No More Learning

He spoke fluently — because he lives in the Forum —much that the stenographer could not follow, and so do not relate nor may put into other words what was spoken by him. He talked much of the greatness of the gods this honor ought not to be given to the crowd. " Formerly," quoth he, " was great thing to be made god; now you have made of very slight repute. That may not seem to give judgment on the person rather than the matter, my opinion is, that after to-day, no one should be made a god from those who apovprj<i Kapwbv eSovaiv16
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? ,2 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
[shall eat the fruit of the country], or from those whom £ie:'8<B/>o? apovpa 15 [the fruitful country] maintains. Whoever, contrary to this Senate decree, is made, fabricated, or depicted a god, to be given to the ghosts, his first function to be among the new gladiators, to flog them with whips. "
Next is asked for his judgment, Diespiter, son of Vica Pota,16 and himself designated Money-changer Consul. He lived by this trade, and was wont to sell franchiselets. 17 To him Hercules politely came up and touched his ear ; so he gives judgment in these words : —
" Since Holy Claudius is akin to Holy Augustus in blood, nor less to Holy Augusta, his grandmother, whom he himself has ordered to be a goddess, and far surpasses all mortals in wisdom, and there must be some one from the republic who can, like Romulus, " ferventia rapa vorare " 18 [devour smoking turnips], I judge that Holy Claudius from this day be a god, just as whoever before him was made with the best right ; and that the subject be added to Ovid's fierafioptpwaeK [Meta morphoses]. " There were various judgments, and Claudius seemed to conquer in the decision. For Hercules, who saw his sword in the fire,19 ran hither and thither and said : "Don't do me an ill service — my all is at stake : in return I will do whatever you wish, one after another ; one hand washes the other. "
Then Holy Augustus rose to speak in his turn, and dis coursed with the greatest eloquence. "Conscript Fathers, I have your witness that from the time I was made a god I have not uttered a word. I always mind my own business. But I cannot dissimulate longer, and hold back grief which shame makes heavier. For this have I begotten peace on land and sea? to this end have I curbed civil war? to this end have I based the city on laws, adorned it with works ? And what to say, Conscript Fathers, I cannot find ; all words are below my indignation. I must take refuge in the sentence of that most sagacious man, Messala Corvinus : He has destroyed the justice of the Empire ! This man, Conscript Fathers, who seems to us not able to stir up a fly, slew men as easily as a dog 20 falls. But what can I say of so many acts of justice ? a There is no time to deplore public slaughters in contemplating domestic calamities, so I will omit the former and allude to the latter. Even if he does not know these things, I know h> rv^omav [one happening] : he does not
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS. 33
know himself among the gods. He whom you see, hiding under my name for so many years, has repaid me with these thanks : he has slain my two great-granddaughters Julia, one by the sword and one by starvation ; one great-great- grandson, L. Silanus.
"You can see, Jupiter, whether I am speaking in a bad cause ; certainly in yours. If this man is to be among us — tell me, Holy Claudius, why every one of those you slew, you condemned before you knew about the case, before you heard it ? Is it customary to do this ? It is not done in heaven. Behold Jupiter, who is reigning so many years; he merely broke the leg of Vulcan, whom
'Piif/e iroSbs reraytov <tiro BiyXov Ocottc&ioio,*1
[Seizing his foot, he hurled from the threshold divine,]
because he was angry with his wife, and hung him up : whom did he ever kill ? You killed Messalina, of whom I was great- uncle equally with being yours. 'I don't know,' you say? May the gods curse you ; for that is viler, that you don't know, than that you killed her. He has not left off following the dead Caius Caesar [Caligula]. The latter slew her father-in- law : the former his son-in-law. Caius Caesar forbade the son of Crassus to be called the Great : this man restored the name to him, but took away his head. He killed in one house Cras sus the Great, Serbonia, Tristionia, Assario, though nobles ; — Crassus, it is true, such a fool that he might have been em peror.
" Think, Conscript Fathers, what a portent that he should desire to be received into the number of the gods ! Do you wish now to make this thing a god ? See his body, born under angry gods. At most he can say three words speedily, [' This is mine,'] and lead me off a slave. Who will worship this god ? Who will believe in him ? When you come at last to making such gods, no one will believe you are gods yourselves. Most of all, Conscript Fathers, if I have acted becomingly among you, if I have answered no one harshly, avenge my injuries. I adjudge this for my decision. " And he thus recited from the tablet : —
" Since Holy Claudius slew his father-in-law, Appius Sila nus, two sons-in-law, Pompeius Magnus and L. Silanus, the father-in-law of his daughter, Crassus Frugi, a man as like
vol. nr. —3
84 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
himself as egg to egg ; Scribonia, his daughter's mother-in-law, Messalina, his wife ; and the rest of whom he could not tell the number : it is my pleasure that he be severely censured, and not given a dispensation for judicial business ; and should be forthwith carried away, and leave heaven within thirty days, Olympus within three. "
This sentence was agreed upon. Without delay, Cyllenius [Mercury] drags him with a neck-twist to the shades,
Illuc unde regant redire quemquain.
[The bourne from whence no traveller returns. ]
While they descend through the sacred way, what does that concourse of men desire for itself, now Claudius has had his funeral? And it was the most beautiful of all and full of costly preparations, as you know a god is proclaimed, — flute, horn, and such a throng, such a gathering of every class of sena tors, that even Claudius could hear it. All joyful, hilarious, the Roman people walked about as if free. Agatho and a few pet tifoggers mourned, and clearly from the heart. Jurisconsults came out of the shadows, pale, thin, scarce having life, as if they had revived with the greatest difficulty. One of these, when he had seen the pettifoggers putting their heads together and deploring their fortunes, came up and said, " I told you the Saturnalia would not last forever. " Claudius, as he saw his funeral, understood that he was dead. For with great p. eya\rj- yop(a [pomposity] the dirges are sung : —
Pour ye out weeping, Send ye forth wailing, Fabricate mourning ; Sadly resoundeth
The Forum with clamor : Dead in his beauty
The sapient man
Than whom no other
On the whole planet Stouter existed.
He could the fleet ones Down in the race course Speedily conquer
He could demolish The Parthian rebels,
;
is,
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Follow those faithless ones Armed with their light darts, While he sure-handed
Drew up the bowstring ;
He could the foemen Rushing against him
Fix with a slight wound, Likewise the Medes' backs Painted and flying.
He too the Britons Living beyond the known Shores of the ocean,
With the blue-shielded Tribe of Brigantes,
Forced to surrender Necks to the Roman Fetters, and Ocean's Very self tremble
Over the new laws
Made for Rome's safety.
Weep for the hero,
Than whom no other
Could with more swiftness Cases decide on,
Not having listened
Save but to one side,
Often to neither.
Who will as judge now Listen to cases
All the long year through ? You he shall yield to, Leaving his high seat,
You who a silent
People give laws to, Holding a hundred Towns of the Cretans. Beat on your bosoms, O pettifoggers,
Genus of hirelings. Bards, do you also Mourn at this sad news; You too the chiefest, Who had made ready For winning great lucre Shaking the dice-box.
36 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Claudius was delighted with his praises, and wished to gaze longer. The Talthybius of the gods [Mercury] took his hand and dragged him along with head turned, lest some one should recognize him, through the Campus Martius ; and between Tiber and the covered way he descended to the shades. The freedman Narcissus had gone before by a shorter road to inter cept his patron ; and runs up to him on his arrival, shining as if just out of the bath, and says, "What have the gods sent to men? " " Go quickly," said Mercury, " and announce our com ing. " But he wished to fawn on his patron longer; when Mercury again ordered him to hasten, and shortened his linger ing with a rod. No sooner done than Narcissus flies. Every thing is favorable ; he descends easily. 24 So, gouty as he was, he arrived at the door of Dis, where Cerberus — or, as Horace says, "the hundred-headed beast"26 — lay, moving about and shaking his rough shag. He was a little disturbed (he was used to having a white dog for his pleasure) on seeing him to be a shaggy black dog, evidently one you would not wish to have come at you in the dark. And in a loud voice, he says, "Claudius Caesar comes. " Behold, at once they came forth, clapping their hands and singing : —
[We have found him, we rejoice with him ! ] *
Here was C. Silius, consul designate, Juncus Praetorius, Sex. Trallus, M. Helvius, Trogus Cotta, Vectius Valens, Fabius, — Roman knights whom Narcissus had ordered to be executed. In the midst of this crowd of singers was Mnester the panto- mimist, whom Claudius on account of his beauty had made a head short. Nor was the rumor slow in spreading to Messalina that Claudius had come. First of all, the freedmen flock together, — Polybius, Myron, Harpocras, Amphaeus, and Phero- nactes, all whom, that he might not be unprovided anywhere, he had sent ahead. Then the two prefects, Justus Catonius and Rufus son of Pompeius. Then his friends, Saturnius Luscius, and Pedo Pompeius, and Lupus, and Celer Asinius, consulars. Last came a brother's daughter, a sister's daughter, son-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, all full kin by blood. And the train being formed, they rush to Claudius. When Claudius saw them, he exclaimed, " Tldvra <j>(\a>v irX^prj ! [All full of friends! ] How did you come here? " Then Pedo Pompeius : " What are you saying, you cruelest of men ? Do
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
37
you ask, How? Why, who else sent us here but you, the
He leads him to the tribune of jEacus ; the latter under the Cornelian law asked what was established concerning assassins, he demands that his name be taken, he announces the record : Senators slain, 30 ; Roman knights, 315 and more ; other citi zens, oaa -^-aimOo'i re «ow? Te [as the sand on the seashore]. Claudius, greatly terrified, cast his eyes around everywhere ; he searches for some patron who can defend him. Advocate he finds none. Finally, P. Petronius comes forward — his old con vive, a man fluent in the Claudian tongue [stutterer], and de mands the advocacy. It is not granted. Pedo Pompeius makes accusation with a great clamor. Petronius begins to intend to answer. vEacus, an exceedingly just man, forbids. With the other side so far unheard he condemns Claudius, and says : —
EtKC irdOoi ra k </>c£e,SCkt) k Weia yevotro.
[Let him suffer the evils he dealt, that justice and right may exist. ]
There was a great silence. All were stupefied, astounded by the novelty of the thing ; they said this had never been done. To Claudius it seemed more iniquitous than novel. What sort of punishment he ought to undergo was long debated. There were those who said that if they must create a burden for one god, Tantalus would perish with thirst unless help was brought to him ; Sisyphus could never lift his load ; some time or other poor Ixion's wheel ought to be stopped. It was resolved, how ever, not to give a discharge to any of these veterans, lest Claudius
might some time hope for the same. It seemed best that a new penalty should be devised, to institute a fruitless labor for him, and an image of his desires without end or accomplishment. Then ^acus orders him to gamble with a dice-box minus a bot tom. And now he has begun to chase the flying dice and to effect nothing.
For however oft he endeavored to throw from the resonant dice-box, Both dice fled from pursuit and escaped through the bottom removed ; And when he adventured to cast once more with the squares re
collected,
Still to be mocked in like manner, and always in quest of illusion, Cheating his trust ; he flies after, and once again, right through his
fingers,
Slips the deceitful tessara, filled with perpetual craft
murderer of all your friends ? We must be in a court ; show you the judges' chair. "
I will
38 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Thus whenever attained are the peaks of the loftiest mountains, Fruitless the ponderous burden rolls back upon Sisyphus' neck.
Suddenly Caius Caesar appeared, and began to claim him as a slave; he produces witnesses who saw Claudius writhing under whips, rods, buffets, from himself. He was adjudged to Caesar ; Macus gives him over. Caius transferred him to Me- nander his freedman, to be his private helper.
Notes.
1 Tobe abletodoas helikes.
2 Virgil, iEneid, ii. 720, but in a wholly different sense ; a gibe at Claudius' lameness.
3 The rest of the verse is from Virgil, Georgics, iv. 90.
4 Euripides, from " Cresphontes. "
5 Homer, Odyssey, ix. 39.
6 At Troy : a sneer at Claudius' pretense of Trojan ancestry.
7 The sword is powerless.
8 From Epicurus' theory of the gods, whom he supposed to dwell be tween the worlds in perfect peace, and leaving men undisturbed.
9 By harrying Silanus to death for doing what Jupiter had done.
10 Not quite accurately : Silanus took his own life in fear of the
future. But it would hardly have been spared long.
11 I. e. to be a permanent husband to her, as Jupiter to Juno, while the others had temporary amours with her, Venus-wise.
12 Thinks the moral government of the world needs straightening out because Romans are licentious.
13 Moderator for the day of the money exchange around Janus' temple in the Forum. During the July holidays this business was suspended, so that even if the god had taken the post there was nothing to do.
14 Homer, Iliad, iii. 109.
15 Homer, familiarly. A sneer at Claudius' boorish ways and his
preferences in food.
16 Jupiter son of Victress and Possessoress, or the Goddess of Vic
tory ; a comic god in derision of the many specialized gods of the Pantheon.
17 The franchise for small provincial towns.
18 Martial, xiii. 16.
19 His influence hanging in the balance.
20 The worst throw of dice.
21 Executions : the euphemism is precisely that of the Spanish autos-
da-fe.
22 Homer, Iliad, i. 591.
WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE. 89
23 As no honors were decreed him.
24 Virgil, JEneid, vi. 126 : " facilis descensus Averni. "
25 Odes, ii. 18, 84.
26 The song of the priests of Apis when a new calf was found to
worship.
WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE. By AULUS GELLIUS.
(Translated for this work. )
[Aulus Gellitts was born probably about a. d. 120, and died about 180. He was a man both of letters and affairs, and held high office at Rome. His one extant work is the "Attic Nights," a collection of scraps from his commonplace book, on a vast number of things heard, seen, or read. ]
Against those who call themselves Chaldaeans or genethliacs [natal-timers], and profess to be able from the motions and positions of the stars to tell what will happen in the future, we
once heard the philosopher Favorinus of Rome make an excel lent and luminous speech in Greek ; but whether to find him self employment, or display his genius, or because he wished to give a serious and judicial estimate of them, is not for me to say. But the leading instances and arguments he used which I could remember, brought away from my hearing of him there, I hastily noted down. They were approximately to this effect : —
That the doctrine of the Chaldaeans is not of as great antiq uity as they wish it to appear ; nor are those the chiefs and authors of it whom they pretend ; but that the crew who have fabricated these illusions and conjurings are professional money- hunting jugglers, seeking victuals and cash by lying tricks ; and because they have seen that certain terrestrial things, situate among mankind, move in accordance with the humor and lead ing of celestial things, — for instance, that the ocean, as if a companion of the moon, grows old and young at the same time with her, — they set this up as an argument that we should believe all human affairs, great and small, similarly bound up with the stars and heavens, led and ruled by them.
40 WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE.
But this is in the highest degree inept and absurd ; that because the tide follows the course of the moon, the business likewise of anybody who has, say, a case before a judge involv ing the control of water with comarchers, or of a party wall with a neighbor, — that we must consider that business also as if it were governed by some cable from heaven tied to it. That even if by some divine power and reason it could be done, he considered it by no means possible for the mind of man to comprehend and perceive it in so short and scanty a space of life, however much it can do, though a few of certain things can be guessed — I will use the word itself — irayyfi&pka-rtpov [clumsily], conceived on no basis of science, but confused and vague and arbitrary, so far is the penetration of our eyes from piercing the middle spaces of vapor. For the chief difference between gods and men would be removed if men also were to know everything which is to come later.
Then the observation itself of the heavens and stars, which they profess to be the origin of their science, he thinks by no means clearly established ; for if the chiefs of the Chaldaeans, who dwelt in the open fields, contemplating the motions and paths and discessions and conjunctions of the stars, had observed that something was effected by them, this science, he says, clearly might make way ; but only under that aspect of the sky under which the Chaldaeans were ; for it is not possible, he says, that the calculations from the Chaldaean observations should remain valid, if any one should wish to use it thus under different regions of the sky. For who does not see, he says, how great is the diversity of the parts and circles of the sky from the divergency and convexity of the earth ? Therefore, the same stars by which they contend that all divine and human things are borne on and led, do not for instance everywhere excite cold or heat alike ; but change and vary, and at the same time in some places actuate placid seasons, in others stormy : why should they not also actuate one set of personal and pub lic happenings in Chaldaea, another in Gaetulia, another on the Danube, another on the Nile ? On the other hand, he says, it does not follow that if the same body and constitution of such a deep atmosphere should not remain the same under one and another curvature of the sky, yet in the affairs of men those stars must be thought always to show the same, from whatever land you contemplated them.
Moreover, it was wonderful that anybody should hold it proved that those stars which they declare were observed by
WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE. 41
the Chaldaeans and Babylonians and Egyptians (which many call erratic, Nigidius wandering') [comets] should not be more numerous than is currently said ; for he considered it possible that there were also other planets with equal power, without which correct and steady observation could not be carried on, yet men could not discern them on account of their superiority either in brightness or altitude. For some other stars, he said, are seen from other countries, and are known by the people of those countries; but these very ones do not appear from all the rest of the earth, and are everywhere unknown by others ; and as only just so many of these stars, he says, and from one part of the earth, must needs be observed, what finally was the limit of that observation, and what time can we know to be enough for perceiving what the conjunction of the stars, or their motion around or across each other's paths, may presage ? For if an observation has been commenced, in such manner that it shall be noted in what guise, in what form, and in what position of the stars any one is born, and then successively from the beginning of life his fortune and habits and talents, and the circumstances of his private affairs and his business, and finally the very close of his life, shall be anticipated, and all these things, as they have come about in experience, shall be committed to writing ; and a long time afterward, when those very things shall be in that same place and in that same guise, it shall be assumed that the same things also will happen to the rest who may be born at that time, — if in that way, he says, observation has begun, and from that observation a certain science has been constructed that cannot by any means make way ; for let them tell us in how many years, or rather in how many ages of the earth, these observations could be perfected ? [by the same order of the heavenly bodies returning].
He said it was agreed among astrologers that the stars which they call wandering, which seem indicative of every one's fate, return only after an almost infinite and countless number of years to the same place whence in the same guise they all set out at once ; that no course of observation, nor any memory or form of record, could endure for such a period.
And he thought this also must be taken into account in some way, that there would be one train of stars when a man was first conceived in his mother's womb, and another later when after ten months he was brought to the light. And he asked how a diverse indication could come to the same thing, as those people say, another and another situation and connection
if,
42 WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE.
of stars give other and other fortunes. But also at the time of nuptials, by which children are sought, and also at the coition itself of male and female, he said it must be evident that from a certain fixed and necessary order of the stars such and such persons and with such fortunes must be born ; and also long before when the father and mother themselves were born, the geniture from them could then be foreseen, —whoever of old were still to be, whom they were to beget, and so farther and farther back to infinity. So that if that science were framed on any basis of truth, back as far as the hundredth century, or still more, to the first beginning of the heavens and the earth, and then successively with continuous indication — as many progenitors of the same race as were born, those stars must foreshow that such and with such fate must be in the future whoever is born to-day.
But how, he says, can any one believe that by the form and position of any star whatever one man's chance and fortune are altogether fixed and destined, and that that form, after an immense number of ages, is restored, unless the signs of the life and fortunes of the same man, in such short intervals, through the ranks of his ancestors one by one, and through an infinite order of successions, themselves are denoted by the same ap pearance of the stars ? That if such can be, and if that diver sity and variety is admitted through every step of antiquity, to point out the beginnings of those men who shall afterward be born, this inequality disturbs observation, and every reason ing of the science is confounded.
Now he thought it was really not in the least assertable that not only extrinsic happenings and events which take place, but even the counsels and decisions of men themselves, and the various wills and longings and aversions, and the casual and unforeseen impulses and recoils of the mind in the lightest things, they should hold to be actuated and excited from the heavens above ; as, if you should happen to desire to go to the baths, and then did not desire to, and again desired to, it should happen not from some irregular and haphazard stir of the spirit, but by some necessary reciprocation of the wander ing stars ; that men in that case would plainly seem not to be what are called Xoyiicd fiua (rational beings), but ridiculous and to be jeered at, a sort of vevpocriracrra (puppets), if they do nothing of their own will, nothing by their own judgment, but with the stars leading and making carriage horses of them.
WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE. 43
And he says, could be positively predicted for King Pyrrhus whether M. Curius was to be vanquished in battle, why pray do they not dare also to say with dice, or pebbles, or the tray, who of the players shall win Do they know great things and not know small things, and are the lesser things less knowable than the greater But they vindicate them selves by the greatness of things, and say the great are clearer and can be more easily comprehended, wish, he says, they would answer me as to what, in this contemplation of the whole world, in the works of mighty nature, they think great in such brief and petty affairs as those of mankind And wish also, he says, that they would answer me this so small and fleeting the moment of time in which person at con ception receives his fate, whether in that same point under that same circle of the heaven many must not needs be born at once in the same conjunction therefore twins are not in the same fortune of life because not brought forth at the same point of time urge, he says, that they answer that course of time flying past, which can hardly be comprehended by the cogita tion of the mind — by what sort of method or expedient can they apprehend it, or ascertain or discover to themselves, when in such headlong dizzying whirl of days and nights they say the least changes make huge mutations
Finally he asked what there was to be said in answer to this that while people of both sexes and all ages are brought to life under diverse motions of the stars, the regions far apart under which they are born, yet all those who perish either in yawnings of the earth, or tumblings of houses, or stormings of towns, or drownings in the waves in the same ship, die by the same sort of death, at the same stroke of time in the universe all at once. Now, he says, this never could happen the moments of birth allotted to separate individuals had each the same laws. But
he says, they allege that in the death and life of men, even brought forth at diverse times, some like and harmonious things can befall by certain like conjunctions of the stars at later times, why does not everything come out alike at last, so that there may exist, through such concourses of the stars, the similitudes both of Socrates and Antisthenes at once, and many Platos, alike in race, form, talent, habits, in all life and death which in short, he says, cannot by any means be so. This argument, therefore, cannot well be used against the unlike births of men and their like deaths.
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44 WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE.
But, he said, this would present itself to them, even though he should not inquire into it : if of the life and death of men, and of all human things, there was season and reason and cause in heaven and among the stars, what did they say of flies or worms or hedgehogs, and many other very small things animat ing the earth and sea ? whether those also were born under the same laws as men, and extinguished under the same ; whether also the fates of birth for frogs and gnats were attributed to the motions of the heavenly bodies ; or if they did not think that, no reason was apparent why the same power of the stars should be operative for men and lacking for the rest.
Favorinus likewise admonished us to beware lest those parasites should creep on toward making converts, because some of them seemed from time to time to babble or inter sperse truths. For they do not tell understood things, he says, nor defined nor perceived ones ; but glittering with slippery and roundabout guesswork, they walk step by step among falsehoods and truths, as if marching through shad ows. Either, while handling many subjects they suddenly and imprudently tumble into the truth ; or while great credulity leads on those who consult them, they shrewdly arrive at conclusions which are true : for that reason they seem to copy truth more easily in past matters than future. Yet all the things about which they either rashly or skillfully tell the truth, he says, are not a thousandth part of the ones in which they lie.
The same Favorinus, wishing to deter and repel the youth from those genethliacs and others of the sort, from going to and consulting in any way that tribe who profess to tell the future by magic arts, concluded with these arguments : Either they foretell adverse fortunes, he said, or prosperous. If they fore tell prosperous ones and deceive, you will be wretched from mistaken expectation. If they foretell adverse ones and lie, you will be wretched from mistaken fear. But if they answer truly — in case affairs are not prosperous, then you will be wretched through your mind, before being so through fate ; if they promise happiness and it so befalls, then obviously there will be two undesirable results : expectation will weary you with hope deferred, and hope will have robbed you of the fruit of joy to come. Therefore, future events should not in any way be given to human forecast.
AN ANCIENT GULLIVER. 45
AN ANCIENT GULLIVEK. By LUCIAN.
[LnciAN, one of the foremost humorists and men of letters of all time, was born in Asia Minor during Trajan's reign, about a. t>. 100. He studied for a sculptor, but finally went to Antioch and devoted himself to literature and ora tory. He died in extreme old age. His works, written in Greek, are largely satirical burlesques on pagan philosophy and mythology and on the literature of his day, with some stories. ]
Ctesias wrote an account of India, in which he records matters which he neither saw himself, nor heard from the mouth of any creature in the world. So likewise a certain Jambulus wrote many incredible wonders of the great sea, that are too palpably untrue for any one to suppose they are not of his own invention, though they are very entertaining to read. Many others have in the same spirit written pretended voyages and occasional peregrinations in unknown regions, wherein they give us incredible accounts of prodigiously huge animals, wild men, and strange and uncouth manners and habits of life. Their great leader and master in this fantastical way of im posing upon people was the famous Homeric Ulysses, who tells a long tale to Alcinous and his silly Phaeacians about King . rfEolus and the winds, who are his slaves, and about one-eyed men-eaters and other the like savages ; talks of many-headed beasts, of the transformation of his companions into brutes, and a number of other fooleries of a like nature. For my part I was the less displeased at all the falsehoods, great and numerous as they were, of these honest folks, when I saw that even men who pretend that they only philosophize, act not a hair better ; but this has always excited my wonder, how they could im agine their readers would fail of perceiving that there was not a word of truth in all their narratives.
Now, as I cannot resist the vanity of transmitting to pos terity a little work of my own composing, and though I have nothing true to relate (for nothing memorable has happened to me in all my life), I see not why I have not as good a right to deal in fiction as another :
honester mode of lying than the generality of my compeers : for I tell at least one truth, by saying that I lie ; and the more confidently hope therefore to escape the general censure,
I resolved, however, to adopt an since my own voluntary confession is a sufficient proof that I
46 AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
desire to impose upon no one. Accordingly I hereby declare, that I sit down to relate what never befell me ; what I neither saw myself, nor heard by report from others ; aye, what is more, about matters that not only are not, but never will be, because in one word they are absolutely impossible, and to which there fore I warn my readers (if by the bye I should have any) not to give even the smallest degree of credit.
Once on a time, then, I set sail from Cadiz, and steered my course with a fair wind to the Hesperian ocean ; taking along fifty companions and a most experienced pilot.
We sailed a day and a night with favorable gales, and while still within sight of land, were not violently carried on ; on the following day at sunrise, however, the wind blew fresher, the sea ran high, the sky lowered, and it was impossible even to take in the sails. We were therefore forced to resign ourselves to the wind, and were nine and seventy days driven about by the storm. On the eightieth, however, at daybreak, we de scried a high and woody island not far off, against which, the gale having greatly abated, the breakers were not uncommonly furious. We landed therefore, got out, and, happy after sus taining so many troubles to feel the solid earth under us, we stretched ourselves at ease upon the ground. At length, after having rested for some time, we arose, and selected thirty of our company to stay by the ship, while the remaining thirty accompanied me in penetrating farther inland, to examine into the quality of the island.
When we had proceeded about two thousand paces from the shore through the forest, we came up to a pillar of brass, on which in Greek letters, half effaced and consumed by rust, this inscription was legible : Thus far came Bacchus and Her cules. We also discovered, at no great distance from it, two footmarks in the rock, one of which measured a whole acre, but the other was apparently somewhat smaller. I conjectured the lesser one to be that of Bacchus, and the other that of Hercules. We bowed the knee, and went on, but had not proceeded far when we came to a river, that instead of water ran with wine, which both in color and flavor appeared to us like our Chian wine. The river was so broad and deep, that in many places it was even navigable. Such an evident sign that Bacchus had once been here served not a little to confirm our faith in the inscription on the pillar. But being curious to learn whence
AN ANCIENT GULLIVER. 47
this stream derived its origin, we went up to its head ; but found no spring, and only a quantity of large vines hung full of clusters, and at the bottom of every stem the wine trickled down in bright transparent drops, from the confluence whereof the stream arose. We saw likewise a vast quantity of fishes therein, the flesh of which had both the color and flavor of the wine in which they lived. We caught some, and so greedily swallowed them down, that as many as ate of them were com pletely drunk ; and on cutting up the fishes we found them to be full of lees. It occurred to us afterwards to mix these wine fishes with water fishes, whereby they lost their strong vinous taste, and yielded an excellent dish.
We then crossed the river at a part where we found it ford- able, and came among a wonderful species of vines : which toward the earth had firm stocks, green and knotty ; but up wards they were ladies, having down to the waist their several proportions perfect and complete ; as Daphne is depicted, when she was turned into a tree in Apollo's embrace. Their fingers terminated in shoots, full of bunches of grapes, and instead of hair their heads were grown over with tendrils, leaves, and clusters. These ladies came up to us, amicably gave us their hands, and greeted us, some in Lydian, others in Indian lan guage, but most of them in Greek ; they saluted us also on the lips ; but those whom they kissed immediately became drunk, and reeled. Their fruit, however, they would not permit us to pluck, and screamed out with pain when we broke off a bunch. Some of them even showed an inclination to consort with us ; but a couple of my companions, in consenting to it, paid dear for their complaisance. For they got so entangled in their embraces, that they could never after be loosed ; but every limb coalesced and grew together with theirs, in such sort as to become one stock with roots in common. Their fin gers changed into vine twigs, and began to bud, giving promise of fruit.
Leaving them to their fate, we made what haste we could to our ship, where we related all that we had seen to our com rades, whom we had left behind, particularly the adventure of the two whose embraces with the vine women had turned out so badly. Hereupon we filled our empty casks partly with common water, partly from the wine stream ; and after having passed the night not far from the latter, weighed anchor in the morning with a moderate breeze. But about noon, when we
48 AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
had lost sight of the island, we were suddenly caught by a whirlwind, which turned our vessel several times round in a circle with tremendous velocity, and lifted it above three thou sand stadia aloft in the air, not setting it down again on the sea, but kept it suspended above the water at that height, and carried us on, with swelled sails, above the clouds.
Having thus continued our course through the sky for the space of seven days and as many nights, on the eighth day we descried a sort of earth in the air, resembling a large, shining, circular island, spreading a remarkably brilliant light around it. We made up to it, anchored our ship, and went on shore, and on examination found it inhabited and cultivated. Indeed, by day we could distinguish nothing : but as soon as the night came on, we discerned other islands in the vicinity, some bigger, some less, and all of a fiery color. There was also, very deep below these, another earth, having on it cities and rivers and lakes and forests and mountains ; whence we con cluded that it might probably be ours.
Having resolved on prosecuting our journey, we came up with a number of horse vultures or hippogypes, as they are called in this country, who immediately seized our persons. These hippogypes are men who ride upon huge vultures, and are as well skilled in managing them as we are in the use of horses. But the vultures are of a prodigious bulk, and for the most part have three heads ; and how large they must be, may be judged of by this, that each of the feathers in their wings is longer and thicker than the mast of a great corn ship. The hippogypes are commissioned to fly round the whole island, and whenever they meet a stranger, to carry him before the king ; with which order we were therefore obliged to comply. The king no sooner spied us, than he understood, I suppose from our dress, what countrymen we were ; for the first word he said to us was, "The gentlemen then are Greeks. " On our not scrupling to own it, he continued, " How got you hither, through such a vast tract of air as that lying between your earth and this ? " We then told him all that had happened to us. Upon this he was pleased to communicate to us some par ticulars of his history. He told us : he was likewise a man, and the same Endymion who was long since, while he lay asleep, rapt up from our earth and conveyed hither, where he was appointed king, and is the same that appears to us below as the moon. Moreover, he bade us be of good cheer and appre
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49
hend no danger ; assuring us at the same that we should be provided with all necessaries : " and," added he, " when I shall have successfully put a period to the war in which I am at present engaged with the inhabitants of the sun, you shall pass with me the happiest lives you can possibly conceive. " On our asking him what enemies he had, and how the misunderstand ing began, he replied : —
" It is now a long time, that Phaeton, the king of the solar inhabitants (for the sun is no less peopled than the moon), has been at war with us, for no other reason than this. I had taken the resolution to send out the poorest people of my dominions as a colony into the morning star, which at that time was waste and void of inhabitants. To this now, Phaeton, out of envy, would not consent, and opposed my colonists with a troop of horse pismires in midway. Being unprepared for the encounter, and therefore not provided with arms, we were for that time forced to retreat. I have now, however, resolved to have another contest with them, and to settle my colony there, cost what it will. If you therefore have a mind to take part in this enterprise, I will furnish you with vultures out of my own mews, and provide you with the necessary arms and accouterments ; and to-morrow we will begin our march. "
"With all my heart," I replied, " whenever you please. "
The king that evening made us sit down to an entertain ment ; and on the following morning early we made the necessary preparations, and drew up in battle array, our scouts having apprised us that the enemy was approaching. Our army consisted, besides the light infantry, the foreign auxilia ries, the engineers and sutlers, of a hundred thousand men : that is to say, eighty thousand horse vultures, and twenty thousand who were mounted on cabbage fowl. These are an exceedingly numerous species of birds, that instead of feathers are thickly grown over with cabbages, and have a broad kind of lettuce leaves for wings. Our flanks were composed of bean shooters and garlic throwers. In addition to these, thirty thousand flea guards and fifty thousand wind coursers were sent to our aid from the bean star. The former are archers mounted on a kind of fleas which are twelve times as big as an elephant ; but the wind coursers, though they fight on foot, yet run without wings in the air. This is performed in the follow ing manner : they wear wide, long gowns, reaching down to the
ankles ; these they tuck up so as to hold the wind, like a sail, VOL. VII. 4
50 AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
and thus they are wafted through the air after the manner of ships. In battle they are generally used like our peltasts. It was currently reported that seventy thousand sparrow acorns and five thousand horse cranes were to be sent us from the stars over Cappadocia ; but I must own that I did not see them, and for this plain reason, that they never came. I therefore shall not take upon me to describe them ; for all sorts of amazing and incredible things were propagated about them.
Such were the forces of Endymion. Their arms and accou- terments were all alike. Their helmets were of bean shells, the beans with them being excessively large and thick-shelled. Their scaly coats of mail were made of the husks of their lupines sewed together, for in that country the shell of the lupine is as hard and impenetrable as horn. Their shields and swords differ not from those of the Greeks.
Everything now being ready, the troops disposed themselves in the following order of battle : the horse vultures composed the right wing, and were led on by the king in person, sur rounded by a number of picked men, amongst whom we also were ranged ; the left wing consisted of the cabbage fowl, and in the center were placed the auxiliaries, severally classed. The foot soldiery amounted to about sixty millions. There is a species of spiders in the moon, the smallest of which is bigger than one of the islands of the Cyclades. These received orders to fill up the whole tract of air between the moon and morning star with a web. This was done in a few instants, and served
as a floor for the foot soldiers to form themselves in order of battle upon ; these were commanded by Nightbird, Fairweath- er's son, and two other generals.
On the left wing of the enemy stood the horse pismires, headed by Phaeton. These animals are a species of winged ants, differing from ours only in bulk, the largest of them covering no less than two acres. They have besides one pecul iarity, that they assist their riders in fighting principally with their horns. Their number was given in at about fifty thousand. On the right wing in the first engagement somewhere about fifty thousand gnat riders were posted, all archers, mounted on monstrous huge gnats. Behind these stood the radish darters, a sort of light infantry, but who greatly annoyed the enemy : being armed with slings from which they threw horrid large radishes to a very great distance ; whoever was struck by them died on the spot, and the wound instantly gave out an intoler
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able stench, for it is said that they dipped the radishes in mallow poison. Behind them stood the stalky mushrooms, heavy-armed infantry, ten thousand in number, having their name from their bearing a kind of fungus for their shield, and using stalks of large asparagus for spears. Not far from these were placed the dog acorns, who were sent to succor Phaeton from the inhabitants of Sirius, in number five thousand. They were men with dogs' heads, who fought on winged acorns, which served them as chariots. Besides, there went a report that several other reinforcements were to have come, on which Phaeton had reckoned, particularly the slingers that were ex pected from the Milky Way, together with the cloud centaurs. The latter, however, did not arrive till after the affair was decided, and it had been as well for us if they had stayed away ; the slingers, however, came not at all, at which Phaeton was so enraged that he afterwards laid waste their country by fire. These then were all the forces that Phaeton brought into the field.
The signal for the onset was now given on both sides by asses, which in this country are employed instead of trumpeters : and the engagement had no sooner begun, than the left wing of the Heliotans, without waiting for the attack of the horse vultures, turned their backs immediately ; and we pursued them with great slaughter. On the other hand, their right wing at first gained the advantage over our left, and the gnat riders over threw our cabbage fowl with such force, and pursued them with so much fury, that they advanced even to our footmen ; who, however, stood their ground so bravely that the enemy were in their turn thrown into disorder and obliged to fly, especially when they saw that their left wing was routed. Their defeat was now decisive ; we made a great many prisoners, and the slain were so numerous that the clouds were tinged with the blood that was spilt, as they sometimes appear to us at the going down of the sun ; aye, it even trickled down from them upon the earth. So that I was led to suppose that a similar event in former times, in the upper regions, might perhaps have caused those showers of blood which Homer makes his Jupiter rain for Sarpedon's death.
Returning from the pursuit of the enemy, we erected two trophies ; one for the infantry on the cobweb, the other on the clouds for those who had fought in the air. While we were thus employed, intelligence was brought us from our fore posts
52 AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
that the cloud centaurs were now coming up, which ought to have joined Phaeton before the battle. I must own, that the march towards us of an army of cavalry that were half men and half winged horses, and of whom the human half was as big as the upper moiety of the colossus at Rhodes, and the equine half resembling a great ship of burden, formed a spectacle altogether extraordinary. Their number I rather decline to state, for it was so prodigious that I am fearful I should not be believed. They were led on by Sagittarius from the Zodiac. As soon as they learnt that their friends had been defeated, they sent immediately a dispatch to Phaeton, to call him back to the fight ; whilst they marched up in good array to the terrified Selenites, who had fallen into great disorder in pursuing the enemy and dividing the spoil, put them all to flight, pursued the king himself to the very walls of his capital, killed the greater part of his birds, threw down the trophies, overran the whole field of cobweb, and together with the rest made me and my two com panions prisoners of war. Phaeton at length came up ; and after they had erected other trophies, that same day we were carried prisoners into the sun, our hands tied behind our backs with a cord of the cobweb.
The enemy did not think fit to besiege Endymion's capital, but contented himself with carrying up a double rampart of clouds between the moon and the sun, whereby all communi cation between the two was effectually cut off, and the moon deprived of all sunlight. The poor moon, therefore, from that instant suffered a total eclipse, and was shrouded in complete uninterrupted darkness. In this distress, Endymion had no other resource than to send a deputation to the sun, humbly to entreat him to demolish the wall, and that he would not be so unmerciful as to doom him to utter darkness ; binding himself to pay a tribute to the sun, to assist him with auxiliaries when ever he should be at war, never more to act with hostility against him, and to give hostages as surety for the due performance of the contract. Phaeton held two councils to deliberate on these proposals : in the first, their minds were as yet too soured to admit of a favorable reception ; but in the second, their anger had somewhat subsided, and the peace was concluded by a treaty which ran thus : —
The Heliotans with their allies on the one part, and the Sele nites with their confederates on the other part, have entered into a
AN ANCIENT GULLIVER. 53
league, in which it is stipulated as follows : The Heliotans engage to demolish the wall, never more to make hostile attacks upon the moon, and that the prisoners taken on both sides shall be set at lib erty on the payment of an equitable ransom. The Selenites on their part promise not to infringe the rights and privileges of the other stars, nor ever again to make war upon the Heliotans ; but on the contrary, the two powers shall mutually aid and assist one another with their forces, in case of any invasion. The king of the Selenites also binds himself to pay to the king of the Heliotans a yearly tribute of ten thousand casks of dew, and give ten thousand hostages by way of security. With reference to the colony in the morning star, both the contracting parties shall jointly assist in establishing and lib erty given to any that will to share in the peopling of it. This treaty shall be engraved on pillar of amber, to be set up between the confines of the two kingdoms. To the due performance of this treaty are solemnly sworn, on the part of the
Heliotes.
Fireman. Summerheat. Flamington.
Selenites.
Nightlove. Moonius. Changelight.
This treaty of peace being signed, the wall was pulled down, and the prisoners were exchanged. On our return to the moon, our comrades and Endymion himself came forth to meet us, and embraced us with weeping eyes. The prince would fain have retained us with him making us the proposal at the same time to form part of the new colony, as we liked best. He even offered me his own son for mate (for they have no women
*******
This could by no means be persuaded to, but ear nestly begged that he would set us down upon the sea. Finding that could not be prevailed on to stay, he consented to dis miss us, after he had feasted us most nobly during whole week.
there).
When Selenite grown old, he does not die as we do, but vanishes like smoke in the air.
The whole nation eats the same sort of food. They roast frogs (which with them fly about the air in vast numbers) on coals; then when they are done enough, seating themselves round the hearth, as we do at table, snuff up the effluvia that rises from them, and in this consists their whole meal. When thirsty, they squeeze the air into goblet, which filled in this manner with dewlike moisture. . .
a
I
;
.
a a
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is
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is
is
a
it,
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54 AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
Whoever would pass for a beauty among them must be bald and without hair ; curly and bushy heads are an abomina tion to them. But in the comets it is just the reverse : for there only curly hair is esteemed beautiful, as some travelers, who were well received in those stars, informed us. Neverthe less they have somewhat of a beard a little above the knee. On their feet they have neither nails nor toes ; for the whole foot is entirely one piece. Every one of them at the point of the rump has a large cabbage growing, in lieu of a tail, always green and flourishing, and which never breaks off though a man falls on his back.
They sneeze a very sour kind of honey ; and when they are at work or gymnastic exercises, or use any exertion, milk oozes from all the pores of the body in such quantities that they make cheese of it, only mixing with it a little of the said honey.
They have an art of extracting an oil from onions, which is very white, and of so fragrant an odor that they use it for per fuming. Moreover, their soil produces a great abundance of vines, which instead of wine yield water grapes, and the grape- stones are the size of our hail. I know not how better to explain the hail with us, than by saying that it hails on the earth whenever the vines in the moon are violently agitated by a high wind, so as to burst the water grapes.
The Selenites wear no pockets, but put all they would carry with them in their bellies, which they can open and shut at
For by nature they are quite empty, having no intestines ; only they are rough and hairy within, so that even their new-born children, when they are cold, creep into them.
pleasure.
As to their clothing, the rich wear garments of glass, but those of the poorer sort are wove of brass ; for these regions are very prolific in ores, and they work it as we do wool, by pouring water upon it.
But what sort of eyes they have, I doubt my veracity would be suspected were I to say ; it is so incredible. Yet, having already related so much of the marvelous, this may as well go along with the rest. They have eyes, then, that they can take out whenever they choose : whoever therefore would save his eyes, takes them out, and lays them by ; if anything that he would fain see presents itself, he puts his eyes in again and looks at it. Some who have carelessly lost their own borrow of others ; for rich people are always provided with a good stock.
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Their ears are made of plane-tree leaves, and only the Dendrites have wooden ones.
I saw also another strange object in the king's palace ; which was a looking-glass of enormous dimensions, lying over a well not very deep. Whoever goes down into this well hears everything that is said upon our earth ; and whoever looks in the mirror sees in it all the cities and nations of the world, exactly as if they were standing before him. I saw on this occasion my family and my whole country : whether, however, they likewise saw me, I cannot positively say.