And by the time the body of the foreign guest and occymist had slid off his mount for the last time, the King of the Very Valiant and Prosperous Kingdom of the Cappadocians and his dandeled son had taken the antidote both of them. In very vain for the guest to have thought I shall drink of every cup and eat of every dish and I shall take the most puissant antidote and thus beshrew the venom and I shall live long and richly, in vain.
For only the king of that country knew that poison (I did not know it, that is, not for certain, but I suspected that it had in its original form been sprinkled in the calyx of a flower (perhaps the simple shallow chalice of the wild white rose and the pink nectarium within) sure to be sipped of by at least one bee of the hive from which came the honey added to the wine for, not the first cup of wine, of one thereafter) and only the King of that country knew that antidote and only he knew also the necessary and essential manner of the taking it.
And here let me make mention, merely, of the kistos, a small knife, the handle of which is bound with the skin of a green viper or other poison snake, and can be used to cut venomous plants in safety.
So ergo let his manner be never so cultivated and let him discourse the poems of Pindar never so well and the science of Algibberonius and let him point out in the heaven Bootes, the cold Ox-Car, wherein shines bright Arcturus: I would have none of it, not even to be in the same country with it.
They say that King died poor, in exile and in want. But they say that he died old.
The Doge of Naples was too clumsy to be a poisoner, too simple to be a tyrant, too stupid to know one poet or one star from another; if there was a difference between the chameleon and the crocodile, he did not know it; he was even too slovenly to keep the pulp of the lemonade out of his beard. Let me, therefore, pluck it out and wipe it off as the price of living free of tyranny and poison. King Stork wears many crowns. Long live King Log!
As a further exemplum of what I have been saying (and as a sort of flourish, if you will), I went on to recite an exemplary paragraph. “Menalaus of the light-hair led them to the house, to be seated on benches and on chairs. Then he said, ‘Let water for the hands be brought in a beautiful pitcher of silver and pour it out over a bowl of gold, that the guests may wash, and spread a polished table by their side. Your Serenity,” I said, “will not have failed to notice the alchymical — the occymal — symbols: ‘Menalaus of the light-hair’ is obviously the sun with its rays, and the pitcher of silver and the bowl of gold are, equally obviously, the — ”[6]
The Doge would have failed to notice a golden scorpion with a silver sting unless it had stung him in a very private part; I was speaking over his head. Not either to any of the courtiers was I speaking, for though they were slyer they were not wiser. Among the guards lined up was one not at all a full-time guardsman, he was an armorer, frequently hauled up by the Camerlengo because he made such a good appearance with his strong body and his full black beard, when he would have much rather been working at the whetstone and the forge. I meant to fetch his attention, pique his interest, stimulate his understanding of the fact that a mage was not a mere magician. And when, as he some day must, he determined to leave the ducal service, it was my intention to engage him in my own; his hands made very neat repairs, I’d noticed. And his weapons’ edges were, among all, most keen. Tynus, his name was.
The Doge’s attention, as usual, was slow. He was always at least a bit behind. “The work who?” he demanded.
“I am obliged to you for your patience with me, Doge. — A learned Greek.”
He had asked me a question about occymy. He had gotten an answer.
And had had his beard wiped too. His noble court, as corrupt as all, or anyway almost all noble courts, sat about scarcely listening, idly picking at the pig and poultry bones which had already been well-picked. The Doge kept open table. Now and then the courtiers turned their backs or raised their hands to sneer. Nothing would make them change their feculent ways, which could only be modified if now and then one of them had his nose broken or his ribs cracked or his throat-box bruised, or was turned into a toad or made to vanish, reappearing under a far-distant sky where the Dog-Star rose at dawn and foul animals were not confined to the arena because, for one thing, there was no arena there, and, for another, foul animals were there at large, wild and not confined; sometimes such people were returned to tell the tale. Then, for a while, landmarks were respected, peasants did not lose their farms to enclosers, and bribes were only moderate and pro forma. Therefore they turned their backs or their faces away before they presumed sneer.
A Greek, a Greek, a learned Greek! Duke Tauro knew where he was not (not where alchymical secrets were learned by murder instead of by experiment and by patient labor). Alpha from Delta he scarcely knew, Gamma from Digamma why certes he did not know; he knew oranges from lemons — at least in the form of juice — he knew tolerable from intolerable corruption — and he knew that Greeks were learned. Why, let him ask the very slave who washed his feet, “Ah, what say the frogs in that show-chorus, slave, what?” — hear the slave at once answer, do you hear? at once! answer, “Brekekekex koax koax, ‘Your Serenity.’ ” Now, there was learning!
“Then make me gold, Body of Bacchus!” shouted Doge Tauro, why was this withheld from him? Meherc, magno, hornero, caca pudenda! “Make” A slight, a mysterious thought came unformed to him: “Eh?”
“Ah, Doge. Your Serenity is right to say, eh? The Doge has put the ducal finger upon it. For one thing, do we have the complete Work? The scrolls or codex look complete, but they may have been confected from scraps … scraps and wreckage collected in the wake of the wars which have ravaged Greece and the Grecian lands in all the centuries since ancient times … So that is one problem. And another problem is, in regard to this great Work, although the gist of the text is obvious, as for ensample, the well-wrought vessels and the shining gold, perhaps properly a chapter-heading — but what does it precisely mean?
“You see … Doge….”
The Doge did not perhaps entirely see. He saw, where he had hoped to see a heap of gold solidi or a pile of glittering golden ducats, he saw Vergil. Called “Magus.” Only Vergil he saw.
He saw me.
“All mage men are mad!” exclaimed the Doge. Then he saw his mage man slightly open the right hand, saw a sparkle, saw the hand come up, come out, extend, open wide. Something there upon the palm: a very small imago of Doge Tauro himself upon his well-known huge horse Troyano, or, rather, on that horse’s imago. It was well-wrought. Was it not well-wrought?
And was it not wrought of gold?
I passed it to him.
He held it up between first finger and thumb. All (all there a-nigh him, that is) might see it. And all did. And a slight stir there was amongst them all, by one, by that particular one, whom all knew would have the golden Duke upon the golden horse, and all moved aside so that the Duke, Dux, the Doge, might let have: he did not move. Only his eyes moved and they moved towards me. They moved again to me.
6
And as for that Noting in the Odd-Bound Volume of