Now, since dad’s household was so noble, the alert reader will grasp instantly that I was raised and educated likewise. And if that’s what you think, you’d be right, because by the age of ten, not only was I already au fait with the principia of dad’s noble exercises; as regards studying, I was on a par with the famous Amphisteides, who couldn’t (Suidas tells us) count beyond five. Maybe dad was too high-minded and fell in with the custom then widespread among gentlefolk: not worrying overmuch about book learning (or ‘playing up teacher’, as they called it) because they had servants to do their dirty work. That aside, I was a fair bagpipe player, with a fine repertoire of dirges. As for God-bothering, well, you’ll not shift me from the view that, in all of Christendom, no one my age even began to measure up to me. Neither God nor his creation, neither heaven nor hell, neither angels nor devils ever crossed my mind, nor did I worry about telling good from evil. You can imagine: with a theology like that I lived like Adam and Eve in Paradise, totally innocent of sickness, decay or death – never mind resurrection. O happy life (a fool’s life, you may well say), where the quack is never needed! The same goes for my knowledge of things intellectual and all the world’s other arts and sciences. So complete was my ignorance, I was unaware of knowing nothing. Oh, it was a blissful life I led in those days; it certainly was! However, dad simply wouldn’t allow me to go on enjoying it. I was of noble birth, right? I should live and behave like a nobleman. So he began educating me for higher things, setting me harder and harder lessons.
Two
Describes Simplicius’s first step up the social ladder, including a eulogy of the herdsman’s trade, plus some hot tips
He invested me with the highest honour, not just on his own estate but throughout the known world: he made me a herdsman. First he entrusted his pigs to me, then his goats, and finally his whole flock of sheep. I was to guard them, graze them, and with the aid of my bagpipe (whose sound, Strabo writes, fattens the sheep and lambs of all Arabia) keep the wolf at bay. Like David, in other words, except he didn’t have a bagpipe, only a harp. Still, that was a start – quite an omen for me, actually; it suggested that in the long run, given luck, I’d be famous the world over. Since the beginning of time all the top men have been herdsmen. We read that in Holy Writ: Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob’s sons, even Moses himself had had to guard his father-in-law’s sheep before becoming leader and lawgiver over 600,000 subjects in Israel. Objection, right? You’re going to throw in my face that these were pious, God-fearing folk, not Spessart farmboys who didn’t know the first thing about God. OK, but are you saying my innocence was to blame? The heathen ancients spawned as many leaders as God’s chosen people. Why do you think the Romans had families called the Bubulci, the Statilii, the Pomponii, the Vituli, the Vitellii, the Annii, the Caprae, and so on if it wasn’t because those families were associated with just such creatures, possibly even kept them? Romulus and Remus were both herdsmen, don’t forget. Spartacus, who threw the full might of Rome into a tizzy, was a herdsman. And we know from Lucianus, in his Dialogo Helenae, that other herdsmen included Paris, son of King Priam, and Anchises, father of the Trojan prince Aeneas. The handsome Endymion, lusted after by chaste Luna, was a herdsman too. So was the loathsome Polyphemus. Even the gods themselves (so Phornutus informs us) weren’t above practising the trade. Apollo minded cows for Admetus, King of Thessaly, while Mercury, his son Daphnis, Pan and Proteus were major herdsmen, which is why soppy poets still refer to them as patrons of the profession. Mesa, ruler of Moab, as we read in the Second Book of Kings, had been a herdsman; Cyrus, mighty King of the Persians, as well as being taught by a herdsman (Mithridates), guarded herds himself when young; Gyges was a herdsman before mounting the throne, thanks to the power of a ring. Ismael Sophi, a Persian monarch, also herded animals in his youth, so the Jew Philo hits the nail on the head when, in his Life of Moses, he calls the herdsman’s job a preparation for kingship. The fact is that, as Bellicosa and Martialia Ingenia were first shown how to hunt, those being trained up to rule should initially be introduced to the pleasing, peaceful office of herdsman. Dad must have known all this, and I still, to this day, see great things coming my way.
But to return to my own herding, there’s something you should know: I was as ignorant of wolves as I was of my own ignorance, which made dad all the keener to instruct me. He’d say, ‘Look, lad, never let the sheep stray. Keep blowing up a storm on your bagpipe. We don’t want the wolf coming anywhere near, do we? Know what? He’s no better than a four-legged bandit. Doesn’t give a toss what he makes off with – man or beast. You ever lose one of that herd and I’ll thrash you raw, see if I don’t!’ I’d answer with equal delicacy: ‘Dad, tell me, what does a wolf look like? I’ve never seen one.’ ‘Why, you great ninny!’ he snapped. ‘You’ll be a simpleton all your days. Beats me what’s to become of you. What a dimwit! Fancy not knowing what a four-legged scrounger the wolf is!’ He instructed me further along the same lines. In the end, losing all patience, he stomped off muttering. Obviously I’d never get my foggy brain round his detailed directions.
Three
Tells of the commiseration of a loyal bagpipe
That made me create such a racket with my bagpipe as would have wiped out the toads in the herb garden. Ergo it made me feel quite safe from the wolf, now constantly on my mind. And remembering mum (as mothers are called in the Spessart and up and down Bird Hill) and how she often said she was worried my singing might one day strike the hens dead, I decided to sing along to make the anti-wolf remedy work even better. It was a song mum had taught me herself:
Oh much belittled peasant breed,
‘Salt of the earth’ – ah, yes, indeed!
But lest we fail to laud your due
Let’s take a proper look at you.
What state would Earth be in today
Had Adam not first turned its clay?
Your tilling, peasant, is the thrust
That bears aloft the upper crust.
It’s true, almost all the soil yields
Depends on you, grows in your fields.
No single seed that bulks the land
But passes through your horny hand.
The Emperor whom heav’n provides
To guard us all must eat besides;
So must the man of war, despite
His yen the feeder’s hand to bite.
The meat we eat you raise alone;
Drink too, well vintaged, on your own.
Thanks to your plough that turns the sod,
We’ll always have enough, praise God.
Earth was entirely wild until
You came and tamed it to your will.
A sorry thing the world would be
Without its salt, the peasantry.
We’re right to praise you in this way
Because you feed us day by day.
Nature herself bestows her love.
Your lore is blest by God above.
The gout, that curse of people’s feet,
Is quite a stranger down your street.
Yet toffs are frequently brought low,
Some even by death’s icy blow.
Rarely do you put on the style,
And just as rare are shows of guile.
And since you never act the boss
God has you bear more of his cross.
Hence even the soldier’s disdain
Will sometimes turn out to your gain.
For if you ever try to whine,
‘What’s yours’, he’ll say, ‘is also mine.’
But that’s as far as I got with my song, because suddenly (from one second to the next, it seemed) a squad of cuirassiers surrounded both me and my sheep. They’d lost their way in the big forest and ridden towards the sound of my music and herdsmanly yelling.
‘Aha,’ I reasoned, ‘here we are. These are the four-legged scroungers dad was on about.’ At first glance I saw both horse and man (as the American natives once saw the Spanish cavalry) as a single
creature. Believing these frightful-looking centaurs to be wolves, I decided to drive them off. But before I’d got the bagpipe fully inflated I was grabbed by one arm and swung so roughly onto the back of a spare carthorse (part of their loot) that I went tumbling down the other side. I must have landed on my beloved instrument, because it let out a pitiful wail as if calling on the whole world for mercy. This did no good, though, because despite my bagpipe using its last breath to bemoan my sad fate, I was forced back onto the horse. Actually, what pissed me off most was their claiming I’d hurt the bagpipe as I fell, forcing it to cry out in agony. Anyway, my nag, with me on her back, set off at a steady trot (a primum mobile, kind of) towards dad’s farm. As I jogged along, wonderful thoughts flew through my head. I imagined that, sitting on a beast like I’d never seen before, I too would be transformed into an iron man. No such change occurred, in fact, but other odd fancies sprang to mind: I thought these apparitions had come for the sole purpose of helping me drive the sheep home. None of them gobbled me up. On the contrary, they all (as one) made straight for dad’s farm. So I expected, as we approached, to see dad and mum come out to greet us, bidding us welcome. Not a bit of it. They both, together with dad’s only daughter Ursula, made a beeline for the back door as if keen to avoid these guests entirely.
Four
Simplicius’s home is seized, plundered and turned into a torture chamber
I hadn’t meant to lead the peaceable reader, along with these ruffians, into dad’s house and home. Some pretty awful stuff happened there. However, the rest of my chronicle demands that I leave for sweet posterity some record of the dreadful things done to us in this our German war. Above all I must show, by recounting my experience, how God in his mercy clearly dumped all these evils upon us for our own good – often had to, in fact. How else, dear reader, do you suppose I’d have learnt there was a God in heaven if those soldiers hadn’t wrecked dad’s house, taken me prisoner, and forced me into the company of folk I’d only been told about before? Until that day I’d neither known nor imagined there was anyone on Earth except for dad, mum, us kids and the servants. I’d never met any strangers, and I knew no other human habitation than the one I went out from and came home to each day. Very soon, though, I learnt how folk, having come into this world, had to leave it behind. I was human in form alone and only nominally a child of Christ. For the rest, I was a brute beast! Yet the Almighty, looking mercifully on my innocence, was keen to make me aware of both himself and myself. He could have done so in a thousand ways, but he chose only one: obviously, to set an example, dad and mum had to be punished for my sloppy upbringing.
The first thing the ruffians did was stable their horses. Then each had his appointed task, which involved a lot of wrecking and spoiling. While some began butchering and boiling and roasting with every appearance of cooking up a feast, others ransacked the house from top to bottom. No room was safe. You’d have thought the golden fleece of Colchis was hidden somewhere. Some made piles of linen, clothes and household items as if for a jumble sale, and what they couldn’t use they trashed. Others stabbed at heaps of hay and straw with their swords, as if they hadn’t impaled enough sheep and pigs already. Others again shook the feathers out of bedcovers and filled them instead with hams, other dried meats and kitchen utensils, as if these would make for more comfortable sleeping. Stoves and windows were smashed to pieces, quite as if the vandals forecast eternal summer. Copper and tin pans were bashed in, and the dented and ruined bits carted off; bedsteads, tables, chairs and benches were all torched (why, with stacks of dry firewood in the yard, if that’s what they were after?). Pots and dishes all had to be smashed, either because the men preferred eating off the spit or because they knew they’d not be having another meal there. Our maid, I’m ashamed to say, was so abused in the barn that she couldn’t walk afterwards. The stable lad they trussed up, laid him on the ground, wedged a stick between his teeth, and poured a milking pail full of slurry down his throat. A ‘Swedish toast’, they called it. Afterwards they made him lead a party out into the fields, from where they returned with the men, women and animals they’d rounded up – dad, mum and our Ursula among them.
Then they really got going. They removed the flints from their pistols and screwed the peasants’ thumbs in instead, hurting the poor fellows so awfully they might have been after witches. They did in fact bundle one prisoner into the bread oven and push fire in after him, even though he’d confessed to nothing. They took another, bound rope around his head, and wound the rope so tight with a stick that blood spurted from the man’s mouth, nose and ears. To cut a long story short, each soldier devised his own method of torture, and each peasant was put through his or her particular ordeal. Dad was the only lucky one – as I thought at the time. He was grinning and laughing all over his face when he owned up to what others had screeched or mumbled in pain. I’m sure the honour was done him because he was head of the household. What happened was, they sat him in a chair by the fire, tied him hand and foot, and rubbed his bare soles with dampened salt, which they then made our old goat lick off. That must have tickled so much it made him laugh fit to bust. The sound was so catching I had to guffaw too, though whether to keep dad company or through not knowing better I can’t say. And as he laughed, he owned up and told them where he kept his treasure, which included gold and pearls and jewellery and was a lot more valuable than a farmer might have been expected to possess. As to what happened to the women and female servants and young girls they took prisoner, I can’t tell you in detail. The soldiers wouldn’t let me see what they did to them. I can imagine, though, partly from the pathetic screams that came occasionally from the four corners of the house, and I don’t suppose mum or our Ursula fared better than the others. Through all this awfulness I turned spits, and after the feast I helped water the horses, which is how I came across our milkmaid in the stable. She looked dreadfully dishevelled, and I didn’t recognize her until she spoke to me, her voice more than a bit wobbly: ‘Get away, lad, get away! Otherwise the soldiers will take you with them. Promise me: make yourself scarce. You see how horribly—’ But that was all she managed to get out.
Five
How Simplicius legs it – and takes fright at rotten tree stumps
That set me thinking about the pickle I was now in and how I might best get away. But where should I go? My tiny mind would come up with nothing, but I did, towards evening, seek shelter in the forest. Where to now, though? The paths and trees were as strange to me as the trail across the frozen seas to China, way out past Novaya Zemlya. True, when night came I felt slightly safer, but to my pitch-dark wits it was still not dark enough, so I crawled into a thicket. There I could hear not just the screams of the tortured peasants but also the singing of nightingales. They (the birds) couldn’t see them (the peasants, sometimes also called ‘birds’ in our dialect). Unable to share their suffering, they didn’t stop their sweet singing on their account. Likewise, worried though I was, I lay straight down and slept. As dawn glimmered I saw dad’s house ablaze but no one bothering to save it. I crept out, hoping to bump into one of dad’s people, but was immediately spotted by five horsemen. One of them roared, ‘Here, lad – over here! Damned if I won’t blow your block off otherwise!’ I stopped, open-mouthed, wondering what the man wanted or (he spoke so roughly) what he was actually saying. I simply stared at him like a cat at a new barn door. Much to the men’s annoyance, I expect, swampy ground cut them off from where I was standing. So the shouter let off his gun in my direction. The sudden flash and quite unexpected bang, multiplied by the trees, gave me such a fright (I’d never heard or seen anything like either before) that I fell to the ground immediately, rigid with fear. And although the men rode away, no doubt assuming I was dead, that whole entire day I didn’t dare rise to my feet. I did get up, though, once night fell, rousing me to action. As I ventured farther into the forest, I became aware of a rotten tree in the distance, flickering. That gave me another fright, so I quickly changed direction and wa
lked on – until I spotted another tree shimmering in the same way. Once again I spun on my heel. I spent the whole night, in fact, scrambling from one rotten tree to another. Only the friendly face of day came to my aid, ordering the trees not to bother me so long as its light was there. However, that did me no good because my heart was by now heavy with fear and trembling, my legs leaden with fatigue, my empty belly full of hunger, my mouth parched, my brain buzzing with stupid ideas, and my eyelids drooping with sleep. Nevertheless, on I walked through the forest, not knowing where I was going – except that each step took me farther from folk. That bothered me. I was experiencing (quite without being aware of them) the effects of incomprehension and uncertainty. Had a mindless beast been in my place, it would have known better than me what to do for its safety. Even so, when night once again reminded me, I still had the sense to climb into a hollow tree and bed down.
The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus Page 4