A True Story (1.21-1.25)

On those terms peace was made, and then the wall was torn down at once and we prisoners were restored. When we reached the moon we were met and tearfully welcomed by our comrades and by Endymion himself. He wanted me to stay with him and join the colony, promising to give me his own son in marriage—there are no women in their country. But I was not to be persuaded; I asked him to let me go down to the sea. When he perceived that he could not prevail on me, he let us go after entertaining us for seven days.

In the interval, while I was living on the moon, I observed some strange and wonderful things that I wish to speak of. In the first place there is the fact that they are not born of women but of men: they marry men and do not even know the word woman at all! Up to the age of twenty-five each is a wife, and thereafter a husband: They carry their children in the calf of the leg instead of the belly. When conception takes place the calf begins to swell. In course of time they cut it open and deliver the child dead, and then they bring it to life by putting it in the wind with its mouth open. It seems to me that the term “belly of the leg" [*] came to us Greeks from there, since the leg performs the function of a belly with them. But I will tell you something else, still more wonderful. They have a kind of men whom they call the Arboreals, who are brought into the world as follows: Exsecting a man’s right genital gland, they plant it in the ground. From it grows a very large tree of

When a man grows old, he does not die, but is dissolved like smoke and turns into air. They all eat the same food; they light a fire and cook frogs on the coals—they have quantities of frogs, that fly about in the air—and while they are cooking, they sit about them as if at table, snuff up the rising smoke and gorge themselves. [*] This is the food they eat, and their drink is air, which is squeezed into a cup and yields a liquid like dew. They are not subject to calls of nature, which, in fact, they have no means of answering. Another important function, too, is not provided for as one would expect, but in the hollow of the knee.

A man is thought beautiful in that country if he is bald and hairless, and they quite detest long-haired people. It is different on the comets, where they think long-haired people beautiful—there were visitors in the moon who told us about them. [*] Another point—they have beards that grow a little above the knee, and they have no toe-nails, but are all single-toed. Over each man’s rump grows a long cabbage-leaf, like a tail, which is always green and

Their noses run honey of great pungency, and when they work or take exercise, they sweat milk all over , their bodies, of such quality that cheese can actually be made from it by dripping in a little of the honey. They make oil from onions, and it is very clear and sweet-smelling, like myrrh. They have many watervines, the grapes. of which are like hailstones, and to my thinking, the hail that falls down on.us is due to the bursting. of the bunches when a wind strikes and shakes, those vines. They use their bellies for pockets, putting into them anything they have use for,as they can open and shut them. These parts do not seem to have any intestines in them or anything else, except that they are all shaggy and hairy inside, so that the children enter them when it is cold.

The clothing of the rich is malleable glass [*] and that of the poor, spun bronze; for that region is rich in bronze, which they work like wool by wetting it with water. I am reluctant to tell you what sort of eyes they have, for fear that you may think me lying on account of the incredibility of the story, but I will tell you, notwithstanding. The eyes that they have are removable, and whenever they wish they take them out and put them away until they want to see: then they put them in and look. Many, on losing their own, borrow other people’s to see with, and the rich folk keep a quantity