A fragment of the longer lay.
Argument: The Poet's Vision
Before the blessed Children of the Sea
Had hunted in the wild green forests free
There lived the Trayen people bold and brave
Upon a rocky isle amid the waves;
Those waves which 'gainst great Quadren's sides do beat
And pummeling, vanquish mighty fleets.
So hail the Trayen people great and bright!
Their glory dims this feeble poet's sight.
What splendor they possessed before their fall
(Before they would not heed the Maker's call)!
Encroaching time then let my verse roll back,
Allow my halting tongue (which art doth lack)
To sing a song of noble Peiboth's line
Which shunned the fateful destiny divine--
But shunning, doomed the Trayen people free
To sleep in murky silence 'neath the sea.
Book I: The Doom of Peiboth
To kingly palace bright my vision wings
And seated I behold a king of kings
Upon a dias high. And now he stands
To raise in august greeting both his hands.
For, striding through the glitt'ring brazen door
His offspring eldest strides across the floor.
That princely son with confidence and grace
Doth not avert his eyes nor hide his face
As noble princes should before their lord.
And at his hip he wore a shining sword.
Behind him strides his younger brother there --
In warlike aspect less, but kind and fair --
To hoary father's years a pleasant balm,
Renowned with burnished blade and pleasant song.
A curving blade that princeling girt about
His well-formed hips. The father beckons now
And splendid offspring bids he stand beside
But bids the younger stand upon his right.
The king then calls his auncient councilors
Renowned for heady runes and rhyming-words
Who neath their aged hoary heads do hold
The secrets known by cunning men of old,
But which by dint of intervening years
Cannot be heard by living mortal's ears.
Great tomes of precious wisdom some held dear,
But councilors of war, they brandished spears
Ornate with jewels many set about,
And gilt with golden scroll-work cunning-wrought.
These spears they carried not for mortal harm;
To show instead sagacity in arms.
So enter in the wisest in the lands.
The hoary monarch raises up his hands,
To call for hushing silence in the hall:
"My people, lovely well-sprung Trayens all,"
Proclaims the king, "now listen to my voice!
Upon this day momentous, I must make my choice!
Which falling like the heavy loom of Fate
Pronounces dooms. But now my word await.
It is the strength of youth to swing the blade -
But goes the gift of wisdom to the aged.
So I, who ancient now (though once was young)
In wisdom set this weird upon my sons.
My sons who are the gift of gracious heav'n:
(Who hath unto this beggar such sons giv'n!)
Resplendent are their diff'rences and gifts,
And each upon a kingly throne might sit:
Renowned is Landras for his craft and skill --
To Nerias belongs the flashing steel.
A single throne alone have I to give,
Upon that gold a single heir may sit.
The other, not ascending, must submit,
And guide his king with counsel and with wit
And pledge to him the service of his sword
Acknowledging his brother as his lord.
So after long deliberations grave --
And wisdom-redes from royal council brave --
My doom I am now ready to pronounce,
And thus before you gracious lords announce:
Let sound the trumpets, let the chorus sing:
Let Landras serve. Let Nerias be king."
Then Peiboth's son of youngest years
Hangs his lovely head to hide his tears,
And he in mournful notes his fate bemoans
And grips his father's arm, unto him groans:
"So would you thus your loving son destroy,
And take from life all remnant of my joy?
For loath am I to sit the golden throne
And have no more a fate to call my own;
For princes, they may do as princes may,
But kings must cruel necessity obey.
For though the glitt'ring host the king commands,
The king he is the life-blood of the land,
So when the martial hosts for strife array
And the straining coursers prance and neigh
(For ready always pants a mighty steed
To smell the stench of war and bloody deeds),
Then a different captain leads the fray
And wins himself the glories of that day.
And oft indeed in ancient days gone by --
When now-dead monarchs battled under sky --
A captain, winning glory, has defied
His royal lord in overweening pride.
But princes, they are free to forge their fates
And freer by the privileges of rank.
So condescend, if ever you loved me,
And unto Landras grant the sov'reignty."
Then dark-eyed Landras deemed the moment fair
His quiet counsels cunning thus to air.
(For cunning he outstripped his noble peers,
And equaled those whose much surpassing years
Had tempered greed and ugly avarice --
But haughty was the heart of prince Landras.)
"My father, much renowned are you for rule,
And the giving of your gold and comely jewels.
Your fame resounds, with battle-glory wide,
Your lance has stemmed the fatal foe-man's tide.
In this I give thee honor as is due,
And pray that I may ask of thee a boon.
My brother, young, looks not to be a king,
So lay not on him such a dreadful thing.
But I am known for cunning through the land,
So unto me let fall thy sceptered hand.
And I will rule when you have died and gone
To final doom that waits for men beyond
The Western Sea, where ancient scribes do tell
That you may not approach by ship or sail,
But dying, come by secret, hidden paths
To pastures green, where even death has passed.
Thus in thy name thy people will I rule,
And bear the crown, all set with comely jewels."
Thus speaking he displeased his aged lord,
By reason of the import of his words.
Spoke the king: "What disordered speech is this
Which, discordant from off my offsprings' lips
To contradict me springs, my rede gainsays
And countermands. That I should see this day!
My tender sons" -- for now he speaks more kind --
"Not lightly, nor of ease has come my mind.
Deliberations long and grave I've made
Ere I pronounced the doom you've heard today.
For Landras, with your many cunning redes,
I fear that by your cunning you may lead
Our people into peril deep and dire
And by your arts deserve wide Heaven's ire.
For I will tell a prophecy I know,
Of Peiboth's doom, and of his throne of gold
(That throne on which those prideful words I writ
The craft-work gleaming of my cunning smiths:
"Established now my line upon this throne of gold,
Forever it will last, until the world is old."
These words I caused to write in youthful pride
Not knowing then the truth that they belied:
Folorankarr a waste, an empty town
And all its mighty pillars broken down).
So hark, that you may know the awful fate
Which merciless awaits the Trayen race:
When in my youth the old king's throne I felled,
By Vishnarr's pow'r my own throne was upheld.
But in the high-noon of my kingly pow'r
I cast aside the yoke of vassal dour,
And raised my independent sword aloft
As rival to his empire in the South.
But Trayens no less wicked for the change
Grew mickel proud and cunning in those days.
The bowls of blood we spilled in inky night
To pacify the dark and shun the light.
To him we prayed who few still dare to name:
Taraun-tarour, devourer of the slain.
On hilltops pale by light of gloomy moon
We sacrificed our kin and sealed our doom!
Alas! No kindly doom I call my own,
For I have brought this blood upon my throne.
And founded it in blood, and brought it down,
And so I fear disaster for my crown.
Such gloomy thoughts assailed me not in youth--
I reveled in the sunshine of my noon,
Forgot that 'tis at noon the sun's car turns
And in the gray of evening dimly burns.
But soon I learned what grief may call to mind,
That men, and even kings, are part of time.
There come to all a recking in their life--
By pang of grief, or by some mortal strife--
Of that which lays beyond our final sight:
One last word of warning ere the night.
For me, the warning came through deepest woe
(For sorrow is a mistress I've long known)
When passed from earth your blessed mother fair
And two sons, noble princes, left me here.
But youngest, know, (I had not meant to say)
Her leaving was the price for you to stay.
She gave you life, but gave you all she had,
And for this reason long my heart was sad.
But ere death's ghostly shadow o'er her rolled
These words she spake, this prophecy foretold:
'Dark, fell words for Feyhoth's folks
Are written in the sky,
And the whole wide world will hear our ruin,
And these two whelps shall be our doom:
The sons of Thoranrai.'
These words she spake with death's stark certainty
And ever has their echo haunted me,
Which baleful haunting then resolved my mind
Some other, happier fate to seek and find,
And so avert the prophecy my wife
Pronounced with trembling lips, when passed her life.
But schemes and plans have giv'n me no repose
Nor have allayed my fears, nor eased my woes.
For almost I had laid aside those fears
And ceased my weeping, dried my grieving tears,
When in the darkness of a gloomy night
A brilliant vision came before my sight:
The Polestar, Raos, robed in shining garb,
His radiant visage gleaming silver darts.
I stooped, my regal knee to bend before
The heavn'ly warden of the gloomy North
Whose face bespoke imperial mien.
I bowed my head, though Feyhoth's blood I be.
But mighty Raos raised me from my knees
And spoke in words of long-forgotten speech
(The use of which precedes our mortal days,
Was spoken first by stars in heavn'ly ways
Intoned still by them, the tongue of love,
And understood by reason of my blood):
'This isle of Fehoth's, fariest under sky
The Maker gave the Traen folk as right
To hold as long as they held fast to him.
So long your people dwelt in unmarred bliss.
But then your line forgot their Maker's care
And fell, to worship darkness and despair;
For first you took a throne not yours by right,
Despoiled the rightful heir of Feyhoth's line:
To slake your lust for pow'r, your blade you drew
And reddened it in better man than you.
Next, unto this tally of your wrongs
(Whereof the record full is passing long)
You worshipped death, revered his dreaded hame--
Taurontauror, Devourer of the Slain.
His bloody rites performed in dead of night
(For so, you thought, to escape high heaven's sight--
But long I've wandered 'cross this Kwodran's skies,
And whereso shines the starlight, there our eyes;
And the one who made the heavens sees all things
That come to pass in earth, or sky, or sea.)
And added to the ledger of your wrongs.
Your sins have called the wrath of heav'n upon
The Traen folk--and great will be their ruin
Unless you look you well unto your doom.'
Then with tear-filled eyes and trembling lips
I supplicated him, his knees I gripped
And prayed him tell me how heavn's baleful hate
May I avert, and thus the Traens save.
'Two sons," said he, 'your tender wife did bear,
And in their fates the Traen people share.
So look you to the men they come to be,
For they shall prove the help or bane of thee.'
And more such heavy words he spoke to me
(The whole of which I will not tell to thee)
And then I got me back unto my home
And pondered long the meaning of that dome.
Resolved me then my youngest son to raise
Unto my throne--as I have said today.
For rightly Landras boasts of cunning mind
(His disposition is most like to mine);
But cleverness unchecked, that virtue lacks,
Doth only hasten doom--not hold it back.
So Nerias be crowned, whose heart is pure,
And thus the righteous wrath of heav'n defer."
So Peiboth spoke--his sons, they bowed their heads,
And fell oe'r all the court a hush of dread.
The king clapped his hands. The princes bow,
And bowing, all the courtiers exit now--
The veterans bearing spears in battle tried,
The aged scholars following at their side.
Retired then the court of Peiboth King,
And of the doom he spake came many things.
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