Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein

Nor did they act like servants except for their impassioned determination to see that I got drunk and stuffed. They chattered among themselves in teen-age argot and made wisecracks about how big my muscles were, etc., as if I had not been present. Apparently heroes are not expected to talk, for every time I opened my mouth something went into it.

There was always something doing–dancers, jugglers, recitations of poetry–in the space between the tables. Kids wandered around and grabbed tidbits from platters before they reached the tables. One little doll about three years old squatted down in front of me, all big eyes and open mouth, and stared, letting dancers avoid her as best they could. I tried to get her to come to me, but she just stared and played with her toes.

A damsel with a dulcimer strolled among the tables, singing and playing. It could have been a dulcimer, she might have been a damsel.

About two hours along in the feast, Jocko stood up, roared for silence, belched loudly, shook off maids who were trying to steady him, and started to recite.

Same verse, different tune–he was reciting my exploits. I would have thought that he was too drunk to recite a limerick but he sounded off endlessly, in perfect scansion with complex inner rhymes and rippling alliterations, an astounding feat of virtuosity in rhetoric.

He stuck to Star’s story line but embroidered it. I listened with growing admiration, both for him as a poet and for good old Scar Gordon, the one-man army. I decided that I must be a purty goddam hot hero, so when he sat down, I stood up.

The girls had been more successful in getting me drunk than in getting me fed. Most of the food was strange and it was usually tasty. But a cold dish had been fetched in, little frog-like creatures in ice, served whole. You dipped them in a sauce and took them in two bites.

The gal in the jewels grabbed one, dipped it and put it up for me to bite. And it woke up.

This little fellow–call him “Elmer”–Elmer rolled his eyes and looked at me, just as I was about to bite him.

I suddenly wasn’t hungry and jerked my head back.

Miss jewelry Shop laughed heartily, dipped him again, and showed me how to do it. No more Elmer–

I didn’t eat for quite a while and drank more than too much. Every time a bite was offered me I would see Elmers feet disappearing, and gulp, and have another drink.

That’s why I stood up.

Once up, there was dead silence. The music stopped because the musicians were waiting to see what to improvise as background to my poem.

I suddenly realized that I didn’t have anything to say.

Not anything. There wasn’t a prayer that I could adlib a poem of thanks, a graceful compliment to my host–m Nevian. Hell, I couldn’t have done it in English.

Star’s eyes were on me. She looked gravely confident.

That did it. I didn’t risk Nevian; I couldn’t even remember how to ask my way to the men’s room. So I gave it to ’em, both barrels, in English. Vachel Lindsay’s “Congo.”

As much of it as I could remember, say about four pages. What I did give them was that compelling rhythm and rhyme scheme double-talking and faking on any fluffs and really slamming it on “beating on a table with the handle of a broom! Boom! Boom! Boomlay boom!” and the orchestra caught the spirit and we rattled the dishes.

The applause was wonderful and Miss Tiffany grabbed my ankle and kissed it.

So I gave them Mr. E. A. Foe’s “Bells” for dessert. Jocko kissed me on my left eye and slobbered on my shoulder.

Then Star stood up and explained, in scansion and rhyme, that in my own land, in my own language, among my own people, warriors and artists all, I was as famous a poet as I was a hero (Which was true. Zero equals zero), and that I had done them the honor of composing my greatest work, in the jewels of my native tongue, a fitting thanks to the Doral and house Doral for Hospitality of roof, of table, of bed–and that she would, in time, do her poor best to render my music into their language.