The Temptation of St. Anthony

The Unicorn (appears):

"Gallop! Gallop!

"I have hoofs of ivory, teeth of steel; my head is the colour of purple, my body the colour of snow; and the horn of my forehead is bestreaked with the tints of the rainbow.

"I travel from Chaldea to the Tartar desert, – upon the shores of the Ganges and in Mesopotamia. I overtake the ostriches. I run so swiftly that I draw the wind after me. I rub my back against the palm-trees. I roll among the bamboos. I leap rivers with a single bound. Doves fly above me. Only a virgin can bridle me.

"Gallop! Gallop!"

(Anthony watches him depart.

And as he gazes he beholds all the birds that nourish themselves with wind: the Gouith, the Ahuti, the Alphalim, the Iukneth, of the mountains of Kaf, the homai of the Arabs – which are the souls of murdered men. He hears the parrots that utter human speech; and the great Pelasgian palmipeds that sob like children or chuckle like old women.

A saline air strikes his nostrils. Now a vast beach stretches before him.

In the distance jets of water arise, spouted by whales; and from the very end of the horizon come) —

The Beasts of the Sea

(round as wineskins, flat as blades, denticulated like saws, dragging themselves over the sand as they approach):

"Thou wilt accompany us to our immensities, whither as yet no one has descended.

"Divers peoples inhabit the countries of the Ocean. Some dwell in the sojourn of tempests; others swim freely amid the transparency of chill waves; – or, like oxen, graze upon the coral plains, or suck in through their trunks the reflux of the tides, – or bear upon their shoulders the vast weight of the sources of the sea."

(Phosphorences gleam in the moustaches of the seals, shift in the scales of fish. Echini whirl like wheels; ammonites uncoil like cables; oysters make their shell hinges squeak; polypi unfold their tentacles; medusæ quiver like balls of crystal suspended; sponges float hither and thither, anemones ejaculate water; wrack and sea-mosses have grown all about.

And all sorts of plants extend themselves into branches, twist themselves into screws, lengthen into points, round themselves out like fans. Gourds take the appearance of breasts; lianas interlace like serpents.

The Dedaims of Babylon, which are trees, bear human heads for fruit; Mandragoras sing; – the root Baaras runs through the grass.

And now the vegetables are no longer distinguishable from the animals. Polyparies that seem like trees, have arms upon their branches. Anthony thinks he sees a caterpillar between two leaves: it is a butterfly that takes flight. He is about to step on a pebble: a grey locust leaps away. One shrub is bedecked with insects that look like petals of roses; fragments of ephemerides form a snowy layer upon the soil.

And then the plants become confounded with the stones.

Flints assume the likeness of brains; stalactites of breasts; the flower of iron resembles a figured tapestry. 28

He sees efflorescences in fragments of ice, imprints of shrubs and shells – yet so that one cannot detect whether they be imprints only, or the things themselves. Diamonds gleam like eyes; metals palpitate.

And all fear has departed from him! He throws himself down upon the ground, and leaning upon his elbows, watches breathlessly.

Insects that have no stomachs persistently eat; withered ferns bloom again and reflower; absent members grow again.

At last he perceives tiny globular masses, no larger than pinheads, with cilia all round them. They are agitated with a vibratile motion):

Anthony (deliriously):

"O joy! O bliss! I have beheld the birth of life! I have seen the beginning of motion! My pulses throb even to the point of bursting! I long to fly, to swim, to bark, to bellow, to howl! Would that I had wings, a carapace, a shell, – that I could breathe out smoke, wield a trunk, – make my body writhe, – divide myself everywhere, – be in everything, – emanate with odours, – develop myself like the plants, – flow like water, – vibrate like sound – shine like light, squatting upon all forms – penetrate each atom – descend to the very bottom of matter, – be matter itself!"

(Day at last appears; – and, like tabernacle curtains uplifted, clouds of gold uprolling in broad volutes unveil the sky.

Even in the midst thereof, and in the very disk of the sun, beams the face of Jesus Christ.

Anthony makes the sign of the cross, and resumes his devotions.)

FINIS

[NOTE

Those who compare this translation with the original will observe the omission of some few paragraphs on pages 77, 96 and 211. They are speeches put in the mouths of certain Heresiarchs, or complaints of certain of the minor Roman household gods. The translator relegated these to an addenda, which the publishers have omitted as being unnecessary. Those who are familiar with the original will be able to supply them, and will realize that while they might be offensive to some persons, they are in no respect an integral or important part of the great drama.]

(added by transcribers)

ADDENDA

A. Observation of Manes, pages 82-3, original text; page 89 of translation.

Manes

Ou plutôt, faites si bien qu'elle ne soit pas fécondes. Mieux vaut pour l'ame tomber sur la terre que de languir dans des entraves charnelles.

Probably a calumny against Manes; for the Eastern philosophy, especially that of Zoroaster, which is said to have inspired the tenets of Manichæism, advocated no such abominations.

B. Page 105 of original; page 108 translation. The realistic phraseology of the original passage is rather brutal. The French text reads: "Il souffrait de la maladie Bellerephontienne; et sa mère, la parfumeuse, s'est livrée à Pantherus, un soldat Romain, sur des gerbes de mais, un soir de moisson." C. Descriptive text, page 237 original, partly suppressed on page 223 translation: "Et il lui montre dans un bosquet d'aliziers Une Femme toute nue, à quatre pattes comme une bête, et saillie par un homme noir, tenant dans chaque main un flambeau."

D. Curious text of Crepitus, on page 228, pages 241-3 of original:

Crepitus

( – se fait entendre):

Moi aussi l'on m'honora jadis. On me faisait des libations. Je fus un Dieu!

L'Athénien me saluait comme un presage de fortune, tandis que le Romain dévot me maudissait les poings levés et que le pontife d'Egypte, s'abstinant des fèves, tremblait à ma voix et pâlissait à mon odeur.

Quand le vinaigre militaire coulait sur les barbes non rasées, qu'on se régalait de glands, de pois, et d'oignons crus, et que le bouc en morceau cuissait dans le beurre rance des pasteurs, sans souci du voisin, personne alors ne se gênait. Les nourritures solides faisaient digestions retentissantes. Au soleil de la campagne les hommes se soulageaient avec lenteur.

Ainsi, je passais sans scandale, comme les autres besoins de la vie, comme Mena, tourment des vierges, et la douce Rumina qui protège le sein de la nourrice, gonflé, des veines bleuâtres. J'étais joyeux. Je faisais rire. Et se dilatant d'aise à cause de moi, le convive exhalait toute sa gaieté par les ouvertures de son corps.

J'ai eu mes jours d'orgeuil. Le bon Aristophane me promena sur la scène, et l'empereur Claudius Drusus 29 me fit asseoir à sa table. Dans les laticlaves des patriciens j'ai circulé majestueusement! Les vases d'or, comme des tympanons, resonnaient sous moi; et, quand plein de murènes, de truffles, et de pâtés, l'intestin du maître se dégageait avec fracas, l'univers attentif apprenait que César avait diné!

Mais à présent, je suis confiné dans la populace 30 et l'on se récrie, même à mon nom!

Et Crepitus s'éloigne, en poussant un gémissement…

E. For descriptions of the Martichoras and other monsters, appearing page 287 in the original and 253 in the translation, see also Rabelais' Pantagruel, Book V, Chap. XXX.

1

Acts X: 11-13 – T.

2

Esther IX: 5 – T.

3

Daniel II: 46. – T.

4

Kings XX: 13 (Vulg.). – T.

5

III Kings X: I (Vulg.). – T.

6

Thalamegii– pleasure-boats having apartments.

7

Gibbon, a sincere admirer of Athanasius, gives a curious history of these charges, and expresses his disbelief in their truth. The story regarding the design to intercept the corn-fleet of Alexandria is referred to in the use of the word "monopolist."

8

Agape. – Love-feast of the primitive Christians.

9

John XVI: 12. – T.

10

See note at end.

11

Masheim gives Achamoth. I prefer to remain faithful to the orthography given by Flaubert.

12

The French text gives mes pères not nos pères. Elxai, or Elkhai, who established his sect in the reign of Trajan, was a Jew.

13

See note.

14

The banyan is a fig-tree – the Ficus indicus.– Trans.

15

Readers may remember Longfellow's exquisite poem "Helena of Tyre."

16

See the second part of "Faust," and Kundry in "Parsifal."

17

Matthew II: 10 – T.

18

"Buddha, or more correctly, the Buddha, for Buddha is an appellative meaning Enlightened." – Max Müller (Chips, Vol. I., 206).

19

Luke II: 25-26. – T.

20

Ibid II: 46-47. – T.

21

Or, Haoma, also Hom, the sacred plant, whose fermented juice occupied an important place in the practical rites of Iran. Supposed to be the same plant known in botany as Sarcostemma viminalis. Deified in Iranian worship, like the sacred drink Soma in the Vedic hymns. The Soma was the fermented extract of the Asclepias acida or Sarcostemma ritalis. See Marius Fontane, "L'Inde Védique," "Les Iraniens." – Trans.

22

Apuleius says, "a silken mantle." – Trans.

23

Apuleius says, "strung with knuckle-bones of sheep." – Trans.

24

This scene, like certain paintings in the Naples museum, is all suited for public exhibition. – Trans.

25

Readers will recollect the lines in Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome:

"Beneath Aricia's trees,Those trees in whose dim shadowA ghastly priest doth reign,The priest who slew the slayer,And must himself be slain."

26

The original text seems to me slightly obscure. The idea of the universe being a perpetual ebb and flow of shapes, is that of forms passing away to reappear like waves, is that of the Nidana-Sutris: "Individuality is only a form … Everything is only a flux of aggregates, interminably uniting and disuniting," as Barth observes in his "Religions of India." – Trans.

27

Winkelmann claims to have been the first to discover that the Egyptian sphinxes were bisexual – females before – males otherwise. (See Book II, chap. I, § 25.) Flaubert speaks of the Sphinx in the masculine like Philemon. (See also Signor Carlo Fea's note upon the paragraph in Winkelmann, old French edition. An II, R. F.) – Trans.

28

Fleurs de fer, "flowers of iron." In mineralogy flos ferri, a form of Aragonite. – Trans.

29

Needless to refer to the comedies of Aristophanes, with which English readers have been familiarized through the Bohn translations. The reference to Claudius ius Drusus seems based upon the following lines in Suetonius: "Dicitur etiam meditatus edictum, quo veniam daret flatum crepitumque ventris in convivio emittendi: cum periclitatum quemdam prae pudore ex continentia reperisset." (Suetonius-Tiberius Claudius Drusus: 32.)

30

The so-called divinities, Deus Crepitus, Dea Pertunda, Deus Stercutius, Dea Rumina (or Rumilia), Dea Mena, concerning whose curious attributes the reader may consult English or French classical encyclopedists, were doubtless regarded by the intelligent classes of antiquity much as certain religious superstitions are regarded by educated moderns. It is true that they furnished grotesque themes to artists; but many existing superstitions regarding elves and goblins have inspired modern sculptors, painters and designers. Certainly, seriously worshipped as deities, Priapus might seem equally contemptible as a divinity; but his worship, degenerate as it became in later years, was primitively symbolical. The obscene image merely typified the procreative Spirit of Nature. The eccentric gods and goddesses above referred to had no such excuse for being. As previously observed, however, Flaubert artistically represents these divinities not as they were really considered in the antique world, but rather as they would have appeared to the eyes of zealous Christians in the third century – infamous and loathsome. – Translator.