Trips to the Moon | Page 9

without food for seven; unless we are to suppose that Osroes stood waiting till Severian had starved himself completely, and for that reason he would not live out the whole week.
But in what class, my dear Philo, shall we rank those historians who are perpetually making use of poetical expressions, such as "the engine crushed, the wall thundered," and in another place, "Edessa resounded with the shock of arms, and all was noise and tumult around;" and again, "often the leader in his mind revolved how best he might approach the wall." At the same time amongst these were interspersed some of the meanest and most beggarly phrases, such as "the leader of the army epistolised his master," "the soldiers bought utensils," "they washed and waited on them," with many other things of the same kind, like a tragedian with a high cothurnus on one foot and a slipper on the other. You will meet with many of these writers, who will give you a fine heroic long preface, that makes you hope for something extraordinary to follow, when after all, the body of the history shall be idle, weak, and trifling, such as puts you in mind of a sporting Cupid, who covers his head with the mask of a Hercules or Titan. The reader immediately cries out, "The mountain {39} has brought forth!" Certainly it ought not to be so; everything should be alike and of the same colour; the body fitted to the head, not a golden helmet, with a ridiculous breast- plate made of stinking skins, shreds, and patches, a basket shield, and hog-skin boots; and yet numbers of them put the head of a Rhodian Colossus on the body of a dwarf, whilst others show you a body without a head, and step directly into the midst of things, bringing in Xenophon for their authority, who begins with "Darius and Parysatis had two sons;" so likewise have other ancient writers; not considering that the narration itself may sometimes supply the place of preface, or exordium, though it does not appear to the vulgar eye, as we shall show hereafter.
All this, however, with regard to style and composition, may be borne with, but when they misinform us about places, and make mistakes, not of a few leagues, but whole day's journeys, what shall we say to such historians? One of them, who never, we may suppose, so much as conversed with a Syrian, or picked up anything concerning them in the barbers' {40} shop, when he speaks of Europus, tells us, "it is situated in Mesopotamia, two days' journey from Euphrates, and was built by the Edessenes." Not content with this, the same noble writer has taken away my poor country, Samosata, and carried it off, tower, bulwarks, and all, to Mesopotamia, where he says it is shut up between two rivers, which at least run close to, if they do not wash the walls of it. After this, it would be to no purpose, my dear Philo, for me to assure you that I am not from Parthia, nor do I belong to Mesopotamia, of which this admirable historian has thought fit to make me an inhabitant.
What he tells us of Severian, and which he swears he heard from those who were eye-witnesses of it, is no doubt extremely probable; that he did not choose to drink poison, or to hang himself, but was resolved to find out some new and tragical way of dying; that accordingly, having some large cups of very fine glass, as soon as he had taken the resolution to finish himself, he broke one of them in pieces, and with a fragment of it cut his throat; he would not make use of sword or spear, that his death might be more noble and heroic.
To complete all, because Thucydides {41} made a funeral oration on the heroes who fell at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, he also thought something should be said of Severian. These historians, you must know, will always have a little struggle with Thucydides, though he had nothing to do with the war in Armenia; our writer, therefore, after burying Severian most magnificently, places at his sepulchre one Afranius Silo, a centurion, the rival of Pericles, who spoke so fine a declamation upon him as, by heaven, made me laugh till I cried again, particularly when the orator seemed deeply afflicted, and with tears in his eyes, lamented the sumptuous entertainments and drinking bouts which he should no more partake of. To crown all with an imitation of Ajax, {42} the orator draws his sword, and, as it became the noble Afranius, before all the assembly, kills himself at the tomb. So Mars defend me! but he deserved to die much sooner for making such a