Somnium

by Steve Moore

  I went downstairs before the inn was open, to discover the source of all this girlish hilarity. Dear Cynthia lined the gigglers up and introduced them one by one; and one by one they curtseyed smiling, hugged me close and kissed me on the cheek. I thought this was so lovely. I asked them if they all were given flower-names upon the day that they were born; it seemed to me unlikely. Every one of them assured me then this was indeed the case; yet every one they tittered as they said it, and so I ended up believing them not at all. Then Cynthia put an arm around my shoulder and told her lovely minions that I was a special guest and all of them should treat me like a brother; she winked so slyly when she said they were my sisters, I hardly knew quite what to think. In spite of this, I told them next I thought that, one and all, they’d charm the stars down from the sky. I started then to tell them other things besides, until I saw dear Cynthia pout. I stopped, of course; the lovely girls they tittered once again.

  Cynthia and I we ate our dinner together in her parlour, and how she was so full of smiles. I asked again about her relationship with foul Jude Brown; she laughed and winked and said she was his sister. I said I simply could not believe her. She chuckled then and spooned some soup into my mouth; and after that I knew she would not answer. And when I asked her where she’d found her lovely flowers, she simply told me in the fields about, and plucked them here and there.

  So after we had dined, I wrote an ode at her request, on Cynthia and all her lovely maids, to be found now at The Bull; some inspiration made my descriptions of them all partake of the divine. It was so easy, for all of them have beauties quite celestial. As soon as I had finished, dear Flora she appeared and took my words away to have them all transcribed by that delightful sisterhood. I gather now that copies of my words are already to be found in Woolwich, Charlton, Blackheath, Eltham, Welling, Plumstead, and who knows where else. Inspired by all that’s happened in the last few days, my ode says Lady Luna and her Lovely Nymphs are now to be found residing in The Bull, where all the Beauty of the Moon is now exalted up in Taurus; I doubt that anyone hereabouts will have the astrology to understand any of this, but simply will they think that young and lovely virgins now will serve them with their wine and ale.

  When all of this was done, I asked sweet Cynthia if she thought that she could run the inn without at least a single man to help; she laughed and said that she had me. I said indeed she had me for the while, but time would come when I would take me back to Liz. She smiled a little faintly at me then, mysterious; I did not know quite what to think.

  This evening, when I went for supper, she would not let me eat out in the hotel dining-room. Rather now, she told me then, I would be eating only in her parlour, and we would share our meals; and furthermore, although next week I should be due to pay her once more for my room, I would not. She told me then I was no longer guest, but much-loved member of her ‘family’. She said again her maidens were my sisters; I asked her then just what she was to me. She grinned and answered with a lover’s kiss; then told me like a caring mother I should eat my supper now, and save my talk for later.

  And when we’d eaten, then she said I should select whatever wine I wished, and take me off upstairs. If I would spend the evening writing, then she said, when the inn was closed she’d come and kiss me sweet goodnight. My part of the bargain’s quite fulfilled; and now I wait for her, and hers.

  He woke at last, his mind exhausted with his ravishment, his body all a-comfort. And sweeter yet besides, he saw Diana sat upon his bed. All smiles she was and loveliness.

  A raven feather in her hair, her lovely breasts all laced about; a stitchet tight laced up and black silk stockings. And still he dreamed, he knew he did; and yet, perchance, he didn’t.

  He sat up, all bewildered quite, and stared and stared and stared. And while he did, she threw the bedclothes back and eyed him in his nightshirt.

  ‘So one of us is dressed to please, while yet the other isn’t!’ she said then, and laughed a lovely laugh. ‘No time for slug-a-beds, when queens are up and waiting… the bath for you, my boy!’

  He blushed all red and could not speak; her kiss was consolation.

  ‘Dear Queen,’ he said at last, ‘how can it be this morning that I find you dressed, or rather under-dressed, exactly as I dreamed you in the darkest night?’

  ‘Sweet man,’ she said, all winsome and all wistful, ‘it’s time you learned that what you thought was but a dream last night, and what you think the morning light makes true, they are the same. More obvious this should appear, the while you stay in Somnium, and yet I tell you this: all the world’s a dream. High Olympus, or the starry and the planet spheres, we dream them; and all the Earth you think so real, why that’s a dream as well. And if there is a single thing I’d have you learn while you are here with me, I’d like to make it this: the art of dreaming lovely dreams, and dreaming them all real. And now, before you form the question on your lips, the answer it is yes.’

  ‘The answer it is yes?’ he echoed then her words. ‘But I have not asked a thing!’

  ‘Oh dear Endimion Lee, my innocent and charming love, there is no need, because you have imagined. The thought of dream, and sweet desire, and all I’ve tried to teach you, they finally came together in your mind, although they did not reach your tongue.

  ‘So yes, my love, I’ll join you in the bath, the same as you desired from the first. And as a mark of my affection, I’ll let you, too, undress me; but whether you can do this with your mind, or still will need your fingers, that we’ve yet to see. But first, sir knight, you must remove your night-shirt.’

  Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, he looked upon her then; and no words could he utter.

  ‘Oh, dearest man,’ she sighed and simpered. ‘Just think a thought for me. I like to see you naked, just the same as you do me. We ladies have our fond desires as well.’

  At that he laughed, no other could he do; and when he did, he found that she laughed too. And laughter, laughed however, and whatever so the cause, it makes the world all innocent.

  Away with bed-clothes then and night-shirt too; and so he faced her naked, and showed her what she liked. Her sandaled foot she next placed in his lap, and smiled all saucy-eyed.

  ‘And now, my love, although I need not tell you: the straps of sandals, and of garters… but, oh, you know the rest…’

  He wanted then to kiss each single inch of fairest leg that was revealed unto his sight, and yet she told him no. And when the disappointment shone there in his eyes, she sad and wistful told him: ‘The wise man he accepts and takes what he is offered; the fool, he tries to take the more.’

  ‘All lovers tempt to foolishness,’ he said, ‘for given joy, they seek for more. Take it complimentary then, and know, for you, my eternal adoration.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, quite simple. ‘Now sit me up and take me in your arms. The rest, I think, you can do with your mind and thought; your fingers can caress me.’

  He sat and pondered for a while, his eyes all closed, of how he was to do this. Imagination was the key, he knew; yet when he thought of her quite naked, desire got in the way. At last he gave it up, and thought it far more important just to have her in his arms, and just to have her love and love her. And on a sudden then, he opened up his eyes and looked, no longer dreaming (so he thought), on dear Diana naked. And never was a fairer sight, or sweeter under heaven: her rounded breasts, her incurved waist, her rotund shapely hips, her long curvaceous legs; he loved them to distraction. Yet none of these they matched her eyes, more glorious far than all the Moonlit nights that ever were, and all the stars that twinkled.

  He kissed her for her loveliness, then looked at all her beauty quite exposed, and worshipped.

  He worshipped all her lovely body, worshipped more her shining eyes; worshipped her entire soul and all her Goddess-head besides. Divine she was, divine she is, divine she always will be: the Moon, all young and old, a mother and a child, a mistress and a sister; all-changing and unchanged besides, the constant s
weetheart of the mad and sane.

  Raven’s feather then she took from out her hair, pressed it to her lips and breast, put it in his hand and whispered: ‘keepsake’. He kissed it too and called it: ‘treasure’, placed it safe aside.

  And then, upon the sudden strong and manly, next he picked her up all naked in his arms. She laughed, she sighed, she kissed him, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him twice again. A sweeter armful heaven never made; she was too lovely.

  ‘Sweet heart,’ he told her then, ‘in London town, the town of all the world, I thought I understood the love of women; thought I knew the love they offered, thought I knew what they required. And now I understand that they were only women, and you, my love, are woman. And though the difference is too strange for words, I know it in my heart.’

  ‘You know it in your mind as well,’ she told him, snuggled close. ‘For they are women quite of flesh, and I am all of dream. My kisses, though, and all my love, partake of the supernal. I’d offer more besides, but now the Fates forbid it. The Fates allow me dream my way down from the Moon to here on Earth, and better yet, allow our interaction. But doing so, to share embraces and your eager kisses, I dream myself material; and while I am material, I must remain inviolate. And so, my love, the laws of fate, they make me virgin ’gainst my will. And yet, when you have passed beyond this heavy world of matter, then soul to soul and spirits all entwined, I’ll love you all the better.’

  He took her then into the bathroom, kissed her oh-so-hungry, clutched her softness with his hands.

  ‘You know what happens next,’ she said, her breath all short and eyes all wide.

  ‘I do indeed,’ he laughed, and threw her in the bath.

  Her squeal was all the Music of the Moon.

  The bath was long enough for her, though half enough for him. And then she left him, sweetly naked, to his dressing; left him to his morning meal besides; rejoined him in a long black cloak, the like he’d dreamed her in the night before. And then she took his hand in hers, and led him from the room.

  A passage took them, then, to two large doors, which opened of themselves; Endimion Lee discovered then that Somnium had a theatre. The Orb, she told him it was called, a laugh about her lips, and told him he might see the joke, about the century’s end; he shook his head, bemused.

  She sat him down among an audience of fair Selenic nymphs, his seat before the stage. And yet she did not join him.

  ‘My fair and scholar knight,’ she said, ‘we hope to entertain you. A short and tragical drama, but lately writ, though full of antique charm, it has a speaking cast of five. Three male parts are taken by my fairest nymphs, though painted in disguise; Melissa plays the maid; and I, myself… I play myself…’

  She kissed him then and left, just as he guessed the author; but how she might have got the text, that never had been copied, he could not quite decide.

  A Moon-maid offered wine, and so he did relax, and laughed, and stretched his legs, and so prepared himself to see…

  LADY SELENE & THE PRINCE ENDYMION

  ACT ONE

  SCENE ONE: The silver barge of the Moon, coursing through the starry night. SELENE sits beneath a curved stern-post. AURORA, her hand-maiden, nearby amongst TWELVE SILVER ROWERS.

  SELENE:

  Eternity, who measures such a thing?

  An insect lives the summer days, and dies;

  Undying Gods pass æons in their dreams

  And bring the millennium when they wake.

  Yet only men (no more than God-spawn’d apes,

  A half-race mix’d in part of life and death,

  Of Heavenly-descent, yet Hades-bound)

  In all beneath the sky, alone they stand

  And count the hours, the days, the months and years.

  With calendars they seek to shackle time,

  With dials and gnomons, mathematic art

  And charted stars, they try, oh, how they try,

  To capture Chronos with a grasping hand

  And bend his aged shoulders ’neath the yoke

  Of measur’d science; proudly thinking this

  A great achievement that is all their own.

  Yet in their time, too short alas for most,

  How many pause to shake their heads and think

  That all their human arts depend on this:

  The movement of the Gods across the sky.

  My fire-eyed brother, wheeling round the world,

  Their days and years describes, both short and long;

  And this, this sluggish silver barge of mine,

  So slowly circumnavigates the month

  And drags the leaden tides from high above

  While cutting through the stellar seas of night.

  And each and ev’ry night we follow on,

  The course the same, the stars, the sky, the Earth.

  No other life but this can I enjoy

  Once darkness spreads across the world below.

  Old Chronos shackled? No, Selene is,

  Bound tight by Titan-overthrowing Zeus

  And by his slaves, the grey unfeeling Fates.

  The purpose of my round? Zeus knows alone.

  And Zeus it is who wills ‘the barge moves on’,

  With me as captive captain ever more.

  Ah, what a waste is this ‘eternal life’,

  When timeless Godhead empties Hold! Who comes?

  [AURORA approaches from among ROWERS]

  AURORA:

  It is Aurora, Lady, by your leave.

  But, Mistress, did I see, a moment since,

  A tear of crystal, sparkling ’neath your eye?

  What sadness drains your so-pale cheek like this

  And draws up those sweet lips of yours so tight?

  SELENE:

  I know not; but that Time’s revolving wheel

  Repeats the evil like a jesting fool.

  We journey nightly, trailing brother Sun

  Now close, now far behind, from east to west,

  A darkling voyage upon an endless sea.

  Eternal dusk; it is too much for me…

  AURORA:

  But days are spent in bliss celestial

  With merry feasts among the jesting Gods;

  And if with twilight dim the barge arrives

  Then let it carry too your memories!

  Retain those treasures of the day-lit hours,

  Fill dreams with them beneath the wand’ring stars…

  SELENE:

  I’ll not! Such memories as these bring gall.

  AURORA:

  But why? They satisfy your company…

  SELENE:

  Too fickle the affections of the Gods!

  Too much are they in cups, too gross their jests!

  Æonic dicing fritters time away,

  Compliant Goddesses and nectar sweet…

  No more will radiant Selene shine

  At revels such as these! I’d rather spend

  The sun-lit hours as mortals pass the night,

  Dim-eyed, close-lipp’d, limbs bound by Hypnos’ hand,

  Than once again attend that rout of fiends

  That unwise worldly men call ‘Most-High Gods’!

  AURORA:

  Oh say not so! Calm yourself, my Mistress!

  You must remember that this very morn

  Just past, great Hermes, fair of face, did give

  You tokens of his fine and deathless love.

  Accept his grace, and put your heart at ease!

  SELENE:

  That trickster! Within hours I saw that cur

  His kisses shower on an earthly maid!

  And worse, she let him do as he desir’d

  Or said he wish’d to do with me alone!

  Zeus, Hermes, both alike! Away with them!

  My time is better spent alone, it seems!

  AURORA:

  Then they are poorer for it, I would think!

  SELENE:

  So be it! I have palaces myself

 
; Where western waters deep receive the Moon

  Beyond the distant silver-sanded isles;

  And there I’ll spend my hours with maidens pure

  Whene’er the world is by my brother blest!

  AURORA:

  But, Lady, I have heard those lips divine

  Speak oaths like these a hundred times before…

  SELENE:

  And meant them too! And kept my word, you’ll mark,

  For many long years, only to relent,

  When humbl’d Gods, diminishing their pride,

  Gave such fine promises and blandishments

  That I believ’d their oaths all true. For shame!

  Their word is broken swifter than old Zeus

  Can wink a drunken eye and crack a smile!

  AURORA:

  My Mistress, dare I say this anger seems

  To me not to the point. Some deeper grief

  Afflicts your heart, but what that wound may be,

  Alas, I cannot grasp. I wish I could…

  SELENE:

  It is a mystery to me as well,

  And yet… speak on, perhaps some pleasant word,

  Some idle banter may discover yet

  The wriggling worm of discontent that gnaws

  At my sick heart, a plague as yet unknown…

  AURORA:

  Ah, Lady, this seems far too great a task

  To impose on a humble serving maid.

  It is Athene who gives counsel wise,

  As ever she did since that awesome day,

  She sprang full-form’d from her cleft father’s skull.