strictly allied they then learned of the Milesians the art of Fictions and Sybaritick Fables were as common in Italy as the Milesian Fables were in Asia it is not easie to say what was their model Hesychius gives us to understand in one passage very much corrupted that Aesop being in Italy his Fables there were so well approved that they did improve upon them and named them Sybariticks when they were changed and they became a Proverb but he discovers not wherein consisted that alteration Suidas believed that they were like those of Aesop he is mistaken in this as frequently else where The old Comentator upon Aristophones saith that the Sabarites made use of Beasts in their Fables and Aesop made use of men in his this passage is certainly corrupted for as it appears that Aesops Fables imployed Beasts it follows that those of the Sybarites made use of Men and thus too he saith in an other place in express terms those of the Sybarites were pleasant and provoked laughter I find a piece of one of them in Elian 't is a little story which he saith he took from the History of the Sybarites that is to say as I take it from the Sybaritick Fables you may judge there of by the story it self A Child of Sybaris going to School along with his School-Master met in the Street one that sold Figgs and stole from him one of them the Schoolmaster sharply reproving him snatches the Fig from him eats it But these Fables were not onely facetious but smutty withall Ovid puts the Sybaritida which was composed some little time before him among the number of the most lascivious pieces Many Learned Men believe that he intends the work of Hemitheon the Sybarite whereof Lucian speaks as of a mass of smuttiness this appears to me without ground for one cannot at all perceive that the Sybaritida did any other wise agree with the Book of Hemitheon then in this that both the one and the other were Books of Debauchery and this was common to all the Sybaritick Fables Bbesides this the Sybaritida was made but a little before Ovids time whereas the Town of Sybares was absolutely ruined by the Crotoniates 500 years before him 'T is therefore more credible that this Sybaritida was composed by some Roman and so called because it was made in imitation of the ancient Sybaritick Fables A certain old Author whose name I believe you do not much value gives us to understand that their style was curt and Laconick but all this doth not convince us that these Fables had nothing of the Romance in them This passage of Ovid makes it clear that in his time the Romans had given admittance to the Fables of the Sybarites amongst them and he teaches us in the same Book that the famous Historian Sisenna had also translated for them the Milesian Fables of Aristides This Sisenna lived in Sylla's time and was with him of the great and Illustrious Family of the Cornelians He was Praetor of Sicily and Acaia he writ the History of his Countrey and was preserred before all Historians of his Nation who went before him If the Roman Republick disdeigned not the reading of these Fables then while it yet retained an austere Discipline and rigid manners 't is no wonder if being fallen under the power of the Emperours and after their example being abandoned to luxury and pleasures it was likewise toucht with those which Romances gave the mind Virgil who lived a little after the first rise of the Empire gives not any more agreeable diversion to the Naides Daughters of the River Peneus while they were assembled together under their Fathers Waters then to relate the Amours of the Gods which were the subject of the Romances of Antiquity And Ovid Virgils contemporary makes the Daughters of Menius tell Romantick Tales and while their hands were busie and employed their tongues and wit were at liberty The first is of the Loves of Pyramus and Thisbe the second of those of Mars and Venus the third of those of Salmacis for Hermaphrodite By this appears the esteem Rome heretofore had for Romances which is yet more clear by the Romance which Petronius one of their Consuls and the most polished man of his time composed he made it in form of a Satyr of that kind which Varre had invented intermixing agreeably Prose with Verse and the serious with the jocose the which he named Menippian because Menippus before him had treated of grave matters in a pleasant and scoffing style This Satyr of Petronius fails not to be a true Romance it contains nothing but agreeable and ingenious Fictions but very often too wanton and immodest Hiding under the bark a fine and tart raillery against the vices of Nero's Court. Seeing what remains of it are onely some fragments which scarce have any coherence at all one with another or rather the collections of some industrious person one cannot exactly discern the form and tissue of the whole piece nevertheless it appears to be conducted with order And 't is probable the incoherent parts would make up a complete body with those that are wanting Though Petronius seems to be a very great Critick and of an exquisite taste in learning his style does not always altogether answer to the delicatness of his judgement something of affectation may be observed he is somewhat too much Painted and Studied and degenerates from that natural and majestick simplicity of the happy age of Augustus So true is it that the art of speaking which all the World practises and which so very few understand is yet much easier to understand then to practise well Some say that the Poet Lucan who also lived in Nero's time composed Saltick Fables that is as some think fables wherein are recounted the loves of Satyrs and Nymphs This agrees well with a Romance and the wit of that Age which was Romantick confirms my suspicion But in regard nothing is left us but the Title and that too does not clearly enough express the nature of the piece I shall say nothing thereof The Metamorphosis of Apuleus so well known under the Title of the Golden Ass was made under the Antonins It had the same Original with the Ass of Lucian being taken out of the two first Books of the Metamorphoses of Lucius of Patras with this difference always that these Books were abridged by Lucian and augmented by Apuleus The work of this Philosopher is regular for notwithstanding he seems to begin with his infancy yet what is there said is onely by way of Preface and to excuse the Barbarousness of his style The true beginning of his History is at his Voyage into Thessalia He has given us an Idea of the Milesian Fables in this piece which he declares withall to be of that sort he has inriched it with pretty Episodes and among others with that of Psyche which no person is ignorant of and he has not at all retrencht the smuttiness which was
of Similitudes as Elmacin reports 'T is from the Arabians in my opinion that we receive the art of Riming and I see much of probability that the Leonine Verses have been made after their example for it does not at all appear that rimes had course in Europe before the entrance of Taric and Muza into Spain whereas great quantity might be observed in the following Ages though otherwise I could easily make it appear that Verses in Rime were not altogether unknown to the Ancient Romans The Persians have not at all yielded to the Arabians in the art of Lying agreeably for notwithstanding Lies were otherwise most odious to them in conversation and they forbid their Children nothing with so great severity nevertheless in their Books and Commerce of letters these pleased them infinitely if Fictions are to be called Lies To be convinced of this one shall onely read the fabulous Adventures of their Law-giver Zoroaster Strabo saith that the Masters among them give their Disciples Moral Precepts wrapt up in Fictions he tells us in another place that much credit is not to be given to the Ancient Histories of the Persians Medes and Syrians by reason of the inclination their Writers had to relate untruths for these seeing that they who made profession of writing Fables were in esteem were perswaded that people would take pleasure to read Fables and forged Relations written after the manner of Histories The Fables of Aesop are so much to their gust that they appropriate the Author he is the same Locman of the Alcoran whom I mentioned before who is so renowned among all the people of the Levant that they will needs rob Phrygia of the honour of his birth and attribute it to themselves for the Arabians say he was of the Race of the Hebrews and the Persians say he was an Arabian Negro and lived in the Town of Casuvin which was the Arsacia of the Ancients Others on the contrary seeing that his life writ by Mirkond has much resemblance with that of Aesop which Maximus Planudes has left us and having observed that as Angels give Wisdom to Locman in Mirkond so Mercury bestows the Fable upon Aesop in Philostratus They are perswaded that the Greeks have stoln Locman from the Orientals and made thereof their Aesop but I must not here discuss this controversie I shall onely put you in mind by the way to remember what is said by strabo that the Histories of the people of the East are stuft with Lies and are in no wise faithful or exact and that it is most probable they have been Fabulous in speaking of the Author and Original of Fables as well as in all the rest and that the Greeks are more diligent and of better credit both in their Chronology and History and that the conformity of Mirkonds Locman with the Aesop of Planudes and Philostratus does no more prove that Aesop is Locman then it proves that Locman is Aesop The Persians have sirnamed Locman the Sage for that Aesop was in effect ranckt among the number of the Sages They say he was profoundly knowing in Medicine that he found out admirable Secrets and among the rest that of reviving the Dead They have so well glossed paraphrased and augmented his Fables that they as the Arabians have made thereof a very great Volum a Copy whereof is to be seen in the Vatican his Reputation has reatched even unto Egypt and into Nubia where his Name and Wisdom are in great veneration The Modern Turks have no less esteem for him and believe with Mirkond that he lived in Davids time wherein if in truth it be Aesop and that we may believe the Greek Chronologie they are mistaken but about the matter of 450 years which for the Turks is very well computed for they rarely hit so neer in their computation This would accord better with Hesiod who was Contemporary of Solomon and to whom is due according to the report of Quintilian the glory of the first invention of Fables which is attributed to Aesop There are no Poets that equal the Persians in the licence they give themselves to Lye in the lives of their Saints and about the Original of their Religion and in their Histories they have so disfigured those the truth whereof we know by the relations of the Greeks and Romans that they are not to be known again and even degenerating from that laudable aversion they heretofore had against those who served themselves with a lye for their interests they now account it an honour They are passionately in love with Poesie it is the diversion both of the Princes and People and the principal at a Begale were wanting if no Poetry were there Their works of Galantry and Love-stories have been famous and discover the Romancing Genius of this Nation The Indians also Neighbours of the Persians had like them a strong inclination to fabulous inventions Sandaber the Indian composed a Book of Paraboles which was Translated by the Hebrews and which at this day is to be found in the Libraries of the curious Father Poussin the Jesuit has joyned to his Pachymeron which he lately Printed at Rome a Dialogue between Absolom King of the Indies and a Gymnosophist upon divers questions of Morality wherein this Philosopher never expresses himself but by Paraboles and Fables after the manner of Aesop The Preface imports that this Book was made by the wisest and most knowing Men of the Nation and that it was carefully kept in the Treasury of the Charters of the Realm that Perzoez Physician of Chosroez King of Persia Translated it out of Indian into Persian some other from Persian into Arabian and Simeon Sethi from Arabian into Greek This Book is so little different from the Apologues which bear the name of the Indian Pilpay and which were seen in French some few years since that there is no doubt but that it was either the Original or the Copy for 't is said that this Pilpay was a Brachman who had share in the grand affairs of State and Government of the Indies under King Dabchelin that he comprises all his Politicks and Morals within this Book which was preserved by the Kings of the Indies as a Treasure of Wisdom and Learning that the reputation of this Book being carried so far as to Nonchirevon King of Persia he procured a Copy thereof by the means of his Physician who Translated it into Persian that Calife Abuiafar Almanzor caused it to be Translated from Persian into Arabian and another out of Arabian into Persian and that after all these Persian translations a new one was made different from all the former and from this came the French translation Certainly whoever shall read the History of the pretended Patriarchs of the Indians Erammon and Bremaw of their Posterity and Propagation shall need no other proof of the love this people have for Fables I therefore readily believe that when Horace gave the Epithete of Fabulous to the River Hydappes
which has its Source in Persia and finishes its course in the Indies his thought and meaning was that it begins and end its course among people very much addicted to Fiction and Disguisements These Fictions and Paraboles which you have seen make up the Prophane learning of the Nations before mentioned have in Syria been Sanctified the Sacred Authors complying with the humour of the Jews made use thereof to express the inspirations they received from Heaven The Holy Scripture is altogether Mysterious Allegorical and Aenigmatical The Talmudists believed that the Book of Job is no other but a parable of the Hebrews invention this Book that of Davia the Proverbs Ecclesiastes the Canticles and all other Holy Songs are Poetical works abounding with Figures which would seem bold and violent in our Writings and which are ordinary in those of that Nation The Book of Proverbs is otherwise called the Paraboles because Proverbs of this sort according to the definition of Quintilian are only short Fictions or Parables exprest in little The Book of Canticles is a kind of Dramatick Poem where the passionat sentiments of the Bridegroom and Spouse are exprest after a manner so tender and touching that we should be charmed thereby if these expressions and figures had some little more of conformity with our Genius or that we could devest our selves of that unjust preoccupation which makes us dislike all that is any little remote from our usage in which we condemn our selves without perceiving it since that our lightness never permits us to persevere long in the same customes Our Saviour himself scarce ever gave any precepts to the Jews but under the veil of Paraboles The Talmud contains a Million of Fables every one more impertinent then other many of the Rabbins have afterwards explained reconciled and amassed them together in their particular works and besides this have composed several Poesies Proverbs and Apologues The Cypriots and Cilicians have invented certain Fables which did bear the name of these People and the habit which the Cilicians in particular had of Lying has been noted by one of the Ancientest Proverbs which has been currant in Greece Lastly Fables have been in such vogue all over these Countries that amongst the Assyrians and Arabians according to the testimony of Lucian there were certain persons whose sole profession was to explain Fables and these men lived so regularly that they lived far longer then other People But it is not sufficient to have discovered the Source of Romances we must see by what Chanels they have been conveyed to and spread over Greece and Italy and whether they have passed from thence to us or that we have them from elsewhere The Ionians a people of Asia Minor being raised to a great Power and having acquired vast Riches were plunged in Luxurie and Voluptuousness inseperable companions of plenty Cyrus having subdued them by the taking of Craesus and all Asia Minor being with them fallen under the power of the Persians they received their manners with their Laws and mixing their Debauches with those their own inclination had before carried them to they became the most Voluptuous people in the World they refined upon the pleasures of the Table they made the addition of Flowers and Perfumes they found out new Ornaments for their Houses the finest Wools and the fairest Tapistries of the World came from them they were Authors of the Lascivious Dance called the Ionick and they became so remarkable for effeminateness that it past into a Proverb but amongst these Milesians furpassed all in the science of pleasures and were most ingenious in their delicacies these were the first who taught the Persians the Art of making Romances and travelled therein so happily that the Milesian Fables that is to say their Romances full of Love-stories and dissolute Relations were in the highest reputation 't is very likely that Romances were innocent till they fell into their hands and only contained singular and memorable adventures that these first corrupted them and stuft them with lascivions narrations and affairs of love Time has consumed all these works it has indeed preserved the name of Aristides the most famous of their Romancers who writ several Books of those called Milesian Fables I find that one Dionisins a Milesian who liv'd under the first Darius writ fabulous Histories but not being certain whether this was not onely a compilation of Ancient Fables and not seeing sufficient foundation to believe that these were of those properly called Milesian Fables I do not number him amongst the makers of Romances The Ionians who came from Attica and Peloponnesus mindful of their original maintained a great correspondence with the Greeks They sent their children reciprocally for breeding and that they might be acquainted with each others manners by this so frequent commerce Greece which of it self had inclination enough for Fables learned readily of the Ionians the art of composing Romances and did cultivate it with success but to avoid confusion I shall essay according to the order of time to give account of those Greek Writers who have been famous in this art I find none before Alexander the Great which perswaded me that the Romantick Science made no considerable progress among the Greeks before they had it from the Persians themselves when they subdued them and run it to its Source Clearcus of Soli a Town of Cilicia who lived in Alexanders time and was with him a Disciple of Aristotles is the first I find to have writ Books of Love though I do not well know whether these were not a Collection onely of several Love-passages drawn from History or vulgar Fable like that which Parthenius afterwards made under Augustus which is yet extant That which causeth this suspition is a little story cited by Atheneus out of him wherein are reckoned several tokens of love and esteem which Gyges King of Lydia gave to a Courtesan his Mistress Antonius Diogenes according to the conjecture of Photius lived some little time after Alexander and in imitation of Homers Odysseis and the hazardous Voyages of Ulisses made a true Romance of the Voyages and Amours of Dinias and Dercyllis This Romance though very faulty in many things and filled with fooleries and relations improbable and scarce excusable even in a Poet may notwithstanding be called regular Photius has an abstract thereof in his Bibliotheca and saith he believes it to be the source of that which Lucian Lucius Iamblicus Achilles Tatius Heliodorus and Damascius have writ in this kind however he adds in the same place that Antonius Diogenes makes mention of one Antiphanes more ancient then himself who he saith writ a Book of wonderful Histories like his so that he may as well be thought to have given the Idaea and matter to these Romances which he names as Antonius Diogenes I suppose he must be understood to speak of Antiphanes the Comick Poet who the Geographer Stephanus and others say made a Book of incredible
in the Originals which he had followed His style is that of a Sophist full of affectation and violent figures hard barbarous and befitting an African Some hold that Clodius Albinus one of the pretenders to the Empire who was vanquisht and slain by the Emperour Severus disdained not a like travail Julius Capitolinus reports in his life that there were seen certain Milesian Fables under his name greatly esteemed though but indifferently written and that Severus reproched the Senate that they had commended him for a Learned Man whereas he read nothing but the Milesian Fables of Apuleus and spent all his Study in old Wives tales and such like trifles which he preferred before serious employments Martianus Capella has as Petronius given the name of Satyr to his work for that it is writ like his in Verse and Prose and that the profitable and the agreeable are there interwoven having design to treat of all those which are called the Liberal Arts he therefore takes a circumference giving them persons and feigning that Mercury who has them in his Train Espouses Philology that is to say the love of good Letters and gives her for a Nuptial present whatever they have most fair and most precious so that it is a continual Allegory which properly deserves not the name of a Romance but rather of a Fable for as I have already remarqued a Fable represents things which never have nor ever can happen and a Romance represents things which may but never have happened The artifice of this Allegory is not very subtile the style is barbarisme it self so bold and so extravagant in his figures that they were not to be pardoned the most desperate Poet and covered with an obscurity so thick that it is hardly intelligible otherwise it is Learned and full of Notions which are not common Some write that the Author was an African if he were not he might well be one his manner of writing is so harsh and forced The time wherein he lived is not known it onely appears he was more ancient then Justinian Hitherto the Art of Romancing was maintained with some splendour but it declined afterwards with Learning and the Empire when these boysterous Nations of the North carried every where with them their ignorance and barbarity Before Romances were made for delight now were devised fabulous Histories because none were acquainted with the Truth Taliessin who is said to have lived about the middle of the sixth Age under that King Arthur so famous in Romances and Melkin who was somewhat younger writ the History of England their Countrey of King Arthur and of the round Table Balaus who has put them in his Catalogue speaks of them as of Authors filled with Fables The same may be said of Hunibaldus Francus who was as some write contemporary of Clovis and whose History is no other but a mass of lyes grosly conceived In fine Sir we come to the famous Book of the exploits of Charlemagne which some ascribe very untowardly to the Archbishop Turpin though he be later then it by more then two hundred years Pigna and some others have believed ridiculously that Romances took their name from the Town of Reims whereof he was Archbishop for that his Book as Pigna reports was the Source from whence the Romances of Provence chiefly issued and that he was according to others the principal among the makers of Romances However there are to be seen many Histories of Charlemagnes life full of extravagant Fables and like that which bears the name of Turpin Such were the Histories attributed to Harcon and to Solcon Forteman to Savard the Sage to Adell Adeling and to John Son of the King of Freezland all five Freezlanders and who are also said to have lived in the time of Charlemagne Such also was the History attributed to Occon who according to the common opinion was Contemporary of Otho the Great and had Solcon before named to his great Uncle And such were those which contain the Atchievments of King Arthur and the Life of Merlin These Histories composed for delight pleased the Readers who were simple and more ignorant then those who made them they did not in those days trouble themselves in the researches after good Memoires and in being informed of the truth for writing of Histories They had the stuff in their own head and went no farther then their own invention Thus Historians degenerated into true Romancers In this Age of ignorance the Latine Tongue too as well as truth was despised The Versifiers Composers Inventers of Tales Jesters and in fine those of this Countrey who studied that which was there called the Gay Science did begin about the time of Hugh Capet to Romance it pell mell and over run France giving about their Romances and Fables composed in the Roman Tongue for heretofore those of Provence had more of Learning and Poesie among them then all France besides This Roman Tongue was that which the Romans introducted among the Gauls together with their Conquests and which being corrupted by the times with a mixture of the Gaulish Language which was before and then French or Tudesque which followed 't was neither Latin Gaulish nor French but a certain medley of all wherein Latin however was predominant the which for that reason was always called the Roman to distinguish it from the particular and natural Language of each Countrey as the French Gaulish or Celtique Aquitanique Belgique for Caser writs that these three Languages were different among themselves which Strabo explains of a difference which only was as the diverse dialects of the same Language The Spaniard use the word Romancé in the same signification with us and they call their ordinary language Romancé the Romain being then most universally undestood those of Provence who Studied Fictons made use thereof for their Fictions which from thence were called Romances The Versifiers also travaling about the Countrey were bountifully rewarded for their labours and nobly entertained by Lords whom they made visits to some whereof would be so transported with delight to hear them that they sometimes would even despoil themselves of their Robes to adorn the Versifiers therewithall Those of Provence were not the onely persons who delighted in this agreeable exercise almost every Province of France had their Romancers even to Picardy where were composed their Servantois pieces treating of Love and sometimes Satyrical and from thence come so very many of old Romances whereof some part are Printed others are rotting in Libraries the rest consumed by the length of time Spain it self which has been so fruitful in Romances and Italy too have from us received the art of composing them Mi par di poter dire che questa sorte di Poesia These are the words of Giraldi speaking of Romances Habbia haunta la prima Origine il primo suo principio da Francesi da ' i quali ha forse onco haveto il nome Da Francési pio e passata questa