Simplicissimus (3 page)
Hardly had I settled down to sleep than I heard a voice crying, ‘O wondrous love for us ungrateful mortals! O my sole consolation, my hope, my wealth, my God!’ and many other similar exclamations that I could neither understand nor remember.
They were words which might well have comforted and gladdened the heart of any Christian in my situation but such was my simplicity and ignorance, it was all Greek to me. And not only could I not understand what was said, I found it so strange that I was at first filled with terror. But when I heard the speaker say that his hunger would be stilled and his thirst quenched, my empty stomach suggested I should invite myself to the table too. So I summoned up my courage and crept out of the hollow tree to see where the voice was coming from. I saw a tall man with long, grey, unkempt hair falling down round his shoulders and a tangled beard that was shaped almost like a Swiss cheese. His face was yellow and gaunt, but had a kindly look, and his long gown had been mended with more than a thousand different pieces of cloth, often one sewn onto the other. Around his neck and body he had wound a heavy iron chain, like St. William of Aquitaine, and to my eyes looked so fearsome and terrifying that I started to shake like a wet dog. The crucifix, almost six foot long, that he was clasping to his chest, only served to increase my fear, so that I thought this old man must surely be the wolf my Da had told me about not long before. Quaking with fear, I took out my bagpipes, which were the only treasure I had rescued from the troopers. I inflated the sack, tuned up and made a mighty noise to drive away this abominable beast. The hermit was not a little surprised to hear a sudden and unexpected outburst of music in such a wild place, and doubtless thought some fiendish spirit had come to torment him, like St. Anthony, and to disturb his devotions. But he quickly recovered from his shock and started to mock me, calling me the tempter in the hollow tree, where I had gone back to hide. Indeed, he had so far recovered his spirits that he started to scoff at me as the enemy of mankind, saying, ‘Ha, so you are come to tempt the saints without God’s leave’, and much more which I could not understand. His approach filled me with such terror that I fell to the ground in a faint.
I do not know what it was that brought me round; what I do know is that when I came to I found that the old man had placed my head on his lap and opened my jerkin. Seeing the hermit so close to me, I set up a hideous screaming, as if he were about to tear the heart out of my body. He said, ‘Be still, my son, I’m not going to hurt you, just be still’, but the more he caressed me and tried to comfort me, the louder I cried out, ‘Oh, you’re going to eat me up! You’re going to eat me up! You’re the wolf, you’re going to eat me up!’
‘Indeed I am not, my son’, he said. ‘Just be still, I’m not going to eat you up.’
It was a long time before I had sufficiently calmed down to accept his invitation to go into his hut with him. The wolf did not live in the hut, but the old man obviously had difficulty keeping it from the door since the cupboard was almost always bare. However, a frugal meal of vegetables and a drink of water filled my belly, and the old man’s friendly manner soothed my distraught mind, so that I was soon myself again. Now I could no longer hide the fact that I was desperately in need of sleep, and the old man left me alone in the hut, since there was only room for one person to stretch out there. Around midnight I was wakened by the following hymn, which I later learnt myself:
Come, voice of night, o nightingale
And let your song, o’er hill and vale,
Its soothing solace bring.
Now other birds have gone to sleep,
Come, come, your tuneful vigil keep,
Your Maker’s praises sing.
And let your voice out loud rejoice.
Of all below
You best can raise a hymn of praise
To Him from whom all blessings flow.
For though the light of day has flown
And we in deepest night are thrown,
Our voices still we raise
To sing of God’s great love and might.
No dark can hinder us, no night,
In our Creator’s praise.
So let your voice out loud rejoice.
Of all below
You best can raise a hymn of praise
To Him from whom all blessings flow.
Now Echo’s answering voice is stirred,
Her sweet reverberant notes are heard
Combining in your song.
She banishes our weariness
And bids us wake that we profess
God’s goodness all night long.
So let your voice out loud rejoice.
Of all below
You best can raise a hymn of praise
To Him from whom all blessings flow.
The stars shine from the sky above,
Proclaiming our Creator’s love
In streams of light outpoured.
The owl, although she cannot sing,
Yet with her screech shows she would bring
Her tribute to the Lord.
So let your voice out loud rejoice.
Of all below
You best can raise a hymn of praise
To Him from whom all blessings flow.
Come, nightingale, we would not be
Idle amid such minstrelsy
Nor sleep the night away.
Come, let the desert woods around
With joyous hymns of praise resound
Until the break of day.
So let your voice out loud rejoice.
Of all below
You best can raise a hymn of praise
To Him from whom all blessings flow.
All the time the hermit was singing this song, I felt as if the nightingale were joining in, as well as the owl and Echo. So sweetly melodious did it seem, that if I had ever heard the morning star and had been able to play its tune on my bagpipes, I would have slipped out of the hut to add my notes to the hermit’s. As it was, I fell asleep and did not wake until the day was well advanced when I saw him standing before me, saying, ‘Up you get, my child. I’ll give you something to eat, then show you the way through the woods so you can get back to where people live and reach the nearest village before dark.’
I asked him, ‘What kind of things are they, ‘people’ and ‘village’?’
He said, ‘What, have you never been to a village, do you not know what people are?’
‘No’, I said, ‘this is the only place I have been. But tell me, what are people, what is a village?’
‘Lord save us!’ said the hermit, ‘you must be simple-minded or crafty,’
‘No’, I said, ‘I’m not Simple Minded, nor Crafty, I’m my Ma and Da’s little lad.’
The hermit was amazed at this. With much sighing and crossing of himself he said, ‘Well, my dear child, I have a mind, God willing, to teach you better.’
He proceeded by question and answer, as is set out in the following chapter.
Hermit:
What are you called?
Simplicius:
I’m called ‘lad’.
Hermit:
I can see you’re not a girl, but what did your mother and father call you?
Simplicius:
I haven’t got a mother or father,
Hermit:
Who gave you that shirt?
Simplicius:
My Ma, of course.
Hermit:
What does your Ma call you, then?
Simplicius:
She called me ‘lad’ – also ‘rascal’, ‘numskull’ and ‘gallows-bird’.
Hermit:
And who was your mother’s husband?
Simplicius:
No one.
Hermit:
Well, who did she sleep with at night?
Simplicius:
With my Da.
Hermit:
What did your Da call you?
Simplicius:
He also called me ‘lad’.
Hermit:
What is your Da called?
Simplicius:
He’s called ‘Da’.
Hermit:
What did your mother call him, then?
Simplicius:
‘Da’. Sometimes also ‘Master’.
Hermit:
Did she never call him by any other name?
Simplicius:
Yes, she did.
Hermit:
Well, what was it?
Simplicius:
‘Lout’, ‘foul peasant’, ‘drunken sot’ and other things when she was scolding him.
Hermit:
You’re an ignorant creature, not knowing your parent’s name, nor even your own!
Simplicius:
Huh! You don’t know them either!
Hermit:
Can you pray?
Simplicius:
Can I do what, pray?
Hermit:
I mean do you know the ‘Our Father’?
Simplicius:
Yes.
Hermit:
Well say it then.
Simplicius:
Our father which art heaven, hallowed be name till kingdom come, thy will do heaven and earth, give us trespasses as we give for our trespassers, lead us not in two temptations, deliver us from kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever amen.
Hermit:
God help us! Do you know nothing of the Lord God?
Simplicius:
Yes, it’s at home on the shelf by the door to our chamber. My Ma brought it back from the fair and stuck it up there.
Hermit:
O gracious Lord, only now do I see how great is Your mercy in granting us knowledge of Yourself, since anyone who lacks it is not truly human. O Lord grant that I may so honour Your holy name and be as tireless in my thanks for this grace as You were generous in granting it to me. Listen, Simplicius (for that is the only name I can give you), when you say the Lord’s prayer, this is what you must say: Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And –
Simplicius:
And some cheese to go on it, right?
Hermit:
Hold your tongue, child, and learn. You need that much more than cheese. You are a numskull, just as your Ma said. A lad like you shouldn’t be interrupting an old man; instead you should hold your tongue, listen and learn. If I only knew where your parents lived, I would take you back to them and tell them how children ought to be brought up.
Simplicius:
I don’t know where to go. Our house has been burnt down, my Ma ran away, then came back with our Ursula, and my Da too, and our maid was sick and lying in the stable.
Hermit:
Who burnt your house down?
Simplicius:
Some iron men came, sitting on things as big as oxen but with no horns. These men slaughtered all our sheep and cows and pigs, and then I ran away and after that our house was on fire.
Hermit:
And where was your Da?
Simplicius:
The iron men tied him up, then our billy goat came and licked his feet and made him laugh, and he gave those iron men a lot of silver pennies, big ones and small ones, and some pretty yellow ones, too, and other fine, glittering things and pretty strings of little white beads.
Hermit:
When did this happen?
Simplicius:
Why, when I was supposed to be looking after the sheep. They tried to take my bagpipes away from me as well.
Hermit:
And when were you looking after the sheep?
Simplicius:
Weren’t you listening? When the iron men came. And then our Ann told me to run away, otherwise the soldiers would take me with them, by that she meant the iron men, and so I ran away and came here.
Hermit:
And where do you intend to go now?
Simplicius:
I have no idea. I’d like to stay here with you.
Hermit:
Letting you stay here would suit neither you nor me. Eat, then I’ll take you to some other people.
Simplicius:
Won’t you tell me then what kind of things these ‘people’ are?
Hermit:
People are men and women, like you and me, your Da and your Ma and your Ann. When there are many of them together we call them people.
Simplicius:
Oh.
Hermit:
Now go and eat.