XXV
How Simplicissimus Found the World All Strange and the World Found Him Strange Likewise
Even as much as these and yet a greater number of idols were worshipped, so much on the contrary was the majesty of the true God despised: for as I never saw any desirous to keep His word and command, so I saw contrariwise many that resisted him in all things and excelled even the publicans in wickedness: which publicans were in the days when Christ walked upon earth open sinners. And so saith Christ: “Love your enemies; bless them that curse you. If ye do good only to your brethren, what do ye that the publicans do not?” But I found not only no one that would follow this command of Christ, but every man did the clean opposite. “The more a man hath kindred the more a man is hindered” was the word: and nowhere did I find more envy, hatred, malice, quarrel, and dispute than between brothers, sisters, and other born friends, specially if an inheritance fell to them. Moreover, the handicraftsmen of every place hated one another, so that I could plainly see, and must conclude, that in comparison the open sinners, publicans and tax-gatherers, which by reason of their evil deeds were hated by many, were far better than we Christians nowadays in exercise of brotherly love: seeing that Christ bears testimony to them that at least they did love one another. Then thought I, if we have no reward because we love our enemies, how great must our punishment be if we hate our friends! And where there should be the greatest love and good faith, there I found the worst treachery and the strongest hatred. For many a lord would fleece his true servants and subjects, and some retainers would play the rogue against the best of lords. So too between married folk I marked continual strife: many a tyrant treated his wedded wife worse than his dog, and many a loose baggage held her good husband but for a fool and an ass. So too, many currish lords and masters cheated their industrious servants of their due pay and pinched them both in food and drink: and contrariwise I saw many faithless servitors which by theft or neglect brought their kind masters to ruin. Tradesfolk and craftsmen did vie with each other in Jewish roguery: exacted usury: sucked the sweat of the poor peasant’s brow by all manner of chicanery and overreaching. On the other hand, there were peasants so godless that if they were not thoroughly well and cruelly fleeced, they would sneer at other folks or even their lords themselves for their simplicity.
Once did I see a soldier give another a sore buffet; and I conceived he that was smitten would turn the other cheek (for as yet I had been in no quarrel), but there was I wrong, for the insulted one drew on him, and dealt the offender a crack of the crown. So I cried at the top of my voice, “Ah! friend, what dost thou?” “A coward must he be,” says he, “that would not avenge himself: devil take me but I will, or I care not to live. What! he must be a knave that would let himself be so fobbed off.” And between these two antagonists the quarrel waxed greater, for their backers on both sides, together with the bystanders, and any man moreover that came by chance to the spot, were presently by the ears: and there I heard men swear by God and their own souls, so lightly, that I could not believe they held those souls for their dearest treasure. But all this was but child’s play: for they stayed not at such children’s curses but presently ’twas so: “Thunder, lightning, hail: strike me, tear me, devil take me,” and the like, and not one thunder or lightning but a hundred thousand, “and snatch me away into the air.” Yea, and the blessed sacraments for them must have been not seven but a hundred thousand, and there with so many “bloodies,” “dammes,” and “cursemes” that my poor hair stood on end thereat. Then thought I of Christ’s command wherein He saith, “Swear not, let your speech be yea yea; and nay nay; for whatsoever is more is evil.”
Now all this that I saw and heard I pondered in my heart: and at the last I firmly concluded, these bullies were no Christians at all, and therefore I sought for other company. And worst of all it did terrify me when I heard some such swaggerers boast of their wickedness, sin, shame, and vice. For again and again I heard them so do, yea, day by day; and thus they would say: “ ’S blood, man, but we were foxed yesterday: three times in the day was I blind drunk and three times did vomit all.” “My stars,” says another, “how did we torment the rascal peasants!” And “Hundred thousand devils!” says a third, “what sport did we have with the women and maids!” And so on. “I cut him down as if lightning had struck him.” “I shot him—shot him so that he showed the whites of his eyes!” Or again: “I rode him down so cleverly, the devil only could fetch him off,” “I put such a stone in his way that he must needs break his neck thereover.”
Such and suchlike heathen talk filled my ears every day: and more than that, I did hear and see sins done in God’s name, which are much to be grieved for. Such wickedness was specially practised by the soldiers, when they would say, “Now in God’s name let us forth on a foray,” viz., to plunder, kidnap, shoot down, cut down, assault, capture and burn, and all the rest of their horrible works and practices. Just as the usurers ever invoke God with their hypocritical “In God’s name”: and therewithal let their devilish avarice loose to flay and to strip honest folk. Once did I see two rogues hanged, that would break into a house by night to steal, and even as they had placed their ladder one would mount it saying, “In God’s name, there comes the householder”: “and in the devil’s name” says he also, and therewithal threw him down: where he broke a leg and so was captured, and a few days after strung up together with his comrade. But I, if I saw the like, must speak out, and out would I come with some passage of Holy Writ, or in other ways would warn the sinner: and all men therefore held me for a fool. Yea, I was so often laughed out of countenance in return for my good intent that at length I took a disgust at it, and preferred altogether to keep silence, which yet for Christian love I could not keep. I would that all men had been reared with my hermit, believing that then many would look on the world’s ways with Simplicissimus’ eyes as I then beheld them. I had not the wit to see that if there were only Simplicissimuses in the world then there were not so many vices to behold: meanwhile ’tis certain that a man of the world, as being accustomed to all vices and himself partaker thereof, cannot in the least understand on what a thorny path he and his likes do walk.