_"Nescio quid certè est: et Hylax in limine latrat."_
_A Foreword: Which Asserts Nothing._
In Continental periodicals not more than a dozen articles in all
would seem to have given accounts or partial translations of the
Jurgen legends. No thorough investigation of this epos can be said
to have appeared in print, anywhere, prior to the publication, in
1913, of the monumental _Synopses of Aryan Mythology_ by Angelo
de Ruiz. It is unnecessary to observe that in this exhaustive digest
Professor de Ruiz has given (VII, p. 415 _et sequentia_) a
summary of the greater part of these legends as contained in the
collections of Verville and Bülg; and has discussed at length and
with much learning the esoteric meaning of these folk-stories and
their bearing upon questions to which the "solar theory" of myth
explanation has given rise. To his volumes, and to the pages of Mr.
Lewistam's _Key to the Popular Tales of Poictesme_, must be
referred all those who may elect to think of Jurgen as the
resplendent, journeying and procreative sun.
Equally in reading hereinafter will the judicious waive all
allegorical interpretation, if merely because the suggestions
hitherto advanced are inconveniently various. Thus Verville
finds the Nessus shirt a symbol of retribution, where Bülg,
with rather wide divergence, would have it represent the dangerous
gift of genius. Then it may be remembered that Dr. Codman says,
without any hesitancy, of Mother Sereda: "This Mother Middle is
the world generally (an obvious anagram of _Erda es_), and this
Sereda rules not merely the middle of the working-days but the
midst of everything. She is the factor of _middleness_, of
mediocrity, of an avoidance of extremes, of the eternal compromise
begotten by use and wont. She is the Mrs. Grundy of the Léshy; she is
Comstockery: and her shadow is common-sense." Yet Codman speaks with
certainly no more authority than Prote, when the latter, in his
_Origins of Fable_, declares this epos is "a parable of ... man's
vain journeying in search of that rationality and justice which his
nature craves, and discovers nowhere in the universe: and the shirt
is an emblem of this instinctive craving, as ... the shadow symbolizes
conscience. Sereda typifies a surrender to life as it is, a giving up
of man's rebellious self-centredness and selfishness: the anagram being
_se dare_."
Thus do interpretations throng and clash, and neatly equal the
commentators in number. Yet possibly each one of these unriddlings,
with no doubt a host of others, is conceivable: so that wisdom will
dwell upon none of them very seriously.
With the origin and the occult meaning of the folklore of Poictesme
this book at least is in no wise concerned: its unambitious aim has
been merely to familiarize English readers with the Jurgen epos for
the tale's sake. And this tale of old years is one which, by rare
fortune, can be given to English readers almost unabridged, in view
of the singular delicacy and pure-mindedness of the Jurgen mythos:
in all, not more than a half-dozen deletions have seemed expedient
(and have been duly indicated) in order to remove such sparse and
unimportant outcroppings of mediæval frankness as might conceivably
offend the squeamish.
Since this volume is presented simply as a story to be read for
pastime, neither morality nor symbolism is hereinafter educed, and
no "parallels" and "authorities" are quoted. Even the gaps are left
unbridged by guesswork: whereas the historic and mythological
problems perhaps involved are relinquished to those really
thoroughgoing scholars whom erudition qualifies to deal with such
topics, and tedium does not deter....
In such terms, and thus far, ran the Foreword to the first issues of
this book, whose later fortunes have made necessary the lengthening
of the Foreword with a postscript. The needed addition--this much at
least chiming with good luck--is brief. It is just that fragment
which some scholars, since the first appearance of this volume, have
asserted--upon what perfect frankness must describe as not
indisputable grounds--to be a portion of the thirty-second chapter
of the complete form of _La Haulte Histoire de Jurgen_.
And in reply to what these scholars assert, discretion says nothing.
For this fragment was, of course, unknown when the High History was
first put into English, and there in consequence appears, here,
little to be won either by endorsing or denying its claims to
authenticity. Rather, does discretion prompt the appending, without
any gloss or scholia, of this fragment, which deals with
_The Judging of Jurgen._
Now a court was held by the Philistines to decide whether or no King
Jurgen should be relegated to limbo. And when the judges were
prepared for judging, there came into the court a great tumblebug,
rolling in front of him his loved and properly housed young ones.
With the creature came pages, in black and white, bearing a sword, a
staff and a lance.
This insect looked at Jurgen, and its pincers rose erect in horror.
The bug cried to the three judges, "Now, by St. Anthony! this Jurgen
must forthwith be relegated to limbo, for he is offensive and lewd
and lascivious and indecent."
"And how can that be?" says Jurgen.
"You are offensive," the bug replied, "because this page has a sword
which I choose to say is not a sword. You are lewd because that page
has a lance which I prefer to think is not a lance. You are
lascivious because yonder page has a staff which I elect to declare
is not a staff. And finally, you are indecent for reasons of which a
description would be objectionable to me, and which therefore I must
decline to reveal to anybody."
"Well, that sounds logical," says Jurgen, "but still, at the same
time, it would be no worse for an admixture of common-sense. For you
gentlemen can see for yourselves, by considering these pages fairly
and as a whole, that these pages bear a sword and a lance and a
staff, and nothing else whatever; and you will deduce, I hope, that
all the lewdness is in the insectival mind of him who itches to be
calling these things by other names."
The judges said nothing as yet. But they that guarded Jurgen, and
all the other Philistines, stood to this side and to that side with
their eyes shut tight, and all these said: "We decline to look at
the pages fairly and as a whole, because to look might seem to imply
a doubt of what the tumblebug has decreed. Besides, as long as the
tumblebug has reasons which he declines to reveal, his reasons stay
unanswerable, and you are plainly a prurient rascal who are making
trouble for yourself."
"To the contrary," says Jurgen, "I am a poet, and I make
literature."
"But in Philistia to make literature and to make trouble for
yourself are synonyms," the tumblebug explained. "I know, for
already we of Philistia have been pestered by three of these makers
of literature. Yes, there was Edgar, whom I starved and hunted until
I was tired of it: then I chased him up a back alley one night, and
knocked out those annoying brains of his. And there was Walt, whom I
chivvied and battered from place to place, and made a paralytic of
him: and him, too, I labelled offensive and lewd and lascivious and
indecent. Then later there was Mark, whom I frightened into
disguising himself in a clown's suit, so that nobody might suspect
him to be a maker of literature: indeed, I frightened him so that he
hid away the greater part of what he had made until after he was
dead, and I could not get at him. That was a disgusting trick to
play on me, I consider. Still, these are the only three detected
makers of literature that have ever infested Philistia, thanks be to
goodness and my vigilance, but for both of which we might have been
no more free from makers of literature than are the other
countries."
"Now, but these three," cried Jurgen, "are the glory of Philistia:
and of all that Philistia has produced, it is these three alone,
whom living ye made least of, that to-day are honored wherever art
is honored, and where nobody bothers one way or the other about
Philistia."
"What is art to me and my way of living?" replied the tumblebug,
wearily. "I have no concern with art and letters and the other lewd
idols of foreign nations. I have in charge the moral welfare of my
young, whom I roll here before me, and trust with St. Anthony's aid
to raise in time to be God-fearing tumblebugs like me, delighting in
what is proper to their nature. For the rest, I have never minded
dead men being well-spoken-of. No, no, my lad: once whatever I may
do means nothing to you, and once you are really rotten, you will
find the tumblebug friendly enough. Meanwhile I am paid to protest
that living persons are offensive and lewd and lascivious and
indecent, and one must live."
Then the Philistines who stood to this side and to that side said in
indignant unison: "And we, the reputable citizenry of Philistia, are
not at all in sympathy with those who would take any protest against
the tumblebug as a justification of what they are pleased to call
art. The harm done by the tumblebug seems to us very slight, whereas
the harm done by the self-styled artist may be very great."
Jurgen now looked more attentively at this queer creature: and he
saw that the tumblebug was malodorous, certainly, but at bottom
honest and well-meaning; and this seemed to Jurgen the saddest thing
he had found among the Philistines. For the tumblebug was sincere in
his insane doings, and all Philistia honored him sincerely, so that
there was nowhere any hope for this people.
Therefore King Jurgen addressed himself, as his need was, to submit
to the strange customs of the Philistines. "Now do you judge me
fairly," cried Jurgen to his judges, "if there be any justice in
this mad country. And if there be none, do you relegate me to limbo
or to any other place, so long as in that place this tumblebug is
not omnipotent and sincere and insane."
And Jurgen waited....
* * * * *