Copyright 202 by Gary L. Pullman
King Edward III
The
first sentence of the story establishes its setting: it is “about
twelve o'clock, one night in the month of October, . . . during the
chivalrous reign of the third Edward.”
Edward
III ruled
from January 25, 1327 to June 21, 1377—about fifty years. From 1361
to 1362, there was a resurgence of the cholera
pandemic, so it is on an October night during this two-year
period that “King
Pest” takes place. (Others suggest that the story's title
alludes not to the cholera pandemic but to the bubonic
plague, or Black Death.)
As
in most of Poe's fiction, the story begins with the general, a night
during the reign of King Edward III, and moves to the specific, “two
seamen belonging to the crew of the 'Free and Easy,' a trading
schooner,” as readers learn that these sailors, Legs and Hugh
Tarpaulin, have gone ashore to drink; they are “much astonished to
find themselves seated in the tap-room of an ale-house in the parish
of St. Andrews, London.”
Poe
takes pains to describe both men. Legs is taller than his companion,
standing “six feet and a half.” He has “an habitual stoop in
the shoulders,” and he is “exceedingly thin.” He has “high
cheek-bones, a large hawk-nose, retreating chin, fallen under-jaw,
and huge protruding white eyes.” “Solemn,” he is not given
to laughter.
Tarpaulin
is his opposite, short (four feet) and “squat,” with “stumpy
bow-legs . . . unusually short and thick arms”; finny fingers;
“small eyes, of no particular color”; a nose which is “buried
in the mass of flesh which enveloped his round, full, and purple
face”; and “thick” lips that he licks frequently. Tarpaulin regards Legs with “a feeling half-wondrous, half-quizzical.”
Penniless,
the drunken sailors flee after seeing a sign forbidding credit, the
tavern's landlady in pursuit.
(In
England, pubs lower rents to the owners of the buildings their
establishments occupy, but, in return, the owners of the pubs pay
more for ale and other alcoholic beverages supplied by vendors.)
Parts
of London that are infected by the plague are sealed off, the king
having imposed a death sentence upon whoever bypasses barriers to rob
from stores inside these restricted areas. In fleeing the tavern,
Legs and Tarpaulin run down an alley, the end of which is blocked by
a barrier, which indicates the presence, ahead, of the plague. To
escape the pursuing landlady, the sailors climb the barricade and
jump into the street on the other side of it, where a scene of horror
meets their drunken gazes:
Had
they not, indeed, been intoxicated beyond moral sense, their reeling
footsteps must have been palsied by the horrors of their situation.
The air was cold and misty. The paving-stones, loosened from their
beds, lay in wild disorder amid the tall, rank grass, which sprang up
around the feet and ankles. Fallen houses choked up the streets. The
most fetid and poisonous smells everywhere prevailed;—and by the
aid of that ghastly light which, even at midnight, never fails to
emanate from a vapory and pestilential at atmosphere, might be
discerned lying in the by-paths and alleys, or rotting in the
windowless habitations, the carcass of many a nocturnal plunderer
arrested by the hand of the plague in the very perpetration of his
robbery.
From
inside “an undertaker's shop,” the seamen hear laughter,
“shrieks,” and “curses.” Entering the building, Legs and
Tarpaulin see an open trapdoor, through which they observe a table
bearing “various wines and cordials, together with jugs, pitchers,
and flagons of every shape and quality” and a “huge tub” of
punch. Seated around this table, upon coffin-trestles, or stands for holding coffins, are
King Pest, Queen Pest, and four members of their family, the Arch
Duke Pest-Iferous,' the Duke Pest-Ilential,' the Duke Tem-Pest,' and
the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.
Poe
takes equal pains in describing these characters as he has in
painting the portraits of his protagonists. Each is a grotesque, with
exaggerated traits, as the descriptions of the monarchs suggest,
their descriptions being typical of the descriptions of the others as
well:
King
Pest:
Fronting
the entrance, and elevated a little above his companions, sat a
personage who appeared to be the president of the table. His stature
was gaunt and tall, and Legs was confounded to behold in him a figure
more emaciated than himself. His face was as yellow as saffron—but
no feature excepting one alone, was sufficiently marked to merit a
particular description. This one consisted in a forehead so unusually
and hideously lofty, as to have the appearance of a bonnet or crown
of flesh superadded upon the natural head. His mouth was puckered and
dimpled into an expression of ghastly affability, and his eyes, as
indeed the eyes of all at table, were glazed over with the fumes of
intoxication. This gentleman was clothed from head to foot in a
richly-embroidered black silk-velvet pall, wrapped negligently around
his form after the fashion of a Spanish cloak.—His head was stuck
full of sable hearse-plumes, which he nodded to and fro with a jaunty
and knowing air; and, in his right hand, he held a huge human
thigh-bone, with which he appeared to have been just knocking down
some member of the company for a song.
Queen
Pest:
Opposite
him, and with her back to the door, was a lady of no whit the less
extraordinary character. Although quite as tall as the person just
described, she had no right to complain of his unnatural emaciation.
She was evidently in the last stage of a dropsy [i. .e, edema];
and her figure resembled nearly that of the huge puncheon [an
eighty-gallon cask] of October
beer which stood, with the head driven in, close by her side, in
a corner of the chamber. Her face was exceedingly round, red, and
full; and the same peculiarity, or rather want of peculiarity,
attached itself to her countenance, which I before mentioned in the
case of the president—that is to say, only one feature of her face
was sufficiently distinguished to need a separate characterization:
indeed the acute Tarpaulin immediately observed that the same remark
might have applied to each individual person of the party; every one
of whom seemed to possess a monopoly of some particular portion of
physiognomy. With the lady in question this portion proved to be the
mouth. Commencing at the right ear, it swept with a terrific chasm to
the left—the short pendants which she wore in either auricle
continually bobbing into the aperture. She made, however, every
exertion to keep her mouth closed and look dignified, in a dress
consisting of a newly starched and ironed shroud coming up close
under her chin, with a crimpled ruffle of cambric muslin.
In
A Handbook to
Literature,
fourth edition, C. Hugh Holman defines “grotesque,” in its
literary context, as the depiction of “characters” who are “either
physically or spiritually deformed” and “perform actions that are
clearly intended by the author to be abnormal” (207). This
technique, Holman adds, “may be used for allegorical statement”
and “for comic purposes” (207), as, clearly, Poe uses this technique
in “King Pest.”
Finding the seamen's entrance rude and their inquiry into the
nature of his family's business outrageous, King pest fines the sailors, sentencing Legs and Tarpaulin to drink a gallon of
Black Strap “at a single draught—and upon . . . bended knees,”
whereupon they will be free to take their leave or to stay as the king's
guest. (In other words, King Pest sentences the seamen to be drowned in the ale,
after which their bodies will be cast aside, in the undertaker's shop,
or be discarded outside,)
It's
possible that, drunk, neither Legs nor Tarpaulin understand the
king's sarcasm. It is possible, too, that they understand his literal
intent all too well but, bolstered by false courage, pretend
ignorance as a pretext for braggadocio and bragging. Legs objects
that he has drunk his fill earlier, at the tavern he and Tarpaulin
visited, but his companion insists that he can drink more and offers
to drink both the gallon that Legs has been ordered to drink and the
gallon that he himself has been ordered to drink.
However,
King Pest declares that his fine must be paid in the manner he has
imposed, without alteration.
Tarpaulin
refuses to kneel to the king, whom he recognizes as 'Tim Hurlygurly
the stage-player.”
Trapaulin's
refusal is met by a chorus of shouts, as the king, queen, and the
rest of the family cry “Treason!”
Legs
floods the undertaker's shop with ale from the hogshead that he
breaks after his companion is deposited head-first inside the cask,
to drown, and the sailors attack the king and his family, killing the
man with the gout, drowning “the man with the horrors,” sending
the man in the coffin away on the flood, and leaving the ladies in
“hysterics.” Then, Tarpaulin abducts the fat lady in the shroud,
while Legs kidnaps the Arch Duchess Ana-Past and the sailors return
to their ship, which, presumably, is still anchored in the Thames.
What
can be said of such a story?
Robert
Louis Stevenson concluded, about its author, that “he who could
write 'King Pest' had ceased to be a human being.”
Perhaps
Stevenson was unaware that Poe's story is a comedy—a satire, in
fact.
Are
the story's king, queen, and other family members based on
historical persons?
Poe's
king is tall and bony; his complexion is “saffron.” His brow is
“unusually and hideously lofty.” His mouth is “puckered and
dimpled.” Unfortunately, history does not appear to provide us with
a description of King Edward III's physical appearance. However, his
tomb includes a likeness
of him, carved in stone. Since the sculpture purports to represent
his likeness, we can assume that it, indeed, resembles the king at
the time of his death. Judging by this figure, King Edward III does
appear to have been tall and thin, if not “gaunt.” His forehead
does not seem especially “lofty.” His mouth is not “puckered
and dimpled.”
Queen
Pest shares one of the conditions that afflicted Queen Philippa
of Hainault (1315 - 1369), but she otherwise does not resemble the true
queen, King Edward III's wife, whom historian Ian Mortimer describes:
The
lady whom we saw has not uncomely hair, betwixt blue-black and brown.
Her head is clean-shaped; her forehead high and broad, and standing
somewhat forward. Her face narrows between the eyes, and the lower
part of her face is still more narrow and slender than her forehead.
Her eyes are blackish-brown and deep. Her nose is fairly smooth and
even, save that it is somewhat broad at the tip and also flattened,
and yet it is no snub-nose. Her nostrils are also broad, her mouth
fairly wide. Her lips somewhat full, and especially the lower lip.
Her teeth which have fallen and grown again are white enough, but the
rest are not so white. The lower teeth project a little beyond the
upper; yet this is but little seen. Her ears and chin are comely
enough. Her neck, shoulders, and all her body are well set and
unmaimed; and nought is amiss so far as a man may see. Moreover, she
is brown of skin all over, and much like her father; and in all
things she is pleasant enough, as it seems to us. And the damsel will
be of the age of nine years on St. John's day next to come, as her
mother saith. She is neither too tall nor too short for such an age;
she is of fair carriage, and well taught in all that becometh her
rank, and highly esteemed and well beloved of her father and mother
and of all her meinie [i. e., small-minded],
in so far as we could inquire and learn the truth (The
Register of Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, 1307–1326).
The
condition which Queen Pest has in common with Queen Philippa is
dropsy, or edema, or an illness similar to it, from which she
expired.
Part
of the satire lies in his descriptions of King Pest, Queen Pest, and
the other members of the royal household, who suffer from various
diseases, such as emaciation, dropsy (edema), delirium tremens,
and consumption (tuberculosis). However, the story may not be about the English at
all.
Poe
supplies a hint of his intention in the story's subtitle, “A Tale
Containing an Allegory.” As Dawn B. Sova observes in Critical
Companion to Edgar Allan Poe: A Literary Reference to His Life and
Work,
“each character . . . represents a different type of 'pest,'
from the intellectual who produces nothing original to the drunkard”
(91).
It
seems clear that Poe takes artistic license in describing the
characters of “King Pest.” His story alludes to, but is not much
based upon, historical incidents and these royal individuals. Its aim
is not to narrate history, but to satirize politics and political
actors. The targets of Poe's satire may not, in fact, be English at
all.
One
critic is convinced that the story satirizes “an extremely wet
banquet on January 8, 1832, honoring both president Andrew Jackson
and . . . the abolition of the national debt.” According to The
Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe: An Annotated
Edition,
which cites
William Whipple, one of the founders of the United States, King Pest is Jackson; Queen Pest is his wife Rachel;
the Arch-Duchess Ana-Pest is Peggy Eaton; “the man with the
bandaged leg and cheeks on his shoulders” is Colonel Thomas Hart
Benton; “the thin man with the alcoholic tremor” is Francis Blair
“of the Globe”;
“the paralyzed man in the coffin” is Amos Kendall or William H.
Crawford; Tarpaulin is Martin Van Buren; and Legs is probably Major
Jack Downing (294).
Along
these same lines, A
Companion to Poe Studies adds
to this interpretation, noting that King Pest is described as “the
President of the Table”:
He
is tall and gaunt, with a yellow complexion and a lofty forehead, his
head decorated with sable plumes. This is Andrew Jackson, seventh
president of the United States (1829-1937) . . . . The story takes
place in “the parish of St. Andrew's Stair” [the direction in
which Legs and Tarpaulin flee from the tavern's landlady]. The
stairway of Jackson's home named “The Heritage,” near Nashville,
Tennessee, was named “St. Andrew's Stair.” The undertaker's shop,
therefore, must be the kitchen of the White House, and the other
persons are the members of the Jackson “family,” including some
members of Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet. Queen Pest, the lady with the
big mouth, is Peggy Eaton, the wife of Secretary of War John Henry
Eaton, whose chastity Jackson defended; Arch Duke Pest-Iferous, who
has large ears, is Amos Kendell, fourth auditor (< L. audire,
to hear) of the Treasury; Duke Pest-Ilential, who has goggle-eyes, is
Francis Preston Blair, Sr., assistant editor of the Frankfort
(Kentucky) newspaper, The
Argus (giant
with a hundred eyes), and editor of the Washington
Globe
(
Although
these interpretations don't agree in every respect, it's clear that
both critics believe that the allegory to which Poe alludes in his
story's subtitle is, indeed, political in nature and targets American
president Andrew Jackson and various members of his political
“family.”
Notes
Peggy
Eaton and her second husband, Secretary of War John Eaton, were
scorned by the wives of Andrew Jackson's cabinet on the basis of
unfounded rumors that Peggy had had an affair, which caused her first
husband John Timberlake to commit suicide in 1828. (In fact,
Timberlake died from pneumonia.) The wives would neither call
upon the Eatons nor invite them to parties and other functions. Although Jackson tried to end this “Petticoat
Affair,” by forcing the wives to accept the
Eatons, their ostracism of the Secretary of War and his wife was
supported by Johnson's vice-president, John C. Calhoun. As a result,
Jackson supported Martin Van Buren, who had accepted the Eatons. Van
Buren's resignation helped to end the scandal, and Jackson replaced
his disloyal cabinet members. At the end of Jackson's term, Calhoun
was not renominated as vice president, and he resigned. Van Buren
replaced him on the ticket as Jackson's vice president and succeeded
him as president in 1837.
In
The
Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny, and Sex in Andrew Jackson's White
House,
historian
John
F. Marszalek may shine some light on why Poe describes Queen Pest
as having a cavernous mouth that extends from ear to ear:
She did not know her place; she
forthrightly spoke up about anything that came to her mind, even
topics of which women were supposed to be ignorant . . . .
According
to Encyclopedia
Britannica,
Blair was “an ardent follower of Andrew Jackson,” whom the
newspaperman “helped” to elect during the 1828
presidential election. A year later, after becoming the editor of
the
Washington Globe, Blair
was doubly effective in influencing politics at the national level,
as he also belonged to the Kitchen Cabinet, the president's own
unofficial advisory group.
Fantastic post. Sorry I have nothing more to say.
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