Title: Jurgen A Comedy of Justice

Author: James Branch Cabell

Language: English

Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. With thanks to the McCain Library, Agnes Scott College.

JURGEN

A Comedy of Justice

By

JAMES BRANCH CABELL

1922

   "Of JURGEN eke they maken mencioun,
   That of an old wyf gat his youthe agoon,
   And gat himselfe a shirte as bright as fyre
   Wherein to jape, yet gat not his desire
   In any countrie ne condicioun."

TO

BURTON RASCOE

     Before each tarradiddle,
   Uncowed by sciolists,
   Robuster persons twiddle
   Tremendously big fists.

     "Our gods are good," they tell us;
   "Nor will our gods defer
   Remission of rude fellows'
   Ability to err."

     So this, your JURGEN, travels
   Content to compromise
   Ordainments none unravels
   Explicitly … and sighs.

* * * * *

"Others, with better moderation, do either entertain the vulgar history of Jurgen as a fabulous addition unto the true and authentic story of St. Iurgenius of Poictesme, or else we conceive the literal acception to be a misconstruction of the symbolical expression: apprehending a veritable history, in an emblem or piece of Christian poesy. And this emblematical construction hath been received by men not forward to extenuate the acts of saints."

—PHILIP BORSDALE.

"A forced construction is very idle. If readers of The High History of Jurgen do not meddle with the allegory, the allegory will not meddle with them. Without minding it at all, the whole is as plain as a pikestaff. It might as well be pretended that we cannot see Poussin's pictures without first being told the allegory, as that the allegory aids us in understanding Jurgen."

—E. NOEL CODMAN.

"Too urbane to advocate delusion, too hale for the bitterness of irony, this fable of Jurgen is, as the world itself, a book wherein each man will find what his nature enables him to see; which gives us back each his own image; and which teaches us each the lesson that each of us desires to learn."

—JOHN FREDERICK LEWISTAM.

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