stoutfellow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stoutfellow) wrote2008-09-02 10:16 am
stoutfellow) wrote2008-09-02 10:16 am
Avram Davidson
It's been a long time since I last read anything by Avram Davidson. (Well, that's not quite true. I've read his short story "Or All the Seas With Oysters" several times in the last ten or fifteen years; it's the one about paper clips, and bicycles, and poor Ferdie the Birdie....) At Denvention, I picked up a couple of his novels from the '60s and '70s, including Ursus of Ultima Thule. I know that I read it once, around the time that it came out, but what I didn't remember was what a fine stylist Davidson was. I just finished Chapter III, and I want to discuss one scene at some length.
The passage concerns a nonhuman race called the nains, who are talented metalworkers - dwarfs by another name1. The history of the relationship between humans and nains is evidently complex; the nains have been free, and they have been slaves, and they have been free again. These particular nains are slaves, toiling away at the behest of a human king. As they work, they chant in their ancient language, and Davidson provides us with quite a bit of the chant. I'll just excerpt a few stanzas.
At the beginning, lamentation:
[1] I assume that Davidson was thinking of the Latin nanus, "dwarf" (from which we get the metric prefix "nano-"), or perhaps some cognate.
The passage concerns a nonhuman race called the nains, who are talented metalworkers - dwarfs by another name1. The history of the relationship between humans and nains is evidently complex; the nains have been free, and they have been slaves, and they have been free again. These particular nains are slaves, toiling away at the behest of a human king. As they work, they chant in their ancient language, and Davidson provides us with quite a bit of the chant. I'll just excerpt a few stanzas.
At the beginning, lamentation:
The swans fly overheadAs the chant progresses, anger grows:
And the nains see them.
The moles tunnel through the earth
And the nains see them.
Stockades do not wall the swans
And the nains see them.
Fetters do not bind the moles
And the nains see them.
Woe for the king whose men take captive,At the last, fury:
And the nains see it.
They take captive on the paths,
And the nains see it.
They lead away in heavy ropes,
And the nains see it...
The nain-thralls waste like iron,
The king's evil is like rust,
The queen's lust is wasteful, evil,
Evil, evil are these times,
These days, consumed as though by wolves.
When will the wolf confront the bear,
And the nains see it?
The nainsmith seized a lump of iron and beat upon it with the stone hammer with great resounding blows, and with each blow they all shouted a word:I can see it, as on a movie screen: dimness, lit by scattered torches, with the din of the smiths' hammers and, underneath, the steady chant, rising and breaking in that final shouted chant. Very well done.
When! Will! This! King-!-dom!
Rot! And! Rust!
And! The! Nain! See! It!
[1] I assume that Davidson was thinking of the Latin nanus, "dwarf" (from which we get the metric prefix "nano-"), or perhaps some cognate.
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