OOC post: another piece from Teja's canon
[[OOC: I was idly and electronically leafing through Teja's canon on the train back home today, and happened to re-read Teja's account of what happened to his parents. Above and beyond the main gist for further plot ('Teja's parents were betrayed by Cethegus and Theodahad out of greed, and then died') there are a few points in it that make it worth translating outright now, in view of recent Milli!events. - The scene starts at the coronation feast of Theodahad -- the king whose treachery to his entire people Teja later uncovers.]]
Among the latter was Witichis, whose thoughts did not seem to dwell within the wreathed columns that held up the roof of the feasting hall. Untouched, the golden drinking bowl stood before him, and he hardl noticed the loud call from Hildebad, who was sitting opposite him. Finall - the lamps already shone in the hall, and the stars in the sky - he got up and went out, into the green darkness of the gardens.
Slowly he walked through the taxus rows: his eye on the shimmering stars. His heart was at home, with his wife, with his boy whom he hadn't seen for months. Thus, his brooding walk led him to the temple of Venus by the bay of the sea which we already know. He looked out at the shimmering ocean - when something glinted in the grass, close by his feet: is war a suit of armour, beside it a small Gothic harp: a man lay before him in the soft grass, and a pale face turned up towards him.
"You here, Teja? You were not at the banquet?"
"No, I was with the dead."
"My heart knows nothing of feasting, either: it was at home, with my wife and child," Witichis said, sitting down beside him.
"With your wife and child," Teja repeated, sighing.
"Many asked for you, Teja."
"For me! Should I sit beside Cethegus, who took my honour, and beside Theodahad, who took my inheritance?"
"Your inheritance?"
"At least he owns it. And over the place where my cradle stood, goes his plow."
And silently, he looked into the darkness.
"Your harp is silent? You are praised as the best harpist and singer of our people!"
"Like Gelimer, the last king of the Vandals, who was his people's best harpist. But they would not lead me into Byzantium in triumph!"
"You don't sing often, any more?"
"Almost never. But I feel there will be days when I will sing again."
"Days of joy?"
"Days of the highest, final grief."
For a long while, both were silent.
"My Teja," Witichis finally said. "In all dangers of war and peace I have found you faithful like my sword. And although you're so much younger than I, and the older man will not easily get attached to the younger, I can call you the best friend of my heart. And I know that your heart is more attached to me than to the companions of your youth."
Teja took his hand, and squeezed it: "You know my ways and honour them, even where you do not understand them. The others - but still: one of them I love very much."
"Whom?"
"The one whom all love."
"Totila!"
"I love him like the night loves the morning star. But he is made of light: he cannot fathom that others are dark and must stay that way."
"Must stay that way? You know, I am not a curious man. And if I ask you in this solemn hour to lift the veil that lies over your dark grief, I only ask because I want to help you. And because the eye of a friend often can see more than your own."
"Help? Help me? Can you awaken the dead? My grief is immovable as the past. And whoever has felt the merciless wheels of fate, trampling everything in its path with no regard to nobility and tenderness, yes, even prefers the noble because it is tender and more easily crushed than that which is common; whoever has realised that a dumb necessity that fools call the wise providence of God is ruling the world and the lives of men: - that man is beyong help or comfort! He listens forever, once he has heard it for the first time, with the light ear of desperation to the unchangeable beat of the wheel in the centre of the world, uncaringly engendering and killing life with every turn. Whoever has felt that once will abjure everything, once and for all: nothing can ever make him fear again. But at the same time - he would forget the art of smiling forever."
"You make me shudder! God may keep me from such madness. How did you come to such fearsome wisdom while still so young?"
"Friend, with your thoughts alone you will not think up the truth; you have to live it! An only when you know about a man's life will you understand what he thinks, and how he thinks. And as I would not appear to you as a crazed dreamer, a weakling that likes to wallow in his grief - and as I would honour your rust and your friendship - you may listen and hear a small part of my grief. The other, larger one, I will still keep to myself" - he said, pressing his hand to his chest in pain - "there will be another hour for that. I will tell you, today, how the star of unhappiness shone over my head even as I was begotten. - And from among all those thousands of stars up there, only that one will stay faithful to me. You were a witness - you remember - how that false prefect called me a bastard, out loud in front of all and refused to fight me in due: - I had to bear it, I am worse still than a bastard.
My father, Tagila, was a good warrior, but not a nobleman: he was a free commoner, and poor. All his life since his beard had started sprouting, he had loved Gisa, the daughter of his father's brother. They lived far out near the eastern border of the realm, on the shores of cold Ister, where there is always strife with the Gepids and the wild Sarmatian robbers and has little time for the church and the changing commandments its councils will decree. Long, my father could not woo for his Gisa - he had nothing but his helmet and spear and couldn't pay the dowry to her guardian, and not prepare a hearth for a wfe.
Finally, luck looked upon him favourably. In the war against a Sarmatian king, her conquered his fortified treasury tower on the shores of the Alutha: and the rich treasure that the Sarmatians had plundered over centuries, and amassed here, became his loot. To reward him for this deed, Theodoric made him a Count and called him to Italy. My father took his treasure and Gisa, his wife now, with him across the Alps and bought wide, beautiful lands in Tuscany, between Florentia and Luca. But his luck id not last long.
Shortly after my birth, some miserable coward denounced my parents with the bishop of Florentia, for incest. They were Catholic - not Arian - and the children of brothers: their marriage wasn't valid, according to the laws of the church, and the church demanded that they separate.
My father pulled his wife to his chest and laughed at the commandment. But the secret accuser would not keep quiet -"
"Who was that nithing?"
"Oh, if I knew, I would find him, and if he'd be enthroned among all the horrors of Mount Vesuvius! He would not keep quiet. Unceasingly, the priest would pressure my poor mother and wanted to scare her soul with the pangs of conscience.
In vain: she kept to her God and her husband, and resisted the bishop and his messengers. And when my father met a priest on his farm, he'd greet him in a way so he'd never come back.
But who can fight those that speak in the name of God! A last deadline was set to the disobedient couple, and if they hadn't seperated until then, they should be excommuniated, and all their possessions confiscated by the church.
Horrified, my father hurried to the court of the King to plead for the cruel judgement to be lifted. But the ruling of the council was clear, and Thoedoric couldn't dare to offend the laws of the Catholic church. When my father returned from Ravenna, meaning to flee with Gisa, he instead gazed with horror upon the place where his house had stood: the deadline had passed, and the threat was fulfilled: his house destroyed, his wife and child vanished!
Crazed, he searched for us throughout Italy. Finally, disguised as a priest, he found his Gisa in a nunnery near Ticinum: her boy had been torn from her and taken to Rome. My father prepared their flight: they escape at midnight, over the nunnery's garden wall. But in the morning, the penitent is missed at the hora: her cell is empty. The grooms follow the tracks of their horse - they catch up with them: in grim fight, my father falls: my mother is taken back to her cell. And so terribly the force of gried and the discipline of the nunnery press down on her, she goes mad, and dies. That much for my parents."
"And you?"
"Old Hildebrand discovered me in Rome; he was a comrade in arms of my grandfather and father: - with the help of the king, he tore me from the grasp of the priests and had me educated in Regium, with his own grandsons."
"And your lands, your inheritance?"
"Fell to the church that sold it, for a very low price, to Theodahad: he was my father's neighbour and now is my king!"
"My poor friend! But what happened to you later? There is only dark talk - you're said to have been a captive in Greece, once..."
Teja got up. "Let me be silent on that; perhaps another time. I was fool enough to believe in luck and the mercy of a loving God! I have suffered much for it and won't do it ever again. Fare well, Witichis, and don't scold Teja if he's not like the others."
He squeezed Witichis' hand again and quickly vanished into the dark portico.
Among the latter was Witichis, whose thoughts did not seem to dwell within the wreathed columns that held up the roof of the feasting hall. Untouched, the golden drinking bowl stood before him, and he hardl noticed the loud call from Hildebad, who was sitting opposite him. Finall - the lamps already shone in the hall, and the stars in the sky - he got up and went out, into the green darkness of the gardens.
Slowly he walked through the taxus rows: his eye on the shimmering stars. His heart was at home, with his wife, with his boy whom he hadn't seen for months. Thus, his brooding walk led him to the temple of Venus by the bay of the sea which we already know. He looked out at the shimmering ocean - when something glinted in the grass, close by his feet: is war a suit of armour, beside it a small Gothic harp: a man lay before him in the soft grass, and a pale face turned up towards him.
"You here, Teja? You were not at the banquet?"
"No, I was with the dead."
"My heart knows nothing of feasting, either: it was at home, with my wife and child," Witichis said, sitting down beside him.
"With your wife and child," Teja repeated, sighing.
"Many asked for you, Teja."
"For me! Should I sit beside Cethegus, who took my honour, and beside Theodahad, who took my inheritance?"
"Your inheritance?"
"At least he owns it. And over the place where my cradle stood, goes his plow."
And silently, he looked into the darkness.
"Your harp is silent? You are praised as the best harpist and singer of our people!"
"Like Gelimer, the last king of the Vandals, who was his people's best harpist. But they would not lead me into Byzantium in triumph!"
"You don't sing often, any more?"
"Almost never. But I feel there will be days when I will sing again."
"Days of joy?"
"Days of the highest, final grief."
For a long while, both were silent.
"My Teja," Witichis finally said. "In all dangers of war and peace I have found you faithful like my sword. And although you're so much younger than I, and the older man will not easily get attached to the younger, I can call you the best friend of my heart. And I know that your heart is more attached to me than to the companions of your youth."
Teja took his hand, and squeezed it: "You know my ways and honour them, even where you do not understand them. The others - but still: one of them I love very much."
"Whom?"
"The one whom all love."
"Totila!"
"I love him like the night loves the morning star. But he is made of light: he cannot fathom that others are dark and must stay that way."
"Must stay that way? You know, I am not a curious man. And if I ask you in this solemn hour to lift the veil that lies over your dark grief, I only ask because I want to help you. And because the eye of a friend often can see more than your own."
"Help? Help me? Can you awaken the dead? My grief is immovable as the past. And whoever has felt the merciless wheels of fate, trampling everything in its path with no regard to nobility and tenderness, yes, even prefers the noble because it is tender and more easily crushed than that which is common; whoever has realised that a dumb necessity that fools call the wise providence of God is ruling the world and the lives of men: - that man is beyong help or comfort! He listens forever, once he has heard it for the first time, with the light ear of desperation to the unchangeable beat of the wheel in the centre of the world, uncaringly engendering and killing life with every turn. Whoever has felt that once will abjure everything, once and for all: nothing can ever make him fear again. But at the same time - he would forget the art of smiling forever."
"You make me shudder! God may keep me from such madness. How did you come to such fearsome wisdom while still so young?"
"Friend, with your thoughts alone you will not think up the truth; you have to live it! An only when you know about a man's life will you understand what he thinks, and how he thinks. And as I would not appear to you as a crazed dreamer, a weakling that likes to wallow in his grief - and as I would honour your rust and your friendship - you may listen and hear a small part of my grief. The other, larger one, I will still keep to myself" - he said, pressing his hand to his chest in pain - "there will be another hour for that. I will tell you, today, how the star of unhappiness shone over my head even as I was begotten. - And from among all those thousands of stars up there, only that one will stay faithful to me. You were a witness - you remember - how that false prefect called me a bastard, out loud in front of all and refused to fight me in due: - I had to bear it, I am worse still than a bastard.
My father, Tagila, was a good warrior, but not a nobleman: he was a free commoner, and poor. All his life since his beard had started sprouting, he had loved Gisa, the daughter of his father's brother. They lived far out near the eastern border of the realm, on the shores of cold Ister, where there is always strife with the Gepids and the wild Sarmatian robbers and has little time for the church and the changing commandments its councils will decree. Long, my father could not woo for his Gisa - he had nothing but his helmet and spear and couldn't pay the dowry to her guardian, and not prepare a hearth for a wfe.
Finally, luck looked upon him favourably. In the war against a Sarmatian king, her conquered his fortified treasury tower on the shores of the Alutha: and the rich treasure that the Sarmatians had plundered over centuries, and amassed here, became his loot. To reward him for this deed, Theodoric made him a Count and called him to Italy. My father took his treasure and Gisa, his wife now, with him across the Alps and bought wide, beautiful lands in Tuscany, between Florentia and Luca. But his luck id not last long.
Shortly after my birth, some miserable coward denounced my parents with the bishop of Florentia, for incest. They were Catholic - not Arian - and the children of brothers: their marriage wasn't valid, according to the laws of the church, and the church demanded that they separate.
My father pulled his wife to his chest and laughed at the commandment. But the secret accuser would not keep quiet -"
"Who was that nithing?"
"Oh, if I knew, I would find him, and if he'd be enthroned among all the horrors of Mount Vesuvius! He would not keep quiet. Unceasingly, the priest would pressure my poor mother and wanted to scare her soul with the pangs of conscience.
In vain: she kept to her God and her husband, and resisted the bishop and his messengers. And when my father met a priest on his farm, he'd greet him in a way so he'd never come back.
But who can fight those that speak in the name of God! A last deadline was set to the disobedient couple, and if they hadn't seperated until then, they should be excommuniated, and all their possessions confiscated by the church.
Horrified, my father hurried to the court of the King to plead for the cruel judgement to be lifted. But the ruling of the council was clear, and Thoedoric couldn't dare to offend the laws of the Catholic church. When my father returned from Ravenna, meaning to flee with Gisa, he instead gazed with horror upon the place where his house had stood: the deadline had passed, and the threat was fulfilled: his house destroyed, his wife and child vanished!
Crazed, he searched for us throughout Italy. Finally, disguised as a priest, he found his Gisa in a nunnery near Ticinum: her boy had been torn from her and taken to Rome. My father prepared their flight: they escape at midnight, over the nunnery's garden wall. But in the morning, the penitent is missed at the hora: her cell is empty. The grooms follow the tracks of their horse - they catch up with them: in grim fight, my father falls: my mother is taken back to her cell. And so terribly the force of gried and the discipline of the nunnery press down on her, she goes mad, and dies. That much for my parents."
"And you?"
"Old Hildebrand discovered me in Rome; he was a comrade in arms of my grandfather and father: - with the help of the king, he tore me from the grasp of the priests and had me educated in Regium, with his own grandsons."
"And your lands, your inheritance?"
"Fell to the church that sold it, for a very low price, to Theodahad: he was my father's neighbour and now is my king!"
"My poor friend! But what happened to you later? There is only dark talk - you're said to have been a captive in Greece, once..."
Teja got up. "Let me be silent on that; perhaps another time. I was fool enough to believe in luck and the mercy of a loving God! I have suffered much for it and won't do it ever again. Fare well, Witichis, and don't scold Teja if he's not like the others."
He squeezed Witichis' hand again and quickly vanished into the dark portico.