“Thou growest fierce, in thy lyric moods, my warlike dove,” said ‘Media, blandly. “But for thee, philosopher, know thou, that Verdanna’s men are of blood and brain inferior to Bello’s native race; and the better Mardian must ever rule.”
“Verdanna inferior to Dominora, my lord!—Has she produced no bards, no orators, no wits, no patriots? Mohi, unroll thy chronicles! Tell me, if Verdanna may not claim full many a star along King Bello’s tattooed arm of Fame?
“Even so,” said Mohi. “Many chapters bear you out.”
“But my lord,” said Babbalanja, “as truth, omnipresent, lurks in all things, even in lies: so, does some germ of it lurk in the calumnies heaped on the people of this land. For though they justly boast of many lustrous names, these jewels gem no splendid robe. And though like a bower of grapes, Verdanna is full of gushing juices, spouting out in bright sallies of wit, yet not all her grapes make wine; and here and there, hang goodly clusters mildewed; or half devoured by worms, bred in their own tendrils.”
“Drop, drop your grapes and metaphors!” cried Media. “Bring forth your thoughts like men; let them come naked into Mardi.—What do you mean, Babbalanja?”
“This, my lord, Verdanna’s worst evils are her own, not of another’s giving. Her own hand is her own undoer. She stabs herself with bigotry, superstition, divided councils, domestic feuds, ignorance, temerity; she wills, but does not; her East is one black storm-cloud, that never bursts; her utmost fight is a defiance; she showers reproaches, where she should rain down blows. She stands a mastiff baying at the moon.”
“Tropes on tropes!” said. Media. “Let me tell the tale,—straight- forward like a line. Verdanna is a lunatic—”
“A trope! my lord,” cried Babbalanja.
“My tropes are not tropes,” said Media, “but yours are.—Verdanna is a lunatic, that after vainly striving to cut another’s throat, grimaces before a standing pool and threatens to cut his own. And is such a madman to be intrusted with himself? No; let another govern him, who is ungovernable to himself Ay, and tight hold the rein; and curb, and rasp the bit. Do I exaggerate?—Mohi, tell me, if, save one lucid interval, Verdanna, while independent of Dominora, ever discreetly conducted her affairs? Was she not always full of fights and factions? And what first brought her under the sway of Bello’s scepter? Did not her own Chief Dermoddi fly to Bello’s ancestor for protection against his own seditious subjects? And thereby did not her own king unking himself? What wonder, then, and where the wrong, if Henro, Bello’s conquering sire, seized the diadem?”
“What my lord cites is true,” said Mohi, “but cite no more, I pray; lest, you harm your cause.”