Of a Prince of Tyre.

Xerox of Sabra, the long-bearded master with a serious, studious look on his face and eyes that had stared long into codices¹ of all kinds to divine their secrets, then spoke:

Ὦ ἄνδρες σοφώτατοι καὶ γυναῖκες πάσης παιδείας καὶ σωφροσύνης κεκοσμημέναι, εἰ μὲν Ζήνων ὁ Κιτιεὺς ὀρθῶς ἀπεφήνατο τὸν σοφὸν μόνον ἐλεύθερον εἶναι, τοὺς δὲ φαύλους ἅπαντας δούλους, τί χρὴ λέγειν περὶ τῶν ὑπισχνουμένων μὲν μεγάλα, ἐπιτελούντων δὲ οὐδὲ μικρά; ἆρά γε τούτους ἐλευθέρους καλεῖν προσήκει, ἢ δούλους τῆς αὑτῶν ἀβελτερίας; Καίτοι Γαληνὸς ὁ Περγαμηνός, ἀνὴρ περὶ τὰ σώματα δεινὸς καὶ περὶ τὰς τῆς ψυχῆς δυνάμεις οὐκ ἀμελής, πολλὰ μὲν περὶ κράσεως, πολλὰ δὲ περὶ παθῶν διεξῆλθεν· ὅθεν οὐκ ἄλογον ἐστὶ σκοπεῖν πότερον ἡ τῶν ὑποσχέσεων ἀθέτησις νόσημά τι τῆς ψυχῆς ἐστιν, ἢ τῆς κατὰ φύσιν θερμότητος ἀμετρία. Δημόκριτος δὲ ὁ Ἀβδηρίτης, ὃν οἱ πολλοὶ γελῶντα ἀεὶ παραδιδόασιν, εἰ παρῆν ἡμῖν νῦν, τάχ᾽ ἂν ἐγέλασε τῶν ἀνθρώπων οὐχ ἧττον ἢ τῶν ἀτόμων τὴν ἀκατάπαυστον κίνησιν θεωρῶν· οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἄτομοι κατ᾽ ἀνάγκην φέρονται, οἱ δ᾽ ἄνθρωποι ἑκόντες ὑπισχνοῦνται, ἄκοντες δὲ ἀποδιδόασιν, εἴπερ ἀποδιδόασιν ὅλως.

Ἀλλ᾽ ἐνταῦθα δεῖ καὶ τῶν περὶ καταρχῶν γεγραμμένων μνησθῆναι· οὐ γὰρ ἄνευ λόγου οἱ παλαιοὶ τὰς ἀρχὰς τῶν πράξεων πρὸς τὰς τῶν ἄστρων θέσεις ἀνέφερον, σκοποῦντες πότερον ἡ Σελήνη πρὸς τὸν Δία βλέπει, ἢ ὁ Κρόνος ἐμποδὼν ἵσταται, ἢ ὁ Ἑρμῆς, ὁ τῶν λόγων καὶ τῶν συμβολαίων ἐπίτροπος, ἀνάδρομος ὢν τὰς συνθήκας διαφθείρει. Καὶ εἴ τις τὴν Σοῦδαν ἀναπτύξειεν, τὸ πολυμαθέστατον ἐκεῖνο λεξικόν, εὕροι ἂν οὐ μόνον ὀνόματα σοφιστῶν καὶ φιλοσόφων καὶ ἀνδρῶν ἐνδόξων, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοσαύτην τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων πραγμάτων ποικιλίαν, ὥστε θαυμάζειν εἰ μηδέποτε τὰ βιβλία ἀλλήλοις ἀντιλέγουσιν. Ἐνταῦθα δὴ καὶ Φώτιον τὸν μακαριώτατον, τὸν Κωνσταντινουπόλεως πατριάρχην, ἀναμνηστέον, ὃς τοσαῦτα συγγράμματα ἀνέγνω καὶ τοσαύτας γνώμας διέκρινε, ὥστε εἰ πάντες οἱ ἄνθρωποι τὰς ὑποσχέσεις αὐτῶν ἐν βιβλίοις κατέγραφον, ἴσως ἂν οὐδ᾽ αὐτὸς ἱκανὸς ἐγένετο πάσας ἐξελέγξαι. Ὅθεν, ὦ φιλτάτη δέσποινα, πρὶν ἐπὶ τὴν Τύρον καὶ τὸν ἐξ αὐτῆς πρίγκιπα ἀφικέσθαι, ἀναγκαῖόν μοι δοκεῖ περὶ τῆς τοῦ ὅρκου φύσεως, τῆς τῶν ἄστρων περιφορᾶς, καὶ τῆς τῶν Βυζαντίων χρονογραφίας ὀλίγα πρότερον εἰπεῖν—

‘Master Xerox, forbear²!’ Lady Ouiser then said. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I told you I would begin my tale, and I am telling it, Despoina Ouiser³.’

‘I believe we were all under the impression you’d use the vernacular⁴,’ Persiflage said.

‘Oh,’ Xerox replied, and then he looked to Ouiser.

‘This… is what you truly meant, was it not?’

‘It was, Xerox,’ Ouiser said.

He blushed, took a long, deep breath, and then began his tale.

I had planned on giving you an oration worthy of the ancients in my original tongue, for that is what a scholar of my ilk must be renowned for and little else. But as I must now suit myself to the barbarian languages of the heretic West, I reduce the gold of my speech to mere dross⁵, but I hope some fine flecks will be retained in the crucible of its telling.

Know ye, therefore, that once, fourscore centuries⁶ after the Redemption of the Majestic Christ on the wood of the Life-Giving Cross⁷, there was a Prince of Tyre⁸, whom I shall call Xenographus. His father was a cubicularius⁹ of John VII¹⁰ when this sinner was the patriarch, and from what little there is to tell, he was a schemer and condoner of unholy things. His mother Alexandra was from Alexandra, one of many places, but not, as you should know, of Alexandria in Egypt. This, of course, has no bearing on the tale I tell, as most of the action—if you can call it that—happens in Tyre, and perhaps Sidon.

‘Wait a second, wait a second!’ then said Dr Scholl.

‘What?’ shouted Xerox of Sabra.

‘Fourscore centuries is eight thousand years. We’re barely halfway through the sixteenth century of our Redemption. How can you tell a tale that hasn’t happened yet?’

Xerox cleared his throat and said: ‘This is why I began in flawless Attic Greek¹¹. Because my vernacular isn’t so good, my Latin less so, and let’s not get started on my Italian.’

Anyway, the first thing you should know is that patriarchs usually don’t have cubicularii. That is a privilege extended solely to the Emperor. The Emperor at this time was in Constantinople, and John VII was there with him, daubing out frescoes and chipping away at mosaics¹². If you’ve ever been to Tyre, you should know it’s a lovely town. It used to smell a lot worse during the times of St Paul, and it is thought in the Greek world that this was one of the reasons why it abandoned paganism. I am also told it was quite purple at one time.

‘St Jerome says that the dear St Lydia may have dwelt or traded there, as she was a seller of purple¹³,’ Father Bunion said.

‘Who is telling this story, Father? Me or you? And people wonder why our churches don’t talk to one another anymore.’

Xenographus came into this blind world sure that his father’s lowly position, essentially as a janitor, would be enough to grant him some nobility, or failing that, a nice little sinecure¹⁴. I guess you could say Xenographus was handsome. I’m obviously no expert. The only surviving witness from that time (the only one the monks let me see, anyway) is a Chronicon¹⁵ in which two items are listed for the Prince of Tyre: a line about two separate eyebrows and the ability to pay for his own dinner. Now, some of you ladies may object to this. Two eyebrows seem sort of extra, if you get my meaning. But to some women, one eyebrow is bargain enough.

Anyway. As soon as Xenographus had hairs on his chin, he started holding himself out as a playboy. And with two eyebrows, no less! And he really wasn’t from Tyre, but a place called Menopolis. I mean, the name alone is… shall we say, meh? I mean, so what, it’s a bedroom suburb. You buy a donkey from a guy, you grow some grapes, you get what I mean.

Xenographus made up a whole fictitious self. He was suddenly Smaragdus of Sidon¹⁶, whose fortunes had been tied with Sabians and Persians¹⁷. And the name is pretty spiffy too. A guy who sells emeralds with the name emerald right there and then. Some people really are born salesmen! In time, he had parted from home, cut ties with his aged parents, brothers and sisters, and had embarked on voyages to Constantinople with strangers from the Hyperborean wilds¹⁸! Amazing cruises, by the way.

He had already racked up a bunch of offenses in his homelands: dining and dashing, gambling, visiting a sinful place, breaking the Sabbath and refusing to believe in some of the big-time definitions of the Councils of Ephesus, Chalcedon and Constantinople¹⁹—the newer one. Some people even said he was a Monothelite²⁰, which is bad enough, but some of the girls, Kassia among them, said that he—prepare yourselves!—refused to believe in the hypostatic union²¹.

‘Who is Kassia?’ asked Arbonne of Olay.

‘I’m getting there,’ Xerox said.

Pretty soon Xenographus had a bad name in Tyre and Sidon. Nobody—not even the Jews—would have anything to do with him. And you know things are bad when even Jews won’t do business with you—ain’t that right, Abe? He’s not saying anything, which must mean that I am right, as I usually am.

Xenographus started his little swindle in Athens of all places. In the old days there used to be a sort of illustrated catalogue of available men and women for the polite families of the Empire to consider. Very often, the image did not always line up with what was in the profile. And when I say ‘profile’, I don’t mean that a person had to stand in profile, although that would have been a good idea—big noses and all. Well, one night at a taverna in Priapus²²—

‘You mean Piraeus, Xerox,’ Lady Ouiser said.

‘No, I mean Priapus! There are other places to drink ouzo²³ and hate your life in Attica.’

He went on.

This catalog, which is called in Greek Tsakmákiou, was very popular among the young men, for all the young ladies that were in it—rather like how some carriage mechanics have likenesses of carters’ lasses on their walls to speed them to charitable thoughts in the course of their labor. Well, for a small monthly fee, you could send a message to any one of these girls, and if the Styrian matchmaker²⁴ found your communications suitable, she’d ring a bell and you’d be matched. As Xenographus had all the time in the world and someone else’s money to while it away with, he started ‘swiping’.

‘Swiping?’ asked Arbonne.

I shouldn’t explain, but the catalog was suspended on a kind of brad²⁵ that you could affix to the nail of an outhouse, in case you got… bored in there. But all the bathrooms of the time were in public. Horrible, smelly places, really. So it really does beg the question, now, doesn’t it?

This ‘Smaragdus’ matched with many, many ladies—too many, in fact, for the matchmaker to count. He sent letters. Some were wise, while some less so. But we aren’t here to judge the ladies, who are perfectly innocent in all this. Well, maybe everyone except the Styrian matchmaker. We could be here all day if I started talking about her.

‘The point, please, Lord Xerox,’ Persiflage said.

Oh yes, well. I’m getting to it. In time, Smaragdus found a beautiful Varangian woman²⁶ named Cecilia. I have no idea why she’d be in Attica and among Greeks, no less. Heaven knows we’ve been embarrassing ourselves since Empedocles said Πάντα ρεί.

‘Heraclitus said that, Xerox,’²⁷ Dr Scholl said.

‘OK,’ Xerox said, and went on.

But her father was an imperial bodyguard of the doux of Athens²⁸, who was a very kind man. She was very beautiful. But again, she was a Varangian, and those ladies are hard-pressed in the marriage business. We call them Swedes now. Or at least I think we do.

So they go out, they drink a little, they dine, she falls in love. And then, he says:

‘Oh my darling sparrow! I must leave for Ravenna²⁹ on the morrow—terribly pressing emerald-cutting business with the Latins. Horrible people, really. They don’t take a bath and Ravenna is so terribly humid in the summer.’

And the girl is heartbroken, she’s crying, she’s saying she’ll die if he’ll never return. But he says, ‘I can and will return—if you’ll give me 450 solidi³⁰ for the round-trip tickets. And I’m staying at the W Sant’Apollinare. And you know I gotta tip the guy…’

And anyway, she gives him that and a little bit more.

But NOT what you all must be thinking. Oh no. The Swedes have suffered enough, suffice it to say.

Well, wouldn’t you know, off Smaragdus goes, spends the 450 solidi and he writes back to her, and says: ‘Damn these Ravennans, they’ve cleaned me out of the 450 solidi. Can you send me 120 more and maybe some letters patent³¹ from your dad so that I can buy this new ring? I have to buy the ring so that the Saracen trader³² I’m working with will close this deal with the Pope.’ And of course, the Saracens were on no friendly terms with anyone, least of all the Pope.

But in time the girl gets the money and the letters and sends them to Ravenna, post-haste. So you know we’re talking about a pretty loaded family here.

And what does he do? He hits up the catalog again, over and over and over. He’s talking to a Ravenna girl! And then a Florentine! Now a Mantuan! Then a Neapolitan girl! And not just in Italy—he’s in Istria, he’s in Caria, he’s in Pannonia³³, he’s all over Christendom making grand promises of a happy life and a full goat-yard in some sunny spot in the world. But in reality he’s spending, and spending, and spending—food costs money, drinks cost money, silks cost money. Sometimes you have to kill a guy, bribe a priest, pay off a hooker, you name it. In time, Cecilia is broke, her dowry is empty³⁴, and her father is on his knees begging the Emperor to intervene. But of course the Emperor is too busy worrying that Jesus is going to object to being painted on some guy’s ceiling!

Nuns and holy widows were not spared. They, too, were fished for whatever pennies they had—and one of them, Margarita of Jerusalem, is said to have blinded herself when she realized she had given the last denarius³⁵ away for the love of a man she would never know.

Yet another in Damascus, a Saracen lady named Rachel, gave him the priceless necklace of her mother, which was to go to the man who would marry her. But as he had died at the hands of brigands, the necklace served no purpose, and when she realized her mistake, she sank herself into the river and was heard from no more.

‘How horrible for these young women! Was there ever a number of how many this man had deceived?’ asked Aquafina.

‘Some came forward to the authorities. A good deal of them were single ladies, from good families and with wealthy dowries—the ones from the catalog, I mean. But there were still others—many, many others—for whom no one would stand.’

I must proceed. For the lady Kassia is one of these outraged ladies.

Smaragdus wrote to another of his intended, a Frankish woman³⁶ named Berlinda, who had already given him a great sum of money and was forced to go to moneylenders contrary to the teaching of the Gospels³⁷. At this time he was living it up there on the Riviera with another woman.

Little did he know, however, that through the imperial messenger to His Holiness the Pope, Cecilia had begun to warn most of Western Christendom of this man and what trouble he brought. Then her father sent her to Rome, and to Santa Maria Antiqua³⁸, to visit with a prelate³⁹ who had seen him at Mass with this Berlinda, during the Christmas revels.

She was horrified to learn that Smaragdus had an entire coterie of kept women at the time, and that was just in the Eternal City. Smaragdus told the prelate it was ‘Christian companionship,’ Berlinda that they were his Roman cousins, none of whom looked alike, and Cecilia thought it was a donkey-show. Which, in her defense, is plausible as donkeys are often part of Christmas revels.

As for Berlinda, she had traveled to Rome under the pretense of visiting the trophaea of the martyrs⁴⁰, but in reality the poor girl had been invited to the hired villa of Smaragdus, who passed himself off in that city as some sort of paid shill for the olive oil people. Which already is suspicious enough as it is. I mean—yeah, yeah, Italian food is good, but is it worth sixty florins? Really? Sixty florins?

Berlinda was nearly homeless and was living in a wall as a hermit. She was of noble lineage, and had told her parents in Franconia she would take a vow of poverty after seeing the relics. But she was truly destitute. Cecilia took her in, and together they wrote to some people back in Constantinople about this man, for his ill-fame necessarily started among the Greeks in Rome, of which there were many at that time. Soon the entire empire was scandalized by it.

Smaragdus used the suspicion of the Greeks craftily. He claimed that they meant to cut off his nose, ears and fingers for the crime of selling emeralds at a low, low price. He did try to sell gems, but they were not emeralds, rubies, sapphires or other precious stones. He obtained from a foul woman in Trieste a bezoar-stone⁴¹ of some size, faceted it, inscribed it with magical sigils⁴² of no import, and began going from town to town, trying to sell it as a black diamond that had the ability to remove splinters. And of course, he kept on lying to women. Well, soon enough, one woman’s family bought it in return for a bride-price, but Smaragdus skipped town. This was, I believe, in Trier. Germans do not strike me as being particularly gullible. I mean, not sober, anyway.

By now a good deal of women were without dowries. Ladies in Constantinople were warned, and this is where the Lady Kassia comes in. She was a very illustrious lady, a beautiful, talented composer and hymnographer⁴³. She was also attached to the royal court and had turned down the hand of the Emperor himself in order to serve the Lord.

Kassia had the awful circumstance of being ‘matched’ with Smaragdus, and wrote a troparion⁴⁴ of it, which I shall now quote for you—in the vernacular, of course:

Cecilia and Berlinda went to Constantinople and found the lady Kassia, and she, being of noble rank, sent a team of fierce mercenaries called ‘the Navy SEALS’, and, if the chronicle is correct in its telling, they caught Smaragdus at Lérins⁴⁶, attempting to barter a boule of sourdough⁴⁷ with a disciple of St Vincent at the monastery there in return for some fake pearls and a stolen chasuble. But he escaped in the night!

Kassia then prayed to Our Lord, and when she went into the place called the Prasolithikon in Constantinople—or is the Lithoprasikon?—Jesus, or his spokes-angel, anyway, said that he was in Elis, in the Argive⁴⁸. He had a lot of garbage there with him too, and had drafted a Moor and two Jews to sell golden glass in the Church of Our Lady there. The hieromonk porter⁴⁹ said they claimed it was St Luke’s tears.

But that doesn’t make any sense either. Who is St Luke crying for? Hopefully not himself. He’s a doctor!⁵⁰

He was brought back to Constantinople in chains, beaten for several days to the utter pleasure of the outraged female populace, and then brought to trial before the synedrion⁵¹. But the elders of the assembly thought there wasn’t enough credible evidence to prosecute him, so they spanked him and sent him back to Tyre.

Cecilia and Berlinda were then brought in to look upon this pitiful man, but the ladies, being good Christians and of gentle dispositions, refused to participate in his mocking. Some scholiasts record⁵² that the Lady Kassia took him to task for his sins, before entreating him to give his heart to the Blessed Virgin, as she was the only woman in all the world who would not fall victim to his lies.

For his part, Smaragdus made no reply, and he was shown out of the assembly.

Berlinda and Cecilia became friends, as did all of the other people Xenographus of Tyre swindled. The money was never recovered, and Berlinda lived with Cecilia in her house until they died of old age. As their dowries were exhausted, they felt it better to serve the Lord in service and prayer rather than to live tragic lives.

The actual prince of Tyre eventually caught up with Xenographus, but for entirely different reasons: some letters alleging the Prince of Tyre had denied the third person of the Trinity⁵³ had gone far—to Alexandria—and this, of all things, was so egregious that the Egyptians now threatened to cancel a shipment of palm fiber. It was not the first time they’d done so on theological grounds alone, and it would not be the last, either.

The last anyone heard of Xenographus or Smaragdus of Tyre, he was living with his elderly mother, attempting a dried fruit concern. When the Saracens renewed their vehemence against the Empire, their fires consumed Tyre⁵⁴, and presumably this wayward young man.

Kassia, meanwhile, became quite famous, and when she died, the Empire mourned her—and the decency, trust and love of a kind-hearted woman—deeply.

And having said these things, Xerox of Sabra bowed reverently and sat down.

Lady Ouiser then said:

‘Well. What a terribly entertaining and interesting story, no? Mark you that the most wounded creature of all is frail woman. Perhaps we deserve that heartbreak, for introducing sin into this world. But my companions, is Woman more deserving of broken promises? Or does she bear the blame equally with the helpmeet the Lord has made for her⁵⁵?’

‘I shall speak for the men who break their promises to one another—and do away with their honor even as this man did away with the wealth of the women he claimed to love,’ said Persiflage, and thus began his tale.