crossing Egypt.
But when he came to India, Baudolino almost forgot Beatrice, and his mind turned to other fancies, because he had got it into his head that in those parts there had to be, if there ever had been, the kingdom of that Presbyter Johannes of whom Otto had told him. Baudolino had never ceased to think of Johannes: he thought of him
every time he read about an unknown country, and even more when on the parchment varicolored miniatures appeared of strange beings, like horned men, or pygmies, who spend their lives fighting cranes. He thought of this so much that, to himself, he now spoke of Prester John as if he were a family friend. And hence to discover where he was became for Baudolino a matter of the greatest moment and, if Johannes was nowhere, still an India had to be found where he could be placed, because Baudolino felt bound by an oath (though none had been sworn) to the beloved dying bishop.
Of Prester John he had spoken to his two companions, who were immediately attracted by the game and communicated to Baudolino any vague and curious information they found, leafing through codices, that might waft an aroma of India's incenses. Abdul suddenly had the idea that his distant princess, if she had to be distant, should conceal her splendor in that most distant land of all.
"Yes," Baudolino replied, "but where do you go to reach India? It shouldn't be far from the Earthly Paradise, and thus east of the Orient, just where the land ends and the Ocean begins...."
They had not yet begun the course of lessons in astronomy, and on the question of the earth's shape their ideas were hazy. The Poet was still convinced that it was a long, flat expanse, at the ends of which the waters of the Ocean poured down, God knows where. To Baudolino, on the contrary, Rahewin had saidâthough with some skepticismâthat not only the great philosophers of antiquity, or Ptolemy, father of all astronomers, but also Saint Isidore had asserted that the earth was a sphere; indeed, Isidore had such Christian assurance of this that he had even established the breadth at the equator: eighty thousand stadia. However, Rahewin cautiously added that it was equally true that certain Fathers, like the great Lactantius, had recalled that according to the Bible the earth had the shape of a tabernacle, and therefore land and sky together should be seen as an ark, a temple with its fine dome and its floor, a large box, in other words, not a ball.
Prudent man that he was, Rahewin held to what Saint Augustine had said, that maybe the pagan philosophers were right and the earth was round, and the Bible had mentioned tabernacle in a figurative sense, but the fact of knowing how it was shaped did not help resolve the one serious problem of every good Christian, namely, how to save one's soul, and therefore devoting even just a half hour to ponder the shape of the earth was a total waste of time.
"That seems right to me," said the Poet, who was in a hurry to go to the tavern, "and it's useless to seek the Earthly Paradise, because it must have been a marvel of hanging gardens, and it has remained uninhabited since the time of Adam, nobody has taken the trouble to reinforce the terraces with hedges and palisades, and during the flood it must all have slid down into the Ocean."
Abdul, on the contrary, was absolutely certain that the earth was a sphere. If it were just a flat expanse, he argued with undoubting severity, my gazeâwhich my love makes very acute, like that of all loversâwould be able to glimpse far, far away, some sign of the presence of my beloved, but instead the curve of the earth conceals her from my desire. And he ransacked the library of Saint Victoire to find maps that he then reconstructed summarily, from memory, for his friends.
"The earth is in the center of the great chain of the Ocean, and it is divided by three great bodies of water: the Hellespont, the Mediterranean, and the Nile."
"Just a moment: where's the
But when he came to India, Baudolino almost forgot Beatrice, and his mind turned to other fancies, because he had got it into his head that in those parts there had to be, if there ever had been, the kingdom of that Presbyter Johannes of whom Otto had told him. Baudolino had never ceased to think of Johannes: he thought of him
every time he read about an unknown country, and even more when on the parchment varicolored miniatures appeared of strange beings, like horned men, or pygmies, who spend their lives fighting cranes. He thought of this so much that, to himself, he now spoke of Prester John as if he were a family friend. And hence to discover where he was became for Baudolino a matter of the greatest moment and, if Johannes was nowhere, still an India had to be found where he could be placed, because Baudolino felt bound by an oath (though none had been sworn) to the beloved dying bishop.
Of Prester John he had spoken to his two companions, who were immediately attracted by the game and communicated to Baudolino any vague and curious information they found, leafing through codices, that might waft an aroma of India's incenses. Abdul suddenly had the idea that his distant princess, if she had to be distant, should conceal her splendor in that most distant land of all.
"Yes," Baudolino replied, "but where do you go to reach India? It shouldn't be far from the Earthly Paradise, and thus east of the Orient, just where the land ends and the Ocean begins...."
They had not yet begun the course of lessons in astronomy, and on the question of the earth's shape their ideas were hazy. The Poet was still convinced that it was a long, flat expanse, at the ends of which the waters of the Ocean poured down, God knows where. To Baudolino, on the contrary, Rahewin had saidâthough with some skepticismâthat not only the great philosophers of antiquity, or Ptolemy, father of all astronomers, but also Saint Isidore had asserted that the earth was a sphere; indeed, Isidore had such Christian assurance of this that he had even established the breadth at the equator: eighty thousand stadia. However, Rahewin cautiously added that it was equally true that certain Fathers, like the great Lactantius, had recalled that according to the Bible the earth had the shape of a tabernacle, and therefore land and sky together should be seen as an ark, a temple with its fine dome and its floor, a large box, in other words, not a ball.
Prudent man that he was, Rahewin held to what Saint Augustine had said, that maybe the pagan philosophers were right and the earth was round, and the Bible had mentioned tabernacle in a figurative sense, but the fact of knowing how it was shaped did not help resolve the one serious problem of every good Christian, namely, how to save one's soul, and therefore devoting even just a half hour to ponder the shape of the earth was a total waste of time.
"That seems right to me," said the Poet, who was in a hurry to go to the tavern, "and it's useless to seek the Earthly Paradise, because it must have been a marvel of hanging gardens, and it has remained uninhabited since the time of Adam, nobody has taken the trouble to reinforce the terraces with hedges and palisades, and during the flood it must all have slid down into the Ocean."
Abdul, on the contrary, was absolutely certain that the earth was a sphere. If it were just a flat expanse, he argued with undoubting severity, my gazeâwhich my love makes very acute, like that of all loversâwould be able to glimpse far, far away, some sign of the presence of my beloved, but instead the curve of the earth conceals her from my desire. And he ransacked the library of Saint Victoire to find maps that he then reconstructed summarily, from memory, for his friends.
"The earth is in the center of the great chain of the Ocean, and it is divided by three great bodies of water: the Hellespont, the Mediterranean, and the Nile."
"Just a moment: where's the
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