Dymer by C.S. Lewis - Canto 9

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Canto nine of Dimer Dimer by C. S. Lewis, Canto nine.
Even as he heard the wicket clash, behind, came a
great wind beneath that seemed to tear the solid graves
apart and deaf and blind, whirled him upright like smoke,
through towering air whose levels were as steps of a

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sky stare. The parching cold roughened his throat with thirst
and pricked him at the heart. This was the first,
and as he soared into the next degree, suddenly all
around him he could hear sad strings that fretted inconsolably,
and ominous horns that blew both far and near. There

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broke his human heart, and his last tear froze scalding
on his chin. But while he heard, he shot like
a sped dart into the third, and its first stroke
of silence could destroy the spring of tears forever, and
compress from off his lips the curved bow of the

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boy forever. The sidereal loneliness received him where no journeying
leaves the less still to be journeyed through. But everywhere,
fast though you fly, the center still is there. And
here the well worn fabric of our life fell from him.
Hope and purpose were cut short, even the blind trust

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that reaches in mid strife towards some heart of things.
Here blew the mort for the world spirit herself. The
last support was fallen away himself. One spark of soul
swam in unbroken void. He was the whole and wailing,
why hast thou forsaken me? Was there no world at all?

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But only I dreaming of gods and men? Then suddenly
he felt the wind no more. He seemed to fly
faster than light, but free, and scaled the sky in
his own strength, as if a falling stone should wake
to find the world's will was its own. And on

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the instant, straight before his eyes, he looked and saw
a sentry shape that stood leaning upon its spear, with
hurrying skies behind it, and a moon set red as blood.
Upon its head. Were helmet and mailed hood and shield
upon its arm, and sword at thigh, all black and
pointed sharp against the sky. Then came the clink of metal,

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the dry sound of steel on rock, and challenge who
comes here? And as he heard it, dimer at one
bound stood in the stranger's shadow, with the spear between them,
and his human face came near that larger face. What
watches this you keep, said dymer, on the edge of
such a deep and answer came. I watched both night

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and day this frontier. There are beasts of the upper air,
as beasts of the deep sea. One walks this way
night after night, far scouring from his lair, chewing the
cut of lusts, which are despair and fill not, while
his mouth gapes dry for bliss that never was. What
kind of beast is this? A kind of things escaped

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that have no home. Hunters of men, They love the
spring uncurled, the will worn down, the wearied hour. They
come at night time, when the mask is off the
world and the soul's gait ill locked and the flag furled.
Then softly a pale swarm, and in disguise flit past
the drowsy watchman, small as flies. I'll see this airish

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beast whereof you speak, I'll share the watch with you. Nay,
little one be gone, you are of earth. The flesh
is weak? What is the flow? Rush to me? My
courses run all, but some deed still waiting to be done.
Some moment I may rise on as the boat lifts
with the lifting tide, and steals afloat. You are a spirit,

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and it is well with you. But I am come
out of great folly and shame, the sack of cities
wrongs I must undo. But tell me of the beast,
and whence it came? Who were it? Sire? And dam?
What is its name? It is, my kin? All monsters
are the brood of heaven and earth, and mixed with
holy blood? How can this be? My son? Sit here?

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Awhile there is a lady in that primal place where
I was born, who, with her ancient smile made glad
the sons of heaven. She loved to chase the springtime
round the world to all your race. She was a
sudden quivering in the wood, or a new thought springing
in solitude. Till in prodigious hour, one swole and with

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youth blind from new broken prison, knowing not himself nor
her nor how to mate with truth, lay with her
in a strange and secret spot, mortal with her immortal,
and begot this walker in the night. But did you
know this mortal's name? Why? It was long ago, and

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yet I think I bear the name in mind. It
was some famished boy whom tampering men had crippled in
their chains and made him blind till their weak hour
discovered them. And then he broke that prison. Softly, it
comes again, I have it. It was Dymer, little one.
Dmer's the name. This specter is his son. Then after

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silence came an answering shout from Daymer, glad and full
break off. Dismiss. Your watch is ended, and your lamp
is out, unarm, unarm, Return into your bliss. You are relieved, sir.
I must deal with this as in my right, for
either I must slay this beast, or else be slain
before the day. So mortal and so brave that others said, smiling,

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and turned and looked in Dimer's eyes, scanning him over
twice from heel to head, like an old sergeant's glance,
grown battle wise to know the points of men. At last, arise,
he said, and wear my arms. I can withhold nothing,
for such an hour has been foretold thereat. With lips

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as cold as the sea surge, he kissed the youth, and,
bending on one knee, put all his armor off and
let emerge angelic shoulders marbled gloriously, and feet like frozen
speed and plain to see on his wide breast, dark wounds,
and ancient scars, the battle honors of celestial wars. Then,

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like a squire or brother born, he dressed the young
man in those plaits that dripped with cold upon the inside,
trickling over breast and shoulder, but without the figured gold
gave to the tinkling ice its jagged hold, and the
icy spear froze fast to Diymer's hand. But where the
other had stood, he took his stand and search the

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cloudy landscape. He could see dim shapes like hills appearing,
but the moon had sunk behind their backs. When will
it be, said Diimer, and the other soon? Now soon,
for either he comes past us at night's noon, or
else between the night and the full day, and down

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there on your left will be his way. Swear that
you will not come between us too, nor help me
by a hair's weight if I bow, If you are
he if prophecies speak true, not Heaven and all the
gods can help you. Now this much I have been told,
but know not how the fight will end. Who knows

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I cannot tell? Sir, be content, said Damer, I know well.
Thus Dymer stood to arms with eyes that ranged through
aching darkness stared upon it, so that all things as
he looked upon them changed and were not as at first,
but grave and slow. The larger shade went sauntering to

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and fro, humming at first the snatches of some tune
that soldiers sing, but falling silent. Soon then came steps
of dawn. And though they heard no milking cry in
the fields, and no cock crew, and out of empty air,
no twittering bird sounded from neighboring hedges, yet they knew

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Eastward the hollow blackness paled to blue, then blew to white,
and in the west the rare surviving stars blinked feebler
in cold air. Far beneath Dimer's feet. The sad half light,
discovering the new landscape, oddly came, and forms grown half
familiar in the night, looked strange again. No distance seemed

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the same, and now he could see clear and call
by name, valleys and hills and woods. The phantoms all
took shape and made a world at morning's call. It
was a ruinous land. The ragged stumps of broken trees
rose out of endless clay, naked of flower and grass,

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The slobberd humps dividing the dead pools against the gray.
A shattered village gaped. But now the day was very
near them, and the night was past, and Dimer understood
and spoke at last. Now I have wooed and won you.
Bridal earth, beautiful world that lives, desire of men, all

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that the Spirit intended at my birth. This day shall
be borne into deed. And then the hard day's labor
comes no more again, forever the pain dies, the longing cease,
the ship glides under the green arch of peace. Now
drink me as the sun drinks up the mist. This

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is the hour to ceasein at full flood. That asks
no gift from following years. But hissed, look yonder, at
the corner of that wood. Look look there where he comes.
It shocks the blood the first sight. Eh, Now, sentinel,
stand clear and save yourself for God's sake, Come not near.

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His full grown spirit had moved without command or spur
of the will. Before he knew. He found that he
was leaping forward, spear in hand, to where that ashen
brute wheeled slowly round, nosing and set its ears towards
the sound. The pale and heavy brute rough ridged behind
and full of eyes clinking in scaly rind, and now

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ten paces parted them, and here he halted. He thrust
forward his left foot, poising his straightened arms, and launched
the spear, and gloriously it sang. But now the brute
lurched forward, and he saw the weapons shoot beyond it
and fall quivering on the field. Dmer drew out his
sword and raised the shield. What now, my friends, you

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get no more from me? Of Dymer, he goes from
us what he felt or saw. From henceforth, no man knows,
but he who has himself gone through the jungle belt
of dying into peace. That angel knelt far off and
watched them close, but could not see their battle. All
was ended suddenly a leap, a cry, flurry of steel

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and claw, then silence, as before the morning light, and
the same brute crouched yonder, and he saw under its
feet broken and bent and white, the ruined limbs of
Dimer killed outright. All in a moment, all his story done.
But that same moment came the rising sun, and thirty

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miles to westward, the gray cloud flushed into answering pink.
Long shadows streamed from every hill, and the low hanging
shroud of mist. Along the valleys broke and steamed, gold
flecked to heaven. Far off. The armour gleamed like glass
upon the dead man's back. But now the sentinel ran forward,

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hand to brow and staring, for between him and the sun,
he saw that country clothed with dancing flowers where flower
had never grown, and one by one the splintered woods,
as if from april, showers were softening into green. In
the leafy towers rose the cool, sudden chattering on the

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tongues of happy birds with mourning in their lungs. The
wave of flowers came breaking round his feet, crocus and bluebell, primrose, daffodil,
shivering with moisture, and the air grew sweet within his nostrils,
changing heart and will, making him laugh. He looked, and

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Dimer still lay dead among the flowers, and pinned beneath
the brute. But as he looked he held his breath,
for when he had gazed hard with steady eyes upon
the brute, behold no brute was there, but some one
towering large against the skies, a winged and swordid shape,

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through whom the air poured as through glass, and its
foam tumbled hair lay white about the shoulders, and the
whole pure body brimmed with life as a full bull.
And from the distant corner of Day's birth he heard
clear trumpets blowing, and bell's ring, a noise of great

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good coming in to earth, and such a music as
the dumb would sing if Balder had led back the
blameless spring with victory, with the voice of charging spears,
and in white lands long lost Saturnian years. End of
Canto nine, end of Dimer by C. S. Lewis