The Way of Ecben. A Comedietta Involving a Gentleman

The Biography of Manuel #23

by James Branch Cabell

Fantasy

Genres: Fantasy, Speculative Fiction

209 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

James Branch Cabell was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres. Cabell was well regarded by his contemporaries, including H. L. Mencken, Edmund Wilson, and Sinclair Lewis. His works were considered escapist and fit well in the culture of the 1920s, when they were most popular. For Cabell, veracity was "the one unpardonable sin, not merely against art, but against human welfare."

Reviews

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Way of Ecben, published in 1929, is the final piece in the Biography of the Life of Manuel. The Way of Ecben was collected together with several other shorter works in Volume 18 of the Storisende edition of the Biography, the final volume—including also The White Robe, Townsend of Lichfield, Taboo, and Sonnets from Antan. (Townsend of Lichfield as a separate volume has a nominal publication date of 1930, after The Way of Ecben, but may we suppose that the biographical material of Townsend of Lichfield must have existed in Cabell’s notes in completed form before publication of The Way of Ecben.) In addition, The Way of Ecben is the third and last component of Cabell’s witch-woman books, including also The Music from Behind the Moon and The White Robe, which were gathered together in The Witch-Woman in 1948.

The Robert M. McBride first edition of The Way of Ecben contains “decorations” throughout by Cabell’s primary artist, Frank C. Papé. These illustrations are smaller drawings by Papé, and without the complexity and attraction of the full-page photogravure plates in Figures of Earth, The Silver Stallion, Jurgen, and so on. Nevertheless, they add a whimsical touch to The Way of Ecben, and I recommend always to read the illustrated editions of Cabell’s works, especially those with the Papé drawings. The McBride edition has a fine gold design on the cover and includes a slipcase with the same design. Page numbers below refer to this edition of The Way of Ecben.

The book begins,

Now it was in the night season of his marriage eve that a dream came upon King Alfgar. Through his dreaming a music went wandering. It was a far-off music not very clearly heard, and a music, which, he knew, was not of this world. But there was a sorcery in this bitter music he knew also, for it held him motionless. (p. 23)

This is the same music of The Music from Behind the Moon, made by the witch-woman, Ettarre. In any case, Alfgar must now give up his realm (having just won a war), along with his impending marriage to the beautiful Ettaine, and wander the world in search of Ettarre and her music. Cabell confirms, “… these things he had put far behind him now, so that he might be following after that Ettarre whom a poet fetched from out of the Waste Beyond the Moon, to be alike the derider and the prey and the destroyer of mankind” (p. 117). Of course, the poet who recalled Ettarre from the Waste Beyond the Moon is none other than Madoc from The Music from Behind the Moon.

Interestingly, Horvendile is connected with Ettarre in The Way of Ecben. Horvendile, I think it’s accurate to say, is Cabell’s alter-ego in his works. Cabell refers to “Horvendile and his Ettarre” (p. 24). Does it mean Horvendile is the consort of Ettarre, or more likely, does it mean simply that Ettarre is one of Horvendile’s auctorial creations? Later on, Cabell writes,

Some say this Horvendile is that same Madoc who first fetched Ettarre from out of the grey Waste Beyond the Moon, to live upon our earth in many bodies. The truth of this report is not certainly known. But it is known that these two pass down the years in a not ever ending severance which is their union. And it is known that in their passing they allure men out of the set ways of life, and so play wildly with the lives of men for their diversion. As they beguiled Alfgar, so have these beguiled a great sad host of other persons upon whom Horvendile and Ettarre have put a summoning for their diversion’s sake, lest these two immortals should think too heavily of their own doom. (pp. 150-151)

Thus, we discover the apparent identity of Horvendile and Madoc. The paragraph cited above clearly summarizes of the role of Ettarre, and presumably of Horvendile too, in the Biography of the Life of Manuel. Cabell writes, “For each of these tricked lovers knows that it is but an empty shining, and that, thus, each follows after the derisive shadow of a love which the long years have not made real” (p. 151).

Along the way, Alfgar has a number of mystical and fantastic adventures, and the book as a whole reads like a kind of allegory. Generally, the people and creatures Alfgar encounters mean him no good, but, for example, they spare his life “… because upon this aging and frail wanderer they found the mark of the witch-woman whose magic is more strong than is the magic of time which overthrows the altar of every god” (p. 72).

We find in Chapter 1 of the Colophon appended to The Way of Ecben, that originally the story of the witch-woman was supposed to extend over ten volumes—all things must go in Poictesme in ten’s forever. Cabell did not write all these books, and all we have left now are the seven other titles.

Nevertheless, the meaning and role of the witch-woman (and Horvendile) is clear from the completed three titles. Throughout several volumes of the Biography of the Life of Manuel, Cabell talks of the three basic attitudes the artist can take to life, the poetic, the chivalric, and the gallant. The poetical approach is expounded in the witch-woman stories. The poet, for Cabell, is forever seeking for a beauty and a melody that is beyond our world and which can never be reached. Cabell himself, with his alter-egos Horvendile, Madoc, and probably others, is clearly on the poetical side. As Cabell recalls, Manuel explains to Coth that the dream is better than real life. Cabell continues, “It is man’s nature to seek the dream” (p. 196). And here it is, the beautiful and unachievable dream, as represented in these three books and the rest of the Biography of the Life of Manuel.

[David Burkam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of three texts later combined into a single volume, The Witch-Woman.