Chapter 57 - Page 2

matter of life and of death. "Drag away my
queen from my arms," said old Tyty when overcome of Adommo, "but
leave me my cook."

Now, among the Mardians there were plenty of incarnated deities to
keep me in countenance. Most of the kings of the Archipelago, besides
Media, claiming homage as demi-gods; and that, too, by virtue of
hereditary descent, the divine spark being transmissable from father
to son. In illustration of this, was the fact, that in several
instances the people of the land addressed the supreme god Oro, in
the very same terms employed in the political adoration of their
sublunary rulers.

Ay: there were deities in Mardi far greater and taller than I:
right royal monarchs to boot, living in jolly round tabernacles of
jolly brown clay; and feasting, and roystering, and lording it in
yellow tabernacles of bamboo. These demi-gods had wherewithal to
sustain their lofty pretensions. If need were, could crush out of him
the infidelity of a non-conformist. And by this immaculate union of
church and state, god and king, in their own proper persons reigned
supreme Caesars over the souls and bodies of their subjects.

Beside these mighty magnates, I and my divinity shrank into nothing.
In their woodland ante-chambers plebeian deities were kept lingering.
For be it known, that in due time we met with several decayed, broken
down demi-gods: magnificos of no mark in Mardi; having no temples
wherein to feast personal admirers, or spiritual devotees. They
wandered about forlorn and friendless. And oftentimes in their
dinnerless despair hugely gluttonized, and would fain have grown fat,
by reflecting upon the magnificence of their genealogies. But poor
fellows! like shabby Scotch lords in London in King James's time, the
very multitude of them confounded distinction. And since they could
show no rent-roll, they were permitted to fume unheeded.

Upon the whole, so numerous were living and breathing gods in Mardi,
that I held my divinity but cheaply. And seeing such a host of
immortals, and hearing of multitudes more, purely spiritual in their
nature, haunting woodlands and streams; my views of theology grew
strangely confused; I began to bethink me of the Jew that rejected
the Talmud, and his all-permeating principle, to which Goethe and
others have subscribed.

Instead, then, of being struck with the audacity of endeavoring to
palm myself off as a god--the way in which the thing first impressed
me--I now perceived that I might be a god as much as I pleased, and
yet not whisk a lion's tail after all at least on that special
account.

As for Media's reception, its graciousness was not wholly
owing to the divine character imputed to me. His, he