chapter I

must make mention of a strange adventure that did greatly terrify and distress us on the evening after our cook her vanishing; for the first night we perceived it not, because sleep overpowered us at once by reason of fatigue and great weariness. And this was it. We having still before our eyes the thousand snares by which the accursed devil would have wrought our ruin in the form of the Abyssinian, could not sleep, but passed the time in watching, and indeed for the most part in prayer; and so soon as it became a little dark we saw floating around us in the air an innumerable quantity of lights, which gave forth such a bright glow that we could discern the fruit on the trees from the leaves: this we deemed to be another invention of the enemy to torment us, and therefore kept still and quiet, but in the end found 'twas but a kind of firefly or glow-worm, as we call them in Germany, which are generated by a particular kind of rotten wood that is found in this island, and shine so bright that one can well use them in place of a lighted candle; for I have written this book for the most part thus: and if they were as common in Europe, Asia, and Africa as they be here, the candle-sellers would do a poor trade.

_Chap. xxii._: FURTHER SEQUEL OF THE ABOVE STORY, AND HOW SIMON MERON LEFT THE ISLAND AND THIS LIFE, AND HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS REMAINED THE SOLE LORD OF THE ISLAND

And now seeing we must perforce remain where we were, we began to order our housekeeping accordingly. So my comrade made out of a black wood that is almost like to iron mattocks and shovels for us both, with the help of which we first dug holes for the three crosses before mentioned, and secondly drew the sea-water into trenches, where, as I had seen at Alexandria in Egypt, it turned into salt; and thirdly we began to make us a cheerful garden; for we deemed that idleness would be for us the beginning of destruction; fourthly, we dug another channel for the brook, into which we could at pleasure turn it off, and so leave the old river-bed dry, and take out as many fish and crayfish as we would with hands and feet dry: fifthly, we found near the said brook a most beautiful potter's clay; and though we had neither lathe nor wheel and, most of all, no borer or other instruments so as to make anything of the kind and so mould for ourselves vessels, and though we had never learned the craft, yet we devised a plan by which we got what we wanted; for having kneaded and prepared the clay as it should be, we made rolls of it of the thickness and length of English tobacco-pipes, and these we stuck one upon another like a snail's shell and formed out of such whatever vessels we would, both great and small, pots and dishes, for cooking and drinking: and when our first baking of these prospered, we had no longer reason to complain of lack of anything; 'tis true we had no bread; but yet plenty of dried fish which we used in its stead. And in time our scheme for getting salt turned out well, so that now we had nothing to complain of but lived like the folk in the golden age of the world: and little by little we learned how with eggs, dried fish, and lemon peel, which two last we ground to a soft meal between two stones, and birds' fat, which we got from the birds called boobies and noddies, to bake savoury cakes in place of bread: likewise did my comrade devise how to draw off the palm-wine very cleverly into great pots and let it stand for a few days till it fermented; and then would he drink of it till he reeled, and this at last he came to do every day, and God knoweth how I dissuaded him therefrom. For he said if 'twas allowed to stand longer 'twould turn to vinegar; in which there was some truth; yet I answered him, he should not at one time draw so much but only enough for our needs; to which he replied that 'twas a sin to despise the gifts of God, and that the palm-trees must have a vein opened at proper times lest they should be choked with their own blood: and so must I give a loose rein to his appetites unless I would be told that I grudged him that of which we had plenty.

And so, as I have said, we lived like the first men in the golden age, when a bountiful heaven produced for them all good things from the earth without labour on their part; but even as in this world there is no life so sweet and happy that is not at times made bitter by the gall of suffering, so happened it with us: for the richer we grew daily in larder and cellar, the more threadbare did our clothes from day to day become, till at last they rotted on our bodies. And 'twas well for us indeed that we thus far had had no winter; no, not the slightest cold; although by this time, when we began to go naked, we had by my notch-calendar spent more than a year and a half on the island, but all the year round 'twas such weather as is wont to be in Europe in May and June, save that about August and a little before it used to rain mighty hard and there were great thunderstorms: moreover from one solstice to another the days did not vary in length more than an hour and a quarter. But although we were alone upon the island, yet would we not go naked like brute beasts, but clothed as became honest Christians of Europe: and had we but had four-footed beasts it had been easy to help ourselves by using their hides for clothing; for lack of which we skinned the birds we took, such as boobies and penguins, and made clothes of this; yet because for want of the needful tools and other material for the purpose we could not dress them so as to last, they became stiff and uneasy and fell away in pieces from our bodies before we were ware of it. 'Tis true the cocoanut-trees bore cotton enough for us, yet could we neither weave nor spin: but my comrade, that had been some years in India, shewed me on the leaves at the very tip a thing like a sharp thorn; which if it be broken off and drawn along the stem of the leaf, as we do with the bean-pods called Faseoli to strip them of their rind, there will remain hanging on the said pointed thorn a string as long as the stem or the leaf is, so that one can use the same for needle and thread too; and this provided me with opportunity to make for us breeches of those leaves and sew them together with the threads of their own growing.

But while we thus lived together, and had so improved our condition that we had no longer any cause to trouble for overwork, waste, want, or calamity, my comrade went on daily tippling at his palm-wine as he had begun, and now had made a habit of it, till at last he so inflamed his lungs and liver that, before I was rightly ware of it, he by his untimely death left me and the island and palm-wine and all. Him did I bury as well as I was able; and as I pondered upon the uncertainty of human life and other the like matters, I wrote for him this epitaph that followeth:

"That I am buried here and not in ocean deep. Nor in the flames of hell (from which may God us keep!) The cause was this: three things did for my soul contend: The first the raging sea: the next the infernal fiend. These two did I escape by God His help and grace: The third was wine of palms, which brought me to this place."

So I became lord of the whole island and began again a hermit's life, for which I had now not only opportunity more than enough but also a fixed desire and purpose thereto. 'Tis true I made all use of the good things and gifts of this place, with hearty thanks to God, whose goodness and might alone had so richly provided for me, but withal I was careful not to misuse this superfluity. And often did I wish that I had Christian men with me that elsewhere must suffer poverty and need, to profit with me by the gifts that God had given: but because I knew that for His Almighty power 'twas more than possible, if it were but His divine will, to bring thither more folk in easier and more miraculous fashion than I had been brought, it often gave me cause humbly to thank Him for His divine Providence in that He had in such fatherly wise cared for me more than many thousands of other men, and set me in a place so full of content and peace.

_Chap. xxiii._: IN WHICH THE HERMIT CONCLUDES HIS STORY AND THEREWITH ENDS THESE HIS SIX BOOKS

Now had my comrade hardly been a week dead when I marked that my abode was haunted. "Yea, yea," I thought, "Simplicissimus, thou art now alone, and so 'twas to be expected that the evil one should endeavour to torment thee. Didst not look that that malicious spirit would make thy life hard for thee? Yet why take count of him, when thou hast God to thy friend? Thou needest but somewhat wherein to exercise thyself; else wilt thou come to thy ruin from mere idleness and superfluity; for besides him thou hast no enemy but thine own self and the plenty and pleasaunce of this island; therefore make thy resolve to strive against him who in his own conceit is the strongest of all. For be he overcome by God his help, then shouldst thou, if God will, by His grace remain master of thyself."

And with these thoughts I went my way for a day or two, and they made of me a better and a piouser man; for I did prepare myself for that encounter which without doubt I must endure with the evil spirit; yet herein did I for this time deceive myself; for as on a certain evening I perceived a somewhat that could be heard, I went out of my hut, which stood close beneath a spur of that mountain, beneath which was the spring of that sweet water that floweth through the island into the sea; and there saw I my comrade that scrabbled with his fingers in a cleft of the rock. Then may ye easily understand that I was afeared; yet quickly I plucked up heart and commended myself to God's protection with the sign of Holy Cross, and thought, "this thing must be; 'twere better to-day than to-morrow."

With that I went up to the spirit and used to him such words as be customary in such a case. And then forthwith I understood that 'twas my deceased comrade, which in his lifetime had there concealed his ducats, as thinking that if, sooner or later, a ship should come to the island, he would recover them and take them away with him; yea, and he gave me to know that he had trusted more in this handful of money, whereby he hoped again to come to his home, than on God; for which cause he must now do penance by such unrest after his death, and moreover against his will be a cause of uneasiness to myself. So at his desire I took forth the money, yet held it as less than naught, as will the sooner be believed because I had nothing on which to employ it. And this was now the first affright that I had after I was left alone; yet afterwards was plagued by spirits of other sorts than this one; whereof I will say no more, but this only, that by God's help and grace I attained to this, that I found no single enemy more, save only mine own thoughts, which were oft troubled enough; for these go not scot-free before God, as men do vainly talk, but in His good time a reckoning must be paid for these also.

So that these might the less stain my soul with sins, I busied myself not only in the avoiding of that which profited naught, but did impose on myself a bodily task the which to perform with my customary prayer; for as man is born for work like the bird for flying, so on the other hand doth idleness inflict her sicknesses both on soul and body, and in the end, when we be least ware of it, eternal ruin. For this cause I planted me a garden, of which indeed I had less need than the waggon hath of a fifth wheel, seeing that the whole island might well be called one lovely pleasure-garden; so was my work of no other avail but that I brought this and that into completer order, albeit to many the natural disorder of the plants as they grew mingled together might appear more pleasing, and again that, as aforesaid, I shunned idleness. O how oft did I wish, when I had wearied out my body and must give it rest, that I had godly books wherein to comfort, to delight, and to edify myself! But such I could not come by. Yet as I had once read of a holy man that he said the whole wide world was to him one great book; wherein to recognise the wondrous works of God and to be cheered to praise Him, so I thought to follow him therein, howbeit I was, so to speak, no longer in the world. For that little island must be my whole world, and in the same, every thing, yea, every tree, an incitement to godliness and a reminder of such thoughts as a good Christian should have. Thus, did I see a prickly plant, forthwith I thought on Christ his crown of thorns; saw I an apple or a pomegranate, then I reflected on the fall of our first parents and mourned therefore; when I did draw palm-wine from a tree, I fancied to myself how mercifully my Redeemer had shed His blood for me on the tree of the Holy Cross; when I looked on sea or on mountain, then I remembered this or that miracle which our Saviour had wrought in such places; and when I found one or more stones that were convenient for casting, I had before mine eyes the picture of the Jews that would have stoned Christ; and when I walked in my garden I thought on the prayer of agony in Mount Olivet, or on the grave of Christ, and how after His Resurrection He appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden. Such thoughts were my daily occupation; never did I eat but that I thought on the Last Supper, and never cooked my food without the fire reminding me of the eternal pains of hell.

At last I found that with Brazil-juice, of which there be several sorts on this island, when mixed with lemon-juice, 'twas easy to write on a kind of large palm-leaves; which rejoiced me greatly; for now could I devise and write out prayers in order; yea, in the end, considering with hearty repentance my whole life and my knavish tricks that I had committed from my youth up, and how the merciful God, despite all such gross sins, had not only thus far preserved me from everlasting damnation, but had given me time and opportunity to better myself and to be converted, to beg His forgiveness and to thank Him for His mercies, I did write down all that had befallen me in this book made of the afore-mentioned palm-leaves, and laid them together with my comrade's ducats in this place, to the end that if at any time folk should come hither, they might find such, and therefrom learn who it was that before inhabited this island. And whoso shall find this and read it, be it to-day or to-morrow, either before or after my death, him I beg that if he meet therein with words which be not becoming, for one that would do better, to speak, much less to write, he will not be angered thereat, but will consider that the telling of light actions and stories demands words fitting thereto; and even as the houseleek cannot easily be soaked by any rain, that so a true and devout spirit cannot forthwith be infected, poisoned, and corrupted by any discourse, though it seem as wanton as you will. The honourably minded Christian reader will rather wonder, and praise the divine mercy, when he shall find that so knavish a companion as I have been yet hath had such grace of God as to resign the world and to live in such a condition that therein he hopeth to come to eternal glory and to attain to everlasting blessedness by the sufferings of his Redeemer, through a pious

END

APPENDIX B

Attached to chap. xxiii. is the "Relation of Jean Cornelissen of Harlem, a Dutch sea-captain, to his good friend German Schleifheim von Sulsfort concerning Simplicissimus."

Its contents are as follows:

On a voyage from the Moluccas to the Cape of Good Hope Cornelissen is separated by stress of weather from the fleet with which he had sailed. Having many of his crew sick, and no fresh water, he is delighted to discover Simplicissimus' isle. His men go ashore and find the hermit's dwelling, which, as the captain only afterwards learn they plunder, and generally behave brutally. Cornelissen finds the crosses and many pious inscriptions on trees, which prove to him that the unknown is a good Christian though probably a Papist. The crew track Simplicissimus to a vast cavern, on entering which their lights are miraculously extinguished. There is an earthquake, and the seamen who had taken part in the plundering of the hermit's dwelling are smitten with madness. Cornelissen, with the chaplain and officers, determines to find Simplicissimus at any cost. They penetrate the cave, but their lights also go out, and Simplicissimus addresses them from the darkness and remonstrates with them for their interference. The chaplain apologises, and asks how the madmen may be cured: he is told that they are to swallow the kernels of certain plums they had eaten. They offer to take him back to Europe, but he refuses. After making a bargain with them to secure his being left in peace, Simplicissimus shews himself surrounded with his glow-worms. He leads them out of the cave and shews them his ruined hut, and tells how his ducats and his book had been stolen. The madmen are brought to their senses again. Simplicissimus recovers his book, which he entrusts to Cornelissen, but again refuses to return to sinful Europe. They rebuild his hut for him, provide him with plenty of tools, a burning-glass, cotton clothing, and a pair of rabbits for breeding purposes: and so, their sick being all recovered, sail away and leave him there.

[A reference to the "Introduction" will show that this island adventure could have had no place in the Simplician cycle of romances; unless we suppose, which is highly improbable, that the author meant it to be subsequent to the inn episode, in which Simplicissimus' family and friends all meet. Most likely we have here the latest addition, in point of composition, to the legend.]

[The following is given as a specimen of the nonsense of which the various continuations are made up.]

APPENDIX C

"Continuatio," _chap. xiii._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS IN RETURN FOR A NIGHT'S LODGING, TAUGHT HIS HOST A CURIOUS ART

Now the evening before this I had lost a certain catalogue of those special arts which I had aforetime practised and written down that I might not forget them so easily: yet I depended not on this to remember how to perform them and with what helps. For example I do here set down the beginning of this list:

So to prepare matches or fuses that they shall give out no smell, seeing that by such smell musqueteers be often betrayed and their plans defeated.

To prepare match so that it will burn though it be wet.

To prepare powder so that it will not burn though red-hot steel be thrust therein: very useful for fortresses that must harbour much of so dangerous a guest.

To shoot men or birds with powder alone so that they shall lie as dead for a while and yet rise up again without harm.

To give a man double strength without the use of carbine-thistle or other such forbidden means.

If a sally from a fortress be checked, so to spike the enemy's guns in a moment that they must burst.

To spoil a man's gun so that it will scare all game to cover till it be again cleansed with a certain other substance.

To hit the bull's-eye in a target more quickly by laying the gun on the shoulder and firing backward, than if a man should take aim and fire in the accustomed way.

A special art to provide that no bullet may hit thee.

To prepare an instrument by means of which, specially on a still night, a man can in wondrous wise hear all that sounds or is spoken at an incredible distance (otherwise clean impossible and supernatural); very profitable for sentries and specially in sieges, etc. (bk. iii., chap. 1.).

In like manner were many arts described in the said catalogue which mine host had found and read: so he came to me himself into my chamber, shewed me the list, and asked whether 'twas possible that these things could be done by natural means; for that could he scarce believe; yet must confess that in his youth, when he served as a page in Italy with Field-marshal von Schauenburg, it was given out by some that the princes of Savoy were proof against bullets: which the said Field-marshal desired to make proof of in the person of Prince Thomas, whom he then kept besieged in a fortress; for when on a time both sides had agreed on a truce for an hour to bury the dead and to confer together, he had commanded a corporal of his regiment, that was held to be the best marksman in the whole army, to take aim at the said prince while he should be standing on the parapet of the wall for a parley, and so soon as the hour agreed upon should end, to fire at him with his piece, with which he could put a lighted candle out at fifty paces: that this corporal had taken careful note of the time and kept the said prince under observation the whole time of the truce, and at the very moment when it ended with the first stroke of the hour, fired at him: yet had his piece, contrary to all belief, missed fire, and before the corporal could make ready again the prince was gone behind the parapet; whereupon the corporal pointed out to the Field-marshal, who had likewise come to him on the trenches, a Switzer of the prince's guard, at whom he aimed and hit him in such fashion that he rolled over and over; wherefrom it plainly appeared that there was something in the story that no prince of the house of Savoy could be hit or harmed. Yet whether this was brought about by such arts, or whether perchance the said princely house enjoyed a special grace from God, being, as 'twas said, sprung from the race of the royal prophet David, he knew not.

I answered, "I know not either, but this I do know of a surety, that the arts here specified be natural and no witchcraft." Which if he would not believe, let him but say which he held to be the most wonderful and impossible and I would at once to satisfy him (provided only that 'twas one that asked not long time but only such means as I had then at hand), make trial of it, for I must presently be a-foot and pursue my journey. At that he said this seemed to him the most impossible, that gunpowder should not burn if fire were put to it, unless one should first pour the powder into water; which if I could by natural means effect he would believe concerning all the other arts, though there were over sixty of them, what he might not see and before such trial could not believe. I answered, let him bring me quickly a charge of powder and also a certain substance which I had need of, and fire also, and presently he should see that the trick would hold. This being done, I caused him to follow my process and then set light to the powder: yet could he do no more than burn here and there a grain though he worked at it for a quarter of an hour, and accomplished no more than that he cooled a red-hot iron and quenched matches and lighted coals in the very powder itself. "Aha!" says he, "the powder is bad." But I answered him in act, and without much ado, before he could count a score, so worked it that the powder blew up when he had scarce touched it with the fire.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _Lit._, "Bohemian Villages," _i.e._, with unpronounceable names.]

[Footnote 2: William, Duke of Aquitaine, and afterwards a Saint noted for the acerbity of his penances.]

[Footnote 3: A proverb: on Saint Gertrude's day spinning ceases and garden-work begins.]

[Footnote 4: Viz. "ihnen den Hintern zu lecken."]

[Footnote 5: The commandments are here numbered according to the Roman arrangement, but the meaning is obscure.]

[Footnote 6: The hermit.]

[Footnote 7: _i.e._ full of innocence.]

[Footnote 8: Given as an example of a Roman of luxurious tastes.]

[Footnote 9: Refers to an episode omitted in this translation.]

[Footnote 10: Allusion to a cruel practice in use in falconry.]

[Footnote 11: Proverbial: an allusion to a popular story.]

[Footnote 12: Lit. there are folk dwelling beyond the mountains too.]

[Footnote 13: I.e., he was bewitched.]

[Footnote 14: Hessian General.]

[Footnote 15: It is difficult to translate the German expression. Probably this word, meaning a maritime trader in illicit wares, represents it best.]

[Footnote 16: Obscure lines: many of the expressions in this chapter are now inexplicable.]

[Footnote 17: He wrote the words down as he was told as if they meant the _judge's_ mother.]

[Footnote 18: The cuirass would be well lined to prevent chafing.]

[Footnote 19: Some 120 years before.]

[Footnote 20: Besieged by the Spaniards from 1601 to 1604.]

[Footnote 21: A kind of Eldorado.]

[Footnote 22: The famous cavalry commander of the Imperialists.]

[Footnote 23: The musqueteer supported his piece on a prop or stake.]

[Footnote 24: See chap. iii.]

[Footnote 25: viz. Lippstadt.]

[Footnote 26: The initials only of the name are given in the original.]

[Footnote 27: The pastor was 'Reformed' (i.e. Calvinist).]

[Footnote 28: I.e., at the Antipodes: "at the other end of the world."]

[Footnote 29: Referring to a body of Breton troops sent by Richelieu to help Guebriant. They turned out worthless.]

[Footnote 30: "Bearskinner" was the troopers' name for a malingerer. It was taken from a very old legend.]

[Footnote 31: The allusion is to the escape of the robber-knight, Eppelin von Gailingen, from the Castle of Nuremberg.]

[Footnote 32: In 1063 the retainers of the Bishop of Hildesheim and the Abbot of Fulda fought in church at Goslar, and much bloodshed ensued.]

[Footnote 33: Act as a usurer or cheat.]

[Footnote 34: He may possibly mean the three old fortifications of which ruins still remain: Schwaben-, Schweden-, and Alexander-schanze; all of which are close to his favourite spa at Griesbach.]

[Footnote 35: See chap. xi. above.]

[Footnote 36: This was "Courage," the heroine of some of Grimmelshausen's later romances.]

[Footnote 37: Unknown.]

[Footnote 38: The jest is now unintelligible.]

[Footnote 39: It was really Christian of Brunswick, marching to join Mansfeld.]

[Footnote 40: "Goblin" or rather "bogey" lake.]

[Footnote 41: D'Enghien.]

[Footnote 42: A hedge schoolmaster.]

[Footnote 43: Offa. Offenburg.]

[Footnote 44: Baiersbronn.]

[Footnote 45: Literally "a Bohemian ear-picker."]

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