Epithalamion
Beside the bailey’s gilded door,
Upon the bridge, drummeth down on the moor
Dear reader, spare your poet’s heart a prayere!
For our tale begins within the King’s Faire.
Children, ‘round the maypole ‘went,
Tinkering together like pennies and pence
Children, singing the maypole’s song!
“Let coloured ribbons fly, o’er lectern long!”
Travelling peddlers aplenty, with pigeon pies to spare!
Violet-weavers, whirlen a fair fauntkin’s hair!
Maidens a’douzen gathering, in posies of thyme,
The Earl and Baron dealing, in false hands of wine.
There, the motley-suited Fool of the court
Prowling against noble shoulders, the two-faced consort
Laden in silken rede, his golden drum
Twirlen a marotte, his tawny face’d son.
Meanwhile–among canticle chimers
Beneath cathedral bells and nursery rhymers
Our silkworm-woven princess kept,
The linden tree watched, as her flaxen head slept.
The Fool, weaving through nameless men
Singing hymns of ridicule, tithes and lumpen
Hark! The Northern Star in the distance!
Her hair was made of pennies, twine and sixpence.
He had never seen a lovelier sight,
A maiden so golden, the sun birth’d the night
Her fingers curled ‘round her signet ring,
Here lies the daughter of man’s fairest King.
Hark! Hearken! Heed!
In strode the knight-errant, on his palfrey steed,
Heralding the King with an argent shield,
To their knees, the faire-courtiers kneel’d.
The trumpets, thence, cried out with cheer,
“It is he! Our gallant squire, at last he is here!”
And all the people, they crumpled far and near,
Bending like willows to lend him an ear.
And the princess–lifting like the dawn,
Released from the moon, and omitting a yawn
Her eyes of stirring dandelion-milk
Fluttered and muttered as she stumbled o’er thilk.
To the Fool’s most sorry surprise,
The princess lent to no other her eyes.
For there was only one in all the land,
Who was deserving of her signet hand.
Forsaken by wing’d Cupid’s witless bow,
The Fool gave up his jocular show.
In haste, he clambered through the castle door
Stumbling like a drunkard down from the moor
The magician’s lair sat a’top a’turret
The dusken air athwart of nettle and laurate
“Come, Fool, o’er to thee
O blind Polyphemus, son of the sea.”
Led not by his feet or his hands
But by his heart and adrenal glands,
The besotten Fool pray’d to the unseen–
“Give me the princess, let her be my queen. ”
The magician's cloak’d face grew dark,
His glove’d fingers furled ‘round his salt-crusted flask
“Fool, hound of the courtesan lyre–
It is not her, of which you most truly desire.”
The Fool threw his arms around himself,
Weeping and seeping upon the mantle-shelf.
“Anything!” He cried, “over the vaster tide!”
“Anything, to make the princess my bride!”
With the magician’s minatory finger, curling beneath his chin,
He spoke. “Your appetite is born of an unsatisfactory sin. So,
Through the muffled pyres of the day long gone,
You, Fool, needeth give up your song.”
The Fool staggered, his heart come undone
“Without my errors, I become less than none!”
The magician’s smile wickedly curled–
“What is left within your heart will find life in your world.”
Wherefore, up rose the magician’s deathless hand.
He cried, "amethystine eyes, see this ignoble man!
Who came to me to quench his thirst,
For mercilessly, love hath him curse’d!
By the sweat of a butterfly’s first wing’d flight
By the blood of a saint a’curse’d by night,
By the breath of the swine and the kiss of the foal,
Asunder–you will split this two-headed soul.
Bone-to-blood, and blood-to-skin
Don a cloak to hide thine quiddity in,
Vext by the tongue that demanded a wife,
It is finished. Thou will never amuse another life.”
Yelling, the fool writhed upon the floor
His face veiled in placenta, dust and buboes-sores
His motley-suit a’lit in burnished hues of smoke,
His voice subdued to the utterance of a croak.
Dear reader, it might be noble to explain,
That hereby, the king’s jester has been born again.
The cost of his desire–from a Fool to a fool,
Let our tale renew in the coming weeks of Yule.
It was few and fewer a day so on,
That the banns of marriage were drawn and redrawn.
The wing’d servants of Heaven’s gate pled,
For the princess, and her hollow-eye’d betrothed.
For forty days and forty nights,
The noble fool tossed and turned in plight.
For he could not–no matter how hard he tried,
Bring a smile to the face of his soon-to-be bride.
He told tales of ancient gods–
Of the wandering muse and the suitor’d frauds
Of the prowess of people-kings,
Of mead-cups, and longwind’d riddle-strings.
He juggled orange medlar-fruits,
Sang a choir of hymns upon his maple-lute
Told jokes of jars and pots-and-pans,
Of filth and soil, of sweetness and jams.
Alack! Such beauty had never known such bore,
Knelt in quietude, l'église du corps.
For the princess knew not why nor how,
She had been betrothed to cipher such idle vows.
Upon the unfated, fallow-fingered dawn,
The trumpets, thence, cried out in mourn.
Her spinster-woven marital skirts,
The milde colour of cage’d bluebirds.
O, reader! How the ceremonial choir sings!
O’er the rows of common folk, herald’d in.
O, reader! Cast a watchful eye–
O’er the fool, princess, and the king closer-by.
The princess turn’d ‘round and ‘round in blight,
Blue’r than periwinkle–the sun birth’d night
The moon set upon her flaxen head,
Her waxen face hollow’d out by dread.
The noble fool cast his vow,
Two-headed truth slain o’er his brow.
The king’s finger, curled beneath his own chin,
His eyes akin to that of a djinn.
The king’s smile slithered o’er his face,
Crawling higher and higher, past latent grace.
The noble fool looked up in fright–
The king bore the face of the magician in light!
Ere long the king’s bellow rang out!
The Furies among each spurn’d shout
The fool wept, upon gilded knees–
“Your Grace, have mercy, if you please!”
The king jeered! “O, foolish hound of men,
The devil will come, thou’st damned among them.
O, foolish hound of the suite–
O’ Beasts of Tartarus, come o’er the fleet!
Próto. A chariot of bulls, oriflamme’d flames.
Déftero. A lion of many various names.
Tríto. The hundred-handed, fifty-headed fell.
Tétartos. The ignoble fool was dragged o’er to hell.
Written by Emmanuelle Kate.
Editor and curator of The Secret Garden Journal, Emmanuelle Kate is a nineteen-year-old writer who believes there is nothing more lovely than the act of falling down dream-like literary rabbit holes of fiction and prose. Her published work with The Secret Garden Journal includes a small compendium of her ever-growing collection of poetry and prosaic think-pieces. She has been featured in various other publications, most recently Favourite Child Collective’s ‘Sapphic Longing‘ magazine, and likes to dedicate her spare time to writing articles and blog posts—in between studying for her literary degree and putting together The Secret Garden’s seasonal issues.
As a fervent lover of classic children’s fiction and their authors—such as Enid Blyton, Lewis Carroll, and undoubtedly Frances Hodgson Burnett—Emmanuelle is working on a novel of her very own that contemporarily echoes the outlandish whimsy of her favourite childhood narratives. @emmyk4te