The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete
shoes into his keeping, he took up his man. But it so happened that
when the friar had got to the middle of the river, he again
remembered a rule of his order, and stopping short, he looked up,
like Saint Christopher, to the burden on his back and said: "Tell
me, have you any money about you?"--"You know I have", answered the
other, "How do you suppose that a Merchant like me should go about
otherwise?" "Alack!" cried the friar, "our rules forbid as to carry
any money on our persons," and forthwith he dropped him into the
water, which the merchant perceived was a facetious way of being
revenged on the indignity he had done them; so, with a smiling face,
and blushing somewhat with shame, he peaceably endured the revenge.
1285.
A JEST.
A man wishing to prove, by the authority of Pythagoras, that he had
formerly been in the world, while another would not let him finish
his argument, the first speaker said to the second: "It is by this
token that I was formerly here, I remember that you were a miller."
The other one, feeling himself stung by these words, agreed that it
was true, and that by the same token he remembered that the speaker
had been the ass that carried the flour.
A JEST.
It was asked of a painter why, since he made such beautiful figures,
which were but dead things, his children were so ugly; to which the
painter replied that he made his pictures by day, and his children
by night.
1286.
A man saw a large sword which another one wore at his side. Said he
"Poor fellow, for a long time I have seen you tied to that weapon;
why do you not release yourself as your hands are untied, and set
yourself free?" To which the other replied: "This is none of yours,
on the contrary it is an old story." The former speaker, feeling
stung, replied: "I know that you are acquainted with so few things
in this world, that I thought anything I could tell you would be new
to you."
1287.
A man gave up his intimacy with one of his friends because he often
spoke ill of his other friends. The neglected friend one day
lamenting to this former friend, after much complaining, entreated
him to say what might be the cause that had made him forget so much
friendship. To which he answered: "I will no longer be intimate with
you because I love you, and I do not choose that you, by speaking
ill of me, your friend, to others, should produce in others, as in
me, a bad impression of yourself, by speaking evil to them of me,
your friend. Therefore, being no longer intimate together, it will
seem as though we had become enemies; and in speaking evil of me, as
is your wont, you will not be blamed so much as if we continued
intimate.
1288.
A man was arguing and boasting that he knew many and various tricks.
Another among the bystanders said: "I know how to play a trick which
will make whomsoever I like pull off his breeches." The first man--
the boaster--said: "You won't make me pull off mine, and I bet you a
pair of hose on it." He who proposed the game, having accepted the
offer, produced breeches and drew them across the face of him who
bet the pair of hose and won the bet [4].
A man said to an acquaintance: "Your eyes are changed to a strange
colour." The other replied: "It often happens, but you have not
noticed it." "When does it happen?" said the former. "Every time
that my eyes see your ugly face, from the shock of so unpleasing a
sight they suddenly turn pale and change to a strange colour."
A man said to another: "Your eyes are changed to a strange colour."
The other replied: "It is because my eyes behold your strange ugly
face."
A man said that in his country were the strangest things in the
world. Another answered: "You, who were born there, confirm this as
true, by the strangeness of your ugly face."
[Footnote: The joke turns, it appears, on two meanings of trarre and
is not easily translated.]
1289.
An old man was publicly casting contempt on a young one, and boldly
showing that he did not fear him; on which the young man replied
that his advanced age served him better as a shield than either his
tongue or his strength.
1290.
A JEST.
A sick man finding himself in _articulo mortis_ heard a knock at the
door, and asking one of his servants who was knocking, the servant
went out, and answered that it was a woman calling herself Madonna
Bona. Then the sick man lifting his arms to Heaven thanked God with
a loud voice, and told the servants that they were to let her come
in at once, so that he might see one good woman before he died,
since in all his life he had never yet seen one.
1291.
A JEST.
A man was desired to rise from bed, because the sun was already
risen. To which he replied: "If I had as far to go, and as much to
do as he has, I should be risen by now; but having but a little way
to go, I shall not rise yet."
1292.
A man, seeing a woman ready to hold up the target for a jousting
match, exclaimed, looking at the shield, and considering his spear:
"Alack! this is too small a workman for so great a business."
IV.
PROPHECIES.
1293.
THE DIVISION OF THE PROPHECIES.
First, of things relating to animals; secondly, of irrational
creatures; thirdly of plants; fourthly, of ceremonies; fifthly, of
manners; sixthly, of cases or edicts or quarrels; seventhly, of
cases that are impossible in nature [paradoxes], as, for instance,
of those things which, the more is taken from them, the more they
grow. And reserve the great matters till the end, and the small
matters give at the beginning. And first show the evils and then the
punishment of philosophical things.
Of Ants.
These creatures will form many communities, which will hide
themselves and their young ones and victuals in dark caverns, and
they will feed themselves and their families in dark places for many
months without any light, artificial or natural.
[Footnote: Lines 1--51 are in the original written in one column,
beginning with the text of line 11. At the end of the column is the
programme for the arrangement of the prophecies, placed here at the
head: Lines 56--79 form a second column, lines 80--97 a third one
(see the reproduction of the text on the facsimile PI. CXVIII).
Another suggestion for the arrangement of the prophecies is to be
found among the notes 55--57 on page 357.]
( Of Bees.)
And many others will be deprived of their store and their food, and
will be cruelly submerged and drowned by folks devoid of reason. Oh
Justice of God! Why dost thou not wake and behold thy creatures thus
ill used?
( Of Sheep, Cows, Goats and the like.)
Endless multitudes of these will have their little children taken
from them ripped open and flayed and most barbarously quartered.
( Of Nuts, and Olives, and Acorns, and Chesnuts, and such like. )
Many offspring shall be snatched by cruel thrashing from the very
arms of their mothers, and flung on the ground, and crushed.
( Of Children bound in Bundles. )
O cities of the Sea! In you I see your citizens--both females and
males--tightly bound, arms and legs, with strong withes by folks who
will not understand your language. And you will only be able to
assuage your sorrows and lost liberty by means of tearful complaints
and sighing and lamentation among yourselves; for those who will
bind you will not understand you, nor will you understand them.
( Of Cats that eat Rats.)
In you, O cities of Africa your children will be seen quartered in
their own houses by most cruel and rapacious beasts of your own
country.
( Of Asses that are beaten.)
[Footnote 48: Compare No. 845.] O Nature! Wherefore art thou so
partial; being to some of thy children a tender and benign mother,
and to others a most cruel and pitiless stepmother? I see children
of thine given up to slavery to others, without any sort of
advantage, and instead of remuneration for the good they do, they
are paid with the severest suffering, and spend their whole life in
benefitting those who ill treat them.
[Of Men who sleep on boards of Trees.]
Men shall sleep, and eat, and dwell among trees, in the forests and
open country.
[Of Dreaming.]
Men will seem to see new destructions in the sky. The flames that
fall from it will seem to rise in it and to fly from it with terror.
They will hear every kind of animals speak in human language. They
will instantaneously run in person in various parts of the world,
without motion. They will see the greatest splendour in the midst of
darkness. O! marvel of the human race! What madness has led you
thus! You will speak with animals of every species and they with you
in human speech. You will see yourself fall from great heights
without any harm and torrents will accompany you, and will mingle
with their rapid course.
[Of Christians.]
Many who hold the faith of the Son only build temples in the name of
the Mother.
[Of Food which has been alive.]
[84] A great portion of bodies that have been alive will pass into
the bodies of other animals; which is as much as to say, that the
deserted tenements will pass piecemeal into the inhabited ones,
furnishing them with good things, and carrying with them their
evils. That is to say the life of man is formed from things eaten,
and these carry with them that part of man which dies . . .
1294.
[Of Funeral Rites, and Processions, and Lights, and Bells, and
Followers.]
The greatest honours will be paid to men, and much pomp, without
their knowledge.
[Footnote: A facsimile of this text is on PI. CXVI below on the
right, but the writing is larger than the other notes on the same
sheet and of a somewhat different style. The ink is also of a
different hue, as may be seen on the original sheet at Milan.]
***84 and following; compare No. 846.
1295.
(Of the Avaricious.)
There will be many who will eagerly and with great care and
solicitude follow up a thing, which, if they only knew its
malignity, would always terrify them.
(Of those men, who, the older they grow, the more avaricious they
become, whereas, having but little time to stay, they should become
more liberal.)
We see those who are regarded as being most experienced and
judicious, when they least need a thing, seek and cherish it with
most avidity.
*Of the Ditch.*
Many will be busied in taking away from a thing, which will grow in
proportion as it is diminished.
*Of a Weight placed on a Feather-pillow.*
And it will be seen in many bodies that by raising the head they
swell visibly; and by laying the raised head down again, their size
will immediately be diminished.
*Of catching Lice.*
And many will be hunters of animals, which, the fewer there are the
more will be taken; and conversely, the more there are, the fewer
will be taken.
*Of Drawing Water in two Buckets with a single Rope.*
And many will be busily occupied, though the more of the thing they
draw up, the more will escape at the other end.
*Of the Tongues of Pigs and Calves in Sausage-skins.*
Oh! how foul a thing, that we should see the tongue of one animal in
the guts of another.
*Of Sieves made of the Hair of Animals.*
We shall see the food of animals pass through their skin everyway
excepting through their mouths, and penetrate from the outside
downwards to the ground.
*( Of Lanterns. )*
[Footnote 35: Lanterns were in Italy formerly made of horn.] The
cruel horns of powerful bulls will screen the lights of night
against the wild fury of the winds.
*( Of Feather-beds. )*
Flying creatures will give their very feathers to support men.
*( Of Animals which walk on Trees--wearing wooden Shoes. )*
The mire will be so great that men will walk on the trees of their
country.
*( Of the Soles of Shoes, which are made from the Ox. )*
And in many parts of the country men will be seen walking on the