by Charles Swan
APPLICATION.
My beloved, the child represents the soul and body of man. The tree is also man; the fruit, good works. The serpent is the devil; and the gardener is God. The branch is the blessed Virgin Mary:—so Isaiah, “A branch shall spring from the root of Jesse.” And thus also Virgil, in the second of his Bucolics.*
“Jam redit et virgo redeunt saturnia regna:
Jam nova progenies coelo dimittitur alto.
Tu modo nascendi † puero, quo ferrea primum,
Desinet, et ‡ toto surget gens aurea mundo.”
In this branch was placed the antidote, that is, Christ.
|| Bracciolinus, or Brandiolinus Poggius, a Florentine, who flourished in the 15th century, has given an account of the monster here alluded to. I quote the translation of his fables, of 1658:—
“Also within a little while after it befell out about the marches of Italy, that there was a child born which had two heads, and two visages, beholding one another, and the arms of each other embraced the body; the which body from the navel upward was joined, save the two heads; and from the navel downward, the limbs were all separated one from another. Of the which child tidings came unto the person of Poge at Rome.”
* The reader will be surprised to meet with a quotation from Virgil in this place. It is most probable, from its corruptness, that the passage was not drawn immediately from the poet.
† The true reading is—
“Tu modò nascenti puero, &c.
* * * * * *
Casta fave Lucina”—Ecl. iv. line 10.
It is nonsense as it stands above; but the edition of 1521, 18mo, has “tu modo NASCENTI.”
‡ It should be Ac.
TALE CLXXVII.
OF PERSECUTION.*
KING ASUERUS made a great feast to all the princes of his kingdom. He commanded the queen, Vasti, to appear at the festival, that his people might behold the splendour of that beauty which he had raised to the throne. When she refused to come in, the king deprived her of her royalty, and raised Hester to the rank of queen in her stead. After this the king promoted a certain Aman, and made all the princes of his empire pay him homage. They complied; but Mardocheus, the long’s uncle, would not honour him. Enraged at this disregard of his authority, Aman delivered him to death, with all his family, and made an ordinance under the royal seal to exterminate every Jew in the kingdom; and constructing a high gibbet, † he resolved that Mardocheus should be fastened upon it. But, in the mean time, it was the fortune of the latter to discover two traitors who had conspired to kill the king ; and immediately giving such information as led to their apprehension, he was clothed in a purple robe and crowned, and rode on a royal steed through the city, while Aman, with all his knights, were reduced to the necessity of extolling him. ‡ When this was done, Mardocheus related to the queen that Aman intended to put all their nation to death; wherefore she proclaimed a fast, and afflicted herself with fasting and prayer. She then made a great feast, to which she invited the king and Aman. First imploring the life of her people, she explained how the latter had condemned all to death. Pull of indignation, the king ordered him to be fixed upon the same gibbet which he had prepared for Mardocheus, who succeeded to all his honours. Thus, by the disposing hand of Providence, the innocent people were freed, and the generation of the wicked utterly exterminated.*
APPLICATION.
My beloved, the king is Christ; and the queen is the soul. Aman represents the Jewish people, who seek to destroy the Church. The two traitors are the Jew and the Gentile.
* There is a metrical romance on this subject; and Thomas of Elmham, a chronicler, calls the coronation feast of King Henry the Sixth a second feast of Ahasuerus. “Hence also Chaucer’s allusion at the marriage of January and May, while they are at the solemnity of the wedding dinner, which is very splendid:—
’Queen Esther looked ne’er with such an eye
On Assuere, so meek a look hath she’ (March. Tale, v. 1260).”
WARTON.
† [“Altum erexit eculeum” Swan translated eculeum “rack,” which would represent fairly, though by no means accurately, the meaning of the term in classical Latin. But in the Middle Ages it meant a gibbet “Equuleus, patibulum, furca cui decollatorum martyrum cadavera affigebant” (DU CANGE).—ED.]
‡ This is decidedly an Eastern custom. See the Arabian Tales, &c., passim.
* One would imagine that the story of Mordecai could never have been actually read by the author of this tale; it seems as if a floating tradition had been caught up and worked into the apologue of Mardocheus. The latter name is Greek, and occurs in the apocryphal continuation of the Book of Esther.
TALE CLXXVIII.
OF FORETHOUGHT.
A CERTAIN king was desirous of ascertaining the best mode of governing himself and his empire. He therefore called to him one more excellent in wisdom than the rest, and required of him to impart some rule by which he might attain his wishes. “Willingly, my lord,” replied he; and immediately upon a wall he depicted the king, crowned, sitting on a throne and habited in a purple robe. His left hand supported a globe, while his right held a sceptre; above his head was a light burning. On the left was the queen, crowned also, and clad in golden vesture. The other side was occupied by counsellors seated in chairs, and before them an open book. In front of these was an armed knight on horseback, having a helmet on his head, and a lance in his right hand. The shield covered him on the left, and a sword hung by his side.* His body was cased in mail, having clasps † upon the breast. Iron greaves protected his legs; spurs were upon his heels, and iron gauntlets on his hands. His horse, practised in war, was gorgeously trapped. Beneath the king were his deputies; one, as an equestrian knight, in cloak and cap of parti-coloured skins, bearing an extended rod in his right hand. The people stood before the deputies in the form following:—One man carried a spade in his right hand, wherewith he was digging, and in his left a rod, with which he directed the motions of a herd, In his girdle hung a sickle, with which com is cut and vines and other trees pruned. To the right of the king a carpenter was painted before a knight; one hand bore a mallet, and the other an adze; in his girdle was a trowel. Also, before the people stood a man having a pair of pincers in one hand, and in the other a huge sword; with a note-book and a bottle of ink in his girdle, a pen stuck in his right ear. Moreover, in the same part of the painting was a man bearing a balance and weights in his right hand, and an ell-wand in his left; a purse containing various kinds of money hung at his girdle.
Before the queen were physicians and colourmen under this form. A man was placed in a master’s chair with a book in his right hand, and an urn and box in his left; an instrument for probing sores and wounds was in his girdle. Near him stood another, with his right hand elevated to invite the passengers to his inn; his left was full of exceedingly fair bread; and above stood a vessel full of wine : his girdle held a bunch of keys. Also on the left side, before a knight, was a man with large keys in his right hand, and an ell-wand in his left; at his girdle was a purse filled with pennies. Before the king, also, was a man with rugged and disorderly hair; in his right hand was a little money, and three dice were in his left; his girdle held a box full of letters. When the king had attentively considered this picture, he found it replete with wisdom.
APPLICATION.
My beloved, the king is any good Christian, or rather prelate ; and he is clothed in purple to figure the beauty of virtue. The globe and sceptre are symbols of power. The burning light signifies a threat. The queen is charity. The counsellors or judges are prelates and preachers, and the books before them the Sacred Writings. The armed knight is a good Christian armed with virtues. The other knight rides the horse of Justice, wearing the cloak of Mercy, and the cap of Faith. The extended rod is an equal distribution of right—et sic de cœteris.
* “Ensem in dextera” says the original; but he could not hold both lance and sword in the same hand at once.
† Fibulas in pectore,”—m
eaning knobs perhaps.
TALE CLXXIX.
OF GLUTTONY AND DRUNKENNESS.
CESARIUS,* speaking of the detestable vices of gluttony and drunkenness, says that the throat is the most intemperate and seductive part of the whole body. Its daughters are uncleanness, buffoonery, foolish joy, loquaciousness, and dulness. It has five grades of sin. The first is, to inquire for high-seasoned and delicate food; the second, to dress it curiously; the third, to take it before there is occasion ; the fourth, to take it too greedily; and the fifth, in too large a quantity. The first man, Adam, was conquered by gluttony; and for this Esau gave away his birth-right. This excited the people of Sodom to sin, and overthrew the children of Israel in the wilderness. So the Psalmist, “While the meat was yet in their mouths, the anger of God came upon them.” The iniquity of Sodom arose in its superabundance; and the man of God, who was sent to Bethel, was slain by a lion in consequence of indulging his appetite. Dives, of whom it is said in the Gospel that he feasted sumptuously every day, was buried in hell. Nabusardan,* the prince of cooks, destroyed Jerusalem. How great the danger of gluttony is, let the Scriptures testify. “Woe to the land,” says Solomon,” whose princes eat in the morning.” Again, “All the labour of man in the mouth will not fill his soul.” The daughter of gluttony is drunkenness; for that vice is the author of luxury—the worst of all plagues. What is there fouler than this? What more hurtful? What sooner wears away virtue ? Glory laid asleep is converted to madness; and the strength of the mind, equally with the strength of the body, is destroyed. Basilius says, “When we serve the belly and throat, we are cattle; and study to resemble brutes which are prone to this, and made by nature to look upon the earth and obey the belly.” † Boethius also, De Consolatione, 51, iv.: “He who forsakes virtue ceases to be a man; and since he cannot pass to the divine nature, it remains that he must become a brute.” And our Lord, in the Gospel: “Take heed lest your hearts be hardened with surfeiting and drunkenness.” Oh, how great had been the counsels of wisdom, if the heats of wine and greediness interposed not. Dangerous is it when the father of a family, or the governor of a state, is warm with wine, and inflamed with anger. Discretion is dimmed, luxury is excited, and lust, mixing itself with all kinds of wickedness, lulls prudence asleep. Wherefore, said Ovidius, “Wine produces lust if taken too copiously.” Oh, odious vice of drunkenness ! by which virginity—the possession of all good things—the security of happiness—is lost for ever and ever. Noah, heated with wine, exposed himself to his children. The most chaste Lot, thrown by wine into sleep, did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. We read of men, who were such firm friends that each would expose his life for the other, becoming so inflamed with wine that they slew one another. Herod Antipas had not decapitated the holy John, if he had kept from the feast of surfeiting and drunkenness. Balthasar, king of Babylon, had not been deprived of his life and throne, if he had been sober on the night in which Cyrus and Darius slew him, overpowered with wine.* On which account the Apostle advises us to be “sober and watch.” Let us then pray to the Lord to preserve us in all sobriety, that we may hereafter be invited to a feast in heaven.
* “Cesarius, I suppose, is a Cistercian monk of the thirteenth century; who besides voluminous lives, chronicles, and homilies, wrote twelve books on the miracles, visions, and examples of his own age. But there is another and an older monkish writer of the same name. In the British Museum, there is a narrative taken from Cesarius, in old northern English, of a lady deceived by fiends, or the devil, thro* the pride of rich clothing.”—WARTON.
* Nabusardan was a general of Nabuchodonosor II., who besieged and took Jerusalem, A.M. 3446; but how he became PRINCE OF COOKS, and what part his culinary skill had in the downfall of the “rebellious city,” the writer of the GEST must explain.
† “This is the sentiment of the historian Sallust, in the opening of the Jugurthine war.
“Omnes homines, qui sese student praestare cseteris animalibus, summâ ope niti decet, nè vitam silentio transeant, veluti pecora; quæ natura prona atque ventri obedientia finxit.”
* Darius, the son of Hystaspes, conquered Babylon. But the son and grandson of this monarch are here meant.
TALE CLXXX.
OF FIDELITY.
PAULUS, the historian of the Longobards, mentions a certain Onulphus, surnamed Papien, a knight who gave signal proofs of fidelity to his master, King Portaticus; insomuch that he exposed himself to death for his safety. For when Grimmoaldus, duke of Beneventum, forcibly entered the pavilion of Godobert, king of the Longobards, who had been treacherously slain by Geribaldus,† duke of Bavenna, the first betrayer of a royal crown, Portaticus, the brother of the aforesaid king Godobert, flying to the Hungarians, was reconciled to Grimmoaldus by the knight Onulphus, so that without fear he might quit Hungary and solicit pardon at the king’s feet. Thus his life was secure, although he obtained not the regal dignity which was his due. But a few days after this reconciliation, some malicious tongues disposed Grimmoaldus to put to death Portaticus. To get rid of him the more easily, and prevent his seeking safety in flight, he commanded that wine should be served to him, that he might become intoxicated. Onulphus hearing this, went, with his squire, to the house of Portaticus; and leaving his attendant in bed, concealed with the coverture, he led out Portaticus, disguised as his squire, threatening, and even striking him, the better to cover the deceit. Thus they passed through the watch, or guard, placed before the house of Portaticus, till they reached the abode of the knight, which was built upon the city walls. He then hastened to let him down by a rope; and catching certain horses from the pasture, Portaticus fled to the city of Astensis, and from thence to the king of France. In the morning Onulphus and his squire were brought before the king, and examined as to the escape of their master. They answered exactly as the case was; and Grimmoaldus, turning to his counsellors, said, “What punishment do they deserve who have done this, contrary to our royal pleasure ?” All agreed that it should be capital. Some protested that they should be flayed alive; and others, that they should be crucified. “By Him that made me,” replied the king, “they are deserving of honour, not death, for their unshaken fidelity.” Acting up to this feeling, Grimmoaldus loaded them with favours; but Geribaldus the traitor was miserable, though justly slain by the hand of Godobert’s squire, the follower of him whom he had treacherously deprived of life and kingdom. This happened on the solemn festival of St. John the Baptist.
APPLICATION.
My beloved, the knight Onulphus is any good Christian; Portaticus is the soul. Grimmoaldus typifies Christ, and Hungary the world. The horses taken from the pasture are the merits of martyrs and saints; Astensis is the city in the Apocalypse. France signifies heaven.
† He is called GENEBALDUS here, and afterwards GERIBALDUS, in all the five different editions I have inspected.
TALE CLXXXI.
OF ADULTERY.
A CERTAIN king had a lion, a lioness, and a leopard, whom he much delighted in. During the absence of the lion, the lioness was unfaithful, and colleagued with the leopard; and that she might prevent her mate’s discovery of the crime, she used to wash herself in a fountain adjoining the king’s castle. Now, the king, having often perceived what was going forward, commanded the fountain to be closed. This done, the lioness was unable to cleanse herself; and the lion returning, and ascertaining the injury that had been done him, assumed the place of a judge—sentenced her to death, and immediately executed the sentence.
APPLICATION.
My beloved, the king is our heavenly Father; the lion is Christ; and the lioness, the soul. The leopard is the devil, and the fountain is confession, which being closed, death presently follows.
Remarkable Histories, from the
combined with mimerous moral and mystical
applications, treating of vices and virtues.
Printed and diligently revised, at
the expence of that provident
and circumspect man,
&nbs
p; John Rynman,
of Oringaw;
at the workshop of Henry Gran, citizen of the
imperial town of Hagenaw. Concluded
happily, in the year of our
safety, one thousand
five hundred
and eight:
March
the
20th.
NOTES.
NOTE 1. Page 16.
THIS fable is very well told by Gower, but with some variations.
[The letters printed in Italics are to be pronounced as separate syllables; the acute mark denotes the emphasis.]
Ere Rom-e came to the creánce1
Of Christ-es faith, it fell perchance
Cæsar, which then was emperour,
Him list-e for to do honóur
Untó the temple Apollinis;
And made an image upon this,
The which was cleped2 Apolló,
Was none so rich in Rom-e tho.3
Of plate of gold, a beard he had,
The which his breast all over spradde.4
Of gold also, withouten fail,
His mantle was of large entayle,5
Be-set with perrey6 all about.
Forth right he stretched his finger out,
Upon the which he had a ring—
To see it, was a rich-e thing,
A fine carbuncle for the nones,7
Most precious of all stones.
And fell that time in Rom-e thus,
There was a clerk, one Lucius,
A courtier, a famous man;
Of every wit8 somewhat he can,
Out-take9 that him lacketh rule,
