The Complete Works of Herman Melville: Novels, Short Stories, Poems & Essays. Herman Melville
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swoons!” cried Yoomy.
“Water! water!” cried Media.
“Away:” said Babbalanja serenely, “I revive.”
CHAPTER 21
THEY VISIT A WEALTHY OLD PAUPER
Continuing our route to Jiji’s, we presently came to a miserable hovel. Half projecting from the low, open entrance, was a bald overgrown head, intent upon an upright row of dark-colored bags:— pelican pouches — prepared by dropping a stone within, and suspending them, when moist.
Ever and anon, the great head shook with a tremulous motion, as one by one, to a clicking sound from the old man’s mouth, the strings of teeth were slowly drawn forth, and let fall, again and again, with a rattle.
But perceiving our approach, the old miser suddenly swooped his pouches out of sight; and, like a turtle into its shell, retreated into his den. But soon he decrepitly emerged upon his knees, asking what brought us thither? — to steal the teeth, which lying rumor averred he possessed in abundance? And opening his mouth, he averred he had none; not even a sentry in his head.
But Babbalanja declared, that long since he must have drawn his own dentals, and bagged them with the rest.
Now this miserable old miser must have been idiotic; for soon forgetting what he had but just told us of his utter toothlessness, he was so smitten with the pearly mouth of Hohora, one of our attendants (the same for whose pearls, little King Peepi had taken such a fancy), that he made the following overture to purchase its contents: namely: one tooth of the buyer’s, for every three of the seller’s. A proposition promptly rejected, as involving a mercantile absurdity.
“Why?” said Babbalanja. “Doubtless, because that proposed to be given, is less than that proposed to be received. Yet, says a philosopher, this is the very principle which regulates all barterings. For where the sense of a simple exchange of quantities, alike in value?”
“Where, indeed?” said Hohora with open eyes, “though I never heard it before, that’s a staggering question. I beseech you, who was the sage that asked it?”
“Vivo, the Sophist,” said Babbalanja, turning aside.
In the hearing of Jiji, allusion was made to Oh–Oh, as a neighbor of his. Whereupon he vented much slavering opprobrium upon that miserable old hump-back; who accumulated useless monstrosities; throwing away the precious teeth, which otherwise might have sensibly rattled in his own pelican pouches.
When we quitted the hovel, Jiji, marking little Vee–Vee, from whose shoulder hung a calabash of edibles, seized the hem of his garment and besought him for one mouthful of food; for nothing had he tasted that day.
The boy tossed him a yam.
CHAPTER 22
YOOMY SINGS SOME ODD VERSES, AND BABBALANJA QUOTES FROM THE OLD AUTHORS RIGHT AND LEFT
Sailing from Padulla, after many pleasant things had been said concerning the sights there beheld; Babbalanja thus addressed Yoomy — “Warbler, the last song you sung was about moonlight, and paradise, and fabulous pleasures evermore: now, have you any hymns about earthly felicity?”
“If so, minstrel,” said Media, “jet it forth, my fountain, forthwith.”
“Just now, my lord,” replied Yoomy, “I was singing to myself, as I often do, and by your leave, I will continue aloud.”
“Better begin at the beginning, I should think,” said the chronicler, both hands to his chin, beginning at the top to new braid his beard.
“No: like the roots of your beard, old Mohi, all beginnings are stiff,” cried Babbalanja. “We are lucky in living midway in eternity. So sing away, Yoomy, where you left off,” and thus saying he unloosed his girdle for the song, as Apicius would for a banquet.
“Shall I continue aloud, then, my lord?”
My lord nodded, and Yoomy sang:—
“Full round, full soft, her dewy arms —
Sweet shelter from all Mardi’s harms!”
“Whose arms?” cried Mohi.
Sang Yoomy:—
Diving deep in the sea,
She takes sunshine along:
Down flames in the sea,
As of dolphins a throng.
“What mermaid is this?” cried Mohi.
Sang Yoomy:—
Her foot, a falling sound,
That all day long might bound.
Over the beach,
The soft sand beach,
And none would find
A trace behind.
“And why not?” demanded Media, “why could no trace be found?”
Said Braid–Beard, “Perhaps owing, my lord, to the flatness of the mermaid’s foot. But no; that can not be; for mermaids are all vertebrae below the waist.”
“Your fragment is pretty good, I dare say, Yoomy,” observed Media, “but as Braid–Beard hints, rather flat.”
“Flat as the foot of a man with his mind made up,” cried Braid–Beard. “Yoomy, did you sup on flounders last night?”
But Yoomy vouchsafed no reply, he was ten thousand leagues off in a reverie: somewhere in the Hyades perhaps.
Conversation proceeding, Braid–Beard happened to make allusion to one Rotato, a portly personage, who, though a sagacious philosopher, and very ambitious to be celebrated as such, was only famous in Mardi as the fattest man of his tribe.
Said Media, “Then, Mohi, Rotato could not pick a quarrel with Fame, since she did not belie him. Fat he was, and fat she published him.”
“Right, my lord,” said Babbalanja, “for Fame is not always so honest. Not seldom to be famous, is to be widely known for what you are not, says Alla–Malolla. Whence it comes, as old Bardianna has it, that for years a man may move unnoticed among his fellows; but all at once, by some chance attitude, foreign to his habit, become a trumpet-full for fools; though, in himself, the same as ever. Nor has he shown himself yet; for the entire merit of a man can never be made known; nor the sum of his demerits, if he have them. We are only known by our names; as letters sealed up, we but read each other’s superscriptions.
“So with the commonalty of us Mardians. How then with those beings who every way are but too apt to be riddles. In many points the works of our great poet Vavona, now dead a thousand moons, still remain a mystery. Some call him a mystic; but wherein he seems obscure, it is, perhaps, we that are in fault; not by premeditation spoke he those archangel thoughts, which made many declare, that Vavona, after all, was but a crack-pated god, not a mortal of sound mind. But had he been less, my lord, he had seemed more. Saith Fulvi, ‘Of the highest order of genius, it may be truly asserted, that to gain the reputation of superior power, it must partially disguise itself; it must come down, and then it will be applauded for soaring.’ And furthermore, that there are those who falter in the common tongue, because they think in another; and these are accounted stutterers and stammerers.’”
“Ah! how true!” cried the Warbler.
“And what says the archangel Vavona, Yoomy, in that wonderful drama of his, ‘The Souls of the Sages?’—‘Beyond most barren hills, there are landscapes ravishing; with but one eye to behold; which no pencil can portray.’