Virgil speaks of the transformation3 of M?ris into a wolf, as a thing of very ordinary occurrence:
Saepe lupum fieri M?rim4, et se condere silvis.
Oft changed to wolf, he seeks the forest shade.
Was this doctrine5 of metamorphoses derived6 from the old fables7 of Egypt, which gave out that the gods had changed themselves into animals in the war against the giants?
The Greeks, great imitators and improvers of the Oriental fables, metamorphosed almost all the gods into men or into beasts, to make them succeed the better in their amorous9 designs. If the gods changed themselves into bulls, horses, swans, doves, etc., why should not men have undergone the same operation?
Several commentators10, forgetting the respect due to the Holy Scriptures11, have cited the example of Nebuchadnezzar changed into an ox; but this was a miracle — a divine vengeance12 — a thing quite out of the course of nature, which ought not to be examined with profane13 eyes, and cannot become an object of our researches.
Others of the learned, perhaps with equal indiscretion, avail themselves of what is related in the Gospel of the Infancy14. An Egyptian maiden15 having entered the chamber16 of some women, saw there a mule17 with a silken cloth over his back, and an ebony pendant at his neck.
These women were in tears, kissing him and giving him to eat. The mule was their own brother. Some sorceresses had deprived him of the human figure; but the Master of Nature soon restored it.
Although this gospel is apocryphal18, the very name that it bears prevents us from examining this adventure in detail; only it may serve to show how much metamorphoses were in vogue19 almost throughout the earth. The Christians20 who composed their gospel were undoubtedly21 honest men. They did not seek to fabricate a romance; they related with simplicity22 what they had heard. The church, which afterwards rejected their gospel, together with forty-nine others, did not accuse its authority of impiety23 and prevarication24; those obscure individuals addressed the populace in language comformable with the prejudices of the age in which they lived. China was perhaps the only country exempt25 from these superstitions27.
The adventure of the companions of Ulysses, changed into beasts by Circe, was much more ancient than the dogma of the metempsychosis, broached28 in Greece and Italy by Pythagoras.
On what can the assertion be founded that there is no universal error which is not the abuse of some truth; that there have been quacks29 only because there have been true physicians; and that false prodigies30 have been believed only because there have been true ones?
Were there any certain testimonies31 that men had become wolves, oxen, horses, or asses32? This universal error had for its principle only the love of the marvellous and the natural inclination33 to superstition26.
One erroneous opinion is enough to fill the whole world with fables. An Indian doctor sees that animals have feeling and memory. He concludes that they have a soul. Men have one likewise. What becomes of the soul of man after death? What becomes of that of the beast? They must go somewhere. They go into the nearest body that is beginning to be formed. The soul of a Brahmin takes up its abode34 in the body of an elephant, the soul of an ass is that of a little Brahmin. Such is the dogma of the metempsychosis, which was built upon simple deduction35.
But it is a wide step from this dogma to that of metamorphosis. We have no longer a soul without a tenement36, seeking a lodging37; but one body changed into another, the soul remaining as before. Now, we certainly have not in nature any example of such legerdemain38.
Let us then inquire into the origin of so extravagant39 yet so general an opinion. If some father had characterized his son, sunk in ignorance and filthy40 debauchery, as a hog41, a horse, or an ass, and afterwards made him do penance42 with an ass’s cap on his head, and some servant girl of the neighborhood gave it out that this young man had been turned into an ass as a punishment for his faults, her neighbors would repeat it to other neighbors, and from mouth to mouth this story, with a thousand embellishments, would make the tour of the world. An ambiguous expression would suffice to deceive the whole earth.
Here then let us confess, with Boileau, that ambiguity43 has been the parent of most of our ridiculous follies44. Add to this the power of magic, which has been acknowledged as indisputable in all nations, and you will no longer be astonished at anything.
One word more on asses. It is said that in Mesopotamia they are warlike and that Mervan, the twenty-first caliph, was surnamed “the Ass,” for his valor45.
The patriarch Photius relates, in the extract from the Life of Isidorus, that Ammonius had an ass which had a great taste for poetry, and would leave his manger to go and hear verses. The fable8 of Midas is better than the tale of Photius.
Machiavelli’s Golden Ass.
Machiavelli’s ass is but little known. The dictionaries which speak of it say that it was a production of his youth; it would seem, however, that he was of mature age; for he speaks in it of the misfortunes which he had formerly46 and for a long time experienced. The work is a satire47 on his contemporaries. The author sees a number of Florentines, of whom one is changed into a cat, another into a dragon, a third into a dog that bays the moon, a fourth into a fox who does not suffer himself to be caught; each character is drawn48 under the name of an animal. The factions49 of the house of Medicis and their enemies are doubtless figured therein; and the key to this comic apocalypse would admit us to the secrets of Pope Leo and the troubles of Florence. This poem is full of morality and philosophy. It ends with the very rational reflections of a large hog, which addresses man in nearly the following terms:
Ye naked bipeds, without beaks50 or claws,
?Hairless, and featherless, and tender-hided,
Weeping ye come into the world — because
?Ye feel your evil destiny decided51;
Nature has given you industrious52 paws;
?You, like the parrots, are with speech provided;
But have ye honest hearts? — Alas53! alas!
In this we swine your bipedships surpass!
Man is far worse than we — more fierce, more wild —
?Coward or madman, sinning every minute;
By frenzy54 and by fear in turn beguiled55,
?He dreads56 the grave, yet plunges57 headlong in it;
If pigs fall out, they soon are reconciled;
?Their quarrel’s ended ere they well begin it.
If crime with manhood always must combine,
Good Lord! let me forever be a swine.
This is the original of Boileau’s “Satire on Man,” and La Fontaine’s fable of the “Companions of Ulysses”; but it is quite likely that neither La Fontaine nor Boileau had ever heard of Machiavelli’s ass.
The Ass of Verona.
I must speak the truth, and not deceive my readers. I do not very clearly know whether the Ass of Verona still exists in all his splendor58; but the travellers who saw him forty or fifty years ago agree in saying that the relics59 were enclosed in the body of an artificial ass made on purpose, which was in the keeping of forty monks60 of Our Lady of the Organ, at Verona, and was carried in procession twice a year. This was one of the most ancient relics of the town. According to the tradition, this ass, having carried our Lord in his entry into Jerusalem, did not choose to abide61 any longer in that city, but trotted62 over the sea — which for that purpose became as hard as his hoof63 — by way of Cyprus, Rhodes, Candia, Malta, and Sicily. There he went to sojourn64 at Aquilea; and at last he settled at Verona, where he lived a long while.
This fable originated in the circumstance that most asses have a sort of black cross on their backs. There possibly might be an old ass in the neighborhood of Verona, on whose back the populace remarked a finer cross than his brethren could boast of; some good old woman would be at hand to say that this was the ass on which Christ rode into Jerusalem; and the ass would be honored with a magnificent funeral. The feast established at Verona passed into other countries, and was especially celebrated65 in France. In the mass was sung:
Orientis partibus
Adventabit asinus,
Pulcher et fortissimus.
There was a long procession, headed by a young woman with a child in her arms, mounted on an ass, representing the Virgin66 Mary going into Egypt. At the end of the mass the priest, instead of saying Ite missa est, brayed67 three times with all his might, and the people answered in chorus.
We have books on the feast of the ass, and the feast of fools; they furnish material towards a universal history of the human mind.
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1 ass | |
n.驴;傻瓜,蠢笨的人 | |
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2 antiquity | |
n.古老;高龄;古物,古迹 | |
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3 transformation | |
n.变化;改造;转变 | |
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4 rim | |
n.(圆物的)边,轮缘;边界 | |
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5 doctrine | |
n.教义;主义;学说 | |
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6 derived | |
vi.起源;由来;衍生;导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 );(从…中)得到获得;源于;(从…中)提取 | |
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7 fables | |
n.寓言( fable的名词复数 );神话,传说 | |
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8 fable | |
n.寓言;童话;神话 | |
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9 amorous | |
adj.多情的;有关爱情的 | |
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10 commentators | |
n.评论员( commentator的名词复数 );时事评论员;注释者;实况广播员 | |
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11 scriptures | |
经文,圣典( scripture的名词复数 ); 经典 | |
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12 vengeance | |
n.报复,报仇,复仇 | |
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13 profane | |
adj.亵神的,亵渎的;vt.亵渎,玷污 | |
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14 infancy | |
n.婴儿期;幼年期;初期 | |
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15 maiden | |
n.少女,处女;adj.未婚的,纯洁的,无经验的 | |
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16 chamber | |
n.房间,寝室;会议厅;议院;会所 | |
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17 mule | |
n.骡子,杂种,执拗的人 | |
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18 apocryphal | |
adj.假冒的,虚假的 | |
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19 Vogue | |
n.时髦,时尚;adj.流行的 | |
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20 Christians | |
n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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21 undoubtedly | |
adv.确实地,无疑地 | |
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22 simplicity | |
n.简单,简易;朴素;直率,单纯 | |
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23 impiety | |
n.不敬;不孝 | |
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24 prevarication | |
n.支吾;搪塞;说谎;有枝有叶 | |
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25 exempt | |
adj.免除的;v.使免除;n.免税者,被免除义务者 | |
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26 superstition | |
n.迷信,迷信行为 | |
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27 superstitions | |
迷信,迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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28 broached | |
v.谈起( broach的过去式和过去分词 );打开并开始用;用凿子扩大(或修光);(在桶上)钻孔取液体 | |
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29 quacks | |
abbr.quacksalvers 庸医,骗子(16世纪习惯用水银或汞治疗梅毒的人)n.江湖医生( quack的名词复数 );江湖郎中;(鸭子的)呱呱声v.(鸭子)发出嘎嘎声( quack的第三人称单数 ) | |
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30 prodigies | |
n.奇才,天才(尤指神童)( prodigy的名词复数 ) | |
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31 testimonies | |
(法庭上证人的)证词( testimony的名词复数 ); 证明,证据 | |
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32 asses | |
n. 驴,愚蠢的人,臀部 adv. (常用作后置)用于贬损或骂人 | |
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33 inclination | |
n.倾斜;点头;弯腰;斜坡;倾度;倾向;爱好 | |
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34 abode | |
n.住处,住所 | |
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35 deduction | |
n.减除,扣除,减除额;推论,推理,演绎 | |
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36 tenement | |
n.公寓;房屋 | |
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37 lodging | |
n.寄宿,住所;(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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38 legerdemain | |
n.戏法,诈术 | |
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39 extravagant | |
adj.奢侈的;过分的;(言行等)放肆的 | |
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40 filthy | |
adj.卑劣的;恶劣的,肮脏的 | |
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41 hog | |
n.猪;馋嘴贪吃的人;vt.把…占为己有,独占 | |
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42 penance | |
n.(赎罪的)惩罪 | |
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43 ambiguity | |
n.模棱两可;意义不明确 | |
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44 follies | |
罪恶,时事讽刺剧; 愚蠢,蠢笨,愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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45 valor | |
n.勇气,英勇 | |
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46 formerly | |
adv.从前,以前 | |
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47 satire | |
n.讽刺,讽刺文学,讽刺作品 | |
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48 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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49 factions | |
组织中的小派别,派系( faction的名词复数 ) | |
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50 beaks | |
n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 );鹰钩嘴;尖鼻子;掌权者 | |
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51 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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52 industrious | |
adj.勤劳的,刻苦的,奋发的 | |
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53 alas | |
int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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54 frenzy | |
n.疯狂,狂热,极度的激动 | |
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55 beguiled | |
v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 );使陶醉;使高兴;消磨(时间等) | |
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56 dreads | |
n.恐惧,畏惧( dread的名词复数 );令人恐惧的事物v.害怕,恐惧,担心( dread的第三人称单数 ) | |
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57 plunges | |
n.跳进,投入vt.使投入,使插入,使陷入vi.投入,跳进,陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 );暴跌;骤降;突降 | |
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58 splendor | |
n.光彩;壮丽,华丽;显赫,辉煌 | |
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59 relics | |
[pl.]n.遗物,遗迹,遗产;遗体,尸骸 | |
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60 monks | |
n.修道士,僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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61 abide | |
vi.遵守;坚持;vt.忍受 | |
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62 trotted | |
小跑,急走( trot的过去分词 ); 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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63 hoof | |
n.(马,牛等的)蹄 | |
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64 sojourn | |
v./n.旅居,寄居;逗留 | |
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65 celebrated | |
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
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66 virgin | |
n.处女,未婚女子;adj.未经使用的;未经开发的 | |
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67 brayed | |
v.发出驴叫似的声音( bray的过去式和过去分词 );发嘟嘟声;粗声粗气地讲话(或大笑);猛击 | |
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