The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison (nonfiction book recommendations TXT) 📕

“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 seahorse, 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.”

Prezmyra smiled: “O my brother, thou art too too smoored, I fear me, in the dust of action and the field to be at accord with these nice searchings. But be there birds under the sea, my Lord Gro?”

Gro made answer, “In rivers, certainly, though it be but birds of the air sojourning for a season. As I myself have found them in Outer Impland, asleep in winter time at the bottom of lakes and rivers, two together, mouth to mouth, wing to wing. But in the spring they revive again, and by and by are the woods full of their singing. And for the sea, there be true sea-cuckows, sea-thrushes, and sea-sparrows, and many more.”

“It is passing strange,” said Zenambria.

Corsus sang:

“When sorcerers do leave their charme,
When spiders do the fly no harme.”

Prezmyra turned to Corund saying, “Was there not a merry dispute betwixt you, my lord, concerning the toad and the spider, thou maintaining that they do poisonously destroy one another, and my Lord Gro that he would show thee to the contrary?”

“ ’Twas even so, lady,” said Corund, “and it is yet in controversy.”

Corsus sang:

“And when the blackbird leaves to sing,
And likewise serpents for to sting,
Then you may saye, and justly too,
The old world now is turned anew:”

and so sank back into bloated silence.

“My Lord the King,” cried Prezmyra, “I beseech you give order for the ending of this difference between two of your council, ere it wax to dangerous heat. Let them be given a toad, O King, and spiders without delay, that they may make experiment before this goodly company.”

Therewith all fell a-laughing, and the King commanded a thrall, who shortly brought fat spiders to the number of seven and a crystal wine-cup, and enclosed with them beneath the cup a toad, and set all before the King. And all beheld them eagerly.

“I will wager two firkins of pale Permian wine to a bunch of radishes,” said Corund, “that victory shall be given unto the spiders. Behold how without resistance they do sit upon his head and pass all over his body.”

Gro said, “Done.”

“Thou wilt lose the wager, Corund,” said the King. “This toad taketh no hurt from the spiders, but sitteth quiet out of policy, tempting them to security, that upon advantage he may swallow them down.”

While they watched, fruits were borne in: queen-apples, almonds, pomegranates and pistick nuts; and fresh bowls and jars of wine, and among them a crystal flagon of the peach-coloured wine of Krothering vintaged many summers ago in the vineyards that stretch southward toward the sea from below the castle of Lord Brandoch Daha.

Corinius drank deep, and cried, “ ’Tis a royal drink, this wine of Krothering! Folk say it will be good cheap this summer.”

Whereat La Fireez shot a glance at him, and the King marking it said in Corinius’s ear, “Wilt thou be prudent? Let not thy pride flatter thee to think aught shall avail thee, any more than my vilest thrall, if by thy doing this Prince smell out my secrets.”

By then was the hour waxing late, and the women took their leave, lighted to the doors in great state by thralls with flamboys. In