VINCENT: I have tarried somewhat the longer, uncle, partly because
I was loth to come over-soon, lest my soon-coming might have happed
to have made you wake too soon. But I tarried especially for the
reason that I was delayed by someone who showed me a letter, dated
at Constantinople, by which it appeareth that the great Turk
prepareth a marvellous mighty army. And yet whither he will go with
it, that can there yet no man tell. But I fear in good faith,
uncle, that his voyage shall be hither. Howbeit, he who wrote the
letter saith that it is secretly said in Constantinople that a
great part of his army shall be shipped and sent either into Naples
or into Sicily.
ANTHONY: It may fortune, cousin, that the letter of a Venetian,
dated at Constantinople, was devised at Venice. From thence come
there some letters--and sometimes from Rome, too, and sometimes
also from some other places--all stuffed full of such tidings that
the Turk is ready to do some great exploit. These tidings they blow
about for the furtherance of some such affairs as they have
themselves then in hand.
The Turk hath also so many men of arms in his retinue at his
continual charge that, lest they should lie still and do nothing,
but peradventure fall in devising of some novelties among
themselves, he is fain yearly to make some assembly and some
changing of them from one place unto another, and part some
asunder, that they wax not over-well acquainted by dwelling
over-long together. By these ways also, he maketh those that he
intendeth suddenly to invade indeed, to look the less for it, and
thereby to make the less preparation before. For they see him so
many times make a great visage of war when he intendeth it not, but
then, at one time or another, they suddenly feel it when they fear
it not.
Howbeit, cousin, it is of very truth full likely that into this
realm of Hungary he will not fail to come. For neither is there any
country throughout Christendom that lieth so convenient for him,
nor never was there any time till now in which he might so well and
surely win it. For now we call him in ourselves, God save us, as
Æsop telleth that the sheep took in the wolf among them to keep
them from the dogs.
VINCENT: Then are there, good uncle, all those tribulations very
like to fall upon us here, that I spoke of in the beginning of our
first communication here the other day.
ANTHONY: Very truth it is, cousin, that so there will of
likelihood in a while, but not forthwith all at first. For since he
cometh under the colour of aid for the one against the other, he
will somewhat see the proof before he fully show himself. But in
conclusion, if he be able to get it for that one, you shall see him
so handle it that he shall not fail to get it from him, and that
forthwith out of hand, ere ever he suffer him to settle himself
over-sure therein.
VINCENT: Yet say they, uncle, that he useth not to force any man
to forsake his faith.
ANTHONY: Not any man, cousin? They say more than they can make
good, those who tell you so. He maketh a solemn oath, among the
ceremonies of that feast in which he first taketh upon him his
authority, that he will diminish the faith of Christ, in all that
he possibly can, and dilate the faith of Mahomet. But yet hath he
not used to force every whole country at once to forsake their
faith. For of some countries hath he been content only to take a
tribute yearly and let them then live as they will. Out of some he
taketh the whole people away, dispersing them for slaves among many
sundry countries of his, very far from their own, without any
sufferance of regress. In some countries, so great and populous
that they cannot well be carried and conveyed thence, he destroyeth
the gentlefolk and giveth the lands partly to such as he bringeth
and partly to such as willingly will deny their faith, and keepeth
the others in such misery that they might as well (in a manner) be
dead at once. In rest he suffereth else no Christian man almost,
but those that resort as merchants or those that offer themselves
to serve him in his war.
But as for those Christian countries that he useth not only for
tributaries, as he doth Chios, Cyprus, or Crete, but reckoneth for
clear conquest and utterly taketh for his own, as Morea, Greece,
and Macedonia, and such others--and as I verily think he will
Hungary, if he get it--in all those he useth Christian people after
sundry fashions. He letteth them dwell there, indeed, because they
would be too many to carry all away, and too many to kill them all,
too, unless he should either leave the land dispeopled and desolate
or else, from some other countries of his own, should convey the
people thither (which would not be well done) to people that land
with. There, lo, those who will not be turned from their faith, of
which God--lauded be his holy name!--keepeth very many, he
suffereth to dwell still in peace. But yet is their peace for all
that not very peaceable. For he suffereth them to have no lands of
their own, honourable offices they bear none; with occasions of his
wars, he plucketh them unto the bare bones with taxes and tallages.
Their children he chooseth where he will in their youth, and taketh
them from their parents, conveying them whither he will, where
their friends never see them after, and abuseth them as he will.
Some young maidens he maketh harlots, some young men he bringeth up
in war, and some young children he causeth to be gelded--not their
stones cut out as the custom was of old, but their whole members
cut off by the body; how few escape and live he little careth, for
he will have enough! And all whom he so taketh young, to any use of
his own, are betaken unto such Turks or false renegades to keep,
that they are turned from the faith of Christ every one. Or else
they are so handled that, as for this world, they come to an evil
end. For, besides many other contumelies and despites that the
Turks and the false renegade Christians many times do to good
Christian people who still persevere and abide by the faith, they
find the means sometimes to make some false knaves say that they
heard such-and-such a Christian man speak opprobrious words against
Mahomet. And upon that point, falsely testified, they will take
occasion to compel him to forsake the faith of Christ and turn to
the profession of their shameful superstitious sect, or else will
they put him to death with cruel intolerable torments.
VINCENT: Our Lord, uncle, for his mighty mercy, keep those
wretches hence! For, by my troth, if they hap to come hither,
methinketh I see many more tokens than one that we shall have some
of our own folk here ready to fall in with them.
For as before a great storm the sea beginneth sometimes to work and
roar in itself, ere ever the winds wax boisterous, so methinketh I
hear at mine ear some of our own here among us, who within these
few years could no more have borne the name of Turk than the name
of devil, begin now to find little fault in them--yea, and some to
praise them little by little, as they can, more glad to find faults
at every state of Christendom: priests, princes, rites, ceremonies,
sacraments, laws, and customs spiritual, temporal, and all.
ANTHONY: In good faith, cousin, so begin we to fare here indeed,
and that but even now of late. For since the title of the crown
hath come in question, the good rule of this realm hath very sore
decayed, as little a while as it is. And undoubtedly Hungary shall
never do well as long as men's minds hearken after novelty and have
their hearts hanging upon a change. And much the worse I like it,
when their words walk so large toward the favour of the Turk's
sect, which they were ever wont to have in so great abomination, as
every true-minded Christian man--and Christian woman, too--must
have.
I am of such age as you see, and verily from as far as I can
remember, it hath been marked and often proved true, that when
children in Buda have fallen in a fancy by themselves to draw
together and in their playing make as it were corpses carried to
church, and sing after their childish fashion the tune of the
dirge, great death hath followed shortly thereafter. And twice or
thrice I can remember in my day when children in divers parts of
this realm have gathered themselves in sundry companies and made as
it were troops and battles. And after their battles in sport, in
which some children have yet taken great hurt, there hath fallen
true battle and deadly war indeed. These tokens were somewhat like
your example of the sea, since they are tokens going before, of
things that afterward follow, through some secret motion or
instinct of which the cause is unknown.
But, by St. Mary, cousin, these tokens like I much worse--these
tokens, I say, not of children's play nor of children's songs, but
old knaves' large open words, so boldly spoken in the favour of
Mahomet's sect in this realm of Hungary, which hath been ever
hitherto a very sure key of Christendom. And without doubt if
Hungary be lost and the Turk have it once fast in his possession,
he shall, ere it be long afterward, have an open ready way into
almost all the rest of Christendom. Though he win it not all in a
week, the great part will be won, I fear me, within very few years
after.
VINCENT: But yet evermore I trust in Christ, good uncle, that he
shall not suffer that abominable sect of his mortal enemies in such
wise to prevail against his Christian countries.
ANTHONY: That is very well said, cousin. Let us have our sure hope
in him, and then shall we be very sure that we shall not be
deceived. For we shall have either the thing that we hope for, or a
better thing in its stead. For, as for the thing itself that we
pray for and hope to have, God will not always send it to us. And
therefore, as I said in our first communication, in all things save
only for heaven, our prayer and our hope may never be too precise,
although the thing may be lawful to ask.
Verily, if we people of the Christian nations were such as would
God we were, I would little fear all the preparations that the
great Turk could make. No, nor yet, being as bad as we are, I doubt
not at all but that in conclusion, however base Christendom be
brought, it shall spring up again, till the time be come very near
to the day of judgment, some tokens of which methinketh are not
come yet. But somewhat before that time shall Christendom be
straitened sore, and brought into so narrow a compass that,
according to Christ's words, "When the Son of Man shall come
again"--that is, to the day of general judgment--"thinkest thou
that he shall find faith in the earth?" as who should say, "but a
little." For, as appeareth in the Apocalypse and other places of
scripture, the faith shall be at that time so far faded that he
shall, for the love of his elect, lest they should fall and perish
too, abridge those days and accelerate his coming. But, as I say,
methinketh I miss yet in my mind some of those tokens that shall,
by the scripture, come a good while before that. And among others,
the coming in of the Jews and the dilating of Christendom again
before the world come to that strait. So I say that for mine own
mind I have little doubt that this ungracious sect of Mahomet shall
have a foul fall, and Christendom spring and spread, flower and
increase again. Howbeit, the pleasure and comfort shall they see
who shall be born after we are buried, I fear me, both twain. For
God giveth us great likelihood that for our sinful wretched living
he goeth about to make these infidels, who are his open professed
enemies, the sorrowful scourge of correction over evil Christian
people who should be faithful and who are of truth his falsely
professing friends.
And surely, cousin, albeit that methinketh I see divers evil tokens
of this misery coming to us, yet can there not, to my mind, be a
worse prognostication of it than this ungracious token that you
note here yourself. For undoubtedly, cousin, this new manner of
men's favourable fashion in their language toward these ungracious
Turks declareth plainly not only that their minds give them that
hither shall he come, but also that they can be content both to
live under him and, beside that, to fall from the true faith of
Christ into Mahomet's false abominable sect.
VINCENT: Verily, mine uncle, as I go about more than you, so must
I needs hear more (which is a heavy hearing in mine ear) the manner
of men in this matter, which increaseth about us here--I trust that
in other places of this realm, by God's grace, it is otherwise. But
in this quarter here about us, many of these fellows who are fit
for the war were wont at first, as it were in sport, to talk as
though they looked for a day when, with a turn to the Turk's faith,
they should be made masters here of true Christian men's bodies and
owners of all their goods. And, in a while after that, they began
to talk so half between game and earnest--and now, by our Lady, not
far from fair flat earnest indeed.
ANTHONY: Though I go out but little, cousin, yet hear I
sometimes--when I say little!--almost as much as that. But since
there is no man to whom we can complain for redress, what remedy is
there but patience, and to sit still and hold our peace? For of
these two who strive which of them both shall reign over us--and
each of them calleth himself king, and both twain put the people to
pain--one is, as you know well, too far from our quarter here to
help us in this behalf. And the other, since he looketh for the
Turk's aid, either will not, or (I suppose) dare not find any fault
with them that favour the Turk and his sect. For of natural Turks
this country lacketh none now; they are living here under divers
pretexts, and of everything they advertise the great Turk full
surely. And therefore, cousin, albeit that I would advise every man
to pray still and call unto God to hold his gracious hand over us
and keep away this wretchedness if his pleasure be, yet would I
further advise every good Christian body to remember and consider
that it is very likely to come. And therefore I would advise him to
make his reckoning and count his pennyworths before, and I would
advise every man (and every woman, too) to appoint with God's help
in their own mind beforehand what they intend to do if the very
worst should befall.
I
VINCENT: Well fare your heart, good uncle, for this good counsel
of yours! For surely methinketh that this is marvellous good.
But yet heard I once a right learned and very good man say that it
would be great folly, and very perilous too, if a man should think
upon any such thing or imagine any such question in his mind, for
fear of double peril that may follow thereupon. For he shall be
likely to answer himself that he will rather suffer any painful
death than forsake his faith, and by that bold appointment should
he fall into the fault of St. Peter, who of oversight made a proud
promise and soon had a foul fall. Or else would he be likely to
think that rather than abide the pain he would forsake God indeed,
and by that mind should he sin deadly through his own folly,
whereas he needeth not do so, since he shall peradventure never
come in the peril to be put thereto. And therefore it would be most
wisdom never to think upon any such manner of question.
ANTHONY: I believe well, cousin, that you have heard some men who
would so say. For I can show almost as much as that left in writing
by a very good man and a great solemn doctor. But yet, cousin,
although I should happen to find one or two more, as good men and
as well learned too, who would both twain say and write the same,
yet would I not fear for my part to counsel my friend to the
contrary.
For, cousin, if his mind answer him as St. Peter answered Christ,
that he will rather die than forsake him, though he say therein
more unto himself than he should be peradventure able to make good
if it came to the point, yet I perceive not that he doth in that
thought any deadly displeasure unto God. For St. Peter, though he
said more than he could perform, yet in his so saying offended not
God greatly neither. But his offence was when he did not afterward
so well as he said before. But now may this man be likely never to
fall in the peril of breaking that appointment, since of some ten
thousand that shall so examine themselves, never one shall fall in
the peril. And yet for them to have that good purpose all their
life seemeth me no more harm in the meanwhile than for a poor
beggar who hath never a penny to think that, if he had great
substance, he would give great alms for God's sake.
But now is all the peril if the man answer himself that he would in
such case rather forsake the faith of Christ with his mouth and
keep it still in his heart than for the confessing of it to endure
a painful death. For by this mind he falleth in deadly sin, which
he never would have fallen in if he had never put himself the
question. But in good faith methinketh that he who, upon that
question put unto himself by himself, will make himself that
answer, hath the habit of faith so faint and so cold that, for the
better knowledge of himself and of his necessity to pray for more
strength of grace, he had need to have the question put to him
either by himself or by some other man.
Besides this, to counsel a man never to think on that question is,
to my mind, as reasonable as the medicine that I have heard taught
someone for the toothache: to go thrice about a churchyard, and
never think on a fox-tail! For if the counsel be not given them, it
cannot serve them. And if it be given them, it must put the point
of the matter in their mind. And forthwith to reject it, and think
therein neither one thing nor the other, is a thing that may be
sooner bidden than obeyed.
I think also that very few men can escape it. For though they would
never think on it by themselves, yet in one place or another where
they shall happen to come in company, they shall have the question
by adventure so proposed and put forth that--like as, while a man
heareth someone talking to him, he can close his eyes if he will,
but he cannot make himself sleep--so shall they, whether they will
or not, think one thing or the other therein.
Finally, when Christ spoke so often and so plain of the matter,
that every man should, upon pain of damnation, openly confess his
faith if men took him and by dread of death would drive him to the
contrary, it seemeth me (in a manner) implied that we are bound
conditionally to have evermore that mind--actually sometimes, and
evermore habitually--that if the case should so befall, then with
God's help so we would do. And thus much methinketh necessary, for
every man and woman to be always of this mind and often to think
thereon. And where they find, in the thinking thereon, that their
hearts shudder and shrink in the remembrance of the pain that their
imagination representeth to the mind, then must they call to mind
and remember the great pain and torment that Christ suffered for
them, and heartily pray for grace that, if the case should so
befall, God should give them strength to stand. And thus, with
exercise of such meditation, through men should never stand full
out of fear of falling, yet must they persevere in good hope and in
full purpose of standing.
And this seemeth to me, cousin, so far forth the mind that every
Christian man and woman must needs have, that methinketh every
curate should often counsel all his parishioners, beginning in
their tender youth, to know this point and think on it, and little
by little from their very childhood accustom them sweetly and
pleasantly in the meditation thereof. Thereby the goodness of God
shall not fail so to inspire the grace of his Holy Spirit into
their hearts, in reward of that virtuous diligence, that through
such actual meditation he shall confirm them in such a sure habit
of spiritual faithful strength, that all the devils in hell, with
all the wrestling that they can make, shall never be able to wrest
it out of their heart.
VINCENT: By my troth, uncle, methinketh that you say very well.
ANTHONY: I say surely, cousin, as I think. And yet all this have I
said concerning them that dwell in such places that they are never
like in their lives to come in the danger to be put to the proof.
Howbeit, many a man may think himself far from it, who yet may
fortune to come to it by some chance or other, either for the truth
of faith or for the truth of justice, which go almost all alike.
But now you and I, cousin, and all our friends here, are far in
another point. For we are so likely to fall in the experience of it
soon, that it would have been more timely for us, all other things
set aside, to have devised upon this matter, and firmly to have
settled ourselves upon a false point long ago, than to begin to
commune and counsel upon it now.
VINCENT: In good faith, uncle, you say therein very truth, and
would God it had come sooner in my mind. But yet is it better late
than never. And I trust God shall yet give us respite and time. And
that we lose no part thereof, uncle, I pray you proceed now with
your good counsel therein.
ANTHONY: Very gladly, cousin, shall I now go forth in the fourth
temptation, which alone remaineth to be treated of, and properly
pertaineth wholly unto this present purpose.