I must needs laugh, yet checked myself, and said, “Alas, Jupiter, thy toil and trouble will be, I fear, all in vain unless thou punish the world with water, as before, or with fire: for if thou sendest a war, thither run together all vile and abandoned rogues that do but torment peaceable and pious men. An thou sendest a famine, ’tis but a godsend for the usurers, for then is their corn most valuable: and if thou sendest a pestilence, then the greedy and all the rest of mankind do find their account, for then do they inherit much. So must thou destroy the whole world root and branch, if thou wilt punish at all.”
IV
Of the German Hero That Shall Conquer the Whole World and Bring Peace to All Nations
So Jupiter answered, “Thou speakest of the matter like a mere man, as if thou didst not know that ’tis possible for us gods so to manage things that only the wicked shall be punished and the good saved: I will raise up a German hero that shall accomplish all with the edge of the sword; he shall destroy all evil men and preserve and exalt the righteous.” “Yea,” said I, “but such a hero must needs have soldiers, and where soldiers are there is war, and where war is there must the innocent suffer as well as the guilty.” “Oho;” says Jupiter, “be ye earthly gods minded like earthly men, that ye can understand so little? For I will send such a hero that he shall have need of no soldiers and yet shall reform the whole world; at his birth I will grant to him a body well formed and stronger than had ever Hercules, adorned to the full with princeliness, wisdom, and understanding: to this shall Venus add so comely a face that he shall excel Narcissus, Adonis, and even my Ganymede: and she shall grant to him, besides his other fine parts, dignity, charm, and presence excelling all, and so make him beloved by all the world, for which cause I will look more kindly upon it in the hour of his birth. Mercury, too, shall endow him with incomparable cleverness, and the inconstant moon shall be to him not harmful but useful, for she shall implant in him an invincible swiftness: Pallas Athene shall rear him on Parnassus, and Vulcan shall, under the influence of Mars, forge for him his weapons, and specially a sword with which he shall conquer the whole world and make an end of all the godless, without the help of a single man as a soldier: for he shall need no assistance. Every town shall tremble at his coming, and every fortress otherwise unconquerable he shall have in his power in the first quarter of an hour: in a word, he shall have the rule over the greatest potentates of the world, and so nobly bear sway over earth and sea that both gods and men shall rejoice thereat.”
“Yea,” said I, “but how can the destruction of all the godless and rule over the whole world be accomplished without specially great power and a strong arm? O Jupiter, I tell thee plainly I can understand these things less than any mere mortal man.” “At that,” says Jupiter, “I marvel not: for thou knowest not what power my hero’s sword will have; Vulcan shall make it of the same materials of which he doth forge my thunderbolts, and so direct its virtues that my hero, if he do but draw it and wave it in the air, can cut off the heads of a whole armada, though they be hidden behind a mountain or be a whole Swiss mile distant from him, and so the poor devils shall lie there without heads before they know what has befallen them. And when he shall begin his triumphal progress and shall come before a town or a fortress, then shall he use Tamburlaine’s vein, and for a sign that he is there for peace and for the furthering of all good shall show a white flag: then if they come forth to him and are content, ’tis well: if not, then will he draw his sword, and by its virtue, as before described, will hew off the heads of all enchanters and sorceresses throughout the town, and then raise a red flag: then if they be still obstinate, he shall destroy all murderers, usurers, thieves, rogues, adulterers, whores, and knaves in the said manner, and then hoist a black flag: whereupon if those that yet remain in the town refuse to come to him and humbly submit, then shall he destroy the whole town as a stiff-necked and disobedient folk: yet shall he only execute them that have hindered the others, and been the cause that the people would not submit. So shall he go from country to country, and give each town the country that lies around it to rule in peace, and from each town in all Germany choose out two of the wisest and learnedest men to form his parliament, shall reconcile the towns with each other forever, shall do away all villenage, and also all tolls, excises, interest, taxes, and
