Icaromenippus, an Aerial Expedition (1-5)

Let me see, now. First stage, Earth to Moon, 350 miles. Second stage, up to the Sun, 500 leagues. Then the third, to the actual Heaven and Zeus’s citadel, might be put at a day’s journey for an eagle in light marching order.

In the name of goodness, Menippus, what are these astronomical sums you are doing under your breath? I have

Ah, you must not be surprised if my talk is rather exalted and ethereal; I was making out the mileage of my journey.

Oh, I see; using stars to steer by, like the Phoenicians?

Oh no, travelling among them.

Well, to be sure, it must have been a longish dream, if you lost yourself in it for whole leagues.

Dream, my good man? I am just come straight from Zeus. Dream, indeed!

How? What? Our Menippus a literal godsend from Heaven?

Tis even so; from very Zeus I come this day, eyes and ears yet full of wonders. Oh, doubt, if you will. That my fortune should pass belief makes it only the more gratifying.

Nay, my worshipful Olympian, how should I, ‘a man begotten, treading this poor earth,’ doubt him who transcends the clouds, a ‘denizen of Heaven,’ as Homer says? But vouchsafe to tell me how you were uplifted, and where you got your mighty tall ladder. There is hardly enough of Ganymede in your looks to suggest that you were carried off by the eagle for a cupbearer.

I see you are bent on making a jest of it. Well, it is extraordinary; you could not be expected to see that it is not aromance. The fact is, I needed neither ladder nor amorous eagle; I had wings of my own.

Stranger and stranger! this beats Daedalus. What, you turned into a hawk or a crow on the sly?

Now that is not a bad shot; it was Daedalus’s wing trick that I tried.

Well, talk of foolhardiness! did you like the idea of

No fear. Icarus’s feathers were fastened with wax, and Pe course, directly the sun warmed this, he moulted and fell. No wax for me, thank you.

How did you manage, then? I declare I shall be believing you soon, if you go on like this.

Well, I caught a fine eagle, and also a particularly powerful vulture, and cut off their wings above the shoulder-joint.

But no; if you are not in a hurry, I may as well give you dhe enterprise from the beginning.

Do, do; I am rapt aloft by your words already, my. mouth open for your bonne bouche; as you love me, leave me not in those upper regions hung up by the ears!

Listen, then; it would be a sorry sight, a friend deserted, with his mouth open, and sus. per aures.—Well, a very short survey of life had convinced me of the absurdity and meanness and insecurity that pervade all human objects, such as wealth, office, power. I was filled with contempt for them, realized that to care for them was to lose all chance of what deserved care, and determined to grovel no more, but fix my gaze upon the great All. Here I found my first problem in what wise men call the universal order; I could not tell how it came into being, who made it, what was its beginning, or what its end. But my next step, which was the examination of details, landed me in yet worse perplexity. I found the stars dotted quite casually about the sky, and I wanted to know what the sun was. Especially the phenomena of the moon struck me as extraordinary, and quite passed my comprehension; there must be some mystery to account for those many phases, I conjectured. Nor could I feel any greater certainty about such things as the passage of lightning, the roll of thunder, the descent of rain and snow and hail.

In this state of mind, the best I could think of was to get at the truth of it all from the people called philosophers; they of course would be able to give it me. So I selected the best of them, if solemnity of visage, pallor of complexion and length of beard are any criterion—for there could not be a moment’s doubt of their soaring words and heaven-high thoughts—and in their hands I placed myself. For a considerable sum down, and more to be paid when they should have perfected me in wisdom, I was to be made an airy metaphysician and instructed in the order of the universe. Unfortunately, so far from dispelling my previous ignorance, they perplexed me more and more, with their daily drenches of beginnings and ends, atoms and voids, matters and forms. My greatest difficulty was that, though they differed among themselves, and all they said was full of inconsistency and contradiction, they expected me to believe them, each pulling me in his own direction.

How absurd that wise men should quarrel about facts, and hold different opinions on the same things!