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CHAPTER XI DISCOURSETH OF FOODS, HOUSEHOLD STUFF, AND OTHER NECESSARY CONCERNS, WHICH FOLK MUST HAVE IN THIS EARTHLY LIFE

In that wood did I abide for about two years, until the hermit died, and after his death somewhat longer than a half-year. And therefore it seemeth me good to tell to the curious reader, who often desireth to know even the smallest matters, of our doings, our ways and works, and how we spent or life.
Now our food was vegetables of all kinds, turnips, cabbage, beans, pease, and the like: nor did we despise beech-nuts, wild apples, pears, and cherries: yea, and our hunger often made even acorns savory to us; our bread or, to say more truly, our cakes, we baked on hot askes, and they remade of Italian rye beaten fine. In winter we would catch birds with springes and snares; but in spring and summer God bestowed upon us young fledglings from their nest. Often must we make out with snails and frogs: and so was fishing, both with net and line, convenient to us: for close to our dwelling there flowed a brook, full of fish and crayfish, all which did help to make our rough vegetable diet palatable. Once on a time did we catch a young wild pig, and this we penned in a stall, and did feed him with acorns and beech-nuts, so fatted him and at last did eat him; for my hermit knew it could be no sin to eat that which God hath created to such end for the whole human race.
Of salt we needed but little and spices not at all: for we might not arouse our desire to drink, seeing that we had no cellar: what little salt we wanted a good pastor furnished us who dwelt some fifteen miles away from us, and of whom I shall yet have much to tell.
Now as concerns our household stuff, we had enough: for we had a shovel, a pick, an axe, a hatchet, and an iron pot for cooking, which was indeed not our own, but lent to us by the said pastor: each of us had an old blunt knife, which same were our own possessions, and no more: more than that needed we naught, neither dishes, plates, spoons, nor forks: neither kettles, frying-pans, gridirons, spits, salt-cellars, no, nor any other table and kitchen ware: for our iron pot was our dish, our hands our forks and spoons: and if we would drink, we could do so through a pipe from the spring or else we dipped our mouths like Gideon’s soldiers#1 1. Then for garments: of wool, or silk, of cotton, and of linen, as for beds, table-covers, and tapestries, we had none save what we wore upon our bodies: for we deemed it enough if we could shield ourselves from rain and frost. At other times we kept no rule or order in our household, save on Sundays and holy-days, at which time we would start on our way at midnight, so that we might come early enough to escape men’s notice, to the said pastor’s church, which was a little away from the village, and there might attend service. When we came thither we betook ourselves to the broken organ, from which place we could see both altar and pulpit: and when I first saw the pastor go up to the pulpit I asked my hermit what he would do in that great tub! So, service finished, we went home as secretly as we had come, and when we found ourselves then once more at home, with weary body and weary feet, then did we eat foul food with fair appetite: then would the hermit spend the rest of the day in praying and in the instructing of me in holy things.
On working days we would do that which seemed most necessary to do, according as it happened, and as such was required by the time of year and by our needs: now would we work in the garden: another time we gathered together the rich mould in shady places and out of hollow trees to improve our garden therewith in place of dung; again we would weave baskets or fishing-nets or chop firewood, or go a-fishing, or do aught to banish idleness. Yet among all these occupations did the good hermit never cease to instruct me faithfully in all good things: and meanwhile did I learn, in such a hard life, to endure hunger, thirst, heat, cold, and great labour, and before all things to know God and how one should serve Him best, which was the chiefest thing of all. And indeed my faithful hermit would have me know no more, for he held it was enough for any Christian to attain his end and aim, if he did but constantly pray and work: so it came about that, though I was pretty well instructed in ghostly matters, and knew my Christian belief well enough, and could speak the German language as well as a talking spelling-book, yet I remained the most simple lad in the world: so that when I left the wood I was such a poor, sorry creature that no dog would have left his bone to run after me.

CHAPTER XII: TELLS OF A NOTABLE FINE WAY, TO DIE HAPPY AND TO HAVE ONESELF BURIED AT SMALL COST

So had I spent two years or thereabouts, and had scarce grown accustomed to the hard life of a hermit, when one day my best friend on earth took his pick, have me the shovel, and led me by the hand, according to his daily custom, to our garden, where we were wont to say our prayers.
“Now Simplicissimus, dear child,” said he, “inasmuch as, God be praised, the time is at hand when I must part from this earth and must pay the debt of nature, and leave thee behind me in this world, and whereas I do partly foresee the future course of they life and do know well that thou wilt not long abide in this wilderness, therefore did I desire to strengthen thee in the way of virtue which thou hast entered on, and to five thee some lessons for thy instruction by means of which thou shouldest so rule thy life that, as though by an unfailing clue, thou mightest find thy way to eternal happiness, and so with all elect saints mightest be found worthy for ever to behold the face of God in that other life.”
These words did drown mine eyes in tears, even as once the enemy’s device did drown the town of Villingen; in a word, they were so terrible that I could not endure them, but said: “Beloved father, wilt thou then leave me alone in this wild wood? Must I then…?” And more I could not say, for my heart’s sorrow was, by reason of the overflowing love which I bore to my true father, so grievous that I sank at his feet as if I were dead. Yet did he raise me up and comfort me so far as time and opportunity did allow, and would shew me mine own error, in that he asked, would I rebel against the decree of the Almighty? “and knowest thou not,” says he, “that neither heaven nor hell can do that? Nay, nay, my son! Why dost thou propose further to burden my weak body, which itself is but desirous of rest? Thinkest thou to force me to sojourn longer in this vale of tears? Ah no, my son, let me go, for in any case neither with lamentation and tears, nor still less with my good will, canst thou compel me to dwell longer in this misery when I am by God’s express will called away therefrom: instead of all this useless clamour, follow thou my last words, which are these: the longer thou livest seek to know thyself the better, and if thou live as long as Methuselah2#2_, yet let not such practice depart from they heart: for that most men do come to perdition this is the cause--namely, that they know not what they have been and what they can or must be.” And further he exhorted me, I should at all times beware of bad company: for the harm of that was unspeakable. Of that he game me an example, saying: “If thou puttest a drop of malmsey3 into a vessel full of vinegar, forthwith it turns into vinegar: but if thou pour a drop of vinegar into malmsey, that drop will disappear into the wine. Beloved son, before all things be steadfast: for whoso endureth to the end he shall be saved; but if it happen, contrary to my hopes, that thou from human weakness dost fall, then by a fitting penitence raise thyself up again.”
Now this careful and pious man gave me but this brief counsel, not because he knew no more, but because in sober truth I seemed to him, by reason of my youth, not able to comprehend more in such a case, and again, because few words be better to hold in remembrance than long discourse, and if they have pith and point do work greater good when they be pondered on than any long sermon, which a man may well understand as spoken and yet is wont presently to forget. And these three points: to know oneself: to avoid bad company: and to stand steadfast; this holy man, without doubt, deemed good and necessary because he had made trial of them in his own case and had not found them to fail: for, coming to know himself, he eschewed not only bad company but that of the whole world, and in that plan did persevere to the end, on which doubtless all salvation doth depend.
So when he had thus spoken, he began with his mattock#4_ 4 to dig his own grave: and I helped as best I could in whatever way he bade me; yet I did not conceive to what end all this was. Then said he: “My dear and only true son (for besides thee I never begat creature for the honour of our Creator), when my soul is gone to its own place, then do thy duty to my body, and pay me the last honors: cover me up with these same clods which we have even now dug from this pit.” And thereupon he took me in his arms and, kissing me, pressed me harder to his breast than would seem possible for a man so weak as he appeared to be. And, “Dear child,” says he, “I commend thee to God his protection, and die the more cheerfully because I hope He will receive thee therein.” Yet could I do naught but lament and cry, yea, did hang upon the chains which he wore on his neck, and thought thereby to prevent him from leaving me. But “My son,” says he, “let me go, that I may see if the grave be long enough for me.” And therewith he laid aside the chains together with his outer garment, and so entered the pit even as one that will lie down to sleep, saying, “Almighty God, receive again the soul that Thou hast given: Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” Thereupon did he calmly close his lips and his eyes: while I stood there like a stockfish, and dreamt not that his dear soul could so have left the body: for often I had seen him in such trances: and so now, as was my wont in such a case, I waited there for hours praying by the grave. But when my beloved hermit arose not again, I went down into the grave to him and began to shake, to kiss, and to caress him: but there was no life in him, for grim and pitiless death had robbed the poor Simplicissimus of his holy companionship. Then did I bedew or, to say better, did embalm with my tears his lifeless body, and when I had for a long time run up and down with miserable cries, began to heap earth upon him, with more sighs than hopefuls: and hardly had I covered his face when I must go down again and uncover it afresh that I might see it and kiss it once more. And so it went on all day till I had finished, and in this way ended all the funeral; an “exequiae” and “ludi gladiatorii” wherein neither bier, coffin, pall, lights, bearers, nor mourners were at hand, nor any clergy to sing over the dead.

CHAPTER XIII HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS DRIVEN ABOUT LIKE A STRAW IN A WHIRLPOOL

Now a few days after the hermit’s decease I betook myself to the pastor abovementioned and declared to him my master’s death, and therewith besought counsel from him how I should act in such a case. And though he much dissuaded me from living longer in the forest, yet did I boldly tread in on my predecessor’s footsteps, inasmuch as for the whole summer I did all that a holy monk should do. But as time changeth all things, so by degrees the grief which I felt for my hermit grew less and less, and the sharp cold of winter without quenched the heat of my steadfast purpose within. And the more I began to falter the lazier did I become in my prayers, for in place of dwelling ever upon godly and heavenly thoughts, I let myself be overcome by the desire to see the world: and inasmuch as for this purpose I could do no good in my forest, I determined to go again to the said pastor and ask if he again would counsel me to leave the wood. To that end I betook myself to his village, which when I came thither I found myself in flames: for a party of troopers had but now plundered and burned it, and of the peasants killed some, driven some away, and some had made prisoners, among whom was the pastor himself. Ah God, how full is man’s life of care and disappointment! Scarce hath one misfortune ended and lo! we are in another. I wonder not that the heathen philosopher Timon5#5_set up many gallows at Athens, whereupon men might string themselves up, and so with brief pain make an end to their wretched life.
These troopers were even now ready to march, and had the pastor fastened by a rope to lead him away. Some cried, “Shoot him down, the rogue!” Others would have money from him. But he, lifting up his hands to heaven, begged, for the sake of the Last Judgment, for forbearance and Christian compassion, but in vain; for one of them rode him down and dealt him such a blow on the head that he fell flat, and commended his soul to God. Nor did the remainder of the captured peasants fare any better. But even when it seemed these troopers, in their cruel tyranny, had clean lost their wits, came such a swarm of armed peasants out of the wood, that it seemed a wasps’-nest had been stirred. And these began to yell so frightfully an so furiously to attack with sword and musket that all my hair stood on end; and never had I been at such a merrymaking before: for the peasants of the Spessart and the Vogelsberg are as little wont as are the Hessians and men of the Sauerland and the Black Forest to let themselves be crowed over on their own dunghill. So away went the troopers, and not only left behind the cattle they had captured, but threw away bag and baggage also, and so cast all their booty for the peasants: yet some of them fell into their hands. This sport took from me well-nigh all desire to see the world, for I thought, if ‘tis all like this, then is the wilderness far more pleasant. Yet would I fain hear what the pastor had to say of it, who was, by reason of wounds and blows received, faint, weak, and feeble. Yet he made shift to tell me he knew not how to help or advise me, since he himself was now in a plight in which he might well have to seek his bread by begging, and if I should remain longer in the woods, I could hope no more for help from him; since, as I saw with my own eyes, both his church and his parsonage were in flames. Thereupon I betook myself sorrowfully to my dwelling in the wood, and because on this journey I had been but little comforted, yet on the other hand had become more full of pious thoughts, therefore I resolved never more to leave the wilderness: and already I pondered whether it were not possible for me to live without salt (which the pastor had until now furnished me with) and so do without mankind altogether.

CHAPTER XIV: A QUAINT COMEDIA OF FIVE PEASANTS

So now that I might follow up on my design and become a true anchorite, I put on my hermit’s hair-shirt which he had left me and girded me with his chain over it: not indeed as if I needed it to mortify my unruly flesh, but that I might be like to my fore-runner both in life and in habit, and moreover might by such clothes be the better able to protect myself against the rough cold of winter. But the second day after the above-mentioned village had been plundered and burnt, as I was sitting in my hut and praying, at the same time roasting carrots for food over the fire, here surrounded me forty or fifty musqueteers: and these, though amazed at the strangeness of my person, yet ransacked my hut, seeking what was not there to find: for nothing had I but books, and these they threw this way and that as useless to them. But at last, when they regarded me more closely and saw by my feathers what a poor bird they had caught, they could easily reckon there was poor booty to be found where I was. And much they wondered my hard way of life, and shewed great pity for my tender youth, specially their officer that commanded them: for he shewed me respect, and earnestly besought me that I would shew him and his men the way out of the wood wherein they had long been wandering. Nor did I refuse, but led them the nearest way to the village, even where the before-mentioned pastor had been so ill handled; for I knew no other road.
Now before we were out of the wood, we espied some ten peasants, of whom part were armed with musquets, while the rest were busied with burying something. So our musqueteers ran upon them, crying, “Stay! Stay!” But they answered with a discharge of shot, and when they saw they were outnumbered by the soldiers, away they went so quick that none of the musqueteers, being weary, could overtake them. So then they would dig up again what the peasants had been burying: and that was the easier because they had left the mattocks and spades which they used lying there. But they had made few strokes with the pick when they heard a voice from below crying out, “O ye wanton rogues, O ye worst of villains, think ye that Heaven will leave your heathenish cruelty and tricks unpunished? Nay, for there live yet honest fellows by whom your barbarity shall be paid in such wise that none of your fellow men shall think you worth even a kick of his foot.” So the soldiers looked on one another in amazement, and knew not what to do. For some thought they had to deal with a ghost: to me it seemed I was dreaming: but the officer bade them dig on stoutly. And presently they came to a cask, which they burst open, and therein found a fellow that had neither nose nor ears, and yet still lived. He, when he was somewhat revived, and had recognized some of the troop, told them how on the day before, as some of his regiment were a-foraging, the peasants had caught six of them. And of these they first of all, about an hour before, had shot five dead at once, making them stand one behind another; and because the bullet, having already passed through five bodies, did not reach him, who stood sixth and last, they had cut off his nose and ears, yet before that had forced him to render to five of them the filthiest service in the world* . But when he saw himself thus degraded by these rogues without shame or knowledge of God, he had heaped upon them the vilest reproaches, though they were willing now to let him go. Yet in the hope one of them would from annoyance send a ball through his head, he called them all by their right names: yet in vain. Only this, that when he had thus chafed them they had clapped him in the cask here present and buried him alive, saying, since he so desired death they would not cheat him of his amusement.
Now while the fellow thus lamented the torments he had endured, came another party of foot-soldiers by a cross road through the wood, who had met the above-mentioned boors, caught five and shot the rest dead: and among the prisoners were four to whom that maltreated trooper had been forced to do that filthy service a little before. So now, when both parties had found by their manner of hailing one another that they were of the same army, they joined forces, and again must hear from the trooper himself how it had fared with him and his comrades. And there might any man tremble and quake to see how these same peasants were handled: for some in their first fury would say, “Shoot them down,” but others said, “Nay: these wanton villains must we first properly torment: yea, and make them to understand in their own bodies what they have deserved as regards the person of this same trooper.” And all the time while this discussion proceeded these peasants received such mighty blows in the ribs from the butts of their musquets that I wondered they did not spit blood. Bur presently stood forth a soldier, and said he: “You gentlemen, seeing that it is a shame to the whole profession of arms that this rogue (and therewith he pointed to that same unhappy trooper) have so shamefully submitted himself to the will of five boors, it is surely our duty to wash out this spot of shame, and compel these rogues to do the same shameful service for this trooper which they forced him to do for them.” But another said: “This fellow is not worth having such honour due to him; for were he not a poltroon surely he would not have done such shameful service, to the shame of all honest soldiers, but would a thousand times sooner have died.” In a word, ‘twas decided with one voice that each of the captured peasants should do the same filthy service for ten soldiers which their comrade had been forced to do, and each time should say, “So do I cleanse and wash away the shame which these soldiers think they have endured.”
Thereafter they would decided how they should deal with the peasants when they had fulfilled this cleanly task. So presently they went to work: but the peasants were so obstinate that neither by promise of their lives nor by any torture could they be compelled thereto. Then one took the fifth peasant, who had not maltreated the trooper, a little aside, and says he: “It thou wilt deny God and all His saints, I will let thee go whither thou wilt.” Thereupon the peasant made the reply, “he had in all his life taken little count of saints, and had had but little traffic with God,” and added thereto with a solemn oath, “he knew not God and had no art nor part in His kingdom.” So then the soldier sent a ball at his head: which worked as little harm as if it had been shot at a mountain of steel. Then he drew out his hangar and “Beest thou still here?” says he. “I promised to let thee go whither thou wouldst: see now, I send thee to the kingdom of hell, since thou wilt not go to heaven”: and so he split his head down to the teeth. And as he fell, “So,” said the soldier, “must a man avenge himself and punish these loose rogues both in this world and the next.”
Meanwhile the other soldiers had the remaining four peasants to deal with. These they bound, hands and feet together, over a fallen tree in such wise that their back-sides (saving your presence) were uppermost. Then they stript off their breeches, and took some yards of their match-string and made knots in it, and fiddled them therewith so mercilessly that the blood ran. So they cried out lamentably, but ‘twas but sport for the soldiers, who ceased not to saw away till skin and flesh were clean sawn off the bones. Me they let go to my hut, for the last-arrived party knew the way well. And so I know not how they finished with the peasants.

Edited by Melanie Edwards

1#1 Gideon, a soldier in the book of Judges in the Bible, led an army of Israelites against the opposing Midianites. God told Gideon he had too large of an army so Gideon reduced the size several times. Finally Gideon told the men to drink from a river. Gideon kept in his army only those who got down and lapped the water like dogs, which reduced the force to 400 men. This story is often interpreted as showing how God chose the less alert soldiers to magnify the proportions of his victory. “Gideon,” Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Double Day, 1992), vol. 2, pp. 1013-1015.
#22 According to the book of Genesis in the Bible, Methuselah lived 969 years and was the oldest man in history. “Gideon,” Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Double Day, 1992), vol. 4, pp. 800-801.
#33 Malmsey is a type of sweet wine from made from the Malvasia grape and produced in Monomvasia, a city in southern Greece. Monemvasia, famous for this wine, was a fortress and commercial center in the Middle Ages and thus its wine became world famous. “Monemvasia,” Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1997), vol. 8, p. 250. “Malmsey,” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (Springfield, Mass: Mirriam-Webster, Inc., 1986), p. 1368.
#44 A mattock is a tool used for digging with the blade and handle at right angles, a mixture of an ax and a pick. “Mattock,” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1976), p. 435. “Mattock,” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (Springfield, Mass: Mirriam-Webster, Inc., 1986), p. 1394.
#55 Timon, a philosopher born around 320 B.C. in northern Peloponnese, Greece, studied with Stilpo at Megara and Phyrron of Elis. First a dancer, he eventually became famous by lecturing and eventually retired to Athens to write. He eventually died around 230 B.C. in Athens, and although none of his complete works survive, some fragments still remain, including prose, tragedies, comedies, poems, and a few sarcastic attacks on the more dogmatic philosophers, called silloi. “Timon,” Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1997), vol. 11, p. 782.
6#6*Viz. "ihnen den Hintern zu lecken." [Goodrick]