Tanglewood Tales (14 page)

"If I am really awake," continued he, "then, in my opinion, we are on
the point of meeting with some stranger adventure than any that
befell us in the cave of Polyphemus, or among the gigantic man-eating
Laestrygons, or in the windy palace of King Aeolus, which stands on a
brazen-walled island. This kind of dreamy feeling always comes over me
before any wonderful occurrence. If you take my advice, you will turn
back."

"No, no," answered his comrades, snuffing the air, in which the scent
from the palace kitchen was now very perceptible. "We would not turn
back, though we were certain that the king of the Laestrygons, as big as
a mountain, would sit at the head of the table, and huge Polyphemus, the
one-eyed Cyclops, at its foot."

At length they came within full sight of the palace, which proved to
be very large and lofty, with a great number of airy pinnacles upon its
roof. Though it was midday, and the sun shone brightly over the marble
front, yet its snowy whiteness, and its fantastic style of architecture,
made it look unreal, like the frost work on a window pane, or like the
shapes of castles which one sees among the clouds by moonlight. But,
just then, a puff of wind brought down the smoke of the kitchen chimney
among them, and caused each man to smell the odor of the dish that
he liked best; and, after scenting it, they thought everything else
moonshine, and nothing real save this palace, and save the banquet that
was evidently ready to be served up in it.

So they hastened their steps towards the portal, but had not got half
way across the wide lawn, when a pack of lions, tigers, and wolves came
bounding to meet them. The terrified mariners started back, expecting
no better fate than to be torn to pieces and devoured. To their surprise
and joy, however, these wild beasts merely capered around them, wagging
their tails, offering their heads to be stroked and patted, and behaving
just like so many well-bred house dogs, when they wish to express their
delight at meeting their master, or their master's friends. The biggest
lion licked the feet of Eurylochus; and every other lion, and every wolf
and tiger, singled out one of his two and twenty followers, whom the
beast fondled as if he loved him better than a beef bone.

But, for all that, Eurylochus imagined that he saw something fierce and
savage in their eyes; nor would he have been surprised, at any moment,
to feel the big lion's terrible claws, or to see each of the tigers make
a deadly spring, or each wolf leap at the throat of the man whom he
had fondled. Their mildness seemed unreal, and a mere freak; but their
savage nature was as true as their teeth and claws.

Nevertheless, the men went safely across the lawn with the wild beasts
frisking about them, and doing no manner of harm; although, as they
mounted the steps of the palace, you might possibly have heard a low
growl, particularly from the wolves; as if they thought it a pity, after
all, to let the strangers pass without so much as tasting what they were
made of.

Eurylochus and his followers now passed under a lofty portal, and looked
through the open doorway into the interior of the palace. The first
thing that they saw was a spacious hall, and a fountain in the middle
of it, gushing up towards the ceiling out of a marble basin, and falling
back into it with a continual plash. The water of this fountain, as it
spouted upward, was constantly taking new shapes, not very distinctly,
but plainly enough for a nimble fancy to recognize what they were. Now
it was the shape of a man in a long robe, the fleecy whiteness of which
was made out of the fountain's spray; now it was a lion, or a tiger, or
a wolf, or an ass, or, as often as anything else, a hog, wallowing in
the marble basin as if it were his sty. It was either magic or some very
curious machinery that caused the gushing waterspout to assume all
these forms. But, before the strangers had time to look closely at
this wonderful sight, their attention was drawn off by a very sweet and
agreeable sound. A woman's voice was singing melodiously in another room
of the palace, and with her voice was mingled the noise of a loom, at
which she was probably seated, weaving a rich texture of cloth, and
intertwining the high and low sweetness of her voice into a rich tissue
of harmony.

By and by, the song came to an end; and then, all at once, there were
several feminine voices, talking airily and cheerfully, with now and
then a merry burst of laughter, such as you may always hear when three
or four young women sit at work together.

"What a sweet song that was!" exclaimed one of the voyagers.

"Too sweet, indeed," answered Eurylochus, shaking his head. "Yet it
was not so sweet as the song of the Sirens, those bird-like damsels who
wanted to tempt us on the rocks, so that our vessel might be wrecked,
and our bones left whitening along the shore."

"But just listen to the pleasant voices of those maidens, and that buzz
of the loom, as the shuttle passes to and fro," said another comrade.
"What a domestic, household, home-like sound it is! Ah, before that
weary siege of Troy, I used to hear the buzzing loom and the women's
voices under my own roof. Shall I never hear them again? nor taste those
nice little savory dishes which my dearest wife knew how to serve up?"

"Tush! we shall fare better here," said another. "But how innocently
those women are babbling together, without guessing that we overhear
them! And mark that richest voice of all, so pleasant and so familiar,
but which yet seems to have the authority of a mistress among them. Let
us show ourselves at once. What harm can the lady of the palace and her
maidens do to mariners and warriors like us?"

"Remember," said Eurylochus, "that it was a young maiden who beguiled
three of our friends into the palace of the king of the Laestrygons, who
ate up one of them in the twinkling of an eye."

No warning or persuasion, however, had any effect on his companions.
They went up to a pair of folding doors at the farther end of the hall,
and throwing them wide open, passed into the next room. Eurylochus,
meanwhile, had stepped behind a pillar. In the short moment while the
folding doors opened and closed again, he caught a glimpse of a very
beautiful woman rising from the loom, and coming to meet the poor
weather-beaten wanderers, with a hospitable smile, and her hand
stretched out in welcome. There were four other young women, who joined
their hands and danced merrily forward, making gestures of obeisance to
the strangers. They were only less beautiful than the lady who seemed to
be their mistress. Yet Eurylochus fancied that one of them had sea-green
hair, and that the close-fitting bodice of a second looked like the bark
of a tree, and that both the others had something odd in their aspect,
although he could not quite determine what it was, in the little while
that he had to examine them.

The folding doors swung quickly back, and left him standing behind the
pillar, in the solitude of the outer hall. There Eurylochus waited until
he was quite weary, and listened eagerly to every sound, but without
hearing anything that could help him to guess what had become of his
friends. Footsteps, it is true, seemed to be passing and repassing, in
other parts of the palace. Then there was a clatter of silver dishes,
or golden ones, which made him imagine a rich feast in a splendid
banqueting hall. But by and by he heard a tremendous grunting and
squealing, and then a sudden scampering, like that of small, hard hoofs
over a marble floor, while the voices of the mistress and her four
handmaidens were screaming all together, in tones of anger and derision.
Eurylochus could not conceive what had happened, unless a drove of
swine had broken into the palace, attracted by the smell of the feast.
Chancing to cast his eyes at the fountain, he saw that it did not shift
its shape, as formerly, nor looked either like a long-robed man, or
a lion, a tiger, a wolf, or an ass. It looked like nothing but a hog,
which lay wallowing in the marble basin, and filled it from brim to
brim.

But we must leave the prudent Eurylochus waiting in the outer hall, and
follow his friends into the inner secrecy of the palace. As soon as the
beautiful woman saw them, she arose from the loom, as I have told you,
and came forward, smiling, and stretching out her hand. She took the
hand of the foremost among them, and bade him and the whole party
welcome.

"You have been long expected, my good friends," said she. "I and my
maidens are well acquainted with you, although you do not appear to
recognize us. Look at this piece of tapestry, and judge if your faces
must not have been familiar to us."

So the voyagers examined the web of cloth which the beautiful woman
had been weaving in her loom; and, to their vast astonishment, they saw
their own figures perfectly represented in different colored threads. It
was a life-like picture of their recent adventures, showing them in the
cave of Polyphemus, and how they had put out his one great moony eye;
while in another part of the tapestry they were untying the leathern
bags, puffed out with contrary winds; and farther on, they beheld
themselves scampering away from the gigantic king of the Laestrygons,
who had caught one of them by the leg. Lastly, there they were, sitting
on the desolate shore of this very island, hungry and downcast, and
looking ruefully at the bare bones of the stag which they devoured
yesterday. This was as far as the work had yet proceeded; but when the
beautiful woman should again sit down at her loom, she would probably
make a picture of what had since happened to the strangers, and of what
was now going to happen.

"You see," she said, "that I know all about your troubles; and you
cannot doubt that I desire to make you happy for as long a time as you
may remain with me. For this purpose, my honored guests, I have ordered
a banquet to be prepared. Fish, fowl, and flesh, roasted, and in
luscious stews, and seasoned, I trust, to all your tastes, are ready to
be served up. If your appetites tell you it is dinner time, then come
with me to the festal saloon."

At this kind invitation, the hungry mariners were quite overjoyed;
and one of them, taking upon himself to be spokesman, assured their
hospitable hostess that any hour of the day was dinner time with them,
whenever they could get flesh to put in the pot, and fire to boil it
with. So the beautiful woman led the way; and the four maidens (one of
them had sea-green hair, another a bodice of oak bark, a third sprinkled
a shower of water drops from her fingers' ends, and the fourth had some
other oddity, which I have forgotten), all these followed behind, and
hurried the guests along, until they entered a magnificent saloon. It
was built in a perfect oval, and lighted from a crystal dome above.
Around the walls were ranged two and twenty thrones, overhung by
canopies of crimson and gold, and provided with the softest of cushions,
which were tasselled and fringed with gold cord. Each of the
strangers was invited to sit down; and there they were, two and twenty
storm-beaten mariners, in worn and tattered garb, sitting on two and
twenty cushioned and canopied thrones, so rich and gorgeous that the
proudest monarch had nothing more splendid in his stateliest hall.

Then you might have seen the guests nodding, winking with one eye, and
leaning from one throne to another, to communicate their satisfaction in
hoarse whispers.

"Our good hostess has made kings of us all," said one. "Ha! do you
smell the feast? I'll engage it will be fit to set before two and twenty
kings."

"I hope," said another, "it will be, mainly, good substantial joints,
sirloins, spareribs, and hinder quarters, without too many kickshaws. If
I thought the good lady would not take it amiss, I should call for a fat
slice of fried bacon to begin with."

Ah, the gluttons and gormandizers! You see how it was with them. In the
loftiest seats of dignity, on royal thrones, they could think of nothing
but their greedy appetite, which was the portion of their nature that
they shared with wolves and swine; so that they resembled those vilest
of animals far more than they did kings—if, indeed, kings were what
they ought to be.

But the beautiful woman now clapped her hands; and immediately there
entered a train of two and twenty serving man, bringing dishes of the
richest food, all hot from the kitchen fire, and sending up such a steam
that it hung like a cloud below the crystal dome of the saloon. An equal
number of attendants brought great flagons of wine, of various kinds,
some of which sparkled as it was poured out, and went bubbling down the
throat; while, of other sorts, the purple liquor was so clear that you
could see the wrought figures at the bottom of the goblet. While the
servants supplied the two and twenty guests with food and drink, the
hostess and her four maidens went from one throne to another, exhorting
them to eat their fill, and to quaff wine abundantly, and thus to
recompense themselves, at this one banquet, for the many days when they
had gone without a dinner. But whenever the mariners were not looking at
them (which was pretty often, as they looked chiefly into the basins
and platters), the beautiful woman and her damsels turned aside, and
laughed. Even the servants, as they knelt down to present the dishes,
might be seen to grin and sneer, while the guests were helping
themselves to the offered dainties.

And, once in a while, the strangers seemed to taste something that they
did not like.

"Here is an odd kind of spice in this dish," said one. "I can't say it
quite suits my palate. Down it goes, however."

"Send a good draught of wine down your throat," said his comrade on
the next throne. "That is the stuff to make this sort of cookery relish
well. Though I must needs say, the wine has a queer taste too. But the
more I drink of it, the better I like the flavor."