Mardi and a Voyage Thither

by Herman Melville

  Though wisdom be wedded to woe, though the way thereto is by tears, yet all ends in a shout. But wisdom wears no weeds; woe is more merry than mirth; 'tis a shallow grief that is sad. Ha! ha! how demoniacs shout; how all skeletons grin; we all die with a rattle. Laugh! laugh!

  Are the cherubim grave? Humor, thy laugh is divine; whence, mirthmaking idiots have been revered; and therefore may I. Ho! let us be gay, if it be only for an hour, and Death hand us the goblet. Vee-Vee! bring on your gourds! Let us pledge each other in bumpers! — let us laugh, laugh, laugh it out to the last. All sages have laughed, — let us; Bardianna laughed, let us; Demorkriti laughed, — let us: Amoree laughed, — let us; Rabeelee roared, — let us; the hyenas grin, the jackals yell, — let us.-But you don't laugh, my lord? laugh away!"

  "No, thank you, Azzageddi, not after that infernal fashion; better weep."

  "He makes me crawl all over, as if I were an ant-hill," said Mohi.

  "He's mad, mad, mad!" cried Yoomy.

  "Ay, mad, mad, mad! — mad as the mad fiend that rides me! — But come, sweet minstrel, wilt list to a song? — We madmen are all poets, you know:-Ha! ha! — Stars laugh in the sky:

  Oh fugle-fi I

  The waves dimple below:

  Oh fugle-fo!

  "The wind strikes her dulcimers; the groves give a shout; the hurricane is only an hysterical laugh; and the lightning that blasts, blasts only in play. We must laugh or we die; to laugh is to live. Not to laugh is to have the tetanus. Will you weep? then laugh while you weep. For mirth and sorrow are kin; are published by identical nerves.

  Go, Yoomy: go study anatomy: there is much to be learned from the dead, more than you may learn from the living and I am dead though I live; and as soon dissect myself as another; I curiously look into my secrets: and grope under my ribs. I have found that the heart is not whole, but divided; that it seeks a soft cushion whereon to repose; that it vitalizes the blood; which else were weaker than water: I have found that we can not live without hearts; though the heartless live longest. Yet hug your hearts, ye handful that have them; 'tis a blessed inheritance! Thus, thus, my lord, I run on; from one pole to the other; from this thing to that. But so the great world goes round, and in one Somerset, shows the sun twenty-five thousand miles of a landscape!"

  At that instant, down went the fiery full-moon, and the Dog-Star; and far down into Media, a Tivoli of wine.

  CHAPTER LXXX

  Morning

  Life or death, weal or woe, the sun stays not his course. On: over battle-field and bower; over tower, and town, he speeds, — peers in at births, and death-beds; lights up cathedral, mosque, and pagan shrine;-laughing over all;-a very Democritus in the sky; and in one brief day sees more than any pilgrim in a century's round.

  So, the sun; nearer heaven than we:-with what mind, then, may blessed Oro downward look.

  It was a purple, red, and yellow East;-streaked, and crossed. And down from breezy mountains, robust and ruddy Morning came, — a plaided Highlander, waving his plumed bonnet to the isles.

  Over the neighboring groves the larks soared high; and soaring, sang in jubilees; while across our bows, between two isles, a mighty moose swam stately as a seventy-four; and backward tossed his antlered wilderness in air.

  Just bounding from fresh morning groves, with the brine he mixed the dew of leaves, — his antlers dripping on the swell, that rippled before his brown and bow-like chest.

  "Five hundred thousand centuries since," said Babbalanja, "this same sight was seen. With Oro, the sun is co-eternal; and the same life that moves that moose, animates alike the sun and Oro. All are parts of One. In me, in me, flit thoughts participated by the beings peopling all the stars. Saturn, and Mercury, and Mardi, are brothers, one and all; and across their orbits, to each other talk, like souls.

  Of these things what chapters might be writ! Oh! that flesh can not keep pace with spirit. Oh! that these myriad germ-dramas in me, should so perish hourly, for lack of power mechanic.-Worlds pass worlds in space, as men, men, — in thoroughfares; and after periods of thousand years, cry:-"Well met, my friend, again!" — To me to me, they talk in mystic music; I hear them think through all their zones.

  — Hail, furthest worlds! and all the beauteous beings in ye! Fan me, sweet Zenora! with thy twilight wings! — Ho! let's voyage to Aldebaran.-Ha! indeed, a ruddy world! What a buoyant air! Not like to Mardi, this. Ruby columns: minarets of amethyst: diamond domes! Who is this? — a god? What a lake-like brow! transparent as the morning air. I see his thoughts like worlds revolving-and in his eyes-like unto heavens-soft falling stars are shooting.-How these thousand passing wings winnow away my breath:-I faint:-back, back to some small asteroid.-Sweet being! if, by Mardian word I may address thee-speak! — 'I bear a soul in germ within me; I feel the first, faint trembling, like to a harp-string, vibrate in my inmost being. Kill me, and generations die.'-So, of old, the unbegotten lived within the virgin; who then loved her God, as new-made mothers their babes ere born. Oh, Alma, Alma, Alma! — Fangs off, fiend! — will that name ever lash thee into foam? — Smite not my face so, forked flames!"

  "Babbalanja! Babbalanja! rouse, man! rouse! Art in hell and damned, that thy sinews so snake-like coil and twist all over thee? Thy brow is black as Ops! Turn, turn! see yonder moose!"

  "Hail! mighty brute! — thou feelest not these things: never canst thou be damned. Moose! would thy soul were mine; for if that scorched thing, mine, be immortal-so thine; and thy life hath not the consciousness of death. I read profound placidity-deep-million-violet fathoms down, in that soft, pathetic, woman eye! What is man's shrunk form to thine, thou woodland majesty? — Moose, moose! — my soul is shot again-Oh, Oro! Oro!"

  "He falls!" cried Media.

  "Mark the agony in his waning eye," said Yoomy;-"alas, poor Babbalanja! Is this thing of madness conscious to thyself? If ever thou art sane again, wilt thou have reminiscences? Take my robe:-here, I strip me to cover thee and all thy woes. Oro! by this, thy being's side, I kneel:-grant death or happiness to Babbalanja!"

  CHAPTER LXXXI

  L'ultima Sera

  Thus far, through myriad islands, had we searched: of all, no one pen may write: least, mine;-and still no trace of Yillah.

  But though my hopes revived not from their ashes; yet, so much of Mardi had we searched, it seemed as if the long pursuit must, ere many moons, be ended; whether for weal or woe, my frenzy sometimes reeked not.

  After its first fair morning flushings, all that day was overcast. We sailed upon an angry sea, beneath an angry sky. Deep scowled on deep; and in dun vapors, the blinded sun went down, unseen; though full toward the West our three prows were pointed; steadfast as three printed points upon the compass-card.

  "When we set sail from Odo, 'twas a glorious morn in spring," said Yoomy; "toward the rising sun we steered. But now, beneath autumnal night-clouds, we hasten to its setting."

  "How now?" cried Media; "why is the minstrel mournful? — He whose place it is to chase away despondency: not be its minister."

  "Ah, my lord, so thou thinkest. But better can my verses soothe the sad, than make them light of heart. Nor are we minstrels so gay of soul as Mardi deems us. The brook that sings the sweetest, murmurs through the loneliest woods:

  The isles hold thee not, thou departed!

  From thy bower, now issues no lay:- In vain we recall perished warblings:

  Spring birds, to far climes, wing their way!"

  As Yoomy thus sang; unmindful of the lay, with paddle plying, in low, pleasant tones, thus hummed to himself our bowsman, a gamesome wight:- Ho! merrily ho! we paddlers sail!

  Ho! over sea-dingle, and dale! — Our pulses fly, Our hearts beat high, Ho! merrily, merrily, ho!

  But a sudden splash, and a shrill, gurgling sound, like that of a fountain subsiding, now broke upon the air. Then all was still, save the rush of the waves by our keels.

  "Save him! Put back!"

  From his elevated seat, the merry bowsman, too gleefully reaching forward,
had fallen into the lagoon.

  With all haste, our speeding canoes were reversed; but not till we had darted in upon another darkness than that in which the bowsman fell.

  As, blindly, we groped back, deep Night dived deeper down in the sea.

  "Drop paddles all, and list."

  Holding their breath, over the six gunwales all now leaned; but the only moans were the wind's.

  Long time we lay thus; then slowly crossed and recrossed our track, almost hopeless; but yet loth to leave him who, with a song in his mouth, died and was buried in a breath.

  "Let us away," said Media-"why seek more? He is gone."

  "Ay, gone," said Babbalanja, "and whither? But a moment since, he was among us: now, the fixed stars are not more remote than he. So far off, can he live? Oh, Oro! this death thou ordainest, unmans the manliest. Say not nay, my lord. Let us not speak behind Death's back.

  Hard and horrible is it to die: blindfold to leap from life's verge!

  But thus, in clouds of dust, and with a trampling as of hoofs, the generations disappear; death driving them all into his treacherous fold, as wild Indians the bison herds. Nay, nay, Death is Life's last despair. Hard and horrible is it to die. Oro himself, in Alma, died not without a groan. Yet why, why live? Life is wearisome to all: the same dull round. Day and night, summer and winter, round about us revolving for aye. One moment lived, is a life. No new stars appear in the sky; no new lights in the soul. Yet, of changes there are many. For though, with rapt sight, in childhood, we behold many strange things beneath the moon, and all Mardi looks a tented fair-how soon every thing fades. All of us, in our very bodies, outlive our own selves. I think of green youth as of a merry playmate departed; and to shake hands, and be pleasant with my old age, seems in prospect even harder, than to draw a cold stranger to my bosom. But old age is not for me. I am not of the stuff that grows old. This Mardi is not our home. Up and down we wander, like exiles transported to a planet afar:-'tis not the world we were born in; not the world once so lightsome and gay; not the world where we once merrily danced, dined, and supped; and wooed, and wedded our long-buried wives. Then let us depart. But whither? We push ourselves forward then, start back in affright. Essay it again, and flee. Hard to live; hard to die; intolerable suspense! But the grim despot at last interposes; and with a viper in our winding-sheets, we are dropped in the sea."

  "To me," said Mohi, his gray locks damp with night-dews, "death's dark defile at times seems at hand, with no voice to cheer. That all have died, makes it not easier for me to depart. And that many have been quenched in infancy seems a mercy to the slow perishing of my old age, limb by limb and sense by sense. I have long been the tomb of my youth. And more has died out of me, already, than remains for the last death to finish. Babbalanja says truth. In childhood, death stirred me not; in middle age, it pursued me like a prowling bandit on the road; now, grown an old man, it boldly leads the way; and ushers me on; and turns round upon me its skeleton gaze: poisoning the last solaces of life. Maramma but adds to my gloom."

  "Death! death!" cried Yoomy, "must I be not, and millions be? Must I go, and the flowers still bloom? Oh, I have marked what it is to be dead;-how shouting boys, of holidays, hide-and-seek among the tombs, which must hide all seekers at last."

  "Clouds on clouds!" cried Media, "but away with them all! Why not leap your graves, while ye may? Time to die, when death comes, without dying by inches. 'Tis no death, to die; the only death is the fear of it. I, a demi-god, fear death not."

  "But when the jackals howl round you?" said Babbalanja.

  "Drive them off! Die the demi-god's death! On his last couch of crossed spears, my brave old sire cried, 'Wine, wine; strike up, conch and cymbal; let the king die to martial melodies!'"

  "More valiant dying, than dead," said Babbalanja. "Our end of the winding procession resounds with music and flaunts with banners with brave devices: 'Cheer up!' 'Fear not!' 'Millions have died before!'-but in the endless van, not a pennon streams; all there, is silent and solemn. The last wisdom is dumb."

  Silence ensued; during which, each dip of the paddles in the now calm water, fell full and long upon the ear.

  Anon, lifting his head, Babbalanja thus:-"Yillah still eludes us. And in all this tour of Mardi, how little have we found to fill the heart with peace: how much to slaughter all our yearnings."

  "Croak no more, raven!" cried Media. "Mardi is full of spring-time sights, and jubilee sounds. I never was sad in my life."

  "But for thy one laugh, my lord, how many groans! Were all happy, or all miserable, — more tolerable then, than as it is. But happiness and misery are so broadly marked, that this Mardi may be the retributive future of some forgotten past.-Yet vain our surmises.

  Still vainer to say, that all Mardi is but a means to an end; that this life is a state of probation: that evil is but permitted for a term; that for specified ages a rebel angel is viceroy.-Nay, nay. Oro delegates his scepter to none; in his everlasting reign there are no interregnums; and Time is Eternity; and we live in Eternity now. Yet, some tell of a hereafter, where all the mysteries of life will be over; and the sufferings of the virtuous recompensed. Oro is just, they say.-Then always, — now, and evermore. But to make restitution implies a wrong; and Oro can do no wrong. Yet what seems evil to us, may be good to him. If he fears not, nor hopes, — he has no other passion; no ends, no purposes. He lives content; all ends are compassed in Him; He has no past, no future; He is the everlasting now; which is an everlasting calm; and things that are, have been, — will be. This gloom's enough. But hoot! hoot! the night-owl ranges through the woodlands of Maramma; its dismal notes pervade our lives; and when we would fain depart in peace, that bird flies on before:-cloud-like, eclipsing our setting suns, and filling the air with dolor."

  "Too true!" cried Yoomy. "Our calms must come by storms. Like helmless vessels, tempest-tossed, our only anchorage is when we founder."

  "Our beginnings," murmured Mohi, "are lost in clouds; we live in darkness all our days, and perish without an end."

  "Croak on, cowards!" cried Media, "and fly before the hideous phantoms that pursue ye."

  "No coward he, who hunted, turns and finds no foe to fight," said Babbalanja. "Like the stag, whose brow is beat with wings of hawks, perched in his heavenward antlers; so I, blinded, goaded, headlong, rush! this way and that; nor knowing whither; one forest wide around!"

  CHAPTER LXXXII

  They Sail From Night To Day

  Ere long the three canoes lurched heavily in a violent swell. Like palls, the clouds swept to and fro, hooding the gibbering winds. At every head-beat wave, our arching prows reared up, and shuddered; the night ran out in rain.

  Whither to turn we knew not; nor what haven to gain; so dense the darkness.

  But at last, the storm was over. Our shattered prows seemed gilded.

  Day dawned; and from his golden vases poured red wine upon the waters.

  That flushed tide rippled toward us; floating from the east, a lone canoe; in which, there sat a mild, old man; a palm-bough in his hand: a bird's beak, holding amaranth and myrtles, his slender prow.

  "Alma's blessing upon ye, voyagers! ye look storm-worn."

  "The storm we have survived, old man; and many more, we yet must ride," said Babbalanja.

  "The sun is risen; and all is well again. We but need to repair our prows," said Media.

  "Then, turn aside to Serenia, a pleasant isle, where all are welcome; where many storm-worn rovers land at last to dwell."

  "Serenia?" said Babbalanja; "methinks Serenia is that land of enthusiasts, of which we hear, my lord; where Mardians pretend to the unnatural conjunction of reason with things revealed; where Alma, they say, is restored to his divine original; where, deriving their principles from the same sources whence flow the persecutions of Maramma, — men strive to live together in gentle bonds of peace and charity;-folly! folly!"

  "Ay," said Media; "much is said of those people of Serenia; but their social fabric must soon fall to p
ieces; it is based upon the idlest of theories. Thanks for thy courtesy, old man, but we care not to visit thy isle. Our voyage has an object, which, something tells me, will not be gained by touching at thy shores. Elsewhere we may refit.

  Farewell! 'Tis breezing; set the sails! Farewell, old man."

  "Nay, nay! think again; the distance is but small; the wind fair, — but 'tis ever so, thither;-come: we, people of Serenia, are most anxious to be seen of Mardi; so that if our manner of life seem good, all Mardi may live as we. In blessed Alma's name, I pray ye, come!"

  "Shall we then, my lord?"

  "Lead on, old man! We will e'en see this wondrous isle."

  So, guided by the venerable stranger, by noon we descried an island blooming with bright savannas, and pensive with peaceful groves.

  Wafted from this shore, came balm of flowers, and melody of birds: a thousand summer sounds and odors. The dimpled tide sang round our splintered prows; the sun was high in heaven, and the waters were deep below.

  "The land of Love!" the old man murmured, as we neared the beach, where innumerable shells were gently rolling in the playful surf, and murmuring from their tuneful valves. Behind, another, and a verdant surf played against lofty banks of leaves; where the breeze, likewise, found its shore.