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 octrois throughout Germany, and take such order that none shall ever again hear of forced work, watch-duties, contributions, benevolences, war-taxes, and other burdens of the people, but that men shall live happier than in the Elysian fields. And then,” says Jupiter, “will I often assemble all Olympus and come down to visit the Germans, to delight myself among their vines and fig-trees: and there will I set Helicon on their borders and establish the Muses anew thereon: Germany will I bless with all plenty, yea, more than Arabia Felix, Mesopotamia, and the land of Damascus: then will I forswear the Greek language, and only speak German; and, in a word, show myself so good a German that in the end I shall grant to them, as once I did to the Romans, the rule over all the earth.”
“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 Manoah 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.”