How Gaster invented an art to avoid being hurt or touched by cannon-balls.
Gaster having secured himself with his corn within strongholds, has sometimes been attacked by enemies; his fortresses1, by that thrice threefold cursed instrument, levelled and destroyed; his dearly beloved corn and bread snatched out of his mouth and sacked by a titanic2 force; therefore he then sought means to preserve his walls, bastions, rampiers, and sconces from cannon-shot, and to hinder the bullets from hitting him, stopping them in their flight, or at least from doing him or the besieged4 walls any damage. He showed us a trial of this which has been since used by Fronton, and is now common among the pastimes and harmless recreations of the Thelemites. I will tell you how he went to work, and pray for the future be a little more ready to believe what Plutarch affirms to have tried. Suppose a herd5 of goats were all scampering6 as if the devil drove them, do but put a bit of eringo into the mouth of the hindmost nanny, and they will all stop stock still in the time you can tell three.
Thus Gaster, having caused a brass7 falcon8 to be charged with a sufficient quantity of gunpowder9 well purged10 from its sulphur, and curiously11 made up with fine camphor, he then had a suitable ball put into the piece, with twenty-four little pellets like hail-shot, some round, some pearl fashion; then taking his aim and levelling it at a page of his, as if he would have hit him on the breast. About sixty strides off the piece, halfway12 between it and the page in a right line, he hanged on a gibbet by a rope a very large siderite or iron-like stone, otherwise called herculean, formerly13 found on Ida in Phrygia by one Magnes, as Nicander writes, and commonly called loadstone; then he gave fire to the prime on the piece’s touch-hole, which in an instant consuming the powder, the ball and hail-shot were with incredible violence and swiftness hurried out of the gun at its muzzle15, that the air might penetrate16 to its chamber17, where otherwise would have been a vacuum, which nature abhors18 so much, that this universal machine, heaven, air, land, and sea, would sooner return to the primitive19 chaos20 than admit the least void anywhere. Now the ball and small shot, which threatened the page with no less than quick destruction, lost their impetuosity and remained suspended and hovering21 round the stone; nor did any of them, notwithstanding the fury with which they rushed, reach the page.
Master Gaster could do more than all this yet, if you will believe me; for he invented a way how to cause bullets to fly backwards22, and recoil23 on those that sent them with as great a force, and in the very numerical parallel for which the guns were planted. And indeed, why should he have thought this difficult? seeing the herb ethiopis opens all locks whatsoever24, and an echinus or remora, a silly weakly fish, in spite of all the winds that blow from the thirty-two points of the compass, will in the midst of a hurricane make you the biggest first-rate remain stock still, as if she were becalmed or the blustering25 tribe had blown their last. Nay26, and with the flesh of that fish, preserved with salt, you may fish gold out of the deepest well that was ever sounded with a plummet27; for it will certainly draw up the precious metal, since Democritus affirmed it. Theophrastus believed and experienced that there was an herb at whose single touch an iron wedge, though never so far driven into a huge log of the hardest wood that is, would presently come out; and it is this same herb your hickways, alias28 woodpeckers, use, when with some mighty29 axe30 anyone stops up the hole of their nests, which they industriously31 dig and make in the trunk of some sturdy tree. Since stags and hinds32, when deeply wounded with darts33, arrows, and bolts, if they do but meet the herb called dittany, which is common in Candia, and eat a little of it, presently the shafts34 come out and all is well again; even as kind Venus cured her beloved byblow Aeneas when he was wounded on the right thigh35 with an arrow by Juturna, Turnus’s sister. Since the very wind of laurels36, fig-trees, or sea-calves makes the thunder sheer off insomuch that it never strikes them. Since at the sight of a ram3, mad elephants recover their former senses. Since mad bulls coming near wild fig-trees, called caprifici, grow tame, and will not budge37 a foot, as if they had the cramp38. Since the venomous rage of vipers39 is assuaged40 if you but touch them with a beechen bough41. Since also Euphorion writes that in the isle42 of Samos, before Juno’s temple was built there, he has seen some beasts called neades, whose voice made the neighbouring places gape43 and sink into a chasm44 and abyss. In short, since elders grow of a more pleasing sound, and fitter to make flutes45, in such places where the crowing of cocks is not heard, as the ancient sages46 have writ14 and Theophrastus relates; as if the crowing of a cock dulled, flattened47, and perverted48 the wood of the elder, as it is said to astonish and stupify with fear that strong and resolute49 animal, a lion. I know that some have understood this of wild elder, that grows so far from towns or villages that the crowing of cocks cannot reach near it; and doubtless that sort ought to be preferred to the stenching common elder that grows about decayed and ruined places; but others have understood this in a higher sense, not literal, but allegorical, according to the method of the Pythagoreans, as when it was said that Mercury’s statue could not be made of every sort of wood; to which sentence they gave this sense, that God is not to be worshipped in a vulgar form, but in a chosen and religious manner. In the same manner, by this elder which grows far from places where cocks are heard, the ancients meant that the wise and studious ought not to give their minds to trivial or vulgar music, but to that which is celestial50, divine, angelical, more abstracted, and brought from remoter parts, that is, from a region where the crowing of cocks is not heard; for, to denote a solitary51 and unfrequented place, we say cocks are never heard to crow there.
1 fortresses | |
堡垒,要塞( fortress的名词复数 ) | |
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2 titanic | |
adj.巨人的,庞大的,强大的 | |
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3 ram | |
(random access memory)随机存取存储器 | |
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4 besieged | |
包围,围困,围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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5 herd | |
n.兽群,牧群;vt.使集中,把…赶在一起 | |
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6 scampering | |
v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑,惊惶奔跑( scamper的现在分词 ) | |
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7 brass | |
n.黄铜;黄铜器,铜管乐器 | |
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8 falcon | |
n.隼,猎鹰 | |
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9 gunpowder | |
n.火药 | |
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10 purged | |
清除(政敌等)( purge的过去式和过去分词 ); 涤除(罪恶等); 净化(心灵、风气等); 消除(错事等)的不良影响 | |
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11 curiously | |
adv.有求知欲地;好问地;奇特地 | |
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12 halfway | |
adj.中途的,不彻底的,部分的;adv.半路地,在中途,在半途 | |
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13 formerly | |
adv.从前,以前 | |
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14 writ | |
n.命令状,书面命令 | |
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15 muzzle | |
n.鼻口部;口套;枪(炮)口;vt.使缄默 | |
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16 penetrate | |
v.透(渗)入;刺入,刺穿;洞察,了解 | |
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17 chamber | |
n.房间,寝室;会议厅;议院;会所 | |
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18 abhors | |
v.憎恶( abhor的第三人称单数 );(厌恶地)回避;拒绝;淘汰 | |
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19 primitive | |
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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20 chaos | |
n.混乱,无秩序 | |
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21 hovering | |
鸟( hover的现在分词 ); 靠近(某事物); (人)徘徊; 犹豫 | |
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22 backwards | |
adv.往回地,向原处,倒,相反,前后倒置地 | |
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23 recoil | |
vi.退却,退缩,畏缩 | |
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24 whatsoever | |
adv.(用于否定句中以加强语气)任何;pron.无论什么 | |
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25 blustering | |
adj.狂风大作的,狂暴的v.外强中干的威吓( bluster的现在分词 );咆哮;(风)呼啸;狂吹 | |
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26 nay | |
adv.不;n.反对票,投反对票者 | |
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27 plummet | |
vi.(价格、水平等)骤然下跌;n.铅坠;重压物 | |
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28 alias | |
n.化名;别名;adv.又名 | |
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29 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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30 axe | |
n.斧子;v.用斧头砍,削减 | |
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31 industriously | |
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32 hinds | |
n.(常指动物腿)后面的( hind的名词复数 );在后的;(通常与can或could连用)唠叨不停;滔滔不绝 | |
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33 darts | |
n.掷飞镖游戏;飞镖( dart的名词复数 );急驰,飞奔v.投掷,投射( dart的第三人称单数 );向前冲,飞奔 | |
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34 shafts | |
n.轴( shaft的名词复数 );(箭、高尔夫球棒等的)杆;通风井;一阵(疼痛、害怕等) | |
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35 thigh | |
n.大腿;股骨 | |
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36 laurels | |
n.桂冠,荣誉 | |
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37 budge | |
v.移动一点儿;改变立场 | |
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38 cramp | |
n.痉挛;[pl.](腹)绞痛;vt.限制,束缚 | |
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39 vipers | |
n.蝰蛇( viper的名词复数 );毒蛇;阴险恶毒的人;奸诈者 | |
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40 assuaged | |
v.减轻( assuage的过去式和过去分词 );缓和;平息;使安静 | |
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41 bough | |
n.大树枝,主枝 | |
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42 isle | |
n.小岛,岛 | |
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43 gape | |
v.张口,打呵欠,目瞪口呆地凝视 | |
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44 chasm | |
n.深坑,断层,裂口,大分岐,利害冲突 | |
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45 flutes | |
长笛( flute的名词复数 ); 细长香槟杯(形似长笛) | |
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46 sages | |
n.圣人( sage的名词复数 );智者;哲人;鼠尾草(可用作调料) | |
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47 flattened | |
[医](水)平扁的,弄平的 | |
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48 perverted | |
adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 );腐蚀;败坏;使堕落 | |
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49 resolute | |
adj.坚决的,果敢的 | |
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50 celestial | |
adj.天体的;天上的 | |
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51 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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