of all, there is the lordly narrative sweep of it, the pure essence of storytelling for its own sake such as has become increasingly rare in our introspective modern world. Second is the splendour of the prose, the roll and swagger and reverberating rhythms and the sheer gorgeousness of much of its deliberate artifice. And third is the blessed sense of vicarious participation in a simpler, more primitive world where wonders still abound and glory is still a word untarnished by the cynical tongues of small-minded men. Before elaborating a little on each of these qualities of The Worm Ouroboros, it seems wise to indicate what Eddison’s story is actually about.
Since this is a romantic epic about an imaginary world, Eddison felt it necessary to set his stage and explain things before launching into his story proper. This he did awkwardly, by sending an English gentleman in a magic dream to the planet Mercury to observe events there. It is a distracting and clumsy notion; but since Eddison forgot all about his earthborn observer after the first 20 pages, no prospective reader should allow himself to be troubled by his fleeting presence. And in Mercury, Eddison chose to call the people of the various nations Witches, Demons, Goblins, Imps, Pixies. This, too, is distracting, but only temporarily. The great war between the Demons and the Witches is the theme of this modern Iliad.
Never has such a war been chronicled before. Suggestions of it may be found in Homer, in the Icelandic sagas and in the Morte D’Arthur. Here are battles on sea and land, perilous journeys, base treacheries and mighty deeds performed by authentic heroes and majestic villains. Scene after scene achieves a pitch of excitement that engraves them indelibly on the memory: the great wrestling match between Lord Goldry Bluszco of Demonland and the monstrous Gorice XI, King of Witchland; the fight between Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha and the horrid beast mantichora; the ascent of the fabulous mountain Koshtra Pivrarcha; the wonderful crimes of those evil dukes of Witchland, Corsus and Corinius; the betrayals of the brave and intelligent Goblin, Lord Gro, doomed by some curse to perpetual treasons.
These heroes and villains, and the beautiful queens and princesses who make brief decorative appearances, are not subtly portrayed individuals. They are epic heroes like Achilles or Roland, colourful, picturesque, unreal and charming, the villainous Witches even more charming than the heroic Demons. It’s their adventures which count, not their minds, which is eminently proper in a romantic epic. And Eddison forged a unique style with which to tell their story.
The prose of The Worm Ouroboros resembles nothing written since the seventeenth century. It is as elaborate as Sir Thomas Browne’s, but far more flexible and various. Rich, repetitious (sometimes too much so), ornate, it can gleam with a suddenly brilliant phrase or lull the mind with rippling rhythms. Eddison lavished his verbal magic on mountains and scenery as well as on heroic action. And sometimes he wasted it on the fantastic splendours of over-decorated palaces (another of his small flaws). To enjoy such writing the reader must cast aside all preconceived ideas about style and adjust himself to something strange and foreign, just as he does when he reads The Song of Solomon or Urn Burial.
Here is just a taste of the haunting rhythms of Eddison’s style, from one of his simpler passages:
‘Now they rose up and took their weapons and muffled themselves in their great campaigning cloaks and went forth with torch-bearers to walk through the lines, as every night ere he went to rest it was Spitfire’s wont to do, visiting his captains and setting the guard. The rain fell gentlier. The night was without a star. The wet sands gleamed with the lights of Owlswick Castle, and from the castle came by fits the sound of feasting heard above the wash and moan of the sullen sleepless sea.’
And here is an example of Eddison’s almost boyish delight in his inventive coining of proper names:
‘before them the mountains of the Zia stood supreme: the white gables of Islargyn, the lean dark finger of Tetrachnampf nan Tshark lying back above the Zia Pass pointing to the sky, and west of it, jutting above the valley, the square bastion of Tetrachnampf nan Tsurm. The greater mountains were for the most part sunk behind this nearer range, but Koshtra Belorn still towered above the Pass.’
If The Worm Ouroboros were only a glorious adventure story beautifully written it would be a notable achievement. But the fresh wind that blows through it from another world and another system of values gives it an added dimension. Eddison himself, who had no love for the twentieth century, believed passionately in the ideals which inspired Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha, those very great warriors and gallant gentlemen. So in these ringing pages courage and nobility and loyalty are almost taken for granted; women are beautiful and to be served; and glory is worth striving for.
There are no complications, no reservations and no excuses here. Pagan these warriors may be and semi-barbarous, but they are not oppressed by weasel-faced doubts or whining uncertainties. Even the villains are heroic in their monumental villainy. And life itself is joyful and wonderful. The magical spells and supernatural marvels which abound only make living more exciting. When one has to cross the wide Bhavinan river riding on a crocodile or hatch out a hippogriff’s egg to find a new Pegasus, life can only be a glorious adventure.
We who live in a far more prosaic but no less dangerous world should rejoice at the opportunity to venture into many-mountained Demonland and to penetrate the sinister fortress of Gorice XII at Carcë in Witchland. This republication of The Worm Ouroboros is a literary event of the first importance.
ORVILLE PRESCOTT
1952
THE Worm Ouroboros, no worm, but the Serpent itself, is a wonderful book. As a story or as prose it is wonderful, and, there being a cause for every effect, the reason for writing it should be as marvellous again.
Shelley had to write the Prometheus Unbound, he was under compulsion; for a superhuman energy had come upon him, and he was forced to create a matter that would permit him to imagine, and think, and speak like a god. It was so with Blake, who willed to appear as a man but existed like a mountain; and, at their best, the work of these poets is inhuman and sacred. It does not greatly matter that they had or had not a message. It does not matter at all that either can be charged with nonsense or that both have been called madmen – the same charge might be laid against a volcano or a thunderbolt – or this book. It does not matter that they could transcend human endurance, and could move tranquilly in realms where lightning is the norm of speed. The work of such poets is sacred because it outpaces man, and, in a realm of their own, wins even above Shakespeare.
An energy such as came on the poets has visited the author of this book, and his dedicatory statement, that ‘it is neither allegory nor fable but a story to be read for its own sake’, puts us off with the assured arrogance of the poet who is too busy creating to have time for schoolmastering. But, waking or in dream, this author has been in strange regions and has supped at a torrent which only the greatest know of.
The story is a long one – this reader would have liked it twice as long. The place of action is indicated, casually, as the planet Mercury, and the story tells of the wars between two great kingdoms of that planet, and the final overthrow of one.
Mr Eddison is a vast man. He needed a whole cosmos to play in, and created one; and he forged a prose to tell of it that is as gigantic as his tale. In reading this book the reader must a little break his way in, and must surrender prejudices that are not allowed for. He may think that the language is more rotund than is needed for a tale, but, as he proceeds, he will see that only such a tongue could be spoken by these colossi; and,
