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"
 i.e, calf 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



 

flesh, resembling the emblem of Priapus: it has
branches and leaves; and its fruit is acorns a cubit
thick. When these ripen, they harvest them and shell
out the men. Another thing, they have artificial
parts that are sometimes of ivory and sometimes,
with the poor, of wood, and make use of them in
their intercourse.

 

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.
 Cf. Herod. 1, 202; 4, 75; Strabo 15, 1, 57. 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.
 The point of this is that κομήτης, whence our word comet,
means long-haired. 
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




 

does not break if he falls on his back.

 

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
 Lucian’s glass clothing (ὑαλίνη) is a punning parody on
wooden clothing (ξυλίνη), i.e. cotton (Herod. 7, 65). 
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



 

stored up.
 Compare the story of the Graeae. 
For ears they have plane-leaves, except
only the acorn-men, who have wocden ones. In
the royal purlieus I saw another marvel.