always bring the frosts with them; but if our compatriots knew, as we
do, that the Remoræ inhabit that climate, they would understand, as
we do, that these winds come from the breath wherewith these fishes
attempt to repulse the heat of the Sun as it approaches them.
"That Stygian water used to poison the great Alexander, whose cold
petrified his entrails, was the piss of one of these animals. In short,
the Remora contains so eminently all the principles of cold that when
it passes under a ship, the ship is gripped by cold and remains so
benumbed it cannot move from where it is. That is the reason why half
of those who have sailed northward to discover the pole never returned,
because it would be a miracle if the Remoræ, whose number is so great
in that sea, did not stop their vessels. So much for the Ice-Animals.
"As to the Fire-Beasts, they dwell in the earth under mountains lighted
by bitumen, such as Ætna, Vesuvius and the Red Cape. The pimples you
see on this one's throat, which proceed from the inflammation of its
liver, are...."[75]
[Footnote 75: Another hiatus here, perhaps.]
After that we remained without speaking to watch this extraordinary
duel.
The Salamander attacked with great ardour, but the Remora withstood him
impenetrably. Each blow they exchanged caused a clap of thunder, as it
happens in the worlds round about where the meeting of a warm with a
cold cloud excites the same noise.
At every glance of anger cast by the Salamander upon its enemy there
came from its eyes a red light, which seemed to burn the air as it flew
along; the beast sweated boiling oil and pissed acid.
The Remora, on its side, fat, square, and heavy, showed a body all
scaly with icicles. Its large eyes looked like two crystal plates,
whose glances carried with them so benumbing a light that I felt winter
shiver upon every limb of my body it looked at. If I put my hand before
me, it was numbed; the very air about the beast, attacked by its
rigour, grew thick with snow, the earth hardened under its feet; and I
could trace the footprints of the beast by the chilblains which greeted
me when I walked above them.
At the beginning of the fight the Salamander had made the Remora sweat
by the vigorous attack of its first ardour; but at length this sweat
growing cold enamelled the whole plain with so slippery a frost that
the Salamander could not join battle with the Remora without falling.
The philosopher and I could easily see it was tired from falling and
rising up again so often; for the thunder-claps created by the shock
as it struck its enemy, which were before so terrible, were now only
the dull sound of those small rumbles which mark the end of a storm;
and this dull sound, diminishing little by little, degenerated into a
hissing like that of a red-hot iron plunged into cold water.
When the Remora perceived the combat was drawing to an end by the
weakening of the shock which now scarcely shook it, it rose up on one
angle of its cube and let itself fall with the whole of its weight
on the Salamander's belly so successfully that the poor Salamander's
heart, in which all the remainder of its heat was concentrated, made so
horrible a noise in bursting that I know nothing in Nature to compare
with it.
Thus died the Fire-Beast beneath the passive resistance of the
Ice-Animal.[76]
[Footnote 76: Some have thought this combat of the Salamander and the
Remora was the lost _Story of the Spark_. In any case it is typical of
the age. See Montfaucon de Villars's _Comte de Gabalis_. 1670.]
Some time after the Remora had retired we approached the field of
battle and the old man, having covered his hands with the earth on
which it had walked as a preservative against burns, picked up the
Salamander's corpse.
"With this animal's body", said he, "I shall need no fire in my
kitchen; for as long as it is hung on the jack it will roast and boil
everything I put on the hearth. As for the eyes, I shall keep them
carefully; if they were cleansed from the shadows of death you would
take them for two little suns. In our world the ancients knew how to
make use of them; they called them Perpetual Lamps and they were only
hung in the pompous sepulchres of illustrious persons. In excavating
certain of these famous tombs our moderns have met with some of them,
but broke them in their ignorant curiosity by thinking to discover
behind the broken membranes the fire they had seen shining through."
The old man continued to walk and I followed him, listening to the
marvels he told me. Now, as touching the combat, I must not forget the
conversation we had concerning the Ice-Animal:
"I do not think", said he, "that you have ever seen a Remora[77]; for
these fishes never rise to the surface of the water and hardly ever
leave the Northern Ocean. But doubtless you have seen certain animals
which to some extent might be said to be of their species. I told you
a little while ago that the sea about the pole is filled with Remoræ,
who cast their fry on the mud like other fishes. You must know that
this seed, the extract of their whole mass, contains all its cold so
eminently that if a ship sails over it, the vessel contracts one or
several worms which become birds, whose cold blood causes them to be
placed in the order of fishes, although they have wings; and therefore
the Holy Father, who knows their origin, does not forbid them to be
eaten in Lent. They are what you call barnacle-geese."[78]
[Footnote 77: Probably not!]
[Footnote 78: Or "Scoters"; the text has "Maquereuses".]
I continued walking with no other purpose than that of following him,
so delighted at having found a man that I dared not take my eyes from
him, I was so afraid of losing him.
"Young mortal", said he, "(for I see you have not yet, like me,
paid that tribute we all owe to Nature), as soon as I saw you I
recognised in your face something which makes one anxious to pursue
the acquaintance. If I am not mistaken, from the circumstances of your
body's conformation you must be French, and a native of Paris. That
town is the place where I ended my misfortunes after having carried
them through all Europe.
"I am called Campanella and I am a Calabrian by birth. Since I came
to the Sun I have spent my time in visiting the countries of this
great globe to discover their wonders. It is divided into kingdoms,
republics, states and principalities, like the Earth. Thus the
quadrupeds, the birds, the plants, the stones, all have their own
states; and although some of them do not allow animals of a different
species to enter, particularly men, whom, above all, the birds hate
with a deadly hatred, I can travel everywhere without running any
risk, because a philosopher's soul is composed of particles much finer
than the instruments they would use to torment him. Happily I was in
the province of the trees when the Salamander's disturbances began;
those great thunder-claps, you must have heard as well as I, guided me
to their battlefield, where you arrived a moment afterwards. For the
rest, I am returning to the province of philosophers...."
"What", said I, "are there philosophers in the Sun, too?"
"There are, indeed", replied the good man, "yes, they are the principal
inhabitants of the Sun and the very same who so fill the mouth of fame
in your world. You may soon converse with them, if you have the courage
to follow me; for I hope to set foot in their town before three days
have passed. I do not suppose you can conceive in what manner these
great geniuses were transported here?"
"No, indeed", I exclaimed, "have so many other people had their eyes
closed hitherto not to have found the way? Or after death do we
fall into the hands of an Examiner of Spirits who, according to our
capacity, grants or refuses us rights of citizenship in the Sun?"
"Nothing of the kind", replied the old man, "souls come to join this
mass of light by a principle of similarity; for this world is formed of
nothing but the spirits of all who die in the surrounding orbs, such as
Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
"Thus, as soon as a plant, a beast, a man, expire, their souls rise
to its sphere, just as you see a candle flame fly there in a point,
in spite of the soot which holds its feet. Now, when all these souls
are united to the source of the day and purged of the gross matter
which impeded them, they exercise functions far more noble than those
of growing, feeling and reasoning; they are used to form the blood and
vital spirits of the Sun, that vast and perfect animal. And therefore
you should not doubt that the Sun works intellectually much more
perfectly than you, since it is by means of the heat of a million of
these rectified souls (whereof its own is an elixir, since it knows
the secret of life), that it infuses into the matter of your world the
power of procreation, renders bodies capable of consciousness and, in
short, is visible and makes all things visible.
"I have now to explain to you why the souls of philosophers are not
essentially joined to the mass of the Sun like those of other men.
"There are three orders of spirits in all the planets, that is in the
little worlds which move around this one.
"The grossest merely serve to repair the Sun's mass. The subtle
insinuate themselves in the place of its rays; but those of
philosophers, having acquired nothing impure during their exile, arrive
complete to inhabit the sphere of day. Now, they do not become like
others an integral part of its mass, because the matter which composes
them at the point of their begetting is so exactly mingled that
nothing can separate it; like the matter which forms gold, diamonds
and the stars, whose parts are so closely mingled and intertwined, the
strongest dissolvent could not loosen their embrace.
"Now the souls of philosophers are in respect to other souls what gold,
diamonds and the stars are in respect to other bodies, and Epicurus in
the Sun is the same Epicurus who formerly lived on the Earth."
The pleasure I received in listening to this man shortened the road
for me and I often led the conversation expressly towards learned and
curious matters, upon which I solicited his thought for my better
instruction. And truly I have never seen kindness so great as his; for
although through the agility of his substance he could have reached the
kingdom of philosophers by himself in a very few days, he preferred to
delay with me rather than to abandon me in those vast solitudes.
However, he was in a hurry; for I remember I asked him why he was
returning before he had visited all the regions of that great world
and he replied that he was obliged to interrupt his voyage, because of
his impatience to see one of his friends, who had recently arrived.
From subsequent parts of his talk I perceived that this friend was that
famous philosopher of our time, Monsieur Descartes, and that he was
only hastening to join him.
When I asked him in what esteem he held his _Physics_, he replied that
we should only read it with that respect we listen to the pronouncement
of Oracles.
"The science of natural things", he added, "like other sciences, is
forced to preoccupy our judgment with axioms it does not prove; but the
principles of his are simple and so natural that, once granted, there
are no others which more necessarily satisfy all appearances."
At this point I could not prevent myself from interrupting:
"But", said I, "it seems to me that this philosopher has always denied
a void; and yet, although he was an Epicurean, in order to have the
honour of giving a principle to the principles of Epicurus, that is to
atoms, he established for the beginning of things a chaos of wholly
solid matter, which God divided into an innumerable number of little
squares, to each of which He imparted different movements. Now, he
maintains that these cubes by rubbing against each other have become
ground down into particles of all kinds of shapes; but how can he
conceive that these square pieces could have begun to move separately
without admitting that a void was formed between their angles? Must
there not necessarily have been a void in those spaces which the angles
of these squares were compelled to leave in order to move? And then,
since these squares only occupied a certain space before moving, could
they be changed into a circle without occupying in their circumference
as much space? Geometry teaches us that this cannot be, that therefore
half of this space must have remained void, since there were not enough
atoms to fill it."
My philosopher replied that Monsieur Descartes would explain it himself
and that since he was born as obliging as philosophical he would
certainly be delighted to find in this world a mortal man to enlighten
him on a hundred doubts, which the surprise of death had forced him to
leave on the Earth from which he had departed[79]; that for his part he
did not think there was so much difficulty in replying to it according
to those principles which I had only examined as far as the weakness of
my mind permitted me, "Because", said he, "the works of this great man
are so full and so subtle that to understand them demands an attention
which calls for the soul of a true and consummate philosopher; for
which reason there is not a philosopher in the Sun but has veneration
for him, to such an extent that no one would contest his occupying the
first rank, did not his modesty cause him to shun it.
[Footnote 79: Descartes died 1650, which dates this part of _The Sun_.]
"To lighten the fatigue which the length of the way might bring you,
we will discuss this matter according to his principles, which are
assuredly so clear and seem to satisfy everything so well through the
admirable light of this great genius, that it seems as if he took part
in the lovely and magnificent structure of this universe.
"You remember he says our understanding is finite; and since matter is
divisible to infinity it is past doubt that this is one of the things
our understanding can neither comprehend nor imagine and is indeed too
far above it for it to explain.
"But, although this cannot be perceived by the senses, we do not fail
to conceive that this happens, through the knowledge we have of matter;
and we should not, he says, hesitate to order our judgment on things
whereof we conceive. Indeed can we imagine the way in which the soul
acts upon the body? Yet that truth cannot be denied nor doubted; while
it is a much greater absurdity to attribute to void an extension which
is a property belonging to the body of space, seeing that here the
idea of nothing is confounded with that of being and qualities are
attributed to that which can produce nothing and cannot be the author
of anything. But, poor mortal, I feel that these speculations tire you,
because, as that excellent man says, 'You have never taken the trouble
to purify your mind from the mass of your body, and because you have
rendered it so lazy that it will no longer perform any of its functions
without the help of the senses.'"
I was about to reply when he touched my arm to point out to me a valley
of marvellous beauty.
"Do you perceive", said he, "that incline by which we are about to
descend? It is as if the crests of the surrounding hills were expressly
crowned with trees to invite passers-by to rest in the coolness of
their shade.
"At the foot of one of those hills the Lake of Sleep has its source; it
is made of the fluid of five springs alone. If it did not mingle with
the three rivers and thicken their waters with its weight no animal in
our world could sleep."
I cannot express the impatience I felt to question him about these
three rivers, which I had never heard of before. But I was contented by
his promising me that I should see everything.
We soon reached the valley and almost at the same time the carpet which
borders this great lake.
"Truly", said Campanella, "you are fortunate to behold all the marvels
of this world before you die; it is well for the inhabitants of your
globe to have produced a man who can inform them of the Sun's marvels
since without you they were in danger of living in gross ignorance and
of enjoying a hundred agreeable things without knowing whence they
come; for it is not to be imagined what liberalities the Sun pours upon
all your little globes; this valley alone scatters an infinite number
of gifts through all the universe, without which you could not live
nor even see the light of day. It seems to me that to have seen this
country is sufficient to make you admit that the Sun is your Father
and the Author of all things.[80] The five rivulets which debouch here
flow only fifteen or sixteen hours; and yet when they arrive they
seem so tired they can scarcely move; but they show their weariness
in very different ways. Sight narrows as it approaches the Pool of
Sleep; Hearing as it debouches grows confused, wanders and is lost in
the mud; Smell creates a murmur like that of a man snoring; Taste,
deadened from the way, becomes wholly insipid, and Touch, formerly so
powerful that it harboured all its companions, is reduced to hiding
its dwelling-place. The Nymph of Peace, who lives in the midst of the
Lake, receives her guests with open arms, lays them in her bed, and
indulges them with such delicacy that she herself takes the trouble
to cradle them to put them to sleep. Some time after they have been
mingled in this vast round pond they are seen to divide again at the
other end into five rivulets, which, as they leave, take up again the
names they abandoned on entering. But the most impatient of the party
(who worry their companions to set out again) are Hearing and Touch; as
for the three others they wait for these two to arouse them, and Taste
especially always lags behind the others.[81]
[Footnote 80: This idea is a favourite with Cyrano. It is, of course, a
commonplace now.]
[Footnote 81: This is rather in the spirit of Mlle de Scudéry's _Carte
de Tendre_, but _Clélie_ was not published until 1654.]
"The black concave of a grotto arches over the Lake of Sleep.
Quantities of tortoises walk slowly on the bank; a thousand poppy
flowers reflected in the water give it the power of putting to sleep;
for fifty leagues round even the marmots come to drink of it and the
whisper of the stream is so delightful that it seems to rustle over the
pebbles in measure and to compose a sleepy music."
The wise Campanella no doubt saw that I should be affected by it to
some extent and therefore advised me to increase my pace. I should have
obeyed him, but the charms of this water had so enveloped my reason
that I retained scarce enough to understand these last words:
"Sleep, then, sleep, and I will leave you; the dreams one has here are
so perfect that some day you will be glad to remember what you are
about to dream. I will amuse myself by visiting the rarities of the
place and then I will rejoin you."
I do not think he spoke any more, or else the fumes of sleep had
already placed me in a state where I was incapable of hearkening to him.
I was in the midst of the wisest and best conceived dream imaginable,
when my philosopher awakened me. I will relate it to you later on,
when it will not interrupt the thread of my discourse, for it is very
important for you to know it, so that you may understand with what
liberty the mind of an inhabitant of the Sun acts, while his senses are
imprisoned by sleep.[82] For my part I think that this Lake exhales an
air which has the property of purifying completely the mind from the
embarrassment of the senses; for nothing is presented to your thought
by it which does not seem to perfect and instruct you; for which reason
I have the greatest respect in the world for those philosophers called
Dreamers, whom our ignorant people mock at.
[Footnote 82: We never get this dream.]
I opened my eyes with a start. It seems to me I heard him say:
"Mortal, you have slept enough; rise up, if you wish to see a rarity
which would never even be imagined in your world. For an hour since
I left you, in order not to disturb your repose, I have been walking
alongside the five streams, which flow out of the Pool of Sleep. You
may imagine how attentively I have observed them all; they bear the
names of the five Senses and flow very close together. Sight seems a
forked tube filled with powdered diamonds and little mirrors, which
steal and restore the images of everything that comes near, and in
its course it circles the Kingdom of the lynxes; Hearing is similarly
double, it turns in as many windings as a maze and in the most hollow
concaves of its bed can be heard an echo of every noise which sounds
about it; I am very much deceived if I did not see foxes cleaning their
ears beside it; Smell appears like the two preceding streams divided
into two little hidden channels under a single arch; from everything it
meets it extracts something invisible from which it composes a thousand
kinds of smell, which occupy the place of water in it; on the banks of
this stream may be seen many dogs purifying their noses; Taste flows in
spurts, which usually only occur three or four times a day, and even
then a large coral sluice-gate must be lifted up and underneath that
a number of other very small ones, which are made of ivory; its fluid
resembles saliva. But as to the fifth, the stream of Touch, it is so
vast and so deep that it surrounds all its sisters, even lying full
length in their bed, and its thick moisture is scattered far around on
lawns completely green with sensitive plants.
"Now you must know that I was admiring, frozen with admiration, the
mysterious turnings of all these streams when, as I walked on, I
reached the place where they flow into the three rivers. But follow me,
you will understand the arrangement of all these things far better by
seeing them."
So potent a promise woke me completely; I held out my arm to him and we
walked by the same way he had taken along the embankment which retained
the five streams, each in its channel.
At the end of about a _stadium_ something as shining as a lake reached
our eyes. The wise Campanella had no sooner perceived it than he said
to me:
"At last, my son, we are approaching. I see the three rivers
distinctly."
At this news I felt myself transported with such an ardour that I felt
as if I had become an eagle. I flew rather than walked, and rushed all
about, with so eager a curiosity, that in less than an hour my guide
and I had observed all that you are about to hear.
Three large rivers water the brilliant plains of this kindling world:
the first and the widest is called Memory; the second, narrower but
deeper, Imagination; the third, smaller than the others, is called
Judgment.
On the banks of Memory there is heard night and day the importunate
calling of Jays, Parrots, Magpies, Starlings, Linnets, Finches, and
birds of all kinds, which twitter what they have learned. At night
they say nothing, because they are then occupied in drinking the thick
vapour exhaled from these aquatic places. But their feeble stomachs
digest it so ill that in the morning when they think they have
converted it into their own substance it is seen to flow from their
bills as pure as if it were in the river. The water of this river seems
viscous and flows noisily; the echoes formed in its caverns repeat its
speech more than a thousand times; it engenders certain monsters, whose
faces are like the face of Woman. Others yet more furious are seen
with square horny heads very similar to those of our Pedants. These do
nothing but exclaim, and yet say nothing but what they have heard other
people say.