1.9.6
Said a companion, who held that what the former had outlined was correct, “Indeed, we may say with certitude that there is no abjection worse than servitude. Now, after all this scrutiny and reflection, interrogation and investigation, I see that the happiest of men in kind is he to whom God has allotted wealth, and a good mind, and who makes it his habit to travel to foreign places and observe new races. Each day some fresh matter he discovers173 new homelands of every sort and new brothers.” Said one who’d understood his tenor, and attributed his views to dotage and error, “You’ve gone off track as you well know, and what you say is not thought through. The lot of any exposed to travel is suffering and danger, is it not? With the change of air and strange surroundings, awful diseases often strike, not to mention that he’s forced to drink things that bring chronic sickness and to eat what he doesn’t like. Thus he consumes what eats his body away and drives any wink of slumber from his eye. When these Franks come to our lands, their mood is ruined by the absence of swine, as by their innocence of turtle, rabbit, and other creatures of this sort to which they incline, for they claim to mix the grease and blood of the pig into each dish, every soup, and all their sweets, and make from turtle flesh a broth that all ills treats. They fault us because our milk’s neither watered nor thinned, our bread too salty, our food not with salt saturated, our water not mixed with chalk, our wine not adulterated, because we slaughter our animals by cutting their throats and eat the meat fresh, while they strangle theirs and eat it wormy and almost raw, because our weather’s never overcast, our rain’s not always pelting down and it doesn’t always pour, because our land’s not covered with a tilth of excrement, dung, and other filth. Our legumes they say are tasteless, our fruits flavorless. They blame us that our winter doesn’t last two-thirds of the year and in our summers no booming thunder fills the ear. Having made their way to our land to learn our tongue and after living among us a decade only to return as ignorant of it as they come, they blame the weather and say, ‘It gave me consumption and fever, or terrible diarrhea, or a cough that drove me to despair.’ Moreover, because of the foreigner’s ignorance of the language of those among whom he dwells, he cannot learn their customs and ways and one and the same to him are their outer and their inner selves. He sees what he sees and learns nothing, hears what he hears and understands nought; thus the traveler has no choice but to hire a dragoman, depending on him for business of every sort. Soon, however, he develops an unappreciative attitude and decides the man seeks to burden him with a debt of gratitude. Should he try to dispense with him, however, he can no longer the meaning of events discern, and he lives on among the people, a victim of loneliness and concern. He may yearn to see his family, to be reunited with his kin, in which case longing will make him sick, separation from the beloved thin. One can only have fun being peripatetic if one travels with a companion sympathetic, a confidant with whom one can share a lot—especially if each is polyglot, fancy-free, preconceptions quite forgot. How difficult it is, though, for two to agree on any one view, or for there to be any pleasure without strenuous objection or constraining reflection!”
1.9.7
Now spoke the least of those present in terms of good sense and scholarly renown, the one most likely to play the clown. “Dear friends!” said he. “I have something to say — forgive me if it offends. The happiest and most favored of persons, the best-off among them and most content, is the beautiful whore who opens her door to visitors and makes herself available to any who accosts her, for rent. She wins her visitor’s companionship as well as his wealth and drives him so wild with love he thinks groveling before her an honor to himself. Once she has a band of men who’d sell their eyes for her in hand, they provide her with all she needs of ‘the two best things,’174 and she’s no longer obliged to look for custom on the roads or be exposed to anything that harms or discommodes. When she grows old, she finds she’d saved a lot when young, and so, with open hand, she spends and, with the money, for her earlier misdeeds she makes amends, living blamelessly the while, all praising her for her radiant repentance and large style. Man is by nature amnesiac. He thinks only of what’s present, not what’s passed, especially if the current situation yield a mighty dividend and the good life on which all hopes depend. The clergy have only to praise her high and low, to exonerate her of all debaucheries and abominations, to be given non-stop gifts and abundant donations. With each present she gets from them prayers, with each banquet blessings. Let any who doesn’t believe me, ask his consort and master his irritation, till such time as I can furnish proofs from both this and any earlier generation.”