Peter Ackroyd - The house of Doctor Dee

THE GREAT WORLD is unrolled before me, and on my desk ride the blue dolphins that love young children and the sound of musical instruments; here are the serpents, coloured in green and grey, that live six hundred years and whose heads are changed into the shape of dogs or men at will; here are sea-dragons also, marked in red, that breathe fire into the water and so cause the oceans to boil; among them glide the gryphons, the whales, and all the tribes of lesser fish that sport upon the surface of the deep. Neptune with his trident rides high upon the horses of the sea, while by quicksands and whirlpools sit the mermaids with mirrors in their hands. Everything on earth has its fellow within the sea, yet upon the face of this other world I also view the galleons, the cross-sailed merchant ships, the square-rigged barques, and the fishing-vessels. Who could observe such things and not wish to travel with them? For this is a map of the entire world I have before me, theatrum orbis terrarum, upon which have been placed the cities, the mountains, the woods, the rivers and a vast number even of the towns which make up this lower world.

At the northern gate there stands Terra Septemtronalis Incognita where, it is said, dwell a tribe which hold the fire-stones in their mouths; in the southern extremity is conjectured to be another land of desolation. Yet not all is unknown: much has been discovered by means of good geometry and the voyages of recent years, so that the world is now marked out far beyond the confines of Bohemia or Tartary. Our navigators and cosmographers have traced the outlines of Atlantis, or the New World, where have been found the crocodile that lives for a thousand years and the quail that has the falling sickness: certain provinces or domains there we have named Norumbega, Nova Francia and Mocosa, in which latter part of the world has been found the horse that weeps and sighs like a man. There also is the agopithecus, the ape-like goat whose voice is very like a man's but not articulate, sounding as if one did speak hastily with indignation or sorrow.

Africa is underneath my hand, and within it Barbarie where live the lions that couple backwards and the panthers that have the odour of the sweetest spices. In Numidia, not so far distant, live men with the tails and heads of dogs, as well as the infamous yena that inhabit the tombs of the dead and eat only corpses. In Libya dwells the monoceros that feasts upon poison, and can make itself into male or female as it wishes; there are people here called Astomii, who live very long and neither eat nor drink but feed upon air and the smell of fruits. In Selenetide there are women who lay eggs and hatch them, from which come children fifty times greater than those which are generally born, and the far-off Land of the Negroes is inhabited by the basilisk that kills at a look, the hydrus of two heads, and the salamander of perfect coldness: I have not the reports close to hand, otherwise I would give them to you in this place. O bright theatre of the world, in which I might lose myself! Here I stand by a table in my library room while I fly in the air like the great artificer, Icarus, and find myself suddenly aloft in the yellow land of Samotra and on a wonderful path to Monacabo, Capasiasa, Taprobana, Bacornara and Birae. Then can I see the men whose bodies shine at night, and the phoenix tree which blooms for an hundred years and imparts an odour more perfumed than musk or civet or ambergris. On this far-off shore I view the wonders of the world beneath the stars, and see before me the creature that is born twice, crying out upon the top of a mountain and saying, 'I am the white of the black, and the red of the white, and the yellow of the sun, I tell truth and lie not'… at which I started and awakened, for I was in a dream of my own devising.

Yet in truth I care not if I sleep a little more, and there are times such as this when all my learning seems to be a dream in which my wits are only half awakened. Last night I drank too much wine with those flibber-jibber knaves, so this morning I am dumpish and drowsy and dazed. See, I am even entranced away from my proper studies and talk idly over this mappa mundi here before me — but yet, as I look down upon the banks and rocks, the countertides and whirlpools, all marked by the delicate engraver, I am reminded of another journey. It was one I made through all manner of weather, and through all the variety of ways and passages upon the earth.

It was after my time with Ferdinand Griffen that I set out upon this pilgrimage. Having understood all that he could teach me, and growing tired for the moment of scales and hour-glasses, I decided to visit the true scholars and practitioners of learning beyond our shores. I had one great mark at which to aim in the course of my travels, since I had a desire to see the birthplace of that master of wisdom, Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast, known by the name of Paracelsus. He was born anno 1493 in the little town of Maria-Einsiedeln, not above two hours on foot from Zurich, and to reach that high country situated within the Alps I was forced to toil in dangerous damps and cold, in fear of violence by men or destruction by wild beasts, in lodgings of small ease and less comfort, almost bereaving life in order to come upon one of the fountains or sources of my life. But though it was a very painful and dangerous winter journey, it was made when I was young enough to scorn danger: I was drawn towards the lodestone of my art, Master Paracelsus, and no storm or hurricane (as I thought) would have the power to delay me.

I set forth in the dead of night and by wherry went to Greenwich, where I waited until there came a great tilt-boat to take me on to Gravesend. I took ship there, some miles distant from London, and carried aboard with me my own provisions for the journey, including biscuit, bread, beer, oil and vinegar; in my wallet I also had a good store of parchment, quill and ink (together with black powder to make more), so that I might keep a record of my travels into foreign lands. From there we sailed into the main, but on the third day of our sailing the merchant fleet of twelve vessels — our ship being one among them — was dispersed by a fog and tempest. I had with me my own pocket dial and compass of variation, willingly bequeathed to me by Mr Griffen, and I feared nothing. So I spoke readily enough with the captain of my vessel about the sea compass and the meridian compass, the astrolabe and the cross-staff, but when I discoursed with him upon eccentricity and parallax, he told me in a few words that he was master of ebbs or floods and not of instruments. This perplexed and dismayed me, thinking that only knowledge would lead us out of the tempest, but he clapped me upon the back and laughed.

'All is well, my star-shooter,' he said. 'I know my courses and my soundings, my landings and my marks, better than I know the lines upon my own hand.'

'But, good captain, surely you and your pilot know the elements of hydrography and astronomy?'

'In my head I have marked all the rocks and races. What more is there to say? Look, let me draw our path for you —'

With his finger upon an old deal table he mapped out our course, and I looked at him amazed. 'But what of the steadying and the midnighting of the stars? We are lost in this tempest, and only by expert conjecture will you find your way.'

He laughed again at my eagerness. 'Will the fixed stars or the planets lead me out from the countertides and whirlpools? I think not. Can you gaze at the sun and predict for me tempests or spouts? No, no, John Dee, you may lead a merry dance among the points of your arithmetic and geometry; but let me steer by my own light.'

I left him soon after, just as the tempest eased and the fog lifted, and I believe he still laughed after me. But who has the last laugh? You may plot a course by experience, but only knowledge brings you to a true and fitting destination. The eye may take you, sweet captain, across this little stretch of sea; but the astrolabe you condemn will impart to you the motions of the celestial orbs. It is not enough to move easily through the world: it is necessary to view it in the sun of understanding. Tell me. Is that not so?