The Cape of Four Pleasances: Nereid Bell Edition

I decided to finally get on and pull The Cape of Four Pleasances into a PDF. You can find it on Itch.io, for free. There's some extra content compared with the original blog post; the only things I've cut are the introductory blog text referring to The Rest of All Possible Worlds and the pictures from Darkest Dungeon illustrating the crossbow/firearms connection.

Musketeer and Arbalest, of Darkest Dungeon.

Admittedly, they have a somewhat different characterisation.

That aside, all other introductory material is in the PDF - and I may direct you to it here.

Solomon and Saturn: Saxon Sages

I recently discovered the Old English dialogue of Solomon and Saturn. This is, of course, highly relevant to my interests. 

There are several of these dialogues, either in poetry or prose. They appear back to back in the same manuscript and are largely thought to have been written at the end of the first millennium. Saturn is here a Prince of the Chaldeans, though not without some measure of knowledge. Solomon is still Solomon, but without some of the more oriental aspects with which he is sometimes presented (see Kipling, for instance, aside from the whole business of summoning demons). 

Saturn calls on Solomon, setting him a series of questions, sometimes with a reward. He either trying to get details of the power of the Lord's Prayer, or quizzing him about the state of the life of man, the nature of creation and God's will. In the former he is sceptical and offers a sounding-board for Solomon's long discussions of the power of prayer. In the latter, he becomes a testing, probing presence; not diabolic, but clearing pushing at a few boundaries. 

Here's an example of the text:

SALOMON cwæð:

Þæt gepalmtwigude  Pater Noster
heofnas ontyneð,  halie geblissað,
Metod gemiltsað,  morðor gefilleð
adwæsceð deoflesfyr,  Dryhtnes onæleð.

Solomon said: The palm-twigged Paternoster opens heaven, blesses the holy, makes the Lord mild, fells murder, extinguishes the devil's ire, kindles the Lord's.

The Lord's Prayer is not only potent, but highly decorated: 'Golden is the word of God, studded with gems, it hath silver leaves...'. The letters of it are themselves given magical and specific associations.

prologa prima  ðam is . ᛈ . P. nama;
hafað guðmæcga  gierde lange,
gyldene gade,  ond a ðone gr[im] man feond
swiðmod sweopað;  ond him on swaðe fylgeð
. ᚪ . A . ofermægene  ond hine eac ofslihð.
. ᛏ . T . hine teswað  ond hine on ða tungan sticað,
wræsteð him ðæt woddor  ond him ða wongan brieceð.

prologa  prima,  which  is
named . ᛈ . P.: the warrior has a long staff, with
a golden goad, and brave he ever swipes at the
grim fiend; and in the track . ᚪ . A . pursues him
with mighty power and also strikes him. . ᛏ . T.
injures him and stabs him in the tongue, twists
his throat, and shatters his jaws.

The prose dialogue features a battle where between the devil and the Paternoster where they take on various forms:

Solomon said: The devil first will be in youthfulness, in the likeness of a child, then the Pater Noster will be in the likeness of the Holy Spirit. In the third instance the devil will be in the likeness of a dragon; in the fourth instance the Pater Noster will be in the likeness of an arrow, which is called brahhia dei. In the fifth instance the devil will be in the likeness of darkness; in the sixth instance the Pater Noster will be in light’s likeness. In the seventh instance the devil then will be in the likeness of a wild animal; in the eighth instance the Pater Noster will be in the likeness of a whale that is called Leuiathan.

Saturn even desires to know of the Features of the Paternoster.

Saturnus quoth. But what kind of head hath the Pater Noster?
Salomon quoth. The Pater Noster hath a golden head and silver hair; an although all the waters of the earth should be mingled with a the waters of heaven into one channel, and it should begin to rain them together upon the earth and all its creatures, yet might it stand dry under a single lock of the Pater Noster's hair; and his eyes are twelve thousand times brighter than all the earth, though it be overspread with the brightest lily-blossoms, and the leaf of every blossom should have twelve suns, and every blossom twelve moons, and every individual moon should be twelve thousand times brighter than it was ere Abel's murder.

'The world was young, the mountains green, no stain yet on the moon was seen'?

And in the Pater Noster’s right hand is the likeness of a golden sword, unlike all other weapons; its gleam is clearer and brighter than all the constellations of the heavens, than there are ornaments and fairness of gold and silver in all the earth: and the right edge of the lordly weapon, is milder and more moderate than all the sweetness or the perfumes of the earth; and the left edge of the same weapon, is fiercer and sharper than all [middle-earth], though between its four pinnacles it should be driven full of wild-beasts, and every individual beast should have twelve horns, and every horn twelve tines of iron, and every tine twelve points and every point should be twelve thousand times sharper than an arrow which has been tempered by a hundred and twenty hardeners. 

The assorted hyperbole and vast numbers and shifts of perspective are somewhat psychedelic, even faintly Hindu in a certain light.

Solomon was more famous; however, Saturn, the  bold  strategist, had the keys of certain books in which learning was locked. He wandered through all the lands: the land of India, the East Cossias, the kingdom of the Persians, Palestine, the city of Nineveh, and the North Parthians, the treasure halls of the Medes, the land of Marculf, the kingdom of Saul – where it lies south by Gilboa and north by Gadara – the halls of the Philistines, the fortress of the Cretans, the forest of the Egyptians, the waters of the Midians, the cliffs of Horeb, the kingdom of the Chaldeans, the skills of the Greeks, the race of the Arabians, the learning of Libya, the land of Syria, Bithynia, Bashan, Pamphylia, the border of Porus, Macedonia, Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Christ’s homeland – Jericho, Galilee, Jerusalem.

Saturn is well-travelled, well-read - but not quite supernatural. He might be associated with gloom and be a fairly melancholy type and ask questions about old age, but isn't the god of old age.

Saturnus cwæð:
Nieht bið wedera ðiestrost,  ned bið wyrda heardost,
sorg bið swarost byrðen,  slæp bið deaðe gelicost.

SALOMON cwæð:
Lytle hwile  leaf beoð grene;
ðonne hie eft fealewiað,  feallað on eorðan,
ond forweorniað,  weorðað to duste.
Swa ðonne gefeallað  ða ðe fyrena ær
lange læstað,  lifiaðhim in mane,
hydað heahgestreon,  healdað georne
on fæstenne  feondum to willan,

Saturn said: Night is the darkest weather, need the hardest of fates, sorrow the most oppressive burden, sleep is most like death.

Solomon said: Leaves are green for a short while, then later they fade, fall on the earth and decay, turn to dust. Just so, then, fall those who earlier persist for a long time in their sins – they live in crime, they hide great treasures, they hold them eagerly in strongholds, to the delight  of  the enemies....

I've been dancing between two translations here, accessible by an academic library: that of Dr Daniel Anlezark and that of John Kemble. You can find the latter here and a third partial for comparison here.

It's not a unique piece of work: one sage setting riddles for another is a familiar enough pattern for Norse legend. But the introduction of Saturn and Solomon as protagonists is noteworthy, though not unique. There's a few interpretations I've come across since encountering this on the shelves a few days ago; that this is a form of catechesis is one. 

But I've not tapped the limits of what's in this poem - for instance, the vast bird, feared by the Philistines (and by Saturn) and called by them Vasa Mortis, due to appear at Doomsday. Anlezark says in his commentary 'the Vasa Mortis passage ranks as one of the most obscure in Old English'. Anyway, there's a greater variety here (if perhaps less focused) than in the tale of St Erkenwald. For your consideration?

Frenchmen and Fairies in Space

There are the books I planned to read and the books I didn't plan to read. I didn't quite plan to read the books by, for and about Frenchmen in space.

***

Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655) L'Autre monde ou les états et empires de la Lune (1657), trans. Thomas St Serf (1624-c. 1669) as Selēnarhia, or, The government of the world in the moon a comical history (1659)

Bertrand de Fontenelle (1657-1757), Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (1686), trans. Aphra Behn (1640-1689) as A Discovery of New Worlds (1688)

Voltaire (1694-1778), Micromegas (1752), trans. Douglas Parmee, 2014.

Well, maybe that's not quite true. I had half an eye open for Micromegas, having seen it referenced in Terra Ignota. Further, Marat of Red Berries for the Red Planet had referenced 'Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds' in my TRoAPW Appendix N post. I didn't make the connection on first seeing my second-hand Hesperus Press copy, but soon did. 

Some notes on translators:

Aphra Behn was a remarkable author in her own right. I've read a number of her plays and novels. Many deal with affairs of the heart (I won't list her with Rochester as a libertine, though she's undeniably a coquette), and a number are set in the Catholic parts of the Low Countries - where she was a spy for Charles II. Her work Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave (1688) has stayed in print these many years, and provokes much interest as a narrative of an African slave's early life and rebellion in Dutch Suriname. Accomplished as she was, Virginia Woolf's praise for her catapults her onto Feminist reading lists (though I note that in her translator's note, she takes a moment to complain about the foolishness of the Marquise); her Toryism is not necessarily stressed.

Thomas St Serf is far less well-known, but in digging up dates for this I found him to be the son of a Scottish Bishop (their surname is rendered as Sydserff, Sincerth, Sydceff and more, confusing the issue). In addition to his translation, he was also the producer of a short-lived Scottish newsletter, the Mercurius Caledonius - which has all been transcribed online.

Both are appropriate sources for TRoAPW - though Behn has perhaps the wider application. The Mercurius Caledonius would make a great deal of sense for characterising Malmery.
I note that other translations are available on Project Gutenberg.

 

Statue of Aphra Behn, outside the Beaney Library in Canterbury.
Again, unlike Rochester, I can't tell you which Warhammer Army she collected.

         

Let's look at some summaries. In Selēnarhia Bergerac's narrator projects himself to the Moon (following a crash in Canada - New France) using vials of dew. When he arrives at the Moon, he is taken as an animal, and presented to the queen as her beast. He is slowly drawn into lunar society - where meals are taken entirely as scents, poetry is used as money, the language is music (with proper names all rendered in musical notation) and other wonders abound. There are long disputations on natural philosophy (and whether the Moon is a Moon). 

Among other things, the men of the Moon enjoy audio books.

At the opening of the Box, I found in one of them ſomething of Metal, almoſt like our Watches, full of little ſprings, and almoſt imperceptible Machines : tis true, it is a Book, but a Miraculous one, which hath neither leaves nor letters. In fine,it is a Book, wherein to learn any thing, the eyes are altogether unneceſſary, and the ears are only to be uſed. When any one then hath a mind to read in it, he winds up with a great many little Springs this Machine, then he turns the needle upon on the Chapter he intends to peruſes and ſtraight, as from the mouth of a man, or ſome Muſical inſtrument, there iſſueth forth diſtinct and different ſounds, which the men of quality make uſe of in the Moon for the expreſſion of their thoughts.

 They also make use of mobile towns:

 Amongſt our Towns, dear Stranger, there be Motional and Fundamental; the Motional ones of that we are now in, are made as I ſhall  now tell you: the Architecture as you ſee of each Palace upholds it upon light wood; we make it upon four wheels: in the thickneſs of one of the walls, he puts ten great pair of bellows, whoſe ſnowts paſs by an Horizontal line thorow the laſt ſtory from one pinacle to the other; ſo that when they would remove the Town to another place (for they change the Air each ſeaſon)each one unfolds on one fide of his houſe large ſayls, juſt before the pipes of the bellows; then having bent a ſpring to make them play, their houſes, in leſs then eight dayes, by the continual guſts which thoſe windy Monſters vomit, are driven a hundred leagues: as for thoſe we call ſtable, they are almoſt like your Towers, except that they are of wood, and that they are pierced in the Centre, by a great and ſtrong Vice, which goes from the top to the bottom, to mount or diſmount them at pleaſure. 

The whole thing resembles more than a little Gulliver's Travels, though is (on the whole) less bitter and misanthropic. A sequel takes place in the Sun. 

A Discovery of New Worlds, by contrast, is an account of stargazing, in which a young astronomer instructs a young Marquise in the wonders of the cosmos. Accordingly, a lot of it is to do with orbital dynamics and Copernicus vs Ptolemy, but there are occasions for discussions of who dwells on the Moon and other worlds, and what sort of men they are. Do they fear eclipses, as men do on earth? Comparisons are drawn with the inhabitants of the New World prior to the arrival of Columbus; and, accordingly, the possibility of frequent travel between the Moon and Earth in time to come. There is also an extended passage discussing Ariosto - teachers now and then refer to cultural touchstones.

Then we have Micromegas. In which an inhabitant of the planet Sirius, the titular Micromegas has to leave the Sirian court after having written a heretical book - he was taught by that planet's Jesuits. They get everywhere! In journeying through the cosmos, he eventually lights on our solar system, and pays a visit to Earth in the company of a Saturnian. A problem presents itself: the Sirian is 24,000 feet tall and the Saturnian 6,800 feet tall. They eventually make microscopes to observe life on Earth, and begin conversations with a boatful of philosophers. Micromegas approves of Locke, but laughs mightily at the suggestions of a theologian from the Sorbonne quoting Thomas Aquinas, and promptly quits the scene.

What are we to make of all these? Well, one could see it as an evolution of astronomy: first the moon as fairyland, then the systematic examination of the solar system, then the vast beings and vaster distances of the galaxy. This is a narrow slice of Early Modern tales of star-faring, of course, so that's a little too glib. Indeed, the ideas don't only evolve: the use of microscopes and vast differences in scale in Micromegas are matched by discussion of a louse on a human body in Selēnarhia. There is the use of alien beings: Fontenelle's sober-ish speculation against Voltaire's whimsical culture-war puppets.

In any case, the attitudes and discussions are just those one might expect of TRoAPW. The curiosity for other worlds, the self-confidence, the whim and threat of lunar monarchs or star-archons - all might find a home in Calliste!

***

I did plan to read about Fairies in Space. Which is to say that I backed the Kickstarter for Queen Mab's Palace. It arrived a few weeks ago, and I have been slowly working my way through it.  

How to describe it? Well, we may turn to the author's own words:

This book is a Science-Fantasy Adventure story which follows the  a medieval scribe in his quest to to save six children, stolen from his village by Fairies and taken to Queen Mab's Palace.

The reader will quickly realise what the protagonist does not; this is no 'magic palace', but a gigantic, dying space ship, taken over by insane transhuman radicals and populated by mutants and loons. 

The author being, of course, Patrick Stuart. Queen Mab's Palace was illustrated by August Lake Cartland.

There's a few things to say about the conception of QMP. Much of it is detailed here, but I would note two things. First, that QMP was for a time meant to be read two ways: as a science fiction piece, and as a fantasy adventure - as in, one could flip the book around and read it right to left for a different experience. Second, that it was (like Stuart's other work) initially a game book: the structure of events, in which a quest has multiple destinations and interconnected possibilities presumably owes much to this, though this doesn't feel like an artefact of earlier versions (for reasons to be discussed below). The Appendices do, but this is a touch more charming and is integrated (or not-quite-integrated) into the story in a fitting fashion. The acquisition of a weapon, a map and a lamp in a bustling and mysterious market is a section that strikes one as very RPG; the division of weapons into man-killer, crowd-killer and Lady-killer is both a good moment to describe the world and enjoy the literary use of lists, and quite close to scrolling through the available weapons at an armourer in an RPG (the characterful purposes of such a categorisation are not lost on me).

A moment on art. The cover manages to be A) evocative, B) accurate but not slavish and C) good-looking. This is a hard set of qualities to fit together.

The interior illustrations tread a line between fantasy and science fiction, as they should, and largely do it well. Too far towards fantasy, and you get Arthur Rackham or Aubrey Beardsley. Too far towards science fiction and you get Chris Foss (whose mix of colour and detail and vastness would work quite well in places!) or H.R. Giger. Illustrations have to show some of the mechanical and high-science detail, along with the 'crunchy' chainmail and bracers and belts fantasy, and escaping into the impressionistic would be cheating. And it does this without summoning up comparison with John Blanche - who is good, but probably not good for fairies. Some elements dial up the whimsy too far, but an assertion of the artist's personal touch on the work is oft-times welcome, even where it doesn't quite align with text or tone (I've seen this said of Josh Kirby's illustrations for the Discworld, for instance, as contrasted with Paul Kidby). Bravo Cartland.

QMP's cover, shorn of the title. Found here. 

Having raised John Blanche, there is one way I think I would characterise QMP. The feudalistic or some-how devolved society in a generation ship is a well-established trope or feature of speculative fiction. Consider Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky, or Aldiss's Non-Stop, or Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. Likewise, consider the mingling of the feudal and futuristic in Dune or A Canticle for Leibowitz. QMP does something not immediately so different to all of these, but differs in two ways. First, in that the voice is somehow more medieval: as if the whole of QMP could be a string of allegorical scenes - or, rather, as if it is something strange and bewildering that is being communicated by one whose nearest reference point is colourful, complex allegory (almost as if the author is very familiar with Edmund Spenser). This isn't perhaps constant, but is frequent enough to matter. (I'd comment on Shelley's poem Queen Mab here if I had anything more than a superficial acquaintance with it).

Second, in that it lingers in the Blanche-esque. That needs explaining: John Blanche's illustrations for Warhammer 40,000 are well known (or, at least, presumably well-known if you've found your way here!) but aren't always 'in focus'. That is to say, they are set next to army lists and functional prose and stat-blocks, which pull one away from the madness and ruin of Blanche. What is more, it does this without becoming Ian Watson - or a toy commercial (see here and here; contrast discussions here). The new reader shouldn't expect too much in the way of Warhammer, but I think that this is a way to express an element of what's going on in QMP.

I take it that the Frenchmen and Fairies reading this will consider this a recommendation. Goodness knows what the Star-Archons make of it.

The Falcons that Eat Dreams

 ...I dared not speak of the beak of the King's falcon, but well I knew
how it flew through my sleep as now; a slither of wings beats on my face and
brings a hot iron to my heart....

Thomas Cranmer of Canterbury, Charles Williams

The king is troubled by bad dreams and a unquiet spirit. The usual solution has failed, due to the lack of a nearby shepherd boy with anything like the degree of necessary musical talent. But an alternative has emerged from an unseen quarter.

The falcons of the Argelephantine Mountains are said to be swiftest of fowls. A dream moves as quick as thought; a dream need follow no road or path or any track along the ground; a dream is an elusive thing, fading at the break of day. Therefore that which must pursue them must be keen-eyed, swift and possessed of the power of flight. So the king's falconer reasoned.

He set to training his birds, hitting a number of snags along the way.  Inducing them to pursue dreams was a troublesome process. One attempt, involving quantities of opium smoke, may have made the falcons of the Royal Mews see dreams, but did not do so in such a way as spurred their raptor's instincts. 

An alternative was found; the falconer found a broken-hearted young page-boy - whose dreams are transparently obvious, near to the surface of the mind and (if transient) quite potent in their composition. He was induced by alternate beatings and bribes to recount his dreams over several dead rabbits, which were used in lures to train the falcons in the pursuit and taste of dreams. 

The process needed to be repeated several times; fortunately, the court is a place where many dreams can be found, and the falconer is a strangely charismatic and masterful man who was able to suborn more than a few servants and courtiers for his purposes. In time, the falcons took to the air and began to feed on dreams themselves, removing the need for rabbits. They have developed since a certain, disturbing fixed gaze (even by the standards of raptors) and faintly purple eyes; the falconer has taken to making them new hoods, with a layer of silver leaf. They turn on a gyre woven of maidens' hair. Rune-graven bells ring at their talons.

But the falcons did exactly what they were meant to: plunging and seizing the fell dreams out of the sky at twilight. The king sleeps soundly. The falconer basks in acclaim and royal gifts. The page-boys are both beaten and bribed less. 

Of course, the applications for this kind of oneiro-accipitrarian technique have not gone unnoticed. What else is a spell, that sits in and over the mind of a wizard, but a kind of dream? Could not the falcons have some wider use?