It is high time that I told you more about the deeds of Donald, Dux of the North Aremoricans, whose estates were plagued with the monstrous holes in the ground which I just described. His rule had been characterised by many a scandal and commotion and this had been a source of great frustration for Donald, whose love of himself knew no bounds.
Part of the problem was that, as I have told you already, Donald had been a jester of some standing before his elevation to the ducate of the Aremoricans. Many of the North Aremoricans and some of the Anglo-Saxons loved Donald but a great many more, especially in the Kingdom of the Angles and Others, and through the Western Empire, treated him with contumely for they saw in him a great buffoon and bully, full of empty talk and ignorance. However, as time passed it slowly became clear to those who were wise in such matters that these people had equally failed to appreciate Donald’s art. This was in fact a very clever piece of performance in which he exposed the traditional policies of the North Aremoricans to a satire worthy of the great Juvenal, simply by performing them in a fashion stripped of the usual rhetorical speechifying and dissembling. Thus it was that both the mockery and abuse that the common people hurled at him on the public message board called ‘Twitter’, or Twitthere as it was called in the language of the Angles and Saxons, and the adulation and unthinking emulation that his supporters engaged in had all alike missed the subtlety and brilliance of his work. As I have told you, Donald issued perhaps a thirty or more pronouncements a day, sometimes even from the privy. In these he insulted all, or sometimes lavished praise on fools and knaves, all in the most foolish and incomprehensible terms. This roused his enemies to reply in equally vulgar words, and his supporters to repeat his viewpoints in unthinking fashion. This seemed to most people like the stupid rantings of a man who, one might say, had no brains, but who had been somehow propelled to the most important office known to the peoples of the world.
Now, in the city of Novum Eboracum, which is one of the great towns of North Aremorica, there stands a great temple called Moma, where many an incomprehensible icon and graven image is hung. By some devilish art, the wizards of that temple have acquired a great knowledge of how to interpret this kind of mystery, as I learned from Agiulf my deacon, who had once visited that city. So it was that these wizards pronounced Donald’s acts to constitute a body of work – or ‘oeuvre’ as they say in their language – of magnificent subtlety, provoking all to participate in the dissolution of the worldly bonds of convention and making clear the vulgarity of power and the vacuity of language. Indeed, one called it ‘a stunning installation of breath-taking vision and ambition of which the early Zurich Dadaists could only have dreamed’. I do not know what that meant but nonetheless there seemed to be something in it. Let that be enough of such devilish prognostication.
Be that as it may Donald’s reign continued to careen on its madcap course. Donald’s visit to the realm of the Anglo-Saxons, Britons, Picts, and Scots and to the Western Empire had largely passed off without incident, apart from when his two dull-witted sons, Billibob and Drooper, attempted to serve ale in a Hibernian tavern and were ridiculed by all, and when Donald himself, when meeting the Hibernian ruler Leo, declared that Hibernia was ruled by the Queen of the Angles and Others. This had not been the case for almost 100 years. He also continued to make clear his support for Boris son of John and Vladimir, son of Vladimir, the Prince of the Rus, which provoked many people to great ire, as he doubtless planned in his cunning, evil, but nevertheless artistically inventive fashion. More months passed, in which barely a week went by without Donald creating some new outrage and drawing more people into the web of his installation. At one point the findings were presented of an investigation into Donald’s relationships with Vladimir son of Vladimir, which had been conducted by a leading law-speaker of the realm called Chrodobertus the Miller. This Chrodobertus was generally respected by all, not least because he had fought bravely for the Aremoricans in a wicked war in a far-off land. While this war was on, Donald had pretended to have a mysterious affliction of the foot which prevented him from joining the force of Aremorican warriors. Although many decried him for this shameless pretence, there were others who declared that it was the only thing Donald had ever done that showed any sign of relatable humanity about it. Such was the way things always went with him. Chrodobertus, however, pronounced the findings of his inquiry in such ambiguous language that both Donald’s enemies and his supporters equally thought they were vindicated. Such was his wickedness and brilliance, however, that Donald declared that the investigation had concluded things that were clearly contrary even to the confused words of the Miller, making his followers contort themselves yet further, while his enemies were thwarted. Thus, diabolo instigante, all were compelled to join further in this mad pantomime, making clear the sins of the world and the futility of the acts of man. In this he clearly mocked the teachings of the Fathers of the Church by parodying their works, albeit in a challenging and ironic fashion.
Nonetheless, as time went on, Donald seemed to tire of keeping up his provocative performance and did things that were so mad or outrageous that they seemed to express his desire to bring his ground-breaking installation to an end and perhaps reveal its true nature. First, he announced that he wished to purchase the land of Ultima Thule from the Danes. While everyone was speechless, the woman who governed the Danes called the demand ‘absurd’, which revealed her great wisdom in that she had appreciated the true artistic influences on Donald’s work and the traditions within which it ought to be situated.
The next thing that happened was that the dux engaged in a dialogue with the ruler of the Khazars who, like him, was a former jester – such times are these! As was usual with his conversation, this discussion wandered this way and that until Donald promised the Khan of the Khazars much money if he would spread lies about the son of one of Donald’s greatest foes, Josephus Bidens, or Diamond Joe as he was also known in some circles. This Josephus owed his name ‘two-teeth’, according to some, because there seemed to be nothing in his mouth to stop him blurting out whatever came into his head. He had been a leading ally of Donald’s enemy and precursor, the dux Obama, about whom I have told you. Alas for Donald a man overheard his comments and reported them to his enemies. These men then went in secret to some of the great council of the Aremorican realm to suggest that they investigate the dux and perhaps bring charges against him to the senate of that land. This form of ordeal is called impeachment and some of Donald’s enemies had wanted to do this for a long time. Now at least they felt that they could publicly declare that this investigation would happen, to great uproar, and many hoped that this would spell the demise of the dux and his insane or, alternatively, artistically over-demanding rule. When the news of his impeachment reached him, in words like unto those which the learned Suetonius tells us were spoken by the wicked emperor Nero of old, when he was forced to kill himself, this new Nero of our time is said to have cried ‘oh, what an artist is impeached in me!’ Another portent was seen when a mouse fell out of the ceiling of the dux’s palace, which is known as the Domus Alba, and landed on a chronicler. This could only show the hand of the Almighty in these events.
Gregorius Turonensis: Historian and Political Commentator 