Histoire comique des états et empires de la lune. English
Page 8
CHAPTER V.
_Of his Arrival there, and of the Beauty of that Country in which hefell._
In fine, after I had been a very long while in falling, as I judged,for the violence of my Precipitation hindered me from observing it moreexactly: The last thing I can remember is, that I found my self undera Tree, entangled with three or four pretty large Branches which I hadbroken off by my fall; and my face besmeared with an Apple, that haddashed against it.
By good luck that place was, as you shall know by and by * * * * * *[1]that you may very well conclude, that had it not been for that Chance,if I had had a thousand lives, they had been all lost. I have manytimes since reflected upon the vulgar Opinion, That if one precipitatehimself from a very high place, his breath is out before he reach theground; and from my adventure I conclude it to be false, or else thatthe efficacious Juyce of that Fruit,[2] which squirted into my mouth,must needs have recalled my soul, that was not far from my Carcass,which was still hot and in a disposition of exerting the Functions ofLife. The truth is, so soon as I was upon the ground my pain was gone,before I could think what it was; and the Hunger, which I felt duringmy Voyage, was fully satisfied with the sense that I had lost it.[3]
When I was got up, I had hardly taken notice of the largest of Fourgreat Rivers, which by their conflux make a Lake; when the Spirit, orinvisible Soul, of Plants that breath upon that Country, refreshed myBrain with a delightful smell: And I found that the Stones there wereneither hard nor rough; but that they carefully softened themselveswhen one trode upon them.
[4] I presently lighted upon a Walk with five Avenues, in figure liketo a Star; the Trees whereof seemed to reach up to the Skie, a greenplot of lofty Boughs: Casting up my Eyes from the root to the top, andthen making the same Survey downwards, I was in doubt whether the Earthcarried them, or they the Earth, hanging by their Roots: Their high andstately Forehead seemed also to bend, as it were by force, under theweight of the Celestial Globes; and one would say, that their Sighs andout-stretched Arms, wherewith they embraced the Firmament, demanded ofthe Stars the bounty of their purer Influences before they had lostany thing of their Innocence in the contagious Bed of the Elements.The Flowers there on all hands, without the aid of any other Gardinerbut Nature, send out so sweet (though wild) a Perfume, that it rouzesand delights the Smell: There the incarnate of a Rose upon the Bush,and the lively Azure of a Violet under the Rushes, captivating theChoice, make each of themselves to be judged the Fairest: There thewhole Year is Spring; there no poysonous Plant sprouts forth, but isas soon destroyed; there the Brooks by an agreeable murmuring, relatetheir Travels to the Pebbles; there Thousands of Quiristers make theWoods resound with their melodious Notes; and the quavering Clubs ofthese divine Musicians are so universal, that every Leaf of the Forestseems to have borrowed the Tongue and shape of a Nightingale; nay, andthe Nymph _Eccho_ is so delightful[5] with their Airs, that to hear herrepeat, one would say, She were sollicitous to learn them. On the sidesof that Wood are Two Meadows, whose continued Verdure seems an Emerauldreaching out of sight. The various Colours, which the Spring bestowsupon the numerous little Flowers that grow there, so delightfullyconfounds and mingles their Shadows, that it is hard to be known,whether these Flowers shaken with a gentle Breeze pursue themselves,or fly rather from the Caresses of the Wanton _Zephyrus_; one wouldlikewise take that Meadow for an Ocean, because, as the Sea, itpresents no Shoar to the view; insomuch, that mine Eye fearing it mightlose it self, having roamed so long, and discovered no Coast, sent myThoughts presently thither; and my Thoughts, imagining it to be the endof the World, were willing to be perswaded, that such charming placeshad perhaps forced the Heavens to descend and join the Earth there. Inthe midst of that vast and pleasant Carpet, a rustick Fountain bubblesup in Silver Purles, crowning its enamelled Banks with Sets of Violets,and multitudes of other little Flowers, that seem to strive which shallfirst behold it self in that Chrystal Myrroir: It is as yet in theCradle, being but newly Born, and its Young and smooth Face shews notthe least Wrinkle. The large Compasses it fetches, in circling withinit self, demonstrate its unwillingness to leave its native Soyl: And asif it had been ashamed to be caressed in presence of its Mother, with aMurmuring it thrust back my hand that would have touched it: The Beaststhat came to drink there, more rational than those of our World, seemedsurprised to see it day upon the Horizon, whilst the Sun was with the_Antipodes_; and durst not bend downwards upon the Brink, for fear offalling into the Firmament.
I must confess to you, That at the sight of so many Fine things, Ifound my self tickled with these agreeable Twitches, which they say the_Embryo_ feels upon the infusion of its Soul: My old Hair fell off, andgave place for thicker and softer Locks: I perceived my Youth revived,my face grow ruddy, my natural Heat mingle gently again with my radicalMoisture: And in a word, I grew younger again by at least FourteenYears.
[1] "That place was," unquestionably, the Garden of Eden, which Cyranoheretically locates in the Moon; and the "Tree" turough which he hasfallen, and an "Apple" of which has besmeared his face and recalled himto life, is the Tree of Life, that stood "in the midst of the garden."
This is the first of a series of hiatuses, which occur in all theFrench editions as well as the English, and which are marked by thosestars that Cyrano refers to in the play: "But I intend setting allthis down in a book, and the golden stars I have brought back caughtin my shaggy mantle, when the book is printed, will be seen serving asasterisks."
Lebret speaks of these gaps in his preface, saying he would have triedto fill them but for fear of mixing his style with Cyrano's: "For themelancholy colour of my style will not let me imitate the gayety ofhis; nor can my Wit follow the fine flights of his Imagination."
It seems altogether improbable, however, that Cyrano himself leftthe work thus incomplete, as Lebret would imply. And in fact we cansupply from a Manuscript recently acquired (1890) by the _BibliothequeNationale_, a long passage not printed by Lebret (see pp. 60 ff.*).There can be little doubt that the passages were deliberately _cut out_by some one on account of their "heretical" character. It even seemsprobable, from passages at the beginning of the _Voyage to the Sun_,that when the work was circulated in Manuscript, Cyrano had been theobject of persecution on account of them.
(*search: start p. 60: "the Earth, I threw out my Bowl...")
The passages lacking were cut out then but by whom? The usuallyaccepted opinion is that of our English translator, who says the gapsare "occasioned, not by the Negligence of our Witty French Author, butby the accursed Plagiary of some rude Hand, that in his sickness riftedhis Trunks and stole his Papers, as he himself complains." M. Brun hassuggested, however, and with some plausibility, that Lebret himselfwas responsible for the omissions; and that he thus continued, afterCyrano's death, his lifelong attempts at reforming and toning downthe impolitic, unorthodox notions of his too-independent friend. SoCyrano was conquered once more in his battle with "les Compromis, lesPrejuges, les Lachetes," and finally "la Sottise":
"Je sais bien qu' a la fin vous me mettrez a bas; N'importe! je me bats, je me bats, je me bats!"
We are proud of printing for the first time in any edition of the_Voyage to the Moon_, at least a part of what had been cut out; andof being able to indicate for the first time what must have been thesubstance of the other lost passages, and what is the sense of thefragments preserved.
[2] The Apple of the Tree of Life.
[3] The translation is not fully adequate here; the French means: "...was fully satisfied, and left me in its place only a slight memory ofhaving lost it."
[4] This beautiful Nature-description, the like of which cannot befound in all seventeenth-century French literature outside of Cyrano'sworks, was apparently his favorite passage, since it is the only one hehas used twice. _Cf_. his _Lettre XI_., "D'une maison de campagne."
[5] In the literal sense, _full of delight_, delighted.