Simplicissimus (16 page)

You, however, have people setting a thousand different traps for you so that your life is nothing but constant worry and interrupted sleep. You have to fear both friend and foe, who are doubtless trying to take either your life or your money or your reputation or your command or anything else you have, just as you would like to do to them. Your enemies attack you openly, while your supposed friends secretly envy you your good fortune, and you are not even safe from your subordinates. I will say nothing of the way you are daily tormented and driven hither and thither by your burning desire to achieve even greater fame, to rise to a higher command, to amass greater riches, to play a trick on the enemy, to surprise this or that stronghold, all things which, in short, injure others and are both harmful to your soul and displeasing to the Lord our God. And what is worst of all, you are so fawned on by your toadies that you no longer know yourself, so blinded and poisoned by their flattery that you cannot see the dangerous path you are on. They give their approval to everything you do, all your vices they call virtues. For them your cruelty is justice, and if you lay waste to the country and all who live there, they say you are a brave soldier, urging you on to harm others so that they can retain your favour, at the same time filling their purses.’

‘Who taught you to preach like that, you idle good-for-nothing?’ said my master.

‘My lord’, I replied, ‘am I not right when I say you have been so corrupted by your bootlickers and backscratchers that you are already beyond help? Other people can easily see your vices and do not judge you in important matters alone, but find plenty to criticise in minor matters of little account. You can see enough examples of this in great men of the past. The Athenians grumbled about Simonides simply because he talked too loudly; the Thebans complained about Paniculus for spitting; the Spartans criticised Lycurgus for always walking with his head bowed; the Romans found fault with Scipio for snoring too loudly in his sleep, thought it an ugly trait in Pompey that he scratched himself with one finger alone and mocked Julius Caesar because he did not do his belt up neatly; the people of Utica maligned Cato because in their opinion he ate too greedily, filling both sides of his mouth at once; and the Carthaginians disapproved of Hannibal for always going about bare-chested.

What do you think now, sir? Do you still think I should change places with a man who, besides a dozen or so drinking companions, toadies and parasites, has more than a hundred – probably more than ten thousand even – open and secret enemies, slanderers and jealous rivals? Besides, what happiness, what pleasure or joy can such a man have who is charged with the care and protection of so many people? Is it not your duty to watch over all of them, to look after them and listen to all their complaints and grievances? Wouldn’t that be arduous enough in itself, without having so many who begrudge you your good fortune and seek to bring you down?

I can see how hard it is for you, how ill it often makes you. And what will your reward be, sir, what will you get out of all this? If you don’t know, then let Demosthenes tell you who, after having loyally supported and defended the common good and the rights of the Athenians was, contrary to all law and justice, banished from the country and driven into the misery of exile, as if he had committed some dreadful crime. Socrates was paid back with poison; Hannibal was so poorly rewarded by his countrymen he was forced to wander the world, a wretched outlaw; the same happened to Marcus Furius Camillus, who had freed Rome from the Gauls, and the Greeks similarly rewarded Lycurgus and Solon, one of whom was stoned to death, the other had one eye put out before being banished as a murderer. No, you can keep your position and the rewards it brings, you’ll share neither with me. For even if everything goes well for you, you will still take nothing with you but a bad conscience. If, however, you try to follow your conscience you will soon be removed from your command as incompetent, for all the world as if you had become a stupid calf like me.

Whilst I was talking, all those present stared at me, astonished that I could make such a speech which, as they confessed, would have been hard enough for a man with his full quota of wits, if he had to give it
extempore
. But I ignored them and concluded my speech as follows:

‘So that, dear master, is why I would not want to change places with you. Nor do I need to, since the springs give me a healthy drink instead of your fine wines, and He who allowed me to be turned into a calf will surely also bless the herbs that grow in the ground so that they will provide both food and lodging for me, as they did for Nebuchadnezzar, while nature has provided me with a good fur coat. You, on the other hand, often feel sick at the sight of the best dishes and the wine gives you a headache and will soon bring you other illnesses as well.’

My master answered, ‘I don’t quite know what to make of you. You seem to have much too much sense for a calf. Perhaps under that calf’s skin you have a jester’s coat on?

I pretended to be angry and said, ‘Do you humans think we animals are fools, then? Well you have another think coming. I tell you, if older beasts could talk as well as I can they could be of greater use to you than those to which you put them now. If you think we are stupid, just tell me who taught the wild wood pigeons, jays, blackbirds and partridges to purge themselves with bayleaves? And the doves, turtle doves and hens with dandelion? Who taught cats and dogs that they should eat the dew-soaked grass if they want to clear out their full bellies? And the tortoise to heal a bite with hemlock, or the deer, when it is wounded, to look for dictamnus or wild calamint? Who showed the weasel to use rue if it is going to fight with a bat or snake? Who taught the wild pigs to recognise ivy and the bear mandrake, and who told them they were good to use as medicine? Who suggested to the eagle that it should look for eaglestone and use it if it has difficulty laying its eggs? Who is it told the swallow to use celandine to strengthen the sight of its young? Who instructed the snake to eat fennel when it is going to shed its skin and its sight is weak? Who taught the stork to give itself an enema, the pelican to bleed itself and the bear to get the bees to act as leeches?

I might almost say that you humans have learnt your arts and sciences from us animals. You eat and drink yourself to death, which we animals never do. A lion or wolf that is starting to get too fat starves itself until it is slim, healthy and full of life again. Which shows the greater wisdom?

As well as all this, look at the birds of the air, look at the diverse construction of their dainty nests. Since no man can copy their work, you must acknowledge that they have both greater understanding and greater skill than you humans. Who tells the summer visitors when to come to us in spring to hatch out their young, and to leave in the autumn for warmer lands? Who teaches them to agree on a gathering place before the journey? Who guides them, who tells them the route? Perhaps you humans lend them a compass so they won’t get lost on the way? No, good people, they know the way without you, and how long it will take and when they must set off from one place for another.

Again, look at the industrious spider, whose web is nigh on a miracle. Can you find one single knot in its whole work? Which hunter or fisherman taught it how to spread out its net and, depending on the net it has used, to sit either in the farthest corner or right in the middle to lie in wait for its prey? You humans marvel at the raven which, as Plutarch reports, kept dropping stones into a pot half full of water until the water came high enough for it to drink out of it in comfort. What would you do if you lived among the animals and observed all the other things they did? Then you would really have to acknowledge that it is clear that all animals have something to teach you in the special natural powers they possess in all their feelings and responses, be it caution, strength, gentleness, wildness. Each knows the others, they are different from each other, they look for what is good for them, keep away from what is harmful and avoid danger, gather what they need to feed them and sometimes even deceive you humans. This was why many ancient philosophers paid serious attention to these matters and were not ashamed to discuss whether unreasoning animals did not also have understanding. That is all I have to say on this subject. Go and watch the bees making wax and honey and then tell me what you think.’

At this those gathered round my master’s table pronounced various judgments on me. The secretary maintained I should be judged a fool since I considered myself an animal with the power of reason and people who were not all there but still thought themselves as rational as the next man were the best, most entertaining fools of all. Others said that if someone could only cure me of the delusion I was a calf, or persuade me I was human again, they would consider me rational or sane enough. My master himself said, ‘I think he is a fool because he is not afraid to tell everyone the truth. On the other hand what he says is not what you would expect from a fool.’ All this they said in Latin, so that I shouldn’t understand it. Then my master asked me if I had done any studying while I was still human.

I replied that I had no idea what studying was. ‘But, master’, I went on, ‘tell me what these studs are with which you go studying. Is that perhaps what you call the bowls with which you go bowling?’

At this Ensign Madcap said, ‘Wha’s wrang wi’ the man? The de’il’s in him, that’s wha’s wrang. He’s possessed, it’s the de’il aye speakin’ thru him.’

Then my master asked me, seeing that I had turned into a calf, whether I still prayed like other men, as I had done before, and whether I believed I would go to heaven.

‘Of course’, I answered. ‘I still have my immortal human soul and, as you can well imagine, it will not want to end up in hell, largely because it has had such a hard time there once already. I have been transformed, just as Nebuchadnezzar was, and I too will presumably turn back into a man when the time comes.’

‘Amen to that’, said my master with a deep sigh, from which I deduced he regretted having had me turned into a fool. ‘But tell us’, he went on, ‘how you do your praying.’

At that I knelt down and raised my hands and eyes to heaven in true hermit fashion. Since my master’s remorse, which I had noticed, touched my heart and comforted me, I could not hold back my tears. Thus it was to all appearances with deepest reverence that, after saying the Lord’s Prayer, I prayed for the whole of Christendom, for my friends and enemies, and that God would grant that I might live in this world in such a way that I would be found worthy to praise Him in eternal bliss. This was a reverent prayer the hermit had composed and taught me. Some of the soft-hearted onlookers were almost crying because they felt such pity for me and even my master had tears in his eyes.

After the meal my master sent for the pastor. He told him everything I had said and indicated that he was concerned there were dark forces at work, perhaps the devil himself was involved seeing how I had at first appeared quite simple-minded and ignorant but now was saying astounding things.

The pastor, who was best acquainted with me, replied that they should have considered these things before they had had the presumption to turn me into a fool. Men, he reminded them, were made in the image of God and should not be played with just for sport, as if they were brute beasts, especially when they were so young. However, he could not believe that the evil spirit had been allowed to interfere since I had always commended myself to God through fervent prayer. If, however, contrary to all expectation that was the case, then they would have a serious charge to answer for before God, since there was hardly any worse sin than for one man to deprive another of his reason, thus making it impossible for him to praise and serve God, which was the principal purpose for which he had been created.

‘I have’, he went on, ‘already assured you that he is intelligent but does not know the ways of the world. The reason for this is his simple upbringing out in the wilds with his father, a coarse peasant, and your brother-in-law. If people had been more patient with him he would, with time, have made better progress. He was just a simple-minded, God-fearing child unacquainted with the wicked world. I have no doubt that he can be brought back to his right mind if he can just be cured of the delusion that he has turned into a calf. We can read of a man who firmly believed he had turned into an earthenware jug and asked his family to put him up on a shelf so he would not be knocked over; another imagined he was a cock and and in his madness crowed both day and night. There was yet another who thought he had already died and wandered around as a ghost, refusing both medicine and food and drink until a clever doctor paid two men to pretend they were ghosts, but ones who loved to drink. They joined the other and persuaded him that modern ghosts were in the habit of eating and drinking, through which he was cured.

I myself had a sick farmer in my parish who, when I visited him, complained that he had some three or four barrels of water in his body; if he could get rid of it he believed he might get well again. He asked me either to slit him open, so that it would run out, or to hang him up in the smokehouse so that it would dry up. I talked him into believing I could get rid of the water in another way. I took a spigot they use for wine or beer barrels, tied a length of intestine to it and the other end to the bunghole of a bathtub, which I had had filled with water. Then I pretended to stick the spigot into his belly, which he had wrapped up in rags so that it wouldn’t burst, and let the water run out of the bathtub. The poor fellow was so pleased that he threw off the rags and in a few days was his old self again. Another man who imagined he had swallowed all sorts of horse equipment, bridles and the like, was helped in a similar way. The doctor gave him a strong laxative and put some of those things underneath the stools he did during the night so that he thought he had excreted them. And there was another madman who believed his nose was so long it reached the floor. They stuck a sausage onto his nose and kept cutting off slices. When they got to his nose he felt the knife and shouted out that his nose was back in its old shape again. If they could be cured then I am sure our good Simplicius could be too.’