The Worm Ouroboros: The Prelude to Zimiamvia. James Francis Stephens

Isles, and by mighty oaths are ye bound to put by for ever your claims of lordship over Demonland. I hoped your quarrels were ended.’

      ‘Why so they are,’ said the King.

      Corsus chuckled weakly. ‘Ye say well: very well, O King, very well, La Fireez. Our quarrels are ended. No room for more. For, look you, Demonland is a ripe fruit ready to drop me thus in our mouth.’ Leaning back he gaped his mouth wide open, suspending by one leg above it an hortolan basted with its own dripping. The bird slipped through his fingers, and fell against his cheek, and so on to his bosom, and so on the floor, and his brazen byrny and the sleeves of his pale green kirtle were splashed with the gravy.

      Whereat Corinius let fly a great peal of laughter; but La Fireez flushed with anger and said, scowling, ‘Drunkenness, my lord, is a jest for thralls to laugh at.’

      ‘Then sit thou mum, Prince,’ said Corinius, ‘lest thy quality be called in question. For my part I laugh at my thoughts, and they be very choice.’

      But Corsus wiped his face and fell a-singing:

      Whene’er I bib the wine down,

      Asleepe drop all my cares.

      A fig for fret,

      A fig for sweat,

      A fig care I for cares.

      Sith death must come, though I say nay,

      Why grieve my life’s days with affaires?

      Come, bib we then the wine down

      Of Bacchus faire to see;

      For alway while we bibbing be,

      Asleepe drop all our cares.

      With that, Corsus sank heavily forward again on the table. And the dwarf, whose japes all else in that company had taken well even when themselves were the mark thereof, leaped up and down, crying, ‘Hear a wonder! This pudding singeth. When with two platters, thralls! ye have served it o’ the board without a dish. One were too little to contain so vast a deal of bullock’s blood and lard. Swift, and carve it ere the vapours burst the skin.’

      ‘I will carve thee, filth,’ said Corsus, lurching to his feet; and catching the dwarf by the wrist with one hand he gave him a great box on the ear with the other. The dwarf squealed and bit Corsus’s thumb to the bone, so that he loosed his hold; and the dwarf fled from the hall, while the company laughed pleasantly.

      ‘So flieth folly before wisdom which is in wine,’ said the King. ‘The night is young: bring me botargoes, and caviare and toast. Drink, Prince. The red Thramnian wine that is thick like honey wooeth the soul to divine philosophy. How vain a thing is ambition. This was Gaslark’s bane, whose enterprises of such pitch and moment have ended thus, in a kind of nothing. Or what thinkest thou, Gro, thou which art a philosopher?’

      ‘Alas, poor Gaslark,’ said Gro. ‘Had all grown to his mind, and had he ’gainst all expectation gotten us overthrown, even so had he been no nearer to his heart’s desire than when he first set forth. For he had of old in Zajë Zaculo eating and drinking and gardens and treasure and musicians and a fair wife, all soft ease and contentment all his days. And at the last, howsoe’er we shape our course, cometh the poppy that abideth all of us by the harbour of oblivion hard to cleanse. Dry withered leaves of laurel or of cypress tree, and a little dust. Nought else remaineth.’

      ‘With a sad brow I say it,’ said the King: ‘I hold him wise that resteth happy, even as the Red Foliot, and tempteth not the Gods by over-mounting ambition to his dejection.’

      La Fireez had thrown himself back in his high seat with his elbows resting on its lofty arms and his hands dangling idly on either side. With head held high and incredulous smile he harkened to the words of Gorice the King.

      Gro said in Corund’s ear, ‘The King hath found strange kindness in the cup.’

      ‘I think thou and I be clean out o’ fashion,’ answered Corund, whispering, ‘that we be not yet drunken; the cause whereof is that thou drinkest within measure, which is good, and me this amethyst at my belt keepeth sober, were I never so surfeit-swelled with wine.’

      La Fireez said, ‘You are pleased to jest, O King. For my part, I had as lief have this musk-million on my shoulders as a head so blockish as to want ambition.’

      ‘If thou wert not our princely guest,’ said Corinius, ‘I had called that spoke in the right fashion of a little man. Witchland affecteth not such vaunts, but can afford to speak as our Lord the King in proud humility. Turkey cocks do strut and gobble; not so the eagle, who holdeth the world at his discretion.’

      ‘Pity on thee,’ cried the Prince, ‘if this cheap victory turn thee so giddy. Goblins!’

      Corinius scowled. Corsus chuckled, saying to himself but loud enough for all to hear, ‘Goblins, quotha? They were small game had they been all. Ay, there it is: had they been all.’

      The King’s brow was like a foul black cloud. The women held their breath. But Corsus, blandly insensible of these gathering thunders, beat time on the table with his cup, drowsily chanting to a most mournful air:

      When birds in water deepe do lie,

      And fishes in the air doe flie,

      When water burns and fire doth freeze,

      And oysters grow as fruits on trees—

      A resounding hecup brought him to a full close.

      The talk had died down, the lords of Witchland, ill at ease, studying to wear their faces to the bent of the King’s looks. But Prezmyra spake, and the music of her voice came like a refreshing shower. ‘This song of my Lord Corsus,’ she said, ‘made me hopeful for an answer to a question in philosophy; but Bacchus, you see, hath ta’en his soul into Elysium for a season, and I fear me nor truth nor wisdom cometh from his mouth tonight. And this was my question, whether it be true that all animals of the land are in their kind in the sea? My Lord Corinius, or thou, my princely brother, can you resolve me?’

      ‘Why, so it is received, madam,’ said La Fireez. ‘And inquiry will show thee many pretty instances: as the sea-frog, the sea-fox, the sea-dog, the sea-horse, the sea-lion, the sea-bear. And I have known the barbarous people of Esamocia eat of a conserve of sea-mice mashed and brayed in a mortar with the flesh of that beast named bos marinus, seasoned with salt and garlic.’

      ‘Foh! Speak to me somewhat quickly,’ cried the Lady Sriva, ‘ere in imagination I taste such nasty meat. Prithee, yonder gold peaches and raisins of the sun as an antidote.’

      ‘Lord Gro will instruct thee better than I,’ said La Fireez. ‘For my part, albeit I think nobly of philosophy, yet have I little leisure to study it. Oft have I hunted the badger, yet never answered that question of the doctors whether he hath the legs of one side shorter than of the other. Neither know I, for all the lampreys I have eat, how many eyes the lamprey hath, whether it be nine or two.’