beloved. This fruit failed not to be very sweet and very beautiful,
since nothing is so beautiful and so sweet as friendship; and these two
qualities of beauty and goodness which are never met with in one person
caused them to be in such repute. How many times have its miraculous
virtues multiplied the copies of Orestes and Pylades! Since that time
have been seen Hercules and Theseus, Achilles and Patroclus, Nisus and
Euryalus; in short, an innumerable number, who by more than human
friendships have consecrated their memory in the temple of eternity.
Cuttings were taken to Peloponnesus and the drill-ground, where the
Thebans trained their youth, was ornamented with them. These twin trees
were planted in lines and at that season of the year when the fruit
hangs upon the boughs, the young men, who went to the park every day,
were tempted by the beauty of the fruit and did not abstain from eating
it: usually their courage felt the effect at once. They were seen to
exchange souls pell-mell; each of them became the half of the other,
lived less in himself than in his friend, while the most cowardly would
attempt dangerous things for his friend's sake.
"This heavenly malady warmed their blood with so noble an ardour that
by the advice of the wisest men this band of lovers was enrolled for
war in the same company. Since that time, on account of the noble deeds
they performed, they have been called the Sacred Band.[72] Its exploits
went far beyond anything Thebes had imagined; for in battle each of
these brave men dared such incredible efforts to protect his lover or
to deserve his love that Antiquity saw nothing like it; and as long as
that company of lovers existed, the Thebans, who before that time were
considered the worst soldiers of all Greece, fought and always overcame
the most warlike peoples of the earth, from even the Lacedemonians
downwards.
[Footnote 72: A body of 300 picked Theban infantry, used notably
by Pelopidas and Epaminondas in the battles of Tegyra and Leuctra,
B.C. 375 and 371.]
"But among an infinite number of praiseworthy actions produced by these
apples they innocently caused some which were very shameful.
"Myrrha,[73] a young lady of quality, ate of them with Cinyrus, her
father; unhappily one ate of Pylades and the other of Orestes. Love
immediately swallowed up Nature and confused it to such an extent
that Cinyrus could swear 'I am my son-in-law' and Myrrha 'I am my
stepmother'. In short, I think it sufficient to tell you, in order that
you should understand the whole crime, that at the end of nine months
the father became the grandfather of those he begat and the daughter
brought forth her brothers.
[Footnote 73: These tales are from Ovid's _Metamorphoses_.]
"But chance was not content with this crime alone; it willed that a
bull, having entered the gardens of King Minos, unhappily found some
apples under a tree of Orestes and devoured them; I say unhappily,
because Queen Pasiphaë ate this fruit every day. They became madly in
love with each other. I shall not explain their enormous pleasure;
suffice it to say that Pasiphaë was plunged in a crime which hitherto
had no example.
"The famous sculptor Pygmalion precisely at that time was carving a
marble Venus in the palace. The Queen, who delighted in good workmen,
presented him with a couple of these apples; he ate the finest; and
because he chanced to lack water, which, as you know, is necessary to
the cutting of marble, he moistened his statue with the juice. The
marble penetrated at the same time by this juice, little by little
grew soft; and the energetic virtue of the apple carrying on its
labour according to the workman's plan followed within the image the
features it had met with on the surface, for it dilated, warmed and
coloured in natural proportions the parts it met with in its passage.
Finally the marble became living and touched by the apple's passion
embraced Pygmalion with all the strength of her heart; and Pygmalion,
transported by reciprocal love, received her for his wife.
"In the same Province the youthful Iphis had eaten of this fruit
with the beautiful Ianthë, her companion, in all the circumstances
necessary to cause a reciprocal friendship. Their eating was followed
by the customary effect; but because Iphis found the fruit to be of a
very agreeable taste she ate so many that her friendship, increasing
with the number of apples of which she was insatiable, usurped all
the functions of love and this love by increasing little by little
became more masculine and more vigorous; for her whole body, imbued
with this fruit, burned to form the movements which coincided with the
enthusiasms of its will and moved its matter so powerfully that it
fashioned itself much stronger organs, able to carry out its thought
and to content its love wholly to the most virile extent; that is to
say, Iphis became what is needed to espouse a woman.
"I should call this adventure a miracle if I had any other name to
describe the following event:
"A very accomplished young man called Narcissus had deserved by his
love the affection of a very beautiful girl, whom the poets have
celebrated under the name of Echo. But, as you know, even more than
those of our sex, women are never so beloved as they desire; and she,
having heard the virtues of these apples of Orestes greatly commended,
went about to collect them from several places; and because she was
fearful and her love apprehended the apples of one tree might have less
strength than those of the other, she willed him to taste of both;
but he had scarcely eaten them when Echo's image was effaced from his
memory, all his love turned towards the person who had digested the
fruit, he was the lover and the beloved; for the substance derived
from the apple of Pylades embraced within him that from the apple of
Orestes. This twin fruit, extending through the whole of his blood,
excited all the parts of his body to caress themselves. His heart, into
which flowed their double virtue, darted its flames within; all his
limbs animated by his passion desired to penetrate each other. Even
his image, which burned in the coldness of pools, attracted his body
to join with it; in short, poor Narcissus became madly in love with
himself. I shall not be so tedious as to relate to you his deplorable
catastrophe; past ages have already sufficiently spoken of it and I
have still two adventures to tell you, which will better fill up the
time.
"You must know that the beautiful Salmacis frequented the shepherd
Hermaphrodite, but with no familiarity beyond that authorised by the
vicinity of their homes, when Fortune, who delights to trouble the most
peaceful lives, permitted that Hermaphrodite should win the prize for
running and Salmacis that for beauty in a meeting for games, where the
prizes for beauty and running were two of these apples. They had been
plucked together, but from different boughs, because these amorous
fruits mingle with such cunning that one from Pylades is always met
with beside one from Orestes; and their appearing to be twins was the
cause that they were usually plucked in pairs. The beautiful Salmacis
ate her apple and the gentle Hermaphrodite placed his in his shepherd's
scrip. Salmacis, inspired by the enthusiasms of her apple, and of the
shepherd's apple, which began to grow warm in his scrip, felt attracted
towards him by the sympathetic ebb and flow of her apple with the other.
"The shepherd's parents, perceiving the nymph's desires, tried
to preserve and to increase them, because of the advantages they
perceived in this alliance; and therefore, having heard these twin
apples vaunted as a fruit whose juice inclines the mind to love, they
distilled some of them and found means to cause their son and his
mistress to drink the purest quintessence. They had sublimated its
energy to the highest degree it could attain and thereby lighted in
these lovers' hearts so vehement a desire of joining together that at
first sight Hermaphrodite was absorbed in Salmacis and Salmacis melted
away in the arms of Hermaphrodite. They passed into each other and
they composed from two persons of different sex a double 'something',
which was neither man nor woman. When Hermaphrodite desired to enjoy
Salmacis he found he was the nymph herself; and when Salmacis desired
to be embraced by Hermaphrodite she felt she was the shepherd. Yet this
double 'something' retained its unity; it begat and conceived without
being either man or woman. In short, Nature here produced a marvel,
which she has never since been able to prevent from being unique.
"Well, are not these astonishing stories? They are; for to see a
daughter lie with her father; a young princess satisfy the desires of
a bull; a man yearn to enjoy a stone; another marry with himself; to
see one celebrate as a girl a marriage she consummates as a boy, cease
to be a man without beginning to be a woman, become double outside the
mother's womb and twin of a person who is no relative; all these are
very distant from the ordinary paths of Nature. And yet what I am about
to tell you will surprise you even more.
"Among the sumptuous diversity of all sorts of fruits brought from
the most distant climates for the wedding banquet of Cambyses,
they presented him with a graft of Orestes, which he inserted in a
plane-tree; and among other delicacies, at dessert they put before him
apples of the same tree.
"The agreeable taste of the fruit led him to eat a great deal of it;
and after the three digestions, which converted the substance of this
fruit into a perfect germ, he formed from it in the queen's womb the
embryo of his son Artaxerxes; for all the details of his life caused
his doctors to conjecture that he must have been produced in this way.
"When this prince's youthful heart was of an age to merit Love's anger
it was noticed that he did not sigh for his own kind; he loved only
trees, orchards and woods; but above all those to which he appeared
tender, the plane-tree on which his father Cambyses had formerly
grafted the shoot of Orestes consumed him with love.
"His temperament followed so scrupulously the plane-tree's progress
that he seemed to grow with the branches of that tree; every day he
went to embrace it; in his sleep he dreamed of nothing else; and he
transacted all his business under the curve of its green tapestry. It
was perceived that the plane-tree, pierced by a reciprocal ardour, was
ravished by his caresses; for suddenly, without any apparent reason,
its leaves were seen to stir and as it were to thrill with joy, the
branches curved down upon his head as if to make him a crown and
descended so near his face that it was easy to perceive this was rather
to kiss him than from a natural tendency to grow downwards. It was even
noticed that the tree jealously ranged and pressed its leaves together
for fear lest the rays of daylight as they glided through should also
kiss him. The king for his part placed no limits to his love. He caused
his bed to be made at the foot of the plane-tree and the plane-tree,
not knowing how to repay such friendship, gave him the most precious
thing trees have--honey and dew--which it distilled every morning upon
him.
"Their caresses would have lasted longer if death, the enemy of all
beautiful things, had not ended them. Artaxerxes expired of love in
the embraces of his dear plane-tree; and all the Persians, afflicted
at the loss of so good a prince, decreed (in order to give him some
satisfaction after death) that his body should be burned with the
branches of this tree, without any other wood being used to consume him.
"When the pyre was lighted its flame was seen to knit with that of the
body's fat and their burning hair curled together and diminished in
pyramid shape until it was out of sight.
"This pure and subtle fire did not divide; but when it reached the Sun,
to which as you know all igneous matter tends, it formed the germ of
the apple-tree of Orestes, which you see there on your right hand.
"Now the seed of this fruit is lost in your world and this misfortune
happened as follows:
"Fathers and mothers, who, as you know, in directing their families,
are governed only by interest, were angry that their children as soon
as they had tasted these apples bestowed on their friend everything
they possessed; and so the parents burned as many of these plants as
they could discover. The extinction of the race is the reason why a
true friend is no longer found.
"As these trees were consumed by fire the rains which fell on them
calcined the ashes, so that the congealed juice petrified in the same
way that the humour of burnt fern is metamorphosed into glass; and thus
in all the countries of the Earth the ashes of these twin trees formed
two metallic stones called to-day the iron and the loadstone, which,
because of the sympathy of the fruits of Pylades and Orestes, whose
virtue they have always preserved, aspire every day to embrace; and
notice that if the piece of loadstone is larger it attracts the iron,
but if the piece of iron exceeds the other in quantity it attracts the
loadstone, as happened of old in the miraculous effect of the apples of
Pylades and Orestes; for whoever had eaten more of one of them was the
more beloved by him who had eaten of the other.
"Well, iron feeds upon the loadstone and the loadstone feeds upon iron
so visibly that the one grows rusty and the other loses its strength
unless they are brought together to repair what is lost of their
substance.
"Have you never observed a piece of loadstone placed on iron filings?
In a flash you see the loadstone covered with these metallic atoms;
and they grip with such amorous ardour so suddenly and so impatiently
that after they have embraced everywhere you would say there is not
a grain of loadstone which does not desire to kiss a grain of iron,
and not a grain of iron which does not wish to unite with a grain of
loadstone; for the iron and the loadstone, when separated, continually
send out from their bulk the most active small bodies in search of
what they love, but when they have found it and have nothing more to
desire, each terminates its travels; the loadstone spends its repose
in the possession of the iron, as the iron collects all its being to
enjoy the loadstone. It is therefore from the sap of these two trees
that the moisture flowed from which these two metals were born. Before
that they were unknown; and if you wish to know from what matter they
manufactured weapons of war--Samson armed himself with the jaw-bone of
an ass against the Philistines; Jupiter, King of Crete, with artificial
fire by means of which he imitated thunder and overcame his enemies;
and Hercules conquered tyrants and tamed monsters with a club. But
these two metals have another much more specific relation to our two
trees. You must know that although this lifeless couple of lovers turn
towards the pole, they never do so except in each other's company; and
I will discover to you the reason of this after I have discoursed to
you a little about the poles.
"The poles are the mouths of the sky by which it takes in the light,
heat and influences it has diffused upon the Earth; otherwise, if all
the treasures of the Sun did not return to their source it would long
ago be extinct (since its light is only a dust of burning atoms shed
from its globe) and would shine no more or else this abundance of small
igneous bodies heaped continually upon the Earth would already have
consumed it. Therefore, as I have said, the sky must have vent-holes
by which the repletions of the Earth are cast out and others by which
the sky can repair its losses, so that the eternal circulation of these
little bodies of life may successively penetrate all the globes of this
great universe. Now the vent-holes of Heaven are the poles by means of
which it feeds upon the souls of everything that dies in its worlds and
all the planets are the mouths and pores by whose means its spirits
are exhaled afresh. And to show you that this is not so novel a fancy,
observe that when your ancient poets, to whom philosophy had discovered
the most hidden secrets of Nature, were speaking of a hero and desired
to say that his soul was gone to dwell with the Gods, they expressed
themselves thus: '_He has risen to the pole; he is seated above the
pole; he has passed the pole_:' because they knew that the poles were
the only entrances by which the sky receives all that has left it.
If the authority of these great men does not fully satisfy you, the
experience of those moderns who have travelled towards the north will
perhaps content you. They have found that the nearer they approach the
Bear during the six months of night, when it was thought this country
was entirely black, the horizon was illuminated by a great light, which
could only come from the pole, because the nearer they approached it,
and consequently the farther they drew from the Sun, the larger the
light became. It is therefore very probable that this light proceeds
from rays of daylight and from a great heap of souls which, as you
know, are made of luminous atoms alone, returning to the sky by their
accustomed portals.
"After that it is not difficult to understand why iron rubbed with
loadstone or loadstone rubbed with iron turns towards the pole; for
since they are extracted from the bodies of Pylades and Orestes and
have always preserved the propensities of the two trees, as the two
trees preserved those of the two lovers, they must aspire to rejoin
their soul, and so they strain towards the pole, whither they feel it
has risen, with this proviso, that the iron does not turn unless it
is rubbed by the loadstone nor the loadstone if it is not rubbed by
the iron, because iron will not abandon a world without its friend,
loadstone, nor loadstone without its friend, iron; and they cannot
resolve to make this voyage without each other."
I think the voice was going to begin another discourse; but it was
prevented by the noise of a loud alarm; the whole forest in disturbance
echoed with the words: _Beware the plague!_ and _Pass it on!_
I begged the tree, which had talked to me so long, to inform me what
was the reason of this great disorder.
"My friend", it said, "in this district we have not yet received
precise details of the misfortune; I can only tell you in three
words that the plague by which we are menaced is what men call a
conflagration; and we may well name it a plague, for among us no
disease is so contagious. The remedy we shall apply to it is to hold
our breath and then to blow all together on the place whence the
conflagration is moving, in order to repulse this dangerous air. I
think this burning fever has been brought to us by a Fire-Beast, which
for some days has been wandering about these woods; for since these
beasts never go without fire and cannot do without it, this one no
doubt has set fire to one of our trees.
"We have sent for the Ice-Animal to come to our aid; but it has not yet
arrived. But now farewell, I have no time to talk to you, I must think
of the common safety; and you yourself should take to flight, otherwise
you run the risk of being involved in our ruin."
I followed its advice, but without hurrying very much, because I knew
my legs. However I was so ignorant of the plan of that country that
at the end of ten hours' walking I found myself behind the forest I
thought I was avoiding; and to increase my apprehension, a hundred
terrible thunder-claps shook my brain, while the pale dismal light of a
thousand flashes of lightning quenched my eye-balls.
From moment to moment they increased with such fury one would have said
the foundations of the world were about to collapse; yet, in spite of
it all, the sky never appeared clearer. I was unable to find reasons
for this and my desire of knowing the cause of so extraordinary an
event urged me to walk towards the place whence the noise seemed to
come.
I walked for about four hundred _stadia_, at the end of which I
perceived in the middle of a very large field what looked like two
balls which, after moving round each other for a very long time with
a humming noise, came together and then recoiled; and I observed that
the moment of the shock was that when these great noises were heard.
Drawing nearer I perceived that what at a distance had seemed to me to
be two balls were two animals; one of them, although round at the base,
formed a triangle from the middle, and its very high head with red hair
streaming upwards narrowed off in a pyramid shape, while its body was
filled with holes like a sieve and one could see through these hollow
places, which served it as pores, little flames issuing forth which
seemed to cover it with fiery plumage.
Walking round I met a most venerable old man looking at this wonderful
combat with as much curiosity as I. He signed to me to approach; I
obeyed and we sat down beside each other.
I was about to ask him what motive had brought him into this country,
but he closed my mouth with these words:
"Well, you shall know the motive which brought me into this country."
And immediately he related to me at length all the details of his
journey. I leave you to imagine whether or no I was astounded. But my
amazement was increased, for just as I was burning to ask him what
demon revealed my thoughts to him, he exclaimed:
"No, no, 'twas not a demon revealed your thoughts to me."
This new trick of divination caused me to observe him with more
attention than before and I noticed he was imitating my carriage, my
gestures, my appearance, placed all his limbs and disposed all the
features of his face on the pattern of mine; in short, my shadow in
relief would not have represented me better.
"I see", he went on, "you are anxious to know why I imitate you, and I
am glad to tell you. Know then that in order to understand what goes on
inside you, I arrange all the parts of my body in an order similar to
yours; for, by arranging all parts of me like you, I excite in myself
by this disposal of my matter the same thought that is produced in you
by this same disposal of your matter.
"You will conceive this effect to be possible if you have ever before
observed that twins resembling each other have generally similar minds,
passions and wills; to such an extent that two doubles were met with in
Paris who had always undergone the same illnesses and the same health,
had married without knowing the other's intention at the same hour
of the same day, wrote each other letters, whose sense, wording and
construction were the same and who composed the same sort of verses
on the same subject, with the same conceits, the same turn and the
same order. But you must see that if the composition of the organs of
their bodies were similar in all circumstances they could only act in
a similar manner, just as two equal instruments equally struck must
give forth an equal harmony; and so when I model my body on yours and
become, as it were, your twin, the same movement of matter must cause
us both the same movement of the mind."
After this he again settled himself to imitate me and went on thus:
"You are now very anxious to know the origin of the battle of these
two monsters, whereof I will inform you. Learn then that the trees of
the forest behind us were not able to repulse the violent efforts of
the Fire-Beast with their breath and therefore sought the aid of the
Ice-Animal."
"I have only heard these animals spoken of", I said, "by an oak in this
country, but this was in great haste, for it was only thinking of its
safety; and so I beg you will inform me."
He spoke in this way: "In this globe where we are the woods would be
very scattered, on account of the desolation caused them by the large
number of Fire-Beasts, but for the Ice-Animals which every day at the
request of their friends the forests come to heal these sick trees; I
say heal, because as soon as their icy mouth breathes upon the coals of
this plague they are extinguished.
"In the world of the Earth, whence you come and whence I come, the
Fire-Beast is called a Salamander and the Ice-Animal is known by the
name of Remora.[74] Well, you must know that the Remora dwells towards
the extremity of the pole in the deepest part of the frozen sea, and it
is the cold which evaporates from these fishes through their scales,
which in those districts freezes the sea-water, although it is salt.
[Footnote 74: Any reader of our Caroline poets will know how fond they
were of the Remora.]
"The greater part of the pilots who have sailed to discover Greenland
have noticed at one season of the year that the ice which stopped them
at other seasons was no longer to be met with; but although this sea
was free of ice at the time when winter is at its harshest they have
not failed to attribute the cause to the melting of the ice by some
secret warmth; but it is much more likely that the Remoræ, which feed
on nothing but ice, had absorbed them at that time. You must know then
that some months after they are filled this terrible digestion makes
their bellies so cold that the mere breath they exhale freezes the
whole Polar Sea again. When they come out on land (for they live in
both elements) they feed on nothing but hemlock, aconite, opium, and
mandragora.