Wert thou Paris’s own son: but for his sake I communicate to thee this,
that a great outcry concerning the sings of the world



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Chap. iv. : OF THE GERMAN HERO THAT SHALL CONQUE THE WHOLE WORLD AND
BRING PEACE TO ALL NATIONS

So Jupiter answered, “Though speakest of the matter like a mere man, as
if thou didst not know that ‘tis possible for us gods so to manage things
that only the wicked shall be punished and the good saved:I will raise up
a German hero that shall accomplish all with the edge of a sword; he
shall destroy all evil men and preserve and exalt the
righteous.”“Yea,”said I, “but such a hero must need have soldiers, and
where soldiers are there is war, and where war is there must the innocent
suffer as well as the guilty.”“Oho;” says Jupiter, “by yet earthly gods
minded like earthly men, that ye can understand so little?For I will send
such a hero that he shall have need of no soldiers and yet shall reform
the whole world; at his birth I will grant to him a body well formed and
stronger than had ever Hercules, adorned to the full with princeliness,
wisdom, and understanding:to this shall Venus add so comely a face that
he shall excel Narcissus[1], Adonis[2], and even my Ganymede[3]:and she
shall grant to him, besides his other fine parts, dignity, charm, and
presence excelling all, and so make him beloved by all the world, for
which cause I will look more kindly upon it in the hour of his
birth.Mercury, too, shall endow him with incomparable cleverness, and the
inconstant moon shall be to him not harmful but useful, for she shall
implant in him and invincible swiftness:Pallas Athene shall rear him on
Parnassus[4] and Vulcan shall, under the influence of Mars, forge for him
his weapons, and specially a sword with which he shall conquer the whole
world and make an end of all the godless, without the help of a single
man as a soldier:for he shall need no assistance. Every town shall
tremble at his coming, and every fortress otherwise unconquerable he
shall have in his power in the first quarter of an hour;in a word, he
shall have the rule over the greatest potentates of the world, and so
nobly bear sway over earth and sea that both gods and men shall rejoice
thereat.”

“Yea,: said I, “but how can the destruction of all the godless and rule
over the whole world be accomplished without specially great power and a
strong arm?O Jupiter, I tell thee plainly I can understand these things
less than any mere mortal man.”“At that,”says Jupiter, “I marvel not:for
thou knowest not what power my hero’s sword will have. Vulcan shall make
it of the same materials of which he doth forge my thunderbolts, and so
direct its virtues that my hero, if he do but draw it and wave it in the
air, can cut off the heads of a whole armada, though they be hidden
behind a mountain or be a whole Swiss mile distant from him, and so the
poor devils shall lie there without heads before they know what has
befallen them.And when he shall begin his triumphal progress and shall
come before a town or a fortress, then shall he use Tamburlaine’s
vein[5], and for a sign that he is there for peace and for the furthering
of all good shall shew a white flag:then if they come forth to him and
are content, ‘tis well:if not, then will he draw his sword, and by its
virtue, as before described, will hew off the heads of all enchanters and
sorceresses throughout the town, and then raise a red flag:then if they
be obstinate, he destroy all murderers, usurers, thieves, rogues,
adulterers, whores, and knaves in the said manner, and then hoist a black
flag:whereupon if those that yet remain in the town refuse to come to him
and humbly submit, then shall he destroy the whole town as a stiffnecked
and disobedient folk:yet shall he only execute them that have hindered
the others, and been the cause that the people would not submit.So shall
he go from country to country, and give each town the country that lies
around it to rule in peace, and from each town in all Germany choose out
two of the wisest and learnedest men to form his parliament, shall
reconcile the towns with each other forever, shall do away all villenage,
and also all tolls, excises, interest, taxes, and octrois throughout
Germany, and take such order that none shall ever again hear of forced
work, watch-duties, contributions, and benevolences, war-taxes, and other
burdens of the people, but that men shall live happier than in the
Elysian fields.And then,” says Jupiter, “will I often assemble all
Olympus and come down to visit the Germans, to delight myself among their
vines and fig-trees:and there will I set Helicon on their borders and
establish the Muses anew thereon:Germany will I bless with all plenty,
yea, more than Arabia, Felix, Mesopotamia, and the land of Damascus:then
will I forswear the Greek language, and only speak German; and, in a
word, shew myself so good a German that in the end I shall grant to them,
as once I did to the Romans, the rule over all the earth.”

“But,” said I, “great Jupiter, what will princes and lords say to this,
if this future hero so violently take from them their rights and hand
them over to the towns?Will they not resist with force, or at least
protest against it before gods and men?”

“The hero,” answered Jupiter, “ will trouble himself little on that
score: he will divide all the great into three classes:them which have
lived wickedly and set an evil example he will punish them together with
the commons, for no earthly power can withstand his sword:to the rest he
will give the choice whether to stay in the land or not.They that love
their fatherland and abide must live like the commons, but the German
people’s way of living shall then be more plentiful and comfortable than
is now the life and household of a king; yea, they shall be one and all
like Fabricius, that would not share King Pyrrhus his kingdom because he
loved his country and honour and virtue too much:and so much for the
second class.But as to the third. which will still be lords and rulers,
them will he lead through Hungary and Italy into Moldavia, Wallachia,
into Macedonia, Thrace and Greece, yea, over the Hellespont into Asia,
and conquer these lands for them, give them as helpers all them that live
by war in all Constantinople in one day, and lay the heads of all before
their feet: then will he again set up the Roman Empire, and so betake
himself again to German, and with his lords of Parliament (whom, as I
have said, he shall choose in pairs from every city in Germany, and name
them the chiefs and fathers of his German Fatherland) build a city in the
midst of Germany that shall be far greater than Manoah[6] in America, and
richer than was Jerusalem in Solomon’s time, whose walls shall be as high
as the mountains of Tirol and its ditches as broad as the sea between
Spain and Africa.And there will he build a temple entirely of diamonds,
rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, and in the treasury that he shall there
build will he gather together rarities from the whole world out of the
gifts that the kings in China and in Persia, the great Mogul in the East
Indies, the great Khan of Tartary, Prester John in Africa, and the great
Czar in Muscovy will send to him.Yea, the Turkish emperor would be yet
more ready to serve him if it were not that my hero will have taken his
empire from him and given it as a fief to the Roman emperor.”


Chap. V. :HOW HE SHALL RECONCILE ALL RELIGIONS AND CAST THEM IN THE SAME
MOULD

Now Jump-i’-th’-field, who also listened to us, had wellnigh enraged
Jupiter and spoiled the whole affair; for said he, “Yea, yea; and then
‘twill be in Germany as in fairyland, where it rains muscatels and nought
else, and where twopenny pies grow in the night like mushrooms:and I too
shall have to eat with both cheeks full at once like a thresher, and
drink myself blind with Malvoisie.”“Yea, truly,” said Jupiter, “and that
the more because I will curse thee with the undying hunger of
Erysichthon[7], for methinks thou are one of them that do deride my
majesty,” and to me said he, “I deemed I was among wood spirits only: but
meseems I have chanced upon a Momus[8] or a Zoilus, the most envious
creatures in the world.Is one to reveal to such traitors the decrees of
heaven and so to cast pearls before swine?”So I saw plainly he would not
willingly brook laughter, and therefore kept down mine own as best I
could, and “Most gracious Jupiter,”said I, “thou wilt not, by reason of a
rude forest-god’s indiscretion, conceal from thy Ganymede how things are
further to happen in Germany.”“No, no,” said he, “but I command this
mocker, who is like to Theon, to bridle his evil tongue in future, lest I
turn him to a stone as Mercury did Battus.But do thou confess to me thou
art truly my Ganymede, and that my jealous Juno hath driven thee from
heaven in my absence.”So I promised to tell him all when I should have
heard what I desired to know.Thereupon, “Dear Ganymede,” says he, “For
deny not that thou art he – in those days shall gold-making be as common
in Germany as is pot-making now, and every horse-boy shall carry the
philosophers’ stone about with him.”“Yea,” said I, “but how can Germany
be so long in peace with all these different religions?Will not the
opposing clergy urge on their flocks and so hatch another war?”“No,
no,”says Jupiter, “my hero will know how to meet that difficulty
cleverly, and before all things to unite all Christian religions in the
world.”“O wonderful,” said I, “that were indeed a great work!How could it
come about?”“I will with all my heart reveal it to thee,” answered
Jupiter, “for after my hero hath made peace for all mankind he will
address all the heads of the Christian world both spiritual and temporal,
in a most moving speech, and so excellently impress upon them their
hitherto most pernicious divisions in belief, that of themselves they
will desire a general reconciliation and give over to him the
accomplishment of such according to his own great wisdom.Then will he
gather together the most skilful, most learned, and most pious
theologians of all religions and appoint for them a place, as did once
Ptolemy for the seventy-two translators, in a cheerful and yet quiet
spot, and there provide them all with meat and drink and all necessaries,
and command them so soon as possible, and yet with the ripest and most
careful consideration, first to lay aside the strifes that there be
between their religions, and next to set down in writing and with full
clearness the right, true, holy Christian religion in accordance with
Holy Writ; and with most ancient tradition, the recognized sense of the
Fathers.At which time Pluto will sorely scratch his head as fearing the
lessening of his kingdom:yea, and will devise all manner of plans and
tricks to foist in an ‘and,’ and if not to stop the whole thing, yet at
least to postpone it sine die, that is for ever.So will he hint to each
theologian of his interest, his order, his peaceful life, his wife and
child, and his privileges, and aught else that might sway his
inclinations.But my brave hero also will not be idle : he will so long as
this council shall last have all the bells in Christendom rung, and so
call all Christian people to pray without ceasing to the Almighty, and to
ask for the sending of the Spirit of Truth.And if he shall see that one
or another doth allow himself to be tempted by Pluto, then will he plague
the whole assembly with hunger as in a Roman conclave, and if they yet
delay to complete so holy a work, then will he preach them all a sermon
through the gallows, or shew them his wonderful sword, and so first with
kindness, but at last with severity and threats, bring them to come to
the business in hand, and no longer as before to befool the world with
their stiff-necked false doctrines.So when unity is arrived at, then will
he proclaim a great festival and declare to the whole world this purified
religion; and whosoever opposes it, him will he torment with pitch and
sulphur or smear that heretic with box-grease and present him to Pluto as
a New Year’s gift.And now, dear Ganymede, thou knowest all thou didst
desire to know:and now tell me in turn the reason why thou hast left
heaven, where thou hast poured me so many a draught of nectar.”


Chap. vi. : HOW THE EMBASSY OF THE FLEAS FARED WITH JUPITER

Now methought ‘twas possible this fellow might be no such fool as he
pretended, but might be serving me as I had served others in Hanau to
escape from us the better :so I determined to put him in a passion, for
in such plight it is easiest to know a real madman; and says I, “The
reason I am come down from heaven is that I missed thee there, and so
took Daedalus’s wings and flew down to earth to see thee.But when I came
to ask for thee I found thee in all places but of ill repute; for Zoilus
and Momus have throughout the world so slandered thee and all the other
gods, and decried ye as wanton and stinking, that ye have lost all credit
with mankind.Thyself, say they, beest a lousy, adulterous, caperer after
woman-kind; how canst thou then, punish the world for such vices?Vulcan
they say is but a poltroon that let pass Mars’s adultery without proper
revenge; and how can that halting cuckold forge any weapons of
note?Venus, too, is for her unchastity the most infamous baggage in the
world:and how can she endow another with grace and favour?Mars they say
is but a murderer and a robber;Apollo a shameless lecher; Mercury an idle
chatterer, thief and pander; Priapus[9] filth;Hercules a brainsick
ruffian; and, in a word, the whole crew of the gods so ill famed that
they should of right be lodged nowhere but in Augeas’s stable[10], which
even without them stinks in the nostrils of all the world.”

“Aha;” says Jupiter, “and who would wonder if I laid aside my
graciousness and punished these wretched slanderers and blasphemous liars
with thunder and lightning?How thinkest thou, my true and beloved
Ganymede, shall I curse these chatterers with eternal thirst like
Tantalus, or hang them up in Phalaris’s red-hot bull of Agrigent?Nah,
nah, Ganymede: all these plagues and punishments together are too
little:I will fill Pandora’s box anew and empty it upon the rogues’
heads:then Nemesis shall wake the furies and send them at their heels,
and Hercules shall borrow Cerberus from Pluto and hunt those wicked
knaves with him like wolves, and when I have in this wise chased and
tormented them enough, then will I bind them fast with Hesiod[11] and
Homer to a pillar in hell and there have them chastised for ever without
pity by the Furies.”

Now while Jupiter thus spake he began to make a hunt for the fleas he had
upon him:for these, as one might perceive, did plague him sore.And as he
did so he cried, “Away with ye, ye little tormentors; I swear to ye by
Styx ye shall never have that, that ye so earnestly desire.”So I asked
him what he meant by such words.He answered, the nation of the fleas, as
soon as they learned he was come on earth, had sent their ambassadors to
compliment him:and there had complained to him that, though he had
assigned to them the dogs’ coats as a dwelling, yet on account of certain
properties common to women, some poor souls went astray and trespassed on
the ladies’ furs; and such poor wandering creatures were by the women
evil entreated, caught, and not only murdered, but first so miserably
martyred and crushed between their fingers that it might move the heart
of a stone.“Yea,” said Jupiter further, “they did present their case to
me so movingly and piteously that I must needs have sympathy with them
and so promised them help, yet on condition I should first hear the
women:to that they objected that if ‘twas allowed to the women to plead
their cause and to propose them, they knew well they with their poisonous
tongues would either impose upon my goodness and loving-kindness, and
outcry the fleas themselves, or by their sweet words and their beauty
would befool me and lead me astray to a wrong judgment.But if I must
allow the women to hunt, catch, and with the hunters’ privilege to slay
them in their preserves, then their petition was that they might in
future be executed in honourable wise, and either cut down with a
pole-axe like oxen or snared like game, and no longer to be so
scandalously crushed between the fingers and so broken on the wheel, by
which means their own limbs were made instruments of
torture.“Gentlemen,”said I, “ye must be greatly tormented when they thus
tyrannise over ye.”“Yea, truly,” said they, “they be so envious of us.Is
it right?Can they not suffer us in their territories?For many of them so
cleanse their lap-dogs with brushes, combs, soap and lye, and other like
things, that we are compelled to leave our fatherland and to seek other
dwellings.”Thereupon I allowed them to lodge with me and to make my
person feel their presence, their ways and works, that I might judge
accordingly:and then the rascally crew began so to plague me that, as ye
have seen, I must again be rid of them.I will give them a privilege, but
only this, that the women may squeeze them and crush them as they will:
and if I catch any so pestilent a customer I will deal with him no better.


Chap. vii.;HOW THE HUNTSMAN AGAIN SECURED HONOUR AND BOOTY

Now might we not laugh as heartily as we would, both because we must keep
quiet and because this good fool liked it not:wherefore Jump-i’-th’-field
came nigh to burst.And just then our look-out man that we had posted in a
tree called to us that he saw somewhat coming afar off.So I climbed the
tree myself, and saw through my perspective-glass it must be the carriers
for whom we lay in wait:they had no one on foot, but some thirty odd
troopers for escort, and so I might easily judge they would not go
through the wood wherein we lay, but would do their best to keep the
open, and there we should have no advantage over them, though there was
even there an awkward piece of road that led through the clearing from
the end of the wood or hill.Now it vexed me to have lain there so long
for nought, or at best to have captured only a fool; and so I quickly
laid me another plan and that turned out well.For from our place of
ambush there ran a brook in a cleft of the ground, which it was easy to
ride along, down to the level country:the mouth of this I occupied with
twenty men, took my post with them, and bade Jump-i’-th’-field stay in
the place where we had been posted to advantage, and ordered each one of
my fellows, when the escort should come, that each should aim at his man,
and commanded also that some should shoot and some should hold their fire
for a reserve.Some old veterans perceived what I intended and how I
guessed that the escort would come that way, as having no cause for
caution, and because certainly no peasant had been in such a place for a
hundred years.But others that believed I could bewitch (for at that time
I was in great reputation on that account) thought I would conjure the
enemy into our hands.Yet here I needed no devil’s arts, only my
Jump-i’-th’-field;for even as the escort, riding pretty close together,
was just about to pass by us, he began at my order to bellow most
horribly like an ox, and to neigh like a horse; till the whole wood
echoed therewith and any man would have sworn there were horses and
cattle there.So when the escort heard that they thought to gain booty and
to snap up somewhat, which yet was hard to find in such a country so laid
waste.So altogether they rode so hard and disorderly into our ambush as
if each would be the first to get the hardest blow, and this made them
ride so close that in the first salute we gave them thirteen saddles were
emptied, and some that fell were crushed under the horses’ hoofs.Then
came Jump-i’-th’-field leaping down the ravine and crying, “Huntsman
here!”At this the fellows were yet more terrified and so dismayed that
they would ride neither backward, forward nor sideways, but leapt down
and tried to escape on foot.Yet I had them all seventeen prisoners with
the lieutenant that had commanded them, and then attacked the waggons,
where I unharnessed four-and-twenty horses, and yet got only a few bales
of silk and Holland, :for I dared not spare the time to plunder the dead,
far less to search the waggons well, for the waggoners were up and away
on the horses as soon as the action began, and so might I be betrayed at
Dorsten, and caught again on the way back.So when we had packed up our
plunder comes Jupiter from the wood and cried to us, “Would his Ganymede
desert him?”I answered him, yes, if he would not grant the fleas the
privilege they demanded.“Sooner,”says he, “would I see them all lying in
hell-fires.”At that I must needs laugh, and because in any case I had
horses to spare I had him set on one:yet as he could ride no better than
a tailor, I must have him bound upon his horse: and then he told us our
skirmish had reminded him of that of the Lapithae and the centaurs at
Pirithous’ wedding.So when all was over and we galloping away with our
prisoners as if we were pursued, the lieutenant we had captured began to
consider what a fault he had committed, as having delivered so bold a
troop of riders into the hand of the enemy and given over thirteen brave
fellows to be butchered, and so, being desperate, he refused the quarter
I had given him, and would fain have compelled me to have him shot; for
he thought that not only would this mistake turn to his great shame, and
he be answerable, but also would hinder his advancement, even if it came
not to this, that he must pay for his error with his head.So I talked
with him and shewed him that with many a good soldier inconstant fortune
had played her tricks;yet had I never seen any one that therefore had
been driven desperate, and that so to act were a sign of
faintheartedness:for brave soldiers were ever devising how to make up for
the losses sustained;nor should he ever bring me to break my plighted
word or to commit so shameful a deed against all righteousness and
against the custom and tradition of honourable soldiers.When he saw I
would not do it he began to revile me in the hope to move me to anger,
and said I had not fought with him honestly and openly, but like a rogue
and a footpad, and had stolen the lives of his soldiers like a thief:and
at this his own fellows that we had captured were mightily afraid, and
mine so wroth that they would have riddled him like a sieve if I had
allowed it;and I have enough to do to prevent it.Yet I was in no wise
moved at his talk, but called both friend and foe to witness of what
happened, and had him bound and guarded as a madman, but promised him so
soon as we came to our camp, and if my officers permitted, to equip him
with mine own horses and weapons, of which he should have the choice, and
prove to him in open field, with sword and pistol, that ‘twas allowed in
war to use craft against the adversary:and asked him why he had not
stayed with the waggons, which he was ordered to do; or, if he must needs
see what was in the wood, why he had not made a proper reconnaissance,
which had been better for him than now to begin to play fool’s tricks to
which no one would take heed.Herein both friend and foe approved me
right, and said that among a hundred partisans they had never met one
that would not for such words of reviling have not only shot the
lieutenant dead, but would have sent all the prisoners to the grave after
him.

So the next morning I brought my prisoners and plunder safely to Soest,
and gained more honour and fame from this foray than ever before:for each
one said, “This will prove another young John de Werth[12]”; which
tickled me greatly.Yet would not the commandant permit me to exchange
shots or to fight with the lieutenant:for he said I had twice overcome
him.And the more my triumphs thus increased the more great the envy of
those that in any case would have grudged me my luck.


Edited by Laurie McManus

===========================================================================


[1] Narcissus, a mortal who was beautiful but cruel to his suitors, was
cursed to fall in love with his own reflection.“Narcissus”, Gods and
Mortals in Classical Mythology, ed. Michael Grant and John Hazel (G.& C.
Merriam Company: Springfield, MA 1973), p 285.



[2] Adonis was a mortal famed for his beauty.He was loved by both
Aphrodite and Persephone. “Adonis” Gods and Mortals in Classical
Mythology (G.& C. Merriam Company: Springfield, MA 1973). p 14.



[3] Ganymede, a youth of great beauty, was abducted by Zeus to be the
cup-bearer on Mt. Olympus.Zeus became his lover and set him in the sky as
the constellation of Aquarius. “Ganymede” Gods and Mortals in Classical
Mythology (G.& C. Merriam Company: Springfield, MA 1973) p180.



[4] Parnassus was a mountain in Phocis, Greece with two summits, one to
Apollo and the muses, and one to Dionysus.It was known as a seat of
poetry and music due to its association with the muses.“Parnassus”
Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia 4th ed.Ed. Bruce Murphy (HarperCollins: Ny,
NY 1996) p778.



[5] Tamburlaine or Tamerlane was the name of Genghis Khan’s great great
grandson Timur I Leng(1336-1405) who conquered parts of Russia, Persia
and central Asia.The 1587 Christopher Marlowe play “Tamburlaine the Great
in Two Parts”treats him first as a bold defiant hero then as a
bloodthirsty villain.“Tamburlaine the Great in two parts”, “Tamerlane”
Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia 4th ed.Ed. Bruce Murphy (HarperCollins: Ny,
NY 1996) p 1005



[6] A kind of Eldorado – (Goodrick's note)



[7] Mortal who chopped down Demeter’s sacred oak grove and was cursed to
die by insatiable hunger.“Erysichthon”Gods and Mortals in Classical
Mythology (G.& C. Merriam Company: Springfield, MA 1973)p165



[8] Son of Night, known as the spirit of grumbling.“Momus” Gods and
Mortals in Classical Mythology (G.& C. Merriam Company: Springfield, MA
1973) p 283.



[9] Priapus the son of Aphrodite and Dionysus (or Hermes) was the god of
gardens.“Priapus” Gods and Mortals in Classical Mythology (G.& C. Merriam
Company: Springfield, MA 1973) p 345.



[10] Augeas was the king of Elis who owned so many cattle that their dung
caused blockage of his yards and stables.It was Hercules’s fifth labor to
clean them in a day.“Augeas” Gods and Mortals in Classical Mythology (G.&
C. Merriam Company: Springfield, MA 1973), p86.



[11] Father of Greek didactic poetry; known for Theogeny, a work on the
origin of the world and the gods.“Hesiod” Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia
4th ed.Ed. Bruce Murphy (HarperCollins: Ny, NY 1996)p470.



[12] The famous cavalry commander of the Imperialists.(Goodrick's note)



