Part 3 (2/2)
Yes. Almost all the young people remember that in Marco Polo's day there was a distinguished Venetian engineer with the armies of Genghis Khan, whose wonderful successes gave rise, perhaps, to the story of Aladdin.[5] The scene of his successes was Pekin; and it is to be remembered that the story of Aladdin is not properly one of the Arabian Nights, and that the scene is laid in China.
This led them to trying to match the wonders of Aladdin and of the Arabian Nights by the wonders of modern invention; and they pleased themselves by thinking of marvels they could show to unlearned nations if they had the resources of Mr. Edison's laboratory.
”Aladdin rubbed his lamp,” said Blanche. ”You see, the lamp was his electrical machine; and when he rubbed it, the lightnings went flying hither and thither, and said, 'Here we are.'”
”That is all very fine,” said Jack Withers; ”but I stand by the Arabian Nights, after all, and I think I shall, till Mr. Edison or the Taunton locomotive shop will make for me some high-stepper on whose back I may rise above the clouds, pa.s.s over the length and breadth of Ma.s.sachusetts, descend in the garden where Blanche is confined by the hated mistress of a boarding-school in Walpole, and then, winning her ready consent, can mount again with her, and before morning descend in the garden of a beautiful cottage at Newport. We will spend six weeks in playing tennis in the daytime, dancing in the Casino in the evenings, and in sailing in Frank Shattuck's yacht between whiles. Then, and not till then, would I admit that the Arabian Nights have been outdone by modern science.”
They all laughed at Jack's extravaganza, which is of a kind to which they are beginning to be accustomed. But Mabel stuck to her text, and said seriously, that Uncle Fred had said that what people now called science sprung from the workshops of these very magicians. ”The magicians then had all the science there was. And if magic had not got a bad name, should we not call the men of science magicians now?”
Uncle Fritz said yes to all her questions, but he said that they did not cover the whole matter. The difference between a magician and a man of science involves these habits: the magician keeps secret what he knows, while the man of science discloses all he learns. Then the magician affected to have spiritual power at command, while the man of science only affects to use what he calls physical powers. Till either of them tell us how to distinguish spiritual forces from physical forces, the second distinction is of the less importance. But the other has made all the difference in the world between the poor magic-men and the science-men. For, as they had seen with Friar Bacon, the magic-men have had their stories told by most ignorant people, seeing they did not generally leave any records behind them; but the men of modern science, having chosen to tell their own stories, have had them told, on the whole, reasonably well, though generally stupidly.
”What a pity we have not Solomon's books of science!” said John Tolman.
”It is one of the greatest of pities that such books as those were not kept. It seems as if people would have built on such foundations, and that Science would have marched from step to step, instead of beginning over and over again. But we do have Pliny's Natural History, as he chose to call it. Far from building on that as a foundation, the Dark Ages simply accepted it. And there are blunders or sheer lies in that book, and in Aristotle's books, and Theophrastus's, and other such, which have survived even to our day.”
The children were peeping into the collection from which the Friar Bacon stories had been read, and they lighted on these sc.r.a.ps about the supposed life of Virgil. To the people of the Dark Ages Virgil was much more a man of magic than a poet.
HOW VIRGILIUS WAS SET TO SCHOOL.
As Virgilius was born, then the town of Rome quaked and trembled: and in his youth he was wise and subtle, and was put to school at Tolentin, where he studied diligently, for he was of great understanding. Upon a time the scholars had licence to go to play and sport them in the fields after the usance of the old time; and there was also Virgilius thereby also walking among the hills all about: it fortuned he spied a great hole in the side of a great hill wherein he went so deep that he could not see no more light, and then he went a little further therein, and then he saw some light again, and then went he forth straight: and within a little while after, he heard a voice that called, ”Virgilius, Virgilius;” and he looked about, and he could not see no body; then Virgilius spake and asked, ”Who calleth me?” Then heard he the voice again, but he saw n.o.body: then said he, ”Virgilius, see ye not that little board lying beside you there, marked with that word?” Then answered Virgilius, ”I see that board well enough.” The voice said, ”Do away that board, and let me out thereat.” Then answered Virgilius to the voice that was under the little board, and said, ”Who art thou that talkest me so!” Then answered the devil: ”I am a devil, conjured out of the body of a certain man, and banished till the day of judgement, without I be delivered by the hands of men. Thus, Virgilius, I pray you to deliver me out of this pain, and I shall shew unto thee many books of necromancy, and how thou shalt come by it lightly and know the practise therein, that no man in the science of necromancy shall pa.s.s thee; and moreover I shall shew and inform you so that thou shalt have all thy desire, whereby methinks it is a great gift for so little a doing, for ye may also thus all your friends helpen, and make your enemies unmighty.” Through that great promise was Virgil tempted; he had the fiend shew the books to him that he might have and occupy them at his will. And so the fiend shewed him, and then Virgilius pulled open a board, and there was a little hole, and thereat crawled the devil out like an eel, and came and stood before Virgilius like a big man; thereat Virgilius was astonished and marvelled greatly thereof that so great a man might come out at so little a hole; then said Virgilius, ”should ye well pa.s.s into the hole that ye came out of?” ”Yea, I shall well,” said the devil.--”I hold the best pledge that I have, ye shall not do it.”
”Well,” said the devil, ”thereto I consent.” And then the devil crawled into the little hole again, and as he was therein, Virgilius covered the hole again, and so was the devil beguiled, and might not there come out again, but there abideth still therein. Then called the devil dreadfully to Virgilius and said, ”What have ye done?” Virgilius answered, ”Abide there still to your day appointed.” And from thenceforth abideth he there. And so Virgilius became very cunning in the practise of the black science.
HOWE THE EMPEROR ASKED COUNSEL OF VIRGILIUS, HOW THE NIGHT RUNNERS AND ILL DOERS MIGHT BE RID-OUT OF THE STREETS.
The emperor had many complaints of the night runners and thieves, and also of the great murdering of people in the night, in so much that the emperor asked counsel of Virgilius, and said: ”That he hath great complaints of the thieves that runneth by night for they kill many men; what counsel, Virgilius, is best to be done?” Then answered Virgilius to the emperor, ”Ye shall make a horse of copper and a copper man upon his back, having in his hands a flail of iron, and that horse, ye shall so bring afore the towne house, and ye shall let cry that a man from henceforth at ten of the clock should ring a bell, and he that after the bell was rung in the streets should be slain, no work thereof should be done.” And when this cry was made the ruffians set not a point, but kept the streets as they did afore and would not let therefor; and as soon as the bell was rung at ten of the clock, then leaped the horse of copper with the copper man through the streets of Rome, insomuch that he left not one street in Rome unsought; and as soon as he found any man or woman in the street he slew them stalk dead, insomuch that he slew above two hundred persons or more. And this seeing, the thieves and night-runners how they might find a remedy therefor, thought in their minds to make a drag with a ladder thereon; and as they would go out by night they took their ladders with them, and when they heard the horse come, then cast they the drag upon the houses, and so went up upon their ladders to the top of the houses, so that the copper man might not touch them; and so abide they still in their wicked doing. Then came they again to the emperor and complained, and then the emperor asked counsel of Virgilius; and Virgilius answered and said, ”that then he must get two copper hounds and set them of either side of the copper horse, and let cry again that no body after the bell is rung should depart out of their house that would live.” But the night walkers cared not a point for that cry; but when they heard the horse coming, with their ladders climbed upon the houses, but the dogs leaped after and tore them all in pieces; and thus the noise went through Rome, in so much that n.o.body durst in the night go in the street, and thus all the night-walkers were destroyed.
HOW VIRGILIUS MADE A LAMP THAT AT ALL TIMES BURNED.
For profit of the common people, Virgilius on a great mighty marble pillar, did make a bridge that came up to the palace, and so went Virgilius well up the pillar out of the palace; that palace and pillar stood in the midst of Rome; and upon this pillar made he a lamp of gla.s.s that always burned without going out, and n.o.body might put it out; and this lamp lightened over all the city of Rome from the one corner to the other, and there was not so little a street but it gave such light that it seemed two torches there had stand; and upon the walls of the palace made he a metal man that held in his hand a metal bow that pointed ever upon the lamp for to shoot it out; but always burned the lamp and gave light over all Rome. And upon a time went the burgesses'
daughters to play in the palace and beheld the metal man; and one of them asked in sport, why he shot not? And then she came to the man and with her hand touched the bow, and then the bolt flew out, and brake the lamp that Virgilius made; and it was wonder that the maiden went not out of her mind for the great fear she had, and also the other burgesses'
daughters that were in her company, of the great stroke that it gave when it hit the lamp, and when they saw the metal man so swiftly run his way; and never after was he no more seen; and this foresaid lamp was abiding burning after the death of Virgilius by the s.p.a.ce of three hundred years or more.
It is on the wrecks and ruins recorded in such fables as these that modern science is builded.
IV.
BENVENUTO CELLINI.
”Now we will leave the fairy tales,” said Uncle Fritz, ”and begin on modern times.”
”Modern times means since 1492,” said Alice,--”the only date in history I am quite sure of, excepting 1866.”
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