John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"I would, right enough," Ebenezer admitted. "But will ye not judge the man by the child? 'Tis the present poem alone, methinks, that matters, not its origins, and it must stand or fall on's own merits, apart from maker and age."

"No doubt, no doubt," Sayer said, waving his hand indifferently, "though this word merit's total mystery to me. What I spoke of was interest, and whether 'tis good or bad in itself, certain your Hymn to Innocence is of greater interest to one who knows the history of its author than to one who knows not a bean of the circumstances that gave it birth."

"Your argument hath its merits," Ebenezer allowed, not a little impressed to hear such nice reasoning from a tobacco-planter.

Sayer laughed. "A fart for thy merit! My argument hath its interest, peradventure, to one who knows the arguer, and the history of such debates since Plato's time."

"Yet surely the Hymn hath some certain degree of merit, and hath nor more nor less whether he that reads it be a Cambridge don or silly footboy — or for that matter, whether 'tis read or not."

"Belike it doth," Sayer said with a shrug. " 'Tis very like the schoolmen's question, whether a falling tree on a desert isle makes a sound or no, inasmuch as no ear hears it. I've no opinion on't myself, though I'll own the quarrel hath some interest: 'tis an ancient one, with many a mighty implication to't."

"This interest is the base of thy vocabulary," Ebenezer remarked, "as merit seems to be of mine."

"It at least permits of conversation," Sayer smiled. "Prithee, which gleans more pleasure from thy Hymn? The footboy who knows not Priam from Good King Wenceslas, or the don who calls the ancients by their nicknames? The salvage Indian that ne'er heard tell of chastity, or the Christian man who's learned to couple innocence with unpopped maidenheads?"

"Marry!" Ebenezer exclaimed. "Your case hath weight, my friend, but I confess it repels me to own the muse sings clearest to professors! 'Twas not of them I thought when I wrote the piece."

"Nay, ye mistake me," Sayer said. " 'Tis no mere matter of schooling, though none's the worse for a little education. Human experience is what I mean: knowledge of the world, both as stored in books and learnt from the hard text of life. Your poem's a spring of water, Master Laureate — 'sheart, for that matter everything we meet is a spring, is't not? That the bigger the cup we bring to't, the more we fetch away, and the more springs we drink from, the bigger grows our cup. If I oppose your notion 'tis that such thinking robs the bank of human experience, wherein I have a considerable deposit. I will not drink with any man who'd have me throw away my cup. In short, sir, though I am neither poet nor critic, nor e'en a common Artium Baccalaureus, but only a simple sot-weed planter that hath read a book or two in's time and seen a bit o' the wide world, yet I'm confident your poem means more to me than to you."

"What! That are neither virgin nor poet?"

Sayer nodded. "As for the first, I have been one in my time and look on't now from the vantage-point of experience, which ye do not. For the second, 'tis but a different view ye get as author. Nor am I the dullest of readers: I quite appreciate the wordplays in your first quatrain, for instance."

"Wordplays? What wordplays?"

"Why, chaste Penelope, for one," Sayer said. "What better pun for a wife plagued twenty years by suitors? 'Twas a clever choice!"

"Thank you," Ebenezer murmured.

"And Andromache's bouncing boy," Sayer went on, "that was pitched from the walls of Ilium — "

"Nay, 'tis grotesque!" Ebenezer protested. "I meant no such thing!"

"Not so grotesque. It hath the salt of Shakespeare."

"Do you think so?" Ebenezer reconsidered the phrase in his mind. "Haply it doth at that. Nonetheless you read more out than I put in."

" 'Tis but to admit," Sayer said, "I read more out than you read out, which was my claim. Your poem means more to me."

"I'faith, I've not the means to refute you!" Ebenezer declared. "If thou'rt a true sample of my fellow planters, sir, then Maryland must be the muse's playground, and a paradise for poets! Thou'rt indeed the very voice and breath of Reason, and I'm honored to be your neighbor. My cup runneth over."

Sayer smiled. "Belike it wants enlarging?"

" 'Tis larger now than when I left London. Thou'rt no mean teacher."

"For fee, then, if I'm thy tutor, ye may pay me out in verse," Sayer replied. "The three lines that occasioned our debate."

"As you wish," Ebenezer laughed, "though Heav'n only knows what you'll find in 'em! 'Twas once in a Pall Mall tavern, after my first glass of Malaga, I composed them, when all the world looked queer and alien." He cleared his throat:

"Figures, so strange, no GOD design'd

To be a Part of Human-kind:

But wanton Nature. .

In truth, 'tis but two and a half; I know not whither it went from there, but the message of the whole was simply that we folk were too absurd to do credit to a Sublime Intelligence. No puns or wordplays, that I know of."

" 'Tis a passing cynical opinion for a boy," Sayer said.

" 'Twas just the way I saw things in my cups. Marry, that last line teases my memory!"

Sayer stroked his beard and squinted out the window. A dusty country lad of twelve or thirteen years, wandering idly down the road, stepped aside and waved at them as they passed.

"Figures, so strange, no GOD design'd

To be a Part of Human-kind,"

Sayer recited, and turned to smile mischievously at Ebenezer:

"But wanton Nature, void of Rest,

Moulded the brittle Clay in Jest.

Do I have't right, Eben?"

"Nay, I'god!" Ebenezer blinked, and shook his head, and craned forward as if seeking a message on his companion's face.

"Yes, 'tis I. Shame on you, that you failed to see't, or Anna either."

"But 'sheart, Henry, thou'rt so altered I've still to see't! Wigless, bearded — "

"A man changes in seven years," Burlingame smiled. "I'm forty now, Eben."

"E'en the eyes!" Ebenezer said. "And thy way of speaking! Thy voice itself is different, and thy manner! Are you Sayer feigning Burlingame, or Burlingame disguised as Sayer?"

" 'Tis no disguise, as any that know the real Sayer can testify."

"Yet I knew the real Henry Burlingame," Ebenezer said, "and were't not that you knew my quatrain I could not say thou'rt he! I told the poem to none save Henry, and that but once, fifteen years past."

"As I was fetching thee home from St. James's Park," Henry added. " 'Twas past midnight, and the Malaga had oiled thy tongue. Yet you were asleep ere we reached St. Giles, with your head on my shoulder, were you not?"

"Marry, so I was! I had forgot." Ebenezer reached across the carriage and gripped Burlingame's arm. "Ah God, to think I've found you, Henry!"

"Then you do believe 'tis I?"

"Forgive me my doubt; I've ne'er known a man to change so, nor had thought it possible."

Burlingame raised a tutorial finger. "The world can alter a man entirely, Eben, or he can alter himself, down to his very essence. Did you not by your own testimony resolve, not that you were, but that you'd be virgin and poet from that moment hence? Nay, a man must alter willy-nilly in's flight to the grave; he is a river running seawards, that is ne'er the same from hour to hour. What is there in the Maryland Laureate of the boy I fetched from Magdalene College?"

"The less the better!" Ebenezer replied. "Yet I am still Eben Cooke, though haply not the same Eben Cooke, as the Thames is Thames however swift she flows."