The Chamber Music of the Sea
You find yourself alone on the F'c'le, finally able to enjoy a rare moment of silence amidst the hustle and bustle of a functioning pirate ship. You gaze out across the open ocean, and spot a rock sticking out of the water, with -- no, it can't be -- yes, it is! No, surely not. Yes, surely so! Nope, it's not possible. Yes, it's totally possible! There are two mermaids on top of the rock! Do you think they will sing to you?
They do! They spy you and start singing a mermaid song, each to each, full of free-spirited longing. They sing about how great it would be to have legs, so they could wear white flannel trousers and walk along the beach. They sing about how much it sucks to live underwater, how their hands are always pruny, how they can never get their hair to do what they want. They sing of mighty undersea kingdoms, and of the revolutions that replaced those kingdoms with democratic republics, which started out idealistically but degenerated into soul-crushing bureaucracy and infighting. They sing of the vast treasures hidden in countless shipwrecks, and the inevitable mounds of paperwork and hefty taxes that would come from finding them.
All in all, it's a little depressing. As they start the next verse, which seems to be about either an artist or a nunchaku-wielding turtle, you kind of tune it out.
Still, the whole experience is profoundly mystical. It almost gives you the courage necessary to eat a peach.
| You gain 50 Enchantedness. |
Occurs at The F'c'le.
References
- The adventure is a reference to T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The bit about the artist or the turtle is specifically from the lines "In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo."
- Four more references are explained by these four adjacent lines of the poem:
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me. - The image is also a reference to the poem: It's a "Pruf Rock."
- The line about "a nunchaku-wielding turtle" refers to Michaelangelo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
- The line in which "they sing about how great it would be to have legs" refers to "Part of Your World" from Disney's "The Little Mermaid."
