Esarhaddon, King of Assyria. With the discovery of numerous documents and inscriptions from Esarhaddon’s reign, we now have enough historical data to form a relatively complete biography of this powerful and ruthless monarch. The results have been disappointing, lacking in the tragedy and epic sweep one looks for in a good royal biography. Dr. Boli has therefore wisely ignored the facts and constructed this fascinating biography along the lines suggested by his own unerring instincts. This is the vivid and compelling story of Esarhaddon, not as he was, but as he ought to have been. Quarto, 352 pp.

Dr. Boli’s Field Manual of Mineralogy. From his extensive observations of mineral behavior in the wild, Dr. Boli compiles a work, at once scholarly and popular, that lays bare the fascinating secret lives of the mineral kingdom around us. Learn what rocks, stones, ores, and crystals are doing and saying behind our backs. Handy size for field study. 12mo, 284 pp.

Dr. Boli’s Handy Table of Computations. Every number in the world added to, subtracted from, multiplied by, and divided by every other number, with complete operations shown, for the benefit of students of mathematics. The largest and most comprehensive work of its kind. Now available: Vol. 1, “1, Part 1.”

Dr. Boli’s History of the Yawn. A well-documented and exhaustively researched history of notable yawns, written in such a way as to inspire the reader to imitate those great examples. “The only sovereign cure for insomnia”—Sun-Telegraph.

 

No. 6.—Bonsecours: Voyages of the Ancients

 

GUILLAUME DE BONSECOURS, a learned monk who never traveled more than a few miles beyond the walls of the town by whose name we know him, wrote his lively and scholarly account of ancient sea voyages with the help of the excellent library at Bonsecours Abbey. Beginning with Noah’s youth as a sailor, not mentioned in Scripture but well developed in rabbinical lore, he carried on through Solomon’s fleets and the voyages of the Phoenicians, to Greek and Roman explorations of India, Britain, and Africa.

By all accounts the book itself was interesting enough; but the history of the unique autograph manuscript is far more interesting, and this is the topic that chiefly concerns us.

Bonsecours left his papers to his ne’er-do-well nephew, who promptly pawned them. The manuscript was soon sold to the captain of the Joli Raton, a trading ship that sailed from Bonsecours shortly afterward. Unfortunately, a strong gale sank the ship its first day out; but the captain’s strongbox, including the manuscript, was recovered some weeks later by the admiral of a Spanish fleet on its way to conquer the tiny earldom of Deira.

Against all odds, the rickety Deiran fleet defeated the Spanish, capturing their flagship, the Lepanto, and sending the rest to the bottom of the sea. The Lepanto thus passed into the hands of the Deirans, along with the admiral and all his possessions, among them Bonsecours’ Voyages. This the Deiran captain read with rapt attention, until the ship suddenly struck a rock off the Deiran coast and sank with astonishing rapidity. The crew swam and waded ashore, the captain still carrying the manuscript, which suffered a little from the water but remained intact and legible.

We next hear of the Voyages on board the Wife of Bath, which sank in the Channel during a light drizzle; then on the Sanctimonious, which foundered in shallow water off the Cornish coast. The captain of the Helen of Troyes read the book with much interest, and his ship made it to port without incident; but while the cargo was being unloaded, a double-manual virginal came loose from its tackle and fell on his head, killing him instantly. The manuscript passed into the hands of Sir Francis Parke, captain of the Hegemony, which, after abnormally high spring floods, became infamous as the only ship in the fleet ever to sink in drydock. The book was finally taken by Sir John M—— on board the celebrated Leviathan, where it was presumed lost in the general catastrophe which overtook that ill-fated expedition. Sir John did, however, make copious extracts from the work in his journals, and these extracts have given us our only means of assessing its character.

That was the last documented sighting of the manuscript, but there have been persistent rumors that the book did in fact survive the wreck of the Leviathan. Through the centuries, rumors have placed the book aboard one or another ship at various times. Within the last hundred years, three such rumors have placed the manuscript aboard the liner Lusitania, the airship Shenandoah, and the supertanker Valdez. But none of these sightings have been confirmed by hard evidence, and it is safest to regard the book as lost.

Caprodorus: Scythian Tale

 

ALTHOUGH ONLY SCATTERED fragments remain today, Caprodorus’ Scythian Tale was one of the most popular Greek prose romances of the third century. From the many summaries, criticisms, pictorial representations, and character trading cards that have come down to us from antiquity, we can reconstruct the plot with surprising accuracy.

Theodore, a shepherd of Scythia, and Theodora, a shepherdess of the same address, declare their love for each other in frequent outbursts of song. But the flow of dactylic endearments is interrupted when a band of pirates, temporarily abandoning their maritime depredations to rustle a few sheep, invade the pasture and abduct Theodora, apparently misidentifying her cries for help as bleating. They leave Theodore for dead and depart for the high seas with their woolly cargo.

Theodore, however, is not dead, having merely stepped aside to answer a call of nature, or (according to the reading of Schleusegatter et al., 1931) the telephone. Informed by his remaining sheep of Theodora’s abduction, he vows to become a pirate himself and join the pirate band that abducted Theodora, seeking the earliest opportunity to effect her rescue. This is apparently the best plan he can come up with.

The pirates having meanwhile discovered that Theodora is more woman than sheep, Theodora evades their advances by pretending to be Ethiopian and also mad. This ruse puzzles the pirates, and before they have time to resolve their confusion, their ship is ambushed by a band of forest bandits, who have temporarily set aside their life of sheep-rustling to try their hands at piracy. Taken by surprise, the pirates have no choice but to surrender their ship and cargo to the forest bandits, who then become pirates themselves, leaving the former pirates to become maritime forest bandits.

Theodora attempts to elude the new pirates with the same ruse that proved so successful with the former group; but she is foiled when she discovers that the pirates, formerly forest bandits, are all Ethiopian themselves, and most of them are quite mad.

Theodore, meanwhile, has come to the island of Rhodes, where he had been told he had the best chance of finding a pirate band willing to take on a new member with no previous references. Here he immediately falls among witches, who propose to turn him into a hedgehog. When he pleads for his life, however, the witches spare him, on the condition that he will present them with his head in a sack in exactly a year’s time. Theodore readily agrees, being honest but not too bright. Upon his swearing a solemn oath, the witches put him in a small boat and give it a hard shove eastward.

Scarcely has Theodore departed when the pirate ship carrying Theodora, piloted as it is by former forest bandits with no experience on the high seas, smashes on the rocks off the shore of Rhodes. All the pirates are drowned, but Theodora, who knows how to wade, makes it to shore and immediately falls among the same witches who had threatened to turn Theodore into a hedgehog. The witches decide to try the same experiment on Theodora, but she makes the same agreement that Theodore made; and the witches place her in a similar small boat, giving it a hard shove to the west this time.

After many more adventures which it would be, and in fact was, tedious to relate, both Theodore and Theodora return to the island of Rhodes at the same time to fulfill their bargains. They fail to recognize each other, however, because they have both cut off their own heads and are carrying them in sacks to present to the witches. In a piece of droll comedy that was much talked about in Caprodorus’ time, Theodore stumbles and Theodora trips over him, both dropping their heads on the ground. When they pick themselves up and dust themselves off, each picks up the wrong head and presents it to the witches. Furious, the witches restore their heads to their bodies and tell them to do it all over again and get it right this time.

But just as they are about to cut off their heads again, Theodore and Theodora recognize each other, and their moving reunion so affects the head witch that she sobbingly reveals that she is in fact Theodora’s long-lost mother, who was abducted by pirates before Theodora was born. At that very moment comes a sudden attack by forest bandits, and you can imagine everyone’s surprise when the bandits turn out to be none other than the original pirates who had abducted Theodora. Recognizing Theodora’s mother the witch, the captain of the forest bandits reveals that he was the pirate who had abducted her all those years ago. A happy reunion is effected, and Theodora’s mother and the bandit captain decide to open a souvenir shop on the beach. No one is quite sure what happens to Theodore and Theodora.

 

Notice.

As he does once every week or so, Dr. Boli takes this opportunity to remind his readers that all the text in his celebrated Magazine is under copyright, and that copyright violation has been shown to cause hangnails in laboratory animals.

A New Translation of the Article from Voltaire’s Portable Philosophical Dictionary.

 

WHEN ARCADIUS WAS emperor, Logomachos, a theologian of Constantinople, went to Scythia, and stopped at the foot of the Caucasus, in the fertile plains of Zephirim, on the frontiers of Colchis. The good old man Dondindac was in his big low room, between his big sheepfold and his vast barn; he was on his knees with his wife, their five sons and five daughters, his parents and his servants, and all were singing the praises of God, after a light meal.

“What are you doing, you idolater?” Logomachos said to him.

“I am not an idolater,” said Dondindac.

“You must be an idolater,” said Logomachos, “since you are Scythian, and you aren’t Greek. Tell me, what were you singing in your barbarous Scythian jargon?”

“All languages are equal in the ears of God,” answered the Scythian; “we were singing his praises.”

“Well, that’s extraordinary,” answered the theologian; “a Scythian family who pray to God without having been instructed by us!”

Soon he started up a conversation with the Scythian Dondindac; for the theologian knew a little Scythian, and the other a little Greek. This conversation was discovered in a manuscript preserved in the library of Constantinople.

Logomachos. Let’s see whether you know your catechism. Why do you pray to God?

Dondindac. Because it is right to adore the Supreme Being, who gives us everything we have.

Logomachos. Not bad for a barbarian! And what do you ask him for?

Dondindac. I thank him for the good things I enjoy, and even for the evils with which he tests me; but I make sure not to ask him for anything: he knows better than we do what we need, and I’m afraid I might ask for fair weather when my neighbor is asking for rain.

Logomachos. Well, I was afraid he was going to say something stupid. Let’s go back to basics. Barbarian, who told you there was a God?

Dondindac. All nature told me.

Logomachos. That’s not enough. What idea have you of God?

Dondindac. The idea of my Creator, my Master, who will recompense me if I do good, and punish me if I do evil.

Logomachos. What silly nonsense! Let’s cut to the chase. Is God infinite secundum quid, or according to his essence?

Dondindac. I don’t understand you.

Logomachos. Stupid brute! Is God in a place, or outside of every place, or everywhere?

Dondindac. I don’t know anything about that…whatever you like.

Logomachos. Ignoramus! Can he make what has been not have been, and a stick without two ends? Does he see the future as future or as present? By what means does he pull being out of nothing, and make nothing out of being?

Dondindac. I’ve never thought about those things.

Logomachos. What a twit! Well, then, we have to go lower, to match your intellect. Tell me, my friend, do you believe that matter can be eternal?

Dondindac. What does it matter to me whether it exists for all eternity or not? I myself do not exist for all eternity. God is always my master; he has given me the notion of justice, and I must follow it; I don’t want to be a philosopher, I want to be a man.

Logomachos. It takes a lot of work to deal with hard heads like these. Let’s go step by step: What is God?

Dondindac. My sovereign, my judge, my father.

Logomachos. That’s not what I’m asking. What is his nature?

Dondindac. To be powerful and good.

Logomachos. But is he corporal or spiritual?

Dondindac. How do you expect me to know?

Logomachos. What? You don’t know what a spirit is?

Dondindac. Not in the least: what good would it do me? Would it make me more righteous? Would it make me a better husband, a better father, a better master, a better citizen?

Logomachos. It is absolutely necessary to teach you what a spirit is. Listen: it’s—it’s—it’s…I’ll tell you some other time.

Dondindac. I’m really afraid that you’ve told me less what it is than what it isn’t. Allow me to ask a question of my own. I once saw one of your temples: why do you paint God with a big beard?

Logomachos. That’s a very hard question, and one that requires some preliminary instruction.

Dondindac. Before you give me your instruction, I must tell you what happened to me one day. I had just built a shed in my garden; I heard a mole who was debating with a maybug. “There’s a fine structure,” said the mole; “it must have been a very powerful mole who built it.” “You’re joking,” said the maybug; “a maybug of great genius is the architect of that building.” Since that time, I’ve resolved never to argue.

Tea. Tea was in use as early as the 19th century b.c., but it never really became popular until almost two thousand years later, when the emperor Li Chi had the inspired idea of adding hot water.

Ternary Schema. The flight of the Ternary Schema is one of the great migrations of the avian world. From their winter home in the farthest reaches of Pentarchonia to their summer breeding grounds in the Fandango is a journey of more than fifteen thousand miles for these brave and tireless adventurers. The Fandango is only about a hun­dred yards from Pentarchonia, but the Ternary Schema is not a very bright bird.

Tomatoes. The common argument over whether a tomato is a vegetable or a fruit is based on a fundamental misconception. A tomato is actually a sedentary animal related to the corals.

A tomato seedling planted upside-down will grow into a potato.

Trains. Hero of Alexandria invented the O-scale model railroad; it would be another two millennia before full-size railroads were invented.

Tuna. Commercial tuna is now grown directly in the can.

Tuna have long been the dolphins’ only nat­ural enemies, but tuna marked “dolphin safe” has been specially bred to be less aggressive.

United States. There are actually fifty-one states in the United States of America, but most people lose track somewhere in the middle of counting them.

Universe. The entire universe is actually upside-down, but our eyes automatically adjust to compensate.

So-called “parallel universes” are, tech­nically speaking, tangential rather than parallel.

Vacuum. It is not true that nature abhors a vacuum; nature vacuums every Tuesday, and she can’t help it if people track dust all over the planet in between times.

Vegetarian. A diet consisting mostly of meat is technically described as “vegetarian at one remove.”

Washington, George. It is not generally known that George Washington was one-quarter Japanese.

Water. Water cannot be compressed by force, but it will respond cheerfully to a polite request.

Witch hazel. Witch hazel is actually one of the few herbs that are completely useless to witches.

Wright Brothers. Orville and Wilbur Wright are well known for their invention of the first successful powered airplane. It is less well known that Orville could also fly without the airplane, an ability of which his brother was always bitterly envious.

Yellow-green. A decision of the Supreme Court (Peterson vs. Binney & Smith, 1962) deter­mined by a 7-2 vote that “greenish yellow” and “yellow-green” are the same color.

Zebra. The zebra is a mythical beast, but the myth is so pervasive and tenacious that no effort of the zoologists has succeeded in suppressing it. If you have seen a zebra at a zoo, it was really a horse painted with stripes in order to placate the thousands of visitors who demand to see a zebra.

 

Notice.

Recently Dr. Boli has heard rumors to the effect that “H. Albertus Boli” is really a pseudonym for the well-known writer Christopher Bailey. Dr. Boli refuses either to confirm or to deny these rumors, since to do so would be to lend them a dignity of which they are wholly undeserving. He would merely ask the rumormongers what makes them so certain that “Christopher Bailey” is not a pseudonym for H. Albertus Boli.

Dr. Boli also takes this opportunity to remind his readers that all the text in his celebrated Magazine is under copyright, for all the good it does him.

Paper. The first paper was made in Hellenistic times, but it was a liquid, and it was not con­sidered successful.

Pennies. No two pennies are exactly alike. If you find one that is alike, it is a counterfeit.

Pillows. The pillow was originally invented as a weapon, but it proved ineffectual.

Pillows, like magnets, have a north pole and a south pole.

Pine Cleaners. The introduction of modern commercial pine cleaners, which are sold in bottles in supermarket cleaner sections, put all the professional pine cleaners out of work, and put an end to a centuries-old traditional craft. Recent studies have shown that the average white pine is much dirtier as a result.

Plastic. Plastic is intrinsically more valuable than gold, but its price is kept artificially low by large-scale manufacture.

Hero of Alexandria invented most of the plastics used in modern commerce, but they were regarded as sacred to Isis and therefore employed only in cultic rituals.

Pope. By an ancient tradition, confirmed by a decree of the Second Lateran Council, the Pope is required to sing “Happy Birthday” to any citizen of Rome who passes one hundred years of age.

There have actually been 84 popes named Benedict, but after the notorious Benedict LXVII the count was begun again.

Pretzels. Pretzels are made straight, but they curl as they dry.

Printing. Johann Gutenberg originally invented printing as a means of counterfeiting money.

Quinces. Quinces are the only fruits not subject to mathematical laws. If you have five quinces and take one away, you will have three left.

Rabbits. Although rabbits are famous for multi­plying, they are incapable of long division.

Irony is usually lost on rabbits, who are very literal-minded.

Rubber. The refusal of rubber to conduct elec­tricity is due to its disdain for useful labor.

Saturn. The rings of Saturn are purely decorative.

Shirt, skirt. The words “shirt” and “skirt” are etymologically the same, but they differentiated as the garments described shortened in two different directions.

Shoes. Shoes were commonly worn on the ears until the middle of the 16th century.

Shower. The invention of the shower-bath, or “shower,” was the result of a comical, though nearly catastrophic, error in plumbing.

Sleep. Scientists using sensitive monitoring equip­ment have discovered that, during a good night’s sleep, the human body is actually projected for­ward eight hours in time.

Soy. So-called “soy flour” is actually a meat by-product.

Squirrels. Only their constitutional greed prevents squirrels from devoting their lives to abstract philosophy.

Sublime; ridiculous. ANSI measure­ments have determined that, contrary to the opinion of Napoleon, there are actually 1.2 steps from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Sun. Unmanned space probes have at last suc­ceeded in mapping the dark side of the sun.

Currently the sun gets its energy from nuclear power, but long-term plans call for con­verting it to solar power by the year 2017.

Sunflowers. It is commonly supposed that sun­flowers turn to face the sun all day, but in fact the reverse is true.

Ink, invisible. A very fine invisible ink may be made from ethyl alcohol, carefully evaporated before use. There is no means known to science of making the resulting writing visible.

Istanistan. Yaks outnumber people three to one in Istanistan, yet until 1998 no yak had ever been chosen prime minister.

Ivory. A very fine substitute for ivory may be made from parsnip roots.

Johnson, Samuel. Johnson’s dictionary is regarded as a prodigious achieve­ment, but it is not nearly so prodigious as commonly supposed. Dr. Johnson merely took a number of words that had already been created and arranged them in alphabetical order, with meanings and citations. With the exception of “antimony,” he did not invent a single word himself.

Ketchup. Ketchup was originally invented as an industrial lubricant.

Lake Erie. Lake Erie is the only one of the Great Lakes to have had its own television situation comedy, which ran for thirteen weeks on the Dumont network in 1952.

Latin. That certain Latin nouns are regarded as “indeclinable” simply shows a want of effort on the part of the grammarians.

Legal pads. So-called “legal pads” were illegal until 1913.

Leibniz. The philosopher Leibniz believed that he could see monads, and frequently pointed them out to his puzzled acquaintances.

Light. Science has not yet determined whether darkness is the absence of light, or light the absence of darkness.

Lions. The most efficacious method of stopping an attack by a wild lion is to shave his mane completely off with a safety razor. The humiliation of that operation will be too much for the lion to bear.

Maya. Recently deciphered calendrical texts show that the ancient Maya had discovered daylight savings time more than a thousand years before Europeans did.

With the decipherment of Maya hiero­glyphs, we now know that fourteen separate rulers of Tikal were named Irving.

Medicine. Doctors cannot dispense their own prescriptions because only licensed pharmacists are taught the secret incantations that render the drugs effective.

Money. Before the invention of printing, paper money had to be drawn by hand, and its value varied according to the reputation of the artist.

Napoleon. Napoleon kept a supply of Necco wafers, to which he was notoriously addicted, in the left inside pocket of his coat.

Newspapers. Newsprint paper in its natural state is completely black; newspapers are printed with a cheap and grainy off-white ink, with the black paper left showing through to form the letters.

Old Testament. In the original Hebrew, the entire Old Testament is one long palindrome.

Opera. In the early nineteenth century, when opera was still against the law, underground opera companies effectively controlled most of Sardinia.