John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

His Member, all devoid of Hair

And swinging free, his painted Skin

And naked Chest, inviting Sin

With Ladies who, their Beauty faded,

Husbands dead, or Pleasures jaded,

Fly from Virtues narrow Way

Into the Forest, there to lay

With Salvages, to their Damnation

Sinning by their Copulation,

Lewdness, Lust, and Fornication,

All at once. ."

"Well writ!" cried Burlingame. "Save for your preachment at the last, 'tis much the same sentiment as my own." He laughed. "I do suspect you had more on your mind last night than just the heathen: all that love-talk makes me yearn for my sweet Portia!"

"Stay," the poet cautioned at once. "Fall not into the vulgar error of the critics, that judge a work ere they know the whole of it. I go on to speculate whence came the Indian."

"Your pardon," Burlingame said. "If the rest is excellent as the first, thou'rt a poet in sooth."

Ebenezer flushed with pleasure and read on, somewhat more forcefully:

"Whence came this barb'rous Salvage Race,

That wanders yet 'oer MARYLANDS Face?

Descend they all from those old Sires,

Remarked by Plato and such like Liars

From lost Atlantis, sunken yet

Beneath the Ocean, cold and wet?

Or is he wiser who ascribes

Their Genesis to those ten Tribes

Of luckless Jews, that broke away

From Israel, and to this Day

Have left no Traces, Signs, or Clews —

Are Salvages but beardless Jews?

Or are they sprung, as some maintain,

From that same jealous, incestuous Cain,

Who with twin Sister fain had lay'd

And whose own Brother anon he slay'd:

Fleeing then Jehovah's Wrath

Did wend his cursed, rambling Path

To MARYLANDS Doorsill, there to hide

In penance for his Fratricide,

And hiding, found no liv'lier Sport

Than siring Heathens, tall and short?

Still others hold, these dark-skinn'd Folk

Escap'd the Deluge all unsoak'd

That carry'd off old Noahs Ark

Upon its long and wat'ry Lark,

And drown'd all Manner of Men save Two:

The Sailors in Old Noahs Crew

(That after all were but a Few),

And this same brawny Salvage Host,

Who, safe behind fair MARYLANDS Coast,

Saw other Mortals sink and die

Whilst they remain'd both high and dry.

Another Faction claims to trace

The Hist'ry of this bare-Bumm'd Race

Back to Mankinds Pucelage,

That Ovid calls the Golden Age:

When kindly Saturn rul'd the Roost.

Their learned Fellows have deduc'd

The Salvage Home to be that Garden

Wherein three Sisters play'd at Warden

Over Heras Golden Grove,

Whose Apples were a Treasure-Trove:

That Orchard robb'd by Hercules,

The Garden of Hesperides;

While other Scholards, no less wise,

Uphold the Earthly Paradise —

Old Adams Home, and Eves to boot,

Wherein they gorg'd forbidden Fruit —

To be the Source and Fountainhead

Of Salvag'ry. Some, better read

In Arthurs Tales, have settl'd on

The Blessed Isles of Avalon,

And others say the fundamental

Flavoring is Oriental,

Or that mayhap ancient Viking,

Finding MARYLAND to his liking,

Stay'd, and father'd red-skinn'd Horsemen:

One Part Salvage, One Part Norsemen.

Others say the grand Ambitions

Of the restless old Phoenicians

Led that hardy Sailor Band

To the Shores of MARYLAND,

In Ships so cramm'd with Man and Beast

No Room remain'd for Judge or Priest:

There, with Lasses and Supplies,

The Men commenc'd to colonize

This foreign Shore in Manner dastard,

All their Offspring being Bastard.

Finally, if any Persons

Unpersuaded by these Versions

Of the Salvages Descent

Should ask still for the Truth anent

Their Origins — why, such as these,

That are so damned hard to please,

I send to Mephistopheles,

Who engender'd in the Fires of Hell

The Indians, and them as well!"

"Now, that is all damned clever!" Burlingame exclaimed. "Whether 'twas the hardships of your crossing or a half year's added age, I swear thou'rt twice the poet you were in Plymouth. The lines on Cain I thought especially well-wrought."

" 'Tis kind of you to praise the piece," Ebenezer said. "Haply 'twill be a part of the Marylandiad."

"I would I could turn a verse so well. But say, while 'tis fresh in my mind, doth persons really rhyme with versions, and folk with soak'd?"

"Indeed yes," the poet replied.

"But would it not be better," Burlingame persisted cordially, "to rhyme versions with dispersions, say, and folk with soak? Of course, I am no poet."

"One need not be a hen to judge an egg," Ebenezer allowed. "The fact of't is, the rhymes you name are at once better and worse than mine: better, because they sound more nearly like the words they rhyme with; and worse, because such closeness is not the present fashion. Dispersion and version: 'tis wanting in character, is't not? But person and version — there is surprise, there is color, there is wit! In fine, there is a perfect Hudibrastic."

"Hudibrastic, is it? I have heard the folk in Locket's speak well of Hudibras, but I always thought it tedious myself. What is't you mean by Hudibrastic?"

Ebenezer could scarcely believe that Burlingame was really ignorant of Hudibrastic rhyme or anything else, but so pleasant was the reversal of their unusual roles that he found it easy to put by his skepticism.

"A Hudibrastic rhyme," he explained, "is a rhyme that is close, but not just harmonious. Take the noun wagon: what would you rhyme with it?"

"Why, now, let's see," Burlingame mused. "Methinks flagon would serve, or dragon, wouldn't you say?"

"Not at all," smiled Ebenezer. " 'Tis too expected; 'tis what any poetaster might suggest — no offense, you understand."

"None whatever."

"Nay, to wagon you must rhyme bag in, or sagging: almost, you see, but not quite.

The Indians call their wat'ry Wagon

Canoe, a Vessel none can brag on.

Wagon, brag on - do you follow me?"

"I grasp the principle," Burlingame declared, "and I recall such rhymes as that in Hudibras; but I doubt me I could e'er apply it."

"Why, of course you can! It wants but courage, Henry. Take quarrel, now: The Man and I commenc'd to quarrel. What shall we rhyme with it?"

Burlingame pondered the problem for a while. "What would you say to snarl?" he ventured at last.

"The Man and I commenc'd to quarrel:

I to grumble, he to snarl."

"The line is good," replied the Laureate, "and bespeaks some wit. But the rhyme is humorless. Quarrel, snarl - nay, 'tis too close."