The Complete Zimiamvia by E.R. Eddison

Author:E.R. Eddison [Eddison, E.R.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Classics, Omnibus, Fiction, Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Epic
ISBN: 9780007578191
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2014-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

‘I love delicacy, and for me love hath

the sun’s splendour and beauty.’

Zenianthe said, ‘We know, sir, who taught you that.’

Still Lessingham, upon the stairs, stood and listened. Their backs were towards him. Vandermast replied: ‘Yes: She, ingenerable and incorruptible. Are youth and age toys of Hers? How else? Seeing She plays with all things. And age, I have thought ere now, is also a part of Her wiles and guiles, to trick us into that folly which scorneth and dispraiseth the goods we can no more enjoy. Then, after leading of us as marsh-fires lead, through so many turn-agains, unveil the grace in Her eyes: laugh at us in the end.’

‘Love were too serious else,’ said Campaspe. She fetched for the queen of hearts the king of clubs: ‘Antiope: Lessingham.’

‘What is Lessingham?’ Zenianthe asked the fibre. ‘What is Barganax?’

‘What am I?’ asked Vandermast. ‘Tell me, dreamer and huntress of the ancient oak-woods, is it outside the scheme that there should be, of young men, an old age wise, unrepentant, undisillusioned? I mean not some supposititious mathematical esse formale, as some fantastics dream, but bodied, here and now? For truly and in sadness, searching inward in myself I have not once but often times—’ He fell silent.

‘What is here and now?’ Zenianthe said, gazing into the heart of the fire with brown dreaming eyes.

Vandermast was leaned back, his head against a cushion, his lean hands slack, palms downwards, on the seat on either side of him. He too gazed in the fire, and, may be for the hotness of it, may be for the lateness of the hour, the gleam of his eyes was softened. ‘As part of Her peace?’ he said. ‘As part of Her pleasure? – O gay Goddess lustring, You Who do make all things stoop to Your lure – Seeing all the pleasures of the world are only sparkles and parcels sent out from God? And seeing it is for Her that all things, omnia quae existunt, are kept and preserved, a sola vi Dei, by the sole power of God alone?’

Zenianthe spoke: ‘And of lovers? Will you not think a lover has power?’

‘Love,’ said that aged man, ‘is vis Dei. There is no other power.’

‘And to serve Her,’ said Campaspe, still sitting on her heels, still playing on the floor, ‘(I have heard you say it): no other wisdom.’

‘To shine as stars into everlastingness,’ said that hamadryad princess, still looking in the fire.

For a few minutes none spoke, none stirred, save only for Campaspe’s playing her little game. Lessingham, upon the stairs, noted how the learned doctor, as old men will, was fallen asleep where he sat. Campaspe, noting it too, softly swept up her cards. She stood for a moment looking at him so sleeping, then on tiptoe came and bent over him and, very prettily and sweetly, kissed his forehead. Anthea, turning in her sleep, put up a hand and touched his face. Lessingham very quietly came down the stairs behind them and so from the stair-foot to the door.

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