John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"A modern translation," Max remarked. "I hate it." But Dr. Sear declared that idiomatic translation of the classics was much in fashion in the College, and that while he agreed that the modernization could go too far, he approved of the general principle. I observed that the line-ends seemed to rhyme, more or less, in pairs.

"Heroic couplets," Dr. Sear explained. "Nothing modern about them."

"Ah."

Now an old chap, not unlike Max in appearance, with white beard and wrapper, spoke for the assemblage:

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Ahem. I am most proud, Dean Taliped

and honored colleagues, to have been the head

of this, my last committee, whose report

and urgent recommendations —

TALIPED: Make it short;

I've little time: appointments, letters, lunch

with six assistant deans, and then a bunch

of meetings until five. Get to the facts.

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:[Aside]

Respect for his elders is what this fellow lacks.

[TO TALIPED]

I mean to, Mister Dean. The facts are here

in our report: complete, unvarnished, clear — -

TALIPED:[Aside]

And laced with purple passages, I'll bet.

Of all the speech-professors that I've met,

here in Cadmus and back where I used to teach,

not one could make a clear, unvarnished speech.

[TO COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN]

No need to read it: summarize what's in it.

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:[Aside]

We waste two weeks; he can't spare a minute.

[TO TALIPED]

Very well, sir; I'll forego analysis

of our problems, and of certain fallacies

inherent in some proposals for relief —

though it's quite worth hearing. Also, to be brief,

I'll skip our truly moving peroration

and read you these last pages of summation,

done in a post-Philippic courtroom style…

TALIPED: Let's skip that too, okay? I swear that I'll

be just as moved to hear in a word what's what.

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: In a word, sir: Cadmus College has gone to pot.

TALIPED: To pot, you say?

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Quite utterly to pot.

Shall I say more?

TALIPED: I know you will. But not

in post-Philippics. Lay it on the line.

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:[Reads from last page of report]

Item: our fruits are dying on the vine —

TALIPED: So's the Department of Plant Pathology.

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Agronomy reports that there will be

another field-crop failure — - rusts and blight.

Item: Dairy Research declares we might

lose half our stock to hoof-and-mouth disease…

I clutched Max's arm. "That's terrible!"

"Oh well," sighed Dr. Sear, "at least the tickets didn't cost us anything."

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: That means we'll lack for beef and milk and cheese.

TALIPED:/ know what it means!

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: It means, sir, that we'll die

of malnutrition soon — - or plague, if I

correctly read those secret, censored portions

of the epidemiologists' report. Item: abortions,

both spontaneous and not, are much

more common every term; so too are such

once-rare events as murder, arson, cheating,

robbery, riot, rape, divorce, wife-beating.

Morale is low, inflation high; vice thrives;

we're losing accreditation and our wives.

Famine, stillbirth, crime, despair, the pox —

fact is, sir, Cadmus College is on the rocks.

TALIPED: What else is new?

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Well, sir, to be sure,

we understand that, while you're brilliant, you're

no passèd Founder; that however keen

your intellect, after all you're just a dean —

and young besides, in years if not in mind.

TALIPED:[Aside]

And thin-skinned, too, this windy fool will find;

I'll break his contract and revoke his pension,

I swear itl

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Mister Dean, sir — - your attention?

What we mean, sir, is that inasmuch

as you contrived to save us from the clutch

of that she-monster at our entrance-gate —

who quizzed us with her riddle and then ate

us when we flunked — - since you alone, I say,

by some device were able, on that day

nine years ago, to get her off our back,

you must have had some influence that we lack

with the powers-that-be. I don't think it was knowledge

(I know more learned men in Cadmus College)

or wisdom, either; simply good connections.

Therefore, in the subsequent elections

you won the Cadmus deanship and your wife,

the old Dean's widow…

TALIPED: Don't review my life;

I know the story twice as well as you.

"I didn't," Greene whispered into my ear. "I'm glad the old man let us in on it."

"Shh," somebody hissed behind us.

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:[Aside]

He tells it twice as well and often, too.

[TO TALIPED]

We hope, sir, you'll be able to repeat

that stunt; to set the College on its feet

by some great deanly deed, before we're dead.

That's what we came to tell you, Taliped.

TALIPED:[Aside]

Tell is right — the threat's thinly veiled!

Their point's quite clear: that, deanwise, I've failed,

and should resign my post.

[TO COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN]

Look here, by Neddy!

You tell me nothing I don't know already.

" ' By Neddy!' " Sear exclaimed. "That is a bit far!"

TALIPED: In fact, while you've been sitting on your thumbs

(and on my steps), I've done things. Look: here comes

my brother-in-law, by sheer coincidence,

this minute, whom last week I had the sense

and foresight to dispatch, as assistant dean,

with all expenses paid, to survey the scene

first-hand, and then to pay a formal call

on the Professor of Prophecy in Founder's Hall

and ask his advice, just to forestall the shout

that rascal raises when I leave him out.

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:[Aside, TO COMMITTEE]

Of all the men around, look which he picks

as his assistant! Campus politics

makes strange bed-partners. Now, of course, wemust

pretend to be impressed by and to trust

this arrant ninny's judgment — - not that he

has either sense or perspicacity.

Connections, though, he does have, which we worship:

[to BROTHER-IN-LAW]

Top o' the morning to Your Brother-in-lawship!

"Is that a proper rhyme?" I inquired at once of Dr. Sear. He promised to go into the subject with me later, but bid me heed now the important exposition being revealed down on the stage, where Taliped had greeted his brother-in-law's timely arrival and asked him what the Professor of Prophecy had had to say.

BROTHER-IN-LAW: You want it straight?