He asked, “Were these once men?”
Maya of the Fair Breasts answered him, reassuringly, “Yes: all these quiet and useful creatures at one time were mere poets, troubled as you are now troubled, and all these have I saved from that music which is made by the witch-woman, as presently I will save you.”
Madoc cried out, “I do not ask for salvation, but for vengeance!”
She said, “In vengeance there is neither ease nor wisdom; but upon Mispec Moor are both.”
Madoc replied, “Nevertheless, I prefer that you tell me in what way I may come to the accursed witch, and may make an end of her music and of her also.”
The sullen wise woman answered, standing now more near to him, “That way I will not ever tell you, because I like too much your appearance.”
15. RIGHT-THINKING REMEDIED
Then Madoc sang yet another of the songs which he had written with the quill from the wing of the Father of All Lies. He sang of how much good there is in even the very worst of us, and of that priceless spark of divinity which glows in every human breast and needs but properly to be fostered.
The well-nourished beasts that once had been poets arose forthwith, and each lurched clumsily about upon his hind legs. “Let us be worthy, yet, even yet, of that heritage which we have denied! Let us abandon this wicked market-garden wherein are only ease and gluttony, let us discomfort the world’s ease everywhere with right-thinking and with every other high-minded kind of intrepid morality!”
So they babbled and floundered about Madoc, who all the while sang on exaltedly and thought what silly creatures seemed these bemired and madly aspiring overfed animals.
But Dame Maya winced to see her fair name as a competent wife thus imperiled, now that all her transfigured husbands were in revolt. She hastily told Madoc the way to the Waste Beyond the Moon: he ended his singing: and the domestic animals fell back contentedly into the incurious sloth and the fat ease of the wise woman’s market-garden, out of which Madoc passed toward his allotted doom.
PART THREE. OF MADOC IN THE MOON
Le chevalier Madoc lui dit: Vous voir est ce aidé pouvait m’arriver de plus agréable, et je voudrais être avec vous jusqu’a la mari.— Cela peut bien être, dit la jeune fille.
16. LEADS TO THE MOON
All that which Maya of the Fair Breasts had commanded Madoc performed, with his sword and a forked rod and a cup and a five-pointed talisman. This magic brought to him a monster shaped like a feathered lion, but eight and one-half times as large, and having the head and wings of a fighting-cock. Upon the breast of the hippogriffin grew red plumage; its back was of a dark blue color; and its wings were white.
Such was the gaily tinted steed upon which Madoc rode, along strange and unhealthy highways. The spirits of the air beset him: sylphs beckoned to this fine young fellow; Lilith, that very dreadful and delicious Bride of the Serpent, pursued him a great way, because she liked the appearance of Madoc. Nevertheless, he won unhurt to the pale mists and the naked desert space behind the moon.
Ettarre was at her accursed music: the gray place throbbed with it: it seemed the heartbeat of the universe, and the winds that moved between the stars were attuned to its doubtfulness and discontent.
“Turn, witch, and die!” cried Madoc furiously, as he came toward Ettarre with his sword drawn.
She made an end of her skirling music, she rose, and now for the first time he saw the face of Ettarre. Then Madoc knew it was not hatred which had drawn him to her.
17. MORE LUNAR HAPPENINGS
He put her lips away from his lips. Madoc saw that the desert place was changed. About them now was a quiet-colored paradise: lilies abounded everywhere, and many climbing white roses also were lighted by the clear and tempered radiancy of early dawn. White rabbits were frisking to every side. Instead of that music which was all a doubtfulness and a discontent, you could now hear doves calling to their mates very softly.
“Love has wrought this lovely miracle,” Ettarre remarked, without any sign of disapproval.
Madoc replied: “Love has brought beauty into this place. Now also shall my ever-living love bring liberty to you, and loose you from all bonds excepting only my embraces.”
Ettarre answered: “I like your appearance: your embrace is strong and comforting: but there can be no liberty for me until the 725 years of my post-lunar music-making are ended. No man may alter any word of the Norns’ decree: and they have decreed that for 725 years my master Sargatanet shall retain me here as his scholar and his prisoner.”
Madoc said, jealously: “What else has this Sargatanet taught you save music? No, do you not tell me that, but do you tell me instead the way to your music-master, whom I intend to discharge.”
18. TRUISMS COME
Thereafter hand in hand they passed toward Sargatanet where he sat under a vine which bore fruit of five different colors. Kneeling before the porphyry throne of Sargatanet at that instant were the five lords of hunger and fire and cold, of darkness and of madness. To each of these he was assigning the vexations to be completed during that week.
When his servants had departed earthward, to work the will of Sargatanet among mankind, and to stir up in human hearts the doubtfulness and the discontent which endlessly oppressed the heart of Sargatanet, then the gaunt master of the Waste Beyond the Moon bent down toward where Madoc and Ettarre stood at his ankle. He heard the plea of Madoc, and he heard the threats of Madoc, impartially; and Sargatanet shrugged his winged shoulders.
“That which is written by the Norns,” said Sargatanet, “cannot be evaded. The Norns have written all Earth’s history, they have recorded its Contents and its Colophon also. No man nor any god may alter any word of that which the Gray Three have written. For one, I would not grieve if such an evasion were possible, because Ettarre has now been my scholar and my prisoner for some 592 years. And you know what women are. That is why I do not bother to criticize seriously the writing of the three Norns.”
19. THE NATURE OF WOMEN
Then Madoc said: “I am not certain that I do know what women are; but I know their ways are pleasant. Their lips have been dear to me. They have yet other possessions in which I have taken delight. A woman is a riddle without any answer; she is not mere bed-furnishing; she is a rapture very brightly colored; .she is a holiness which I am content to adore without understanding: and among all women who keep breath in them Ettarre has not her equal.
“And besides,” Madoc continued, “Ettarre is more durable than are other women; for she is more than 592 years old; and never in the moon would you suspect it. Hers and hers only, it has been remarked by the diffident voice of understatement, is that perfect beauty of which all young poets have had their fitful glimpses. Her beauty is ageless. Her beauty has in it no flaw. And so, even if the completeness of the beauty of Ettarre may demolish commonsense, yet a generous-minded person will be ready to condone its excesses. A generous-minded person will concede, without any cowardly beating about the bushes of reticence, that among all women who keep breath in them Ettarre has not her equal.”
Sargatanet replied: “Do you please stop talking. For we know what poets are; and all we immortals know what women are. But we cannot do anything whatever about it.”
20. LOVE SCORES A POINT