John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Hi, now!" a planter cried at his approach. "Here comes our Christlike Laureate at last!" There was no malice in his tone at all; his greeting was echoed by the others, who made room for him and went so far as to swear to the barman that they would leave in a body if their new comrade were not given free rum at once.

Their cordiality moistened the poet's eyes. " 'Tis not a proper Laureate you see before you, friends," he began, speaking with some difficulty. "Nay, rather it is the very prince of fools, and yet thou'rt civil to him as to a man of sense. I shan't forget it."

Burlingame looked up with interest at the outset of this speech, but seemed disappointed by its close.

"One folly doth not make a fool," someone replied.

" 'Twas a princely stupid grant," another declared, "and you've a princely misery in exchange for't. Methinks thou'rt quits."

Ebenezer drank off his rum and was given another. "A fortune poorer and a groatsworth wiser?" He shook his head. "I see no bargain in't."

"That is the way of't, nonetheless," said Burlingame, in the accents of Timothy Mitchell. "Unless a man matriculate betimes, Life's college hath a dear tuition. Besides, thou'rt in a venerable position."

"Venerable!" protested the Laureate. "If you mean I'm not the world's initial ass, then I agree, but I see naught in that to venerate!"

"Drink up, and I'll explain." His tutor smiled and, when Ebenezer complied, he said, "What is your lot, if not the lot of man?"

"Haply 'tis the rum beclouds me," Ebenezer interrupted, "for I see nor sense nor rhyme in that remark." He terminated his statement with a belch, to his new-found friends' amusement, and called for another drink.

"I mean 'tis Adam's story thou'rt re-enacting." Henry went on. "Ye set great store upon your innocence, and by reason of't have lost your earthly paradise. Nay, I shall take the conceit e'en farther: not only hath your adventure left ye homeless, but like Adam ye've your first bellyful of knowledge and experience; ye'll pluck easy fruit no more to line your gut with, but earn your bread with guilty sweat, as do the mass of men. Your father, if I know him, will not lose this chance to turn ye out o' the Garden!"

Ebenezer laughed as readily as the others at this analogy, if not so heartily, and mug in hand replied, "Such conceits as that are spirited horses, that if not rid with art will take their riders far afield."

"Ye do not like it?"

"The fault is not in the — Hi, there!" In gesturing his dissent Ebenezer had splashed a deal of rum on his shirt. "What waste of brew, sirs! Prithee fill me up. There's a Christian Dorsetman!" This time he drank off half a glass before he spoke. "What was I saying, now, good friends?" He frowned at his dripping garment. "From the way the water broke, I judge some mighty thought was in travail: another Errare humanum est, for aught you know, or Fiat justitia ruat caelum."

"It had to do with horses," said one of the delighted patrons.

"With horses!"

"Aye," another laughed, "ye were in argument with Tim Mitchell here."

"Pray God the jade is windless, then," Ebenezer said. "I am sick to death from our last contest of wit!"

Though none but Burlingame really understood this remark, it was received with hilarity by the planters, who now vied with one another to buy the Laureate drinks.

" 'Twas Master Tim's conceit ye took to task," one said.

"Indeed? Then let him look to't, for just as Many can pack the cards that cannot play, so many can turn a rhyme that are not poets. Good rhymes are mere embroidery on the muse's drawers, but metaphor's their very warp and woof — if I may say so."

"Ye never would have ere this night," said Burlingame, who seemed not amused.

"I have't now!" Ebenezer cried; the company smiled and urged him to drink dry his glass before he spoke.

" 'Twas all that likening me to Adam I took issue with." He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and leaned his elbow in a puddle on the bar. "Methinks friend Timothy hath forgot old Adam was a sinner, and that his Original Sin was knowledge and experience. Ere he took his sinful bite he was immortal as the beasts, that learn little from experience and know not death; once glutted with the fruit of Learning's orchard, 'twas his punishment to groan with the heartburn of despair, and to grope his little way in the black foreshadow of his death."

Burlingame shrugged. " 'Twas what I — "

"Stay," the Laureate commanded, "I am not done!" For all Burlingame had urged Ebenezer to drink, he was plainly annoyed by his protégé's alcoholic eloquence; he turned away to his own glass, and the patrons nudged each other with apprehensive mirth.

"What you forgot in your o'erhasty trope," Ebenezer declared: "was just the sort of apple Father Adam bit. What knowledge is it, Timmy, that is root and stem of all? What vile experience sows the seeds of death in men? I'faith, how did it slip your mind, that are so big with seed yourself and have broadcast in the furrows of two hemispheres? 'Twas carnal knowledge, Tim boy, experience of the flesh, that caused man's fall! If I am Adam, I am Eveless, and Adam Eveless is immortal and unfallen. In fine, sir, my estate is lost, but I am not, and there's an end on't!"

"Your tongue runs over," Burlingame grumbled.

"Behold him, citizens of Dorset!" the poet cried, and pointed more or less at Burlingame with one hand while he tipped back his rum-glass with the other. "Ecce signum! Finem respice! If knowledge be sin and death, as Scripture says, there stands a Faustus of the flesh — a very Lucifer!"

"Nay, poet, ye go too far," a planter cautioned. "This is no feckless Quaker thou'rt abusing." Several others echoed his discomfort; some even moved discreetly from the bar to nearby tables, where they could watch without being mistaken for participants.

Whether aware of the change in their attitude or not, Ebenezer went on undaunted. "This man you see here is more knowledgeable than a squad of Oxford dons, and more versed in carnal lore than Aretino! Beside him old Cartesius is a numbskull, Wallenstein a babe, and Rabelais but a mincing Puritan. Behold his cheeks, that wear the ashy hue of Chaos! Behold his brow, deep-furrowed by the history of the race!"

"I prithee stay!" someone entreated him.

"Behold his eyes, sirs, that have read of every unholy deed e'er dreamt of by the tortuous minds of man, and looked on these same deeds done in the flesh! Oh, in particular behold those eyes! Turn round here, Henry — Timothy, I mean! — turn round for us, Timmy, and chill us with those eyes! They are cold and old as a reptile's, friends — in sooth, in sooth, they are the eyes of Eden's serpent, that, nested in the Tree of Knowledge, enthralled the earth's first woman with his winkless stare!"

"Curb thy tongue," warned Burlingame. "Thou'rt prating nonsense!"

But Ebenezer was too far gone in rum and wrath to leave off his tirade. "Oh Lord, good sirs, behold those eyes! How many maids hath that stare rendered helpless, that soon were maids no more! What a deal of innocence have those two hands corrupted!"

"This is Tim Mitchell ye speak to!" a frightened planter said. "How is't ye dare abuse him so?"

"How is't I dare?" the poet repeated. His gaze never left Burlingame, whose face betrayed increasing irritation. He set down his glass, and his eyes filled with tears. "Because he hath with his infamous guile bewitched one innocent flower, most precious to my heart of all, a paragon of gentle chastity, and sought by every foul means to possess her!"

"Stop!" Burlingame commanded.

" 'Tis for this alone he feigns to be my friend and makes game of my innocence but takes no umbrage at my abuse: he still pursues his evil end. Yet I am proud to say his craft thus far hath borne no fruit: this flower's virtue is of hardy stock, and hath not yet succumbed to his vile blandishment. Lookee, how the truth doth gall him! This embodiment of lust — how doth it fret him to see that flower go still unplucked!"