rel="nofollow" href="#n28" type="note">28 I presently lighted upon a Walk with five Avenues, in figure like to a Star; the Trees whereof seemed to reach up to the Skie, a green plot of lofty Boughs: Casting up my Eyes from the root to the top, and then making the same Survey downwards, I was in doubt whether the Earth carried them, or they the Earth, hanging by their Roots: Their high and stately Forehead seemed also to bend, as it were by force, under the weight of the Celestial Globes; and one would say, that their Sighs and out-stretched Arms, wherewith they embraced the Firmament, demanded of the Stars the bounty of their purer Influences before they had lost any thing of their Innocence in the contagious Bed of the Elements. The Flowers there on all hands, without the aid of any other Gardiner but Nature, send out so sweet (though wild) a Perfume, that it rouzes and delights the Smell: There the incarnate of a Rose upon the Bush, and the lively Azure of a Violet under the Rushes, captivating the Choice, make each of themselves to be judged the Fairest: There the whole Year is Spring; there no poysonous Plant sprouts forth, but is as soon destroyed; there the Brooks by an agreeable murmuring, relate their Travels to the Pebbles; there Thousands of Quiristers make the Woods resound with their melodious Notes; and the quavering Clubs of these divine Musicians are so universal, that every Leaf of the Forest seems to have borrowed the Tongue and shape of a Nightingale; nay, and the Nymph Eccho is so delightful29 with their Airs, that to hear her repeat, one would say, She were sollicitous to learn them. On the sides of that Wood are Two Meadows, whose continued Verdure seems an Emerauld reaching out of sight. The various Colours, which the Spring bestows upon the numerous little Flowers that grow there, so delightfully confounds and mingles their Shadows, that it is hard to be known, whether these Flowers shaken with a gentle Breeze pursue themselves, or fly rather from the Caresses of the Wanton Zephyrus; one would likewise take that Meadow for an Ocean, because, as the Sea, it presents no Shoar to the view; insomuch, that mine Eye fearing it might lose it self, having roamed so long, and discovered no Coast, sent my Thoughts presently thither; and my Thoughts, imagining it to be the end of the World, were willing to be perswaded, that such charming places had perhaps forced the Heavens to descend and join the Earth there. In the midst of that vast and pleasant Carpet, a rustick Fountain bubbles up in Silver Purles, crowning its enamelled Banks with Sets of Violets, and multitudes of other little Flowers, that seem to strive which shall first behold it self in that Chrystal Myrroir: It is as yet in the Cradle, being but newly Born, and its Young and smooth Face shews not the least Wrinkle. The large Compasses it fetches, in circling within it self, demonstrate its unwillingness to leave its native Soyl: And as if it had been ashamed to be caressed in presence of its Mother, with a Murmuring it thrust back my hand that would have touched it: The Beasts that came to drink there, more rational than those of our World, seemed surprised to see it day upon the Horizon, whilst the Sun was with the Antipodes; and durst not bend downwards upon the Brink, for fear of falling into the Firmament.
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1
This evidently refers to an earlier translation of the Voyage to the Moon, published probably in 1660. The present editor will be greatly obliged to any one who will put him on the track of a copy of this, or any other early translation from Cyrano, such
1
This evidently refers to an earlier translation of the Voyage to the Moon, published probably in 1660. The present editor will be greatly obliged to any one who will put him on the track of a copy of this, or any other early translation from Cyrano, such as the "Satyrical Characters and handsome Descriptions, in Letters, written to several Persons of Quality, by Monsieur De Cyrano Bergerac. Translated from the French, by a Person of Honor. London, 1658."
2
Among the "others" who had previously "discovered" the Moon, Ariosto is the most prominent. In his Orlando Furioso, Astolfo goes to the moon, visits the "Valley of Lost Things," finds there many broken resolutions, idlers' days, lovers' tears, and other such matters; and finally recovers Orlando's lost wits, which he brings back to the earth.
The Satire Ménippée (1594) gives, in its Supplément, "News from the Regions of the Moon."
Quevedo, the Spanish satirist and novelist (1580-1645), with whose works Cyrano was acquainted, also gives an account of the moon in his Sixth Vision.
In England, the Rev. John Wilkins (1614-1672), once Principal of Trinity College, Cambridge, and later Bishop of Chester, a brother-in-law of Cromwell, and one of the founders of the Royal Society, published in 1638 the "Discovery of a New World; or, a Discourse to prove it is probable there may be another habitable world in the Moon; with a discourse concerning the possibility of a passage thither"; and later, in 1640, the "Discourse concerning a new Planet; tending to prove it is probable our earth is one of the Planets." These two works are said to have done more than any others to popularize the Copernican system in England. The Discovery of a New World was translated into French by Jean de Montagne, and published at Rouen in 1655 or 1656. See Charles Nodier, Mélanges extraits d'une petite bibliothèque.
Finally, the most important of Cyrano's predecessors in the discovery of the moon was Francis Godwin, M.A., D.D., Bishop of Llandaff and later of Hereford (1562-1633). It was not till 1638, after the worthy Bishop's death, and in the same year that Rev. (later Bishop) John Wilkins' Discovery of a New World was published, that there appeared his "Man in the Moone; or a Discourse of a Voyage Thither, by Domingo Gonsales, the Speedy Messenger." This was translated into French by Jean Baudoin or Baudouin in 1648, as "L'homme dans la lune … voyage … fait par Dominique Gonzales, aventurier espagnol," and was well known to Cyrano, as we shall see.
In saying that "the sun owes its discovery wholly to our author," the translator appears to be ignorant of a work which Cyrano certainly knew: the Civitas solis of Campanella, published in 1623 as a part of his Realis Philosophiæ Epilogisticæ Partes IV.
3
Cf. the last sentence of the Voyage to the Moon.
4
Monsieur de Cuigy, who is mentioned by Lebret as a friend and admirer of Cyrano, and who was one of the witnesses of his famous battle against the hundred ruffians, possessed an estate at Clamart-sous-Meudon, near Paris. He appears as a character in M. Rostand's play of Cyrano de Bergerac.
5
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 De Subtilitate Rerum, 1551.
6
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.)
