Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Lucian's True History by of Samosata Lucian (novels in english .TXT) 📖
- Author: of Samosata Lucian
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The next morrow the rest of the country people, perceiving what had happened, came to assault us. The Tarychanians were ranged in the right wing, with Pelamus their captain: the Thinnocephalians were placed in the left wing: the Carcinochirians made up the main battle: for the Tritonomendetans stirred not, neither would they join with either part. About the temple of Neptune we met with them, and joined fight with a great cry, which was answered with an echo out of the whale as if it had been out of a cave: but we soon put them to flight, being naked people, and chased them into the wood, making ourselves masters of the country. Soon after they sent ambassadors to us to crave the bodies of the dead and to treat upon conditions of peace; but we had no purpose to hold friendship with them, but set upon them the next day and put them all to the sword except the Tritonomendetans, who, seeing how it fared with the rest of their fellows, fled away through the gills of the fish, and cast themselves into the sea. Then we travelled all the country over, which now was desert, and dwelt there afterwards without fear of enemies, spending the time in exercise of the body and in hunting, in planting vineyards and gathering fruit of the trees, like such men as live delicately and have the world at will, in a spacious and unavoidable prison. This kind of life led we for a year and eight months, but when the fifth day of the ninth month was come, about the time of the second opening of his mouth (for so the whale did once every hour, whereby we conjectured how the hours went away), I say about the second opening, upon a sudden we heard a great cry and a mighty noise like the calls of mariners and the stirring of oars, which troubled us not a little. Wherefore we crept up to the very mouth of the fish, and standing within his teeth, saw the strangest sight that ever eye beheld—men of monstrous greatness, half a furlong in stature, sailing upon mighty great islands as if they were upon shipboard. I know you will think this smells like a lie, but yet you shall have it. The islands were of a good length indeed, but not very high, containing about an hundred furlongs in compass; every one of these carried of those kind of men eight-and-twenty, of which some sat on either side of the island and rowed in their course with great cypress trees, branches, leaves and all, instead of oars. On the stern or hinder part, as I take it, stood the governor, upon a high hill, with a brazen rudder of a furlong in length in his hand: on the fore-part stood forty such fellows as those, armed for the fight, resembling men in all points but in their hair, which was all fire and burnt clearly, so that they needed no helmets. Instead of sails the wood growing in the island did serve their turns, for the wind blowing against it drave forward the island like a ship, and carried it which way the governor would have it, for they had pilots to direct them, and were as nimble to be stirred with oars as any long-boat. At the first we had the sight but of two or three of them: afterwards appeared no less than six hundred, which, dividing themselves in two parts, prepared for encounter, in which many of them by meeting with their barks together were broken in pieces, many were turned over and drowned: they that closed, fought lustily and would not easily be parted, for the soldiers in the front showed a great deal of valour, entering one upon another, and killed all they could, for none were taken prisoners. Instead of iron grapples they had mighty great polypodes fast tied, which they cast at the other, and if they once laid hold on the wood they made the isle sure enough for stirring. They darted and wounded one another with oysters that would fill a wain, and sponges as big as an acre. The leader on the one side was Æolocentaurus, and of the other Thalassopotes. The quarrel, as it seems, grew about taking a booty: for they said that Thalassopotes drave away many flocks of dolphins that belonged to Æolocentaurus, as we heard by their clamours one to another, and calling upon the names of their kings: but Æolocentaurus had the better of the day and sunk one hundred and fifty of the enemy's islands, and three they took with the men and all. The rest withdrew themselves and fled, whom the other pursued, but not far, because it grew towards evening, but returned to those that were wrecked and broken, which they also recovered for the most part, and took their own away with them: for on their part there were no less than fourscore islands drowned. Then they erected a trophy for a monument of this island fight, and fastened one of the enemy's islands with a stake upon the head of the whale. That night they lodged close by the beast, casting their cables about him, and anchored near unto him: their anchors are huge and great, made of glass, but of a wonderful strength. The morrow after, when they had sacrificed upon the top of the whale, and there buried their dead, they sailed away, with great triumph and songs of victory. And this was the manner of the islands' fight.
LUCIAN HIS TRUE HISTORY. THE SECOND BOOK.Upon this we began to be weary of our abode in the whale, and our tarriance there did much trouble us. We therefore set all our wits a-work to find out some means or other to clear us from our captivity. First, we thought it would do well to dig a hole through his right side and make our escape that way forth, which we began to labour at lustily; but after we had pierced him five furlongs deep and found it was to no purpose, we gave it over. Then we devised to set the wood on fire, for that would certainly kill him without all question, and being once dead, our issue would be easy enough. This we also put in practice, and began our project at the tail end, which burnt seven days and as many nights before he had any feeling of our fireworks: upon the eighth and ninth days we perceived he began to grow sickly: for he gaped more dully than he was wont to do, and sooner closed his mouth again: the tenth and eleventh he was thoroughly mortified and began to stink: upon the twelfth day we bethought ourselves, though almost too late, that unless we underpropped his chops when he gaped next to keep them from closing, we should be in danger of perpetual imprisonment within his dead carcase and there miserably perish.
We therefore pitched long beams of timber upright within his mouth to keep it from shutting, and then made our ship in a readiness, and provided ourselves with store of fresh water, and all other things necessary for our use, Scintharus taking upon him to be our pilot, and the next morrow the whale died. Then we hauled our ship through the void passages, and fastening cables about his teeth, by little and little settled it into the sea, and mounting the back of the whale, sacrificed to Neptune, and for three days together took up our lodging hard by the trophy, for we were becalmed. The fourth day we put to sea, and met with many dead corpses that perished in the late sea-fight, which our ship hit against, whose bodies we took measure of with great admiration, and sailed for a few days in very temperate weather. But after that the north wind blew so bitterly that a great frost ensued, wherewith the whole sea was all frozen up, not only superficially upon the upper part, but in depth also the depth of four hundred fathoms, so that we were fain to forsake our ship and run upon the ice. The wind sitting long in this corner, and we not able to endure it, put this device in practice, which was the invention of Scintharus:—with mattocks and other instruments we made a mighty cave in the water, wherein we sheltered ourselves forty days together: in it we kindled fire, and fed upon fish, of which we found great plenty in our digging. At the last, our provision falling short, we returned to our frozen ship, which we set upright, and spreading her sails, went forward as well as if we had been upon water, leisurely and gently sliding upon the ice; but on the fifth day the weather grew warm, and the frost brake, and all was turned to water again. We had not sailed three hundred furlongs forwards but we came to a little island that was desert, where we only took in fresh water (which now began to fail us), and with our shot killed two wild bulls, and so departed. These bulls have their horns growing not upon their heads but under their eyes, as Momus thought it better. Then we entered into a sea, not of water but of milk, in which appeared a white island full of vines. This island was only a great cheese well pressed (as we afterwards found when we fed upon it), about some five-and-twenty furlongs in bigness: the vines were full of clusters of grapes, out of which we could crush no wine, but only milk: in the midst of the island there was a temple built dedicated to Galatea, one of the daughters of Nereus, as by the inscription appeared. As long as we remained there the soil yielded us food and victuals, and our drink was the milk that came out of the grapes: in these, as they said, reigneth Tyro, the daughter of Salmoneus, who, after her departure, received this guerdon at the hands of Neptune.
In this island we rested ourselves five days, and on the sixth put to sea again, a gentle gale attending us, and the seas all still and quiet. The eighth day, as we sailed onward, not in milk any longer, but in salt and azure water, we saw many men running upon the sea, like unto us every way forth, both in shape and stature, but only for their feet, which were of cork, whereupon, I suppose, they had the name of Phellopodes.
We marvelled much when we saw they did not sink, but keep above water, and travel upon it so boldly. These came unto us, and saluted us in the Grecian language, and said they were bound towards Phello, their own country, and for a while ran along by us, but at last turned their own way and left us, wishing us a happy and prosperous voyage. Within a while after many islands appeared, and near unto them, upon our left hand, stood Phello, the place whereunto they were travelling, which was a city seated upon a mighty great and round cork. Further off, and more towards the right hand, we saw five other islands, large and mountainous, in which much fire was burning; but directly before us was a spacious flat island, distant from us not above five hundred furlongs: and approaching somewhat near unto it, a wonderful fragrant air breathed upon us, of a most sweet and delicate smell, such as Herodotus, the story-writer, saith ariseth out of Arabia the happy, consisting of a mixture of roses, daffodils, gillyflowers, lilies, violets, myrtles, bays, and blossoms of vines: such a dainty odoriferous savour was conveyed unto us.
Being delighted with this smell, and hoping for better fortunes after our long labours, we got within a little of the isle, in which we found many havens on every side, not subject to overflowing, and yet of great capacity, and rivers of clear water emptying themselves easily into the sea, with meadows and herbs and musical birds, some singing upon the shore, and many upon the branches of trees, a still and gentle air compassing the whole country. When pleasant blasts gently stirred the woods the motion of the branches made a continual delightsome melody, like the sound of wind instruments in a solitary place: a kind of clamour also was heard mixed with it, yet not tumultuous nor offensive, but like the noise of a banquet, when some do play on wind instruments, some commend the music, and some with their hands applaud the pipe, or the harp. All which yielded us
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