The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

Charon: I could have told you that.

Alastor: How came you to know it?

Charon: Ossa brought me that news about two days ago!

Alastor: Nothing is more swift than that goddess. But what makes you loitering here, having left your boat?

Charon: My business brought me hither. I came hither to provide myself with a good strong three-oared boat, for my boat is so rotten and leaky with age that it will not carry such a burden, if Ossa told me true.

Alastor: What was it that Ossa told you?

Charon: That the three monarchs of the world were bent upon each other's destruction with a mortal hatred, and that no part of Christendom was free from the rage of war; for these three have drawn in all the rest to be engaged in the war with them. They are all so haughty that not one of them will in the least submit to the other. Nor are the Danes, the Poles, the Scots, nor the Turks at quiet, but are preparing to make dreadful havoc. The plague rages everywhere: in Spain, Britain, Italy, France; and, more than all, there is a new fire sprung out of the variety of opinions, which has so corrupted the minds of all men that there is no such thing as sincere friendship anywhere; but brother is at enmity with brother, and husband and wife cannot agree. And it is to be hoped that this distraction will be a glorious destruction of mankind, if these controversies, that are now managed by the tongue and pen, come once to be decided by arms.

Alastor: All that fame has told you is true; for I myself, having been a constant companion of the Furies, have with these eyes seen more than all this, and that they never at any time have approved themselves more worthy of their name than now.

Charon: But there is danger lest some good spirit should start up and of a sudden exhort them to peace. And men's minds are variable, for I have heard that among the living there is one Polygraphus who is continually, by his writing, inveighing against wars, and exhorting to peace.

Alastor: Ay, ay, but he has a long time been talking to the deaf. He once wrote a sort of hue and cry after peace, that was banished or driven away; after that an epitaph upon peace defunct. But then, on the other hand, there are others that advance our cause no less than do the Furies themselves. They are a sort of animals in black and white vestments, ash-coloured coats, and various other dresses, that are always hovering about the courts of the princes, and are continually instilling into their ears the love of war, and exhorting the nobility and common people to it, haranguing them in their sermons that it is a just, holy, and religious war. And that which would make you stand in admiration at the confidence of these men is the cry of both parties. In France they preach it up that God is on the French side, and that they can never be overcome that has God for their protector. In England and Spain the cry is, "The war is not the king's, but God's"; therefore, if they do but fight like men, they depend on getting the victory, and if anyone should chance to fall in the battle, he will not die, but fly directly up into heaven, arms and all.