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Chap.  x.:  DISCOURSETH OF NAUGHT BUT HEROES AND FAMOUS ARTISTS
    Thereafter followed the midday meal, whereat I again did good
service:  for how I had made it my purpose to rebuke all follies and to
chastise all vanities, to which end my present condition was excellent
well fitted: for no guest was too exalted for me to reprove and upbraid
his vices and it there were many that shewed displeasure, then was he
laughed out of countenance by the rest, or else my master would
demonstrate to him that no wise man is wont to be vexed at a fool.  As to
the mad ensign, which was my worst enemy, him I put on the rack at once. 
Yet the first who (at my lord’s nod) did answer me reasonably was the
secretary; for when I called him a “title-forger” and asked what title,
then had our first father Adam, “Thou talkest,” answered he, “like an
unreasoning calf” for thou knowest not how after our first parents
different folk lived in the world, which by rare virtues such as wisdom,
manly deeds of arms, and invention of useful arts, did in such wise
ennoble themselves and their family that they by others were exalted
above all earthly things, yea even above the stars to be gods: and wert
thou a man, or hadst thou at least, like a man, read the histories, thou
wouldst understand the difference that lies between men, and so wouldst
thou gladly grant to each his title of honour; but since thou art by a
calf, and so neither worthy no capable of human honour, thou talkest of
this matter like a stupid calf, and grudgest to the noble human race that
wherein it can rejoice.”

    So I answered:  “I was once a man as much as thou, and I have read
pretty much also, and so can I judge that thou either understandest not
this business aright, or art for thine own advantage compelled to speak
otherwise than as thou knowest.  For tell me, what deeds so noble and
what arts so fine have ever been devised as to be enough to give nobility
to a whole family for hundreds of years after the death of these great
heroes and craftsmen?  Did not the strength of the heroes and the wisdom
and high understanding of the craftsmen die with them?  And if thou seest
not this, and if the qualities of the parents do descend to their
children, then must I believe thy father was a stockfish and thy mother a
plaice.”

    “Oho!” answered the secretary, “if the matter is to be settled by our
reviling each other, then can I cast in thy teeth they father was but a
clownish peasant of the Spessart,1 and though in thy home and in thy
family there be many famous blockheads, yet thou hast made thyself yet
lower seeing that thou art becoming and unreasoning calf.”

    So I answered:  “Thou art right; ‘tis even that that I could
maintain; namely, that the virtues of the parents descend not always to
the children, and that therefore the children be not always worthy of
their parent’s titles of honour.  For me it is no shame to have become a
calf, seeing that in such case I have the honour to follow the great king
Nebuchadnezzar.  Who knoweth wither it may not please God that I, like
him, may again become a man, yea, and a far greater on than my dad?  Yet
do I praise those only that by their own virtues do make themselves
noble.”

    “Let it be so for the sake of argument,” said the secretary, “that
the children should not always inherit the titles of their parents, yet
thou must acknowledge that they are worthy of all praise which do earn
their nobility by a good conduct:  and if that be so, it followeth that
we do rightly honour the children for the parents’ sake, since the apple
falleth not far from the tree.  And who would not honour in the
descendants of Alexander the Great, if such there were to hand, their
ancient forefather’s high courage in the wars.  For this man shewed in
his youth his desire for fighting, in that he wept (though not yet able
to bear arms) grieving lest his father might conquer all and leave him
nothing to subdue.  Did not he in a battle against the Indians, when he
was deserted by his men, for sheer rage sweat blood?  And was he not so
terrible to look upon (as though he were all begirt with flames of fire)
that even the savages must flee before him in battle?  Who would not
esteem him higher and nobler than other men, of whom Quintus Curtius tell
that his breath was like perfume and his sweat like must and that his
dead body smelt of precious spiceries?  Here could I cite the case of
Julius Cæsar and Pompeius, of whom the one, besides the victories which
he won in the civil wars, did fifty times engage in pitched battles, and
defeated and slew 1,520,000 men:  while the other, besides taking 940
ships from the pirates, did from the Alps to the uttermost parts of Spain
capture and subdue 376 cities and towns.  Lucius Siccius, the Roman
people’s tribune was engaged in 120 pitched battles, and did eight times
conquer then that challenged him; he could shew forty-five scars on his
body, and those all in front and none behind:  with nine
generals-in-chief did he enter Rome in their triumphs,2 which they did
clearly earn by their courage.  Yea, and Manlius Capitolinus’s honour in
war were no less had he not at the end of his life himself abased his
fame:  for he too could shew thirty-three scars, without counting that he
once did alone save the capitol with all its treasures from the French. 
What of Hercules the Strong and Theseus3and the rest, whose undying
praise it is well-nigh impossible both to describe and to tell of? 
Should not these be honoured in their descendants?  But I will pass over
war and weapons and turn to the arts, which, though they seem to make
less noise in the world, yet to achieve great fame for the masters of
them.  What skill do we find in Zeuxis4, which by his ingenious brain and
skilful hand did deceive the very birds of the air; and likewise in
Apelles, who did paint a Venus so natural, so fine, so exquisite, and in
all features so nice and so delicate that all bachelors did fall in love
with her!  Doth not Plutarch tell us how Archimedes did draw with one
hand and by a single rope through the midst of the marketplace at
Syracuse5a great ship laden with merchants’ ware as if he had but led a
packhorse by the bridle? which thing not twenty oxen, to say nothing of
two hundred calves like thee, could have effected.  And should not this
honest craftsman be endowed with a title of honour fitted to his art? 
This Archimedes made a mirror wherewith he could set on fire an enemy’s
warship in mid-sea.  And who would not praise him which first did invent
letters?  Yea, who would not exalt him far above all artists who devised
the noble and, for all the world, useful art of printing?  If Ceres6 was
accounted a goddess because she is said to have invented agriculture and
the grinding of corn, why were it not fair that others would have their
praise with titles of honour allowed them?  Yet in truth it mattereth
little whether thou, thou stupid calf, canst take such things into thy
unreasoning bullock’s brain or not.  For ‘tis with thee as with the dog
which lay in the manger and would not let the ox eat of the hay, yet
could not enjoy the same himself:  thou art capable of no honour, and for
that very cause thou grudgest such of those that do deserve it.”

    With all this I found myself sorely bestead, yet made answer:  “These
mighty deeds were indeed highly to be praised were they not accomplished
with the destruction and damage of other men.  But what manner of praise
is this which is stained with the bloodshed of so many innocents; and
what manner of nobility that which is achieved and won by the ruin of so
many thousand other folk!  And as concerns the arts, what be they save
merely vanities and follies!  Yea, they be as vain, idle, and
unprofitable as the title of honour which might come to any man from
these craftsmen; for they do but serve the greed, or the lust of the
luxury, or the corruption of others, like to those vile guns which lately
I beheld on their half-waggons.  Yea, and according to the sentence and
opinion of that holy man who held that the whole wide world was book
enough for him, wherein to study the wonders of his Creator and thereupon
to recognise the almighty power of God.”

1Spessart is a hilly region in northwestern Bavaria, a province in
southern present-day Germany.  "Hessen" and "Aschaffenburg," Encyclopædia
Britannica Online. <http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=41158&sctn=1>
[Accessed 14 February 2002],
<http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=9903&sctn=1> [Accessed 14 February
2002].

2An ancient Roman triumph was a majestic parade accorded to a general
after his return from winning a major battle. All of Rome turned out to
see the sometimes exotic animals, people and spoils of war displayed in
the triumph.  "Triumph," Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
<http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=75362&sctn=1> [Accessed 14 February
2002].

3Theseus was an ancient Greek famous for his heroic deeds.  He was the
son of Aethra and either Aegeus or Poseidon.  He killed several men or
creatures that had terrorized people for years, including Sinis the Pine
Bender, who split people in half, the Crommyonian sow, Scrion who killed
his guests, Procrustes, who made his visitors fit his bed by either
cutting off the spillover or stretching the person's body, the Bull of
Marathon and the Minotaur of Crete. "Theseus," Encyclopædia Britannica
Online. <http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=73977&sctn=1> [Accessed 14
February 2002].

4Zeuxis, an ancient Greek painter from the fifth century BCE used shading
and illusionism to make the painting more realistic.  In the event
referred to above, it is reported that the birds mistook his painting of
grapes for actual grapes."Zeuxis" Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=80449&sctn=1> [Accessed 14 February
2002].

5Syracuse was a colony of Corinth on the island of Sicily settled in 734
BCE.  "Syracuse" Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 
http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=72607&sctn=1> [Accessed 15 February
2002].

6Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture began to be worshiped around the
fifth century BCE.  She is similar to the Greek goddess, Demeter. 
"Ceres" and "Roman religion," Encyclopædia Britannica
Online.<http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=22483&sctn=1> [Accessed 15
February 2002]. <http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=119813&sctn=14>
[Accessed 15 February 2002].

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Chap. xi.:  OF THE TOILSOME AND DANGEROUS OFFICE OF A GOVERNOR

     Then my lord would also have his just with me, and said:  “I do well
perceive that because thou trustest not thyself to be of gentle birth,
therefore thou despisest the honourable titles of gentility.”  “Sir,”
answered I, “if I could at this very hour enter upon your place of
honour, yet would I not take it.”

     My lord laughed and said; “That I believe, for the ox his oaten
straw is well enough:  but an thou hadst a high spirit such as hearts of
gentles should have, then wouldst thou with zeal aspire to high honours
and dignities.  I for my part count it no small thing that fortune raises
me above my fellows.”

     Then did I sigh, and “O toilsome felicity!” said I.  “Sir, I assure
you, ye are the most miserable man in Hanau.”

     “How so; how so, calf?” said my lord.  “Give me thy reasons, for
such I find not in myself.”

     So I answered, “If you know not and feel not that you are Governor
in Hanau, and with how many cares and uneasiness in that account
burdened, then either the devouring thirst of honour blinds you or else
are you of iron and quite insensible; ye have ‘tis true, the right to
command, and whosoever comes within your kin the same must obey you.  But
do they serve ye for naught?  Are ye not all men’s servant?  Must ye not
specially take care for each and all?  See, ye are girded round with
foes, and the safeguarding of this stronghold depends on you alone.  Ever
must ye be devising how to do some damage to your opposites:  and therein
must ever be on your guard that your plans not be spied upon.  Must ye
not often stand on guard like a common sentinel?  Besides, ye must ever
be concerned that there be no failure in money, ammunition, food and
folk, and for that reason be ever holding the whole land to contribution
by continual exactions and extortions.  Send ye your men out to such an
end, then is robbery, plunder, stealing, burning, and murder their
highest task.  Even now of late they have plundered Orb, captured
Braunfels, and laid Staden in ashes.  Thence ‘tis true they brought back
booty, but ye have lad on them a grievous responsibility before God.  I
grant this, that those enjoyments which accompany thine honour do please
thee well; but knowest thou who will enjoy such treasures as doubtless
they gatherest?  And granteed that such riches remain thine (whereof a
man may doubt), yet must thou leave them in this world and takest nothing
with thee but the sin whereby thou hast gained them.  And even if thou
hast the good luck to enjoy they booty, yet thou dost but spend the sweat
and blood of the poor, who do now in misery suffer want or ever perish
and die of hunger.  How often do I see that thy thoughts, by reason of
the cares of thine office, are distracted hither and thither, while I and
other calves to sleep in peace without any care, and if thou dost not so,
it shall cost thee thy head if aught be overlooked that should have been
provided for the preservation of they subject people and this fortress. 
Look you, I am raised above such cares!  and so, knowing what I do owe
the debt of death to nature, I fear lest an enemy should storm my stall
or lest I should have with pains to fight for life.  If I die young, so
am I delivered from the toilsome life of a yoke-ox.  But for thee men lay
snares in a thousand fashions:  and therefore is thy life naught but a
continual care and sleeplessness; for thou must fear both friend and foe,
which be ever devising to cheat thee of thy life or thy money, or thy
reputation or thy command, or somewhat else whatever it may be; even as
thou thinkest to do by others.  The enemy doth attack thee openly:  and
they supposed friends do secretly envy thee thy good luck, and even as
regards thy subjects art thou in no manner of safety.

     “I say naught of this, that daily thy burning desires do torment
thee and drive thee hither and thither, whilst thou plannest to gain for
thyself still greater name and fame, to rise higher in rank, to gather
greater riches, to play the enemy a trick, to surprise this or that
place; in a word, to do wellnigh everything that may vex others and prove
harmful to thine own soul and grievous to God’s majesty.  Yea, and the
worst is this, that thou art so spoiled by thy flatterers that thou
knowest not thyself, but art by them so captivated and drugged that thou
canst not see the dangerous way thou goest; for all that thou doest they
say is right and all thy vices are by them turned into virtues and so
proclaimed; thy cruelty is to them stern justice:  and when thou
plunderest land and folk, thou art a brave soldier, say they and so urge
thee on to others’ harm, that they may keep in thy favour and fill their
purses too.”

     “Thou malingerer,” said my lord, “who taught thee so to preach?”

     “Good, my lord,” answered I, “say I not truly that thou art so
spoiled by thine ear-wiggers and sycophants that already thou art past
help?  Whereas contrariwise other folk do soon detect thy faults and
condemn thee not only in high and mighty matters, but find enough to
blame in thee in small things which are of little account.  And of this
hast thou not examples enough in the case of great men of old time?  So
the Lacedaemonians railed at their on Lycurgus for walking with his head
bowed:  the Romans deemed it a foul fault in Scipio that he snored so
loud in his sleep:  it seemed to them an ugly fault in Pompey that he did
scratch himself but with one finger:  at Cæsar they mocked for wearing
his girdle awry; and the good Cato was slandered for eating too greedily
with both jaws at once; yea, the Carthaginians spoke evil of Hannibal1
for going with his breast bare and uncovered.  How think ye now, my dear
master?  Think ye I would change places with  one that, besides twelve or
thirteen boon companions, flatterers and parasites, hath more than one
hundred, yea ‘tis like enough more than ten thousand, both open and
secret foes, slanderers, and malicious enviers?  Besides, what happiness,
what pleasure, and what joy can such a head have under whose care,
protection, and guard so many men do live:  Is’t not a duty laid on thee
to watch for all thy folk, to care for them, and listen to each one’s
complaints and grievances?  Were that not of itself troublesome enough
even though thou hadst neither foes nor secret enemies?  I can see well
enough how hard ‘tis for thee and yet how many grievances thou must
endure.  And, good my lord, what in the end will be thy reward?  Tell me
what hast thou for it all?  If thou canst not say, then suffer the
Grecian Demosthenes2 to tell thee, who after he had bravely and loyally
furthered and defended the common weal and rights of the Athenians, was,
contrary to all law and justice, banished the land and driven into
miserable exile as an evil-doer.  So Socrates was requited with poison,
and Hannibal so ill rewarded by his countrymen the he must wander in the
world as a poor wretched outlaw; yea, the Greeks repaid Lycurgus in such
fashion that he was stoned and had an eye beaten out.  Do thou,
therefore, keep thy high office to thyself, with the reward thou wilt
have from it:  seek not to share it with me; for even if all go well with
thee, yet hast thou naught to carry home with thee but an ill conscience.
 And if thou art minded to obey that conscience, then wilt thou be
quickly deposed from thy commands as incapable, for all the world as if
thou too wert become a stupid calf.”

    While I thus spake, the rest of the company looked hard upon me and
wondered much that I should be able to hold such discourse, which, and
they openly confessed, would have taxed the wits of a man of sense if he
had been forced so to speak without preparation.

1Hannibal (247-183?BCE), was a noted general of Carthage in the Second
Punic War against Rome.  Most of the victories against Rome are
accredited to him.  He is famous for his disastrous crossing of the Alps.
 "Hannibal" Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 
<http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?artcl=39153&seq_nbr=1&page=p&isctn=2>
[Accessed 15 February 2002].

2Demosthenes (384-322 BCE), was a famous orator of Athens and a leader
for its democracy.  The incident reported in Grimmelshausen is still
ambiguous, as Demosthenes was convicted of stealing 10 talents, but fined
much less than the customary amount.  His escape from prison afterward
precluded him from being able to obtain the money to pay his fine.  Later
on in his life, the Athenians paid his fine and called him back from
exile.  "Demosthenes" Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
<http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=30398&sctn=4> [Accessed 15 February
2002].

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Chap. xii:  OF THE SENSE AND KNOWLEDGE OF CERTAIN UNREASONING ANIMALS

     So I ended my discourse this:  “Therefore,” said I, “my excellent
master, will I not change with thee:  for indeed I have no call to do so
since the brook affords me a healthy drink instead of thy costly wines;
and He who allowed me to be turned into a calf will also in such wise
know how to bless the fruits of the earth to my use, that they be to me
as to Nebuchadnezzar, no unfitting provision for food and sustenance: 
even so hath nature provided me with a good coat of fur; while as for
thee, often thou loathest thy meat, thy wine splitteth thy head, and soon
will bring thee into one sickness or another.”

     Then my lord answered:  “I know not what I have in thee; meseemeth
thou art for a calf far too wise:  nay, I do surmise thou hast under that
calf-skin clad thyself with a rougue-skin.”

     With that I made as if I were angry, and aid:  “Do ye men think,
then, that we beasts be all fools?  That may ye not imagine.  I do
maintain that if older beasts could speak as well as I, that they would
tell you a very different story.  If ye deem we are so stupid, then tell
me who hath taught the wild wood-pidgeons, the jays, the blackbirds, and
the partridges to purge themselves with laurel-leaves, and doves,
turtle-doves, and fowls with dandelions.  Who teacheth the cat and dog to
eat the dewy grass when they desire to purge a full belly?  Who hath
taught the tortoise to heal a bit with hemlock or the stag when he is
shot to have recourse to the dictamnus or calamint?  Who taught the
weasel to use the rue when she will fight with the bat or snake?  Who
maketh the wild boar to know the ivy and the bear the mandrake, and saith
to them it is their medicine?  Who giveth the swallow to understand that
she should heal her fledglings’ dim eyes with chelidonium?  Who did
instruct the snake to heat of fennel when she will cast her slough and
heal her darkened eyes?  Who teacheth the stork to purge himself, the
pelican to let himself blood and the bear to get himself scarified by
bees?  Nay, I might almost say, ye men have learned your arts and
sciences from us beasts.  Ye eat and drink yourselves to death, and that
we beasts do never do.  Lion or wolf, when he is by way of growing to
fat, then he fasteth till again he is thin, active and healthy.  And
which party dealeth most wisely herein?  Yea, above and beyond all this,
consider the fowls of the air; regard the various architecture of their
cunning nests, and inasmuch as all your labours can never imitate them,
therefore ye must acknowledge they be both wise and more ingenious than
ye men yourselves.  Who telleth to our summer birds when they should come
to us for the spring and hatch their young, or for the autumn, when they
should again betake themselves from us to warmer climes?  Who teacheth
them they must choose a gathering-place to that end?  Who leadeth them or
sheweth them the way?  Do ye men lend them, perchance, a compass that
they fall not out by the way?  Nay, my good friends, they do know the way
without your help, and how long they must spend therein, and when they
must depart from this place and the other, and therefore have no need of
your compass nor your almanack.  Further, behold the industrious spider,
whose web is wellnigh a miracle: look if you find a single knot in all
her weaving.  What hunter or fisher hath taught her how to spread her
net, and when she hath laid that net to catch her prey, to set herself
either in the furthest corner to else full in the center?  Ye men do
admire the raven of whom Plutarchus writeth that he threw into a vessel
that was half full of water to many stones that that water rose until he
could conveniently drink thereof.  What would ye do if he were to dwell
among the beasts and there behold al the rest of their dealings, their
doings, and their not-doings?  Then at all events would ye acknowledge
‘twas plain that all beasts had somewhat of especial natural vigour and
virtue in all their desires and instincts, as being now prudent, now
strenuous, now gentle, now timid, now fierce, for your learning and
instruction.  Each knoweth the other; they discern each from other; they
seek after that which is useful to them, flee from what is harmful, avoid
danger, gather together what is necessary for their sustenance—yea, and
at times do befool you men yourselves.  Therefore have many ancient
philosophers seriously pondered of such matters and have not been ashamed
to question and to dispute whether unreasoning brutes might not have
understanding.  But I care not to speak further of these matters:  get ye
to the bees and see how they make wax and honey, and then come again and
tell me how ye think of it.”

edited by Katrina Laskowsky
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