“GUIDO, THE PERFECT SERVANT.”
There was once a great emperor of Rome named Valerius, who would that every man, according to his wishes, should serve him; so he commanded that whosoever should strike three times on the gate of his palace should be admitted to do him service. In the emperor’s kingdom was also a poor man named Guido, who, when he heard of his lord’s commands, thus spake with himself: “Now, I am a poor man, and lowly born; is it not better to live and serve than to starve and be free?” So he went to the king’s gate, and knocked three knocks; and lo, it was opened to him, according as it had been said; and he was brought before the emperor.
“What seek you, friend?” asked Valerius, as Guido bowed before him.
“To serve my king,” was Guido’s reply.
“What service can you perform for me?” rejoined the emperor.
“Six services can I perform, O king: as your body-guard, I can prepare your bed and your food, and attend your chamber. I can sleep when others watch, and watch while others sleep. As your cup-bearer, I can drink good wine, and tell whether it be so or not. I can summon the guests to my master’s banquet, to his great honor and benefit. I can kindle a fire which shall warm all that seek it, and yet not smoke. And I can show the way to the Holy Land, to the health of such as shall go thither.”
“By my truth,” rejoined the emperor, “these are great things that thou dost promise. See that thou do them. Each for one year. Serve me first as my body-guard.”
Guido was content to obey the emperor; and he prepared to perform his duties as his body-guard. Every night he made ready the emperor’s bed, and prepared his apparel. Every night he lay before the emperor’s chamber-door, armed at all points; whilst by his side watched a faithful dog to warn him of the approach of danger. In every thing did he minister so faithfully to his lord, that the emperor was well pleased with him, and after his first year, made him seneschal of his castle and steward of his household. Then did Guido commence his labors in his second office. During the entire summer he gathered large stores of every thing needful into the castle, and collected much provision at little cost, by carefully watching his opportunities. Anon came on the winter, and when those who had slept during the times of plenty began to labor and lay up in their store-houses, Guido remained at ease, and completed his second year’s service with credit to himself.
And now the third year of Guido’s service came on; and the emperor called for his chief butler, and said: “Mix in a cup good wine, must, and vinegar, and give it to Guido to drink; that we may know how he doth taste good drink, and what he knoweth of its qualities.”
So the butler did as he was ordered, and gave the cup to Guido, who, when he had tasted of it, said: “Of a truth it was good, it is good, and it will be good.” And when the emperor asked him how these things could be, he said: “The vinegar was good, the old wine is good, and the must will be good when it is older.” So the emperor saw that he had answered rightly and discreetly of the mixture, which he knew not of before. “Go, therefore,” said Valerius, “through my country, and invite my friends to a banquet at the festival of Christmas now at hand”; and Guido bowed assent, and departed on his way.
But Guido did not execute his lord’s commands—going not unto his friends, but unto his enemies. So that when the emperor descended into his banquet-hall his heart was troubled; for his enemies sat round his table, and there was not a friend among them. So he called Guido, and spake angrily to him.
“How, sir! didst thou not tell me that thou knewest whom to invite to my banquet?”
And Guido said: “Of a surety, my lord.”
“Did not I bid thee invite my friends? and how, then, hast thou summoned all mine enemies?”
And Guido said: “May thy servant speak?”
So the emperor said: “Speak on.”
And the servant said: “My lord, there is no season or time that thy friends may not visit thee, and be received with pleasure and honor; but it is not so with thine enemies. Then I said to myself: ‘Conciliation and kindness would go far to convert enemies into friends.’”
Now it turned out as Guido hoped; for ere the feast was ended, the king and his enemies were reconciled to each other, and became friends even unto the end of their days. So the emperor called Guido, and said: “With God’s blessing, thy design has prospered. Come, now, make for my reconciled enemies and me a fire that shall burn without smoke.”
And Guido answered: “It shall be done as thou hast required, O king.”
So he sent and gathered much green wood, and dried it in the sun until it was quite dry, and therewith made a fire that did cast out much heat, and yet did not smoke. So that the emperor and his friends rejoiced greatly therein. And so it was when the emperor saw how well Guido had performed his five ministries, he bade him execute his sixth service—that he might attain to great honor in his kingdom.
“My lord,” said Guido, “he that would know the way to the Holy Land must follow me to the sea-shore.”
So a proclamation went forth from the king to that effect; and great multitudes of men and women flocked to the sea-shore after Guido. When the people were come, Guido said: “My friends, do ye see in the ocean the things that I see?”
And the people answered: “We know not.”
“See ye in the midst of the waves a huge rock?”
And the people answered: “It is even so. Why ask you this of us?”
“Know ye all,” replied Guido, “that on that rock liveth a bird, that sitteth continually on her nest, in which are seven eggs. While she so sitteth, behold the sea is calm, and men may pass to and fro over the wide waters in safety. But when she doth quit her nest, the winds blow, and the waves rise, and many perish on the waters.”
Then said the people: “How shall we know when this bird quitteth her nest?”
And Guido answered: “She sitteth always, unless a sudden emergency happen; and then when she is away there cometh another bird, great and strong, that defileth her nest and breaketh her seven eggs, which, when the first bird seeth, she flieth away, and the winds and storms arise; then must the shipman remain in port.”
Then said the people: “Master, how may we prevent these things, and defend the bird and her nest from her enemy?”
And Guido said: “The enemy hateth the blood of the lamb, and cannot come where that is. Sprinkle, therefore, the inside and outside of the nest with this blood; and so long as one drop remaineth the friendly bird will sit in peace, and the waves will not rage and swell, and there shall be safety on the waves of the sea.”
And the people did as Guido said. They took the blood of a lamb, and sprinkled the nest and the rock therewith. Then passed the emperor and all his people to the Holy Land, and returned in peace and safety. And the emperor did as he had promised unto Guido, and rewarded the perfect servant with great riches, promoting him to high honor among the people.
“I confess myself conquered,” said Henry Herbert, as soon as the story was concluded. “Some points in the allegory are clear, as the way to the Holy Land, and the sprinkling of the blood of the Lamb, but the rest are beyond my discovering.”
“The explanation,” said Herbert, “is undoubtedly more recondite than any we have read as yet. The great emperor is our Father in heaven; the three blows on his gate are prayer, self-denial, charity; by these three any one may become his faithful servant. Guido is a poor Christian, by baptism made his servant. His first service is to serve his God, and to prepare the heart for virtue. His second duty is to watch; ‘for he knoweth not the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh.’ His third task is to taste of repentance, which was good to the saints who are departed, is good to such of us as it brings to salvation, and will be good to all in the last day. The fourth duty is to invite Christ’s enemies to be his friends, and to come to the banquet of his love for he ‘came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’ The fire that burneth without smoke, is the fire of charity, which burneth free of all ill-will and bad feeling. The way to the Holy Land is our course heavenward. We are to sail over our sea, the world; in the midst of which standeth our rock, even our heart, on which the holy bird of God’s Spirit resteth. The seven eggs are the gifts of the Spirit. When the Spirit leaves us, the Devil hasteth to defile our hearts; but the blood of the Lamb which was slain for us, even our Saviour, will ward off the attack of our enemy, so long as we are sprinkled therewith.”
“The explanation is characteristic of the age,” said Herbert. “What then,” rejoined Lathom, “will you say to the moral drawn by these writers from the wonders that Pliny believed in, without seeing, and Sir John de Mandeville tried to persuade the world he believed in, from seeing?”
“What,” said Thompson, “the Anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders?”
“No creature is so monstrous, no fable so incredible, but that the monkish writers could give it a moral form, and extract from its crudities and quiddities some moral or religious lesson.”
“They believed in the words of the song,” said Thompson—
“‘Reason sure will always bring
Something out of every thing.’”
“Pliny’s dog-headed race,” said Lathom, “whom Sir John places in the island of Macumeran, and at the same time gives to them a quasi pope for a king, who says three hundred prayers per diem before he either eats or drinks, were naturally regarded by the middle-age writers as symbolical and priestly preachers of faithful hearts and frugal habits; whilst of those other islanders, who ‘have but one eye, and that in the middest of their front, and eat their flesh and fish raw,’ the monk says, ‘These be they that have the eye of prayer.’ The Astomes who have no mouths, ‘are all hairie over the whole bodie, yet clothed with soft cotton and downe, that cometh from the leaves of trees, and live only on aire, and by the smelling of sweet odors, which they draw through their nose-thrills,’ are the abstemious of this world, who die of the sin of gluttony, even as an Astome by the accidental inhalation of bad odor. Humility is signified by the absence of the head, and the placing of the face in the breast; and a tendency to sin is foreshadowed by a desire and habit of walking on all fours, or pride by short noses and goat’s feet. The Mandevillean islanders, who had flat faces without noses, and two round holes for their eyes, and thought whatsoever they saw to be good, were earth’s foolish ones; as those foul men, who have their lips so great, that when they sleep in the sun they cover all their face therewith, are the just men, the salt of the earth.”
“One would as soon dream of allegorizing the Sciapodes of Aristophanes, or Homer’s Cranes and Pigmies,” said Thompson.
“And so the monk has,” said Lathom.
“What, the old Greek’s parasol-footed people, of whom Mandeville says with such gravity, ‘There be in Ethiope such men as have but one foot, and they go so fast that it is a great marvel; and that is a large foot, for the shadow thereof covereth the body from sun or rain, when they lie upon their back’?”
“Both Aristophanes and his follower would doubtless be as surprised in learning that their sciapodes were allegorical of the charitable of this world, as Homer would in discovering in his crane-fighting pigmies those mortals who begin well but cease to do well before they attain perfection; or in their neighbors who boast of six hands, and despise clothes in favor of long hair, and live in rivers, the hardworking and laborious among men.”
“The last is decidedly the most intelligible,” remarked Herbert.
“The reason of the explanation is not always clear,” replied Lathom; “it is not very easy to decide why those who have six fingers and six toes are the unpolluted, and why virtuous men are represented by a race of women with bald heads and beards flowing to their breast; nor is it very clear that virtue is well represented by a double allowance of eyes. But one curiosity remains—the beautiful men of Europe who boast a crane’s head, neck, and beak. These, says the author of the Gesta, represent judges, who should have long necks and beaks, that what the heart thinks, may be long before it reach the mouth.”
“That reminds me of long Jack Bannister,” said Thompson, “who was always five minutes after every one else in laughing at a joke, as it took that extra time for it to travel from his ears to his midriff, and then back again to his mouth.”
And so the evening ended with a laugh.
