Chapter Text
The forbidden cities. A labyrinthine
mess of buildings and, ‘sblood, so many roads.
‘Tis but a shame that ye humans cannot
travel through th’ light, for your consciousnesses
(5) are more feeble than an herb kept i’ th’ twilight.
‘T makes for such an architectural mess
o’ a world. ‘T hath been near a score o’ centuries
sith I have walked amongst you, and as much
has stayed the same as has changed. I was young
(10) then, not by your human standards, but by
mine own, and more foolish than Lear. Th’ last time
I loved a human, ‘t ended wi’ crucifixion.
I could not tell thou if ‘twas ere o’ after
the sinking of Atlantis—’zounds, thou art
(15) not to know of that—but I do know that
I resolvèd to ne’er return to these
forsaken places. Still, my place made o’ me
a liar to myself. I would thou hadst
not t’ invent black powder t’ eviscerate
(20) thine enemies, but ‘twas not so. Thou thirst
for th’ blood o’ another is more severe than th’ bite
o’ a crocodile. O, Egypt, thou wast
a lovely civilization, with thine
pyramids of thine own construction. Ay,
(25) ‘twas no telekinesis, but human
determination constructing those stone
monuments. I ne’er understood wherefore
they did that, but ‘twas their own time they took.
My past seeing thine civilizations
(30) made me a worthy candidate t’ check
i’ on what thou wert doing i’ thine own spare time
sith we left thee alone. I was none too
jovial of mine assignment. Being
the cockalorum that I am, I felt
(35) this beneath my place, but ‘tis not the way
o’ Rome. ‘Twas not till I found fair William
I quitted cantankerous character.
But soft, ‘tis not the way of thy world o’ mine.
Nay, thou canst not be a man who loveth
(40) another, and my station preventeth
me from the consideration. Still, ere
I knew of what happened, I found myself
longing with the desire for more. Thou
already knowest how this shall end ere
(45) it began, as did I, which did not stop
me for but a moment. I travelled through
hundreds of towns, and still I kept wand’ring
back right here to live William’s latest.
To be or not to be here, ‘twas th’ question,
(50) if thou shalt forgive the allusion plain,
and the answer was for certes, ay. ‘Twas
not until after a performance o’ that
very work that I met the playwright, a
man more eloquent than any I had
(55) e’er met or e’er will. An Everblaze of
emotion ignited in my soul on
that day. He could maketh the confusing
mess of English rules to poetry
Like ‘t was nothing, and he knew much o’ nothing.
(60) Nay, thou canst not make much ado about
nothing without being Jovian. I
am nothing if not a strumpet, and he
O, he was perfection to a degree
I hitherto thought unattainable.
(65) ‘Twould not be long ere I would be wrong,
and still it was exactly my swan song.