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BOOK I.

Chap i. : TREATS OF SIMPLICISSIMUS’S RUSTIC DESCENT AND OF HIS UPBRINGING ANSWERING THERETO

There appeareth in these days of ours (of which many do believe that they be the last days) among the common folk, a certain disease which causeth those who do suffer from it (so soon as they have either scraped and higgled together so much that they can, besides a few pence in their pocket, wear a fool’s coat of the new fashion with a thousand bits of silk ribbon upon it, or by some trick of fortune have become known as men of parts) forthwith to give themselves out gentlemen and nobles of ancient descent. Whereas it doth often happen that their ancestors were day-labourers, carters, and porters, their cousins donkey-drivers, their brothers turnkeys and catchpolls, their sisters harlots, their mothers bawds—yea, witches even: and in a word, their whole pedigree of thirty-two quarterings as full of dirt and stain as ever was the sugar-bakers’ guild of Prague. Yea, these new sprigs of nobility be often themselves as black as if they had been born and bred in Guinea.

With such foolish folk I desire not to even myself, though ‘tis not untrue that I have often fancied I must have drawn my birth from some great lord or knight at least, as being by nature disposed to follow the nobleman's trade had I but the means and tools for it. ‘Tis true, moreover, without jesting, that my birth and upbringing can be compared to that of a prince if we overlook the one great difference in degree. How ! did not my dad (for so they call fathers in the Spessart1) have his own palace like any other, so fine as no king could build with his own hands, but must let that alone for ever. ‘Twas painted with lime, and in the place of unfruitful tiles, cold lead and red copper, was roofed with that straw whereupon the noble corn doth grow, and that he, my dad, might make a proper show of nobility and riches, he has his wall round his castle built, not of stone, which men do find upon the road of dig out of the earth in barren places, much less of miserable baked bricks that in a brief space can be made and burned (as other great lords be wont to do), but he did use oak, which noble and profitable tree, being such that smoked sausage and fat ham doth grow upon it, taketh for its full growth no less than a hundred years; and where is the monarch that can imitate him therein? His halls, his rooms, and his chambers did he have thoroughly blackened with smoke, and for this reason only, that ‘tis the most lasting colour in the world, and doth take longer to reach to real perfection than an artist will spend on his most excellent paintings. The tapestries were of the most delicate web in the world, wove for us by her that of old did challenge Minerva to a spinning match2. His windows were dedicated to St. Papyrius for no other reason than that that same paper doth take longer to come to perfection, reckoning from the sowing of the hemp of flax whereof ‘tis made, than doth the finest and clearest glass of Murano: for his trade made him apt to believe that whatever was produced with much pains was also more valuable and more costly; and what was most costly was best suited to the nobility. Instead of pages, lackeys, grooms, he had sheep, goats, and swine, which often waited upon me in the pastures till I drove them home. His armoury was well furnished with ploughs, mattocks, axes, hoes, shovels, pitchforks, and hayforks, with which weapons he daily exercised himself. The yoking of oxen was his generalship, the piling of dung his fortification, tilling of the land his campaigning, and the cleaning out of the stables his princely pastime and exercise. By this means did he conquer the whole round world so far as he could reach, and at every harvest did draw from it rich spoils. But all this I account nothing of, and am not puffed up thereby, lest any should have cause to jibe at me as at other new-fangled nobility, for I esteem myself no higher than was my dad, which had his abode in a right merry land, to wit, in the Spessart, where the wolves do howl goodnight to each other. But that I have as yet told you nought of my dad’s family, race, and name is of the sake of precious brevity, especially since there is here no question of a foundation for gentlefolks for me to swear myself into; ‘tis enough if it be known that I was born in the Spessart.

Now as my dad’s manner of living will be perceived to be truly noble, so any man of sense will easily understand that my upbringing was like and suitable thereto: and whoso thinks that is not deceived, for in my tenth year I already learned the rudiments of my dad’s princely exercises: yet as touching studies I might compare with the famous Amphistides, of whom Suidas reports that he could not count higher than five: for my dad had perchance too high a spirit, and therefore followed the use of these days, wherein many persons of quality trouble themselves not, as they say, with bookworms’ follies, but have their hirelings to do their ink-slinging for them. Yet I was a fine performer on the bagpipe, whereon I could produce most dolorous strains. But as to knowledge of things divine, none shall ever persuade me that any lad of my age in all Christendom could there beat me, for I knew nought of God or man, of Heaven or hell, of angel of devil, nor could discern between good and evil. So it may be easily understood that I, with such knowledge of theology, lived like our first parents in Paradise, which in their innocence knew nought of sickness or death or dying, and still less of the Resurrection. O noble life ! (or, as one might better say, O noodle’s life !) in which none troubles himself about medicine. And by this measure ye can estimate my proficiency in the study of jurisprudence and all other arts and sciences. Yes, I was so perfected in ignorance that I knew not that I knew nothing. So I say again, O noble life that once I led ! But my dad would not suffer me long to enjoy such bliss, but deemed it right that as being nobly born, I should nobly act and nobly live: and therefore began to train me up for higher things that gave me harder lessons.

Chap. ii. : OF THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS THAT DIGNITY TO WHICH SIMPLICISSIMUS ATTAINED, TO WHICH IS ADDED THE PRAISE OF SHEPHERDS AND OTHER EXCELLENT PRECEPTS

For he invested me with the highest dignity that could be found, not only in his
household, but in the whole world: namely, with the office of a shepherd: for first he did entrust me with his swine, then his goats, and then his whole flock of sheep, what I should keep and feed the same, and by means of my bagpipe (of which Strabo writeth that in Arabia its music alone doth fatten the sheep and lambs) protect them from the wolf. Then was I like David (save that he in place of the bagpipe had but a harp), which was no bad beginning for me, but a good omen in time, if I had any manner of luck, I should become a famous man: for from the beginning of the world high personages have been shepherds, as we read in the Holy Writ of Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his sons: yea, of Moses also, which must first keep his father-in-law his sheep before he was made law-giver and ruler over six hundred thousand men in Israel.

And now may some man say that these were holy and godly men, and no Spessart peasant-lads knowing nought of God? Which I must confess: yet why should my then innocence be laid to my charge? Yet, among the heathen of old time you will find examples as many among God’s chosen folk. So among the Romans were the noble families that without a doubt were called Bubulci, Vituli, Vitellii, Caprae, and so forth, because they had to do with the cattle so named, and ‘tis like had even herded them. ‘Tis certain Romulus and Remus were shepherds, and Spartacus that made the whole Roman world to tremble. What ! was not Paris, King Priam’s son, a shepherd, and Anchises the Trojan prince, Aeneas’s father? The beautiful Endymion, of whom the chaste Luna was enamoured, was a shepherd, and so too the grisly Polypheme. Yea, the gods themselves were not ashamed of this trade: Apollo kept the kine of Admetus, King of Thessaly; Mercurius and his son Daphnis, Pan and Proteus, were all mighty shepherds: and therefore be they still called by our fantastic poets and patrons of herdsmen. Mesha, King of Moab, as we do read in II Kings, was a sheep-master; Cyrus, the great King of Persia, was not only reared by Mithridates, a shepherd, but himself did keep sheep; Gyges was first a herdsman, and then by the power of a ring became a king; and Ismael Sophi, the Persian king, did in his youth likewise herd cattle. So that Philo, the Jew, doth excellently deal with the matter in his life of Moses when he saith the shepherd’s trade is a preparation and a beginning for the ruling of men, for as men are trained and exercised for the wars in hunting, so should they that are intended for government first be reared in the gentle and kindly duty of a shepherd: all which my dad doubtless did understand: yea, to know it doth to this hour give me no little hope of my future greatness.

But to come back to my flock. Ye must know that I knew as little of wolves as of mine own ignorance, and therefore was my dad the more diligent with his lessons: and “lad,” says he, “have a care; let not the sheep run far from each other, and play thy bagpipe manfully lest the wolf come and do harm, for ‘tis a four-legged knave and a thief that eateth man and beast, and if thou beest anyways negligent he will dust thy jacket for thee.” To which I answered with like courtesy, “Daddy, tell me how a wolf looks: for such I never saw yet.” “O thou silly blockhead,” quoth he, “all thy life long wilt thou be a fool: thou art already a great looby and yet knowest not what a four-legged rogue a wolf is.” And more lessons did he give me, and at last grew angry and went away, as bethinking him that my thick wit could not comprehend his nice instruction.

Chap iii. : TREATS OF THE SUFFERINGS OF THE FAITHFUL BAGPIPE

So I began to make such ado with my bagpipe and such noise that ‘twas enough to poison all the toads in the garden, and so methought I was safe enough from the wolf that was ever in my mind: and remembering me of my mammy (for so they do use to call their mothers in Spessart and the Vogelsberg) how she had often said the fowls would some time or other die of my singing, I fell upon the thought to sing the more, and so I sang this which I had learned from my mammy:

1. O peasant race so much despised
How greatly art thou to be priz’d?
Yea, none thy praises can excel,
If men would only mark thee well.
2. How would it with the world now stand
Had Adam never till’d the land?
With spade and hoe he dug the earth
From whom our princes have their birth.
3. Whatever earth doth bear this day
Is under thine high rule and sway,
And all that fruitful makes the land
Is guided by thy master hand.
4. The emperor whom God doth give
Us to protect, thereby doth live:
So doth the soldier: though his trade
To thy great loss and harm be made.
5. Meat for our feasts thou dost provide:
Our wine by thee too is supplied:
Thy plough can force the earth to give
That bread whereby all men must live.
6. All waste the earth and desert were
Didst thou not ply thy calling there:
Sad day shall that for all be found
When peasants cease to till the ground.
7. So hast thou right to laud and praise,
For thou dost feed us all our days.
Nature herself thee well doth love,
And God thy handiwork approve.
8. Whoever yet on earth did hear
Of peasant that the gout did fear;
That fell disease which rich men dread,
Whereby is many a noble dead.
9. From vainglory art thou free
(As in these days thou well mayst be),
And lest thou shouldst through pride have loss,
God bids thee daily bear thy cross.
10. Yea, even the soldier’s wicked will
May work thee great advantage still:
For lest thou shouldst to pride incline,
“Thy goods and house,” saith he, “are mine.”

So far and no further could I get with my song: for in a moment was I surrounded, sheep and all, by a troop of cuirassiers3 that had lost their way in the thick wood and were brought back to their right path by my music and my calls to my flock. “Aha,” quoth I to myself, “These be the right rogues ! these be the four-legged knaves and thieves whereof thy dad did tell thee ! “ For at first I took horse and man (as did the Americans the Spanish cavalry) to be but one beast, and could not but conceive these were the wolves; and so would sound the retreat for these horrible centaurs and send them a-flying: but scarce had I blown up my bellows to that end when one of them catches me by the shoulder and swings me up so roughly upon a spare farm horse they had stolen with other booty that I must needs fall on the other side, and that too upon my dear bagpipe, which began so miserably to scream as it would move all the world to pity: which availed nought, though it spared not its last breath in the bewailing of my sad fate. To horse again I must go, it mattered not what my bagpipe did sing or say: yet what vexed me most was that the troopers said I had hurt my dear bagpipe, and therefore it had made so heathenish an outcry. So away my horse went with me at a good trot, like the “primum mobile4,” for my dad’s farm.

Now did strange and fantastic imaginings fill my brain; for I did conceive, because I sat upon such a beast as I had never before seen, that I too should be changed into an iron man. And because such a change came not, there arose in me other foolish fantasies, for I thought these strange creatures were but there to help me drive my sheep home; for none strayed from the path, but all, with one accord, made for my dad’s farm. So I looked anxiously when my dad and mammy should come out to bid us welcome: which yet came not: for they and our Ursula, which was my dad’s only daughter, had found the back-door open and would not wait for their guests.

Chap. iv. : HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS’S PALACE WAS STORMED, PLUNDERED, AND RUINATED, AND IN WHAT SORRY FASHION THE SOLDIERS KEPT HOUSE THERE

Although it was not my intention to take the peace-loving reader with these troopers to my dad’s house and farm, seeing that matters will go ill therein, yet the course of my history demands that I should leave to kind posterity an account of what manner of cruelties were now and again practised in this our German war: yea, and moreover testify by my own example that such evils must often have been sent to us by the goodness of Almighty God for our profit. For, gentle reader, who would ever have taught me that there was a God in Heaven if these soldiers had not destroyed my dad’s house, and by such a deed driven me out among folk who gave me all fitting instruction thereupon? Only a little while before, I neither knew nor could fancy to myself that there were any people on earth save only my dad, my mother and me, and the rest of our household, nor did I know of any human habitation but that where I daily went out and in. But soon thereafter I understood the way of men’s coming into this world, and how they must leave it again. I was only in shape a man and in name a Christian: for the rest I was but a beast. Yet the Almighty looked upon my innocence with a pitiful eye, and would bring me to a knowledge both of Himself and of myself. And although He had a thousand ways to lead me thereto, yet would He doubtless use that one only by which my dad and mother should be punished: and that for an example to all others by reason of their heathenish upbringing of me.

The first thing these troopers did was, that they stabled their horses: thereafter each fell to his appointed task: which task was neither more nor less than ruin and destruction. For though some began to slaughter and to boil and to roast so that it looked as if there should be a merry banquet forward, yet others there were who did but storm through the house above and below stairs. Others stowed together great parcels of cloth and apparel and all manner of household stuff, as if they would set up a frippery market. All that they had no mind to take with them they cut in pieces. Some thrust their swords through the hay and straw as if they had not enough sheep and swine to slaughter: and some shook the feathers out of the beds and in their stead stuffed in bacon and other dried meat and provisions as if such were better and softer to sleep upon. Others broke the stove and the windows as if they had a never-ending summer to promise. Houseware of copper and tin they beat flat, and packed such vessels, all best and spoiled, in with the rest. Bedsteads, tables, chairs and benches they burned, though there lay many cords of dry wood in the yard. Pots and pipkins must all go to pieces, either because they would eat none but roast flesh, or because their purpose was to make there but a single meal.

Our maid was so handled in the stable that she could not come out; which is a shame to tell of. Our man they laid bound upon the ground, thrust a gag into his mouth, and poured a pailful of filthy water into this body: and by this, which they called a Swedish draught, they forced him to lead a party of them to another place where they captured men and beasts, and brought them back to the farm, in which company were my dad, my mother, and our Ursula.
And now they began: first to take the flints out of their pistols and in place of them to jam the peasants thumbs in and so to torture the poor rogues as if they had been about the burning of witches5: for one of them they had taken they thrust into the baking oven and there lit a fire under him, although he had as yet confessed no crime: as for another, they put a cord round his head and so twisted it tight with a piece of wood that the blood gushed from his mouth and nose and ears. In a word, each had his own device to torture the peasants, and each peasant his several torture. But as it seemed to me then, my dad was the luckiest, for he with a laughing face confessed what others out of the midst of pains and miserable lamentations: and such honour without doubt fell to him because he was the householder. For they set him before a fire and bound him fast so that he could neither stir hand nor foot, and smeared the soles of his feet with wet salt, and this made our old goat lick off, and so tickle him that he well nigh burst his sides with laughing. And this seemed to me so merry a thing that I must needs laugh with him for the sake of fellowship, or because I knew no better. In the midst of such laughter he must needs confess all that they would have of him, and indeed revealed to them a secret treasure, which proved far richer in pearls, gold, and trinkets than ant would have looked for among peasants. Of the women, girls, and maidservants whom they took, I have not much to say in particular, for the soldiers would not have me see how they dealt with them. Yet this I did know, that one heard some of them scream most piteously in divers corners of the house; and well I can judge it fared no better with my mother and our Ursel than with the rest. Yet in the midst of all this miserable ruin, I helped to turn the spit, and in the afternoon to give the horses drink, in which employ I encountered our maid in the stable, who seemed to me wondrously tumbled, so that I knew her not, but with a weak voice she called to me, “O lad, run away, or the troopers will have thee away with them. Look to it well that you get hence: thou seest in what plight…” And more she could not say.

Chap. v. : HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS TOOK FRENCH LEAVE, AND HOW HE WAS TERRIFIED BY DEAD TREES

Now did I begin to consider and to ponder upon my unhappy condition and
prospects, and to think how I might best help myself out of my plight. For whither should I go? Here indeed my poor wits were far too slender to devise a plan. Yet they served me so far that towards evening I ran into the woods. But then whither was I to go further ? for the ways of the wood were as little known to me as the passage beyond Nova Zembla through the Arctic Ocean to China. ‘Tis true the pitch-dark night was my protection: yet to my dark wits it seemed not dark enough; so I did hide myself in a close thicket wherein I could hear both the shrieks of the tortured peasants and the song of the nightingales; which birds regarded not the peasants either to show compassion for them or to stop their sweet song for their sakes: and so I laid myself, as free from care, upon one ear, and fell asleep. But when the morning star began to glimmer in the east I could see my poor dad’s house all aflame, yet none that sought to stop the fire: so I betook myself thither in hopes to have some news of my dad; whereupon I was espied by five troopers, of whom one holloaed to me, “Come hither, boy, or I will shoot thee dead.”

But I stood stock-still and open-mouthed, as knowing not what he meant or would have; and I standing there and gaping upon them like a cat at a new barn-door, and they, by reason of a morass between, not being able to come at me, which vexed them mightily, one discharged his carbine at me: at which sudden flame of fire and unexpected noise, which the echo, repeating it many times, made more dreadful, I was so terrified that forthwith I fell to the ground, for terror durst not move a finger, though the troopers went their way and doubtless left me for dead; nor for that whole day had I spirit to rise up. But night again overtaking me, I stood up and wandered away into the woods until I saw afar off a dead tree that shone: and this again wrought in me a new fear: wherefore I turned me about posthaste and ran till I saw another such tree, from which I hurried away again, and in this manner spent the night running from one dead tree to another. At last came blessed daylight to my help, and bade those trees leave me untroubled in its presence: yet was I not much the better thereby; for my heart was full of fear and dread, my brain of foolish fancies, and my legs of weariness, my belly of hunger, and mine eyes of sleep. So I went on and on and knew not whither; yet the further I went the thicker grew the wood and the greater the distance from all human kind. So now I came to my senses, and perceived (yet without knowing it) the effect of ignorance and want of knowledge: for if an unreasoning beast had been in my place he would have known what to do for his sustenance better than I. Yet I had wit enough when darkness again overtook me to creep into a hollow tree and there take up my quarters for the night.

Edited by David Anderson

1The Spessart is a small mountain range in the southwestern Germany. It reaches its highest point in the Geiersberg at 1918 feet. Situated between the Odenwald and the Hohe Rhön, its slopes are forested with vineyards and fruit trees growing at the western foot. “Spessart, The,” The Columbia Gazetteer of the World. Ed. By Saul B. Cohen. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), vol. 3, p. 3000.

2Simplicissimus refers to Arachne of Greek mythology, who was an extremely accomplished weaver. Arachne challenged the goddess Athena to a weaving competition. Athena’s creation depicted the gods and goddesses, while Ariadne’s weaving showed the same gods and goddesses making love. When Athena saw the tapestry's superiority, she destroyed it in jealousy. Arachne hanged herself, but before the rope killed her, Athena took pity on her and changed the rope into a cobweb and Arachne into a spider. The “tapestries” that decorate Simplicissimus’ house are spider webs. “Arachne,” The New Encyclopedia Britannica, (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 1997), vol 1, p. 510.

3Cuirassiers were members of a certain kind of heavy cavalry in European armies. They wore armor called cuirasses, which consisted of a backpiece and a breastplate that covered their upper bodies. “Cuirassier” and “Cuirass,” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (Springfield, Massachusetts: G & C Merriam Company, 1976) p. 551.

4The Prime Mover was a part of the conceptual theory of the astronomy espoused by Aristotle and others that there is an outer sphere of the universe that it responsible for the movement of all celestial bodies. Taub, Liba Chaia. Ptolemy’s Universe (Chicago: Open Court, 1993), p. 113-122.

5The burning of witches occurred throughout Germany during the Thirty Years War. Witch trials were carried out by both Protestants and Catholics. The climax of witch trials took place between 1627 and 1631 in southwestern Germany after a terrible plague. Midelfort, H.C. Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany, 1562-1684 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972), p. 73, 77, 194.