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2. Book V skips numbering between Chap. xviii. and xx.
THE ADVENTUROUS
Simplicissimus
_The first English Edition of_
Simplicissimus
_is limited to 1000 copies_
_of which this is No_. 11.
[Illustration: Facsimile title page of the first German Edition.]
Der Abentheursiche
SIMPLICISSIMUS
Teutsch
Das ist:
Die Beschreibung dess Lebes eines
seltzamen Vaganten / genant Melchior
Sternfels von Fuchshaim / wo und welcher
gestalt Er nemlich in diese Welt kommen / was
er darinn gesehen / gelernet / erfahren und
aussgestanden / auch warumb er solche wieder
feywillig quittirt.
Überauss lustig / und männiglich
nutzlich zu lesen.
An Tag geben
Von
German Schleifheim
von Sulsfort.
Monpelgart /
Gedruckt bey Johann Fillion /
Im Jahr M DC LXIX.
Facsimile title page of the first German Edition.
THE ADVENTUROUS
Simplicissimus
BEING THE DESCRIPTION OF THE LIFE
OF A STRANGE VAGABOND NAMED
MELCHIOR STERNFELS VON FUCHSHAIM
WRITTEN IN GERMAN BY
HANS JACOB CHRISTOPH
VON GRIMMELSHAUSEN
AND NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME
DONE INTO ENGLISH
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
MCMXII
_Copyright_ 1912
TO
DR. OTTO SCHLAPP
Lecturer in German in the University of Edinburgh,
as a tribute to his successful endeavours
to promote the knowledge of the
German Classics in Britain, and in
memory of a mutual friend,
Robert Fitzroy Bell
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
BOOK I.
_Chap. i._: Treats of Simplicissimus' rustic descent and of his
upbringing answering thereto
_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
_Chap. iii._: Treats of the sufferings of a faithful bagpipe
_Chap. iv._: How Simplicissimus' palace was stormed, plundered, and
ruinated, and in what sorry fashion the soldiers kept house there
_Chap. v._: How Simplicissimus took french leave and how he was
terrified by dead trees
_Chap. vi._: Is so short and so prayerful that Simplicissimus thereupon
swoons away
_Chap. vii._: How Simplicissimus was in a poor lodging kindly entreated
_Chap. viii._: How Simplicissimus by his noble discourse proclaimed his
excellent qualities
_Chap. ix._: How Simplicissimus was changed from a wild beast into a
Christian
_Chap. x._: In what manner he learned to read and write in the wild
woods
_Chap. xi._: Discourseth of foods, household stuff, and other necessary
concerns, which folk must have in this earthly life
_Chap. xii._: Tells of a notable fine way, to die happy and to have
oneself buried at a small cost
_Chap. xiii._: How Simplicissimus was driven about like a straw in a
whirlpool
_Chap. xiv._: A quaint comedia of five peasants
_Chap. xv._: How Simplicissimus was plundered, and how he dreamed of
the peasants and how they fared in times of war
_Chap. xvi._: Of the ways and works of soldiers nowadays, and how
hardly a common soldier can get promotion
_Chap. xvii._: How it happens that, whereas in war the nobles are ever
put before the common men, yet many do attain from despised rank to
high honours
_Chap. xviii._: How Simplicissimus took his first step into the world
and that with evil luck
_Chap. xix._: How Simplicissimus was captured by Hanau and Hanau by
Simplicissimus
_Chap. xx._: In what wise he was saved from prison and torture
_Chap. xxi._: How treacherous Dame Fortune cast on Simplicissimus a
friendly glance
_Chap. xxii._: Who the hermit was by whom Simplicissimus was cherished
_Chap. xxiii._: How Simplicissimus became a page: and likewise, how the
hermit's wife was lost
_Chap. xxiv._: How Simplicissimus blamed the world and saw many idols
therein
_Chap. xxv._: How Simplicissimus found the world all strange and the
world found him strange likewise
_Chap. xxvi._: A new and strange way for men to wish one another luck
and to welcome one another
_Chap. xxvii._: How Simplicissimus discoursed with the secretary, and
how he found a false friend
_Chap. xxviii._: How Simplicissimus got two eyes out of one calf's-head
_Chap. xxix._: How a man step by step may attain unto intoxication and
finally unawares become blind drunk
_Chap. xxx._: Still treats of naught but of drinking bouts, and how to
be rid of parsons thereat
_Chap. xxxi._: How the Lord Governor shot a very foul fox
_Chap. xxxii._: How Simplicissimus spoiled the dance
BOOK II.
_Chap. i._: How a goose and a gander were mated
_Chap. ii._: Concerning the merits and virtues of a good bath at the
proper season
_Chap. iii._: How the other page received payment for his teaching, and
how Simplicissimus was chosen to be a fool
_Chap. iv._: Concerning the man that pays the money, and of the
military service that Simplicissimus did for the Crown of Sweden:
through which service he got the name of Simplicissimus
_Chap. v._: How Simplicissimus was by four devils brought into hell and
there treated with Spanish wine
_Chap. vi._: How Simplicissimus went up to heaven and was turned into a
calf
_Chap. vii._: How Simplicissimus accommodated himself to the state of a
brute beast
_Chap. viii._: Discourseth of the wondrous memory of some and the
forgetfulness of others
_Chap. ix._: Crooked praise of a proper lady
_Chap. x._: Discourseth of naught but heroes and famous artists
_Chap. xi._: Of the toilsome and dangerous office of a Governor
_Chap. xii._: Of the sense and knowledge of certain unreasoning animals
_Chap. xiii._: Of various matters which whoever will know must either
read them or have them read to him
_Chap. xiv._: How Simplicissimus led the life of a nobleman, and how
the Croats robbed him of this when they stole himself
_Chap. xv._: Of Simplicissimus' life with the troopers, and what he saw
and learned among the Croats
_Chap. xvi._: How Simplicissimus found goodly spoils, and how he became
a thievish brother of the woods
_Chap. xvii._: How Simplicissimus was present at a dance of witches
_Chap. xviii._: Doth prove that no man can lay to Simplicissimus'
charge that he doth draw the long bow
_Chap. xix._: How Simplicissimus became a fool again as he had been a
fool before
_Chap. xx._: Is pretty long, and treats of playing with dice and what
hangs thereby
_Chap. xxi._: Is somewhat shorter and more entertaining than the last
_Chap. xxii._: A rascally trick to step into another man's shoes
_Chap. xxiii._: How Ulrich Herzbruder sold himself for a hundred ducats
_Chap. xxiv._: How two prophecies were fulfilled at once
_Chap. xxv._: How Simplicissimus was transformed from a boy into a girl
and fell into divers adventures of love
_Chap. xxvi._: How he was imprisoned for a traitor and enchanter
_Chap. xxvii:_ How the Provost fared in the battle of Wittstock
_Chap. xxviii._: Of a great battle wherein the conqueror is captured in
the hour of triumph
_Chap. xxix._: How a notably pious soldier fared in Paradise, and how
the huntsman filled his place
_Chap. xxx._: How the huntsman carried himself when he began to learn
the trade of war: wherefrom a young soldier may learn somewhat
_Chap. xxxi._: How the devil stole the parson's bacon and how the
huntsman caught himself
BOOK III.
_Chap. i._: How the huntsman went too far to the left hand
_Chap. ii._: How the huntsman of Soest did rid himself of the huntsman
of Wesel
_Chap. iii._: How the Great God Jupiter was captured and how he
revealed the counsels of the gods
_Chap. iv._: Of the German hero that shall conquer the whole world and
bring peace to all nations
_Chap. v._: How he shall reconcile all religions and cast them in the
same mould
_Chap. vi._: How the embassy of the fleas fared with Jupiter
_Chap. vii._: How the huntsman again secured honour and booty
_Chap. viii._: How he found the devil in the trough, and how
Jump-i'-th'-field got fine horses
_Chap. ix._: Of an unequal combat in which the weakest wins the day and
the conqueror is captured
_Chap. x._: How the Master-General of Ordnance granted the huntsman his
life and held out hopes of great things
_Chap. xi._: Contains all manner of matters of little import and great
imagination
_Chap. xii._: How fortune unexpected bestowed on the huntsman a noble
present
_Chap. xiii._: Of Simplicissimus' strange fancies and castles in the
air, and how he guarded his treasure
_Chap. xiv._: How the huntsman was captured by the enemy
_Chap. xv._: On what condition the huntsman was set free
_Chap. xvi._: How Simplicissimus became a nobleman
_Chap. xvii._: How the huntsman disposed himself to pass his six
months: and also somewhat of the prophetess
_Chap. xviii._: How the huntsman went a wooing, and made a trade of it
_Chap. xix._: By what means the huntsman made friends, and how he was
moved by a sermon
_Chap. xx._: How he gave the faithful priest other fish to fry, to
cause him to forget his own hoggish life
_Chap. xxi._: How Simplicissimus all unawares was made a married man
_Chap. xxii._: How Simplicissimus held his wedding feast and how he
purposed to begin his new life
_Chap. xxiii._: How Simplicissimus came to a certain town (which he
nameth for convenience Cologne) to fetch his treasure
_Chap. xxiv._: How the huntsman caught a hare in the middle of a town
BOOK IV.
_Chap. i._: How and for what reason the huntsman was jockeyed away into
France
_Chap. ii._: How Simplicissimus found a better host than before
_Chap. iii._: How he became a stage player and got himself a new name
_Chap. iv._: How Simplicissimus departed secretly and how he believed
he had the Neapolitan disease
_Chap. v._: How Simplicissimus pondered on his past life, and how with
the water up to his mouth he learned to swim
_Chap. vi._: How he became a vagabond quack and a cheat
_Chap. vii._: How the doctor was fitted with a musquet under Captain
Curmudgeon
_Chap. viii._: How Simplicissimus endured a cheerless bath in the Rhine
_Chap. ix._: Wherefore clergymen should never eat hares that have been
taken in a snare
_Chap. x._: How Simplicissimus was all unexpectedly quit of his musquet
_Chap. xi._: Discourses of the Order of the Marauder Brothers
_Chap. xii._: Of a desperate fight for life in which each party doth
yet escape death
_Chap. xiii._: How Oliver conceived that he could excuse his brigand's
tricks
_Chap. xiv._: How Oliver explained Herzbruder's prophecy to his own
profit, and so came to love his worst enemy
_Chap. xv._: How Simplicissimus thought more piously when he went
a-plundering than did Oliver when he went to church
_Chap. xvi._: Of Oliver's descent, and how he behaved in his youth, and
specially at school
_Chap. xvii._: How he studied at Liège, and how he there demeaned
himself
_Chap. xviii._: Of the homecoming and departure of this worshipful
student, and how he sought to obtain advancement in the wars
_Chap. xix._: How Simplicissimus fulfilled Herzbruder's prophecy to
Oliver before yet either knew the other
_Chap. xx._: How it doth fare with a man on whom evil fortune doth rain
cats and dogs
_Chap. xxi._: A brief example of that trade which Oliver followed,
wherein he was a master and Simplicissimus should be a prentice
_Chap. xxii._: How Oliver bit the dust and took six good men with him
_Chap. xxiii._: How Simplicissimus became a rich man and Herzbruder
fell into great misery
_Chap. xxiv._: Of the manner in which Herzbruder fell into such evil
plight
BOOK V.
_Chap. i._: How Simplicissimus turned palmer and went on a pilgrimage
with Herzbruder
_Chap. ii._: How Simplicissimus, being terrified of the devil, was
converted
_Chap. iii._: How the two friends spent the winter
_Chap. iv._: In what manner Simplicissimus and Herzbruder went to the
wars again and returned thence
_Chap. v._: How Simplicissimus rode courier and in the likeness of
Mercury learned from Jove what his design was as regards war and peace
_Chap. vi._: A story of a trick that Simplicissimus played at the spa
_Chap. vii._: How Herzbruder died and how Simplicissimus again fell to
wanton courses
_Chap. viii._: How Simplicissimus found his second marriage turn out,
and how he met with his dad and learned who his parents had been
_Chap. ix._: In what manner the pains of childbirth came upon him, and
how he became a widower
_Chap. x._: Relation of certain peasants concerning the wonderful
Mummelsee
_Chap. xi._: Of the marvellous thanksgiving of a patient, and of the
holy thoughts thereby awakened in Simplicissimus
_Chap. xii._: How Simplicissimus journeyed with the sylphs to the
centre of the earth
_Chap. xvii._: How Simplicissimus returned from the middle of the
earth, and of his strange fancies, his air-castles, his calculations;
and how he reckoned without his host
_Chap. xviii._: How Simplicissimus wasted his spring in the wrong place
_Chap. xx._: Treats of a trifling promenade from the Black Forest to
Moscow in Russia
_Chap. xxi._: How Simplicissimus further fared in Moscow
_Chap. xxii._: By what a short and merry road he came home to his dad
_Chap. xxiii._: Is very short and concerneth Simplicissimus alone
_Chap. xxiv._: Why and in what fashion Simplicissimus left the world
again
APPENDIX A
CONTINUATION
_Chap. xix._: How Simplicissimus and a carpenter escaped from a
shipwreck with their lives and were thereafter provided with a land of
their own
_Chap. xx._: How they hired a fair cook-maid and by God's help were rid
of her again
_Chap. xxi._: How they thereafter kept house together and how they set
to work
_Chap. xxii._: Further sequel of the above story, and how Simon Meron
left the island and this life, and how Simplicissimus remained the sole
lord of the island
_Chap. xxiii._: In which the hermit concludes his story and therewith
ends these his six books
APPENDIX B
APPENDIX C
"Continuatio," _chap. xiii._: How Simplicissimus in return for a
night's lodging, taught his host a curious art
[Illustration: Frontispiece of the First Edition from the Ducal
Library. Wolf Buettel.]
INTRODUCTION
The translation here presented to the public is intended rather as a
contribution to the history, or perhaps it should be said the
sociology, of the momentous period to which the romance of
"Simplicissimus" belongs, than as a specimen of literature. Effective
though its situations are, consistent and artistic though its
composition is (up to a certain point), its interest lies chiefly in
the pictures, or rather photographs, of contemporary manners and
characters which it presents. It has been said with some truth that if
succeeding romancers had striven as perseveringly as our author to
embody the spirit and reflect the ways of the people, German fiction
might long ago have reached as high a development as the English novel.
As it is, there is little of such spirit to be discovered in the prose
romances which appeared between the time of Grimmelshausen and that of
Jean Paul Richter. But the influence of the latter was completely swept
away in the torrent of idealism by which the fictions of the idolised
Goethe and his followers were characterised, and his domestic realism
has only of late made its reappearance in disquieting and sordid forms.
It should be remembered as an apology for the stress now laid upon the
sociological side of the history of the Thirty Years War, that that
side has by historians been resolutely thrust into the background. The
most detailed and painstaking narratives of the war are either bare
records of military operations or, worse still, represent merely
meticulous and valueless unravellings of the web of intrigue with which
the pedants of the time deceived themselves into the belief that they
were very Machiavels of subtlety and resource. While the Empire was
bleeding to death, the chancelleries of half Europe were intent on the
detaching from one side or the other of a venal general, or the
patching up of some partial armistice that might afford breathing-time
to organise further mischief. It does not matter much to any one
whether Wallenstein was knave or fool, but it did matter and does
matter that the war crippled for two hundred years the finances, the
agriculture, and the enterprise of the German people, and dealt a blow
to their patriotism from the like of which few nations could have
recovered. Even the character of the civil administration was
completely altered when the struggle ended. An army of capable
bourgeois secretaries and councillors had for centuries served their
princes and their fellow subjects well. It is wonderful that throughout
the devastating wars waged by Wallenstein and Weimar, and even later on
during the organised raids of Wrangel and Königsmark, the records were
kept, the village business administered (where there was a village
left), and even revenue collected with wellnigh as much regularity as
in time of peace. These functionaries, who had worked so well, were at
the end of the war gradually dispossessed of their influence, and their
posts were taken by a swarm of young place-hunters of noble birth whom
the peace had deprived of their proper employment, and whose pride was
only equalled by their incapacity. But neither particulars nor
generalisations bearing on such subjects are to be found in the pages
of professional historians; they must be sought in the contemporary
records of the people, of which the present work affords one of the few
existing specimens, or else in the work of picturesque writers who,
laying no claim to the title of scientific investigators, yet possess
the power of selecting salient facts and deducing broad conclusions
from them. Freitag's "Bilder aus der Deutschen Vergangenheit" indicates
a wealth of material for sociological study which has as yet been but
charily used; and recent German works dealing directly with the subject
are more remarkable for elegance of production than for depth of
research.
Such being the purpose for which this translation has been undertaken,
an Introduction to it must necessarily be concerned not so much with
the bibliography of the book or even the sources, if any, to which the
author was beholden for his material, as with his own personality and
the amount of actual fact that underlies the narrative of the
fictitious hero's adventures. In respect of the first point, we are
presented with a biography almost as shadowy and elusive as that of
Shakespeare. In many ways, indeed, the particulars of the lives of
these two which we possess are curiously alike. Both were voluminous
writers; both enjoyed considerable contemporary reputation; and in both
cases our knowledge of their actual history is confined to a few
statements by persons who lived somewhat later than themselves, and a
few formal documents and entries. In Grimmelshausen's case this
obscurity is increased by his practice of publishing under assumed
names. In the score of romances and tracts which are undoubtedly his
work, we find only two to which his real name is attached. He has nine
other pseudonyms, nearly all anagrams of the words "Christoffel von
Grimmelshausen." Of these, "German Schleifheim von Sulsfort" and
"Samuel Greifnsohn vom Hirschfelt" are the best known; the latter being
the name to which he most persistently clung, and under which
"Simplicissimus" was published, though the former appears on the
title-page as that of the "editor." Only as the signature to a kind of
advertisement at the end do we find the initials of "Hans Jacob
Christoffel von Grimmelshausen," his full name. Until the publication
of a collection of his works by Felsecker at Nuremberg in 1685, the
true authorship of most of them remained unknown. But that editor, by
his allusions in the preface, practically identified the writer as the
"Schultheiss of Renchen, near Strassburg," whom he seems to have known
personally. The reasons for anonymity were, no doubt, firstly, the fact
that "Simplicissimus" at least dealt with the actions of men yet
alive; and secondly, with regard to the other books, the continual
references to details of the author's own life and opinions. His dread
of offending a contemporary is shown by his disguising of the name of
St. André, the commandant of Lippstadt, as N. de S. A. of L. (bk. iii.,
chap. 15).
It is unnecessary here to enter into a discussion of the authorities
from whom the meagre particulars of Grimmelshausen's life are drawn. It
may suffice for our present purpose to indicate the main events of that
life. He was born at Gelnhausen, near Hanau, about 1625--probably of a
humble family. At the age of ten he was captured by Hessian (that is,
be it remembered, anti-Imperialist) troops, and became a member of that
"unseliger Tross"--the unholy crew of horseboys, harlots, sutlers, and
hangers-on who followed the armies on both sides, and sometimes
outnumbered them three to one. In 1648, the last year of the war, the
whole Imperial army only numbered 40,000 fighting men, and the
recognised camp-followers, who were commanded and kept in order by
officers significantly named the "Provosts of the Harlots," no less
than 140,000. In the preface to one of his works called the "Satyrical
Pilgrim," Grimmelshausen speaks of himself as having been "a
musqueteer" at the age of ten--a statement which is obviously to be
taken in the same sense in which Simplicissimus tells us (bk. ii.,
chap. 4) how he "served the crown of Sweden" at a similar age as a
soldier, and drew pay for it. As a matter of fact, Grimmelshausen
probably served a musqueteer or several musqueteers, just as the "Boy"
in Henry V. serves Ancient Pistol and his comrades. From another book,
the "Everlasting Almanack," we learn that he was a soldier under the
Imperialist general Götz, lay in garrison at Offenburg, the free city
alluded to in book v., chapter 20, and also for a long time in the
famous fortress of Philippsburg, of his residence in which he tells
various anecdotes. There are traces both in "Simplicissimus" and his
other books of a wide and unusual acquaintance with many lands, German
and non-German. He knows both Westphalia and Saxony well; Bohemia also:
and certainly Switzerland. The journey to Russia may have some
foundation in fact, though the statement put into the mouth of
Simplicissimus that he has himself seen the fabulous "sheep plant" (bk.
v., chap. 22) growing in Siberia considerably detracts from his
trustworthiness here. But when he left the army, and whether he ever
attained to any reputable rank therein, is quite uncertain. If 1625 be
the correct date of his birth he would be but twenty-three years old at
the conclusion of peace.
Besides his military expeditions, it is pretty clear from his works
that he had visited Amsterdam and Paris and knew them fairly well; but
for nineteen years we have no further trace of his career, till he
suddenly appears as Schultheiss, under the Bishop of Strassburg, of
Renchen, now in the Grand Duchy of Baden, a town of which he
deliberately conceals the name exactly as he does his own, by anagrams,
calling it now Rheinec, now Cernheim. In October 1667 he appears as
holding this office and issuing an order concerning the mills of the
town, which is still in existence. His wife was Katharina Henninger,
and entries have been found of the birth of two children, a daughter
and a son, in 1669 and 1675. A curious episode in the first part of the
"Enchanted Bird's-nest," quoted hereafter, seems to indicate a grave
family disappointment. In 1676 he died, aged fifty-one only, but having
reached what may almost be called a ripe age for the battered and spent
soldier of the Thirty Years War. The entry of his death is peculiarly
full and even discursive, and tells how though he had again entered on
military service--no doubt on the occasion of the French invasion in
1674--and though his sons and daughters were living in places widely
distant from each other, they were all present at his death, in which
he was fortified by the rites of Holy Church. A final touch of
uncertainty is added by the fact that we do not even know whether
Grimmelshausen was his true name: it is more likely to be that of some
small estate which he had acquired, and of which he assumed the name
when, as we learn, he was raised to noble rank.
It is plain even from this brief outline of his life that
Grimmelshausen was emphatically a self-taught man; and it is partly to
this fact that we owe the originality of his work; for he had never
fallen under the baleful influence of the pedantry of his time. He had,
it is true, picked up a deal of out-of-the-way knowledge, which he is
willing enough to set before us to the verge of tediousness. But his
learning is very superficial; he was a poor Latinist; and it is likely
that for most of his erudition he was indebted to the translations
which were particularly plentiful during that golden period of material
prosperity in Germany which preceded the terrible war. It is clear
enough that everywhere he thought more of the content than of the
literary form of his own or any other work; and for the times his
scientific and mathematical knowledge was considerable. In the field of
romance he knows, and does not hesitate to borrow from, Boccaccio,
Bandello ("Simplicissimus," bk. iv., chaps. 4, 5), and the "Cent
Nouvelles Nouvelles," while in his minor works he shows ample
acquaintance with old German legend and also with stories like that of
King Arthur of England. Lastly, we find him commending the
"incomparable Arcadia" of Sir Philip Sidney (which he would have read
in the translation of Martin Opitz) as a model of eloquence, but
corrupting and enervating in its effect upon the manly virtues
("Simplicissimus," bk. iii., chap. 18).
Yet his own earlier works are themselves in the tedious, unreal, and
stilted style of the romances of chivalry. "The Chaste Joseph,"
"Dietrich and Amelind," and "Proximus and Limpida," though widely
different in subject, are alike in this, and show no sign of the genius
which created Simplicissimus. Yet for the first-named work--the
"Joseph"--its author cherished an unreasoning affection, and even
alludes to it in our romance as the work of the hero himself (bk. iii.,
chap. 19). But it is no discredit to Grimmelshausen's originality if we
conjecture that the translations of Spanish picaresque novels (chiefly
by the untiring Aegidius Albertini), which appeared during the first
two decades of the seventeenth century, gave him the idea--they gave
him little or nothing more--of a vagabond hero. Mateo Aleman's famous
"Guzman de Alfarache" had been succeeded by two miserably poor "Second
Parts" by different authors, and in one of these there appears a
tedious episode containing the submarine adventures of the hero under
the form of a tunny-fish, to which we may conceivably owe the equally
tedious story of Simplicissimus and the sylphs of the Mummelsee. At the
end of the original book (bk. v., chap. 24) is an unblushing copy of a
passage from a work of Antonio Quevara or Guevara, also translated by
Albertini.
That Grimmelshausen died a Romanist is pretty clear from the entry of
his death quoted above; nor is it likely that a Protestant could have
held the office of Schultheiss under the Bishop of Strassburg. There is
also extant a curious dialogue ascribed to Grimmelshausen in which
Simplicissimus's arguments against changing his religion are combated
and finally overthrown by a certain Bonarnicus, who effects his
complete conversion. It is far from improbable that the account of his
rescue from sinful indifference at Einsiedel which Simplicissimus gives
(bk. v., chap. 2)--of course apart from the miraculous incident of the
attack on him by the unclean spirit--roughly represents the experience
of his author. That the latter had been brought up a Protestant we
simply assume from the fact that Simplicissimus is understood to have
been so; the first indication which we have of a change in his opinions
being his exclamation of "Jesus Maria!" (bk. iii., chap. 20), which
draws upon him the suspicions of the pastor at Lippstadt. But Papist or
not, our author's superstition is unmistakable.
It was indeed a time, like all periods of intense human misery, in
which men, it might almost be said, turned in despair to the powers of
hell because they had lost all faith in those of heaven. That numbers
of the unhappy wretches who suffered in their thousands for witchcraft
during the first period of the war actually believed themselves in
direct communication with the devil is certain. The Bishop of
Würzburg's fortnightly "autos-da-fé" were only stopped when some of the
victims denounced the prelate himself as their accomplice, apparently
believing it. Grimmelshausen is ready to believe anything. His
description of the Witches' Sabbath is that of a scene which he is
firmly convinced is a possible one; and he stoutly defends by a
multitude of preposterous stories the reasonableness of such conviction
("Simplicissimus," bk. ii., chaps. 17, 18). But among soldiers the most
widely spread superstition was that concerned with invulnerability. Not
only separate individuals, but whole bodies of troops were supposed to
be "frozen," or proof, at all events, against leaden bullets. Christian
of Brunswick actually employed his ducal brother's workers in glass to
make balls of that material to be used against Tilly's troops, who were
credited with this supernatural property; and when the small fortress
of Rogäz, near Dessau, was captured by Mansfeld in 1626, the assailants
were forbidden to use their fire-arms as useless; the members of the
garrison, being wizards all, were clubbed to death with hedge-stakes or
the butt-ends of musquets. In all probability this superstition arose
mainly from observation of the very small penetrating power of the
ammunition of the time. Oliver (bk. iv., chap. 14) is merely bruised on
the forehead by a bullet fired a few paces off: and bullets then
weighed ten to the pound. It is true that he has, as it seems, been
rendered ball-proof by the wicked old Provost Marshal, whose skull
Herzbruder (bk. ii., chap. 27) caused his own servant to split with an
axe at Wittstock, when no pistol could slay him: but the peasant in
book i., chapter 14, cannot be killed by a bullet fired close to his
head, perhaps by reason of the thickness of his skull. To celebrated
persons particularly the reputation of being "gefroren" attached. Count
Adam Terzky, Wallenstein's confidant, was supposed to be so protected:
the superstition regarding Claverhouse, who could only be killed with a
silver bullet, is well known: and even as late as 1792 there was a
belief among his soldiers that Frederick William II. of Prussia was
invulnerable. Grimmelshausen's adventuress "Courage" (of whom more
hereafter) is supposed to be "sword-and bullet-proof": and towards the
end of the war "Passau Tickets," or amulets protecting against wounds,
were manufactured and sold, while a host of minor magic arts, more or
less connected with invulnerability, were believed to exist. For such
tricks the passage from the generally uninteresting "Continuatio,"
which is given as Appendix B of this book, is a kind of "locus
classicus."
Another whole cycle of superstitions centres round the belief in
possible invisibility of persons. Of this we have no example in
"Simplicissimus," though the whole plot of the delightful double
romance of the "Enchanted Bird's-nest" (also fully discussed hereafter)
depends on it. On the other hand, the story of the production of the
puppies from the pockets of the colonel's guests by the wizard Provost
in book ii., chap. 22, is narrated by a man who plainly believed such
things possible; and absolute credence is given to the powers of
prophecy possessed both by old Herzbruder (bk. ii., chaps. 23, 24) and
by the fortune-teller of Soest (bk. iii., chap. 17), who is apparently
a well-known character of the times. It is noteworthy that Herzbruder
thinks meanly of the art of palmistry.
Coming to the actual career of Simplicissimus as chronicled in the
romance which bears his name, we are at the outset confronted by some
strange chronology. The boy is born just after the battle of Höchst in
1622, and is captured by the troopers when ten years old; he is with
the hermit two years (bk. i., chap. 12) till the latter's death, and
makes his first "spring into the world" after the battle of Nördlingen
in the autumn of 1634. He is in Hanau during Ramsay's rule, and spends
there the winter of 1634-5. In the spring of 1635 (there was still ice
on the town-moat) he was captured by Croats. The following eighteen
months are occupied by his adventures as a forest-thief and as a
servant-girl, and the next certain note of time we have is that of the
battle of Wittstock, September 24, 1636. There follow the happenings at
Soest and the six months internment at Lippstadt. But at the time of
the siege of Breisach, in the winter of 1638, he has long been back
from Paris; his marriage, therefore, must have taken place before the
completion of his sixteenth year. Strange as this may appear, the story
appears to be deliberately so arranged. For it will be observed that
just before the lad's capture by the Swedes it is plainly implied (bk.
iii., chap. 11) that he has not yet arrived at the age of puberty.
Grimmelshausen intends him to be a "Wunderkind"--a youthful prodigy;
and such an explanation is far more likely than that the author is
simply careless and counting on the carelessness of his readers to
conceal the incongruity. For the continual references to the time of
year at which various events happen seem to prove that he had sketched
for himself something like a chronology of his fictitious hero's life.
And it is exceedingly difficult ever to detect him in the smallest
false note of time. The date of the banquet and dance at Hanau is
exactly fixed by the capture of Braunfels in January 1635 (bk. i.,
chap. 29): and Orb and Staden _had_ both been captured before
Simplicissimus could well have delivered his oration on the miseries of
a governor (bk. ii., chap. 12). These may seem small matters, but it
must be remembered that Grimmelshausen had no Dictionary of Dates
before him. The battle of Jankow in 1645 gives us the last exact date
to be found in the book, and Tittmann is probably right in assuming
that with that engagement the author's personal connection with the war
ceased. By the time Simplicissimus returns from his Eastern wanderings
the "German Peace" had been concluded.
At the very beginning of Simplicissimus's story he is brought in
contact with at least one historical personage--James Ramsay, the
Swedish commandant of Hanau, whose heroic defence of that town is well
known. Simplicissimus is said to be the son of his brother-in-law, one
Captain Sternfels von Fuchsheim. This man's Christian name is nowhere
given; the boy is expressly said by his foster-father (bk. v., chap.
8) to have been christened Melchior after himself, and the fictitious
character of the supposed parentage seems amply proved by the fact that
the whole name, "Melchior Sternfels von Fugshaim" (as it is often
spelt), is an exact anagram of "Christoffel von Grimmelshausen." We may
therefore pass over as unmeaning the attribution to this supposed
father of "estates in Scotland." by the pastor in book i., chapter 22,
and must probably consign to the realms of imagination the lady-mother,
Susanna Ramsay, also. That Grimmelshausen was really brought in
contact, possibly as a page, with the commandant of Hanau, seems
likely. He knows a good deal of him. But of his later career he is
quite ignorant; he even repeats as true the malignant calumny
circulated by the Jesuits of Vienna to the effect that Ramsay had gone
mad with rage at the loss of Hanau (bk. v., chap. 8). As a matter of
fact, the poor man died partly of his wounds and partly of a broken
heart. The only other historic personage in the story who can be
identified with certainty is Daniel St. André, a Hessian soldier of
fortune (bk. iii., chap. 15) of Dutch descent, and commanding at
Lippstadt for the "Crown of Sweden."
For what reason Grimmelshausen wrote the "Continuatio," a dull medley
of allegories, visions, and stories of knavery, brightened only by the
"Robinsonade" at the end, it is hard to say; probably at the urgent
request of his publisher, when the striking success of the original
work became assured. It appeared at Möpelgard (Montéliard) in the very
same year, viz. 1669, as the first known edition, or more probably
editions, of the first five books, and is sometimes quoted as a sixth
book. Two years later there were issued three more "Continuations,"
even more unworthy of their author, and laying stress chiefly on
the least estimable side of the hero's character--the roguery
by which he paid his way on his journey back from France. The
worthlessness of these sequels is the more remarkable when we consider
the excellence of the other books which make up what may be called the
Simplicissimus-cycle. These are "Trutzsimplex," "Springinsfeld," the
two parts of the "Enchanted Bird's-nest," and the "Everlasting
Almanack." They are all deserving of attention.
The first, which is also known as the "Life of the Adventuress
'Courage,'" appeared immediately after "Simplicissimus," with which
it is connected by the fact that the heroine is none other than the
light-minded lady of the Spa at Griesbach, the alleged mother of
Simplicissimus's bastard son; she is also at one time the wife or
companion of "Springinsfeld" or "Jump i' th' Field," Simplicissimus's
old servant. Her history, which is narrated with extraordinary
vivacity, covers nearly the whole period of the war, and is interwoven
with the remaining books of the cycle in a sufficiently ingenious
manner. A secretary out of employ is driven by the cold into the warm
guest-room of an inn in a provincial town. Here he finds a huge old man
armed with a cudgel "that with one blow could have administered extreme
unction to any man." This is Simplicissimus, with the famous club that
had so terrified the resin-gatherers of the Black Forest
("Simplicissimus," bk. v., chap. 17). Either the episode of the Desert
Island is left out of account altogether--possibly not yet invented--or
he has not yet started on his final journey. The latter is unlikely,
for the date is indicated as 1669 or 1670. To these two enters an old
wooden-legged fiddler who turns out to be Simplicissimus's faithful
knave, "Jump i' th' Field." Of the former hero the secretary had read;
of the latter he himself had written; for meeting, as a poor wandering
scholar, with a gang of gipsies in the Schwarzwald, he had been engaged
by their queen, an aged but still handsome woman, to write her history,
on the promise of a pretty wife and good pay. He is cheated of both,
and the gipsies disappear with their queen, who is in fact the famous
"Courage" or "Kurrasche."
The daughter of unknown parents, this heroine was living in a small
Bohemian town with an old nurse when the Imperialists, under Bucquoy,
conquered the country in 1620. She was then thirteen years old, and
thus fifteen years senior to Simplicissimus. The nurse, to protect her
chastity, disguises her as a boy, and in this garb she becomes page to
a young Rittmeister, to whom, her secret having been all but discovered
in a scuffle, she reveals her sex and becomes his mistress. The name
Courage is, for amusing but quite unmentionable reasons, given to her
in consequence of this episode. To her first lover she is actually
married on his death-bed, and now begins her career nominally as an
honourable widow, but in reality as an accomplished courtesan. She
still follows the army, for which she has an invincible love, and
being, of course, "frozen" or invulnerable, takes part in various
fights, in one of which she captures a major, who, when she in turn is
taken prisoner, revenges himself on her in the vilest fashion. He is
preparing to hand her over, according to custom ("Simplicissimus," bk.
ii., chap. 26), "to the horseboys," when she is rescued by a young
Danish nobleman, who proposes to make her his wife. The terrible story
is told with an exactness of detail, which plainly can only be the work
of the witness of similar scenes, and it is to be feared represents
only too faithfully the truth as to the treatment of women in the war.
It is remarkable, however, that few officers of high rank on either
side are accused of wanton offences against public morals. Holk and
Königsmark are the only two who are charged with publicly keeping their
mistresses; and they were the two most brutal commanders of their time.
As a rule superior officers took their wives with them ("Simplicissimus,"
bk. ii., chap. 25) even to the field of battle, and if such ladies fell
into the enemy's hands, as did many after Nördlingen, they were
treated with all possible respect.
But to return to "Courage." Her Danish lover is about to marry her when
he too dies, and after this disappointment she sinks lower and lower in
the social scale, forming temporary connections successively with a
captain, a lieutenant, a corporal and finally with a musqueteer, who is
no other than our old friend "Jump i' th' Field," for whose name she
gives us a very complete and quite untranslatable reason. With him she
journeys, as a Marketenderin or female sutler, to Italy, following the
army of Colalto and Gallas, and there, with his assistance, she plays a
variety of tricks, always knavish and often highly diverting. Grown
rich, the vivandière dismisses poor "Jump i' th' Field" with a handsome
present, and again resumes her trade of a superior courtesan in the
town from which she journeys to the Spa, where she found and beguiled
Simplicissimus. Her luck now turns; owing to a scandalous adventure
under a pear-tree--the story is a mere copy of a well-known one in the
"Hundred New Novels"--she is expelled from the town with the loss of
all her money and almost of her life--so severe in the matter of public
morals were the laws, in the midst of the general welter of wickedness
then prevailing. Her beauty lost, she becomes a petty trader in wine
and tobacco, and finally marries a gipsy chief; in which position we
find her and leave her.
This story ended, the secretary and his friends in the inn are joined
by Simplicissimus's old foster-father and mother--the "Dad" and "Mammy"
of our romance--and also by young Simplicissimus, Courage's alleged
son. She has avenged herself on her faithless lover, as she tells us in
her own history, by laying at his door the child of her maid. It is for
this reason that she entitles her narrative "Trutzsimplex," or "Spite
Simplex." Her revenge, however, for reasons plainly hinted at,
miscarries; the child is her lover's after all. The merry company of
six then divert themselves during the short winter afternoon with a
profitable exhibition of Simplicissimus's tricks in the market-place,
and the night is pleasantly spent in listening to Springinsfeld's
account of his own life and adventures.
The son of a Greek woman and an Albanian juggler, he follows in early
boyhood his father's trade. Carried away from the port of Ragusa by an
accident, he is landed in the Spanish Netherlands, and there serves
under Spinola, then with that general's army in the Rhine Palatinate,
and then in Pappenheim's cavalry. He is present at Breitenfeld and
Lützen, and while temporarily out of the service falls in with
"Courage" as above narrated. On leaving her, he sets up as an
innkeeper, and prospers, but is ruined through his own incorrigible
knavery. Serving against the Turks, he is wounded, and takes to
fiddling to support himself, marrying also a hurdy-gurdy girl of loose
character. In the course of their vagabond life there occurs the
incident which leads to the most ingenious and attractive of all the
romances of the cycle.
Sitting by a stream, they see in the water the shadow of a tree with a
lump on one of the branches: on the tree itself there is no such lump.
It is a bird's-nest, invisible itself, which makes its possessor
invisible also. The wife seizes it and at once disappears, with all
their money in her pocket. She does not, however, abandon her husband
altogether, but when he goes into the neighbouring town of Munich she
slips a handful of money into his pocket. He finds that this is a part
of the proceeds of an impudent robbery just committed in the house of a
merchant, and will have none of it, but is compelled to be witness of
numerous amusing and mischievous pranks played by his wife of which he
alone knows the secret. He goes to the wars again and loses a leg,
after which he begs his way back to Munich and finds his wife dead. She
has befooled a young baker's man into believing her to be the fairy
Melusina, and after a sanguinary chance-medley in the baker's chamber,
whither she is pursued for thefts committed for his sake, is slain by a
young halberdier of the watch sent to arrest her. Her body is burned as
that of a witch, and her slayer disappears bodily. His story thus
ended, Springinsfeld is taken home by Simplicissimus to his farm, where
he dies in the odour of sanctity.
Here begins the first part of the history of the "Enchanted
Bird's-nest." The young halberdier is an honest lad, who uses his
powers for good only, and his experiences are of exceeding interest as
giving a picture of the manners of the time viewed in their most
intimate particularities by an invisible witness. We have matrimonial
infelicities circumstantially described, as likewise the efforts
of an impoverished family of nobles to keep up appearances in their
tumble-down old castle. The halberdier prevents hideous and unspeakable
crime, captures burglars who are effecting their purpose by a device
similar to that of the "hand of glory," wreaks vengeance upon
loose-living pastors and rescues the intended victims of footpads. The
adventures follow one upon another in quick succession, but are ended
by a somewhat unnecessary fit of remorse, during which the halberdier
tears up the nest. It is, however, found, and the portion which
contains its magic properties kept, by a passer-by. This First Part
ends with a fresh appearance of Simplicissimus, who is in deep grief
over the rejection by a neighbouring nobleman of his application for a
post for his son, whom the invisible halberdier has seen and helped out
of trouble in the convent where he was studying. This scene is so
utterly unconnected with the course of the narrative that it is
conjectured to refer to some real family misfortune of Grimmelshausen,
of which he is anxious to give an explanation to the public.
The new owner of the enchanted nest is the merchant whom
Springinsfeld's wife had robbed at Munich, and the "Second Part" is
occupied with the story of his wicked misuse of his powers. His actions
are the very opposite of the halberdier's, though the contrast is not
so pointed as to become inartistic. He makes use of his supernatural
facilities to seduce his own servant, to perpetrate a peculiarly filthy
act of revenge upon his faithless wife, and finally to accomplish the
crowning deception of his whole career. He makes his way into the
family of a respectable Portuguese Jew, in the first instance with a
view to robbery; but becoming enamoured of the beautiful daughter of
the house, he employs his invisibility to practise a most blasphemous
piece of knavery. He succeeds in making the unfortunate parents believe
that the maiden is destined to be the mother of the future Messiah by
the prophet Elias. The latter part he of course plays himself, and
enjoys the society of his victim till at length a child is born, which
turns out, to the general horror, to be a girl. The motive is not new
and the story is a sordid one; but it is most artistically recounted,
and an intimate knowledge of Jewish manners and ideas is displayed. The
narrative is also diversified by an element found in none of the other
romances of the cycle--acute and farsighted political discourses and
reasonings on European affairs as likely to be affected by the war then
impending with France, which ended with the treaty of Nimwegen in 1678.
Rendered desperate by his sins, though now deeply enamoured of the
unfortunate Jewess Esther, the merchant is on the verge of surrendering
himself to the power of "black magicians" of the worst and most
diabolical kind when he escapes by betaking himself to the wars.
Possessing besides his invisibility the power of rendering himself
invulnerable, he is nevertheless wounded by a "consecrated" bullet, and
finally makes his way home in poverty and misery accompanied by a pious
monk. The nest is thrown into the Rhine and disappears for ever, and
the merchant prepares to spend the remainder of his life in prayer and
penitence.
The connection of the fifth work, the "Everlasting Almanack," with
Simplicissimus is nominal only. It appeared in 1670, and is a perfect
specimen of what may be called the best class of chapbooks of that day.
It is the Whitaker's Almanack of the period. Each day has its special
saints given: there are rules of good husbandry and weather
prognostics; recipes for the house, the kitchen, and the farmyard;
together with matters adapted for the higher class of readers, such as
brief scientific notices, fragments of historical interest, narratives
of marvellous occurrences, and, of course, in the spirit of the time, a
mass of particulars as to astrology and the casting of horoscopes.
Ingenious as it all is, and not without interest from the sociological
point of view the book reminds us of Simplicissimus only by its
connection with that side of his character which we would willingly
forget, but for which Grimmelshausen seems to have cherished an
unreasoning admiration, and on which he insisted more and more in his
successive works--namely his qualities as a quack and mountebank.
As already pointed out, the interest of the central romance of
"Simplicissimus" is less literary than historic, whereas German critics
in their estimate of its value have considered the first aspect only,
and their opinions are consequently little worth recording. Gervinus
for example, looking at the book from a purely artistic point of view,
finds it wanting. Other critics have followed him blindly and with a
considerable amount of underlying ignorance to boot. The accurate
Dahlmann, for example, though he reckons the romance among his
"historical sources," speaks of it as published at Möpelgard in 1669 in
six "volumes." Plainly he had never seen a copy, but had heard of the
six books (five and the "Continuation") and mistook them for volumes.
Tittmann, one of the latest editors of the work, sums up its chief
merits when he says: "Simplicissimus and the Simplician writings are
almost our only substitute, and that a poor one, for the contemporary
memoirs in which our western neighbours are so rich."
The bibliography of the book is for our purpose not important. For a
year or two editions seem to have succeeded each other with such
rapidity that it is difficult to distinguish between them; but the only
additional value which those printed later than 1670 possess is the
questionable one of including the three worthless little sequels above
referred to. Of modern editions the best, perhaps, is that of Tittmann
(Leipzig, 1877), which has been principally used for this translation.
The annotations, however, leave much to be desired; many difficulties
are left unexplained, and there are some positive mistakes, of which a
single instance may suffice. In book v., chapter 4, we find the
expression "in prima plana," which is a sufficiently well-known
military phrase of the time and means "on the first page" (of the
muster-roll), which contained the names of the officers of a company
written separately from those of the rank and file. It is explained by
Tittmann to mean "at the first estimate," and succeeding editors have
copied this, adding as a possible alternative "in the first
engagement," or "at the first start". The editions for school and
family reading which are current in Germany are, as a rule, so
expurgated as to deprive the book of much of its interest. In this
translation it has been found necessary to omit a single episode only,
which is as childishly filthy as it is utterly uninteresting.
A. T. S. G.
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 the tools for it. 'Tis
true, moreover, without jesting, that my birth and upbringing can be
well 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 Spessart) 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 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 had his wall round his castle built, not of stone, which men do find
upon the road or 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 match. 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 or
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 nobility. Instead of pages,
lackeys, and 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; for hoeing and
digging he made his military discipline, as did the old Romans in time
of peace. The yoking of oxen was his generalship, the piling of dung
his fortification, tilling of the land his campaigning, and the
cleaning out of 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 newfangled 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 for 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 had 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 was I 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 or devil, nor could discern
between good and evil. So may it 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. Yea, I was so perfected
in ignorance that I knew not that I knew nothing. So say I 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 and 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, that 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 to David (save that he in place of the
bagpipe had but a harp), which was no bad beginning for me, but a good
omen that 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 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 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 as among God's chosen folk.
So among the Romans were noble families that without 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 the 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, a 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 A 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 the 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 make my defence against the wolf stronger; 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 all 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 cuirassiers 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 mobile," 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 my 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 my 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 bent 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
his 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 our 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 witches: 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 must
out with in 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 they 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 any 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
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 thou 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, and 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 post-haste 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.
_Chap. vi._: IS SO SHORT AND SO PRAYERFUL THAT SIMPLICISSIMUS THEREUPON
SWOONS AWAY
But hardly had I composed myself to sleep when I heard a voice that
cried aloud, "O wondrous love towards us thankless mortals! O mine only
comfort, my hope, my riches, my God!" and more of the same sort, all of
which I could not hear or understand. Yet these were surely words which
should rightly have cheered, comforted, and delighted every Christian
soul that should find itself in such a plight as did I. But O
simplicity! O ignorance! 'Twas all gibberish[1] to me, and all in an
unknown tongue out of which I could make nothing: yea, was rather
terrified by its strangeness. Yet when I heard how the hunger and
thirst of him that spake should be satisfied, my unbearable hunger did
counsel me to join myself to him as a guest. So I plucked up heart to
come out of my hollow tree and to draw nigh to the voice I had heard,
where I was ware of a tall man with long greyish hair which fell in
confusion over his shoulders: a tangled beard he had shapen like to a
Swiss cheese; his face yellow and thin yet kindly enough, and his long
gown made up of more than a thousand pieces of cloth of all sorts sewn
together one upon another. Round his neck and body he had wound a heavy
iron chain like St. William,[2] and in other ways seemed in mine eyes
so grisly and terrible that I began to shake like a wet dog. But what
made my fear greater was that he did hug to his breast a crucifix some
six spans long. So I could fancy nought else but that this old grey man
must be the Wolf of whom my dad had of late told me: and in my fear I
whipped out my bagpipe, which, as mine only treasure, I had saved from
the troopers, and blowing up the sack, tuned up and made a mighty noise
to drive away that same grisly wolf: at which sudden and unaccustomed
music in that lonely place the hermit was at first no little dismayed,
deeming, without doubt, 'twas a devil come to terrify him and so
disturb his prayers, as happened to the great St. Anthony. But
presently recovering himself, he mocked at me as his tempter in the
hollow tree, whither I had retired myself: nay, plucked up such heart
that he advanced upon me to defy the enemy of mankind.
"Aha!" says he, "thou art a proper fellow enough, to tempt saints
without God's leave": and more than that I heard not: for his approach
caused in me such fear and trembling that I lost my senses and fell
forthwith into a swoon.
_Chap. vii._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS IN A POOR LODGING KINDLY ENTREATED
After what manner I was helped to myself again I know not; only this,
that the old man had my head on his breast and my jacket open in front,
when I came to my senses. But when I saw the hermit so close to me I
raised such a hideous outcry as if he would have torn the heart out of
my body. Then said he, "My son, hold thy peace: be content: I do thee
no harm." Yet the more he comforted me and soothed me the more I cried,
"Oh, thou eatest me! Oh! thou eatest me: thou art the wolf and wilt eat
me." "Nay, nay," said he, "my son, be at peace: I eat thee not."
This contention lasted long, till at length I let myself so far be
persuaded as to go into his hut with him, wherein was poverty the
housekeeper, hunger the cook, and want clerk of the kitchen: there was
my belly cheered with herbs and a draught of water, and my mind, which
was altogether distraught, again brought to right reason by the old
man's comfortable kindness. Thereafter then I easily allowed myself to
be enticed by the charm of sweet slumber to pay my debt to nature. Now
when the hermit perceived my need of sleep he left me to occupy my
place in his hut alone: for one only could lie therein. So about
midnight I awoke again and heard him sing the song which followeth
here, which I afterwards did learn by heart.
"Come, joy of night, O nightingale:
Take up, take up thy cheerful tale;
Sing sweet and loud and long.
Come praise thine own Creator blest,
When other birds are gone to rest,
And now have hushed their song.
(Chorus) "With thy voice loud rejoice;
For so thou best canst shew thy love
To God who reigns in heaven above.
"For though the light of day be flown,
And we in darkness dwell alone,
Yet can we chant and sing
Of God his power and God his might:
Nor darkness hinders us nor night
Our praises so to bring.
Echo the wanderer makes reply
And when thou singst will still be by
And still repeat thy strain.
All weariness she drives afar
And sloth to which we prisoners are,
And mocks at slumber's chain.
The stars that stand in heaven above,
Do shew to God their praise and love
And honour to Him bring;
And owls by nature reft of song
Yet shew with cries the whole night long
Their love to God the king.
Come hither then, sweet bird of night,
For we will share no sluggard's plight
Nor sleep away the hours;
But, till the rosy break of day
Chase from these woods the night away,
God's praise shall still be ours."
Now while this song did last it seemed to me as if nightingale, owl,
and echo had of a truth joined therein, and had I ever heard the
morning star or had been able to play its melody on my bagpipe, I had
surely run out of the hut to take my trick also, so sweet did this
harmony seem to me: yet I fell asleep again and woke not till day was
far advanced, when the hermit stood before me and said, "Up, child, I
will give thee to eat and thereafter shew thee the way through the
wood, so that thou comest to where people dwell, and also before night
to the nearest village."
So I asked him, what be these things, "people" and "village"?
"What," says he, "hast never been in any village and knowest not what
people or folks be?"
"Nay," said I, "nowhere save here have I been: yet tell me what be
these things, folk and people and village."
"God save us," answered the hermit, "art thou demented or very
cunning?"
"Nay," said I, "I am my mammy's and dad's boy, and neither Master
Demented nor Master Cunning."
Then the hermit shewed his amazement with sighs and crossing of
himself, and says he, "'Tis well, dear child, I am determined if God
will better to instruct thee."
So then our questions and answers fell out as the ensuing chapter
sheweth.
_Chap. viii._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS BY HIS NOBLE DISCOURSE PROCLAIMED HIS
EXCELLENT QUALITIES
Hermit. What is thy name?
Simplicissimus. My name is "Lad."
H. I can see well enough that thou art no girl: but how did thy father
and mother call thee?
S. I never had either father or mother.
H. Who gave thee then thy shirt?
S. Oho! Why, my mammy.
H. What did thy mother call thee?
S. She called me "Lad," ay, and "rogue, silly gaby, and gallowsbird."
H. Who, then, was thy mammy's husband?
S. No one.
H. With whom, then, did thy mammy sleep at night?
S. With my dad.
H. What did thy dad call thee?
S. He called me "Lad."
H. What was his name?
S. His name was Dad.
H. What did thy mammy call him?
S. Dad, and sometimes also "Master."
H. Did she never call him aught besides?
S. Yea, that did she.
H. And what then?
S. "Beast," "coarse brute," "drunken pig," and other the like, when she
would scold him.
H. Thou beest but an ignorant creature, that knowest not thy parents'
name nor thine own.
S. Oho! neither dost thou know it.
H. Canst thou say thy prayers?
S. Nay, my mammy and our Ursel did uprear the beds.
H. I ask thee not that, but whether thou knowest thy Paternoster?
S. That do I.
H. Say it then.
S. Our father which art heaven, hallowed be name, to thy kingdom come,
thy will come down on earth as it says heaven, give us debts as we give
our debtors: lead us not into no temptation, but deliver us from the
kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
H. God help us! Knowest thou naught of our Blessed Lord God?
S. Yea, yea: 'tis he that stood by our chamber-door; my mammy brought
him home from the church feast and stuck him up there.
H. O Gracious God, now for the first time do I perceive what a great
favour and benefit it is when Thou impartest knowledge of Thyself, and
how naught a man is to whom Thou givest it not! O Lord, vouchsafe to me
so to honour Thy holy name that I be worthy to be as zealous in my
thanks for this great grace as Thou hast been liberal in the granting
of it. Hark now, Simplicissimus (for I can call thee by no other name),
when thou sayest thy Paternoster, thou must say this: "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 ..."
S. Oho there! ask for cheese too!
H. Ah, dear child, keep silence and learn that thou needest more than
cheese: thou art indeed loutish, as thy mammy told thee: 'tis not the
part of lads like thee to interrupt an old man, but to be silent, to
listen, and to learn. Did I but know where thy parents dwelt, I would
fain bring thee to them, and then teach them how to bring up children.
S. I know not whither to go. Our house is burnt, and my mammy ran off
and was fetched back with our Ursula, and my dad too, and our maid was
sick and lying in the stable.
H. And who did burn the house?
S. Aha! there came iron men that sat on things as big as oxen, yet
having no horns: which same men did slaughter sheep and cows and swine,
and so I ran too, and then was the house burnt.
H. Where was thy dad then?
S. Aha! the iron men tied him up and our old goat was set to lick his
feet. So he must needs laugh, and give the iron men many silver
pennies, big and little, and fair yellow things and some that
glittered, and fine strings full of little white balls.
H. And when did this come to pass?
S. Why, even when I should have been keeping of sheep: yea, and they
would even take from me my bagpipe.
H. But when was it that thou shouldst have been keeping sheep?
S. What, canst thou not hear? Even then when the iron men came: and
then our Anna bade me run away, or the soldiers would carry me off: and
by that she meant the iron men: so I ran off and so I came hither.
H. And whither wilt thou now?
S. Truly I know not: I will stay here with thee.
H. Nay, to keep thee here is not to the purpose, either for me or thee.
Eat now; and presently I will bring thee where people are.
S. Oho! tell me now what manner of things be "people."
H. People be mankind like me and thee: thy dad, thy mammy, and your Ann
be mankind, and when there be many together then are they called
people: and now go thou and eat.
So was our discourse, in which the hermit often gazed on me with
deepest sighs: I know not whether 'twas so because he had great
compassion on my simplicity and ignorance, or from that cause, which I
learned not until some years later.
_Chap. ix._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS CHANGED FROM A WILD BEAST INTO A
CHRISTIAN
So I began to eat and ceased to prattle; all which lasted no longer
than till I had appeased mine hunger: for then the good hermit bade me
begone. Then must I seek out the most flattering words which my rough
country upbringing afforded me, and all to this end, to move the hermit
that he should keep me with him. Now though of a certainty it must have
vexed him greatly to endure my troublesome presence, yet did he resolve
to suffer me to be with him; and that more to instruct me in the
Christian religion, than because he would have my service in his
approaching old age: yet was this his greatest anxiety, lest my tender
youth should not endure for long such a hard way of living as was his.
A space of some three weeks was my year of probation: in which three
weeks St. Gertrude[3] was at war with the gardeners: so was it my lot
to be inducted into the profession of these last: and therein I carried
myself so well that the good hermit took an especial pleasure in me,
and that not so much for my work's sake (whereunto I was before well
trained) but because he saw that I myself was as ready greedily to
hearken to his instructions as the waxen, soft, and yet smooth tablet
of my mind shewed itself ready to receive such. For such reasons he was
the more zealous to bring me to the knowledge of all good things. So he
began his instruction from the fall of Lucifer: thence came he to the
Garden of Eden, and when we were thrust out thence with our first
parents, he passed through the law of Moses and taught me, by the means
of the ten commandments and their explications--of which commandments
he would say that they were a true measure to know the will of God, and
thereby to lead a life holy and well pleasing to God--to discern virtue
from vice, to do the good and to avoid the evil. At the end of all he
came to the Gospel and told me of Christ's Birth, Sufferings, Death,
and Resurrection: and then concluded all with the Judgment Day, and so
set Heaven and hell before my eyes: and this all with befitting
circumstance, yet not with superfluity of words, but as it seemed to
him I could best comprehend and understand. So when he had ended one
matter he began another, and therewithal contrived with all patience so
to shape himself to answer my questions, and so to deal with me, that
better he could not have shed the light of truth into my heart. Yet
were his life and his speech for me an everlasting preaching: and this
my mind, all wooden and dull as it was, yet by God's grace left not
fruitless. So that in three weeks did I not only understand all that a
Christian should know, but was possessed with such love for this
teaching that I could not sleep at night for thinking thereon.
I have since pondered much upon this matter and have found that
Aristotle, in his second book "Of the Soul," did put it well, whereas
he compared the soul of a man to a blank unwritten tablet, whereon one
could write what he would, and concluded that all such was decreed by
the Creator of the world, in order that such blank tablets might by
industrious impression and exercise be marked, and so be brought to
completeness and perfection. And so saith also his commentator Averroes
(upon that passage where the Philosopher saith that the Intellect is
but a possibility which can be brought into activity by naught else
than by Scientia or Knowledge: which is to say that man's understanding
is capable of all things, yet can be brought to such knowledge only by
constant exercise), and giveth this plain decision: namely, that this
knowledge or exercise is the perfecting of souls which have no power at
all in them selves. And this doth Cicero confirm in his second book of
the "Tusculan Disputations," when he compares the soul of a man without
instruction, knowledge, and exercise, to a field which, albeit fruitful
by nature, yet if no man till it or sow it will bring forth no fruit.
And all this did I prove by my own single example: for that I so soon
understood all that the pious hermit shewed to me arose from this
cause: that he found the smooth tablet of my soul quite empty and
without any imaginings before entered thereupon, which might well have
hindered the impress of others thereafter. Yet in spite of all, that
pure simplicity (in comparison with other men's ways) hath ever clung
to me: and therefore did the hermit (for neither he nor I knew my right
name) ever call me Simplicissimus. Withal I learned to pray, and when
the good hermit had resolved himself to satisfy my earnest desire to
abide with him, we built for me a hut like to his own, of wood, twigs
and earth, shaped well nigh as the musqueteer shapes his tent in camp
or, to speak more exactly, as the peasant in some places shapes his
turnip-hod, so low, in truth, that I could hardly sit upright therein;
my bed was of dried leaves and grass, and just so large as the hut
itself, so that I know not whether to call such a dwelling-place or
hole, a covered bedstead or a hut.
_Chap. x._: IN WHAT MANNER HE LEARNED TO READ AND WRITE IN THE WILD
WOODS
Now when first I saw the hermit read the Bible, I could not conceive
with whom he should speak so secretly and, as I thought, so earnestly;
for well I saw the moving of his lips, yet no man that spake with him:
and though I knew naught of reading or writing, nevertheless I marked
by his eyes that he had to do with somewhat in the said book. So I
marked where he kept it, and when he had laid it aside I crept thither
and opened it, and at the first assay lit upon the first chapter of Job
and the picture that stood at the head thereof, which was a fine
woodcut and fairly painted: so I began to ask strange questions of the
figures, and when they gave me no answer waxed impatient, and even as
the hermit came up behind me, "Ye little clowns," said I, "have ye no
mouths any longer? Could ye not even now prate away long enough with my
father (for so must I call my hermit)? I see well enough that ye are
driving away the gaffer's sheep and burning of his house: wait awhile
and I will quench your fire for ye," and with that rose up to fetch
water, for there seemed to me present need of it. Then said the hermit,
who I knew not was behind me: "Whither away, Simplicissimus?" "O
father," says I, "here be more soldiers that will drive off sheep: they
do take them from that poor man with whom thou didst talk: and here is
his house a-burning, and if I quench it not 'twill be consumed": and
with that I pointed with my finger to what I saw. "But stay," quoth the
hermit, "for these figures be not alive;" to which I, with rustic
courtesy, answered him: "What, beest thou blind? Do thou keep watch
lest that they drive the sheep away while I do seek for water." "Nay,"
quoth he again, "but they be not alive; they be made only to call up
before our eyes things that happened long ago." "How;" said I, "thou
didst even now talk with them: how then can they be not alive?" At that
the hermit must, against his will and contrary to his habit, laugh: and
"Dear child," says he, "these figures cannot talk: but what they do and
what they are, that can I see from these black lines, and that do men
call reading. And when I thus do read, thou conceivest that I speak
with the figures: but 'tis not so."
Yet I answered him: "If I be a man as thou art, so must I likewise be
able to see in these black lines what thou canst see: how then may I
understand thy words? Dear father, teach me in truth how to understand
this matter."
So said he: "'Tis well, my son, and I will teach thee so that thou
mayest speak with these figures as well as I: only 'twill need time, in
which I must have patience and thou industry."
With that he wrote me down an alphabet on birchbark, formed like print,
and when I knew the letters, I learned to spell, and thereafter to
read, and at last to write better than could the hermit himself; for I
imitated print in everything.
_Chap. xi._: DISCOURSETH OF FOODS, HOUSEHOLD STUFF, AND OTHER NECESSARY
CONCERNS, WHICH FOLK MUST HAVE IN THIS EARTHLY LIFE
In that wood did I abide for about two years, until the hermit died,
and after his death somewhat longer than a half-year. And therefore it
seemeth me good to tell to the curious reader, who often desireth to
know even the smallest matters, of our doings, our ways and works, and
how we spent our life.
Now our food was vegetables of all kinds, turnips, cabbage, beans,
pease, and the like: nor did we despise beech-nuts, wild apples, pears,
and cherries: yea, and our hunger often made even acorns savoury to us;
our bread or, to say more truly, our cakes, we baked on hot ashes, and
they were made of Italian rye beaten fine. In winter we would catch
birds with springes and snares; but in spring and summer God bestowed
upon us young fledglings from their nest. Often must we make out with
snails and frogs: and so was fishing, both with net and line,
convenient to us: for close to our dwelling there flowed a brook, full
of fish and crayfish, all which did help to make our rough vegetable
diet palatable. Once on a time did we catch a young wild pig, and this
we penned in a stall, and did feed him with acorns and beech-nuts, so
fatted him and at last did eat him; for my hermit knew it could be no
sin to eat that which God hath created to such end for the whole human
race.
Of salt we needed but little and spices not at all: for we might not
arouse our desire to drink, seeing that we had no cellar: what little
salt we wanted a good pastor furnished us who dwelt some fifteen miles
away from us, and of whom I shall yet have much to tell.
Now as concerns our household stuff, we had enough: for we had a
shovel, a pick, an axe, a hatchet, and an iron pot for cooking, which
was indeed not our own, but lent to us by the said pastor: each of us
had an old blunt knife, which same were our own possessions, and no
more: more than that needed we naught, neither dishes, plates,
spoons, nor forks: neither kettles, frying-pans, gridirons, spits,
salt-cellars, no, nor any other table and kitchen ware: for our iron
pot was our dish, our hands our forks and spoons: and if we would
drink, we could do so through a pipe from the spring or else we dipped
our mouths like Gideon's soldiers. Then for garments: of wool, of silk,
of cotton, and of linen, as for beds, table-covers, and tapestries, we
had none save what we wore upon our bodies: for we deemed it enough if
we could shield ourselves from rain and frost. At other times we kept
no rule or order in our household, save on Sundays and holy-days, at
which time we would start on our way at midnight, so that we might come
early enough to escape men's notice, to the said pastor's church, which
was a little away from the village, and there might attend service.
When we came thither we betook ourselves to the broken organ, from
which place we could see both altar and pulpit: and when I first saw
the pastor go up to the pulpit I asked my hermit what he would do in
that great tub! So, service finished, we went home as secretly as we
had come, and when we found ourselves once more at home, with weary
body and weary feet, then did we eat foul food with fair appetite: then
would the hermit spend the rest of the day in praying and in the
instructing of me in holy things.
On working days we would do that which seemed most necessary to do,
according as it happened, and as such was required by the time of year
and by our needs: now would we work in the garden: another time we
gathered together the rich mould in shady places and out of hollow
trees to improve our garden therewith in place of dung; again we would
weave baskets or fishing-nets or chop firewood, or go a-fishing, or do
aught to banish idleness. Yet among all these occupations did the good
hermit never cease to instruct me faithfully in all good things: and
meanwhile did I learn, in such a hard life, to endure hunger, thirst,
heat, cold, and great labour, and before all things to know God and how
one should serve Him best, which was the chiefest thing of all. And
indeed my faithful hermit would have me know no more, for he held it
was enough for any Christian to attain his end and aim, if he did but
constantly pray and work: so it came about that, though I was pretty
well instructed in ghostly matters, and knew my Christian belief well
enough, and could speak the German language as well as a talking
spelling-book, yet I remained the most simple lad in the world: so that
when I left the wood I was such a poor, sorry creature that no dog
would have left his bone to run after me.
_Chap. xii._: TELLS OF A NOTABLE FINE WAY, TO DIE HAPPY AND TO HAVE
ONESELF BURIED AT SMALL COST
So had I spent two years or thereabouts, and had scarce grown
accustomed to the hard life of a hermit, when one day my best friend on
earth took his pick, gave me the shovel, and led me by the hand,
according to his daily custom, to our garden, where we were wont to say
our prayers.
"Now Simplicissimus, dear child," said he, "inasmuch as, God be
praised, the time is at hand when I must part from this earth and must
pay the debt of nature, and leave thee behind me in this world, and
whereas I do partly foresee the future course of thy life and do know
well that thou wilt not long abide in this wilderness, therefore did I
desire to strengthen thee in the way of virtue which thou hast entered
on, and to give thee some lessons for thy instruction by means of which
thou shouldest so rule thy life that, as though by an unfailing clue,
thou mightest find thy way to eternal happiness, and so with all elect
saints mightest be found worthy for ever to behold the face of God in
that other life."
These words did drown mine eyes in tears, even as once the enemy's
device did drown the town of Villingen; in a word, they were so
terrible that I could not endure them, but said: "Beloved father, wilt
thou then leave me alone in this wild wood? Must I then ...?" And more
I could not say, for my heart's sorrow was, by reason of the
overflowing love which I bore to my true father, so grievous that I
sank at his feet as if I were dead. Yet did he raise me up and comfort
me so far as time and opportunity did allow, and would shew me mine own
error, in that he asked, would I rebel against the decree of the
Almighty? "and knowest thou not," says he, "that neither heaven nor
hell can do that? Nay, nay, my son! Why dost thou propose further to
burden my weak body, which of itself is but desirous of rest? Thinkest
thou to force me to sojourn longer in this vale of tears? Ah no, my
son, let me go, for in any case neither with lamentation and tears, nor
still less with my good will, canst thou compel me to dwell longer in
this misery when I am by God's express will called away therefrom:
instead of all this useless clamour, follow thou my last words, which
are these: the longer thou livest seek to know thyself the better, and
if thou live as long as Methuselah, yet let not such practice depart
from thy heart: for that most men do come to perdition this is the
cause--namely, that they know not what they have been and what they can
or must be." And further he exhorted me, I should at all times beware
of bad company: for the harm of that was unspeakable. Of that he gave
me an example, saying: "If thou puttest a drop of malmsey into a vessel
full of vinegar, forthwith it turns to vinegar: but if thou pour a drop
of vinegar into malmsey, that drop will disappear into the wine.
Beloved son, before all things be steadfast: for whoso endureth to the
end he shall be saved; but if it happen, contrary to my hopes, that
thou from human weakness dost fall, then by a fitting penitence raise
thyself up again."
Now this careful and pious man gave me but this brief counsel, not
because he knew no more, but because in sober truth I seemed to him, by
reason of my youth, not able to comprehend more in such a case, and
again, because few words be better to hold in remembrance than long
discourse, and if they have pith and point do work greater good when
they be pondered on than any long sermon, which a man may well
understand as spoken and yet is wont presently to forget. And these
three points: to know oneself: to avoid bad company: and to stand
steadfast; this holy man, without doubt, deemed good and necessary
because he had made trial of them in his own case and had not found
them to fail: for, coming to know himself, he eschewed not only bad
company but that of the whole world, and in that plan did persevere to
the end, on which doubtless all salvation doth depend.
So when he had thus spoken, he began with his mattock to dig his own
grave: and I helped as best I could in whatever way he bade me; yet did
I not conceive to what end all this was. Then said he: "My dear and
only true son (for besides thee I never begat creature for the honour
of our Creator), when my soul is gone to its own place, then do thy
duty to my body, and pay me the last honours: cover me up with these
same clods which we have even now dug from this pit." And thereupon he
took me in his arms and, kissing me, pressed me harder to his breast
than would seem possible for a man so weak as he appeared to be. And,
"Dear child," says he, "I commend thee to God his protection, and die
the more cheerfully because I hope He will receive thee therein." Yet
could I do naught but lament and cry, yea, did hang upon the chains
which he wore on his neck, and thought thereby to prevent him from
leaving me. But "My son," says he, "let me go, that I may see if the
grave be long enough for me." And therewith he laid aside the chains
together with his outer garment, and so entered the pit even as one
that will lie down to sleep, saying, "Almighty God, receive again the
soul that Thou hast given: Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
Thereupon did he calmly close his lips and his eyes: while I stood
there like a stockfish, and dreamt not that his dear soul could so have
left the body: for often I had seen him in such trances: and so now, as
was my wont in such a case, I waited there for hours praying by the
grave. But when my beloved hermit arose not again, I went down into the
grave to him and began to shake, to kiss, and to caress him: but there
was no life in him, for grim and pitiless death had robbed the poor
Simplicissimus of his holy companionship. Then did I bedew or, to say
better, did embalm with my tears his lifeless body, and when I had for
a long time run up and down with miserable cries, began to heap earth
upon him, with more sighs than shovelfuls: and hardly had I covered his
face when I must go down again and uncover it afresh that I might see
it and kiss it once more. And so I went on all day till I had finished,
and in this way ended all the funeral; an "exequiae" and "ludi
gladiatorii" wherein neither bier, coffin, pall, lights, bearers, nor
mourners were at hand, nor any clergy to sing over the dead.
_Chap. xiii._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS DRIVEN ABOUT LIKE A STRAW IN A
WHIRLPOOL
Now a few days after the hermit's decease I betook myself to the pastor
above mentioned and declared to him my master's death, and therewith
besought counsel from him how I should act in such a case. And though
he much dissuaded me from living longer in the forest, yet did I boldly
tread on in my predecessor's footsteps, inasmuch as for the whole
summer I did all that a holy monk should do. But as time changeth all
things, so by degrees the grief which I felt for my hermit grew less
and less, and the sharp cold of winter without quenched the heat of my
steadfast purpose within. And the more I began to falter the lazier did
I become in my prayers, for in place of dwelling ever upon godly and
heavenly thoughts, I let myself be overcome by the desire to see the
world: and inasmuch as for this purpose I could do no good in my
forest, I determined to go again to the said pastor and ask if he again
would counsel me to leave the wood. To that end I betook myself to his
village, which when I came thither I found in flames: for a party of
troopers had but now plundered and burned it, and of the peasants
killed some, driven some away, and some had made prisoners, among whom
was the pastor himself. Ah God, how full is man's life of care and
disappointment! Scarce hath one misfortune ended and lo! we are in
another. I wonder not that the heathen philosopher Timon set up many
gallows at Athens, whereon men might string themselves up, and so with
brief pain make an end to their wretched life. These troopers were even
now ready to march, and had the pastor fastened by a rope to lead him
away. Some cried, "Shoot him down, the rogue!" Others would have money
from him. But he, lifting up his hands to heaven, begged, for the sake
of the Last Judgment, for forbearance and Christian compassion, but in
vain; for one of them rode him down and dealt him such a blow on the
head that he fell flat, and commended his soul to God. Nor did the
remainder of the captured peasants fare any better. But even when it
seemed these troopers, in their cruel tyranny, had clean lost their
wits, came such a swarm of armed peasants out of the wood, that it
seemed a wasps'-nest had been stirred. And these began to yell so
frightfully and so furiously to attack with sword and musket that all
my hair stood on end; and never had I been at such a merrymaking
before: for the peasants of the Spessart and the Vogelsberg are as
little wont as are the Hessians and men of the Sauerland and the Black
Forest to let themselves be crowed over on their own dunghill. So away
went the troopers, and not only left behind the cattle they had
captured, but threw away bag and baggage also, and so cast all their
booty to the winds lest themselves should become booty for the
peasants: yet some of them fell into their hands. This sport took from
me well-nigh all desire to see the world, for I thought, if 'tis all
like this, then is the wilderness far more pleasant. Yet would I fain
hear what the pastor had to say of it, who was, by reason of wounds and
blows received, faint, weak, and feeble. Yet he made shift to tell me
he knew not how to help or advise me, since he himself was now in a
plight in which he might well have to seek his bread by begging, and if
I should remain longer in the woods, I could hope no more for help from
him; since, as I saw with my own eyes, both his church and his
parsonage were in flames. Thereupon I betook myself sorrowfully to my
dwelling in the wood, and because on this journey I had been but little
comforted, yet on the other hand had become more full of pious
thoughts, therefore I resolved never more to leave the wilderness: and
already I pondered whether it were not possible for me to live without
salt (which the pastor had until now furnished me with) and so do
without mankind altogether.
_Chap. xiv._: A QUAINT COMEDIA OF FIVE PEASANTS
So now that I might follow up my design and become a true anchorite, I
put on my hermit's hair-shirt which he had left me and girded me with
his chain over it: not indeed as if I needed it to mortify my unruly
flesh, but that I might be like to my fore-runner both in life and in
habit, and moreover might by such clothes be the better able to protect
myself against the rough cold of winter. But the second day after the
above-mentioned village had been plundered and burnt, as I was sitting
in my hut and praying, at the same time roasting carrots for my food
over the fire, there surrounded me forty or fifty musqueteers: and
these, though amazed at the strangeness of my person, yet ransacked my
hut, seeking what was not there to find: for nothing had I but books,
and these they threw this way and that as useless to them. But at last,
when they regarded me more closely and saw by my feathers what a poor
bird they had caught, they could easily reckon there was poor booty to
be found where I was. And much they wondered at my hard way of life,
and shewed great pity for my tender youth, specially their officer that
commanded them: for he shewed me respect, and earnestly besought me
that I would shew him and his men the way out of the wood wherein they
had long been wandering. Nor did I refuse, but led them the nearest way
to the village, even where the before-mentioned pastor had been so ill
handled; for I knew no other road.
Now before we were out of the wood, we espied some ten peasants, of
whom part were armed with musquets, while the rest were busied with
burying something. So our musqueteers ran upon them, crying, "Stay!
stay!" But they answered with a discharge of shot, and when they saw
they were outnumbered by the soldiers, away they went so quick that
none of the musqueteers, being weary, could overtake them. So then they
would dig up again what the peasants had been burying: and that was the
easier because they had left the mattocks and spades which they used
lying there. But they had made few strokes with the pick when they
heard a voice from below crying out, "O ye wanton rogues, O ye worst of
villains, think ye that Heaven will leave your heathenish cruelty and
tricks unpunished? Nay, for there live yet honest fellows by whom your
barbarity shall be paid in such wise that none of your fellow men shall
think you worth even a kick of his foot." So the soldiers looked on one
another in amazement, and knew not what to do. For some thought they
had to deal with a ghost: to me it seemed I was dreaming: but the
officer bade them dig on stoutly. And presently they came to a cask,
which they burst open, and therein found a fellow that had neither nose
nor ears, and yet still lived. He, when he was somewhat revived, and
had recognised some of the troop, told them how on the day before, as
some of his regiment were a-foraging, the peasants had caught six of
them. And of these they first of all, about an hour before, had shot
five dead at once, making them stand one behind another; and because
the bullet, having already passed through five bodies, did not reach
him, who stood sixth and last, they had cut off his nose and ears, yet
before that had forced him to render to five of them the filthiest
service in the world.[4] But when he saw himself thus degraded by these
rogues without shame or knowledge of God, he had heaped upon them the
vilest reproaches, though they were willing now to let him go. Yet in
the hope one of them would from annoyance send a ball through his head,
he called them all by their right names: yet in vain. Only this, that
when he had thus chafed them they had clapped him in the cask here
present and buried him alive, saying, since he so desired death they
would not cheat him of his amusement.
Now while the fellow thus lamented the torments he had endured, came
another party of foot-soldiers by a cross road through the wood, who
had met the abovementioned boors, caught five and shot the rest dead:
and among the prisoners were four to whom that maltreated trooper had
been forced to do that filthy service a little before. So now, when
both parties had found by their manner of hailing one another that they
were of the same army, they joined forces, and again must hear from the
trooper himself how it had fared with him and his comrades. And there
might any man tremble and quake to see how these same peasants were
handled: for some in their first fury would say, "Shoot them down," but
others said, "Nay: these wanton villains must we first properly
torment: yea, and make them to understand in their own bodies what they
have deserved as regards the person of this same trooper." And all the
time while this discussion proceeded these peasants received such
mighty blows in the ribs from the butts of their musquets that I
wondered they did not spit blood. But presently stood forth a soldier,
and said he: "You gentlemen, seeing that it is a shame to the whole
profession of arms that this rogue (and therewith he pointed to that
same unhappy trooper) have so shamefully submitted himself to the will
of five boors, it is surely our duty to wash out this spot of shame,
and compel these rogues to do the same shameful service for this
trooper which they forced him to do for them." But another said: "This
fellow is not worth having such honour done to him; for were he not a
poltroon surely he would not have done such shameful service, to the
shame of all honest soldiers, but would a thousand times sooner have
died." In a word, 'twas decided with one voice that each of the
captured peasants should do the same filthy service for ten soldiers
which their comrade had been forced to do, and each time should say,
"So do I cleanse and wash away the shame which these soldiers think
they have endured."
Thereafter they would decide how they should deal with the peasants
when they had fulfilled this cleanly task, So presently they went to
work; but the peasants were so obstinate that neither by promise of
their lives nor by any torture could they be compelled thereto. Then
one took the fifth peasant, who had not maltreated the trooper, a
little aside, and says he: "If thou wilt deny God and all His saints, I
will let thee go whither thou wilt." Thereupon the peasant made reply,
"he had in all his life taken little count of saints, and had had but
little traffic with God," and added thereto with a solemn oath, "he
knew not God and had no art nor part in His kingdom." So then the
soldier sent a ball at his head: which worked as little harm as if it
had been shot at a mountain of steel. Then he drew out his hanger and
"Beest thou still here?" says he. "I promised to let thee go whither
thou wouldst: see now, I send thee to the kingdom of hell, since thou
wilt not to heaven": and so he split his head down to the teeth. And as
he fell, "So," said the soldier, "must a man avenge himself and punish
these loose rogues both in this world and the next."
Meanwhile the other soldiers had the remaining four peasants to deal
with. These they bound, hands and feet together, over a fallen tree in
such wise that their back-sides (saving your presence) were uppermost.
Then they stript off their breeches, and took some yards of their
match-string and made knots in it, and fiddled them therewith so
mercilessly that the blood ran. So they cried out lamentably, but 'twas
but sport for the soldiers, who ceased not to saw away till skin and
flesh were clean sawn off the bones. Me they let go to my hut, for the
last-arrived party knew the way well. And so I know not how they
finished with the peasants.
_Chap. xv._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS PLUNDERED, AND HOW HE DREAMED OF
THE PEASANTS AND HOW THEY FARED IN TIMES OF WAR
Now when I came home I found that my fireplace and all my poor
furniture, together with my store of provisions, which I had grown
during the summer in my garden and had kept for the coming winter, were
all gone. "And whither now?" thought I. And then first did need teach
me heartily to pray: and I must summon all my small wits together, to
devise what I should do. But as my knowledge of the world was both
small and evil, I could come to no proper conclusion, only that 'twas
best to commend myself to God and to put my whole confidence in Him:
for otherwise I must perish. And besides all this those things which I
had heard and seen that day lay heavy on my mind: and I pondered not so
much upon my food and my sustenance as upon the enmity which there is
ever between soldiers and peasants. Yet could my foolish mind come to
no other conclusion than this--that there must of a surety be two races
of men in the world, and not one only, descended from Adam, but two,
wild and tame, like other unreasoning beasts, and therefore pursuing
one another so cruelly.
With such thoughts I fell asleep, for mere misery and cold, with a
hungry stomach. Then it seemed to me, as if in a dream, that all the
trees which stood round my dwelling suddenly changed and took on
another appearance: for on every tree-top sat a trooper, and the trunks
were garnished, in place of leaves, with all manner of folk. Of these,
some had long lances, others musquets, hangers, halberts, flags, and
some drums and fifes. Now this was merry to see, for all was neatly
distributed and each according to his rank. The roots, moreover, were
made up of folk of little worth, as mechanics and labourers, mostly,
however, peasants and the like; and these nevertheless gave its
strength to the tree and renewed the same when it was lost: yea more,
they repaired the loss of any fallen leaves from among themselves to
their own great damage: and all the time they lamented over them that
sat on the tree, and that with good reason, for the whole weight of the
tree lay upon them and pressed them so that all the money was squeezed
out of their pockets, yea, though it was behind seven locks and keys:
but if the money would not out, then did the commissaries so handle
them with rods (which thing they call military execution) that sighs
came from their heart, tears from their eyes, blood from their nails,
and the marrow from their bones. Yet among these were some whom men
call light o' heart; and these made but little ado, took all with a
shrug, and in the midst of their torment had, in place of comfort,
mockery for every turn.
_Chap. xvi._: OF THE WAYS AND WORKS OF SOLDIERS NOWADAYS, AND HOW
HARDLY A COMMON SOLDIER CAN GET PROMOTION
So must the roots of these trees suffer and endure toil and misery in
the midst of trouble and complaint, and those upon the lower boughs in
yet greater hardship: yet were these last mostly merrier than the first
named, yea and moreover, insolent and swaggering, and for the most part
godless folk, and for the roots a heavy unbearable burden at all times.
And this was the rhyme upon them:
"Hunger and thirst, and cold and heat, and work and woe,
and all we meet;
And deeds of blood and deeds of shame, all may ye put to
the landsknecht's name."
Which rhymes were the less like to be lyingly invented in that they
answered to the facts. For gluttony and drunkenness, hunger and thirst,
wenching and dicing and playing, riot and roaring, murdering and being
murdered, slaying and being slain, torturing and being tortured,
hunting and being hunted, harrying and being harried, robbing and being
robbed, frighting and being frighted, causing trouble and suffering
trouble, beating and being beaten: in a word, hurting and harming, and
in turn being hurt and harmed--this was their whole life. And in this
career they let nothing hinder them: neither winter nor summer, snow
nor ice, heat nor cold, rain nor wind, hill nor dale, wet nor dry;
ditches, mountain-passes, ramparts and walls, fire and water, were all
the same to them. Father nor mother, sister nor brother, no, nor the
danger to their own bodies, souls, and consciences, nor even loss of
life and of heaven itself, or aught else that can be named, will ever
stand in their way, for ever they toil and moil at their own strange
work, till at last, little by little, in battles, sieges, attacks,
campaigns, yea, and in their winter quarters too (which are the
soldiers' earthly paradise, if they can but happen upon fat peasants)
they perish, they die, they rot and consume away, save but a few, who
in their old age, unless they have been right thrifty reivers and
robbers, do furnish us with the best of all beggars and vagabonds.
Next above these hard-worked folk sat old henroost-robbers, who, after
some years and much peril of their lives, had climbed up the lowest
branches and clung to them, and so far had had the luck to escape
death. Now these looked more serious, and somewhat more dignified than
the lowest, in that they were a degree higher ascended: yet above them
were some yet higher, who had yet loftier imaginings because they had
to command the very lowest. And these people did call coat-beaters,
because they were wont to dust the jackets of the poor pikemen, and to
give the musqueteers oil enough to grease their barrels with.
Just above these the trunk of the tree had an interval or stop, which
was a smooth place without branches, greased with all manner of
ointments and curious soap of disfavour, so that no man save of noble
birth could scale it, in spite of courage and skill and knowledge, God
knows how clever he might be. For 'twas polished as smooth as a marble
pillar or a steel mirror. Just over that smooth spot sat they with the
flags: and of these some were young, some pretty well in years: the
young folk their kinsmen had raised so far: the older people had either
mounted on a silver ladder which is called the Bribery Backstairs or
else on a step which Fortune, for want of a better client, had left for
them. A little further up sat higher folk, and these had also their
toil and care and annoyance: yet had they this advantage, that they
could fill their pokes with the fattest slices which they could
cut out of the roots, and that with a knife which they called
"War-contribution." And these were at their best and happiest when
there came a commissary-bird flying overhead, and shook out a whole
panfull of gold over the tree to cheer them: for of that they caught as
much as they could, and let but little or nothing at all fall to the
lowest branches: and so of these last more died of hunger than of the
enemy's attacks, from which danger those placed above seemed to be
free. Therefore was there a perpetual climbing and swarming going on on
those trees; for each would needs sit in those highest and happiest
places: yet were there some idle, worthless rascals, not worth their
commissariat-bread, who troubled themselves little about higher places,
and only did their duty. So the lowest, being ambitious, hoped for the
fall of the highest, that they might sit in their place, and if it
happened to one among ten thousand of them that he got so far, yet
would such good luck come to him only in his miserable old age when he
was more fit to sit in the chimney-corner and roast apples than to meet
the foe in the field. And if any man dealt honestly and carried himself
well, yet was he ever envied by others, and perchance by reason of some
unlucky chance of war deprived both of office and of life. And nowhere
was this more grievous than at the before-mentioned smooth place on the
tree: for there an officer who had had a good sergeant or corporal
under him must lose him, however unwillingly, because he was now made
an ensign. And for that reason they would take, in place of old
soldiers, inkslingers, footmen, overgrown pages, poor noblemen, and at
times poor relations, tramps and vagabonds. And these took the very
bread out of the mouths of those that had deserved it, and forthwith
were made Ensigns.
_Chap. xvii._: HOW IT HAPPENS THAT, WHEREAS IN WAR THE NOBLES ARE EVER
PUT BEFORE THE COMMON MEN, YET MANY DO ATTAIN FROM DESPISED RANK TO
HIGH HONOURS