The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  As yet the poet had seen no sign of Susan Warren, and he began to fear she had deceived him after all. He resolved to descend and try the barn once more, both to verify his suspicions and to take cover from the mosquitoes, which were raising welts all over his face and ankles; but as he was climbing down he heard a noise like a buzz or rattle in the grass. Was it only a common cricket, or was it one of those snakes Mr. Keech had described during supper? The notion of descent lost all its charm, and though he heard the sound no more, and the mosquitoes were no less hungry, he remained a good while longer in the tree, too frightened even to compose an indignant Hudibrastic.

  He might, in fact, have still been there at sunup—for on the heels of Fear, like a tart behind her pimp, came the shame he knew would embrace him soon or late, and Shame brought her gaunt-eyed sister-whore Despair—but at length he heard some man at the back of the house say “No more, now, Susan; good night and get ye gone!” Then the house door closed, and a cloaked form crossed the distant yard and entered the barn.

  “That scoundrel Mitchell had her in the parlor!” Ebenezer thought, and recalled the coarse familiarity with which the planter had saluted her. “She was accosted as she left and put to some lewd entertainment, and only now hath managed to escape!”

  This conjecture, so far from filling him with pity, revived his ardor at once, as had the plight of the Cyprian women; quietly and cautiously he slid down from the poplar and stalked through the tall grass to the barn, expecting at any moment to feel the fangs of the viper in his heel. Arriving safely at the doorway, he entered without a sound and saw inside only the faintest of gleams from a shaded lantern.

  “Hssst!” he whispered, and “Hssst!” came the reply. Ebenezer heard a labored respiration, unmistakably human, just down the wall from where he stood, and so resolved to call no more, but execute his original plan of surprise assault. Very carefully he crept toward his prey, whose location in the pigpen he fixed easily by her heavy breathing and the rustle of restless swine in her vicinity. Only when he judged himself virtually upon her did he croon “Susie, Susie, me doxy, me dove!” at the same time clutching amorously at her form.

  Bare legs he felt, and hams, but—

  “Heav’n upon earth, what’s this?”

  “What is’t, indeed?” a man’s voice cried, and after a short struggle the poet found himself pinned face down in the sour straw of the pen. His would-be victim sat upon his back and held his arms; sows, hogs, and shoats snuffled nervously together at the far end of the enclosure. “Ye thought me your doxy, your dove, now, did ye? What knave are ye, sir?”

  “Prithee, let me but explain!” Ebenezer pleaded. “I am Captain Mitchell’s guest!”

  “Our guest! What way is this to return our hospitality? Ye drink our cider and eat our hominy and then ye think to swive my Portia!”

  “Portia? Who is Portia?”

  “The same my father calls Susie. I’ll wager he put ye up to this!”

  The Laureate’s heart sank. “Your father! Then thou’rt Tim Mitchell?”

  “The same. And which ungrateful wretch are you?”

  “I am Ebenezer Cooke, sir, Poet and Laureate of the Province of Maryland—”

  “Nay!” said Mitchell, clearly impressed, and to Ebenezer’s great surprise he released his hold at once. “Sit up, sir, please, and forgive my rude behavior; ’twas but concern for my Portia’s chastity.”

  “I—I quite forgive you,” the poet said. He sat up hastily, wondering at the fellow’s words. Tim Mitchell, to judge by his voice, was a man of Ebenezer’s age at least; how could he speak of Susan’s chastity? “I believe thou’rt having a jest at my expense, Mr. Mitchell, are you not?”

  “Or you at mine,” the other man sighed. “Ah well, ye’ve caught us fair, and Portia’s life is in your hands.”

  “Her life! She’s here, then, in this pen?”

  “Of course, sir; over yonder with the rest. I beg ye not to speak a word to Father!”

  “Marry!” the poet cried. “What madness is this, Mister Mitchell? Explain yourself, I beg you!”

  The other man sighed. “ ’Tis just as well I did, for if ye mean to ruin us, ye will, and if thou’rt a gentleman, perchance ye’ll leave us in peace.”

  “Thou’rt in love with Susan?” Ebenezer asked incredulously.

  “Aye and I am,” Tim Mitchell replied, “and have been since the day I saw her. Her name is really Portia, Mister Cooke; ’tis Father calls her Susie, after a whore of a mistress he once had. He regards her as his property, sir, and treats her like a beast! Should he learn the truth of our love there would be no end to his wrath!”

  Ebenezer’s brain spun dizzily. “Dear Mister Mitchell—”

  “The blackguard!” Timothy went on, his voice unsteady. “Till he hath got that new wench in his power, he comes out eveningly to poor sweet Portia, whose maidenhead he claimed when she was yet a shoat too young to fend him off.”

  Ebenezer could not but admire the metaphor of the shoat, and yet there were obvious discrepancies between the accounts of Susan’s past. “I do declare,” he protested, “this is not—”

  “There is no limit to the man’s poltroonery,” Timothy hissed. “Albeit he is my father, sir, I loathe him like the Devil! Say naught of this, I beg ye, for in his wickedness, did he know aught of our love, he would give her to the lecherous boar in yonder pen, that e’er hath looked on her with lewd intent, and let him take his slavering will o’ her.”

  Ebenezer gasped. “You do not mean to say—”

  But even as the truth dawned on him, young Mitchell called “Portia! Hither, Portia! Soo-ie!” and an animal shuffled over from the far wall in the dark.

  “Lookee there, how gentle!” Tim said proudly.

  “Out on’t!” the Laureate whispered.

  “Think o’ her as your own dear sister, sir: would ye consign her to be ravished by a filthy beast?”

  “I would not,” Ebenezer exclaimed, “and I am affronted by the analogy! In sooth I cannot tell who’s beastlier, the buggerman or the boar; ’tis the viciousest vice I e’er encountered!”

  Timothy Mitchell’s voice reflected more disappointment than intimidation at the outburst. “Ah, sir, no amorous practice is itself a vice—can ye be in sooth a poet and not see that? Adultery, rape, deceit, unfair seduction—’tis these are vicious, not the coupling of parts: the sin is not in the act, but in the circumstances.”

  Ebenezer wished he could see this curious moralist’s face. “What you say may well be true, but you speak of men and women—”

  “Shame on a poet that barkens so lightly!” Timothy chided. “ ’Twas male and female I spoke of, not men and women.”

  “But such a foul, unnatural jointure!”

  Timothy laughed. “Methinks Dame Nature’s not so nice as thee, sir. I grant ye that a rabbit-hound in heat seeks out a bitch to mate with, but doth he care a fig be she turnspit or mastiff? Nay, more, by Heav’n, he’ll have at any partner, be’t his bitch, his brother, or his master’s boot! His urge is natural, and hath all nature for its target—with a hound-bitch at the bulls-eye, so to speak. I have seen yonder spaniels humping sheep…”

  Ebenezer sighed. “The face of buggery hath yet a sinful leer, for all the paint and powder of your rhetoric. These poor dumb creatures are betrayed by accident, but man hath light enough to see Dame Nature’s plan.”

  “And sense enough to see it hath no object, save to carry on the species,” Timothy added. “And wit enough to do for sport what the beasts do willy-nilly. I have no quarrel with women, Master Poet: ’tis many a maid I’ve loved ere now and doubtless shall again. But just as Scripture tells us that death is the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, so Boredom, methinks, is the fruit of Wit and Fancy. A new mistress lies upon her back at night in a proper chamber, and her lover is content. But anon this simple pleasure palls, and they set about to refine their sport: from Aretine they learn the joy of sundry stoops and stances; from Boccaccio and the rest they learn to woo by the l
ight o’ day, in fields and wine butts and chimney corners; from Catullus and the naughty Greeks they learn There are more ways to the woods than one, and more woods than one to be explored by every way. If they have wit and daring there is no end to their discovery, and if they read as well, they have the amorous researches of the race at their disposal: the pleasures of Cathay, of Moors and Turks and Africans, and the cleverest folk of Europe. Is this not the way of’t, sir? When men like us become enamored of a woman, we fall in love with every part and aspect; we cannot rest till we know with all our senses every plain and secret part of our beloved, and then we gnash our teeth that we cannot go beneath her skin! I am no great poet like you, sir, but ’twas just this craving I once turned into verse, in this manner:

  Let me taste of thy Tears,

  And the Wax of thine Ears;

  Let me drink of thy Body’s own Wine—”

  “Eh! ’Sheart! Have done ere you gag me!” Ebenezer cried. “Thy body’s own wine! Ne’er have I heard such verses!”

  “Thou’rt a stranger to Master Barnes, then, the sonneteer? He longed to be the sherry in his mistress’s glass, that she might curl him in her tongue, warm her amorous blood with him, and piss him forth anon…”

  “There is a certain truth in all of this you tell me,” Ebenezer admitted. “I’ll grant you farther that were I not resolved to chastity—nay, do not laugh, sir, ’tis true, as I’ll explain in time—were I not resolved to chastity, I say, but had me a mistress like the lot of men, I should feel this urge you speak of, to know her in every wise, saving only her ‘body’s own wine’ and such like liquors, that can stay in her distillery for all I’ll quaff ’em! There’s naught unnatural in this: ’tis but the lover’s ancient wish that Plato speaks of, to be one body with his beloved; and with poets in especial ’tis not to be wondered at, forasmuch as love and woman are so oft the stuff of verse. Yet ’tis no mean leap from Petrarch’s Laura, or even Barnes’s thirsty wench, to your fat sow Portia here!”

  “On the contrary, sir, ’tis no leap at all,” Tim said. “You have already pled my case. Your Socrates had Xanthippe to warm his bed, but he took his sport with the young Greek lads as well, did he not? Ye say that women are oft the stuff o’ poetry, but in fact ’tis the great wide world the poet sings of: God’s whole creation is his mistress, and he hath for her this selfsame love and boundless curiosity. He loves the female body—Heav’n knows!—the little empty space between her thighs he loves, that meet to make sweet friction lower down; and the two small dimples in the small o’ her back, that are no strangers to his kiss.”

  “ ’Tis quite established,” Ebenezer said, his blood roused up afresh, “the female form is wondrous to behold!”

  “But shall it blind ye to the beauty of the male, sir? Not if ye’ve Plato’s eyes, or Shakespeare’s. How comely is a well-formed man! That handsome cage of ribs, and the blocky muscles of his calves and thighs; the definition of his hands, ridged and squared with veins and tendons, and more pleasing than a woman’s to the eye; the hair of his chest, that the nicest sculptors cannot render; and noblest of all, his manhood in repose! What contrast to the sweet unclutteredness of women! The chiefest fault of the sculpting Greeks, methinks, is that their marble men have the parts of little boys: ’tis pederastic art, and I abhor it. How wondrous, had they carved the living truth, that folk in ancient times were wont to worship—the very mace and orbs of power!”

  “I too have admired men on occasion,” Ebenezer said grudgingly, “but my flesh recoils at the thought of amorous connection!” His unseen partner’s words, in fact, had recalled to him the indignities which he had suffered more than three months earlier in the Poseidon’s fo’c’sle.

  “Then more’s the pity,” Tim said lightly, “for there’s much to be said of men in verse. Marry, sometimes I wish I had a gift with words, sir, or some poet had my soul: what lines I would make about the bodies of men and women! And the rest of creation as well!” Ebenezer heard him patting Portia. “Great rippling hounds, sleek mares, or golden cows—how can men and women rest content with little pats for such handsome beasts? I, I love them from the last recesses of my soul; my heart aches with passion for their bodies!”

  “Perversity, Mr. Mitchell!” the Laureate scolded. “You’ve parted company now with Plato and Shakespeare, and with every other gentleman as well!”

  “But not with mankind,” Timothy declared. “Europa, Leda, and Pasiphae are my sisters; my offspring are the Minotaur, and the Gorgons, and the Centaurs, the beast-headed gods of the Egyptians, and all the handsome royalty of the fairy tales, that must be loved in the form of toads and geese and bears. I love the world, sir, and so make love to it! I have sown my seed in men and women, in a dozen sorts of beasts, in the barky boles of trees and the honeyed wombs of flowers; I have dallied on the black breast of the earth, and clipped her fast; I have wooed the waves of the sea, impregnated the four winds, and flung my passion skywards to the stars!”

  So exalted was the voice in which this confession was delivered that Ebenezer shrank away, as discreetly as he could, some inches farther from its author, who he began to fear was mad.

  “ ’Tis a most—interesting point of view,” he said.

  “I was sure ’twould please ye,” Timothy said. “ ’Tis the only way for a poet to look at the world.”

  “Ah, well, I did not say I share your catholic tastes!”

  “Come now, sir!” Timothy laughed. “ ’Twas not in your sleep ye came here calling Susie!”

  Ebenezer made a small mumble of protest; he did not, on the one hand, care to let Timothy believe that the Laureate of Maryland shared his vicious lust for livestock, but on the other hand he was not prepared to reveal the true reason for his presence in the barn.

  “Thou’rt too much the gentleman to molest her now,” Tim went on. Ebenezer heard him moving closer and retreated another step.

  “ ’Twas all an error of judgment!” he cried, tingling with shame. “I can explain it all!”

  “Wherefore? D’ye think I mean to ruin your name, when ye have spared my Portia? Susan Warren told me all, and I bade her wait for ye; I’ll lead ye straight to her, and ye may sport the night away.” He caught up before Ebenezer could run and grasped his upper arm.

  “ ’Tis more than kind,” the Laureate said apprehensively, “but I’ve no wish to go at all. I really am a virgin, I swear’t, for all my ill designs on Susan Warren; ’twas some sudden monstrous passion overcame me, that I am most ashamed of now.” Again, and bitterly, he remembered his own ill treatment on the Poseidon. “Thank Heav’n I was delayed till prudence cooled my ardor, else I’d done myself and her an equal wrong!”

  “Then you really are a virgin yet?” Tim asked softly, tightening his grip on the poet’s arm. “And ye still mean to remain one, come what may?”

  He spoke in a voice altogether different from the one he’d used until then; it raised the Laureate’s hackles, and so drained him with surprise that he could not speak.

  “ ’Twas not easy to believe,” the new voice added. “That’s why I said I’d take you to the swine-girl.”

  “I cannot believe my ears!” the poet gasped.

  “Nor could I mine, when Mitchell told me of his dinner guest. Shall we trust our eyes any better?”

  He removed the lantern shade completely: in the yellow flare, which drew the slow attention of the swine, Ebenezer saw not the bearded, black-haired “Peter Sayer” Burlingame of Plymouth—though this had been incredible enough!—but the well-dressed, smooth-shaven, periwigged tutor of St. Giles in the Fields and London.

  22

  No Ground Is Gained Towards the Laureate’s Ultimate Objective, but Neither Is Any Lost

  “IS’T ONCE, or twice, or thrice I am deceived?” the poet exclaimed. “Is’t Burlingame that stands before me now, or was’t Burlingame I left in Plymouth? Or are the twain of you impostors?”

  “The world’s a happy climate for imposture,” Burlingame admitted with a smile.

>   “You were so much altered when I saw you last, and now you’ve altered back to what you were!”

  “ ’Tis but to say what of’t I’ve said to you ere now, Eben: your true and constant Burlingame lives only in your fancy, as doth the pointed order of the world. In fact you see a Heraclitean flux: whether ’tis we who shift and alter and dissolve; or you whose lens changes color, field, and focus; or both together. The upshot is the same, and you may take it or reject it.”

  Ebenezer shook his head. “In sooth you are the man I knew in London. Yet I cannot believe Peter Sayer was a fraud!”

  Burlingame shrugged, still holding the lantern. “Then say he hath shaved his hair and beard since then, as doth my version of the case, and no longer affects a tone of voice like this.” He spoke these last words in the voice Ebenezer remembered from Plymouth. “If you’d live in the world, my friend, you must dance to some other fellow’s tune or call your own and try to make the whole world step to’t.”