Join | User ID: Password: Lost Password?

Arangoth - History - Culture - Monarchy - Provincial Government - Royal Guard - Drache - Outside Drache Culture Book 1, Chapter 1 THE DREAM OF THE NINE OTHERWORLDS (Book 1, Chapter 1) Visions grant me, to my eyes show wonders, Menxvan Wellspring, fountain of all graces! [1] In your hand's palm cradle you your servants Who seek sunlight and not widows' wailing, Who wish wisdom and not louses' lying, Who vaunt virtue, greed for truth unsated. Highest truths, lo! they are the most hidden! Draw back, Menxvan, your great lantern's shutter, Slowly, slowly, lest the brightness blind me! Beam forth lamp-swords for our duel with darkness, Show the contours of the worlds ascending, Worlds that spiral into your dread presence Where dwell monsters, where the moon's maze arches. Lartha, Master! grant my tongue your spirit; [2] To my fingers lend your knack so nimble – Picking, striking: song should please the hearing, For my singing tells of worthy wonders, And to couple Menxvan's courts with chaos, Jarring noises!, mixes mead with milksour. Then espied I, wonder beyond telling! -- [3] Lands and meadows, forests dark and brooding, Climbing castles, seas and lakes and mountains, Vales and dales and fields far-spread and florid, Make and manner most like those of this world. We belowlings know no neighbor's heartways: Good folk, ill folk mingle in all cities, Nor can any say where dwells all virtue, Where dwells chaos, wicked men and cruel. Lo, how different in the world of dreaming! There beheld I two opposing Empires: One was Darkness, and the other Sunlight; One was Nightmare, Fantasy the other, Unresolving, no frontier more frantic, Hosts more headstrong, hearts all lust for glory, Endless warfare! Tireless crash of armor! Ere I sing it, of the war's unfolding, Let me linger on the landscape's lustre, Tell my travels in the world of dreaming: For in wrestling, when one knows the fighters -- What their weakness, what their strength in striving -- All their struggle strikes the soul more strongly. Lo, behold them, two opposing Empires, And survey them, all that one might see there. First prepare you for the Land of Darkness! [4] Though you witness woes most grim and ghastly, Though you shudder with the sight of horrors, Know that Menxvan guides you in this vision, In your dreaming, in your darkest nightmares: The dark Shadow neither can enwrap you Nor entrap you while the spark of Menxvan, Glowing steadfast, burns within your spirit. Lo, before us stands a sky-stretched tower, Black as midnight, swathed in clouds like embers In a sick sky, ever red with sunset. Round about it flutter joyless vultures, With eyes yellow, carrion-bloated bellies. The horizon shows another tower, Far and distant, but the same in structure: No stone differs, not a window varies. Vultures circle that far tower also. In this Nightmare, in the Land of Darkness Dwell two princelings. Each seeks Menxruk's favor. Each, most eager for his foe's subjection, Seeks to humble his elite opponent: Unity none, but division utter. Fiercest fighting they save for the border, Where they wrangle with the Sunlight's soldiers: Yet for sporting do they play at warfare. Gnawing hunger plagues their wretched peoples: No crops grow there, where blood chokes the furrows. If light flickers, judge it no Sun's warming: None bask in it; doubtless one more village, Barns and beer-halls, burns to heat their war-play. Folk are fodder for their gleeful combat, Highroads deathways where prance black war-stallions, Peace-prayers futile: wailings are their music. Menxruk, Dark One, in this strife rejoicing, Lends his power to the prince who needs it; Ending never, this war knows no victor. But each season, that they might taste triumph, Menxruk's princes gather each their heroes. Their arena, slick with blood and entrails, Like a butcher's, sits upon a mountain. Facing squarely sit two thrones high-lifted; Each side has one, all festooned with banners: One's a vulture, the other shows a cockroach. On both high thrones squat two Menxruk-princes, Faces hidden neath hoods that eclipsed them, Evil vipers, save their eyes dark-glowing. Lo, beside them sit their maids of choosing, Sleek as dolphins, gaunt as rib-taut whippets: She whose side wins, for the year before her, All triumphant, will receive their homage, Crowned and toasted as the Queen of Darkness. If her side lose, her doom's the more dreadful: To the victor she shall pass as trophy, Ravished, murdered as befits their liking. One hour's glory or a victor's plaything, Highest honors or vile violation On a dice-roll; yet with vain ambition In the Dark Land all the maidens quarrel, Each with other, for the chance to sit there. Then behold I all their hardy heroes, Bristling blades, enclosed in shells of iron, Helmed and faceless, pawns of Menxruk's bidding. Round about them shrieks a throng of gawkers, Human-bodied but with heads more beastly, Snouted swinelike, beset with tusks and drooling. Then, resounding through the gore-grimed chamber, As announcement that the fray's beginning, Blasts a trumpet, though no joyous music; No mouth blows it, but a nether wind-pipe. Listen further, if you'd hear their battle! NOTES ----- [1]"The Invocation of Menxvan": This formula is thought to predate the Mintrat and its authorship is sometimes attributed to the goddess Gigsin. In its essence it is an appeal for the "vision" into the upper worlds often ascribed to Menxvanic priesthood. [2]"The Appeal to Lartha": In this passage the poet invokes the inspiration of Lartha [a.k.a. Larfa], traditionally said to be Menxvan's personal bard and the greatest incarnation of poetic virtuosity. Milksour is a traditional Arangothian drink similar to a thin yoghurt, very sour, and thus contrasted with sweet honey-based mead. [3]"The Entrance to the Second World": The opening line of this section has been interpreted as signifying that the dream-vision was granted as a result of the poet's actual invocation of Menxvan and appeal to Lartha: "THEN espied I...." The line "We belowlings know no neighbor's heartways" has also been translated nonmetrically as "No mortal knows the orientation of his neighbor's heart." [4]"The Land of Darkness": Optest as an epithet of Menxruk means simply "the Dark One," and Optarna ("the Dark Land") is synonymous with "Land of Darkness" ( Arn' ul Optedossath ). The description of the "war-play" of the two Princes of Menxruk, which begins in this chapter and continues into the next one, may be interpreted as a scathing critique of the jousting and tournaments of Arangothian noblemen, much as the description of the afflicted state of the Land of Darkness is a veiled lamentation of civil war in general.