and the babe itself - who was it and what was it?
these were the questions the demons asked it, as soon as they were alone with it…
i was a god in my own universe, the babe began.
i was the fifth son of the great god tex, and was known as prince nex.
in the hierarchy of the universe, each of the seven princes, sons of tex, was assigned a sub-universe of his own, corresponding to the seven realities.
as the fifth son, i was assigned the role of god of violence.
i was bitterly jealous of my brothers bex, the fourth son, who ruled the universe of love, and gex, the sixth son, who ruled the universe of beauty.
and who were the other brothers? asked the first demon, the one who had been a goat and now took the form of a peasant girl.
let him tell his story, said the second demon, the one who had been a serpent and was now to be the babe’s nurse.
the first demon shrugged, and the babe continued.
i was a sensitive child, who craved love and loved beauty, especially the beauty of lyric poetry, but the rule was inflexible - as the fifth son i was to spend my days overseeing, and attending, endless contests of varying degrees of violence, mayhem, tortiure, and murder, for the insatiable delight of the billions of peasants and beggars and common soldiers and groundlings of the universe, as well as that of my implacable sire, the great god tex himself.
i should clarify that my role as god of violence applied only to violent sports and games, not to the superior violence of war, which was the province of the first son, rex, or to what was considered the inferior violence of common murder, the province of the seventh son, lex, or the violence of ordinary beatings and whippings, overseen by the third son, jex, god of everyday life.
i especially dreaded the ceremonial feasts we were all required to attend at regular intervals, where i was subjected to bitter gibes from tex, from rex, and especially from gex, who was as unhappy with his post as god of beauty as i was with my post as god of games and sports.
but there seemed little hope for either of us, as the rules of the universe , like those of most universes, were inflexible.
can i ask a question?, the first demon interrupted again. are there any ladies involved in all this? any goddesses? of love or otherwise? you mentioned that one brother was the god of love.
let him tell his story, the second demon repeated.
no, that is a good question, said the babe, and i am glad you asked it, because it brings me to the crux of my story.
there were indeed females in my universe - one for every ten million males.
therefore every female was in effect a goddess, able to select from a virtually unlimited pool of desperate suitors.
and in this the male gods were reduced to mere mortals, as they were given no advantage over their mortal counterparts in the lists of love.
indeed, it was the gods who were at a disadvantage in at least two respects.
first, the fair one might not look favorably on an alliance with one who was immortal, and who therefore she might never be rid of.
and second, a god like myself could only woo the maiden in his appointed godly role. and so, it was only as a bold gladiator or sportsman, and not as a moonstruck poet , that i could approach one of these fair divinities.
gex, as god of art and beauty, was in similar plight, as he could not present himself as he might have wished, as a dashing swordsman, but only as a winsome poet or lute player or some such.
both gex and i were smitten by the charms of the fair azenia, daughter of one of the mightier emperors of the ever expanding universe.
thus it was that gex approached me, after a particularly boisterous and noisome feast, with a terrible proposal.
you can guess what it was . it was that in pursuing our claims on the charming azenia at the court of her father the emperor, we should switch places - i assuming the role of poet and he of swordsman!
in the backwater of the relatively modest (to us, as gods) empire, who would know?
and if perchance either of us should take the prize, might anyone be curious at the court of the gods to inquire how we had done so? or would it be passed by as just another episode in the eternal ebb and flow of the empires, and of our universe?
i accepted gex’s proposal, and embarked forthwith on the composition of a series of ballads and sonnets, designed to win the heart of the fair one.
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