At first authorities are cited a good deal; philosophers in general, Galen, Hermes, the Arabian medical writer filius Mesue or Yuhanna ibn Masawaih,[2358] the Pseudo-Aristotle and Alexander, whose feat is mentioned of killing the vipers with the deadly glance by erecting mirrors for them to look themselves to death in. Less familiar names are Architas, Belbinus—who, however, is perhaps the same as the Belenus of the Speculum astronomiae, Tabariensis, a Book of Decoration, and the books of Archigenes and Cleopatra, two authors cited by Galen. These same names of authors, with precisely the same statements cited from each and with a similar preceding argument about proving marvels by experience, occur also in the Liber vaccae or Liber aggregationum anguemis or Liber institutionum activorum, ascribed to Plato and Galen,[2359] and of which we shall treat in a subsequent chapter. As this Liber Anguemis seems to have been known to William of Auvergne and to date back in Latin translation to the twelfth century, the De mirabilibus mundi would seem to have copied from it, especially as its citations of Plato in libro tegimenti (or regiminis), which I suspected had some connection with Galen before I became acquainted with the Liber Anguemis, may be meant for that work, of which both Plato and Galen are reputed authors. It should be noted, however, that these citations and the passage introductory to them are entirely absent from one manuscript[2360] of the Liber vaccae or Liber Anguemis.
Contents of the Marvels characterized.
In the specific marvels ligatures and suspensions are employed to a large extent, as are parts of animals: the skin of a wolf or dog, the blood of a hare, bird, bat, or male turtle, the urine of a mule, and the wax from a dog’s left ear. There are a number of cures for quartan fever and some for other diseases, and various methods are recommended to prevent conception. The philosophers are represented as saying that if flies are submerged in water, they appear dead, but if they are buried in ashes, they will rise again. The Book of Cleopatra advises a husband whose wife does not love him to wear the marrow from a wolf’s left foot, “and she will love none but you.”
A mixture of chemistry and magic.
Toward the end of the treatise authorities are no longer cited and many of the recipes aim at magical or optical illusions and the fabrication of marvelous candles, lights, and combustibles. Some are perhaps akin to modern fireworks and chemical rather than magical. They terminate at any rate with a recipe for Greek fire and other explosives, including perhaps gunpowder. Instructions are given how to make men appear headless or with three heads or with the face of a dog or the head of an ass or any animal you wish, or in the form of angels or black men or elephants and great horses. Also how to write letters which can be read only at night, how to make a chicken or other animal dance in a dish, how to make the whole house seem full of snakes, how to make oneself seem on fire from head to foot, how to cast an object into the flames without burning it, how to enable men to walk through fire or carry a hot iron uninjured, how to extinguish a lamp by opening the hands over it and how to light it by closing them. Other recipes enable one to catch birds in the hands, to inward off dogs and snakes, to break a love charm, to loose bonds, see the future in sleep, catch a mole, and force a confession from a woman. To make a man forever a eunuch one should give him a glow-worm in drink. “And they say that if anyone is anointed with ass’s milk, all the fleas in the house will gather on him.”
Two specimens of combustibles.
The following is a specimen of the more superstitious type of recipe for a candle or combustible. From the first part of the human head, called sinciput by the philosophers, worms are generated soon after death. After seven days the worms become flies and after fourteen days they are great dragons whose bite is instantaneously fatal to man. “If you take one of these and cook it with oil and make a candle of it with a wick of crape, you will thereby behold with great fear a great thing and indescribable forms.” In contrast to this recipe may be quoted one of three for making “flying fire” out of sulphur, charcoal, and saltpeter. “Take a pound of sulphur, two pounds of willow charcoal, six pounds of saltpeter. Grind them very fine on a marble stone. Then put some in a cover of flying-paper or thunder-making paper. The cover for flying should be long, thin, and well filled with that powder, but for thunder-making short, thick, and half filled.” Here we would seem to have gunpowder and fireworks described.
Further discussion of marvelousness in general.
In three of the four incunabula editions of the De mirabilibus mundi which I have examined there occurs toward the close of the treatise another passage discussing marvelousness in general, most of which is not contained in the later editions although they briefly indicate its main point. The author says that now he understands that a thing is marvelous only as long as most persons cannot detect its cause, and that when a sufficient cause for it is shown, everyone ceases to wonder at it. He then distinguishes three kinds of marvels: first, those of rare occurrence in which not only is the cause unknown but the phenomenon itself marvelous from its very rarity; second, those whose cause is unknown, although the phenomena are neither new nor unusual; third, those whose cause is not entirely unknown but seems insufficient to account for the result. To produce any marvelous effect the requisites are a strong agent and a well-disposed material or patient. Sometimes, even when the agent is weak, the unusual aptitude of the patient compensates for this. On the basis of this scholastic generalization the author goes on to advise that, in working any marvel in the presence of the vulgar, one should center their attention upon some weak factor which alone is manifestly insufficient to produce the desired result and conceal the other contributory factors in the experiment as far as possible.
The Marvels is an experimental book.