Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice Part 31

"Will you go with me, Jurgen?"

"My dear, you know very well that it is impossible for me ever again to go into the Woods, after the trick I played upon Phobetor."

"And if only you had kept your head about that bean-pole of a Helen, in her yellow wig--for I have not a doubt that every strand of it is false, and at all events this is not a time to be arguing about it, Jurgen,--why, then you would never have meddled with Uncle Phobetor!

It simply shows you!"

"Yes," said Jurgen.

"Still, I do not know. If you come with me into the Woods, Uncle Phobetor in his impetuous way will quite certainly turn you into a boar-pig, because he has always done that to the people who irritated him--"

"I seem to recognise that reason."

"--But give me time, and I can get around Uncle Phobetor, just as I have always done, and he will turn you back."

"No," says Jurgen, obstinately, "I do not wish to be turned into a boar-pig."

"Now, Jurgen, let us be sensible about this! Of course, it is a little humiliating. But I will take the very best of care of you, and feed you with my own acorns, and it will be a purely temporary arrangement. And to be a pig for a week or two, or even for a month, is infinitely better for a poet than being captured by the Philistines."

"How do I know that?" says Jurgen.

"--For it is not, after all, as if Uncle Phobetor's heart were not in the right place. It is just his way. And besides, you must remember what you did with that gimlet!"

Said Jurgen: "All this is hardly to the purpose. You forget I have seen the hapless swine of Phobetor, and I know how he ameliorates the natural ferocity of his boar-pigs. No, I am Jurgen. So I remain.

I will face the Philistines and whatever they may possibly do to me, rather than suffer that which Phobetor will quite certainly do to me."

"Then I stay too," said Chloris.

"No, woman dear--!"

"But do you not understand?" says Chloris, a little pale, as he saw now. "Since the life of a hamadryad is linked with the life of her tree, n.o.body can harm me so long as my tree lives: and if they cut down my tree I shall die, wherever I may happen to be."

"I had forgotten that." He was really troubled now.

"--And you can see for yourself, Jurgen, it is quite out of the question for me to be carrying that great oak anywhere, and I wonder at your talking such nonsense."

"Indeed, my dear," says Jurgen, "we are very neatly trapped. Well, n.o.body can live longer in peace than his neighbor chooses.

Nevertheless, it is not fair."

As he spoke the Philistines came forth from the burning city. Again the trumpet sounded, and the Philistines advanced in their order of battle.

32.

Sundry Devices of the Philistines

Meanwhile the People of the Field had watched Pseudopolis burn, and had wondered what would befall them. They had not long to wonder, for next day the Fields were occupied, without any resistance by the inhabitants.

"The People of the Field," said they, "have never fought, and for them to begin now would be a very unheard-of thing indeed."

So the Fields were captured by the Philistines, and Chloris and Jurgen and all the People of the Field were judged summarily. They were declared to be obsolete illusions, whose merited doom was to be relegated to limbo. To Jurgen this appeared unreasonable.

"For I am no illusion," he a.s.serted. "I am manifestly flesh and blood, and in addition, I am the high King of Eubonia, and no less.

Why, in disputing these facts you contest circ.u.mstances that are so well known hereabouts as to rank among mathematical certainties. And that makes you look foolish, as I tell you for your own good."

This vexed the leaders of the Philistines, as it always vexes people to be told anything for their own good. "We would have you know,"

said they, "that we are not mathematicians; and that moreover, we have no kings in Philistia, where all must do what seems to be expected of them, and have no other law."

"How then can you be the leaders of Philistia?"

"Why, it is expected that women and priests should behave unaccountably. Therefore all we who are women or priests do what we will in Philistia, and the men there obey us. And it is we, the priests of Philistia, who do not think you can possibly have any flesh and blood under a shirt which we recognize to be a conventional figure of speech. It does not stand to reason. And certainly you could not ever prove such a thing by mathematics; and to say so is nonsense."

"But I can prove it by mathematics, quite irrefutably. I can prove anything you require of me by whatever means you may prefer," said Jurgen, modestly, "for the simple reason that I am a monstrous clever fellow."

Then spoke the wise Queen Dolores, saying: "I have studied mathematics. I will question this young man, in my tent to-night, and in the morning I will report the truth as to his claims. Are you content to endure this interrogatory, my spruce young fellow who wear the shirt of a king?"

Jurgen looked full upon her: she was lovely as a hawk is lovely: and of all that Jurgen saw Jurgen approved. He a.s.sumed the rest to be in keeping: and deduced that Dolores was a fine woman.

"Madame and Queen," said Jurgen, "I am content. And I can promise to deal fairly with you."

So that evening Jurgen was conducted into the purple tent of Queen Dolores of Philistia. It was quite dark there, and Jurgen went in alone, and wondering what would happen next: but this scented darkness he found of excellent augury, if only because it prevented his shadow from following him.

"Now, you who claim to be flesh and blood, and King of Eubonia, too," says the voice of Queen Dolores, "what is this nonsense you were talking about proving any such claims by mathematics?"

"Well, but my mathematics," replied Jurgen, "are Praxagorean."

"What, do you mean Praxagoras of Cos?"

"As if," scoffed Jurgen, "anybody had ever heard of any other Praxagoras!"

"But he, as I recall, belonged to the medical school of the Dogmatici," observed the wise Queen Dolores, "and was particularly celebrated for his researches in anatomy. Was he, then, also a mathematician?"

"The two are not incongruous, madame, as I would be delighted to demonstrate."

"Oh, n.o.body said that! For, indeed, it does seem to me I have heard of this Praxagorean system of mathematics, though, I confess, I have never studied it."

"Our school, madame, postulates, first of all, that since the science of mathematics is an abstract science, it is best inculcated by some concrete example."

Said the Queen: "But that sounds rather complicated."

"It occasionally leads to complications," Jurgen admitted, "through a choice of the wrong example. But the axiom is no less true."

"Come, then, and sit next to me on this couch if you can find it in the dark; and do you explain to me what you mean."

"Why, madame, by a concrete example I mean one that is perceptible to any of the senses--as to sight or hearing, or touch--"

"Oh, oh!" said the Queen, "now I perceive what you mean by a concrete example. And grasping this, I can understand that complications must of course arise from a choice of the wrong example."