Читать книгу A Book for the Hammock - William Clark Russell - Страница 6

“Upstarted the mermaid by the ship,

Wi’ a glass and a kame in her hand,

Says, ‘Reek about, reek about, my merry men;

Ye are not very far from land.’”

If the mermen were the pretty creatures’ husbands they would be driven wild with jealousy; for it is certain that in olden times—it may yet be the artless charmers’ practice—to make love to human men, to princes as to peasants, very properly choosing the best-looking. Sometimes, it is true, their amorous emotions were inspired by motives extremely sinister. There are many stories told of these marine Becky Sharps ogling and leering at dashing and handsome and fragrant young men of quality ashore, whilst possibly some old Lord Steyne, in the shape of a hideous merman in the depths, watched the wicked comedy with sardonic sneers and laughter. A mermaid nearly drowned a certain young laird of Lorntie. The youthful nobleman saw the beautiful girl apparently struggling for life in the water; but his henchman, bawling out a hearty “God sauf us!” said that the lady was a mermaid; whereupon they galloped off whilst the marine Becky piped up—

“Lorntie, Lorntie, were it na for your man

I had gart your hairt’s blood, skirl in my pan!”

Some are also charged with embracing their sweethearts from no other motive than to suffocate them, as in the story of the Manx shepherd, who was so much hurt by being squeezed that he pushed the mermaid away, for which she wounded him to death by flinging a stone at him. Of this deceitful and dangerous kind are those Swedish sea-nymphs who pass their days upon the rocks combing their hair and viewing their perfections in hand-mirrors. They are also said to amuse themselves by spreading out linen to dry, but this fancy clearly springs from the mistakes of seamen who suppose the white foam crawling about the finny maidens to be the contents of the wash-tub. If a fisherman sees one of these mermaids, he is on no account to mention it to his mates, or bad luck will follow. But other kinds of these girls of the ocean are tender, and extremely affectionate and lovable. The melancholy, melodious sounds sometimes heard breathing amid the stillness upon the deep at night are the sighs of mermaids who have loved and lost, and who rise from their coral beds, their grottoes of pearl, their pavilions and palaces of shells, to make their moan to the stars. Mermaids are great lovers of music. They have been known to sacrifice their sweethearts for a tune. A fisherman was induced to give his handsome son to a mermaid on her offering in exchange a brave reward in the shape of luck. But the boy’s mother, who sang very sweetly, so charmed the mermaid’s heart, that she undertook to return her adored if his mamma would favour her with another air.

It is gratifying to find old Bailey in his “Dictionarium Britannicum” (1730), defining the word mermaid with a very sober and sturdy leaning in favour of the real existence of these ladies. “Whereas,” says he, “it has been thought they have been only the product of the painter’s invention, it is confidently reported that there is in the following lake fishes which differ in nothing from mankind but in the want of speech and reason. Father Francis de Pavia, a missionary, being in the kingdom of Congo in Africa, who would not believe that there were such creatures, affirms that the Queen of Singa did see in a river coming out of the lake Zaire many mermaids, something resembling a woman in the breasts, hands, and arms; but the lower part is perfect fish, the head round, the face like a calf, a large mouth, little ears, and round, full eyes. Which creatures Father Merula often saw and eat of them.” Which, I may add, does not say much for Father Merula’s manners and tastes, unless it is meant figuratively, as in the sense of the saying in the comedy, “Six weeks before I married her I could have eaten her, and six weeks after I was sorry I didn’t.” As to the face like the calf, the large mouth, and so forth, let it be remembered that the place Father de Pavia wrote of was the kingdom of Congo, where, to be sure, we should not expect to find even mermaids beautiful. But that these sea-nymphs, with their golden hair, their shining shapes, their teeth of pearl, their eyes of the liquid blue of their own glorious element, full of ocean mystery and the spirit of the unfathomable starless world in which they live—that they are as beautiful as dreams among shores from whose silent rocks neither the voice of a De Pavia nor a Merula has ever fetched an echo, who can doubt?

The mermaid is the sailor’s love. Let us leave her to him.