Tear-a-ny
The word was, there was a job opening at the palace. Someone was needed to count the Princess's tears. A special someone whose skills were just right. Not just someone who could add and subtract, but someone versed in the investigation of the causes of things. Tears were things. They fell one by one with a standard unit of measure: the drop. A mode of locomotion: the roll. A characteristic sound: the plink.
A tear counter was needed, for to measure is to understand. That's what they thought -- the King's Council that is -- at the time. One of them would have taken on the job, had they sufficient resources, but instead they decided to bring in someone from the outside. Someone on contract. Tears don't go on forever, after all. Earlier in the decade, it appeared likely that the Princess would never commit to happiness. Melancholy was the status quo. But, now we know the King's Council was not entirely on track. Someone failed to carry a one and ...
Graphs, projections and reports had never really focused on actual yield. That is, no one had ever captured and measured her tears, verified whether they were a lake or an ocean, a river or a stream or something in between. Or merely, a line down the front of her velvet dress. The tear part of the budget was money ill-spent. No one knew what they were doing. And in case you are wondering, no one ever thought to say to her: "Stop, at once."
A someone, an unknown, a "?" was needed to take control, appoint assistants, report progress. This job was the peak of prestige. We're talking the daughter, the progeny of the ruler of the land. Then, we're talking the sister of the future King and the future wife of some other king, or prince, earl or duke. More importantly -- and without which none of the rest of this tale can proceed -- we're not talking about just any place in any time. No, this story is set in what came to be known as "the Era of Tears".
You haven't heard of it. I know. That's precisely why it needs to be documented here now.
The Era of Tears is the name given to the time during which the Princess's tears influenced -- or you might say inspired -- practically every aspect of the arts and sciences in the region. The Princess's tears went on for years, and like a metronome, they set the tempo of life in the land. The marriage of weeping and the Arts produced masterpieces. Some said tears fertilized the imagination. Melancholy was not everything, of course, but by Jove, it was fashionable.
The local economy, textiles, metalwork, musical composition, literature, games, language and sport were all soaked in tears. You saw young children feigning weepiness that actually contradicted what they felt inside. Their fathers wore vests emblazoned with bright blue tears, and their mothers and sisters wore gowns covered with yellow tear drops. Crystal teardrops hung from earlobes like figs from trees.
The young began to hold crying contests in filthy alleyways between their dwellings, which soon were carried over -- on a larger scale -- in the square on market days. Girls tended to take home the prize, but boys didn't hold back. Tears were in! Their fathers even wept at the helms of ships that sailed teardrop banners. Parents said of their young daughters when they cried: "a real Princess, that one." A beautiful woman was one whose face was slightly wet. Terms of distinction were invented to distinguish real crying from crying for sport. Sadly, they were not written down, so we do not know what they are now.
The Princess would let one tear begin, then eight would follow, then sixty-three, then three hundred and three. As a young woman, she mastered five languages, three instruments and was an excellent speller. The Princess was rarely seen in public and grew up in private. News about her, however, was never scarce.
That's how everyone knew they were looking to find someone to measure her tears. At the tavern, where liquid seemed to go quite the other way, news of all the happenings that unrolled at the palace generally spread out to the people -- like water itself.
By Spring, the King's Council had four applicants on a short list. Short lists have indeed been around a long time. As fate had it, one of the four took ill and couldn't leave his bed. (He would go on to invent the precursor to the Heimlich maneuver, so his life wasn't so bad.) Of the three who made it were the following: a sailor, a moat builder and a mathematician, who dabbled in the dark arts.
Job interviews were quite different back then. When the big day came, the three walked to the palace together, crossing the stout wooden drawbridge, which was down. The King's Council and general staff bid the three welcome. They lined up in an average-sized, so-so looking room on the east wing of the palace. No one spoke for awhile, but many facial expressions were exchanged. An assistant in a red coat stepped forward and told them all to give their qualifications for the job. Then he stepped back to rejoin his own row. The sailor, who was first in line, twiddled his earring as he spoke.
"I'm a sailor, but not just a sailor. I'm used to the sea. I'm not comfortable on land. But now here's a job for me. To fathom the small sound of the Princess's tears would be not so unlike charting the seas. By sailing her small ocean, I might map it and reach the other side and tell you what is there." And then he wept. And so did all those about him.
Just then, or so the story goes, in the palace courtyard, a fellow wandering by saw that the drawbridge was down and went across it. He was taken to be the fourth applicant who had recovered his health and had come to stand before the King and Council. He was ushered to the east wing and entered the room, accompanied by the second cousin of the Duke of Landini, third to the throne. He didn't question the why of his whereabouts, but simply listened to the moat builder, who was next to step forward.
"I have dug quite a few moats in my day and seen they had water in them. As such, I have protected many a palace and many a Princess. Water is funny. We're afraid of it, yet we crave it, too. I should mention I have patched moats, as well making me still more qualified to assist in determining the cause of this leaking."
His statements set those in the room into discussion. Were tears just water, or was there something more to them? Was it possible for a Princess to spring a leak?
Then came the third applicant, the mathematician. He stepped forward carrying a number of rolled parchments. His fingers bore the unmistakable signs of one who mixes potions. Acid had worn at his skin. He unrolled a scroll and pointed to its two neat columns, one labeled "Problems" the other labeled "Solutions."
"As a very dear friend of mine said, and would you not agree? Before we can find the saline solution, we must first determine the saline problem. I have long researched solutions and am certain the Princess's tears are not unsolvable. For there must be an equation floating out there somewhere. We will reel it in, and then we will solve it. We might well have already seen it before. Such is nature to mirror itself inside itself, just as the orbits of planets and those of the atom dance to similar melodies."
He bowed politely and returned to the line where he carefully re-rolled the parchment and tied it with a yellowed piece of string.
Now, if I told you what the fourth man said, I'd be making it up! Apparently, his accent was so strong, no one understood him, and the transcriber's notes said he was from the South. The transcript went on to say those in the room seemed impressed, but we can surmise that most were too embarrassed to ask him to better enunciate and grunted their approval to save face.
The next bit has always been the hardest to believe. There was a member of the King's Council who was wont to gamble. He always seemed to settle disputes -- even those of a delicate political nature -- with a toss of the coin, or by a glib: "Oh, let's just draw straws and be done with it already."
When the Council convened after each applicant had long parted, he spoke most vociferously to the others. "Let Chance decide," he argued, and mentioned it would remove all favoritism from their collective decision. As it was approaching lunchtime, the others agreed. And so it was that out of some ungodly number of possible choices the King's Council selected no one in particular, just someone who was wandering by, hereinafter referred to as the Tear Counter.
Yes, the Tear Counter was an average fellow. But he wasn't so average that he overlooked the fact that he had been lucky. He also had the brains to recognize that the luck that had brought him this far might not stay with him, so he decided to develop his latent abilities and assign himself quite seriously to the task.
The Tear Counter was not sure how to act around well-appointed gentlepersons. First, he put on airs. Then he removed them. He mixed accessories and metaphors, confused his breakfast fork with his dinner fork and committed every crime of taste that existed and many of them twice.
Because he continued to slur his words, they added to his already sizable staff of nine an interpreter who could translate his directives and offer tutorials in just what it was he was trying to say. He took this quite well. That was because he saw every sneer and every snicker as part of his education. Really, he reasoned, it was the King's Council which had appointed him, and they hadn't noticed he lacked any particular abilities to do the job.
In the tavern, some were placing bets that the tear counter wouldn't last a month. The month came and passed and he remained, still learning as much as he could about the investigation of the causes of things. For his own part, he was indeed searching for a solution to the problem. In private moments, sometimes he'd come to the certain conclusion: I'm good. I'm very, very good. But he was still puzzled by logistics. How do you capture the tears that evaporate at night? How do you enumerate those she cries inside? These were among the deeper questions that troubled his sleep at night. Though, he was equally troubled about why after months at the palace he was still sleeping alone.
Then one day, he awoke and called for an emergency meeting. Half of his staff had to be roused from their beds, but that didn't bother him. A tattered parchment remains in the archives that had long been overlooked, but is said to be the notes taken by someone present at the meeting. Although none of the words on it are legible, it is felt to be an important document.
At this meeting, the Tear Counter told everyone about his new plan. Then he went about the Palace gathering advice on how to manipulate his assistants into doing their jobs. He mentioned something about honor and duty and time off. Then he bid someone go into the town to look for a glass blower, a pot maker and a chemist, and he secured funds to add them to his staff.
He set up shop in the tower. Each day, he gave the glass blower full artistic license to come up with a fancy-looking vessel suitable for the delicate, slender hands of the Princess. He had his most pleasant-looking assistant bring the vessel to the Princess's handmaiden, who set it carefully each morning by the Princess's bedside.
The first time, it was a fancy blue bottle shaped like a teardrop. It was the first thing the Princess's eyes saw when she awoke. The second thing was a note:
The Princess had a good laugh when she saw the note, but saw no harm in trying. The only thing is, she didn't feel like crying that morning or that afternoon. But that night, she decided that she could cry whether she wanted to or not, and so she did.
The tears were collected in the morning, and the Princess awoke to find another, similarly ornate bottle in its place, again with a note apparently scripted by another hand and unsigned.
And so every day, for a good stretch of time, the Princess received a glass vessel, each a one-of-a-kind, and when she poured out her heart, the tears went plink, plink, plink, plink. And when she cried simply to give the Tear Counter something to count, the tears still went plink, plink, plink, plink.
With the help of the chemist, the Tear Counter set up a laboratory in the tower and had ample shelving installed. On these shelves he placed each delicate bottle, with its yet more delicate stopper. Using a simple formula, he determined the volume of the Princess's tears each day and divided that by the single unit measure to arrive at the day's count. Then, he duly noted her output, recto and verso, in a large leather-bound book, with one gilded teardrop at the top of the page. A small staff took care of copying these figures and dates into a few plainer volumes.
Though they were mostly concerned with the greater affairs of state, the King's Council commended the Tear Counter for his Method. There was a dinner, an awards ceremony and all that.
It didn't take long for the news of what was happening up in the tower to get down to the tavern. Precisely ten days after the Tear Counter gear was in place, the councilman who saw the world through the eyes of a gambler thought up a new diversion. It involved sending a Page to the tavern with news of the Tear Counter affair. The Page was to announce that those who wished could place bets on how many tears the Princess would weep, arrived at painstakingly through a Method with no less than the King's approval. All coins wagered would be held at the Palace for safe-keeping, and the Page would return the next day with the actual count and any profits for those who chose to play.
Some drew out cash almost automatically and gave it to the Page. It was hard to say just how much money changed hands early on, but soon, around 7:30 p.m. each night, a crowd collected at the tavern to await the Page. He arrived each night and did business, as promised. Of course, he took in more than he paid out, but no one seemed to notice. Their win was just around the corner, they believed. At first, the game was hush-hush. But it grew into too much fun, so all the King's Council joined in and got a piece of the action. Inevitably, a short cut was found: and the Page didn't always go up to the tower to check with the Tear Counter or consult his assistants. After all, did they all think the Princess was going to cry forever?
As this game continued, its result had an effect of redistributing wealth. The Tear Counter hardly noticed the riches his work was providing, and he had no reason to worry especially since he obviously was continuing to remain in good favor at the palace. By this time, he had a whole wall covered with plaques and medals attesting to his highest honor, ability and prestige.
More shelving was installed. Each bottle was used only once. The glass maker, who churned out these precious vessels developed great cheeks of steel from blowing and blowing and blowing. And the Tear Counter no longer slept alone. His work was important, he felt, though he really had no idea how great a role he played in the local economy. One day, he was checking the books and could not fail to notice that the numbers were following a regular pattern: they were diminishing. He decided to keep an eye on the trend. For a month, the Princess's tears were sliding to new lows. He was conscientious and true. He would have no part in manufacturing lies. His humble origins kept him honest.
He called on the King's Council to present his findings. "Bravo!" they all sang. "Keep up the good work," was their general reply.
So he did. But soon, the numbers dipped so low that the Princess's tears barely coated the bottom of a slender bottle. As art historians have pointed out, this is the reason so many of the abundant vessels that come from this period grew dramatically smaller, while remaining similar in design. (See Fig. 1)
As for when exactly this period ended, one source has said that the Tear Counter looked in the bottle and there were only eight tears there. The account books are mixed: in the master ledger (kept by the Tear Counter himself) are the last 11 days, a record which shows a regular countdown that began at twelve and ended with zero. Some believe the Tear Counter was depressed and that the numbers should not have been taken at their face value. One scholar popularized the notion that the numbers in the ledger were a swan song, as though the Tear Counter had realized that not only were his days of counting over, but so in effect was the Era of Tears.
So, what happened next? Why, crafts people, composers and designers of shoes all turned their backs on tears. Fashions had changed. Now that there was nothing left to count, some of the assistants wondered where they'd be later that year. Should they put up their own shingle? Others had long since come to rely on a piece of the action at the tavern. There was a lot of money changing hands, and it was easy to make your fortune overnight.
The Tear Counter kept on two assistants. The Page was no longer a Page, but he returned to the tavern every day. All were witness to the cloudy period during which trends and fashions dovetailed and created a time of cultural upheaval that engendered change. Crying had ceased to be what was important. Gambling had taken its place. And since we would all likely agree that gambling is not as ennobling as crying, this probably accounts for why fewer artifacts exist from these times.
Carbon dating tests and other studies carried out by three eminent art historians established many years ago that a craftsperson, who had once carved teardrop fountains, helped to overthrow the control of the King's Council on gaming at the tavern -- through a simple invention. You would recognize it if you came across it in a museum, for now the world is full of them.
The invention was a small cube whose sides had small indentations, at first tear-shaped, but now quite round. Termed pips, these small circles are currently viewed as an evolution of the numerous tear-shaped motifs that had proliferated throughout the region for several centuries. These objects are used in casino games like craps and hung from the rear view mirrors of automobiles for luck.
Really though, one wonders if the Tear Counter may have invented them: he was not such a fool. More than any other in the land, it was he who came closest to those tiny shores of which he had heard the sailor speak so eloquently long before.
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