So Jurgen abode at court, and was tolerably content for a little
while. He loved a princess, the fairest and most perfect of mortal
women; and loved her (a circumstance to which he frequently
recurred) as never any other man had loved in the world's history:
and very shortly he was to stand by and see her married to another.
Here was a situation to delight the chivalrous court of Glathion,
for every requirement of romance was exactly fulfilled.
Now the appearance of Guenevere, whom Jurgen loved with an entire
heart, was this:--She was of middling height, with a figure not yet
wholly the figure of a woman. She had fine and very thick hair, and
the color of it was the yellow of corn floss. When Guenevere undid
her hair it was a marvel to Jurgen to note how snugly this hair
descended about the small head and slender throat, and then
broadened boldly and clothed her with a loose soft foam of pallid
gold. For Jurgen delighted in her hair; and with increasing
intimacy, loved to draw great strands of it back of his head,
crossing them there, and pressing soft handfuls of her perfumed hair
against his cheeks as he kissed the Princess.
The head of Guenevere, be it repeated, was small: you wondered at
the proud free tossing movements of that little head which had to
sustain the weight of so much hair. The face of Guenevere was
colored tenderly and softly: it made the faces of other women seem
the work of a sign-painter, just splotched in anyhow. Gray eyes had
Guenevere, veiled by incredibly long black lashes that curved
incredibly. Her brows arched rather high above her eyes: that was
almost a fault. Her nose was delicate and saucy: her chin was
impudence made flesh: and her mouth was a tiny and irresistible
temptation.
"And so on, and so on! But indeed there is no sense at all in
describing this lovely girl as though I were taking an inventory of
my shopwindow," said Jurgen. "Analogues are all very well, and they
have the unanswerable sanction of custom: none the less, when I
proclaim that my adored mistress's hair reminds me of gold I am
quite consciously lying. It looks like yellow hair, and nothing
else: nor would I willingly venture within ten feet of any woman
whose head sprouted with wires, of whatever metal. And to protest
that her eyes are as gray and fathomless as the sea is very well
also, and the sort of thing which seems expected of me: but imagine
how horrific would be puddles of water slopping about in a lady's
eye-sockets! If we poets could actually behold the monsters we rhyme
of, we would scream and run. Still, I rather like this sirvente."
For he was making a sirvente in praise of Guenevere. It was the
pleasant custom of Gogyrvan's court that every gentleman must
compose verses in honor of the lady of whom he was hopelessly
enamored; as well as that in these verses he should address the lady
(as one whose name was too sacred to mention) otherwise than did her
sponsors. So Duke Jurgen of Logreus duly rhapsodized of his
Phyllida.
"I borrow for my dear love the appellation of that noted but by much
inferior lady who was beloved by Ariphus of Belsize," he explained.
"You will remember Poliger suspects she was a princess of the house of
Scleroveus: and you of course recall Pisander's masterly summing-up of
the probabilities, in his _Heraclea_."
"Oh, yes," they said. And the courtiers of Gogyrvan Gawr, like
Mother Sereda, were greatly impressed by young Duke Jurgen's
erudition.
For Jurgen was Duke of Logreus nowadays, with his glittering shirt
and the coronet upon his bridle to show for it. Awkwardly this
proved to be an earl's coronet, but incongruities are not always
inexplicable.
"It was Earl Giarmuid's horse. You have doubtless heard of Giarmuid:
but to ask that is insulting."
"Oh, not at all. It is humor. We perfectly understand your humor,
Duke Jurgen."
"And a very pretty fighter I found this famous Giarmuid as I
traveled westward. And since he killed my steed in the heat of our
conversation, I was compelled to take over his horse, after I had
given this poor Giarmuid proper interment. Oh, yes, a very pretty
fighter, and I had heard much talk of him in Logreus. He was Lord of
Ore and Persaunt, you remember, though of course the estate came by
his mother's side."
"Oh, yes," they said. "You must not think that we of Glathion are
quite shut out from the great world. We have heard of all these
affairs. And we have also heard fine things of your duchy of
Logreus, messire."
"Doubtless," said Jurgen; and turned again to his singing.
"Lo, for I pray to thee, resistless Love," he descanted, "that thou
to-day make cry unto my love, to Phyllida whom I, poor Logreus, love
so tenderly, not to deny me love! Asked why, say thou my drink and
food is love, in days wherein I think and brood on love, and truly
find naught good in aught save love, since Phyllida hath taught me
how to love."
Here Jurgen groaned with nicely modulated ardor; and he continued:
"If she avow such constant hate of love as would ignore my great and
constant love, plead thou no more! With listless lore of love woo
Death resistlessly, resistless Love, in place of her that saith such
scorn of love as lends to Death the lure and grace I love."
Thus Jurgen sang melodiously of his Phyllida, and meant thereby (as
everybody knew) the Princess Guenevere. Since custom compelled him
to deal in analogues, he dealt wholesale. Gems and metals, the
blossoms of the field and garden, fires and wounds and sunrises and
perfumes, an armory of lethal weapons, ice and a concourse of
mythological deities were his starting-point. Then the seas
and heavens were dredged of phenomena to be mentioned with
disparagement, in comparison with one or another feature of Duke
Jurgen's Phyllida. Zoology and history, and generally the remembered
contents of his pawnshop, were overhauled and made to furnish
targets for depreciation: whereas in dealing with the famous ladies
loved by earlier poets, Duke Jurgen was positively insulting,
allowing hardly a rag of merit. Still, he was careful to be just:
and he allowed that these poor creatures might figure advantageously
enough in eyes which had never beheld his Phyllida. And to all this
information the lady whom he hymned attended willingly.
"She is a princess," reflected Jurgen. "She is quite beautiful. She
is young, and whatever her father's opinion, she is reasonably
intelligent, as women go. Nobody could ask more. Why, then, am I not
out of my head about her? Already she permits a kiss or two when
nobody is around, and presently she will permit more. And she thinks
I am quite the cleverest person living. Come, Jurgen, man! is there
no heart in this spry young body you have regained? Come, let us
have a little honest rapture and excitement over this promising
situation!"
But somehow Jurgen could not manage it. He was interested in what,
he knew, was going to happen. Yes, undoubtedly he looked forward to
more intimate converse with this beautiful young princess, but it
was rather as one anticipates partaking of a favorite dessert.
Jurgen felt that a liaison arranged for in this spirit was neither
one thing or the other.
"If only I could feel like a cold-blooded villain, now, I would at
worst be classifiable. But I intend the girl no harm, I am honestly
fond of her. I shall talk my best, broaden her ideas, and give her,
I flatter myself, considerable pleasure: vulgar prejudices apart, I
shall leave her no whit the worse. Why, the dear little thing, not
for the ransom of seven emperors would I do her any hurt! And in
these matters discretion is everything, simply everything. No, quite
decidedly, I am not a cold-blooded villain; and I shall deal fairly
with the Princess."
Thus Jurgen was disappointed by his own emotions, as he turned them
from side to side, and prodded them, and shifted to a fresh
viewpoint, only to find it no more favorable than the one
relinquished: but he veiled the inadequacy of his emotions with very
moving fervors. The tale does not record his conversations with
Guenevere: for Jurgen now discoursed plain idiocy, as one purveys
sweetmeats to a child in fond astonishment at the pet's appetite.
And leisurely Jurgen advanced: there was no hurry, with weeks
wherein to accomplish everything: meanwhile this routine work had a
familiar pleasantness.
For the amateur co-ordinates matters, knowing that one thing
axiomatically leads to another. There is no harm at all in
respectful allusions to a love that comprehends its hopelessness: it
was merely a fact which Jurgen mentioned, and was about to pass on;
only Guenevere, in modesty, was forced to disparage her own
attractions, as an inadequate cause for so much misery. Common
courtesy demanded that Jurgen enter upon a rebuttal. To emphasize
one point in this, the orator was forced to take the hand of his
audience: but strangers did that every day, with nobody objecting;
moreover, the hand was here, not so much seized as displayed by its
detainer, as evidence of what he contended. How else was he to prove
the Princess of Glathion had the loveliest hand in the world? It was
not a matter he could request Guenevere to accept on hearsay: and
Jurgen wanted to deal fairly with her.
Well, but before relinquishing the loveliest hand in the world a
connoisseur will naturally kiss each fingertip: this is merely a
tribute to perfection, and has no personal application. Besides, a
kiss, wherever deposited, as Jurgen pointed out, is, when you think
of it, but a ceremonial, of no intrinsic wrongfulness. The girl
demurring against this apothegm--as custom again exacted,--was,
still in common fairness, convinced of her error. So now, says
Jurgen presently, you see for yourself. Is anything changed between
us? Do we not sit here, just as we were before? Why, to be sure! a
kiss is now attestedly a quite innocuous performance, with nothing
very fearful about it one way or the other. It even has its pleasant
side. Thus there is no need to make a pother over kisses or over an
arm about you, when it is more comfortable sitting so: how can one
reasonably deny to a sincere friend what is accorded to a cousin or
an old cloak? It would be nonsense, as Jurgen demonstrated with a
very apt citation from Napsacus.
Then, sitting so, in the heat of conversation a speaker naturally
gesticulates: and a deal of his eloquence is dependent upon his
hands. When anyone is talking it is discourteous to interrupt,
whereas to lay hold of a gentleman's hand outright, as Jurgen
parenthesized, is a little forward. No, he really did not think it
would be quite proper for Guenevere to hold his hand. Let us
preserve decorum, even in trifles.
"Ah, but you know that you are doing wrong!"
"I doing wrong! I, who am simply sitting here and talking my poor
best in an effort to entertain you! Come now, Princess, but tell me
what you mean!"
"You should know very well what I mean."
"But I protest to you I have not the least notion. How can I
possibly know what you mean when you refuse to tell me what you
mean?"
And since the Princess declined to put into words just what she
meant, things stayed as they were, for the while.
Thus did Jurgen co-ordinate matters, knowing that one thing
axiomatically leads to another. And in short, affairs sped very much
as Jurgen had anticipated.
Now, by ordinary, Jurgen talked with Guenevere in dimly lighted
places. He preferred this, because then he was not bothered by that
unaccountable shadow whose presence in sunlight put him out. Nobody
ever seemed to notice this preposterous shadow; it was patent,
indeed, that nobody could see it save Jurgen: none the less, the
thing worried him. So even from the first he remembered Guenevere as
a soft voice and a delectable perfume in twilight, as a beauty not
clearly visioned.
And Gogyrvan's people worried him. The hook-nosed tall old King had
been by Jurgen dismissed from thought, as an enigma not important
enough to be worth the trouble of solving. Gogyrvan at once seemed
to be schooling himself to patience under some private annoyance and
to be revolving in his mind some private jest; he was queer, and
probably abominable: but to grant the old rascal his due, he was not
meddlesome.
The people about Gogyrvan, though, were perplexing. These men who
considered that all you possessed was loaned you to devote to the
service of your God, your King and every woman who crossed your
path, could hardly be behaving rationally. To talk of serving God
sounded as sonorously and as inspiritingly as a drum: yes, and a
drum had nothing but air in it. The priests said so-and-so: but did
anybody believe the gallant Bishop of Merion, for example, was
always to be depended upon?
"I would like the opinion of Prince Evrawc's wife as to that," said
Jurgen, with a grin. For it was well-known that all affairs between
this Dame Alundyne and the Bishop were so discreetly managed as to
afford no reason for any scandal whatever.
As for serving the King, there in plain view was Gogyrvan Gawr, for
anyone who so elected, to regard and grow enthusiastic over:
Gogyrvan might be shrewd enough, but to Jurgen he suggested very
little of the Lord's anointed. To the contrary, he reminded you of
Jurgen's brother-in-law, the grocer, without being graced by the
tradesman's friendly interest in customers. Gogyrvan Gawr was a
person whom Jurgen simply could not imagine any intelligent Deity
selecting as steward. And finally, when it came to serving women,
what sort of service did women most cordially appreciate? Jurgen had
his answer pat enough, but it was an answer not suitable for
utterance in a mixed company.
"No one of my honest opinions, in fact, is adapted to further my
popularity in Glathion, because I am a monstrous clever fellow who
does justice to things as they are. Therefore I must remember
always, in justice to myself, that I very probably hold traffic with
madmen. Yet Rome was a fine town, and it was geese who saved it.
These people may be right; and certainly I cannot go so far as to
say they are wrong: but still, at the same time--! Yes, that is how
I feel about it."
Thus did Jurgen abide at the chivalrous court of Glathion, and
conform to all its customs. In the matter of love-songs nobody
protested more movingly that the lady whom he loved (quite
hopelessly, of course), embodied all divine perfections: and when it
came to knightly service, the possession of Caliburn made the
despatching of thieves and giants and dragons seem hardly
sportsmanlike. Still, Jurgen fought a little, now and then, in order
to conform to the customs of Glathion: and the Duke of Logreus was
widely praised as a very promising young knight.
And all the while he fretted because he could just dimly perceive
that ideal which was served in Glathion, and the beauty of this
ideal, but could not possibly believe in it. Here was, again, a
loveliness perceived in twilight, a beauty not clearly visioned.
"Yet am not I a monstrous clever fellow," he would console himself,
"to take them all in so completely? It is a joke to which, I think,
I do full justice."
So Jurgen abode among these persons to whom life was a high-hearted
journeying homeward. God the Father awaited you there, ready to
punish at need, but eager to forgive, after the manner of all
fathers: that one became a little soiled in traveling, and sometimes
blundered into the wrong lane, was a matter which fathers
understood: meanwhile here was an ever-present reminder of His
perfection incarnated in woman, the finest and the noblest of His
creations. Thus was every woman a symbol to be honored magnanimously
and reverently. So said they all.
"Why, but to be sure!" assented Jurgen. And in support of his
position he very edifyingly quoted Ophelion, and Fabianus Papirius,
and Sextius Niger to boot.
15.