Part 18

In the story of Eraclius, the hero finds a stone that has the power of preserving the bearer from injury by water. Eraclius, armed with this stone, lies at the bottom of the Tiber, as one asleep, and is not drowned. In _Barlaam and Josaphat_ the hermit undertakes to give his pupil a stone which will afford light to the blind, wisdom to fools, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the dumb.

There is a strange story in the _Talmud_[39] of a serpent that has a stone which gives life. A man goes in quest of it. The serpent tries to swallow the ship in which he sails. Then comes a raven and bites off the serpent’s head and the sea is made red with its blood. A dragon catches the falling stone and touches the dead serpent with it; it revives and again attacks the ship. Then another bird kills the creature, and this time the man catches the stone. The power of the stone was so great that it revived salted birds that lay on the table ready to be eaten, and they flew away.

In Buddhist stories, the original signification of the marvellous stone is completely lost, as completely as in the European mediæval stories. The Indian Buddhists remembered that there was a wondrous stone of which strange stories had been told, and which possessed the most surprising powers, and they made use of the idea to illustrate their doctrine--the stone was no other than the secret of Buddha. He who attained to that was rich, happy, serene. It is called the “Tschinta-mani,” that is, the Wishing-stone, because he who has it has everything that can be desired.

In the Buddhist collection of stories entitled _The Wise Man and the Fool_ is the tale of the king’s son, Gedon, who, grieved at the misery there is in the world, goes in quest of the “Tschinta-mani.” He takes with him his brother Digdon. They reach a castle, where he is warned to strike at the door with a diamond bat. Then five hundred goddesses will come forth, each bearing a precious stone, but only one of these is the Wishing-stone. He must select the stone without speaking. He does so, and chooses the right one. On his way home, on board ship, a storm arises, and he is wrecked; but, as he bears the precious stone, he is not drowned, and he saves his brother. Digdon, envious, steals the stone, and puts out his brother’s eyes, and goes home. Gedon follows, forgives his brother, recovers the stone and his sight.

Elsewhere the Wishing-stone is described as giving light by night as well as by day, as far as one hundred and twenty voices could be heard calling, the one catching and repeating to another; and by this light could be seen the seven kinds of treasures falling from heaven like a rain, which are offered to all.

The idea of the marvellous, luminous, enriching, health-giving stone remains, its original significance absolutely lost, and is given a new spell of life, in that it is used as a symbol of the teaching of Buddha.

In Europe, also, the idea of the marvellous stone remains; it is not used allegorically, except in the Grail myth, but it haunts men’s minds; they believe in it, they suppose it must be found, and they try to manufacture it out of all kinds of ingredients.[40]

Neither Arab nor European alchemist, nor Buddhist recluse, dreamed that the stone that gave light, that nourished, that rejoiced, that enriched, was the sun shining above their heads. The conception of the sun as a stone was so old, so rolled and rubbed down, that they had no notion whence it came. The idea remained, and influenced their minds strangely; but it never occurred to them to ask whence the idea was derived.

There is something pitiful in looking at the wasted lives of those old seekers, bowed over their crucibles, inhaling noxious vapours, wearing out the nights in fruitless experiment; but, like all history, that of the alchemists teaches us a lesson--to look up instead of looking down--a lesson to seek happiness, wealth, contentment, in the simple and not the complex, in light instead of in darkness.

I believe that this is the only one of my articles in which I have drawn a moral, but the moral is so obvious that it would have been inexcusable had I passed it over. But I know that as a child I resented the applications in _Æsop’s Fables_, and perhaps my reader will feel a like objection to having a moral appended to this essay. That I may dismiss him with a smile instead of a frown, I will close with a copy of verses extracted by me some thirty and more years ago, from--I think--a Cambridge University undergraduates’ magazine, verses probably new to my readers; but as they enforce the same moral in a perfectly fresh and charming manner, and as they deserve to be rescued from oblivion, I conclude with them:

I was just five years old, that December, And a fine little promising boy, So my grandmother said, I remember, And gave me a strange-looking toy:

In its shape it was lengthy and rounded, It was papered with yellow and blue, One end with a glass top was bounded, At the other, a hole to look through.

‘Dear Granny, what’s this?’ I came, crying, ‘A box for my pencils? but see, I can’t open it hard though I’m trying, O what is it? what can it be?’

‘Why, my dear, if you only look through it, And stand with your face to the light; Turn it gently (that’s just how to do it!), And you’ll see a remarkable sight.’

‘O how beautiful!’ cried I, delighted, As I saw each fantastic device, The bright fragments now closely united, All falling apart in a trice.

Times have passed, and new years will now find me, Each birthday, no longer a boy, Yet methinks that their turns may remind me Of the turns of my grandmother’s toy.

For in all this world, with its beauties, Its pictures so bright and so fair, You may vary the pleasures and duties But still, the same pieces are there.

From the time that the earth was first founded, There has never been anything new-- The same thoughts, the same things, have redounded Till the colours have pall’d on the view.

But--though all that is old is returning, There is yet in this sameness a change; And new truths are the wise ever learning, For the patterns must always be strange.

Shall we say that our days are all weary? All labour, and sorrow, and care, That its pleasures and joys are but dreary, Mere phantoms that vanish in air?

Ah, no! there are some darker pieces, And others transparent and bright; But this, surely, the beauty increases,-- Only--_stand with your face to the light_.

And the treasures for which we are yearning, Those joys, now succeeded by pain-- Are _but_ spangles, just hid in the turning; They will come to the surface again. B.

So the old ideas, old myths, are turned and turned about, and form new combinations, and are ever evolving fresh beauties, and teaching fresh truths. Perhaps in the consideration of these ancient myths, and seeing their progressive modifications, their breaking up, their coalitions, we may find the fresh application of the old saw, that there is nothing new under the sun.

THE END

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Jones, _Trad. N. American Indians_ (1830), vol. iii. 175.

[2] Original edition in Latin. A translation by John Campbell, LL.D., under the title of _Hermippus Redivivus_, London, 1743. A second edition much enlarged, under the title _Hermippus Redivivus, or the Sage’s Triumph over Old Age and the Grave_, London, 1749, 8vo. We have seen also an Italian translation. That from which we quote is the German edition.

[3] It is possible that, by the engraver’s fault, the L in the last inscription may have been substituted for an X.

[4] Ἔστρεψεν τὰ ταβλία τῶν πλακουνταρίων.

[5] Εἷς φουσκάριος.

[6] Εἷς Θεὸς, ἀββᾶ Συμεὼν, εἰς τὸν χεῖρα σου θυμιᾷς.

[7] Τί ἐστιν ἔξηχε, ἴδε, οὐκ εἰμὶ ἐγὼ μόνος ἀπέργης.

[8] Θέλων οὖν ὁ Ὅσιος ἀναλῦσαι τὴν οἰκοδομὴν αὐτοῦ, ἵνα μὴ θριαμβεύσῃ αὐτὸν, ἐν μιᾷ κοιμωμένης τῆς γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ μόνης, κᾀκείνου προβάλλοντος οἶνον, ἐπέβη πρὸς αὐτὴν ὃ ἀββᾶς Συμεὼν, καὶ ἐχηματίσατο ἀποδύεσθαι τὸ ἱμάτιον αὐτοῦ, κ.τ.λ.

[9] Ὥστε ἔστιν ὅτε ἔβαλλον τὰς χεῖρας αὐτῶν τὰ ἄσεμνα γύναια εἰς τὸν κόλπον αὐτοῦ,καὶ ἐσίαινον, καὶ ἐκόπταζον, καὶ ἐγαργάλιζον αὐτόν.

[10] Ἐβάσταζεν αὐτὸν μία προϊσταμενὴ, καὶ ἄλλη ἑλώριζεν αὐτόν.

[11] Πολλάκις δὲ προσποιεῖσθαι καταφιλεῖν τὰς δούλας. No wonder if one of them said, “Ο Σαλὸς Συμεὼν ἐβιάςατό με.” The maid’s mistress indignantly scolded Symeon, who replied with a smile, “Ἄφες, ἄφες, ταπεινὴ, ἄρτι γεννᾶ σοι, καὶ ἔχεις μικρὸν Συμεών.”

[12] Σειρὰν σαλσικίων.

[13] Σιλίγνια, καὶ πλακοῦντας, καὶ σφαίρια, καὶ ὀψάρια, καὶ οἰνάρια διάφορα, ψαθύρια, καὶ γλυκὺ, καὶ ἁπλῶς ὅσα πάντα ἔχει ὁ βίος λιμβά.

[14] Ἔστι γὰρ ὅτε καὶ τοῦτο ἔλεγε πρὸς μίαν τῶν ἑταιρίδων· θέλεις ἔχο σε φίλην καὶ δίδω σοι ἑκατὸν ὁλοκοτίνα.

[15] Both are published in the _Acta Sanctorum_ for June, T.I., pp. 237-260, with notes by Papebroeck, the Bollandist.

[16] “Monachus aspectu venerabilis, barba prolixa, corpore nudus, capillis canus.” This old monk was St. Luke the Stylite, appearing in vision.

[17] “Unus--cum gravi baculo ascendens ad eum, ipsum graviter ac dure cædens, de ecclesiæ trullo descendere fecit, cum multa festinantia et furore.”--_Fr. Barth._

[18] The biographer thinks a dolphin must have bitten his cords, and thus freed him.

[19] A blending is a changeling, or one who is half troll, half human.

[20] They form a huge ancient moraine.

[21] It much resembles the beautiful Marjelen Sea, familiar to the visitor to Aegischhorn.

[22] The writer has been over this portion of the ground, and knows the course pursued.

[23] It is not easy to make out what fell is meant. Possibly it may be the ridge called Thorir’s Head.

[24] In another version one ball was _gold_, the other _silver_. I sent this story to Mr. Henderson, and it is included in the first edition of his _Folklore of the Northern Counties_, but omitted in the second.

[25] The portion within brackets I got from a different informant. The first version was incomplete; the girls had forgotten how the ball was recovered. They forgot also what happened with the second ball.

[26] Powel and Magnusson, _Legends of Iceland_ (1864), p. 161.

[27] Cf. Xenoph. _Memor._ IV. vii. 7.

[28] The apocryphal Lith. 289.

[29] “Solis gemma candida est, et ad speciem sideris in orbem fulgentes spargit radios” (_Hist. Nat._ xxxvi. 10, 67.)

[30] Grimm, _D. M._ p. 665.

[31] _Hist. Anglic._ i. 27. See also Gervase of Tilbury, cxlv., for an account of the subterranean world reached by the cave in the Peak of Derby.

[32] _Itin. Camb._ i. 8.

[33] See for account of the gem-lighted underworld, Mannhardt, _Germ. Mythol._ (1858), p. 447.

[34] Egilson, _Lex. poet. linguæ Sept._ Men = monile, thesaurus, saxum, lapis.

[35] Roger of Wendover’s _Flowers of Hist._, s.a. 1196. The story is an addition made to the original by Matthew Paris.

[36] Spiegel, _Anecdota Pâlica_ (1845), p. 53.

[37] Benfy, _Pantschatantra_ (1859), ii. p. 128.

[38] Cf. Benfy, _op. cit._ i. p. 214.

[39] Bababathra, 74, 6.

[40] I said at the beginning of this article that the alchemists were right in believing the Philosopher’s Stone to be complex, made up of many metals. We know now that the germ idea of the stone is the sun, and the spectroscope allows us to analyse the sun’s light and discover in the solar atmosphere a multitude of metals and ingredients, in fusion.