Poetry · Chapter
The Van Nessiad explained
A mock-epic poem describing a prolonged neighborhood dispute over Porter Ashe's plan to build a stable on his lot in Van Ness Avenue, with neighbors fiercely opposing it.
What happens
A mock-epic poem describing a prolonged neighborhood dispute over Porter Ashe's plan to build a stable on his lot in Van Ness Avenue, with neighbors fiercely opposing it. The conflict escalates into a war of words and curses, observed by Jove from Olympus, who ultimately decides the outcome by spinning a nickel. He sends Mercury to 'salivate' Porter Ashe, but Mercury returns to report that Ashe never had any sense to begin with.
Themes in this chapter
Political Satire
The entire poem is a mock-epic that satirizes petty urban disputes, using grandiose classical imagery to lampoon the absurdity of the conflict.
Hypocrisy and Corruption
The neighbors' fierce opposition to the stable, combined with their sneering insults, highlights the hypocrisy and self-interest underlying the dispute.
Characters to notice
- Porter Ashe
Great Porter Ashe, the protagonist of the dispute, determined to build a stable on his lot despite fierce opposition.
- Jove
The king of the gods, who observes the earthly conflict from Olympus and decides the outcome by spinning a nickel.
- Unknown
The epic narrator who invokes the muse and recounts the battle in grand poetic style.
Key passages
“Great Porter Ashe (invoking first the gods, Who signed their favor with assenting nods That snapped off half their heads—their necks grown dry Since last the nectar cup went circling by) Resolved to build a stable on his lot, His neighbors fiercely swearing he should not.”
Porter Ashe, after praying to the gods (who nodded so vigorously they nearly broke their dry necks), decided to build a stable on his property, but his neighbors angrily vowed to stop him.
Introduces the central conflict with mock-heroic grandeur.
“Jove dropped the pans and kicked, himself, the beam: Then, to decide the strife, with ready wit, The nickel that he did not care for it Twirled absently, remarking: 'See it spin: Head, Porter loses; tail, the others win.'”
Jove abandoned the scales of justice and instead flipped a nickel to decide the outcome, casually declaring that heads meant Porter loses and tails the neighbors win.
Highlights the absurdity and arbitrariness of divine intervention in human squabbles.
“Is Destiny’s decree performed, my lad?— And has he now no sense?' 'Ah, sire, he never had.'”
Jove asks Mercury if Porter Ashe has been rendered senseless as ordered, and Mercury replies that Ashe never had any sense to begin with.
Punchline that underscores the futility of the entire conflict.