Mardin

“ The castle of Ardoghán is situated on a high hill, which is ascended by five hundred steps and therefore only accessible to men; it is a single rock like the fortress of Márdín. The highest point is a crooked rock, which seems to threaten ruin every moment. Melek Ghází, the conqueror of Nigissár, also conquered this town; and it was afterwards taken by Bayazíd I. It is commonly called Seddí Turkmán, the dyke of the Turcomans. The castle now contains an hundred and fifty houses, a cistern, mosque, and magazine for corn. ”

“ The Sinjar hill is a solitary ridge rising abruptly in the midst of the desert; from its summit, therefore, the eye ranges on one side over the vast level wilderness stretching to the Euphrates, and on the other over the plain bounded by the Tigris and the lofty mountains of Kurdistan. Nisibin and Mardin were both visible in the distance. I could distinguish the hills of Baadri and Sheikh Adi, and many well-known peaks of the Kurdish Alps. Behind the lower ranges, each distinctly marked by its sharp, serrated outline, were the snow-covered heights of Tiyari and Bohtan. ”

“ It is not exactly peculiar in character, as there are several shrubs in India and Syria.
Salvadora—The arboreous Mustard Plant of Palestine.
Niebuhr discovered at Mardin, in Mesopotamia, on the leaves of a tree, a species of capparis, a kind of manna which appears during the months of July and August, being most plentiful in wet seasons. If shaken off before sunrise, it is pure white in color. If let remain, it collects until very thick, and the leaves are then gathered and steeped in boiling water until the manna floats to the top like oil. ”

“ Hence, in such cases, to the ignorant, disbelief would seem more natural than faith; though they too often reject the testimony of their own senses, for what to them, is a mere hypothesis. And thus, my lord, is it, that the masts of Mardians do not believe because they know, but because they know not. And they are as ready to receive one thing as another, if it comes from a canonical source. My lord, Mardi is as an ostrich, which will swallow augh you offer, even a bar of iron, if placed endwise. ”

“ High in the air, a firefly was blown down the wind, so that at the first glance he mistook it for a falling star. And in the sudden coolness Marden found himself thinking clearly and sweetly of his mother, whom he saw again, as in the blue December dawn, with the firelight shining upward on the gentle face and the sad gray eyes. It was all very distant, and belonged not to him; but at all events the vision was there.
"She'd understand even this," he thought. "Whether she ever forgave it or not, she knows what's been fighting in my veins. That's as much as a man deserves." ”

“ In those inland woods brood Mardians who have tasted Mardi, and found it bitter—the draught so sweet to others!—maidens whose unimparted bloom has cankered in the bud; and children, with eyes averted from life's dawn—like those new-oped morning blossoms which, foreseeing storms, turn and close. ”

“ Why, my lord, round Mardi itself is all the better for its antiquity, and the more to be revered; to the cozy-minded, more comfortable to dwell in. Ah! if ever it lay in embryo like a green seed in the pod, what a damp, shapeless thing it must have been, and how unpleasant from the traces of its recent creation. The first man, quoth old Bardianna, must have felt like one going into a new habitation, where the bamboos are green. Is there not a legend in Maramma, that his family were long troubled with influenzas and catarrhs? ”

“ Yet so far as, in our theories, we dwarf our Mardi; we go not beyond an archangel's apprehension of it, who takes in all suns and systems at a glance. Like pebbles, were the isles to sink in space, Sirius, the Dog-star, would still flame in the sky. But as the atom to the animalculae, so Mardi to us. And lived aright, these mortal lives are long; looked into, these souls, fathomless as the nethermost depths.
"'Fellow-men; we split upon hairs; but stripped, mere words and phrases cast aside, the great bulk of us are orthodox. None who think, dissent from the grand belief. ”

“ Still Marden could not pull himself away from what at once quieted and angered him.
"A man like me?" he stupidly faltered. "Why—what"—
"That's you all over!" cried the woman proudly. "Why, how many of 'em do you s'pose there is nowadays would do what you done for the sake of a woman?"
Once more, as in that meeting on the beach, a light began to grow slowly in his mind. Just so a man underground might see, far ahead, the day glimmering in the mouth of some burrow.
He drew himself free, without violence or scorn. The blood running in his veins was his own again, under control. ”

“ For when the fires and broils of youth are passed, and Mardi wears its truer aspect—then we love to think, not act; the present seems more unsubstantial than the past; then, we seek out gray-beards like ourselves; and hold discourse of palsies, hearses, shrouds, and tombs; appoint our undertakers; our mantles gather round us, like to winding-sheets; and every night lie down to die. ”

“ With these, all space is peopled;—all the air is vital with intelligence, which seeks embodiment. This it is, that unbeknown to Mardians, causes them to strangely start in solitudes of night, and in the fixed flood of their enchanted noons. From hence, are formed your mortal souls; and all those sad and shadowy dreams, and boundless thoughts man hath, are vague remembrances of the time when the soul's sad germ, wide wandered through these realms. And hence it is, that when ye Mardians feel most sad, then ye feel most immortal. ”

“ 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.’ What wonder then, my lord, that Mardi itself is so blind. ‘Mardi is a monster,’ says old Bardianna, ‘whose eyes are fixed in its head, like a whale’s; it can see but two ways, and those comprising but a small arc of a perfect vision. Poets, heroes, and men of might, are all around this monster Mardi. But stand before me on stilts, or I will behold you not, says the monster ”

“ That we move, make a noise, have organs, pulses, and are compounded of fluids and solids. And all these are in this Mardi as a unit. Daily the slow, majestic throbbings of its heart are perceptible on the surface in the tides of the la-goon. Its rivers are its veins; when agonized, earthquakes are its throes; it shouts in the thunder, and weeps in the shower; and as the body of a bison is covered with hair, so Mardi is covered with grasses and vegetation, among which, we parasitical things do but crawl, vexing and tormenting the patient creature to which we cling. ”

“ We have had vast developments of parts of men; but none of manly wholes. Before a full-developed man, Mardi would fall down and worship. We are idiot, younger-sons of gods, begotten in dotages divine; and our mothers all miscarry. Giants are in our germs; but we are dwarfs, staggering under heads overgrown. Heaped, our measures burst. We die of too much life.
MEDIA (to Abrazza) —Be not impatient, my lord; he'll recover presently. You were talking of Lombardo, Babbalanja. ”

“ A horse, left alone in the island pasture where the tide had cut him off, whinnied out of the distant dark. Even in Marden's torment, the sound brought back that evening when his brother had returned. Memories and questions swarmed in his brain again, rioting. Why could not he that now lay there dead in the gully, why could not he have stayed away? The world was so big, and full of a million other mishaps. If he were to die, a drunken lurch on the string-piece of a pier, a slip on an icy foot-rope, and Fate would have been satisfied without this dreadful means. ”

“ In the beginning, there were other beings in Mardi besides Mardians; winged beings, of purer minds, and cast in gentler molds, who would fain have dwelt forever with mankind. But the hearts of the Mardians were bitter against them, because of their superior goodness. Yet those beings returned love for malice, and long entreated to virtue and charity. But in the end, all Mardi rose up against them, and hunted them from isle to isle ”

“ Oro will defend the right, and royal crests must roll.”
“Thus, Yoomy, ages since, you mortal poets sang; but the world may not be moved from out the orbit in which first it rolled. On the map that charts the spheres, Mardi is marked ‘the world of kings.’ Round centuries on centuries have wheeled by:—has all this been its nonage? Now, when the rocks grow gray, does man first sprout his beard? Or, is your golden time, your equinoctial year, at hand, that your race fast presses toward perfection; and every hand grasps at a scepter, that kings may be no more?”
“But free Vivenza! ”

“ Would, oh would, that I were but the least of yonder sun-clouds, that look down alike on Willamilla and all places besides, that I might determine aright. Yet why do I pause? did not Rani, and Atama, and Mardonna, my ancestors, each see for himself, free Mardi; and did they not fly the proffered girdle; choosing rather to be free to come and go, than bury themselves forever in this fatal glen? Oh Mardi! Mardi! art thou then so fair to see? Is liberty a thing so glorious? Yet can I be no king, and behold thee! ”

“ But when Mardi was forever shut out; and he remembered the law of his isle, interdicting abdication to its kings; he gradually fell into desperate courses, to drown the emotions at times distracting him.
His generous spirit thirsting after some energetic career, found itself narrowed down within the little glen of Willamilla, where ardent impulses seemed idle. But these are hard to die; and repulsed all round, recoil upon themselves. ”

“ All at once his heart gave a jump, and began to flutter in his ribs, little as a kitten's. There were footsteps scrambling among the pebbles at the top of the hill. He grasped the gun, and craned his neck to see above a clump of snapdragon. He could have cried out aloud in the long suspense. But no, it was not his brother: the man was little and thin. As he came down into the gully, Marden knew him for Heber Griswold. He came very close, stopping once nearly opposite Marden to pluck a joint of timothy, which he did with difficulty, it was so dry and tough with overripeness. ”

“ Mardi is alive to its axis. When you pour water, does it not gurgle? When you strike a pearl shell, does it not ring? Think you there is no sensation in being a rock?—To exist, is to be; to be, is to be something: to be something, is—”
“Go on,” said Media.
“And what is it, to be something?” said Yoomy artlessly. “Bethink yourself of what went before,” said Media.
“Lose not the thread,” said Mohi.
“It has snapped,” said Babbalanja.
“I breathe again,” said Mohi.
“But what a stepping-off place you came to then, philosopher,” said Media. ”

“ Drawn hither by thy illustrious name, we seek admittance to thy innermost wisdom. Of all Mardian, thou alone comprehendest those arcane combinations, whereby to drag to day the most deftly hidden things, present and to come. Thou knowest what we are, and what we shall be. ”

“ Sooner will they yield you the isles of Paradise, than it. And in truth, as liege followers of Alma, they would seem but right in clinging to it as they do; for, according to all one hears in Maramma, the great end of the prophet's mission seems to have been the revealing to us Mardians the existence of horrors, most hard to escape. But better we were all annihilated, than that one man should be damned. ”

“ Take all Mardi for thy home. Nations are but names; and continents but shifting sands.
"Once more: Taji! be sure thy Yillah never will be found; or found, will not avail thee. Yet search, if so thou wilt; more isles, thou say'st, are still unvisited; and when all is seen, return, and find thy Yillah here.
"Companions all! adieu."
And from the beach, he wended through the woods.
Our shallops now refitted, we silently embarked; and as we sailed away, the old man blessed us.
For a time, each prow's ripplings were distinctly heard: ripple after ripple. ”

“ But there was a long silence.
"You must be awful lonesome," she said slowly, "livin' there all alone sence—for so long."
A light broke in upon Marden somehow, like the sun burning through a fog. In a flash his mind sped over the consequences. By his simple logic, if he should love this woman, he would marry her, and she would come to live— His whole nature suffered a revulsion, an upheaval. ”

“ Nor must it here be omitted, that in this part of Mardi culinary artists are accounted worthy of high consideration. For among these people of Odo, the matter of eating and drinking is held a matter of life and of death. “Drag away my queen from my arms,” said old Tyty when overcome of Adommo, “but leave me my cook.”
Now, among the Mardians there were plenty of incarnated deities to keep me in countenance. Most of the kings of the Archipelago, besides Media, claiming homage as demi-gods; and that, too, by virtue of hereditary descent, the divine spark being transmissable from father to son. ”

“ MARDONIO.
Hope oft, my son, unbraces the girt mind,
And to the conflict turns it loosely forth,
Weak and divided. I'm disturb'd for thee.
RAYNER.
I thank thee, Father, but the crime of blood
Your governor hath ne'er yet pardon'd; therefore
Be not disturb'd for me; my hopes are small.
MARDONIO.
So much the better. Now to pious thoughts
We will direct—Who comes to interrupt us?
Enter the Turnkey.
RAYNER.
It is the turnkey; a poor man who, tho'
His state in life favours not the kind growth
Of soft affections, has shewn kindness to me. ”