John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Stay, stay," said Charles. "I will confess to you, this Marylandiad of yours is not without interest to me."

"Nay," Ebenezer said, "you but chide me for punishment."

"I am an old man," Charles declared, "with small time left on earth — "

"Heav'n forbid!"

"Nay, 'tis clear truth," Charles insisted. "The prime of my life, and more, I've laid on the altar of a prosperous, well-governed Maryland, which was given me in trust by my dear father, and him by his, to husband and improve, and which I dreamed of handing on to my son a richer, worthier estate for my having ruled it."

"Marry, I am in tears!"

"And now in my old age I find this shan't be," Charles continued. "Moreover, I am too aged and infirm to make another ocean passage and so must die here in England without laying eyes again upon that land as dear to my heart as the wife of my body, and whose abducting and rape stings me as e'er did Helen's Menelaus."

"I can bear no more!" wept Ebenezer, blowing his nose delicately into his handkerchief.

"I have no authority," Charles concluded, "and so can no longer confer dignities and titles as before. But I declare to you this, Mr. Cooke: hie you to Maryland; put her history out of mind and look you at her peerless virtues. Study them; mark them well! Then, if you can, turn what you see to verse; tune and music it for the world's ears! Rhyme me such a rhyme, Eben Cooke; make me this Maryland, that neither time nor intrigue can rob me of; that I can pass on to my son and my son's son and all the ages of the world! Sing me this song, sir, and by my faith, in the eyes and heart of Charles Calvert and of every Christian lover of Beauty and Justice, thou'rt in sooth Poet and Laureate of the Province! And should e'er it come to pass — what against all hope and expectation I nightly pray for to Holy Mary and all saints — that one day the entire complexion of things alters, and my sweet province is once again restored to her proprietor, then, by Heav'n, I shall confer you the title in fact, lettered on sheepskin, beribboned in satin, signed by myself, and stamped for the world to gape at with the Great Seal of Maryland!"

Ebenezer's heart was too full for words.

"In the meantime," Charles went on, "I shall, if't please you, at least commission you to write the poem. Nay, better, I'll pen thee a draft of the Laureate's commission, and should God e'er grant me back my Maryland, 'twill retroact to this very day."

" 'Sheart! 'Tis past belief!"

Charles had his man fetch him paper, ink, and quill, and with the air of one accustomed to the language of authority, quickly penned the following commission:

CHARLES ABSOLUTE LORD & PROPRIETARY OF THE PROVINCES OF MARYLAND & AVALON LORD BARON OF BALTIMORE & tTo Our Trusty and Welbeloved Our Dear Ebenezer Cooke Esq rof Cookes Poynt Dorset County Greeting Whereas it is our Desire that the Sundrie Excellencies of Our Province of Maryland aforesaid be set down in Verse for Generations to Come and Whereas it is Our Conviction that Your talents Well Equip You for that Task & tWe Do Will and Command you upon the Faith which You Owe unto Us that You do compose and construct such an Epical Poem, setting forth the Graciousness of Marylands Inhabitants, Their Good Breeding and Excellent Dwelling-places, the Majesty of her Laws, the Comfort of Her Inns and Ordinaries & t& tand to this Purpose We do Name and Entitle You Poet and Laureat of the Province of Maryland Aforesaid. Witness Ourself at the City of London the twenty-eighth Day of March in the eighteenth Year of Our Dominion over Our said Province of Maryland Annoq Dom 1694

"Out on't!" he cried, handing the finished draft to Ebenezer. " 'Tis done, and I wish you fair passage." Ebenezer read the commission, flung himself upon his knees before Lord Baltimore, and pressed that worthy's coat hem to his lips in gratitude. Then, mumbling and stumbling, he pocketed the document, excused himself, and ran from the house into the bustling streets of London.

"Locket's!" cried Ebenezer to his cabman, and sprang into the hackney with a loose flail of limbs like a mismanaged marionette. With what a suddenness had he scaled the reaches of Parnassus, while his companions blundered in the foothills! Snatching out his commission, he read again the sweet word Laureat and the catalogue of Maryland's excellencies.

"Sweet land!" he exclaimed. "Pregnant with song! Thy deliverer approacheth!"

There was a conceit worth saving, he reflected: the word deliverer, for instance, with its twin suggestions of midwife and savior. . He lamented having no pen nor any paper other than Baltimore's commission, which after kissing he tucked away in his coat.

"I must purchase me a notebook," he decided. " 'Twere a pity such wildflowers should die unplucked. No more may I think merely of my own delight, for a laureate belongs to the world."

Soon the hackney cab reached Locket's, and after rewarding the driver Ebenezer hurried to find his colleagues, whom he'd not seen since the night of the wager. Once inside, however, he assumed a slower, more dignified pace, in keeping with his position, and weaved through the crowded tables to where he spied his friends.

Dick Merriweather noticed him first. " 'Sblood!" he shouted. "Look ye yonder, what comes hither! Am I addled with the sack, or is't Lazarus untombed?"

"How now!" Tom Trent joined in. "Hath the spring wind thawed ye, boy? I feared me you was ossified for good and all."

"Thawed?" said Ben Oliver, and winked. "Nay, Tom, for how could such a lover e'er be chilled? 'Tis my guess he's only now regained his strength from his mighty joust the night of our wager and is back to take all comers."

"Lightly, Ben," reproved Tom Trent, and glanced at John McEvoy beside him, who, however, was entirely absorbed in regarding Ebenezer and seemed not to have heard the remark. " 'Tis unbecoming a good fellow, to hold a grudge o'er such a trifle."

"Nay, nay," Ben insisted. "What more pleasant or instructive, I ask you, than to hear of great deeds from the lips of their doers? Hither with thee, Ebenezer. Take a pot with us and tell us all plainly, as a man amongst men: What think you now of this Joan Toast that you did swive? How is she in the bed, I mean, and what fearsome bargain did you drive for your five guineas, that we've seen none of you this entire week, or her since? Marry, what a man!"

"Curb your evil tongue," Ebenezer said crisply, taking a seat. "You know the story as well as I."

"Hi!" cried Ben. "Such bravery! What, will you say naught by way of explanation or defense when a very trollop scorns you?"

Ebenezer shrugged. " 'Tis near as e'er she'll come to greatness."

"Great Heav'n!" Tom Trent exclaimed. "Who is this stranger with the brave replies? I know the face and I know the voice, but b'm'faith, 'tis not the Eben Cooke of old!"

"Nay," agreed Dick Merriweather, " 'tis some swaggering impostor. The Cooke I knew was e'er a shy fellow, something stiff in the joints, and no great hand at raillery. Know you aught of his whereabouts?" he asked Ebenezer.

"Aye" — Ebenezer smiled — "I know him well, for 'twas I alone saw him die and wrote his elegy."

"And prithee, sir, what carried him off?" inquired Ben Oliver with as much of a sneer as could be salvaged from his late confounding. "Belike 'twas the pain of unrequited love?"

"The truth of the matter is, sirs," Ebenezer replied, "he perished in childbirth the night of the wager and never learned that what he'd been suffering was the pains of labor — the more intense, for that he'd carried the fetus since childhood and was brought to bed of't uncommon late. Howbeit, 'twas the world's good luck he had him an able midwife, who delivered full-grown the man you see before you."