Essaying to pluck eagles, they themselves are geese, stuck full of quills, of which they rob each other.
ABRAZZA (_to Media._)-Oro help the victim that falls in Babbalanja's hands!
MEDIA.-Ay, my lord; at times, his every finger is a dagger: every thought a falling tower that whelms! But resume, philosopher-what of Lombardo now?
BABBALANJA-"For this thing," said he, "I have agonized over it enough.-I can wait no more. It has faults-all mine;-its merits all its own;-but I can toil no longer. The beings knit to me implore; my heart is full; my brain is sick. Let it go-let it go-and Oro with it. Somewhere Mardi has a mighty heart-_that_ struck, all the isles shall resound!"
ABRAZZA-Poor devil! he took the world too hard.
MEDIA.-As most of these mortals do, my lord. That's the load, selfimposed, under which Babbalanja reels. But now, philosopher, ere Mardi saw it, what thought Lombardo of his work, looking at it objectively, as a thing out of him, I mean.
ABRAZZA-No doubt, he hugged it.
BABBALANJA-Hard to answer. Sometimes, when by himself, he thought hugely of it, as my lord Abrazza says; but when abroad, among men, he almost despised it; but when he bethought him of those parts, written with full eyes, half blinded; temples throbbing; and pain at the heart-ABRAZZA-Pooh! pooh!
BABBALANJA-He would say to himself, "Sure, it can not be in vain!"
Yet again, when he bethought him of the hurry and bustle of Mardi, dejection stole over him. "Who will heed it," thought he; "what care these fops and brawlers for me? But am I not myself an egregious coxcomb? Who will read me? Say one thousand pages-twenty-five lines each-every line ten words-every word ten letters. That's two million five hundred thousand a's, and i's, and o's to read! How many are superfluous? Am I not mad to saddle Mardi with such a task?
Of all men, am I the wisest, to stand upon a pedestal, and teach the mob? Ah, my own Kortanza! child of many prayers! — in whose earnest eyes, so fathomless, I see my own; and recall all past delights and silent agonies-thou may'st prove, as the child of some fond dotard:-beauteous to me; hideous to Mardi! And methinks, that while so much slaving merits that thou should'st not die; it has not been intense, prolonged enough, for the high meed of immortality. Yet, things immortal have been written; and by men as me;-men, who slept and waked; and ate; and talked with tongues like mine. Ah, Oro! how may we know or not, we are what we would be? Hath genius any stamp and imprint, obvious to possessors? Has it eyes to see itself; or is it blind? Or do we delude ourselves with being gods, and end in grubs?
Genius, genius? — a thousand years hence, to be a household-word? — I?-Lombardo? but yesterday cut in the market-place by a spangled fool! — Lombardo immortal? — Ha, ha, Lombardo! but thou art an ass, with vast ears brushing the tops of palms! Ha, ha, ha! Methinks I see thee immortal! 'Thus great Lombardo saith; and thus; and thus; and thus:-thus saith he-illustrious Lombardo! — Lombardo, our great countryman!
Lombardo, prince of poets-Lombardo! great Lombardo!'-Ha, ha, ha! — go, go! dig thy grave, and bury thyself!"
ABRAZZA-He was very funny, then, at times.
BABBALANJA-Very funny, your Highness:-amazing jolly! And from my nethermost soul, would to Oro, thou could'st but feel one touch of that jolly woe! It would appall thee, my Right Worshipful lord Abrazza!
ABRAZZA (_to Media_)-My dear lord, his teeth are marvelously white and sharp: some she-shark must have been his dam:-does he often grin thus? It was infernal!
MEDIA-Ah! that's Azzageddi. But, prithee, Babbalanja, proceed.
BABBALANJA-Your Highness, even in his calmer critic moods, Lombardo was far from fancying his work. He confesses, that it ever seemed to him but a poor scrawled copy of something within, which, do what he would, he could not completely transfer. "My canvas was small," said he; "crowded out were hosts of things that came last. But Fate is in it." And Fate it was, too, your Highness, which forced Lombardo, ere his work was well done, to take it off his easel, and send it to be multiplied. "Oh, that I was not thus spurred!" cried he; "but like many another, in its very childhood, this poor child of mine must go out into Mardi, and get bread for its sire."
ABRAZZA (_with a sigh_)-Alas, the poor devil! But methinks 'twas wondrous arrogant in him to talk to all Mardi at that lofty rate.-Did he think himself a god?
BABBALANJA-He himself best knew what he thought; but, like all others, he was created by Oro to some special end; doubtless, partly answered in his Koztanza.
MEDIA-And now that Lombardo is long dead and gone-and his work, hooted during life, lives after him-what think the present company of it? Speak, my lord Abrazza! Babbalanja! Mohi! Yoomy!
ABRAZZA (_tapping his sandal with his scepter__)-I never read it.
BABBALANJA (_looking upward_)-It was written with a divine intent.
Mohi (_stroking his beard_)-I never hugged it in a corner, and ignored it before Mardi.
Yoomy (musing)-It has bettered my heart.
MEDIA (rising)-And I have read it through nine times.
BABBALANJA (_starting up_)-Ah, Lombardo! this must make thy ghost glad!
CHAPTER LXXVII
They Sup
There seemed something sinister, hollow, heartless, about Abrazza, and that green-and-yellow, evil-starred crown that he wore.
But why think of that? Though we like not something in the curve of one's brow, or distrust the tone of his voice; yet, let us away with suspicions if we may, and make a jolly comrade of him, in the name of the gods. Miserable! thrice miserable he, who is forever turning over and over one's character in his mind, and weighing by nice avoirdupois, the pros and the cons of his goodness and badness. For we are all good and bad. Give me the heart that's huge as all Asia; and unless a man, be a villain outright, account him one of the best tempered blades in the world.
That night, in his right regal hall, King Abrazza received us. And in merry good time a fine supper was spread.
Now, in thus nocturnally regaling us, our host was warranted by many ancient and illustrious examples.
For old Jove gave suppers; the god Woden gave suppers; the Hindoo deity Brahma gave suppers; the Red Man's Great Spirit gave suppers:-chiefly venison and game.
And many distinguished mortals besides.
Ahasuerus gave suppers; Xerxes gave suppers; Montezuma gave suppers;
Powhattan gave suppers; the Jews' Passovers were suppers; the Pharaohs gave suppers; Julius Caesar gave suppers:-and rare ones they were;
Great Pompey gave suppers; Nabob Crassus gave suppers; and Heliogabalus, surnamed the Gobbler, gave suppers.
It was a common saying of old, that King Pluto gave suppers; some say he is giving them still. If so, he is keeping tip-top company, old Pluto:-Emperors and Czars; Great Moguls and Great Khans; Grand Lamas and Grand Dukes; Prince Regents and Queen Dowagers:-Tamerlane hob-anobbing with Bonaparte; Antiochus with Solyman the Magnificent;
Pisistratus pledging Pilate; Semiramis eating bon-bons with Bloody Mary, and her namesake of Medicis; the Thirty Tyrants quaffing three to one with the Council of Ten; and Sultans, Satraps, Viziers, Hetmans, Soldans, Landgraves, Bashaws, Doges, Dauphins, Infantas, Incas, and Caciques looking on.
Again: at Arbela, the conqueror of conquerors, conquering son of Olympia by Jupiter himself, sent out cards to his captains, — Hephestion, Antigonus, Antipater, and the rest-to join him at ten, p.m., in the Temple of Belus; there, to sit down to a victorious supper, off the gold plate of the Assyrian High Priests. How majestically he poured out his old Madeira that night! — feeling grand and lofty as the Himmalehs; yea, all Babylon nodded her towers in his soul!