Translator's Introduction to the First Altmeric Edition

The Victuals of Empire

a Study

by Felix Perdido

Part the Fourth: Summurset

Felix Perdido's magnum opus is difficult document even in its original Cyrodilic. The work is rich with ambiguity and allusion: it alternately proclaims loyalty and offers impudence; flattery is barbed with mockery, courtly formula with social complaint; and the distinction between praise and blame is not always clear. Translation into the Purified Meric of official Dominion discourse would be no easy matter even if there were no mythic obstacles involved. Nonetheless, I think the effort was worth it. The growing interest in foreign depictions of Altmeris, the so-called 'triangulated mythopoesis', has thus far opened some intriguing avenues of inquiry, and this (forthcoming) publication, it is hoped, will be a valuable addition to the school of Aldmeris-as-Surface.

The difficulties presented by Master Perdido's prose are themselves illuminating. The original draws on two distinct traditions: the Third Blasphemic ('First Empire') tradition of Cyrodilic geography, and Mede-era panegyric ('emperor-worship'), itself a variant of Reman and Septim court propaganda. Both of these traditions in fact have Meric antecedents in Aldmeric Graphing-the-Savage and Ayleid Watering-the-Tower, but in Perdido they have developed into something alien to Meric truth. Perdido's use of ironica ('meaning-the-opposite-and-itself-also'), the panegyric rhetoric of caritas ('feeding-the-impure') and the geographic/Imperial rhetoric of equal subordination and ritual-impurity-as-state-legitimation are all puzzling to the Altmeri scholar, even when she has lived among humans for many years. Indeed, they are challenging. Before we dismiss these notions as mannish ignorance, we might ask how they came be so wrong.

The Empire of Man appears in Perdido as the Nordic Alduin to the Dominion's Auri-El: a world-devouring monster that glories in its own aberrant strength, its destiny to digest Tamri-El and thereby make itself whole. The universalism of Imperial myth, noted for instance by Galdiir, is here piquant and unashamed. Tamri-El is rendered a feast for the table of man, and so far from fearing indigestion, the gourmand seems to believe that in pleasing himself, he is doing a favour to his meal. The corollary of this myth that one meal – one table, and the ritual impurity it suggests – is fit for all races, is the exclusion of extraneous characteristics, again noted by Galdiir. For Perido, the benefits of Imperial pax and its single, universal law are assumed but little discussed: the real purpose of universal law is to revel in universal tribute. Obviously, I think those of us in the Dissenting tradition should be wary in following Galdiir in taking human arrogance as the negative example whose logical obverse is Thalmor racial segregation and hierarchy; in considering the arrogance of Imperial universalism, we might also ask whether the Dominion policy of Unique Laws for Unique Peoples is not itself a trifle blinkered. The bucolic gourmand Perdido certainly suffers from none of the ill humours that plague Dominion justiciars.

The most difficult, and shocking, aspect of the Victuals, from a Meric perspective, is the use of sexual imagery. Consider these lines from the preface to Part One:

>The City, marble-clad and thronged by all Tamriel, mounts the banks of life-giving Niben. White-Gold Tower, awesome and imperious, blooms eternal betwixt the gentle waters of Rumare. The Emperor reigns invincible from his throne, and Dawn's Beauty yields its ample bounty.

Now compare the introduction to Part Two:

>Star-wounded East! Moon-kissed Morrowind! Who has not been your suitor? Bristle-faced Atmoran chiefs shook you with boastful courtship shouts, but you turned their too-eager longboats from your dusky shores. Crafty Deep Maids with perfumed curls brought you gilded wonders and probed for your secret places, but you brushed aside such temerity.

>Ah, but Resdayn, Magnus' darling, when you heard Cyrod's loving entreaties, your passion was roused. The Empire's gentle-but-manly embrace, you welcomed. You invited the Emperor to plant his rugged tower in Ebonheart's dark morass, and joyful harmony followed. Conquest indeed! Now the lovers bicker, and you turn aside the Emperor's caress; but in your heart you remain true.

The overtones may not be immediately apparent to the Aldmeri reader, but they are abundantly clear in the original. Although Nedic by descent and inclination, Perdido is playing upon a Western, Colovian tradition of polygamy and female subjugation. Each of the Imperial provincia ('conquests') is a different kind of 'feast', symbolically wedded to the Emperor and yielding the fruits of its land as a kind of dowry. Ever more shocking, the human cargo-cult surrounding Meric towers is interpreted as a kind of sexual union.

Again, before we dismiss this blasphemy out of hand, it might be worth considering whether there is any truth to it. Human scholars have proven remarkably perceptive about Meric sexual mores; even when they are clearly wrong, they manage to get something right. As Athellor has noted, for all its inaccuracies and fabrications, the First Pocket Guide to the Empire managed to anticipate the Thalmor's Racial Purity Ordinances with chilling prescience. Likewise, consider these lines from the court poet, Estomo:

>A lance reached eternal to stir the skies > >Truth-hard crystal gleaming with the unknown > >Toppled by darkest ignorance

For Estomo as for Perdido, ritual purity has become a form of priapism. Perdido teaches us a new and valuable way of seeing, if we can overcome our initial repugnance and disbelief. Triangulated mythopoesis provides a way of viewing what Athellor calls the 'Eschatalogical State Apparatus'; that is, the invisible mythology and material compulsions that form a larger mythopoeic project. The idea that our entire world-historic mission might be patterned after reproductive imagery is indeed difficult to accept; but why should such an unwitting gaffe not occur in a society in which all discussion or depiction of reproductive pleasure is strictly forbidden?

I don't want to discuss Perdido's treatment of Summurset in detail, partly because to do so invites discomposure, partly because I fear it would spoil the effect. Let the reader, as master Perdido advises, pour a strong drink and prepare for the struggle ahead.

Tauryon