Putting out all his strength, Christian quickly got up with Faithful.
Then I saw in my dream they went very lovingly on together, and had
sweet discourse of all things that had happened to them in their
pilgrimage; for they had been neighbours in the City of Destruction, and
both of them were bound for the Delectable Mountains, and the Celestial
City beyond. They were now in a great wilderness, and they walked on
together till they came to the town of Vanity, at which a fair is kept
all the year long, called Vanity Fair.
_II.--Vanity Fair_
I saw in my dream that Christian and Faithful tried to avoid seeing
Vanity Fair; but this they could not do, because the way to the
Celestial City lies through the town where this lusty fair is kept.
About 5,000 years ago, Beelzebub, Apollyon, and the rest of the fiends
saw by the path which the pilgrims made, that their way lay through the
town of Vanity. So they set up a fair there, in which all sorts of
vanity should be sold every day in the year. Among the merchandise sold
at this fair are lands, honours, titles, lusts, pleasures, and
preferments; delights of all kinds, as servants, gold, silver, and
precious stones; murders and thefts; blood and bodies, yea, and lives
and souls. Moreover, at this fair, there are at all times to be seen
jugglings, cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and
that of every sort.
When Christian and Faithful came through Vanity Fair everybody began to
stare and mock at them, for they were clothed in a raiment different
from the raiment of the multitude that traded in the fair, and their
speech also was different, and few could understand what they said. But
what amused the townspeople most of all was that the pilgrims set light
by all their wares.
"What will ye buy? What will ye buy?" said one merchant to them
mockingly.
"We buy the truth," said Christian and Faithful, looking gravely upon
him.
At this some men began to taunt the pilgrims, and some tried to strike
them; and things at last came to a hubbub and great stir, and all the
fair was thrown into disorder. Thereupon, Christian and Faithful were
arrested as disturbers of the peace. After being beaten and rolled in
the dirt, they were put into a cage, and made a spectacle to all the men
of the fair. The next day they were again beaten, and led up and down
the fair in heavy chains for an example and terror to others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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