The Hanged Man: Part 2: Mabon
Post #6: In which a man changes his soul for love ...
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The passage widened out and warm color and the sound of water greeted him as he stepped into a room. Carnelian seamed the wall ahead. It glowed with an earthy red orange color touched with brown. Dvorg craftsmen had polished the exposed surface of the gems embedded in the rock wall. To one side stood a stone basin, carved with lotus flowers and fish, and a spring, freed from the rock, splashed in the basin. Cushions and sheepskin rugs were scattered on the smoothed and leveled floor and lamps glowed in brackets set into walls. The room soothed and welcomed.
He wasn’t alone. As Hades drew near to the fountain to feel the cool water on his hand, he realized the presence of one of the dead.
“My Lord Hades, I heard the sound of water.”
Pain and longing in the faint voice, whisper though it was, touched Hades’ heart.
“I found this room and I’ve been remembering …”
“You’re welcome here,” replied Hades. “Will you tell me something of your story? What in life does this room bring back to you?”
Hades sat down on a thick sheepskin and made himself comfortable with cushions.
“It’s time, then,” said the soul, as though to itself. It remained silent for some moments. Hades relaxed into his own breathing, holding himself receptive but not hurrying the other.
“My name in life, Lord,” began the soul in a stronger voice, “was the Dark Prince.”
“I lived in a great city on a wide river. My mother had a broken-down hovel in the poorest part of the city. I don’t know how she kept us. We had little money and often we were hungry. I was a boy with no interest in learning or work. I didn’t mind being hungry. I could steal enough food to live. My mother was aged beyond her years with poverty and worry. She felt bitter because I wouldn’t help earn money as the other boys did in our circumstances. She called me ugly, stupid and lazy. All I cared about was a flute I’d carved myself from a bone. I taught myself to play it. I played the feelings I couldn’t name. I liked best to wander the streets, watching and listening, and then find some quiet place and play my flute.
Oh, the streets of my home! I remember how calm and cool early mornings were as the city began to stir. Vendors set up stalls. The streets filled with the sounds of chickens, donkeys braying, camels, bawling oxen and barking dogs. As the sun rose, merchants and businessmen strode along in fine robes with their heads together. Buyers and sellers bargained, exchanging insults and compliments. Wealthy women in gold collars walked about with servants a step behind carrying baskets and bundles. Children darted, stealing a piece of fruit, a round of bread or an unguarded purse, shouting at one another, fighting and laughing. The sun grew hot and glared off bleached walls and dust hung heavy, weighted with all the smells of the city. I would walk for hours up and down the streets and then at midday I would find a patch of shade to squat in.
One afternoon I felt restless and explored an unfamiliar street. I came to a high white wall. Over the top of it green tops of trees showed. It was a hot day but the trees looked cool and I thought of their shade with longing. I wondered what could be on the other side of the wall. I found a place where I could climb it. The broad top made a comfortable seat.
Below me clusters of tall trees stood between gardens. A fountain bubbled with a curved bench around it. It was like a different world. As I sat there, a woman came along a path winding through trees. She dipped her hands into the fountain. She appeared young, wearing fine vivid robes and jewelry of gold and gems. I’d never seen such a woman before and I knew she must be high born. She didn’t see me there on top of the wall. She sat on the bench by the fountain with her hands in her lap and I thought she seemed sad and alone.
I longed to play my flute. I brought it out of my rags and put it to my lips. I closed my eyes and played everything I felt about the hot city streets, pungent and noisy with life, this calm, cool place of beauty hidden in their midst, and this young woman, so alone and so beautiful.
She never looked around. The flute blended into sounds outside the wall. I played and played, just as I did when alone. The sun slid down and it grew cooler. All the time I played she sat there with her hands in her lap. Her head was bowed, as though she studied her hands. Then she stood up and walked back down the path between the trees until hidden from sight.
I stopped playing. I slid down the wall and returned home to my poor old mother, running through the market to snatch food from unguarded stalls and then making my way back to the slums along the river.
Every day I returned. Lord, do you remember how it felt the first time you fell in love?”
Hades, who’d been caught up in the story, came back to himself with a start. The question twisted in his heart.
“Yes,” he said, and his voice sounded hoarse in his own ears.
“Well,” resumed the Dark Prince, “that’s how it was with me. I returned to the wall every day. Every day the young woman came to the fountain. Every day I played everything in my heart. She never noticed me.
I dreamt one day she’d look up and notice me there on the wall. She’d notice me and perhaps we could be friends. She might invite me down into the garden on her side of the wall and I’d tell her about my life and the city and play my flute for her. We’d walk together and explore the gardens and I could find out where the path through the trees led. I could dip my hand in cool fountain water and look at her beautiful robes and her slim hands and her sad face. Maybe I could make her smile. But day after day passed, and she never noticed me at all.
One evening I passed a well where a group of old women drew water. They spoke of a beautiful garden and I lingered, as beautiful gardens were in my thoughts. They talked of our monarch’s palace, surrounded by gardens and grounds, and described fountains, trees, exotic flowers and a high white wall … and then I knew. I understood I’d dared to love none other than our monarch’s daughter, highest princess in the land.
I felt devastated. I’d presumed to dream of a princess noticing me, a dirty ignorant street boy. I felt as though I’d lost any reason for being alive.
I didn’t go home. I wandered the streets late into the night in despair. Sometime near dawn I came to city gates. Outside the gates, merchants camped. I smelled cooking fires and the camp was already stirring in the cool air before dawn. I walked out the gates and wandered among tents and animals. A group of men stood around a fire with steaming cups in their hands, talking in low morning voices. Once of them noticed me and poured me a hot drink. As I stood near the fire, they paid no attention to me but continued their conversation.
All men who travel the world are the same. They speak of faraway exotic places, strange animals and races of men, silks and fabrics, spices, jewels and ivory, and magic.
‘The greatest magician of all,’ said one man, ‘greater than any I ever saw in all the world, lives right here in this desert. He can do miracles, my friends, I tell you! He can change a man’s soul, that one!’
The words caught my attention. The talk moved on but I turned over his words in my mind. I moved around the knot of men until I could stand near the one who’d spoken of the magician.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, “who is this magician?’
‘Ah,’ replied the merchant, ‘yes, boy, you want to know of such a man, don’t you? His name is Shabu, that one, and he lives out there.’ He pointed out into the desert, rolling endlessly under the dim flat sky. ‘If you walk for three days and three nights, you’ll find him.’
Without another word, I set down my cup and turned away.
For three days and three nights I walked, and then I came upon a ragged palm tree and a pool of water next to a broken-down hut. A black bird flew up from the roof of the place with a harsh sound as I knocked on the door. The door opened and there stood an old, old man, ragged and dusty as the palm tree. The socket of a missing eye puckered. He was toothless, but he smiled.
‘And what do you want?’ he inquired in a cracked high voice.
‘I seek the magician called Shabu,’ I croaked. My dry tongue felt slow.
‘And that is my name,’ said the old man. ‘Come, boy, and rest. Drink and eat and then you shall tell me your story.’
I washed and drank but I couldn’t eat. I sat in the shade under the tattered palm and rested for a time and then the old man came and sat with me. He carried a handful of marbles made of carnelian, yellow jasper, rose quartz, turquoise and lapis lazuli, and he brushed sand off a flat stone and laid them out carefully, ready for a game, while I talked. I told him everything. I emptied my heart as though playing the bone flute, but this time I found words.
When I stopped speaking, we sat in silence. Being young, I felt impatient with silence.
‘Can you change a man’s soul?’ I asked. ‘Can you make me strong and powerful? Can you make me a soldier, a prince, a warrior?’
‘Oh yes,’ said the old man. ‘But be careful, boy. Once I change the shape of a man’s soul, I can’t ever change it back again.’
‘I won’t want to change it back again.’
‘And what will you pay me?’
I had nothing for payment. I possessed nothing in the world except my hopeless love for a princess and the rags on my back. Then I remembered my flute. I took it out of my robes and gave it to the old man. He turned it over in his hands.
‘This,’ he said, his one eye gleaming, ‘and a game of marbles in order to change your soul.’
I agreed and we knelt under the ragged palm tree and played Camel Spit and Scarabs and Scorpions as the sun set behind the red desert.
Three years passed. I never returned to my mother’s house. They searched for me but could find no trace, and she concluded I’d gone to sleep on the riverbank, fallen in and drowned. She’d always expected something like it to happen. She grieved for a time and held a funeral and then forgot me.
Meanwhile, my country fought a war. The monarch lost most of his land and nearly all of his wealth. Many died. The monarch and his army were camped in the desert preparing to surrender when a young man approached the camp. He walked alone, dressed all in black. He asked to be taken before the monarch and his manner was so commanding the soldiers obeyed him.
I, for of course the young man was myself, introduced myself as the Dark Prince and requested the monarch allow me to take charge of the army. If he agreed to this, I assured him he would win back all the lost land and more, and regain our country’s wealth and power. The monarch was a desperate man with nothing to lose. I was confident, well-spoken and intelligent. He agreed and turned over control of the army to me.
Within weeks I’d won back all the lost land and wealth and more besides. The enemy ranks were killed or captured and enslaved. The monarch thanked me and offered me power and wealth beyond reckoning. We agreed I would come to his palace in one month’s time and claim my reward.
Word spread about me. People called me a savior. Women swept the streets and scattered white flowers. Men stood on rooftops and women hid behind trellised windows, eager for a glimpse of their hero. I strode through the streets dressed in my black robes. I entered the palace and soldiers took me before the monarch. Next to his golden throne sat the princess. The monarch greeted me and once again offered me wealth, power and rulership, urging me to name whatever I desired.
I thanked him. ‘My one desire is your daughter’s hand in marriage -- if she’ll accept me.’
The princess turned to the monarch.
‘Father,’ she said, ‘if it’s your command I’ll marry this Dark Prince. But first, hear my story!’
‘Some years ago, I felt so alone. I walked in the garden every day and sat by the fountain, listening to the city on the other side of the wall. One day a boy climbed to the top of the wall. He didn’t see me sitting there. He played a flute. Oh, Father, he played everything in my heart! He played my loneliness, the garden’s beauty, and the white wall dividing me from the world. He came every day and played. I used to imagine he would jump down from the wall into the garden and take my hand and talk to me. I imagined we would laugh together. Of course, I knew he would never notice someone like me.’
‘One day he didn’t come. He never came again. I sent servants into the city to inquire. Many knew of the boy who played the flute but none knew where to find him. Then news came he’d drowned.’
I could see tears on her face.
‘Father, I’ll obey your command in the matter of marriage,’ she said. ‘But I can never love another the way I loved that boy.’
The soul speaking was faceless and tearless, but Hades heard deep grief, yet grief smiling a wry smile.
“I spoke, not to the monarch, but to her, the princess, my love. ‘I once felt a love like that,’ I told her, ‘and I’d never force you to marry me.’
I turned and left. I walked out of the palace, down flower-strewn streets, and out the city gates into the desert. I walked for three days and three nights, and once again old one-eyed Shabu met me at the door of his hut.
He wasn’t surprised to see me. I told him what happened since I’d last seen him.
‘You said once you’d changed a man’s soul you couldn’t change it back again,’ I said.
‘That’s right, young man,’ he said sternly. ‘It’s too late to go back.’
‘I don’t want to go back,’ I told him. ‘I want to go forward. I want to use my life to help others live honestly. I don’t want to change souls. I want to reveal them, uncover them.’
Shabu smiled. ‘Dangerous desire, that. Many don’t want to see or be seen clearly. Changing a soul—well, that’s always popular! But uncovering the truth of a soul is quite a different proposition.’ He shook his head.
I didn’t dare persist and despair filled me.
‘And what will you pay me?’ he asked suddenly, his eye gleaming.
The last time he’d asked me that I was penniless. The only thing I possessed was my carved bone flute, and he contented himself with that payment, worthless as it was. This time I offered him gold and jewels. He refused. I offered land, livestock, power—and he refused them all.
‘What do you want?’ I asked at last, in desperation.
‘A soul for a soul,’ he croaked. ‘A soul for a soul, my friend. You offer me riches, not soul.’
‘I did it for her,’ I said dully. ‘I wanted to be worthy of her.’
‘You’ve thrown away the soul you were born with,’ said Shabu. ‘Now will you throw away the soul you bought? Will you be any more satisfied with the next soul, or the next? Perhaps something can be made of the soul you possess now. You’ve riches and power. Perhaps you can be worthy of her yet!’
But I knew it was too late. She wanted the boy who’d played the flute, who played everything in her heart. That boy was gone. That soul was gone. I knew I could never play like that again. If she did accept me, it would only be as second best. I didn’t want that.
I persuaded him in the end. I gave him my soul—the Dark Prince’s soul -- and he promised me a new life in which to help others find wisdom and courage to live true to themselves. Then I found myself here, my body gone, and I followed the sound of water, thinking of the fountain, and of her.”
The only sound in the rock chamber was the plashing fountain. Hades felt so moved he couldn’t find words. He knew he must gather himself to speak to this soul, say something about this remarkable story, but he couldn’t. In his distress, he thought of Persephone and wished for her presence. She seemed always to have a gentle word, an easy sense of grace and respect for everyone who passed through the Underworld. The thought of her brought clarity and certainty, a powerful sense of what he must do. His confusion and self-doubt were gone. The story showed him the way.
Hades found his tongue and for some time he talked to the Dark Prince. When they parted and Hades set out to find Persephone, he thought perhaps he could learn, after all, to be a good and just Lord of the Underworld. Perhaps he was the right one for the job. Perhaps he was the only one for the job.
(This was posted with this essay.)