The Adventurous Simplicissimus being the description of the Life of a Strange vagabond named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim
Hans Jakob Christoph von Grimmelshausen
Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/adventuroussimpl00grimrich 2. Book V skips numbering between Chap. xviii. and xx.
The Adventurous
Simplicissimus
_The first English Edition of_ Simplicissimus _is limited to 1000 copies_ _of which this is No_. 11.
[Illustration: Facsimile title page of the first German Edition.]
Der Abentheursiche SIMPLICISSIMUS Teutsch Das ist: Die Beschreibung dess Lebes eines seltzamen Vaganten / genant Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim / wo und welcher gestalt Er nemlich in diese Welt kommen / was er darinn gesehen / gelernet / erfahren und aussgestanden / auch warumb er solche wieder feywillig quittirt.
Überauss lustig / und männiglich nutzlich zu lesen. An Tag geben Von
German Schleifheim von Sulsfort.
Monpelgart / Gedruckt bey Johann Fillion / Im Jahr M DC LXIX.
Facsimile title page of the first German Edition.
The Adventurous
Simplicissimus
Being The Description Of The Life Of A Strange Vagabond Named
Melchior Sternfels Von Fuchshaim
Written In German By
Hans Jacob Christoph Von Grimmelshausen
And Now For The First Time Done Into English
London William Heinemann MCMXII
_Copyright_ 1912
To Dr. Otto Schlapp
Lecturer in German in the University of Edinburgh, as a tribute to his successful endeavours to promote the knowledge of the German Classics in Britain, and in memory of a mutual friend, Robert Fitzroy Bell
Contents
Introduction
Book I.
_Chap. i._: Treats of Simplicissimus' rustic descent and of his upbringing answering thereto
_Chap. ii._: Of the first step towards that dignity to which Simplicissimus attained, to which is added the praise of shepherds and other excellent precepts
_Chap. iii._: Treats of the sufferings of a faithful bagpipe
_Chap. iv._: How Simplicissimus' palace was stormed, plundered, and ruinated, and in what sorry fashion the soldiers kept house there
_Chap. v._: How Simplicissimus took french leave and how he was terrified by dead trees
_Chap. vi._: Is so short and so prayerful that Simplicissimus thereupon swoons away
_Chap. vii._: How Simplicissimus was in a poor lodging kindly entreated
_Chap. viii._: How Simplicissimus by his noble discourse proclaimed his excellent qualities
_Chap. ix._: How Simplicissimus was changed from a wild beast into a Christian
_Chap. x._: In what manner he learned to read and write in the wild woods
_Chap. xi._: Discourseth of foods, household stuff, and other necessary concerns, which folk must have in this earthly life
_Chap. xii._: Tells of a notable fine way, to die happy and to have oneself buried at a small cost
_Chap. xiii._: How Simplicissimus was driven about like a straw in a whirlpool
_Chap. xiv._: A quaint comedia of five peasants
_Chap. xv._: How Simplicissimus was plundered, and how he dreamed of the peasants and how they fared in times of war
_Chap. xvi._: Of the ways and works of soldiers nowadays, and how hardly a common soldier can get promotion
_Chap. xvii._: How it happens that, whereas in war the nobles are ever put before the common men, yet many do attain from despised rank to high honours
_Chap. xviii._: How Simplicissimus took his first step into the world and that with evil luck
_Chap. xix._: How Simplicissimus was captured by Hanau and Hanau by Simplicissimus
_Chap. xx._: In what wise he was saved from prison and torture
_Chap. xxi._: How treacherous Dame Fortune cast on Simplicissimus a friendly glance
_Chap. xxii._: Who the hermit was by whom Simplicissimus was cherished
_Chap. xxiii._: How Simplicissimus became a page: and likewise, how the hermit's wife was lost
_Chap. xxiv._: How Simplicissimus blamed the world and saw many idols therein
_Chap. xxv._: How Simplicissimus found the world all strange and the world found him strange likewise
_Chap. xxvi._: A new and strange way for men to wish one another luck and to welcome one another
_Chap. xxvii._: How Simplicissimus discoursed with the secretary, and how he found a false friend
_Chap. xxviii._: How Simplicissimus got two eyes out of one calf's-head
_Chap. xxix._: How a man step by step may attain unto intoxication and finally unawares become blind drunk
_Chap. xxx._: Still treats of naught but of drinking bouts, and how to be rid of parsons thereat
_Chap. xxxi._: How the Lord Governor shot a very foul fox
_Chap. xxxii._: How Simplicissimus spoiled the dance
Book II.
_Chap. i._: How a goose and a gander were mated
_Chap. ii._: Concerning the merits and virtues of a good bath at the proper season
_Chap. iii._: How the other page received payment for his teaching, and how Simplicissimus was chosen to be a fool
_Chap. iv._: Concerning the man that pays the money, and of the military service that Simplicissimus did for the Crown of Sweden: through which service he got the name of Simplicissimus
_Chap. v._: How Simplicissimus was by four devils brought into hell and there treated with Spanish wine
_Chap. vi._: How Simplicissimus went up to heaven and was turned into a calf
_Chap. vii._: How Simplicissimus accommodated himself to the state of a brute beast
_Chap. viii._: Discourseth of the wondrous memory of some and the forgetfulness of others
_Chap. ix._: Crooked praise of a proper lady
_Chap. x._: Discourseth of naught but heroes and famous artists
_Chap. xi._: Of the toilsome and dangerous office of a Governor
_Chap. xii._: Of the sense and knowledge of certain unreasoning animals
_Chap. xiii._: Of various matters which whoever will know must either read them or have them read to him
_Chap. xiv._: How Simplicissimus led the life of a nobleman, and how the Croats robbed him of this when they stole himself
_Chap. xv._: Of Simplicissimus' life with the troopers, and what he saw and learned among the Croats
_Chap. xvi._: How Simplicissimus found goodly spoils, and how he became a thievish brother of the woods
_Chap. xvii._: How Simplicissimus was present at a dance of witches
_Chap. xviii._: Doth prove that no man can lay to Simplicissimus' charge that he doth draw the long bow
_Chap. xix._: How Simplicissimus became a fool again as he had been a fool before
_Chap. xx._: Is pretty long, and treats of playing with dice and what hangs thereby
_Chap. xxi._: Is somewhat shorter and more entertaining than the last
_Chap. xxii._: A rascally trick to step into another man's shoes
_Chap. xxiii._: How Ulrich Herzbruder sold himself for a hundred ducats
_Chap. xxiv._: How two prophecies were fulfilled at once
_Chap. xxv._: How Simplicissimus was transformed from a boy into a girl and fell into divers adventures of love
_Chap. xxvi._: How he was imprisoned for a traitor and enchanter
_Chap. xxvii:_ How the Provost fared in the battle of Wittstock
_Chap. xxviii._: Of a great battle wherein the conqueror is captured in the hour of triumph
_Chap. xxix._: How a notably pious soldier fared in Paradise, and how the huntsman filled his place
_Chap. xxx._: How the huntsman carried himself when he began to learn the trade of war: wherefrom a young soldier may learn somewhat
_Chap. xxxi._: How the devil stole the parson's bacon and how the huntsman caught himself
Book III.
_Chap. i._: How the huntsman went too far to the left hand
_Chap. ii._: How the huntsman of Soest did rid himself of the huntsman of Wesel
_Chap. iii._: How the Great God Jupiter was captured and how he revealed the counsels of the gods
_Chap. iv._: Of the German hero that shall conquer the whole world and bring peace to all nations
_Chap. v._: How he shall reconcile all religions and cast them in the same mould
_Chap. vi._: How the embassy of the fleas fared with Jupiter
_Chap. vii._: How the huntsman again secured honour and booty
_Chap. viii._: How he found the devil in the trough, and how Jump-i'-th'-field got fine horses
_Chap. ix._: Of an unequal combat in which the weakest wins the day and the conqueror is captured
_Chap. x._: How the Master-General of Ordnance granted the huntsman his life and held out hopes of great things
_Chap. xi._: Contains all manner of matters of little import and great imagination
_Chap. xii._: How fortune unexpected bestowed on the huntsman a noble present
_Chap. xiii._: Of Simplicissimus' strange fancies and castles in the air, and how he guarded his treasure
_Chap. xiv._: How the huntsman was captured by the enemy
_Chap. xv._: On what condition the huntsman was set free
_Chap. xvi._: How Simplicissimus became a nobleman
_Chap. xvii._: How the huntsman disposed himself to pass his six months: and also somewhat of the prophetess
_Chap. xviii._: How the huntsman went a wooing, and made a trade of it
_Chap. xix._: By what means the huntsman made friends, and how he was moved by a sermon
_Chap. xx._: How he gave the faithful priest other fish to fry, to cause him to forget his own hoggish life
_Chap. xxi._: How Simplicissimus all unawares was made a married man
_Chap. xxii._: How Simplicissimus held his wedding feast and how he purposed to begin his new life
_Chap. xxiii._: How Simplicissimus came to a certain town (which he nameth for convenience Cologne) to fetch his treasure
_Chap. xxiv._: How the huntsman caught a hare in the middle of a town
Book IV.
_Chap. i._: How and for what reason the huntsman was jockeyed away into France
_Chap. ii._: How Simplicissimus found a better host than before
_Chap. iii._: How he became a stage player and got himself a new name
_Chap. iv._: How Simplicissimus departed secretly and how he believed he had the Neapolitan disease
_Chap. v._: How Simplicissimus pondered on his past life, and how with the water up to his mouth he learned to swim
_Chap. vi._: How he became a vagabond quack and a cheat
_Chap. vii._: How the doctor was fitted with a musquet under Captain Curmudgeon
_Chap. viii._: How Simplicissimus endured a cheerless bath in the Rhine
_Chap. ix._: Wherefore clergymen should never eat hares that have been taken in a snare
_Chap. x._: How Simplicissimus was all unexpectedly quit of his musquet
_Chap. xi._: Discourses of the Order of the Marauder Brothers
_Chap. xii._: Of a desperate fight for life in which each party doth yet escape death
_Chap. xiii._: How Oliver conceived that he could excuse his brigand's tricks
_Chap. xiv._: How Oliver explained Herzbruder's prophecy to his own profit, and so came to love his worst enemy
_Chap. xv._: How Simplicissimus thought more piously when he went a-plundering than did Oliver when he went to church
_Chap. xvi._: Of Oliver's descent, and how he behaved in his youth, and specially at school
_Chap. xvii._: How he studied at Liège, and how he there demeaned himself
_Chap. xviii._: Of the homecoming and departure of this worshipful student, and how he sought to obtain advancement in the wars
_Chap. xix._: How Simplicissimus fulfilled Herzbruder's prophecy to Oliver before yet either knew the other
_Chap. xx._: How it doth fare with a man on whom evil fortune doth rain cats and dogs
_Chap. xxi._: A brief example of that trade which Oliver followed, wherein he was a master and Simplicissimus should be a prentice
_Chap. xxii._: How Oliver bit the dust and took six good men with him
_Chap. xxiii._: How Simplicissimus became a rich man and Herzbruder fell into great misery
_Chap. xxiv._: Of the manner in which Herzbruder fell into such evil plight
Book V.
_Chap. i._: How Simplicissimus turned palmer and went on a pilgrimage with Herzbruder
_Chap. ii._: How Simplicissimus, being terrified of the devil, was converted
_Chap. iii._: How the two friends spent the winter
_Chap. iv._: In what manner Simplicissimus and Herzbruder went to the wars again and returned thence
_Chap. v._: How Simplicissimus rode courier and in the likeness of Mercury learned from Jove what his design was as regards war and peace
_Chap. vi._: A story of a trick that Simplicissimus played at the spa
_Chap. vii._: How Herzbruder died and how Simplicissimus again fell to wanton courses
_Chap. viii._: How Simplicissimus found his second marriage turn out, and how he met with his dad and learned who his parents had been
_Chap. ix._: In what manner the pains of childbirth came upon him, and how he became a widower
_Chap. x._: Relation of certain peasants concerning the wonderful Mummelsee
_Chap. xi._: Of the marvellous thanksgiving of a patient, and of the holy thoughts thereby awakened in Simplicissimus
_Chap. xii._: How Simplicissimus journeyed with the sylphs to the centre of the earth
_Chap. xvii._: How Simplicissimus returned from the middle of the earth, and of his strange fancies, his air-castles, his calculations; and how he reckoned without his host
_Chap. xviii._: How Simplicissimus wasted his spring in the wrong place
_Chap. xx._: Treats of a trifling promenade from the Black Forest to Moscow in Russia
_Chap. xxi._: How Simplicissimus further fared in Moscow
_Chap. xxii._: By what a short and merry road he came home to his dad
_Chap. xxiii._: Is very short and concerneth Simplicissimus alone
_Chap. xxiv._: Why and in what fashion Simplicissimus left the world again
Appendix A Continuation
_Chap. xix._: How Simplicissimus and a carpenter escaped from a shipwreck with their lives and were thereafter provided with a land of their own
_Chap. xx._: How they hired a fair cook-maid and by God's help were rid of her again
_Chap. xxi._: How they thereafter kept house together and how they set to work
_Chap. xxii._: Further sequel of the above story, and how Simon Meron left the island and this life, and how Simplicissimus remained the sole lord of the island
_Chap. xxiii._: In which the hermit concludes his story and therewith ends these his six books
Appendix B
Appendix C
"Continuatio," _chap. xiii._: How Simplicissimus in return for a night's lodging, taught his host a curious art
[Illustration: Frontispiece of the First Edition from the Ducal Library. Wolf Buettel.]
Introduction
The translation here presented to the public is intended rather as a contribution to the history, or perhaps it should be said the sociology, of the momentous period to which the romance of "Simplicissimus" belongs, than as a specimen of literature. Effective though its situations are, consistent and artistic though its composition is (up to a certain point), its interest lies chiefly in the pictures, or rather photographs, of contemporary manners and characters which it presents. It has been said with some truth that if succeeding romancers had striven as perseveringly as our author to embody the spirit and reflect the ways of the people, German fiction might long ago have reached as high a development as the English novel. As it is, there is little of such spirit to be discovered in the prose romances which appeared between the time of Grimmelshausen and that of Jean Paul Richter. But the influence of the latter was completely swept away in the torrent of idealism by which the fictions of the idolised Goethe and his followers were characterised, and his domestic realism has only of late made its reappearance in disquieting and sordid forms.
It should be remembered as an apology for the stress now laid upon the sociological side of the history of the Thirty Years War, that that side has by historians been resolutely thrust into the background. The most detailed and painstaking narratives of the war are either bare records of military operations or, worse still, represent merely meticulous and valueless unravellings of the web of intrigue with which the pedants of the time deceived themselves into the belief that they were very Machiavels of subtlety and resource. While the Empire was bleeding to death, the chancelleries of half Europe were intent on the detaching from one side or the other of a venal general, or the patching up of some partial armistice that might afford breathing-time to organise further mischief. It does not matter much to any one whether Wallenstein was knave or fool, but it did matter and does matter that the war crippled for two hundred years the finances, the agriculture, and the enterprise of the German people, and dealt a blow to their patriotism from the like of which few nations could have recovered. Even the character of the civil administration was completely altered when the struggle ended. An army of capable bourgeois secretaries and councillors had for centuries served their princes and their fellow subjects well. It is wonderful that throughout the devastating wars waged by Wallenstein and Weimar, and even later on during the organised raids of Wrangel and Königsmark, the records were kept, the village business administered (where there was a village left), and even revenue collected with wellnigh as much regularity as in time of peace. These functionaries, who had worked so well, were at the end of the war gradually dispossessed of their influence, and their posts were taken by a swarm of young place-hunters of noble birth whom the peace had deprived of their proper employment, and whose pride was only equalled by their incapacity. But neither particulars nor generalisations bearing on such subjects are to be found in the pages of professional historians; they must be sought in the contemporary records of the people, of which the present work affords one of the few existing specimens, or else in the work of picturesque writers who, laying no claim to the title of scientific investigators, yet possess the power of selecting salient facts and deducing broad conclusions from them. Freitag's "Bilder aus der Deutschen Vergangenheit" indicates a wealth of material for sociological study which has as yet been but charily used; and recent German works dealing directly with the subject are more remarkable for elegance of production than for depth of research.
Such being the purpose for which this translation has been undertaken, an Introduction to it must necessarily be concerned not so much with the bibliography of the book or even the sources, if any, to which the author was beholden for his material, as with his own personality and the amount of actual fact that underlies the narrative of the fictitious hero's adventures. In respect of the first point, we are presented with a biography almost as shadowy and elusive as that of Shakespeare. In many ways, indeed, the particulars of the lives of these two which we possess are curiously alike. Both were voluminous writers; both enjoyed considerable contemporary reputation; and in both cases our knowledge of their actual history is confined to a few statements by persons who lived somewhat later than themselves, and a few formal documents and entries. In Grimmelshausen's case this obscurity is increased by his practice of publishing under assumed names. In the score of romances and tracts which are undoubtedly his work, we find only two to which his real name is attached. He has nine other pseudonyms, nearly all anagrams of the words "Christoffel von Grimmelshausen." Of these, "German Schleifheim von Sulsfort" and "Samuel Greifnsohn vom Hirschfelt" are the best known; the latter being the name to which he most persistently clung, and under which "Simplicissimus" was published, though the former appears on the title-page as that of the "editor." Only as the signature to a kind of advertisement at the end do we find the initials of "Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen," his full name. Until the publication of a collection of his works by Felsecker at Nuremberg in 1685, the true authorship of most of them remained unknown. But that editor, by his allusions in the preface, practically identified the writer as the "Schultheiss of Renchen, near Strassburg," whom he seems to have known personally. The reasons for anonymity were, no doubt, firstly, the fact that "Simplicissimus" at least dealt with the actions of men yet alive; and secondly, with regard to the other books, the continual references to details of the author's own life and opinions. His dread of offending a contemporary is shown by his disguising of the name of St. André, the commandant of Lippstadt, as N. de S. A. of L. (bk. iii., chap. 15).
It is unnecessary here to enter into a discussion of the authorities from whom the meagre particulars of Grimmelshausen's life are drawn. It may suffice for our present purpose to indicate the main events of that life. He was born at Gelnhausen, near Hanau, about 1625--probably of a humble family. At the age of ten he was captured by Hessian (that is, be it remembered, anti-Imperialist) troops, and became a member of that "unseliger Tross"--the unholy crew of horseboys, harlots, sutlers, and hangers-on who followed the armies on both sides, and sometimes outnumbered them three to one. In 1648, the last year of the war, the whole Imperial army only numbered 40,000 fighting men, and the recognised camp-followers, who were commanded and kept in order by officers significantly named the "Provosts of the Harlots," no less than 140,000. In the preface to one of his works called the "Satyrical Pilgrim," Grimmelshausen speaks of himself as having been "a musqueteer" at the age of ten--a statement which is obviously to be taken in the same sense in which Simplicissimus tells us (bk. ii., chap. 4) how he "served the crown of Sweden" at a similar age as a soldier, and drew pay for it. As a matter of fact, Grimmelshausen probably served a musqueteer or several musqueteers, just as the "Boy" in Henry V. serves Ancient Pistol and his comrades. From another book, the "Everlasting Almanack," we learn that he was a soldier under the Imperialist general Götz, lay in garrison at Offenburg, the free city alluded to in book v., chapter 20, and also for a long time in the famous fortress of Philippsburg, of his residence in which he tells various anecdotes. There are traces both in "Simplicissimus" and his other books of a wide and unusual acquaintance with many lands, German and non-German. He knows both Westphalia and Saxony well; Bohemia also: and certainly Switzerland. The journey to Russia may have some foundation in fact, though the statement put into the mouth of Simplicissimus that he has himself seen the fabulous "sheep plant" (bk. v., chap. 22) growing in Siberia considerably detracts from his trustworthiness here. But when he left the army, and whether he ever attained to any reputable rank therein, is quite uncertain. If 1625 be the correct date of his birth he would be but twenty-three years old at the conclusion of peace.
Besides his military expeditions, it is pretty clear from his works that he had visited Amsterdam and Paris and knew them fairly well; but for nineteen years we have no further trace of his career, till he suddenly appears as Schultheiss, under the Bishop of Strassburg, of Renchen, now in the Grand Duchy of Baden, a town of which he deliberately conceals the name exactly as he does his own, by anagrams, calling it now Rheinec, now Cernheim. In October 1667 he appears as holding this office and issuing an order concerning the mills of the town, which is still in existence. His wife was Katharina Henninger, and entries have been found of the birth of two children, a daughter and a son, in 1669 and 1675. A curious episode in the first part of the "Enchanted Bird's-nest," quoted hereafter, seems to indicate a grave family disappointment. In 1676 he died, aged fifty-one only, but having reached what may almost be called a ripe age for the battered and spent soldier of the Thirty Years War. The entry of his death is peculiarly full and even discursive, and tells how though he had again entered on military service--no doubt on the occasion of the French invasion in 1674--and though his sons and daughters were living in places widely distant from each other, they were all present at his death, in which he was fortified by the rites of Holy Church. A final touch of uncertainty is added by the fact that we do not even know whether Grimmelshausen was his true name: it is more likely to be that of some small estate which he had acquired, and of which he assumed the name when, as we learn, he was raised to noble rank.
It is plain even from this brief outline of his life that Grimmelshausen was emphatically a self-taught man; and it is partly to this fact that we owe the originality of his work; for he had never fallen under the baleful influence of the pedantry of his time. He had, it is true, picked up a deal of out-of-the-way knowledge, which he is willing enough to set before us to the verge of tediousness. But his learning is very superficial; he was a poor Latinist; and it is likely that for most of his erudition he was indebted to the translations which were particularly plentiful during that golden period of material prosperity in Germany which preceded the terrible war. It is clear enough that everywhere he thought more of the content than of the literary form of his own or any other work; and for the times his scientific and mathematical knowledge was considerable. In the field of romance he knows, and does not hesitate to borrow from, Boccaccio, Bandello ("Simplicissimus," bk. iv., chaps. 4, 5), and the "Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles," while in his minor works he shows ample acquaintance with old German legend and also with stories like that of King Arthur of England. Lastly, we find him commending the "incomparable Arcadia" of Sir Philip Sidney (which he would have read in the translation of Martin Opitz) as a model of eloquence, but corrupting and enervating in its effect upon the manly virtues ("Simplicissimus," bk. iii., chap. 18).
Yet his own earlier works are themselves in the tedious, unreal, and stilted style of the romances of chivalry. "The Chaste Joseph," "Dietrich and Amelind," and "Proximus and Limpida," though widely different in subject, are alike in this, and show no sign of the genius which created Simplicissimus. Yet for the first-named work--the "Joseph"--its author cherished an unreasoning affection, and even alludes to it in our romance as the work of the hero himself (bk. iii., chap. 19). But it is no discredit to Grimmelshausen's originality if we conjecture that the translations of Spanish picaresque novels (chiefly by the untiring Aegidius Albertini), which appeared during the first two decades of the seventeenth century, gave him the idea--they gave him little or nothing more--of a vagabond hero. Mateo Aleman's famous "Guzman de Alfarache" had been succeeded by two miserably poor "Second Parts" by different authors, and in one of these there appears a tedious episode containing the submarine adventures of the hero under the form of a tunny-fish, to which we may conceivably owe the equally tedious story of Simplicissimus and the sylphs of the Mummelsee. At the end of the original book (bk. v., chap. 24) is an unblushing copy of a passage from a work of Antonio Quevara or Guevara, also translated by Albertini.
That Grimmelshausen died a Romanist is pretty clear from the entry of his death quoted above; nor is it likely that a Protestant could have held the office of Schultheiss under the Bishop of Strassburg. There is also extant a curious dialogue ascribed to Grimmelshausen in which Simplicissimus's arguments against changing his religion are combated and finally overthrown by a certain Bonarnicus, who effects his complete conversion. It is far from improbable that the account of his rescue from sinful indifference at Einsiedel which Simplicissimus gives (bk. v., chap. 2)--of course apart from the miraculous incident of the attack on him by the unclean spirit--roughly represents the experience of his author. That the latter had been brought up a Protestant we simply assume from the fact that Simplicissimus is understood to have been so; the first indication which we have of a change in his opinions being his exclamation of "Jesus Maria!" (bk. iii., chap. 20), which draws upon him the suspicions of the pastor at Lippstadt. But Papist or not, our author's superstition is unmistakable.
It was indeed a time, like all periods of intense human misery, in which men, it might almost be said, turned in despair to the powers of hell because they had lost all faith in those of heaven. That numbers of the unhappy wretches who suffered in their thousands for witchcraft during the first period of the war actually believed themselves in direct communication with the devil is certain. The Bishop of Würzburg's fortnightly "autos-da-fé" were only stopped when some of the victims denounced the prelate himself as their accomplice, apparently believing it. Grimmelshausen is ready to believe anything. His description of the Witches' Sabbath is that of a scene which he is firmly convinced is a possible one; and he stoutly defends by a multitude of preposterous stories the reasonableness of such conviction ("Simplicissimus," bk. ii., chaps. 17, 18). But among soldiers the most widely spread superstition was that concerned with invulnerability. Not only separate individuals, but whole bodies of troops were supposed to be "frozen," or proof, at all events, against leaden bullets. Christian of Brunswick actually employed his ducal brother's workers in glass to make balls of that material to be used against Tilly's troops, who were credited with this supernatural property; and when the small fortress of Rogäz, near Dessau, was captured by Mansfeld in 1626, the assailants were forbidden to use their fire-arms as useless; the members of the garrison, being wizards all, were clubbed to death with hedge-stakes or the butt-ends of musquets. In all probability this superstition arose mainly from observation of the very small penetrating power of the ammunition of the time. Oliver (bk. iv., chap. 14) is merely bruised on the forehead by a bullet fired a few paces off: and bullets then weighed ten to the pound. It is true that he has, as it seems, been rendered ball-proof by the wicked old Provost Marshal, whose skull Herzbruder (bk. ii., chap. 27) caused his own servant to split with an axe at Wittstock, when no pistol could slay him: but the peasant in book i., chapter 14, cannot be killed by a bullet fired close to his head, perhaps by reason of the thickness of his skull. To celebrated persons particularly the reputation of being "gefroren" attached. Count Adam Terzky, Wallenstein's confidant, was supposed to be so protected: the superstition regarding Claverhouse, who could only be killed with a silver bullet, is well known: and even as late as 1792 there was a belief among his soldiers that Frederick William II. of Prussia was invulnerable. Grimmelshausen's adventuress "Courage" (of whom more hereafter) is supposed to be "sword-and bullet-proof": and towards the end of the war "Passau Tickets," or amulets protecting against wounds, were manufactured and sold, while a host of minor magic arts, more or less connected with invulnerability, were believed to exist. For such tricks the passage from the generally uninteresting "Continuatio," which is given as Appendix B of this book, is a kind of "locus classicus."
Another whole cycle of superstitions centres round the belief in possible invisibility of persons. Of this we have no example in "Simplicissimus," though the whole plot of the delightful double romance of the "Enchanted Bird's-nest" (also fully discussed hereafter) depends on it. On the other hand, the story of the production of the puppies from the pockets of the colonel's guests by the wizard Provost in book ii., chap. 22, is narrated by a man who plainly believed such things possible; and absolute credence is given to the powers of prophecy possessed both by old Herzbruder (bk. ii., chaps. 23, 24) and by the fortune-teller of Soest (bk. iii., chap. 17), who is apparently a well-known character of the times. It is noteworthy that Herzbruder thinks meanly of the art of palmistry.
Coming to the actual career of Simplicissimus as chronicled in the romance which bears his name, we are at the outset confronted by some strange chronology. The boy is born just after the battle of Höchst in 1622, and is captured by the troopers when ten years old; he is with the hermit two years (bk. i., chap. 12) till the latter's death, and makes his first "spring into the world" after the battle of Nördlingen in the autumn of 1634. He is in Hanau during Ramsay's rule, and spends there the winter of 1634-5. In the spring of 1635 (there was still ice on the town-moat) he was captured by Croats. The following eighteen months are occupied by his adventures as a forest-thief and as a servant-girl, and the next certain note of time we have is that of the battle of Wittstock, September 24, 1636. There follow the happenings at Soest and the six months internment at Lippstadt. But at the time of the siege of Breisach, in the winter of 1638, he has long been back from Paris; his marriage, therefore, must have taken place before the completion of his sixteenth year. Strange as this may appear, the story appears to be deliberately so arranged. For it will be observed that just before the lad's capture by the Swedes it is plainly implied (bk. iii., chap. 11) that he has not yet arrived at the age of puberty. Grimmelshausen intends him to be a "Wunderkind"--a youthful prodigy; and such an explanation is far more likely than that the author is simply careless and counting on the carelessness of his readers to conceal the incongruity. For the continual references to the time of year at which various events happen seem to prove that he had sketched for himself something like a chronology of his fictitious hero's life. And it is exceedingly difficult ever to detect him in the smallest false note of time. The date of the banquet and dance at Hanau is exactly fixed by the capture of Braunfels in January 1635 (bk. i., chap. 29): and Orb and Staden _had_ both been captured before Simplicissimus could well have delivered his oration on the miseries of a governor (bk. ii., chap. 12). These may seem small matters, but it must be remembered that Grimmelshausen had no Dictionary of Dates before him. The battle of Jankow in 1645 gives us the last exact date to be found in the book, and Tittmann is probably right in assuming that with that engagement the author's personal connection with the war ceased. By the time Simplicissimus returns from his Eastern wanderings the "German Peace" had been concluded.
At the very beginning of Simplicissimus's story he is brought in contact with at least one historical personage--James Ramsay, the Swedish commandant of Hanau, whose heroic defence of that town is well known. Simplicissimus is said to be the son of his brother-in-law, one Captain Sternfels von Fuchsheim. This man's Christian name is nowhere given; the boy is expressly said by his foster-father (bk. v., chap. 8) to have been christened Melchior after himself, and the fictitious character of the supposed parentage seems amply proved by the fact that the whole name, "Melchior Sternfels von Fugshaim" (as it is often spelt), is an exact anagram of "Christoffel von Grimmelshausen." We may therefore pass over as unmeaning the attribution to this supposed father of "estates in Scotland." by the pastor in book i., chapter 22, and must probably consign to the realms of imagination the lady-mother, Susanna Ramsay, also. That Grimmelshausen was really brought in contact, possibly as a page, with the commandant of Hanau, seems likely. He knows a good deal of him. But of his later career he is quite ignorant; he even repeats as true the malignant calumny circulated by the Jesuits of Vienna to the effect that Ramsay had gone mad with rage at the loss of Hanau (bk. v., chap. 8). As a matter of fact, the poor man died partly of his wounds and partly of a broken heart. The only other historic personage in the story who can be identified with certainty is Daniel St. André, a Hessian soldier of fortune (bk. iii., chap. 15) of Dutch descent, and commanding at Lippstadt for the "Crown of Sweden."
For what reason Grimmelshausen wrote the "Continuatio," a dull medley of allegories, visions, and stories of knavery, brightened only by the "Robinsonade" at the end, it is hard to say; probably at the urgent request of his publisher, when the striking success of the original work became assured. It appeared at Möpelgard (Montéliard) in the very same year, viz. 1669, as the first known edition, or more probably editions, of the first five books, and is sometimes quoted as a sixth book. Two years later there were issued three more "Continuations," even more unworthy of their author, and laying stress chiefly on the least estimable side of the hero's character--the roguery by which he paid his way on his journey back from France. The worthlessness of these sequels is the more remarkable when we consider the excellence of the other books which make up what may be called the Simplicissimus-cycle. These are "Trutzsimplex," "Springinsfeld," the two parts of the "Enchanted Bird's-nest," and the "Everlasting Almanack." They are all deserving of attention.
The first, which is also known as the "Life of the Adventuress 'Courage,'" appeared immediately after "Simplicissimus," with which it is connected by the fact that the heroine is none other than the light-minded lady of the Spa at Griesbach, the alleged mother of Simplicissimus's bastard son; she is also at one time the wife or companion of "Springinsfeld" or "Jump i' th' Field," Simplicissimus's old servant. Her history, which is narrated with extraordinary vivacity, covers nearly the whole period of the war, and is interwoven with the remaining books of the cycle in a sufficiently ingenious manner. A secretary out of employ is driven by the cold into the warm guest-room of an inn in a provincial town. Here he finds a huge old man armed with a cudgel "that with one blow could have administered extreme unction to any man." This is Simplicissimus, with the famous club that had so terrified the resin-gatherers of the Black Forest ("Simplicissimus," bk. v., chap. 17). Either the episode of the Desert Island is left out of account altogether--possibly not yet invented--or he has not yet started on his final journey. The latter is unlikely, for the date is indicated as 1669 or 1670. To these two enters an old wooden-legged fiddler who turns out to be Simplicissimus's faithful knave, "Jump i' th' Field." Of the former hero the secretary had read; of the latter he himself had written; for meeting, as a poor wandering scholar, with a gang of gipsies in the Schwarzwald, he had been engaged by their queen, an aged but still handsome woman, to write her history, on the promise of a pretty wife and good pay. He is cheated of both, and the gipsies disappear with their queen, who is in fact the famous "Courage" or "Kurrasche."
The daughter of unknown parents, this heroine was living in a small Bohemian town with an old nurse when the Imperialists, under Bucquoy, conquered the country in 1620. She was then thirteen years old, and thus fifteen years senior to Simplicissimus. The nurse, to protect her chastity, disguises her as a boy, and in this garb she becomes page to a young Rittmeister, to whom, her secret having been all but discovered in a scuffle, she reveals her sex and becomes his mistress. The name Courage is, for amusing but quite unmentionable reasons, given to her in consequence of this episode. To her first lover she is actually married on his death-bed, and now begins her career nominally as an honourable widow, but in reality as an accomplished courtesan. She still follows the army, for which she has an invincible love, and being, of course, "frozen" or invulnerable, takes part in various fights, in one of which she captures a major, who, when she in turn is taken prisoner, revenges himself on her in the vilest fashion. He is preparing to hand her over, according to custom ("Simplicissimus," bk. ii., chap. 26), "to the horseboys," when she is rescued by a young Danish nobleman, who proposes to make her his wife. The terrible story is told with an exactness of detail, which plainly can only be the work of the witness of similar scenes, and it is to be feared represents only too faithfully the truth as to the treatment of women in the war. It is remarkable, however, that few officers of high rank on either side are accused of wanton offences against public morals. Holk and Königsmark are the only two who are charged with publicly keeping their mistresses; and they were the two most brutal commanders of their time. As a rule superior officers took their wives with them ("Simplicissimus," bk. ii., chap. 25) even to the field of battle, and if such ladies fell into the enemy's hands, as did many after Nördlingen, they were treated with all possible respect.
But to return to "Courage." Her Danish lover is about to marry her when he too dies, and after this disappointment she sinks lower and lower in the social scale, forming temporary connections successively with a captain, a lieutenant, a corporal and finally with a musqueteer, who is no other than our old friend "Jump i' th' Field," for whose name she gives us a very complete and quite untranslatable reason. With him she journeys, as a Marketenderin or female sutler, to Italy, following the army of Colalto and Gallas, and there, with his assistance, she plays a variety of tricks, always knavish and often highly diverting. Grown rich, the vivandière dismisses poor "Jump i' th' Field" with a handsome present, and again resumes her trade of a superior courtesan in the town from which she journeys to the Spa, where she found and beguiled Simplicissimus. Her luck now turns; owing to a scandalous adventure under a pear-tree--the story is a mere copy of a well-known one in the "Hundred New Novels"--she is expelled from the town with the loss of all her money and almost of her life--so severe in the matter of public morals were the laws, in the midst of the general welter of wickedness then prevailing. Her beauty lost, she becomes a petty trader in wine and tobacco, and finally marries a gipsy chief; in which position we find her and leave her.
This story ended, the secretary and his friends in the inn are joined by Simplicissimus's old foster-father and mother--the "Dad" and "Mammy" of our romance--and also by young Simplicissimus, Courage's alleged son. She has avenged herself on her faithless lover, as she tells us in her own history, by laying at his door the child of her maid. It is for this reason that she entitles her narrative "Trutzsimplex," or "Spite Simplex." Her revenge, however, for reasons plainly hinted at, miscarries; the child is her lover's after all. The merry company of six then divert themselves during the short winter afternoon with a profitable exhibition of Simplicissimus's tricks in the market-place, and the night is pleasantly spent in listening to Springinsfeld's account of his own life and adventures.
The son of a Greek woman and an Albanian juggler, he follows in early boyhood his father's trade. Carried away from the port of Ragusa by an accident, he is landed in the Spanish Netherlands, and there serves under Spinola, then with that general's army in the Rhine Palatinate, and then in Pappenheim's cavalry. He is present at Breitenfeld and Lützen, and while temporarily out of the service falls in with "Courage" as above narrated. On leaving her, he sets up as an innkeeper, and prospers, but is ruined through his own incorrigible knavery. Serving against the Turks, he is wounded, and takes to fiddling to support himself, marrying also a hurdy-gurdy girl of loose character. In the course of their vagabond life there occurs the incident which leads to the most ingenious and attractive of all the romances of the cycle.
Sitting by a stream, they see in the water the shadow of a tree with a lump on one of the branches: on the tree itself there is no such lump. It is a bird's-nest, invisible itself, which makes its possessor invisible also. The wife seizes it and at once disappears, with all their money in her pocket. She does not, however, abandon her husband altogether, but when he goes into the neighbouring town of Munich she slips a handful of money into his pocket. He finds that this is a part of the proceeds of an impudent robbery just committed in the house of a merchant, and will have none of it, but is compelled to be witness of numerous amusing and mischievous pranks played by his wife of which he alone knows the secret. He goes to the wars again and loses a leg, after which he begs his way back to Munich and finds his wife dead. She has befooled a young baker's man into believing her to be the fairy Melusina, and after a sanguinary chance-medley in the baker's chamber, whither she is pursued for thefts committed for his sake, is slain by a young halberdier of the watch sent to arrest her. Her body is burned as that of a witch, and her slayer disappears bodily. His story thus ended, Springinsfeld is taken home by Simplicissimus to his farm, where he dies in the odour of sanctity.
Here begins the first part of the history of the "Enchanted Bird's-nest." The young halberdier is an honest lad, who uses his powers for good only, and his experiences are of exceeding interest as giving a picture of the manners of the time viewed in their most intimate particularities by an invisible witness. We have matrimonial infelicities circumstantially described, as likewise the efforts of an impoverished family of nobles to keep up appearances in their tumble-down old castle. The halberdier prevents hideous and unspeakable crime, captures burglars who are effecting their purpose by a device similar to that of the "hand of glory," wreaks vengeance upon loose-living pastors and rescues the intended victims of footpads. The adventures follow one upon another in quick succession, but are ended by a somewhat unnecessary fit of remorse, during which the halberdier tears up the nest. It is, however, found, and the portion which contains its magic properties kept, by a passer-by. This First Part ends with a fresh appearance of Simplicissimus, who is in deep grief over the rejection by a neighbouring nobleman of his application for a post for his son, whom the invisible halberdier has seen and helped out of trouble in the convent where he was studying. This scene is so utterly unconnected with the course of the narrative that it is conjectured to refer to some real family misfortune of Grimmelshausen, of which he is anxious to give an explanation to the public.
The new owner of the enchanted nest is the merchant whom Springinsfeld's wife had robbed at Munich, and the "Second Part" is occupied with the story of his wicked misuse of his powers. His actions are the very opposite of the halberdier's, though the contrast is not so pointed as to become inartistic. He makes use of his supernatural facilities to seduce his own servant, to perpetrate a peculiarly filthy act of revenge upon his faithless wife, and finally to accomplish the crowning deception of his whole career. He makes his way into the family of a respectable Portuguese Jew, in the first instance with a view to robbery; but becoming enamoured of the beautiful daughter of the house, he employs his invisibility to practise a most blasphemous piece of knavery. He succeeds in making the unfortunate parents believe that the maiden is destined to be the mother of the future Messiah by the prophet Elias. The latter part he of course plays himself, and enjoys the society of his victim till at length a child is born, which turns out, to the general horror, to be a girl. The motive is not new and the story is a sordid one; but it is most artistically recounted, and an intimate knowledge of Jewish manners and ideas is displayed. The narrative is also diversified by an element found in none of the other romances of the cycle--acute and farsighted political discourses and reasonings on European affairs as likely to be affected by the war then impending with France, which ended with the treaty of Nimwegen in 1678.
Rendered desperate by his sins, though now deeply enamoured of the unfortunate Jewess Esther, the merchant is on the verge of surrendering himself to the power of "black magicians" of the worst and most diabolical kind when he escapes by betaking himself to the wars. Possessing besides his invisibility the power of rendering himself invulnerable, he is nevertheless wounded by a "consecrated" bullet, and finally makes his way home in poverty and misery accompanied by a pious monk. The nest is thrown into the Rhine and disappears for ever, and the merchant prepares to spend the remainder of his life in prayer and penitence.
The connection of the fifth work, the "Everlasting Almanack," with Simplicissimus is nominal only. It appeared in 1670, and is a perfect specimen of what may be called the best class of chapbooks of that day. It is the Whitaker's Almanack of the period. Each day has its special saints given: there are rules of good husbandry and weather prognostics; recipes for the house, the kitchen, and the farmyard; together with matters adapted for the higher class of readers, such as brief scientific notices, fragments of historical interest, narratives of marvellous occurrences, and, of course, in the spirit of the time, a mass of particulars as to astrology and the casting of horoscopes. Ingenious as it all is, and not without interest from the sociological point of view the book reminds us of Simplicissimus only by its connection with that side of his character which we would willingly forget, but for which Grimmelshausen seems to have cherished an unreasoning admiration, and on which he insisted more and more in his successive works--namely his qualities as a quack and mountebank.
As already pointed out, the interest of the central romance of "Simplicissimus" is less literary than historic, whereas German critics in their estimate of its value have considered the first aspect only, and their opinions are consequently little worth recording. Gervinus for example, looking at the book from a purely artistic point of view, finds it wanting. Other critics have followed him blindly and with a considerable amount of underlying ignorance to boot. The accurate Dahlmann, for example, though he reckons the romance among his "historical sources," speaks of it as published at Möpelgard in 1669 in six "volumes." Plainly he had never seen a copy, but had heard of the six books (five and the "Continuation") and mistook them for volumes. Tittmann, one of the latest editors of the work, sums up its chief merits when he says: "Simplicissimus and the Simplician writings are almost our only substitute, and that a poor one, for the contemporary memoirs in which our western neighbours are so rich."
The bibliography of the book is for our purpose not important. For a year or two editions seem to have succeeded each other with such rapidity that it is difficult to distinguish between them; but the only additional value which those printed later than 1670 possess is the questionable one of including the three worthless little sequels above referred to. Of modern editions the best, perhaps, is that of Tittmann (Leipzig, 1877), which has been principally used for this translation. The annotations, however, leave much to be desired; many difficulties are left unexplained, and there are some positive mistakes, of which a single instance may suffice. In book v., chapter 4, we find the expression "in prima plana," which is a sufficiently well-known military phrase of the time and means "on the first page" (of the muster-roll), which contained the names of the officers of a company written separately from those of the rank and file. It is explained by Tittmann to mean "at the first estimate," and succeeding editors have copied this, adding as a possible alternative "in the first engagement," or "at the first start". The editions for school and family reading which are current in Germany are, as a rule, so expurgated as to deprive the book of much of its interest. In this translation it has been found necessary to omit a single episode only, which is as childishly filthy as it is utterly uninteresting.
A. T. S. G.
Book I.
_Chap. i._: TREATS OF SIMPLICISSIMUS'S RUSTIC DESCENT AND OF HIS UPBRINGING ANSWERING THERETO
There appeareth in these days of ours (of which many do believe that they be the last days) among the common folk, a certain disease which causeth those who do suffer from it (so soon as they have either scraped and higgled together so much that they can, besides a few pence in their pocket, wear a fool's coat of the new fashion with a thousand bits of silk ribbon upon it, or by some trick of fortune have become known as men of parts) forthwith to give themselves out gentlemen and nobles of ancient descent. Whereas it doth often happen that their ancestors were day-labourers, carters, and porters, their cousins donkey-drivers, their brothers turnkeys and catchpolls, their sisters harlots, their mothers bawds--yea, witches even: and in a word, their whole pedigree of thirty-two quarterings as full of dirt and stain as ever was the sugar-bakers' guild of Prague. Yea, these new sprigs of nobility be often themselves as black as if they had been born and bred in Guinea.
With such foolish folk I desire not to even myself, though 'tis not untrue that I have often fancied I must have drawn my birth from some great lord or knight at least, as being by nature disposed to follow the nobleman's trade had I but the means and the tools for it. 'Tis true, moreover, without jesting, that my birth and upbringing can be well compared to that of a prince if we overlook the one great difference in degree. How! did not my dad (for so they call fathers in the Spessart) have his own palace like any other, so fine as no king could build with his own hands, but must let that alone for ever. 'Twas painted with lime, and in place of unfruitful tiles, cold lead and red copper, was roofed with that straw whereupon the noble corn doth grow, and that he, my dad, might make a proper show of nobility and riches, he had his wall round his castle built, not of stone, which men do find upon the road or dig out of the earth in barren places, much less of miserable baked bricks that in a brief space can be made and burned (as other great lords be wont to do), but he did use oak, which noble and profitable tree, being such that smoked sausage and fat ham doth grow upon it, taketh for its full growth no less than a hundred years; and where is the monarch that can imitate him therein? His halls, his rooms, and his chambers did he have thoroughly blackened with smoke, and for this reason only, that 'tis the most lasting colour in the world, and doth take longer to reach to real perfection than an artist will spend on his most excellent paintings. The tapestries were of the most delicate web in the world, wove for us by her that of old did challenge Minerva to a spinning match. His windows were dedicated to St. Papyrius for no other reason than that that same paper doth take longer to come to perfection, reckoning from the sowing of the hemp or flax whereof 'tis made, than doth the finest and clearest glass of Murano: for his trade made him apt to believe that whatever was produced with much pains was also more valuable and more costly; and what was most costly was best suited to nobility. Instead of pages, lackeys, and grooms, he had sheep, goats, and swine, which often waited upon me in the pastures till I drove them home. His armoury was well furnished with ploughs, mattocks, axes, hoes, shovels, pitchforks, and hayforks, with which weapons he daily exercised himself; for hoeing and digging he made his military discipline, as did the old Romans in time of peace. The yoking of oxen was his generalship, the piling of dung his fortification, tilling of the land his campaigning, and the cleaning out of stables his princely pastime and exercise. By this means did he conquer the whole round world so far as he could reach, and at every harvest did draw from it rich spoils. But all this I account nothing of, and am not puffed up thereby, lest any should have cause to jibe at me as at other newfangled nobility, for I esteem myself no higher than was my dad, which had his abode in a right merry land, to wit, in the Spessart, where the wolves do howl goodnight to each other. But that I have as yet told you nought of my dad's family, race and name is for the sake of precious brevity, especially since there is here no question of a foundation for gentlefolks for me to swear myself into; 'tis enough if it be known that I was born in the Spessart.
Now as my dad's manner of living will be perceived to be truly noble, so any man of sense will easily understand that my upbringing was like and suitable thereto: and whoso thinks that is not deceived, for in my tenth year had I already learned the rudiments of my dad's princely exercises: yet as touching studies I might compare with the famous Amphistides, of whom Suidas reports that he could not count higher than five: for my dad had perchance too high a spirit, and therefore followed the use of these days, wherein many persons of quality trouble themselves not, as they say, with bookworms' follies, but have their hirelings to do their ink-slinging for them. Yet was I a fine performer on the bagpipe, whereon I could produce most dolorous strains. But as to knowledge of things divine, none shall ever persuade me that any lad of my age in all Christendom could there beat me, for I knew nought of God or man, of Heaven or hell, of angel or devil, nor could discern between good and evil. So may it be easily understood that I, with such knowledge of theology, lived like our first parents in Paradise, which in their innocence knew nought of sickness or death or dying, and still less of the Resurrection. O noble life! (or, as one might better say, O noodle's life!) in which none troubles himself about medicine. And by this measure ye can estimate my proficiency in the study of jurisprudence and all other arts and sciences. Yea, I was so perfected in ignorance that I knew not that I knew nothing. So say I again, O noble life that once I led! But my dad would not suffer me long to enjoy such bliss, but deemed it right that as being nobly born, I should nobly act and nobly live: and therefore began to train me up for higher things and gave me harder lessons.
_Chap. ii._: OF THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS THAT DIGNITY TO WHICH SIMPLICISSIMUS ATTAINED, TO WHICH IS ADDED THE PRAISE OF SHEPHERDS AND OTHER EXCELLENT PRECEPTS
For he invested me with the highest dignity that could be found, not only in his household, but in the whole world: namely, with the office of a shepherd: for first he did entrust me with his swine, then his goats, and then his whole flock of sheep, that I should keep and feed the same, and by means of my bagpipe (of which Strabo writeth that in Arabia its music alone doth fatten the sheep and lambs) protect them from the wolf. Then was I like to David (save that he in place of the bagpipe had but a harp), which was no bad beginning for me, but a good omen that in time, if I had any manner of luck, I should become a famous man: for from the beginning of the world high personages have been shepherds, as we read in Holy Writ of Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his sons: yea, of Moses also, which must first keep his father-in-law his sheep before he was made law-giver and ruler over six hundred thousand men in Israel.
And now may some man say these were holy and godly men, and no Spessart peasant-lads knowing nought of God? Which I must confess: yet why should my then innocence be laid to my charge? Yet, among the heathen of old time you will find examples as many as among God's chosen folk. So among the Romans were noble families that without doubt were called Bubulci, Vituli, Vitellii, Caprae, and so forth, because they had to do with the cattle so named, and 'tis like had even herded them. 'Tis certain Romulus and Remus were shepherds, and Spartacus that made the whole Roman world to tremble. What! was not Paris, King Priam's son, a shepherd, and Anchises the Trojan prince, Aeneas's father? The beautiful Endymion, of whom the chaste Luna was enamoured, was a shepherd, and so too the grisly Polypheme. Yea, the gods themselves were not ashamed of this trade: Apollo kept the kine of Admetus, King of Thessaly; Mercurius and his son Daphnis, Pan and Proteus, were all mighty shepherds: and therefore be they still called by our fantastic poets the patrons of herdsmen. Mesha, King of Moab, as we do read in II Kings, was a sheep-master; Cyrus, the great King of Persia, was not only reared by Mithridates, a shepherd, but himself did keep sheep; Gyges was first a herdsman, and then by the power of a ring became a king; and Ismael Sophi, a Persian king, did in his youth likewise herd cattle. So that Philo, the Jew, doth excellently deal with the matter in his life of Moses when he saith the shepherd's trade is a preparation and a beginning for the ruling of men, for as men are trained and exercised for the wars in hunting, so should they that are intended for government first be reared in the gentle and kindly duty of a shepherd: all which my dad doubtless did understand: yea, to know it doth to this hour give me no little hope of my future greatness.
But to come back to my flock. Ye must know that I knew as little of wolves as of mine own ignorance, and therefore was my dad the more diligent with his lessons: and "lad," says he, "have a care; let not the sheep run far from each other, and play thy bagpipe manfully lest the wolf come and do harm, for 'tis a four-legged knave and a thief that eateth man and beast, and if thou beest anyways negligent he will dust thy jacket for thee." To which I answered with like courtesy, "Daddy, tell me how a wolf looks: for such I never saw yet." "O thou silly blockhead," quoth he, "all thy life long wilt thou be a fool: thou art already a great looby and yet knowest not what a four-legged rogue a wolf is." And more lessons did he give me, and at last grew angry and went away, as bethinking him that my thick wit could not comprehend his nice instruction.
_Chap. iii._: TREATS OF THE SUFFERINGS OF A FAITHFUL BAGPIPE
So I began to make such ado with my bagpipe and such noise that 'twas enough to poison all the toads in the garden, and so methought I was safe enough from the wolf that was ever in my mind: and remembering me of my mammy (for so they do use to call their mothers in the Spessart and the Vogelsberg) how she had often said the fowls would some time or other die of my singing, I fell upon the thought to sing the more, and so make my defence against the wolf stronger; and so I sang this which I had learned from my mammy:
1. O peasant race so much despised, How greatly art thou to be priz'd? Yea, none thy praises can excel, If men would only mark thee well. 2. How would it with the world now stand Had Adam never till'd the land? With spade and hoe he dug the earth From whom our princes have their birth. 3. Whatever earth doth bear this day Is under thine high rule and sway, And all that fruitful makes the land Is guided by thy master hand. 4. The emperor whom God doth give Us to protect, thereby doth live: So doth the soldier: though his trade To thy great loss and harm be made. 5. Meat for our feasts thou dost provide: Our wine by thee too is supplied: Thy plough can force the earth to give That bread whereby all men must live. 6. All waste the earth and desert were Didst thou not ply thy calling there: Sad day shall that for all be found When peasants cease to till the ground. 7. So hast thou right to laud and praise, For thou dost feed us all our days. Nature herself thee well doth love, And God thy handiwork approve. 8. Whoever yet on earth did hear Of peasant that the gout did fear; That fell disease which rich men dread, Whereby is many a noble dead. 9. From all vainglory art thou free (As in these days thou well mayst be), And lest thou shouldst through pride have loss, God bids thee daily bear thy cross. 10. Yea, even the soldier's wicked will May work thee great advantage still: For lest thou shouldst to pride incline, "Thy goods and house," saith he, "are mine."
So far and no further could I get with my song: for in a moment was I surrounded, sheep and all, by a troop of cuirassiers that had lost their way in the thick wood and were brought back to their right path by my music and my calls to my flock. "Aha," quoth I to myself, "these be the right rogues! these be the four-legged knaves and thieves whereof thy dad did tell thee!" For at first I took horse and man (as did the Americans the Spanish cavalry) to be but one beast, and could not but conceive these were the wolves; and so would sound the retreat for these horrible centaurs and send them a-flying: but scarce had I blown up my bellows to that end when one of them catches me by the shoulder and swings me up so roughly upon a spare farm horse they had stolen with other booty that I must needs fall on the other side, and that too upon my dear bagpipe, which began so miserably to scream as it would move all the world to pity: which availed nought, though it spared not its last breath in the bewailing of my sad fate. To horse again I must go, it mattered not what my bagpipe did sing or say: yet what vexed me most was that the troopers said I had hurt my dear bagpipe, and therefore it had made so heathenish an outcry. So away my horse went with me at a good trot, like the "primum mobile," for my dad's farm.
Now did strange and fantastic imaginings fill my brain; for I did conceive, because I sat upon such a beast as I had never before seen, that I too should be changed into an iron man. And because such a change came not, there arose in me other foolish fantasies: for I thought these strange creatures were but there to help me drive my sheep home; for none strayed from the path, but all, with one accord, made for my dad's farm. So I looked anxiously when my dad and my mammy should come out to bid us welcome: which yet came not: for they and our Ursula, which was my dad's only daughter, had found the back-door open and would not wait for their guests.
_Chap. iv._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS'S PALACE WAS STORMED, PLUNDERED, AND RUINATED, AND IN WHAT SORRY FASHION THE SOLDIERS KEPT HOUSE THERE
Although it was not my intention to take the peace-loving reader with these troopers to my dad's house and farm, seeing that matters will go ill therein, yet the course of my history demands that I should leave to kind posterity an account of what manner of cruelties were now and again practised in this our German war: yea, and moreover testify by my own example that such evils must often have been sent to us by the goodness of Almighty God for our profit. For, gentle reader, who would ever have taught me that there was a God in Heaven if these soldiers had not destroyed my dad's house, and by such a deed driven me out among folk who gave me all fitting instruction thereupon? Only a little while before, I neither knew nor could fancy to myself that there were any people on earth save only my dad, my mother and me, and the rest of our household, nor did I know of any human habitation but that where I daily went out and in. But soon thereafter I understood the way of men's coming into this world, and how they must leave it again. I was only in shape a man and in name a Christian: for the rest I was but a beast. Yet the Almighty looked upon my innocence with a pitiful eye, and would bring me to a knowledge both of Himself and of myself. And although He had a thousand ways to lead me thereto, yet would He doubtless use that one only by which my dad and my mother should be punished: and that for an example to all others by reason of their heathenish upbringing of me.
The first thing these troopers did was, that they stabled their horses: thereafter each fell to his appointed task: which task was neither more nor less than ruin and destruction. For though some began to slaughter and to boil and to roast so that it looked as if there should be a merry banquet forward, yet others there were who did but storm through the house above and below stairs. Others stowed together great parcels of cloth and apparel and all manner of household stuff, as if they would set up a frippery market. All that they had no mind to take with them they cut in pieces. Some thrust their swords through the hay and straw as if they had not enough sheep and swine to slaughter: and some shook the feathers out of the beds and in their stead stuffed in bacon and other dried meat and provisions as if such were better and softer to sleep upon. Others broke the stove and the windows as if they had a never-ending summer to promise. Houseware of copper and tin they beat flat, and packed such vessels, all bent and spoiled, in with the rest. Bedsteads, tables, chairs, and benches they burned, though there lay many cords of dry wood in the yard. Pots and pipkins must all go to pieces, either because they would eat none but roast flesh, or because their purpose was to make there but a single meal.
Our maid was so handled in the stable that she could not come out; which is a shame to tell of. Our man they laid bound upon the ground, thrust a gag into his mouth, and poured a pailful of filthy water into his body: and by this, which they called a Swedish draught, they forced him to lead a party of them to another place where they captured men and beasts, and brought them back to our farm, in which company were my dad, my mother, and our Ursula.
And now they began: first to take the flints out of their pistols and in place of them to jam the peasants' thumbs in and so to torture the poor rogues as if they had been about the burning of witches: for one of them they had taken they thrust into the baking oven and there lit a fire under him, although he had as yet confessed no crime: as for another, they put a cord round his head and so twisted it tight with a piece of wood that the blood gushed from his mouth and nose and ears. In a word, each had his own device to torture the peasants, and each peasant his several torture. But as it seemed to me then, my dad was the luckiest, for he with a laughing face confessed what others must out with in the midst of pains and miserable lamentations: and such honour without doubt fell to him because he was the householder. For they set him before a fire and bound him fast so that he could neither stir hand nor foot, and smeared the soles of his feet with wet salt, and this they made our old goat lick off, and so tickle him that he well nigh burst his sides with laughing. And this seemed to me so merry a thing that I must needs laugh with him for the sake of fellowship, or because I knew no better. In the midst of such laughter he must needs confess all that they would have of him, and indeed revealed to them a secret treasure, which proved far richer in pearls, gold, and trinkets than any would have looked for among peasants. Of the women, girls, and maidservants whom they took, I have not much to say in particular, for the soldiers would not have me see how they dealt with them. Yet this I know, that one heard some of them scream most piteously in divers corners of the house; and well I can judge it fared no better with my mother and our Ursel than with the rest. Yet in the midst of all this miserable ruin I helped to turn the spit, and in the afternoon to give the horses drink, in which employ I encountered our maid in the stable, who seemed to me wondrously tumbled, so that I knew her not, but with a weak voice she called to me, "O lad, run away, or the troopers will have thee away with them. Look to it well that thou get hence: thou seest in what plight ..." And more she could not say.
_Chap. v._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS TOOK FRENCH LEAVE, AND HOW HE WAS TERRIFIED BY DEAD TREES
Now did I begin to consider and to ponder upon my unhappy condition and prospects, and to think how I might best help myself out of my plight. For whither should I go? Here indeed my poor wits were far too slender to devise a plan. Yet they served me so far that towards evening I ran into the woods. But then whither was I to go further? for the ways of the wood were as little known to me as the passage beyond Nova Zembla through the Arctic Ocean to China. 'Tis true the pitch-dark night was my protection: yet to my dark wits it seemed not dark enough; so I did hide myself in a close thicket wherein I could hear both the shrieks of the tortured peasants and the song of the nightingales; which birds regarded not the peasants either to show compassion for them or to stop their sweet song for their sakes: and so I laid myself, as free from care, upon one ear, and fell asleep. But when the morning star began to glimmer in the East I could see my poor dad's house all aflame, yet none that sought to stop the fire: so I betook myself thither in hopes to have some news of my dad; whereupon I was espied by five troopers, of whom one holloaed to me, "Come hither, boy, or I will shoot thee dead."
But I stood stock-still and open-mouthed, as knowing not what he meant or would have; and I standing there and gaping upon them like a cat at a new barn-door, and they, by reason of a morass between, not being able to come at me, which vexed them mightily, one discharged his carbine at me: at which sudden flame of fire and unexpected noise, which the echo, repeating it many times, made more dreadful, I was so terrified that forthwith I fell to the ground, and for terror durst not move a finger, though the troopers went their way and doubtless left me for dead; nor for that whole day had I spirit to rise up. But night again overtaking me, I stood up and wandered away into the woods until I saw afar off a dead tree that shone: and this again wrought in me a new fear: wherefore I turned me about post-haste and ran till I saw another such tree, from which I hurried away again, and in this manner spent the night running from one dead tree to another. At last came blessed daylight to my help, and bade those trees leave me untroubled in its presence: yet was I not much the better thereby; for my heart was full of fear and dread, my brain of foolish fancies, and my legs of weariness, my belly of hunger, and mine eyes of sleep. So I went on and on and knew not whither; yet the further I went the thicker grew the wood and the greater the distance from all human kind. So now I came to my senses, and perceived (yet without knowing it) the effect of ignorance and want of knowledge: for if an unreasoning beast had been in my place he would have known what to do for his sustenance better than I. Yet I had wit enough when darkness again overtook me to creep into a hollow tree and there take up my quarters for the night.
_Chap. vi._: IS SO SHORT AND SO PRAYERFUL THAT SIMPLICISSIMUS THEREUPON SWOONS AWAY
But hardly had I composed myself to sleep when I heard a voice that cried aloud, "O wondrous love towards us thankless mortals! O mine only comfort, my hope, my riches, my God!" and more of the same sort, all of which I could not hear or understand. Yet these were surely words which should rightly have cheered, comforted, and delighted every Christian soul that should find itself in such a plight as did I. But O simplicity! O ignorance! 'Twas all gibberish[1] to me, and all in an unknown tongue out of which I could make nothing: yea, was rather terrified by its strangeness. Yet when I heard how the hunger and thirst of him that spake should be satisfied, my unbearable hunger did counsel me to join myself to him as a guest. So I plucked up heart to come out of my hollow tree and to draw nigh to the voice I had heard, where I was ware of a tall man with long greyish hair which fell in confusion over his shoulders: a tangled beard he had shapen like to a Swiss cheese; his face yellow and thin yet kindly enough, and his long gown made up of more than a thousand pieces of cloth of all sorts sewn together one upon another. Round his neck and body he had wound a heavy iron chain like St. William,[2] and in other ways seemed in mine eyes so grisly and terrible that I began to shake like a wet dog. But what made my fear greater was that he did hug to his breast a crucifix some six spans long. So I could fancy nought else but that this old grey man must be the Wolf of whom my dad had of late told me: and in my fear I whipped out my bagpipe, which, as mine only treasure, I had saved from the troopers, and blowing up the sack, tuned up and made a mighty noise to drive away that same grisly wolf: at which sudden and unaccustomed music in that lonely place the hermit was at first no little dismayed, deeming, without doubt, 'twas a devil come to terrify him and so disturb his prayers, as happened to the great St. Anthony. But presently recovering himself, he mocked at me as his tempter in the hollow tree, whither I had retired myself: nay, plucked up such heart that he advanced upon me to defy the enemy of mankind.
"Aha!" says he, "thou art a proper fellow enough, to tempt saints without God's leave": and more than that I heard not: for his approach caused in me such fear and trembling that I lost my senses and fell forthwith into a swoon.
_Chap. vii._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS IN A POOR LODGING KINDLY ENTREATED
After what manner I was helped to myself again I know not; only this, that the old man had my head on his breast and my jacket open in front, when I came to my senses. But when I saw the hermit so close to me I raised such a hideous outcry as if he would have torn the heart out of my body. Then said he, "My son, hold thy peace: be content: I do thee no harm." Yet the more he comforted me and soothed me the more I cried, "Oh, thou eatest me! Oh! thou eatest me: thou art the wolf and wilt eat me." "Nay, nay," said he, "my son, be at peace: I eat thee not."
This contention lasted long, till at length I let myself so far be persuaded as to go into his hut with him, wherein was poverty the housekeeper, hunger the cook, and want clerk of the kitchen: there was my belly cheered with herbs and a draught of water, and my mind, which was altogether distraught, again brought to right reason by the old man's comfortable kindness. Thereafter then I easily allowed myself to be enticed by the charm of sweet slumber to pay my debt to nature. Now when the hermit perceived my need of sleep he left me to occupy my place in his hut alone: for one only could lie therein. So about midnight I awoke again and heard him sing the song which followeth here, which I afterwards did learn by heart.
"Come, joy of night, O nightingale: Take up, take up thy cheerful tale; Sing sweet and loud and long. Come praise thine own Creator blest, When other birds are gone to rest, And now have hushed their song.
(Chorus) "With thy voice loud rejoice; For so thou best canst shew thy love To God who reigns in heaven above.
"For though the light of day be flown, And we in darkness dwell alone, Yet can we chant and sing Of God his power and God his might: Nor darkness hinders us nor night Our praises so to bring. Echo the wanderer makes reply And when thou singst will still be by And still repeat thy strain. All weariness she drives afar And sloth to which we prisoners are, And mocks at slumber's chain. The stars that stand in heaven above, Do shew to God their praise and love And honour to Him bring; And owls by nature reft of song Yet shew with cries the whole night long Their love to God the king. Come hither then, sweet bird of night, For we will share no sluggard's plight Nor sleep away the hours; But, till the rosy break of day Chase from these woods the night away, God's praise shall still be ours."
Now while this song did last it seemed to me as if nightingale, owl, and echo had of a truth joined therein, and had I ever heard the morning star or had been able to play its melody on my bagpipe, I had surely run out of the hut to take my trick also, so sweet did this harmony seem to me: yet I fell asleep again and woke not till day was far advanced, when the hermit stood before me and said, "Up, child, I will give thee to eat and thereafter shew thee the way through the wood, so that thou comest to where people dwell, and also before night to the nearest village."
So I asked him, what be these things, "people" and "village"?
"What," says he, "hast never been in any village and knowest not what people or folks be?"
"Nay," said I, "nowhere save here have I been: yet tell me what be these things, folk and people and village."
"God save us," answered the hermit, "art thou demented or very cunning?"
"Nay," said I, "I am my mammy's and dad's boy, and neither Master Demented nor Master Cunning."
Then the hermit shewed his amazement with sighs and crossing of himself, and says he, "'Tis well, dear child, I am determined if God will better to instruct thee."
So then our questions and answers fell out as the ensuing chapter sheweth.
_Chap. viii._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS BY HIS NOBLE DISCOURSE PROCLAIMED HIS EXCELLENT QUALITIES
Hermit. What is thy name?
Simplicissimus. My name is "Lad."
H. I can see well enough that thou art no girl: but how did thy father and mother call thee?
S. I never had either father or mother.
H. Who gave thee then thy shirt?
S. Oho! Why, my mammy.
H. What did thy mother call thee?
S. She called me "Lad," ay, and "rogue, silly gaby, and gallowsbird."
H. Who, then, was thy mammy's husband?
S. No one.
H. With whom, then, did thy mammy sleep at night?
S. With my dad.
H. What did thy dad call thee?
S. He called me "Lad."
H. What was his name?
S. His name was Dad.
H. What did thy mammy call him?
S. Dad, and sometimes also "Master."
H. Did she never call him aught besides?
S. Yea, that did she.
H. And what then?
S. "Beast," "coarse brute," "drunken pig," and other the like, when she would scold him.
H. Thou beest but an ignorant creature, that knowest not thy parents' name nor thine own.
S. Oho! neither dost thou know it.
H. Canst thou say thy prayers?
S. Nay, my mammy and our Ursel did uprear the beds.
H. I ask thee not that, but whether thou knowest thy Paternoster?
S. That do I.
H. Say it then.
S. Our father which art heaven, hallowed be name, to thy kingdom come, thy will come down on earth as it says heaven, give us debts as we give our debtors: lead us not into no temptation, but deliver us from the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
H. God help us! Knowest thou naught of our Blessed Lord God?
S. Yea, yea: 'tis he that stood by our chamber-door; my mammy brought him home from the church feast and stuck him up there.
H. O Gracious God, now for the first time do I perceive what a great favour and benefit it is when Thou impartest knowledge of Thyself, and how naught a man is to whom Thou givest it not! O Lord, vouchsafe to me so to honour Thy holy name that I be worthy to be as zealous in my thanks for this great grace as Thou hast been liberal in the granting of it. Hark now, Simplicissimus (for I can call thee by no other name), when thou sayest thy Paternoster, thou must say this: "Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name: Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven: give us this day our daily bread ..."
S. Oho there! ask for cheese too!
H. Ah, dear child, keep silence and learn that thou needest more than cheese: thou art indeed loutish, as thy mammy told thee: 'tis not the part of lads like thee to interrupt an old man, but to be silent, to listen, and to learn. Did I but know where thy parents dwelt, I would fain bring thee to them, and then teach them how to bring up children.
S. I know not whither to go. Our house is burnt, and my mammy ran off and was fetched back with our Ursula, and my dad too, and our maid was sick and lying in the stable.
H. And who did burn the house?
S. Aha! there came iron men that sat on things as big as oxen, yet having no horns: which same men did slaughter sheep and cows and swine, and so I ran too, and then was the house burnt.
H. Where was thy dad then?
S. Aha! the iron men tied him up and our old goat was set to lick his feet. So he must needs laugh, and give the iron men many silver pennies, big and little, and fair yellow things and some that glittered, and fine strings full of little white balls.
H. And when did this come to pass?
S. Why, even when I should have been keeping of sheep: yea, and they would even take from me my bagpipe.
H. But when was it that thou shouldst have been keeping sheep?
S. What, canst thou not hear? Even then when the iron men came: and then our Anna bade me run away, or the soldiers would carry me off: and by that she meant the iron men: so I ran off and so I came hither.
H. And whither wilt thou now?
S. Truly I know not: I will stay here with thee.
H. Nay, to keep thee here is not to the purpose, either for me or thee. Eat now; and presently I will bring thee where people are.
S. Oho! tell me now what manner of things be "people."
H. People be mankind like me and thee: thy dad, thy mammy, and your Ann be mankind, and when there be many together then are they called people: and now go thou and eat.
So was our discourse, in which the hermit often gazed on me with deepest sighs: I know not whether 'twas so because he had great compassion on my simplicity and ignorance, or from that cause, which I learned not until some years later.
_Chap. ix._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS CHANGED FROM A WILD BEAST INTO A CHRISTIAN
So I began to eat and ceased to prattle; all which lasted no longer than till I had appeased mine hunger: for then the good hermit bade me begone. Then must I seek out the most flattering words which my rough country upbringing afforded me, and all to this end, to move the hermit that he should keep me with him. Now though of a certainty it must have vexed him greatly to endure my troublesome presence, yet did he resolve to suffer me to be with him; and that more to instruct me in the Christian religion, than because he would have my service in his approaching old age: yet was this his greatest anxiety, lest my tender youth should not endure for long such a hard way of living as was his.
A space of some three weeks was my year of probation: in which three weeks St. Gertrude[3] was at war with the gardeners: so was it my lot to be inducted into the profession of these last: and therein I carried myself so well that the good hermit took an especial pleasure in me, and that not so much for my work's sake (whereunto I was before well trained) but because he saw that I myself was as ready greedily to hearken to his instructions as the waxen, soft, and yet smooth tablet of my mind shewed itself ready to receive such. For such reasons he was the more zealous to bring me to the knowledge of all good things. So he began his instruction from the fall of Lucifer: thence came he to the Garden of Eden, and when we were thrust out thence with our first parents, he passed through the law of Moses and taught me, by the means of the ten commandments and their explications--of which commandments he would say that they were a true measure to know the will of God, and thereby to lead a life holy and well pleasing to God--to discern virtue from vice, to do the good and to avoid the evil. At the end of all he came to the Gospel and told me of Christ's Birth, Sufferings, Death, and Resurrection: and then concluded all with the Judgment Day, and so set Heaven and hell before my eyes: and this all with befitting circumstance, yet not with superfluity of words, but as it seemed to him I could best comprehend and understand. So when he had ended one matter he began another, and therewithal contrived with all patience so to shape himself to answer my questions, and so to deal with me, that better he could not have shed the light of truth into my heart. Yet were his life and his speech for me an everlasting preaching: and this my mind, all wooden and dull as it was, yet by God's grace left not fruitless. So that in three weeks did I not only understand all that a Christian should know, but was possessed with such love for this teaching that I could not sleep at night for thinking thereon.
I have since pondered much upon this matter and have found that Aristotle, in his second book "Of the Soul," did put it well, whereas he compared the soul of a man to a blank unwritten tablet, whereon one could write what he would, and concluded that all such was decreed by the Creator of the world, in order that such blank tablets might by industrious impression and exercise be marked, and so be brought to completeness and perfection. And so saith also his commentator Averroes (upon that passage where the Philosopher saith that the Intellect is but a possibility which can be brought into activity by naught else than by Scientia or Knowledge: which is to say that man's understanding is capable of all things, yet can be brought to such knowledge only by constant exercise), and giveth this plain decision: namely, that this knowledge or exercise is the perfecting of souls which have no power at all in them selves. And this doth Cicero confirm in his second book of the "Tusculan Disputations," when he compares the soul of a man without instruction, knowledge, and exercise, to a field which, albeit fruitful by nature, yet if no man till it or sow it will bring forth no fruit.
And all this did I prove by my own single example: for that I so soon understood all that the pious hermit shewed to me arose from this cause: that he found the smooth tablet of my soul quite empty and without any imaginings before entered thereupon, which might well have hindered the impress of others thereafter. Yet in spite of all, that pure simplicity (in comparison with other men's ways) hath ever clung to me: and therefore did the hermit (for neither he nor I knew my right name) ever call me Simplicissimus. Withal I learned to pray, and when the good hermit had resolved himself to satisfy my earnest desire to abide with him, we built for me a hut like to his own, of wood, twigs and earth, shaped well nigh as the musqueteer shapes his tent in camp or, to speak more exactly, as the peasant in some places shapes his turnip-hod, so low, in truth, that I could hardly sit upright therein; my bed was of dried leaves and grass, and just so large as the hut itself, so that I know not whether to call such a dwelling-place or hole, a covered bedstead or a hut.
_Chap. x._: IN WHAT MANNER HE LEARNED TO READ AND WRITE IN THE WILD WOODS
Now when first I saw the hermit read the Bible, I could not conceive with whom he should speak so secretly and, as I thought, so earnestly; for well I saw the moving of his lips, yet no man that spake with him: and though I knew naught of reading or writing, nevertheless I marked by his eyes that he had to do with somewhat in the said book. So I marked where he kept it, and when he had laid it aside I crept thither and opened it, and at the first assay lit upon the first chapter of Job and the picture that stood at the head thereof, which was a fine woodcut and fairly painted: so I began to ask strange questions of the figures, and when they gave me no answer waxed impatient, and even as the hermit came up behind me, "Ye little clowns," said I, "have ye no mouths any longer? Could ye not even now prate away long enough with my father (for so must I call my hermit)? I see well enough that ye are driving away the gaffer's sheep and burning of his house: wait awhile and I will quench your fire for ye," and with that rose up to fetch water, for there seemed to me present need of it. Then said the hermit, who I knew not was behind me: "Whither away, Simplicissimus?" "O father," says I, "here be more soldiers that will drive off sheep: they do take them from that poor man with whom thou didst talk: and here is his house a-burning, and if I quench it not 'twill be consumed": and with that I pointed with my finger to what I saw. "But stay," quoth the hermit, "for these figures be not alive;" to which I, with rustic courtesy, answered him: "What, beest thou blind? Do thou keep watch lest that they drive the sheep away while I do seek for water." "Nay," quoth he again, "but they be not alive; they be made only to call up before our eyes things that happened long ago." "How;" said I, "thou didst even now talk with them: how then can they be not alive?" At that the hermit must, against his will and contrary to his habit, laugh: and "Dear child," says he, "these figures cannot talk: but what they do and what they are, that can I see from these black lines, and that do men call reading. And when I thus do read, thou conceivest that I speak with the figures: but 'tis not so."
Yet I answered him: "If I be a man as thou art, so must I likewise be able to see in these black lines what thou canst see: how then may I understand thy words? Dear father, teach me in truth how to understand this matter."
So said he: "'Tis well, my son, and I will teach thee so that thou mayest speak with these figures as well as I: only 'twill need time, in which I must have patience and thou industry."
With that he wrote me down an alphabet on birchbark, formed like print, and when I knew the letters, I learned to spell, and thereafter to read, and at last to write better than could the hermit himself; for I imitated print in everything.
_Chap. xi._: DISCOURSETH OF FOODS, HOUSEHOLD STUFF, AND OTHER NECESSARY CONCERNS, WHICH FOLK MUST HAVE IN THIS EARTHLY LIFE
In that wood did I abide for about two years, until the hermit died, and after his death somewhat longer than a half-year. And therefore it seemeth me good to tell to the curious reader, who often desireth to know even the smallest matters, of our doings, our ways and works, and how we spent our life.
Now our food was vegetables of all kinds, turnips, cabbage, beans, pease, and the like: nor did we despise beech-nuts, wild apples, pears, and cherries: yea, and our hunger often made even acorns savoury to us; our bread or, to say more truly, our cakes, we baked on hot ashes, and they were made of Italian rye beaten fine. In winter we would catch birds with springes and snares; but in spring and summer God bestowed upon us young fledglings from their nest. Often must we make out with snails and frogs: and so was fishing, both with net and line, convenient to us: for close to our dwelling there flowed a brook, full of fish and crayfish, all which did help to make our rough vegetable diet palatable. Once on a time did we catch a young wild pig, and this we penned in a stall, and did feed him with acorns and beech-nuts, so fatted him and at last did eat him; for my hermit knew it could be no sin to eat that which God hath created to such end for the whole human race.
Of salt we needed but little and spices not at all: for we might not arouse our desire to drink, seeing that we had no cellar: what little salt we wanted a good pastor furnished us who dwelt some fifteen miles away from us, and of whom I shall yet have much to tell.
Now as concerns our household stuff, we had enough: for we had a shovel, a pick, an axe, a hatchet, and an iron pot for cooking, which was indeed not our own, but lent to us by the said pastor: each of us had an old blunt knife, which same were our own possessions, and no more: more than that needed we naught, neither dishes, plates, spoons, nor forks: neither kettles, frying-pans, gridirons, spits, salt-cellars, no, nor any other table and kitchen ware: for our iron pot was our dish, our hands our forks and spoons: and if we would drink, we could do so through a pipe from the spring or else we dipped our mouths like Gideon's soldiers. Then for garments: of wool, of silk, of cotton, and of linen, as for beds, table-covers, and tapestries, we had none save what we wore upon our bodies: for we deemed it enough if we could shield ourselves from rain and frost. At other times we kept no rule or order in our household, save on Sundays and holy-days, at which time we would start on our way at midnight, so that we might come early enough to escape men's notice, to the said pastor's church, which was a little away from the village, and there might attend service. When we came thither we betook ourselves to the broken organ, from which place we could see both altar and pulpit: and when I first saw the pastor go up to the pulpit I asked my hermit what he would do in that great tub! So, service finished, we went home as secretly as we had come, and when we found ourselves once more at home, with weary body and weary feet, then did we eat foul food with fair appetite: then would the hermit spend the rest of the day in praying and in the instructing of me in holy things.
On working days we would do that which seemed most necessary to do, according as it happened, and as such was required by the time of year and by our needs: now would we work in the garden: another time we gathered together the rich mould in shady places and out of hollow trees to improve our garden therewith in place of dung; again we would weave baskets or fishing-nets or chop firewood, or go a-fishing, or do aught to banish idleness. Yet among all these occupations did the good hermit never cease to instruct me faithfully in all good things: and meanwhile did I learn, in such a hard life, to endure hunger, thirst, heat, cold, and great labour, and before all things to know God and how one should serve Him best, which was the chiefest thing of all. And indeed my faithful hermit would have me know no more, for he held it was enough for any Christian to attain his end and aim, if he did but constantly pray and work: so it came about that, though I was pretty well instructed in ghostly matters, and knew my Christian belief well enough, and could speak the German language as well as a talking spelling-book, yet I remained the most simple lad in the world: so that when I left the wood I was such a poor, sorry creature that no dog would have left his bone to run after me.
_Chap. xii._: TELLS OF A NOTABLE FINE WAY, TO DIE HAPPY AND TO HAVE ONESELF BURIED AT SMALL COST
So had I spent two years or thereabouts, and had scarce grown accustomed to the hard life of a hermit, when one day my best friend on earth took his pick, gave me the shovel, and led me by the hand, according to his daily custom, to our garden, where we were wont to say our prayers.
"Now Simplicissimus, dear child," said he, "inasmuch as, God be praised, the time is at hand when I must part from this earth and must pay the debt of nature, and leave thee behind me in this world, and whereas I do partly foresee the future course of thy life and do know well that thou wilt not long abide in this wilderness, therefore did I desire to strengthen thee in the way of virtue which thou hast entered on, and to give thee some lessons for thy instruction by means of which thou shouldest so rule thy life that, as though by an unfailing clue, thou mightest find thy way to eternal happiness, and so with all elect saints mightest be found worthy for ever to behold the face of God in that other life."
These words did drown mine eyes in tears, even as once the enemy's device did drown the town of Villingen; in a word, they were so terrible that I could not endure them, but said: "Beloved father, wilt thou then leave me alone in this wild wood? Must I then ...?" And more I could not say, for my heart's sorrow was, by reason of the overflowing love which I bore to my true father, so grievous that I sank at his feet as if I were dead. Yet did he raise me up and comfort me so far as time and opportunity did allow, and would shew me mine own error, in that he asked, would I rebel against the decree of the Almighty? "and knowest thou not," says he, "that neither heaven nor hell can do that? Nay, nay, my son! Why dost thou propose further to burden my weak body, which of itself is but desirous of rest? Thinkest thou to force me to sojourn longer in this vale of tears? Ah no, my son, let me go, for in any case neither with lamentation and tears, nor still less with my good will, canst thou compel me to dwell longer in this misery when I am by God's express will called away therefrom: instead of all this useless clamour, follow thou my last words, which are these: the longer thou livest seek to know thyself the better, and if thou live as long as Methuselah, yet let not such practice depart from thy heart: for that most men do come to perdition this is the cause--namely, that they know not what they have been and what they can or must be." And further he exhorted me, I should at all times beware of bad company: for the harm of that was unspeakable. Of that he gave me an example, saying: "If thou puttest a drop of malmsey into a vessel full of vinegar, forthwith it turns to vinegar: but if thou pour a drop of vinegar into malmsey, that drop will disappear into the wine. Beloved son, before all things be steadfast: for whoso endureth to the end he shall be saved; but if it happen, contrary to my hopes, that thou from human weakness dost fall, then by a fitting penitence raise thyself up again."
Now this careful and pious man gave me but this brief counsel, not because he knew no more, but because in sober truth I seemed to him, by reason of my youth, not able to comprehend more in such a case, and again, because few words be better to hold in remembrance than long discourse, and if they have pith and point do work greater good when they be pondered on than any long sermon, which a man may well understand as spoken and yet is wont presently to forget. And these three points: to know oneself: to avoid bad company: and to stand steadfast; this holy man, without doubt, deemed good and necessary because he had made trial of them in his own case and had not found them to fail: for, coming to know himself, he eschewed not only bad company but that of the whole world, and in that plan did persevere to the end, on which doubtless all salvation doth depend.
So when he had thus spoken, he began with his mattock to dig his own grave: and I helped as best I could in whatever way he bade me; yet did I not conceive to what end all this was. Then said he: "My dear and only true son (for besides thee I never begat creature for the honour of our Creator), when my soul is gone to its own place, then do thy duty to my body, and pay me the last honours: cover me up with these same clods which we have even now dug from this pit." And thereupon he took me in his arms and, kissing me, pressed me harder to his breast than would seem possible for a man so weak as he appeared to be. And, "Dear child," says he, "I commend thee to God his protection, and die the more cheerfully because I hope He will receive thee therein." Yet could I do naught but lament and cry, yea, did hang upon the chains which he wore on his neck, and thought thereby to prevent him from leaving me. But "My son," says he, "let me go, that I may see if the grave be long enough for me." And therewith he laid aside the chains together with his outer garment, and so entered the pit even as one that will lie down to sleep, saying, "Almighty God, receive again the soul that Thou hast given: Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." Thereupon did he calmly close his lips and his eyes: while I stood there like a stockfish, and dreamt not that his dear soul could so have left the body: for often I had seen him in such trances: and so now, as was my wont in such a case, I waited there for hours praying by the grave. But when my beloved hermit arose not again, I went down into the grave to him and began to shake, to kiss, and to caress him: but there was no life in him, for grim and pitiless death had robbed the poor Simplicissimus of his holy companionship. Then did I bedew or, to say better, did embalm with my tears his lifeless body, and when I had for a long time run up and down with miserable cries, began to heap earth upon him, with more sighs than shovelfuls: and hardly had I covered his face when I must go down again and uncover it afresh that I might see it and kiss it once more. And so I went on all day till I had finished, and in this way ended all the funeral; an "exequiae" and "ludi gladiatorii" wherein neither bier, coffin, pall, lights, bearers, nor mourners were at hand, nor any clergy to sing over the dead.
_Chap. xiii._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS DRIVEN ABOUT LIKE A STRAW IN A WHIRLPOOL
Now a few days after the hermit's decease I betook myself to the pastor above mentioned and declared to him my master's death, and therewith besought counsel from him how I should act in such a case. And though he much dissuaded me from living longer in the forest, yet did I boldly tread on in my predecessor's footsteps, inasmuch as for the whole summer I did all that a holy monk should do. But as time changeth all things, so by degrees the grief which I felt for my hermit grew less and less, and the sharp cold of winter without quenched the heat of my steadfast purpose within. And the more I began to falter the lazier did I become in my prayers, for in place of dwelling ever upon godly and heavenly thoughts, I let myself be overcome by the desire to see the world: and inasmuch as for this purpose I could do no good in my forest, I determined to go again to the said pastor and ask if he again would counsel me to leave the wood. To that end I betook myself to his village, which when I came thither I found in flames: for a party of troopers had but now plundered and burned it, and of the peasants killed some, driven some away, and some had made prisoners, among whom was the pastor himself. Ah God, how full is man's life of care and disappointment! Scarce hath one misfortune ended and lo! we are in another. I wonder not that the heathen philosopher Timon set up many gallows at Athens, whereon men might string themselves up, and so with brief pain make an end to their wretched life. These troopers were even now ready to march, and had the pastor fastened by a rope to lead him away. Some cried, "Shoot him down, the rogue!" Others would have money from him. But he, lifting up his hands to heaven, begged, for the sake of the Last Judgment, for forbearance and Christian compassion, but in vain; for one of them rode him down and dealt him such a blow on the head that he fell flat, and commended his soul to God. Nor did the remainder of the captured peasants fare any better. But even when it seemed these troopers, in their cruel tyranny, had clean lost their wits, came such a swarm of armed peasants out of the wood, that it seemed a wasps'-nest had been stirred. And these began to yell so frightfully and so furiously to attack with sword and musket that all my hair stood on end; and never had I been at such a merrymaking before: for the peasants of the Spessart and the Vogelsberg are as little wont as are the Hessians and men of the Sauerland and the Black Forest to let themselves be crowed over on their own dunghill. So away went the troopers, and not only left behind the cattle they had captured, but threw away bag and baggage also, and so cast all their booty to the winds lest themselves should become booty for the peasants: yet some of them fell into their hands. This sport took from me well-nigh all desire to see the world, for I thought, if 'tis all like this, then is the wilderness far more pleasant. Yet would I fain hear what the pastor had to say of it, who was, by reason of wounds and blows received, faint, weak, and feeble. Yet he made shift to tell me he knew not how to help or advise me, since he himself was now in a plight in which he might well have to seek his bread by begging, and if I should remain longer in the woods, I could hope no more for help from him; since, as I saw with my own eyes, both his church and his parsonage were in flames. Thereupon I betook myself sorrowfully to my dwelling in the wood, and because on this journey I had been but little comforted, yet on the other hand had become more full of pious thoughts, therefore I resolved never more to leave the wilderness: and already I pondered whether it were not possible for me to live without salt (which the pastor had until now furnished me with) and so do without mankind altogether.
_Chap. xiv._: A QUAINT COMEDIA OF FIVE PEASANTS
So now that I might follow up my design and become a true anchorite, I put on my hermit's hair-shirt which he had left me and girded me with his chain over it: not indeed as if I needed it to mortify my unruly flesh, but that I might be like to my fore-runner both in life and in habit, and moreover might by such clothes be the better able to protect myself against the rough cold of winter. But the second day after the above-mentioned village had been plundered and burnt, as I was sitting in my hut and praying, at the same time roasting carrots for my food over the fire, there surrounded me forty or fifty musqueteers: and these, though amazed at the strangeness of my person, yet ransacked my hut, seeking what was not there to find: for nothing had I but books, and these they threw this way and that as useless to them. But at last, when they regarded me more closely and saw by my feathers what a poor bird they had caught, they could easily reckon there was poor booty to be found where I was. And much they wondered at my hard way of life, and shewed great pity for my tender youth, specially their officer that commanded them: for he shewed me respect, and earnestly besought me that I would shew him and his men the way out of the wood wherein they had long been wandering. Nor did I refuse, but led them the nearest way to the village, even where the before-mentioned pastor had been so ill handled; for I knew no other road.
Now before we were out of the wood, we espied some ten peasants, of whom part were armed with musquets, while the rest were busied with burying something. So our musqueteers ran upon them, crying, "Stay! stay!" But they answered with a discharge of shot, and when they saw they were outnumbered by the soldiers, away they went so quick that none of the musqueteers, being weary, could overtake them. So then they would dig up again what the peasants had been burying: and that was the easier because they had left the mattocks and spades which they used lying there. But they had made few strokes with the pick when they heard a voice from below crying out, "O ye wanton rogues, O ye worst of villains, think ye that Heaven will leave your heathenish cruelty and tricks unpunished? Nay, for there live yet honest fellows by whom your barbarity shall be paid in such wise that none of your fellow men shall think you worth even a kick of his foot." So the soldiers looked on one another in amazement, and knew not what to do. For some thought they had to deal with a ghost: to me it seemed I was dreaming: but the officer bade them dig on stoutly. And presently they came to a cask, which they burst open, and therein found a fellow that had neither nose nor ears, and yet still lived. He, when he was somewhat revived, and had recognised some of the troop, told them how on the day before, as some of his regiment were a-foraging, the peasants had caught six of them. And of these they first of all, about an hour before, had shot five dead at once, making them stand one behind another; and because the bullet, having already passed through five bodies, did not reach him, who stood sixth and last, they had cut off his nose and ears, yet before that had forced him to render to five of them the filthiest service in the world.[4] But when he saw himself thus degraded by these rogues without shame or knowledge of God, he had heaped upon them the vilest reproaches, though they were willing now to let him go. Yet in the hope one of them would from annoyance send a ball through his head, he called them all by their right names: yet in vain. Only this, that when he had thus chafed them they had clapped him in the cask here present and buried him alive, saying, since he so desired death they would not cheat him of his amusement.
Now while the fellow thus lamented the torments he had endured, came another party of foot-soldiers by a cross road through the wood, who had met the abovementioned boors, caught five and shot the rest dead: and among the prisoners were four to whom that maltreated trooper had been forced to do that filthy service a little before. So now, when both parties had found by their manner of hailing one another that they were of the same army, they joined forces, and again must hear from the trooper himself how it had fared with him and his comrades. And there might any man tremble and quake to see how these same peasants were handled: for some in their first fury would say, "Shoot them down," but others said, "Nay: these wanton villains must we first properly torment: yea, and make them to understand in their own bodies what they have deserved as regards the person of this same trooper." And all the time while this discussion proceeded these peasants received such mighty blows in the ribs from the butts of their musquets that I wondered they did not spit blood. But presently stood forth a soldier, and said he: "You gentlemen, seeing that it is a shame to the whole profession of arms that this rogue (and therewith he pointed to that same unhappy trooper) have so shamefully submitted himself to the will of five boors, it is surely our duty to wash out this spot of shame, and compel these rogues to do the same shameful service for this trooper which they forced him to do for them." But another said: "This fellow is not worth having such honour done to him; for were he not a poltroon surely he would not have done such shameful service, to the shame of all honest soldiers, but would a thousand times sooner have died." In a word, 'twas decided with one voice that each of the captured peasants should do the same filthy service for ten soldiers which their comrade had been forced to do, and each time should say, "So do I cleanse and wash away the shame which these soldiers think they have endured."
Thereafter they would decide how they should deal with the peasants when they had fulfilled this cleanly task, So presently they went to work; but the peasants were so obstinate that neither by promise of their lives nor by any torture could they be compelled thereto. Then one took the fifth peasant, who had not maltreated the trooper, a little aside, and says he: "If thou wilt deny God and all His saints, I will let thee go whither thou wilt." Thereupon the peasant made reply, "he had in all his life taken little count of saints, and had had but little traffic with God," and added thereto with a solemn oath, "he knew not God and had no art nor part in His kingdom." So then the soldier sent a ball at his head: which worked as little harm as if it had been shot at a mountain of steel. Then he drew out his hanger and "Beest thou still here?" says he. "I promised to let thee go whither thou wouldst: see now, I send thee to the kingdom of hell, since thou wilt not to heaven": and so he split his head down to the teeth. And as he fell, "So," said the soldier, "must a man avenge himself and punish these loose rogues both in this world and the next."
Meanwhile the other soldiers had the remaining four peasants to deal with. These they bound, hands and feet together, over a fallen tree in such wise that their back-sides (saving your presence) were uppermost. Then they stript off their breeches, and took some yards of their match-string and made knots in it, and fiddled them therewith so mercilessly that the blood ran. So they cried out lamentably, but 'twas but sport for the soldiers, who ceased not to saw away till skin and flesh were clean sawn off the bones. Me they let go to my hut, for the last-arrived party knew the way well. And so I know not how they finished with the peasants.
_Chap. xv._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS PLUNDERED, AND HOW HE DREAMED OF THE PEASANTS AND HOW THEY FARED IN TIMES OF WAR
Now when I came home I found that my fireplace and all my poor furniture, together with my store of provisions, which I had grown during the summer in my garden and had kept for the coming winter, were all gone. "And whither now?" thought I. And then first did need teach me heartily to pray: and I must summon all my small wits together, to devise what I should do. But as my knowledge of the world was both small and evil, I could come to no proper conclusion, only that 'twas best to commend myself to God and to put my whole confidence in Him: for otherwise I must perish. And besides all this those things which I had heard and seen that day lay heavy on my mind: and I pondered not so much upon my food and my sustenance as upon the enmity which there is ever between soldiers and peasants. Yet could my foolish mind come to no other conclusion than this--that there must of a surety be two races of men in the world, and not one only, descended from Adam, but two, wild and tame, like other unreasoning beasts, and therefore pursuing one another so cruelly.
With such thoughts I fell asleep, for mere misery and cold, with a hungry stomach. Then it seemed to me, as if in a dream, that all the trees which stood round my dwelling suddenly changed and took on another appearance: for on every tree-top sat a trooper, and the trunks were garnished, in place of leaves, with all manner of folk. Of these, some had long lances, others musquets, hangers, halberts, flags, and some drums and fifes. Now this was merry to see, for all was neatly distributed and each according to his rank. The roots, moreover, were made up of folk of little worth, as mechanics and labourers, mostly, however, peasants and the like; and these nevertheless gave its strength to the tree and renewed the same when it was lost: yea more, they repaired the loss of any fallen leaves from among themselves to their own great damage: and all the time they lamented over them that sat on the tree, and that with good reason, for the whole weight of the tree lay upon them and pressed them so that all the money was squeezed out of their pockets, yea, though it was behind seven locks and keys: but if the money would not out, then did the commissaries so handle them with rods (which thing they call military execution) that sighs came from their heart, tears from their eyes, blood from their nails, and the marrow from their bones. Yet among these were some whom men call light o' heart; and these made but little ado, took all with a shrug, and in the midst of their torment had, in place of comfort, mockery for every turn.
_Chap. xvi._: OF THE WAYS AND WORKS OF SOLDIERS NOWADAYS, AND HOW HARDLY A COMMON SOLDIER CAN GET PROMOTION
So must the roots of these trees suffer and endure toil and misery in the midst of trouble and complaint, and those upon the lower boughs in yet greater hardship: yet were these last mostly merrier than the first named, yea and moreover, insolent and swaggering, and for the most part godless folk, and for the roots a heavy unbearable burden at all times. And this was the rhyme upon them:
"Hunger and thirst, and cold and heat, and work and woe, and all we meet; And deeds of blood and deeds of shame, all may ye put to the landsknecht's name."
Which rhymes were the less like to be lyingly invented in that they answered to the facts. For gluttony and drunkenness, hunger and thirst, wenching and dicing and playing, riot and roaring, murdering and being murdered, slaying and being slain, torturing and being tortured, hunting and being hunted, harrying and being harried, robbing and being robbed, frighting and being frighted, causing trouble and suffering trouble, beating and being beaten: in a word, hurting and harming, and in turn being hurt and harmed--this was their whole life. And in this career they let nothing hinder them: neither winter nor summer, snow nor ice, heat nor cold, rain nor wind, hill nor dale, wet nor dry; ditches, mountain-passes, ramparts and walls, fire and water, were all the same to them. Father nor mother, sister nor brother, no, nor the danger to their own bodies, souls, and consciences, nor even loss of life and of heaven itself, or aught else that can be named, will ever stand in their way, for ever they toil and moil at their own strange work, till at last, little by little, in battles, sieges, attacks, campaigns, yea, and in their winter quarters too (which are the soldiers' earthly paradise, if they can but happen upon fat peasants) they perish, they die, they rot and consume away, save but a few, who in their old age, unless they have been right thrifty reivers and robbers, do furnish us with the best of all beggars and vagabonds.
Next above these hard-worked folk sat old henroost-robbers, who, after some years and much peril of their lives, had climbed up the lowest branches and clung to them, and so far had had the luck to escape death. Now these looked more serious, and somewhat more dignified than the lowest, in that they were a degree higher ascended: yet above them were some yet higher, who had yet loftier imaginings because they had to command the very lowest. And these people did call coat-beaters, because they were wont to dust the jackets of the poor pikemen, and to give the musqueteers oil enough to grease their barrels with.
Just above these the trunk of the tree had an interval or stop, which was a smooth place without branches, greased with all manner of ointments and curious soap of disfavour, so that no man save of noble birth could scale it, in spite of courage and skill and knowledge, God knows how clever he might be. For 'twas polished as smooth as a marble pillar or a steel mirror. Just over that smooth spot sat they with the flags: and of these some were young, some pretty well in years: the young folk their kinsmen had raised so far: the older people had either mounted on a silver ladder which is called the Bribery Backstairs or else on a step which Fortune, for want of a better client, had left for them. A little further up sat higher folk, and these had also their toil and care and annoyance: yet had they this advantage, that they could fill their pokes with the fattest slices which they could cut out of the roots, and that with a knife which they called "War-contribution." And these were at their best and happiest when there came a commissary-bird flying overhead, and shook out a whole panfull of gold over the tree to cheer them: for of that they caught as much as they could, and let but little or nothing at all fall to the lowest branches: and so of these last more died of hunger than of the enemy's attacks, from which danger those placed above seemed to be free. Therefore was there a perpetual climbing and swarming going on on those trees; for each would needs sit in those highest and happiest places: yet were there some idle, worthless rascals, not worth their commissariat-bread, who troubled themselves little about higher places, and only did their duty. So the lowest, being ambitious, hoped for the fall of the highest, that they might sit in their place, and if it happened to one among ten thousand of them that he got so far, yet would such good luck come to him only in his miserable old age when he was more fit to sit in the chimney-corner and roast apples than to meet the foe in the field. And if any man dealt honestly and carried himself well, yet was he ever envied by others, and perchance by reason of some unlucky chance of war deprived both of office and of life. And nowhere was this more grievous than at the before-mentioned smooth place on the tree: for there an officer who had had a good sergeant or corporal under him must lose him, however unwillingly, because he was now made an ensign. And for that reason they would take, in place of old soldiers, inkslingers, footmen, overgrown pages, poor noblemen, and at times poor relations, tramps and vagabonds. And these took the very bread out of the mouths of those that had deserved it, and forthwith were made Ensigns.
_Chap. xvii._: HOW IT HAPPENS THAT, WHEREAS IN WAR THE NOBLES ARE EVER PUT BEFORE THE COMMON MEN, YET MANY DO ATTAIN FROM DESPISED RANK TO HIGH HONOURS
All this vexed a sergeant so much that he began loudly to complain: whereupon one Nobilis answered him: "Knowst thou not that at all times our rulers have appointed to the highest offices in time of war those of noble birth as being fittest therefore. For greybeards defeat no foe: were it so, one could send a flock of goats for that employ: We say:
"Choose out a bull that's young and strong to lead and keep the herd, For though the veteran be good, the young must be preferred. So let the herdsman trust to him, full young though he appears: 'Tis but a saw, and 'tis no law, that wisdom comes with years."
"Tell me," says he, "thou old cripple, is't not true that nobly born officers be better respected by the soldiery than they that beforetime have been but servants? And what discipline in war can ye find where no respect is? Must not a general trust a gentleman more than a peasant lad that had run away from his father at the plough-tail and so done his own parents no good service? For a proper gentleman, rather than bring reproach upon his family by treason or desertion or the like, will sooner die with honour. And so 'tis right the gentles should have the first place. So doth Joannes de Platea plainly lay it down that in furnishing of offices the preference should ever be given to the nobility, and these properly set before the commons. Such usage is to be found in all codes of laws, and is, moreover, confirmed in Holy Writ: for 'happy is the land whose king is of noble family,' saith Sirach in his tenth chapter; which is a noble testimony to the preference belonging to gentle birth. And even if one of your kidney be a good soldier enough that can smell powder and play his part well in every venture, yet is he not therefore capable of command of others: which quality is natural to gentlemen, or at least customary to them from their youth up. And so saith Seneca, 'A hero's soul hath this property, that 'tis ever alert in search of honour: and no lofty spirit hath pleasure in small and unworthy things.' Moreover, the nobles have more means to furnish their inferior officers with money and to procure recruits for their weak companies than a peasant. And so to follow the common proverb, it were not well to put the boor above the gentleman; yea, and the boors would soon become too high-minded if they be made lords straightway; for men say:
"'Where will ye find a sharper sword, than peasant churl that's made a lord?'
"Now had the peasants, by reason of long and respectable custom, possessed all offices in war and elsewhere, of a surety they would have let no gentleman into such. Yea, and besides, though ye soldiers of Fortune, as ye call yourselves, be often willingly helped to raise yourselves to higher ranks, yet ye are commonly so worn out that when they try you and would find you a better place, they must hesitate to promote you; for the heat of your youth is cooled down and your only thought is how ye can tend and care for your sick bodies which, by reason of much hardships, be crippled and of little use for war: yea, and a young dog is better for hunting than an old lion."
Then answered the old sergeant, "And what fool would be a soldier, if he might not hope by his good conduct to be promoted, and so rewarded for faithful service? Devil take such a war as that! For so 'tis all the same whether a man behave himself well or ill! Often did I hear our old colonel say he wanted no soldier in his regiment that had not the firm intention to become a general by his good conduct. And all the world must acknowledge that 'tis those nations which promote common soldiers, that are good soldiers too, that win victories, as may be seen in the case of the Turks and Persians; so says the verse
"'Thy lamp is bright: yet feed it well with oil: an thou dost not the flame sinks down and dies. So by rewards repay the soldiers toil, for service brave demands its pay likewise.'"
Then answered Nobilis: "If we see brave qualities and in an honest man, we shall not overlook them: for at this very time see how many there be who from the plough, from the needle, from shoemaking, and from shepherding have done well by themselves, and by such bravery have raised themselves up far above the poorer nobility to the ranks of counts and barons. Who was the Imperialist John de Werth? Who was the Swede Stalhans? Who were the Hessians, Little Jakob and St. André? Of their kind there were many yet well known whom I, for brevity's sake, forbear to mention. So is it nothing new in the present time, nor will it be otherwise in the future, that honest men attain by war to great honours, as happened also among the ancients. Tamburlaine became a mighty king and the terror of the whole world, which was before but a swineherd: Agathocles, King of Sicily, was son of a potter; Emperor Valentinian's father was a ropemaker; Maurice the Cappadocian, a slave, was emperor after Tiberius II.; Justin, that reigned before Justinian, was before he was emperor a swineherd; Hugh Capet, a butcher's son, was afterward King of France; Pizarro likewise a swineherd, which afterwards was marquess in the West Indies, where he had to weigh out his gold in hundredweights."
The sergeant answered: "All this sounds fair enough for my purpose: yet well I see that the doors by which we might win to many dignities be shut against us by the nobility. For as soon as he is crept out of his shell, forthwith your nobleman is clapped into such a position as we cannot venture to set our thoughts upon, howbeit we have done more than many a noble who is now appointed a colonel. And just as among the peasants many noble talents perish for want of means to keep a lad at his studies, so many a brave soldier grows old under the weight of a musquet, that more properly deserved a regiment and could have tendered great services to his general."
_Chap. xviii._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS TOOK HIS FIRST STEP INTO THE WORLD AND THAT WITH EVIL LUCK
I cared no longer to listen to this old ass, but grudged him not his complaints, for often he himself had beaten poor soldiers like dogs. I turned again to the trees whereof the whole land was full and saw how they swayed and smote against each other: and the fellows tumbled off them in batches. Now a crack; now a fall. One moment quick, the next dead. In a moment one lost an arm, another a leg, the third his head. And as I looked methought all trees I saw were but one tree, at whose top sat the war-god Mars, and which covered with its branches all Europe. It seemed to me this tree could have overshadowed the whole world: but because it was blown about by envy and hate, by suspicion and unfairness, by pride and haughtiness and avarice, and other such fair virtues, as by bitter north winds, therefore it seemed thin and transparent: for which reason one had writ on its trunk these rhymes:
"The holmoak by the wind beset and brought to ruin, Breaks its own branches down and proves its own undoing. By civil war within and brothers' deadly feud All's topsy-turvy turned and misery hath ensued."
By the mighty roaring of these cruel winds and the noise of the breaking of the tree itself I was awoke from my sleep, and found myself alone in my hut. Then did I again begin to ponder what I should do. For to remain in the wood was impossible, since I had been so utterly despoiled that I could not keep myself: nothing remained to me but a few books which lay strewn about in confusion. And when with weeping eyes I took these up to read, calling earnestly upon God that He would lead and guide me whither I should go, I found by chance a letter which my hermit had writ in his lifetime, and this was the content of it. "Beloved Simplicissimus, when thou findest this letter, go forthwith out of the forest and save thyself and the pastor from present troubles: for he hath done me much good. God, whom thou must at all times have before thine eyes and earnestly pray to, will bring thee to the place which is best for thee. Only keep Him ever in thy sight and be diligent ever to serve Him as if thou wert still in my presence in the wood. Consider and follow without ceasing my last words, and so mayest thou stand firm. Farewell."
I kissed this letter and the hermit's grave many thousand times, and started on my way to seek for mankind. Yet before I could find them I journeyed straight on for two whole days, and when night overtook me, sought out a hollow tree for my shelter, and my food was naught but beech-nuts which I picked up on the way: but on the third day I came to a pretty open field near Gelnhausen, and there I enjoyed a veritable banquet, for the whole place was full of wheatsheaves which the peasants, being frightened away after the great battle of Nördlingen, had for my good fortune not been able to carry off. Inside a sheaf I set up my tent, for 'twas cruel cold, and filled my belly with the ears of corn which I rubbed in my hands: and such a meal I had not enjoyed for a long time.
_Chap. xix._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS CAPTURED BY HANAU AND HANAU BY SIMPLICISSIMUS
When 'twas day I fed myself again with wheat, and thereafter betook myself to Gelnhausen, and there I found the gates open and partly burnt, yet half barricaded with dung. So I went in, but was ware of no living creature there. Indeed the streets were strewn here and there with dead, some of whom were stripped to their shirts, some stark naked. This was a terrifying spectacle, as any man can imagine. I, in my simplicity, could not guess what mishap had brought the place to such a plight. But not long after I learned that the Imperialists had surprised a few of Weimar's folk there. And hardly had I gone two-stones'-throw into the town when I had seen enough: so I turned me about and went across the meadows, and presently I came to a good road which brought me to the fine fortress of Hanau. When I came to the first sentries I tried to pass; but two musqueteers made at me, who seized me and took me off to their guard-room.
Now must I first describe to the reader my wonderful dress at that time, before I tell him how I fared further. For my clothing and behaviour were altogether so strange, astonishing, and uncouth, that the governor had my picture painted. Firstly, my hair had for two years and a half never been cut either Greek, German, or French fashion, nor combed nor curled nor puffed, but stood in its natural wildness with more than a year's dust strewn on it instead of hair plunder or powder, or whatever they call the fools' work--and that so prettily that I looked with my pale face underneath it, like a great white owl that is about to bite or else watching for a mouse. And because I was accustomed at all times to go bareheaded and my hair was curly, I had the look of wearing a Turkish turban. The rest of my garb answered to my head-gear; for I had on my hermit's coat, if I may now call it a coat at all, for the stuff out of which 'twas fashioned at first was now clean gone and nothing more remaining of it but the shape, which more than a thousand little patches of all colours, some put side by side, some sewn upon one another with manifold stitches, still represented. Over this decayed and yet often improved coat I wore the hair-shirt mantle-fashion, for I needed the sleeves for breeches and had cut them off for that purpose. But my whole body was girt about with iron chains, most deftly disposed crosswise behind and before like the pictures of St. William; so that all together made up a figure like them that have once been captured by the Turks and now wander through the land begging for their friends still in captivity. My shoes were cut out of wood and the laces woven out of strips of lime-bark: and my feet looked like boiled lobsters, as I had had on stockings of the Spanish national colour or had dyed my skin with logwood. In truth I believe if any conjurer, mountebank, or stroller had had me and had given me out for a Samoyede or a Greenlander, he would have found many a fool that would have wasted a kreutzer on me. Yet though any man in his wits could easily conclude, from my thin and starved looks and my decayed clothes, I came neither from a cook-shop nor a lady's bower, and still less had played truant from any great lord's court, nevertheless I was strictly examined in the guard-room, and even as the soldiers gaped at me so was I filled with wonder at the mad apparel of their officer to whom I must answer and give account. I knew not if it were he or she: for he wore his hair and beard French fashion, with long tails hanging down on each side like horse-tails, and his beard was so miserably handled and mutilated that between mouth and nose there were but a few hairs, and those had come off so ill that one could scarce see them. And not less did his wide breeches leave me in no small doubt of his sex, being such that they were as like a woman's petticoats as a man's breeches. So I thought, if this be a man he should have a proper beard, since the rogue is not so young as he pretends: but if a woman, why hath the old witch so much stubble round her mouth? Sure 'tis a woman, thought I, for no honest man would ever let his beard be so lamentably bedevilled, seeing that even goats for pure shamefacedness venture not a step among a strange flock when their beards are clipped. So as I stood in doubt, knowing not of modern fashions, at last I held he was man and woman at once. And this mannish woman or this womanish man had me thoroughly searched, but could find nothing on me but a little book of birch-bark wherein I had written down my daily prayers, and had also left the letter which my pious hermit, as I have said in the last chapter, had bequeathed me for his farewell: that he took from me: but I, being loath to part from it, fell down before him and clasped both his knees and, "O my good Hermaphrodite," says I, "leave me my little prayer-book." "Thou fool," he answered, "who the devil told thee my name was Hermann?" And therewith commanded two soldiers to lead me to the Governor, giving them the book to take with them: for indeed this fop, as I at once did note, could neither read nor write himself.
So I was led into the town, and all ran together as if a sea-monster were on show; and according as each one regarded me so each made something different out of me. Some deemed me a spy, others a wild man, and some even a spirit, a spectre, or a monster, that should portend some strange happening. Some, too, there were that counted me a mere fool, and they had indeed come nearest to the mark had I not had the knowledge of God our Father.
_Chap. xx._: IN WHAT WISE HE WAS SAVED FROM PRISON AND TORTURE
Now when I was brought before the Governor he asked me whence I came. I said I knew not. Then said he again "Whither wilt thou?" and again I answered, "I know not." "What the devil dost thou know, then?" says he, "What is thy business?" I answered as before, I knew not. He asked, "Where dost thou dwell?" and as I again answered I knew not, his countenance was changed, I know not whether from anger or astonishment. But inasmuch as every man is wont to suspect evil, and specially the enemy being in the neighbourhood, having just, as above narrated, captured Gelnhausen and therein put to shame a whole regiment of dragoons, he agreed with them that held me for a traitor or a spy, and ordered that I should be searched. But when he learned from the soldiers of the watch that this was already done, and nothing more found on me than the book there present which they delivered to him, he read a line or two therein and asked who had given me the book. I answered it was mine from the beginning: for I had made it and written it. Then he asked, "Why upon birch-bark?" I answered, because the bark of other trees was not fitted therefore. "Thou rascal," says he, "I ask why thou didst not write on paper." "Oh!" I answered him, "we had none in the wood." The governor asked, "Where, in what wood?" And again I paid him in my old coin and said I did not know. Then the governor turned to some of his officers that waited on him and said, "Either this is an arch-rogue, or else a fool: and a fool he cannot be, that can write so well." And as he spake, he turned over the leaves to shew them my fine handwriting, and that so sharply that the hermit's letter fell out: and this he had picked up, while I turned pale, for that I held for my chiefest treasure and holy relic. That the Governor noted and conceived yet greater suspicion of treason, specially when he had opened and read the letter, "for," says he, "I surely know this hand and know that it is written by an officer well known to me: yet can I not remember by whom." Also the contents seemed to him strange and not to be understood: for he said, "This is without doubt a concerted language, which none other can understand save him to whom it is imparted." Then asking me my name, when I said Simplicissimus, "Yes, yes," says he, "thou art one of the right kidney. Away, away: put him at once in irons, hand and foot."
So the two before-mentioned soldiers marched off with me to my bespoken lodging, namely, the lock-up, and handed me over to the gaoler, which, in accordance with his orders, adorned me with iron bands and chains on hands and feet, as if I had not had enough to carry with those that I had already bound round my body. Nor was this way of welcoming me enough for the world, but there must come hangmen and their satellites, with horrible instruments of torture, which made my wretched plight truly grievous, though I could comfort myself with my innocence. "O! God!" says I to myself, "how am I rightly served! To this end did Simplicissimus run from the service of God into the world, that such a misbirth of Christianity should receive the just reward which he hath deserved for his wantonness! O, thou unhappy Simplicissimus, whither hath thine ingratitude led thee! Lo, God hath hardly brought thee to the knowledge of Him and into His service when thou, contrariwise, must run off from His employ and turn thy back on Him. Couldest thou not go on eating of acorns and beans as before, and so serving thy Creator? Didst thou not know that thy faithful hermit and teacher had fled from the world and chosen the wilderness? O stupid stock, thou didst leave it in the hope to satisfy thy loose desire to see the world. And behold, while thou thinkest to feed thine eyes, thou must in this maze of dangers perish and be destroyed. Couldst thou not, unwise creature, understand before this, that thy ever-blessed teacher would never have left the world for that hard life which he led in the desert, if he had hoped to find in the world true peace, and real rest, and eternal salvation? O poor Simplicissimus, go thy way and receive the reward of the idle thoughts thou hast cherished and thy presumptuous folly. Thou hast no wrong to complain of, neither any innocence to comfort thee with, for thou hast hastened to meet thine own torment and the death to follow thereafter." So I bewailed myself, and besought God for forgiveness and commended my soul to Him. In the meanwhile we drew near to the prison, and when my need was greatest then was God's help nearest: for as I was surrounded by the hangman's mates, and stood there before the gaol with a great multitude of folk to wait till it was opened and I could be thrust in, lo, my good pastor, whose village had so lately been plundered and burned, must also see what was toward (himself being also under arrest). So as he looked out of window and saw me, he cried loudly, "O Simplicissimus, is it thou?"
When this I heard and saw, I could not help myself, but must lift up both hands to him and cry, "O father, father, father." So he asked what had I done. I answered, I knew not: they had brought me there of a certainty because I had deserted from the forest. But when he learned from the bystanders that they took me for a spy, he begged they would make a stay with me till he had explained my case to the Lord Governor, for that would be of use for my deliverance and for his, and so would hinder the Governor from dealing wrongfully with both of us, since he knew me better than could any man.
_Chap. xxi._: HOW TREACHEROUS DAME FORTUNE CAST ON SIMPLICISSIMUS A FRIENDLY GLANCE
So 'twas allowed him to go to the Governor, and a half-hour thereafter I was fetched out likewise and put in the servitors' room, where were already two tailors, a shoemaker with shoes, a haberdasher with stockings and hats, and another with all manner of apparel, so that I might forthwith be clothed. Then took they off my coat, chains and all, and the hair-shirt, by which the tailors could take their measure aright: next appeared a barber with his lather and his sweet-smelling soaps, but even as he would exercise his art upon me came another order which did grievously terrify me: for it ran, I should put on my old clothes again. Yet 'twas not so ill meant as I feared: for there came presently a painter with all his colours, namely vermilion and cinnabar for my eyelids, indigo and ultramarine for my coral lips, gamboge and ochre and yellow lead for my white teeth, which I was licking for sheer hunger, and lamp-black and burnt umber for my golden hair, white lead for my terrible eyes and every kind of paint for my weather-coloured coat: also had he a whole handful of brushes. This fellow began to gaze upon me, to take a sketch, to lay in a background and to hang his head on one side, the better to compare his work exactly with my figure: now he changed the eyes, now the hair, presently the nostrils; and, in a word, all he had not at first done aright, till at length he had executed a model true to nature; for a model Simplicissimus was. And not till then might the barber whisk his razor over me: who twitched my head this way and that and spent full an hour and a half over my hair: and thereafter trimmed it in the fashion of that day: for I had hair enough and to spare. After that he brought me to a bathroom and cleansed my thin, starved body from more than three or four years' dirt. And scarce was he ended when they brought me a white shirt, shoes and stockings, together with a ruff or collar, and hat and feather. Likewise the breeches were finely made and trimmed with gold lace; so all that was wanted was the cloak, and upon that the tailors were at work with all haste. Then came the cook with a strong broth and the maid with a cup of drink: and there sat my lord Simplicissimus like a young count, in the best of tempers. And I ate heartily though I knew not what they would do with me: for as yet I had never heard of the "condemned man's supper," and therefore the partaking of this glorious first meal was to me so pleasant and sweet that I cannot sufficiently express, declare, and boast of it to mankind; yea, hardly do I believe I ever tasted greater pleasure in my life than then. So when the cloak was ready I put it on, and in this new apparel shewed such an awkward figure that it might seem one had dressed up a hedge-stake: for the tailors had been ordered of intent to make the clothes too big for me, in the hope I shoul
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