The Parliament of Rooks

I have a confession to make: I am a hopeless melancholic. I do not mean this in the sense that I am always depressed and pessimistic, although this is indeed frequently true. No, when I say I am melancholic, I mean this in the classical sense of the word. I wear dark colours that make my skin look pale and jaundiced. I philosophize. I am prone to strange maladies that no one knows quite what to make of – when I contract the flu, or some other conventional illness, then I am hit harder than most people, and I lie in bed speculating on death and life-in-death. I am a bit too morbid and perverse for my own good. I’ve had a tendency toward sadomasochistic behaviour since I was prepubescent, well before I know what sex was and how it worked. I’m introverted, although I’ve learned to hide my preference for being alone behind a mask. I’m terrible at cocktail parties, though, because my usual party behaviour is to find the library and get lost in it, unless I have close friends that I know and am actually happy to greet. (My close friends are apt to join me in the library, being much like me in many ways.) Perhaps that’s the most annoying thing about me – I am a scholar at heart, what in the old days would have been called a bluestocking or a woman of letters, and I cannot really imagine having a life outside an ivory tower. I hate the real world, I’d much rather devote my attention to words. To most people, preferring fantasy and speculation to reality, books to the human race, is an unforgivable sin; it smacks of immaturity, if not actual anti-social proclivities. I won’t deny either of those qualities in me – I’m very immature, certainly quite anti-social once you get to know me, and my fantasy life is so vivid that it has a life all its own.

It should come as no surprise, then, that a few nights ago while poring over Chaucer’s Parliament of Foules I fell asleep and had a most interesting dream. So real it was, that I could scarcely tell whether I was awake or in a sleeping state. This is highly unusual for me – since I am so accustomed to the various varieties of dream-consciousness; daydreaming, sleeping, vision quest – and so on; I usually have a shaman-like ability to detect when I am dreaming, and even to control the dream a little. I think I should mention here that I almost never read books one at a time. I usually have five or six of them near my bed. No doubt this too had an effect on my dream.

It was not Scipio who came to me in my dream, but Chaucer himself. “You have for some time been pondering in your mind the nature of love,” he said to me, his eye twinkling just the faintest bit, “You have been asking for a guide, and behold! I am here.”

I took a look around me once again. There seemed to be a gate made of horn, and it was blank above.

“Are there not two gates?” I asked my guide. I’ve read Dante, also. He’s an excellent guide.

“There are. We have passed through the gate of courtly love already. Why do you think I am here by your side?”

That quite figures, I thought silently. It was amazing that I did not see the forest until that moment. In dreams, I suppose, all things are hidden until our eyes first begin to look for them. A primeval glade of tall conifers occupied the land as far as the eye could see; the trunks of two trees were as wide as houses, and soared up into the air so far that it was indeed difficult to tell when tree ended and sky began. A sharp perfume was invading my nostrils. I smelled pine, and sap, and wood, and moss. This is the scent of youth and abundant health that aerosol cleansers try, and fail, to capture. There is no way to capture a scent so rich – perfumes cannot be as fresh as the scents they imitate. You might as well try to bottle the essence of a unicorn, which (I have been told) is a peculiarly un-mammalian scent of mint, lavender, and rosemary.

A raven flew by, cawing. It was white. It wore a blue ribbon wrapped about its right leg. Long after it had flown past, I saw before me the trailing ribbon, and heard the raucous cry. The trees were echoing terribly. Strangely, there was no sound in the forest but the echo of the raven’s cry; no other birds invaded the silence, no breeze made the trees moan. My breathing suddenly seemed very loud. It was rude to my ears; it seemed too human, too ragged for this world. I turned to my guide for help.

“Come,” he said, “or we will miss the parliament.”

“Is there to be a parliament of birds?”

“Rooks.”

I had never attended a parliament of rooks, although I had encountered them in my reading. I wondered if we would be allowed to attend. Rooks are a peculiar species of bird. Their very nature betrays their general untrustworthiness; to rook means to cheat or steal, and a rookery (that is, a place where hundreds of rooks make their dwelling) is an old word for a ghetto of thieves and prostitutes and other low life. Rooks are among the most social of birds. They like to flock together. They have a highly developed language, compared to other birds, and like parrots can be trained to mimic human speech. Most peculiarly of all, their collective name – a parliament of rooks – comes from a custom they have of gathering in a field. Thousands of rooks will converge for no apparent reason. A space in the middle of the birds will be formed, and a single rook will be found standing in that space. The rook will caw, and caw some more. This can go on for hours. At the end of some unspecified time limit, there will be a brief silence; and then the rooks will do one of two things: either they will all fly away, never to converge on that particular field again – or they will set themselves on the lone rook and peck it to death. It appears to be a sort of trial, hence the name. Members of the corvidae family all have unusual names for their groupings. They don’t form flocks. A group of crows is called a murder of crows; then there are tidings of magpies, and unkindnesses of ravens. This family of birds is traditionally associated with madness, death, and the supernatural.

I expressed my fear that our presence would frighten the rooks away.

“Don’t worry,” Chaucer assured me, “they won’t detect us. If any of them see us, they will think us to be rooks.”

We had been walking through the forest for some time, and now we came to a field of high grass. Suddenly the air was full of noise – cawing, jabbering; it was difficult to tell whether I was hearing a large group of raucous birds, or a large crowd of excited people. I could not understand a word that was spoken, and the noise was so great that I winced and had to cover my ears. Eventually, though, the horrid sounds ceased, and I could see the lone rook standing before me. The rook began.

“You have observed that we are all compelled to mate, to produce offspring. This is the commandment of Eros, who is the god of desire, and who wishes all living beings to perpetuate their own species. However, there is a certain creature that walks on two legs and yet has no wings; it is craftier than even our race, having the ability to make tools, even to steal fire from the very heavens. This you know. Most of us have encountered these creatures at some point in our existence – we have all, at one time in our lives, flown past their shining and terrible cities, which are friendly to no creature. However, what is less known to we of the flying kingdoms is the fact that these creatures feel an emotion called love when they desire; this is the thing that separates them from us. This is their curse. It is by the command of Eros himself, he who commands all living beings to desire a partner with whom to couple.

“Once there were no two-legged creatures in the world. There were only the various kingdoms – the winged kingdom, the water kingdom, the kingdom of furry land-crawlers and the kingdom of scaly land-crawlers. Eros was bored one day, and so he decided to create a new kingdom. However, he thought it would be more prudent to create his new kingdom in small numbers, and so he made three creatures from clay and water and a drop of his own blood. Two of these new creatures were male, and one was female.

“He observed their interaction. They seemed to be quite social, capable of more speech than any of his other creations so far, and quite willing to band together for warmth and comfort and protection. They shared their food, their shelter, and each other. At first, this gave Eros much amusement, but then he realized that their willingness to share was brought on by necessity rather than frivolous desire; he had made his new creatures too weak, for they possessed no claws, no fangs, no camouflaging colours or scaly armour. He had not yet been able to make a creation that experienced desire without need. This plagued him, for he wanted more than anything to create a creature of pure will and desire – a creature made in his image. It had been for this purpose that he had added his own blood to his creation.

“Desiring to free them of the shackles of necessity, he gave them a new gift: the gift of reason. They could now think clearly and quickly and make decisions in a split second, even without instinct such as ours. They could invent tools to help keep their enemies at bay. No longer would they be forced to huddle in fright; they could emerge from their hiding places for longer periods of time, and not just to forage better but to explore.

“The female – whose name some say was Lily – was the craftiest of all. Perhaps this is because all females must care for their young, and need all the crafty wiles that they can summon for this task. Perhaps Eros merely made her craftier, gave her more of the gift, because he admired her beauty. She was a most fine creation. At any rate, Lily said to herself, `We need a weapon that will make us not mere animals, but gods.’ For such as we are called in their tongue. The blood of these creatures is godlike and always demands to unite with its creator, detaching itself from its natural place in the world. `We have sharpened sticks to hunt with, rocks to hammer or cut with; but we need more, if we are ever to create, to be as our father. How did he create us?’

“One of the males – I am told his name was Aron – answered, `Out of clay, and water, and his own blood; he shaped us, and forged us in a kiln, drying us in the sun.’ `Exactly,’ said Lily. `The kiln, the sun – all are hot. We must have fire. We need fire to create. Is it not fire that we feel in our loins, when we need to couple?’ `But how are we to get fire?’ asked the other male, whose name was Cadwel.

`We must steal lightning from the gods.’

“And so Lily dressed herself up in garlands of flowers until her beauty was such that it made her lovers ache to see her, indeed caused them to cast seed on the spot; and, dressed in the semblance of a flower goddess, she went on a quest for the dwelling of Eros.

“Long was her quest, and perilous. She faced terrible heat and freezing cold; her stomach cried for hunger when she could not find food; great cats hunted her and forced her to fight them for her life. She searched through jungles, and plains, and deserts. Finally her search bore her to a high mountain, and the top of the mountain was wreathed in clouds. Hard was the climb, but she knew that beyond the clouds was the object of her search; and so she climbed with determination, forcing herself to go on even when her feet were ripped by sharp stones. At last she stood before a cottage made of marble and rubies. This was the home of Eros, and she knocked at his door. `I am a gift from the five kingdoms,’ she called out. `Come and accept me, or send me back if I am displeasing.’

“Eros himself answered the summons. He beheld her, and desired her; and took her into his arms, to have his way with her. Such was his delight that he was driven to couple with her again and again, even into the small hours of the night; such was her skill in disguise that he did not even recognize his own creation, but took her to be some new creature – a nymph of the forest, perhaps. He was so filled and so charmed, in fact, that he was convinced that here at last was his perfect mate. Lily accepted his ardour, even fed it until he fainted from the intensity of his own passion. While he was unconscious, she left him in his bed and searched his dwelling until at last she found his forge and she took a bolt of lightning, and forced it into a rock, which became a glowing ember; with Eros’ golden tongs, she placed the ember in a sack lined with fleece and magic spells so that the ember would burn without dying but would nevertheless not burn through the sack. I do not know how she did this, for this is a mystery that we creatures of the earth are denied. But she grabbed the sack and fled into the night, making her long journey back home while Eros slept in his unnatural trance.

“At last she arrived home, and explained to her lovers (who had been frantic for her) how to tend the fire that she had stolen. Soon they had a merry hearthfire, and were able to cook meat over it and stay warm. Lily began to experiment with various substances, clay and wood and grass and so on, and she made marvelous things: urns of clay in which to carry water, pipes and flutes and drums that made strange noises, lamps of animal fat and clay and grass rope that could be lit at night to provide light in the darkness. At last, her labours attracted the attention of a magpie; and magpies are natural spies, being both very curious and very garrulous. The magpie flew instantly to Eros to tell his secret.

`My lord,’ said the magpie, `there is a creature on two legs tending a fire; and she makes strange tools and smokes meat over it.’

“When Eros heard this he became very angry indeed. He had been desiring his nymph for quite some time, you see; he had been filled with so much passion that it had made him weak and delirious. Now he realized that he had been tricked by one of his own creations, and he desired to inflict some of his own pain on her. “He came to the dwelling place of his created children, blazing his anger so that he resembles a small brilliant sun. Cadwel and Aron, who were ashamed, instantly hid in the small cave that was their home; but Lily stood by the fire, unafraid and unashamed. It was her nature to be bold; that was how she had been made. As perhaps I said before, of the three two-legged creatures, she most resembled her creator, being gifted with the greatest part of his blood.

`Where did you get this fire?’ he demanded. `I did not give you this fire.’

“It is the nature of any creature gifted with cunning to try and bluff its way out of a predicament. `I trapped some lightning after a storm,’ she said.

“This annoyed Eros even further. `You lie! You came to me and stole the fire from me, disguised as a love-gift!’

`As a what?’

“Here Eros saw the means to punish his children. You say you do not know what a love-gift is? Oh pitiful creature! Sad and beautiful thing! You are so like me – you who walk on two legs and think rather than acting on instinct! Did you know that I would have given the fire to you, had you only asked? For I love you. If you only knew how I loved you then! I loved you even before I desired you. When you came to me from the heat, and I did not realize that it was you I sickened for until a magpie came and told me of your forge, at which point I realized all. You are so like me – and yet, unaware of your nature, you feel you must creep and deceive the gods to get any gifts from them. You have wounded me, and for that, and your brazen lies – not for the theft of my fire, which is free for all who would take it – I will punish you. You want fire? I curse you with love. Henceforth, you will know love, and yearn for it. You, who were unaware that being part god you possessed a soul, will now desire the completion of your soul. Your soul will burn you as mine burns within you; you will desire and never be filled. You will want pleasure, and it will not complete you; you will want pain, and hate yourself for it, and still it will not complete you because it is, after all, only another sensation. Your earthly half will long for feeling, your divine half for worship, and the two urges will war within you and torment you. You will pass this curse on to your children. Will you yet love me? Will you long for me with hopeless hunger? That I cannot control, for love will give you independence – but the high wall of unknowing will steal peace from you. Thus I am avenged.

`Cadwel and Aron! Do not think that you can escape this curse! You have been accomplices. You, too, shall therefore know what it is to love. Your baser natures will war with your souls; desire will inflict jealousy on you, because your sublime soul will be tainted with earthly need. You will want to possess that which you love. You fight, even kill, to that end. You will be divorced from the female half of your species by your desire; desire will choke what brotherly love you might have shared. The same will occur when you turn to other fulfillment, or when woman seeks her soul in another woman’s embrace: even that love shall not be free of the curse. Love will turn to estrangement, being always tempered with need. Until you can come to terms with need, you will never regain your souls; but will become needier yet. Your divine blood will be a plague, a curse. It is no longer a gift.

`The fire? Oh, you can keep that. It is but a toy. I will not take it away from you – believe me, you will need it to light the darkness, even though you will come to see its burning, too, as a curse.’

“And then he was gone. And so the two-legged ones knew love; and you are all familiar with how Cadwal slew Aron for want of Lily and thus became the sole father of the two-legged species. You have heard the mystery. I do not understand it, I comprehend love no more than I comprehend tame fire or the art of cooking dead flesh; the only building that I understand is the building of nests. Yet this is the story as it has been passed down, and it is true that every male with two legs is of Cadwal and every female with two legs is of Lily; these creatures are compelled to carry the curse from generation to generation, to live out their myths as they multiply.”

The rook ceased. And I saw that there could indeed be two ways to end this parliament: the rook could go free, or it could be pecked to death, its story forever silenced. Some time later my guide took me once again through the forest, and left me at the gate of horn,. Where I awoke; and I resolved, in his words, to read something to improve myself, therefore I shall contrive reading all the more. Perhaps Dante might have been a better guide – I would have liked to have asked him some questions about his divine eros for Beatrice. However, of some of the mysteries it is not permitted to speak; you merely experience them, or you don’t. I know this, I’m a melancholiac with odd fancies that I have a hard time committing to paper. I wonder if I should have recorded this at all; but if the rook was at all true in his words, then I as Lily’s daughter should be well accustomed to stealing fire and doing the forbidden. Do forbidden stories emerge into the morning without that taint of blood, I wonder? Or are they always divine and incomprehensible?

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Author’s note: Thanks must be given not just to Geoffrey Chaucer, and to Dante, but also to Virgil; and to Neil Gaiman, for the information on rooks.