The Age of Erasmus: Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and LondonAllen, P. S. (Percy Stafford)
History
The Age of Erasmus: Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London
Allen, P. S. (Percy Stafford)
Erasmus, Desiderius, -1536; Renaissance
Fabri has much practical advice to give. He bids his reader be careful
in going up and down the companion, veritably a ladder in those times;
not to sit down upon ropes, or on places covered with pitch, which
often melts in the sun; not to get in the way of the crew and make
them angry; not to drop things overboard or let his hat be blown off.
'Let the pilgrim beware of carrying a light upon deck at night; for
the mariners dislike this strangely, and cannot endure lights when
they are at work.' Small things are apt to be stolen, if left about:
for on board ship men have no other way to get what they want. 'While
you are writing, if you lay down your pen and turn your face away,
your pen will be lost, even though you be among men whom you know: and
if you lose it, you will have exceeding great trouble in getting
another.'
To Fabri's annoyance the ship's company included one woman, an elderly
lady, who came on board at the last moment with her husband, a
Fleming. 'She seemed,' he says, 'when we first saw her, to be restless
and inquisitive; as indeed she was. She ran hither and thither
incessantly about the ship, and was full of curiosity, wanting to hear
and see everything, and made herself hated exceedingly. Her husband
was a decent man, and for his sake many held their tongues; but had he
not been there, it would have gone hard with her. This woman was a
thorn in the eyes of us all.' His delight was great, when she was left
behind at Rhodes, having strayed away to some church outside the town.
'Except her husband, no one was sorry.' But their peace was
short-lived, for this active lady procured a boat and overtook them at
Cyprus; and Fabri could not help pitying the straits she had been put
to. We may rather admire her courage in undertaking the pilgrimage at
all, and especially the resource which she displayed on this very
unpleasant emergency.
On the eve of St. John Baptist, after dark, the sailors made St.
John's fire; stringing forty horn lanterns on a rope to the maintop,
amid shouts and trumpeting and clapping of hands. Upon which Fabri
makes this curious remark: 'Before this I never had beheld the
practice of clapping the hands for joy, as it is said in Psalm 46. Nor
could I have believed that the general clapping of many men's hands
would have such great power to move the human mind to rejoicing.' With
some misgiving he goes on to record that after the festivity the ship
was left to drive of itself, both pilgrims and sailors betaking
themselves to rest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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