Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Allegory of the Fountain Bernard of Treviso

When I perceived that I had proceeded a considerable length in this Art, I began most earnestly to court and to frequent the company of those who were learned in it also: for it becomes good men to join themselves to their equals and not to others.
Therefore, when I passed through Apulea, a city in India, I heard that a man resided there who was so very learned in every branch of Science, that he had not his equal in this world. He instituted as a Prize of disputation for all skilled in Art, a book fabricated, both leaves and cover, of pure gold. Therefore, desirous of honour, I did not doubt that my mind would assist me thereto and dispose me to the prescribed disputations, a very learned man adding spurs to my undertaking this province, and it also coming into my mind that the daring and bold were carried to sublime things, while the timid were thrown down and lived in perpetual dejection, I passed manfully into the field of contest and happily obtained the palm of disputation before the audience, and the book of premium was so honourably delivered to me by the faculty of Philosophy, that I was looked upon by all men.
Then for the sake of recreating my mind, fatigued with study, and enquiring for pleasant plains and meadows, I met with a most limpid little fountain, surrounded and fortified with a most beautiful stone in an oaken trunk, and enclosed within a wall, that brutes might not enter nor birds make a bath for themselves there. Sitting above this fountain, I contemplated its beauty and I saw the upper part was shut.
A very venerable old man was coming there. As reverent as a priest, I honourably saluted him and I asked him wherefore that fountain was shut and fortified in that manner, above, below, and on every side.
Having deigned to give me a friendly answer, he said, "What you would know, my friend, is a fountain very terrible and wonderful in virtue before every other fountain in the world. It belongs to the King alone of this country, whom the fount knows very well, and he himself the fountain. It always draws the King, when passing this way, to itself, but is never drawn by the King. In that Bath he remains 282 days, at the end of which so much youthful strength is added to him, that he can afterwards be conquered by nobody however strong. He therefore took care to shut up his little fountain with a round white stone, as you see, in which a clear fountain shines like silver and of celestial colour. That it may also be stronger and lest it should be destroyed by horses or others, he introduced an old oak cleft in the middle, which protects it from the rays of the Sun, forming a shade.