A True Story

Lucian of Samosata

• Publisher: Youcanprint
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9788827815281
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Classiques

Lucian of Samosata (125–c.180) was a Greek satirist of Syrian or Assyrian extraction, and True History is perhaps his most well-known tale. In this tale, the protagonist visits the Moon, meets extraterrestrial creatures, and takes part in interplanetary warfare. This piece of fantastical fiction parodies many works such as Homer's Odyssey, and is certainly a contender for the title of earliest science fiction story.

BOOK II

FROM that time on, as I could no longer endure the life in the whale and was discontented with the delay, I sought a way of escape. First we determined to dig through the right side and make off, and we made a beginning and tried to cut through. But when we had advanced some five furlongs without getting anywhere, we left off digging and decided to set the forest afire, thinking that in this way the whale could be killed, and in that case our escape would be easy. So we began at the tail end and set it afire. For seven days and seven nights he was unaffected by the burning, but on the eighth and ninth we gathered that he was in a bad way. For instance, he yawned less frequently, and whenever he did yawn he closed his mouth quickly. On the tenth and eleventh day mortification at last set in and he was noisome. On the twelfth we perceived just in time that if someone did not shore his jaws open when he yawned, so that he could not close them again, we stood a chance of being shut up in the dead whale and dying there ourselves. At the last moment, then, we propped the mouth open with great beams and made our boat ready, putting aboard all the water we could and the other provisions. Our sailing-master was to be Scintharus.

On the next day the whale was dead at last. We dragged the boat up, took her through the gaps, made her fast to the teeth and lowered her slowly into the sea. Climbing on the back and sacrificing to Poseidon there by the trophy, we camped for three days, as it was calm. On the fourth day we sailed off, and in so doing met and grounded on many of the dead from the sea-fight, and measured their bodies with amazement. For some days we sailed with a moderate breeze, and then a strong norther blew up and brought on great cold. The entire sea was frozen by it, not just on the surface but to a depth of fully six fathoms, so that we could leave the boast and run on the ice. The wind held and we could not stand it, so we devised an odd remedy--the proposer of the idea was Scintharus. We dug a very large cave in the water and stopped in it for thirty days, keeping a fire burning and eating the fish that we found in digging. When our provisions at last failed, we came out, hauled up the boat, which had frozen in, spread our canvas and slid, gliding on the ice smoothly and easily, just as if we were sailing. On the fifth day it was warm again, the ice broke up and everything turned to water once more.

After sailing about three hundred furlongs we ran in at a small desert island, where we got water--which had failed by this time--and shot two wild bulls, and then sailed away. These bulls did not have their horns on their head but under their eyes, as Momus wanted.²⁸ Not long afterwards we entered a sea of milk, not of water, and in it a white island, full of grapevines, came in sight. The island was a great solid cheese, as we afterwards learned by tasting it. It was twenty-five furlongs in circumference. The vines were full of grapes, but the liquid which we squeezed from them and drank was milk instead of wine. A temple had been constructed in the middle of the island in honour of Galatea the Nereid, as its inscription indicated. All the time that we stopped in the island the earth was our bread and meat and the milk from the grapes our drink. The ruler of that region was said to be Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus, who after departure from home received this guerdon from Poseidon.²⁹

After stopping five days on the island we started out on the sixth, with a bit of breeze propelling us over a rippling sea, On the eighth day, by which time we were no longer sailing through the milk but in briny blue water, we came in sight of many men running over the sea, like us in every way, both in shape and in size, except only their feet, which were of cork: that is why they were called Corkfeet, if I am not mistaken. We were amazed to see that they did not go under, but stayed on the top of the waves and went about fearlessly. Some of them came up and greeted us in the Greek language; they said that they were on their way to Cork, their native city. For some distance they travelled with us, running alongside, and then they turned off and went their way, wishing us luck on our voyage.

In a little while many islands came in sight. Near us, to port, was Cork, where the men were going, a city built on a great round cork. At a distance and more to starboard were five islands, very large and high, from which much fire was blazing up. Dead ahead was one that was flat and low-lying, not less than five hundred furlongs off. When at length we were near it, a wonderful breeze blew about us, sweet and fragrant, like the one that, on the word of the historian Herodotus,³⁰ breathes perfume from Araby the blest. The sweetness that met us was as if it came from roses and narcissi and hyacinths and lilies and violets, from myrrh and laurel and vines in bloom. Delighted with the fragrance and cherishing high hopes after our long toils, we gradually drew near to the island at last. Then we saw many harbours all about it, large and unfretted by beating waves; transparent rivers emptying softly into the sea; meads, too, and woods and songbirds, some of them singing on the shore and many in the branches. A rare, pure atmosphere enfolded the place, and sweet breezes with their blowing stirred the woods gently, so that from the moving branches came a whisper of delightful, unbroken music, like the fluting of Pandean pipes in desert places. Moreover, a confused sound could be heard incessantly, which was not noisy but resembled that made at a drinking-party, when some are playing, others singing and others beating time to the flute or the lyre. Enchanted with all this, we put in, anchored our boat and landed, leaving Scintharus and two of my comrades on board. Advancing through a flowery mead, we came upon the guards and sentinels, who bound us with rosy wreaths--the strongest fetter that they have--and led us inland to their ruler. They told us on the way that the island was the one that is called the Isle of the Blest, and that the ruler was the Cretan Rhadamanthus. On being brought before him, we were given fourth place among the people awaiting trial. The first case was that of Ajax, son of Telamon, to decide whether he should be allowed to associate with the heroes or not: he was accused of having gone mad and killed himself. At last, when much had been said, Rhadamanthus gave judgment that for the present he should be given in charge of Hippocrates, the Coan physician, to take the hellebore treatment,³¹ and that later on, when he had recovered his wits, he should have a place at the table of the heroes. The second case was a love-affair--Theseus and Menelaus at law over Helen, to determine which of the two she should live with. Rhadamanthus pronounced that she should live with Menelaus, because he had undergone so much toil and danger on account of his marriage: then too, Theseus had other wives, the Amazon³² and the daughters of Minos.³³ The third judgment was given in a matter of precedence between Alexander, son of Philip, and Hannibal of Carthage, and the decision was that Alexander outranked Hannibal, so his chair was placed next the elder Cyrus of Persia.³⁴ We were brought up fourth; and he asked us how it was that we trod on holy ground while still alive, and we told him the whole story. Then he had us removed, pondered for a long time, and consulted with his associates about us. Among many other associates he had Aristides the Just, of Athens. When he bad come to a conclusion, sentence was given that for being inquisitive and not staying at home we should be tried after death, but that for the present we might stop a definite . time in the island and share the life of the heroes, and then we must be off. They set the length of our stay at not more than seven months.

Thereupon our garlands fell away of themselves, and we were set free and taken into the city and to the table of the blessed. The city itself is all of gold and the wall around it of emerald.³⁵ It has seven gates, all of single planks of cinnamon. The foundations of the city and the ground within its walls are ivory. There are temples of all the gods, built of beryl, and in them great monolithic altars of amethyst, o...