The Beginning of Prodesse's Education

From time to time I pick away at an epic I am writing called Prodesse and Delecta. It is about two halves of things: truth and beauty, content and form, what is and how it is. These fragments were written some time ago and are the fruit of stray connections between the story and my studies in literature---particularly in comparative world literature studies.

The King's mother had been a great lady of the east. Because he was not expected to rule, she had been permitted to keep him with her and her wise men for the greater part of his boyhood. The result was, that when his elder brother died and his turn came to be groomed for succession, he retained an affection for the philosophies of the east. In all other respects he was a western king and wedded a western princess.

In the matter of Prodesse's education, the King followed his own inclination and provided both eastern and western tutors for his son. This his advisers approved to his face; privately, however, they regarded the eastern influence with suspicion, and especially the eastern men.

What neither king nor councilors noticed was that Prodesse himself soon grew confused under his teachers's contradictory instructions---for some advocated silence, and others speech; some differentiation and some unity; some wished to teach the prince chains linked by cause and effect whereas others insisted that all things are as circles. Gradually Prodesse's confusion became cynicism, and anger and a great bitterness, and then despair. When he was but fifteen years old, the prince set fire to his books and fled into the forest with only an old slave who had been with him from childhood. It was believed that his great learning had driven him mad.

The King, who cherished a hope of his son's recovery, forbade any to disturb his solitude. Instead, the boy was left entirely to the green mountainsides and the care of the old slave named Aber.

Aber belonged neither to the east nor to the west, but to the middle lands. It was said that his had once been a holy people, but they were now scattered and brought low. Aber had not forgotten this, but he was not a sullen man. He had the gifts of song, laughter, and storytelling---and wisdom.

Often he would say to Prodesse, when they lay in the shade of their hunting lodge after a chase, "Ahhhh!---To be happy is to be humble, my good lord, for there is nothing like it to make the soul glad."

Prodesse never failed to become angry at these words, like a man who finds a hornet's nest in his garden. "No philosophy!" he would say, "Let us hunt instead."

After a year had passed and his anger was somewhat cooled, the prince fell into deep reverie. It seemed to Prodesse that he stood at an impasse; on the one hand to melt into things and lose himself in them, to imitate life as he saw it instinctive and throbbing around him---to live like an animal. Or, to retain himself as a distinct being, but thereby condemn himself to many years of definition, enumeration, and organization, all without cause or end.

Neither possibility appealed to him. And so, for several years, he gave himself up to drifting thoughts. This did not make him happy, for he felt that it only postponed one of two inevitable paths: unsatisfactory choice or absolute despair. However, he soon gave up the idea of any meaning at all and that numbed him somewhat.

Aber's old eyes saw this, and he frequently broke up the young man's dreaming with questions and comments that pierced him, bringing the prickle and burn of earnest thought.

One midsummer's day, as they rested by a stream some distance from the house, Aber pointed to a towering oak on the farther bank and said, "How like that tree planted by the stream is the upright man! He never lacks for water, my good lord."

Prodesse, who had been tracing the faces of beautiful girls in the clouds, frowned. "How like the babble of the stream are your words, good slave---if they have a meaning, it is meaningless to me."

"My lord has never been thirsty?" Inquired the old man, cunningly.

For reply, the young man lowered his eyes from the clouds and glared. Aber, all innocent as old men alone can be, gave his smile of a thousand wrinkles and said, "Surely a man who hunts knows what it is to lack water, and to long for it."

"You would try the patience of a stone, Aber."

"And," the slave continued, serenely, "surely a man who has lacked water would find meaning in a tree firmly rooted by the stream, where its life is sustained by this ever-flowing source."

"Surely."

"All that remains, therefore," Aber went on, "is to inquire whether the man is upright because he has planted himself beside the stream, or whether the stream flows to him because he is upright."

Prodesse reclined again on the grass and gazed at the sky. "What is your sage opinion, old one?"

"The former, lad, the former."

"Explain this to me, then: why should it be that what is good to keep a man alive is also good to make him upright? What have these to do with each other?"

"This is foolishness, good lord. Where did you observe a blade of grass, a beast of the hills, a ripple of the book, or a cloud in the sky, that while it exists, does not exist uprightly according to the laws of its own kind? The breath of life and the upright have much to do with each other."

"Have it your way," Prodesse returned, getting up. "I am going to dress the game for supper."

He stalked off, stiff-necked, and old Aber looked after him with half a sigh and half a smile. Then he put his face to the stream and took a long drink, and, lying in such a way as to catch the best of the failing afternoon light, slept.