Volume I Part 25 (2/2)

”Mighty kings, and faht worthy of so noble and enduring as urn Pray, Mohi, their names and terrible deeds”

”Alas! their sepulcher only remains”

”And, no doubt, like many others, they made that sepul for themselves They sleep sound, my word for it, old man But I very much question, if, were the rock rent, any ashes would be found

Mohi, I deny that those kings ever had any bones to bury”

”Why, Babbalanja,” said Media, ”since you intinore the even defunct”

”Ten thousand pardons, my lord, no such discourtesy would I do the anonymous memory of the illustrious dead But whether they ever lived or not, it is all the sarant that they lived; then, if death be a deaf-and-duraves would concern thehtness, then Mardi must seem to them the most trivial of reminiscences Or, perhaps, theirs s; and they themselves be not themselves, as the butterfly is not the larva”

Said Yoomy, ”Then, Babbalanja, you account that a fit illustration of the ht in y has an unsatisfactory end From its chrysalis state, the silkworm but becoest existence is as a worm All vanity, vanity, Yoomy, to seek in nature for positive warranty to these aspirations of ours

Through all her provinces, nature sees Or, as old Bardianna has it, if not against us, nature is not for us”

Said Media, rising, ”Babbalanja, you have indeed put aside the courtier; talking of wor and a dereeable topic”

”Pardon, once again, my lord And since you will, let us discourse of that subject First, I lay it down for an indubitable maxim, that in itself all posthumous renohich is the only renown, is valueless

Be not offended, my lord To the nobly a to anticipate But analyzed, that feverish typhoid feeling of theirsfancy, that nohile living, they are recognized as those ill be as fairdles”

Said Yooood deeds, Babbalanja, of which the philosophers so often discourse:survive us; and we ourselves in the for fame which even appeased, like thirst slaked in the desert, yields no felicity, but only relief; and which discris But letus that story of prince Ottiht at the prospect of being perfumed and embalmed, when dead But was not Ottimo the most eccentric of mortals? For few men issue orders for their shrouds, to inspect their quality beforehand Far more anxious are they about the texture of the sheets in which their living limbs lie And, my lord, with some rare exceptions, does not all Mardi, by its actions, declare, that it is far better to be notorious now, than famous hereafter?”

”A base sentiment, my lord,” said Yoomy ”Did not poor Bonja, the unappreciated poet, console hi thoughts of the future?”

”In plain words by bethinking hihost would reap for him,” said Babbalanja; ”but Banjo,--Bonjo,-- Binjo,--I never heard of him”

”Nor I,” said Mohi

”Nor I,” said Media

”Poor fellow!” cried Babbalanja; ”I fear me his harvest is not yet ripe”

”Alas!” cried Yooo”

”But now that you speak of unappreciated poets, Yooive you a piece ofhis beard