7. And thus these innocents in yonder sky Grow and are strengthen'd, while the allotted years Perform their course; then hitherward they fly, Being free from moral taint, so free from fears, thing in the whole narration but the bigness of wings and the littleness of the body; which he undertakes to correct from one of his own which was sent him by Orvesanus from Java. Nay, he confirms what his antagonist has wrote, partly by history and partly by reason; affirming, that himself, in his own garden, found two little birds with membranaceous wings utterly devoid of legs, their form was near to that of a bat's. Nor is he deterred from the belief of the perpetual flying of the Manucodiata, by the gaping of the feathers of her wings, which seem thereby less fit to sustain her body, but further makes the narration probable by what he has observed in kites, hovering in the air, as he saith, for a whole hour together without flapping of her wings, or changing place. And he has found also bow she may sleep in the air, from the example of fishes, which he has seen sleeping in the water without sinking themselves to the bottom, and without changing place, but lying stock still, pinnulis tantum nescia quid motiuncule meditantes, only wagging a little their fins, as heedlessly and unconcernedly as horses while they are asleep wag their ears to displace the flies that sit upon them. Wherever Scaliger admits that the Manucodiata is perpetually on the wing in the air, he must of necessity admit also that manner of incubation that Cardan describes, else how could their generations continue? "Franciscus Hernandeo affirms the same with Cardan expressly in every thing; as also Eusebius Nierembergius, who is so taken with the story of this bird, that he could not abstain from celebrating her miracalous properties in a short but elegant copy of verses; and does after, though confidently opposed, assert the main matter again in prose. "Such are the suffrages of Cardan, Scaliger, Hernandeo, Nierembergius. But Aldrovandus rejects that fable of her feeding on the dew of heaven, and of her incubiture on the back of the male, with much scorn and indignation. And as for the former, his reasons are no ways contemptible, he alledging that dew is a body not perfectly enough mixed, or heterogenial enough for food, nor the hard bill of the bird made for such easie uses as sipping this soft moisture. "To which I know not what Cardan and the rest would answer, unless this, that they mean by dew the more unctuous moisture of the air, which as it may not be alike every where, so these birds may be fitted with a natural sagacity to find it out where it is: That there is dew in this sense day and night, (as well as in the morning,) and in all seasons of the year; and therefore a constant supply of moisture and spirits to their perpetual flying, which they more copiously imbibe by reason of their exercise: That the thicker parts of this moisture stick and convert into flesh, and that the lightness of their feathers is so great, that their pains in sustaining themselves are not over-much: That what is homogeneal and simple to our sight is fit enough to be the rudiments of generation, all animals being generated of a kind of clear crystalline liquor; and that, therefore, it may be also of nutrition; that orpine and sea-house-leek are nourished and grow, being hung in the air, and that dockweed has its root no deeper than near the upper parts of the water; and, lastly, that the bills of these birds are for their better flying, by cutting the way, and for better ornament; for the rectifying also and composing of their feathers, while they swim in the air with as much ease as swans do in rivers. "To his great impatiency against their manner of incubation, they would happily return this answer :-That the way is not ridiculous; but it may be rather necessary from what Aldrovandus himself not only acknowledges but contends for, namely, that they have no feet at all. For hence it is mani A joyous band, expecting soon to soar To Indra's happy spheres, And mingle with the blessed company Of heavenly spirits there for ever more. fest, that they cannot light upon the ground, nor any where rest on their bellies, and be able to get on wing again, because they cannot creep out of holes of rocks, as swifts and such like short-footed birds can, they having no feet at all to creep with. Besides, as Aristotle well argues concerning the long legs of certain water-fowl, that they were made so long, because they were to wade in the water and catch fish, adding that excellent aphorism, và yàg ögyava xgòs rò igyov á qúois Пoisï, 2λ'où тò igyov ægòs тà öeyava, so may we rationally conclude, will they say, that as the long legs of these water-fowl imply a design of their haunting the water, so want of legs in these Manucodiatas argue they are never to come down to the earth, because they can neither stand there nor get off again. And if they never come on the earth, or any other restingplace, where can their eggs be laid or hatched but on the back of the male? "Besides that Cardan places himself with that Antiphonie in nature, that as the Ostrich being a bird, yet never flies in the air, and never rests upon the earth. And as for Aldrovandus, his presumption from the five several Manucodiatas that he had seen, and in which he could observe no such figuration of parts as implied a fitness for such a manner of incubation, Cardan will answer, Myself has seen three, and Scaliger one, who both agree against you. "However, you see that both Cardan, Aldrovandus, and the rest do jointly agree in allowing the Manucodiata no feet, as also in furnishing her with two strings, hanging at the hinder parts of her body, which Aldrovandus will have to be in the female as well as in the male, though Cardan's experience reacheth not so far. "But Pighafetta and Clusius will easily end this grand controversy betwixt Cardan and Aldrovandus, if it be true which they report, and if they speak of the same kind of Birds of Paradise. For they both affirm that they have feet a palm long, and that with all confidence imaginable; but Nierembergius on the contrary affirms, that one that was an eye witness, and that had taken up one of these birds newly dead, told him that it had no feet at all. Johnston also gives his suffrage with Nierembergius in this, though with Aldrovandus he rejects the manner of their incubation. "But unless they can raise themselves from the ground by the stiffness of some of the feathers of their wings, or rather by virtue of those nervous strings which they may have a power to stiffen when they are alive, by transfusing spirits into them, and making them serve as well instead of legs to raise them from the ground as to hang upon the boughs of trees, by a slight thing being able to raise or hold up their light-feathered bodies in the air, as a small twig will us in the water, I should rather incline to the testimony of Pighafetta and Clusius than to the judgement of the rest, and believe those mariners that told him that the legs are pulled off by them that take them, and extenterate them and dry them in the sun for either their private use or sale. "Which conclusion would the best solve the credit of Aristotle, who long since has so peremptorily pronounced, ὅτι πτηνὸν μόνον οὐδέν ἐστιν ἅπερ ναυσικὸν μόνον ἐστιν ἰχθύς, that there is not any bird that only flies as the fish only swims. "But thus our Bird of Paradise is quite flown and vanished into a figment or fable. But if any one will condole the loss of so convincing an argument for a Providence that fits one thing to another, I must take the freedom to tell him, that, unless he be a greater admirer of novelty than a searcher into the indissoluble consequences of things, I shall supply his meditation with what of this nature is as strongly conclusive, 8. A Gulph profound surrounded This icy belt; the opposite side With highest rocks was bounded; But where their heads they hide, Or where their base is founded, None could espy. Above all reach of sight They rose, the second Earth was on their height, Their feet were fix'd in everlasting night. 9. So deep the Gulph, no eye Could plum its dark profundity, And from below continually 10. . Then might be seen who went in hope, and who Trembled to meet the meed Of many a foul misdeed, as wild they threw Their arms retorted from the Demons' grasp, And look'd around, all eagerly, to seek For help, where help was none; and strove for aid To clasp the nearest shade; Yea, with imploring looks and horrent shriek, Even from one Demon to another bending, With hands extending, and remind, that it will be his own reproach if he cannot spy as clear an inference from an ordinary truth as from either an uncertainty or a fiction. And in this regard, the bringing this doubtful narration into play may not justly seem to no purpose, it carrying so serious and castigatory a piece of pleasantry with it. "The manucodiata's living on the dew is no part of the convictiveness of a Providence in this story: But the being excellently well provided of wings and feathers, "tanta levitatis supellectile exornata," as Nierembergius speaks, being so well furnished with all advantages for lightness, that it seems harder for her to sink down, as he conceits, than to be borne up in the air; that a bird thus fitted for that region should have no legs to stand on the earth, this would be a considerable indication of a discriminating Providence, that on purpose avoids all uselessness and superfluities. "The other remarkable, and it is a notorious one, is the cavity on the back of the male and in the breast of the female, for incubation; and the third and last, the use of those strings, as Cardan supposes, for the better keeping them together in incubiture. "If these considerations of this strange story strike so strongly upon thee as to convince thee of a Providence, think it humour and not judgement, if what I put in lieu of them, and is but ordinary, have not the same force with thee. "For is not the fish's wanting feet, (as we observed before,) she being sufficiently supplied with fins in so thick an element as the water, as great an argument for a Providence as so light a bird's wanting feet in that thinner element of the air, the extreme lightness of her furniture being appropriated to the thinness of that element? And is not the same Providence seen, and that as conspicuously, in allotting but very short legs to those birds that are called Apodeo both in Plinie and Aristotle, upon whom she has bestowed such large and strong wings, and a power of flying so long and swift, as Their mercy they essay'd. Still from the verge they strain, And from the dreadful gulph avert their eyes, In vain; down plunge the Demons, and their cries Feebly, as down they sink, from that profound arise. 11. What heart of living man could undisturb'd, Bear sight so sad as this! What wonder there If Kailyal's lip were blanch'd with inmost dread! The chill which from that icy belt Struck through her, was less keen than what she felt With her heart's blood through every limb dispread. Close to the Glendoveer she clung, And clasping round his neck her trembling hands, She closed her eyes, and there in silence hung. 12. Then to Ladurlad said the Glendoveer, A little while thou must be left alone, in giving no legs at all to the manucodiata, who has still a greater power of wing and lightness of body? "And as for the cavities on the back of the male and in the breast of the female, is that design of nature any more certain and plain than in the genital parts of the male and female in all kinds of animals? What greater argument of counsel and purpose of fitting one thing for another can there be than that? And if we should make a more inward search into the 1 contrivances of these parts in an ordinary hen, and consider how or by what force an egg of so great a growth and bigness is transmitted from the ovarium through the infundibulum into the processus of the uterus, the membranes being so thin and the passage so very small, to see to the principle of that motion cannot be thought less than divine. "And if you would compare the protuberant paps of teats in the females of beasts with that cavity in the breast of the she-manucodiata, whether of them, think you, is the plainer pledge of a knowing and designing Providence? "And, lastly, for the strings that are conceived to hold together the male and female in their incubiture, what a toy is it, if compared with those invisible links and ties that engage ordinary birds to sit upon their eggs, they having no visible allurement to such a tedious service?"-Henry Moore's Antidote against Atheism, book ii. ch. 11 Mankind," says Jeremy Taylor, "now taken in his whole constitution and design, are like the Birds of Paradise, which travellers tell us of in the Molucca Islands, born without legs, but by a celestial power they have a recompense made to them for that defect, and they always hover in the air and feed on the dew of Heaven: so are we Birds of Paradise, but cast out from thence, and born without legs,.. without strength to walk in the laws of God, or to go to Heaven; but by a Power from above, we are adopted in our new birth to a celestial conversation; we feed on the dew of Heaven; 'the just does live by faith,' and breathes in this new life by the Spirit of God."- Vol, ix. 339. Heber's edition. 13. Then taking Kailyal in his arms, he said, Be of good heart, Beloved! it is I Who bear thee. Saying this, his wings he spread, Sprung upward in the sky, and poised his flight, Then plunged into the Gulph, and sought the World of Night. XXII. THE GATE OF PADALON. 1. THE strong foundations of this inmost Earth Reach'd the profound,.. Ice in the regions of the upper air, Whose strength sufficed to bear The weight of all this upper World of ours, And with its rampart closed the Realm of Woe. Eight gates hath Padalon; eight heavenly Powers Have them in charge, each alway at his post, Lest from their penal caves the accursed host, Maugre the might of Baly and the God, Should break, and carry ruin all abroad. 2. Those gates stand ever open, night and day, And Souls of mortal men For ever throng the way. Some from the dolorous den, 1 "Yama was a child of the Sun, and thence named Vaivaswata; another of his titles was Dhermaraja, or King of Justice; and a third Pitripeti, or Lord of the Patriarchs: but he is chiefly distinguished as Judge of departed souls; for the Hindus believe that, when a soul leaves its body, it immediately repairs to Yamapur, or the city of Yama, where it receives a just sentence from him, and thence either ascends to Swerga, or the first Heaven; or is driven down to Narac, the region of serpents; or assumes on earth the form of some animal, unless its offence has been such, that it ought to be condemned to a vegetable, or even to a mineral prison." -Sir W. Jones. There is a story concerning Yamen which will remind the reader, in its purport, of the fable of Love and Death. "A famous penitent, Morrugandumagarexi by name, had, during a long series of years, served the gods with uncommon and most exemplary piety. This very virtuous man, having no children, was extremely desirous of having one, and therefore daily besought the god Xiven (or Seeva) to grant him one. At length the god heard his desire, but, before he indulged it him, he asked him, whether he would have several children, who should be long-lived and wicked, or one virtuous and prudent, who should die in his sixteenth year? The penitent chose the latter: his wife conceived, and was happily delivered of the promised son, whom they named Marcandem. The boy, like his father, zealously devoted himself to the worship of Xiven; but as soon as he had attained his sixteenth year, the officers of Yhamen, god of death, were sent on the earth, to remove him from thence. returned to their master, and told him the whole affair. Yhamen immediately mounted his great buffle, and set out. Being come, he told the youth that he acted very rashly in refusing to leave the world, and it was unjust in him, for Xiven had promised him a life only of sixteen years, and the term was expired. But this reason did not satisfy Marcandem, who persisted in his resolution not to die; and, fearing lest the god of death should attempt to take him away by force, he ran to his oratory, and taking the Lingam, clasped it to his breast. Meantime Yhamen came down from his buffle, threw a rope about the youth's neck, and held him fast therewith, as also the Lingam, which Marcandem grasped with all his strength, and was going to drag them both into hell, when Xiven issued out of the Lingam, drove back the king of the dead, and gave him so furious a blow that he killed him on the spot. "The god of death being thus slain, mankind multiplied so that the earth was no longer able to contain them. The gods represented this to Xiven, and he, at their entreaty, restored Yhamen to life, and to all the power he had before enjoyed. Yhamen immediately dispatched a herald to all parts of the world, to summon all the old men. The herald got drunk before he set out, and, without staying till the fumes of the wine were dispelled, mounted an elephant, and rode up and down the world, pursuant to his commission; and, instead of publishing this order, he declared, that it was the will and pleasure of Yhamen that, from this day forward, all the leaves, fruits, and flowers, whether ripe or green, should fall to the ground. This proclamation was no sooner issued than men began to yield to death. But before Yhamen was killed, only the old were deprived of life, and now people of all ages are summoned indiscriminately." - Picart. The Ship of Heaven awaits their coming there, And on they sail, greeting the blessed light Through realms of upper air, Bound for the Swerga once; but now no more Their voyage rests upon that happy shore, Since Indra, by the dreadful Rajah's might Compell'd, hath taken flight; On to the second World their way they wend, And there, in trembling hope, await the doubtful end. 5. For still in them doth hope predominate, Faith's precious privilege, when higher Powers Give way to fear in these portentous hours. Behold the Wardens eight Each silent at his gate Expectant stands; they turn their anxious eyes Within, and, listening to the dizzy din Of mutinous uproar, each in all his hands Holds all his weapons, ready for the fight, For, hark! what clamorous cries Upon Kehama, for deliverance, call! Come, Rajah! they exclaim, too long we groan In torments. Come, Deliverer! yonder throne Awaits thee... Now, Kehama! Rajah, now! Earthly Almighty, wherefore tarriest thou?.. Such were the sounds that rung, in wild uproar, O'er all the echoing vaults of Padalon ; And as the Asuras from the Brazen floor, Struggling against their fetters, strove to rise, Their clashing chains were heard, and shrieks and cries, With curses mix'd, against the Fiends who urge, Fierce on their rebel limbs, the avenging scourge. 6. These were the sounds which, at the southern gate, Hung on his neck, well-nigh a lifeless weight. 7. Who and what art thou? cried the Guardian Power, Who comest here at this portentous hour, Trembles, and all our might can scarce keep down This mortal Maid to our forlorn abodes ? Even in securest hours. The shrieks and yellings of infernal woe? Endure the passage of the fiery flood! 8. Lord of the Gate, replied the Glendoveer, Hope and salvation to the Infernal King, 9. Then quoth he to the Maid, Be of good cheer, my Kailyal! dearest dear, In faith subdue thy dread; Anon I shall be here. So having said, Aloft with vigorous bound the Glendoveer, Sprung in celestial might, And soaring up, in spiral circles, wound His indefatigable flight. 10. But as he thus departed, The Maid, who at Neroodi's feet was lying, Like one entranced or dying, Recovering strength from sudden terror, started; And gazing after him with straining sight, And straining arms, she stood, As if in attitude To win him back from flight. Yea, she had shaped his name For utterance, to recall and bid him stay, Nor leave her thus alone; but virtuous shame Represt the unbidden sounds upon their way; And calling faith to aid, Even in this fearful hour, the pious Maid The aweful will of Fate with equal mind, 11. Even the stern trouble of Neroodi's brow Rose in his heart reviving, and a smile For thou to this forlorn abode hast brought Hope, who too long hath been a stranger here. And surely for no lamentable lot, Nature that erreth not, To thee that heart of fortitude hath given, 12. Thus as Neroodi spake, his brow severe Ere long the World's deliverance would be wrought, A moment, then again Her eager head! and scarce upon the ground Ladurlad's giddy feet their footing found, When, with her trembling arms, she claspt him round. No word of greeting, Nor other sign of joy at that strange meeting; Expectant of their fate, The Father and his pious Daughter stand. 13. Then to Neroodi said the Glendoveer, Lord of the Gate, to whom these realms are known, 14. Bring forth my Chariot, Carmala ! quoth then When all the Powers of Hell attend their King, To pay his homage there. Poised on a single wheel, it moved along, Instinct with motion; by what wondrous skill Compact, no human tongue could tell, Nor human wit devise; but on that wheel, Moving or still, As if with life indued, The Car miraculous supported stood. 15. Then Carmala brought forth two mantles, white As the swan's breast, and bright as mountain snow, When from the wintry sky The sun, late-rising, shines upon the height, And rolling vapours fill the vale below. Not without pain the unaccustom'd sight That brightness could sustain ; For neither mortal stain, Nor parts corruptible, remain, Nor aught that time could touch, or force destroy, In that pure web whereof the robes were wrought; So long had it in tenfold fires been tried, And blanch'd, and to that brightness purified. Apparell'd thus, alone, Children of Earth, Neroodi cried, In safety may ye pass to Yamen's throne. Thus only can your living flesh and blood Endure the passage of the fiery flood. 16. Of other frame, O son of Heaven, art thou! Yet hast thou now to go Through regions which thy heavenly mould will try. Might not these things dismay thee on thy flight, Pity in these abodes of no avail; XXIII. PADALON. 1. WHOE'ER hath loved with venturous step to tread The chambers dread Of some deep cave, and seen his taper's beam Playing afar upon the sunless stream, Whoe'er hath trod such caves of endless night, And how, with quicken'd feet, he hastens up, Eager again to greet The living World and blessed sunshine there, And drink, as from a cup Of joy, with thirsty lips, the open air. 2. Far other light than that of day there shone Upon the travellers, entering Padalon. They too in darkness enter'd on their way, But far before the Car, A glow, as of a fiery furnace light, Fill'd all before them. 'Twas a light which made Darkness itself appear A thing of comfort, and the sight, dismay'd, Shrunk inward from the molten atmosphere. |