"'...the theorems I do know let me cross from continuum to continuum, with a fair probability of landing in whichever one I want, or a reasonable facsimile of it.'"
-Poul Anderson, A Midsummer Tempest (London, 1975), xi, pp. 95-96.
The hostess of the Inn of the Worlds' End:
"You will return to the worlds from which you came, or ones very similar."
-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Worlds' End (New York, 1994), p. 158, panel 3.
Here is another parallel. In either multiverse, a traveller might arrive not in the intended world but in one so similar that any differences do not matter or might not even be noticed.
The landlord of the Old Phoenix:
"'...I'm a fat and cunning spider, albeit male,
"'which weaves a subtle web bedewed with ale
"'and wine and stronger waters, and thus ensnares
"'a singing swarm of lives,
"'to batten on the fables that they bear.'" (xii, p. 97)
We saw before that much of the text is verse laid out as prose. I have rearranged this passage according it to its rhythm, as far as I have been able to.
When the landlord introduces Clodia Pulcher from Rome, Prince Rupert protests that she has been dead for sixteen hundred years. The landlord replies:
"'Not in the world that is her own, my lord.
"'And here may come, from every time and clime,
"'aye, every cranny of reality,
"'whoever finds a way to find the door
"'And brings uncommon tales wherewith to pay.'" (ibid.)
(And I need a food break after that.)
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It was because of your commentary about A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST that I found out most of its text was blank verse.
Ad astra! Sean
Poul was -very- skillful at 'suggesting' Shakespearean prose in A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST.
Post a Comment