Somnium

by Steve Moore

  We sat beneath an ancient oak all wrapped up in each other’s arms. She asked me how I liked the 19th century. I told her not at all. I said I wished we were in Greece or Rome, or anywhere before the awful Christians came. For a moment I thought to see illimitable sadness cloud her lovely eyes, but then she laughed and said those times had passed by long ago. I told her we could recreate them, furthermore that they partook of heaven; and so, I told her, did her kisses. If she should kiss me, then the pagan world would be restored.

  She did, and so it was.

  The treasure of the world is in her lips.

  I came back to The Bull, and found myself a-sudden full of strangest inspirations. Perhaps that kiss was full of potencies I did not comprehend…

  Endimion Lee, he read awhile in this strange and futuristic journal, but found it for the most part past his comprehension. There were so many future-things he did not understand; he knew there was no tavern there atop of Shooters Hill and St Paul’s, to him, looked nothing like a candle-snuff. Yet Morley did, so plainly, love the Moon, and if he was a little moonstruck, then where’s the harm in that?

  The sticking point, it seemed to him, was Morley’s claim to writing Somnium, and inventing all the palace he resided in, himself besides and dear Diana too. This seemed to him, the first, impossible; and more than this, a heresy. He had no thoughts upon himself, but the idea, perchance, Diana Regina might in some way not be real… that was too much for mortal man to bear.

  So, some few pages gone, he put the book aside, and tried to think about it not at all. Diana then, she handed him The Romance of Lady Luna of the Silver Castle and told him, how Morion of Lyons being two centuries dead, and not two centuries yet a-born, he might perchance prefer it.

  So Lee, with more than slight relief, began again to read.

  THE ROMANCE OF LADY LUNA OF THE SILVER CASTLE

  by Morion of Lyons

  I. HOW THE LAND OF PARALOGRES GLITTERED MUCH BY MOONLIGHT, YET DULLED MUCH BY THE DAY.

  Of all those fallacies to which mankind at large is prey, the most widespread and pernicious is the belief that unity is in some way more upright, or desirable, or perfect than diversity. Thus the races of mankind have laboured, sometimes mired for aeons, under such delusions as that there is but one Right, though many Wrongs; that there is but one God, while multiplicitous Gods are therefore false; or that there is but one Real World, and never was there Other. Other worlds there are, and always were, we do avow; and only God the One is false, when any fool can see the others; of Right and Wrongs we do not care to judge at all. One world, indeed, may have one God; but other worlds have other Gods, and these are where our fancy roams.

  When Arthur ruled in hallowed Albion’s isle, and Guinevere was quite the Helen of her times, nine dozen other worlds lay close at hand besides. And far off in the Land of Dreams was lovely Paralogres.

  In Paralogres never was there Christian God, though all the olden Gods of Greece and Rome, and more than these besides, resided there and breathed the smoke of incense and of sacrifice. But most of all, and far above the rest, in Paralogres reigned Selene, the beautiful, the luminous and the charming; who, the more that she was loved, the more she beamed her lovelight in return. And so in Paralogres, ladies and their lovers rose at sunset, and lived their lives the night-long through, and danced by silver Moonlight, and went to bed at dawn; and only thieves and villains went abroad by day, all tanned and damned by sunlight on their skin.

  In Paralogres all was silver, never gold; and jewels so large and fine and sweetly cut to mirror all the Moon; and flowers opened up by night, so coloured and so scented, that called to moths so large, with patterns so fantastical, and tongues so long to drink up all of nature’s nectar. And never was there woman there the slightest less than lovely; and more than these by far were beauties; and some there were with eyes so large, so liquid and so luminous, they seemed no less than Goddesses. And if they thought themselves competing with Selene, she smiled so fondly at their high pretensions, because she knew they never would, nor could.

  Except for one, perhaps, more charming than the flowers and the stars, too sweet for even moths to seek, and near as lovely as the silvery Moon herself.

  II. OF LADY LUNA

  Within a forest thick and vast, and known to all about quite simply as The Deep Green Sea of Leaves, there rose an opalescent hill all shot with caves that tempted lovers, poets and divines. And on this hill, that some called Latmos-flown-from-Asia, there stood the Silver Castle, turrets soaring to the sky. No quaint poetic fiction this, for all its walls were of that very metal, and how it gleamed and sparkled in the Moonlight. Within there dwelled the castle chatelaine, the darling Lady Luna, her charming friend, the lovely Lady Sweetheart, and oh-so-many dearest girls and ladies, whose looks, unclad, could charm down stars and planets from the deep nocturnal sky. Yet none of them competed quite with Luna; and if so many others compared her with Selene, herself she never thought to do so. For Luna looked upon the lovely Moon, and sighed, and wished and wished for beauty quite like hers; and Selene, if her words were only heard, would tell her straight how nearly then she had it.

  For Luna was so sweet and slim and youthful, and wide-eyed as a child; and all her chestnut tresses spilled in lovely hyacinthine curls right from her head down to her tiny toes, and just a little further too. And when she smiled, the world smiled too; and when she laughed, the merest sight of rosy lips and jade-white teeth and shapely little tongue-tip, could only make one wish to kiss her. And when she danced, her dainty little feet would make the music follow suit, for all the musicians in the world would watch her steps and play her sweet accompaniment. And many were the handsome knights who thought it fair to win her love; yet none so far had done so.

  So Lady Luna, orphan though she was for some years since, did reign and rule the lands about the Silver Castle. And though she knew that other lords in wondrous Paralogres had laid a heavy hand on all their suffering subjects, she preferred, herself, the soft caress; and so, of course, she was beloved.

  III. HOW LADY LUNA BEGAN HER NIGHTS

  At sunset, measured quite precisely, by sight or by the court astronomer if the sun was wrapped in cloud, a pretty page, but eight years old, would enter Luna’s chamber, taper lit and held up high above his little head. And then he’d light the triple candelabra, nine in all, about the room and draw back all the curtains, so all the chamber then was filled with starlight, and with moonlight, and with candlelight besides.

  That done, and all a-tiptoe, hardly drawing breath, the page then next approached the bed where Luna slept all folded up in Lady Sweetheart’s arms. And parting then the curtains, he crept so silent to the pillows, and oh so gently kissed the lovely girls awake, precisely as instructed, and only on the lips. And when they sighed and yawned and opened up their big brown eyes, he swiftly scrambled backwards, and left the bed, and bowed so low it almost seemed he’d kiss the floor; and Luna always smiled to see his charming rump raised high up in the air. And when he asked her, hardly daring, why she wished it so, she told him never was there more a charming prince to wake a sleeping beauty with a kiss; and then she kissed him once or twice, or more, until he blushed and looked so boyish and becoming, he had to run away.

  The bath was next, and big enough for two, of course; for Sweetheart, Lady of the Bedchamber, was Lady of the Bathchamber too. And then those lovely girls, one dark, one fair, would take themselves, all naked, up a turret; for there the Lady Luna had her private chapel, which was observatory too. Next followed evening prayers to sweet Selene, offered up with love; and as they wished the most part to the Goddess her own happiness, she of course gave to them precisely what they wished for her in turn. And sometimes there were Moon-Fairies seen, a-flight about the sky, on errands strangely lunar, who smiled down so sweetly as they passed; and sometimes there were shooting stars, that sparkled in the dark.

  Prayers all done, descended from the tower, they’d break their fast with honey-cakes and nectarines, whil
e hid behind a screen, a valet played a slow and languid flute. And then, all braced up with a goblet each of sweetened spicy wine, they’d deck themselves in turquoise and in moonstones, in garnets and alamandines, all set about with silver; and if the weather or decorum so demanded, perhaps a silken dress.

  So Lady Luna of the Silver Castle, in the lovely land of Paralogres, prepared herself for all the business and the pleasures of the night.

  IV. OF A CERTAIN ILL-BODING COMET

  There came a time when, for half a month entire, the skies were curtained quite with boiling, sulphurous clouds, and neither Moon nor stars were anywhere to view; and all was heat and stillness, curdled fog and dank miasma. Yet finally, with the waning of the Moon, a wind sprang up at last; and when another night was past, the skies began to clear.

  And so when Luna went to say her evening prayers, she looked upon a starry night (the Moon not yet arisen), and half across the sky was flung a blazing comet. A banderole of doom, it seemed, all ghostly pale and pregnant of the plague, of deadly war and unmitigate disaster. And Lady Sweetheart whimpered at the sight, while Luna pondered deeply what it might portend. And nowhere were the Moon-Fairies in the starred nocturnal air; and all that once was fine seemed now decayed to evil and to death.

  So Luna summoned then, forthwith, her astronomers and astrologers, her diviners and all the priesthood of Selene. And all of them she asked exactly what it was the comet did portend; and knowing this, precisely what to do. And all of them they said they’d have to look then in their books, and consult their fellow sages, and that they needed time to ponder.

  And Lady Luna frowned, and how the court assembled thought it ill to see it.

  V. CONCERNING THE KNIGHT ARCADIUS

  Originating in the snowy north of wondrous Paralogres, where all is thickened forests full of ice-demons and mountains roamed by white-coat wolves, the knight Arcadius had already ridden many weeks toward the summerlands when first the comet did appear. His armour, lance and weaponry (his sword alone excepted) was loaded on a pack-mule drawn along behind him; tunic, breeches, boots and a wide-brimmed hat seemed more than sufficient to him, who’d trekked for miles through mountains decked with glaciers and windblown snow. Besides, such light attire spared the snorting, strutting jet-black stallion that he rode, and never yet had he come across a problem more potent than the sword that hung about his waist.

  Of comets, though, for all he knew they boded ill, no single idea could he conceive of how they might be fought, placated, or sent upon their way.

  Some twenty years had passed since first Arcadius saw the lights of night, and always had he doted on the Moon. A handsome, fine-boned face with deep brown eyes looked out from underneath a mass of bushy curls, each one as black or blacker still than the inky steed between his legs; and all those curls spilled disarranged across a pale, smooth brow. Long and narrow fingers grasped the reins. Lightly-built and supple-waisted, you’d think him more a dancer than a warrior; and yet he seemed too languid to be either.

  A poet then: with sword in hand and Moonlight in his eye.

  And so Arcadius idled through the woods, a minstrel lay upon his lips, of Selene and her loves, and how he wished he might be numbered with them; and high above the Goddess smiled to hear his fond conceits.

  And yet she sighed to know the reason that he sang so sweet of her, was that he had been disappointed by all the ladies that he’d found so far, who lived their lives so vainly ’neath the Moon.

  VI. HOW ARCADIUS CAME UNTO THE HERMIT

  The day was almost breaking, the golden Moon was almost sunk, when Arcadius looked around and found himself still deeply in the forest. And so he began to look for shelter from the day.

  The ruby sun was just begun to rise when Arcadius came at last upon an ancient oak, quite leafless now and gnarled with passing centuries. So vast a trunk, and lightning-scarred besides, had long been hollowed out, by nature first and later by assisting hand of man; a doorway cut and windows too, and up above a roof of beams and thatch. Within an ancient hermit dwelt, who looked all night upon the Moon, and all the time upon his lips Selene’s name was spoken, in hymns and prayers and simply for its lovely sound. His beard was white and, left alone, would drag upon the floor; yet on his leftward hip he tied it in a knot with hair that fell behind him quite as long, so neither forward nor behind he trod upon his head’s excrescence.

  He’d loved the Moon from first he had been born, and loved her still past ninety; and if the Goddess so desired, he’d love her past a century.

  Lilæus was his name.

  Arcadius came, and saw, and knocked upon the hermit’s door. And Lilæus, closing up the holy book entitled Selene, Who is All, Her Litanies and Liturgies, with a Compendium of Daily Praises, made way, so slow, one foot before the other, across the tree-trunk room, and opened to the world at large.

  He was not disappointed with the man he saw before him.

  It was not that he saw himself, made young once more; but rather that he saw the better. And more than this, he thought him worthy of the love of Goddesses. And so, of course, he bade him enter.

  Arcadius thanked him, took a while to look toward his horse and mule, then gladly entered in a tree so holy. And Lilæus gave him wine, and rough-baked bread, and apples that he’d knocked down with a stick, himself. Arcadius thanked him for his kindness, then spoke no other word until he’d eaten up his fill.

  Lilæus, meanwhile, took him once again to his devotions, and opened up a triptych of the lovely Moon, at centre all unclad, and either side the clad and half-clad views, and all of them so lovely. And, lost in contemplation, once again he mumbled out Selene’s name.

  Arcadius, washing down the food with wine, first heard, then looked, and all his mind was full of Goddess. With hurried step he paced across the room to where Lilæus sat before his treasured icon, looked again more closely now, and fell down on his knees.

  ‘Get up, boy!’ Lilæus snapped. ‘She has no time for grovellers! What Goddess ever loved a man with dirty knees?’

  Arcadius, all a-blush, got up and tried his hardest to explain. Of how the icon was so lovely he thought it, for an instant, ‘The Perfect Image’ that he’d dreamed of finding since his early youth. Of how he’d thought his quest was quite completed even though he barely had begun. And even if it wasn’t, still this was an image of the Goddess that he loved above all else. And tailing off, he then began to stutter, of how the triptych seemed so holy, and how he’d never seen a better, and how Selene was his life and mistress of his soul.

  And then Lilæus saw himself made young once more indeed. And like an old man with an infant, took Arcadius’ hand in his, and patted it so gentle; invited then the younger man to draw a stool up close and sit him down to listen.

  ‘This triptych of the lovely Moon I painted long ago, when I was young and sprightly as yourself; and every man who loves the Goddess would do well to paint the like, precisely for himself. For Selene has so many forms, and likes, I know to please us. So paint her as she seems to you, and how you’d like to have her, loved and held close in your arms. And so she will appear to you, in dreams within the world we do inhabit; and in the otherworld, in truth, she’ll be as you have dreamed.’

  ‘Old saint,’ the knight said then (and really did he mean it), ‘I fell down on my knees because the painting you had made was quite the same as that dear Goddess of the Moon who smiles so sweetly in my dreams. And more, who, with a charcoal stick, I long ago essayed to daub. And so I think, for all you say Selene has so many forms, in fact she has but one… and all we mortals in the lower world we see the same, although we think we see the image made precisely for ourselves. For she is ever-lovely, and more than this, she ever is herself. And if your image is the same as mine, then more than this I think it is, besides, too near enough The Perfect Image I have dreamed of since a child, and which I’ve ridden from the north, with all its snows and longer nights than here, in hope to gaze upon, but once before I die.’

  ‘Yo
ung man,’ the hermit said, ‘if your quest is for The Perfect Image, then you are more than doubly welcome here. Three times in ninety years I’ve thought to see it, and even then I’ve only seen it but in dream, in frenzy, or in sickness close to death. But how it ravished up my soul, and nourished more my body, so I hardly ate for weeks. And all of these were blessings, select and irreproducible, of Selene, that only when I had attained a state of grace, I saw. I have no further hopes to see The Image in the world below; but when I’m dead (not long, if Goddess sweet is kind), I hope to gaze upon it ever more… or rather more than this, upon its sweetly-smiling subject.’

  ‘I’m sure you will, old friend,’ Arcadius said upon the instant, ‘for looking on your face I know, I never saw a man the more beloved of the lovely Moon.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ the old man said, and if he was too pleased to hear the compliment, then just as much he thought it well to act as if he wasn’t. ‘But young and handsome men have far more chance than ever such as I of gazing on that Image, face to lovely face. And if you seek for this, which is, we know, felicity quite beyond compare, then know as well you have my prayers for your success.

  ‘You know, of course, the story of The Image?’