by Frank Wynne
In order to relieve him of this strange delusion, many people, taking no notice of his shouts and pleas, went up to him and embraced him, telling him to look and he would see that in fact he was not getting broken. But all that happened as a result of this was that the poor wretch would throw himself on the ground shouting for all he was worth, and would then fall into a faint, from which he did not recover for several hours; and when he did come to he would start begging people not to come near him again. He told them to speak to him from a distance and ask him what they wanted, because being a man of glass and not of flesh, he would answer them all so much the more intelligently; for glass being a fine and delicate material, the mind could work through it more promptly and effectively than through an ordinary, solid, earthly body. Some wanted to experiment to see if what he said was true, and so they asked him many difficult things, to which he answered straight away, and very astutely too. It amazed the most learned men in the university and the professors of medicine and philosophy to see how in a person afflicted by such an extraordinary madness as to make him think he was made of glass there should be such a fund of knowledge that he could answer every question correctly and intelligently.
Thomas asked them to give him some sort of case in which he could place the fragile vessel of his body, so that if he wore any close-fitting clothes he would not break; and so they gave him a robe made of drab stuff and a very loose-fitting shirt, which he put on very carefully and tied with a cotton cord. He was not at all willing to put shoes on, and the arrangement he had for getting himself fed without people coming near him was to put on the end of a stick a basket, in which they would put whatever fruit was in season. He did not want meat or fish; he drank only from a fountain or a river, and then with his hands; when he went about the streets he went in the middle of them, looking up at the roofs, in fear lest some tile should fall on him and break him; in summer he slept in the country in the open, and in winter he would go into an inn, and bury himself up to the neck in the straw-loft, saying that that was the safest and most suitable bed for a man of glass. When it thundered, he would shake like a leaf and go off into the country, and would never go into the town until the storm was over. His friends kept him shut up for a long time; but seeing that his affliction showed no sign of being cured, they decided to do what he asked, which was to let him go free; and so they left him and he went about the city, arousing amazement and pity in all who knew him.
Then the boys flocked round him, but he would stop them with his staff, and beg them to speak to him from a distance, so that he did not break; for as he was a man of glass, he was very fragile. Boys, being the most mischievous creatures in the world, in spite of his pleas and shouts began to throw rags at him and even stones, to see if he really was made of glass as he said; but he shouted so much and made such a fuss that the men scolded and punished the children to stop them throwing things at him. But one day when they worried him a lot, he turned to them and said,
‘What do you want, you wretched boys, who keep pestering me like flies, who are as dirty as bedbugs and as impudent as fleas? Do you think I’m Mount Testaccio in Rome, to hurl all these pots and tiles at me?’
When they heard him tell them all off they always followed him in crowds, and the boys thought it would be a much better game to listen to him than to throw things at him. On one occasion, when he was going through the old-clothes market in Salamanca, a woman who kept one of the stalls said to him,
‘I’m sorry in my heart for you, Licenciate; but what can I do, for I can’t shed any tears?’
He turned to her and very deliberately said to her,
‘Filiae Hierusalem, plorate super vos et super filios vestros.’
The woman’s husband realized what a subtle answer it was and said to him,
‘Brother Glass,’ for that is what he said he was called, ‘you are more of a rogue than a fool.’
‘I don’t care a bit,’ he answered, ‘as long as I’m not stupid.’
One day when he was going past the brothel he saw at the door several of the inmates, and declared that they were the baggage of Satan’s army, lodging in the inn of hell. Someone asked him what advice or comfort he would give to a friend of his who was very sad because his wife had gone off with someone else. To which he replied,
‘Tell him to thank God for having allowed his enemy to be taken away from his house.’
‘Then shouldn’t he go and look for her?’ said the other.
‘Not on your life,’ replied Glass, ‘because if he found her he would be finding a true and everlasting testimony to his dishonour.’
‘Since that is the case,’ said the same man, ‘what shall I do to live at peace with my wife?’
He replied, ‘Give her what she needs; let her rule over everyone in the house; but don’t allow her to rule over you.’
A boy said to him, ‘Licenciate Glass, I want to leave my father because he’s always beating me.’
To which he replied, ‘Bear in mind, my boy, that the beatings that fathers give their children bring honour to them, and those which the executioner gives are the ones that cause offence.’
As he was standing at a church door, he saw one of those peasants who are always boasting of being old Christians go in, and behind him came another man who did not enjoy as good a reputation as the first. The licenciate shouted to the peasant,
‘Domingo, wait for old Sabbath to pass.’
He used to say that schoolmasters were lucky, because they were always dealing with angels, and that they would be supremely happy if the little angels weren’t so saucy. Someone else asked him what he thought of bawds. He answered that he had never known any who lived in seclusion, but only those who were neighbours.
The news of his madness and of his answers and clever sayings spread all through Castile, and when it came to the ears of a certain prince or gentleman of the court, he wanted to send for him. So he commissioned a nobleman who was a friend of his and who was in Salamanca to send him to him. When the gentlemen bumped into him one day, he said to him,
‘Licenciate Glass, you know there is a great man at Court who wants to see you and has sent for you.’
To which he replied, ‘Please offer my excuses to this gentleman, for I’m no good for palaces, because I’m bashful and don’t know how to flatter.’
All the same, the gentleman sent him to court, and in order to get him there they used the following device: they put him into a wicker basket of the kind they use for carrying glass, filling in the spaces with stones, and putting some pieces of glass in the straw, so that he would get the impression that they were carrying him like a glass vessel. He got to Valladolid at night, and they unpacked him in the house of the gentleman who had sent for him, and who welcomed him with the words,
‘You are very welcome, Licenciate Glass. How was the journey? How are you?’
To which he replied, ‘There’s no road so bad that it does not come to an end, except the one that leads to the gallows. As far as my health is concerned, I’m neither one thing nor the other, for my pulse and my brain are at odds.’
Another day, when he had seen a lot of falcons and hawks and other fowling birds on perches, he said that falconry was a fine thing for princes and great nobles; but that they should bear in mind that in this sport pleasure outweighed profit two-thousand-fold. Hunting hares he said was very pleasant, and especially when one was hunting with borrowed greyhounds.
The nobleman liked his brand of madness, and let him go out in the city, under the protection of a man to take care that the children did not harm him. In a week he was known to them and the whole court, and at every step, in every street and on every corner he would reply to all the questions they put to him. Among them was one from a student who asked whether he was a poet, since there seemed no limit to his gifts.
He replied, ‘Until now, I have been neither so stupid nor so fortunate.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean by stupid and fortunate,’ said th
e student.
And Glass replied, ‘I haven’t been so stupid as to be a bad poet, nor so fortunate as to be a good one.’
Another student asked him what he thought of poets. He replied that poetry he esteemed highly; but poets not at all. They went on to ask him why he said that. He answered that of the infinite number of poets in existence, the good ones were so few that they hardly counted, and so being unworthy of consideration, he did not hold them in any esteem; but that he admired and revered the art of poetry, because it contained within it all the other sciences put together. It makes use of all of them, and they all adorn it, so that it gives lustre and fame to their wonderful works, and brings great profit, delight and wonder to all the world. He added,
‘I am well aware of the esteem in which a good poet should be held, because I remember those verses of Ovid which say:
Cura deum fuerunt olim regumque poetae.
Praemiaque antiqui magna tulere chori.
Sanctaque majestas, et erat venerabile nomen
Vatibus, et largae saepe dabantur opes.
And I am not unaware either of the great worth of poets, for Plato calls them interpreters of the gods, and Ovid says of them: “Est Deus in nobis, agitanti calescimus illo.” And he also says: “At sacri vates, et divum cura vocamur.” This is what they say of good poets; as for the bad ones, the mere windbags, what is there to say except that they are the most idiotic and arrogant creatures in the world?’
And he went on, ‘What a thing it is to see one of these poets, when he wants to recite a sonnet to those of his circle, wheedling them with such words as, “Pray listen to a little sonnet which I composed last night for a certain occasion. Although it’s of no value, I think it’s quite nice in a way.” And with that, he purses his lips, raises his eyebrows, and hunting about in his pocket, pulls out from the mass of grubby, torn papers, among which there are another thousand or so sonnets, the one he wants to recite, and finally pronounces it in mellifluous and sugary tones. And if by any chance his listeners, out of malice or not knowing any better, don’t praise it, he says, “Either you haven’t understood the sonnet, or I haven’t recited it properly; so I’d better say it again, and you’d better listen to it more carefully, for there’s no doubt at all that the sonnet is worth it.” And then he starts to recite it all over again, with new gestures and new pauses. And have you seen the way they tear each other to pieces? You should see how these modern young puppies bark at the hoary old mastiffs. Not to mention those who snipe at some of those illustrious and worthy persons in whom the true light of poetry shines, and who find it a comfort and recreation among their many serious occupations, who show the divine nature of their genius and the nobility of their thoughts, in spite of those meddlesome ignoramuses who pass judgement on what they do not know, and hate what they cannot understand; and those who only want praise for the stupid folk who sit beneath canopies, and the ignorant who cling to the seats of the mighty.’
On another occasion they asked him why it was that poets in general were poor. He replied that it was because they chose to be, for it was in their power to be rich, if they knew how to take advantage of the opportunity which they had at their disposal all the time; namely their ladies, who were all extremely rich, for their hair was gold, their brow burnished silver, their eyes green emeralds, their teeth ivory, their lips coral and their throats clear crystal, while their tears were liquid pearls. Moreover, where their feet trod, however hard and barren the earth, it would immediately bring forth jasmine and roses; and their breath was of amber, musk and civet; all these things being signs and proof of their great wealth. These and other things he said about bad poets; but he always spoke well of the good ones and praised them to the skies.
One day he saw on the pavement outside San Francisco church some badly painted figures, and this gave rise to the remark that good painters imitated nature, but bad ones vomited it up. One day he went up to a book shop, with the greatest caution lest he should break, and said to the bookseller,
‘I should be very happy about this trade of yours if it were not for one drawback it has.’
The bookseller asked him to tell him what it was.
He replied, ‘The fuss they make when they buy the privilege of a book, and the tricks they play on its author if by any chance he prints it at his own expense. Instead of fifteen hundred, they print three thousand books, and when the author thinks they are selling his, they’re dispatching other people’s.’
It happened that the same day there passed through the square six men who had been flogged, and when the crier said, ‘The first one, for thieving,’ Glass shouted to those who were standing in front of him,
‘Keep out of the way, brothers, lest the list start with the name of one of you.’
And when the crier got to the point where he said, ‘The last …,’ he commented, ‘That must be the one who goes bail for the children.’
A boy said to him, ‘Brother Glass, tomorrow they’re going to whip a bawd.’
He replied, ‘If you told me they were going to whip a pimp, I’d assume they were going to whip a coachman.’
One of those men who carry sedan chairs said to him, ‘Haven’t you anything to say about us, Licenciate?’
‘No,’ answered Glass, ‘except that any one of you knows more sins than a confessor; but with this difference: that when the confessor knows them he keeps them secret, whereas you publish them in every inn.’
A mule-boy heard this (for all sorts of people used to come and listen to him all the time), and said to him,
‘There’s little or nothing to be said about us, Mr Flask, because we are honest folk, needful to the state.’
To which Glass replied,
‘The master’s honour is a sign of the servant’s; and so you must look whom you serve, and then you’ll see what honour you have. You boys are the scum of the earth. Once, when I was not made of glass, I went on a journey on a hired mule on which I counted a hundred and twenty-one marks, all big ones and harmful to humans. All mule-boys are scoundrels and thieves, not to say crooks: if their masters (which is the name they give to the people they take on their mules) are easily duped, they play more tricks on them than they’ve had in this city for years; if they are foreigners they rob them; if they’re students they curse them; if they’re monks, they hurl blasphemy at them; and if they’re soldiers, they’re afraid of them. These boys, like sailors and carters and muleteers, have a way of life which is unique and peculiar to them. The carter spends most of his life in the space of a yard and a half, for it can’t be much farther from the yoke of his mules to the front of the cart; he sings half his time, and curses the rest, and spends a lot more time saying “stand back there”; and if by any chance he has to get a wheel out of a ditch, he’d rather use two curses than three mules. Sailors are barbarous, ill-mannered folk who know no other language than that which is used on board ship; when it is calm they are industrious, and when storms come they are lazy; in bad weather there are lots to command and few to obey. Their god is their chest and their mess, and their favourite pastime is to watch the passengers being sick. Muleteers are people who have abjured sheets and become wedded to pack-saddles; they are so industrious and so quick that in order not to lose a fare they will lose their soul; their favourite music is the sound of the mortar; their sauce is hunger; their morning praises consist in getting up to feed the animals; and as for masses, they never go near them.’
As he was saying this, he was at the door of an apothecary’s shop, and turning to the owner, he said to him,
‘You’d have a healthy trade if only you weren’t so hard on your lamps.’
‘In what way am I hard on my lamps?’ asked the chemist.
Glass replied, ‘Because whenever you’re short of oil you make it up with what’s in the lamp nearest to hand; and there’s something else in your profession which is enough to ruin the reputation of the most reliable doctor in the world.’
Asked what he meant, he replied th
at there were chemists who, so as not to say that they were out of what the doctor prescribed, put in substitutes for what they hadn’t got, which they thought had the same properties and quality, when this was not in fact the case; and so the medicine which had been wrongly made up had the opposite effect to that of the proper prescribed one. Then someone asked him what he thought about doctors, and this is what he said:
‘Honora medicum propter necessitatem, etenim creavit eum Altissimus. A Deo enim est omnis medela, et a rege accipiet donationem. Disciplina medici exaltabit caput illius, et in conspectu magnatum collaudabitur. Altissimus de terra creavit medicinam, et vir prudens non abhorrebit illam. This is what Ecclesiasticus says about medicine and about good doctors; and of the bad ones you might say exactly the opposite, because there are no people more harmful to the State than they. The judge can distort or delay justice, the lawyer uphold an unjust cause for his own interest, the merchant can filch our property; in short, all those with whom we have to deal can do us some harm; but not one of them can take away our lives without fear of punishment; only doctors can and do kill us quietly without fear of trouble, without unsheathing any sword more powerful than a “prescription”. And there’s no way of uncovering their crimes, because they put them under ground straight away. I remember that when I was a man of flesh and not of glass, as I am now, a patient dismissed one of those doctors of the second class and went to another for treatment; and the first, a few days later, happened to go to the apothecary’s where the second had his prescriptions made up. He asked the chemist how the patient whom he had left was getting on, and whether the other doctor had prescribed any sort of purge for him. The chemist replied that he had a prescription for a purge which the patient was to take the following day. He asked him to show it to him, and he saw that at the bottom of it was written: “Sumat diluculo”, and so he said, “Everything in this purge seems all right to me, except for this ‘diluculo’, because it’s too humid.”’