Sylvia, Queen of the Woods, in her woodland palace, held court, and
made a mockery of her suitors. She would sing to them, she said, she
would give them banquets, she would tell them tales of legendary days,
her jugglers should caper before them, her armies salute them, her
fools crack jests with them and make whimsical quips, only she could
not love them.
This was not the way, they said, to treat princes in their splendour
and mysterious troubadours concealing kingly names; it was not in
accordance with fable; myth had no precedent for it. She should have
thrown her glove, they said, into some lion's den, she should have
asked for a score of venomous heads of the serpents of Licantara, or
demanded the death of any notable dragon, or sent them all upon some
deadly quest, but that she could not love them--! It was unheard
of--it had no parallel in the annals of romance.
And then she said that if they must needs have a quest she would offer
her hand to him who first should move her to tears: and the quest
should be called, for reference in histories or song, the Quest of the
Queen's Tears, and he that achieved them she would wed, be he only a
petty duke of lands unknown to romance.
And many were moved to anger, for they hoped for some bloody quest;
but the old lords chamberlain said, as they muttered among themselves
in a far, dark end of the chamber, that the quest was hard and wise,
for that if she could ever weep she might also love. They had known
her all her childhood; she had never sighed. Many men had she seen,
suitors and courtiers, and had never turned her head after one went
by. Her beauty was as still sunsets of bitter evenings when all the
world is frore, a wonder and a chill. She was as a sun-stricken
mountain uplifted alone, all beautiful with ice, a desolate and lonely
radiance late at evening far up beyond the comfortable world, not
quite to be companioned by the stars, the doom of the mountaineer.
If she could weep, they said, she could love, they said.
And she smiled pleasantly on those ardent princes, and troubadours
concealing kingly names.
Then one by one they told, each suitor prince the story of his love,
with outstretched hands and kneeling on the knee; and very sorry and
pitiful were the tales, so that often up in the galleries some maid of
the palace wept. And very graciously she nodded her head like a
listless magnolia in the deeps of the night moving idly to all the
breezes its glorious bloom.
And when the princes had told their desperate loves and had departed
away with no other spoil than of their own tears only, even then there
came the unknown troubadours and told their tales in song, concealing
their gracious names.
And there was one, Ackronnion, clothed with rags, on which was the
dust of roads, and underneath the rags was war-scarred armour whereon
were the dints of blows; and when he stroked his harp and sang his song,
in the gallery above maidens wept, and even old lords chamberlain
whimpered among themselves and thereafter laughed through their tears
and said: "It is easy to make old people weep and to bring idle tears
from lazy girls; but he will not set a-weeping the Queen of the
Woods."
And graciously she nodded, and he was the last. And disconsolate went
away those dukes and princes, and troubadours in disguise. Yet
Ackronnion pondered as he went away.
King he was of Afarmah, Lool and Haf, over-lord of Zeroora and hilly
Chang, and duke of the dukedoms of Molong and Mlash, none of them
unfamiliar with romance or unknown or overlooked in the making of
myth. He pondered as he went in his thin disguise.
Now by those that do not remember their childhood, having other things
to do, be it understood that underneath fairyland, which is, as all
men know, at the edge of the world, there dwelleth the Gladsome Beast.
A synonym he for joy.
It is known how the lark in its zenith, children at play out-of-doors,
good witches and jolly old parents have all been compared--how
aptly!--with this very same Gladsome Beast. Only one "crab" he has (if
I may use slang for a moment to make myself perfectly clear), only one
drawback, and that is that in the gladness of his heart he spoils the
cabbages of the Old Man Who Looks After Fairyland,--and of course he
eats men.
It must further be understood that whoever may obtain the tears of the
Gladsome Beast in a bowl, and become drunken upon them, may move all
persons to shed tears of joy so long as he remains inspired by the
potion to sing or to make music.
Now Ackronnion pondered in this wise: that if he could obtain the
tears of the Gladsome Beast by means of his art, withholding him from
violence by the spell of music, and if a friend should slay the
Gladsome Beast before his weeping ceased--for an end must come to
weeping even with men--that so he might get safe away with the tears,
and drink them before the Queen of the Woods and move her to tears of
joy. He sought out therefore a humble knightly man who cared not for
the beauty of Sylvia, Queen of the Woods, but had found a woodland
maiden of his own once long ago in summer. And the man's name was
Arrath, a subject of Ackronnion, a knight-at-arms of the spear-guard:
and together they set out through the fields of fable until they came
to Fairyland, a kingdom sunning itself (as all men know) for leagues
along the edges of the world. And by a strange old pathway they came
to the land they sought, through a wind blowing up the pathway sheer
from space with a kind of metallic taste from the roving stars. Even
so they came to the windy house of thatch where dwells the Old Man Who
Looks After Fairyland sitting by parlour windows that look away from
the world. He made them welcome in his star-ward parlour, telling them
tales of Space, and when they named to him their perilous quest he
said it would be a charity to kill the Gladsome Beast; for he was
clearly one of those that liked not its happy ways. And then he took
them out through his back door, for the front door had no pathway nor
even a step--from it the old man used to empty his slops sheer on to
the Southern Cross--and so they came to the garden wherein his
cabbages were, and those flowers that only blow in Fairyland, turning
their faces always towards the comet, and he pointed them out the way
to the place he called Underneath, where the Gladsome Beast had his
lair. Then they manoeuvred. Ackronnion was to go by the way of the
steps with his harp and an agate bowl, while Arrath went round by a
crag on the other side. Then the Old Man Who Looks After Fairyland
went back to his windy house, muttering angrily as he passed his
cabbages, for he did not love the ways of the Gladsome Beast; and the
two friends parted on their separate ways.
Nothing perceived them but that ominous crow glutted overlong already
upon the flesh of man.
The wind blew bleak from the stars.
At first there was dangerous climbing, and then Ackronnion gained the
smooth, broad steps that led from the edge to the lair, and at that
moment heard at the top of the steps the continuous chuckles of the
Gladsome Beast.
He feared then that its mirth might be insuperable, not to be saddened
by the most grievous song; nevertheless he did not turn back then, but
softly climbed the stairs and, placing the agate bowl upon a step,
struck up the chaunt called Dolorous. It told of desolate, regretted
things befallen happy cities long since in the prime of the world. It
told of how the gods and beasts and men had long ago loved beautiful
companions, and long ago in vain. It told of the golden host of happy
hopes, but not of their achieving. It told how Love scorned Death, but
told of Death's laughter. The contented chuckles of the Gladsome Beast
suddenly ceased in his lair. He rose and shook himself. He was still
unhappy. Ackronnion still sang on the chaunt called Dolorous. The
Gladsome Beast came mournfully up to him. Ackronnion ceased not for
the sake of his panic, but still sang on. He sang of the malignity of
time. Two tears welled large in the eyes of the Gladsome Beast.
Ackronnion moved the agate bowl to a suitable spot with his foot. He
sang of autumn and of passing away. Then the beast wept as the frore
hills weep in the thaw, and the tears splashed big into the agate
bowl. Ackronnion desperately chaunted on; he told of the glad
unnoticed things men see and do not see again, of sunlight beheld
unheeded on faces now withered away. The bowl was full. Ackronnion was
desperate: the Beast was so close. Once he thought that its mouth was
watering!--but it was only the tears that had run on the lips of the
Beast. He felt as a morsel! The Beast was ceasing to weep! He sang of
worlds that had disappointed the gods. And all of a sudden, crash! and
the staunch spear of Arrath went home behind the shoulder, and the
tears and the joyful ways of the Gladsome Beast were ended and over
for ever.
And carefully they carried the bowl of tears away, leaving the body of
the Gladsome Beast as a change of diet for the ominous crow; and going
by the windy house of thatch they said farewell to the Old Man Who
Looks After Fairyland, who when he heard of the deed rubbed his hands
together and mumbled again and again, "And a very good thing, too. My
cabbages! My cabbages!"
And not long after Ackronnion sang again in the sylvan palace of the
Queen of the Woods, having first drunk all the tears in his agate
bowl. And it was a gala night, and all the court were there and
ambassadors from the lands of legend and myth, and even some from
Terra Cognita.
And Ackronnion sang as he never sang before, and will not sing again.
O, but dolorous, dolorous, are all the ways of man, few and fierce are
his days, and the end trouble, and vain, vain his endeavour: and
woman--who shall tell of it?--her doom is written with man's by
listless, careless gods with their faces to other spheres.
Somewhat thus he began, and then inspiration seized him, and all the
trouble in the beauty of his song may not be set down by me: there was
much of gladness in it, and all mingled with grief: it was like the
way of man: it was like our destiny.
Sobs arose at his song, sighs came back along echoes: seneschals,
soldiers, sobbed, and a clear cry made the maidens; like rain the
tears came down from gallery to gallery.
All round the Queen of the Woods was a storm of sobbing and sorrow.
But no, she would not weep.