The Adventurous Simplicissimus being the description of the Life of a Strange vagabond named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim.
by Hans Jacob Christoph von Grimmelshausen.
INTRODUCTION
The translation here presented to the public is intended rather as a contribution to the history, or perhaps it should be said the sociology, of the momentous period to which the romance of "Simplicissimus" belongs, than as a specimen of literature. Effective though its situations are, consistent and artistic though its composition is (up to a certain point), its interest lies chiefly in the pictures, or rather photographs, of contemporary manners and characters which it presents. It has been said with some truth that if succeeding romancers had striven as perseveringly as our author to embody the spirit and reflect the ways of the people, German fiction might long ago have reached as high a development as the English novel.
As it is, there is little of such spirit to be discovered in the prose romances which appeared between the time of Grimmelshausen and that of Jean Paul Richter. But the influence of the latter was completely swept away in the torrent of idealism by which the fictions of the idolised Goethe and his followers were characterised, and his domestic realism has only of late made its reappearance in disquieting and sordid forms.
It should be remembered as an apology for the stress now laid upon the sociological side of the history of the Thirty Years War, that that side has by historians been resolutely thrust into the background. The most detailed and painstaking narratives of the war are either bare records of military operations or, worse still, represent merely meticulous and valueless unravellings of the web of intrigue with which the pedants of the time deceived themselves into the belief that they were very Machiavels of subtlety and resource. While the Empire was bleeding to death, the chancelleries of half Europe were intent on the detaching from one side or the other of a venal general, or the patching up of some partial armistice that might afford breathing-time to organise further mischief. It does not matter much to any one whether Wallenstein was knave or fool, but it did matter and does matter that the war crippled for two hundred years the finances, the agriculture, and the enterprise of the German people, and dealt a blow to their patriotism from the like of which few nations could have recovered. Even the character of the civil administration was completely altered when the struggle ended. An army of capable bourgeois secretaries and councillors had for centuries served their princes and their fellow subjects well. It is wonderful that throughout the devastating wars waged by Wallenstein and Weimar, and even later on during the organised raids of Wrangel and Konigsmark, the records were kept, the village business administered (where there was a village left), and even revenue collected with wellnigh as much regularity as in time of peace. These functionaries, who had worked so well, were at the end of the war gradually dispossessed of their influence, and their posts were taken by a swarm of young place-hunters of n.o.ble birth whom the peace had deprived of their proper employment, and whose pride was only equalled by their incapacity. But neither particulars nor generalisations bearing on such subjects are to be found in the pages of professional historians; they must be sought in the contemporary records of the people, of which the present work affords one of the few existing specimens, or else in the work of picturesque writers who, laying no claim to the t.i.tle of scientific investigators, yet possess the power of selecting salient facts and deducing broad conclusions from them. Freitag"s "Bilder aus der Deutschen Vergangenheit" indicates a wealth of material for sociological study which has as yet been but charily used; and recent German works dealing directly with the subject are more remarkable for elegance of production than for depth of research.
Such being the purpose for which this translation has been undertaken, an Introduction to it must necessarily be concerned not so much with the bibliography of the book or even the sources, if any, to which the author was beholden for his material, as with his own personality and the amount of actual fact that underlies the narrative of the fict.i.tious hero"s adventures. In respect of the first point, we are presented with a biography almost as shadowy and elusive as that of Shakespeare. In many ways, indeed, the particulars of the lives of these two which we possess are curiously alike. Both were voluminous writers; both enjoyed considerable contemporary reputation; and in both cases our knowledge of their actual history is confined to a few statements by persons who lived somewhat later than themselves, and a few formal doc.u.ments and entries. In Grimmelshausen"s case this obscurity is increased by his practice of publis.h.i.+ng under a.s.sumed names. In the score of romances and tracts which are undoubtedly his work, we find only two to which his real name is attached. He has nine other pseudonyms, nearly all anagrams of the words "Christoffel von Grimmelshausen." Of these, "German Schleifheim von Sulsfort" and "Samuel Greifnsohn vom Hirschfelt" are the best known; the latter being the name to which he most persistently clung, and under which "Simplicissimus" was published, though the former appears on the t.i.tle-page as that of the "editor." Only as the signature to a kind of advertis.e.m.e.nt at the end do we find the initials of "Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen," his full name. Until the publication of a collection of his works by Felsecker at Nuremberg in 1685, the true authors.h.i.+p of most of them remained unknown. But that editor, by his allusions in the preface, practically identified the writer as the "Schultheiss of Renchen, near Stra.s.sburg," whom he seems to have known personally. The reasons for anonymity were, no doubt, firstly, the fact that "Simplicissimus" at least dealt with the actions of men yet alive; and secondly, with regard to the other books, the continual references to details of the author"s own life and opinions. His dread of offending a contemporary is shown by his disguising of the name of St. Andre, the commandant of Lippstadt, as N. de S. A. of L. (bk. iii., chap. 15).
It is unnecessary here to enter into a discussion of the authorities from whom the meagre particulars of Grimmelshausen"s life are drawn. It may suffice for our present purpose to indicate the main events of that life. He was born at Gelnhausen, near Hanau, about 1625--probably of a humble family. At the age of ten he was captured by Hessian (that is, be it remembered, anti-Imperialist) troops, and became a member of that "unseliger Tross"--the unholy crew of horseboys, harlots, sutlers, and hangers-on who followed the armies on both sides, and sometimes outnumbered them three to one. In 1648, the last year of the war, the whole Imperial army only numbered 40,000 fighting men, and the recognised camp-followers, who were commanded and kept in order by officers significantly named the "Provosts of the Harlots," no less than 140,000. In the preface to one of his works called the "Satyrical Pilgrim," Grimmelshausen speaks of himself as having been "a musqueteer" at the age of ten--a statement which is obviously to be taken in the same sense in which Simplicissimus tells us (bk. ii., chap. 4) how he "served the crown of Sweden" at a similar age as a soldier, and drew pay for it. As a matter of fact, Grimmelshausen probably served a musqueteer or several musqueteers, just as the "Boy"
in Henry V. serves Ancient Pistol and his comrades. From another book, the "Everlasting Almanack," we learn that he was a soldier under the Imperialist general Gotz, lay in garrison at Offenburg, the free city alluded to in book v., chapter 20, and also for a long time in the famous fortress of Philippsburg, of his residence in which he tells various anecdotes. There are traces both in "Simplicissimus" and his other books of a wide and unusual acquaintance with many lands, German and non-German. He knows both Westphalia and Saxony well; Bohemia also: and certainly Switzerland. The journey to Russia may have some foundation in fact, though the statement put into the mouth of Simplicissimus that he has himself seen the fabulous "sheep plant" (bk.
v., chap. 22) growing in Siberia considerably detracts from his trustworthiness here. But when he left the army, and whether he ever attained to any reputable rank therein, is quite uncertain. If 1625 be the correct date of his birth he would be but twenty-three years old at the conclusion of peace.
Besides his military expeditions, it is pretty clear from his works that he had visited Amsterdam and Paris and knew them fairly well; but for nineteen years we have no further trace of his career, till he suddenly appears as Schultheiss, under the Bishop of Stra.s.sburg, of Renchen, now in the Grand Duchy of Baden, a town of which he deliberately conceals the name exactly as he does his own, by anagrams, calling it now Rheinec, now Cernheim. In October 1667 he appears as holding this office and issuing an order concerning the mills of the town, which is still in existence. His wife was Katharina Henninger, and entries have been found of the birth of two children, a daughter and a son, in 1669 and 1675. A curious episode in the first part of the "Enchanted Bird"s-nest," quoted hereafter, seems to indicate a grave family disappointment. In 1676 he died, aged fifty-one only, but having reached what may almost be called a ripe age for the battered and spent soldier of the Thirty Years War. The entry of his death is peculiarly full and even discursive, and tells how though he had again entered on military service--no doubt on the occasion of the French invasion in 1674--and though his sons and daughters were living in places widely distant from each other, they were all present at his death, in which he was fortified by the rites of Holy Church. A final touch of uncertainty is added by the fact that we do not even know whether Grimmelshausen was his true name: it is more likely to be that of some small estate which he had acquired, and of which he a.s.sumed the name when, as we learn, he was raised to n.o.ble rank.
It is plain even from this brief outline of his life that Grimmelshausen was emphatically a self-taught man; and it is partly to this fact that we owe the originality of his work; for he had never fallen under the baleful influence of the pedantry of his time. He had, it is true, picked up a deal of out-of-the-way knowledge, which he is willing enough to set before us to the verge of tediousness. But his learning is very superficial; he was a poor Latinist; and it is likely that for most of his erudition he was indebted to the translations which were particularly plentiful during that golden period of material prosperity in Germany which preceded the terrible war. It is clear enough that everywhere he thought more of the content than of the literary form of his own or any other work; and for the times his scientific and mathematical knowledge was considerable. In the field of romance he knows, and does not hesitate to borrow from, Boccaccio, Bandello ("Simplicissimus," bk. iv., chaps. 4, 5), and the "Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles," while in his minor works he shows ample acquaintance with old German legend and also with stories like that of King Arthur of England. Lastly, we find him commending the "incomparable Arcadia" of Sir Philip Sidney (which he would have read in the translation of Martin Opitz) as a model of eloquence, but corrupting and enervating in its effect upon the manly virtues ("Simplicissimus," bk. iii., chap. 18).
Yet his own earlier works are themselves in the tedious, unreal, and stilted style of the romances of chivalry. "The Chaste Joseph,"
"Dietrich and Amelind," and "Proximus and Limpida," though widely different in subject, are alike in this, and show no sign of the genius which created Simplicissimus. Yet for the first-named work--the "Joseph"--its author cherished an unreasoning affection, and even alludes to it in our romance as the work of the hero himself (bk. iii., chap. 19). But it is no discredit to Grimmelshausen"s originality if we conjecture that the translations of Spanish picaresque novels (chiefly by the untiring Aegidius Albertini), which appeared during the first two decades of the seventeenth century, gave him the idea--they gave him little or nothing more--of a vagabond hero. Mateo Aleman"s famous "Guzman de Alfarache" had been succeeded by two miserably poor "Second Parts" by different authors, and in one of these there appears a tedious episode containing the submarine adventures of the hero under the form of a tunny-fish, to which we may conceivably owe the equally tedious story of Simplicissimus and the sylphs of the Mummelsee. At the end of the original book (bk. v., chap. 24) is an unblus.h.i.+ng copy of a pa.s.sage from a work of Antonio Quevara or Guevara, also translated by Albertini.
That Grimmelshausen died a Romanist is pretty clear from the entry of his death quoted above; nor is it likely that a Protestant could have held the office of Schultheiss under the Bishop of Stra.s.sburg. There is also extant a curious dialogue ascribed to Grimmelshausen in which Simplicissimus"s arguments against changing his religion are combated and finally overthrown by a certain Bonarnicus, who effects his complete conversion. It is far from improbable that the account of his rescue from sinful indifference at Einsiedel which Simplicissimus gives (bk. v., chap. 2)--of course apart from the miraculous incident of the attack on him by the unclean spirit--roughly represents the experience of his author. That the latter had been brought up a Protestant we simply a.s.sume from the fact that Simplicissimus is understood to have been so; the first indication which we have of a change in his opinions being his exclamation of "Jesus Maria!" (bk. iii., chap. 20), which draws upon him the suspicions of the pastor at Lippstadt. But Papist or not, our author"s superst.i.tion is unmistakable.
It was indeed a time, like all periods of intense human misery, in which men, it might almost be said, turned in despair to the powers of h.e.l.l because they had lost all faith in those of heaven. That numbers of the unhappy wretches who suffered in their thousands for witchcraft during the first period of the war actually believed themselves in direct communication with the devil is certain. The Bishop of Wurzburg"s fortnightly "autos-da-fe" were only stopped when some of the victims denounced the prelate himself as their accomplice, apparently believing it. Grimmelshausen is ready to believe anything. His description of the Witches" Sabbath is that of a scene which he is firmly convinced is a possible one; and he stoutly defends by a mult.i.tude of preposterous stories the reasonableness of such conviction ("Simplicissimus," bk. ii., chaps. 17, 18). But among soldiers the most widely spread superst.i.tion was that concerned with invulnerability. Not only separate individuals, but whole bodies of troops were supposed to be "frozen," or proof, at all events, against leaden bullets. Christian of Brunswick actually employed his ducal brother"s workers in gla.s.s to make b.a.l.l.s of that material to be used against Tilly"s troops, who were credited with this supernatural property; and when the small fortress of Rogaz, near Dessau, was captured by Mansfeld in 1626, the a.s.sailants were forbidden to use their fire-arms as useless; the members of the garrison, being wizards all, were clubbed to death with hedge-stakes or the b.u.t.t-ends of musquets. In all probability this superst.i.tion arose mainly from observation of the very small penetrating power of the ammunition of the time. Oliver (bk. iv., chap. 14) is merely bruised on the forehead by a bullet fired a few paces off: and bullets then weighed ten to the pound. It is true that he has, as it seems, been rendered ball-proof by the wicked old Provost Marshal, whose skull Herzbruder (bk. ii., chap. 27) caused his own servant to split with an axe at Wittstock, when no pistol could slay him: but the peasant in book i., chapter 14, cannot be killed by a bullet fired close to his head, perhaps by reason of the thickness of his skull. To celebrated persons particularly the reputation of being "gefroren" attached. Count Adam Terzky, Wallenstein"s confidant, was supposed to be so protected: the superst.i.tion regarding Claverhouse, who could only be killed with a silver bullet, is well known: and even as late as 1792 there was a belief among his soldiers that Frederick William II. of Prussia was invulnerable. Grimmelshausen"s adventuress "Courage" (of whom more hereafter) is supposed to be "sword-and bullet-proof": and towards the end of the war "Pa.s.sau Tickets," or amulets protecting against wounds, were manufactured and sold, while a host of minor magic arts, more or less connected with invulnerability, were believed to exist. For such tricks the pa.s.sage from the generally uninteresting "Continuatio,"
which is given as Appendix B of this book, is a kind of "locus cla.s.sicus."
Another whole cycle of superst.i.tions centres round the belief in possible invisibility of persons. Of this we have no example in "Simplicissimus," though the whole plot of the delightful double romance of the "Enchanted Bird"s-nest" (also fully discussed hereafter) depends on it. On the other hand, the story of the production of the puppies from the pockets of the colonel"s guests by the wizard Provost in book, ii., chap. 22, is narrated by a man who plainly believed such things possible; and absolute credence is given to the powers of prophecy possessed both by old Herzbruder (bk. ii., chaps. 23, 24) and by the fortune-teller of Soest (bk. iii., chap. 17), who is apparently a well-known character of the times. It is noteworthy that Herzbruder thinks meanly of the art of palmistry.
Coming to the actual career of Simplicissimus as chronicled in the romance which bears his name, we are at the outset confronted by some strange chronology. The boy is born just after the battle of Hochst in 1622, and is captured by the troopers when ten years old; he is with the hermit two years (bk. i., chap. 12) till the latter"s death, and makes his first "spring into the world" after the battle of Nordlingen in the autumn of 1634. He is in Hanau during Ramsay"s rule, and spends there the winter of 1634-5. In the spring of 1635 (there was still ice on the town-moat) he was captured by Croats. The following eighteen months are occupied by his adventures as a forest-thief and as a servant-girl, and the next certain note of time we have is that of the battle of Wittstock, September 24, 1636. There follow the happenings at Soest and the six months internment at Lippstadt. But at the time of the siege of Breisach, in the winter of 1638, he has long been back from Paris; his marriage, therefore, must have taken place before the completion of his sixteenth year. Strange as this may appear, the story appears to be deliberately so arranged. For it will be observed that just before the lad"s capture by the Swedes it is plainly implied (bk.
iii., chap. 11) that he has not yet arrived at the age of p.u.b.erty.
Grimmelshausen intends him to be a "Wunderkind"--a youthful prodigy; and such an explanation is far more likely than that the author is simply careless and counting on the carelessness of his readers to conceal the incongruity. For the continual references to the time of year at which various events happen seem to prove that he had sketched for himself something like a chronology of his fict.i.tious hero"s life.
And it is exceedingly difficult ever to detect him in the smallest false note of time. The date of the banquet and dance at Hanau is exactly fixed by the capture of Braunfels in January 1635 (bk. i., chap. 29): and Orb and Staden _had_ both been captured before Simplicissimus could well have delivered his oration on the miseries of a governor (bk. ii., chap. 12). These may seem small matters, but it must be remembered that Grimmelshausen had no Dictionary of Dates before him. The battle of Jankow in 1645 gives us the last exact date to be found in the book, and t.i.ttmann is probably right in a.s.suming that with that engagement the author"s personal connection with the war ceased. By the time Simplicissimus returns from his Eastern wanderings the "German Peace" had been concluded.
At the very beginning of Simplicissimus"s story he is brought in contact with at least one historical personage--James Ramsay, the Swedish commandant of Hanau, whose heroic defence of that town is well known. Simplicissimus is said to be the son of his brother-in-law, one Captain Sternfels von Fuchsheim. This man"s Christian name is nowhere given; the boy is expressly said by his foster-father (bk. v., chap.
8) to have been christened Melchior after himself, and the fict.i.tious character of the supposed parentage seems amply proved by the fact that the whole name, "Melchior Sternfels von Fugshaim" (as it is often spelt), is an exact anagram of "Christoffel von Grimmelshausen." We may therefore pa.s.s over as unmeaning the attribution to this supposed father of "estates in Scotland." by the pastor in book i., chapter 22, and must probably consign to the realms of imagination the lady-mother, Susanna Ramsay, also. That Grimmelshausen was really brought in contact, possibly as a page, with the commandant of Hanau, seems likely. He knows a good deal of him. But of his later career he is quite ignorant; he even repeats as true the malignant calumny circulated by the Jesuits of Vienna to the effect that Ramsay had gone mad with rage at the loss of Hanau (bk. v., chap. 8). As a matter of fact, the poor man died partly of his wounds and partly of a broken heart. The only other historic personage in the story who can be identified with certainty is Daniel St. Andre, a Hessian soldier of fortune (bk. iii., chap. 15) of Dutch descent, and commanding at Lippstadt for the "Crown of Sweden."
For what reason Grimmelshausen wrote the "Continuatio," a dull medley of allegories, visions, and stories of knavery, brightened only by the "Robinsonade" at the end, it is hard to say; probably at the urgent request of his publisher, when the striking success of the original work became a.s.sured. It appeared at Mopelgard (Monteliard) in the very same year, viz. 1669, as the first known edition, or more probably editions, of the first five books, and is sometimes quoted as a sixth book. Two years later there were issued three more "Continuations,"
even more unworthy of their author, and laying stress chiefly on the least estimable side of the hero"s character--the roguery by which he paid his way on his journey back from France. The worthlessness of these sequels is the more remarkable when we consider the excellence of the other books which make up what may be called the Simplicissimus-cycle. These are "Trutzsimplex," "Springinsfeld," the two parts of the "Enchanted Bird"s-nest," and the "Everlasting Almanack." They are all deserving of attention.
The first, which is also known as the "Life of the Adventuress "Courage,"" appeared immediately after "Simplicissimus," with which it is connected by the fact that the heroine is none other than the light-minded lady of the Spa at Griesbach, the alleged mother of Simplicissimus"s b.a.s.t.a.r.d son; she is also at one time the wife or companion of "Springinsfeld" or "Jump i" th" Field," Simplicissimus"s old servant. Her history, which is narrated with extraordinary vivacity, covers nearly the whole period of the war, and is interwoven with the remaining books of the cycle in a sufficiently ingenious manner. A secretary out of employ is driven by the cold into the warm guest-room of an inn in a provincial town. Here he finds a huge old man armed with a cudgel "that with one blow could have administered extreme unction to any man." This is Simplicissimus, with the famous club that had so terrified the resin-gatherers of the Black Forest ("Simplicissimus," bk. v., chap. 17). Either the episode of the Desert Island is left out of account altogether--possibly not yet invented--or he has not yet started on his final journey. The latter is unlikely, for the date is indicated as 1669 or 1670. To these two enters an old wooden-legged fiddler who turns out to be Simplicissimus"s faithful knave, "Jump i" th" Field." Of the former hero the secretary had read; of the latter he himself had written; for meeting, as a poor wandering scholar, with a gang of gipsies in the Schwarzwald, he had been engaged by their queen, an aged but still handsome woman, to write her history, on the promise of a pretty wife and good pay. He is cheated of both, and the gipsies disappear with their queen, who is in fact the famous "Courage" or "Kurrasche."
The daughter of unknown parents, this heroine was living in a small Bohemian town with an old nurse when the Imperialists, under Bucquoy, conquered the country in 1620. She was then thirteen years old, and thus fifteen years senior to Simplicissimus. The nurse, to protect her chast.i.ty, disguises her as a boy, and in this garb she becomes page to a young Rittmeister, to whom, her secret having been all but discovered in a scuffle, she reveals her s.e.x and becomes his mistress. The name Courage is, for amusing but quite unmentionable reasons, given to her in consequence of this episode. To her first lover she is actually married on his death-bed, and now begins her career nominally as an honourable widow, but in reality as an accomplished courtesan. She still follows the army, for which she has an invincible love, and being, of course, "frozen" or invulnerable, takes part in various fights, in one of which she captures a major, who, when she in turn is taken prisoner, revenges himself on her in the vilest fas.h.i.+on. He is preparing to hand her over, according to custom ("Simplicissimus," bk.
ii., chap. 26), "to the horseboys," when she is rescued by a young Danish n.o.bleman, who proposes to make her his wife. The terrible story is told with an exactness of detail, which plainly can only be the work of the witness of similar scenes, and it is to be feared represents only too faithfully the truth as to the treatment of women in the war.
It is remarkable, however, that few officers of high rank on either side are accused of wanton offences against public morals. Holk and Konigsmark are the only two who are charged with publicly keeping their mistresses; and they were the two most brutal commanders of their time.
As a rule superior officers took their wives with them ("Simplicissimus,"
bk. ii., chap. 25) even to the field of battle, and if such ladies fell into the enemy"s hands, as did many after Nordlingen, they were treated with all possible respect.
But to return to "Courage." Her Danish lover is about to marry her when he too dies, and after this disappointment she sinks lower and lower in the social scale, forming temporary connections successively with a captain, a lieutenant, a corporal and finally with a musqueteer, who is no other than our old friend "Jump i" th" Field," for whose name she gives us a very complete and quite untranslatable reason. With him she journeys, as a Marketenderin or female sutler, to Italy, following the army of Colalto and Gallas, and there, with his a.s.sistance, she plays a variety of tricks, always knavish and often highly diverting. Grown rich, the vivandiere dismisses poor "Jump i" th" Field" with a handsome present, and again resumes her trade of a superior courtesan in the town from which she journeys to the Spa, where she found and beguiled Simplicissimus. Her luck now turns; owing to a scandalous adventure under a pear-tree--the story is a mere copy of a well-known one in the "Hundred New Novels"--she is expelled from the town with the loss of all her money and almost of her life--so severe in the matter of public morals were the laws, in the midst of the general welter of wickedness then prevailing. Her beauty lost, she becomes a petty trader in wine and tobacco, and finally marries a gipsy chief; in which position we find her and leave her.
This story ended, the secretary and his friends in the inn are joined by Simplicissimus"s old foster-father and mother--the "Dad" and "Mammy"
of our romance--and also by young Simplicissimus, Courage"s alleged son. She has avenged herself on her faithless lover, as she tells us in her own history, by laying at his door the child of her maid. It is for this reason that she ent.i.tles her narrative "Trutzsimplex," or "Spite Simplex." Her revenge, however, for reasons plainly hinted at, miscarries; the child is her lover"s after all. The merry company of six then divert themselves during the short winter afternoon with a profitable exhibition of Simplicissimus"s tricks in the market-place, and the night is pleasantly spent in listening to Springinsfeld"s account of his own life and adventures.
The son of a Greek woman and an Albanian juggler, he follows in early boyhood his father"s trade. Carried away from the port of Ragusa by an accident, he is landed in the Spanish Netherlands, and there serves under Spinola, then with that general"s army in the Rhine Palatinate, and then in Pappenheim"s cavalry. He is present at Breitenfeld and Lutzen, and while temporarily out of the service falls in with "Courage" as above narrated. On leaving her, he sets up as an innkeeper, and prospers, but is ruined through his own incorrigible knavery. Serving against the Turks, he is wounded, and takes to fiddling to support himself, marrying also a hurdy-gurdy girl of loose character. In the course of their vagabond life there occurs the incident which leads to the most ingenious and attractive of all the romances of the cycle.
Sitting by a stream, they see in the water the shadow of a tree with a lump on one of the branches: on the tree itself there is no such lump.
It is a bird"s-nest, invisible itself, which makes its possessor invisible also. The wife seizes it and at once disappears, with all their money in her pocket. She does not, however, abandon her husband altogether, but when he goes into the neighbouring town of Munich she slips a handful of money into his pocket. He finds that this is a part of the proceeds of an impudent robbery just committed in the house of a merchant, and will have none of it, but is compelled to be witness of numerous amusing and mischievous pranks played by his wife of which he alone knows the secret. He goes to the wars again and loses a leg, after which he begs his way back to Munich and finds his wife dead. She has befooled a young baker"s man into believing her to be the fairy Melusina, and after a sanguinary chance-medley in the baker"s chamber, whither she is pursued for thefts committed for his sake, is slain by a young halberdier of the watch sent to arrest her. Her body is burned as that of a witch, and her slayer disappears bodily. His story thus ended, Springinsfeld is taken home by Simplicissimus to his farm, where he dies in the odour of sanct.i.ty.
Here begins the first part of the history of the "Enchanted Bird"s-nest." The young halberdier is an honest lad, who uses his powers for good only, and his experiences are of exceeding interest as giving a picture of the manners of the time viewed in their most intimate particularities by an invisible witness. We have matrimonial infelicities circ.u.mstantially described, as likewise the efforts of an impoverished family of n.o.bles to keep up appearances in their tumble-down old castle. The halberdier prevents hideous and unspeakable crime, captures burglars who are effecting their purpose by a device similar to that of the "hand of glory," wreaks vengeance upon loose-living pastors and rescues the intended victims of footpads. The adventures follow one upon another in quick succession, but are ended by a somewhat unnecessary fit of remorse, during which the halberdier tears up the nest. It is, however, found, and the portion which contains its magic properties kept, by a pa.s.ser-by. This First Part ends with a fresh appearance of Simplicissimus, who is in deep grief over the rejection by a neighbouring n.o.bleman of his application for a post for his son, whom the invisible halberdier has seen and helped out of trouble in the convent where he was studying. This scene is so utterly unconnected with the course of the narrative that it is conjectured to refer to some real family misfortune of Grimmelshausen, of which he is anxious to give an explanation to the public.
The new owner of the enchanted nest is the merchant whom Springinsfeld"s wife had robbed at Munich, and the "Second Part" is occupied with the story of his wicked misuse of his powers. His actions are the very opposite of the halberdier"s, though the contrast is not so pointed as to become inartistic. He makes use of his supernatural facilities to seduce his own servant, to perpetrate a peculiarly filthy act of revenge upon his faithless wife, and finally to accomplish the crowning deception of his whole career. He makes his way into the family of a respectable Portuguese Jew, in the first instance with a view to robbery; but becoming enamoured of the beautiful daughter of the house, he employs his invisibility to practise a most blasphemous piece of knavery. He succeeds in making the unfortunate parents believe that the maiden is destined to be the mother of the future Messiah by the prophet Elias. The latter part he of course plays himself, and enjoys the society of his victim till at length a child is born, which turns out, to the general horror, to be a girl. The motive is not new and the story is a sordid one; but it is most artistically recounted, and an intimate knowledge of Jewish manners and ideas is displayed. The narrative is also diversified by an element found in none of the other romances of the cycle--acute and farsighted political discourses and reasonings on European affairs as likely to be affected by the war then impending with France, which ended with the treaty of Nimwegen in 1678.
Rendered desperate by his sins, though now deeply enamoured of the unfortunate Jewess Esther, the merchant is on the verge of surrendering himself to the power of "black magicians" of the worst and most diabolical kind when he escapes by betaking himself to the wars.
Possessing besides his invisibility the power of rendering himself invulnerable, he is nevertheless wounded by a "consecrated" bullet, and finally makes his way home in poverty and misery accompanied by a pious monk. The nest is thrown into the Rhine and disappears for ever, and the merchant prepares to spend the remainder of his life in prayer and penitence.
The connection of the fifth work, the "Everlasting Almanack," with Simplicissimus is nominal only. It appeared in 1670, and is a perfect specimen of what may be called the best cla.s.s of chapbooks of that day.
It is the Whitaker"s Almanack of the period. Each day has its special saints given: there are rules of good husbandry and weather prognostics; recipes for the house, the kitchen, and the farmyard; together with matters adapted for the higher cla.s.s of readers, such as brief scientific notices, fragments of historical interest, narratives of marvellous occurrences, and, of course, in the spirit of the time, a ma.s.s of particulars as to astrology and the casting of horoscopes.
Ingenious as it all is, and not without interest from the sociological point of view the book reminds us of Simplicissimus only by its connection with that side of his character which we would willingly forget, but for which Grimmelshausen seems to have cherished an unreasoning admiration, and on which he insisted more and more in his successive works--namely his qualities as a quack and mountebank.
As already pointed out, the interest of the central romance of "Simplicissimus" is less literary than historic, whereas German critics in their estimate of its value have considered the first aspect only, and their opinions are consequently little worth recording. Gervinus for example, looking at the book from a purely artistic point of view, finds it wanting. Other critics have followed him blindly and with a considerable amount of underlying ignorance to boot. The accurate Dahlmann, for example, though he reckons the romance among his "historical sources," speaks of it as published at Mopelgard in 1669 in six "volumes." Plainly he had never seen a copy, but had heard of the six books (five and the "Continuation") and mistook them for volumes.
t.i.ttmann, one of the latest editors of the work, sums up its chief merits when he says: "Simplicissimus and the Simplician writings are almost our only subst.i.tute, and that a poor one, for the contemporary memoirs in which our western neighbours are so rich."
The bibliography of the book is for our purpose not important. For a year or two editions seem to have succeeded each other with such rapidity that it is difficult to distinguish between them; but the only additional value which those printed later than 1670 possess is the questionable one of including the three worthless little sequels above referred to. Of modern editions the best, perhaps, is that of t.i.ttmann (Leipzig, 1877), which has been princ.i.p.ally used for this translation.
The annotations, however, leave much to be desired; many difficulties are left unexplained, and there are some positive mistakes, of which a single instance may suffice. In book v., chapter 4, we find the expression "in prima plana," which is a sufficiently well-known military phrase of the time and means "on the first page" (of the muster-roll), which contained the names of the officers of a company written separately from those of the rank and file. It is explained by t.i.ttmann to mean "at the first estimate," and succeeding editors have copied this, adding as a possible alternative "in the first engagement," or "at the first start". The editions for school and family reading which are current in Germany are, as a rule, so expurgated as to deprive the book of much of its interest. In this translation it has been found necessary to omit a single episode only, which is as childishly filthy as it is utterly uninteresting.
A. T. S. G.
BOOK I.
_Chap. i._: TREATS OF SIMPLICISSIMUS"S RUSTIC DESCENT AND OF HIS UPBRINGING ANSWERING THERETO
There appeareth in these days of ours (of which many do believe that they be the last days) among the common folk, a certain disease which causeth those who do suffer from it (so soon as they have either sc.r.a.ped and higgled together so much that they can, besides a few pence in their pocket, wear a fool"s coat of the new fas.h.i.+on with a thousand bits of silk ribbon upon it, or by some trick of fortune have become known as men of parts) forthwith to give themselves out gentlemen and n.o.bles of ancient descent. Whereas it doth often happen that their ancestors were day-labourers, carters, and porters, their cousins donkey-drivers, their brothers turnkeys and catchpolls, their sisters harlots, their mothers bawds--yea, witches even: and in a word, their whole pedigree of thirty-two quarterings as full of dirt and stain as ever was the sugar-bakers" guild of Prague. Yea, these new sprigs of n.o.bility be often themselves as black as if they had been born and bred in Guinea.
With such foolish folk I desire not to even myself, though "tis not untrue that I have often fancied I must have drawn my birth from some great lord or knight at least, as being by nature disposed to follow the n.o.bleman"s trade had I but the means and the tools for it. "Tis true, moreover, without jesting, that my birth and upbringing can be well compared to that of a prince if we overlook the one great difference in degree. How! did not my dad (for so they call fathers in the Spessart) have his own palace like any other, so fine as no king could build with his own hands, but must let that alone for ever. "Twas painted with lime, and in place of unfruitful tiles, cold lead and red copper, was roofed with that straw whereupon the n.o.ble corn doth grow, and that he, my dad, might make a proper show of n.o.bility and riches, he had his wall round his castle built, not of stone, which men do find upon the road or dig out of the earth in barren places, much less of miserable baked bricks that in a brief s.p.a.ce can be made and burned (as other great lords be wont to do), but he did use oak, which n.o.ble and profitable tree, being such that smoked sausage and fat ham doth grow upon it, taketh for its full growth no less than a hundred years; and where is the monarch that can imitate him therein? His halls, his rooms, and his chambers did he have thoroughly blackened with smoke, and for this reason only, that "tis the most lasting colour in the world, and doth take longer to reach to real perfection than an artist will spend on his most excellent paintings. The tapestries were of the most delicate web in the world, wove for us by her that of old did challenge Minerva to a spinning match. His windows were dedicated to St. Papyrius for no other reason than that that same paper doth take longer to come to perfection, reckoning from the sowing of the hemp or flax whereof "tis made, than doth the finest and clearest gla.s.s of Murano: for his trade made him apt to believe that whatever was produced with much pains was also more valuable and more costly; and what was most costly was best suited to n.o.bility. Instead of pages, lackeys, and grooms, he had sheep, goats, and swine, which often waited upon me in the pastures till I drove them home. His armoury was well furnished with ploughs, mattocks, axes, hoes, shovels, pitchforks, and hayforks, with which weapons he daily exercised himself; for hoeing and digging he made his military discipline, as did the old Romans in time of peace. The yoking of oxen was his generals.h.i.+p, the piling of dung his fortification, tilling of the land his campaigning, and the cleaning out of stables his princely pastime and exercise. By this means did he conquer the whole round world so far as he could reach, and at every harvest did draw from it rich spoils. But all this I account nothing of, and am not puffed up thereby, lest any should have cause to jibe at me as at other newfangled n.o.bility, for I esteem myself no higher than was my dad, which had his abode in a right merry land, to wit, in the Spessart, where the wolves do howl goodnight to each other. But that I have as yet told you nought of my dad"s family, race and name is for the sake of precious brevity, especially since there is here no question of a foundation for gentlefolks for me to swear myself into; "tis enough if it be known that I was born in the Spessart.
Now as my dad"s manner of living will be perceived to be truly n.o.ble, so any man of sense will easily understand that my upbringing was like and suitable thereto: and whoso thinks that is not deceived, for in my tenth year had I already learned the rudiments of my dad"s princely exercises: yet as touching studies I might compare with the famous Amphistides, of whom Suidas reports that he could not count higher than five: for my dad had perchance too high a spirit, and therefore followed the use of these days, wherein many persons of quality trouble themselves not, as they say, with bookworms" follies, but have their hirelings to do their ink-slinging for them. Yet was I a fine performer on the bagpipe, whereon I could produce most dolorous strains. But as to knowledge of things divine, none shall ever persuade me that any lad of my age in all Christendom could there beat me, for I knew nought of G.o.d or man, of Heaven or h.e.l.l, of angel or devil, nor could discern between good and evil. So may it be easily understood that I, with such knowledge of theology, lived like our first parents in Paradise, which in their innocence knew nought of sickness or death or dying, and still less of the Resurrection. O n.o.ble life! (or, as one might better say, O noodle"s life!) in which none troubles himself about medicine. And by this measure ye can estimate my proficiency in the study of jurisprudence and all other arts and sciences. Yea, I was so perfected in ignorance that I knew not that I knew nothing. So say I again, O n.o.ble life that once I led! But my dad would not suffer me long to enjoy such bliss, but deemed it right that as being n.o.bly born, I should n.o.bly act and n.o.bly live: and therefore began to train me up for higher things and gave me harder lessons.
_Chap. ii._: OF THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS THAT DIGNITY TO WHICH SIMPLICISSIMUS ATTAINED, TO WHICH IS ADDED THE PRAISE OF SHEPHERDS AND OTHER EXCELLENT PRECEPTS