Somnium

by Steve Moore

  ‘There’s books here lost, or still unwrit?’ he asked her, mind a-whirl. ‘But how?’

  ‘Oh all too easy, dearest knight,’ she laughed, and briefly kissed his wildered lips. ‘For Somnium’s a palace all of dreams, and so its dreaming library too is full of dream-books… and more, of fantasies unreal, and lunatic songs that drift away on moonlight. And after all, a thought of a book is a real thought… and so a book that’s thought of too is too a real book. For “real” and “dream” mean nothing here, and mix them as they will.

  ‘Now here’s old Ptolemy’s long and detailed Selenographia, a marvelled description of the Moon, all written from his trip there, so many said he’d never made. They called him liar, burned his book; and yet he held a smile, because he had seen mine. Herodotus, too, he travelled to the Moon, for lunar entertainment. I told him all the history of the Moon, of all my life and loves and ventures; he wrote them down. Your learned men, they spat; they tore his pages, drove him out along the roads. I gave him comfort as I could, in dreams, until he died; and quite the greatest comfort that he knew was this, that though down in sub-lunar worlds his work would be destroyed, I’d save it for him here. And read it, for him, by him, to him, love him for it too, until the end of time.

  ‘And so you see, my library here is all of me, by many, many names… Diana, Selene, Cynthia, Mene, Artemis and Luna too… dark Hecate and Phoebe and the golden Moon besides. Whatever’s writ, whatever’s printed, here a copy comes; whatever’s lost is here preserved; and even books, or essays, verses too, conjectured once and thought of me, if no one wrote them down, or have not writ them yet, then they are here besides. And here’s a shelf for you, my love, although it still remains unfilled; but as the years pass so it will, I know. And, oh, the sweetness that you’ll write, for me; I hardly dare to think on…’

  ‘Then if you think it sweet, dear queen, I’ll happy die and nevermore write any else. But can it be, that every written thing, or printed, sketched or thought, about the Lovely Moon who Lights up all the Skies, it ends up here, or writ or not, for dear Diana’s delectation?’

  ‘It can indeed,’ she laughed. ‘And some of it is wondrous strange! So many things men think of me. They see me virgin or they see me not; they make me Goddess, then down to Earth they bring me, make me wife or mistress, harlot, mother, daughter, little sister… write me hymns, all full of sacred words… hold me down in pornophilic lust and rip my maidenhead, suck my teats and fill me up with seed. Have children by me, rape me, whip me, bind me tight with ropes and sodomise me till I shriek. I care not where their madness leads, nor ill-think of their strange perverting lusts; because they write, and think of me, and even in their awful, weird and bestial desires, they offer up what little bliss they can achieve, perverse and strange and all their own, to me… and somewhere in that offering, smothered up with all their selves… they love me.

  ‘Now here’s a favourite, from three centuries gone, and still another city of the Moon, not far besides from London. 1279, and strange, perverse and bell-capped Perkyn of old Hampton, he wrote me this, and set it all to music then besides. A sweet thing with an odd and rhyming title:

  Howe Priapys mightey wande

  Tooke Dianas swete behonde;

  Howe she shreked, and howe he spent,

  When she was all overbent.

  ‘I read it then, and how I laughed. I take it off the shelf sometimes, and laugh and love it still. He was so sweet, and yet for all he thought of transgressed violation, of yards all swollen huge and virgin Goddess-buttock, he thought, in all of this, to give me pleasure. And thinking so, he did. A sacrifice of quite fantastic dreams; of things so large and male, and things so small and other-sexed, that drained him of his bliss in volumes by the kegful.

  ‘And many more I’ve stored up here besides. Blind Homer’s lost Seleniad, Artemidorus’ book, the whole of which was dreams of me, he called Oneiroselenicon, and Sappho’s lunar longings. Of Latins, dull old Virgil wrote me little, though bold Petronius did, and outraged all his peers, for Rome would never have me any else but virgin; and so his Scandal of the Lunar Vestal was instantly suppressed. Seneca’s Diana’s Fury, that’s gone too, except for here. Yet since Rome fell, too little. Of late we have the minstrels’ lays, of Luna and her loves, and dear Diana’s dreams. And then more recent still, The Romance of Lady Luna of the Silver Castle by Morion of Lyons; Ariosto’s long and long-lost Merlin of the Moon; and Chrétien de Troyes’ La Somniacque… and more there are, to tax your patience quite.’

  ‘I think not so, my love,’ he told her then. ‘In all the world I think there is no bliss, unless it comes from you. Your form it ravishes up the eyes, your voice the ears, your skin the touch, and so the other senses; and greater yet than all of these, the sweetness of your company. And if deprived of any these, I’d think of nothing dearer, than to gaze upon your image, to read of you or, better yet, to write you into being, to love you and invent your love, to take your kisses second-hand, and send you on adventure.’

  ‘Oh dear Endimion Lee,’ she sighed. ‘You have an author’s heart. Such sweet romances will you write, and love me in the very ink they’re wrote in. And last night’s dream… I know it well, and blush not when I tell you… I think therein you’ll find your inspiration. At least for your beginning script, and as for after… oh, the dreams we’ll dream… and dear my knight, how beautiful you’ll make me.’

  ‘No more than you already are,’ he gallantly responded. ‘And yet, I think there is more here, than quite I understand. For I’m a man, of single form, perhaps who’ll write of you, but only one of many. And you, there never was the like of you, and even ’mongst a thousand Gods and Goddesses besides, there would not be another. And yet, though quite unique, you have a myriad faces, and show to each a single one, to every man who loves you.’

  ‘Oh no, I show them all the same, but all their eyes are different. They make me what they will: a Goddess, whore, or both, and oftener yet besides, they make me like their long lost loves, and through me love their loss. I would not stop them, if I could; for if a little piece of me, however I appear, could help them through the horrors of their lives, then let it be. And if my image then they take, and all frustrate, pervert it to their lust, it harms me not at all; for all the men who’d think me wicked things, a hundred more there are like you, who’d wish me love and think me all bejewelled. I know the proverb often on your lips, that “many men have many minds”, and so it is with me; for many men have many Dianas. Or so they think. But I am one, and always was, though loved in many forms. And so, my dear Endimion Lee, you look upon me as I am, though others see me different.’

  ‘Then sweet Diana, all I look upon is love, and beauty, and longed-for, hoped-for bliss. For if ever I saw my sweet beloved, I tell you now, it’s you.

  ‘And yet… these vast productions… all inspired by you…’

  ‘More complex yet than this, sir knight!’ she oh-so-gently laughed. ‘For yes, I truly am the Moon-Muse of a myriad starry nights, a maiden darting to and fro in dreams; the darling of the poets, the model of the artists, the sweetheart of romancers. But if they need me, know the truth… I need them just as much.

  ‘For Goddess never did exist without men’s minds to dream her; and men who dream of God are nothing but perverse. And I, as changeable as the Moon, yet each and every night aglow up in the sky, am simply Goddess quite supreme.

  ‘And yet, without men’s minds, the Moon is but a rock. And for me to be at all, I need my Lucians, my Homers, my sweet Endimion Lee… and many more besides, all forgot or yet to come. They bring me to the world, and shape me with their love; and no man ever made me ugly.

  ‘And so you’ll understand, the nature of the Goddess, is ageless, deathless, beauteous ever more… as long as ever there are men to dream me, and as long as ever there is love. For love lights up the stars, and glows all in the Moon, and if ever love should disappear, then so would men, and dream. Then no more Diana, no more Selene, no more big-eyed Goddesse
s of the warm delightful night. And all of this would all be gone, and with it me besides.

  ‘And yet I promise this, my most beloved man: nor death, nor universe’s end, will ever take you quite from me. For even non-existing, still the echo would remain: that once there was Diana, and once there were sweet dreams; and once in Somnium’s crystal spires, I loved Endimion Lee, and he in turn loved me. And so that love will never die; and so we’ll always be.’

  ‘My love,’ he said. ‘My Goddess, too… I doubt that ever words of mine will ever do you justice. Indeed, I doubt that words were ever writ, that even ugly women fitted. And you… why, even Homer’s words would fail him. I tell you, love of mine, the only way I could describe your beauty… is to call it past description.

  ‘And more, I’ll tell you this. If words are the offerings you demand, I doubt I’d better these: “I love you”. A hundred thousand books surround us here, and all of you. And yet, believe me: they’re nothing. In words, as men, we speak of you, because we have no other way. But words are not enough. And so, while in the here and now (and who knows of the future?), my eyes drink up your sweetness… then let me tell you this. In all your names, in all your forms… I love you.’

  She looked him in the eye awhile, then came into his arms. A loving kiss, and then her head she rested on his shoulder.

  ‘Endimion Lee,’ she next began, ‘there are Three Fates controlling all the world. Nor I, nor any, even Jove, can countermand their say; and what they say’s “not yet”, for first on Earth you’ve tasks. But know this now, and keep it close your heart: I love you too, my sweetest man, and if the Fates allowed, I’d instant make your dreams all true. But first you have a life to live, so live it just for me.’

  ‘For you alone, and never any other,’ he told her then, and hugged her close once more. ‘But if the Fates so cruelly do incline, then let’s defy them to their faces, however long we have; and smile and laugh, and sing and dance, embrace and kiss and love each other. And show them, all their doom is nothing to our love.’

  ‘Brave heart,’ she sighed, amidst of all her kisses. ‘The times mere mortal men and women show the Gods how best they should behave! No wonder Jove destroyed the race of heroes, when lesser beings yet can still surpass him. Oh, dear my knight, you are too fine…’

  ‘Not fine enough for you, my love,’ he forced a smile, and wiped her eye of slightest dew. ‘And now…

  ‘Pray tell me, sweet, how best I can delight you? Whatever length of time the Fates will give us here together, I know it far too short; so let me please you best I can and try to make you happy.’

  ‘Then darling man, I’ll tell you what I’d like, if only for an hour or two,’ she told him next, unclasping both his arms. ‘Firstly, always hold my hand, or other part of me, and break you not that contact. And second, kiss me when you please; and when I please as well. And thirdly… come this way…’

  And so she led him past the shelves, to where the library wall bayed out into an oriel window. Through the glass, the moonlight shone upon a broad divan, holstered all in cloth-of-silver, bolstered up with velvet pillows. Close by stood wine and goblets.

  ‘And now, my love,’ she grinned, ‘my third request’s simplicity itself. Select a book, or two or three, lay down and let me snuggle at your shoulder, then read to me aloud.’

  ‘No more than this?’ he asked, a-wondered.

  ‘No more,’ she sighed, all soft. ‘As if we were just man and wife, not knight and queen, or Goddess and her hero. For if we cannot love as man and wife, at least we’ll pass the time as they do. We could play cards, or dance or sing… but now I want to hear your voice, devoted to my pleasure, and rest my head upon your chest, to hear the words a-throb within your breast, all rolling and all rounded.’

  ‘Dear darling girl,’ he said, and smothered all her face and neck with kisses, ‘for now I think you’ll let me call you this, and probably prefer it. I never thought to hear as sweet as this request, unless you asked to fall asleep, all wrapped up in my arms…’

  ‘Perhaps tonight, or soon…’ she hinted, blushing, ‘if you’ll give the Fates your word.’

  ‘A harder word I never gave,’ he laughed. ‘But for you, my love, then even this…

  ‘But now, if I pick two of all these books, and you another two besides… and then we’ll pour ourselves a toast, I’ll kiss your sweet and soft young lips… and read to you in bed.’

  So hand in hand, they wandered round the shelves. Two books he picked at random, knowing them not at all; while dear Diana, sweetly smiling, selected both her best-beloved. A toast they drank to love, and to each other’s eyes; and more than this, to both their hearts, that each the other owned. Then down Endimion Lee he laid himself, right-handed with a book, left arm stretched out to pillow dear Diana’s head. She cuddled close, her head quite to his chest, then took his left hand, kissed his palm, and slipped it down her dress.

  And so, a sighing Goddess in his arm, Endimion Lee began to read.

  Or tried to read aloud, for all his breath was took away, the further that he read. For what he read was nothing but a journal, though how his mind did reel to read its dating, which began ‘September 1803’. He wondered how he could be reading a journal written two centuries up ahead; but Diana merely kissed him and told him to read on. And as he did, he found one ‘Morley’ writing a narrative that, it seemed, was nothing more nor less than that same story that he lived through, which spoke so plainly of Endimion Lee, long dead by then, and of his dear Diana.

  And this, to him, made little sense at all. And yet, he was a-wondered.

  Sunday, 7th October 1803

  I do not know quite how the idea occurred to me to make Endimion Lee find and read this journal, there in Somnium’s library. It seems too pretty a conceit to have merely come from out the claret bottle, so perhaps Selene sent it. Perhaps, in the end, it may be an idea that does not work, and so will have to be removed when the time comes for revision. For the moment though, I’ll leave it as it is; it amuses me, and more it makes me think.

  Somnium is, after all, a fiction, and though our present novelists always write as if they told the plain historic truth, there’s no one who would think that Somnium was ever else than fancy. And what if fictional characters did make contact with their authors? What if heroes knew that cowards wrote them? Or parsons’ daughters knew their author was a drunkard who, one glass the more than usual, could write them into whores? Now there’s a game for winter nights…

  But more than this… suppose the story and the characters were true, and the author was a fiction? Suppose there really was a Somnium and Endimion Lee was really there, and reading in this journal. And if this journal’s written there, and has been centuries gone, then who’s the one who wrote it, and put Kit Morley’s name upon it?

  I’ve thought much of such things, and thought them merely fun at first. But after Severndroog the border’s blurred, between the real and the not. And remembering that, I’ve tried to put the rest far from my mind.

  I did not write last night; sweet Cynthia Brown-eyes wanted once again to dance. We started in the dance hall; once again she brooked no opposition, and all the army simply then surrendered. The Moon came up at ten, and when it did we danced outside. At eleven the musicians stopped; and so I simply hugged her for an hour, and kissed her in the Moonlight. When we returned inside, she cooked me Welsh rarebit in the kitchen; insisted that she feed me with her own sweet hand. It was too hot; she blew on it to cool it. I ate her breath, and thought to partake of the divine. I began to blurt; she kissed me then again, and sent me off to bed.

  I dreamed that Mister Beckford had come up from Wiltshire, leaving behind for the present the building of his Abbey at Fonthill, in order to advise me upon the construction of Somnium, here on Shooters Hill. He told me, with great precision, that the project would require 81,000 dreams, each to be compressed, not into a brick, but into a book, from which dream-books the palace would itself be built. And if I built in dream alone
, he solemnly assured me, all I architectured thus would far outlast such mere concretions of stone and mortar as he himself was currently erecting. I thanked him for his kind advice, and wished his tower-building well.

  The wretched Brown (I could hear a gloating malevolence in his voice) banged upon my door this morning, told me I should be ‘in church’. Secure behind my well-locked door, I told him that I did not care, and thought that sleep to me was more important far than the absolution of my soul. He told me I would roast in hell; I laughed and told him he would. Elysium was the place for me, or better yet the Moon. And more I told him that, if he and foulest Kinnock wanted both to go to heaven, they should crucify each other on the instant. And if they did, I’d help them hammer in the nails.

  I confess I was quite pleased when, at mid-day, I went down for my dinner, that Brown was not in sight. I thought my pleasure spoke of cowardice; on the other hand I was so pleased to have told him what I thought.

  And Cynthia, she knew I had. I could tell it from her smile.

  This afternoon, she walked me in the woods again.

  I love her.

  I dare not tell her, though I know she knows. No woman of her age (she must be almost thirty) would marry such a youth as I. Besides, to love her is to betray my darling Liz, and that I do not know I ever quite could do. Oh Selene, dearest Goddess, I know you here on Earth in both my loves, but who’s the best, and how can I decide? If I was but a swarthy Arab, or a distant East-Chinese, more than one wife could I have (though even then my sister, she would be forbidden). I want my Liz; I want my Cynthia; I want them both at once. I know I can have neither; and so I think of Selene dear, the darling of my dreams. If Goddesses would let me love them, my life would be so simple.