“But,” said I, “great Jupiter, what will princes and lords say to this, if this future hero so violently take from them their rights and hand them over to the towns? Will they not resist with force, or at least protest against it before gods and men?”
“The hero,” answered Jupiter, “will trouble himself little on that score: he will divide all the great into three classes: them which have lived wickedly and set an evil example he will punish together with the commons, for no earthly power can withstand his sword: to the rest he will give the choice whether to stay in the land or not. They that love their fatherland and abide must live like the commons, but the German people’s way of living shall then be more plentiful and comfortable than is now the life and household of a king; yea, they shall be one and all like Fabricius, that would not share King Pyrrhus his kingdom because he loved his country and honour and virtue too much: and so much for the second class. But as to the third, which will still be lords and rulers, them will he lead through Hungary and Italy into Moldavia, Wallachia, into Macedonia, Thrace and Greece, yea, over the Hellespont into Asia, and conquer these lands for them, give them as helpers all them that live by war in all Germany, and make them all kings. Then will he take Constantinople in one day, and lay the heads of all Turks that will not be converted and become obedient before their feet: then will he again set up the Roman Empire, and so betake himself again to Germany, and with his lords of Parliament (whom, as I have said, he shall choose in pairs from every city in Germany, and name them the chiefs and fathers of his German Fatherland) build a city in the midst of Germany that shall be far greater than Manoah21 in America, and richer than was Jerusalem in Solomon’s time, whose walls shall be as high as the mountains of Tirol and its ditches as broad as the sea between Spain and Africa. And there will he build a temple entirely of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, and in the treasury that he shall there build will he gather together rarities from the whole world out of the gifts that the kings in China and in Persia, the great Mogul in the East Indies, the great Khan of Tartary, Prester John in Africa, and the great Czar in Muscovy will send to him. Yea, the Turkish emperor would be yet more ready to serve him if it were not that my hero will have taken his empire from him and given it as a fief to the Roman emperor.”
Then I asked my friend Jupiter what in such case would become of the Christian kings. So he answered, “Those of England, Sweden, and Denmark (because they are of German race and descent), and those of Spain, France, and Portugal (because the Germans of old conquered and ruled in those lands), shall receive their crowns, kingdoms, and incorporated lands in fee as fiefs of the German nation, and then will there be, as in Augustus’s time, a perpetual peace between all nations.”
V
How He Shall Reconcile All Religions and Cast Them in the Same Mould
Now Jump-i’-th’-field, who also listened to us, had well-nigh enraged Jupiter and spoiled the whole affair; for said he, “Yea, yea; and then ’twill be in Germany as in fairyland, where it rains muscatels and nought else, and where twopenny pies grow in the night like mushrooms: and I too shall have to eat with both cheeks full at once like a thresher, and drink myself blind with Malvoisie.” “Yea, truly,” said Jupiter, “and that the more because I will curse thee with the undying hunger of Erysichthon, for methinks thou art one of them that do deride my majesty,” and to me said he, “I deemed I was among wood-spirits only: but meseems I have chanced upon a Momus or a Zoilus, the most envious creatures in the world. Is one to reveal to such traitors the decrees of heaven and so to cast pearls before swine?” So I saw plainly he would not willingly brook laughter, and therefore kept down mine own as best I could, and “Most gracious Jupiter,” said I, “thou wilt not, by reason of a rude forest-god’s indiscretion, conceal from thy Ganymede how things are further to happen in Germany.” “No, no,” said he, “but I command this mocker, who is like to Theon, to bridle his evil tongue in future, lest I turn him to a stone as Mercury did Battus. But do thou confess to me thou art truly my Ganymede, and that my jealous Juno hath driven thee from heaven in my absence.” So I promised to tell him all when I should have heard what I desired to know. Thereupon, “Dear Ganymede,” says he, “for deny not that thou art he—in those days shall gold-making be as common in Germany as is pot-making now, and every horseboy shall carry
