Cloud Culture or Lord of the Cloud

CLOUD CULTURE: THE PROMISE AND THE THREAT [2.2.10]
By Charles Leadbeater

…A third threat comes from the new media moguls, the cloud capitalists: Facebook, Apple, Google, Salesforce, Twitter, who will seek to make money by creating and managing clouds for us.

These cloud capitalists are the new powers behind global cultural relations. Their rise has sparked an increasingly vicious civil war with the media old guard led by Rupert Murdoch. This battle between old and new media powers however has distracted attention from the question of how these companies will organise cloud culture on our behalf. Elements of their business models resemble traditional public services: Google’s work with a consortium of libraries around the world to digitise books that are out of copyright; ITunes U provides thousands of models of course material for free. However these companies are also businesses: they will want to organise the cloud to make money. By the end of the decade Google will have unprecedented control over literary culture, past, present and future. Leave aside issues of trust, privacy and security, commercial providers of cloud services will have strong incentives to manage their users to maximise revenues and so to discourage them from roaming from one service to another. …more>>

Rest Between Wars (Feb9)

Tacitus ON GERMANY Vol. 33, pp. 93-102

GERMANY

BY TACITUS
 
THE whole of Germany is thus bounded; separated from
Gaul, from Rhcetia and Pannonia, by the rivers Rhine and
Danube; from Sarmatia and Dacia by mutual fear, or by
high mountains: the rest is encompassed by the ocean, which forms
huge bays, and comprehends a tract of islands immense in extent:
for we have lately known certain nations and kingdoms there, such
as the war discovered. The Rhine rising in the Rhcetian Alps from
a summit altogether rocky and perpendicular, after a small winding
towards the west, is lost in the Northern Ocean. The Danube issues
out of the mountain Abnoba, one very high but very easy of
ascent, and traversing several nations, falls by six streams into the
Euxine Sea; for its seventh channel is absorbed in the Fenns.
The Germans, I am apt to believe, derive their original from
no other people; and are nowise mixed with different nations
arriving amongst them: since anciently those who went in search
of new buildings, travelled not by land, but were carried in fleets;
and into that mighty ocean so boundless, and, as I may call it, so
repugnant and forbidding, ships from our world rarely enter. Moreover,
besides the dangers from a sea tempestuous, horrid and unknown,
who would relinquish Asia, or Africa, or Italy, to repair
to Germany, a region hideous and rude, under a rigorous climate,
dismal to behold or to manure1 unless the same were his native
country? In their old ballads (which amongst them are the only
sort of registers and history) they celebrate Tuisto, a. God sprung
from the earth, and Mannus his son, as the fathers and founders of
the nation. To Mannus they assign three sons, after whose names
so many people are called; the Ingaevones, dwelling next the ocean;
the Herminones, in the middle country; and all the rest, Instaevones.
Some, borrowing a warrant from the darkness of antiquity, main-
1 To cultivate.
93

94 TACITUS
tain that the God had more sons, that thence came more denominations
of people, the Marsians, Gambrians, Suevians, and Vandalians,
and that these are the names truly genuine and original. For the
rest, they affirm Germany to be a recent word, lately bestowed: for
that those who first passed the Rhine and expulsed the Gauls, and
are now named Tungrians, were then called Germans: and thus by
degrees the name of a tribe prevailed, not that of the nation; so
that by an appellation at first occasioned by terror and conquest,
they afterwards chose to be distinguished, and assuming a name
lately invented were universally called Germans.
They have a tradition that Hercules also had been in their country,
and him above all other heroes they extol in their songs when
they advance to battle. Amongst them too are found that kind of
verses by the recital of which (by them called Barding) they inspire
bravery; nay, by such chanting itself they divine the success of the
approaching fight. For, according to the different din of the batde,
they urge furiously, or shrink timorously. Nor does what they
utter, so much seem to be singing as the voice and exertion of valour.
They chiefly study a tone fierce and harsh, with a broken and unequal
murmur, and therefore apply their shields to their mouths,
whence the voice may by rebounding swell with greater fulness and
force. Besides there are some of opinion, that Ulysses, whilst he
wandered about in his long and fabulous voyages, was carried into
this ocean and entered Germany, and that by him Asciburgium was
founded and named, a city at this day standing and inhabited upon
the bank of the Rhine: nay, that in the same place was formerly
found an altar dedicated to Ulysses, with the name of his father
Laertes added to his own, and that upon the confines of Germany
and Rhoetia are still extant certain monuments and tombs inscribed
with Greek characters. Traditions these which I mean not either to
confirm with arguments of my own or to refute. Let every one
believe or deny the same according to his own bent.
For myself, I concur in opinion with such as suppose the people
of Germany never to have mingled by inter-marriages with other
nations, but to have remained a people pure, and independent, and
resembling none but themselves. Hence amongst such a mighty
multitude of men, the same make and form is found in all, eyes

GERMANY 95
stern and blue, yellow hair, huge bodies, but vigorous only in the
first onset. Of pains and labour they are not equally patient, nor
can they at all endure thrift and heat. To bear hunger and cold
they are hardened by their climate and soil.
Their lands, however somewhat different in aspect, yet taken all
together consist of gloomy forests or nasty marshes; lower and
moister towards the confines of Gaul, more mountainous and windy
towards Noricum and Pannonia; very apt to bear grain, but altogether
unkindly to fruit trees; abounding in flocks and herds, but
generally small of growth. Nor even in their oxen is found the
usual stateliness, no more than the natural ornaments and grandeur
of head. In the number of their herds they rejoice; and these are
their only, these their most desirable riches. Silver and gold the
Gods have denied them, whether in mercy or in wrath, I am unable
to determine. Yet I would not venture to aver that in Germany no
vein of gold or silver is produced; for who has ever searched? For
the use and possession, it is certain they care not. Amongst them
indeed are to be seen vessels of silver, such as have been presented
to their Princes and Ambassadors, but holden in no other esteem
than vessels made of earth. The Germans however adjoining to our
frontiers value gold and silver for the purposes of commerce, and
are wont to distinguish and prefer certain of our coins. They who
live more remote are more primitive and simple in their dealings,
and exchange one commodity for another. The money which they
like is the old and long known, that indented,2 or that impressed
with a chariot and two horses. Silver too is what they seek more
than gold, from no fondness or preference, but because small pieces
are more ready in purchasing things cheap and common.
Neither in truth do they abound in iron, as from the fashion of
their weapons may be gathered. Swords they rarely use, or the
larger spear. They carry javelins or, in their own language, framms,
pointed with a piece of iron short and narrow, but so sharp and
manageable, that with the same weapon they can fight at a distance
or hand to hand, just as need requires. Nay, the horsemen
also are content with a shield and a javelin. The foot throw likewise
weapons missive, each particular is armed with many, and
2 With milled edges.

96 TACITUS
hurls them a mighty space, all naked or only wearing a light cassock.
In their equipment they show no ostentation; only that their
shields are diversified and adorned with curious colours. With coats
of mail very few are furnished, and hardly upon any is seen a headpiece
or helmet. Their horses are nowise signal either in fashion or
in fleetness; nor taught to wheel and bound, according to the practice
of the Romans: they only move them forward in a line, or turn
them right about, with such compactness and equality that no one
is ever behind the rest. To one who considers the whole it is manifest,
that in their foot their principal strength lies, and therefore they
fight intermixed with the horse: for such is their swiftness as to
match and suit with the motions and engagements of the cavalry.
So that the infantry are elected from amongst the most robust of
their youth, and placed in front of the army. The number to be sent
is also ascertained, out of every village an hundred, and by this very
name they continue to be called at home, those of the hundred band:
thus what was at first no more than a number, becomes thenceforth
a tide and distinction of honour. In arraying their army, they divide
the whole into distinct battalions formed sharp in front. To
recoil in batde, provided you return again to the attack, passes with
them rather for policy than fear. Even when the combat is no more
than doubtful, they bear away the bodies of their slain. The most
glaring disgrace that can befall them, is to have quitted their shield;
nor to one branded with such ignominy is it lawful to join in their
sacrifices, or to enter into their assemblies; and many who have
escaped in the day of battle, have hanged themselves to put an end
to this their infamy.
In the choice of kings they are determined by the splendour of
their race, in that of generals by their bravery. Neither is the power
of their kings unbounded or arbitrary: and their generals procure
obedience not so much by the force of their authority as by that of
their example, when they appear enterprising and brave, when they
signalise themselves by courage and prowess; and if they surpass
all in admiration and pre-eminence, if they surpass all at the head of
an army. But to none else but the Priests is it allowed to exercise
correction, or to inflict bonds or stripes. Nor when the Priests do
this, is the same considered as a punishment, or arising from the

GERMANY 97
orders of the general, but from the immediate command of the
Deity, Him whom they believe to accompany them in war. They
therefore carry with them when going to fight, certain images and
figures taken out of their holy groves. What proves the principal
incentive to their valour is, that it is not at random nor by the fortuitous
conflux of men that their troops and pointed battalions are
formed, but by the conjunction of whole families, and tribes of relations.
Moreover, close to the field of battle are lodged all the nearest
and most interesting pledges of nature. Hence they hear the doleful
howlings of their wives, hence the cries of their tender infants.
These are to each particular the witnesses whom he most reverences
and dreads; these yield him the praise which affect him most. Their
wounds and maims they carry to their mothers, or to their wives,
neither are their mothers or wives shocked in telling, or in sucking
their bleeding sores.3 Nay, to their husbands and sons whilst
engaged in battle, they administer meat and encouragement.
In history we find, that some armies already yielding and ready
to fly, have been by the women restored,, through their inflexible
importunity and entreaty, presenting their breasts, and showing
their impending captivity; an evil to the Germans then by far most
dreadful when it befalls their women. So that the spirit of such
cities as amongst their hostages are enjoined to send their damsels
of quality, is always engaged more effectually than that of others.
They even believe them endowed with something celestial and the
spirit of prophecy. Neither do they disdain to consult them, nor
neglect the responses which they return. In the reign of the deified
Vespasian, we have seen Veleda for a long time, and by many
nations, esteemed and adored as a divinity. In times past they likewise
worshipped Aurinia and several more, from no complaisance
or effort of flattery, nor as Deities of their own creating.
Of all the Gods, Mercury is he whom they worship most. To
him on certain stated days it is lawful to offer even human victims.
Hercules and Mars they appease with beasts usually allowed for
sacrifice. Some of the Suevians make likewise immolations to Isis.
Concerning the cause and original of this foreign sacrifice I have
found small light; unless the figure of her image formed like a
3 Nec ilia numerare aut exigere plagas pavent.

98 TACITUS
galley, show that such devotion arrived from abroad. For the rest,
from the grandeur and majesty of beings celestial, they judge it altogether
unsuitable to hold the Gods enclosed within walls, or to
represent them under any human likeness. They consecrate whole
woods and groves, and by the names of the Gods they call these
recesses; divinities these, which only in contemplation and mental
reverence they behold.
To the use of lots and auguries, they are addicted beyond all other
nations. Their method of divining by lots is exceedingly simple.
From a tree which bears fruit they cut a twig, and divide it into
two small pieces. These they distinguish by so many several marks,
and throw diem at random and without order upon a white garment.
Then the Priest of the community, if for the public the lots
are consulted, or the father of a family about a private concern,
after he has solemnly invoked the Gods, with eyes lifted up to
heaven, takes up every piece thrice, and having done thus forms a
judgment according to the marks before made. If the chances have
proved forbidding, they are no more consulted upon the same affair
during the same day: even when they are inviting, yet, for con~
firmation, the faith of auguries too is tried. Yea, here also is the
known practice of divining events from the voices and flight of
birds. But to this nation it is peculiar, to learn presages and admonitions
divine from horses also. These are nourished by the State
in the same sacred woods and groves, all milk-white and employed
in no earthly labour. These yoked in the holy chariot, are accompanied
by the Priest and the King, or the Chief of the Community,
who both carefully observed his actions and neighing. Nor in any
sort of augury is more faith and assurance reposed, not by the populace
only, but even by the nobles, even by the Priests. These account
themselves the ministers of the Gods, and the horses privy to
his will. They have likewise another method of divination, whence
to learn the issue of great and mighty wars. From the nation with
whom they are at war they contrive, it avails not how, to gain a
captive: him they engage in combat with one selected from amongst
themselves, each armed after the manner of his country, and according
as the victory falls to this or to the other, gather a presage of the
whole.

GERMANY 99
Affairs of smaller moment the chiefs determine: about matters of
higher consequence the whole nation deliberates; yet in such sort,
that whatever depends upon the pleasure and decision of the people,
is examined and discussed by the chiefs. Where no accident or emergency
intervenes, they assemble upon stated days, either, when the
moon changes, or is full: since they believe such seasons to be the
most fortunate for beginning all transactions. Neither in reckoning
of time do they count, like us, the number of days but that of
nights. In this style their ordinances are framed, in this style their
diets appointed; and with them the night seems to lead and govern
the day. From their extensive liberty this evil and default flows,
that they meet not at once, nor as men commanded and afraid to
disobey; so that often the second day, nay often the third, is consumed
through the slowness of the members in assembling. They
sit down as they list, promiscuously, like a crowd, and all armed.
It is by the Priests that silence is enjoined, and with the power of
correction the Priests are then invested. Then the King or Chief
is heard, as are others, each according to his precedence in age, or
in nobility, or in warlike renown, or in eloquence; and the influence
of every speaker proceeds rather from his ability to persuade than
from any authority to command. If the proposition displease, they
reject it by an inarticulate murmur: if it be pleasing, they brandish
their javelins. The most honourable manner of signifying their
assent, is to express their applause by the sound of their arms.
In the assembly it is allowed to present accusations, and to prosecute
capital offences. Punishments vary according to the quality of
the crime. Traitors and deserters they hang upon trees. Cowards,
and sluggards, and unnatural prostitutes they smother in mud. and
bogs under an heap of hurdles. Such diversity in their executions
has this view, that in punishing of glaring iniquities, it behoves
likewise to display them to sight; but effeminacy and pollution must
be buried and concealed. In lighter transgressions too the penalty
is measured by the fault, and the delinquents upon conviction are
condemned to pay a certain number of horses or cattle. Part of this
mulct accrues to the King or the community, part to him whose
wrongs are vindicated, or to his next kindred. In the same assemblies
are also chosen their chiefs or rulers, such as administer justice

100 TACITUS
in their villages and boroughs. To each of these are assigned an
hundred persons chosen from amongst the populace, to accompany
and assist him, men who help him at once with their authority and
their counsel.
Without being armed they transact nothing, whether of public
or private concernment. But it is repugnant to their custom for
any man to use arms, before the community has attested his capacity
to wield them. Upon such testimonial, either one of the
rulers, or his father, or some kinsman dignify the young man in the
midst of the assembly, with a shield and javelin. This amongst
them is the manly robe, this the first degree of honour conferred
upon their youth. Before this they seem no more than part of a
private family, but thenceforward part of the Commonweal. The
princely dignity they confer even upon striplings, whose race is
eminently noble, or whose fathers have done great and signal services
to the State. For about the rest, who are more vigorous and
long since tried, they crowd to attend: nor is it any shame to be
seen amongst the followers of these. Nay, there are likewise degrees
of followers, higher or lower, just as he whom they follow
judges fit. Mighty too is the emulation amongst these followers, of
each to be first in favour with his Prince; mighty also the emulation
of the Princes, to excel in the number and valour of followers.
This is their principal state, this their chief force, to be at all times
surrounded with a huge band of chosen young men, for ornament
and glory in peace, for security and defence in war. Nor is it
amongst his own people only, but even from the neighbouring communities,
that any of their Princes reaps so much renown and a
name so great, when he surpasses in the number and magnanimity
of his followers. For such are courted by Embassies, and distinguished
with presents, and by the terror of their fame alone often
dissipate wars.
In the day of batde, it is scandalous to the Prince to be surpassed
in feats of bravery, scandalous to his followers to fail in
matching the bravery of the Prince. But it is infamy during life,
and indelible reproach, to return alive from a battle where their
Prince was slain. To preserve their Prince, to defend him, and to
ascribe to his glory all their own valorous deeds, is the sum and

GERMANY 101
most sacred part of their oath. The Princes fight for victory; for
the Prince his followers fight. Many of the young nobility, when
their own community comes to languish in its vigour by long peace
and inactivity, betake themselves through impatience to other
States which then prove to be in war. For, besides that this people
cannot brook repose, besides that by perilous adventures they more
quickly blazon their fame, they cannot otherwise than by violence
and war support their huge train of retainers. For from the liberality
of their Prince, they demand and enjoy that war-horse of theirs,
with that victorious javelin dyed in the blood of their enemies. In
the place of pay, they are supplied with a daily table and repasts;
though grossly prepared, yet very profuse. For maintaining such
liberality and munificence, a fund is furnished by continual wars
and plunder. Nor could you so easily persuade them to cultivate
the ground, or to await the return of the seasons and produce of
the year, as to provoke the foe and to risk wounds and death: since
stupid and spiritless they account it, to acquire by their sweat what
they can gain by their blood.
Upon any recess from war, they do not much attend the chase.
Much more of their time they pass in indolence, resigned to sleep
and repasts.4 All the most brave, all the most warlike, apply to
nothing at all; but to their wives, to the ancient men, and to every
the most impotent domestic, trust all the care of their house, and of
their lands and possessions. They themselves loiter.5 Such is the
amazing diversity of their nature, that in the same men is found so
much delight in sloth, with so much enmity to tranquillity and repose.
The communities are wont, of their own accord and man by
man, to bestow upon their Princes a certain number of beasts, or a
certain portion of grain; a contribution which passes indeed for a
mark of reverence and honour, but serves also to supply their necessities.
They chiefly rejoice in the gifts which come from the
bordering countries, such as are sent not only by particulars but in
the name of the State; curious horses, splendid armour, rich harness,
with collars of silver and gold. Now too they have learnt, what we
have taught them, to receive money.
4″Dediti somno, ciboque:” handed over to sloth and gluttony.
5 Are rude and lazy.

102 TACITUS
That none of the several people in Germany live together in cities,
is abundantly known; nay, that amongst them none of their dwellings
are suffered to be contiguous. They inhabit apart and distinct,
just as a fountain, or a field, or a wood happened to invite them
to settle. They raise their villages in opposite rows, but not in our
manner with the houses joined one to another. Every man has a
vacant space quite round his own, whether for security against accidents
from fire, or that they want the art of building. With them in
truth, is unknown even the use of mortar and of tiles. In all their
structures they employ materials quite gross and unhewn, void of
fashion and comeliness. Some parts they besmear with an earth so
pure and resplendent, that it resembles painting and colours. They
are likewise wont to scoop caves deep in the ground, and over them
to lay great heaps of dung. Thither they retire for shelter in the
winter, and thither convey their grain: for by such close places they
mollify the rigorous and excessive cold. Besides when at any time
their enemy invades them, he can only ravage the open country, but
either knows not such recesses as are invisible and subterraneous;
or must suffer them to escape him, on this very account that he is
uncertain where to find them.
For their covering a mantle is what they all wear, fastened with
a clasp or, for want of it, with a thorn. As far as this reaches not
they are naked, and lie whole days before the fire. The most wealthy
are distinguished with a vest, not one large and flowing like those
of Sarmatians and Parthians, but girt close about them and expressing
the proportion of every limb. They likewise wear the skins
of savage beasts, a dress which those bordering upon the Rhine use
without any fondness or delicacy, but about which such who live
further in the country are more curious, as void of all apparel introduced
by commerce. They choose certain wild beasts, and, having
flayed them, diversify their hides with many spots, as also with the
skins of monsters from the deep, such as are engendered in the
distant ocean and in seas unknown. Neither does the dress of the
women differ from that of the men, save that the women are
orderly attired in linen embroidered with purple, and use no sleeves,
so that all their arms are bare. The upper part of their breast is
withal exposed.

When your brain gets the joke

So what is a joke, exactly? Most theories agree that one condition is essential: there must be some kind of incongruity between two elements within the joke, which can be resolved in a playful or unexpected way. more>>

Tragic Death of a World-Famous Beauty (Feb8)

BURNS’ POEMS Vol. 6, pp. 396-406

LAMENT OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, ON THE
APPROACH OF SPRING

Now Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o’ daisies white
Out o’er the grassy lea;
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies;
But nought can glad the weary wight
That fast in durance lies.

Now laverocks wake the merry morn
Aloft on dewy wing;
The merle, in his noontide bow’r,
Makes woodland echoes ring;
The mavis wild wi’ mony a note,
Sings drowsy day to rest:
In love and freedom they rejoice,
Wi’ care nor thrall opprest.

Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn’s budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae:

POEMS AND SONGS 397
The meanest hind in fair Scotland
May rove their sweets amang;
But I, the Queen of a’ Scotland,
Maun lie in prison Strang.

I was the Queen o’ bonie France,
Where happy I hae been;
Fu’ lightly raise I in the morn,
As blythe lay down at e’en:
And I’m the sov’reign of Scotland,
And mony a traitor there;
Yet here I lie in foreign bands,
And never-ending care.

But as for thee, thou false woman,
My sister and my fae,
Grim Vengeance yet shall whet a sword
That thro’ thy soul shall gae;
The weeping blood in woman’s breast
Was never known to thee;
Nor th’ balm that draps on wounds of woe
Frae woman’s pitying e’e.

My son! my son! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine;
And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That ne’er wad blink on mine!
God keep thee frae thy mother’s faes,
Or turn their hearts to thee:
And where thou meet’st thy mother’s friend,
Remember him for me!

O! soon, to me, may Summer suns
Nae mair light up the morn!
Nae mair to me the Autumn winds
Wave o’er the yellow corn?
And, in the narrow house of death,
Let Winter round me rave;
And the next flow’rs that deck the Spring,
Bloom on my peaceful grave!

398 ROBERT BURNS
THERE’LL NEVER BE PEACE TILL JAMIE COMES
HAME
BY yon Castle wa’, at the close of the day,
I heard a man sing, tho’ his head it was grey:
And as he was singing, the tears doon came,—
There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

The Church is in ruins, the State is in jars,
Delusions, oppressions, and murderous wars,
We dare na weel say’t, but we ken wha’s to blame,—
There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

My seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword,
But now I greet round their green beds in the yerd;
It brak the sweet heart o’ my faithful auld dame,—
There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

Now life is a burden that bows me down,
Sin’ I tint my bairns, and he tint his crown;
But till my last moments my words are the same,—
There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

SONG—OUT OVER T H E FORTH
OUT over the Forth, I look to the North;
But what is the north and its Highlands to me?
The south nor the east gie ease to my breast,
The far foreign land, or the wide rolling sea.
But I look to the west when I gae to rest,
That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be;
For far in the west lives he I loe best,
The man that is dear to my babie and me.

THE BANKS O’ D OON
FIRST VERSION
SWEET are the banks—the banks o* Doon,
The spreading flowers are fair,
And everything is blythe and glad,
But I am fu’ o’ care.

POEMS AND SONGS 399
Thou’Il break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings upon the bough;
Thou minds me o’ the happy days
When my fause Luve was true:
Thou’Il break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o’ my fate.

Aft hae I rov’d by bonie Doon,
To see the woodbine twine;
And ilka birds sang o’ its Luve,
And sae did I o’ mine:
Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,
Upon its thorny tree;
But my fause Luver staw my rose,
And left the thorn wi’ me:
Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,
Upon a morn in June;
And sae I flourished on the morn,
And sae was pu’d or noon!

THE BANKS O’ DOON
SECOND VERSION
YE flowery banks o’ bonie Doon,
How can ye blume sae fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu’ o care!
Thou’Il break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings upon the bough!
Thou minds me o’ the happy days
When my fause Luve was true.
Thou’Il break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o’ my fate.

Aft hae I rov’d by bonie Doon,
To see the woodbine twine;

400 ROBERT BURNS
And ilka bird sang o’ its Luve,
And sae did I o’ mine.
Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,
Upon its thorny tree;
But my fause Luver staw my rose,
And left the thorn wi’ me.
Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,
Upon a morn in June;
And sae I flourished on the morn,
And sae was pu’d or noon.

THE BANKS O* DOON
THIRD VERSION
YE banks and braes o’ bonie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye litde birds,
And I sae weary fu’ o’ care!
Thou’ll break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn:
Thou minds me o’ departed joys,
Departed never to return.
Aft hae I rov’d by Bonie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine:
And ilka bird sang o’ its Luve,
And fondly sae did I o’ mine;
Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,
Fu’ sweet upon its thorny tree!
And my fause Luver staw my rose,
But ah! he left the thorn wi’ me.

LAMENT FOR JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN
THE wind blew hollow frae the hills,
By fits the sun’s departing beam
Look’d on the fading yellow woods,
That wav’d o’er Lugar’s winding stream:
Beneath a craigy steep, a Bard,
Laden with years and meikle pain,
In loud lament bewail’d his lord,
Whom Death had all untimely ta’en.

POEMS AND SONGS 401
He lean’d him to an ancient aik,
Whose trunk was mould’ring down with years;
His locks were bleached white with time,
His hoary cheek was wet wi’ tears!
And as he touch’d his trembling harp,
And as he tun’d his doleful sang,
The winds, lamenting thro’ their caves,
To Echo bore the notes alang.

“Ye scatter’d birds that faintly sing,
The reliques o’ the vernal queir!
Ye woods that shed on a’ the winds
The honours of the aged year!
A few short months, and glad and gay,
Again ye’ll charm the car and e’e;
But nocht in all-revolving time
Can gladness bring again to me.

“I am a bending aged tree,
That long has stood the wind and rain;
But now has come a cruel blast,
And my last hald of earth is gane;
Nae leaf o’ mine shall greet the spring,
Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom;
But I maun lie before the storm,
And ithers plant them in my room.

“I’ve seen sae mony changefu’ years,
On earth I am a stranger grown:
I wander in the ways of men,
Alike unknowing, and unknown:
Unheard, unpitied, unreliev’d,
I bear alane my lade o’ care,
For silent, low, on beds of dust,
Lie a’ that would my sorrows share.

“And last, (the sum of a’ my griefs!)
My noble master lies in clay;
Trie flow’r amang our barons bold,
His country’s pride, his country’s stay:

402 ROBERT BURNS
In weary being now I pine,
For a’ the life of life is dead,
And hope has left my aged ken,
On forward wing for ever fled.

“Awake thy last sad voice, my harp!
The voice of woe and wild despair!
Awake, resound thy latest lay,
Then sleep in silence evermair!
And thou, my last, best, only, friend,
That fillest an untimely tomb,
Accept this tribute from the Bard
Thou brought from Fortune’s mirkest gloom.

“In Poverty’s low barren vale,
Thick mists obscure involv’d me round;
Though oft I turn’d the wistful eye,
Nae ray of fame was to be found:
Thou found’st me, like the morning sun
That melts the fogs in limpid air,
The friendless bard and rustic song
Became alike thy fostering care.

“O! why has worth so short a date,
While villains ripen grey with time?
Must thou, the noble, gen’rous, great,
Fall in bold manhood’s hardy prim
Why did I live to see that day—
A day to me so full of woe?
O! had I met the mortal shaft
That laid my benefactor low!

“The bridegroom may forget the bride
Was made his wedded wife yestreen;
The monarch may forget the crown
That on his head an hour has been;
The mother may forget the child
That smiles sae sweedy on her knee;
But I’ll remember thee, Glencairn,
And a’ that thou hast done for me!”

POEMS AND SONGS 403
LINES SENT TO SIR JOHN WHITEFORD, BART
WITH THE LAMENT ON THE DEATH OF THE EARL OF CLENCAIRN
THOU, who thy honour as thy God rever’st,
Who, save thy mind’s reproach, nought earthly fear’st,
To thee this votive offering I impart,
The tearful tribute of a broken heart.
The Friend thou valued’st, I, the Patron lov’d;
His worth, his honour, all the world approved:
We’ll mourn till we too go as he has gone,
And tread the shadowy path to that dark world unknown.

CRAIGIEBURN WOOD
SWEET closes the ev’ning on Craigieburn Wood,
And blythely awaukens the morrow;
But the pride o’ the spring in the Craigieburn Wood
Can yield to me nothing but sorrow.

Chorus.—Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie,
And O to be lying beyond thee!
O sweetly, soundly, weel may he sleep
That’s laid in the bed beyond thee!

I see the spreading leaves and flowers,
I hear the wild birds singing;
But pleasure they hae nane for me,
While care my heart is wringing.
Beyond thee, SEC.

I can na tell, I maun na tell,
I daur na for your anger;
But secret love will break my heart,
If I conceal it langer.
Beyond thee, Sec.

I see thee gracefu’, straight and tall,
I see thee sweet and bonie;
But oh, what will my torment be,
If thou refuse thy Johnie!
Beyond thee, See.

ROBERT BURNS
THE BONIE WEE THING
Chorus.—Bonie wee thing, cannie wee thing,
Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine,
I wad wear thee in my bosom,
Lest my jewel it should tine.

WISHFULLY I look and languish
In that bonie face o’ thine,
And my heart it stounds wi’ anguish,
Lest my wee thing be na mine.
Bonie wee thing, &c

Wit, and Grace, and Love, and Beauty,
In ae constellation shine;
To adore thee is my duty,
Goddess o’ this soul o’ mine!
Bonie wee thing, &c.

EPIGRAM O N MISS DAVIES
being asked why she had been formed so litde, and
Mrs. A so big.
ASK why God made the gem so small ?
And why so huge the granite?—
Because God meant mankind should set
That higher value on it.

To see thee in another’s arms,
In love to lie and languish,
Twad be my dead, that will be seen,
My heart wad burst wi’ anguish.
Beyond thee, Sec
But Jeanie, say thou wilt be mine,
Say thou lo’es nane before me;
And a’ my days o’ life to come
111 gratefully adore thee,
Beyond thee, &c

POEMS AND SONGS 405
THE CHARMS OF LOVELY DAVIES
Tune—”Miss Muir.”
0 HOW shall I, unskilfu’, try
The poet’s occupation?
The tunefu’ powers, in happy hours,
That whisper inspiration;
Even they maun dare an effort mair
Than aught they ever gave us,
Ere they rehearse, in equal verse,
The charms o’ lovely Davies.

Each eye it cheers when she appears,
Like Phoebus in the morning,
When past the shower, and every flower
The garden is adorning:
As the wretch looks o’er Siberia’s shore,
When winter-bound the wave is;
Sae droops our heart, when we maun part
Frae charming, lovely Davies.

Her smile’s a gift frae ‘boon the lift,
That maks us mair than princes;
A sceptred hand, a king’s command,
Is in her darting glances;
The man in arms ‘gainst female charms
Even he her willing slave is,
He hugs his chain, and owns the reign
Of conquering, lovely Davies.

My Muse, to dream of such a theme,
Her feeble powers surrender:
The eagle’s gaze alone surveys
The sun’s meridian splendour.
1 wad in vain essay the strain,
The deed too daring brave is;
I’ll drap the lyre, and mute admire
The charms o’ lovely Davies.

406 ROBERT BURNS
WHAT CAN A YOUNG LASSIE DO WI’ AN AULD MAN
WHAT can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie,
What can a young lassie do wi’ an auld man?
Bad luck on the penny that tempted my minnie
To sell her puir Jenny for siller an’ lan’!

Bad luck on the penny that tempted my minnie
To sell her puir Jenny for siller an’ lan’.
He’s always compleenin’ frae mornin’ to e’enin’,
He hoasts and he hirples the weary day lang;
He’s doylt and he’s dozin, his bludc it is frozen,—
O, dreary’s the night wi’ a crazy auld man!

He’s doylt and he’s dozin, his blude it is frozen,
O, dreary’s the night wi’ a crazy auld man.
He hums and he hankers, he frets and he cankers,
I never can please him do a’ that I can;
He’s peevish an’ jealous o’ a’ the young fellows,—
O, dool on the day I met wi’ an auld man!

He’s peevish an’ jealous o’ a’ the young fellows,
O, dool on the day I met wi’ an auld man.
My auld auntie Katie upon me taks pity,
I’ll do my endeavour to follow her plan;

I’ll cross him an’ wrack him, until I heartbreak him
And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan,
I’ll cross him an’ wrack him, until I heartbreak him,
And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan.

A Letter from a Lion (Feb7)

 LETTER TO LORD CHESTERFIELD Vol. 39, pp. 206-207

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE EARL
OF CHESTERFIELD

February 7, 1755.

MY LORD:
I HAVE lately been informed by the proprietor of The World,
that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the
public, were written by your Lordship. To be so distinguished is
an honor which, being very little accustomed to favours from the
great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to
acknowledge.
When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your Lordship,
I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment
of your address; and I could not forbear to wish that I might
boast myself ‘Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre’; that I might
obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I
found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor
modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed
your Lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing

LETTER TO CHESTERFIELD 207
which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all
that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected,
be it ever so little.
Seven years, my Lord, have now passed, since I waited in your
outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time
I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is
useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of
publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement,
or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I
never had a Patron before.
The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and
found him a native of the rocks.
Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man
struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground,
encumbers him with help ? The notice which you have been pleased
to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been
delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary,
and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is
no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit
has been received, or to be unwilling that the Public should consider
me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled
me to do for myself.
Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to
any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should
conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened
from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so
much exultation,

My Lord, Your Lordship’s most humble,
Most obedient servant, SAM. JOHNSON.

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Charles Lamb Suggests To-day’s Reading (Feb6)

Marlowe’s EDWARD THE SECOND Vol. 46, pp. 73-89

[SCENE II. The royal palace]

Enter QUEEN ISABELLA and Young MORTIMER

Y. Mor. Fair Isabel, now have we our desire;
The proud corrupters of the light-brain’d king
Have done their homage to the lofty gallows,
And he himself lies in captivity.
Be rul’d by me, and we will rule the realm.
In any case take heed of childish fear,
For now we hold an old wolf by the ears,
That, if he slip, will seize upon us both,
And gripe the sorer, being grip’d himself.
Think therefore, madam, that imports us much
To erect your son with all the speed we may,
And that I be protector over him;
For our behoof will bear the greater sway
Whenas a king’s name shall be under writ.
Q. Isab. Sweet Mortimer, the life of Isabel,
Be thou persuaded that I love thee well,
And therefore, so the prince my son be safe,
Whom I esteem as dear as these mine eyes,
Conclude against his father what thou wilt,
And I myself will willingly subscribe.
Y. Mor. First would I hear news that he were depos’d,
And then let me alone to handle him.

74 MARLOWE
Enter MESSENGER

Letters! from whence?
Mess. From Killingworth, my lord.
Q. Isab. How fares my lord the king?
Mess. In health, madam, but full of pensiveness.
Q. Isab. Alas, poor soul, would I could ease his grief!
[Enter the BISHOP OF WINCHESTER with the crown.]
Thanks, gentle Winchester. [To the Messenger. ] Sirrah, be gone.
[Exit Messenger.]

B. of Win. The king hath willingly resign’d his crown.
Q. Isab. O happy news! send for the prince, my son.
B. of Win. Further, or this letter was seal’d, Lord Berkeley came,
So that he now is gone from Killingworth;
And we have heard that Edmund laid a plot
To set his brother free; no more but so.
The lord of Berkeley is as pitiful
As Leicester that had charge of him before.
Q. Isab. Then let some other be his guardian.
Y. Mor. Let me alone, here is the privy seal.

[Exit the BISHOP OF WINCHESTER.]

Who’s there?—Call hither Gurney and Matrevis.
[To Attendants within.]
To dash the heavy-headed Edmund’s drift,
Berkeley shall be discharg’d, the king remov’d,
And none but we shall know where he lieth.
Q. Isab. But, Mortimer, as long as he survives,
What safety rests for us, or for my son?
y . Mor. Speak, shall he presently be despatch’d and die ?
Q. Isab. I would he were, so ’twere not by my means.

Enter MATREVIS and GURNEY

Y.Mor. Enough.—
Matrevis, write a letter presently
Unto the lord of Berkeley from ourself
That he resign the king to thee and Gurney;
And when ’tis done, we will subscribe our name.

EDWARD THE SECOND 75
Mat. It shall be done, my lord. [Writes.]
Y. Mor. Gurney.
Gur. My lord.
Y. Mor. As thou intend’st to rise by Mortimer,
Who now makes Fortune’s wheel turn as he please,
Seek all the means thou canst to make him droop,
And neither give him kind word nor good look.
Gur. I warrant you, my lord.
Y. Mor. And this above the rest: because we hear
That Edmund casts1 to work his liberty,
Remove him still from place to place by night,
Till at the last he come to Killingworth,
And then from thence to Berkeley back again;
And by the way, to make him fret the more,
Speak curstly to him, and in any case
Let no man comfort him; if he chance to weep,
But amplify his grief with bitter words.
Mat. Fear not, my lord, we’ll do as you command.
Y. Mor. So now away; post thitherwards amain.
Q. Isab. Whither goes this letter ? T o my lord the king ?
Commend me humbly to his majesty,
And tell him that I labour all in vain
To ease his grief, and work his liberty;
And bear him this as witness of my love. [Gives a ring.]
Mat. I will, madam. Exit with GURNEY.

Enter PRINCE EDWARD, and KENT talking with him

Y. Mor. Finely dissembled. Do so still, sweet queen.
Here comes the young prince with the Earl of Kent.
Q. Isab. Something he whispers in his childish ears.
Y. Mor. If he have such access unto the prince,
Our plots and stratagems will soon be dash’d.
Q. Isab. Use Edmund friendly, as if all were well.
Y. Mor. How fares my honourable lord of Kent?
Kent. In health, sweet Mortimer. How fares your grace ?
Q. Isab. Well, if my lord your brother were enlarg’d.
1 Plots.

76 MARLOWE
Kent. I hear of late he hath depos’d himself.
Q. Isab. The more my grief.
Y. Mor. And mine.
Kent. Ah, they do dissemble! [Aside.]
Q. Isab. Sweet son, come hither, I must talk with thee.
Y. Mor. You being his uncle, and the next of blood,
Do look to be protector o’er the prince.
Kent. Not I, my lord; who should protect the son,
But she that gave him life? I mean the queen.
P. Edw. Mother, persuade me not to wear the crown:
Let him be king—I am too young to reign.
Q. Isab. But be content, seeing ’tis his highness’ pleasure.
P. Edw. Let me but see him first, and then I will.
Kent. Ay, do, sweet nephew.
Q. Isab. Brother, you know it is impossible.
P. Edw. Why, is he dead?
Q. Isab. No, God forbid!
Kent. I would those words proceeded from your heart.
Y. Mor. Inconstant Edmund, dost thou favour him,
That wast the cause of his imprisonment?
Kent. The more cause have I now to make amends.
Y. Mor. [Aside to Q. ISAB.] I tell thee, ’tis not meet that one so
false
Should come about the person of a prince.—
My lord, he hath betray’d the king his brother,
And therefore trust him not.
P. Edw. But he repents, and sorrows for it now.
Q. Isab. Come, son, and go with this gentle lord and me.
P. Edw. With you I will, but not with Mortimer.
Y. Mor. Why, youngling, ’sdain’st thou so of Mortimer ?
Then I will carry thee by force away.
P. Edw. Help, uncle Kent! Mortimer will wrong me.
Q. Isab. Brother Edmund, strive not; we are his friends;
Isabel is nearer than the Earl of Kent.
Kent. Sister, Edward is my charge, redeem him.
Q. Isab. Edward is my son, and I will keep him.
Kent. Mortimer shall know that he hath wrong’d me!—•
Hence will I haste to Killingworth Castle,

EDWARD THE SECOND 77
And rescue aged Edward from his foes,
To be reveng’d on Mortimer and thee.
[Aside.] Exeunt [on one side QUEEN ISABELLA,
PRINCE EDWARD, and Young MORTIMER; on
the other KENT.]
[SCENE III. Kenilworth Castle]
Enter MATREVIS and GURNEY [and Soldiers,] with KING EDWARD
Mat. My lord, be not pensive, we are your friends;
Men are ordain’d to live in misery,
Therefore come,—dalliance dangereth our lives.
K. Edw. Friends, whither must unhappy Edward go?
Will hateful Mortimer appoint no rest?
Must I be vexed like the nightly bird,
Whose sight is loathsome to all winged fowls?
When will the fury of his mind assuage ?
When will his heart be satisfied with blood ?
If mine will serve, unbowel straight this breast,
And give my heart to Isabel and him;
It is the chiefest mark they level at.
Gur. Not so my liege, the queen hath given this charge
To keep your grace in safety;
Your passions make your dolours to increase.
K. Edw. This usage makes my misery to increase.
But can my air of life continue long
When all my senses are annoy’d with stench?
Within a dungeon England’s king is kept,
Where I am starv’d for want of sustenance.
My daily diet is heart-breaking sobs,
That almost rents the closet of my heart.
Thus lives old Edward not reliev’d by any,
And so must die, though pitied by many.
O, water, gentle friends, to cool my thirst,
And clear my body from foul excrements!
Mat. Here’s channel1 water, as our charge is given.
Sit down, for we’ll be barbers to your grace.
1 Gutter.

78 MARLOWE
K. Edw. Traitors, away! What, will you murder me,
Or choke your sovereign with puddle water ?
Gur. No; but wash your face, and shave away your beard,
Lest you be known and so be rescued.
Mat. Why strive you thus? Your labour is in vain!
K. Edw. The wren may strive against the lion’s strength,
But all in vain: so vainly do I strive
To seek for mercy at a tyrant’s hand.
They wash him with puddle water, and shave
beard away.
Immortal powers! that knows the painful cares
That wait upon my poor distressed soul,
O level all your looks upon these daring men,
That wrongs their liege and sovereign, England’s king!
O Gaveston, ’tis for thee that I am wrong’d,
For me, both thou and both the Spencers died!
And for your sakes a thousand wrongs I’ll take.
The Spencers’ ghosts, wherever they remain,
Wish well to mine; then tush, for them I’ll die.
Mat. ‘Twixt theirs and yours shall be no enmity.
Come, come away; now put the torches out,
We’ll enter in by darkness to Killingworth.
Enter KENT
Gur. How now, who comes there?
Mat. Guard the king sure: it is the Earl of Kent.
K. Edw. O gentle brother, help to rescue me!
Mat. Keep them asunder; thrust in the king.
Kent. Soldiers, let me but talk to him one word.
Gur. Lay hands upon the earl for his assault.
Kent. Lay down your weapons, traitors! Yield the king!
Mat. Edmund, yield thou thyself, or thou shalt die.
Kent. Base villains, wherefore do you gripe me thus ?
Gur. Bind him and so convey him to the court.
Kent. Where is the court but here? Here is the king;
And I will visit him; why stay you me?

EDWARD THE SECOND 79
Mat. The court is where Lord Mortimer remains;
Thither shall your honour go; and so farewell.
Exeunt MATREVIS and GURNEY, with KING EDWARD.
Kent. O miserable is that commonweal,
Where lords keep courts, and kings are locked in prison!
Sol. Wherefore stay we? On, sirs, to the court!
Kent. Ay, lead me whither you will, even to my death,
Seeing that my brother cannot be releas’d. Exeunt.
[SCENE I V . The royal palace]
Enter Young MORTIMER
Y. Mor. The king must die, or Mortimer goes down;
The commons now begin to pity him.
Yet he that is the cause of Edward’s death,
Is sure to pay for it when his son’s of age;
And therefore will I do it cunningly.
This letter, written by a friend of ours,
Contains his death, yet bids them save his life. [Reads.]
“Edwardum occidere nolite timere, bonum est
Fear not to kill the king, ’tis good he die.”
But read it thus, and that’s another sense:
“Edwardum occidere nolite, timere bonum est
Kill not the king, ’tis good to fear the worst.”
Unpointed as it is, thus shall it go,
That, being dead, if it chance to be found,
Matrevis and the rest may bear the blame,
And we be quit that caus’d it to be done.
Within this room is lock’d the messenger
That shall convey it, and perform the rest;
And by a secret token that he bears,
Shall he be murdered when the deed is done.—
Lightborn, come forth!
Enter LIGHTBORN
Art thou as resolute as thou wast?
Light. What else, my lord? And far more resolute.

80 MARLOWE
Y. Mor. And hast thou cast1 how to accomplish it ?
Light. Ay, ay, and none shall know which way he died.
Y. Mor. But at his looks, Lightborn, thou wilt relent.
Light. Relent! ha, ha! I use much to relent.
Y. Mor. Well, do it bravely, and be secret.
Light. You shall not need to give instructions;
‘Tis not the first time I have kill’d a man.
I learn’d in Naples how to poison flowers;
To strangle with a lawn thrust through the throat;
To pierce the windpipe with a needle’s point;
Or whilst one is asleep, to take a quill
And blow a little powder in his ears;
Or open his mouth and pour quicksilver down.
And yet I have a braver way than these.
Y. Mor. What’s that?
Light. Nay, you shall pardon me; none shall know my tricks.
Y. Mor. I care not how it is, so it be not spied.
Deliver this to Gurney and Matrevis. [Gives letter
At every ten mile end thou hast a horse.
Take this; [Gives money] away! and never see me more.
Light. No!
Y. Mor. No;
Unless thou bring me news of Edward’s death.
Light. That will I quickly do. Farewell, my lord. [Exit
Y. Mor. The prince I rule, the queen do I command,
And with a lowly conge to the ground,
The proudest lords salute me as I pass;
I seal, I cancel, I do what I will.
Fear'd am I more than lov'd;—let me be fear'd,
And when I frown, make all the court look pale.
I view the prince with Aristarchus' eyes,
Whose looks were as a breeching to a boy.
They thrust upon me the protectorship,
And sue to me for that that I desire.
While at the council-table, grave enough,
And not unlike a bashful puritan,
1 Planned.

EDWARD THE SECOND 81
First I complain of imbecility,
Saying it is onus quam gravissimum;2
Till being interrupted by my friends,
Suscepi that provinciam3 as they term it;
And to conclude, I am Protector now.
Now is all sure: the queen and Mortimer
Shall rule the realm, the king; and none rule us.
Mine enemies will I plague, my friends advance;
And what I list command who dare control?
Major sum quam cut possit jortuna nocere.*
And that this be the coronation-day,
It pleaseth me, and Isabel the queen. [Trumpets within.]
The trumpets sound, I must go take my place.
Enter the Young KING, QUEEN ISABELLA, the ARCHBISHOP
OF CANTERBURY, Champion and Nobles
A. of Cant. Long live King Edward, by the grace of God
King of England and Lord of Ireland!
Cham. If any Christian, Heathen, Turk, or Jew,
Dares but affirm that Edward’s not true king,
And will avouch his saying with the sword,
I am the champion that will combat him.
Y. Mor. None comes, sound trumpets. [Trumpets sound.]
K. Edw. Third. Champion, here’s to thee.
[Gives a purse.]
Q. Isab. Lord Mortimer, now take him to your charge.
Enter Soldiers, with KENT prisoner
Y. Mor. What traitor have we there with blades and bills?
Sol. Edmund, the Earl of Kent.
K. Edw. Third. What hath he done?
Sol. ‘A would have taken the king away perforce,
As we were bringing him to Killingworth.
Y. Mor. Did you attempt this rescue, Edmund ? Speak.
2 A very heavy burden. 3 / have undertaken that office. * I am too great for
fortune to injure. Ovid, Metam. vi. 195.

82 MARLOWE
Kent. Mortimer, I did; he is our king,
And thou compell’st this prince to wear the crown.
Y. Mor. Strike off his head! he shall have martial law.
Kent. Strike off my head! Base traitor, I defy thee!
K. Edw. Third. My lord, he is my uncle, and shall live.
Y. Mor. My lord, he is your enemy, and shall die.
Kent. Stay, villains!
K. Edw. Third. Sweet mother, if I cannot pardon him,
Entreat my Lord Protector for his life.
Q. Isab. Son, be content; I dare not speak a word.
K. Edw. Third. Nor I, and yet methinks I should command;
But, seeing I cannot, I’ll entreat for him—
My lord, if you will let my uncle live,
I will requite it when I come to age.
Y. Mor. ‘Tis for your highness’ good, and for the realm’s.—
How often shall I bid you bear him hence ?
Kent. Art thou king? Must I die at thy command?
Y. Mor. At our command—Once more away with him.
Kent. Let me but stay and speak; I will not go.
Either my brother or his son is king,
And none of both them thirst for Edmund’s blood:
And therefore, soldiers, whither will you hale me ?
Soldiers hale KENT away, to be beheaded.
K. Edw. Third. What safety may I look for at his hands,
If that my uncle shall be murdered thus?
Q. Isab. Fear not, sweet boy, I’ll guard thee from thy foes;
Had Edmund lived, he would have sought thy death.
Come, son, we’ll ride a-hunting in the park.
K. Edw. Third. And shall my uncle Edmund ride with us ?
Q. Isab. He is a traitor; think not on him; come. Exeunt.
[SCENE V . Berkeley Castle]
Enter MATREVIS and GURNEY
Mat. Gurney, I wonder the king dies not,
Being in a vault up to the knees in water,
To which the channels of the castle run,

EDWARD THE SECOND 83
From whence a damp continually ariseth,
That were enough to poison any man,
Much more a king brought up so tenderly.
Gur. And so do I, Matrevis: yesternight
I opened but the door to throw him meat,
And I was almost stifled with the savour.
Mat. He hath a body able to endure
More than we can inflict: and therefore now
Let us assail his mind another while.
Gur. Send for him out thence, and I will anger him.
Mat. But stay, who’s this?
Enter LIGHTBORN
Light. My Lord Protector greets you. [Gives letter.]
Gur. What’s here ? I know not how to construe it.
Mat. Gurney, it was left unpointed for the nonce;
“Edwardum occidere nolite timere,”
That’s his meaning.
Light. Know ye this token? I must have the king.
[Gives to\en.]
Mat. Ay, stay awhile, thou shalt have answer straight.
This villain’s sent to make away the king. [Aside.]
Gur. I thought as much. [Aside.]
Mat. And when the murder’s done,
See how he must be handled for his labour.
Pereat iste!1 Let him have the king. [Aside.]
What else ? Here is the key, this is the lake,2
Do as you are commanded by my lord.
Light. I know what I must do. Get you away.
Yet be not far off, I shall need your help;
See that in the next room I have a fire,
And get me a spit, and let it be red-hot.
Mat. Very well.
Gur. Need you anything besides?
Light. What else? A table and a feather-bed.
Gur. That’s all ?
1 Let this man die. 2 Perhaps for “lock.”

84 MARLOWE
Light. Ay, ay; so, when I call you, bring it in.
Mat. Fear not thou that.
Gur. Here’s a light, to go into the dungeon.
[Gives a light, and then exit with MATREVIS.]
Light. So now
Must I about this gear;3 ne’er was there any
So finely handled as this king shall be.
For, here’s a place indeed, with all my heart!
K. Edw. Who’s there? What light is that? wherefore com’st
thou?
Light. To comfort you, and bring you joyful news.
K. Edw. Small comfort finds poor Edward in thy looks.
Villain, I know thou com’st to murder me.
Light. To murder you, my most gracious lord!
Far is it from my heart to do you harm.
The queen sent me to see how you were used,
For she relents at this your misery:
And what eyes can refrain from shedding tears,
To see a king in this most piteous state ?
K. Edw. Weep’st thou already? List awhile to me
And then thy heart, were it as Gurney’s is,
Or as Matrevis’, hewn from the Caucasus,
Yet will it melt, ere I have done my tale.
This dungeon where they keep me is the sink
Wherein the filth of all the castle falls.
Light. O villains!
K. Edw. And there in mire and puddle have I stood
This ten days’ space; and, lest that I should sleep,
One plays continually upon a drum.
They give me bread and water, being a king;
So that, for want of sleep and sustenance,
My mind’s distempered, and my body’s numb’d,
And whether I have limbs or no I know not.
O, would my blood dropp’d out from every vein,
As doth this water from my tattered robes.
Tell Isabel, the queen, I look’d not thus,
8 Business.

EDWARD THE SECOND 85
When for her sake I ran at tilt in France,
And there unhors’d the Duke of Cleremont.
Light. O speak no more, my lord! this breaks my heart.
Lie on this bed, and rest yourself awhile.
K. Edw. These looks of thine can harbour nought but death:
I see my tragedy written in thy brows.
Yet stay a while; forbear thy bloody hand,
And let me see the stroke before it comes,
That even then when I shall lose my life,
My mind may be more steadfast on my God.
Light. What means your highness to mistrust me thus?
K. Edw. What mean’st thou to dissemble with me thus?
Light. These hands were never stain’d with innocent blood,
Nor shall they now be tainted with a king’s.
K. Edw. Forgive my thought for having such a thought.
One jewel have I left; receive thou this. [Giving jewel.}
Still fear I, and I know not what's the cause,
But every joint shakes as I give it thee.
O, if thou harbour'st murder in thy heart, •
Let this gift change thy mind, and save thy soul!
Know that I am a king: O, at that name
I feel a hell of grief! Where is my crown?
Gone, gone! and do I still remain alive?
Light. You're overwatch'd, my lord; lie down and rest.
K. Edw. But that grief keeps me waking, I should sleep;
For not these ten days have these eye-lids clos'd.
Now as I speak they fall, and yet with fear
Open again. O wherefore sitt'st thou here?
Light. If you mistrust me, I'll begone, my lord.
K. Edw. No, no, for if thou mean'st to murder me,
Thou wilt return again, and therefore stay. [Sleeps.]
Light. He sleeps.
K. Edw. [waging], O let me not die yet! O stay a while!
Light. How now, my lord?
K. Edw. Something still buzzeth in mine ears,
And tells me if I sleep I never wake;
This fear is that which makes me tremble thus.

86 MARLOWE
And therefore tell me, wherefore art thou come?
Light. To rid thee of thy life.—Matrevis, come!
Enter MATREVIS and GURNEY
K. Edw. I am too weak and feeble to resist:—
Assist me, sweet God, and receive my soul!
Light. Run for the table.
K. Edw. O spare me, or despatch me in a trice.
[MATREVIS brings in a table.]
Light. So, lay the table down, and stamp on it,
But not too hard, lest that you bruise his body.
[ K I NG EDWARD is murdered.]
Mat. I fear me that this cry will raise the town,
And therefore, let us take horse and away.
Light. Tell me, sirs, was it not bravely done?
Gur. Excellent well: take this for thy reward.
GURNEY stabs LIGHTBORN [who dies.]
Come, let us cast the body in the moat,
And bear the king’s to Mortimer our lord:
Away! Exeunt [with the bodies.]
[SCENE V I . The royal palace, London]
Enter Young MORTIMER and MATREVIS
Y. Mor. Is’t done, Matrevis, and the murderer dead ?
Mat. Ay, my good lord; I would it were undone!
Y. Mor. Matrevis, if thou now growest penitent
I’ll be thy ghostly father; therefore choose,
Whether thou wilt be secret in this,
Or else die by the hand of Mortimer.
Mat. Gurney, my lord, is fled, and will, I fear
Betray us both, therefore let me fly.
Y. Mor. Fly to the savages!
Mat. I humbly thank your honour. [Exit.]
Y. Mor. As for myself, I stand as Jove’s huge tree,
And others are but shrubs compar’d to me.
All tremble at my name, and I fear none;
Let’s see who dare impeach me for his death!

EDWARD THE SECOND 87
Enter QUEEN ISABELLA
Q. Isab. Ah, Mortimer, the k i ng my son hath news
His father’s dead, and we have murdered him!
Y. Mor. What if he have? The king is yet a child.
Q. Isab. Ay, but he tears his hair, and wrings his hands,
And vows to be reveng’d upon us both.
Into the council-chamber he is gone,
To crave the aid and succour of his peers.
Ay me! see here he comes, and they with him.
Now, Mortimer, begins our tragedy.
Enter KING EDWARD THE THIRD, LORDS, and Attendants.
1st Lord. Fear not, my lord, know that you are a king.
K. Edw. Third. Villain!—
Y. Mor. How now, my lord!
K. Edw. Third. Think not that I am frighted with thy words!
My father’s murdered through thy treachery;
And thou shalt die, and on his mournful hearse
Thy hateful and accursed head shall lie,
To witness to the world, that by thy means
His kingly body was too soon interr’d.
Q. Isab. Weep not, sweet son!
K. Edw. Third. Forbid me not to weep; he was my father;
And, had you lov’d him half so well as I,
You could not bear his death thus patiently.
But you, I fear, conspir’d with Mortimer.
1st Lord. Why speak you not unto my lord the k i ng ?
Y. Mor. Because I think scorn to be accus’d.
Who is the man dares say I murdered him ?
K. Edw. Third. Traitor! in me my loving father speaks,
And plainly saith, ’twas thou that murd’redst him.
Y. Mor. But has your grace no other proof than this?
K. Edw. Third. Yes, if this be the hand of Mortimer.
[Shewing letter.]
Y. Mor. False Gurney hath betray’d me and himself. [Aside.]
Q. Isab. I fear’d as much; murder cannot be hid. [Aside.]

88 MARLOWE
Y. Mor. It is my hand; what gather you by this?
K. Edw. Third. That thither thou didst send a murderer.
Y. Mor. What murderer ? Bring forth the man I sent.
K. Edw. Third. Ah, Mortimer, thou knowest that he is slain;
And so shalt thou be too.—Why stays he here
Bring him unto a hurdle, drag him forth;
Hang him, I say, and set his quarters up;
But bring his head back presently to me.
Q. Isab. For my sake, sweet son, pity Mortimer!
Y. Mor. Madam, entreat not, I will rather die,
Than sue for life unto a paltry boy.
K. Edw. Third. Hence with the traitor! with the murderer!
Y. Mor. Base Fortune, now I see, that in thy wheel
There is a point, to which when men aspire,
They tumble headlong down: that point I touch’d,
And, seeing there was no place to mount up higher,
Why should I grieve at my declining fall?—
Farewell, fair queen; weep not for Mortimer,
That scorns the world, and, as a traveller,
Goes to discover countries yet unknown.
K. Edw. Third. What! suffer you the traitor to delay ?
[Young MORTIMER is taken away by First Lord
and Attendants.]
Q. Isab. As thou receivedest thy life from me,
Spill not the blood of gentle Mortimer!
K. Edw. Third. This argues that you spilt my father’s blood,
Else would you not entreat for Mortimer.
Q. Isab. I spill his blood? No.
K. Edw. Third. Ay, madam, you; for so the rumour runs.
Q. Isab. That rumour is untrue; for loving thee,
Is this report rais’d on poor Isabel.
K. Edw. Third. I do not think her so unnatural.
2nd Lord. My lord, I fear me it will prove too true.
K. Edw. Third. Mother, you are suspected for his death
And therefore we commit you to the Tower
Till farther trial may be made thereof;
If you be guilty, though I be your son,

EDWARD THE SECOND 89
Think not to find me slack or pitiful.
Q. Isab. Nay, to my death, for too long have I liv’d
Whenas my son thinks to abridge my days.
K. Edw. Third. Away with her, her words enforce these tears,
And I shall pity her if she speak again.
Q. Isab. Shall I not mourn for my beloved lord,
And with the rest accompany him to his grave?
2nd Lord. Thus, madam, ’tis the king’s will you shall hence.
Q. Isab. He hath forgotten me; stay, I am his mother.
2nd Lord. That boots not; therefore, gentle madam, go.
Q. Isab. Then come, sweet death, and rid me of this grief.
[Exit.]
[Re-enter 1st Lord, with the head of Young MORTIMER]
1st Lord. My lord, here is the head of Mortimer.
K. Edw. Third. Go fetch my father’s hearse, where it shall lie;
And bring my funeral robes. [Exeunt Attendants.]
Accursed head,
Could I have rul’d thee then, as I do now.
Thou had’st not hatch’d this monstrous treachery!—
Here comes the hearse; help me to mourn, my lords.
[Re-enter Attendants with the hearse and funeral robes]
Sweet father, here unto thy murdered ghost
I offer up this wicked traitor’s head;
And let these tears, distilling from mine eyes,
Be witness of my grief and innocency. [Exeunt.]

Diamonds, Diamonds Everywhere! (Feb5)

THE THOUSAND AND ONE NICHTS Vol. 16, pp. 243-250

ES-SINDIBAD OF THE SEA 243

THE SECOND VOYAGE OF ES-SINDIBAD OF THE SEA

KNOW, O my brothers, that I was enjoying a most comfortable
life, and the most pure happiness, as ye were told yesterday, until
it occurred to my mind, one day, to travel again to the lands of other
people, and I felt a longing for the occupation of traffic, and the
pleasure of seeing the countries and islands of the world, and gaining
my subsistence. I resolved upon that affair, and, having taken forth
from my money a large sum, I purchased with it goods and merchandise
suitable for travel, and packed them up. Then I went to
the bank of the river, and found a handsome, new vessel, with sails
of comely canvas, and it had a numerous crew, and was superfluously
equipped. So I embarked my bales in it, as did also a
party of merchants besides, and we set sail that day. The voyage was
pleasant to us, and we ceased not to pass from sea to sea, and from
island to island; and at every place where we cast anchor, we met the
merchants and the grandees, and the sellers and buyers, and we sold
and bought, and exchanged goods. Thus we continued to do until
destiny conveyed us to a beautiful island, abounding with trees bearing
ripe fruits, where flowers diffused their fragrance, with birds
warbling, and pure rivers: but there was not in it an inhabitant, nor
a blower of a fire. The master anchored our vessel at that island and
the merchants with the other passengers landed there, to amuse
themselves with the sight of its trees, and to extol the perfection of
God, the One, the Omnipotent, and to wonder at the power of the
Almighty King. I also landed upon the island with the rest, and
sat by a spring of pure water among the trees. I had with me some
food, and I sat in that place eating what God (whose name be
exalted!) had allotted me. The zephyr was sweet to us in that
place, and the time was pleasant to me; so slumber overcame me,
and I reposed there, and became immersed in sleep, enjoying that
sweet zephyr, and the fragrant gales. I then arose, and found not
in the place a human being nor a Jinni. The vessel had gone with
the passengers, and not one of them remembered me, neither any
of the merchants nor any of the sailors: so they left me in the island.
I looked about it to the right and left, and found not in it any
one save myself. I was therefore affected with violent vexation, not

244 THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
to be exceeded, and my gall-bladder almost burst by reason of the
severity of my grief and mourning and fatigue. I had not with me
aught of worldly goods, neither food nor drink, and I had become
desolate, weary in my soul, and despairing of life; and 1 said, Not
every time doth the jar escape unbroken; and if I escaped the first
time, and found him who took me with him from the shore of the
island to the inhabited part, far, far from me this time is the prospect
of my finding him who will convey me to inhabited lands! Then
I began to weep and wail for myself until vexation overpowered me;
and I blamed myself for that which I had done, and for my having
undertaken this voyage and fatigue after I had been reposing at
ease in my abode and my country, in ample happiness, and enjoying
good food and good drink and good apparel, and had not been in
want of any thing, either of money or goods or merchandise. I
repented of my having gone forth from the city of Baghdad, and
set out on a voyage over the sea, after the fatigue that I had suffered
during my first voyage, and I felt at the point of destruction, and
said, Verily to God we belong, and verily unto Him we return!
And I was in the predicament of the mad. After that, I rose and
stood up, and walked about the island to the right and left, unable
to sit in one place. Then 1 climbed up a lofty tree; and began to
look from it to the right and left; but saw nought save! sky and
water, and trees and birds, and islands and sands. Looking, however,
with a scrutinizing eye, there appeared to me on the island
a white object, indistinctly seen in the distance, of enormous size:
so I descended from the tree, and went towards it, and proceeded
in that direction without stopping until I arrived at it; and lo, it
was a huge white dome, of great height and large circumference.
I drew near to it, and walked round it; but perceived no door to it;
and I found that I had not strength nor activity to climb it, on
account of its exceeding smoothness. I made a mark at the place
where I stood, and went round the dome measuring its circumference;
and, lo, it was fifty full paces; and I meditated upon some
means of gaining an entrance into it.
The close of the day, and the setting of the sun, had now drawn
near; and, behold, the sun was hidden, and the sky became dark,
and the sun was veiled from me. I therefore imagined that a cloud

ES-SINDIBAD OF THE SEA 245
had come over it; but this was in the season of summer: so I wondered;
and I raised my head, and, contemplating that object attentively,
I saw that it was a bird, of enormous size, bulky body, and
wide wings, flying in the air; and this it was that concealed the
body of the sun, and veiled it from view upon the island. At this
my wonder increased, and I remembered a story which travellers
and voyagers had told me long before, that there is, in certain of the
islands, a bird of enormous size, called the rukh, that feedeth its
young ones with elephants. I was convinced, therefore, that the dome
which I had seen was one of the eggs of the rukh. I wondered at
the works of God (whose name be exalted!); and while I was in
this state, lo, that bird alighted upon the dome, and brooded over
it with its wings, stretching out its legs behind upon the ground;
and it slept over it.—Extolled be the perfection of H im who sleepeth
not!—Thereupon I arose, and unwound my turban from my head,
and folded it and twisted it so that it became like a rope; and I
girded myself with it, binding it tightly round my waist, and tied
myself by it to one of the feet of that bird, and made the knot fast,
saying within myself, Perhaps this bird will convey me to a land
of cities and inhabitants, and that will be better than my remaining
in this island. I passed the night sleepless, fearing that if I slept,
the bird would fly away with me when I was not aware; and when
the dawn came, and morn appeared, the bird rose from its egg, and
uttered a great cry, and drew me up into the sky. It ascended and
soared up so high that I imagined it had reached the highest region
of the sky, and after that, it descended with me gradually until it
alighted with me upon the earth, and rested upon a lofty spot. So
when I reached the earth, I hastily untied the bond from its foot,
fearing it, though it knew not of me nor was sensible of me; and
after I had loosed my turban from it, and disengaged it from its
foot, shaking as I did so, I walked away. Then it took something
from the face of the earth in its talons, and soared to the upper
region of the sky; and I looked attentively at that thing, and, lo, it
was a serpent, of enormous size, of great body, which it had taken
and carried off towards the sea; and I wondered at that event.
After this I walked about that place, and found myself upon an
eminence, beneath which was a large, wide, deep valley; and by

246 THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
its side, a great mountain, very high; no one could see its summit
by reason of its excessive height, and no one had power to ascend it,
I therefore blamed myself for that which I had done, and said,
Would that I had remained in the island, since it is better than this
desert place; for in the island are found, among various fruits, what
I might have eaten, and I might have drunk of its rivers; but in this
place are neither trees nor fruits nor rivers: and there is no strength
nor power but in God, the High, the Great! Verily every time that
I escape from a calamity, I fall into another that is greater and more
severe!—Then I arose, and emboldened myself, and walked in that
valley; and I beheld its ground to be composed of diamonds, with
which they perforate minerals and jewels, and with which also they
perforate porcelain and the onyx; and it is a stone so hard that
neither iron nor rock have any effect upon it, nor can any one cut
off aught from it, or break it, unless by means of the lead-stone.
All that valley was likewise occupied by serpents and venomous
snakes, every one of them like a palm-tree; and by reason of its
enormous size, if an elephant came to it, it would swallow it. Those
serpents appeared in the night, and hid themselves in the day, fearing
lest the rukh and the vulture should carry them off, and after
that tear them in pieces; and the cause of that I know not. I remained
in that valley, repenting of what I had done, and said
within myself, By Allah, I have hastened my own destruction! The
day departed from me, and I began to walk along that valley, looking
for a place in which to pass the night, fearing those serpents, and
forgetting my food and drink and subsistence, occupied only by
care for my life. And there appeared to me a cave near by; so I
walked thither, and I found its entrance narrow. I therefore entered
it and, seeing a large stone by its mouth, I pushed it, and stopped
with it the mouth of the cave while I was within it; and I said
within myself, I am safe now that I have entered this place; and
when daylight shineth upon me, I will go forth, and see what
destiny will do. Then I looked within the cave, and beheld a huge
serpent sleeping at the upper end of it over its eggs. At this my
flesh quaked, and I raised my head, and committed my case to fate
and destiny; and I passed all the night sleepless, until the dawn
rose and shone, when I removed the stone with which I had closed

ES-SINDIBAD OF THE SEA 247
the entrance of the cave, and went forth from it, like one intoxicated,
giddy from excessive sleeplessness and hunger and fear.
I then walked along the valley; and while I was thus occupied, lo,
a great slaughtered animal fell before me, and I found no one. So I
wondered thereat extremely; and I remembered a story that I heard
long before from certain of the merchants and travellers, and persons
in the habit of journeying about,—that in the mountains of the diamonds
are experienced great terrors, and that no one can gain access
to the diamonds, but that the merchants who import them know
a stratagem by means of which to obtain them: that they take a
sheep, and slaughter it, and skin it, and cut up its flesh, which they
throw down from the mountain to the bottom of the valley: so,
descending fresh and moist, some of these stones stick to it. Then
the merchants leave it until midday, and birds of the large kind of
vulture and the aquiline vulture descend to that meat, and, taking it
in their talons, fly up to the top of the mountain; whereupon the
merchants come to them, and cry out at them, and they fly way
from the meat. The merchants then advance to that meat, and take
from it the stones sticking to it; after which they leave the meat for
the birds and the wild beasts, and carry the stones to their countries.
And no one can procure the diamonds but by means of this stratagem.—
Therefore when I beheld that slaughtered animal, and remembered
this story, I arose and went to the slaughtered beast. I
then selected a great number of these stones, and put them into my
pocket, and within my clothes; and I proceeded to select, and put
into my pockets and my girdle and my turban, and within my
clothes. And while I was doing thus, lo, another great slaughtered
animal. So I bound myself to it with my turban, and, laying myself
down on my back, placed it upon my bosom, and grasped it firmly.
Thus it was raised high above the ground; and, behold, a vulture
descended upon it, seized it with its talons, and flew up with it
into the air, with me attached to it; and it ceased not to soar up until
it had ascended with it to the summit of the mountain, when it
alighted with it, and was about to tear off some of it. And thereupon
a great and loud cry arose from behind that vulture, and something
made a clattering with a piece of wood upon the mountain;
whereat the vulture flew away in fear, and soared into the sky.

248 THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
I therefore disengaged myself from the slaughtered animal, with
the blood of which my clothes were polluted; and I stood by its
side. And, lo, the merchant who had cried out at the vulture
advanced to the slaughtered animal, and saw me standing there.
He spoke not to me; for he was frightened at me, and terrified;
but he came to the slaughtered beast, and turned it over; and, not
finding any thing upon it, he uttered a loud cry, and said, Oh, my
disappointment! There is no strength nor power but in God! We
seek refuge with God from Satan the accursed!—He repented, and
struck hand upon hand, and said, Oh, my grief! What is this affair?
—So I advanced to him, and he said to me, Who art thou, and what
is the reason of thy coming to this place? I answered him, Fear not,
nor be alarmed; for I am a human being, of the best of mankind;
and I was a merchant, and my tale is marvellous, and my story
extraordinary, and the cause of my coming to this mountain and
this valley is wondrous to relate. Fear not; for thou shalt receive of
me what will rejoice thee: I have with me abundance of diamonds,
of which I will give thee as much as will suffice thee, and every
piece that I have is better than all that would come to thee by other
means: therefore be not timorous nor afraid.—And upon this the
man thanked me, and prayed for me, and conversed with me; and,
lo, the other merchants heard me talking with their companion; so
they came to me. Each merchant had thrown down a slaughtered
animal; and when they came to us, they saluted me, and congratulated
me on my safety, and took me with them; and I acquainted
them with my whole story, relating to them what I had
suffered on my voyage, and telling them the cause of my arrival in
this valley. Then I gave to the owner of the slaughtered animal to
which I had attached myself an abundance of what I had brought
with me; and he was delighted with me, and prayed for me, and
thanked me for that; and the other merchants said to me, By Allah,
a new life hath been decreed thee; for no one ever arrived at this
place before thee and escaped from it; but praise be to God for thy
safety—They passed the next night in a pleasant and safe place, and
I passed the night with them, full of the utmost joy at my safety and
my escape from the valley of serpents, and my arrival in an inhabited
country.

ES-SINDIBAD OF THE SEA 249
And when day came, we arose and journeyed over that great
mountain, beholding in that valley numerous serpents; and we continued
to advance until we arrived at a garden in a great and beautiful
island, wherein were camphor-trees, under each of which trees
a hundred men might shade themselves. When any one desireth to
obtain some camphor from one of these trees, he maketh a perforation
in the upper part of it with something long, and catcheth what
descendeth from it. The liquid camphor floweth from it, and concreteth
like gum. It is the juice of that tree; and after this operation,
the tree drieth, and becometh firewood. In that island too is a
kind of wild beast called the rhinoceros which pastureth there like
oxen and buffaloes in our country; but the bulk of that wild beast is
greater than the bulk of the camel, and it eateth the tender leaves
of trees. It is a huge beast, with a single horn, thick, in the middle
of its head, a cubit in length, wherein is the figure of a man. And
in that island are some animals of the ox-kind. Moreover, the sailors,
and travellers, and persons in the habit of journeying about in the
mountains and the lands, have told us, that this wild beast which
is named the rhinoceros lifteth the great elephant upon its horn, and
pastureth with it upon the island and the shores, without being
sensible of it; and the elephant dieth upon its horn; and its fat,
melting by the heat of the sun, and flowing upon its head entereth
its eyes, so that it becometh blind. Then it lieth down upon the
shore, and the rukh cometh to it, and carrieth it off [with the elephant]
in its talons to its young ones, and feedeth them with it and
with that which is upon its horn, [namely the elephant]. I saw also
in that island abundance of the buffalo-kind, the like of which
existeth not among us.
The valley before mentioned containeth a great quantity of diamonds
such as I carried off and hid in my pockets. For these the
people gave me in exchange goods and commodities belonging to
them; and they conveyed them for me, giving me likewise pieces
of silver and pieces of gold; and I ceased not to proceed with them,
amusing myself with the sight of different countries, and of what
God hath created, from valley to valley and from city to city, we, in
our way, selling and buying, until we arrived at the city of El-
Basrah. We remained there a few days, and then I came to the

250 THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
city of Baghdad, the Abode of Peace, and came to my quarter, and
entered my house, bringing with me a great quantity of diamonds,
and money and commodities and goods in abundance. I met my
family and relations, bestowed alms and gifts, made presents to all
my family and companions, and began to eat well and drink well
and wear handsome apparel. I associated with friends, and companions,
forgot all that I had suffered, and ceased not to enjoy a
pleasant life and joyful heart and dilated bosom, with sport and
merriment. Every one who heard of my arrival came to me, and
inquired of me respecting my voyage, and the states of the different
countries: so I informed him, relating to him what I had experienced
and suffered; and he wondered at the severity of my sufferings, and
congratulated me on my safety.—This is the end of the account of
the events that befell me and happened to me during the second
voyage; and to-morrow, if it be the will of God (whose name be
exalted), I will relate to you the events of the third voyage.

“Genius, a Secret to Itself” (Feb4)

Carlyle’s CHARACTERISTICS Vol. 25, pp. 319-327

CHARACTERISTICS1

[1831]

THE healthy know not of their health, but only the sick:
this is the Physician’s Aphorism; and applicable in a far
wider sense than he gives it. We may say, it holds no less
in moral, intellectual, political, poetical, than in merely corporeal
therapeutics; that wherever, or in what shape soever, powers of the
sort which can be named vital are at work, herein lies the test of
their working right or working wrong.
In the Body, for example, as all doctors are agreed, the first condition
of complete health is, that each organ perform its function,
unconsciously, unheeded; let but any organ announce its separate
existence, were it even boastfully, and for pleasure, not for pain, then
already has one of those unfortunate ‘false centres of sensibility’
established itself, already is derangement there. The perfection of
bodily well-being is that the collective bodily activities seem one;
and be manifested, moreover, not in themselves, but in the action
they accomplish. If a Dr. Kitchiner boast that his system is in high
order, Dietetic Philosophy may indeed take credit; but the true
Peptician was that Countryman who answered that, ‘for his part,
he had no system.’ In fact, unity, agreement is always silent, or
soft-voiced; it is only discord that loudly proclaims itself. So long
as the several elements of Life, all fitly adjusted, can pour forth their
movement like harmonious tuned strings, it is a melody and unison;
Life, from its mysterious fountains, flows out as in celestial music

1. EDINBURGH REVIEW, NO. 108.—1. An Essay on the Origin and Prospects of
Man. By Thomas Hope. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1831.
2. Philosophische Vorlesungen, insbesondere uber Philosophic der Sprache und des
Wortes. Geschrieben und vorgetragen zu Dresden im December, 1828, und in den
ersten Tagen des Januars, 1829 (Philosophical Lectures, especially on the Philosophy
of Language and the Gift of Speech. Written and delivered at Dresden in December,
1828, and the early days of January, 1829). By Friedrich von Schlegel. 8vo. Vienna,
1830.
319

320 THOMAS CARLYLE
and diapason,—which also, like that other music of the spheres,
even because it is perennial and complete, without interruption and
without imperfection, might be fabled to escape the ear. Thus too,
in some languages, is the state of health well denoted by a term
expressing unity; when we feel ourselves as we wish to be, we say
that we are whole.
Few mortals, it is to be feared, are permanently blessed with that
felicity of ‘having no system’; nevertheless, most of us, looking back
on young years, may remember seasons of a light, aerial translucency
and elasticity and perfect freedom; the body had not yet
become the prison-house of the soul, but was its vehicle and implement,
like a creature of the thought, and altogether pliant to its
bidding. We knew not that we had limbs, we only lifted, hurled and
leapt; through eye and ear, and all avenues of sense, came clear
unimpeded tidings from without, and from within issued clear
victorious force; we stood as in the centre of Nature, giving and
receiving, in harmony with it all; unlike Virgil’s Husbandmen,
‘too happy because we did not know our blessedness.’ In those
days, health and sickness were foreign traditions that did not concern
us; our whole being was as yet One, the whole man like an
incorporated Will. Such, were Rest or ever-successful Labour the
human lot, might our life continue to be: a pure, perpetual, unregarded
music; a beam of perfect white light, rendering all things
visible, but itself unseen, even because it was of that perfect whiteness,
and no irregular obstruction had yet broken it into colours.
The beginning of Inquiry is Disease: all Science, if we consider
well, as it must have originated in the feeling of something being
wrong, so it is and continues to be but Division, Dismemberment,
and partial healing of the wrong. Thus, as was of old written, the
Tree of Knowledge springs from a root of evil, and bears fruits of
good and evil. Had Adam remained in Paradise, there had been
no Anatomy and no Metaphysics.
But, alas, as the Philosopher declares, ‘Life itself is a disease; a
working incited by suffering’; action from passion! The memory
of that first state of Freedom and paradisaic Unconsciousness has
faded away into an ideal poetic dream. We stand here too conscious
of many things: with Knowledge, the symptom of Derangement,

CHARACTERISTICS 321
we must even do our best to restore a little Order. Life is, in few
instances, and at rare intervals, the diapason of a heavenly melody;
oftenest the fierce jar of disruptions and convulsions, which, do
what we will, there is no disregarding. Nevertheless, such is still
the wish of Nature on our behalf; in all vital action, her manifest
purpose and effort is, that we should be unconscious of it, and like
the peptic Countryman, never know that we ‘have a system.’ For,
indeed, vital action everywhere is emphatically a means, not an
end; Life is not given us for the mere sake of Living, but always
with an ulterior external Aim: neither is it on the process, on the
means, but rather on the result, that Nature, in any of her doings,
is wont to intrust us with insight and volition. Boundless as is the
domain of man, it is but a small fractional proportion of it that
he rules with Consciousness and by Forethought: what he can
contrive, nay, what he can altogether know and comprehend, is
essentially the mechanical, small; the great is ever, in one sense or
other, the vital; it is essentially the mysterious, and only the surface
of it can be understood. But Nature, it might seem, strives, like a
kind mother, to hide from us even this, that she is a mystery: she
will have us rest on her beautiful and awful bosom as if it were our
secure home; on the bottomless boundless Deep, whereon all human
things fearfully and wonderfully swim, she will have us walk and
build, as if the film which supported us there (which any scratch of
a bare bodkin will rend asunder, any sputter of a pistol-shot instantaneously
burn up) were no film, but a solid rock-foundation.
Forever in the neighbourhood of an inevitable Death, man can
forget that he is born to die; of his Life, which, strictly meditated,
contains in it an Immensity and an Eternity, he can conceive lightly,
as of a simple implement wherewith to do day-labour and earn
wages. So cunningly does Nature, the mother of all highest Art,
which only apes her from afar, ‘body forth the Finite from the
Infinite’; and guide man safe on his wondrous path, not more by
endowing him with vision, than, at the right place, with blindness!
Under all her works, chiefly under her noblest work, Life, lies a basis
of Darkness, which she benignantly conceals; in Life too, the roots
and inward circulations which stretch down fearfully to the regions
of Death and Night, shall not hint of their existence, and only the

322 THOMAS CARLYLE
fair stem with its leaves and flowers, shone on by the fair sun, shall
disclose itself, and joyfully grow.
However, without venturing into the abstruse, or too eagerly
asking Why and How, in things where our answer must needs
prove, in great part, an echo of the question, let us be content to
remark farther, in the merely historical way, how that Aphorism of
the bodily Physician holds good in quite other departments. Of
the Soul, with her activities, we shall find it no less true than of
the Body: nay, cry the Spiritualists, is not that very division of the
unity, Man, into a dualism of Soul and Body, itself the symptom of
disease; as, perhaps, your frightful theory of Materialism, of his
being but a Body, and therefore, at least, once more a unity, may be
the paroxysm which was critical, and the beginning of cure! But
omitting this, we observe, with confidence enough, that the truly
strong mind, view it as Intellect, as Morality, or under any other
aspect, is nowise the mind acquainted with its strength; that here
as before the sign of health is Unconsciousness. In our inward, as
in our outward world, what is mechanical lies open to us: not what
is dynamical and has vitality. Of our Thinking, we might say, it
is but the mere upper surface that we shape into articulate Thoughts;
—underneath the region of argument and conscious discourse, lies
the region of meditation; here, in its quiet mysterious depths,
dwells what vital force is in us; here, if aught is to be created, and
not merely manufactured and communicated, must the work go
on. Manufacture is intelligible, but trivial: Creation is great, and
cannot be understood. Thus if the Debater and Demonstrator,
whom we may rank as the lowest of true thinkers, knows what he
has done, and how he did it, the Artist, whom we rank as the highest,
knows not; must speak of Inspiration, and in one or the other
dialect, call his work the gift of a divinity.
But on the whole, ‘genius is ever a secret to itself; of this old
truth we have, on all sides, daily evidence. The Shakspeare takes
no airs for writing Hamlet and the Tempest, understands not that
it is anything surprising: Milton, again, is more conscious of his
faculty, which accordingly is an inferior one. On the other hand,
what cackling and strutting must we not often hear and see, when,
in some shape of academical prolusion, maiden speech, review article,

CHARACTERISTICS 323
this or the other well-fledged goose has produced its goose-egg, of
quite measurable value, were it the pink of its whole kind; and
wonders why all mortals do not wonder!
Foolish enough, too, was the College Tutor’s surprise at Walter
Shandy: how, though unread in Aristotle, he could nevertheless
argue; and not knowing the name of any dialectic tool, handled
them all to perfection. Is it the skilfulest anatomist that cuts the
best figure at Sadler’s Wells? or does the boxer hit better for
knowing that he has a flexor longus and a flexor brevis? But
indeed, as in the higher case of the Poet, so here in that of the
Speaker and Inquirer, the true force is an unconscious one. The
healthy Understanding, we should say, is not the Logical, argumentative,
but the Intuitive; for the end of Understanding is not to
prove and find reasons, but to know and believe. Of logic, and its
limits, and uses and abuses, there were much to be said and
examined; one fact, however, which chiefly concerns us here, has
long been familiar: that the man of logic and the man of insight;
the Reasoner and the Discoverer, or even Knower, are quite separable,—
indeed, for most part, quite separate characters. In practical
matters, for example, has it not become almost proverbial that the
man of logic cannot prosper? This is he whom business-people call
Systematic and Theoriser and Word-monger; his vital intellectual
force lies dormant or extinct, his whole force is mechanical, conscious:
of such a one it is foreseen that, when once confronted with
the infinite complexities of the real world, his little compact theorem
of the world will be found wanting; that unless he can throw it
overboard and become a new creature, he will necessarily founder.
Nay, in mere Speculation itself, the most ineffectual of all characters,
generally speaking, is your dialectic man-at-arms; were he armed
cap-a-pie in syllogistic mail of proof, and perfect master of logicfence,
how little does it avail him! Consider the old Schoolmen, and
their pilgrimage towards Truth: the faithfulest endeavour, incessant
unwearied motion, often great natural vigour; only no progress:
nothing but antic feats of one limb poised against the other; there
they balanced, somersetted, and made postures; at best gyrated
swiftly with some pleasure, like Spinning Dervishes, and ended
where they began. So is it, so will it always be, with all System

324 THOMAS CARLYLE
makers and builders of logical card-castles; of which class a certain
remnant must, in every age, as they do in our own, survive and
build. Logic is good, but it is not the best. The Irrefragable Doctor,
with his chains of induction, his corollaries, dilemmas and other
cunning logical diagrams and apparatus, will cast you a beautiful
horoscope, and speak reasonable things; nevertheless your stolen
jewel, which you wanted him to find you, is not forthcoming.
Often by some winged word, winged as the thunderbolt is, of a
Luther, a Napoleon, a Goethe, shall we see the difficulty split asunder,
and its secret laid bare; while the Irrefragable, with all his logical
tools, hews at it, and hovers round it, and finds it on all hands too
hard for him.
Again, in the difference between Oratory and Rhetoric, as indeed
everywhere in that superiority of what is called the Natural over
the Artificial, we find a similar illustration. The Orator persuades
and carries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can
prove that he ought to have persuaded and carried all with him: the
one is in a state of healthy unconsciousness, as if he ‘had no system’;
the other, in virtue of regimen and dietetic punctuality, feels at best
that ‘his system is in high order.’ So stands it, in short, with all
the forms of Intellect, whether as directed to the finding of truth,
or to the fit imparting thereof; to Poetry, to Eloquence, to depth of
Insight, which is the basis of both these; always the characteristic
of right performance is a certain spontaneity, an unconsciousness;
‘the healthy know not of their health, but only the sick.’ So that
the old precept of the critic, as crabbed as it looked to his ambitious
disciple, might contain in it a most fundamental truth, applicable
to us all, and in much else than Literature: “Whenever you have
written any sentence that looks particularly excellent, be sure to
blot it out.” In like manner, under milder phraseology, and with
a meaning purposely much wider, a living Thinker has taught us:
‘Of the Wrong we are always conscious, of the Right never.’
But if such is the law with regard to Speculation and the Intellectual
power of man, much more is it with regard to Conduct, and
the power, manifested chiefly therein, which we name Moral. ‘Let
not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth’: whisper not
to thy own heart, How worthy is this action!—for then it is already

CHARACTERISTICS 325
becoming worthless. The good man is he who works continually
in welldoing; to whom welldoing is as his natural existence, awakening
no astonishment, requiring no commentary; but there, like a
thing of course, and as if it could not but be so. Self-contemplation,
on the other hand, is infallibly the symptom of disease, be it or be it
not the sign of cure. A n unhealthy Virtue is one that consumes itself
to leanness in repenting and anxiety; or, still worse, that inflates
itself into dropsical boastfulness and vain-glory: either way, there
is a self-seeking; an unprofitable looking behind us to measure
the way we have made: whereas the sole concern is to walk continually
forward, and make more way. If in any sphere of man’s
life, then in the Moral sphere, as the inmost and most vital of
all, it is good that there be wholeness; that there be unconsciousness,
which is the evidence of this. Let the free, reasonable Will,
which dwells in us, as in our Holy of Holies, be indeed free,
and obeyed like a Divinity, as is its right and its effort: the perfect
obedience will be the silent one. Such perhaps were the sense
of that maxim, enunciating, as is usual, but the half of a truth: To
say that we have a clear conscience, is to utter a solecism; had we
never sinned, we should have had no conscience. Were defeat unknown,
neither would victory be celebrated by songs of triumph.
This, true enough, is an ideal, impossible state of being; yet ever
the goal towards which our actual state of being strives; which it is
the more perfect the nearer it can approach. Nor, in our actual
world, where Labour must often prove ineffectual, and thus in all
senses Light alternate with Darkness, and the nature of an ideal
Morality be much modified, is the case, thus far, materially different.
It is a fact which escapes no one, that, generally speaking, whoso is
acquainted with his worth has but a little stock to cultivate acquaintance
with. Above all, the public acknowledgment of such
acquaintance, indicating that it has reached quite an intimate footing,
bodes ill. Already, to the popular judgment, he who talks much
about Virtue in the abstract, begins to be suspect; it is shrewdly
guessed that where there is great preaching, there will be little almsgiving.
Or again, on a wider scale, we can remark that ages of
Heroism are not ages of Moral Philosophy; Virtue, when it can be
philosophised of, has become aware of itself, is sickly and beginning

326 THOMAS CARLYLE
to decline. A spontaneous habitual all-pervading spirit of Chivalrous
Valour shrinks together, and perks itself up into shrivelled Points of
Honour; humane Courtesy and Nobleness of mind dwindle into
punctilious Politeness, ‘avoiding meats’; ‘paying tithe of mint and
anise, neglecting the weightier matters of the law.’ Goodness, which
was a rule to itself, must now appeal to Precept, and seek strength
from Sanctions; the Freewill no longer reigns unquestioned and
by divine right, but like a mere earthly sovereign, by expediency,
by Rewards and Punishments: or rather, let us say, the Freewill,
so far as may be, has abdicated and withdrawn into the dark, and
a spectral nightmare of a Necessity usurps its throne; for now that
mysterious Self-impulse of the whole man, heaven-inspired, and in
all senses partaking of the Infinite, being captiously quesdoned in a
finite dialect, and answering, as it needs must, by silence^—is
conceived as non-extant, and only the outward Mechanism of it
remains acknowledged: of Volition, except as the synonym of Desire,
we hear nothing; of ‘Motives,’ without any Mover, more than
enough.
So too, when the generous Affections have become well-nigh
paralytic, we have the reign of Sentimentality. The greatness, the
profitableness, at any rate the extremely ornamental nature of high
feeling, and the luxury of doing good; charity, love, self-forgetfulness,
devotedness and all manner of godlike magnanimity,—are
everywhere insisted on, and pressingly inculcated in speech and
writing, in prose and verse; Socinian Preachers proclaim ‘Benevolence’
to all the four winds, and have TRUTH engraved on their
watch-seals: unhappily with little or no effect. Were the limbs in
right walking order, why so much demonstrating of motion ? The
barrenest of all mortals is the Sentimentalist. Granting even that he
were sincere, and did not wilfully deceive us, or without first deceiving
himself, what good is in him? Does he not lie there as a
perpetual lesson of despair, and type of bedrid valetudinarian impotence?
His is emphatically a Virtue that has become, through
every fibre, conscious of itself; it is all sick, and feels as if it were
made of glass, and durst not touch or be touched; in the shape of
work, it can do nothing; at the utmost, by incessant nursing and
caudling, keep itself alive. As the last stage of all, when Virtue,
properly so called, has ceased to be practised, and become extinct,

CHARACTERISTICS 327
and a mere remembrance, we have the era of Sophists, descanting
of its existence, proving it, denying it, mechanically ‘accounting’ for
it;—as dissectors and demonstrators cannot operate till once the
body be dead.
Thus is true Moral genius, like true Intellectual, which indeed is
but a lower phasis thereof, ‘ever a secret to itself.’ The healthy moral
nature loves Goodness, and without wonder wholly lives in it: the
unhealthy makes love to it, and would fain get to live in it; or,
finding such courtship fruitless, turns round, and not without contempt
abandons it. These curious relations of the Voluntary and
Conscious to the Involuntary and Unconscious, and the small proportion
which, in all departments of our life, the former bears to
the latter,—might lead us into deep questions of Psychology and
Physiology: such, however, belong not to our present object. Enough,
if the fact itself become apparent, that Nature so meant it with us;
that in this wise we are made. We may now say, that view man’s
individual Existence under what aspect we will, under the highest
spiritual, as under the merely animal aspect, everywhere the grand
vital energy, while in its sound state, is an unseen unconscious one;
or, in the words of our old Aphorism, ‘the healthy know not of their
health, but only the sick.’
To understand man, however, we must look beyond the individual
man and his actions or interests, and view him in combination with
his fellows. It is in Society that man first feels what he is; first
becomes what he can be. In Society an altogether new set of spiritual
activities are evolved in him, and the old immeasurably quickened
and strengthened. Society is the genial element wherein his
nature first lives and grows; the solitary man were but a small portion
of himself, and must continue forever folded in, stunted and
only half alive. ‘Alreatiy,’ says a deep Thinker, with more meaning
than will disclose itself at once, ‘my opinion, my conviction, gains
infinitely in strength and sureness, the moment a second mind has
adopted it.’ Such, even in its simplest form, is association; so wondrous
the communion of soul with soul as directed to the mere act
of Knowing! In other higher acts, the wonder is still more manifest;
as in that portion of our being which we name the Moral: for properly,
indeed, all communion is of a moral sort, whereof such intellec

A House of Mirth and Revelry (Feb3)

Jonson’s THE ALCHEMIST Vol. 47, pp. 543-558

THE ALCHEMIST

DRAMATIS PERSONS

SUBTLE, the ALCHEMIST.
FACE, the House-keeper.
DOL COMMON, their colleague.
DAPPER, a Lawyer’s clerk.
DRUCGER, a Tobacco-man.
LOVEWIT, Master of the House.
Sir EPICURE MAMMON, a Knight.
PERTINAX SURLY, a Gamester.
TRIBULATION WHOLESOME, a Pastor of
Amsterdam.
ANANIAS, a Deacon there.
KASTRILL, the angry boy.
Dame PLIANT, his sister, a Widow.
Neighbours.

Officers, Mutes.

SCENE LONDON

ACT I
SCENE I. [A room in Lovewit's house]
[Enter] FACE, [in a captain's uniform, with his sword drawn, and]
SUBTLE [with a vial, quarrelling, and followed by] DOL COMMON

Face BELIEVE’t, I will.
Sub. Thy worst.
Dol. Have you your wits? why, gentlemen! for love—!—
Face. Sirrah, I’ll strip you
Sub. What to do?
Face. Rogue, rogue!—out of all your sleights.1
Dol. Nay, look ye, sovereign, general, are you madmen?
Sub. O, let the wild sheep loose. I’ll gum your silks
With good strong water, an you come.
Dol. Will you have
The neighbours hear you? Will you betray all?
Hark! I hear somebody.
Face. Sirrah
Sub. I shall mar
All that the tailor has made if you approach.

1 Drop your tricks.
543

544 BEN JONSON
Face. You most notorious whelp, you insolent slave,
Dare you do this?
Sub. Yes, faith; yes, faith.
Face. Why, who
Am I, my mongrel, who am I?
Sub. I’ll tell you,
Since you know not yourself.
Face. Speak lower, rogue.
Sub. Yes, you were once (time’s not long past) the good,
Honest, plain, livery-three-pound-thrum,2 that kept
Your master’s worship’s house here in the Friars,3
For the vacations
Face. Will you be so loud?
Sub. Since, by my means, translated suburb-captain.
Face. By your means, doctor dog!
Sub. Within man’s memory,
All this I speak of.
Face. Why, I pray you, have I
Been countenanc’d by you, or you by me?
Do but collect, sir, where I met you first.
Sub. I do not hear well.
Face. Not of this, I think it.
But I shall put you in mind, sir;—at Pie-corner,
Taking your meal of steam in, from cooks’ stalls,
Where, like the father of hunger, you did walk
Piteously costive, with your pinch’d-horn-nose,
And your complexion of the Roman wash/
Stuck full of black and melancholic worms,
Like powder-corns5 shot at the artillery-yard.
Sub. I wish you could advance your voice a little.
Face. When you went pinn’d up in the several rags
You had rak’d and pick’d from dunghills, before day;
Your feet in mouldy slippers, for your kibes;6
A felt of rug,7 and a thin threaden cloak,
That scarce would cover your no-buttocks

2 Poorly paid servant. 3 The precinct of Blackfriars. * I. e., sallow.
5 Grains of powder. 6 Chilblains. 7 A hat of coarse material.

THE ALCHEMIST 545
. Sub. So, sir!
Face. When all your alchemy, and your algebra,
Your minerals, vegetals, and animals,
Your conjuring, coz’ning;8 and your dozen of trades,
Could not relieve your corpse with so much linen
Would make you tinder, but to see a fire;
I ga’ you count’nance, credit for your coals,
Your stills, your glasses, your materials;
Built you a furnace, drew you customers,
Advanc’d all your black arts; lent you, beside,
A house to practise in
Sub. Your master’s house!
Face. Where you have studied the more thriving skill
Of bawdry since.
Sub. Yes, in your master’s house.
You and the rats here kept possession.
Make it not strange.9 I know you were one could keep
The buttery-hatch still lock’d, and save the chippings,
Sell the dole beer to aqua-vitse men,10
The which, together with your Christmas vails11
At post-and-pair,12 your letting out of counters,13
Made you a pretty stock, some twenty marks,
And gave you credit to converse with cobwebs,
Here, since your mistress’ death hath broke up house.
Face. You might talk softlier, rascal.
Sub. No, you scarab,
I’ll thunder you in pieces: I will teach you
How to beware to tempt a Fury again
That carries tempest in his hand and voice.
Face. The place has made you valiant.
Sub. No, your clothes.
Thou vermin, have I ta’en thee out of dung,
So poor, so wretched, when no living thing
Would keep thee company, but a spider or worse?
Rais’d thee from brooms, and dust, and wat’ring-pots,

8 Swindling. 8 Don’t pretend to forget. 10 Sell the beer intended for the poor
to liquor-dealers. 11 Tips. 12 A game of cards. 13 / . e., to the card-players.

546 BEN JONSON
Sublim’d thee, and exalted thee, and fix’d thee
In the third region,14 call’d our state of grace ?
Wrought thee to spirit, to quintessence, with pains
Would twice have won me the philosopher’s work?
Put thee in words and fashion, made thee fit
For more than ordinary fellowships?
Giv’n thee thy oaths, thy quarrelling dimensions,
Thy rules to cheat, at horse-race, cock-pit, cards,
Dice, or whatever gallant tincture15 else?
Made thee a second in mine own great art?
And have I this for thanks! Do you rebel?
Do you fly out i’ the projection?16
Would you be gone now?
Dol. Gentlemen, what mean you?
Will you mar all?
Sub. Slave, thou hadst had no name
Dol. Will you undo yourselves with civil war?
Sub. Never been known, past equi clibanum,
The heat of horse-dung, under ground, in cellars,
Or an ale-house darker than deaf John’s; been lost
To all mankind, but laundresses and tapsters,
Had not I been.
Dol. Do you know who hears you, sovereign?
Face. Sirrah
Dol. Nay, general, I thought you were civil.
Face. I shall turn desperate, if you grow thus loud.
Sub. And hang thyself, I care not.
Face. Hang thee, collier,
And all thy pots and pans, in picture, I will,
Since thou hast mov’d me
Dol. [Aside] O, this’ll o’erthrow all.
Face. Write thee up bawd in Paul’s, have all thy tricks
Of coz’ning with a hollow coal, dust, scrapings,
Searching for things lost, with a sieve and shears,
Erecting figures in your rows of houses,17

14 Technical jargon of alchemy. 15 Accomplishment.
16 At the moment when success is near. 17 Astrological tricks.

T H E A L C H E M I S T 547
And taking in of shadows with a glass,
Told in red letters; and a face cut for thee,
Worse than Gamaliel Ratsey’s.18
Dol. Are you sound?
Ha’ you your senses, masters?
Face. I will have
A book, but barely reckoning thy impostures,
Shall prove a true philosopher’s stone to printers.
Sub. Away, you trencher-rascal!
Face. Out, you dog-leech!
The vomit of all prisons
Dol. Will you be
Your own destructions, gentlemen?
Face. Still spew’d out
For lying too heavy on the basket.19
Sub. Cheater!
Face. Bawd!
Sub. Cow-herd!
Face. Conjurer!
Sub. Cutpurse!
Face. Witch!
Dol. O me!
We are ruin’d, lost! Ha’ you no more regard
To your reputations? Where’s your judgment? ‘Slight,
Have yet some care of me, o’ your republic
Face. Away, this brach!20 I’ll bring thee, rogue, within
The statute of sorcery, tricesimo tertio
Of Harry the Eighth :2 1 ay, and perhaps thy neck
Within a noose, for laund’ring gold and barbing it.22
Dol. You’ll bring your head within a cockscomb,23 will you ?
She catcheth out FACE his sword, and breaks
SUBTLE’S glass.
And you, sir, with your menstrue!24—Gather it up.

18 A notorious highwayman. 19 Eating more than his share of rations. 20 Bitch.
21 33 Henry VIII, the first act against witchcraft in England.
22 “Sweating” and clipping the coinage. 23 Halter.
24 A liquid which dissolves solids.

548 BEN JONSON
‘Sdeath, you abominable pair of stinkards,
Leave off your barking, and grow one again,
Or, by the light that shines, I’ll cut your throats.
I’ll not be made a prey unto the marshal
For ne’er a snarling dog-bolt of you both.
Ha’ you together cozen’d all this while,
And all the world, and shall it now be said,
You’ve made most courteous shift to cozen yourselves?
[To FACE.] YOU will accuse him! You will “bring him in
Within the statute!” Who shall take your word?
A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain,
Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust
So much as for a feather: and you, too, [to SUBTLE.]
Will give the cause, forsooth! You will insult,
And claim a primacy in the divisions!
You must be chief! As if you only had
The powder to project25 with, and the work
Were not begun out of equality!
The venture tripartite! All things in common!
Without priority! ‘Sdeath! you perpetual curs,
Fall to your couples again, and cozen kindly,
And heartily, and lovingly, as you should,
And lose not the beginning of a term,
Or, by this hand, I shall grow factious too,
And take my part, and quit you.
Face. ‘Tis his fault;
He ever murmurs, and objects his pains,
And says, the weight of all lies upon him.
Sub. Why, so it does.
Dol. How does it? Do not we
Sustain our parts?
Sub. Yes, but they are not equal.
Dol. Why, if your part exceed to-day, I hope
Ours may to-morrow match it.
Sub. Ay, they may.
Dol. May, murmuring mastiff! Ay, and do. Death on me!
Help me to throttle him. [Seizes SUB. by the throat.]

25 Transmute metals.

THE ALCHEMIST 549
Sub. Dorothy! Mistress Dorothy!
‘Ods precious, I’ll do anything. What do you mean ?
Dol. Because o’your fermentation and cibation?26
Sub. Not I, by heaven
Dol. Your Sol and Luna help me.
[To FACE.]
Sub. Would I were hang’d then! I’ll conform myself.
Dol. Will you, sir? Do so then, and quickly: swear.
Sub. What should I swear?
Dol. To leave your faction, sir,
And labour kindly in the common work.
Sub. Let me not breathe if I meant aught beside.
I only us’d those speeches as a spur
To him.
Dol. I hope we need no spurs, sir. Do we?
Face. ‘Slid, prove to-day who shall shark best.
Sub. Agreed.
Dol. Yes, and work close and friendly.
Sub. ‘Slight, the knot
Shall grow the stronger for this breach, with me.
[They shake hands.]
Dol. Why, so, my good baboons! Shall we go make
A sort of sober, scurvy, precise neighbours,
That scarce have smil’d twice sin’ the king came in,27
A feast of laughter at our follies? Rascals,
Would run themselves from breath, to see me ride,
Or you t’ have but a hole to thrust your heads in,28
For which you should pay ear-rent?29 No, agree.
And may Don Provost ride a feasting long,
In his old velvet jerkin and stain’d scarfs,
My noble sovereign, and worthy general,
Ere we contribute a new crewel30 garter
To his most worsted30 worship.
Sub. Royal Dol!
Spoken like Claridiana,31 and thyself.
Face. For which at supper, thou shalt sit in triumph,

28 Alchemical terms.
27 Seven years before. 28 In the pillory. 29 Have your ears cut off.
30 Familiar puns. 31 The heroine of the “Mirror of Knighthood.”

550 BEN JONSON
And not be styl’d Dol Common, but Dol Proper,
Dol Singular: the longest cut at night,
Shall draw thee for his Dol Particular. [Bell rings without.]
Sub. Who’s that? One rings. To the window, Dol: [Exit DOL.]—
pray heav’n,
The master do not trouble us this quarter.
Face. O, fear not him. While there dies one a week
O’ the plague, he’s safe from thinking toward London.
Beside, he’s busy at his hop-yards now;
I had a letter from him. If he do,
He’ll send such word, for airing o’ the house,
As you shall have sufficient time to quit it:
Though we break up a fortnight, ’tis no matter.
Re-enter DOL
Sub. Who is it, Dol?
Dol. A fine young quodling.32
Face.
My lawyer’s clerk, I lighted on last night,
In Holborn, at the Dagger. He would have
(I told you of him) a familiar,
To rifle with at horses, and win cups.
Dol. O, let him in.
Sub. Stay. Who shall do’t?
Face. Get you
Your robes on; I will meet him, as going out.
Dol. And what shall I do?
Face. Not be seen; away! [Exit DOL.]
Seem you very reserv’d.
Sub. Enough. [Ex/*.]
Face, [aloud and retiring.] God be wi’ you, sir,
I pray you let him know that I was here:
His name is Dapper. I would gladly have staid, but

32 Green apple, a youth.

THE ALCHEMIST 551
SCENE II. [The same]1
FACE, alone
Dap. [within.] Captain, I am here.
Face. Who’s that?—He’s come, I think, doctor.
[Enter DAPPER]
Good faith, sir, I was going away.
Dap. In truth
I am very sorry, captain.
Face. But I thought
Sure I should meet you.
Dap. Ay, I am very glad.
I had a scurvy writ or two to make,
And I had lent my watch last night to one
That dines to-day at the sheriff’s, and so was robb’d
Of my pass-time.2
[Re-enter SUBTLE in his velvet cap and gown]
Is this the cunning-man?
Face. This is his worship.
Dap. Is he a doctor?
Face. Yes.
Dap. And ha’ you broke3 with him, captain?
Face. Ay.
Dap. And how?
Face. Faith, he does make the matter, sir, so dainty,4
I know not what to say.
Dap. Not so, good captain.
Face. Would I were fairly rid on’t, believe me.
Dap. Nay, now you grieve me, sir. Why should you wish so?
I dare assure you, I’ll not be ungrateful.

1 The scene-divisions are Jonson’s.
2 Watch. 3 Opened the matter.
4 Has such scruples.

552 BEN JONSON
Face. I cannot think you will, sir. But the law
Is such a thing and then he says, Read’s5 matter
Falling so lately.
Dap. Read! he was an ass,
And dealt, sir, with a fool.
Face. It was a clerk, sir.
Dap. A clerk!
Face. Nay, hear me, sir. You know the law
Better, I think
Dap. I should, sir, and the danger:
You know, I show’d the statute to you.
Face. You did so.
Dap. And will I tell then! By this hand of flesh,
Would it might never write good courthand more,
If I discover.6 What do you think of me,
That I am a chiaus?7
Face. What’s that ?
Dap. The Turk was, here—
As one would say, do you think I am a Turk ?
Face. I’ll tell the doctor so.
Dap. Do, good sweet captain.
Face. Come, noble doctor, pray thee let’s prevail;
This is the gentleman, and he is no chiaus.
Sub. Captain, I have return’d you all my answer.
I would do much, sir, for your love But this
I neither may, nor can.
Face. Tut, do not say so.
You deal now with a noble fellow, doctor,
One that will thank you richly; and he is no chiaus:
Let that, sir, move you.
Sub. Pray you, forbear
Face. He has
Four angels here.
Sub. You do me wrong, good sir.
Face. Doctor, wherein? To tempt you with these spirits?
s A magician recently convicted. 6 Reveal.
7 A Turkish interpreter, like the one who had recently cheated some merchants.

THE ALCHEMIST 553
Sub. To tempt my art and love, sir, to my peril.
Tore heav’n, I scarce can think you are my friend,
That so would draw me to apparent danger.
Face. I draw you! A horse draw you, and a halter,
You, and your flies8 together
Dap. Nay, good captain.
Face. That know no difference of men.
Sub. Good words, sir.
Face. Good deeds, sir, doctor dogs’-meat. ‘Slight, I bring you
No cheating Clim o’ the Cloughs9 or Claribels,10
That look as big as five-and-fifty, and flush;11
And spit out secrets like hot custard
Dap. Captain!
Face. Nor any melancholic underscribe,
Shall tell the vicar; but a special gentle,
That is the heir to forty marks a year,
Consorts with the small poets of the time,
Is the sole hope of his old grandmother;
That knows the law, and writes you six fair hands,
Is a fine clerk, and has his ciph’ring perfect.
Will take his oath o’ the Greek Xenophon,12
If need be, in his pocket; and can court
His mistress out of Ovid.
Dap. Nay, dear captain
Face. Did you not tell me so?
Dap. Yes; but I’d ha’ you
Use master doctor with some more respect.
Face. Hang him, proud stag, with his broad velvet head!—
But for your sake, I’d choke ere I would change
An article of breath with such a puck-fist!13
Come, let’s be gone. [Going.]
Sub. Pray you le’ me speak with you.

8 Familiar spirits. 9 An outlaw hero.
10 Probably a hero of romance. The name occurs in Spenser.
11 Five-and-fifty was the highest number to stand on at the old game of Primero.
If a flush accompanied this, the hand swept the table.—Gifford.
12 The Quarto reads Testament. 13 Niggard.

554 BEN JONSON
Dap. His worship calls you, captain.
Face. I am sorry
I e’er embark’d myself in such a business.
Dap. Nay, good sir; he did call you.
Face. Will he take then?
Sub. First, hear me
Face. Not a syllable, ‘less you take.
Sub. Pray ye, sir
Face. Upon no terms but an assumpsit}*
Sub. Your humour must be law. He takes the money.
Face. Why now, sir, talk.
Now I dare hear you with mine honour. Speak.
So may this gentleman too.
Sub. Why, sir [Offering to whisper FACE.]
Face. No whispering.
Sub. ‘Fore heav’n, you do not apprehend the loss
You do yourself in this.
Face. Wherein? for what?
Sub. Marry, to be so importunate for one
That, when he has it, will undo you all:
He’ll win up all the money i’ the town.
Face. How?
Sub. Yes, and blow up gamester after gamester,
As they do crackers in a puppet-play.
If I do give him a familiar,
Give you him all you play for; never set15 him:
For he will have it.
Face. You’re mistaken, doctor.
Why, he does ask one but for cups and horses,
A rifling16 fly; none o’ your great familiars.
Dap. Yes, captain, I would have it for all games.
Sub. I told you so.
Face, [taking DAP. aside.] ‘Slight, that is a new business!
I understood you, a tame bird, to fly
Twice in a term, or so, on Friday nights,

14 That he has undertaken the affair. 15 Stake against. 16 To be used in raffles.

THE ALCHEMIST 555
When you had left the office; for a nag
Of forty or fifty shillings.
Dap. Ay, ’tis true, sir;
But I do think, now, I shall leave the law,
And therefore
Face. Why, this changes quite the case.
Do you think that I dare move him?
Dap. If you please, sir;
All’s one to him, I see.
Face. What! for that money?
I cannot with my conscience; nor should you
Make the request, methinks.
Dap. No, sir, I mean
To add consideration.
Face. Why then, sir,
I’ll try. [Goes to SUBTLE.] Say that it were for all games, doctor?
Sub. I say then, not a mouth shall eat for him
At any ordinary,17 but on the score,18
That is a gaming mouth, conceive me.
Face. Indeed!
Sub. He’ll draw you all the treasure of the realm,
If it be set him.
Face. Speak you this from art ?
Sub. Ay, sir, and reason too, the ground of art.
He is of the only best complexion,
The queen of Fairy loves.
Face. What! is he?
Sub. Peace.
He’ll overhear you. Sir, should she but see him—
Face. What?
Sub. Do not you tell him.
Face. Will he win at cards too?
Sub. The spirits of dead Holland, living Isaac,19

17 Table d’hote restaurant.
18 The gamblers (who frequented ordinaries) will be so impoverished through his
winnings that they will have to eat on credit.
19 Supposed to refer to two alchemists, but the dates do not agree.

556 BEN JONSON
You’d swear, were in him; such a vigorous luck
As cannot be resisted. ‘Slight, he’ll put
Six of your gallants to a cloak,20 indeed.
Face. A strange success, that some man shall be born tol
Sub. He hears you, man
Dap. Sir, I’ll not be ingrateful.
Face. Faith, I have confidence in his good nature:
You hear, he says he will not be ingrateful.
Sub. Why, as you please; my venture follows yours.
Face. Troth, do it, doctor; think him trusty, and make him.
He may make us both happy in an hour;
Win some five thousand pound, and send us two on’t.
Dap. Believe it, and I will, sir.
Face. And you shall, sir.
You have heard all?
Dap. No, what was’t? Nothing, I, sir.
FACE takes him aside.
Face. Nothing!
Dap. A little, sir.
Face. Well, a rare star
Reign’d at your birth.
Dap. At mine, sir! No.
Face. Thfe doctor
Swears that you are
Sub. Nay, captain, you’ll tell all now.
Face. Allied to the queen of Fairy.
Dap. Who! That I am?
Believe it, no such matter
Face. Yes, and that
You were born with a caul on your head.
Dap. Who says so?
Face. Come,
You know it well enough, though you dissemble it.
Dap. I’ fac,211 do not; you are mistaken.

20 Strip to the cloak.
21 Faith.

THE ALCHEMIST 557
Face. How!
Swear by your fac,21 and in a thing so known
Unto the doctor? How shall we, sir, trust you
I’ the other matter; can we ever think,
When you have won five or six thousand pound,
You’ll send us shares in’t by this rate?
Dap. By Jove, sir,
I’ll win ten thousand pound, and send you half.
I’ fac’s no oath.
Sub. No, no, he did but jest.
Face. Go to. Go thank the doctor: he’s your friend,
To take it so.
Dap. I thank his worship.
Face. So!
Another angel.
Dap. Must I?
Face. Must you!’slight,
What else is thanks ? Will you be trivial ?—Doctor,
[DAPPER gives him the money.]
When must he come for his familiar?
Dap: Shall I not ha’ it with me?
Sub. O, good sir!
There must a world of ceremonies pass;
You must be bath’d and fumigated first:
Besides, the queen of Fairy does not rise
Till it be noon.
Face. Not if she danc’d to-night.
Sub. And she must bless it.
Face. Did you never see
Her royal grace yet?
Dap. Whom ?
Face. Your aunt of Fairy ?
Sub. Not since she kist him in the cradle, captain;
I can resolve you that.
Face. Well, see her grace,
Whate’er it cost you, for a thing that I know.

558 BEN JONSON
It will be somewhat hard to compass; but
However, see her. You are made, believe it,
If you can see her. Her grace is a lone woman,
And very rich; and if she take a fancy,
She will do strange things. See her, at any hand.
‘Slid, she may hap to leave you all she has:
It is the doctor’s fear.
Dap. How will’t be done, then?
Face. Let me alone, take you no thought. Do you
But say to me, “Captain, I’ll see her grace.”
Dap. “Captain, I’ll see her grace.”
Face. Enough. One \noc\s without.
Sub. Who’s there?
Anon.—[Aside to FACE.] Conduct him forth by the back way.
—Sir, against one o’clock prepare yourself;
Till when you must be fasting; only take
Three drops of vinegar in at your nose,
Two at your mouth, and one at either ear;
Then bathe your fingers’ ends and wash your eyes,
To sharpen your five senses, and cry hum
Thrice, and then buz as often; and then come. [£**/.]
Face. Can you remember this?
Dap. I warrant you.
Face. Well then, away. It is but your bestowing
Some twenty nobles ‘mong her grace’s servants,
And put on a clean shirt. You do not know
What grace her grace may do you in clean linen.
SCENE HI. [The same]
Sub. [Within.] Come in! Good wives, I pray you forbear me
now;
Troth, I can do you no good till afternoon—
[Exeunt FACE and DAPPER.]
[Enter SUBTLE, followed by DRUGGER]
Sub. What is your name, say you? Abel Drugger?
Drug. Yes, sir.

“Apparel Oft Proclaims the Man ” (Feb2)

Shakespeare’s HAMLET Vol. 46, pp. 107-120

SCENE III. [A room in Polonius's house]

Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA

Laer. My necessaries are embark’d, farewell;
And, sister, as the winds give benefit
And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
But let me hear from you.

Oph. Do you doubt that?

Laer. For Hamlet and the trifling of his favours,
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
A violet in the youth of primy1 nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The [perfume and] suppliance2 of a minute;
No more.

Oph. No more but so ?

Laer. Think it no more:
For nature crescent does not grow alone

17 Held. 1 In the spring, lusty. 2 What fills in.

108 SHAKESPEARE
In thews3 and bulk, but, as this temple waxes,
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,
And now no soil nor cautel4 doth besmirch
The virtue of his will; but you must fear,
His greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth.
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself, for on his choice depends
The sanity and health of the whole state;
And therefore must his choice be circumscrib’d
Unto the voice and yielding5 of that body
Whereof he is the head. Then, if he says he loves you,
It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
As he in his particular act and place
May give his saying deed; which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain
If with too credent6 ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmast’red importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.
The canker7 galls the infants of the spring
Too oft before the buttons8 be disclos’d,
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then, best safety lies in fear;
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

Oph. I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

3 Muscles. 4 Deceit. 5 Consent. 6 Credulous. 7 Canker-worm. * Buds.

HAMLET 109

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whilst, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.9

Laer. O, fear me not.

Enter POLONIUS

I stay too long: but here my father comes.
A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.
Pol. Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There; my blessing with you!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure,1 0 but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are most select and generous in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.11
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

9 Advice. 10 Opinion. 11 Thrift.

110 SHAKESPEARE

Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!

Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

Pol. The time invites you; go, your servants tend.

Laer. Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well
What I have said to you.

Oph. ‘Tis in my memory lock’d,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Laer. Farewell. Exit.

Pol. What i s ‘ t , Ophelia, he hath said to you?

Oph. So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

Pol. Marry, well bethought.
‘Tis told me, he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you, and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.
If it be so—as so ’tis put on me,
And that in way of caution—I must tell you,
You do not understand yourself so clearly
As it behoves my daughter and your honour.
What is between you? Give me up the truth.

Oph. He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders12
Of his affection to me.

Pol. Affection! pooh! Y o u speak like a green girl,
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

Oph. I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

Pol. Marry, I’ll teach you: think yourself a baby
That you have ta’en his tenders for true pay,
Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly,
Or—not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
Running it thus—you’ll tender me a fool.

Oph. My lord, he hath importun’d me with love
In honourable fashion.

Pol. Ay, fashion you may call it. Go to, go to.

Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

Pol. Ay, springes1 3 to catch woodcocks. I do know,

12 Offers. 13 Snares.

HAMLET 111

When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both
Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire. From this time, daughter,
Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence.
Set your entreatments1 4 at a higher rate
Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him, that he is young,
And with a larger tether may he walk
Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
Not of that dye which their investments1 5 show,
But mere implorators1 6 of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
The better to beguile. This is for all:
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
Have you so slander any moment leisure
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to’t, I charge you. Come your ways.

Oph. I shall obey, my lord. Exeunt.

[SCENE IV . The platform]

Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS

Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.

Ham. What hour now?

Hor. I think it lacks of twelve.

Mar. No, it is struck.

Hor. Indeed? I heard it not. Then it draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
A flourish of trumpets, and two pieces go off [within].
What does this mean, my lord?

Ham. The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring1 reels;

14 Invitations. 15 Garments. 16 Pleaders. 1 A wild dance.

112 SHAKESPEARE

And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.

Hor. Is it a custom?

Ham. Ay, marry, is ‘ t,
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honour’d in the breach than the observance.
[This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduc'd and tax'd2 of other nations.
They clepe3 us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition;4 and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though perform'd at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
So, oft it chances in particular men,
That for some vicious mole5 of nature in them,
As, in their birth—wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin—
By their o'ergrowth of some complexion6
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plausive7 manners, that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,8—
His virtues else—be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo—
Shall in the general censure9 take corruption
From that particular fault. The dram of eale1 0
Doth all the noble substance often dout11
To his own scandal.]

Enter Ghost

Hor. Look, my lord, it comes!

Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,

2 Accused. 3 Call. 4 Title. 5 Flaw. 6 Disposition. 7 Pleasing. 8 Whether
due to nature or fortune. 9 Opinion. 10 Small quantity of evil (?). 11 Drive out,
efface (?). The passage is probably corrupt.

HAMLET 113

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com’st in such a questionable1 2 shape
That I will speak to thee. I’ll call thee Hamlet,
King, father; royal Dane, O, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell
Why thy canoniz’d bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements;1 3 why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d,
Hath op’d his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again. What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls ?
Say, why is this ? Wherefore ? What should we do?

Ghost beckons HAMLET.

Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.

Mar. Look, with what courteous action
It wafts you to a more removed ground.
But do not go with it.

Hor. No, by no means.

Ham. It will not speak; then will I follow it.

Hor. Do not, my lord.

Ham. Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin’s fee,
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.

Hor. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form,

12 Inviting discussion. 13 Waxed shroud.

114 SHAKESPEARE

Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness? Think of it.
[The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fathoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.]

Ham. It wafts me still.
Go on, I’ll follow thee.

Mar. You shall not go, my lord.

Ham. Hold off your hand.

Hor. Be rul’d; you shall not go.

Ham. My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
Still-am I call’d. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets1 4 me!
I say, away!—Go on, I’ll follow thee. Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET.

Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination.

Mar. Let’s follow. ‘Tis not fit thus to obey him.

Hor. Have after. To what issue will this come?

Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Hor. Heaven will direct it.

Mar. Nay, let’s follow him. Exeunt.

[SCENE V. Another part of the platform]

Enter Ghost and HAMLET

Ham. Where wilt thou lead me? Speak, I’ll go no further.

Ghost. Mark me.

Ham. I will.

Ghost. My hour is almost come,
When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.

Ham. Alas, poor ghost!

Ghost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing

14 Hinders.

HAMLET 115

To what I shall unfold.

Ham. Speak; I am bound to hear.

Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

Ham. What?

Ghost. I am thy father’s spirit,
Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confin’d to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg’d away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotty and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.1
But this eternal blazon2 must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List, Hamlet, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love—

Ham. O God!

Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

Ham. Murder!

Ghost. Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

Ham. Haste me to k n o w ‘ t , that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.

Ghost. I find thee apt;
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,*
Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear.
It’s given out that, sleeping in mine orchard,
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process4 of my death
Rankly abus’d;5 but know, thou noble youth,

1 Porcupine. 2 Declaration about the eternal world. 3 Bank. * Account. 5 Deceived.

116 SHAKESPEARE

The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
Now wears his crown.

Ham. O my prophetic soul!
Mine uncle!

Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,—
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!—won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
0 Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
From me, whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
1 made to her in marriage, and to decline
Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine!
But virtue, as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
So lust, though to a radiant angel link’d,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed
And prey on garbage.
But, soft! methinks I scent the morning’s air.
Brief let me be. Sleeping within mine orchard,
My custom always in the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon6 in a vial,
And in the porches of mine ears did pour
The leperous distilment; whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigour it doth posset7
And curd, like eager8 droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine,
And a most instant tetter9 bark’d about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
All my smooth body.

6 An unknown poison. 7 Thicken. 8 Sour. 9 Scurf.

HAMLET 117

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand
Of life, of crown, and queen, at once dispatch’d;
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel’d,1 0 disappointed,1 1 unanel’d,12
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And ‘gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me. 

Exit.

Ham. O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, my heart,
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond1 3 records,
All saws1 4 of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix’d with baser matter. Yes, yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables, my tables,—meet it is I set it down!
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain!

10 Without the sacrament. 11 Unprepared. 12 Without extreme unction.
13 Foolish. 14 Sayings.

118 SHAKESPEARE

At least I ‘m sure it may be so in Denmark.
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
It is “Adieu, adieu! remember me.”
I have sworn’t.

Mar.,Hor. Within.) My lord, my lord!

Mar. [Within.] Lord Hamlet!

Hor. [Within.] Heaven secure him!

Ham. So be it!

Mar. [Within.] Illo, ho, ho, my lord!

Ham. Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come.

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

Mar. How i s ‘ t , my noble lord ?

Hor. What news, my lord?

Ham. O, wonderful!

Hor. Good my lord, tell it.

Ham. No, you’ll reveal it.

Hor. Not I, my lord, by heaven.

Mar. Nor I, my lord.

Ham. How say you, then, would heart of man once think it?—
But you’ll be secret?

Hor., Mar. – Ay, by heaven, my lord.

Ham. There’s ne’er a villain dwelling in all Denmark—
But he’s an arrant knave.

Hor. There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.

Ham. Why, right, you are i’ the right.
And so, without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part;
You, as your business and desires shall point you,
For every man has business and desire,
Such as it is; and for mine own poor part,
Look you, I’ll go pray.

Hor. These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.

Ham. I’m sorry they offend you, heartily;

HAMLET 119

Yes, faith, heartily.

Hor. There’s no offence, my lord.

Ham. Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
And much offence too. Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.
For your desire to know what is between us,
O’ermaster’t as you may. And now, good friends,
As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.

Hor. What i s ‘ t , my lord? We will.

Ham. Never make known what you have seen to-night.

Hor., Mar. – My lord, we will not.

Ham. Nay, but swear’t.

Hor. In faith,

My lord, not I.

Mar. Nor I, my lord, in faith.

Ham. Upon my sword.

Mar. We have sworn, my lord, already.

Ham. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

Ghost. Swear! Ghost cries under the stage.

Ham. Ah, ha, boy! say’st thou so? Art thou there, truepenny?
Come on; you hear this fellow in the cellarage.
Consent to swear.

Hor. Propose the oath, my lord.

Ham. Never to speak of this that you have seen.
Swear by my sword.

Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear.

Ham. Hie et ubique?15 Then we ‘11 shift our ground.
Come thither, gentlemen,
And lay your hands again upon my sword.
Never to speak of this that you have heard,
Swear by my sword.

Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear.

Ham. Well said, old mole! Canst work i’ the earth so fast?
A worthy pioner!1 6 Once more remove, good friends.

1 5 Lat. Here and everywhere. 16 Pioneer.

120 SHAKESPEARE

Hor. O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

Ham. And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
But come;
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself,—
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on—
That you, at such time seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumb’red thus, or this headshake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As “Well, we know,” or “We could, an if we would,”
Or “If we list to speak,” or “There be, an if they might,”
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
That you know aught of me,—this not to do,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you,
Swear.

Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear.

Ham. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! [They swear.] So, gentlemen,
With all my love I do commend me to you.
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do, to express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint;—O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let’s go together.

Exeunt.

King Arthur’s Knights Find Holy Grail (Feb1)

Malory’s THE HOLY GRAIL Vol. 35, pp. 112-123.

CHAPTER VII

HOW THE QUEEN DESIRED TO SEE GALAHAD; AND HOW AFTER, ALL THE
KNIGHTS WERE REPLENISHED WITH THE HOLY SANGREAL, AND
HOW THEY AVOWED THE ENQUEST OF THE SAME

THEN the king, at the queen’s request, made him to alight and
to unlace his helm, that the queen might see him in the visage. When
she beheld him she said: Soothly I dare well say that Sir Launcelot
begat him, for never two men resembled more in likeness, therefore
it is no marvel though he be of great prowess. So a lady that stood
by the queen said: Madam, for God’s sake ought he of right to be
so good a knight? Yea, forsooth, said the queen, for he is of all
parties come of the best knights of the world and of the highest
lineage; for Sir Launcelot is come but of the eighth degree from
our Lord Jesu Christ, and Sir Galahad is of the ninth degree from
our Lord Jesu Christ, therefore I dare say they be the greatest gentlemen
of the world. And then the king and all estates went home
unto Camelot, and so went to evensong to the great minster, and
so after upon that to supper, and every knight sat in his own place as

THE HOLY GRAIL 113
they were toforehand. Then anon they heard cracking and crying
of thunder, that them thought the place should all to drive. In the
midst of this blast entered a sunbeam more clearer by seven times
than ever they saw day, and all they were alighted of the grace of the
Holy Ghost. Then began every knight to behold other, and either
saw other, by their seeming, fairer than ever they saw afore. Not for
then there was no knight might speak one word a great while, and
so they looked every man on other as they had been dumb. Then
there entered into the hall the Holy Greal covered with white samite,
but there was none might see it, nor who bare it. And there was all
the hall fulfilled with good odours, and every knight had such meats
and drinks as he best loved in this world. And when the Holy Greal
had been borne through the hall, then the Holy Vessel departed
suddenly, that they wist not where it became: then had they all
breath to speak. And then the king yielded thankings to God, of
His good grace that he had sent them. Certes, said the king, we
ought to thank our Lord Jesu greatly for that he hath shewed us
this day, at the reverence of this high feast of Pentecost. Now, said
Sir Gawaine, we have been served this day of what meats and drinks
we thought on; but one thing beguiled us, we might not see the
holy Grail, it was so preciously covered. Wherefore I will make here
avow, that tomorn, without longer abiding, I shall labour in the
quest of the Sangreal, that I shall hold me out a twelvemonth and a
day, or more if need be, and never shall I return again unto the
court till I have seen it more openly than it hath been seen here;
and if I may not speed I shall return again as he that may not be
against the will of our Lord Jesu Christ. When they of the Table
Round heard Sir Gawaine say so, they arose up the most part and
made such avows as Sir Gawaine had made. Anon as King Arthur
heard this he was greatly displeased, for he wist well they might
not again say their avows. Alas, said King Arthur unto Sir
Gawaine, ye have nigh slain me with the avow and promise that ye
have made; for through you ye have bereft me the fairest fellowship
and the truest of knighthood that ever were seen together in
any realm of the world; for when they depart from hence I am sure
they all shall never meet more in this world, for they shall die many
in the quest. And so it forthinketh me a little, for I have loved

114 SIR THOMAS MALORY
them as well as my life, wherefore it shall grieve me right sore,
the departition of this fellowship: for I have had an old custom to
have them in my fellowship.

CHAPTER VIII

HOW GREAT SORROW WAS MADE OF THE KING AND THE QUEEN AND LADIES
FOR THE DEPARTING OF THE KNIGHTS, AND HOW THEY DEPARTED

AND therewith the tears filled in his eyes. And then he said:
Gawaine, Gawaine, ye have set me in great sorrow, for I have great
doubt that my true fellowship shall never meet here more again.
Ah, said Sir Launcelot, comfort yourself; for it shall be unto us a
great honour and much more than if we died in any other places,
for of death we be siccar. Ah, Launcelot, said the king, the great
love that I have had unto you all the days of my life maketh me
to say such doleful words; for never Christian king had never so
many worthy men at his table as I have had this day at the Round
Table, and that is my great sorrow. When the queen, ladies, and
gentlewomen, wist these tidings, they had such sorrow and heaviness
that there might no tongue tell it, for those knights had held them
in honour and charity. But among all other Queen Guenever made
great sorrow. I marvel, said she, my lord would suffer them to depart
from him. Thus was all the court troubled for the love of the
departition of those knights. And many of those ladies that loved
knights would have gone with their lovers; and so had they done,
had not an old knight come among them in religious clothing; and
then he spake all on high and said: Fair lords, which have sworn in
the quest of the Sangreal, thus sendeth you Nacien, the hermit,
word, that none in this quest lead lady nor gentlewoman with him,
for it is not to do in so high a service as they labour in; for I warn
you plain, he that is not clean of his sins he shall not see the mysteries
of our Lord Jesu Christ. And for this cause they left these ladies and
gentlewomen. After this the queen came unto Galahad and asked
him of whence he was, and of what country. He told her of whence
he was. And son unto Launcelot, she said he was. As to that, he
said neither yea or nay. So God me help, said the queen, of your

THE HOLY GRAIL 115
father ye need not to shame you, for he is the goodliest knight, and
of the best men of the world come, and of the strain of all parties,
of kings. Wherefore ye ought of right to be, of your deeds, a passing
good man; and certainly, she said, ye resemble him much. Then
Sir Galahad was a little ashamed and said: Madam, sith ye know in
certain, wherefore do ye ask it me ? for he that is my father shall be
known openly and all betimes. And then they went to rest them.
And in the honour of the highness of Galahad he was led into
King Arthur’s chamber, and there rested in his own bed. And as
soon as it was day the king arose, for he had no rest of all that
night for sorrow. Then he went unto Gawaine and to Sir Launcelot
that were arisen for to hear mass. And then the king again
said: A h Gawaine, Gawaine, ye have betrayed me; for never shall
my court be amended by you, but ye will never be sorry for me as
I am for you. And therewith the tears began to run down by his
visage. And therewith the king said: Ah, knight Sir Launcelot, I
require thee thou counsel me, for I would that this quest were
undone an it might be. Sir, said Sir Launcelot, ye saw yesterday so
many worthy knights that then were sworn that they may not leave
it in no manner of wise. That wot I well, said the king, but it shall
so heavy me at their departing that I wot well there shall no manner
of joy remedy me. And then the king and the queen went unto the
minister. So anon Launcelot and Gawaine commanded their men
to bring their arms. And when they all were armed save their
shields and their helms, then they came to their fellowship, which
were all ready in the same wise, for to go to the minster to hear
their service. Then after the service was done the king would wit
how many had undertaken the quest of the Holy Grail; and to
account them he prayed them all. Then found they by tale an
hundred and fifty, and all were knights of the Round Table. And
then they put on their helms and departed, and recommended them
all wholly unto the queen: and there was weeping and great sorrow.
Then the queen departed into her chamber so that no man should
apperceive her great sorrows. When Sir Launcelot missed the queen
he went into her chamber, and when she saw him she cried aloud:
O Sir Launcelot, ye have betrayed me and put me to death, for to
leave thus my lord. Ah, madam, said Sir Launcelot, I pray you be

116 SIR THOMAS MALORY
not displeased, for I shall come as soon as I may with my worship.
Alas, said she, that ever I saw you; but he that suffered death upon
the cross for all mankind be to you good conduct and safety, and all
the whole fellowship. Right so departed Sir Launcelot, and found
his fellowship that abode his coming. And so they mounted upon
their horses and rode through the streets of Camelot; and there was
weeping of the rich and poor, and the king turned away and might
not speak for weeping. So within a while they came to a city, and a
castle that hight Vagon. There they entered into the castle, and
the lord of that castle was an old man that hight Vagon, and he
was a good man of his living, and set open the gates, and made them
all the good cheer that he might. And so on the morrow they were
all accorded that they should depart every each from other; and then
they departed on the morrow with weeping and mourning cheer,
and every knight took the way that him best liked.

CHAPTER IX

HOW GALAHAD GAT HIM A SHIELD, AND HOW THEY SPED THAT PRESUMED
TO TAKE DOWN THE SAID SHIELD

Now rideth Sir Galahad yet without shield, and so he rode four
days without any adventure. And at the fourth day after evensong
he came to a White Abbey, and there he was received with great
reverence, and led to a chamber, and there he was unarmed; and then
was he ware of two knights of the Round Table, one was King
Bagdemagus, and that other was Sir Uwaine. And when they saw
him they went unto him and made of him great solace, and so they
went to supper. Sirs, said Sir Galahad, what adventure brought you
hither ? Sir, said they, it is told us that within this place is a shield
that no man may bear about his neck but if that he be mischieved
or dead within three days, or else maimed for ever. A h sir, said K i ng
Bagdemagus, I shall it bear to-morrow for to essay this strange
adventure. In the name of God, said Sir Galahad. Sir, said Bagdemagus,
an I may not achieve the adventure of this shield ye shall
take it upon you, for I am sure ye shall not fail. Sir, said Galahad, I
not displeased, for I shall come as soon as I may with my worship.
Alas, said she, that ever I saw you; but he that suffered death upon
the cross for all mankind be to you good conduct and safety, and all
the whole fellowship. Right so departed Sir Launcelot, and found
his fellowship that abode his coming. And so they mounted upon
their horses and rode through the streets of Camelot; and there was
weeping of the rich and poor, and the king turned away and might
not speak for weeping. So within a while they came to a city, and a
castle that hight Vagon. There they entered into the castle, and
the lord of that castle was an old man that hight Vagon, and he
was a good man of his living, and set open the gates, and made them
all the good cheer that he might. And so on the morrow they were
all accorded that they should depart every each from other; and then
they departed on the morrow with weeping and mourning cheer,
and every knight took the way that him best liked.

THE HOLY GRAIL 117
agree right well thereto, for I have no shield. So on the morn they
arose and heard mass. Then King Bagdemagus asked where the
adventurous shield was. Anon a monk led him behind an altar
where the shield hung as white as any snow, but in the middes was a
red cross. Sir, said the monk, this shield ought not to be hanged
about no knight’s neck but he be the worthiest knight of the world,
and therefore I counsel you knights to be well advised. Well, said
King Bagdemagus, I wot well that I am not the best knight of the
world, but yet shall I essay to bear it. And so he bare it out of the
monastery; and then he said unto Sir Galahad: If it will please you
I pray you abide here still, till ye know how I shall speed. I shall
abide you here, said Galahad. Then King Bagdemagus took with
him a squire, the which should bring tidings unto Sir Galahad how
he sped. Then when they had ridden a two mile and came in a fair
valley afore an hermitage, then they saw a goodly knight come from
that part in white armour, horse and all; and he came as fast as his
horse might run, with his spear in the rest, and King Bagdemagus
dressed his spear against him and brake it upon the white knight.
But the other struck him so hard that he brake the mails, and thrust
him through the right shoulder, for the shield covered him not as
at that time; and so he bare him from his horse. And therewith he
alighted and took the white shield from him, saying: Knight, thou
hast done thyself great folly, for this shield ought not to be borne but
by him that shall have no peer that liveth. And then he came to
King Bagdemagus’ squire and said: Bear this shield unto the good
knight Sir Galahad, that thou left in the abbey, and greet him well
from me. Sir, said the squire, what is your name? Take thou no
heed of my name, said the knight, for it is not for thee to know nor
for none earthly man. Now, fair sir, said the squire, at the reverence
of Jesu Christ, tell me for what cause this shield may not be borne
but if the bearer thereof be mischieved. N o w sith thou hast conjured
me so, said the knight, this shield behoveth unto no man but unto
Galahad. And the squire went unto Bagdemagus and asked whether
he were sore wounded or not. Yea, forsooth, said he, I shall escape
hard from the death. Then he fetched his horse, and brought him
with great pain unto an abbey. Then was he taken down softly

118 SIR THOMAS MALORY
and unarmed, and laid in a bed, and there was looked to his wounds.
And as the book telleth, he lay there long, and escaped hard with
the life.

CHAPTER X

HOW GALAHAD DEPARTED WITH THE SHIELD, AND HOW KING EVELAKE
HAD RECEIVED THE SHIELD OF JOSEPH OF ARAMATHIE

SIR GALAHAD, said the squire, that knight that wounded Bagdemagus
sendeth you greeting, and bad that ye should bear this
shield, wherethrough great adventures should befall. Now blessed
be God and fortune, said Galahad. And then he asked his arms, and
mounted upon his horse, and hung the white shield about his neck,
and commended them unto God. And Sir Uwaine said he would
bear him fellowship if it pleased him. Sir, said Galahad, that may
ye not, for I must go alone, save this squire shall bear me fellowship:
and so departed Uwaine. Then within a while came Galahad there
as the white knight abode him by the hermitage, and every each
saluted other courteously. Sir, said Galahad, by this shield be many
marvels fallen? Sir, said the knight, it befell after the passion of
our Lord Jesu Christ thirty-two year, that Joseph of Aramathie, the
gentle knight, the which took down our Lord off the holy Cross, at
that time he departed from Jerusalem with a great party of his
kindred with him. And so he laboured till that they came to a city
that hight Sarras. And at that same hour that Joseph came to Sarras
there was a king that hight Evelake, that had great war against
the Saracens, and in especial against one Saracen, the which was
King Evelake’s cousin, a rich king and a mighty, which marched
nigh this land, and his name was called Tolleme la Feintes. So on
a day these two met to do battle. Then Joseph, the son of Joseph of
Aramathie, went to King Evelake and told him he should be discomfit
and slain, but if he left his belief of the old law and believed
upon the new law. And then there he shewed him the right belief
of the Holy Trinity, to the which he agreed unto with all his heart;
and there this shield was made for K i n g Evelake, in the name of Him
that died upon the Cross. And then through his good belief he had
the better of King Tolleme. For when Evelake was in the battle

THE HOLY GRAIL 119
there was a cloth set afore the shield, and when he was in the
greatest peril he let put away the cloth, and then his enemies saw
a figure of a man on the Cross, wherethrough they all were discomfit.
And so it befell that a man of K i n g Evelake’s was smitten
his hand off, and bare that hand in his other hand; and Joseph called
that man unto him and bade him go with good devotion touch the
Cross. And as soon as that man had touched the Cross with his
hand it was as whole as ever it was tofore. Then soon after there fell
a great marvel, that the cross of the shield at one time vanished away
that no man wist where it became. And then King Evelake was
baptised, and for the most part all the people of that city. So, soon
after Joseph would depart, and King Evelake would go with him
whether he would or nold. And so by fortune they came into this
land, that at that time was called Great Britain; and there they
found a great felon paynim, that put Joseph into prison. And so by
fortune tidings came unto a worthy man that hight Mondrames,
and he assembled all his people for the great renown he had heard
of Joseph; and so he came into the land of Great Britain and disinherited
this felon paynim and consumed him; and therewith
delivered Joseph out of prison. And after that all the people were
turned to the Christian faith.

CHAPTER XI

HOW JOSEPH MADE A CROSS ON THE WHITE SHIELD WITH HIS BLOOD,
AND HOW GALAHAD WAS BY A MONK BROUGHT TO A TOMB

NOT long after that Joseph was laid in his deadly bed. And when
King Evelake saw that he made much sorrow, and said: For thy love
I have left my country, and sith ye shall depart out of this world,
leave me some token of yours that I may think on you. Joseph said:
That will I do full gladly; now bring me your shield that I took you
when ye went into battle against King Tolleme. Then Joseph bled
sore at the nose, so that he might not by no mean be staunched.
And there upon that shield he made a cross of his own blood. N ow
may ye see a remembrance that I love you, for ye shall never see
this shield but ye shall think on me, and it shall be always as fresh as

120 SIR THOMAS MALORY
it is now. And never shall man bear this shield about his neck but
he shall repent it, unto the time that Galahad, the good knight, bare
it; and the last of my lineage shall have it about his neck, that shall do
many marvellous deeds. Now, said King Evelake, where shall I
put this shield, that this worthy knight may have it? Ye shall leave
it there as Nacien, the hermit, shall be put after his death; for thither
shall that good knight come the fifteenth day after that he shall receive
the order of knighthood: and so that day that they set is this
time that he have his shield, and in the same abbey lieth Nacien, the
hermit. And then the white knight vanished away. Anon as the
squire had heard these words, he alit off his hackney and kneeled
down at Galahad’s feet, and prayed him that he might go with
him till he had made him knight. If I would not refuse you ? Then
will ye make me a knight? said the squire, and that order, by the
grace of God, shall be well set in me. So Sir Galahad granted him,
and turned again unto the abbey where they came from; and there
men made great joy of Sir Galahad. And anon as he was alit there
was a monk brought him unto a tomb in a churchyard, where there
was such a noise that who that heard it should verily nigh be mad or
lose his strength: and Sir, they said, we deem it is a fiend.

CHAPTER XII

OF THE MARVEL THAT SIR GALAHAD SAW AND HEARD IN THE TOMB,
AND HOW HE MADE MELIAS KNIGHT

Now lead me thither, said Galahad. And so they did, all armed
save his helm. Now, said the good man, go to the tomb and lift it up.
So he did, and heard a great noise; and piteously it said, that all
men might hear it: Sir Galahad, the servant of Jesu Christ, come
thou not nigh me, for thou shalt make me go again there where I
have been so long. But Galahad was nothing afraid, but lifted up
the stone; and there came out so foul a smoke, and after he saw the
foulest figure leap thereout that ever he saw in the likeness of a
man; and then he blessed him and wist well it was a fiend. Then
heard he a voice say: Galahad, I see there environ about thee so

THE HOLY GRAIL 121
many angels that my power may not dare thee. Right so Sir Galahad
saw a body all armed lie in that tomb, and beside him a sword. Now,
fair brother, said Galahad, let us remove this body, for it is not worthy
to lie in this churchyard, for he was a false Christian man. And
therewith they all departed and went to the abbey. And anon as he
was unarmed a good man came and set him down by him and said:
Sir, I shall tell you what betokeneth all that ye saw in the tomb; for
that covered body betokeneth the duresse of the world, and the great
sin that our Lord found in the world. For there was such wretchedness
that the father loved not the son, nor the son loved not the
father; and that was one of the causes that our Lord took flesh and
blood of a clene maiden, for our sins were so great at that time that
wellnigh all was wickedness. Truly, said Galahad, I believe you right
well. So Sir Galahad rested him there that night; and upon the
morn he made the squire knight, and asked him his name, and of
what kindred he was come. Sir, said he, men calleth me Melias de
Lile, and I am the son of the king of Denmark. Now, fair sir, said
Galahad, sith that ye be come of kings and queens, now look that
knighthood be well set in you, for ye ought to be a mirror unto all
chivalry. Sir, said Sir Melias, ye say sooth. But, sir, sithen ye have
made me a knight ye must of right grant me my first desire that is
reasonable. Ye say sooth, said Galahad. Melias said: Then that ye
will suffer me to ride with you in this quest of the Sangreal, till
that some adventure depart us. I grant you, sir. Then men brought
Sir Melias his armour and his spear and his horse, and so Sir Galahad
and he rode forth all that week or they found any adventure. And
then upon a Monday in the morning, as they were departed from an
abbey, they came to a cross which departed two ways, and in that
cross were letters written that said thus: Now, ye knights errant,
the which goeth to seek knights adventurous, see here two ways; that
one way defendeth thee that thou ne go that way, for he shall not
go out of the way again but if he be a good man and a worthy
knight; and if thou go on the left hand, thou shalt not lightly there
win prowess, for thou shalt in this way be soon essayed. Sir, said
Melias to Galahad, if it like you to suffer me to take the way on the
left hand, tell me, for there I shall well prove my strength. It were

122 SIR THOMAS MALORY
better, said Galahad, ye rode not that way, for I deem I should better
escape in that way than ye. Nay, my lord, I pray you let me have that
adventure. Take it in God’s name, said Galahad.

CHAPTER XIII
OF THE ADVENTURE THAT MELIAS HAD, AND HOW GALAHAD REVENGED HIM,
AND HOW MELIAS WAS CARRIED INTO AN ABBEY
AND then rode Melias into an old forest, and therein he rode two
days and more. And then he came into a fair meadow, and there
was a fair lodge of boughs. And then he espied in that lodge a
chair, wherein was a crown of gold, subtily wrought. Also there
were cloths covered upon the earth, and many delicious meats
set thereon. Sir Melias beheld this adventure, and thought it marvellous,
but he had no hunger, but of the crown of gold he took
much keep; and therewith he stooped down and took it up, and
rode his way with it. And anon he saw a knight came riding after
him that said: Knight, set down that crown which is not yours, and
therefore defend you. Then Sir Melias blessed him and said: Fair
lord of heaven, help and save thy newmade knight. And then they
let their horses run as fast as they might, so that the other knight
smote Sir Melias through hauberk and through the left side, that
he fell to the earth nigh dead. And then he took the crown and went
his way; and Sir Melias lay still and had no power to stir. In the
meanwhile by fortune there came Sir Galahad and found him there
in peril of death. And then he said: Ah, Melias, who hath wounded
you ? therefore it had been better to have ridden the other way. And
when Sir Melias heard him speak: Sir, he said, for God’s love let
me not die in this forest, but bear me unto the abbey here beside, that
I may be confessed and have my rights. It shall be done, said Galahad,
but where is he that hath wounded you ? With that Sir Galahad
heard in the leaves cry on high: Knight, keep thee from me. Ah sir,
said Melias, beware, for that is he that hath slain me. Sir Galahad
answered: Sir knight, come on your peril. Then either dressed to
other, and came together as fast as their horses might run, and Galahad
smote him so that his spear went through his shoulder, and smote

THE HOLY GRAIL 123
him down off his horse, and in the falling Galahad’s spear brake.
With that came out another knight out of the leaves, and brake a
spear upon Galahad or ever he might turn him. Then Galahad
drew out his sword and smote off the left arm of him, so that it
fell to the earth. And then he fled, and Sir Galahad pursued fast
after him. And then he turned again unto Sir Melias, and there he
alit and dressed him softly on his horse tofore him, for the truncheon
of his spear was in his body; and Sir Galahad start up behind him,
and held him in his arms, and so brought him to the abbey, and
there unarmed him and brought him to his chamber. And then he
asked his Saviour. And when he had received Him he said unto
Sir Galahad: Sir, let death come when it pleaseth him. And therewith
he drew out the truncheon of the spear out of his body: and
then he swooned. Then came there an old monk which sometime
had been a knight, and beheld Sir Melias. And anon he ransacked
him; and then he said unto Sir Galahad: I shall heal him of his
wound, by the grace of God, within the term of seven weeks. Then
was Sir Galahad glad, and unarmed him, and said he would abide
there three days. And then he asked Sir Melias how it stood with
him. Then he said he was turned unto helping, God be thanked.

What “Don Quixote ” Really Slew (Jan31)

DON QUIXOTE Vol. 14, pp. 60-67

CHAPTER VIII

OF THE GOOD SUCCESS DON QUIXOTE HAD, IN THE DREADFUL AND
NEVER-IMAGINED ADVENTURE OF THE WINDMILLS, WITH OTHER
ACCIDENTS WORTHY TO BE RECORDED

AS they discoursed, they discovered some thirty or forty wind-
mills, that are in that field; and as soon as Don Quixote espied
them, he said to his squire, ‘Fortune doth address
our affairs better than we ourselves could desire; for behold there,
friend Sancho Panza, how there appears thirty or forty monstrous
giants, with whom I mean to fight, and deprive them all of their
lives, with whose spoils we will begin to be rich; for this is a good
war, and a great service unto God, to take away so bad a seed from
the face of the earth.’ ‘What giants?’ quoth Sancho Panza. ‘Those
that thou seest there,’ quoth his lord, ‘with the long arms; and some
there are of that race whose arms are almost two leagues long.’ ‘I
pray you understand,’ quoth Sancho Panza, ‘that those which appear
there are no giants, but windmills; and that which seems in them
to be arms, are their sails, that, swung about by the wind, do also
make the mill go.’ ‘It seems well,’ quoth Don Quixote, ‘that thou
art not yet acquainted with matter of adventures. They are giants;
and, if thou beest afraid, go aside and pray, whilst I enter into cruel
and unequal battle with them.’ And, saying so, he spurred his horse
Rozinante, without taking heed to his squire Sancho’s cries, advertising
him how they were doubtless windmills that he did assault,
and no giants; but he went so fully persuaded that they were giants
as he neither heard his squire’s outcries, nor did discern what they
were, although he drew very near to them, but rather said, as loud
as he could, ‘Fly not, ye cowards and vile creatures! for it is only
one knight that assaults you.’
With this the wind increased, and the mill sails began to turn
about; which Don Quixote espying, said, ‘Although thou movest
more arms than the giant Briareus thou shalt stoop to me.’ And,
60

ADVENTURE OF THE WIND MILLS 61
after saying this, and commending himself most devoutly to his
Lady Dulcinea, desiring her to succor him in that trance, covering
himself well with his buckler, and setting his lance on his rest, he
spurred on Rozinante, and encountered with the first mill that was
before him, and, striking his lance into the sail, the wind swung it
about with such fury, that it broke his lance into shivers, carrying
him and his horse after it, and finally tumbled him a good way off
from it on the field in evil plight. Sancho Panza repaired presently
to succor him as fast as his ass could drive; and when he arrived,
he found him not able to stir, he had gotten such a crush with
Rozinante. ‘Good God!’ quoth Sancho, ‘did I not foretell unto you
that you should look well what you did, for they were none other
than windmills? nor could any think otherwise, unless he had also
windmills in his brains.’ ‘Peace, Sancho,’ quoth Don Quixote; ‘for
matters of war are more subject than any other thing to continual
change; how much more, seeing I do verily persuade myself, that
the wise Frestron, who robbed my study and books, hath transformed
these giants into mills, to deprive me of the glory of the victory, such
is the enmity he bears towards me. But yet, in fine, all his bad arts
shall but little prevail against the goodness of my sword.’ ‘God
grant it as he may!’ said Sancho Panza, and then helped him to
arise; and presently he mounted on Rozinante, who was half shoulder-
pitched by rough encounter; and, discoursing upon that adventure,
they followed on the way which guided towards the passage
or gate of Lapice; for there, as Don Quixote avouched, it was not
possible but to find many adventures, because it was a thoroughfare
much frequented; and yet he affirmed that he went very much
grieved, because he wanted a lance; and, telling it to his squire, he
said, ‘I remember how I have read that a certain Spanish knight,
called Diego Peres of Vargas, having broken his sword in a battle,
tore off a great branch or stock from an oak-tree, and did such marvels
with it that day, and battered so many Moors, as he remained
with the surname of Machuca, which signifies a stump, and as well
he as all his progeny were ever after that day called Vargas and
Machuca. I tell thee this, because I mean to tear another branch,
such, or as good as that at least, from the first oak we shall encounter,
and I mean to achieve such adventures therewithal, as thou wilt

62 DON QUIXOTE
account thyself fortunate for having merited to behold them, and
be a witness of things almost incredible.’ ‘In God’s name!’ quoth
Sancho, ‘I do believe every word you said. But, I pray you, sit right
in your saddle; for you ride sideling, which proceeds, as I suppose,
of the bruising you got by your fall.’ ‘Thou sayst true,’ quoth Don
Quixote; ‘and if I do not complain of the grief, the reason is, because
knights-errant use not to complain of any wound, although
their guts did issue out thereof.’ ‘If it be so,’ quoth Sancho, ‘I know
not what to say; but God knows that I would be glad to hear you
to complain when anything grieves you. Of myself I dare affirm,
that I must complain of the least grief that I have, if it be not likewise
meant that the squires of knights-errant must not complain of
any harm.’ Don Quixote could not refrain laughter, hearing the
simplicity of his squire; and after showed unto him that he might
lawfully complain, both when he pleased, and as much as he listed
with desire, or without it; for he had never yet read anything to
the contrary in the order of knighthood. Then Sancho said unto
him that it was dinner-time. To whom he answered, that he needed
no repast; but if he had will to eat, he might begin when he pleased.
Sancho, having obtained his license, did accommodate himself on
his ass’s back the best he might. Taking out of his wallet some
belly-munition, he rode after his master, travelling and eating at
once, and that with great leisure; and ever and anon he lifted up his
bottle with such pleasure as the best-fed victualler of Malaga might
envy his state; and whilst he rode, multiplying of quaffs in that
manner, he never remembered any of the promises his master had
made him, nor did he hold the fetch of adventures to be a labour,
but rather a great recreation and ease, were they never so dangerous.
In conclusion, they passed over that night under certain trees, from
one of which Don Quixote tore a withered branch, which might
serve him in some sort for a lance; and therefore he set thereon the
iron of his own, which he had reserved when it was broken.
All that night Don Quixote slept not one wink, but thought upon
his Lady Dulcinea, that he might conform himself to what he had
read in his books of adventures, when knights passed over many
nights without sleep in forests and fields, only entertained by the
memory of their mistresses. But Sancho spent not his time so vainly;

ADVENTURE OF THE WINDMILLS 63
for, having his stomach well stuffed, and that not with succory
water, he carried smoothly away the whole night in one sleep; and
if his master had not called him up, neither the sunbeams which
struck on his visage, nor the melody of the birds, which were many,
and did cheerfully welcome the approach of the new day, could have
been able to awake him. At his arising he gave one assay to the
bottle, which he found to be somewhat more weak than it was the
night before, whereat his heart was somewhat grieved; for he mistrusted
that they took not a course to remedy that defect so soon as
he wished. Nor could Don Quixote break his fast, who, as we have
said, meant only to sustain himself with pleasant remembrances.
Then did they return to their commenced way towards the port
of Lapice, which they discovered about three of the clock in the
afternoon. ‘Here,’ said Don Quixote, as soon as he kenned it, ‘may
we, friend Sancho, thrust our hands up to the very elbows in that
which is called adventures. But observe well this caveat which I
shall give thee, that, although thou seest me in the greatest dangers
of the world, thou must not set hand to thy sword in my defence,
if thou dost not see that those which assault me be base and vile
vulgar people; for in such a case thou mayst assist me. Marry, if
they be knights, thou mayst not do so in anywise, nor is it permitted,
by the laws of arms, that thou mayst help me, until thou beest
likewise dubbed knight thyself.’ ‘I do assure you, sir,’ quoth Sancho,
‘that herein you shall be most punctually obeyed; and therefore
chiefly in respect that I am of mine own nature a quiet and peaceable
man, and a mortal enemy of thrusting myself into stirs or
quarrels; yet it is true that, touching the defence of mine own person,
I will not be altogether so observant of those laws, seeing that
both divine and human allow every man to defend himself from
any one that would wrong him.’ ‘I say no less,’ answered Don
Quixote; ‘but in this of aiding me against any knight, thou must
set bounds to thy natural impulses.’ ‘I say I will do so,’ quoth
Sancho; ‘and I will observe this commandment as punctually as
that of keeping holy the Sabbath day.’
Whilst thus they reasoned, there appeared in the way two monks
of St. Benet’s order, mounted on two dromedaries; for the mules
whereon they rode were but little less. They wore masks with

64 DON QUIXOTE
spectacles in them, to keep away the dust from their faces; and each
of them besides bore their umbrills. After them came a coach, and
four or five a-horseback accompanying it, and two lackeys that ran
hard by it. There came therein, as it was after known, a certain
Biscaine lady, which travelled towards Seville, where her husband
sojourned at the present, and was going to the Indies with an honorable
charge. The monks rode not with her, although they travelled
the same way. Scarce had Don Quixote perceived them, when he
said to his squire, ‘Either I am deceived, or else this will prove the
most famous adventure that ever hath been seen; for these two great
black bulks, which appear there, are, questionless, enchanters, that
steal, or carry away perforce, some princess in that coach; and therefore
I must, with all my power, undo that wrong.’ ‘This will be
worse than the adventure of the windmills,’ quoth Sancho. ‘Do
not you see, sir, that those are friars of St. Benet’s order? and the
coach can be none other than of some travellers. Therefore, listen
to mine advice, and see well what you do, lest the devil deceive you.’
‘I have said already to thee, Sancho, that thou art very ignorant in
matter of adventures. What I say is true, as now thou shalt see.’
And, saying so, he spurred on his horse, and placed himself just in
the midst of the way by which the friars came; and when they
approached so near as he supposed they might hear him, he said,
with a loud voice, ‘Devilish and wicked people! leave presently those
high princesses which you violently carry away with you in that
coach; or, if you will not, prepare yourselves to receive sudden death,
as a just punishment of your bad works.’ The friars held their
horses, and were amazed both at the shape and words of Don
Quixote; to whom they answered: ‘Sir knight, we are neither devilish
nor wicked, but religious men of St. Benet’s order, that travel
about our affairs; and we know not whether or no there come any
princesses forced in this coach.’ ‘With me fair words take no effect,’
quoth Don Quixote; ‘for I know you very well, treacherous knaves!’
And then, without expecting their reply, he set spurs to Rozinante,
and, laying his lance on the thigh, charged the first friar with such
fury and rage, that if he had not suffered himself willingly to fall
off his mule, he would not only have overthrown him against his
will, but likewise have slain, or at least wounded him very ill with

THE FRIARS OF S. BENET 65
the blow. The second religious man, seeing how ill his companion
was used, made no words; but, setting spurs to that castle his mule,
did fly away through the field, as swift as the wind itself. Sancho
Panza, seeing the monk overthrown, dismounted very speedily off
his ass, and ran over to him, and would have ransacked his habits.
In this arrived the monks’ two lackeys, and demanded of him why
he thus despoiled the friar. Sancho replied that it was his due, by
the law of arms, as lawful spoils gained in battle by his lord, Don
Quixote. The lackeys, which understood not the jest, nor knew
not what words of battle or spoils meant, seeing that Don Quixote
was now out of the way, speaking with those that came in the coach,
set both at once upon Sancho, and left him not a hair in his beard
but they plucked, and did so trample him under their feet, as they
left him stretched on the ground without either breath or feeling.
The monk, cutting off all delays, mounted again on horseback, all
affrighted, having scarce any drop of blood left in his face through
fear; and, being once up, he spurred after his fellow, who expected
him a good way off, staying to see the success of that assault; and,
being unwilling to attend the end of that strange adventure, they
did prosecute their journey, blessing and crossing themselves as if
the devil did pursue them.
Don Quixote, as is rehearsed, was in this season speaking to the
lady of the coach, to whom he said:’Your beauty, dear lady, may
dispose from henceforth of your person as best ye liketh; for the
pride of your robbers lies now prostrated on the ground, by this my
invincible arm. And because you may not be troubled to know your
deliverer his name, know that I am called Don Quixote de la
Mancha, a knight-errant and adventurer, and captive to the peerless
and beautiful Lady Dulcinea of Toboso. And, in reward of the
benefit which you have received at my hands, I demand nothing
else but that you return to Toboso, and there present yourselves, in
my name, before my lady, and recount unto her what I have done
to obtain your liberty.’ To all these words which Don Quixote said,
a certain Biscaine squire, that accompanied the coach, gave ear; who,
seeing that Don Quixote suffered not the coach to pass onward, but
said that it must presently turn back to Toboso, he drew near to him,
and, laying hold on his lance, he said, in his bad Spanish and worse

66 DON QUIXOTE
Basquish: ‘Get thee away, knight, in an ill hour. By the God that
created me, if thou leave not the coach, I will kill thee, as sure as I
am a Biscaine.’ Don Quixote, understanding him, did answer, with
great staidness: ‘If thou were a knight, as thou art not, I would by
this have punished thy folly and presumption, caitiff creature!’ The
Biscaine replied, with great fury: ‘Not I a gentleman! I swear God
thou liest, as well as I am a Christian. If thou cast away thy lance,
and draw thy sword, thou shalt see the water as soon as thou shalt
carry away the cat: a Biscaine by land, and a gentleman by sea, a
gentleman in spite of the devil; and thou liest, if other things thou
sayst!’ ‘ “Straight thou shalt see that,” said Agrages,’ replied Don
Quixote; and, throwing his lance to the ground, he out with his
sword, and took his buckler, and set on the Biscaine, with resolution
to kill him. The Biscaine, seeing him approach in that manner,
although he desired to alight off his mule, which was not to be
trusted, being one of those naughty ones which are wont to be hired,
yet had he no leisure to do any other thing than to draw out his
sword; but it befel him happily to be near to the coach, out of which
he snatched a cushion, that served him for a shield; and presently
the one made upon the other like mortal enemies. Those that’ were
present laboured all that they might, but in vain, to compound the
matter between them; for the Biscaine swore, in his bad language,
that if they hindered him from ending the battle, he would put his
lady, and all the rest that dared to disturb him, to the sword.
The lady, astonished and fearful of that which she beheld, commanded
the coachman to go a little out of the way, and sat aloof,
beholding the rigorous conflict; in the progress whereof the Biscaine
gave Don Quixote over the target a mighty blow on one of the
shoulders, where, if it had not found resistance in his armour, it
would doubtlessly have cleft him down to the girdle. Don Quixote,
feeling the weight of that unmeasurable blow, cried, with a loud
voice, saying, ‘O Dulcinea! lady of my soul! the flower of all beauty!
succor this thy knight, who to set forth thy worth, finds himself in
this dangerous trance!’ The saying of these words, the gripping
fast of his sword, the covering of himself well with his buckler, and
the assailing of the Biscaine, was done all in one instant, resolving
to venture all the success of the battle on that one only blow. The

THE BISCAINE SQUIRE 67
Biscaine, who perceived him come in that manner, perceived, by his
doughtiness, his intention, and resolved to do the like; and therefore
expected him very well, covered with his cushion, not being able
to manage his mule as he wished from one part to another, who
was not able to go a step, it was so wearied, as a beast never before
used to the like toys. Don Quixote, as we have said, came against
the wary Biscaine with his sword lifted aloft, with full resolution
to part him in two; and all the beholders stood, with great fear
suspended, to see the success of those monstrous blows wherewithal
they threatened one another. And the lady of the coach, with her
gentlewomen, made a thousand vows and offerings to all the devout
places of Spain, to the end that God might deliver the squire and
themselves out of that great danger wherein they were.
But it is to be deplored how, in this very point and term, the
author of this history leaves his battle depending, excusing himself
that he could find no more written of the acts of Don Quixote than
those which he hath already recounted. True it is, that the second
writer of this work would not believe that so curious a history was
drowned in the jaws of oblivion, or that the wits of the Mancha were
so little curious as not to reserve among their treasures or records
some papers treating of this famous knight; and therefore, encouraged
by this presumption, he did not despair to find the end of this
pleasant history; which, Heaven being propitious to him, he got at
last, after the manner that shall be recounted in the Second Part.

First Problem Play Popular (Jan30)

Sophocles’ ANTIGONE Vol. 8, pp. 255-266

ANTIGONE
OF SOPHOCLES
DRAMATIS PERSON.*
CREON, King of Thebes
HiEMON, son of CREON
TEIRESIAS, a seer
Guard
First Messenger
Second Messenger
EURYDICE, wife of CREON
ANTIGONE, ISMENE, daughters of OEDIPUS
Chorus of Thehan Elders

SCENE—Thebes, in front of the Palace.

Enter ANTIGONE and ISMENE

Antigone
ISMENE, mine own sister, dearest one;
Is there, of all the ills of GEdipus,
One left that Zeus will fail to bring on us,
While still we live? for nothing is there sad
Or full of woe, or base, or fraught with shame,
But I have seen it in thy woes and mine.
And now, what new decree is this they tell,
Our ruler has enjoined on all the state?
Know’st thou ? hast heard ? or is it hid from thee,
The doom of foes that comes upon thy friends?
Ism. N o tidings of our friends, Antigone,
Painful or pleasant since that hour have come
When we, two sisters, lost our brothers twain,
In one day dying by each other’s hand.
And since in this last night the Argive host
Has left the field, I nothing further know,
Nor brightening fortune, nor increasing gloom.
Antig. That knew I well, and therefore sent for thee
Beyond the gates, that thou mayst hear alone.
Ism. What meanest thou? It is but all too clear
Thou broodest darkly o’er some tale of woe.

256 SOPHOCLES
Antig. And does not Creon treat our brothers twain
One with the rites of burial, one with shame ?
Eteocles, so say they, he interred
Fidy, with wonted rites, as one held meet
To pass with honour to the gloom below.
But for the corpse of Polynices, slain
So piteously, they say, he has proclaimed
To all the citizens, that none should give
His body burial, or bewail his fate,
But leave it still unsepulchred, unwept,
A prize full rich for birds that scent afar
Their sweet repast. So Creon bids, they say,
Creon the good, commanding thee and me,
Yes, me, I say, and now is coming here,
T o make it clear to those who knew it not,
And counts the matter not a trivial thing;
But whoso does the things that he forbids,
For him, there waits within the city’s walls
The death of stoning. Thus, then, stands thy case;
And quickly thou wilt show, if thou art born
Of noble nature, or degenerate liv’st,
Base child of honoured parents.
Ism. How could I,
O daring in thy mood, in this our plight,
Or doing or undoing, aught avail?
Antig. Wilt thou with me share risk and toil? Look to it.
Ism. What risk is this? What purpose fills thy mind?
Antig. Wilt thou with me go forth to help the dead?
Ism. And dost thou mean to give him sepulture,
When all have been forbidden ?
Antig. He is still
My brother; yes, and thine, though thou, it seems,
Wouldst fain he were not. I desert him not.
Ism. O daring one, when Creon bids thee not!
Antig. What right has he to keep me from mine own ?
Ism. Ah me! remember, sister, how our sire
Perished, with hate o’erwhelmed and infamy,

ANTIGONE 257
From evils that he brought upon himself,
And with his own hand robbed himself of sight,
And how his wife and mother, both in one,
With twist and cordage, cast away her life;
And thirdly, how our brothers in one day
In suicidal conflict wrought the doom,
Each of the other. And we twain are left;
And think, how much more wretchedly than all
We twain shall perish, if, against the law,
We brave our sovereign’s edict and his power.
For this we need remember, we were born
Women; as such, not made to strive with men.
And next, that they who reign surpass in strength,
And we must bow to this, and worse than thic.
I, then, entreating those that dwell below,
To judge me leniently, as forced to yield,
Will hearken to our rulers. Overzeal
In act or word but little wisdom shows.
Antig. I would not ask thee. No! if thou shouldst wish
To do it, and wouldst gladly join with me.
Do what thou wilt, I go to bury him;
And good it were, this having done, to die.
Loved I shall be with him whom I have loved,
Guilty of holiest crime. More time have I
In which to win the favour of the dead,
Than that of those who live; for I shall rest
For ever there. But thou, if thus thou please,
Count as dishonoured what the Gods approve.
Ism. I do them no dishonour, but I find
Myself too weak to war against the state.
Antig. Make what excuse thou wilt, I go to rear
A grave above the brother whom I love.
Ism. Ah, wretched me! how much I fear for thee.
Antig. Fear not for me. Thine own fate guide aright.
Ism. At any rate, disclose this deed to none;
Keep it close hidden. I will hide it too.
Antig. Speak out! I bid thee. Silent, thou wilt be

258 SOPHOCLES
More hateful to me than if thou shouldst tell
My deed to all men.
Ism. Fiery is thy mood,
Although thy deeds might chill the very blood.
Antig. I know I please the souls I seek to please.
Ism. If thou canst do it; but thy passion craves
For things impossible.
Antig. I’ll cease to strive
When strength shall fail me.
Ism. Even from the first,
It is not meet to seek what may not be.
Antig. If thou speak thus, niy hatred wilt thou gain,
And rightly wilt be hated of the dead.
Leave me and my ill counsel to endure
This dreadful doom. I shall not suffer aught
So evil as a death dishonourable.
Ism. Go, then, if so thou wilt. Of this be sure,
Wild as thou art, thy friends must love thee still. [Exeunt.
Enter Chorus

STROPHE I
Chor. Ray of the glorious sun,
Brightest of all that ever shone on Thebes,
Thebes with her seven high gates,
Thou didst appear that day,
Eye of the golden dawn,
O’er Dirke’s streams advancing,
Driving with quickened curb,
In haste of headlong flight,
The warrior who, in panoply of proof,
From Argos came, with shield as white as snow;
Who came to this our land,
Roused by the strife of tongues
That Polynices stirred;
Shrieking his shrill sharp cry,
The eagle hovered round,

ANTIGONE 259
With snow-white wing bedecked,
Begirt with myriad arms,
And flowing horsehair crests.

ANTISTROPHE I
He stood above our towers,
Circling, with blood-stained spears,
The portals of our gates;
He went, before he filled
His jaws with blood of men,
Before Hephaestus with his pitchy flame
Had seized our crown of towers.
So loud the battle din that Ares loves,
Was raised around his rear,
A conflict hard and stiff,
E’en for his dragon foe.
For breath of haughty speech
Zeus hateth evermore exceedingly;
And seeing them advance,
Exulting in the clang of golden arms,
With brandished fire he hurls them headlong down,
In act, upon the topmost battlement
Rushing, with eager step,
To shout out, “Victory!”

STROPHE II
Crashing to earth he fell,
Who came, with madman’s haste,
Drunken, but not with wine,
And swept o’er us with blasts,
The whirlwind blasts of hate.
Thus on one side they fare,
And mighty Ares, bounding in his strength,
Dashing now here, now there,
Elsewhere brought other fate.
For seven chief warriors at the seven gates met,
Equals with equals matched,

260 SOPHOCLES
To Zeus, the Lord of War,
Left tribute, arms of bronze;
All but the hateful ones
Who, from one father and one mother sprung,
Stood wielding, hand to hand,
Their doubly pointed spears;
They had their doom of death,
In common, shared by both.

ANTISTROPHE II
But now, since Victory, of mightiest name,
Hath come to Thebes, of many chariots proud,
Joying and giving joy,
After these wars just past,
Learn ye forgetfulness,
And all night long, with dance and voice of hymns,
Let us go round to all the shrines of Gods,
While Bacchus, making Thebes resound with shouts,
Begins the strain of joy;
But, lo! the sovereign of this land of ours,
Creon, Menoekeus’ son,
He, whom strange change and chances from the God
Have nobly raised to power,
Comes to us, steering on some new device;
For, lo! he hath convened,
By herald’s loud command,
This council of the elders of our land.
Enter CREON
Creon. My friends, for what concerns our commonwealth,
The Gods who vexed it with the billowing storms
Have righted it again; but I have sent,
By special summons, calling you to come
Apart from all the others. This, in part,
As knowing ye did all along uphold
The might of Laius’ throne, in part again,
Because when CEdipus our country ruled,

ANTIGONE 261
And, when he perished, then towards his sons
Ye still were faithful in your steadfast mind.
And since they fell, as by a double death,
Both on the selfsame day with murderous blow,
Smiting and being smitten, now I hold
Their thrones and all their power of sov’reignty
By nearness of my kindred to the dead.
And hard it is to learn what each man is,
In heart and mind and judgment, till one gains
Experience in the exercise of power.
For me, whoe’er is called to guide a state,
And does not catch at counsels wise and good,
But holds his peace through any fear of man,
I deem him basest of all men that are,
Of all that ever have been; and whoe’er
As worthier than his country counts his friend,
I utterly despise him. I myself,
Zeus be my witness, who beholdeth all,
Will not keep silence, seeing danger come,
Instead of safety, to my subjects true.
Nor could I take as friend my country’s foe;
For this I know, that there our safety lies,
And sailing in her while she holds her course,
We gather friends around us. By these rules
And such as these will I maintain the state.
And now I come, with edicts close allied
To these in spirit, for my subjects all,
Concerning those two sons of CEdipus.
Eteocles, who died in deeds of might
Illustrious, fighting for our fatherland,
To honour him with sepulture, all rites
Duly performed that to the noblest dead
Of right belong. Not so his brother; him
I speak of, Polynices, who, returned
From exile, sought with fire and sword to waste
His father’s city and the shrines of Gods,
Yea, sought to glut his rage with blood of men,

262 SOPHOCLES
And lead them captives to the bondslave’s doom;
Him I decree that none should dare entomb,
That none should utter wail or loud lament,
But leave his corpse unburied, by the dogs
And vultures mangled, foul to look upon.
Such is my purpose. Ne’er, if I can help,
Shall the vile share the honours of the just;
But whoso shows himself my country’s friend,
Living or dead, from me shall honour gain.
Chor. This is thy pleasure, O Menoekeus’ son,
For him who hated, him who loved our state;
And thou hast power to make what laws thou wilt,
Both for the dead and all of us who live.
Creon. Be ye, then, guardians of the things I speak.
Chor. Commit this task to one of younger years.
Creon. T h e watchmen are appointed for the corpse.
Chor. What duty, then, enjoin’st thou on another ?
Creon. Not to consent with those that disobey.
Chor. None are so foolish as to seek for death.
Creon. A n d that shall be his doom; but love of gain
Hath oft with false hopes lured men to their death.
Enter Guard
Guard. I will not say, O king, that I am come
Panting with speed and plying nimble feet,
For I had many halting-points of thought,
Backwards and forwards turning, round and round;
For now my mind would give me sage advice:
“Poor wretch, and wilt thou go and bear the blame?”
Or—”Dost thou tarry now? Shall Creon know
These things from others? How wilt thou escape?”
Resolving thus, I came in haste, yet slow,
And thus a short way finds itself prolonged,
But, last of all, to come to thee prevailed.
And though I tell of naught, thou shalt hear all;
For this one hope I cling to steadfastly,
That I shall suffer nothing but my fate.

A N T I G O N E 263
Creon. What is it, then, that causes such dismay?
Guard. First, for mine own share in it, this I say,
I did not do it, do not know who did,
Nor should I rightly come to ill for it.
Creon. Thou tak’st good aim and fencest up thy tale
All round and round. ‘Twould seem thou hast some news.
Guard. Yea, news of fear engenders long delay.
Creon. Tell thou thy tale, and then depart in peace.
Guard. And speak I will. The corpse . . . Some one
has been
But now and buried it, a litde dust
O’er the skin scattering, with the wonted rites.
Creon. What say’st thou? Who has dared this deed of
guilt?
Guard. I know not. Neither was there stroke of spade,
Nor earth cast up by mattock. All the soil
Was dry and hard, no track of chariot wheel;
But he who did it went and left no sign.
But when the first day’s watchman showed it us,
The sight caused wonder and sore grief to all,
For he had disappeared. No tomb, indeed,
Was over him, but dust all lightly strown,
As by some hand that shunned defiling guilt;
And no work was there of a beast of prey
Or dog devouring. Evil words arose
Among us, guard to guard imputing blame,
Which might have come to blows, for none was there
To check its course, and each to each appeared
The man whose hand had done it. As for proof,
That there was none, and so he ’scaped our ken.
And we were ready in our hands to take
Bars of hot iron, and to walk through fire,
And call the Gods to witness none of us
Had done the deed, nor knew who counselled it,
Nor who had wrought it. Then at last, when naught
Was gained by all our searching, some one says
What made us bend our gaze upon the ground

264 SOPHOCLES
In fear and trembling; for we neither saw
How to oppose it, nor, accepting it,
How we might prosper in it. And his speech
Was this, that all our tale should go to thee,
Not hushed up anywise. This gained the day;
And me, ill-starred, the lot condemns to win
This precious prize. So here I come to thee
Against my will; and surely do I trow
Thou dost not wish to see me. Still ’tis true
That no man loves the messenger of ill.
Chor. For me, my prince, my mind some time has thought
That this perchance has some divine intent.
Creon. Cease thou, before thou fillest me with wrath,
Lest thou be found a dastard and a fool.
For what thou say’st is most intolerable,
That for this corpse the providence of Gods
Has any care. What! have they buried him,
As to their patron paying honours high,
Who came to waste their columned shrines with fire,
To desecrate their offerings and their lands,
And all their wonted customs? Dost thou see
The Gods approving men of evil deeds?
It is not so; but men of rebel mood,
Lifting their head in secret long ago,
Have stirred this thing against me. Never yet
Had they their neck beneath the yoke, content
To own me as their ruler. They, I know,
Have bribed these men to let the deed be done.
No thing in use by man, for power of ill,
Can equal money. This lays cities low,
This drives men forth from quiet dwelling-place,
This warps and changes minds of worthiest stamp,
To turn to deeds of baseness, teaching men
All shifts of cunning, and to know the guilt
Of every impious deed. But they who, hired,
Have wrought this crime, have laboured to their cost,
Or soon or late to pay the penalty.

ANTIGONE 265
But if Zeus still claims any awe from me,
Know this, and with an oath I tell it thee,
Unless ye find the very man whose hand
Has wrought this burial, and before mine eyes
Present him captive, death shall not suffice,
Till first, impaled still living, ye shall show
The story of this outrage, that henceforth,
Knowing what gain is lawful, ye may grasp
At that, and learn it is not meet to love
Gain from all quarters. By base profit won,
You will see more destroyed than prospering.
Guard. May I, then, speak? Or shall I turn and go?
Creon. Dost thou not see how vexing are thy words?
Guard. Is it thine ears they trouble, or thy soul?
Creon. W h y dost thou gauge my trouble where it is?
Guard. The doer grieves thy heart, but I thine ears.
Creon. Pshaw! what a babbler, born to prate, art thou.
Guard. And therefore not the man to do this deed.
Creon. Yes, that too; selling e’en thy soul for pay.
Guard. Ah me!
How fearful ’tis, in thinking, false to think.
Creon. Prate about thinking; but unless ye show
To me the doers, ye shall say ere long
That evil gains still work their punishment. [Exit.
Guard, God send we find him! Should we find him not,
As well may be, for this must chance decide,
You will not see me coming here again;
For now, being safe beyond all hope of mine,
Beyond all thought, I owe the Gods much thanks. [Exit.

STROPHE I
Chor. Many the forms of life,
Fearful and strange to see,
But man supreme stands out,
For strangeness and for fear.
He, with the wintry gales,
O’er the foam-crested sea,
266 SOPHOCLES
Mid billows surging round,
Tracketh his way across:
Earth, of all Gods, from ancient days, the first,
Mightiest and undecayed,
He, with his circling plough,
Wears ever year by year.

ANTISTROPHE I
The thoughtless tribe of birds,
The beasts that roam the fields,
The finny brood of ocean’s depths,
He takes them all in nets of knotted mesh,
Man, wonderful in skill.
And by his arts he holds in sway
The wild beasts on the mountain’s height;
And brings the neck-encircling yoke
On horse with shaggy mane,
Or bull that walks untamed upon the hills.

STROPHE II
And speech, and thought as swift as wind,
And tempered mood for higher life of states,
These he has learnt, and how to flee
The stormy sleet of frost unkind,
The tempest thunderbolts of Zeus.
So all-preparing, unprepared
He meeteth naught the coming days may bring;
Only from Hades, still
He fails to find a refuge at the last,
Though skill of art may teach him to escape
From depths of fell disease incurable.

ANTISTROPHE II
So, gifted with a wondrous might,
Above all fancy’s dreams, with skill to plan,
Now unto evil, now to good,

Breakfast Before Martyrdom

Jihad can sound boring at first.

That’s what Flagg Miller has discovered. For the past seven years, Mr. Miller, an associate professor of religious studies at the University of California at Davis, has been poring over hundreds of audio tapes that were part of Osama bin Laden’s personal collection. Some of the tapes feature jihadis making small talk, cooking breakfast, laughing at each other’s lame jokes—not exactly riveting material.

But listen closely and they start to get interesting. more>>

J. D. Salinger Dies at 91

J. D. Salinger, who was thought at one time to be the most important American writer to emerge since World War II but who then turned his back on success and adulation, becoming the Garbo of letters, famous for not wanting to be famous, died on Wednesday at his home in Cornish, N.H., where he had lived in seclusion for more than 50 years. He was 91. more>>

Visits the Land of Fire (Jan29)

Darwin’s VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE Vol. 29, 209-221

CHAPTER X

TIERRA DEL FUEGO

Tierra del Fuego, first arrival—Good Success Bay—An Account of the
Fuegians on board—Interview with the Savages—Scenery of the Forests—
Cape Horn—Wigwam Cove—Miserable Condition of the Savages
—Famines—Cannibals—Matricide—Religious Feelings—Great Gale—
Beagle Channel—Ponsonby Sound—Build Wigwams and settle the
Fuegians—Bifurcation of the Beagle Channel—Glaciers—Return to
the Ship—Second Visit in the Ship to the Settlement—Equality of
Condition amongst the Natives. DECEMBER ijth, 1832.—Having now finished with Patagonia
and the Falkland Islands, I will describe our first
arrival in Tierra del Fuego. A little after noon we doubled
Cape St. Diego, and entered the famous strait of Le Maire. We kept
close to the Fuegian shore, but the outline of the rugged, inhospitable
Statenland was visible amidst the clouds. In the afternoon we
anchored in the Bay of Good Success. While entering we were
saluted in a manner becoming the inhabitants of this savage land.
A group of Fuegians partly concealed by the entangled forest, were
perched on a wild point overhanging the sea; and as we passed by,
they sprang up and waving their tattered cloaks sent forth a loud
and sonorous shout. The savages followed the ship, and just before
dark we saw their fire, and again heard their wild cry. The harbour
consists of a fine piece of water half surrounded by low rounded
mountains of clay-slate, which are covered to the water’s edge by
one dense gloomy forest. A single glance at the landscape was sufficient
to show me how widely different it was from anything I had
ever beheld. At night it blew a gale of wind, and heavy squalls from
the mountains swept past us. It would have been a bad time out at
sea, and we, as well as others, may call this Good Success Bay.
In the morning the Captain sent a party to communicate with the
Fuegians. When we came within hail, one of the four natives who
were present advanced to receive us, and began to shout most vehe-
209

210 CHARLES DARWIN
mently,
wishing to direct us where to land. When we were on shore
the party looked rather alarmed, but continued talking and making
gestures with great rapidity. It was without exception the most
curious and interesting spectacle I ever beheld: I could not have
believed how wide was the difference between savage and civilized
man: it is greater than between a wild and domesticated animal,
inasmuch as in man there is a greater power of improvement. The
chief spokesman was old, and appeared to be the head of the family;
the three others were powerful young men, about six feet high. The
women and children had been sent away. These Fuegians are a very
different race from the stunted, miserable wretches farther westward;
and they seem closely allied to the famous Patagonians of
the Strait of Magellan. Their only garment consists of a mantle
made of guanaco skin, with the wool outside: this they wear just
thrown over their shoulders, leaving their persons as often exposed
as covered. Their skin is of a dirty coppery-red colour.
The old man had a fillet of white feathers tied round his head,
which partly confined his black, coarse, and entangled hair. His
face was crossed by two broad transverse bars; one, painted bright
red, reached from ear to ear and included the upper lip; the other,
white like chalk, extended above and parallel to the first, so that
even his eyelids were thus coloured. The other two men were ornamented
by streaks of black powder, made of charcoal. The party
altogether closely resembled the devils which come on the stage in
plays like Der Freischutz.
Their very attitudes were abject, and the expression of their
countenances distrustful, surprised, and startled. After we had presented
them with some scarlet cloth, which they immediately tied
round their necks, they became good friends. This was shown by
the old man patting our breasts, and making a chuckling kind of
noise, as people do when feeding chickens. I walked with the old
man, and this demonstration of friendship was repeated several
times; it was concluded by three hard slaps, which were given me
on the breast and back at the same time. He then bared his bosom
for me to return the compliment, which being done, he seemed
highly pleased. The language of these people, according to our
notions, scarcely deserves to be called articulate. Captain Cook has

THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 211
compared it to a man clearing his throat, but certainly no European
ever cleared his throat with so many hoarse, guttural, and clicking
sounds.
They are excellent mimics: as often as we coughed or yawned, or
made any odd motion, they immediately imitated us. Some of our
party began to squint and look awry; but one of the young Fuegians
(whose whole face was painted black, excepting a white band across
his eyes) succeeded in making far more hideous grimaces. They
could repeat with perfect correctness each word in any sentence we
addressed them, and they remembered such words for some time.
Yet we Europeans all know how difficult it is to distinguish apart
the sounds in a foreign language. Which of us, for instance, could
follow an American Indian through a sentence of more than three
words? All savages appear to possess, to an uncommon degree, this
power of mimicry. I was told, almost in the same words, of the same
ludicrous habit among the Caff res; the Australians, likewise, have
long been notorious for being able to imitate and describe the gait
of any man, so that he may be recognized. How can this faculty be
explained? is it a consequence of the more practised habits of perception
and keener senses, common to all men in a savage state, as
compared with those long civilized ?
When a song was struck up by our party, I thought the Fuegians
would have fallen down with astonishment. With equal surprise
they viewed our dancing; but one of the young men, when asked,
had no objection to a little waltzing. Litde accustomed to Europeans
as they appeared to be, yet they knew and dreaded our fire-arms;
nothing would tempt them to take a gun in their hands. They
begged for knives, calling them by the Spanish word “cuchilla.”
They explained also what they wanted, by acting as if they had a
piece of blubber in their mouth, and then pretending to cut instead
of tear it.
I have not as yet noticed the Fuegians whom we had on board.
During the former voyage of the Adventure and Beagle in 1826 to
1830, Captain Fitz Roy seized on a party of natives, as hostages for
the loss of a boat, which had been stolen, to the great jeopardy of a
party employed on the survey; and some of these natives, as well as
a child whom he bought for a pearl-button, he took with him to

212 CHARLES DARWIN
England, determining to educate them and instruct them in religion
at his own expense. To settle these natives in their own country,
was one chief inducement to Captain Fitz Roy to undertake our
present voyage; and before the Admiralty had resolved to send out
this expedition, Captain Fitz Roy had generously chartered a vessel,
and would himself have taken them back. The natives were accompanied
by a missionary, R. Matthews; of whom and of the natives,
Captain Fitz Roy had published a full and excellent account. Two
men, one of whom died in England of the small-pox, a boy and a
little girl, were originally taken; and we had now on board, York
Minster, Jemmy Button (whose name expresses his purchasemoney),
and Fuegia Basket. York Minster was a full-grown, short,
thick, powerful man: his disposition was reserved, taciturn, morose,
and when excited violently passionate; his affections were very
strong towards a few friends on board; his intellect good. Jemmy
Button was a universal favourite, but likewise passionate; the expression
of his face at once showed his nice disposition. He was merry
and often laughed, and was remarkably sympathetic with any one in
pain: when the water was rough, I was often a little sea-sick, and he
used to come to me and say in a plaintive voice, “Poor, poor fellow!”
but the notion, after his aquatic life, of a man being sea-sick, was too
ludicrous, and he was generally obliged to turn on one side to hide a
smile or laugh, and then he would repeat his “Poor, poor fellow!”
He was of a patriotic disposition; and he liked to praise his own
tribe and country, in which he truly said there were “plenty of
trees,” and he abused all the other tribes: he stoutly declared that
there was no Devil in his land. Jemmy was short, thick, and fat, but
vain of his personal appearance; he used always to wear gloves, his
hair was neatly cut, and he was distressed if his well-polished shoes
were dirtied. He was fond of admiring himself in a looking glass;
and a merry-faced little Indian boy from the Rio Negro, whom we
had for some months on board, soon perceived this, and used to
mock him: Jemmy, who was always rather jealous of the attention
paid to this little boy, did not at all like this, and used to say, with
rather a contemptuous twist of his head, “Too much skylark.” It
seems yet wonderful to me, when I think over all his many good
qualities, that he should have been of the same race, and doubtless

THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 213
partaken of the same character, with the miserable, degraded savages
whom we first met here. Lastly, Fuegia Basket was a nice, modest,
reserved young girl, with a rather pleasing but sometimes sullen
expression, and very quick in learning anything, especially languages.
This she showed in picking up some Portuguese and Spanish, when
left on shore for only a short time at Rio de Janeiro and Monte
Video, and in her knowledge of English. York Minster was very
jealous of any attention paid to her; for it was clear he determined
to marry her as soon as they were settled on shore.
Although all three could both speak and understand a good deal
of English, it was singularly difficult to obtain much information
from them, concerning the habits of their countrymen; this was
partly owing to their apparent difficulty in understanding the
simplest alternative. Every one accustomed to very young children,
knows how seldom one can get an answer even to so simple a
question as whether a thing is black or white; the idea of black or
white seems alternately to fill their minds. So it was with these
Fuegians, and hence it was generally impossible to find out, by
cross-questioning, whether one had rightly understood anything
which they had asserted. Their sight was remarkably acute; it is
well known that sailors, from long practice, can make out a distant
object much better than a landsman; but both York and Jemmy
were much superior to any sailor on board: several times they have
declared what some distant object has been, and though doubted by
every one, they have proved right, when it has been examined
through a telescope. They were quite conscious of this power; and
Jemmy, when he had any little quarrel with the officer on watch,
would say, “Me see ship, me no tell.”
It was interesting to watch the conduct of the savages, when we
landed, towards Jemmy Button: they immediately perceived the
difference between him and ourselves, and held much conversation
one with another on the subject. The old man addressed a long
harangue to Jemmy, which it seems was to invite him to stay with
them. But Jemmy understood very little of their language, and was,
moreover, thoroughly ashamed of his countrymen. When York
Minster afterwards came on shore, they noticed him in the same
way, and told him he ought to shave; yet he had not twenty dwarf

214 CHARLES DARWIN
hairs on his face, whilst we all wore our untrimmed beards. They
examined the colour of his skin, and compared it with ours. One of
our arms being bared, they expressed the liveliest surprise and
admiration at its whiteness, just in the same way in which I have
seen the ourang-outang do at the Zoological Gardens. We thought
that they mistook two or three of the officers, who were rather
shorter and fairer, though adorned with large beards, for the ladies
of our party. The tallest amongst the Fuegians was evidently much
pleased at his height being noticed. When placed back to back with
the tallest of the boat’s crew, he tried his best to edge on higher
ground, and to stand on tiptoe. He opened his mouth to show his
teeth, and turned his face for a side view; and all this was done
with such alacrity, that I dare say he thought himself the handsomest
man in Tierra del Fuego. After our first feeling of grave
astonishment was over, nothing could be more ludicrous than the
odd mixture of surprise and imitation which these savages every
moment exhibited.
The next day I attempted to penetrate some way into the country.
Tierra del Fuego may be described as a mountainous land, partly
submerged in the sea, so that deep inlets and bays occupy the place
where valleys should exist. The mountain sides, except on the
exposed western coast, are covered from the water’s edge upwards
by one great forest. The trees reach to an elevation of between iooo
and 1500 feet, and are succeeded by a band of peat, with minute
alpine plants; and this again is succeeded by the line of perpetual
snow, which, according to Captain King, in the Strait of Magellan
descends to between 3000 and 4000 feet. To find an acre of level
land in any part of the country is most rare. I recollect only one little
flat piece near Port Famine, and another of rather larger extent near
Goeree Road. In both places, and everywhere else, the surface is
covered by a thick bed of swampy peat. Even within the forest,
the ground is concealed by a mass of slowly putrefying vegetable
matter, which, from being soaked with water, yields to the foot.
Finding it nearly hopeless to push my way through the wood, I
followed the course of a mountain torrent. At first, from the waterfalls
and number of dead trees, I could hardly crawl along; but the

THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 215
bed of the stream soon became a little more open, from the floods
having swept the sides. I continued slowly to advance for an hour
along the broken and rocky banks, and was amply repaid by the
grandeur of the scene. The gloomy depth of the ravine well accorded
with the universal signs of violence. On every side were lying
irregular masses of rock and torn-up trees; other trees, though still
erect, were decayed to the heart and ready to fall. The entangled
mass of the thriving and the fallen reminded me of the forests within
the tropics—yet there was a difference: for in these still solitudes,
Death, instead of Life, seemed the predominant spirit. I followed
the watercourse till I came to a spot where a great slip had cleared
a straight space down the mountain side. By this road I ascended
to a considerable elevation, and obtained a good view of the surrounding
woods. The trees all belong to one kind, the Fagus
betuloides; for the number of the other species of Fagus and of the
Winter’s Bark, is quite inconsiderable. This beech keeps its leaves
throughout the year; but its foliage is of a peculiar brownish-green
colour, with a tinge of yellow. As the whole landscape is thus
coloured, it has a sombre, dull appearance; nor is it often enlivened
by the rays of the sun.
December 20th.—One side of the harbour is formed by a hill about
1500 feet high, which Captain Fitz Roy has called after Sir J. Banks,
in commemoration of his disastrous excursion, which proved fatal to
two men of his party, and nearly so to Dr. Solander. The snowstorm,
which was the cause of their misfortune, happened in the
middle of January, corresponding to our July, and in the latitude
of Durham! I was anxious to reach the summit of this mountain
to collect alpine plants; for flowers of any kind in the lower parts
are few in number. We followed the same watercourse as on the
previous day, till it dwindled away, and we were then compelled to
crawl blindly among the trees. These, from the effects of the elevation
and of the impetuous winds, were low, thick and crooked. At
length we reached that which from a distance appeared like a carpet
of fine green turf, but which, to our vexation, turned out to be a
compact mass of little beech-trees about four or five feet high. They
were as thick together as box in the border of a garden, and we were
obliged to struggle over the flat but treacherous surface. After a

2l6 CHARLES DARWIN
little more trouble we gained the peat, and then the bare slate rock.
A ridge connected this hill with another, distant some miles, and
more lofty, so that patches of snow were lying on it. As the day
was not far advanced, I determined to walk there and collect plants
along the road. It would have been very hard work, had it not been
for a well-beaten and straight path made by the guanacos; for these
animals, like sheep, always follow the same line. When we reached
the hill we found it the highest in the immediate neighbourhood,
and the waters flowed to the sea in opposite directions. We obtained
a wide view over the surrounding country: to the north a swampy
moorland extended, but to the south we had a scene of savage magnificence,
well becoming Tierra del Fuego. There was a degree of
mysterious grandeur in mountain behind mountain, with the deep
intervening valleys, all covered by one thick, dusky mass of forest.
The atmosphere, likewise, in this climate, where gale succeeds gale,
with rain, hail, and sleet, seems blacker than anywhere else. In the
Strait of Magellan looking due southward from Port Famine, the
distant channels between the mountains appeared from their gloominess
to lead beyond the confines of this world.
December 21st.—The Beagle got under way: and on the succeeding
day, favoured to an uncommon degree by a fine easterly breeze,
we closed in with the Barnevelts, and running past Cape Deceit with
its stony peaks, about three o’clock doubled the weather-beaten Cape
Horn. The evening was calm and bright, and we enjoyed a fine
view of the surrounding isles. Cape Horn, however, demanded his
tribute, and before night sent us a gale of wind directly in our
teeth. We stood out to sea, and on the second day again made the
land, when we saw on our weather-bow this notorious promontory
in its proper form—veiled in a mist, and its dim outline surrounded
by a storm of wind and water. Great black clouds were rolling
across the heavens, and squalls of rain, with hail, swept by us with
such extreme violence, that the Captain determined to run into
Wigwam Cove. This is a snug little harbour, not far from Cape
Horn; and here, at Christmas-eve, we anchored in smooth water.
The only thing which reminded us of the gale outside, was every
now and then a puff from the mountains, which made the ship
surge at her anchors.

THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 217
December 25th.—Close by the Cove, a pointed hill, called Kater’s
Peak, rises to the height of 1700 feet. The surrounding islands all
consist of conical masses of greenstone, associated sometimes with
less regular hills of baked and altered clay-slate. This part of Tierra
del Fuego may be considered as the extremity of the submerged
chain of mountains already alluded to. The cove takes its name of
“Wigwam” from some of the Fuegian habitations; but every bay in
the neighbourhood might be so called with equal propriety. The
inhabitants, living chiefly upon shell-fish, are obliged constantly to
change their place of residence; but they return at intervals to the
same spots, as is evident from the piles of old shells, which must
often amount to many tons in weight. These heaps can be distinguished
at a long distance by the bright green colour of certain
plants, which invariably grow on them. Among these may be
enumerated the wild celery and scurvy grass, two very serviceable
plants, the use of which has not been discovered by the natives.
The Fuegian wigwam resembles, in size and dimensions, a haycock.
It merely consists of a few broken branches stuck in the
ground, and very imperfectly thatched on one side with a few tufts
of grass and rushes. The whole cannot be the work of an hour, and
it is only used for a few days. At Goeree Roads I saw a place where
one of these naked men had slept, which absolutely offered no more
cover than the form of a hare. The man was evidently living by
himself, and York Minster said he was “very bad man,” and that
probably he had stolen something. On the west coast, however, the
wigwams are rather better, for they are covered with seal-skins. We
were detained here several days by the bad weather. The climate is
certainly wretched: the summer solstice was now passed, yet every
day snow fell on the hills, and in the valleys there was rain, accompanied
by sleet. The thermometer generally stood about 4 5 0 , but in
the night fell to 380 or 40 ° . From the damp and boisterous state of
the atmosphere, not cheered by a gleam of sunshine, one fancied the
climate even worse than it really was.
While going one day on shore near Wollaston Island, we pulled
alongside a canoe with six Fuegians. These were the most abject
and miserable creatures I anywhere beheld. On the east coast the
natives, as we have seen, have guanaco cloaks, and on the west

2l8 CHARLES DARWIN
they possess seal-skins. Amongst these central tribes the men generally
have an otter-skin, or some small scrap about as large as a
pocket-handkerchief, which is barely sufficient to cover their backs
as low down as their loins. It is laced across the breast by strings,
and according as the wind blows, it is shifted from side to side. But
these Fuegians in the canoe were quite naked, and even one fullgrown
woman was absolutely so. It was raining heavily, and the
fresh water, together with the spray, trickled down her body. In
another harbour not far distant, a woman, who was suckling a
recently-born child, came one day alongside the vessel, and remained
there out of mere curiosity, whilst the sleet fell and thawed on her
naked bosom, and on the skin of her naked baby! These poor
wretches were stunted in their growth, their hideous faces bedaubed
with white paint, their skins filthy and greasy, their hair entangled,
their voices discordant, and their gestures violent. Viewing such
men, one can hardly make one’s self believe that they are fellowcreatures,
and inhabitants of the same world. It is a common subject
of conjecture what pleasure in life some of the lower animals can
enjoy: how much more reasonably the same question may be asked
with respect to these barbarians! A t night, five or six human beings,
naked and scarcely protected from the wind and rain of this tempestuous
climate, sleep on the wet ground coiled up like animals.
Whenever it is low water, winter or summer, night or day, they
must rise to pick shell-fish from the rocks; and the women either
dive to collect sea-eggs, or sit patiently in their canoes, and with a
baited hair-line without any hook, jerk out little fish. If a seal is
killed, or the floating carcass of a putrid whale is discovered, it is a
feast; and such miserable food is assisted by a few tasteless berries
and fungi.
They often suffer from famine: I heard Mr. Low, a sealingmaster
intimately acquainted with the natives of this country, give
a curious account of the state of a party of one hundred and fifty
natives on the west coast, who were very thin and in great distress.
A succession of gales prevented the women from getting shell-fish
on the rocks, and they could not go out in their canoes to catch seal.
A small party of these men one morning set out, and the other
Indians explained to him, that they were going a four days’ journey

THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 219
for food: on their return, Low went to meet them, and he found
them excessively tired, each man carrying a great square piece of
putrid whale’s-blubber with a hole in the middle, through which
they put their heads, like the Gauchos do through their ponchos or
cloaks. As soon as the blubber was brought into a wigwam, an old
man cut off thin slices, and muttering over them, broiled them for
a minute, and distributed them to the famished party, who during
this time preserved a profound silence. Mr. L ow believes that whenever
a whale is cast on shore, the natives bury large pieces of it in
the sand, as a resource in time of famine; and a native boy, whom
he had on board, once found a stock thus buried. The different
tribes when at war are cannibals. From the concurrent, but quite
independent evidence of the boy taken by Mr. Low, and of Jemmy
Button, it is certainly true, that when pressed in winter by hunger,
they kill and devour their old women before they kill their dogs:
the boy, being asked by Mr. Low why they did this, answered,
“Doggies catch otters, old women no.” This boy described the
manner in which they are killed by being held over smoke and thus
choked; he imitated their screams as a joke, and described the parts
of their bodies which are considered best to eat. Horrid as such a
death by the hands of their friends and relatives must be, the fears
of the old women, when hunger begins to press, are more painful
to think of; we are told that they then often run away into the
mountains, but that they are pursued by the men and brought back
to the slaughter-house at their own firesides!
Captain Fitz Roy could never ascertain that the Fuegians have
any distinct belief in a future life. They sometimes bury their dead
in caves, and sometimes in the mountain forests; we do not know
what ceremonies they perform. Jemmy Button would not eat landbirds,
because “eat dead men”: they are unwilling even to mention
their dead friends. We have no reason to believe that they perform
any sort of religious worship; though perhaps the muttering of the
old man before he distributed the putrid blubber to his famished
party, may be of this nature. Each family or tribe has a wizard or
conjuring doctor, whose office we could never clearly ascertain.
Jemmy believed in dreams, though not, as I have said, in the devil:
I do not think that our Fuegians were much more superstitious than

220 CHARLES DARWIN
some of the sailors; for an old quartermaster firmly believed that the
successive heavy gales, which we encountered off Cape Horn, were
caused by our having the Fuegians on board. The nearest approach
to a religious feeling which I heard of, was shown by York Minster,
who, when Mr. Bynoe shot some very young ducklings as specimens,
declared in the most solemn manner, “Oh, Mr. Bynoe, much rain,
snow, blow much.” This was evidently a retributive punishment for
wasting human food. In a wild and excited manner he also related,
that his brother, one day whilst returning to pick up some dead birds
which he had left on the coast, observed some feathers blown by the
wind. His brother said (York imitating his manner), “What that?”
and crawling onwards, he peeped over the cliff, and saw “wild man”
picking his birds; he crawled a little nearer, and then hurled down a
great stone and killed him. York declared for a long time afterwards
storms raged, and much rain and snow fell. As far as we could make
out, he seemed to consider the elements themselves as the avenging
agents: it is evident in this case, how naturally, in a race a little
more advanced in culture, the elements would become personified.
What the “bad wild men” were, has always appeared to me most
mysterious: from what York said, when we found the place like the
form of a hare, where a single man had slept the night before, I
should have thought that they were thieves who had been driven
from their tribes; but other obscure speeches made me doubt this;
I have sometimes imagined that the most probable explanation was
that they were insane.
The different tribes have no government or chief; yet each is surrounded
by other hostile tribes, speaking different dialects, and
separated from each other only by a deserted border or neutral territory
: the cause of their warfare appears to be the means of subsistence.
Their country is a broken mass of wild rocks, lofty hills, and useless
forests: and these are viewed through mists and endless storms. The
habitable land is reduced to the stones on the beach; in search of
food they are compelled unceasingly to wander from spot to spot,
and so steep is the coast, that they can only move about in their
wretched canoes. They cannot know the feeling of having a home,
and still less that of domestic affection; for the husband is to the
wife a brutal master to a laborious slave. Was a more horrid deed

THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 221
ever perpetrated, than that witnessed on the west coast by Byron,
who saw a wretched mother pick up her bleeding dying infant-boy,
whom her husband had mercilessly dashed on the stones for dropping
a basket of sea-eggs. How little can the higher powers of the
mind be brought into play: what is there for imagination to picture,
for reason to compare, for judgment to decide upon? to knock a
limpet from the rock does not require even cunning, that lowest
power of the mind. Their skill in some respects may be compared
to the instinct of animals; for it is not improved by experience: the
canoe, their most ingenious work, poor as it is, has remained the
same, as we know from Drake, for the last two hundred and fifty
years.
Whilst beholding these savages, one asks, whence have they come ?
What could have tempted, or what change compelled a tribe of men,
to leave the fine regions of the north, to travel down the Cordillera
or backbone of America, to invent and build canoes, which are not
used by the tribes of Chile, Peru, and Brazil, and then to enter on
one of the most inhospitable countries within the limits of the globe ?
Although such reflections must at first seize on the mind, yet we may
feel sure that they are partly erroneous. There is no reason to believe
that the Fuegians decrease in number; therefore we must suppose
that they enjoy a sufficient share of happiness, of whatever kind it
may be, to render life worth having. Nature by making habit omnipotent,
and its effects hereditary, has fitted the Fuegian to the
climate and the productions of his miserable country.
After having been detained six days in Wigwam Cove by very bad
weather, we put to sea on the 30th of December. Captain Fitz Roy
wished to get westward to land York and Fuegia in their own country.
When at sea we had a constant succession of gales, and the
current was against us: we drifted to 570 23′ south. On the n t h of
January, 1833, by carrying a press of sail, we fetched within a few
miles of the great rugged mountain of York Minster (so called by
Captain Cook, and the origin of the name of the elder Fuegian),
when a violent squall compelled us to shorten sail and stand out to
sea. The surf was breaking fearfully on the coast, and the spray was
carried over a cliff estimated to 200 feet in height.

Man’s Wings (Jan28)

Thomas a Kempis Vol. 7, pp. 242-249

C H A P T E R IV

OF A PURE MIND AND SIMPLE INTENTION

BY two wings is man lifted above earthly things, even by simplicity
and purity. Simplicity ought to be in the intention, purity in
the affection. Simplicity reacheth towards God, purity apprehendeth
Him and tasteth Him. No good action will be distasteful to thee
if thou be free within from inordinate affection. If thou reachest
after and seekest, nothing but the will of God and the benefit of
thy neighbour, thou wilt entirely enjoy inward liberty. If thine
heart were right, then should every creature be a mirror of life and
a book of holy doctrine. There is no creature so small and vile but
that it showeth us the goodness of God.
2 . If thou wert good and pure within, then wouldst thou look
upon all things without hurt and understand them aright. A pure
heart seeth the very depths of heaven and hell. Such as each one is
inwardly, so judgeth he outwardly. If there is any joy in the world
surely the man of pure heart possesseth it, and if there is anywhere
tribulation and anguish, the evil conscience knoweth it best. As iron
cast into the fire loseth rust and is made altogether glowing, so
the man who turneth himself altogether unto God is freed from
slothfulness and changed into a new man.
3. When a man beginneth to grow lukewarm, then he feareth a
little labour, and willingly accepteth outward consolation; but when
he beginneth perfectly to conquer himself and to walk manfully
in the way of God, then he counteth as nothing those things which
aforetime seemed to be so grievous unto him.

THE IMITATION OF CHRIST 243

CHAPTER V

OF SELF-ESTEEM

WE cannot place too little confidence in ourselves, because grace
and understanding are often lacking to us. Little light is there
within us, and what we have we quickly lose by negligence. Oftentimes
we perceive not how great is our inward blindness. We often
do ill and excuse it worse. Sometimes we are moved by passion and
* count it zeal; we blame little faults in others and pass over great
faults in ourselves. Quickly enough we feel and reckon up what we
bear at the hands of others, but we reflect not how much others are
bearing from us. He who would weigh well and rightly his own
doings would not be the man to judge severely of another.
2. The spiritually-minded man putteth care of himself before all
cares; and he who diligently attendeth to himself easily keepeth
silence concerning others. Thou wilt never be spiritually minded
and godly unless thou art silent concerning other men’s matters and
take full heed to thyself. If thou think wholly upon thyself and
upon God, what thou seest out of doors shall move thee little.
Where art thou when thou art not present to thyself? and when
thou hast overrun all things, what hath it profited thee, thyself
being neglected? If thou wouldst have peace and true unity, thou
must put aside all other things, and gaze only upon thyself.
3. Then thou shalt make great progress if thou keep thyself free
from all temporal care. Thou shalt lamentably fall away if thou
set a value upon any worldly thing. Let nothing be great, nothing
high, nothing pleasing, nothing acceptable unto thee, save God Himself
or the things of God. Reckon as altogether vain whatsoever consolation
comes to thee from a creature. The soul that loveth God
looketh not to anything that is beneath God. God alone is eternal
and incomprehensible, filling all things, the solace of the soul, and
the true joy of the heart.

244 THE IMITATION OF CHRIST

CHAPTER VI

OF THE JOY OF A COOD CONSCIENCE

THE testimony of a good conscience is the glory of a good man.
Have a good conscience and thou shalt ever have joy. A good conscience
is able to bear exceeding much, and is exceeding joyful in
the midst of adversities; an evil conscience is ever fearful and unquiet.
Thou shalt rest sweetly if thy heart condemn thee not. Never
rejoice unless when thou hast done well. The wicked have never
true joy, nor feel internal peace, for there is no peace, saith my God,
to the wicked.1 And if they say “we are in peace, there shall no
harm happen unto us, and who shall dare to do us hurt?” believe
them not, for suddenly shall the wrath of God rise up against them,
and their deeds shall be brought to nought, and their thoughts shall
perish.
2 . T o glory in tribulation is not grievous to him who loveth; for
such glorying is glorying in the Cross of Christ. Brief is the glory
which is given and received of men. Sadness always goeth hand in
hand with the glory of the world. The glory of the good is in their
conscience, and not in the report of men. The joy of the upright
is from God and in God, and their joy is in the truth. He who desireth
true and eternal glory careth not for that which is temporal;
and he who seeketh temporal glory, or who despiseth it from his
heart, is proved to bear little love for that which is heavenly. He
who careth for neither praises nor reproaches hath great tranquillity
of heart.
3. He will easily be contented and filled with peace, whose conscience
is pure. Thou art none the holier if thou art praised, nor the
viler if thou art reproached. Thou art what thou art; and thou canst
not be better than God pronounceth thee to be. If thou considerest
well what thou art inwardly, thou wilt not care what men will say
to thee. Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord
looketh on the heart? man looketh on the deed, but God considereth
the intent. It is the token of a humble spirit always to do well, and
‘Isaiah lvii. 21. * 1 Samuel xvi. 7.
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST 245
to set little by oneself. Not to look for consolation from any created
thing is a sign of great purity and inward faithfulness.
4. He that seeketh no outward witness on his own behalf, showeth
plainly that he hath committed himself wholly to God. For not
he that commendeth himself is approved, as St. Paul saith, but whom
the Lord commendeth? T o walk inwardly with God, and not to be
held by any outer affections, is the state of a spiritual man.

CHAPTER VII

OF LOVING JESUS ABOVE ALL THINGS

BLESSED is he who understandeth what it is to love Jesus, and to
despise himself for Jesus’ sake- He must give up all that he loveth
for his Beloved, for Jesus will be loved alone above all things. The
love of created things is deceiving and unstable, but the love of Jesus
is faithful and lasting. He who cleaveth to created things will fall
with their slipperiness; but he who embraceth Jesus will stand upright
for ever. Love H im and hold Him for thy friend, for He will
not forsake thee when all depart from thee, nor will he suffer thee
to perish at the last. Thou must one day be separated from all,
whether thou wilt or wilt not.
2. Cleave thou to Jesus in life and death, and commit thyself unto
His faithfulness, who, when all men fail thee, is alone able to help
thee. Thy Beloved is such, by nature, that He will suffer no rival,
but alone will possess thy heart, and as a king will sit upon His own
throne. If thou wouldst learn to put away from thee every created
thing, Jesus would freely take up His abode with thee. Thou wilt
find all trust little better than lost which thou hast placed in men,
and not in Jesus. Trust not nor lean upon a reed shaken with the
wind, because all flesh is grass, and the goodliness thereof falleth as
the flower of the field}
3. Thou wilt be quickly deceived if thou lookest only upon the
outward appearance of men, for if thou seekest thy comfort and
profit in others, thou shalt too often experience loss. If thou seekest
Jesus in all things thou shalt verily find Jesus, but if thou seekest

‘ a Corinthians x. 18. 1 Isaiah xl. 6.

246 THE IMITATION OF CHRIST

thyself thou shalt also find thyself, but to thine own hurt. For if a
man seeketh not Jesus he is more hurtful to himself than all the
world and all his adversaries.

CHAPTER VIII

OF THE INTIMATE LOVE OF JESUS

WHEN Jesus is present all is well and nothing seemeth hard, but
when Jesus is not present everything is hard. When Jesus speaketh
not within, our comfort is nothing worth, but if Jesus speaketh
but a single word great is the comfort we experience. Did not
Mary Magdalene rise up quickly from the place where she wept
when Martha said to her, The Master is come and calleth for thee?1
Happy hour when Jesus calleth thee from tears to the joy of the
spirit! How dry and hard art thou without Jesus! How senseless
and vain if thou desirest aught beyond Jesus! Is not this greater loss
than if thou shouldst lose the whole world?
2. What can the world profit thee without Jesus? To be without
Jesus is the nethermost hell, and to be with Jesus is sweet Paradise.
If Jesus were with thee no enemy could hurt thee. He who findeth
Jesus findeth a good treasure, yea, good above all good; and he
who loseth Jesus loseth exceeding much, yea, more than the whole
world. Most poor is he who liveth without Jesus, and most rich is
he who is much with Jesus.
3. It is great skill to know how to live with Jesus, and to know
how to hold Jesus is great wisdom. Be thou humble and peaceable
and Jesus shall be with thee. Be godly and quiet, and Jesus will
remain with thee. Thou canst quickly drive away Jesus and lose
His favour if thou wilt turn away to the outer things. And if thou
hast put H im to flight and lost Him, to whom wilt thou flee, and
whom then wilt thou seek for a friend? Without a friend thou
canst not live long, and if Jesus be not thy friend above all thou
shalt be very sad and desolate. Madly therefore doest thou if thou
trusteth or findest joy in any other. It is preferable to have the whole
world against thee, than Jesus offended with thee. Therefore of all
that are dear to thee, let Jesus be specially loved.
1 John xi. 28.

THE IMITATION OF CHRIST 247

4. Let all be loved for Jesus’ sake, but Jesus for His own. Jesus
Christ alone is to be specially loved, for He alone is found good and
faithful above all friends. For His sake and in Him let both enemies
and friends be dear to thee, and pray for them all that they may
all know and love Him. Never desire to be specially praised or
loved, because this belongeth to God alone, who hath none like unto
Himself. Nor wish thou that any one set his heart on thee, nor do
thou give thyself up to the love of any, but let Jesus be in thee and
in every good man.
5. Be pure and free within thyself, and be not entangled by any
created thing. Thou oughtest to bring a bare and clean heart to
God, if thou dcsirest to be ready to see how gracious the Lord is.
And in truth, unless thou be prevented and drawn on by His grace,
thou wilt not attain to this, that having cast out and dismissed all
else, thou alone art united to God. For when the grace of God
cometh to a man, then he becometh able to do all things, and when
it departeth then he will be poor and weak and given up unto
troubles. In these thou art not to be cast down nor to despair, but
to rest with calm mind on the will of God, and to bear all things
which come upon thee unto the praise of Jesus Christ; for after
winter cometh summer, after night returneth day, after the tempest
a great calm.

CHAPTER IX

OF THE LACK OF ALL COMFORT

IT is no hard thing to despise human comfort when divine is present.
It is a great thing, yea very great, to be able to bear the loss
both of human and divine comfort; and for the love of God willingly
to bear exile of heart, and in nought to seek oneself, nor to
look to one’s own merit. What great matter is it, if thou be cheerful
of heart and devout when favour cometh to thee? That is an hour
wherein all rejoice. Pleasantly enough doth he ride whom the grace
of God carrieth. And what marvel, if he feeleth no burden who
is carried by the Almighty, and is led onwards by the Guide from
on high?
2. We are willing to accept anything for comfort, and it is diffi

248 THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
cult for a man to be freed from himself. The holy martyr Laurence
overcame the love of the world and even of his priestly master, because
he despised everything in the world which seemed to be
pleasant; and for the love of Christ he calmly suffered even God’s
chief priest, Sixtus, whom he dearly loved, to be taken from him.
Thus by the love of the Creator he overcame the love of man, and
instead of human comfort he chose rather God’s good pleasure. So
also learn thou to resign any near and beloved friend for the love
of God. Nor take it amiss when thou hast been deserted by a friend,
knowing that we must all be parted from one another at last.
3. Mightily and long must a man strive within himself before he
learn altogether to overcome himself, and to draw his whole affection
towards God. When a man resteth upon himself, he easily slippeth
away unto human comforts. But a true lover of Christ, and
a diligent seeker after virtue, falleth not back upon those comforts,
nor seeketh such sweetnesses as may be tasted and handled, but
desireth rather hard exercises, and to undertake severe labours for
Christ.
4. When, therefore, spiritual comfort is given by God, receive it
with giving of thanks, and know that it is the gift of God, not
thy desert. Be not lifted up, rejoice not overmuch nor foolishly presume,
but rather be more humble for the gift, more wary and
more careful in all thy doings; for that hour will pass away, and
temptation will follow. When comfort is taken from thee, do not
straightway despair, but wait for the heavenly visitation with humility
and patience, for God is able to give thee back greater favour and
consolation. This is not new nor strange to those who have made
trial of the way of God, for with the great saints and the ancient
prophets there was often this manner of change.
5. Wherefore one said when the favour of God was present with
him, / said in my prosperity I shall never be moved} but he goeth
on to say what he felt within himself when the favour departed:
Thou didst turn Thy face from me, and I was troubled. In spite
whereof he in no wise despaireth, but the more instantly entreateth
God, and saith, Unto Thee, O Lord, will I cry, and will pray unto
my God; and then he receiveth the fruit of his prayer, and testifieth
1 Psalm xxx. 6.

THE IMITATION OF CHRIST 249

how he hath been heard, saying, The Lord heard me and had mercy
upon me, the Lord was my helper. But wherein ? Thou hast turned
my heaviness into joy, Thou hast put off my sackcloth and girded
me with gladness. If it was thus with the great saints, we who are
poor and needy ought not to despair if we are sometimes in the
warmth and sometimes in the cold, for the Spirit cometh and goeth
according to the good pleasure of His will. Wherefore holy Job
saith, Thou dost visit him in the morning, and suddenly Thou dost
prove him?
6. Whereupon then can I hope, or wherein may I trust, save only
in the great mercy of God, and the hope of heavenly grace? For
whether good men are with me, godly brethren or faithful friends,
whether holy books or beautiful discourses, whether sweet hymns
and songs, all these help but little, and have but little savour when I
am deserted by God’s favour and left to mine own poverty. There
is no better remedy, then, than patience and denial of self, and an
abiding in the will of God.
7. I have never found any man so religious and godly, but that
he felt sometimes a withdrawal of the divine favour, and lack of
fervour. No saint was ever so filled with rapture, so enlightened, but
that sooner or later he was tempted. For he is not worthy of the great
vision of God, who, for God’s sake, hath not been exercised by some
temptation. For temptation is wont to go before as a sign of the
comfort which shall follow, and heavenly comfort is promised to
those who are proved by temptation. As it is written, To him that
overcometh I will give to eat of the tree of life.’
8. Divine comfort is given that a man may be stronger to bear
adversities. And temptation followeth, lest he be lifted up because
of the benefit. The devil sleepeth not; thy flesh is not yet dead;
therefore, cease thou not to make thyself ready unto the battle, for
enemies stand on thy right hand and on thy left, and they are never
at rest.
‘Job vii. 18. 3 Revelation ii.

Nutrition And The Immune System

If we have not eaten for a while or have to climb many stairs, the energy level of our cells drops and with it the level of insulin. The researchers from Bonn have now discovered that in the case of a low insulin level the FOXO transcription factor is activated. A transcription factor can switch genes on and off. FOXO switches genes for immune defence proteins on when energy is needed. These antimicrobial peptides (AMP) – not to be confused with antibodies are subsequently jettisoned by the body’s cells. They destroy possible pathogens by dissolving their cell walls. ‘This happens every minute every day,’ the director of studies Prof. Michael Hoch from the LIMES Institute explains. ‘What is fascinating about this is that a function of the immune system directly depends on how much and what we eat.’ In situations of hunger which mean stress for the body cells, the body releases antimicrobial peptides as a precaution in order to protect itself. ‘The barrier between body and outside world is apparently fortified in a potentially dangerous situation in which we have too little energy,’ Professor Hoch presumes.

The research of the Bonn biologists could also be clinically relevant. For a number of common diseases such as type II diabetes or obesity (adiposity) are the result of an increased intake of calories. Furthermore, such diseases are accompanied by increased inflammation of the barrier tissue, a disturbed immune system and an overall reduced life span. ‘Our results present new starting points for understanding of these diseases,’ Professor Joachim Schultze from the LIMES Institute, who also is involved in the research project, says.

The scientists at LIMES will concentrate next on the relationship between calorie intake and life span. Examinations of nematodes, fruit flies and mice have shown that a reduced calorie intake can increase life span. Professor Hoch says: ‘We now want to find out whether this is due to an foxo-dependent improvement of the barrier functions of the natural immune system.’ more>>

“Poop” Dermatitis: Toilet Seats And Harsh Chemicals

Analyzing five cases from the United States and India in the February issue of the journal Pediatrics, Cohen and colleagues said the culprits responsible for the reemergence of the condition are harsh cleaning chemicals and exotic wooden toilet seats – making a comeback as bathroom décor – especially seats covered with varnishes and paints. more>>

First U.S. Face Transplant

Detailed information on the first facial transplantation procedure performed in the United States is presented in the January issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

“We are pleased to report an excellent functional, psychological, and social outcome for our patient at 8 months following transplantation,” write Dr. Maria Z. Siemionow and colleagues of the Cleveland Clinic. Their article describes not just the transplant operation itself, but also the prolonged, arduous process of gaining approval, planning, and preparing for the groundbreaking procedure.

The first U.S. facial transplantation procedure was performed in December, 2008, at the Cleveland Clinic. However, the process started in 2003, when a multidisciplinary team of plastic surgeons, psychiatrists, immunologists, bioethicists, and other professionals submitted a proposal to perform a “composite facial allograft transplant” to the Cleveland Clinic’s institutional review board. Approval was granted in 2004, followed by painstaking efforts to develop an appropriate informed consent procedure and win approval from organ procurement organizations. more>>

Alzheimer’s Copper And Iron Intake

With scientific evidence linking high levels of copper and iron to Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, and other age-related disorders, a new report in ACS’ Chemical Research in Toxicology suggests specific steps that older consumers can take to avoid build up of unhealthy amounts of these metals in their bodies. “This story of copper and iron toxicity, which I think is reaching the level of public health significance, is virtually unknown to the general medical community, to say nothing of complete unawareness of the public,” George Brewer states in the report. more>>

Britons Avoiding Wheat Unnecessarily

Research shows that up to 20 per cent of adults think they suffer from a food allergy or food intolerance. However evidence suggests that the real prevalence of food allergy and intolerance in adults is less than 2 per cent. It means that millions of people could be avoiding certain foods unnecessarily and without proper medical advice. more>>

Asians’ Alcohol Flush Reaction

The mutation responsible for the alcohol flush reaction, an unpleasant response to alcohol that is relatively common in people of Asian descent, may have occurred following the domestication of rice. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology traced the history of the version of the gene responsible, finding that the ADH1B*47His allele appeared around the same time that rice was first cultivated in southern China. more>>

Dante and Beatrice in Paradise (Jan27)

Dante’s DIVINE COMEDY Vol. 20, pp. 267-279

CANTO XXX PURGATORY 267
CANTO XXX

ARGUMENT.—Beatrice descends from Heaven, and rebukes the Poet.

SOON as that polar light,1 fair ornament
Of the first Heaven, which hath never known
Setting nor rising, nor the shadowy veil
Of other cloud than sin, to duty there
Each one convoying, as that lower doth
The steersman to his port, stood firmly fix’d;
Forthwith the saindy tribe, who in the van
Between the Gryphon and its radiance came,
Did turn them to the car, as to their rest:
And one, as if commission’d from above,
In holy chant thrice shouted forth aloud;
“Come,2 spouse! from Libanus:” and all the rest
Took up the song.—At the last audit, so
The blest shall rise, from forth his cavern each
Uplifting lightly his new-vested flesh;
As, on the sacred litter, at the voice
Authoritative of that elder, sprang
A hundred ministers and messengers
Of life eternal. “Blessed3 thou, who comest!”
And, “Oh!” they cried, “from full hands scatter ye
Unwithering lilies”: and, so saying, cast
Flowers overhead and round them on all sides.
I have beheld, ere now, at break of day,
The eastern clime all roseate; and the sky
Opposed, one deep and beautiful serene;
And the sun’s face so shaded, and with mists
Attemper’d, at his rising, that the eye
Long while endured the sight: thus, in a cloud
Of flowers, that from those hands angelic rose,
And down within and outside of the car
Fell showering, in white veil with olive wreathed,
A virgin in my view appear’d, beneath

‘ The seven candlesticks of gold, which 2 “Come with me from Lebanon, my
he calls the polar light of Heaven itself, spouse, with me, from Lebanon.”—Song
because they perform the same office for of Solomon, iv. 8.
Christians that the polar star docs for 3 “Blessed is he that Cometh in the
mariners, in guiding them to their port, name of the Lord.”—Matt. xxi. 9.

268 THE DIVINE COMEDY CANTO XXX
Green mantle, robed in hue of living flame:
And o’er my spirit, that so long a time
Had from her presence felt no shuddering dread,
Albeit mine eyes discern’d her not, there moved
A hidden virtue from her, at whose touch
The power of ancient love was strong within me.
No sooner on my vision streaming, smote
The heavenly influence, which, years past, and e’en
In childhood, thrill’d me, than towards Virgil I
Turn’d me to leftward; panting, like a babe,
That flees for refuge to his mother’s breast,
If aught have terrified or work’d him woe:
And would have cried, “There is no dram of blood,
That doth not quiver in me. The old flame
Throws out clear tokens of reviving fire.”
But Virgil had bereaved us of himself;
Virgil, my best-loved father, Virgil, he
To whom I gave me up for safety: nor
All, our prime mother lost, avail’d to save
My undew’d cheeks from blur of soiling tears.
“Dante! weep not that Virgil leaves thee; nay,
Weep thou not yet: behoves thee feel the edge
Of other sword; and thou shalt weep for that.”
As to the prow or stern, some admiral
Paces the deck, inspiriting his crew,
When ‘mid the sail-yards all hands ply aloof;
Thus, on the left side of the car, I saw
(Turning me at the sound of mine own name,
Which here I am compell’d to register)
The virgin station’d, who before appear’d
Veil’d in that festive shower angelical.
Towards me, across the stream, she bent her eyes;
Though from her brow the veil descending, bound
With foliage of Minerva, suffer’d not
That I beheld her clearly: then with act
Full royal, still insulting o’er her thrall,
Added, as one who, speaking, keepcth back
The bitterest saying, to conclude the speech:
“Observe me well. I am, in sooth, I am
Beatrice. What! and hast thou deign’d at last

CANTO XXX PURGATORY 269
Approach the mountain? Knewest not, O man!
Thy happiness is here?” Down fell mine eyes
On the clear fount; but there, myself espying,
Recoil’tl, and sought the greensward; such a weight
Of shame was on my forehead. With a mien
Of that stern majesty, which doth surround
A mother’s presence to her awe-struck child,
She look’d; a flavor of such bitterness
Was mingled in her pity. There her words
Brake off; and suddenly the angels sang,
“In thee, O gracious Lord! my hope hath been”:
But4 went no further than, “Thou, Lord! hast set
My feet in ample room.” As snow, that lies,
Amidst the living rafters on the back
Of Italy, congeal’d, when drifted high
And closely piled by rough Sclavonian blasts;
Breathe but the land whereon no shadow falls,
And straightway melting it distils away,
Like a fire-wasted taper: thus was I,
Without a sigh or tear, or ever these
Did sing, that, with the chiming of Heaven’s sphere,
Still in their warbling chime: but when the strain
Of dulcet symphony express’d for me
Their soft compassion, more than could the words,
“Virgin! why so consumest him?” then, the ice
Congeal’d about my bosom, turn’d itself
To spirit and water; and with anguish forth
Gush’d, through the lips and eyelids, from the heart.
Upon the chariot’s same edge still she stood,
Immovable; and thus address’d her words
To those bright semblances with pity touch’d:
“Ye in the eternal day your vigils keep;
So that nor night nor slumber, with close stealth,
Conveys from you a single step, in all
The goings on of time: thence, with more heed
I shape mine answer, for his ear intended,
Who there stands weeping; that the sorrow now
May equal the transgression. Not alone

4 “But.” They sang the thirty-first Psalm, to the end of the eighth verse. What follows would not have suited the place or the occasion.

270 THE D I V I N E COMEDY CANTO XXX
Through operation of the mighty orbs,
That mark each seed to some predestined aim,
As with aspect or fortunate or ill
The constellations meet; but through benign
Largess of heavenly graces, which rain down
From such a height as mocks our vision, this man
Was, in the freshness of his being, such,
So gifted virtually, that in him
All better habits wondrously had thrived
The more of kindly strength is in the soil,
So much doth evil seed and lack of culture
Mar it the more, and make it run to wildness.
These looks sometime upheld him; for I show’d
My youthful eyes, and led him by their light
In upright walking. Soon as I had reach’d
The threshold of my second age, and changed
My mortal for immortal; then he left me,
And gave himself to others. When from flesh
To spirit I had risen, and increase
Of beauty and of virtue circled me,
I was less dear to him, and valued less.
His steps were turn’d into deceitful ways,
Following false images of good, that make
No promise perfect. Nor avail’d me aught
To sue for inspirations, with the which,
I, both in dreams of night, and otherwise,
Did call him back; of them, so litde rcck’d him.
Such depth he fell, that all device was short
Of his preserving, save that he should view
The children of perdition. To this end
I visited the purlieus of the dead:
And one, who hath conducted him thus high,
Received my supplications urged with weeping.
It were a breaking of God’s high decree,
If Lethe should be pass’d, and such food6 tasted,
Without the cost of some repentant tear.”

4 The oblivion of sins.

CANTO XXXI PURGATORY 271
CANTO XXXI
ARGUMENT.—Beatrice continues her reprehension of Dante, who confesses his error,
and falls to the ground; coming to himself again, he is by Matilda drawn through
the waters of Lethe, and presented first to the four virgins who figure the cardinal
virtues; these in their turn lead him to the Gryphon, a symbol of our Saviour; and
the three virgins, representing the evangelical virtues, intercede for him with Beatrice,
that she would display to him her second beauty.

“O THOU!” her words she thus without delay.
Resuming, turn’d their point on me, to whom
They, with but lateral edge,1 seem’d harsh before:
“Say thou, who stand’st beyond the holy stream,
If this be true. A charge, so grievous, needs
Thine own avowal.” On my faculty
Such strange amazement hung, the voice expired
Imperfect, ere its organs gave it birth.
A little space refraining, then she spake:
“What dost thou muse on? Answer me. The wave
On thy remembrances of evil yet
Hath done no injury.” A mingled sense
Of fear and of confusion, from my lips
Did such a “Yea” produce, as needed help
Of vision to interpret. As when breaks,
In act to be discharged, a cross-bow bent
Beyond its pitch, both nerve and bow o’erstretch’d;
The flagging weapon feebly hits the mark:
Thus, tears and sighs forth gushing, did I burst,
Beneath the heavy load: and thus my voice
Was slacken’d on its way. She straight began:
“When my desire invited thee to love
The good, which sets a bound to our aspirings;
What bar of thwarting foss or linked chain
Did meet thee, that thou so shouldst quit the hope
Of further progress? or what bait of ease,
Or promise of allurement, led thee on
Elsewhere, that thou elsewhere shouldst rather wait?”
A bitter sigh I drew, then scarce found voice
To answer; hardly to these sounds my lips

‘ “With but lateral edge.” The words
of Beatrice, when not addressed directly
to himself, but spoken of him to the
Angel, Dante had thought sufficiendy harsh.

272 THE DIVINE COMEDY CANTO XXXI
Gave utterance, wailing: “Thy fair looks withdrawn,
Things present, with deceitful pleasures, turn’d
My steps aside.” She answering spake: “Hadst thou
Been silent, or denied what thou avow’st,
Thou hadst not hid thy sin the more; such eye
Observes it. But whene’er the sinner’s cheek
Breaks forth into the precious-streaming tears
Of self-accusing, in our court the wheel
Of justice doth run counter to the edge.2
Howe’er, that thou mayst profit by thy shame
For errors past, and that henceforth more strength
May arm thee, when thou hear’st the Syren-voice;
Lay thou aside the motive to this grief,
And lend attentive ear, while I unfold
How opposite a way my buried flesh
Should have impell’d thee. Never didst thou spy,
In art or nature, aught so passing sweet,
As were the limbs that in their beauteous frame
Enclosed me, and are scatter’d now in dust.
If sweetest thing thus fail’d thee with my death,
What, afterward, of mortal, should thy wish
Have tempted ? When thou first hadst felt the dart
Of perishable things, in my departing
For better realms, thy wing thou shouldst have pruned
To follow me; and never stoop’d again,
To ‘bide a second blow, for a slight girl,3
Or other gaud as transient and as vain.
The new and inexperienced bird* awaits,
Twice it may be, or thrice, the fowler’s aim;
But in the sight of one whose plumes are full,
In vain the net is spread, the arrow wing’d.”
I stood, as children silent and ashamed
Stand, listening, with their eyes upon the earth,
Acknowledging their fault, and self-condemn’d.
And she resumed: “If, but to hear, thus pains thee,
Raise thou thy beard, and lo! what sight shall do.”

2 “The weapons of divine justice are   
blunted by the confession and sorrow of
the offender.” 
3 “For a slight girl.” Daniello and
Venturi say that this alludes to Genfucca of Lucca, mentioned in the twenty-fourth Canto. 4 “Bird.” “Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.”—Prov.  i. 17.

CANTO XXXI PURGATORY 273
With less reluctance yields a sturdy holm,
Rent from its fibres by a blast, that blows
From off the pole, or from Iarbas’ land,1
Than I at her behest my visage raised:
And thus the face denoting by the beard,
I mark’d the secret sting her words convey’d.
No sooner lifted I mine aspect up,
Than I perceived those primal creatures cease
Their flowery sprinkling; and mine eyes beheld
(Yet unassured and wavering in their view)
Beatrice; she, who toward the mystic shape,
That joins two natures in one form, had turn’d:
And, even under shadow of her veil,
And parted by the verdant rill that flow’d
Between, in loveliness she seem’d as much
Her former self surpassing, as on earth
All others she surpass’d. Remorseful goads
Shot sudden through me. Each thing else, the more
Its love had late beguiled me, now the more
Was loathsome. On my heart so keenly smote
The bitter consciousness, that on the ground
O’erpower’d I fell: and what my state was then,
She knows, who was the cause. When now my strength
Flow’d back, returning outward from the heart,
The lady,’ whom alone I first had seen,
I found above me. “Loose me not,” she cried:
“Loose not thy hold:” and lo! had dragg’d me high
As to my neck into the stream; while she,
Still as she drew me after, swept along,
Swift as a shuttle, bounding o’er the wave.
The blessed shore approaching, then was heard
So sweedy, “Tu asperges me,” that I
May not remember, much less tell the sound.
The beauteous dame, her arms expanding, clasp’d
My temples, and immerged me where ’twas fit
The wave should drench me: and, thence raising up,
Within the fourfold dance of lovely nymphs
Presented me so laved; and with their arm
They each did cover me. “Here are we nymphs,

5 “From Iarbas’ land.” The south. * ” The lady.” Matilda.

274 THE D I V I N E COMEDY CANTO XXXI
And in the heaven are stars. Or ever earth
Was visited of Beatrice, we,
Appointed for her handmaids, tended on her.
We to her eyes will lead thee: but the light
Of gladness, that is in them, well to scan,
Those yonder three, of deeper ken than ours,
Thy sight shall quicken.” Thus began their song:
And then they led me to the Gryphon’s breast,
Where, turn’d toward us, Beatrice stood.
“Spare not thy vision. We have station’d thee
Before the emeralds, whence love, erewhile,
Hath drawn his weapons on thee.” As they spake,
A thousand fervent wishes riveted
Mine eyes upon her beaming eyes, that stood,
Still fix’d toward the Gryphon, motionless.
As the sun strikes a mirror, even thus
Within those orbs the twyfold being shone;
Forever varying, in one figure now
Reflected, now in other. Reader! muse
How wondrous in my sight it seem’d, to mark
A thing, albeit steadfast in itself,
Yet in its imaged semblance mutable.
Full of amaze, and joyous, while my soul
Fed on the viand, whereof still desire
Grows with satiety; the other three,
With gesture that declared a loftier line,
Advanced: to their own carol, on they came
Dancing, in festive ring angelical.
“Turn, Beatrice!” was their song: “Oh! turn
Thy saintly sight on this thy faithful one,
Who, to behold thee, many a wearisome pace
Hath measured. Gracious at our prayer, vouchsafe
Unveiled to him thy cheeks; that he may mark
Thy second beauty, now conceal’d.” O splendour!
O sacred light eternal! who is he,
So pale with musing in Pierian shades,
Or with that fount so lavishly imbued,
Whose spirit should not fail him in the essay
To represent thee such as thou didst seem,

CANTO XXXII PURGATORY 275
When under cope of the still-chiming Heaven
Thou gavest to open air thy charms reveal’d?

CANTO XXXII

ARGUMENT.—Dante is warned not to gaze too fixedly on Beatrice. The procession
moves on, accompanied by Matilda, Statius, and Dante, till they reach an exceeding
lofty tree, where divers strange chances befall.

MINE eyes with such an eager coveting
Were bent to rid them of their ten years’ thirst,1
No other sense was waking: and e’en they
Were fenced on either side from heed of aught;
So tangled, in its custom’d toils, that smile
Of saindy brightness drew me to itself:
When forcibly, toward the left, my sight
The sacred virgins turn’d; for from their lips
I heard the warning sounds: “Too fix’d a gaze!”
Awhile my vision labour’d; as when late
Upon the o’erstrained eyes the sun hath smote:
But soon, to lesser object, as the view
Was now recover’d, (lesser in respect
To that excess of sensible, whence late
I had perforce been sunder’d), on their right
I mark’d that glorious army wheel, and turn,
Against the sun and sevenfold lights, their front.
As when, their bucklers for protection raised,
A well-ranged troop, with portly banners curl’d,
Wheel circling, ere the whole can change t h e i r ground;
E’en thus the goodly regiment of Heaven
Proceeding, all did pass us, ere the car
Had sloped his beam. Attendant at the wheels
The damsels turn’d; and on the Gryphon moved
The sacred burden, with a pace so smooth,
No feather on him trembled. The fair dame,
Who through the wave had drawn me, companied
By Statius and myself, pursued the wheel,
Whose orbit, rolling, mark’d a lesser arch.

1 “Their ten years’ thirst.” Beatrice had been dead ten years.

276 THE DIVINE COMEDY CANTO xxxn
Through the high wood, now void, (the more her blame,
Who by the serpent was beguiled), I pass’d,
With step in cadence to the harmony
Angelic. Onward had we moved, as far,
Perchance, as arrow at three several flights
Full wing’d had sped, when from her station down
Descended Beatrice. With one voice
All murmur’d “Adam”; circling next a plant
Despoil’d of flowers and leaf, on every bough,
Its tresses, spreading more as more they rose,
Were such, as ‘midst their forest wilds, for height,
The Indians might have gazed at. “Blessed thou,
Gryphon!2 whose beak hath never pluck’d that tree
Pleasant to taste: for hence the appetite
Was warp’d to evil.” Round the stately trunk
Thus shouted forth the rest, to whom rcturn’d
The animal twice-gender’d: “Yea! for so
The generation of the just are saved.”
And turning to the chariot-pole, to foot
He drew it of the widow’d branch, and bound
There, left unto the stock whereon it grew.
As when large floods of radiance from above
Stream, with that radiance mingled, which ascends
Next after setting of the scaly sign,
Our plants then burgeon, and each wears anew
His wonted colours, ere the sun have yoked
Beneath another star his flamy steeds;
Thus putting forth a hue more faint than rose,
And deeper than the violet, was renew’d
The plant, erewhile in all its branches bare.
Unearthly was the hymn, which then arose.
I understood it not, nor to the end
Endured the harmony. Had I the skill
To pencil forth how closed the unpitying eyes
Slumbering, when Syrinx warbled, (eyes that paid
So dearly for their watching), then, like painter,
That with a model paints, I might design

2 “Gryphon.” Our Saviour’s submission to the Roman Empire appears to be intended, and particularly his injunction to “render unto Carsar the things that are
 Caesar’s.”

CANTO XXXII PURGATORY 277

The manner of my falling into sleep.
But feign who will the slumber cunningly,
I pass it by to when I waked; and tell,
How suddenly a flash of splendour rent
The curtain of my sleep, and one cries out,
“Arise: what dost thou?” As the chosen three,
On Tabor’s mount, admitted to behold
The blossoming of that fair tree,’ whose fruit
Is coveted of Angels, and doth make
Perpetual feast in Heaven; to themselves
Returning, at the word whence deeper sleeps4
Were broken, they their tribe diminish’d saw;
Both Moses and Elias gone, and changed
The stole their Master wore; thus to myself
Returning, over me beheld I stand
The piteous one,5 who, cross the stream, had brought
My steps. “And where,” all doubting, I exclaim’d,
“Is Beatrice?”—”See her,” she replied,
“Beneath the fresh leaf, seated on its root.
Behold the associate choir that circles her.
The others, with a melody more sweet
And more profound, journeying to higher realms,
Upon the Gryphon tend.” If there her words
Were closed, I know not; but mine eyes had now
Ta’en view of her, by whom all other thoughts
Were barr’d admittance. On the very ground
Alone she sat, as she had there been left
A guard upon the wain, which I beheld
Bound to the twyform beast. The seven nymphs
Did make themselves a cloister round about her;
And, in their hands, upheld those lights8 secure
From blast septentrion and the gusty south.
“A litde while thou shalt be forester here;
And citizen shalt be, forever with me,
Of that true Rome,7 wherein Christ dwells a Roman,

3 “The blossoming of that fair tree.”
Our Saviour’s transfiguration. “As the
apple-tree among the trees of the wood,
so is my beloved among the sons.”—Solomon’s
Song, ii. 3.
4 “Deeper sleeps.” The sleep of death,
in the instance of the ruler of the synagogue’s
daughter and of Lazarus.”
5 “The piteous one.” Matilda.
6 “Those lights.” T h e tapers of gold.
7 “Of that true Rome.” Of Heaven.

278 THE DIVINE COMEDY CANTO XXXII

To profit the misguided world, keep now
Thine eyes upon the car; and what thou seest,
Take heed thou write, returning to that place.”*
Thus Beatrice: at whose feet inclined
Devout, at her behest, my thought and eyes
I, as she bade, directed. Never fire,
With so swift motion, forth a stormy cloud
Leap’d downward from the welkin’s farthest bound,
As I beheld the bird of Jove9 descend
Down through the tree; and, as he rush’d, the rind
Disparting crush beneath him; buds much more,
And leaflets. On the car, with all his might
He struck; whence, staggering, like a ship it reel’d,
At random driven, to starboard now, o’ercome,
And now to larboard, by the vaulting waves.
Next, springing up into the chariot’s womb,
A fox10 I saw, with hunger seeming pined
Of all good food. But, for his ugly sins
The saindy maid rebuking him, away
Scampering he turn’d, fast as his hide-bound corpse
Would bear him. Next, from whence before he came,
I saw the eagle dart into the hull
O’ the car, and leave it with his feathers lined:11
And then a voice, like that which issues forth
From heart with sorrow rived, did issue forth
From Heaven, and “O poor bark of mine!” it cried,
“How badly art thou freighted.” Then it seem’d
That the earth open’d, between either wheel;
And I beheld a dragon12 issue thence,
That through the chariot fix’d his forked train;
And like a wasp, that draggeth back the sting,
So drawing forth his baleful train, he dragg’d
Part of the bottom forth; and went his way,
Exulting. What remain’d, as lively turf

8 “T o that place.” T o the earth.
9 “The bird of Jove.” This, which is
imitated from Ezekicl, xvii. 3, 4, is typical
of the persecutions which the Church sustained
from the Roman emperors.
10 “A fox.” By the fox probably is
represented the treachery of the heretics.
11 “With his feathers lined.” In allusion
to the donations made by Constantine to
the Church.
12 ” A dragon.” Probably Mohammed;
for what Lombardi offers to the contrary
is far from satisfactory.

CANTO XXXH PURGATORY 279
With green herb, so did clothe itself with plumes,”
Which haply had, with purpose chaste and kind,
Been offer’d; and therewith were clothed the wheels,
Both one and other, and the beam, so quickly,
A sigh were not breathed sooner. Thus transform’d,
The holy structure, through its several parts,
Did put forth heads;’4 three on the beam, and one
On every side: the first like oxen horn’d;
But with a single horn upon their front,
The four. Like monster, sight hath never seen.
O’er it15 methought there sat, secure as rock
On mountain’s lofty top, a shameless whore,
Whose ken roved loosely round her. At her side,
As’t were that none might bear her off, I saw
A giant stand; and ever and anon
They mingled kisses. But, her lustful eyes
Chancing on me to wander, that fell minion
Scourged her from head to foot all o’er; then full
Of jealousy, and fierce with rage, unloosed
The monster, and dragg’d on,” so far across
The forest, that from me its shades alone
Shielded the harlot and the new-form’d brute.

13 “With plumes.” The increase of
wealth and temporal dominion, which
followed the supposed gift of Constantine.
14 “Heads.” By the seven heads, it is
supposed with sufficient probability, are
meant the seven capital sins: by the three
with two horns, pride, anger, and avarice,
injurious both to man himself and to his
neighbor: by the four with one horn,
gluttony, gloominess, concupiscence, and
envy, hurtful, at least in their primary
effects, chiefly to him who is guilty of
them.
15 “O’er it.” The harlot is thought to
represent the state of the Church under
Boniface VIII, and the giant to figure
Philip IV of France.
” “Dragg’d on.” The removal of the
Pope’s residence from Rome to Avignon
is pointed at.

In the Cradle of Civilization (Jan26)

Herodotus’ AN ACCOUNT OF ECYPT Vol. 33, pp. 65-75

EGYPT 65
pyramid he made forty feet lower than the other as regards size,
building it close to the great pyramid. These stand both upon the
same hill, which is about a hundred feet high. And Chephren, they
said, reigned fifty and six years. Here then they reckon one hundred
and six years, during which they say that there was nothing but
evil for the Egyptians, and the temples were kept closed and not
opened during all that time. These kings the Egyptians by reason
of their hatred of them are not very willing to name; nay, they even
call the pyramids after the name of Philitis the shepherd, who at
that time pastured flocks in those regions. After him, they said,
Mykerinos became king over Egypt, who was the son of Cheops;
and to him his father’s deeds were displeasing, and he both opened
the temples and gave liberty to the people, who were ground down
to the last extremity of evil, to return to their own business and to
their sacrifices: also he gave decisions of their causes juster than those
of all the other kings besides. In regard to this then they commend
this king more than all the other kings who had arisen in Egypt
before him; for he not only gave good decisions, but also when a
man complained of the decision, he gave him recompense from his
own goods and thus satisfied his desire. But while Mykerinos was
acting mercifully to his subjects and practising this conduct which
has been said, calamities befell him, of which the first was this,
namely that his daughter died, the only child whom he had in his
house: and being above measure grieved by that which had befallen
him, and desiring to bury his daughter in a manner more remarkable
than others, he made a cow of wood, which he covered over with
gold, and then within it he buried this daughter who, as I said, had
died. This cow was not covered up in the ground, but it might be
seen even down to my own time in the city of Sai’s, placed within
the royal palace in a chamber which was greatly adorned; and they
offer incense of all kinds before it every day, and each night a lamp
burns beside it all through the night. Near this cow in another
chamber stand images of the concubines of Mykerinos, as the priests
at Sai’s told me; for there are in fact colossal wooden statues, in
number about twenty, made with naked bodies; but who they are
I am not able to say, except only that which is reported. Some however
tell about this cow and the colossal statues the following tale,

66 HERODOTUS
namely that Mykerinos was enamoured of his own daughter and
afterwards ravished her; and upon this they say that the girl
strangled herself for grief, and he buried her in this cow; and her
mother cut off the hands of the maids who had betrayed the daughter
to her father; wherefore now the images of them have suffered
that which the maids suffered in their life. In thus saying
they speak idly, as it seems to me, especially in what they say about
the hands of the statues; for as to this, even we ourselves saw that
their hands had dropped off from lapse of time, and they were to
be seen still lying at their feet even down to my time. The cow is
covered up with a crimson robe, except only the head and the neck,
which are seen, overlaid with gold very thickly; and between the
horns there is the disc of the sun figured in gold. The cow is not
standing up but kneeling, and in size it is equal to a large living
cow. Every year it is carried forth from the chamber, at those times,
I say, the Egyptians beat themselves for that god whom I will not
name upon occasion of such a matter; at these times, I say, they also
carry forth the cow to the light of day, for they say that she asked
of her father Mykerinos, when she was dying, that she might look
upon the sun once in the year.
After the misfortune of his daughter it happened, they said, secondly
to the king as follows:—An oracle came to him from the city
of Buto, saying that he was destined to live but six years more, in the
seventh year to end his life: and he being indignant at it sent to the
Oracle a reproach against the god, making complaint in reply that
whereas his father and uncle, who had shut up the temples, and had
not only not remembered the gods, but also had been destroyers of
men, had lived for a long time, he himself, who practised piety, was
destined to end his life so soon: and from the Oracle there came a
second message, which said that it was for this very cause that he
was bringing his life to a swift close; for he had not done that which
it was appointed for him to do, since it was destined that Egypt
should suffer evils for a hundred and fifty years, and the two kings
who had arisen before him had perceived this, but he had not.
Mykerinos having heard this, and considering that this sentence had
passed upon him beyond recall, procured many lamps, and whenever
night came on he lighted these and began to drink and take his

EGYPT 67
pleasure, ceasing neither by day nor by night; and he went about
to the fen-country and to the woods and wherever he heard there
were the most suitable places of enjoyment. This he devised (having
a mind to prove that the Oracle spoke falsely) in order that he might
have twelve years of life instead of six, the nights being turned into
days.
This king also left behind him a pyramid, much smaller than
that of his father, of a square shape and measuring on each side three
hundred feet lacking twenty, built moreover of Ethiopian stone up
to half the height. This pyramid some of the Hellenes say was
built by the courtesan Rhodopis, not therein speaking rightly: and
besides this it is evident to me that they who speak thus do not even
know who Rhodopis was, for otherwise they would not have attributed
to her the building of a pyramid like this, on which have been
spent (so to speak) innumerable thousands of talents: moreover they
do not know that Rhodopis flourished in the reign of Amasis, and
not in this king’s reign; for Rhodopis lived very many years later
than the kings who left behind them these pyramids. By descent she
was of Thrace, and she was a slave of Iadmon the son of Hephaistopolis
a Samian, and a fellow-slave of Esop the maker of fables;
for he too was once the slave of Iadmon, as was proved especially
by this fact, namely that when the people of Delphi repeatedly made
proclamation in accordance with an oracle, to find some one who
would take up the blood-money for the death of Esop, no one else
appeared, but at length the grandson of Iadmon, called Iadmon also,
took it up; and thus it is shown that Esop too was the slave of
Iadmon. As for Rhodopis, she came to Egypt brought by Xanthes
the Samian, and having come thither to exercise her calling she was
redeemed from slavery for a great sum by a man of Mytilene,
Charaxos son of Scamandronymos and brother of Sappho the lyric
poet. Thus was Rhodopis set free, and she remained in Egypt and
by her beauty won so much liking that she made great gain of
money for one like Rhodopis, though not enough to suffice for the
cost of such a pyramid as this. In truth there is no need to ascribe
to her very great riches, considering that the tithe of her wealth may
still be seen even to this time by any one who desires it: for Rhodopis
wished to leave behind her a memorial of herself in Hellas, namely

68 HERODOTUS
to cause a thing to be made such as happens not to have been
thought of or dedicated in a temple by any besides, and to dedicate
this at Delphi as a memorial of herself. Accordingly with the tithe
of her wealth she caused to be made spits of iron of size large enough
to pierce a whole ox, and many in number, going as far therein as
her tithe allowed her, and she sent them to Delphi: these are even at
the present time lying there, heaped all together behind the altar
which the Chians dedicated, and just opposite to the cell of the
temple. Now at Naucratis, as it happens, the courtesans are rather
apt to win credit; for this woman first, about whom the story to
which I refer is told, became so famous that all the Hellenes without
exception came to know the name of Rhodopis, and then after
her one whose name was Archidiche became a subject of song all
over Hellas, though she was less talked of than the other. As for
Charaxos, when after redeeming Rhodopis he returned back to
Mytilene, Sappho in an ode violently abused him. Of Rhodopis
then I shall say no more.
After Mykerinos the priests said Asychis became king of Egypt,
and he made for Hephaistos the temple gateway which is towards
the sunrising, by far the most beautiful and the largest of the gateways;
for while they all have figures carved upon them and innumerable
ornaments of building besides, this has them very much
more than the rest. In this king’s reign they told me that, as the
circulation of money was very slow, a law was made for the Egyptians
that a man might have that money lent to him which he
needed, by offering as security the dead body of his father; and
there was added moreover to this law another, namely that he who
lent the money should have a claim also to the whole of the sepulchral
chamber belonging to him who received it, and that the man
who offered that security should be subject to this penalty, if he
refused to pay back the debt, namely that neither the man himself
should be allowed to have burial, when he died, either in that family
burial-place or in any other, nor should he be allowed to bury any
of his kinsmen whom he lost by death. This king desiring to surpass
the kings of Egypt who had arisen before him left as a memorial
of himself a pyramid which he made of bricks, and on it there is an
inscription carved in stone and saying thus: “Despise not me in com-

EGYPT 69
parison with the pyramids of stone, seeing that I excel them as much
as Zeus excels the other gods; for with a pole they struck into the lake,
and whatever of the mud attached itself to the pole, this they
gathered up and made bricks, and in such manner they finished me.”
Such were the deeds which this king performed: and after him
reigned a blind man of the city of Anysis, whose name was Anysis.
In his reign the Ethiopians and Sabacos the king of the Ethiopians
marched upon Egypt with a great host of men; so this blind man
departed, flying to the fen-country, and the Ethiopian was king over
Egypt for fifty years, during which he performed deeds as follows:—
whenever any man of the Egyptians committed any transgression,
he would never put him to death, but he gave sentence upon each
man according to the greatness of the wrong-doing, appointing them
to work at throwing up an embankment before that city from
whence each man came of those who committed wrong. Thus the
cities were made higher still than before; for they were embanked
first by those who dug the channels in the reign of Sesostris, and
then secondly in the reign of the Ethiopian, and thus they were
made very high: and while other cities in Egypt also stood high, I
think in the town at Bubastis especially the earth was piled up. In
this city there is a temple very well worthy of mention, for though
there are other temples which are larger and built with more cost,
none more than this is a pleasure to the eyes. Now Bubastis in the
Hellenic tongue is Artemis, and her temple is ordered thus:—Except
the entrance it is completely surrounded by water; for channels
come in from the Nile, not joining one another, but each extending
as far as the entrance of the temple, one flowing round on the one
side and the other on the other side, each a hundred feet broad
and shaded over with trees; and the gateway has a height of ten
fathoms, and it is adorned with figures six cubits high, very noteworthy.
This temple is in the middle of the city and is looked down
upon from all sides as one goes round, for since the city has been
banked up to a height, while the temple had not been moved from
the place where it was at the first built, it is possible to look down
into it: and round it runs a stone wall with figures carved upon it,
while within it there is a grove of very large trees planted round a
large temple-house, within which is the image of the goddess: and

70 HERODOTUS
the breadth and length of the temple is a furlong every way. Opposite
the entrance there is a road paved with stone for about three
furlongs, which leads through the market-place towards the East,
with a breadth of about four hundred feet; and on this side and on
that grow trees of height reaching to heaven: and the road leads
to the temple of Hermes. This temple then is thus ordered.
The final deliverance from the Ethiopian came about (they said)
as follows:—he fled away because he had seen in his sleep a vision,
in which it seemed to him that a man came and stood by him and
counselled him to gather together all the priests in Egypt and cut
them asunder in the midst. Having seen this dream, he said that it
seemed to him that the gods were foreshowing him this to furnish
an occasion against him, in order that he might do an impious deed
with respect to religion, and so receive some evil either from the
gods or from men: he would not however do so, but in truth (he
said) the time had expired, during which it had been prophesied to
him that he should rule Egypt before he departed thence. For when
he was in Ethiopia the Oracles which the Ethiopians consult had
told him that it was fated for him to rule Egypt fifty years: since
then this time was now expiring, and the vision of the dream also
disturbed him, Sabacos departed out of Egypt of his own free will.
Then when the Ethiopian had gone away out of Egypt, the blind
man came back from the fen-country and began to rule again, having
lived there during fifty years upon an island which he had made by
heaping up ashes and earth: for whenever any of the Egyptians
visited him bringing food, according as it had been appointed to
them severally to do without the knowledge of the Ethiopian, he
bade them bring also some ashes for their gift. This island none was
able to find before Amyrtaios; that is, for more than seven hundred
years the kings who arose before Amyrtaios were not able to find it.
Now the name of this island is Elbo, and its size is ten furlongs
each way.
After him there came to the throne the priest of Hephaistos,
whose name was Sethos. This man, they said, neglected and held in
no regard the warrior class of the Egyptians, considering that he
would have no need of them; and besides other slights which he
put upon them, he also took from them the yokes of corn-land which

EGYPT 71
had been given to them as a special gift in the reigns of the former
kings, twelve yokes to each man. After this, Sanacharib king of
the Arabians and of the Assyrians marched a great host against
Egypt. Then the warriors of the Egyptians refused to come to the
rescue, and the priest, being driven into a strait, entered into the
sanctuary of the temple and bewailed to the image of the god the
danger which was impending over him; and as he was thus lamenting,
sleep came upon him, and it seemed to him in his vision that
the god came and stood by him and encouraged him, saying that he
should suffer no evil if he went forth to meet the army of the Arabians;
for he would himself send him helpers. Trusting in these
things seen in sleep, he took with him, they said, those of the Egyptians
who were willing to follow him, and encamped in Pelusion,
for by this way the invasion came: and not one of the warrior class
followed him, but shop-keepers and artisans and men of the market.
Then after they came, there swarmed by night upon their enemies
mice of the fields, and ate up their quivers and their bows, and
moreover the handles of their shields, so that on the next day they
fled, and being without defence of arms great numbers fell. And
at the present time this king stands in the temple of Hephaistos in
stone, holding upon his hand a mouse, and by letters inscribed he
says these words: “Let him who looks upon me learn to fear
the gods.”
So far in the story the Egyptians and the priests were they who
made the report, declaring that from the first king down to this
priest of Hephaistos who reigned last, there had been three hundred
and forty-one generations of men, and that in them there had been
the same number of chief-priests and of kings: but three hundred
generations of men are equal to ten thousand years, for a hundred
years is three generations of men; and in the one-and-forty generations
which remain, those I mean which were added to the three
hundred, there are one thousand three hundred and forty years.
Thus in the period of eleven thousand three hundred and forty years
they said that there had arisen no god in human form; nor even
before that time or afterwards among the remaining kings who arose
in Egypt, did they report that anything of that kind had come to
pass. In this time they said that the sun had moved four times

72 HERODOTUS
from his accustomed place of rising, and where he now sets he had
thence twice had his rising, and in the place from whence he now
rises he had twice had his setting; and in the meantime nothing in
Egypt had been changed from its usual state, neither that which
comes from the earth nor that which comes to them from the river
nor that which concerns diseases or deaths. And formerly when
Hecataios the historian was in Thebes, and had traced his descent
and connected his family with a god in the sixteenth generation
before, the priests of Zeus did for him much the same as they did
for me (though I had not traced my descent). They led me into the
sanctuary of the temple, which is of great size, and they counted up
the number, showing colossal wooden statues in number the same
as they said; for each chief-priest there sets up in his lifetime an
image of himself: accordingly the priests, counting and showing
me these, declared to me that each one of them was a son succeeding
his own father, and they went up through the series of images from
the image of the one who had died last, until they had declared this
of the whole number. And when Hecataios had traced his descent
and connected his family with a god in the sixteenth generation,
they traced a descent in opposition to his, besides their numbering,
not accepting it from him that a man had been born from a god;
and they traced their counter-descent thus, saying that each one of
the statues had been piromis son of piromis, until they had declared
this of the whole three hundred and forty-five statues, each one
being surnamed piromis; and neither with a god nor a hero did they
connect their descent. Now piromis means in the tongue of Hellas
“honourable and good man.” From their declaration then it followed,
that they of whom the images were had been of form like
this, and far removed from being gods: but in the time before these
men they said that gods were the rulers in Egypt, not mingling with
men, and that of these always one had power at a time; and the
last of them who was king over Egypt was Oros the son of Osiris,
whom the Hellenes call Apollo: he was king over Egypt last, having
deposed Typhpn. Now Osiris in the tongue of Hellas is Dionysos.
Among the Hellenes Heracles and Dionysos and Pan are accounted
the latest-born of the gods; but with the Egyptians Pan is
a very ancient god, and he is one of those which are called the eight

EGYPT 73
gods, while Heracles is of the second rank, who are called the twelve
gods, and Dionysos is of the third rank, namely of those who were
born of the twelve gods. Now as to Heracles I have shown already
how many years old he is according to the Egyptians themselves,
reckoning down to the reign of Amasis, and Pan is said to have
existed for yet more years than these, and Dionysos for the smallest
number of years as compared with the others; and even for this last
they reckon down to the reign of Amasis fifteen thousand years.
This the Egyptians say that they know for a certainty, since they
always kept a reckoning and wrote down the years as they came.
Now the Dionysos who is said to have been born of Semele the
daughter of Cadmos, was born about sixteen hundred years before
my time, and Heracles who was the son of Alcmene, about nine
hundred years, and that Pan who was born of Penelope, for of her
and of Hermes Pan is said by the Hellenes to have been born, came
into being later than the wars of Troy, about eight hundred years
before my time. Of these two accounts every man may adopt that
one which he shall find the more credible when he hears it. I however,
for my part, have already declared my opinion about them. For
if these also, like Heracles the son of Amphitryon, had appeared
before all men’s eyes and had lived their lives to old age in Hellas,
I mean Dionysos the son of Semele and Pan the son of Penelope,
then one would have said that these also had been born mere men,
having the names of those gods who had come into being long before:
but as it is, with regard to Dionysos, the Hellenes say that as
soon as he was born Zeus sewed him up in his thigh and carried
him to Nysa, which is above Egypt in the land of Ethiopia; and as
to Pan, they cannot say whither he went after he was born. Hence
it has become clear to me that the Hellenes learnt the names of
these gods later than those of the other gods, and trace their descent
as if their birth occurred at the time when they first learnt their
names.
Thus far then the history is told by the Egyptians themselves;
but I will now recount that which other nations also tell, and the
Egyptians in agreement with the others, of that which happened in
this land: and there will be added to this also something of that
which I have myself seen.

74 HERODOTUS
Being set free after the reign of the priest of Hephaistos, the
Egyptians, since they could not live any time without a king, set
up over them twelve kings, having divided all Egypt into twelve
parts. These made intermarriages with one another and reigned,
making agreement that they would not put down one another by
force, nor seek to get an advantage over one another, but would live
in perfect friendship: and the reason why they made these agreements,
guarding them very strongly from violation, was this, namely
that an oracle had been given to them at first when they began to
exercise their rule, that he of them who should pour a libation with
a bronze cup in the temple of Hephaistos, should be king of all
Egypt (for they used to assemble together in all the temples). Moreover
they resolved to join all together and leave a memorial of themselves;
and having so resolved they caused to be made a labyrinth,
situated a little above the lake of Moiris and nearly opposite to that
which is called the City of Crocodiles. This I saw myself, and I
found it greater than words can say. For if one should put together
and reckon up all the buildings and all the great works produced
by Hellenes, they would prove to be inferior in labour and expense
to this labyrinth, though it is true that both the temple at Ephesos
and that at Samos are works worthy of note. The pyramids also
were greater than words can say, and each one of them is equal to
many works of the Hellenes, great as they may be; but the labyrinth
surpasses even the pyramids. It has twelve courts covered in, with
gates facing one another, six upon the North side and six upon the
South, joining on one to another, and the same wall surrounds them
all outside; and there are in it two kinds of chambers, the one kind
below the ground and the other above upon these, three thousand
in number, of each kind fifteen hundred. The upper set of chambers
we ourselves saw, going through them, and we tell of them
having looked upon them with our own eyes; but the chambers
under ground we heard about only; for the Egyptians who had
charge of them were not willing on any account to show them,
saying that here were the sepulchres of the kings who had first built
this labyrinth and of the sacred crocodiles. Accordingly we speak
of the chambers below by what we received from hearsay, while
those above we saw ourselves and found them to be works of more

EGYPT 75
than human greatness. For the passages through the chambers, and
the goings this way and that way through the courts, which were
admirably adorned, afforded endless matter for marvel, as we went
through from a court to the chambers beyond it, and from the chambers
to colonnades, and from the colonnades to other rooms, and
then from the chambers again to other courts. Over the whole of
these is a roof made of stone like the walls; and the walls are covered
with figures carved upon them, each court being surrounded
with pillars of white stone fitted together most perfectly; and at
the end of the labyrinth, by the corner of it, there is a pyramid of
forty fathoms, upon which large figures are carved, and to this there
is a way made under ground.
Such is this labyrinth: but a cause for marvel even greater than
this is afforded by the lake, which is called the lake of Moiris, along
the side of which this labyrinth is built. The measure of its circuit
is three thousand six hundred furlongs (being sixty schoines),
and this is the same number of furlongs as the extent of Egypt itself
along the sea. The lake lies extended lengthwise from North to
South, and in depth where it is deepest it is fifty fathoms. That this
lake is artificial and formed by digging is self-evident, for about in
the middle of the lake stand two pyramids, each rising above the
water to a height of fifty fathoms, the part which is built below the
water being of just the same height; and upon each is placed a
colossal statue of stone sitting upon a chair. Thus the pyramids are
a hundred fathoms high; and these hundred fathoms are equal to
a furlong of six hundred feet, the fathom being measured as six feet
or four cubits, the feet being four palms each, and the cubits six.
The water in the lake does not come from the place where it is,
for the country there is very deficient in water, but it has been
brought thither from the Nile by a canal; and for six months the
water flows into the lake, and for six months out into the Nile again;
and whenever it flows out, then for the six months it brings into
the royal treasury a talent of silver a day from the fish which are
caught, and twenty pounds when the water comes in. The natives
of the place moreover said that this lake had an outlet under ground
to the Syrtis which is in Libya, turning towards the interior of the
continent upon the Western side and running along by the moun-

25. A Field Mouse Made Famous

To A MOUSE and Burns’ other poems… .Vol. 6, pp. 119-120, 388-394

TO A MOUSE, ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST
WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER, 1785
WEE, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry man’s dominion,
Has broken nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
‘S a sma’ request;
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss’t!
Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell—
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.

120 ROBERT BURNS
That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble.
But house or hald,
To thole the winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauldl
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’. mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

TAM O’ SHANTER
A Tale.
“Of Brownyis and of Bogillis full is this Buke.”
GAWIN DOUGLAS.

WHEN chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neibors, neibors meet;
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate,
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An’ getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

This truth fand honest TAM O’ SHANTEK,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter:
(Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonie lasses).

POEMS AND SONGS 389
O Tam! had’st thou but been sae wise,
As taen thy ain wife Kate’s advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou was na sober;
That ilka melder wi’ the Miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That ev’ry naig was ca’d a shoe on
The Smith and thee gat roarin’ fou on;
That at the Lord’s house, ev’n on Sunday,
Thou drank wi’ Kirkton Jean till Monday,
She prophesied that late or soon,
Thou wad be found, deep drown’d in Doon,
Or catch’d wi’ warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway’s auld, haunted kirk.

Ah, gende dames! it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen’d, sage advices.
The husband frae the wife despises!

But to our tale: Ae market night,
Tam had got planted unco right,
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
Wi reaming swats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow, Souter Johnie,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony:
Tam lo’ed him like a very brither;
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
The night drave on wi’ sangs an’ clatter;
And aye the ale was growing better:
The Landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi’ favours secret, sweet, and precious:
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The Landlord’s laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.

Care, mad to see a man sae happy.
E’en drown’d himsel amang the nappy.

390 ROBERT BURNS
As bees flee hame wi’ lades o’ treasure,
The minutes wing’d their way wi’ pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tarn was glorious,
O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious!

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white—then melts for ever;
Or like the Borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the Rainbow’s lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.—
Nae man can tether Time nor Tide,
The hour approaches Tarn maun ride;
That hour, o’ night’s black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he taks the road in,
As ne’er poor sinner was abroad in.

The wind blew as ‘twad blawn its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow’d;
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow’d:
That night, a child might understand,
The deil had business on his hand.

Weel-mountcd on his grey mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,
Tarn skelpit on thro’ dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet,
Whiles crooning o’er some auld Scots sonnet,
Whiles glow’rin round wi’ prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares;
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Where ghaists and houlets nighdy cry.

By this time he was cross the ford,
Where in the snaw the chapman srnoor’d;

POEMS AND SONGS 391
And past the birks and meikle stane,
Where drunken Charlie brak’s neck-bane;
And thro’ the whins, and by the cairn,
Where hunters fand the murder’d bairn;
And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Where Mungo’s mither hang’d hersel’.
Before him Doon pours all his floods,
The doubling storm roars thro’ the woods,
The lightnings flash from pole to pole,
Near and more near the thunders roll,
When, glimmering thro’ the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem’d in a bleeze,
Thro’ ilka bore the beams were glancing,
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi’ tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi’ usquabae, we’ll face the devil!
The swats sae ream’d in Tammie’s noddle,
Fair play, he car’d na deils a boddle.
But Maggie stood, right sair astonish’d,
Till, by the heel and hand admonish’d,
She ventur’d forward on the light;
And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight!

Warlocks and witches in a dance:
Nae cotillon, brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o’ beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw’d the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a’ did dirl.—
Coffins stood round, like open presses,
That shaw’d the Dead in their last dresses;
And (by some devilish cantraip sleight)
Each in its cauld hand held a light.

392 ROBERT BURNS
By which heroic Tarn was able
To note upon the haly table,
A murderer’s banes, in gibbet-airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristcned bairns;
A thief, new-cutted frae a rape,
Wi’ his last gasp his gab did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi’ blude red-rusted:
Five scimitars, wi’ murder crusted;
A garter which a babe had strangled:
A knife, a father’s throat had mangled.
Whom his ain son of life bereft,
The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft;
Wi’ mair of horrible and awfu’,
Which even to name wad be unlawfu*.

As Tammie glowr’d, amaz’d, and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious;
The Piper loud and louder blew,
The dancers quick and quicker flew,
They reel’d, they set, they cross’d, they cleckit,
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,
And coost her duddies to the wark,
And linkit at it in her sarkl

Now Tarn, O Tarn! had they been queans,
A’ plump and strapping in their teens!
Their sarks, instead o’ creeshie flainen,
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen!—
Thir breeks o’ mine, my only pair,
That ance were plush o’ guid blue hair,
I wad hae gien them off my hurdies,
For ae blink o’ the bonie burdies!
But wither’d beldams, auld and droll,
Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal,
Louping an’ flinging on a crummock,
I wonder did na turn thy stomach.

But Tarn kent what was what fu* brawlie:
There was ae winsome wench and waulic
That night enlisted in the core,

POEMS AND SONGS 393
Lang after ken’d on Carrick shore;
(For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perish’d mony a bonie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear,
And kept the country-side in fear);
Her cutty sark, o’ Paisley ham,
That while a lassie she had worn,
In longitude tho’ sorely scanty,
It was her best, and she was vauntie.
Ah! little ken’d thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,
Wi’ twa pund Scots (’twas a’ her riches),
Wad ever grae’d a dance of witches!
But here my Muse her wing maun cour,
Sic flights are far beyond her power;
To sing how Nannie lap and flang,
(A souple jade she was and Strang),
And how Tam stood, like ane bewitch’d,
And thought his very een enrich’d:
Even Satan glowr’d, and fidg’d fu’ fain,
And hotch’d and blew wi’ might and main:
Till first ae caper, syne anither,
Tam tint his reason a thegither,
And roars out, “Weel done, Cutty-sark!”
And in an instant all was dark:
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.
As bees bizz out wi’ angry fyke,
When plundering herds assail their byke;
As open pussie’s mortal foes,
When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
When “Catch the thief!” resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi’ mony an eldritch skreich and hollow.
Ah, Tam! Ah, Tam! thou’ll get thy fairinl
In hell, they’ll roast thee like a herrin!

394 ROBERT BURNS
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin!
Kate soon will be a woefu’ woman!
Now, do thy speedy-utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stone o’ the brig;1
There, at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na cross.
But ere the keystane she could make,
The hent a tail she had to shake!
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi’ furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie’s mettle!
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain grey tail:
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.
Now, wha this tale o’ truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother’s son, take heed:
Whene’er to Drink you are inclin’d,
Or Cutty-sarks rin in your mind,
Think ye may buy the joys o’er dear;
Remember Tam o’ Shanter’s mare.

Public Burqa In France?

Jean-François Copé, parliamentary leader of the ruling UMP party, this week submitted a draft law stating that “nobody, in places open to the public or on streets, may wear an outfit or an accessory whose effect is to hide the face”. A few exceptions would be made, he said, such as for carnivals. At other times, anybody refusing to take off a face-covering could be fined €750 ($1,090). He hopes parliament will debate the draft at the end of March, shortly after the regional elections. more>>

Koestler’s Odyssey

He began his education in the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, at an experimental kindergarten in Budapest. His mother was briefly a patient of Sigmund Freud’s. In interwar Vienna he wound up as the personal secretary of Vladimir Jabotinsky, one of the early leaders of the Zionist movement. Traveling in Soviet Turkmenistan as a young and ardent Communist sympathizer, he ran into Langston Hughes. Fighting in the Spanish civil war, he met W.H. Auden at a “crazy party” in Valencia, before winding up in one of Franco’s prisons. In Weimar Berlin he fell into the circle of the infamous Comintern agent Willi Münzenberg, through whom he met the leading German Communists of the era …

At about 4 AM, Koestler was pried away from the nightclub, and the group “repaired to Chez Victor in Les Halles for onion soup, oysters, and white wine.” Roaring drunk, Koestler threw a crust of bread across the table and hit Mamaine in the eye; Sartre, equally drunk, poured salt and pepper into napkins that he put in his pocket and said he had to deliver a lecture at the Sorbonne in the morning on “The Responsibility of the Writer.” Camus said, “Well, you’ll have to speak without me” (“Alors, tu parleras sans moi “). Sartre said he wished he “could speak without me too” (“Je voudrais bien pouvoir parler sans moi “) and collapsed into giggles. more>>

24. Odysseus Silenced the Sirens

Homer’s ODYSSEY Vol. 22, pp. 165-173

THE ODYSSEY 165
‘So spake I, and that fair goddess answered me: “Man overbold,
lo, now again the deeds of war are in thy mind and the travail
thereof. Wilt thou not yield thee even to the deathless gods? As
for her, she is no mortal, but an immortal plague, dread, grievous,
and fierce, and not to be fought with; and against her there is no
defence; flight is the bravest way. For if thou tarry to do on thine
armour by the cliff, I fear lest once again she sally forth and catch
at thee with so many heads, and seize as many men as before.
So drive past with all thy force, and call on Cratais, mother of
Scylla, which bore her for a bane to mortals. And she will then let
her from darting forth thereafter.
‘”Then thou shalt come unto the isle Thrinacia; there are the
many kine of Helios and his brave flocks feeding, seven herds of
kine and as many goodly flocks of sheep, and fifty in each flock.
They have no part in birth or in corruption, and there are goddesses
to shepherd them, nymphs with fair tresses, Phaethusa and Lampetie
whom bright Neaera bare to Helios Hyperion. Now when the lady
their mother had borne and nursed them, she carried them to the
isle Thrinacia to dwell afar, that they should guard their father’s
flocks and his kine with shambling gait. If thou doest these no hurt,
being heedful of thy return, truly ye may even yet reach Ithaca,
albeit in evil case. But if thou hurtest them, I foreshow ruin for
thy ship and for thy men, and even though thou shouldest thyself
escape, late shalt thou return in evil plight with the loss of all thy
company.”
‘So spake she, and anon came the golden-throned Dawn. Then
the fair goddess took her way up the island. But I departed to my
ship and roused my men themselves to mount the vessel and loose
the hawsers. And speedily they went aboard and sat upon the
benches, and sitting orderly smote the grey sea water with their
oars. And in the wake of our dark-prowed ship she sent a favouring
wind that filled the sails, a kindly escort,—even Circe of the braided
tresses, a dread goddess of human speech. And straightway we set
in order the gear throughout the ship and sat us down, and the
wind and the helmsman guided our barque.
‘Then I spake among my company with a heavy heart: “Friends,
forasmuch as it is not well that one or two alone should know of

166 HOMER
the oracles that Circe, the fair goddess, spake unto me, therefore
will I declare them, that with foreknowledge we may die, or haply
shunning death and destiny escape. First she bade us avoid the
sound of the voice of the wondrous Sirens, and their field of flowers,
and me only she bade listen to their voices. So bind ye me in a hard
bond, that I may abide unmoved in my place, upright in the maststead,
and from the mast let rope-ends be tied, and if I beseech and
bid you to set me free, then do ye straiten me with yet more bonds.”
‘Thus I rehearsed these things one and all, and declared them to
my company. Meanwhile our good ship quickly came to the island
of the Sirens twain, for a gentle breeze sped her on her way. Then
straightway the wind ceased, and lo, there was a windless calm, and
some god lulled the waves. Then my company rose up and drew in
the ship’s sails, and stowed them in the hold of the ship, while they
sat at the oars and whitened the water with their polished pine
blades. But I with my sharp sword cleft in pieces a great circle of
wax, and with my strong hands kneaded it. And soon the wax
grew warm, for that my great might constrained it, and the beam
of the lord Helios, son of Hyperion. And I anointed therewith the
ears of all my men in their order, and in the ship they bound me
hand and foot upright in the mast-stead, and from the mast they
fastened rope-ends and themselves sat down, and smote the grey sea
water with their oars. But when the ship was within the sound of
a man’s shout from the land, we fleeing swiftly on our way, the
Sirens espied the swift ship speeding toward them, and they raised
their clear-toned song:
‘ “Hither, come hither, renowned Odysseus, great glory of the
Achaeans, here stay thy barque, that thou mayest listen to the voice
of us twain. For none hath ever driven by this way in his black
ship, till he hath heard from our lips the voice sweet as the honeycomb,
and hath had joy thereof and gone on his way the wiser.
For lo, we know all things, all the travail that in wide Troy-land
the Argives and Trojans bare by the gods’ designs, yea, and we know
all that shall hereafter be upon the fruitful earth.”
‘So spake they uttering a sweet voice, and my heart was fain to
listen, and I bade my company unbind me, nodding at them with
a frown, but they bent to their oars and rowed on. Then straight

THE ODYSSEY 167
uprose Perimedes and Eurylochus and bound me with more cords
and straitened me yet the more. Now when we had driven past
them, nor heard we any longer the sound of the Sirens or their
song, forthwith my dear company took away the wax wherewith
I had anointed their ears and loosed me from my bonds.
‘But so soon as we left that isle, thereafter presently I saw smoke
and a great wave, and heard the sea roaring. Then for very fear
the oars flew from their hands, and down the stream they all
splashed, and the ship was holden there, for my company no longer
plied with their hands the tapering oars. But I paced the ship and
cheered on my men, as I stood by each one and spake smooth words:
‘ “Friends, forasmuch as in sorrow we are not all unlearned, truly
this is no greater woe that is upon us,1 than when the Cyclops penned
us by main might in his hollow cave; yet even thence we made escape
by my manfulness, even by my counsel and my wit, and some
day I think that this adventure too we shall remember. Come now,
therefore, let us all give ear to do according to my word. Do ye
smite the deep surf of the sea with your oars, as ye sit on the benches,
if peradventure Zeus may grant us to escape from and shun this
death. And as for thee, helmsman, thus I charge thee, and ponder
it in thine heart seeing that thou wieldest the helm of the hollow
ship. Keep the ship well away from this smoke and from the wave
and hug the rocks, lest the ship, ere thou art aware, start from her
course to the other side, and so thou hurl us into ruin.”
‘So I spake, and quickly they hearkened to my words. But of
Scylla I told them nothing more, a bane none might deal with, lest
haply my company should cease from rowing for fear, and hide
them in the hold. In that same hour I suffered myself to forget the
hard behest of Circe, in that she bade me in nowise be armed; but
I did on my glorious harness and caught up two long lances in my
hands, and went on to the decking of the prow, for thence methought
that Scylla of the rock would first be seen, who was to bring woe
on my company. Yet could I not spy her anywhere, and my eyes
waxed weary for gazing all about toward the darkness of the rock.
‘Next we began to sail up the narrow strait lamenting. For on
the one hand lay Scylla, and on the other mighty Charybdis in ter-
1 Reading M, not Irct with La Roche.

168 HOMER
rible wise sucked down the salt sea water. As often as she belched
it forth, like a cauldron on a great fire she would seethe up through
all her troubled deeps, and overhead the spray fell on the tops of
either cliff. But oft as she gulped down the salt sea water, within
she was all plain to see through her troubled deeps, and the rock
around roared horribly and beneath the earth was manifest swart
with sand, and pale fear gat hold on my men. Toward her, then,
we looked fearing destruction; but Scylla meanwhile caught from
out my hollow ship six of my company, the hardiest of their hands
and the chief in might. And looking into the swift ship to find my
men, even then I marked their feet and hands as they were lifted
on high, and they cried aloud in their agony, and called me by my
name for that last time of all. Even as when a fisher on some headland
lets down with a long rod his baits for a snare to the little
fishes below, casting into the deep the horn of an ox of the homestead,
and as he catches each flings it writhing ashore, so writhing
were they borne upward to the cliff. And there she devoured them
shrieking in her gates, they stretching forth their hands to me in
the dread death-struggle. And the most pitiful thing was this that
mine eyes have seen of all my travail in searching out the paths of
the sea.
‘Now when we had escaped the Rocks and dread Charybdis and
Scylla, thereafter we soon came to the fair island of the god; where
were the goodly kine, broad of brow, and the many brave flocks of
Helios Hyperion. Then while as yet I was in my black ship upon
the deep, I heard the lowing of the cattle being stalled and the bleating
of the sheep, and on my mind there fell the saying of the blind
seer, Theban Teiresias, and of Circe of Aia, who charged me very
straitly to shun the isle of Helios, the gladdener of the world. Then
I spake out among my company in sorrow of heart:
‘ “Hear my words, my men, albeit in evil plight, that I may declare
unto you the oracles of Teiresias and of Circe of Aia, who very
straitly charged me to shun the isle of Helios, the gladdener of the
world. For there she said the most dreadful mischief would befall
us. Nay, drive ye then the black ship beyond and past that isle.”
‘So spake I, and their heart was broken within them. And Eurylochus
straightway answered me sadly, saying:

THE ODYSSEY 169
‘ “Hardy art thou, Odysseus, of might beyond measure, and thy
limbs are never weary; verily thou art fashioned all of iron, that
sufferest not thy fellows, foredone with toil and drowsiness, to set
foot on shore, where we might presently prepare us a good supper
in this sea-girt island. But even as we are thou biddest us fare blindly
through the sudden night, and from the isle go wandering on the
misty deep. And strong winds, the bane of ships, are born of the
night. How could a man escape from utter doom, if there chanced
to come a sudden blast of the South Wind, or of the boisterous
West, which mainly wreck ships, beyond the will of the gods, the
lords of all ? Howbeit for this present let us yield to the black night,
and we will make ready our supper abiding by the swift ship, and in
the morning we will climb on board, and put out into the broad
deep.”
‘So spake Eurylochus, and the rest of my company consented
thereto. Then at the last I knew that some god was indeed imagining
evil, and I uttered my voice and spake unto him winged words:
‘ “Eurylochus, verily ye put force upon me, being but one among
you all. But come, swear me now a mighty oath, one and all, to the
intent that if we light on a herd of kine or a great flock of sheep,
none in the evil folly of his heart may slay any sheep or ox; but in
quiet eat ye the meat which the deathless Circe gave.”
‘So I spake, and straightway they swore to refrain as I commanded
them. Now after they had sworn and done that oath, we stayed our
well-builded ship in the hollow harbour near to a well of sweet
water, and my company went forth from out the ship and deftly got
ready supper. But when they had put from them the desire of meat
and drink, thereafter they fell a weeping as they thought upon their
dear companions whom Scylla had snatched from out the hollow
ship and so devoured. And deep sleep came upon them amid their
weeping. And when it was the third watch of the night, and the
stars had crossed the zenith, Zeus the cloud-gatherer roused against
them an angry wind with wondrous tempest, and shrouded in
clouds land and sea alike, and from heaven sped down the night.
Now when early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, we beached
the ship, and dragged it up within a hollow cave, where were the
fair dancing grounds of the nymphs and the places of their session.

170 HOMER
Thereupon I ordered a gathering of my men and spake in their
midst, saying:
‘ “Friends, forasmuch as there is yet meat and drink in the swift
ship, let us keep our hands off those kine, lest some evil thing befall
us. For these are the kine and the brave flocks of a dread god, even
of Helios, who overseeth all and overheareth all things.”
‘So I spake, and their lordly spirit hearkened thereto. Then for
a whole month the South Wind blew without ceasing, and no other
wind arose, save only the East and the South.
‘Now so long as my company still had corn and red wine, they refrained
them from the kine, for they were fain of life. But when
the corn was now all spent from out the ship, and they went wandering
with barbed hooks in quest of game, as needs they must, fishes
and fowls, whatsoever might come to their hand, for hunger gnawed
at their belly, then at last I departed up the isle, that I might pray to
the gods, if perchance some one of them might show me a way of
returning. And now when I had avoided my company on my way
through the island, I laved my hands where was a shelter from the
wind, and prayed to all the gods that hold Olympus. But they shed
sweet sleep upon my eyelids. And Eurylochus the while set forth
an evil counsel to my company:
‘ “Hear my words, my friends, though ye be in evil case. Truly
every shape of death is hateful to wretched mortals, but to die of
hunger and so meet doom is most pitiful of all. Nay come, we will
drive off the best of the kine of Helios and will do sacrifice to the
deathless gods who keep wide heaven. And if we may yet reach
Ithaca, our own country, forthwith will we rear a rich shrine to
Helios Hyperion, and therein would we set many a choice offering.
But if he be somewhat wroth for his cattle with straight horns, and
is fain to wreck our ship, and the other gods follow his desire, rather
with one gulp at the wave would I cast my life away, than be slowly
straitened to death in a desert isle.”
‘So spake Eurylochus, and the rest of the company consented
thereto. Forthwith they drave off the best of the kine of Helios that
were nigh at hand, for the fair kine of shambling gait and broad of
brow were feeding no great way from the dark-prowed ship. Then
they stood around the cattle and prayed to the gods, plucking the

THE ODYSSEY 171
fresh leaves from an oak of lofty boughs, for they had no white
barley on board the decked ship. Now after they had prayed and
cut the throats of the kine and flayed them, they cut out slices of
the thighs and wrapped them in the fat, making a double fold, and
thereon they laid raw flesh. Yet had they no pure wine to pour over
the flaming sacrifices, but they made libation with water and roasted
the entrails over the fire. Now after the thighs were quite consumed
and they had tasted the inner parts, they cut the rest up small and
spitted it on spits. In the same hour deep sleep sped from my eyelids
and I sallied forth to the swift ship and the sea-banks. But on
my way as I drew near to the curved ship, the sweet savour of the
fat came all about me; and I groaned and spake out before the
deathless gods:
‘”Father Zeus, and all ye other blessed gods that live for ever,
verily to my undoing ye have lulled me with a ruthless sleep, and
my company abiding behind have imagined a monstrous deed.”
‘Then swiftly to Helios Hyperion came Lampetie of the long
robes, with the tidings that we had slain his kine. And straight he
spake with angry heart amid the Immortals:
‘”Father Zeus, and all ye other blessed gods that live for ever,
take vengeance I pray you on the company of Odysseus, son of
Laertes, that have insolently slain my cattle, wherein I was wont
to be glad as I went toward the starry heaven, and when I again
turned earthward from the firmament. And if they pay me not full
atonement for the cattle, I will go down to Hades and shine among
the dead.”
‘And Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered him, saying: “Helios,
do thou, I say, shine on amidst the deathless gods, and amid mortal
men upon the earth, the grain-giver. But as for me, I will soon
smite their swift ship with my white bolt, and cleave it in pieces in
the midst of the wine-dark deep.”
‘This I heard from Calypso of the fair hair; and she said that she
herself had heard it from Hermes the Messenger.
‘But when I had come down to the ship and to the sea, I went up
to my companions and rebuked them one by one; but we could find
no remedy, the cattle were dead and gone. And soon thereafter the
gods showed forth signs and wonders to my company. The skins

172 HOMER
were creeping, and the flesh bellowing upon the spits, both the
roast and raw, and there was a sound as the voice of kine.
‘Then for six days my dear company feasted on the best of the
kine of Helios, which they had driven off. But when Zeus, son of
Cronos, had added the seventh day thereto, thereafter the wind
ceased to blow with a rushing storm, and at once we climbed the ship
and launched into the broad deep, when we had set up the mast
and hoisted the white sails.
‘But now when we left that isle nor any other land appeared, but
sky and sea only, even then the son of Cronos stayed a dark cloud
above the hollow ship, and beneath it the deep darkened. And the
ship ran on her way for no long while, for of a sudden came the
shrilling West, with the rushing of a great tempest, and the blast of
wind snapped the two forestays of the mast, and the mast fell backward
and all the gear dropped into the bilge. And behold, on the
hind part of the ship the mast struck the head of the pilot and brake
all the bones of his skull together, and like a diver he dropped down
from the deck, and his brave spirit left his bones. In that same hour
Zeus thundered and cast his bolt upon the ship, and she reeled all
over being stricken by the bolt of Zeus, and was filled with sulphur,
and lo, my company fell from out the vessel. Like sea-gulls they
were borne round the black ship upon the billows, and the god
reft them of returning.
‘But I kept pacing through my ship, till the surge loosened the
sides from the keel, and the wave swept her along stript of her tackling,
and brake her mast clean off at the keel. Now the backstay
fashioned of an oxhide had been flung thereon; therewith I lashed
together both keel and mast, and sitting thereon I was borne by
the ruinous winds.
‘Then verily the West Wind ceased to blow with a rushing
storm, and swiftly withal the South Wind came, bringing sorrow to
my soul, that so I might again measure back that space of sea, the
way to deadly Charybdis. All the night was I borne, but with the
rising of the sun I came to the rock of Scylla, and to dread Charybdis.
Now she had sucked down her salt sea water, when I was swung
up on high to the tall fig-tree whereto I clung like a bat, and could
find no sure rest for my feet nor place to stand, for the roots spread

THE ODYSSEY 173
far below and the branches hung aloft out of reach, long and large,
and overshadowed Charybdis. Steadfast I clung till she should spew
forth mast and keel again; and late they came to my desire. At the
hour when a man rises up from the assembly and goes to supper,
one who judges the many quarrels of the young men that seek to
him for law, at that same hour those timbers came forth to view
from out Charybdis. And I let myself drop down hands and feet,
and plunged heavily in the midst of the waters beyond the long timbers,
and sitting on these I rowed hard with my hands. But the
father of gods and of men suffered me no more to behold Scylla,
else I should never have escaped from utter doom.
‘Thence for nine days was I borne, and on the tenth night the
gods brought me nigh to the isle of Ogygia, where dwells Calypso
of the braided tresses, an awful goddess of mortal speech, who took
me in and entreated me kindly. But why rehearse all this tale? For
even yesterday I told it to thee and to thy noble wife in thy house;
and it liketh me not twice to tell a plain-told tale.’

23. Pascal Knew Men and Triangles

Pascal’s THE ART OF PERSUASION Vol. 48, pp. 400-411

THE ART OF PERSUASION

THE art of persuasion has a necessary relation to the manner in
which men are led to consent to that which is proposed to them,
and to the conditions of things which it is sought to make them
believe.
No one is ignorant that there are two avenues by which opinions
are received into the soul, which are its two principal powers: the
understanding and the will. The more natural is that of the understanding,
for we should never consent to any but demonstrated
truths; but the more common, though the one contrary to nature, is
that of the will; for all men are almost led to believe not of proof,
but by attraction. This way is base, ignoble, and irrelevant: every
one therefore disavows it. Each one professes to believe and even
to love nothing but what he knows to be worthy of belief and love.
I do not speak here of divine truths, which I shall take care not to
comprise under the art of persuasion, because they are infinitely
superior to nature: God alone can place them in the soul and in such
a way as it pleases him. I know that he has desired that they should
enter from the heart into the mind, and not from the mind into the
heart, to humiliate that proud power of reasoning that pretends to
the right to be the judge of the things that the will chooses; and to
cure this infirm will which is wholly corrupted by its filthy attachments.
And thence it comes that whilst in speaking of human things,
we say that it is necessary to know them before we can love them,
which has passed into a proverb,1 the saints on the contrary say in
speaking of divine things that it is necessary to love them in order
to know them, and that we only enter truth through charity, from
which they have made one of their most useful maxims.
1 Ignoti nulla cupido—”We do not desire what we do not know.”

MINOR WORKS 4O1
From which it appears that God has established this supernatural
order, which is directly contrary to the order that should be
natural to men in natural things. They have nevertheless corrupted
this order by making of profane things what they should make of
holy things, because in fact we believe scarcely any thing except that
which pleases us. And thence comes the aversion which we have to
consenting to the truths of the Christian religion that are opposed to
our pleasures. “Tell us of pleasant things and we will hearken to
you,” said the Jews to Moses; as if the agreeableness of a thing should
regulate belief! And it is to punish this disorder by an order which
is conformed to him, that God only pours out his light into the mind
after having subdued the rebellion of the will by an altogether
heavenly gentleness which charms and wins it.
I speak therefore only of the truths within our reach; and it is of
them that I say that the mind and the heart are as doors by which
they are received into the soul, but that very few enter by the mind,
whilst they are brought in in crowds by the rash caprices of the will,
without the counsel of the reason.
These powers have each their principles and their main-springs of
action.
Those of the mind are truths which are natural and known to all
the world, as that the whole is greater than its part, besides several
particular maxims that are received by some and not by others, but
which as soon as they are admitted are as powerful, although false,
in carrying away belief, as those the most true.
Those of the will are certain desires natural and common to all
mankind, as the desire of being happy, which no one can avoid
having, besides several particular objects which each one follows in
order to attain, and which having the power to please us are as
powerful, although pernicious in fact, in causing the will to act, as
though they made its veritable happiness.
So much for that which regards the powers that lead us to consent.
But as for the qualities of things which should persuade us, they
are very different.
Some are drawn, by a necessary consequence, from common principles
and admitted truths. These may be infallibly persuasive; for
in showing the harmony which they have with acknowledged prin-

402 PASCAL
ciples there is an inevitable necessity of conviction, and it is impossible
that they shall not be received into the soul as soon as it has been
enabled to class them among the principles which it has already
admitted.
There are some which have a close connection with the objects of
our satisfaction; and these again are received with certainty, for as
soon as the soul has been made to perceive that a thing can conduct
it to that which it loves supremely, it must inevitably embrace it
with joy.
But those which have this double union both with admitted truths
and with the desires of the heart, are so sure of their effect that there
is nothing that can be more so in nature.
As, on the contrary, that which does not accord either with our
belief or with our pleasures is importunate, false, and absolutely
alien to us.
In all these positions, there is no room for doubt. But there are
some wherein the things which it is sought to make us believe are
well established upon truths which are known, but which are at the
same time contrary to the pleasures that interest us most. And these
are in great danger of showing, by an experience which is only too
common, what I said at the beginning—that this imperious soul,
which boasted of acting only by reason, follows by a rash and shameful
choice the desires of a corrupt will, whatever resistance may be
opposed to it by the too enlightened mind.
Then it is that a doubtful balance is made between truth and
pleasure, and that the knowledge of the one and the feeling of the
other stir up a combat the success of which is very uncertain, since,
in order to judge of it, it would be necessary to know all that passes
in the innermost spirit of the man, of which the man himself is
scarcely ever conscious.
It appears from this, that whatever it may be of which we wish
to persuade men, it is necessary to have regard to the person whom
we wish to persuade, of whom we must know the mind and the
heart, what principles he acknowledges, what things he loves; and
then observe in the thing in question what affinity it has with the
acknowledged principles, or with the objects so delightful by the
pleasure which they give him.

MINOR WORKS 403
So that the art of persuasion consists as much in that of pleasing
as in that of convincing, so much more are men governed by caprice
than by reason!
Now, of these two methods, the one of convincing, the other of
pleasing, I shall only give here the rules of the first; and this in case
we have granted the principles, and remain firm in avowing them:
otherwise I do not know whether there could be an art for adapting
proofs to the inconstancy of our caprices.
But the manner of pleasing is incomparably more difficult, more
subtle, more useful, and more admirable; therefore, if I do not treat
of it, it is because I am not capable of it; and I feel myself so far
disproportionate to the task, that I believe the thing absolutely impossible.
Not that I do not believe that there may be as sure rules for pleasing
as for demonstrating, and that he who knows perfectly how to
comprehend and to practice them will as surely succeed in making
himself beloved by princes and by people of all conditions, as in
demonstrating the elements of geometry to those who have enough
imagination to comprehend its hypotheses. But I consider, and it is,
perhaps, my weakness that makes me believe it, that it is impossible
to reach this. At least I know that if any are capable of it, they are
certain persons whom I know, and that no others have such clear
and such abundant light on this matter.
The reason of this extreme difficulty comes from the fact that the
principles of pleasure are not firm and stable. They are different in
all mankind, and variable in every particular with such a diversity
that there is no man more different from another than from himself
at different times. A man has other pleasures than a woman; a rich
man and a poor man have different enjoyments; a prince, a warrior,
a merchant, a citizen, a peasant, the old, the young, the well, the
sick, all vary; the least accidents change them.
Now there is an art, and it is that which I give, for showing the
connection of truths with their principles, whether of truth or of
pleasure, provided that the principles which have once been avowed
remain firm, and without being ever contradicted.
But as there are few principles of this kind, and as, apart from
geometry, which deals only with very simple figures, there are

404 PASCAL
hardly any truths upon which we always remain agreed, and still
fewer objects of pleasure which we do not change every hour, I do
not know whether there is a means of giving fixed rules for adapting
discourse to the inconstancy of our caprices.
This art, which I call the art of persuading, and which, properly
speaking, is simply the process of perfect methodical proofs, consists
of three essential parts: of defining the terms of which we should
avail ourselves by clear definitions; of proposing principles or evident
axioms to prove the thing in question; and of always mentally substituting
in the demonstrations the definition in the place of the
thing defined.
The reason of this method is evident, since it would be useless to
propose what it is sought to prove, and to undertake the demonstration
of it, if all the terms which are not intelligible had not first
been clearly defined; and since it is necessary in the same manner
that the demonstration should be preceded by the demand for the
evident principles that are necessary to it, for if we do not secure
the foundation we cannot secure the edifice; and since, in fine, it is
necessary in demonstrating mentally, to substitute the definitions in
the place of the things defined, as otherwise there might be an abuse
of the different meanings that are encountered in the terms. It is
easy to see that, by observing this method, we are sure of convincing,
since the terms all being understood, and perfectly exempt from
ambiguity by the definitions, and the principles being granted, if
in the demonstration we always mentally substitute the definitions
for the things defined, the invincible force of the conclusions cannot
fail of having its whole effect.
Thus, never can a demonstration in which these conditions have
been observed be subject to the slightest doubt; and never can those
have force in which they are wanting.
It is, therefore, of great importance to comprehend and to possess
them; and hence, to render the thing easier and more practicable,
I shall give them all in a few rules which include all that is necessary
for the perfection of the definitions, the axioms, and the demonstrations,
and consequently of the entire method of the geometrical
proofs of the art of persuading.

MINOR WORKS 405
Rules for Definitions
I. Not to undertake to define any of the things so well known of
themselves that clearer terms cannot be had to explain them.
II. Not to leave any terms that are at all obscure or ambiguous
without definition.
III. Not to employ in the definition of terms any words but such
as are perfectly known or already explained.
Rules for Axioms
I. Not to omit any necessary principle without asking whether
it is admitted, however clear and evident it may be.
II. Not to demand, in axioms, any but things that are perfectly
evident of themselves.
Rules for Demonstrations
I. Not to undertake to demonstrate any thing that is so evident
of itself that nothing can be given that is clearer to prove it.
II. T o prove all propositions at all obscure, and to employ in their
proof only very evident maxims or propositions already admitted
or demonstrated.
III. To always mentally substitute definitions in the place of things
defined, in order not to be misled by the ambiguity of terms which
have been restricted by definitions.
These eight rules contain all the precepts for solid and immutable
proofs, three of which are not absolutely necessary and may be
neglected without error; while it is difficult and almost impossible
to observe them always exactly, although it is more accurate to do
so as far as possible; these are the three first of each of the divisions.
For definitions. Not to define any terms that are perfectly known.
For axioms. Not to omit to require any axioms perfectly evident
and simple.
For demonstrations. Not to demonstrate any things well-known
of themselves.
For it is unquestionable that it is no great error to define and
clearly explain things, although very clear of themselves, nor to

406 PASCAL
omit to require in advance axioms which cannot be refused in the
place where they are necessary; nor lastly to prove propositions that
would be admitted without proof.
But the five other rules are of absolute necessity, and cannot be
dispensed with without essential defect and often without error;
and for this reason I shall recapitulate them here in detail.
Rules necessary for definitions. Not to leave any terms at all obscure
or ambiguous without definition;
Not to employ in definitions any but terms perfectly known or
already explained.
Rule necessary for axioms. Not to demand in axioms any but
things perfectly evident.
Rules necessary for demonstrations. To prove all propositions,
and to employ nothing for their proof but axioms fully
evident of themselves, or propositions already demonstrated or admitted;
Never to take advantage of the ambiguity of terms by failing
mentally to substitute definitions that restrict and explain them.
These five rules form all that is necessary to render proofs convincing,
immutable, and to say all, geometrical; and the eight rules
together render them still more perfect.
I pass now to that of the order in which the propositions should
be arranged, to be in a complete geometrical series.
After having established2
This is in what consists the art of persuading, which is comprised
in these two principles: to define all the terms of which we make
use; to prove them all by mentally substituting definitions in the
place of things defined.
And here it seems to me proper to anticipate three principal objections
which may be made:
ist, that this method has nothing new; 2d, that it is very easy to
learn, it being unnecessary for this to study the elements of geometry,
since it consists in these two words that are known at the first
8 The rest of the phrase is wanting; and all this second part of the composition,
either because it was not redacted by Pascal, or because it has been lost, is found
neither in our MS. nor in Father Desmolets.—Faugire.

MINOR WORKS 407
reading; and, 3d, that it is of little utility, since its use is almost confined
to geometrical subjects alone.
It is necessary therefore to show that there is nothing so little
known, nothing more difficult to practise, and nothing more useful
or more universal.
As to the first objection, that these rules are common in the world,
that it is necessary to define every thing and to prove every thing,
and that logicians themselves have placed them among the principles
of their art, I would that the thing were true and that it were so
well known that I should not have the trouble of tracing with so
much care the source of all the defects of reasonings which are truly
so common. But so little is this the case, that, geometricians alone
excepted, who are so few in number that they are single in a whole
nation and long periods of time, we see no others who know it.
It will be easy to make this understood by those who have perfectly
comprehended the little that I have said; but if they have
not fully comprehended this, I confess that they will learn nothing
from it.
But if they have entered into the spirit of these rules, and if the
rules have made sufficient impression on them to become rooted and
established in their minds, they will feel how much difference there
is between what is said here and what a few logicians may perhaps
have written by chance approximating to it in a few passages of
their works.
Those who have the spirit of discernment know how much difference
there is between two similar words, according to their position,
and the circumstances that accompany them. Will it be
maintained, indeed, that two persons who have read the same book,
and learned it by heart, have a like acquaintance with it, if the one
comprehends it in such a manner that he knows all its principles,
the force of its conclusions, the answers to the objections that may
be made to it, and the whole economy of the work; while to the
other these are but dead letters and seeds, which, although like those
which have produced such fruitful trees, remain dry and unproductive
in the sterile mind that has received them in vain.
All who say the same things do not possess them in the same
manner; and hence the incomparable author of the Art of Conversa-

408 PASCAL
tion3 pauses with so much care to make it understood that we must
not judge of the capacity of a man by the excellence of a happy remark
that we have heard him make; but instead of extending our
admiration of a good speech to the speaker, let us penetrate, says
he, the mind from which it proceeds; let us try whether he owes it
to his memory, or to a happy chance; let us receive it with coldness
and contempt, in order to see whether he will feel that we do not
give to what he says the esteem which its value deserves: it will
oftenest be seen that he will be made to disavow it on the spot, and
will be drawn very far from this better thought in which he does
not believe, to plunge himself into another quite base and ridiculous.
We must, therefore, sound in what manner this thought is lodged
in its author;4 how, whence, to what extent he possesses it; otherwise,
the hasty judgment will be a rash judge.
I would inquire of reasonable persons whether this principle:
Matter is naturally wholly incapable of thought, and this other: I
think, therefore I am, are in fact the same in the mind of Descartes,
and in that of St. Augustine, who said the same thing twelve hundred
years before.6
In truth, I am far from affirming that Descartes is not the real
author of it, even though he may have learned it only in reading
this distinguished saint; for I know how much difference there is
between writing a word by chance without making a longer and
more extended reflection on it, and perceiving in this word an admirable
series of conclusions, which prove the distinction between
material and spiritual natures, and making of it a firm and sustained
principle of a complete metaphysical system, as Descartes has pretended
to do. For without examining whether he has effectively
succeeded in his pretension, I assume that he has done so, and it is
on this supposition that I say that this expression is as different in
his writings from the same saying in others who have said it by
chance, as is a man full of life and strength from a corpse.
One man will say a thing of himself without comprehending its
excellence, in which another will discern a marvellous series of con-
8 Montaigne, Essais, liv. I l l , chap. viii.—Faugere.
4 Montaigne’s expression is: “Feel on all sides how it is lodged in its author.”
Essais, same chapter.—Ibid.
5 Civitate Dei, 1. X I , c. xxvL

MINOR WORKS 409
elusions, which make us affirm boldly that it is no longer the same
expression, and that he is no more indebted for it to the one from
whom he has learned it, than a beautiful tree belongs to the one
who cast the seed, without thinking of it, or knowing it, into the
fruitful soil which caused its growth by its own fertility.
The same thoughts sometimes put forth quite differently in the
mind of another than in that of their author: unfruitful in their
natural soil, abundant when transplanted. But it much oftener happens
that a good mind itself makes its own thoughts produce all
the fruit of which they are capable, and that afterwards others, having
heard them admired, borrow them, and adorn themselves with
them, but without knowing their excellence; and it is then that
the difference of the same word in different mouths is the most
apparent.
It is in this manner that logic has borrowed, perhaps, the rules of
geometry, without comprehending their force; and thus, in placing
them by chance among those that belong to it, it does not thence
follow that they6 have entered into the spirit of geometry, and I
should be greatly averse if they gave no other evidence of it than
that of having mentioned it by chance, to placing them on a level
with that science that teaches the true method of directing the reason.
But I should be, on the contrary, strongly disposed to exclude
them from it, and almost irrevocably. For to have said it by chance,
without having taken care that every thing was included within it,
and instead of following this light to wander blindly in useless researches,
pursuing what they promise but never can give, is truly
showing that they are not very clear-sighted, and much more than
if they had failed to follow the light, because they had not perceived
it.
The method of not erring is sought by all the world. The logicians
profess to guide to it, the geometricians alone attain it, and apart
from their science, and the imitations of it, there are no true demonstrations.
The whole art is included in the simple precepts that we
have given; they alone are sufficient, they alone afford proofs; all
other rules are useless or injurious. This I know by long experience
of all kinds of books and persons.
6 Doubtless the logicians.—Faughe.

410 PASCAL
And on this point I pass the same judgment as those who say that
geometricians give them nothing new by these rules, because they
possessed them in reality, but confounded with a multitude of others,
either useless or false, from which they could not discriminate them,
as those who, seeking a diamond of great price amidst a number of
false ones, but from which they know not how to distinguish it,
should boast, in holding them all together, of possessing the true
one equally with him who without pausing at this mass of rubbish
lays his hand upon the costly stone which they are seeking and for
which they do not throw away the rest.
The defect of false reasoning is a malady which is cured by these
two remedies. Another has been compounded of an infinity of useless
herbs in which the good are enveloped and in which they remain
without effect through the ill qualities of the compound.
To discover all the sophistries and equivocations of captious reasonings,
they have invented barbarous names that astonish those who
hear them; and whilst we can only unravel all the tangles of this
perplexing knot by drawing out one of the ends in the way proposed
by geometricians, they have indicated a strange number of others in
which the former are found included without knowing which is
the best.
And thus, in showing us a number of paths which they say conduct
us whither we tend, although there are but two that lead to it,
it is necessary to know how to mark them in particular. It will be
pretended that geometry which indicates them with certainty gives
only what had already been given by others, because they gave in
fact the same thing and more, without heeding that this boon lost
its value by abundance, and was diminished by adding to it.
Nothing is more common than good things: the point in question
is only to discriminate them; and it is certain that they are all natural
and within our reach and even known to all mankind. But they
know not how to distinguish them. This is universal. It is not
among extraordinary and fantastic things that excellence is to be
found, of whatever kind it may be. W e rise to attain it and become
removed from it: it is oftenest necessary to stoop for it. The best
books are those, which those who read them believe they themselves

MINOR WORKS 411
could have written. Nature, which alone is good, is wholly familiar
and common.
I make no doubt therefore that these rules, being the true ones,
are simple, artless, and natural, as in fact they are. It is not Barbara
and Baralipton that constitute reasoning. The mind must not be
forced; artificial and constrained manners fill it with foolish presumption,
through unnatural elevation and vain and ridiculous inflation,
instead of solid and vigorous nutriment. And one of the
principal reasons that diverts those who are entering upon this
knowledge so much from the true path which they should follow,
is the fancy that they take at the outset that good things are inaccessible,
giving them the name of great, lofty, elevated, sublime.
This destroys every thing. I would call them low, common, familiar:
these names suit them better; I hate such inflated expressions.

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Humans Have No Fur

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22. A King’s Pleasure Now Yours

Corneille’s POLYEUCTE Vol. 26, pp. 77-87

POLYEUCTE

CHARACTERS
FELIX, Roman senator, Governor of Armenia.
POLYEUCTE, an Armenian noble, son-in-law to Felix.
SEVERUS, a Roman Knight, favourite of the Emperor Decius.
NEARCHUS, an Armenian noble, friend to Polyeucte.
PAULINE, daughter to Felix, wife to Polyeucte.
STRATONICE, companion to Pauline.
ALBIN, friend to Felix.
FABIAN, servant to Severus.
CLEON, friend to Felix.
THREE GUARDS.

The Scene is at Melitena, capital of Armenia.
The action takes place in the Palace of Felix.

ACT I
POLYEUCTE. NEARCHUS

Nearchus SHALL woman’s dream of terror hurl the dart?
Oh, feeble weapon ‘gainst so great a heart!
Must courage proved a thousand times in arms
Bow to a peril forged by vain alarms?
Poly. I know that dreams are born to fade away,
And melt in air before the light of day;
I know that misty vapours of the night
Dissolve and fly before the morning bright.
The dream is naught—but the dear dreamer—all!
She has my soul, Nearchus, fast in thrall;
Who holds the marriage torch—august, divine,
Bids me to her sweet voice my will resign.
She fears my death—tho’ baseless this her fright,
Pauline is wrung with fear—by day—by night;
My road to duty hampered by her fears,
How can I go when all undried her tears ?
77

78 CORNEILLE
Her terror I disown—and all alarms,
Yet pity holds me in her loving arms:
No bolts or bars imprison,—yet her sighs
My fetters are—my conquerors, her eyes!
Say, kind Nearchus, is the cause you press
Such as to make me deaf to her distress?
The bonds I slacken I would not unloose—
Nothing I yield—yet grant a timely truce.
Near. How grant you know not what? Are you assured
Of constancy ?—as one who has endured ?
God claims your soul for Him!—Now! Now! To-day!
The fruit to-morrow yields—oh, who shall say?
Our God is just, but do His grace and power
Descend on recreants with equal shower ?
On darkened souls His flame of light He turns,
Yet flame neglected soon but faintly burns,
And dying embers fade to ashes cold
If we the heart His spirit wooes withhold.
Great Heaven retains the fire no longer sought,
While ashes turn to dust, and dust to naught.
His holy baptism He bids thee seek,—
Neglect the call, and the desire grows weak.
Ah! whilst from woman’s breast thou heedst the sighs,
The flame first flickers, then, untended—dies!
Poly. You know me ill,—’tis mine, that holy fire,
Fed, not extinguished, by unslaked desire;
Her tears—I view them with a lover’s eye;
And yet your Christ is mine—a Christian I!
The healing, cleansing flood o’er me shall flow,
I would efface the stain from birth I owe;
I would be pure—my sealed eyes would see!
The birthright Adam lost restored to me—
This, this, the unfading crown! For this I yearn,
For that exhaustless fount I thirst, I burn.
Then, since my heart is true, Nearchus, say—
Shall I not grant to pity this delay ?
Near. So doth the ghostly foe our souls abuse,

POLYEUCTE 79
And all beyond his force he gains by ruse;
He hates the purpose fast he cannot foil,—
Then he retreats—retreats but to recoil!
In endless barricade obstruction piles,—
To-day ’tis tears impede, to-morrow—smiles!
And this poor dream—his coinage of the night—
Gives place to other lures, all falsely bright:
All tricks he knows and uses—threats and prayers—
Attacks in parley—as the Parthian dares.
In chain unheeded weakest link must fail,
So fortress yet unwon he’ll mount and scale.
O break his bonds! Let feeble woman weep!
The heart that God has touched ’tis God must keep!
Who looks behind to dally with his choice
When Heaven demands—obeys another voice!
Poly. Who loves thy Christ—say, must he love no other ?
Near. He may—he must! ‘Tis Christ says,’Love thy brother,’
Yet on the altar of the Heavenly King
No rival place, no alien incense fling!
Through Him—by Him—for Him—all goodness know!
‘Tis from the source alone each stream must flow.
To please Him, wife, and wealth, and rank, and state
Must be forsaken—strait the heavenly gate.
Poor silly sheep! afar you err and stray
From Him who is The Life, The Truth, The Way!
My grief chokes utterance! I see your fate,
As round the fold the hungry wolves of hate
Closer and fiercer rage: from sword and flame
One shelter for His flock—one only Name!
The Cross alone our victor over fears,
Not this thy strength,—thy plea—a woman’s tears!
Poly. I know thy heart! It is mine own—the tear
My pity drops hath ne’er a taint of fear!
Who dreads not torture, yet—to give relief
To her he loves, perforce must ease her grief!
If Heaven should claim my life, my death, my all,—
Then Heaven will give the strength to heed the call.

80 CORNEILLE
The shepherd guides me surely to the fold,
There, safe with Him, ’tis He will make me bold!
Near. Be bold! O come!
Poly. Yes, let thy faith be mine!
There—at his feet—do I my life resign
If but Pauline—my love—would give consent!
Else heaven were hell, and home but banishment!
Near. Come!—to return. Thrice welcome to her sight,
To see thee safe will double her delight:
As the pierced cloud unveils a brighter sun,—
So is her joy enhanced—thy glory won!
O come, they wait!
Poly. Appease her fear! Ah, this
Alone will give her rest—her lover bliss.
She comes!
Near. Then fly!
Poly. I cannot!
Near. To deny
Would yield thine enemy the victory!
He loves to kill, and knows his deadliest dart
Finds friend within the fort—thy traitor heart!
Enter PAULINE and STRATONICE
Poly. I needs must go, Pauline! My love, good-bye!
I go but to return—for thine am I!
Paul. Oh, why this haste to leave a loving wife?
Doth honour call ?—or fear’st thou for thy life ?
Poly. For more, a thousandfold!
Paul. Great Gods above!
Poly. Thou hast my heart! Let this content thy love!
Paul. You love and yet you leave me. What am I?
Not mine to solve the dreary mystery!
Poly. I love thee more than self—than life—than fame—
But
Paul. There is something that thou dar’st not name.
Oh, on my knees I supplicate, I pray,
Remove my darkness!—turn my night to day!

POLYEUCTE 81
Poly. Oh, dreams are naught!
Paul. Yet, when they tell of thee,
I needs must listen, for I love! Ah, me!
Poly. Take courage, dear one, ’tis but for an hour,
Thy love must draw me back, for love hath power
O’er all in earth and heaven. My soul’s delight,
I can no more! My only safety—flight!
[Exeunt POLYEUCTE and NEARCHUS.
Paul. Yes, go, despise my prayer—my agony;
Go, ruthless—meet thy fate—forewarned by me;
Chase thy pursuer, herald thine own doom;
Go, kiss the murderer’s hand, and hail the tomb!
Ah, Stratonice! for our boasted power
As sovereigns o’er man’s heart! Poor regents of an hour!
Faint, helpless, moonbeam-light was all I gave,
The sun breaks forth—his queen becomes his slave!
Wooed? Yes; as other queens I held my court—
Won—but to lose my crown, and be the sport
Of proud, absorbing and imperious man!
Strat. Ah, man does what he wills—we, what we can;
He loves thee, lady!
Paul. Love should mate with trust;
He leaves me!
Strat. Lady, ’tis because he must!
He loves thee with a love will never die,
Then, if he leave thee, reason not the why:
Give him thy trust! Oh, thou shalt have reward.,
For thee he hides the secret! Let him guard
Thy life beloved—in fullest liberty.
The wife who wholly trusts alone is free!
One heart for thee and him—one purpose sure,
Yet this heart beats to dare—and to endure.
The wife’s true heart must o’er the peril sigh
Which meets his heart moved but to purpose high;
Thy pain his pain, but not his terror thine:
He is Armenian, thou of Roman line.
We, of Armenia, mock thy dreams to scorn,

82 CORNEILLE
For they are born of night, as truth of morn;
While Romans hold that dreams are heaven-sent,
And spring from Jove for man’s admonishment.
Paul. Though this thy faith—if thou my dream shouldst
hear—
My grief must needs be thine, thy fear my fear,
And, that the horror thou may’st fully prove,
Know that I—his dear wife—did once another love!
Nay, start not, shrink not, ’tis no tale of shame,
For though in other years the heavenly flame
Descended, kindled, scorched—it left me pure—
With courage to resign—with strength to endure.
He touched my heart, but never stained the soul
That gained this hardest conquest—self-control.
At Rome—where I was born—a soldier’s eye
Marked this poor face, from which must Polyeucte fly;
Severus was his name:—Ah! memory
May spare love linked with death a tear, a sigh!
Strat. Say, is it he who, at the risk of life,
Saved Decius from his foes and endless strife?
Who, dying, dealt to Persia stroke of death,
And shouted ‘Victory!’ with his latest breath?
His whitening bones, amid the nameless brave,
Lie still unfound, unknown, without a grave;
Unburied lies his dust amid the slain,
While Decius rears an empty urn in vain!
Paul. Alas! ’tis he; all Rome attests his worth,—
Hide not his memory, kindly Mother Earth!
‘Tis but his memory that I adore—
The past is past—and I can say no more.
All gifts save one had he—yes, Fortune held her hand,
And I, as Fortune’s slave, obeyed my sire’s command.
Strat. Ah! I must wish that love the day had won!
Paul. Which duty lost—then had I been undone;
Though duty gave, yet duty healed, my pain;
Yet say not that my love was weak or vain!
Our tears fell fast, yet ne’er bore our distress

83 POLYEUCTE
The fatal fruit of strife and bitterness.
Then, then, I left my hero, hope and Rome,
And, far from him, I found another home;
While he, in his despair, sought sure relief
In death, the only end to life’s long grief!
You know the rest:—you know that Polyeucte’s
Was caught,—his fancy pleased; his wife am I.
Once more by counsel of my father led,
To Armenia’s greatest noble am I wed;
Ambition, prudence, policy his guide
Yet only duty made Pauline his bride;
Love might have bound me to Severus’ heart,
Had duty not enforced a sterner part.
Yes, let these fears attest, all trembling for his life,
That I am his for aye—his faithful, loving wife.
Strat. Thy new love true and tender as the old
But this thy dream? No more thy tale withhold!
Paul. Last night I saw Severus: but his eye
With anger blazed; his port was proud and high,
No suppliant he—no feeble, formless shade,
With dim, averted eye; no sword had made
My hero lifeless ghost. Nor wound, nor scar
Marked death his only conqueror in war.
Nor spoil of death, nor memory’s child was he,
His mien triumphant, full of majesty!
So might victorious Caesar near his home
To claim the key to every heart in Rome!
He spoke: in nameless awe I heard his voice,—
‘Give love, that is my due, to him—thy choice,—
But know, oh faithless one, ere day expires,
All vain these tears for him thy heart desires!’
Anon a Christian band (an impious horde),
With shameful cross in hand, attest his word;
They vouch Severus’ truth—and, to complete
My doom, hurl Polyeucte beneath his feet!
I cried, ‘O father, timely succour bear!’
He heard, he came, my grief was now despair!

84 CORNEILLE
He drew his dagger—plunged it in the breast
Of him, my husband, late his honoured guest!
Relief came but from agony supreme—
I shrieked—I writhed—I woke—it was a dream!
And yet my dream is true!
Strat. ‘Tis true your dream is sad,
But now you are awake, ’tis but a dream you had!
For horror’s prey in darkness of the night
Is but our reason’s sport in morning light.
How can you dread a shade? How a fond father fear,
Who as a son regards the man you hold so dear ?
To phantom of the night no credence yield;
For him and you he chose thy strength and shield.
Paul. You say his words: at all my fears he smiles,
But I must dread these Christians and their wiles!
I dread their vengeance, wreaked upon my lord,
For Christian blood my father has outpoured!
Strat. Their sect is impious, mad, absurd and vain,
Their rites repulsive, as their cult profane.
Deride their altar, their weak frenzy ban,
Yet do they war with gods and not with man!
Relentless wills our law that they must die:
Their joy—endurance; death—their ecstasy;
Judged—by decree, the foes of human race,
Meekly their heads they bow—to court disgrace!
Paul. My father comes—oh, peace!
Enter FELIX and ALBIN
Felix. Nay, peace is flown!
Thy dream begets dull fears, till now unknown;
In part this dream is true, and for the rest
Paul. By what new fear, say, is thy heart opprest ?
Felix. Severus lives!
Paul. Ah! this no cause for fear!
Felix. At Decius’ court, he, held in honour dear, .
Risked life to save his Emperor from his foes,
‘Tis to his saviour Decius honour shows!

POLYEUCTE 85
Paul. Thus fickle Fortune bows her head to fate,
And pays the honour due, though all too late!
Felix. He comes! Is near
Paul. The gods
Felix. Do all things well.
Paul. My dream fulfilled! But how? O father, tell!
Felix. Let Albin speak, who saw him face to face
With tribe of courtiers; all to him give place;
Unscathed in battle, all extol his fame,
Unstained, undimmed, his glory, life and name!
Albin. You know the issue of that glorious fight:
The crowning glory his—who, in despite
Of danger sore to life and liberty,
Became a slave to set his Emperor free:
Rome gave her honours to Severus’ shade,
Whilst he, her ransomer, in a dungeon stayed.
His death they mourned above ten thousand slain,
While Persia held him—yes, their tears were vain,
But not in vain his noble sacrifice!
The king released him: Rome grudged not the price;
No Persian bribe could tempt him from his home.
When Decius cried—’Fight once again for Rome!’
Again he fights—he leads—all others hope resign;
But from despair’s deep breast he plucks a star benign,
This—hope’s fair fruit, contentment, plenty, ease,
Brings joy from grief, to crown a lasting peace.
The Emperor holds him as his dearest friend,
And doth Severus to Armenia send—
To offer up to Mars, and mighty Jove,
‘Mid feast and sacrifice, his thanks and love.
Felix. Ah, Fortune, turn thy wheel, else I misfortune meet!
Albin. This news I learn’d from one of great Severus’ suite:
Thence, swiftly here, the tale to tell I sped.
Felix. He who once vainly wooed, hopes now to wed.
The sacrifice, the offering, all are feigned,
All but the suit, which lightly I disdained.
Paul. Yes, this may be, for ah! he loved me well!

86 CORNEILLE
Felix. What room for hope ? Such wrath is child of hell.
Before his righteous ire I shrink, I cower;
Revenge I dread—and vengeance linked with power
Unnerves me quite.
Paul. Fear not, his soul is great.
Felix. Thy comfort, oh my daughter, comes too late.
The thought to crush me down, to turn my heart to stone,
This, that I prized not worth for worth’s dear sake alone!
Too well, Pauline, thou hast thy sire obeyed;
Thy heart was fond, but duty love betrayed.
How surely thy revolt had safety won!
‘Tis thine obedience leaves us all undone.
In thee, in thee alone, one hope remains,
Love held him fast, relax not thou love’s chains.
0 Love, my sometime foe, forgive, be mine ally,
And let the dart that slew now bring the remedy!
Paul. Forbid it, Heaven! One good yet mine,—my will,
The dart that wounded has the power to kill.
One lesson woman learns—her feebleness;
Shame is the only grief without redress.
The traitor heart shall still a prisoner be;
For freedom were disgrace to thee and me!
I will not see him!
Felix. But one word! Be kind!
Paul. I will not, for I love!—and love is blind.
Before his kingly eye my soul to unveil
Were shame and failure: and I will not fail:
I will not see him!
Felix. One word more—’Obey!’
Wouldst thou thy father and his weal betray?
Paul. I yield! Come woe!—come shame!—come every ill!
My father thou!—and I thy daughter still!
Felix. I know thee pure.
Paul. And pure I will remain,
But, crushed and bruised, the flower no guilt shall stain.
1 fear the combat that I may not fly,—
Hard-won the fight, and dear the victory.

POLYEUCTE 87
Here, love, my curse! Here, dearest friend, my foe!
Yet will I arm me! Father, I would go
To steel my heart—all weapons to embrace!
Felix. I too will go, the conqueror’s march to grace!
Restore thy strength, ere yet it be too late,
And know that in thy hands thou hold’st our fate!
Paul. Go, broken heart, to probe thy wound; cut deep and do
not spare!
Herself—the crowning sacrifice—the victim shall prepare!

21. The Nightingale’s Healing Melody

ANDERSEN’S TALES Vol. 17, pp. 301-310

THE NIGHTINGALE
IN China, you must know, the Emperor is a Chinaman, and all
whom he has about him are Chinamen too. It happened a good
many years ago, but that’s just why it’s worth while to hear the
story, before it is forgotten. The Emperor’s palace was the most
splendid in the world; it was made entirely of porcelain, very costly,
but so delicate and brittle that one had to take care how one touched
it. In the garden were to be seen the most wonderful flowers, and
to the costliest of them silver bells were tied, which sounded, so
that nobody should pass by without noticing the flowers. Yes, everything
in the Emperor’s garden was admirably arranged. And it
extended so far, that the gardener himself did not know where the
end was. If a man went on and on, he came into a glorious forest
with high trees and deep lakes. The wood extended straight down
to the sea, which was blue and deep; great ships could sail to and
fro beneath the branches of the trees; and in the trees lived a nightingale,
which sang so splendidly that even the poor Fisherman, who
had many other things to do, stopped still and listened, when he had
gone out at night to throw out his nets, and heard the Nightingale.
“How beautiful that is!” he said; but he was obliged to attend to
his property, and thus forgot the bird. But when in the next night
the bird sang again, and the Fisherman heard it, he exclaimed again,
“How beautiful that is!”
From all the countries of the world travellers came to the city of
the Emperor and admired it, and the palace, and the garden, but
when they heard the Nightingale, they said, “That is the best of all!”

302 FOLK-LORE AND FABLE
And the travellers told of it when they came home; and the
learned men wrote many books about the town, the palace, and the
garden. But they did not forget the Nightingale; that was placed
highest of all; and those who were poets wrote most magnificent
poems about the Nightingale in the wood by the deep lake.
The books went through all the world, and a few of them once
came to the Emperor. He sat in his golden chair, and read, and
read: every moment he nodded his head, for it pleased him to
peruse the masterly descriptions of the city, the palace, and the
garden. “But the Nightingale is the best of all!”—it stood written
there.
“What’s that?” exclaimed the Emperor. “I don’t know the Nightingale
at all! Is there such a bird in my empire, and even in my
garden? I’ve never heard of that. To think that I should have to
learn such a thing for the first time from books!”
And hereupon he called his Cavalier. This Cavalier was so grand
that if any one lower in rank than himself dared to speak to him,
or to ask him any question, he answered nothing but “P!”—and
that meant nothing.
“There is said to be a wonderful bird here called a Nightingale!”
said the Emperor. “They say it is the best thing in all my great
empire. Why have I never heard anything about it?”
“I have never heard him named,” replied the Cavalier. “He has
never been introduced at court.”
“I command that he shall appear this evening, and sing before
me,” said the Emperor. “All the world knows what I possess, and
I do not know it myself!”
“I have never heard him mentioned,” said the Cavalier, “I will
seek for him. I will find him.”
But where was he to be found? The Cavalier ran up and down
all the staircases, through halls and passages, but no one among all
those whom he met had heard talk of the Nightingale. And the
Cavalier ran back to the Emperor, and said that it must be a fable
invented by the writers of books.
“Your Imperial Majesty cannot believe how much is written that
is fiction, besides something that they call the black art.”
“But the book in which I read this,” said the Emperor, “was sent

ANDERSEN’S TALES 303
to me by the high and mighty Emperor of Japan, and therefore it
cannot be a falsehood. I will hear the Nightingale! It must be here
this evening! It has my imperial favor; and if it does not come, all
the court shall be trampled upon after the court has supped!”
“Tsing-pe!” said the Cavalier; and again he ran up and down all
the staircases, and through all the halls and corridors; and half the
court ran with him, for the courtiers did not like being trampled
upon.
Then there was a great inquiry after the wonderful Nightingale,
which all the world knew excepting the people at court.
At last they met with a poor little girl in the kitchen, who said,—
“The Nightingale? I know it well; yes, it can sing gloriously.
Every evening I get leave to carry my poor sick mother the scraps
from the table. She lives down by the strand, and when I get back
and am tired, and rest in the wood, then I hear the Nightingale
sing. And then the water comes into my eyes, and it is just as if my
mother kissed me!”
“Little Kitchen Girl,” said the Cavalier, “I will get you a place
in the kitchen, with permission to see the Emperor dine, if you
will lead us to the Nightingale, for it is announced for this evening.”
So they all went out into the wood where the Nightingale was
accustomed to sing; half the court went forth. When they were in
the midst of their journey a cow began to low.
“O!” cried the court page, “now we have it! That shows a
wonderful power in so small a creature! I have certainly heard it
before.”
“No, those are cows lowing!” said the litde Kitchen Girl. “We
are a long way from the place yet!”
Now the frogs began to croak in the marsh.
“Glorious!” said the Chinese Court Preacher. “Now I hear it—it
sounds just like little church bells.”
“No, those are frogs!” said the little Kitchen-maid. “But now I
think we shall soon hear it.”
And then the Nightingale began to sing.
“That is it!” exclaimed the litde Girl. “Listen, listen! and yonder
it sits.”
And she pointed to a little gray bird up in the boughs.

304 FOLK-LORE AND FABLE
“Is it possible?” cried the Cavalier. “I should never have thought
it looked like that! How simple it looks! It must certainly have
lost its color at seeing such grand people around.”
“Little Nightingale!” called the Kitchen-maid, quite loudly, “our
gracious Emperor wishes you to sing before him.”
“With the greatest pleasure!” replied the Nightingale, and began
to sing most delightfully.
“It sounds just like glass bells!” said the Cavalier. “And look at
its little throat, how it’s working! It’s wonderful that we should
never have heard it before. That bird will be a great success at
court.”
“Shall I sing once more before the Emperor?” asked the Nightingale,
for it thought the Emperor was present.
“My excellent little Nightingale,” said the Cavalier, “I have great
pleasure in inviting you to a court festival this evening, when you
shall charm his Imperial Majesty with your beautiful singing.”
“My song sounds best in the greenwood!” replied the Nightingale;
still it came willingly when it heard what the Emperor wished.
The palace was festively adorned. The walls and the flooring,
which were of porcelain, gleamed in the rays of thousands of golden
lamps. The most glorious flowers, which could ring clearly, had
been placed in the passages. There was a running to and fro, and
a thorough draught, and all the bells rang so loudly that one could
not hear one’s self speak.
In the midst of the great hall, where the Emperor sat, a golden
perch had been placed, on which the Nightingale was to sit. The
whole court was there, and the little Cook-maid had got leave to
stand behind the door, as she had now received the title of a real court
cook. All were in full dress, and all looked at the little gray bird,
to which the Emperor nodded.
And the Nightingale sang so gloriously that the tears came into
the Emperor’s eyes, and the tears ran down over his cheeks; and
then the Nightingale sang still more sweetly, that went straight to
the heart. The Emperor was so much pleased that he said the
Nightingale should have his golden slipper to wear round its neck.
But the Nightingale declined this with thanks, saying it had already
received a sufficient reward.

ANDERSEN’S TALES 305
“I have seen tears in the Emperor’s eyes—that is the real treasure
to me. An emperor’s tears have a peculiar power. I am rewarded
enough!” And then it sang again with a sweet, glorious voice.
“That’s the most amiable coquetry I ever saw!” said the ladies
who stood round about, and then they took water in their mouths
to gurgle when any one spoke to them. They thought they should
be nightingales too. And the lackeys and chambermaids reported
that they were satisfied too; and that was saying a good deal, for
they are the most difficult to please. In short, the Nightingale
achieved a real success.
It was now to remain at court, to have its own cage, with liberty
to go out twice every day and once at night. Twelve servants were
appointed when the Nightingale went out, each of whom had a
silken string fastened to the bird’s leg, which they held very tight.
There was really no pleasure in an excursion of that kind.
The whole city spoke of the wonderful bird, and when two people
met, one said nothing but “Nightin,” and the other said “gale;” and
then they sighed, and understood one another. Eleven peddlers’
children were named after the bird, but not one of them could sing
a note.
One day the Emperor received a large parcel, on which was written
“The Nightingale.”
“There we have a new book about this celebrated bird,” said the
Emperor.
But it was not a book, but a little work of art, contained in a box,
an artificial nightingale, which was to sing like a natural one, and
was brilliantly ornamented with diamonds, rubies, and sapphires.
So soon as the artificial bird was wound up, he could sing one of
the pieces that he really sang, and then his tail moved up and down,
and shone with silver and gold. Round his neck hung a little ribbon,
and on that was written, “The Emperor of China’s Nightingale
is poor compared to that of the Emperor of Japan.”
“That is capital!” said they all, and he who had brought the
artificial bird immediately received the title, Imperial Head-Nightingale-
Bringer.
“Now they must sing together; what a duet that will be!”
And so they had to sing together; but it did not sound very well,

306 FOLK-LORE AND FABLE
for the real Nightingale sang in its own way, and the artificial bird
sang waltzes.
“That’s not his fault,” said the Play-master; “he’s quite perfect,
and very much in my style.”
Now the artificial bird was to sing alone. He had just as much
success as the real one, and then it was much handsomer to look at
—it shone like bracelets and breastpins.
Three-and-thirty times over did it sing the same piece, and yet
was not tired. The people would gladly have heard it again, but
the Emperor said that the living Nightingale ought to sing something
now. But where was it? No one had noticed that it had
flown away out of the open window, back to the greenwood.
“But what is become of that?” said the Emperor.
And all the courtiers abused the Nightingale, and declared that
it was a very ungrateful creature.
“We have the best bird, after all,” said they.
And so the artificial bird had to sing again, and that was the
thirty-fourth time that they listened to the same piece. For all that
they did not know it quite by heart, for it was so very difficult. And
the Play-master praised the bird particularly; yes, he declared that
it was better than a nightingale, not only with regard to its plumage
and the many beautiful diamonds, but inside as well.
“For you see, ladies and gentlemen, and above all, your Imperial
Majesty, with a real nightingale one can never calculate what is
coming, but in this artificial bird everything is settled. One can
explain it; one can open it, and make people understand where
the waltzes come from, how they go, and how one follows up
another.”
“Those are quite our own ideas,” they all said.
And the speaker received permission to show the bird to the
people on the next Sunday. The people were to hear it sing too,
the Emperor commanded; and they did hear it, and were as much
pleased as if they had all got tipsy upon tea, for that’s quite the
Chinese fashion; and they all said, “O!” and held up their forefingers
and nodded. But the poor Fisherman, who had heard the
real Nightingale, said,—

ANDERSEN’S TALES 307
“It sounds pretty enough, and the melodies resemble each other,
but there’s something wanting, though I know not what!”
The real Nightingale was banished from the country and empire.
The artificial bird had its place on a silken cushion close to the
Emperor’s bed; all the presents it had received, gold and precious
stones, were ranged about it; in title it had advanced to be the High
Imperial After-Dinner-Singer, and in rank, to number one on the
left hand; for the Emperor considered that side the most important
in which the heart is placed, and even in an emperor the heart is on
the left side; and the Play-master wrote a work of five-and-twenty
volumes about the artificial bird; it was very learned and very long,
full of the most difficult Chinese words; but yet all the people declared
that they had read it, and understood it, for fear of being
considered stupid, and having their bodies trampled on.
So a whole year went by. The Emperor, the court, and all the
other Chinese knew every little twitter in the artificial bird’s song
by heart. But just for that reason it pleased them best—they could
sing with it themselves, and they did so. The street boys sang,
“Tsi-tsi-tsi-glug-glug!” and the Emperor himself sang it too. Yes,
that was certainly famous.
But one evening, when the artificial bird was singing its best, and
the Emperor lay in bed listening to it, something inside the bird
said, “Whizz!” Something cracked. “Whir-r-r!” All the wheels
ran round, and then the music stopped.
The Emperor immediately sprang out of bed, and caused his body
physician to be called; but what could he do? Then they sent for
a watchmaker, and after a good deal of talking and investigation,
the bird was put into something like order; but the Watchmaker
said that the bird must be carefully treated, for the barrels were
worn, and it would be impossible to put new ones in in such a
manner that the music would go. There was great lamentation;
only once in a year was it permitted to let the bird sing, and that
was almost too much. But then the Play-master made a little speech,
full of heavy words, and said this was just as good as before—and
so of course it was as good as before.
Now five years had gone by, and a real grief came upon the whole

308 FOLK-LORE AND FABLE
nation. The Chinese were really fond of their Emperor, and now
he was ill, and could not, it was said, live much longer. Already a
new Emperor had been chosen, and the people stood out in the
street and asked the Cavalier how their old Emperor did.
“P!” said he, and shook his head.
Cold and pale lay the Emperor in his great gorgeous bed; the
whole court thought him dead, and each one ran to pay homage to
the new ruler. The chamberlains ran out to talk it over, and the
ladies’-maids had a great coffee party. All about, in all the halls
and passages, cloth had been laid down so that no footstep could
be heard, and therefore it was quiet there, quite quiet. But the
Emperor was not dead yet: stiff and pale he lay on the gorgeous bed
with the long velvet curtains and the heavy gold tassels; high up,
a window stood open, and the moon shone in upon the Emperor
and the artificial bird.
The poor Emperor could scarcely breathe; it was just as if something
lay upon his chest: he opened his eyes, and then he saw that
it was Death who sat upon his chest, and had put on his golden
crown, and held in one hand the Emperor’s sword and in the other
his beautiful banner. And all around, from among the folds of the
splendid velvet curtains, strange heads peered forth; a few very ugly,
the rest quite lovely and mild. These were all the Emperor’s bad
and good deeds, that stood before him now that Death sat upon
his heart.
“Do you remember this?” whispered one to the other. “Do you
remember that?” and then they told him so much that the perspiration
ran from his forehead.
“I did not know that!” said the Emperor. “Music! music! the
great Chinese drum!” he cried, “so that I need not hear all they say!”
And they continued speaking, and Death nodded like a Chinaman
to all they said.
“Music! music!” cried the Emperor. “You little precious golden
bird, sing, sing! I have given you gold and costly presents; I have
even hung my golden slipper around your neck—sing now, sing!”
But the bird stood still; no one was there to wind him up, and he
could not sing without that; but Death continued to stare at the
Emperor with his great hollow eyes, and it was quiet, fearfully quiet.

ANDERSEN’S TALES 309
Then there sounded from the window, suddenly, the most lovely
song. It was the little live Nightingale, that sat outside on a spray.
It had heard of the Emperor’s sad plight, and had come to sing to him
of comfort and hope. And as it sang the spectres grew paler and
paler; the blood ran quickly and more quickly through the Emperor’s
weak limbs; and even Death listened, and said,—
“Go on, little Nightingale, go on!”
“But will you give me that splendid golden sword? Will you give
me that rich banner? Will you give me the Emperor’s crown?”
And Death gave up each of these treasures for a song. And the
Nightingale sang on and on; and it sang of the quiet church-yard,
where the white roses grow, where the elder-blossom smells sweet,
and where the fresh grass is moistened by the tears of survivors.
Then Death felt a longing to see his garden, and floated out at the
window in the form of a cold, white mist.
“Thanks! thanks!” said the Emperor. “You heavenly litde birdl
I know you well. I banished you from my country and empire,
and yet you have charmed away the evil faces from my couch, and
banished Death from my heart! How can I reward you?”
“You have rewarded me!” replied the Nightingale. “I have drawn
tears from your eyes, when I sang the first time—I shall never forget
that. Those are the jewels that rejoice a singer’s heart. But now
sleep and grow fresh and strong again. I will sing you something.”
And it sang, and the Emperor fell into a sweet slumber. Ah! how
mild and refreshing that sleep was! The sun shone upon him
through the windows, when he awoke refreshed and restored; not
one of his servants had yet returned, for they all thought he was
dead; only the Nightingale still sat beside him and sang.
“You must always stay with me,” said the Emperor. “You shall
sing as you please; and I’ll break the artificial bird into a thousand
pieces.”
“Not so,” replied the Nightingale. “It did well as long as it could;
keep it as you have done till now. I cannot build my nest in the
palace to dwell in; but let me come when I feel the wish; then I
will sit in the evening on the spray yonder by the window, and sing
you something, so that you may be glad and thoughtful at once. I
will sing of those who are happy and of those who suffer. I will

3IO FOLK-LORE AND FABLE
sing of good and of evil that remain hidden round about you. The
litde singing bird flies far around, to the poor fisherman, to the
peasant’s roof, to every one who dwells far away from you and
from your court. I love your heart more than your crown, and yet
the crown has an air of sanctity about it. I will come and sing to
you—but one thing you must promise me.”
“Everything!” said the Emperor; and he stood there in his imperial
robes, which he had put on himself, and pressed the sword which
was heavy with gold to his heart.
“One thing I beg of you: tell no one that you have a little bird
who tells you everything. Then it will go all the better.”
And the Nightingale flew away.
The servants came in to look to their dead Emperor, and—yes,
there he stood, and the Emperor said “Good morning!”

20 “Ah! 14 is St. Agnes’ Eve —”

Keats’ EVE OF ST. AGNES Vol. 41, pp. 883-893

THE EVE OF ST. AGNES
ST. AGNES’ Eve!—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.
His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:
The sculptur’d dead, on each side, seem to freeze,
Emprison’d in black, purgatorial rails:
Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat’ries,
He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.
Northward he turneth through a little door,
And scarce three steps, ere Music’s golden tongue
Flatter’d to tears this aged man and poor;

884 JOHN KEATS
But no—already had his deathbell rung;
The joys of all his life were said and sung:
His was harsh penance on St. Agnes’ Eve:
Another way he went, and soon among
Rough ashes sat he for his soul’s reprieve,
And all night kept awake, for sinners’ sake to grieve.
That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft;
And so it chanc’d, for many a door was wide,
From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft,
The silver, snarling trumpets ‘gan to chide:
The level chambers, ready with their pride,
Were glowing to receive a thousand guests:
The carved angels, ever eager-eyed,
Star’d where upon their heads the cornice rests,
With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their
breasts.
At length burst in the argent revelry,
With plume, tiara, and all rich array,
Numerous as shadows haunting fairily
The brain, new stuff’d, in youth, with triumphs gay
Of old romance. These let us wish away,
And turn, sole-thoughted, to one Lady there,
Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day,
On love, and wing’d St. Agnes’ saintly care,
As she had heard old dames full many times declare.
They told her how, upon St. Agnes’ Eve,
Young virgins might have visions of delight,
And soft adorings from their loves receive
Upon the honey’d middle of the night
If ceremonies due they did aright;
As, supperless to bed they must retire,
And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.
Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline;
The music, yearning like a God in pain,
She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine,

885 JOHN KEATS
Fix’d on the floor, saw many a sweeping train
Pass by—she heeded not at all: in vain
Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier,
And back retir’d; not cool’d by high disdain,
But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere:
She sigh’d for Agnes’ dreams, the sweetest of the year.
She danc’d along with vague, regardless eyes,
Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short:
The hallow’d hour was near at hand: she sighs
Amid the timbrels, and the throng’d resort
Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;
‘Mid looks of love, defiance, hate and scorn,
Hoodwink’d with faery fancy; all amort,
Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,
And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.
So, purposing each moment to retire,
She linger’d still. Meantime, across the moors,
Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire
For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,
Buttress’d from moonlight, stands he, and implores
All saints to give him sight of Madeline,
But for one moment in the tedious hours,
That he might gaze and worship all unseen;
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss—in sooth such thi:
have been.
He ventures in: let no buzz’d whisper tell:
All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
Will storm his heart, Love’s fev’rous citadel;
For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,
Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,
Whose very dogs would execrations howl
Against his lineage: not one breast affords
Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,
Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.
Ah, happy chancel the aged creature came,
Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,
To where he stood, hid from the torch’s flame,

886 JOHN KEATS
Behind a broad hall-pillar, far beyond
The sound of merriment and chorus bland:
He startled her; but soon she knew his face,
And grasp’d his fingers in her palsied hand,
Saying, ‘Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee from this place;
They are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirsty race
‘Get hence! get hence! there’s dwarfish Hildebrand;
He had a fever late and in the lit
He cursed thee and thine, both house and land:
Then there’s that old Lord Maurice, not a whit
More tame for his grey hairs—Alas me! flit!
Flit like a ghost away.’—’Ah, Gossip dear,
We’re safe enough; here in this armchair sit,
And tell me how’—’Good Saints! not here, not here;
Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier.’
He follow’d through a lowly arched way,
Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume;
And as she mutter’d ‘Well-a—well-a-day!
He found him in a little moonlight room,
Pale, lattic’d, chill, and silent as a tomb.
‘Now tell me where is Madeline,’ said he,
‘O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom
Which none but secret sisterhood may see,
When they St. Agnes’ wool are weaving piously.’
‘St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes’ Eve—
Yet men will murder upon holy days:
Thou must hold water in a witch’s sieve,
And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays,
To venture so: it fills me with amaze
To see thee, Porphyro!—St. Agnes’ Eve!
God’s help! my lady fair the conjurer plays
This very night: good angels her deceive!
But let me laugh awhile, I’ve mickle time to grieve.’
Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon,
While Porphyro upon her face doth look,
Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone
Who keepeth clos’d a wond’rous riddle-book,

JOHN KEATS 887
As spectacled she sits in chimney nook.
But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told
His lady’s purpose; and he scarce could brook
Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold,
And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.
Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart
Made purple riot: then doth he propose
A stratagem, that makes the beldame start:
‘A cruel man, and impious thou art:
Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream
Alone with her good angels, far apart
From wicked men like thee. Go, go!—I deem
Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem.’
‘I will not harm her, by all saints I swear,’
Quoth Porphyro: ‘O may I ne’er find grace
When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer,
If one of her soft ringlets I displace,
Or look with ruffian passion in her face:
Good Angela, believe me by these tears;
Or I will, even in a moment’s space,
Awake, with horrid shout, my foemen’s ears,
And beard them, though they be more fang’d than wolves
and bears.’
‘Ah! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul?
A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing,
Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll;
Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening,
Were never miss’d.’ Thus plaining, doth she bring
A gentler speech from burning Porphyro;
So woful, and of such deep sorrowing,
That Angela gives promise she will do
Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or woe.
Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy,
Even to Madeline’s chamber, and there hide
Him in a closet, of such privacy

888 JOHN KEATS
That he might see her beauty unespied,
And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,
While legion’d faeries pac’d the coverlet,
And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed.
Never on such a night have lovers met,
Since Merlin paid his Demon all the monstrous debt.
‘It shall be as thou wishest,’ said the Dame:
‘All cates and dainties shall be stored there
Quickly on this feast-night: by the tambour frame
Her own lute thou wilt see: no time to spare,
For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare
On such a catering trust my dizzy head.
Wait here, my child, with patience; kneel in prayer
The while: Ah! thou must needs the lady wed,
Or may I never leave my grave among the dead.’
So saying, she hobbled off with busy fear.
The lover’s endless minutes slowly pass’d;
The Dame return’d, and whisper’d in his ear
To follow her; with aged eyes aghast
From fright of dim espial. Safe at last,
Through many a dusky gallery, they gain
The maiden’s chamber, silken, hush’d, and chaste;
Where Porphyro took covert, pleas’d amain.
His poor guide hurried back with agues in her brain.
Her falt’ring hand upon the balustrade,
Old Angela was feeling for the stair,
When Madeline, St. Agnes’ charmed maid,
Rose, like a mission’d spirit, unaware:
With silver taper’s light, and pious care,
She turn’d, and down the aged gossip led
To a safe level matting. Now prepare,
Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;
She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove fray’d and fled.
Out went the taper as she hurried in;
Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died;
She clos’d the door, she panted, all akin
To spirits of the air, and visions wide:

JOHN KEATS 889
No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!
But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.
A casement high and triple-arch’d there was,
All garlanded with carven imag’ries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Unnumerable of stains and splendid dyes.
As are the tiger-moth’s deep-damask’d wings;
And in the midst, ‘mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blush’d with blood of queens and
kings.
Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,
As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
She seem’d a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings, for heaven: Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.
Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees;
Half-hidden, like a mermaid in seaweed,
Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees
In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.
Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,
In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex’d she lay,
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress’d
Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;

890 JOHN KEATS
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;
Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain;
Clasp’d like a missal where swart Paynims pray;
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.
Stol’n to this paradise, and so entranced,
Porphyro gazed upon her empty dress,
And listen’d to her breathing, if it chanced
To wake into a slumberous tenderness;
Which when he heard, that minute did he bless,
And breath’d himself: then from the closet crept,
Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness,
And over the hush’d carpet, silent, stepped,
And ‘tween the curtains peep’d, where, lo!—how fast
she slept.
Then by the bed-side, where the faded moon
Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set
A table, and, half-anguish’d, threw thereon
A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet:—
O for some drowsy Morphean amulet!
The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion,
The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet,
Affray his ears, though but in dying tone:—
The hall door shuts again, and all the noise is gone.
And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,
In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender’d,
While he from forth the closet brought a heap
Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd:
With jellies soother than the creamy curd,
And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;
Manna and dates, in argosy transferr’d
From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,
From silken Samarcand to cedar’d Lebanon.
These delicates he heap’d with glowing hand
On golden dishes and in baskets bright
Of wreathed silver: sumptuous they stand
In the retired quiet of the night,

JOHN KEATS 891
Filling the chilly room with perfume light.—
‘And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake!
Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite:
Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes’ sake,
Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache.’
Thus whispering, his warm, unnerved arm
Sank in her pillow. Shaded was her dream
By the dusk curtains:—’twas a midnight charm
Impossible to melt as iced stream:
The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam:
Broad golden fringe upon the carpet lies:
It seem’d he never, never could redeem
From such a steadfast spell his lady’s eyes;
She mus’d awhile, entoil’d in woofed phantasies.
Awakening up, he took her hollow lute,—
Tumultuous,—and, in chords that tenderest be,
He play’d an ancient ditty, long since mute,
In Provence call’d, ‘La belle dame sans merci:’
Close to her ear touching the melody;—
Wherewith disturb’d, she utter’d a soft moan:
He ceased—she panted quick—and suddenly
Her blue affrighted eyes wide open shone:
Upon his knees he sank, as smooth-sculptured stone.
Her eyes were open, but she still beheld,
Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep:
There was a painful change, that nigh expell’d
The blisses of her dream so pure and deep
At which fair Madeline began to weep,
And moan forth witless words with many a sigh;
While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep;
Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye,
Fearing to move or speak, she look’d so dreamingly.
‘Ah, Porphyro!’ said she, ‘but even now
Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear,
Made tuneable with every sweetest vow;
And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear:
How chang’d thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear!

892 JOHN KEATS
Give me that voice again, my Porphyro,
Those looks immortal, those complainings dear!
Oh leave me not in this eternal woe,
For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go.’
Beyond a mortal man impassion’d far
At these voluptuous accents, he arose,
Ethereal, flush’d, and like a throbbing star
Seen mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose;
Into her dream he melted, as the rose
Blendeth its odour with the violet,—
Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows
Like Love’s alarum pattering the sharp sleet
Against the window-panes; St. Agnes’ moon hath set.
‘Tis dark: quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet:
‘This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!’
‘Tis dark: the iced gusts still rave and beat:
‘No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine!
Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine.—
Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring?
I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine,
Though thou forsakest a deceived thing:—
A dove forlorn and lost with sick unpruned wing!’
‘My Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride!
Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest?
Thy beauty’s shield, heart-shap’d and vermeil dyed?
Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest
After so many hours of toil and quest,
A famish’d pilgrim,—saved by miracle.
Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest
Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think’st well
To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel.
‘Hark! ’tis an elfin-storm from faery land,
Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed:
Arise—arise! the morning is at hand;—
The bloated wassailers will never heed:—
Let us away, my love, with happy speed;
There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see,—

JOHN KEATS 893
Drown’d all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead:
Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be,
For o’er the southern moors I have a home for thee.’
She hurried at his words, beset with fears,
For there were sleeping dragons all around,
At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears—
Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found.—
In all the house was heard no human sound.
A chain-droop’d lamp was flickering by each door;
The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound,
Flutter’d in the besieging wind’s uproar
And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.
They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;
Like phantoms, to the iron porch, they glide;
Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,
With a huge empty flagon by his side:
The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,
But his sagacious eye an inmate owns:
By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:—
The chains lie silent on the footworn stones;—
The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.
And they are gone: aye, ages long ago
These lovers fled away into the storm.
That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,
And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form
Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,
Were long be-nightmar’d. Angela the old
Died palsy-twitch’d, with meagre face deform;
The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,
For aye unsought-for slept among his ashes cold.

19. Poe on Poetry

Poe’s THE POETIC PRINCIPLE Vol. 28, pp. 371-380

THE POETIC PRINCIPLE

IN speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be
either thorough or profound. While discussing, very much at
random, the essentiality of what we call Poetry, my principal
purpose will be to cite for consideration some few of those minor
English or American poems which best suit my own taste, or which
upon my own fancy have left the most definite impression. By
“minor poems” I mean, of course, poems of little length. And here
in the beginning permit me to say a few words in regard to a
somewhat peculiar principle, which, whether rightfully or wrongfully,
has always had its influence in my own critical estimate of the
poem. I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the
phrase, “a long poem,” is simply a flat contradiction in terms.
I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch
as it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is
in the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are,
through a psychal necessity, transient. That degree of excitement
which would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained
throughout a composition of any great length. After the
lapse of half an hour, at the very utmost, it flags—fails—a revulsion
ensues—and then the poem is, in effect, and in fact, no longer such.
There are, no doubt, many who have found difficulty in reconciling
the critical dictum that the “Paradise Lost” is to be devoutly
admired throughout, with the absolute impossibility of maintaining
for it, during perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical
dictum would demand. The great work, in fact, is to be regarded
as poetical, only when, losing sight of that vital requisite in all
works of Art, Unity, we view it merely as a series of minor poems.
If, to preserve its Unity—its totality of effect or impression—we read
it (as would be necessary) at a single sitting, the result is but a
constant alternation of excitement and depression. After a passage
of what we feel to be true poetry, there follows, inevitably, a passage
371

372 POE
of platitude which no critical prejudgment can force us to admire;
but if, upon completing the work, we read it again, omitting the
first book (that is to say, commencing with the second), we shall
be surprised at now finding that admirable which we before condemned—
that damnable which we had previously so much admired.
It follows from all this that the ultimate, aggregate, or absolute effect
of even the best epic under the sun is a nullity;—and this is precisely
the fact.
In regard to the “Iliad,” we have, if not positive proof, at least
very good reason for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but,
granting the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based
in an imperfect sense of art. The modern epic is, of the supposititious
ancient model, but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But
the day of these artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very
long poems were popular in reality—which I doubt—it is at least
clear that no very long poem will ever be popular again.
That the extent of a poetical work is, ceteris paribus, the measure
of its merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus state it, a proposition
sufficiently absurd—yet we are indebted for it to the Quarterly
Reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere size, abstractly considered—
there can be nothing in mere bul\, so far as a volume is
concerned which has so continuously elicited admiration from these
saturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment
of physical magnitude which it conveys, does impress us with
a sense of the sublime—but no man is impressed after this fashion
by the material grandeur of even “The Columbiad.” Even the
Quarterlies have not instructed us to be so impressed by it. As yet,
they have not insisted on our estimating Lamartine by the cubic
foot, or Pollok by the pound—but what else are we to infer from
their continual prating about “sustained effort”? If, by “sustained
effort,” any little gentleman has accomplished an epic, let us frankly
commend him for the effort,—if this indeed be a thing commendable,—
but let us forbear praising the epic on the effort’s account.
It is to be hoped that common sense, in the time to come, will prefer
deciding upon a work of Art, rather by the impression it makes—
by the effect it produces—than by the time it took to impress the
effect, or by the amount of “sustained effort” which had been

THE POETIC PRINCIPLE 373
found necessary in effecting the impression. The fact is, that perseverance
is one thing and genius quite another; nor can all the
Quarterlies in Christendom confound them. By and by, this proposition,
with many which I have been just urging, will be received
as self-evident. In the mean time, by being generally condemned
as falsities, they will not be essentially damaged as truths.
On the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly
brief. Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very
short poem, while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid,
never produces a profound or enduring, effect. There must be the
steady pressing down of the stamp upon the wax. Beranger has
wrought innumerable things, pungent and spirit-stirring; but, in
general, they have been too imponderous to stamp themselves deeply
into the public opinion, and thus, as so many feathers of fancy, have
been blown aloft only to be whistled down the wind.
A remarkable instance of the effect of undue brevity in depressing
a poem—in keeping it out of the popular view—is afforded by the
following exquisite litde serenade:—

“I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright:
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me—who knows how!—
To thy chamber-window, Sweet!
“The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream;
And the champak odors fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale’s complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must on thine,
Oh, beloved as thou art!
“Oh, lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.

374 POE
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;
Oh! press it to thine own again,
Where it will break at last!”

Very few, perhaps, are familiar with these lines—yet no less a
poet than Shelley is their author. There warm, yet delicate and
ethereal imagination will be appreciated by all; but by none so
thoroughly as by him who has himself arisen from sweet dreams
of one beloved to bathe in the aromatic air of a southern midsummer
night.
One of the finest poems by Willis—the very best, in my opinion,
which he has ever written—has, no doubt, through this same defect
of undue brevity, been kept back from its proper position, not less
in the critical than in the popular view.

“The shadows lay along Broadway,
‘Twas near the twilight-tide—
And slowly there a lady fair
Was walking in her pride.
Alone walked she; but, viewlessly,
Walked spirits at her side.

“Peace charmed the street beneath her feet,
And Honor charmed the air;
And all astir looked kind on her,
And called her good as fair;
For all God ever gave to her
She kept with chary care.

“She kept with care her beauties rare
From lovers warm and true,—
For her heart was cold to all but gold,
And the rich came not to woo,—
But honored well are charms to sell
If priests the selling do.

“Now walking there was one more fair—
A slight girl, lily-pale;
And she had unseen company
To make the spirit quail:
‘Twixt Want and Scorn she walked forlorn,
And nothing could avail.

THE POETIC PRINCIPLE 375
“No mercy now can clear her brow
For this world’s peace to pray;
For, as love’s wild prayer dissolved in air,
Her woman’s heart gave way!—
But the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven
By man is cursed alway!”

In this composition we find it difficult to recognize the Willis who
has written so many mere “verses of society.” The lines are not only
richly ideal, but full of energy, while they breathe an earnestness—
an evident sincerity of sentiment—for which we look in vain
throughout all the other works of this author.
While the epic mania—while the idea that, to merit in poetry,
prolixity is indispensable—has, for some years past, been gradually
dying out of the public mind by mere dint of its own absurdity—we
find it succeeded by a heresy too palpably false to be long tolerated,
but one which, in the brief period it has already endured, may be
said to have accomplished more in the corruption of our Poetical
Literature than all its other enemies combined. I allude to the heresy
of The Didactic. It has been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, direcdy
and indirectly, that the ultimate object of all Poetry is Truth. Every
poem, it is said, should inculcate a moral; and by this moral is the
poetical merit of the work to be adjudged. We Americans, especially,
have patronized this happy idea; and we Bostonians, very
especially, have developed it in full. We have taken it into our heads
that to write a poem simply for the poem’s sake, and to acknowledge
such to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically
wanting in the true Poetic dignity and force; but the simple fact is,
that, would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls, we
should immediately there discover that under the sun there neither
exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified, more
supremely noble, than this very poem—this poem per se—this poem
which is a poem and nothing more—this poem written solely for
the poem’s sake.
With as deep a reverence for the True as ever inspired the bosom
of man, I would, nevertheless, limit in some measure its modes of
inculcadon. I would limit to enforce them. I would not enfeeble
them by dissipation. The demands of Truth are severe; she has no

376 POE
sympathy with the myrtles. All that which is so indispensable in
Song is precisely all that with which she has nothing whatever to
do. It is but making her a flaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems
and flowers. In enforcing a truth we need severity rather than efflorescence
of language. We must be simple, precise, terse. We must
be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word, we must be in that mood,
which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse of the poetical. He
must be blind, indeed, who does not perceive the radical and chasmal
differences between the truthful and the poetical modes of inculcation.
He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who, in spite
of these differences, shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the
obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.
Dividing the world of mind into its three most immediately
obvious distinctions, we have the Pure Intellect, Taste, and the Moral
Sense. I place Taste in the middle, because it is just this position
which in the mind it occupies. It holds intimate relations with either
extreme, but from the Moral Sense is separated by so faint a difference
that Aristotle has not hesitated to place some of its operations
among the virtues themselves. Nevertheless, we find the offices of
the trio marked with a sufficient distinction. Just as the intellect
concerns itself with Truth, so Taste informs us of the Beautiful,
while the Moral Sense is regardful of Duty. Of this latter, while
Conscience teaches the obligation, and Reason the expediency, Taste
contents herself with displaying the charms:—waging war upon Vice
solely on the ground of her deformity—her disproportion—her animosity
to the fitting, to the appropriate, to the harmonious—in a
word, to Beauty.
An immortal instinct, deep within the spirit of man, is thus,
plainly, a sense of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to his
delight in the manifold forms, and sounds, and odors, and sentiments,
amid which he exists. And just as the lily is repeated in the
lake, or the eyes of Amaryllis in the mirror, so is the mere oral or
written repetition of these forms, and sounds, and colors, and odors,
and sentiments, a duplicate source of delight. But this mere repetition
is not poetry. He who shall simply sing, with however glowing
enthusiasm, or with however vivid a truth of description, of the
sights, and sounds, and odors, and colors, and sentiments, which

THE POETIC PRINCIPLE 377
greet him in common with all mankind—he, I say, has yet failed to
prove his divine title. There is still a something in the distance
which he has been unable to attain. We have still a thirst unquenchable,
to allay which he has not shown us the crystal springs. This
thirst belongs to the immortality of Man. It is at once a consequence
and an indication of his perennial existence. It is the desire of the
moth for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before
us, but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an
ecstatic prescience of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by
multiform combinations among the things and thoughts of Time,
to attain a portion of that Loveliness whose very elements, perhaps,
appertain to eternity alone. And thus when by Poetry—or
when by Music, the most entrancing of the Poetic moods—we find
ourselves melted into tears not as the Abbate Gravia supposes
through excess of pleasure, but through a certain petulant, impatient
sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once
and forever, those divine and rapturous joys, of which through the
poem, or through the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate
glimpses.
The struggle to apprehend the supernal Loveliness—this struggle,
on the part of souls fittingly constituted—has given to the world all
that which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand
and to feel as poetic.
The Poetic Sentiment, of course, may develop itself in various
modes—in Painting, in Sculpture, in Architecture, in the Dance—
very especially in Music,—and very peculiarly and with a wide field,
in the composition of the Landscape Garden. Our present theme,
however, has regard only to its manifestation in words. And here
let me speak briefly on the topic of rhythm. Contenting myself with
the certainty that Music, in its various modes of metre, rhythm, and
rhyme, is of so vast a moment in Poetry as never to be wisely rejected
—is so vitally important an adjunct, that he is simply silly who declines
its assistance—I will not now pause to maintain its absolute
essentiality. It is in Music, perhaps, that the soul most nearly attains
the great end for which, when inspired by the Poetic Sentiment, it
struggles—the creation of supernal Beauty. It may be, indeed, that
here this sublime end is, now and then, attained in fact. We are

378 POE
often made to feel, with a shivering delight, that from an earthly
harp are stricken notes which cannot have been unfamiliar to the
angels. And thus there can be little doubt that in the union of
Poetry with Music in its popular sense we shall find the widest field
for the Poetic development. The old Bards and Minnesingers had
advantages which we do not possess—and Thomas Moore, singing
his own songs, was, in the most legitimate manner, perfecting them
as poems.
To recapitulate, then:—I would define, in brief, the Poetry of
words as The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is
Taste. With the Intellect or with the Conscience, it has only collateral
relations. Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either
with Duty or with Truth.
A few words, however, in explanation. That pleasure which is at
once the most pure, the most elevating, and the most intense, is
derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the Beautiful. In
the contemplation of Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that
pleasurable elevation, or excitement, of the soul, which we recognize
as the Poetic Sentiment, and which is so easily distinguished from
Truth, which is the satisfaction of the Reason, or from Passion,
which is the excitement of the Heart. I make Beauty, therefore,—
using the word as inclusive of the sublime,—I make Beauty the
province of the poem, simply because it is an obvious rule of Art that
effects should be made to spring as directly as possible from their
causes—no one as yet having been weak enough to deny that the
peculiar elevation in question is at least most readily attainable in the
poem. It by no means follows, however, that the incitements of
Passion, or the precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of Truth, may
not be introduced into a poem and with advantage; for they may
subserve, incidentally, in various ways, the general purposes of the
work; but the true artist will always contrive to tone them down in
proper subjection to that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the
real essence of the poem.
I cannot better introduce the few poems which I shall present for
your consideration, than by the citation of the “Proem” to Mr. Longfellow’s
“Waif”:

THE POETIC PRINCIPLE
“The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

“I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me,
That my soul cannot resist:

“A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

“Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

“Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

“For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life’s endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.

“Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

“Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

“Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

POE 380
“Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

“And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.”

With no great range of imagination, these lines have been justly
admired for their delicacy of expression. Some of the images are
very effective. Nothing can be better than—

“the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.”

The idea of the last quatrain is also very effective. The poem, on the
whole, however, is chiefly to be admired for the graceful insouciance
of its metre, so well in accordance with the character of the sentiments,
and especially for the ease of the general manner. This
“ease,” or naturalness, in a literary style, it has long been the fashion
to regard as ease in appearance alone—as a point of really difficult
attainment. But not so; a natural manner is difficult only to him who
should never meddle with it—to the unnatural. It is but the result
of writing with the understanding, or with the instinct, that the tone,
in composition, should always be that which the mass of mankind
would adopt—and must perpetually vary, of course, with the occasion.
The author who, after the fashion of the “North American
Review,” should be, upon all occasions, merely “quiet,” must necessarily,
upon many occasions, be simply silly, or stupid; and has no
more right to be considered “easy,” or “natural,” than a Cockney
exquisite, or than the sleeping Beauty in the wax-works.
Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed
me as the one which he entitles “June.” I quote only a portion of it:—

“There, through the long, long summer hours,
The golden light should lie,
And thick, young herbs and groups of flowers
Stand in their beauty by.

18. Origin of Yale “Brekekekex-Ko-ax”

Aristophanes’ THE FROGS Vol. 8, pp. 439-449

THE FROGS
OF ARISTOPHANES

DRAMATISPERSONS
THE GOD DIONYSUS     XANTHIAS, his slave      AESCHYLI
EURIPIDES                   HERACLES                    PLUTO
CHARON        AEACUS, house porter to Pluto     A C
A MAIDSERVANT OF PERSEPHONE   A LANDLADY IN HADES
PLATHANE, her partner                   A CHORUS OF FROGS
A CHORUS OF INITIATED PERSONS
Attendants at a Funeral; Women worshipping lacchus; Servants of
Pluto, (re.

Xanthias
SHALL I crack any of those old jokes, master,
At which the audience never fail to laugh ?
Dionysus. Aye, what you will, except I’m getting cru
Fight shy of that: I’m sick of that already.
Xan. Nothing else smart? Dio. Aye, save my shoulder’s a
Xan. Come now, that comical joke? Dio. With all my hea;
Only be careful not to shift your pole,
And— Xan. What? Dio. And vow that you’ve a belly-ad
Xan. May I not say I’m overburdened so
That if none ease me, I must ease myself?
Dio. For mercy’s sake, not till I’m going to vomit.
Xan. What! must I bear these burdens, and not make
One of the jokes Ameipsias and Lycis
And Phrynichus, in every play they write,
Put in the mouths of all their burden-bearers?
Dio. Don’t make them; no! I tell you when I see
Their plays, and hear those jokes, I come away
More than a twelvemonth older than I went.
Xan. O, thrice unlucky neck of mine, which now
Is getting crushed, yet must not crack its joke!
439

440 ARISTOPHANES
Dio. Now is not this fine pampered insolence
When I myself, Dionysus, son of—Pipkin,
Toil on afoot, and let this fellow ride,
Taking no trouble, and no burden bearing?
Xan. What, don’t I bear ? Dio. How can you when you’re riding?
Xan. Why, I bear these. Dio. How ? Xan. Most unwillingly.
Dio. Does not the donkey bear the load you’re bearing?
Xan. Not what I bear myself: by Zeus, not he.
Dio. How can you bear, when you are borne yourself?
Xan. Don’t know: but anyhow my shoulder’s aching.
Dio. Then since you say the donkey helps you not,
You lift him up and carry him in turn.
Xan. O, hang it all! why didn’t I fight at sea?
You should have smarted bitterly for this.
Dio. Get down, you rascal; I’ve been trudging on
Till now I’ve reached the portal, where I’m going
First to turn in. Boy! Boy! I say there, Boy!
Heracles. Who banged the door? How like a prancing Centaur
He drove against it! Mercy o’ me, what’s this?
Dio. Boy. Xan. Yes. Dio. Did you observe? Xan. What? Dio.
How alarmed
He is. Xan. Aye, truly, lest you’ve lost your wits.
Her. O, by Demeter, I can’t choose but laugh.
Biting my lips won’t stop me. Ha! ha! ha!
Dio. Pray you, come hither, I have need of you.
Her. I vow I can’t help laughing, I can’t help it.
A lion’s hide upon a yellow silk,
A club and buskin! What’s it all about?
Where were you going? Dio. I was serving lately
Aboard the—Cleisthenes. Her. And fought? Dio. And sank
More than a dozen of the enemy’s ships.
Her. You two? Dio. We two. Her. And then I awoke, and lo!
Dio. There as, on deck, I’m reading to myself
The “Andromeda,” a sudden pang of longing
Shoots through my heart, you can’t conceive how keenly.
Her. How big a pang? Dio. A small one, Molon’s size.
Her. Caused by a woman ? Dio. No. Her. A boy ? Dio. No, no.

THE FROGS 441
Her. A man? Dio. Ah! ah! Her. Was it for Cleisthenes?
Dio. Don’t mock me, brother; on my life I am
In a bad way: such fierce desire consumes me.
Her. Aye, little brother? how? Dio. I can’t describe it.
But yet I’ll tell you in a riddling way.
Have you e’er felt a sudden lust for soup?
Her. Soup! Zeus-a-mercy, yes, ten thousand times.
Dio. Is the thing clear, or must I speak again ?
Her. Not of the soup: I’m clear about the soup.
Dio. Well, just that sort of pang devours my heart
For lost Euripides. Her. A dead man too.
Dio. And no one shall persuade me not to go
After the man. Her. Do you mean below, to Hades?
Dio. And lower still, if there’s a lower still.
Her. What on earth for? Dio. I want a genuine poet,
“For some are not, and those that are, are bad.”
Her. What! does not Iophon live? Dio. Well, he’s the sole
Good thing remaining, if even he is good.
For even of that I’m not exactly certain.
Her. If go you must, there’s Sophocles—he comes
Before Euripides—why not take him?
Dio. Not till I’ve tried if Iophon’s coin rings true
When he’s alone, apart from Sophocles.
Besides, Euripides, the crafty rogue,
Will find a thousand shifts to get away,
But he was easy here, is easy there.
Her. But Agathon, where is he? Dio. He has gone and left us.
A genial poet, by his friends much missed.
Her. Gone where? Dio. To join the blessed in their banquets.
Her. But what of Xenocles? Dio. O , he be hanged!
Her. Pythangelus? Xan. But never a word of me,
Not though my shoulder’s chafed so terribly.
Her. But have you not a shoal of little songsters,
Tragedians by the myriad, who can chatter
A furlong faster than Euripides?
Dio. Those be mere vintage-leavings, jabberers, choirs
Of swallow-broods, degraders of their art,

442 ARISTOPHANES
Who get one chorus, and are seen no more,
The Muses’ love once gained. But, O my friend,
Search where you will, you’ll never find a true
Creative genius, uttering startling things.
Her. Creative? how do you mean? Dio. I mean a man
Who’ll dare some novel venturesome conceit,
Air, Zeus’s chamber, or Time’s foot, or this:
‘Twos not my mind that swore: my tongue committed
A little perjury on its own account.
Her. You like that style? Dio. Like it? I dote upon it.
Her. I vow it’s ribald nonsense, and you know it.
Dio. “Rule not my mind”: you’ve got a house to mind.
Her. Really and truly, though, ’tis paltry stuff.
Dio. Teach me to dine! Xan. But never a word of me.
Dio. But tell me truly—’twas for this I came
Dressed up to mimic you—what friends received
And entertained you when you went below
To bring back Cerberus, in case I need them.
And tell me too the havens, fountains, shops,
Roads, resting-places, stews, refreshment rooms,
Towns, lodgings, hostesses, with whom were found
The fewest bugs. Xan. But never a word of me.
Her. You are really game to go? Dio. O, drop that, can’t
you?
And tell me this: of all the roads you know,
Which is the quickest way to get to Hades?
I want one not too warm, nor yet too cold.
Her. Which shall I tell you first? which shall it be?
There’s one by rope and bench: you launch away
And—hang yourself. Dio. No, thank you: that’s too stifling.
Her. Then there’s a track, a short and beaten cut,
By pestle and mortar. Dio. Hemlock, do you mean ?
Her. Just so. Dio. No, that’s too deathly cold a way;
You have hardly started ere your shins get numbed.
Her. Well, would you like a steep and swift descent?
Dio. Aye, that’s the style: my walking powers are small.
Her. Go down to the Cerameicus. Dio. And do what?

T H E F R O G S 443
Her. Climb to the tower’s top pinnacle— Dio. And then?
Her. Observe the torch-race started, and when all
The multitude is shouting Let them go,
Let yourself go. Dio. Go whither ? Her. To the ground.
Dio. O, that would break my brain’s two envelopes.
I’ll not try that. Her. Which will you try ? Dio. The way
You went yourself. Her. A parlous voyage that,
For first you’ll come to an enormous lake
Of fathomless depth. Dio. And how am I to cross?
Her. An ancient mariner will row you over
In a wee boat, so big. The fare’s two obols.
Dio. Fie! The power two obols have, the whole world through!
How came they thither ? Her. Theseus took them down.
And next you’ll see great snakes and savage monsters
In tens of thousands. Dio. You needn’t try to scare me,
I’m going to go. Her. Then weltering seas of filth
And ever-rippling dung: and plunged therein,
Whoso has wronged the stranger here on earth,
Or robbed his boy-love of the promised pay,
Or swinged his mother, or profanely smitten
His father’s cheek, or sworn an oath forsworn,
Or copied out a speech of Morsimus.
Dio. There too, perdie, should he be plunged, whoe’er
Has danced the sword-dance of Cinesias.
Her. And next the breath of flutes will float around you,
And glorious sunshine, such as ours, you’ll see,
And myrtle groves, and happy bands who clap
Their hands in triumph, men and women too.
Dio. And who are they? Her. The happy mystic bands,
Xan. And I’m the donkey in the mystery show.
But I’ll not stand it, not one instant longer.
Her. Who’ll tell you everything you want to know.
You’ll find them dwelling close beside the road
You are going to travel, just at Pluto’s gate.
And fare thee well, my brother. Dio. And to you
Good cheer. (To Xan.) Now, sirrah, pick you up the traps.
Xan. Before I’ve put them down? Dio. And quickly too.

444 ARISTOPHANES
Xan. No, prithee, no; but hire a body, one
They’re carrying out, on purpose for the trip.
Dio. If I can’t find one? Xan. Then I’ll take them. Dio. Good.
And see! they are carrying out a body now.
Hallo! you there, you deadman, are you willing
To carry down our little traps to Hades?
Corpse. What are they? Dio. These. Corp. T w o drachmas for
the job?
Dio. Nay, that’s too much. Corp. Out of the pathway, you!
Dio. Beshrew thee, stop: maybe we’ll strike a bargain.
Corp. Pay me two drachmas, or it’s no use talking.
Dio. One and a half. Corp. I’d liefer live again!
Xan. How absolute the knave is! He be hanged!
I’ll go myself. Dio. You’re the right sort, my man.
Now to the ferry. Charon. Yoh, up! lay her to.
Xan. Whatever’s that? Dio. Why, that’s the lake, by Zeus,
Whereof he spake, and yon’s the ferry-boat.
Xan. Poseidon, yes, and that old fellow’s Charon.
Dio. Charon! O welcome, Charon! welcome, Charon!
Char. Who’s for the Rest from every pain and ill?
Who’s for the Lethe’s plain? the Donkey-shearings?
Who’s for Cerberia? Tamarum? or the Ravens?
Dio. I. Char. Hurry in. Dio. But where are you going really?
In truth to the Ravens? Char. Aye, for your behoof.
Step in. Dio. (To Xan.) Now, lad. Char. A slave? I take no slave,
Unless he has fought for his body-rights at sea.
Xan. I couldn’t go. I’d got the eye-disease.
Char. Then fetch a circuit round about the lake.
Xan. Where must I wait ? Char. Beside the Withering stone,
Hard by the Rest. Dio. You understand? Xan. Too well.
O, what ill omen crossed me as I started!
Char. (To Dio.) Sit to the oar. (Calling.) Who else for the boat?
Be quick.
(To Dio.) Hi! what are you doing? Dio. What am I doing? Sitting
On to the oar. You told me to, yourself.
Char. N o w sit you there, you little Potgut. Dio. So?
Char. N o w stretch your arms full length before you. Dio. So?

THE FROGS 445
Char. Come, don’t keep fooling; plant your feet, and now
Pull with a will. Dio. Why, how am / to pull ?
I’m not an oarsman, seaman, Salaminian.
I can’tl Char. You can. Just dip your oar in once,
You’ll hear the loveliest timing songs. Dio. What from ?
Char. Frog-swans, most wonderful. Dio. Then give the word.
Char. Heave ahoyl heave ahoy!
Frogs. Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax!
Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax!
We children of the fountain and the lake,
Let us wake
Our full choir-shout, as the flutes are ringing out,
Our symphony of clear-voiced song.
The song we used to love, in the Marshland up above,
In praise of Dionysus to produce,
Of Nysaran Dionysus, son of Zeus,
When the revel-tipsy throng, all crapulous and gay,
To our precinct reeled along on the holy
Pitcher day.
Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.
Dio. O, dear! O, dear! now I declare
I’ve got a bump upon my rump.
Fr. Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.
Dio. But you, perchance, don’t care.
Fr. Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.
Dio. Hang you, and your ko-axing too!
There’s nothing but ko-ax with you.
Fr. That is right, Mr. Busybody, right!
For the Muses of the lyre love us well;
And hornfoot Pan who plays on the pipe his jocund lays;
And Apollo, Harper bright, in our Chorus takes delight;
For the strong reed’s sake which I grow within my lake
To be girdled in his lyre’s deep shell.
Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.
Dio. My hands are blistered very sore;
My stern below is sweltering so,
‘Twill soon, I know, upturn and roar

446 ARISTOPHANES
Brekekekex, ko-ax, koax.
0 tuneful race, O, pray give o’er,
O, sing no more. Fr. Ah, no! ah, no!
Loud and louder our chant must flow.
Sing if ever ye sang of yore,
When in sunny and glorious days
Through the rushes and marsh-flags springing
On we swept, in the joy of singing
Myriad-diving roundelays.
Or when fleeing the storm, we went
Down to the depths, and our choral song
Wildly raised to a loud and long
Bubble-bursting accompaniment.
Fr. and Dio. Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.
Dio. This timing song 1 take from you.
Fr. That’s a dreadful thing to do.
Dio. Much more dreadful, if I row
Till I burst myself, I trow.
Fr. and Dio. Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.
Dio. Go, hang yourselves; for what care I?
Fr. All the same we’ll shout and cry,
Stretching all our throats with song,
Shouting, crying, all day long,
Fr. and Dio. Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.
Dio. In this you’ll never, never win.
Fr. This you shall not beat us in.
Dio. No, nor ye prevail o’er me.
Never! never! I’ll my song
Shout, if need be, all day long,
Until I’ve learned to master your ko-ax.
Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.
1 thought I’d put a stop to your ko-ax.
Char. Stop! Easy! Take the oar and push her to.
Now pay your fare and go. Dio. Here ’tis: two obols.
Xanthias! where’s Xanthias? Is it Xanthias there?
Xan. Hoi, hoi! Dio. Come hither. Xan. Glad to meet you,
master.

THE FROGS 447
Dio. What have you there? Xan. Nothing but filth and darkness.
Dio. But tell me, did you see the parricides
And perjured folk he mentioned? Xan. Didn’t you?
Dio. Poseidon, yes. Why, look! (Pointing to the audience.) I see
them now.
What’s the next step? Xan. We’d best be moving on.
This is the spot where Heracles declared
Those savage monsters dwell. Dio. O, hang the fellow!
That’s all his bluff: he thought to scare me off,
The jealous dog, knowing my plucky ways.
There’s no such swaggerer lives as Heracles.
Why, I’d like nothing better than to achieve
Some bold adventure, worthy of our trip.
Xan. I know you would. Hallo! I hear a noise.
Dio. Where? what? Xan. Behind us, there. Dio. Get you behind.
Xan. No, it’s in front. Dio. Get you in front directly.
Xan. And now I see the most ferocious monster.
Dio. O, what’s it like? Xan. Like everything by turns.
Now it’s a bull: now it’s a mule: and now
The loveliest girl. Dio. O, where? I’ll go and meet her.
Xan. It’s ceased to be a girl: it’s a dog now.
Dio. It is Empusa! Xan. Well, its face is all
Ablaze with fire. Dio. Has it a copper leg ?
Xan. A copper leg? yes, one; and one of cow dung.
Dio. O, whither shall I flee ? Xan. O, whither I ?
Dio. My priest, protect me, and we’ll sup together.
Xan. King Heracles, we’re done for. Dio. O, forbear,
Good fellow, call me anything but that.
Xan. Well, then, Dionysus. Dio. O, that’s worse again.
Xan. (To the Spectre.) Aye, go thy way. O master, here, come
here.
Dio. O, what’s up now? Xan. Take courage; all’s serene.
And, like Hegelochus, we now may say,
“Out of the storm there comes a new fine wether.”
Empusa’s gone. Dio. Swear it. Xan. By Zeus she is.

448 ARISTOPHANES
Dio. Swear it again. Xan. By Zeus. Dio. Again. Xan. By Zeus.
O, dear, O, dear, how pale I grew to see her,
But he from fright has yellowed me all over.
Dio. Ah me, whence fall these evils on my head ?
Who is the god to blame for my destruction ?
Air, Zeus’s chamber, or the Foot of Time?
(A flute is played behind the scenes.)
Dio. Hist! Xan. What’s the matter? Dio. Didn’t you hear it?
Xan. What?
Dio. The breath of flutes. Xan. Aye, and a whiff of torches
Breathed o’er me too; a very mystic whiff.
Dio. Then crouch we down, and mark what’s going on.
Chorus. (In the distance.) O Iacchus!
O Iacchus! O Iacchus!
Xan. I have it, master: ’tis those blessed Mystics,
Of whom he told us, sporting hereabouts.
They sing the Iacchus which Diagoras made.
Dio. I think so too: we had better both keep quiet
And so find out exacdy what it is.
(The calling forth of Iacchus.)
Chor. O Iacchus! power excelling, here in stately temples
dwelling,
O Iacchus! O Iacchus!
Come to tread this verdant level,
Come to dance in mystic revel,
Come whilst round thy forehead hurtles
Many a wreath of fruitful myrtles,
Come with wild and saucy paces
Mingling in our joyous dance,
Pure and holy, which embraces all the charms of all the Graces,
When the mystic choirs advance.
Xan. Holy and sacred queen, Demeter’s daughter,
O, what a jolly whiff of pork breathed o’er me!
Dio. Hist! and perchance you’ll get some tripe yourself.

THE FROGS 449
(The welcome to lacchus.)
Chor. Come, arise, from sleep awaking, come the fiery torches
shaking,
O lacchus! O lacchus!
Morning Star that shinest nightly.
Lo, the mead is blazing brightly,
Age forgets its years and sadness,
Aged knees curvet for gladness,
Lift thy flashing torches o’er us,
Marshal all thy blameless train,
Lead, O, lead the way before us; lead the lovely youthful Chorus
To the marshy flowery plain.
(The warning-off of the profane.)
All evil thoughts and profane be still: far hence, far hence from our
choirs depart,
Who knows not well what the Mystics tell, or is not holy and pure
of heart;
Who ne’er has the noble revelry learned, or danced the dance of the
Muses high;
Or shared in the Bacchic rites which old bull-eating Cratinus’s words
supply;
Who vulgar coarse buffoonery loves, though all untimely the jests
they make;
Or lives not easy and kind with all, or kindling faction forbears to
slake,
But fans the fire, from a base desire some pitiful gain for himself
to reap;
Or takes, in office, his gifts and bribes, while the city is tossed on the
stormy deep;
Who fort or fleet to the foe betrays; or, a vile Thorycion, ships away
Forbidden stores from Egina’s shores, to Epidaurus across the Bay
Transmitting oar-pads and sails and tar, that curst collector of five
per cents;
The knave who tries to procure supplies for the use of the enemy’s
armaments;

A Une Mendiante Rousse

A UNE MENDIANTE ROUSSE

Blanche fille aux cheveux roux,
Dont ta robe par ses trous
Laisse voir la pauvreté
    Et la beauté,

Pour moi, poète chétif,
Ton jeune corps maladif
Plein de taches de rousseur
    A sa douceur.

Tu portes plus galamment
Qu’une reine de roman
Ses cothurnes de velours
    Tes sabots lourds.

Au lieu d’un haillon trop court,
Qu’un superbe habit de cour
Traîne à plis bruyants et longs
    Sur tes talons;

Et place de bas troués,
Que pour les yeux des roués
Sur ta jambe un poignard d’or
    Reluise encor;

Que des noeuds mal attachés
Dévoilent pour nos péchés
Tes deux beaux seins, radieux
    Comme des yeux;

Que pour te déshabiller
Tes bras se fassent prier
Et chassent à coups mutins
    Les doigts lutins;

–Perles de la plus belle eau,
Sonnets de maître Belleau
Par tes galants mis aux fers
    Sans cesse offerts,

Valetaille de rimeurs
Te dédiant leurs primeurs
Et contemplant ton soulier
    Sous l’escalier,

Maint page épris du hasard,
Maint seigneur et maint Ronsard
Epieraient pour le déduit
    Ton frais réduit!

Tu compterais dans tes lits
Plus de baisers que de lys
Et rangerais sous tes lois
    Plus d’un Valois!

–Cependant tu vas gueusant
Quelque vieux débris gisant
Au seuil de quelque Véfour
    De carrefour;

Tu vas lorgnant en dessous
Des bijoux de vingt-neuf sous
Dont je ne puis, oh! pardon!
    Te faire don;

Va donc, sans autre ornement,
Parfum, perles, diamant,
Que ta maigre nudité,
    O ma beauté!

- Charles Baudelaire

17. Franklin’s Family Tree

FRANKLIN’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY Vol. 1 , pp. 5-15

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY
1706-1757
TWYFORD, at the Bishop of St. Asaph’s,1 1771.
 
DEAR SON: I have ever had pleasure in obtaining any little
anecdotes of my ancestors. You may remember the inquiries
I made among the remains of my relations when
you were with me in England, and the journey I undertook for
that purpose. Imagining it may be equally agreeable to2 you to
know the circumstances of my life, many of which you are yet
unacquainted with, and expecting the enjoyment of a week’s uninterrupted
leisure in my present country retirement, I sit down to
write them for you. To which I have besides some other inducements.
Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which
I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of
reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with
a considerable share of felicity, the conducing means I made use
of, which with the blessing of God so well succeeded, my posterity
may like to know, as they may find some of them suitable to their
own situations, and therefore fit to be imitated.
That felicity, when I reflected on it, has induced me sometimes
to say, that were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection
to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the
advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults
of the first. So I might, besides correcting the faults, change some
sinister accidents and events of it for others more favorable. But
though this were denied, I should still accept the offer. Since such
a repetition is not to be expected, the next thing most like living
1 The country-scat of Bishop Shipley, the good bishop, as Dr. Franklin used to
style him.—B.
1 After the words “agreeable to” the words “some o f were interlined and afterward
effaced.—B.
5
6 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
one’s life over again seems to be a recollection of that life, and to
make that recollection as durable as possible by putting it down in
writing.
Hereby, too, I shall indulge the inclination so natural in old men,
to be talking of themselves and their own past actions; and I shall
indulge it without being tiresome to others, who, through respect
to age, might conceive themselves obliged to give me a hearing,
since this may be read or not as any one pleases. And, lastly (I may
as well confess it, since my denial of it will be believed by nobody),
perhaps I shall a good deal gratify my own vanity. Indeed, I scarce
ever heard or saw the introductory words, “Without vanity I may
say,” &c, but some vain thing immediately followed. Most people
dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves;
but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded
that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others
that are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases,
it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for
his vanity among the other comforts of life.
And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to
acknowledge that I owe the mentioned happiness of my past life
to His kind providence, which lead me to the means I used and
gave them success. My belief of this induces me to hope, though
I must not presume, that the same goodness will still be exercised
toward me, in continuing that happiness, or enabling me to bear a
fatal reverse, which I may experience as others have done: the complexion
of my future fortune being known to Him only in whose
power it is to bless to us even our afflictions.
The notes one of my uncles (who had the same kind of curiosity
in collecting family anecdotes) once put into my hands, furnished
me with several particulars relating to our ancestors. From these
notes I learned that the family had lived in the same village, Ecton,
in Northamptonshire, for three hundred years, and how much
longer he knew not (perhaps from the time when the name of
Franklin, that before was the name of an order of people, was
assumed by them as a surname when others took surnames all over
the kingdom), on a freehold of about thirty acres, aided by the
smith’s business, which had continued in the family till his time,

HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 7
the eldest son being always bred to that business; a custom which
he and my father followed as to their eldest sons. When I searched
the registers at Ecton, I found an account of their births, marriages
and burials from the year 1555 only, there being no registers kept
in that parish at any time preceding. By that register I perceived
that I was the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations
back. My grandfather Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived at
Ecton till he grew too old to follow business longer, when he went
to live with his son John, a dyer at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, with
whom my father served an apprenticeship. There my grandfather
died and lies buried. We saw his gravestone in 1758. His eldest son
Thomas lived in the house at Ecton, and left it with the land to
his only child, a daughter, who, with her husband, one Fisher, of
Wellingborough, sold it to Mr. Isted, now lord of the manor there.
My grandfather had four sons that grew up, viz.: Thomas, John,
Benjamin and Josiah. I will give you what account I can of them,
at this distance from my papers, and if these are not lost in my
absence, you will among them find many more particulars.
Thomas was bred a smith under his father; but, being ingenious,
and encouraged in learning (as all my brothers were) by an Esquire
Palmer, then the principal gentleman in that parish, he qualified
himself for the business of scrivener; became a considerable man
in the county; was a chief mover of all public-spirited undertakings
for the county or town of Northampton, and his own village, of
which many instances were related of him; and much taken notice
of and patronized by the then Lord Halifax. He died in 1702,
January 6, old style, just four years to a day before I was born.
The account we received of his life and character from some old
people at Ecton, I remember, struck you as something extraordinary,
from its similarity to what you knew of mine. “Had he died on the
same day,” you said, “one might have supposed a transmigration.”
John was bred a dyer, I believe of woolens. Benjamin was bred
a silk dyer, serving an apprenticeship at London. He was an ingenious
man. I remember him well, for when I was a boy he came
over to my father in Boston, and lived in the house with us some
years. He lived to a great age. His grandson, Samuel Franklin,
now lives in Boston. He left behind him two quarto volumes, MS.,

8 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
of his own poetry, consisting of little occasional pieces addressed to
his friends and relations, of which the following, sent to me, is a
specimen.3 He had formed a short-hand of his own, which he
taught me, but, never practising it, I have now forgot it. I was
named after this uncle, there being a particular affection between
him and my father. He was very pious, a great attender of sermons
of the best preachers, which he took down in his short-hand, and
had with him many volumes of them. He was also much of a
politician; too much, perhaps, for his station. There fell lately into
my hands, in London, a collection he had made of all the principal
pamphlets, relating to public affairs, from 1641 to 1717; many of
the volumes are wanting as appears by the numbering, but there
still remain eight volumes in folio, and twenty-four in quarto and
in octavo. A dealer in old books met with them, and knowing me
by my sometimes buying of him, he brought them to me. It seems
my uncle must have left them here, when he went to America,
which was about fifty years since. There are many of his notes in
the margins.
This obscure family of ours was early in the Reformation, and
continued Protestants through the reign of Queen Mary, when
they were sometimes in danger of trouble on account of their zeal
against popery. They had got an English Bible, and to conceal
and secure it, it was fastened open with tapes under and within
the cover of a joint-stool. When my great-great-grandfather read
it to his family, he turned up the joint-stool upon his knees, turning
over the leaves then under the tapes. One of the children stood at
the door to give notice if he saw the apparitor coming, who was
an officer of the spiritual court. In that case the stool was turned
down again upon its feet, when the Bible remained concealed under
it as before. This anecdote I had from my uncle Benjamin. The
family continued all of the Church of England till about the end
of Charles the Second’s reign, when some of the ministers that had
been outed for non-conformity holding conventicles in Northamptonshire,
Benjamin and Josiah adhered to them, and so continued
* Here follow in the margin the words, in brackets, “here insert it,” but the poetry
is not given. Mr. Sparks informs us (Life of Franklin, p. 6) that these volumes had
been preserved, and were in possession of Mrs. Emmons, of Boston, great-granddaughter
of their author.

HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 9
all their lives: the rest of the family remained with the Episcopal
Church.
Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with three
children into New England, about 1682. The conventicles having
been forbidden by law, and frequently disturbed, induced some
considerable men of his acquaintance to remove to that country,
and he was prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they
expected to enjoy their mode of religion with freedom. By the
same wife he had four children more born there, and by a second
wife ten more, in all seventeen; of which I remember thirteen sitting
at one time at his table, who all grew up to be men and women,
and married; I was the youngest son, and the youngest child but
two, and was born in Boston, New England. My mother, the
second wife, was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter Folger, one of
the first settlers of New England, of whom honorable mention is
made by Cotton Mather, in his church history of that country, entitled
Magnalia Christi Americana, as “a godly, learned Englishman,”
if I remember the words rightly. I have heard that he wrote
sundry small occasional pieces, but only one of them was printed,
which I saw now many years since. It was written in 1675, in the
home-spun verse of that time and people, and addressed to those
then concerned in the government there. It was in favor of liberty
of conscience, and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and other
sectaries that had been under persecution, ascribing the Indian wars,
and other distresses that had befallen the country, to that persecution,
as so many judgments of God to punish so heinous an offense,
and exhorting a repeal of those uncharitable laws. The whole appeared
to me as written with a good deal of decent plainness and
manly freedom. The six concluding lines I remember, though I
have forgotten the two first of the stanza; but the purport of them
was, that his censures proceeded irom good-will, and, therefore, he
would be known to be the author.

“Because to be a libeller (says he)
I hate it with my heart;
From Sherburne town, where now I dwell
My name I do put here;
Without offense your real friend,
It is Peter Folgier.”

10 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades.
I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father
intending to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of
the Church. My early readiness in learning to read (which must
have been very early, as I do not remember when I could not read),
and the opinion of all his friends, that I should certainly make a
good scholar, encouraged him in this purpose of his. My uncle
Benjamin, too, approved of it, and proposed to give me all his shorthand
volumes of sermons, I suppose as a stock to set up with, if I
would learn his character. I continued, however, at the grammarschool
not quite one year, though in that time I had risen gradually
from the middle of the class of that year to be the head of it, and
farther was removed into the next class above it, in order to go with
that into the third at the end of the year. But my father, in the
meantime, from a view of the expense of a college education, which
having so large a family he could not well afford, and the mean
living many so educated were afterwards able to obtain—reasons
that he gave to his friends in my hearing—altered his first intention,
took me from the grammar-school, and sent me to a school for
writing and arithmetic, kept by a then famous man, Mr. George
Brownell, very successful in his profession generally, and that by
mild, encouraging methods. Under him I acquired fair writing
pretty soon, but I failed in the arithmetic, and made no progress in
it. At ten years old I was taken home to assist my father in his
business, which was that of a tallow-chandler and sope-boiler; a
business he was not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in New
England, and on finding his dying trade would not maintain his
family, being in little request. Accordingly, I was employed in
cutting wick for the candles, filling the dipping mold and the molds
for cast candles, attending the shop, going of errands, etc.
I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination for the sea, but
my father declared against it; however, living near the water, I
was much in and about it, learnt early to swim well, and to manage
boats; and when in a boat or canoe with other boys, I was commonly
allowed to govern, especially in any case of difficulty; and
upon other occasions I was generally a leader among the boys, and
sometimes led them into scrapes, of which I will mention one

HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY I I
instance, as it shows an early projecting public spirit, tho’ not then
justly conducted.
There was a salt-marsh that bounded part of the mill-pond, on
the edge of which, at high water, we used to stand to fish for minnows.
By much trampling, we had made it a mere quagmire. My
proposal was to build a wharff there fit for us to stand upon, and I
showed my comrades a large heap of stones, which were intended
for a new house near the marsh, and which would very well suit
our purpose. Accordingly, in the evening, when the workmen were
gone, I assembled a number of my play-fellows, and working with
them diligently like so many emmets, sometimes two or three to
a stone, we brought them all away and built our little wharff. The
next morning the workmen were surprised at missing the stones,
which were found in our wharff. Inquiry was made after the
removers; we were discovered and complained of; several of us
were corrected by our fathers; and though I pleaded the usefulness
of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful which
was not honest.
I think you may like to know something of his person and character.
He had an excellent constitution of body, was of middle
stature, but well set, and very strong; he was ingenious, could draw
prettily, was skilled a little in music, and had a clear pleasing voice,
so that when he played psalm tunes on his violin and sung withal,
as he sometimes did in an evening after the business of the day
was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had a mechanical
genius too, and, on occasion, was very handy in the use of other
tradesmen’s tools; but his great excellence lay in a sound understanding
and solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private
and publick affairs. In the latter, indeed, he was never employed,
the numerous family he had to educate and the straitness of his
circumstances keeping him close to his trade; but I remember well
his being frequently visited by leading people, who consulted him
for his opinion in affairs of the town or of the church he belonged
to, and showed a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice:
he was also much consulted by private persons about their affairs
when any difficulty occurred, and frequendy chosen an arbitrator
between contending parties.

12 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
At his table he liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible
friend or neighbor to converse with, and always took care to start
some ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend to
improve the minds of his children. By this means he turned our
attention to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of
life; and little or no notice was ever taken of what related to the
victuals on the table, whether it was well or ill dressed, in or out
of season, of good or bad flavor, preferable or inferior to this or
that other thing of the kind, so that I was bro’t up in such a perfect
inattention to those matters as to be quite indifferent what kind of
food was set before me, and so unobservant of it, that to this day
if I am asked I can scarce tell a few hours after dinner what I dined
upon. This has been a convenience to me in travelling, where my
companions have been sometimes very unhappy for want of a suitable
gratification of their more delicate, because better instructed,
tastes and appetites.
My mother had likewise an excellent constitution: she suckled
all her ten children. I never knew either my father or mother to
have any sickness but that of which they dy’d, he at 89, and she at
85 years of age. They lie buried together at Boston, where I some
years since placed a marble over their grave, with this inscription:

JOSIAH FRANKLIN,
and
ABIAH his wife,
lie here interred.
They lived lovingly together in wedlock
fifty-five years.
Without an estate, or any gainful employment,
By constant labor and industry,
with God’s blessing,
They maintained a large family
comfortably,
and brought up thirteen children
and seven grandchildren
reputably.
From this instance, reader,
Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling,
And distrust not Providence.
He was a pious and prudent man;
She, a discreet and virtuous woman.

HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 13
Their youngest son,
In filial regard to their memory,
Places this stone.
J. F. born 1655, died 1744, &UX 89.
A. F. born 1667, died 1752, 85.

By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to be grown old.
I us’d to write more methodically. But one does not dress for private
company as for a publick ball. ‘Tis perhaps only negligence.
To return: I continued thus employed in my father’s business
for two years, that is, till I was twelve years old; and my brother
John, who was bred to that business, having left my father, married,
and set up for himself at Rhode Island, there was all appearance
that I was destined to supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler.
But my dislike to the trade continuing, my father was under apprehensions
that if he did not find one for me more agreeable, I should
break away and get to sea, as his son Josiah had done, to his great
vexation. He therefore sometimes took me to walk with him, and
see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., at their work, that he
might observe my inclination, and endeavor to fix it on some trade
or other on land. It has ever since been a pleasure to me to see good
workmen handle their tools; and it has been useful to me, having
learnt so much by it as to be able to do little jobs myself in my house
when a workman could not readily be got, and to construct little
machines for my experiments, while the intention of making the
experiment was fresh and warm in my mind. My father at last
fixed upon the cutler’s trade, and my uncle Benjamin’s son Samuel,
who was bred to that business in London, being about that time
established in Boston, I was sent to be with him some time on
liking. But his expectations of a fee with me displeasing my father,
I was taken home again.
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that
came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the
Pilgrim’s Progress, my first collection was of John Bunyan’s works
in separate little volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to
buy R. Burton’s Historical Collections; they were small chapmen’s
books, and cheap, 40 or 50 in all. My father’s little library consisted
chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have

14 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
since often regretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst for
knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way, since it
was now resolved I should not be a clergyman. Plutarch’s Lives
there was in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time
spent to great advantage. There was also a book of De Foe’s, called
an Essay on Projects, and another of Dr. Mather’s, called Essays
to do Good, which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had
an influence on some of the principal future events of my life.
This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make
me a printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession.
In 1717 my brother James returned from England with a
press and letters to set up his business in Boston. I liked it much
better than that of my father, but still had a hankering for the sea.
To prevent the apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father
was impatient to have me bound to my brother. I stood out some
time, but at last was persuaded, and signed the indentures when I
was yet but twelve years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I
was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed journeyman’s
wages during the last year. In a little time I made great proficiency
in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother. I now had
access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of
booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I
was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my room
reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed
in the evening and to be returned early in the morning, lest it
should be missed or wanted.
And after some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Matthew
Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and who frequented
our printing-house, took notice of me, invited me to his library,
and very kindly lent me such books as I chose to read. I now took
a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces; my brother, thinking
it might turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on composing
occasional ballads. One was called The Lighthouse Tragedy, and
contained an account of the drowning of Captain Worthilake, with
his two daughters: the other was a sailor’s song, on the taking of
Teach (or Blackboard) the pirate. They were wretched stuff, in
the Grub-street-ballad style; and when they were printed he sent

HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 15
me about the town to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the
event being recent, having made a great noise. This flattered my
vanity; but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my performances,
and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars. So I
escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one; but as prose
writing had been of great use to me in the course of my life, and
was a principal means of my advancement, I shall tell you how, in
such a situation, I acquired what little ability I have in that way.
There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name,
with whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes disputed,
and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting
one another, which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to
become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable
in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it
into practice; and thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation,
is productive of disgusts and, perhaps enmities where you may
have occasion for friendship. I had caught it by reading my father’s
books of dispute about religion. Persons of good sense, I have since
observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and
men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinborough.
A question was once, somehow or other, started between Collins
and me, of the propriety of educating the female sex in learning,
and their abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was improper,
and that they were naturally unequal to it. I took the contrary
side, perhaps a little for dispute’s sake. He was naturally more
eloquent, had a ready plenty of words; and sometimes, as I thought,
bore me down more by his fluency than by the strength of his reasons.
As we parted without settling the point, and were not to see
one another again for some time, I sat down to put my arguments
in writing, which I copied fair and sent to him. He answered, and
I replied. Three or four letters of a side had passed, when my father
happened to find my papers and read them. Without entering into
the discussion, he took occasion to talk to me about the manner of
my writing; observed that, though I had the advantage of my antagonist
in correct spelling and pointing (which I ow’d to the
printing-house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method
and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances.

16. The Old Woman and the Wine Jar

AESOP’S FABLES Vol. 17, pp. 43-44; also pp. 31-43

THE OLD WOMAN AND THE WINE-JAR
You must know that sometimes old women like a glass of wine.
One of this sort once found a Wine-jar lying in the road, and eagerly
went up to it hoping to find it full. But when she took it up she
found that all the wine had been drunk out of it. Still she took a
long sniff at the mouth of the Jar. “Ah,” she cried,
“WHAT MEMORIES CLING ROUND THE INSTRUMENTS OF OUR PLEASURE.”

THE TWO POTS
Two Pots had been left on the bank of a river, one of brass, and
one of earthenware. When the tide rose they both floated off down
the stream. Now the earthenware pot tried its best to keep aloof from
the brass one, which cried out: “Fear nothing, friend, I will not
strike you.”
“But I may come in contact with you,” said the other, “if I come
too close; and whether I hit you, or you hit me, I shall suffer for it.”
“THE STRONG AND THE WEAK CANNOT KEEP COMPANY.”

THE FOUR OXEN AND THE LION
A LION used to prowl about a field in which Four Oxen used to
dwell. Many a time he tried to attack them; but whenever he came
near they turned their tails to one another, so that whichever way he
approached them he was met by the horns of one of them. At last,
however, they fell a-quarrelling among themselves, and each went
off to pasture alone in a separate corner of the field. Then the Lion
attacked them one by one and soon made an end of all four.
“UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL.”

THE FISHER AND THE LITTLE FISH
IT happened that a Fisher, after fishing all day, caught only a little
fish. “Pray, let me go, master,” said the Fish. “I am much too small
for your eating just now. If you put me back into the river I shall
soon grow, then you can make a fine meal off me.”
“Nay, nay, my little Fish,” said the Fisher, “I have you now. I
may not catch you hereafter.”
“A LITTLE THING IN HAND IS WORTH MORE THAN A GREAT
THING IN PROSPECT.”

AVARICIOUS AND ENVIOUS
Two neighbours came before Jupiter and prayed him to grant
their hearts’ desire. Now the one was full of avarice, and the other
eaten up with envy. So to punish them both, Jupiter granted that
each might have whatever he wished for himself, but only on condition
that his neighbour had twice as much. The Avaricious man
prayed to have a room full of gold. No sooner said than done; but
all his joy was turned to grief when he found that his neighbour
had two rooms full of the precious metal. Then came the turn of the
Envious man, who could not bear to think that his neighbour had
any joy at all. So he prayed that he might have one of his own eyes
put out, by which means his companion would become totally blind.
“VICES ARE THEIR OWN PUNISHMENT.”

THE CROW AND THE PITCHER
A CROW, half-dead with thirst, came upon a Pitcher which had
once been full of water; but when the Crow put its beak into the
mouth of the Pitcher he found that only very little water was left in
it, and that he could not reach far enough down to get at it. He
tried, and he tried, but at last had to give up in despair. Then a
thought came to him, and he took a pebble and dropped it into the
Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped it into the
Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the
Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the
Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the
Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the
Pitcher. At last, at last, he saw the water mount up near him, and
after casting in a few more pebbles he was able to quench his thirst
and save his life.
“LITTLE BY LITTLE DOES THE TRICK.”

THE MAN AND THE SATYR
A MAN had lost his way in a wood one bitter winter’s night. As
he was roaming about, a Satyr came up to him, and finding that he
had lost his way, promised to give him a lodging for the night, and
guide him out of the forest in the morning. As he went along to the
Satyr’s cell, the Man raised both his hands to his mouth and kept on
blowing at them. “What do you do that for?” said the Satyr.
“My hands are numb with the cold,” said the Man, “and my
breath warms them.”
After this they arrived at the Satyr’s home, and soon the Satyr
put a smoking dish of porridge before him. But when the Man
raised his spoon to his mouth he began blowing upon it. “And what
do you do that for?” said the Satyr.
“The porridge is too hot, and my breath will cool it.”
“Out you go,” said the Satyr. “I will have nought to do with a
man who can blow hot and cold with the same breath.”

THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS
O N E day a countryman going to the nest of his Goose found there
an egg all yellow and glittering. When he took it up it was as heavy
as lead and he was going to throw it away, because he thought a trick
had been played upon him. But he took it home on second thoughts,
and soon found to his delight that it was an egg of pure gold. Every
morning the same thing occurred, and he soon became rich by selling
his eggs. As he grew rich he grew greedy; and thinking to get at
once all the gold the Goose could give, he killed it and opened it only
to find,—nothing.
“GREED OFT O’ERREACHES ITSELF.”

THE LABOURER AND THE NIGHTINGALE
A LABOURER lay listening to a Nightingale’s song throughout the
summer night. So pleased was he with it that the next night he set
a trap for it and captured it. “Now that I have caught thee,” he cried,
“thou shalt always sing to me.”
“We Nightingales never sing in a cage,” said the bird.
“Then I’ll eat thee,” said the Labourer. “I have always heard say
that nightingale on toast is a dainty morsel.”
“Nay, kill me not,” said the Nightingale; “but let me free, and
I’ll tell thee three things far better worth than my poor body.” The
Labourer let him loose, and he flew up to a branch of a tree and
said: “Never believe a captive’s promise; that’s one thing. Then
again: Keep what you have. And third piece of advice is: Sorrow
not over what is lost forever.” Then the song-bird flew away.

THE FOX, THE COCK, AND THE DOG
O N E moonlight night a Fox was prowling about a farmer’s hencoop,
and saw a Cock roosting high up beyond his reach. “Good
news, good news!” he cried.
“Why, what is that?” said the Cock.
“King Lion has declared a universal truce. No beast may hurt
a bird henceforth, but all shall dwell together in brotherly friendship.”
“Why, that is good news,” said the Cock; “and there I see some
one coming, with whom we can share the good tidings.” And so
saying he craned his neck forward and looked afar off.
“What is it you see?” said the Fox.
“It is only my master’s Dog that is coming towards us. What,
going so soon?” he continued, as the Fox began to turn away as soon
as he had heard the news. “Will you not stop and congratulate the
Dog on the reign of universal peace?”
“I would gladly do so,” said the Fox, “but I fear he may not have
heard of King Lion’s decree.”
“CUNNING OFTEN OUTWITS ITSELF.”

THE WIND AND THE SUN
T H E Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger.
Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun
said: “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause
that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger.
You begin.” So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began
to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew
the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at
last the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out
and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too
hot to walk with his cloak on.
“KINDNESS EFFECTS MORE THAN SEVERITY.”

HERCULES AND THE WAGGONER
A WAGGONER was once driving a heavy load along a very muddy
way. At last he came to a part of the road where the wheels sank
half-way into the mire, and the more the horses pulled, the deeper
sank the wheels. So the Waggoner threw down his whip, and knelt
down and prayed to Hercules the Strong. “O Hercules, help me
in this my hour of distress,” quoth he. But Hercules appeared to
him, and said:
“Tut, man, don’t sprawl there. Get up and put your shoulder
to the wheel.”
“THE CODS HELP THEM THAT HELP THEMSELVES.”

THE MAN, T H E BOY, A N D THE DONKEY
A M A N and his son were once going with their Donkey to market.
As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them
and said: “You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?”
So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their
way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: “See
that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides.”
So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But
they hadn’t gone far when they passed two women, one of whom
said to the other: “Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son
trudge along.”
Well, the Man didn’t know what to do, but at last he took his
Boy up before him on the Donkey. By this time they had come to
the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The
Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said:
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor Donkey
of yours—you and your hulking son?”
The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do. They
thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the
Donkey’s feet to it, and raised the pole and the Donkey to their
shoulders. They went along amid the laughter of all who met them
till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one
of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of
the pole. In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his
fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.
“That will teach you,” said an old man who had followed
them:
“PLEASE ALL, AND YOU WILL PLEASE NONE.”

THE MISER AND HIS GOLD
ONCE upon a time there was a Miser who used to hide his gold at
the foot of a tree in his garden; but every week he used to go and dig
it up and gloat over his gains. A robber, who had noticed this, went
and dug up the gold and decamped with it. When the Miser next
came to gloat over his treasures, he found nothing but the empty
hole. He tore his hair, and raised such an outcry that all the neighbours
came around him, and he told them how he used to come and
visit his gold. “Did you ever take any of it out?” asked one of them.
“Nay,” said he, “I only came to look at it.”
“Then come again and look at the hole,” said a neighbour; “it will
do you just as much good.”
“WEALTH UNUSED MIGHT AS WELL NOT EXIST.”

THE FOX AND THE MOSQUITOES
A Fox after crossing a river got its tail entangled in a bush, and
could not move. A number of Mosquitoes seeing its plight settled
upon it and enjoyed a good meal undisturbed by its tail. A hedgehog
strolling by took pity upon the Fox and went up to him: “You
are in a bad way, neighbour,” said the hedgehog; “shall I relieve you
by driving off those Mosquitoes who are sucking your blood?”
“Thank you, Master Hedgehog,” said the Fox, “but I would
rather not.”
“Why, how is that?” asked the hedgehog.
“Well, you see,” was the answer, “these Mosquitoes have had their
fill; if you drive these away, others will come with fresh appetite
and bleed me to death.”

THE FOX WITHOUT A TAIL
IT happened that a Fox caught its tail in a trap, and in struggling
to release himself lost all of it but the stump. At first he was ashamed
to show himself among his fellow foxes. But at last he determined
to put a bolder face upon his misfortune, and summoned all the foxes
to a general meeting to consider a proposal which he had to place
before them. When they had assembled together the Fox proposed
that they should all do away with their tails. He pointed out how
inconvenient a tail was when they were pursued by their enemies, the
dogs; how much it was in the way when they desired to sit down
and hold a friendly conversation with one another. He failed to see
any advantage in carrying about such a useless encumbrance. “That
is all very well,” said one of the older foxes; “but I do not think you
would have recommended us to dispense with our chief ornament
if you had not happened to lose it yourself.”
“DISTRUST INTERESTED ADVICE.”

THE ONE-EYED DOE
A DOE had had the misfortune to lose one of her eyes, and could
not see any one approaching her on that side. So to avoid any danger
she always used to feed on a high cliff near the sea, with her sound
eye looking towards the land. By this means she could see whenever
the hunters approached her on land, and often escaped by this
means. But the hunters found out that she was blind of one eye, and
hiring a boat rowed under the cliff where she used to feed and shot
her from the sea. “Ah,” cried she with her dying voice,
“YOU CANNOT ESCAPE YOUR FATE.”

BELLING THE CAT
LONG ago, the mice had a general council to consider what measures
they could take to outwit their common enemy, the Cat. Some
said this, and some said that; but at last a young mouse got up and
said he had a proposal to make, which he thought would meet the
case. “You will all agree,” said he, “that our chief danger consists
in the sly and treacherous manner in which the enemy approaches
us. Now, if we could receive some signal of her approach, we could
easily escape from her. I venture, therefore, to propose that a small
bell be procured, and attached by a ribbon round the neck of the
Cat. By this means we should always know when she was about, and
could easily retire while she was in the neighbourhood.”
This proposal met with general applause, until an old mouse got
up and said: “That is all very well, but who is to bell the Cat?” The
mice looked at one another and nobody spoke. Then the old mouse
said:
“IT IS EASY TO PROPOSE IMPOSSIBLE REMEDIES.”

THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE
T H E Hare was once boasting of his speed before the other animals.
“I have never yet been beaten,” said he, “when I put forth my full
speed. I challenge any one here to race with me.”
The Tortoise said quietly, “I accept your challenge.”
“That is a good joke,” said the Hare; “I could dance round you all
the way.”
“Keep your boasting till you’ve beaten,” answered the Tortoise.
“Shall we race?”
So a course was fixed and a start was made. The Hare darted
almost out of sight at once, but soon stopped and, to show his contempt
for the Tortoise, lay down to have a nap. The Tortoise
plodded on and plodded on, and when the Hare awoke from his
nap, he saw the Tortoise just near the winning-post and could not
run up in time to save the race. Then said the Tortoise:
“PLODDING WINS THE RACE.”

THE OLD MAN AND DEATH
A N old labourer, bent double with age and toil, was gathering
sticks in a forest. At last he grew so tired and hopeless that he threw
down the bundle of sticks, and cried out: “I cannot bear this life any
longer. Ah, I wish Death would only come and take me!”
As he spoke, Death, a grisly skeleton, appeared and said to him:
“What wouldst thou, Mortal ? I heard thee call me.”
“Please, sir,” replied the woodcutter, “would you kindly help me
to lift this faggot of sticks on to my shoulder?”
“WE WOULD OFTEN BE SORRY IF OUR WISHES WERE GRATIFIED.”

THE HARE WITH MANY FRIENDS
A HARE was very popular with the other beasts who all claimed
to be her friends. But one day she heard the hounds approaching
and hoped to escape them by the aid of her many Friends. So she
went to the horse, and asked him to carry her away from the hounds
on his back. But he declined, stating that he had important work
to do for his master. “He felt sure,” he said, “that all her other
friends would come to her assistance.” She then applied to the bull,
and hoped that he would repel the hounds with his horns. The bull
replied: “I am very sorry, but I have an appointment with a lady;
but I feel sure that our friend the goat will do what you want.”
The goat, however, feared that his back might do her some harm if
he took her upon it. The ram, he felt sure, was the proper friend to
apply to. So she went to the ram and told him the case. The ram replied:
“Another time, my dear friend. I do not like to interfere on
the present occasion, as hounds have been known to eat sheep as well
as hares.” The Hare then applied, as a last hope, to the calf, who
regretted that he was unable to help her, as he did not like to take
the responsibility upon himself, as so many older persons than himself
had declined the task. By this time the hounds were quite near,
and the Hare took to her heels and luckily escaped.
“HE THAT HAS MANY FRIENDS, HAS NO FRIENDS.”

THE LION IN LOVE
A LION once fell in love with a beautiful maiden and proposed
marriage to her parents. The old people did not know what to say.
They did not like to give their daughter to the Lion, yet they did
not wish to enrage the King of Beasts. At last the father said: “We
feel highly honoured by your Majesty’s proposal, but you see our
daughter is a tender young thing, and we fear that in the vehemence
of your affection you might possibly do her some injury. Might I
venture to suggest that your Majesty should have your claws removed,
and your teeth extracted, then we would gladly consider your
proposal again.” The Lion was so much in love that he had his claws
trimmed and his big teeth taken out. But when he came again to the
parents of the young girl they simply laughed in his face, and bade
him do his worst.
“LOVE CAN TAME THE WILDEST.”

THE BUNDLE OF STICKS
A N old man on the point of death summoned his sons around him
to give them some parting advice. He ordered his servants to bring
in a faggot of sticks, and said to his eldest son: “Break it.” The son
strained and strained, but with all his efforts was unable to break the
Bundle. The other sons also tried, but none of them was successful.
“Untie the faggots,” said the father, “and each of you take a stick.”
When they had done so, he called out to them: “Now, break,” and
each stick was easily broken. “You see my meaning,” said their
father.
“UNION GIVES STRENGTH.”

THE LION, THE FOX, AND THE BEASTS
T H E Lion once gave out that he was sick unto death and summoned
the animals to come and hear his last Will and Testament.
So the Goat came to the Lion’s cave, and stopped there listening for
a long time. Then a Sheep went in, and before she came out a Calf
came up to receive the last wishes of the Lord of the Beasts. But
soon the Lion seemed to recover, and came to the mouth of his cave,
and saw the Fox, who had been waiting outside for some time.
“Why do you not come to pay your respects to me?” said the Lion
to the Fox.
“I beg your Majesty’s pardon,” said the Fox, “but I noticed the
track of the animals that have already come to you; and while I
see many hoof-marks going in, I see none coming out. Till the animals
that have entered your cave come out again I prefer to remain
in the open air.”
“IT IS EASIER TO CET INTO THE ENEMY’S TOILS THAN OUT AGAIN.”

THE ASS’S BRAINS
T H E Lion and the Fox went hunting together. The Lion, on the
advice of the Fox, sent a message to the Ass, proposing to make an
alliance between their two families. The Ass came to the place of
meeting, overjoyed at the prospect of a royal alliance. But when he
came there the Lion simply pounced on the Ass, and said to the Fox:
“Here is our dinner for to-day. Watch you here while I go and have
a nap. Woe betide you if you touch my prey.” The Lion went away
and the Fox waited; but finding that his master did not return, ventured
to take out the brains of the Ass and ate them up. When the
Lion came back he soon noticed the absence of the brains, and asked
the Fox in a terrible voice: “What have you done with the brains?”
“Brains, your Majesty! it had none, or it would never have fallen
into your trap.”
“WIT HAS ALWAYS AN ANSWER READY.”

THE EAGLE AND THE ARROW
A N Eagle was soaring through the air when suddenly it heard the
whizz of an Arrow, and felt itself wounded to death. Slowly it fluttered
down to the earth, with its life-blood pouring out of it. Looking
down upon the Arrow with which it had been pierced, it found
that the haft of the Arrow had been feathered with one of its own
plumes. “Alas!” it cried, as it died,
“WE OFTEN GIVE OUR ENEMIES THE MEANS FOR OUR OWN DESTRUCTION.”

THE MILKMAID AND HER PAIL
PATTY the Milkmaid was going to market carrying her milk in a
Pail on her head. As she went along she began calculating what she
would do with the money she would get for the milk. “I’ll buy some
fowls from Farmer Brown,” said she, “and they will lay eggs each
morning, which I will sell to the parson’s wife. With the money that
I get from the sale of these eggs I’ll buy myself a new dimity frock
and a chip hat; and when I go to market, won’t all the young men
come up and speak to me! Polly Shaw will be that jealous; but I
don’t care. I shall just look at her and toss my head like this.” As
she spoke she tossed her head back, the Pail fell off it, and all the
milk was spilt. So she had to go home and tell her mother what
had occurred.
“Ah, my cluld,” said the mother,
“DO NOT COUNT YOUR CHICKENS BEFORE THEY ARE HATCHED.”

THE CAT-MAIDEN
T H E gods were once disputing whether it was possible for a living
being to change its nature. Jupiter said “Yes,” but Venus said “No.”
So, to try the question, Jupiter turned a Cat into a Maiden, and gave
her to a young man for a wife. The wedding was duly performed
and the young couple sat down to the wedding-feast. “See,” said
Jupiter, to Venus, “how becomingly she behaves. Who could tell that
yesterday she was but a Cat? Surely her nature is changed?”
“Wait a minute,” replied Venus, and let loose a mouse into the
room. No sooner did the bride see this than she jumped up from her
seat and tried to pounce upon the mouse. “Ah, you see,” said Venus,
“NATURE WILL OUT.”

THE HORSE AND THE ASS
A HORSE and an Ass were travelling together, the Horse prancing
along in its fine trappings, the Ass carrying with difficulty the heavy
weight in its panniers. “I wish I were you,” sighed the Ass; “nothing
to do and well fed, and all that fine harness upon you.” Next day,
however, there was a great battle, and the Horse was wounded to
death in the final charge of the day. His friend, the Ass, happened
to pass by shortly afterwards and found him on the point of death.
“I was wrong,” said the Ass:
“BETTER HUMBLE SECURITY THAN GILDED DANCER.”

THE TRUMPETER TAKEN PRISONER
A TRUMPETER during a battle ventured too near the enemy and
was captured by them. They were about to proceed to put him to
death when he begged them to hear his plea for mercy. “I do not
fight,” said he, “and indeed carry no weapon; I only blow this
trumpet, and surely that cannot harm you; then why should you
kill me?”
“You may not fight yourself,” said the others, “but you encourage
and guide your men to the fight.”
“WORDS MAY BE DEEDS.”

THE BUFFOON AND THE COUNTRYMAN
A T a country fair there was a Buffoon who made all the people
laugh by imitating the cries of various animals. He finished off by
squeaking so like a pig that the spectators thought that he had a
porker concealed about him. But a Countryman who stood by said:
“Call that a pig’s squeak! Nothing like it. You give me till tomorrow
and I will show you what it’s like.” The audience laughed,
but next day, sure enough, the Countryman appeared on the stage,
and putting his head down squealed so hideously that the spectators
hissed and threw stones at him to make him stop. “You fools!” he
cried, “see what you have been hissing,” and held up a little pig
whose ear he had been pinching to make him utter the squeals.
“MEN OFTEN APPLAUD AN IMITATION AND HISS THE REAL THING.”

15. “The Moving Finger Writes”

THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM Vol. 41, pp. 943-953

EDWARD FITZGERALD
[1809-1883]
RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM OF NAISHAPUR
Second Edition
I
WAKE! For the Sun behind yon Eastern height
Has chased the Session of the Stars from Night;
And to the field of Heav’n ascending, strikes
The Sultan’s Turret with a Shaft of Light.
II
Before the phantom of False morning died,
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,
“When all the Temple is prepared within,
Why lags the drowsy Worshipper outside?”
III
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted—”Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more.”
IV
Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.
v
Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose,
And Jamshyd’s Sev’n-ring’d Cup where no one knows;
But still a Ruby gushes from the Vine,
And many a Garden by the Water blows.
VI
And David’s lips are lockt; but in divine
High-piping Pehlevi, with “Wine! Wine! Wine!
Red Wine!”—the Nightingale cries to the Rose
That sallow cheek of hers to incarnadine.

944 EDWARD FITZGERALD
VII
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.
VIII
Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.
IX
Morning a thousand Roses brings, you say;
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday ?
And this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.
x
Well, let it take them! What have we to do
With Kaikobad the Great, or Kaikhosru ?
Let Rustum cry “To Battle!” as he likes,
Or Hatim Tai “To supper!”—heed not you.
XI
With me along the strip of Herbage strowri
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot—
And Peace to Mahmud on his golden Throne!
XII
Here with a litde Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
XIII
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come;

EDWARD FITZGERALD 945
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Promise go,
Nor heed the music of a distant Druml
XIV
Were it not Folly, Spider-like to spin
The Thread of present Life away to win—
What ? for ourselves, who know not if we shall
Breathe out the very Breath we now breathe in!
xv
Look to the blowing Rose about us—”Lo,
Laughing,” she says, “into the world I blow,
At once the silken tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.”
xvi
For those who husbanded the Golden grain,
And those who flung it to the winds like Rain,
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn’d
As, buried once, Men want dug up again.
XVII 
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face,
Lighting a little hour or two—was gone.
XVIII
Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai
Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.
XIV
They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:
And Bahram, that great Hunter—the Wild Ass
Stamps o’er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.

946 EDWARD FITZGERALD
xx
The Palace that to Heav’n his pillars threw,
And Kings the forehead on his threshold drew—
I saw the solitary Ringdove there,
And “Coo, coo, coo,” she cried; and “Coo, coo, coo.”
XXI
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
TO-DAY of past Regret and Future Fears:
To-morrow!—Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n thousand Years.
XXII
For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That from his Vintage rolling Time has prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silendy to rest.
XXIII
And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend—ourselves to make a Couch—for whom?
XXIV
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.
xxv
And this delightful Herb whose living Green
Fledges the River’s Lip on which we lean—
Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!
XXVI
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End!

EDWARD FITZGERALD 947
XXVII
Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,
And those that after some TO-MORROW stare,
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries,
“Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There!”
XXVIII
Another Voice, when I am sleeping, cries,
“The Flower should open with the Morning skies.”
And a retreating Whisper, as I wake—
“The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.”
XXIX
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter’d, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.
XXX
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door as in I went.
XXXI
With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand wrought to make it grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d—
“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”
XXXII
Into this Universe, and Why not knowing
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.
XXXIII
What, without asking, hither hurried Whence?
And, without asking, Whither hurried hence!
Ah, contrite Heav’n endowed us with the Vine
To drug the memory of that insolence!

EDWARD FITZGERALD
XXXIV
Up from Earth’s Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate;
And many Knots unravel’d by the Road;
But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.
xxxv
There was the Door to which I found no Key:
There was the Veil through which I could not see:
Some little talk awhile of ME and THEE
There was—and then no more of THEE and ME.
xxxvi
Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn
In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn;
Nor Heaven, with those eternal Signs reveal’d
And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn.
xxxvii
Then of the T H E E I N M E who works behind
The Veil of Universe I cried to find
A Lamp to guide me through the Darkness; and
Something then said—”An Understanding blind.”
XXXVIII
Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn
I lean’d, the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur’d—”While you live,
Drink!—for, once dead, you never shall return.”
xxxix
I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answer’d, once did live,
And drink; and that impassive Lip I kiss’d,
How many Kisses might it take—and give!
XL
For I remember stopping by the way
To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all-obliterated Tongue
It murmur’d—”Gendy, Brother, gently, pray!”

EDWARD FITZGERALD 949
XLI
For has not such a Story from of Old
Down Man’s successive generations roll’d
Of such a clod of saturated Earth
Cast by the Maker into Human mould?
XLII
And not a drop that from our Cups we throw
On the parcht herbage, but may steal below
To quench the fire of Anguish in some Eye
There hidden—far beneath, and long ago.
XLIII
As then the Tulip for her wonted sup
Of Heavenly Vintage lifts her chalice up,
Do you, twin offspring of the soil, till Heav’n
To Earth invert you like an empty Cup.
XLIV
Do you, within your little hour of Grace,
The waving Cypress in your Arms enlace,
Before the Mother back into her arms
Fold, and dissolve you in a last embrace.
XLV
And if the Cup you drink, the Lip you press,
End in what All begins and ends in—Yes;
Imagine then you are what heretofore
You were—hereafter you shall not be less.
XLVI
So when at last the Angel of the Drink
Of Darkness finds you by the river-brink,
And, proffering his Cup, invites your Soul
Forth to your Lips to quaff it—do not shrink.
XLVII
And fear not lest Existence closing your
Account, should lose, or know the type no more;
The Eternal Sakl from that Bowl has pour’d
Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.

950 EDWARD FITZGERALD
XLVIII
When You and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh, but the long long while the World shall last,
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
As much as Ocean of a pebble-cast.
XLIX
One Moment in Annihilation’s Waste,
One Moment, of the Well of Life to taste—
The Stars are setting, and the Caravan
Draws to the Dawn of Nothing—Oh make haste.
L
Would you that spangle of Existence spend
About T H E SECRET—quick about it, Friend!
A Hair, they say, divides the False and True—
And upon what, prithee, does Life depend?
LI
A Hair, they say, divides the False and True;
Yes; and a single Alif were the clue—
Could you but find it—to the Treasure-house,
And peradventure to T H E MASTER too;
LII
Whose secret Presence, through Creation’s veins
Running, Quicksilver-like eludes your pains;
Taking all shapes from Mah to Mahi; and
They change and perish all—but He remains;
LIII
A moment guess’d—then back behind the Fold
Immerst of Darkness round the Drama roll’d
Which, for the Pastime of Eternity,
He does Himself contrive, enact, behold.
LIV
But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor
Of Earth, and up to Heav’n’s unopening Door,
You gaze TO-DAY, while You are You—how then
TO-MORROW, You when shall be You no more?

EDWARD FITZGERALD 951
LV
Oh, plagued no more with Human or Divine,
To-morrow’s tangle to itself resign,
And lose your fingers in the tresses of
The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine.
LVI
Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit
Of This and That endeavour and dispute;
Better be merry with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.
LVII
You know, my Friends, how bravely in my House
For a new Marriage I did make Carouse;
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.
LVIII
For “Is” and “IS-NOT” though with Rule and Line
And “UP-AND-DOWN” by Logic I define,
Of all that one should care to fathom, I
Was never deep in anything but—Wine.
LIX
Ah, but my Computations, People say,
Have squared the Year to human compass, eh?
If so, by striking from the Calendar
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday.
L X
And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and ’twas—the Grape!
LXI
The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life’s leaden metal into Gold transmute:

952 EDWARD FITZGERALD
LXII
The mighty Mahmiid, Allah-breathing Lord,
That all the misbelieving and black Horde
Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul
Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword.
LXIII
Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare
Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare?
A Blessing, we should use it, should we not?
And if a Curse—why, then, Who set it there?
LXIV
I must abjure the Balm of Life, I must,
Scared by some After-reckoning ta’en on trust,
Or lured with Hope of some Diviner Drink,
When the frail Cup is crumbled into Dust!
LXV
If but the Vine and Love-abjuring Band
Are in the Prophet’s Paradise to stand,
Alack, I doubt the Prophet’s Paradise
Were empty as the hollow of one’s Hand.
LXVI
Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain—This Life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once is blown for ever dies.
LXVII
Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
Before us pass’d the door of Darkness through,
Not one returns to tell us of the Road,
Which to discover we must travel too.
LXVIII
The Revelations of Devout and Learn’d
Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn’d,
Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep
They told their fellows, and to Sleep return’d.

EDWARD FITZGERALD 953
LXIX
Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside,
And naked on the Air of Heaven ride,
Is’t not a Shame—is’t not a Shame for him
So long in this Clay Suburb to abide?
LXX
But that is but a Tent wherein may rest
A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest;
The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash
Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest.
LXXI
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And after many days my Soul return’d,
And said, “Behold, Myself am Heav’n and Hell:”
LXXII
Heav’n but the Vision of fulfill’d Desire,
And Hell the Shadow of a Soul on fire,
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.
LXXIII
We are no other than a moving row
Of visionary Shapes that come and go
Round with this Sun-illumin’d Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show;
LXXIV
Impotent Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
LXXV
The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes;
And He that toss’d you down into the Field,
He knows about it all—HE knows—HE knows!

Swarm Intelligence Gets $2.9 Million

The European Research Council opens up its checkbook to fund Marco Dorigo’s latest efforts to get networks and robots to mimic the highly efficient behavior of ant and other colony insects

FOLLOW THE LEADER: The European Research Council is giving researchers in Belgium $2.9 million to further study the potential that swarm intelligence holds for improving information technology and robotics.

Swarm intelligence is a branch of artificial intelligence that attempts to get computers and robots to mimic the highly efficient behavior of colony insects such as ants and bees. Ants, for example, use pheromone trails to mark the routes they use to find food. The more traversed trails develop an accumulation of pheromone that attracts new ants, whereas pheromones deposited on paths less traveled will evaporate over time. more>>

Chemical in Plastics Linked to Heart Disease

A second study links BPA measured in human urine to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease

HEALTH RISK?: Bisphenol A or BPA, an ingredient in many common plastics, has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease.

Higher concentrations of bisphenol A—a common ingredient in plastics found in products ranging from polyester to water bottles—have been linked to heart disease, according to a new follow-up study. A similar study was performed by the same team in 2008 using older data from a survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). more>>

Green Guilt

Friedrich Nietzsche was the first to notice that religious emotions, like guilt and indignation, are still with us, even if we’re not religious. He claimed that we were living in a post-Christian world—the church no longer dominates political and economic life—but we, as a culture, are still dominated by Judeo-Christian values. And those values are not obvious—they are not the Ten Commandments or any particular doctrine, but a general moral outlook.

You can see our veiled value system better if you contrast it with the one that preceded Christianity. For the pagans, honor and pride were valued, but for the Christians it is meekness and humility; for the pagans it was public shame, for Christians, private guilt; for pagans there was a celebration of hierarchy, with superior and inferior people, but for Christians there is egalitarianism; and for pagans there was more emphasis on justice, while for Christians there is emphasis on mercy (turning the other cheek). Underneath all these values, according to Nietzsche, is a kind of psychology—one dominated by resentment and guilt.

Every culture feels the call of conscience—the voice of internal self-criticism. But Western Christian culture, according to Nietzsche and then Freud, has conscience on steroids, so to speak. Our sense of guilt is comparatively extreme, and, with our culture of original sin and fallen status, we feel guilty about our very existence. In the belly of Western culture is the feeling that we’re not worthy. Why is this feeling there? more>>

14. The First Step Toward Independence

THE FUNDAMENTAL ORDERS OF CONNECTICUT Vol. 43, pp. 60-65

THE FUNDAMENTAL ORDERS OF CONNECTICUT (1639)

[These "Orders" were adopted by a popular convention of the three towns of
Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield, on January 14, 1639. They form, according to
historians, "the first written constitution, in the modern sense of the term, as a
permanent limitation on governmental power, known in history, and certainly the
first American constitution of government to embody the democratic idea."]

FORASMUCH as it hath pleased the Almighty God by the
wise disposition of his diuyne prouidence so to Order and
dispose of things that we the Inhabitants and Residents of
Windsor, Harteford and Wethersfield are now cohabiting and
dwelling in and vppon the River of Conectecotte and the Lands
thereunto adioyneing; And well knowing where a people are
gathered togather the word of God requires that to mayntayne the
peace and vnion of such a people there should be an orderly and
decent Gouerment established according to God, to order and
dispose of the affayres of the people at all seasons as occation shall
require; doe therefore assotiate and conioyne our selues to be as one
Publike State or Comonwelth; and doe, for our selues and our Successors
and such as shall be adioyned to vs att any tyme hereafter,
enter into Combination and Confederation togather, to mayntayne
and presearue the liberty and purity of the gospell of our Lord
Jesus which we now professe, as also the disciplyne of the Churches,
which according to the truth of the said gospell is now practised
amongst vs; As also in our Ciuell Affaires to be guided and
gouerned according to such Lawes, Rules, Orders and decrees as
shall be made, ordered & decreed, as followeth :—
1. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed, that there shall be yerely
two generall Assemblies or Courts, the on the second thursday in
Aprill, the other the second thursday in September, following; the
first shall be called the Courte of Election, wherein shall be yerely
60
AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS 61
Chosen from tyme to tyme soe many Magestrats and other publike
Officers as shall be found requisitte: Whereof one to be chosen
Gouernour for the yeare ensueing and vntill another be chosen,
and noe other Magestrate to be chosen for more than one yeare;
prouided allwayes there be sixe chosen besids the Gouernour; which
being chosen and sworne according to an Oath recorded for that
purpose shall haue power to administer iustice according to the
Lawes here established, and for want thereof according to the rule
of the word of God; which choise shall be made by all that are admitted
freemen and haue taken the Oath of Fidellity, and doe cohabitte
within this Jurisdiction, (hauing beene admitted Inhabitants
by the maior part of the Towne wherein they liue,) or the mayor
parte of such as shall be then present.
2. It is Ordered, sentensed and decreed, that the Election of the
aforesaid Magestrats shall be on this manner: euery person present
and quallified for choyse shall bring in (to the persons deputed to
receaue them) one single paper with the name of him written in yt
whom he desires to haue Gouernour, and he that hath the greatest
number of papers shall be Gouernor for that yeare. And the rest
of the Magestrats or publike Officers to be chosen in this manner:
The Secretary for the tyme being shall first read the names of all
that are to be put to choise and then shall seuerally nominate them
distinctly, and euery one that would haue the person nominated to
be chosen shall bring in one single paper written vppon, and he that
would not haue him chosen shall bring in a blanke: and euery one
that hath more written papers then blanks shall be a Magistrat for
that yeare; which papers shall be receaued and told by one or more
that shall be then chosen by the court and sworne to be faythfull
therein; but in case there should not be sixe chosen as aforesaid,
besids the Gouernor, out of those which are nominated, then he or
they which haue the most written papers shall be a Magestrate or
Magestrats for the ensueing yeare, to make vp the foresaid number.
3. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed, that the Secretary shall
not nominate any person, nor shall any person be chosen newly into
the Magestracy which was not propownded in some Generall Courte
before, to be nominated the next Election; and to that end yt shall
be lawfull for ech of the Townes aforesaid by their deputyes to

62 AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
nominate any two whom they conceaue fitte to be put to election;
and the Courte may ad so many more as they iudge requisitt.
4. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed that noe person be chosen
Gouernor aboue once in two yeares, and that the Gouernor be always
a member of some approved congregation, and formerly of the
Magestracy within this Jurisdiction; and all the Magestrats Freemen
of this Comonwelth: and that no Magestrate or other publike officer
shall execute any parte of his or their Office before they are seuerally
sworne, which shall be done in the face of the Courte if they be
present, and in case of absence by some deputed for that purpose.
5. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed, that to the aforesaid
Courte of Election the seuerall Townes shall send their deputyes,
and when the Elections are ended they may proceed in any publike
searuice as at other Courts. Also the other Generall Courte in September
shall be for makeing of lawes, and any other publike occation,
which conserns the good of the Comonwelth.
6. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed, that the Gouernor shall,
ether by himselfe or by the secretary, send out sumons to the Constables
of euery Towne for the cauleing of these two standing
Courts, on month at lest before their seuerall tymes: And also if the
Gouernor and the gretest parte of the Magestrats see cause vppon any
spetiall occation to call a generall Courte, they may giue order to
the secretary soe to doe within fowerteene dayes warneing; and if
vrgent necessity so require, vppon a shorter notice, giueing sufficient
grownds for yt to the deputyes when they meete, or els be questioned
for the same; And if the Gouernor and Mayor parte of Magestrats
shall ether neglect or refuse to call the two Generall standing Courts
or ether of them, as also at other tymes when the occations of the
Comonwelth require, the Freemen thereof, or the Mayor parte of
them, shall petition to them soe to doe: if then yt be ether denyed
or neglected the said Freemen or the Mayor parte of them shall
haue power to giue order to the Constables of the seuerall Townes to
doe the same, and so may meete togather, and chuse to themselues
a Moderator, and may proceed to do any Acte of power, which any
other Generall Courte may.
7. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed that after there are
warrants giuen out for any of the said Generall Courts, the Con

AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS 63
Stable or Constables of ech Towne shall forthwith give notice
distinctly to the inhabitants of the same, in some Publike Assembly
or by goeing or sending from howse to howse, that at a place and
tyme by him or them lymited and sett, they meet and assemble
them selues togather to elect and chuse certen deputyes to be att
the Generall Courte then following to agitate the afayres of the
comonwelth; which said Deputyes shall be chosen by all that are
admitted Inhabitants in the seuerall Townes and haue taken the
oath of fidellity; prouided that non be chosen a Deputy for any
Generall Courte which is not a Freeman of this Comonwelth.
The foresaid deputyes shall be chosen in manner following: euery
person that is present and quallified as before expressed, shall bring
the names of such, written in seuerall papers, as they desire to haue
chosen for that Imployment, and these 3 or 4, more or lesse, being
the number agreed on to be chosen for that tyme, that haue greatest
number of papers written for them shall be deputyes for that
Courte; whose names shall be endorsed on the backe side of the
warrant and returned into the Courte, with the Constable or
Constables hand vnto the same.
8. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed, that Wyndsor, Hartford
and Wethersfield shall haue power, ech Towne, to send fower of
their freemen as deputyes to euery Generall Courte; and whatsoeuer
other Townes shall be hereafter added to this Jurisdiction, they shall
send so many deputyes as the Courte shall judge meete, a resonable
proportion to the number of Freemen that are in the said Townes
being to be attended therein; which deputyes shall have the power
of the whole Towne to giue their voats and alowance to all such
lawes and orders as may be for the publike good, and unto which
the said Townes are to be bownd.
9. It is ordered and decreed, that the deputyes thus chosen shall
haue power and liberty to appoynt a tyme and a place of meeting
togather before any Generall Courte to aduise and consult of all
such things as may concerne the good of the publike, as also to
examine their owne Elections, whether according to the order, and
if they or the gretest parte of them find any election to be illegall
they may seclud such for present from their meeting, and returne
the same and their resons to the Courte; and if yt proue true, the

64 AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
Courte may fyne the parte or partyes so intruding and the Towne,
if they see cause, and giue out a warrant to goe to a newe election
in a legall way, either in parte or in whole. Also the said deputyes
shall haue power to fyne any that shall be disorderly at their meetings,
or for not coming in due tyme or place according to appoyntment;
and they may returne the said fynes into the Courte if yt
be refused to be paid, and the tresurer to take notice of yt, and to
estreete or levy the same as he doth other fynes.
10. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed, that euery Generall
Courte, except such as through neglecte of the Gouernor and the
greatest parte of Magestrats the Freemen themselves doe call, shall
consist of the Gouernor, or some one chosen to moderate the Court,
and 4 other Magestrats at lest, with the mayor part of the deputyes
of the seuerall Townes legally chosen; and in case the Freemen or
mayor parte of them, through neglect or refusall of the Gouernor
and mayor parte of the magestrats, shall call a Courte, yt shall consist
of the mayor parte of Freemen that are present or their deputyes,
with a Moderator chosen by them: In which said Generall Courts
shall consist the supreme power of the Comonwelth, and they only
shall haue power to make laws or repeale them, to graunt leuyes,
to admitt of Freemen, dispose of lands vndisposed of, to seuerall
Townes or persons, and also shall haue power to call ether Courte
or Magestrate or any other person whatsoeuer into question for any
misdemeanour, and may for just causes displace or deale otherwise
according to the nature of the offence; and also may deale in any
other matter that concerns the good of this comon welth, excepte
election of Magestrats, which shall be done by the whole boddy of
Freemen.
In which Courte the Gouernor or Moderator shall haue power
to order the Courte to giue liberty of spech, and silence vnceasonable
and disorderly speakeings, to put all things to voate, and in case the
vote be equall to haue the casting voice. But non of these Courts
shall be adiorned or dissolued without the consent of the maior
parte of the Court.
11. It is ordered, sentenced and decreed, that when any Generall
Courte vppon the occations of the Comonwelth haue agreed vppon
any sume or somes of mony to be leuyed vppon the seuerall Townes

AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS 65
within this Jurisdiction, that a Comittee be chosen to sett out and
appoynt what shall be the proportion of euery Towne to pay of the
said leuy, provided the Comittees be made vp of an equall number
out of each Towne.

14th January, 1638,1 the 11 Orders abouesaid are voted.

THE OATH OF THE GOUERNOR, FOR THE [PRESENT.]
I, A.W. being now chosen to be Gouernor within this Jurisdiction,
for the yeare ensueing, and vntil a new be chosen, doe sweare by
the greate and dreadfull name of the everliueing God, to promote
the publicke good and peace of the same, according to the best of my
skill; as also will mayntayne all lawfull priuiledges of this Comonwealth;
as also that all wholsome lawes that are or shall be made by
lawfull authority here established, be duly executed; and will further
the execution of Justice according to the rule of Gods word; so
helpe me God, in the name of the L o : Jesus Christ.

THE OATH OF A MAGESTRATE, FOR THE PRESENT.
I, A.W. being chosen a Magestrate within this Jurisdiction for the
yeare ensueing, doe sweare by the great and dreadfull name of the
euerliueing God, to promote the publike good and peace of the
same, according to the best of my skill, and that I will mayntayne
all the lawfull priuiledges thereof, according to my vnderstanding, as
also assist in the execution of all such wholesome lawes as are made
or shall be made by lawfull authority heare established, and will
further the execution of Justice for the tyme aforesaid according
to the righteous rule of Gods word; so helpe me God, etc.
1 1638, old style; 1639, new style.

Myth of the Tortured Soul?

Even Théo, writing to Wil, declares: “It appears as if there are two different beings in him, the one marvellously gifted, fine and delicate, the other selfish and heartless.” 

Ennobling the peasant’s toil: Van Gogh’s “The Sower”

The letters reveal that Van Gogh was not altogether the sensitive dreamer of popular myth. There was certainly something of the innocent soul about him, but he was also clearly irascible, brusque and plainly irritating. This is one side of Van Gogh that dedicated readers of the letters will always have known about, of course, but with the new translation we get closer to Van Gogh’s real voice and tone and to his sometimes more meandering thought processes: the new translations don’t finish off his sentences, or they include previously censored material. 

But on only one occasion does the intermittent mental instability really show itself. In the last letter before that ear-cutting crisis at the end of 1888, Van Gogh describes a visit with Gauguin to a gallery at Montpellier: “Gauguin and I talk a lot about Delacroix, Rembrandt & c. The discussion is excessively electric. We sometimes emerge from it with tired minds, like an electric battery after it’s run down.” Two lines down he continues: “Rembrandt is above all a magician and Delacroix a man of God, of God’s thunder and bugger off in the name of God.” more>>

Cracks in the Jihad

“Get ready for all Muslims to join the holy war against you,” the jihadi leader Abd el-Kader warned his Western enemies. The year was 1839, and nine years into France’s occupation of Algeria the resistance had grown self-confident. Only weeks earlier, Arab fighters had wiped out a convoy of 30 French soldiers en route from Boufarik to Oued-el-Alèg. Insurgent attacks on the slow-moving French columns were steadily increasing, and the army’s fortified blockhouses in the Atlas Mountains were under frequent assault.

Paris pinned its hopes on an energetic general who had already served a successful tour in Algeria, Thomas-Robert Bugeaud. In January 1840, shortly before leaving to take command in Algiers, he addressed the French Chamber of Deputies: “In Europe, gentlemen, we don’t just make war against armies; we make war against interests.” The key to victory in European wars, he explained, was to penetrate the enemy country’s interior. Seize the centers of population, commerce, and industry, “and soon the interests are forced to capitulate.” Not so at the foot of the Atlas, he conceded. Instead, he would focus the army’s effort on the tribal population.

Later that year, a well-known military thinker from Prussia traveled to Algeria to observe Bugeaud’s new approach. Major General Carl von Decker, who had taught under the famed Carl von Clausewitz at the War Academy in Berlin, was more forthright than his French counterpart. The fight against fanatical tribal warriors, he foresaw, “will throw all European theory of war into the trash heap.” more>>

Vladimir Nabokov’s ‘Original of Laura’

A Novel in Fragments
In 1962, following the international success of Lolita that made him financially independent, Vladimir Nabokov gave up his professorial post at Cornell and settled in Montreux, Switzerland, where he resided at the Palace hotel with his wife Vera and wrote his later novels, until his death in 1977. In the last two years of his life, which were marred by various accidents, illnesses and increasing physical debility, Nabokov worked on a novel called The Original of Laura, writing it, as was his habit, by hand in pencil on small index cards. It was unfinished – very far from finished in fact – when he died, and he had expressly directed Vera to burn the manuscript in that eventuality. Having rescued Lolita from the incinerator many years before, when Nabokov had a sudden failure of nerve about publishing it, his widow understandably hesitated to carry out his wishes with respect to his last work. The Original of Laura has lain in a bank vault for thirty years, the object of intense curiosity and speculation among aficionados, while Vera and the Nabokovs’ son Dmitri agonised over whether or not to allow it to be published. They finally decided to do so, and here it is. more>>

A Une Malabaraise

A Une Malabaraise

Tes pieds sont aussi fins que tes mains, et ta hanche
Est large à faire envie à la plus belle blanche;
A l’artiste pensif ton corps est doux et cher;
Tes grands yeux de velours sont plus noirs que ta chair
Aux pays chauds et bleus où ton Dieu t’a fait naître,
Ta tâche est d’allumer la pipe de ton maître,
De pourvoir les flacons d’eaux fraîches et d’odeurs,
De chasser loin du lit les moustiques rôdeurs,
Et, dès que le matin fait chanter les platanes,
D’acheter au bazar ananas et bananes.
Tout le jour, où tu veux, tu mènes tes pieds nus,
Et fredonnes tout bas de vieux airs inconnus;
Et quand descend le soir au manteau d’écarlate,
Tu poses doucement ton corps sur une natte,
Où tes rêves flottants sont pleins de colibris,
Et toujours, comme toi, gracieux et fleuris.
Pourquoi, l’heureuse enfant, veux-tu voir notre France,
Ce pays trop peuplé que fauche la souffrance,
Et, confiant ta vie aux bras forts des marins,
Faire de grands adieux à tes chers tamarins?
Toi, vêtue à moitié de mousselines frêles,
Frissonnante là-bas sous la neige et les grêles,
Comme tu pleurerais tes loisirs doux et francs,
Si, le corset brutal emprisonnant tes flancs,
Il te fallait glaner ton souper dans nos fanges
Et vendre le parfum de tes charmes étranges,
L’oeil pensif, et suivant, dans nos sales brouillards,
Des cocotiers absents les fantômes épars!

- Charles Baudelaire

13. Rousseau Seeks Sanctuary in England

Rousseau’s INQUIRY ON INEQUALITY Vol. 34, pp. 215-228

DISCOURSE ON INEQUALITY 215
as Lycurgus did at Sparta, by clearing the area, and removing the old
materials. Society at first consisted merely of some general conventions
which all the members bound themselves to observe, and
for the performance of which the whole body became security to
every individual. Experience was necessary to show the great weakness
of such a constitution, and how easy it was for those, who infringed
it, to escape the conviction or chastisement of faults, of
which the public alone was to be both the witness and the judge;
the laws could not fail of being eluded a thousand ways; inconveniences
and disorders could not but multiply continually, till it
was at last found necessary to think of committing to private persons
the dangerous trust of public authority, and to magistrates the
care of enforcing obedience to the people: for to say that chiefs were
elected before confederacies were formed, and that the ministers of
the laws existed before the laws themselves, is a supposition too
ridiculous to deserve I should seriously refute it.
It would be equally unreasonable to imagine that men at first
threw themselves into the arms of an absolute master, without any
conditions or consideration on his side; and that the first means
contrived by jealous and unconquered men for their common safety
was to run hand over head into slavery. In fact, why did they give
themselves superiors, if it was not to be defended by them against
oppression, and protected in their lives, liberties, and properties,
which are in a manner the constitutional elements of their being?
Now in the relations between man and man, the worst that can
happen to one man being to see himself at the discretion of another,
would it not have been contrary to the dictates of good sense to begin
by making over to a chief the only things for the preservation of
which they stood in need of his assistance? What equivalent could
he have offered them for so fine a privilege? And had he presumed
to exact it on pretense of defending them, would he not have
immediately received the answer in the apologue? What worse
treatment can we expect from an enemy ? It is therefore past dispute,
and indeed a fundamental maxim of political law, that people gave
themselves chiefs to defend their liberty and not be enslaved by them.
If we have a prince, said Pliny to Trajan, it is in order that he may
keep us from having a master.

2l6 ROUSSEAU
Political writers argue in regard to the love of liberty with the
same philosophy that philosophers do in regard to the state of
nature; by the things they see they judge of things very different
which they have never seen, and they attribute to men a natural inclination
to slavery, on account of the patience with which the
slaves within their notice carry the yoke; not reflecting that it is
with liberty as with innocence and virtue, the value of which is
not known but by those who possess them, though the relish for
them is lost with the things themselves. I know the charms of your
country, said Brasidas to a satrap who was comparing the life of
the Spartans with that of the Persepolites; but you can not know
the pleasures of mine.
As an unbroken courser erects his mane, paws the ground, and
rages at the bare sight of the bit, while a trained horse patiently suffers
both whip and spur, just so the barbarian will never reach his
neck to the yoke which civilized man carries without murmuring
but prefers the most stormy liberty to a calm subjection. It is not
therefore by the servile disposition of enslaved nations that we must
judge of the natural dispositions of man for or against slavery, but
by the prodigies done by every free people to secure themselves from
oppression. I know that the first are constantly crying up that peace
and tranquillity they enjoy in their irons, and that miserrimam
servitutem pacem appellant: but when I see the others sacrifice
pleasures, peace, riches, power, and even life itself to the preservation
of that single jewel so much slighted by those who have lost it;
when I see free-born animals through a natural abhorrence of captivity
dash their brains out against the bars of their prison; when I
see multitudes of naked savages despise European pleasures, and
brave hunger, fire and sword, and death itself to preserve their independency;
I feel that it belongs not to slaves to argue concerning
liberty.
As to paternal authority, from which several have derived absolute
government and every other mode of society, it is sufficient, without
having recourse to Locke and Sidney, to observe that nothing in the
world differs more from the cruel spirit of despotism, than the
gentleness of that authority, which looks more to the advantage of
him who obeys than to the utility of him who commands; that by the

DISCOURSE ON INEQUALITY 217
law of nature the father continues master of his child no longer than
the child stands in need of his assistance; that after that term they
become equal, and that then the son, entirely independent of the
father, owes him no obedience, but only respect. Gratitude is indeed
a duty which we are bound to pay, but which benefactors can not
exact. Instead of saying that civil society is derived from paternal
authority, we should rather say that it is to the former that the
latter owes its principal force: N o one individual was acknowledged
as the father of several other individuals, till they settled about him.
The father’s goods, which he can indeed dispose of as he pleases, are
the ties which hold his children to their dependence upon him, and
he may divide his substance among them in proportion as they shall
have deserved his attention by a continual deference to his commands.
Now the subjects of a despotic chief, far from having any
such favour to expect from him, as both themselves and all they
have are his property, or at least are considered by him as such, are
obliged to receive as a favour what he relinquishes to them of their
own property. He does them justice when he strips them; he treats
them with mercy when he suffers them to live. By continuing in
this manner to compare facts with right, we should discover as little
solidity as truth in the voluntary establishment of tyranny; and it
would be a hard matter to prove the validity of a contract which was
binding only on one side, in which one of the parties should stake
everything and the other nothing, and which could turn out to the
prejudice of him alone who had bound himself.
This odious system is even, at this day, far from being that of wise
and good monarchs, and especially of the kings of France, as may be
seen by divers passages in their edicts, and particularly by that of a
celebrated piece published in 1667 in the name and by the orders of
Louis XIV. “Let it therefore not be said that the sovereign is not
subject to the laws of his realm, since, that he is, is a maxim of the
law of nations which flattery has sometimes attacked, but which
good princes have always defended as the tutelary divinity of their
realms. How much more reasonable is it to say with the sage Plato,
that the perfect happiness of a state consists in the subjects obeying
their prince, the prince obeying the laws, and the laws being equitable
and always directed to the good of the public? I shall not stop

218 ROUSSEAU
to consider, if, liberty being the most noble faculty of man, it is not
degrading one’s nature, reducing one’s self to the level of brutes, who
are the slaves of instinct, and even offending the author of one’s
being, to renounce without reserve the most precious of his gifts,
and submit to the commission of all the crimes he has forbid us,
merely to gratify a mad or a cruel master; and if this sublime artist
ought to be more irritated at seeing his work destroyed than at seeing
it dishonoured. I shall only ask what right those, who were not
afraid thus to degrade themselves, could have to subject their dependants
to the same ignominy, and renounce, in the name of their
posterity, blessings for which it is not indebted to their liberality, and
without which life itself must appear a burthen to all those who are
worthy to live.
Puffendorf says that, as we can transfer our property from one
to another by contracts and conventions, we may likewise divest
ourselves of our liberty in favour of other men. This, in my opinion,
is a very poor way of arguing; for, in the first place, the property I
cede to another becomes by such cession a thing quite foreign to me,
and the abuse of which can no way affect me; but it concerns me
greatly that my liberty is not abused, and I can not, without incurring
the guilt of the crimes I may be forced to commit, expose myself
to become the instrument of any. Besides, the right of property
being of mere human convention and institution, every man may
dispose as he pleases of what he possesses: But the case is otherwise
with regard to the essential gifts of nature, such as life and liberty,
which every man is permitted to enjoy, and of which it is doubtful at
least whether any man has a right to divest himself: By giving up
the one, we degrade our being; by giving up the other we annihilate
it as much as it is our power to do so; and as no temporal enjoyments
can indemnify us for the loss of either, it would be at once offending
both nature and reason to renounce them for any consideration. But
though we could transfer our liberty as we do our substance, the
difference would be very great with regard to our children, who
enjoy our substance but by a cession of our right; whereas liberty
being a blessing, which as men they hold from nature, their parents
have no right to strip them of it; so that as to establish slavery it was
necessary to do violence to nature, so it was necessary to alter nature

DISCOURSE ON INEQUALITY 219
to perpetuate such a right; and the jurisconsults, who have gravely
pronounced that the child of a slave comes a slave into the world,
have in other words decided, that a man does not come a man into
the world.
It therefore appears to me incontestably true, that not only governments
did not begin by arbitrary power, which is but the corruption
and extreme term of government, and at length brings it back to the
law of the strongest, against which governments were at first the
remedy, but even that, allowing they had commenced in this manner,
such power being illegal in itself could never have served as a foundation
to the rights of society, nor of course to the inequality of
institution.
I shall not now enter upon the inquiries which still remain to be
made into the nature of the fundamental pacts of every kind of
government, but, following the common opinion, confine myself in
this place to the establishment of the political body as a real contract
between the multitude and the chiefs elected by it. A contract
by which both parties oblige themselves to the observance of the
laws that are therein stipulated, and form the bands of their union.
The multitude having, on occasion of the social relations between
them, concentered all their wills in one person, all the articles, in
regard to which this will explains itself, become so many fundamental
laws, which oblige without exception all the members of the
state, and one of which laws regulates the choice and the power of
the magistrates appointed to look to the execution of the rest. This
power extends to everything that can maintain the constitution, but
extends to nothing that can alter it. T o this power are added honours,
that may render the laws and the ministers of them respectable; and
the persons of the ministers are distinguished by certain prerogatives,
which may make them amends for the great fatigues inseparable
from a good administration. The magistrate, on his side, obliges
himself not to use the power with which he is intrusted but conformably
to the intention of his constituents, to maintain every one of
them in the peaceable possession of his property, and upon all occasions
prefer the good of the public to his own private interest.
Before experience had demonstrated, or a thorough knowledge
of the human heart had pointed out, the abuses inseparable from

220 ROUSSEAU
such a constitution, it must have appeared so much the more perfect,
as those appointed to look to its preservation were themselves
most concerned therein; for magistracy and its rights being built
solely on the fundamental laws, as soon as these ceased to exist, the
magistrates would cease to be lawful, the people would no longer be
bound to obey them, and, as the essence of the state did not consist
in the magistrates but in the laws, the members of it would immediately
become entitled to their primitive and natural liberty.
A little reflection would afford us new arguments in confirmation
of this truth, and the nature of the contract might alone convince us
that it can not be irrevocable: for if there was no superior power
capable of guaranteeing the fidelity of the contracting parties and of
obliging them to fulfil their mutual engagements, they would remain
sole judges in their own cause, and each of them would always have
a right to renounce the contract, as soon as he discovered that the
other had broke the conditions of it, or that these conditions ceased
to suit his private convenience. Upon this principle, the right of
abdication may probably be founded. Now, to consider as we do
nothing but what is human in this institution, if the magistrate, who
has all the power in his own hands, and who appropriates to himself
all the advantages of the contract, has notwithstanding a right to
divest himself of his authority; how much a better right must the
people, who pay for all the faults of its chief, have to renounce their
dependence upon him. But the shocking dissensions and disorders
without number, which would be the necessary consequence of so
dangerous a privilege, show more than anything else how much
human governments stood in need of a more solid basis than that
of mere reason, and how necessary it was for the public tranquillity,
that the will of the Almighty should interpose to give to sovereign
authority, a sacred and inviolable character, which should deprive
subjects of the mischievous right to dispose of it to whom they
pleased. If mankind had received no other advantages from religion,
this alone would be sufficient to make them adopt and cherish it,
since it is the means of saving more blood than fanaticism has been
the cause of spilling. But to resume the thread of our hypothesis.
The various forms of government owe their origin to the various
degrees of inequality between the members, at the time they first

DISCOURSE ON INEQUALITY 221
coalesced into a political body. Where a man happened to be eminent
for power, for virtue, for riches, or for credit, he became sole magistrate,
and the state assumed a monarchical form; if many of pretty
equal eminence out-topped all the rest, they were jointly elected, and
this election produced an aristocracy; those, between whose fortune
or talents there happened to be no such disproportion, and who had
deviated less from the state of nature, retained in common the
supreme administration, and formed a democracy. Time demonstrated
which of these forms suited mankind best. Some remained
altogether subject to the laws; others soon bowed their necks to
masters. The former laboured to preserve their liberty; the latter
thought of nothing but invading that of their neighbours, jealous
at seeing others enjoy a blessing which themselves had lost. In a
word, riches and conquest fell to the share of the one, and virtue and
happiness to that of the other.
In these various modes of government the offices at first were all
elective; and when riches did not preponderate, the preference was
given to merit, which gives a natural ascendant, and to age, which is
the parent of deliberateness in council, and experience in execution.
The ancients among the Hebrews, the Geronts of Sparta, the Senate
of Rome, nay, the very etymology of our word seigneur, show how
much gray hairs were formerly respected. The oftener the choice
fell upon old men, the oftener it became necessary to repeat it, and
the more the trouble of such repetitions became sensible; electioneering
took place; factions arose; the parties contracted ill-blood; civil
wars blazed forth; the lives of the citizens were sacrificed to the
pretended happiness of the state; and things at last came to such a
pass, as to be ready to relapse into their primitive confusion. The
ambition of the principal men induced them to take advantage of
these circumstances to perpetuate the hitherto temporary charges in
their families; the people already inured to dependence, accustomed
to ease and the conveniences of life, and too much enervated to
break their fetters, consented to the increase of their slavery for the
sake of securing their tranquillity; and it is thus that chiefs, become
hereditary, contracted the habit of considering magistracies as a
family estate, and themselves as proprietors of those communities, of
which at first they were but mere officers; to call their fellow-citizens

222 ROUSSEAU
their slaves; to look upon them, like so many cows or sheep, as a part
of their substance; and to style themselves the peers of Gods, and
Kings of Kings.
By pursuing the progress of inequality in these different revolutions,
we shall discover that the establishment of laws and of the
right of property was the first term of it; the institution of magistrates
the second; and the third and last the changing of legal into
arbitrary power; so that the different states of rich and poor were
authorized by the first epoch; those of powerful and weak by the
second; and by the third those of master and slave, which formed
the last degree of inequality, and the term in which all the rest at
last end, till new revolutions entirely dissolve the government, or
bring it back nearer to its legal constitution.
To conceive the necessity of this progress, we are not so much to
consider the motives for the establishment of political bodies, as
the forms these bodies assume in their administration; and the inconveniences
with which they are essentially attended; for those
vices, which render social institutions necessary, are the same which
render the abuse of such institutions unavoidable; and as (Sparta
alone excepted, whose laws chiefly regarded the education of children,
and where Lycurgus established such manners and customs, as
in a great measure made laws needless,) the laws, in general less
strong than the passions, restrain men without changing them; it
would be no hard matter to prove that every government, which
carefully guarding against all alteration and corruption should scrupulously
comply with the ends of its institution, was unnecessarily
instituted; and that a country, where no one either eluded the laws,
or made an ill use of magistracy, required neither laws nor magistrates.
Political distinctions are necessarily attended with civil distinctions.
The inequality between the people and the chiefs increase so
fast as to be soon felt by the private members, and appears among
them in a thousand shapes according to their passions, their talents,
and the circumstances of affairs. The magistrate can not usurp any
illegal power without making himself creatures, with whom he must
divide it. Besides, the citizens of a free state suffer themselves to be
oppressed merely in proportion as, hurried on by a blind ambition,

DISCOURSE ON INEQUALITY 223
and looking rather below than above them, they come to love
authority more than independence. When they submit to fetters, ’tis
only to be the better able to fetter others in their turn. It is no easy
matter to make him obey, who does not wish to command; and the
most refined policy would find it impossible to subdue those men,
who only desire to be independent; but inequality easily gains ground
among base and ambitious souls, ever ready to run the risks o£
fortune, and almost indifferent whether they command or obey, as
she proves either favourable or adverse to them. Thus then there
must have been a time, when the eyes of the people were bewitched
to such a degree, that their rulers needed only to have said to the
most pitiful wretch, “Be great you and all your posterity,” to make
him immediately appear great in the eyes of every one as well as in
his own; and his descendants took still more upon them, in proportion
to their removes from him: the more distant and uncertain the
cause, the greater the effect; the longer line of drones a family produced,
the more illustrious it was reckoned.
Were this a proper place to enter into details, I could easily explain
in what manner inequalities in point of credit and authority become
unavoidable among private persons the moment that, united into
one body, they are obliged to compare themselves one with another,
and to note the differences which they find in the continual use every
man must make of his neighbour. These differences are of several
kinds; but riches, nobility or rank, power and personal merit, being
in general the principal distinctions, by which men in society measure
each other, I could prove that the harmony or conflict between these
different forces is the surest indication of the good or bad original
constitution of any state: I could make it appear that, as among these
four kinds of inequality, personal qualities are the source of all
the rest, riches is that in which they ultimately terminate, because,
being the most immediately useful to the prosperity of individuals,
and the most easy to communicate, they are made use of to purchase
every other distinction. By this observation we are enabled to judge
with tolerable exactness, how much any people has deviated from its
primitive institution, and what steps it has still to make to the extreme
term of corruption. I could show how much this universal desire of
reputation, of honours, of preference, with which we are all devoured,

224 ROUSSEAU
exercises and compares our talents and our forces: how much it
excites and multiplies our passions; and, by creating an universal
compedtion, rivalship, or rather enmity among men, how many disappointments,
successes, and catastrophes of every kind it daily causes
among the innumerable pretenders whom it engages in the same
career. I could show that it is to this itch of being spoken of, to this
fury of distinguishing ourselves which seldom or never gives us a
moment’s respite, that we owe both the best and the worst things
among us, our virtues and our vices, our sciences and our errors,
our conquerors and our philosophers; that is to say, a great many
bad things to a very few good ones. I could prove, in short, that
if we behold a handful of rich and powerful men seated on the
pinnacle of fortune and greatness, while the crowd grovel in obscurity
and want, it is merely because the first, prize what they enjoy,
but in the same degree that others want it, and that, without
changing their condition, they would cease to be happy the minute
the people ceased to be miserable.
But these details would alone furnish sufficient matter for a more
considerable work, in which might be weighed the advantages and
disadvantages of every species of government, relatively to the rights
of man in a state of nature, and might likewise be unveiled all the
different faces under which inequality has appeared to this day, and
may hereafter appear to the end of time, according to the nature of
these several governments, and the revolutions, time must unavoidably
occasion in them. We should then see the multitude oppressed
by domestic tyrants in consequence of those very precautions taken
by them to guard against foreign masters. We should see oppression
increase continually without its being ever possible for the oppressed
to know where it would stop, nor what lawful means they had left
to check its progress. We should see the rights of citizens, and the
liberties of nations extinguished by slow degrees, and the groans,
and protestations and appeals of the weak treated as seditious murmurings.
We should see policy confine to a mercenary portion of the
people the honour of defending the common cause. We should see
imposts made necessary by such measures, the disheartened husbandman
desert his field even in time of peace, and quit the plough to
take up the sword. We should see fatal and whimsical rules laid

DISCOURSE ON INEQUALITY 225
down concerning the point of honour. We should see the champions
of their country sooner or later become her enemies, and perpetually
holding their poniards to the breasts of their fellow citizens.
Nay, the time would come when they might be heard to say to the
oppressor of their country:

Pectore si fratris gladium juguloque parentis
Condere me jubeas, gravidaque in viscera partu
Conjugis, in vitd peragam tamen omnia dextra.

From the vast inequality of conditions and fortunes, from the
great variety of passions and of talents, of useless arts, of pernicious
arts, of frivolous sciences, would issue clouds of prejudices equally
contrary to reason, to happiness, to virtue. We should see the chiefs
foment everything that tends to weaken men formed into sociedes
by dividing them; everything that, while it gives society an air of
apparent harmony, sows in it the seeds of real division; everything
that can inspire the different orders with mutual distrust and
hatred by an opposition of their rights and interest, and of course
strengthen that power which contains them all.
“Tis from the bosom of this disorder and these revolutions, that
despotism gradually rearing up her hideous crest, and devouring
in every part of the state all that still remained sound and untainted,
would at last issue to trample upon the laws and the people, and
establish herself upon the ruins of the republic. The times immediately
preceding this last alteration would be times of calamity and
trouble: but at last everything would be swallowed up by the monster;
and the people would no longer have chiefs or laws, but only
tyrants. At this fatal period all regard to virtue and manners would
likewise disappear; for despotism, cut ex honesto nulla est spes, tolerates
no other master, wherever it reigns; the moment it speaks,
probity and duty lose all their influence, and the blindest obedience
is the only virtue the miserable slaves have left them to practise.
This is the last term of inequality, the extreme point which closes
the circle and meets that from which we set out. ‘Tis here that all
private men return to their primitive equality, because they are no
longer of any account; and that, the subjects having no longer any
law but that of their master, nor the master any other law but his

226 ROUSSEAU
passions, all notions of good and principles of justice again disappear.
‘Tis here that everything returns to the sole law of the strongest, and
of course to a new state of nature different from that with which we
began, in as much as the first was the state of nature in its purity,
and the last the consequence of excessive corruption. There is, in
other respects, so little difference between these two states, and the
contract of government is so much dissolved by despotism, that the
despot is no longer master than he continues the strongest, and that,
as soon as his slaves can expel him, they may do it without his
having the least right to complain of their using him ill. The insurrection,
which ends in the death or despotism of a sultan, is as juridical
an act as any by which the day before he disposed of the lives and
fortunes of his subjects. Force alone upheld him, force alone overturns
him. Thus all things take place and succeed in their natural
order; and whatever may be the upshot of these hasty and frequent
revolutions, no one man has reason to complain of another’s injustice,
but only of his own indiscretion or bad fortune.
By thus discovering and following the lost and forgotten tracks,
by which man from the natural must have arrived at the civil state;
by restoring, with the intermediate positions which I have been just
indicating, those which want of leisure obliges me to suppress, or
which my imagination has not suggested, every attentive reader must
unavoidably be struck at the immense space which separates these
two states. ‘Tis in this slow succession of things he may meet with
the solution of an infinite number of problems in morality and politics,
which philosophers are puzzled to solve. He will perceive that,
the mankind of one age not being the mankind of another, the reason
why Diogenes could not find a man was, that he sought among his
cotemporaries the man of an earlier period: Cato, he will then see,
fell with Rome and with liberty, because he did not suit the age in
which he lived; and the greatest of men served only to astonish that
world, which would have cheerfully obeyed him, had he come into
it five hundred years earlier. In a word, he will find himself in a
condition to understand how the soul and the passions of men by
insensible alterations change as it were their nature; how it comes
to pass, that at the long run our wants and our pleasures change
objects; that, original man vanishing by degrees, society no longer

DISCOURSE ON INEQUALITY 227
offers to our inspection but an assemblage of artificial men and
factitious passions, which are the work of all these new relations,
and have no foundation in nature. Reflection teaches us nothing on
that head, but what experience perfectly confirms. Savage man and
civilised man differ so much at bottom in point of inclinations and
passions, that what constitutes the supreme happiness of the one
would reduce the other to despair. The first sighs for nothing but
repose and liberty; he desires only to live, and to be exempt from
labour; nay, the ataraxy of the most confirmed Stoic falls short of his
consummate indifference for every other object. On the contrary,
the citizen always in motion, is perpetually sweating and toiling, and
racking his brains to find out occupations still more laborious: He
continues a drudge to his last minute; nay, he courts death to be able
to live, or renounces life to acquire immortality. He cringes to men
in power whom he hates, and to rich men whom he despises; he
sticks at nothing to have the honour of serving them; he is not
ashamed to value himself on his own weakness and the protection
they afford him; and proud of his chains, he speaks with disdain of
those who have not the honour of being the partner of his bondage.
What a spectacle must the painful and envied labours of an European
minister of state form in the eyes of a Caribbean! How many cruel
deaths would not this indolent savage prefer to such a horrid life,
which very often is not even sweetened by the pleasure of doing
good? But to see the drift of so many cares, his mind should first
have affixed some meaning to these words power and reputation; he
should be apprised that there are men who consider as something
the looks of the rest of mankind, who know how to be happy and
satisfied with themselves on the testimony of others sooner than upon
their own. In fact, the real source of all those differences, is that the
savage lives within himself, whereas the citizen, constantly beside
himself, knows only how to live in the opinion of others; insomuch
that it is, if I may say so, merely from their judgment that he derives
the consciousness of his own existence. It is foreign to my subject
to show how this disposition engenders so much indifference for
good and evil, notwithstanding so many and such fine discourses of
morality; how everything, being reduced to appearances, becomes
mere art and mummery; honour, friendship, virtue, and often vice

228 ROUSSEAU
itself, which we at last learn the secret to boast of; how, in short,
ever inquiring of others what we are, and never daring to question
ourselves on so delicate a point, in the midst of so much philosophy,
humanity, and politeness, and so many sublime maxims, we have
nothing to show for ourselves but a deceitful and frivolous exterior,
honour without virtue, reason without wisdom, and pleasure without
happiness. It is sufficient that I have proved that this is not the
original condition of man, and that it is merely the spirit of society,
and the inequality which society engenders, that thus change and
transform all our natural inclinations.
I have endeavoured to exhibit the origin and progress of inequality,
the institution and abuse of political societies, as far as these things
are capable of being deduced from the nature of man by the mere
light of reason, and independendy of those sacred maxims which
give to the sovereign authority the sanction of divine right. It follows
from this picture, that as there is scarce any inequality among men
in a state of nature, all that which we now behold owes its force and
its growth to the development of our faculties and the improvement
of our understanding, and at last becomes permanent and lawful
by the establishment of property and of laws. It likewise follows
that moral inequality, authorised by any right that is merely positive,
clashes with natural right, as often as it does not combine in the same
proportion with physical inequality: a distinction which sufficiently
determines, what we are able to think in that respect of that kind of
inequality which obtains in all civilised nations, since it is evidently
against the law of nature that infancy should command old age, folly
conduct wisdom, and a handful of men should be ready to choke
with superfluities, while the famished multitude want the commonest
necessaries of life.

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12 What Is Good Taste?

Burke ON TASTE Vol. 24, pp. 11-26

ON TASTE
INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE
ON A superficial view, we may seem to differ very widely
from each other in our reasonings, and no less in our
pleasures: but notwithstanding this difference, which I
think to be rather apparent than real, it is probable that the standard
both of reason and taste is the same in all human creatures. For if
there were not some principles of judgment as well as of sentiment
common to all mankind, no hold could possibly be taken either on
their reason or their passions, sufficient to maintain the ordinary
correspondence of life. It appears indeed to be generally acknowledged,
that with regard to truth and falsehood there is something
fixed. We find people in their disputes continually appealing to certain
tests and standards, which are allowed on all sides, and are supposed
to be established in our common nature. But there is not the
same obvious concurrence in any uniform or settled principles which
relate to taste. It is even commonly supposed that this delicate and
aerial faculty, which seems too volatile to endure even the chains of
a definition, cannot be properly tried by any test, nor regulated by
any standard. There is so continual a call for the exercise of the
reasoning faculty, and it is so much strengthened by perpetual contention,
that certain maxims of right reason seem to be tacitly settled
amongst the most ignorant. The learned have improved on this
rude science, and reduced those maxims into a system. If taste has
not been so happily cultivated, it was not that the subject was barren,
but that the labourers were few or negligent; for, to say the truth,
there are not the same interesting motives to impel us to fix the one,
which urge us to ascertain the other. And, after all, if men differ in
their opinion concerning such matters, their difference is not attended
with the same important consequences; else I make no doubt
but that the logic of taste, if I may be allowed the expression, might
11
12 EDMUND BURKE
very possibly be as well digested, and we might come to discuss
matters of this nature with as much certainty, as those which seem
more immediately within the province of mere reason. And indeed,
it is very necessary, at the entrance into such an inquiry as our present,
to make this point as clear as possible; for if taste has no fixed
principles, if the imagination is not affected according to some invariable
and certain laws, our labour is likely to be employed to very
little purpose; as it must be judged a useless, if not an absurd undertaking,
to lay down rules for caprice, and to set up for a legislator
of whims and fancies.
The term taste, like all other figurative terms, is not extremely
accurate; the thing which we understand by it is far from a simple
and determinate idea in the minds of most men, and it is therefore
liable to uncertainty and confusion. I have no great opinion of a
definition, the celebrated remedy for the cure of this disorder. For,
when we define, we seem in danger of circumscribing nature within
the bounds of our own notions, which we often take up by hazard,
or embrace on trust, or form out of a limited and partial consideration
of the object before us; instead of extending our ideas to take
in all that nature comprehends, according to her manner of combining.
We are limited in our inquiry by the strict laws to which
we have submitted at our setting out.

—Circa vilem patulumque morabimur orbetn,
Unde pudor prof err e pedem vetat aut operis lex.

A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way
towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined; but let the
virtue of a definition be what it will, in the order of things, it seems
rather to follow than to precede our inquiry, of which it ought to be
considered as the result. It must be acknowledged, that the methods
of disquisition and teaching may be sometimes different, and on very
good reason undoubtedly; but, for my part, I am convinced that the
method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of
investigation is incomparably the best; since, not content with serving
up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock on which
they grew; it tends to set the reader himself in the track of invention,
and to direct him into those paths in which the author has made his

ON TASTE 13
own discoveries, if he should be so happy as to have made any that
are valuable.
But to cut off all pretence for cavilling, I mean by the word Taste
no more than that faculty or those faculties of the mind, which are
affected with, or which form a judgment of, the works of imagination
and the elegant arts. This is, I think, the most general idea
of that word, and what is the least connected with any particular
theory. And my point in this inquiry is, to find whether there are
any principles, on which the imagination is affected, so common to
all, so grounded and certain, as to supply the means of reasoning
satisfactorily about them. And such principles of taste I fancy there
are; however paradoxical it may seem to those, who on a superficial
view imagine, that there is so great a diversity of tastes, both in kind
and degree, that nothing can be more indeterminate.
All the natural powers in man, which I know, that are conversant
about external objects, are the senses; the imagination; and the judgment.
And first with regard to the senses. We do and we must
suppose, that as the conformation of their organs is nearly or altogether
the same in all men, so the manner of perceiving external
objects is in all men the same, or with little difference. We are satisfied
that what appears to be light to one eye, appears light to another;
that what seems sweet to one palate, is sweet to another; that what is
dark and bitter to this man, is likewise dark and bitter to that; and
we conclude in the same manner of great and litde, hard and soft,
hot and cold, rough and smooth, and indeed of all the natural
qualities and affections of bodies. If we suffer ourselves to imagine,
that their senses present to different men different images of things,
this sceptical proceeding will make every sort of reasoning on every
subject vain and frivolous, even that sceptical reasoning itself which
had persuaded us to entertain a doubt concerning the agreement of
our perceptions. But as there will be little doubt that bodies present
similar images to the whole species, it must necessarily be allowed,
that the pleasures and the pains which every object excites in one
man, it must raise in all mankind, whilst it operates naturally,
simply, and by its proper powers only; for if we deny this, we must
imagine that the same cause, operating in the same manner, and on
subjects of the same kind, will produce different effects; which would

14 EDMUND BURKE
be highly absurd. Let us first consider this point in the sense of taste,
and the rather, as the faculty in question has taken its name from
that sense. All men are agreed to call vinegar sour, honey sweet, and
aloes bitter; and as they are all agreed in finding these qualities in
those objects, they do not in the least differ concerning their effects
with regard to pleasure and pain. They all concur in calling sweetness
pleasant, and sourness and bitterness unpleasant. Here there is
no diversity in their sentiments; and that there is not, appears fully
from the consent of all men in the metaphors which are taken from
the sense of taste. A sour temper, bitter expressions, bitter curses,
a bitter fate, are terms well and strongly understood by all. And we
are altogether as well understood when we say, a sweet disposition,
a sweet person, a sweet condition, and the like. It is confessed, that
custom and some other causes have made many deviations from the
natural pleasures or pains which belong to these several tastes: but
then the power of distinguishing between the natural and the acquired
relish remains to the very last. A man frequently comes to
prefer the taste of tobacco to that of sugar, and the flavour of vinegar
to that of milk; but this makes no confusion in tastes, whilst he is
sensible that the tobacco and vinegar are not sweet, and whilst he
knows that habit alone has reconciled his palate to these alien
pleasures. Even with such a person we may speak, and with sufficient
precision, concerning tastes. But should any man be found who
declares, that to him tobacco has a taste like sugar, and that he
cannot distinguish between milk and vinegar; or that tobacco and
vinegar are sweet, milk bitter, and sugar sour; we immediately conclude
that the organs of this man are out of order, and that his
palate is utterly vitiated. We are as far from conferring with such a
person upon tastes, as from reasoning concerning the relations of
quantity with one who should deny that all the parts together were
equal to the whole. We do not call a man of this kind wrong in
his notions, but absolutely mad. Exceptions of this sort, in either
way, do not at all impeach our general rule, nor make us conclude
that men have various principles concerning the relations of quantity
or the taste of things. So that when it is said, taste cannot be
disputed, it can only mean, that no one can strictly answer what
pleasure or pain some particular man may find from the taste of

ON TASTE 15
some particular thing. This indeed cannot be disputed; but we
may dispute, and with sufficient clearness too, concerning the things
which are naturally pleasing or disagreeable to the sense. But when
we talk of any peculiar or acquired relish, then we must know the
habits, the prejudices, or the distempers of this particular man, and
we must draw our conclusion from those.
This agreement of mankind is not confined to the taste solely.
The principle of pleasure derived from sight is the same in all.
Light is more pleasing than darkness. Summer, when the earth is
clad in green, when the heavens are serene and bright, is more
agreeable than winter, when everything makes a different appearance.
I never remember that anything beautiful, whether a man,
a beast, a bird, or a plant, was ever shown, though it were to a
hundred people, that they did not all immediately agree that it was
beautiful, though some might have thought that it fell short of their
expectation, or that other things were still finer. I believe no man
thinks a goose to be more beautiful than a swan, or imagines that
what they call a Friesland hen excels a peacock. It must be observed,
too, that the pleasures of the sight are not near so complicated,
and confused, and altered by unnatural habits and associations,
as the pleasures of the taste are; because the pleasures of the
sight more commonly acquiesce in themselves; and are not so often
altered by considerations which are independent of the sight itself.
But things do not spontaneously present themselves to the palate
as they do to the sight; they are generally applied to it, either as
food or as medicine; and, from the qualities which they possess for
nutritive or medicinal purposes, they often form the palate by degrees,
and by force of these associations. Thus opium is pleasing to
Turks, on account of the agreeable delirium it produces. Tobacco
is the delight of Dutchmen, as it diffuses a torpor and pleasing
stupefaction. Fermented spirits please our common people, because
they banish care, and all consideration of future or present evils.
All of these would lie absolutely neglected if their properties had
originally gone no further than the taste; but all these together,
with tea and coffee, and some other things, have passed from the
apothecary’s shop to our tables, and were taken for health long
before they were thought of for pleasure. The effect of the drug has

l6 EDMUND BURKE
made us use it frequently; and frequent use, combined with the
agreeable effect, has made the taste itself at last agreeable. But this
does not in the least perplex our reasoning; because we distinguish
to the last the acquired from the natural relish. In describing the
taste of an unknown fruit, you would scarcely say that it had a sweet
and pleasant flavour like tobacco, opium, or garlic, although you
spoke to those who were in the constant use of these drugs, and
had great pleasure in them. There is in all men a sufficient remembrance
of the original natural causes of pleasure, to enable them to
bring all things offered to their senses to that standard, and to regulate
their feelings and opinions by it. Suppose one who had so
vitiated his palate as to take more pleasure in the taste of opium than
in that of butter or honey, to be presented with a bolus of squills;
there is hardly any doubt but that he would prefer the butter or
honey to this nauseous morsel, or to any bitter drug to which he
had not been accustomed; which proves that his palate was naturally
like that of other men in all things, that it is still like the palate
of other men in many things, and only vitiated in some particular
points. For in judging of any new thing, even of a taste similar to
that which he has been formed by habit to like, he finds his palate
affected in a natural manner, and on the common principles. Thus
the pleasure of all the senses, of the sight, and even of the taste, that
most ambiguous of the senses, is the same in all, high and low,
learned and unlearned.
Besides the ideas, with their annexed pains and pleasures, which
are presented by the sense; the mind of man possesses a sort of creative
power of its own; either in representing at pleasure the images
of things in the order and manner in which they were received by
the senses, or in combining those images in a new manner, and
according to a different order. This power is called imagination;
and to this belongs whatever is called wit, fancy, invention, and
the like. But it must be observed, that this power of the imagination
is incapable of producing anything absolutely new; it can only
vary the disposition of those ideas which it has received from the
senses. Now the imagination is the most extensive province of
pleasure and pain, as it is the region of our fears and our hopes, and
of all our passions that are connected with them; and whatever is

ON TASTE 17
calculated to affect the imagination with these commanding ideas,
by force of any original natural impression, must have the same
power pretty equally over all men. For since the imagination is
only the representation of the senses, it can only be pleased or displeased
with the images, from the same principle on which the
sense is pleased or displeased with the realities; and consequently
there must be just as close an agreement in the imaginations as in
the senses of men. A little attention will convince us that this must
of necessity be the case.
But in the imagination, besides the pain or pleasure arising from
the properties of the natural object, a pleasure is perceived from
the resemblance which the imitation has to the original: the imagination,
I conceive, can have no pleasure but what results from one
or other of these causes. And these causes operate pretty uniformly
upon all men, because they operate by principles in nature, and
which are not derived from any particular habits or advantages. Mr.
Locke very justly and finely observes of wit, that it is chiefly conversant
in tracing resemblances: he remarks, at the same time, that
the business of judgment is rather in finding differences. It may
perhaps appear, on this supposition, that there is no material distinction
between the wit and the judgment, as they both seem to
result from different operations of the same faculty of comparing.
But in reality, whether they are or are not dependent on the same
power of the mind, they differ so very materially in many respects,
that a perfect union of wit and judgment is one of the rarest
things in the world. When two distinct objects are unlike to each
other, it is only what we expect; things are in their common way;
and therefore they make no impression on the imagination: but
when two distinct objects have a resemblance, we are struck, we
attend to them, and we are pleased. The mind of man has naturally
a far greater alacrity and satisfaction in tracing resemblances than
in searching for differences: because by making resemblances we
produce new images; we unite, we create, we enlarge our stock;
but in making distinctions we offer no food at all to the imagination;
the task itself is more severe and irksome, and what pleasure
we derive from it is something of a negative and indirect nature.
A piece of news is told me in the morning; this, merely as a piece of

18 EDMUND BURKE
news, as a fact added to my stock, gives me some pleasure. In the
evening I find there was nothing in it. What do I gain by this, but
the dissatisfaction to find that I have been imposed upon? Hence
it is that men are much more naturally inclined to belief than to
incredulity. And it is upon this principle, that the most ignorant
and barbarous nations have frequently excelled in similitudes, comparisons,
metaphors, and allegories, who have been weak and backward
in distinguishing and sorting their ideas. And it is for a
reason of this kind, that Homer and the Oriental writers, though
very fond of similitudes, and though they often strike out such as
are truly admirable, seldom take care to have them exact; that is,
they are taken with the general resemblance, they paint it strongly,
and they take no notice of the difference which may be found
between the things compared.
Now, as the pleasure of resemblance is that which principally
flatters the imagination, all men are nearly equal in this point, as
far as their knowledge of the things represented or compared extends.
The principle of this knowledge is very much accidental, as it depends
upon experience and observation, and not on the strength or
weakness of any natural faculty; and it is from this difference in
knowledge, that what we commonly, though with no great exactness,
call a difference in taste proceeds. A man to whom sculpture
is new, sees a barber’s block, or some ordinary piece of statuary, he
is immediately struck and pleased, because he sees something like
a human figure; and, entirely taken up with this likeness, he does
not at all attend to its defects. No person, I believe, at the first time
of seeing a piece of imitation ever did. Some time after, we suppose
that this novice lights upon a more artificial work of the same
nature; he now begins to look with contempt on what he admired
at first; not that he admired it even then for its unlikeness to a
man, but for that general, though inaccurate, resemblance which it
bore to the human figure. What he admired at different times in
these so different figures, is strictly the same; and though his knowledge
is improved, his taste is not altered. Hitherto his mistake was
from a want of knowledge in art; and this arose from his inexperience;
but he may be still deficient from a want of knowledge
in nature. For it is possible that the man in question may stop

ON TASTE 19
here, and that the masterpiece of a great hand may please him no
more than the middling performance of a vulgar artist: and this
not for want of better or higher relish, but because all men do not
observe with sufficient accuracy on the human figure to enable
them to judge properly of an imitation of it. And that the critical
taste does not depend upon a superior principle in men, but upon
superior knowledge, may appear from several instances. The story
of the ancient painter and the shoemaker is very well known. The
shoemaker set the painter right with regard to some mistakes he
had made in the shoe of one of his figures, and which the painter,
who had not made such accurate observations on shoes, and was
content with a general resemblance, had never observed. But this
was no impeachment to the taste of the painter; it only showed some
want of knowledge in the art of making shoes. Let us imagine,
that an anatomist had come into the painter’s working-room. His
piece is in general well done, the figure in question in a good attitude,
and the parts well adjusted to their various movements; yet
the anatomist, critical in his art, may observe the swell of some
muscle not quite just in the peculiar action of the figure. Here the
anatomist observes what the painter had not observed; and he
passes by what the shoemaker had remarked. But a want of the
last critical knowledge in anatomy no more reflected on the natural
good taste of the painter or of any common observer of his piece,
than the want of an exact knowledge in the formation of a shoe.
A fine piece of a decollated head of St. John the Baptist was shown
to a Turkish emperor; he praised many things, but he observed
one defect; he observed that the skin did not shrink from the
wounded part of the neck. The sultan on this occasion, though his
observation was very just, discovered no more natural taste than
the painter who executed this piece, or than a thousand European
connoisseurs, who probably never would have made the same observation.
His Turkish Majesty had indeed been well acquainted
with that terrible spectacle, which the others could only have represented
in their imagination. On the subject of their dislike there is
a difference between all these people, arising from the different
kinds and degrees of their knowledge; but there is something in
common to the painter, the shoemaker, the anatomist, and the

20 EDMUND BURKE
Turkish emperor, the pleasure arising from a natural object, so far
as each perceives it justly imitated; the satisfaction in seeing an
agreeable figure; the sympathy proceeding from a striking and
affecting incident. So far as taste is natural, it is nearly common
to all.
In poetry, and other pieces of imagination, the same parity may be
observed. It is true, that one man is charmed with Don Bellianis,
and reads Virgil coldly; whilst another is transported with the
Eneid, and leaves Don Bellianis to children. These two men seem
to have a taste very different from each other; but in fact they differ
very little. In both these pieces, which inspire such opposite sentiments,
a tale exciting admiration is told; both are full of action,
both are passionate; in both are voyages, battles, triumphs, and continual
changes of fortune. The admirer of Don Bellianis perhaps
does not understand the refined language of the Eneid, who, if it
was degraded into the style of the Pilgrim’s Progress, might feel it
in all its energy, on the same principle which made him an admirer
of Don Bellianis.
In his favourite author he is not shocked with the continual
breaches of probability, the confusion of times, the offences against
manners, the trampling upon geography; for he knows nothing of
geography and chronology, and he has never examined the grounds
of probability. He perhaps reads of a shipwreck on the coast of
Bohemia; wholly taken up with so interesting an event, and only
solicitous for the fate of his hero, he is not in the least troubled at
this extravagant blunder. For why should he be shocked at a shipwreck
on the coast of Bohemia, who does not know but that Bohemia
may be an island in the Atlantic ocean? and after all, what
reflection is this on the natural good taste of the person here supposed?
So far then as taste belongs to the imagination, its principle is
the same in all men; there is no difference in the manner of their
being affected, nor in the causes of the affection; but in the degree
there is a difference, which arises from two causes principally; either
from a greater degree of natural sensibility, or from a closer and
longer attention to the object. To illustrate this by the procedure of
the senses, in which the same difference is found, let us suppose a

ON TASTE 21
very smooth marble table to be set before two men; they both perceive
it to be smooth; and they are both pleased with it because of
this quality. So far they agree. But suppose another, and after that
another table, the latter still smoother than the former, to be set
before them. It is now very probable that these men, who are so
agreed upon what is smooth, and in the pleasure from thence, will
disagree when they come to settle which table has the advantage in
point of polish. Here is indeed the great difference between tastes,
when men come to compare the excess or diminution of things which
are judged by degree and not by measure. Nor is it easy, when such
a difference arises, to setde the point, if the excess or diminution be
not glaring. If we differ in opinion about two quantities, we can
have recourse to a common measure, which may decide the question
with the utmost exactness; and this, I take it, is what gives mathematical
knowledge a greater certainty than any other. But in things
whose excess is not judged by greater or smaller, as smoothness and
roughness, hardness and softness, darkness and light, the shades of
colours, all these are very easily distinguished when the difference is
any way considerable, but not when it is minute, for want of some
common measures, which perhaps may never come to be discovered.
In these nice cases, supposing the acuteness of the sense equal, the
greater attention and habit in such things will have the advantage.
In the question about the tables, the marble-polisher will unquestionably
determine the most accurately. But notwithstanding this
want of a common measure for settling many disputes relative to
the senses, and their representative the imagination, we find that the
principles are the same in all, and that there is no disagreement until
we come to examine into the pre-eminence or difference of things,
which brings us within the province of the judgment.
So long as we are conversant with the sensible qualities of things,
hardly any more than the imagination seems concerned; little more
also than the imagination seems concerned when the passions are
represented, because by the force of natural sympathy they are felt
in all men without any recourse to reasoning, and their justness
recognized in every breast. Love, grief, fear, anger, joy, all these
passions have, in their turns, affected every mind; and they do not
affect it in an arbitrary or casual manner, but upon certain, natural,

22 EDMUND BURKE
and uniform principles. But as many of the works of Imagination
are not confined to the representation of sensible objects, nor to
efforts upon the passions, but extend themselves to the manners, the
characters, the actions, and designs of men, their relations, their virtues,
and vices, they come within the province of the judgment,
which is improved by attention, and by the habit of reasoning. All
these make a very considerable part of what are considered as the
objects of taste; and Horace sends us to the schools of philosophy
and the world for our instruction in them. Whatever certainty is to
be acquired in morality and the science of life; just the same degree
of certainty have we in what relates to them in the works of imitation.
Indeed it is for the most part in our skill in manners, and
in the observances of time and place, and of decency in general,
which is only to be learned in those schools to which Horace recommends
us, that what is called taste, by way of distinction, consists;
and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment. On
the whole it appears to me, that what is called taste, in its most
general acceptation, is not a simple idea, but is partly made up of a
perception of the primary pleasures of sense, of the secondary pleasures
of the imagination, and of the conclusions of the reasoning
faculty, concerning the various relations pf these, and concerning the
human passions, manners, and actions. All this is requisite to form
taste, and the ground-work of all these is the same in the human
mind; for as the senses are the great originals of all our ideas, and
consequently of all our pleasures, if they are not uncertain and arbitrary,
the whole ground-work of taste is common to all, and therefore
there is a sufficient foundation for a conclusive reasoning on
these matters.
Whilst we consider taste merely according to its nature and species,
we shall find its principles entirely uniform; but the degree in
which these principles prevail in the several individuals of mankind,
is altogether as different as the principles themselves are similar..
For sensibility and judgment, which are the qualities that compose
what we commonly call a taste, vary exceedingly in various people.
From a defect in the former of these qualities arises a want of taste;
a weakness in the latter constitutes a wrong or a bad one. There are
some men formed with feelings so blunt, with tempers so cold and

ON TASTE 23
phlegmatic, that they can hardly be said to be awake during the
whole course of their lives. Upon such persons the most striking objects
make but a faint and obscure impression. There are others
so continually in the agitation of gross and merely sensual pleasures,
or so occupied in the low drudgery of avarice, or so heated in the
chase of honours and distinction, that their minds, which had been
used continually to the storms of these violent and tempestuous passions,
can hardly be put in motion by the delicate and refined play
of the imagination. These men, though from a different cause, become
as stupid and insensible as the former; but whenever either
of these happen to be struck with any natural elegance or greatness,
or with these qualities in any work of art, they are moved upon
the same principle.
The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment. And this may
arise from a natural weakness of understanding, (in whatever the
strength of that faculty may consist,) or, which is much more commonly
the case, it may arise from a want of proper and well-directed
exercise, which alone can make it strong and ready. Besides that
ignorance, inattention, prejudice, rashness, levity, obstinacy, in short,
all those passions, and all those vices, which pervert the judgment in
other matters, prejudice it no less in this its more refined and elegant
province. These causes produce different opinions upon everything
which is an object of the understanding, without inducing us
to suppose that there are no settled principles of reason. And indeed,
on the whole, one may observe that there is rather less difference
upon matters of taste among mankind, than upon most of those
which depend upon the naked reason; and that men are far better
agreed on the excellency of a description in Virgil, than on the truth
or falsehood of a theory of Aristotle.
A rectitude of judgment in the arts, which may be called a good
taste, does in a great measure depend upon sensibility; because, if
the mind has no bent to the pleasures of the imagination, it will
never apply itself sufficiently to works of that species to acquire a
competent knowledge in them. But, though a degree of sensibility
is requisite to form a good judgment, yet a good judgment does not
necessarily arise from a quick sensibility of pleasure; it frequently
happens that a very poor judge, merely by force of a greater com-

24 EDMUND BURKE
plexional sensibility, is more affected by a very poor piece, than the
best judge by the most perfect; for as everything new, extraordinary,
grand, or passionate, is well calculated to affect such a person, and
that the faults do not affect him, his pleasure is more pure and unmixed;
and as it is merely a pleasure of the imagination, it is much
higher than any which is derived from a rectitude of the judgment;
the judgment is for the greater part employed in throwing stumbling-
blocks in the way of the imagination, in dissipating the scenes
of its enchantment, and in tying us down to the disagreeable yoke
of our reason: for almost the only pleasure that men have in judging
better than others, consists in a sort of conscious pride and superiority,
which arises from thinking rightly; but then, this is an indirect
pleasure, a pleasure which does not immediately result from the object
which is under contemplation. In the morning of our days,
when the senses are unworn and tender, when the whole man is
awake in every part, and the gloss of novelty fresh upon all the
objects that surround us, how lively at that time are our sensations,
but how false and inaccurate the judgments we form of things? I
despair of ever receiving the same degree of pleasure from the most
excellent performances of genius, which I felt at that age from
pieces which my present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible.
Every trivial cause of pleasure is apt to affect the man of too
sanguine a complexion: his appetite is too keen to suffer his taste
to be delicate; and he is in all respects what Ovid says of himself in
love,

Molle meum levibus cor est violabile telis,
Et semper causa est, cur ego semper amem.

One of this character can never be a refined judge; never what the
comic poet calls elegans formarum spectator. The excellence and
force of a composition must always be imperfectly estimated from
its effect on the minds of any, except we know the temper and
character of those minds. The most powerful effects of poetry and
music have been displayed, and perhaps are still displayed, where
these arts are but in a very low and imperfect state. The rude hearer
is affected by the principles which operate in these arts even in their
rudest condition; and he is not skilful enough to perceive the

ON TASTE 25
defects. But as the arts advance towards their perfection, the science
of criticism advances with equal pace, and the pleasure of judges
is frequently interrupted by the faults which are discovered in the
most finished compositions.
Before I leave this subject I cannot help taking notice of an opinion
which many persons entertain, as if the taste were a separate
faculty of the mind, and distinct from the judgment and imagination;
a species of instinct, by which we are struck naturally, and
at the first glance, without any previous reasoning, with the excellencies,
or the defects, of a composition. So far as the imagination
and the passions are concerned, I believe it true, that the reason
is little consulted; but where disposition, where decorum, where congruity
are concerned, in short, wherever the best taste differs from
the worst, I am convinced that the understanding operates, and
nothing else; and its operation is in reality far from being always
sudden, or, when it is sudden, it is often far from being right. Men
of the best taste, by consideration, come frequently to change these
early and precipitate judgments, which the mind, from its aversion
to neutrality and doubt, loves to form on the spot. It is known that
the taste (whatever it is) is improved exactly as we improve our
judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to
our object, and by frequent exercise. They who have not taken
these methods, if their taste decides quickly, it is always uncertainly;
and their quickness is owing to their presumption and rashness,
and not to any sudden irradiation, that in a moment dispels
all darkness from their minds. But they who have cultivated that
species of knowledge which makes the object of taste, by degrees,
and habitually, attain not only a soundness, but a readiness of judgment,
as men do by the same methods on all other occasions. At
first they are obliged to spell, but at least they read with ease and
with celerity; but this celerity of its operation is no proof that the
taste is a distinct faculty. Nobody, I believe, has attended the course
of a discussion, which turned upon matters within the sphere of
mere naked reason, but must have observed the extreme readiness
with which the whole process of the argument is carried on, the
grounds discovered, the objections raised and answered, and the conclusions
drawn from premises, with a quickness altogether as great

26 EDMUND BURKE
as the taste can be supposed to work with; and yet where nothing
but plain reason either is or can be suspected to operate. To multiply
principles for every different appearance, is useless, and unphilosophical
too in a high degree.
This matter might be pursued much further; but it is not the
extent of the subject which must prescribe our bounds, for what
subject does not branch out to infinity? It is the nature of our
particular scheme, and the single point of view in which we consider
it, which ought to put a stop to our researches.

America Rising Again?

Is America going to hell? After a year of economic calamity that many fear has sent us into irreversible decline, the author finds reassurance in the peculiarly American cycle of crisis and renewal, and in the continuing strength of the forces that have made the country great: our university system, our receptiveness to immigration, our culture of innovation. In most significant ways, the U.S. remains the envy of the world. But here’s the alarming problem: our governing system is old and broken and dysfunctional. Fixing it—without resorting to a constitutional convention or a coup—is the key to securing the nation’s future. more>>

Lily Collins

By Evgenia Peretz – February 2010

Lily Collins

She’s as affable and wide-eyed as her famous dad, rock musician Phil, is menschy. The tweener set knows her as the party girl Phoebe on 90210 and as the host of Nickelodeon’s Hollywood Hang, on which she interviews the network’s stars. She’s done it all while attending the University of Southern California and writing the occasional magazine or newspaper piece on the side. This fall saw her moving into the big leagues, playing Sandra Bullock’s daughter in The Blind Side. Next up is Priest, based on a Korean comic book about a post-apocalyptic world made up of humans and vampires. With a million more people to meet, and who knows how many movies in her future, Collins can barely contain herself. “I always find myself wishing I was on set,” she gushes breathlessly. “I look forward to getting dirty, getting lost in the moment. I get really excited just talking about it!” more>>
Photograph by Norman Jean Roy.
Dress by Bottega Veneta.

Gore Vidal Loco?

What has happened to Gore Vidal, the witty, tough-minded subversive of American letters, the 20th century’s only possible answer to Oscar Wilde? After 9/11, the author laments, Vidal’s writings took a graceless lurch toward the crackpot, surpassing even the wilder-eyed efforts of Michael Moore and Oliver Stone, and providing a miserable coda to his brilliant run.

By Christopher Hitchens

February 2010

Gore Vidal wrote in 2002 that “Media was assigned its familiar task of inciting public opinion against Osama bin Laden, still not the proven mastermind.”

More than a decade ago, I sat on a panel in New York to review the life and work of Oscar Wilde. My fellow panelist was that heroic old queen Quentin Crisp, perhaps the only man ever to have made a success of the part of Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest. Inevitably there arose the question: Is there an Oscar Wilde for our own day? The moderator proposed Gore Vidal, and, really, once that name had been mentioned, there didn’t seem to be any obvious rival.

Like Wilde, Gore Vidal combined tough-mindedness with subversive wit (The Importance of Being Earnest is actually a very mordant satire on Victorian England) and had the rare gift of being amusing about serious things as well as serious about amusing ones. Like Wilde, he was able to combine radical political opinions with a lifestyle that was anything but solemn. And also like Wilde, he was almost never “off”: his private talk was as entertaining and shocking as his more prepared public appearances. Admirers of both men, and of their polymorphous perversity, could happily debate whether either of them was better at fiction or in the essay form. more>>

Indonesia’s Islam New Orthodoxy

Borobudur, Java, Indonesia. Photo by Dan Eckstein

The azaan rose from a nearby mosque, and then, as though passed like a baton, from another, and another, and the next. I counted seven mosques from where I stood in the center of the temple complex, though not all were within earshot, and a couple more were coming up. They were walking distance from each other. Like crucifixes in a horror film, onion-domed mosques to ward off the past.

Islam was a relatively recent import to this part of the world. It washed up on the western tip of present-day Indonesia in the twelfth century, took root in the fifteenth, and became dominant across much of the archipelago as late as the seventeenth. For the most part, it arrived through trade rather than conquest, by Indian dhow rather than Arab charger. It was preceded by more than a millennium of Hinduism and Buddhism, whose achievements included Borobudur, a massive ninth-century Buddhist stupa, and Majapahit, a Hindu-Buddhist empire whose influence stretched to present-day Cambodia. As the anthropologist Clifford Geertz wrote in comparing Indonesia to Morocco: “In Indonesia Islam did not construct a civilization, it appropriated one.” more>>

Discovery Solves Slavery Riddle

The location of tombs discovered in Egypt helps prove the men who built the great pyramids were not slaves after all, say archeologists.

A set of tombs belonging to the workers who built them has been discovered which sheds light on how they lived and ate more than 4,000 years ago.

The thousands of men who built the last remaining wonder of the ancient world regularly ate meat and worked three-month rotating shifts.

They were so well regarded they were also given the honour of being buried in mud brick tombs within the shadow of the sacred pyramids they worked on if they died during construction.

The tombs, revealed today by Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, date back to the country’s fourth dynasty between 2575 BC and 2467 BC.

It was during this time that the great pyramids were built, according to the head of the Council, Zahi Hawass. more>>

Neanderthal Metrosexual?

Study suggests he wore make-up

Looking good: Wearing makeup can no longer be seen as a modern trend – Neanderthal man got there first

British archaeologists have unearthed evidence that Neanderthals wore makeup 50,000 years ago.

Researchers say the discovery proves the human subspecies were not the ‘half-wits’ people assume and were capable of symbolic thinking.

Archaeologists from the University of Bristol located sea shells in Spain containing brightly-coloured pigments which were used as Neanderthal makeup containers. more>>

Adam’s Family Jewels

“And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and He took the bone of Adam’s penis and made him a woman.”

Er, wait, wasn’t it from one of Adam’s ribs that Eve was created?

Not according to Ziony Zevit. A professor of Semitic languages at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles Zevit posits that the Hebrew word tsela (literally “side,” but traditionally translated as “rib”) employed in Genesis refers in fact to Adam’s member.

Zevit, author of the forthcoming What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden?, argues that, etiologically, “rib” doesn’t make much sense in a story pregnant with sexual innuendo; nor is there precedent in ancient Near Eastern mythology for it to feature as an instrument of creation. Instead, tsela was likely a euphemism for the baculum, or “penis bone,” found in the males of most mammals. The Bible uses various euphemisms for male genitalia but never a specific word: two of them, “bone” and “flesh,” in the pertinent verse may be double entendres when Adam welcomes Eve as “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23).

Despite macho boasts of having a “boner,” there’s of course no bone in the human male’s reproductive organ. According to John Kaltner, Steven L. McKenzie and Joel Kilpatrick’s recently published compendium of titillating biblical tidbits, The Uncensored Bible, where Zevit’s suggestion receives prominent treatment, the authors of Genesis believed that the human male lacked this specific part of his anatomy precisely because the first man’s had been removed to create Eve. more>>

A Une Dame Creole

A UNE DAME CREOLE

Au pays parfumé que le soleil caresse,
J’ai connu sous un dais d’arbres tout empourprés
Et de palmiers, d’où pleut sur les yeux la paresse,
Une dame créole aux charmes ignorés.

Son teint est pâle et chaud; la brune enchanteresse
A dans le col des airs noblement maniérés;
Grande et svelte en marchant comme une chasseresse,
Son sourire est tranquille et ses yeux assurés.

Si vous alliez, Madame, au vrai pays de gloire,
Sur les bords de la Seine ou de la verte Loire,
Belle digne d’orner les antiques manoirs,

Vous feriez, à l’abri des ombreuses retraites,
Germer mille sonnets dans le coeur des poètes,
Que vos grands yeux rendraient plus soumis que vos noirs.

- Charles Baudelaire

Enceladus’s Mysterious Behavior

HOT SPOT: The plumes spewing out of Enceladus, imaged here by the Cassini spacecraft in December 2009, may mark a rare occurrence in the moon’s geologic history.
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Enceladus, Saturn’s sixth-largest moon, is an icy bundle of contradictions. It is tiny in planetary terms—the entire moon could fit snugly inside the borders of New Mexico—and yet it hosts a level of geologic activity usually reserved for the big dogs of the solar system. more >>

Galaxy Of New Worlds

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The American Astronomical Society meeting, held here this week, was officially the largest congregation of astronomers (3,400 of them) in history—the most extraordinary collection of cosmic knowledge that has ever gathered together with the possible exception of when Isaac Newton dined alone. The breadth of topics was astounding, but the one that stood out was the study of planets beyond our solar system. The Kepler space observatory’s discoveries got the most attention. more>>

Minor Key Gives The Blues?

Can a link between speech patterns and downbeat music prove that minor keys are intrinsically sad, asks Philip Ball?
Why does Handel’s Water Music and The Beatles’ ‘Here Comes The Sun’ sound happy, while Albinoni’s Adagio and ‘Eleanor Rigby’ sound sad?
Some might say it’s because the first two are in major keys, while the second two are in minor keys. But are the emotional associations of major and minor intrinsic to the notes themselves, or are they culturally imposed? Many music psychologists suspect the latter, but a new study now suggests that there’s something fundamentally similar about major or minor keys and the properties of happy or sad speech, respectively. more>>

11. Hamilton – Father of Wall Street

THE FEDERALIST Vol. 43, pp. 199-207

THE FEDERALIST
NOS. I AND II
(1787)

[In the interval between the drawing up of the Constitution and its ratification, there
appeared in The Independent Journal and other New York newspapers a series of
eighty-five articles under the general heading of The Federalist, devoted to expounding
and defending the new instrument of government. Most of the articles were
written by Hamilton, some twenty-nine by Madison (whose work the Constitution
largely was), and five by Jay. Together they form one of the great classics on
government; and they exercised a highly important influence in favor of the adoption
of the Constitution.]

FOR THE INDEPENDENT JOURNAL
THE FEDERALIST, NO. I
BY ALEXANDER HAMILTON
To THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK:

AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting
Foederal Government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new
Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks
its own importance; comprehending in its consequences,
nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety
and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an
empire, in many respects, the most interesting in the world. It has
been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to
the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide
the important question, whether societies of men are really capable
or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice,
or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political
constitutions, on accident and force. If there be any truth in the
remark, the crisis, at which we are arrived, may with propriety be
regarded as the aera in which that decision is to be made; and a
wrong election of the part we shall act, may, in this view, deserve
to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.
199

200 AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
This idea will add the inducements of philanthropy to those of
patriotism to heighten the solicitude, which all considerate and
good men must feel for the event. Happy will it be if our choice
should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed
and unbiased by considerations not connected with the
public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished, than
seriously to be expected. The plan offered to our deliberations,
affects too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local
institutions, not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign
to its merits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favorable to
the discovery of truth.
Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution
will have to encounter, may readily be distinguished the
obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist
all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument
and consequence of the offices they hold under the Stateestablishments—
and the perverted ambition of another class of men,
who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusion of
their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of
elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial
confederacies, than from its union under one Government.
It is not, however, my design to dwell upon observations of this
nature. I am well aware that it would be disingenuous to resolve
indiscriminately the opposition of any set of men (merely because
their situations might subject them to suspicion) into interested or
ambitious views: Candor will oblige us to admit, that even such
men may be actuated by upright intentions; and it cannot be
doubted, that much of the opposition which has made its appearance,
or may hereafter make its appearance, will spring from sources,
blameless at least, if not respectable; the honest errors of minds led
astray by preconceived jealousies and fears. So numerous indeed
and so powerful are the causes, which serve to give a false bias to
the judgment, that we, upon many occasions, see wise and good
men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions, of the
first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to,
would furnish a lesson of moderation to those, who are ever so
much persuaded of their being in the right, in any controversy.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS 201
And a further reason for caution, in this respect, might be drawn
from the reflection, that we are not always sure, that those who
advocate the truth are influenced by purer principles than their
antagonists. Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition,
and many other motives, not more laudable than these, are apt to
operate as well upon those who support, as upon those who oppose,
the right side of a question. Were there not even these inducements
to moderation, nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant
spirit, which has, at all times, characterized political parties. For,
in politics as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes
by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by
persecution.
And yet however just these sentiments will be allowed to be, we
have already sufficient indications, that it will happen in this as
in all former cases of great national discussion. A torrent of angry
and malignant passions will be let loose. To judge from the conduct
of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude, that they
will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to
increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations,
and the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened
zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized,
as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power, and hostile
to the principles of liberty. An over scrupulous jealousy of danger
to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of
the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretence and
artifice; the stale bait for popularity at the expense of public good.
It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant
of violent love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty
is too apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust.
On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten, that the vigor of
Government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation
of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interest
can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often
lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people,
than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and
efficiency of Government. History will teach us, that the former
has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of

202 AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
despotism, than the latter; and that of those men who have overturned
the liberties of republics the greatest number have begun
their career, by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing
Demagogues, and ending Tyrants.
In the course of the preceding observations I have had an eye, my
Fellow-Citizens, to putting you upon your guard against all attempts,
from whatever quarter, to influence your decision- in a
matter of the utmost moment to your welfare by any impressions
other than those which may result from the evidence of truth. You
will, no doubt, at the same time, have collected from the general
scope of them that they proceed from a source not unfriendly to the
new Constitution. Yes, my Countrymen, I owe to you, that, after
having given it an attentive consideration, I am clearly of opinion,
it is your interest to adopt it. I am convinced, that this is the safest
course for your liberty, your dignity, and your happiness. I affect
not reserves, which I do not feel. I will not amuse you with an
appearance of deliberation, when I have decided. I frankly acknowledge
to you my convictions, and I will freely lay before you the
reasons on which they are founded. The consciousness of good intentions
disdains ambiguity. I shall not however multiply professions
on this head. My motives must remain in the depository
of my own breast: My arguments will be open to all, and may be
judged of by all. They shall at least be offered in a spirit which will
not disgrace the cause of truth.
I propose, in a series of papers, to discuss the following interesting
particulars.—The utility of the UNION to your political prosperity
—The insufficiency of the present Confederation to preserve that
Union—The necessity of a Government at least equally energetic
with the one proposed, to the attainment of this object—The conformity
of the proposed Constitution to the true principles of republican
Government—Its analogy to your own State Constitution
—and lastly, The additional security which its adoption will afford
to the preservation of that species of Government, to liberty, and to
property.
In the progress of this discussion, I shall endeavor to give a satisfactory
answer to all the objections which shall have made their
appearance, that may seem to have any claim to your attention.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS 203
It may perhaps be thought superfluous to offer arguments to prove
the utility of the UNION, a point, no doubt, deeply engraved on
the hearts of the great body of the people in every State, and one,
which it may be imagined, has no adversaries. But the fact is, that
we already hear it whispered in the private circles of those who oppose
the new Constitution, that the Thirteen States are of too great
extent for any general system, and that we must of necessity, resort
to separate confederacies of distinct portions of the whole.1 This
doctrine will, in all probability, be gradually propagated, till it has
votaries enough to countenance an open avowal of it. For nothing
can be more evident, to those who are able to take an enlarged view
of the subject, than the alternative of an adoption of the new Constitution
or a dismemberment of the Union. It will, therefore, be
of use to begin by examining the advantages of that Union, the
certain evils, and the probable dangers, to which every State will be
exposed from its dissolution. This shall accordingly constitute the
subject of my next address. PUBLIUS.

FOR THE INDEPENDENT JOURNAL
THE FCEDERALIST, NO. II
BY JOHN JAY

To THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK :
When the people of America reflect that they are now called
upon to decide a question, which, in its consequences, must prove
one of the most important, that ever engaged their attention, the
propriety of their taking a very comprehensive, as well as a very
serious, view of it, will be evident.
Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of Government,
and it is equally undeniable, that whenever and however
it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights,
in order to vest it with requisite powers. It is well worthy of consideration,
therefore, whether it would conduce more to the interest
of the people of America, that they should, to all general purposes, be
one nation, under one Foederal Government, or that they should
divide themselves into separate confederacies, and give to the head
1 The same idea, tracing the arguments to their consequences, is held out in several
of the late publications against the new Constitution.—Publius.

204 AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
of each, the same kind of powers which they are advised to place
in one national Government.
It has until lately been a received and uncontradicted opinion,
that the prosperity of the people of America depended on their continuing
firmly united, and the wishes, prayers, and efforts of our
best and wisest Citizens have been constantly directed to that object.
But Politicians now appear, who insist that this opinion is erroneous,
and that instead of looking for safety and happiness in union, we
ought to seek it in a division of the States into distinct confederacies
or sovereignties. However extraordinary this new doctrine may appear,
it nevertheless has its advocates; and certain characters who
were much opposed to it formerly, are at present of the number.
Whatever may be the arguments or inducements which have
wrought this change in the sentiments and declarations of these
Gentlemen, it certainly would not be wise in the people at large
to adopt these new political tenets without being fully convinced
that they are founded in truth and sound Policy.
It has often given me pleasure to observe, that Independent America
was not composed of detached and distant territories, but that
one connected, fertile, wide-spreading country was the portion of
our western sons of liberty. Providence has in a particular manner
blessed it with a variety of soils and productions and watered it
with innumerable streams, for the delight and accommodation of its
inhabitants. A succession of navigable waters forms a kind of
chain round its borders, as if to bind it together; while the most
noble rivers in the world, running at convenient distances, present
them with highways for the easy communication of friendly aids,
and the mutual transportation and exchange of their various commodities.
With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice, that Providence
has been pleased to give this one connected country, to one united
people; a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the
same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same
principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs,
and who, by their joint counsels, arms and efforts, fighting side by
side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established their
general Liberty and Independence.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS 205
This country and this people seem to have been made for each
other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an
inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united
to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a
number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.
Similar sentiments have hitherto prevailed among all orders and
denominations of men among us. To all general purposes we have
uniformly been one people; each individual citizen everywhere enjoying
the same national rights, privileges, and protection. As a
nation we have made peace and war: as a nation we have vanquished
our common enemies: as a nation we have formed alliances and
made treaties, and entered into various compacts and conventions
with foreign States.
A strong sense of the value and blessings of Union induced the
people, at a very early period, to institute a Fcederal Government
to preserve and perpetuate it. They formed it almost as soon as
they had a political existence; nay, at a time, when their habitations
were in flames, when many of their Citizens were bleeding, and
when the progress of hostility and desolation left little room for
those calm and mature inquiries and reflections, which must ever
precede the formation of a wise and well-balanced government for
a free people. It is not to be wondered at, that a Government instituted
in times so inauspicious, should on experiment be found
greatly deficient and inadequate to the purpose it was intended to
answer.
This intelligent people perceived and regretted these defects. Still
continuing no less attached to Union, than enamored of Liberty,
they observed the danger, which immediately threatened the former
and more remotely the latter; and being persuaded that ample
security for both, could only be found in a national Government
more wisely framed, they, as with one voice, convened the late
Convention at Philadelphia, to take that important subject under
consideration.
This Convention, composed of men who possessed the confidence
of the people, and many of whom had become highly distinguished
by their patriotism, virtue, and wisdom, in times which tried the
minds and hearts of men, undertook the arduous task. In the mild

206 AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
season of peace, with minds unoccupied by other subjects, they
passed many months in cool, uninterrupted, and daily consultations;
and finally, without having been awed by power, or influenced by
any passions except love for their Country, they presented and recommended
to the people the plan produced by their joint and very
unanimous councils.
Admit, for so is the fact, that this plan is only recommended, not
imposed, yet let it be remembered, that it is neither recommended
to blind approbation, nor to blind reprobation; but to that sedate
and candid consideration, which the magnitude and importance of
the subject demand, and which it certainly ought to receive. But
this, (as was remarked in the foregoing number of this Paper,) is
more to be wished than expected, that it may be so considered and
examined. Experience on a former occasion teaches us not to be
too sanguine in such hopes. It is not yet forgotten, that well grounded
apprehensions of imminent danger induced the people of America
to form the Memorable Congress of 1774. That Body recommended
certain measures to their Constituents, and the event proved their
wisdom; yet it is fresh in our memories how soon the Press began
to teem with Pamphlets and weekly Papers against those very
measures. Not only many of the Officers of Government, who
obeyed the dictates of personal interest, but others, from a mistaken
estimate of consequences, or the undue influence of former attachments,
or whose ambition aimed at objects which did not correspond
with the public good, were indefatigable in their endeavors to persuade
the people to reject the advice of that Patriotic Congress.
Many indeed were deceived and deluded, but the great majority of
the people reasoned and decided judiciously; and happy they are in
reflecting that they did so.
They considered that the Congress was composed of many wise
and experienced men. That being convened from different parts
of the country they brought with them and communicated to each
other a variety of useful information. That in the course of the
time they passed together in inquiring into and discussing the true
interests of their country, they must have acquired very accurate
knowledge on that head. That they were individually interested
in the public liberty and prosperity, and therefore that it was not

AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS 207
less their inclination than their duty, to recommend only such measures
as after the most mature deliberation they really thought prudent
and advisable.
These and similar considerations then induced the people to rely
greatly on the judgment and integrity of the Congress; and they
took their advice, notwithstanding the various arts and endeavors
used to deter and dissuade them from it. But if the people at large
had reason to confide in the men of that Congress, few of whom
had then been fully tried or generally known, still greater reason
have they now to respect the judgment and advice of the Convention,
for it is well known that some of the most distinguished members
of that Congress, who have been since tried and justly approved
for patriotism and abilities, and who have grown old in acquiring
political information, were also members of this Convention,
and carried into it their accumulated knowledge and experience.
It is worthy of remark, that not only the first, but every succeeding
Congress, as well as the late Convention, have invariably joined
with the people in thinking that the prosperity of America depended
on its Union. To preserve and perpetuate it, was the great object
of the people in forming that Convention, and it is also the great
object of the plan which the Convention has advised them to adopt.
With what propriety, therefore, or for what good purposes, are attempts
at this particular period, made by some men, to depreciate
the importance of the Union ? Or why is it suggested that three or
four confederacies would be better than one? I am persuaded in
my own mind, that the people have always thought right on this
subject, and that their universal and uniform attachment to the
cause of the Union rests on great and weighty reasons, which I
shall endeavor to develop and explain in some ensuing papers. They
who promote the idea of substituting a number of distinct confederacies
in the room of the plan of the Convention, seem clearly to
foresee that the rejection of it would put the continuance of the
Union in the utmost jeopardy: that certainly would be the case,
and I sincerely wish that it may be as clearly foreseen by every good
Citizen, that whenever the dissolution of the Union arrives, America
will have reason to exclaim in the words of the Poet, “FAREWELL!
A LONG FAREWELL, TO ALL MY GREATNESS.” PUBLIUS.

Our Last Common Link with Chimps

Ardipithecus, Our Last Common Link with Chimps

After some 4.4 million years in the ground—and another 15 years sequestered for close scientific scrutiny—the early human relative Ardipithecus ramidus was formally unveiled to the public and outside researchers in October. Described within a colossal 11 papers in Science, the in-depth analysis found “Ardi” to be an able upright walker and to have hands quite different from modern chimpanzees, solidifying the notion that the last common ancestor between humans and chimps looked little like either species does today. more>>

Face recognition, a specialized tool?

Some people seem to have it all, mentally speaking—strong math and verbal skills, a keen memory and good spatial sense. This gift could be chalked up to good “generalist genes,” or genes that affect many cognitive abilities and, broadly speaking, determine intelligence. The downside of generalist genes is that, because their functions overlap, someone who falters at understanding algebra may also be more likely to have trouble learning a foreign language.

… unlike cognitive abilities such as verbal and spatial understanding, the inheritance of facial recognition does not correlate with IQ inheritance. more>>

Record 232-digit number from cryptography challenge factored

A team of researchers has successfully factored a 232-digit number into its two composite prime-number factors, but too late to claim a $50,000 prize once attached to the achievement. more>>

Could He Have Been Detected?

The would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab apparently ignited a plastic explosive with a syringe sewn into his underwear on Christmas as Northwest flight 253 prepared to land in Detroit. According to press accounts and the complaint filed against him by the U.S. Department of Justice, Abdulmutallab had secured on his body the explosive device, which contained PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate—the same explosive chosen by the shoe bomber Richard Reid as well as various other terrorists since the early 20th century. The question is: could the device have been detected? more>>

Blame It On The Software

Obama: Software Flaws Let Christmas Bomber Get Through

The problem was in the databases, and in the data-mining software. “Information technology within the CT [counterterrorism] community did not sufficiently enable the correlation of data that would have enable analysts to highlight the relevant threat information.”

Government search tools weren’t even flexible enough to handle simple misspellings. more>>

‘Nothing to Envy’

‘Nothing to Envy’ by Barbara Demick

A piercing account of the daily ordeals faced by ordinary North Koreans.

The unlucky — the ghastly — part of Mi-ran’s experience was that when she encountered the 5- and 6-year-olds who were to be her classroom charges, she noted that they “looked no bigger to her than three- and four-year-olds” and might have been present only to eat the school’s free lunch, a soup constituted from leaves and salt. Over time, attendance thinned ominously, from 50 children to 15. As Barbara Demick writes in “Nothing to Envy,” a piercing account of the lives of a handful of North Korean refugees, Mi-ran “described watching her five- and six-year-old pupils die of starvation. As her students were dying, she was supposed to teach them that they were blessed to be North Korean.” The Beijing bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times, Demick takes her title from a song of national pride that teachers commonly had their classes sing, which claimed, “We have nothing to envy in the world.” more>>

Tourists burnt in Hong Kong acid attack

Nine tourists and a child were among 30 people injured in an acid attack in a busy street in Hong Kong. more>>

Airport Security

KAL’s cartoon

From The Economist print edition

Obama’s Wakeup Call

What made the matter worse, in terms of an ability to rationalize the failure, was that the dots in this particular case were so plainly visible and telltale. It was the bomber’s own father, a prominent and reputable Nigerian businessman, who blew the whistle on him as an outspoken anti-American of jihadist sentiments.

After a somewhat tardy reaction, President Obama has finally acknowledged that while “this was not a failure to collect intelligence, it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence we already had.”

In a rare public flash of anger, he said this outcome was “not acceptable and I will not tolerate it.” But he also said it was not the time for “finger-pointing,” suggesting that his hard words would not be followed up with the usual action in such circumstances — the firing of the person or persons most clearly responsible. more>>

My Muslim President Obama

Why members of the Islamic faith see him as one of the flock.
I know President Obama is not Muslim, but I am tempted nevertheless to think that he is, as are most Muslims I know. In a very unscientific oral poll, ranging from family members to Muslim acquaintances, many of us feel, just as African-Americans did for the non-black but culturally leaning African-American President Bill Clinton, that we have our first American Muslim president in Barack Hussein Obama. more>>

Apocalypse Now, Dubai

Until 2009, all a global citizen really needed to know about Dubai, it seemed, was a statistic about construction equipment. According to nobody in particular, 25 per cent of the world’s tower cranes resided in the booming emirate. That enchanting detail, paired with mentions of man-made islands, indoor ski slopes and seven-star hotels, appeared in countless dispatches.

Here is Jenkins on the buildings of Dubai: “Their lifts and services, expensive to maintain, will collapse. Their colossal facades will shed glass. Sand will drift round their trunkless legs. Animals will inhabit their basements. Thousands of residential properties, if occupied at all, will be squatted by a migratory poor, like the hotel towers of the Spanish littoral or Corbusier’s blockhouses of Chandigarh in India. Refugees will colonise the camps where Indian workers have lived as they built Dubai. Gangs will seize the gated estates and random anarchy will rule the soulless boulevards.” more>>

Muslim Integration

Muslims aren’t integrating as well as many Europeans would like to believe. American political journalist Christopher Caldwell, author of a recent book on Islam in Europe, argues that taboos and wishful thinking prevent an honest discussion of the issue. more>>

Cheapskate Economists

Some of the world’s most famous economists were famously frugal. After a dinner thrown by the British economic giant John Maynard Keynes, writer Virginia Woolf complained that the guests had to pick “the bones of Maynard’s grouse of which there were three to eleven people.” Milton Friedman, the late Nobel laureate, routinely returned reporters’ calls collect.

Children of economists recall how tightfisted their parents were. Lauren Weber, author of a recent book titled, “In Cheap We Trust,” says her economist father kept the thermostat so low that her mother threatened at one point to take the family to a motel. “My father gave in because it would have been more expensive,” she says.

“Where do I begin?” says Marisa Kasriel when asked about the lengths to which her father, Northern Trust Co. economist Paul Kasriel, will go to save a buck: private-label groceries, off-brand tennis shoes and his 1995 Subaru, with a piece of electrical tape covering the “check engine” light. more>>

10. Where Love Lies Waiting

Euripides’ THE BACCHAE Vol. 8, pp. 368-372

THE BACCHÆ
OF EURIPIDES
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

DIONYSUS, THE GOD; son of Zeus and of the Theban princess Semelt
CADMUS, formerly King of Thebes, father of Semelt
PENTHEUS, King of Thebes, grandson of Cadmus
AGAVE, daughter of Cadmus, mother of Pentheus
TEIRESIAS, an aged Theban prophet
A SOLDIER OF PENTHEUS’ GUARD
Two MESSENGERS
A CHORUS OF INSPIRED DAMSELS, following Dionysus from the East

“The play was first produced after the death of Euripides by his son, who bore the
same name, together with the ‘Iphigenia in Aulis’ and the ‘ Alcmaon’ probably in the year 405 B.C.”

The background represents the front of the Castle of PENTHEUS, King of Thebes. At one side is visible the sacred Tomb of Semelt, a little enclosure overgrown with
wild vines, with a cleft in the rocky floor of it from which there issues at times
steam or smoke. The God DIONYSUS is discovered alone.

Dionysus
BEHOLD, God’s Son is come unto this land
Of Thebes, even I, Dionysus, whom the brand
Of heaven’s hot splendour lit to life, when she
Who bore me, Cadmus’ daughter Semele,
Died here. So, changed in shape from God to man,
I walk again by Dirce’s streams and scan
Ismenus’ shore. There by the castle side
I see her place, the Tomb of the Lightning’s Bride,
The wreck of smouldering chambers, and the great
Faint wreaths of fire undying—as the hate
Dies not, that Hera held for Semele.
Aye, Cadmus hath done well; in purity
He keeps this place apart, inviolate,
His daughter’s sanctuary; and I have set
My green and clustered vines to robe it round.
368
THE BACCHÆ 369
Far now behind me lies the golden ground
Of Lydian and of Phrygian; far away
The wide hot plains where Persian sunbeams play,
The Bactrian war-holds, and the storm-oppressed
Clime of the Mede, and Araby the Blest,
And Asia all, that by the salt sea lies
In proud embattled cities, motley-wise
Of Hellene and Barbarian interwrought;
And now I come to Hellas—having taught
All the world else my dances and my rite
Of mysteries, to show me in men’s sight
Manifest God.

And first of Hellene lands
I cry this Thebes to waken; set her hands
To clasp my wand, mine ivied javelin,
And round her shoulders hang my wild fawn-skin.
For they have scorned me whom it least beseemed,
Semeles sisters; mocked my birth, nor deemed
That Dionysus sprang from Dian seed.
My mother sinned, said they; and in her need,
With Cadmus plotting, cloaked her human shame
With the dread name of Zeus; for that the flame
From heaven consumed her, seeing she lied to God.
Thus must they vaunt; and therefore hath my rod
On them first fallen, and stung them forth wild-eyed
From empty chambers; the bare mountain side
Is made their home, and all their hearts are flame.
Yea, I have bound upon the necks of them
The harness of my rites. And with them all
The seed of womankind from hut and hall
Of Thebes, hath this my magic goaded out.
And there, with the old King’s daughters, in a rout
Confused, they make their dwelling-place between
The roofless rocks and shadowy pine-trees green.
Thus shall this Thebes, how sore soe’er it smart,
Learn and forget not, till she crave her part
In mine adoring; thus must I speak clear

370 EURIPIDES
To save my mother’s fame, and crown me here
As true God, born by Semele to Zeus.

Now Cadmus yieldeth up his throne and use
Of royal honour to his daughter’s son
Pentheus; who on my body hath begun
A war with God. He thrusteth me away
From due drink-offering, and, when men pray,
My name entreats not. Therefore on his own
Head and his people’s shall my power be shown.
Then to another land, when all things here
Are well, must I fare onward, making clear
My godhead’s might. But should this Theban town
Essay with wrath and battle to drag down
My maids, lo, in their path myself shall be,
And maniac armies battled after me!
For this I veil my godhead with the wan
Form of the things that die, and walk as Man.

O Brood of Tmolus o’er the wide world flown,
0 Lydian band, my chosen and mine own,
Damsels uplifted o’er the orient deep
To wander where I wander, and to sleep
Where I sleep; up, and wake the old sweet sound,
The clang that I and mystic Rhea found,
The Timbrel of the Mountain! Gather all
Thebes to your song round Pentheus’ royal hall.
1 seek my new-made worshippers, to guide
Their dances up Kitharron’s pine-clad side.

[As he departs, there comes stealing in from the
left a band of fifteen Eastern Women, the
light of the sunrise streaming upon their long
white robes and ivy-bound hair. They wear
fawn-skins over the robes, and carry some of
them timbrels, some pipes and other instruments.
Many bear the thyrsus, or sacred
Wand, made of reed ringed with ivy. They

THE BACCHÆ 371
His head with ivy laden
And his thyrsus tossing high,
For our God he lifts his cry:
“Up, O Bacchx, wife and maiden,
Come, O ye Bacchac, come;
Oh, bring the Joy-bestower,
God-seed of God the Sower,
enter stealthily till they see that the place is
empty, and then begin their mystic song of
worship.

Chorus

A Maiden

From Asia, from the dayspring that uprises,
To Bromios ever glorying we came.
We laboured for our Lord in many guises;
We toiled, but the toil is as the prize is;
Thou Mystery, we hail thee by thy name!

Another

Who lingers in the road ? Who espies us ?
He shall hide him in his house nor be bold.
Let the heart keep silence that defies us;
For I sing this day to Dionysus
The song that is appointed from of old.

All the Maidens

Oh, blessed he in all wise,
Who hath drunk the Living Fountain,
Whose life no folly staineth,
And his soul is near to God;
Whose sins are lifted, pall-wise,
As he worships on the Mountain,
And where Cybele ordaineth,
Our Mother, he has trod:

His head with ivy laden
And his thyrsus tossing high,
For our God he lifts his cry:
“Up, O Bacchx, wife and maiden,
Come, O ye Bacchac, come;
Oh, bring the Joy-bestower,
God-seed of God the Sower,

372 EURIPIDES
Bring Bromios in his power
From Phrygia’s mountain dome;
To street and town and tower,
Oh, bring ye Bromios home!”

Whom erst in anguish lying
For an unborn life’s desire,
As a dead thing in the Thunder
His mother cast to earth;
For her heart was dying, dying,
In the white heart of the fire;
Till Zeus, the Lord of Wonder,
Devised new lairs of birth;

Yea, his own flesh tore to hide him,
And with clasps of bitter gold
Did a secret son enfold,
And the Queen knew not beside him;
Till the perfect hour was there;
Then a horned God was found,
And a God with serpents crowned;
And for that are serpents wound
In the wands his maidens bear,
And the songs of serpents sound
In the mazes of their hair.

Some Maidens

All hail, O Thebes, thou nurse of Semele!
With Semeles wild ivy crown thy towers;
Oh, burst in bloom of wreathing bryony,
Berries and leaves and flowers;
Uplift the dark divine wand,
The oak-wand and the pine-wand,
And don thy fawn-skin, fringed in purity
With fleecy white, like ours.

Oh, cleanse thee in the wands’ waving pride!
Yea, all men shall dance with us and pray,
When Bromios his companies shall guide

Cut This Story Short!

One reason seekers of news are abandoning print newspapers for the Internet has nothing directly to do with technology. It’s that newspaper articles are too long. On the Internet, news articles get to the point. Newspaper writing, by contrast, is encrusted with conventions that don’t add to your understanding of the news. Newspaper writers are not to blame. These conventions are traditional, even mandatory. more>>

Friends Of Colorado Terror Suspect Arrested

NEW YORK — Law-enforcement officials on Friday announced the arrest of two men linked to a suspect charged in September with planning what authorities have called the most serious home-grown terror plot since Sept. 11, 2001.

That alleged plot centered on Najibullah Zazi, an airport-shuttle driver from Aurora, Colo., who was indicted for planning to make bombs from hair products and household cleaners for attacks in the U.S.

Two men who traveled to Pakistan with Najibullah Zazi were arrested early Friday morning in New York.

Separately, the alleged Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, pleaded not guilty Friday in federal court in Detroit to charges that he attempted to detonate a bomb and murder 279 passengers and 11 crew members on board a Detroit-bound Northwest flight on Christmas. Outside the courtroom, scores of Muslim Americans held up anti-terrorism posters and waved American flags, while a handful of Nigerian-born Americans carried signs with slogans such as “Nigerians Are Against Terrorism.”

Read more …

On The Road again

When Jack Kerouac wrote his will shortly before his death in 1969, he was broke. Forty years later, a ferocious battle rages over his multi-million dollar literary estate. Kerouac, at odds with his third wife, Stella Sampas, had left everything to his mother, Gabrielle Kerouac. But when Gabrielle Kerouac passed away in 1973, her will indicated that the entire estate would go to Sampas, news that had shocked Kerouac’s remaining blood relatives—his daughter, Jan, and his nephew, Paul Blake Jr. When Sampas died in 1990, her siblings inherited the Kerouac literary estate, with the youngest brother, John Sampas, acting as executor. It was a stunning series of events for Kerouac scholars and fans, but the real surprise was yet to come. Last July, a judge in Tampa, Florida ruled that Gabrielle Kerouac’s 1973 will was a forgery.

Read more …

The Trials of Tony Judt

On a Monday evening in mid-October, the historian Tony Judt appeared onstage at the Jack H. Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, in Greenwich Village. “I hope you don’t mind if I begin by shooting the elephant in the house,” he said, speaking from an electric wheelchair, wrapped in a black blanket, with a Bi-Pap breathing device attached to his nose. “As you can see,” he continued, his voice gravelly and labored, “I’m paralyzed from the neck down, and also use this rather ridiculous-looking tube on my face to breathe.” A little more than a year ago, Judt was diagnosed with a progressive variant of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a fatal condition that gradually destroys a person’s ability to move, breathe, swallow, and talk.

Read more …

On the Origin of Stories

“Evolution may help explain copulation and even cooperation, but can it account for the creative side of human life? Can it explain art?” (69). This is the main issue concerning Brian Boyd’s mammoth book On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition and Fiction (2009). For those of us concerned with art and the creative process we have, as well, struggled with this issue. Undoubtedly, we have challenged our students and colleagues with circuitous discussions over the “what” of art. Boyd’s work, however, throws us a lifeline pulling us from the mire of unsolvable debate and repetitious frustration by shifting the essential question from “what” to “why”. This simple cognitive maneuver is, in my opinion, as significant to art theory and criticism as the first spark that brought fire to human kind.

Read more …

Warp-Speed Algebra

Warp-Speed Algebra: New Algorithm Does Algebra in a Snap
New quantum algorithm can solve monster-size equations
Quantum computers can do wondrous things: too bad they do not exist yet. That has not stopped physicists from devising new algorithms for the devices, which can calculate a lot faster than ordinary computers—in fact, exponentially faster, in quite a literal sense. Once quantum computers do become available, the algorithms could become a key part of applications that require number crunching, from engineering to video games.

The latest quantum algorithm is generating excitement among physicists. It tackles linear equations: expressions such as 3x + 2y = 7 and typically written with unknowns on one side and constants on the other. Many high schoolers learn the trite mechanics of solving systems of such equations by eliminating one unknown at a time.

Read more …

9. A Treasure Hunt in Nombre de Dios

Nichol’s SIR FRANCIS DRAKE REVIVED Vol. 33, pp. 135-145

Thus having parted (23rd July) from our company: we arrived
at the island of Cativaas, being twenty-five leagues distant, about
five days afterward (28th July). There we larded all in the morning
betimes: and our Captain trained his men, delivering them their
several weapons and arms which hitherto he had kept very fair and
safe in good caske [casks]: and exhorting them after his manner,
he declared “the greatness of the hope of good things that was there!
the weakness of the town, being unwalled! and the hope he had
of prevailing to recompense his wrongs! especially now that he
should come with such a crew, who were like-minded with himself;
and at such a time, as he should be utterly undiscovered.”
Therefore, even that afternoon, he causeth us to set sail for
Nombre de Dios, so that before sunset we were as far as Rio Francisco.
Thence, he led us hard aboard the shore, that we might not
be descried of the Watch House, until that being come within two
leagues of the point of the bay, he caused us to strike a hull, and
cast our grappers [grappling irons], riding so until it was dark
night.
Then we weighed again, and set sail, rowing hard aboard the
shore, with as much silence as we could, till we recovered the point
of the harbour under the high land. There, we stayed, all silent;
purposing to attempt the town in the dawning of the day: after
that we had reposed ourselves, for a while.
But our Captain with some other of his best men, finding that
our people were talking of the greatness of the town, and what
their strength might be; especially by the report of the Negroes that
we took at the Isle of Pinos: thought it best to put these conceits
out of their heads, and therefore to take the opportunity of the rising
of the moon that night, persuading them that “it was the day

I36 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE
dawning.” By this occasion we were at the town a large hour sooner
then first was purposed. For we arrived there by three of the clock
after midnight. At what time it fortuned that a ship of Spain, of
60 tons, laden with Canary wines and other commodities, which
had but lately come into the bay; and had not yet furled her spritsail
(espying our four pinnaces, being an extraordinary number,
and those rowing with many oars) sent away her gundeloe [gondola
?] towards the town, to give warning. But our Captain perceiving
it, cut betwixt her and the town, forcing her to go to the
other side of the bay: whereby we landed without impeachment,
although we found one gunner upon the Platform [battery] in the
very place where we landed; being a sandy place and no key [quay]
at all, not past twenty yards from the houses.
There we found six great pieces of brass ordnance, mounted upon
their carriages, some Demy, some Whole-Culvering.
We presently dismounted them. The gunner fled. The town took
alarm (being very ready thereto, by reason of their often disquieting
by their near neighbours the Cimaroons); as we perceived, not only
by the noise and cries of the people, but by the bell ringing out, and
drums running up and down the town.
Our Captain, according to the directions which he had given
over night, to such as he had made choice of for the purpose, left
twelve to keep the pinnaces; that we might be sure of a safe retreat,
if the worst befell. And having made sure work of the Platform
before he would enter the town, he thought best, first to view the
Mount on the east side of the town: where he was informed, by
sundry intelligences the year before, they had an intent to plant
ordnance, which might scour round about the town.
Therefore, leaving one half of his company to make a stand at
the foot of the Mount, he marched up presently unto the top of it,
with all speed to try the truth of the report, for the more safety.
There we found no piece of ordnance, but only a very fit place prepared
for such use, and therefore we left it without any of our men,
and with all celerity returned now down the Mount.
Then our Captain appointed his brother, with JOHN OXNAM [or
OXENHAM] and sixteen other of his men, to go about, behind the
King’s Treasure House, and enter near the easter[n] end of the

THIRD VOYAGE I37
Market Place: himself with the rest, would pass up the broad street
into the Market Place, with sound of drum and trumpet. The Firepikes,
divided half to the one, and half to the other company, served
no less for fright to the enemy than light of our men, who by his
means might discern every place very well, as if it were near day:
whereas the inhabitants stood amazed at so strange a sight, marvelling
what the matter might be, and imagining, by reason of our
drums and trumpets sounding in so sundry places, that we had been
a far greater number then we were.
Yet, by means of the soldiers of which were in the town, and by
reason of the time which we spent in marching up and down the
Mount, the soldiers and inhabitants had put themselves in arms,
and brought their companies in some order, at the south-east end
of the Market Place, near the Governor’s House, and not far from
the gate of the town, which is the only one, leading towards Panama:
having (as it seems) gathered themselves thither, either that in the
Governor’s sight they might shew their valour, if it might prevail; or
else, that by the gate they might best take their Vale, and escape
readiest.
And to make a shew of far greater numbers of shot, or else of
a custom they had, by the like device to terrify the Cimaroons; they
had hung lines with matches lighted, overthwart the wester[n] end
of the Market Place, between the Church and the Cross; as though
there had been in a readiness some company of shot, whereas indeed
there were not past two or three that taught these lines to dance,
till they themselves ran away, as soon as they perceived they were
discovered.
But the soldiers and such as were joined with them, presented us
with a jolly hot volley of shot, beating full upon the full egress of
that street, in which we marched; and levelling very low, so as their
bullets of ttimes grazed on the sand.
We stood not to answer them in like terms: but having discharged
our first volley of shot, and feathered them with our arrows (which
our Captain had caused to be made of purpose in England; not
great sheaf arrows, but fine roving shafts, very carefully reserved for
the service) we came to the push of pike, so that our firepikes being
well armed and made of purpose, did us very great service.

138 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE
For our men with their pikes and short weapons, in short time
took such order among these gallants (some using the butt-end of
their pieces instead of other weapons), that partly by reason of our
arrows which did us there notable service, pardy by occasion of this
strange and sudden closing with them in this manner unlooked for,
and the rather for that at the very instant, our Captain’s brother,
with the other company, with their firepikes, entered the Market
Place by the easter[n] street: they casting down their weapons, fled
all out of the town by the gate aforesaid, which had been built for
a bar to keep out of the town the Cimaroons, who had often assailed
it; but now served for a gap for the Spaniards to fly at.
In following, and returning; divers of our men were hurt with
the weapons which the enemy had let fall as he fled; somewhat, for
that we marched with such speed, but more for that they lay so
thick and cross one on the other.
Being returned, we made our stand near the midst of the Market
Place, where a tree groweth hard by the Cross; whence our
Captain sent some of our men to stay the ringing of the alarm bell,
which had continued all this while: but the church being very
strongly built and fast shut, they could not without firing (which
our Captain forbade) get into the steeple where the bell rung.
In the meantime, our Captain having taken two or three Spaniards
in their flight, commanded them to shew him the Governor’s
House, where he understood was the ordinary place of unlading
the moiles [mules] of all the treasure which came from Panama by
the King’s appointment. Although the silver only was kept there;
the gold, pearl, and jewels (being there once entered by the King’s
officer) was carried from thence to the King’s Treasure House not
far off, being a house very strongly built of lime and stone, for the
safe keeping thereof.
At our coming to the Governor’s House, we found the great door
where the mules do usually unlade, even then opened, a candle
lighted upon the top of the stairs; and a fair gennet ready saddled,
either for the Governor himself, or some other of his household to
carry it after him. By means of this light we saw a huge heap of
silver in that nether [lower] room; being a pile of bars of silver of, as
near as we could guess, seventy feet in length, of ten feet in breadth,

THIRD VOYAGE I39
and twelve feet in height, piled up against the wall, each bar was
between thirty-five and forty pounds in weight.
At sight hereof, our Captain commanded straightly that none of
us should touch a bar of silver; but stand upon our weapons, because
the town was full of people, and there was in the King’s
Treasure House near the water side, more gold and jewels than all
our four pinnaces could carry: which we would presently set some
in hand to break open, notwithstanding the Spaniards report the
strength of it.
We were no sooner returned to our strength, but there was a
report brought by some of our men that our pinnaces were in
danger to be taken; and that if we ourselves got not aboard before
day, we should be oppressed with multitude both of soldiers and
towns-people. This report had his ground from one DIEGO a Negro,
who, in the time of the first conflict, came and called to our pinnaces,
to know “whether they were Captain DRAKE’S?” And upon answer
received, continued entreating to be taken aboard, though he had
first three or four shot made at him, until at length they fetched him;
and learned by him, that, not past eight days before our arrival, the
King had sent thither some 150 soldiers to guard the town against
the Cimaroons, and the town at this time was full of people beside:
which all the rather believed, because it agreed with the report of
the Negroes, which we took before at the Isle of Pinos. And therefore
our Captain sent his brother and JOHN OXNAM to understand the
truth thereof.
They found our men which we left in our pinnaces much frightened,
by reason that they saw great troops and companies running
up and down, with matches lighted, some with other weapons,
crying Que gente? que gente? which not having been at the first
conflict, but coming from the utter ends of the town (being at least
as big as Plymouth), came many times near us; and understanding
that we were English, discharged their pieces and ran away.
Presently after this, a mighty shower of rain, with a terrible
storm of thunder and lightning, fell, which poured down so vehemently
(as it usually doth in those countries) that before we could
recover the shelter of a certain shade or penthouse at the western
end of the King’s Treasure House, (which seemeth to have been

140 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE
built there of purpose to avoid sun and rain) some of our bowstrings
were wet, and some of our match and powder hurt! which
while we were careful of, to refurnish and supply; divers of our
men harping on the reports lately brought us, were muttering of the
forces of the town, which our Captain perceiving, told them, that
“He had brought them to the mouth of the Treasure of the World,
if they would want it, they might henceforth blame nobody but
themselves!”
And therefore as soon as the storm began to assuage of his fury
(which was a long half hour) willing to give his men no longer
leisure to demur of those doubts, nor yet allow the enemy farther
respite to gather themselves together, he stept forward commanding
his brother, with JOHN OXNAM and the company appointed them, to
break the King’s Treasure House: the rest to follow him to keep the
strength of the Market Place, till they had despatched the business
for which they came.
But as he stepped forward, his strength and sight and speech failed
him, and he began to faint for want of blood, which, as then we
perceived, had, in great quantity, issued upon the sand, out of a
wound received in his leg in the first encounter, whereby though he
felt some pain, yet (for that he perceived divers of the company,
having already gotten many good things, to be very ready to take
all occasions, of winding themselves out of that conceited danger)
would he not have it known to any, till this his fainting, against his
will, bewrayed it: the blood having first filled the very prints which
our footsteps made, to the greater dismay of all our company, who
thought it not credible that one man should be able to spare so
much blood and live.
And therefore even they, which were willing to have adventured
the most for so fair a booty, would in no case hazard their Captain’s
life; but (having given him somewhat to drink wherewith he recovered
himself, and having bound his scarf about his leg, for the
stopping of the blood) entreated him to be content to go with them
aboard, there to have his wound searched and dressed, and then to
return on shore again if he thought good.
This when they could not persuade him unto (as who knew it
to be utterly impossible, at least very unlikely, that ever they should,

THIRD VOYAGE 141
for that time, return again, to recover the state in which they now
were: and was of opinion, that it were more honourable for himself,
to jeopard his life for so great a benefit, than to leave off so high an
enterprise unperformed), they joined altogether and with force
mingled with fair entreaty, they bare him aboard his pinnace, and
so abandoned a most rich spoil for the present, only to preserve their
Captain’s life: and being resolved of him, that while they enjoyed
his presence, and had him to command them, they might recover
wealth sufficient; but if once they lost him, they should hardly be
able to recover home. No, not with that which they had gotten
already.
Thus we embarked by break of the day (29th July), having besides
our Captain, many of our men wounded, though none slain but
one Trumpeter: whereupon though our surgeons were busily employed,
in providing remedies and salves for their wounds: yet the
main care of our Captain was respected by all the rest; so that before
we departed out of the harbour for the more comfort of our company,
we took the aforesaid ship of wines without great resistance.
But before we had her free of the haven, they of the town had
made means to bring one of their culverins, which we had dismounted,
so as they made a shot at us, but hindered us not from
carrying forth the prize to the Isle of Bastimentos, or the Isle of
Victuals: which is an island that lieth without the bay to the westward,
about a league off the town, where we stayed the two next
days, to cure our wounded men, and refresh ourselves, in the goodly
gardens which we there found abounding with great store of all
dainty roots and fruits; besides great plenty of poultry and other
fowls, no less strange then delicate.
Shortly upon our first arrival in this island, the Governor and
the rest of his Assistants in the town, as we afterwards understood,
sent unto our Captain, a proper gentleman, of mean stature, good
complexion, and a fair spoken, a principal soldier of the late sent
garrison, to view in what state we were. At his coming he protested
“He came to us, of mere good will, for that we had attempted so
great and incredible a matter with so few men: and that, at the first,
they feared that we had been French, at whose hands they knew they
should find no mercy: but after they perceived by our arrows, that

142 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE
we were Englishmen, their fears were the less, for that they knew,
that though we took the treasure of the place, yet we would not use
cruelty toward their persons. But albeit this his affection gave him
cause enough, to come aboard such, whose virtue he so honoured:
yet the Governor also had not only consented to his coming, but
directly sent him, upon occasion that divers of the town affirmed,
said he, ‘that they knew our Captain, who the last two years had been
often on our coast, and had always used their persons very well.’
And therefore desired to know, first, Whether our Captain was the
same Captain DRAKE or not? and next, Because many of their men
were wounded with our arrows, whether they were poisoned or
not? and how their wounds might best be cured? lastly, What victuals
we wanted, or other necessaries? of which the Governor promised
by him to supply and furnish us, as largely as he durst.”
Our Captain, although he thought this soldier but a spy: yet used
him very courteously, and answered him to his Governor’s demands:
that “He was the same DRAKE whom they meant! It was never his
manner to poison his arrows! They might cure their wounded by
ordinary surgery! As for wants, he knew the Island of Bastimentos
had sufficient, and could furnish him if he listed! but he wanted
nothing but some of that special commodity which that country
yielded, to content himself and his company.” And therefore he
advised the Governor “to hold open his eyes! for before he departed,
if GOD lent him life and leave, he meant to reap some of their
harvest, which they get out of the earth, and send into Spain to
trouble all the earth!”
To this answer unlooked for, this gentleman replied, “If he
might, without offence, move such a question, what should then be
the cause of our departing from that town at this time, where was
above 360 tons of silver ready for the Fleet, and much more gold
in value, resting in iron chests in the King’s Treasure House?”
But when our Captain had shewed him the true cause of his
unwilling retreat aboard, he acknowledged that “we had no less
reason in departing, than courage in attempting”: and no doubt did
easily see, that it was not for the town to seek revenge of us, by
manning forth such frigates or other vessels as they had; but better
to content themselves and provide for their own defence.

THIRD VOYAGE 143
Thus, with great favour and courteous entertainment, besides
such gifts from our Captain as most contented him, after dinner,
he was in such sort dismissed, to make report of that he had seen,
that he protested, “he was never so much honoured of any in his life.”
After his departure, the Negro formentioned, being examined
more fully, confirmed this report of the gold and the silver; with
many other intelligences of importance: especially how we might
have gold and silver enough, if we would, by means of the Cimaroons,
whom though he had betrayed divers times (being used
thereto by his Masters) so that he knew they would kill him, if
they got him: yet if our Captain would undertake his protection, he
durst adventure his life, because he knew our Captain’s name was
most precious and highly honoured by them.
This report ministered occasion to further consultation: for which,
because this place seemed not the safest; as being neither the healthiest
nor quietest; the next day, in the morning, we all set our course
for the Isle of Finos or Port Plenty, where we had left our ships,
continuing all that day, and the next till towards night, before we
recovered it.
We were the longer in this course, for that our Captain sent away
his brother and ELLIS HIXOM to the westward, to search the River
of Chagres, where himself had been the year before, and yet was
careful to gain more notice of; it being a river which trendeth to the
southward, within six leagues of Panama, where is a little town
called Venta Cruz [Venta de Cruzes], whence all the treasure, that
was usually brought thither from Panama by mules, was embarked
in frigates [sailing] down that river into the North sea, and so to
Nombre de Dios.
It ebbeth and floweth not far into the land, and therefore it asketh
three days’ rowing with a fine pinnace to pass [up] from the mouth
to Venta Cruz; but one day and a night serveth to return down the
river.
At our return to our ships (ist August), in our consultation,
Captain RANSE (forecasting divers doubts of our safe continuance
upon that coast, being now discovered) was willing to depart; and
our Captain no less willing to dismiss him: and therefore as soon
as our pinnaces returned from Chagres (7th August) with such

144 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE
advertisement as they were sent for, about eight days before; Captain
RANSE took his leave, leaving us at the isle aforesaid, where we
had remained five or six days.
In which meantime, having put all things in a readiness, our
Captain resolved, with his two ships and three pinnaces to go to
Cartagena; whither in sailing, we spent some six days by reason of
the calms which came often upon us: but all this time we attempted
nothing that we might have done by the way, neither at [Santiago
de] Tolou nor otherwhere, because we would not be discovered.
We came to anchor with our two ships in the evening [13th August],
in seven fathom water, between the island of Charesha [the
island of Cartagena, p . 156] and St. Barnards [San Bernardo.]
Our Captain led the three pinnaces about the island, into the harbour
of Cartagena; where at the very entry, he found a frigate at
anchor, aboard which was only one old man; who being demanded,
“Where the rest of his company was?” answered, “That they were
gone ashore in their gundeloe [gondola or ship's boat?], that evening,
to fight about a mistress”: and voluntarily related to our Captain
that, “two hours before night, there past by them a pinnace,
with sail and oars, as fast as ever they could row, calling to him
‘Whether there had not been any English and Frenchmen there
lately?’ and upon answer that, ‘There had been none!’ they bid them
‘look to themselves!’ That, within an hour that this pinnace was
come to the utterside [outside] of Cartagena, there were many great
pieces shot off, whereupon one going to top, to descry what might
be the cause? espied, over the land, divers frigates and small shipping
bringing themselves within the Castle.”
This report our Captain credited, the rather for that himself had
heard the report of the ordnance at sea; and perceived sufficiently,
that he was now descried. Notwithstanding in farther examination
of this old mariner, having understood, that there was, within the
next point, a great ship of Seville, which had here discharged her
loading, and rid now with her yards across, being bound the next
morning for Santo Domingo: our Captain took this old man into
his pinnace to verify that which he had informed, and rowed towards
this ship, which as we came near it, hailed us, asking,
“Whence our shallops were?”

THIRD VOYAGE 145
We answered, “From Nombre de Dios!”
Straightway they railed! and reviled! We gave no heed to their
words, but every pinnace, according to our Captain’s order, one on
the starboard bow, the other on the starboard quarter, and the
Captain in the midship on the larboard side, forthwith boarded her;
though we had some difficulty to enter by reason of her height,
being of 240 tons. But as soon as we entered upon the decks, we
threw down the grates and spardecks, to prevent the Spaniards
from annoying us with their close fights: who then perceiving that
we were possessed of their ship, stowed themselves all in hold with
their weapons, except two or three yonkers, which were found afore
the beetes: when having light out of our pinnaces, we found no
danger of the enemy remaining, we cut their cables at halse, and with
our three pinnaces, towed her without the island into the sound right
afore the town, without [beyond the] danger of their great shot.
Meanwhile, the town having intelligence hereof, or by their watch,
took the alarm, rang out their bells, shot off about thirty pieces of
great ordnance, put all their men in a readiness, horse and foot,
came down to the very point of the wood, and discharged their
calivers, to impeach us if they might, in going forth.
The next morning (14th August) our ships took two frigates, in
which there were two, who called themselves King’s Scrivanos, the
one of Cartagena, the other of Veragua, with seven mariners and two
Negroes: who had been at Nombre de Dios and were now bound
for Cartagena with double [duplicate}] letters of advice, to certify
them that Captain DRAKE had been at Nombre de Dios, had taken
it; and had it not been that he was hurt with some blessed shot, by
all likelihood he had sacked it. He was yet still upon the coast; they
should therefore carefully prepare for him!
After that our Captain had brought all his fleet together, at the
Scrivanos’ entreaties, he was content to do them all favour, in setting
them and all their companies on shore; and so bare thence with the
islands of St. Bernards, about three leagues of the town: where we
found great store of fish for our refreshing.

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Oceans release DDT from decades ago
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Starfish Sucks Up Carbon

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Studies of biological carbon in the oceans tend to focus on organisms that drift through the shallows, such as plankton, because they are known to store carbon in the form of calcium carbonate, which they transport to the sea floor when they die.

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What Keeps Time Moving Forward?

To the layman, this question sounds silly if not asinine, but theoretical physicist Sean Carroll seems to have given it enough serious thoughts to come out with a new book “From Eternity to Here” with explanations.

This is the arrow of time—life carries us from the past, through the present, and into the future. Back to the Future plotlines notwithstanding, no one knows how to reverse the arrow—how to move backward in time—and the logical paradoxes that would result from such a trip into the past render it a thorny proposition at best. (Thanks to a prediction of special relativity called time dilation, travel into the distant future is relatively easy: just move really, really fast.)

Read more …

8. Trying the Patience of Job

THE BOOK OF JOB Vol. 44, pp. 71-87

THE BOOK OF JOB
I
[ i ] THERE was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was1
Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that
feared God, and turned away from evil. [2] And there
were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. [3] His2 substance
also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels,
and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and a
very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the
children of the east. [4] And his sons went and held a feast in the
house of each one upon his day; and they sent and called for their
three sisters to eat and to drink with them. [5] And it was so, when
the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified
them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt-offerings
according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be
that my sons have sinned, and renounced3 God in their hearts. Thus
did Job continually.
[6] Now it came to pass on the day when the sons of God came
to present themselves before Jehovah, that Satan4 also came among
them. [7] And Jehovah said unto Satan, Whence comest thou?
Then Satan answered Jehovah, and said, From going to and fro in
the earth, and from walking up and down in it. [8] And Jehovah
said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job ? for5 there is
none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that
feareth God, and turneth away from evil. [9] Then Satan answered
Jehovah, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? [10] Hast not
thou made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all
that he hath, on every side ? thou hast blessed the work of his hands,
and his substance is increased in the land. [11] But put forth thy

1 Heb. lyob. 2 Or, cattle. 3 Or, blasphemed. So ver. 11; ch. 2. 5, 9.
4 That is, the Adversary. 5 Or, that.
71
72 JOB
hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will renounce thee to
thy face. [12] And Jehovah said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath
is in thy power;6 only upon himself put not forth thy hand. So Satan
went forth from the presence of Jehovah.
[13] And it fell on a day when his sons and his daughters were
eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house, [14] that
there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing,
and the asses feeding beside them; [15] and the7 Sabeans fell upon
them, and took them away: yea, they have slain the servants8 with
the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. [16]
While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The
fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep
and the servants,8 and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone
to tell thee. [17] While he was yet speaking, there came also
another, and said, The Chaldeans made three bands, and fell9 upon
the camels, and have taken them away, yea, and slain the servants8
with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell
thee. [18] While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and
said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in
their eldest brother’s house; [19] and, behold, there came a great
wind from10 the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house,
and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am
escaped alone to tell thee.
[20] Then Job arose, and rent his robe, and shaved his head, and
fell down upon the ground, and worshipped; [21] and he said,
Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return
thither: Jehovah gave, and Jehovah hath taken away; blessed be
the name of Jehovah. [22] In all this Job sinned not, nor charged”
God foolishly.

II
[1] AGAIN it came to pass on the day when the sons of God came
to present themselves before Jehovah, that Satan came also among
them to present himself before Jehovah. [2] And Jehovah said unto
Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered Jehovah,
6 Heb. hand. 7 Heb. Sheba. 8 Heb. young men. 9 Or, made a raid.
1 0 Or, over. 11 Or, attributed folly to God.

JOB 73
and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up
and down in it. [3] And Jehovah said unto Satan, Hast thou considered
my servant Job? for1 there is none like him in the earth, a
perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and turneth away
from evil: and he still holdeth fast his integrity, although thou
movedst me against him, to2 destroy him without cause. [4] And
Satan answered Jehovah, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man
hath will he give for his life. [5] But put forth thy hand now, and
touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce thee to thy face.
[6] And Jehovah said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thy hand; only
spare his life.
[7] So Satan went forth from the presence of Jehovah, and smote
Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. [8] And
he took him a potsherd to scrape himself therewith; and he sat
among the ashes. [9] Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still
hold fast thine integrity? renounce God, and die. [10] But he
said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish3 women speaketh.
What ? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not
receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.
[11] Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was
come upon him, they came every one from his own place: Eliphaz
the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite;
and they made an appointment together to come to bemoan him
and to comfort him. [12] And when they lifted up their eyes afar
off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they
rent every one his robe, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward
heaven. [13] So they sat down with him upon the ground seven
days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they
saw that his grief was very great.

III
[1] AFTER this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
[2] And Job answered and said:
[3] Let the day perish wherein I was born,
And the night which said, There is a man-child conceived.
1 Or, that. 2 Heb. to swallow him up. 3 Or, impious. 4 Or, pain.

74 JOB
[4] Let that day be darkness;
Let not God from above seek for it,
Neither let the light shine upon it.
[5] Let darkness and the1 shadow of death claim it for their
own;
Let a cloud dwell upon it;
Let all that maketh black the day terrify it.
[6] As for that night, let thick darkness seize upon it:
Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;
Let it not come into the number of the months.
[7] Lo, let that night be barren;2
Let no joyful voice come therein.
[8] Let them curse it that curse the day,
Who are ready3 to rouse up leviathan.
[9] Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark:
Let it look for light, but have none;
Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning:
[10] Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb,
Nor hid trouble from mine eyes.
[11] Why died I not from the womb?
Why did I not give up the ghost when my mother bare me ?
[12] Why did the knees receive me?
Or why the breasts, that I should suck ?
[13] For now should I have lain down and been quiet;
1 should have slept; then had I been at rest,
[14] With kings and counsellors of the earth,
Who built4 up waste places for themselves;
[15] Or with princes that had gold,
Who filled their houses with silver:
[16] Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been;
As infants that never saw light.
[17] There the wicked cease from troubling;5
And there the weary are at rest.
[18] There the prisoners are at ease together;
They hear not the voice of the taskmaster.
‘Or, deep darkness (and so elsewhere).
2 Or, solitary, 3 Or, skilful. 4 Or, built solitary piles. 5 Or, raging.

JOB 75
The small and the great are there;
And the servant is free from his master.
Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery,
And life unto the bitter in soul;
Who long” for death, but it cometh not,
And dig for it more than for hid treasures;
Who rejoice exceedingly,7
And are glad, when they can find the grave ?
Why is light given to a man whose way is hid,
And whom God hath hedged in?
For my sighing cometh before81 eat,
And my groanings9 are poured out like water.
For the10 thing which I fear cometh upon me,
And that which I am afraid of cometh unto me.
I am11 not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest;
But trouble cometh.

IV
THEN answered Eliphaz the Temanite, and said,
If one assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved?
But who can withhold himself from speaking?
Behold, thou hast instructed many,
And thou hast strengthened the weak hands.
Thy words have upholden him that was falling,
And thou hast made firm the feeble1 knees.
But now it is come unto thee, and thou2 faintest;
It toucheth thee, and thou art troubled.
Is not thy fear of God thy confidence,
And the integrity of thy ways thy hope?
Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent ?
Or where were the upright cut off?
According as I have seen, they that plow iniquity,
And sow trouble,3 reap the same.
6 Heb. wait. 7 Or, unto exultation. 8 Or, li\e my food.
9 Heb. roarings. 10 Or, the thing which I feared is come, &c.
1 1 Or, was not at ease . . . yet trouble came.
1 Heb. bowing. 2 Or, art grieved. 3 Or, mischief.

76 JOB
[1] CALL now; is there any that will answer thee?
And to which of the holy ones wilt thou turn ?
4 Heb. brought by stealth. 8 Or, a breath passed over.
6 Or, / heard a still voice. 7 Or, be just before God.
8 Or, be pure before his Maker. 9 Or, like.
1 0 Or, From morning to evening. 11 Heb. broken in pieces.
1 2 Or, Is not their excellency which is in them removed?
[9] By the breath of God they perish,
And by the blast of his anger are they consumed.
[10] The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion,
And the teeth of the young lions, are broken.
The old lion perisheth for lack of prey,
And the whelps of the lioness are scattered abroad.
[12] Now a thing was secretly4 brought to me,
And mine ear received a whisper thereof.
[13] In thoughts from the visions of the night,
When deep sleep falleth on men,
[14] Fear came upon me, and trembling,
Which made all my bones to shake.
Then a5 spirit passed before my face;
The hair of my flesh stood up.
[16] It stood still, but I could not discern the appearance thereof;
A form was before mine eyes:
There6 was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,
[17] Shall mortal man be7 more just than God?
Shall a man be8 more pure than his Maker?
Behold, he putteth no trust in his servants;
And his angels he chargeth with folly:
[19] How much more them that dwell in houses of clay,
Whose foundation is in the dust,
Who are crushed before9 the moth!
[20] Betwixt10 morning and evening they are destroyed:’1
They perish for ever without any regarding it.
[21] Is12 not their tent-cord plucked up within them?
They die, and that without wisdom.

V
[1] CALL now; is there any that will answer thee?
And to which of the holy ones wilt thou turn ?
4 Heb. brought by stealth. 8 Or, a breath passed over.
6 Or, I heard a still voice. 7 Or, be just before God.
8 Or, be pure before his Maker. 9 Or, like.
10 Or, From morning to evening. 11 Heb. broken in pieces.
12 Or, Is not their excellency which is in them removed?

JOB 77
[2] For vexation killeth the foolish man,
And jealousy1 slayeth the silly one.
[3] I have seen the foolish taking root:
But suddenly I cursed his habitation.
[4] His children are far from safety,
And they are crushed in the gate,
Neither is there any to deliver them:
[5] Whose harvest the hungry eateth up,
And taketh it even out of the thorns;
And the2 snare gapeth for their substance.
[6] For affliction3 cometh not forth from the dust,
Neither doth trouble spring out of the ground;
[7] But man is born unto trouble,
As the4 sparks fly upward.
[8] But as for me, I would seek unto God,
And unto God would I commit my cause;
[9] Who doeth great things and unsearchable,
Marvellous things without number:
[10] Who giveth rain upon the earth,
And sendeth waters upon the fields;
[11] So that he setteth up on high those that are low,
And those that mourn are exalted to safety.
[12] He frustrateth the devices of the crafty,
So that their hands cannot5 perform their enterprise.
[13] He taketh the wise in their own craftiness;
And the counsel of the cunning is carried headlong:
[14] They meet with darkness in the day-time,
And grope at noonday as in the night.
[15] But he saveth from the sword of6 their mouth,
Even the needy from the hand of the mighty.
[16] So the poor hath hope,
And iniquity stoppeth her mouth.

[17] Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth :T
1 Or, indignation. 2 Acc. to Vulg., the thirsty swallow up.
JOr, iniquity. See ch. 4. 8. 4 Heb. the sons of flame (or, of lightning).
5 Or, can perform nothing of worth. 6 Heb. out of their mouth.
TOr, reproveth.

78 JOB
Therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty.
[18] For he maketh sore, and bindeth up;
He woundeth, and his hands make whole.
[19] He will deliver thee in six troubles;
Yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee.
[20] In famine he will redeem thee from death;
And in war from the power of the sword.
[21] Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue;
Neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh.
[22] At destruction and dearth thou shalt laugh;
Neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth.
[23] For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field;
And the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.
[24] And thou shalt know that thy tent is in peace;
And thou shalt visit thy fold,8 and shalt9 miss nothing.
[25] Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be great,
And thine offspring as the grass of the earth.
[26] Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age,
Like as a shock of grain cometh in in its season.
[27] Lo this, we have searched it, so it is;
Hear it, and know thou it for10 thy good.

VI
[1] THEN Job answered and said,
[2] Oh that my vexation were but weighed,
And all my calamity laid in the balances!
[3] For now it would be heavier than the sand of the seas:
Therefore have my words been rash.
[4] For the arrows of the Almighty are within me,
The poison whereof my spirit drinketh up:
The terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.
[5] Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass?
Or loweth the ox over his fodder ?
[6] Can that which hath no savor be eaten without salt?
Or is there any taste in the1 white of an egg?
8 Or, habitation. 9 Or, shalt not err. 10 Heb. for thyself.
1 Or, the juice of purslain.

JOB 79
[7] My2 soul refuseth to touch them;
They are as loathsome food to me.

[8] Oh that I might have my request;
And that God would grant me the thing that I long for!
[9] Even that it would please God to crush me;
That he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!
[10] And be it still my consolation,
Yea,3 let me exult4 in pain that5 spareth not,
That I have not denied6 the words of the Holy One.
[11] What is my strength, that I should wait?
And what is mine end, that I should be patient ?
[12] Is my strength the strength of stones ?
Or is my flesh of brass ?
[13] Is it not that I have no help in me,
And that wisdom is driven quite from me?

[14] To him that is ready to faint kindness should be showed
from his friend;
Even7 to him that forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.
[15] My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook,
As the channel of brooks that pass away;
[16] Which are black by reason of the ice,
And wherein the snow hideth itself:
[17] What time they wax8 warm, they vanish;
When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.
[18] The9 caravans that travel by the way of them turn aside;
They go up into the waste, and perish.
[19] The caravans of Tema looked,
The companies of Sheba waited for them.
[20] They were put to shame because they had hoped;
They came thither, and were confounded.
[21] For now ye are10 nothing;
Ye see a terror, and are afraid.
2 Or, What things my soul refused to touch, these are as my loathsome food.
3 Or, Though I shrink, back.. 4 Or, harden myself. 5 Or, though he spare not.
6 Or, concealed. 7 Or, Else might he forsake. Or, But he forsaketh. 8 Or, shrink-
9 Or, The paths of their way are turned aside. 10 Another reading is, are like
thereto.

80 JOB
[22] Did I say, Give unto me?
Or, Offer a present for me of your substance ?
[23] Or, Deliver me from the adversary’s hand?
Or, Redeem me from the hand of the oppressors ?
[24] Teach me, and I will hold my peace;
And cause me to understand wherein I have erred.
[25] How forcible are words of uprightness!
But your reproof, what doth it reprove?
[26] Do ye think to reprove words,
Seeing that the speeches of one that is desperate are as11 wind ?
[27] Yea, ye would cast lots upon the fatherless,
And make merchandise of your friend.
[28] Now therefore be pleased to look upon me;
For12 surely I shall not lie to your face.
[29] Return, I pray you, let there be no injustice;
Yea, return again, my13 cause is righteous.
[30] Is there injustice on my tongue?
Cannot my taste discern mischievous things?

VII
[1] Is there not a warfare1 to man upon earth ?
And are not his days like the days of a hireling?
[2] As a servant that earnestly desireth the shadow,
And as a hireling that looketh for his wages:
[3] So am I made to possess months of misery,
And wearisome nights are appointed to me.
[4] When I lie down, I say,
When shall I arise, and the night be gone ?
And I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the
day.
[5] My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust;
My skin closeth2 up, and breaketh out afresh.
[6] My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
And are spent without hope.
1 1 Or, for the wind. 12 Or, And it will be evident unto you if I lie.
1 3 Heb. my righteousness is in it. 1 Or, time of service.
2 Or, is broken and become loathsome.

JOB 81
[7] Oh remember that my life is a breath:
Mine eye shall no more see good.
[8] The eye of him that seeth me shall behold me no more;
Thine eyes shall be upon me, but I shall not be.
[9] As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away,
So he that goeth down to Sheol shall come up no more.
[10] He shall return no more to his house,
Neither shall his place know him any more.

[11] Therefore I will not refrain my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
[12] Am I a sea, or a sea-monster,
That thou settest a watch over me ?
[13] When I say, My bed shall comfort me,
My couch shall ease my complaint;
[14] Then thou scarest me with dreams,
And terrifiest me through visions:
[15] So that my soul chooseth strangling,
And death rather than these my bones.
[16]  loathe my life; I would4 not live alway:
Let me alone; for my days are vanity.5
[17] What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him,
And that thou shouldest set thy mind upon him,
[18] And that thou shouldest visit him every morning,
And try him every moment?
[19] How long wilt thou not look away from me,
Nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle ?
[20] If I have sinned, what do61 unto thee, O thou watcher7 of men ?
Why hast thou set me as a mark for thee,
So that I am a burden to myself?
[21] And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take
away mine iniquity?
For now shall I lie down in the dust;
And thou wilt seek me diligently, but I shall not be.
3 Or, / waste away. 4 Or, shall
5 Or, as a breath. 6 Or, can I do. 7 Or, preserver.

82 JOB

VIII
[i] THEN answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
[2] How long wilt thou speak these things?
And how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a mighty
wind ?
[3] Doth God pervert justice?
Or doth the Almighty pervert righteousness ?
[4] If1 thy children have sinned against him,
And he hath delivered them into the hand of their transgression;
[5] If thou wouldest seek diligently unto God,
And make thy supplication to the Almighty;
[6] If thou wert pure and upright:
Surely now he would awake for thee,
And make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.
[7] And though thy beginning was small,
Yet thy latter end would greatly increase.
[8] For inquire, I pray thee, of the former age,
And apply thyself to that which their fathers have searched out:
[9] (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing,
Because our days upon earth are a shadow:)
[10] Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee.
And utter words out of their heart ?
[11] Can the rush2 grow up without mire?
Can the flag3 grow without water?
[12] Whilst it is yet in its greenness, and not cut down,
It withereth before any other herb.
[13] So are the paths of all that forget God;
And the hope of the godless man shall perish:
[14] Whose confidence shall break4 in sunder,
And whose trust is a spider’s web.5
[15] He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand:
He shall hold fast thereby, but it shall not endure.
1 Or, / / thy children sinned . . . he delivered &c. 2 Or, papyrus.
3 Or, reed-grass. 4 Or, be cut off. 5 Heb. house.

JOB 83
[16] He is green before the sun,
And his shoots go forth over his garden.
[17] His roots are wrapped about6 the stone-heap,
He beholdeth the place of stones.
[18] If he be destroyed from his place,
Then it shall deny him, saying, I have not seen thee.
[19] Behold, this is the joy of his way;
And out of the earth7 shall others spring.
[20] Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man,
Neither will he uphold the evil-doers.
[21] He8 will yet fill thy mouth with laughter,
And thy lips with shouting.
[22] They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame;
And the tent of the wicked shall be no more.

IX
[1] THEN Job answered and said,
[2] Of a truth I know that it is so:
But1 how can man be just with2 God?
[3] If he be pleased to contend with him,
He cannot answer him one of a thousand.
[4] He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength:
Who hath hardened himself against him, and prospered?
[5] Him that removeth the mountains, and they know it not,
When he overturneth them in his anger;
[6] That shaketh the earth out of its place,
And the pillars thereof tremble;
[7] That commandeth the sun, and it riseth not,
And sealeth up the stars;
[8] That alone stretcheth out the heavens,
And treadeth upon the waves4 of the sea;
[9] That maketh the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades,
And the chambers of the south;
[10] That doeth great things past finding out,
Yea, marvellous things without number.
6 Or, beside the spring. 7 Or, dust.
8 Or, Till he fill. 1 Or, For. 2 Or, before. 3 Or, If one should desire .
could not be. 4 Heb. high places.

84 JOB
[11] Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not:
He passeth on also, but I perceive him not.
[12] Behold, he seizeth the prey, who can hinder5 him?
Who will say unto him, What doest thou?
[13] God will not withdraw his anger;
The helpers of Rahab6 do7 stoop under him.
[14] How much less shall I answer him,
And choose out my words to reason with him ?
[15] Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer;
I would make supplication to my judge.
[16] If I had called, and he had answered me,
Yet would I not believe that he hearkened unto my voice.
[17] For8 he breaketh me with a tempest,
And multiplieth my wounds without cause.
[18] He will not suffer me to take my breath,
But filleth me with bitterness.
[19] If we spea^ °^ strength, lo,9 he is mighty!
And if of justice, Who, saith he, will summon me?
[20] Though I be righteous, mine own mouth shall condemn me:
Though I be perfect, it10 shall prove me perverse.
[21] I’1 am perfect; I regard not myself;
I despise my life.
[22] It is all one; therefore I say,
He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.
[23] If the scourge slay suddenly,
He will mock at the trial12 of the innocent.
[24] The earth is given into the hands of the wicked;
He covereth the faces of the judges thereof:
If it be not he, who then is it ?

[25] Now my days are swifter than a post :13
They flee away, they see no good.
[26] They are passed away as the swift14 ships;
As the eagle that swoopeth on the prey.
5 Or, turn him back- 6 Or, arrogancy. See Is. 30. 7. 7 Or, did. 8 Heb. He who.
9 Or, Lo, here am I, saith he; and if of justice, Who &c. 10 Or, he.
1 1 Or, Though I be perfect, I will not regard be. 1 2 Or, calamity.
1 3 Or, runner. 14 Heb. ships of reed.

JOB 85
[27] If I say, I will forget my complaint,
I will put off my sad countenance, and be15 of good cheer;
[28] I am afraid of all my sorrows,
I know that thou wilt not hold me innocent.
[29] I shall be condemned;
Why then do I labor in vain?
[30] If I wash myself with16 snow water,
And make17 my hands never so clean;
[31] Yet wilt thou plunge me in the ditch,
And mine own clothes shall abhor me.
[32] For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him,
That we should come together in judgment.
[33] There is no umpire betwixt us,
That might lay his hand upon us both.
[34] Let him take his rod away from me,
And let not his terror make me afraid:
[35] Then would I speak, and not fear him;
For I am not so in myself.

X
[1] MY soul is weary of my life;
I will give free course to my complaint;
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
[2] I will say unto God, Do not condemn me;
Show me wherefore thou contendest with me.
[3] Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress,
That thou shouldest despise the work1 of thy hands,
And shine upon the counsel of the wicked?
[4] Hast thou eyes of flesh ?
Or seest thou as man seeth ?
[5] Are thy days as the days of man,
Or thy years as man’s days,
[6] That thou inquirest after mine iniquity,
And searchest after my sin,
15 Heb. brighten up. 1 6 Another reading is, with snow. 1 7 Heb. cleanse my hands
with lye. 1 Heb. labor.

86 JOB
[7] Although thou knowest that I am not wicked,
And there is none that can deliver out of thy hand?

[8] Thy hands have framed me and fashioned me
Together round about; yet thou dost destroy me.
[9] Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast fashioned me as clay;
And wilt thou bring me into dust again ?
[10] Hast thou not poured me out as milk,
And curdled me like cheese?
[11] Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh,
And knit me together with bones and sinews.
[12] Thou hast granted me life and lovingkindness;
And thy visitation2 hath preserved my spirit.
[13] Yet these things thou didst hide in thy heart;
I know that this is with thee:
[14] If I sin, then thou markest me,
And thou wilt not acquit me from mine iniquity.
[15] If I be wicked, woe unto me;
And if I be righteous, yet shall I not lift up my head;
Being3 filled with ignominy,
And looking upon mine affliction.
[16] And if my head exalt itself, thou huntest me as a lion;
And again thou showest thyself marvellous upon me.
[17] Thou renewest thy witnesses against me,
And increasest thine indignation upon me:
Changes4 and warfare are with me.

[18] Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb?
I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me.
[19] I should have been as though I had not been;
I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
[20] Are not my days few ? cease5 then,
And let me alone, that I may take6 comfort a little,
[21] Before I go whence I shall not return,
Even to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;
2 Or, care. 3 Or, / am filled with ignominy, but look, thou . . . for it increaseth:
thou Sfc. 4 Or, Host after host is against me.
5 Another reading is, let him cease, and leave me alone. 6 Heb. brighten up.

JOB 87
[22] The land dark as midnight;7
The land of the shadow of death, without any order,
And where the light is as midnight.7

XI
[1] THEN answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said,
[2] Should not the multitude of words be answered?
And should a man full of talk be justified?
[3] Should thy boastings make men hold their peace?
And when thou mockest, shall no man make thee ashamed ?
[4] For thou sayest, My doctrine is pure,
And I am clean in thine eyes.
[5] But oh that God would speak,
And open his lips against thee,
[6] And that he would show thee the secrets of wisdom!
For he is manifold in understanding.
Know therefore that God exacteth1 of thee less than thine
iniquity deserveth.

[7] Canst2 thou by searching find out God ?
Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
[8] It3 is high as heaven; what canst thou do?
Deeper than Sheol; what canst thou know?
[9] The measure thereof is longer than the earth,
And broader than the sea.
[10] If he pass through, and shut up,
And call4 unto j udgment, then who can hinder him ?
[11] For he knoweth false men:
He seeth iniquity also, even5 though he consider it not.
[12] But6 vain man is void of understanding,
Yea, man is born as a wild ass’s colt.
7 Heb. thick darkness.
‘Or, remitteth (Heb. causeth to be forgotten) unto thee of thine iniquity.
2 Or, Canst thou find out the deep things of God?
3 Heb. The heights of heaven.
4 Heb. call an assembly.
5 Or, and him that considereth not.
6 Or, But an empty man mill get understanding, when a wild ass’s colt is born
a man.

When smarter people’s brains are scanned

But now, for the first time, functional measures of the resting brain are providing new insights into network properties of the brain that are associated with IQ scores. In essence, they suggest that in smart people, distant areas of the brain communicate with each other more robustly than in less smart people.

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