The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works (15 page)

‘And busy it is, in truth, more than any bee that I know.'

‘Now you talk of a bee, I'll tell you a tale of a battledore.
³¹⁹
The bear
³²⁰
on a time, being chief burgomaster of all the beasts under the lion, gan think with himself how he might surfeit in pleasure, or best husband his authority to enlarge his delight and contentment. With that he began to pry and to smell through every corner of the forest for prey, to have a thousand imaginations with himself what dainty morsel he was master of, and yet had not tasted. Whole herds of sheep had he devoured, and was not satisfied; fat oxen, heifers, swine, calves, and young kids, were his ordinary viands. He longed for horse-flesh, and went presently to a meadow, where a fat cammell
³²¹
was grazing, whom, fearing to encounter with force, because he was a huge beast and well shod, he thought to betray under the colour of demanding homage, hoping that, as he should stoop to do him trewage,
³²²
he might seize upon his throat and stifle him before he should be able to recover himself from his false embrace. But therein he was deceived; for, coming unto this stately beast with this imperious message, instead of doing homage unto him, he lifted up one of his hindmost heels and struck him such a blow on the forehead that he overthrew him. Thereat not a little moved and enraged that he should be so dishonoured by his inferior, as he thought, he consulted with the ape how he might be revenged.

The ape abhorring him by nature, because he overlooked him so lordly and was by so many degrees greater than he was, advised him
³²³
to dig a pit with his paws right in the way where this big-boned gentleman should pass, that so
stumbling and falling in, he might lightly skip on his back, and bridle him, and then he come and seize on him at his pleasure. No sooner was this persuaded than performed; for envy, that is never idle, could not sleep in his wrath or over-slip the least opportunity till he had seen the confusion of his enemy. Alas, goodly creature, that thou mightest no longer live! What availeth thy gentleness, thy prowess, or the plentiful pasture wherein thou wert fed, since malice triumphs over all thou commandest? Well may the mule rise up in arms, and the ass bray at the authors of thy death: yet shall their fury be fatal to themselves, before it take hold on these traitors. What needeth more words? The devourer feeds on his captive and is gorged with blood.

But as avarice and cruelty are evermore thirsty, so fared it with this hungry usurper; for having fleshed his ambition with this treacherous conquest, he passed along through a grove, where a herd of deer were a-ranging; whom, when he had steadfastly surveyed from the fattest to the leanest, he singled out one of the fairest of the company, with whom he meant to close up his stomach instead of cheese. But because the woodmen were ever stirring thereabout, and it was not possible for one of his coat to commit such outrage undescried, and that if he were espied, his life were in peril (though not with the lion, whose eyes he could blind as he list, yet with the lesser sort of the brutish commonalty, whom no flattery might pacify), therefore he determined slily and privily to poison the stream where this jolly forester wonted to drink. And as he determined, so he did. Whereby it fell out that when the sun was ascended to his height and all the nimble citizens of the wood betook them to their lair, this youthful lord of the lawns, all faint and malcontent (as prophesying his near approaching mishap by his languishing) with a lazy wallowing pace, strayed aside from the rest of his fellowship and betook him all carelessly to the corrupted fountain that was prepared for his funeral.

Ah, woe is me, this poison is pitiless! What need I say more, since you know it is death with whom it encounters?
And yet cannot all this expense of life set a period
³²⁴
to insatiable murder; but still it hath some anvil to work upon, and overcasts all opposite prosperity, that may any way shadow his glory.

Too long it were to rehearse all the practices of this savage blood-hunter: how he assailed the unicorn as he slept in his den, and tore the heart out of his breast ere he could awake; how he made the lesser beasts lie in wait one for the other, and the crocodile to cope with the basilisk, that when they had interchangeably weakened each other he might come and insult over them both as he list. But these were lesser matters, which daily use had worn out of men's mouths, and he himself had so customably practised that often
³²⁵
exercise had quite abrogated the opinion of sin, and impudency thoroughly confirmed an undaunted defiance of virtue in his face. Yet new-fangled lust, that in time is weary of welfare and will be as soon cloyed with too much ease and delicacy, as poverty with labour and scarcity, at length brought him out of love with this greedy bestial humour, and now he affected a milder variety in his diet. He had bethought him what a pleasant thing it was to eat nothing but honey another while, and what great store of it there was in that country.

Now did he cast in his head, that if he might bring the husbandmen of the soil in opinion that they might buy honey cheaper than being at such charges in keeping of bees, or that those bees which they kept were most of them drones, and what should such idle drones do with such stately hives or lie sucking at such precious honeycombs; that if they were took away from them, and distributed equally abroad, they would relieve a great many of painful labourers that had need of them, and would continually live serviceable at their command, if they might enjoy such a benefit. Nay more, let them give wasps but only the wax and dispose of the honey as they think good, and they shall hum and buzz a thousand times louder than they, and have the hive fuller
at the year's end (with young ones, I mean) than the bees are wont in ten year.

To broach this device, the fox was addressed like a shepherd's dog, and promised to have his patent sealed to be the King's poulterer for ever, if he could bring it to pass. “Faith,” quoth he, “and I'll put it in a venture, let it hap how it will.” With that he grew in league with an old chameleon, that could put on all shapes, and imitate any colour as occasion served, and him he addressed, sometime like an ape to make sport, and then like a crocodile to weep, sometime like a serpent to sting, and by and by like a spaniel to fawn, that with these sundry forms, applied to men's variable humours, he might persuade the world he meant as he spake, and only intended their good, when he thought nothing less. In this disguise, these two deceivers went up and down and did much harm under the habit of simplicity, making the poor silly swains believe they were cunning physicians and well seen in all cures, that they could heal any malady, though never so dangerous, and restore a man to life that had been dead two days, only by breathing upon him. Above all things they persuaded them that the honey that their bees brought forth was poisonous and corrupt, by reason that those flowers and herbs out of which it was gathered and exhaled were subject to the infection of every spider and venomous canker, and not a loathsome toad, how detestable soever, but reposed himself under their shadow and lay sucking at their roots continually; whereas in other countries, no noisome or poisonous creature might live, by reason of the imputed goodness of the soil, or careful diligence of the gardeners above ours, as for example, Scotland, Denmark, and some more pure parts of the seventeen provinces.

These persuasions made the good honest husbandmen to pause, and mistrust their own wits very much, in nourishing such dangerous animals. But yet, I know not how, antiquity and custom so over-ruled their fear, that none would resolve to abandon them on the sudden till they saw a further inconvenience. Whereby my two cunning philosophers
were driven to study Galen anew, and seek out splenative simples,
³²⁶
to purge their popular patients of the opinion of their old traditions and customs; which, how they wrought with the most part that had least wit, it were a world to tell. For now nothing was canonical but what they spake, no man would converse with his wife but first asked their advice, nor pare his nails, nor cut his beard, without their prescription. So senseless, so wavering is the light unconstant multitude, that will dance after every man's pipe, and sooner prefer a blind harper that can squeak out a new hornpipe, than Alcinous'
³²⁷
or Apollo's variety, that imitates the right strains of the Dorian melody. I speak this to amplify the novel folly of the headlong vulgar, that making their eyes and ears vassals to the
legerdemain
of these juggling mountebanks, are presently drawn to contemn art and experience in comparison of the ignorance of a number of audacious idiots.

The fox can tell a fair tale, and covers all his knavery under conscience, and the chameleon can address himself like an angel whensoever he is disposed to work mischief by miracles: but yet in the end, their secret drifts are laid open, and Linceus' eyes, that see through stone walls, have made a passage into the close coverture of their hypocrisy.

For one day, as these two devisers were plotting by themselves how to drive all the bees from their honeycombs by putting wormwood in all their hives, and strewing henbane and rue in every place where they resort, a fly that passed by and heard all their talk, stomaching the fox of old, for that he had murdered so many of his kindred with his flail-driving tail, went presently and buzzed in Linceus' ears the whole purport of their malice; who, awaking his hundred eyes at these unexpected tidings, gan pursue them wheresoever they went, and trace their intents as they proceeded into action; so that ere half their baits were cast forth, they were apprehended and imprisoned, and all their whole counsel detected. But long ere this, the bear, impatient of
delays and consumed with an inward grief in himself that he might not have his will of a fat hind that outran him, he went into the woods all melancholy and there died for pure anger, leaving the fox and the chameleon to the destiny of their desert, and mercy of their judges. How they scaped I know not, but some say they were hanged, and so we'll leave them.

How likest thou of my tale, friend Percy? Have I not described a right earthly devil unto thee in the discourse of this bloody-minded bear? Or canst thou not attract
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the true image of hypocrisy under the description of the fox and the chameleon?'

‘Yes, very well,' quoth I, ‘but I would gladly have you return to your first subject, since you have moved doubts in my mind, which you have not yet discussed.'

‘Of the sundry opinions of the devil, thou meanest, and them that imagine him to have no existence, of which sort are they that first invented the proverb,
homo homini dæmon
:
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meaning thereby, that that power which we call the devil, and the ministering spirits belonging to him and to his kingdom, are tales and fables, and mere bugbears to scare boys; and that there is no such essence at all, but only it is a term of large content, describing the rancour, grudge, and bad dealing of one man toward another: as, namely, when one friend talks with another subtly, and seeks to dive into his commodity, that he may deprive him of it craftily; when the son seeks the death of the father, that he may be enfeoffed in his wealth; and the step-dame goes about to make away her son-in-law, that her children may inherit; when brothers fall at jars for portions, and shall, by open murder or privy conspiracy, attempt the confusion of each other, only to join house to house, and unite two livelihoods in one; when the servant shall rob his master, and men put in trust start away from their oaths and vows, they care not how.

In such cases and many more, may one man be said to be a devil to another, and this is the second opinion. The third is that of Plato, who not only affirmeth that there are devils, but divided them into three sorts, every one a degree of dignity above the other. The first are those whose bodies are compact of the purest airy element, combined with such transparent threads, that neither they do partake so much fire as should make them visible to sight, or have any such affinity with the earth, as they are able to be pressed or touched; and these he setteth in the highest incomprehensible degree of heaven. The second he maketh these whom Apuleius
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doth call reasonable creatures, passive in mind and eternal in time, being those
apostata
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spirits that rebelled with Beelzebub; whose bodies, before their fall, were bright and pure all like to the former; but, after their transgression, they were obscured with a thick, airy matter, and ever after assigned to darkness. The third he attributes to those men that, by some divine knowledge or understanding, seeming to aspire above mortality, are called
dæmona
, (that is) gods: for this word
dæmon
containeth either, and Homer in every place doth use it both for that omnipotent power that was before all things, and the evil spirit that leadeth men to error: so doth Syrianus
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testify, that Plato was called
dæmon
, because he disputed of deep commonwealth matters, greatly available to the benefit of his country; and also Aristotle because he wrote at large of all things subject to moving and sense.'

‘Then belike,' quoth I, ‘you make this word
dæmon
a capable
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name of gods, of men, and of devils, which is far distant from the scope of my demand; for I do only enquire of the devil, as this common appellation of the devil signifieth a malignant spirit, enemy to mankind, and a hater of God and all goodness.'

‘Those are the second kind,' said he, ‘usually termed detractors or accusers, that are in knowledge infinite, insomuch
as, by the quickness of their wits and agreeable mixtures of the elements, they so comprehend those seminary virtues to men unknown, that those things which, in course of time or by growing degrees, nature of itself can effect, they, by their art and skill in hastening the works of nature, can contrive and compass in a moment: as the magicians of Pharaoh, who, whereas nature, not without some interposition of time and ordinary causes of conception, brings forth frogs, serpents, or any living thing else, they, without all such distance of space, or circumscription of season, even in a thought, as soon as their king commanded, covered the land of Egypt with this monstrous increase.