A Dirge for Prester John

An ox plows the earth uncomplainingly, so that others may eat and grow. He applies his individual strength to the benefit of the group. But really I have found scripture to be rather full of complaining and the group plowing the earth for the benefit of the individual, so if those are my only choices I will say: a door, for he leads into the world after this one.

Most pleasant, and extraordinary, for I have discovered a tree in the courtyard which bears as fruit nothing but the most extraordinary shoes, in motley silks and with bells or ribbons upon them. I cannot see a good purpose to this, but a certain lady’s slipper tasted marvelously of orange blossom cake.

Certainly, though may the saints grant that we do not live long enough to witness what is certain to be a disturbing event.

It will be some years before I have need to conflagrate, but you are most thoughtful.

One answers that in the positive when within earshot of the Church, but when out of sight and mind, well, one cares rather less.

That certainly depends upon whether you are the goose or the gander of your kind.

As long as I am fed and amused.

Oh, many. Once, in Turkey, I came upon a man called Odoric. He was uncommonly handsome, with a large and prominent nose, blazing eyes, and skin like good tea. I made his acquaintance easily, for he loved to speak of his many travels, to the north and south of the world, across the four seas and the seven deserts, how he had been feted at the courts of no less than nine emperors including the Japanese, the Holy Roman, and the Matanitu, been sacrificed bodily to a sun god with green palms and found himself wholly restored upon the morning, and possessed of no less than twelve wives, one for each Apostle, each ample of hip and excellent cooks, and each of them named so: Matthew, Mark, Simon, Judas, Peter and so forth. At this time I was but a callow and inexperienced youth, and Odoric asked if I should like to see some of the world, and if I would travel with him to Cappadocia, where he had heard that Death was hearing cases on a pale bench, and Odoric planned to plead for at least another fifty years, having used his previous time on earth so well. Death, he said, was in fact a young girl, very plain of face and quite short, but a fierce one at the joust, despite her appearance. Well of course I went with him as squire, and endeavored to learn all I could about Odoric’s favorite arts, which were jousting, marrying, juggling, and lying. When we reached Cappadocia, to my great surprise we did come upon a court in the midst of a lilac field, where a high marble bench stood, brushed with pollen, as if it had galloped ahead and forgotten its courthouse behind it. Men and women gathered all around it with their hands outstretched to a girl with hair of no particular color, and she had on a black curling wig over that colorless, and a black cravat.

Odoric and I waited our turn at the docket, and shared a lunch of cheese and bread with some of the other plaintiffs, who had on rags and shoes which were little more than sackcloth bound to their feet with rope. When his name was called by the bailiff, Odoric plead his case eloquently, telling all his best tales: how he had fought pirates side by side with his wife Peter; how he had rescued an Italian girl from the depredations of a duke who was also a black magician, and not even taken her virginity in exchange; how he had circled the globe in a Greek ship rowed by Gnostics who escaped the purge, and when they passed through the Sirens’ country, he sang the harmony’s part and danced upon the crow’s nest. I felt myself near tears in admiration. All he asked of Death was another fifty years, a hundred at the outmost, having shown his ability to spend time as daringly and gorgeously as any man.

“My sentence is as follows,” said Death, who had a crone’s voice in her girl’s mouth, “you may take your fifty years, but the coin I take will be equal to the coin I give. The coin is fifty years. Your fifty years well spent I shall take, and give unto this boy at your side, and you shall have his plain and uninteresting life, for only beginning from nothing may a man make a true fortune. Fair warning, however, he has a count’s vengeance on his head.”

From then on Odoric recalled nothing of his former life, not his adventures nor his wives, but I knew it all in its smallest detail, such that when I happened to find myself in Thrace, I came home to James the Lesser, Odoric’s sixth wife, and she guessed nothing amiss.

An island where counts have elephants’ memories, ruled over by dragons and barristers.

I am immune to shame, boredom, and cholera, but I confess fire and lightning will do me quite in.

I daresay my talents are common to all men, it is only that I use them, while most stuff them in a cupboard to lure mice.

Anything you ask of it, my dear.

It seems to me that the world creates things all the time: children, castles, hereditary monarchies, apple trees, stockings. With such a great quantity of things being made every day, surely some things must be destroyed simply to make room. What morality can be attached to such balance?

I shall be your most humble servant, my fiery friend.

As long as the twins are content to have me.

All the men of my country are virtuous and know nothing of bawd—I, alone among them a man of appetite, have cut a swath. I shall sing to you of the bread of my wife Matthew, and how round and firm it was, and also of the pink fruits hid within.

Everyone of any importance. My wife John dwells yet in Spain, where she weaves a tapestry showing the Acts of my wives, and when it is complete I shall return to here, and all my wives shall live in one house together, and all our children, too, under one roof, made of gold, for there shall be a new roof and a new tapestry, and all my wives will ride upon beasts with ten heads, who are quite docile and enjoy the spearmint and heather of the fields.

All men are liars.

I will tell them it is a rich and gentle land, though much obsessed with fire.

Forever and always, and how blue your eyes as well.

I will say that on the whole you assayed against the wicked when you could see it, and against the good when you could not.

It so happens that I journeyed awhile in France, w

here is hid the capstone of the underworld. Some winemakers discovered it when digging for their cellars, and told no one, but kept their best reds near to the stone disc. Of course someone must have blabbed, for I had heard even in Sicily: If you want to wrestle the three-headed dog and pledge a troth to the great red queen, high ye to a certain French valley, and quote ye Virgil to a black rock.

When I grew bored of both Macedonia and my wife Judas Iscariot, who betrayed my eggs to my bread, my wine to my water, my horse to my cow, and my intellect to my other regions, I journeyed with a circus of some reputation through the countryside to France, where we performed the Passion (complete with peacocks, a sword dance, and four somersaulting fools) for wide-eyed, smudge-nosed children whose parents gave us two chickens on the bargain. After boiling the birds and sucking their bones I took a constitutional walk, whereupon I discovered a cave, in which I discovered a number of wine caskets which, when tapped, issued forth a black vintage which to my tongue tasted of licorice and quicksilver and time. Deeper into the cave I ventured, for it was well-lit by torches, until I came upon a huge black stone upon the ground, wholly flat and chiseled, and writ upon with many pictures and couplets. I remembered my Sicilian friends and summoned up a line or two of Virgil—my Latin has always been so-so—and the stone cracked down the middle, showing me a staircase straight into the earth.

Well, call John not a coward! Many long hours did I walk down that dark stair, which grew so wide I could not see either end of each step. I passed other souls along my way, but they did not look up at me nor pause in their walking, which was much slower than mine. Eventually I came upon a kind of landing in the stair, and a cameleopard greeted me, though its flesh was black and it possessed three heads. It trumpeted: Wilt thou wrestle me, John? And so I did, though its three monstrous necks twined around me and tried to strangle me, though its breath stank of the dead and ancient sorrows, though its hooves were iron and its teeth were ice, I strove with that odd Cerberus until I locked two of its heads with my arms and a third with my thigh, well muscled from battling my wife Simon in every damned thing, and the creature cried mercy.

I had a pleasant holiday in the underworld, where I soon discovered that everyone has three heads—one for the Father, one for the Son, one for the Spirit—one for Past, one for Present, one for Future—one for Child, one for Grown, one for Withered—one for Good, one for Evil, and one for Threading the Needle. I made the acquaintance of Persephone, who has three heads, one black, one scarlet, and one silver, which rotate in the morning, evening, and midnight. I preferred her silver visage, for in that guise she plied me with kisses and riddles and promises. I must be true! I cried. I must be true to my wives! What would Mark say if she could see me in your silvery arms! Let me plight my shield to you instead, and write ballads in your name, and slay a dragon or a navy for thee! But then I only kissed her the more, and more fervently.

Hades took me hunting on his estate, with his dogs, tiny things, like a noblewoman’s lapdogs, silky and high-voiced, but with tongues of fire, running along behind as we rode black stags through the wood, seeking his chosen quarry: the souls of aristocrats. What you give to my wife you must give half to me, said the King of the Dead, and fair is fair, so I kissed my lord with half my mouth.