Babbalanja

“ What bard composed the soft verses that our palm boughs sing at even? Nay, Yoomy, that monody was not written by man.”
“Ah! Would that I had been the poet, Babbalanja; for then had I been famous indeed; those lines are chanted through all the isles, by prince and peasant. Yes, Adondo’s monody will pervade the ages, like the low under-tone you hear, when many singers do sing.”
“My lord, my lord,” cried Babbalanja, “but this were to be truly immortal;—to be perpetuated in our works, and not in our names. Let me, oh Oro! be anonymously known!” ”

“ BABBALANJA—But shunned not himself, my lord; like gods, great poets dwell alone; while round them, roll the worlds they build.
MEDIA—You seem to know all authors:—you must have heard of Lombardo, Babbalanja; he who flourished many ages since.
BABBALANJA—I have; and his grand Kortanza know by heart.
MEDIA (to Abrazza.) —A very curious work, that, my lord.
ABRAZZA—Yes, my dearest king. But, Babbalanja, if Lombardo had aught to tell to Mardi—why choose a vehicle so crazy? ”

“ The free, airy robe of your philosophy is but a dream, which seems true while it lasts; but waking again into the orthodox world, straightway you resume the old habit. And though in your dreams you may hie to the uttermost Orient, yet all the while you abide where you are. Babbalanja, you mortals dwell in Mardi, and it is impossible to get elsewhere."
Said Babbalanja, "My lord, you school me. But though I dissent from some of your positions, I am willing to confess, that this is not the first time a philosopher has been instructed by a man." ”

“ Flying before it, were several small craft, belonging to the poorer sort of Islanders.
“Out of his way there, ye laggards,” cried Media, “or that mad prince, Tribonnora, will ride over ye with a rush!”
“And who is Tribonnora,” said Babbalanja, “that he thus bravely diverts himself, running down innocent paddlers?”
“A harum-scarum young chief,” replied Media, “heir to three islands; he likes nothing better than the sport you now see see him at.”
“He must be possessed by a devil,” said Mohi.
Said Babbalanja, “Then he is only like all of us.” “What say you?” cried Media. ”

“ Loving not, however, to dine with misshapen Mardians, King Media was loth to move. But Babbalanja, quoting the old proverb—“Strike me in the face, but refuse not my yams,” induced him to sacrifice his fastidiousness.
So, under a flourish of ram-horn bugles, court and company proceeded to the banquet.
Central was a long, dislocated trunk of a wild Banian; like a huge centipede crawling on its hundred branches, sawn of even lengths for legs. This table was set out with wry-necked gourds; deformities of calabashes; and shapeless trenchers, dug out of knotty woods. ”

“ Half vailed in misty clouds, the harvest-moon now rose; and in that pale and haggard light, all sat silent; each man in his own secret mood: best knowing his own thoughts.
CHAPTER LXXIX.
Babbalanja At The Full Of The Moon
“Ho, mortals! Go we to a funeral, that our paddles seem thus muffled? Up heart, Taji! or does that witch Hautia haunt thee? Be a demi-god once more, and laugh. Her flowers are not barbs; and the avengers’ arrows are too blunt to slay. Babbalanja! Mohi! Yoomy! up heart! up heart!—By Oro! I will debark the whole company on the next land we meet. ”

“ This very song of mine may prove what I say.”
“Modest youth!” sighed Media.
“Not more so, than sincere,” said Babbalanja. “He who is frank, will often appear vain, my lord. Having no guile, he speaks as freely of himself, as of another; and is just as ready to honor his own merits, even if imaginary, as to lament over undeniable deficiencies. Besides, such men are prone to moods, which to shallow-minded, unsympathizing mortals, make their occasional distrust of themselves, appear but as a phase of self-conceit. ”

“ Just bounding from fresh morning groves, with the brine he mixed the dew of leaves,—his antlers dripping on the swell, that rippled before his brown and bow-like chest.
“Five hundred thousand centuries since,” said Babbalanja, “this same sight was seen. With Oro, the sun is co-eternal; and the same life that moves that moose, animates alike the sun and Oro. All are parts of One. In me, in me, flit thoughts participated by the beings peopling all the stars. Saturn, and Mercury, and Mardi, are brothers, one and all; and across their orbits, to each other talk, like souls. ”

“ But I turned; and instantly the three canoes had been reversed; and full soon, Jarl's dead hand in mine, had not Media interposed.
"To death, your presence will not bring life back."
"And we must on," said Babbalanja. "We seek the living, not the dead."
Thus they overruled me; and Borabolla's messengers departed.
Soon evening came, and in its shades, three shadows,—Hautia's heralds.
Their shallop glided near. ”

“ Then compare not invidiously Benedicts with bachelors, since thus we make an equal division of the duties, which both owe to posterity."
"Suppers forever!" cried Media. "See, my lord, what yours has done for Babbalanja. He came to it a skeleton; but will go away, every bone padded!"
"Ay, my lord demi-gods," said Babbalanja, drop by drop refilling his goblet. "These suppers are all very fine, very pleasant, and merry. But we pay for them roundly. Every thing, my good lords, has its price, from a marble to a world. ”

“ I say, my lord, our bodies are our betters. A soul so simple, that it prefers evil to good, is lodged in a frame, whose minutest action is full of unsearchable wisdom. Knowing this superiority of theirs, our bodies are inclined to be willful: our beards grow in spite of us; and as every one knows, they sometimes grow on dead men."
"You mortals are alive, then, when you are dead, Babbalanja." ”

“ Turning, the boy exclaimed—"Though I act counter to thy counsels, oh Pani, I but follow the divine instinct in me."
"Poor youth!" murmured Babbalanja. "How earnestly he struggles in his bonds. But though rejecting a guide, still he clings to that legend of the Peak."
The rest of the pilgrims now tarried with the guide, preparing for their journey inland. ”

“ That all have died, makes it not easier for me to depart. And that many have been quenched in infancy seems a mercy to the slow perishing of my old age, limb by limb and sense by sense. I have long been the tomb of my youth. And more has died out of me, already, than remains for the last death to finish. Babbalanja says truth. In childhood, death stirred me not; in middle age, it pursued me like a prowling bandit on the road; now, grown an old man, it boldly leads the way ”

“ Silently Babbalanja pressed them to his heart. Then at arm’s length held them, and said, “And is all this wisdom lost? Can not the divine cunning in thee, Bardianna, transmute to brightness these sullied pages? Here, perhaps, thou didst dive into the deeps of things, treating of the normal forms of matter and of mind; how the particles of solids were first molded in the interstices of fluids; how the thoughts of men are each a soul, as the lung-cells are each a lung; how that death is but a mode of life ”

“ Long time we lay thus; then slowly crossed and recrossed our track, almost hopeless; but yet loth to leave him who, with a song in his mouth, died and was buried in a breath.
“Let us away,” said Media—“why seek more? He is gone.”
“Ay, gone,” said Babbalanja, “and whither? But a moment since, he was among us: now, the fixed stars are not more remote than he. So far off, can he live? Oh, Oro! this death thou ordainest, unmans the manliest. Say not nay, my lord. Let us not speak behind Death’s back. Hard and horrible is it to die: blindfold to leap from life’s verge! ”

“ Continued Babbalanja, "Staff in hand, they traveled; one in advance of the other; each man with his palm upon the shoulder next him; and he with the longest nose took the lead of the file. Journeying on in this manner, they came to a valley, in which reigned a king called Tammaro. Now, in a certain inclosure toward the head of the valley, there stood an immense wild banian tree; all over moss, and many centuries old, and forming quite a wood in itself: its thousand boughs striking into the earth, and fixing there as many gigantic trunks. ”

“ Yea, a supper for two in a friar’s cell in Maramma, is merrier far, than a dinner for five-and-twenty, in the broad right wing of Donjalolo’s great Palace of the Morn.”
“Bravo, Babbalanja!” cried Media, “your iceberg is thawing. More of that, more of that. Did I not say, we would melt him down at last, my lord?”
“Ay,” continued Babbalanja, “bachelors are a noble fraternity: I’m a bachelor myself. One of ye, in that matter, my lord demi-gods. And if unlike the patriarchs of the world, we father not our brigades and battalions ”

“ His pedigree is endless."
"But who is lord Abrazza?"
"Has he not said?" answered Babbalanja. "Why so dull?—Uttermost nephew to him, who was nephew to the niece of the peerless Queen Zmiglandi; and the one hundred and twentieth in descent from the illustrious Phipora."
"Will none tell, who Abrazza is?"
"Can not a man then, be described by running off the catalogue of his ancestors?" said Babbalanja. "Or must we e'en descend to himself. Then, listen, dull Yoomy! and know that lord Abrazza is six feet two: plump thighs; blue eyes; and brown hair; likes his bread-fruit baked, not roasted ”

“ It is from our very abundance that we want."
"And from the fool's poverty," said Media, "that he is opulent; for his very simplicity, is sometimes of more account than the wisdom of the sage. But we were discoursing of the Tapparians. Babbalanja: sententiously you have acquitted yourself to admiration; now amplify, and tell us more of the people of Pimminee." ”

“ 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 ”

“ BABBALANGA—Your Highness, Lombardo never presumed to criticise true critics; who are more rare than true poets. A great critic is a sultan among satraps; but pretenders are thick as ants, striving to scale a palm, after its aerial sweetness. And they fight among themselves. Essaying to pluck eagles, they themselves are geese, stuck full of quills, of which they rob each other.
ABRAZZA (to Media.) —Oro help the victim that falls in Babbalanja’s hands!
MEDIA.—Ay, my lord; at times, his every finger is a dagger: every thought a falling tower that whelms! ”

“ Is it not better for you mortals to clutch error as in a vice, than have your fingers meet in your hand? And to what end your eternal inquisitions? You have nothing to substitute. You say all is a lie; then out with the truth. Philosopher, your devil is but a foolish one, after all. I, a demi-god, never say nay to these things."
"Yea, my lord, it would hardly answer for Oro himself, were he to come down to Mardi, to deny men's theories concerning him. Did they not strike at the rash deity in Alma?"
"Then, why deny those theories yourself? Babbalanja, you almost affect my immortal serenity. ”

“ Better slay the body than the soul; and if it be the direst of sins to be the murderers of our own bodies, how much more to be a soul-suicide. Yoomy, we are men, we are angels. And in his faculties, high Oro is but what a man would be, infinitely magnified. Let us aspire to all things. Are we babes in the woods, to be scared by the shadows of the trees? What shall appall us? If eagles gaze at the sun, may not men at the gods?"
"For one," said Media, "you may gaze at me freely. Gaze on. But talk not of my kinsmen so fluently, Babbalanja. Return to your argument."
"I go back then, my lord. ”

“ Upon this, his egregious misadventure, calculated to do discredit to our party, and bring Media himself into contempt, Babbalanja had no scruples in taking Jarl roundly to task. He assured him, that it argued but little brains to evince a desire to be thought familiar with all things; that however desirable as incidental attainments, conventionalities, in themselves, were the very least of arbitrary trifles; the knowledge of them, innate with no man. “Moreover Jarl,” he added, “in essence, conventionalities are but mimickings, at which monkeys succeed best. ”

“ But Babbalanja held out to the last.
"Yet, if this story be true," said he, "and since it is well settled, that our brains are somehow the organs of sense; then, I see not why human reason could not be put into a pig, by letting into its cranium the contents of a man's. I have long thought, that men, pigs, and plants, are but curious physiological experiments; and that science would at last enable philosophers to produce new species of beings, by somehow mixing, and concocting the essential ingredients of various creatures ”

“ Such a full orbed paunch was his, that no way could he devise of getting to his suppers, but by getting right into them. Like the Zodiac his table was circular, and full in the middle he sat, like a sun;—all his jolly stews and ragouts revolving around him."
"Yea," said Babbalanja, "a very round sun was Ludwig the Fat. No wonder he's down in the chronicles; several ells about the waist, and King of cups and Tokay. ”

“ Said Babbalanja, "Listen again:—'Righteousness is sociable and gentle; free, steady, and fearless; full of inexhaustible delights.' And here again, and here, and here:—The true felicity of life is to understand our duty to Oro.'—'True joy is a serene and sober motion.' And here, and here,—my lord, 'tis hard quoting from this book;—but listen—'A peaceful conscience, honest thoughts, and righteous actions are blessings without end, satiety, or measure. The poor man wants many things ”