1595. was drawen from the effects which it worketh in giving light to the moone & other starres, and causing all things to grow and encrease upon the earth: answere was made, that it did moove with the rest as the wheeles of a clocke, and therefore of force must have a moover. Likewise in the Eclipse being darkened it is manifestly prooved that it is not god, for God is altogether goodnesse and brightnesse, which can neither be darkened nor receive detriment or hurt: but the Sun receiveth both in the Eclipse, as it is apparant: to which hee could not answere; but so they had received from their ancestors, that it was without beginning or ende, as in any Orbicular or round body neither beginning or end could be found. He likewise He likewise sayd, that there were other Gentiles in ye Indies which worship the moone as chiefe, and their reason is. The moone when she riseth goeth with thousands of starres accompanied like a king, and therefore is chiefe: but the Sunne goeth alone, and therefore not so great. Against whom the Banianes reason, that it is not true, because the Moone and starres receive their light from the Sunne, neither doth the Sunne vouchsafe them his company but when he list, and therefore like a mighty prince goeth alone, yet they acknowledge the Moone as Queene or Viceroy. Law they hold none, but onely The seven seven precepts which they say were given them from precepts of their father Noe, not knowing Abraham or any other. First, to honor father and mother; secondly, not to steale; thirdly not to commit adultery; fourthly not to kill any thing living; fiftly, not to eate any thing living; sixtly, not to cut their haire; seventhly, to go barefoot in their churches. These they hold most strictly, & by no meanes will breake them: but he that breaketh one is punished with twenty stripes; but for the greatest fault they will kill none, neither by a short death nor a long, onely he is kept some time in prison with very little meat, and hath at the most not above twenty or five & twenty stripes. In the yere Banianes. 1595. they have 16 feasts, and then they go to their church, where is pictured in a broad table the Sun, as we use to paint it, the face of a man with beames round about, not having any thing els in it. At their feast they spot their faces in divers parts with saffron all yellow, and so walke up and downe the streets; and this they doe as a custome. They hold, there shalbe a resurrection, and all shall come to judgement, but the account shalbe most streight, insomuch that but one of 10000 shalbe received to favor, and those shall live againe in this world in great happinesse: the rest shalbe tormented. And because they will escape this judgement, when any man dieth, he and his wife be both burnt together even to ashes, and then they are throwen into a river, and so dispersed as though they had never bene. If the wife will not burne with her dead husband, she is holden ever after as a whore. And by this meanes they hope to escape the judgement to come. As for the soule, that goeth to the place from whence it came, but where the place is they know not. That the body should not be made againe they reason w the phylosophers, saying, that of nothing nothing can be made (not knowing that God made the whole world and their god the Sun of nothing) but beholding the course of nature, that nothing is made but by a meanes, as by the seed of a man is made another, and by corne cast into the ground there commeth up new corne: so, say they, man cannot be made except some part of him be left, and therefore they burne the whole for if he were buried in the earth, they say there is a small bone in the necke which would never be consumed: or if he were eaten by a beast, that bone would not consume, but of that bone would come another man; and then the soule being restored againe, he should come into judgement, whereas now, the body being destroyed, the soule shall not be judged: for their opinion is, that both body and soule must be united together, as they have sinned together, to receive judgement; and therfore the soule alone cannot. Their seven precepts which they keepe so strictly are not for any hope of reward they have after this life, but onely that they may be blessed in this world, for they thinke that he which breaketh them shall have ill successe in all his businesse. 1595. They say, the three chiefe religions in the world. be of the Christians, Jewes, & Turks, & yet but one of them true: but being in doubt which is the truest of the three, they will be of none: for they hold that all these three shall be judged, and but few of them which be of the true shall be saved, the examination shall be so straight; and therefore, as I have sayd before, to prevent this judgement, they burne their bodies to ashes. They say, these three religions have too many precepts to keepe them all wel, & therfore wonderful hard it wil be to make account, because so few doe observe all their religion aright. And thus passing the time for the space of three moneths in this sea voyage, [II i. 311.] we arrived at Venice the tenth of June: and after I had seene Padua, with other English men, I came the ordinary way over the Alpes, by Augusta, Noremberg, and so for England; where to the praise of God I safely arrived the ninth of August 1595. [A letter VI 113 H 1594. A letter written by the most high and mighty L principio del ragionamento nostro sia scrittura perfetta nelle quatro parte del mondo, in nome di quello che ha creato indifferentemente tante infinite creature, che non havevano anima ni persona, & di quello che fa girar gli nove cieli, & che la terra sette volte una sopra l'altra fa firmar; Signor & Re senza vicere, & che non ha comparacion alla sua creatione ne opera, & uno senza precio, adorato incomparabilmente, l' altissimo Dio creatore; che non ha similitudine, si come e descrito dalli propheti: a la cui grandessa non si arrive, & alla perfettione sua compiuta non si oppone, & quel omnipotente creatore & cooperatore; alla grandessa del quale inchinano tutti li propheti; fra quali il maggior & che ha ottenuto gracia, horto del paradiso, ragi dal sole, amato del altissimo Dio è Mahomet Mustaffa, al qual & suoi adherenti & imitatori sia perpetua pace: alla cui sepultura odorifera si fa ogni honore. Quello che è imperator de sette climati, & delle quatro parti del mondo, invincibile Re di Græcia, Agiamia, Ungeria, Tartaria, Valachia, Rossia, Turchia, Arabia, Bagdet, Caramania, Abessis, Giouasir, Sirvan, Barbaria, Algieri, Franchia, Corvacia, Belgrado, &c. sempre felicissimo, & de dodeci Avoli possessor della corona, & della stirpe di Adam, fin hora Imperator, figliolo del'Imperatore, conservato de la divina providenza, Re di ogni dignita & honore, Sultan Murat, che Il Signor Dio sempre augmenti le sue forzze, & padre di quello a cui aspetta la corona imperiale, horto & cypresso mirabile, degno della sedia regale, & vero herede del commando imperiale, dignissimo Mehemet Can, filiol de Sultan Murat Can, che dio compisca li suoi dissegni, 1594. |