra sitting on his throne commanding all things said:
"I very clearly saw last night the queenly Vava-Nyria. Though partly
she was hidden by great clouds that swept continually by her, rolling
over and over, yet her face was unhidden and shone, being full of
moonlight.
"I said to her:
"'Walk with me by the great pools in many-gardened, beautiful
Istrakhan where the lilies float that give delectable dreams; or,
drawing aside the curtain of hanging orchids, pass with me thence
from the pools by a secret path through the else impassable jungle
that fills the only way between the mountains that shut in Istrakhan.
They shut it in and look on it with joy at morning and at evening when
the pools are strange with light, till in their gladness sometimes there
melts the deadly snow that kills upon lonely heights the mountaineer.
They have valleys among them older than the wrinkles in the moon.
"'Come with me thence or linger with me there and either we shall
come to romantic lands which the men of the caravans only speak
of in song; or else we shall listlessly walk in a land so lovely that
even the butterflies that float about it when they see their images
flash in the sacred pools are terrified by their beauty, and each night
we shall hear the myriad nightingales all in one chorus sing the stars
to death. Do this and I will send heralds far from here with tidings
of thy beauty; and they shall run and come to Séndara and men
shall know it there who herd brown sheep; and from Séndara the
rumour shall spread on, down either bank of the holy river of Zoth,
till the people that make wattles in the plains shall hear of it and sing;
but the heralds shall go northward along the hills until they come to
Sooma. And in that golden city they shall tell the kings, that sit in their
lofty alabaster house, of thy strange and sudden smiles. And often in
distant markets shall thy story be told by merchants out from Sooma
as they sit telling careless tales to lure men to their wares.
"'And the heralds passing thence shall come even to Ingra, to
Ingra where they dance. And there they shall tell of thee, so that
thy name long hence shall be sung in that joyous city. And there they
shall borrow camels and pass over the sands and go by desert ways
to distant Nirid to tell of thee to the lonely men in the mountain
monasteries.
"'Come with me even now for it is Spring.'"
"And as I said this she faintly yet perceptibly shook her head. And it
was only then I remembered my youth was gone, and she dead forty
years."
THE STORM
They saw a little ship that was far at sea and that went by the name
of the _Petite Espérance_. And because of its uncouth rig and its
lonely air and the look that it had of coming from strangers' lands they
said: "It is neither a ship to greet nor desire, nor yet to succor when in
the hands of the sea."
And the sea rose up as is the wont of the sea and the little ship from
afar was in his hands, and frailer than ever seemed its feeble masts
with their sails of fantastic cut and their alien flags. And the sea made
a great and very triumphing voice, as the sea doth. And then there
arose a wave that was very strong, even the ninth-born son of the
hurricane and the tide, and hid the little ship and hid the whole of the
far parts of the sea. Thereat said those who stood on the good dry
land:
"'Twas but a little, worthless alien ship and it is sunk at sea, and it is
good and right that the storm have spoil." And they turned and watched
the course of the merchant-men, laden with silver and appeasing spice;
year after year they cheered them into port and praised their goods and
their familiar sails. And many years went by.
And at last with decks and bulwarks covered with cloth of gold; with
age-old parrots that had known the troubadours, singing illustrious
songs and preening their feathers of gold; with a hold full of emeralds
and rubies; all silken with Indian loot; furling as it came in its way-worn
alien sails, a galleon glided into port, shutting the sunlight from the
merchantmen: and lo! it loomed the equal of the cliffs.
"Who are you?" they asked, "far-travelled wonderful ship?"
And they said: "The _Petite Espérance_."
"O," said the people on shore. "We thought you were sunk at sea."
"Sunk at sea?" sang the sailors. "We could not be sunk at sea--we
had the gods on board."
A MISTAKEN IDENTITY
Fame as she walked at evening in a city saw the painted face of
Notoriety flaunting beneath a gas-lamp, and many kneeled unto her
in the dirt of the road.
"Who are you?" Fame said to her.
"I am Fame," said Notoriety.
Then Fame stole softly away so that no one knew she had gone.
And Notoriety presently went forth and all her worshippers rose and
followed after, and she led them, as was most meet, to her native Pit.
THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE
For a long time there was doubt with acrimony among the beasts as
to whether the Hare or the Tortoise could run the swifter. Some said
the Hare was the swifter of the two because he had such long ears,
and others said the Tortoise was the swifter because anyone whose
shell was so hard as that should be able to run hard too. And lo, the
forces of estrangement and disorder perpetually postponed a decisive
contest.
But when there was nearly war among the beasts, at last an
arrangement was come to and it was decided that the Hare and the
Tortoise should run a race of five hundred yards so that all should
see who was right.
"Ridiculous nonsense!" said the Hare, and it was all his backers could
do to get him to run.
"The contest is most welcome to me," said the Tortoise, "I shall not
shirk it."
O, how his backers cheered.
Feeling ran high on the day of the race; the goose rushed at the fox
and nearly pecked him. Both sides spoke loudly of the approaching
victory up to the very moment of the race.
"I am absolutely confident of success," said the Tortoise. But
the Hare said nothing, he looked bored and cross. Some of his
supporters deserted him then and went to the other side, who were
loudly cheering the Tortoise's inspiriting words. But many remained
with the Hare. "We shall not be disappointed in him," they said. "A
beast with such long ears is bound to win."
"Run hard," said the supporters of the Tortoise.
And "run hard" became a kind of catch-phrase which everybody
repeated to one another. "Hard shell and hard living. That's what
the country wants. Run hard," they said. And these words were
never uttered but multitudes cheered from their hearts.
Then they were off, and suddenly there was a hush.
The Hare dashed off for about a hundred yards, then he looked
round to see where his rival was.
"It is rather absurd," he said, "to race with a Tortoise." And he sat
down and scratched himself. "Run hard! Run hard!" shouted some.
"Let him rest," shouted others. And "let him rest" became a
catch-phrase too.
And after a while his rival drew near to him.
"There comes that damned Tortoise," said the Hare, and he got up
and ran as hard as could be so that he should not let the Tortoise
beat him.
"Those ears will win," said his friends. "Those ears will win; and
establish upon an incontestable footing the truth of what we have
said." And some of them turned to the backers of the Tortoise and
said: "What about your beast now?"
"Run hard," they replied. "Run hard."
The Hare ran on for nearly three hundred yards, nearly in fact as far
as the winning-post, when it suddenly struck him what a fool he looked
running races with a Tortoise who was nowhere in sight, and he sat
down again and scratched.
"Run hard. Run hard," said the crowd, and "Let him rest."
"Whatever is the use of it?" said the Hare, and this time he stopped
for good. Some say he slept.
There was desperate excitement for an hour or two, and then the
Tortoise won.
"Run hard. Run hard," shouted his backers. "Hard shell and hard
living: that's what has done it." And then they asked the Tortoise what
his achievement signified, and he went and asked the Turtle. And the
Turtle said, "It is a glorious victory for the forces of swiftness." And
then the Tortoise repeated it to his friends. And all the beasts said
nothing else for years. And even to this day, "a glorious victory for
the forces of swiftness" is a catch-phrase in the house of the snail.
And the reason that this version of the race is not widely known is
that very few of those that witnessed it survived the great forest-fire
that happened shortly after. It came up over the weald by night with
a great wind. The Hare and the Tortoise and a very few of the beasts
saw it far off from a high bare hill that was at the edge of the trees, and
they hurriedly called a meeting to decide what messenger they should
send to warn the beasts in the forest.
They sent the Tortoise.
ALONE THE IMMORTALS
I heard it said that very far away from here, on the wrong side of the
deserts of Cathay and in a country dedicate to winter, are all the years
that are dead. And there a certain valley shuts them in and hides them,
as rumor has it, from the world, but not from the sight of the moon nor
from those that dream in his rays.
And I said: I will go from here by ways of dream and I will come to
that valley and enter in and mourn there for the good years that are
dead. And I said: I will take a wreath, a wreath of mourning, and lay
it at their feet in token of my sorrow for their dooms.
And when I sought about among the flowers, among the flowers for
my wreath of mourning, the lily looked too large and the laurel looked
too solemn and I found nothing frail enough nor slender to serve as an
offering to the years that were dead. And at last I made a slender
wreath of daisies in the manner that I had seen them made in one of
the years that is dead.
"This," said I, "is scarce less fragile or less frail than one of those
delicate forgotten years." Then I took my wreath in my hand and
went from here. And when I had come by paths of mystery to that
romantic land, where the valley that rumour told of lies close to the
mountainous moon, I searched among the grass for those poor slight
years for whom I bought my sorrow and my wreath. And when I found
there nothing in the grass I said: "Time has shattered them and swept
them away and left not even any faint remains."
But looking upwards in the blaze of the moon I suddenly saw colossi
sitting near, and towering up and blotting out the stars and filling the
night with blackness; and at those idols' feet I saw praying and making
obeisance kings and the days that are and all times and all cities and all
nations and all their gods. Neither the smoke of incense nor of the
sacrifice burning reached those colossal heads, they sat there not to
be measured, not to be over-thrown, not to be worn away.
I said: "Who are those?"
One answered: "Alone the Immortals."
And I said sadly: "I came not to see dread gods, but I came to shed
my tears and to offer flowers at the feet of certain little years that are
dead and may not come again."
He answered me: "These _are_ the years that are dead, alone the
immortals; all years to be are Their children--They fashioned their
smiles and their laughter; all earthly kings They have crowned, all
gods They have created; all the events to be flow down from their
feet like a river, the worlds are flying pebbles that They have already
thrown, and Time and all his centuries behind him kneel there with
bended crests in token of vassalage at Their potent feet."
And when I heard this I turned away with my wreath, and went back
to my own land comforted.
A MORAL LITTLE TALE
There was once an earnest Puritan who held it wrong to dance. And
for his principles he labored hard, his was a zealous life. And there
loved him all of those who hated the dance; and those that loved the
dance respected him too; they said "He is a pure, good man and acts
according to his lights."
He did much to discourage dancing and helped to close several
Sunday entertainments. Some kinds of poetry, he said, he liked, but
not the fanciful kind as that might corrupt the thoughts of the very young.
He always dressed in black.
He was quite interested in morality and was quite sincere and there
grew to be much respect on Earth for his honest face and his flowing
pure-white beard.
One night the Devil appeared unto him in a dream and said "Well done."
"Avaunt," said that earnest man.
"No, no, friend," said the Devil.
"Dare not to call me 'friend,'" he answered bravely.
"Come, come, friend," said the Devil. "Have you not put apart the
couples that would dance? Have you not checked their laughter and
their accursed mirth? Have you not worn my livery of black? O friend,
friend, you do not know what a detestable thing it is to sit in hell and
hear people being happy, and singing in theatres and singing in the fields,
and whispering after dances under the moon," and he fell to cursing
fearfully.
"It is you," said the Puritan, "that put into their hearts the evil desire
to dance; and black is God's own livery, not yours."
And the Devil laughed contemptuously and spoke.
"He only made the silly colors," he said, "and useless dawns on
hill-slopes facing South, and butterflies flapping along them as soon
as the sun rose high, and foolish maidens coming out to dance, and
the warm mad West wind, and worst of all that pernicious influence
Love."
And when the Devil said that God made Love that earnest man
sat up in bed and shouted "Blasphemy! Blasphemy!"
"It's true," said the Devil. "It isn't I that send the village fools
muttering and whispering two by two in the woods when the
harvest moon is high, it's as much as I can bear even to see them
dancing."
"Then," said the man, "I have mistaken right for wrong; but as soon
as I wake I will fight you yet."
"O, no you don't," said the Devil. "You don't wake up out of this sleep."
And somewhere far away Hell's black steel doors were opened, and
arm in arm those two were drawn within, and the doors shut behind
them and still they went arm in arm, trudging further and further into
the deeps of Hell, and it was that Puritan's punishment to know that
those that he cared for on Earth would do evil as he had done.
THE RETURN OF SONG
"The swans are singing again," said to one another the gods. And
looking downwards, for my dreams had taken me to some fair and
far Valhalla, I saw below me an iridescent bubble not greatly larger
than a star shine beautifully but faintly, and up and up from it looking
larger and larger came a flock of white, innumerable swans, singing
and singing and singing, till it seemed as though even the gods were
wild ships swimming in music.
"What is it?" I said to one that was humble among the gods.
"Only a world has ended," he said to me, "and the swans are coming
back to the gods returning the gift of song."
"A whole world dead!" I said.
"Dead," said he that was humble among the gods. "The worlds are
not for ever; only song is immortal."
"Look! Look!" he said. "There will be a new one soon."
And I looked and saw the larks, going down from the gods.
SPRING IN TOWN
At a street corner sat, and played with a wind, Winter disconsolate.
Still tingled the fingers of the passers-by and still their breath was
visible, and still they huddled their chins into their coats when turning
a corner they met with a new wind, still windows lighted sent out into
the street the thought of romantic comfort by evening fires; these things
still were, yet the throne of Winter tottered, and every breeze brought
tidings of further fortresses lost on lakes or boreal hill-slopes. And not
any longer as a king did Winter appear in those streets, as when the
city was decked with gleaming white to greet him as a conqueror and
he rode in with his glittering icicles and haughty retinue of prancing
winds, but he sat there with a little wind at the corner of the street like
some old blind beggar with his hungry dog. And as to some old blind
beggar Death approaches, and the alert ears of the sightless man
prophetically hear his far-off footfall, so there came suddenly to
Winter's ears the sound, from some neighbouring garden, of Spring
approaching as she walked on daisies. And Spring approaching looked
at huddled inglorious Winter.
"Begone," said Spring.
"There is nothing for you to do here," said Winter to her. Nevertheless
he drew about him his grey and battered cloak and rose and called to
his little bitter wind and up a side street that led northward strode away.
Pieces of paper and tall clouds of dust went with him as far as the city's
outer gate. He turned then and called to Spring: "You can do nothing
in this city," he said; then he marched homeward over plains and sea
and heard his old winds howling as he marched. The ice broke up
behind him and foundered like navies. To left and to right of him flew
the flocks of the sea-birds, and far before him the geese's triumphant
cry went like a clarion. Greater and greater grew his stature as he went
northwards and ever more kingly his mien. Now he took baronies at
a stride and now counties and came again to the snow-white frozen
lands where the wolves came out to meet him and, draping himself
anew with old grey clouds, strode through the gates of his invincible
home, two old ice barriers swinging on pillars of ice that had never
known the sun.
So the town was left to Spring. And she peered about to see
what she could do with it. Presently she saw a dejected dog coming
prowling down the road, so she sang to him and he gambolled. I saw
him next day strutting by with something of an air. Where there were
trees she went to them and whispered, and they sang the arboreal
song that only trees can hear, and the green buds came peeping out as
stars while yet it is twilight, secretly one by one. She went to gardens
and awaked from dreaming the warm maternal earth. In little patches
bare and desolate she called up like a flame the golden crocus, or its
purple brother like an emperor's ghost. She gladdened the graceless
backs of untidy houses, here with a weed, there with a little grass.
She said to the air, "Be joyous."
Children began to know that daisies blew in unfrequented corners.
Buttonholes began to appear in the coats of the young men. The work
of Spring was accomplished.