(no subject)
"With this there grows
In my most ill-composed affection such
A stanchless avarice that, were I king,
I should cut off the nobles for their lands,
Desire his jewels and this other's house:
And my more-having would be as a sauce
To make me hunger more; that I should forge
Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,
Destroying them for wealth."
And so, our Lord Caspian has left, and never was he truly here. And so, mistakenly and with the earnest regret of a dark creature, of a stray, must I admit that I would rather he were dead, but here.
Forgive me, Queen, I am the monster again. And you have seen enough of monsters.
Man is made for true progress and death. So must I embark on this great adventure of a confession that should no less admonish than it soothes: Marius, you are a fool! You have always been a fool. And you must remember that it is foolish to fixate on particular mortals, and not the mortal kin.
And so what are the revels? Disease, disease, disease! Disease, which does away with the good men, the evildoers, the men of all walks and all paths and all graces. There is disease, and I smell it here, but it is not mine to have. Few things are. And so, what is there to be done?
Shall I weep once more for my beautiful Italy, for the powerful clear-eyed vision that follows the Sleep Shall I weep for what there was to behold once Justinian’s plague had swept everything in its blaze? Queen, but you were beautiful then, you were sweet and stone and beautiful. And you did not know the purity of my distrust of disease, as ever it was pure of oriental fleas to leave corpses in their wake and Byzantium in ruin.
You did not know, and perhaps I did not tell you.
But then, I have told you so many other things.
Shall I be crude once more, O Mother? Egads, but I shall! I shall, for I mean to be very civil in what I must tell them, the very gentleman, the poet! I mean to be civil, and so you must suffer me crude, the terrible fiend that only I can be and only you can know.
And so I must tell you that there is not night when I do not think of your blood, when I do not wonder of what needs doing here. It is true that to abstain is prudent, and there is much time, great time until the hunger will mean more than a whim.
For now, I am not a creature of whims.
- Marius de Romanus
Forgive me, I only play the historian. I would not speak more of disease, for all its merit.
Instead, let us be men of the age again. Let us instead speak of etiquette, and some among us will find the matter dear. Not all.
And is it indeed so much to ask, a parting word, a letter of notice? Some provision for a farewell, if we must leave, and soon? And know that I have read much of what is written, that departure is not a liberty, if always a choice; that we can choose our companions here, but not our freedom. And for all that it is so, is temperance not a value? A kind gentleman would hold so. Is it not intemperate to live for the day only, as if it were sport?
But surely not all sport is of quarry. We are not always the creatures of dea Diana and her amazon’s bow, though much merit she has won, and greatness also. There are those games where future designs should be considered: chess and backgammon, the Chinese marbles. There is strategy in such things. In all things.
And so, is much foresight needed, to leave a letter with a friend? That he should spread the word evenly and moderately and equitably, for all to know when one has gone? And all the more is such word needed when our return is both desired and anticipated. When people and things would wait on us, an idle love, or a book, or an easel.
Must we relinquish our manners? Give way?
I am not the child of pouting, but a goodbye is not much to ask.
[ooc: ...pouting unimpressed that Caspian left, whut >> ]