The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison (nonfiction book recommendations TXT) 📕
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The Worm Ouroboros is considered to be one of the foundational texts of the high fantasy genre, influencing later authors like J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Ursula K. Leguin, and James Branch Cabell. It is most frequently compared to The Lord of the Rings in its epic scope set against a medieval, magic-laced backdrop—a world called “Middle Earth” by Eddison, thirty-two years before Tolkien’s—and in its almost mythical portrayal of larger-than-life heroes and villains.
The plot begins simply enough: The Lords of Demonland, a group of heroic warriors enjoying a strained peace, are called upon by an emissary of the warlock king of Witchland, Gorice XI. The emissary demands that Demonland submit to the King of Witchland—but the proud Demons refuse, setting off an epic war that spans their entire world. The heroic struggles of the Demons and their allies against the Witches reflect the circular nature of human history: the snake eating its own tail of the title.
The novel is written in a purposefully archaic, almost Jacobean style. The rich, surprising vocabulary and unusual spelling are testaments to Eddison’s expertise at reading and translating medieval-era texts. To this day, it remains perhaps unique in fantasy literature in the accuracy and precision of its highly affected prose style, perhaps matched only by the out-of-time strangeness of the prose in Hodgson’s The Night Land. But where critics often find The Night Land’s prose obtuse and difficult, they have nothing but praise for Eddison’s beautiful, quotable style.
Eddison had already imagined the story and its heroes as a child, and drawings he made as a youth of events in the book are preserved in the Bodleian library. While the novel is without a doubt the work of a mature and skilled writer, and while some of the events and characters are portrayed differently in the novel than they were in his youthful sketches, the names of many of the characters and places remain unchanged. Some of his contemporaries, like Tolkien, wondered about the strange naming style; others criticized it as taking away from the more serious subject matter.
The Worm Ouroboros remains one of the most influential works in the high fantasy genre to this day, and traces of the foundation it laid can be still be found in genre books a century after its publication.
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- Author: E. R. Eddison
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“My dear lord,” said the Lady Sriva softly, “sith thou hast made such a conquest of my love, be not a harsh and froward conqueror. I swear to thee by all the dreadful powers that clip the earth about, there’s matter in it I should to my father this night, nay more, now on the instant. ’Twas this only made me avoid thee but now: this, and no light conceit to vex thee.”
“He can attend our pleasure,” said Corinius. “ ’Tis an old man, and oft sitteth late at his book.”
“How? and thou leftest him carousing?” said she. “There’s that I must impart to him ere the wine quite o’erflow his wits. Even this delay, how sweet soe’er to us, is dangerous.”
But Corinius said, “I will not let thee go.”
“Well,” said she, “be a beast, then. But know I’ll cry on a rescue shall make all Carcë run to find us, and my brothers, ay, and Laxus, if he be a man, shall deal thee bitter payment for thy violence toward me. But if thou wilt be thy noble self, and respect my love with friendship, let me go. And if thou come secretly to my chamber door, an hour past midnight; I think thou’lt find no bolt to it.”
“Ha, thou swearest it?” he said.
She answered, “Else may steep destruction swallow me quick.”
“An hour past midnight. And until then ’tis a year in my desires,” said he.
“There spoke my noble lover,” said Sriva, giving him her mouth once more. And swiftly she fared through the shadowy archway and across the court to where in the north gallery her father Corsus had his chamber.
The Lord Corinius went back to his seat, and there reclined for a space in slothful ease, humming to an old tune:
“My Mistris is a shittle-cock,
Compos’d of Cork and feather;
Each Battledore sets on her dock,
And bumps her on the leather.
But cast her off which way you Will,
She will requoile to another still—
Fa, la, la, la, la, la.”
He stretched his arms and yawned. “Well, Laxus, my chub-faced meacock, this medicine hath eased powerfully my discontent. ’Tis but fair, sith I must miss my crown, that I should have thy mistress. And to say true, seeing how base, little, and ordinary a kingdom is this of Pixyland, and what a delectable sweet wagtail this Sriva, whom besides I have these two years past ne’er looked on but my mouth watered: why, I may hold me part paid for the nonce; until I weary of her.
Love is all my life,
For it keeps me doing:
Yet my love and wooing
Is not for a Wife—
“An hour past midnight, ha? What wine’s best for lovers? I’ll go drink a stoup, and so to dice with some of these lads to pass away the time till then.”
XVI The Lady Sriva’s EmbassageHow the Duke Corsus thought it proper to commit an errand of state unto his daughter: and how she prospered therein.
Sriva fared swiftly to her father’s closet, and finding her lady mother sewing in her chair, nodding toward sleep, two candles at her left and right, she said, “My lady mother, there’s a queen’s crown waits the plucking. ’Twill drop into the foreign woman’s lap if thou and my father bestir you not. Where is he? Still i’ the banquet house? Thou or I must fetch him on the instant.”
“Fie!” cried Zenambria. “How thou’st startled me! Fall somewhat into a slower speech, my girl. With such wild sudden talk I know not what thou meanest nor what’s the matter.”
But Sriva answered, “Matter of state. Thou goest not? Good, then I fetch him. Thou shalt hear all anon, mother;” and so turned towards the door. Nor might all her mother’s crying out upon the scandal of their so returning to the banquet long past the hour of the women’s withdrawal turn her from this. So that the Lady Zenambria, seeing her so wilful, thought it less evil to go herself; and so went, and in awhile returned with Corsus.
Corsus sat in his great chair over against his lady wife, while his daughter told her tale.
“Twice and thrice,” said she, “they passed me by, as near as I stand to thee, O my father, she leaning most familiarly on the arm of her curled philosopher. ’Twas plain they had never a thought that any was by to overhear them. She said so-and-so;” and therewith Sriva told all that was spoke by the Lady Prezmyra as to an expedition to Demonland, and as to her purposed speaking with the King, and as to her design that Corund should be his general for that sailing, and letters sealed on the morrow for his straight recall from Orpish.
The Duke listened unmoved, breathing heavily, leaning heavily forward, his elbow on his knees, one great fat hand twisting and pushing back the sparse gray growth of his moustachios. His eyes shifted with sullen glance about the chamber, and his blabber cheeks, scarlet from the feast, flushed to a deeper hue.
Zenambria said, “Alas, and did not I tell thee long ago, my lord, that Corund did ill to wed with a young wife? And thence cometh now that shame that was but to be looked for. It is pity indeed of so goodly a man, now past his prime age, she should so play at fast and loose with his honour, and he at the far end of the world. Indeed and indeed, I hope he will revenge it on her at his coming home. For sure I am, Corund is too high-minded to buy advancement at so shameful a price.”
“Thy talk, wife,” said Corsus, “showeth long hair and a short wit. In brief, thou art a fool.”
He was silent for a space, then raised his gaze to Sriva, where she rested, her back to the massive table, half standing, half sitting, a dainty jewel-besparkled hand planted on the table’s edge at her either side,
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