E. Eddison - The Mezentian Gate

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Introduction © Paul Edmund Thomas 1992

Copyright © E.R. Eddison 1958, 1992

Jacket illustration by John Howe © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 2014

E.R. Eddison asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780007578177

Ebook Edition © October 2014 ISBN: 9780007578184

Version: 2014-09-16

To you, madonna mia,

WINIFRED GRACE EDDISON

and to my mother,

HELEN LOUISA EDDISON

and to my friends,

JOHN AND ALICE REYNOLDS

and to

HARRY PIRIE-GORDON

a fellow explorer in whom (as in Lessingham)

I find that rare mixture of man of action and

connoisseur of strangeness and beauty in their

protean manifestations, who laughs where I laugh

and likes the salt that I like, and to whom I owe

my acquaintance (through the Orkneyinga Saga )

with the earthly ancestress

of my Lady Rosma Parry

I dedicate this book.

E. R. E.

Proper names the reader will no doubt pronounce as he chooses. But perhaps, to please me, he will keep the i ’s short in Zimiamvia and accent the third syllable: accent the second syllable in Zayana , give it a broad a (as in ‘Guiana’), and pronouce the ay in the first syllable – and the ai in Laimak , Kaima , etc., and the ay in Krestenaya – like the ai in ‘aisle’; keep the g soft in Fingiswold : let Memison echo ‘denizen’ except for the m : accent the first syllable in Rerek and make it rhyme with ‘year’: pronounce the first syllable of Reisma ‘rays’; remember that Fiorinda is in origin an Italian name, Amaury , Amalie , and Beroald French, and Antiope , Zenianthe , and a good many others, Greek: last, regard the sz in Meszria as ornamental, and not be deterred from pronouncing it as plain ‘Mezria’.

Let me not to the marriage of true mindes

Admit impediments, love is not love

Which alters when it alteration findes,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no, it is an ever fixed marke

That lookes on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandring barke,

Whose worths unknowns, although his higth be taken.

Love’s not Times foole, though rosie lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickles compasse come,

Love alters not with his breefe houres and weekes,

But beares it out even to the edge of doome:

If this be error, and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

SHAKESPEARE

And ride in triumph through Persepolis!

Is it not brave to be a King, Techelles?

Usumcasane and Theridamas,

Is it not passing brave to be a King,

And ride in triumph through Persepolis?

MARLOWE

I cannot conceive any beginning of such love as I have for you but Beauty. There may be a sort of love for which, without the least sneer at it, I have the highest respect and can admire it in others: but it has not the richness, the bloom, the full form, the enchantment of love after my own heart.

KEATS

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Introduction by Paul Edmund Thomas

Prefatory Note by Colin Rücker Eddison

LETTER OF INTRODUCTION

PRAELUDIUM: LESSINGHAM ON THE RAFTSUND

BOOK ONE: FOUNDATIONS

I. Foundations in Rerek

II. Foundations in Fingiswold

III. Nigra Sylva, where the Devils Dance

IV. The Bolted Doors

V. Princess Marescia

VI. Prospect North from Argyanna

BOOK TWO: UPRISING OF KING MEZENTIUS

VII. Zeus Terpsikeraunos

VIII. The Prince Protector

IX. Lady Rosma in Acrozayana

X. Stirring of the Eumenides

XI. Commodity of Nephews

XII. Another Fair Moonshiny Night

BOOK THREE: THE AFFAIR OF REREK

XIII. The Devil’s Quilted Anvil

XIV. Lord Emmius Parry

BOOK FOUR: THE AFFAIR OF MESZRIA

XV. Queen Rosma

XVI. Lady of Presence

XVII. Akkama Brought into the Dowry

XVIII. The She-Wolf Tamed to Hand

XIX. The Duchess of Memison

BOOK FIVE: THE TRIPLE KINGDOM

XX. Dura Papilla Lupae

XXI. Anguring Combust

XXII. Pax Mezentiana

XXIII. The Two Dukes

XXIV. Prince Valero

XXV. Lornra Zombremar

XXVI. Rebellion in the Marches

XXVII. Third War with Akkama

BOOK SIX: LA ROSE NOIRE

XXVIII. Anadyomene

XXIX. Astarte

XXX. Laughter-loving Aphrodite

XXXI. The Beast of Laimak

XXXII. Then, Gentle Cheater

XXXIII. Aphrodite Helikoblepharos

The Fish Dinner: Transitional Note

BOOK SEVEN: TO KNOW OR NOT TO KNOW

XXXIV. The Fish Dinner: First Digestion

XXXV. Diet a Cause

XXXVI. Rosa Mundorum

XXXVII. Testament of Energeia

XXXVIII. Call of the Night-Raven

XXXIX. Omega and Alpha in Sestola

GENEALOGICAL TABLES

MAP OF THE THREE KINGDOMS

Footnote

Also by E. R. Eddison

About the Publisher

THE twelfth chapter of E. R. Eddison’s first novel, The Worm Ouroboros, contains a curious episode extraneous to the main plot. Having spent nearly all their strength in climbing Koshtra Pivrarcha, the highest mountain pinnacle on waterish Mercury, the Lords Juss and Brandoch Daha stand idly enjoying the glory of their singular achievement atop the frozen wind-whipped summit, and they gaze away southward into a mysterious land never before seen:

Juss looked southward where the blue land stretched in fold upon fold of rolling country, soft and misty, till it melted in the sky. ‘Thou and I,’ said he, ‘first of the children of men, now behold with living eyes the fabled land of Zimiamvia. Is that true, thinkest thou, which philosophers tell us of that fortunate land: that no mortal foot may tread it, but the blessed souls do inhabit it of the dead that be departed, even they that were great upon earth and did great deeds when they were living, that scorned not earth and the delights and the glories thereof, and yet did justly and were not dastards nor yet oppressors?’

‘Who knoweth?’ said Brandoch Daha, resting his chin in his hand and gazing south as in a dream. ‘Who shall say he knoweth?’