DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Polaris, v. 1, issue 4, September 1940

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Polaris, v. 1, issue 4, September 1940

Page 16

16

THE ARTIZAN'S REWARD

by R H Barlow

"Since each of us has gold, and twenty years to shape it", remarked the sculptor to his rival, "our king's reign will be remembered, and one of us."
He wished them to make a god out of the coin purveyed from a city lately conquered, for in that city were unendurably find gods who perhaps only in sleeping had permitted its fall.
Of these craftsmen one polished his chisel eight years and went to Assyria to look at a certain frieze, and enquired into all subjects pertaining to the gods and their symbols.
He learned a little pondering the nine thousand volumes which in his land dealt with them. Some, it appeared, were possessed of twelve legs, and others of none at all. Some were female and some male, but most were more complicated. In a heathen land where the women braided flowers in their hair and no one worked, there was a god who had come riding a meteor as one rides a white-manned horse rapidly through the dusk. In a cold land there was a god with but one attribute. In a land of interlinking lakes whose people had never built a house but lived in skiffs and wore lilypads when it rained, the god was named Drought. In a dark land prisoned between two mountains bearing the same name, there was a god with a burning, inextinguishable bears. In yet another land all the gods had been broken across by a man with bright eyes, and for this his fellows worshipped him.
These things he found written, and afterward spent twelve years in hammering models out of lead.
But his rival lay on a hillside whose grass the sheep envied over low fences, and made up fables which he knew to be untrue about a star habitually blooming near one tree, or frightened pigeons at sunset where the river had sought to come ashore and even kept a garrison of reeds. Moreover, when the torches of the sunset and the stars and the young year were alike burnt out, he found them kindled anew in little jugs of wine as delightful on the lip as even a woman's lip.
The first sculptor wore a black gown and regularly went to bed, for he was very earnest in his wish to make an admirable statue.
The second wore a robe of any colour he fancied, even though full of holes.
And so some carried off twenty hampers of years each brimming with corroded or bright coins which people had put into them, and which were the more plentiful I need not say.
Then before him the king, no longer given to riding abroad as victor, called the two sculptors.
"I gave you gold to play with two decades long" he said, "and what will you give me back?"
A man in a black robe signalled his apprentices to wheel in a veiled god, and when the veil was removed, all looked. Neither head nor arms did the god have, and much of the rest was lead not yet covered with gold. And he asked another twenty years of the king.
Then the king asked of him the piebald robe, who was teasing

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16 THE ARTIZAN'S REWARD by R H Barlow "Since each of us has gold, and twenty years to shape it", remarked the sculptor to his rival, "our king's reign will be remembered, and one of us." He wished them to make a god out of the coin purveyed from a city lately conquered, for in that city were unendurably find gods who perhaps only in sleeping had permitted its fall. Of these craftsmen one polished his chisel eight years and went to Assyria to look at a certain frieze, and enquired into all subjects pertaining to the gods and their symbols. He learned a little pondering the nine thousand volumes which in his land dealt with them. Some, it appeared, were possessed of twelve legs, and others of none at all. Some were female and some male, but most were more complicated. In a heathen land where the women braided flowers in their hair and no one worked, there was a god who had come riding a meteor as one rides a white-manned horse rapidly through the dusk. In a cold land there was a god with but one attribute. In a land of interlinking lakes whose people had never built a house but lived in skiffs and wore lilypads when it rained, the god was named Drought. In a dark land prisoned between two mountains bearing the same name, there was a god with a burning, inextinguishable bears. In yet another land all the gods had been broken across by a man with bright eyes, and for this his fellows worshipped him. These things he found written, and afterward spent twelve years in hammering models out of lead. But his rival lay on a hillside whose grass the sheep envied over low fences, and made up fables which he knew to be untrue about a star habitually blooming near one tree, or frightened pigeons at sunset where the river had sought to come ashore and even kept a garrison of reeds. Moreover, when the torches of the sunset and the stars and the young year were alike burnt out, he found them kindled anew in little jugs of wine as delightful on the lip as even a woman's lip. The first sculptor wore a black gown and regularly went to bed, for he was very earnest in his wish to make an admirable statue. The second wore a robe of any colour he fancied, even though full of holes. And so some carried off twenty hampers of years each brimming with corroded or bright coins which people had put into them, and which were the more plentiful I need not say. Then before him the king, no longer given to riding abroad as victor, called the two sculptors. "I gave you gold to play with two decades long" he said, "and what will you give me back?" A man in a black robe signalled his apprentices to wheel in a veiled god, and when the veil was removed, all looked. Neither head nor arms did the god have, and much of the rest was lead not yet covered with gold. And he asked another twenty years of the king. Then the king asked of him the piebald robe, who was teasing