The Mezentian Gate. E. Eddison R.

      

       Copyright

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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      Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Introduction © Paul Edmund Thomas 1992

      Copyright © E.R. Eddison 1958, 1992

      Jacket illustration by John Howe © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 2014

      E.R. Eddison asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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      Source ISBN: 9780007578177

      Ebook Edition © October 2014 ISBN: 9780007578184

      Version: 2014-09-16

       Dedication

       To you, madonna mia,

      WINIFRED GRACE EDDISON

       and to my mother,

      HELEN LOUISA EDDISON

       and to my friends,

      JOHN AND ALICE REYNOLDS

       and to

      HARRY PIRIE-GORDON

       a fellow explorer in whom (as in Lessingham)

       I find that rare mixture of man of action and

       connoisseur of strangeness and beauty in their

       protean manifestations, who laughs where I laugh

       and likes the salt that I like, and to whom I owe

      my acquaintance (through the Orkneyinga Saga)

       with the earthly ancestress

       of my Lady Rosma Parry

      I dedicate this book.

      E. R. E.

      Proper names the reader will no doubt pronounce as he chooses. But perhaps, to please me, he will keep the i’s short in Zimiamvia and accent the third syllable: accent the second syllable in Zayana, give it a broad a (as in ‘Guiana’), and pronouce the ay in the first syllable – and the ai in Laimak, Kaima, etc., and the ay in Krestenaya – like the ai in ‘aisle’; keep the g soft in Fingiswold: let Memison echo ‘denizen’ except for the m: accent the first syllable in Rerek and make it rhyme with ‘year’: pronounce the first syllable of Reisma ‘rays’; remember that Fiorinda is in origin an Italian name, Amaury, Amalie, and Beroald French, and Antiope, Zenianthe, and a good many others, Greek: last, regard the sz in Meszria as ornamental, and not be deterred from pronouncing it as plain ‘Mezria’.

      Let me not to the marriage of true mindes

      Admit impediments, love is not love

      Which alters when it alteration findes,

      Or bends with the remover to remove:

      O no, it is an ever fixed marke

      That lookes on tempests, and is never shaken;

      It is the star to every wandring barke,

      Whose worths unknowns, although his higth be taken.

      Love’s not Times foole, though rosie lips and cheeks

      Within his bending sickles compasse come,

      Love alters not with his breefe houres and weekes,

      But beares it out even to the edge of doome:

      If this be error, and upon me proved,

      I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

      SHAKESPEARE

      And ride in triumph through Persepolis!

      Is it not brave to be a King, Techelles?

      Usumcasane and Theridamas,

      Is it not passing brave to be a King,

      And ride in triumph through Persepolis?

      MARLOWE

      I cannot conceive any beginning of such love as I have for you but Beauty. There may be a sort of love for which, without the least sneer at it, I have the highest respect and can admire it in others: but it has not the richness, the bloom, the full form, the enchantment of love after my own heart.

      KEATS

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

       Epigraph

Introduction by Paul Edmund Thomas

Prefatory Note by Colin Rücker Eddison

LETTER OF INTRODUCTION

PRAELUDIUM: LESSINGHAM ON THE RAFTSUND

BOOK ONE: FOUNDATIONS

I.