p467ilo
p467ilo
NOTES.BOOK I.Note 1.Page 78.Cervantes makes extraordinary mistakes with the names of these northern countries; by Hibernia, he doubtless means Scotland. The absurd story of the Barnacle Goose was believed in the time of Cervantes. Gerard, in his Herbal, published 1636, writes as follows:—"But what our eyes have seene, and hands have touched, we shall declare: There is a small island in Lancashire called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some whereof have been cast thither by shipwracke, and also the trunks and bodies with the branches of old and rotten trees cast up there likewise; whereon is found a certain spume or froth, that in time breedeth unto certeine shels, in shape like those of the muskle, but sharper pointed, and of a whitish color; wherein is contained a thing in form like a lace of silke, finely woven, as it were, together, of a whitish color, one end whereof is fastened unto the inside of the shell, even as the fish of oysters and muskles are: the other end is made fast unto the belly of a rude masse or lumpe, which in time cometh to the shape and form of a bird: when it is perfectly formed the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the aforesaid lace or string: next come the legs of the bird, hanging out, and as it grows greater, it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come forth, and hangeth only by the bill: in short space after it cometh to full maturitie and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers and groweth to a fowle bigger than a Mallard and lesser thana goose, having blacke legs and bill or beake, and feathers blacke and white spotted, in such manner as is our magpie, called in some places a Pie-annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a tree-goose; which place aforesaid, and all those parts adjoining, do so much abound therewith, that one of the best is bought for three pence. For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repaire unto me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimonie of good witnesses."Gerarde's Herbal came out first in 1597; a second edition, with corrections and emendations, 1633.Note 2.Page 103.The Loup-garoux, or Man-wolf—Garwall.In the "Lais de Marie," we have the story of Bisclaveret—"Formerly many men became garwalls, and had their houses in woods. A garwall is a savage beast: his rage is so great that he devours men, does great mischief, and lives in vast forests. The Bretons call him Bisclaveret."—Marie's Lays, p. 160.There are a great many curious particulars and observations upon this subject in the Mémoires de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France, tome 9.There have been few superstitions more popular and general from very ancient times down to comparatively modern; and it is remarkable that under different names it is common to many countries."Parmi les Transformations d'hommes en animaux il en est une qui se distingue des autres par ses caractères speciaux, par son nom particulier et par la terreur profonde dont elle a frappé les imaginations des gens du moyen age. Je veux parler des loups-garous; les loups-garous ou hommes changés en loups, natures feroces et redoutables, puissances malfaisantes emanées du demon ont été un des plus constants objets de l'effroi populaire, et la foi a leur existence s'est perpetuée jusqu'aux epoques les plus modernes.""Si nous consultons les textes historiques du moyen age nous trouvons la croyance aux loups-garous repandu dès les epoques les plus reculées dans la plupart des contrées de l'Europe. Dans les lois de Canut Roi d'Angleterre, un homme est designé sous le vieux nom de Lycanthrope."—Leges Canute regis.Edit. Smith, i. 148."Jean Trithême raconte qu'en l'an 976, il y avait un Juif nommé Baïan, fils de Siméon, Prince des Bulgares, qui se transformait en loup,et se rendait invisible quand il voulait."—VoisBodin Demonomanie des Sorciers, I. H. C. VI."Boniface, Archevêque de Mayence, qui vivait au viii. siecle, mentionne dans un de ses Sermons, parmi les œuvres du Diable, Incantationes et Sortileges exquirere strigas et fictos lupos credere."—Sermon XV. de Abrenuntiatione Diaboli."Saint Bernard d'apres l'auteur de sa vie, en passant dans une certaine ville entendit raconter aux habitants que le bon voisin etait désole par deux betes très feroces que le vulgaire appelle Varoli."—Vita Sancte Bernardi, J. H. p. 227, 228.Numbers of stories similar to these are given in the above-mentioned work; but these must suffice. Very curious are the accounts given of the different ways in which the same superstition existed in different countries."En Portugal les lubishomens passent pour des gens nés sous une mauvaise étoile, et condamnés par la fatalité au malheur; c'est a dire, a l'enfer. Quand il y a dans une famille sept fils ou sept filles, l'un d'eux appartient au Diable. Pendant le jour les lubishomens sont taciturnes et melancoliques; la nuit un penchant irresistible les porte a quitter leur demeures et a chercher les lieux les plus sauvages. Après s'etre depouillés de leur vêtemens ils se transforment en chevaux a la longue crinière, aux yeux ardents, franchissant les montagnes, les vallées et les fleuves, et parcourent ainsi un arc de quelques centaines de lieues; mais avant l'aube ils retournent au point de depart, reprennent leur vêtemens et redeviennent hommes. Il n'y a qu'un moyen de détruire l'influence diabolique a laquelle ils sont soumis; c'est d'avoir le courage de se mettre au devant d'eux et d'arrêter leur course fougeuse et de les blesser légèrement a la poitrine, dès que le sang coule à terre ils sont délivrés du Démon, et leur métamorphose cesse pour toujours.""Cette tradition qui m'a été signalée par mon savant collegue, M. Depping, est rapportée dans lesLusitanian Sketches, et dansLe Portugal de M. Ferd. Denis.""Autrefois la Prusse, la Lithuanie, la Livonie fourmillaient de Sorciers qui passaient pour se métamorphoser en loups quand ils vouloient."In the same paper, "Recherches sur la Lycanthropie," we have a great deal more on the subject, too long to extract for this note. In the middle ages, it is stated that the laws were very strict and rigorous against all who were accused of this singular species of sorcery. They were feared and hated as the most dangerous and ferocious of murderers,and when taken were burnt alive. About 1436, at Berne, a great number of sorcerers were burnt alive, who confessed that they were obedient to the devil, and, by means of certain ointments, were able to transform themselves, and that they had devoured their own children. In 1574, before the Parliament of Dôle, a "Procès de Lycanthropie" was tried against Gilles Garnier, a sorcerer, of Lyons. He was condemned and burnt. The 3rd of December, 1573, the Parliament of Franche Comté issued an order for a "Chasse de Loups-garous." From 1596 to 1600, a great number of men and women suffered the punishment of fire as Lycanthropes and Demonolâtres. In the capacity of judge, Jean Boquet showed such intense zeal against them, that, at the close of his life, he boasted, says Voltaire, of having himself caused more than six hundred Lycanthropes to perish.—Boquet Disc. des Sorciers, &c.1603.Voltaire, Œuvres completes.Ed. Baudmin, t. 39.The subject was preached upon from the altar; learned dissertations were written and published as to whether the fact of men being able to transform themselves into beasts were true or no.At the close of this paper the author gives his own opinion as to whether the transformation of men into beasts be admissible; and in all the facts produced by writers and preserved by tradition, how much is reality, trickery, or imagination. To the first question, we need hardly say, he answers in the negative; to the second, our answer is, that certain facts set down to Lycanthropy have been really accomplished by true wolves, or men in a state of savage nature; 2ndly, others have been contrived by popular imaginations, or by deceivers, whether to terrify or to delude; 3rdly, the greater number of the facts have been caused by affections of the brain in the pretended loups-garous, by that black melancholy already described by the physicians of antiquity—in a word, by madness.Note 3.Page 103.This is one of the mistakes Cervantes falls into: the story of no venomous creature being able to exist is told of Ireland, and not of England. "Bede writeth, that serpents conueid into Ireland did presently die, being touched with the smell of the land; that whatsoever came from Ireland was then of sovereigne virtue against poison."—Bede, lib. 1,Ang. Hist.cap. 1.Saith Irenæus: "I am doone to understand by the report of diuerse, and also by Bede, that no poisoned or venemous thing is bred in thatrealme (Ireland), insomuch that the verie earth of that countrie, being brought to other realmes, killeth all venemous and poisoned wormes."Note 4.Page 105."Evanthes (a writer among the Greekes of good account and authority) reporteth that he found among the records of the Arcadians, that in Arcadia there was a certain house and race of the Antœi, out of which one evermore must needs be transformed into a wolf: and when they of that family have cast lots who it shall be, they vie to accompany the party upon whom the lot is falne to a certain meere or poole in that country. When he is thither come, they turn him naked out of all his clothes, which they hang upon an oak thereby: then he swimmeth over the said lake to the other side; and being entered into the wildernesse, is presently transfigured and turned into a wolfe, and so keepeth company with his like of that kind for nine yeeres space; during which time (if he forbeare all the while to eat man's flesh) he returneth again to the same poole or pond; and being swomme over it, receiveth his former shape of a man, save only that he shall look nine yeeres older than before. Fabius addeth one thing more, and saith that he findeth again the same apparel that was hung up in the oak aforesaid."A wonder is it to see to what passe these Greekes are come in their credulity; there is not so shamelesse a lye but it findeth one or other of them to uphold and to maintaine it."—Holland's Pliny.Note 5.Page 105.Cervantes is fond of this legend. He refers to it in his Don Quixote, chap. 5. I never heard that such a superstition ever existed in England; but Sharon Turner, speaking of King Arthur, says: "So greatly were the people of Bretagne interested in his fame, that Alanus de Insulis tells us that even in his time (the twelfth century) they would not believe that their favourite was dead. If you do not believe me, go into Bretagne, and mention in the streets and villages that Arthur is really dead like other men, you will not escape with impunity; you will be either hooted with the curses of your hearers, or be stoned to death."Trouveurs (continues Turner), troubadours, and monkish versifiers combine to express the same idea. We find the same in the traditions of the old Welsh bards, "who believed that King Arthur was not dead,but conveyed away by the fairies into some pleasant place, where he should remaine for a time, and then return again, and reign in as great authority as ever."—Holinshed, b. 5. c. 14."Some men yet say, in many parts of England, that King Arthur is not dead; but by the will of our Lord Jesu Christ, into another place; and men say that he will come again, and he shall win the holy cross. I will not say that it shall be so; but rather I will say, that here, in this world, he changed his life. But many men say that there is written upon his tomb this verse:—"'Hic jacet Arthurus rex quondam, rex futuris.'"Mort d'Arthur, by Sir Thomas Maleor, orMalory, Knight.BOOK II.Note 4.Page 212.Cervantes makes strange blunders with these northern nations, of which he evidently knew very little. It seems singular, for one so well informed as he was on many points, to be so ignorant about their history at the same period as his own. He here talks of the King ofDanea, having already a Danish prince in his story; but I have ventured to suppose that Cervantes considers the countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway as being all included in the word Danes, which was the general appellation given to the Scandinavian tribes in the ninth and tenth centuries. There were the Western Danes, inhabitants of what is now called Denmark. The Eastern Danes are now Sweden. The Northern Danes are Norway. These people had all one common language. Later in the book, Periander hears the language of Norway, and recognizes it as his own. I have therefore changed the word Danea, and made Leopold King of Norway. It was a curious oversight that Cervantes fell into, giving imaginary sovereigns to all the northern kingdoms, and, as Sismondi observes, in fact, knowing no more of them than his own Don Quixote did. "The Poles, the Norwegians, the Irish and the English are all introduced in their turns, and represented as possessing manners no less extraordinary, and a mode of life no less fantastic, than that of the savages with whom he peoples his unknown isles; nor is the scene laid in that remote antiquity, the obscurity of which might admit of such fables."—Sismondi: Roscoe's Translation.But otherwise, one might suppose that Cervantes, entirely abandoning the field of reality, and forgetting that, in other parts of the story, he intends us to be actually within that sober realm, by making mention of personages who were existing about his own time, had wandered away into the dreamy countries of romance, and that he is speaking of those imaginary kingdoms we read of in Amadis de Gaul—"El Reyno di Dinamarea o el di Sobradisa," kingdoms in romance, situated in the imaginary maps of the Chronicle of Amadis de Gaul. Of theDinamareadamsel, the chief confidante of the Lady Oriana, and of the kingdom of Sobradisa, which was bounded by that of Seroloys on one side, and by the sea on the other, we have frequent mention, especially in chapters 21 and 22.—Note in Don Quixote, by Pellicer, v. 1, pt. 1.Note 5.Page 256.In the middle ages, riding full gallop down a precipice occurs in Froissart, as a common but distinguished act of chivalry.—Fosbroke's Encyclopædia of Antiquities.BOOK III.Note 6.Page 281.In this poet Cervantes describes himself. His first literary compositions were dramas; he was poor; he had returned home from his career as a soldier with the loss of his left hand, and had been five years and a half in slavery at Algiers.Note 7.Page 338.Cervantes hated the Moors; which was, perhaps, not wonderful after his five years' slavery among them. But he is clearly a courtier, too; and the story seems introduced for the sake of this tirade against their nation; and the apostrophe to the king, Philip III., in whose reign was perpetrated that deed of violence, cruelty, and short-sighted folly, the consequences of which Spain will never recover, and which will ever remain a dark blot in the page of her history.It also serves as an opportunity for Cervantes to show his zeal for the Roman Catholic religion, which he never loses throughout the whole work. The expulsion of the Moors was determined upon in 1609. Persiles and Sigismunda is the last work Cervantes ever wrote. The dedication is dated 1616.Note 8.Page 377.The Academy of the Entronadas, properly Intronati, an Italian word which signifiesblockheads. The Italian academies, of which almost every town, large and small, had one or more, (and in the sixteenth century especially Italy was remarkable for them,) were distinguished by quaint and humorous names, such as "Insensati," "Stordite," "Confusi," "Politice," "Umorose," "Oziosi," "Gelati." The Intronati, which Cervantes has called Entronadas, were at Sienna."Les Intronati mot qu'on ne peut rendre en Francais que par les Abasourdis ou les Stupides, avaient autant d'esprit et de malice, mais plus d'elegance que les Rozze (grossiers, mal gracieux stupides). Leur Academie avait été fondée en 1525 par le Tolommei, Luca Contile, François Piccolomini, qui fut depuis Archevêque de Sienne, et par d'autres hommes distingués dans la Philosophie et dans les lettres. Elle faisoit une étude particulière de la langue Toscane et son Theatre Comique avait une grande celebrité."—Ginguené Hist. Litteraire de l'Italie.Milan had its Trasformati; Pavia the Affidati, Desiosi; Mantua the Invhagati Intenti; but for further information the reader may consult Ginguené or Triaboschi, who has in his eighth volume an entire chapter upon the academies.BOOK IV.Note 9.Page 418,after the word Bargains.I have here omitted a page which relates to a poet whose appearance once before I also left out. It appears to be introduced only for the purpose of saying a word in praise of Francisco López de Zárate, whose verses, says Cervantes, ought to resound through the four quarters of the globe, and his harmonious numbers enchant every heart, as he sings of "The Invention of the Cross of Christ," with "The Wars of the Emperor Constantine," a poem truly heroic and religious, and worthy to be called a poem. He is not mentioned by Sismondi; and Bouterweke only gives his name as one among several in a list of the authors of "A Torrent of Heroic Poems." "La Invencion de la Cruz," by López Zárate, is one of these, but he receives no other notice than this remark upon them all: "None but those who make this branch of literature their especial study now think of perusing these and similar patriotic effusions, which were, at the period of their publication, regarded as epic poems."Note 12.Page 449.Thulé, or Tile. What country really was the Thulé of the ancients has never been clearly made known to us. In Camden's Britannia may be read all the various accounts in a chapter headed "The Thulé of the Ancients," v. 2."Beyond the Orcades and above Britain," the old scholiast upon Horace places the Fortunate Isles, which none but pious and just men are said to inhabit, a place celebrated by the Greek poets for its pleasantness and fertility, and called by them the "Elysian Fields." But take another account of these isles from Isacius Tzetzes, a fabulous Greek, in his notes upon Lycophron:—"In the ocean is a British island, between the west of Britain and Thulé, towards the east. Thither, they say, the souls of the dead are transported; for on the shore of that sea, within which Britain lieth, there dwell certain fishermen, who are subject to the French, but accountable for no tribute, because (as they say) they ferry over the souls of the deceased. These fishermen return home and sleep in the evening, but a little after, hear a rapping at their doors, and a voice calling them to their work. Upon that they presently rise, and go to the shore without any other business, and find boats ready for them (but none of their own), and nobody in them; yet, when they come on board and fall to their oars, they find the boats as heavy as if they were laden with men, though they see none. After one pull, they presently arrive at that British island, which at other times, in ships of their own, they hardly reach in a day and night. When they come to land on the island, they see nobody, but hear the voice of those who receive their passengers counting them by the stock of father and mother, and calling them singly, according to the title of their dignity, employment, and name. After they have unloaded, they return back at one stroke. From hence, many take these to be the Islands of the Blessed."—Page 1482.After giving all the various accounts by various authors, he says:—"Thus much may suffice concerning Thulé, which is hid from us as well as it was from the ancients, by snow and winter. As a certain author expresses it, neither was any of them able to say which of the Northern Isles they meant when they talked of Thulé."Note 13.Page 455."Friseland." Cervantes has taken his idea entirely from the accounts given by the Venetian brothers, Nicholas and AntonioZeni, notTemo, probably a misprint. Their voyage is told in an Italian collection of voyages, "Delle Navigatione and Viaggi Raccolse da M. Gio. Battista Ramusio." Venice, 3 vols. fol. 1613. Nicholas and Antonio Zeni; Discovery of Friseland, Iceland, and the North Pole: "Nicholas Zeno having been shipwrecked, in 1380, on the island of Friseland, in consequence of their having been overtaken by a tempest, and likewise having been saved by Prince Zichmni from the rude attacks of the inhabitants, put himself, with all his men, under the protection of this prince, who was lord of certain small islands which lay to the south of Frieseland."—Voyages and Discoveries in the North: Forster."And this is as much as is known of Greenland from the relation of Nicolo Zeno, who gives likewise a particular description of a river that he discovered, as is to be seen in the chart that I (viz. Antonio Zeno) have drawn. Nicolo not being able to bear the severe cold of these northern climates, fell sick, and a little after, returned to Friesland, where he died."—Forster, p. 188.Translated from the Italian of Francesco Marcolini, in Ramusio's Collections.Forster imagines this Friesland to be the Feroe Islands.Note 14.Page 455.St. Thomas. "In the spring, Nicholas Zeno resolved to go out on discoveries, and having fitted out three small ships, he set sail in July; and, shaping his course to the northwards, arrived in Engroveland, Engroneland, Groenland, or Greenland, where he found a Monastery of Predicant Friars, and a Church, dedicated to St. Thomas, hard by a mountain that threw out fire, like Etna or Vesuvius. They have here a spring of boiling hot water, with which they heat the church, the monastery, and the friars' chambers. It comes likewise so hot into the kitchen, that they use no fire for dressing their victuals; and putting their bread into brass pots without any water, it is baked as though it was in a hot oven. They have also small gardens, covered over in winter; which gardens, being watered with this water, are defended from the snow and cold, that in these regions, situated so near the pole, is extremely great."—Forster, p. 184.Note 15.Page 455."They live on wild fowl and fish; for, in consequence of the warm water running into the sea in a large and wide haven, which, by reason of the heat of the water, never freezes, there is so great a concourse in this place of sea-fowl and fish, that they take as many of them as they can possibly have occasion for, with which they maintain a great number of people round about, whom they keep continually employed both in building and in taking of fowls and fish, as well as in a thousand other necessary occupations and affairs relative to the monastery.""To this monastery resort monks from Norway and Sweden, and from other countries."
Note 1.Page 78.
Cervantes makes extraordinary mistakes with the names of these northern countries; by Hibernia, he doubtless means Scotland. The absurd story of the Barnacle Goose was believed in the time of Cervantes. Gerard, in his Herbal, published 1636, writes as follows:—
"But what our eyes have seene, and hands have touched, we shall declare: There is a small island in Lancashire called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some whereof have been cast thither by shipwracke, and also the trunks and bodies with the branches of old and rotten trees cast up there likewise; whereon is found a certain spume or froth, that in time breedeth unto certeine shels, in shape like those of the muskle, but sharper pointed, and of a whitish color; wherein is contained a thing in form like a lace of silke, finely woven, as it were, together, of a whitish color, one end whereof is fastened unto the inside of the shell, even as the fish of oysters and muskles are: the other end is made fast unto the belly of a rude masse or lumpe, which in time cometh to the shape and form of a bird: when it is perfectly formed the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the aforesaid lace or string: next come the legs of the bird, hanging out, and as it grows greater, it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come forth, and hangeth only by the bill: in short space after it cometh to full maturitie and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers and groweth to a fowle bigger than a Mallard and lesser thana goose, having blacke legs and bill or beake, and feathers blacke and white spotted, in such manner as is our magpie, called in some places a Pie-annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a tree-goose; which place aforesaid, and all those parts adjoining, do so much abound therewith, that one of the best is bought for three pence. For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repaire unto me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimonie of good witnesses."
Gerarde's Herbal came out first in 1597; a second edition, with corrections and emendations, 1633.
Note 2.Page 103.
The Loup-garoux, or Man-wolf—Garwall.
In the "Lais de Marie," we have the story of Bisclaveret—
"Formerly many men became garwalls, and had their houses in woods. A garwall is a savage beast: his rage is so great that he devours men, does great mischief, and lives in vast forests. The Bretons call him Bisclaveret."—Marie's Lays, p. 160.
There are a great many curious particulars and observations upon this subject in the Mémoires de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France, tome 9.
There have been few superstitions more popular and general from very ancient times down to comparatively modern; and it is remarkable that under different names it is common to many countries.
"Parmi les Transformations d'hommes en animaux il en est une qui se distingue des autres par ses caractères speciaux, par son nom particulier et par la terreur profonde dont elle a frappé les imaginations des gens du moyen age. Je veux parler des loups-garous; les loups-garous ou hommes changés en loups, natures feroces et redoutables, puissances malfaisantes emanées du demon ont été un des plus constants objets de l'effroi populaire, et la foi a leur existence s'est perpetuée jusqu'aux epoques les plus modernes."
"Si nous consultons les textes historiques du moyen age nous trouvons la croyance aux loups-garous repandu dès les epoques les plus reculées dans la plupart des contrées de l'Europe. Dans les lois de Canut Roi d'Angleterre, un homme est designé sous le vieux nom de Lycanthrope."—Leges Canute regis.Edit. Smith, i. 148.
"Jean Trithême raconte qu'en l'an 976, il y avait un Juif nommé Baïan, fils de Siméon, Prince des Bulgares, qui se transformait en loup,et se rendait invisible quand il voulait."—VoisBodin Demonomanie des Sorciers, I. H. C. VI.
"Boniface, Archevêque de Mayence, qui vivait au viii. siecle, mentionne dans un de ses Sermons, parmi les œuvres du Diable, Incantationes et Sortileges exquirere strigas et fictos lupos credere."—Sermon XV. de Abrenuntiatione Diaboli.
"Saint Bernard d'apres l'auteur de sa vie, en passant dans une certaine ville entendit raconter aux habitants que le bon voisin etait désole par deux betes très feroces que le vulgaire appelle Varoli."—Vita Sancte Bernardi, J. H. p. 227, 228.
Numbers of stories similar to these are given in the above-mentioned work; but these must suffice. Very curious are the accounts given of the different ways in which the same superstition existed in different countries.
"En Portugal les lubishomens passent pour des gens nés sous une mauvaise étoile, et condamnés par la fatalité au malheur; c'est a dire, a l'enfer. Quand il y a dans une famille sept fils ou sept filles, l'un d'eux appartient au Diable. Pendant le jour les lubishomens sont taciturnes et melancoliques; la nuit un penchant irresistible les porte a quitter leur demeures et a chercher les lieux les plus sauvages. Après s'etre depouillés de leur vêtemens ils se transforment en chevaux a la longue crinière, aux yeux ardents, franchissant les montagnes, les vallées et les fleuves, et parcourent ainsi un arc de quelques centaines de lieues; mais avant l'aube ils retournent au point de depart, reprennent leur vêtemens et redeviennent hommes. Il n'y a qu'un moyen de détruire l'influence diabolique a laquelle ils sont soumis; c'est d'avoir le courage de se mettre au devant d'eux et d'arrêter leur course fougeuse et de les blesser légèrement a la poitrine, dès que le sang coule à terre ils sont délivrés du Démon, et leur métamorphose cesse pour toujours."
"Cette tradition qui m'a été signalée par mon savant collegue, M. Depping, est rapportée dans lesLusitanian Sketches, et dansLe Portugal de M. Ferd. Denis."
"Autrefois la Prusse, la Lithuanie, la Livonie fourmillaient de Sorciers qui passaient pour se métamorphoser en loups quand ils vouloient."
In the same paper, "Recherches sur la Lycanthropie," we have a great deal more on the subject, too long to extract for this note. In the middle ages, it is stated that the laws were very strict and rigorous against all who were accused of this singular species of sorcery. They were feared and hated as the most dangerous and ferocious of murderers,and when taken were burnt alive. About 1436, at Berne, a great number of sorcerers were burnt alive, who confessed that they were obedient to the devil, and, by means of certain ointments, were able to transform themselves, and that they had devoured their own children. In 1574, before the Parliament of Dôle, a "Procès de Lycanthropie" was tried against Gilles Garnier, a sorcerer, of Lyons. He was condemned and burnt. The 3rd of December, 1573, the Parliament of Franche Comté issued an order for a "Chasse de Loups-garous." From 1596 to 1600, a great number of men and women suffered the punishment of fire as Lycanthropes and Demonolâtres. In the capacity of judge, Jean Boquet showed such intense zeal against them, that, at the close of his life, he boasted, says Voltaire, of having himself caused more than six hundred Lycanthropes to perish.—Boquet Disc. des Sorciers, &c.1603.Voltaire, Œuvres completes.Ed. Baudmin, t. 39.
The subject was preached upon from the altar; learned dissertations were written and published as to whether the fact of men being able to transform themselves into beasts were true or no.
At the close of this paper the author gives his own opinion as to whether the transformation of men into beasts be admissible; and in all the facts produced by writers and preserved by tradition, how much is reality, trickery, or imagination. To the first question, we need hardly say, he answers in the negative; to the second, our answer is, that certain facts set down to Lycanthropy have been really accomplished by true wolves, or men in a state of savage nature; 2ndly, others have been contrived by popular imaginations, or by deceivers, whether to terrify or to delude; 3rdly, the greater number of the facts have been caused by affections of the brain in the pretended loups-garous, by that black melancholy already described by the physicians of antiquity—in a word, by madness.
Note 3.Page 103.
This is one of the mistakes Cervantes falls into: the story of no venomous creature being able to exist is told of Ireland, and not of England. "Bede writeth, that serpents conueid into Ireland did presently die, being touched with the smell of the land; that whatsoever came from Ireland was then of sovereigne virtue against poison."—Bede, lib. 1,Ang. Hist.cap. 1.
Saith Irenæus: "I am doone to understand by the report of diuerse, and also by Bede, that no poisoned or venemous thing is bred in thatrealme (Ireland), insomuch that the verie earth of that countrie, being brought to other realmes, killeth all venemous and poisoned wormes."
Note 4.Page 105.
"Evanthes (a writer among the Greekes of good account and authority) reporteth that he found among the records of the Arcadians, that in Arcadia there was a certain house and race of the Antœi, out of which one evermore must needs be transformed into a wolf: and when they of that family have cast lots who it shall be, they vie to accompany the party upon whom the lot is falne to a certain meere or poole in that country. When he is thither come, they turn him naked out of all his clothes, which they hang upon an oak thereby: then he swimmeth over the said lake to the other side; and being entered into the wildernesse, is presently transfigured and turned into a wolfe, and so keepeth company with his like of that kind for nine yeeres space; during which time (if he forbeare all the while to eat man's flesh) he returneth again to the same poole or pond; and being swomme over it, receiveth his former shape of a man, save only that he shall look nine yeeres older than before. Fabius addeth one thing more, and saith that he findeth again the same apparel that was hung up in the oak aforesaid.
"A wonder is it to see to what passe these Greekes are come in their credulity; there is not so shamelesse a lye but it findeth one or other of them to uphold and to maintaine it."—Holland's Pliny.
Note 5.Page 105.
Cervantes is fond of this legend. He refers to it in his Don Quixote, chap. 5. I never heard that such a superstition ever existed in England; but Sharon Turner, speaking of King Arthur, says: "So greatly were the people of Bretagne interested in his fame, that Alanus de Insulis tells us that even in his time (the twelfth century) they would not believe that their favourite was dead. If you do not believe me, go into Bretagne, and mention in the streets and villages that Arthur is really dead like other men, you will not escape with impunity; you will be either hooted with the curses of your hearers, or be stoned to death."
Trouveurs (continues Turner), troubadours, and monkish versifiers combine to express the same idea. We find the same in the traditions of the old Welsh bards, "who believed that King Arthur was not dead,but conveyed away by the fairies into some pleasant place, where he should remaine for a time, and then return again, and reign in as great authority as ever."—Holinshed, b. 5. c. 14.
"Some men yet say, in many parts of England, that King Arthur is not dead; but by the will of our Lord Jesu Christ, into another place; and men say that he will come again, and he shall win the holy cross. I will not say that it shall be so; but rather I will say, that here, in this world, he changed his life. But many men say that there is written upon his tomb this verse:—
"'Hic jacet Arthurus rex quondam, rex futuris.'"Mort d'Arthur, by Sir Thomas Maleor, orMalory, Knight.
Note 4.Page 212.
Cervantes makes strange blunders with these northern nations, of which he evidently knew very little. It seems singular, for one so well informed as he was on many points, to be so ignorant about their history at the same period as his own. He here talks of the King ofDanea, having already a Danish prince in his story; but I have ventured to suppose that Cervantes considers the countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway as being all included in the word Danes, which was the general appellation given to the Scandinavian tribes in the ninth and tenth centuries. There were the Western Danes, inhabitants of what is now called Denmark. The Eastern Danes are now Sweden. The Northern Danes are Norway. These people had all one common language. Later in the book, Periander hears the language of Norway, and recognizes it as his own. I have therefore changed the word Danea, and made Leopold King of Norway. It was a curious oversight that Cervantes fell into, giving imaginary sovereigns to all the northern kingdoms, and, as Sismondi observes, in fact, knowing no more of them than his own Don Quixote did. "The Poles, the Norwegians, the Irish and the English are all introduced in their turns, and represented as possessing manners no less extraordinary, and a mode of life no less fantastic, than that of the savages with whom he peoples his unknown isles; nor is the scene laid in that remote antiquity, the obscurity of which might admit of such fables."—Sismondi: Roscoe's Translation.
But otherwise, one might suppose that Cervantes, entirely abandoning the field of reality, and forgetting that, in other parts of the story, he intends us to be actually within that sober realm, by making mention of personages who were existing about his own time, had wandered away into the dreamy countries of romance, and that he is speaking of those imaginary kingdoms we read of in Amadis de Gaul—"El Reyno di Dinamarea o el di Sobradisa," kingdoms in romance, situated in the imaginary maps of the Chronicle of Amadis de Gaul. Of theDinamareadamsel, the chief confidante of the Lady Oriana, and of the kingdom of Sobradisa, which was bounded by that of Seroloys on one side, and by the sea on the other, we have frequent mention, especially in chapters 21 and 22.—Note in Don Quixote, by Pellicer, v. 1, pt. 1.
Note 5.Page 256.
In the middle ages, riding full gallop down a precipice occurs in Froissart, as a common but distinguished act of chivalry.—Fosbroke's Encyclopædia of Antiquities.
Note 6.Page 281.
In this poet Cervantes describes himself. His first literary compositions were dramas; he was poor; he had returned home from his career as a soldier with the loss of his left hand, and had been five years and a half in slavery at Algiers.
Note 7.Page 338.
Cervantes hated the Moors; which was, perhaps, not wonderful after his five years' slavery among them. But he is clearly a courtier, too; and the story seems introduced for the sake of this tirade against their nation; and the apostrophe to the king, Philip III., in whose reign was perpetrated that deed of violence, cruelty, and short-sighted folly, the consequences of which Spain will never recover, and which will ever remain a dark blot in the page of her history.
It also serves as an opportunity for Cervantes to show his zeal for the Roman Catholic religion, which he never loses throughout the whole work. The expulsion of the Moors was determined upon in 1609. Persiles and Sigismunda is the last work Cervantes ever wrote. The dedication is dated 1616.
Note 8.Page 377.
The Academy of the Entronadas, properly Intronati, an Italian word which signifiesblockheads. The Italian academies, of which almost every town, large and small, had one or more, (and in the sixteenth century especially Italy was remarkable for them,) were distinguished by quaint and humorous names, such as "Insensati," "Stordite," "Confusi," "Politice," "Umorose," "Oziosi," "Gelati." The Intronati, which Cervantes has called Entronadas, were at Sienna.
"Les Intronati mot qu'on ne peut rendre en Francais que par les Abasourdis ou les Stupides, avaient autant d'esprit et de malice, mais plus d'elegance que les Rozze (grossiers, mal gracieux stupides). Leur Academie avait été fondée en 1525 par le Tolommei, Luca Contile, François Piccolomini, qui fut depuis Archevêque de Sienne, et par d'autres hommes distingués dans la Philosophie et dans les lettres. Elle faisoit une étude particulière de la langue Toscane et son Theatre Comique avait une grande celebrité."—Ginguené Hist. Litteraire de l'Italie.
Milan had its Trasformati; Pavia the Affidati, Desiosi; Mantua the Invhagati Intenti; but for further information the reader may consult Ginguené or Triaboschi, who has in his eighth volume an entire chapter upon the academies.
BOOK IV.
Note 9.Page 418,after the word Bargains.
I have here omitted a page which relates to a poet whose appearance once before I also left out. It appears to be introduced only for the purpose of saying a word in praise of Francisco López de Zárate, whose verses, says Cervantes, ought to resound through the four quarters of the globe, and his harmonious numbers enchant every heart, as he sings of "The Invention of the Cross of Christ," with "The Wars of the Emperor Constantine," a poem truly heroic and religious, and worthy to be called a poem. He is not mentioned by Sismondi; and Bouterweke only gives his name as one among several in a list of the authors of "A Torrent of Heroic Poems." "La Invencion de la Cruz," by López Zárate, is one of these, but he receives no other notice than this remark upon them all: "None but those who make this branch of literature their especial study now think of perusing these and similar patriotic effusions, which were, at the period of their publication, regarded as epic poems."
Note 12.Page 449.
Thulé, or Tile. What country really was the Thulé of the ancients has never been clearly made known to us. In Camden's Britannia may be read all the various accounts in a chapter headed "The Thulé of the Ancients," v. 2.
"Beyond the Orcades and above Britain," the old scholiast upon Horace places the Fortunate Isles, which none but pious and just men are said to inhabit, a place celebrated by the Greek poets for its pleasantness and fertility, and called by them the "Elysian Fields." But take another account of these isles from Isacius Tzetzes, a fabulous Greek, in his notes upon Lycophron:—
"In the ocean is a British island, between the west of Britain and Thulé, towards the east. Thither, they say, the souls of the dead are transported; for on the shore of that sea, within which Britain lieth, there dwell certain fishermen, who are subject to the French, but accountable for no tribute, because (as they say) they ferry over the souls of the deceased. These fishermen return home and sleep in the evening, but a little after, hear a rapping at their doors, and a voice calling them to their work. Upon that they presently rise, and go to the shore without any other business, and find boats ready for them (but none of their own), and nobody in them; yet, when they come on board and fall to their oars, they find the boats as heavy as if they were laden with men, though they see none. After one pull, they presently arrive at that British island, which at other times, in ships of their own, they hardly reach in a day and night. When they come to land on the island, they see nobody, but hear the voice of those who receive their passengers counting them by the stock of father and mother, and calling them singly, according to the title of their dignity, employment, and name. After they have unloaded, they return back at one stroke. From hence, many take these to be the Islands of the Blessed."—Page 1482.
After giving all the various accounts by various authors, he says:—"Thus much may suffice concerning Thulé, which is hid from us as well as it was from the ancients, by snow and winter. As a certain author expresses it, neither was any of them able to say which of the Northern Isles they meant when they talked of Thulé."
Note 13.Page 455.
"Friseland." Cervantes has taken his idea entirely from the accounts given by the Venetian brothers, Nicholas and AntonioZeni, notTemo, probably a misprint. Their voyage is told in an Italian collection of voyages, "Delle Navigatione and Viaggi Raccolse da M. Gio. Battista Ramusio." Venice, 3 vols. fol. 1613. Nicholas and Antonio Zeni; Discovery of Friseland, Iceland, and the North Pole: "Nicholas Zeno having been shipwrecked, in 1380, on the island of Friseland, in consequence of their having been overtaken by a tempest, and likewise having been saved by Prince Zichmni from the rude attacks of the inhabitants, put himself, with all his men, under the protection of this prince, who was lord of certain small islands which lay to the south of Frieseland."—Voyages and Discoveries in the North: Forster.
"And this is as much as is known of Greenland from the relation of Nicolo Zeno, who gives likewise a particular description of a river that he discovered, as is to be seen in the chart that I (viz. Antonio Zeno) have drawn. Nicolo not being able to bear the severe cold of these northern climates, fell sick, and a little after, returned to Friesland, where he died."—Forster, p. 188.Translated from the Italian of Francesco Marcolini, in Ramusio's Collections.
Forster imagines this Friesland to be the Feroe Islands.
Note 14.Page 455.
St. Thomas. "In the spring, Nicholas Zeno resolved to go out on discoveries, and having fitted out three small ships, he set sail in July; and, shaping his course to the northwards, arrived in Engroveland, Engroneland, Groenland, or Greenland, where he found a Monastery of Predicant Friars, and a Church, dedicated to St. Thomas, hard by a mountain that threw out fire, like Etna or Vesuvius. They have here a spring of boiling hot water, with which they heat the church, the monastery, and the friars' chambers. It comes likewise so hot into the kitchen, that they use no fire for dressing their victuals; and putting their bread into brass pots without any water, it is baked as though it was in a hot oven. They have also small gardens, covered over in winter; which gardens, being watered with this water, are defended from the snow and cold, that in these regions, situated so near the pole, is extremely great."—Forster, p. 184.
Note 15.Page 455.
"They live on wild fowl and fish; for, in consequence of the warm water running into the sea in a large and wide haven, which, by reason of the heat of the water, never freezes, there is so great a concourse in this place of sea-fowl and fish, that they take as many of them as they can possibly have occasion for, with which they maintain a great number of people round about, whom they keep continually employed both in building and in taking of fowls and fish, as well as in a thousand other necessary occupations and affairs relative to the monastery."
"To this monastery resort monks from Norway and Sweden, and from other countries."
FINIS.
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