John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Gramercy!"

"No man e'er loved his trade more than I," Burlingame continued, "nor slaved at it more diligently; I was the apple of the Captain's eye, and would, I think, have risen fast through the ranks."

"Then out on't, Henry, how is't you claim my failing? For I see naught in thy tale here but a staggering industry and singlemindedness, the half of which I'd lose an ear to equal."

Burlingame smiled and drank off the last of his beer. " Inconstancy, dear fellow, inconstancy. That same singlemindedness that raised me o'er the other lads on the ship was the ruin of my nautical career."

"How can that be?"

"I made five voyages in all," Burlingame said. "On the fifth — the same voyage on which I lost my virginity — we lay becalmed one day in the horse latitudes off the Canary Islands, and quite by chance, looking about for something wherewith to occupy myself, I happened on a copy of Motteux's Don Quixote among a shipmate's effects: I spent the remainder of the day with it, for though Mother Salmon had taught me to read and write, 'twas the first real storybook I'd read. I grew so entranced by the great Manchegan and his faithful squire as to lose all track of time and was rebuked by Captain Salmon for reporting late to the cook.

"From that day on I was no longer a seaman, but a student. I read every book I could find aboard ship and in port — bartered my clothes, mortgaged my pay for books, on any subject whatever, and reread them over and over when no new ones could be found. All else went by the board; what work I could be made to do I did distractedly, and in careless haste. I took to hiding, in the rope-locker or the lazarette, where I could read for an hour undisturbed ere I was found. Finally Captain Salmon could tolerate it no more: he ordered the mate to confiscate every volume aboard, save only the charts, the ship's log, and the navigational tables, and pitched 'em to the sharks off Port-au-Prince; then he gave me such a hiding for my sins that my poor bum tingled a fortnight after, and forbade me e'er to read a printed page aboard his vessel. This so thwarted and aggrieved me, that at the next port (which happened to be Liverpool) I jumped ship and left career and benefactor forever, with not a thank-ye nor a fare-thee-well for the people who'd fed and clothed me since babyhood.

"I had no money at all, and for food only a great piece of hard cheese I'd stolen from the ship's cook: therefore I very soon commenced to starve. I took to standing on street-corners and singing for my supper: I was a pretty lad and knew many a song, and when I would sing What Thing Is Love? to the ladies, or A Pretty Duck There Was to the gentlemen, 'twas not often they'd pass me by without a smile and tuppence. At length a band of wandering gypsies, traveling down from Scotland to London, heard me sing and invited me to join them, and so for the next year I worked and lived with those curious people. They were tinkers, horse-traders, fortune-tellers, basket-makers, dancers, troubadours, and thieves. I dressed in their fashion, ate, drank, and slept with them, and they taught me all their songs and tricks. Dear Eben! Had you seen me then, you'd ne'er have doubted for an instant I was one of them!"

"I am speechless," Ebenezer declared. " 'Tis the grandest adventure I have heard!"

"We worked our way slowly, with many digressions, from Liverpool through Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, and Bedford, sleeping in the wagons when it rained or out under the stars on fine nights. In the troupe of thirty souls I was the only one who read and wrote, and so was of great assistance to them in many ways. Once to their great delight I read them tales out of Boccaccio — they all love to tell and hear stories — and they were so surprised to learn that books contain such marvelous pleasantries, a thing which erst they'd not suspected, that they began to steal every book they could find for me: I seldom lacked reading that year! It happened one day they turned up a primer, and I taught the lot of 'em their letters, for which services they were unimaginably grateful. Despite my being a 'gorgio' (by which name they call non-gypsies) they initiated me into their most privy matters and expressed the greatest desire for me to marry into their group and travel with them forever.

"But late in 1670 we arrived here in Cambridge, having wandered down from Bedford. The students and several of the dons took a great fancy to us, and though they made too free with sundry of our women, they treated us most cordially, even bringing us to their rooms to sing and play for them. Thus were my eyes first opened to the world of learning and scholarship, and I knew on the instant that my interlude with the gypsies was done. I resolved to go no farther: I bid adieu to my companions and remained in Cambridge, determined to starve upon the street-corners rather than leave this magnificent place."

"Marry, Henry!" Ebenezer said. "Thy courage brings me nigh to weeping! What did you then?"

"Why, so soon as my belly commenced to rumble I stopped short where I was (which happened to be over by Christ's College) and broke into Flow My Tears, it being of all the songs I knew the most plaintive. And when I had done with the last verse of it —

Hark! yon Shadows that in Darkness dwell,

Learn to contemn Light.

Happy, happy they that in Hell

Feel not the World's Despite.

— when I had done, I say, there appeared at a nearby window a lean frowning don, who enquired of me, What manner of Cainite was I, that I counted them happy who must fry forever in the fires of Hell? And another, who came to the window beside him, a fat wight, asked me. Did I not know where I was? To which I answered, 'I know no more, good masters, than that I am in Cambridge Town and like to perish of my belly!' Then the first don, who all unbeknownst to me was having a merry time at my expense, told me I was in Christ's College, and that he and all his fellows were powerful divines, and that for lesser blasphemies than mine they had caused men to be broke upon the wheel. I was a mere sixteen then, and not a little alarmed, for though I'd read enough scarce to credit their story, yet I knew not but what they could work me some injury or other, e'en were't something short of the wheel. Therefore I humbly craved their pardon, and pled 'twas but an idle song, the words of which I scarce attended; so that were there aught of blasphemy in't, 'twas not the singer should be racked for't but the author Dowland, who being long since dead, must needs already have had the sin rendered out of him in Satan's try-works, and there's an end on't! At this methinks the merry dons had like to laugh aloud, but they put on sterner faces yet and ordered me into their chamber. There they farther chastised me, maintaining that while my first offense had been grievous enough, in its diminution of the torments of Hell, this last remark of mine had on't the very smell of the stake. 'How is that?' I asked them. 'Why,' the lean one cried, 'to hold as you do that they who perpetuate another's sin, albeit witlessly, are themselves blameless, is to deny the doctrine of Original Sin itself, for who are Eve and Adam but the John Dowlands of us all, whose sinful song all humankind must sing willy-nilly and die for't?' 'What is more,' the fat don declared, 'in denying the mystery of Original Sin you scorn as well the mystery of Vicarious Atonement — for where's the sense of Salvation for them that are not lost?'

" 'Nay, nay!' said I, and commenced to sniffling. 'Marry, masters, 'twas but an idle observation! Prithee take no notice of't!'

" 'An idle observation!' the first replied, and laid hold of my arms. ' 'Swounds, boy! You scoff at the two cardinal mysteries of the Church, which like twin pillars bear the entire edifice of Christendom; you as much as call the Crucifixion a vulgar Mayfair show; and to top all you regard such unspeakable blasphemies as idle observations! 'Tis a more horrendous sin yet! Whence came thee here, anyhow?'