Mardi: Chapter 63

Chapter 63

Odo And Its Lord

Time now to enter upon some further description of the island and its
lord.

And first for Media: a gallant gentleman and king. From a goodly
stock he came. In his endless pedigree, reckoning deities by
decimals, innumerable kings, and scores of great heroes, chiefs, and
priests. Nor in person, did he belie his origin. No far-descended
dwarf was he, the least of a receding race. He stood like a palm
tree; about whose acanthus capital droops not more gracefully the
silken fringes, than Media's locks upon his noble brow. Strong was
his arm to wield the club, or hurl the javelin; and potent, I ween,
round a maiden's waist.

Thus much here for Media. Now comes his isle.

Our pleasant ramble found it a little round world by itself; full of
beauties as a garden; chequered by charming groves; watered by roving
brooks; and fringed all round by a border of palm trees, whose roots
drew nourishment from the water. But though abounding in other
quarters of the Archipelago, not a solitary bread-fruit grew in Odo.
A noteworthy circumstance, observable in these regions, where islands
close adjoining, so differ in their soil, that certain fruits growing
genially in one, are foreign to another. But Odo was famed for its
guavas, whose flavor was likened to the flavor of new-blown lips; and
for its grapes, whose juices prompted many a laugh and many a groan.

Beside the city where Media dwelt, there were few other
clusters of habitations in Odo. The higher classes living, here and
there, in separate households; but not as eremites. Some buried
themselves in the cool, quivering bosoms of the groves. Others,
fancying a marine vicinity, dwelt hard by the beach in little cages
of bamboo; whence of mornings they sallied out with jocund cries, and
went plunging into the refreshing bath, whose frothy margin was the
threshold of their dwellings. Others still, like birds, built their
nests among the sylvan nooks of the elevated interior; whence all
below, and hazy green, lay steeped in languor the island's throbbing
heart.

Thus dwelt the chiefs and merry men of mark. The common sort,
including serfs, and Helots, war-captives held in bondage, lived in
secret places, hard to find. Whence it came, that, to a stranger, the
whole isle looked care-free and beautiful. Deep among the ravines and
the rocks, these beings lived in noisome caves, lairs for beasts, not
human homes; or built them coops of rotten boughs--living trees were
banned them--whose mouldy hearts hatched vermin. Fearing infection of
some plague, born of this filth, the chiefs of Odo seldom passed that
way and looking round within their green retreats, and pouring out
their wine, and plucking from orchards of the best, marveled how
these swine could grovel in the mire, and wear such sallow cheeks.
But they offered no sweet homes; from that mire they never sought to
drag them out; they open threw no orchard; and intermitted not the
mandates that condemned their drudges to a life of deaths. Sad sight!
to see those round-shouldered Helots, stooping in their trenches:
artificial, three in number, and concentric: the isle well nigh
surrounding. And herein, fed by oozy loam, and kindly dew from
heaven, and bitter sweat from men, grew as in hot-beds the nutritious
Taro.

Toil is man's allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief
that's more than either, the grief and sin of idleness. But when man
toils and slays himself for masters who withhold the life he
gives to them--then, then, the soul screams out, and every sinew
cracks. So with these poor serfs. And few of them could choose but be
the brutes they seemed.

Now needs it to be said, that Odo was no land of pleasure unalloyed,
and plenty without a pause?--Odo, in whose lurking-places infants
turned from breasts, whence flowed no nourishment.--Odo, in whose
inmost haunts, dark groves were brooding, passing which you heard
most dismal cries, and voices cursing Media. There, men were
scourged; their crime, a heresy; the heresy, that Media was no
demigod. For this they shrieked. Their fathers shrieked before; their
fathers, who, tormented, said, "Happy we to groan, that our
children's children may be glad." But their children's children
howled. Yet these, too, echoed previous generations, and loudly
swore, "The pit that's dug for us may prove another's grave."

But let all pass. To look at, and to roam about of holidays, Odo
seemed a happy land. The palm-trees waved--though here and there you
marked one sear and palsy-smitten; the flowers bloomed--though dead
ones moldered in decay; the waves ran up the strand in glee--though,
receding, they sometimes left behind bones mixed with shells.

But else than these, no sign of death was seen throughout the isle.
Did men in Odo live for aye? Was Ponce de Leon's fountain there? For
near and far, you saw no ranks and files of graves, no generations
harvested in winrows. In Odo, no hard-hearted nabob slept beneath a
gentle epitaph; no _requiescat-in-pace_ mocked a sinner damned; no
_memento-mori_ admonished men to live while yet they might. Here
Death hid his skull; and hid it in the sea, the common sepulcher of
Odo. Not dust to dust, but dust to brine; not hearses but canoes. For
all who died upon that isle were carried out beyond the outer reef,
and there were buried with their sires' sires. Hence came the
thought, that of gusty nights, when round the isles, and high
toward heaven, flew the white reef's rack and foam, that then and
there, kept chattering watch and ward, the myriads that were ocean-
tombed.

But why these watery obsequies?

Odo was but a little isle, and must the living make way for the dead,
and Life's small colony be dislodged by Death's grim hosts; as the
gaunt tribes of Tamerlane o'erspread the tented pastures of the Khan?

And now, what follows, said these Islanders: "Why sow corruption in
the soil which yields us life? We would not pluck our grapes from
over graves. This earth's an urn for flowers, not for ashes."

They said that Oro, the supreme, had made a cemetery of the sea.

And what more glorious grave? Was Mausolus more sublimely urned? Or
do the minster-lamps that burn before the tomb of Charlemagne, show
more of pomp, than all the stars, that blaze above the shipwrecked
mariner?

But no more of the dead; men shrug their shoulders, and love not
their company; though full soon we shall all have them for fellows.

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