“Roughly worded, that, Babbalanja.—­Vee-Vee! my crown!—­So; now, Babbalanja, try if you can not polish Bardianna’s style in that last saying you father upon him.”

“I will, my ever honorable lord,” said Babbalanja, salaming.  “Thus we’ll word it, then:  In their merely Mardian nature, the sublimest demi-gods are subject to infirmities; for struck by some keen shaft, even a king ofttimes dons his crown, fearful of future darts.”

“Ha, ha!—­well done, Babbalanja; but I bade you polish, not sharpen the arrow.”

“All one, my thrice honored lord;—­to polish is not to blunt.”

CHAPTER XLVII
Babbalanja Philosophizes, And My Lord Media Passes Round The
Calabashes

An interval of silence passed; when Media cried, “Out upon thee, Yoomy! curtail that long face of thine.”

“How can he, my lord,” said Mohi, “when he is thinking of furlongs?”

“Fathoms you mean, Mohi; see you not he is musing over the gunwale?  And now, minstrel, a banana for thy thoughts.  Come, tell me how you poets spend so many hours in meditation.”

“My lord, it is because, that when we think, we think so little of ourselves.”

“I thought as much,” said Mohi, “for no sooner do I undertake to be sociable with myself, than I am straightway forced to beat a retreat.”

“Ay, old man,” said Babbalanja, “many of us Mardians are but sorry hosts to ourselves.  Some hearts are hermits.”

“If not of yourself, then, Yoomy, of whom else do you think?” asked Media.

“My lord, I seldom think,” said Yoomy, “I but give ear to the voices in my calm.”

“Did Babbalanja speak?” said Media.  “But no more of your reveries;” and so saying Media gradually sunk into a reverie himself.

The rest did likewise; and soon, with eyes enchanted, all reclined:  gazing at each other, witless of what we did.

It was Media who broke the spell; calling for Vee-Vee our page, his calabashes and cups, and nectarines for all.

Eyeing his goblet, Media at length threw himself back, and said:  “Babbalanja, not ten minutes since, we were all absent-minded; now, how would you like to step out of your body, in reality; and, as a spirit, haunt some shadowy grove?”

“But our lungs are not wholly superfluous, my lord,” said Babbalanja, speaking loud.

“No, nor our lips,” said Mohi, smacking his over his wine.

“But could you really be disembodied here in Mardi, Babbalanja, how would you fancy it?” said Media.

“My lord,” said Babbalanja, speaking through half of a nectarine, “defer putting that question, I beseech, till after my appetite is satisfied; for, trust me, no hungry mortal would forfeit his palate, to be resolved into the impalpable.”

“Yet pure spirits we must all become at last, Babbalanja,” said Yoomy, “even the most ignoble.”