The Worm Ouroboros (67 page)

400 News of Eshgrar Ogo brought to Carcë: Corund honoured by the King therefor with the style of king of Impland. Juss and Brandoch Daha cross the Zia Pass: fight with the mantichore: ascent of Koshtra Pivrarcha, entrance into Koshtra Belorn, and entertainment by Queen Sophonisba: Juss's vision of Goldry bound on Zora: the Queen's furtherance of their designs: the hippogriff hatched beside the Lake of Ravary: the fatal folly of Mivarsh: Juss in despite of the Queen's admonitions assays Zora Rach on foot and comes within a little of losing his life. Prezmyra Queen of Impland and Laxus king of Pixyland crowned in Carcë, the King sends an expedition to put down Demonland, setting Corsus in chief command thereof: Laxus defeats Voile by sea off Lookinghaven, and Corsus, Vizz by land at Crossby Outsikes, Vizz slain on the field: cruel and despiteful policy of Corsus: dissensions betwixt him and Gallandus: great reversal of these disasters by Spitfire, Corsus's army cut in pieces by him on the Rapes of Brima and the survivors besieged in Owlswick: discontent of the army: Corsus with his own hands murthers Gallandus in Owlswick: tidings brought by Gro to Carcë: Corsus degraded by the King, who commissions Corinius as king of Demonland to retrieve the matter: battle of Thremnir's Heugh, with the overthrow of Spitfire's power: Corinius crowned in Owlswick: arrest of Corsus and his sons and their despatch home to Witchland.

401 Reduction of eastern Demonland by Corinius, save only Galing which Bremery holds with seventy men: Corinius moves west over the Stile: his insolent demands to Mevrian: miscarriage of Gaslark's expedition to the relief of Krothering, his defeat at Aurwath: masterly retreat of Corinius from Krothering before superior numbers: his ambushing and destroying of Spitfire's army on the shores of Switchwater: fall of Krothering and surrender of Mevrian: her escape by the counsel of Gro, the help of Corund's sons, and the connivance of Laxus: her flight to Westmark and thence east again into Neverdale: Gro abandons the cause of Witchland for that of Demonland: his and Mevrian's meeting with Juss and Brandoch Daha on their return home after two years: revolt of the east and relief of Galing: masterly dispositions both by Corinius and by the Demons for a decisive encounter: battle of Krothering Side and expulsion of the Witches from Demonland.

402 Second expedition to Impland, in which Gaslark and La Fireez join the Demons, lands at Muelva on the Didornian Sea: Juss, Spitfire, Brandoch Daha, Gro, Zigg, and Astar cross the Moruna: Juss's riding of the hippogriff to Zora Rach and deliverance of Goldry: Laxus sent by the King with an overwhelming power of ships to close Melikaphkhaz Straits against the Demons on their homeward voyage: battle off Melikaphkhaz: destruction of the Witchiand armada: Laxus and La Fireez slain: a single surviving ship brings the tidings to Carcë: Corund called captain general in Carcë: gathering of the Witchland armies and their subject allies: landing of the Demons in the south: parley before Carcë: the King's warning to Juss: implacable enmity between them: signs and prognosticks in the heavens: the King's desperate resolution if the fight should go against him: battle before Carcë: slaying of Gro and Corund: defeat of the King's forces: council of war in Carcë, Corinius the second time captain general: Corsus, counselling surrender, falls greatly into the King's displeasure and is by him shamed and dismissed: in despair he compasses the taking off of Corinius and the sons of Corund, and unhappily of his own son too and his duchess, by poison, but is himself slain by Corinius: blasting of the Iron Tower in the miscarriage of the King's last conjuring: the Demons enter into Carcë: their encounter there with Queen Prezmyra: her tragical end and triumph: in all of which is completed the fall of the empire and kingdom of the house of Gorice in Carcë.

403 Queen Sophonisba in Demonland: the marvel of marvels that restored the world on Lord Juss's natal day, the thirtythird year of his life in Galing.

III. The Funeral dirge on King Gorice XI-William Dunbar (late 15th century) "Lament for the Makris: quhen he was seik."

Lampoon on Gro-Epigram in memory of William Parrie, "a capital traitor," executed for treason in 1584: quoted by Holinshed.

IV. Prophecy concerning the last three Kings of the house of Gorice in Carce.

VII. Song in praise of Prezmyra Thomas Carew (1598-1639).

Corund's Song of the Chine-"An Antidote against Melancholy"

Corsus's "Whene'er I bib the wine down"-Anacreonta xxv.; transl. from the Greek, E. R. E.

Corsus's other ditties…-From the "Roxburgh Ballads"-(collected 1774).

IX. Mivarsh's slaves on Salapanta-Herrick (1591-1674), "Hesperides."

XV. Prezmyra's song of Lovers-Donne (1573-1631)

Corinius's love ditty: "What an Ass is he"-"Merry Drollerie"

Corinius's song on his Mis tress-Ibid.

Laxus's Serenade Anacreota ii.; trans. from the Greek, E. R. E.

XVII. March of Corsus's veterans-

XXII. Mevrian's ballad of the Ra vens-Old Ballad: "The Three Ravens."

XXIV. Mevrian's quotation on the asbeston stone-Robert Greene (1560-92), "Alphonsus, King of Arragon."

XXX. Gro's serenade to Prezmyra-Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639), verses to Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia.

XXXI. Prophecy concerning conjuring

XXXIII. Lines quoted by Queen Sophonisba on the fall of Witchland- Webster (beginning of 17th century); "The Duchess of Malfi," Act V. V.

Queen Sophonisba's Sonnet-Shakespeare, Sonnet XVIII.

The text here printed of Wotton's poem is that of "Reliquiae Wottonianae," 1st ed., 1651, edited by Izaak Walton; except that I read (with the earlier texts) 1. 5
Moone
, 1. 8
Passions
, 1. 16
Princess
, instead of
Sun
,
Voyces
,
Mistris
of the 1651 edition. Shakespeare's Sonnet is from the Quarto of 1609.

The passage from Njal's Saga in the Induction is quoted from Sir George Dasent's classic translation.