The Way Princes Should Keep Their Word

Machiavelli’s treatise on government was rejected with horror by almost all early readers, but it accurately describes the means which rulers have always used to remain in power. As a pioneering study of practical politics it has often been compared with Kautilya’s Arthasastra and the doctrines of the Chinese legalists, such as Han Fei Tzu. But what makes The Prince both more revolutionary and more controversial than either of these is the delight Machiavelli seems to take in scorning conventional morality. Indeed so cynical are such passages as the following that some readers have imagined that he must have been satirizing rather than advocating these ideas. His work cannot be said to have had any great impact on the world, but it strikingly marks the end of an era during which writers felt obliged to cloak their recommendations on government in a pious guise: his values are entirely secular. In describing the behavior of the successful politician Machiavelli has in mind a specific model, the ruthless Cesare Borgia (1476-1507).

What good qualities does Machiavelli say a prince should seem to have?

Everyone understands how praiseworthy it is for a prince to remain true to his word and to live with complete integrity without any scheming. However, we’ve seen through experience how many princes in our time have achieved great things who have little cared about keeping their word and have shrewdly known the skill of tricking the minds of men; these princes have overcome those whose actions were founded on honesty and integrity.

It should be understood that there are two types of fighting: one with laws and the other with force. The first is most suitable for men, the second is most suitable for beasts, but it often happens that the first is not enough, which requires that we have recourse to the second. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince to know how to act both as a man and as a beast. This was signified allegorically to princes by the ancient writers: they wrote that Achilles and many other ancient princes were given to be raised and tutored by the centaur Chiron, who took custody of them and disciplined them. This can only mean, this trainer who was half beast and half man, that a prince needs to know how to use either one or the other nature, and the one without the other will never last.

Since it is necessary for the prince to use the ways of beasts, he should imitate the fox and the lion, because the lion cannot defend himself from snares and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. Therefore, it is important to be a fox in order to understand the snares and a lion in order to terrify the wolves. Those who choose only to be a lion do not really understand. Therefore, a prudent leader will not and should not observe his promises, when such observance will work against him and when the reasons for making the promise are no longer valid. If all men were good, this precept would not be good; but since men are evil and will not keep their word with you, you shouldn’t keep yours to them. Never has a prince lacked legitimate reasons to break faith. I could give you an infinite number of examples from modern times, and show you numerous peace treaties and promises that have been broken and made completely empty by the faithlessness of princes: these knew well how to use the ways of the fox, and they are the ones who succeed. But it is necessary to know how to hide this nature and to simulate a good character and to dissimulate: for the majority of men are simple and will only follow the needs of the present, so that the deceiver can always find someone he can deceive.

I’m not going to pass up a specific example from recent history. Alexander VI (1) never did or thought about anything else except deceiving people and always found some reason or other to do it. There was never a man who was better at making assurances, or more eager to offer solemn promises, or who kept them less; yet he always succeeded in his deceptions beyond his wildest dreams, because he played his role in the world so well.

Therefore, a prince doesn’t need to have all the qualities mentioned earlier, but it is necessary that he appear to have them. I’ll even add to this: having good qualities and always practicing them is harmful, while appearing to practice them is useful. It’s good to appear to be pious, faithful, humane, honest, and religious, and it’s good to be all those things; but as long as one keeps in mind that when the need arises you can and will change into the opposite. It needs to be understood that a prince, and especially a prince recently installed, cannot observe all those qualities which make men good, and it is often necessary in order to preserve the state to act contrary to faity, contrary to mercy, contrary to humaneness, and contrary to religion. And therefore he needs a spririt disposed to follow wherever the winds of fortune and the variability of affairs leads him. As I said above, it’s necessary that he not depart from right but that he follow evil.

A prince must take great care never to let anything come from his mouth that is not full of the above-mentioned five qualities, and he must appear to all who see and hear him to be completely pious, completely faithful, completely honest, completely humane, and completely religious. And nothing is more important than to appear to have that last quality. Men judge more by their eyes than by their hands, because everyone can see but few can feel. Everyone can see how you appear, few can feel what you are, and these few will not dare to oppose the opinion of the multitude when it is defended by the majesty of the state. In actions of all men, especially princes, where there is no recourse to justice, the end is all that counts. A prince should only be concerned with conquering or maintaining a state, for the means will always be judged to be honorable and praiseworthy by each and every person, because the masses always follow appearances and the outcomes of affairs, and the world is nothing other than the masses. The few do not find a place wherever the masses are supported. There is a certain prince of our own time, (2) whom it would not be wise to name, who preaches nothing except peace and faith, and yet is the greatest enemy of both; and if he had observed one or the other, he already would have lost both his reputation and his state many times over.

Translated by Richard Hooker

1 The worldly pope who illegitimately fathered Machiavelli’s hero, Cesare Borgia.

2 Ferdinand of Spain.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing. The reader was created for use in the World Civilization course at Washington State University, but material on this page may be used for educational purposes by permission of the editor-in-chief:

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Department of English
Washington State University
Pullman 99164-5020

This is just a sample of Reading About the World, Volume 1. Reading About the World is now out of print. You can search for used copies using the following information:Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World, Vol. 1, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-567425-0 or Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World, Vol. 2, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-512826-4.

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Although their patrons often still considered them merely particularly skillful servants, many artists of the Renaissance began to develop a higher opinion of themselves. In the following anecdote the great painter and sculptor Michelangelo finds a clever way to deal with his patron, a presumptuous and ignorant noble. The David did not only illustrate a story from the Bible, it was intended to act as a symbol of Florence’s readiness to defend itself.

This statue, when finished, was of such a kind that many disputes took place as to how to transport it to the Piazza della Signoria. Whereupon Giuliano da San Gallo and his brother Antonio made a very strong framework of wood and suspended the figure from it with ropes, to the end that it might not hit against the wood and break to pieces, but might rather keep rocking gently; and they drew it with windlasses over flat beams laid upon the ground, and then set it in place. On the rope which held the figure suspended he made a slip-knot which was very easy to undo but tightened as the weight increased, which is a most beautiful and ingenious thing; and I have in my book a drawing of it by his own hand–an admirable, secure, and strong contrivance for suspending weights.

It happened at this time that Piero Soderini, having seen it in place, was well pleased with it, but said to Michelagnolo, (1) at a moment when he was retouching it in certain parts, that it seemed to him that the nose of the figure was too thick. Michelagnolo noticed that the Gonfalonier was beneath the Giant, and that his point of view prevented him from seeing it properly; but in order to satisfy him he climbed upon the staging, which was against the shoulders, and quickly took up a chisel in his left hand, with a little of the marble-dust that lay upon the planks of the staging, and then, beginning to strike lightly with the chisel, let fall the dust little by little, nor changed the nose a whit from what it was before. Then, looking down at the Gonfalonier, who stood watching him, he said, “Look at it now.” “I like it better,” said the Gonfalonier, “you have given it life.” And so Michelagnolo came down, laughing to himself at having satisfied that lord, for he had compassion on those who, in order to appear full of knowledge, talk about things of which they know nothing.

When it was built up, and all was finished, he uncovered it, and it cannot be denied that this work has carried off the palm (2) from all other statues, modern or ancient, Greek or Latin; and it may be said that neither the Marforio at Rome, nor the Tiber and the Nile of the Belvedere, nor the Giants of Monte Cavallo, (3) are equal to it in any respect, with such just proportion, beauty and excellence did Michelagnolo finish it. For in it may be seen most beautiful contours of legs, with attachments of limbs and slender outlines of flanks that are divine; nor has there ever been seen a pose so easy, or any grace to equal that in this work, or feet, hands and head so well in accord, one member with another, in harmony, design, and excellence of artistry. And, of a truth, whoever has seen this work need not trouble to see any other work executed in sculpture, either in our own or in other times, by no matter what craftsman. Michelagnolo received from Piero Soderini in payment for it four hundred crowns; and it was set in place in the year 1504.

Translated by Gaston du C. de Vere

(1) Vasariís spelling of ìMichelangelo.î

(2) Won the championship.

(3) All these are comparable ìgiants.î

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This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Books. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing. The reader was created for use in the World Civilization course at Washington State University, but material on this page may be used for educational purposes by permission of the editor-in-chief:

Paul Brians
Department of English
Washington State University
Pullman 99164-5020

This is just a sample of Reading About the World, Volume 1. Reading About the World is now out of print. You can search for used copies using the following information:Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World, Vol. 1, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-567425-0 or Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World, Vol. 2, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-512826-4.

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If there is anyone who seems to embody the Renaissance completely and totally, it is this grouchy and self-centered painter, scholar, inventor, scientist, writer, anatomist, etc. He seems to span the whole of human knowledge as it was known at the time, and combine all this knowledge into one vast, syncretic whole. For all his genius, however, he could never really finish very many projects, nor did he ever actually construct most of his inventions. Strewn through his notebooks is a small unfinished treatise on painting. The first part of the treatise signals a major shift in the European world view, one that more than anything else establishes the character of the Renaissance and its inheritance. The first part of the treatise printed here is meant to justify linear perspective; the second part explains how linear perspective is made possible. Linear perspective isn’t really just a painting technology that previous generations were too stupid to invent; rather it is based on a world view, one that remaps the human landscape to privilege human beings and the uniquely human perspective (as opposed to the divine perspective). This new world view is also based on new theories of “visibility,” which are expressed in the chapter “Linear Perspective.”

What qualities does Leonardo claim for his own art in contrast to that of others? Why does he feel that perspective is important?

Introduction

Because I can find no useful or pleasant subject to discourse on, since the men who came before me have taken all the useful and pleasant subjects and discoursed on them at length, I find I must behave like a pauper who comes to the fair last, and can provide for himself in no other way than to take those things of trivial value that have been rejected by other buyers. I, then, will fill my shopping bag with all these despised and rejected wares, trash passed over by previous buyers, and take them and distribute them, not in the great cities, but in the poorest villages, taking whatever money might be offered.

I realize many will call my little work useless; these people, as far as I’m concerned, are like those whom Demetrius was talking about when he said that he cared no more for the wind that issued from their mouths than the wind that issued from their lower extremities. These men desire only material wealth and are utterly lacking in wisdom, which is the only true food and wealth for the mind. The soul is so much greater than the body, its possessions so much nobler than those of the body. So, whenever a person of this sort picks up any of my works to read, I half expect him to put it to his nose the way a monkey does, or ask me if it’s good to eat.

I also realize that I am not a literary man, and that certain people who know too much that is good for them will blame me, saying that I’m not a man of letters. Fools! Dolts! I may refute them the way Marius did to the Roman patricians when he said that some who adorn themselves with other people’s labor won’t allow me to do my own labor. These folks will say that since I have no skill at literature, I will not be able to decorously express what I’m talking about. What they don’t know is that the subjects I am dealing with are to be dealt with by experience (1) rather than by words, and experience is the muse of all who write well. And so, as my muse, I will cite her in every case.

Although, unlike my critics, I am not able to facilely quote other writers, I will rely on an authority much greater and much more noble: on Experience, the Mistress of their Masters. These fellows waddle about puffed up and pretentious, all dressed up in the fruits, not of their own labors, but of other people’s labors; these fellows will not allow me my own labors. They will scorn me as an inventor and a discoverer, but they should be blamed more, since they have invented and discovered nothing but rather go about holding forth and declaiming the ideas and works of others.

There are men who are discoverers and intermediaries and interpreters between Nature and Man, rather than boasters and declaimers of other people’s work, and these must be admired and esteemed as the object in front of a mirror in comparison to the image seen in the mirror. The first is a real object in and of itself, the second is nothing. These people owe nothing to Nature; it is only good fortune that they wear a human form and, if it weren’t for this good fortune, I’d classify them with the cattle and the animals.

There are many who would, with reason, blame me by pointing out that my proofs are contrary to established authority, which is, after all, held in great reverence by their inexperienced minds. They do not realize that my works arise from unadulterated and simple experience, which is the one true mistress, the one true muse. The rules of experience are all that is needed to discern the true from the false; experience is what helps all men to look temperately for the possible, rather than cloaking oneself in ignorance, which can result in no good thing, so that, in the end, one abandons oneself to despair and melancholy.

Among all the studies of natural causes, Light more than anything else delights the beholder, and among the greatest features of Mathematics is the certainty of all its demonstrations which more than anything else elevates the mind of the thinker. Therefore, perspective is to be preferred to all other discourses and systems of knowledge, for in this science the ray of light is explained using methods of demonstration which glorify both Mathematics and Physics and grace the flowers of both these magnificent sciences. But since the axioms of Perspective have been treated extensively, I will abridge them, arranging them in their natural order and the order of their mathematical demonstration. Sometimes I will deduce the effects from their causes, and sometimes I will induce the causes from the effects, while adding my own conclusions that might be inferred from these.

On the three branches of perspective.

There are three branches of perspective: first, the diminution of objects as they recede from the eye, known as Diminishing Perspective. Second, the way in which colors vary as they recede from the eye. Third, the explanation of how the objects in a picture ought to be less perfect and complete in proportion to their remoteness. The names are as follows: Linear Perspective, The Perspective of Color, The Perspective of Disappearance.

On the mistakes of those who practice without knowledge.

Those who are fond of practice without knowledge are like a sailor in a ship without a rudder or a compass who, as a result, has no certain idea where he’s going. Practice must always be built from sound theoretical knowledge. The gateway to this theoretical knowledge is Perspective; without Perspective nothing can be done well or properly in the matter of painting and drawing. The painter who only relies on practice and the eye, without any intellect, is no more than a mirror which copies slavishly everything placed in front of it and which has no consciousness of the existence of these things.

Here, right here, in the eye, here forms, here colors, right here the character of every part and every thing of the universe, are concentrated to a single point. How marvelous that point is! . . . In this small space, the universe can be completely reproduced and rearranged in its entire vastness! . . .

The ten attributes of the eye as concerns painting.

Painting involves all ten attributes of sight: Darkness, Light, Solidity and Color, Form and Position, Distance and Nearness, Motion and Rest. This tiny treatise of mine will be only a brief study of these attributes of sight, for the purpose of reminding the painter of the rules and methods which should be used in his art in the project of imitating all the adornments and works of Nature. . . .

On the eye

If the eye is forced to look at an object far too close to it, that eye cannot really form a judgment of that object, for instance, when a man tries to look at his nose. As a general rule, then, Nature teaches us that no object can be seen perfectly unless it is placed at least at a distance from the eye equal to the length of the face.

The eye, which experience shows us sees all things upside-down, retains images. This is the proof: when the eye gazes at light for some time, it retains an impression, there remain in the eye images of brightness, that make less brilliant spots seem dark until the eye no longer has any trace of the image or impression of that brighter light.

Linear Perspective

Perspective is no more than a scientific demonstration in which experience shows us that every object sends its image to the eye by a pyramid of lines, and which shows that bodies of equal size will create a pyramid of larger or smaller size, according to their distance. A pyramid of lines consisting of those which start from both the surface and the edges of the objects in question and which converge from a distance into a single point. A point is that which has no dimensions and is indivisible. This point is placed in the eye and receives all the points of the pyramid of lines. . . .

If the front of a building, or a piazza or a field, is lighted by the sun and has a house opposite it, and if you make a tiny hole in the side of the house not facing the sun, all the lighted objects of that building, or piazza, or field, will send images through that small hole and be visible in that house on the wall (which should be white) opposite the hole. These images will be upside-down. If you make any more small holes you’ll get precisely the same results, so that the images of the lighted objects are completely present on the wall and on every part of it. Why does this happen? This hole must admit some light into the house, and the light admitted into the house will come from the lighted objects outside. If these objects have various colors and shapes, the light rays forming the images will have various colors and shapes; hence, the images on the wall.

Translated by Jean Paul Richter

(1) This emphasis on experience is an absolutely crucial shift in the European world view; for instance, the notion of experiment is based on the idea of “systematized” and repeatable experience.

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This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing.The reader was created for use in the World Civilization course at Washington State University, but material on this page may be used for educational purposes by permission of the editor-in-chief:

Paul Brians
Department of English
Washington State University
Pullman 99164-5020
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

This is just a sample of Reading About the World, Volume 1. Reading About the World is now out of print. You can search for used copies using the following information:Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World, Vol. 1, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-567425-0 or Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World, Vol. 2, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-512826-4.

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Francesco Petrarca was a great scholar and writer who anticipated and helped to create the Renaissance humanist movement while also influencing such writers as Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare. He most famous works are a series of poems depicting his love for a young woman named Laura whom he idealized and worshipped from afar. His many love poems are considered the very archetype of exalted romantic passion; though in later life he repented of having wasted much of his life in pursuit of a mere earthly woman. This poem is written in a particularly complex variation on a form called the sestina. Each stanza consists of six lines which end in a word which is repeated at the end of a line in all the other stanzas, but the words occur in a different order. After the sixth stanza occurs a seventh in which all six words are used in only three lines. It is most challenging to create a moving, passionate poem within such strict rules; but the insistent repetition of the final words suggests an obsession which never swerves from its object.

What qualities does Petrarch ascribe to Laura? Who is more vividly depicted in this poem, the lover or his beloved?

A young lady beneath a green laurel
I saw, whiter and colder than is a snow (1)
untouched by the sun for many, many years;
and her speech and her beauty and her face and all her hair
so pleased me that I carry her before my eyes
forever wherever I am, on hill or shore.

When my thoughts will come to rest on that shore
when the green leaves are no more on the laurel,
when I have quieted my heart, dried my eyes,
then you will see burning ice and snow; (2)
to await that day, I have fewer hairs
than I would be willing to spend in years.

But because time flies and fleeing go the years
and death suddenly casts one from shore,
crowned either with brown or with white hair, (3)
I will follow the shadow of that sweet laurel
through the burning sun or through the snow,
until the last day closes these eyes.

Never have there been seen such beautiful eyes,
in our times or in the first years,
dissolving, melting me as the sun does the snow,
from which flows so large a tear-filled shower
which Love floods at the foot of the hard laurel
with all its diamond branches and golden hair.

I fear I first will change this face and this hair (4)
before she will with pity raise her eyes,
she, my idol sculpted in living laurel,
for it is today now seven years
since I have gone sighing from shore to shore
both night and day, both in heat or in snow.

Within fire, though without white snow,
alone with these thoughts, with whitened hair,
weeping I go over every shore,
in order to make pity run in the eyes
of one who will be born in a thousand years, (5)
if so long can live a tended laurel.

The topaz sun all aureate (6) above the snow
is outshined still by the yellow hair near those eyes
which lead my years so rapidly to shore.

Translated by Richard Hooker

(1) These images refer to Laura’s “coldness” toward the poet, refusing to return his love.

(2) The laurel is an evergreen, and burning ice and snow are impossible; so Petrarch is saying he will never quiet his heart or dry his eyes: he will love her forever.

(3) Death can strike down young men as well as old ones.

(4) I will grow winkled and gray.

(5) Petrarch expects that people a thousand years from now will read this poem and sympathize with him.

(6) Golden

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This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing.The reader was created for use in the World Civilization course at Washington State University, but material on this page may be used for educational purposes by permission of the editor-in-chief:

Paul Brians
Department of English
Washington State University
Pullman 99164-5020
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

This is just a sample of Reading About the World, Volume 1. Reading About the World is now out of print. You can search for used copies using the following information:Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World, Vol. 1, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-567425-0 or Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World, Vol. 2, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-512826-4.

Try Chambal:
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If there is such a thing as a “manifesto” of the Italian Renaissance, Pico della Mirandola’s “Oration on the Dignity of Man” is it; no other work more forcefully, eloquently, or thoroughly remaps the human landscape to center all attention on human capacity and the human perspective. Pico himself had a massive intellect and literally studied everything there was to be studied in the university curriculum of the Renaissance; the “Oration” in part is meant to be a preface to a massive compendium of all the intellectual achievements of humanity, a compendium that never appeared because of Pico’s early death. Pico was a “humanist,” following a way of thinking that originated as far back as the fourteenth century. Late Medieval and Renaissance humanism was a response to the dry concerns for logic and linguistics that animated the other great late Medieval Christian philosophy, Scholasticism. The Humanists, rather than focussing on what they considered futile questions of logic and semantics, focussed on the relation of the human to the divine, seeing in human beings the summit and purpose of God’s creation. Their concern was to define the human place in God’s plan and the relation of the human to the divine; therefore, they centered all their thought on the “human” relation to the divine, and hence called themselves “humanists.” At no point do they ignore their religion; humanism is first and foremost a religious movement, not a secular one (what we call “secular humanism” in modern political discourse is a world view that arises in part from “humanism” but is, nevertheless, essentially conceived in opposition to “humanism”).

Where is humanity’s place on the “chain of being?” What choices do human beings have? How might these views have arisen from the views expressed in Boccaccio’s story of Ser Ciappelletto?

I once read that Abdala the Muslim, when asked what was most worthy of awe and wonder in this theater of the world, answered, “There is nothing to see more wonderful than man!” Hermes Trismegistus (1) concurs with this opinion: “A great miracle, Asclepius, is man!” However, when I began to consider the reasons for these opinions, all these reasons given for the magnificence of human nature failed to convince me: that man is the intermediary between creatures, close to the gods, master of all the lower creatures, with the sharpness of his senses, the acuity of his reason, and the brilliance of his intelligence the interpreter of nature, the nodal point between eternity and time, and, as the Persians say, the intimate bond or marriage song of the world, just a little lower than angels as David tells us. (2) I concede these are magnificent reasons, but they do not seem to go to the heart of the matter, that is, those reasons which truly claim admiration. For, if these are all the reasons we can come up with, why should we not admire angels more than we do ourselves? After thinking a long time, I have figured out why man is the most fortunate of all creatures and as a result worthy of the highest admiration and earning his rank on the chain of being, a rank to be envied not merely by the beasts but by the stars themselves and by the spiritual natures beyond and above this world. This miracle goes past faith and wonder. And why not? It is for this reason that man is rightfully named a magnificent miracle and a wondrous creation.

What is this rank on the chain of being? God the Father, Supreme Architect of the Universe, built this home, this universe we see all around us, a venerable temple of his godhead, through the sublime laws of his ineffable Mind. The expanse above the heavens he decorated with Intelligences, the spheres of heaven with living, eternal souls. The scabrous and dirty lower worlds he filled with animals of every kind. However, when the work was finished, the Great Artisan desired that there be some creature to think on the plan of his great work, and love its infinite beauty, and stand in awe at its immenseness. Therefore, when all was finished, as Moses and Timaeus tell us, He began to think about the creation of man. But he had no Archetype from which to fashion some new child, nor could he find in his vast treasure-houses anything which He might give to His new son, nor did the universe contain a single place from which the whole of creation might be surveyed. All was perfected, all created things stood in their proper place, the highest things in the highest places, the midmost things in the midmost places, and the lowest things in the lowest places. But God the Father would not fail, exhausted and defeated, in this last creative act. God’s wisdom would not falter for lack of counsel in this need. God’s love would not permit that he whose duty it was to praise God’s creation should be forced to condemn himself as a creation of God.

Finally, the Great Artisan mandated that this creature who would receive nothing proper to himself shall have joint possession of whatever nature had been given to any other creature. He made man a creature of indeterminate and indifferent nature, and, placing him in the middle of the world, said to him “Adam, we give you no fixed place to live, no form that is peculiar to you, nor any function that is yours alone. According to your desires and judgment, you will have and possess whatever place to live, whatever form, and whatever functions you yourself choose. All other things have a limited and fixed nature prescribed and bounded by our laws. You, with no limit or no bound, may choose for yourself the limits and bounds of your nature. We have placed you at the world’s center so that you may survey everything else in the world. We have made you neither of heavenly nor of earthly stuff, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with free choice and dignity, you may fashion yourself into whatever form you choose. To you is granted the power of degrading yourself into the lower forms of life, the beasts, and to you is granted the power, contained in your intellect and judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, the divine.”

Imagine! The great generosity of God! The happiness of man! To man it is allowed to be whatever he chooses to be! As soon as an animal is born, it brings out of its mother’s womb all that it will ever possess. Spiritual beings from the beginning become what they are to be for all eternity. Man, when he entered life, the Father gave the seeds of every kind and every way of life possible. Whatever seeds each man sows and cultivates will grow and bear him their proper fruit. If these seeds are vegetative, he will be like a plant. If these seeds are sensitive, he will be like an animal. If these seeds are intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God. And if, satisfied with no created thing, he removes himself to the center of his own unity, his spiritual soul, united with God, alone in the darkness of God, who is above all things, he will surpass every created thing. Who could not help but admire this great shape-shifter? In fact, how could one admire anything else? . . .

For the mystic philosophy of the Hebrews transforms Enoch into an angel called “Mal’akh Adonay Shebaoth,” and sometimes transforms other humans into different sorts of divine beings. The Pythagoreans abuse villainous men by having them reborn as animals and, according to Empedocles, even plants. Muhammed also said frequently, “Those who deviate from the heavenly law become animals.” Bark does not make a plant a plant, rather its senseless and mindless nature does. The hide does not make an animal an animal, but rather its irrational but sensitive soul. The spherical form does not make the heavens the heavens, rather their unchanging order. It is not a lack of body that makes an angel an angel, rather it is his spiritual intelligence. If you see a person totally subject to his appetites, crawling miserably on the ground, you are looking at a plant, not a man. If you see a person blinded by empty illusions and images, and made soft by their tender beguilements, completely subject to his senses, you are looking at an animal, not a man. If you see a philosopher judging things through his reason, admire and follow him: he is from heaven, not the earth. If you see a person living in deep contemplation, unaware of his body and dwelling in the inmost reaches of his mind, he is neither from heaven nor earth, he is divinity clothed in flesh.

Who would not admire man, who is called by Moses (3) and the Gospels “all flesh” and “every creature,” because he fashions and transforms himself into any fleshly form and assumes the character of any creature whatsoever? For this reason, Euanthes the Persian in his description of Chaldaean theology, writes that man has no inborn, proper form, but that many things that humans resemble are outside and foreign to them, from which arises the Chaldaean saying: “Hanorish tharah sharinas”: “Man is multitudinous, varied, and ever changing.” Why do I emphasize this? Considering that we are born with this condition, that is, that we can become whatever we choose to become, we need to understand that we must take earnest care about this, so that it will never be said to our disadvantage that we were born to a privileged position but failed to realize it and became animals and senseless beasts. Instead, the saying of Asaph the prophet should be said of us, “You are all angels of the Most High.” Above all, we should not make that freedom of choice God gave us into something harmful, for it was intended to be to our advantage. Let a holy ambition enter into our souls; let us not be content with mediocrity, but rather strive after the highest and expend all our strength in achieving it.

Let us disdain earthly things, and despise the things of heaven, and, judging little of what is in the world, fly to the court beyond the world and next to God. In that court, as the mystic writings tell us, are the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones (4) in the foremost places; let us not even yield place to them, the highest of the angelic orders, and not be content with a lower place, imitate them in all their glory and dignity. If we choose to, we will not be second to them in anything.

Translated by Richard Hooker

(1) This mystical Egyptian writer, much quoted by Renaissance alchemists, probably lived in the 2nd-3rd century.

(2) Psalms 8:5.

(3) Moses was reputed to have written the first five books of the Bible.

(4) These are the three highest orders of angels in the medieval and Renaissance theory of angelic hierarchy which is, in descending order, Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Powers, Angels, Archangels.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Books.   The reader was created for use in the World Civilization course at Washington State University, but material on this page may be used for educational purposes by permission of the editor-in-chief:

Paul Brians
Department of English
Washington State University
Pullman 99164-5020

This is just a sample of Reading About the World, Volume 1. This is just a sample of Reading About the World, Volume 1. If, after examining the table of contents of the complete volume, you are interested in considering it for use at your own campus, please contact Paul Brians.

When in 1095 Emperor Alexius Comnenus appealed to Pope Urban II for help in fighting the Turks, what caught the pontiff’s attention was not the plight of his fellow Christians in Byzantium, but the fact that the places where Christ had lived and died were in Muslim hands (as they had been for centuries). Although Urban was responsible for initiating the drive to “liberate” the Holy Land, it was a common monk, Peter the Hermit, who got the credit in the popular imagination. The crusaders who arrived from Northern Europe were filled with religious passion and the desire to acquire kingdoms for themselves; but they had scant understanding of the people they were supposed to be assisting. The emperor’s daughter Anna, in her history of Alexius’ reign, disdainfully depicts the crusaders as violent, ignorant boors.

According to Anna, what were the main faults of the crusaders?

A Celt (1) named Peter, called “Peter the Hermit,” left to worship at the Holy Sepulcher. (2) After having suffered much bad treatment at the hands of the Turks and the Saracens who were ravaging all of Asia he returned to his home only with great difficulty. Since he could not bear to have failed in his aim, he decided to begin the same voyage over again. But he understood that he should not retravel the route to the Holy Sepulcher alone for fear that a worse mishap might occur to him; and he thought up a clever scheme, which was to preach throughout all the countries of the Latins (3) as follows: “A divine voice has ordered me to proclaim before all the nobles of France that they should all leave their homes to go worship at the Holy Sepulcher and try with all their ability and with all their passion to free Jerusalem from the domination of the Agarenes.” (4)

In fact he succeeded. As if he had made a divine voice heard in the heart of each person, Celts from all over assembled, arriving one after the others with their arms, horses, and the rest of their military equipment. These men were so passionately enthusiastic they filled all the roads. These Celtic soldiers were accompanied by a multitude of unarmed people, more numerous than grains of sand or stars, carrying palm branches (5) and crosses over their shoulders: women and children who had left their countries. To see them one would have thought they were streams which flowed together from everywhere–from Dacia mostly, they headed toward us with their entire army.

The arrival of so many people was preceded by locusts which spared the wheat but despoiled and devoured the vines. It was truly the sign such as the prophets of that time had predicted, that this formidable Celtic army, when it arrived, would not intervene in Christian affairs, but would crush in a terrible manner the barbaric Ishmaelites (6) who are slaves of drunkenness, of wine and of Dionysus. (7) For this race, which is ruled by Dionysus and Eros, is so degenerate in regard to sexual relations of every kind that, if it is circumcised in the flesh, is not in its passions: it is enslaved–entirely enslaved–by the vices of Aphrodite. This is also the reason that the Ishmaelites adore in their worship Astarte and Ashtaroth, and that they make so much of an image of a star and the golden statue of Chobar. (8) Besides, wheat was considered as the symbol of Christianity because it is not a stimulant and is very nourishing. This is how the prophets interpreted the symbolism of the wheat and the vines.

But enough about prophets; these signs also accompanied the approach of the barbarians, and intelligent people could expect something novel. In fact the arrival of such a multitude did not take place at the same moment, nor by the same road. (In fact, how could such masses setting out from different countries have all assembled to cross from Italy?) (9) One group crossed, then another, then another after that: thus one after another they all crossed over, then continued across the continent. Each army was preceded by a cloud of locusts, as I said above; so everyone having experienced this several times, knew that this phenomenon portended the arrival of French troops.

When these groups began crossing the Straits of Lombardy, the emperor summoned some of the leaders of the Roman troops and sent them to the region around Dyrrachium and Avlona, with orders that the travelers who had crossed over should be received kindly and provided all along their route with abundant provisions from all regions; and instructions to observe them discretely, constantly observing them, so that if they were observed making raids or pillaging neighboring regions, they should be repelled by light skirmishes. These officers were aided by interpreters who knew the Latin language and could settle the conflicts which might arise.

I would like to give a clearer and more detailed account of this matter. Inspired by word of the preaching which circulated everywhere, Godefroi (10) was the first to sell his lands and set out on the road. He was a very rich man, extremely proud of his noble birth, his courage, and the glory of his ancestry, for every Celt wanted to surpass all others. There arose a movement including both men and women such as no one could remember having ever seen before: the simplest people were truly motivated by their desire to worship at the sepulcher of the Lord and to visit the holy places; but villainous men like Bohemond and his like had an ulterior motive, and the hope that perhaps they might seize the imperial city itself (11) on the way since they had stumbled on this opportunity for profit. Bohemond confused the minds of many noble warriors because he cherished an old grudge against the emperor.

Meanwhile, Peter, after having preached as I have described above, crossed the Strait of Lombardy before any of them with 80,000 infantrymen and 100,000 horsemen, and arrived at the imperial palace after having crossed through Hungary. The Celtic people, as can be guessed, are in any case very hotheaded and passionate: once they’ve caught fire they are unstoppable. Informed of all that Peter had had to endure previously at the hands of the Turks, the emperor advised him to wait for the arrival of the other counts; but he, refusing to listen to him, feeling his company strong in numbers, crossed the strait and set up camp near a small village called Helenopolis. Normans followed him: about 10,000 of them. They broke off from the rest of the army and began pillaging the region around Nicaea, conducting themselves with extreme cruelty toward all. Suckling infants, for example, were either mutilated or speared on spits and roasted over the fire. As for older people, they inflicted all manner of tortures on them. When the inhabitants of the city heard these things, they opened the gates and made a sortie against the Normans. A violent combat followed; but in the face of the belligerent ferocity of the Normans the native troops retreated into the citadel. The attackers returned to Helenopolis with all their booty. But a dispute arose between them and those who had not gone with them on the raid, as often happens in such cases; envy inflamed those who had remained behind and there followed between the two groups a quarrel which ended by the audacious Normans making a new separate sortie and taking Xerigordon in a single assault.

The sultan reacted to these events by sending Elkhanes against them with a substantial force. As soon as he arrived, he recaptured Xerigordon. As for the Normans, he put many to the sword and took the rest prisoner while planning a surprise assault on the others who had remained behind with Peter. He set up ambushes in appropriate spots where those who were traveling toward Nicaea would be fallen upon and massacred. Knowing the Celts were greedy, he summoned two courageous men and ordered them to go to Peter’s camp and say that the Normans, having conquered Nicaea, were in the process of dividing up the riches of the city. This news spread among those with Peter and threw them into a terrible confusion; for as soon as they heard of dividing riches, they rushed off in disorder along the road to Nicaea, almost entirely forgetting the military experience and discipline proper to fighting men. Since they did march in ranks or troops, they fell into a Turkish ambush near Drakon and were wretchedly massacred. So many Celts and Normans were victims of the Ishmaelite sword that when the bodies of the slaughtered warriors which were scattered about were collected, they were piled–not in a huge pile, nor even a mound, or a hill–but into a high mountain of considerable dimensions, so great was the mass of bones. Later men belonging to the same race as the massacred men built walls like those of the city, filling the holes between the stones with bones instead of mortar, and thus made this city into their tomb. The fortified place exists still today, surrounded by a wall made of stones and bones mixed together.

When all these had been slain by the sword, Peter alone with a few others returned to Helenopolis and entered it. The Turks, who wanted to seize the city, raised new ambushes. But when the emperor learned all of this and had verified the facts of this appalling massacre, he realized how tragic it would have been if Peter had also been taken prisoner. So he sent for Constantine Euphorbenos Katakalon, whom I have mentioned often above, and had him assemble a large body of warships and sent them to rescue those on the other side of the strait. As soon as the Turks saw these troops arrive, they fled. Constantine, without losing a moment, gathered Peter and his few companions and led them safe and sound to the emperor. When the latter reminded him of his imprudence from the beginning and told them that he had undergone such a disaster because he had disregarded the emperor’s advice, the proud Latin, far from admitting that he was responsible for this disaster, accused the others of not having obeyed him, following their own whims, and spoke of them as thieves and brigands, which is why the Lord had not allowed them to reach the Holy Sepulcher.

Those Latins who, like Bohemond and his kind, had for a long time coveted the Roman (12) Empire and wished to seize it, took advantage of the pretext of Peter’s preaching which had provoked this enormous movement by deceiving the more honest among them. Selling their lands, they pretended to go off to war against the Turks to free the Holy Sepulcher.

Translated by Paul Brians

(1) Anna calls the crusaders “Celts,” “Latins,” and “Normans” interchangeably.

(2) The tomb of Christ is in Jerusalem.

(3) Countries dominated by the Roman Catholic Church, whose official language was Latin.

(4) The Turks.

(5) It was traditional for pilgrims to the Holy Land to carry palm branches over their shoulders.

(6) Muslims.

(7) The Greek god of wine. It is difficult to know what caused Anna to judge the Muslims as drunkards, for Islam strictly forbids its followers to drink wine.

(8) Both Western and Eastern Medieval Christians insisted that Muslims were polytheistic idol-worshipers, although in fact they were strict monotheists and forbad images.

(9) Anna wrongly assumes that all of the crusaders crossed over from Italy, probably because the first to arrive came from that direction.

(10) Godefroi of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine.

(11) Constantinople, which was indeed invaded, pillaged and conquered by the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade in 1204.

(12) Byzantine.

This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Books. This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Books.    The reader was created for use in the World Civilization course at Washington State University, but material on this page may be used for educational purposes by permission of the editor-in-chief:

Paul Brians
Department of English
Washington State University
Pullman 99164-5020

This is just a sample of Reading About the World, Volume 1. This is just a sample of Reading About the World, Volume 1. If, after examining the table of contents of the complete volume, you are interested in considering it for use at your own campus, please contact Paul Brians.

From Genji Shibukawa: Tales from the Kojiki

The following is a modern retelling of the creation story from the Kojiki, Japan’s oldest chronicle, compiled in 712 CE by O No Yasumaro. This version is easier for the modern reader to understand than the original, but its essential features are preserved. The quest for Izanami in the underworld is reminiscent of the Greek demigod Orpheus’ quest in Hades for his wife, Euridice, and even more of the Sumerian myth of the descent of Innana to the underworld.

How does this story reflect the sense of its creators that Japan is the most important place in the world?

The Beginning of the World

Before the heavens and the earth came into existence, all was a chaos, unimaginably limitless and without definite shape or form. Eon followed eon: then, lo! out of this boundless, shapeless mass something light and transparent rose up and formed the heaven. This was the Plain of High Heaven, in which materialized a deity called Ame-no-Minaka-Nushi-no-Mikoto (the Deity-of-the-August-Center-of-Heaven). Next the heavens gave birth to a deity named Takami-Musubi-no-Mikoto (the High-August-Producing-Wondrous-Deity), followed by a third called Kammi-Musubi-no-Mikoto (the Divine-Producing-Wondrous-Deity). These three divine beings are called the Three Creating Deities.

In the meantime what was heavy and opaque in the void gradually precipitated and became the earth, but it had taken an immeasurably long time before it condensed sufficiently to form solid ground. In its earliest stages, for millions and millions of years, the earth may be said to have resembled oil floating, medusa-like, upon the face of the waters. Suddenly like the sprouting up of a reed, a pair of immortals were born from its bosom. These were the Deity Umashi-Ashi-Kahibi-Hikoji-no-Mikoto (the Pleasant-Reed-Shoot-Prince-Elder-Deity) and the Deity Ame-no-Tokotachi-no-Mikoto (The Heavenly-Eternally-Standing-Deity). . . .

Many gods were thus born in succession, and so they increased in number, but as long as the world remained in a chaotic state, there was nothing for them to do. Whereupon, all the Heavenly deities summoned the two divine beings, Izanagi and Izanami, and bade them descend to the nebulous place, and by helping each other, to consolidate it into terra firma. “We bestow on you,” they said, “this precious treasure, with which to rule the land, the creation of which we command you to perform.” So saying they handed them a spear called Ama-no-Nuboko, embellished with costly gems. The divine couple received respectfully and ceremoniously the sacred weapon and then withdrew from the presence of the Deities, ready to perform their august commission. Proceeding forthwith to the Floating Bridge of Heaven, which lay between the heaven and the earth, they stood awhile to gaze on that which lay below. What they beheld was a world not yet condensed, but looking like a sea of filmy fog floating to and fro in the air, exhaling the while an inexpressibly fragrant odor. They were, at first, perplexed just how and where to start, but at length Izanagi suggested to his companion that they should try the effect of stirring up the brine with their spear. So saying he pushed down the jeweled shaft and found that it touched something. Then drawing it up, he examined it and observed that the great drops which fell from it almost immediately coagulated into an island, which is, to this day, the Island of Onokoro. Delighted at the result, the two deities descended forthwith from the Floating Bridge to reach the miraculously created island. In this island they thenceforth dwelt and made it the basis of their subsequent task of creating a country. Then wishing to become espoused, they erected in the center of the island a pillar, the Heavenly August Pillar, and built around it a great palace called the Hall of Eight Fathoms. Thereupon the male Deity turning to the left and the female Deity to the right, each went round the pillar in opposite directions. When they again met each other on the further side of the pillar, Izanami, the female Deity, speaking first, exclaimed: “How delightful it is to meet so handsome a youth!” To which Izanagi, the male Deity, replied: “How delightful I am to have fallen in with such a lovely maiden!” After having spoken thus, the male Deity said that it was not in order that woman should anticipate man in a greeting. Nevertheless, they fell into connubial relationship, having been instructed by two wagtails which flew to the spot. Presently the Goddess bore her divine consort a son, but the baby was weak and boneless as a leech. Disgusted with it, they abandoned it on the waters, putting it in a boat made of reeds. Their second offspring was as disappointing as the first. The two Deities, now sorely disappointed at their failure and full of misgivings, ascended to Heaven to inquire of the Heavenly Deities the causes of their misfortunes. The latter performed the ceremony of divining and said to them: “It is the woman’s fault. In turning round the Pillar, it was not right and proper that the female Deity should in speaking have taken precedence of the male. That is the reason.” The two Deities saw the truth of this divine suggestion, and made up their minds to rectify the error. So, returning to the earth again, they went once more around the Heavenly Pillar. This time Izanagi spoke first saying: “How delightful to meet so beautiful a maiden!” “How happy I am,” responded Izanami, “that I should meet such a handsom youth!” This process was more appropriate and in accordance with the law of nature. After this, all the children born to them left nothing to be desired. First, the island of Awaji was born, next, Shikoku, then, the island of Oki, followed by Kyushu; after that, the island Tsushima came into being, and lastly, Honshu, the main island of Japan. The name of Oyashi- ma-kuni (the Country of the Eight Great Islands) was given to these eight islands. After this, the two Deities became the parents of numerous smaller islands destined to surround the larger ones.

The Birth of the Deities

Having, thus, made a country from what had formerly been no more than a mere floating mass, the two Deities, Izanagi and Izanami, about begetting those deities destined to preside over the land, sea, mountains, rivers, trees, and herbs. Their first-born proved to be the sea-god, Owatatsumi-no-Kami. Next they gave birth to the patron gods of harbors, the male deity Kamihaya-akitsu-hiko having control of the land and the goddess Haya-akitsu-hime having control of the sea. These two latter deities subsequently gave birth to eight other gods.

Next Izanagi and Izanami gave birth to the wind-deity, Kami-Shinatsuhiko-no-Mikoto. At the moment of his birth, his breath was so potent that the clouds and mists, which had hung over the earth from the beginning of time, were immediately dispersed. In consequence, every corner of the world was filled with brightness. Kukunochi-no-Kami, the deity of trees, was the next to be born, followed by Oyamatsumi-no-Kami, the deity of mountains, and Kayanuhime-no-Kami, the goddess of the plains. . . .

The process of procreation had, so far, gone on happily, but at the birth of Kagutsuchi-no-Kami, the deity of fire, an unseen misfortune befell the divine mother, Izanami. During the course of her confinement, the goddess was so severely burned by the flaming child that she swooned away. Her divine consort, deeply alarmed, did all in his power to resuscitate her, but although he succeeded in restoring her to consciousness, her appetite had completely gone. Izanagi, thereupon and with the utmost loving care, prepared for her delectation various tasty dishes, but all to no avail, because whatever she swallowed was almost immediately rejected. It was in this wise that occurred the greatest miracle of all. From her mouth sprang Kanayama- biko and Kanayama-hime, respectively the god and goddess of metals, whilst from other parts of her body issued forth Haniyasu-hiko and Haniyasu-hime, respectively the god and goddess of earth. Before making her “divine retirement,” which marks the end of her earthly career, in a manner almost unspeakably miraculous she gave birth to her last-born, the goddess Mizuhame-no-Mikoto. Her demise marks the intrusion of death into the world. Similarly the corruption of her body and the grief occasioned by her death were each the first of their kind.

By the death of his faithful spouse Izanagi was now quite alone in the world. In conjunction with her, and in accordance with the instructions of the Heavenly Gods, he had created and consolidated the Island Empire of Japan. In the fulfillment of their divine mission, he and his heavenly spouse had lived an ideal life of mutual love and cooperation. It is only natural, therefore, that her death should have dealt him a truly mortal blow.

He threw himself upon her prostrate form, crying: “Oh, my dearest wife, why art thou gone, to leave me thus alone? How could I ever exchange thee for even one child? Come back for the sake of the world, in which there still remains so much for both us twain to do.” In a fit of uncontrollable grief, he stood sobbing at the head of the bier. His hot tears fell like hailstones, and lo! out of the tear-drops was born a beauteous babe, the goddess Nakisawame-no-Mikoto. In deep astonishment he stayed his tears, a gazed in wonder at the new-born child, but soon his tears returned only to fall faster than before. It was thus that a sudden change came over his state of mind. With bitter wrath, his eyes fell upon the infant god of fire, whose birth had proved so fatal to his mother. He drew his sword, Totsuka-no-tsurugi, and crying in his wrath, “Thou hateful matricide,” decapitated his fiery offspring. Up shot a crimson spout of blood. Out of the sword and blood together arose eight strong and gallant deities. “What! more children?” cried Izanagi, much astounded at their sudden appearance, but the very next moment, what should he see but eight more deities born from the lifeless body of the infant firegod! They came out from the various parts of the body,–head, breast, stomach, hands, feet, and navel, and, to add to his astonishment, all of them were glaring fiercely at him. Altogether stupefied he surveyed the new arrivals one after another.

Meanwhile Izanami, for whom her divine husband pined so bitterly, had quitted this world for good and all and gone to the Land of Hades.

Izanagi’s Visit to the Land of Hades

As for the Deity Izanagi, who had now become a widower, the presence of so many offspring might have, to some extent, beguiled and solaced him, and yet when he remembered how faithful his departed spouse had been to him, he would yearn for her again, his heart swollen with sorrow and his eyes filled with tears. In this mood, sitting up alone at midnight, he would call her name aloud again and again, regardless of the fact that he could hope for no response. His own piteous cries merely echoed back from the walls of his chamber.

Unable any longer to bear his grief, he resolved to go down to the Nether Regions in order to seek for Izanami and bring her back, at all costs, to the world. He started on his long and dubious journey. Many millions of miles separated the earth from the Lower Regions and there were countless steep and dangerous places to be negotiated, but Izanagi’s indomitable determination to recover his wife enabled him finally to overcome all these difficulties. At length he succeeded in arriving at his destination. Far ahead of him, he espied a large castle. “That, no doubt,” he mused in delight, “may be where she resides.”

Summoning up all his courage, he approached the main entrance of the castle. Here he saw a number of gigantic demons, some red some black, guarding the gates with watchful eyes. He retraced his steps in alarm, and stole round to a gate at the rear of the castle. He found, to his great joy, that it was apparently left unwatched. He crept warily through the gate and peered into the interior of the castle, when he immediately caught sight of his wife standing at the gate at an inner court. The delighted Deity loudly called her name. “Why! There is some one calling me,” sighed Izanami-no-Mikoto, and raising her beautiful head, she looked around her. What was her amazement but to see her beloved husband standing by the gate and gazing at her intently! He had, in fact, been in her thoughts no less constantly than she in his. With a heart leaping with joy, she approached him. He grasped her hands tenderly and murmured in deep and earnest tones: “My darling, I have come to take thee back to the world. Come back, I pray thee, and let us complete our work of creation in accordance with the will of the Heavenly Gods,–our work which was left only half accomplished by thy departure. How can I do this work without thee?Thy loss means to me the loss of all.” This appeal came from the depth of his heart. The goddess sympathized with him most deeply, but answered with tender grief: “Alas! Thou hast come too late. I have already eaten of the furnace of Hades. Having once eaten the things of this land, it is impossible for me to come back to the world.” So saying, she lowered her head in deep despair.

“Nay, I must entreat thee to come back. Canst not thou find some means by which this can be accomplished?” exclaimed her husband, drawing nearer to her. After some reflection, she replied: “Thou hast come a very, very long way for my sake. How much I appreciate thy devotion! I wish, with all my heart, to go back with thee, but before I can do so, I must first obtain the permission of the deities of Hades. Wait here till my return, but remember that thou must not on any account look inside the castle in the meantime. ” I swear I will do as thou biddest,” quoth Izanagi, ” but tarry not in thy quest.” With implicit confidence in her husband’s pledge, the goddess disappeared into the castle.

Izanagi observed strictly her injunction. He remained where he stood, and waited impatiently for his wife’s return. Probably to his impatient mind, a single heart-beat may have seemed an age. He waited and waited, but no shadow of his wife appeared. The day gradually wore on and waned away, darkness was about to fall, and a strange unearthly wind began to strike his face. Brave as he was, he was seized with an uncanny feeling of apprehension. Forgetting the vow he had made to the goddess, he broke off one of the teeth of the comb which he was wearing in the left bunch of his hair, and having lighted it, he crept in softly and- glanced around him. To his horror he found Izanagi lying dead in a room: and lo! a ghastly change had come over her. She, who had been so dazzlingly beautiful, was now become naught but a rotting corpse, in an advanced stage of decomposition. Now, an even more horrible sight met his gaze; the Fire Thunder dwelt in her, head, the Black Thunder in her belly, the Rending-Thunder in her abdomen, the Young Thunder in her left hand, the Earth-Thunder in her right hand, the Rumbling-Thunder in her left foot,-and the Couchant Thunder in her right foot:–altogether eight Thunder-Deities had been born and were dwelling there, attached to her remains and belching forth flames from their mouths. Izanagitno-Mikoto was so thoroughly alarmed at the sight, that he dropped the light and took to his heels. The sound he made awakened Izanami from her death-like slumber. For sooth!” she cried: “he must have seen me in this revolting state. He has put me to shame and has broken his solemn vow. Unfaithful wretch! I’ll make him suffer, for his perfidy.”

Then turning to the Hags of Hades, who attended her, she commanded them to give chase to him. At her word, an army of female demons ran after the Deity.

Translated by Yaichiro Isobe

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing. The reader was created for use in the World Civilization course at Washington State University, but material on this page may be used for educational purposes by permission of the editor-in-chief:

Paul Brians
Department of English
Washington State University
Pullman 99164-5020

Reading About the World is now out of print. You can search for used copies using the following information:Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World, Vol. 1, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-567425-0 or Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World, Vol. 2, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-512826-4.

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