Note 76 — The Fourth Book.
Reading edition
The Arabians attribute to Solomon a perpetual enmity and warfare against wicked Genii and Giants; on the subject of his wonder-working Ring their tales are innumerable. They have even invented a whole race of Pre-Adamite Solomons, who according to them governed the world successively to the number of 40, or as others affirm, as many as 72. All these made the evil Genii their unwilling Drudges.
D’Herbelot.
Anchieta was going in a canoe to the mouth of the river Aldea, a delightful spot, surrounded with mango trees, and usually abounding with birds called goarazes, that breed there. These birds are about the size of a hen, their colour a rich purple, inclining to red. They are white when hatched, and soon become black, but as they grow larger lose that colour and take this rich and beautiful purple. Our navigators had reached the place, but when they should have enjoyed the fine prospect which delights all who pass it, the sun was excessively hot, and this eye-pleasure was purchased dearly when the whole body was in a profuse perspiration, and the rowers were in a fever. Their distress called upon Joseph, and the remedy was no new one to him. He saw three or four of these birds perched upon a mango, and calling to them in the Brazilian language which the rowers understood, said, go you, call your companions, and come to shade these hot servants of the Lord. The birds stretched out their necks as if in obedience, and away they went to seek for others, and in a short time they came flying in the shape of an elegant cloud, and they shadowed the canoe a good league out to sea till the fresh sea breeze sprung up. Then they told them they might go about their business, and they separated with a clamor of rude but joyful sounds, which were only understood by the Author of Nature who created them. This was a greater miracle than that of the cloud with which God defended his chosen people in the wilderness from the heat of the sun, inasmuch as it was a more elegant and fanciful parasol. Acho que foy maior portento este que o da nuvem, com que deos defendes no deserto a seu Povo minoso do calor do sol, tanto quanto mais tem de gracioso & aprasivel este chapeo de sol, que aquelle.
This was a common miracle of Anchietus. Jacob Biderman has an epigram upon the subject, quoted in the Jesuit’s life.
Hesperii peterent cum barbara littora mystæ, Et sociis æger pluribus unus erat, Ille suum extincto, Phœbi quia lampadis æstu Occultoque uri, questus ab igne caput Quæsiit in prora, si quam daiet angulus umbram, Nulla sed in proræ partibus umbra fuit. Quæsiit in puppi, nihil umbræ puppis habebat, Summa sed urebant solis, & ima faces. His cupiens Anchieta malis succurrere, solam Aera per medium tendere vidit avem. Vidit, ei socias, ait, i, quære cohortes Aliger atque redux cum legione veni. Dicta probavit avis, celerique citatior Euro, Cognatum properat, quærere jussa gregem. Milleque mox sociis comitata revertitur alis, Mille sequi visæ, mille præire ducem. Mille supra, & totidem, juxtaque, infraque volabant, Omnis ad Anchietæ turba vocata preces. Et simul expansis facta testudine pennis, Desuper in tostas incubuere rates. Et procul inde diem, & lucem pepulere diei, Debile dum molis conderet umbra caput. Scilicet hæc fierent, ut canopea repente Anchieta artifices, esse coegit aves.
Vida do Veneravel Padre Joseph de Anchieta, da companhia de Jesu, Taumaturgo do Novo Mundo, na Provincia do Brasil. composta pello P. Simam de Vasconcellos, da mesma companhia.
Lisboa. 1672.
Father Simam de Vasconcellos probably stole this miracle from the Arabian story of Solomon, not that he is deficient in invention, but a Jesuit cannot be suspected of ignorance.
In a very old book, the Margarita Philosophica, is an account of a parasol more convenient, tho’ not in so elegant a taste as that of the wonder worker Anchieta. There is said to be a nation of one legged men, and one of these unipods is represented in a print lying on his back, under the shade of his own great foot. It is probably a classical lie.
The most quaint account of Solomon’s wisdom is in Du Bartas.
Hee knowes—— Whether the Heavens sweet-sweating kisse appear To be Pearls parent, and the Oysters pheer, And whether, dusk, it makes them dim withall, Cleer breeds the cleer, and stormy brings the pale: Whether from sea the amber-greece be sent, Or be some fishes pleasant excrement. He knowes why the Earth’s immoveable and round, The lees of Nature, center of the mound; Hee knows her mesure: and hee knows beside How Coloquintida (duely apply’d) Within the darknesse of the Conduit-pipes, Amid the winding of our inward tripes, Can so discreetly the white humour take. Sylvester’s Du Bartas.