- end_line
- 10684
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:09.931Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 10605
- text
- sun:—in reveries, rending droves of elephants; but his vast loins
supine, and eyelids winking? Such, Lombardo; but fierce Want, the
hunter, came and roused his roar. In hairy billows, his great mane
tossed like the sea; his eyeballs flamed two hells; his paw had stopped
a rolling world.
ABRAZZA—In other words, yams were indispensable, and, poor devil, he
roared to get them.
BABBALANJA (_bowing_)—Partly so, my literal lord. And as with your own
golden scepter, at times upon your royal teeth, indolent tattoos you
beat; then, potent, sway it o’er your isle; so, Lombardo. And ere
Necessity plunged spur and rowel into him, he knew not his own paces.
_That_ churned him into consciousness; and brought ambition, ere then
dormant, seething to the top, till he trembled at himself. No mailed
hand lifted up against a traveler in woods, can so, appall, as we
ourselves. We are full of ghosts and spirits; we are as grave-yards
full of buried dead, that start to life before us. And all our dead
sires, verily, are in us; _that_ is their immortality. From sire to
son, we go on multiplying corpses in ourselves; for all of which, are
resurrections. Every thought’s a soul of some past poet, hero, sage. We
are fuller than a city. Woe it is, that reveals these things. He knows
himself, and all that’s in him, who knows adversity. To scale great
heights, we must come out of lowermost depths. The way to heaven is
through hell. We need fiery baptisms in the fiercest flames of our own
bosoms. We must feel our hearts hot—hissing in us. And ere their fire
is revealed, it must burn its way out of us; though it consume us and
itself. Oh, sleek-cheeked Plenty! smiling at thine own dimples;—vain
for thee to reach out after greatness. Turn! turn! from all your tiers
of cushions of eider-down—turn! and be broken on the wheels of many
woes. At white-heat, brand thyself; and count the scars, like old
war-worn veterans, over camp-fires. Soft poet! brushing tears from
lilies—this way! and howl in sackcloth and in ashes! Know, thou, that
the lines that live are turned out of a furrowed brow. Oh! there is a
fierce, a cannibal delight, in the grief that shrieks to multiply
itself. That grief is miserly of its own; it pities all the happy. Some
damned spirits would not be otherwise, could they.
ABRAZZA (_to Media_)—Pray, my lord, is this good gentleman a devil?
MEDIA.—No, my lord; but he’s possessed by one. His name is Azzageddi.
You may hear more of him. But come, Babbalanja, hast forgotten all
about Lombardo? How set he about that great undertaking, his Kortanza?
ABRAZZA (_to Media_)—Oh, for all the ravings of your Babbalanja,
Lombardo took no special pains; hence, deserves small commendation.
For, genius must be somewhat like us kings,—calm, content, in
consciousness of power. And to Lombardo, the scheme of his Kortanza
must have come full-fledged, like an eagle from the sun.
BABBALANJA—No, your Highness; but like eagles, his thoughts were first
callow; yet, born plumeless, they came to soar.
ABRAZZA—Very fine. I presume, Babbalanja, the first thing he did, was
to fast, and invoke the muses.
BABBALANJA—Pardon, my lord; on the contrary he first procured a ream of
vellum, and some sturdy quills: indispensable preliminaries, my
worshipful lords, to the writing of the sublimest epics.
ABRAZZA—Ah! then the muses were afterward invoked.
BABBALANJA—Pardon again. Lombardo next sat down to a fine plantain
pudding.
YOOMY—When the song-spell steals over me, I live upon olives.
BABBALANJA—Yoomy, Lombardo eschewed olives. Said he, “What fasting
soldier can fight? and the fight of all fights is to write.” In ten
days Lombardo had written—
ABRAZZA—Dashed off, you mean.
BABBALANJA—He never dashed off aught.
ABRAZZA—As you will.
BABBALANJA—In ten days, Lombardo had written full fifty folios; he
loved huge acres of vellum whereon to expatiate.
- title
- Chunk 3