Somnium

by Steve Moore

  I must have looked embarrassed. Dear Flora laughed and said I had a devil in me; thought she ought to shoot it; wondered if it could be done without shooting me as well. I smiled and told her all my devils were quite invulnerable to bullets, but scared to death of kisses. So for a little while (not long enough) two lovely ladies took their turns to kiss me. I said my devil was the most recalcitrant kind, and needed all the ladies of the inn to kiss it quite away; they pouted then and left me. Though soon as they were out the door, I heard their charming giggles.

  I love them all. They are so sweet.

  So after that I wrote another letter to my Liz, begging, if she could not come, at least to write and let me know that all was well. Flora said she’d see it posted.

  Wednesday, 17th October 1803

  Quite early in the evening, I once more fell asleep. Indeed, I seem to sleep far longer than I ever did before. Exactly why this is, I really cannot say.

  I think I was delirious last night; for if I was not, then I know that Cynthia came to bed with me and held me in her arms all night and smothered me with kisses. And yet I’m sure this cannot be; I woke this morning all alone.

  Perhaps I become the more and more Endymion; and was it fair Selene then who kissed me? And is that why I sleep so long?

  Once again there was no letter from my dear and lovely sister, and so I am bereft. No, more than that, I wept in Cynthia’s arms when she brought to me the news. I simply cannot understand how Liz could fail to write to me, knowing how I love her, and how I miss her, and what she means to me (and I know she knows exactly what she means to me, though neither of us would plainly mention it). Oh, and her sweetness, and her loveliness, and all those familiar intimacies we have exchanged.

  An evil part of me, that almost is suppressed, though still it has a tiny, jealous voice, says while I am away my sister’s found a lover, and so she has betrayed me. And yet I will not any way believe it; she simply could not do that without a word to me. I know her far too well.

  I must know soon that dear sweet Liz is quite alright, or else I will be torn in two. She is my dearest dear one (Cynthia notwithstanding), and a part of me cries ‘back to London and embrace your Liz, and satisfy yourself that she is safe’; but the other part fears that if I leave, then ruined Somnium, sleeping now beneath my feet, will never be restored; will cease to be, and with it all that I have written. And if that’s lost, then what of me? And what of dear sweet Cynthia? And more, what of Selene?

  And writing that, I think the more: and what of sweet Selene? For surely she is there in both the others, in Somnium, and everything about the Moon and all below it. To me she is, quite simply, Goddess. And if I lost Selene… oh, everything would be lost.

  Oh, write to me, my Liz. So much of all I am depends on this.

  I love you and I miss you.

  Friday, 19th October 1803

  Still I’ve had no letter from my Liz, and fall into despair. I despair of her health, her safety, her happiness, and in doing so I despair of my own as much. If anything’s happened to her; if she no longer was; then what of me? Oh, worse than this, my lovely Liz, what if you had never been? For I can no longer find your letters, or any other of your keepsakes. I know they must be here somewhere; oh, I hope they are. But, mad though it may be, I begin to wonder if, in abjuring all but Diana-Selene, I’ve abjured them besides; and worse abjured my Liz as well. (As well as this, it seems that now I cannot find the letter from the future either, or, besides, its story).

  Oh, write to me, beloved Liz, and save me swift from awful Bedlam’s hell.

  And yet I think it’s only Liz that ties me to this world of dust, for all my other worlds are full of dream. I stayed abed on Wednesday, and thought perhaps my feverishness was caused by the dark of the Moon; for when there is no Moonlight, the world is full of pain. Dear Cynthia stayed with me throughout the evening, leaving all the tavern’s business in bold Flora’s hands (and never were there safer). I wrote a little, and Cynthia sat close by upon the bed and sang to me so gently, and so sweetly, as I wrote. So musical a voice, as soft as Moonlight, the words all tumbling and all trilling like the trickling babble of a burbling brook, or the lapping waves a-breaking oh-so-gently on a sparkling gold-sand beach. And the songs she sang: of the Ocean’s old eternal longing for the Moon above; of the pale Moon’s loving of her brilliant brother Sun; of maladroit and ancient Actæon, and Endymion all asleep, and that mighty star-crowned hunter, Orion of great fame. And there were times when I looked up from my work, and thought to see my Cynthia as Diana herself, or Diana Regina of whom I wrote, or Selene-the-Perfect, of whom all the others are reflections. And sometimes she was dressed, and sometimes night-gowned, or chitoned with a bow in hand and one sweet breast exposed.

  And sometimes she was naked.

  And when she was all naked I thought to see my Lizzie looking out of her big brown eyes; and whether my Lizzie is, or whether she is not, I know that I shall never erase that image from my mind, of seeing my lovely sister Liz quite naked, and so young, and so beautiful. Oh Liz, my Liz; oh please exist for me, for if you do not, then all the world is damned.

  And if the world is damned, without a second thought, I’ll leave it all behind.

  We supped together, Cynthia and I, then supped again at midnight. And then she stroked my hair and kissed me fond goodnight.

  I did not wake again till last night’s sunset; I probably would not have done so then, but Cynthia woke me with a kiss. The darling sweetheart wished to know that I was quite alright.

  The way I wrapped my arms around her, hugged her close and kissed her breath away, it said I was recovered quite. She laughed and pushed me back against the pillow; said Endimion Lee he never would have been quite so forward; I told her Lee, he had to do with queens and Goddesses. She laughed and slapped me soft around the head; asked me what I thought that she was. I said I thought she was my darling, and so I’d kissed her; and just to prove my point, I held her close and kissed her once again.

  She grinned and said I was a naughty boy. I laughed and told her yes I was, and then I kissed her once again. And last, because I thought she wanted to hear it, called her ‘Cynthia of the Moon’.

  At that she laughed and took my hand, kissed my palm and pressed it to her breast; then said she’d send up supper and my claret (it tasted like Falernian once again) and left me then to write.

  I think that Somnium’s almost done. I’ll be so sad to finish with it, yet I think there’s little more to say. It is a world I’d love to live in, created all for me; and Somnium’s queen is all the ladies that I’ve ever loved. If I could simply give up all the Earth and soar up winged to heaven, I know I’d find a bliss like that.

  And yet I have to think: perhaps I have created Somnium. For what’s a ‘dream’, and what’s the ‘real world’, I now no longer know. If Somnium’s just a tale I wrote, then what’s that down there in the cellar, that’s grown since first I saw it? And if those ruins lie halfway between the here and there, half real and half of dream, then which way does the balance swing, twixt Somnium and The Bull? One’s real, one’s dream, but which, at last, is which? And more, if my Somnium’s published as a book, will that be like an Opusculum Mercurialis? Not providing a gateway to another world, but for another world, by which palatial Somnium might be here established. And can a story come to form, if writ so close to one’s ideal… that ideal forms emerge from pre-material dreams and shape themselves all solid ’fore our eyes? And if so many authors write a story much the same, does that suggest that there is something there, unseen by most but yet eternal still, existing in a way we cannot yet quite understand? Existing in a strange ‘outside’, perhaps beyond our grasp (or mayhap, with a little more belief, within it?)… then if it grows more as we imagine it all the better, then does it too transform the world we normally think is ‘real’? For all I look about me at The Bull, since Jude Brown quite was hanged (and did I wish it so? The question still is with me), the more it seems all Somniac, and Cy
nthia, Diana.

  So when the inn was closed last night, with dear and perfect Cynthia Brown-eyes I descended to the dining room, joining Flora and her lovely and beloved crew for a second much-belated supper (by any other’s terms). And they are all my sisters (though not quite so beloved perhaps as Liz), and all of them they treat me as their brother (and oh, oh how they kiss me); and later, when much wine it had been drunk, they all became delectably décolletée and lovely to behold. And they laughed aloud so soul-delightingly and sang with such honey-sweetened voices, of love and Moon and stars, and they were all so beautiful to look upon that, on occasion, I could not help but cry.

  And later on I read them all my latest pages; they listened so attentive and looked at me large-eyed. And when my narrative saddened, how sweetly then they sighed. Then Ivy said I was a poet, while Daisy whispered I dreamed lovely dreams; and Cynthia pleased me most of all by saying I did both.

  At last he slept, or thought he did, but never really knew. For all she’d spoke to him of dreams before, had caused him much confusion. And this he thought the strangest yet, but still the most familiar.

  One part of him, he knew, was Knight Endimion Lee, a modern man who lived, by Christian terms, in latter sixteenth century. That part it slept on Shooters Hill, that now was dreamt as Somnium, and slept besides in softest bed, in dear Diana’s arms.

  The other part, although he was not certain sure that it was part of him, or if it merely lay before his eyes, was legendary Endymion, who lay encaved on Latmos hill before the Christian nightmare quite began. All wrapped up in a sheepskin was that form, and dreaming; and lovely Grecian Moon-Selene (who was Diana too), had come down from the sky and thrown her arms around him. He slept, and dreamt she kissed him; she kissed him as he slept and gave him dreams.

  And all was merged together, the dreamer and the dreamed, on Latmos hill and Shooters Hill besides. Endimions both, Diana and Selene, they merged alike in everlasting bliss that merely passed an instant.

  And all was given then, that never wanted taking; and all that was received, it never had been asked for.

  And when he woke to morning light, and found her there beside him, nothing gained but nothing lost, with nothing he was more than satisfied.

  She woke up in his arms, all naked and all-lovely, and kissed him sweet good morning. And all the same, he knew at once, he’d gained her and he’d lost her.

  ‘Oh love, I know how hard it is,’ she told him, tears and smiles. ‘But yes, we have to part. For matter though I dream myself, I am a spirit quite; and love you as a spirit, yes I could; but love you while you live, I can’t.

  ‘But, sweet, I’ll love you from the Moon, and every passing day, a day less it will be, until we are united. And then, my love, the joys I’ve only hinted at so far, they’ll all be ours, forever.’

  ‘And will you tell me quite how long I have to wait for love?’ he asked, his fingers in her hair, his lips all tracing round her face.

  ‘My man,’ she said, ‘and yes, I mean it so, for so you are indeed, succeeding as you did, the first I’ll tell you of your task. Your Queen, she plays the virgin just like me, and so provides us opportunity.

  ‘Diana, Selene, call me what you will, I am the Moon. And men, and women too, enslaved quite by the church, they have not looked in my direction, since old and proud-aspiring Rome it fell. But even to the dourest man, I am the Muse, I am Art’s spirit, I am Poetry and Beauty. And I am Dream. For dreams are from the Moon, and all the Moon is made of dreams besides. My dearest love, men need me. They need my art, they need my bright creative spark, or all their lives are hell. They need the dreams I give them, they need to dream of me. And more, I need them too. For if men sleep and do not dream, the Moon falls from the sky.

  ‘And so, sweet heart of all my heart, I have to send you back to Earth, and back to London Town. The task I’d ask you undertake for me is this: to make your Queen as much you can like me. In poems, masques and revels, songs and symbols too, draw down the Moon quite from the sky, and deify Eliza in my name. Call her what you will, Diana, Cynthia, Titania and Phoebe too, but sing her all of moonlight, sing her queen of lunar fairyland, and love me in her person. Your tragical entertainment made a start; now write of nothing else but me as Gloriana, and make Eliza’s court a Moon-land here on Earth.

  ‘For if the Moon does not return, to startle men with dreams, why, long before the years have passed away, then I’ll be all forgot. And if I am forgot, then, love, I will not be. And if I’m not, then poetry it disappears, and all those other arts besides. And this, my man, then, is your task, to keep me quite alive. And if you can, then I am yours; and, love, there is no other love like mine.’

  ‘Diana, Queen and Moon,’ he told her then, ‘for you, I would do anything, and even love you in another woman. But, love, oh heavens, love, how long?’

  ‘Oh, sweet, the universe, it works in curious ways. You will of late, I know, have heard a story out of Wittenberg. A certain Doctor Johan Faustus, he sold his soul to some strange devil called Mephisto. Two dozen years of bliss he then obtained, and even Helen as his leman. And in the end, the devil took his soul and dragged him screaming off to hell. Or so it’s said.

  ‘My love, the contract I would make with you, it is reversed. Two dozen years of hell I offer you, with neither love nor leman; worse, with all your thoughts of me, but quite without me too. And all you’ll do is work, to make men think of me. And making others think, so then you’ll think the more of me, and suffer for it too. But if two dozen years you can pass by… oh, dearest, then you’ll die… but come to your reward.

  ‘Dear man, because I love you, so I’ll give you one last choice. If you would never ever suffer, then all my plans I will renounce. And if you choose, then back you go, with memories none at all. No joys, no pains, and nothing of Diana. No harm, no love, and all we’ve had, it never will have been. And who knows, then, perhaps, you’ll find a Lady of the Chamber, marry her and breed another Lee, or two, and live a life of fair content.’

  ‘My love, I’d never give you up. How could you think I would?’

  ‘I never did,’ she smiled awry. ‘I’ve seen into your heart.’

  ‘It’s very hard to part,’ he told her then, his arms all round her tight. ‘These days and nights I’ve spent here quite enchanted, a-looking in your lustrous eyes, they’ve taught me all the worth of love, and oh-how-lovely is the Moon. And honey has a bitter taste, compared with your sweet lips. You are my heart, my soul… oh dearest queen and Goddess, I cannot say the more.

  ‘My love, I’ll miss you.’

  ‘I’ll miss you too, my darling man,’ she told him then, and kissed him. ‘But dream of me and all my kisses too, and then the years they’ll speed away.

  ‘And when you hear these words, “the Queen is dead”, my love, you’ll know it’s time to die as well. For once Eliza’s gone, the joy dies in the world, for many years to come.

  ‘And then I will be waiting.’

  Her head she rested then upon his shoulder, hugged him tight, and sighed.

  ‘Dear heart,’ she said, ‘it’s best that presently I send you back to Earth, before goodbyes become too long and fond. And rather would I have your mind recall me at this instant. So kiss me nine times long and deep, and tell me that you love me.’

  The tears then streamed down both their cheeks, their lips seemed almost grown together.

  ‘Dear Queen Diana of the Moon,’ he said at last, ‘I love you.’

  ‘Dear knight, my own Endimion Lee, I love you too.’

  She raised a hand up to his face, about to close his eyes; he stopped her for an instant.

  ‘My dear, one question at the last, before I go. And tell me, was it Fate or mother’s whim, that named me for your love?’

  ‘It wasn’t Fate or whim at all,’ she gently said, and smiled. ‘I whispered in her ear.’

  I almost was in tears, on reading this aloud, but Cynthia softly kissed me, and said she knew that I could be as brave as Endimi
on Lee myself. And so I had to smile; or else I’d let her down.

  More wine then followed (oh, how those lovelies do insist), before they all proposed a little game of ‘Blind Man’s Buff’, played out there in the dance-hall. Being the only young man present, naturally it was I on whom they tied the blindfold, and then they made me swear by sweet Diana’s love I would not cheat at all; and so, of course, I couldn’t.

  They made me stand there rather longer than I expected, then Cynthia’s voice cried out ‘now begin’ and all around were titters. Hands outstretched, I tottered forward; suddenly clutched a petticoat. Stood there all confused.

  There was no darling maiden in it.

  I must have looked so baffled; for suddenly all around were peals of lovely laughter.

  I looped the petticoat around my neck, so the rascal who had shed it would not have it back. Bare feet they pattered on the floor. My hands stretched out again.

  My fingers brushed on softest skin. A moment later I was touching sweet young maiden flesh again; I tried to clutch, but it was gone too quick.

  I realised then that Cynthia, Flora, and all those sweet young girls had taken all their clothes off.

  And I had sworn by dear Diana’s love I would not look. But, oh, what I imagined…

  I do not know how long they played their game with me; but all the time they giggled. One moment, a soft and bouncing breast was in my hand; the next, one darling girl would grab my wrist and place my hand upon another’s ripe young rump; again, I’d hear some darting feet and then two warm moist lips would sudden press against my blushing cheek.