Page:The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart.pdf/147

here some who had certain curved, bent trumpets; one end of these they pressed over their eyes, while they placed the other across their shoulders on to their backs. When I asked what this was, the interpreter said that these things were eye-glasses, with which one could see behind one's back. "For," quoth he, "one who wishes to be a man must see not only that which is before his feet, but he must heed also that which is passed and is behind his back, so that he may from the past learn the present and the future." And I, thinking that this was a new thing (for assuredly I knew not before of such crooked eye-glasses), begged one of the men to lend me his instrument for a short time that I might gaze through it; and some gave them to me, and oh, monstrous thing! through each one the view was different. Through one something appeared distant, through another the same thing appeared close; through one it appeared in this, through another in that, colour; again, through a third this thing appeared not at all. Thus did I ascertain that there was nothing here that I could rely on; nor was it certain that anything was really as it appeared, and not coloured before the eyes according to the fashion in which the eye-glasses were fitted on. But I saw that each one of these men trusted his own instrument thoroughly; thence arose much dispute on many matters, and this pleased me not.