The Ballad of If

The Ballad of If was a Kig-Yar epic poem and stage play that predated first contact with the Covenant. Set during the Wars of the Seventeen Kingdoms in Dasim Province, it tells the tale of a young prince who is lost on a battlefield far from home, only to be discovered by a band of vagabonds led by Ontollo, King of the Ditchdiggers. The Prince cajoles the vagabonds into returning him to his distant kingdom, and the seven books of the ballad details their journey back. On the way, it ruthlessly satirizes everything from disloyal mercenaries to ivory tower intellectuals to organized religions and kings whose arrogance exceeds their competence.

The author would later adapt the poem into a play. The changes needed to fit the constraints of the stage were considerable, but the play itself was a resounding success. Both works endured for centuries, and sublimated into Kig Yar popular culture so thoroughly that many Kig Yar can recite dozens of saying without knowing their origin, and even the most literate have trouble remembering whether a given witticism came from the play or the poem. This is not helped by the fact that, between sets on the stage, the Prince and Ontollo the Ditchdigger wander in front of the curtains, cracking wise and making fools of each other. Some of the skits are drawn almost verbatim from the poem, while others were new, and some were certainly written after the author's death.

The Prince is arrogant but naïve, while Ontollo is a scoundrel, a rogue, and a fool. While the Prince often drives the humor by innocently trying to help people or haughtily telling soldiers and peasants how to live virtuous lives, Ontollo varies between shrewdly taking advantage of other people and falling prey to his own vices. The first interaction between the two is when the Prince begs Ontollo to take him home, but Ontollo demurs. There is a war between here and there, and Ontollo intends to take his followers only where the fighting has already finished. So the Prince offers to reward Ontollo's band, but Ontollo swears that he is a proper vagabond of the Dasim highlands, and has no need for money. The Prince offers not just money, but land and livestock, but the ditchdigger cuffs him over the head. Ontollo swears that he needs no money, he has no love of money, and he cannot be bought. And to prove it, he'll take the Prince home for free.

During the incorporation of the Kig Yar into the Covenant, the play and the poem were censored and banned from export out of Y'Deio. Covenant clerics decided that the satire of so many aspects of society crossed the line into sedition, and it didn't help that Kig Yar playwrights often adapted the third and fifth act to lampoon the Covenant. In time, these restrictions were lifted as successive generations of clerics decided that the satire had a point, and was actually pretty funny. In the modern day, it is known that the High Prophet of Truth had an annotated edition of the poem in his personal library.

Pauper's refrain
"Better a ditchdigger than a soldier be, sirrah! Better to dig the graves than to lay within. For princes plot and generals preen Until the peasants take their heads. And mercenaries die in muddy fields Or they starve in times of peace. But the ditchdigger, ah, the ditchdigger, We humble scavengers of the battlefield, We ditchdiggers go as we please."

Derivative proverbs
"The generalissimo scouts, and the generalissimo plots, But she may as well play with dice."

List of Appearances

 * Not All Who Wander