THE THIRD DAY

As soon as the beautiful day broke, and the round red sun lifted himself above the hills and set out across the sky, my dinner companions got out of their doubtless quite comfortable beds ready for the test they’d chosen to take. They came out into the hall and greeted those of us who’d spent the night there, asking with a grin how we’d slept and so on, and some, seeing how we were tied up, lorded it over us for being cowards, not taking our chances as they were doing. But you could see that some of them were feeling they might have guessed wrong and weren’t talking so loudly.

We said we didn’t know anything and hoped we’d now be set free, having learned a good lesson by our disgrace, and who knows, maybe you fellows have worse than that coming very soon to you – but now everyone was assembled and the trumpets began to sound and the drums rolled as they had the night before. We thought that this was it, and the Bridegroom would at last show himself, but no, it wasn’t that, it was yesterday’s lady again on her move-by-itself throne, now all in red velvet belted with a white scarf. On her head she wore a wreath of green laurel, which looked wonderful on her. Coming in with her now were not little candles but rows of armed men, two hundred of them maybe, all dressed in red and white as she was.

When she dismounted from her throne, she came right over to us who remained and greeted us.

“You’ve been decently aware of your shortcomings,” she said, “and my lord is aware of that and very pleased by it, and has decided you ought to be given a hand up because of it.”

Just then she caught sight of me in my outfit, the white linen and red roses. “Well, well,” she said to me. “You of all people,¹ deciding to accept the bondage! Why, I would have thought you would have tried for a better spot.” Which made my eyes tear up, I’m afraid.

She ordered us all to be unbound from where we sat and then roped together where we could see the scales and the weighing of the others, “because,” she said, “it just might go better for you unhappy ones than for some who for now are still free.”

Meantime a pair of huge scales, entirely gilded, was set up in the middle of the hall. On a little table covered with red velvet seven weights² were placed: first a pretty large one, then four small ones, then two more very big ones. These weights were unbelievably heavy in proportion to their size. The armored men were divided into seven bands, one for each weight, and out of each band one of them was chosen to be in charge of that group’s weight. The lady leapt back onto her throne, and one of the pages commanded all those who wanted to be weighed to get in line in order by rank and step one by one into the pan.

First in the line was an emperor, and without hesitation he stepped up, acknowledged the lady, and in all his imperial regalia got into the pan. The captain of each weight band hefted his particular weight into the opposite pan, and we all were amazed to see that the emperor outweighed them all – all but the last. So he had to get out. He was so upset and cast down that the lady seemed to feel sorry for him, but he was bound with ropes and handed over to the sixth weight band.

After him came another emperor, who stepped haughtily into the pan. He’d hidden a thick book under his gown,³ and thought for sure he’d make it, but he couldn’t even get past the third weight before he was tossed up and pitched out so roughly that his book slipped out. All the soldiers laughed, and he was tied up and given to the third weight band.

It was the same with some other emperors, who were all made fun of and tied up. Then up steps a little short fellow with a curly brown beard, who was an emperor too, and after making his bow to the lady got into the scales and held out! I thought he probably could have beaten a few more weights. The lady arose and bowed to him, presented him with a red gown, and gave him a branch of laurel – she had a good pile of them by her throne – and then invited him to sit down on the steps there below her.

It would take too long to tell how all the other emperors, kings, and lords fared, but not very many held out, virtuous as some were in many ways. Every one of them who failed was laughed to shame by the weight bands. Then it was the turn of the other gentlemen, and perhaps one or two of these, no more, made it through, whether educated or not. After they were sorted, up came those rascal smoke-sellers and scribbling liars, who were pushed onto the scale with such contempt that, badly as I felt, I couldn’t help laughing, and neither could those already held prisoner. Those who failed the test were driven off the scale with whips, and so few of them passed that I’m almost embarrassed to tell you – but in fact there were a few good men discovered among them, who received the velvet robes and wreaths of laurel.

So the examination was done, and the only ones left were us poor coupled hounds standing to one side. One of the weight captains stepped forth.

“Gracious lady,” he said. “If it’s all right, let these poor fellows, who’ve already admitted their unworthiness, be put on the scale too. No penalties, just for the fun of it, to see what we might learn.”

Well, I felt just terrible at this suggestion, because my only comfort had been that at least I wasn’t going to have to undergo that shame and be whipped out of the pan. But our mistress consented, so there was no help for it; we were untied and one after the other set in the scale. Most didn’t succeed, but at least they weren’t laughed at or beaten and taken in custody, but just ordered over to one side. My companion of the night before held out bravely to the end, and everybody – but especially that captain who’d requested we be weighed – applauded, and the young mistress showed him the same respect she had the others.

Two more went up and went right out, and I was the eighth. As soon as I stepped up trembling, my good companion, now already sitting in his velvet robe, gave me a friendly look, and our mistress smiled a little herself. And I beat the weights! Not only that, the lady ordered the weight band to try to lift me by force, and three men hung on the beam of the scale, but couldn’t outweigh me.

“That’s him!” one of the little pages cried loudly, leaping to his feet.⁴

“Well then, set him free!” the other page said.

Our mistress gave the order and I was freed. After I came to her throne, she gave me the choice of releasing one of the captives of the weight bands. That was easy: I chose the first emperor, whom I’d pitied from the beginning. He was immediately set free and with all respect seated among us.

There was only one more of us to be examined, and he was quickly outweighed. Meanwhile the lady had noticed the roses I had put into my hatband, and she sent her page to ask me if she could have them, to which of course I said yes.

And with that, the first act ended, at about ten in the morning.

The trumpets sounded again, though we still couldn’t see them. The weight bands were to step away with their prisoners, who must await the verdict on them, while the weight captains and we survivors of the ordeal made up a council, with the young lady presiding.

“How,” she asked us, “should we deal with the ones who failed the test?”

The first suggestion was that they all be put to death, particularly those who’d forced their way in with no regard for the clearly stated conditions. Others suggested they all ought to be put in prison forever. I didn’t like either of those suggestions, and neither did our lady president. Finally, myself, the emperor I had freed, and my companion of last night suggested a plan: all the principal lords should be respectfully ushered out of the castle, and the other gentlemen should be stripped and run out naked, while the rest should be driven out with rods, whips, and dogs. The ones who the day before had foregone the examination would be allowed to depart without any blame. But those braggarts and thieving loudmouths who had behaved themselves so badly at dinner should be harshly punished and even pay with their lives, each according to his deeds. The lady approved of that, and voted with us.

But now, apparently, everyone was to be given another dinner, so the announcement and execution of these judgments was put off till afternoon. Our little senate arose, and our young mistress departed in her usual way. They gave the highest table in the hall to us who’d borne the weights, and that was plenty for us until all this day’s business was done, after which we understood that we would be conducted to the royal Bridegroom and his Bride. The prisoners were brought into the hall too, and seated according to rank. We made it clear to them that they’d better behave themselves less badly than they had yesterday, but they didn’t seem to need the warning; they were already quite subdued.

And I have to say, not out of any impulse to flatter, that really the high-ranking people among the prisoners knew how to bear themselves in their misfortune.⁵ They weren’t served very well at this meal, though decently enough; they couldn’t see their attendants – but to us, suddenly, they were visible! This made me very happy. Fortune had lifted us up, but we weren’t giving ourselves a lot of credit, and we told those prisoners to be of good cheer, things might not work out too badly for them. Of course they wanted to hear more about that, but we were committed to keeping quiet about our decision, and none of us gave any hints.

We comforted them anyway as best we could, drinking with them to see if wine might make them a bit more cheerful. Our table was covered in red velvet and set with cups of silver and gold, which the others stared at in amazement and chagrin. Before we even sat down, the two pages came in and presented everyone at the high table with the Order of the Golden Fleece (with winged lion rampant)⁶ and asked us to wear our badges at table and ever after strive to preserve the honor and reputation of that ancient Order which his Majesty now bestowed upon us. We took these Orders humbly and promised to carry out whatever His Majesty required of us as best we could. The pages also brought a paper that showed what our order of precedence was, and I wouldn’t mind telling where I stood, except that it might be interpreted as pride: which is expressly against the fourth weight.

Our dinner up at the high table was really excellent, and we asked the pages if it would be all right if we sent some choice bits down to friends and acquaintances below, and they made no objection, so everyone sent a little of this and that down by the waiters, whom they of course couldn’t see, so they didn’t know from whom it came. I decided then I’d take a plate down myself to one of them, but even before I’d got out of my chair one of the waiters took my elbow.

“Just a friendly word of advice,” he murmured. “If one of the pages sees you doing that, the king’s going to learn about it, and the king’s not going to like it. Now, no one’s noticed but me, and I won’t tell, but in future you should have more regard for the honor of the Order.”

“Oh. Yes. Thank you for the warning,” I said in some alarm, and sat back down. For a long time afterward I hardly moved. Pretty soon the drums began to beat, which we were getting very used to, and by now knew that it meant our young mistress was about to enter, so we got ready, and here she comes in on her throne with her usual attendants. One of her two pages preceded her with a tall golden goblet, and the other carried a parchment scroll. Having got down from her high seat with marvelous aplomb, she took the goblet from the page.

“This goblet’s from the king,” she told us, “who gave it to me himself to bring to you, so pass it around in his honor.”

On the lid of the goblet was a little golden figure of Lady Luck, very exquisitely made, holding a red pennant in her hand. Seeing that made me drink a little more cautiously; I had good reasons to know all about that lady’s fickleness. The young lady, I noticed, was wearing the same Golden Fleece with lion as we were, and I thought that perhaps she was president of our chapter.

“Can you tell me, Lady,” I asked, “what the name of our Order is?”

“Now’s not the time to talk about that, with the business of these prisoners unfinished,” she told me.

At that she ordered the prisoners to be blindfolded. They probably thought that what we had suffered before as penance was really nothing compared to the high honors we were now getting, which perhaps gave them hope for themselves. Our mistress took a scroll from her page, and turning to the first group of prisoners, she read out from the first part of it:

“First, you lords and gentlemen here. Confess that you believed much too quickly in false and lying books, and because of them believed you could get into this castle if you wanted to, even though you weren’t invited. Maybe it was in order to be seen and made much of here and then to go back home with your reputations increased, but once here you egged one another on to worse things, and so you deserve everything that’s coming to you.”

They very humbly admitted all that and swore to it. Then she turned to address the rest.

“You lot, however, know very well that you concocted fictions and lies, fooled others and cheated them, and offended the king’s dignity. You know what unholy meaningless diagrams you’ve been making use of in your screeds, not respecting even the Trinity itself but persistently deceiving people all over this land. We see now that you tried the same practices here, to ensnare our invited guests and trick the innocent. By all this it’s very clear that you’ve wallowed in every sin you could name, gluttony, fraud, theft, pride, all expressly against the commands of our king, whom you’ve mocked even among the common people. Therefore you should admit and confess that you’re a gang of cheaters and scoundrels who deserve to be cast out of the company of honest people and severely punished.”

Some of the better artisans among the crowd were reluctant to admit to all that, but not only was the young mistress charging them with these capital crimes, but now all the other prisoners were also raging at them and yelling that it was all their fault, that they’d bedazzled and seduced them. So rather than get in worse trouble than they already were, they began to say, Well, all right, we’re guilty of those things, but it isn’t as bad as it seems. Because those others, the lords and gentlemen, had wanted so badly to get into the castle, and offered a lot of money to anyone who could help – so that’s all they’d done, they said, tried to use their skills and their arts to come up with something, and that’s how they’d ended up here in this pickle. They didn’t deserve any worse treatment than the lords just because those schemes and plans they offered didn’t work. “These gentlemen surely had the sense to see that if we knew how to get in, we wouldn’t sell the secret to them for a pittance and then climb over the walls ourselves to get in!” Sure, they said, their books of secrets sold well, but a man has to make a living, and this is what they had to sell. All they’d done was to take orders and follow them, as good servants should.

All that pleading did them no good. “His Majesty has decided to punish you all, every one of you, although some more severely than others. It’s partly true what you say, and so the lords and gentlemen aren’t going to be let off, but you have every reason to prepare yourselves for death, you who pushed yourselves forward, and seduced others too, especially the most ignorant, who had no way to resist you. And you have polluted His Majesty’s realm with writings that can be shown to be false and baseless right out of their very own pages.”

They began sobbing and crying aloud at that, flinging themselves on their faces before the young mistress, begging to be let off this once, all of which got them nowhere – I was amazed to see how resolute our lady was, when many of us were moved to tears by their plight, even though some of them had given us plenty of trouble and bother in the past. No, she just sent out her page, who soon returned with all the armed men who’d presided at the weights. Each one was told to take a prisoner and march him out into the garden. Somehow each one knew exactly which prisoner to go to. Those of us who had spent the night in our chairs were also invited to go, not tied up, and witness the judgment. So we got up, leaving everything on the table (except the goblet with the figure of Fortuna, which the lady gave to the pages to bring). We all climbed on the throne, which moved away as gently as though riding on air, right out the other door and into a great garden, where we got off.

This garden was not particularly remarkable, though it was appealing the way all the trees were planted in neat rows, and there was also an elaborate fountain carved with striking figures and inscriptions and symbols strange to me then, which if I am spared I will describe in a future book. A wooden scaffold stood there, hung with painted curtains; it had four stories, the first more splendid than the others and curtained with white taffeta, so that we couldn’t see who was in there. The second story was uncurtained, and empty, and the two above that were again curtained, in red and blue.⁷

As soon as we reached this structure, our mistress bowed down deeply before it, which filled us with awe, as we could guess that the king and queen were probably inside. All of us did as she did, and then she led us up by a winding stair into the second-story gallery, where she sat and gathered the rest of us in order around her. Near me was that emperor whom I’d released before, and I won’t tell how this great man deferred to me, not only here but earlier at the table, because I wouldn’t want malicious gossips to go spreading the story. I’m sure it was because he could imagine what it would feel like to be down there among those to be judged, and not among the honored, where he was because of me.

All at once there appeared among us that wonderful winged person who, dressed in all the stars, had first brought me my invitation to this castle, and whom I hadn’t seen since then! First she gave one piercing blast on that golden trumpet and then, in a very loud voice, pronounced sentence on the prisoners.

“The king our gracious lord wishes with all his heart that every one of you assembled here had, in accordance with your invitations, shown yourselves qualified to attend his nuptials. Divine Providence, however, has decreed otherwise. The king, despite his own feelings of compassion, is not going to protest, and will execute the ancient laws of his kingdom. But so that his clemency can be known around the world, he, in consultation with his council and advisors, has modified the usual sentences.

“So the great lords here he freely dismisses, hoping you won’t take it badly that you can’t be present at the feast, but urging you to remember that God, whose ways cannot be comprehended, sometimes lays more upon great ones such as you than you can sustain. Don’t think less of your honor for having been rejected by our Order; everybody can’t do everything. Since the works of fakers and hucksters misled you, the king will soon send to each of you a catalogue of all writings known to be untrue, so you can tell good work from bad in future. Pretty soon too he’s going to go through his own library and make of all such writings a nice offering to Vulcan, and he suggests you do the same. Above all you are warned never, ever to try to get in here so thoughtlessly again, in case this excuse about ‘seducers’ isn’t allowed next time. Finally, since the estates of this land are as always in need, he hopes that you’ll make an offering of whatever you may have about you in the way of a gold chain, or anything of value, and so go safely home again.

“Now. Those of you who could not outweigh the first, the third, or the fourth weight, you aren’t to be let off so easily. The king orders you to be stripped stark naked and be driven out.

“You who were lighter than the second and fifth weights, besides being stripped shall be branded with marks indicating which weight you failed.”

So the lady continued; those who were outweighed by the sixth or the seventh weight were dealt with more lightly, and so on, with every combination of weights a person failed getting a particular punishment – it’s too long to recount it all here⁸ – and those who had chosen of their own accord not to be weighed at all were allowed leave without any blame.

“And finally,” she said. “Those confidence men and cheaters who couldn’t lift any weight whatever: they are condemned to die, by axe, noose, or drowning, as an example to all others.”

With that our mistress broke her wand, and the other lady blew her trumpet and they turned to make deep reverence to whoever was behind those curtains.

(Now I can’t resist telling the reader something about the number of the prisoners, and what weights they lifted or didn’t, because as each one came before us I wrote them down in my notebook. There were seven who lifted one weight; twenty-one people lifted two; thirty-five lifted three, and thirty-five also four; twenty-one again lifted five. Seven people lifted six, but only one made it to the seventh weight and couldn’t quite raise it, and he was the one I released. Of course there were many who lifted none, and a very few who outweighed them all. What’s amazing is that of those who lifted any weights, none lifted the same weights as any other – so that some who lifted three, lifted the third weight, the fourth weight, and the fifth weight, and some lifted the first, the second and the third, and so on. So among all 126 who weighed anything, not one was equal to any other! I’d like to give you all their names, with each man’s weight, but I’m not allowed yet; I hope someday to be able to, along with the interpretation of it all.)⁹

Now the sentences had all been read, and the greater lords were satisfied with theirs, because with all the severity that had been threatened, they’d hardly dared to hope for such a mild one; so in relief they put up as much in gold chains, money, and other valuables as they were carrying, and solemnly got away. The king’s servants had been forbidden to make fun of them as they left, but some fellows just couldn’t hold it in, and actually it was funny the way they all packed off without a backward glance. Some called out that that catalogue be sent immediately after them, so they could get right to work on their books as His Majesty had asked. At the door, each was given an Oblivionis haustus, or Forget-about-it Drink, so he would afterwards remember nothing about the whole embarrassing business.

Those who had chosen not to be weighed, and were allowed to go in peace because of their good sense, were warned not to come back again so weightless and unprepared; if they were to gain some wisdom in the meantime, though, they (and the others likewise) were welcome back.

Meanwhile others were being stripped bare, but also not all given the same treatment, as some were made to wear little bells, and some were scourged out – there were so many different ways of doing it I can’t recount them all.

Then came the last bunch, and the carrying out of their sentences. The soldiers hanged some of them. Some they beheaded. Some they forced to jump into deep water to drown. Others were done in by other means. It all took a long while. Really, I couldn’t help weeping to see it, not so much because these were so severely punished, which certainly they deserved, but just from thinking of human blindness and how we will always, always be meddling and prying into things that since Adam first sinned have been simply closed to us.

The garden, which had been so full of people, was at last nearly empty, and except for the soldiers, not a man was left. We sat in silence for the space of five minutes. Then there came forth a beautiful unicorn, as white as snow, wearing a golden collar engraved with certain letters. He came and knelt down on both his forelegs before the great lion that surmounted the fountain in the middle of the garden, who had stood there so immobile that I’d assumed he was made of stone or brass, but who now lifted the sword he held in his paw and broke it in two. He dropped the two pieces into the fountain, where they seemed to sink away, and then he began to roar, and roared and roared until a white dove fluttered down bearing an olive branch in her bill, which the lion ate. He immediately grew calm, and the unicorn pranced back to where she’d come from.¹⁰

Our lady led us down the winding stair from the gallery, and we too bowed toward the curtains. We were told to go to the fountain,¹¹ and there wash our hands and faces, and just wait there awhile until the king had returned to his hall by a secret passage. Thereafter we were taken back to our hall again with pomp and circumstance, music and conversation.

It was about four in the afternoon by now, and so that we could pass the time pleasantly, our lady assigned to each of us a page, who was not only well-dressed but very knowledgeable, in fact able to talk intelligently on so many topics that we had some reason to be abashed. The pages were ordered to act as our guides and give us each our tour of the castle – though only into designated parts – or otherwise entertain us.

“Good-bye then,” she said to us. “I’ll see you all again at supper, and after that we’ll have the Hanging Up of the Weights. Be patient till tomorrow – in the morning you’ll be presented to the king!”

So she departed, and we were left to our own devices. Some went to look at the many fine pictures displayed there, and copy them for themselves, and question their guides about the mysterious symbols in them. Others just wanted to go back to eating and drinking. For myself, I asked my page to guide me (and my good companion) around the castle, a tour I will be forever glad I was able to take. Besides the many wonderful antiquities, I was shown the royal tombs, where I learned more about our past kings than I could have in innumerable books. Nearby, an ever-living phoenix could be seen, a being about which I had once written a little study. (If that one ever catches on, I intend to publish further studies, of the lion, the eagle, the gryphon, the falcon, and similar beings, with illustrations, mottoes, etc.). I’m so sorry that my fellow guests passed up the opportunity to see these things, which by God’s grace – the only explanation I can think of – I myself was able to see.

…and the unicorn pranced back to where she’d come from.

I found my page was wonderfully useful on this tour, for these pages had the knack of leading whomever they were assigned to into just the places they’d most enjoy, and the keys to the places that I’d like to see had been given him beforehand. He invited any others to come along who wished to, but I suppose they thought all the important tombs would be in the churchyard and they could get there later and see what there was to see. Never mind: my companion and I sketched all these monuments and copied the inscriptions, and will gladly share them with all students.

The other thing that my page showed us was the royal library. It was all still complete, before the Reformation that had just been ordered by the king. I’ll say less about it because the whole catalogue of it is soon to be published, as promised. Right at the entry stands a huge book¹² the like of which I’d never seen before – in it were shown all the pictures, rooms, portals, all the inscriptions and writings, the riddles and the mysteries, that could be seen in the whole castle. I have promised to lay out many of these, and I will, but now’s not the time; I need to grow wiser in the ways of the world first.

In every book in the whole library, there was a portrait of its author. A lot of these books were among those which were going to be burnt, as I understood; and thus even the faces of their authors would be erased from the memory of righteous men.¹³

We were about to set out to explore the treasures here when another page came running up to ours and had an urgent whispered exchange with him. Our page, whose face had gone absolutely white, gave him the keys he carried, and the new page ran off with them up a winding stair. We peppered our page with questions about what had happened.

“The king has forbidden anyone to visit either the royal tombs or this library,” he said. “Please, I beg you, don’t tell anyone I let you into them. It would mean my life. I just swore to that other page that we hadn’t gone into either place.”¹⁴

We stood trembling, what with the glories we’d seen and the danger we’d been in, but we kept our mouths shut and nobody apparently asked about it later. We’d spent three whole hours in those two places, and I’m not at all sorry.

It was seven o’clock now, and we’d had nothing to eat, but the sights and marvels we consumed were enough for me – with such spiritual nourishment I could fast for a lifetime. We were shown intricately made waterworks, metalworks, and artisans’ studios producing work that would surpass ours even if ours were all rolled into one. All these studios and workplaces were built in a vast semicircle, all facing a tall clock¹⁵ of the highest quality set up on a beautiful turret in the center, so that the workers could guide their labors by the movements of the planets cleverly modeled there. This gave me a hint as to why our artists never succeed as they might: but it’s none of my business to educate them.

We were ushered into a spacious room, one that others were also visiting, and in the middle of it stood a terrestrial globe some thirty feet in diameter, though half of it (except for a couple of steps) was set down into the floor. The whole globe could easily be turned on its axis by two men, but only a half of it was ever seen above the “horizon.” I could tell right away that it had some special function, but I couldn’t understand what the small gold circles or rings set on it here and there were for. My page laughed and told me to look closer. I could find my own home-place, with a circle of gold on it, and my companion found his too, and all the others standing there found their countries also marked in the same way.

“Yesterday,” our page explained, “Old Atlas,¹⁶ which is what we call the royal astronomer, told the king he had determined by the stars the likely home-places of all those who would later be elected to the Order, and marked them with these gold circles. And when I saw that your town, my friend, was among them, even though you’d dropped out of the weight trials, I told the captain of the guard that he should suggest weighing all of the dropouts – as one at least came from a fortunate place.

“And that was the reason, by the way, that I personally was assigned to be your guide.”

Well, I thanked him very much, and at that studied my town on the globe more closely, and saw that not only was there a gold ring around my home, but that from it there extended faint golden rays – well, I’m not tooting my own horn in saying it, but there it was. Anyway there was more to be learned from this globe and the places marked on it than I want to reveal. Just think about why it is that not every town on earth produces a philosopher.

Our pages then ushered us all right inside the globe!¹⁷ There was a hatch, with the builder’s name and three dedications inscribed on it, let into the “ocean” part of the globe, and if you lifted that up, you could go in on a walkway to a circular space inside that could hold four people at a time. You could sit there comfortably, and even if it had been broad daylight – it was actually dark by now – you could see the stars. I think they were all sapphires and garnets, glittering brilliantly, all set out in the constellations and moving just as the heavens do.

I kept saying I wanted never to leave – the page later told our young mistress this, who teased me about it, because by now it was supper-time, and I was so entranced by the globe that I was almost last at the table.

When I could linger there no longer, I hurried to put on my same old gown, which I’d removed before, and went up to the high table. The waiters treated me with so much reverence that I was embarrassed to raise my eyes, and I didn’t see that our mistress was getting up at my approach, which I shouldn’t have let her do – she saw my confusion and tugged at my gown to bring me to a seat.

There’s no reason to describe the music and all the rest of the banquet, because it’s actually beyond me, and in any case I’ve described it all as well as I can before. Briefly: it was all beauty and gratification. We talked about what we’d done that afternoon (though I didn’t say a word about the library or the tombs). Then, doubtless a little lit up with the wine, the lady presented us with a problem.¹⁸

“Gentlemen, I’m having an argument with one of my sisters,” she said. “In our apartments here, we have an eagle. We both love him dearly, and each of us wants him to love her best, and we fight about it all the time. So the other day we decided to approach him together, and whomever he was more friendly toward, well, she’d be the one who’d have him. So we did, and I had a laurel branch in one hand, as I often do, but not my sister. When we approached our dear eagle, he gave her a laurel branch that he had in his beak – but then reached for mine! So now each of us thinks that this proves she’s the better loved one. Can anyone guess how we are going to resolve this?”

This was an interesting proposal, and we all wanted to hear a good answer. Everyone, however, looked at me and wanted me to start. I had no idea what to say, and all I could think to do was to propose a different question instead.

“Lady,” I said, “I think I could answer you, if I could resolve a problem of my own. I have two friends, and both of them are extremely fond of me. They wanted very much to know which of them I was more partial to, and what they decided to do was to rush up unexpectedly to me and see which one of them I embraced first. But one was much slower than the other, and fell behind, and was weeping in disappointment even as I, in ignorance, was hugging the other. Later they told me what their plan had been, and I didn’t know how to resolve it, and I can’t until I get some good advice myself.”

The lady was perplexed by this too and could understand my feelings. “Well, let’s get both our questions answered,” she said, and turned to the others. But I had already shown them the way to respond.

“Back in my home town,” the next said, “a young woman was recently condemned to death. The judge in the case, feeling sorry for the girl, decreed that if anyone wanted to be her champion, he should come forward. Now, she had two men in love with her. One quickly got ready and went into the lists to defend the girl’s honor against all comers. The other came too, but a little late – and so what he did was to present himself as the first fellow’s adversary and allow himself to be beaten, so that the maiden would go free.

“So tell me, sirs and lady, which of them should win the girl?”

Our mistress threw up her hands at this and said, “I was hoping to get some advice out of you, but I’ve only got myself in a snare. Still, I’d like to hear more, if there are more.”

“Yes, there are,” spoke up a third gentleman. “None of these tales is as strange as the one that happened to me. When I was young I loved an honest girl, and in order to get her into bed, I used the services of an old woman who was able to bring us together. Well, just as we three were together, the girl’s brothers rushed in on us and were so furious with me they were going to kill me, but I begged and pleaded, and so did the women, and finally instead of taking my life they forced me to swear to marry the dishonored girl – and in every other year, to be husband to the old lady instead. Now tell me: which should I have taken to be my wife for the first year – the old one or the young one?”

We all laughed a lot at this one, and though some of us talked it over in whispers, no one was willing to try answering it.

Then a fourth man spoke up. “Once, in a city I know of, there was an honorable lady,¹⁹ the wife of a nobleman who loved her, as many did, especially one wealthy young lord who wouldn’t stop pressing her to give in to him. So at last she told him, ‘All right, if in the middle of winter you can bring me into a warm green garden where roses grow, then you can have what you want, but if you can’t, you have to stop this and never pester me again.’

“So the young man agreed, and set out to find someone who could bring this off, and at last in a far country he found a little old man who said yes, he could accomplish that – if the young man would make over to him half his inheritance. The lord agreed to this, and the little old man did exactly as he said he could. On a cold winter day, the young man invited the lady to come to his garden, where she was astonished to find the sun warm, the grass green, and the roses nodding. He reminded her of her promise, and she had no choice but to agree; but she begged him to let her see her husband once more before she surrendered to him, and the young man agreed to that.

“She confessed to her husband, in tears, what had happened and what she now had to do. Her husband, seeing how clever she had been in trying to stay faithful to him, sent her back to the garden and to the young man, who had purchased her at so high a price, to fulfill the bargain she’d made. But the young lord, when the lady told him all this, was ashamed to touch the honest wife of so honest a man, and sent her home.

“Now he still owed the little old wizard half his inheritance, but that man, poor as he was, was so moved by what these good people had done that he cancelled the agreement he’d made and returned to his country.

“Now, ladies and gentleman, can we tell which of these people showed the greatest goodness?”

We were entirely silenced by that one, and our mistress wouldn’t offer an answer either, but only asked anyone else to contribute.

“Well, I’ll be quick,” said one. “Who has more enjoyment, a person who can look at what he loves, or the one who only thinks about it?”

“The one who can see it,” said our young leader.

“No,” I said.

So an argument arose about that, until a sixth man called out, “Gentlemen! I’m looking for a wife. Now I have a choice between a virgin, a woman who’s now married to somebody else, and a widow. Make this choice for me and I’ll take it from there.”

“That’s all well and good,” said a seventh man, “because you have a choice, but in my case I had none.

“When I was young I was wildly in love²⁰ with a good and beautiful girl, and she loved me too, but her friends and family prevented our marrying. Eventually she married an honest man who treated her affectionately. When she was in childbirth, though, she suffered so dreadfully and it went so badly that everyone thought she was dead. That very night she was buried with mourning and prayers. Now I had a mad idea: In life I couldn’t be with her, but now that she was dead, what difference would it make if I were to see her, embrace her, kiss her? So that night I went with a servant and dug her up. I opened the coffin, and there she lay, as beautiful as ever, and I locked her in my arms. But what’s this? I seemed to feel a little motion in her heart! It grew stronger from my own warmth around her, and at last I was sure she was alive! I quietly carried her to my house and warmed her cold body with hot baths infused with rare herbs; then I called for my mother, and with her help the lady’s child was born, a healthy son, for whom I got a nurse.

“She lay for two days stunned and unseeing. When she could understand, I explained to her all that had happened. I asked her if she would live now with me, for a time at least, as my own wife. But she couldn’t bring herself to do so, because of how terribly it would grieve her poor husband, who after all had treated her well; but she had to admit that, except for that, she owed as much to me as to him.

“So when a couple of months had passed, I invited her husband to dinner at my house, and during the conversation I found a way to ask him whether, if his dead wife should come back to him, he would want to have her. He said oh yes he would; he wept; he lamented her loss sincerely. So I got up and went and brought out to him his wife and son.

“I told him the whole story and then begged him to release her and permit me to marry her instead. He refused absolutely, and we argued long into the night, until at last he had to admit my right, and gave his wife over to me. Now there was still the matter of his son…”

“What!” our young leader broke in. “I can’t believe that you would double that poor man’s suffering like that!”

“And what about me?” he said. “I didn’t have a stake in this?”

We took up the question, and discussed it a long time, though most of us agreed he was in the right. At last he said, “Well, actually, in the end I gave up any claim I had and returned his wife and his son to him. But tell me now, which was greater – my selflessness, or this other man’s joy?”

The young mistress was so relieved at this that she ordered a toast, just as though it were for that happy husband and wife.

There were other proposals and parables thrown out after that which were puzzling enough that I can’t remember them all, but I remember one man saying that a few years before, he’d known of a doctor who bought a cord of wood that kept him warm all winter long, and then when spring came he sold that same wood again – so he had heat for free.

“That’s pretty clever,” our young leader said, “but we haven’t time for more of this.”

“All right,” said my friend and companion, “then everyone who doesn’t understand one of these riddles should send a note to the one who proposed it, and I’m sure he’ll be answered.”

We said our grace then and arose from the table satisfied and cheerful rather than bloated – I wish it were the same at all such banquets and festivities. We strolled together a bit around the hall, and our mistress asked us if we’d like to begin now on the wedding celebrations. “Oh yes, let’s!” one of us cried, and she made a discreet signal to a page while continuing to chat with us.

By now we were on such familiar terms that I dared to ask her name. She smiled at this sally, but she wasn’t offended, and she said: “My name²¹ contains fifty-five, but it only has eight letters. The third letter is one-third of the fifth letter, which if you add it to the sixth letter, will give you a number whose square root is more than the third letter by the amount of the first letter, and is half the fourth. The fifth letter and the seventh are equal, and so are the first and the last; and if you add to their number the number of the second letter, they are the same as the sixth letter, which contains just four more than three times the third. So, sir – what’s my name?”

This was complicated enough, but I didn’t quit. “Noble lady, could I have the amount of just one letter?”

“Well,” she said. “All right.”

“What is the number of the seventh letter?”

“The same as the number of gentlemen there are here.”

That was enough for me, and I figured out her name easily, which pleased her; she said that much more would be revealed to us.

A flock of her handmaidens²² had meantime got themselves ready and now came into the hall in a grand procession with music, with two young men carrying torches before them. One of the young men had a smiling face, pleasant features, well-made; the other looked truculent – whatever he wanted he insisted on getting, I would learn. Of the four maidens that followed them, one came in with eyes lowered, very humble; the second, bashful too; but the third seemed alarmed by what she saw, as though she couldn’t bear to be where there was so much fun being had – and that would prove to be so too. The fourth brought in bunches of flowers, to show her kindness and generosity.

After them came in two more, a little more grandly dressed – one in a sky-colored robe spangled with gold stars, the other’s green and striped with red and white. They wore light floaty scarves or veils on their heads, which I thought were very pretty. Lastly came one all by herself, with a coronet on her head, and her eyes lifted to heaven. We all thought this must be the bride, but no, we were mistaken – in rank and wealth and position, though, she actually surpassed the bride, and all eyes would turn to her throughout the Wedding. We followed our lady and went and knelt before this person, but she was very humble and offered us her hands, telling us not to be amazed – it was the least she could give us. We should raise our eyes to our Creator instead, and acknowledge his power, and go on as we had begun – use this grace she had granted us to give praise to God and do good to others. She spoke so differently from our lady, who was more worldlywise! Her words went right into me. “And you,” she said, speaking directly to me. “You have received more than others. See that you give more in return too!”

Actually though, this sermonizing did seem a little out of place, since we’d seen the girls and heard the music, and expected dancing would be next. But no, it wasn’t the time for that. The weights which had been used before were still on the red-draped table where they had been first displayed, and the duchess (as I’d learn the grandest of the ladies was titled) told each of the young girls to pick up one of them. Then she pointed to the last and heaviest of the weights. “You may lift mine,” she said to our lady. “And all follow me.”

Seeing her easily lift that great weight,²³ our high opinion of ourselves was promptly brought down. It was obvious that our lady had been too kind to us and none of us was as special as she had let us think. We followed her into the next chamber, where she hung up the duchess’s weight, and a fine hymn was sung. There was nothing rich or precious in this room, only some well-made small prayer-books, which such a room should always have. The duchess knelt on the prie-dieu there, and we all knelt around her. Our mistress read a prayer from one of the books, which we repeated after her, that this wedding might be to the glory of God and our own benefit.

In the next room, the first of the young girls hung up her weight, and then on into another and another until all the proper ceremonies were done. The duchess gave her hand to each of us again and went away with her handmaidens.

Our lady president stayed on with us awhile. It had been dark now for two hours, and she didn’t want to keep us up – she was very glad to be with us, I thought, but at last she said good-night and reluctantly went away. Our pages knew what to do and conducted each of us to his room and remained with us there too in another bed, so as to be of service in case we needed anything. My own room (I can’t speak of the others’) was grandly furnished with tapestries and paintings, but I was most delighted with my page, who was so well-spoken and knowledgeable in all the arts; he spent another hour talking with me, and it was half past three when at last I fell asleep. This was my first night in the castle in a real bed, but a nasty dream I had kept me from peaceful sleep: I dreamed that there was a door I couldn’t open, couldn’t open, but at last I did. Much of the night was spent in these imaginings, until near daybreak I awoke.

1 How the young lady knows who Christian is, and why she thinks he would have tried for a better spot, is unexplained, just as is the apparent foreknowledge of the gatekeepers of Christian’s coming. For one guess, see the last note of these notes.

2 Another mystic seven. In a religious allegory, these would be the seven virtues that in moral philosophy combat the seven deadly sins. We learn below that Pride is the sin against the Fourth Weight.

3 Considering how the writers of bad books will be treated, we can guess this book was a quack treatise on alchemy. But the whole of CW is surprisingly suspicious of books.

4 Again, Christian seems to be recognized as the necessary person, the hero, which he only ambiguously turns out to be. But see also the final note to the last line of the book.

5 CW exhibits an ambivalence about hierarchy and rank that seems to be pervasive in the period’s literature. On the one hand rank is assumed to be justified and is honored; on the other it is thought to be artificial and not correlated with virtue. Christian’s dream of the preceding night is an example, and more will come in the trials that the dream allegorizes.

6 A real order of chivalry, founded in Bruges in 1430 by Duke Philip III of Burgundy to celebrate his marriage to the Portuguese princess Isabella of Aviz. The Fleece is derived from the legendary golden fleece sought for by Jason. Many European monarchs and nobles were (and still are, Queen Elizabeth II among them) members of this very exclusive club. I don’t know why it appears here. (The winged lion will appear again in a page or two.)

7 Those who understand CW as a direct allegory of the Work of alchemy through its various stages make much of these successive colors, as the prima materia in the alchemical vessel goes through some of these colors, though not in this order.

8 If we could be as sure as some commentators claim to be about which weights represent which virtues, we could sort out who is punished in what way for what. Obviously those who were outweighed by the sixth and seventh weights were let off easily because they’d performed pretty well.

9 John Warwick Montgomery, whose lengthy commentary (Cross and Crucible, vol. II) is devoted to proving that CW is a Lutheran religious allegory, provides the following equation showing how this is possible:

C^r(n) is the total number of different combinations of r elements out of n possible elements. For example: if our elements are 1, 2, 3, then n=3, and if we are looking for distinct combinations of two elements, then r=2 and C²(3)=3, and the distinct combinations are 1 and 2, 1 and 3, and 2 and 3. In CW, n=7, the number of the weights, and r can vary from 1 to 6, depending on the number of weights lifted.

10 In some alchemical texts, these represent successive transformations of mercury in the alchemical Work. It’s clear that such terms and figures allude to the processes of alchemy, but it’s difficult indeed to see how they might be fitted into an allegorical scheme whereby all the events recounted in the book stand for those processes.

11 This is a healing fountain, as we will learn in the next Day. Water and washing are central alchemical processes.

12 More metafiction: The Chemical Wedding contains a castle, in which is kept this huge book; the huge book contains in turn the same castle in every detail, including, no doubt, the book itself that Christian is examining, which must again contain the castle and everything in it, etc.

13 It’s impossible to decide how Christian, and thus Andreae, feels about this mass book-burning. Montgomery, Andreae’s champion, claims that Andreae was appalled by the Reformation book-burnings. There were few at the time who argued that the books of the other side in the religious conflicts ought to be preserved: destroying them was a duty.

14 It’s impossible to understand this page as a figure in an allegory – what does his breaking of the rules, and Christian’s covering for him, stand for? (He’s about to do much worse.) But he certainly is a vividly real character in a novel.

15 Clockwork and its possibilities stood at the height of Renaissance and Baroque technology (along with firearms and fortifications), and marvelous clocks with elaborate movements showing planetary motions, phases of the moon, and allegorical or religious or fantastic figures with lifelike movements were the rage. There are more to come.

16 Atlas is the mythological Titan who supports the earth with his strength. All astronomy before Galileo adopted Copernicus’s heliocentrism was earth-centered – the movement of the heavens around the earth was its subject and study – so Atlas is a good name for an astronomer.

17 This is the kind of marvelous and just-possible machine that a modern science fiction novel would be furnished with. Star globes – globes that pictured the constellations on the outside of a sphere, as though seen from God’s point of view – were common, but this one, giving the illusion of a night sky and moved by mechanisms not described, modeling the apparent movement of the stars, would have seemed way cooler.

18 These are less problems in logic than insoluble paradoxes, and posing and debating such paradoxes was as popular then as it is now. Montgomery (II, 374-5) goes to terrific lengths to interpret the various figures in the problems as Christ or Christ-like, even the man torn between the old lady and the maiden.

19 This story is actually taken from the Decameron of Boccaccio (Day 10, Story 5) and also appears in Book Four of Boccaccio’s Il Filocopo [Love’s Labor] (1536). Bleiler thinks the entire structure of CW is based on Italian models, particularly on Boccaccio’s Amorosa visione [Amorous Vision] (1342-43), “in which the narrator receives a supernatural summons from a maiden (Virtue) to a fête, sets out, chooses between various ways, reaches a splendid edifice where various maidens symbolize abstractions, and sees remarkable displays and festival vehicles.” [Bleiler, 2008]

20 This story is also taken from Boccaccio. Montgomery notes this lift, while still attaching a religious allegory to the tale; other commenters draw a theosophical or alchemical moral. This all seems a bit strained since the story is from another source, outside this romance. I myself would use the technical term padding.

21 Occasionally CW resembles not a novel but a video game, where you have to solve various puzzles in order to ascend to the next level. This puzzle of the lady’s name can be solved in more than one way, but I think Bleiler’s is the most elegant: The key is substituting letters for numbers in 123 = ABC order. So if there are nine men present, and the young lady’s name contains eight letters, then the seventh letter of her name is 9; therefore we know the seventh letter (the ninth in the alphabet) is I. She says the fifth letter and the seventh letter are equal, so in the range 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 we have 1 2 3 4 I 6 I 8. Then, since the third letter is ⅓ of the fifth letter (that is, the third letter’s numerical value is ⅓ the numerical value of the fifth letter, I, that is, 9) the third letter’s numerical value is 3, or C. Now we have 1 2 C 4 I 6 I 8. The sixth letter is four more than the third tripled (3 x 3 + 4), or 13; the 13th letter of the alphabet is M. “The third letter is one-third of the fifth letter, which if you add it to the sixth letter, will give you a number whose square root is more than the third letter by the amount of the first letter, and is half the fourth”: the third letter, C (value 3), plus the sixth, M (value 13), produces 16, whose root (4) is the third (3) plus the first (which then must be one) and is half the value of the fourth letter (which must be 8). This produces A 2 C H I M I A. Andreae, who enjoys ambiguities and misdirection and double solutions to a puzzle (as in the love stories, or the interpretations given for the letters stamped on the gold tokens), has misdirected us with the “hint” that the young lady’s name “contains fifty-five,” which is irrelevant to the solution but has led several analysts (including, apparently, Leibniz!) to assume an algebraic solution and generate pages of calculations.

22 These girls and their two young men undoubtedly have a symbolic aspect, but what it is I don’t know.

23 Obviously the young lady isn’t all that physically strong, but the weights themselves signify virtues, and the ability to lift them is a part of character, not muscle. Some of the others lifted heavy weights, but not effortlessly, as this lady can.