The Worm Ouroboros

by E.R. Eddison

“a sour draught sweetens not in the waiting.

Thereafter, when I have eaten and drunken and made merry in my royal palace at Carcë, I will sail with my armies over the teeming deep to many-mountained Demonland. And it shall be my footstool, and these other Demons the slaves of me, yea, and the slaves of my slaves.”

Gro answered, “O King, I spake not lightly; moreover, you did tempt me by your questioning. Nevertheless I am utterly obedient to your majesty’s admonition.”

LURO VOPO VIR VOARCHADUMIA.

TRIPSARECOPSEM,

Know when to speak, for many times it brings Danger to give the best advice to Kings;

When the chine was carved and the cups replenished, the King issued command saying, “Call hither my dwarf, and let him act his antick gestures before us.”

And when the blackbird leaves to sing, And likewise serpents for to sting, Then you may saye, and justly too, The old world now is turned anew:

It wanted but two hours of noon when a sunbeam striking through an opening in the hangings of the tent shone upon Corund’s eyelids, and he awoke fresh and brisk as a youth on a hunting morn. He waked Gro, and giving him a clap on the shoulder, “Thou wrongest a fair morn,” he said. “The devil damn me black as buttermilk if it be not great shame in thee; and I, that was born this day six and forty years as the years come about, busy with mine affairs since sunrise.” Gro yawned and smiled and stretched himself. “O Corund,” he said, “counterfeit a livelier wonder in thine eyes if thou wilt persuade me thou sawest the sunrise. For I think that were as new and unexampled a sight for thee as any I could produce to thee in Impland.” Corund answered, “Truly I was seldom so uncivil as surprise Madam Aurora in her nightgown. And the thrice or four times I have been forced thereto, taught me it is an hour of crude airs and mists which breed cold dark humours in the body, an hour when the torch of life burns weakest. Within there! bring me my morning draught.” The boy brought two cups of white wine, and while they drank, “A thin ungracious drink is the well-spring,” said Corund: “a drink for queasy-stomached skipjacks: for sand-levericks, not for men. And like it is the dayspring: an ungrateful sapless hour, an hour for stab-i’-the-backs and cold-blooded betrayers. Ah, give me wine,” he cried, “and noon-day vices, and brazen-browed iniquities.”

Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he be sure he shall never hit the mark, yet as sure he is he shall shoot higher than who aims but at a bush.”

“But because day at her dawning hours hath so bewitched me, must I yet love her when glutted with triumph she settles to garish noon?

Rather turn as now I turn to Demonland, in the sad sunset of her pride. And who dares call me turncoat, who do but follow now as I have followed this rare wisdom all my days: to love the sunrise and the sundown and the morning and the evening star? since there only abideth the soul of nobility, true love, and wonder, and the glory of hope and fear.”

He that feareth is a slave, were he never so rich, were he never so powerful. But he that is without fear is king of all the world. Thou hast my sword. Strike. Death shall be a sweet rest to me. Thraldom, not death, should terrify me.”

Occasion is a wanton wench, O King, that is quick to beckon another man if one look coldly on her.