John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

To which the valet rejoined with a wave and a smile, "Haply so, i'faith, haply so!" And might have said more had not Ebenezer, his interest in the matter fanned by his growing irritation, at once resumed his discourse.

"And just as the speech of the gentleman is to the speech of the crowd as is the lark's song to the rooster's but that of the poet like an angel's to the lark's, so the gentleman himself is a prince among men, and the poet should be a prince among gentlemen!"

"Haply so, sir, haply 'tis so," Bertrand said again, and turning now to his master added, "But would ye believe it? So wretched is this memory of mine, that though I wrote out your commission word for word in ink, and saw clear as gospel where it caused a gentleman to be a laureate poet, I cannot summon up the part that makes your laureate be a gentleman! And so miserable are these eyes and ears, they've tricked me into thinking all the poets they e'er laid hold of — such as Masters Oliver, Trent, and Merriweather back in London, to name no farther — that all these rhyming wights have not a Golden Mean between 'em, nor yet a Brass or Kitchencopper! 'Sblood, to speak plainly, they are sober as jackanapes, modest as peacocks, chaste as billy goats, soft-tongued as magpies, brave as churchmice, and mannerly as cats in heat! Your common, everyday valet, if I may say so, is like to be twice the gentleman your poet e'er could dream of! Nay, he's of't a nicer spirit than the gentleman his master, as all the world knows, and hath not his peer for how wigs should be powdered or guests placed at table. 'Tis he and not your poet, I should say, that is the gentleman's gentleman!"

Ebenezer was too taken aback by this outburst to do more than squint his eyes and cry "Stay!" But Bertrand would not be put off.

"Yet as for that," he went on, " 'tis little stead my gentleman's lore stands me, now I'm a laureate poet! Marry, the ladies and gentlemen I've met, so far from seeing their poet as a gentleman, look on him as a sort of saint, trick ape, court fool, and gypsy soothsayer rolled in one. Your ladies tell me things no Popish priest e'er heard of, fuss over me as o'er a lapdog, and make me signs a gigolo would blush at; they worship and contemn me by turns, as half a god and half a traveling clown. And the gentlemen, i'God! They think me mad or dullwitted out of hand; for who but your madman would turn his hand to verse, save one too numskulled to turn it to money? In short and in sum, sir, they'd call me no poet at all, or a poor one at best, if e'er I should utter e'en a sensible remark, to say nothing of a civil — But think not I'm so fond as that!"

Ebenezer's features roiled, settling finally into a species of frown. Both men were given wholly to the argument now, which had perforce to be conducted in low tones; they faced seawards, their elbows on the rail and their backs to Miss Robotham, who had descended from the high poop to the quarter-deck on the opposite side of the vessel.

"I grant you this," he said, "that a prating coxcomb of a poet may be guilty of boorishness, as a bad valet may be guilty of presumption, and both may be guilty of affectation, I grant you farther that the best poet is never in essence a gentleman — "

"Unlike your best valet," Bertrand put in.

"As for that," Ebenezer said sharply, "your valet that outshines his master in's knowledge of etiquette and fashion is like the rustic that can recite more Scripture than the theologian; his single gift betrays his limitations. The gentleman valet and the gentleman poet have this in common, that their gentlemanliness is for each a mask. But the mask of the valet masks a varlet, while the poet's masks a god!"

"Oh la, sir!"

"Let me finish!" Ebenezer's eyes were bright, his blond brows crooked and beetled. "Who more so than the poet needs every godlike gift? He hath the painter's eye, the musician's ear, the philosopher's mind, the barrister's persuasion; like a god he sees the secret souls of things, the essence 'neath their forms, their priviest connections. Godlike he knows the springs of good and evil: the seed of sainthood in the mind of a murtherer, the worm of lechery in the heart of a nun! Nay, farther: as the poet among gentlemen is as a pearl among polished stones, so must the Laureate be a diamond in the pearls, a prince among poets, their flower and exemplar — even a prince among princes! To him do kings commit their secular immortality, as they commit their souls' to God! Small mystery that the first verse was religious and the earliest poets pagan priests, as some declare, or that Plato calls the source of poetry a divine madness like that of seers and sibyls. If your true poet strays from the path of good demeanor, 'tis but the mark of his calling, an access of the muse; yet the laureate, though in truth he hath by necessity the greatest infusion of this madness, must exercise a godlike self-restraint, for he is to men the ambassador and emblem of his art: he is obliged not only to his muse, but to his fellow poets as well."

" 'Tis your wish, then," Bertrand asked finally, "that in all things I play the gentleman?"

"In every way."

"And take their actions as my model?"

"Nothing less."

"Why, then, I must beg some money of ye, sir," he declared with a laugh, and explained that the last ten shillings of his own small savings had that very noon been sacrificed in the distance-run pool, in which as a gentleman he was absolutely obliged to participate.

"Ah, 'twas for that you asked my thoughts on gambling some while past."

"I must confess it," Bertrand said, and reminded his master that as much could be said in favor of gambling as against it. "Besides which, sir, I must keep on with't now I've begun, as well to guard our masks as to make good my losses."

Now, Ebenezer himself had in reserve only what little he'd saved from his years with the merchant Peter Paggen, the whole of which did not exceed forty pounds; but at Bertrand's insistence that no smaller sum would do, he fetched out twenty from his trunk and, returning to the rail where his proxy waited, passed him the money surreptitiously with suitable admonitions and enjoinders.

At this point their conversation was interrupted by that same Miss Robotham earlier aspersed by Bertrand; at a thump on the shoulder they turned to find her standing close behind them, and Ebenezer paled at the thought of what perhaps she'd heard.

"Madam!" he said, whipping off his hat. "Your servant!"

" 'Tis your master I want," the girl said, and turned her back to him. She was a brown-haired, excellently breasted maid of twenty years or so, and though a certain grossness both of manner and complexion showed a rustic, or at least colonial, essence beneath the elegance of her dress, yet it seemed likely to Ebenezer that she was more innocent than concupiscent. In fact, for the first time since describing his plight to Henry in the Plymouth coach, he was reminded of Joan Toast, his delicate concern for whom had precipitated his departure from London: there was some similarity in eyes and skin and forthright manner.

Bertrand, who had made no move to duplicate his master's courtesy, leaned upon the railing and regarded the visitor with a look of crude appraisal. Not daunted in the least, she clasped her hands pertly, bounced a few times on her heels, and said, "I've a literary question for you, Mr. Cooke."

"Aha," said Bertrand, and chucked her under the chin. "What hath a tight young piece like you to do with literature, pray?"

Ebenezer, as alarmed by the request as by his man's vulgarity, made haste to offer his services instead, suggesting that the Laureate should not be bothered with trifling questions.

"Then what's the use of him?" the maid demanded, feigning a pout. Then she pursed her lips, arched her brows, and added merrily, still in Bertrand's direction, "Am I to suffer his lecherous stares for naught? He'll say what poet wrote Out, out, strumpet Fortune, and say't this instant, else my father shall know what poet tweaked me noontime where I blush to mention and left me a bruise to show for't!"