~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From Lucian’s Wonderland, being a Translation of the ‘Vera Historia,’ by St J. Basil Wynne Willson, M. A., illustrated by A. Payne Garnett; Edinburgh and London: Blackwood and Sons; 1899, pp. 17-36.
AN
AERIAL
VOYAGE.
BOUT noon, when we were out of sight of the island, a whirlwind suddenly overtook us, and eddying round the vessel, lifted it to a height of one million eight hundred thousand feet, and did not drop it again into the sea, but, whilst it was suspended in the air, the wind fell upon the sails and drove it along, bellying out the canvas.
After an aerial voyage of seven days and seven nights, we sighted land in the air, like an island, luminous, spherical, and shining with a strong light. We put in to it, and having cast anchor, landed. On examining the country, we discovered it to be inhabited and cultivated. In the daytime we could see nothing from where we were, but when night came on, other islands were visible to us close by, some larger, and some smaller, with the appearance of fire. There was also another land below with cities, rivers, seas, woods, and mountains on it. This we conjectured to be our world. Having made up our minds to proceed farther, we were suddenly arrested, meeting with creatures that the people of the country call Horse-Griffins. They are men riding on huge griffins and employing the birds as horses. These griffins
THE SHIP IS CAUGHT UP INTO THE SKIES.
[20]
[blank]
21
ENDYMION.are large and for the most part three-headed. One can judge of their size from the fact that each of their wings is bigger and stouter than the sail of a large merchant-ship. The creatures have orders to fly round the country and bring every stranger that may be found therein to the King.
Accordingly they arrest us, and conduct us to him. His Majesty, when he saw us, conjecturing our nationality from our dress, remarked, “Greeks, I presume, ye are, strangers?” On our assenting, “How came ye here?” he asked. “How did ye make so long a journey through the air?”
So we related to him all our adventures; and he began and narrated to us his own story — how that he himself also was a man, named Endymion,1 and once on a time been caught up in his sleep from earth, and 22 on arriving in this land had been made King. He informed us that that land was the Moon, whose light shone down upon us below, but bade us be of good courage and suspect no danger. He assured us that we should be provided with all that we needed. “And if,” he added, “I bring the war that I am now waging against the inhabitants of the Sun to a successful issue, you shall live the happiest of lives at my Court.
We inquired who the enemy were and what was the cause of the quarrel.
“Phaethon,” he replied, “the King of the people of the Sun, which also is inhabited like the Moon, has for a long time past been making war on us. This he began for the following reason. I once collected the poorest of my subjects and wished to send them as a colony to Lucifer, which was desolate and
THE ARMY
OF THE
MOON.23
uninhabited. Phaethon became jealous and thwarted the colony, meeting them in the midst of their passage on his Horse-Ants. On this occasion we were defeated, as our force was not equal to his, and retreated.
“And now I wish again to prosecute the war and to despatch the colony. Therefore, if you are so minded, join with me in the expedition. I will furnish each of you with a griffin from the royal stables, and will provide you with all other necessary equipment. To-morrow we will begin our march.”
“Be it so,” said I, “since so it pleases your Majesty.” Then we feasted at his table and became his guests.
At dawn we arose and fell into rank, for the scouts were announcing that the enemy were close at hand. The main body of the army consisted of a hundred thousand men, 24 without reckoning the camp-followers, the engineers, the infantry, and the foreign allies. Of this force eighty thousand were Horse-Griffins, and twenty thousand men mounted on Cabbage-Fowls. This creature is a prodigious bird, bristling all over with cabbages instead of wings, and has quill-feathers resembling lettuce leaves.
Arrayed against these were the Barley-Shooters and the Onion-Fighters. There came also allies from the Great Bear, thirty thousand Flea-Skirmishers and fifty thousand Wind-Racers. The Flea-Skirmishers ride on huge fleas, whence they get their name. The size of the fleas is about equal to that of twelve elephants. The Wind-Racers are foot soldiers, and move along in the air without wings. The manner of their progression is this: clad in long trailing garments, they swell them out
A
STRANGE
EQUIPMENT.25
with the wind like sails, and move as if they were ships. These generally play the part of targeteers in battle.
It was said that seventy thousand Sparrow-Nuts and fifty thousand Horse-Cranes were about to arrive from the Stars above Cappadocia. These I did not see, for they failed to arrive. Therefore I have not even ventured to describe their nature. Marvellous and incredible were the accounts given of them. Such were the forces of Endymion.
The equipment of all was the same. Their helmets were constructed of beans — for beans are big and strong in those parts — and their breastplates were of mail fashioned of peas-pods. The breastplates are formed by sewing together the pods of the peas. In this country the pod of the pea is as unbreakable as horn. Their shields and swords are like those of Greece.
26When the time came, they stationed themselves as follows. The right wing was held by the Horse-Griffins and the King with a picked Staff, including ourselves. The left was occupied by the Cabbage-Fowls, and the centre by the allies in proper order. The infantry numbered about sixty millions. Such was the disposition of forces. In that country they have many huge spiders, each far bigger than one of the islands of the Cyclades. These the King ordered to cover with a web the whole expanse of air between Lucifer and the Moon. When with all despatch they had carried out the order, and made a battlefield, he drew up the infantry thereupon. The leaders were Nightjar, son of Lordocalm, and two others.
The enemy’s left was held by the Horse-Ants with Phaethon amongst them. These
SPIDER-
WEB
PLAIN.27
are huge winged creatures closely resembling our ants in all except size — for the biggest of them was about two hundred feet long.
BATTLE IN THE AIR ON THE SPIDER-WEB PLAIN.
Not only did their rides fight, but also the ants themselves with their antennæ. The number of them was said to be about fifty thousand. On the right wing were posted 28 the Sky-Gnats, in number about fifty thousand, all armed with bows and mounted on huge gnats.
In their rear came the Sky-Crows, on foot and lightly armed with bows; yet they too were good stout warriors — for they kept at a distance and slung monster radishes. He who was wounded thereby could not show fight even for a brief space, but died owing to the evil stench that immediately arose in the wound. They were said to anoint their arrows with poison of mallows. Near them were stationed the Stalky-Toadstools, heavy armed troops who fought at close quarters, ten thousand in number. They were so called because they used shields made of fungus and spears of asparagus-stalks. Next to these stood five thousand Dog-Nuts, a reinforcement to the King from the Dog-Star. They had
A
GREAT
BATTLE.29
faces like dogs and fought on winged acorns. The slingers, whom the King had sent for from the Milky Way, were expected, I was told, to arrive, as well as the Cloud-Centaurs. But the latter only arrived when the battle was decided (and I would that they had not arrived then), whilst the slingers did not appear at all. There is a report that afterwards in anger at this Phaethon burnt their land. Such was the force with which Phaethon was advancing.
The two armies drew close together, and when the signals had been given and the asses on each side had brayed — asses, I should say, they use instead of trumpeters — the battle began. The left wing of the Sun-men immediately fled without even waiting for the charge of the Horse-Griffins, and we pursued them with great slaughter. But their 30 right wing gained the advantage over our left, and the Sky-Gnats pressed on in pursuit right up to the infantry. Then, however, the foot-soldiers offered such stout resistance that the enemy turned and fled, especially when they witnessed the defeat of their friends on the left. The rout now became undisguised. Many were taken alive and many slain, and their blood flowed in streams over the clouds, so that they were dyed and became as red as they appear to us on earth at sunset. Much of the blood dropped down on to the earth, so that I asked myself whether it might not have been some such occurrence as this ages ago up in the sky that made Homer suppose that Zeus rained blood at the death of Sarpedon.2
On our return from pursuit we set up two trophies — the one on the spiders’ webs, to
THE ARCHER
OF THE
ZODIAC.31
celebrate the infantry battle; the other on the clouds, to celebrate the air-fight.
At this very moment it was announced by scouts that the Cloud-Centaurs, who ought to have reached Phaethon before the battle, were riding up. And in truth a very strange sight they presented as they approached, being a combination of winged horses and men. The size of the men — that is to say, from the middle upwards — was nigh that of the Colossus of Rhodes,3 whilst the size of the horses was about that of a big merchant-ship. Their number I have not recorded, through fear that it may appear incredible to some, — so prodigious was it. Their leader was the Archer of the Zodiac.
Seeing the defeat of their friends, they sent a message to Phaethon bidding him return to the charge, whilst they themselves in battle 32 array fell upon the Moon-men, who were in disorder — for they had broken rank, and had scattered in pursuit and in search of spoil. The enemy rout them all and chase the King himself up to the city, killing most of his birds. They tore down the trophies and over-ran the whole plain that had been woven by the spiders, whilst myself and two other of my companions they took prisoners. By this time Phaethon had arrived on the scene, and other trophies were being erected by the enemy.
As for ourselves, we were led off that same day to the Sun, with our hands tied behind our backs with a shred of spiders’ web.
The victors determined not to besiege the city of the Moon, but, turning back, built a wall across the intervening space of air, so that the rays from the Sun should no longer
A
TOTAL
ECLIPSE.33
reach the Moon. The wall was double and built of clouds. The result was that a total eclipse of the Moon occurred, and the whole planet was shrouded in perpetual night.
In distress at these measures, Endymion sent an embassy, begging Phaethon to pull down the wall, and entreating him not to leave them to live in darkness. He promised to pay tribute, to be an ally, and never more to make war. As a guarantee thereof he was willing to give hostages. The subjects of Phaethon held two public assemblies: at the first they showed no signs of abatement of anger, but at the second they changed their minds, and peace was made on the following terms: —
Be it known, by these presents, that the people of the Sun and their allies 34 have made a treaty with the people of the Moon and their allies on conditions appended: —
1. That the people of the Sun do pull down the wall and do no longer invade the Moon, but do give back the prisoners, each for a sum to be agreed upon.
2. That the people of the Moon do grant freedom and independence to all the other stars, and do not bear arms against the people of the Sun, but that the two peoples do come to the help of one another’s land, if an enemy do invade either.
3. That
by way of tribute the King of the Moon do pay the King of the Sun yearly ten thousand measures of dew, and, moreover, that the people of the
TERMS
OF
PEACE.35
Moon do give ten thousand of themselves as hostages.
4. That they do make the proposed colony to Lucifer open to all, with intent that any one of the other peoples may take part therein.
5. That they do inscribe the treaty on a slab of amber, and set it up in mid-air on the borders of the two kingdoms.
There witnessed this oath on behalf of the people of the Sun —
FIRESON.
SUMMERHEAT.
BLAZES.
And on behalf of the People of the Moon —
NIGHTLEIGH.
MOONEY.
FULLBRIGHT.
Such was the peace that was made.
The work of demolishing the wall began forthwith, and we prisoners were restored.
On our arrival in the Moon our friends, amongst whom was Endymion himself, met us and welcomed us with tears. The King invited us to remain at his Court and take part in the foundation of the colony, promising to give me the hand of his daughter in marriage. But I was proof against persuasion, and begged to be sent down again to the sea. When he saw the impossibility of altering our determination, after a week of royal entertainment he sent us away.
Notes
1 Endymion, the beautiful youth who fell into a deep and eternal sleep on Mount Latmus, and was kissed by the Moon as he lay.
2 Sarpedon, son of Zeus and Laodamia, King of Lycia, was slain by Patroclus in the Trojan War. See Homer’s ‘Iliad,’ bk. xvi., l. 459.
3 The huge bronze statue, seventy cubits high, that is commonly said to have bestridden the harbour at Rhodes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
