A Voyage to the Moon. Cyrano De Bergerac
Folly, furnished me with an occasion that engaged me into this Discourse. Being come home, I went up into my Closet, where I found a Book open upon the Table, which I had not put there. It was a piece of Cardanus5; and though I had no design to read in it, yet I fell at first sight, as by force, exactly upon a Passage of that Philosopher where he tells us, That Studying one evening by Candle-light, he perceived Two tall old Men enter in through the door that was shut, who after many questions that he put to them, made him answer, That they were Inhabitants of the Moon, and thereupon immediately disappeared.
I was so surprised, not only to see a Book get thither of it self; but also because of the nicking of the Time so patly, and of the Page at which it lay upon, that I looked upon that Concatenation of Accidents as a Revelation, discovering to Mortals that the Moon is a World. "How!" said I to my self, having just now talked of a thing, can a Book, which perhaps is the only Book in the World that treats of that matter so particularly, fly down from the Shelf upon my Table; become capable of Reason, in opening so exactly at the place of so strange an adventure; force my Eyes in a manner to look upon it, and then to suggest to my fancy the Reflexions, and to my Will the Designs which I hatch.
"Without doubt," continued I, "the Two old Men, who appeared to that famous Philosopher, are the very same who have taken down my Book and opened it at that Page, to save themselves the labour of making to me the Harangue which they made to Cardan."
"But," added I, "I cannot be resolved of this Doubt, unless I mount up thither."
"And why not?" said I instantly to my self. "Prometheus heretofore went up to Heaven, and stole fire from thence. Have not I as much Boldness as he? And why should not I, then, expect as favourable a Success?"
CHAPTER II.
Of how the Author set out, and where he first arrived
After these sudden starts of Imagination, which may be termed, perhaps, the Ravings of a violent Feaver, I began to conceive some hopes of succeeding in so fair a Voyage: Insomuch that to take my measures aright, I shut my self up in a solitary Country-house; where having flattered my fancy with some means, proportionated to my design, at length I set out for Heaven in this manner.
I planted my self in the middle of a great many Glasses full of Dew, tied fast about me;6 upon which the Sun so violently darted his Rays, that the Heat, which attracted them, as it does the thickest Clouds, carried me up so high, that at length I found my self above the middle Region of the Air. But seeing that Attraction hurried me up with so much rapidity that instead of drawing near the Moon, as I intended, she seem'd to me to be more distant than at my first setting out; I broke several of my Vials, until I found my weight exceed the force of the Attraction, and that I began to descend again towards the Earth. I was not mistaken in my opinion, for some time after I fell to the ground again; and to reckon from the hour that I set out at, it must then have been about midnight. Nevertheless I found the Sun to be in the Meridian, and that it was Noon. I leave it to you to judge, in what Amazement I was; The truth is, I was so strangely surprised, that not knowing what to think of that Miracle, I had the insolence to imagine that in favour of my Boldness God had once more nailed the Sun to the Firmament, to light so generous7 an Enterprise. That which encreased my Astonishment was, That I knew not the Country where I was; it seemed to me, that having mounted straight up, I should have fallen down again in the same place I parted from.
However, in the Equipage I was in, I directed my course towards a kind of Cottage, where I perceived some smoke; and I was not above a Pistol-shot from it, when I saw my self environed by a great number of People, stark naked: They seemed to be exceedingly surprised at the sight of me; for I was the first, (as I think) that they had ever seen clad in Bottles. Nay, and to baffle all the Interpretations that they could put upon that Equipage, they perceived that I hardly touched the ground as I walked; for, indeed, they understood not that upon the least agitation I gave my Body the Heat of the beams of the Noon-Sun raised me up with my Dew; and that if I had had Vials enough about me, it would possibly have carried me up into the Air in their view. I had a mind to have spoken to them; but as if Fear had changed them into Birds, immediately I lost sight of them in an adjoyning Forest. However, I catched hold of one, whose Legs had, without doubt, betrayed his Heart. I asked him, but with a great deal of pain, (for I was quite choked) how far they reckoned from thence to Paris? How long Men had gone naked in France? and why they fled from me in so great Consternation? The Man I spoke to was an old tawny Fellow, who presently fell at my Feet, and with lifted-up Hands joyned behind his Head, opened his Mouth and shut his Eyes: He mumbled a long while between his Teeth, but I could not distinguish an articulate Word; so that I took his Language for the maffling8 noise of a Dumb-man.
Some time after, I saw a Company of Souldiers marching, with Drums beating; and I perceived Two detached from the rest, to come and take speech of me. When they were come within hearing, I asked them, Where I was? "You are in France" answered they: "But what Devil hath put you into that Dress? And how comes it that we know you not? Is the Fleet then arrived? Are you going to carry the News of it to the Governor? And why have you divided your Brandy into so many Bottles?" To all this I made answer, That the Devil had not put me into that Dress: That they knew me not; because they could not know all Men: That I knew, nothing of the Seine's carrying Ships to Paris: That I had no news for the Marshal de l'Hospital;9 and that I was not loaded with Brandy. "Ho, ho," said they to me, taking me by the Arm, "you are a merry Fellow indeed; come, the Governor will make a shift to know you, no doubt on't."
They led me to their Company, where I learnt that I was in reality in France, but that it was in New-France: So that some time after, I was presented before the Governor, who asked me my Country, my Name and Quality; and after that I had satisfied him in all Points, and told him the pleasant Success of my Voyage, whether he believed it, or only pretended to do so, he had the goodness to order me a Chamber in his Apartment. I was very happy, in meeting with a Man capable of lofty Opinions, and who was not at all surprised when I told him that the Earth must needs have turned during my Elevation; seeing that having begun to mount about Two Leagues from Paris, I was fallen, as it were, by a perpendicular Line in Canada.
CHAPTER III.
Of his Conversation with the Vice-Roy of New France; and of the system of this Universe
When I was going to Bed at night, he came into my Chamber, and spoke to me to this purpose: "I should not have come to disturb your Rest, had I not thought that one who hath found out the secret of Travelling so far in Twelve hours space, had likewise a charm against Lassitude. But you know not," added he, "what a pleasant Quarrel I have just now had with our Fathers, upon your account? They'll have you absolutely to be a Magician; and the greatest favour you can expect from them, is to be reckoned only an Impostor: The truth is, that Motion which you attribute to the Earth10 is a pretty nice Paradox; and for my part I'll frankly tell you, That that which hinders me from being of your Opinion, is, That though you parted yesterday from Paris, yet you might have arrived today in this Country without the Earth's turning: For the Sun having drawn you up by the means of your Bottles, ought he not to have brought you hither; since according to Ptolemy, and the Modern Philosophers,11 he marches obliquely, as you make the Earth to move? And besides, what great Probability have you to imagine, that the Sun is immoveable, when we see it go? And what appearance is there, that the Earth turns with so great Rapidity, when we feel it firm under our Feet?"
"Sir," replied I to him, "These are, in a manner, the Reasons that oblige us to think so: In the first place, it is consonant to common Sense to think that the Sun is placed in the Center of the Universe; seeing all Bodies in nature standing in need of that radical Heat, it is fit he should reside in the heart of the Kingdom, that he may be in a condition readily to supply the Necessities of every Part; and that the Cause of Generations should he placed in the middle of all Bodies, that it may act there with greater Equality and Ease: After the same manner as Wise Nature hath placed the Seeds in
Jerome Cardan, 1501-1576, natural philosopher, doctor, astrologer, mathematician, and a voluminous author; in short, a sort of Italian Paracelsus, both by his universal learning, and by his intense interest in all domains of possible knowledge, in which he included astrology and necromancy. His most important work is the one referred to here, the
Cf. M. Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, act III., scene xi.: "One way was to stand naked in the sunshine, in a harness thickly studded with glass phials, each filled with morning dew. The sun in drawing up the dew, you see, could not have helped drawing me up too!" (Miss Gertrude Hall' s translation.)
Generous =
Stammering, mumbling; a North of England word.
Paul Lacroix, the editor of the French edition of Cyrano's works, not understanding this phrase, has ingeniously invented the interpretation of "quarantine officer" for it. Not only have the words never had this meaning, but they are evidently a proper name. And in fact
In connection with this discussion it is to be remembered that nearly two centuries were required for the Copernican system, promulgated in 1543, in the De orbium
According to the Ptolemaic system, still generally accepted by "modern Philosophers" at the time of Cyrano's writing, the fixed stars, the sun, the moon, and each of the five (then known) planets, revolved about the earth in different orbits, according to various "epicycles" and "excentrics."