CHAPTER LXXXIV.: INTITLED "THE RENDING IN SUNDER." REVEALED AT MECCA

In the name of the most merciful GOD. When the heaven shall be rent in

sunder, and shall obey its LORD, and shall be capable _thereof_; and

when the earth shall be stretched out, and shall cast forth that which

_is_ therein, and shall remain empty, and shall obey its LORD, and shall

be capable _thereof_: O man, verily laboring thou laborest to _meet_ thy

LORD, and thou shalt meet him. And he who shall have his book given into

his right hand shall be called to an easy account, and shall turn unto

his family with joy: but he who shall have his book given him behind his

back shall invoke destruction _to fall upon him_, and he shall be sent

into hell to be burned; because he rejoiced insolently amidst his family

_on earth_. Verily he thought he should never return _unto God_: yea

verily, but his LORD beheld him. Wherefore I swear by the redness of the

sky after sunset, and by the night, and the _animals_ which it driveth

together, and by the moon when she is in the full; ye shall surely be

transferred _successively_ from state to state. What _aileth_ them,

therefore, that they believe not _the resurrection_; and that, when the

Korân is read unto them, they worship not? Yea: the unbelievers accuse

_the same_ of imposture: but GOD well knoweth the _malice_ which they

keep hidden _in their breasts_. Wherefore denounce unto them a grievous

punishment, except those who believe and do good works: for them _is

prepared_ a never-failing reward.

THE PRAYER OF AL-HARIRI

From the 'Makamat' of al-Hariri of Basra: Translation of Theodore Preston

We praise thee, O God,

For whatever perspicuity of language thou hast taught us,

And whatever eloquence thou hast inspired us with,

As we praise thee

For the bounty which thou hast diffused,

And the mercy which thou hast spread abroad:

And we pray thee to guard us

From extravagant expressions and frivolous superfluities

As we pray Thee to guard us

From the shame of incapacity and the disgrace of hesitation:

And we entreat thee to exempt us from temptation

By the flattery of the admirer or connivance of the indulgent,

As we entreat thee to exempt us from exposure

To the slight of the detractor or aspersion of the defamer:

And we ask thy forgiveness

Should our frailties betray us into ambiguities,

As we ask thy forgiveness

Should our steps advance to the verge of improprieties:

And we beg thee freely to bestow

Propitious succor to lead us aright,

And a heart turning in unison with truth,

And a language adorned with veracity,

And style supported by conclusiveness,

And accuracy that may exclude incorrectness,

And firmness of purpose that may overcome caprice,

And sagacity whereby we may attain discrimination;

That thou wilt aid us by thy guidance unto right conceptions,

And enable us with thy help to express them with clearness,

And thou wilt guard us from error in narration,

And keep us from folly even in pleasantry,

So that we may be safe from the censure of sarcastic tongues,

And secure from the fatal effects of false ornament,

And may not resort to any improper source,

And occupy no position that would entail regret,

Nor be assailed by any ill consequences or blame,

Nor be constrained to apology for inconsideration.

O God, fulfill for us this our desire,

And put us in possession of this our earnest wish,

And exclude us not from thy ample shade,

Nor leave us to become the prey of the devourer:

For we stretch to thee the hand of entreaty,

And profess entire submission to thee, and contrition of spirit,

And seek with humble supplication and appliances of hope

The descent of thy vast grace and comprehensive bounty.

THE WORDS OF HARETH IBN-HAMMAM

From the 'Makamat' of al-Hariri of Barra: Translation of Theodore Preston

On a night whose aspect displayed both light and shade,

And whose moon was like a magic circlet of silver,

I was engaged in evening conversation at Koufa

With companions who had been nourished on the milk of eloquence,

So the charms of conversation fascinated us,

While wakefulness still prevailed among us,

Until the moon had at length disappeared in the West.

But when the gloom of night had thus drawn its curtain,

And nothing but slumber remained abroad,

We heard from the door the low call of a benighted traveler,

And then followed the knock of one seeking admission;

And we answered, "Who comes here this darksome night?"

And the stranger replied:--

"Listen ye who here are dwelling!

May you so be kept from ill!

So may mischief ne'er befall you,

Long as life your breast shall fill!

Gloom of dismal night and dreary

Drives a wretch to seek your door,

Whose disheveled hoary tresses

All with dust are sprinkled o'er;

Who, though destitute and lonely,

Far has roamed on hill and dale,

Till his form became thus crooked,

And his cheek thus deadly pale;

Who, though faint as slender crescent,

Ventures here for aid to sue,

Hospitable meal and shelter

Claiming first of all from you.

Welcome then to food and dwelling

One so worthy both to share,

Sure to prove content and thankful,

Sure to laud your friendly care."

Fascinated then by the sweetness of his language and delivery,

And readily inferring what this prelude betokened,

We hasted to open the door, and received him with welcome,

Saying to the servant, "Hie! Hie! Bring whatever is ready!"

But the stranger said, "By Him who brought me to your abode,

I will not taste of your hospitality, unless you pledge to me

That you will not permit me to be an incumbrance to you,

Nor impose on yourselves necessity of eating on my account."

* * * * *

Now it was just as if he had been informed of our wishes,

Or had shot from the same bow as our sentiments;

So we gratified him by acceding to the condition,

And highly commended him for his accommodating disposition.

But when the servant had produced what was ready,

And the candle was lighted up in the midst of us,

I regarded him attentively, and lo! it was Abu-Zeid;

Whereupon I addressed my companions in these words:--

"May you have joy of the guest who has repaired to you:

For though the moon of the heavens has set,

The full moon of poetry has arisen;

And though the moon of the eclipse has disappeared,

The full moon of eloquence has shone forth."

So the wine of joy infused itself into them,

And sleep flew away from the corners of their eyes,

And they rejected the slumber which they had contemplated,

And began to resume the pleasantry which they had laid aside,

While Abu-Zeid remained intent on the business in hand.

But as soon as he desired the removal of what was before him,

I said to him, "Entertain us with one of thy strange anecdotes,

Or with an account of one of thy wonderful journeys."

And he said:--"The result of long journeys brought me to this land,

Myself being in a state of hunger and distress,

And my wallet light as the heart of the mother of Moses;

So I arose, when dark night had settled on the world,

Though with weary feet, to seek a lodging, or obtain a loaf;

Till, being driven on by the instigation of hunger,

And by fate, so justly called 'the parent of adventures,'

I stood at the door of a house and improvised these words:--

"'Inmates of this abode, all hail! all hail!

Long may you live in plenty's verdant vale.

Oh, grant your aid to one by toil opprest,

Way-worn, benighted, destitute, distrest;

Whose tortured entrails only hunger hold

(For since he tasted food two days are told);

A wretch who finds not where to lay his head,

Though brooding night her weary wing hath spread,

But roams in anxious hope a friend to meet,

Whose bounty, like a spring of water sweet,

May heal his woes; a friend who straight will say,

"Come in! 'Tis time thy staff aside to lay."'

"But there came out to me a boy in a short tunic, who said:--

"'By Him who hospitable rites ordained,

And first of all, and best, those rites maintained,

I swear that friendly converse and a home

Is all we have for those who nightly roam."

"And I replied, 'What can I do with an empty house,

And a host who is himself thus utterly destitute?

But what is thy name, boy? for thy intelligence charms me.'

He replied, 'My name is Zeid, and I was reared at Faid;

And my mother Barrah (who is such as her name implies),

Told me she married one of the nobles of Serong and Ghassân,

Who deserted her stealthily, and there was an end of him.'

Now I knew by these distinct signs that he was my child,

But my poverty deterred me from discovering myself to him."

Then we asked if he wished to take his son to live with him;

And he replied, "If only my purse were heavy enough,

It would be easy for me to undertake the charge of him."

So we severally undertook to contribute a portion of it,

Whereupon he returned thanks for this our bounty,

And was so profusely lavish in his acknowledgments,

That we thought his expression of gratitude excessive.

And as soon as he had collected the coin into his scrip,

He looked at me as the deceiver looks at the deceived,

And laughed heartily, and then indited these lines:--

"O thou who, deceived

By a tale, hast believed

A mirage to be truly a lake,

Though I ne'er had expected

My fraud undetected,

Or doubtful my meaning to make!

I confess that I lied

When I said that my bride

And my first-born were Barrah and Zeid;

But guile is my part,

And deception my art,

And by these are my gains ever made.

Such schemes I devise

That the cunning and wise

Never practiced the like or conceived;

Nor Asmai nor Komait

Any wonders relate

Like those that my wiles have achieved.

But if these I disdain,

I abandon my gain,

And by fortune at once am refused:

Then pardon their use,

And accept my excuse,

Nor of guilt let my guile be accused."

Then he took leave of me, and went away from me,

Leaving in my heart the embers of lasting regret.

THE CALIPH OMAR BIN ABD AL-AZIZ AND THE POETS

A Semi-Poetical Tale: Translation of Sir Richard Burton, in

'Supplemental Nights to the Book of The Thousand Nights and A Night'

It is said that when the Caliphate devolved on Omar bin Abd al-Aziz, (of

whom Allah accept!) the poets resorted to him, as they had been used to

resort to the Caliphs before him, and abode at his door days and days;

but he suffered them not to enter till there came to him 'Adi bin Artah,

who stood high in esteem with him. Jarir [another poet] accosted him,

and begged him to crave admission for them to the presence; so 'Adi

answered, "'Tis well," and going in to Omar, said to him, "The poets are

at thy door, and have been there days and days; yet hast thou not given

them leave to enter, albeit their sayings abide, and their arrows from

the mark never fly wide." Quoth Omar, "What have I to do with the

poets?" And quoth 'Adi, "O Commander of the Faithful, the Prophet

(_Abhak!_) was praised by a poet, and gave him largesse--and in him is

an exemplar to every Moslem." Quoth Omar, "And who praised him?" And

quoth 'Adi, "Abbás bin Mirdás praised him, and he clad him with a suit

and said, 'O Generosity! Cut off from me his tongue!'" Asked the Caliph,

"Dost thou remember what he said?" And 'Adi answered, "Yes." Rejoined

Omar, "Then repeat it;" so 'Adi repeated:--

"I saw thee, O thou best of the human race,

Bring out a book which brought to graceless, grace.

Thou showedst righteous road to men astray

From right, when darkest wrong had ta'en its place:--

Thou with Islâm didst light the gloomiest way,

Quenching with proof live coals of frowardness:

I own for Prophet, my Mohammed's self,

and men's award upon his word we base.

Thou madest straight the path that crooked ran

Where in old days foul growth o'ergrew its face.

Exalt be thou in Joy's empyrean!

And Allah's glory ever grow apace!"

"And indeed," continued 'Adi, "this Elegy on the Prophet (_Abhak!_) is

well known, and to comment on it would be tedious."

Quoth Omar, "Who [of the poets] is at the door?" And quoth 'Adi, "Among

them is Omar ibn Rabí'ah, the Korashi;" whereupon the Caliph cried, "May

Allah show him no favor, neither quicken him! Was it not he who spoke

impiously [in praising his love]?--

'Could I in my clay-bed [the grave] with Ialma repose,

There to me were better than Heaven or Hell!'

Had he not [continued the Caliph] been the enemy of Allah, he had wished

for her in this world; so that he might, after, repent and return to

righteous dealing. By Allah! he shall not come in to me! Who is at the

door other than he?"

Quoth 'Adi, "Jamil bin Ma'mar al-Uzri is at the door." And quoth Omar,

"'Tis he who saith in one of his love-Elegies:--

'Would Heaven, conjoint we lived! and if I die,

Death only grant me a grave within her grave!

For I'd no longer deign to live my life

If told, "Upon her head is laid the pave."'

Quoth Omar, "Away with him from me! Who is at the door?" And quoth 'Adi,

"Kutthayir 'Azzah": whereupon Omar cried, "'Tis he who saith in one of

his [impious] Odes:--

'Some talk of faith and creed and nothing else,

And wait for pains of Hell in prayer-seat;

But did they hear what I from Azzah heard,

They'd make prostration, fearful, at her feet.'

Leave the mention of _him_. Who is at the door?" Quoth 'Adi, "Al-Ahwas

al-Ansari." Cried Omar, "Allah Almighty put him away, and estrange him

from His mercy! Is it not he who said, berhyming on a Medinite's slave

girl, so that she might outlive her master:--

Allah be judge betwixt me and her lord

Whoever flies with her--and I pursue.'

He shall not come in to me! Who is at the door other than he?" 'Adi

replied, "Hammam bin Ghalib al-Farazdak." And Omar said, "Tis he who

glories in wickedness.... He shall not come in to me! Who is at the door

other than he?" 'Adi replied, "Al-Akhtal al-Taghlibi." And Omar said,

"He is the [godless] miscreant who saith in his singing:--

'Ramazan I ne'er fasted in lifetime; nay

I ate flesh in public at undurn day!

Nor chid I the fair, save in word of love.

Nor seek Meccah's plain in salvation-way:

Nor stand I praying, like rest, who cry,

"Hie salvation-wards!" at the dawn's first ray....'

By Allah! he treadeth no carpet of mine. Who is at the door other than

he?" Said 'Adi, "Jarir Ibn al-Khatafah." And Omar cried, "Tis he

who saith:--

'But for ill-spying glances, had our eyes espied

Eyes of the antelope, and ringlets of the Reems!

A Huntress of the eyes, by night-time came; and I

cried, "Turn in peace! No time for visit this, meseems."'

But if it must be, and no help, admit Jarir." So 'Adi went forth and

admitted Jarir, who entered saying:--

'Yea, He who sent Mohammed unto men.

A just successor of Islam assigned.

His ruth and his justice all mankind embrace.

To daunt the bad and stablish well-designed.

Verily now, I look to present good,

for man hath ever transient weal in mind.'

Quoth Omar, "O Jarir! keep the fear of Allah before thine eyes, and say

naught save the sooth." And Jarir recited these couplets:--

'How many widows loose the hair, in far Yamamah land,

How many an orphan there abides, feeble of voice and eye,

Since faredst thou, who wast to them instead of father lost

when they like nestled fledglings were, sans power to creep or fly.

And now we hope--since broke the clouds their word and troth with us--

Hope from the Caliph's grace to gain a rain that ne'er shall dry.'

When the Caliph heard this, he said, "By Allah, O Jarir! Omar possesseth

but an hundred dirhams. Ho boy! do thou give them to him!" Moreover, he

gifted Jarir with the ornaments of his sword; and Jarir went forth to

the other poets, who asked him, "What is behind thee?" ["What is thy

news?"] and he answered, "A man who giveth to the poor, and who denieth

the poets; and with him I am well pleased."

DOMINIQUE FRANÇOIS ARAGO

(1786-1853)

BY EDWARD S. HOLDEN

Dominique François Arago was born February 26th, 1786, near Perpignan,

in the Eastern Pyrenees, where his father held the position of Treasurer

of the Mint. He entered the École Polytechnique in Paris after a

brilliant examination, and held the first places throughout the course.

In 1806 he was sent to Valencia in Spain, and to the neighboring island

of Iviza, to make the astronomical observations for prolonging the arc

of the meridian from Dunkirk southward, in order to supply the basis for

the metric system.

[Illustration: D. FR. ARAGO]

Here begin his extraordinary adventures, which are told with inimitable

spirit and vigor in his 'Autobiography.' Arago's work required him to

occupy stations on the summits of the highest peaks in the mountains of

southeastern Spain. The peasants were densely ignorant and hostile to

all foreigners, so that an escort of troops was required in many of his

journeys. At some stations he made friends of the bandits of the

neighborhood, and carried on his observations under their protection, as

it were. In 1807 the tribunal of the Inquisition existed in Valencia;

and Arago was witness to the trial and punishment of a pretended

sorceress,--and this, as he says, in one of the principal towns of

Spain, the seat of a celebrated university. Yet the worst criminals

lived unmolested in the cathedrals, for the "right of asylum" was still

in force. His geodetic observations were mysteries to the

inhabitants, and his signals on the mountain top were believed to be

part of the work of a French spy. Just at this time hostilities broke

out between France and Spain, and the astronomer was obliged to flee

disguised as a Majorcan peasant, carrying his precious papers with him.

His knowledge of the Majorcan language saved him, and he reached a

Spanish prison with only a slight wound from a dagger. It is the first

recorded instance, he says, of a fugitive flying to a dungeon for

safety. In this prison, under the care of Spanish officers, Arago found

sufficient occupation in calculating observations which he had made; in

reading the accounts in the Spanish journals of his own execution at

Valencia; and in listening to rumors that it was proposed (by a Spanish

monk) to do away with the French prisoner by poisoning his food.

The Spanish officer in charge of the prisoners was induced to connive at

the escape of Arago and M. Berthémie (an aide-de-camp of Napoleon); and

on the 28th of July, 1808, they stole away from the coast of Spain in a

small boat with three sailors, and arrived at Algiers on the 3d of

August. Here the French consul procured them two false passports, which

transformed the Frenchmen into strolling merchants from Schwekat and

Leoben. They boarded an Algerian vessel and set off. Let Arago describe

the crew and cargo:--

"The vessel belonged to the Emir of Seca. The commander was a Greek

captain named Spiro Calligero. Among the passengers were five members of

the family superseded by the Bakri as kings of the Jews; two Maroccan

ostrich-feather merchants; Captain Krog from Bergen in Norway; two lions

sent by the Dey of Algiers as presents to the Emperor Napoleon; and a

great number of monkeys."

As they entered the Golfe du Lion their ship was captured by a Spanish

corsair and taken to Rosas. Worst of all, a former Spanish servant of

Arago's--Pablo--was a sailor in the corsair's crew! At Rosas the

prisoners were brought before an officer for interrogation. It was now

Arago's turn. The officer begins:--

"'Who are you?'

"'A poor traveling merchant.'

"'From whence do you come?'

"'From a country where you certainly have never been.'

"'Well--from what country?'

"I feared to answer; for the passports (steeped in vinegar to prevent

infection) were in the officer's hands, and I had entirely forgotten

whether I was from Schwekat or from Leoben. Finally I answered at a

chance, 'I am from Schwekat;' fortunately this answer agreed with

the passport.

"'You're from Schwekat about as much as I am,' said the officer: 'you're

a Spaniard, and a Spaniard from Valencia to boot, as I can tell by

your accent.'

"'Sir, you are inclined to punish me simply because I have by nature

the gift of languages. I readily learn the dialects of the various

countries where I carry on my trade. For example, I know the dialect

of Iviza.'

"'Well, I will take you at your word. Here is a soldier who comes from

Iviza. Talk to him.'

"'Very well; I will even sing the goat-song.'

"The verses of this song (if one may call them verses) are separated by

the imitated bleatings of the goat. I began at once, with an audacity

which even now astonishes me, to intone the song which all the shepherds

in Iviza sing:--

Ah graciada Señora,

Una canzo bouil canta,

Bè bè bè bè.

No sera gaiva pulida,

Nosé si vos agradara,

Bè bè bè bè.

"Upon which my Ivizan avouches, in tears, that I am certainly from

Iviza. The song had affected him as a Switzer is affected by the 'Ranz

des Vaches.' I then said to the officer that if he would bring to me a

person who could speak French, he would find the same embarrassment in

this case also. An emigré of the Bourbon regiment comes forward for the

new experiment, and after a few phrases affirms without hesitation that

I am surely a Frenchman. The officer begins to be impatient.

"'Have done with these trials: they prove nothing. I require you to tell

me who you are.'

"'My foremost desire is to find an answer which will satisfy you. I am

the son of the innkeeper at Mataro.'

"'I know that man: you are not his son.'

"'You are right: I told you that I should change my answers till I found

one to suit you. I am a marionette player from Lerida.'

"A huge laugh from the crowd which had listened to the interrogatory put

an end to the questioning."

Finally it was necessary for Arago to declare outright that he was

French, and to prove it by his old servant Pablo. To supply his

immediate wants he sold his watch; and by a series of misadventures this

watch subsequently fell into the hands of his family, and he was mourned

in France as dead.

After months of captivity the vessel was released, and the prisoner set

out for Marseilles. A fearful tempest drove them to the harbor of

Bougie, an African port a hundred miles east of Algiers. Thence they

made the perilous journey by land to their place of starting, and

finally reached Marseilles eleven months after their voyage began.

Eleven months to make a journey of four days!

The intelligence of the safe arrival, after so many perils, of the young

astronomer, with his packet of precious observations, soon reached

Paris. He was welcomed with effusion. Soon afterward (at the age of

twenty-three years) he was elected a member of the section of Astronomy

of the Academy of Sciences, and from this time forth he led the peaceful

life of a savant. He was the Director of the Paris Observatory for many

years; the friend of all European scientists; the ardent patron of young

men of talent; a leading physicist; a strong Republican, though the

friend of Napoleon; and finally the Perpetual Secretary of the Academy.

In the latter capacity it was part of his duty to prepare _éloges_ of

deceased Academicians. Of his collected works in fourteen volumes,

'Oeuvres de François Arago,' published in Paris, 1865, three volumes are

given to these 'Notices Biographiques.' Here may be found the

biographies of Bailly, Sir William Herschel, Laplace, Joseph Fourier,

Carnot, Malus, Fresnel, Thomas Young, and James Watt; which, translated

rather carelessly into English, have been published under the title

'Biographies of Distinguished Men,' and can be found in the larger

libraries. The collected works contain biographies also of Ampère,

Condoreet, Volta, Monge, Porson, Gay-Lussac, besides shorter sketches.

They are masterpieces of style and of clear scientific exposition, and

full of generous appreciation of others' work. They present in a lucid

and popular form the achievements of scientific men whose works have

changed the accepted opinion of the world, and they give general views

not found in the original writings themselves. Scientific men are

usually too much engrossed in advancing science to spare time for

expounding it to popular audiences. The talent for such exposition is

itself a special one. Arago possessed it to the full, and his own

original contributions to astronomy and physics enabled him to speak as

an expert, not merely as an expositor.

The extracts are from his admirable estimate of Laplace, which he

prepared in connection with the proposal, before him and other members

of a State Committee, to publish a new and authoritative edition of the

great astronomer's works. The translation is mainly that of the

'Biographies of Distinguished Men' cited above, and much of the felicity

of style is necessarily lost in translation; but the substance of solid

and lucid exposition from a master's hand remains.

Arago was a Deputy in 1830, and Minister of War in the Provisional

Government of 1848. He died full of honors, October 2d, 1853. Two of his

brothers, Jacques and Étienne, were dramatic authors of note. Another,

Jean, was a distinguished general in the service of Mexico. One of his

sons, Alfred, is favorably known as a painter; another, Emmanuel, as a

lawyer, deputy, and diplomat.

[Illustration: Signature: Edward S. Holden]

LAPLACE

The Marquis de Laplace, peer of France, one of the forty of the French

Academy, member of the Academy of Sciences and of the Bureau of

Longitude, Associate of all the great Academies or Scientific Societies

of Europe, was born at Beaumont-en-Auge, of parents belonging to the

class of small farmers, on the 28th of March, 1749; he died on the 5th

of March, 1827. The first and second volumes of the 'Mécanique Céleste'

[Mechanism of the Heavens] were published in 1799; the third volume

appeared in 1802, the fourth in 1805; part of the fifth volume was

published in 1823, further books in 1824, and the remainder in 1825. The

'Théorie des Probabilités' was published in 1812. We shall now present

the history of the principal astronomical discoveries contained in these

immortal works.

Astronomy is the science of which the human mind may justly feel

proudest. It owes this pre-eminence to the elevated nature of its

object; to the enormous scale of its operations; to the certainty, the

utility, and the stupendousness of its results. From the very beginnings

of civilization the study of the heavenly bodies and their movements has

attracted the attention of governments and peoples. The greatest

captains, statesmen, philosophers, and orators of Greece and Rome found

it a subject of delight. Yet astronomy worthy of the name is a modern

science: it dates from the sixteenth century only. Three great, three

brilliant phases have marked its progress. In 1543 the bold and firm

hand of Copernicus overthrew the greater part of the venerable

scaffolding which had propped the illusions and the pride of many

generations. The earth ceased to be the centre, the pivot, of celestial

movements. Henceforward it ranged itself modestly among the other

planets, its relative importance as one member of the solar system

reduced almost to that of a grain of sand.

Twenty-eight years had elapsed from the day when the Canon of Thorn

expired while holding in his trembling hands the first copy of the work

which was to glorify the name of Poland, when Würtemberg witnessed the

birth of a man who was destined to achieve a revolution in science not

less fertile in consequences, and still more difficult to accomplish.

This man was Kepler. Endowed with two qualities which seem

incompatible,--a volcanic imagination, and a dogged pertinacity which

the most tedious calculations could not tire,--Kepler conjectured that

celestial movements must be connected with each other by simple laws;

or, to use his own expression, by harmonic laws. These laws he undertook

to discover. A thousand fruitless attempts--the errors of calculation

inseparable from a colossal undertaking--did not hinder his resolute

advance toward the goal his imagination descried. Twenty-two years he

devoted to it, and still he was not weary. What are twenty-two years of

labor to him who is about to become the lawgiver of worlds; whose name

is to be ineffaceably inscribed on the frontispiece of an immortal code;

who can exclaim in dithyrambic language, "The die is cast: I have

written my book; it will be read either in the present age or by

posterity, it matters not which; it may well await a reader since God

has waited six thousand years for an interpreter of his works"?

These celebrated laws, known in astronomy as Kepler's laws, are three in

number. The first law is, that the planets describe ellipses around the

sun, which is placed in their common focus; the second, that a line

joining a planet and the sun sweeps over equal areas in equal times; the

third, that the squares of the times of revolution of the planets about

the sun are proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from that

body. The first two laws were discovered by Kepler in the course of a

laborious examination of the theory of the planet Mars. A full account

of this inquiry is contained in his famous work, 'De Stella Martis' [Of

the Planet Mars], published in 1609. The discovery of the third law was

announced to the world in his treatise on Harmonics (1628).

To seek a physical cause adequate to retain the planets in their closed

orbits; to make the stability of the universe depend on mechanical

forces, and not on solid supports like the crystalline spheres imagined

by our ancestors; to extend to the heavenly bodies in their courses the

laws of earthly mechanics,--such were the problems which remained for

solution after Kepler's discoveries had been announced. Traces of these

great problems may be clearly perceived here and there among ancient and

modern writers, from Lucretius and Plutarch down to Kepler, Bouillaud,

and Borelli. It is to Newton, however, that we must award the merit of

their solution. This great man, like several of his predecessors,

imagined the celestial bodies to have a tendency to approach each other

in virtue of some attractive force, and from the laws of Kepler he

deduced the mathematical characteristics of this force. He extended it

to all the material molecules of the solar system; and developed his

brilliant discovery in a work which, even at the present day, is

regarded as the supremest product of the human intellect.

The contributions of France to these revolutions in astronomical science

consisted, in 1740, in the determination by experiment of the spheroidal

figure of the earth, and in the discovery of the local variations of

gravity upon the surface of our planet. These were two great results;

but whenever France is not first in science she has lost her place. This

rank, lost for a moment, was brilliantly regained by the labors of four

geometers. When Newton, giving to his discoveries a generality which the

laws of Kepler did not suggest, imagined that the different planets were

not only attracted by the sun, but that they also attracted each other,

he introduced into the heavens a cause of universal perturbation.

Astronomers then saw at a glance that in no part of the universe would

the Keplerian laws suffice for the exact representation of the phenomena

of motion; that the simple regular movements with which the imaginations

of the ancients were pleased to endow the heavenly bodies must

experience numerous, considerable, perpetually changing perturbations.

To discover a few of these perturbations, and to assign their nature and

in a few rare cases their numerical value, was the object which Newton

proposed to himself in writing his famous book, the 'Principia

Mathematica Philosophiæ Naturalis' [Mathematical Principles of Natural

Philosophy], Notwithstanding the incomparable sagacity of its author,

the 'Principia' contained merely a rough outline of planetary

perturbations, though not through any lack of ardor or perseverance. The

efforts of the great philosopher were always superhuman, and the

questions which he did not solve were simply incapable of solution

in his time.

Five geometers--Clairaut, Euler, D'Alembert, Lagrange, and

Laplace--shared between them the world whose existence Newton had

disclosed. They explored it in all directions, penetrated into regions

hitherto inaccessible, and pointed out phenomena hitherto undetected.

Finally--and it is this which constitutes their imperishable glory--they

brought under the domain of a single principle, a single law, everything

that seemed most occult and mysterious in the celestial movements.

Geometry had thus the hardihood to dispose of the future, while the

centuries as they unroll scrupulously ratify the decisions of science.

If Newton gave a complete solution of celestial movements where but two

bodies attract each other, he did not even attempt the infinitely more

difficult problem of three. The "problem of three bodies" (this is the

name by which it has become celebrated)--the problem of determining the

movement of a body subjected to the attractive influence of two

others--was solved for the first time by our countryman, Clairaut.

Though he enumerated the various forces which must result from the

mutual action of the planets and satellites of our system, even the

great Newton did not venture to investigate the general nature of their

effects. In the midst of the labyrinth formed by increments and

diminutions of velocity, variations in the forms of orbits, changes in

distances and inclinations, which these forces must evidently produce,

the most learned geometer would fail to discover a trustworthy guide.

Forces so numerous, so variable in direction, so different in intensity,

seemed to be incapable of maintaining a condition of equilibrium except

by a sort of miracle. Newton even suggested that the planetary system

did not contain within itself the elements of indefinite stability. He

was of opinion that a powerful hand must intervene from time to time to

repair the derangements occasioned by the mutual action of the various

bodies. Euler, better instructed than Newton in a knowledge of these

perturbations, also refused to admit that the solar system was

constituted so as to endure forever.

Never did a greater philosophical question offer itself to the inquiries

of mankind. Laplace attacked it with boldness, perseverance, and

success. The profound and long-continued researches of the illustrious

geometer completely established the perpetual variability of the

planetary ellipses. He demonstrated that the extremities of their major

axes make the circuit of the heavens; that independent of oscillation,

the planes of their orbits undergo displacements by which their

intersections with the plane of the terrestrial orbit are each year

directed toward different stars. But in the midst of this apparant

chaos, there is one element which remains constant, or is merely subject

to small and periodic changes; namely, the major axis of each orbit, and

consequently the time of revolution of each planet. This is the element

which ought to have varied most, on the principles held by Newton and

Euler. Gravitation, then, suffices to preserve the stability of the

solar system. It maintains the forms and inclinations of the orbits in

an average position, subject to slight oscillations only; variety does

not entail disorder; the universe offers an example of harmonious

relations, of a state of perfection which Newton himself doubted.

This condition of harmony depends on circumstances disclosed to Laplace

by analysis; circumstances which on the surface do not seem capable of

exercising so great an influence. If instead of planets all revolving in

the same direction, in orbits but slightly eccentric and in planes

inclined at but small angles toward each other, we should substitute

different conditions, the stability of the universe would be

jeopardized, and a frightful chaos would pretty certainly result. The

discovery of the actual conditions excluded the idea, at least so far as

the solar system was concerned, that the Newtonian attraction might be a

cause of disorder. But might not other forces, combined with the

attraction of gravitation, produce gradually increasing perturbations

such as Newton and Euler feared? Known facts seemed to justify the

apprehension. A comparison of ancient with modern observations revealed

a continual acceleration in the mean motions of the moon and of Jupiter,

and an equally striking diminution of the mean motion of Saturn. These

variations led to a very important conclusion. In accordance with their

presumed cause, to say that the velocity of a body increased from

century to century was equivalent to asserting that the body continually

approached the centre of motion; on the other hand, when the velocity

diminished, the body must be receding from the centre. Thus, by a

strange ordering of nature, our planetary system seemed destined to lose

Saturn, its most mysterious ornament; to see the planet with its ring

and seven satellites plunge gradually into those unknown regions where

the eye armed with the most powerful telescope has never penetrated.

Jupiter, on the other hand, the planet compared with which the earth is

so insignificant, appeared to be moving in the opposite direction, so

that it would ultimately be absorbed into the incandescent matter of the

sun. Finally, it seemed that the moon would one day precipitate itself

upon the earth.

There was nothing doubtful or speculative in these sinister forebodings.

The precise dates of the approaching catastrophes were alone uncertain.

It was known, however, that they were very distant. Accordingly, neither

the learned dissertations of men of science nor the animated

descriptions of certain poets produced any impression upon the public

mind. The members of our scientific societies, however, believed with

regret the approaching destruction of the planetary system. The Academy

of Sciences called the attention of geometers of all countries to these

menacing perturbations. Euler and Lagrange descended into the arena.

Never did their mathematical genius shine with a brighter lustre. Still

the question remained undecided, when from two obscure corners of the

theories of analysis, Laplace, the author of the 'Mécanique Céleste,'

brought the laws of these great phenomena clearly to light. The

variations in velocity of Jupiter, Saturn, and the moon, were proved to

flow from evident physical causes, and to belong in the category of

ordinary periodic perturbations depending solely on gravitation. These

dreaded variations in orbital dimensions resolved themselves into simple

oscillations included within narrow limits. In a word, by the powerful

instrumentality of mathematical analysis, the physical universe was

again established on a demonstrably firm foundation.

Having demonstrated the smallness of these periodic oscillations,

Laplace next succeeded in determining the absolute dimensions of the

orbits. What is the distance of the sun from the earth? No scientific

question has occupied the attention of mankind in a greater degree.

Mathematically speaking, nothing is more simple: it suffices, as in

ordinary surveying, to draw visual lines from the two extremities of a

known base line to an inaccessible object; the remainder of the process

is an elementary calculation. Unfortunately, in the case of the sun, the

distance is very great and the base lines which can be measured upon the

earth are comparatively very small. In such a case, the slightest errors

in the direction of visual lines exercise an enormous influence upon the

results. In the beginning of the last century, Halley had remarked that

certain interpositions of Venus between the earth and the sun--or to use

the common term, the transits of the planet across the sun's disk--would

furnish at each observing station an indirect means of fixing the

position of the visual ray much superior in accuracy to the most perfect

direct measures. Such was the object of the many scientific expeditions

undertaken in 1761 and 1769, years in which the transits of Venus

occurred. A comparison of observations made in the Southern Hemisphere

with those of Europe gave for the distance of the sun the result which

has since figured in all treatises on astronomy and navigation. No

government hesitated to furnish scientific academies with the means,

however expensive, of establishing their observers in the most distant

regions. We have already remarked that this determination seemed

imperiously to demand an extensive base, for small bases would have been

totally inadequate. Well, Laplace has solved the problem without a base

of any kind whatever; he has deduced the distance of the sun from

observations of the moon made in one and the same place.

The sun is, with respect to our satellite the moon, the cause of

perturbations which evidently depend on the distance of the immense

luminous globe from the earth. Who does not see that these perturbations

must diminish if the distance increases, and increase if the distance

diminishes, so that the distance determines the amount of the

perturbations? Observation assigns the numerical value of these

perturbations; theory, on the other hand, unfolds the general

mathematical relation which connects them with the solar distance and

with other known elements. The determination of the mean radius of the

terrestrial orbit--of the distance of the sun--then becomes one of the

most simple operations of algebra. Such is the happy combination by the

aid of which Laplace has solved the great, the celebrated problem of

parallax. It is thus that the illustrious geometer found for the mean

distance of the sun from the earth, expressed in radii of the

terrestrial orbit, a value differing but slightly from that which was

the fruit of so many troublesome and expensive voyages.

The movements of the moon proved a fertile mine of research to our great

geometer. His penetrating intellect discovered in them unknown

treasures. With an ability and a perseverance equally worthy of

admiration, he separated these treasures from the coverings which had

hitherto concealed them from vulgar eyes. For example, the earth governs

the movements of the moon. The earth is flattened; in other words, its

figure is spheroidal. A spheroidal body does not attract as does a

sphere. There should then exist in the movement--I had almost said in

the countenance--of the moon a sort of impress of the spheroidal figure

of the earth. Such was the idea as it originally occurred to Laplace. By

means of a minutely careful investigation, he discovered in its motion

two well-defined perturbations, each depending on the spheroidal figure

of the earth. When these were submitted to calculation, each led to the

same value of the ellipticity. It must be recollected that the

ellipticity thus derived from the motions of the moon is not the one

corresponding to such or such a country, to the ellipticity observed in

France, in England, in Italy, in Lapland, in North America, in India, or

in the region of the Cape of Good Hope; for, the earth's crust having

undergone considerable upheavals at different times and places, the

primitive regularity of its curvature has been sensibly disturbed

thereby. The moon (and it is this which renders the result of such

inestimable value) ought to assign, and has in reality assigned, the

general ellipticity of the earth; in other words, it has indicated a

sort of average value of the various determinations obtained at enormous

expense, and with infinite labor, as the result of long voyages

undertaken by astronomers of all the countries of Europe.

Certain remarks of Laplace himself bring into strong relief the

profound, the unexpected, the almost paradoxical character of the

methods I have attempted to sketch. What are the elements it has been

found necessary to confront with each other in order to arrive at

results expressed with such extreme precision? On the one hand,

mathematical formulae deduced from the principle of universal

gravitation; on the other, certain irregularities observed in the

returns of the moon to the meridian. An observing geometer, who from his

infancy had never quitted his study, and who had never viewed the

heavens except through a narrow aperture directed north and south,--to

whom nothing had ever been revealed respecting the bodies revolving

above his head, except that they attract each other according to the

Newtonian law of gravitation,--would still perceive that his narrow

abode was situated upon the surface of a spheroidal body, whose

equatorial axis was greater than its polar by a three hundred and sixth

part. In his isolated, fixed position he could still deduce his true

distance from the sun!

Laplace's improvement of the lunar tables not only promoted maritime

intercourse between distant countries, but preserved the lives of

mariners. Thanks to an unparalleled sagacity, to a limitless

perseverance, to an ever youthful and communicable ardor, Laplace solved

the celebrated problem of the longitude with a precision even greater

than the utmost needs of the art of navigation demanded. The ship, the

sport of the winds and tempests, no longer fears to lose its way in the

immensity of the ocean. In every place and at every time the pilot reads

in the starry heavens his distance from the meridian of Paris. The

extreme perfection of these tables of the moon places Laplace in the

ranks of the world's benefactors.

In the beginning of the year 1611, Galileo supposed that he found in the

eclipses of Jupiter's satellites a simple and rigorous solution of the

famous problem of the longitude, and attempts to introduce the new

method on board the numerous vessels of Spain and Holland at once began.

They failed because the necessary observations required powerful

telescopes, which could not be employed on a tossing ship. Even the

expectations of the serviceability of Galileo's methods for land

calculations proved premature. The movements of the satellites of

Jupiter are far less simple than the immortal Italian supposed them to

be. The labors of three more generations of astronomers and

mathematicians were needed to determine them, and the mathematical

genius of Laplace was needed to complete their labors. At the present

day the nautical ephemerides contain, several years in advance, the

indications of the times of the eclipses and reappearances of Jupiter's

satellites. Calculation is as precise as direct observation.

Influenced by an exaggerated deference, modesty, timidity, France in the

eighteenth century surrendered to England the exclusive privilege of

constructing her astronomical instruments. Thus, when Herschel was

prosecuting his beautiful observations on the other side of the Channel,

we had not even the means of verifying them. Fortunately for the

scientific honor of our country, mathematical analysis also is a

powerful instrument. The great Laplace, from the retirement of his

study, foresaw, and accurately predicted in advance, what the excellent

astronomer of Windsor would soon behold with the largest telescopes

existing. When, in 1610, Galileo directed toward Saturn a lens of very

low power which he had just constructed with his own hands, although he

perceived that the planet was not a globe, he could not ascertain its

real form. The expression "tri-corporate," by which the illustrious

Florentine designated the appearance of the planet, even implied a

totally erroneous idea of its structure. At the present day every one

knows that Saturn consists of a globe about nine hundred times greater

than the earth, and of a ring. This ring does not touch the ball of the

planet, being everywhere removed from it to a distance of twenty

thousand (English) miles. Observation indicates the breadth of the ring

to be fifty-four thousand miles. The thickness certainly does not

exceed two hundred and fifty miles. With the exception of a black streak

which divides the ring throughout its whole contour into two parts of

unequal breadth and of different brightness, this strange colossal

bridge without foundations had never offered to the most experienced or

skillful observers either spot or protuberance adapted for deciding

whether it was immovable or endowed with a motion of rotation. Laplace

considered it to be very improbable, if the ring was stationary, that

its constituent parts should be capable of resisting by mere cohesion

the continual attraction of the planet. A movement of rotation occurred

to his mind as constituting the principle of stability, and he deduced

the necessary velocity from this consideration. The velocity thus found

was exactly equal to that which Herschel subsequently derived from a

series of extremely delicate observations. The two parts of the ring,

being at different distances from the planet, could not fail to be given

different movements of precession by the action of the sun. Hence it

would seem that the planes of both rings ought in general to be inclined

toward each other, whereas they appear from observation always to

coincide. It was necessary then that some physical cause capable of

neutralizing the action of the sun should exist. In a memoir published

in February, 1789, Laplace found that this cause depended on the

ellipticity of Saturn produced by a rapid movement of rotation of the

planet, a movement whose discovery Herschel announced in November of the

same year.

If we descend from the heavens to the earth, the discoveries of Laplace

will appear not less worthy of his genius. He reduced the phenomena of

the tides, which an ancient philosopher termed in despair "the tomb of

human curiosity," to an analytical theory in which the physical

conditions of the question figure for the first time. Consequently, to

the immense advantage of coast navigation, calculators now venture to

predict in detail the time and height of the tides several years in

advance. Between the phenomena of the ebb and flow, and the attractive

forces of the sun and moon upon the fluid sheet which covers three

fourths of the globe, an intimate and necessary connection exists; a

connection from which Laplace deduced the value of the mass of our

satellite the moon. Yet so late as the year 1631 the illustrious

Galileo, as appears from his 'Dialogues,' was so far from perceiving the

mathematical relations from which Laplace deduced results so beautiful,

so unequivocal, and so useful, that he taxed with frivolousness the

vague idea which Kepler entertained of attributing to the moon's

attraction a certain share in the production of the diurnal and

periodical movements of the waters of the ocean.

Laplace did not confine his genius to the extension and improvement of

the mathematical theory of the tide. He considered the phenomenon from

an entirely new point of view, and it was he who first treated of the

stability of the ocean. He has established its equilibrium, but upon the

express condition (which, however, has been amply proved to exist) that

the mean density of the fluid mass is less than the mean density of the

earth. Everything else remaining the same, if we substituted an ocean of

quicksilver for the actual ocean, this stability would disappear. The

fluid would frequently overflow its boundaries, to ravage continents

even to the height of the snowy peaks which lose themselves in

the clouds.

No one was more sagacious than Laplace in discovering intimate relations

between phenomena apparently unrelated, or more skillful in deducing

important conclusions from such unexpected affinities. For example,

toward the close of his days, with the aid of certain lunar

observations, with a stroke of his pen he overthrew the cosmogonic

theories of Buffon and Bailly, which were so long in favor. According to

these theories, the earth was hastening to a state of congelation which

was close at hand. Laplace, never contented with vague statements,

sought to determine in numbers the rate of the rapid cooling of our

globe which Buffon had so eloquently but so gratuitously announced.

Nothing could be more simple, better connected, or more conclusive than

the chain of deductions of the celebrated geometer. A body diminishes in

volume when it cools. According to the most elementary principles of

mechanics, a rotating body which contracts in dimensions must inevitably

turn upon its axis with greater and greater rapidity. The length of the

day has been determined in all ages by the time of the earth's rotation;

if the earth is cooling, the length of the day must be continually

shortening. Now, there exists a means of ascertaining whether the length

of the day has undergone any variation; this consists in examining, for

each century, the arc of the celestial sphere described by the moon

during the interval of time which the astronomers of the existing epoch

call a day; in other words, the time required by the earth to effect a

complete rotation on its axis, the velocity of the moon being in fact

independent of the time of the earth's rotation. Let us now, following

Laplace, take from the standard tables the smallest values, if you

choose, of the expansions or contractions which solid bodies experience

from changes of temperature; let us search the annals of Grecian,

Arabian, and modern astronomy for the purpose of finding in them the

angular velocity of the moon: and the great geometer will prove, by

incontrovertible evidence founded upon these data, that during a period

of two thousand years the mean temperature of the earth has not varied

to the extent of the hundredth part of a degree of the centigrade

thermometer. Eloquence cannot resist such a process of reasoning, or

withstand the force of such figures. Mathematics has ever been the

implacable foe of scientific romances. The constant object of Laplace

was the explanation of the great phenomena of nature according to

inflexible principles of mathematical analysis. No philosopher, no

mathematician, could have guarded himself more cautiously against a

propensity to hasty speculation. No person dreaded more the scientific

errors which cajole the imagination when it passes the boundary of fact,

calculation, and analogy.

Once, and once only, did Laplace launch forward, like Kepler, like

Descartes, like Leibnitz, like Buffon, into the region of conjectures.

But then his conception was nothing less than a complete cosmogony. All

the planets revolve around the sun, from west to east, and in planes

only slightly inclined to each other. The satellites revolve around

their respective primaries in the same direction. Both planets and

satellites, having a rotary motion, turn also upon their axes from west

to east. Finally, the rotation of the sun also is directed from west to

east. Here, then, is an assemblage of forty-three movements, all

operating alike. By the calculus of probabilities, the odds are four

thousand millions to one that this coincidence in direction is not the

effect of accident.

It was Buffon, I think, who first attempted to explain this singular

feature of our solar system. "Wishing, in the explanation of phenomena,

to avoid recourse to causes which are not to be found in nature," the

celebrated academician sought for a physical cause for what is common to

the movements of so many bodies differing as they do in magnitude, in

form, and in their distances from the centre of attraction. He imagined

that he had discovered such a physical cause by making this triple

supposition: a comet fell obliquely upon the sun; it pushed before it a

torrent of fluid matter; this substance, transported to a greater or

less distance from the sun according to its density, formed by

condensation all the known planets. The bold hypothesis is subject to

insurmountable difficulties. I proceed to indicate, in a few words, the

cosmogonic system which Laplace substituted for it.

According to Laplace, the sun was, at a remote epoch, the central

nucleus of an immense nebula, which possessed a very high temperature,

and extended far beyond the region in which Uranus now revolves. No

planet was then in existence. The solar nebula was endowed with a

general movement of rotation in the direction west to east. As it cooled

it could not fail to experience a gradual condensation, and in

consequence to rotate with greater and greater rapidity. If the nebulous

matter extended originally in the plane of its equator, as far as the

limit where the centrifugal force exactly counterbalanced the attraction

of the nucleus, the molecules situate at this limit ought, during the

process of condensation, to separate from the rest of the atmospheric

matter and to form an equatorial zone, a ring, revolving separately and

with its primitive velocity. We may conceive that analogous separations

were effected in the remoter strata of the nebula at different epochs

and at different distances from the nucleus, and that they gave rise to

a succession of distinct rings, all lying in nearly the same plane, and

all endowed with different velocities.

This being once admitted, it is easy to see that the permanent stability

of the rings would have required a regularity of structure throughout

their whole contour, which is very improbable. Each of them,

accordingly, broke in its turn into several masses, which were obviously

endowed with a movement of rotation coinciding in direction with the

common movement of revolution, and which, in consequence of their

fluidity, assumed spheroidal forms. In order, next, that one of those

spheroids may absorb all the others belonging to the same ring, it is

sufficient to suppose it to have a mass greater than that of any other

spheroid of its group.

Each of the planets, while in this vaporous condition to which we have

just alluded, would manifestly have a central nucleus, gradually

increasing in magnitude and mass, and an atmosphere offering, at its

successive limits, phenomena entirely similar to those which the solar

atmosphere, properly so called, had exhibited. We are here

contemplating the birth of satellites and the birth of the ring

of Saturn.

The Nebular Hypothesis, of which I have just given an imperfect sketch,

has for its object to show how a nebula endowed with a general movement

of rotation must eventually transform itself into a very luminous

central nucleus (a sun), and into a series of distinct spheroidal

planets, situate at considerable distances from one another, all

revolving around the central sun, in the direction of the original

movement of the nebula; how these planets ought also to have movements

of rotation in similar directions; how, finally, the satellites, when

any such are formed, must revolve upon their axes and around their

respective primaries, in the direction of rotation of the planets and of

their movement of revolution around the sun.

In all that precedes, attention has been concentrated upon the

'Mécanique Céleste.' The 'Système du Monde' and the 'Théorie Analytique

des Probabilités' also deserve description.

The Exposition of the System of the World is the 'Mécanique Céleste'

divested of that great apparatus of analytical formulae which must be

attentively perused by every astronomer who, to use an expression of

Plato, wishes to know the numbers which govern the physical universe. It

is from this work that persons ignorant of mathematics may obtain

competent knowledge of the methods to which physical astronomy owes its

astonishing progress. Written with a noble simplicity of style, an

exquisite exactness of expression, and a scrupulous accuracy, it is

universally conceded to stand among the noblest monuments of French

literature.... The labors of all ages to persuade truth from the heavens

are there justly, clearly, and profoundly analyzed. Genius presides as

the impartial judge of genius. Throughout his work Laplace remained at

the height of his great mission. It will be read with respect so long as

the torch of science illuminates the world.

The calculus of probabilities, when confined within just limits,

concerns the mathematician, the experimenter, and the statesman. From

the time when Pascal and Fermat established its first principles, it has

rendered most important daily services. This it is which, after

suggesting the best form for statistical tables of population and

mortality, teaches us to deduce from those numbers, so often

misinterpreted, the most precise and useful conclusions. This it is

which alone regulates with equity insurance premiums, pension funds,

annuities, discounts, etc. This it is that has gradually suppressed

lotteries, and other shameful snares cunningly laid for avarice and

ignorance. Laplace has treated these questions with his accustomed

superiority: the 'Analytical Theory of Probabilities' is worthy of the

author of the 'Mécanique Céleste.'

A philosopher whose name is associated with immortal discoveries said to

his too conservative audience, "Bear in mind, gentlemen, that in

questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble

reasoning of a single individual." Two centuries have passed over these

words of Galileo without lessening their value or impugning their truth.

For this reason, it has been thought better rather to glance briefly at

the work of Laplace than to repeat the eulogies of his admirers.

JOHN ARBUTHNOT

(1667-1735)

Arbuthnot's place in literature depends as much on his association with

the wits of his day as on his own satirical and humorous productions.

Many of these have been published in the collections of Swift, Gay,

Pope, and others, and cannot be identified. The task of verifying them

is rendered more difficult by the fact that his son repudiated a

collection claiming to be his 'Miscellaneous Works,' published in 1750.

[Illustration: JOHN ARBUTHNOT]

John Arbuthnot was born in the manse near Arbuthnot Castle,

Kincardineshire, Scotland, April 29th, 1667. He was the son of a Scotch

Episcopal clergyman, who was soon to be dispossessed of his parish by

the Presbyterians in the Revolution of 1688. His children, who shared

his Jacobite sentiments, were forced to leave Scotland; and John, after

finishing his university course at Aberdeen, and taking his medical

degree at St. Andrews, went to London and taught mathematics. He soon

attracted attention by a keen and satirical 'Examination of Dr.

Woodward's Account of the Deluge,' published in 1697. By a fortunate

chance he was called to attend the Prince Consort (Prince George of

Denmark), and in 1705 was made Physician Extraordinary to Queen Anne. If

we may believe Swift, the agreeable Scotchman at once became her

favorite attendant. His position at court was strengthened by his

friendships with the great Tory statesmen.

Arbuthnot's best remembered work is 'The History of John Bull'; not

because many people read or will ever read the book itself, but because

it fixed a typical name and a typical character ineffaceably in the

popular fancy and memory. He is credited with having been the first to

use this famous sobriquet for the English nation; he was certainly the

first to make it universal, and the first to make that burly, choleric,

gross-feeding, hard-drinking, blunt-spoken, rather stupid and decidedly

gullible, but honest and straightforward character one of the stock

types of the world. The book appeared as four separate pamphlets: the

first being entitled 'Law is a Bottomless Pit, Exemplified in the Case

of Lord Strutt, John Bull, Nicholas Frog, and Lewis Baboon, Who Spent

All They Had in a Law Suit'; the second, 'John Bull in His Senses'; the

third, 'John Bull Still in His Senses'; and the fourth, 'Lewis Baboon

Turned Honest, and John Bull Politician.' Published in 1712, these were

at once attributed to Swift. But Pope says, "Dr. Arbuthnot was the sole

writer of 'John Bull'"; and Swift gives us still more conclusive

evidence by writing, "I hope you read 'John Bull.' It was a Scotch

gentleman, a friend of mine, that writ it; but they put it on to me." In

his humorous preface Dr. Arbuthnot says:--

"When I was first called to the office of historiographer to

John Bull, he expressed himself to this purpose:--'Sir

Humphrey Polesworth, I know you are a plain dealer; it is for

that reason I have chosen you for this important trust; speak

the truth, and spare not.' That I might fulfill those, his

honorable intentions, I obtained leave to repair to and

attend him in his most secret retirements; and I put the

journals of all transactions into a strong box to be opened

at a fitting occasion, after the manner of the

historiographers of some Eastern monarchs.... And now, that

posterity may not be ignorant in what age so excellent a

history was written (which would otherwise, no doubt, be the

subject of its inquiries), I think it proper to inform the

learned of future times that it was compiled when Louis XIV.

was King of France, and Philip, his grandson, of Spain; when

England and Holland, in conjunction with the Emperor and the

allies, entered into a war against these two princes, which

lasted ten years, under the management of the Duke of

Marlborough, and was put to a conclusion by the treaty of

Utrecht under the ministry of the Earl of Oxford, in the year

1713."

The characters disguised are: "John Bull," the English; "Nicholas Frog,"

the Dutch; "Lewis Baboon," the French king; "Lord Strutt," the late King

of Spain; "Philip Baboon," the Duke of Anjou; "Esquire South," the King

of Spain; "Humphrey Hocus," the Duke of Marlborough; and "Sir Roger

Bold," the Earl of Oxford. The lawsuit was the War of the Spanish

Succession; John Bull's first wife was the late ministry; and his

second wife the Tory ministry. To explain the allegory further, John

Bull's mother was the Church of England; his sister Peg, the Scotch

nation; and her lover Jack, Presbyterianism.

That so witty a work, so strong in typical freehand character drawing of

permanent validity and remembrance, should be unread and its author

forgotten except by scholars, is too curious a fact not to have a deep

cause in its own character. The cause is not hard to find: it is one of

the books which try to turn the world's current backward, and which the

world dislikes as offending its ideals of progress. Stripped of its

broad humor, its object, rubbed in with no great delicacy of touch, was

to uphold the most extreme and reactionary Toryism of the time, and to

jeer at political liberalism from the ground up. Its theoretic loyalty

is the non-resistant Jacobitism of the Nonjurors, which it is so hard

for us now to distinguish from abject slavishness; though like the

principles of the casuists, one must not confound theory with practice.

It seems the loyalty of a mujik or a Fiji dressed in cultivated modern

clothes, not that of a conceivable cultivated modern community as a

whole; but it would be very Philistine to pour wholesale contempt on a

creed held by so many large minds and souls. It was of course produced

by the experience of what the reverse tenets had brought on,--a long

civil war, years of military despotism, and immense social and moral

disorganization. In 'John Bull,' the fidelity of a subject to a king is

made exactly correspondent, both in theory and practice, with the

fidelity of a wife to her husband and her marriage vows; and an

elaborate parallel is worked out to show that advocating the right of

resistance to a bad king is precisely the same, on grounds of either

logic or Scripture, as advocating the right of adultery toward a bad

husband. This is not even good fooling; and, its local use past and no

longer buoyed by personal liking for the author, the book sinks back

into the limbo of partisan polemics with many worse ones and perhaps

some better ones, dragging its real excellences down with it.

In 1714 the famous Scriblerus Club was organized, having for its members

Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Gay, Congreve, Lord Oxford, and Bishop

Atterbury. They agreed to write a series of papers ridiculing, in the

words of Pope, "all the false tastes in learning, under the character of

a man of capacity enough, but that had dipped into every art and

science, but injudiciously in each." The chronicle of this club was

found in 'The Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works, and Discoveries

of Martinus Scriblerus,' which is thought to have been written entirely

by Arbuthnot, and which describes the education of a learned pedant's

son. Its humor may be appreciated by means of the citation given below.

The first book of 'Scriblerus' appeared six years after Arbuthnot's

death, when it was included in the second volume of Alexander Pope's

works (1741). Pope said that from the 'Memoirs of Scriblerus' Swift took

his idea of 'Gulliver'; and the Dean himself writes to Arbuthnot, July

3d, 1714:--

"To talk of 'Martin' in any hands but Yours is a Folly. You

every day give better hints than all of us together could do

in a twelvemonth. And to say the truth, Pope, who first

thought of the Hint, has no Genius at all to it, in my mind;

Gay is too young; Parnell has some ideas of it, but is idle;

I could put together, and lard, and strike out well enough,

but all that relates to the Sciences must be from you."

Swift's opinion that Arbuthnot "has more wit than we all have, and his

humanity is equal to his wit," seems to have been the universal dictum;

and Pope honored him by publishing a dialogue in the 'Prologue to the

Satires,' known first as 'The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot,' which contains

many affectionate personal allusions. Aitken says, in his biography:--

"Arbuthnot's attachment to Swift and Pope was of the most

intimate nature, and those who knew them best maintained that

he was their equal at least in gifts. He understood Swift's

cynicism, and their correspondence shows the unequaled

sympathy that existed between the two. Gay, Congreve,

Berkeley, Parnell, were among Arbuthnot's constant friends,

and all of them were indebted to him for kindnesses freely

rendered. He was on terms of intimacy with Bolingbroke and

Oxford, Chesterfield, Peterborough, and Pulteney; and among

the ladies with whom he mixed were Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,

Lady Betty Germain, Mrs. Howard, Lady Masham, and Mrs. Martha

Blount. He was, too, the trusted friend and physician of

Queen Anne. Most of the eminent men of science of the time,

including some who were opposed to him in politics, were in

frequent intercourse with him; and it is pleasant to know

that at least one of the greatest of the wits who were most

closely allied to the Whig party--Addison--had friendly

relations with him."

From the letters of Lord Chesterfield we learn that

"His imagination was almost inexhaustible, and whatever

subject he treated, or was consulted upon, he immediately

overflowed with all that it could possibly produce. It was at

anybody's service, for as soon as he was exonerated he did

not care what became of it; insomuch that his sons, when

young, have frequently made kites of his scattered papers of

hints, which would have furnished good matter for folios. Not

being in the least jealous of his fame as an author, he would

neither take the time nor the trouble of separating the best

from the worst; he worked out the whole mine, which

afterward, in the hands of skillful refiners, produced a rich

vein of ore. As his imagination was always at work, he was

frequently absent and inattentive in company, which made him

both say and do a thousand inoffensive absurdities; but

which, far from being provoking, as they commonly are,

supplied new matter for conversation, and occasioned wit both

in himself and others."

Speaking to Boswell of the writers of Queen Anne's time, Dr. Johnson

said, "I think Dr. Arbuthnot the first man among them. He was the most

universal genius, being an excellent physician, a man of deep learning,

and a man of much humor." He did not, however, think much of the

'Scriblerus' papers, and said they were forgotten because "no man would

be the wiser, better, or merrier for remembering them"; which is hard

measure for the wit and divertingness of some of the travesties. Cowper,

reviewing Johnson's 'Lives of the Poets,' declared that "one might

search these eight volumes with a candle to find a man, and not find

one, unless perhaps Arbuthnot were he." Thackeray, too, called him "one

of the wisest, wittiest, most accomplished, gentlest of mankind."

Thus fortunate in his sunny spirit, in his genius for friendship, in his

professional eminence, and in his literary capacity, Dr. Arbuthnot saw

his life flow smoothly to its close. He died in London on February 27th,

1735, at the age of sixty eight, still working and playing with youthful

ardor, and still surrounded with all the good things of life.

THE TRUE CHARACTERS OF JOHN BULL, NIC. FROG, AND

HOCUS

From 'The History of John Bull,' Part I.

For the better understanding the following history, the reader ought to

know that Bull, in the main, was an honest, plain-dealing fellow,

choleric, bold, and of a very unconstant temper; he dreaded not old

Lewis either at backsword, single falchion, or cudgel play; but then he

was very apt to quarrel with his best friends, especially if they

pretended to govern him. If you flattered him, you might lead him like a

child. John's temper depended very much upon the air; his spirits rose

and fell with the weather-glass. John was quick and understood his

business very well; but no man alive was more careless in looking into

his accounts, or more cheated by partners, apprentices, and servants.

This was occasioned by his being a boon companion, loving his bottle and

his diversion; for, to say truth, no man kept a better house than John,

nor spent his money more generously. By plain and fair dealing John had

acquired some plums, and might have kept them, had it not been for his

unhappy lawsuit.

Nic. Frog was a cunning, sly fellow, quite the reverse of John in many

particulars; covetous, frugal, minded domestic affairs, would pinch his

belly to save his pocket, never lost a farthing by careless servants or

bad debtors. He did not care much for any sort of diversion, except

tricks of High German artists and legerdemain. No man exceeded Nic. in

these; yet it must be owned that Nic. was a fair dealer, and in that way

acquired immense riches.

Hocus was an old, cunning attorney; and though this was the first

considerable suit that ever he was engaged in, he showed himself

superior in address to most of his profession. He kept always good

clerks, he loved money, was smooth-tongued, gave good words, and seldom

lost his temper. He was not worse than an infidel, for he provided

plentifully for his family, but he loved himself better than them all.

The neighbors reported that he was henpecked, which was impossible, by

such a mild-spirited woman as his wife was.

* * * * *

HOW THE RELATIONS RECONCILED JOHN AND HIS SISTER PEG,

AND WHAT RETURN PEG MADE TO JOHN'S MESSAGE

From the 'History of John Bull,' Part I.

John Bull, otherwise a good-natured man, was very hard-hearted to his

sister Peg, chiefly from an aversion he had conceived in his infancy.

While he flourished, kept a warm house, and drove a plentiful trade,

poor Peg was forced to go hawking and peddling about the streets selling

knives, scissors, and shoe-buckles; now and then carried a basket of

fish to the market; sewed, spun, and knit for a livelihood till her

fingers' ends were sore: and when she could not get bread for her

family, she was forced to hire them out at journey-work to her

neighbors. Yet in these, her poor circumstances, she still preserved the

air and mien of a gentlewoman--a certain decent pride that extorted

respect from the haughtiest of her neighbors. When she came in to any

full assembly, she would not yield the _pas_ to the best of them. If one

asked her, "Are you not related to John Bull?" "Yes," says she, "he has

the honor to be my brother." So Peg's affairs went till all the

relations cried out shame upon John for his barbarous usage of his own

flesh and blood; that it was an easy matter for him to put her in a

creditable way of living, not only without hurt, but with advantage to

himself, seeing she was an industrious person, and might be serviceable

to him in his way of business. "Hang her, jade," quoth John, "I can't

endure her as long as she keeps that rascal Jack's company." They told

him the way to reclaim her was to take her into his house; that by

conversation the childish humors of their younger days might be

worn out.

These arguments were enforced by a certain incident. It happened that

John was at that time about making his will and entailing his estate,

the very same in which Nic. Frog is named executor. Now, his sister

Peg's name being in the entail, he could not make a thorough settlement

without her consent. There was indeed a malicious story went about, as

if John's last wife had fallen in love with Jack as he was eating

custard on horseback; that she persuaded John to take his sister into

the house the better to drive on the intrigue with Jack, concluding he

would follow his mistress Peg. All I can infer from this story is that

when one has got a bad character in the world, people will report and

believe anything of them, true or false. But to return to my story.

When Peg received John's message she huffed and stormed:--"My brother

John," quoth she, "is grown wondrous kind-hearted all of a sudden, but I

meikle doubt whether it be not mair for their own conveniency than for

my good; he draws up his writs and his deeds, forsooth, and I must set

my hand to them, unsight, unseen. I like the young man he has settled

upon well enough, but I think I ought to have a valuable consideration

for my consent. He wants my poor little farm because it makes a nook in

his park wall. You may e'en tell him he has mair than he makes good use

of; he gangs up and down drinking, roaring, and quarreling, through all

the country markets, making foolish bargains in his cups, which he

repents when he is sober; like a thriftless wretch, spending the goods

and gear that his forefathers won with the sweat of their brows; light

come, light go; he cares not a farthing. But why should I stand surety

for his contracts? The little I have is free, and I can call it my

own--hame's hame, let it be never so hamely. I ken well enough, he could

never abide me, and when he has his ends he'll e'en use me as he did

before. I'm sure I shall be treated like a poor drudge--I shall be set

to tend the bairns, darn the hose, and mend the linen. Then there's no

living with that old carline, his mother; she rails at Jack, and Jack's

an honester man than any of her kin: I shall be plagued with her spells

and her Paternosters, and silly Old World ceremonies; I mun never pare

my nails on a Friday, nor begin a journey on Childermas Day; and I mun

stand becking and binging as I gang out and into the hall. Tell him he

may e'en gang his get; I'll have nothing to do with him; I'll stay like

the poor country mouse, in my awn habitation."

So Peg talked; but for all that, by the interposition of good friends,

and by many a bonny thing that was sent, and many more that were

promised Peg, the matter was concluded, and Peg taken into the house

upon certain articles [the Act of Toleration is referred to]; one of

which was that she might have the freedom of Jack's conversation, and

might take him for better or for worse if she pleased; provided always

he did not come into the house at unseasonable hours and disturb the

rest of the old woman, John's mother.

OF THE RUDIMENTS OF MARTIN'S LEARNING

From 'Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus'

Mrs. Scriblerus considered it was now time to instruct him in the

fundamentals of religion, and to that end took no small pains in

teaching him his catechism. But Cornelius looked upon this as a tedious

way of instruction, and therefore employed his head to find out more

pleasing methods, the better to induce him to be fond of learning. He

would frequently carry him to the puppet-show of the creation of the

world, where the child, with exceeding delight, gained a notion of the

history of the Bible. His first rudiments in profane history were

acquired by seeing of raree-shows, where he was brought acquainted with

all the princes of Europe. In short, the old gentleman so contrived it

to make everything contribute to the improvement of his knowledge, even

to his very dress. He invented for him a geographical suit of clothes,

which might give him some hints of that science, and likewise some

knowledge of the commerce of different nations. He had a French hat with

an African feather, Holland shirts, Flanders lace, English clothes lined

with Indian silk, his gloves were Italian, and his shoes were Spanish:

he was made to observe this, and daily catechized thereupon, which his

father was wont to call "traveling at home." He never gave him a fig or

an orange but he obliged him to give an account from what country it

came. In natural history he was much assisted by his curiosity in

sign-posts; insomuch that he hath often confessed he owed to them the

knowledge of many creatures which he never found since in any author,

such as white lions, golden dragons, etc. He once thought the same of

green men, but had since found them mentioned by Kercherus, and verified

in the history of William of Newburg.

His disposition to the mathematics was discovered very early, by his

drawing parallel lines on his bread and butter, and intersecting them at

equal angles, so as to form the whole superficies into squares. But in

the midst of all these improvements a stop was put to his learning the

alphabet, nor would he let him proceed to the letter D, till he could

truly and distinctly pronounce C in the ancient manner, at which the

child unhappily boggled for near three months. He was also obliged to

delay his learning to write, having turned away the writing-master

because he knew nothing of Fabius's waxen tables.

Cornelius having read and seriously weighed the methods by which the

famous Montaigne was educated, and resolving in some degree to exceed

them, resolved he should speak and learn nothing but the learned

languages, and especially the Greek; in which he constantly eat and

drank, according to Homer. But what most conduced to his easy attainment

of this language was his love of gingerbread: which his father

observing, caused to be stamped with the letters of the Greek alphabet;

and the child the very first day eat as far as Iota. By his particular

application to this language above the rest, he attained so great a

proficiency therein, that Gronovius ingenuously confesses he durst not

confer with this child in Greek at eight years old; and at fourteen he

composed a tragedy in the same language, as the younger Pliny had done

before him.

He learned the Oriental languages of Erpenius, who resided some time

with his father for that purpose. He had so early a relish for the

Eastern way of writing, that even at this time he composed (in imitation

of it) 'A Thousand and One Arabian Tales,' and also the 'Persian Tales,'

which have been since translated into several languages, and lately into

our own with particular elegance by Mr. Ambrose Philips. In this work of

his childhood he was not a little assisted by the historical traditions

of his nurse.

THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND

The legend of the Argonauts relates to the story of a band of heroes who

sailed from Thessaly to Æa, the region of the Sun-god on the remotest

shore of the Black Sea, in quest of a Golden Fleece. The ship Argo bore

the heroes, under the command of Jason, to whom the task had been

assigned by his uncle Pelias. Pelias was the usurper of his nephew's

throne; and for Jason, on his coming to man's estate, he devised the

perilous adventure of fetching the golden fleece of the Speaking Ram

which many years before had carried Phrixus to Æa, or Colchis. Fifty of

the most distinguished Grecian heroes came to Jason's aid, while Argus,

the son of Phrixus, under the guidance of Athena, built the ship,

inserting in the prow, for prophetic advice and furtherance, a piece of

the famous talking oak of Dodona. Tiphys was the steersman, and Orpheus

joined the crew to enliven the weariness of their sea-life with

his harp.

The heroes came first to Lemnos, where the women had risen in revolt and

slain fathers, brothers, and husbands. Here the voyagers lingered almost

a year; but at last, having taken leave, they came to the southern coast

of Propontis, where the Doliones dwelt under King Cyzicus. Their kind

entertainment among this people was marred by ill-fate; for having

weighed anchor in the night, they were driven back by a storm, and being

mistaken for foes, were fiercely attacked. Cyzicus himself fell by the

hand of Jason. They next touched at the country of the Bebrycians, where

the hero Pollux overcame the king in a boxing-match and bound him to a

tree; and thence to Salmydessus, to consult the soothsayer Phineus. In

gratitude for their freeing him from the Harpies, who, as often as his

table was set, descended out of the clouds upon his food and defiled it,

the prophet directed them safe to Colchis. The heroes rowing with might,

thus passed the Symplegades, two cliffs which opened and shut with such

swift violence that a bird could scarce fly through the passage. The

rocks were held apart with the help of Athena, and from that day they

became fixed and harmless. Further on, they came in sight of Mount

Caucasus, saw the eagle which preyed on the vitals of Prometheus, and

heard the sufferer's woeful cries. So their journey was accomplished,

and they arrived at Æa, and the palace of King Æetes.

When the king heard the errand of the heroes he was moved against them,

and refused to give up the fleece except on terms which he thought

Jason durst not comply with. Two bulls, snorting fire, with feet of

brass, Jason was required to yoke, and with them plow a field and sow

the land with dragon's teeth. Here the heavenly powers came to the

hero's aid, and Hera and Athena prayed Aphrodite to send the shaft of

Cupid upon Medea, the youthful daughter of the king. Thus it came about

that Medea conceived a great passion for the young hero, and with the

magic which she knew she made for him a salve. The salve rendered his

body invulnerable. He yoked the bulls, and ploughed the field, and sowed

the dragon's teeth. A crop of armed men sprang from the sowing, but

Jason, prepared for this marvel by Medea, threw among them a stone which

she had given him, whereupon they fell upon and slew one another.

But Æetes still refused to fetch the fleece, plotting secretly to burn

the Argo and kill the heroic Argonauts. Medea came to their succor, and

by her black art lulled to sleep the dragon which guarded the fleece.

They seized the pelt, boarded the Argo, and sailed away, taking Medea

with them. When her father followed in pursuit, in the madness of her

love for Jason she slew her brother whom she had with her, and strewed

the fragments of his body upon the wave. The king stopped to recover

them and give them burial, and thus the Argonauts escaped. But the anger

of the gods at this horrible murder led the voyagers in expiation a

wearisome way homeward. For they sailed through the waters of the

Adriatic, the Nile, the circumfluous stream of the earth, passed Scylla

and Charybdis and the Island of the Sun, to Crete and Ægina and many

lands, before the Argo rode once more in Thessalian waters.

The legend is one of the oldest and most familiar tales of Greece.

Whether it is all poetic myth, or had a certain foundation in fact, it

is impossible now to say. The date, the geography, the heroes, are

mythical; and as in the Homeric poems, the supernatural and seeming

historical are so blended that the union is indissoluble by any analysis

yet found. The theme has touched the imagination of poets from the time

of Apollonius Rhodius, who wrote the 'Argonautica' and went to

Alexandria B.C. 194 to take care of the great library there, to William

Morris, who published his 'Life and Death of Jason' in 1867. Mr.

Morris's version of the contest of Orpheus with the Sirens is given to

illustrate the reality of the old legends to the Greeks themselves.

Jason's later life, his putting away of Medea, his marriage with Glauce,

and the revenge of the deserted princess, furnish the story of the

greatest of the plays of Euripides.

THE VICTORY OF ORPHEUS

From 'The Life and Death of Jason'

_The Sirens_:

Oh, happy seafarers are ye,

And surely all your ills are past,

And toil upon the land and sea,

Since ye are brought to us at last.

To you the fashion of the world,

Wide lands laid waste, fair cities burned,

And plagues, and kings from kingdoms hurled,

Are naught, since hither ye have turned.

For as upon this beach we stand,

And o'er our heads the sea-fowl flit,

Our eyes behold a glorious land,

And soon shall ye be kings of it.

_Orpheus_:

A little more, a little more,

O carriers of the Golden Fleece,

A little labor with the oar,

Before we reach the land of Greece.

E'en now perchance faint rumors reach

Men's ears of this our victory,

And draw them down unto the beach

To gaze across the empty sea.

But since the longed-for day is nigh,

And scarce a god could stay us now,

Why do ye hang your heads and sigh,

And still go slower and more slow?

_The Sirens_:

Ah, had ye chanced to reach the home

Your fond desires were set upon,

Into what troubles had ye come!

What barren victory had ye won!

But now, but now, when ye have lain

Asleep with us a little while

Beneath the washing of the main,

How calm shall be your waking smile!

For ye shall smile to think of life

That knows no troublous change or fear,

No unavailing bitter strife,

That ere its time brings trouble near.

_Orpheus_:

Is there some murmur in your ears,

That all that we have done is naught,

And nothing ends our cares and fears,

Till the last fear on us is brought?

_The Sirens_:

Alas! and will ye stop your ears,

In vain desire to do aught,

And wish to live 'mid cares and fears,

Until the last fear makes you naught?

_Orpheus_:

Is not the May-time now on earth,

When close against the city wall

The folk are singing in their mirth,

While on their heads the May flowers fall?

_The Sirens_:

Yes, May is come, and its sweet breath

Shall well-nigh make you weep to-day,

And pensive with swift-coming death

Shall ye be satiate of the May.

_Orpheus_:

Shall not July bring fresh delight,

As underneath green trees ye sit,

And o'er some damsel's body white,

The noon-tide shadows change and flit?

_The Sirens_:

No new delight July shall bring,

But ancient fear and fresh desire;

And spite of every lovely thing,

Of July surely shall ye tire.

_Orpheus_:

And now when August comes on thee,

And 'mid the golden sea of corn

The merry reapers thou mayst see,

Wilt thou still think the earth forlorn?

_The Sirens:_

Set flowers on thy short-lived head,

And in thine heart forgetfulness

Of man's hard toil, and scanty bread,

And weary of those days no less.

_Orpheus:_

Or wilt thou climb the sunny hill,

In the October afternoon,

To watch the purple earth's blood fill

The gray vat to the maiden's tune?

_The Sirens_:

When thou beginnest to grow old,

Bring back remembrance of thy bliss

With that the shining cup doth hold,

And weary helplessly of this.

_Orpheus:_

Or pleasureless shall we pass by

The long cold night and leaden day,

That song and tale and minstrelsy

Shall make as merry as the May?

_The Sirens:_

List then, to-night, to some old tale

Until the tears o'erflow thine eyes;

But what shall all these things avail,

When sad to-morrow comes and dies?

_Orpheus:_

And when the world is born again,

And with some fair love, side by side,

Thou wanderest 'twixt the sun and rain,

In that fresh love-begetting tide;

Then, when the world is born again,

And the sweet year before thee lies,

Shall thy heart think of coming pain,

Or vex itself with memories?

_The Sirens:_

Ah! then the world is born again

With burning love unsatisfied,

And new desires fond and vain,

And weary days from tide to tide.

Ah! when the world is born again,

A little day is soon gone by,

When thou, unmoved by sun or rain,

Within a cold straight house shall lie.

Therewith they ceased awhile, as languidly

The head of Argo fell off toward the sea,

And through the water she began to go;

For from the land a fitful wind did blow,

That, dallying with the many-colored sail,

Would sometimes swell it out and sometimes fail,

As nigh the east side of the bay they drew;

Then o'er the waves again the music flew.

_The Sirens:_

Think not of pleasure short and vain,

Wherewith, 'mid days of toil and pain,

With sick and sinking hearts ye strive

To cheat yourselves that ye may live

With cold death ever close at hand.

Think rather of a peaceful land,

The changeless land where ye may be

Roofed over by the changeful sea.

_Orpheus:_

And is the fair town nothing then,

The coming of the wandering men

With that long talked-of thing and strange.

And news of how the kingdoms change,

The pointed hands, and wondering

At doers of a desperate thing?

Push on, for surely this shall be

Across a narrow strip of sea.

_The Sirens:_

Alas! poor souls and timorous,

Will ye draw nigh to gaze at us

And see if we are fair indeed?

For such as we shall be your meed,

There, where our hearts would have you go.

And where can the earth-dwellers show

In any land such loveliness

As that wherewith your eyes we bless,

O wanderers of the Minyæ,

Worn toilers over land and sea?

_Orpheus:_

Fair as the lightning 'thwart the sky,

As sun-dyed snow upon the high

Untrodden heaps of threatening stone

The eagle looks upon alone,

Oh, fair as the doomed victim's wreath,

Oh, fair as deadly sleep and death,

What will ye with them, earthly men,

To mate your threescore years and ten?

Toil rather, suffer and be free,

Betwixt the green earth and the sea.

_The Sirens:_

If ye be bold with us to go,

Things such as happy dreams may show

Shall your once heavy lids behold

About our palaces of gold;

Where waters 'neath the waters run,

And from o'erhead a harmless sun

Gleams through the woods of chrysolite.

There gardens fairer to the sight

Than those of the Phæacian king

Shall ye behold; and, wondering,

Gaze on the sea-born fruit and flowers,

And thornless and unchanging bowers,

Whereof the May-time knoweth naught.

So to the pillared house being brought,

Poor souls, ye shall not be alone,

For o'er the floors of pale blue stone

All day such feet as ours shall pass,

And 'twixt the glimmering walls of glass,

Such bodies garlanded with gold,

So faint, so fair, shall ye behold,

And clean forget the treachery

Of changing earth and tumbling sea.

_Orpheus:_

Oh the sweet valley of deep grass,

Where through the summer stream doth pass,

In chain of shadow, and still pool,

From misty morn to evening cool;

Where the black ivy creeps and twines

O'er the dark-armed, red-trunkèd pines.

Whence clattering the pigeon flits,

Or brooding o'er her thin eggs sits,

And every hollow of the hills

With echoing song the mavis fills.

There by the stream, all unafraid,

Shall stand the happy shepherd maid,

Alone in first of sunlit hours;

Behind her, on the dewy flowers,

Her homespun woolen raiment lies,

And her white limbs and sweet gray eyes

Shine from the calm green pool and deep,

While round about the swallows sweep,

Not silent; and would God that we,

Like them, were landed from the sea.

_The Sirens:_

Shall we not rise with you at night,

Up through the shimmering green twilight,

That maketh there our changeless day,

Then going through the moonlight gray,

Shall we not sit upon these sands,

To think upon the troublous lands

Long left behind, where once ye were,

When every day brought change and fear!

There, with white arms about you twined,

And shuddering somewhat at the wind

That ye rejoiced erewhile to meet,

Be happy, while old stories sweet,

Half understood, float round your ears,

And fill your eyes with happy tears.

Ah! while we sing unto you there,

As now we sing, with yellow hair

Blown round about these pearly limbs,

While underneath the gray sky swims

The light shell-sailor of the waves,

And to our song, from sea-filled caves

Booms out an echoing harmony,

Shall ye not love the peaceful sea?

_Orpheus:_

Nigh the vine-covered hillocks green,

In days agone, have I not seen

The brown-clad maidens amorous,

Below the long rose-trellised house,

Dance to the querulous pipe and shrill,

When the gray shadow of the hill

Was lengthening at the end of day?

Not shadowy or pale were they,

But limbed like those who 'twixt the trees

Follow the swift of goddesses.

Sunburnt they are somewhat, indeed,

To where the rough brown woolen weed

Is drawn across their bosoms sweet,

Or cast from off their dancing feet;

But yet the stars, the moonlight gray,

The water wan, the dawn of day,

Can see their bodies fair and white

As hers, who once, for man's delight,

Before the world grew hard and old,

Came o'er the bitter sea and cold;

And surely those that met me there

Her handmaidens and subjects were;

And shame-faced, half-repressed desire

Had lit their glorious eyes with fire,

That maddens eager hearts of men.

Oh, would that I were with them when

The risen moon is gathering light,

And yellow from the homestead white

The windows gleam; but verily

This waits us o'er a little sea.

_The Sirens:_

Come to the land where none grows old,

And none is rash or over-bold

Nor any noise there is or war,

Or rumor from wild lands afar,

Or plagues, or birth and death of kings;

No vain desire of unknown things

Shall vex you there, no hope or fear

Of that which never draweth near;

But in that lovely land and still

Ye may remember what ye will,

And what ye will, forget for aye.

So while the kingdoms pass away,

Ye sea-beat hardened toilers erst,

Unresting, for vain fame athirst,

Shall be at peace for evermore,

With hearts fulfilled of Godlike lore,

And calm, unwavering Godlike love,

No lapse of time can turn or move.

There, ages after your fair fleece

Is clean forgotten, yea, and Greece

Is no more counted glorious,

Alone with us, alone with us,

Alone with us, dwell happily,

Beneath our trembling roof of sea.

_Orpheus_:

Ah! do ye weary of the strife,

And long to change this eager life

For shadowy and dull hopelessness,

Thinking indeed to gain no less

Than this, to die, and not to die,

To be as if ye ne'er had been,

Yet keep your memory fresh and green,

To have no thought of good or ill,

Yet keep some thrilling pleasure still?

Oh, idle dream! Ah, verily

If it shall happen unto me

That I have thought of anything,

When o'er my bones the sea-fowl sing,

And I lie dead, how shall I pine

For those fresh joys that once were mine,

On this green fount of joy and mirth,

The ever young and glorious earth;

Then, helpless, shall I call to mind

Thoughts of the flower-scented wind,

The dew, the gentle rain at night,

The wonder-working snow and white,

The song of birds, the water's fall,

The sun that maketh bliss of all;

Yea, this our toil and victory,

The tyrannous and conquered sea.

_The Sirens_:

Ah, will ye go, and whither then

Will ye go from us, soon to die,

To fill your threescore years and ten

With many an unnamed misery?

And this the wretchedest of all,

That when upon your lonely eyes

The last faint heaviness shall fall,

Ye shall bethink you of our cries.

Come back, nor, grown old, seek in vain

To hear us sing across the sea;

Come back, come back, come back again,

Come back, O fearful Minyæ!

_Orpheus_:

Ah, once again, ah, once again,

The black prow plunges through the sea;

Nor yet shall all your toil be vain,

Nor ye forget, O Minyæ!

LUDOVICO ARIOSTO

(1474-1533)

BY L. OSCAR KUHNS

Among the smaller principalities of Italy during the fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries, none was more brilliant than the court of Ferrara,

and none more intimately connected with the literature of the times.

Here, on September 8th, 1474, was born Ludovico Ariosto, the great poet

of the Renaissance. Here, like Boiardo before him and Tasso after him,

he lived and wrote; and it was to the family of Este that he dedicated

that poem in which are seen, as in a mirror, the gay life, the

intellectual brilliancy, and the sensuous love for beauty which mark the

age. At seventeen he began the study of the law, which he soon abandoned

for the charms of letters. Most of his life was passed in the service

first of Cardinal d'Este, and afterward of the Duke of Ferrara. But the

courtier never overcame the poet, who is said to have begun the famous

'Orlando Furioso' at the age of thirty, and never to have ceased the

effort to improve it.

The literary activity of Ariosto showed itself in the composition of

comedies and satires, as well as in that of his immortal epic. The

comedies were written for the court theatre of Ferrara, to which he

seems to have had some such relation as that of Goethe to the theatre at

Weimar. The later comedies are much better than the early ones, which

are but little more than translations from Plautus and Terence. In

general, however, the efforts of Ariosto in this direction are far less

important than the 'Orlando' or the 'Satires.' At the first appearance

of his plays they were enormously successful, and the poet was hailed as

a great dramatic genius. But these comedies are interesting to-day

chiefly from the fact that Ariosto was one of the very first of the

writers of modern comedy, and was the leader of that movement in Italy

and France which prepared the way for Molière.

Of more importance than the comedies, and second only in interest to the

'Orlando' are the 'Satires' seven in number, the first written in 1517

and the last in 1531, thus representing the maturer life of the poet.

Nearly everything we know of Ariosto's character is taken from this

source. He reveals himself in them as a man who excites neither our

highest admiration nor our contempt. He was not born to be a statesman,

nor a courtier, nor a man of affairs; and his life as ambassador of

Cardinal Ippolito, and as captain of Garafagno, was not at all to his

liking. His one longing through all the busy years of his life was for a

quiet home, where he could live in liberty and enjoy the comforts of

cultured leisure. A love of independence was a marked trait of his

character, and it must often have galled him to play the part he did at

the court of Ferrara. As a satirist he was no Juvenal or Persius. He was

not stirred to profound indignation by the evils about him, of which

there were enough in that brilliant but corrupt age. He discussed in

easy, familiar style, the foibles of his fellow-men, and especially the

events of his own life and the traits of his own character.

The same views of life, the same tolerant temper, which are seen in the

'Satires,' form an important part of the 'Orlando Furioso,' where they

take the form of little dissertations, introduced at the beginning of a

canto, or scattered through the body of the poem. These reflections are

full of practical sense and wisdom, and remind us of the familiar

conversation with the reader which forms so great a charm in

Thackeray's novels.

In the Italian Renaissance there is a curious mingling of classical and

romantic influences, and the generation which gave itself up

passionately to the study of Greek and Latin still read with delight the

stories of the Paladins of Charlemagne and the Knights of the Round

Table. What Sir Thomas Malory had done in English prose, Boiardo did in

Latin poetry. When Ariosto entered the service of Cardinal Ippolito,

every one was reading the 'Orlando Innamorato,' and the young poet soon

fell under the charm of these stories; so that when the inward impulse

which all great poets feel toward the work of creation came to him, he

took the material already at hand and continued the story of 'Orlando.'

With a certain skill and inventiveness, Boiardo had mingled together the

epic cycles of Arthur and Charlemagne. He had shown the Saracen host

under King Agramante driving the army of Charlemagne before them, until

the Christians had finally been shut up within the walls of Paris. It

was at this critical moment in his poem that Boiardo died. Ariosto

took up the story where he had left it, and carried it on until the

final defeat of Agramante, and his death at the hands of Orlando in the

desert island.

[Illustration: LODOVICO ARIOSTO.]

But we must not think that the 'Orlando Furioso' has one definite plot.

At first reading we are confused by the multiplicity of incident, by the

constant change of scene, and by the breaking off of one story to make

place for another. In a single canto the scene changes from France to

Africa, and by means of winged horses tremendous distances are traveled

over in a day. On closer examination we find that this confusion is only

apparent. The poet himself is never confused, but with sure hand he

manipulates the many-colored threads which are wrought into the fabric

of the poem. The war between the Saracens and the Christians is a sort

of background or stage; a rallying point for the characters. In reality

it attracts but slightly our attention or interest. Again, Orlando's

love for Angelica, and his madness,--although the latter gave the title

to the book, and both afford some of the finest episodes,--have no

organic connection with the whole. The real subject, if any there be, is

the loves of Ruggiero and Bradamante. These are the supposed ancestors

of the house of Este, and it is with their final union, after many

vicissitudes, that the poem ends.

But the real purpose of Ariosto was to amuse the reader by countless

stories of romantic adventure. It was not as a great creative genius, as

the inventor of new characters, as the earnest and philosophical

reformer, that he appears to mankind, but as the supreme artist. Ariosto

represents in its highest development that love for form, that

perfection of style, which is characteristic of the Latin races as

distinguished from the Teutonic. It is this that makes the 'Orlando

Furioso' the great epic of the Renaissance, and that caused Galileo to

bestow upon the poet the epithet "divine."

For nearly thirty years Ariosto changed and polished these lines, so

that the edition of 1532 is quite different from that of 1516. The

stanzas in which the poem is written are smooth and musical, the

language is so chosen as always to express the exact shade of thought,

the interest never flags. What seems the arbitrary breaking off of a

story before its close is really the art of the poet; for he knows, were

each episode to be told by itself, we should have only a string of

_novelle_, and not the picture he desired to paint,--that of the world

of chivalry, with its knights-errant in search of adventures, its

damsels in distress, its beautiful gardens and lordly palaces, its

hermits and magicians, its hippogriffs and dragons, and all the

paraphernalia of magic art.

Ariosto's treatment of chivalry is peculiar to himself. Spenser in the

sixteenth century, and Lord Tennyson in our own day, pictured its

virtues and noble aspirations. In his immortal 'Don Quixote,' Cervantes

held its extravagances up to ridicule. In Ariosto's day no one believed

any longer in the heroes or the ideals of chivalry, nor did the poet

himself; hence there is an air of unreality about the poem. The figures

that pass before us, although they have certain characteristics of their

own, are not real beings, but those that dwell in a land of fancy. As

the poet tells these stories of a bygone age, a smile of irony plays

upon his face; he cannot take them seriously; and while he never goes so

far as to turn into ridicule the ideals of chivalry, yet, in such

episodes as the prodigious exploits of Rodomonte within the walls of

Paris, and the voyage of Astolfo to the moon, he does approach

dangerously near to the burlesque.

We are not inspired by large and noble thoughts in reading the 'Orlando

Furioso.' We are not deeply stirred by pity or terror. No lofty

principles are inculcated. Even the pathetic scenes, such as the death

of Zerbino and Isabella, stir no real emotion in us, but we experience a

sense of the artistic effect of a poetic death.

It is not often, in these days of the making of many books of which

there is no end, that one has time to read a poem which is longer than

the 'Iliad' and the 'Odyssey' together. But there is a compelling charm

about the 'Orlando,' and he who sits down to read it with serious

purpose will soon find himself under the spell of an attraction which

comes from unflagging interest and from perfection of style and

construction. No translation can convey an adequate sense of this beauty

of color and form; but the versions of William Stewart Rose, here cited,

suggest the energy, invention, and intensity of the epic.

In 1532 Ariosto published his final edition of the poem, now enlarged to

forty-six cantos, and retouched from beginning to end. He died not long

afterward, in 1533, and was buried in the church of San Benedetto, where

a magnificent monument marks his resting-place.

[Illustration: Signature L. OSCAR KUHNS]

THE FRIENDSHIP OF MEDORO AND CLORIDANE

From 'Orlando Furioso,' Cantos 18 and 19

Two Moors among the Paynim army were,

From stock obscure in Ptolomita grown;

Of whom the story, an example rare

Of constant love, is worthy to be known.

Medore and Cloridane were named the pair;

Who, whether Fortune pleased to smile or frown,

Served Dardinello with fidelity,

And late with him to France had crost the sea.

Of nimble frame and strong was Cloridane,

Throughout his life a follower of the chase.

A cheek of white, suffused with crimson grain,

Medoro had, in youth, a pleasing grace;

Nor bound on that emprize, 'mid all the train,

Was there a fairer or more jocund face.

Crisp hair he had of gold, and jet-black eyes;

And seemed an angel lighted from the skies.

These two were posted on a rampart's height,

With more to guard the encampment from surprise,

When 'mid the equal intervals, at night,

Medoro gazed on heaven with sleepy eyes.

In all his talk, the stripling, woeful wight,

Here cannot choose, but of his lord devise,

The royal Dardinel; and evermore

Him left unhonored on the field, deplore.

Then, turning to his mate, cries, "Cloridane,

I cannot tell thee what a cause of woe

It is to me, my lord upon the plain

Should lie, unworthy food for wolf or crow!

Thinking how still to me he was humane,

Meseems, if in his honor I forego

This life of mine, for favors so immense

I shall but make a feeble recompense.

"That he may not lack sepulture, will I

Go forth, and seek him out among the slain;

And haply God may will that none shall spy

Where Charles's camp lies hushed. Do thou remain;

That, if my death be written in the sky,

Thou may'st the deed be able to explain.

So that if Fortune foil so far a feat,

The world, through Fame, my loving heart may weet."

Amazed was Cloridane a child should show

Such heart, such love, and such fair loyalty;

And fain would make the youth his thought forego,

Whom he held passing dear: but fruitlessly

Would move his steadfast purpose; for such woe

Will neither comforted nor altered be.

Medoro is disposed to meet his doom,

Or to inclose his master in the tomb.

Seeing that naught would bend him, naught would move,

"I too will go," was Cloridane's reply:

"In such a glorious act myself will prove;

As well such famous death I covet, I.

What other thing is left me, here above,

Deprived of thee, Medoro mine? To die

With thee in arms is better, on the plain,

Than afterwards of grief, shouldst thou be slain."

And thus resolved, disposing in their place

Their guard's relief, depart the youthful pair,

Leave fosse and palisade, and in small space

Are among ours, who watch with little care;

Who, for they little fear the Paynim race,

Slumber with fires extinguished everywhere.

'Mid carriages and arms they lie supine,

Up to the eyes immersed in sleep and wine.

A moment Cloridano stopt, and cried,

"Not to be lost are opportunities.

This troop, by whom my master's blood was shed,

Medoro, ought not I to sacrifice?

Do thou, lest any one this way be led,

Watch everywhere about, with ears and eyes;

For a wide way, amid the hostile horde,

I offer here to make thee with my sword."

So said he, and his talk cut quickly short,

Coming where learned Alpheus slumbered nigh;

Who had the year before sought Charles's court,

In med'cine, magic, and astrology

Well versed: but now in art found small support,

Or rather found that it was all a lie.

He had foreseen that he his long-drawn life

Should finish on the bosom of his wife.

And now the Saracen with wary view

Had pierced his weasand with the pointed sword.

Four others he near that Diviner slew,

Nor gave the wretches time to say a word.

Sir Turpin in his story tells not who,

And Time has of their names effaced record.

Palidon of Moncalier next he speeds;

One who securely sleeps between two steeds.

* * * * *

Rearing th' insidious blade, the pair are near

The place where round King Charles's pavilion

Are tented warlike paladin and peer,

Guarding the side that each is camped upon,

When in good time the Paynims backward steer,

And sheathe their swords, the impious slaughter done;

Deeming impossible, in such a number,

But they must light on one who does not slumber.

And though they might escape well charged with prey,

To save themselves they think sufficient gain.

Thither by what he deems the safest way

(Medoro following him) went Cloridane

Where in the field, 'mid bow and falchion lay,

And shield and spear, in pool of purple stain,

Wealthy and poor, the king and vassal's corse,

And overthrown the rider and his horse.

* * * * *

The silvery splendor glistened yet more clear,

There where renowned Almontes's son lay dead.

Faithful Medoro mourned his master dear,

Who well agnized the quartering white and red,

With visage bathed in many a bitter tear

(For he a rill from either eyelid shed),

And piteous act and moan, that might have whist

The winds, his melancholy plaint to list;

But with a voice supprest--not that he aught

Regards if any one the noise should hear,

Because he of his life takes any thought,

Of which loathed burden he would fain be clear;

But lest his being heard should bring to naught

The pious purpose which has brought them here--

The youths the king upon their shoulders stowed;

And so between themselves divide the load.

Hurrying their steps, they hastened, as they might,

Under the cherished burden they conveyed;

And now approaching was the lord of light,

To sweep from heaven the stars, from earth the shade,

When good Zerbino, he whose valiant sprite

Was ne'er in time of need by sleep down-weighed,

From chasing Moors all night, his homeward way

Was taking to the camp at dawn of day.

He has with him some horsemen in his train,

That from afar the two companions spy.

Expecting thus some spoil or prize to gain,

They, every one, toward that quarter hie.

"Brother, behoves us," cried young Cloridane,

"To cast away the load we bear, and fly;

For 'twere a foolish thought (might well be said)

To lose _two_ living men, to save _one_ dead;"

And dropt the burden, weening his Medore

Had done the same by it, upon his side;

But that poor boy, who loved his master more,

His shoulders to the weight alone applied:

Cloridane hurrying with all haste before,

Deeming him close behind him or beside;

Who, did he know his danger, him to save

A thousand deaths, instead of one, would brave.

* * * * *

The closest path, amid the forest gray,

To save himself, pursued the youth forlorn;

But all his schemes were marred by the delay

Of that sore weight upon his shoulders borne.

The place he knew not, and mistook the way,

And hid himself again in sheltering thorn.

Secure and distant was his mate, that through

The greenwood shade with lighter shoulders flew.

So far was Cloridane advanced before,

He heard the boy no longer in the wind;

But when he marked the absence of Medore,

It seemed as if his heart was left behind.

"Ah! how was I so negligent," (the Moor

Exclaimed) "so far beside myself, and blind,

That, I, Medoro, should without thee fare,

Nor know when I deserted thee or where?"

So saying, in the wood he disappears,

Plunging into the maze with hurried pace;

And thither, whence he lately issued, steers,

And, desperate, of death returns in trace.

Cries and the tread of steeds this while he hears,

And word and threat of foeman, as in chase;

Lastly Medoro by his voice is known,

Disarmed, on foot, 'mid many horse, alone.

A hundred horsemen who the youth surround,

Zerbino leads, and bids his followers seize

The stripling; like a top the boy turns round

And keeps him as he can: among the trees,

Behind oak, elm, beech, ash, he takes his ground,

Nor from the cherished load his shoulders frees.

Wearied, at length, the burden he bestowed

Upon the grass, and stalked about his load.

As in her rocky cavern the she-bear,

With whom close warfare Alpine hunters wage,

Uncertain hangs about her shaggy care,

And growls in mingled sound of love and rage,

To unsheath her claws, and blood her tushes bare,

Would natural hate and wrath the beast engage;

Love softens her, and bids from strife retire,

And for her offspring watch, amid her ire.

Cloridane, who to aid him knows not how,

And with Medoro willingly would die,

But who would not for death this being forego,

Until more foes than one should lifeless lie,

Ambushed, his sharpest arrow to his bow

Fits, and directs it with so true an eye,

The feathered weapon bores a Scotchman's brain,

And lays the warrior dead upon the plain.

Together, all the others of the band

Turned thither, whence was shot the murderous reed;

Meanwhile he launched another from his stand,

That a new foe might by the weapon bleed,

Whom (while he made of _this_ and _that_ demand,

And loudly questioned who had done the deed)

The arrow reached--transfixed the wretch's throat

And cut his question short in middle note.

Zerbino, captain of those horse, no more

Can at the piteous sight his wrath refrain;

In furious heat he springs, upon Medore,

Exclaiming, "Thou of this shalt bear the pain."

One hand he in his locks of golden ore

Enwreaths, and drags him to himself amain;

But as his eyes that beauteous face survey,

Takes pity on the boy, and does not slay.

To him the stripling turns, with suppliant cry,

And, "By thy God, sir knight," exclaims, "I pray,

Be not so passing cruel, nor deny

That I in earth my honored king may lay:

No other grace I supplicate, nor I

This for the love of life, believe me, say.

So much, no longer, space of life I crave,

As may suffice to give my lord a grave.

"And if you needs must feed the beast and bird,

Like Theban Creon, let their worst be done

Upon these limbs; so that by me interred

In earth be those of good Almontes's son."

Medoro thus his suit, with grace, preferred,

And words to move a mountain; and so won

Upon Zerbino's mood, to kindness turned,

With love and pity he all over burned.

This while, a churlish horseman of the band,

Who little deference for his lord confest,

His lance uplifting, wounded overhand

The unhappy suppliant in his dainty breast.

Zerbino, who the cruel action scanned,

Was deeply stirred, the rather that, opprest,

And livid with the blow the churl had sped,

Medoro fell as he was wholly dead.

* * * * *

The Scots pursue their chief, who pricks before,

Through the deep wood, inspired by high disdain,

When he has left the one and the other Moor,

_This_ dead, _that_ scarce alive, upon the plain.

There for a mighty space lay young Medore,

Spouting his life-blood from so large a vein

He would have perished, but that thither made

A stranger, as it chanced, who lent him aid.

THE SAVING OF MEDORO

From 'Orlando Furioso,' Canto 19

By chance arrived a damsel at the place,

Who was (though mean and rustic was her wear)

Of royal presence and of beauteous face,

And lofty manners, sagely debonnair.

Her have I left unsung so long a space,

That you will hardly recognize the fair

Angelica: in her (if known not) scan

The lofty daughter of Catay's great khan.

Angelica, when she had won again

The ring Brunello had from her conveyed,

So waxed in stubborn pride and haught disdain,

She seemed to scorn this ample world, and strayed

Alone, and held as cheap each living swain,

Although amid the best by fame arrayed;

Nor brooked she to remember a gallant

In Count Orlando or King Sacripant: